UFO controversy: the Bushman confession

If you cannot trust a dying man about UFO research, then just who can you trust?

Knowledge of logical fallacy tells us otherwise, eh? Even with the exigence of life coming to an end, verisimilitude must be determined at face value.

Boyd Bushman died on the 7th of last August. He was an engineer who during his 40 year career worked for Hughes Aircraft, Texas Instruments, and the venerable Lockheed. He was involved with such critical defense programs as the Stinger shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missile.

He also claimed to have worked at Area 51. 

Adding on to that claim in his deathbed statement, Bushman reinforces pretty much every claim ever made about that (sorta) top secret facility since Bob Lazar first popped up on the UFO scene. Namely, there are indeed recovered UFOs being reverse engineered at the installation and that the government is possession of alien beings both living and dead. What's more, the living ones work alongside personnel at Area 51.

The aliens, according to Bushman, are from a planet called "Quintumnia." They are around five feet tall at the highest and have the features one would associate with a typical "Grey." They travel in classic, saucer-shaped craft that are around 38 feet in diameter. Bushman reports that the aliens he worked with directly at the base were amicable and communicated expressly through telepathy. He also reported that, "if they started floating while working, they were easy to grab because they were dressed in dungarees."

I have no idea what that means but I'm relishing the image of a Grey in dungarees.

Indeed most of the alien visitors are friendly according to Bushman. But there are not-so-nice ones as well. He describes it as being a situation of "wranglers" versus "rustlers." One might extrapolate from that analogy that humans are the cattle. Would make sense. Bushman also maintains that 19 people died defending themselves from the malevolent aliens. That sounds very much like the supposed Dulce Wars and I daresay that's indeed what he's referencing without naming it.

Anyone else seeing the problems here? For one thing, Bushman's account seems to be a hodgepodge of UFO lore and kickshaws going back to somewhere in the 1980s. Additionally, there's no real evidence for Bushman's claims. But wait! He has pictures! Pictures of a dead alien from Roswell being kept at Area 51. That ought to do it, right?

One problem. Check out this image from Coast to Coast AM:

As labeled, the image on the far left is the one provided by Bushman. The pic in the center is a doll owned by Dan Akroyd. The one on the right is a Halloween prop bought at K-Mart. I believe I've also seen the alien figure at Wal-Mart but I can't be certain. Another dimension to add to the claims is that no one has yet been able to firmly verify that any Boyd Bushman ever worked for Lockheed. At least we were able to validate Bob Lazar's credentials if not his story. No such luck in this case.

Perhaps I should not be so closed-minded but...yeah it's not looking good. In fact, Snopes is already calling the whole thing a hoax.

Alejandro Rojas of The Huffington Post and Open Minds is issuing a somewhat more mitigated verdict.

"The whole affair could easily be written off as the delusional ramblings of an old man. The only thing that causes one to pause is Bushman’s background. Why would a high level scientist begin making up such wild stories?"

Why indeed?

And why must the signal-to-noise ratio of UFO research continue to grow more cluttered with hoakum? I know there are many logical and realistic answers to that. I just wanted to utter a cry of exasperation from someone who cares.

Perhaps this is a good thing. It might sour researchers further on the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis and encourage them to explore other explanations for valid and unexplained UFO cases.






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