Tag: Kathleen Marden

Roswell Festival-Goers Don’t Buy the Government’s UFO Report

Article by Ben Wolfgang                                                July 2, 2021                                                  (washingtontimes.com)

• A record crowd of UFO enthusiasts came to Roswell, New Mexico over the Fourth of July weekend for the annual Roswell UFO Festival, where thousands converge on the small town to partake of the alien-themed concerts, games, outdoor movie showings, yoga, and a host of other events.

• This year’s festival had a special intrigue as the Pentagon and Office of the Director of National Intelligence just released an unclassified UAP Task Force report that investigated 144 military encounters with unidentified craft and could only explain one as a deflating balloon. The study claimed that while UFOs involve “breakthrough technologies” that could come from the Chinese, the Russians, or even extraterrestrials, they are almost certainly a national security threat to the U.S.

• For Roswell festival-goers and professional researchers alike, that explanation is absurd. What the people really want to know is how much information the government is withholding from the American people. The typical Roswell festival-goer can handle the truth. Carla Smith, 33, her best friend, Liz Keneski, 34, came from Austin, Texas. “People are open to it,” says Smith, “which is the first step to anything, learning more about it, being open to it,” Smith is even open to the idea that some extraterrestrials can travel via consciousness, not through the physical domain. Such theories are no longer laughed off. “Now it’s cool to believe in it.”

• Debra Tucker, 52, and her mother Joyce Rowell, 75, traveled to Roswell from Tecumseh, Oklahoma. Taking a break from an alien-themed coffeehouse scavenger hunt, Rowell asked: “Why don’t they (the government) tell us the truth?” Tucker said she is open-minded to all possibilities, including that at least some UFO sightings could be connected to extraterrestrial life. “I definitely think it could be true,” she said. “I haven’t ever seen one but I think it’s definitely possible. There’s so much out there we don’t know about.”

• A guest speaker at the International UFO Museum and Research Center, UFO expert Kathleen Marden took exception to the government’s assertion that UFOs could be Chinese or Russian technology. “These objects can hover at 80,000 feet for hours on end. We can’t do that. They can drop in a couple of seconds to 20,000 feet and hover there, and then they can descend to 50 feet above the churn of the ocean and bounce back and forth like a ping pong ball. We can’t do that. They have aerodynamic capabilities that, as far as we know, no one on this planet can replicate,” Marden told The Washington Times. “If people want to explain that away as Russia or China, then why haven’t they invaded? Why haven’t they decided to rule the world?”

 

ROSWELL, New Mexico — The federal government’s recent landmark UFO study failed to offer the clear answers many hoped for.

In fact, Joyce Rowell was left with the same question she’s always had.

“Why don’t they tell us the truth?” Ms. Rowell, 75, said Friday as she and her daughter, Debra Tucker, searched for the next clue on an alien-themed scavenger hunt inside a cozy coffeehouse in downtown Roswell.

Ms. Rowell and Ms. Tucker, 52, traveled here from Tecumseh, Oklahoma, for the city’s annual UFO Festival, which has drawn a record crowd this year amid skyrocketing public interest in the subject and the release last week of the government’s widely anticipated unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) report.

Inside Roswell’s Stellar Coffee Co. — which boasts the “Spock Special,” “Martian Sunrise” and “Alien Soda” among its menu offerings — Ms. Tucker said she remains open-minded to all possibilities, including that at least some UFO sightings could be connected to extraterrestrial life.

“I definitely think it could be true,” she said. “I haven’t ever seen one but I think it’s definitely possible. There’s so much out there we don’t know about.”

Ms. Tucker and Ms. Rowell are among the thousands who came to Roswell this weekend for the seemingly endless agenda of alien-themed concerts, games, outdoor movie showings, yoga, and a host of other events. But beneath the family-friendly atmosphere are serious questions about just how much information the government is withholding from the American people.

                         Kathleen Marden

The recent UAP report, released by the Pentagon and Office of the Director of National Intelligence, examined 144 military encounters with unidentified craft and could only explain one, which was believed to be a deflating balloon.

UFOs, the study said, could represent a major national security threat to the U.S. and may involve so-called “breakthrough technologies” that cannot be explained using today’s scientific knowledge.

While the document didn’t rule out extraterrestrials, it also raised the possibility that the craft could be high-tech Chinese or Russian vehicles or weapons. For Roswell festival-goers and professional researchers alike, that explanation is absurd.

“These objects can hover at 80,000 feet for hours on end. We can’t do that. They can drop in a couple of seconds to 20,000 feet and hover there, and then they can descend to 50 feet above the churn of the ocean and bounce back and forth like a ping pong ball. We can’t do that,” said author, researcher and social scientist Kathleen Marden, one of the UFO experts speaking this weekend at the city’s International UFO Museum and Research Center.

 

1:40 minute video on the Roswell UFO Festival 2021 (‘KRQE’ YouTube)

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Archivist Delighted to Comb Through Mountain of Late UFO Researcher’s Records

Listen to “E143 Archivist Delighted to Comb Through Mountain of Late UFO Researcher's Records” on Spreaker.

October 13, 2019                (cbc.ca)

• Nuclear physicist and ufologist Stanton Friedman devoted his life to researching and investigating UFOs since the late 1960s. He was credited with bringing the 1947 Roswell Incident back into the mainstream conversation. Friedman died in May at the age of 84.

• In the months leading up to his death, Friedman began donating his vast collection of records to the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick, in Eastern Canada. Archivist Joanna Aiton-Kerr has received about 300 boxes so far and expects several more cargo vans to come. Aiton-Kerr welcomes this treasure trove of a thorough researcher and a kind-hearted individual that reflects a brilliant, curious mind. She told Shift New Brunswick, “This has been a real education for me, and I don’t know if I’ve ever enjoyed helping to process something more than this one.”

• While Friedman was many things – an accomplished writer and lecturer – he wasn’t much of a filer. “I would say he was more of a stacker,” says Aiton-Kerr. “He would stack records up. And so when we get each cargo van coming to the archives, we have a team of archivists and we just start going through it.” The team has thousands of documents to examine and organize — from subject files with titles like “Soviet Space” to piles of publications he’s gathered over the decades. Aiton-Kerr estimates that they will “have our hands on each piece of paper five or six times before we finally have it organized in a state where we can say, ‘OK, it’s done and researchers can come in and start taking a look’.”

• Kathleen Marden, a UFO researcher who co-wrote three books with Friedman, noted that Friedman “was an outstanding researcher, highly intelligent and had a great sense of humor.” “He did his homework.

• Among the more fascinating aspects of the collection are the thousands of letters written to him from all over the world by people of all ages, many from non-believers sharing unexplained experiences. Aiton-Kerr says that Friedman “was regarded as such a warm, welcoming man” by an affectionate community. One fan sent a papier-mâché mask of an alien head that also resembled Friedman. A colleague asked him if the mask should go in the collection. “He …shrugged and said, ‘Well, I don’t wear it often, you know’.” That marvelous sense of humor coming through.

• “I believe it’s the only collection of its kind,” said Aiton-Kerr. “[C]ertainly in New Brunswick, certainly in Canada, possibly even worldwide, to have such a mass of UFO research by such a respected nuclear physicist.” She hopes to be able to share it with the world in the not-too-distant future.

 

In the months leading up to his death, nuclear physicist and ufologist Stanton Friedman started donating his vast collection of records to the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick.

And he had a lot of records.

         Joanna Aiton-Kerr

Archivist Joanna Aiton-Kerr said they’ve received about 300 boxes so far — that’s about 60 metres if you line them up single file, she said — and she expects several more cargo vans to come.

But the daunting task of archiving the records has been anything but a hardship for her team, she said. It’s a treasure trove that reflects a brilliant, curious mind, a thorough researcher and a funny, kind-hearted individual.

“This has been a real education for me, and I don’t know if I’ve ever enjoyed helping to process something more than this one,” Aiton-Kerr told Shift New Brunswick.

Friedman, the famed UFO researcher based in Fredericton, died in May at the age of 84.

A nuclear physicist by training, Friedman had devoted his life to researching and investigating UFOs since the late 1960s.

He was credited with bringing the 1947 Roswell Incident — the famous purported crash that gave rise to theories about UFOs and a U.S. military coverup — back into the mainstream conversation.

Friedman was many things, including an accomplished writer and lecturer, but what he wasn’t “was much of a filer,” he told Aiton-Kerr.

“I would say he was more of a stacker,” she said. “He would stack records up. And so when we get each cargo van coming to the archives, we have a team of archivists and we just start going through it.”

The team has thousands of documents to examine and organize — from subject files with titles like “Soviet Space” to piles of publications he’s gathered over the decades.

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UFO Researcher Stanton Friedman Dies After Half-Century Effort to Prove Alien Life

May 14, 2019                   (tricitynews.com)

• Stanton T. Friedman, nuclear physicist, lecturer and world-renowned devotee of extraterrestrial existence, died at the age of 84 on Monday, May 13th. On his way home to Fredericton (New Brunswick, Canada) from a speaking engagement in Ohio, Friedman passed over at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport. Friedman’s daughter Melissa Friedman did not disclose the cause of death. Funeral arrangements have not yet been made.

• Friedman grew up in Linden, N.J., and was employed for 14 years as a nuclear physicist by companies including General Electric, Westinghouse and McDonnell-Douglas. He first became interested in UFOs in 1958 and began lecturing on the topic in 1967. ”I have never seen a flying saucer, and I have never seen an alien. But remember, I chased neutrons and gamma rays for a lot of years as a physicist and never saw one of them either,” Friedman said in 2007.

• Friedman’s belief in extraterrestrials was based on data about UFO events he found buried in U.S. government documents over the years. In 2007, the City of Fredericton declared Stanton Friedman Day to honor him. Friedman said he owed his personal success to the fact that people have an endless fascination with space and the unknown. “Can you think of anything that touches more deeply on who we are, where we stand and the mystery and the cover up?” he asked. “People are excited because it opens up the universe to wonderful possibilities.”

• Kathleen Marden, a friend of Friedman for more than 30 years and co-author of three books on UFOs with him said, “When he knew the truth, he told the truth.” “He was the original civilian investigator of the Roswell crash. Stanton was a man who did his homework. He always criticized the debunkers because they hadn’t done theirs.”

 

FREDERICTON — Stanton T. Friedman, nuclear physicist, lecturer and world-renowned devotee of extraterrestrial existence, has died at the age of 84.

The famed UFO researcher died Monday at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport, his daughter Melissa Friedman confirmed Tuesday. She said he was on his way home to Fredericton from a speaking engagement in Ohio.

She did not disclose the cause of death and asked that the family’s privacy be respected.

                  Stanton T. Friedman

Friedman built a reputation as a leading authority on unidentified flying objects, alien abductions and the so-called Roswell incident, considered by many to be the definitive UFO event.

He said his belief in extraterrestrials was based on data about UFO events he found buried in U.S. government documents over the years.

Friedman grew up in Linden, N.J., and was employed for 14 years as a nuclear physicist by companies including General Electric, Westinghouse and McDonnell-Douglas.

According to his book, Flying Saucers and Science, he first became interested in UFOs in 1958. He began lecturing on the topic in 1967, but he never actually saw one himself.

”I have never seen a flying saucer, and I have never seen an alien. But remember, I chased neutrons and gamma rays for a lot of years as a physicist and never saw one of them either,” he told The Canadian Press in 2007.

”In fact, I’ve never seen Tokyo, but I’m convinced it’s there.”

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The UFO Community Still Believes — and Science is Starting to Listen

by Chabeli Herrera                March 19, 2019                   (orlandosentinel.com)

• Over the past two years, scientists, politicians and professionals have increasingly been willing to touch the taboo subject of UFOs and perhaps lend a little credence to those who still believe.

• In December 2017, the New York Times reported that the U.S. had funded a secret, $22 million project to study UFO claims from 2007 to 2012. Declassified video taken in 2004 by two Navy F/A-18F fighter jets off the coast of San Diego showed a craft with no apparent propulsion moving at alarmingly fast speeds. Navy pilot Commander David Fravor who witnessed the Tic Tac-shaped craft told the Washington Post that it was “something not from Earth.”

• Harvard’s astronomy department chair, Avi Loeb, along with colleague Shmuel Bialy, wrote in a publication in Astrophysical Journal Letters that an interstellar object seen passing through our solar system called Oumuamua “is a lightsail, flowing in interstellar space as a debris from an advanced technological equipment.” Loeb theorized that, “Oumuamua may be a fully operational probe sent intentionally to Earth vicinity by an alien civilization.”

• NASA’s Ames Research Center scientist Silvano Colombano went on record recently to suggest that NASA and the scientific community should be more open-minded in its approach to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. NASA is preoccupied with finding biosignatures through its Center for Life Detection Science than interested in analyzing alleged UFO sightings.

• MUFON (Mutual UFO Network) does analyze UFO sightings. It has 3,500 members in 42 countries. Barbara Stusse, 80, has been coming to MUFON meetings for three years. She says that her mother saw a UFO in 1947. In 1965, she read about Betty and Barney Hill and “believed it”.

• Kathleen Marden is MUFON’s director of experiencer research. She was 13 years old in September 1961 when her Aunt Betty Hill and her Uncle Barney Hill saw a UFO in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. There were two hours they couldn’t account for, and Barney was sure he’d seen eight to eleven figures dressed in black shiny uniforms that were “somehow not human”. Under hypnosis, the Hills related how they were abducted and physically examined inside the UFO. “They examined their hands, they took their shoes off, they examined their feet, they did tests on them that appear to be testing their nervous systems, as well,” says Marden. She has written about the government’s ‘tampering’ with the Hill case. But lately Marden has seen a recent shift in the credence that people give to the UFO phenomenon, with the 2017 New York Times article being the turning point.

• Trish Bishop of Kissimmee, Florida, relates her story of March 2013 at dusk when she saw a tall, muscular man wearing a formfitting tan colored uniform, boots and gloves was lingering in her backyard at the edge of a forest. But his face wasn’t human. His eyes bulged far out of their sockets. His jaw was over-sized. And his skin was white as chalk. Paralyzed with fear, she pretended not to watch the man while she called for help on her phone. Then man appeared to be climbing invisible steps. When he was about 10 feet off the ground, he turned his back to her and pulled himself up “into a UFO?” she thought — and he was gone. After four years, she got the nerve to report the incident to MUFON.

• The challenge with UFO and alien sightings has always been the lack of evidence. Bishop said she was too scared to take a photo of her alien. Little to no consequential evidence exists in other cases. University of Central Florida psychology professor Alvin Wang thinks that people project their predisposition to believe in conspiracy theories, and seek out others who reaffirm that belief. “[T]hey get …confirmation support, when they are members of UFO believers community,” said Wang.

 

He appeared as if a hologram at first — then solid — suddenly there and clear as you or I, at the edge of the forest behind Trish Bishop’s home in Kissimmee.

It was a Thursday in March 2013, the glow of the afternoon tucking in for the day behind the trees. He stood tall, at least 6-foot-3, perhaps 220 pounds and certainly muscular, wearing a formfitting tan colored uniform, boots and gloves. He lingered by the crape myrtle tree in the middle of the backyard.

When he turned around, it was his face, she remembers, that stopped her.

Bulging eyes jutting so far out of the sockets that Bishop wondered whether he could close them. Skin white as chalk.
And a jaw so large, it dispelled any notions the government worker had of the visitor being human.

“If you compare a human jawbone to his, we would be a chihuahua to a pit bull,” Bishop said.

Paralyzed with fear, she watched as what she believed to be an alien appeared to climb invisible steps, stopping often to snatch glances at her from where she sat on her back porch, fumbling with her phone to appear as though she couldn’t see him.

Her finger was pressed on the number “9” to dial for help.

When he was about 10 feet off the ground, he turned his back to her and pulled himself up — “into a UFO?” she thought — and was gone.

Bishop sat stunned. “I’ve got a freaking alien in my backyard,” she thought.

It would be four years before she told anyone her story, before she’d discover the Mutual Unidentified Flying Objects Network, a nationwide organization 50 years old, and file her report under case number 84886 with the local Florida chapter.

But she worried: Who would believe her?

These days, more people than you’d think.

Across restaurants and meeting rooms in the United States, MUFON groups still gather every month to discuss cases like Bishop’s with the enthusiasm that once gripped the nation during the Cold War, when UFO sightings still made a splash on the front page.

The Space Coast group, made up of some former NASA employees and engineers, has 118 members, the largest in the state. Across the U.S. they number 3,500, with additional offices in 42 countries.

For many years, they were alone entertaining UFO theories. No more.

In the past two years, scientists, politicians and professionals have increasingly been willing to touch the taboo subject and perhaps lend a little credence to those who still believe.

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Stanton Friedman Explores Future of Ufology; Retirement

by Alison Penn                July 6, 2018                   (rdrnews.com)

• On July 6th, nuclear physicist and world renowned ufologist, Stanton Friedman (84), attended his retirement party with 100 well-wishers at the International UFO Museum and Research Center in Roswell, New Mexico. For over 60 years Friedman has given 700 lectures in all 50 U.S. states and in many other cities internationally on the topic of UFOs. In his retirement, Friedman plans to find out what the aliens have in mind for Earth from testimonials of communications with extraterrestrials.

• Regarding his contribution to the historical narrative, Friedman said, “Man is not alone and our kids will grow up… knowing that — and that’s good.” Friedman said that the niece of Betty and Barney Hill, Kathleen Marden, will carry on his work. He also singled out John Greenwald who runs the Black Vault because he is “a sharp young man with plenty of data.”

• The International UFO Museum and Research Center staff presented Friedman with a plaque and a watch for his dedication, time and service, loyalty, friendship and generosity. He will be remembered as “one of the greats” of the museum. Friedman said the large number of visitors to the UFO Museum shows there is a genuine interest in aliens and UFOs. He thanked the city of Roswell for sharing controversial topics in a “sensible” way instead of being “ridiculous.”

• UFO investigator Donald Schmitt said of Friedman during the retirement party. “If not for this gentleman right here, this museum would not be here. Roswell would not be here. … The (weather) balloon explanation would have remained the extent and that would be it…” “Stan Friedman led the charge… (and) got the ball rolling.”

 

A crowd of around 100 people joined Stanton Friedman, a nuclear physicist and world-renowned ufologist, for his opening talk titled “Traveling through the Stars” on Friday morning and another audience gathered for a retirement party in the afternoon to celebrate Friedman’s potentially last UFO Festival.

The International UFO Museum and Research Center was buzzing with visitors and even had a line out the door around 9:30 a.m. The smaller crowd came at 4 p.m. for his retirement party in the North Library with an impromptu question-and-answer session that covered Friedman’s lectures and personal life. Friedman will be 84 on July 29 and said he has contributed over 60 years of work using science and collecting data to his UFO crusade.

Stanton Friedman

In the morning lecture, Friedman guided the audience through the famous 1947 Roswell Incident, his career as a nuclear physicist — and then his research on ufology.

As a believer in the existence of extraterrestrial life and its visitation to earth, Friedman said, “Man is not alone and our kids will grow up, grandkids, great-grandson will grow up knowing that — and that’s good.”

In March, it was announced Friedman intends to retire from the UFO Festival circuit. He estimates that he has done 700 lectures on this subject in all 50 states and even internationally. When asked about his retirement plans, he said he plans to philosophize on the big picture more and traveling for pleasure instead of work. Agreeing that he is still curious about ufology, he added in his retirement he intends to find out what the aliens have in mind for earth from testimonials of communicating with extraterrestrials.

Stanton Friedman with Kathleen Marden

To pass on his torch of research, Friedman said Kathleen Marden, niece of the allegedly abducted Betty and Barney Hill, is another author and lecturer that will carry on his work. Friedman said his first choice would be John Greenwald, who runs the Black Vault because he is “a sharp young man with plenty of data.”

His lecture and retirement party had themes regarding what he called “the galactic community” that may be a reality one day and there are more questions to be answered. To have this community, he said earthlings need to let go of the ego of being the center of the universe and examine the proclivity to war and how humans operate on planet earth. He said he has an 11-year-old great-grandson and often thinks of what world his descendant inhabits in the future.

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