Monday, September 07, 2015

Colonel Blanchard and the Press Release Part II

I often assume a level of knowledge on the parts of those who visit here and shouldn’t do that. I thought the last posting was clear but there are questions that seem to transcend the point of that post. With that in mind, here is some clarification for everyone.

There were some variables that I have ignored. First was the timing of the story told by Brigadier General Thomas DuBose. We all believed that the flight made by Colonel Al Clark was on Sunday afternoon, but that might not be right. At the moment, this isn’t important to understanding the last post and I mention it only so that everyone is aware that DuBose had said that Clark made his flight to Washington, D.C. on Sunday, July 6, 1947 or on the same day that Mack Brazel went into Roswell. This is something that is the subject of another post.

The accepted timeline is that Brazel drove into Roswell on Sunday and eventually made his way to Sheriff George Wilcox, who in turn, called the base. That call eventually made its way to Major Jesse Marcel, though thinking about it, Wilcox would have been more familiar with Major Edwin Easley, the provost marshal, or the “chief of police” out at the base. Thinking about it further, and given the circumstances, it would be more logical for Wilcox to call Easley… Marcel might have been brought in if Easley was not immediately available. Remember, this is speculation on my part and something that I mention with trepidation. (And let’s not forget that we do have photographs in Brigadier General Roger Ramey’s office on July 8.)

Marcel said that he had been eating lunch in the Officer’s Club when he got the telephone call from Wilcox. Marcel would say that he met with the sheriff, saw the material that Brazel had brought in with him and returned to the base. He spoke with the commanding officer, Colonel William Blanchard, who mentioned that they now had the counterintelligence guys there and he, Marcel, should take one of them with him.

Marcel and Sheridan Cavitt met at the sheriff’s office, Marcel in his POV (privately owned vehicle, which is the military term for your car) and Cavitt, apparently in a military vehicle. They then followed Brazel to the ranch. Given all the moving around, it would seem that they probably left (note the qualification) around five in the afternoon, but Marcel would say later that it was early afternoon. They got out to the ranch about dusk, according to Marcel, which was too late for them to explore the debris field.

The next morning Brazel saddled a couple of horses and he and Cavitt rode out to the site. Marcel drove in his car and given the terrain, that wouldn’t have been all that difficult. I have driven cars cross country in that area, so Marcel could have easily done it.

They spent the morning out there, and given the descriptions of the debris field, I can’t see what they would have been doing for more than an hour or so. Marcel told Cavitt to head back in, so it would seem that Brazel and Cavitt rode back to their cars and Cavitt would have returned to Roswell. Marcel loaded his car with debris, or according to what he told Linda Corley in 1981, “I loaded my ’42 Buick to the hilt with it and I came on home cause I was late getting home.”

At this point we have the sheriff who had apparently seen some of the debris on Sunday, Marcel and Cavitt following Brazel to the ranch on Sunday afternoon, and then all of them out on the debris field on Monday, July 7. They spent time out there and eventually all leave, with Marcel getting home late on Monday.

Marcel, in the interview with Corley said, “…I brought some of the stuff and put it in the kitchen… So I put a lot of stuff on the floor in the kitchen. One thing I don’t remember is whether I picked up or you [Marcel’s wife] and Jesse picked it up and put it back in my car. Cause I didn’t get back to the base that night [emphasis added].”

Jesse Marcel holding a mock-up of the
I-beam he saw in 1947.
This suggests that at the time Marcel didn’t see anything that suggested to him that it was alien in nature. Unusual yes, but metallic debris is basically metallic debris and if you don’t have something more than that, it is impossible to make the leap to the extraterrestrial. Marcel would tell Corley about a beam that was small and squared, not like the tiny I-beam described by his son. They agreed that it was small and that there were pinkish/purplish figures on it. He mentioned the foil that he said couldn’t be winkled and had said that it was about the thinness of the foil in a pack of cigarettes. He had found a piece that was about two feet long.

Marcel told Corley, “He [a fellow who worked for Marcel] said, ‘You see this piece of metal? ... I tried to bend it, tried to mark on it. You can’t mark it.’ … He took a sixteen pound sledgehammer and put the piece of metal on the ground and he hit it like that and it bounced off.” Marcel pointed the cigarette pack again and said that the foil was as thin as that.

Anyway, according to Marcel, he got home late, but that could easily mean that rather than arriving at five or six in the evening, he got there are seven or eight. He had nothing that caused him to believe he needed to go to the base that evening. Instead, according to this testimony given to Corley, he waited until the next morning. He might have alerted Blanchard that he was back and Blanchard told him to wait until morning.

Given my experience, realizing that it began some twenty years later, I would think that Marcel would have driven out to the base no later than seven-thirty the next morning. It was certainly fairly early and he would have reported to Blanchard, taking him samples of the material. Remember, this is 1947, and people aren’t thinking in terms of an alien spacecraft. Reading the newspapers of late June and early July, 1947, there are hints, but most of the speculation revolves around terrestrial-based technology. It might be Soviet, it might be the Navy, it might be something from White Sands, or it might be some kind of other experiment but no one really thought it was from outer space.

We can speculate that there was a lot of classified message traffic going into the Roswell base; most of it would have been routinely destroyed when it was no longer valid. A purging of the files of classified would be accomplished on a regular basis, eliminating that material that was not relevant to the operation of the 509th Bomb Group. Nothing nefarious there. All military facilities that receive classified material routinely destroy it as it is superseded and no longer useful. There might have been messages about the flying disks, but they would have been informational rather than offering much in the way of explanation. Some of that might not have been classified but those messages are long gone. There is no way to verify what was being transmitted.

There would have been nothing going into Roswell to suggest there was anything classified about these flying saucers at that point. The newspapers were filled with stories about them including explanations for them. The case out of Circleville, Ohio, is important to our discussion, because it suggests some sort of metallic material having been recovered, but again, it was nothing of a classified nature.

The Circleville story struck me as important, not only because everyone there seemed able to identify the balloon for what it was while those in Roswell could not but also because it suggested that what they had wasn’t all that extraordinary. Blanchard, maybe having seen that story, but certainly having seen many of the others printed in the newspapers of the time, issued his press release about capturing a flying saucer.

Given all that, Blanchard called Haut (Marcel certainly wouldn’t have thought to call the public relations guy) and either read to him a press release or gave him the information to write it himself according to what Haut would tell me later. Haut then passed it around Roswell where both George Walsh and Frank Joyce put it on their respective news wires.

At this point nothing was classified. It was just some rubble recovered in a rancher’s pasture seventy or so miles northwest of Roswell. It was unusual material, but no one was talking about anything classified, and even if you wish to bring in Mogul, that material, if it was what had been found, was not classified. Nobody was violating regulations at this point.

For those who believe Roswell was alien, it would be clear that the second site where there was a craft and bodies was found sometime after the press release had been delivered. It seems, based on the documentation, that about fifteen minutes or so after Walsh received the press release, he put it on the wire. It was then too late to recall it, if that had been in their minds.


The answer to the question about Marcel and Blanchard compromising classified information seems to be that they didn’t. At the time they acted, nothing was classified and they did what they thought to be the best thing to do. Blanchard thought they had a partial though mundane answer to the flying saucer mystery and ordered the press release. It was later that they received other, better information, but by that time the high headquarters had taken over. I think this covers the questions that are being asked. It does address some of the concerns and makes sense. Blanchard just wanted people to know that the Army was on top of things and had pieces of one. The press release was designed to make the Army look good to the public and he couldn’t have envisioned the explosion of interest in the topic or the direction some research would take. He just thought he was doing something important for the community.

58 comments:

Wind Swords said...

Thanks Kevin for expanding on this and giving us a possible (though probable) sequence of events. I have some ideas of my own as to what may have caused the press release to be written the way it was. I will share those later.

Jim Robinson said...

Kevin:

I think the scenario you presented here must be close to the truth. Contrary to the atmosphere of hysteria mentioned so often by others, my memory of those days was that all UFO stories were treated pretty much the same, i.e., they were just another passing fad to be ignored, and reports were consigned to a couple of short paragraphs in the back pages. In 1947 I lived only 110 miles from Roswell(Clovis, NM) and read the local paper every day, yet never heard of the Roswell crash until reading about it in the July 5, 1987 edition of the El Paso Times.

My thoughts are that, since the Clovis News-Journal was at that time an evening newspaper, possibly the Roswell story was squelched before their press-time. It would be interesting to go back and search through their archives, but I am unable to do so.

goldfive said...

Kevin,

Your hypothesis makes a lot of sense, and certainly provides plausible motives for Marcel and Blanchard's actions.

I gather, though, that you do not accept the testimony of Frank Joyce, or other circumstantial evidence suggesting that Mack Brazel found bodies amongst the debris on his ranch?

It stands to reason if Mack found bodies, then he would have shown them to Marcel and Cavitt, who then would have reported the find to Blanchard. And in thinking over your scenario, I don't think it works if Blanchard had been made aware of non-human bodies found amongst the Foster Ranch debris (or at the "Dee Proctor body site"). That, to me, would escalate the nature and classification of the incident and ought to have caused Blanchard to consult with his superiors on how to proceed.

If you are indeed skeptical of Joyce's testimony, can you elaborate as to why? I've read the Roswell literature extensively and other than you once alluding to a "grape soda story" and his tales of hiking in the woods (on UFOupdates, if I recall), I do not recall you (or any of the pro-ETH Roswell investigators) rejecting Joyce's claims.

Lance said...

Again Kevin, this scenario is essentially what skeptics have been saying for some time.

This destroys ALL of the near endless bluster about drooling idiots that I have never seen you object to previously.

The sledge hammer story rings just about as true as Marcel's college history or his combat pilot exploits. Spoiler alert: Not very. The man was just weaving stories to a none too discerning audience.

Steve, the whole story (like the composition of the debris, precise timelines for flying the saucer stuff around, the quarantining of Brazel, and perhaps silliest of all ,the two, three or 10 different crash sites, etc.) is predicated upon the flimsiest of fragmentary and often contradictory evidence by the most leading question asking/cherry-pickingest work from Carey/Schmitt camp of UFO "scholarship". So you can make it be whatever you it to want it to be!


Lance





KRandle said...

Steve Sawyer -

I removed your original post and replaced it with this. I'm not going to allow a link to a site that steals my copyrighted material.

"...DuBose had said that Clark made his flight to Washington, D.C. on Sunday, July 6, 1947 or on the same day that Mack Brazel went into Roswell."

Kevin, while you note that the above statement regarding the date of Clark's flight made by DuBose is "something that is the subject of another post," it seems the date has to be incorrect, since according to your own book, "Roswell Revisited," the debris material Col. Alvin J. Clark allegedly flew from Fort Worth (after having been flown in from RAAF to Fort Worth) to Maj. Gen. McMullen in Washington, D.C. (according to DuBose), came from the debris field on the Foster Ranch and that was recovered by Brazel and Marcel the following day, the 7th.

What explains that discrepancy as to dates?

(Note: Link to the book deleted because it is a rip off of my work. I provide literally thousands of pages of free material and what do people do… steal the books and post them on line. Roswell Revisited is available at Amazon as an ebook for 0.99 cents and people can’t cough up less than a buck to read it. If you wish to read the book, please go to Amazon and not some Russian hosted site that is beyond the copyright laws. KDR)

Unless, of course, the implication is that some debris materials were found earlier, recovered, and transported from some other location (the "second site"?) prior to Marcel and Brazel's visit on the 7th to the Foster Ranch debris field.

Also, if Brazel's initial visit to Roswell with some minor amount of debris, that he showed Sheriff Wilcox, was on the 6th, when and for how long (number of days) was Brazel supposedly held "incommunicado" by military personnel afterward?

Some things here, as to timeline, don't really seem to stack up.

Is your "subject of another post" comment an implication that DuBose was in error regarding Clark's alleged July 6th flight date to Washington, or are you implying something else? Please clarify.

KRandle said...

Lance -

If you read Marcel's statement you'll see that he never said he was a pilot but that he had flown as a pilot which is not the same thing. He is credited, in his records, with nearly 500 hours of combat flight time which, I venture to say is 500 hours more than you have... And as I have reported repeatedly that I flew as a doorgunner in Vietnam and you'll find nothing in my records to prove that. We sometimes filled into other positions... and I sometimes allowed a doorgunner or crew chief to fly as a pilot, if for no other reason they would have some experience at the controls if both pilots had been injured.

Marcel did have some college and the point of contention is the claim of a degree but the interview notes (not the clean version that Pflock published) is confusing...

And I have allowed you to make all sorts of allegations similar to the drooling idiots, but those posts to which you refer were not written by me and I have, in the past, communicated privately with the author.

Finally, skeptics have not put it together in this fashion which explains the press release and some of the subsequent events...

Steve -

If you have read the stolen material carefully, you would have seen the answer in it. I said clearly that it is an area of confusion and it could have been some of the material brought into the Sheriff's Office by Brazel, but it also possible that it was material recovered by Marcel on the debris field and flown to Roswell prior to Marcel's flight. We are looking at testimony provided decades after the fact and it is possible that DuBose confused the dates.

If there was material transferred earlier, then the press release falls back into the category of it makes no real sense.

Gilles Fernandez said...

Kevin,

"Finally, skeptics have not put it together in this fashion which explains the press release and some of the subsequent events..."

A contrario, skeptics have, more or less how you did. Myself humblely did in my 2010 book. AKA contextualizing the FULL Roswell event, as the terms Flying Saucers or Flying Disks, for the 1947 contemporans only. We have had "this discussion" 100 times in your blog from 2010, and personnally I dont need a revival, to repeat or need to convince you or "believers" of the Roswell myth.

I noticed, as pointed in Benson Saler, Charles Ziegler and Charles Moore's book, you guys must everytime change your precise scenario... Looks like "backpedaling", for minor changes, but probably hard for you, Kevin, to reverse your belief.

With all due respect, I have the impression than facing the mirror, "deeping within yourself", you are in fact doubting Roswell was an ET crash. Well, maybe only an impression?

Do you maintain that for you, Roswell event is an ET crash, Kevin? Simple curiosity.

Regards and respect to you,

Gilles.

Lance said...

"Finally, skeptics have not put it together in this fashion which explains the press release and some of the subsequent events..."

What general aspect do you assume is different? As I read your account, I matches my thoughts (which I have tried to communicate here and elsewhere) almost precisely.

Lance

Lance said...

Apologies for the deleted comments above.

Here, just for instance is something I wrote here in 2012... In what major way does this differ from your outline above, Kevin?:

"There is some evidence (in particular, Newton) that Marcel was fooled by the unusual tape markings into thinking that he had found something out of the ordinary.

That is not to say he necessarily thought OMG ALIENS!

It is possible that Marcel thought that the slightly unusual debris could be a down to earth explanation for the sightings that were the talk of the nation.

In one sense, he was right. The MOGUL balloons WERE the likely cause of at least some of the sightings reported in the press.

It is possible that the unusual tape markings (and lack of other identifying marks) suggested to him (and later Blanchard) that they had found the source of the UFO sightings in the news.

And thus the not-very-well-thought-out press release, etc.

We do have evidence that other folks finding balloon debris came to a similar conclusion (Circleville, OH, for instance)."

Lance said...

And here is something from a month or two ago:

"What was a "flying saucer" in the summer of 1947? Well, we know FOR SURE that several folks mistook prosaic things to be "flying saucers". The newspapers carried numerous stories of these false id's. One of these was FOR SURE a radar target (much like those we see the Roswell photos). This happened in Circleville, Ohio.

On the very day of the press release, there was story in the Roswell paper about a "disc" recovered in Texas. That turned out be something like melted foil paper or plastic. There are other similar stories.

So we know with certainty that folks (including police and other authorities) were mistaking crappy stuff like that to be one of the discs they heard about in the newspapers.

At this time, UFO's had not become the low-rent religion that is it now. No one was sure what the things were. It was quite reasonable to think that they could have been some contraption made of sticks and balloons. There was an absolute frenzy of interest and mania in the topic.

So when the Roswell faithful deny that it is possible that a mistake was made and some otherwise unidentified foil paper and sticks and rubber were briefly thought to be one of the flying discs, they don't have evidence on their side. We know that it is possible for such a mistake to be made. Because it happened several times!

This farce reaches its apex when we see that the believers actually have somehow managed to rationalize (due to pesky witness testimony) that the supposed "real" flying saucer debris JUST HAPPENS to look like foil paper and balsa wood sticks! "

Lancve

KRandle said...

Lance -

Please present some evidence that this tape ever existed... and no, I won't accept the memories of Charles Moore as proof.

Gilles Fernandez said...

Kevin wrote: Please present some evidence that this tape ever existed

http://skepticversustheflyingsaucers.blogspot.fr/2014/04/laffaire-roswell-reponse-la-lecture.html

Regards,

Gilles.

Lance said...

Did you want evidence or proof?

There is slight evidence (Moore's account) but no proof.

Here again you make the unfortunate mistake of assuming that those claiming this is likely a prosaic event vs those claiming it was FLYING SAUCERS FROM OUTER SPACE (!!!!) are on the same epistemological level.

We aren't.

For your flying saucer story to be acceptable to thinking persons, you need to have tons more compelling evidence. You really and truly have just about nothing. And if we can use your methodology of throwing out memories, you have absolute zero. In fact (and considering the poor and inept scholarship of most of the Roswell authors, it could be argued that you have LESS than nothing).

And now you have shot down the "drooling idiots" defense that so many of the Roswell faithful depend upon in their prayers.

Why are all the Roswell authors killing Roswell?

Lance

Lance said...

And I still don't understand how you can't see that skeptics have long been suggesting the very scenario you propose in your last two posts. Your evasive switch of topics to some dumb detail sort of says it all...

Lance

jim bender said...

Lance

Many of us posters ignore your ludicrous posts. Of course your fantastic ego (in your own mind), is very similar to the medieval religious leaders/philosophers/politicians who insisted the following:
1) Earth is flat
2) The earth is the center of the Universe
3) The Universe lacks intelligent life.

Intelligent life is flourishing in our Universe and yes we have been visited by intelligent life, and YES the CRASH at ROSWELL WAS AN ALIEN CRAFT OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN.

You will suffer just like the so called closed minded medieval literates, and the day will be much sooner than you think, Skeptics are a dying breed, and the 12-18 BEST UFO cases cannot be explained with crash dummies, swamp gas, ball lightening, the planet Venus, hot air balloon, window reflection light house light, etc etc


Lance said...

Thanks for the very funny (and illustrative) post, Jim. Care to bet on a date for the return of your Saucer Jesus?

Lance

KRandle said...

All -

Dial it back now...

Lance, you brought up the alleged lie about Marcel being a pilot which is not what he said. You brought up the tape and I just wanted some evidence that said tape existed beyond the decades old testimony... rather than answer, you attack me for changing the direction of the discussion.

And I will point out that you and your fellows claim that the nothing was classified on July 8 because, as we all know, there is no alien visitation and therefore nothing would be classified. In the splitting the fine hair category, I proposed a reason for the press release which was that given the circumstances, nothing had yet been classified... a somewhat different idea (though not all that different).

Yes, I get that those who suggest that Roswell was alien have a higher threshold of evidence to present, but that does not suggest that you can say whatever you please without any evidence at all. We've seen Charles Moore invent testimony to keep the myth of Flight No. 4 alive including altering the times of the launch, so there are problems all around. But you simply don't get a free pass on this because Mogul is a terrestrial explanation. So, while I might need tons of evidence, you are required to present some for your theory as well... you just can't reject the testimony of everyone you don't like and accept the testimony of those you do.

But again, all, dial back the rhetoric or I will delete the next posts.

jim bender said...

Perfectly and correctly stated KR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lance said...

Oh my goodness, Kevin, I forgot that there is hard evidence that supports the tape in the form of the contemporaneous news reports that specifically mention tape with flowers upon it as part of the sad debris.

Compare this real and uncontaminated evidence to what you have for the other side.

Lance



Brian B said...

Jim -

"Intelligent life is flourishing in our Universe and yes we have been visited by intelligent life, and YES the CRASH at ROSWELL WAS AN ALIEN CRAFT OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN."

You'll need to prove it. So far there are:

- no live aliens for anyone to see
- no dead aliens for anyone to see
- no photographs of the Roswell "crash"
- no pieces of the Roswell craft to handle
- no extra diaries or notes written about it
- no additional eye witnesses who spoke out
- no letters or telegrams sent home to mama
- no personnel who snuck a piece or two

Nothing. Not one thing.

What you offer is a handful of now deceased witness testimony given 30+ years later inflated by ufologists hungry to make a buck and some fame.

Gilles Fernandez said...

Jim Bender made me laught repeating "medieval religious leaders/philosophers/politicians who insisted the following: Earth is flat".

Because medieval Europeans believing the Earth was flat is... a modern myth.

Regards,

Gilles.

Wind Swords said...

If I may I would like to present for your review what I think happened that fateful day:
Part 1:
First some background. I am new to the UFO field (a couple of years), although I always had an interest. I consider myself neither skeptic nor believer. I err on the skeptical side because I think that if there is evidence of ET presence here it will stand on its own. Most of what I've seen has not been very good and the people that present themselves as "experts" do not inspire much confidence in me save two. One in Stanton Friedman. That's not to say I accept everything he says as gospel but he is more grounded that most of the others I've heard or read. The other is Keven Randle. I stumbled upon this blog quite by accident. Here was someone who did thorough research, footnoted everything, checked backgrounds, didn't accept just any claims of ET without trying to verify everything possible. The more of his blog I read the more impressed I became. At first I poked around here or there as I found something that caught my interest. I finally decided that was not good enough. So I started reading his blog from the beginning, which was 2005. I started
this in late January/early February. I read each entry and all the comments, which are longer than the blog itself most of the time. It took me until August reading 2 or 3 entries and comments a day to catch up (the only time I deviated from the sequential binge reading was to read about the Roswell Slides, it was too good not to follow in real time).

I read all the Roswell pro and con arguments here, most of which have been repeated
multiple times. I think the critical aspect of this case is what we are discussing here now. Up until the press release we have non-classified debris scattered on a ranch. No aliens, no spaceship crash, nothing top secret. Just debris. Then the press release saying that a "disc" has been "captured" is sent out on the national wire services and all hell breaks lose. Then it begins. All the claims of a coverup, a whitewash, a second crash site and so on. And down the rabbit hole we go. As I got more familiar the aspects of it one thing always stuck out as inexplicable to me. There seemed to be a disconnect between what Brazell/Marcel found and what Haut gave to the radio stations and newspapers. As I stated before the press release doesn't make sense to me from this standpoint: If all Marcel found was strips of metal, sticks etc, why does the press release say "Disc" as if it was all in one piece? Why doesn't it say "remains of a disc" or "parts of a disc". Also it doesn't say
"suspected disc". If I found a field filled with metal bits and I thought it might have been the remains of a crashed disc or saucer, I wouldn't say I "recovered a disc" and had possession of it. I would say it I had the remains of a suspected disc. How could Blanchard/Haut have been so emphatic they had a (whole) disc based on what Marcel testified he found that day? It just didn't add up for me.

I believe that Marcel reported what he found to Blanchard. I think he told Blanchard that he could not identify it. I don't believe he said it was disc, a flying saucer, an egg shaped craft, or anything of that nature. Marcel may have told him about the "memory" metal properties. He may have said that he didn't think it was a weather balloon and that Brazell didn't either.

To be continued:

Wind Swords said...

Part 2:
After talking with Marcel, Blanchard tells Lt Haut to write up a press release. Now Kevin thinks he told Haut to say they had a flying "disc". I don't think that's what happened. I think Balnchard gave Haut a few details about what Marcel described and told him to write something up. Now Kevin believes that Blanchard was up on the whole "flying saucer" flap that was in the news, and perhaps he was. But I think that Haut was even more on top of it. Why? Because that was his job. He was the Public Information Officer. He was not an expert on flying airplanes, military intelligence or atomic weapons. He was very knowledgeable about the media or press as it was called in those days.

My mother was a school teacher. When I was young every Sunday morning she would go to the local bakery and buy donuts and the Sunday newspaper editions (I can still smell those sticky buns!). Now we lived near one large city with two daily papers and a medium size one with one daily. She would buy all three of their Sunday editions. And she would read them. The "A" news section from A1 to A20-something and the editorial sections - for all three (me, I read the comics and sports sections). Why? Because as a teacher she wanted and felt that she had to be informed of current events.

I believe that Haut was like that too when it came to the latest news. So he much more than Blanchard or anyone else on the base knew all about "saucers" and "discs/disks" and Arnold, etc. So he has to write a PR but he doesn't have much to go on. Blanchard told him what Marcel found, secondhand (I don't think Marcel talked to him). Haut may have had less detail than from Blanchard than what Marcel described. How do you write a press release about unidentified foil, paper, rubber and sticks? So Haut embellished it. Said it was a "captured disc". That the rancher stored it away in his pasture until the RAAF base could get it and fly it to "headquarters". May the headquarters part was real. Maybe Blanchard intended on Marcel taking the stuff to somewhere where it could be identified.

I also believe that Blanchard did not review the PR before Haut sent it out. One, there might have not been much time between when he was told to write it up and he sent it out. Two Blanchard was getting ready to go on vacation (I know "leave" in the military), who knows what things he had to take care of before he could go. Third there was nothing classified or dangerous about what Marcel found. It just wasn't a big deal. I could be wrong. Maybe Blanchard saw it for a moment on the way to a meeting. I don't think it was his top priority of the morning.

To be continued:

Wind Swords said...

Part 3:
The above scenario also seems plausible because Haut was described as "over enthusiastic" and a "go getter". He was also a junior officer, and they make mistakes that we would not expect from more senior officers (that's why I think Blanchard did not see the PR).

Then the bodily waste hit the rotational device and all hell broke loose.

This is also why I think that Blanchard or Marcel were never reprimanded for what happened by Ramey or his superiors. But Haut lasted one more year. Yes I know why he resigned. But he knew that being in the Air Force meant being stationed in various places, a reasonable sacrifice for someone who obviously wanted to make a career out of it, else why would you be in the military in 1947 after the post war downsizing? I don't think he was in the military in that era to get valuable civilian job skills and then leave after just a few years. And yet he resigns. Maybe he knew his future possibilities for advancement were limited?

In his later life as the Roswell Myth grew he helped perpetuate it. He pointed researchers to Frank Kaufman (with a "golden" reference) and Glenn Dennis, who both turned out to be quite the hoaxers. As for himself, his role in the whole affair grew and grew until in the end as he lived out his last days he claimed to have been shown the spacecraft held in a heavily guarded hangar on the base by Col Blanchard, visited the second crash site, saw the alien bodies, and that the PR given to him by Blanchard was a clever diversion thought up by Gen Ramey who made a surprise appearance at the base that day, and finally that he had a piece of the craft himself and used to keep it in his office and show it(!) to people.

All this from a lieutenant public information officer, who I guess had the "need to know".

Wind Swords said...

Addendum:

I forgot to add that I don't think that Haut ever thought the radio stations or the newspapers were going to send his PR out over the national wires. He was just writing it for local distribution. In today's twitterized, facebooked, 24 hour a day news cycle nobody would make that assumption. But in 1947, when flying disc did not necessarily mean alien space craft it seems more than plausible that he was putting out something for local consumption only.

Lance said...

Wind Swords,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this.

I find much to agree with here as a possibility for the whole mess.

I will also mention to you that we do have 1947 newspaper stories about other recovered "disks" that do refer to junk similar to that found on the ranch as a disk even though it is readily apparent that the junk in question isn't at all disk-like. Indeed one such story appeared the very day of the Roswell press release in the Roswell paper.

This really is the key that UFO believers miss. They can't shake their conviction that disks=spacecraft from outer space. And they can't imagine that, in 1947, anyone wouldn't think the way they think. The low rent religion of UFOlogy hadn't become part of our culture yet.

Your comments are apt concerning Haut. I do feel that if Haut had lived a bit longer that the two best Roswell researchers could have finally had him actually piloting the saucer!

Lance

Bob Koford said...

There are two images that I just can't seem to get over, but it doesn't mean that it bolster's any hypothesis, including the ET one, just that it remains mysterious to me:

1. When I picture them at the debris field, and do my best to make it appear failly mundane (as far as your typical shredded foil debris field goes)I cannot visualize Major Marcell making the decision to pack his car up with broken balsa wood and foil pieces, and taking it home.

2. Why would he bother showing his family, at all, and also put the idea in his son's mind that it probably WILL be classified. He took broken pieces of wood and foil inside, and woke his son.

There must have been enough weirdness in the material he took that would make him bother with it at all. It just seems to me he WAS aware, already, or suspected something, of its exotic nature, by that time, or at the debris field...at least to a degree.

I have no idea what it means, it just still doesn't exactly fill in completely for me.

As for the other disc crash, and/or recovery type stories, there are many of them, even beyond the few that seem to bolster Lance's viewpoint. Even into 1954, where an object impacted in a sand dune, in Iceland. It provides another frame around another mystery in all of this. That is, why were we wasting valuable resources on chasing down even ONE of these stories?

Anonymous said...

Hi my name is Mac. I'm a former British serviceman from an aviation unit. I have flown, am sane of mind, however very open minded. On Saturday 22 August at approx 2345 hours over Northern Germany, the regeion between Hannover and Bremen, I saw something that I was quite shocked about. People can take the piss and disparage me as much as they wish. I know what I saw. I was waiting for the nearby street lights to be switched off at midnight to be ablke to get a decent wide apature long delay shot of the Milky Way with my new camera. I saw what looked like a shooting star. It was relatively long and bright. I was still in awe as I saw the most strange thing then pass in front of me. From my positionit seemed to drift overhead from south to north. It seemed to be a chevron outline with very faint lights in the legs of the chevron. It passed over a few seconds and then complately disappeared from view. It was not a fully filled out shadow of an aircraft. It was just a faint outline, but the lights seemed to give off a faint and very slow strobing glow. The rest seemed to mimic the stars but they moved with it this is what caught my eye. Like seeing a satelite fly over in the periferal vision whilst looking at the stars. It was totally silent. As I stated, I was extremely shocked and ran in to tell my wife. I never saw it again over the next few hours. I have since been told of the TR6 Telos, its flight capabilities and reverse camera technology. Did I witness this? I do not know. I have seen many aircraft fly over me in my many years in aviation. Mainy with some form of noise. At great height not always audible but generally an aftersound. This was either very low and completely silent or very high and not audible. The latter would have made this thing outragiously big. I have only ever seen a strange light I was not sure about once before during a flight. Our tower had nothing on radar and it disapeared into thin air or was switched off. Eitherway it was at our height and not on radar. We placed this in as a confidential report and it was finally dropped after several months due to no further evidence or explanation. I donot take drugs, smoke or drink alcohol. I know exactly what I saw and just

KRandle said...

Bob -

The second question is easiest to answer. His house was on the way to the base, it is clear from his interview with Linda Corley that he got there, not late at night to wake up everyone, but later than normal getting home from work (at least that's the way I read the Corley material). He thought it was a flying saucer (or disk) which in July 1947 didn't mean spacecraft but something strange in the sky and thought it would be of interest to them. So, he brought some of the piece into the house to say something like, "Here's part of a flying saucer." We all interpret that today to mean alien spacecraft but in 1947 it could have meant any number of things.

Remember, Cavitt claimed that he knew it was a balloon immediately, but then Cavitt told me that he hadn't participated in any balloon retrievals... of course he changed his tune when the Air Force came calling but that's another argument.

If you look at the history of UFO crashes, you'll find, literally, hundreds of them and most of them have mundane answers or are invented out of thin air. Robert Willingham's claim comes to mind here, as does Aztec, Spitzbergen and may others.

Paul Young said...

@ Wind Swords... By endorsing Kaufmann, Haut has opened himself up to being heavily scrutinised, and rightly so. Kaufmann was however an accomplished conman and it could well be that Haut was simply sucked in by him, as others were.
As for the initial press release...these things are meant to be concise, which might explain why it was only mentioned that they had hold of a disc and not necessarily what kind of condition it was in.

My own thoughts on your comments that you believe Haut more or less had carte blanche on what he said in the press release, because Blanchard was too busy doing other things....errrrm....all I can say is that I'd reckon if Haut had said they'd "captured a disc", off his own bat...and considering the trouble his "disc" story went on to put Blanchard, Ramey and the rest of the AAF through...then his arse would have been marched, in double quick time,to the brig.



@ Bob Koford...

Another image I can't get over is pieces of balsa wood a tin foil being flown,almost immediately, to higher headquarters

Brian B said...

@ Wind Swords & Lance

Yes of course your recent three-part explanation makes sense. Interestingly I have stated many of the same comments and observations on this blog (as has Lance, CDA, and others) only to find many of its ET patrons including the owner himself vehemently objecting to your points including:

- Haut was an honest man and an honorable soldier who would NEVER have made a mistake OR jumped the gun on his own. Shame shame for even suggesting it.

- Haut would NEVER have written the press statement on his own because military protocol wouldn't allow it. Everyone follows protocol to the letter, EVERY time.

- Blanchard would NEVER have let Haut release something that he himself didn't write, dictate directly, edit or endorse.

- Haut wasn't pressured to leave the military and was never impacted in the slightest way by the press statement - he left just to leave cause he was tired of relocating. Retirement.

- Blanchard didn't really take leave, that's just a cover story.

- If you didn't serve in the military you couldn't possibly understand any of this plain and simple. Only military people understand it.

Their mindnumbing blindness to your most obvious conclusions is mind boggling itself.

Once again is it really important to assess what was in Blanchard's mind at the time? Not really. Let's not forget that Haut was interviewed and "slipped up" on camera stating "it was all a mistake" only to recant that because he forgot his UFO Museum was setting the stage for a Roswell anniversary. $$$ boys $$$....

Brian B said...

@ Craig McKenna

You did indeed see the TELOS. They fly here over Texas all the time. Seen it myself just as you describe. They also operate over NATO. These aren't alien spacecraft - their ours. They are suborbital and low flying stealth surveillance aircraft monitoring hot spots around the world. The entire wing is a massive send and receive communication devise and also the primary standby in the event comsats are taken out globally. CIA, NSA, USAF.

Wind Swords said...

Brian,

Under normal circumstances Kevin is right about PR's only being released after approval, etc. That is the normal way it's done. I just don't think it happened here because of the disconnect between the debris reported by Marcel and what the press release says. That's why I theorized that Blanchard was too busy at the time.

Paul,

I gather from your use of the word "arse" you are from "across the pond". We have a bad habit in the U.S. of not holding people accountable for mistakes they make. When is the last time someone in government here has had to resign or faced a civil or criminal charge for anything? You can delete data off your computer, host government data on an email server in someones bathroom and there never seems to be a day of reckoning. Maybe it was thought that in 1947 the best thing to do once the press conference was held in Ramey's office was to let the whole thing die rather than try to overtly punish Haut. But you may be right. If Haut did it all or mostly on his own why no punishment? I am not totally invested in my theory of what happened. If a better one comes along that explains what happened I am open to consider it.

Paul Young said...

Brian Bell.... "Haut would NEVER have written the press statement on his own because military protocol wouldn't allow it. Everyone follows protocol to the letter, EVERY time."

You've accidently made an extremely accurate statement here Brian.

Breaking military protocol always comes at a price (usually a "disciplinary"), and Haut seemingly came through this unscathed. Which would suggest he didn't get a bollocking because he only passed on what he was TOLD to pass on!

Like you said "Haut would NEVER have written the press statement on his own..."

Damned right he wouldn't. He was a press officer...a liaison between the air base command and the media.

You make it sound like Haut was what is known these days as a "blogger" who just gave the press his own spin on stories that he heard. His job was to pass on to the media what his superiors wanted passing on, and nothing more.

KRandle said...

Brian -

Please read my last comment appended to the post following this one. Proves that your hyperbole is once again overblown.

Brian B said...

Kevin -

You should point that out to Wind Socks. Seems you're OK with him saying that but not me. Bias? Or are you forgetting your previous posts on Haut et.al?

Paul -

I never said Haut was like a "blogger". What Wind Socks suggested was Haut released something that wasn't quite accurate, and Blanchard didn't pay attention. If that's what you consider a solid example of military protocol followed to the letter, than what's an example of not following protocol? Once again a person can't have it both ways - either people follow it 100% one-hundred percent of the time or they don't. You can't cherry pick what you like and don't like to suit your fancy.

Anonymous said...

Thankyou @ Brian Bell. I am relieved that I am not the only one to have seen it. It is some size and quite scary. Looking like a cloaking device of some kind. Technology is sure getting special. Good to know it is ours. The pilots must feel some buzz in that cockpit. I wonder if the present EU problem is the reason it is here. Was the shooting star I saw immediately before this, the maschine entering the atmosphere, or was that just coincidental?

Paul Young said...

Brian..."I never said Haut was like a "blogger". What Wind Socks suggested was Haut released something that wasn't quite accurate, and Blanchard didn't pay attention."

Wasn't quite accurate!!! Now there's an understatement!

The insinuation of Wind Swords theory (which, after reading your response, I presumed you agreed with) is that Marcel took a car load of balsa wood and tin foil back to Blanchard, and then Haut put 2 and 2 together and decided it was a flying saucer! (a-hem...as any sane person would)
Then, off his own bat, he decided to include his conclusion in the press release.

It's obvious where this is going. This scenario (ie, blame the whole damned mess on Haut) is the only real way to get Blanchard off, what David Rudiak calls, the "drooling idiot" hook...but is it really feasible that Haut would put out such an off-tangent,fantasy, press release in his commanding officers name?

I very much doubt it! (unless he wanted to be drilled up and down the parade ground until his boots disintergrated)
Therefore Haut released what he was told to release. And if Blanchard confused stuff, that you can find in any hardware shop, with a flying saucer, then he can only have been a "drooling idiot"

Of course, the USAF doesn't punish "drooling idiots"...they promote them to Vice Chief of Staff.

Lance said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Lance said...

Paul said:

"I very much doubt it! "

Good to know.

I'll tell you someone who didn't think that it was all that farfetched for Haut to have released the item on his own: Jesse Marcel.

Marcel said that Haut was an "eager beaver" and called the press on his own.

Of course Marcel was there and part of the story. What would he know?

Lance

KRandle said...

Brian -

It's all a matter of tone and attitude. Yours is an argument of straw men that aren't grounded in reality...

I have said, and will say again that Blanchard's leave makes no sense. If he left on Tuesday, he cost himself a day of leave. It he had left at 23:59 (11:50 p.m.] he lost a day of leave. If he left at 00:01 on Wednesday then he loses no leave. If he left at the end of the duty day on the previous Friday, then he gets the weekend as well and as the commanding officer, he couldn't just go on the spur of the moment unless is was emergency leave... and since that wasn't the case, the leave on Tuesday afternoon makes no military sense.

And Haut said, repeatedly, that it was Blanchard who initiated the press release. There is no documentation to refute this and Marcel, as the Intelligence Officer would have no reason to know what was happening in the PIO office. He might have believed that Haut initiated the release, but that doesn't make it true.

If you, or anyone else, has any evidence that Haut was forced to leave the military, please present it. Speculation, rumor and innuendo are not the same as evidence... and isn't it odd that he was promoted to captain after the great press release fiasco.

Even though your post is personally insulting, I have left it up, but I am free to revisit that decision if you don't tone down the rhetoric.

Jeanne Ruppert said...

This might be a naieve question, but since in the circumstances so much speculation is required to make sense of the press release and who authorized it [I would bet that at least Blanchard authorized it], why not speculate additionally that by the point in time when the PR was drafted and delivered further information was being acquired by some aerial investigations of the area around the Brazel ranch (either from the Roswell base or the one in Fort Worth). If a partial disc had been observed, that word would have reached Blanchard, justifying his use of the term 'disc' in the PR. Who knows how many telephone calls went back and forth among Ramey's office, RAAFB, Washington, etc., and what discoveries were being reported?

How many hours passed between the issuance of the PR and its quashing by Ramey? It seems logical that the bodies might have been discovered in that interval, demanding the substitution of the cover story. If I'm missing something in the timeline that is generally accepted by all on solid grounds, please tell me what it is or send me to your best source(s). Or is everyone assuming that a series of discoveries coming rapidly from the field conditioned the PR and then its reversal? Thanks.

Unknown said...

Kevin:

Is it true that an Air Force Col. told you that a young Air Force Lieutenant who worked on the now famous "Estimate of the Situation" said that the estimate contained a discussion of "physical evidence" recovered in New Mexico? Vandenberg ordered that reference removed and then rejected the estimate because it was not based on solid evidence.

Paul Young said...

@ Lance.

You mock almost everything Marcel has had to say concerning the Roswell incident... yet you cling onto this particular "eager beaver" sentence?

(Then again...anyone who is having a hard time understanding how someone like Blanchard can mistake balsa wood and tin foil for a flying saucer HAS GOT TO cling to the belief that Haut had a brain fart and wrote out the PR himself)

Now if we're reading from the same book "The Roswell Incident"...in my copy, just below the "eager beaver" quote, Marcel goes on to say...

"I HEARD that the brass fried him later on for putting out the press release, but then I CAN'T SAY SO FOR SURE."

"I HEARD he wasn't authorized to do this and I BELIEVE he was severely reprimanded for this."

It's clear that what Marcel is saying about Haut is in fact hearsay.

Haut was simply a messenger...a buffer between the command and the press. He wasn't the base journalist or the camp blogger...he was the post man. Making up fanciful stories to entertain the media, wasn't his job.

Also on the "eager beaver" page...Haut stresses that Blanchard ordered the PR, and his assistant, Sergeant Gregory, confirmed this.

Why do you mock Marcel for his own, first hand, view on the incident...but then use his "hearsay" to bolster your argument?

Lance said...

Paul,

Yes, you misunderstand.

Most Roswell believers, like yourself, go on and on pontificating about how this person wouldn't have done this or that person surely would have done that.

One of the most common of the proclamations in this bargain basement mythology is that the press release HAD to have been approved by Blanchard. It is often just stated as a fact (like much UFO claptrap).

With the Marcel statement, regardless of the truth behind it, we see someone who was there working at a high level in that unit who DIDN'T think that the occurrence of the press man filing a release without approval was that hard to believe.

That's all. And for me this trumps the amped-up pretend knowledge that the Roswell sycophants spout out endlessly.

And Paul, you may want to reread Kevin's last two posts because now it appears that he, too thinks that this basic scenario is plausible. This is because Kevin, of all the remaining Roswell writers, is honest. There never was any real objection (once you put yourself into the circumstances of the time) to the idea that these guys thought that the debris they found, which was vaguely aeronautical (balloons/foil paper/balsa wood) but unmarked might have had something to do with the disk craze in they were reading about in the paper. We know for sure that other folks did the same thing with other similar debris elsewhere.

I DO think that Marcel embellished his career highlights, his education, AND he rather transparently lied about the debris after he realized that the stuff we see him with in the photos wasn't cutting it for the UFO believers. He first said (twice) that the stuff we see him with in the photos was the same stuff he picked up at the ranch. Then he made up a dumb story that SOME of the debris was real on that floor and that he was covering some of the real stuff up with paper (not true). Then finally he said that none of it was real. It boggles the mind how anyone could hear such silly stuff and conclude, yeah this points toward flying saucers!


Lance

Lance said...

@ Paul,

Did not mean above that YOU go on and on....

I usually like your posts and find much to agree with in them.

Lance

KRandle said...

Lance -

There is nothing in Marcel's statement that rules out Haut's claim that he received the information for the press release from Blanchard. In fact, you have to ask yourself how Haut knew about all this if Blanchard didn't tell him about it. Marcel, being the Intelligence Officer would be reticent about sharing any information with the PIO simply because he was the PIO. Marcel's statements are based on his speculation about what happened and Marcel "heard" that he had been fried by the brass... but that information appeared in newspaper accounts, so that could be the source of Marcel's information. FWIW, I asked Haut about this aspect of it and he told me that if he had been "fried" by the brass, he would surely have remembered that. He said that he had not been rebuked by the brass.

We have Haut's direct testimony that he was told by Blanchard to issue the press release, we have military protocol to suggest that Haut would not have acted on his own, and we have Marcel's ambiguous claim that Haut had done it on his own and been fried by the brass. I think that covers all bases on this.

Wind Swords said...

Just wanted to emphasize a few points about my theory about the PR:

1) What Brazell and Marcel found at the ranch did not match what the PR said.
2) Blanchard was the base commander, it's not expected he would make such a leap of logic in a PR (or as some say here not a "drooling idiot").
3) Haut is a junior officer and if someone were going to make an error, it would more likely be him.
4) There are indications that Haut may have been presumptuous in his duties.
5) There is reason to believe that Blanchard was too busy/distracted to look over the PR or give it his full attention.
6) Blanchard and Marcel went on to have long successful careers in the Air Force. Haut resigned about a year later (yes, he was promoted, and he was not "forced out", but we all know that sometimes one can read the "tea leaves" and know that there is not a future for you in an organization). This is the most circumstantial of all the circumstantial evidence I have listed, but, it still goes that he was the only principal in this that left the service early.
7) I don't think Haut was a total idiot. If he had known that his PR was going to be sent out on the national wire services I don't think he would have done it. He unintentionally created a firestorm.

As I said before it's a theory, but it follows logic and explains for me the most crucial part of the story - the discrepancy of what was initially found and the what the PR release says was found. Even if a second debris field was found later and it was really ET that doesn't explain the press release which went out before 2nd debris were discovered. And would Haut have been told that a 2nd debris field was found with the remains of a spacecraft and alien occupants? He was a LT PIO, not the Provost Marshal or an intelligence officer.

If you accept as fact that Blanchard had to have fully read and approved of or even wrote the press release then you have to explain how a colonel in charge of an air base could turn foil, sticks, rubber, etc. in to a "captured flying disc".

There are still unanswered questions here. What did Marcel find on the ranch? Mogul remains? Maybe, but there are issues with that that need to be addressed. A simple weather balloon? Why didn't Marcel or Brazell recognize it as such? Maybe it was another project, secret or otherwise.

Jeanne Ruppert said...

Wind Swords wrote: "Even if a second debris field was found later and it was really ET that doesn't explain the press release which went out before 2nd debris were discovered."

'Before 2nd debris were discovered' -- to our knowledge.

Paul Young said...

@ Wind Swords...

"3) Haut is a junior officer and if someone were going to make an error, it would more likely be him."

Whatever it was, it wasn't an "error". Either Blanchard told Haut to mention flying disc in the PR...or Haut purposefully added that himself. Either way it wasn't an error but meaningful input.

"4) There are indications that Haut may have been presumptuous in his duties."

As discussed with Lance above, the only indication that Haut was presumptuous was given by Marcel...and that was only really hearsay..

"5) There is reason to believe that Blanchard was too busy/distracted to look over the PR or give it his full attention."

I suppose that if he had a flying saucer in one of his hangers...he might well have had a lot of things on his mind. But if he stated to Haut, in person, that he wanted a PR telling the media that a flying disc had been recovered and was being sent to higher headquarters for further examination...then I presume he would have expected Haut to FOLLOW THAT ORDER. That was it as far as Blanchard would have been concerned.

6) "Blanchard and Marcel went on to have long successful careers in the Air Force...."

Blanchard,yes! But I'm sure I read somewhere that Marcel left the regular Airforce (not sure of the exact term in the USA)not too long after 1947...and joined the reserve. I could be wrong on this point however!

"7) I don't think Haut was a total idiot. If he had known that his PR was going to be sent out on the national wire services I don't think he would have done it. He unintentionally created a firestorm."

I really have to disagree with this one mate. After the Arnold sighting a few weeks before, flying discs were the flavour of the month. He must have known that this was a massive story the second Blanchard told him about it.

Lance said...

Kevin said:

"There is nothing in Marcel's statement that rules out Haut's claim that he received the information for the press release from Blanchard"

Yes, when I said:

"With the Marcel statement, regardless of the truth behind it..."

I was hoping that this might be a clue that I understood your point.

It can be argued that Haut blaming the PR on Blanchard (30-50 years later) is self-serving: it makes Haut look better.

It's the same with Marcel's story: he doesn't look like he made a newsworthy blunder when he goes along with the UFO story that the committed UFO believers were feeding him. And he seems to revel in the attention, enough so that he made up the preposterous lie about hiding the real stuff (something you give a pass on, somehow) just to keep the dumb story going.


Lance


Jeanne Ruppert said...

Paul Young wrote:

"I suppose that if he [Blanchard] had a flying saucer in one of his hangers...he might well have had a lot of things on his mind."

Indeed. And while there might not yet have been half a disc in one of his hangers, there's more than enough indication that, by the time he issued his relatively explosive press release, he might have had anomalous bodies in one hanger and in the base hospital, or knew they were in transit to RAAFB.

Wind Swords said...

Jeanne & Paul,

If you can come up with a timeline that allows for a 2nd debris field and the recovery of a partially intact craft to put into a hangar without the public knowing about it, BEFORE Hauts PR goes out - you may have a point. But I just can't see how there was enough time to discover another debris field and send someone out to investigate it and find a "disc". I could be wrong but it just doesn't seem to fit.

Bob Koford said...

First of all, thanks for continuing attempts to clarify items.

I see, but still am not completely convinced about the material being odd in some way, but not really THAT odd, so nothing classified yet, because there was an Intelligence presence at the debris field, and why?

Why did they need to confirm anything, and with Intelligence people in the process.

This, added to the fact that Major Marcell felt the need to load up his car with some of this obvious pile of "crap", possibly stinky, certainly not anything you would want to gather up in a, "Wow, I gotta get as much of this as possible" type of moment sort of stuff.

What would be the logical trigger which would explain that behavior? Or was that a lie, and it never actually occurred?

Added to that is the fact that he would, upon arriving at his home, unload ANY material from his car, at all, to show anyone. It just doesn't sound right.

And he wouldn't have drawn his family into some CC Operation of some type, either. It just continues to seem odd to me.

John's Space said...

Kevin,

On the issue of classification or at least sensitivity, it might be interesting to compare the military's public release policy in a some parallel scenarios.

1. What if a rancher had found and reported the remains of a civilian aircraft crash? Would going public be approved behavior for the 509th.

2. What if it was the crash of a foreign military aircraft? Would they go public with that or report to higher headquarters first?

As I mentioned on the previous post, I like the type of thinking here because the press release is to me one the enigmas of Roswell. It is still unclear to me why some debris would at the same time lead to the conclusion that it wasn't a sensitive issue, that it was a crashed flying disc, and require promptly being flow to higher headquarters in a large aircraft like a B-29.

Brice said...

Thanks for sharing all this stuff on your blog Kevin, it's most interesting (not speaking particularly of Roswell but on the UFO phenomenom and its study). I've been a long follower of your blog but this is the first time I write a comment.

I'm totally in phase with your last paragraph in your article. I have always thought that there was some kind of smoking gun in the press release because it's what the logic tells us IMO.

It doesn't make sense that nobody was aware of what had crashed and where, if it was such a highly secret project, and it had to be a rancher that informed the army, two days later!(I bet at least the army would have been informed by someone in order to undertake some research). And why in the hell say that it was a "flying disc"?! That would be the silliest thing to do if you don't want to raise anybody's curiosity about it. I guess nobody would make such desastrous mistake like this...Same if it was a mogul balloon, and a weather balloon would have been the most obvious answer if one would have wanted to conceal it. So any explanation given to this date by the army doesn't make any sense.

One scenario which makes sense and I believe actually happened is that the army couldn't identify the material that have been recovered and given that the flying saucer phenomenon was hitting the country at this time, they assumed it was one of those things that had crashed. Given that nobody was prepared at the time for anything like this to happen and its consequences with national security issues, the army (at least that unit and its command) didn't think it would cause any harm to speak freely. As you say, I believe they were moved by a sense of duty wich commanded them to inform their people and proudness to be the first unit to capture one of those things, hence the rapidity of the press release. Only later it was measured the social consequences of such an announcement and decided (by who?) to conceal it, but the first press release has already been released and the cat out of the bag...

Bob Koford said...

I went back over Jesse Marcel, Jr.'s book again last night, to try and make some sense out of this. Based on all material presented so far, including both articles and comments from this blog, it seems:

1. more than a few people seem to describe a recovery of balloon and radar materials

2 some people ascribe something more to the find other than simply foil and balsa wood

and then

3 Jesse Marcel Jr. described NOT normal foil with radar material, which included some pieces he described as being like an i-beam, and some type of black plastic-like material (not rubber).

Since I think Lt. Col. Marcel was an honest, straight forward type of individual, there has to be a logical explanation for the discrepancy. It doesn't have to be two crash sites, necessarily, but, as someone else noted in comments there seems to be two different types of materials being described.

And why aren't there more details about the different part stored in the shed, or where ever it was stored? What exactly was it? Could that part have been what was so different, changing the classification, etc.?

Brice said...

Being currently immobilized due to an accident, I had quite some time to go through the many posts. It has been suggested upper that Walter Haut could have been the one responsible for the “flying disc” issue in the PR. I strongly disagree with this idea.

If what was recovered was some mundane material (let's just say a weather balloon), surely the army would have identified it and there would have been no point of issuing a PR, moreover in such a hurry. If it was secret project, one would better have its mouth kept shut and in anycase never speak of a flying disc. My point is that a “flying disc” being mentionning in the PR could not just have been an error, but that the material must have been stranger upon anything and/or some part of it indicated it was some sort of a disc or one of those flying saucer things.

I would add, jokingly speaking, it was not a teen party but the 509th bomb wing, so even Walter Haut was the PIO, he was still submitted to the army rules and to refer to his superiors. So Walter Haut drawing and releasing the PR about such an extraordinary claim of a flying disc upon mere information, with no aggreement of his superiors, seems to me totally of the wall. I just can't believe he woudn't appreciate what the consequences of such a claim could have on its unit, his superiors, and his career.

So IMO, a flying disc being mentionned in the PR couldn't be an error just made by Walter Haut on his own, but had to really been substantiated by the material recovered which drove to that conclusion.