Kevin McClure's "Secrets Or Lies"! An Answer!

by Tim Matthews, June 1998

I received this morning the latest McClure missive on so-called "Nazi UFOs" entitled "Secrets or Lies? Investigating the Nazi UFO legends" which, true to form, erects a number of false arguments in order to knock them down. Despite the fact that I have sent Kevin McClure several detailed and informative letters on the subject he has quite obviously failed to read them.

McClure has significant influence with 'Fortean Times' magazine, the largest "paranormal" and "strange phenomena" journal in the UK,  and will, no doubt, eventually use this forum to debunk my work. What's the betting that he'll volunteer to debunk my book when it comes out in several months time? Will future efforts be so misleading?

Let's hope not!

Where are all the ethics and principles as noted in several issues of "Abduction Watch" (which I subscribe to and actively promote in my own magazine "UFO NEWS") here? They seem curiously

absent.

Just last week Kevin attempted to discourage the British UFO Research Association from allowing Malcolm Robinson to speak at their forthcoming London lecture.

This week I'm the target.

What a shame......

His letter, which runs into several unnecessary pages, concentrates almost entirely upon debunking my latest fully researched and referenced report entitled "Flying Saucers - Secret History!" (in lower case) as well as having a pop at a few other people including Bill Rose. McClure's main thesis appears to be that the few of us interested in this subject believe in a 'legend' that;

"depends on unproven claims, on individuals with extreme right-wing beliefs, and on publishers and magazines keen to profit from sensational material, even where there is no evidence to suggest that it is true."

(The suggestion that there is money in researching man-made flying saucers is a good joke.)

The first part of this statement is just nonsense, as are Kevin's assertions about supposed 'standard' and 'conventional history' texts - which might be better described as those which tell people little of importance and which tell the half truth and nothing like the truth.

Specifically, Kevin uses guilt by association to debunk my, and others, research. His letter, no doubt mailed to all and sundry (and to whom I have little chance of a gaining a fair hearing) at a cost that I cannot hope to equal deliberately misrepresents my report.

The FACTS are that in my "Flying Saucers - Secret History!" report:

 - there is only the briefest and negative mention made of the author Renate Vesco.

 - there is NO interest shown in either the so-called "Feuerball" or "Kugelblitz" aerial devices.

 - there is but the briefest - and negative mention - made of the occult and paranormal lunacy surrounding the "Nazi" UFO topic.

 - there is NO use of extreme right-wing material.

 - NO interest is shown in the Nazi Polar/Antarctic myth.

 - the information, theories and other material made available through "Vanguard Sciences" are NOT referred to at all.

 - only a minority of the document actually deals with supposed "Nazi" UFOs (!).

 - the main part of the document deals with postwar developments including those that are supported by, amongst other things, declassified Intelligence documents.

 - contrary to the misleading information  put out by McClure, there is no attempt to erect a specific theory that there is a "secret history of the development of black and secret weapons development under the cover of UFO sightings and explanations" even though this might indeed be the case.

Other points:

Both Robert Jungks' acclaimed "Brighter Than a Thousand Suns" (Harcourt and Brace 1970) and David Masters' "German Jet Genesis" (Jane's Publications, 1982) note the existence of German flying discs. This should not be taken as an indication that I support the inclusion of the material ONLY that it is in books that according to McClure "have only ever existed in the occult, paranormal and Ufological fringes". So he's wrong.

He's hopelessly wrong about other things too. US Air Intelligence Report 100-203-79, released in 1948, notes that the Horten flying wing aircraft (advanced German technology) most closely resembled the flying objects reported in the early postwar period. This is but one document that says the same thing and these points are made in my report and deliberately ignored by McClure. He is NOT interested in an investigation or in asking questions. It is more than clear that he has already answered them in his own mind and that he retreats into out and out debunking again and again. His interest in such trashy publications as Michael X's "The German Saucer Story" (as requested by him in a "search for reference material" booklist towards the end of his letter) indicates once again that he is attempting to debunk our work by falsely associating it with such rubbish. Anyone who has bothered to read my report will note that only one of the books in his list is referred to

(negatively) in my report.

'Sufficient caution' has certainly been exercised by Bill Rose, myself and John Locker in our research into this subject.

Over 300 pages of US Army documents (released 1994 I think?) on the subject of "UFOs" make it clear that German origins are of the greatest importance. I can quote ad nauseam from these for anybody who is interested but just one quotation from a Counter Intelligence Corps (region 6) document dated 10th November 1947 is enough to be going on with:

"It is further suspected that the flying objects seen [in 1946/7] have been developed from original plans and experiments conducted by the Germans prior to the capitulation."

(The document also says that "At the present time, construction models are being built for wind tunnel tests" and that "This canvas is to be made discreetly and to conceal our interest in this subject". No wonder this information did not appear in any of the much-vaunted 'standard' or 'conventional' texts!!!)

Incidentally, the AS6 V1 was a German circular wing aircraft that flew in 1943/44. A photograph of this is shown in hard copies of my report - again available upon request!

What about this from a declassified CIA document dated 19th October 1955:

"Project Y is being directed by John Frost. Mr.Frost is reported to have obtained his original idea for a flying disc from a group of Germans just after World War Two".

(Projects Y/Y2, P724 and the WS606 were variants of flying discs developed as part of a joint US-Canadian-British effort under the influence of Dr.Walter Miethe, who worked at the BMW plant near Prague associated with flying saucer developments during World War Two).

So much for all the evidence for our supposed "claims" being entirely taken from the occult, paranormal and Ufological fringes!

I could go on, but I don't see why I should. This kind of debunking is so typical of a UFO 'movement' that it is increasingly difficult to take seriously - unless a massive change in attitude takes place. It would seem that participants are happy with their sad little "aliens or not" arguments and occasional diversions into earth lights research. The TRUTH is that our research is right on the mark.

Perhaps that's why it's so unpopular with some.

The questions should be:

1 - Could the US and its' colleagues have developed various advanced/unconventional aircraft from 1946 onwards?

2 - Would the secrecy surrounding them have anything to do with their ultimate use?

The answers to both these questions would appear to be YES. This information does not necessarily exist on Waterstones' bookshelves or on Microsoft Encarta '98. That doesn't mean that we have no evidence or that new evidence cannot come to light.

Under Kevin's proposals, that no meaningful information on the subject could emerge before perhaps the 1950s, then we should all give up. Luckily, this is not the case and I suggest that the answers are there.

For 50 years the majority of UFO "researchers" have been pissing in the wind with alien stories on the one hand and personal attacks, Mosleyesque scandal-mongering and debunking on the other whilst a range of circular and delta-wing aircraft have been flown under their noses. Perhaps THIS is the real story.

The big question now is;

Has the UFO community been actively discouraged from looking into this or has it just taken no interest?

I suspect the latter to be the case and I suggest to the reader that UFO 'research' and wishful thinking go hand-in-hand all too often. In Kevin's case perhaps "wishing it away" might be a better description.

No doubt UFO skeptics will rally to his defence.

Who really cares? I think we know the real truth of the matter.................