The following is a response to the previous letter to the editor from the 
December '96 (Vol. 4, #12) issue of The REALL News.  It may be reprinted by 
other skeptics organizations as long as proper credit is given. REALL also 
requests that you please send a copy of any publication that reprints one of 
our articles for our files.  This article may also be cross-posted onto other 
appropriate conferences.
This article represents the opinions of its author, and does not necessarily
represent the opinions of REALL or its officers.
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Martin Kottmeyer responds:
I agree that the angle of the kite-line would alter during
maneuvers. Are we sure it didn't? In saying the lights were
always at a 60-degree angle, the witnesses need not have
meant literally every second of the encounter. I could
easily envisage myself in the same situation, saying the
same thing, but failing to clarify that it changed angle
when it dropped down towards me.
Their official statements were fairly brief and this could
have been a way of emphasizing the difference between what
they saw and explanations they had to parry like airplanes.
I wouldn't expect every detail to be put in the statement;
only those thought relevant.
I hadn't assumed bare wires. I have an old, used Kawasaki
motorcycle gathering dust which I drove for a time in the
Seventies. The battery is no heavier than a three-cell
flashlight. The main reason I assume it to be ground level
is that kites will crash and those batteries are not cheap
to replace. Strobes are not mere light bulbs and are not
cheap either. My guess is that the prankster had easy access
to strobes and was around them so much that the idea to use
them could come on impulse. Maybe he was connected to the
Sylvania Miniature Lighting facility in Hillsboro, NH, some
50 miles away; maybe a science teacher at the nearby Philips
Exeter Academy was into high speed photography
experimentation and a student borrowed the strobes; maybe
the guy was into photography himself. Doubtless there are
many possibilities.
I'm open to alternatives; I work with the knowledge I have
and there are always limits and gaps. If anyone else
confronted with this same puzzle can come up with a better
answer, I am waiting to see it. My current feeling is that
the sequencing lights pretty much rule out any natural
phenomena. The silence rules out anything motor-driven. The
fluttering says it can't be massive. Balloons don't strike
me as maneuverable enough. If not kites, what is left?
Remotely Piloted Vehicles (RPVs)? Lights on RPVs defeat
their intent, as they are basically spy devices, and what
around Exeter is there to use it on? Nothing else matches
and that includes anything in the UFO literature. Unless I'm
missing some vital clue, I don't see where else the facts
could lead. I'll take best guess over no guess on principle.
David Bloomberg Also Responds:
Being the Chairman and a member of the Editorial Board, I
get to see these letters before anybody else. I have a few
of my own comments to add.
Nowhere in Martin's articles does he even hint that the
Exeter sighting might have been a balloon. Yet Mr. Stacy
mentions it several times as if he had. I fail to understand
why he could not simply discuss the points Martin actually
had made, rather than making up his own straw men to knock
down.
Mr. Stacy does this elsewhere in discussing the lights and
making the presumption that "hoaxers everywhere would be
using them by now, almost on a nightly basis." Why? He is
essentially saying that if one person created a hoax UFO,
hundreds would follow. Of course, since they aren't, he
presumes himself correct. This is another straw man
argument.
Finally, Mr. Stacy says that the idea of a hoaxer is as
"equally implausible" as an extraterrestrial craft? Did Mr.
Stacy really mean to say that the idea of a person flying a
kite with lights on it is as implausible as a ship piloted
by alien beings flying vast distances in order to scare a
few people in a remote town? Come now, Mr. Stacy.
Editor's Note:
At one point in the original article (Part II), the date of
publication for The American Boys Handy Book was incorrectly
given. That date was actually 1892, which shows how long
this sort of thing has been going on.
--- msgedsq 2.0.5
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