The Larry Warren Controversy- Part 2

See here for essential background: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/is-larry-warren-fraud.html.

In my 2016 year-end wrap-up programme on HPANWO Radio I described the anti-Larry Warren campaign in detail. See here, the first part of the show from 105 minutes: http://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/programme-219-podcast-2016-review-of.html. Since then, Sacha Christie, the real name of the person I have previously called "Wilks" or "Miss Internet", has published more information in her quest to prove that Larry Warren is a fraud. To begin with, she and Alyson Dunlop have started a GoFundMe.com page to raise money to pay for samples of Larry's handwriting to be formally analyzed by an expert. The allegation is that Larry himself faked many of the documents found in the illustrations of his book Left at East Gate, and the proof of his con can be found in demonstrating that they are all filled out in his own handwriting. This project will cost £600. At the time of writing it is just a hundred pounds short of its goal, see: https://www.gofundme.com/analysis-larry-warrens-handwriting. Sacha says: "Thank you so much to everyone who has contributed. Every penny counts towards a genuine scientific investigation. We need the truth. The witnesses need the truth. Once we have the results, all this awful nonsense can be put to bed for good. This is about a better UFOlogy and is showing us all that we can take a stand and we can fight for the truth. You are doing a good thing for the community." Several people I know have given money to this cause, and I've tried to talk them out of it. You see, regardless of your opinion about Larry's innocence or guilt, this analysis is very unlikely to achieve a conclusive result. Handwriting comparison is not an exact forensic science; it's very different from DNA or fingerprints. It is basically an assessment of statistical evidence, and I've explained the obstacles surrounding that before; how individuals are free to set their own standards of odds about what they consider "coincidence", see: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/pan-pareidolia.html. See here for additional information: http://www.frostbrowntodd.com/resources-1501.html. Also the analyst will not even have access to the original documents; they will have to resort to the book's illustrations. In the end, the analyst will probably just conclude that the documents might have been written by Larry Warren, or they might not... but they will still expect their fee.

Another element of Sacha's critique of Larry Warren concerns the famous "A10 photograph". This was a photo Larry says he took while he was heading out of Bentwater's base for the day on the 28th of December 1980. This was just before the night shift during which he would have his experience. He was a passenger in a car being driven by one of his colleagues from the security police squadron and he saw an A10 Tank-buster aircraft coming into land at the base. He leaned out of the window and took a series of photos of it with a Keystone 110 ASA camera. He had a set of colour prints developed, but then forgot about them; they lay abandoned in his album. However in 2014 a researcher called Mick Sayer was looking at one of the shots when he noticed a pair of unusual blemishes on the picture. When he magnified these he noticed that the marks closely resembled Larry's description of the craft he saw in the early hours of the following morning, see above for the photo. Dr Bruce Maccabee, a US Navy physicist and UFO expert, examined the photograph and found it to be genuine. Remember that in 1980 it was much harder to manipulate images than it is today. Therefore it came as a great surprise for everybody when Sacha Christie made the extraordinary announcement: that the print Larry has is not really the original. The original belongs to an American UFO researcher and author called Barry Greenwood. He was only too pleased to share it with Sacha. This picture is identical to Larry's except that there are no unusual marks on it. However it is also of a much poorer quality. What we see instead is plain, cloudy sky. Sacha also claims there was a copy of this image on a laptop computer she has that used to belong to Larry. See below for the photo. Source: http://sacha-christie-infomaniachousewife.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/larry-warrens-a10-ufo-photograph-is.html.

However, there are some reasons to doubt Sacha's proclamation. Firstly Barry Greenwood himself has so far made no independent statement regarding this matter. We simply have a copy of what Sacha claims is his email to her. I urge anybody reading this who knows Barry Greenwood to get in touch with him and ask him to confirm or deny what Sacha has said. Secondly, Larry has had no contact with Greenwood since the late 1980's when he was appearing on TV, originally with his face in shadow and calling himself "Art Wallace". What is Greenwood doing in possession of what Larry thought was an insignificant amateur snap Larry took and then even dismissed from his mind himself? How did he find it in order to include it with the material he sent to Sacha? Thirdly, and most suspiciously, if you look closely at the photo you'll see that the sky is not completely blank. There are some white marks roughly in the same place where the two UFO's can be seen correspondingly in Larry's picture, the one he insists is the original. The bottom mark is arc-shaped with a short straight line below; and the top ones are a short dash and an irregular squiggle. It seems Sacha has decided to pre-empt those of us, like me, who have noticed this anomaly. She wrote: "Image found in files... by Larry Warren while living with us. A10 with anomalies and coffee cup ring... strange blobs and marks bottom right." (Let's leave aside the blobs on the bottom right for now). These don't look like a coffee cup ring to me. They're white when coffee stains are grey. Most are the wrong shape. Also how big was the print? If it was standard size then that's an awfully small coffee cup. Also why would somebody use a photo like that as a coffee mug coaster and then return it to a photo album? See below where I highlight the unusual marks. Sacha also reckons that only Greenwood's supposed original was in colour and Larry's print was black and white. Not true; Larry's is in colour too.

Strangely Sacha publishes this supposed original photo elsewhere on her blog and it is of better quality, but there are different white marks:

It's time to consider some serious questions regarding this information, and I'd like those who have so far believed Sacha Christie's side of the story to ponder them most of all. Could it be that the print Larry has, the one which has two UFO's on it, is the real original, as he maintains? If he's lying then he must have faked the photo long before 2014, assuming he had the means to do that properly, and then left it lying around for Mick Sayer to find; assuming he could be sure that Mick would even notice it. Could the photo Sacha has published be merely a copy? Also are the white marks I discovered on Sacha's photo signs of tampering? It's too early to be sure and I will not accuse any individuals without hard evidence against them. However I think it is correct of me to include this information in this second part of my article series Is Larry Warren a Fraud? This is an interim report and no doubt there will be more updates soon.
See here for the next part: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/is-larry-warren-fraud-part-3.html.