Bill Uhouse (who I called "Jarod 2" in the Desert Rat) has gone to the other side. According to family members, he died this past May in Pennsylvania.As you may recall (Desert Rat #24, #27, #28, #32, #33, #37 and maybe a few more), Uhouse claimed to have helped build flight simulators to train human pilots to fly alien craft. Like Lazar's story, Uhouse's claims had remarkable internal consistency, were limited in scope to what he actually "saw" and had no obvious personal motivation. I "believed" his story, at least inasmuch as I believe anything.
Were his claims true? I still don't know. All I do know is that Uhouse became difficult to deal with. I got uncomfortable with his racist invective and his abusive behavior toward other people I knew. When the invective turned against me personally, I simply withdrew. Someone can hold all the keys to the universe, but if they're going to be a jerk on this planet I'm not going to deal with them!
If the story was fake, did he make it up himself or was he put up to it by someone else, like a sinister government agency? It certainly doesn't make sense to me why he would concoct this tale in his later years, but stranger things have lurked in the hearts of men. My own personal conclusion was simply that I didn't care anymore. A story like that depends almost entirely on how much confidence you have in someone's personality, and after a year or so, I lost that confidence.
At his own request, Uhouse's death was virtually kept secret, with even some family members not learning of it until now. Perhaps now that he has passed, more about him will come out and the story will eventually resolve itself.
(We should all remember this ourselves: We may be able to control our own press releases while we are alive, but once we die, our privacy evaporates.)
