PART 29




TIMES, St. Petersburg, FL - July 8, 1990


DEBUNKERS vs BELIVERS
Tales of another world are not alien to the national UFO
convention.

by Chris Lavin
Times Staff Writer


PENSACOLA - Sitting in the lobby of the Hilton Hotel,
Gilbert Landis turned to the person next to him and , without a
giggle, said this:
"I'm here because 10,500 years ago my wife and I made a
mistake."
A few seats over, Clark McClelland from Orlando was talking
about secret autopsies performed on alien creatures and Nazi
scientists who escaped to secret Antarctic bases where they have
been building flying saucers.
Just down the hall, a preacher lectured about UFOs and the
Bible. The parting of the Red Sea, he said may have been caused
by the propulsion system of an alien spacecraft.
So it went during the weekend at the national convention of
the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) - an annual gathering of
scientists and others who belive the aliens have landed.
If this was any other year in any other city, the convention
would probably drift off like a UFO, an oddity never to be heard
of again. But this was Pensacola, and it seems most of the
population of nearby Gulf Breeze had reported a UFO sighting in
recent years.
So the conventation took on special meaning - to those who
belive in the extra terrestrial and those who spend their time
challenging UFO believers.
Specifically, most of the Believers and Debunkers came
loaded for a showdown over photographs taken by Gulf Breeze
builder Ed Walters. The photos purported to show a UFO that
Walters says hovered over his home, paralyzed him with a blue
beam and left him and his wife, Francis, scared and bewildered.
Since the publication of his book - titled "The Gulf Breeze
Sightings: The Most Astounding Multiple Sightings of UFOs in U.S.
History - Walters has been accused by Debunkers of using a model
and trick photography to perpetrate a fraud.
The battling has been, well, out of this world.
"It's the wildest, most preposterious story I've ever
heard," says Philip J. Klass, a longtime UFO debunker. "Just
think of it. Multiple visits to the same house, little creatures,
voices in his head, talking about bananas."
Yes, Walters says, it does seem odd. But he insists the
evidence and sightings by hundreds of others, including a Gulf
Breeze town council member, corroborate his story.
Walter's story began November 11, 1987, when he saw the UFO
and snapped photographs. This encounter was close and continual -
recurring through numerous sightings during the next three years.
Walters says the UFO called him "Zehass," and he recounted
conversations apparently coming from the UFO. In one encounter,
Walters told of hearing alien voices speaking in Spanish
complaining about being fed too many bananas. "I know this sounds
bizarre," Walters wrote, "and I was tempted not to tell about it,
but bananas are what they were talking about."
Walters says he was hungry for an explaination of what he
had seen. He notified MUFON investigators and passed his photos
on to the Gulf Breeze Sentinel, a small weekly paper that reports
UFO sightings.
But as word of Walters' photos spread, more and more
residents of this Gulf Coast town reported seeing the UFO.
Walters soon learned a quick lesson about UFO sightings: The
person who says he or she saw the UFO will be closely examined.
Walters was plunged into the little-known but continuous war
between the Believers and the Debunkers - both of whom questioned
Walters for their own purposes.
When the analysis was done, the outcome was no suprise.
MUFON investigators backed Walters and his photos, skeptics such
as Klass were not convinced. "You know, Walters is a convicted
felon," Klass says. "Yes, car theft and forgery. He's slick, real
slick."
But Walters says his problems with the law dated back to his
teen years. As an adult, he says, he has been a successful
builder and a pillar of the community.
With Gulf Breeze being the hottest UFO spot in the world,
MUFON decided to bring its annual conference to Pensacola. When
the 600 or so MUFON members arrived Friday, they found a city
split over the reality of UFOs, but unified on the economic
impact of this convention.
A Gulf Breeze jewlery company had created "Gulf Breeze
Sighting" watches and medallions. There were T-shirts featuring
Walters' blue beam, and visitors could pay to be photographed
with a life-sized statue of the Gulf Breeze alien.
But even as the conference began, it was clear west Florida
wasn't going to claim a special place in UFO history without a
big fight.
In recent weeks 22-year-old Tommy Smith of Pensacola has
told reporters he helped Walters create double-exposure UFO
photographs. And the Pensacola News Journal reported that a UFO
model similar to Walters' photos was found hidden in a house
formerly owned by Walters.
But in an impassioned speech, Walters said evidence proves
Smith's claims are false. The model, Walters says, was found to
be constructed by materials discarded from his construction
business in 1989, two years after he made his initial
photographs.
Debunkers, Walters alleges, constructed and planted the
model to discredit him.
The new allegations have stirred MUFON to reopen its
analysis of the Gulf Breeze sightings, but if the atmosphere at
this convention is any indicator, don't expect investigators to
undermine Walters' claim.
This convention drew a wide variety of UFO types. But
virtually all shared a strong belief in UFOs and an equally
strong belief that the U.S. government is hiding vast storehouses
of information on UFOs and alien life.
There were scientists such as Brian T. O'Leary, a former
NASA astronomer and Princeton University instructor, who says his
own psychic experiences have convinced him that the United States
needs a new science that can explain psychic phenomena and,
perhaps, UFOs.
"I began commuinicating telepathically, I experienced moving
out of my body and floating over cities, I healed myself with my
mind," O'Leary said.
And then there were other Believers who lacked O'Leary's
academic credentials, but had stories to tell.
Landis, for example, the 10,500-year-old San Diego resident,
said NASA and the U.S. government is secretly aware of a
60-member "Universal Association of Planets" whose spaceships are
Earth's UFOs.
"You know what the astronauts saw on the back side of the
moon?" Landis said. "There was a refueling station and a
structure that looked very much like a hotel. And the canals on
Mars? Dry docks for space ships."
Landis' treatise on the history of the universe was
interrupted by McClelland, who wants everyone to know that Earth
is simply a giant genetic experiment being orchestrated by alien
life.
But all at this convention seemed unified by a belief there
is something out there and we all need to learn more about it.
Many are like George Kruse, a free-lance photographer from
California who was drawn to MUFON when he discovered during a
hypnosis session that he had been abducted by aliens.
"I was taken and I couldn't move," Kruse says. "They looked
down my throat and inserted a needle (into me). I remember I
didn't like it."


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