Merchants And Scholars

What I am going to say is not circumstantial. It has been a very deeply rooted concept among the people that during 50 years made up one of the pioneer and leading Latin American institutions dedicated to the investigation and study of the unidentified flying objects: the Uruguayan C.I.O.V.I.This is a concept that I wrote in my book "ELEMENTS OF UFOLOGY" (Montevideo, ed. Mano a Mano, February, 1989, 102 pages). I initiated the Preface of the book with these words: "A Ufologist is someone who does not live ON the UFOs but FOR the UFOs"."We have scrupulously separated those who seriously, scientifically, with great devotion and dedication -and many times with scarce resources-dedicated their lives to the investigation and study of anomalous aerial phenomena, and those who unscrupulously, with as clear interest in making money and without any respect to the truth or the other people, have been miserable merchants of the U.A.P. subject.We have always taken seriously the results of the investigation, the criteria and ideas of those who have been real scholars dealing with the matter. They sometimes could be wrong, but they will be always honest.The merchants have never deserve our attention except to denounce them as such. They do not deal with circumstances and cases that deserve a serious consideration. The material they use is notoriously spurious and in the best case, totally distorted of the reality as to give them the benefit of the doubt.They have been historically the greatest enemies of a respectable consideration of the UFO subject. It is to them that the rest of us owe a very important role in the instillation of the idea that UFO equals extra-terrestrial spaceship. It is because of them that the issue has been a despicable one among the most respectable scientific and technological circles.In the CIOVI experience, --and surely in the experience of other serious and responsible investigators-- the only way to have the attention and to get the cooperation of scientists and technicians to analyze some cases, is to draw a clear cut line between the merchants and the scholars. Between those who use the issue of the Unusual Aerial Phenomena to make business, and those who with intellectual honesty and respectability, try to find the truth whatever it could be, but without absolutely any economical interest behind. I urge all those who are members of this Group, to adhere to this fundamental concept.It is -after all- a moral principle.As well as a contaminated sample is of no use to the analyst in the laboratory, we can not use contaminated information or allow to contaminate the environment within which we want to develop a serious approach to the U.A.P. Otherwise, we would be undermining our efforts and making null and void our possible conclusions.MILTON W. HOURCADE - VIRGINIA, AUGUST 10, 2008.