From: Terry Groff <terry@terrygroff.com>
Date: Sun, 27 Jul 2003 23:57:12 -0500
Fwd Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2003 13:00:10 -0400
Subject: No MUFON Endorsement For Oliveira Case


MUFON UFO Journal July 2003
Directors Message
Reproduced with permission


NO MUFON Endorsement

By John F. Schuessler
MUFON International Director

An alleged UFO abduction case took place in Corguinho, Brazil on
Sept. 15, 2002, at 7:30 p.m. The person making the claim is
Paulistan Urandir Fernandes de Oliveira. Part of his claim
involved alleged physical evidence left behind during the
abduction event.

During the past three months this case has been bantered about
on the Internet, and much heated language has been exchanged
between the Internet participants. Some of these people even
claim that MUFON has endorsed the case as being valid. This
could not be further from the truth. MUFON doesn't endorse or
reject a case based on claims and/or Internet rhetoric.

Instead, we want to see the results of a thorough investigation,
hopefully by multiple investigators, and laboratory analysis
results for any physical evidence involved in the case.
Unfortunately, MUFON has not received an investigative report of
this case. So we are left to read the Internet musings like
everyone else.

This case was first brought to MUFON's attention by Linda
Moulton Howe in March 2003. She is not a MUFON member and was
not making a report to MUFON. Instead, she was inquiring about
where MUFON stood on the case. The answer was that we couldn't
take a stand because we had no investigator's report of the
incident. We knew nothing about it.

Howe went on to say she had spent considerable time in Brazil
investigating the alleged abduction. Her quest was to get the
physical evidence into a laboratory and see what an analysis
could reveal. That appears to be a good goal. She said we could
find the results of her on-going investigation on her website at
www. earthfiles.com. It appears that she is the only
investigator to do an on-site investigation of Oliveira's
September 2002 abduction claim.

Since that time we have heard from A. J. Gevaerd, Brazilian UFO
Magazine editor and MUFON Representative for Brazil, and found
that he has been after Urandir Oliveira for a number of years,
believing him to be a hoaxer or worse. Because of this he didn't
need to do an on-site investigation of the September 2002
abduction claim. He has strong feelings about the background of
the witness and worries that Howe's investigation might tend to
give credibility where it should not be given.

People on the Internet are busily taking sides and adding fiery
rhetoric to the discussion, but none of them has done an actual
on-site investigation. Many seem to have lost their objectivity
and have stooped to name calling and character assassination.
They want MUFON to do the same, but it is not going to happen.

This, as in any other case, is not about taking sides. It is
about the conduct of good investigations, the gathering of all
types of documentation, the freedom to question all inputs from
all individuals, having the physical evidence analyzed in
multiple laboratories, and then openly presenting the results of
the investigation for public inspection.

While UFO incidents with physical evidence present are not
common, they offer the most promise of new discoveries. To be
really exciting, these cases should exhibit the characteristics
of high strangeness and high credibility. The Oliveira case
certainly possesses characteristics of high strangeness. On the
other hand, the characteristic of high credibility has been
called into question by Gevaerd.

Once credibility has been questioned, we are left with two
approaches. One is to ignore it and hope it goes away, and the
other is to redouble the efforts in the investigation to find a
solution. Ignoring a case seldom works. It usually results in
the case taking on a life of its own and never dying.

That leaves us with intensifying the investigation - finding
additional witnesses, conducting independent investigations,
comparing investigators' notes, utilizing multiple laboratories
for the analysis of all physical evidence, and analyzing the
communications between all parties involved in the case.

Because all of this is costly in time and dollars, the chances
of success are not real high. And in the Oliveira case, high
emotions and Internet ranting seems to be adding an additional
fog factor to the results.

Oliveira's claim that he was abducted from his bed after taking
a shower, and then taken out through the ceiling of the room is
not unlike the claims of other abductees. The main difference is
with the remaining physical evidence. It is almost totally
unlike any other abduction case.

The pillow and bed sheet were left with the shape of his body
emblazoned in the cotton and polyester material. A similar
pattern was left on the surface of the ceiling. A textile
analysis could provide a lot of insight into the resulting
conditions of the bed sheet and pillow. Using the techniques of
an arson investigator could do the same for the materials found
in the ceiling pattern.

An additional unique aspect of this case is the claim by people
living nearby that strange stones fell from the sky at the same
time. Any respected geology laboratory would be able to identify
every element in the stones, compare them with other stones from
Brazil or elsewhere, and an isotopic analysis might verify the
earthly origin of the rocks or lack of it.

We expect that good laboratory analysis work will show whether
or not the evidence was hoaxed, and if hoaxed, how it was done.
That would close the case forever and provide the tools that
could be used to analyze the data in future similar cases.
However, if the results prove to be unique and mysterious, then
perhaps we will see new discoveries come out of all of this.
Either way, we believe science will prevail.

Since this is not a MUFON investigation, we can only report on
what we hear about the results. Enough has already been said
about the claims. There is little doubt that A.J. Gevaerd will
continue to pursue Oliveira on behalf of his Brazilian UFO
Magazine and Linda Moulton Howe on behalf of her Earthfiles web
site.


Posted by
Terry Groff
http://terrygroff.com/ufotools/