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Walter N. Webb

 

Webb has been involved with Ufology since his own UFO sighting in 1951 and is best known as the original investigator of the Betty and Barney Hill case.  A fact often forgotten.

Walter N. Web, born in 1934, graduated in Biology from Mount Union College, Ohio in 1954, and started a career in Astronomy under the teachings of Dr. J. Allen Hynek at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory's Optical Satellite Tracking Program from 1957 to 1958, and now retired from Charles Hayden Planetarium, Boston, where he spent 32 years as senior lecturer, assistant director, and operations manager. He was the Astronomy consultant of four UFO investigation associations, a member of MUFON and CUFOS. 

He was the first investigator of the Betty and Barney Hill incident and he believed that  among  the "noise" of UFO sighting reports that were caused by common-place phenomena, there existed a core of incidents that are totally unique and that very strong (circumstantial) evidence pointed at extraterrestrial visits as their cause.

Webb was a consultant in Astronomy to MUFON for 15 years and a columnist of "The Night Sky" for the MUFON UFO Journal. He was a member of the program committee for the 1981 MUFON UFO Symposium at M.I.T., Cambridge, Mass.; a speaker at the 1988 symposium in Lincoln, Nebraska and a member of the former MUFON Public information and Public Education Committee.

In 1992, he was a member of the Conference Committee for the Abduction Study Conference held at M.I.T., a landmark scientific assembly on UFO abductions (684-page volume of proceedings). In 1994, the Center for UFO Studies appointed him as its first Senior Research Associate based upon his many years of investigative work and service to Ufology. And as of 1995, a coalition of the three major UFO groups in the U.S. hired Walt as its chief consultant.

Although the initial investigator of the Barney and Betty Hill incident in 1961, he researched what he believed was a much better example of a "dual-witness UFO abduction experience" and documented this case in his book Encounter at Bluff Ledge: A UFO Case History (J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies, 1994).

There is absolutely no doubt that Walter N. Webb deserves far more recognition for his groundbreaking work in the CE3K/AE research field.

Buff Ledge Camp, Vermont: 7th August 1968

This case was investigated and reported on by Walter N. Webb, brother of David F. Webb. Walter Webb's book, Encounter at Buff Ledge: A Ufo Case History, is one I have been chasing after a very long time but for some reason U.S. sellers want $400 and on Ebay UK they want well over $430 +shipping. In other words -I am not going to get a copy! This was Webb's second case of possible abduction and time loss as he famously looked into the case of Betty and Barney Hill. In this instance an apparent case of alien abduction at the Buff Ledge, a summer camp for girls in Vermont,occurred during the summer of 1968 but went unreported for a decade before one of the percipients, Michael, suffering from intense nightmares about his experience, reported what he could recall of the event on to the record to the Center for UFO Studies. From that report Walter Webb conducted extensive and thorough investigations into the incident. Walter N. Webb

There were accusations of hoax from locals and former camp "alumni" but Webb did not believe that such a plot was not possible and he further noted that had the two alleged percipients have been part of such a hoax then they would hardly have waited ten years to set it in motion it. Nor would they have lost contact with each other almost immediately after. It would appear to Webb, and indeed other researchers who have examined the case since, that the events at Buff Ledge are not only credible but potentially important to the overall UFO question.

This version (as I have not read the book obviously) is that written in 2005 by B. J. Booth on the defunct UFO Experiences web page.

Only seven years after the Betty and Barney Hill abduction, the New England states would again host an alien abduction. Buff Ledge Camp in Vermont would be the site of a visitation by four UFOs which would appear, make revolutionary aerial maneuvers, and alter the lives of at least two young people. Buff Ledge was a girls camp located north of Burlington on Lake Champlain.

During their tenure as summer camp employees, Michael Lapp, a sixteen year old maintenance man, and 19 year old water ski instructor Janet Cornell were relaxing at a boat dock on a slack day. On this particular August afternoon, the swim team had a made a trip to Burlington to compete in a meet, and the camp was virtually deserted. Late in the afternoon, the two friends were enjoying the view of the sun setting over the water, when a bright light appeared in the darkening sky.

At first, Michael thought they were being treated to a beautiful, close up view of the planet Venus. All of a sudden, the glowing light began to move downward, and ever closer to Michael and Janet. The object, at first a round glow, now began to flatten out as it came even closer. Michael shouted, "Wow! Venus is falling." As the two steadfastly watched the light, three smaller lights seemed to drop from the larger one, which quickly moved up and disappeared from sight. The three smaller objects began to move over the lake. They were obviously under intelligent control. The objects put on a show for Michael and Janet, doing zigzag maneuvers, loops, and then descended like falling leaves. The three objects now moved even closer to the two baffled teenagers. After forming a triangle, two of the objects pulled back. Michael would later recall a sound "like a thousand tuning forks" when the two left the third craft alone.

Above: Michael's drawing of the UFO

The one remaining UFO passed over Michael and Janet, then shot upward and momentarily disappeared. It very soon reappeared, tilted to one side, and dropped into the lake. A couple of minutes seemed to pass before the object reemerged from the water, and began gliding straight toward them! The object was now close enough to see a transparent dome occupied by two childlike creatures. Michael would describe the beings as having elongated necks, big heads, and no hair. Their eyes were also large, and extended around the side of their heads. Michael began to sense a kind of mental communication with the two beings. Watching them intently, Michael slapped his knee, and to his surprise, one of the occupants mimicked his movement. The craft now moved directly overhead, and shot a beam at Michael and Janet. Grabbing Janet's shoulder, Michael pulled both of them on their backs on the dock. Suddenly, Michael was overcome with the fear of being kidnapped. He remembers screaming, "We don't want to go!" The light from the beam was so bright that Michael recalls being able to see the bones in his hand, like an X-ray. The two teenagers both later related that the beam had a "liquid" feeling to it, and gave them the sense of free floating.

Above: Michael's(?) drawing of one of the entities

Their next conscious thoughts would be that of staring at the object again from the dock. The sky was now totally black, and Michael wondered how long he had been in this one spot. Looking at Janet, he could see that she was in a trancelike state; drowsy and disoriented. They now heard the welcome sounds of the swim team returning from their meet in Burlington. The UFO now moved upward into the black sky, flashed its light beam repeatedly, and then vanished from sight. Strangely, Michael and Janet did not discuss what had happened to them, not now, and not for the next couple of weeks, when camp season ended. Maybe the strange things they had seen over the lake this evening were just optical illusions. Maybe they weren't.

After their summer camp jobs were over, Michael and Janet went their separate ways. During the next five years, Michael rarely thought about that night. But in time, he began to have disturbing dreams...dreams about being kidnapped; abducted...against his will. The dreams would come... like they did... then the dreams would vanish...like they did. It would be ten years after his harrowing experience that Michael made a decision to contact the Center for UFO Studies, and search for answers. Investigator Walter Webb was assigned to the case, and after hearing Michael's story, suggested regressive hypnosis to help rid him of his emotional strife and the frightening dreams.

During Michael's hypnosis, he vividly recalled his experiences on that night in August 1968. He remembered how the beam of light lifted him into the craft's interior; how he entered a bigger craft, and how he saw Janet lying on a table being examined. The small beings shined a light into her eyes, scraped her skin, and took fluids from her body. "The aliens all looked alike, Michael recalled, and had those large eyes, a mouth without lips, no ears, and two small openings for a nose." Michael also described the beings as having three pointed, web-like digits for fingers, and their bodies felt "damp and clammy." The aliens related to Michael that their mission was to "make life like ours...other places."

Janet also underwent the regression, and her descriptions only went to verify Michael's. She recalled feeling "cold" on the examining table, with something "pulling her hair and pinching her neck." The abduction of Michael Lapp and Janet Cornell certainly falls within the general pattern of abductions reported by many others. To confirm the facts of their fantastic story, Webb located several other members of the camp who had witnessed the strange lights over Lake Champlain the very night of the abduction! Two other employees reported a similar experience which had occurred earlier that same summer, when they observed unidentified flying objects hovering over the lake for about twenty minutes. Although Michael and Janet's experience was not reported for ten years after the fact, it is still a well documented case of alien abduction.

                                                                 *******************************

Small beings, large eyes -the type of entity described most often prior to the "Greys" fiasco and a type encounter by the Hills as well as Walton and  Staff Sergeant Moody. As noted, this is a brief synopsis by someone who has read the book but the account has all the elements one sees in seemingly genuine encounters.  Webb certainly landed two major cases in his career when it comes to Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

There is a short video on You Tube regarding this case

20th November, 1954 Blaison, Maine-et-Loire, France

Journalists from Le Courrier de l'Est, a regional newspaper, were told about an encounter which occurred to Mrs. Besnier, a woman in her sixties, at around 1500-1530 hrs and at her a farm of Le Petit Cotillon, Blaison, the Maine-et-Loire, France, on 20th November.

After fetching onions and some cloves of garlic in her attic Mrs Besnier was at the bottom of the stone staircase  when she saw a circular object of the size of a "respectable round table" in the farm yard. She had difficulties finding the words to describe the material it was made of saying that she could not tell if it was it made of wood, or aluminum or anything else. Then, as she descended the last step, a small "mannequin" of  child-size rushed her and took the onions which she held in a side of her apron; Besnier also saw an unspecified number of other similar entities in the courtyard. These had a human appearance but their skin was yellow and they had small, black and piercing eyes. They were dressed with a brown costume which entirely wrapped them, with something "like some sort of small sulfate sprayer which they had on the back": and on their mouth a kind of pipe was fixed; which came from a sort of hood.

As the entity rushed at her and took the onions and as she noticed the other entities she fell on her back and hurt herself,. This prevented her from seeing the entities enter any craft but after she stood up again and looked up into the sky, she observed a very high "a brilliant star" which shot through the air.

The journalist(s) indicate that they met Mrs. Besnier and asked her for some specifics about her testimony. She answered without any hesitation. They noted that she is a quiet woman who is afraid of nothing and had heard of flying saucer only through bits of conversations. They indicated that the neighbors, and the mayor of Blaison, whom they asked for their opinion, were unanimous in stating that as Mrs. Besnier is a calm woman who "never made any fuss" and that the story was not invented.

After the encounter, Mrs. Besnier did not eat during 48 hours, and was "trembling, stiff with cold and seizure" and remained confined to bed some time.

Something certainly affected the percipient who, it seems, was not prone to "sillyness" or any other form of delusion. The idea that an object could land on a rural farm and be quickly surveyed and samples taken is not that impossible to conceive. Even in this modern day and age rural crime is still rife.

The pity is that no Ufologists appear to have become involved in any investigation and so it is assumed that better details died with Mrs Besnier.  An interesting point, and certainly not a common or noted feature in these reports back in 1954: the hood type masks and seeming breathing tube.

Le Courrier de l'Ouest,  , page 2, November 24, 1954.

 Les Nouvelles de Bretagne et du Maine, , page 4, November 26, 1954.

Le Courrier de l'Ouest, , November 28, 1954.

Article by Jean Sider in the ufology magazine Lumières Dans La Nuit (LDLN) no. 325, January/February 1995.

"Le Dossier 1954 et l'Imposture Rationaliste", by Jean Sider, Ramuel publisher, page 271, 1997.

2nd June, 1964 Leam Lane, Gateshead

At around 1730 hrs, David Wilson (14) decided to walk down to Leam Lane Farm to collect some straw for his rabbits.  When he got there he observed a group of about ten children standing some 20 yards away from a hay stack.  He then saw:

“Six or eight small human beings on top of the stack; they were about two and a half feet tall and dressed in bright green suits.  They appeared to be digging into the haystack, as if searching for something.  Their hands seemed like lighted electric light bulbs”.

David then went home and told his parents what he had seen and then decided to go back but was stopped by the farmer.  However, in conversation with another child he was told:

“She had seen a circular silvery object take off from the ground in a spinning motion giving off an orange glow”.

Lesley Otley contacted the local press who told him that they had heard none of this but got the names of those involved (!) and contacted them. On the 9^th June, 1964, the Newcastle Journal published the story: “Spacemen of Felling –Flying Saucers and Green Invaders” have split the whole neighbourhood”. Included was a quote from local head master M. Coates, of Roman Road Junior School, who denied calling a special assembly of the children to discuss the ‘little men’ and warning them to keep away from the farm.  It was all “silly rumours”.

On 6^th June, several members of a UFO group decided to visit the area.  This should have been done before even considering talking to reporters and allowing rumours to spread.  The ufologists spent time speaking to residents and children about the incident.

One child admitted to having seen the ‘little green men’ and told them that “The leader of the men was dressed in black and carried a baton with pink stripes” Another girl reported that this leader was sat on the roof of a barn watching them.  Invariably there were the silly sounding stories of this leader being seen “riding on the back of a cow”.  

There was also a rumour that an aircraft had dropped something accidentally and airmen were out searching –police later were said to have carried something from the field.

According to the farmer:

“The claims are a load of nonsense, if anything had landed I would have known about it.  I have a dog kept in the yard, he would have warned me if anyone had been prowling around the farm”.

But it was not seen or mentioned by Wilson and certainly a dog on guard would bark at ten children in the yard surely?

“The investigators concluded that whilst there was no reason to doubt the valoidity of the reports concerning the strange noises and flashes , they felt that under the circumstances one should treat reports of ‘little green men’ with some misgivings, taking into consideration the problems involved with accepting evidence verbatim from young children whose behaviour may have been influenced by fear or panic following the wave of uncontrolled excitement which spread through out the community, after the sightings became public knowledge”.

Green clothing AND black.  What noises and flashes and did no one think to at least put together some sort of sketch of what these entities looked like?  As was found with the youngsters at Broadhaven School in 1977; there can be slight variations in accounts but also a lot of consistencies.  The local UFO group should have been contacted before the press but I hope someone has more details!

 

John Hanson  Haunted Skies  vol. 2  pp 180-181

Harry Lord, April, 1964

20th September, 1965 Felixstowe, Suffolk

   At around 22:30 hours on the 20^th  September, 1965, in Felixstowe, Suffolk, three young people, Michael Johnson and Mavis Fordyce, and the car driver Geoffrey Maskey parked in Walton Avenue.  They were chatting when Michael suddenly opened his door and rushed out without a word of explanation. His friends were initially disconcerted but thought that he perhaps he needed to “answer the call of nature”.

   After a few minutes Geoffrey and Mavis heard a high pitched humming sound and saw, some 30 meters (100 feet) away, an very luminous, orange oval shaped object, approximately 2 meters long.  Accounts state that this “hovered above the car” or “Moved across the road” while illuminating the surrounding landscape in an orange gleam. The object moved fast and was lost from sight behind some trees though its sound remained clearly audible.

   After a few minutes, as they recovered from surprise, the duo realized that Michael had not returned and became anxious; they called out to him, in vain and drove in reverse along the lane and called out to him again –still getting no response. But then Michael finally appeared looking shocked and was staggering with his hands clutching at his head. His friends first thought was that he was playing some joke, but he then collapsed onto the road. He was unconscious and so Geoffrey and Mavis got him into the car rushed him to the hospital in Felixstowe.

   At the hospital Michael regained consciousness but was unable to recognise his friends. The doctors diagnosed a serious shock and took care of his wounds: burn marks on the neck and a contusion above the right ear. For safety, he was transferred to the hospital in Ipswich which was better equipped. The next day he could go home as he was lucid again.

   He told his friends that when he had suddenly left the car without a word it was him obeying an unknown and pressing "force". He was uncertain how far he had walked but had suddenly been confronted by a humanoid entity with large oblique and luminous eyes, surrounded by orange flames. He had no memories of what happened next until he woke up at the hospital.

    It seems that the doctors scoffed at the story and joked about “Martians” while suggesting that the light they had seen was the flame from a propane gas works stack –this they all vehemently denied -and the newspapers, tipped off by a “ufological source”, had not taken the incident seriously either.

   When I first read this case I obviously asked Flying Saucer Review what had been discovered since the incident.  I got the now oh so familiar “That’s all there was to it” response. Had investigators even checked with doctors at the two hospitals –it seems not…but they could run off to the press.

   Again, decades later, John Hanson and Dawn Holloway of the Haunted Skies Project decided to try to find out what had happened. In this case they tracked down Geoffrey Maskey who gave them a more factual account:

   “I was with my girlfriend, Mavis Forsyth, driving along Walton Avenue,  Felixstowe, at 10.30 pm, with my friend –Michael Johnson.  ‘Mick’ asked  me to stop the car because he needed to attend to a call of nature.  After a few minutes had elapsed, I began to wonder what had happened to him,   especially when we heard what sounded like a mixture of very weird noises  and a high-pitched humming noise, followed by the appearance of an orange, glowing, object lighting up part of the road, as it headed off eastwards, over Walton Avenue, towards the coast.

   “Now worried, I reversed the car up and down the road, with the window open, calling out his name.

   “About fifteen minutes later, Mick staggered out of the hedge at the side of the road, clutching the back of his neck, and fell onto the ground –apparently unconscious.

   “We managed to put Mick, who had a noticeable burn mark on the back of his neck, into the Vanguard car and rushed him to Felixstowe Hospital.

   “After arriving at the Hospital, and explaining to the casualty staff what had happened, he became the butt of much humour, being referred to as the ‘Martian’  by his friends.  Mick, who seemed completely to what was going on, seemed to have some sort of fit and tried to take his clothes off, flaying his arms about.  It required the strength of three or four members of staff to restrain him, before  He was taken away for treatment”.

Above: P Geoffrey Maskey in the mid-1960s courtesy © 2018 G. Maskey/J. Hanson

   Geoffrey telephoned the hospital the next morning and was told that Michael had been treated for “severe shock” and he was told that no one could visit him. Five days later Michael was discharged from hospital; Geoffrey saw that the burn mark had now disappeared from his friend’s neck.  Michael told his friend what had happened:

   “I remember seeing a glowing silver/orange object descending next to where I was stood, about 12 feet above me.  Standing on the side of the ‘craft’ were two humanoid figures wearing steel coloured suits, with arms outstretched at chest height, showing long pointed fingers.  I saw them go back into the ‘craft’,  and the next thing I remember was waking up in hospital”.

   It seems that the police had checked the area out but found nothing unusual.  These are the facts and facts that the flying saucer fraternity should have known about at the time had they spoken to one of the trio.  Dr Bernard Finch wrote at the end of Charles Bowen’s very brief piece:

 “Several interesting points emerge from this episode. We have an example of‘selective attraction’.  Why, we ask, was it only Michael Johnson and not the others who appeared to be attracted to the object?

      “Again, the other two sitting in the car appear to have been protected (or insulated) from the emanating force field : again, the effect of the force field appears remarkable in the fact that according to its intensity (or distance from source), so the effect varies from simple peripheral nerve paralysis to major interruption of cerebration, resulting in loss of consciousness, shock and loss  of memory.”

   I do so love how Finch got away with such utter fantastical bilge and fantasy and all based on a newspaper clipping because it is very obvious that this is what the UFO ‘expert’ had to pontificate on.  Had he talked to any of the people involved he would have found out just what Michael recalled taking place –even the part about the doctors referring to Michael as the ‘Martian’ is incorrect. But this fine ufological tradition of investigating a case by newspaper clippings continues over fifty years later.

   If there is one thing that I have learnt, backed up by John Hanson’s own findings, is that ufology rarely bothered getting involved in leg work and the nonsense that Finch spouted shows exactly why science never takes ufology seriously. Exactly what “emanating force field” and how does the effect vary?  Then we have “the other two sitting in the car appear to have been protected (or insulated) from the emanating force field”; well that is interesting because there is then the question of just how were Geoffrey and Mavis “protected (or insulated)” –Michael was in the same car.  But this is where the lack of any investigation shows since Michael did not “suddenly rush out of the car.

   For over fifty years ufology has been quoting ‘facts’ that are wrong simply because someone –Finch and Bowen- sat in their chairs and “investigated by newspaper clipping”; no one thought to look into the report in more detail.  When I tried in the mid 2000’s to see if I could find any of those involved it seemed older locals knew about the incident but ask if Mavis, Geoffrey or Michael still lived in the area: “No idea”.  Well, we know that Geoffrey does still live in the area but locals tend to keep tight-lipped when you start asking questions.

   As for Michael, we can only hope that this was a one time encounter and that after it he got on with his life.  The question really has to be whether after something like this, when you can’t remember what happened, can you get on with your life normally?  I hope Michael has.

 

 (1)   Felixstowe Glowing Object Mystery, Ipswich Evening Star, 21^st September,

       1965

(2)   Bowen, C., "Knock-Out Blow At Felixstowe", Flying Saucer Review Volume 11,

        No. 6, November, 1965: pp. 4 & 27

(3)   Hanson, J. & Holloway, D., Haunted Skies vol. 2 (2010): pp. 260-263

Ivan Terence Sanderson

 

There is, obviously, a Wikipedia page on Sanderson to be found here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_T._Sanderson

But I would recommend

http://www.richardgrigonis.com/Ch10%20Charles%20Hoy%20Fort.html

Ivan Terence Sanderson (30th January, 1911 – 19th February, 1973) was a British biologist and writer born in Edinburgh, Scotland, who became a naturalized citizen of the United States. Sanderson, along with Belgian-French biologist Bernard Heuvelmans, was considered a founding figure in cryptozoology (which Wikipedia simply refers to as "a pseudoscience and subculture" and ignores the fact that there are some reputable scientists involved -admittedly, a good few avoid the "C word"!). Sanderson authored material on paranormal subjects and wrote fiction under the pen name Terence Roberts.

Sanderson's father, who manufactured whisky professionally, was killed by a rhinoceros while assisting a documentary film crew in Kenya in 1925 -not as uncommon a fate as you might think.  Sanderson attended Eton College and at 17 years of age began a year long trip around the world spending most of the time in Asia. Sanderson graduated with a BA Hons in zoology from Cambridge University faculty of Biology, a degree traditionally upgraded to MA (Cantab) in botany and ethnology after six years without further study.

Sanderson became somewhat famous (or infamous) for claiming to have seen an "olitiau" (a large cryptid bat) after being attacked by a creature he described as "the Granddaddy of all bats".  Sanderson, while still a young man, conducted a number of expeditions  into tropical areas in the 1920s and 1930s, gaining fame for his animal collecting as well as his popular writings on nature and travel. His Book of Great Jungles is a well researched and fascinating work.

During World War II, Sanderson worked for British Naval Intelligence, in charge of counter-espionage against the Germans in the Caribbean, then for British Security Coordination. There are some fascinating accounts from his work in the Carribean -a Dutch Army charge on a peacock blue orb of light as well as his own observations which he had to investigate in case the lights were some German activity. He finally finishing out the war as a press agent in New York City and there was a persistent rumour that, occasionally after the war Sanderson still carried out some secret work.

Sanderson made New York his home and became a naturalized U.S. citizen. In the 1960s Sanderson lived in Knowlton Township in northwestern New Jersey before moving to Manhattan.  He often travelled from his New Jersey home to his New York apartment to visit friends and to appear on radio and television programs.  

During the 1950s and 1960s, Sanderson was widely published in such journals of popular adventure as True, Sports Afield, and Argosy. He had also written in the 1940s in general-interest publications such as the Saturday Evening Post. In the 1950s, Sanderson was a frequent guest on John Nebel's paranormal-themed radio program as well as being a frequent guest on The Garry Moore Show where he brought live specimens on talk shows. His friend and fellow cryptozoologist Loren Coleman says that Sanderson could be skeptical. In Mysterious America, Coleman writes that Sanderson discovered the 1909 "Jersey Devil" incident was an elaborate real estate hoax. Sadly, the Jersey Devil is still promoted as a genuine creature -even by those professing to have read Sanderson's work.

Sanderson was an early follower of Charles Fort and he noted how his collection of papers had been lost in Scotland due to bombing during WW2.  He became known for writings on topics such as cryptozoology and that is a word Sanderson created and used in the early 1940s it was not a word created by Heuvelmans. He paid special attention to the search for lake monsters, sea serpents, Mokèlé-mbèmbé, giant penguins, Yeti, and Sasquatch.

Sanderson with life size model of a Kelly "Goblin"

Sanderson founded the Ivan T. Sanderson Foundation in August 1965 on his New Jersey property, which became the Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained (SITU) in 1967. SITU was a non-profit organization that investigated claims of strange phenomena ignored by mainstream science. I was a proud SITU member up until its becoming defunct.

It might be asked why Sanderson is included in the list of founding members of the study of CE3K/AE reports? Not only did Sanderson write about them but he was one of the first investigators to investigate the famous "Flatwoods Monster" incident.

As a naturalist who became unwillingly embroiled in odd affairs I was interested in what Sanderson, as a biologist, had to write and say about "cryptids" and he did, of course, write the masterwork from which almost every Cryptozoologist has borrowed since: Abominable Snowmen: Legend Come to Life: The Story Of Sub-Humans On Five Continents From The Early Ice Age Until Today. 

Two other books of Sanderson's were also early influences and I have fond memories of purchasing these second hand from the tiny (but packed beyond capacity) Bristol Book Centre. These were Things and More Things.

Most of us straight nuts and bolts UFO fellas, thanks again to Woolworth's where I picked up both books in one go, only heard of Sanderson when his works Uninvited Visitors and Invisible Residents got mentioned in UFO circles. Sanderson was, again, ahead of his time with Invisible Residents and underwater Unidentified submarine Objects (USOs); drawing correlations and putting a great deal of research into a subject that involved the Gulfo Nuevo USO and much more. It is only in the last ten years or so, decades later, that Ufologists and getting excited about UFOs seen entering and leaving the seas, oceans, rivers and reservoirs.

We, of course, need at least one photo of Sanderson in his office this one circa 1965 and taken from the excellent Richard Grigonis page.

Sanderson was married twice. His wife Alma accompanied him on the travels discussed in Caribbean Treasure and Living Treasure.

In 1973 Sanderson  died of brain cancer in New Jersey, which had become his adopted home.

David F. Webb

 

David F. Webb was even harder to find information on though I did find a photo from a 1977 MUFON Conference paper. Not great quality but...

And a BIG thank you to Barry Greenwood who took some photos of Webb for me and Mark Rodheiger at CUFOS for asking Barry on my behalf.

photo (c)2022 Barry Greenwood

Webb was active in Ufology from1960 and was a member of APRO for some 15 years.  During the 1960s Webb was also a member of NICAP before, in January, 1974, he joined MUFON. In 1977 he was co-chairman (along with Ted Bloecher) of MUFON's Humanoid Study Group dealing with reports and overseas correspondence on the subject.

Webb also held the position of MUFON Eastern Regional Director, State Director for New Hampshire and a member of the Board of directors.  In 1974 he had been State Director for Massachussettes. A busy man, Webb was also an investigator with CUFOS  and along with the Center updated and revised the paper 1973 -Year of the Humanoids which was a compilation and analysis of the Autumn, 1973 wave of humanoid reports.

Along with Bloecher, Webb deserves a great deal more recognition for this work and it is a pity he never wrote a book about this ground-breaking work. As with Bloecher, Webb seems to have been happy with getting on with the work and avoiding too much limelight.

UFO Book: Encyclopedia of the Extraterrestrial, Jerome Clark, Invisible Ink (1998) 98-99

The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters, Ronald D. Story, Robinson (2002): p. 40

Ted Bloecher

Bloecher, if all I have heard about him is true and it does seem to be, would probably insist that his colleagues, Isabel Davis and Alexander Mebane, from the early Civilian Saucer Investigation-NY, get a lot more credit than he. I have found very little information on either Isabel or Alexander but I intend to.  Along with Bloecher they were very possibly the best team of investigators in the United states.

c. 1970s

Bloecher began quite early to look into UFO and entity reports and yet there is very little published work from him. 

There is his Report of the UFO Wave of 1947 which for UFO historians is a must read and shows Bloecher's research capabilities.  Sadly, most modern Ufologists, I have found, have ever heard of this paper.

Probably, Bloecher will be better known for his work with Isabel Davis on the Close Encounter At Kelly And Others of 1955.  When I first heard of this I was told "It's just a booklet" and that is the most incorrect statement you can make. Maps, illoes as well as detailed background and reports; this is the publication that saw me take the Kelly "Goblins" encounter more seriously.  There is a current new edition so if you missed out on the 1978 book do not despair.

Considering its age this is a book I highly recommend as not just an historical publication (which it is) but just how to go about investigating CE3K/entity cases.

Dr Berthold Eric Schwarz called Bloecher "a pioneer UFO investigator" (Flying Saucer Review vol. 21 Nos 3 & 4, 1975).

I can only recall one case report in FSR by Bloecher and that was The "Stonehenge" Incidents of January 1975 (part 1 FSR 22/3, October, 1976 and part 2  FSR 23/4, November, 1976). If the Reader is not familiar with this case then I would suggest trying to get a hold of those issues it involves a great deal including UFO landing and "repair".  

Bloecher also presented a paper at the 1976 BUFORA UFO Conference. When I asked people who attended what they thought the standard response was "It was all little green men" which is so far from the truth. In fact I was asked to proof read the paper by BUFORA at the time. It is just a pity so many waited until it became "popular" to jump on the band wagon. A similar paper was presented to the MUFON Conference the same year.

 It is claimed that his creating the Humanoid Study Group had the biggest impact in Ufology. The HSG (Bloecher and David F. Webb) collected reports of occupant encounters from all over the world and led, it is said, to this aspect of Ufology -"the forbidden reports"- burst out into the light of day. All of the information was put onto index cards and this formed the data base which became the HUMCAT catalog. As far as I am aware there is no actual physical publication but the index card data base can be accessed via CUFOS's web site.

circa. 1990s

The philosophy behind the HSG appears to have been to collect everything that was not known to be a hoax or suspected to be such and then begin to sift through the data. Part of this "sifting" led to the emergence of a New York UFO investigator named Budd Hopkins becoming a working colleague of Bloecher's.  Very quickly this cooperation led to Hopkins first book, Missing Time (1988). It was Hopkins and then Jacobs who inherited Bloecher's files and we know where that led.

Bloecher over the years, until his retirement from UFOs  was what a UFO researcher should be; the model of discipline and restraint. He seems to have been content crediting others while shunning the limelight himself and though he is no longer active it was from his work and that of Davis that the Lorenzens began to take the CE3K reports seriously. It can be said, though he would probably be too modest to accept the accolade, that Bloecher was the father of Close encounters of the Third Kind research.