HAIR of the ALIEN on www.radiooutthere.com

Available now on www.radiooutthere.com is Barry Eaton's recent excellent interview of Peter Khoury and myself. Barry Eaton's interview first appeared on his Sydney, NSW, Australia FM 99.3 radio show on 2NSB North Shore on Wednesday September 28th 2005. It will be available directly on the web site and later via its archived shows for a while.

I particularly enjoyed the interview because it gave me the opportunity to catch up with Barry again. The first time I encountered him was back in 1991 when he was the MC for Gary Wiseman's highly successful UFO conference held at the Sebel Town House in Sydney. This conference also featured my friends Jenny Randles from the UK and Jerome Clark from the US.

I remembered that Barry was fielding questions after my lecture, which was on physical evidence of UFO reality, one of my long term focuses in this subject. I had given what I thought was a somewhat conservative presentation anchored in hard data that argued for a physical reality for UFOs. So I was hoping to get some intelligent questions on the subject of UFO reality. The first question fell far short of that and turned out to be a question that Barry even characterised as a pretty silly question. I was being asked to confirm whether I was a CIA operative!

Only a week or two earlier I had been fingered by a Nexus group video presenter as being an ASIO agent! Fortunately I over heard that bit of stupidity and wild and wooly thinking and confronted the fellow on the spot. He was clearly apologetic, but I was more interested in getting him to try to critically think through his silly claim.

Back to the Sebel Town house lecture and the question as to whether I was CIA, I was thinking how to respond to this silliness. If you try to seriously respond and deny it you are accused of lying (assuming a conspiratorial believer menality), if you try the humorous route one is accused of avoiding the issue, and if one tries the joking approach of agreeing to the fantasy, you run the risk of such people actually believing you. Surprisingly it was the then president of the Australian Skeptics Barry Williams who came to my rescue! Barry and I had jousted on the subject of UFOs from time to time. Barry was in the audience and interjected saying , I know Bill and yes he is CIA! Yes, he works in the food industry and he is in the Catering Institute of Australia (CIA). Barry knew that I worked in the food industry as a chemist and laboratory/quality manager. He invented the Catering Institute of Australia connection. While I did work in the food industry at the time, the humorous connection was a good healthy way to diffuse a silly question and the audience seemed to agree.

Later I sought out the fellow who asked the question to give a more considered reality check for his rampant delusions about me. I found him manning his stand, promoting a Nazi UFO theory and other conspiratorial takes. It seemed clear to me that no matter what I said and no matter what evidence I highlighted to the contrary I would be viewed in a conspiratorial light!

I welcomed Barry Eaton's good sense and Barry Williams unlikely defence of me.

I hope you find the interviews with Peter Khoury and myself of interest, and that it encourages you to consider the subject more deepily, including getting into the detailed evidence my book on Peter Khoury's experience presents: HAIR of the ALIEN - available via www.amazon.com or via various bookstores.

Bill Chalker