I have felt like the Paracast has been my "home" the last several years so I am gonna do something that I have not done in a while .. rant .. so think of this kinda like my old column in UFO Magazine ... "I Get The Last Word." Oh yeah, and if this ends up "turning you off" then please, feel free to "Move On By." (And, beware .. I am gonna speak very plainly.)
Over the years banging around in the UFO field I have met more than my share of assholes. Of course there are assholes in every field of human endeavor but there is no "standard of excellence" with UFOs. There is no school, college, training academy, nothing. You can just hang up a sign and call yourself a "UFO Investigator", "researcher", "writer", whatever. And it shows!
Watching the aftermath of the Imbrogno scandals has been very informative for me. I have kind of kept an eye on comments and remarks in a number of website areas. You know what I have witnessed? This sad spectacle has degenerated into nothing more edifying than "sandbox squabbles" with some of the more questionable assholes in the field. A number of "podcast hosts" have gone at it with each other as well as anyone caught in the crossfire. Of course not only podcast hosts but a number of others who grossly over-estimate their importance in the UFO field. Now the reason for this post.
Shortly after my wife Vicki and I quit UFO Magazine, me because I was not happy with the direction the mag was taking, I wrote my "20 Years in the UFO Fog" goodbye letter. At the time a number of folks in the field were surprised, and I am sure there were a few that were glad to see me gone. (Perhaps more than a few) As people read my paper there were various places on the web where it was discussed. Now, one of those places was Kevin Randles blogsite, actually Randle was one of the first to announce my departure. And, the comments started. One was a guy, some of you will know who he is, named Alfred Lehmberg. Here is what Lehmberg had to say, verbaitim.
"All respect to Mr. Ecker a man burdened, as many of us are, with earnest sincerity.
The statement presumes a nebulous fault upon the sneer-quoted "researcher" as the major hurdle to a ufological renaissance of funded interest by the scientific mainstream, say.
Also presumed are the, I must protest, "earnestnesses" (real sneer quotes) of corporate bodies , contested governments, criminal departments of law enforcement, dark-side alphabet agencies, and errant religious institutions... to do the right thing if approached rationally, logically, and sensibly about UFOs, for example.
Sirs, the whole of officialdom works against that which shall not submit to the control of same. It abhors that which shall not be measured, counted, predicted, accounted for, or profitably employed. Moreover, Officialdom employs egregious mechanisms to defuse works of best practice to the aforementioned ends... as we know.
It is this which generates the informational void-with-no-attention-span protested, I submit. Officialdom, largely, and not we individuals burdened with the sincerity alluded to, that hinders the investigation, insults aggregate intelligence, and keeps us in the decided and duplicitous dark about fortean things.
It is easier to blame the individual and not them "officiating..."
...but culture and society have a duty to improve and respect the individual, if only because society and culture are improved and respected in turn. They don't hold up their end on that score... and then have the bland if impertinent arrogance to _pronounce_ on that which it helps to deny, decry, or fallaciously obviate.
There's your enemy of reason, I expect."
I will admit that when I first saw this I read it four fracken' times! To this day I don't have a fucking clue what he was saying. I stated that on a radio show I did with Erol Bruce Knapp on his old show out of Canada. Apparently Lehmberg heard what I had to say and then went batshit. He has hated me ever since. Well, not like I cared one way or another because, as I discovered, a lot of people have a hard time trying to figure out what in hell he talks about, usually in his writing on the web. Oh, and in UFO Magazine where he has a column. Oh, and on their magazine blog site. Okay, no problem. Well, okay, maybe one problem.
You see, several years ago my wife got into a short email exchange with him and he made the mistake of telling her "fuck you" during the exchange. I found out when she showed me the email. I was not happy. Not even one fucking little bit.
Now, lets get back to Imbrogno for a second. As Gene Steinberg will tell you, after Lance Moody discovered Imbrogno lied about his academic background, proven thru MIT, and then my discovery that he lied about any military background, and I posted my report here, suddenly the UFO/paranormal field went bonkers. Nancy Birnes, now Editor in Chief at UFO, wrote a blog post on the UFO Mag. site. Now, Nancy had a number of mistakes about who, what, where, why, etc. and Gene pointed those out. It started ... Lehmberg, Lesley Gunter, and several others saw an opportunity to take shots at not only the Paracast, by Chris O'brien and what the fuck, why not, me. Oh yes, some of my fans over there saw fit to drag my name into the mix. Now, Lesley Gunter has hated me since reading my goodbye letter back in early 2007. She felt I dissed UFO Magazine because of my critcism in the direction the magazine took (that I discussed in my paper) when Vicki and I left. I dropped a note to her on the blog asking her in effect, what's your beef with me? Hell, here is what I wrote.
"This entire Imbrogno scandal has had a jarring effect on the UFO community at large. When I saw the comments here at UFO, I was jarred somewhat again considering that a number of people went at Lance Moody for exposing something that, for years, fooled the entire UFO community myself included. What was telling was how many people were more angry at Moody than at Imbrogno.
My part only involved his military claims, which offended me and those men and women that at one time (or now) wore a U.S. military uniform. I found that much more egregious than his academic fraud. You may not. But ... and here is why I ended up posting here ... how did I somehow end up the bad guy according to Leslie Ginter? What is it Leslie? Just what in hell did I do to you? I have witnessed you taking pot shots at me for years and have not responded, but now I am curious. Just for my own interest, why do you seem to "have a hard on for me"? I do not recall ever meeting you or emailing you but you do have a penchant to go on and on.
Don Ecker"
Now, who do you think responded? Why Alfred Lehmberg, that fatuous gasbag.
"Don't feel you have to be especially nice, Lesley. He takes it for weakness. I'll help you parse it out for him if it comes to it, eh?
Lehmberg"
My response follows.
"Well Alfredo, I knew you could not keep out of it, you simply do not have it in you. And, I have no desire to even communicate with you but allow me to simply say this.
Do not ever think that I do not know how you spoke to my wife several years ago in an email exchange, nor your profanity to her. And let me say this, I do not suggest Alfredo that you bump into me any time in the next 10 years or so. Just saying ....
Don Ecker
BTW, that was on July 19th, and this windbag has been going batshit again trying to get me to respond to him, thereby creating another squabble in the sandbox. Just today he had this to say ....
Seriously folks... why is it OK for Don Ecker to make serious and reputation damaging misstatements of fact to support threats of physical violence? Is it because Ecker "came for the 'Communists' but you weren't a 'Communist,' so said nothing"? What are you going to when Ecker comes for you? Will there be anyone left to protest? That's how these guys get by, remember. The worst with passionate intensity while the best lose all conviction.
Lehmberg
First, this shows what a total fucking joke any kind "serious" UFO research is, and number 2, do you get the impression I own Lehmberg?
By the way, I never threatened Lehmberg with violence, I simply suggested he never wants to bump into me. I was a cop after all, I know how the system works.
FYI
Decker
Over the years banging around in the UFO field I have met more than my share of assholes. Of course there are assholes in every field of human endeavor but there is no "standard of excellence" with UFOs. There is no school, college, training academy, nothing. You can just hang up a sign and call yourself a "UFO Investigator", "researcher", "writer", whatever. And it shows!
Watching the aftermath of the Imbrogno scandals has been very informative for me. I have kind of kept an eye on comments and remarks in a number of website areas. You know what I have witnessed? This sad spectacle has degenerated into nothing more edifying than "sandbox squabbles" with some of the more questionable assholes in the field. A number of "podcast hosts" have gone at it with each other as well as anyone caught in the crossfire. Of course not only podcast hosts but a number of others who grossly over-estimate their importance in the UFO field. Now the reason for this post.
Shortly after my wife Vicki and I quit UFO Magazine, me because I was not happy with the direction the mag was taking, I wrote my "20 Years in the UFO Fog" goodbye letter. At the time a number of folks in the field were surprised, and I am sure there were a few that were glad to see me gone. (Perhaps more than a few) As people read my paper there were various places on the web where it was discussed. Now, one of those places was Kevin Randles blogsite, actually Randle was one of the first to announce my departure. And, the comments started. One was a guy, some of you will know who he is, named Alfred Lehmberg. Here is what Lehmberg had to say, verbaitim.
"All respect to Mr. Ecker a man burdened, as many of us are, with earnest sincerity.
The statement presumes a nebulous fault upon the sneer-quoted "researcher" as the major hurdle to a ufological renaissance of funded interest by the scientific mainstream, say.
Also presumed are the, I must protest, "earnestnesses" (real sneer quotes) of corporate bodies , contested governments, criminal departments of law enforcement, dark-side alphabet agencies, and errant religious institutions... to do the right thing if approached rationally, logically, and sensibly about UFOs, for example.
Sirs, the whole of officialdom works against that which shall not submit to the control of same. It abhors that which shall not be measured, counted, predicted, accounted for, or profitably employed. Moreover, Officialdom employs egregious mechanisms to defuse works of best practice to the aforementioned ends... as we know.
It is this which generates the informational void-with-no-attention-span protested, I submit. Officialdom, largely, and not we individuals burdened with the sincerity alluded to, that hinders the investigation, insults aggregate intelligence, and keeps us in the decided and duplicitous dark about fortean things.
It is easier to blame the individual and not them "officiating..."
...but culture and society have a duty to improve and respect the individual, if only because society and culture are improved and respected in turn. They don't hold up their end on that score... and then have the bland if impertinent arrogance to _pronounce_ on that which it helps to deny, decry, or fallaciously obviate.
There's your enemy of reason, I expect."
I will admit that when I first saw this I read it four fracken' times! To this day I don't have a fucking clue what he was saying. I stated that on a radio show I did with Erol Bruce Knapp on his old show out of Canada. Apparently Lehmberg heard what I had to say and then went batshit. He has hated me ever since. Well, not like I cared one way or another because, as I discovered, a lot of people have a hard time trying to figure out what in hell he talks about, usually in his writing on the web. Oh, and in UFO Magazine where he has a column. Oh, and on their magazine blog site. Okay, no problem. Well, okay, maybe one problem.
You see, several years ago my wife got into a short email exchange with him and he made the mistake of telling her "fuck you" during the exchange. I found out when she showed me the email. I was not happy. Not even one fucking little bit.
Now, lets get back to Imbrogno for a second. As Gene Steinberg will tell you, after Lance Moody discovered Imbrogno lied about his academic background, proven thru MIT, and then my discovery that he lied about any military background, and I posted my report here, suddenly the UFO/paranormal field went bonkers. Nancy Birnes, now Editor in Chief at UFO, wrote a blog post on the UFO Mag. site. Now, Nancy had a number of mistakes about who, what, where, why, etc. and Gene pointed those out. It started ... Lehmberg, Lesley Gunter, and several others saw an opportunity to take shots at not only the Paracast, by Chris O'brien and what the fuck, why not, me. Oh yes, some of my fans over there saw fit to drag my name into the mix. Now, Lesley Gunter has hated me since reading my goodbye letter back in early 2007. She felt I dissed UFO Magazine because of my critcism in the direction the magazine took (that I discussed in my paper) when Vicki and I left. I dropped a note to her on the blog asking her in effect, what's your beef with me? Hell, here is what I wrote.
"This entire Imbrogno scandal has had a jarring effect on the UFO community at large. When I saw the comments here at UFO, I was jarred somewhat again considering that a number of people went at Lance Moody for exposing something that, for years, fooled the entire UFO community myself included. What was telling was how many people were more angry at Moody than at Imbrogno.
My part only involved his military claims, which offended me and those men and women that at one time (or now) wore a U.S. military uniform. I found that much more egregious than his academic fraud. You may not. But ... and here is why I ended up posting here ... how did I somehow end up the bad guy according to Leslie Ginter? What is it Leslie? Just what in hell did I do to you? I have witnessed you taking pot shots at me for years and have not responded, but now I am curious. Just for my own interest, why do you seem to "have a hard on for me"? I do not recall ever meeting you or emailing you but you do have a penchant to go on and on.
Don Ecker"
Now, who do you think responded? Why Alfred Lehmberg, that fatuous gasbag.
"Don't feel you have to be especially nice, Lesley. He takes it for weakness. I'll help you parse it out for him if it comes to it, eh?
Lehmberg"
My response follows.
"Well Alfredo, I knew you could not keep out of it, you simply do not have it in you. And, I have no desire to even communicate with you but allow me to simply say this.
Do not ever think that I do not know how you spoke to my wife several years ago in an email exchange, nor your profanity to her. And let me say this, I do not suggest Alfredo that you bump into me any time in the next 10 years or so. Just saying ....
Don Ecker
BTW, that was on July 19th, and this windbag has been going batshit again trying to get me to respond to him, thereby creating another squabble in the sandbox. Just today he had this to say ....
Seriously folks... why is it OK for Don Ecker to make serious and reputation damaging misstatements of fact to support threats of physical violence? Is it because Ecker "came for the 'Communists' but you weren't a 'Communist,' so said nothing"? What are you going to when Ecker comes for you? Will there be anyone left to protest? That's how these guys get by, remember. The worst with passionate intensity while the best lose all conviction.
Lehmberg
First, this shows what a total fucking joke any kind "serious" UFO research is, and number 2, do you get the impression I own Lehmberg?
By the way, I never threatened Lehmberg with violence, I simply suggested he never wants to bump into me. I was a cop after all, I know how the system works.
FYI
Decker
Sock puppets unite! lol
