The National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS) began a project most UFO investigators could only dream of. The project, most recently covered in the media by Las Vegas journalist George Knapp, began back in 1996 when a rancher contacted NIDS about an incredible amount of unusual activity taking place on a 480-acre ranch located in Utah. [ For a detailed summary of the events at the ranch, please read Knapp's two-part story 'Path of the Skin walker' - Part I, Part II ] After the owner of the ranch contacted NIDS, a team of scientists and investigators visited the ranch. NIDS, apparently impressed by the activity, purchased the ranch and set up camp to study the ongoing activity at the ranch.

I first heard of the ranch in 1996. One of my contacts told me about what was happening at the ranch after an initial story ran in a Utah paper. I told my contact that, if the activity was at the level being boasted, then someone should buy the place and study the activity. And what do you know, NIDS was setting up shop at the ranch a few months later. Not that my suggestion of buying the place had anything to do with it, it didn't. But what more could any researcher or investigator ask for? A place where highly strange activity was taking place on a regular basis.

While I could sit here and write a story about the many tales of extremely unusual activity taking place at the ranch that I have heard, and many of you have probably heard as well, I'm not going to. Instead, I'd like to address the issue that many folks out there in the UFO field have been complaining about - that NIDS is allegedly hogging their information and keeping important new discoveries from the public.

I'm not defending NIDS nor am I defending Las Vegas millionaire Robert Bigelow. I myself am not all that happy about NIDS keeping a tight lid of secrecy over what they're doing, but I understand why they have chosen to take this route. And most certainly, I am not defending George Knapp's article - though Knapp is the man that brought the media down on Area 51.

For this commentary, I don't care about NIDS buying a bunch of abductee files. I don't care about NIDS getting crop or cattle mutilation samplings and allegedly not giving test results back to the people that allege to have provided the samplings. I'm not interested in hearing conspiracy prone babble that NIDS and Robert Bigelow are in cahoots with the CIA or any other alphabet agency in perpetrating a UFO cover-up. I don't want hear tales of NIDS staffers traveling through portals at the ranch and never coming back or human mutilations taking place at the ranch. And I really don't want to hear the bit about NIDS allegedly having made contact with an extraterrestrial intelligence at the ranch. And last but not least, I don't want to hear anyone saying what a good Sci Fi Channel documentary this would make. Do I get a production credit for that now?

With that being said, I really don't think I have much to write about on why NIDS is not interested in sharing or working with the UFO community at large. It really should be obvious by now. Frankly, were I in the position of NIDS, I wouldn't want the vast majority of the UFO community involved with any research I was doing - especially if I had a front row seat to the activity and took into consideration the ill reputation the UFO community has. Would you want someone to associate what is potentially a break through discovery with the UFO subject as it is perceived by popular culture? Men In Black? Alien? Independence Day? Roswell? The general UFO community at large?

No thanks. I'd happily pass on that association at the drop of a hat.

All too often in the UFO field, there appears to be this rush to judgement where a UFO or abduction case is validated as the real deal without any real investigation. This jump to the finish line mentality has left a lot of pot holes on the road from UFOlogy to hard science. It is also one of the many reasons that professional organizations such as NIDS have decided that the UFO community does not have a right to be privy to a major case simply because the UFO community thinks it's their prerogative to know every thing that's happening.

I sure as hell would be more than a bit afraid of sharing a case with any of the greater part of so-called UFO researchers/investigators out there. Most of these people get their claws dug into a story and they run with it - whether or not they have all the facts.

How many times have we heard from investigators that they've investigated a case and evaluated the evidence and then proclaim all as genuine? All too often we see so-called UFO investigators hitting the lecture circuit with a story, some photos and nothing more. We hear claims that a case is the smoking gun proof of extra terrestrials visiting our tiny planet. Within UFO circles, this seems to be the acceptable norm of establishing a case as the real deal. We hear about 'experts' - all too often nameless - validating physical evidence and all sort of anomalies being discovered. Far more too often, this extraordinary evidence never seems to materialize. And when it does, the alleged smoking gun turns out to a be a cap gun full of duds.

The real investigators and researchers are the ones out there that don't jump the gun and start dancing around while proclaiming ET is here based on a story and some photos or some other form of evidence they have not had thoroughly evaluated. The real experts in this field are those who are willing to follow strict scientific investigative methods, exhausting all possibilities, questioning, experimenting, presenting hard facts that will hold up under scrutiny. Unlike some other UFO organizations out there, and I use 'UFO organization' in association with NIDS very loosely, NIDS is doing this from all accounts. You know, the rest of that scientific stuff most UFO buffs don't do or aren't as concerned with as they are selling their newsletters and tickets to their lectures. Or the UFO folks that like to take any story and run with it instead of backing it up or saying they really don't know what's going on.

In one account from the Utah ranch in Knapp's article, staffers at the ranch encountered something with reptilian eyes. There was also some alleged physical evidence left in the form of a foot/claw print. Did anyone ever hear NIDS come out and start proclaiming that reptilian aliens were on the loose at the ranch? Of course you didn't. Why? Because unlike so many of the so-called researchers out there in UFO land, NIDS appears to not be interested in playing up the hype and making unfounded, sensationalistic claims without first conducting the proper research and investigative process necessary to draw a conclusion. Is the story about the reptilian creature interesting? Of course it is, but that's all it is for now until hard physical evidence can be examined and a final conclusion drawn from that evidence can be made beyond a doubt. NIDS knows it can't run around passing out UFO and alien tales like candy to hyper active three-year-olds.

Now, were this the UFO community at large investigating this incident, we no doubt would be regaled with tales of reptilian aliens packing cows away on their backs and performing strange sexual acts on helpless humans. Anyone else out there recall a case having to do with a claw and an abduction? Before any real analysis was completed, this tale and the original person involved in its "investigation" were already hitting a UFO conference making claims of ET involvement. Not long after that there was a documentary produced, an e-book released and more folks hitting the conference trail selling the story. Where were the final investigative results, the reports, the evidence? It was no where to be found at the time, but that didn't stop people from trying to sell it off and sensationalize it as yet another smoking gun.

As far as I'm concerned, NIDS is doing the right thing by not involving the UFO community in its Utah ranch project - and really, who could blame them for not wanting to associate the organization and its reputation with the lunatic fringe that makes up the large piece of UFOlogy? The unfortunate part of this is that there are some rather intelligent and extremely talented investigators out there in the UFO community, the problem is that they have been clumped together with the lunatics, con artists and other general idiots in UFO land that have placed a permanent "DUNCE" tattoo on the face of UFOlogy.

I sure as hell wouldn't give any of the UFO idiots out there a pass to the ranch, supplying them with all the fodder they need to sell more newsletters, sell more conference tickets, and to feed the frenzied imaginations of the faithful out there who are all too willing to pay to hear all the sensationalist crap they can until they puke - all under the guise of "the truth" while the truly interested pay the real price.

With that said, I'm sure the rumor mongering about NIDS will continue, I'll be labeled part of the cover-up and a puppet for it or the conspiracy buffs will say I'm on Robert Bigelow's payroll, the sensationalists out there will take Utah ranch story and pump it for every nickel they can get out of it, and nothing will probably change. Perhaps NIDS will be the organization of change in this field should the Utah ranch project yield the results that many of the serious researchers in this field hope it will yield.

Better yet, why don't we all start making some changes instead...wow, now there's an idea...