James Carlson authored a nice piece on Realityuncovered, "How to Demand Redress By Shooting Yourself in the Foot." James formulates a rebuttal to Robert Hastings' recent article hosted on Frank Warren's UFO Chronicles and does an outstanding job of taking Hastings to task. Robert's piece,"Science and UFOs: Part 4 - Sincere but Uninformed Skeptics Have Been Duped by Skeptical Inquirer Magazine", is predominantly an attack on Skeptical Inquirer and it's staff. I suspect his animosity towards the magazine goes back some years when Kingston George authored a rebuttal article against Hasting's "Big Sur UFO" write up supporting the claims that a UFO had intercepted a 1964 Atlas ICBM test launch out of Vandenberg AFB.As Carlson points out, Hastings can't seem to help himself by his interjecting the 2010 Washington DC press conference. Robert reminds his readers that 7 former Air Force officers were in attendance providing credible evidence of UFO activity in and around ICBM sites. Simply old news for myself and others interested in this worn out UFO lore.The thing that caught my attention, yet again, was Hastings referring that Walter Figel had "chose" not to attend the conference. I've already posted on this blog Robert's being on record that Figel's noted absence was by design. Since Hastings decided to keep to the script, I posted a comment on Warren's site: "Robert states in his article, "Although I have roughly three hours of audio taped comments by Figel, he chose not to participate in the press conference. I've asked Robert on at least two occasions to provide the reasons of Walter Figel's absence and he has stated to me that Figel "chose" not to attend."How then does this published comment from Robert on the Marine Times (3-20-12) square with Figel's lack of participation:"Robert Hastings: "Figel, after accusing Salas of making up the UFO-related events at Oscar, as you mention above, never acknowledged that he had been wrong when he said that Salas' statements were fiction, never called Col. Meiwald (whose number I provided to him) to verify the authenticity of Meiwald's tape recorded comments in support of Salas-which contradicted his own uninformed opinions entirely-and frankly, never had the decency to apologize to Salas, even after Col. Meiwald supported Salas without reservation. Figel's tendency to talk out of both sides of his mouth is one of the reasons he was not initially invited to participate in my press conference-where seven USAF veterans *with backbone* stuck to their stories and talked in detail about multiple UFO encounters at ICBM sites, including the Echo and Oscar shutdowns."With this caliber of witness (seven of them, actually) at the press conference, why would I include Figel, who told me on tape that he didn't want to get caught up in the debate between you and me and fan the controversy further? That kind of wishy-washy attitude didn't make the cut. So which version is correct?"The following was Robert Hastings' reply: Tim Hebert didn't read my statement on the Marine Times blog carefully. Here it is again, with the key word highlighted in all caps:"Figel's tendency to talk out of both sides of his mouth is one of the reasons he was not INITIALLY invited to participate in my press conference-where seven USAF veterans *with backbone* stuck to their stories and talked in detail about multiple UFO encounters at ICBM sites, including the Echo and Oscar shutdowns."Actually, Mr. Hebert, after debunker James Carlson wrote to Figel, informing him of the press conference and copying me on the message, I emailed Figel and asked him to come, if he wished to participate. He was already working near Washington so I would not have to pay to fly him in, put him up in a hotel, etc., as I did with the other participants.So, Tim, Figel was indeed invited, eventually, so there is no discrepancy with what I have written online. He chose not to participate, just I have said."I further told Figel that the other participants had lots of questions for him about his wishy-washy stance on the Echo Flight incident--telling me in detail about the UFO presence on tape, on the one hand, but downplaying it to Carlson on the other. If one listens to the taped conversations I had with Figel, he clearly attempted to do the same thing with me--wriggle out of acknowledging the serious UFO reports he got from his missile guards, which he had already confirmed to Bob Salas on tape in 1996--but I didn't let him get away with it. The audiotapes speak for themselves and verify all of this."I thought this to be an unsatisfactory answer and wanted to see if Hastings would provide a little more background info on the key paragraph: "Actually Robert I did indeed noticed that you stated "initially" Figel was invited, but it was the last section of your reply to Carlson that caused me to take notice:"RH: "With this caliber of witness (seven of them, actually) at the press conference, why would I include Figel, who told me on tape that he didn't want to get caught up in the debate between you and me and fan the controversy further? That kind of wishy-washy attitude didn't make the cut."This leads me to conclude that you really did not want his participation to begin with. Was Fred Meiwald invited? Or, did he fit in Figel's category as potentially unreliable? Meiwald, like Figel never toe'd the party line, did he? Well, Meiwald could not 100 percent corroborate Salas' receiving a report from the FSC. After all these years, has anyone come forward to say that they had actually *seen* something in Echo's flight area or at Oscar?"For those interested, James Carlson has posted a detailed history of WalterFigel's seemingly missing invitation here.As of this posting, Hastings has yet to reply. One wonders if he would be willing to address my last question concerning eye witnesses? Hastings, quite frankly, shouldn't have to concern himself with answering...I already know the answer.
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