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   SUBJECT: GULF BREEZE CONTRAVERSY HANGS OVER TOWN             FILE: UFO1256   
      
      
   NEWS CLIPPING SERVICE   
      
   DATE OF ARTICLE:  January 29, 1989   
   SOURCE OF ARTICLE:  Tribune   
   LOCATION:  Tampa, Florida   
   BYLINE:  Jennifer Tucker   
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   GULF BREEZE UFOS CONTROVERSY HANGS OVER PANHANDLE TOWN   
      
   By Jennifer Tucker   
   Tribune Staff Writer   
      
        GULF  BREEZE--Ringed by two story pines and six figure  real   
   estate, Gulf Breeze is a mostly unremarkable town severed by U.S.   
   98 in the Florida Panhandle.   
        To  visitors,  its most memorable feature is a flashing neon   
   fish pointing the way to Pensacola Beach.   
        To 6,000 residents,  its most pressing problem is a 70  mile   
   detour  around  the Pensacola Bay Bridge,  hit and crippled by  a   
   barge two weeks ago.   
        In 16 years,  only two murders have torn this town.   In  12   
   years, only 10 bank robberies have occured.   
           But  in  the last year and a half,  more than  135  local   
   witnesses have reported seeing something they can't identify.   
        One  prominent  Gulf Breeze resident has taken more than  30   
   photographs  of  a UFO.   This man,  who protects  his  anonymity   
   behind  the name "Ed," has photographed a craft so fantastic  and   
   unfamiliar  that many people believe the pictures are first  rate   
   fakes.   
        Skeptics  merely  point to the east where  Eglin  Air  Force   
   Base,  one of the country's largest military installations,  lies   
   like a wall to wall flying carpet.   
        The  Gulf  Breeze  stories--told  to  the  nation  by  NBC's   
   "Unsolved  Mysteries"  and CNN,  among others--have inspired  UFO   
   researchers  to  undertake a dramatic debate of  possibility  vs.   
   probability.   
        Researchers agree on only one thing:  Either the Gulf Breeze   
   UFO sightings are some of the most phenomenal ever  recorded,  or   
   the  Gulf  Breeze UFO sightings are some of the most  exaggerated   
   ever reported.   
        Among the eyewitnesses are a federal judge, a politician and   
   a prominent physician.   
      
   THE NEIGHBORS   
        Art and Mary Hufford don't even live in town.   Their homey,   
   ranch style house is on a sycamore lined street in  Pensacola,  a   
   bridge's drive away from Gulf Breeze.   
        But the Huffords remember,  in perfect detail, an evening in   
   early November 1987.  The couple was in their car, just two miles   
   from home, when they saw something gray, oval and silent fly over   
   the treetops, Art says.   
        The  craft  remained in view for several minutes,  yet  when   
   they got home and talked about it, Art says they couldn't come up   
   with a rational explanation.   
        "It  just didn't make any sense," says Art,  a  soft  spoken   
   chemical engineer with a master's degree and 25 years' experience   
   at Monsanto Chemical Co.   
        Both  Huffords  are elders in the Presbyterian  church,  and   
   Mary is a sustaining member of the Junior League of Pensacola.   
        "We  thought UFOs were something that happened to Billy  Bob   
   out on a boat after too many beers," Art says, wryly.   
        But then, several weeks after their sighting, the couple saw   
   Ed's  photographs  in the Pensacola edition of  the  Gulf  Breeze   
   newspaper.   "It  was like someone had taken a picture out of our   
   brains," Art says.  "That was it."   
        Through 1988, the couple shared their experience with others   
   similarly affected.  At social gatherings, when Art mentioned the   
   sighting,  he  says  people would pull him aside  with  whispered   
   confessions of their own experiences.   
        And  Art is convinced that what he saw was not a product  of   
   modern technology or man made trickery.   
        "Frankly," Art says, "the debunkers make me mad.  I saw what   
   I saw."   
      
   PARTY INVITATIONS   
        Fenner  and  Shirley McConnell of Gulf Breeze had  sent  out   
   invitations to their annual June get together with tongue planted   
   firmly in cheek.   
        The  front  of the invitation featured a  cartoon  of  alien   
   creatures  rollicking through city streets,  and inside they told   
   revelers it would be a "UFO watching party."   
        Two  days  before the 1988 party,  the  couple  says,  their   
   invitation sprang to life outside their bedroom window.  They saw   
   a cylindrical craft,  ringed in windows and lights, hovering over   
   Pensacola Bay.   
        Fenner  McConnell,  a  physician and  medical  examiner  for   
   Florida's District 1,  says the craft came within 75 yards of the   
   house, and at one point "I thought it was going to land on it."   
        Shirley McConnell,  a caterer,  says she was overcome by "an   
   eerie  feeling,"  but she immediately recognized the  craft  from   
   Ed`s photographs.   
        The  couple went outside to get a better look.   It  hovered   
   for  nearly four minutes and then "kind of drifted away,"  Fenner   
   McConnell says.   
        "I'm  not  saying that I believe it's from another  planet,"   
   Shirley McConnell says, "but it's something I had never laid eyes   
   on in my life.  People can say whatever they want about me, but I   
   know what I saw.  Ed didn't make this up."   
        Likewise,  Brenda Pollak says the large,  lighted craft  she   
   saw  twice  in  one  night during the spring of 1988  was  not  a   
   figment of her imagination.   
        She  was driving east across the Pensacola Bay  Bridge  when   
   she saw it the first time,  looking "too big and too bright...and   
   very different from anything I had ever seen before."   
        Nearing  her home on Shoreline Drive in Gulf Breeze,  Pollak   
   pulled  into the parking lot of the city's recreation center  and   
   parked.   
        She  says she watched the craft hover over the  bay--unaware   
   that  a few blocks away,  Ed was taking a photograph of the  very   
   same craft.   
        "I  was exhilarated," says Pollak,  a two term City  Council   
   member who works with Ed on community projects.   
        "I  can tell you now--for every one person who has  reported   
   seeing the craft,  there are 10 who talk about it but don't  want   
   anyone to know," Pollak adds.   
        "And  I can also tell you if this is a hoax,  it can't be Ed   
   because  it would make him look like an idiot and  the  community   
   look crazy."   
      
   THE RESEARCHERS   
        Scientists can't help making comparisons.   
        In  the  1970's,  a  Swiss laborer named Edward  Meier  took   
   hundreds of photographs of a 'spaceship' near Zurich.   
        Although  some  people consider his  photographs  authentic,   
   others  believe  they  are fakes,  basing  their  conclusions  on   
   damning photographic analyses.   
        Nevertheless,  scientists acknowledge that Meier`s  pictures   
   are remarkably clever.   
        So  it is with Ed,  whose photographs have been analyzed and   
   scrutinized  by  two  of  the  country's  foremost   photographic   
   experts.   
        Moreover,  the  photographs--and Ed's cooperation with  some   
   UFO  investigators--have caused a political rift so powerful that   
   participants  think  the  case could damage  the  future  of  UFO   
   research in America.   
        At odds are investigators with the Mutual UFO Network,  a 20   
   year  old group of scientists and 'grass roots' researchers,  and   
   the Center for UFO Studies,  a non profit conclave founded by  J.   
   Allen Hynek, a leading American astronomer who died in 1986.   
        Network directors support Ed's story; the center does not.   
        The  network bases its opinion primarily on the findings  of   
   Bruce Maccabee,  a Naval physicist studying optics and underwater   
   sound in addition to working with the FBI.   
        The  center bases its opinion on its own researchers as well   
   as  on Robert Nathan,  a member of the technical staff of  NASA's   
   Jet Propulsion Laboratory.   
      
   INTRICATE REPORT   
        Maccabee,   who  published  an  intricate  90  page   report   
   examining the evidence, concludes that the photographs are real.   
        He   applied   the   properties  of  physics   and   various   
   mathematical theories to determine things such as the size of the   
   ship,  the  distance  of the craft from the camera lens  and  odd   
   angles of the photographs.   
        More important, Maccabee says, he wasn't "biased by the idea   
   that it's too impossible,  therefore it can't be real."   Critics   
   would  "rather take the approach that if the pictures could  have   
   been hoaxed then they must have been," he says.   
        Maccabee  reasons  that  Ed  could not  have  performed  the   
   photographic feats necessary to pull off such an elaborate  hoax.   
   "A professional magician would have a difficult time doing this,"   
   he says.   
        Last year,  staffers at a Pensacola television station tried   
   to reproduce Ed's photographs using a model.   They gave up after   
   their attempts failed miserably, Maccabee says.   
        He  further admonishes skeptics for questioning the look  of   
   the craft--"Nobody knows what UFOs look like," Maccabee says.   
        And  he  points  out  what he considers to  be  the  weighty   
   circumstantial  evidence in Ed's favor--including testimony  from   
   friends and witnesses, one of them Ed's wife.   
        Skeptics,  however,  side with NASA's Nathan.   Although  he   
   acknowledges  that he "hasn't given the pictures the kind of care   
   Bruce  has,"  Nathan says a visual  examination  reveals  glaring   
   inconsistencies--typical of double exposures.   
      
   IRREGULARITIES IN PHOTOS   
        The  spaceship  is  brighter  and more  in  focus  than  the   
   background,  he  says,  and these irregularities are repeated  in   
   picture after picture.   
        Nathan  concludes  that the object looks like "a gas  burner   
   turned  upside  down" and that its apparent lack of  symmetry  is   
   simply  "inconsistent  with what you would expect from  a  highly   
   developed society."   
        Mark  Rodeghier,  scientific director of the Center for  UFO   
   Studies,  says  the  Gulf Breeze case has  "deteriorated  into  a   
   shouting  match"  because  his organization was  forced  to  play   
   devil's advocate.   
        Investigators  with the Mutual UFO Network were too quick to   
   judge  the photographs favorably,  he says,  and  those  comments   
   biased Maccabee's analysis.   
        "Except  those  intimately connected with  the  network,  90   
   percent  of serious UFO researchers think Gulf Breeze is a hoax,"   
   Rodeghier concludes.   
        Among those who agree with that assessment is Philip  Klass,   
   considered  the country's premier debunker of UFOs.   Although he   
   has  not  seen the Gulf Breeze photographs,  Klass  says  he  has   
   scanned Maccabee's report and finds it improbable.   
        "Any UFO case,  whether it involves pictures or not, is sort   
   of  like  that  old  adage  that a woman  cannot  be  10  percent   
   pregnant.   If one photo is a hoax,  then they all must be thrown   
   out,"  says  Klass,  who surmises that the  photographs  are  too   
   "suspect" to be real.   
        Klass  reiterates  his  claim by stating,  "In 22  years  of   
   investigating,  I have never investigated or heard of a UFO  case   
   that cannot be explained in prosaic terms."   
      
   JUST THE FACTS   
        "I  deal in facts," says Jerry Brown,  Gulf Breeze's 42 year   
   old  chief  of police,  whose carpeted office smells  faintly  of   
   cinnamon and coffee.   
        "Granted--anyplace,  any time,  anything can happen to  you.   
   But  why  would people call about a prowler and not call about  a   
   UFO that's landed in their yard?"   
        The  police chief knows Ed and likes him.   Yet  Brown  says   
   he's  concerned  about  the possibility "that one  person,  as  a   
   practical  joke...could destroy what it's taken so many years  to   
   build."   
        Ed`s supporters,  meanwhile,  believe Gulf Breeze  attracted   
   the  unknown visitors because of the reputation the city  already   
   had built--as a well off, well educated, open minded community.   
        "There  is  a direct correlation between education  and  the   
   acceptance  of  the UFO phenomenon," says  Donald  Ware,  Florida   
   director of the Mutual UFO Network.   
        "I  am  convinced  the  reason one man  was  given  so  many   
   photographic opportunities is because the aliens wanted us to see   
   those pictures," Ware says.   
      
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