Friday, March 30, 2012

Response (of sorts) to Reflections

I rarely respond to reviews of my books because there really is little point to it. I am often astonished on how widely the reviews can vary from someone who loves a book to someone who hates it. In one case a reader (of a different UFO book) was outraged that the book had my name at the top of every other page, complaining that I had such a monestrous ego that I had to see my name on each page... except I had nothing to do with the page layout, the design of the page or what would be at the top of each page. An artist at the publisher had made all those decisions without consulting me.

But with my book, Reflections of a UFO Investigator, there is one point that seems to have appeared frequently and I’m not sure that it is a fair criticism. It has been noted that about a third of the book was devoted to my Roswell investigations, and they did take up a great deal of my time and money, so you would expect a large chunk of the book to deal with that.

That’s not the real problem. It is this idea that I seem to be well grounded in the other aspects of my research. I have offered solutions for many UFO cases, understand that the alleged witnesses sometimes lie for no real reason, that sometimes memory plays tricks on the mind, and that there is no overwhelming evidence for the Roswell case other than limited documentation and a whole bunch of credible eyewitnesses.

These reviewers seem to think that if I applied my methodology to Roswell with the same vigor that I apply it to other cases, why then I would realize that Roswell is explained by Project Mogul...

Makes no difference to these reviewers that Mogul is totally inadequate, that it is based on false assumptions and Air Force maneuvering. Makes no difference that some of it is based on decades old memories or that some of those who claimed it was Mogul had other agendas when they began spouting this solution.

Nope... I’m just too blind to see the forest for all the trees... or maybe too blind to see the balloon debris for all the claims of strangeness attached to it.

But let’s turn this around on them. First, we have Flight #4 which, according to the documentation was cancelled. Charles Moore told me that when that happened, they stripped all the equipment but let the balloons go because they couldn’t put the helium back in the bottles.

So, there was no Flight #4...

Not so, say the proponents, because Dr. Albert Crary’s diary suggested some sort of a launch which was not a real flight, but one to test the equipment since they couldn’t do anything else that day. Some sort of launch with a sonobuoy so they could listen for the radio signals and test the tracking using a B-17.

We know this because Charles Moore said so... even though he is recalling events that took place decades earlier and there seems no reason to remember this particular flight. Nothing extraordinary happened during it, but Moore remembered it anyway.

Then, we have the flight path of the balloons. We don’t know where it went because, well, it wasn’t a real flight and those records were either lost or never made. That doesn’t matter because Charles Moore said that he remembered losing track of the flight near Arabela, which suggested it headed off to the northeast, more or less in the direction of the Brazel (yes, I know the ranch was owned by the Fosters at the time) ranch, where Brazel found it some time later.

Now, this flight was made on June 4 and Brazel supposedly didn’t find it until June 14, or sometime after that, and then didn’t bother to mention it until the July 4 weekend. Never mind that, according to Bill Brazel, the section of the ranch where the debris was found was an important one because it was where the sheep were watered. They checked it out, if not every day, every other day, so the balloon and its debris would have been found much earlier, if that was the source of the debris.

We can discount what Bill said because his memories were decades old and he was confused. Even though he had found some of the debris and his descriptions fit, sort of, that of a balloon remains, though they seemed to be much tougher than anything on a balloon. Yes, he said it was like balsa, meaning light and not very dense, but it was also something that he couldn’t cut with his pocket knife, but hey, those memories are decades old and we can ignore them.

Charles Moore, using winds aloft data that I supplied to him, which, eventually he conveniently forgot (and yes I even have a letter from him asking for additional charts) used that data to postulate the path of his Flight #4, which he said was last seen near the Brazel ranch. Never mind that the winds aloft data was often incomplete and only went to 20,000 feet in 1947 anyway, he was able to tell us what the balloons would do when they reached 80,000 feet.

And guess what, the balloons were heading in the direction of the Brazel ranch. We know this because Moore said so, and he could be believed. His memory was solid and he had the calculations based on incomplete data and his speculations.

So, for those who believe I simply did not review the Roswell data with the same critical eye as I did other investigations, I say, you missed the boat on that one. I say that you have offered no alternative explanation for the debris that was collected under such strict security that some will still not talk about it. I say you should use the same critical eye on the Mogul explanation that you have used on the whole of the Roswell case and ask if you haven’t, just maybe, leaped to the conclusion that you want rather than another that you have constantly ignored.

But here is the difference between the reviewers who make these claims and me. I’m not so locked into one explanation that I won’t look at others. I’m not so locked into the witness stories that I won’t keep attempting to verify what they had said (I think I was one of the first to expose Frank Kaufmann after we had the proof, and to expose Gerald Anderson when we had the proof, and a couple of others who were less than honest... and yes, I know that other researchers called these people liars first but they had no evidence of it. I waited until I knew for certain and yes, I was premature in releasing some of that data).

But say one thing about Charles Moore and the gloves come off. His memories were intact. He had the proof. He was able to identify the Roswell debris when so many others failed...

And I won’t even mention Sheridan Cavitt and his laughable interview with Colonel Richard Weaver.

(Now let’s all start repeating the same things over and over without listening to the other side at all...)

67 comments:

Don said...

"Charles Moore told me that when that happened, they stripped all the equipment but let the balloons go because they couldn’t put the helium back in the bottles."

No matter that statement of Moore's, I think Brad Sparks had it right: "Flight 5 itself was the postponed Flight 4". IOW, they didn't strip it down. Spark's logic was impeccable.

Regards,

Don

cda said...

Kevin:

"...and that there is no overwhelming evidence for the Roswell case other than limited documentation and a whole bunch of credible eyewitnesses."

These witnesses are only 'credible' because you want them to be. I agree that Charles Moore and his gang are likewise only 'credible' because skeptics want them to be. But there is a big difference.

The crucial point is that we have documentary proof that a balloon cluster was launched that night and was never officially tracked to its landing point. We have balloon/kite debris described at the time by those who retrieved it. We have several press reports and photos that show undoubted balloon/radar target debris. We KNOW balloon launches were taking place and that their course was in the approximate direction of the Foster ranch.

This is documented at the time it occurred.

Where is your documentation for an ET craft? You have absolutely nothing solid to show such a craft landed (or crashed) on earth. No documentation, photos, bodies or wreckage. Not one iota. Why not? Your reply is that it exists but is all top secret (after 65 years!). A preposterous answer and used purely as an 'escape route'.

Now you see why Moore's memory, however flawed it may be, is supported by some hard evidence. Your pro-ET witness testimony, on the other hand, is supported by nothing at all. And much of it has been disproved since you first obtained it.

starman said...

"Where is your documentation for an ET craft?"

Ever heard of Haut's press release? Amazing that mere balloon trash fooled his superiors....

"Your reply is that it is exists but is all top secret (after 65 years!)."

ULTRA was kept secret for 30 years after the only real reason for secrecy ended.

cda said...

Starman:

Do you seriously think Haut's press release points to the recovery of an ET craft?

Does Kevin seriously think this, I wonder?

KRandle said...

CDA -

Thank you for proving my point.

You either don't know as much about Mogul as you think you do or you are ignoring inconvenient facts.

Lance said...

Kevin,

I do suppose both sides are somewhat intransigent after all these years of arguing.

I have occasionally tried to focus on what can be proven with real evidence. Much of your above list contains suppositions of unknown quality.

One avenue that I think ought to be pursued vigorously is the photographic evidence: the Ft. Worth photos.

I have talked with Dr. Rudiak about this as well.

Thus far, to my knowledge, the pursuit of good current data from the negatives has not been explored adequately. If someone can clearly describe the methods and procedures used in this effort, I would appreciate it.

I see that Stanton Friedman offers (for sale, naturally) what he calls a scan from the negative but his description makes it clear that he has no idea what he talking about in regards to the technology and the total file size of 188 megabytes shows that this is not a serious effort (or perhaps just an outdated one).

Can anyone comment on what Stanton actually has before I purchase it?

If I am not mistaken, some of the work done on the memo was done from a print (!) rather than the negatives.

Dr. Rudiak supplied kindly supplied me with one of his high rez scans. A histogram of that image shows that the brighter data has been clipped out at some point, losing some amount of the brighter portions of the picture and making everything at that end completely washed out.

The recent claim that a contemporaneous audio interview with Brazel still existed has produced no further evidence although such an interview might be helpful in many ways. Would love to hear if anything ever came from that although, I know from dealing with Bigfoot and UFO evidence claims in the past that transparency is never preferred among folks who much prefer cloak and dagger posturing.

Best,

Lance

David Rudiak said...

cda wrote:
The crucial point is that we have documentary proof that a balloon cluster was launched that night and was never officially tracked to its landing point. We have balloon/kite debris described at the time by those who retrieved it. We have several press reports and photos that show undoubted balloon/radar target debris. We KNOW balloon launches were taking place and that their course was in the approximate direction of the Foster ranch. This is documented at the time it occurred.

Ha, ha, ha! Stirring the pot again CDA?

"Documented at the time it occurred". By all means point us to your "documentary proof" that:

1) a balloon cluster was launched that night

What night? How do you know it was night--Charles Moore's perfect flip-flopping memory? Before it was after dawn, like all the other flights. I notice now it was a "balloon cluster" and not one of your precious real Moguls. But then the AF's explanation falls apart, since it required a fully-configured constant-altitude flight to try to match all the debris descriptions.

It is also quite provable that a mere cluster with no constant altitude equipment couldn't make it to the Foster Ranch--winds were all wrong. That's one reason why Moore created his phony "night launch" in his hoax. He also required a fully-configured Mogul, not just a balloon cluster. But if it was fully configured, then why wasn't it tracked and why wasn't it properly documented like ALL other such flights? Again, debunkers want it both ways.

"Approximately in the right direction...."

Even Moore realized "approximately" wasn't going to work anymore, which is why he cheated with his numbers and fabricated a "night launch."

2) was never officially tracked to its landing point.

If it was "never officially tracked its landing point" then how can you possibly know where it landed or that this is what Brazel found?

If it was never tracked, then why would they bother with radar targets for tracking, as Moore claimed? Why would anybody find radar target debris? Again, you want to have it both ways.

As for balloon/target debris being described, no specific piece of debris exclusive to Mogul was ever described. Where, e.g., is the sonobuoy that your "cluster" supposedly lofted?

So how do you know what was described came from your "documented" night launch that was never tracked? More psychic abilities?

Gen. Ramey and his weather officer always described the balloon/target in the singular. The photos also show a singular balloon target. What happened to the the "balloon cluster" and those multiple radar targets?

I've also asked this a million times cda: where's the balloon rigging that Brazel denied ever finding. Nobody ever described it and it isn't in the photos. Where's Brazel's flower tape in the photos cda?

Why doesn't the tiny quantity of debris in the photos match with Brazel's description (200 yards across, 5 pounds), or Marcel's (scattered over a square mile), or Ramey's (25 feet across if reconstructed)?

Why is the radar target paper backing so white and clean in the photos? Why is the singular balloon still intact instead of disintegrated into brittle black flakes in the sun, as Moore himself demonstrated many times?

If they wanted what was found to be swiss cheese, then Brazel et al would have described swiss cheese and photos would have been taken of swiss cheese. It's called a cover story. Did you know the U-2 spy plane shot down in 1960 was really a NASA weather plane that drifted into Soviet territory because the pilot passed out. That was the official cover story and I bet you still believe it.

I bet you even believe the official AF line that stories of bodies were crash dummies from the future time-compressed in witnesses' minds. That's another swiss cheese cover story.

cda said...

DR:

"That was the official cover story and I bet you still believe it."

Of course I still believe it, just like I believe the moon is solid green cheese (Swiss or otherwise).

I feel we shall we digging up all the stuff we have gone over ad nauseam. Nauseating, isn't it?

I will point out to DR and Kevin for the umpteenth time that the only real 'cover story' (two stories in fact) is:

1. ETHers HAVE to tell us the Ft Worth photos show substituted debris and not the real debris because otherwise they would be forced to concede that the real debris was balloon/rawin target junk. Hence the imagined 'substitution'.

2. ETHers HAVE to tell us the ET craft & the documents are still held in top secret cabinets, even after 65 years, to account for them not being able to produce the hard evidence.

The documents show a balloon cluster was launched that night (June 4). End of that story. No, I do not know if this was definitely what Brazel recovered. But I accept that it probably was. You prefer to believe it was a crashed ET craft. OK, so where is the said ET craft now? Thrown away? Lost to science forever? Still top secret? Tell me another one.

I do not have to explain why such-and-such does not appear in the photos, since nobody ever claimed that EVERYTHING recovered was displayed therein. Neither do the press reports necessarily include every item of hardware found on the ranch.

As to the sonobouy, something like this is described in the USAF report (as a bottle-shaped object), although it is based on dubious second-hand testimony. I'll concede to you on this.

What I want is hard ET evidence. Find some, DR and Kevin (and anyone else), please. And soon. Then show it to the world.

Lance:

Your suggestion about those Ft.Worth photos is an excellent idea, but will it get any further?

Lance said...

Dr. Rudiak,

Are my emails getting through to you?

Best,


Lance

Don said...

CDA, either the object was ordinary and everyone from Brazel to Ramey were hallucinating, or the object was not ordinary. You want to have your cake and eat it, too, which is what motivates you to have written that the object appeared a little "bit unusual" to them -- like being a little bit pregnant -- just unusual enough to motivate what followed.

That's why you, and skeptics generally, hold onto Mogul, not because there is any evidence for it. You need something unordinary, but not so unordinary as to encourage the ET advocates.

Regards,

Don

David Rudiak said...

Don wrote

(Kevin)"Charles Moore told me that when that happened, they stripped all the equipment but let the balloons go because they couldn’t put the helium back in the bottles."

No matter that statement of Moore's, I think Brad Sparks had it right: "Flight 5 itself was the postponed Flight 4". IOW, they didn't strip it down. Spark's logic was impeccable.


Moore's statement was confirmed by what happened to earlier intended Flights #2 & #3 in N.J. before they moved operations to N.M. Both were also canceled (high winds, equipment failure), with written statements that all equipment was stripped off before releasing the balloons (which couldn't be saved and reused).

If Sparks was right, which he probably was, the equipment from the intended Flight #4 on June 4, was likewise stripped off for reuse, before released the noted "balloon cluster" with sonobuoy to test the sonobuoy's reception. But this was no longer a constant-altitude flight with all the other equipment. Nor would tracking be necessary for a small balloon cluster, as it was for the constant-altitude flights, thus again, no need for any attached radar targets.

Flight #5 the next day was noted as the true first successful N.M. flight. #5 clearly carried no radar targets. But if they were stripped off the previous day from the canceled flight for reuse later (like for #2 & #3), why not use them on #5? This strongly suggests the configuration for the intended June 4 flight likewise had no targets to be stripped off.

Likewise, Flight #6 from June 7 carried no radar targets.

In fact, for all the recorded real flights in June/July 1947, only one, Flight #8 from early July carried the targets.

There is absolutely ZERO documentation that any flight in June carried targets or that there was any clear intention that they should. They didn't seem to use radar tracking much at all even later, instead almost exclusively relying on optical tracking from the ground and air plus radiosonde directional tracking.

And in Fort Worth, both Ramey's comments and the photos indicate only one balloon and target there. There was never anything there to tie what was shown and described as coming from anything related to Mogul, whether small balloon cluster or fully rigged constant-altitude balloon.

Ramey's weather officer Irving Newton told me and others, plus commenting in 1947, it was just a regular balloon/target that could have come from anywhere, since they were commonly used around the country. His opinion is that what he saw and identified did NOT come from any Mogul.

(It should also be noted that Newton is a big Roswell skeptic, so his motivation for saying these things has nothing to do with promoting a flying saucer crash.)

Don said...

David wrote: "If Sparks was right, which he probably was, the equipment from the intended Flight #4 on June 4, was likewise stripped off for reuse..."

Since you've done research with Sparks, and since I've never exchanged a word with him, I'll defer to your understanding. What I read here

http://tinyurl.com/cov73ys

"Indeed it looks like Flight 5 itself WAS the postponed Flight 4, the exact same balloons and equipment but delayed one more day in launch (in fact the same launch had been delayed 3 days in a row). If you study the Crary diary entries and the 1948 tabulation it is evident that it took 1-2 days of work to
construct the large Mogul balloon trains. If Flight 4 had been launched later on June 4 then the NYU team would not have had enough time to build an entirely new 600-foot Mogul balloon array, to be called Flight 5, in time for the preferred early morning 5 AM launch time, the very next day on June 5."

It reads as if #4 was not stripped.

A problem for me with the Mogul debate (and some others) is when it bleeds over into other matters, such as the dating of Brazel's find. For example, I don't know of any other reason why advocates should prefer after June 28 (aka "some time last week"), and skeptics "June 14th" except the proximity to the Mogul launch dates.

Regards,

Don

cda said...

Don:

The date of Brazel's find is June 14. This is what the newspapers say. A specific date is given; this ought to be definitive. But no, say the ETHers, some reports say "sometime last week". Most reports say "3 weeks ago".

Confusion arises because Brazel first found it one day, 'rediscovered' it another day, stuffed some of it under some brush a third day, and finally gathered it up with Marcel etc. on a fourth day. Hence 'recovery' is sometimes confused, by the reporters, with 'discovery'.

There is no June 28, anywhere, to my knowledge.

So the answer to your query is:

Skeptics choose June 14 because that is what the newspapers say, NOT because it fits any Mogul launch, but after speaking to Brazel himself. Straight from the horse's mouth.

ETHers choose "sometime last week" because they want to bring the date nearer to July 8, and that is what Haut's confusing release says. June 28 is a non-date. Also, ETHers cannot bring themselves to believe Brazel would have stumbled upon spaceship debris and left it standing in the desert for 2 weeks before informing anyone. They also suggest the USAF planted June 14 into Brazel's head before the interview! A laughable idea.

The ETHers also cannot or will not accept that the demonstration given in Alamogordo and reported, with photos, in the local press, is of the type of balloons/radar targets being launched. They insist it was a 'put up job' to dampen the whole flying disc issue.

Some time ago you were very curious about Haut's release. Have you discovered anything new about it since then?

Don said...

CDA wrote: "There is no June 28, anywhere, to my knowledge."

June 28 because "some time last week" begins on June 29.

"Skeptics choose June 14 because that is what the newspapers say, NOT because it fits any Mogul launch, but after speaking to Brazel himself..."

I've no problem with June 14. If what had been printed had been 'July 2', I would still be drawn to the specificity of it. 'Specificity' sticks out like the proverbial sore thumb in the news stories because it is so rare. As you point out, there are several timeframes given for Brazel's find in the press. None of the others are a specific date.

Both interview stories also have the specific July 4 date (Does anyone else find it odd the family would be out picking up trash on a national holiday?).

But, ok. You accept June 14 because of the reasons given, rather than anything about Mogul. I'll keep it in mind, as it is likely to come up in future discussions.

"...Straight from the horse's mouth."

There's a difference between direct attribution and a quotation. Nobody wants to hear about it, so I'll pass.

Regards,

Don

Don said...

CDA wrote: "Some time ago you were very curious about Haut's release. Have you discovered anything new about it since then?"

I still am curious. Are you referring to anything in particular? Are you referring to the "rumors"?

I think I've made a useful contribution to the analysis of the text of "Haughts Statement" (aka, "The Roswell Statement"). But as to the why of it, that I can only guess based on the logic of the situation: that it was intended to disinform, to shift the scene to the RAAF and Roswell town and away from...well, look at a map.

Regards,

Don

alanborky said...

The whole Roswell story revolves around one piece of contemporary evidence: the headline that went round the world in 1947 - RAAF Captures Flying Saucer On Ranch in Roswell Region - in which Grace and Dan Wilmot describe seeing a glowing seemingly self-luminous oval shaped flying object resembling an inverted saucer or washbowl atop another saucer or washbowl.

Stanton Friedman didn't invent a time machine and use it to fake the story (or the 400/500 mph glowing washbowls) to back up his later investigation.

That actually happened.

After that it boils down to whether you're credulous enough to believe the 8 July story: RAAF Captures Flying Saucer

Or credulous enough to believe the 9 July story: Army Debunks Flying Disk As World Simmers With Excitement.

And it WAS a HUGE story INDEED - covered all over the world! - and quite possibly the cause of all manner of false memories in excited locals as they sought to recall any odd or strange details which might signify the craft'd unwittingly impinged on their own otherwise boring humdrum existences on the day telling and retelling such stories until their little anecdotes snowballed out of all recognition.

But to say there was no story until Stanton Friedman came along is a complete load of green fireballs.

But the thing that most bugs me about Roswell is Jesse Marcel.

Since his preteens my lad's been able to sit through movies like Spartacus and tell me what every weapon or piece of armour or tactic used's called. He'll even point out all the non sequiturs like Romans using the wrong kinds of equipment at the wrong point in their history.

Even if Marcel himself was a complete idiot who'd never seen a tinfoiled balloon before surely someone around him - maybe even his own kid - would've had a rough idea what he was dealing with (and certainly a rough idea what he WASN'T dealing with).

But even if he knew his onions enough to know for a fact what he had in his hands was indeed an example of an unknown technology then given he was an intelligence officer who'd just emerged from a war involving keeping such secrets as the locally tested atomic bomb why the rush to personally authorise and release the press statement?

Do intelligence officers normally rush to the press to reveal the secrets they've uncovered - and attach their name?

For that matter is it normal for a general like Ramey to attach his name to a case of mistaken identity?

Don said...

"The whole Roswell story revolves around one piece of contemporary evidence: the headline that went round the world in 1947 - RAAF Captures Flying Saucer On Ranch in Roswell Region..."

That headline was seen by a few thousand people at most who either subscribed to the Daily Record or bought it at a news stand in town. Nobody else.

Regards,

Don

David Rudiak said...

Alan Borky and then Don wrote:

"The whole Roswell story revolves around one piece of contemporary evidence: the headline that went round the world in 1947 - RAAF Captures Flying Saucer On Ranch in Roswell Region..."

That headline was seen by a few thousand people at most who either subscribed to the Daily Record or bought it at a news stand in town. Nobody else.


The Roswell Daily Record story was just one of several dozen stories covering what happened at Roswell. Usually newspapers carried AP or UP coverage, but there was also INS, Reuters, Canadian Press, and some independent newspaper coverage. AP alone had at least half a dozen versions of the story over a two day period.

It was indeed front page news all over the country and covered internationally. I have been reviewing newspapers and collecting the coverage for the last 15 years. The results can be seen here:

http://www.roswellproof.com/press_coverage.html

One thing interesting in reviewing all these stories is that are clearly major contradictions in what was supposed to have happened depending on who was quoted and by whom. E.g., Sheriff Wilcox told conflicting stories of when Brazel supposedly made his find and came to Roswell depending on whether he spoke to AP or UP. In one rare AP story, he admitted he was working with the base when he declined to answer further questions about what Brazel's object looked like.

Marcel would not have the authority to issue a press release like this on his own. Roswell PIO Walter Haut has always made it clear the press release came from base commander Blanchard's office. A final draft would also have to be reviewed by Blanchard's office before Haut could give it to the Roswell media.

Don said...

David wrote: "The Roswell Daily Record story was just one of several dozen stories covering what happened at Roswell."

Yes. The Daily Record story and headline are very localized, though. Outside of the locale who'd know what "RAAF" meant (or "Roswell")?

My local papers, morning and afternoon dailies, did not report anything, except the morning paper headlined the Ft Worth story on the 9th (I think the pm paper might have had the Ft Worth story in one of its editions, too). Like the Daily Record, the major story was something relevant to the readership (here that was the rise in steel price).

I don't recall reading any headline from anywhere as dramatic as the Daily Record's. The story was carried worldwide by the wire services, but where else were such dramatic statements made?

Some day I'll have to break out the stories by locale, because it seems to me that the prominence (and drama) given a ufo story during the Wave depended on whether the paper's locale had had sightings...whether it was a "hot spot" or not.

Regards,

Don

Gilles Fernandez said...

Greetings dear Kevin Randle,

I hoped to read in your blog something very and really NEW, as scheduled and announced by your so-called Roswell Dream-Team project -sic-.
So many "déjà-vu" threads and participations, or already evokated subjects in your blog. No?

That's cool to read the 250th comment of the web-conspirationnist David Rudiak and his ad nauseam declinaison of his obsessionnal Roswell's Gospel.
But allow me to say and remark it is a little so boring and so repetitive, regarding what your so-called Roswell DreamTeam have announced and invited the readers: New facts, new investigations, new findings, new evidences or dunno what NEW.

Kevin, you and the so-called Roswell DreamTeam will produce something NEW, soon?
Or your blog will decline ad nauseam what is already known between "Skeptics" and ETH Roswell proponents?

Respects and my best Regards,

Gilles Fernandez

KRandle said...

CDA -

Again, thanks for proving my point.

Gilles -

We will publish on our schedule and not yours. We are learning new things, we are confirming old things, and we are continuing to march... We are searching for, and finding some documents, and we are verifying some participants in various components of the events.

So, when we have it put together to our satisfaction, we will publish... and I plan to publish the facts once we have them regardless of the answer they provide.

And yes, I know that we are in a somewhat lose-lose game here because someone is going to be unhappy and will ignore the facts, regardless of what they are.

Gilles Fernandez said...

That's cool!
Dear Kevin Randle.
I'm not imposing "my time" or pressing your own scheduled precious agenda.
But reading, again and again, David Rudiak "web-conspirator", the guy who reads in a photo the Ramey memo, is so and so more boring.

We are waiting NEW things regarding the Roswell affair, and the so-called and auto-proclamed DreamTeam have engaged themselve in this promised way.

I wait and see, then.

Regards,

Gilles F.

David Rudiak said...

cda with his usual thoughtless comments: (part 1)
Skeptics choose June 14 because that is what the newspapers say, NOT because it fits any Mogul launch, but after speaking to Brazel himself. Straight from the horse's mouth.

Straight from the coerced horse's mouth. Naturally you ignore all the testimony that Brazel was in in military custody at the time, in fact escorted to that interview by military.

E.g., two of the reporters there later told researchers that. Provost Marshal Easley admitted to Kevin they held Brazel at the base against his will, no doubt over that 5 pounds of rubber strips, balsa wood, Scotch tape and aluminum foil he said he found.

The fact that Brazel's parting comment was that he would never report anything again short of a bomb was alone suggestive that somebody had put the screws to him and was making his life miserable.

Sheriff Wilcox was more explicitly quoted by AP back then as "working with those fellows at the base" when he declined to answer further questions about what Brazel had found. That's a very good indication that Wilcox wasn't a free agent either.

Coerced testimony cannot be trusted, for obvious reasons.

ETHers choose "sometime last week" because they want to bring the date nearer to July 8, and that is what Haut's confusing release says.

First of all, it wasn't lowly Haut's press release. It was base commander Blanchard's. Where would Haut get the information? Even if it was all Haut's wording after Blanchard had given him the details and asked him to write it up, it would have been fully reviewed and approved by Blanchard's office before any final version went out.

So Blanchard's press release, not Haut's. UP back then reported it as exactly that.

ETHers "choose" "sometime last week" because that is indeed what Blanchard's original press release said, not because "they want to bring the date nearer to July 8". The press release was also written perhaps 8 or more hours before Brazel was ever interviewed, the interview being several hours AFTER Ramey in Fort Worth changed the story to three weeks before.

So which is more valid? The original wording, which must have been at least in part based on Marcel's extensive contact with Brazel, or the change in dates by the General quickly switching the story to crashed weather balloon in order to ridicule and kill the original story.

They also choose that because:
1) It agrees with some of the quotes by AP attributed to Sheriff Wilcox of "several days ago" or "two or three days before." (Though it disagrees with what UP reported Wilcox saying of 3 weeks before--Wilcox couldn't seem to make up his mind. Maybe the "fellows at the base" hadn't made it clear which version they wanted him to tell.)
2) It agrees with Marcel's and Brazel Jr.'s accounts 30+ years later. Brazel Sr. had found the stuff in early July and right after a thunderstorm in which he heard a tremendous explosion. There were no thunderstorms until late June and early July, as is almost always the case with the N.M. monsoon season. It was totally dry early and mid June, according to weather records.
3) It also accords with the Wilmot account in the Roswell Daily Record of a glowing saucer passing over their heads July 2 headed in the direction of the Foster Ranch.

David Rudiak said...

(Part II response to CDA silliness
June 28 is a non-date. Also, ETHers cannot bring themselves to believe Brazel would have stumbled upon spaceship debris and left it standing in the desert for 2 weeks before informing anyone.

Why would he bother to report it at all, if all he found was a tiny quantity of balloon rubber, balsa sticks, and aluminum foil that were all contained in two small bundles? He could easily have dealt with it himself.

You don't really believe he thought such mundane and insignificant debris would have come from a flying saucer? Well probably you do, the old debunker Drooling Idiot theory.

More importantly, why would Marcel and Blanchard think there was anything worth investigating? More Drooling Idiots at work. Why would Blanchard order the top two intel people at the base to look into it? Blanchard was a Drooling Idiot. Why would they take two vehicles to cart Brazel's 5 pounds and two small bundles of debris back? More Drooling Idiocy at work.

They also suggest the USAF planted June 14 into Brazel's head before the interview! A laughable idea.

Why is it "laughable"? Remember, Brazel only made this statement well AFTER the Army changed the story from the original "sometime last week" to 3 weeks before. And like Don said, "June 14" is suspiciously exact. Plus we have numerous witness to Brazel being in military custody at the time he made the statement.

I also rather doubt Brazel was instructed to supply a specific date other than sometime around mid-June or 3 weeks before (as Ramey put it) and I know of no "pro-ETHer" who has suggested this either. Brazel could have made up the date on his own.

The ETHers also cannot or will not accept that the demonstration given in Alamogordo and reported, with photos, in the local press, is of the type of balloons/radar targets being launched.

Oh what incredible rubbish! Prove me wrong with a citation that anybody ever made such a stupid claim. Even if you could find some lone idiot saying this, you paint everybody with the same brush, which is again your usual disingenuous at work.

They insist it was a 'put up job' to dampen the whole flying disc issue.

Maybe you should also learn to read, because the article was about exactly that, such as the headline in the Alamogordo News: "Fantasy of the Flying Disc Explained Here." What do you suppose that meant?

The claim was made by the AAF spokesperson that the balloon launches at Alamogordo explained all the flying saucer reports in the area, and that reports elsewhere were probably explained by similar balloon launches.

There were similar military demonstrations at Fort Worth AAF, Atlanta, Kansas City, New Jersey/New York, Wilmington Ohio, all claiming that weather balloons and radar targets explained the flying saucers.

Add to that the newspapers (UP and Reuters Roswell stories) explicitly stating the Army and Navy were running a "concentrated campaign" (i.e., debunkery) to kill all the saucer rumors. This was openly admitted. Another column out of Washington in Scripps-Howard newspapers stated the military was deliberately ridiculing the saucers and trying to get the public to laugh at them.

Again, learn to read and stop making up your "facts".

David Rudiak said...

Gilles F. rears his head again:
So many "déjà-vu" threads and participations, or already evokated subjects in your blog. No?

That's cool to read the 250th comment of the web-conspirationnist David Rudiak and his ad nauseam declinaison of his obsessionnal Roswell's Gospel.
But allow me to say and remark it is a little so boring and so repetitive, regarding what your so-called Roswell DreamTeam have announced and invited the readers: New facts, new investigations, new findings, new evidences or dunno what NEW.


Gee, welcome back Gilles and thank you for your kind comments. We all look forward to your usual boring, repetitive, deja vu, 250th obsessional, conspiratorial recitation of your Gospel Mogul "proof" "flower tape", the Merri-Lei New York radar kite manufacturer and his Scotch tape, and of course, your dismissal of absolutely all contradictory evidence as false memories, lying, and disreputable researchers planting ideas in the the minds of witnesses.

I seem to recall several times asking you for actual documented proof that your alleged Mogul ever existed, since Mogul records instead make it pretty clear that it was canceled, or what happened to your precious "proof" flower tape that doesn't show up anywhere in the Fort Worth photos, or what happened to the hundreds of yards of Mogul balloon rigging that Brazel specifically denied finding and which also doesn't appear anywhere in the photos, or where any specific piece of actual Mogul debris shows up in the photos or anybody's descriptions, such as a radiosonde, or sonobuoy, or ballast equipment, or parachutes, or even multi-balloons and multi-radar targets, instead of only one each in the photos and in Gen. Ramey's comments?

That was many months ago, and you have been so quiet. We are awaiting something, you know, actually NEW and fresh from you, some actual straight answers to pointed questions about the gaping holes in your "Mogul proof" Gospel.

But I expect we will instead be treated to your usual arrogant and insulting remarks instead of intelligent, plausible, direct responses to actual points raised.

Gilles Fernandez said...

Dr web-conspirationnist David Rudiak,

You have something to present to Science ?
A data?
An historiographical document regarding or prooving the Roswell ETH version?
Something which could or should be examined by Science?
No. Nada. None.
Wait : you are an pro-Roswell ETH ufologist, it isn't?
And you are BLOGING.

Write a paper for the Science, Dr Rudiak.
Adress your paper(s) to the US universities, Dr Rudiak.
What are you waiting for, Dr David Rudiak?
They will not understand how genious you are?
Gilles Fernandez

Gilles Fernandez said...

Dr Rudiak wrote :
" We are awaiting something, you know, actually NEW and fresh from you, some actual straight answers to pointed questions about the gaping holes in your "Mogul proof" Gospel."

Dr Rudiak, web-conspirationnist in his own blog :
You are awesome or a joke concerning the burden of proof law!
Seriously, you are a Phd? First April joke? Or you are real?

It is your DreamTeam which have to produce EVIDENCE(S) and the burden of proof, to the scientific community regarding YOUR claim an ETI craft crashed in Roswell.
Not the inverse.
I'm waiting for ^^
Regards to Dr Rudiak.
Gilles Fernandez

David Rudiak said...

Don wrote:

My local papers, morning and afternoon dailies, did not report anything, except the morning paper headlined the Ft Worth story on the 9th (I think the pm paper might have had the Ft Worth story in one of its editions, too). Like the Daily Record, the major story was something relevant to the readership...

I don't recall reading any headline from anywhere as dramatic as the Daily Record's. The story was carried worldwide by the wire services, but where else were such dramatic statements made?


Don, the press release came out too late in the afternoon to make it into any of the evening eastern newspapers. And by the time they published anything the next day, the recovered flying saucer story had been debunked as a weather balloon. Therefore, only a few morning papers the next day carried sensational headlines. The vast majority of stories July 9 were instead carrying Ramey's weather balloon explanation, usually but not always on the front page, and rarely as the headline story.

The same is true about mid-western and rocky mountain papers. At best, all they could slip in July 8 before going to press was a brief item about the press release.

The story was different for many western evening papers, which did publish the full AP and UP versions of the press release the evening of July 8, and most of these were headline stories. Some of the papers also carried wire bulletin updates up to where Ramey was saying he was sending the disc on to Wright Field for analysis. (This was about 1-1/2 hours after the AP release first came out.)

Here are examples from my website, which should give you the flavor of the reporting, when Roswell was still a "flying disc" and not yet a full-fledged weather balloon:

AP press release accounts:
San Bernardino (CA) Evening-Telegram, July 8, evening, headline story
MYSTERIOUS FLYING SAUCER FOUND, NOW IN ARMY HANDS
Disk Discovered By Rancher at Roswell, N.M.
Intelligence Branch Forwards Object to 'Higher Headquarters'

San Mateo (CA) Times, July 8, evening, headline story
ARMY SAYS HAS DISC
Missile Found By Rancher in New Mexico
Turned Over to Atomic Group and Flown to Headquarters

Santa Barbara (CA) News-Press, July 8, evening, headline story
Army Reports Flying Disk Found
on New Mexico Ranch
Saucer Found on New Mexico Ranch
Turned Over to Army

Bakersfield Californian, July 8, evening, headline story
FLYING DISC FOUND; IN ARMY POSSESSION
Missile Located at Roswell

Sacramento Bee, July 8, evening, p.1
Army Reveals It Has Flying Disc Found On Ranch In New Mexico

Marysville/Yuba City, CA, Appeal-Democrat, July 8, page 1
Army Says Flying Disc Discovered

UP press release accounts:
San Mateo (CA) Times, July 8, evening, headline story
ARMY SAYS HAS DISC
Missile Found By Rancher in New Mexico
Turned Over to Atomic Group and Flown to Headquarters

Alameda (CA) Times-Star, July 8, evening, headline story
Flying Saucer Found in New Mexico
$3000 Offered for Capture of Mysterious Discs

Tucson (AZ) Daily Citizen, July 8, evening, page 1
New Mexico Army Base Finds Disc

Oroville (CA) Mercury-Register, July 8, page 1
Army Given Flying Disc, Is Report
Object Is Found Near Roswell, New Mexico

Later accounts with additional information:

UP only:
San Francisco News, July 8,
Evening Edition, EXTRA -- Headline story
ARMY STUDIES 'FLYING DISK'

Multiple source accounts:
Los Angeles Herald-Express, July 8, Headline story, evening SUNSET EDITION (Mix of AP and INS)
Army Finds 'Flying Saucer'
General Believes It Is
Radar Weather Gadget
Airforce Says Platter
Picked Up on Ranch

Seattle Daily Times, July 8, Headline Story (Mix of AP/UP)
NIGHT FINAL: EXTRA.
DISK LANDS ON RANCH IN N. M.;
IS HELD BY ARMY
SIZE SECRET; DISK REPORTED
FLOWN IN B-29

David Rudiak said...

I wrote to Gilles F:
But I expect we will instead be treated to your usual arrogant and insulting remarks instead of intelligent, plausible, direct responses to actual points raised.

Followed quickly by Gilles F:
Dr web-conspirationnist David Rudiak,

You have something to present to Science ?
A data?
An historiographical document regarding or prooving the Roswell ETH version?
Something which could or should be examined by Science?
No. Nada. None.
Wait : you are an pro-Roswell ETH ufologist, it isn't?
And you are BLOGING.

Write a paper for the Science, Dr Rudiak.
Adress your paper(s) to the US universities, Dr Rudiak.
What are you waiting for, Dr David Rudiak?
They will not understand how genious you are?


Well what have we here? Gilles responding with arrogant, insulting remarks instead of addressing points he knows he can't answer.

Case closed!

And of course we await Dr. Gilles F publication to "Science" of his "flower tape" Mogul "proof" to show them what a "genius" he is. Come on Gilles, show us how it is done, Monsieur "Science."

Again, Gilles could start with an actual document of the existence of the alleged Mogul balloon (instead of a big blank in the records and a statement of cancellation in a diary), followed by a clear demonstration of his precious "flower tape" actually appearing in the photos taken at the time. That really doesn't seem much to ask: mundane documentation of his alleged mundane event.

I'm not holding my breath. All Gilles has left is his insults.

Lance said...

Dr Rudiak,

I am still wondering if you are getting my emails?
I have sent you several with no reply.


Apologies to Kevin for using the comments in this way.

Lance

cda said...

DR:

The story of Brazel being held in military custody for a week is nonsense. It is an invention 30+ years later. Karl Pflock deals with this, but if you want to believe the tale, that is up to you.

Thus the idea that the military planted the June 14 date into Brazel's head is laughable, as I said. But if you still want to believe this, again it is up to you.

So yes I am quite happy with this date, even if Brazel possibly got it wrong by one or two days in his recall.

The July 2 sighting by the Wimots had nothing to do with the Roswell crash. Nothing at all - unless you can prove otherwise. Neither did those nuns' sighting mentioned in the Randle/Schmitt books. There is not the slightest reason to connect either of these to the 'crash' - again unless you can demonstrate otherwise.

Haut's release was a premature cock-up, nothing else. And if Blanchard DID approve it, then he is a 'drooling idiot' for approving such. The dotty release even says when the disc landed, although nobody, to this day, ever saw it land! It "landed" sometime last week. How does ANYBODY know this?

And if that 'fact' is wrong, why should we trust anything else the release says? So the "last week" quote in Haut's statement is useless. Haut never saw the debris anyway. Nor do we know from whom he first got the story (Brazel, Marcel, Cavitt, Rickett or whoever?)

(And I sincerely hope(!) that you do not give any credence or value to Haut's 2nd affidavit, near his death.)

Edwin Easley? I have read the transcript of his interview with Randle as printed in Randle's later book, and do not trust a single thing Easley says. Vague and incoherent. At one point he almost denies being at the crash site.

You may be correct about the Alamogordo demonstration. It was a serious attempt to dampen the flying disc hysteria after the Roswell find. But it was not intended (I think) to debunk the whole 'flying disc' hysteria. Did anyone seriously think it accounted for each and every UFO sighted during the past 2 weeks?
What it did was demonstrate the kind of thing that caused the Roswell 'crash' and discovery.

Oh by the way, Ramey did NOT change the date of the discovery either. More fiction. It was the press reports that got confused at times over it (for reasons I gave before). The only people who claim Ramey did this are those who insist it was all a giant cover-up and conspiracy.

Please please, all you ETHers, do the decent thing and produce the hard evidence. You have had 65 years. Get to it, now, or your whole 'dream team' exercise will crash to earth in a heap of unspeakable debris.

Then you can issue a 'press release'......

Gilles Fernandez said...

Monsieur the complotist David Rudiak,

Stop to make Moral lessons, please, that's pathetical.
May I remember to you that in this Kevin Randle's blog when I pointed possible problems of false memories regarding the witnesses, you have replied to me something like
that the negationnists of the Shoah must work with me.

In other words, you insulted me strongly And you have now the pretention to gimme or adressing moral lessons ? Come on Dr Rudiak: start to apply to yourself what you reproach to others ;)

If you have something to provide to Science, demonstrating an ETI craft crashed in Roswell in 1947, you have to send it to Science, to the Universities, to the serious Medias, etc. That's a good and fair deal, dear David Rudiak. It isn't?

The so-called Roswell dreamTeam have indicated to re-examine the case. Then to produce NEW things. But, from the time you have joigned the team, you are repeating again and again in this blog what it is already your thesis. We know it like a Gospel, you know Doctor Rudiak. Uselles to repeat it.

Yes, we have already debated 150 times about the flight this June the 4th (Crary's Journal), that the winds are in the foster ranch directions, that there exists a drawing of a cluster of NYU balloons (the #2) with radar-targets pictured in, that Victor T. Hoeflich is pictured in July the 10 1947 contemporan newspaper indicating he was in charge of the radar-targets, we have produced patents indicating he was in charge of a Toys manufactury, we have a blue print indicating to renforce the radar targets structure with 3M Acetate scotch or equivalent, we have 1940's pictures or advertissements with 3M acetate scotch presenting symbols in surface, etc.

and we have the witnesses indicating the presence of such a tape with symbols in the wreckage (among other things).

How they can have invented this "detail" if they were not facing a radar-target??? + the other materials like sticks, laminated foils, string, etc ?

Loretta Proctor herself indicated that when Brazel visited her BEFORE he gones to Roswell and then BEFORE all your USAAF ad hoc complot, he indicated to her the presence of a tape with symbol!

Affidavit 5/5/1991. "There was also something he [Mac Brazel] described as tape which had printing on it.  The color of the printing was a kind of purple."

Wait, it is a coincidence if ETI space craft debris description is matching with balloon + radar-targets materials? and including a tape! Seriously?

In essence, useless to repeat ad nauseam what have been already debated Skeptic versus ETH Roswell believers imho.

If the so-called Roswell DreamTeam have something new to produce, then it would be very interresting. But Doctor Rudiak ad nauseam Gospel is not something new.

Gilles

Don said...

A pox on both your houses

cda said...

DR:

"Why would he bother to report it at all, if all he found was a tiny quantity of balloon rubber, balsa sticks, and aluminum foil that were all contained in two small bundles? He could easily have dealt with it himself."

Precisely. He DID deal with it himself, and thought little about it until his chance conversation in Corona suggesting that maybe he had discovered a 'flying disc'.

You would have us believe that Brazel ignored the remains of an ET craft for 2 weeks. Presumably because he was too dumb to realise its ET nature, whereas the intelligence guys at RAAF did so at once.


Kevin:

"CDA - Again, thanks for proving my point."

What point have I proved?

What point do you expect to prove yourself as a result of the 'dream team' investigations?

Gilles:

You and I are 'drooling idiots'. We as foreigners cannot possibly understand all the complications of the case that our US friends can. In fact, perhaps we really ought to keep our mouths shut.

The ETHers, beginning with Stanton Friedman, established the truth long ago. And in 2047 (at the centenary) these ET proponents will finally be recognised by the authorities.
A monument to this, in the desert, may well appear by then.

KRandle said...

CDA (Part 1) -

You make me laugh...

The point you have proved is that you will listen to or accept nothing that is in opposition to your already stated belief. You are not open to looking at all the evidence.

You wrote:

“Edwin Easley? I have read the transcript of his interview with Randle as printed in Randle's later book, and do not trust a single thing Easley says. Vague and incoherent. At one point he almost denies being at the crash site.”

Why would you not trust what he says? You never talked to him. He retired as a high-ranking officer (who was really who he said, unlike so many others I could name who claimed high rank but was either never in the military or served in low-ranking enlisted capacities.) You didn’t hear my discussions with him, you only know him from reading about him in the somewhat biased accounts of the skeptics which you believe...

And you wrote:

“The story of Brazel being held in military custody for a week is nonsense. It is an invention 30+ years later. Karl Pflock deals with this, but if you want to believe the tale, that is up to you.”

Oh, Karl Pflock dismisses him and you buy what Karl was selling. He didn’t really deal with anything, he merely dismissed it as unimportant to him.

KRandle said...

CDA (Part 2)-

Oh, Karl Pflock dismisses him and you buy what Karl was selling. He didn’t really deal with anything, he merely dismissed it as unimportant to him.

Karl wrote, “...provost marshall [clearly he means marshal] Maj. Edwin Easley were on the site...” This based on what Lewis Rickett said. Do you not believe Rickett? After all, Easley ALMOST denied being on the site.

In another place Karl wrote about Easley, but it is merely my asking a witness if he meant Easely, the provost marshal.

In a third place Karl notes that Don and I say that Easley was the “provost marshall.”

Finally, on page 169 we get to the point of Karl dealing with Easley. Karl wrote, “...Roswell provost marshall [you’d think that someone in the editing process would have learned that it was marshal, but I digress...], told Randle that Brazel ‘was kept under guard in the [base,] [[Karl’s addition here]] for a number of days.’”

After listing the number of witnesses who said they had seen Brazel in military custody, after listing those friends and family who mentioned that Brazel was held, Karl deals with this information by writing, “All this seems quite impressive until we learn that Randle did not record his interview with Easley and has no independent verification of what he recalls the now-deceased officer told him.”

Did I read that right? No independent verification? Bill Brazel said that his father was held in Roswell for several days. Floyd Proctor said that he saw Brazel in military custody. Marian Strickland said that Mack Brazel sat in her kitchen telling her husband and her that he had been held in jail. Frank Joyce talked about that (okay, Joyce isn’t the greatest source in the world, but still...)

Karl quotes Bessie Brazel (whose testimony we can believe because her memories are intact or were, while all those others are flawed) said that her father didn’t stay overnight in Roswell... even when everyone else said he did, including Karl’s witness “reluctant” who we all know was Walt Whitmore, Jr.

And, she repudiate that testimony later, saying that she had her dates mixed up, but then that memory is flawed and we can believe her earlier statement that is stand alone while all those others we can reject because Karl said there was no independent verification.

So, just how did Karl deal with this. Seems to me that he glossed over it and ran on from there. He didn’t show that Easley was wrong. He didn’t show that Easley was in conflict with the others, he just points out that I didn’t record that particular conversation and implies that I invented the story... which isn’t a very nice thing to say about me without evidence that such is the case. And, of course, you believe that because it fits into the skeptical point of view.

This is really much more than I cared to write about this one little thing... and it is not the first example of Karl saying one thing in one paragraph and later, in another paragraph, contradicting that one thing... something else the skeptics seem to have missed.

Don said...

Ramey reported that so far as the A.A.F. investigation could determine, no one had seen the object in the air. (AP, July 8)

Ramey confirms the incident was under investigation by the Army Air Forces at the same time we are told by him and the AAF the object was a weather balloon and radar target, or something made up of sticks and tin foil. All this before Marcel arrives.

We also learn something about the nature of the investigation. They are interviewing potential witnesses to having seen the object in the sky. Those witnesses would be Brazel and his neighbors.

A few hours later, both Kellahin and the Daily Record would confirm Brazel had not seen it in the sky.

The fact of an investigation, the nature of it, and the speed with which it was deployed are significant.

It doesn't clarify whether Brazel was detained for a time, but one has to wonder (doesn't one?) why, if they were so certain it was foil and sticks, there was any investigation at all -- especially one which had to have been set in motion before the press release was published.

Regards,

Don

David Rudiak said...

Gilles wrote (part 1):
Yes, we have already debated 150 times about the flight this June the 4th (Crary's Journal),

Has it been only 150 times?

that the winds are in the foster ranch directions,

No, they actually had a strong westerly component, that was getting even stronger as the day wore on. That is why Charles Moore ended up cheating with his trajectory calculation. Cheating was the only way he could use the wind data to get his imaginary balloon flight "exactly" to the Foster Ranch.

So the winds were NOT right, and a CORRECT calculation ends up with the hypothetical Mogul missing by dozens of miles.

But this is all academic, since Moore's "perfect" flight Flight #4 never happened on June 4. It was Flight #5 the next day that is actually documented as the first N.M. Mogul flight.

You can find Flight #5 not only in Mogul records, but also NASA's history of flight and a recent official USAF official history of flight, listed as the FIRST N.M. balloon flight. But Moore's claim was that Flight #4 was at least as successful if not more so than #5, yet there is absolutely no record of it anywhere. This nonexistent balloon flight is your "explanation" for Roswell, and you call this "science"?

that there exists a drawing of a cluster of NYU balloons (the #2) with radar-targets pictured in,

Funny how you mention another unsuccessful, canceled Mogul flight from two months before, not even in N.M., as more "evidence" that an intended (but equally canceled) flight on June 4 also was configured with radar targets.

But you carefully leave out the drawing of Flight #5, which was the VERY NEXT DAY after the alleged "Flight #4" and DIDN'T show radar targets.

Funny how you also leave out the records of all the other N.M. Mogul flights from June/July 1947. The ONLY one shown as having radar tracking was #8 on July 3, a whole month later.

In short, it was NOT typical for these early Moguls to carry radar targets, and the ones closest in time and location to your "Flight #4" certainly did NOT.

As Brad Sparks has argued, when a flight was canceled, they stripped off ALL reusuable equipment. This, e.g., is documented in Mogul records as happening for canceled Flights #2 and #3.

Crary's diary indicates they had constant-altitude flights ready to go June 3 and 4, but kept canceling because of cloudy weather. The only thing sent up June 4 was a "balloon cluster", not a "balloon train" as Crary called the full assembly. They were completely different things. One was a small balloon flight to test equipment (in this case a sonobuoy microphone reception), but the much larger "balloon trains" were constant altitude flights, and if they left the ground, they were ALWAYS tracked and the data ALWAYS recorded in the flight summaries, even if unsuccessful or incomplete (as was the case with Flight #6 only 2 days later).

Spark's logical argument is that all equipment that was stripped off of the intended flight on June 4 would have been reused the next day to make up the new Flight #5, that was real. But there were no radar targets on Flight #5.

David Rudiak said...

Response to Gilles (part 2)
that Victor T. Hoeflich is pictured in July the 10 1947 contemporan newspaper indicating he was in charge of the radar-targets, we have produced patents indicating he was in charge of a Toys manufactury,

Which proves nothing one way or the other. His company made radar targets. Obviously somebody had to make radar targets. Who ever said otherwise? Another manufacturer was Alox kites in Kansas City. They existed too.

So what? How does the existence of radar kite companies prove an actual flight on June 4 or that this ghost flight carried radar targets, or that multiple people, including highly trained military officers, could have confused flimsy radar targets with supersonic flying saucers?

The real point is where is the documentation showing that there ever was a flight June 4? You keep dodging the point and going into your rant about Victor Hoeflich and his toy company.

Incidentally, I am the researcher that dug up those contemporary newspaper articles and photos on Hoeflich. What they actually show is a businessman leaving his business to stage yet another radar target demonstration debunking the flying saucers, along with the clearly military ones at Alamogordo, Fort Worth, Atlanta, Kansas City, and Wilmington, Ohio near Wright Field. What a coincidence!

we have a blue print indicating to renforce the radar targets structure with 3M Acetate scotch or equivalent,

We have a *1953* blueprint saying they used scotch tape for reinforcement. Again, so what? They used Scotch tape to make balsa wood kites. What a revelation! So did I as a kid. What does any of this have to do with the existence of a real balloon flight?

we have 1940's pictures or advertissements with 3M acetate scotch presenting symbols in surface, etc.

Which again has nothing to do with the existence of the balloon flight. All you are trying to do is make a feeble case that the radar targets had "flower tape" on them like Moore said.

Even if that was the case, where is that tape in the Fort Worth photos? That should be your real "proof" that it existed or that the radar target pictured MIGHT have had anything to do with what Brazel described. But nobody can find it, not even the USAF photoanalysts who looked in 1994 hoping to demonstrate its existence.

and we have the witnesses indicating the presence of such a tape with symbols in the wreckage (among other things).

We have ONE contemporary witness--Brazel--describing the tape, but that doesn't prove that is what he found. Where is it in the photos, which again assumes that is what was found?

You again conveniently ignore all the testimony that at the time Brazel did his interview he was already in military custody. In the past, you have argued literally ALL the witnesses to Brazel's incarceration (about a dozen that I listed) were "contaminated" and suffering from false memory. More on this next part.

David Rudiak said...

(response to Gilles--part 3 of 3)
How they can have invented this "detail" if they were not facing a radar-target??? + the other materials like sticks, laminated foils,

Brazel is in custody, they want Brazel to describe material to coordinate with the radar target Gen. Ramey has given as the explanation SEVERAL HOURS BEFORE. They show him a radar target, maybe one from Alamogordo, and ask him to describe it when he goes to the Daily Record. Really very simple, much simpler than the cover story in 1960 of the downed U-2 flight where the CIA claimed it was an errant NASA weather plane, had NASA put out phony transcript, repainted a U-2 with a phony NASA logo, etc.

string, etc ?

Uh Gilles, Brazel specifically DENIED finding any string. He described the eyelets of the radar target where such string would have been tied, but absolutely no string (or wire) by which it would have been suspended from the balloon, if that is what it was.

But a REAL Mogul would have had hundreds of yards of balloon rigging on the ground. That's another GIANT hole in your Mogul theory. Where's the string? Brazel said there was none and there is none in the Fort Worth photos.

There is a very simple explanation for this as well. Brazel's described target and the one from Fort Worth were brand new, right out of the shipping box, and never had string tied to them because they never flew.

Or to put it another way, if there never was your imaginary Flight #4, that also explains why Brazel never found any string.

Don't think the USAF in 1994 didn't notice the problem of the missing balloon twine. Lt. McAndrew questioning Moore asked him whether the twine could have disintegrated in the sun. When Moore said no, McAndrew immediately dropped the line of questioning, and of course never brought up the problem of the missing twine in his final pro-Mogul summary.

Loretta Proctor herself indicated that when Brazel visited her BEFORE he gones to Roswell and then BEFORE all your USAAF ad hoc complot, he indicated to her the presence of a tape with symbol!

Affidavit 5/5/1991. "There was also something he [Mac Brazel] described as tape which had printing on it. The color of the printing was a kind of purple."


Yes, I can cite a dozen witnesses to Brazel being in military custody, and you flippantly dismiss them all as suffering from ancient memories, implanted memories, false memories, etc.

One of these witnesses was Loretta Proctor. Funny how you cite ONLY her affidavit statement on the tape, but not the REST about Brazel being detained for several days and angry at his treatment, or or how she personally witnessed or heard Brazel describe highly unusual debris that couldn't be damaged, including a stick and foil.

Why is only Proctor's statements about the tape valid 40+ years later, but none of her other statements that strongly disagree with simple, fragile balloon debris being found?

In other words, you are engaging in your usual selective quotation out of full context and flippant dismissal of all testimony that doesn't agree with your simplistic balloon treatment of the case.

Is that your "science" Gilles?

cda said...

Kevin:

I have reread the transcript of your interview with Edwin Easley on p.157-161 of your ROSWELL UFO CRASH UPDATE and have to tell you that my impression is that it is about the most useless, pointless interview ever conducted.

It is full of prompting by you and null responses by Easley. He says he was sworn to secrecy. So what? Aren't all military officers sworn to secrecy, on general matters?

In fact he tells you nothing at all, cannot remember dates or names, has to be reminded of things (by you) and generally shrugs off the whole tale.

True, I did not speak to him and you did, but how anyone can read that transcript and learn anything about the case is beyond me.

It seems plain to me, early on, that Easley is NOT recalling any saucer crash from being present at the time, but from what others have told him since 1980 (other personnel involved). Also, there was an earlier interview, in Oct 1989. Where is that transcript?
Who conducted it?

In short, Easley recalls nothing himself but does know, through post-1980 gossip, something about the alleged 'crash'.

It appears a totally useless interview. And further, he more or less denies being there, towards the end of the transcript.

He certainly wouldn't have known which site you were referring to (of the 2 or 3 crash sites). My guess is that he knew nothing first hand at all.

That is my impression. If you want to trust his very unrevealing testimony, that is up to you.

I don't need Karl Pflock's opinion on this. I am using my own powers of observation.

Do YOU think Easley told you anything of value?

cda said...

Brazel held in custody for a week? Does anyone, apart from ETHers, take this seriously?

He was seen in the company of the military one afternoon, July 8. The rest is fiction. The 'incarceration' tale mushroomed from that.

How would anyone have known where he was, anyway? Civilians were obviously not told. Had Brazel told them, it would have soon got into the press. The military were sworn to secrecy, so we are led to believe (but 'revealed' it all 30+ years later, like Marcel). This is another invented part of the Roswell legend. It has no value. The USAF do not incarcerate civilians at their bases without very good reason, either now or in 1947. Brazel could have brought legal action, via his congressman, if this happened.

He had committed no crime. He was perfectly free to inform anyone he wanted about this object if it was a genuine ET craft.

A week in custody? Poppycock. Just another silly extra bit to the legend to bolster the conspiracy/cover-up thesis.

And no, Brazel was not, I am positive, handed a new radar target or balloon before his interview. Nor was he told to falsify the date of his discovery.

And no, the 'Dream Team' cannot and will not produce any real hard evidence of the ET crash. Just more gossip and useless anecdotal testimony.

Steve M said...

Kevin

If you discount Moore because his statement was taken decades after the event then you have to discount every other witness who made their original statement decades later also.

You would also have to discard all second hand and thirdhand witnesses as they can only provide hearsay evidence.

Therefore the dream team investigation has to be restricted to only evidence, witness statements and documentation from 1947.

KRandle said...

Steve M -

My point has been that the skeptics reject, automatically, everything said by the officers at Roswell, the civilians who were there, and anyone else who suggests something unusual happened because memories are flawed, you can't trust them, and people lie... except for those who tell us it was a balloon (regardless of the type). Then the memories are perfect and we can take what they say as the truth even when it conflicts with the records.

I am not saying that we throw out Moore's testimony because it is old, but I will say that it does conflict with the record.

So, I am saying what you are saying, only backwards. If you throw out Marcel, Easley, Saunders and all the others because of flawed memory, then you must reject Moore and crew as well.

On the other hand, if you can admit that some memories are solid, that people can and do remember stuff accurately, then we can begin to investigate.

Don't you think that I understand this? It is a point that I have attempted to make for years.

Lance said...

Kevin,

I'm not going to get into the above with you (yay!) but I did want to suggest that a documented effort to look at the Ft. Worth photos should be done.

Currently, the efforts seem haphazard and perhaps outdated. Dr. Rudiak has shared with me one high rez scan that has much of the bright areas of the photo artificially (and not as in the original photo) washed out. This could easily explain the "pristine white paper, etc". I'm not suggesting that anyone did this on purpose, it may have just been a mistake.

I have been trying to find other avenues for inquiry into these photos as well and have shared those thoughts with Dr. Rudiak (with whom I don't seem to be getting emails any longer)

What really is needed is a proper scan (after a possible cleaning) of all the negatives. It may be that there is nothing there to find but the evidence I have seen thus far is not conclusive.

Best,

Lance

David Rudiak said...

Here's a link just sent me of an interview with a former employee at Area 51.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/paranormalsunday/2012/04/02/t-d-barnes-former-area-51-employee

He denies any saucer testing or aliens out there, and claims test planes were responsible for many UFO reports.

But what I'm mainly interested in are his statements about cover stories to hide their activities.

Everybody went by a code name, not their real names, when dealing with anyone not employed there, test pilots have their flight records falsified, such as claiming flight time in a plane they never flew at a base they were never at at the time.

Another tactic I've seen mentioned by other A-51 employees, is use of false employers on their paychecks and in their reports to the IRS.

The press and public has been fed cover stories when secret planes crash off base or are spotted off base, or create otherwise unexplained sonic booms. In fact, he says, the A-12 program was so secret, it was fully classified and nobody talked about for decades. Ironically, the very secret SR-71 Blackbird, which Pres. Johnson revealed, was used as a cover for the A-12-generated sonic booms.

One now well-known example of crashes covered up was the A-12 crash in 1963 near Wendover, Utah, that I've previously discussed here.

Other employees elsewhere, discussing the A-12 crash, mentioned the press being lied to with a cover story, the press not being able to get a consistent story from military sources, the press being monitored, one reporter having film confiscated, other witnesses being intimidated and/or bribed, the area being cordoned off and everybody kept out, the crash site being carefully cleaned up with special grooming crews to make it look like no crash had taken place, the nearby airbase supplying heavy equipment and logistical support, but debris being flown back to A-51 by cargo planes from two distant air bases, not the local one, to further obscure origins.

Thus in this conventional but secret aircraft crash, we see many of the same elements of how it was handled that researchers have uncovered for Roswell.

(Warning: Red meat sarcastic statement to skeptics!)
But, of course, skeptics know that such tactics could not possibly have been employed at Roswell. It has all been made up by the researchers.

Don said...

CDA wrote: "Brazel held in custody for a week? Does anyone, apart from ETHers, take this seriously?"

I take it under consideration. The only reasons I can think of for detaining him would be to see how the story played in the press (it played just fine), and because they didn't want him to be present while they manicured the debris field.

"The USAF do not incarcerate civilians at their bases without very good reason, either now or in 1947. Brazel could have brought legal action, via his congressman, if this happened."

They might have had a good reason. The possibility of congressional involvement would be an issue for them. Brazel would have to agree to remain a guest of the Army for a bit. I haven't seen it discussed, but in civilian saucer cases (here in the Zone of the Interior) the CIC was involved. The legality of that could be questioned. The contemporary Rhodes incident is an example. 'Roswell' is a civilian report, not a military one. Possibly because of the time and place, no one questioned the miltary investigation of civilian reports, and no one knew the CIC was doing so, as well. In the Rhodes case, not only was it investigated by a CIC Special Agent, but one under cover (and I don't mean just in plain clothes).

Cavitt had a good reason for not 'remembering' the rancher.

Detaining a civilian would just be another charge on top of several, and because of the "secrecy oath" (AKA, the Espionage Act) and national defense, I doubt Brazel's congressman would see it other than the army's way.

I'd agree with you that the stories of intimidation jump the shark, and consider those who told the lurid stories to be, at best, wrong.

Besides the residents near the ranch where the object landed, a few people in Roswell would be interviewed. Wilcox being the sheriff would have already been co-opted to the army's needs. I wonder who the guys were at the base he was working with. Blanchard was on leave; his normal contact, Marcel was in Ft Worth and so was Jennings. The guys in the CIC room? A couple of media people, McEvoy and Whitmore Sr, may have been interviewed. Obviously John McBoyle. Maybe Walsh and Joyce.

Of interest is the 2 1/2 hours of missing time that occured in Roswell. The rest of the world heard about the incident beginning at 2:26pm MT, but the people of Roswell, and the personnel of the RAAF, had the story at noon likely via either KSWS or KGFL or both. Haut shouldn't have made those calls. There appears to have been a fuss between the radio people and the army and some harsh words might have been said.

Regards,

Don

cda said...

Don:

"Blanchard was on leave". Starting July 8? The very week the USAF were so busy at the crash site?

Absolutely incredible. What a guy this Blanchard was. In addition to authorizing a confusing and premature press release, he chooses to take his leave whilst the USAF is supposedly scouring the debris field for fragments of the first known extraterrestrial craft to crash to earth!

Recall that General Spaatz was on a fishing trip at the same time. Fishing for what? Crashed spacecraft that got submerged in the rivers, maybe?

Truly this case gets curiouser and curiouser.

I continually marvel at the idiocy of the whole ET story as related.

Don said...

CDA wrote: ""Blanchard was on leave". Starting July 8? The very week the USAF were so busy at the crash site?"

Has anyone mentioned that you might fare better in these discussions if you familiarized yourself with the story?

Has anyone mentioned to you that one ought not to believe something is so, simply because it's in the papers?


Regards,

Don

cda said...

Don:
Are you saying that Blanchard was not on leave? Please clarify.

And yes, the popular Roswell 'story' is that the USAF spent up to a week scouring and dredging the crash site for every possible scrap of debris. And that this period started July 7 or 8.

Unless you know differently.

The newspapers, regarding this aspect, have nothing to do with it.

So was Blanchard present, either at the base, or at the debris field during this period, or was he on leave?

Gilles Fernandez said...

CDA :
In fact, the different historiographical documents prooving he was on leave, are part of the big cover-up orchestred this 1947 week. Proove me wrong!
Chut...
You understand nothing about USA(A)F tactics employed at Roswell...

More seriously, it is an important argument/chapter the FACT Blanchard was on leave for an event of this magnitude (following the ETH proponents).

I hope Kevin will open something in his blog a day, cause we are going off-topic (as usual).

Regards,

Gilles

Don said...

CDA wrote: "Are you saying that Blanchard was not on leave? Please clarify."

I am saying that was the story in the news. Reporters wanting a statement from him, were told Blanchard was on leave.

With Blanchard and Jennings not on the base, and with Marcel gone as well -- all three at the moment the story broke -- I think the Provost would be in charge. Kevin could clarify that. And, my comment went to who Wilcox would be working with at the base, then.

Don't ask me about the "popular Roswell story" because that is not my area of interest. Take it up with David and Kevin.

I don't believe news stories unless I can verify the information. I'll take opinions 'under consideration' and see if they are consonant with the verified material. Before I accepted the Hollis Wilson story, I had to verify Maggie Brazel's maiden name was Wilson and that she had a brother named Hollis. Arguing over unverified information as if they were facts is a waste of time.

Regards,

Don

KRandle said...

All -

Command would fall to Barrowclough... who has publicly stated that there was nothing to the UFO story...

Don said...

CDA, I did attempt to verify that Blanchard was on leave. Back in 1997, the AFHRA website had a catalogue of the archive of Blanchard's papers. There were no records for July 1947. Hitting that brick wall a couple times, I concluded that if I did find a Roswell record, I couldn't be sure it wasn't there, purposely, to be found, given the absence of near anything else. So, I dropped the matter, and went in a different direction.

Regards,

Don

David Rudiak said...

Response to cda (part 1):
"Blanchard was on leave". Starting July 8? The very week the USAF were so busy at the crash site?

Absolutely incredible. What a guy this Blanchard was. In addition to authorizing a confusing and premature press release, he chooses to take his leave whilst the USAF is supposedly scouring the debris field for fragments of the first known extraterrestrial craft to crash to earth!


The press was told July 8 Blanchard was on leave and unavailable for comment.

So naturally it appears that nothing of importance is going on, which is the way the Air Force debunkers spun it in 1994.

Similarly, last year Obama was telling jokes about Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents Assoc. dinner. So obviously nothing of importance going on, right?

Except this was the night before the Pakastani raid that killed Osama Bin Laden. Obama was cracking jokes while contemplating whether to issue the final risky order to carry out the raid.

There are similar examples, where you don't want to tip your hand of something important going on.

Getting Blanchard out of Dodge and away from reporters would be a convenient way to avoid comment. According to one of his staff officers, Lt. Col. Joe Briley, Blanchard really went out to the debris field to make a personal determination. If everything was going well, there would be no need for him to stick around.

One indication that Blanchard's leave wasn't a straight-forward leave is the fact that he was scheduled to meet with the N.M. Governor the following morning to sign a proclamation for Air Force Day. According to the Santa Fe newspaper, the meeting never happened. Instead, it was reported the Governor suddenly took off for the mountains with his wife, again unavailable for comment. Blanchard finally met with Lt. Gov. Montoya a week later and signed the proclamation.

So more questions that should be asked is why didn't the scheduled July 9 meeting between Blanchard and the Guv happen, where was Blanchard at the time, and why did the Guv also suddenly change his plans and head to the mountains?

Lt. Col. Payne Jennings, who was deputy base commander and Blanchard's replacement, also had some curious activity. According to Robert Porter, who was on the B29 fight with Marcel to Fort Worth, Jennings was the pilot.

So maybe another question to ask is out of the many dozens of pilots at the base to choose from, why was the alleged acting base commander the only one who could fly Ramey's balloon garbage to Fort Worth? Why would he leave the base now under his command to handle such a trivial and unnecessary task?

Obviously the task wasn't considered trivial. Gen. Dubose told a similar story about an earlier debris shipment from Roswell to Fort Worth and on to Washington. He said it arrived by courier, and he was instructed by Gen. McMullen to send it to Washington by "colonel courier". Why not a "corporal courier"? Obviously it was considered much too important.

According to Dubose, acting base commander Col. Alvin Clark acted as the courier. When Dubose first learned of the crash, both the base commander, Col. Hewitt Wheliss, and Gen. Ramey were away from the base attending an air show in Ramey's home down of Denton, TX, then blissfully unaware of anything going down at Roswell.

But the big question is what was so damn important that acting base commanders had to be personally involved in the transport of supposedly mundane debris?

David Rudiak said...

(response cda, part 2):
Sending Marcel to Fort Worth and keeping him there another day also kept him away from reporters with follow-up questions. Marcel returned the following night on yet another B29 flight from Roswell, transporting a mysterious crate surrounded by a guard of officers, chained to the plane so it would go down with the plane, and with one of the base doctors on board, according to one of the interviewed crew members. Further, their flight was met at the base by brass and a mortician, recognized by another of the crew members. Debriefed later, they were told they transported the General's furniture.

The General's furniture--obviously, nothing going on.

Recall that General Spaatz was on a fishing trip at the same time. Fishing for what? Crashed spacecraft that got submerged in the rivers, maybe?

First of all, all this happened the 4th of July weekend when the bigwigs often went off on preplanned leaves. Dubose was handling Ramey's business. McMullen, who was telling Dubose what to do, was SAC commander Gen. Kenney's replacement while Kenny was away.

In Washington, Gen. Vandenberg was replacing Spaatz, and the newspapers made it quite clear that Vandenberg did get involved with Roswell, even though Vandenberg's daily log curiously omits this fact.

As for Spaatz supposedly fishing in Oregon starting July 7 while Roswell was going on, as most newspapers reported, MUFON director James Carrion found by looking at Texas papers that Spaatz really flew to San Antonio, TX July 10, supposedly headed for deep-sea fishing at Corpus Christi, contradicting Spaatz's flight log found by Stan Friedman that Spaatz flew to Corpus Christi July 7.

So things aren't so clear-cut with Spaatz either. What exactly was Spaatz up to and why can't we get a straight story about his whereabouts? Was he just "fishing"? San Antonio gets very close to the action in Fort Worth, also had multiple military bases and a big military medical complex and research facilities. I think you can see what I'm getting at here as a possibility.

Just because newspapers report business as usual doesn't necessarily mean something important isn't going on out of sight. "Going fishing" can also act as a good cover story, even if part of the time, they really did go fish. It doesn't preclude the possibility of them also taking care of important business. People are capable of multitasking.

cda said...

This gets curiouser & curiouser, as I said before.

Blanchard did go on leave because the morning reports prove it. See Pflock's book. We don't need the newspapers here. So there was no cover story re Blanchard. Likewise there is no indication that he ever visited the debris field, either before going on leave or secretly later. Kevin says in his timeline that he did go to the site, but this is based on 40+ years old anecdotal testimony and a bit of speculative interpolation.

My point is this:

Since Blanchard went on 3-weeks leave (which we know he did) when he already knew or suspected an ET craft had crashed and was under armed guard at the base, is it really credible that he would have left the base at all, let alone for 21 days? I say emphatically that it is NOT. You do not have a base commander going off on holiday whilst an event of such magnitude is still current (i.e. the guys out in the boondocks securing the ET debris and debris & bodies en route to Washington).

Hence, as we know Blanchard went on leave, he must have done so knowing that the Roswell affair was a trivial matter that did not require his attention. Ergo, it was NOT an ET craft, or even any extraordinary foreign craft.

Remarkable also that Vandenberg's log contains nothing about any event at Roswell and that Spaatz was also on holiday (at least for part of the week).

Too many important military people obviously decided to either go on holiday or simply not get involved with these strange ET visitors.

But of course, some will say these were all clever cover stories. Perhaps a large portion of the 509th bomb group newsletter for July was also phony, for obvious reasons.

But then some will propose or speculate literally anything, however preposterous, in order to bolster the ET crash thesis.

Should anyone be bold enough to examine either Vandenberg or Spaatz's daily logs for July 9 to 16 in the archives I think I can guarantee that neither will show any mention of Roswell or its aftermath. And NOT because the logs were falsified either.

Don said...

CDA, I know you want to argue ET. All skeptics do. I don't. So, this is just a datapoint: Blanchard was not a protagonist in the matter as soon as he informed Ramey, and the same for Marcel after he reported to Blanchard. All either did thereafter re the Roswell incident was follow orders.

Once Ramey took command of the situation, Blanchard was just another spear carrier.

Consider the press release to be a litany of the orderly transfer -- a fine and cooperative one -- from civilian to civilian authorities to the AAF. Tinker to Evers to Chance, if you know baseball history.

Regards,

Don

David Rudiak said...

Response to cda (part 1):
Remarkable also that Vandenberg's log contains nothing about any event at Roswell and that Spaatz was also on holiday (at least for part of the week).

What's remarkable is that Vandenberg's log says absolutely nothing about it when the newspapers say he definitely was involved. E.g., Pentagon correspondents for the Washington Post and NY Times wrote that he "dropped in" on the AAF Pentagon press room to handle the public relations furor after the press release came out.

Tell us, cda, did the newspapers make this up because Vandenberg's log failed to note it?

Why is there not a word about this in Vandenberg's log, instead saying he left his office for an hour to supposedly confer with AAF Secretary Stuart Syminton?

It's not as if his log didn't often go into his activities in more detail. The day before (July 7), it has a whole summary of Vandenberg conferring with Gen. LeMay about the flying discs, personally taking a call from a reporter asking if they were a secret project. Right after that much detail was devoted to Vandenberg dealing with a hoax crashed disc story out of Houston, allegedly belonging to the AAF, and trying to kill it.

Now usually this sort of stuff would be handled by underlings, particularly the PR people dealing with the press.

Vandenberg's log is also notable for it's suspicious changes from his planned activities written in his calendar. Right after dealing with the Houston disc, Vandenberg canceled a dentist appointment and instead personally went out to the airport to pick up AAF Sec. Symington and bring him back to the Pentagon. Time out of Vandenberg's busy schedule--1-1/2 hours. Again, why didn't Vandenberg simply send one of his staffers? It strikes me this speaks of something important coming up that he IMMEDIATELY wanted to speak to Symington about, and not through some intermediary.

Now this sudden meeting with Symington would correspond in time to when Walter Haut's affidavit chronology would have Roswell base becoming aware of the second crash site with craft and bodies north of town and this information filtering up to Washington.

And then the following morning of July 8, Vandenberg canceled one meeting and suddenly replaced it with Vannevar Bush's Joint Research and Development Board. This overlapped exactly in time with the morning staff meeting at Roswell, where Walter Haut, among other things, said the bigwigs were discussing what to tell the public.

(Right after this, the Pentagon issued a press release denying the saucers were "space ships" and also quoted one of the JRDB members as saying the saucers were all a bunch of nonsense. And right after that was the Roswell press release, quickly followed by Gen. Ramey's weather balloon debunkery.)

It is also interesting that Gen. Spaatz wrote Vannevar Bush a letter on July 7, though we don't know the contents. (We only know that Bush responded to the letter July 17, but again don't know the substance.) Remember, Spaatz July 7 had supposedly gone fishing in Medford, Oregon, but here he is writing to Bush. Bush's name keeps popping up as the Roswell situation heated up.

And of course, Wilbert's Smith's correspondence from 1950/51 fingered Bush as heading up the supersecret UFO group within the Research and Development Board.

There are an awful lot of "coincidences" going on here.

David Rudiak said...

(response to cda, part 2)
Too many important military people obviously decided to either go on holiday or simply not get involved with these strange ET visitors.

Thanks for distorting history once again. They already were on holiday or planned to be during the usually quiet July 4th holiday weekend, then Roswell happened, not the other way around.

If they had all suddenly rushed back from their leaves or suddenly canceled them, it would indeed look suspicious, like some sort of crisis was happening.

Besides nobody is considered essential in the military, which is one reason why they have a well-organized chain of command. If the commander isn't available for whatever reason, the next guy in command takes over.

Spaatz could still go fishing and Vandenberg would be running things back at the Pentagon. If Spaatz's input was needed, even in 1947 they had electronic communications to stay in touch (yes, I know that's hard for you to believe). And if Spaatz wanted to quickly get somewhere, he had the whole damn Air Force at his disposal.

One reason I just raised again the 1963 top secret crash of an A-12 spy plane out of Area 51 was to note the various deception schemes employed to keep the true nature of the crash concealed from the press and public. Also the employees at Area 51 have revealed how their employment there was also hidden, even admitting they can't document they ever worked there as a result. So, e.g., they were issued paychecks from phony employers and their IRS returns would also reflect this. Test pilots had phony flight logs showing them flying other planes at some other base, thus being in two different places at once.

As Sun Tzu wrote almost 2000 years ago in the Art of War, war is the art of deception. A good chunk of basic military strategy is devoted to ways of deceiving the enemy. Multiple military units specialize in it. To believe it hasn't been employed against the American public at times when deemed necessary shows incredible naivete.

Don said...

The "naivete" is the argument from personal incredulity: I can't believe it happened therefore it didn't. It is CDA's rhetorical backstop.

If anyone would like to check the calibration on their bullshit detector, I'd recommend another July 9, 1947 story: the theft of atomic secrets at Los Alamos by two army sergeants in 1946.

Regards,

Don

cda said...

DR:

To try and end this debate:
General Vandenberg's log of July 8 and 9 has no mention of flying discs for one reason and one reason only - the Roswell affair had zero importance to him. Hence its non-appearance.

The affair of July 7 did have some importance because somebody played a prank and put an Air Force General's name on a flying disc (a General Hackett), planted it somewhere whereupon it was discovered, and the Houston Chronicle found out about it. Hence Vandenberg's concern, and why he spoke to Hackett in person.

I suggest to you that Vandenberg's quick visit to the press office (that is probably all it was) occurred after his lunch hour or maybe in between meetings, and was not considered important enough to enter into the log. Maybe the newspapers exaggerated the story a bit. I don't know. Do you?

That is my conclusion. You are adopting much the same kind of arguments as Stan Friedman did over the various activities of people involved in MJ-12 on certain days. Hence his grossly over-enthusiastic ideas about MJ-12's authenticity. Too many 'coincidences'. Sure.

And I do NOT believe for a split second that Vandenberg's log has omitted anything of import or was faked in any way.

End of story (from me anyway).

David Rudiak said...

cda back to his usual nonsensical spin (part 1 of 2):
General Vandenberg's log of July 8 and 9 has no mention of flying discs for one reason and one reason only - the Roswell affair had zero importance to him. Hence its non-appearance.

If it had "zero importance" to him, then why did he get involved at all? Isn't that a self-contradiction? The newspapers clearly reported him going to the Pentagon press room to deal with the ruckus created by the Roswell press release. And he was gone from his office for an hour.

The affair of July 7 did have some importance because somebody played a prank and put an Air Force General's name on a flying disc (a General Hackett), planted it somewhere whereupon it was discovered, and the Houston Chronicle found out about it. Hence Vandenberg's concern, and why he spoke to Hackett in person.

Well, no, a mere "Colonel" Hackett, but who's counting?

And this whole Houston hoax disc affair was based on a report from a newspaper which didn't get much coverage, while Roswell was a huge national and international story precipitated by an OFFICIAL AAF press release from one of their most important bases saying they (not some newspaper) had a real flying disc.

But in your strange world, Vandenberg considered a minor newspaper rumor to be more important than an official statement by his own people at Roswell that garnered far more publicity, therefore the first demanded great detailing in his log while the second merited not even a mention.

Wow! Your gross illogic is showing again.

I suggest to you that Vandenberg's quick visit to the press office (that is probably all it was) occurred after his lunch hour or maybe in between meetings,

It started at 5:14 p.m. or about 50 minutes after the Roswell press release first went out over the AP wire, not "after his lunch hour".

As for "between meetings", this was at the end of his work day. It notes that he had just stepped out to see AAF Sec. Symington to discuss personnel for the Air Board, but then claims that he left to see him again about the same thing, when instead he really went to the Pentagon press room, at least part of the hour he was gone, with no proper detailing as to what happened that hour.

and was not considered important enough to enter into the log.

Well, let's see, his atomic bomber base announcing they had a real flying disc, and then dealing with the aftermath of that was "not important", but noting when he went and came back from lunch was important to note. Yes, that is very logical--NOT!

Maybe the newspapers exaggerated the story a bit. I don't know. Do you?

Yes, I do know. His log has him gone for a full hour, and this overlaps in time with when the newspapers reported him "dropping in" on the Pentagon press room.

I can't prove he was there a full hour, but the newspapers reported him directing phone calls to Roswell and Fort Worth from the press room. He wasn't at least going to wait around to see what they had to say?

What were the newspapers "exaggerating" here? Are you claiming they made it all up?

David Rudiak said...

response cda (part 2 of 2):
And I do NOT believe for a split second that Vandenberg's log has omitted anything of import or was faked in any way.General Vandenberg's log of July 8 and 9 has no mention of flying discs for one reason and one reason only - the Roswell affair had zero importance to him. Hence its non-appearance.

It wasn't "faked" exactly, but it clearly DID omit things of import or failed to detail them while noting or detailing things of obviously little import, such as "General Van" going to lunch. Very curious.

The log was supposed to list ALL of his meetings and activities, even if no detail was added, as was often the case. So the previous day we know he canceled a previously scheduled dentist appointment in order to personally pick up Symington at the airport instead of some underling handling this routine task. What was so damn important that the big General had to personally chauffeur Symington? Were they lovers?

In the case of Vandenberg going to the press room, it IS strange that not a word was said about it, even to note that it happened. Why not?

As for his multiple meetings with Symington over those days, there was no detailing at all. All that was said was he was meeting about the proposed Air Board (for aircraft safety). But all sorts of things could have been discussed in those hours of meetings.

(But we do know the times “General Van” arrived at his office, went to lunch, and went home.)

What we have in his log is detailing of his activities over relatively trivial matters, some of which would normally be handled by underlings (such as talking to a reporter or picking up Symington at the airport(, but absolutely no detail about more important meetings with Symington, or his suddenly called meeting of Vannevar Bush's Joint Research and Development Board the morning of July 8 (canceling another scheduled meeting).

That suddenly called JRDB meeting lasted 2-1/2 hours (and overlapped exactly in time with the Roswell morning staff meeting), therefore not exactly a trivial meeting, yet not one thing was said about the subject matter. All we know is that just before the meeting, Vandenberg was briefed by Gen. Curtis LeMay, Deputy AAF Director of Research and Development, who the previously day the log does note was also briefing Vandenberg on the "flying disc" situation.

And then following that JRDB meeting, one of the members put out a statement mocking the flying saucers and the Pentagon press room issued a press release denying that the flying discs were "space ships".

Yes, I would say there are a fair share of odd "coincidences" here.

David Rudiak said...

I wrote:
What we have in his log is detailing of his activities over relatively trivial matters, some of which would normally be handled by underlings (such as talking to a reporter or picking up Symington at the airport(, but absolutely no detail about more important meetings with Symington, or his suddenly called meeting of Vannevar Bush's Joint Research and Development Board the morning of July 8 (canceling another scheduled meeting).

That suddenly called JRDB meeting lasted 2-1/2 hours (and overlapped exactly in time with the Roswell morning staff meeting), therefore not exactly a trivial meeting, yet not one thing was said about the subject matter. All we know is that just before the meeting, Vandenberg was briefed by Gen. Curtis LeMay, Deputy AAF Director of Research and Development, who the previously day the log does note was also briefing Vandenberg on the "flying disc" situation.

And then following that JRDB meeting, one of the members put out a statement mocking the flying saucers and the Pentagon press room issued a press release denying that the flying discs were "space ships".

Yes, I would say there are a fair share of odd "coincidences" here.


I just want to add briefly to that. Bob Koford discovered one thing that WAS discussed in that JRDB meeting the morning of Roswell on July 8, 1947, from a book on the orbital missile range facility established at Cape Canaveral (Cape Kennedy) (specifically “The History of Cape Canaveral", Chapter 2, "The Missile Range Takes Shape (1949-1958)", Written and Edited by Cliff Lethbridge "The U.S. Selects Cape Canaveral To Host A Missile Test Range"):

"...The dangers of a missile range so close to populated areas would become painfully clear in May, 1947 when a V-2 rocket strayed to the south instead of heading north over the White Sands range... Thankfully, the quest for a new missile range had begun almost a year before this incident.

"...Responsibility for acquiring, building and equipping the selected missile range was assigned to the War Department by the Joint Research and Development Board on July 8, 1947."

But it was more than just finding a safer missile range. It was about establishing a better missile range for orbital space missions. (E.g., the RAND think tank established the previous year by the War Department, published their first work paper on orbiting satellites.)

Although finding the new missile facility had apparently been in the works for a year, it seemed to have come to a head on July 8, 1947 at that JRDB meeting, suddenly called by Vandenberg (canceling another scheduled meeting, therefore seemingly a meeting of urgency), where one of the decisions was to make sure the War Department got going on the new facility.

And this happened exactly the same time as the Roswell morning staff meeting, followed by public debunkery by the JRDB and the Pentagon that the flying saucers were "space ships" or anything to be taken seriously. And then came the Roswell press release and the weather balloon debunkery.

A very curious chain of "coincidences", but it strikes me the JRDB decision on the orbital missile launch facility was a direct policy response to what was going on at the time.

Steve M said...

Kevin

I agree with you that memories are fallible but it seems that the Roswell believers seem to accept that the memories of those who say a UFO crashed at Roswell are 'rock solid' while those witnesses who say nothing happened have fallible. Seems to be a bit of a bias there.

KRandle said...

Steve -

My point here was that the skeptics believe that those whose memories mirror their belief structure are solid while those who suggest something alien are flawed, deluded, lying, and simply mistaken. My point was that both sides seem to suffer from this...

Not to mention that sometimes old memories are reliable and accurate, especially when they are corroborated by others and documentation.

So, I understand your point, but I think you missed mine.