Sunday, November 29, 2015

Death Bed Confessions

As I was working to get information arranged for a web site that would feature many of the new scans of the Ramey Memo, I came across an article, “Part II: Death Bed Confessions – Roswell 1999: What’s New?” My first thought was that legally, what they were talking about wasn’t actually a death bed confession since we weren’t dealing with a crime and some of the people seemed to be old but not necessarily on their death beds. But why split a legal hair when there was so much else wrong here.

I now understand why so many of the skeptics simply turn up their noses at new revelations about the Roswell case. Overlooking that many of the “new” witnesses didn’t see anything themselves but merely heard others talking about the crash and those who might have seen something are simply not named.

Writing in the MUFON UFO Journal for June 1999, Tom Carey tells us, “As participants in the Roswell events of 1947expire at an increasing rate, it should be expected that we encounter more confessions of the ‘deathbed’ [at least he had the good sense to put quotes around the word] variety, and such is indeed the case.”

Okay, I’m willing to give him a pass on this death bed nonsense. It does sound dramatic and a lot of us have used the term in the past when talking about some of this. But then he slides off the rails with:

A woman whose husband was an MP stationed in Roswell in 1947 relayed to us the information that her husband, on his deathbed four years ago [1995], “confessed” to guarding the perimeter – but not picking up the debris – at the Foster/Brazel ranch site, while another woman told us that her husband, during the last year of his life, in 1995, finally told her of his involvement in the events.
After seeing a show on TV that featured the Roswell Incident, she at last asked him, “Well, Dear, is it true?” He answered, “Well, I suppose that it’s time I should tell you. I’ve been meaning to for a long time.” He had been a cook with the 509th Bomb Group at Roswell in 1947 and confirmed to her that he was simply grabbed one day and told to report to Building #84 (a hanger) on the base. He was given a gun and told to stand guard at the hangar with other similarly confiscated base personnel.
While on guard duty, he stole a look inside the hangar long enough to see debris scattered about and “small bodies” being prepared for shipment elsewhere…
There is so much wrong here, that I feel compelled to break the narrative. First we begin with one woman, who is not identified, repeating a tale told by her husband, who is not identified, telling her he had guarded some random debris at the Foster ranch. No way for anyone to independently verify this account, check to see if the guy was actually an MP at Roswell at the right time, though I will assume (and yes I know what that means) that Carey had the name and confirmed the man had been in Roswell in 1947.

Second, before we can blink, we’re off with another tale from a woman, who is not identified, and whose husband, who is not identified, is assigned to guard a hangar. He’s handed a weapon, but we don’t know if he is given any ammunition, which is a critical question, and who gets a look into the hangar. While this might seem plausible to someone who hadn’t served in the Army, it has its flaws. In basic training, we are all taught how to act as a guard, so he would have known, generally, what to do. I have trouble with assigning guards to the hangar and then letting the security lapse to the point where the guy gets to look inside and even glimpses the bodies. This seems as realistic to me as Philip Corso’s nonsense of opening a sealed crate at Fort Riley to see an alien corpse. I mean, if you’re going to all the trouble to mount a guard, it would seem that you’d lock a door or two and hide the really good stuff under a tarp, in a room off the hangar floor, or in a space where even if someone looked in, they wouldn’t see anything of value.

In the next paragraph we’re treated to “another case, the granddaughter of someone involved in the Roswell events (at this point, we do not know in what capacity he was involved) contacted us to say that her grandfather had just passed away and left ‘documents’ pertaining to Roswell that would prove something extraordinary had happened there in 1947. At this is being written, we have been negotiating for several months to received copies of some of these alleged documents prior to making an expensive trip for a personal interview and to review the originals.”
Once again, an unidentified source who heard the tale from her grandfather, who is unidentified, but with the promise of documents, which apparently never surfaced. Reminded me of the time I was working with a fellow who told me that his father had left him some documents that related to the Roswell case and would prove that it had happened. We finally worked out a way for me to see one of the pages so that I would know that he had the goods. Imagine my disappointment when he sent me a page from the MJ-12 Eisenhower Briefing Document. I don’t know if his father had actually left these things to him or if the guy just came up with the story to make it sound legitimate, but it was, quite naturally, a dead end.

Which seems to be the case with all these reports. Here we are a decade and a half later, and as far as I can tell, nothing important ever came from these stories. Just more rumor that couldn’t be verified because we have no names to go with them. I don’t know if these stories showed up in Carey’s and Don Schmitt’s book about Roswell, but do know there are unidentified sources in it.

None of these tales even rises to the level of any standard of testimony. They are just a bunch of stories cobbled together that seem to corroborate some of the Roswell testimony of others but there is no way to tell. As most of you know, I come to the Roswell table believing that something did fall there that doesn’t seem to have been manufactured on Earth, but these snippets of information just aren’t good enough to help prove it and probably shouldn’t have been reported until more information could be supplied. I hear the skeptics screaming for some way to verify, if nothing else, these guys were actually in Roswell at the right time.

And before you say, of course they were, I will mention that in the last decade and a half, I have listened to and seen stories of guys who weren’t in the military but make all sorts of claims about their service in Vietnam… They had documents, uniforms, photographs and medals and when confronted with their lies, claimed their records were “lost,” their missions “classified,” but who don’t even know some of the basics of military service. Sometimes, if you listen to their tales, you discover they are lifted from movies and often include the dialogue from those movies. Confront them and their friends and family will defend them, even in the face of evidence to the contrary.


Anyway, I felt compelled to mention these things before they become cemented into the Roswell lore… though some of that has already happened. If we are going to share these tales as the truth, then we had better be prepared to offer some way of learning if the “witness” was even in Roswell in 1947 otherwise we’re just spinning our wheels.

12 comments:

TheDimov said...

I'm wholeheartedly with you on this Kevin. There is a lot that points to something strange, perhaps unearthly, crashing in 1947. But it doesn't mean investigators can become lax just to 'add to the testimonies', as Carey and Schmitt are chiefs at. Because what happens is they will realise hey.. we just got away with a couple of easy ones in our last book and people took the bait, and then it just snowballs from there... until something like the Roswell Slides incident occurs. They keep getting away with and getting away with it until they think they are invincible, but then end up ultimately and thankfully with egg on their faces.

This shouldn't be a field where one or two individuals has to bring the rest into line. But it seems that's its a field where investigators realise they can get away with quite a bit.. and then abuse the situation.

Don't even mention Maussaun... dooon't even mention him.

Terry the Censor said...

Some people investigate and produce findings...others just peddle "product."

cda said...

Kevin:

Consider the following:

You, as an investigator, have insisted a genuine ET vehicle crashed to earth, and this fact has been covered up by the military for 7 decades. In which case a few top military guys and maybe a few CIA or NSA chiefs knew all about it but kept it top secret. These 'top guys' therefore took the secret to their graves (Vandenberg, Blanchard & Ramey are three such, as are maybe some of those scientists mentioned in the MJ-12 papers).

At a much lower level a few guys (like cooks and office cleaners) inadvertently and mistakenly found out back in '47 but, because of respect for their country, and perhaps out of fear of the consequences, also never revealed the truth - until literally at death's door.

So here is the position:

1. Certain guys at the top took the great secret to their graves. Their identities are known.
2. Certain guys at the bottom also kept the great secret, but finally made a confession when they realised they were near death. Their identities are unknown.

I presume you accept 1 (essential to your cause), but now appear to reject 2. I personally find 1 just as hard to believe as 2, although both appear infinitely improbable to me.

KRandle said...

CDA =

The difference that you missed is that none of the lower ranking men are identified so there is no way to verify who they are or what they might have seen. And it seems, based on other testimony, I'm thinking of Robert Hastings and Art McQuiddy to name two, who were told something about this by Butch Blanchard... or Thomas DuBose who told several people about the situation in Fort Worth... So, your premise isn't exactly accurate.

Wind Swords said...

A bigger mystery to me than Roswell is why people would lie about it. I can see why they would about Viet Nam and other conflicts. The war was unpopular but the sentiment now is that it was not the fault of the troops and they should be respected and honored for their service. So it makes sense for someone who craves that kind of attention. But Roswell? For what, a mention in a book for a few sentences or a paragraph and maybe 2 minutes of face time on a documentary? And we are not talking a Dan Brown blockbuster book either.

Brian B said...

It may have been Friedman but I don't recall.

Paul Young said...

I've spent the last couple of hours scouring the net using various search engines.
Can't find any reference to Kaufmann actually making any confessions that his story was a hoax.
There are plenty of references to people (Kevin Randle at the forefront) casting heavy doubts on his story and accusing him of perpetrating a hoax, or at the very least, being a fantasist... but seemingly no confession by Kaufmann himself. (Though he did backtrack on certain parts of his story)

It seems Kaufmann kept up the lie (let's call him what he really was; An out and out liar), to his grave and was only caught out conclusively after his death.

KRandle said...

Brian -

Not good enough. If I tried something like this, you'd be all over me demanding evidence, quotes, sources... not something like it might have been Friedman... I don't believe that Friedman would have ever been close enough to hear anything like this and I don't believe he said it... Just more guesses, speculations and unfounded claims. You need to step up your game.

cda said...

Kevin:

You say Robert Hastings spoke to Butch Blanchard. Have you confused Hastings with someone else, as I thought Blanchard had died long before the Roswell case ever became famous (in 1980 when the Berlitz-Moore book came out)?

I could write a lot about the totally nonsensical idea that anyone took the great 'Roswell secret' to their grave, but I won't, on the grounds that it is really off-topic.

KRandle said...

CDA-

My fault. Bad syntax. Hastings spoke to Chester Lytle who had heard the tale from Blanchard. I was thinking that Hastings had reported his conversation with Lytle who told him what Blanchard had said. So, I guess since I'm relying on Hastings, you could say the information is third hand. However, McQuiddy told me what Blanchard had said to him, which sort of corroborates what Hastings wrote, but then the McQuiddy stuff is second hand. I was attempting to show that some of the higher-ranking officers had talked about this. Of course, DuBose told us what he had seen and done, so there we're back to first - hand testimony which you are now free to reject because the memories were decades old.

Unknown said...

MR. Randle

What about Barry Goldwater? Didn´t his last testimony imply that his knowledge about crashed saucer and aliens came from Butch Blanchard?

KRandle said...

Brian -

Do you wish to retract your statement, telling us that you really didn't know anything about it but thought you'd just obscure the truth or do you just wish to now forget that you raised an allegation that had no basis in fact?

Zak -

I do not believe that Barry Goldwater's knowledge had anything to do with Colonel Blanchard.