More On Frank Kaufmann

In the last few hours I have received a number of emails asking if I thought that Frank Kaufmann might have been an agent of disinformation. That implies that Kaufmann had some real role in the cover-up, though he might not have been the insider that he claimed to be. The short answer is, "No."

Kaufmann was an opportunist whose name was provided by Walter Haut. I wish that I had the opportunity to question Walter about this, but like so much else in the case, when I learned the truth, it was too late to ask the questions.
Following is some of the documentation that Frank offered as his proof. And there is short commentary about why one document or another is faked.

Frank offered a couple of letters showing intelligence assignments, one signed by Robert J. Thomas, who Kaufmann claimed variously was a warrant officer, a major and a brigadier general, and while it is not impossible for one man to hold those ranks at various points in a military career, according to Kaufmann, he held them all at once.

The second letter is signed by Lester M. Garrigues and is dated 25 July 1947. To Kaufmann’s surprise, Garrigues was still alive and provided the Center for UFO Studies with this analysis:

As I had mentioned to your before, I was transferred from Roswell with my last duty day being June 2, 1947, and was then on leave and enroute to China where I was assigned as Personnel Advisor to the Chinese Air Force beginning July 11, 1947.

In other words, Garrigues wasn’t even in the United States on 25 July. To prove his point, he provided documents showing that he had left Roswell and wasn’t writing any letters about the crash or the people.

Next is the Easley letter. I suspect the signature is authentic, meaning, simply that it was lifted from one letter and applied to the next. A little white-out and a Xerox machine make it look real. The problem, as pointed out by other researchers is that some of the office symbols used here, while authentic, were of offices that did not exist in 1947, proving this document a fake.

And finally are the two separation documents. One showing that Frank’s military career was in personnel and that he was a clerk, never rising above staff sergeant (second document) and the other showing his intelligence training and his rank as a master sergeant. It is clear, based on research and other documents that the claim of intelligence training, intelligence assignments and the rank of master sergeant (first document) is not true.

What we have is a clever man with two typewriters from 1947, a supply of paper from 1947, documents with real signature on them and a little knowledge of how these things work. But there is nothing in the Frank Kaufmann stories that is helpful to us, he was not an agent of disinformation and the faster we forget about him, the better we all are going to be.

The Frank Kaufmann episode does raise one important question. If we are to believe the latest Walter Haut affidavit, and if Walter was the insider that he claimed to be in that affidavit, then how come he pointed us to Kaufmann, and why didn’t he know that Kaufmann was making it all up?