Adam Gorightly On Body Snatchers

Here's an extract from a blog-post by Adam Gorightly (author of the excellent The Prankster and the Conspiracy) on the July 2007 Roswell UFO Festival that we both attended. With respect to my lecture on my Body Snatchers in the Desert book, Adam said:

"Nick Redfern’s lecture, Bodysnatchers in the Desert, provided some of the more controversial moments of the festival. In particular, when one contentious audience member challenged Nick’s theory (that the so-called alien bodies observed might have been experimental human test subjects afflicted with the disease progeria).

"In rebuttal, said contentious audience member cited the recent release of Walter Haut’s postmortem death bed confession, and accused Nick of dismissing Haut’s affidavit, and worse, of not having even read it.

"However, Nick repeated that he indeed took Haut’s 'confession' seriously, and had in fact read the affidavit, but that the reference to 'bodies' therein did not necessarily imply the existence of actual aliens, a conclusion that many in the UFO field immediately jumped to.

"To some, challenging the Roswell-dead-alien-theory is akin to roasting Ufology’s most sacred cow, which Nick pointed out during Sunday’s speaker’s panel. Unfortunately, there are those within the UFO field who see Roswell as the fundamental linchpin holding the entire ET Hypothesis together, and that if Roswell is proven to be something other than an alien crash, it might indeed bring down a whole Ufological house of cards, which is rather short sighted, but is nonetheless the sentiment I seem to pick up on when–among the Ufological set–anyone dares challenge the Roswell crash as anything other than extraterrestrial in origin.

"Which is not to say that Mr. Redfern (or your humble author, for that matter) has come to a definitive conclusion as to what happened at Roswell although Nick seems as open as anyone to the possibility of ET’s visiting our planet.

"The point he was trying to make is that we need to look objectively at all UFO cases, not only Roswell, and let the truth lead us where it may. (Leave your agendas at the door, please.) And if indeed Roswell was something other than an alien crash, then let’s be willing to face those facts as they emerge, and then get on with further research."