Wednesday, September 30, 2015

The Size of the Debris Field

Since I posted the article that suggested that Bessie Brazel’s testimony might be in error and that it was contradicted by that given by so many others, we have been all over the board. Nearly everyone was selecting that data which tended to support their position and ignore everything else. So, I thought I would take some of those points and provide the data available about them. I realize that some of you are so far to one side or the other that any sort of compromise is impossible, but for those who are interested in all the information, I will try to publish a series of articles that look at some aspect of this case.

First, I’ll tackle the size of the debris field because it seems to range from a square mile down to an area about 200 feet in diameter. That’s quite a big difference, and I know that we’ll never reach a consensus, but heck; we might have a little fun and learn something by accident.

The testimonies given after 1978 which is when Jesse Marcel, Sr. was identified as having recovered pieces of a flying saucer provide some of the data. Marcel himself told Bill Moore (The Roswell Incident, p. 63) that it was “about three quarters of a mile long and a couple of hundred feet wide.”

Stan Friedman, in his book, Crash at Corona (p.10) wrote of Marcel’s description, “The area covered with wreckage was roughly three quarters of a mile long and several hundred yards wide.”

Moore also quotes Walt Whitmore, Jr. as giving a description. Whitmore hadn’t seen the field before the Army cleaned it up, according to his testimony at that time. Moore wrote (p. 89), “Several days later Whitmore, Jr., ventured out to the site and found a stretch of about 175 – 200 yards of pastureland uprooted in a sort of fan-like pattern with most of the damage at the narrowest part of the fan.”

Whitmore told Karl Pflock (p. 154), “The debris covered a fan- or roughly triangle-shaped area, which was about 10 or 12 feet wide at what I thought was the top end. From there it extended about 100 to 150 feet, widening out to about 150 feet at the base. This area was covered with many, many bits of material.”

Bill Brazel, who hadn’t seen the debris in the field except for the small pieces he said he had found, also talked of a gouge that ran through the pasture. He said that it was narrow at one end spread out toward the center and then narrowed again. Although he didn’t give us a length of the gouge, he eventually took us to what he thought of as the top of the gouge. Later, during the CUFOS archaeological dig there, we measured down from that point, about three quarters of a mile, placing little flags along the way.

Flags placed to show the gouge during the CUFOS
archaeological dig in the early 1990s.
Bud Payne, who was a judge in New Mexico, said that he had been out to the debris field but had been turned back by the military cordon. He did get close to it and this would be irrelevant, except he took me out to the location he thought was the debris field. When he stopped his vehicle and we got out, I nearly stepped on one of those little flags we had placed there. We have attempted to gather them all but had missed the last one. Payne took me to the same three quarter of a mile stretch of New Mexico desert and through this provided, to a degree, the size of the field.

And, of course, there is the testimony in the affidavit signed by Bessie Brazel. She said, “There was a lot of debris scattered sparsely over an area that seems to me now to have about the size of a football field [or about an acre].”

The most widely quoted size of the field is that given by Marcel. It can be found in a number of books but as noted here, it is traceable to that interview supplied to Bill Moore.

We are told, of course, that these memories are decades old and might be unreliable. Studies of memory and how it works suggest that confabulation (as opposed to lying) can often fill in gaps in memory, that each time a memory is accessed it is subject to alteration, and sometimes the memories simply no longer exist, yet the witness (I can think of no other word that fits here because they were involved in 1947) as he or she concentrates begins to put together a story that seems plausible.

We do have quite a few newspaper stories that were written in 1947, literally within hours of some of the men walking the fields, so that their memories should be clear and accurate. I say this knowing full well that some of the information given to the reporters was less than accurate and some of it that was published had been misunderstood.

The Roswell Daily Record, for example, reported, “The rubber [from the debris] was smoky gray in color and scattered over an area about 200 yards in diameter.”

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, in a later edition of their “Disc-overy Near Roswell Identified as Weather Balloon by FWAAF Officer,” reported, “Brazell [sic], whose ranch is 30 miles from the nearest telephone and has no radio, knew nothing about flying discs when he found the broken remains of the weather device scattered over a square mile of his land.”

The Albuquerque Tribune, in a story attributed to Jason Kellahin on July 9 reported, “Scattered with the materials over an area about 200 yards across were pieces of gray rubber.”

What does this tell us about the size of the debris field? Not much, actually. Those who wish to believe it was small, have several sources they can quote. Cavitt, in his interview with Colonel Richard Weaver didn’t provide a very vivid account of the size. He said that it was about twenty feet, but the statements were somewhat confusing. He might have been describing what he suspected was the size of the object or he might have been describing the distribution of the debris. He told Weaver, “Some here, some here, some here. No concentration of it. No marks on the ground, dug up, anything hidden or anything like that, just out on the territory around the bottom of New Mexico…” 

I don’t believe Whitmore’s testimony on this is reliable but suspect there was some collusion between Max Littell of the Roswell museum and Whitmore to come up with some debris, no matter what it was. They talked about creating a display in Roswell, but I don’t believe that Littell had thought that through. If Whitmore’s debris were pieces of a balloon, as he suggested to Pflock, then the mystique of the Roswell case eroded at that point and not many people would drive out of the way to look at a museum dedicated to a weather balloon.

Whitmore had told Moore that the site had been cleaned before he got there but contradicted that when he told Pflock that he saw the debris and even claimed to have some of it. The debris had been locked in his safe deposit box, but when the box grew too full, he moved the debris to his “junk room.” Although searches were made, nothing was ever found. It was just one more bit of debris that vanished.

There is Jesse Marcel’s testimony about the size of the field which he gave after 1978, but there is one story that provides some corroboration which was published in 1947. In Linda Corley’s book, Marcel said, “It was about a mile long and several hundred feet wide of debris.”

Brazel, according to one newspaper account agreed with that size, saying it was scattered over a square mile of the land. This was in a story other than the one written by J. Bond Johnson.

Returning to the Roswell Daily Record, Brazel, it seems, was saying that the debris field was about 200 yards in diameter and the Albuquerque Tribune changed the wording to 200 yards across which is not quite the same thing but is close. The by-line on the Albuquerque Tribune story, as noted, was by Kellahin, so he was apparently working from his notes made in Roswell.

All this means is that if you are a skeptic, you have some evidence that the size of the debris field was relatively small. If you are a believer, you have some evidence that the debris field is relatively large. You have the majority of the testimonies suggesting a large field from the record after 1978 but Bessie Brazel suggests it was about 100 yards by 50 yards, or about the size of a football field.


Or, in other words, this is a wash. Whatever side you come down on, there is testimony to support it. Not exactly a profound finding but just an observation that suggests there are facts for everyone to cherry pick.

130 comments:

TheDimov said...

I tend to believe Marcel Sr's account. I tend to think the smaller account sizes including Bessie's were to bring it more in line with their balloon theory. Part of Marcel's job was to identify things and along with the fact he seems one of the most decent guys you'd ever likely to meet I trust his judgment over others. He said it was as "far as the eye could see" out on that wide open land and that's a lot of debris right there.

As an aside I wonder why the theory that the craft (if it was) may have been hit my lightning seldom comes up, as opposed to a collision with another craft which I think is less likely. All speculation though, all fun. Drives me a bit nuts thought trying to figure all this out.

;)

cda said...

Oh dear!

You have the story in a nutshell. There is absolutely no size than can be called even approximately correct, is there? The figures vary over and over again. This is not at all surprising and points to the conclusion that, in the end, we have no way of ever knowing how wide and long the debris field was.

Did anyone go to the extremities in both directions? No they did not. So everything is based on guesswork, and that is about all that can be said.

By the way, if David Rudiak is right and both Brazel and Marcel were coached what to tell the press (at different AF bases by different people!) they ought to have agreed on the dimensions of the debris field. They did not.

Which is a good pointer that neither was coached at all. But that is another topic.

Paul Young said...

cda, If I were detailed to "coach" Marcel and Brazel, I'd make a point of ensuring they kept the story to an absolute minimum.

"REMEMBER GUYS... it was a weather balloon! Much ado about nothing! ...Just a daft mistake...Give away as little detail as possible...leave the rest of the cover-up to us."

David Rudiak said...

(1 o 2)
Quick summary of debris field size descriptions:

For quotes, see:
http://www.roswellproof.com/debris7_quantity.html

Marcel:
Scattered over a square mile or 640 acres (AP 1947 & 1978 Leonard Stringfield interview)--Contrary to Kevin's post, I am unaware of Brazel giving this figure.

200 to 300 feet wide or several hundred feet wide by 3/4 mile to 1 mile long or (various interviews)--roughly 25-30 acres

BTW, BOTH descriptions can be simultaneously correct, quite common in air crashes, where most debris is usually concentrated along the flight path in a linear distribution, but ALL debris is scattered over a much wider area.

Bill Brazel Jr (1980 "The Roswell Incident"):
several hundred feet wide to 1/4 mile long (about one quarter of Marcel's linear debris field description)

Tommy Tyree, ranchhand:
Brazel was angry about the debris because the sheep wouldn't cross and he had to drive them a mile or more out of his way to get them to water. This would indicate the debris was somewhere from 1/2 to 1 mile in the long dimension. (Also suggests much too much for Brazel alone to clean up and begs question why sheep wouldn't cross)

Bud Payne, neighboring rancher,
Tried to get to debris field but was turned back by armed guards at the periphery. He took Kevin and Don Schmitt to the southern end where he was turned back. Bill Brazel took them to the northern end. Payne's position was within the 3/4 mile apart flags that had been lain out before to mark out the possible extent of the debris field.

Mack Brazel in RDR and AP interviews, 1947:
200 yards across or in diameter: 6-9 acres.

Sgt. Earl Fulford, said he was volunteered to help clean up debris field:
2009 UFO Hunters interview: fan-shaped debris field covering maybe a square mile. (about 640 acres)

2008 Open Minds interview: His clean-up crew was spread out 800-900 feet and cleaned up an area about 1/4 mile long. (about 25-30 acres)

Again, though seemingly inconsistent, both sizes could be true if there were multiple crews and his crew cleaned up only one section of a much larger debris field.

Bessie Brazel affadavit: She saw debris scattered over an area of about a football field or about 1 acre.

Sheridan Cavitt (affidavit): "The area of this debris was very small, about 20 feet square". In USAF interview, about the size of his living room or 20 feet in length. (~400 sq ft. or .01 acre)

Walt Whitman Jr., AKA "Reluctant": Initially said ("Roswell Incident") area cleaned by military, no debris, and only a fan-shaped gouge 175-200 yards long. In Pflock (affidavit), now claimed gouge filled with balloon debris since military hadn’t gotten there. Gouge now 10-12 ft at narrow part, 150 ft wide at widest, and 100-150 ft. long. (about 1/6th to 1/4 acre)

David Rudiak said...

(2 of 2)
What we have is a about a five order of magnitude difference between the "square mile" descriptions of Marcel (dating back to 1947) and Earl Fulford (in one interview), and Sheridan Cavitt. At least Cavitt was consistent with the old 1947 Ramey single balloon/radar target description.

The difference between Marcel's 1947 area ("square mile" or 640 acreas) and Brazel's (200 yards across or 6-9 acres) is still about two orders of magnitude difference. Difference between Brazel and Cavitt is even greater--about 3 orders of magnitude.

The difference between Marcel and Brazel is not as great if only the linear debris field description of Marcel is used, by a factor of about 3 to 5.

There are multiple accounts that at least one dimension of the debris field being in the 1/4 mile to 1 mile range. (Marcel, Tyree, Brazel Jr., Brazel Jr./Payne, Fulford). Tyree's statement about Brazel having to drive the sheep around the debris field by a mile or more also suggests it was too large for Brazel to clean up (else clean it up and don't need to detour sheep).

Cavitt's incredibly tiny debris field is so far removed from anybody else's description (and the fact that he clearly lied about a number of things and absolutely nobody backed up any part of his story) means his "debris field" only 20 feet across can be safely ignored. Bessie Brazel's and Walt Whitmore Jr.s debris fields are also way at the bottom end, plus Whitmore Jr. had a huge change of story. Bessie's area is about 1/2 order of magnitude smaller than her father's.

However you slice it, ALL these descriptions of area (except Cavitt's) are GROSSLY inconsistent with what Ramey showed in his office as being ALL that was found. So either everybody else is a liar or crazy, only Cavitt got it right, only a single balloon and radar target was found, in which case forget anything about this being a Mogul balloon, or accept at least Brazel's description of a much larger debris field, meaning much more debris than what Ramey showed, thus Ramey lied about that being all that was found or simply substituted a shill weather balloon and radar target from somewhere else (maybe his own base).

The last option is also supported by other evidence, such as serious inconsistencies between even Brazel’s debris description and quantity and what Ramey showed. (E.g., no Brazel “rubber strips” or “flower tape” or 5 pounds of debris can be found in the Ramey photos.)

Brian B said...

I believe Rudiak's conclusion (verified in detail in a recent post) is "the bigger the better". That's why he ignores various testimony regarding 20 square feet or even 200 yards favoring Marcel's testimony it was "one square mile". Yes you did say it David.

Of course he also claims the debris field was massive because that otherworldly spaceship exoded over the ranch. Fine. But it left sticks, rubber, foil, bakelite, a small black box, and parchment paper with eyelets.

Of course no rigging was found....

Yet his claim is there was also a second crash site where the bulk majority of the craft landed including little grey alien beings.

What he ignores is the fact the debris does not match anything an advanced interstellar space faring culture would place inside such a craft. No engine, seats, buttons, wires, etc. were found over that one square mile of highly important debris field material which is definitive proof of alien visitation.

Let's also not forget that Haut, a highly reliable star witness, claimed on his deathbed he saw a small egg shaped craft in a hanger which Blanchard wanted him to see. That's official.

So this egg thing apparabtly blew a hole in its side from some thunderous lightning strike sucking out the afformentioned debris in a one mile fan shaped field where it first exploded completely, then bounced on the ground, then landed against a cliff side nearly fully intact with a moderate tear in its side. It may have even hit a weather balloon as it crashed! Well at least a few people think so.

And you know, we don't even need any physical evidence to believe this because he said it happened and that's good enough for all of us. Indeed that debris field was massive.

Now I am guessing (no, I don't have a shred of documentation) that this small space traveling egg with a crew of four must have really been some sort of interstellar trash truck given the size of that one mile square fan shaped debris field with a massive gouge in the dirt.

Wow. Those crazy Zeta Reticulans! You got to hand it to 'em. Their technology is so advanced they can create super luminal trash compactors.

I can hear in my mind their very thoughts...."Oops...we crashed one Zorg...Oh well, it's just the earth. No worries. Those apes we planted there haven't evolved sufficiently to clean up their own planet anyway."

Steve Sawyer said...

Didn't you also note at some point in the past in comments on this blog about how clean the border edges of the white-paper/foil-backed radar reflector debris in Ramey's office looked? I always found that an interesting point that suggests that perhaps the material photographed by James Bond Johnson w/Ramey, Dubose, and Marcel in the differing pictures was substituted after being somewhat intentionally mangled-up for "authenticity."

IOW, if those materials shown in the photos from Ramey's were original, and actually that picked up by Brazel and then Marcel, which had lain in the desert for maybe a week, why do they appear so clean, and as David also points out, far less a volume than either Brazel or Marcel initially described?

How are these apparent contradictions explained?

I'm not presuming alien spacecraft debris was held back from view in Ramey's office, but rather wondering if there might be some other reasons why the materials as shown in the various JBJ photos seem so relatively limited in amount, missing some initially described elements (sticks, rubber, little pieces, string or whatever other kinds of things were originally picked up by Brazel and Marcel), and, again, seemingly "too clean" and not as distressed or fragmented as shown in the office photos when compared to the earliest described varieties of materials found and their condition after weathering outdoors for days -- that does seem odd, doesn't it, if Ramey actually claimed what was photographed in his office was all of the actual, original materials first provided by Brazel, et al? Maybe Ramey misspoke, or intended to say what was in his office was only part of what was allegedly flown from RAAF to Ft. Worth.

I'm intrigued by how so very elements of the Roswell story are so incredibly ambiguous and indeterminate, and can be interpreted so many ways. But, I do find the photos of the debris somehow "different" enough so that it suggests some possible kind of staging could have occurred.

Comment, David?

Steve Sawyer said...

Brian's comment just above slipped in while I was composing mine -- I should clarify my questions/surmises/comments were directed toward David Rudiak.

I also meant Irving Newton, the weather guy, not DuBose, in my comment above.

BTW, does anyone know if there is an online site that shows all the JBJ / Ramey office debris photos on one or more pages in full dimensional size (not edited) and with edited close-ups of portions of each photo? It would be nice to have some blown-up versions of all the photos for closer examination to help see how clean those white border edges really might be, since that seems to be anomalous to some degree.

cda said...

DR wrote:

"The last option is also supported by other evidence, such as serious inconsistencies between even Brazel’s debris description and quantity and what Ramey showed."

But there cannot be "serious inconsistencies" in these descriptions, if DR's idea that both Marcel and Brazel were coached what to say is true, can there?

Neither can, or should, there be inconsistencies in what Brazel described and what was shown in the photos? It was all so carefully orchestrated at both AF bases (so ETHers would have us believe) that no such 'inconsistencies' ought to exist.

I repeat: there was thus NO COACHING. Thus Marcel & Brazel both told the story as they knew it, or thought it.

Brice said...

@Kevin : interesting post, something I've been wondering is that we have little testimonies of soldiers who actually saw the site about its size (Fulford only!?). Couldn't you (I mean you, Don, Tom, Karl, Jeffrey and others Roswell investigators) find other soldiers who cleaned up the area to speak, notably on the size on the debris field and the nature of the debris? If the field was large, I suspect there would have been say dozens of men involved in this work, so I find it a bit odd that no others witnesses could be found to give an appreciation on these matters.

BTW Rickett saw the debris field (he spoke about the material) but we don't have his estimation of the debris field size, why so? nobody asked him about it (odd)?

Still, I don't feel surprised that no piece of the material have surfaced yet, I bet as a sodier risk you wouldn't want to risk your career in desobeying the orders and the occasions for civilians to pick some material were very few given the few people involved and the rapidity of the military clean up.

Personnally, I would not give (much) consideration to Bessie and Cavitt's estimations because one seems to have mixed up a lot of things (testimony much contradicted with others) and the other lied repeatedly.

---

@David : thanks for all this additionnal and precise informations. You said : "...what Ramey showed in his office as being ALL that was found"

Do you have any source that says Ramey or army officials said that the debris shown were all that was found?

---

@Steve : I would add that the debris shown in Ramey's office are not in a too bad shape, not matching the descriptions saying the debris were oblitared in little pieces.

Unknown said...

Brice wrote:

" I suspect there would have been say dozens of men involved in this work, so I find it a bit odd that no others witnesses could be found to give an appreciation on these matters. "

There has been at least one other witness, but his testimony has been, mostly, ignored.
Check this out:

Several months ago while I was having a heated discussion on
UpDates regarding the Alien Autopsy, I received an e-mail from a
person I didn't know. It was simple and to the point. He
advised me to keep defending the AA and that Santilli's
creatures, depicted in the Fox TV show, were not hoaxed nor
faked. He knew because he had seen the creatures himself. He
had been at Roswell when the crash occurred! Since that time
I've kept in contact with him and we've exchanged information
but he never told me the complete story until several days ago.
Here is his version of events, Roswell, July 3rd, 1947.

(more at site)

http://ufoupdateslist.com/2000/apr/m01-002.shtml


Ed

KRandle said...

Brian -

I noticed that you've slipped off the rails again. Not far, I'll grant you, but still off the rails. This discussion was about the size of the debris field and not the descriptions of the debris. That will come later.

KRandle said...

Ed -

In all fairness here, this is a discussion about the debris field and not all these ancillary issues. This does not deal with the size of the debris field, and, according to the story, isn't about the Roswell case at all. You've slipped farther off the rails than Brian.

Brian B said...

@ Ed -

I mean this genuinely....don't fall for some unknown odd ball's email that claims he was a witness that picked up the material. Ufology is fraught with this secretive witness crap and you shouldn't be so gullible to fall for it.

Someone is playing you intentionally.

Think about it, if this guy was there at the very least he might have volunteered for military service in 1946/47 at age 17, which means if he was present he would be at least 85 years old if not older.

Ask yourself how many 85 year olds are hanging out on UFO blogs or even have access to a computer or interest in emailing someone about aliens.

I think (No I cannot provide documented evidence) the reason why there are hardly any first hand recovery unit veterans is either they died already or the unit was a very tiny deployment of a handful of men who went out to pick up the foil blowing around on the ranch.

If Brazel could collect and haul the majority of it snd place it under a bush, just as he said in the RDR, it may not have taken more than four or five men to clean it up.

To them it was just one more mundane work detail during their service not unlike other work details. Nothing to hide so nothing to remember.

It does beg the question why Kevin and others didn't find any of these folks in the 1990's when they would have been at reunions or connected to those who attended. This especially is true given the claim the cleanup detail comprised dozens upon dozens of uniformed men as some witnesses (Kaufmann?) have claimed.

Of course you can count on the lack of forethcoming witnesses being dismissed because while we have no evidence to confirm this they were all verbally sworn to eternal secrecy with the threat of violence and death.

Of course Marcel, their intelligence officer didn't follow that order, which begs the question why they didn't either.

Exactly where these men are today?

A lack of witnesses in that regard is a serious problem for the ETH. But again it can be easily dismissed by the claim of unproven death threats.

charles tromblee said...

I found an old graph that I copied back in 2004 entitled “Percent of Persons to Each Exact Age According to Life Tables: 1900-02 to 1991”. Roswell cleanup crews would have been younger grunt types, male, age 20-25 years old--In other words born in and around 1925. The readout on this graph indicates to me that in 1990, about 57% of Roswell cleanup crews would still have been alive. The proper interpretation of this number is as follows: “Under the mortality conditions of 1925, 57% of newborns would survive until 1990.” Of course all this is subject to many adjustments, such as these graphs are males combined with females, my interpolating on the graph, and so on.

cda said...

I wonder if the size of the debris field really matters, since even if we could determine its exact size (which of course we can't), there would still be unanswered questions and problems. One is the density of the debris itself. If there were large gaps in its distribution, this would imply the quantity was small, whereas tightly packed debris would imply lots and lots of it. So which was it, sparse or dense? We simply do not know.

Another is the shape of the debris field, rectangular, irregular or even circular? Again no way of knowing.

There is likewise no way of knowing how much of the debris was really shown in the Ft Worth photos or what proportion of it was gathered up at all. And we still have this dubious story of dozens of armed guards patrolling the area (and presumably gathering even more debris) for a week or more.

So does the size really matter? Without aerial or ground photos to back up any claims, it seems to me that this is largely a red herring. We cannot trust ANY of the quoted figures, be they from '47 or later in the 80s and 90s. It is incomprehensible to me that if the debris was all that important, some aerial or ground photos were not taken of the debris field.

But of course, these may all be still top secret.....

Brice said...

@Ed : Since this person was supporting the alien autopsy film, and giving confirmation of the detail of 6 fingers, I would be highly suspicious about his testimony. But as Kevin pointed out, it doesn't concern the debris field questioned here.


Brian said : "I think (No I cannot provide documented evidence) the reason why there are hardly any first hand recovery unit veterans is either they died already or the unit was a very tiny deployment of a handful of men who went out to pick up the foil blowing around on the ranch."

Maybe some of them were already gone by 1990. But assuming they were around 25 years old in 1947, they were 68 by 1990 which is not that old too. This is pure speculation, but if the field was long (say 3/4 mile long), that would need some people to do work quickly. So I would expect maybe 4 or 5 others former soldiers might have come forward, with the seeking efforts of the Roswell investigators.

cda said : "I wonder if the size of the debris field really matters, since even if we could determine its exact size (which of course we can't), there would still be unanswered questions and problems. One is the density of the debris itself. If there were large gaps in its distribution, this would imply the quantity was small, whereas tightly packed debris would imply lots and lots of it. So which was it, sparse or dense? We simply do not know. "

According to Brazel, his cattle would not go through the debris, that's an indication that the density of material was quite high. So if the debris field was large, that eliminates the mogul and a cluster of balloons. (if one still believe the mogul/weather balloon explanation works)

KRandle said...

All -

I realize that hell is about to freeze over, the poles will shift and the sun will explode, but Brian and I agree on something. I suspect Brian rejects the testimony because there is no alien visitation but I reject it because I have investigated the claims. It is the reason that I mostly ignored the guy.

Yes, he was assigned to the 509th Bomb Group in 1947 but he wasn't an MP. He was assigned to Squadron "T" which was part of the S-4 or supply. He said that he was not at the Brazel ranch (which means, again, this is not relevant to the posting) but over on the Plains of San Agustin. He said that he was at that site, but there was no easy way to get from Roswell to Socorro in 1947 and the last time I made the trip, it still wasn't very easy. If there was a clean up of debris or whatever, the soldiers would have come from either Alamogordo or Albuquerque.

As those who bothered to read the document from UFO UpDates, you saw there was nothing new here. The information was posted in 2000 which means there was plenty of time for contamination. I would have been more impressed had he given us a few names of soldiers who had been part of the Roswell story... rather than he was a friend of Pappy Henderson, for example.

The other problem is that he claimed the creature he saw looked like that in the Alien Autopsy film (and no, Ed, we are not going down that road again). That to me is one of the biggest problems, given the status of that bit of film. Had he not married his testimony to the Alien Autopsy, I might have pursued this further, but it was clear that what he was saying was not based in reality.

To me, he join the ranks of Frank Kaufmann and Glenn Dennis to name two who were in Roswell in 1947 but who had nothing to do with whatever fell near Corona.

Steve Sawyer said...

Just a side note, but when I read the entry on wikipedia today regarding the "Roswell UFO Incident," it appeared to have been written almost entirely from the skeptical or debunker point of view.

I reviewed the edit history to some degree, and it seems a bit of an edit war has gone on over the past year or more for that entry, since I don't recall it being so "slanted" from the debunking point of view when I last read it a year or two ago. Here's how the entry starts out, as if what is written there was fully established fact:

"In mid 1947, a United States Air Force surveillance balloon crashed at a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico, prompting claims alleging the crash was of an extraterrestrial spaceship.[1]

"After an initial spike of interest, the military reported that the crash was merely of a conventional weather balloon.[2] Interest subsequently waned until the late 1970s when ufologists began promulgating a variety of increasingly elaborate conspiracy theories, claiming that one or more alien spacecraft had crash-landed, and that the extraterrestrial occupants had been recovered by the military who then engaged in a cover-up.

"In the 1990s, the US military published reports disclosing the true nature of the crashed Project Mogul balloon. Nevertheless, the Roswell incident continues to be of interest in popular media, and conspiracy theories surrounding the event persist. Roswell has been called "the world's most famous, most exhaustively investigated, and most thoroughly debunked UFO claim".[3]"


See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roswell_UFO_incident

cda said...

Steve:

One of the advantages of Wikipedia is that anyone is free to edit an entry and add whatever they like. Therefore if the current entry is too biased towards the skeptical view, you are free to delete it and insert the pro-ET view.

In the case of Roswell, I would say that the more changes there have been over the years the more shaky and flakey the topic is. In other words you cannot rely on what is printed there. Other topics, which are more soundly based, are usually left unaltered. These are the topics we can trust as reliable. Unfortunately Roswell does not pass the reliability test.

Brian B said...

Minor detail, but it was "sheep" not cattle that wouldn't cross the debris field. If I am not mistaken, Bessie Brazel offeted testimony decades later that the herd would not cross because they had a time worn path to a certain watering hole or trough.

If true, one might conclude it wasn't the debris or the debris field that spooked them, it was simply shiny bits and pieces glaring in the sun that just happened to be strewn a cross a partial pathway they favored.

David Rudiak said...

Steve Sawyer wrote:
Didn't you also note at some point in the past in comments on this blog about how clean the border edges of the white-paper/foil-backed radar reflector debris in Ramey's office looked? I always found that an interesting point that suggests that perhaps the material photographed by James Bond Johnson w/Ramey, Dubose, and Marcel in the differing pictures was substituted after being somewhat intentionally mangled-up for "authenticity."

The aluminum foil covering was backed by white paper (laminated foil-paper, same stuff as candy bar and chewing gum wrappers). My argument has been Brazel's testimony was that he didn't pick up the stuff for a full 3 weeks after he found it. Skeptics argue the radar target was supposedly torn up and shredded by winds blowing it across the ground. Yet the white backing doesn't display any obvious weathering like dirt or water marks.

These various photos have not appeared on the Net in high resolution in part because of potential copyright violation issues and in part because small websites don't want to eat up limited memory for which they have to pay. However, here's a pretty good one of Marcel from Huffington Post showing a lot of the white paper:

http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1230620/images/o-ROSWELL-UFO-facebook.jpg

Here's another showing 4 of the 7 known photos, in lower resolution, but illustrating the white paper backing from the various vantage points:

http://emosonic.com/gallery-pages/Alienative/roswell-debris.html

In all of these (which I have viewed in much higher resolution), there is no indication of any sort of staining on any of these white paper pieces. They all look perfectly white and even in color.

The weather balloon in the photos is obviously not fresh. But the radar target not only looks clean and new, there are other indications of newness. When I did a 3D computer analysis of all the sticks in the photo, they assembled into one and only one radar target. Two sticks had to be left out of each target to enable it to fold down flat for packing and shipment. The radar targets were packed 24 to a box and at least 48 bare sticks were thrown in on top to reassemble the targets upon unfolding them. Two or three of these bare, isolated sticks can also be found in the photos. My interpretation is the radar target was new, taken out of the box and broken by hand, with 2 or 3 extra bare sticks also grabbed and thrown in the mix. More details at www.roswellproof.com/rawin_construction.html

IOW, if those materials shown in the photos from Ramey's were original, and actually that picked up by Brazel and then Marcel, which had lain in the desert for maybe a week, why do they appear so clean, and as David also points out, far less a volume than either Brazel or Marcel initially described?

How are these apparent contradictions explained?


Yes, that is one of the big questions. The usual response is to ignore it, change the subject, or wave hands and claim everything is "consistent" because everybody ended up telling a balloon story, and isn't it a balloon in the photos?

However, how does Ramey's one balloon and one radar target get so scattered over Brazel's 200 yards across area or Marcel's square mile? That would amount to minor littering. Brazel alone could EASILY have cleaned up such a tiny amount of debris when he first found it, but instead says he ignored it for 3 weeks. A real sheep rancher would not have done that as the such material is potentially harmful to the livestock if they munch on it. (And Brazel's story directly contradicted Marcel's in Fort Worth that Brazel DID immediately clean it up, another serious contradiction in the official story in 1947.)

David Rudiak said...

Brian Bell wrote:
Minor detail, but it was "sheep" not cattle that wouldn't cross the debris field. If I am not mistaken, Bessie Brazel offeted testimony decades later that the herd would not cross because they had a time worn path to a certain watering hole or trough.

This is another classic BB uncited anecdote and change of subject. Even if Brian can provide the citation from a credible source, it is truly a "minor detail" that deliberately dodges the central question: How big was the debris field and how much debris was there?

The story of the sheep having to be driven by Brazel AROUND the debris field A MILE OR MORE came from later hired ranch-hand Tommy Tyree. It AGAIN implies a VERY LARGE debris field with at least one dimension a half mile to a mile in extent. (Thus further corroboration for Marcel's 1947 story of a square mile debris field.)

It's open range out there. If there is some sort of small blockage on the sheep's favorite pathway, you move them a short distance to go around it. You don't need to detour a mile to the next river ford.

Now look again at the bloody Fort Worth Ramey photos: one balloon and one radar, and NOT in thousands of little tiny pieces that could scatter widely.

Or Brazel's story, scattered over an area only 200 yards across and only 5 pounds, which he DID eventually collect. You don't need to divert a mile around that either.

So how can this tiny amount of debris scatter so widely while being so coherent, such that a 1 mile detour was needed? If it was scattered in tiny pieces so widely, its density would be miniscule, hardly capable of blocking or spooking sheep. Brian Bell wants it both ways.

For example, Ramey's singular radar target (supposedly all that was found) has 20 sq. ft. of foil-paper or about 3000 sq. inches. Let's suppose it was ALL shredded into postage stamp size pieces about an inch square, so 3000 tiny pieces. (Ignoring the FACT that Ramey's photos show nothing like this, only a slightly torn up radar target with mostly large foil pieces and only a few smaller ones.)

Let's further suppose Marcel's later described linear debris field 200-300 ft. wide by 3/4 to a mile long of concentrated debris, approximately 1 million sq. ft. You need something like that to divert around in order to get a 1 mile diversion.

Even with this extremely dubious assumption about number of pieces, that works out to only one postage stamp piece of debris for every ~300 sq. ft., or the size of a common home living room. Seriously, does anyone think this would constitute a "spooking" barrier to sheep?

Or even if you generously assume the modern Mogul 3-5 radar targets with the same degree of extreme shredding, then you get 3-5 postage stamp pieces of debris per living room area, again not much of a sheep spook barrier.

If true, one might conclude it wasn't the debris or the debris field that spooked them, it was simply shiny bits and pieces glaring in the sun that just happened to be strewn a cross a partial pathway they favored.

Aside from the above argument that the official story then or now does NOT remotely allow for a dense debris field to deter the sheep, there is another problem. Sheep are not "frightened" by aluminum foil. The concern of sheep ranchers is that they are NOT frightened, but are prone to munching on it. They are not the sharpest members of class mammalia.

During the Normandy invasion, a lot of radar jamming foil-paper chaff was dropped. Allied soldiers later found a lot of dead sheep and cattle that had eaten it, jamming their intestines and killing them.

That is why a real sheep rancher would be concerned about it being there and IMMEDIATELY start cleaning it up, instead of Brazel's story of not being concerned because he had other things to do and waiting 3 weeks. (Contradicting Marcel's story that Brazel DID immediately clean it up, what a real sheep rancher would have done.)

cda said...

DR writes, at the end of each of his last two posts, that Marcel claimed Brazel immediately cleaned up the derbis field, whereas Brazel himself claimed that he ignored it for 2 to 3 weeks.

Is this not further evidence that Marcel and Brazel's stories are seriously inconsistent? I have mentioned this anomaly before, in connection withe debris field size. What it means is that neither person was coerced into what to tell the press. If they had been, their stories would, or should, have been consistent, or at least far more consistent than they are.

So I repeat my assertion. Both Marcel and Brazel told the press what they found (or believed they found). They did NOT tell the press what the US military coerced them into saying. Therefore the idea that either was 'coached' at all is just plain wrong.

David Rudiak said...

Brice wrote: (part 1/2)
Do you have any source that says Ramey or army officials said that the debris shown were all that was found?

Brice, finally getting to your question. Ramey's official story from newspapers (or the FBI Dallas telegram) articles quoting him or his men, was that all that was found was a single balloon and a single radar target. Ramey's weather officer Irving Newton, whom Ramey ordered in to ID the radar target, said exactly the same thing back then and in the present when interviewed (including by me). He also added back then and now that what he saw could have come from any number of weather stations. In the present he stated he does NOT think Mogul had anything to do with. All he saw was A common balloon/radar target (singular) used by military and civilian weather services. (I might add here that Newton is a HUGE flying saucer crash skeptic.)

As for quotes from Ramey giving the singular balloon/target story and with nothing else found, here are a few:

http://www.roswellproof.com/UP_NevadaSJ_July9.html

FORT WORTH, Tex., July 8. (UP) -- Brig. Gen. Roger B. Ramey, commanding general of the 8th army air force said tonight that the purported "flying disc" found on a New Mexico ranch had been identified as "remnants of a tin-foil covered box-kite and a rubber balloon."
Speaking over a Fort Worth radio station to "deflate" the wild stories that discovery of the device had touched off, Ramey said the object was "a high-altitude weather observation device--a very normal gadget in weather bureau operations."
He added that although the box kite originally carried instruments, none was found with the wreckage.


http://www.roswellproof.com/UP_SFNews_July8.html

WASHINGTON, July 8 ...in Fort Worth, Brig. Gen. Roger B. Ramey, commanding general of the 8th Air Force, said he believed the object was the "remnant of a weather balloon and a radar reflector."
General Ramey said part of a weather balloon was found nearby when the object was picked up on a New Mexico ranch about three weeks ago.
"The object is in my office right now and as far as I can see there is nothing to get excited about."
General Ramey informed Army Air Force national headquarters the object was "of very flimsy construction -- almost like a box-kite."


http://www.roswellproof.com/UP_ClovisNMPress_July9.html

ROSWELL-- ...Brig. Gen. Roger B. Ramey, co. general of the 8th Air Force, said that "in my opinion" a "flying disc" found Tuesday near Roswell, N. M. is "the remnants of a weather balloon and a radar reflector."
The general officer said that "the object is in my office right now and as far as I can see there is nothing to get excited about."
He said that the "so-called disc" was of box kite construction and covered with tinfoil.
Ramey also revealed that part of a weather balloon was found nearby when it was picked up in New Mexico.


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

FBI Dallas, 7-8-47: ...Headquarters Eighth Air force, telephonically advised this office that an object purporting to be a flying disc was recovered near Roswell, New Mexico, this date. The disc is hexagonal in shape and was suspended from a balloon by cable, which balloon was approximately twenty feet in diameter. [Major Kirton—redacted out—one of Ramey’s intel officers] further advised that the object found resembles a high altitude weather balloon with a radar reflector.

Note, ALL of these are singular balloon/radar target stories, exactly what Ramey actually showed as seen in the photos taken.

David Rudiak said...

(Part 2/2)

BTW, for anyone who wants to know how the press covered Roswell, I have been collecting hundreds of Roswell press-coverage stories for the last 20 years. You can look up answers to many of your questions there:

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

I have done most of the hard work already for you, first collecting, then collating and organizing into distinct stories by the major wire services and news organizations like AP, UP, INS, Reuters, ABC, and CP (Canadian Press), plus some independent reporting by major newspapers (like San Francisco Examiner, Washington Post, Roswell Daily Record, Chicago Tribune, NY Times, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, etc.). Altogether, at least 4 dozen distinct stories with links to same for you to explore, plus outlines of each story and discussion of what was reported on the main page.

You will see Roswell covered from a lot of different angles here, many of them contradictory. Roswell was a heavily covered, usually front-page national news story, and also received a lot of international news coverage.

David Rudiak said...

CDA wrote:
Is this not further evidence that Marcel and Brazel's stories are seriously inconsistent? I have mentioned this anomaly before, in connection withe debris field size.

What it means is that neither person was coerced into what to tell the press. If they had been, their stories would, or should, have been consistent, or at least far more consistent than they are.


What should be of concern to CDA is that witnesses he is claiming are all freely telling the truth about the SAME events can't seem to agree on the important basic details, instead are contradicting each other and even themselves, such as exactly what was found, when it was found, when it was cleaned up, how much there was, how widely it was scattered, when it was reported, and so on.

If this were a police investigation, the detectives would be very suspicious of the truth of the stories when they conflict so much. You expect some inconsistency since witnesses will observe different details from different perspectives, but not this much.

All the witnesses end up telling a basic balloon/radar target story in one form or another, but can't seem to agree on much else. CDA claims this proves they weren't coached in any way. No it doesn’t prove that. People can still be coached but not provided the same details to recite, leading to serious inconsistencies when they improvise details beyond the basic official story.. (weather balloon/radar target in this case)

Let me first remind everyone again that Wilcox was quoted by AP admitting that he wasn't totally a free agent when he said he was "working with those fellows at the base". (whether there were death threats or not, he was "cooperating" with them). All they had to do was instruct Wilcox to tell something like a balloon story, with Brazel's object being no bigger than the Sheriff's safe. (radar target size). Thus Wilcox states Brazel came in reporting a "weather meter", contradicting Brazel's story that he told Wilcox that maybe he had found a "flying disc", also flatly denying he had found any sort of weather observation device. Wilcox can't make up his mind when Brazel found it, telling UP about 3 weeks before (which would have agreed with Brazel), but telling AP only a few days before, which would have agreed with the initial base press release of "sometime last week" (which must have come from Marcel/Cavitt to Blanchard after speaking to Brazel and visiting the ranch.) Wilcox also can't make up his mind as to whether Brazel reported it to him the day before or 2 days before.

Ramey/Marcel changed the story in Fort Worth to 3 weeks ago, which does agree with Brazel but contradicts the press release. How could Marcel get it so wrong initially? Marcel seriously contradicts Brazel on when he cleaned it up (immediately, says Marcel, instead of Brazels 3 weeks later). Marcel's "square mile" debris field very poorly agrees with Brazel's 200 yards across. However both are describing a MUCH bigger debris field than can be explained by Ramey's displayed and verbal single balloon/radar target story. You would think from these huge contradictions that Marcel never met Brazel or spoke to him.

Brazel's "rubber strips", "flower tape", and five pounds of debris simply cannot be found in the Fort Worth photos, showing an intact weather balloon (which Brazel absolutely denies finding, since had found them before, and that isn't what he found).

Ramey, after claiming to have just viewd the object in his office, is quoted (Washington Post) that the object would be 25 feet across if reconstructed instead of the real 4 foot across radar target that Ramey showed in his office.

The story is all over the place, which doesn't seem to bother CDA in the least, when it should if all the witnesses are telling the truth and freely describing the SAME things. (And we're not talking about decades later)
.

Brice said...

@David : thanks for pinpointing down all this. I asked the question because it could be argued that what was shown in Ramey's office was only a part of what was found, as I've read some proponents of the mogul explanation have suggested.

If it was only a weather balloon Brazel could have cleaned it up on his own if the debris field was not large, it surely would have been a lot faster than doing all the way back and forth to Roswell to get some help. That's a reason (among others) that the story he told to the RDR was bogus IMO.

--

Now it would have helped if other former soldiers who took part to the cleaning could have provided testimonies on the debris field...

cda said...

DR now suggests that even sheriff Wilcox was 'coached' as to what to say to the press. That now makes 3 people who, according to DR, were not free to tell the press what happened. I wonder how many others were likewise told what to say.

Whitmore maybe? Frank Joyce? Brazel's son Bill decades later? Bessie? Maybe even Jason Kellahin? Surely a journalist was not allowed to write his own article without some military guy watching over him.

Yes the "story is all over the place". But this is precisely what would NOT have occurred had any official military pressure been applied to the storytellers. Their stories would have been broadly consistent.

I suggest the discrepancies were purely due to writers and spokesmen trying to get things into print as fast as they could with little regard for accuracy, lots of data being transmitted by phone & hurried teletypes, and a bit of over-enthusiasm on the part of some people. One discrepancy that is easily explained without any need for official interference is the "25 feet across" as opposed to the "4 foot across radar target". The 25 feet obviously refers to the estimated balloon diameter, which the journalist got confused (again in the rush to get into print) with the radar target.

This little confusion is cleared up in the FBI teletype (except it became 20 feet instead of 25!). Perhaps the FBI agent was a in a calmer state of mind than some of the journalists.

KRandle said...

CDA -

Of course Wilcox. He told them that he was working with those boys out at the base.

Bill Brazel told me that his father had promised them that he wouldn't say anything about it, and gave very little information to Bill.

Judd Roberts told me (on video tape) about the telephone calls that the radio received about broadcasting the interview with Mack Brazel.

Jason Kellahin got to Roswell on Tuesday evening, talked to Brazel and confabulated his story about seeing Brazel at the ranch, seeing the balloon in the field. He hadn't seen anything like that as the timing proves. He could write anything he wanted because he didn't have anything new and exciting to report... even his pal Wilcox didn't tell him anything.

Edwin Easley said that he was swore to secrecy and provided only that information that he felt he could without violating that oath.

And now you tell me that what was printed in 1947 is unimportant because "I suggest the discrepancies were purely due to writers and spokesmen trying to get things into print as fast as they could with little regard for accuracy, lots of data being transmitted by phone & hurried teletypes, and a bit of over-enthusiasm on the part of some people."

So we'll just throw everything out because it doesn't fit your world view, regardless of the source, credibility or information.

Brian B said...

Rudiak - you incorrectly stated:

"This is another classic BB uncited anecdote and change of subject. Even if Brian can provide the citation from a credible source, it is truly a "minor detail" that deliberately dodges the central question: How big was the debris field and how much debris was there?"

No Rudiak again you're wrong. It's completely related to the subject. The whole point of Mac being upset was the sheep on the debris field.

It's just you don't want to have those details pointed out. For a guy who Nitram claims is a guru of Roswell, it surprises me you don't know THIS kind of detail which I attribute to purposeful avoidance and truth debunking.

Besides if you bothered to read Brice's post properly he said "cattle"...and I clarified with a correction.

Documentation? Golly David, it comes from Bessie Brazel's very own affidavit! My, my I must be so totally wrong (according to you) when she basically said what I summarized.

She said:

"Dad was concerned because the debris was near a surface-water stock tank. He thought having it blowing around would scare the sheep and they would not water. So, a day or two later, he, Vernon and I went to the site to pick up the material. We went on horseback and took several feed sacks to collect the debris. I do not recall just how far the site was from the house, but the ride out there took some time."

Please note the SOURCE and the fact (yes it's a fact) she used the words I summarized. Also note she said her father WAS NOT concerned about them eating foil (please site a source for why shepherds always avoid foil).

I know, you think Bessie was never there, is mixed up, can't recall properly, blah, blah, blah.

Well her testimony matches what her father said verbatim (What? No way! Can we ignore that too?)

Let's dive deeper. Kevin claims (Roswell Reporter):

"The problem is that only Bessie can place herself on the scene at that time. Her brother Bill has never mentioned her specific presence..."

Really? Mac said this on July 9, 1947 in the RDR:

"At the time Brazel was in a hurry to get his round made and he did not pay much attention to it. But he did remark about what he had seen and on July 4 he, his wife, Vernon, and a daughter Betty, age 14, went back to the spot and gathered up quite a bit of the debris."

Bill Brazel (who wasn't even on the debris site) said this in The Roswell Crash:

"Dad was in the ranch house with two of the younger kids ... so the next day he rounded up the two kids and took off for Roswell..."

Gosh, so my post was CORRECT and shows what the sheep supposedly avoided and why from a witness who was there. It also demonstrates your smear campaign to avoid topics related to testimony on the debris field which you find "inconvenient".

cda said...

Kevin:

Let's face it. The press reports of July 9 are still more likely to be nearer the mark than those done hurriedly on July 8, and FAR more likely to be correct than the tales told 35 - 50 years afterwards. Certainly in the rush to get into print there were mistakes, e.g. that 20 or 25 foot object which DR says was the same object being described as the 4 foot bundle of sticks. It was not. As I said, one was the balloon diameter and the other the radar target size. The reporter, or whoever he spoke to on the phone, got them confused.

No we cannot trust with certainty everything reported at the time. But we can trust it far more than the ravings decades later of people who, for the most, were out for publicity or heavily influenced by their interviewers wanting pro-ET answers.

I have reread the short (selected?) transcript of what Edwin Easley told you. What a shambles. Other than repeatedly saying he couldn't talk about anything, he seems to have told you nothing useful at all. About the only thing I could decipher from this interview was that he was never even at the crash site (except of course that he wouldn't admit this). Some witness.

David Rudiak said...

Brian Bell originally wrote: (part 1 of 2)
[Responding to Brice, NOT me] Minor detail, but it was "sheep" not cattle that wouldn't cross the debris field. [Responding to me] If I am not mistaken, Bessie Brazel offeted testimony decades later that the herd would not cross because they had a time worn path to a certain watering hole or trough. If true, one might conclude it wasn't the debris or the debris field that spooked them, it was simply shiny bits and pieces glaring in the sun that just happened to be strewn a cross a partial pathway they favored.

Note Brian's emphasis on some “time worn” "favored" sheep pathway, clearly implying something the sheep would not depart from and go around.. The "pathway" had "bits and pieces" "strewn" across it, clearly implying it was covered with a lot of debris, with the "glare" somehow spooking the sheep. That is why they supposedly wouldn't cross. It had nothing to do with a much larger debris field that they wouldn’t cross. No there was some sort of small choke point littered with shiny debris.

This was in response to my debris field size discussion, which included ranch-hand Tommy Tyree stating Mack Brazel was upset with the debris field because the sheep wouldn't cross it and he had to drive them A MILE OR MORE around it to get them to water. This supported the idea of a huge debris field heavily littered with debris, at least a half mile to a mile in dimension to require such a diversion. A restricted blockage on a "pathway" would require only a small diversion to get around it. But the sheep weren’t going to do that, because they so “favored” that damn pathway!

As Brian Bell loves to do, he invented “facts” and diverted the debate. I challenged his claim about Bessie Brazel's "sheep path" and the sheep being spooked by the debris on the path. (He well knows I wasn't concerned about Brice's mistake of cattle for sheep.) I demanded an actual source for Bessie's "favored" "path"., commenting:

"This is another classic BB uncited anecdote and change of subject. Even if Brian can provide the citation from a credible source, it is truly a "minor detail" that deliberately dodges the central question: How big was the debris field and how much debris was there?"

I also did a calculation PROVING that with the amount of claimed debris, the debris field would have been VERY sparsely littered with foil debris. E.g., given Ramey’s one radar target shredded into 3000 postage stamp size (square inch) pieces scattered over a Marcel size linear debris field, there would be only one tiny piece per living room size area. Scattered over a Brazel-size debris field (200 yards across) would only increase the density to 3 or 4 postage stamp pieces per living room size area, hardly any sort of spook barrier to sheep. You can increase the foil size to make them more "scary" to sheep, but at the cost of making the debris even more sparse. E.g., shredded into 6 inch squares, now you have only 3 or 4 pieces per quarter acre (10,000 sq. ft.) on a Brazel-size debris field, again, hardly some sort of spook barrier to the sheep.

Thus BB had to fabricate a much more restricted pathway more densely packed with debris to block the sheep. (He probably will never man up and admit that’s what he did, but that IS what he did.) And it wasn't represented as pure personal conjecture, but based on specific testimony of Bessie Brazel about a "favored" "sheep pathway")

David Rudiak said...

(part 2 of 2 response to Brian Bell)
Now here is how BB disingenuously responded:

Documentation? Golly David, it comes from Bessie Brazel's very own affidavit! My, my I must be so totally wrong (according to you) when she basically said what I summarized.

"Dad was concerned because the debris was near a surface-water stock tank. He thought having it blowing around would scare the sheep and they would not water. So, a day or two later, he, Vernon and I went to the site to pick up the material. We went on horseback and took several feed sacks to collect the debris. I do not recall just how far the site was from the house, but the ride out there took some time."

Please note the SOURCE and the fact (yes it's a fact) she used the words I summarized.


Except she DIDN'T! She says NOTHING about a sheep pathway, much less a "time worn" "favored" one, with bright foil shiny debris "strewn" across, the glare scaring the sheep. But Brian STILL claims she did, he paraphrased (“summarized”) her correctly, going even so far as to brazenly claim, "it's a fact".

Yes, it's a "fact", a Brian Bell "fact", meaning it is usually pure fabrication. Now I can forgive somebody for talking off the top of his head and not correctly remembering testimony, but not when they go back to the "source" and can see that they plainly made a mistake. Instead of admitting he got it BADLY wrong, Brian tries to bullshit his way out of it, as he usually does.

But the real FACT is not crossing the debris field had nothing to do with some "favored" "sheep path" that Bessie mentioned--pure fabrication by Brian. Also note BB did not address my sparcity of debris argument (other than to fabricate a sheep path), nor Tyree's testimony of Brazel having to drive the sheep a mile or more out of the way. Even Bessie's 3 burlap feed-bags filled with debris couldn't remotely account for that much debris.

About all Bessie's testimony says VERY WEAKLY supporting Brian is that the "debris" (doesn't even say foil) blowing around in the wind somehow scared the sheep (Bessie doesn't say anything about the glare of the sun that Brian claimed scared them). But also note Bessie was talking about the ENTIRE field of debris with debris blowing around in it, not some tiny section of it.

Even if the wind blowing the debris was the reason for the sheep not crossing, there had to be a HELLUVA lot more than can be accounted for by Mack Brazel's "five pounds of debris" or Ramey's single radar target and weather balloon (what Ramey showed and said was recovered) . It would have to be scattered DENSELY over a MUCH larger area, especially if they had to be DRIVEN by Brazel a mile out of the way to get to water.

KRandle said...

Brian –

First it was a cattle and sheep ranch, though the field we’re talking about was being used to graze sheep at the time…

And, since we’re worried about these minor things, it’s Mack, not Mac.

Since you put so much stock in Bessie Brazel’s affidavit, let’s look at it. She said, “Soon after, dad went to Roswell to order winter feed. It was on this trip that he told the sheriff what he had found. I think we all went into town with him but I am not certain about this, as he made two or three trips to Roswell about that time and we did not go on all of them. (In those days, it was an all-day trip, leaving very early in the mornings and returning after dark.) I am quite sure it was no more than a day trip, and I do not remember dad taking any overnight or longer trips away from the ranch around that time.”

According to Bill Brazel, Bessie and her brother Vernon were on the ranch the night of the thunderstorm. He said that when Mack went into Roswell, he took Bessie and Vernon to the house in Tularosa so they didn’t go with him into Roswell. Neither Marcel nor Cavitt said a word about family with Brazel at the time. She said it was to buy winter feed but the newspapers of the time all said he went in to sell wool. She said that her father was not gone overnight (something she confirmed to Don Newman and John Kirby in their interview with her as well) but the newspapers and testimony of everyone else said that he was gone a number of days. Bill Brazel said that when he read about his father in the Albuquerque newspaper he knew his father needed help at the ranch. When he arrived, there was no one there.

You quote Bessie Brazel, “Dad was concerned because the debris was near a surface-water stock tank. He thought having it blowing around would scare the sheep and they would not water. So, a day or two later, he, Vernon and I went to the site to pick up the material. We went on horseback and took several feed sacks to collect the debris. I do not recall just how far the site was from the house, but the ride out there took some time."

Except of course, is the testimony from the newspapers that he picked all up himself and rolled it under some brush. The RDR reported on July 9, “… recovered the wreckage of the balloon, which he had placed under some brush.” Bessie Brazel said that it had been stored under the porch. So, her testimony doesn’t march with what her father said verbatim, nor does it match the reports that appeared in a variety of newspaper in 1947… and I haven’t even mentioned that she suggested that her memory of the recovery of a balloon was actually a different event. Something she said herself. (I won’t mention that you created a path for the sheep, a point covered by David.) Or, blah, blah, blah.

Now, let’s talk about my statement that she wasn’t at the scene. Seems, if we split a fine hair, we do have information that suggests she wasn’t there based on what Bill Brazel said (his dad had taken them to Tularosa), based on the discrepancies between what was printed in the newspapers, and with what she said sometime later. If you wish, you can see this as a wash, but the fact remains that the fact is in legitimate dispute.

Oh, and it was ranchers in the area who told me (Tommy Tyree and Loretta Proctor being two) who said they didn’t leave this sort of thing about because the livestock would ingest it as they grazed causing health issues.

What we see is you interpreting the data to support your point of view and ignoring that which is in conflict (and notice how I said that nicely?).

David Rudiak said...

(VERY long—sorry—but LOTS of quotes proving point) (1/4)
CDA spun;
Let's face it. The press reports of July 9 are still more likely to be nearer the mark than those done hurriedly on July 8, and FAR more likely to be correct than the tales told 35 - 50 years afterwards. Certainly in the rush to get into print there were mistakes, e.g. that 20 or 25 foot object which DR says was the same object being described as the 4 foot bundle of sticks. It was not. As I said, one was the balloon diameter and the other the radar target size. The reporter, or whoever he spoke to on the phone, got them confused.

Let’s face it. Whenever the facts don’t conform to CDA reality he does a mad scramble to invent some rationalization why those facts must be wrong.

Here are the real facts. The quote about the 20-25 foot, foil-covered “box kite” (meaning radar target) came from MULTIPLE SOURCES, thus not just "one reporter's" misquote. They came primarily from July 9 articles, NOT ones published on July 8. They are VASTLY more common than only two sources giving the 20 foot balloon quote, which DID originate from only one person (one of Ramey’s intel officers). Quotes proving this:

Washington Post, July 9:
http://www.roswellproof.com/Washington_Post_July9.html

“Army Air Force officials here were as flabbergasted as the rest of the world. But under the personal direction of Lieut. Gen. Hoyt Vandenberg, acting AAF chief, who dropped into the Washington AAF public information headquarters in the midst of the excitement, they burned up the wires to Texas and New Mexico. They got from Brig. Gen. Roger Ramey... a description of the object. It was "of very flimsy construction--almost like a box-kite", made of wood and with a cover "like tinfoil". . .Ramey said he hadn't actually seen it himself as yet. He went to take a look, and called back that it was about 25 feet in diameter. He said he was shipping it on to Wright Field, Ohio, but would have one of the meteorological officers look at it first. “

Note, the Pentagon is quoting Ramey and the reference here about it being 25 feet in diameter is VERY CLEARLY about the “tinfoil” radar target supposedly sitting in his office.

ABC Radio News, 10 pm EDT, July 8
http://www.roswellproof.com/ABC_News_July8.html

“A few moments ago, I talked to officials at Wright Field, and they declared that they expect the so-called flying saucer to be delivered there, but that it hasn't arrived as yet. In the meantime, General Ramey described the object as being of flimsy construction, almost like a box kite. He says that it was so battered that he was unable to determine whether it had a disk form, and he does not indicate its size. Ramey says that so far as can be determined, no one saw the object in the air, and he describes it as being made of some sort of tinfoil. Other army officials say that further information indicates that the object had a diameter of about twenty to twenty-five feet...

AGAIN, very clearly Ramey’s “box kite”, the so-called “flying saucer” Wright Field was still expecting to arrive. Here the object is 20-25 feet, not Ramey’s 25 feet, and the source instead of being Ramey is now “other army officials”. Here Ramey doesn’t give a size.

David Rudiak said...

(part 2 of 4)
Two London, England newspapers gave either a 20 foot or 20-25 description (both July 9):
http://www.roswellproof.com/London_Papers.html

London Daily Herald: ”Brigadeer General Roger Ramey... later confirmed from his headquarters at Fort Worth that the object had been received there. There was no sign of any power plant nor was it strong enough to support a man. It was battered, but might possibly have been 20 ft. in diameter.

London Daily Telegraph & Morning Post: “In a telephone call to Army Air Force headquarters in Washington he [Ramey] described the object as of "flimsy construction, almost like a box kite." It was so badly battered that he was unable to say whether it was shaped like a disc. The material of which it was made was "apparently some sort of tin foil." Later Army Air Force officials said that further information indicated that the object would have a diameter of about 20ft to 25ft if reconstructed.”

Reuters, July 9, 20-25 foot size
http://www.roswellproof.com/CeylonObserver_July9.html

“General Roger Ramey... received the object from Roswell Army Air Base. It is being shipped by air to the Army Air Force Research Centre at Wright Field, Ohio. In a telephone conversation with Army Air Force Headquarters in Washington he described the object as a "flimsy construction almost like a box. So far as investigation could determine no one had seen the object in the air, the General added. Asked what the material seemed to be, Air Force officials in Washington described it as "apparently some sort of tin foil." It would have had a diameter of about 20 to 25 feet if reconstructed, the officials added. Nothing in its apparent construction indicated any capacity for speed and there was no evidence of a power plant. The discs construction seemed too flimsy to have enabled it to carry a man.”

SAME thing, attributed to “Air Force officials in Washington”. Other Reuters story (part 4 below) contrarily reports 20 foot balloon, attributed to Ramey’s intel officer.

UP (3 newspapers, all from July 9)
http://www.roswellproof.com/UP_NevadaSJ_July9.html

“...the army air forces has recovered a strange object in New Mexico, and is forwarding it to Wright Field, Dayton, O., for examination. Announcement of the find came first from the Roswell, N.M., army air base, near where a "saucer" was found three weeks ago. AAF headquarters later revealed that a "security lid" has been clamped on all but the sketchiest details of the discovery. AAF spokesmen would say only that the "saucer" was a flimsily-constructed, kite-like object measuring about 25 feet in diameter and covered with a material resembling tinfoil.”

Pretty much the same thing (now mentioning a “secruity lid”). Very clearly referencing the radar target “box-kite” covered with foil; quote source: “AAF headquarters” “spokesmen”.

UP, Philadelphia Inquirer, July 9, (Also first newspaper to carry Irving Newton photo, and note Newton’s official radar target ID, thus NOT an early report)
http://www.roswellproof.com/Philadelphia_Inquirer_July9.html

”Warrant Officer Irving Newton, a forecaster at the Fort Worth Army Air Field weather station, said the object was a ray wind target used to determine the direction and velocity of winds at high altitudes... When rigged up, Newton said, the object looks like a six-pointed star, is silvery in appearance, and rises in the air like a kite, mounted to a 100-gram balloon. ...Reports from Ramey, AAF spokesman in Washington, and Sheriff George Wilcox of Roswell indicated that the object, if reconstructed, would have a diameter of 25 feet, would be too flimsy in construction to carry any person, and apparently had no source of power or capacity of speed, especially supersonic speeds attributed to the "flying saucers."”

David Rudiak said...

(part 3 of 4)
UP, Charleston, S.C., The News and Courier, July 9 (Again note Newton’s late ID, and especially Ramey going on the radio—NOT an early report; also note at bottom Pentagon denial that flying saucers are “space ships”)
http://www.roswellproof.com/Charleston_NewsCourier_July9.html

”Hours after the first announcement, Warrant Officer Irving Newton... examined the "flying disc." He identified it without qualification as a "rawin high altitude sounding device."... Ramey immediately arranged for a broadcast over a Fort Worth radio station to deflate the stories about the object . He described it as remnants of a tin foil covered box kite and a rubber balloon. He said it was a high altitude weather observation device--a very normal gadget in weather bureau observation... Ramey informed his Washington superiors that the object was "of very flimsy construction--almost like a box kite". ... He said it had been smashed and apparently was made with a cover of some kind of material like tinfoil . Reports from Ramey, AAF spokesman in Washington, and Sheriff George Wilcox of Roswell indicated that the object, if reconstructed, would have a diameter of 25 feet, would be too flimsy in construction to carry any person, and apparently had no source of power or capacity of speed especially supersonic speeds attributed to the flying saucers .

AGAIN, both UP articles very clearly referencing the radar target “box kite”. 25-foot size now attributed to multiple sources (“Ramey”, “AAF spokesman in Washington,”, “Sheriff George Wilcox”).

AP stories, July 9 (Again note Newton radar target ID and Ramey going on radio Tuesday night—NOT an early story)
http://www.roswellproof.com/AP1_July9.html

“An object found near Roswell, N.M. was stripped of its glamor by a Fort Worth Army Airfield weather officer who late Tuesday identified it as a weather balloon. Warrant Officer Irving Newton... said the object was a ray wind [sic] target used to determine the direction and velocity of winds at high altitudes.... (Brig. Gen. Roger M. Ramey, commander of the Eighth air force with headquarters here, confirmed the identification in a radio broadcast Tuesday night as the object excited a quick storm of interest across the nation.)... The material had been described as of flimsy construction about 25 feet in diameter, covered with tinfoil-like substance and built on a framework of light wood.. It was badly battered."

AGAIN, very obviously the radar target. No direct sourcing of 25 foot description.

David Rudiak said...

(Part 4 of 4)
Now to be fair to CDA, there are two (and only two) mentions of the 20 foot diameter balloon. In both of these, there is only one source, one of Ramey’s intel officers Major Edwin Kirton. In ALL of these, the attribution is EARLY in the story, before there was any official ID by weather officer Newton.

FBI telegram, Dallas, July 8, 6:17 pm EST (or only about 1-3/4 hours after press release hit newswire)
http://www.roswellproof.com/FBI_Telegram.html

“The disk is hexagonal in shape and suspended from a ballon(sic) by a cable, which ballon [sic] was approximately twenty feet in diameter.. [Redacted—Major Kirton] further advised that the object found resembles a high altitude weather balloon with a radar reflector, but telephonic conversation between their office and Wright Field had not borne out this belief.”

The ONLY newspaper mention of the “20 foot” balloon that I have been able to find are 2 foreign papers, both Reuters, July 10, both citing Kirton, with Kirton claiming Ramey told him. I have yet to find the “20 foot’ balloon description in any U.S. newspaper and seriously doubt it exists, after reviewing nearly 1000 newspapers the last 20 years.

Reuters, foreign newspapers, July 10
http://www.roswellproof.com/Reuters_Canada_July10.html
http://www.roswellproof.com/Reuters_TheHindu_Madras_July10.html

Before Brig.General Ramey's broadcast, Major Edwin Kirton, duty officer at 8th Air Force headquarters at Fort Worth, quoted him as saying flown at the highest altitude but none of the army men at this base recognize it as an army type balloon." Note also the conflict with another Reuter's story (from India) of the 20-25 radar target.

Shortly after this, Kirton is again quoted, with the “rawin” target now absolutely IDed, using Newton’s 6-pointed star description, and now with NO mention of a 20 foot balloon. Kirton now says the Wright Field flight was cancelled (again showing Kirton was speaking LATER after the FBI).

Dallas Morning News, July 9:
http://www.roswellproof.com/DallasMorningNews_July9.html

”Maj. E. M. Kirton, intelligence officer at Fort Worth Army Air Field, blew the disk theory sky high at 5:30 p.m. when he told The Dallas News "there is nothing to it." "It is a Rawin high altitude sounding device," Major Kirton said. He described such an instrument, when undamaged, as of a design resembling a six-pointed star. The army and the Weather Bureau use the device attached to a balloon, for gathering high altitude data. It is made partly of tinfoil-like material, the officer said. The identification at Fort Worth is final, Major Kirton said, and it will not be necessary to forward the object to Wright Field, as originally planned. ..”

COMPREHENSIVE links and summaries to all these stories (and more) can be found at my website, where I suggest the skeptobunkers use to do something called FACT CHECKING. Yes, I know that involves a lot of time and work instead of the usual skeptobunker research by proclamation.

www.roswellproof.com/press_coverage.html

Brian B said...

Kevin (and David indirectly):

"Except of course, is the testimony from the newspapers that he picked all up himself and rolled it under some brush. The RDR reported on July 9, “… recovered the wreckage of the balloon, which he had placed under some brush.”

Let's get this right, both you and David question the accuracy of the newspaper reports at the time, but to defend your point(s) you cite the accuracy of the newspapers?

"Bessie Brazel said that it had been stored under the porch. So, her testimony doesn’t march with what her father said verbatim, nor does it match the reports that appeared in a variety of newspaper in 1947…"

Same comment made prior, whether porch or bush the main point being "it was collected and stored under something". That means the debris field was likely (as the papers reported) small enough to collect by one man and possibly a few kids.

And for nits I think you meant "match" not "march" unless her claims were also serving in the military.

"...and I haven’t even mentioned that she suggested that her memory of the recovery of a balloon was actually a different event."

At what point in time was this, was it with an interview with you, and how does this jive with her sworn affidavit which never made the statement you claim above?

If you want to discredit or discount her affidavit fine, but you'll need to also start discounting the other affidavits which Roswell witnesses claim are true and which have gross errors and questionable recollections...even though you still seem to accept some of them.

"(I won’t mention that you created a path for the sheep, a point covered by David.) Or, blah, blah, blah."

Well if you or David were there in 1947 or had actual debris field photos to show us I might understand, but when the woman recalls her father being concerned about sheep that won't go to a watering location there really isn't anything that confirms one square mile was densely covered in alien foil so deep that sheep got spooked and had to travel another entire mile to "go around it" which does imply there must have been some pathway they used to get to the water.

And neither of you addressed your avoidance of the water being the issue with the sheep, rather than them eating foil or Mack having knowledge of D-Day Airborne operations on his mind.

Oh and David, I did say "it's a fact" in reference to her affidavit NOT claiming what you claim.

John's Space said...

Kevin,

Since you mentioned the CUFOS dig this should be on topic. If I remember correctly the CUFOS dig didn't find any artifacts relating to a UFO crash. Is this correct?

If so it seems to me that is fairly good evidence that it wasn't an alien craft. I recall a show where some people went back to a crash site of a classified aircraft which was either a SR-71 or the prior A-12. This crash was early when its existence was still classified. This site was "cleaned up" by the Air Force and yet people still found some pieces of the crashed aircraft decades later.

The Roswell clean up was performed by some enlisted men from the 509th who were given the task not a specialized team that would likely have handled the SR-71 crash site. So I doubt 508th would have done a more complete job. So why wasn't one piece of the UFO crash found by more skilled dig team?

Brice said...

IMO Bessie's testimony is inconsistent when replaced in the context of the events.

Brian said :

"whether porch or bush the main point being "it was collected and stored under something". That means the debris field was likely (as the papers reported) small enough to collect by one man and possibly a few kids."

How does this reconcile with Mack Brazel going to Sheriff Wilcox who counseled him to call the army base in Roswell to handle this who in turn sent two officers to investigate!? (and contradicts Marcel testimony that the amount of debris was significant - "quite a bit"). But now, according to Bessie, they cleaned up the debris by themselves so there was nothing left when the army was got there. It doesn't make any sense! (not mentionning that it contradicts Marcel and Cavitt being to the debris field with her father prior to the army cleaning the place)

cda said...

DR:

Tell me. If you see in print the word 'diameter', what shape first comes to mind? To my mind it is a circle, sphere, or possibly an ellipse, i.e. something round. It COULD possibly be something rectangular but that is not the shape for which someone would normally use the term 'diameter'. Therefore I claim that in every case in your quotes the word 'diameter' was describing a round object, i.e. in this case a balloon (when reconstructed). Those reports giving the impression of the radar target size as 20-25 ft are the result of confusion, nothing else. The size figures can only come from one of two sources - Roswell and Ft.Worth (since the object was not actually seen by personnel anywhere else). A Washington spokesman, for example, would have been using the figures given to him by Roswell or Ft.Worth.

These reports are the result of over-excitement and rapid note taking in phone calls (probably no recordings done in '47). Consequently some of the figures are mixed up and refer to the wrong thing. A diameter is a diameter, and I cannot picture anyone using this term to describe the size of a box kite or a 'reconstructed' one made from a bundle of sticks.

The 'diameter' referred to the balloon when reconstructed.

I am not clear what the point of this debate is. What is the net result of what you are claiming - that it proves a cover-up was being orchestrated? My conclusion is simply that the reporters, and maybe some of the military who spoke to them, gave rushed responses (at differing times of the day) and got some of their data garbled. Hardly surprising.

Even if the 'box kite' was the thing described as 20-25 ft diameter, you are surely not saying this shows it came from an ET vehicle, are you? All it would show is that the descriptions given as to its size greatly differed from the size of the 'box-kite' shown in the Ft Worth photos. This would further discount the conspiracy idea, since in a genuine cover-up/concpiracy you would expect the sizes to match. Just like you would expect the debris field sizes to match. If Ramey did indeed do a quick substitution he made a the 'new' device far too small. Careless guy.

Unknown said...

Brice

Indeed.

And notice that MacBrazel called the debris "junk" according to Bessie and handled it as junk.

At the same time he was hoping for a reward for his finding??

I think Bessie is talking about a different "debris field".

Brice said...

@Zak McKracken : personnally, I'm not so sure about Brazel looking for a reward (don't really know where it comes from?). Due to the inconsistencies of Bessie's testimony which doesn't match with others, I would not disregard the possibility she may have mixed up things with a previous finding of a weather balloon (it is coherent with Mack Brazel saying he had found weather balloons before). Now, we can't really know, but since her testimony contradicts others in various points, I would not consider it trustworthy.

cda said :

"All it would show is that the descriptions given as to its size greatly differed from the size of the 'box-kite' shown in the Ft Worth photos. This would further discount the conspiracy idea, since in a genuine cover-up/concpiracy you would expect the sizes to match. Just like you would expect the debris field sizes to match. If Ramey did indeed do a quick substitution he made a the 'new' device far too small. Careless guy."

The problem is that you're imagining a perfect cover-up scenario in which every thing fits perfectly that could rarely exist even if extremely well planned. Even premeditated crimes do leave inconsistencies or unwanted clues allowing inspectors to follow up tracks. So in the case of a few hours to get everything done, you can't assess all the points but try to set the main points straight. Beside, people not used to tell stories and being confused with what to say and what really happened (that they should not speak) may make mistakes, mixed up some things or let their feelings express giving the backstage of the orchestration (like Wilcox saying he was working with the military or Brazel feeling very upset)

David Rudiak said...

Brice to CDA:
The problem is that you're imagining a perfect cover-up scenario in which every thing fits perfectly that could rarely exist even if extremely well planned. Even premeditated crimes do leave inconsistencies or unwanted clues allowing inspectors to follow up tracks. So in the case of a few hours to get everything done, you can't assess all the points but try to set the main points straight. Beside, people not used to tell stories and being confused with what to say and what really happened (that they should not speak) may make mistakes, mixed up some things or let their feelings express giving the backstage of the orchestration (like Wilcox saying he was working with the military or Brazel feeling very upset)

I agree 100% here. But CDA isn't into nuance. Everything HAS to be totally one way or another, and it HAS to agree with his view of the world.

Cover-ups often occur in a crisis atmosphere where a cover story has to be hastily concocted. (This is true whether it is government, business, or private.) Those repeating the cover story for public consumption have to be briefed on the central story. If they aren't fully briefed in exquisite detail, then elaborate when telling the central cover story, big holes (inconsistencies) often come up in the details of the story.

Thus a gang of thieves covering up their crime and trying to provide alibis for each other may make up the central cover story that they were all playing poker when it happened. However, when detectives ask the thieves individually about the details, such as who won and how much did they make or when did the game start and end, the thieves disagree with one another. Thus big holes open up in the alibi.

To give a real example, in 1963 a supersecret CIA A-12 prototype spy plane out of Area 51 in Nevada crashed near Wendover, Utah. The cover story fed the press was that it was the crash of an F-105 out of Nellis AFB in Las Vegas. This story was put out by the C/O at Nellis, who knew nothing of the A-12, but was instructed to follow the script. The pilot was also said to be stationed at Wright-Patterson and on loan. But when reporters called W-P, they could not verify that the pilot was one of theirs. Apparently nobody at the CIA contacted W-P about the cover story. The haste with which the cover story was put together led to imperfect coordination. Thus the big inconsistency in the story. Reporters smelled a rat and realized they were being lied to, but had no where to go with the story because they couldn't penetrate the wall of secrecy.

(The A-12 crash also had lots of parallels with Roswell, including cordoning off the crash site and a large, secret clean up to cleanse the area, intimidation of witnesses, monitoring of the press, secret shipments of wreckage back to Area 51, being publicly forgotten and witnesses not speaking for decades, etc. Yes, CDA, such things DO happen.)

I think the big holes in the Roswell cover story, i.e. principles speaking to the press telling highly contradictory or inconsistent stories when they got into the details, arose from the same thing. It was hastily put together and imperfectly coordinated. All told the same basic weather balloon/radar target cover story, but couldn't agree on the details.

Some degree of inconsistency is normal and expected if witnesses are speaking of the same events and truthfully speaking from memory. But this much inconsistency is a good indication of a cover-up, with witnesses forced to improvise when pressed for nitty-gritty details. The devil is in the details.

Brian B said...

Brice:

Recall that Marcel went to town and reported what he found and collected. I'm thinking he didn't bring every last piece to town but a few pieces to demonstrate what he did find.

Bessie and Vernon probably did go back out with him, and they scooped up most of the junk. Bill didn't.

The larger pieces of collected junk stashed (not hidden) under something so it doesn't get blown back around. In which case pieces may still have been on the ground but the bulk of the big pieces collected.

Brazel says he has found balloons before, but none of these sticks and silver foil. Wilcox says to Brazel it's probably something to do with RAAF. Call is made and Marcel (and maybe Cavitt though controversial) went to look at it with Marcel or Rickett later.

Brazel shows Marcel the junk stashed. They try to assemble it into a kite just as reported in the news. They can't figure out what it was used for.

Marcel collects a lot more and takes the bigger parts Brazel found in his car to town.

Marcel shows Blanchard the junk and says he doesn't know what it is but thinks it's may be one of those disk things reported all over the country. Blanchard says OK, let's get a press release out telling everyone we found one. Blanchard calls Ramey and he says fly Marcel up with a box of the junk he hauled in. They look at it and recignize its a Rawin target and busted neoprene balloon parts.

Marcel insists he sees odd markings that are foreign, perhaps out of this world. Ramey says no, but we'll send some of this junk to Wright anyway (Ramey probably knows it's from a special project and could care less about any markings), after all he isn't going to through it in a trash can just yet.

He never tells Marcel the project behind the junk. Marcel never brought in any of the flower tape (hence it doesn't appear in the Ramey photos), and if markings are on the sticks they're obfuscated by position or contrast in the negative.

Meantime Blanchard tells a small work detail of a few men to go back out, and perhaps someone to meet with Brazel again to clear up the mistake, and to have him do another media statement backing up the Ramey press release which hides a military secret project with the message of simple weather balloon and it's broken material.

No big clean-up, no parts burried in the ground to find decades later, no truck convoys, no dead bodies, and maybe even no second crash site either.

Ramey orders some balloon demos to clear up any misunderstandings that balloons are UFO's from outer soace, knowing also he is directing people (and the Soviets if they are reading the paper), away from a secret project.

Then it all starts decades later.

The alien myth begins spurred by Friedman looking for evidence supporting any story that lends a hand in driving the ET hypothesis, and Marcel still thinking what he found (and not given any answers) was weird, without explanation, had something to do with an alien spaceship.

The photos, the debris, media evidence, and the entire story leans this way. The only thing you got is decades later verbal testimony (inconsistent and pitted with lies and false statements), backing up the ETH.

David Rudiak said...

John Space wrote:
If so it seems to me that is fairly good evidence that it wasn't an alien craft. I recall a show where some people went back to a crash site of a classified aircraft which was either a SR-71 or the prior A-12. This crash was early when its existence was still classified. This site was "cleaned up" by the Air Force and yet people still found some pieces of the crashed aircraft decades later.

The Roswell clean up was performed by some enlisted men from the 509th who were given the task not a specialized team that would likely have handled the SR-71 crash site. So I doubt 508th would have done a more complete job. So why wasn't one piece of the UFO crash found by more skilled dig team?


These are certainly fair points to raise. However, there are differences in the two crashes.

The A-12 did not explode, like is thought happened at the Foster Ranch (based primarily on testimony of Bill Brazel and Marcel). It plowed intact into the ground and broke up, thus leaving many small pieces deeply embedded in the soil and hard to find. Some of these fragments have indeed have been found decades later.

Marcel thought the Foster Ranch object exploded in the air traveling at high speed, thus creating the large linear debris field scattered over a wide area. If such a craft was made up of the also described very strong but also very lightweight materials, the pieces would mostly float down and be deposited on the surface of the soil, not driven deeply into it. This stuff could be picked up by hand by clean-up crews, no skill required.

Exceptions might be stiffer pieces (such as described by Rickett) which would travel further from explosive forces and be more penetrating when they hit the ground, especially if the craft exploded at very low altitude driving some material directly into the soil. Or if the object had struck the ground creating a gouge described by some (called the "skip zone" because it is thought by some to have made glancing blow on the ground and then skipped upward again before crashing some miles away, creating the second site where a body/craft was discovered). Direct impact with the ground might very well leave some shredded debris embedded in the soil, more difficult to find and clean up.

I suspect the latter did happened and did require a more specialized and thorough cleanup. Instead of sifting through the soil by hand looking for fragments, a much faster way to clean it up would have been to bring in bulldozers and backhoes to remove dirt until they got down to bedrock. Then crate it up and take it back to be sifted through in some warehouse. (Such wholesale removal of debris is often done at disastrous aircraft crash sites to try to recover as many fragments as possible so that crash investigators can figure out a likely cause of the crash.)

One witness who mentioned such soil mixed in with debris was Sgt. Robert Smith, who said they crated it up at Roswell base for shipment out on multiple C-54 flights.

Such soil removal might also explain why Marcel did not describe a large gouge, as LATER debris field witnesses did (like Brazel Jr. and Whitmore Jr.) When Marcel was there, there was no big gouge, which was actually created by the later cleanup with heavy equipment plowing up the area to remove all debris in the soil.

Elsewhere, all the lightweight debris had drifted down and lay on the surface, hence hand recovery alone would suffice.

According to Tommy Tyree and Bill Brazel, some fragments WERE missed. Brazel Jr. said he found a few, but they were quickly confiscated by the Army at the ranch after he spoke about them in Corona. Tyree, the ranch hand hired after the incident, said they came across a piece of foil-like debris in a sinkhole later, but Brazel just left it there.

There are a lot more stories like this. Most of these stories are pretty thin, but do suggest that the military didn't get everything and there may still be some pieces out there.

cda said...

DR:

Yes, as you say, such things DO happen. There is, however, a big difference between top secret aircraft like the CIA A-12, and an extraterrestrial spacecraft.

The former is wholly under the control of the US authorities, even if they do not always liaise with each other. The latter is completely out of control of ANY earthly authority. The Roswell ET craft (if that be what it was) may always crash again at any time without warning, in any part of the world.

So any attempt by the USAF to keep it secret would be useless. Th AF MIGHT succeed once in keeping it under wraps (and it is a very big 'might'), but further crashes were totally out of their control.

Hence your comparison with the A-12 is very shaky indeed. So shaky as to be almost meaningless.

And you have avoided mentioning my perfectly reasonable deduction that 'diameter' referred to a circular object, e.g. a balloon, and not a radar target.

Brian B said...

DR:

Practical question - if the saucer exploded at high speed littering the desert with small parts over this debris field, then how do you account for four alien beings found intact, and one possibly alive?

Where is the propulsion mechanism and all the other typical debris found when an aircraft of any type explodes?

Are these little grey guys made of rubber type material so elastic that they bounce rather than become obliterated in a massively destructive explosion so loud you can hear it in the height of a major thunderstorm?

Or are you suggesting they survived by ejecting in their egg shaped pod that Haut claims he saw?

Brian B said...

CDA:

Must you persist? I mean really.

That 20-25 foot deal DR is referring to couldn't possibly be what you think it is - a silly mundane balloon? Really?

I mean Brazel described a saucer about the size of Wilcox's safe (minature aliens I presume), and Cavitt said the junk was about 22 square feet. So let's just ignore Marcel's testimony it was one square mile of alien junk, OK?

Besides the FBI said they found a 25 foot hexagonal disk. That should be good enough for everyone.

And you know DR says it really all exoded violently over the Foster Ranch. Who cares about size when you have flesh and blood aliens to consider.

Come on!

It's just so obvious that ET arrived, why bother with the contradictions? Just believe it OK?

There can't be any other explanation for that debris field. Just accept that and we can move on.

KRandle said...

Brian -

If you are going to start correcting typographical errors (I was referring to misspelling the name of a witness when the correct spelling had been around for two decades) then you had better make sure that your own posts are without grammar or spelling errors... and you better be sure that your facts are correct as well. So what does exoded mean?

But the real problem, rather than worrying about typos and grammar are sarcastic statements and important misquotes such as "Besides the FBI said they found a 25 foot hexagonal disk."

What the FBI telex actually said was "The disc is hexagonal in shape and was suspended from a balloon by cable, which balloon was approximately twenty feet in diameter. Major Curtan [sic, actually Kirton] further advised that the object found resembles a high altitude weather balloon with a radar reflector, but telephonic [really? telephonic?] conversation between their office and Wright Field had not [strike out] borne out this belief."

So, the FBI didn't say it was a balloon but said that Major Kirton had said it was a balloon, but their investigation, had not borne this out.

Finally, hold your sarcasm in check. Make your points without that or I will delete them... and I will do the same with any others that are overly sarcastic.

Rusty L. said...

I can't seem to get a response on my points, but maybe it is because they don't follow the tit-for-tat minutia. It is really too bad that there is not a mature individual with a secondary-level intellect to express the skeptical point of view. It is similarly disappointing that other than Kevin, those leaning towards an ETH explanation for Roswell seem to think that quantity trumps quality. Despite what skeptics may "believe", there are a number or us who are not yet convinced one way or another because THERE IS INSUFFICIENT COMPELLING EVIDENCE one way or another. This process of attempting to polarize everyone into believers and skeptobunkers (or whatever labels you use) is really not very helpful to an intelligent discussion. This continued childishness will drive those who truly value a discussion away if it is not corrected quickly. I am not sure why a bit of ambiguity is so threatening, but for me, I am pretty comfortable saying "I don't know". Looking at all of minutia, points, counterpoints, etc. over the past few weeks of sniping, I have to say that regardless of the outcome, none of it would have changed my opinion about Roswell. If you know ANYTHING about the military, command, politics, public relations, etc. -- regardless of whether you have served in the military -- something out of the ordinary happened. Not a damned balloon and radar target. If you are on the Mogul side, please send me your contact info because when I launch my dictatorship I want you on my team. If you are a wishful thinker on the ETH side, admit where the facts break with assumptions or speculation and be happy. I will be very interested if you are right, but I don't think so, yet... As I post, I find it interesting that there is an admonition that "This blog does not allow anonymous comments". Funny how a good percentage of the comments are from those who don't have the integrity to post under their own name.

Brian B said...

Rusty,

On this blog, and really anywhere Roswell is discussed, there are really only belivers and complete skeptic's and a few in the middle.

Believers want acceptance, understanding, and confirmation that their belief in ET is entirely justified and proof positive as demonstrated in the Roswell event.

Skeptic's don't buy this - some believe in Mogul or simply another balloon device of some kind. This based on the lack of definitive evidence proving Roswell was an ET event. Obviously you know this.

Polarized camps seem never to allow for reasonable discussion, open mindedness, or kindness in accepting other viewpoints.

The only way to bridge the gap would be to allow for discussion on hypothetical alternatives. Skeptic's I think would go for this, but believers will have none of it and never will.

Then there are those in the middle just watching and hoping that something will eventually surface to clarify or definitively prove which hypothesis is correct.

In the case of Roswell, it's my personal belief this will never happen. The trail is really dead. Nothing more to find.

In such a situation it is clear to me that others will simply produce false evidence to support their claim, sway those in the middle, and justify their long held position.

Such was the case in the slides fiasco which really proves nothing more can be found and that some will go to great lengths to fabricate evidence to further their cause.

I don't see skeptic's doing this, but I do see ETers doing a lot of it.

Daniel Transit said...

David Rudiak said:

'...Dallas Morning News, July 9:
http://www.roswellproof.com/DallasMorningNews_July9.html

”Maj. E. M. Kirton, intelligence officer at Fort Worth Army Air Field, blew the disk theory sky high at 5:30 p.m. when he told The Dallas News "there is nothing to it." "It is a Rawin high altitude sounding device," Major Kirton said. He described such an instrument, when undamaged, as of a design resembling a six-pointed star. The army and the Weather Bureau use the device attached to a balloon, for gathering high altitude data. It is made partly of tinfoil-like material, the officer said. The identification at Fort Worth is final, Major Kirton said, and it will not be necessary to forward the object to Wright Field, as originally planned. ..”.....'


This man is the same man, I guess, as the Colonel Edwin M. Kirton who was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1960 (aged 50)?

from Schenectedy Gazette, August 11th 1960:

Reds Oust U.S. Aide As 'Spy Organizer'; Another Is Accused

MOSCOW, Aug.8. (AP) - The Russians accused U.S. air attache Colonel Edwin M. Kirton today of organizing a spy apparatus and conducting himself in an manner offensive to Soviet citizens. They ordered him out of the Soviet Union.....(etc. etc.)

Complete article can be found via search here:

http://www.fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html

Nitram said...

BB earlier wrote:

"Nitram, again if this really is your name, I can't help but wonder why your opinions can be so confidently expressed when you choose not to reveal your identity. Someone on this blog once stated anonymity was justified because people lose their jobs over this stuff. Well if you're so confident why are you hiding? Or what are you hiding?"

Rusty wrote:

"As I post, I find it interesting that there is an admonition that "This blog does not allow anonymous comments". Funny how a good percentage of the comments are from those who don't have the integrity to post under their own name."

Well we are getting a bit of topic, so I hope Kevin will allow me a right of reply...

OK I can't speak for the others who choose to makes comments without using their real name... but my reasons are as follows:

1. Most people will not not be familiar with my name - I am not a famous Ufologist for example and Nitram will mean as much to most as my real first name (Martin). My full name is rather unimportant...

2. Certain well known UFOlogists have come unstuck when trying to follow up leads in relation to Roswell. By using their name, when requesting assistance or information for example their attempts to obtain the very help needed to make progress with this INVESTIGATION has faltered. I have followed up a couple of "areas of concern" myself in relation to the Roswell Incident and have tried to keep an open mind. There is an important area of the INVESTIGATION that I have discussed with a number of people who I have requested "independent help". I have made great effort to ensure they are not aware that it relates to Roswell, as this has put a number of people off in the past.
This has been mentioned to me by a number of prominent and well know researchers - but I am not going to name names as this could compromise the on-going work that is being done.

OK - I will name someone - Frank Kimbler who has been on the debris field (hooray we are now on topic) many times looking for any "remaining evidence" has been refused to have some of his "material" examined by one corporation after he revealed where he obtained his "material".

Both Kevin Randle & David Rudiak, are aware of my identity, along with one or two others, who have, (or are assisting) with constructive work on the INVESTIGATION.

So again, like I said, my name really isn't important and I prefer to be known as Nitram (for now).

cda said...

Kevin:

"So, the FBI didn't say it was a balloon but said that Major Kirton had said it was a balloon, but their investigation, had not borne this out."

What this means is that Major Kirton, as the spokesman who made the phone call, told the FBI it was a balloon plus radar reflector. He also said that when he, or someone else had informed Wright Field of this they expressed doubts and wanted it sent to them (Wright Field) so they could examine the stuff for themselves. It certainly does NOT mean that Wright Field, who still had not seen the object) were trying to contradict Ft Worth (who had seen it). Neither was any investigation done, at either AF base. Irving Newton, and maybe one other, decided almost at once what the object was and that was it. There was no need for an 'investigation'.

But nobody can say for sure if the stuff was ever forwarded to Wright Field, as there is no documentation to say anyone there had examined the debris.

Brian:

Yes, I agree 100% that nothing will ever be proved about Roswell, even after this new examination of the Ramey memo. Ten and twenty years from now people will still be arguing over its contents, and just about everything else involved with the case.

Rusty:

You do not need to know either about US military procedures, nor do you need to have served in the US military to be able to make reasonable pronouncements about Roswell. One perfectly reasonable assumption is that if the damn stuff was from an ET craft this would be known to science and the world by now (after 7 decades!). The ETHers always have the fallback that it is still being hushed up by a few top brass of ONE country, a preposterous notion. These ETHers have NO OTHER way out of their dilemma.

Ceratinly the case for a balloon plus radar target is far, far better than is the case for ET, wouldn't you say? At least the former is known to science. The latter is not.
By all means be a fence-sitter if you wish, but don't pretend that the pro-ET case is stronger than the anti-ET one.

Paul Young said...

Brian Bell..."

..Practical question - if the saucer exploded at high speed littering the desert with small parts over this debris field, then how do you account for four alien beings found intact, and one possibly alive?"

The simple answer would probably be that the personnel compartment was made of more sturdy material than that which fell to the ground following the explosion directly above the Foster Ranch.

Either way, it seems the authors of "Case Closed" deemed the witnesses (to the second crash site/alien cadavers/alien walking wounded)...to be problematic enough to the cover-up, that they really had to push the boat out when it came to giving BS excuses.
If project Mogul was a laughable excuse for the debris that sprinkled onto the Foster ranch...then the "anthropomorphic test dummies" excuse, for site 2, will give you laughter lines that a truck load of botox couldn't fix. (That's a hell of a realistic dummy that can walk around in a daze and feeling depressed!)

Paul Young said...

cda. "One perfectly reasonable assumption is that if the damn stuff was from an ET craft this would be known to science and the world by now..."


Except for the fact that, as I demonstrated earlier, governments can keep files locked up for as long as they want,and there doesn't seem to be much we can do about it.


cda... "The ETHers always have the fallback that it is still being hushed up by a few top brass of ONE country, a preposterous notion."

Who says that ONE country (I'm presuming you're referring to the USA)...and ONE country alone, is involved in the cover-up? I didn't realise that's a view held by "ETHers"!

Brian B said...

@ Paul -

Well you seem to believe the alien craft as having a "personnel compartment" as a reasonable explanation. Yet Paul there is no proof aliens construct spacecraft with ejection pods or reinforced crew compartments.

In fact if you're wanting go on the odd testimony of people like Lazar and others who claim to have worked in or on such craft, I don't recall them ever stating such a thing exists.

So this places your conclusion nicely in the realm of pure conjecture, something ETers complain Skeptic's do.

Let's also add that we have no first hand witness statements of any kind stating such a life boat was found. Anyone who has claimed such a thing has been proven a liar and those who state it's true are all repeating something they have heard but were not present to see.

Now this may be a bit off topic but it is related to the debris field only in the sense of what was found. That being what the USAF was attempting to say in regards to crash dummies is that they were used in NM in the 1950's, and there is substantial medical evidence to support that the human mind can combine memories in such a way that recall compresses events into one or two memory recollections which blur reality and distort actual events.

ET'ers will frequently distort this concept themselves by referring to the crash dummies as being wooden dolls found in the Roswell wreckage in July 1947 and hence ridiculous given they weren't used till the fifties.

John's Space said...

While there are differences between the crash of the A-12 and the Roswell event (assuming ET for argument). There are also differences between the recovery teams. The A-12 incident occurred during a classified program in which extensive security measure were in effect to protect it. It seem that the possibility of a crash outside of a military reservation has been considered and plans for how to handle it were in place. In the Roswell case it was a complete surprise and it seems that it was handled by the people were on hand. Plans has to be improvised on the fly. Also, the Roswell investigation was handled by an archeological team when it was just a documentary crew than still found piece of the A-12. It still seems to be one point against the ET hypothesis on Roswell that on parts of an alien craft were found.

I also this it is unclear exactly what sort of an explosion happened at Roswell. Is an airplane is shot down in combat for example there is often an explosion but there still a lot of intact debits too.

Paul Young said...

Brian:
I can't figure out why it's so difficult for you to think that IF this was a flying saucer,it wouldn't be made up of different compartments. Like a personnel housing and an engine housing. Would you expect them to sit in the engine? Wouldn't a housing for the engine and a housing for personnel be within another housing, like a hull?
And what's so difficult to imagine that anyone flying from one planet to another WOULDN'T think to have a contingency plan to {hopefully} survive an accident?

Brian B said...

Before anyone claims such information is not documented, just look at these abstracts from the 1990's. Clearly Marcel and any other witnesses may have simply suffered from age related deficiencies fueled by suggestion when describing such things as one square mile of debris.

Trends in Cognitive Sciences
September 1997, Vol.1(6):229–236

False memories and aging

Daniel L. Schacter Wilma KoutstaalKenneth A. Norman

Although memory processes and systems usually operate reliably, they are sometimes prone to distortions and illusions. Here we review evidence indicating that cognitive aging is often associated with increased susceptibility to various kinds of false recollections. Accumulating data indicate that older adults frequently have special difficulties recollecting the source of information, which in turn renders them vulnerable to confusing perceived and imagined experiences, and to related kinds of memory distortions. Evidence from studies of false recall and recognition indicate that older adults are sometimes more likely than younger adults to remember events that never happened, reflecting the influence of indistinct encoding of events and the use of lenient criteria during retrieval. Neuroimaging studies suggest that age-related changes in medial temporal and frontal regions may play a role in the altered functioning of specific encoding and retrieval processes that give rise to memory distortions. Future studies of aging and false memories are likely to provide a promising avenue for illuminating basic mechanisms of memory distortion.

----

Trends in Cognitive Sciences
1 April 1998, Vol.2(4):137–145

False memories and confabulation

Marcia K Johnson, Carol L Raye

Memory distortions range from the benign (thinking you mailed a check that you only thought about mailing), to the serious (confusing what you heard after a crime with what you actually saw), to the fantastic (claiming you piloted a spaceship). We review theoretical ideas and empirical evidence about the source monitoring processes underlying both true and false memories. Neuropsychological studies show that certain forms of brain damage (such as combined frontal and medial-temporal lesions) might result in profound source confusions, called confabulations. Neuroimaging techniques provide new evidence regarding more specific links between underlying brain mechanisms and the normal cognitive processes involved in evaluating memories. One hypothesis is that the right prefrontal cortex (PFC) subserves heuristic judgments based on easily assessed qualities (such as familiarity or perceptual detail) and the left PFC (or the right and left PFC together) subserves more systematic judgments requiring more careful analysis of memorial qualities or retrieval and evaluation of additional supporting or disconfirming information. Such heuristic and systematic processes can be disrupted not only by brain damage but also, for example, by hypnosis, social demands and motivational factors, suggesting caution in the methods used by `memory exploring' professions (therapists, police officers, lawyers, etc.) in order to avoid inducing false memories.



Brian B said...

@ Paul

My point is your statement is conjectured without even the remotest connection to claimed UFO testimony. You're suggesting aliens are operating on the same engineering principles that humans do. We don't know that.

Additionally, the debris field regardless of size did not contain components of any propulsion system. So we don't know what a crew compartment might look like in such a ship, so maybe they do sit in the engine.

If anything, testimonial evidence from unrelated claims of access to such craft indicates the propulsion system is rather simple. Complex to us but simple in design. Basically a dipole running down the center that produces gravitational distortions controlled at the base, pulling from zero point energy. If you believe in such a thing.

And Paul, not to be a pest, but the Apollo Lunar Lander had paper thin walls and it didn't have a secondary life boat. It landed on another planetary body too.

Brice said...

Brian said : (1/2)

"Recall that Marcel went to town and reported what he found and collected. I'm thinking he didn't bring every last piece to town but a few pieces to demonstrate what he did find."

Yes, but for one thing if it was a single weather balloon with a rawin target there would have been no need to bother the sheriff with it, call the army, and have two officers investigating.

"Bessie and Vernon probably did go back out with him, and they scooped up most of the junk. Bill didn't."

Actually, this is speculation as it relies only on Bessie testimony which is in contradiction with others and what we know happened (ie facts, one being her father did came back to Roswell). Personnally, I've already said I don't consider Bessie's testimony trustworthy for these reasons.

"Brazel says he has found balloons before, but none of these sticks and silver foil. Wilcox says to Brazel it's probably something to do with RAAF. Call is made and Marcel (and maybe Cavitt though controversial) went to look at it with Marcel or Rickett later."

Again, even if Brazel didn't know what was a rawin target, it was very mundane material and it would come to mind to everyone that it was just part of the equipment attached to the balloon (moreover if the rawin target was not badly broken as what is supposed to be the case in the Ramey photos). He could have easily said it was a weather balloon and described the material over the phone to get the RAAF informed what he had found, and there would be no need to have two officers investigating the debris field.

"Brazel shows Marcel the junk stashed. They try to assemble it into a kite just as reported in the news. They can't figure out what it was used for.

Marcel collects a lot more and takes the bigger parts Brazel found in his car to town."

To this point I believe there was more than enough with three people to gather everything in one vehicule if it was a weather balloon (so again an inconsistency, no need for Marcel to come back to collect some more). Note also that Bessie testimony is inconsistent with Marcel and Cavitt going investigating with her father...

cda said...

Paul:

"Who says that ONE country (I'm presuming you're referring to the USA)...and ONE country alone, is involved in the cover-up?"

Are you saying that two, three or more nations are involved in this 7-decade cover-up? This idea is even crazier than the idea that one country could do it. Several countries' officials (i.e. those few at the top) have succeeded, despite all the changes in governments since then, in keeping the greatest scientific discovery of all time from the rest of the world. Truly amazing! And how long do you suppose this deception can continue? And I suppose Rendlesham is another such 'visit' being covered up?

But yes, I do concede that the AF 'anthropomorphic dummies' explanation is a bit 'strained', shall we say?

Rusty L. said...

@Brian

While the scenario approach might be interesting, I don't think it is that helpful in terms of building a body of knowledge. What I see Kevin trying to do here is to identify some component of a BoK that might be so esoteric that some consensus can be reached and folks can move on to more complex issues. Obviously, that is not going so well. As one of the NPEs is repeating the title of "fence-sitter" for anyone who won't move to a pole, I will say that real "researchers" avoid the poles. Hypotheses are supported or not, there is a current state of knowledge, etc. Knowledge has a context. The bias that Lance most recently criticized becomes an issue when you hug a pole, regardless of which pole. So, I guess I accept the label "fence-sitter".

Brice said...

"Marcel shows Blanchard the junk and says he doesn't know what it is but thinks it's may be one of those disk things reported all over the country. Blanchard says OK, let's get a press release out telling everyone we found one. Blanchard calls Ramey and he says fly Marcel up with a box of the junk he hauled in. They look at it and recignize its a Rawin target and busted neoprene balloon parts.

Marcel insists he sees odd markings that are foreign, perhaps out of this world. Ramey says no, but we'll send some of this junk to Wright anyway (Ramey probably knows it's from a special project and could care less about any markings), after all he isn't going to through it in a trash can just yet."

Well, it's a pity these people couldn't play in a movie because it gets truly hilarious here! These guys were major, colonel and general of the 509 th bomb wing/Fort Worth AFB, nonetheless they can't figure out it's a weather balloon with a rawin target (altough Bessie and Mack Brazel would have figured out), get to the idea of a flying disc, issue a press release and fly the material to Fort Worth then to Wright Field, but after the mess is done they got the idea to ask the weather officer because he might have a clue, and there you have it, it's a weather balloon with a rawin target! Well, I suppose it's a chance they didn't get the nuclear bomb to explode right off the base...but who says there are “drooling idiots” here?

"He never tells Marcel the project behind the junk. Marcel never brought in any of the flower tape (hence it doesn't appear in the Ramey photos), and if markings are on the sticks they're obfuscated by position or contrast in the negative."

Ok so now it's not only a single weather balloon as Ramey said it was, but a mogul balloon (maybe the flight #4 which was cancelled?)

"Meantime Blanchard tells a small work detail of a few men to go back out, and perhaps someone to meet with Brazel again to clear up the mistake, and to have him do another media statement backing up the Ramey press release which hides a military secret project with the message of simple weather balloon and it's broken material."

Well, don't you find a bit peculiar that Brazel went to two medias to announce his story? Wasn't it enough for the army to retrieve their first announcement? But maybe they thought it was better if Brazel would tell himself their story to put an end on this...

"Ramey orders some balloon demos to clear up any misunderstandings that balloons are UFO's from outer soace, knowing also he is directing people (and the Soviets if they are reading the paper), away from a secret project."

Actually I believe it was more of the contrary, the purpose being to explain that balloon were the cause of the flying saucers reports.

"The photos, the debris, media evidence, and the entire story leans this way. The only thing you got is decades later verbal testimony (inconsistent and pitted with lies and false statements), backing up the ETH."

It leans on this way only if you discount others testimonies (IMO the dubiest actually being the ones supporting the weather balloon debris, ie Cavitt's and Bessie's), don't look at the coherence of the events and the army's behaviour (investigations, press release, material flewn). Taking's everything in consideration, it is obvious to me a weather/mogul balloon is not a plausible explanation.

Paul Young said...

Brian: You keep insinuating that whatever was found at the 2nd site was a compartment DEDICATED as a "lifeboat" or "escape pod". A separate compartment to what I would describe as a personnel housing. My interpretation has always been that it was simply the personnel housing that just happened to be much more sturdy than the material that landed at the Foster Ranch.


Now God only knows why you brought this up...But as for the Apollo LM's...they were "once only" vehicles. One landing, one take off. And considering there was no hope of rescue if it went wrong, after separation from the command module...then a secondary "lifeboat" would have been pointless.

Paul Young said...

cda..."Are you saying that two, three or more nations are involved in this 7-decade cover-up?"

It seems that in other cases, like Shag harbour, the Canadians were quick to seek assistance from the USA.
And because of the logistical situation of a US airbase on UK soil in the Rendlesham case, it wouldn't make sense if our MOD (behind the scenes) wouldn't want to know what the hell was going on at a base rammed full of nukes on our tiny island. Intel from both countries, like GCHQ and NSA, are so close with each other as to be indivisible.
And let's not forget that British scientists were involved from start to finish with the Manhattan Project, which indicates that, USA will not hesitate to seek assistance with its most sensitive problems, if needs must.

Brian B said...

@ Paul -

So what you are suggesting, to clarify, is the rest of the craft would have disintegrated into small parts - bits and pieces as witnesses claim - but the basic reinforced housing around the cockpit was more sturdy?

I guess you are also saying there was no second crash site?

The reason I'm asking is because others believe in a second crash site, some believe in escape pods, etc.

I don't think a reinforced fuselage around pilots makes any difference during a mid air explosion. This is especially true if the claim is their bodies were found intact, and one was alive and walking around talking (through telepathy) to people.

Can you give an example of any military aircraft that has completely exploded in mid air leaving the crew compartment largely intact and the bodies also intact and one basically with only minor injuries after hitting the ground?

This is the problem with that sort of reasoning.

And the point about the lunar lander is a good one, but how do you know these aliens didn't see this craft as a single use vehicle as well?

Maybe they were beamed back up to the mother ship and the craft was designed to explode...but Scotty couldn't get all of them locked in so a few perished?

Paul Young said...

Brian:
Don't get me wrong, this is purely my own interpretation taken from my own minds eye after reading the various books on the subject.
Right...So this flying saucer is travelling at high speed at x-thousand feet. Something goes drastically wrong above, or in the vicinity, of the Foster ranch.

Struck by lightening? Hit a weather balloon? A duck smashed its windscreen? Buggered if I know,... but maybe Murphy's Law applies to aliens too!

Either way,it exploded, an explosion as "supposedly" heard by Brazel. The lighter stuff is less effected by inertia so falls to the ground at more or less the point of the explosion...but the heavier, more substantial part of the craft, through inertia continues it's trajectory until hitting the ground miles further up the range.

Why don't I think it was an "escape pod"? Well...for starters, it didn't work if it was one, because they didn't escape.

Catch my drift?

KRandle said...

CDA -

My point was that when you had the whole quote it was not the FBI offering the balloon answer as had been claimed. That specific claim was false.

John's Space -

You question got left in among all the other questions and I wanted to answer it. The CUFOS dig was akin to an archaeological site survey in which a number of holes were dug in a search for the main structure of the site. We also excavated around the roots of plants that looked as if they had been there for decades hoping that something might have become trapped in the roots, and we dug up some rodent burrows because they might have dragged some of the shiny material down with them. This was a preliminary survey. A more complex dig was done by the Sci Fi Channel (which is now Syfy for some reason) and they removed a large number of samples for later analysis. That analysis was not completed and while the samples may still exist, I don't believe they have been examined in more than a decade. And finally, given the winds in the area, some of our local contacts suggested that we should now be looking in West Texas rather than central New Mexico.

The point was that the CUFOS dig was preliminary and that nothing strange was found... though I saw more rattlesnakes and scorpions than I cared to see.

KRandle said...

All -

This discussion has slipped further into the nasty and sarcastic than I care for it to be. If, in my opinion, a comment is too nasty, snarky or sarcastic, I will delete it with no more warning will be given and there will be no appeal. Too many have complained about the tone of comments and while I allow all opinions they must remain civil.

Brian B said...

Paul -

By "down range" how far down range do you mean?

I know a few people have attempted to plot crash trajectories, but as MUFON cites there are 11 supposed crash locations.

Kevin mentioned the winds in central NM, does this mean fragments have blown to West Texas over the last 60 years, or that the supposed craft ditched somewhere else...somewhere as far away as West a Texas, say Morton, about 130 miles or so?

KRandle said...

Brian -

Winds blew the debris to West Texas over the last 68 years.

David Rudiak said...

Daniel Transit wrote:

This man is the same man, I guess, as the Colonel Edwin M. Kirton who was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1960 (aged 50)?

from Schenectedy Gazette, August 11th 1960:

Reds Oust U.S. Aide As 'Spy Organizer'; Another Is Accused

MOSCOW, Aug.8. (AP) - The Russians accused U.S. air attache Colonel Edwin M. Kirton today of organizing a spy apparatus and conducting himself in an manner offensive to Soviet citizens. They ordered him out of the Soviet Union.....(etc. etc.)

http://www.fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html


Nice find Daniel and very interesting. Seems very likely this was the Edwin Kirton stated in 1947 as being Ramey's intel officer, or variously as the "duty officer".

If he is the same guy, then he was probably more of a spook "intelligence officer", i.e. he was really counterintelligence, or a member of the Army CIC (Counter-Intelligence Corp). One of the jobs of counterintelligence is to plug leaks in order to keep secrets, which often involves misdirection, misinformation, and just plain outright lying, which may be put in play by issuance of cover stories.

It always struck me as suspicious that the "duty officer", or Ramey's official representative at that moment, was an intel officer, instead of a regular staff officer. Now it seems likely he was a counter-intel officer. Whatever, he was the guy talking to both the FBI and Reuters, telling both it was a radar target and balloon (also putting out that the balloon was 20 feet across, which even it couldn't have been given Ramey's much smaller weather balloon on display), and also putting out a ridiculous "hexagonal" description in Ramey's name for the radar target that could only apply to an intact radar target, not a torn up and flattened one. This was another element in the official story and may have been scripted by the CIC (as I've long suspected).

Oddly Ramey himself talking to the Pentagon and being quoted by them would only describe it as like a "box kite" (and 25 feet in diameter if reconstructed), so partly contradicting the description of his duty officer.

I don't think anybody has ever looked up Kirton's background before or tried to look up relatives who might know something, thus another possible line of research. Thanks

Jeanne Ruppert said...

Kirton also made the claim, if I've read earlier posts correctly, that nothing was going to be sent on to Wright-Patterson, a major diversion from what was going on according to numerous participants and observers of the transport of Roswell effects.

Jeanne Ruppert said...

Forgot to add compliments to Daniel Transit on his research.

Brian B said...

Kevin -

Yes, yes...68 years to be perfectly exact.

However if the debris was memory foil and very light, why wasn't it discovered earlier traveling across eastern NM?

And I thought it was superbly cleaned up without any trace. If so why is it now thought to be caught in the sandy scrub of West Texas?

cda said...

And what if the two Edwin Kirtons were one and the same? Is this supposed to bolster the idea of a huge ET cover-up at Fort Worth? Kevin has requested that this debate, or discussion, be kept on polite terms, but really I wonder just how dotty it can get.

Certainly it is interesting if these two are the same person, just as it is 'interesting' that Roger Ramey, or his brother (?), once had an AF base named after him. See the UFO connection?

I strongly suggest that Kirton's activities in Moscow in 1960 had nothing to do with his activities on July 8, 1947 in Fort Worth, Texas. Nothing whatever.

cda said...

One other trivial point: The radar target strictly should be described as octohedral (if there is such a word), since when rigged up it would be an octohedron (i.e. with 8 faces). When broken up, flattened and rendered 2-dimensional it is perfectly OK to say it approximately resembled a 'hexagon'.

Goddamn it, you don't expect these intelligence guys to know much about 3-dimensional geometry and things like polyhedra, do you? They are not in intelligence for that reason.

KRandle said...

Brian -

Are you deliberately obtuse or purposefully annoying...? It was a joke based on the winds that frequently blow across the landscape in the general direction of West Texas. This part of the discussion is now also closed.

David Rudiak said...

CDA wrote:
I strongly suggest that Kirton's activities in Moscow in 1960 had nothing to do with his activities on July 8, 1947 in Fort Worth, Texas. Nothing whatever.

If he was a U.S. spy in 1960, then this suggests that he was more than just a simple intel officer or "duty officer" (as he was identified in 1947). More likely he was military counter-intelligence, the equivalent of a spy.

Unlike actual intelligent officers whose primary job is to gather intelligence, counterintelligence agents are also heavily trained in deception strategies to confuse and mislead opponents. (In this case, the "opponent" would have been primarily the press and public, but concern would also have been for Russia to not learn what actually happened.)

Speaking on behalf of Ramey (Kirton as "duty officer"), Kirton's job was therefore to confuse and mislead the press and FBI as to what had actually happened. I don't think it mere accident that counterintel (if that is what Kirton was) was handling the phone calls instead of a regular public information officer, the much more logical person to be speaking with the press, especially if nothing much had happened.

Paul Young said...

Brian..."By "down range" how far down range do you mean?"

How long's a piece of string?
You'd need lots more information to even begin to make a guess! Like what was the altitude at moment of explosion?...the speed?...was it flying upward or downward and at what angle?...what weight?...how aerodynamic was its exact shape?



Brian..."Kevin mentioned the winds in central NM, does this mean fragments have blown to West Texas over the last 60 years, or that the supposed craft ditched somewhere else...somewhere as far away as West a Texas, say Morton, about 130 miles or so?"

I've just read that post, and, urmmm, I presumed it was a tongue in cheek remark from Kevin's "local contacts" to him, suggesting that any lightweight material would have been blown well out of the area during the intervening years!

Paul Young said...

...I see Kevin has confirmed what I thought. With this fast moving blog, I really need to get up to speed with my reading and typing skills!

David Rudiak said...

More CDA dottiage:
One other trivial point: The radar target strictly should be described as octohedral (if there is such a word), since when rigged up it would be an octohedron (i.e. with 8 faces). When broken up, flattened and rendered 2-dimensional it is perfectly OK to say it approximately resembled a 'hexagon'.

CDA again mouthing off on matters he clearly doesn't understand. To speak INTELLIGENTLY (not counter intelligently like CDA) on what the radar targets would ACTUALLY look like, you have to know how they were put together, which CDA clearly has no clue about. I spent a great deal of time studying the basic ML307 rawin target schematic and built actual models to see how the things were put together and worked. Unlike CDA, I actually know what I'm talking about. You can get a quick primer on rawin construction here, which will clarify the discussion below:

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

These particular rawin targets have 4 corner reflectors with a total of 9 triangular surfaces (not 8). They are made up of three crossed sticks at right angles for their cubic core (think of a child's playing jack or sticks crossing through the center of a cube to the 6 faces), thus six tips or endpoints. Hence Ramey's weather officer Newton instead referred to them as resembling 6-pointed stars (not "octagons" for heaven's sake).

If you look at these rawins from directly above or below when INTACT and ASSEMBLED, they have a PROFILE that is "hexagonal". This is just like a cube has a hexagonal profile if you look at the close corner from a very restricted viewpoint. This graphic illustrates what I'm talking about:

http://www.roswellproof.com/rawin_shape.gif

And unlike another CDA utter nonsense statement, when they are INTACT and folded down flat for packing and shipment, they are no longer "hexagonal" (or any other shape description you want to give them when unfolded) but TRIANGULAR (triangular corner faces stacked on top of one another).

Here is an animation showing how they fold down into triangular panels and how they are unfolded for final assembly and flight:

http://www.roswellproof.com/files/ml_unfold.gif

And when they are NOT intact, but instead broken and torn up and flattened on the ground (Ramey's rawin), they most absolutely do NOT look remotely "hexagonal", unless you think like our silly CDA that Ramey's torn up, flattened rawin is "hexagonal":

http://www.roswellproof.com/files/Rameys_radar_target.jpg

Goddamn it, you don't expect these intelligence guys to know much about 3-dimensional geometry and things like polyhedra, do you? They are not in intelligence for that reason.

Goddamn it, you don't expect these skeptobunker guys to know much about 3-D geometry, polyhedra, rawins or anything else, do you? They're practioners of DebunkerScience, for crying out loud, with no relation to intelligence. It's research by proclamation. Thus mostly incredibly dumb and inaccurate statements, such as CDA has just treated us to.

cda said...

Kevin:

I thought you were not allowing insults any longer.

DR:

The radar reflectors I have seen photos and drawings of have 8 triangular faces not 9. And if perchance some have 9, how does this in any way destroy what I wrote?

So you think the word "hexagonal" is so out of place and wrong that using this word shows Ramey and/or Kirton was either telling a lie or plain stupid? If it is broken up, fragmented and lying flat there is no telling what shape it would look - perhaps 'hexagonal' or 6-pointed star was the shape that first occurred to whoever saw it in its fragmented state.

If you are trying to use this to further your ET/cover-up claim you are clutching at straws, the same straws that perhaps made up the object recovered from the ranch.

And if Kirton really was in intel (or counter-intel) he ought not to be dumb enough to mistake a triangle for a hexagon.

I said "octohedron" (not octagon) which, as you rightly say, DOES have six points, and thus resembles a 6-pointed star.

End of geometry lesson, I hope.

John's Space said...

Kevin,

Thanks for your comments about the dig. I just think that the lack of any physical evidence is noteworthy. Usually clean ups aren’t perfect. But, it is just one data point. While most of the debits at least in terms pieces would be the foil like material. There would also be the I-beam materials with the designs. If this was a spacecraft rather than some balloon that shouldn’t have blown away. Perhaps the military go all of it. What about the other equipment that would be in a spacecraft? In a lot of way this does seem like a balloon.

Do we have any information about the scope of the cleanup effort or the type of equipment used? Some of the discussion seems to suggest heavy equipment and truck loads of dirt being removed if that was the source of the “gouge” that was mentioned.

Brian B said...

John -

I agree those supporting a massive and very detailed clean-up of a crashed (or completely exploded) alien spaceship often imply if not blatantly claim that numerous trucks, heavy equipment, and work details composed of many men labored for days on their hands a knees from the center out until any last micro bit of alien junk was cleaned up.

Despite now rejecting the testimonies of people like Corso and Kaufmann who claimed first hand knowledge or actual involvement in the clean-up, these people's testimony lives on as 'evidence' in the minds of many.

Both Corso and Kaufmann stated heavy trucks were used and many troops deployed both at the site and in the hanger at RAAF, as well as one of the bomb pits, where the wreck, debris and bodies were collected and prepped for shipment.

Despite all of this supposed activity, dozens upon dozens of soldiers have never come forth claiming it really happened. They had the opportunity to do so when the story broke in the 1980-90's.

Why didn't they? I can only conclude there was no massive clean-up.

Believers claim they didn't come forth for fear of having been threatened decades earlier. But that doesn't stand the test of logic or time when even Marcel himself spoke out as did a few others.

If such a clean-up took place there would be a document trail and people who could verify they were there would come out. But we don't have that at all.

We have second hand testimony, stories, claims, and investigators who argue it happened and yet without any shred of physical evidence then or even now.

And yet we are told that the testimony of a handful of people is justification enough to believe it, despite the fact much of their testimonies are inconsistent, time embellished, memory clouded, and in some cases fabricated.

Wind Swords said...

DR said:

"Brazel's "rubber strips", "flower tape", and five pounds of debris simply cannot be found in the Fort Worth photos, showing an intact weather balloon (which Brazel absolutely denies finding...)."

I think you are correct about what was shown at the Ramey press briefing not being what was discovered by Brazel. I believe that Ramey didn't show what was found at the ranch. But not because it was a UFO, but because the real material was so shredded/messed up (which is why it was scattered over such a large area and why Marcel couldn't ID it in the first place and why Brazel said it was "junk"). So instead he displays a fairly pristine looking weather balloon and RAWIN for the press to take pics of. Remember, the press is in an uproar thinking the Air Force has an Alien/Nazi/Soviet/???-flying disc in their possession. So he shows the single balloon/target and tells Marcel to keep his mouth shut, not because he instigating some sinister government cover-up, but because he wants the press off his back and doesn't want the soon to become independent Air Force to be embarrassed anymore than it is.


Rusty said:

"This process of attempting to polarize everyone into believers and skeptobunkers (or whatever labels you use) is really not very helpful to an intelligent discussion. This continued childishness will drive those who truly value a discussion away if it is not corrected quickly."

Exactly. I have posted the same thought before in the Bessie Brazel blogpost but it was ignored. Yes you can respectfully disagree, it's not that hard.


"This blog does not allow anonymous comments"

This blog is under the "auspices" of Google. What it really means is you have to sign in in order to post a comment as I have had to do. It doesn't require the use of a real name, just a valid account.

cda said...

Brian:

Have a look at "Roswell UFO Crash Update" by Kevin Randle (paperback), where the transcript of his interview with Edwin D.Easley (Provost Marshal) is given. That will tell you all about those trucks, all the soldiers involved. the big clean-up and so on.

Unfortunately you will come away VERY disappointed, as in fact all Easley has to say is that he could not say anything, anything at all. You can guess the reason. However, don't let that deter you from the fact that those trucks and personnel were really there!

David Rudiak said...

I wrote:
"Brazel's "rubber strips", "flower tape", and five pounds of debris simply cannot be found in the Fort Worth photos, showing an intact weather balloon (which Brazel absolutely denies finding...)."

Wind Swords commented:
I think you are correct about what was shown at the Ramey press briefing not being what was discovered by Brazel. I believe that Ramey didn't show what was found at the ranch. But not because it was a UFO, but because the real material was so shredded/messed up (which is why it was scattered over such a large area and why Marcel couldn't ID it in the first place and why Brazel said it was "junk"). So instead he displays a fairly pristine looking weather balloon and RAWIN for the press to take pics of. Remember, the press is in an uproar thinking the Air Force has an Alien/Nazi/Soviet/???-flying disc in their possession. So he shows the single balloon/target and tells Marcel to keep his mouth shut, not because he instigating some sinister government cover-up, but because he wants the press off his back and doesn't want the soon to become independent Air Force to be embarrassed anymore than it is.

I don't for the life of me see the advantage of displaying one set of junk balloon debris for another.

And if Marcel had bungled so badly by failing to ID the balloon, then Col. Blanchard bungled so badly by also not using good judgment in believing him (after Marcel presumably shows him the same junk balloon debris), and then compounds the bungle by issuing a press release to the world, why doesn't any indication of this show in their subsequent careers? Blanchard was promoted to the top, becoming a 4-star general and USAF vice chief of staff. (He would have been the next AF C/S in 1966 but died of a heart attack just before this happened.)

As for Marcel, no removal from his post, no demotion. No, instead he received recommendations for promotion to Lt. Col. in the AF Reserve from both Blanchard and Col. Dubose (who would have been acting for Ramey) only a few months later. Blanchard upped his performance rating (including marks of "superior" for ability to come to logical conclusions), Dubose recommended him for command officer training, and Marcel was recommissioned the following Spring when his commission ran out. (This a was time when the military was rapidly downsizing following WWII and commissions were unusually hard to get.)

A future USAF Chief of Staff, Col. John Ryan (then Ramey's Op Officer, replaced Blanchard as C/O at Roswell, and Blanchard replaced Ryan as Op Officer in Ramey's command) called Marcel's career "most outstanding" and "most exemplary".

Finally Ramey himself a year later referred to Marcel as "outstanding", command officer material, and protested his transfer to higher intelligence, saying he had nobody in his command to replace him. (It should be very easy to replace an incompetent, bungling intelligence officer who blew a simple balloon ID and "embarrassed" you.)

Most of this information on Marcel can be found in Marcel's performance reviews:

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

The point is, neither Blanchard's nor Marcel's career arc afterward in any way suggests Ramey or others higher up in the chain of command was embarrassed with the performance of either man during Roswell.

Wind Swords said...

Dr said:

"I don't for the life of me see the advantage of displaying one set of junk balloon debris for another."

Because the displayed "junk" is easily identified by the press as - a balloon! The shreds of of rubber, foil, etc. were not readily identifiable as a balloon. Maybe they were one of those "flying disc" things talked about in the news so much (which didn't necessarily mean alien). It is possible for it to be misidentified if it's not a spaceship from another star system that is. Ramey didn't want probing questions from the press, especially if it was Mogul or some other classified project. He needed something that looked like what he said it was, no questions asked, but not because it was alien.

Marcel's performance reviews show that he was a competent, hard working officer. He was good but not great. He wasn't command material and never reached flag rank. I'm sure you have read Tim Printy's comments on this.

The bottom line is this, even competent, hard working officers can make mistakes. Even great military men make mistakes. We're all human. It is not outside the realm of possibility that he and Blanchard made a mistake, as it also possible that Haut overdid it in his press release, which is another explanation I proffered. I believe that either of these explanations are more in the realm of possibility than the ETH is. I know you disagree and I respect your opinion, as you have done more investigation into this than I have, especially in regards to the Ramey memo. I can only say for myself that I am not emotionally invested in a particular outcome, and still remain open to other possibilities - if hard evidence can be obtained. Unfortunately, after all these years, all these witnesses (and "witnesses"), crash site digs, and everything else, we have not moved the needle forward on the question of was Roswell an ET crash.

cda said...

Wind Swords:

"Unfortunately, after all these years, all these witnesses (and "witnesses"), crash site digs, and everything else, we have not moved the needle forward on the question of was Roswell an ET crash."

Alas, how right you are. And given the very long period of time (68 years) since that fateful day, the chance of finding any of the supposed hardware, bodies or documentation is diminishing to zero. It is not just we UFOlogists that would dearly love the hard evidence to appear, but the whole of the scientific fraternity. But that just never happens, does it?

David Rudiak said...

Wind Swords,

I still fail to see the logic of your argument. Substitute junk balloon debris would be no more convincing than the original junk balloon debris. Just tell the press Brazel's "rubber strips" used to be a weather balloon but was badly shredded from the elements after weeks. As for the radar target (the far more important item, since this was supposed to me the "flying disc," not the balloon), why would Brazel claim he and Marcel supposedly tried to assemble it into a kite if it was nothing but unrecognizable small fragments? Substituting a broken up radar reflector for another similarly broken up radar reflector doesn't seem to serve much purpose.

And where was Ramey going to scare it up on such short notice. He had only 1-1/2 to 2 hours to procure it after the press release went public nationwide and caused the press furor. According to his weather officer, Irving Newton, who I spoke to, he didn't know where Ramey procured the material he viewed. He certainly wasn't involved and claimed they didn't have radar targets at Fort Worth at that time. That alone suggests malice of forethought, that this was planned well ahead of time, giving them opportunity to locate and fly in a shill balloon and radar target from somewhere else.

As for Marcel career AFTER Roswell, including high praise from senior officers, I'll take the actual assessment of such officers who worked with Marcel, actually knew him, and knew exactly what had indeed happened at Roswell over the assessment 60+ years later someone who wasn't there and didn't know Marcel. Tim Printy says Marcel wasn't much of an officer. So what? The opinions of multiple AF generals who knew Marcel easily trump the opinion of one guy who didn't know Marcel and who never rose above the rank of Naval warrant officer in 20 years of service.

The FACTS are immediately AFTER Roswell Marcel's performance ratings went up, he was recommended for a promotion by two officers deeply involved with Roswell and received one, was recommissioned when it was hard to get a new commission, twice called "outstanding" (Ryan and Ramey) and twice said to be command officer material (Dubose and Ramey), all from senior officers who ended up generals, one the AF Chief of Staff (Ryan), another the vice chief of staff (Blanchard). A year later he was also reassigned to a very top secret program at the Pentagon (trying to determine whether the Soviets had an A-bomb and provided the briefings for the Pentagon generals).

That the AF didn't send him to command officer training school and he didn't become a command officer--despite Dubose and Ramey thinking he WAS command officer stuff--is a total nitpick if not irrelevant. You go where the military assigns you.

Marcel's post-Roswell military record absolutely disproves that he was some sort of drooling idiot, incompetent intelligence officer.

Perhaps you can also explain how Blanchard also got off with nary a slap on the hands for failing to do his due diligence when his incompetent intel officer informs him balloon junk was from one of those supersonic flying discs in the news? Blanchard also doesn't recognize balloon junk, doesn't ask for a second opinion, doesn't do what ANY half-way competent C/O would do under the circumstances, instead issues a highly inflammatory press release? For his bungling, compounding Marcel's, he instead rises rapidly to the top of the AF?

Sorry, don't buy these sort of arguments. They sound poorly thought out and illogical to me. At least I think we agree that what Ramey showed was substitute debris. The question is why the shill balloon? I think the much simpler and more logical answer is the shill balloon because something else entirely happened that had nothing to do with a balloon. The balloon, as Dubose said in his affidavit, was just a cover story. Gen. Exon said pretty much the same thing, going much further than Dubose, saying it was indeed the crash of a space craft.

Brian B said...

Wind Swords & CDA - a few comments:

"Even great military men make mistakes."

Exactly. Rudiak and Schmitt would have us believe that these officers were the cream of the crop - tip top material - America's finest - even more than elite because they served in the 509th.

That claim, as Wind Swords pointed out, is bogus. Was General George Washington a great hero and military legend? Yes, but he lost more battles than he won and historically speaking he was the cause of the French and Indian War while serving in the Virginia Militia.

Patton? He was constantly in trouble for making mistakes of the mouth (not to mention abusing a wounded infantryman). Was he a great general? Yes. And he made mistakes. No one said Blanchard and Marcel were "drooling idiots" except Rudiak as a rebuttal to skeptical inquiry. These men, like others, were fallible.

CDA:

You may be aware of the two claims of debris found decades after Bill Brazel's box was reportedly collected by the military.

A cowboy 10 years after Roswell found silver memory foil which later was confiscated, and a Native American who gave to a relative a piece of memory foil (among other sacred objects) to commemorate his death in a ceremonial event held secretly in the crater in NM. Obviously these pieces have never been found or substantiated.

And Schmitt and Carey in Witness to Roswell offer a myriad of first and second hand witnesses both civilian and military who claim actually three crash sites, many trucks, a massive clean-up, orders to shoot and kill if necessary, and an entire B-29 crew claiming to have flown alien bodies July 9 to Fort Worth.

Clearly there are more witnesses and even more forthcoming in the years ahead from our two chief investigators. Don't you agree?

Brian B said...

@ Rudiak:

"And General Exon said pretty much the same thing.....a space craft".

True Exon's statements come from a man high in the chain of command, but let's point out there are some potential problems with his testimony. High rank doesn't necessarily equate to absolute truth, clear recollections, and bonafide confirmation. After all it's you and others who claim USAF brass are still keeping this thing hidden...by lying.

For further info read past debate between KR and CDA:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2007/06/roswell-questions-and-answers.html?m=1

KRandle said...

Brian -

Patton actually got into trouble for slapping an infantryman who suffered from "battle fatigue" which we now call PTSD. Patton had great respect for those wounded in battle.

Wind Swords said...

DR said:
"...the opinion of one guy who didn't know Marcel and who never rose above the rank of Naval warrant officer in 20 years of service."

I have not served in the military but my understanding is that for an enlisted man, a WO is the highest rank you can go, without going to college or officer candidate school. From Wikipedia: Warrant officers in the United States are classified as officers; they are technical leaders and specialists. Warrant officers are specialist professionals whose expertise and authority demanded formal recognition. Warrant officers can and do command detachments, units, activities, vessels, aircraft, and armored vehicles; as well as lead, coach, train, and counsel subordinates. However, the warrant officer's primary task as a leader is to serve as a technical expert, providing valuable skills, guidance, and expertise to commanders and organizations in their particular field.

This actually reminds me of my profession is some respects. We have managers, team leaders, VP's, senior VP's and so on. But they are toast without the specialists: Analysts, architects, programmers, data base administrators and system engineers. It's just a different track. Tim Printy's WO rank is a badge of honor, not an indication of mediocrity.

"Perhaps you can also explain how Blanchard also got off with nary a slap on the hands for failing to do his due diligence when his incompetent intel officer informs him balloon junk was from one of those supersonic flying discs in the news? Blanchard also doesn't recognize balloon junk, doesn't ask for a second opinion, doesn't do what ANY half-way competent C/O would do under the circumstances, instead issues a highly inflammatory press release? For his bungling, compounding Marcel's, he instead rises rapidly to the top of the AF?"

That's what makes this case so fascinating, at least in the early phase in my opinion. That's why I believe either Haut jumped the gun on the PR or Marcel and Blanchard didn't know what they were looking at. If we believe Marcel's own testimony years later then he thought it was something extraordinary at the time he found it - metal that resumed it's shape. Did he show it to Blanchard, or did he just tell him about the properties and Blanchard believed him? Did Blanchard dictate the PR to Haut or did he give him a general outline? (I know what Haut said later, but based on his later affidavits I not inclined to accept what he said at face value). What if Blanchard told Haut to get with Marcel on the details to write his PR? So much we don't know. And so many chances for things to get out of hand - if it was NOT ET. If it was ET, you have your answer. They found a crashed spaceship, sent out a PR and then the upper Air Force brass decided to cover it up. I'm still scratching my head wondering how a Colonel and a Major would think that a crashed spaceship (with or without alien bodies) would warrant a press release and not a security lock down and a call to HQ for further instructions.

Brian B said...

Kevin -

I know. But IMO you are a casualty whether you are wounded or suffer from PTSD. A casualty on or off the battlefield is a wounded warrior in my book.

cda said...

DR wrote:

"Gen. Exon said pretty much the same thing, going much further than Dubose, saying it was indeed the crash of a space craft."

Have a look at General Exon's letter to Kevin on p.148 of "ROSWELL UFO CRASH UPDATE", and decide for yourself whether Exon really knew anything. He had been interviewed no less than 4 times before this letter was written, over a year earlier. He knew nothing first-hand. As I said of Easley, some witness!

Brian B said...

Personally, Exon's testimony is about the only testimony that seems valuable from a high level person. I can see why anyone might think it merits a validation of incidents at Roswell.

I suppose this isn't the place to rehash Exon, but I also agree with CDA there remain questions about his sources and potential contamination.

I think if it were me I would have pressed even deeper on the questions to get some idea about where he got this information. I don't doubt the man was speaking honestly about what he had heard.

KRandle said...

For those interested –

Newton was not a Naval warrant officer, but an Army one. He retired as a major, which means he rose in rank after he identified the weather balloon in Ramey’s office. I don’t know if he was a WOJG (Warrant Officer Junior Grade) or a CWO (Chief Warrant Officer) at that time, but these were the only two grades in the warrant officer structure then.

I served three years on active duty as an Army warrant officer which included a combat tour in Vietnam. In my case I was appointed a warrant officer (WO1, which is a change from the time Newton served) not long after I turned 19 and had finished Warrant Officer Flight Training. At that time there were four grades of warrant officer starting with WO1 and then to Chief Warrant Officer (grades CW2 – 4). At that time, warrant officers were appointed and not commissioned which meant they couldn’t “command” troops but they certainly could be in charge of them as OIC (Officer in Charge).

In aviation we ran into some interesting problems. As an aircraft commander (usually appointed after 300 hours of combat flight time) a warrant officer was the senior man on the aircraft even when the co-pilot was a lieutenant or above. He made the decisions and this caused some interesting problems. In one case I was the aircraft commander and my co-pilot was first lieutenant. We were on a DCS (direct combat support) mission flying a colonel around to various fire support bases in the Iron Triangle region of three corps. The colonel refused to talk to me, giving his instructions to the lieutenant who would point to me and say, “You’ll have to tell him. He’s the aircraft commander.” The colonel couldn’t seem to wrap his head around the concept.

Anyway, after discharge, I went to college and eventually was commissioned in the Air Force. During that time, which was irrelevant to me, the warrant officers in the Army changed. A “super” grade, CW5 was created and while it seems that warrant officers were still appointed, when you moved into the upper grades, CW2 – 5, you were then commissioned. It meant that warrant officers could now command soldiers rather than just lead them.

I know of several commission officers, meaning here majors, who, as they continued their careers actually took a demotion into the warrant officer grades to continue to serve in their respective fields rather than leave the service.

So Newton, as a warrant officer was a highly skilled technician who eventually was commissioned and retired as a major. I now conclude my lecture on warrant officers, which is slightly off topic, but having served as a Chief Warrant Officer (CW2), I felt compelled to defend my fellow warrant officer… and to point out that this is what I mean when I suggested that those who have served have a somewhat different take on these nuances than those who have not

KRandle said...

Brian -

Once again you descend into semantics. You apply 2015 sensibilities to the thinking in 1943. Besides, if those suffering from PTSD are combat wounded then why aren't they awarded a Purple Heart. Your opinion that Patton abused a wounded soldier boils down to your opinion which wasn't shared by Patton.

KRandle said...

CDA -

I was the first to interview him and he made it clear in that interview that he had spoken to a number of people in specific jobs who told him what they had observed (yes, it is second-hand testimony, but does address certain areas of controversy). Although he said he knew nothing first hand, it is also true that he said he had flown over the crash sites in 1947, which are his first-hand observations. And, you weren't with me when I met him at Wright-Patterson Air Force when it was clear that someone had mentioned to him that he had talked out of school. He is a much better witness than you give him credit for in your obvious attempt to belittle what he had to say.

It is the same with Easley. You dismiss it, overlooking his clear discomfort in being asked questions about all this. He mentioned several times that he had been swore to secrecy, a claim you seem to dismiss with no reason whatsoever. And, you ignore his later conversations with me and the fact that I was the first to speak to him.

cda said...

Kevin:

There is the transcript of Don Schmitt's interview with Exon in the same book with Exon's letter to you. Reading this transcript tells you virtually nothing, and most of it is about other unconnnected things. But he does mention the thin metal that couldn't be dented with a hammer, and kept returning to its original shape. Now where did he get this from? Hints dropped at a previous interview? Reading your IUR articles about Marcel and Roswell? I am NOT saying Exon was 'coached' but cannot help but have that feeling that someone has dropped him certain information beforehand. Also, although he says he did fly over the debris field, or maybe elsewhere in NM, he does not say when (years later?). There is also this little matter of the mystery group of 13 who handled the story. How did he come to the number 13? (suggested by someone tipping him off to the 12 members of MJ-12 maybe?)

The transcript and letter do not sound the least like that of someone who knew anything about ETs. He also jumps from his days in 1945 to his days in 1965, again nothing to do with Roswell at all. All a bit incoherent, at least that is my impression. He saw nothing first-hand, yet you rely on him as a key witness. Karl Pflock takes a quite different view.

The only way around this is to have the full transcripts of ALL the interviews you and Schmitt did with Exon. (Plus of course the transcripts of any interviews he had with your predecessors or anyone else).

Yes you met him. I did not. But as things stand, his Roswell 'story' leaves a lot to be desired.

David Rudiak said...

Wind Swords wrote:
"It's just a different track. Tim Printy's WO rank is a badge of honor, not an indication of mediocrity."

I think you're missing the point. Printy claims his military background gives him the authority to judge Marcel as a not very good officer but it doesn't. On top of that (and much more important) he didn't know the man, quite unlike the high officers involved with Roswell who rated Marcel after Roswell and all giving him excellent and superior marks, you know, guys who actually knew him and watched him perform.

Printy was in a completely different service (Navy) in a completely different time period (modern peacetime vs. WWII), worked in a small environment (submarine with small crews), and never attained rank officer grade after 22 years. His specialty was nuclear reactor technician on submarines. Not saying he didn't serve honorably or was incompetent. But his background was very narrow (doesn't begin to compare with Marcel's), and his experience in much lower rank in a completely different service and time period does not begin to give him the chops he thinks he has to judge someone like Marcel.

Marcel was in the Army Air Force, in combat, in units with thousands of men (if not tens of thousands in some case), had multiple top-secret jobs, rose from 2nd Lt. to Major in only 2 years (retired a Lt. Col.), and had military specialties (MOs) of photo-intelligence officer, combat intelligence officer, and radar intelligence officer. He was an aerial cartographer before the war working for Shell Oil and the Army Corp of Engineers. The reason he went into the AAF as an officer (2nd Lt.) was because the military wanted him for his aerial cartography expertise and sent him to intelligence school. After graduating intelligence school, he taught aerial photo-intelligence for 1-1/2 years before being sent to the South Pacific as combat intelligence officer.

So you could say Marcel was also basically a techie at heart, but his experience was much broader and greater and with a LOT more responsibility than Printy's. E.g., when the 509th was formed toward the end of WWII specifically for the purpose of dropping the A-bomb, Marcel was one of the guys planning the air drops on Japan (again that aerial photo-intelligence and combat intelligence background).

Marcel had various high ranking officers (Generals and Colonels) giving him evaluations post-Roswell with top-notch ratings. Four of the people rating him after Roswell, who definitely or probably knew exactly what happened, were or became Generals (Ramey, Blanchard, Ryan, Dubose). Two became 4-star generals and were the top-ranking officers in the AF (Ryan, Blanchard). Ramey "only" attained 3-star status (had to quit early because of heart attack). Ryan and Ramey both described Marcel as "outstanding". Two (Dubose and Ramey) stated he was command officer material.

Again, these were men familiar with Roswell and Marcel. Tim Printy's claim that his background gives him authority to label Marcel a "not very good officer" rings exceptionally hollow. In essence, because Marcel was "only" getting mostly A's and A-'s (with a few A+'s) on his report cards instead of all A+'s, he was a mediocre officer who must have bungled things, because Printy says so. Really? And this is based on his knowledge of how naval personnel were rated on submarines 30-50 years later? Since Printy could only rate men below his WO rank (about the equivalent of rating privates, corporals, and sergeants), does this really give him special insight into how Admirals rated Captains or Commanders in his era, much less Air Force Generals and Colonels rating Majors and Captains in the WWII era? Completely different times, different ranks, different services, different standards.

David Rudiak said...

Since the discussion has evolved into what Gen. Exon knew, long ago I put up a compilation of quotes and descriptions of his testimony:

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

Yes, he does deny direct knowledge, but talked to men that he knew and trusted who were directly involved (photographers, people who analyzed Roswell debris, people who knew something about the bodies). He WAS stationed at Wright-Patterson (or just Wright Field) in July 1947 where even the modern AF admits debris was taken.

He said he DID have direct knowledge of the appearance of the debris areas because he flew over them a short time later, noting many tire tracks and gouges, indicating a major recovery operation. (Thus not just two guys picking up a few pieces of "balloon debris" that Mack Brazel missed.)

Exon also commented on seeing two distinct sites.

Other direct knowledge about crash retrievals came when he was the C/O at Wright-Patterson from 1964-66, because he said he provided logistic support to crash retrieval teams from Washington that used W-P as the staging area.

Finally he said he had some direct knowledge of a high-level UFO control group ("Unholy 13") made up initially of the Sec. of Defense (Forrestal), Sec. of the Air Force (Symington), CIA (probably represented by CIA director Rear Adm. Roscoe Hillenkoetter who later went public that UFOs were quite real), and other sundry generals like AF C/S Spaatz (probably Ramey was involved when he was made Pentagon AF Op Officer in 1950 and did such things as order jet UFO intercepts). No elected officials were involved other than the President. (E.g., Truman's AF aide Gen. Robert Landy admitted when interviewed that Truman ordered him to provide quarterly ORAL briefings on UFOs based on "central intelligence", which he did from 1948-1953.)

cda said...

DR:

Please see Karl Pflock's book, p.124. You will find there a few things that differ from what you wrote above. Exon's flight over NM were on missions that had nothing to do with Roswell and were not even over the debris field but over "several sites quite some time after July 1947". He did see vehicle tracks at one location. Big deal.

Also, the control group "Unholy 13" was comprised of "educated guesses as to who likely would have been selected for such a group", nothing else.

Like Kevin, you attach too much value to what Exon told Randle & Schmitt. Of course we can never be sure who is right and who is wrong in all this. But it is only fair to point out the contradictions and anomalies that exist.

Also, Exon was being less than honest if he ever claimed that what crashed was an ET craft. There is no way he could have known this (if it happened) as his information, as Pflock says, was based entirely on rumors among colleagues at Wright Field.

Brice said...

Brian said :

"Despite all of this supposed activity, dozens upon dozens of soldiers have never come forth claiming it really happened. They had the opportunity to do so when the story broke in the 1980-90's.

Why didn't they?"

I very rarely agree with you, but on this particular point, I also find odd that very few testimonies of former soldiers who participated to the cleaning have surfaced. If many more would have (let's say up to 10), it would have given (much) more weight to the other testimonies. I asked previously somehow that same question and would have been happy to have Kevin's thought on this point.

Wind Swords said :

"That's why I believe either Haut jumped the gun on the PR or Marcel and Blanchard didn't know what they were looking at. If we believe Marcel's own testimony years later then he thought it was something extraordinary at the time he found it - metal that resumed it's shape. Did he show it to Blanchard, or did he just tell him about the properties and Blanchard believed him? Did Blanchard dictate the PR to Haut or did he give him a general outline? (I know what Haut said later, but based on his later affidavits I not inclined to accept what he said at face value). What if Blanchard told Haut to get with Marcel on the details to write his PR? "

Personnally, I don't believe Haut would make such a important announcement on his own nor Blanchard would overlook verifying by himself the nature of the debris before agreeing to release the PR (Cavitt and Marcel brought 2 vehicles full of debris and wouldn't show any of it? it really doesn't make much sense).

"I'm still scratching my head wondering how a Colonel and a Major would think that a crashed spaceship (with or without alien bodies) would warrant a press release and not a security lock down and a call to HQ for further instructions."

You're reasonning in our current worldview point and restrospect here. But by that time, flying saucers were not specifically thought of alien spaceshifts, and for the yet non-briefed military people to keep any of this secret (whatever they rank) , there would have been no particular reason to conceal any of it. On the contrary, I feel their deep sense of patriotism and proudness would have driven them to make that announcement.

Now I feel we keep debating on very narrowed points (lots of if and if...), but one has to consider all the picture, and for me there are too many testimonial/documentational evidence and inconsistencies with a weather or mogul balloon explanation.

KRandle said...

CDA -

Of course we must accept all that Karl said because he didn't have an agenda...

Exon said, on tape, on June 18, 1990 (which was the second interview with him), Stuart Symington... Carl Spaatz, all these guys were at the top of government. They were the ones who knew the most about Roswell, New Mexico. They were involved in what to do about the residue from that, those two findings."

Question: You say those two.

"Probably part of the same accident but two distinct sites. One, assuming that the thing, as I understand it, as I remember flying the area later, that the damage to the vehicle seemed to be coming from the southeast to northwest but it could have been going the opposite direction but it doesn't seem likely. So the farther northwest pieces found on the ranch, those pieces were mostly metal..."

He also said about the metal, "You could wad it up, you could change the shape but it was still there... there were other parts of it that were very thin but awfully strong and couldn't be dented with heavy hammers and stuff like that..."

This and my May 18, 1990 interview with him was the first time that anyone had asked him about any of this. It was before the publication of my first book and before all the publicity about Roswell really blew up... Yes, the Roswell Incident came out a decade earlier and Unsolved Mysteries did a segment in November 1989 but the explosion came after that.

I will mention, once again, that his attitude changed when I met him at Wright-Patterson. It was clear that he was being very careful in what he said because he had begun to qualify his statements with a lot of "weasel" words. He didn't want to lie to me, and he didn't really change anything that he had said earlier, he just began to add levels of qualification, and that he had been making guesses, but that it not the tone he took in the original interviews.

To coin a phrase, "You attach too much value to what Exon told Pflock."

cda said...

Kevin:

This time I will put it to you as a straight question:

Did General Exon read the Berlitz-Moore book at any time? More specifically, did he read it before you or Don Schmitt interviewed him?

If you know the answer, please say yes or no. If you don't know the answer, I accept that you don't. I will, however, state my own conviction that he DID read this book before you or Don interviewed him. And THAT is how he learned of the hammer blows to the metal and the fact that it returned to its original shape after being bent. In other words, I am saying that Gen Exon had prior knowledge of the case, through reading and maybe TV shows, well before you spoke to him.

KRandle said...

CDA -

I do not know and neither do you. Your conclusion is the same sort of rank speculation that you often accuse us of... He did not seem to have prior knowledge but it is certainly a possibility.

Wind Swords said...

(Part 1 of 2)

DR said:
"I think you're missing the point. Printy claims his military background gives him the authority to judge Marcel as a not very good officer but it doesn't."

I'll let Printy speak for himself in this matter. From his site: "Having written more awards and evaluations in my 20-plus years in the navy than I care to think about, I think I am at least somewhat qualified to understand Marcel's evaluations and his awards. Writing such evaluations is an art that takes some effort on the part of the grader. Not only are you trying to praise the individual for his good performance, you also want to make it clear what problems he/she still needs to improve upon. This becomes more important as a persons paygrade increases (this goes for enlisted as well as officers). The most important aspects of mid-level officers (O-3 to O-5) in an evaluation are the leadership categories, where initiative and action taken are required. The military does not like to promote individuals who are timid decision makers and can't inspire others in a crisis."

So yes, I think he can speak on this with some authority, certainly more than you or I. Also Printy doesn't say that he was not a very good officer, just an average to good one, but not outstanding. For those who care to read the whole thing to get an understanding of his views (he can speak for himself better than I can) please see http://www.astronomyufo.com/UFO/Marcel.htm

The nature of a performance eval does not change because of the specialties involved or the level of the officer. The basics do not change even in the private sector. The basic question is - is this candidate performing at a superior level or not? Printy also tackles the problem of grade inflation, also a problem in the private sector as well as the armed services by citing a Rand study. His conclusion is that Marcel did not stand out in the key areas of leadership and initiative.

Wind Swords said...

(Part 2 of 2)

DR said:
"Marcel had various high ranking officers (Generals and Colonels) giving him evaluations post-Roswell with top-notch ratings. Four of the people rating him after Roswell, who definitely or probably knew exactly what happened, were or became Generals (Ramey, Blanchard, Ryan, Dubose). Two became 4-star generals and were the top-ranking officers in the AF (Ryan, Blanchard). Ramey "only" attained 3-star status (had to quit early because of heart attack). Ryan and Ramey both described Marcel as "outstanding". Two (Dubose and Ramey) stated he was command officer material."

That doesn't mean anything. I have been evaluated by Senior Managers and Vice Presidents. It's their job to evaluate me. It was these generals job to evaluate Marcel. Doesn't mean he was some kind of special officer. They did hundreds of them. Marcel's highest scores while he was at Roswell and with the 509th were "6" for "physical activity and endurance" and "attention to duty". In a later eval he got a "6" for "cooperation", while being downgraded on initiative. Even I can see what that means. These do not strike me as being "top notch ratings". He is being commended for hard work and long hours but not for the things that make for a good flag officer candidate (or even a full bird Colonel) and not for things that are supposed to be his specialty. Marcel didn't rate as one of the top Majors at that base despite the importance of his position and the fact that he discovered that ET's existed and were visiting planet earth. Dubose could not even remember who Marcel was ten months later after the Roswell event. Don't tell me THAT was part of the cover up.

Marcel was not incompetent. He was not a bad officer. He was "hard working", "loyal", competent, and any number of other very good qualities. But not superior. He was important to the operation of the unit (as any technical specialist would be), but not a "walk on water", "smartest man in the room", kind of guy who couldn't possibly, not in a million years, make a mistake and think some debris were the remains of a "flying disc" (what ever they thought a "flying disc" was at the time).

It is more probable to me that Marcel could mistake debris for a "flying disc" than it is probable that actual ET spacecraft debris were recovered by him.

KRandle said...

All -

Once again we have slid badly off the rails on this which was a discussion on the size of the debris field. And for those who just have to criticize everything, yes, I too have participated in this trip through the weeds.

cda said...

Yes the discussion is about the size of the debris field (or fields?). There are far too many rough and ready answers to this, and none of them are the least reliable unless the person estimating it not only actually went out there and saw it, but went round its perimeter and, approximately, measured it. As far as I know, nobody ever did this.

Even General Exon cannot help here, as he only flew over it (according to Kevin) but we don't know when. But wait: Karl Pflock says that Exon only flew over certain unknown and unconnected areas of New Mexico, and this was some years afterwards; he saw some tire tracks at one of the sites. This is supposed to bolster the idea that the General saw the aftermath of an ET crash at the Foster ranch!

I submit that:

1. Marcel really had no idea of the debris field's true size.
2. Gen Exon never flew over the actual debris field at all.
Which of the 3 (at least) debris fields was it anyway?
3. Nobody is any the wiser about the size as a result of Marcel's and Exon's evidence.

But as I wasn't there I agree that my conclusions may be wrong.

Brian B said...

Kevin -

"Besides, if those suffering from PTSD are combat wounded then why aren't they awarded a Purple Heart. Your opinion that Patton abused a wounded soldier boils down to your opinion which wasn't shared by Patton."

The point of my original comment was I DIDN'T SAY Blanchard and Marcel were "druling idiots" - I said like most military men with character or elite notoriety they ARE FALLIBLE.

Do you even know anyone with PTSD? I'm thinking you don't.

For a former officer you seem a bit dumbfounded on the issues of PTSD in today's world. Read the papers Kevin it's a very big issue inside the military despite top brass claiming it's all BS.

Your comment seems supportive of the sad state of the US Army's leadership who ignores PTSD and veterans' needs chiming ridiculous drivel about Purple Hearts needing to be awarded to legitimize PTSD as a REAL type of mental disorder with physical effects that comes from combat. You don't need a medal to confirm a combat injury, a medical diagnosis is sufficient.

Besides, during WWI many troops were exposed to Mustard Gas which burnt their lungs, but they were never awarded the Purple Heart when it was created in the 1930's. That's a historical fact.

I guess to you that means they were never wounded?

And I don't give a crap about what Patton thought about slapping soldiers. Just because they have PTSD in 1943, when it wasn't a diagnosed medical condition, doesn't mean it's not a form of "battle fatigue" deserving recognition. Patton was severely reprimanded for his actions and similar stunts by Eisenhower.

That links back to my original post - These people can make mistakes.

Brian B said...

CDA said:

I submit that:

1. Marcel really had no idea of the debris field's true size.

>> Correct. We only have his words which don't jive with the media summaries attributed to him in the first hours of the incident. From the testimony alone, we have an endlessly growing field starting with some 22 square feet in one location and at the greatest one square mile at another location, with unkown sizes at a claimed two other sites.

2. Gen Exon never flew over the actual debris field at all. Which of the 3 (at least) debris fields was it anyway?

>> Don't be silly, it was the one with the tracks!

3. Nobody is any the wiser about the size as a result of Marcel's and Exon's evidence.

>> And we will never know either, so why go on debating it? It's not an investigation anymore because we have nothing to go on in regards to the field itself other than varied and unprovable testimony.

-----

"But as I wasn't there..."

Correct. But let's point out neither were any of the people who are proponents of a possible one mile square field, three crash locations, heavy trucks, tents, security, and a lot of men on their hands and knees.

KRandle said...

Brian -

I never said I was a police officer. I said that I served with the Provost Marshal's office which is not the same thing. My advance course was for military police, but as a captain at the time, the training was for administration, supervision, overall analysis, the law and a whole bunch of military oriented details that have to do with combat operations that have no civilian counterpart.

I have been diagnosed with PTSD and receive minor compensation for it so I am completely familiar with it and the symptoms of it. Obviously your thinking here was in error. When you say read the papers, I will assume you mean the newspapers as opposed to the medical and psychological journals on the subject. You might wish to climb down off your high horse when discussing things you know nothing about.

Finally you said Patton slapped a wounded soldier and I said that he slapped a soldier who suffered from battle fatigue which is not the same thing. I know the history of the event and that Patton lost his command because of it. Apply your 2015 sensibilities to it all you want but in 1943 this was not recognized as a "wound" suffered in combat.

John's Space said...

I missed out on the Gen. Exon discussion but I've been wondering about one issue. Based on his official bio, it is true that he was stationed at Wright-Patterson in the 1947 period and was there sometime after. But it seems he was actually attending a two-year course in industrial administration at the Air Force Institute of Technology graduating in 1948. So he was in a student at the time so why would he be assigned to fly over the Roswell crash site? It doesn't seem like that would fit his role as a student or the field he was being groomed didn't seem in anyway related to the areas of expertise required to work such an investigation. This has been puzzling me.

KRandle said...

Brian -

You know, maybe you should just give up. Your facts are often in your world but not that shared by the rest of us.

You wrote, "Besides, during WWI many troops were exposed to Mustard Gas which burnt their lungs, but they were never awarded the Purple Heart when it was created in the 1930's. That's a historical fact."

It is a historical fact that those who were gassed during WW I were awarded a Purple Heart. The first Army regulations established the eligibility for the Purple Heart as those in possession of a Meritorious Service Citation Certificate issued by the C in C of the AEF. Those certificates had to be exchanged for the Purple Heart. It also authorized that those who had been awarded a wound chevron were eligible for the Purple Heart and could exchange those chevrons for the award.

And, in case you didn't know, the wound chevron denoted wounds received in combat against an enemy force or hospitalization following a gassing. This seems to suggest that your comment was in error. And that's a real historical fact.

Oh, and since I receive compensation for combat related injuries, I probably know a little more about this than you do.

Brian B said...

Kevin -

With all due respect you have no clue on this one.

Unless you served in WW1 I wouldn't go around claiming your Vietnam experience is sufficient to know exactly what the Great War was like in all aspects.

You really don't know what you're talking about in this case. Clueless.

I have spoken to leading historians on this matter (have you?) and they do say the volume of gas attacks were so wide and many that it was common for soldiers not to be recognized for this due to the fact they were treated in shaby rear line make shift hospitals. No one kept any records.

Gee, their records weren't correct or even written down, and since you claimed in a previous post clerks couldn't get the paper work right on Marcel or you, why do you insist your knowledge is sufficient to claim in the trenches those records were all nicely typed and filed?

You don't know so don't pretend your reserve commission makes you an expert in all things military.

Go back to UFO's - that's your specialty isn't it?

KRandle said...

Brian -

You say, “Unless you served in WW1 I wouldn't go around claiming your Vietnam experience is sufficient to know exactly what the Great War was like in all aspects.”

Please point to the place where I made any such claim. You invented this statement yourself but then I could say that since you have no military experience you have no way of knowing exactly what the Great War was like in all aspects.

You say, “I have spoken to leading historians on this matter (have you?) and they do say the volume of gas attacks were so wide and many that it was common for soldiers not to be recognized for this due to the fact they were treated in shaby rear line make shift hospitals. No one kept any records.”

This is another invention by you. Your original, inaccurate statement suggested that soldiers injured in gas attacks were denied the Purple Heart. I pointed out that the regulations, put into place a decade and a half after the end of the war provided for those injured in the attacks with a means of receiving the award.

For retroactive awards, there are various ways to prove that a soldier is eligible, but in these cases, the soldier must take action to do it. While it is true that many soldiers injured might not have been treated in a hospital in a rear area, it is also true that records were kept even if those records were sporadic, incomplete and sometimes misplaced. We have records for soldiers that go back to the Revolutionary War (which is how I know that my great-great whatever grandfather died in the service of the Continental Army) so your claim that no one kept any records is untrue.

I’m not sure what your point is here. I merely pointed out that your original claim misrepresented the situation and since you have proved in the past that you are a stickler for precise language that you might want to qualify your statement, especially when presented with information that shows that you were in error.

You asked, “…why do you insist your knowledge is sufficient to claim in the trenches those records were all nicely typed and filed?”

Where did I suggest anything like that? Isn’t this another example of your over-the-top hyperbole (yes that is redundant) designed to avoid the real questions and historical evidence that I presented.

Before you go off on another tangent, it is quite clear from the record that thousands of soldiers were killed in gas attacks, thousands more were injured in those same attacks. Many of those injured were awarded wound chevrons which could be used as evidence for the awarding of the Purple Heart. No one suggested the records were complete or that all soldiers received the recognition they deserved. However, it is also true that some of those soldiers did not apply for the award; others failed to gather enough evidence to prove their injuries and even more never realized their eligibility. Finally, apropos of nothing, I would have been eligible for a Purple Heart had the doctor checked the proper box on a form.

Brian B said...

I'll clarify, but actually Kevin you stand corrected.

As you wrote above, I didn't say they were "denied the Purple Heart" as in someone said you can't have it. I wrote:

"...but they were never awarded the Purple Heart when it was created in the 1930's. That's a historical fact."

A commendation is awarded....given and recieved... It means they didn't get one. It doesn't mean they were denied one.

There's a big difference in how you interpreted what I wrote and what you are claiming.

KRandle said...

Brian -

Since this is now in your fall back position of arguing pointless semantics and since this has nothing to do with the size of the debris field, this particular branch of the discussion is now closed... please note that I gave you the last word (well, almost.)

John's Space said...

Kevin,

Do you have any information that would explain the role of then Lt. Col. Exon in 1947 given his status at that time? I think that have raise a relevant question above.

KRandle said...

John's Space -

While assigned to the school in 1947, that did not absolve him of other responsibilities. Often in these circumstances, the student would still have a role in the normal operations of the base. As an aside, Exon, to maintain his currency on flight status, not to mention his flight pay would have been required to get a minimum of fours of flight time a month.

kw19193 said...

Not many comments of late but I'll leave one regardless . . . It seems obvious to me that the only accounts of the size of the debris field that should register are those from individuals who actually saw the site before it was sanitized. Second-hand reports should be dismissed no matter how relevant or factual they may seem. Human memory is a malleable thing and even amongst eyewitnesses can be faulty, a reality that sharpens the defining boundary between experience and recountal.