Wednesday, November 18, 2015

The Marcel Pictures

While I'm not sure why it is important in a discussion of the Ramey memo, there are those who wanted to see the scans of Marcel. These are the full negative scans and the copyright, as it has been defined, still resides with the University of Texas - Arlington Special Collections. If they ask that the pictures be removed, then I will comply.

These scans allow us all to see the full photograph along with the edges of the negatives. I do not believe these have been published before in this form.



And, for those who haven't seen the picture of Irving Newton, taken sometime after those of Marcel, Ramey, and Ramey and Dubose, this is the best copy I have. The photo credit that I have on it is the Bettmann Photo Archive, which has been acquired by Corbis, I believe.


It should be clear to anyone looking at these pictures that they show the remains of a weather balloon and a rawin radar target. There is no sign of any other debris in the pictures and certainly nothing that could be considered alien.

33 comments:

David Rudiak said...

You can see some of the details I've been commenting on recently, even in low resolution here (full resolution 4180 x 3423 pixels):

1) The double rectangular notches of the Marcel photos (also other JB Johnson photos of Ramey/Dubose and Ramey alone), Ansco Safety Film label near notches.

2) The reversed position of the notches in the two Marcel photos. Either one film plate was inserted backwards into the film holder or the camera was rotated 180 deg. between the two shots, the latter also suggested by...

3) The reversed shadowing of the two Marcel photos (also seen in the two Ramey alone photos).

4) Common features in the Marcel and Newton photos not found in the Ramey and Ramey/Dubose photos, suggesting Marcel was filmed between Ramey/Dubose and Newton. The most obvious such feature is the roundish paper package leaning against the radiator in Newton and Marcel photos. (The same round package may be in the Ramey/Dubose photos but tucked behind middle chair in these photos that has been pulled out from the wall.)

5) A tiny feature placing photo order is the small stick near double notch at bottom in second Marcel photo. It is rotated relative to much longer nearby stick below it, just like in Newton photo (not obvious in this low-res Newton photo). But in first Marcel photo, it is parallel to the long stick, like in the Ramey/Dubose photos. Between the two Marcel photos, the stick got rotated for some reason.

6) You can see the tie on the radiator in one of the Marcel photos (thought by most to be Ramey's), also seen in some of the Ramey/Dubose photos, but missing in the Newton photo.

7) Thus general photo order was 4 Ramey/Dubose photos, then 2 Marcel, then Newton.

8) The roundish paper package can be seen as probably open in second Marcel photo (notches at bottom). This would be just about the right size to hold the weather balloon pictured in the photos.

Forgetting about the radar target and paying attention to just the very obvious weather balloon that Ramey claimed Marcel found nearby the target, ponder how it could be possible for anyone to think this was anything other than a weather balloon and the foil/sticks thing part of a weather device (even if they never had heard or seen of a radar target, even though Marcel also had an MO of radar intelligence officer).

Also ponder how this TINY quantity of debris in mostly large chunks could lead to Marcel being quoted back then as saying the debris was scattered over a "square mile". And where are rancher Brazel's "rubber strips"? Nobody can find Brazel's "flower tape" in any of these photos either, even in much higher resolution.

Also observe the large sheet of foil-paper held by Marcel, with the white paper backside showing. It looks VERY white and clean (also true in Ramey-Dubose photos), not soiled and water stained as might be expected from a radar target laying out in the elements for at least 3 weeks (according to Brazel's story).

I have reconstructed this scene in a 3D ray tracer, cataloging the sticks. Everything adds up to just one radar target (not multiple targets). One balloon, one radar target, that is all that is displayed, just as Ramey claimed it was. (Weather officer Newton at the time and in the present day also has said that is all there was.)

cda said...

However TINY a quantity, there is nothing to stop it being scattered over a wide area, is there? Although I agree that a "square mile" sounds an exaggeration. See also my earlier comments on the object's quoted "diameter". Such figures are clearly intended for the balloon's estimated size, NOT the radar target, or 'weather meter'. In the rush to get into print, certain numerical data was, shall we say, a bit confused.

As for the photos depicting "all there was", even that sounds false. There is no way anyone could ascertain this from those photos. What about the whole week allegedly taken by the military to clear up the debris field after Marcel's visit? Perhaps that is when the missing twine and flower tape was finally located. Perhaps.

I have a feeling of deja-vu over all this. Haven't we been over this before several times?

Brian B said...

"Ponder how it could be possible for anyone to think this was anything other than a weather balloon and the foil/sticks thing part of a weather device (even if they never had heard or seen of a radar target, even though Marcel also had an MO of radar intelligence officer)."

If we remove the suggested modern notion that in their minds in 1947 they were already thinking "alien spaceship", then it becomes believable.

As we've discussed, for all they knew these saucers could be anything, not necessarily alien spaceships. Foil kites, some sort of light weight wind devise, some kind of Soviet spy balloon, etc.

So it is believable that they didn't mistake anything at all. They simply thought this junk was part of some devise thought to be what people were claiming as saucers in the sky.

David Rudiak said...

CDA wrote:
See also my earlier comments on the object's quoted "diameter". Such figures are clearly intended for the balloon's estimated size, NOT the radar target, or 'weather meter'. In the rush to get into print, certain numerical data was, shall we say, a bit confused. ...I have a feeling of deja-vu over all this. Haven't we been over this before several times?

Yes we have, and you keep conveniently forgetting. (Maybe YOU are the one with severe memory problems, not the witnesses.) When this came up again only 2 months ago, I did a four-part post quoting EXTENSIVELY from numerous news sources, showing that the 25 foot across if reconstructed comment was about Ramey's foil-covered "box-kite":

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-size-of-debris-field.html

You could "reconstruct" the box-kite from pieces, but how exactly to you "reconstruct" a balloon, especially one pretty much intact on display? The broken radar target on Ramey's floor would only be 4 feet across if "reconstructed".

A typical balloon lofting a radar target (only about half a pound) would be inflated to about 4 or 5 feet across at ground level and expand to maybe 10-12 feet at high altitude before bursting or deflating, but would not get to 25 foot size, no way, no how, even at high altitude (it would burst long before that). Back down on earth, even intact, as Ramey's balloon seems to be, it would be deflated down to near original size. The balloon on Ramey's floor I have measured and is only a little over 2 feet long in its longest dimension. So again, how do you get from what is actually shown in the photos to a 25 foot diameter balloon, even if you could somehow "reconstruct" the damn thing? Can't happen unless Ramey shifted a decimal point over the telephone.

The 25 foot across comment is a very good indication there was nothing there yet for Ramey to view, since the statement is totally absurd. They also put out a statement that Ramey said the object was hexagonal in shape, yet that would ONLY be a possible shape description of a rawin if it was totally intact and assembled and viewed in profile from directly above or below. Do you see an intact, assembled rawin in Ramey's office, or a broken, torn up, and flattened one?

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

So please explain to me where they came up with "hexagonal" for the shape from what they had displayed? This is another indication that there was some sort of prepared script being followed that had nothing to do with what could actually be deduced from the debris eventually displayed.

cda said...

DR:

Some quotes I have read, mainly from your website, indicate the balloon size as either 20 or 25 feet. The FBI teletype says "20 feet in diameter", and that the hexagonal 'disc' was suspended from it by cable. Maybe the informant (E.M.Kirton) was a bit more careful over the phone to the FBI than he, or whoever, was to the various newspapers. Or, more likely, the press reporters simply got confused (as I said) and took the 25 feet to be the size of the 'hexagonal' disc.

I don't know really what all the fuss is about. Don or you, or both, claimed Ramey was a liar. I am saying he was nothing of the sort. The word 'reconstruct' sounds dodgy. I don't know who used it at the time, but you do not have to reconstruct a balloon to determine its approximate diameter. You can estimate it either from the debris itself (some pieces were quite large) or make a good guess from the known size of other balloons. The word "hexagonal" is intended as an APPROXIMATE description, not an exact one. What do you want - octagonal? Or maybe 3-dimensional, i.e. octohedron, dodecahedron or something else? You hardly expect USAF Colonels or Generals to be experts in geometry!

Neither you nor Don have shown that Ramey deliberately lied. If it becomes a choice between Ramey being a liar and the press reporters getting confused, I know which I prefer.

Unknown said...

All,
The Marcel/Newton photos show a brown-paper wrapped package in front of the radiator. Why was it hidden behind the chairs in the Ramey sequence and brought out for the Marcel/Newton photos? Or was is a prop for the Marcel/Newton photos and then hidden when JBJ arrived for the Ramey photos?
Ed

Brian B said...

"So please explain to me where they came up with "hexagonal" for the shape from what they had displayed?"

Well...a hexagonal flying alien spaceship of course! What else could possibly be hexagonal? Nothing...

But not really.

We don't know why the term "hexagonal" was used and can only speculate. There could be many reasons that include someone just looking at the junk thinking perhaps it assembled into some sort of foil covered hexagonal kite. Who knows?!

I still maintain that if it was the "balloon train that shall not be mentioned" there was probably a lot more left in the field, and what was brought to Ramey was in fact just a small sample - which is supposedly what some witnesses claimed anyway.

Don said...

When someone disagrees with me about a Roswell news story, I'm told the reporters made a mistake or an error. Doesn't matter if its a skeptic or an advocate. 10am departure or Ramey's lies. The reporters' reports are most likely wrong. Doesn't matter if its in the AP and the UP. Both wire services got it wrong.

Well, maybe they did. It just can't be on every instance of disagreement. There must be some odds I'm right on some.

It's been 35 years since The Roswell Incident was published. That's more years than the time between its publication and the "incident" itself. If there is no agreement after 35 years, then maybe you've all got it wrong.

Regards,

Don

Paul Young said...

Brian..."As we've discussed, for all they knew these saucers could be anything, not necessarily alien spaceships.

The school of thought was there though. Didn't Arnold describe the UFO's, he saw, of managing speeds far in excess of known aircraft of the day? And didn't that statement, in itself, lead some people to believe that "flying saucers" could well be alien spaceships?

Brian... "I still maintain that if it was the "balloon train that shall not be mentioned" there was probably a lot more left in the field, and what was brought to Ramey was in fact just a small sample - which is supposedly what some witnesses claimed anyway.

It seems to be in such pristine condition though!
It looks just like weather balloon "bits and bobs" that had just been taken out of the box, that had been lying on the shelf in the Fort Worth weather balloon store!

It's so bleedingly obvious that it's a weather balloon, even one of Mac Brazel's sheep (if it could talk) would have been able to recognise it, and tell Marcel to stop embarrassing him!

Brian! Why would this stuff in the photographs cause such a fuss?
Even if there was 1000 times more of this stuff out on the farm...the World Champion of village idiots would not be alarmed by it.

Brian B said...

"The school of thought was there though. Didn't Arnold describe the UFO's, he saw, of managing speeds far in excess of known aircraft of the day?"

Yes, but he originally stated he thought it was some type of new military plane. Only later did he decide it must have been something else based on what people suggested and the fact the army never really explained it to him.

His first goto thought was terrestrial. And those speeds were already predicted by conventional designs already drafted a few years prior. Nothing special there when ramjets had already been designed.

"About the fuss.."

All the fuss created may be our own modern interpretation of events. If you believe in a cover-up and conspiracy, and take all witness testimony as truthful and accurate, then you might also conclude there was a great deal of fuss.

But then again, if you don't believe all of that then it seems like a simple mishandling of a downed survelliance balloon in a time when two nations were competing for global power while fearful of a Third World War.

Paul Young said...

Don wrote..."When someone disagrees with me about a Roswell news story, I'm told the reporters made a mistake or an error. Doesn't matter if its a skeptic or an advocate. 10am departure or Ramey's lies."

Whether we go along with the US govts latest explanation, that it was a mogul (chuckle)... or if the advocates are right and it really was a flying saucer, we know that Ramey was telling a lie, because he was trying to pass it off as a "run of the mill" weather balloon.
"Liar" might be a harsh description for some poor sap who was just following orders. But either way, Ramey was an active member of the cover up.

The problem with the 10am departure, (as pointed out by David) is that it would mean that the flight would have arrived hours, and hours before Ramey could possibly have held the photo-shoot. Maybe, on this occasion, reporters really did make an error. Considering the circumstances...the uneasiness surrounding the implications of what these reporters had heard in the Haut press release, they may well have had good reasons to suffer a "brain fart"

Paul Young said...

Brian wrote..."Yes, but he originally stated he thought it was some type of new military plane. Only later did he decide it must have been something else based on what people suggested. and the fact the army never really explained it to him.

That, in itself, would suggest that there were people around who already were of the mindset that these strange things, reported in our skies, could be of ET origin.
The school of thought was there already!

David Rudiak said...

Paul Young wrote:
The problem with the 10am departure, (as pointed out by David) is that it would mean that the flight would have arrived hours, and hours before Ramey could possibly have held the photo-shoot. Maybe, on this occasion, reporters really did make an error. Considering the circumstances...the uneasiness surrounding the implications of what these reporters had heard in the Haut press release, they may well have had good reasons to suffer a "brain fart"

All that's needed to resolve the contradictions is to add the word "ordered" to the quote:

"The weather device was (ordered) flown to Fort Worth army airfield by a B-29 from Roswell army airfield at 10 a.m. Tuesday at the command of Brig. Gen. Roger Ramey..."

This reminds me of a debate I had 10 years ago on UFO Updates over what Kenneth Arnold reported. The Chicago Tribune had Arnold saying, "I counted nine of them as they disappeared behind THE peak of Mount Rainier."

But every other source, including a recorded radio interview with Arnold and his letter to AAF intelligence had him reporting the objects flew in front of Rainier, but also disappeared behind _a_ peak of Rainier or _a subpeak_ of Rainier. Thus it could have been a simple transcription error where the Chicago Tribune reporter on the phone substituted "the" for "a", or maybe wrote "peak" instead of "subpeak".

And with Roswell, UP said the disc was "flown" by intelligence officers to higher headquarters, whereas AP said Marcel "loaned" the disc to higher headquarters, another probable transcription error over the telephone.

It would make perfect sense for Marcel to be ORDERED at 10 a.m. to Fort Worth, right after the staff meeting early that morning, but not leave for several more hours. That would also explain his memory of being pestered by reporters before leaving (presumably after 12:00 when Haut first delivered the release to the local media), and also encountering other reporters when he arrived at Fort Worth. None of that could have happened had he left at 10:00--no story yet.

Brice said...

@Kevin : thanks for putting these Marcel's photos.

@edward gehrman :

"The Marcel/Newton photos show a brown-paper wrapped package in front of the radiator. Why was it hidden behind the chairs in the Ramey sequence and brought out for the Marcel/Newton photos? Or was is a prop for the Marcel/Newton photos and then hidden when JBJ arrived for the Ramey photos?"

In front of the radiator the package is opened (Marcel and Newton photos) when it seems still closed on the R/D photos (if the same package). As proposed for the order of the photos by David Rudiak, I believe it supports the idea that the R/D were taken before Marcel's ones.

Brice said...

@david Rudiak :

"It would make perfect sense for Marcel to be ORDERED at 10 a.m. to Fort Worth, right after the staff meeting early that morning, but not leave for several more hours. That would also explain his memory of being pestered by reporters before leaving (presumably after 12:00 when Haut first delivered the release to the local media), and also encountering other reporters when he arrived at Fort Worth. None of that could have happened had he left at 10:00--no story yet."

Good point but something odd here, following Marcel's testimony there were other reporters at his arrival at Fort Worth, but only JBJ had a chance to take photos. Isn't there something odd here?

David Rudiak said...

Paul Young wrote:
Brian wrote..."Yes, but he originally stated he thought it was some type of new military plane. Only later did he decide it must have been something else based on what people suggested. and the fact the army never really explained it to him.

That, in itself, would suggest that there were people around who already were of the mindset that these strange things, reported in our skies, could be of ET origin.
The school of thought was there already!


Quite. There was a lot of speculation along these lines in the newspapers, most not serious or only half-serious, but also some who considered it a real possibility or thought it to be true, including Kenneth Arnold. I've documented this at my website:

http://www.roswellproof.com/eth-in-1947.html

Arnold's first mention of this was June 27, 1947, only 3 days after his sighting, describing an unnerving encounter with a hysterical woman in a Pendleton cafe, who shouted there was the man who saw the men from Mars and ran sobbing from the cafe saying she wanted to do something for her children. On July 7, an article mentioned that he had also received "fan mail" from people who thought this.

Also on July 7, 1947, in the Chicago Times, he was quoted saying he HOPED they were a secret military project, but if not, he thought they were extraterrestrial. He mentioned the extremeness of their maneuvers would have killed a human pilot, so he assumed they were remote-controlled.

"...Arnold ...is not so certain that the strange contraptions are made on this planet. Arnold... said he hoped the devices were really the work of the U.S. Army. But he told the TIMES in a phone conversation: 'If our government knows anything about these devices, the people should be told at once. A lot of people out here are very much disturbed. Some think these things may be from another planet. But they aren’t harming anyone and I think it would be the wrong thing to shoot one of them down—even if can be done. Their high speed would completely wreck them…'

"Arnold, in pointing to the possibility of these discs being from another world, said, regardless of their origin, they apparently were traveling to some reachable destination. Whoever controlled them, he said, obviously wasn’t trying to hurt anyone. …He said discs were making turns so abruptly in rounding peaks that it would have been impossible for human pilots inside to have survived the pressure. So, he too thinks they are controlled from elsewhere, regardless of whether it’s from Mars, Venus, or our own planet."

12 days later, AP quoted him:
"[Arnold] now believes:
1. The disks are not from any foreign country.
2. The Army could give the answer if it would -- 'if they don't have the explanation now they certainly could do something to find out.'
3. If the Army has no explanation the disks must be -- 'and I know this sounds crazy' -- from another planet."

cda said...

Brice said:

"Good point but something odd here, following Marcel's testimony there were other reporters at his arrival at Fort Worth, but only JBJ had a chance to take photos. Isn't there something odd here?"

Not really.

People are often vague and loose with their language. When Marcel said there were other reporters at his arrival at Ft Worth this does NOT mean these reporters were waiting for him as he landed. It only means he met a reporter, or reporters, at some time after he landed. Also, the plural is often used when the singular applies. Someone says "I have witnesses to my story". This can, and often does, mean they have just ONE witness.

You need not take these decades-old statements too literally. I assume Marcel was referring to Johnson and nobody else. As to the alleged reporters he saw before leaving Roswell, I think Marcel had a memory lapse decades later. What evidence is there that ANY reporters or other civilians were present when the plane took off for Ft Worth? Such flight or flights from the Roswell base were supposedly shrouded in secrecy anyway. Where did Marcel make this statement, if ever?

Just more confusion over the events of '47.

KRandle said...

Kurt Peters -

I am not obligated to explain my decisions to you or anyone else.

However:

If you return to the comments for that thread, you'll see that I had said that I don't want to go down that path again which clearly meant I didn't want to see another long argument about high-ranking officials inadvertently revealing classified material to the media. It had been discussed to death after other postings.

Your argument wasn't even on point. This wasn't about a general who revealed classified material to another officer who held high security clearances... There was not inadvertent revelation to the media. None of it had to do with Roswell, UFOs, or what transpired in Ramey's office.

Finally, I deleted all the comments that had to do with revealing classified material by mistake.

And, if this particular topic arises again, as you have attempted here, I will again delete it, as I have.

David Rudiak said...

I wrote: "It would make perfect sense for Marcel to be ORDERED at 10 a.m. to Fort Worth, right after the staff meeting early that morning, but not leave for several more hours. That would also explain his memory of being pestered by reporters before leaving (presumably after 12:00 when Haut first delivered the release to the local media), and also encountering other reporters when he arrived at Fort Worth. None of that could have happened had he left at 10:00--no story yet."

Brice commented:
"Good point but something odd here, following Marcel's testimony there were other reporters at his arrival at Fort Worth, but only JBJ had a chance to take photos. Isn't there something odd here?"

Yes, it doesn't totally make sense, but then Ramey's weather officer Irving Newton thought there were multiple reporters there as well when he was in Ramey's office, yet we have but one photo of him, maybe taken by Ramey's PIO Cashon. There are quotes from Newton, so possibly a reporter or two was there (or Cashon put them out?).

By the time Marcel got to Fort Worth, a UP bulletin had already placed him there, so I can see UP maybe sending some people out. He also recollected some holding microphones, suggesting radio press. Ramey's office had announced Ramey was going to appear on a national radio broadcast, but when Newton did the final weather balloon ID, Ramey cancelled that broadcast, only doing a local broadcast instead. So it is plausible Marcel encountered radio reporters waiting outside Ramey's office for Ramey when he arrived. He said he couldn't say anything to them.

Marcel made these comments about reporters in his interview with Bob Pratt of the National Inquirer, which you can find in Pflock's book. (Pratt was a mainstream news reporter and newspaper editor who got an offer he couldn't refuse from the Inquirer. Despite the Inquirer's highly tabloid nature, Pratt did straight UFO news reporting while he worked there and was widely respected for his integrity.)

Jeanne Ruppert said...

Kevin, thank you for the above. I wanted to read more of or about the Pratt interview and reached your blog of September 2, 2013, containing copies of Pratt's notes. All of this is fascinating. Here's the link for others who might want to read all this:


http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2013/09/jesse-marcel-sr-bob-pratt-and-interview.html

Jeanne Ruppert said...

I hope it's ok to repost here David Rudiak's response to a question posed in the comments following that 2013 blog. There are significant details reported in it concerning the anomalous properties of 'fabric'-like memory metal:

'David Rudiak said...
(part 1 of 2)
Anthony,

Please see my collection of testimony about the debris:

www.roswellproof.com/debris2_memory_foil.htm

In Marcel's last interview in 1981 with Linda Corley, this point was brought up, when Marcel described a "metallic cloth" that was different than the other foil:

"...the material was unusual. Of course the Air Force called it a balloon. It couldn't have been. It was porous. It couldn't hold any air. The material was a fabric... I tried to blow though it. It would go right through it. I tried to blow it with my mouth." [Corley asking for clarification: "What piece? That foil looking stuff?"] "No, no. ...what looked like balloon material. A cloth. ...It wouldn't hold any air. ...it's a cloth-like material, but it was also metallic. ...It was a metallic cloth. It [air] would go right through it. I even tried to burn it. It wouldn't burn. ...a balloon has to have ...gas to go up in the air -- even hot air. This could not hold anything like that. It was porous."

A second eyewitness who described a cloth-like (by feel) metallic material was Linda Strickland Tadolini (in affidavit), who was 9 at the time:

"What Bill [Brazel Jr.] showed us was a piece of what I still think as fabric. It was something like aluminum foil, something like satin, something like well-tanned leather in its toughness, yet was not precisely like any one of those materials. While I do not recall this with certainty, I think the fabric measured about four by eight to ten inches. Its edges, where were smooth, were not exactly parallel, and its shape was roughly trapezoidal. It was about the thickness of a very fine kidskin glove leather and a dull metallic grayish silver, one side slightly darker than the other. I do not remember it having any design or embossing on it. Bill passed it around, and we all felt it. I did a lot of sewing, so the feel made a great impression on me. It felt like no fabric I have touched before or since. It was very silky or satiny, with the same texture on both sides. Yet when I crumpled it in my hands, the feel was like that you notice when you crumple a leather glove in your hand. When it was released, it sprang back into its original shape, quickly flattening out with no wrinkles. I did this several times, as did the others. I remember some of the others stretching it between their hands and "popping" it, but I do not think anyone tried to cut or tear it."

So according to this, the the metallic cloth-like material also had the infamous memory properties.
(continued in next post)

Jeanne Ruppert said...

". . . The final cloth-like eyewitness I'm familiar with was Sgt. Earl Fulford, who said he was part of one of the clean-up crews on the debris field (from 2008 interview on OpenMinds):

"We did pick up some shreds of some kind of material that was one of the most unique things I ever saw, because you could pick it up—it looked like aluminum foil—didn’t appear to have any weight whatsoever—and you could fold it up and wad it up and lay it down and it would just return to its original position. It felt more like a cloth, but it looked metallic.. It was about like bending cardboard. You bend a piece of cardboard and it might come back out a little. But this would come back in a perfect, flat position with no crease marks or no damage left whatsoever."

Lastly, indirectly through Whitley Strieber who said he interviewed Dr. Robert Sarbacher by phone shortly before his death, written down immediately afterward from memory (according to an email I had with Strieber):

"That fabric we obtained at Roswell had molecular welds so small you couldn't even identify what they were until the sixties, when the microscopes to do it became available. ...What I can be certain about is that it was not produced by any technology we were aware of in 1947, or now."

Jeanne Ruppert said...

And part 2 of that post by DR:

"David Rudiak said...
(part 2 of 2)

The Strieber/Sarbacher quote is consistent with the history of scanning electron microscopes, not developed until the 1960s capable of producing 3D imaging of 3D metallic objects through backscattering of the electron beam, unlike earlier developed electron microscopes which are 2D electron transmission images and work only with ultrathin slices of material, generally nonmetallic.

I speculated with Larry in private email a few years ago, and on my website, that the various properties described (metallic appearance, great strength, resistance to heat, high heat transmission, memory, and porosity) could be replicated by a carbon nanotube fabric or composite of same, which of course did not exist in 1947 and exists only in labs now."

Jeanne Ruppert said...

I want to repost as well the further information concerning the nature of the memory metal/fabric provided by 'Larry' in that 2013 conversation:

Part 1
12:34 AM
Larry said...
Anthony, David:

". . . Briefly, there are half a dozen or so individual properties that the witnesses described independently, that would need explaining from a materials science standpoint.

First, there is the metallic appearance. This consistent description strongly suggests that at least the outer layer of the material was metallic. All of the visual appearance properties of a metal (silvery, shiny, highly reflective, etc) derive from the fact that the valence electrons exist in a kind of "sea" surrounding the matrix of nuclei. This set of properties is hard to fake, or produce by other means, so it is probably the simplest explanation.

Second, the extreme strength described would only need to be a factor of 4 or 5 higher than materials that were common in 1947, like steel, for example, in order to create some of the reports, such as shooting it with a 30-06 bullet, and pounding it with a sledge hammer--to no effect. Materials science has known for quite some time that common alloys like carbon steels only reach perhaps 1/10 the maximum strength predicted by atomic theory. Recent progress in the manufacturing of metallic glasses, for example, are starting to approach the theoretical strength limit.

Then there is the light weight. As I recall, one witness described some pieces of the material as floating on the top of rain puddles that had collected out in the prairie. A specific gravity less than 1, would mean that the material was underdense by some means--like woven, foamed, or filled with microbubbles, etc.

I think there is a little bit of confusion as to whether the witnesses were describing one or two different materials--one being a foil and the other being a porous fabric. If the pores of a fabric were small enough, they wouldn't be noticeable by the unaided eye. . . ."

In any case, there is then the "memory" aspect of the material. Ironically, this property is the least mysterious one of the lot. ALL materials have a "memory", to some extent or another. It is called the "elastic limit" of the material. Most common metallic materials have an elastic limit of a fraction of 1%. If you stretch or compress them beyond that amount, they will permanently deform and ultimately, break. It is obvious that the memory foil/cloth simply had an unusually large elastic limit--about like rubber, for example. (You can do the experiment yourself if you can obtain a thin sheet of rubber. Crumple it up in your fist and then release it, and watch what happens).

The most mysterious property of the material that was described was its imperviousness to heat. After considering and discarding various different possible explanations, I came to the conclusion that the material was a room-temperature thermal superconductor (not to be confused with electrical superconductors).

Some of the large-scale defect-free carbon materials (e.g., Graphene) approach the strength levels required, and are much better heat conductors than, for example, Copper, but fail the tests of super elasticity, superconductivity, and metallic appearance. . . . .

Jeanne Ruppert said...

Part 2

"In any case, there is then the "memory" aspect of the material. Ironically, this property is the least mysterious one of the lot. ALL materials have a "memory", to some extent or another. It is called the "elastic limit" of the material. Most common metallic materials have an elastic limit of a fraction of 1%. If you stretch or compress them beyond that amount, they will permanently deform and ultimately, break. It is obvious that the memory foil/cloth simply had an unusually large elastic limit--about like rubber, for example. (You can do the experiment yourself if you can obtain a thin sheet of rubber. Crumple it up in your fist and then release it, and watch what happens).

The most mysterious property of the material that was described was its imperviousness to heat. After considering and discarding various different possible explanations, I came to the conclusion that the material was a room-temperature thermal superconductor (not to be confused with electrical superconductors).

Some of the large-scale defect-free carbon materials (e.g., Graphene) approach the strength levels required, and are much better heat conductors than, for example, Copper, but fail the tests of super elasticity, superconductivity, and metallic appearance.

Overall, my guess would be that the Roswell material is what today we woud call a metallic nanomaterial or a metamaterial. It appears to be a material that has been engineered on the atomic scale and assembled on the macroscopic scale. The only property described that we can't explain yet is the thermal superconductivity, and that may yield to spinor theory.

I find it interesting that modern materials science is approaching an understanding of how the Roswell memory metal could work, but we are not quite there yet. Everyone has been assuming that the science and technology behind UFOs is millenia ahead of us; it may have been only 100 years or so."

Jeanne Ruppert said...

Based on the range of descriptions of that 'metallic fabric' handled by witnesses at the Brazel debris field it seems to me that what looks to us in the photos like terrestrial metallic foil used in radar targets might not all in fact be terrestrial metallic foil. If so, what's seen (to the extent that it is seen/visible) in the photographs available to most of us might indeed include some of the anomalous material found in the debris field along with a greater amount of the prosaic radar target material added at Fort Worth. How to determine this from the photographs is the challenge, which the Regehr/Morris book might turn out to meet.

Why would Ramey include some of the actual Brazel field debris rather than simply lay out a standard balloon and foil radar target? Probably because hundreds of eyes would be on the scene to observe the movement of what came out of that B-29 from Roswell into Ramey's office and the photo op.

I think it's likely that Ramey did attend that meeting at RAAFB the morning of July 8 at which samples from the debris field were passed around, handled, and recognized to be anomalous. He would have needed to see the actual debris before he could come to a decision about what prosaic and readily available AAF materials would best match the debris (which many other individuals had also seen).

zoamchomsky said...

Off topic, I know.

DR writes:

"[Arnold] now believes:
1. The disks are not from any foreign country.
2. The Army could give the answer if it would -- 'if they don't have the explanation now they certainly could do something to find out.'
3. If the Army has no explanation the disks must be -- 'and I know this sounds crazy' -- from another planet."

We see the illogical "paranormalist or conspiracist versus government and military, scientists and skeptics" dynamic established from the start: an extraordinary claim is made with a challenge for others to prove it wrong. That's Ray Palmer speaking out of Arnold's mouth. Then keep repeating it in mass media as often as possible.

David; A very good case can be made that Arnold was an attention-seeking fantasy-prone personality and that he was a fortune seeker in the employ of publisher Ray Palmer. It was not by mere coincidence that Palmer was planning the launch of a new kind of science-fiction magazine in which subjects such as "flying saucers" from other worlds were presented as reality.

Arnold did say "saucers" and "saucer-like" to reporters. First they were "guided missiles" and then they became extraterrestrial. It's easy to imagine Palmer coaching Arnold by telephone. Others have suggested the same over the years.

Besides that suggestion being perfectly reasonable, Arnold's actions and behavior in the days that followed his purported sighting of mysterious aircraft were nothing less than those of a shameless self-promoter. Even if his story as a "UFO" report weren't so sketchy, evidenceless and completely anecdotal, a rational adult at the time could conclude that he was making it all up by his promotional actions and statements.

And many did. Palmer had Shaver in his service, now he had found a new talent, an athletic salesman. Public appearances, magazine articles and books paid them well or well enough to pursue this "flying saucer" business for two decades.

Of course, Arnold's story was featured on the first cover of FATE months later. And he claimed to have had repeated sightings of other kinds of mysterious aircraft as well as supernatural experiences. Arnold was hardly a credible witness to purportedly extraordinary events.

If fifty years of stories of mystery aircraft and numerous crashes wholly without consequence before 1947 didn't put an end to the idea of any kind of "UFO" reality, then the true origins of the modern "flying saucer" myth in the Shaver mystery, Palmer, Arnold, and the Maury Island hoax, certainly should.

Brice said...

CDA wrote :

"Brice said:

"Good point but something odd here, following Marcel's testimony there were other reporters at his arrival at Fort Worth, but only JBJ had a chance to take photos. Isn't there something odd here?"

Not really.

People are often vague and loose with their language. When Marcel said there were other reporters at his arrival at Ft Worth this does NOT mean these reporters were waiting for him as he landed. It only means he met a reporter, or reporters, at some time after he landed. Also, the plural is often used when the singular applies. Someone says "I have witnesses to my story". This can, and often does, mean they have just ONE witness.

You need not take these decades-old statements too literally. I assume Marcel was referring to Johnson and nobody else. "

Actually quoting Marcel from Pratt's interview : "...when I got to Carswell, general Ramey wasn't there, but they had a lot of news reporters and a slew of microphones that wanted to interview me..."

So according to Marcel, there was not only one (JBJ) but many reporters at his arrival at Fort Worth.

David Rudiak wrote :

"Brice commented:
"Good point but something odd here, following Marcel's testimony there were other reporters at his arrival at Fort Worth, but only JBJ had a chance to take photos. Isn't there something odd here?"

Yes, it doesn't totally make sense, but then Ramey's weather officer Irving Newton thought there were multiple reporters there as well when he was in Ramey's office, yet we have but one photo of him, maybe taken by Ramey's PIO Cashon. There are quotes from Newton, so possibly a reporter or two was there (or Cashon put them out?).

By the time Marcel got to Fort Worth, a UP bulletin had already placed him there, so I can see UP maybe sending some people out. He also recollected some holding microphones, suggesting radio press. Ramey's office had announced Ramey was going to appear on a national radio broadcast, but when Newton did the final weather balloon ID, Ramey cancelled that broadcast, only doing a local broadcast instead. So it is plausible Marcel encountered radio reporters waiting outside Ramey's office for Ramey when he arrived. He said he couldn't say anything to them."

Yes it is well possible (as the ST was alerted by a AP bulletin) but according to Marcel there was a lot of reporters (meaning not only one or two). I assumed almost every reporters would have had a camera but this may well be a wrong assumption. Still I find it a bit odd that just one (JBJ) took some photos. If planning a photo op, I guess Ramey would have been happy of other shootings, but maybe none of the other reporters had a camera and were only there to get an interview (as Marcel said they were interested in and recalling a " slew of microphones", if any of them had a camera one can suppose they may have took a picture of Marcel?)

Daniel Transit said...

zoamchomsky said...

(sample) '..And many did. Palmer had Shaver in his service, now he had found a new talent, an athletic salesman. Public appearances, magazine articles and books paid them well or well enough to pursue this "flying saucer" business for two decades...'

Ray Palmer was writing and publishing about things in the sky that were from elsewhere for more than three decades. He died in 1977.

Well under 1% of what he published about such things, from 1947 onwards involved Kenneth Arnold.

You have no evidence at all that the money he made from/with Kenneth Arnold was remotely substantial enough to justify the argument you make, yet quite charmingly you don't let your ignorance about Ray Palmer's business matters bother you.

You just assume, like a little child, what you wish to assume, to suit the conspiracy theory you want to believe.

zoamchomsky said...

Daniel; The case for Palmer's creation of the "flying saucer" myth in 1947 doesn't depend on how much money he made in total or from "flying saucer" books and magazines--with or without Arnold--over the next two decades.

You just don't like the idea--the circumstantial case--that Arnold's "saucer" tale was just a hoax and "flying saucer" mania was cooked up by Palmer and Arnold--as the FBI claimed--to launch Palmer's new paranormalist-reality magazine.

I doubt very much that you have any knowledge of how much Palmer made from the "flying saucer" business, with or without Arnold, but even if you do it's irrelevant; "flying saucer" mania happened and FATE magazine was launched successfully.

I think the simplest theory that accounts for most of the facts and their consequences is much better than the "official" story we've had for nearly seventy years.

Now where are your "UFO" videos?

cda said...

Zoam:

Having brought in Ray Palmer, I can say I do recall one edition of his FLYING SAUCERS magazine in which Palmer put out the idea that US government agents went around confiscating the entire edition of the "Arizona Republic" for July 9, 1947. Yes, that was his claim, namely that agents tried to get hold of every printed edition that day. Needless to say they did not succeed, and the story was completely false.

The irony of it was that this was the very edition that featured the Roswell affair! However, Kevin, please note: Palmer was NOT saying it was confiscated for this reason at all, but for the fact that this July 9 edition contained the William Rhodes photographs!

I suppose you could just call it a 'coincidence' of sorts. Palmer had never heard of Roswell (this was in the late 1950s, I believe). Another example of a conspiratorial mindset.

David Rudiak said...

As Jerome Clark often points out, debunkers like Zoam seem to love conspiracy theories to "explain" things even more than Zoam's "paranormalists".

Back on planet Earth, Kenneth Arnold was repeatedly telling about his sighting (and eventually his opinion that they might be ET on July 7, 1947) and AAF intelligence (letter July 12) long before he had any business relationship with Palmer. But in Zoam's fantasy world, he can "imagine" Palmer as the puppetmaster "coaching" Arnold by phone as part of their conspiratorial plot to make millions, no doubt, off the gullible public, Arnold besides being an "attention-seeking fantasy-prone personality" was also in ZoamBotWorld a "fortune seeker". What utter bilge!

Palmer had written Arnold a letter back on June 26, 1947, after first reading about Arnold's sighting in the Chicago Tribune. Arnold said he didn't get around to reading it in his mass of mail until about July 15. He had no idea who Palmer was or anything about his magazine. When he eventually found out what sort of magazine Palmer published, he realized it was the sort of magazine that he thought to be a complete waste of time to read, and he also eventually regretted getting involved with Palmer. He said he responded to Palmer's offer because Palmer's letter had a very innocent and sincere tone. Palmer also said he had been writing about similar incidents as Arnold's for years.

In the letter to Arnold, Palmer had offered Arnold the princely sum of 5 cents a word. For a 1000 word article describing his sighting, the "fortune-seeking" Arnold would have been paid $50 (or about $500 in today's inflated dollars) plus $5 for any illustration or photo, not much for a guy who was already a successful businessman, not nearly enough to justify the ridicule heaped upon Arnold by many, Zoam being just one example (Zoam being a graduate of the Klass school of UFO witness character assassination).

No doubt in ZoamWorld, other high-profile UFO witnesses back then were also "attention-seeking fantasy-prone personalities" and "fortune seekers", like the United Airlines crew who had another sighting of 9 disc-like objects July 4 near Boise, and gave Arnold's sighting a lot of credibility. The UAL sighting probably garnished more headlines and publicity than Arnold's story, so I guess the UAL crew's "attention-seeking" ploy worked. No doubt Zoam can also "imagine" Palmer "coaching" them over the telephone as well, all retiring from the vast fortune they made duping the public.

The pilot, Cpt. Emil Smith, was interviewed in the same July 7 Chicago Times as Arnold. Like Arnold, he was absolutely certain the discs were real, but thought they were a secret military project, probably remote controlled. Arnold also thought them probably remote controlled because of their violent maneuvers, "hoped" they were a military project, but if not, went beyond Smith in proposing they were ET.

zoamchomsky said...

David;

Since Palmer and Arnold were known fantasists and suspected hoaxsters by both the FBI and the military in 1947, their denials of cooperation in their 1952 book are highly suspect.

Ray Palmer was known to make up anything out of his grab bag of science-fiction tropes and paranormalist mumbo-jumbo to flesh-out stories and fill the pages of his magazines.

In 1947, Kenneth Arnold was--or would soon become--a paranormalist and believer in the Shaver-mystery paranoid fantasy of cosmic forces with advanced technologies at war in the "hidden world."

Arnold claimed at least three other sightings of mysterious "aircraft" or supernatural flying "space creatures" and claimed to have had other psychical or ghostly paranormal experiences.

Arnold's actions and behavior in the days that followed his purported sighting of mysterious aircraft were nothing less than those of a shameless self-promoter.

"It was Arnold who was most responsible for the dissemination of his story, telling his fantastic story to anyone who would listen: first at his home airport, then an airshow, then to a newspaper office, then Army Air Force intelligence, then in a telegram to the FBI. And it was Arnold who publicly speculated to reporters in the first fews days about earthly advanced technology and then extraterrestrial visitors as possible identities for his flashing, fluttering, flipping, erratically flying, thin, fast, saucer-like pie-plate unknowns."

Even if his story as a "UFO" report weren't so sketchy, implausible, evidenceless and completely anecdotal, a rational adult at the time could conclude that he was making it all up by his promotional actions and statements.

Kenneth Arnold was hardly a credible witness to purportedly extraordinary events.

And it's funny that UAL pilot Smith accompanied Arnold on the trip to investigate the other Palmer-engineered hoax, the Maury Island fiasco. Just another attention-seeker looking for his fifteen minutes of fame and a little extra cash, the two main motivators for "UFO" hoaxes.

"An article by Sidney Shalett in the April 30, 1949 edition of The Saturday Evening POST provides confirmation that Ken Arnold became a 'flying saucer' believer and dedicated the rest of his life to finding out what it was that he had seen or experienced."

http://ufocon.blogspot.com/2013/05/damn-you-kenneth-arnold.html