On General Cooperation September 2000 I am in the throes of re-reading Monuments of Mars by Richard Hoagland. I am struck by one very prominent detail in this book and that is Richards’ effort to bring his material, theories and conclusions before the scientific community. We all know the outcome of this effort by Mr. Hoagland. That outcome can be seen today in the general reactions we continue to encounter from that very same community. I don’t know the author of this quote but I do know I heard it from Brian Tracy a motivational speaker “A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still”. The scientific community has dug in it’s collective heels on this topic, it is renowned for totally rejecting viable possibilities that would put their own theories and belief systems in question. I would suggest that we as a community of amateurs already know this to be true. So what can we do about it?, we can ignore them...they aren't the people we need to convince, the public is the prime target. We have another interesting problem to identify, define and solve ourselves before we can do anything about bringing forth sufficient proof to convince the public that the things we see are possibly real. The problem is a division within the ranks of the amateurs. This division as I see it, is as follows: We have many levels of expertise involved in this hunt for anomalies. They range from the rank amateur who timidly sends their first email with a question on an image to some webmaster of a Mars site asking if there is anything there and how can they do better in their processing, to the consummate professional who has bolted from his peers viewpoints and decided to support the idea that life might have existed out there. The problem is those consummate professionals for the most part ignore the rank amateurs. This very newsletter connected to a great web site and an ever expanding web ring was founded on the idea that the rank amateur had as much to contribute as that consummate professional. It is time for us as a community of believers in what our eyes see on Mars to broaden our own minds and accept all levels of research into this question. I would reference Mars Revealer here as an excellent case in point, he was one of the first to join Anomaly Hunters web ring and was constantly posting to the TEM boards. His approach is quite different and when the decision was made to make him a member of the ring his artistic approach was never the question, his cobra lord studies were not an issue, what was important was simple… was he searching for and finding anomalous objects. No other judgment was necessary. I am afraid however, that as a group we are being judged and ignored, excluded and sometimes ridiculed by our own peers. I would name names here but that would only serve to further divide what is an extremely large group of hunters. I will throw out a challenge to those involved in this field who have the credentials of credibility to take the lead and gather the masses under a single banner and lead us to the promised land of FULL DISCLOSURE. I challenge those with credentials to realize that the scientific community is never going to be convinced against their will. This fight has to be carried directly to the people, the best way to accomplish that IMHO is by an overwhelming presentation of sheer numbers of believers. Wayne Dyer in an early book talks about the force and power of an idea, how once that idea gathers momentum and gathers enough believers that it becomes unstoppable. We are stopping ourselves because too many hunters are acting as individuals. There is no fame or glory in this. Nobody will care 30 years from now about whose name it is on a particular find. Hoagland has proven that there is no money in this as his costs for research and maintaining web sites and other support far out strip any monetary returns from book and tape sales. In his book Richard described how he was linked by computer with other researchers and they were able to conduct the initial investigation via this link. SETI now uses thousands of home based computers to perform the search for Radio signals. While we might not be able to accomplish this type of computer nirvana, we surely could utilize the many individuals in searching through and cataloging the enormous number of images currently available to us online. I have seen requests on various discussion boards for someone to take the lead and make these assignments. I am issuing a challenge to those with credentials that are involved in this search… take command of the masses, we need a leader that will embrace everyone, ignoring us only prevents you from achieving your own goals, bring the collective work being done to it’s logical end…. FULL DISCLOSURE!!!! *Jim (Jim Miller)