Rift in MUFON over the Stephenville case.

[Ron Collins]

Recently I went to the DFW MUFON meeting. The theme was an update on Stephenville. Now a couple of odd things happened.

1) The meeting notice clearly stated that no media members were allowed. This meant that people like Angela Joiner were not allowed to come. I hear she was a bit pissed about it.

2) Ken Cherry went into some serious depth about his complete disatisfaction with James Carrion and how MUFON National handled this case. Apparently, they tried to usurp the investigation away from the state investigators. They even sent in the "STAR TEAM" which consisted of one lone investigator from Denver.

3) The radar analysis was also apparently conducted by 2 groups. Ken says the 1rst report, downloadable on the MUFON site, is full of mistakes and inaccuracies but did support the overall conclusions reached in the second interpretation of the data. I am under the impression that the data analyzed was NOT the same data in the same format. They did pass out a handout enumerating the particulars but did not have enough to go around. I am still waiting for my copy to be emailed to me. I bought a DVD containing a video of the second report. If I get time, I will transcribe it.

The most interesting thing I found from attending was how the National branch is perceived by the state chapters and vice versa. Ken made no bones about his belief that Carrion was a disinfo agent or was otherwise a plant. Personally, I put no stock in that. I do know that the old guard of field investigators in Texas did not like the initiative of stocking MUFON with younger folks. I was not aware how big that rift had become. There still is a bunch of bad blood there. It sure would be an interesting Paracast episode to hear the in's and out's of the investigation from Ken Cherry and Steve Hudgeons (lead investigator). There really were some other insights as to which witnesses were truly credible and which were obvious glory whores. I guarantee that will shock you.

Also, the UFO hunters stuff. Birnes and Cherry got into it several times. A bunch of very good insights.

I will post more when I get my handout.

 

[Xylo]

I heard a little bit about this on Angela Joiner's podcast. Thanks for more insight. Seems like both "factions" are a bit distressed with each other.

WRT James Carrion, it seems like he was the only one in MUFON that was so disgusted with the Romanek case that he left. Would love to get his input on that case as well as hear his reaction to being called a "disinfo agent."

Thanks for sharing this information, makes me look at MUFON with a great deal more scrutiny.

 

[Kieran]

I heard a little bit about this on Angela Joiner's podcast. Thanks for more insight. Seems like both "factions" are a bit distressed with each other.

WRT James Carrion, it seems like he was the only one in MUFON that was so disgusted with the Romanek case that he left. Would love to get his input on that case as well as hear his reaction to being called a "disinfo agent."

Thanks for sharing this information, makes me look at MUFON with a great deal more scrutiny.

I listened to the first hour of her recent podcast and she was fairly pissed of on that show. She outlined here problems to the audience too..I like Angela, i think she has good heart and she such be encouraged here not hindered.

 

[Xylo]

I listened to the first hour of her recent podcast and she was fairly pissed of on that show. She outlined here problems to the audience too..I like Angela, i think she has good heart and she such be encouraged here not hindered.

I'm in total agreement with you here Kieran. I think Angela has a good heart. She's still relatively new to this field, and I believe she's gotten in a bit over her head at times. Listening to her excitement over the "Oregon Bob" case and her personal experience was one of the highlights of that show. I hope she doesn't become jaded with her endeavors, as seems to happen within the UFO community all to often.

 

[trainedobserver]

Can someone throw a link up to the Joiner Report where she is talking about this? My google super powers are malfunctioning.

 

[Kieran]

Can someone throw a link up to the Joiner Report where she is talking about this? My google super powers are malfunctioning.

I would have to head over to the site to get the link. But just type in UFO PARANORMAL RADIO, you should find the show there the Joiner report.

 

[Simonemendez]

The most interesting thing I found from attending was how the National branch is perceived by the state chapters and vice versa.

I subscribe to the MUFON HQs Journal, and they have a kind of bulletin board in there, ranking who is best and near the top of the list at getting Ufo report work in and complete, etc. My State's is near the ---bottom--- of the list. I wonder if a State Director feels more publicly shamed, rather than motivated by such. Back in '08, my State Dir. threw a huge------Ufo conference with MAJOR players attending to speak, such as Dolan, Randle, Shmitt, Friedman, Jesse Marcell, and Betty Hill's neice. Was never mentioned in the HQs mag. (Unless I missed that,) but my point is that there seems to be a big gap, a big devide, with the States-versus-HQs, which I did not see, under Walt Andrus. Just my lil ol 2 cents there......

 

[Tom From Hong Kong]

An organization like MUFON should be able to operate in a professional and efficient manner by this point in time -- particularly around such a high profile case. A "star team" consisting of one lone ranger coming in from Denver? Two teams creating confusion over the interpretation of the very key radar data? I don't know much about the investigation of the case, but it does smell a little funny, doesn't it?

 

[Ron Collins]

An organization like MUFON should be able to operate in a professional and efficient manner by this point in time -- particularly around such a high profile case. A "star team" consisting of one lone ranger coming in from Denver? Two teams creating confusion over the interpretation of the very key radar data? I don't know much about the investigation of the case, but it does smell a little funny, doesn't it?

Yeah it does! Plus the way they explained it apparently you had several factions. MUFON DFW(Dallas/Fort Worth), MUFON National, The Media Types, Angela Joiner, UFO Hunters, STAR Team guy, and the usual glory whore tin foil hat crowd all vying for attention and independently proclaiming themselves as the go to team. In my always humble opinion it was a huge fustercluck.

 

[brownie]

The most interesting thing I found from attending was how the National branch is perceived by the state chapters and vice versa. Ken made no bones about his belief that Carrion was a disinfo agent or was otherwise a plant.

This paranoia - calling someone a "disinfo agent" continues to be an unfortunate part of ufology.

Yes, there have been disinformationists, on occasion, over the many years, but to use it as a knee-jerk reaction to someone one doesn't like (or doesn't like their ideas) is so tiresome and indicative that the internal politics and paranoia in ufology continues. Ugh....


I'm following a couple of blogs who's owners are attending the Stephensville event, but they haven't posted updates yet. Thanks for your report and perspective, Ron!