Sunday, November 09, 2014

Boyd Bushman


So the Internet is all ablaze with the “deathbed” statement of Boyd Bushman who apparently has some fine credentials and who said that he had proof that aliens have visited Earth. He even held up a picture of an alien that some claimed was the same sort of fuzzy, hard to see pictures that are often offered as evidence of aliens. The picture he held up didn’t look all that fuzzy to me. It seemed to be quite easy to see the alien.

Bushman’s claim was that he had worked at Lockheed – Martin (and some other defense related corporations) and a few wondered if that was true. It seems, however, that there is documentation to verify that. On some patent applications or the like, Lockheed – Martin had given him credit. This sort of verifies that he worked there and that he was involved in some sort of research. Here was a man with some fine credentials telling a story that was quite difficult to believe.

Among the questions to be asked are, “If he was who he said he was why would he make up such a tale? There could be no financial benefit from it given that this information didn’t appear until after his death.

This is a puzzler. But people do make up these incredible tales. A judge in Illinois, Michael O’Brien, claimed that he had been awarded two Metals of Honor but it was a lie. For twenty or so years he had maintained this until the truth came out. He had applied for the special car license plates for Medal of Honor recipients. As they checked out his claim, they learned the truth. He was confronted and resigned from the bench.

The publisher of the Arizona Republic, Clarence Darrow “Duke” Tully, claimed to be an Air Force lieutenant colonel, a fighter pilot with over 100 missions in Vietnam and a veteran of Korea. He showed up to functions in a well-tailored dress uniform complete with all his awards and decorations. The problem is that he had never served in the military, didn’t deserve to wear the uniform and had earned none of the decorations.

Now we come down to Boyd Bushman. He apparently had a rather distinguished career in the aviation industry. He worked for some of the big name organizations and filed a number of patents. In this respect he was who he said he was.

Where all this comes off the rails is when he begins to talk of aliens being held, (living?) at Area-51. In the video on YouTube and in pictures circulated on the Internet, he is holding a photograph of an alien. Apparently it was sent to him by one of his buddies. The problem is this is an alien doll that was sold at Walmart a number of years ago. There is a video of it on YouTube as well in which the man is showing us his little alien. He said it is rather delicate after all these years, but it is exactly like the one in the picture being held by Bushman which calls the picture into question. (Yes, I know that now someone will claim that the doll is based on accurate information… but really, is that a good argument for authenticity?)

I don’t know if Bushman was pulling a last minute gag on everyone or if someone had pulled a gag on him claiming the picture was real. He provides other information about the aliens, such as their 200-year life span and that they come from Quintonia, a planet somewhere in the Milky Way (or I assume it is the Milky Way because the other galaxies are just so damn far away).

But the real problem here, as it is with so many of these claims, is that there is no corroboration. We are left with having to take the word of a man no longer available to answer questions and whose credibility suffers because of the alien in the picture.

For those who don’t understand the subtleties of what I’m saying, it’s this. I don’t believe this story and unless or until there is some corroboration for it, I’ll store it with all those others I’ve been told over the years that are as thinly supported.

21 comments:

Anthony Mugan said...

I agree - clearly the most sensible approach to this sort of thing.

There was some discussion of these claims over on Jack Sarfatti's Stardrive site. Some serious people were noting that yes he was at LM (they had met him there on certain projects) but that the alleged physics he talks about are clearly nonsense - and we are not talking about some controversial highly sophisticated theory on the outer fringes of physics - we are talking elementary errors here.

All very odd and clearly not useful information at the moment,

starman said...

A key difference between O'Brien and Bushman is the former had a clear motive to make something up.

John W. Ratcliff said...

The explanation for this is quite simple. In fact it goes hand in hand with the MJ-12 documents you have been discussing of late. For a very long time members of the intelligence community have been pranking the public by releasing outlandish stories about crashed flying saucers and recovered alien bodies.

It is anyone's guess exactly why they do this but, the fact remains, that the do. They have done this in the past and apparently continue to still do so in the present.

The answer here is simple. Bushman was asked to tell these stories and he kindly obliged. The stories themselves are absurd and backed up by absolutely zero corroborating evidence. Most of what he says goes along the lines of 'and my contact told me this', and 'my contact told me that'. His 'contact', being whichever disinformation officer told him to spread this wild tale to a ready and gullible public.

I don't know why the intelligence community of the United States keeps doing this. Maybe it is, quite literally, simply a prank. Perhaps bored intelligence officers are just doing it for their own amusement.

All that said, I still believe that there is a real UFO phenomenon and these forms of disinformation programs do little to help.

cda said...

John Ratcliff's answer is quite possible, but Bushman probably did not get his story directly from an intelligence community man. It more likely came from some intelligence agent who got a bit 'over the top' at a cocktail party, related the tale to someone else, who passed it on, eventually reaching Mr Bushman.

In other words it was 3rd or 4th hand. I believe a similar thing happened in 1955 when journalist Dorothy Kilgallen met either Lord Mountbatten or some naval officer under him at a cocktail party in London. She then related a 'spooky' UK crashed saucer tale, involving craft and bodies. The press carried the story for a day or so then it fizzled out, but it can still be found in some UFO books to this day. As far as I know Kilgallen never responded to anyone who asked for confirmation of this tale.

John's Space said...

John Ratcliff,

I can explain why “they” do it. In isn’t a prank but rather it is a disinformation effort. Given that UFOs are real, they routinely invade our airspace, and our military is helpless to do anything about it, the authorities have a problem. They can’t let the “serious” public believe this or it would not only undermine their perceived authority but could well cause panic. There is just too much information in the public domain to keep the basic facts hidden. However, they can make them not believed at least by serious public opinion. To do this the put our all types of outlandish theories and let the wacky elements feed on them and extend them. This serves to discredit any thoughtful research.

I’m not speaking of the Bushman case specifically because have no idea what is going on with him. Your idea of it being a “favor” to the team might be possible or it could be something else. But, there is a clear pattern of hiding this issue in plain sight.

Terry the Censor said...

@John and John

Be careful with this line of reasoning.

Yes, it is well-documented that in the distant past the government said many false things about UFO sightings (and more recently with their curious Roswell reports).

However, you risk arguing that both 1) credible UFO reports are evidence of a real phenomenon AND 2) completely discreditable UFO reports are also evidence of a real phenomenon, because they reveal a conspiracy to supress UFO evidence.

That's the way of cranks, not of people who respect facts and logic.

John W. Ratcliff said...

I thought I was intentionally not being cranky in my views. With Bushman there are only a few possible theories.

(A) He is telling the truth and the content of his statements represent largely real events and facts.

(B) He was retelling a story he heard from others; making it hearsay and fairly useless.

(C) He was knowingly telling a bunch of stories because it amused him and he is pranking people.

(D) He was knowingly telling stories because he was asked to do so by others, for their own unknown agenda.

It could be any combination of these things, but I would say that (A) is at about a 0.0000000001% level of probability of being true.

So, no, I don't think I'm being a crank on this story.

John

David Rudiak said...

Bushman's story of supposedly knowing the guy who shot down the Roswell craft in a "secret" aircraft using some sort of "secret" high power RF weapons in friggin 1947 always struck me as nonsensical. Maybe now we have such a weapon, but not almost 70 years ago.

Some of his "antigravity" demos for the gullible David Sereda were also nothing but good old electromagnetics 101, like a magnet falling slowly through a conducting metal tube. That's not "antigravity". It's an example of basic electromagnetic induction.

One experiment described by him of an antigravity could be easily tested, that of clamping two strong neodymium magnets together and dropping them Galileo style from a tall tower compared to a control of the same shape. Bushman claimed the clamped magnets fells slightly slower. I suspect if replicated, there would be no such effect.

Like others, I don't know what Bushman's game was. Maybe he was just an old guy who enjoyed screwing with people for fun.

zoamchomsky said...

(F) He was nothing but a fraud, he had never been anything but an inept fraud. And about 1997 he started spinning his laughable version of "UFO" and Area 51 BS.

Simple. No transformation from "Senior Scientist" to inept "UFO" crackpot explanation or peanut-gallery conspiracy mongering necessary.

John's Space said...

Zoamchomsky,

There a little need for an explanation because his profession credentials are true. I know people who have confirmed it. It should be noted that he seem to have adopted the Lazar Area 51 story to a great degree and I think that be debunked effectively. I’m in no way supporting this wild statements. Maybe the guy was just eccentric! There are some very smart people who believe some strange things outside of their area of expertise.

John W. Ratcliff said...

Yes, I agree. Eccentric and gullible is by far most likely the case. He probably is a UFO enthusiast (even very smart people are) and he swallowed a bunch of stories throughout the years. It is probably no more complicated than that.

zoamchomsky said...

John & John;

"UncleBoydWasFun" writing at doubtfulnews says, "He was actually a really nice old guy...and quite truthfully, innocently fraudulent" and finishes with "But still, I’m proud to have known this gentle and creative crackpot."

http://doubtfulnews.com/2014/10/sad-that-disclosure-of-obviously-fake-aliens-is-the-last-thing-you-do/

REX said...

He did not start working for Lockheed in 1986 but he was retired by then, he stared to work for Lockheed, again only as a retired consultant in 1997 and in 1996 the first patents were issued to another Bushman,Boyd "B" Bushman and he is still alive today.

KRandle said...

Rex -

This is what I love about the Internet. One of my friends sent me the information about Bushman being named on the patents filed by Lockheed, and now we learn a little more about it. And we begin to understand why a guy with the apparent condentials he has sits around with a picture of an alien doll.

Thomas Randolph Morrison said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Thomas Randolph Morrison said...

KRandle - REX is propagating baseless internet rumors. Boyd Bushman is the same Boyd B. Bushman noted on his many excellent patents, which are freely available online at Google Patents. Nick Cook visited Boyd Bushman at Lockheed, and while Cook's conclusions are questionable, his journalistic integrity is well established by his many years as an aerospace writer for Jane's Defence Weekly.

This is a complex situation; it takes great care to sift the wheat from the chaff here. Nearly all of the articles about the "death bed confession" video misrepresent Bushman’s statements - for example, he never claimed to have direct knowledge of aliens or Area 51. All of that rubbish was hearsay from an unidentified person/jerk. On that subject he was, sadly, played for a fool. Boyd also fell for the Hutchison hoax, and apparently, the Bob Lazar hoax as well - he was clearly an overly kind and trusting old guy. But what's interesting to me, is that it seems his first-hand experiences in research left him open to believing in phenomena outside the mainstream canon of science. Nobody's talking about his first-hand account of experiments with a highly energetic crystal in his lab at Lockheed that exhibited unprecedented effects. Instead, everyone wants to talk about the silly photos of an alien doll, given to him by some jerk as a prank, or worse.

And quite a few people who know nothing about physics have questioned the validity of his patents and his scientific acumen: these people are fools. Bushman's patents are rock solid - his use of acoustic waves for lift and thrust is clever and practical, his laser-powered thruster that detonates air to produce force eliminates the need for propellant, and his magnetic beam amplifier is a surprisingly elegant stroke of genius. Read them yourself, and I think you'll agree. Also, some notably inattentive people have misconstrued his presentation of the Lenz law effect to David Sereda - Bushman never claimed that this effect had anything to do with antigravity or exotic physics; it was Sereda who blurted out a bunch of nonsense. People are getting everything mixed up, and it's burying all the substantial information.

I guess that's what disinformation campaigns are all about. I've been reluctant to believe the conspiracy theorists who go on about that kind of thing, but two incontrovertible facts keep staring me in the eyes; 1.) *somebody* spent *years* feeding Boyd Bushman a whole lot of gibberish about aliens and even sent him a bunch of silly photos of an alien doll with other hoaxed ufo photos, and 2.) it makes an awful lot of sense that *somebody* would be very unhappy about a Skunk Works research scientist giving public interviews and alluding to the principles behind advanced on-going propulsion research projects…if ever there were a guy who begged to be discredited by the government’s malevolent “black ops” counterintelligence agents, Boyd Bushman must rank near the very top.

Someone must be very happy that we're all rushing to sweep Boyd Bushman under the carpet over some goofy photos he was given under false pretexts. Because there are some very interesting gems hidden in this man's statements and patents, if you look closely at the data.

Unknown said...
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KRandle said...

Informed -

But there is nothing of a first-hand nature here, he is waving around a photograph of a doll that was available in the 1990s, and he adds nothing to our knowledge. Isn't that the point... he doesn't really know much from first-hand observation and that leaves us with nothing new.

mandingo said...

The way I see it is, bushman leaked photos of an actual ET so the government had to do something about it. So what's the best plan you might ask, simple, make toys that looks just like the ET and flood the market to cover and discredit the photos bushman put out to the public. Bushman dies shortly afterwards. There was an interview with a polygraph where bushman stated that the government threatened his life and that he was in fact in fear for his life. I probably wouldn't have believed him if it wasn't for the fact of me seeing a ufo twice in one night. It was in the mid 90's, I wanna say 95 or 96 in st.petersburg fl. The first time I seen it I had just finished playing a game of football with friends and family, I was the last one leaving the field walking with my head down as I normally do. What caught my attention was that everyone was at a stand still looking up, I also looked up and saw a big space craft right above my head hovering about 45ft in the air. Shocked without being able to move my heart went from my chest to my stomach then straight to my throat and after 30 seconds it vanished in thin air as if it was never there and everyone carried on as if it never happened. I asked one of my favorite cousins did he see it and he replied no, baffled at what I just seen I continued home, changed my clothes and came back out to go to the pool hall. As I get a few streets from my house it was still on my mind and I was still wondering did I just see what I thought I did, so I look up and sure enough there it was again, but this time it was over 1000ft in the air moving towards the same direction I was walking and it was moving at a very slow pace. All of a second in a blink of an eye the ufo darted out faster than any jet I have ever seen and made a star like bling as it went away this time something like you would see in a movie. True story, and ever since I've been waiting to see another one. Now-a-days I don't hesitate to look up, so if you're reading this my advice to you is to look up every now and then. You'll be surprised what you might see.

Unknown said...

I think the pic of the fake walmart doll was sent by his "buddy" to discredit him.

ColdWinterWind said...

I apologize for coming late to the party vis-a-vis Mr. Bushman - blame Google...

While my personal jury is still out regarding Bushman's claims I would like to make a couple of observations; hopefully politely.

I spent 11 years Army MI - Russian Linguist during the Cold War, so I've seen, up close, how pernicious to unravel an active disinformation campaign can be. It can become your whole life. If it's not your job who has the time?

Second, I have personally challenged a couple of different people for claiming 'False Honor' by wearing uniforms and/or awards to which they were not entitled. Invariably it came down to they were trying to get the 'glory'. So, while your examples show how personal motivations can push one to make fabrications or outright lies. But I don't see how there is any correspondence between them and Bushman.

A good, well-written piece though.