Ray's X-Blog

Somehow I didn't hear a mysterious boom that recently shook the region. I know I was outside at the time because I had left somewhere just before 8 PM Tuesday night, November 26, and it was at least a ten minute walk to my destination .  Reports of the boom – felt from Montreal to a town roughly 15 miles west of here (Plattsburgh) – started to come in to the media just after 8 PM. One online report sent to a local TV station described the house shaking.  But according to the US Geological Survey no earthquakes were detected in the region, either here or Canada.  The source of the shock-rock was unknown. Once again I've missed out experiencing a Fortean mystery.  Could it be that my skeptical side is making me blind to such events?

Yes, I sometimes use a ten dollar word but I try to eschew academese. There's this commenter on ufological topics, Bruce Deunsing, who seems to be making a valid point – if you can wade through his dense observations. Then again, his response to a post at the UFO Iconoclast(s) site entitled "UFOs and the Rabble"  is appropriate considering the post's bouts of bloviation.  (The essay is signed "RR," so I'm assuming the writer is Rich Reynolds or maybe Robert Redford.)  But while I can get the gist of the post with some effort Bruce's comment seems to be an exercise in "I-can-top-that-for-turgid-opacity."  Here's part of his response: "What constitutes an advanced civilization? Of course this is a game of comparisons played by those as card in what remains of Ufology which has descended into the proverbial act of reading tea leaves based on their premise that their basis of comparison of such an advanced civilization compare...

  After alienating Kevin Randle over a Dream Team controversy involving rumors of photographic slides showing an otherworldly being, the irked Paul Kimball stirred a dust-up with his uncle, physicist/ufology researcher/"Roswell-was-an-ET-crash" proponent Stan Friedman. Please note that both Stan and Paul are citizens of The Great White North but their respective essays lay myth to the concept of a “gray Canadian.” In his essay entitled “Paul Kimball's UFO Debunking and Irrationality"  Stan responded to a essay by his nephew that challenged him on a number of points.  Paul even referred to Stan's concept of nuclear-powered rockets as interstellar spacecraft as "balderdash."  Youch!   (Paul’s essay, “The Illogic of the Crashed ET Spacecraft Myth,” can be read here .) The main theme of Stan’s essay is how educated and intelligent people can act so irrational when it comes to debunking certain ufological beliefs.  After citing a dubious debunk...