Jesse Marcel's Journal - Update 1

A while back, we learned that Jesse Marcel, Sr., had kept some sort of journal that family members had just discovered. I wasn’t overly concerned with the length of time it took for this discovery. Just a couple of years ago I found a stack of letters my father had written home from the Pacific Theater during the Second World War. They had been in an old suitcase just passed from hand to hand in the family. I had no idea what was in it until I opened it.

Major Jesse Marcel

So, when the Marcel family said they had just located these journals, I wasn’t surprised nor did I think it was some sort of trick. They wanted to take time to review the information and gather the documentation to prove that the journals had been written by the senior Marcel long ago.

I said that when I learned anything new, I would report it here and I have learned something new. Months and months ago the family decided that they needed the help of a linguist who had a working knowledge of cryptic writing. They thought that something might be encoded in the journals that would be of interest because Marcel had been an intelligence officer.

Let me say here that I served in a position similar to that in which Marcel served. We were both air intelligence officers. True, our assignments had been decades apart… he in the late 1940s and me in the mid-1970s, but the jobs were essentially the same. I know this because I have read the unit histories of the military organizations with which he served. For example, in the Army, the verifications of the information supplied by the soldier for a security clearance fell to the intelligence officer. Marcel, according to the 509^th Unit History had been doing that in Roswell. Before we deployed to Iraq, I had been doing that for our unit. Similar tasks separated by decades.

I can, therefore, make a number of extrapolations about what Marcel would have been doing, and based on my experiences, know how the various assignments would have been completed. There was no point in which I was introduced to any sort of comprehensive training that would have involved cryptic writing. Sure, there were the basics covered in a couple of courses, but nothing that would have been beneficial in creating a code hidden in the context of an everyday, personal journal.

But none of that is extremely important. The mere question and then search for a linguist with a knowledge of cryptic writing tells us what we want to know. It tells us there is nothing in these journals that reference the UFO sighting, the crash, the retrieval or the recovery of alien bodies. If there was, there would be no reason to attempt to “read between the lines.” No need to search for hidden messages in the journal. If it is not obvious, then I suggest it is not there.

For those who think that Marcel would have been hiding this stuff because, at the time, it would have been classified and such a journal entry would be dangerous, I say, remember, he told what he knew. We, in the UFO community, didn’t learn about this until 1978, but he had been talking about it with his ham radio buddies prior to that. And we have no journal entries prior to that point that suggest the alien spacecraft. No, I fear this is another dead end, based solely on the query about a linguist and cryptic writing.

True, this is speculation based on a simple question asked by the members of the Marcel family, but it is also a worrisome question. If there had been anything mentioned in the journals that suggested the UFO crash, then the question wouldn’t have been necessary. That it was asked suggests that nothing was found that related to it.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Robert Sheaffer and Unidentified

Given the interest in History’s Unidentified, with the suggested connections to UFO insiders in the government, I reached out to noted skeptic Robert Sheaffer. I, along with others such as Rich Reynolds and John Greenewald, had wondered about

Robert Sheaffer

Luis Elizondo’s credentials and military background which, to this point, have been ill defined. We all, however, had separated that problem from the Navy fighter pilots’ observations of some sort of unusual craft. I wanted to get the take of someone who had his feet planted firmly on the other side of the fence.

Before getting into that discussion, however, I asked a question that had been bothering me for a long time. Do skeptics ever research a case and find no terrestrial explanation? Do they ever just say, “I don’t know what it was?”

You can listen to the discussion here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/18515850

We did talk about Levelland and to be fair, I’m well-versed in that case and the question came spontaneously. Robert hadn’t been prepared for it, but did provide some interesting ideas about it… and I found our discussion about ball lightning, as a possible solution, to be, well, funny. The Air Force used a phenomenon that was not well understood, and that might not even exist as theoretically postulated to explain another phenomenon that was theoretically postulated and might not exist as described.

Given that I was in Roswell on Friday when the last episode aired, I had not seen it. I did, however, read several reviews of it. I was surprised that both Rich Reynolds and Stephen Bassett found the episode wanting. Robert, in our discussion, suggested that the Italian officer featured might not have been as credible as he was portrayed by those on the program.

We did, eventually, get about to the AATIP, the To the Stars Academy and the Navy sightings that were the basis of Unidentified. Robert’s suggestion that the video of the objects that had been played in every episode were recorded in infrared as opposed to normal digital equipment in our normal range of vision. He mentioned an analysis available at Metabunk.org. which might be illustrative of the problem. This link should take you to the proper video:

https://www.metabunk.org/?from=%40

And, you can read Robert’s take on all this at his blog which you can find here:

https://badufos.blogspot.com/

Yes, yes, at the end of the program, I said that Don Schmitt would be the next guest. However, events have over taken me, and some interesting things have been said about the last episode of Unidentified. Given that, and that one of those voices belongs to Stephen Bassett, he will be the guest next week. Don Schmitt will follow the week after that.

Midnight in the Desert

For those of you interested in this sort of thing:

Join me tonight LIVE on Midnight in the Desert with Dave Schrader

9pm – 12am Pacific Time (12am – 3am EST)

I would love to hear from you…

Lines will be Open: 480-571-3540

To listen click here: http://midnightinthedesert.com/kevin-randle/

Any questions are welcomed though I don't promise a satisfactory answer to all of them.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Retrospective, AATIP, Robert Friend and Admiral Wilson

This week’s show wasn’t quite what I thought it was going to be, nor did it include Nick Redfern. Through no fault of Nick, nor really anyone, circumstances sort of dictated that we postpone Nick’s show until later in the summer. He was fine with that and it worked out for all of us. You can listen to the show here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/18392071

I used the opportunity to reflect on the past shows and what was going on in the

LTC Robert Friend

world of the UFO today. And I used the opportunity to mention the passing of retired Lieutenant Colonel Robert Friend. From everything that I have heard or found about him, he was a true American hero.

I had received some questions about the interview that had been published with Admiral Thomas Wilson. That interview and transcript came from Dr. Eric Davis, who, had mentioned at one point that the Del Rio UFO crash was real. Although I have looked into the Del Rio crash before, and into the background of Robert Willingham who is the sole source on this, I just don’t believe the tale is grounded in reality. To me, Davis’ belief in the Del Rio crash suggested he might not have been as deeply embedded in the inside as was thought. You can read about this here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/search?q=Eric+Davis

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/search?q=Robert+Willingham

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2010/07/del-rio-ufo-crash-and-mj-12.html

And some of these links will lead to other links as well so that a complete picture can be seen if you wish to follow it to its conclusion.

Because the AATIP is still a hot topic, I touched on it as well. Most of that has been discussed in the last month on the blog. That goes hand in hand with the Unidentified program on History.

Next week, while I’m in Roswell at the Festival there, we’ll have a “best of program.” The following week, we’ll be back with a new show.

Unidentified - Episodes Three and Four

I haven’t said much about the last two episodes of Unidentified because they seem to have crammed fifteen minutes of new programming into sixty minutes. Sure, there are 16 or 17 minutes of commercials and of course, those introductions and closing credits eat of up more time, so that when all is said and done there might be a forty-minute window for programming. Unidentified isn’t the only show with this problem, and some of those on the cable seem to be more commercials than

actual program but that only means that they have less time to fill with relevant content. Not to mention that the constant repeating of the information is unnecessary, distracting and often boring.

That doesn’t mean that those 15 minutes aren’t important in understanding what the Navy pilots, radar operators, and others saw and reported. Sorting through all the nonsense, repetition, and unimportant footage of car trips and motel rooms, there are some valuable revelations in both episodes.

I’m going to ignore most of episode three because, frankly, I don’t believe it advances their case all that much. They provided information that suggested the UFOs from the USS Nimitz sightings had headed south to a rocky island off Mexico. This is a restricted area, but local fisherman and a few others suggested they have seen strange things around the island. This, I find, completely unimpressive. Without some sort of additional evidence, this seems to be more of a red herring than something that advances our knowledge about the Navy sightings.

Episode four is better. Although it suffers from the same tactics of filler, meaning that they drag out the hour with repetition, this time we do get some important information. We learn about the other two short videos that we’ve seen dozens of times. Now we find that they were made by jet fighters from a carrier group in the Atlantic. I normally would say that this is just more video without much else, but one of the pilots involved is there to describe the sighting from his point of view. He recognizes one of the voices on the video as well. We now have the video and one eye witness, with the possibility of another. This becomes valuable information.

What was somewhat disturbing, was the interviews with others who served in that carrier group and provided some additional testimony, eventually they decided not to say much else. They feared for their careers. They were afraid of repercussions. You have to wonder if they just were reacting to the normal fear of ridicule associated with UFO sightings or if some pressure has been brought to bear. The point is, they backed out of the interviews and this is a relevant fact.

The real point here is that some formerly high-powered people are treating this investigation seriously. This isn’t a Blue Book investigation with the men going through the motions to a predetermined mundane conclusion. Here we have the video, we have the eye witness testimony, and we have the provenance. And the presentation has been sufficient to induce some United States senators to request more information. This resulted in a classified briefing given to them just this last week.

The topic is being treated more seriously than it has been in the past. There aren’t the news anchors reading the stories with their tongues stuck in their cheeks, but now with a tone suggesting that something is going on. Unidentified is one of the reasons for this. If that helps us learn what is happening, then the series is a worthwhile effort… as long as we look at the evidence and don’t get caught up in the politics of the UFO field.

Lieutenant Colonel Robert Friend has Died

I have wondered, for a long time, about the high number of African-Americans who rushed to join the military after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Growing up in the 1920s and the 1930s must have been very difficult with the overt racism throughout the country. Yet, even with that, they joined in large numbers.

Robert Friend, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, had an answer for that when he was asked about it. He said, “Because I’m an American and it was the right thing to do.”

Robert Friend, centered. Photo copyright by Auturo Interian

Such an attitude about the United States is something rare these days with various groups pulling and pushing agendas that are more divisive than uniting. Everyone seems to have found a reason to condemn the United States. Except Robert Friend.

Robert Friend, who died June 21, was one of the last Tuskegee Airman, a group of African-American, no, make that American, fighter and bomber pilots, who displayed their devotion to the Unites States with their heroism during the Second World War. Their hope, when they returned, would be a greater acceptance of who they were before they left to fight. Some of that acceptance came, but only years later… but we still seem to have failed in the greater vision that men like Friend held for the country.

Rather than recap his accomplishments, something that I did not all that long ago, I will direct those of you who are interested in the background of this fantastic man to read it here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2019/02/project-blue-book-and-lt-col-robert.html

His importance to us in the UFO community was his position as the one time chief of Project Blue Book. After a number of other officers, all of whom were hostile to the idea of alien visitation, and who operated more as caretakers than investigators, Robert Friend was given the assignment. He attempted to reorganize the project and move it into something more than it was. He eventually left that assignment and retired from the Air Force.

After the movie Red Tails was made about seven years ago, Friend found himself asked to speak to many groups about his experiences during the war. It was something he enjoyed, even though he was in his 90s. His daughter, Karen Friend Crumlich, who cared from him after his wife died, drove him to the speaking engagements. She too, recognized the greatness in her father.

Friend was a frequent visitor to the Palm Springs Air Museum, California, and was one of those who assisted in restoring a P-51 Mustang like those flown by the Tuskegee Airman. The aircraft at the museum was painted in the colors, and with the registration numbers of the plane Friend had flown.

I never met him in person, only speaking to him on the telephone, and then rarely. Unlike some, he was always courteous and tried to give complete answers to my questions. Although he had been the man in charge of Blue Book at one time, when the Air Force policy was to debunk and dismiss UFO reports, he seemed to have believed there was something more to them than delusion, illusion, misidentification and hoax. To me he hinted, and I stress that word, that there was more to Roswell than the remains of a weather balloon.

Robert Friend was the epitome of an American soldier and an American citizen. For those who would like to learn more about Robert Friend take a look at the following articles:

https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/local/palm-springs/2019/06/21/tuskegee-airman-lt-col-robert-friend-dies/1530450001/

https://www.dailynews.com/2018/09/29/at-98-this-tuskegee-airman-still-has-a-mission-dont-forget/

https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2019/06/21/one-of-the-last-surviving-tuskegee-airmen-dies-surrounded-by-family/

About the last thing that can be said about him is that we have lost a true American hero.

Robert Friend, dead at 99.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Stephen Bassett (Disclosure)

This week I reached out to Stephen Bassett, he of Disclosure fame. Given what has been happening the last few weeks, with so much that is positive coming out, I thought it time to take another look at Disclosure. Bassett provided an interesting

Stephen Bassett. Photo
copyright by Kevin Randle

history of how we reached the point we have reached, including a suggestion of a plan for President Hillary Clinton to be the “Disclosure President.” Of course, that plan failed for the obvious reason. You can listen to the interview here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/18321579

In the last several days, I have had some inquiries about Admiral Thomas Wilson, who apparently met with Dr. Eric Davis (formerly of NIDS). Davis took notes and those notes have recently been published in a number of forums. You can read the notes for yourself here:

https://richarddolanmembers.com/articles/article-ufo-leak-of-the-century-richard-dolan-analyzes-the-admiral-wilson-leak/

Davis had mentioned, on Coast-to-Coast, that the Del Rio UFO crash was real, which seemed to suggest that he wasn’t quite the authority on crash retrievals that he pretended to be. I discussed some of that here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2018/09/dr-davis-confirms-del-rio-ufo-crash.html

The problem is that the Del Rio crash is a hoax. It was started by a fellow named Robert Willingham, and I have gone over this many times on the blog. Willingham claimed to have been a fighter pilot, Air Force officer, and eventually claimed to have been involved in seven UFO crash retrievals. You can read about all that here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2012/02/willingham-1978-interview.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2014/04/eisenhower-briefing-document-mj-12-and.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2018/06/mj-12-and-cognitive-dissonance.html

(All of this is probably more detail than anyone really wants, but I believe it important to make it clear that the Del Rio data came from Willingham and Willingham is completely unreliable.)

One of the points I wanted to make, but it got lost in the discussion, was that the Wilson interview had taken place in 1997, and while they talked about the Corso book, I didn’t really see that as a fatal flaw. Corso’s book came out that same year, and if you accept the crash of an alien spacecraft at Roswell as true, then Corso writing about it suggests that he might have had inside information. But the flaws in Corso’s book are many and I have written about them here as well. (Can’t be surprised by that, can you?) The relevant posts can be read here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2014/01/philip-corso-and-day-after-roswell-again.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2014/02/philip-corso-interview-with-budd.html

We ended with a discussion about the convoy from Roswell to Wright Field, Ohio. I was attempting to point out that it violated regulations… but was told that regulations were often violated. This is a standard response to such a question but it doesn’t negate the accuracy of the information. We just ran out of time before we could finish the discussion.

Next week, I’ll be joined by Nick Redfern to discuss his book, Cover ups and Secrets. If you have questions for Nick, send them along to the comments section and I’ll see about getting them answered.

And, remember, I’ll be interviewing some of the guests at the Roswell Festival. If you have questions, the same applies. Send them along to the comments section here.