Every column is an adventure, because even though I spend considerable time thinking about what I’m going to write, I stay unsure until I actually sit down to write. For the current issue, I’ve had several things on my mind but discarded several ideas before choosing one.

Of course, in this column I can write about anything I want, with the only caveat—it should include UFOs.I was going to wax critical about the Exopolitics conference (X-PPAC, held in Gaithersburg, MD, Apr. 16–18) but I wasn’t there, and besides—from what I was told, it was the same old story with only a couple of new faces.

Even with the new faces, it was still the same old story. We are going to be told! We are not going to be told! The evil secret government is holding back! Yada, yada yada.Come on. Give me a break!

I’ve been listening to this crap for the last fifteen years. In case anybody hasn’t been paying attention, we are currently in a war for our very survival, with maniacs all over the globe wanting to destroy this nation and its culture (no matter how disgusting. For example: Can you believe that Jessica Simpson???) and they just might have the perfect weapons to do it.

Now, do you really believe that anyone currently in government actually has even a passing thought about UFOs? And if you believe they do, how does it stack up with the idea of a North Korea, Iran, or an unstable Pakistan with nuclear weapons? As I write this, news just came out of New York City that the authorities there suspect terrorists might be planning a “Madrid style” bombing in the city. Oh, joy.

On to more mundane UFO stuff—and it has been years in the coming. Recently, and once again, Jim Moosely of Saucer Smear has gone out of his way to try to insult UFO Magazine—and myself and my wife. To think we have gone out of our way to simply ignore this dissolute jerk! (This is my column, so I can talk like that.)

Actually, my dislike of Moosely goes back years, when he printed slander and lies (knowing they were lies) given him by another jerk—who is now “room temperature”—named Bill Cooper. One outstanding lie claimed that I had never served in the Armed Forces or Viet Nam, as “checked out” by that virtuous, star-spangled veteran Bill Cooper. Cooper, by the way, is now “room-temperature” because he got into a shoot-out with police attempting to serve a warrant on him for threatening a man with a gun, and after shooting a cop, the cops blew his butt off. Ho-hum.

Moosely became upset most recently when at a local National UFO Conference, the editor-in-chief and I ignored him. He wanted to know why! Frankly, I didn’t want to be around him because he smelled like a stale ashtray. Geeze, this guy smokes like a chimney, and he actually stank. I’m a former smoker myself, but I’ve been off the weed for almost 10 years. Cigarette smoke actually hurts my nose these days. And Moosely has about 65 years of smoke on him!

In his smoke-filled mind, does he actually think that he can insult people for years, and then—that they still might want to sit down with him and chat? After all, it was John Keel who years ago told Moosely that he was “a boil on the ass of ufology!” I really can’t dispute that. But there’s one thing I can thank Moosely for—and this is the truth. I have a copy of his book Shockingly Close to the Truth: Confessions of a Grave Robbing Ufologist. (Now the title says a lot!) I haven’t read the book, but it does make a jim-dandy platform to prop up my laptop computer. And that’s what I’ve been using it for. That, and a coaster for my coffee cup. It’s too bad I don’t smoke anymore, but if I should ever again take up that bad habit, at least I have the perfect ashtray!