Some Final Observations

©Tim Printy October 2008

Ed's story ends here but in the final analysis can one consider the photographs and video as authentic? Dr. Maccabee thinks so but I would like to make one important observation on how the UFO community feels about Dr. Maccabee's analysis. In 1997, a panel of scientists was presented the best evidence of UFOs to date by some of UFOlogy's best scientists. This was created through the efforts of Dr. Peter Sturrock. Not only was Ed Walters and his photographs not mentioned but Dr. Bruce Maccabee was not invited to present any evidence. How convincing can these pictures really be if Sturrock did not want them presented to this panel?

I can only speak from examination of the images presented in the books since, like so many others, I do not have access to any of the originals. In addition to some of the anomalies that were noticed by UFOlogists and Skeptics, I have some additional observations I would like to document.

Who truly believes Ed outside the "inner circle"?

Ed's story has gone back and forth but how many prominent UFOlogists really believe the story and the photographs? It seems there are a significant number that do not believe Ed and Dr. Maccabee. Besides those already mentioned, a few other prominent individuals have made their opinions clear.

Dennis Stacy (former editor of the MUFON journal) -

In my own case, no analysis was necessary by anyone. The pictures looked hokey to begin with, and they still do to this day, on their face. Go back and look at them again. Sometimes you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. Not when it's blowing that hard, anyway. (Stacy)

Jerome Clark (editor of the International UFO reporter) -

I am perfectly prepared to believe that the Gulf Breeze photographs and stories associated with Walters are bogus. In fact, I have long believed they are exactly that. (Clark)

James Moseley (Editor of Saucer Smear) -

"Mr. Ed", like Dr. Maccabee, is a nice guy; but investigations by your "Smear" editor and several others come very close to proving that Ed Walters' sightings, photos, etc. are nothing more than sophisticated hoaxes. Thus Bruce Maccabee is either very gullible indeed, or else he is deliberately spreading disinformation, to further confuse the already hopelessly confused UFO scene. (Moseley)

Mark Rodegher (Director Center for UFO Studies) -

CUFOS considers Zan Overall's work to be further evidence that the UFO photo claims of Ed Walters are spurious. (Overall iii)

Hillary Evans (Prominent British Ufologist) -

As you are doubtless aware, virtually no one on this side of the Atlantic (with the possible exception of Tim Good) believes in the photographs for a moment. Nothing genuine would contain so many dubious details on top of its inherent implausibility. (Overall 14)

Bob Girard book review of The Gulf Breeze Sightings (Arcturus book service)-

It means that either the aliens themselves had chosen an absolutely insensitive clod upon which to shower their favors...- or that this book's shocking shallowness could only be accounted for it if had been prepared for and written by someone whose over-riding motive was either greed, attention or the satisfaction of putting a big fat one over a bunch of foolish human beings. (Klass Reviews 3)

Kevin Randle (Prolific UFO author and Roswell researcher) -

We could go on, over the evidence against the Gulf Breeze sightings and photographs once again, but is it necessary? It is clear what happened here. Ed Walters, playing a somewhat admitted practical joke, found himself the center of attention, and he loved it. The fact that there was nothing to the sightings meant nothing to him. He grabbed the spotlight as quickly as he could, and has done everything possible to stay in it. But his story, from the very beginning, was a hoax. (Randle 81)

Carol, the girl in the Ghost Demon image:

I haven't heard anything about the book- no one really knows of it. As to the UFO everyone definitely thinks it is Mr. Hanson. (Overall 36)

It seems there aren't many prominent names that seemed willing to back the case. If Bruce Maccabee had not supported this case, it would have long ago been consigned to the UFO trash heap along with Adamski and Meier.

Practice makes perfect

I think the most important observation to record is that if one looks at the sequencing of the entire collection, one can notice that Ed was getting better and better as if it were a hoax. Each subsequent series of photographs was a new variation or another way to show that the photographs were not a hoax. For instance, Ed's original series had a behind the tree shot at the beginning. Ed could have actually attempted numerous shots until he got this one right. After this, each photograph series added something new. Photo #10 added the blue beam. Photo #14 had the UFO with a light pattern beneath it. This was followed by the road shot giving a more impressive pattern on the road. Photo #18 gave us multiple UFOs in a picture. Photo #21 introduced the streaking image. Photos 22 and 23 now setup images of people with the UFO. Photo#24 had Frances evading the light beam. When issued the SRS challenge by Maccabee, Ed obliged and also managed to include a Nimslo-type UFO into one of the images. Each successive photo is a more challenging image than the one before. All these new items appearing on each subsequent series would have been a unique coincidence had the photographs been of actual craft.

It is not published what type of Polaroid camera Ed actually used. We only know that it used 108 film. This is not important unless one is trying to analyze some of the images. As best I can tell, Ed used either a ColorPackII or a Square Shooter. Both were released in the time frame Ed seemed to have acquired his camera and both used a 114mm F9.2 lens (this is similar to the lens system described by Zan Overall). The more likely choice is the ColorPack II since it was highly popular at the time. This camera often used ISO 75 film, which is also important to note. Since the UFOs were shot with such a slow speed film and a high f-ratio, it indicates the events (UFOs and blue beams) were pretty bright light sources. Based on my experience using films and f-ratios for astrophotography, the UFOs were about as bright as the crescent to first quarter moon (or possibly even brighter). With such a bright light source hovering in the skies over Gulf Breeze, it is incredible that residents driving through the area seemed to have missed it.

Ed Walters's choice of a camera is easy to understand. He had it for many years and already demonstrated an ability to take double exposures with the Ghost Demon photograph. Ed did not want to use a 35mm camera for the reason that he did not want a one-hour developer examining his photographs. Another good reason is that a 35mm negative could be examined and would have been of better quality than the Polaroids. There would have been no excuses for using nth generation copies. Additionally, Ed could see the results of his work right away and then throw out the images that did not work to his liking. Only after Doctor Maccabee showed how easy it was to double-expose images did he shift cameras. Then he chose another Polaroid vice a 35mm. One also must note that Ed's images with this new Polaroid (which was still capable of being double-exposed) were limited and then the UFO stopped making its regular appearances.

In Gulf Breeze, nobody can hear you scream

The first nine photographs Ed took all show the same craft hovering over his neighborhood. What is not mentioned is that Ed's home was not in a rural setting but in a community that was pretty populated. Even more interesting is that Ed's home was only a few hundred yards from a major roadway that connected Gulf Breeze to Pensacola. It is hard to believe that nobody noticed a bright UFO hovering over this community. What else is amazing is that Ed consistently states that he was yelling or screaming when the UFO was visiting. If you read his first encounter, it seems that Ed must have been yelling up a storm. Did anyone hear or see anything in the neighborhood? Ed's next door neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Morris reported,

"ON NO OCCASION DURING THAT 16 MONTH PERIOD DID WE SEE OR HEAR ANYTHING IN THE SLIGHTEST UNUSUAL. NOR DID WE EVER HEAR, AT THE TIME OR SINCE, OF ANY OF THE OTHER NEARBY NEIGHBORS REPORTING ANYTHING --WITH THE EXCEPTION OF MR. WALTERS." (Klass Ed Walters' actions 6)

Rex Salisberry reports that he had discussed the November 11, 1987 sighting with another neighbor and stated,

It seems that between about 4:30 and 6:00 P.M. on Nov. 11th, 1987, the neighbor and two local sales persons were in the neighbor's front yard negotiating some work to be done. The area in front of Mr. Ed's house where the UFO was supposedly lurking was in plain view to the three of them, the entire time. None of the three saw any UFOs or blue beams. For that matter, they didn't even see Mr. Ed in front of his house with trusty camera in hand! (Salisberry)

Clearly, Ed's encounters were of the "silent" type and maybe he must have exaggerated about yelling in screaming in many of his encounters.

Terraserver image of Ed's neighborhood.

Peekaboo!

Photograph number one has to be considered Ed's masterpiece. Only William Hyzer has suggested a possible method for how this was created and Maccabee/Sainio has criticized this, not surprisingly. However, it was the first image. Ed could have made numerous tries before this until he got it right. Maccabee also points to image #7 but I keep looking for the UFO being obscured without any luck. If anything, the very edge of the UFO is hidden by the tree. Considering how underexposed the UFO is, it is highly likely that Hyzer's method might have worked in this case, which makes one wonder about photo #1.

Shaky cameraman

I have read that Jeff Sainio did some analysis on the blurring of the light in the photograph with the light on the top of the UFO. Apparently, Sainio did some special "clipping" of the light sources to determine the direction and magnitude of the streaks. I did some basic measuring in Photoshop and my readings did not agree with Jeff's conclusions that the magnitudes and angles were the same. If Sainio altered the images in anyway, one has to consider what Hyzer stated about how one can arrive at the conclusion one wants to when manipulating these images. My measurements showed that although many of the blurs were very similar in angles in all the photographs none were that close to be called exactly the same (of course, I am working from scans from the book and did not have access to originals). They varied in a range from -45 to -65 degrees. This gives us a "fingerprint" of the photographer. He had developed the same downward motion to the right for his photographs. Is it surprising that a double exposure would have similar blur angles? Even more interesting is that photographs 6 and 9 show the UFO perfectly sharp while the streetlight appears to be blurred. From what I understand, the answer to this anomaly is that Ed was able to precisely track the UFO's motion (not once but twice) during the exposure. One has to look at the nature of this claim. In many of the photographs, Ed was shaking and had developed a jerking motion down and to the right. However, in two images, Ed was able to PRECISELY follow the UFO using a simple viewfinder and his hands to track with. Lastly, photo #5 shows the dome light for the UFO being blurred by the camera jerking. In this case, the streetlight, the brighter of the two light sources, fails to show this same blurring motion. These problems should have sent warning flags up for many investigators but it seems they were ignoring such anomalies.

Exit stage right

Another problem that I have noticed was that the sequencing for photos #6-9 appears wrong. Ed is moving to the right between images 6 and 7 but then moves to the left for images 8 and 9 (Using the bushes as a reference). However, Ed stated that he was trying to hold his ground. There seemed to be no reason for Ed to move to the right since the UFO was moving to the right (according to Ed the UFO moved rapidly to the right) for photo#7. This made the UFO get near the tree and possibly block the view of the UFO. The only reason Ed would want to move to the right would be to get the tree to partially obscure the UFO on purpose. A photographer trying to track the UFO would have moved to the left to prevent the UFO from being obscured. The implication is that Ed was trying to get a shot like he had done with photo#1, where the image would appear partially blocked.

Freezing your buns off

On the night of 17-18 December, Ed proclaimed that he was running around his backyard half-naked around 1AM. It was hard to believe that Ed could do this without some discomfort because the temperature at the time was in the low 30's. He does casually mention the temperature was cold but, considering the time involved with the events that night, I find it particularly interesting that Ed or Frances never seemed to be affected by the temperature.

Hum me a few bars....

Ed continuously writes about hearing a hum in his head in his book The Gulf Breeze Sightings. When another writer describes that Ed had an implant in his head that alerted him to the UFO by producing a hum, Ed becomes belligerent and contradicts his original book:

So I can only wonder where he got this listening device story. It is an interesting idea but I never stated it as an explanation. A few times I did hear a humming sound during and before a UFO sighting but many sightings occurred with no humming. (Walters UFO Abductions 180)

Like the declaration of not being abducted, I seriously question if Ed even read what he wrote in his first book. Not only does he mention the hum numerous times and in numerous sightings, he also complains about the pain in his head on at least two occasions.

The "lonely" road

Like Ed's evening sightings in November, the area of photo #19 was not a rural area. Looking at the area using Terraserver, one can see that there are numerous homes in the area (just beyond the trees on either side of the road). Again, we have Ed telling about how he was screaming and yelling as the aliens were deposited on the road and how the UFO was emitting a brilliant beam. This was at a time of day where people should have been around to see and hear such antics. Nobody spoke a word. Ed also stated the UFO came from behind him. In that direction we know that there is a major road for commuting back and forth about a mile away. Considering it was rush hour, why didn't any of the drivers see the UFO come screaming out of the sky and shooting it's light beam at Ed? The traffic on the road is also in question. Even Dr. Maccabee noted the traffic issue when he thought about Ed setting up a full-scale model for the photograph:

...there was also the problem of having to set up the model on a road that leads to a number of houses without some motorist seeing what he was doing. While Charles and I were at the site on route 191-B to photograph the reflection of a spotlight on the road, several cars went by. (Walters Sightings 288)

Where were these cars and people during the episode Ed recounts for the road shot? This was a workday and happened during rush-hour traffic. Certainly, somebody would have been on the road or nearby to verify Ed's story. 

 Terraserver image of the area where it appears Ed's photo #19 occurred - There are no exact positions given but it appears from Ed's description that this is the location.

Where is the UFO in the hood reflection?  Isn't it odd that the road was recorded but not any part of the UFO? (Walters)

Vampire UFOs

The infamous road shot is probably the most interesting image of Ed's collection. Much is made for the lack of reflection in Photo#19 and I have heard several descriptions on what is actually in the hood. Dr. Maccabee points to the front of the hood and declares this is the sky being reflected and proving that there was a dent of sufficient size to cause the no reflection. Unfortunately, the light strip at the front of the hood appears to be uniform in nature and not skewed or distorted the way a random dent might. Also, the light strip at the front is not as bright as the light strip in the rear (which is the sky). Interestingly, Sainio did not see this feature as the sky and, instead, felt it was part of the UFO reflecting off of the hood. I am sure Sainio has since shifted his opinion and analysis to conform to Maccabee's conclusions but the important point is he did not feel it was sky at the time. This demonstrates that it is not as obvious as Maccabee wants everyone to believe.

I think there is another source for this lighter strip at the front of the hood. The road in the day shot is seen as a brighter area on the hood than the background. Since the trees are totally dark but the road is much lighter, it is very possible, that what is seen in the front of the hood is actually the road surface. If one places both pictures (photo 19 and the day shot) side by side, it is easy to see the comparison. If the brighter area were the road, the UFO would have to be in the hood reflection, which it is not. The UFO is either a vampire or Ed hoaxed the picture.

Streaking away

Photo#21 and #35 show the UFO streaking upward. However, I notice that the width of the streaks do not match the width of the power ring. In photo#21, the streak is uneven in brightness. If the UFO power ring produced this streak, it should have been uniform in diameter and fairly uniform in brightness across the streak. Photo #35 is the same way. Interesting to note if such a streak would have occurred, the UFO would have been mostly hidden behind a white band of light. This would not have made a very convincing picture. Instead the UFO's power ring seems to have been "turned off" once it accelerated upward. This is in contradiction of how Ed described the UFOs departure method in another event, "... just in time to see the UFO's bottom ring brighten before it flashed and was gone" (Walters Sightings 94). Isn't it curious how the UFOs propulsion system would function differently on this occasion?

The Duane Cook video

I have not personally seen this video but I understood why once I read James Moseley's comments after his personal viewing. Apparently it is not too convincing. Moseley has written,

The motif of this amazing production is less UFOs and more demon or evil-entity possession... Ed keeps cursing a blue streak, wildly and excessively (in normal conversation, Ed rarely swears). He babble on about how the entities/space beings are attacking him psychicaly, that he can FEEL it, that his face is contorted, with one eye being pushed out, and on and on. I almost laughed out loud when he asked Cook, "Isn't my face contorted?" and Cook replied, "No, Ed. You look about the same as you always do."... I later learned from one of SMEAR'S army of Usually Reliable Sources that the same evening the video was taken, a Reliable Friend of my Source was present in Ed's home when Walters and Cook were viewing the tape. Both were laughing heartily about it. This is hard to square with the terror Ed allegedly was experiencing when he allegedly thought he was being taken over by evil space being. However, it definitely is consistent with Ed's really awful acting on tape. It is beyond me how any pro-Ed person seeing the video could be anything but terribly disillusioned... (Moseley and Pflock 290-1)

Yet there are those perfectly willing to accept Ed's tales. It seems it is based more on a "will to believe" than any evaluation of the evidence.

Behind the veil

Photos 20, 22 and 23 show a different type of UFO that I consider being the most "hokey" of all Ed's spaceships. The red "energy veil" looks a lot like a circular red cone that one puts on the end of their flashlight or the type of plastic shield one sees around an old streetlight that may have been dyed red or red colored. The craft also appears externally illuminated (this had been previously noted by others). To me, this UFO strained Ed's credibility. This type of UFO ceased to appear in Ed's photographs after the towel shots. Maybe it just looked too much like a model and Ed was worried that the investigators might begin to doubt what they were seeing in the pictures.

Nimslo shots for numbskulls

Ed's Nimslo camera shots don't impress me. They are not of any UFO that Ed had encountered before and it was very small (only a couple of feet across). In the only image available in the book, the windows on the UFO display a curious feature. As one moves away from the center, the "window" lights are not as bright. What this appears to be is a lightweight black tube that had been made into a model with a light somewhere in the center. Ed probably floated the model into the air using simple black helium balloons stuffed inside the tube or suspending the model from above. Taking photographs of such an object once it was far enough away would not have been difficult. 

Nothing up my sleeve....

An interesting shot that Ed produced was one of the blue beam nearly striking Frances as she ran in the door. Ignoring the fact that Ed would ignore his wife's safety and rather get a good picture, an interesting artifact appeared on her sleeve. There is a double blue ring around her wrist on her sweatshirt. Jeff Sainio noticed this in his analysis and then pronounced it to be related to the beam. If the beam illuminated it, the rings around her wrist would not be uniform. In fact, the rings wrap around her wrist almost like it is part of the material. This eliminates the idea that it was due to illumination. However, Dr. Maccabee suggested that this "rings" were due to some form of ionizing radiation that interacted with the material. He had Ed take a picture of her in her sweatshirt to insure it was not a flash effect, which it was not. However, let's examine the radiation hypothesis. Radiation, like light, follows the same characteristics. That is a point source of light and radiation drops off at an inverse square law of the distance. Something twice as far away would be four times as dim. The illumination of her wrist is uniform and does not fade. The adjacent material is unaffected. This means the cause of the wrist illumination would have to be the result of a narrow band emitted right in the same plane as her wrist. However, this again falls upon a similar rule in that the beams intensity would drop of at the inverse of the distance (up to the point it becomes effectively a point source and then the other rule applies). Again, there is no drop off in illumination around the wrist. The more important thing to note is that if you project the beam that illuminated the wrist further, there is no illumination on her other hand/arm. Also, never mentioned is that further up her elbow, Frances has some slight splotching of blue something like the wrist rings. The blue rings are either an artifact of the developing or was "painted" onto the material of the sweatshirt. In some stories about the "Ghost Demon" photographs, there are descriptions of "black light" pictures. Could the rings be the products of using black light paint on the sleeve?

Self-referencing fakery for dummies

Ed took several pictures in his book using what was called a Self-Referencing Stereo camera setup. This incorporated two cameras two feet apart and pointing directly forward. The resultant shots 36-37-38 in the book The Gulf Breeze Sightings are considered the best evidence Ed has for the reality of his sightings. Unfortunately, Ed has problems with his credibility and it appears he hoaxed at least one or more of his shots. While the shots with one camera are explainable as double exposure, the question remains is how he was able to do the SRS shots.

There are two issues associated with hoaxing this shot. The first would be to get the image scale correct. A one-foot model at 10 feet would equate to a 10 foot UFO at 100 feet, a 20-foot UFO at 200 feet, or a 30-foot UFO at 300 feet. According to Dr. Maccabee, the width corresponded to 4.8 feet at 200 feet. Assuming Ed used a 3-inch (0.25 feet) model, we find the distance to the model would have to be 10.4 feet away.

For the 10.4 -foot distance the parallax is 2.75 degrees. This is a significant difference from the 0.6 degrees seen by Maccabee. We do know that to hoax the shot, requires double exposure. Therefore, the first exposure would be the UFO and the second would be the shot of the surrounding terrain.

Since we have to move both cameras to achieve the correct parallax, we must divide the parallax by two making the parallax for the 10.4-foot range for each camera 5.49 degrees. Since the 200 foot distance is the value, we have the to give ourselves the shift of only 0.3 degree per camera. Ed would have to rotate the left camera 5.2 degrees CW and the right camera 5.2 degrees CCW. So how could Ed compute such an exact angle? Simple trigonometry is the answer. A hard triangle made to the right proportions would create a necessary wedge to quickly shift the cameras to the right positions. There are also devices for measuring precise angles often used in construction. While this seems to be an awful precise measurement, it really is not and anyone with the right type of equipment could create the wedge/angle-measuring device. All Ed would have to do is shift the cameras take the initial exposure and then return the cameras to the original positions, take the flash shot and we get the SRS photograph. What is even more interesting is that Dr. Maccabee notes that the image shift could have been non-existent! This makes the whole measurement of these images completely out of whack and all Ed would have to do is get the parallax between 5.2 and 5.5 degrees allowing for a margin of error.

Since most individuals think Ed was an idiot (therefore he could not figure out how to use the camera for double exposure) they would not accept such an elaborate (but fairly simple) method. You have to recall that Ed was involved in construction/home design where angles are important measurements to build a house correctly. He would understand trigonometry and the relationships involved especially after Dr. Maccabee explained it to him (the way he did when he mentioned creating the SRS setup). Ed would have time to test his fixture by taking a few test shots and see how accurate these measurements were in producing the necessary parallax. If things went wrong, he could claim the UFO moved during the exposure and he was slow tripping one of the shutters (as he did with #37). One has to realize the only people involved with the cameras were he and Frances. Nobody else was there when the shots were taken (amazingly everyone left just before the UFO appeared for shot #36). All Ed would have to do is dispose of/hide the model and the wedges.

In Maccabee's analysis he mentions several ways the images could be hoaxed but fails to mention this one. He probably felt that Ed was too stupid to compute the angle shifts. In reality, if Ed ran a few trial runs, it would be relatively simple (keeping with the Keep It Simple Stupid-KISS-concept) for him to do the test in a few minutes with the help of Frances, his normal assistant in these hoaxes. Of course, Bruce could be right. Ed could have not bothered with rotating the cameras and simply took the first part of the double exposures with the UFO being exposed first with one camera and then , after moving the UFO just under two feet, take the exposure with the second camera. Then both cameras would be used to create the double exposure with the background. In either case, the computations involved would not tax anyone who was familiar with trigonometry.

The second SRS shot (#37) had the indications of a model. Ed may have tried to take the photographs using a small model to give the impression of being obscured by the bush. How fortunate for Ed that he did not take the two pictures at the same time making it difficult, if not impossible, to perform an accurate analysis.

The third SRS photograph was #38, in this one the UFO was computed to be 475 feet away and 15 foot tall. A 3-inch model would have to be 7.92 feet away for the scaling. This computes to a parallax shift of 14.4 degrees or 7.2 degrees per camera. A parallax shift at 475 feet is very small (0.25 degrees or 0.12 deg per camera). This means the shift has to be roughly 7.1 degrees. In this case, Ed had nobody around to verify anything. He could take the original image in his own house with all the necessary precautions and then make some very precise measurements to get the required distance. The small Nimslo-type UFO seen in the photograph was the same model technique he used to take the Nimslo camera shot. This probably happened during the second exposure. Ed floated his model over the sound and then took the shot when the model was in the right location. It is also interesting to point out that Ed took this photograph very late at night when the number of available witnesses for him floating his model UFO was down to a minimum.

I knew nothing!!

The analysis of the Walter's photographs is interesting in that Sainio was able to get access to the original images for examination while Hyzer only used nth-generation copies. Bruce Maccabee stated, " I was not even aware of Hyzer's agreement with Walt Andrus to study Ed's photos. I heard through the grapevine that an independent study was going on, but I didn't know by whom until the study was basically done" (Maccabee Re: Bruce Maccabee). As a result, Hyzer never received any quality images from Maccabee. The one thing wrong about this is that Hyzer released preliminary findings in July of 1991 almost a year before his article appeared in the MUFON journal. In that article, he had modified his July 1991 conclusions after others provided additional information about photo #19. Instead of telling Hyzer he was mistaken and immediately arranging that high quality prints be sent to prove it, Dr. Maccabee just tried to argue his case without any additional evidence. It is a convenient excuse that Maccabee uses to explain why Sainio had access and Hyzer did not. Maccabee is at fault in that, as a scientist, he did not ensure that the best quality images were sent to Hyzer without any questions or hesitation once he knew Hyzer was doing an analysis. This excuse is lame and demonstrates to what extent Maccabee really attempted to conduct an unbiased evaluation of the case.

Is Ed an idiot?

If you ever read Dr. Maccabee's writings, he seems to think Ed is just plain dumb and could never fool such a brilliant man as himself. Dr. Maccabee's ego appears to the real reason that he thinks this way. Ed, as a home designer, definitely had the math background and the construction ability to create models and compute values to trick Bruce into believing the SRS had actually shot a real alien spaceship. Ed also had plenty of experience using his camera to create double exposures as demonstrated by the Ghost Demon image. Dr. Maccabee may want everyone to believe his "Ed's a moron" theory but one has to wonder which person is the moron if one is fooling you.

Scene from the television series "The Great American Hero".  Note the "power ring" on the UFO.

The Possible Blueprint?

Marty Kottmeyer has commented that he thinks that the UFO that Walters initially photographed bears a strong resemblence to the UFO that appeared in the opening scenes of a televison show from 1981. The show was called "The great American hero" and the main character received his powers from a UFO that gave him a super suit.  The opening scenc shows a UFO with a power ring at the bottom and a beam that shoots down to transport items.  Sounds vaguely familiar doesn't it? Is it just a coincidence or was Ed using the show as blueprint for his hoax?

A call for open investigation

With the explosion of the Internet, I find it unique that we still are left with having to buy a book that is over a decade old to see the Walter's photographs. If all the images were presented on the web in high quality format, then everyone would have access to the evidence. Independent evaluation could be done to validate the findings of others. Perhaps a call for "full disclosure" is what is needed. However, I seriously doubt that this will ever happen. Certain individuals seemed to be still interested in the financial results rather than scientific investigation.

Final thoughts

The whole Gulf Breeze episode still polarizes UFOlogists to this day. Many believe Ed Walters and his champion, Dr. Maccabee. Others dismiss the case after examination. What is clear is that the Gulf Breeze is not very good proof at all of alien visitations. If you can't get all the UFOlogists to agree on this matter, what does it say for the credibility surrounding this event?

Works Cited

Clark, Jerome. "Re: Bruce Maccabee and Gulf Breeze Photos." 25 September 1999. UFO Updates Mailing List. Online posting. Available WWW: http://www.virtuallystrange.net/ufo/updates/1999/sep/m25-012.shtml

Klass, Philip, " Reviews of the Walters book have been mixed." Skeptic's UFO Newsletter, May 1990

- "Ed Walters' actions speak louder than his words." Skeptic's UFO Newsletter, January 1992.

Maccabee, Bruce. "Re: Bruce Maccabee and Gulf Breeze Photos." 23 September 1999. UFO Updates Mailing List. Online posting. Available WWW: http://www.virtuallystrange.net/ufo/updates/1999/sep/m23-007.shtml

Moseley, James. Saucer Smear. 15 June 2000. Available WWW: http://www.martiansgohome.com/smear/v47/ss000615.htm

Moseley, James and Karl Pflock. Shockingly Close to the Truth: Confessions of a Grave-Robbing Ufologist. Amherst, New York. Prometheus Books. 2002.

Overall, Zan. Gulf Breeze Double Exposed: The Ghost Demon Photo Controversy. Chicago: J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies. 1990.

Randle, Kevin. The Randle Report: UFOs in the 90s. New York: M. Evans and Company inc., 1997

Salisberry, Rex. Letter. Saucer Smear. 5 Aug. 1997. Available WWW: http://www.martiansgohome.com/smear/v44/ss970805.htm

Stacy, Dennis. "Re: One Picture is Worth a Thousand Words." 3 October 1997. UFO Updates Mailing List. Online posting. Available WWW: http://www.virtuallystrange.net/ufo/updates/1997/oct/m03-044.shtml

Walters, Ed and Frances. The Gulf Breeze Sightings. New York: William Morrow and Company, inc. 1990.

- UFO Abductions in Gulf Breeze. New York: Avon Books. 1994.

ANY FUTURE REVELATIONS REGARDING THE GULF BREEZE SAGA WILL BE REPORTED IN MY SKEPTICAL UFOLOGICAL NEWSLETTER, SUNLITE.

 The Ed Walters case directory

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