Harold Chacon

Harold Chacon (Spanish: Chacón) is the man presented in the Jonathan Reed case — by Reed, his co-author Robert Raith, and the Mexican broadcaster Jaime Maussan — as the microbiologist who performed DNA analysis on tissue allegedly taken from the non-human intelligent being Reed called "Freddie" during the alleged 1996 Jonathan Reed forest incident. His reported results were the case's principal claim of scientific corroboration: appearing with Reed and Raith on Art Bell's Coast to Coast AM on 9 December 1999, and introduced as a scientist enrolled in a United States doctoral program, Chacon said that nine of the captured being's 46 chromosomes were not human.

The analysis was never published, and Chacon's scientific standing became the central dispute of the case. In 2001 the Seattle UFO-Paranormal Group identified "Chacon" as a clerk at a West Seattle Chevron mini-mart who held no credentials for DNA work, appeared in no University of Washington doctoral program, and had published nothing, and who had worked for years alongside Raith despite the two men's on-air claim to have been strangers before the analysis. Maussan contested that account, tracing a man matching Chacon's description to the Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico, where he was said to have tutored students and been recommended as a biologist.

On-air DNA analysis

Chacon entered the Jonathan Reed case publicly on Art Bell's Coast to Coast AM on 9 December 1999, appearing alongside Reed and Robert Raith. Introduced as a scientist who had graduated from university and was enrolled in a United States doctoral program in science, he said he had been given three tissue samples and a fluid later identified as blood in June 1999. He reported that the skin tissue revealed "an extremely dense leathery surface structure of cells," and that a chromosome study returned a count of 46 — the same as in a human — of which nine were not human, resembling chromosomes he said were found only in dolphins and aquatic sea tortoises.

Maussan, who promoted the case in Mexico, amplified the analysis. He reported that nanotechnology devices had been found in Freddie's brain tissue, which he speculated may have allowed the being to recover after being placed in a freezer. Maussan also presented a separately filmed interview with Chacon — shown without Chacon's face but, Maussan said, with his consent to use his name — which Maussan called "one of the most extraordinary pieces of evidence... in the investigation of the phenomenon."

Identification as a store clerk (2001)

In April 2001 the Seattle UFO/Paranormal Group reported that it could find no basis for Chacon's scientific persona: he held no credentials for DNA analysis, the University of Washington had no record of him in any doctoral program, and he had published no peer-reviewed findings. The group further reported that Chacon and Raith — who on air had presented themselves as having had no prior acquaintance before the analysis — had in fact worked together at the same West Seattle Chevron mini-mart, where store records placed Chacon's employment from May 1997, and that the two lived within two blocks of one another. A room-mate of Raith's named Larry told the investigators in April 2001 that he had been present while Chacon was verbally coached on what to say before the interview.

When the analysis never appeared, Reed attributed Chacon's unavailability to his having been beaten and forced to leave the country — the kind of reprisal against witnesses that he and Raith said surrounded the case — though the Seattle investigators reported that Chacon remained employed at the West Seattle mini-mart. Maussan's own inquiry reached a different conclusion: his team contacted the Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico and was told that a man matching Chacon's description had served as a tutoring-program supervisor and was recommended as a biologist. The two institutional accounts were never reconciled publicly.

ODISEALINK appearance

Chacon later appeared as a speaker in the ODISEALINK Global Witness Series, a multi-part video program featuring Reed, Maussan, and Daniel McEvoy, taking part in a live panel alongside Reed and Maussan. During the same presentation Maussan relayed that Chacon's team had found the being's blood to contain no white cells, no antibodies, and no defenses. Reed produced what he described as a recommendation letter from the Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico on Chacon's behalf and read portions aloud; the letter referred to its subject as a tutorial-program supervisor rather than as a doctoral researcher, echoing the credential reported by Maussan's Puerto Rico inquiry rather than the doctoral candidacy Chacon had asserted on air.

See also

• LINK: An Extraterrestrial Odyssey
• Rodger Haggitt
• Michael Wessels
• Obelisk (Jonathan Reed)
• Link bracelet
• Shooting of Jonathan Reed
• Hobart (The School)

References

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