Gulf Breeze - Ed Walters - MUFON. A lesson in gullibility.
In 1987, Gulf Breeze, Florida (USA) resident, Ed Walters, claimed he was being harrassed by UFOs flying over his home. Of course no one but Ed, his wife Frances, co-author of their book, The Gulf Breeze Sightings, and their children, ever actually saw the UFOs Walters claims he took photos of.
Walters had MUFON and their investigators wrapped around his little finger. He could have told them the sky was falling and they would have run for cover.
I never believed Walters. I looked at the photos, no, I SAW the photos. One day as I was looking through GBS I realized that Walters had not credited, nor did he have permission, to use photos he claimed came from two other witnesses one allegedly calling himself Bill and one anonymous witness Ed named Jane. (Ed also claimed to have a telephone conversation with Jane...an entire chapter in the book.)
I requested his copyright applications from the Library of Congress and discovered that Walters claimed, on the copyrights, that he was the photogrpaher of ALL photos in the GBS...that included the Bill and Jane photos. (See: Becker: Copyright.) Morrow Publishing confirmed this.
Ed Walters pulled a good one. I think GB can be best summed up by Walters himself in this quote from a Compuserve conference held with Don Ware, December 4, 1988:
DON WARE: Ed, you have a reputation as "enjoying" a good joke?
ED WALTERS: They have tried to twist practically every part of my private and public life. There is a difference between a joke and a malicious prank. I deny emphatically ever perpetrating a prank.
Walters did not perpetrate a "(malicious) prank" no, in his mind it was just a joke. Just a joke pulled on a bunch of gullible UFO investigators. (See: Whistleblower)
Eventhough Gulf Breeze happened almost 21 years ago, it is still an important UFO case, mainly because it demonstrates what unchecked belief can do to promote a lie.
B. Becker
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