Extraordinary claims. Ordinary investigations.

A penguin. Atop a pine tree. Or, if you prefer, el pingüino en un pino. Ta-dah!

Jaime Maussán, this courageous UFO and paranormal investigator in Mexico, and another piece of the unexplained conundrum of the mysterious world of the enigmas.

The father of the respected witness even saw the penguin fly afterwards. Wow!

Incidentally, another brave Mexican paranormal investigator, and friends with Maussán, is called Santiago Yturria Garza. That’s Spanish for heron. Maussán? Well, that’s Spanish for what Penn & Teller call their show.

In 1917, Elsie Wright, 16, and Frances Griffiths, only 10 years old, photographed fairies. Their photos were allegedly examined at Kodak, and no evidence of trickery was found. Most notably, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would endorse the whole case of the Cottingley Fairies.

Later (actually, decades later) it would turn out the fairies were simple cut-outs fixed with pin-hats – which explains why the photos weren’t tricked, as the fairies were real, in a way. And the now old ladies would also confess to their deed:

“People wanted to be taken in”.

… 50 years ago, when Major Donald Keyhoe, director of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena, was interviewed by Mike Wallace.

It’s dismaying how little our knowledge about UFOs, also known as “ufology", has advanced. In fact, it probably got even more confusing. There, in 1958, was a public figure representing the first civil UFO research group, with clear arguments, admitting they didn’t have "absolute proof" of the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis, discarding the nonsense of the contactees, backed by high-ranking credible witnesses. At that time, UFOs were officially investigated by the USAF. Later, congressional hearings on the subject would be conducted, even a symposium on the AAAS is part of what has been done. You would assume everyone seriously interested in ufology knows that.

But half a century later, we can’t even use the term "flying saucer" without immediate association with Greys, Area 51, MJ-12 and all those kitsch pop culture elements. Abductions are taken seriously. There are still contactees and even those who take them seriously. People keep trying to prove not only UFOs, but Zeta Reticulli spaceships are real by presenting credible witnesses, exactly like Keyhoe decades ago, and claims that this or that case are "absolute proof" of the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis, much unlike Keyhoe, saluting every Larry King show as a "great advance".

Fact is, the flying saucers are still as real as they were more than 50 years ago. But the spokespersons for them, it seems, got a lot more unreal.

The remaining two parts of Keyhoe’s interview after the jump below.

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This video is from 1981. The interview is also the subject of Feynman’s book The Pleasure of Finding Things Out.

“I have a friend who’s an artist and he’s some times taken a view which I don’t agree with very well. He’ll hold up a flower and say, "look how beautiful it is," and I’ll agree, I think. And he says, "you see, I as an artist can see how beautiful this is, but you as a scientist, oh, take this all apart and it becomes a dull thing." And I think he’s kind of nutty.

First of all, the beauty that he sees is available to other people and to me, too, I believe, although I might not be quite as refined aesthetically as he is. But I can appreciate the beauty of a flower.

At the same time, I see much more about the flower that he sees. I could imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside which also have a beauty. I mean, it’s not just beauty at this dimension of one centimeter: there is also beauty at a smaller dimension, the inner structure… also the processes.

The fact that the colors in the flower are evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting - it means that insects can see the color.

It adds a question - does this aesthetic sense also exist in the lower forms that are… why is it aesthetic, all kinds of interesting questions which a science knowledge only adds to the excitement and mystery and the awe of a flower.

It only adds. I don’t understand how it subtracts.”

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Retired lawyer of ‘Banco do Brasil’ and three times South-American underwater hunting champion, Amilar Vieira Filho (83), died [yesterday, June 11th] after being shot during an attempted robbery in the Permietral Avenue, downtwon Rio de Janeiro.

According to the police, he was driving home towards Niteroi. Vieira Filho was one of the founders of the Icaraí Underwater Hunting Club, in Nitereiu, and was member of the Icaraí Yacht Club. The lawyer also became known as one of the witnesses of the alleged sighting of a UFO in Brazil, in 1958, in the case that became known worldwide as the Trindade Island Case.
source: Tricampeão de caça submarina é morto no RJ [in Portuguese]

Last February I interviewed Amilar Vieira Filho, who graciously answered all my questions about the Trindade case. He was still os a very clear mind, and must have had long years ahead. Above, a photo from the times that he was president of the Underwater Hunting Club.

Vieira Filho joked that he was the last one standing, and he was in fact the last known witness alive. This tragic news is even more tragic because, in Brazil, we don’t have to imagine any terrible government conspiracy to silence him.

Such crimes are commonplace, Rio being a particularly dangerous area.

None of the other known witnesses have been murdered, but one is already too much.