WIRE: USER: PRINTED: 03/18/92 20:43
SEQ SLUG WIRE CATALOG PRIORTY WORDS DATE TIME
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55098 AM-AZ--UFO-Discrimination AP-RG LOCAL NEWS RUSH 240 03/17/92 16:29:34
AM-AZ--UFO-Discrimination, 260 (0115e0ut--nr010)
Man Settles Suit Claiming UFO Beliefs Cost Him Promotion
TUCSON (AP) - A self-described UFO expert who claims his belief
in extraterrestrial life cost him a promotion has settled a lawsuit
against the county.
Robert O. Dean, who says age discrimination also figured in his
being turned down for promotion to Pima County emergency services
director, said Monday he settled the lawsuit for $100,000 plus two
years back pay.
Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, the defendant in the suit,
declined to comment on the settlement and referred questions to a
deputy county attorney who was in court and unavailable Tuesday
afternoon.
Dean, then 61 and the county's emergency services coordinator,
was turned down for the promotion in February 1990.
Dean, who retired from the Army as a command sergeant major
after a 28-year career, said he considers himself a professional
researcher of UFOs and had "cosmic top-secret clearance" while he
was in the military.
He said he developed his interest in UFOs while serving in
Europe in the 1960s and part of his Army job dealt with reports of
UFO sightings.
According to records filed with the suit, Dupnik told County
Manager Enrique G. Serna he didn't want to hire Dean because of his
beliefs about UFOs.
Dean's attorney, Ronald J. Stolkin, said the settlement includes
a "no-fault finding" in which the county does not admit to
wrongdoing. Stolkin said the back pay will amount to $16,000,
covering the difference between Dean's current county salary and
what he would have made in the higher job for the last two years.
AP-NY-03-17-92 1628EST
Saskatoon (SK) STAR PHOENIX, 9-6-90
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CIRCULAR PATTERNS IN THE FIELD BAFFLE RESIDENTS
Strange circular patterns of flattened wheat in a field north
of Prince Albert have left observers baffled.
"At the risk of sounding like a loonie-bird, I'd say we've
been visited by extra-terrestrials," said area resident Darrell
Roth.
The "very neat, symmetrical patterns" were discovered last
week in farmer Ray Fisher's leased field on the Little Red River
Indian Reserve, about 48 kilometres northwest of Prince Albert.
"The baffling part is that the dirt under them (the circles)
has not been disturbed. It looks as though there's been no
weight on the circles. There's no indentations on the dirt,"
Roth said.
Ripened wheat was bent over five centimetres from the ground
in a clockwise direction. None of the wheat was damaged or
uprooted.
One set of three concentric circles is almost 18 metres across
with two, two-metre circles nearby. A second pattern, about 120
metres away, has only one ring around a centre circle.
There are no tracks leading to the patterns.
Roth doesn't think the wheat was flattened by the wind. The
patterns are too orderly. But he doesn't rule out the
possibility of secret government experiments.
Fisher called the RCMP after discovering the patterns while
swathing. However, no investigation was undertaken because
officers were unable to find Fisher's field, said St. Sgt. Alf
McKeil.
Last Friday, Don Friesen, an amateur astronomer and
vice-president of the Saskatoon chapter of the Royal
Astronomical Society of Canada, saw the circles.
"I think they could be left by extra-terrestrial spacecraft,"
he said. "There's no way the wind can do something like that.
They're too neat and symmetrical."
Chirs Rutkowski, a civilian UFO researcher in Winnipeg, said
the patterns sound similar to at least six such rings found in
Manitoba in the last two weeks.
Rutkowski has contacted groups in England who are studying some
of the more than 1,000 such patterns that have appeared there
this summer. The Manitoba circles are very similar to the ones
in England, he said.
Circles have also been reported in Australia this year.
"It's a global type of phenomenon," he said.