NOTE:  although the following was written as a response to criticism by Jerry Black, it can be read 
as a defense of Ed Walters and his sightings.

	In 2002 or 2003 Mr. Jerry Black was interviewed by Kenny Young about his opinion of
the Gulf Breeze sightings of Ed Walters (and others) which occurred in the time period between 
November, 1987 and July, 1988. During the interview Mr. Black claimed that the UFO 
sightings reported by Ed Walters and his family are hoaxes.  He accused me and the MUFON 
investigators of incompetence, of carrying out a "one sided investigation" and claimed 
that I overlooked evidence of a hoax in return for a "mystery payment" from Ed.  He also 
made a number of other accusations against the Walters case such as claiming that photo 19 has 
been proven to be a fake, with the implication that the other photos are also fakes.
(Note:  this interview is no longer posted on the net.  Mr. Black is deceased.)

	The reader should be aware that these claims were not new.  They had been expressed 
privately to me and publicly several times over the last twelve years (the first time in 
November, 1991), eliciting each time a response from me that Mr. Black didn't understand many 
of the technical details of the photography and that he is wrong in accusing me of accepting a 
payment for my investigation.  My previous responses have been similar to what is presented 
below.


MYSTERY PAYMENT FOR INVESTIGATION?
	Mr. Black has accused me of accepting money for the investigative and analysis work 
that I did for Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) and the Fund for UFO Research (FUFOR) during 
the spring and early summer of 1988.  He evidently has been very worried about the 
possibility that this supposed "unethical" action on my part prevented me from calling the 
sightings a hoax. However, he needn't have worried.  I have told him repeatedly, as he 
acknowledged in his interview (but for some reason doesn't believe it), that the only
payments I received from Ed were made months after my research that was carried out for MUFON 
and FUFOR.  These payments occurred at the end of December 1988 and in early January of 1989, 
each being $9,000, and were the payment for writing a chapter in Ed's first book, "The
Gulf Breeze Sightings" (TGBS) (by Ed and Frances Walters, Wm. Morrow Pub., 1990), which was 
published in March, 1990.  However, Mr. Black evidently did not believe my statement that 
those were the only payments.  Instead, he claimed in the interview that I accepted a payment, 
a "professional fee," in July, 1988.  He speculated that the fee "may well have been in the 
10 to 20 thousand dollar range" for work I did "up until the time of July, 1988."  In other 
words, Black accused me of accepting a fee, possibly a large fee, for the investigative work, 
analysis and writing that I did leading up to the presentation at the MUFON Symposium in July, 
1988.  Then Black says, quite correctly, "I'm sure Maccabee would deny this."   (At least he's 
correct on that one point!)  

	Black presents as proof that I received a fee in July, 1988, a postcard which Ed wrote 
to him in November, 1991. In part that reads:

	  "Dr. Maccabee received a professional fee in 1989 Dec for the work he had finished 
	almost 2 years before the book was published (July '88)."  

(Note: when writing the postcard several years after the payment, Ed mistakenly wrote "in 1989 
Dec" when he should have written "in 1988 Dec.")   Mr.  Black has argued that the "(July, 
'88)" which Ed placed in parentheses at the end of the sentence indicates that Ed paid me a 
professional fee in July, 1988.  However, I know for a fact that there was no such payment.  
The "July, 1988" in this context refers not to the phrase, "a professional fee," but to the 
phrase, "work he had finished almost 2 years before the book was published."  The "professional 
fee" refers to what I was paid in December, 1988 and January, 1989 to write the chapter in Ed's 
book, a payment that occurred about half a year after I had finished the MUFON investigation.

	The bottom line is that I had completed the investigation and arrived at my conclusion 
LONG BEFORE there was any agreement about writing a book chapter and long before there was any 
payment. The following discussion will clarify this matter of when and why I arrived at a 
conclusion about Ed Walters' sightings. 

MUFON SYMPOSIUM REPORT, 1988
	My first formal comments on the Gulf Breeze sightings were made at the MUFON symposium in 
July, 1988.  The Proceedings of that symposium contains the large (89 pages!) paper I wrote, at 
my own expense in time and money. (Note: FUFOR payed for my airplane ticket to Gulf Breeze in 
February, 1988, when I began my investigation at the request of Walter Andrus and Budd 
Hopkins.)  At the symposium I supplemented this paper with an 11 page analysis of the stereo 
photos taken by Ed using the Nimslo (four-lens) camera and the "SRS" camera ("self-Referencing 
Stereo" camera, which consisted of two, model 600 Polaroid cameras, separated by 2 feet to get 
a large parallax effect, described in detail below).  I made this analysis available at the symposium where I 
also gave a lecture on the sightings.  The lecture was based on information presented in 26 
viewgraphs.  In these viewgraphs I discussed about two dozen criticisms that had been raised by 
skeptics (including me!) against the sightings and photos, I illustrated the photo faking 
techniques that had been suggested (including double exposure), I discussed the pros and cons 
of the Ed's sightings and I also pointed out that there were many other sightings besides Ed's 
during the time period from November, 1987 through May, 1988.  That is, I pointed out that the 
existence of many other sightings indicated that "something strange was really flying around" 
and so it was not impossible for Ed to photograph it.  After the symposium all of this 
material, with some corrections, added notes and clarifications were made available to the 
general public by FUFOR.  Hence, by the summer of 1988 anyone who was sincerely interested in 
understanding the Gulf Breeze sightings had the opportunity to obtain the most complete history 
and analysis that was available until the publication of TGBS in 1990. 

	Here is the importance of that first, long paper to the present discussion:  the paper 
plus the added material (stereo photo analysis, MUFON Symposium viewgraph presentation) 
provided my opinion on the case in July, 1988, many months before there was an agreement on a 
book.  There had been so much controversy over the sightings, controversy that was presented in 
my paper, that I wrote: "I have emphasized the positive aspects of Ed's sightings so that he 
won't be written off prematurely (if he is written off at all).  As of the time of this writing 
there is no proof that Ed's sightings are a hoax."  In other words, I was slanting toward 
"real."  The main reason for this was the stereo photos (more on that later).  

RESULTS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTING
	My opinion that the sightings were real was further enhanced later on in summer of 1988 
when I was told of the results of the investigation undertaken by Dr. Dan Overlade, a clinical 
psychologist specializing in forensic psychology, who had spent many hours interviewing Ed, who 
had given Ed a many-hour long battery of psychological tests and then had hypnotically 
regressed him during eight, one hour sessions.  I learned that Charles Flannigan, one of the 
MUFON investigators of the Gulf Breeze sightings, had contacted Dr. Overlade in May of 1988 and 
asked if Overlade would regress Ed.  Overlade, who had been a President of the Florida 
Psychological Association and was a Fellow of the American College of Forensic Psychology, 
wrote his conclusions and these were presented several years later in the book "Abductions in 
Gulf Breeze" ("AIGB" by Ed and Frances Walters, Avon, 1994; Chapter 3).  He wrote:

	"I told Charles that hypnotic regressions were part of my clinical 
	practice and that I had conducted hundreds of such regressions to 
	identify memories repressed as a result of traumatic emotional 
	experiences, although until now, no regressions pertaining to possible 
	UFO experiences...I told Charles I would be willing to proceed if (Ed) 
	would be willing to subject himself to an extensive battery of 
	psychological tests.  My reasoning was simple: the man was either 
	psychologically and emotionally stable or he was not; and his condition 
	would need to be known before I could proceed with a hypnotic regression."

	Overlade administered about 8 hours of standard tests (Rorschach "inkblot" test, Thematic 
Apperception test, Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale and "Draw a Person" test) and concluded as 
follows (from Chapter 3 of AIGB):

	"I developed the opinion that Ed was emotionally and mentally 
	stable and a somewhat conventional and non-assertive man...There were 
	no indications of any bizarre ideation, hysteria, or other neurotic 
	pattern nor any sociopathic personality.  In short, no psychological 
	condition was identified which would suggest that his report 
	represented an aberration of thought or deliberate deceit..."

	Beside writing several of the chapters in AIGB, Overlade also wrote the foreword and 
included the following sentence:

	"I have concluded that the regressive hypnosis episodes presented 
	in this book are not shams or hoaxes and that they represent the 
	truth and accuracy to the best of Edward Walters' knowledge and belief."

	In other words, after spending at about a dozen-and-a-half hours with Ed, discussing Ed's 
life, discussing the sightings, discussing Ed's memories, administering tests and conducting 
regressive hypnosis, Overlade, who was accustomed to working with all sorts of people 
(including criminals), concluded that Ed was telling the truth as Ed knew it.  (Note: Overlade 
was sufficiently convinced by the experience of working with Ed that he made himself available, 
through MUFON, to other local abductees and, if I recall correctly, was working with about 
eight people when he died several years later.)
INVALID POLYGRAPH TESTS?
	As I mentioned above, by the late summer of 1988 I was aware that Overlade had 
examined Ed and had found no reason to believe Ed was faking the the sightings.  In September, 
1988, my opinion that the sightings were real was further enhanced when I interviewed Harvey 
McLaughlin, the expert polygraphist, who had administered two polygraph tests to Ed in 
February, 1988.  (McLaughlin told me that he had tested a large number of people over the 
years, perhaps as many as 15,000.)  Ed expected the first test and had paid for it in advance.  
The second was a "surprise test" (Ed didn't expect it) to verify the first.  The results of 
McLaughlin's tests were that Ed had told the truth as Ed knew it.  Mr. Black has claimed that 
the polygraph test results should be ignored because Ed hired the polygrapher.  

	Mr. Black asks the question, "Why didn't rookie investigator Charles Flannigan, who set up 
the test, force Ed Walters to take the test again another day since he didn't show up for the 
original test?"  (Note: as discussed above, it was "rookie investigator" Charles Flannigan who 
had the presence of mind to ask Dr. Overlade to carry out a regression of Ed.)  The formulation 
of this question shows that Mr. Black does not understand the actual history of the events in 
early 1988, several years before he became involved.  The MUFON investigators realized that Ed 
probably wouldn't be believed unless he took a polygraph "lie detector" test.  Therefore, in 
February, 1988, investigator Flannigan asked Ed if he would be willing to take one.  Ed was 
offended by the implication that he was lying but said he would think about it.  A day or so 
later he decided it would be a good idea and looked up a nearby polygrapher who turned out to 
be Harvey McLaughlin.  (To me, this shows initiative on Ed's part. After all, he didn't have to 
take any test.  Of course, the skeptic might argue that Ed was sufficiently sociopathic that he 
couldn't tell truth from fiction and believed that he would be able to pass a polygraph test, 
i.e., that he was "psychologically sick" enough to pass the test.  But, as shown above from the 
tests done by Overlade, Ed did not have a sociopathic personality.)  

	Since Flannigan had not yet gotten back to Ed regarding a test, Ed took the test from 
McLaughlin.  Ed paid for the test in advance so that there would be no question of McLaughlin 
biasing the test results in order to get paid.  Ed told me it was the most humiliating 
experience of his life.  McLaughlin asked about all sorts of things relative to Ed's life, 
whether he had lied about anything in his life, not just the UFO sightings and, of course, Ed 
had to admit to his problems with the law when he was a teenager.  

	Ed passed the test but McLaughlin was not convinced.  He told me, when I interviewed him 
six months later, that after the first test he did some independent checking on the sightings 
and then asked Ed to return to his office, ostensibly to receive the results of the test.  
Instead, McLaughlin asked him to sit in "the chair" a second time while McLaughlin did a re-
examination.  Several days later Ed received the results in the mail:  he had passed both 
tests.

	So Ed did take two examinations, both from a skeptical polygraphist.  By the time 
Flannigan had set up a test with another polygraphist Ed had the results from McLaughlin.  Ed 
told me he felt humiliated by having to discuss in depth his life story with McLaughlin.  
Evidently he didn't want to go through that again with another polygrapher, so he didn't take a 
test from Flannigan's contact.   McLaughlin told me that during the weeks and months after the 
tests he paid attention to the stories about Ed and even arranged to occasionally "bump into" 
Ed at stores and talk to him.  He wanted to find out if there was any indication that his tests 
might have given the wrong answer or Ed's personality had changed.  McLaughlin told me that he 
never detected any such indication and no change in Ed's personality.  

	Mr. Black believes that the results of the lie detector tests are "invalid" because Ed 
paid for them (even though he paid before he took the first test).  Mr. Black has not presented 
any opinion on the investigation undertaken by Overlade (done pro bono; no one paid Overlade 
for his work), but it seems to me that the polygraph tests by Harvey McLaughlin and the 
investigation by Dr. Dan Overlade complement one another and indicate that Ed was telling the 
truth. 

INCOMPETENT INVESTIGATION?
	Returning to the interview with Mr. Black, he says that I and the other investigators 
were incompetent or even "stupid" for being "taken in" by Ed.  Black says, (Ed was) "a very 
wealthy man.  I think they were taken in by his story and never tried to look at what the 
evidence showed.  They were mesmerized by Ed Walters and his flamboyance, the way he came 
across and bringing in different pictures, they never actually investigated Ed Walters himself.  
They just took whatever he said verbatim and just ran with that."   

	Mr. Black is correct on one count: Ed was a reasonably wealthy man.  (Therefore he had 
no economic incentive to create UFO hoaxes.)   However, if Mr. Black had been present when Ed 
was questioned for about 14 hours straight (half hour break for lunch) on Saturday, Feb. 20, 
1988, and again for several hours the next day, he might have thought differently about the 
quality and intensity of the investigation.  (Also interviewed at that time were Ed's wife and 
Hank Boland, the only non-family member who claims to have seen the UFO while at Ed's house in 
December, 1987.)  I know that Ed was under the gun because I was there and operating under the 
assumption that I could prove the sightings were all fakes.  This was not the first intense 
interview of Ed.  The local MUFON investigators had interviewed him several times previously, 
beginning in January, 1988.  They had asked him lots of questions, not only about the UFO 
sightings, but about his life, past history, etc.  They did "investigate Ed Walters himself."

	However, the February 20 interview was, by far, the longest and most intense.  It lasted 
from about 9 AM to about 11 PM (with a half hour off for lunch!).  Everything Ed said about his 
sightings and photos was recorded, questioned and scrutinized.  It was during this interview 
that I realized that Ed's camera could create double exposures. During the next day Ed loaned 
his camera to "incompetent" me and "rookie" Charles Flannigan so we could experiment with it at 
the site of the "road shot" (photo 19).  We wanted to find out exactly where the truck had been 
parked to see if it agreed with Ed's story.  Ed spent several hours with us at the road site as 
we attempted to determine exactly where the truck was when he took the picture.  It was my 
impression that he was surprisingly cooperative as he provided information that, if wrong, 
could prove his photos and sightings were fake.  We found that the location indicated by Ed was 
consistent with the background scenery in the photo.  Later, at night, Charles and I carried 
out road reflection tests using Ed's camera and a bright spotlight.  Again, Ed cooperated with 
us.

	During the following weeks and months I spoke to Ed quite often while analyzing his 
photos and the stories that went with each.  I asked Ed to do numerous photo experiments or 
tests, many of which could have "blown his sightings out of the water."  Ed didn't have to do 
these experiments, but he did them anyway with little protest.  I also contacted other 
photo analysts and studied the claims by the skeptics.  I studied the other reports from the 
area and compared them with Ed's.  In some cases the reported object was very similar or 
virtually identical to what Ed photographed.  This was interesting because that meant that "Ed 
was not alone."   But the most important thing I did was affect the nature of the photographic 
data collected during Ed's sightings by suggesting that he make a large stereo camera.   I did 
this as part of my search for proof that the photos were hoaxes or proof that they were true.   
At the time he built the first SRS camera he knew that it could measure the distance to objects 
and would, therefore, sink any hoax involving a nearby model.   When I found from his test 
photos that it was not very accurate I told him how to improve it and he did so.  Later he made 
a second version of the camera.  This was more accurate than the first and was the camera which 
which he got the important May 1 photos.  More on this later.

PHOTOS ARE DOUBLE EXPOSURE FAKES?
	Mr. Black says his initial impression of this UFO case was that Ed had taken "too many 
photos" and that this was a cause for suspicion.  I had the same reaction when I started 
looking at the case several years before Mr. Black.  For that reason I was continually 
suspicious of Ed.  It was for this reason that I had Ed do lots of experiments, experiments 
which could have proven his photos to be fakes.  One of the things that convinced me that Ed 
was on the level was his willingness to carry out these experiments.  He didn't have to do 
these experiments.  He didn't have to build the SRS.  I couldn't force him.  He didn't have to 
buy a new Model 600 camera (which automatically ejects the film) to counter the critics (and 
me) who pointed out that his old camera could take double exposures.  He didn't have to build 
a stereo camera that would measure distances.  He could easily "gotten away with" simply 
saying he was too busy.  Yet, he did all the experiments I asked for in spite of time and 
outright expense (mostly for film).  And I carefully monitored these experiments to determine 
whether or not Ed was faking the experiments.  He wasn't.  More on this later.

	Mr. Black has based his criticism of the photos on the analysis done by Mr. William 
Hyzer, one of many expert photoanalysts who studied copies of many of Ed's photos.  Mr. 
Hyzer's study was done in secret during the spring of 1991.  I was not aware of it until I 
received a copy of Hyzer's draft report in July, 1991.  In this first version of his report 
Mr. Hyzer was not confident that he had discovered a hoax.  Instead he pointed out that, in 
his opinion, the pictures he examined could be real, in which case the UFO had "chameleon-
like" properties.  On the other hand, they could have been created by simple double exposure 
techniques, except for photo 1 which required a special technique that Mr. Hyzer invented.  
(Of course, Ed couldn't have used that special technique because it wasn't invented by Mr. 
Hyzer until 3 years after Ed took the photo.)  However, he admitted that he couldn't prove 
they were double exposures because it could be that the UFOs had unusual optical properties. 
I presume that Mr. Hyzer realized that to accuse anyone of perpetrating a hoax is a serious 
matter and to do it without positive proof is unscientific, at the very least.  

	After reading Hyzer's preliminary report I sent him a letter in which I provided some 
further information and a copy of my MUFON/FUFOR report (described above) and asked some 
questions.  I never got a response from him.  I sent Hyzer another letter in February, 1992, 
for which there was no response. However, some of the information I provided was repeated in 
Hyzer's final report that was published in the MUFON Journal in July 1992.  It was in that 
journal article that Hyzer made his most conclusive statement:  photo 19 is a hoax.  He 
arrived at that conclusion because the photo does not show light of the UFO reflected in the 
engine hood of the truck that Ed was in when he took the picture.  He cites, in his article, 
my discovery of an unusual optical effect caused by a bend in the hood: a light at a distance 
in front of the hood will not reflect from the hood into the camera provided that (a) the 
light is below a particular angular elevation relative to the hood (the "cutoff angle") and (b) 
the camera is inside the cab just above the level of the back of the hood, i.e., where Ed held 
it when he took the picture.  (Note: the hood of Ed's truck was bent when a backhoe operator 
accidently backed into the front of the truck in 1987.)  The magnitude of the "cutoff angle" 
relative to horizontal, below which there is no reflection, depends upon where the camera is 
held and upon the tilt angle of the truck.  The actual elevation would depend upon the distance 
of the light from the hood.  Specifically, the actual elevation above the ground level would be 
the sum of the height of the hood plus the angular elevation in radians multiplied by the 
distance to the light. 

	The optical "bent mirror" effect is recorded in photo 19 itself.  The bent mirror effect 
causes there to be two reflections of the sky in the hood of the truck whereas in a normal 
hood there would be only a single reflection.  In the photo the lowest nearly horizontal faint, 
light blue band at the bottom of the picture  is the normal sky reflection.  Slightly above 
that in the photo is a second faint, light blue band which represents the reflection of the sky 
in the front of the hood.  This reflection would not normally be present.  Between the two sky 
reflections is a dark region.  This is the distorted reflection of the tops of the trees that 
form the distant tree line above the UFO.  Between these two sky reflections is where the 
reflection of the top light of the UFO would appear if it were high enough.  However, my 
experiments with Ed's truck, experiments cited by Mr. Hyzer (so apparently he accepted my 
experimental results), showed that there was the cutoff angle mentioned above.  The cutoff 
angle (relative to horizontal) was determined by the location of the camera relative to the 
hood and by the tilt of the truck.  Mr. Hyzer, in forming his conclusion that at least the top 
light should have been reflected in the hood, made the tacit assumption (apparently without 
realizing that he had done so) that the truck was horizontal, as it was when I did the 
reflection experiments.  He did not take into account the fact that the truck was tilted at 
the time of the photo by both the unevenness of the shoulder of the road (where Ed stopped the 
truck) and by the load of cement blocks Ed was carrying at the very back of the truck.  The 
effect of this tilt on the bent-mirror-like reflection in the hood was to raise the cutoff 
angle above the value assumed by Mr. Hyzer.  When the tilt caused by the blocks (and possible
road surface unevenness) is included in the analysis, the optical reflection principle (angle 
of reflection equals angle of incidence) shows that the "cutoff angle" apparently was above the 
angular elevation of the top UFO light. That is, the lack of a reflection means that the top 
UFO light was below the "cutoff angle."  Hence the lack of a reflection did not prove that 
photo 19 was a fake.  

	In the final report, Hyzer's comments on Ed's other photos were basically the same as 
in his initial draft report, namely that they could have been double exposures but he couldn't 
prove it.  Mr. Black, nevertheless, cites Hyzer's analysis as providing conclusive proof that 
photo 19 is a hoax with the implication that all the other photos are also simple double 
exposure hoaxes.  (Note: Jeffrey Sainio, MUFON photoanalyst, independently examined Ed's 
original photos and has concluded otherwise.  He reported his analysis at the MUFON Symposium 
in 1992 [see the Proceedings of the MUFON Symposium, 1992, pgs 143-165].  Sainio has published 
a computer processed version of photo 19 in which he has shown brightness contours that 
indicate increased brightness of the road in the vicinity of the UFO.  This would be 
impossible if the photo were a double exposed fake.  Mr. Black was informed of Mr. Sainio's 
analysis many years ago.)

SOME PHOTOS AREN'T DOUBLE EXPOSURES 
	Whereas Mr. Black has claimed that all the photos are double exposed hoaxes, I offer a 
counter argument:  there are several photos that could not be simple double exposure (SDE) 
hoaxes.  But, before discussing them I must define the SDE method of creating hoax photos 
since this is the method that most likely would have been used.  In fact, I used it myself on
the second day of my investigation (Feb. 21, 1988).  

	After Charles Flannigan and I had carried out some experiments at the site of the road 
shot we returned to Ed's house.  Before knocking on the door I created two "UFO" photos using 
the SDE technique.  For each photo the first exposure was of a driveway light on a post a 
hundred or so feet from Ed's house and the second exposure was taken from Ed's doorstep.  Then 
I knocked and when Ed opened the door I said that Charles and I had seen the UFO in front of 
Ed's house and had even photographed it.  I  showed him the pictures which showed the scene as 
it appeared from Ed's doorstep and also a bright yellow light "up in the sky."  Ed acted as if 
he thought I had actually photographed a UFO, although the "UFO" image in my photo did not have 
the same color or shape as the images in his photos.   Ed, upon seeing my photos, started 
slowly walking around while looking in all directions into the sky.  He said he had mixed 
feelings about the "fact" that I had photographed the UFO:  he was glad that someone else had 
seen it but he was unhappy about its return. (Ed repeatedly said during the interviews that he 
wished the UFOs would go away and leave him alone.) This experiment is described in my MUFON 
paper and also in TGBS.

	So, how does one create an SDE comparable to Ed's photos?  With Ed's old Polaroid (that 
used Type 108 film packs) it was simple since the film development did not start until the 
operator pulled the film out of the camera.  First, the photographer takes a picture of the 
"UFO" (the first exposure of the film).  Generally this would be done in a dark room with an 
illuminated model silhouetted against a black background.  Now there is a "latent image" 
(undeveloped image) of the UFO at some location of the film.  Typically the photographer would 
have the UFO model image be at the top center of the picture.  Then, without pulling the film 
out, the photographer would go outdoors and take a picture of a moderately lit daylight scene 
(the second exposure of the film).  When taking this second picture the photographer must point 
the camera in such a way as to place the latent image against the sky background.  After the 
second picture (second exposure) the photographer pulls the film from the camera so that 
development can occur.  The developed picture will have the image of the "UFO" appear to be in 
the sky.  So the simple double exposure is...simple.  But that doesn't mean that Ed knew 
anything about it.  (Camera instructions say that the operator should pull the film out after 
taking each picture.  It does not say to take two or more pictures before pulling the film 
out.)  I paid special attention to Ed's comments about taking pictures with the Polaroid and I 
watched carefully as he did experiments with the camera.  I never got any impression that Ed 
knew anything about the SDE method until AFTER I showed him what I had done. (I had hoaxed Ed.)

	Mr. Black says he was told by TV newsman Peter Newman that Ed had told him (Newman) about 
creating double exposure pictures.  Mr. Newman told me the same thing when I interviewed him in 
the spring of 1988 about his involvement in the March 17 stereo photo event (see below). 
(Newman opened the film packs and installed them into the Model 600 cameras; unfortunately he 
left the area before the sighting occurred.)  Mr. Newman based his statement to me on what he 
recalled of a conversation with Ed that had taken place many months earlier, a conversation that 
had taken place, he said (if I recall correctly) in the fall of 1987, before there were any UFO 
photos.  According to Newman, Ed said he took double exposure photos at parties for the 
neighborhood children.  I questioned the accuracy of Mr. Newman's recollection because by the 
time he made this statement the suggestion that Ed knew how to do double exposures had been 
circulating widely through the local grapevine and the press.  Perhaps Mr. Newmen inadvertently 
combined this information "floating around" with his recollection of what Ed said.  When asked 
about this Ed said he did not make double exposed pictures at parties; he didn't know how to 
make double exposures.  What he said he had done at parties for his children and their friends 
was defocus the camera before taking a picture.  Defocus made the children look funny.  At any 
rate, I never found evidence that Ed knew anything special about photography such as double 
exposure techniques.  His only camera at the time (1987-88) was the old Polaroid that he used 
to take documentary pictures of his construction job sites and to take pictures at parties, 
around the house, etc.  No one ever saw him with other cameras or books about photography or 
photography magazines, etc. He certainly was far from being a "shutterbug."  

	Photo 1 is not a SDE hoax (and for that reason Mr. Hyzer invented a new, very technically 
oriented, method of double exposure to explain it).  Neither is photo 11, which shows the "blue 
beam" coming down from the UFO toward the ground.  The brightness level of the blue beam image 
does not change where the image of the beam crosses the image of the horizon line from the 
faint blue sky above to complete darkness below.  If this were an SDE the brightness of the 
blue beam image would be greater above the horizon than below because the light from the sky 
during the second exposure would add to the exposure of the latent blue beam image above the 
horizon, but nothing would add to the latent blue beam image below the horizon.  (Here I assume 
that, if a SDE hoax, then the blue beam would be an illuminated blue ribbon or something like 
that below a UFO model.  The brightness of the image of the ribbon would be constant along the 
ribbon.)  This is more fully described and is presented along with a graph of the brightness of 
the blue beam image in "UFOS Are Real, Here's The Proof"  ("UARHTP,"  Avon, 1997), page 69.  
Photo 11 is one of the photos that Mr. Hyzer discussed briefly in his report.  He pointed out 
that, if the photo were real, the color could be a result of ionized nitrogen in the air or, if 
a hoax, it could be a result of blue light illuminating a column of smoke.  Apparently he did 
not notice the constancy of the image brightness of the blue beam where it crosses the horizon 
image, or if he did notice then he didn't realize the full implications of that fact.

	Ed's other photo of a blue beam, photo 24, shows Frances running into the kitchen through 
the back door.  Careful analysis of this photo by me and Jeffrey Sainio has shown that there 
was an odd brightness effect which is evidence against a double exposure: there is excessive 
brightness of the blue color of the light blue sweater suit that Frances was wearing where her 
right arm was near the blue beam.  The excessive brightness of the right cuff of the sweater 
and some of the folds near her elbow are particularly noticeable.  Numerous experiments, taking 
several hours, were done in my presence by Ed and Frances in an attempt to duplicate the 
brightness distribution on the sweater suit.  For these experiments Frances put on the suit.  I 
could see that it was a uniform color, with the cuffs being the same color as the rest of the 
sweater material.  My first thought was that the excessive brightness was a result of 
reflection of light from the camera flash.  However, numerous attempts to create the excessive 
brightness with the camera flash failed.  The only remaining explanation is that the blue beam, 
which did not actually contact Frances' arm, somehow made portions of the sweater glow.  The 
photo is presented in TGBS and and Jeff Sainio's analysis is presented in 1992 MUFON Symposium 
Proceedings, pg 156.  

	While making some generally disparaging comments about the Gulf Breeze investigators Mr. 
Black refers to the double exposure hypothesis and asks the following question: "Why did 
Maccabee's report never make mention of the double exposure potential or imply that they were 
double exposures?"  Here Mr. Black demonstrates his own failures when it comes to 
investigation.  As I have already pointed out, I carried out a double exposure hoax using Ed's 
camera on the second day of my investigation in order to see how Ed would react to the photos I 
produced.  I wrote about this in my MUFON paper where I also I pointed out (page 120 of the 
Proceedings) that multiple exposures could be taken with Ed's camera before developing a 
picture.  I described the SDE method just as described above.   I discussed the SDE and other 
hoaxing methods, such as reflection on glass and photo montage, during the MUFON Symposium.  
The double exposure hypothesis is also discussed in TGBS, on pg 278, for example.   

	Ed reacted to the skeptical criticism that his photos could be simple double exposures.  
In an act uncharacteristic of a hoaxer, on March 7, 1988 he bought another camera, a Polaroid 
Model 600.  He said be bought the new camera because it immediately ejected the film after the 
picture was taken so there was no way to double expose it. Of course, Ed didn't have to buy 
another camera.  The investigators had not told him to buy another camera.  Furthermore, 
assuming that he had known how to make double exposures with his old camera he would have 
realized it was very risky for him to switch cameras "in the middle of the stream" as it were.  
It was especially risky for him to start using a Polaroid camera that immediately ejected the 
film after the picture was taken.  Some weeks after Ed bought the Model 600 (I bought one too, 
for experimentation) I learned (from Bob Oechsler) how it was possible to double expose a Model 
600 picture by stopping the ejection motor using a special technique discovered by the Polaroid 
Corporation.  In other words, we investigators did not figure out how to double expose a Model 
600 picture; we had to be told by Polaroid.  Yet Ed's first UFO picture with the Model 600 was 
taken on March 8, the day after he bought it!  Hence, if it was a hoax, Ed must have figured 
out on his own, in one day, what the investigators only learned much later by querying 
Polaroid.  My own opinion (and that of other investigators) is that Ed did not learn in one day 
how to do a double exposure with the Model 600.   (After I was told about the Polaroid method I 
tried it myself and found that it was more difficult to create a convincing SDE picture with 
the Model 600 than with Ed's old camera, and the double exposures that made with the new camera 
didn't look as good as those created using the old camera.)

IDIOTIC RESPONSE BY STUPID INVESTIGATORS TO EXPLAIN THE 
DISTANCE AND SIZE OF THE OBJECT IN THE NIMSLO PHOTOS?

	On February 10, 1988, the MUFON investigators gave Ed a sealed 35 mm camera which they 
asked him to use when he took his next picture.  (Mr. Black claims, erroneously, in his 
interview that this was done "right in front of the press."  Where he got this idea I do not 
know.)  This was the "Nimslo" 4 lens camera.  On February 26 Ed and Frances had a sighting at 
Shoreline Park during which Ed took 10 pictures, the maximum number possible with that camera.  
Mr. Black discusses this sighting and photos to show how "stupid" the investigators were.  
Evidently Mr. Black approved of the fact that Ed was given a sealed camera, already loaded with 
film, and asked by the ("incompetent") MUFON investigators to take a UFO picture with it.  At 
least this would prevent double exposure hoaxing.  Where the stupidity entered, according to 
Mr. Black, is in the failure of the investigators to realize that Ed and Frances covered up 
their inability to determine the size of the object by having Ed say it was large while Frances 
said it was small.  

	In recounting the episode he states that "ten days" (actually it was 16 days) after Ed 
was given the camera, "Ed comes back with his wife and hands the camera, in front of the 
media, to Bruce Maccabee and the MUFON organization."  (I don't know where he got the idea 
that the camera was handed to me since I was in Maryland at the time.  Also, the media were not 
present when Ed handed the camera to the MUFON investigators.  The media were present 6 days 
later when the camera was opened and the film developed.)  On the day after he took the photos, 
i.e., several days before the film was developed, Ed drew a picture that illustrated his 
impression of the object and he told the MUFON investigators that the object had passed on the 
far side of some trees and appeared to him to be far away and very large.  On the other hand, 
Frances, who was standing in another location at the time of the sighting, said that she had 
the impression that it was not very far away and therefore small.  Mr. Black's says that this 
disagreement in size was very convenient, if it were a hoax, because Ed would not know how big 
it would appear in the Nimslo photos so he would want to "cover the bases" by having Frances 
contradict him.  My opinion is that if Ed and Frances had hoaxed the photos they would have 
correlated their stories.  Only if they knew *beforehand* that the Nimslo photo camera could 
measure distance and size might they make up a story that would cover all possible sizes (small 
to large).  But Ed didn't know the camera could measure distance.  (See below.)   

	Several months later, in May, I finally had enough camera information to calculate the 
distance to the object using the parallax created by the spacing of the outer lenses of the 
four-lens camera.  (This was not immediately after the photos were developed, with the "press 
and everybody else ...eagerly waiting,"  as implied by Mr. Black's interview statement.)  
Optical and mechanical limitations in the camera prevented me from being able to obtain precise 
distances, but I was able to calculate a range of probable distances.  I found that the object 
had been more than 40 but less than 70 ft away.  The length of the image at these distances 
corresponded to a range of about 2 1/2 to 4 ft.  In other words, this was a small object which 
Ed said he had seen passing by beyond some tree tops, but silhouetted against the dark sky.  
(Note: a subsequent measurement of the distance from where Ed said he was standing to the tops 
of the trees gave 38 ft, consistent with the minimum distance to the object.  It was impossible 
for Ed to have known that the calculated distance would turn out to be 40 ft or more before I 
calculated the distance range.  Even if one stretched the imagination to the limit and assumed 
that Ed knew how to calculate distance from the parallax in the Nimslo camera photos, which is 
something that only a professional stereo photogrammetrist would know, I was the only person 
with the photos themselves.  No one else had the photo data that I used to make that 
calculation.)  

	Mr. Black asks, "How can a man take a picture of an object that close to the camera and 
say 'It must have been a mother ship..'?" (That is, how could Ed suggest that it "must have 
been" very big?)  Apparently Mr. Black is not aware of something that skeptics have known for 
years, namely the fact that it is virtually impossible to estimate the distance to an object or 
lights seen against against a dark sky if you don't know how big it is.  (Conversely, if you 
don't know its distance you can't offer a reliable estimate of its size.)  Therefore it is not 
surprising that Ed thought the object was far away and therefore large since it passed on the 
far side of some treetops.  

	In his interview Mr. Black discusses this "disparity" in size in the following way: "And 
what was Maccabee's response to those like myself who questioned Ed Walters mistaking the small 
object for a UFO mothership? ....He said: 'There were some trees in the way and he mistakenly 
thought it was much larger.'  Have you ever heard such an idiotic answer to a question?"  

	One wonders who is the idiot here.  Am I the idiot for correctly pointing out that one 
can't be certain of the size of or distance to an unknown object that is seen silhouetted 
against the dark sky just by looking at it?  Or is Mr. Black the idiot for suggesting, 
erroneously, that one can determine the distance to an object of unknown size seen against a 
black sky background just by looking at it?

	It should be noted that the Nimslo photos show, unequivocally, that whatever was 
photographed was in the range 40 to 70 ft from the camera and in the range 2 1/2 to 4 ft long.  
It definitely was not 1/2 to 1 ft in width and 10-15 ft away,  which was the probable size and 
distance range for the hypothetical model(s) that appeared in Ed's previous photos, assuming 
they were hoaxed.   Obviously, if this was a hoax, Ed had deviated considerably from his 
previous "prescription for success."  If this was a hoax, then he was taking a great chance 
that he could successfully create a series of convincing photos by photographing a totally new 
type of model (a larger model that consisted of a light array only; no body of the craft 
appears in the photos) placed at a much larger distance from the camera (it had to have been 
done outdoors somewhere) and using a totally different type of camera over which he had no 
control.  Furthermore, if this was a hoax, he obviously knew how big the model was and how far 
away.  But, if he didn't know the camera could measure distance, he would tell the 
investigators that it was at some large distance that would  be consistent with a large object, 
say, like a thousand feet or so.  And to strengthen his case he would tell Frances to agree 
that it was distant.  On the other hand, if it were a hoax *and* Ed knew the camera could 
measure distance he would know that he had no choice but to tell the investigators that it 
appeared to be several feet long and not very far away.  It would make no sense at all for him 
to say it appeared large and far away if he knew the camera would contradict his story.  Hence, 
from this discussion one may conclude that, because Ed said it was far away,  he didn't know 
the camera could measure distance.  

	Now consider this: Ed *was not told*, when he was given the Nimslo camera, that it could 
be used to measure distance.  What he was told was that the four lenses would create four 
negatives and that the investigators could therefore keep one negative "safe" while sending the 
three others to photoanalysts for study (and possible damage).  Mr. Black seems to think that 
Ed did know the camera would measure distances, but he did not know what distance would come out of 
the calculations after the photos were developed and analyzed.  Hence, according to Mr. Black, 
Ed decided to "cover all bases" by having Frances say it was small and nearby while he said it 
was distant and large, even though he knew it was, in fact, small and nearby.  But, we already 
know from the above discussion that Ed did not know the camera measured distance.  (If he had 
known he would have said it was small and nearby; it would have been stupid of him to say 
otherwise and Mr. Black believes that Ed isn't stupid.) So it would have made no sense for him 
to tell Frances to disagree with him.  After all, if all his previous pictures were hoaxes that 
used small models nearby ( 1/2 ft at 10 ft away, for example), and the investigators had 
thought these were large, distant objects (tens of feet at hundreds of feet), wouldn't the 
investigators think this object was also large and far away if Ed and Frances both said it was 
large and far away?  

	This also brings up another question:  why would Ed invent a new model object to 
photograph with the new camera if the previous ones had worked so well?  Since he didn't know 
of the distance measuring capability his thinking might have been something like this: "All I 
have to do is take a (previous) model and place it close to the camera so it would seem large 
and light it appropriately and take the picture."  Following this reasonable (from a hoax point 
of view) line of thinking, he would have created the ten Nimslo photos by using a model, 
probably a previous model, that was within 20 ft of the camera in a manner similar to his 
previous photos.  The only difference would have been that there was no second exposure of a 
daylight background scene.  

	The actual array of light images in the 10 photos differ somewhat from photo to photo, 
consistent with Ed's claim that the object was traveling on the other side of some treetops 
that temporarily blocked various lights as he took the photos.  If it were a hoax, then Ed had 
to have planned in advance to say it passed behind trees (and was therefore far away) and so he 
would have blocked various lights of the model as he took the ten photos.  But, in this case, 
it would only be logical from the hoax point of view to have Ed and Frances correlate their 
stories so that she, too, would say it was large and far away.  

	One may conclude from this discussion that Mr. Black's criticism (one saying far, one 
saying near) makes no sense *if it was a hoax.*  On the other hand the divergence of opinion on 
the distance does make sense if it was a real event witnessed by two people viewing the object 
from different locations.

	Mr. Black said in the interview that the Nimslo-type object was "...the first and only 
probe that Ed Walters ever photographed."  Wrong.  One of the most important events in this 
series of sightings, and probably the most important photographic coincidence is that this 
object/"probe" turned up in a second photo.  Specifically, it appeared in the May 1 stereo 
photos.  More on this later.
 
MODEL HIDDEN TO DISCREDIT ED?

	Mr. Black ends his interview with some comments about the model that was found at Ed's 
house by the new tenant, Robert Menzer, more than a year after Ed moved out.  Mr. Black's 
theory to explain the model is that Ed made "numerous models... so he stuck that particular 
model under three inches of insulation to hide it and perhaps forgot about it."  Mr. Menzer 
discovered the model while looking for the shutoff valve for a water pipe.  Mr. Black points 
out that Menzer wouldn't have gone into the attic if he had known that the only shutoff was in 
a box in the front yard.  This is true, but Menzer didn't learn that until after he found the 
model.  The reason that Menzer went into the attic (there was no basement) to look for a 
shutoff valve is that he wanted to connect the small water pipe, which protruded from the 
kitchen wall, to the icemaker in his refrigerator.  Ordinarily there would be a valve at the 
end of the pipe which could be used to shut off the water when the refrigerator was being 
connected or disconnected.  There was a valve when Ed disconnected his refrigerator and moved 
out, taking the refrigerator with him, nearly a year before Menzer moved in.  But Menzer told 
me that when he moved in there was no valve, only a crimped end of the pipe.  Someone had cut 
off the valve and sealed the pipe by bending it.  Menzer realized he would have to turn off the 
water pressure before cutting off the crimped end and coupling it to the icemaker pipe from the 
refrigerator.  Not realizing that there was only a single water shutoff for the whole house, he 
assumed that the shutoff valve for that water pipe must be in the attic so he climbed up the 
fold-down stairs that were in the garage part of the house (a part that had been left open or 
unlocked many times during the year that the house was up for sale).  Several feet from the top 
of the stairs he began his search, finally finding the small pipe where it came upward from the 
wall behind the refrigerator.  Then he began running his hands along the pipe looking for the 
shutoff.  The pipe was buried in loose insulation, and this is when he found the model.  So, if 
it hadn't been for the fact that someone cut the valve off the little water pipe and crimped 
the remaining end of the pipe, Menzer would not have searched under the insulation in that 
portion of the attic. One may now ask, was it a mere coincidence that, of all the places in the 
attic where a model could have been hidden, the place chosen by the "hider" was right where it 
could be found by someone searching for a water shutoff?  If one assumes Ed hid the model, one 
must ask why he would set up a situation where it could be found by the next occupant of the 
house? In fact, one must ask why Ed would hide a model; why not just destroy any model he 
didn't need any more.  This model resembled what was in his photos, but comparison of the 
detailed shape and features of the model with the shape and features of the images proves that 
none of the photos shows this model.  Yet, it was a "perfectly good" model, so why did Ed hide 
it without photographing it first?  My opinion is that the model was, itself, a hoax.

THE INVESTIGATORS AFFECT THE PHOTOGRAPHY
	During the spring of 1988 I was spending many hours per day studying the Gulf Breeze 
sightings, mostly those by Ed, but also those by other witnesses.  (The same could be said of 
the "on-the-scene" investigators.  The details of the history are found in my MUFON paper and,
with more elaboration, in TGBS.)  In February and March I was looking for positive evidence of 
a hoax in all of Ed's photos up to that time.  I knew that the Florida investigators were 
keeping track of Ed on a daily basis and that he had had some sightings in the presence of his 
family and one non-family witness.  Walter Andrus asked me, in early March, if I could report on 
my investigation at the MUFON Symposium to be held in late June.  I said OK (not knowing what I 
was getting into!) and so I was trying to compile a complete history of the events in order to 
find loopholes and inconsistencies in Ed's testimony about the various sightings.  Then 
something new happened.

	It is rare, to say the least, when investigators have a chance to impact on the sightings.  
Usually one hears about sightings a day, a week, month, year, decade, etc. afterward and the 
investigation is based, therefore, on memories, perhaps long forgotten memories, of the 
witnesses.  There is no opportunity to do experiments or make measurements during the 
sightings.  But in Gulf Breeze just exactly that opportunity occurred, not once but several 
times during the spring of 1988 (and again in the time period 1990 through 1992, but that's 
another story).  I refer to the stereo camera photos.

	I first learned that Ed had been given a sealed camera during the monster interview 
session on February 20, 1988, as I have described above.  I realized that because there was a 
separation of several inches between the outer lenses of the 4 lens camera there was the 
possibility for measuring the distance to an object or model by using the parallax (the view 
from two separated locations).  The investigators told me that they had not told Ed about the 
distance measuring capability of the camera.  Instead, they had justified to Ed the use of the 
4 lens camera by saying that it would take 4 pictures and therefore they could send three for 
analysis while keeping one safe.  I realized that they were trying to fool Ed into taking 
pictures with a camera that would discover the nearby model hoax, if that was what Ed was 
doing.  My thought at the time was something like this": "Well, that's interesting, but the 
camera is so different from his Polaroid he'll probably never take any pictures with it."  So, 
if you get the idea that I wasn't holding my breath, you are correct.  

	Ed had been given this camera ten days before I arrived and he had taken no pictures with 
it.  When Ed discussed this with me, Charles and Bob Reid during the monster interview session  
he was clearly nervous about the "failure" to take pictures.  He had been taking pictures every 
several weeks and in some cases every week, so this was already an unusually long "dry spell."  
As Ed phrased it during the interview, whereas before he had been "guilty" of taking too many 
photos ("guilty of too much photography"), now he was guilty for not having taken photos 
("guilty of non-photography").  We all laughed over his turn of phrase, "guilty of non-
photography."  Ha, Ha, Ha.  A nervous laugh by all because we all wondered whether or not there 
was an undercurrent of truth here: could it be that hoaxer Ed had met his match?

	Ed had still not taken a picture with the Nimslo camera by the time I arrived home in 
Maryland several days later.  It wasn't until February 27 that I learned that he had finally 
taken, not one picture, but ten with the camera.  Ed also provided a report of what he had seen 
and a drawing.  However, no one knew what sort of images the camera had recorded until 6 days 
later when the camera was opened during a press conference at a film processing laboratory.  Ed 
and Frances were not present when the film was developed.  When the film was developed there 
were 10 shots consisting of four images per shot, one from each lens.  The images were tiny and 
showed only an array of lights.  Because the images were tiny, as compared to Ed's previous 
photos, the people who first saw them assumed that the object must have been distant and, based 
on Ed's previous claim that it was large, they began using the term "mothership," which stuck 
until, *months later*, I discovered just how far and how big the object was (see discussion 
above).  My initial impression of these photos was that, if Ed had faked this, he was taking a 
big chance because, if he used a small model nearby (as it was presumed he had done, if faking 
the previous Polaroid photos) then the Nimslo camera might have "caught him in the act."  On 
the other hand, I did not know whether or not the camera was precise enough, considering the 
small separation between the outer lenses (2.5 inches) to accurately determine the distance to 
a model (I subsequently found that it was precise enough; see below.).  

ED BUILDS THE WORLD'S FIRST SELF-REFERENCING STEREO CAMERA
	Although in the interview Mr. Black has portrayed the analysis of the Nimslo photos as 
occurring immediately after the photos were developed, the fact is that it was not until May 
that I had enough information about the camera to complete my distance and size calculations.  
(There was a delay because it took many weeks for Tom Dueley, who had provided the loaded, 
sealed camera to MUFON to give to Walters, to provide me with a series of photos of objects of 
known distance so I could calibrate the camera.  After I had the comparison photos I had to 
learn how to make parallax measurements on the film and calculate the distance.)  In the 
meantime other things were happening.  As I have pointed out above, Ed bought a new camera, a 
Polaroid Model 600, on March 7.  I did not know this until the night of March 8, when he called 
me up to say that he had taken another photo but this time with a new type of camera.  
Naturally I was doubly surprised: that he had taken another photo and that he had done so with 
a camera that ejects the film immediately after the picture is taken.  I wrote about this in my 
chapter of TGBS: "...I realized that my demonstration of how to fake a UFO by doing a double 
exposure with his old Polaroid had made an impression on him.  He said the UFO was the first 
thing he had photographed with his new camera."  This was the second example of the 
investigators having an impact on the nature of the photographs (the first being his use of
the Nimslo camera).

	During the conversation that night we discussed several aspects of his sightings and 
their impact on him (see TGBS, pg 282) and then a thought occurred to me: Ed could make a 
bigger stereo camera using his two Polaroid cameras (the old one and the new one).  Half 
jokingly I proposed this to him, not knowing whether he would laugh at the idea or simply 
reject it as too time consuming.  Trying to make this as simple as possible, I suggested 
mounting the cameras at opposite ends of a 1 foot board.  I pointed out that the greater the 
camera separation the better, but 1 foot was probably enough.  I suggested that he fasten a rod 
with a nail, mounted horizontally, so it would protrude from the center of the board outward, 
parallel to the direction the cameras were pointing.  The rod would be about 3 feet long and 
the nail at the end would provide a reference point for both cameras.  This I subsequently 
called the "Self-Referencing Stereo" (SRS) camera.  I told him that a large stereo camera would 
measure distances of several hundred feet. Knowing the distance I could calculate the size of 
the object (from the size of the image).  As I spoke I thought to myself, if he is a hoaxer, he 
now knows that this camera could expose his nearby small model/double exposure technique.  On 
the other hand, if he is not a hoaxer, he now knows that the larger stereo camera could provide 
proof that the objects were large and distant.  Which would he choose, I wondered.  Ed sounded 
mildly interested in being able to calculate the size, but he definitely did not sound as if he 
was overjoyed at the idea of building the SRS camera.  I wondered what he would do, if 
anything. (It is to be noted that at this time neither I nor anyone else knew what distance or 
size the "Nimslo-type" UFO was.  I did know that the Nimslo camera could not measure great 
distances so the suggestion to make a larger camera was partially based on an attempt to do 
better than the Nimslo camera, assuming that the objects were actually far away, like hundreds 
of feet.)

	On March 12 I got another call from Ed and a surprise: he had built the SRS camera as per 
my instructions and had made it "one (foot) better"  than I suggested by having a 2 ft 
separation between the cameras.  Ed told me that he had used his new camera and an identical 
one that he borrowed from Duane Cook.  That meant he still had his old camera available for 
photos. I asked him to send me a picture of the SRS camera.  (When I received it I could see 
that it looked just as I had asked him to build it.)  But, as would happen many times in the 
following weeks, months and even years, Ed's initiative required further work by me and also by 
Ed in order to analyze and understand the photographic evidence.   I asked him to take some 
stereo pictures so I could calibrate the camera.  On the 15th of March I received test pictures 
of objects (trees, etc.) near his house.  He had measured the distances to the objects, so I 
could check the camera accuracy.  It took me several weeks of work to thoroughly understand the 
idiosyncrasies, successes and, yes, failures, of the SRS camera.  But, in the meantime, Ed got 
his first SRS camera UFO photos!

THE MARCH 17 and 20, 1988 SRS PHOTOS
	During the afternoon and evening Ed got the "hum" in his head several times.  He decided 
not to ignore it.  He called several friends and acquaintances (see TGBS, pg 234) and invited 
them to see if something would appear at Shoreline Park.  He and Frances took the SRS camera 
and set it up in an area surrounded on three sides by bushes just beyond the parking lot.  
Later that night he took his first SRS photos of a UFO.  The other people were nearby, but did 
not see the brief appearance of the UFO (their view was blocked by trees and bushes).  However, 
they did see the initial setup of the camera, they saw Peter Newman open two new packs of film 
for Ed to insert into the Model 600 cameras and they saw Ed take some test shots to demonstrate 
how the SRS camera worked.  Subsequently, at a time when they were at some distance from Ed and 
the camera, they saw a single flash from the camera (Ed always used the camera flash to 
illuminate nearby objects as references and, in this case, the nail at the end of the rod 
between the cameras).  They saw Ed run to his truck and turn on the lights.  They joined him 
and watched with Ed as the two pictures (one from each camera) developed in front of their very 
eyes.  In the photos were the bush near the camera and the rod with the nail...and the UFO, 
similar to what he had photographed many times before with his old camera, but the image was 
much smaller than in previous cases.  I spent a lot of time over the subsequent weeks and 
months studying these photos and the complete history of how they were taken, based on 
interviews with the people who were present.  I calculated the distance to the object based on 
the parallax and determined that it was probably between about 200 and 3000 ft away.  I 
couldn't determine the exact distance  because of inaccuracies in this first version of the SRS 
camera.  However, the size of the object would have been 5 ft if at 200 ft and double that if 
at 400 ft, etc.  

	Weeks later I discovered how it was possible to fake the parallax with the SRS camera.  In 
order to carry out the faking one would place the UFO model at one location and take one 
picture and then move the model or turn the camera and take the second picture.  There would be 
many seconds to minutes between flashes.  I realized that the fact that the witnesses saw what 
appeared to be only a single flash (both cameras flashed at the same time), as opposed to two 
distinct flashes with many seconds between (first one camera and then the other), proved that 
Ed did not fake the parallax in this photo!  Therefore there had been a rather large object 
several hundred feet away.  Could it be that Ed had mounted a large "full size" UFO model over 
the water some hundreds of feet away and then somehow had it turned on briefly for his picture?  
This didn't seem likely, but, in March, 1988, I reserved judgement.

	Then, three nights later, he got another stereo photo (March 20).  This time Ed was in the 
back yard of his house and the object was a considerable distance away over the field (a high 
school athletic field) behind his house.  The picture from the right hand camera showed the top 
and bottom "power ring" lights of the UFO.  The picture from the left hand camera showed a dim, 
distorted view of the "power ring" lights, as if the view of the light had been partially 
blocked by something.  By comparing a daylight stereo pair of pictures with the nighttime 
pictures I determined that the sighting line from the left camera had passed through the 
branches of a pine tree 60 feet away.  Ed, at my request, carried out a photo experiment with a 
long fluorescent light tube.  When the tube was behind the branches of the tree the image was 
distorted in the same way as the image of the "power ring" in the left hand UFO photo.  
Therefore the object was over sixty feet away, although I could not determine how far beyond 
that it was because of the lack of parallax (the sighting lines diverged,either because the 
cameras were not aligned properly or because Ed did not take the pictures simultaneously and 
the object moved slightly to the left between pictures). 

THE MAY 1 SRS PHOTOS
	During April, Ed rebuilt the SRS camera, using a much more rigid support for the cameras.  
He provided calibrating test shots, and then we waited.  During early April there was a flap of 
sightings in Gulf Breeze (over two dozen in the first couple of weeks), but Ed didn't see 
anything.  The sighting flap ended about the middle of April and it seemed that the flap was 
over.  Then Ed and Frances, on April 21, saw the "Nimslo type" again.  Apparently the UFOs were 
still around.  Therefore, since Ed wanted to use his new SRS camera to get the best possible 
stereo photos (he said), he decided to be "pro-active" and set up the camera at Shoreline Park 
where he had had "luck" before.  He did this several times during the last week of April.  Some 
days or weeks before he had asked me what would provide the most convincing evidence and I had 
recommended that he take, not only the SRS, but also the videocamera and a radio.  I said that 
the photographic evidence would be enhanced if Frances could videotape the sighting and him 
taking an SRS picture while a radio was playing music from some station.  I knew that the video 
camera would audio record the radio so we could determine later the exact time of the sighting 
(by contacting the radio station to find out at what time a particular song or whatever was 
broadcast).  I also suggested that he take along 6 foot white plastic pipes, each coded near 
the top with strips of black tape.  He could stick them into the ground at the cardinal points 
of the compass, i.e., the north, south, east and west locations, relative to the camera (at the 
center of this "circle" of pipes) for direction reference.  

	During the nights of Tuesday, April 26 and Wednesday, April 27 Ed and Frances went to 
Shoreline Park, prepared as I had suggested.  Each night Ed set up the camera and the pipes and 
then he and Frances waited.  Nothing happened.  Frances had to leave for an over-the-weekend 
high school trip with the high school band (as a chaperon) early (4 AM) Friday morning, so they 
did not go out Thursday night.  Frances asked Ed to promise that he wouldn't go out by himself. 
But he did anyway on Friday night.  On Saturday, April 30, Ed and I had our first conversation 
in a while.  He told me of his sighting on the 21st, that it had prompted him to begin these 
nighttime vigils again and that he and Frances had followed my suggestions to bring a radio and 
videocamera and set up the coded pipes.  He also told me that Frances had gone away on a high 
school trip and that he had gone out alone Friday night and intended to do the same Saturday 
night.  As he told me this my immediate reaction was that it wasn't a good idea to do this 
alone.  At the very least the needed documentation wouldn't be there without the video camera 
and furthermore, if "something happened" there might be danger involved.  But I didn't say 
anything.

	The next day, shortly after noon, I was working on my MUFON presentation about the Gulf 
Breeze sightings.  The phone rang.  I picked it up and heard a sound like someone panting, or 
groaning.  I wondered, who could this be?  Could it be a crank call?  Then I heard, in a low, 
strained voice, "This is Ed."  He then, with a halting voice, numerous pauses and repeats, told 
me what had happened the night before.  (I recorded the conversation with his permission, as I  
had done many times before).  I have provided a summarized version in TGBS, pg. 297.  Briefly, 
what he told me is as follows:  Ed had set up the SRS camera and and pipes at Shoreline Park 
about midnight and then had sat in his truck listening to music.  At about 1:10 AM he got a hum 
in his head, a sign of the presence of the UFO.  He got out of the truck and walked to the 
location where he had set up the camera about 20 ft from the waters edge in an area more or 
less surrounded on three sides by bushes (where he had taken the March 17 SRS photos).  He 
began to scan the sky west, south and east of him, i.e., over the Santa Rosa Sound. Suddenly he 
saw the top and "power ring" lights of the large UFO over the water.  He turned the SRS 
structure and sighted through the right hand Polaroid camera while placing his left and right 
hands to push the shutter buttons on the left and right cameras.  Pushing the buttons 
simultaneously while sighting through the right hand camera was an operation he had practiced 
several times and had used on March 17 (described above). 

	He told me that immediately after taking the picture he looked over the camera and noticed 
that there were now two UFOs over the water, the second being the "Nimslo type."  He placed his 
eye to the viewfinder of the right hand camera and prepared to take another photo when he 
suddenly realized he couldn't see either UFO.  Again he looked over the camera to see where 
they had gone.  He placed his left hand on the SRS direction control handle and prepared to 
turn the camera as soon as he saw where the UFOs had gone.  Suddenly he became aware of a light 
over his head; the large UFO had moved from a position at some distance over the water to a 
location right over his head in a couple of seconds.  Then everything went white and he fell 
down. 

	Ed told me that the next thing he recalled was lying at the water's edge, about 20 ft from 
where he had been standing.  He got up and walked to a nearby park bench where he tried to 
figure out what had happened.  His head hurt and his hands had a horrible odor.  There was no 
UFO in the sky.  After a couple of minutes he looked at his watch and was shocked to see that 
it read 2:25 AM.  What had happened between 1:10 and 2:25?  Suddenly the thought occurred to 
him that his daughter, at home in bed, was in danger.  He walked quickly to the SRS camera 
where he found a picture hanging from the ejection port of each of the Polaroids.  There was 
also a picture on the ground below the right hand camera.  He picked up the pictures and the 
camera and the pipes and raced home.  He checked on his daughter (still sleeping) and spent the 
rest of the night sitting outside her door on guard against...he didn't know what.  At daybreak 
he went to bed for a while and got up about noon.  He tried to wash the odor from his hands and 
couldn't do so.  While shaving he noticed a red spot on his forehead.    He also could see red 
spots on his temples. (Note: the spot and the bruises were photographed by Charles Flannigan 
the next day.)  While combing his hair he noticed a lump at the back.  (The reason for these 
bruises and the reason for his fear that something would happen to his daughter were revealed 
during a regression by Dr. Overlade, as reported in "Abductions in Gulf Breeze.) Ed told me all 
this information in a very halting voice and then described the pictures he had taken.  There 
were three.  Two were obviously a stereo pair, but the third, evidently from the right hand 
camera, showed only the background images and a single small white oval image.  Apparently he 
had taken a picture of something with the right hand camera even as he was falling during the 
"white out."  As I listened to Ed I wondered if this was all an act or an actual event.  Could 
it have been an abduction or was Ed making this all up?  His voice was so emotion-laden that it 
sounded as if this had really happened.  

	Ed said he would mail the pictures to me the next day.  He did so and I received them 
several days later.  As I examined the photos for the first time I was stunned to see how 
symmetric was the lighting of the Nimslo-type UFO.  It was a better picture than he had 
obtained on Feb. 26.  And then began the analysis.  

THE NIMSLO-MAY 1 COINCIDENCE
	The UFO images appear in a direction southward from the beach where Ed was standing.  The 
exact direction was determined by using as reference points the distant lights which are on the 
Bob Sikes bridge that crosses the Santa Rosa Sound, running from Gulf Breeze to Pensacola 
Beach.  The known distance of these lights from the SRS camera, about 7,000 ft, allowed me to 
calibrate the stereo effect.   Using the calibration I calculated that the large UFO was at a 
distance of about 475 ft and about 150 ft above the water.  I calculated its height (the 
spacing between the top light and the bottom ring) as about 15 ft and the width of the bottom 
ring as about 15 ft, consistent with the estimated sizes of previously photographed UFOs.   The 
Nimslo-type was about 132 ft away and about 120 ft above the water and its length calculated 
to be about 2.5 ft.   I was struck by the fact that the distance was different for the two 
objects because, from the point of view of the hoax hypothesis based on photographing small, 
nearby models, it was difficult enough to convincingly hoax the parallax effect corresponding 
to a single distance.  To get two different and reasonable distances in the same picture by 
hoaxing two parallax effects would be even more difficult.  (Note: the methods of parallax 
synthesis which I discovered *after* Ed took his first SRS photos are described in the MUFON 
symposium paper.)  

	Having finished these calculations I returned to the analysis of the February 26 Nimslo 
photos.  The reader should understand that, although the pictures were taken in February, it 
was not until May that I had enough photographic information to actually calibrate the Nimslo 
camera.  Having received that information in early May I spent several days analyzing the 
Nimslo photos to determine the distance and size of the object.  Up until that point no 
one...and I emphasize no one...(unless it was a fake and Ed knew how big the model was) knew 
what size the Nimslo object was.  Anything published in the press or in private correspondence 
was pure speculation.  Therefore, having just discovered from analysis of the May 1 SRS camera 
photos that the Nimslo object was about 2.5 ft long, you can imagine my surprise when I 
calculated that the object in the Nimslo photos was somewhere between 40 - 70 ft away therefore 
was between 2.5 - 4 ft long.  In other words there was agreement between these two very 
different cameras that the object was about 2.5 ft long.  (Note: this length actually refers to 
the maximum spacing between the lights which form the image.  There is no image of a "solid 
body" which could have been longer than 2 1/2 ft.)

	This "coincidence" made a great impression on me because I realized, after some thought, 
the difficulty in creating two hoax stereo photos using cameras of different focal lengths (the 
Polaroid camera has an effective focal length about 110 mm and that of the Nimslo camera is 31 
mm).  This meant that, if he used a single 2.5 ft model, he had to calculate in advance the 
exact amount of parallax synthesis he would need to create with the SRS camera (i.e., a 
specific distance to move the object sideways between exposures) to make the distance and image 
size as calculated from the SRS photos to agree with the size calculated from the Nimslo 
photos.  I knew that this sort of calculation would strain the expert photographer, most of 
whom wouldn't have a clue as to how to do this (and you can't read about it in books!...well, 
except for the MUFON Symposium Proceedings).  I was certain that a calculation like this could 
not have been carried out by Ed.  

ED DIDN'T HOAX THE STEREO PHOTOS
	So, for me this was the last straw, from the point of view of photo analysis.  Ed was the 
first UFO witness in history to take stereo pictures and he did it with a camera that would 
easily have provided proof of fakery using a nearby model.  He didn't have to do this, but he 
did.  Unless someone can come up with a counter-example, I think Ed holds the record for 
carrying out more experiments to help with the analysis of photographs than any other witness 
in history.  Moreover, many of these experiments would have turned up inconsistencies in his 
story and photos had they been fakes.  For all of the nighttime pictures he took he provided 
daylight comparisons.  He also made distance measurements when needed.  In the summer of 1988 
he carried out experiments that explained the presence of the two reflections of the sky in the 
truck hood (photo 19; discussed above).  He provided comparison photos and test photos using 
the old Polaroid, the Model 600 and the SRS camera.  He didn't have to do any of these 
experiments and he didn't have to provide comparison photos, etc., but he did.  

	He also didn't have to take a lie detector test and, having been given one test he didn't 
have to allow McLaughlin to test him a second time.  He didn't have to sit through hours of 
examinations by Dr. Overlade or hours of interviews with investigators.

	Of course, the diehard skeptic will say that Ed went to all these troubles in order to 
convince everyone that his faked sightings and photos were real.  But this response begs the 
question of proof.  If he were a hoaxer and everything he did was no threat to his case then he 
might gladly do the bidding of the investigators.  But how would he know in advance which 
things would bolster his hoax and which would destroy it?  It turns out that many things he did 
could well have sunk his case.  First and foremost was allowing himself to be interviewed and 
tape recorded at length many times.  Of course he knew that if he slipped up in his stories 
someone could find out by comparing tape recorded interviews.  

	Taking any "lie detector" test was a potential threat to his (presumed) hoax.   Suppose he 
thought he could pass a single lie detector test (perhaps with some mental preparation).  So, 
he takes the first test and, when he goes to the office of the polygrapher to get the results 
of the test he is surprised when the polygrapher requests him to repeat the test.  But he was 
not mentally prepared for a second test.  Would he dare to take the test again, with the 
possibility of failure, or would he just tell the polygrapher "goodbye?"  Of course, he knew 
that if he failed the test he could simply not tell anyone and refuse to take another such 
test.  But the polygrapher would know, and he might leak some information to someone else.  

	Even more threatening to a hoaxer was the intensive investigation by Dr. Overlade.  Would 
a hoaxer know in advance that he could maintain all the details of his stories, etc. through 
intensive interviewing, followed by a battery of psychological tests followed by hours of 
hypnotic regression?  What if Overlade suspected something and gave him a post-hypnotic 
suggestion that he should "tell the truth" to the MUFON investigators or the newspaper or 
radio?
 
	And then there are the stereo photos.  As I have mentioned above, you can't find 
instructions on how to fake parallax using a camera such as the Nimslo or SRS.  So, even if Ed 
were a "secret genius" photographer, creating double exposures left and right, he could not 
guarantee for himself that he could figure out how to hoax stereo photos.  Would he then agree 
to build one anyway?  And, having built it, would he agree to follow my instructions on how to 
improve it and how to calibrate it?  And here's the beef:  would he dare take even one UFO 
photo with the camera, and to do it with witnesses around who could catch him hoaxing the 
photos (March 17)? And would he dare go on and take more SRS photos, including one which shows 
the same sort of object as appears in the Nimslo photos?

	As I have written and said in lectures many times in the past, virtually any photo can be 
faked, given enough technical ability, time, equipment and motivation.  Clearly Ed had the time 
and equipment to create simple double exposure fakes to back up his stories.  However, the 
results of Overlade's investigation and the polygraph tests suggest that he did not have the 
motivation.  The other important question is, did he have the technical ability to create these 
stereo photos?  My answer is no.  As I mentioned above, you can't read about this in books and 
most professional photographers know very little about stereo photography.   But even when you 
know how to do the faking, so that it appears conceptually simple, it is still complicated, 
mechanically as well as mathematically, to actually carry out a fake using the same model with 
two cameras of different focal lengths (i.e., the Nimslo-type appearing in the Nimslo photos 
and in the SRS photos).

	Could Ed have faked the May 1 photos?  Yes, by using full scale fake UFOs, one 15 ft high, 
15 ft wide, 475 ft away and 150 ft above the water and a second 132 ft away, 120 ft above the 
water and 2.5 ft long.  Do I think that Ed actually made full size fake UFOs and somehow 
suspended them over the water hundreds of feet away?  No, and I doubt that any reasonable 
person would think that either.

ED IS NOT ALONE 
	Before closing I should mention, as I have numerous times in the past in responding to Mr.   
Black and others, that Ed was not alone.  If it was a hoax, his family and a friend are also 
involved.  One would think that when Ed and Frances were divorced several years later that 
information about UFO hoaxing would have "leaked out" as a result of the stresses of divorce.  
However, Ed and Frances both stated that the UFO events did happen.  Furthermore, there were 
numerous witnesses in the Gulf Breeze area, such as the county coroner and his wife,
who said they saw something similar or identical to what Ed photographed.  
There have been arguments over whether the witnesses actually saw 
something "identical" or not, but this argument of identicallity diverts attention from the fact 
that other witnesses saw strange objects, resembling what Ed photographed, flying around 
between November 11, 1987 and July 1988.  Several of these witnesses saw a blue beam associated 
with the object.  Anyone who doubts my claim of "other witnesses" should read "Gulf Breeze 
Without Ed" which is published in the Proceedings of the 1991 MUFON Symposium (see also TGBS, 
AIGB and "UFOs Are Real, Here's the Proof," by Ed Walters and Bruce Maccabee, Avon, 1997).  Of 
course, Ed's sightings have to be analyzed on their own to determine their veracity, but the 
point about bringing up other witnesses is that their testimony indicates that some strange 
objects were flying around the Gulf Breeze area at the time, so it is certainly possible that 
someone (Ed) could have photographed them.  

	So why did Ed get so many photos whereas other witnesses only produced a few?  Because, as 
Ed has stated, he was alerted to the presence of the UFO by a strange sort of sound or feeling 
in his head which he referred to as a "hum" like sound.  When he heard/felt this "sound" he 
would get his camera.  Sound too simple, too coincidental, too much like a "set up?"  Yes.  The 
claim of a "hum" seems a too convenient way to explain how Ed managed to get so many photos.  
It would be much "easier" to simply argue that, even though other people were seeing the same 
sort of UFO, Ed was simply creating photo hoaxes.  The problem with this simple solution to 
Ed's sightings, namely that they were all hoaxes including the SRS photos, is to attribute to 
him a photographic (and storytelling) capability that strains credibility as much as does the 
reality of UFOs flying around Gulf Breeze.  

CONCLUSION
	In the interview Mr. Black spent a considerable amount of time worrying about the ethical 
implications of me receiving a payment from Ed Walters during the UFO investigation under the 
assumption that I received a payment in July, 1988.  He argues that receiving such a payment 
would be unethical.  I would agree.  However, Mr. Black need not have worried: I did not 
receive any payment in July, 1988.  Nor did I receive one in the previous months nor for about 
6 months afterward (when I was paid for writing the book chapter; see above).  As I have 
pointed out above, by the time I gave my MUFON presentation I had concluded that creation of 
the SRS photos was beyond Ed's capability.  This was the "physics argument" against the hoax 
hypothesis.  I then learned the result of Overlade's investigation and discussed the polygraph 
tests with McLaughlin.  These gentlemen provided me with evidence that Ed was not the type to 
be making up weird UFO stories.  This was the "psychologists argument" against the hoax 
hypothesis.  I was, of course, aware that his family members were involved as witnesses and 
that there were numerous other witnesses in Gulf Breeze.  So, by the time I actually agreed to 
write a book chapter I was convinced it was "all real" and I have maintained that position, 
despite the slings and arrows of cruel fate (and numerous skeptics) ever since then.

Note: for a multiple witness sighting with multiple photos involving Ed and others see
NOT JUST ANOTHER EVENING STROLL.  
There are several other Gulf Breeze sightings also presented at the same web site, 
brumac.mysite.com.