the Slleptieal

nquarer
SPONTANEOUS
HUMAN
COMBUSTION
Facts vs. Myth
Subliminal
Deception
Unguistics
& Past Uves
Is 1he Universe
Improbable?
JAL Pilot UFO
Psychic Exposed
Psi & Children's
Uterature
A ' Psychic'
Computer
VOL. XI NO. 4 I SUMMER 1987 $5.00
Published by the Comrrutt.ee for the Scientific Inve stigation of Clauns of the Paranormal
strange that, when he finally did come
home, he was literally pulled into the
house by his daughter, even though we
had been promised an opportunity to
speak with him upon his return. He was
obviously not being allowed to talk to
us.
2. I never in any way tried to mis-
represent myself as a professor from any
university. It is true that everyone on our
committee, except for me, is on the facul-
ty of the University of Pittsburgh.
3. I told Mrs. Janet Smurl that I was
not Dr. Busch and had no university
identification. She clearly understood this
and refused my offer to leave. In fact,
she asked me to stay! It is therefore
incomprehensible that she later created
this confusion over our credentials.
4. Mr. Edward Warren, the demon-
ologist in charge, admitted to me that he
knew "exactly" who I was, but tried to
pass me off as a curiosity seeker. Even
after we told him we were there at the
behest of CSICOP, he simply advised us
to read the newspaper accounts.
5. Warren said that "at the proper
time" he would release videotapes that
actually showed demons. Now that the
danger is gone and the house on Chase
Street is safe from supernatural terror,
where are the tapes?
Similarly, I was recently invited to be
on KDKA-TV's "Pittsburgh 2-day" show.
I have been a guest on this program
before, and they wanted me to ask Hans
Holzer, the famous ghost-hunter, some
quality questions from the audience. I
agreed, with the understanding that
Holzer not be told of my presence in
advance, because I thought his reaction
would be exactly what it was. Someone
on the show's staff accidentally mentioned
my name to Holzer just minutes before
airtime. Holzer exploded and threatened
to leave unless I was expelled from the
building. The staff capitulated, although,
actually, I watched the show from the
control room and was promised an ap-
pearance on the show in the near future.
Perhaps it isn't the well-known "shy-
ness effect" that inhibits ghosts from ap-
pearing to skeptics, but a far more mun-
dane characteristic of some researchers
that prevents science from learning the
Summer 1987
secrets of these apparitions from the
world beyond.
Richard Busch, Chairman
Paranormal Investigating
Committee of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, Pa.
The writer is a magician and mentalist as
well as chairman of PICP.-ED.
The Suffolk 'UFO' lights
While I have to endorse Ian Ridpath's
conclusion that no UFO landed in Suf-
folk and agree that there was no physical
evidence for such a landing, I must dis-
agree with his identification of some of
the lights responsible for the reports (see
Sf, Fall I 986). I must also correct Robert
Sheaffer's deficient and misleading ac-
count in his column in the Spring 1986
issue.
Almost certainly the incident was
stimulated by the sight of the fireball that
fell at 0250 GMT on December 26, 1980,
but Thurkettle's lighthouse hypothesis is
not convincing. Since when, for instance,
was a lighthouse beam triangular, and
when did it ever show red and blue lights?
Orford Ness shows a white light. Then
why does Ridpath assume that the "red
light" reported by Halt in his paragraph
3 was the same light as that reported in
paragraph I?
Ridpath concluded that the tape-
recording gave him no reason to modify
his conclusions, but in fact it contains
some data that should have caused him
to do so. Halt recorded the azimuth of
the "red light" as II 0 to 120 magnetic
(i.e., 105 to 115 true). Since the Orford
Ness lighthouse lies on a bearing of 95
true, this light could not be the light-
house. Nor was the light always "red"; at
times it seemed to be yellow (or white
tinged with yellow). A "small' light that
appeared to be "a quarter to a half mile"
away is not consistent with the 5-million-
candela beam of a lighthouse only 8.6
km away.
What Halt saw was the half-million-
candela beam of the Shipwash Light
Vessel 18.2 km away on a bearing of
425
II 0 true. Its light has a characteristic
pattern that is more consistent with what
Halt reported than that of Orford Ness.
But in the tape, somewhere between
0148 and 0244, Halt reported seeing two
separate lights side by side. How does
Ridpath explain that? My explanation is
that the second light was the bright star
Spica; at 0155 it lay only 1.75 (inc.
refraction) above the horizon exactly in
line with Shipwash. A few minutes earlier
it was lower and to the left. Since it rose
at 0140, the star was not seen earlier than
that, and by 0155 it was invisible again
behind Shipwash's light.
If Orford Ness was not responsible
for the lights seen on December 29, was
it yet the light seen in the forest on
December 26? Surely not! Here we have
no direction, but we do have a descrip-
tion. This description, especially the red
and blue lights, is consistent with the
appearance of a star, where the colors
are due to spectral spread (caused by
atmospheric refraction). Normally the red
should be below the blue, and Halt may
have the colors reversed. The triangular
shape could have been due to a mirage,
which, apart from enlarging the image,
may also have inverted it, thus placing
the red above the blue. At 0300 Spica
lay 9 above the horizon in the ESE, but
two other first-magnitude stars were also
low on the horizon. Vega and Deneb both
lay at an altitude of 8, the former in the
NNE and the latter to the north. Since
Vega is by far the brightest of the three,
it must be the prime suspect.
The relevant part of the tape tran-
script can be found in my article "Throw-
ing Light on Rendlesham" in MaKonia,
1985), pp. 15-18. -
Steuart Campbell
Edinburgh Scotland
Ian Ridpath replies:
Understandably, my identification of the
Orford Ness lighthouse as the flashing
light seen by Col. Halt and his men from
Rendlesham Forest has been questioned.
Fortunately, Col. Halts tape of the event
contains information that allows us to
identify the flashing light unambiguously.
426
On the tape, we hear an airman call out
the flashes: "There it is again ... [pause]
... there it is. " The interval between these
tlVO calls is five seconds. The f7ash rate
of the Orford Ness lighthouse is also five
seconds. My field notes describe the light
as orange, although the perceived color
would vary with atmospheric conditions.
My explanation for the second light
spotted later in the night is that it was
the Shipwash lighthouse. This is visible
faintly from the edge of the forest, but it
is not visible from inside the forest where
the first and brightest flashing light was
seen. From my own observations, the
only flashing light visible from the alleged
landing site is the Orford Ness lighthouse.
Col. Halts quoted compass bearing is
not a precise reading. It is an estimate
made on the move, at night, while weav-
ing between the trees of Rendlesham
Forest, and so has a wide degree of error.
Fresh air on fringe dentistry
I recently received my first, very welcome
copy of the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER (Fall
1986). As chance (or the Fates) would
have it, I opened to the well-written arti-
cle by John Dodes concerning dentistry.
Hallelujah, brother! I would like to post
this erudite exposition of the many philo-
sophical shortcomings of our dental edu-
cation in a prominent place in my recep-
tion room for the enlightenment of my
patients.
I, too, have been warning my patients
for years about the "busyness" problem
in dentistry and of the charlatans who
wait for them out there if they should
have to relocate. As armament against
abuse I provide them with a list of mem-
bers of the .A.cademy of General Dentistry
for their region. These dentists are re-
quired to attend 75 hours of continuing
education every three years or be dropped
from the Academy. The discipline of the
AGD, unlike other societies that only
require dues money, helps to ensure that
a patient will come into the loving hands
of one who has actively engaged himself
in meaningful educational courses (and
might even have passed a more compre-
hensive Fellowship written examination)
THE SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, Vol. I I