1925 Don Woods Encounter, Nevada

[ChrisPerridas]

Originally Posted by conspiracygirl

In 1925 Don Wood and another American landed in a two-seater plane on Flat Mesa, near Battle Mountain in the Nevada desert. While walking about the top they noticed something coming in to land. It was round and flat like a saucer, and about 8 ft across, with a reddish underside. It skidded to a stop about 30 ft away.

They walked up to it and found that it was an animal like nothing they had seen before. It had a mica-like body, but no visible eyes or legs. It was hurt, and as it breathed the top would rise and fall making a half-foot hole around it like a clam opening and closing. A hunk had been chewed out of one side of the rim, from which a metal-looking froth issued. After a 20-minute rest, it started pulsating again, and grew very bright except where it was hurt. It tried to rise up, but sank back again.

Suddenly the men saw a much larger animal, 30 ft across, approaching. It settled on the smaller one with 4 sucker-like tongues. Then it grew too dazzling to look at, and both rose straight up and shot out of sight in a second, at an estimated speed of 1000 miles an hour. They left behind an awful stench. The frothy stuff the little creature had ’bled’ looked like fine aluminum wire, and there was more frothy, wiry stuff in a 30-ft circle where the big creature had been. This material finally melted in the sun. Don Wood did not publicize this incident until 1959 as he doubted whether anyone would believe him. He pointed out that the larger animal would appear as a 30-ft light if seen at night [19]

19. The Cosmic Pulse of Life, pp. 108-11.


http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ci...ciareal10b.htm

Does anyone know of more references to this incident? It's fascinating.

I believe the original source was the letters' column of October 1959 Flying Saucers Magazine, pp. 54-55, and it can be found here (see link below). Interesting that this letter had no address or name attached to it, although the others of that issue did.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/3305297/Fl...e-October-1959

[dr wu23]

Originally Posted by ChrisPerridas

I believe the original source was the letters' column of October 1959 Flying Saucers Magazine, pp. 54-55, and it can be found here (see link below). Interesting that this letter had no address or name attached to it, although the others of that issue did.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/3305297/Fl...e-October-1959

Thanks Chris and welcome to the board.
Anonymous letters and tales don't lend much credibility........do they?

[ChrisPerridas]

Hi, Dr, Wu 23, I think we may be "neighbors" as I work in southern Indiana. The questions that immediately came were these: (1) How did Trevor James Constable know the name of the person? (2) Why did Mr. Constable make slight changes (punctuation and paragraphing) in the original text in his 1976 book?

I had never heard of this remarkable case until I saw this forum. And you are right, unsigned statements are much harder to make use of, but even in context they can give interesting tells about their origin and the real or other influences that created them.

[dr wu23]

Originally Posted by ChrisPerridas

Hi, Dr, Wu 23, I think we may be "neighbors" as I work in southern Indiana. The questions that immediately came were these: (1) How did Trevor James Constable know the name of the person? (2) Why did Mr. Constable make slight changes (punctuation and paragraphing) in the original text in his 1976 book?

I had never heard of this remarkable case until I saw this forum. And you are right, unsigned statements are much harder to make use of, but even in context they can give interesting tells about their origin and the real or other influences that created them.

I went to college at IU Bloomington but I live near Crown Point In these days.
Personally I have never really placed much importance in the Constable idea that some ufos could be actual living creatures but it's possible I suppose.
What do you think these statements can tell us about their origins and influences?

[ChrisPerridas]

This is "deconstruction", but I think you can tell a lot about this letter writer from the choices of terms, words, and sentence structure used.

If we go only on the basis of the 1959 text, interesting words pop out that would not be in Joe Q Public's terminology. Words like "mica, aluminum wire, froth, clam, rim, sucker-like tongues, dazzling bright, awful stench, glistened, pulsating, moist". These are very interesting word choices by someone who had thought this story out - real or not - pretty well. These would be considered pretty technical terms even for the late 1950's. It also contains quite a few engineering type expressions mentioning exact numbers and dimensions pretty often although rounded to nearest "10's", exact locations, specifically stating that the "jenny" had the enhanced OX5 engine, and the exact time of "1 P.M."

These kinds of words and phrases are hard to fake, so the writer was at least somewhat knowledgeable about some sea creatures, engineering, and flying. This lends the credibility that the story has taken on.

It also contains colloquial phrases and qualifying phrases that are a little unique: "which I think solves most", "four of us were flying", "skidded", "quite a hunk had been chewed out of one side", "a sort of metal-looking froth issued", "rose straight up and were out of sight in a second". These types of expressions give it a folksy sound, like some old timer sidling up to you and telling you a tall tale.

So not only is this person male, but if you knew him you would enjoy hearing him spin a yarn. A natural story teller.

However, I did run the original text through a flesch-kincaid test, a type of "educational level" of the writer. It was pretty interesting. The numbers are surprisingly low, and here are the results:

Indication of the number of years of formal education that a person requires in order to easily understand the text on the first reading
Gunning Fog index : 6.39

Approximate representation of the U.S. grade level needed to comprehend the text :
Coleman Liau index : 4.21
Flesch Kincaid Grade level : 4.65
ARI (Automated Readability Index) : 3.01
SMOG : 7.11

Flesch Reading Ease : 85.40

It also flagged 11 sentences as being potentially problematic with suggestions to rewrite them.

(reference: http://www.online-utility.org/englis...nd_improve.jsp)

So next I put in an alleged Constable letter (http://www.umsl.edu/~thomaskp/lac.htm) into the same testing program and WOW what a difference - college level!:

ndication of the number of years of formal education that a person requires in order to easily understand the text on the first reading
Gunning Fog index : 13.77

Approximate representation of the U.S. grade level needed to comprehend the text :
Coleman Liau index : 11.43
Flesch Kincaid Grade level : 11.18
ARI (Automated Readability Index) : 9.79
SMOG : 13.35

[dr wu23]

Originally Posted by ChrisPerridas

This is "deconstruction", but I think you can tell a lot about this letter writer from the choices of terms, words, and sentence structure used.

If we go only on the basis of the 1959 text, interesting words pop out that would not be in Joe Q Public's terminology. Words like "mica, aluminum wire, froth, clam, rim, sucker-like tongues, dazzling bright, awful stench, glistened, pulsating, moist". These are very interesting word choices by someone who had thought this story out - real or not - pretty well. These would be considered pretty technical terms even for the late 1950's. It also contains quite a few engineering type expressions mentioning exact numbers and dimensions pretty often although rounded to nearest "10's", exact locations, specifically stating that the "jenny" had the enhanced OX5 engine, and the exact time of "1 P.M."

These kinds of words and phrases are hard to fake, so the writer was at least somewhat knowledgeable about some sea creatures, engineering, and flying. This lends the credibility that the story has taken on.

It also contains colloquial phrases and qualifying phrases that are a little unique: "which I think solves most", "four of us were flying", "skidded", "quite a hunk had been chewed out of one side", "a sort of metal-looking froth issued", "rose straight up and were out of sight in a second". These types of expressions give it a folksy sound, like some old timer sidling up to you and telling you a tall tale.

So not only is this person male, but if you knew him you would enjoy hearing him spin a yarn. A natural story teller.

However, I did run the original text through a flesch-kincaid test, a type of "educational level" of the writer. It was pretty interesting. The numbers are surprisingly low, and here are the results:

Indication of the number of years of formal education that a person requires in order to easily understand the text on the first reading
Gunning Fog index : 6.39

Approximate representation of the U.S. grade level needed to comprehend the text :
Coleman Liau index : 4.21
Flesch Kincaid Grade level : 4.65
ARI (Automated Readability Index) : 3.01
SMOG : 7.11

Flesch Reading Ease : 85.40

It also flagged 11 sentences as being potentially problematic with suggestions to rewrite them.

(reference: http://www.online-utility.org/englis...nd_improve.jsp)

So next I put in an alleged Constable letter (http://www.umsl.edu/~thomaskp/lac.htm) into the same testing program and WOW what a difference - college level!:

ndication of the number of years of formal education that a person requires in order to easily understand the text on the first reading
Gunning Fog index : 13.77

Approximate representation of the U.S. grade level needed to comprehend the text :
Coleman Liau index : 11.43
Flesch Kincaid Grade level : 11.18
ARI (Automated Readability Index) : 9.79
SMOG : 13.35

Not sure I would agree that some of those words would be that uncommon with the public but the engineering words etc would be uncommon.
So basically an 11th or 12th grade education is all that's needed to understand his tale..? Ok..but how does that help us to determine if its legit or a hoax story made up for entertainment?
btw I have never heard of those indexes you used... did you run across those in college or did you minor in 'deconstruction' analysis?

[ChrisPerridas]

I didn't mean to mislead. The "Don Wood Jr" tale is rated at about a 4th or so grade level - maybe a little higher. The long letter to Borderlands by UFO author Mr. Constable rates at about Sophomore level college, or maybe a little higher. This would tend to indicate Mr. Constable probably did not fabricate the 1959 letter anonymously, even if he had tried. Not that we are accusing, but that would be one way to check.

These indexes are based on sophisticated algorithms and help writers determine if they are hitting their target audience market, and do not necessarily indicate the skill level of the writer. But they do give you a feel for the educational level. One suspects someone (such as my Dad) who only made it to 8th grade would be hard pressed to write a college level book, and sometimes someone like a William F Buckley has a hard time relating to a person of lower educational skills.

There are many more sophisticated forensic tools - the kind that find new Shakespeare works, or like the fellow (Professor Don Foster) who was able to out Joe Klein who anonymously wrote the book Primary Colors. That kind of technique is far and away beyond my skills.

I spent some time at a Seminary (1980) after getting my chemistry degree (1979). There, I learned a great deal about deconstructing texts, and oral history, and have worked learning more as the years have trickled on.

I don't think the 1959 letter was intended as a hoax, nor for simple entertainment. It wasn't, for instance, a Forest J Ackerman or Ray Bradbury slumming and poking fun. It was a sincere person writing what they truly believe they experienced, though that person seemed to want a little notoriety in the pages of Flying Saucer Magazine. Maybe he was fishing to Palmer to be paid for an article. Just my opinion.

Constable somehow determined who this anonymous person was. Maybe the guy revealed his identity in some future issue of Flying Saucers Magazine, or maybe Constable learned the name from Ray Palmer - but if any of this happened it isn't transparent. All we have, as far as I can tell, is one person who claims the writer was a "Don Wood Jr" and no idea who this Wood person is or was.

The various tools that forensic literary investigators use give us some details of who a person was and some psychological profile. I am really an amateur at using these tools, but they do give interesting data.