The following is a letter to the editor that was printed in the
GULF BREEZE SENTINEL on Thursday, July 5,1990. It was written by
Bruce Maccabee in answer to a letter to the editor from Gulf
Breeze Mayor Ed Gray. I thought it might be of interest to those
who didn't make it to the MUFON Symposium.
Dear Editor:
Ed Gray may know how to govern the town of Gulf Breeze, but
he obviously knows little about the UFO subject.
He claims that he knew early on (over two years ago) from
"logic and common sense" that the Walters sightings were a hoax,
yet he admits that he had "no conclusive proof the sightings of
Ed Walters were fabricated." However, the lack of conclusive
proof did not prevent him from making, about two years ago, a
public statement that he believed the sightings to be a hoax. He
does not explain the "logic and common sense" that led to his
statement. However, I suspect that what he really means is that,
SO FAR AS HE KNOWS, UFOS DON'T EXIST and hence photos of them
must be fakes. If he had studied the subject more, or had paid
more attention to the reports of many of his own constituents, he
might have been less positive in his conclusion. Perhaps he
should talk to Ken Fortenberry, the Managing Editor of the
Pensacola News Journal regrading the reality of UFOs.
He claims that the "many other sightings by well respected
citizens," sightings which he couldn't dispute, were a result of
"the power of suggestion and the very real occurrences of so much
air traffic in our area." As experienced UFO investigators know,
this sort of explanation can account for some sightings of the
"night lights" or "daylight disc" type in which the witness'
description is vague or differs only slightly from descriptions
of conventional objects in the sky. However, this cannot explain
sightings of distinctively unusual objects with strange flight
dynamics (e.g., able to hover silently at low altitude), nor can
it explain reports of daytime or nighttime sightings, sometimes
by many witnesses at once, of structured objects which are
distinctively shaped UNLIKE conventional objects.
Mayor Gray says that during the two years between his first
public statement and the present time he was dismayed to see the
Walters sightings being turned into a book since he knew it was a
hoax. He claims that he received numerous phone calls about the
subject and either mentioned his opinion that it was a hoax or
else he "declined to discuss it because I was fed up with the
topic." Perhaps "being fed up with the topic" prevented him
from reading any of the generally available literature on the
subject and thus informing himself about the nationwide and
worldwide occurrences of sightings by all sorts of people. If he
attends the MUFON symposium (He didn't!) he will learn how
seriously this subject is treated by scientific investigators
from around the world.
Mayor Gray says that the first "break" came with the
discovery of the model. He attempts to explain how this discovery
came about by suggesting that Ed "miscalculated how safely buried
under insulation in his former residence's attic the model of the
UFO would be. He didn't want to chance the model being discovered
should he move it and thus left it there, or he carelessly forgot
about it since it had been several months since he had used it."
That the Mayor should try to "rationalize" the discovery of
the model is understandable (he must have some justification for
how it happened to still exist and be found), but his
rationalization is silly. If Ed's sightings were a hoax based on
that model than he is a "genius" in carrying it off thus far. It
is hard to imagine that this genius would be so stupid as to
simply hide incriminating evidence under insulation. It is much
more likely that he would destroy it. Even Tommy Smith, the
formerly anonymous witness against Ed, realizes that (assuming Ed
hoaxed the photos) Ed would not let any incriminating evidence be
found. He states in his testimony (the truth of which is not
proven) that "Ed was pretty careful with that stuff. Anything he
was worried about he usually burned." But as Mayor Gray listened
to Mr. Smith he somehow missed this clue that Ed would have
burned any models.
We now know that the model is not evidence against Ed. Not
only is it clearly not what appears in Ed's photos, but it didn't
even exist before September 1989, about two years after Ed's
first photos. (I don't expect the mayor to now claim that Ed made
a model in September 1989, nearly two years after his reported
sightings and than hid it in the house which he hadn't lived in
since December 1988.)
Apparently the testimony by Tommy Smith was the "last straw"
for Gray who decided to once again, and forcefully this time,
state his position.
Although this testimony was convincing to Gray, I have found
ten items that are discussed in the testimony which have
technical errors. I will mention just three. I would not expect
Mayor Gray to have realized the errors in the first two of these
items, but I should think that one or both of the reporters would
have realized there was something "fishy". On the other hand,
even the Mayor, I should think, would have questioned the third
item.
The first items were the subject of a letter I sent on June
18th to the Pensacola News Journal. One item has to do with the
explanation of how the model was supposedly supported while Ed
photographed it. According to Mr. Smith, and more or less as
illustrated in the PNJ (Sunday, June 17), Ed had a "tripod set up
with a flashlight pointing straight up," and sitting on the
flashlight "was part of a PVC pipe that was black and he had
it sliced at an angle, and he would tape the spaceship on top and
the flashlight would shine up and illuminate the spaceship." This
method of mounting the model would block the back side of the
"power ring" at the bottom of the model from the direct view of
the camera. Hence every one of Ed's photos, if made this way,
would show a rather wide black gap in the more distant part (the
lowest portion in the photos) of the "power ring." I suggest the
reader look at the pictures in Ed's book to see in how many cases
the complete ring is visible. The light coming up through the
pipe would directly illuminate the top of the model leaving the
bottom relatively dark (depending upon the exact size of the pipe
relative to the model), in contrast to the actual photos which
have a very bright bottom.
The second item involves the Nimslo stereo camera. According
to Mr. Smith, "from what he (Ed) told me, he went out and took a
picture of an airplane landing at night." This explanation is
completely contradicted by the photographic data. First, the
images recorded by the camera do not at all look like an airplane
at night. Second, the stereo effect (parallax) created by the two
outer lenses of the camera show that the photographed object was
no more that 100 ft. from the camera (the actual range estimate
is 40 to 70 feet). At that range the length of the object, as
determined by the length of the image and the camera optics, was
less than 6 feet. An airplane full of micromidget UFOnauts
perhaps? The above information on the results of the analysis of
the Nimslo photos has been available for two years in a document
published by the Fund for UFO Research entitled "A History of the
Gulf Breeze Sightings." More importantly, the size information
was immediately available to the reporters for comparison with
Smith's testimony because it is on page 301 of The Gulf Breeze
Sightings by Ed and Frances Walters. (Reporter Myers told me he
had read the book.)
The third item is one that almost anyone who has a lawn can
understand. When asked about how Ed created the circle of dead
grass in the field behind his house, near the high school, Mr.
Smith said, "If I remember correctly, he told me that he turned a
small trampoline upside down for a while and jumped up and down
on it." This is patently ridiculous. Aside from the fact that a
13 foot diameter circle would require more than a "small
trampoline" to cover it, the grass in that circle was somehow
killed during the winter (the circle was discovered in February
1988) and remained dead for several months as the grass around
the circle turned green and grew during the spring. I have a
photograph taken in May showing the circle still brown. At the
time that the circle was found there was a suggestion that some
chemical was used to kill it, but no residue was found. One would
think that as silly an explanation as this would have at last
raised the eyebrows of all who were listening.
What led Mr. Smith to claim, in all seriousness, apparently,
the latter two explanations for the Nimslo photos and the circle?
According to Mr. Smith, Ed TOLD him. Yet these explanations
(airplane and trampoline) CANNOT BE TRUE. Hence there must have
been fabrication on someone's part. There are several
possibilities, two of which are: (a) Ed admitted to Smith that he
(Ed) faked the Nimslo photos and faked the circle, yet Ed lied to
Smith about how he faked them; (b) Ed told the complete truth to
Smith but Smith, for some reason, didn't tell the complete truth
to the interviewers, (c) Ed told the complete truth to Smith but
Smith forgot what Ed had told him and made up explanations on the
spot to satisfy the interviewers.
None of these explanations for Smith's statements makes any
sense, If he didn't remember what Ed had said, why not simply
say, "I don't know." If Ed trusted Mr. Smith so explicitly as to
admit to him that he faked the Nimslo photos and the circle, then
why wouldn't Ed tell him exactly how the fakes were done? (Why
hide the true explanations from Mr. Smith who, according to
Smith, had watched Ed create double exposures fakes?) On the
other hand, if Ed told Mr. Smith how the fakes were done, then
why wouldn't Mr. Smith tell the investigators?
There is, of course, at least one other possible reason for
why Mr. Smith told the investigators about the "airplane and
trampoline" explanations. I suppose that the reader can imagine
what it is.
Mr. Gray says that he wrote the published letter while "in
route back from meeting an accomplice to Ed Walters...", Hank
Boland. Hank was the only non-Walters family member mentioned by
Smith as being involved in the hoax. Hank has vehemently denied
any involvement in a hoax and instead has testified that he, too,
saw the UFO. This testimony was first recorded by the MUFON
investigators in February 1988. His testimony was "voice stress
analyzed," with no stress being found at key points in his
testimony.
One would think, considering the gravity of this matter,
that Hank's rejection of Mr. Smith's testimony (which leaves Mr.
Smith as the only person claiming to have first hand knowledge of
the hoax) would at least give Mr. Gray some cause to question
Smith's testimony. However, it apparently didn't phase the Mayor.
He simply got around Hank's testimony by accusing him of being
one of Ed's accomplices. Furthermore he explains Hank's being
"dragged deeper into Ed Walters' ploy" as the "greed factor".
Mr. Smith had already testified that Hank was "to get all movie
or TV rights." But if this is so, where is Hank's money? (I'm
sure he'd like to know.) One would think that Hank, if he had
made a deal with Ed and Ed didn't follow through, would be
WILLING to testify against Ed.
According to Mr. Gray, Hank was not the only accomplice;
Ed's whole family was involved. I expect that Ed's family members
will have something to say about this.
Mr. Gray is confident that the news media will report the
fine details of how the hoax was carried off because "they must
save face in the fact that they were taken in by the scheme as
were so many others." No doubt the news media will publish all
sorts of details, including those which support Ed's testimony.
Mr. Gray criticized the MUFON investigators for "being so
wrapped up and biased in pursuit of the story that they fell
headfirst into that trap." He is clearly not aware that this
investigator, at least, started off assuming that the photos were
faked and that the whole story was a fabrication. He could read
the last chapter in Ed's book (or even the first few pages of
that chapter) to find out how I approached the case. The MUFON
investigation required many hundreds of man hours of analysis and
study of the photographic evidence testimony and a similarly
intensive study of Ed and his activities over a six month period
(Nov. 1987 - May 1988). The MUFON investigation included the
reports of over a hundred other witnesses in the area. Only after
all of this exhaustive effort did MUFON officially endorse the
case. By way of contrast, the Mayor relied on "logic and reason"
(unbiased, of course) and the testimony of one person, Smith (who
is contradicted by another person, Boland!)
The mayor's "unbiased"approach comes through forcefully in
the transcript of the conversation with Mr. Smith, which has been
published by The Sentinel. At the very beginning the Mayor
thanked Mr. Smith for coming forward ("I can't tell you how much
I appreciate...you getting with us...") and then said he wanted
to "get to the bottom of this whole issue and this whole, in my
opinion, hoax." The Mayor then said "...but right now we're
trying to deal with the facts." Mr. Gray criticized the MUFON
investigators for having "no expertise at investigation." On the
other hand, the interview of Mr. Smith is not exactly a model of
good investigatory technique.
Mr. Gray is a courageous man and a clairvoyant. He knows he
is in for an argument and he correctly predicted in his letter
that his statement would bring forth an avalanche of comments
from "Ed, his supporters, and MUFON members aimed at discrediting
not only persons who are coming forth, but me as a skeptic in the
public eye." What Mr. Gray should realize is that information
which deserves to be discredited will be discredited. Those who
loudly proclaim discredited information will have to suffer the
consequences.
At the beginning of his letter the Mayor says he is thankful
that he has been fortunate to serve in public office as Mayor for
the last six years. I suggest that if he wishes to remain in that
position for another six years he should stick to the city budget
and ignore the UFO controversy raging around him.
s/Bruce Maccabee
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