The Name's Reed. Dr. Jonathan Reed.

I have a special place in my heart for the more exotic corners of the Earth. Although I didn’t leave the U.S. until I was well into my late 20s, I like to think I’ve made up for it by roaming through the earth, and going back and forth in it, as it were. But then, I’m young and indestructible, and can survive in Venice on three days worth of dollar menu McBurgers, or as Italians call it, “The only food in this festering swamp that doesn’t cost thirty euro.” And that’s why I’m especially pleased when I get emails from the distant corners of the earth, such as this one, from a certain Herr Horst:

Hey Aaron,
I frequently enjoy your ironskeptic site - Thanks for this hilarious work so far :) I wondered if you ever heard about the case of Dr Jonathan Reed? If not, you will love this one: A man going for a walk with his dog in the woods finally finds himself in a deadly fight against a green skinned alien from planet Grorkon-7 or at least Venus. I promise you my friend, this is an encounter of the strangest kind and I am well aware of the 1001 strangest ufo stories collection in your head.
Check this out: http://www.attainablemind.com/2009/08/dr-jonathan-reeds-alien-encounter.html
Greetings from planet Germany

First, let me say “neun und neunzig luftballons!” for writing to me. I’m afraid that’s all the German I know. Anyway, Herr Horst and the ladies have something in common: I do what they tell me to.

Dr. Jonathan Reed, as the reenactment video at the bottom of that website tells us, was raised in a loving family, and became a clinical research psychologist. That means ‘doctor for children’, and no, I’m not talking down to you. The narrator of the video makes a special point of defining this for us, because he secretly thinks we’re cretins. “He had established a good career, and a life of personal great reward,” the narrator informs us, as photos of Dr. Jonathan Reed doing various awesome things flash by. Playing a guitar, standing next to an expensive automobile, making sweet, sweet love to a supermodel. But we can get back to how awesome Dr. Jonathan reed is later. On with the story.

October 15th, 1996 was a gentler time. People still enjoyed the old-fashioned, simple pleasures, and telephones didn’t yet have the capacity to play movies or do any of those other things that makes you an obnoxious douchebag when you’re on the subway. They were just phones. Dr. Jonathan Reed was taking his dog, Susie, for a walk down a mountain path, when she darted away from him. Dr. Jonathan Reed was able to hear her barking, but not see her; suddenly, her barking became frantic! Thinking that she was being mauled by a bear or mountain lion, Dr. Jonathan Reed picked up a stick and went to help.

Let me interject: Dr. Jonathan Reed, in addition to being a guitar playing, supermodel boning doctor for children, has a stainless steel undercarriage. If I thought my dog was being attacked by a bear, that dog is on its own. I’m certainly not going to go on the offensive brandishing a branch, unless that branch fell off of the 9mm Uzi machinepistol tree. But I digress.

Massive brass-clad testicles in tow, Dr. Jonathan Reed came over a hill to find Susie fighting for her life against a monster from the other side of madness. It looked like a child in a black jumpsuit, but the proportions were all wrong. The creature began tearing the dog limb from limb, because fuck dogs, and finally ‘disintegrated her remains.’ Dr. Jonathan Reed, that epitome of manly ballsiness, rushed over to the alien, despite having just seen it murder a dog to death, and crushed its skull in with his stick.

Dr. Jonathan Reed, presumably after planting a foot on the carcass and letting out a roar of primeval badassery, suddenly fell ill. In the words of the completely unsubstantiated musings of the narrator: “It seemed that the creature, who was now lying on the ground… had somehow the capacity to make [Dr. Jonathan Reed] instantly sick, maybe as some form of defense.” I’m not a biologist, but any defensive measures that only kick in after you’ve been murdered don’t really seem like ‘defensive’ measures to me. But I mean, that’s just me, nitpicking.

After lying on the ground, barfing and pooping for ‘many many hours,’ Dr. Jonathan Reed heard a strange harmonic sound that he thought might be another hiker or camper. Apparently, the Pacific Northwest is home to oscillating, humming campers, but whatever. Dr. Jonathan Reed followed the sound and came across a ‘floating obelisk’.

The air was heavy, apparently, with electrical energy, and when Dr. Jonathan Reed stumbled against the obelisk, he felt as though he was absorbed into it, as though he was sitting in a large black room. The obelisk, however, was not down with his shenanigans, and barfed him out. Ha!

Anyway, Dr. Jonathan Reed decided, rather than going to the proper authorities, on a course of action that sounds like the plot to a B grade slasher movie: he wrapped the dead alien in a blanket, tossed him in his trunk, and when he got home, dumped the poor guy in a freezer. Before leaving the forest, though, he got his video camera and made a short movie that is taking the art world by storm. Here’s a challenge: turn the volume all the way up, close your eyes, and try not to imagine that this is the worst porno movie of all time.

The video is grainy, and shows the alien lying on the ground, not really doing anything. There’s some stumbling, a lot of heavy breathing, and when he gets near to the obelisk, the camera starts acting funky. Through the static, you can kind of see a black thing, and I guess it sort of seems like it’s floating? Or, as Dr. Jonathan Reed puts it: “wugh ugh blugh FUCK ugh ughnnnnn WHY WON’T YOU WORK blughhhhhhhhh ughn blarfd plop!”

From here, the story gets a little fuzzy. Dr Jonathan Reed couldn’t find any UFO networks that wanted to help him, and only one of his friends took him seriously. And then the government broke in and stole the alien as well as the original film and video cassettes. Everyone that Dr. Jonathan Reed knew started being followed by shadowy stalkers, his car was run off the road, and at one point, he was apparently shot.

Er. Wait. This is the hallmark of a good UFO story: how the evidence goes missing. Sure, Dr. Jonathan Reed could have just claimed that he was too freaked out by his murder from beyond the moon to think to make a videotape, but who would believe that? The guy just manslaughtered an outerspace monster that had torn apart, and vaporized, a dog with its bare hands. Dr. Jonathan Reed doesn’t feel fear, and he certainly doesn’t freak out, so government agents breaking in it is! Imagine the scenario, though, at the evil government headquarters. Your boss comes in and tells you that you’ve got to break into the house of a guy who murdered a powerful space being and keeps the remains in the refrigerator, presumably for… ‘later’. Yeah, that’d be the day I quit my evil government job.

You may notice that I keep referring to the hero of this story as Dr. Jonathan Reed. I’m not just being a dick. That’s how the websites that buy into his story refer to him, and the narrator of that film doesn’t miss a chance to shoehorn the word ‘Doctor’ into conversation. Here’s the thing: if you’re a doctor, and you refer to yourself as “Doctor Whatever,” you’re a vainglorious shitbag. Trust me. I’ve got a gen-u-wine Ph.D. in fancy pants engineering, as well as several advanced degrees in drinking bourbon and pleasuring women (physically, not emotionally), and the test to see if you’re ready to receive your degree is whether or not you refer to yourself as ‘Doctor’. If you do, back in the lab, son. Not this year.

Dr. Jonathan Reed’s whole story sounds like a teenager’s schoolyard boasts. He’s a doctor! He has a fulfilling career! He drives fancy cars and hangs out with tasty dames! This one time, he totally beat an alien to death with a single blow! And then the government tried to hush him up by stealing all his evidence and shooting him, but no one stops Dr. Jonathan Reed! He’s awesome!

The worst part about this part of this story is that Dr. Jonathan Reed isn’t EVEN THE GUY’S REAL NAME. Dr. Jonathan Reed is, in fact, Mr. Jonathan Bradley Rutter. This only came to light after a couple of years of touring the country giving speeches, and Mr. Jonathan Bradley Rutter finally admitted that he came up with the name “Dr. Jonathan Reed” to protect his family. Wait. What? Your protect your family by keeping your mouth shut, not by talking up a storm under a slightly different name. Also, why is your nom de plume a doctor with an elaborate backstory? Hell, if you can just go around calling yourself a doctor for fun, you all can start calling me Dr. Col. Baron von Lowenbrau III, esq. I hope you start opening your emails with ‘sir’ from now on, peasants. I’m a Baron.
Look. Mr. Jonathan Bradley Rutter was bored, so he wanted to pretend to be a doctor to pick up ladies. We’ve all done it. But that wasn’t enough, so he had to be a doctor that is tougher than a savage, dog-murdering space monster from beyond the moon. The end. This isn’t a difficult case to figure out, it’s a mid-life crisis, if you think about it for even a minute. And that’s why supporters of Mr. Jonathan Bradley Rutter’s story insist that you DON’T think about it. This is from the website:

It's important to realize reality is what you make of it. Easier said then [sic] done. In order to change your opinion about something you have to truly believe it. You have to know within yourself that it's real. Nothing ell's [sic] can do it for you. At first most people write this off as a fake because everything they know tells them that this can't be real, because aliens are something out of sci-fi movies and not a reality. Personally if you still feel that aliens and UFOs are the vivid imaginations of humans, you need to open your mind a bit more.

This is a quote from the movie re-enactment:

The important thing to understand about this case is that it has to be seen to be understood. It has to be viewed, it has to be felt. It’s extremely important to see in person Dr Reed to really get to know the man, to know the intensity, to know what he went through, to know what he saw, to understand his communication with the extraterrestrial Freddie…

At least, I think he says ‘Freddie’. Knowing the secrets of the universe apparently makes you mumble. Look. Space aliens murdering your dog is a question of facts. It’s not whether or not Mr. Jonathan Bradley Rutter is charismatic. It’s not a matter of faith. It’s not a question of what you feel. Appeals to emotions are for politicians and people trying to sell you beauty products that you don’t need, not for people that yearn to be taken seriously by science and the general population. This is a story told by a liar that makes no logical sense.

If you think about it, rather than feel about it, you see a story where all of the physical evidence has conveniently disappeared. A story where Mr. Jonathan Bradley Rutter passes himself off as Dr. Jonathan Reed because he’s a bored middle aged man having a boring middle-life crisis. A story where Mr. Jonathan Bradley Rutter has publicly refused to have what evidence remains (copies of the photos and videos, etc.) analyzed by competent persons. A story where a space alien that can disassemble a dog with his bare hands and vaporize the corpse is killed by a sweaty, overweight middle-aged man in the total defiance of everything we know about close-contact fighting.

Mr. Jonathan Bradley Rutter is a liar. By extension, his story is lies.

Be seeing you.