To be it seems as though someone has crafty a novella about a combination of Star Wars, Close Encounters and stories about alien abduction all rolled
into one.
There's no doubt that at first glance this story is unfolding in a way that simply screams hoax. Given the relationship between the likely hoaxster
and the various people that are attaching themselves to this story (at least by association), there's something about it that makes it hard to
dismiss so easily. In other words, we should dismiss it the hard way
You point out (as have others) a number of good examples of inconsistencies in the story. I wonder, however, if the things that seem truly
inconsistent (the time, physics, etc.) are just beyond our present understanding and that we, as skeptics, have to debunk based on facts we know with
certainty, not simply facts as presented by our current understanding of science and the universe.
I'm going to approach this as as a very skeptical believer. As with everything, extraordinary claims must be met with extraordinary proof to be
believed. If that's the burden we expect out of "Anonymous", then we should be fair and wait until we have solid proof of a hoax, just to make
sure we don't miss out on any truths that may be buried in disinformation that the alleged informant divulges.
It's very possible that our "Anonymous" was the subject of disinformation and only had first-hand knowledge of a part of a project. Thus, he may
think his telling the whole truth, but that a part of his truth is false information. The degree to which that project must have been
compartmentalized would have been extraordinary. No single person, except at the very highest levels of government, would have had access to such a
broad view of what was going on. At that level, however, the person might not have been briefed on each operational detail (e.g., what exactly was in
the supply package sent on the trip, down to the last D-Cell). Of course, at this high a level the person may not have been fed disinformation, was
very likely not to be a scientist, and therefore may simply have gotten the facts wrong because he didn't understand what he was being told.
This story presents a tremendous opportunity to debunk based on circumstantial evidence and science we're not necessarily as sure of as we think.
Right now, we think it's a lie. It looks like a lie, smells like a lie, and even has
an obvious motivation.
But if the motivation to sell books is backed by Richard Doty, why wouldn't the story be better? Certainly, people with this level of knowledge and
experience in the UFO field are too smart to come up with a lame hoax. They would come up with an
exceptional hoax. And if this isn't back by people in the UFO field, how would they have
fooled a group of right-minded skeptical believers into publishing this stuff? There must be enough
there to make this worth debunking in a very careful manner.
I agree with your perspective, but when I read the two statements, I see things that don't seem to coexist properly. It's all a rather minor point in the whole analysis -- I don't think I'll draw any conclusions about this until we've heard more from the source.
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