Dear Mr. Hesemann,

Hello from Southern California! Nice to hear from you. Hopefully we can open a line of communication and dialog which we (and other’s) might find useful and fascinating.

Mr. Hesemann wrote:

Subject: Re: UFOR: Some Words about the state of Ufology
MH: Sender: Michael Hesemann <100660.3672@compuserve.com>
*** To: "Mark L. Center" <MarkLCenter@iname.com>

MH: Dear Mark,

MH:  the problem is not that ufologists are allegedly naive, greedy or not willing to share.

*** Most are naive and greedy with their information. Few are not. I think the reason has more to do with ego, “I got the information first,“ and the fact that if you get the information first,  you can write the book and appear on TV and radio first. There is only so much information to go around. This is why dubious claims make the news everyday, and why people make things up.

MH: The problem is the jealousy of many members of the UFO community, their willingness rather to attack than to support. Whatever you do is wrong anyway, if you do it high profile.

*** Getting your face on TV does seem to be a major “High Profile” goal for many in the field. I recently turned down Kiviat & Co. when they asked me to appear on-camera for another Alien Autopsy segment (to be included in some kind of new show Kivait is putting together). TV and profit isn’t a bad thing, it just isn’t something we at UFO Report care to participate in. The researcher will get the support if they take the time to support their claims with verifiable facts, or at the least, sound thinking.

MH: The biggest lie of all is the legend of the greedy, rich ufologist. I am in the field for 20 years, I met just everyone who ever was or still "a name" in the field. And I met NOBODY who ever made a fortune with UFO information and is a researcher at the same time.

*** You are right here. I know many of the top people in the field and they do not make big money. Yet another reason to hold on to the information they have. If they aren’t going to make any money they might as well get on TV and fill up the ego tank!  :-)

 MH: The money was made by the opportunists, by TV producers, big publishers, distributors etc., those who never hesitated to exploit the UFO community.

*** True! Kiviat & Co. are a prime example.

 MH: WE were stupid enough to give them free interviews, free footage, just everything we invested lots of money and working hours to collect. THIS, of course, caused a general hesitation to share material with someone you don´t know and trust.

*** Agreed. These people will use you every step of the way if you let them. As far as a hesitation to share goes...Well, in my opinion there is so little substantiatable information to be shared that that hasn’t been a problem for us.

MH: At least you want a part of your expenses back, won’t you?

*** As you know we do not see eye-to-eye in this area. I’m not a rich man either, we at the UFO Report would rather lose money in our attempt to put out objective information with no hint of motive (profit or otherwise), then risk the name calling and other ridiculousness which profit (and other) motives can cause. In our opinion there is just to little plausible, verifiable information to sell. We have found, and in our experience, competent research work has not been done in most cases.

MH: UFO research is bloody expensive. One time I lost about $ 80.000 by just bringing all major researchers together in my country to brief the media on the latest state of intl. UFO research.

*** Well, I applaud the effort but that doesn’t get your money back. I’ve spent a few thousand dollars on the Autopsy Footage and the Meier’s case. I will never, ever, see that money again. However, we uncovered some information which no one was able to, or no one was willing to, and we then shared it with the interested, for free. Did it help? Hard to tell, the response from the many has been terrible. The response from the few has been fantastic. Time will tell.

MH:  Today I am out of this trouble, since I make money as an art dealer. I have to have this income, although I am a best-selling author with a world circulation of more than 700.000 copies. Why? Because all money I made with my books and films goes back into research. Am I the only one? No, most ufologists have to do something else to finance their work. How does it come that none gets rich if all ufologists are just greedy? Are they stupid enough to waste their live chasing the gold at the end of the rainbow? Or is it the case that they just don´t care if they make or loose money, as long as they can search for ANSWERS, for THE TRUTH?

*** Again, we both know where the real money is. TV, producers, magazines. If “some” ufologists have made some decent money working in the field that is a matter of opinion. I think the word greedy is best applied here in terms of the information, not money. The search for answers and the truth is paramount to solving this riddle. How one goes about their research and how they disseminate their information is what we like to research (as well as specific cases).  In the end, the researcher lives by their research. If its done in an honest manner, even mistakes are forgiven. Heaven help you if your found out to be a confabulator of tales. More on this below.

 MH:(WARNING: Ufology is pretty obsessive. You can easily get addicted by it. And it can ruin you!)

*** Tell me about it! I got so involved that my relationship, job and health was at odds with my passion. I’ve since backed off for the above reasons and sanity’s sake.

MH: The real problem is: In Ufology are no standards. Everyone can call himself "ufologist", and nobody knows if he is qualified or not. That opened the doors for both, con-men and wannabes. To be a qualified historian, you have to study and follow a certain methodology. To be a ufologist you might just need a big mouth.

*** Ha, ha, ha! That’s pretty funny! I guess I have a big mouth! This is a tough nut to crack. I think that the base research, the initial stories and cases are (generally) so poorly researched that it leaves the door open for ANYBODY to try and do it better. And, like it or not, anybody can call themselves a ufologist. There is no academic basis or peer group for education approval or information appraisal.

MH: Ufology biggest enemy is the UFO community, because it is too open-minded, too willing to follow every pied piper and too eager to clast the icons of their own discipline. It´s too easy to be mislead! Take the Meier case: First it was hailed. Then it was debunked by one of the lowest, most pathological liars and lousy researchers of all times - and everyone believed HIM because it was so comfortable.

*** Well, open minded or closed minded? Matter of semantics. The Meier case is a very interesting case. I’ve talked to many of the people involved. The Elders can not, or will not answer very basic investigative questions. Stevens will answer them but he keeps changing his story around. Winters is very open but he really has no worthwhile information to give a researcher. Dilettoso has been found to be so dubious so as to make his involvement worthless as well.

No one can say for positive that Meier’s did not take a few REAL photos. What can be said for sure is that some of the most important questions can not be satisfactorily answered by the people that broke the case and still reap the rewards. In the end the case was hailed because of the photos and little else. Truth be known, 20 years later and the answers to some very basic questions can not / will not answered by the keepers of the flame.

MH: The Alien Autopsy was just refused because it arrived from outside the UFO community.

*** This certainly is not the case for many of us involved. And think about it, many cases come from outside the UFO community: The Face on Mars, the Giza Connection, the first Crop Circles, Astronaut, Pilot, and other testimony.

 MH: It is definitely more authentic and better researched then any MJ-12 Document,

*** While I’m aware of the MJ-12 documents and can’t comment on them with any great authority.

MH: but its Lobby wasn’t strong enough. How sad, since it very well might be "the real thing", as all evidence indicates.

*** Well, here we go. All the evidence does not indicate that the Alien Autopsy Footage might be real. As I’ve already pointed out in my review of your Alien Autopsy Section in your book “Beyond Roswell,” much of what you present as “fact” simple isn’t.

* All available film snippets show no lineage to the released footage. In fact, the only way those film snippets can be “attached” to the released footage in any way is because Ray Santilli say they come from the same stock. Film stock which no one can substantiate as even in existence. No bodies seen film stock, no one has held the original “copy” in their hands and inspected it to ensure that, “By God, there’s that creature!”, Albeit, maybe Santilli, the cameraman, and the people whom made the film to video transfer. If that transfer process was ever took place in the first place.
* Whatever the cameraman may say has to be treated as second-hand information. At this time we have no proof that a cameraman exists, as presented by Ray Santilli. Nothing in his story has checked out. No one has been able to locate him through his alleged association with his military duties; filming bomb test from a plane, the film can label stamps, his assertion that Bronk was there in the room, etc. None of this has been verified and it all came through one source, Ray Santilli. True, others have talked on the phone to a man claiming to be the cameraman, however that and the video tape prove nothing.

*** We have uncovered three examples which strongly suggest that the body is fake.

*** 1: The head wobbles around so much so in one scene that the “nurse” has to use her hand to stop it from moving around.
*** 2. A section of the rib cage flops around when the doctors hand inadvertently brushes up against it.
*** 3. The fingers get caught up in the doctors jacket for a moment, at which time they bend and flex quite easily.

*** Some might say that we should not expect to know how an alien body would react, live or dead. Not so. As can be clearly seen in the “Flexing of the knee joint” scene, the body is indeed very stiff. You can’t have it both ways. A dead body is either stiff or its not. If the knee joint is stiff the neck will be stiff, as will as the fingers. Ask any pathologist. Alien or not, stiff is stiff. There is no such think as selective stiffening in death.

*** There are other such anomalies: vanishing and reappearing blood drips and streaks, etc. As well as problems with the “response time to the crash site” time line. We could discuss these and more at a later date, however, I’d like to move on to something else.

*** I’m very interested in the way you presented some of the information and then, did not present other information. I’m interested in why you did not amend the, “95% I’m sure its real” statement made by Shell with the more correct, “I’m better than 50% sure now,” statement? I know for a fact that you included some information which I myself put out over the net and in faxes regarding the Cameraman’s Statement. We did the first (and more complete second) Cameraman’s Interview Transcript. At this time, our transcripts are the only ones that have ever been done. In our first transcript we included a sentence that read: “I’m going to bed.” Nowhere else could this line have been found but in our transcript, because he never said it. It was our mistake in the first transcript. And there it is, in your first and final draft of Beyond Roswell.

*** Your inclusion of this Cameraman Information make it quite clear that you had ample opportunity to amend the Shell statement. Why didn’t you? This is the type of “selective dissemination” of information that I find appalling. Why not put out the complete story? You had the first and best opportunity.  I have other examples as well that bare the following statement out: You purposely positioned and presented your information to give the footage and its story every opportunity to be thought of as real by the uneducated reader.

*** Is not part of the research process looking into what others have put forth as research? Of course it is. And if I may be so bold, I think we do a pretty good job. No name calling, no agenda. All we would like is direct answers to direct questions.

MH: What Ufology needs is quality control instead of demagogy. If you check a researcher, check his background (did he ever LEARN to do research) and his methodology (does he do research at all?).

*** Part of this process is looking into the story the researcher is telling and the researcher themselves. If I was to believe what others involved in this story told me, I never would have gone to Larry Cate at Kodak and found out the truth. Nor would I have gone to Kiviat and found out that what Cate told me was, indeed the truth. Bad research or purposely withheld information went on regarding Larry Cate and what he really saw, touched and said. The same goes for the Meier case. One must do their own research, one must take a hard look into what research was done in the past and whom did the research.

 MH: "The truth is out there", indeed. But those who go for it are small in numbers. If all those who didn´t personally investigate a case, meet the witnesses, secure the evidence would just -forgive me- "Shut up", Ufology could indeed become a serious matter again.

*** We all must investigate. We all must release the COMPLETE findings. Must we all go to Switzerland to talk to Meier? No, we can certainly go to the people that have disseminated the information, the self-professed experts on the case, and study their books and videos. We then must ask them to answer our basic investigative questions if their released information does not. In most cases it does not, the Maussan / Elders, Mexico Flap video’s are a prime example of creative editing and the withholding of important information.

*** Keep in mind that these same experts, with their books and videos have influenced thousands of people to believe (or to be open-minded about) these cases. Just because a researcher may think they know how to research, this alone does not mean that their research is correct, nor incorrect. It’s just the result of research, done by a person(s) whom wish’s to be taken seriously and in many cases, their results believed in, as fact.

*** As a college educated and well traveled Ufologist, you are thought of by many as one of the most knowledgeable and informed figures in the field. In my opinion the Alien Autopsy section from your book “Beyond Roswell” does no service to yourself , the interested public and fellow researchers. It would have been far more rewarding and positive to set the record straight and tell it like it is.

Michael, please keep this in mind. To be challenged is healthy. It’s healthy for you, myself and the interested. But only if it is done in a mature manner, and with an objective mind-set, then everybody benefits.

Sincerely,

Mark L. Center

Newest Hesemann exchange. End of October / Novenber 1999

Continue with a review of some of Mr. Hesemann's work