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Friedman on Corso

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Para-Realist
Brand new here. Hi everyone.

As many of you might be familiar, Stanton Friedman has publically flamed Corso's credentials and has pretty convincingly discredited his story of farming out alien technology to private industry for reverse engineering. I am trying to come to an educated conclusion on this.

Has anyone heard of anyone coming to the defense of Corso to counter Friedman's assertions?

Who is telling the truth here?

Friedman on Corso
http://youtube.com/watch?v=zFuNrPeq0tQ
 
My feeling about this is that Friedman (like everyone else) has taken his view/hypothosis of the UFO phenomenon as far as the facts and his world-view/state-of-consciousness/limitations will allow him: that is, he can't conceptualize an alien/visitor presence that contradicts his world-view. For him, and alot of folks, an encounter of the first or second kind is as far as he can go. Anything more than that doesn't fit, so it ain't real, or would require a much higher burden of proof to become a reality for him.

That's true in every field, which is the reason for the very non-scientific axiom "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof." That is a vague principal that is used--whether consciously or unconsciously--to protect paradisms, to keep one's safe boundaries in place. SETI is a good example.

For most folks, like Friedman, actual alien presence on earth is a delightful fantasy but not a reality.
 
Friedman seems to believe it's unlikely that we have reverse engineered anything highly advanced from a saucer or "We would be using it."
While he's spot on in his analysis of the military industrial complex for the most part, I think he's wrong here.

First off, maybe a small group of people are using some of the very advanced tech just not in any public manner.
And there maybe more than one reason UFOs are spotted frequently in US wars by soldiers.
Some of the UFOs might be our own military's reverse engineered top secret craft..

Secondly I don't see what's so hard to accept about the companies that accepted the technology not leaving a paper trail.
Surely that would have been part of the deal in the acceptance of the tech is to keep it entirely quiet.
Also 2 of the companies which allegedly accepted the technology do thank Corso and his superior in records without any mention of what they are being thanked for. Why (unless it were top secret) would they not mention what they are being thanked for?? Think about that..
That small nuisance alone I think is very telling.
 
Friedman isn't the kind of researcher who discounts someone's claims just because they might not fit his Universe-view. He's proved himself to be a careful, meticulous researcher, who spends many hours reading archives and
following trails that end up validating people's claims,or exposing them as false.

E.g., When Friedman questions Corso's claim he was with the NSC for years, it's because he's meticulously searched the NSC's personnel records, which are not secret, apparently, but available to the public.

Bob Lazare's another guy whose claims have been carefully checked out by Friedman, and Friedman disproved some Lazare's claims about his education, and where he lived at certain important times, by finding that public records
contradicted Lazare's claims.

If it turns out that some people who have made far-reaching claims, are found to have lied about some things, it reveals something important about their characters: they're LIARS by nature!

Friedman's always criticizing the skeptics for doing "investigation by proclamation". That is, skeptics typically will denounce UFO cases without actually doing any work to check out the available evidence. Instead they'll invent "explanations" on the spot out of thin air!

Friedman's approach is opposite to this. He's a scientist (physicist) by training
and any conclusions he reaches are based on thorough review of evidence.
He's a credible guy with integrity as a researcher and as a person.

That's why, when he says the claims of Corso and Lazare don't corroborate with facts and evidence he's discovered, I tend to believe him over Corso and Lazare, who he's shown DON'T have integrity or credibility, having repeatedly LIED about various matters.
 
I agree with Bobb999. Stanton is more credible than Corso. I have always been suspicious of Corso's story. I even think Bob Lazar's story is more credible than Corso. But I am not convinced that Lazar is telling the truth. On the other hand, Jeff Ritzeman seems very credible, and honest. I can't wait to read his upcomming book.
 
Manu said:
My feeling about this is that Friedman (like everyone else) has taken his view/hypothosis of the UFO phenomenon as far as the facts and his world-view/state-of-consciousness/limitations will allow him... For most folks, like Friedman, actual alien presence on earth is a delightful fantasy but not a reality.
Click to expand...

I disagree, at least in part. Whenever someone starts preaching that "world view" stuff I cant help but get irritated.

Friedman accepts both an Alien presence and an alien/human interaction. Friedman's problems with Corso stem from his(Friedman) obsession with coroborative evidence. I think that is a good thing, not a limitation. He found huge, gaping holes in the book and pointed them out.

Bill "Hollywood Drama" Birnes claims he got some stuf wrong when he was writing the book. I think you only have to watch two episodes of his crappy show to totally believe that.

The thing is, Friedman feels that the answer is extraterrestrial. I feel that the Beatles were overated. There is no need for me personally to sit and listen to Yellow Submarine hoping to attain that sliver of enlightnement that will make me change my "world view". It does not interest me. Somehow I do not ge the feeling that he is trying to protect his paradigm. He just feels he is right. No need to indict the man under some flimsy paradigm protection and closed mindedness charge.

Ultimately, this entire subject matter is about a personal search. Its not unlike religion. Stan has found his answer. Most of us aren't that lucky.

Oh, and extraordinary claims do require extraordinary evidence. Otherwise I could tell you, "I just lifted a car with my mind" an you would just take my word for it. (I did by the way... twice.)
 
I believe that the whole "reverse engineering" and "we have alien spacecraft sitting around in secret hangars" and the like is bogus ..

For example ... if an alien spacecraft did crash ... (which is highly, highly unlikely considering the technology required to get here .. see my post in The UFO Forum ) their technology is so far beyond us it would be unfathomable. It would be comparable to dropping a quantum computer in the middle of a herd of sheep and expecting them to understand how it works ... but it seems our vanity knows no bounds re: our view that present day science is the be all and end all to what is real.

There probably are aliens working amongst us that look very much like us .. trying to improve our condition .. both materially and spiritually ... but the last people they would be in contact and making "deals" with are the military industrial complex who are impeding our progress rather than helping. This military and economic entity are in possession of technology that could really benefit the planet .. but they prefer to keep it for themselves for their deadly plans ...

ONeness1
 
Although I, more often than not, come down on the side of Stan I will grant that Bill Birnes did admit that the "Day after Roswell" book did have some flaws and some of the editing was slightly, shall we say, sloppy? I'm willing to cut him some slack on that. But we must also consider that some in Corso's family made a charge (according to Richard Dolan or was it James Fox????) that Corso wanted to sue Birnes over a slight (from what I remember) re-writing of history.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave!

But when you get right down to it consider this: Who do you really believe in whole of this UFO mess we are interested in? I think some of what Corso said could have been true. And that is only by a gut feeling. Stan only reports what he can back up and I don't blame him. I know it can be boring but sometimes it is best that way eh????
 
I go back and forth on the Corso affair. The clips I saw of him show a straight-ahead military man, a person who would not be inclined to make up stories. Birnes also said the book had gone through other hands before he got the manuscript and that Corso was rushed to finish up and yet quite ill during the editorial process. So make of that what you will.

And welcome back to the forums. :)
 
I keep coming back to wondering what Corso would have to gain from making up this story. He already had a life of distinguished service, with lots of stuff that was provable that would make up an interesting biography. So, if he made up the alien technology stuff from whole cloth, what did that really do for him?

I've noticed that some old men love to make up stories as if they can talk about any damn thing they want, because they are old and they like to make up stories and get reactions. Corso didn't have to: he could have drifted along on real stories of things that really happened for the rest of his life. In fact, the alien stuff sort of blots out his other accomplishments.

Maybe when old guys like this retire, they get a manditory mental reconditioning from the psi-ops guys.

Or, maybe it's all true.

I have no way of knowing, of course, and I feel differently about it on different days.
 
I started having issues with Birnes when he faxed a cease and desist order to an Italian friend of Corso (Who publishes an Italian UFO mag) who was giving speech on his friendship with him. This guy (To lazy to look up his name) was obviously good friends with Corso's family as well. Does Birnes own the rights to the Corso story?

And yes the Beatles are over rated and UFO hunters creates its own vortex of suck.
 
Mothra said:
I started having issues with Birnes when he faxed a cease and desist order to an Italian friend of Corso (Who publishes an Italian UFO mag) who was giving speech on his friendship with him. This guy (To lazy to look up his name) was obviously good friends with Corso's family as well. Does Birnes own the rights to the Corso story?

And yes the Beatles are over rated and UFO hunters creates its own vortex of suck.
Click to expand...
If I understand what Birnes has said of late, someone published material for which he and/or the family had the rights, without permission. So he'd be justified in doing that. Birnes has a law degree and surely understands this stuff. And his close association with Hollywood has given him some insights into intellectual property concerns, and probably made him quite sensitive to the issue.

Maybe I'm cutting Birnes too much slack here, but he's never been dishonest with me in any way, and I've talked with him a lot on and off the air. I may not agree with everything he does, of course, but that's not the issue here.

Disclaimer: I recently taped a "pseudo-interview" with Birnes for the History Channel "UFO Hunters" show. I have no idea if it'll ever be aired, even in part, but I expect to have the audio tape and we might air some of the comments on a future episode. He actually made some fascinating remarks about the government's alleged involvement in secret weapons and/or aircraft based on possible alien technology.
 
:)Corso is a enigma i have doubts about this man but not many i believe it happened the way he siad it did but the facts have got mixed up through other people interpretions of his story. Fact the man was in the military what goes on in the military is not understandable to a civilian there are codes of conduct and loyalty which they must follow.Stanton friedman is a clever man he understands the game well he has an ego and feels he has better knowledge on the subject then most people he might be right but what he really whats is his books to be the definate story on the roswell case that makes them sell .To him other books on Roswell dont matter thats why he debunks the other storys.Just because you cant find something does not mean you debunk that story.How come Stanton does not debunk Roswell if that is how he goes about his work Corso had a story roswell is also is a story no facts just evidence.Corso maybe be telling the truth or he could be lieing we probably will never no until full disclosure happens but we must ask yourselfs what motivates a man like Corso to tell a story like this one:question:
 
Irishseekers said:
:)Corso is a enigma i have doubts about this man but not many i believe it happened the way he siad it did but the facts have got mixed up through other people interpretions of his story. Fact the man was in the military what goes on in the military is not understandable to a civilian there are codes of conduct and loyalty which they must follow.Stanton friedman is a clever man he understands the game well he has an ego and feels he has better knowledge on the subject then most people he might be right but what he really whats is his books to be the definate story on the roswell case that makes them sell .To him other books on Roswell dont matter thats why he debunks the other storys.Just because you cant find something does not mean you debunk that story.How come Stanton does not debunk Roswell if that is how he goes about his work Corso had a story roswell is also is a story no facts just evidence.Corso maybe be telling the truth or he could be lieing we probably will never no until full disclosure happens but we must ask yourselfs what motivates a man like Corso to tell a story like this one:question:
Click to expand...
Part of Stan's problems with Corso are the clear errors in the book. Birnes has explained how and why they came to be, and takes responsibility for them. The book was being edited during a period when Corso was, to be blunt, dying, and thus wasn't able to give the matter careful attention.

Would that the book could have been done a few years earlier. Then these controversies would not come into play quite as readily.
 
I agree the book should have been written earlier than it was, Health issues can play havoc with rational thoughts also. Of course there is always errors when you have someone takeing down your story and putting it into print you have to have full trust in what the other person is doing you dont full understand what there movitation behind it all you cant read another persons thoughts.I still believe stanton has his agenda and it works he is a self publicist:)
 
Alrighty then...I just got permission from Mr. Knapp to post our email exchange re: Corso. Essentially I asked Roswell researchers at large this:

Here's perhaps a dumb question for any of the Roswell researchers....

If Corso's take is true and the military handed wreckage to corporate labs to tinker with and those labs believed the wreckage was human foreign technology...when they were done with it would they have thrown it away?

Stan Friedman answered first and I don't think I'm breaking any ethical/moral rules by posting it as it's non-personal:

I would certainly take Corso claims with a large dose of salt.(see my piece on him at www.stantonfriedman.com ) For example he took credit for introducing the microcircuit while working at Army FTD under General Trudeau. As it happens Jack Kilby won a NOBEL prize in Physics for inventing the microcircuit at Texas Instruments in 1957 (Prize in 2000).before his involvement. In addition the Air Force FTD at Wright Field had wreckage in 1947.. Much larger group than Corso’s 2 man outfit. They would have done plenty. But there is a very good reason for not throwing the wreckage away. Our analytical techniques have been getting better and better and better from tenths of a percent to millionths etc. Learn something new everytime new technique is available.

I responded with Bill Birnes' story of how he met Corso and came to write the book with him. I don't know if he's made this public or not so I won't print it here. If he has, you probably heard it anyway. Then George Knapp chimed in, writing:

Corso was preparing to spill some beans about POW’s left behind in Korea. He hooked up with TV reporter named Mark Sauter who produced award-winning pieces for KIRO TV in Seattle on POW matters. (marks’s father was once the president of CBS News.) In the course of talking to Sauter (in 1990 and 1991, I believe), Corso almost casually mentioned that he had worked with material obtained from UFO crash sites. Sauter contacted me because he knew of my interest in UFO matters. I began communicating with Corso in early 1992. We had many lengthy phone chats and exchanged mail. He told me the basic story and sent me some material from a book idea he was toying with at the time. He asked if I would be interested in writing it with him and I said yes. We reached an agreement that he would fly to Las Vegas for an on camera interview and we even sent him the ticket (non-refundable, which was not smart.) A week before he was scheduled to come out, he changed his mind. Said he had acquired a literary agent and that the agent didn’t want him to speak about any of the UFO stuff to anyone else. That was that.

I did not talk to him again for a few years. I think it was 1995 when I contacted him again. The folks from NIDS had heard about Corso from me and wanted to meet him. A group of us flew to Florida where we listened to Corso’s story, asked questions. I recorded most of it on video. Weeks later, Corso was flown to LV where he met with other NIDS folks over a few days, and again I recorded quite a bit of what he told the group. NIDS did some basic leg work to verify parts of Corso’s story (about who he was and where he worked). Corso then clammed up again since his book project was in full swing. He burst onto the UFO scene a year or so later as the Roswell anniversary drew near. The book came out. Controversy ensued and continues to this day.

I asked:

What do you make of that? Did it strain your relationship with Bill or was he not even on the scene until then?

To which George replied:

At the time—early 90’s--Bill had not met Corso, nor had anyone else in the UFO field even heard of Corso. I’m not sure of the year when Bill met Phil, but I know it was quite awhile after my first exchanges with him. No, I have no strained relations with Bill.

The point of this exchange for me was that if Corso was lying, he sure didn't seem to care about promoting that aspect of his life originally.
​
 
If anything makes me hesitant about Corso it's not the errors in his book because Birnes and Corso denounced them.
It's his own son that makes me hesitant.

His son is clearly IMO crazy/delusional and I wonder if he inherited it from his father.

I don't remember Corso Sr. talking about a time machine his son Corso Jr. does though at length. He seems to think the Roswell craft is a time machine and it's his destiny to rebuild it so he can send it back in time to where it crashed in 1947.
 
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