November 9, 1974 - Carbondale, Pennsylvania, USA:
A glowing object fell into a small lake outside town. Three teenagers saw it fall at 7:30 p.m. on a Saturday. They observed a yellow-white glow under the water that shifted to a point 25 feet offshore. The boys were kept in a police car for three hours while a number of vehicles with floodlights and cranes removed a disc-shaped object and put it into a van.
The following Monday, a railroad lantern and battery were recovered from the lake and officials called the whole thing a hoax.
May 2007 addition: although it is clearly stated in the above line since I opened this brief file in 2003, the case was labeled a hoax, one Mr. Graber, whom I knew as having published previously to have privately investigated the case and concluded that the whole thing was a hoax just like the officials have said and just like I had written, contacted my be email, to tell me that it's a hoax and that my page is "shoddy".
He started by calling me a "phantom ufologist", I guess this was his way of saying that he could not find my name. Firstly, my name does appear on my website when appropriate, for example in the "your reports" section. I have never hid my name whatsoever. Secondly, the reason that my name does not appear immediately to those visiting the website is that in my personal opinion, ufology should not be a mean to get famous of well-known or promote one's ego. I never promoted my ego, I think it is unimportant that my name is Patrick Gross or Hans Muckensturm or whatever, I never sold anything UFO, I don't haunt UFO conferences, gathering, salons, in short: what's the big deal about my name?
But ok, here I go, for Mr. Graber's benefit: my name is Patrick Gross, I am French, I reside at 1 rue des Vergers 68100 Mulhouse FRANCE, my phone in France is 03 89 06 08 81, my email is patrick.gross@inbox.com, I'm 44 as of 2007, I am a professional IT technician, I read and speak French, German, English, I have a "Baccalaureat D", I have two kids, my wife is a brunette, I'm interested in UFO reports since 2000, I should wash the dishes now. What else does anyone want to know about my person? Well, folks, why not just ask me if that's really important to you?
Then Mr. Graeber protested about the reader's email underneath, which I received in 2003, apparently displeased that I don't call it a hoax also, as he apparently decided that what the reporter saw must have been the lantern in the lake too. Weird assumption, actually. Well, I don't call it a hoax because I see no evidence thereof and I don't call it a true story because I see no evidence thereof. This is a story that a reader of this web site wished to tell me, I share it, end of story.
Because I received something between 20 to 50 emails a day related to ufology, not to mention the rest, I did not immediately respond to Mr. Graber's really not so polite email, a few days later he sent a second one, menacing to publish my name in an article that would accuse my "shoddiness". I thus replied that I was sorry for not replying immediately previously, and that he should feel free to publish whatever he felt like about me and my shoddy page. This time, he replied that he would point at "eight factual errors" in my page in a forthcoming article. He would not tell me what these are, he apparently is much more interested in ridiculing errors. But possibly as some sort of chevaleresque gesture of mercy - in his mind - he specified that he would only blame my shoddyness and not publish my name; which is Patrick Gross by the way.
Yawn.
Interestingly, it seems that Mr. Graeber is used to be a bit on his nerves about the Carbondale hoax, if we are to believe (no don't) what I just found here when I looked for his article (I had read his say on the case on UFOupdates a few months ago, see http://www.virtuallystrange.net/ufo/updates/2006/feb/m14-002.shtml ) http://www.burlingtonnews.net/carbondalegraeber.html
Double yawn. Back to the rest of the page, now.
Subj: ufo crash site, Carbondale, pa.
Date: 17.08.2003 07:20:42 AM Pacific Daylight Time
From: xxx@yyy [I keep this confidential - site's author]
I was living in the Pocono Mountains in November of 1974. I read the original story in the Pocono Record, published in Stroudsburg, Pa. My parents saw the object that evening. That sighting was near the town of Hawley, Pa, on Lake Wallenpaupack. I can assure you, that it was no hoax. There have been other sightings of U.F.O.s around that area over the years. While I was living there, I had several unusual things happen to me. I met two fellows from Carbondale, back then... that told me they were chased away from the crash site the evening of the event. I think our government has sophisticated flying toys, that they just keep from us, and start the rumors about little grey men. Anyway, thought you might like to know, I remember that quite clearly, and the green haze... floating around after dark... like it had intelligence ...and seemed to follow travelers along the road.
I can be reached at xxx@yyy [I keep this confidential - site's author] Thanks [name kept confidential]
Mr. Graeber then published his article. A real masterpiece! Here it is with my comments:
"Huckster"? Oooh, an insult.
Discontent? How am I "discontent?" What does this mean?
"Hobbyist"? Does it mean Mr. Graeber is not a hobbyist? Does he claim to be a professional ufologist? Has he got some "ufology degree"? Is there some "Ufology school" where he got a diploma? Since when does this exist?
Oh gee, just in a title, we get an insult, one nonsense, and a whimsical claim.
Opportunist? What "opportunities"? What does it mean? Insults again...
Insults again, not at me, apparently, not my issue then.
Now, Mr. Graeber claims I'm a Carbondale expert. Laughable. I just put a few line to summarize what's being told around, no more no less.
Ooh that's a shame. I know a skeptical ufologist from Barcelona, Spain. Let's blame him a lot, because he wrote an article about how UFO photographs from Argentina are hoaxes and confusions. Shame! How dare he, when he doesn't even reside in Argentina! And what about Mr. John Rimmer, U-K., writing about USA's Ken Arnold seeing pelicans or whatever, or Barauna tricking photographs on the Island of Trindade, the Atlantic Ocean, where, as far as I know, Mr. Rimmer has not set foot, or did he? Let's blame him, right? Let's call him an "online panderer", right?
But, hey, wait a minute... What about this: "In South America, Antonio Villas Boas was allegedly “seduced” aboard a space “scow” by a perfectly formed, albeit petite, spacewoman who made barking sounds during her extra-species sexual encounter with Villas Boas."
Who wrote this? Must be some South American ufologist, surely! Mr. Graeber would certainly not dare to write with some UFO story from far away like some "shoddy propagandist", right? Not after such a lecture, right?
Wrong. Mr. Graeber actually writes a lot on cases from far away! Wow, c'mon guys, let's stone him!
See: http://deabro7.100webcustomers.com/ufoprotoscience.htm
Nah! It's a hoax, that Carbondale stuff. Just look at the top of my page, that's what I wrote.
Huh! Now, I'm a "UFO aficionado". What about the discontent opportunist hobbyist?
You'd wish the Internet was shut down, huh?
... Allowed Mr. Graeber to rant pages after pages about a few lines I once wrote on the Carbondale stuff.
So here we are: the net would be so nice and true if it only belonged to Mr. Graeber, I guess?
No less! I falsify history now. Wow.
That guy, he'd put me at the lunatic asylum right away I guess.
Yes, I have "borrowed" what is being said about that Carbondale stuff. I did not "create" it, obviously!
Sure, it's full of errors. As I wrote, it's a hoax, by the way.
Sure that's stupid. "Carbondale New Jersey", huh ho. But I can't care less, since my lines above are about "Carbondale Pennsylvania", you see...
Er?
Tell me something new.
Yes, that's all over this horrible Internet.
Stop! Pause!
May I recall what I wrote: "a railroad lantern and battery were recovered from the lake and officials called the whole thing a hoax."
Huh ho, a hoax, just like I told you, folks.
This is quite an unexpected statement by Mr. Graeber. So now it's not a hoax, but a hoax "probably? Gosh! I was quite sure it really was a hoax, and now after all this rant, I get the word "probably" !
Where the hell did I state anything in the first place about beliefs or bias of Mr. Graeber in the case in the first place? Nowhere. So, this has nothing to do with me.
Can't care less: I'm not from Wisconsin, I didn't "Turn" any hoax into a classic UFO crash retrieval, on the contrary, to me, it's a hoax, not even a hoax "probably" in my opinion!
Read it already before Mr. Graeber's rants about me, but I knew and wrote about the case being a hoax before Mr. Graeber issued these articles. the story with the lantern found in the pound is known since ages, even on my side of the ocean, by a number of the so-called "UFOOlogists" Mr. Graber loves to hate. Hence my few lines and lack of interest in spending too much time on the well-known hoax.
Sure, people can read my answer to Mr. Graeber's rants, whether he likes it or not.
So what? That's the summary of the case as it is all over the Internet. My addition is that officials recovered a railroad lantern and battery from the lake and officials called the whole thing a hoax. And where's the reference to the source of the paragraph that makes Mr. Graeber so angry?
That paragraph was never meant to be more than that, never meant to be more than "The Story". Never mean to be an investigation on this or that detail of the story. There are many heavy documented file on my site, this one is not, was never meant to be. It's there to mention a story, and to specify the stuff about the officials finding a lantern in the lake. I have another example of a similar page, see:
Wow, I didn't do a proper investigation! Look at that!
Surely one of these days an angry man would rant for pages about my "illusions", "shoddiness" and "error-filled posting" on this other "extraordinary UFO crash" I am "promoting" to pervert the young minds with the "UFO pathology", as he calls it in his essays, right?
Er... nope, it sounds more like a summary of a UFO crash hoax to me, doesn't it?
It's not really factually accurate, Mr. Graeber: it was a hoax.
Wow, what a "fatal flaw". Not a small lake, but a man-made pond. No folks, the story that goes on here and there is that a UFO crashed in a small lake, and actually that's all just a hoax.
I could have called it an ocean if you will. The story as it is told on the net says a small lake. I did not, repeat, not, intend to publish an investigation of that story. But it's a hoax, whether pond, lake or whatever. I did not endorse the story as it appears here and there, I summarized what is said here and there in a few lines and added underneath that a lamp was found and it was called just a hoax by the officials.
No "buts"! That's how the story goes.
And decades later, from faraway France, I fancifully summarize the plot and informed my readers: it was a hoax.
Yes, that's why I informed my reader: it was a hoax.
Ignored? No way. I actually posted Mr. Graeber's entire article just here!
Again: I wrote 3 or 4 lines of the basic plot, informed my readers that it was called a hoax. And posted all the information Mr. Graeber sent me.
Now, Mr. Graeber starts to show that he can't read. My website here is not a "crash proponent site", absolutely not, never was. Any reader can check this and read my debunking of many such stories!
And I never ever wrote anything about Carbondale being a "real UFO crash" anywhere. A fact that Mr. Graeber "conveniently ignores", as he would put it.
Not my concern.
Yes, that's about what the kids told.
That's really silly. Of course there was no "glowing object which fell from the sky", all there was, was the kids claiming this, and the officials finding the lantern and calling it a hoax. Read again: "The following Monday, a railroad lantern and battery were recovered from the lake and officials called the whole thing a hoax."
Nope, Mr. Gross quickly and very briefly summarized what was on the net about that story, and informed his readers: that one was a hoax.
Now, of course, the summary is not very good. Yes, I can understand that whereas the story on the net talk about the object shifting 25 feet of shore, that part was not accurate if the alleged shift was not actually claimed to have been seen when it occurred, but "speculated" by the boys or the author of the Internet story as I picked up.
But you see, my few lines were never meant to be any sort of "investigation" of the story. It is there, in a section on alleged UFO crash stories, as it is published on the net, with this brief additional line in which I inform my reader that the officials found a lantern in the small lake, oops, man-made pond, and called the whole thing a hoax.
So it may have been seen shifting places after all, right? But here's the terrible truth; I don't care much in this case. I summarized all this in 3 or 4 lines and informed my readers that it was a hoax.
Now of course, I can understand that Mr. Graeber who was there is very proud of knowing all the details, and I don't doubt that he can tell much, much more details on the events that I can, but you see, gentle folks, I don't really give a damn: the lines put there were merely meant to allow the readers to roughly understand which UFO crash story this is about and to let know that the officials found a lantern in the lake and called the whole thing a hoax.
That's what Mr. Graeber calls "promoting a UFO crash". That, is an outrageous claim.
So again, it may have appeared to shift at some time for another reason; and still, my page as well as my entire website however had nothing to do with "promoting UFO crashes", as claimed by Mr. Graeber.
So? There are many claims about vehicles and cranes, and in the end, a lantern was found and it was all a hoax.
That's an easy one: Mr. Graeber thinks an object that requires a van must be lightweight and not require cranes. Nope. An object that is put in a van CAN be heavy enough to require cranes.
Yes, it could have made sense. An object, "IF" it requires a van for transportation could be heavy enough to require a crane.
Ah, insults again. There will be more of those.
Uh? Mr. Graeber's claim is unsupported: he will never find any proclamation of mine about being a UFO expert at all. Nowhere!
This tells a lot about Mr. Graeber's "psychology" versus mine, doesn't it?
Mr. Graeber claims I never spend time investigating reports. Ridiculous lie, just visit my website.
Mr. Graeber claims I never spend time researching reliable documentation. Another ridiculous lie, just visit my website.
Nope, in this case, I did not. I only intended to briefly summarize that there was this story of a UFO crash at Carbondale, that one with the disc in the small lake, er, man-made pond, and it was just a lantern, and that was enough for me. Of course, Mr. Graeber has pages and pages about the story, so he can't understand that I was just not fascinated enough as to go beyond my short summary. Then, he goes into personal attacks, insults, and the rest, as we shall see.
What does this mean? What's that about "military personnel" ?
What's that about "Army engineers"? there is no word in my few lines about any Army engineers or military personnel. It seems that Mr. Graeber is extrapolating a lot. Is that how he conducts his investigations?
What assertions? I see no assertion, and in particular, nothing about "military personnel" or "Army engineers"!
Mmm. Seems we got Mr. "Accurate Reporting" teaching lessons he doesn't apply...
Ah, insults.
My inexperience? Nope, I won't forewarn about this claimed "inexperience".
Lack of credentials? What credentials? The infamous "UFO school diploma" I never claimed to exist?
What does Mr. Graeber knows about the content of the email I get and the content of my responses? Does he know? Does he imagine?
Does he claim stuff, or does he ask before making claims?
What bias? The bias of having set up a section about these UFO crashes stories worded "possible", "alleged", and putting up an admittedly brief overview of the claims and a comment about the whole thing being a hoax according to the officials?
Really? You must be kidding, Mr. Graeber, surely I must have claimed to be a "UFO expert" somewhere?
Just keep on looking Mr. Graeber, so that you can substantiate your claim.
Just look for the evidence that I ever claimed that there are schools of ufology, and accreditations, Mr. Graeber.
Surely, you wouldn't want people to think that this is just one silly claim of yours? surely you have the evidence that I claimed somewhere sometime that there are "schools of UFOlogy" and "accreditations", right? you are a "serious researcher" yourself, as opposed to me, right? Maybe you have this UFO school diploma, right?
Of course, Mr. Graeber is not a "hobbyist" like me. He must be a professional, right?
Will he prove his point by producing evidence that his ufology is not hobby but some form of "accredited", or professional or paid or academia-sponsored activity?
Nah. I didn't rewrite no history.
I wrote a few lines about that Carbondale stuff, and informed my readers that it's a hoax, and readily published everything Mr. Graeber so kindly wrote about me.
A boo to his claim that I do not publish his say.
What fantasies bolstering? What illusions? Again for Mr. Graeber: that Carbondale stuff was a hoax, I told my readers.
what is that all about? So I'm a "non-nuts-and-no-bolts" UFOlogist now?
It's always interesting to see "serious" "non-hobbyist" ufologist put their little handy ready-made labels on this or that guy.
Of course, in his big obsession with the Carbondale hoax, Mr. Graeber issues yet another unsupported claim. In my case, it is simply a big lie of his to claim that I deny the possibility of prosaic and psychological explanations. My evidence? My website is full of those. But Mr. Graeber didn't look at it. It would be too disturbing for his hateful portray. It won't appear in Mr. Rimmer's bulletin either, I guess.
What he just wrote here is quite simply pure BS to me.
Again a lie repeated: nowhere did I ever claim the Carbondale UFO crash story to be "True and totally mysterious"; what I wrote was that the following Monday, a railroad lantern and battery were recovered from the lake and officials called the whole thing a hoax.
Yes, that's what Mr. Graeber calls "fantasies bolstering" and "obvious illusions" and "cherish and defend" a report.
There's a lantern with a battery in it, it seems to me that without a battery the lantern couldn't have produced any light, right? So what is this "factual error" here? Is it that I didn't specify exactly that the battery was inside the lantern? Oh, shoddy me, hang me for this UFOcrime!
Of course the battery was indise the lantern: that's how the lantern produced the light, you see. Sorry that this wasn't correctly stated.
As opposed to the very carefully worded posts by Mr. Graeber I guess?
The only statement that might be right? wow. So it wasn't at Carbondale, it was not in Pennsylvania, there was no lantern, there was no battery, there was no kids, there was no officials, there was no hoax, right?
Look who's giving lessons about "distortions" and "exaggerations"!
Mmm. I live in illusions and the cops are dumb. But the world is saved through Mr. Graeber's intelligence I guess.
So, if I understand this correctly, the only evidence that it was a hoax was that one of the teens confessed 25 years later according to a newspaper?
Silly me! I was quite convinced that the officials had found a lantern and called the whole thing a hoax at the time.
Ha! You see: Mr. Graeber makes all this big fuss about it, I just wrote a few lines, informing that it was called a hoax. My crime, then? to have not spent any significant amount of time on that one?
The people, the "impressionable minds of young people", when they read my summary, will see that it was called a hoax, they will see that I didn't care about it much, that I only write a few lines, as they are much wiser and knowledgeable about my website than Mr. Graeber is, they will not fail to note that these few lines are in no way the sort of file I gather when I am really interested in a UFO case.
Not my issue. I wrote "The following Monday, a railroad lantern and battery were recovered from the lake and officials called the whole thing a hoax."
Nope, I did not devote more than a few minutes to this story!
I said nothing about "authorities", and it is really unimportant to me given the very limited ambition of my lines to investigate about the boys seeing a meteor or not. To me, this is a non-important UFO crash story that deserved not more than a few lines, and this:
"The following Monday, a railroad lantern and battery were recovered from the lake and officials called the whole thing a hoax."
But Mr. Graeber wants to ridicule ufologists; so he has to try to convince you that these few lines and this one more sentence are supposed to be a demonstration that there was a real UFO crash in Carbondale...
There is no untruth. There is a few lines summary about that story that's being told about a UFO crash there, and a brief line about "a railroad lantern and battery were recovered from the lake and officials called the whole thing a hoax."
There is no opinion at all in my few lines. The nearest to an "opinion" in these few lines is "a railroad lantern and battery were recovered from the lake and officials called the whole thing a hoax."
If this is wrong, boo as you wish.
Read again this "distortion of facts" and "propaganda" I wrote:
"a railroad lantern and battery were recovered from the lake and officials called the whole thing a hoax."
What about Mr. Graeber's unsupported claim about my so-called self proclamation as "expert"?
Is Mr. Graeber self-proclaiming himself "serious researcher" or what?
Yawn again. Read again:
"a railroad lantern and battery were recovered from the lake and officials called the whole thing a hoax."
Now it becomes really funny:
You see, folks?
Now, Mr. Graeber, an angry man, wants to project his anger on me! Nope, I'm not angry at this nonsense, I'm just sorry when I read such utterly silly comparisons, and I'm just not surprised at all at all the emotions. I think emotion should get out of ufology.
But also now, Mr. Graeber invents ridiculous nonsense of his own and tries to convince that this is my nonsense!
That's what he calls being a "serious researcher"?
Now I'm supposed to be a "conspirationist", I'm supposed to be a 9/11 conspiracy buff!
This guy purely and simply invents what he wants the people he attacks to be like.
A serious investigator? Now I totally doubt it!
Now it becomes ridiculous. I wrote "authoritative posts" on Carbondale???
I just wrote a few quick lines and that the following Monday, a railroad lantern and battery were recovered from the lake and officials called the whole thing a hoax!
Mr. Graeber has really has lost it!
One more step with his nazi stuff and he'd get a Godwin point, by the way...
I never intended to! I don't give a damn about it, it's a hoax, that's it!
I have tons of case files on cases that I went deep into, but I simply did NOT DIG INTO this one because I think it's WORTHLESS, a HOAX, and I wanted to briefly let the people know that it was a hoax according to the officials, who found a lantern, and I told this long before Mr. Graeber came up with his "UFOupdates" articles!
I have never ever questioned the integrity of the officials who found the lantern and understood tat it was a hoax.
But now, yes, I do totally question Mr. Graeber's "lessons" here. More on that later.
The nerves of this guy!
Now he blames me because some US school kids don't know their history!
What next?
Did I bomb Pearl Harbour?
By the way: Mr. Graeber does not know that, but I was a school teacher too. Rather than mocking the kids or calling them impressionable ill-informed minds for the purpose of some agenda, when they didn't know something, I actually taught them something.
Not really inserted. Mr. Graeber wrote me a very aggressive email, etc. and now it comes to the point where he blames me about US school kids not knowing who bombed Pearl Harbour, calls me a liar, etc, etc.
But it gets worse:
If Mr. Graeber was a decent person and the serious researcher he claims to be, he would have read my article on the subject in my "UFOstupid" section:
But he didn't. He rather goes around insulting people he knows nothing of, in his haste to attack them as crackpots!
If Mr. Graeber was a decent person and the serious researcher he claims to be, he would have read my articles on the subject of many such UFO crashes stories:
../htm/dropasagamon.htm
../htm/4000canyon.htm
../htm/lyon840.htm
../ce3/1955-05-23-uk.htm
../htm/maury47.htm
../htm/brady53.htm
Etc, etc!
But he does not research, he makes claims. Ufologists must all be idiots and liars, I must be an idiot and a liar!
If Mr. Graeber was a decent person and the serious researcher he claims to be, he would have read my article on the subject of orbs here:
But he does not research, he makes claims. Ufologists must be dumb, I must be dumb!
So here we are: this guy is obviously full of spite and hatred, judges people in a snap on the base of a few lines that he distorts such as to make believe they tell exactly the contrary of what they tell.
I respect a person's anonymity, my own decision, and he distorts that into "an un-named source". He knows "The Truth", right? Aliens, that's "improbable", of course. Can't be. It's a pathology. It's for the money. I pervert the youth. He would rant about misspelling his name! Gosh, another crime against history I made... Yes, I am sorry at that, I apologize to Mr. Graeber and the poor US school kids and it was not meant as "UFO crash propaganda" I swear. But really, if we must split hair, what about Mr. Gräber's "Bosch"? Aha, gotcha: it's "Les Boches"! You see, "Bosch" is a well-known tools manufacturer in Germany. By the way "Gross" means tall, and "Gräber" means graves. And it's not "Vichey", it's Vichy.
He would lecture me about German - which I actually use half of the day! Blames me for US school kids lacking knowledge about Pearl Harbour! Claim nonsense about "UFOlogy schools"! Claim that I am "anonymous" when I never was! Insults me and ufologists in general over and over again, calls this "serous research"! Associates every possible crap to my name, nice use of ad hominem tu quoque, and get this all proudly published in Mr. Rimmer's Magonia bulletin.
A serious researcher? Even though I do not share his general view on ufology and the UFO issue in general, I had actually thought he was a serious researcher when I read his posts about Carbondale on the UFOupdates at the time he posted it, but now I've seen a very different side of the man. I do think he is sincere, but I also see that he is in some sort of "holy war against the aliens" in which he is under the control of his emotions, which make it aggressive and uttering insults and hasty, unsupported and repeated generalizations about people he doesn't know at all and doesn't even try to understand correctly. To him, ufologists are "in" just for the money or the glory and other bad motivations, they are all "UFOfools" and they all suffer a "pathology." Of course, all UFO sighting reports are either lies or errors in his opinion. So, he resorts to insults, grotesque exaggerations, character assassination. This is a very invalid behavior for someone who wants so obviously to be perceived as a serious researcher, and it can also lead to all sorts of bias and errors in his own investigations. Insults and quasi-maniac focusing a mere few lines and insistence to absolutely want to distort them into some sort of "propaganda" that should explains all sorts of "evils" is just gross exaggeration and lack of fair appreciation of people's work. By being confrontational, attacking intentions whereas a polite invitation to change the details of my tiny summary that are ill-worded, and uttering ridiculous false claims and insults, his case for he Carbondale hoax - and again, it IS a hoax to me - is actually disserved.
