Breaking my “blog fast” for what I consider to be
another significant news item.
Stanton Friedman died on May 13th. I know
it’s one month since then, but end of semester grading and seemingly endless
amounts distractions at home have kept me from marking this sad passing on the
blog. That is to my own shame and disappointment, but I hope to make up for it
now.
Who was Stanton Friedman? He was someone who spent his
life, in one manner or another, investigating. I once latched on to the
conclusions of his investigations with a wholehearted embrace. Then I came to
disagree with him. But I never once lost respect or admiration for him.
Friedman was a nuclear physicist who at one point
worked on projects like nuclear-powered aircraft and rockets. He left all that
behind in the early 1970s to pursue full-time his own research into alleged UFO
cases, particularly Roswell. In undertaking what would end up becoming a
lifetime endeavor, Friedman approached ufology, it seems to me anyway, in three
ways. First, he wanted to lift what he called “the laughter curtain” from the
subject, so that UFOs might be openly discussed without fear of ridicule.
Second, if the taint of automatic ridicule could be removed, Friedman made the
modest proposal that each case could then be fairly evaluated on its own merits
or lack thereof. Third, inquiries into these cases should by conducted
according to the scientific method (would you expect anything less from a
physicist?)
All of this I saw in Friedman when he first came to my
notice on a program about UFOs back in my teens. He was not a hippy-dippy New
Ager sleeping in a crystal pyramid, and any certainly was not like any of the
“Rockstar Ufologists” we have today, bringing us nothing but
"UFOtainment” on the History Channel. No. Friedman was scientist. He was level-headed, thoughtful, articulate, and while he did believe that extraterrestrial beings were visiting Earth, he believed they accounted for only a small percentage of UFO sightings while the remainder were mis-identifications and mundanity. He was, however, something of a conspiracy theorist. Often Friedman would use the phrase “cosmic Watergate” to describe what he believed to be the government’s concealment of alien contact. The first book of his that I read, Top Secret/MAJIC, was a deep dive into and a thoroughly-reasoned examination of this cover-up conducted by the shadowy figures known as “Majestic 12.” You can read my review of it here from wayyyyyyy back when I first started ESE. The book even included the infamous “SOM01-01” manual, an apparent field guide for covert operatives handling UFO crashes.
"UFOtainment” on the History Channel. No. Friedman was scientist. He was level-headed, thoughtful, articulate, and while he did believe that extraterrestrial beings were visiting Earth, he believed they accounted for only a small percentage of UFO sightings while the remainder were mis-identifications and mundanity. He was, however, something of a conspiracy theorist. Often Friedman would use the phrase “cosmic Watergate” to describe what he believed to be the government’s concealment of alien contact. The first book of his that I read, Top Secret/MAJIC, was a deep dive into and a thoroughly-reasoned examination of this cover-up conducted by the shadowy figures known as “Majestic 12.” You can read my review of it here from wayyyyyyy back when I first started ESE. The book even included the infamous “SOM01-01” manual, an apparent field guide for covert operatives handling UFO crashes.
Since then I’ve read much that strongly suggests these
documents leaked to Don Berliner, one of Friedman’s writing and research
partners, were fakes. Friedman continued to hold to his argument that true UFOs
are extraterrestrial in origin and they are in fact “nuts and bolts”
spacecraft. As you dear readers know, I can’t accept that and I’ve only grown
more and more skeptical of UFO claims. I am certainly not a believer in the
so-called “Deep State” and many other conspiracy theories or that “disclosure”
is on the way.
And despite my disagreements, I still held nothing but
respect for Friedman. He was no “true believer” and would call out cases he
thought were weak and people he thought were questionable (I’m thinking of his
take on Bob Lazar.) He possessed a keen insight on the effect UFO phenomena was
having on society and media, an effect that remains real and palpable
regardless of the nature of the phenomena. More than anything, I think Friedman
just wanted the truth. As the field (if you can call it that) of ufology grows
more and more overrun by YouTubers, rock stars, and glitzy reality TV
personalities, the more difficult it will be to arrive at that truth.
If there does happen to be any scrap of validity in
UFO phenomena…and there just might be…it will take people like Stanton Friedman
to find it. Sadly, he is gone.
And he will be missed.