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Immediately a skeptic was coaxed by the typical character of such parlance to muse "sure, sure"—one could catch a poignant flinch of some such anticipation in Betty's face, conditioned to a decade of commonplace dubiety over the inconvenient habits of saucer—related phenomena. After all even Ray Fowler, investigator/author of the the Andreasson books (as well as similar researchers of honorable credential and fair intent) had found it difficult on more than one occasion to accommodate some—hypnotically—dredged—bit of data to Standards of acceptance that had just been stretched beyond the current tolerances of credulity. Much of what was classified as UFO phenomena seemed to have an inbuilt "strangeness—factor" (so named, indeed, by the late renowned J. Alien Hynek who participated in the Andreasson research) made to bait the reflex skeptic, the half-baked adept of the obvious. It was the virtual cross of many conscientious witnesses, claimants and victims to UFO phenomena that an accurate report of what they knew necessarily involved elements that were already "loaded", set in traps that were predictably sprung to the trigger of touchy categories. There was a glib "sure, sure" (for those cheap enough to take advantage of it) built into much of the evidence they 53 had to cite in the course of things; and it seemed to be their burden that, though they possessed the clear intelligence to see it coming a mile away they could do nothing to avoid it short of clamming up altogether, a retreat some were simply unwilling to sound—though it could be merited as the better part of valor—and so, like Betty as well as her husband Bob, they would often—as—not have to suffer the ignorant obviousness of those who waited almost professionally for the demanded "realism" to trickle away through the hard retelling; or, even better, for the appearance of generic anomalies that frustrat— ingly fit the narrative like staples of the tall tale. They would have to appear foolish before the simpletons of Naive Realism—it seemed to be a contractual requirement, as far as the conscientious reporting of everything—as—it—happened was concerned. So it was that the "craft" would often appear, abruptly, out of nowhere, seen solely by the one who was concerned to convince others of their common reality—and then disappear just as swiftly, with a baffling discontinuity as if a t.v. had been switched off before anyone else was "fast" enough to look up and so share the sighting (indeed, in this particular instance Betty's husband hadn't seen the craft overhead as they'd approached their premiere interview; he was, however, used to the peculiar "privatism" of the phenomenon first— hand). By now it should only have become too clear that "UFO" and Fortean—related phenomena had to be appreciated not only through the viewfinder of alternative criteria, but as establishing such alternative criteria. Those criteria had, indeed, been virtually outlined already—yet the sources through which such service had been rendered were as systematically snubbed or categorically ignored. The Meier material (put out largely by Colonel Wendelle Stevens) was a case in point. As we discussed in the December/January issue, the unprecedented filmic and material evidences with which Meier was graced in the course of his Pleiadean contacts, were in fact not scientifically discredited but to the contrary scientifically confirmed, to the limits of state-of-the-art capability; they were "discredited" by rumor and innuendo, and that is where it seems to have settled at the public level of perception. If however these evidences were accorded the respect they deserved, then the explanations of the Pleiadeans themselves (as to how such manifestations were uniquely filtered through the subject "Billy Meier" though they were, for the most part, open-air exhibitions theoretically available to all) would have to be accorded a similar, more serious look. 112 T-Bird_Vs_The_Flying_saucers.htm A Private Audience in Public Airspace