Tuesday, December 15, 2015

This and That

As many of you know, I have been reviewing a large number of UFO files and have found some things that don’t warrant a complete blog post but that are interesting. For example, Ramey Air Force Base in Puerto Rico was not named for Roger Ramey but for Brigadier General Howard Knox Ramey. This Ramey learned to fly in 1918 and by the time the Second World War broke out he had moved up the ranks. In
BG Howard Knox Ramey
January 1943 he was named the commanding officer of the V (Fifth) Bomber Command. In March 1943 while on a reconnaissance fight over the Torres Strait he disappeared. Neither his body nor any wreckage from the aircraft were found. If I had to guess, I would say that the Japanese spotted his aircraft and shot it down. 

The point is that Ramey Air Force Base was named for him, contrary to what some others have suggested. Roger Ramey’s widow told me it had not been named for her husband when I asked her about that in the early 1990s.

Here's something that a number of people might have seen but it might not have registered with them. In the Roswell Daily Record of July 9, in the article entitled, “Ramey Says Excitement Not Justified,” which, of course is his answer to the Roswell debris, there is a paragraph toward the end that says, “A public relations officer here said the balloon was in his office ‘and it will probably stay right there.’”

Although the article is in the Roswell newspaper, the dateline is Fort Worth which means the public information officer who was quoted is not Walter Haut but probably Major Charles A. Cashon, the 8th Air Force PIO. (There are those who suggest that I haven’t carried out a complete investigation of the Roswell case, so, to prove a point, I will tell you that Cashon was not rated as flight crew and that his address in 1947 was Rt. 1, Box 220, Weatherford, TX, which was about a thirty-minute drive from the base.) This tells us where the debris from Ramey’s office went once he was done showing it to the press, though I wonder why Cashon would want it cluttering up his office and why no one bothered to take additional pictures (Oh, wait, this was 1947 when cameras were expensive and film was expensive and no one cared about a wrecked weather balloon anyway).

Speaking of balloons, Irving Newton, the warrant office who “identified” the balloon for Ramey and the press, said that he knew immediately that is was a balloon, though in interviews he said a colonel had met him before he got to Ramey’s office. Newton said the colonel told him they thought it was a weather balloon and wanted him to identify it (does leading the witness count here?) Anyway, Newton, in a February 20, 1995 letter to me, wrote, “The Rawin target and balloon in question was only used at limited locations and to my knowledge not at Fort Worth, not even all weather personnel were familiar with them, but we used them at Tinker Field (Okla City) during training and for Atomic tests…”

Atomic tests like that of Operation Crossroads in which the 509th Bomb Group participated including Jesse Marcel. And, according to the L. J. Guthrie, of the Roswell weather station, they had been “dabbling with radar controlled balloons,” (which strikes me as a load… radar controlled balloons?) and that he believed based on the descriptions, what Brazel found could have been one of theirs. An Albuquerque weatherman said that they launched rawins with the weather balloons as well.

None of that proves much one way or another. I just thought these various items about the balloons or more specifically the rawin from Ramey’s office landing in the possession of Cashon to be interesting.

I thought I would just throw this information out there. I’m sure that I have opened the gates to all those who need to question absolutely everything even if there is nothing very controversial in the comments here. These are just little bits of information that probably add nothing to our overall understanding but I found them somewhat amusing.


110 comments:

cda said...

You say: "This tells us where the debris from Ramey’s office went once he was done showing it to the press..."

Are you saying the debris went from Ramey's office to Cashon's office? Presumably you are not suggesting that Cashon took it home with him (some 30 minutes drive).

Again, what would be the purpose of taking further photos? You ask why no one bothered to take additional pictures.

But the pro-ETHers insist this was not the real debris anyway. So any additional pictures, had they been taken in Cashon's office, would be put down as further photos of the substituted balloon debris, and thus serve no purpose.

If the six pics from Ramey's office were merely ersatz balloon debris then adding another six from someone else's office would just be more of the same (as per the ETHers thesis).

Or have I missed something?

KRandle said...

CDA -

I'm not saying it, the newspaper report quotes the PIO at Fort Worth as saying it. So, yes, the wrecked balloon and rawin went to Cashon's office. No, he did not take it home, I merely point out that I had his home address in 1947 and I knew the distance to the base because I lived in Mineral Wells, TX which is west of Weatherford so that each time I went to Fort Worth I had to drive through Weatherford.

In the world today, I would bet that there would be lots of additional pictures of the debris in Cashon's office because everyone has a cell phone with a camera in it. And most agree that the material in Ramey's office was a weather balloon and rawin... but to keep everyone on his or her toes and to spark more useless debate, I will note that it was not part of a Mogul balloon and array.

There were SEVEN pictures taken of the material in Ramey's office.

And as usual you have missed something. I traced the debris from Ramey's office to another location... from there I would assume that it was thrown away because this stuff was of no value, having served its purpose of diverting press interest.

Unknown said...

Kevin, first time commenter on any blog. I just started reading your blog a couple of months ago. Is there a way for you to show the date along with the time when someone leaves a comment? Knowing the date helps me know how recent the comment is.

Have enjoyed reading about your efforts to decipher the Ramey memo. I think the direction ya'll are heading is the correct one.

I guess I am naïve as I have been surprised by the intensity of personal attacks by folks on both sides. In my humble opinion it appears the skeptics, debunkers, do more attacking. Too bad folks can't/won't lay out their points in a logical manner (pro/con, point/counterpoint) that focuses on the issue at hand and leave off the snide remarks

Hope you are able to add the date.

Mark

Unknown said...

I also would like to see the date of the postings. It would be very helpful.

cda said...

Mark Davis:

If you go through the postings on this blog, say for the past 12 months, I think you will soon discover who does the most attacking, i.e. a certain David Rudiak, who is certainly NOT a skeptic.

But I concede we are all guilty to some extent. This springs from the fact that it is a highly contentious subject (with a degree of conspiracy belief mixed in) and people's feelings, and personal beliefs, run high.

Some time ago Kevin did request we reduce personal attacks to zero, and things seem to have improved a little (but not a lot).

As to Ramey's memo, it would indeed be a great help if we could decipher it, but I very strongly fear that after all this time the most likely result is a big fat zero. The alternative is yet further heated debate over what it says.

An argumentative topic, again!

zoamchomsky said...

"If you go through the postings on this blog, say for the past 12 months, I think you will soon discover who does the most attacking, i.e. a certain David Rudiak, who is certainly NOT a skeptic."

And not only is that the truth, Mark Davis, it's also a fact that David Rudiak and some others--NOT skeptics--routinely, studiously and completely ignore the most plausible real-world explanations to the purported "UFO" mysteries discussed here.

Be sure to show me when a skeptic misbehaves here, and how he is not logical.

Nitram said...

Zoamchomsky wrote:

"Be sure to show me when a skeptic misbehaves here, and how he is not logical"

Anyone claiming the Ramey memo is a "sci-fi novel" or is written in "Hebrew" is simply being argumentative and illogical.

Mark Davis is correct - the "Ramey memo team" are heading in the right direction.

Regards
Nitram

KRandle said...

All -

You asked for the dates of the postings and you got it. Took me about four minutes to figure out where to go and what to click to make it happen.

Nitram said...

All

The aim of argument (investigation) or discussion should not be victory but progress - Joseph Joubert

Merry Xmas everyone...

KRandle said...

Zoam -

I can answer your point with two words, though I hesitate to do so simply because of the response. But, take a look at some of the postings by Brian Bell... and though I think of him as a colleague and a friend, Lance Moody sometimes overstates his case...

If some wish to ignore evidence, on either side of the fence, they do so at their own risk. There are plenty of examples of skeptics ignoring evidence they don't like while defending positions that are indefensible... Phil Klass was very good at that, to name another name.

Now, this posting was about some things that people believed to be true that were not such as Ramey AFB named after Roger. Let's try to stay on track here...

And to be fair, I will entertain responses by those I have named, as long as they remain cordial and free of accusations... which is the real reason that some posts are deleted. Often they contain some very good points, but it is the tone that is objectionable. Respond if you must (and I wouldn't blame you if you did) but do not descend into name calling and nasty comments.

KRandle said...

Lance -

Here is my preemptive strike. Phil Klass made up the idea that the mayor of Socorro owned the land where Lonnie Zamora claimed the UFO landed. The tax records and ownership records show this was not true... and the idea that the whole thing was staged to create a tourist attraction turned out to come from a newspaper article a year after the landing and didn't originate in Socorro. No, I don't want to get into a long battle over the validity of the Socorro case. Just wanted to provide an example that proves that I wasn't making this up. So, Klass could have learned who owned the land in 1964 but didn't bother to do that. He just claimed in his book that such was the case.

zoamchomsky said...

I said, ""Be sure to show me when a skeptic misbehaves here, and how he is not logical"

"Anyone claiming the Ramey memo is a "sci-fi novel" or is written in "Hebrew" is simply being argumentative and illogical."

Can't see how that is misbehavior or illogical, it's simply the very knowledgeable and writerly cda, I think, being hyperbolic to make a point, as I remember reading those posts. You see, "Nitram", both cda and I are native speakers of English, we know such things, and if you think that's misbehavior or illogical, we understand that you do not. Den innehåller, Wallander? (g)

"Mark Davis is correct - the "Ramey memo team" are heading in the right direction."

And I've said Kevin's new efforts, coordinated with the skeptics' efforts have my best wishes; and that an independent computer imaging specialist who can custom design a clean-up and enhancement algorithm is the best hope for success in this.

Not sure what is your basis for your complaint, "Nitram."

zoamchomsky said...

Kevin says, "Here is my preemptive strike. Phil Klass made up the idea...."

Yeah, but without checking the facts or asking RS, Klass probably asserted, suggested, or theorized--one would have to see the actual text instead of trusting your reading--a lot of things about peoples' basic--and base--motivations for making "UFO" reports.

I think Klass made similar claims about the Travis Walton case: They needed an extension of a forestry contract or something. But so what? That's a whole lot more reasonable than a story about an observation of a visiting ET spacecraft.

But what do PK's old claims have to do with skeptics now? As I was just telling some guy over at RR's blog that PK also had a Plasma hypothesis of "UFO" reports. (When he should have had a PSH in the 1960s! [g]) Anybody can be wrong, and in a lifetime of writing....

If there's not a "sins of the father" fallacy, there should be. Kevin, you address Lance but is Lance even present? What's the point here?

Brian B said...

There are two sides to every coin and it's no surprise that Kevin would label me as someone who never sites sources or ignores evidence (his evidence or others).

I think it comes down to individual perspective. Kevin would like to believe in aliens without any hard evidence (craft, parts of ship, alien bodies, etc)., while I need that evidence before I will simply "believe" aliens exist because people claim to have seen them, or seen their craft, or because circumstances would make it appear the military is hiding something and therefore that behavior must be evidence aliens exist and we're all being lied to by our governments.

There are many terrestrial explanations including covert military projects that explain much of what people see and label as "proof" of alien existence. I prefer to hypothesize about those things because we know they exist even if we don't know what they are being used for and why.

Others prefer to say humans couldn't possibly hide anything (other than aliens) and therefore lack the technical know how to create technology others claim only aliens could manufacture.

You can believe in aliens but other than scientists who think they may be out there and witnesses who claim what they saw couldn't be flown or made by humans, you don't have any hard evidence that can be examined in a lab or under a microscope.

That's not evidence of any kind to support a die hard belief that all unexplained phenomenon are the magic of advanced extraterrestrial life.

Unknown said...

I am not a skeptic by any stretch of the imagination, and I have taken issue with a lot of what Brian Bell has posted in this blog. However, in this last post (12/17/15, 10:46 pm), his statement on UFOs is quite reasonable.

David Rudiak said...

Kevin wrote:
The point is that Ramey Air Force Base was named for him [Gen. Howard Ramey], contrary to what some others have suggested. Roger Ramey’s widow told me it had not been named for her husband when I asked her about that in the early 1990s.

Since we are into trivia here, there is an extremely ironic connection between the two Rameys, namely Ramey memo Ramey replaced unrelated Ramey, Howard Ramey, upon his death (what are the odds?). From my website biographical information on Roger Ramey:

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

"March 1, 1943: Battle of Bismarck Sea. [Col. Roger] Ramey directed bombing attacks against the Japanese resulting in the loss of 22 Japanese ships. Ironically, he assumed command of the 5th Bomber Command during the battle after General Howard K. Ramey, of no relation, was killed in action."

In the Roswell Daily Record of July 9, in the article entitled, “Ramey Says Excitement Not Justified,” which, of course is his answer to the Roswell debris, there is a paragraph toward the end that says, “A public relations officer here said the balloon was in his office ‘and it will probably stay right there.’” Although the article is in the Roswell newspaper, the dateline is Fort Worth which means the public information officer who was quoted is not Walter Haut but probably Major Charles A. Cashon, the 8th Air Force PIO... This tells us where the debris from Ramey’s office went once he was done showing it to the press, though I wonder why Cashon would want it cluttering up his office and why no one bothered to take additional pictures.

Several trivia points here:
1) RDR article quote was derivative from main AP Roswell article, which has the same item; RDR ran primarly an alternate AP article:

www.roswellproof.com/AP3_Main_July9.html

compare to RDR article

www.roswellproof.com/AP4_July9.html

2) Another Ramey PIO named, specifically talking to the press (unlike Cashon) was Capt. G. F. Haist in INS's main Roswell story:

www.roswellproof.com/INS2_July9.html

"An amplifying statement by public relations officer Capt. G. F. Haist said 'Experts have identified the equipment as a box kite--or a 'Rawin high altitude sounding device' used by meteorologists.'"

So conceivably the unknown PIO was Haist, not Cashon. Also speaking to the press much like a PIO was one of Ramey's intel officers (previously discussed here), Major Edwin Kirton, source of information for the FBI, Reuters, and Dallas Morning News, also called a "duty officer". Possibly he was confused with a PIO?

3. The quote about the weather balloon--“A public relations officer here said the balloon was in his office ‘and it will probably stay right there.’”--was ambiguous as to whose office it was in. In full context, with everything being said by Ramey just before the quote, "his office" could easily refer to Ramey's office, where all the action had taken place (photos, weather officer being brought in to ID). In fact, this is the way I've always interpreted the quote (still in Ramey's office), though it could easily be interpreted as the PIO's office, and it still makes no sense why weather balloon would stay in Ramey's office for 2 seconds longer than necessary for photo op and official debunking ID. Why not just throw it in the trash at that point? Thus strikes me more as the PIO making something up for the press who called to get rid of them, or "nothing more to see here, move along".

And yes, "Haist" is very much like AP's misspelling of Roswell PIO's Walter Haut's name as "Haught".

KRandle said...

Zoam –

I mentioned Phil Klass because that was the first example that sprang to mind. I could have mentioned Brian Bell’s claim that we could reject Bill Brazel’s testimony because he said that an African-American NCO had visited him but there were no black NCOs because the Army was segregated at the time. This originated with Stan Friedman who had inserted “black” into an interview I conducted with Bill Brazel. Kal Korff used it, pointing out that an unidentified historian at the Pentagon had told him the Army was segregated at the time but Korff didn’t understand that meant they were in their own units not that they were excluded from service.

Or we have Bell’s theory that Ramey had called the Fort Worth Star-Telegram which is why J. Bond Johnson went to the airfield. Even though the information about the material being transferred to FWAAF was on the news wires, and Johnson, in his descriptions of the scene in the news room said that his editor got the information from the news wire. Nothing was ever said about a specific invitation to that newspaper… and there is evidence that other newspapers were calling Ramey, having received the same information from the same source.

Or Bell’s assertion that people died as a result of the War of the Worlds broadcast when the sociological studies of the event didn’t confirm that particular rumor.
But the interesting thing about this is your comment about Klass’ invention of “fact” was “So, what?” Shouldn’t he have been held to the same standard as everyone else and shouldn’t his invention of fact be of importance? The point was that Klass dismissed Socorro for a reason that was invalid, and the claim that the mayor of Socorro owned the land wasn’t the only “fact” he fudged.

And it really isn’t a “sins of the father” argument because Klass is still cited as a source in arguments against alien visitation.

The “preemptive strike” was to provide an answer to the question that I was sure Lance would ask which would be to give a name or two.

And yes, I believe Lance drops by on occasion and he was one who sometimes tended to get a little nasty and I will note that David Rudiak does the same thing. I have asked both of them several times to tone it down.

Brian –

Please point to the place where I said you never cite sources. Instead you suggest that we look for those sources ourselves, but it really is the duty of those making the claims to cite the sources used. You do have a tendency to hyperbole.

Unknown said...

Zoam, per your request on pointing out when someone "misbehaves". This will be my first and last time to do so.

Go to your own 12/17/15 comment at 6:36 where you state "You see, "Nitram", both cda and I are native speakers of English, we know such things, and if you think that's misbehavior or illogical, we understand that you do not."

There was no need to add that statement. It was personal and, to a certain extent, condescending. The sentence before stated your opinion quite clearly.

Mark

zoamchomsky said...

Right Kevin; I've got you. Understood. You're a generous man. Thank you.

Brian is just a world-wise, tough, skeptical guy talking on an author's blog--looking for and expecting rationality. I might not agree with everything he says about the "UFO" myth generally. But given that Roswell particularly is THE conspiratorial labyrinth of a thousand doors and "witnesses" and endless minutiae, he should be allowed to venture within reason. And making a few mistakes when addressing the Roswell hydra before someone of your expertise on this subject is a certainty. He has my admiration and best wishes.

If that erroneous Socorro factoid appeared in a newspaper then Klass didn't just invent it, did he? I also pointed to a couple of PK's major failings but my "so what" attitude is result of the fact that I was born a scientific skeptic and I am a champion of the Null hypothesis of "UFO" reports: For me it's a given that there are no real "UFOs" of any kind and never were--much less visiting ET spacecraft.

All "UFO" reports are simply extraordinary stories; and they are never supported by extraordinary evidence. So even if PK got a few things wrong in searching for plausible mundane explanations for extraordinary "UFO" stories, he was right all along. Even when he was wrong he was still right; and he was the first to make great fundamental observations on the mechanics of "UFO" mania and myth making.

Decades later we still benefit from hard realist PK's unwavering skepticism in the face of a cultural delusion, as expressed ultimately in Robert Sheaffer's Null hypothesis; so that now Psychosocial theorist such as David Clarke can proclaim with utter certainty that "There is no UFO phenomenon!" It's all been nothing but a myth and delusion.

Over a century of extraordinary "UFO" stories but not even one real "UFO;" over a century of extraordinary "UFO" stories wholly without consequence in the world.

Don't you think that's something to consider, Kevin, it has all been utterly inconsequential? Thousands of books, magazine articles, millions of words, television shows and movies, the subject itself being just a sort of inconsequential mass-media static in the wires--because there are wires!

But wait! Let's not get hyperbolic. (g)

Now, do you really think there was a Roswell crash debris switch?

cda said...

Zoam:

"Now, do you really think there was a Roswell crash debris switch?"

The answer to this is quite simple. It follows the same sound principles of logic that all true ETHers present to us. It runs like this:

1. The stuff recovered from the ranch was a crashed ET craft
2. The wrecked recovered craft was transported from Roswell to Fort Worth and eventually into the office of General Ramey (going possibly onto Cashon's office afterwards).
3. The press came and took photos of some debris in Ramey's office.
4. The debris photographed LOOKS VERY MUCH like a downed balloon with a radar reflector attached.
5. But the true debris can have ONLY come from a downed spacecraft, as so many witnesses have assured us (and they should know, shouldn't they?)
6. Therefore, by logical deduction, the debris shown in the photos is NOT the real recovered stuff.
7. Therefore it follows that the debris was switched some time before the photographs were taken.

I take it that you follow this impeccable logic to its inevitable truth. The USAF have taken you and me (and a zillion others) for a gigantic ride, a ride that still lasts to this day, 68 years later.

So be it.

KRandle said...

Zoam –
I don’t want to revisit and repost the information that I posted here in 2011. Rather than making everyone reread it all, you can see the analysis here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.co.il/2011/09/philip-klass-and-socorro-ufo-landing.html

The one thing about your post that bothers me is the idea that there is no alien visitation so therefore anything that suggests otherwise is a hoax, lie, delusion, hallucination or misidentification. The logical extension of that would seem to be a rejection of any information or evidence that might suggest otherwise and therefore can be ignored because we know it is the result of all those things mentioned earlier. It doesn’t matter if the evidence for hoax is made up as long as that is the correct answer for the case. This attitude seems to be slightly unscientific to me… shouldn’t we follow the evidence rather than inventing it?

In fact, to take this one step further, you might be interested in how some of this works. See, for example:

http://www.theufochronicles.com/2015/12/smithsonian-channels-ufos-declassified.html?m=1

Sure, I get that nearly everyone investigating UFO sightings has a personal bias and that the bias sometimes clouds the issue, but I just don’t believe that it is an excuse for inventing solutions out of thin air. Provide information that the case is a hoax but don’t make it up when you can’t find it. Tony Bragalia provided some very good evidence of a hoax that does cast suspicion on Socorro, but it came from research and not invention. It wasn’t that Klass got things wrong; it was that he invented things to prove his theory.

I have always wondered why it was the skeptics will question everything suggesting UFOs are alien craft, but accept, without question, anything that provides a mundane explanation. Shouldn’t a skeptic question everything, search for the truth rather than confirming evidence, and accept, in the end only that which has been proven rather than what someone might want to believe?

Paul Young said...

Quite how Zoamchowsky could explain why colonels and majors at an airforce base couldn't tell the obvious weather balloon remnants photographed in Ramney's office, from a Flying Saucer, always puzzled me.
But he now makes it perfectly clear...he just applies an Null Hypothesis approach (oh-so scatter gun an approach, or what!), shuts his eyes, puts his fingers in his ears and scream "It's not real coz it CAN'T be real"...ad infinitum.

For a while there, zoamchomsky actually fooled me into believing he was one of the more cerebral sceptics here!

Paul Young said...

Quite how Zoamchowsky could explain why colonels and majors at an airforce base couldn't tell the obvious weather balloon remnants photographed in Ramney's office, from a Flying Saucer, always puzzled me.
But he now makes it perfectly clear...he describes it as adaptation of the Null Hypothesis approach, but in reality he more or less admits that he shuts his eyes, puts his fingers in his ears and scream "It's not real coz it CAN'T be real"...ad infinitum.

For a while there, zoamchomsky actually fooled me into believing he was one of the more cerebral sceptics here!

Paul Young said...

Concerning the text in the book written by Klass, referred to by KR in his earlier blog entry shown in the post above...
“The property where the UFO reportedly landed had, prior to the incident, been worthless ‘scrub land.’ But now, if the site became a long-lived tourist attraction, there could be need for refreshment stands, perhaps even a motel for those who might like to spend the night near the spot where an extraterrestrial spaceship had seemingly landed. By a curious coincidence, the property where the UFO reportedly landed was owned by Mayor Bursum, officer Zamora’s boss! The mayor’s principal business? He was the town banker and as such would not be unhappy to see an influx of tourist dollars.”

This is a classic example of getting the nonsense out there, any which way, comforted in the knowledge that a high percentage of ones readership will swallow it unquestionably.
Once a story is told, it can't be untold...no matter what a load of twaddle it may be. (that's true for the nonsense spouted on both sides of the fence, of course...)

The more I learn about Philip Klass, the more unsavoury a character he appears to have been.

Lance said...

Paul,

Skeptics have explained our theory on this many times now. One may not like the theory but I find it hard to believe that anyone could be so dense as to not understand it.

We do not state that anyone couldn't identify the ballon and balsa wood parts. They could identify them, of course. It's just that somewhere along the line, we theorize that, an assumption was made that the disparate components were part of the thing that was then called a "flying disk" (an idea raging in the popular imagination).

Our theory is supported in the numerous newspaper reports from across the country in which folks were finding various bits of trash (including a radar target for Christ's sake!) and connecting them to the flying saucer "mystery".

The only rather weak response to this idea is that "Well, OUR guys wouldn't have done that."

Let me know if this isn't clear enough but it is rather tiresome to continuously see repeated the false claim you make above about the skeptical position.

Kevin--the STARTING position should be that mundane explanations trump the exotic ones always UNLESS the exotic one is supported by excellent evidence. And for Roswell, there isn't any concrete evidence at all. There should be (if any of it was true) but isn't. So the sad claims and assertions of supposed "witnesses" don't (and shouldn't) carry much weight.

Lance

Lance said...

Paul,

Skeptics have explained our theory on this many times now. One may not like the theory but I find it hard to believe that anyone could be so dense as to not understand it.

We do not state that anyone couldn't identify the ballon and balsa wood parts. They could identify them, of course. It's just that somewhere along the line, we theorize that, an assumption was made that the disparate components were part of the thing that was then called a "flying disk" (an idea raging in the popular imagination).

Our theory is supported in the numerous newspaper reports from across the country in which folks were finding various bits of trash (including a radar target for Christ's sake!) and connecting them to the flying saucer "mystery".

The only rather weak response to this idea is that "Well, OUR guys wouldn't have done that."

Let me know if this isn't clear enough but it is rather tiresome to continuously see repeated the false claim you make above about the skeptical position.

Kevin--the STARTING position should be that mundane explanations trump the exotic ones always UNLESS the exotic one is supported by excellent evidence. And for Roswell, there isn't any concrete evidence at all. There should be (if any of it was true) but isn't. So the sad claims and assertions of supposed "witnesses" don't (and shouldn't) carry much weight.

Lance

Nitram said...

Lance wrote

"Skeptics have explained our theory on this many times now. One may not like the theory but I find it hard to believe that anyone could be so dense as to not understand it."

Steady on here Lance - perhaps I could ask you a simple question that is off topic, but hopefully the good doctor will allow:

Do you believe the people in possession of the "material" (Cavitt, Marcel etc) tried to bend, break or smash the material?

A simple "yes" or "no" will do for now Lance...

Regards
Nitram

KRandle said...

Lance -

Not arguing that point. Just wondered if the same standard of skepticism is applied to answers that are more mundane. Seems to me that you'd want to reject those which do not have sufficient evidence to support them rather than just an acceptance because the allegedly explain the case.

zoamchomsky said...

Kevin;

It looks like Lance fielded this Socorro site ownership issue well enough in 2011. It was Klass' first investigation, and two years after the event. I was satisfied just to concede that Klass was misinformed and made an error in judgment by repeating it without checking.

He admits in the interview with GP that he was far too trusting in his early investigations, assuming people to be basically honest, and so he made mistakes. Still, after visiting Socorro, interviewing residents and sizing up the economic situation, he made a plausible case for hoax. It may not be the most plausible explanation for what Zamora saw, given that Socorro is adjacent to the White Sands Test Range where one could expect to see many unusual flying things and technicians in white coveralls, and as a "hoax" explanation doesn't address Zamora's report itself, but it is plausible. I'm more than a little surprized that the "space technology testing" angle didn't occur to him; after all, that was his job, reporting on aerospace!

Is that good enough? A brilliant and good man made a few errors in a lifetime when the topic was still relatively new and he had just gotten into it. So all of skepticism is tainted and "flying saucers" are real? Of course not.

...

zoamchomsky said...

The first principle of Scientific skepticism is the Null hypothesis, extraordinary claims are NOT true until shown to be true. And we certainly do go where the solid chain of evidence leads and settle on the most plausible explanation, if there is one.

Being inventive is required for this sort of puzzle solving, putting the pieces together to form a coherent real-world story--but inventing factoids is definitely not part of the process. If ever one of these extraordinary stories led to an extraordinary conclusion, we'd be the first to shout it from rooftops and across the Internet because it would be a great discovery. This is just another example of ignoring an obvious reality of the situation: skeptics would like nothing better than for an extraterrestrial spacecraft to make an unambiguous appearance in Earth's sky.

It's simply that the flying-saucer myth and larger "UFO" delusion have shown and have been shown that they have absolutely nothing to do with that hypothetical appearance. Beginning with the first Airship hoaxes, over a century and thousands of reports of mystery aircraft, "flying saucers," generic "UFOs," and black triangles have produced absolutely nothing. That's how I can say now and have said on the Internet for twenty years: "There are no real 'UFOs' of any kind and never were!" If there were or ever had been we'd all know it already.

(Quoting from memory) Someone wrote in a late 1947 issue of the Journal of the British Interplanetary society that "These flying saucer stories coming from America have all the earmarks of a kind of mass hysteria." And a famous science writer and skeptic who was an adult in 1947 once told me that he knew as soon as he heard the first "flying saucer" story that it was "a bunch of baloney!" No, it wasn't PK but someone very close to him.

So there's utter real-world skepticism from scientists about ongoing ET visitation as claimed in some "UFO" reports; there's common sense skepticism of the same because it's simply out of the realm of everyday possibilities; and there's the informed skepticism of those who have studied the subject for decades, know it thoroughly and have finally dismissed it all as a space-age popular-culture myth, a pseudoscience, and a media-manufactured and perpetuated mass delusion that haunts the minds of generations and expresses itself in outbreaks of "UFO" reports.

And not to alienate you because I do like and respect you, but those are the very good reasons why David Clarke, the Pelicanist, and many other Magonians and skeptics have declared the entire subject is "history."

That's up to your link to the Hastings article, thank you. If there something there worthy of comment I will.

Best!

cda said...

Nitram:

You ask Lance:

"Do you believe the people in possession of the "material" (Cavitt, Marcel etc) tried to bend, break or smash the material?"

I certainly think they tried to manipulate the material. They would have been a bit wary of breaking it due to the possibility of it being valuable earthly hardware they had not come across before, But even if they knew its identity they would still be reluctant to damage it, for obvious reasons.

What is the point of your question? Are you trying to tell us it was material unlike anything ever seen on earth? I should add that what these witnesses said 35 to 40 years later may have little or no relevance to what they actually handled at the time.

I for one am not the least convinced that Rickett, or possibly even Cavitt, was ever there at all in 1947. They have confused the event with another event 18 months later.

But that would be going way off topic and is another story.

zoamchomsky said...

Paul said, "why colonels and majors at an airforce base couldn't tell the obvious weather balloon remnants photographed in Ramney's office, from a Flying Saucer,"

Thanks to Lance, I think I get it now.

Paul is saying something like: Of course there was a switch because they had already announced the recovery of a "crashed flying disk" and everybody in 1947 knew exactly what a "crashed flying disk" consisted of and couldn't possibly have mistaken it for balloon-train debris.

That after-the-fact, upside-down "logic" is a hoot! Good one, Paul! That bit of precious Roswell-conspiracy thinking had escaped me.

The fact is that no one knew in 1947 and incipient "flying saucer" hysteria what a hypothetical "flying disk" consisted of; and when someone imagined the--then unknown and unidentified--balloon-train debris might be the remains of a "flying disk" they ran with it until calmer heads and reality prevailed.

zoamchomsky said...

No, Mark Davis, you're simply wrong. We trade in the English language here; and pointing out the fact that Nitram is not a native English speaker and criticizes others because of his failures to understand is entirely relevant, not personal, not condescending, and so is not misbehavior.

But thanks for a good example of how political correctness makes people illogical.

KRandle said...

Zoam -

I think you missed the point here. I was not saying that Socorro was an alien visitation because Klass made errors in his investigation. I was saying that it would seem to me that skeptics should look at the evidence presented by Klass and reject his conclusion because that evidence was flawed. The mayor did not conspire to create a tourist attraction as Klass suggested, that his witness had once been said to have been in his house with the windows open and then later said he was outside working in his garden and didn't see or hear anything. The witness said that nothing happened on the site even though there were various officials (FBI, NM State Police, Army officers) at the location. I'm saying that I would reject Klass' conclusion because the evidence he had was flawed.

A better case for hoax is made, ironically, by Tony Bragalia. I am not convinced that he is correct, but his evidence is much better than that presented by Klass.

A better example was Klass' conclusion that the Coyne helicopter case was the result of a bolide, but the evidence does not support this conclusion. His use of an unidentified helicopter pilot whose training and flight time is not revealed is useless. Coyne, Jezzi and I all attended the same Army flight school (not at the same time)and had the sane training, so I know that Klass did not understand the procedures in play at the time. He ignored one witness testimony and ignored the length of the sighting. Again, I am not arguing here that this is a case of alien visitation only that Klass' conclusion is in error and should be rejected. I wonder if the skeptic shouldn't look at that and reject those conclusions as well... which is not to say the skeptic should embrace alien visitation only that the solution offered by Klass is in error.

Lance said...

Hi Kevin,

You asked:

"Not arguing that point. Just wondered if the same standard of skepticism is applied to answers that are more mundane. Seems to me that you'd want to reject those which do not have sufficient evidence to support them rather than just an acceptance because the allegedly explain the case."

My answer is No. Mundane explanations shouldn't generate the same level of skepticism. That is not to say that such explanations ought not be based in fact. They should. But claims that run outside known science STILL require a much higher level of proof and therefore should be greeted with MUCH more skepticism.

UFOs (as something exotic) aren't fodder for comedy because Phil Klass lied about a few facts (and I'm not convinced he was lying here--some folks here use that term in the most liberal way!). UFO's are laugh-worthy because of the terrible and embarrassing evidence that supports them.

Now, I know that you disagree with some of Phil Klass' tactics and explanations. I disagree with a few as well. But I also disagree with how UFO proponents present some of these cases. For instance, James McDonald. McDonald was using taxpayer funds to do some of his UFO research without permission. That was wrong and as a taxpayer Phil was well within his rights to complain about it. Did he go too far? That is up to him.

I can tell you that if, for instance, I heard that you were coming to speak about Roswell here at a state university and that you were being paid with public funds. I would complain. A lot. And I like you!

On the other hand, Klass' complaints about Friedman to Canadian scientists were not something I would have done. Pretty mean-spirited.

Often I hear less knowledgeable UFO buffs complaining about Klass as though he hadn't helped debunk tons of crappy UFO cases. He did. He did some great work. He could be a real asshole, too. I grant that.

But most complaints about Klass are well outside of facts of the matter and enter into some rather obvious religious feelings. Most of the folks who complain about Klass don't know what they are talking about.

Lance

Nitram said...

CDA - I asked Lance:

"Do you believe the people in possession of the "material" (Cavitt, Marcel etc) tried to bend, break or smash the material?"

As you are not Lance - there was no need for you to attempt to answer the question and thank you for noting you have no idea why the question was asked - let's wait and see what Lance comes back with...

I couldn't help but smile when I read what you wrote next...

"I for one am not the least convinced that Rickett, or possibly even Cavitt, was ever there at all in 1947. They have confused the event with another event 18 months later."

Brilliant CDA - just brilliant.

Paul Young said...

Lance..."Our theory is supported in the numerous newspaper reports from across the country in which folks were finding various bits of trash (including a radar target for Christ's sake!) and connecting them to the flying saucer "mystery"."

Yep! I have always got your theory, and expect it was right in many, many cases...but not in the case of Roswell where the "folk" happened to be people who DID know what a weather balloon looked like. We're talking about experienced airforce staff here...intelligence officers, etc...not a bunch goat herders.

And if the quote attributed to Blanchard, "What I saw was the damndest thing I've ever seen!", is correct then it means that years later (and after he had had it gently explained to him that it was "only a weather balloon, you moron")he was still completely baffled by it. Maybe I am dense, but I'd probably describe myself, in this case, as "unconvinced"
So, as tiresome as it may be for you to keep hearing it, I can assure you that it's only as tiresome as having to keep hearing the theory that, because flying discs were all the rage at the time, then every man and his dog would automatically presume that if they found something out of the ordinary...then it must be a flying saucer...even majors and colonels!!!

zoamchomsky!!! Don't know if they export to the USA but there's an even better northern "winter warmer" called Old Tom (made by my local brewery, Robinson's). If you see it, buy it!

Paul Young said...

cda wrote..."They would have been a bit wary of breaking it due to the possibility of it being valuable earthly hardware they had not come across before, But even if they knew its identity they would still be reluctant to damage it, for obvious reasons."

If Marcel Jnr is to be believed, they hit it with hammers and tried to set fire to the stuff.
Maybe our way, when being reluctant to damage things, is different to how those "good ole boys" in New Mexico go about it! (bloody colonials)

Brian B said...

Kevin - your reference to my comment on War of The Worlds - "facts made up etc." - falls short of your goal of always placing context at the forefront of a mystery.

Sometimes I think you lose sight of the bigger picture while placing emphasis on a quest for confirmation of smaller details.

For example, press hype over flying saucers in 1947 is one of many possible reasons why the military may have quickly dealt with the Roswell nonsense making it all unintentionally appear as some massive UFO/Alien coverup. That action may have been influenced by concern over needless public hysteria gone rampant based on reflective observations of the Welles' broadcast.

At the time of Welles' broadcast the national pulse was paranoid over the Munich discussions fearing a Second World War. In 1947 people were also on edge over a Russian threat following a devastating world war, not to mention press hype over mysterious flying objects that in the public's eye may have been perceived as Soviet or alien - clearly a threat.

The "context" being that people on edge have a tendency to overreact and report things which are not mysterious at all under stress or fear of war.

Although anecdotal and not officially verified according to your precise standards, people were concerned over deaths occurring during Welles' broadcast as referenced from websites below.

The media clearly placed emphasis on the "hysteria" which today we know was more regional and less national. But press hype also had a hand in the 1944 Chilean version, and deaths did occur in the 1949 Ecuadorian version.

We can't verify if deaths officially occurred in the U.S., but clearly there is the possibility they did but we're never officially confirmed.

Let's not pretend the Welles' broadcast was a nonevent that had no influence over government response to hyped up public concern. Your dismissal of the event based on lack of confirmed death is simply choosing to lose sight of situational context.

"All across the United States, listeners reacted. Thousands of people called radio stations, police and newspapers. Many in the New England area loaded up their cars and fled their homes. In other areas, people went to churches to pray. People improvised gas masks. Miscarriages and early births were reported. Deaths, too, were reported but never confirmed. Many people were hysterical. They thought the end was near."

http://history1900s.about.com/od/1930s/a/warofworlds_2.htm

"What was intended as a pre-Halloween spook-story became a nightmare resulting in several actual deaths by suicide (though to this day many claim such never took place) and countless other repercussions which Mr. Welles could never have foreseen. One of the more oft-told accounts was of a particular farmer who, when hearing about the menacing Martian war machines with their tenticular arms and great stilt-like metallic legs bounding across the countryside, went out into his field armed to the teeth, ready to do battle with the coming metal-monster. In the darkness the poor man mistook his neighbors watertower for one of the towering martian invaders, blowing several large holes in it with his shotgun. Other stories circulated that people had taken poison rather than to endure the coming Martian holocaust brought by the mysterious black, toxic smoke given off by the relentless, trodding war machines."

http://www.rense.com/general4/hg.htm

KRandle said...

Brian –

As I said before, if you searched you would be able to find sources that support your accretion that there was a widespread panic and people died because of the broadcast. Sociological research has shown that the audience for the broadcast was relatively small and that newspapers played up the even to prove that radio news could not be trusted. You can read the relevant article here:

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/10/30/241797346/75-years-ago-war-of-the-worlds-started-a-panic-or-did-it

You can also read more about it here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/radio/what-to-listen-to/the-war-of-the-worlds-panic-was-a-myth/

I suggest then, that the claimed panic was not widespread as reported at the time and that Welles was delighted by all the attention which propelled him into Hollywood. So the myth is there was widespread panic but it is not true as investigation has shown. It has nothing to do with my precise language but the truth as it played out at the time.

But remember, the devil is in the details.

And if you go back and read the newspapers from the time (June and July 1947) you’ll find that military officials were quoted frequently about the flying saucers. The attitude seemed to be that we’re looking into it but we don’t have answers… but then, on July 9, 1947, they began to actively suppress stories of the flying saucers. I find that timing interesting… not to mention that the newspaper reports fell off dramatically at that point.

KRandle said...

Lance -

I think we basically agree that skepticism should include the answers to UFO sightings to ensure that the facts fit that solution. I'll buy that the standard from the skeptical point of view is not as high as those advocating alien visitation... but the evidence offered for the solution should be credible and not embraced simply because it is an explanation.

And I wondered what other areas you'd want to censor that don't agree with your point of view. Would you protest a religious leader... a political candidate whose views don't match yours? How about a skeptic invited to talk about UFOs? Would you protect that as well? Just how far would you like to press this censorship?

Lance said...

Kevin,

It ain't censorship when it's my money.

It's freedom of speech. I am surprised that you don't understand the distinction.

And the way it works is that citizens' get their say when it comes to spending public money.

==

As far as I know (and I know most vocal UFO skeptics), some of Phil's solutions (particularly the more convoluted ones) aren't embraced by us as heartily as you might think. For instance, I NEVER hear anyone talking about town mayors and so forth when speaking about Socorro. We can let stuff like that drop.

On the other hand, do a Google search for Roswell Nun Diary and see how many folks are still promoting that thing as real!

====

Paul, As i mentioned the only lame rejoinder is that, "Our Men would NEVER make that mistake!"

You said:

"the theory that, because flying discs were all the rage at the time, then every man and his dog would automatically presume that if they found something out of the ordinary...then it must be a flying saucer...even majors and colonels!!! "

Again you can't avoid misstating someone else's position. Perhaps you should just stick to your own? Our position isn't that EVERYONE made such mistakes. Only a few people. Like Jesse "Let-me-make-up-a-new-story" Marcel and, perhaps momentarily, Blanchard.

Lance

zoamchomsky said...

Kevin;

I do not think that you default to the ETH whenever a plausible solution is lacking; I think you're far too reasonable for that.

Your point was perfectly clear, and I agreed: skeptic or otherwise, one should examine all the evidence of a "UFO" report, question others' assertions and conclusions, and decide on the most plausible solution--if one can be made.

I agreed that PK's speculative solution to Socorro was not the most plausible given the problems with his investigation you've discovered, and the fact that his solution doesn't address the actual event, the object and actors in Zamora's report.

The hindsight of decades and new information make what is now the most plausible "space technology testing" solution to the Socorro case seem obvious, but in 1966 on his first case, the "hoax" solution seemed most plausible to PK.

"So all of skepticism is tainted and 'flying saucers' are real?" was rhetorical. Just as you might say: Simply because one solution is found to be flawed or a case is ultimately unsolved does not mean that we default to the "least likely" ETH.

And even those seemingly insoluble cases--like the Coyne case and other puzzlers--are no reason to remain undecided on the essential nature of the "UFO" myth because that residue cannot be shown to be any different than the bulk.

A century of reports composed of human wishfulness and folly explain the bulk to skeptical satisfaction.

Have a happy holiday!

ZO

Lance said...

Nitram,

Sorry I missed your question.

Our theory is that the things were basically recognized for what they were: balsa wood sticks, foil backed paper, some strange tape with funny designs. I think the lack of identification was what pushed Marcel into that mindset (and maybe the tape?).
Blanchard might have gone along with the mistaken identity after reading in that morning's paper about a "disk" that was recovered by authorities in Texas that sounded like it was made of foil, too.

So I doubt there was too much examination needed. But sure they looked at the stuff.

My memory of Marcel's description of the sledge hammer tests reads to me like some of his other howlers (I was hiding the real stuff behind some paper because Ramey was so dumb he let the press come in to takes photos while the "real" debris was still out!). I could be wrong be I seem to also recall that he told the story several different ways:

1. Hit it at home with a sledgehammer.
2. Observed some army guys hitting it.
3. Heard tell of some army guys hitting it.

Keep in mind that a real killer for Roswell, mostly ignored by believers, is that Marcel stated in no uncertain terms that he NEVER heard anything about any subsequent recovery or cover up. And yet here he is participating (or hearing about) in the testing of the Saucer Foil. Marcel was the Base Intelligence Officer with guys and girls working under him. It strains credulity to the breaking point to think that he (after returning to the base) never heard a word about the recovery. Let's say that, for some reason, the Army decided to keep Marcel out of the magical conspiracy. Does is make sense that his entire intelligence staff would have also been kept in the dark? Wouldn't they have been needed to help create the magical conspiracy? And yet Marcel says nothing about losing his staff when he got back--they should have all be busy with the HUGE saucer recovery effort, an effort that Marcel somehow missed? It's really too dumb for words.

Lance

KRandle said...

Lance -

Sorry... misunderstood your intent. If you were outside protesting my presentation, I
would invite you in... but then, out of curiosity, who else would you protest?

cda said...

Lance (and Paul Young):

Yes we can agree the 'sledgehammer' tale is a yarn, nothing else.

There is no chance that an officer of the rank of Marcel, or indeed anyone else involved in the recovery, would have attempted to damage or destroy strange wreckage in any way. This is irrespective of whether they decided it was US, foreign or otherwise.

It would be a gross dereliction of duty for someone assigned to a task of collecting and retrieving strange material from an aerial crash to try and damage it. The same would apply when it was returned to the base at Roswell.

Lance said...

Thanks Kevin!

I would probably buy a ticket! But I would still complain :)

And in all honesty, the actual topic might temper how I felt about the event. For instance, a debate on the merits of the UFO or Roswell ideas might be a fine thing for a public (and publicly funded) forum depending upon how it was set up (MUFON, as a bad example, uses UFO believers to "debate" amongst themselves--that kind of vapid stupidity would be inappropriate for taxpayer dollars or facilities IMHO).

Lance






Brian B said...

I have to agree with CDA on the pounding and attempted destruction of classified material. It would be grossly negligent of any of these people to attempt such "ad hoc testing" if this thing was really what you all claim it to be. Some here claim these men where all smart, savvy, honorable soldiers and then you also claim they behaved as childlike baboons beating and stomping on their recent mysterious find. I doubt it.

KRandle said...

Brian (and CDA) -

You believe that this "ad hoc testing" was grossly negligent but we had Jesse Marcel testifying to it, as well as Bill Brazel and Bill Rickett (with several officers standing there watching him) so what you are offering is your opinion. But there was, literally tons of it on the debris field (if we accept the testimony)so they gave into their natural curiosity to see what sort of properties this material had. Say that when Marcel held a match to it and it caught fire, wouldn't his attitude been different?

No one said they behaved as childlike baboons... that is your typical hyperbole. I'm just not sure why you would reject their statements... oh, yeah, they were gathered decades after the fact so they can be dismissed.

Brian B said...

Happy Holidays to all -

Kevin, not to rehash this all over again, but their testimony can and should be challenged in regards to attempted burning and pounding of said material with hammers.

Rickett -

Instead of just bringing him a piece to examine Cavitt supposedly drives him 45 min outside of Roswell to see a small guarded field of foil. He drives him out there to bend a paper thin sheet of material over his knee, which supposedly he can't, and then drives him back asking him never to speak of it again. And then La Paz and he supposedly find more junk near Corona three months later convincing La Paz it was an unmanned space probe. Funny, no dead bodies for La Paz and nothing there to suggest it was alien even if it was metal they hadn't handled before. Bending it over one's knee is not pounding or burning with torches, cigarette lighters, or sledgehammers.

http://www.nicap.org/roswell/rickett_on_roswell.htm

Brazel Jr. -

He was never at the site or base with armed military men to observe them burning or slamming debris independently or under orders. He said he saw thin foil (like a plastic) that would fold and then unfold, and wood like plastic parts that couldn't be scratched. He said nothing about attempting to destroy it to determine its material properties because it was strange - he just described what he recalls he examined. There is no testimony about attempted destruction and failure to succeed in the process.

http://www.ufoevidence.org/documents/doc397.htm

Marcel Jr. -

Same as above. He did not witness attempted destruction or testing of material. He described what he handled on the floor in the middle of the night. Mainly small beams with glyphs.

Again, it seems like decades old testimony warps into rock solid modern belief that military men of the 509th, all over the field and at the base, attempted to independently test the material with hammers and torches because of its supposed strangeness. These three witnesses don't have much to say that indicates a lot of this was happening if any at all. They simply described what they recall they handled.

And what soldier would pick up a piece of a regular crashed aircraft and attempt to do the same, put a lighter to it or hammer it? So why would they do it in this case, because they thought it was an alien spaceship? Supposedly they didn't know what it was. If it was that strange I doubt they would have been allowed or ordered to abuse it during recovery.

KRandle said...

Brian -

Seriously? You're going to substitute your opinion for the men whose testimonies put them on the field in 1947?

While it is nice to see you quote sources, you might have spent a little time reading those sources and even better going to the original sources for information. Rickett was not taken into the field to show him just the metallic debris but taken there by Cavitt so that the NCOIC of the CIC would have more information about the situation. Taped interviews by Don Schmitt and Mark Rodeghier make the purpose of the visit clear. And so there is no mistake, Cavitt confirmed to me in 1990 and 1995 and to the Air Force investigators later that he had taken Rickett into the field.

I am surprised that you didn't twist Rickett's on field experiment of attempting to bend a piece of debris that was light weight and very strong into his attempt to destroy the importance of this piece of metal by bending it and folding it.

The purpose of the mention of Bill Brazel, Jr. was to suggest that the natural curiosity of those who found debris tested its strength and its structure. Loretta Proctor said that Mack Brazel attempted to burn a small piece that he had...

Oh, wait, could it be that Brazel mentioned this to Jesse Marcel, Sr. and he was attempting to verify this bit of information? And, apropos of nothing, the source you cited is plagiarized from the taped interview that Don Schmitt and I conducted with Bill Brazel on February 19, 1989 in Carrizozo, NM. It would have been nice had they mentioned from where they had copied that information.

Don't believe that I mentioned Jesse, Jr. at all but will note that your description of the event, limited though it was, is not accurate.

You say, "...that military men of the 509th all over the field and at the base, attempted to independently test the material with hammers and torches because of its supposed strangeness." More hyperbole that no one was suggesting. This is just a straw man argument that is without merit.

And, of course we must all note that the memories are decades old, but research shows that often these sorts of memories are accurate which, for some reason, no one wants to acknowledge today. So, instead, we have your opinion offered, based on your interpretation of interviews that you were not at, and twisted around to make a point that isn't valid. No one said there were all sorts of men "abusing" the debris, but there is testimony about some of the things done to validate the strangeness of the debris. With an aircraft accident they would have known what they had, but here it was something different and unusual.

And before CDA attempts to moderate again, I will note that we have strayed, sort of, from the topic... though it was a little bit scattered.

Brice said...

Lance said :

"Skeptics have explained our theory on this many times now. One may not like the theory but I find it hard to believe that anyone could be so dense as to not understand it.

We do not state that anyone couldn't identify the ballon and balsa wood parts. They could identify them, of course. It's just that somewhere along the line, we theorize that, an assumption was made that the disparate components were part of the thing that was then called a "flying disk" (an idea raging in the popular imagination).

Our theory is supported in the numerous newspaper reports from across the country in which folks were finding various bits of trash (including a radar target for Christ's sake!) and connecting them to the flying saucer "mystery".

The only rather weak response to this idea is that "Well, OUR guys wouldn't have done that."
--

"Our theory is that the things were basically recognized for what they were: balsa wood sticks, foil backed paper, some strange tape with funny designs. I think the lack of identification was what pushed Marcel into that mindset (and maybe the tape?)."
--

These connections (any complete stories please?) can be completely different from the case of Roswell when read in their details. If you take the case of Circleville, the founder did recognized the material found as a weather balloon but thought that the rawin may look like the so called flying saucers at the time while aloft. So the connection was not fooling himself by confusion about the nature of the material but simply some mere anecdotal supposition about its apearance. So in this case a "mere folk" would have been able to identify correctly the crashed material, but RAAF officers couldn't (are believing that if what was shown in Ramey's office was the real stuff - a pristine weather balloon and well preserved rawin target - the RAAF officers weren't able to identify it?) and assumed the material was from a flying disk (please note that the PR specifically said this).

Beside, your statement that the material recovered was correctly identified is contradicted by (or ignoring) testimonies : Marcel saying that the material was nothing he had seen before (he didn't say it was balsa but looked like, it can't be bent nor burnt) and his stop at his home to show it to his family, the unusualness of the material also purpoted by other people (Marcel Jr, Rickett, Bill Brazel,...)

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

@Lance :

rereading your and my post, I may have misunderstood that you are in fact saying RAAF officers did indentified some of the material as a from a balloon. But this is not purpoted by quite a few things which on the contrary give credence to the idea they couldn't identify it :

- there was nothing in the first press release that indicated that there was anything to do with a weather balloon, on the contrary it was said that the base refused to give details of its construction and appearance.

- The material was sent to Fort Worth and a meteorologist officer was asked to confirm the identification of the material as from a weather balloon (why if they had already identified it as such?)

- as just said before the strangeness of the material mentionned (coherently) by quite a few witnesses

Now I also found it very peculiar that Marcel wasn't more involved if there was more to it (other site, bodies...) as the intelligence officer and having already been involved in the early developpements of the case, or even having only heard rumors about the fuss. I woudn't say it is a "killer" but is rather disturbing for me. But sometimes things are even stranger than one may imagine.

Lance said...

Hi Brice,

I really don't see any of your points as disconfirming towards the skeptical scenario.

You said:

"These connections (any complete stories please?) can be completely different from the case of Roswell when read in their details. If you take the case of Circleville, the founder did recognized the material found as a weather balloon but thought that the rawin may look like the so called flying saucers at the time while aloft. "

Yes, the stories have differences, of course. That isn't the point. The point is that people were mistaking common junk for flying saucers all over the place. Your account of Circleville is simplified and not in wholly in accord with the way I read the existing accounts.

"Marcel saying that the material was nothing he had seen before"

Marcel actually FIRST said that the stuff we see him with in the photos is the SAME stuff he picked up. He said it at least twice. Then he changed his story to say that he was hiding some of the "real" saucer debris behind some paper in those photos. Then he said that nothing in the photos was real. If you hitch your beliefs to the words of Jesse Marcel then I can't help you see reality.

I mentioned above some of the abject stupidity of the Roswell story when trying to reconcile it with what Marcel blathered on about. Here's another one in the same vein: Marcel, in some interview, said that he thought that the the debris was from an aircraft crash. Ok. But here we have an man in the Army Air Corps who sees what he thinks is evidence of of air crash. And instead of rushing to the nearest telephone to report the crash, he spends the day collecting sticks and foil, drives home, goes to sleep and then the NEXT MORNING goes in to report the crash? Really? I'm sure Kevin can see the idiocy of this. No need to remain silent Kevin. Is that what you would have done if you saw evidence of what you thought was an air crash?

"- there was nothing in the first press release that indicated that there was anything to do with a weather balloon, on the contrary it was said that the base refused to give details of its construction and appearance."

So? There was nothing said about it being a craft from another world either. This means nothing in relation to the skeptical scenario.

"- The material was sent to Fort Worth and a meteorologist officer was asked to confirm the identification of the material as from a weather balloon (why if they had already identified it as such?)"

Yes, this fits into our scenario completely--it wasn't a regular balloon, it was part of a Mogul train.

"- as just said before the strangeness of the material mentionned (coherently) by quite a few witnesses"

And the contemporaneous descriptions from 1947 say something quite the opposite.

"But sometimes things are even stranger than one may imagine."

Maybe, but Roswell never is in my experience.

Thanks,

Lance


Brice said...

(1/2)
Lance,

It is not my intention to engage in a long and minutia debate over many points of the case (nor might it be your intention too..), as it seems these debates don't lead to something fruitful. But I'd like to adress some of your answers in some extent.

"Your account of Circleville is simplified and not in wholly in accord with the way I read the existing accounts. "

It may be simplified but I don't think that much since I don't know what else would shed more useful light on the matter? (and to be specific I'm recounting the case from what I learned on it on Kevin's blog). About "existing accounts", it was why I asked for complete details stories, because speaking vaguely of "connections" without the real understanding of the case (like Circleville) can say nothing and everything, and easily mislead one into some desired mindset.

About Marcel, you're talking about the photos which IMO is a controversed/disputable point. I was speaking of Bob Pratt's interview in which he said the material was nothing he had seen before and looked like balsa but not that it was.

Could you please reference this interview about the aircraft crash? Maybe Marcel said at first (I mean before he had inspected the site) he may have thought it was an aircrash, but in Pratt's interview, he made it perfectly clear that it couldn't be any part of an aircraft. To me it appears that upon inspection of the site and the debris, it was clear for them it wasn't an aircrash and they didn't found any dead/wounded people (no one ever spoke of this on this - Brazel - site and if that would have been the case Brazel would have told someone much earlier). By the way he also stated it couldn't be part of a balloon

Brice said...

(2/2)
"- there was nothing in the first press release that indicated that there was anything to do with a weather balloon, on the contrary it was said that the base refused to give details of its construction and appearance."

So? There was nothing said about it being a craft from another world either. This means nothing in relation to the skeptical scenario."

The point is that if it would have been identified as any sort of balloon, they could have given the information right away. There was no need for secrecy (the PR specifically said the base refused to give details on its construction and appearance), even for a mogul balloon since the material was mundane. So one can rightfully doubt it was identified as some sort of balloon.

"- The material was sent to Fort Worth and a meteorologist officer was asked to confirm the identification of the material as from a weather balloon (why if they had already identified it as such?)"

Yes, this fits into our scenario completely--it wasn't a regular balloon, it was part of a Mogul train."

There's absolutely no reason to send some balloon and rawin wreckage to Higher quarters (FW) since it is very mundane material.

Sorry, but what strikes me is that you're ignoring a lot of conflicting data and testimonies with your scenario.

Lance said...

Brice,

You mention how you have decided that I am ignoring much of the saucer evidence while admitting that you really don't know many of the basic facts about the case. Interesting.

Many of your "objections" take the form of explaining to me what people would have or would not have done according to your worldview which contains an obvious bias towards flying saucers.

My bias is towards the real world and I admit that. So I don't think people always did things the way you say they should have. I can think of multiple reasons why, for instance, the debris was flown to FW that don't involve actual flying saucers. It is so surprising that you can't.

Can saucer believers really not imagine why a guy like Marcel, after suffering a rather embarrassing episode in his life, an episode that put him on the front page of newspapers all over the country, might not welcome a chance to change the history after a rabid UFO "researcher" helps him convert the story into something new?

By the way, has Friedman ever published his unedited first interviews with Marcel? Those would be VERY interesting reading.

I have documented here and elsewhere the various "1947 disk" "recovery" newspaper stories (as has Tim Printy). You should try Google.

The aircraft crash idea is right there in the Pratt interview as well and in other interviews as well.

Here's a quote:

"t was something that must have exploded above ground and fell. ... [It was] scattered all over -- just like you'd explode something above the ground and [it would] just fall to the ground. One thing that I was impressed with was that it was obvious you could just about determine which direction it came from and which direction it was heading. It was traveling from northeast to southwest. It was in that pattern. You could tell where it started and where it ended by how it thinned out. Although I did not cover the entire area this stuff was in, I could tell that it was thicker where we first started looking, and it was thinning out as we went southwest.""

Here's another:

"When we [Marcel & Cavitt] arrived at the crash site, it was amazing to see the vast amount of area it covered. It was nothing that hit the ground or exploded [on] the ground. It's something that must have exploded above ground, traveling perhaps at a high rate of speed, we don't know. But it scattered over an area of about three quarters of a mile long, I would say, and fairly wide, several hundred feet wide."

Thanks to my dear friend, David Rudiak, for the above quotes.

As far as I am aware there is not one factual disagreement between Kevin and myself over what I said about the photos. Can you mention the controversial portion?

Lance


Jeanne Ruppert said...

Lance wrote:

"The aircraft crash idea is right there in the Pratt interview as well and in other interviews as well.

Here's a quote:

"t was something that must have exploded above ground and fell. ... [It was] scattered all over -- just like you'd explode something above the ground and [it would] just fall to the ground. One thing that I was impressed with was that it was obvious you could just about determine which direction it came from and which direction it was heading. It was traveling from northeast to southwest. It was in that pattern. You could tell where it started and where it ended by how it thinned out. Although I did not cover the entire area this stuff was in, I could tell that it was thicker where we first started looking, and it was thinning out as we went southwest.""

Here's another:

"When we [Marcel & Cavitt] arrived at the crash site, it was amazing to see the vast amount of area it covered. It was nothing that hit the ground or exploded [on] the ground. It's something that must have exploded above ground, traveling perhaps at a high rate of speed, we don't know. But it scattered over an area of about three quarters of a mile long, I would say, and fairly wide, several hundred feet wide."


As Brice said, the reasonable interpretation of Marcel's remark that the Brazel field looked like the site of an airplane crash is that he meant that that was his first impression. Your quotations from the Pratt interview provide nothing to support your claim that he continued to hold that impression after seeing the debris up close. Also, Marcel's stated impression at the time that what crashed "must have exploded above ground, traveling perhaps at a high rate of speed" -- and leaving a lengthy debris field -- seems to me in itself to challenge your Mogul balloon hypothesis.

Lance said...

Jeanne,

You really don't understand. I think that Marcel's story was a creation of his (just like the one about his college record or how he was hiding the real debris behind some paper in the photos). He made stuff up.

The point is that, if he thought some fast moving craft had crashed from the sky AND he didn't know what it was, his actions afterwards don't support that.

There are now so many howlers related to the ever changing stories of Jesse Marcel that it would actually be embarrassing if UFO people had the capacity to be embarrassed by their silly stories.

Even more embarrassing is the response. Note above, that there really isn't any response, just to look away and to change the topic.

The crystal clear evidence just of how Marcel changed his story 3 times about the photos would give a thinking person pause. I realize I can't expect that here, of course.

Lance

David Rudiak said...

Yes, there are many "howlers" to the Jesse Marcel story, such as how he got so many co-conspirators to his "ever changing story" of what happened. E.g., Gen. Arthur Exon backed up Marcel's story of anomalous debris and Gen. Dubose backed up Marcel about a cover-up in Fort Worth and a debris swap. No doubt, they just "made stuff up" to "redeem" themselves decades later. Wonder how Marcel got everyone on the same page?

Testimony of Exon, and Dubose:

www.roswellproof.com/Exon.html
www.roswellproof.com/Dubose.html

Marcel never publicly brought up the subject of bodies recovered, but Exon did. Obviously a liar. (Not to mention Ramey's VICTIMS in the Ramey memo.)

Just to see how many people backed up Marcel about anomalous debris, I compiled the debris testimony on my website. This is truly a vast conspiracy to tell tall tales:

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

Marcel was even quoted back in 1947 saying debris was scattered over a square mile, then had the audacity to "change his story" to the same thing when first interviewed 30+ years later, in his anxiousness to redeem himself.

As for Marcel military record, rating officers raised his performance ratings afterwards, Dubose and Blanchard recommended promotion in the A.F. reserve, and Dubose and Ramey thought him command officer material. Ramey registered a mild protest against his transfer a year later, saying he had NOBODY in his command to replace him. I guess the ranks of intelligence officers back then were riddled with even more incompetent, lying, fantasizing nincompoops than Marcel.

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

My favorite rating is that of Blanchard afterward, giving Marcel 9 out of 10 (excellent/superior) on the description "the degree to which he is able to discriminate & evaluate facts to arrive at logical conclusions." Sounds like just the sort of guy to take pieces of a balsa wood/foil kite and rubber balloon and turn them into a Kenneth Arnold supersonic flying saucer. Perhaps Blanchard was covering up for his embarrassing mistake in believing his inept intelligence officer and putting out an inflammatory press release that they had recovered a real flying disc.

It is a typical debunker tactic to try to make Roswell entirely the story of only one witness, Jesse Marcel, then smear the man's reputation to destroy Roswell. But Roswell is the story of not one man, but hundreds of people (including people like Exon and Dubose) telling pretty damn consistent stories of something very strange happening.

As for Lance's silly theory about Roswell knowing they had a balloon on their hands, but Blanchard instead calling it a "flying disc" in his press release, plus more silliness that they then flew a totally mundane balsa wood kite and rubber balloon to Ramey, whereupon it was identified as Lance's religiously believed in "Mogul balloon train" in Fort Worth, perhaps Lance can explain why Ramey and his people (including weather officer Irving Newton) always called it a SINGULAR balloon and radar target, and indeed, that is all that is shown in the photos taken.

Unlike Lance, I actually spoke to Newton, and he still maintains that is all their was and doesn't believe it had anything to do with Mogul, but was a typical weather balloon/rawin combination that could have come from anywhere. (And Newton is a BIG flying saucer crash skeptic.)

Perhaps Lance could also point out to us which "Mogul train" was supposedly found (probably trotting out again his religiously-believed-in "Flight #4" which was really cancelled), and point out to us as well all those identifying characteristics in the FW photos that demonstrate that this was indeed from a Mogul instead of just some other balloon/rawin target that could have been rummaged up from elsewhere for a photo op. Perhaps Lance can find that Mogul "flower tape" in the photos that nobody else can find?

Lance said...

As I mentioned, the true believers simply look away from the problems in Marcel's story and point to some other dubious or immaterial or silly conspiracy-minded point. Rudiak is the master of that.

I harp on Marcel because he really is where Roswell came from--without his tales (and what we now know to be lies) there is no Roswell case.

Notice that Rudiak claims that I am trying to smear Marcel and yet he has no answer for the SPECIFIC points that brought up in this thread. He only brings up barely tangential points (as seen through his saucer buff/conspiracy theorist eyes). Saying that the Roswell "witness" stories are "consistent" is certainly hilarious (although, in fairness to David, I'm sure he is only referring to the witnesses that haven't yet been shown to be frauds and liars--there are a ton of those!).

I am happy to talk about other points (and one can see that I have done so ad nauseam). But one silly claim at a time, there, chief!


Lance

Brian B said...

Let's not forget that Dubose and Exon were interviewed decades after the event when the rumors of something strange had already been established. If the entire Roswell story rests on the comments of these two men you still have problems. And as far as "something strange" happening, this isn't the only case where circumstances support a mystery which probably has a prosaic explanation even if not fully known - the Bermuda Triangle is just one of many examples where strange things have occurred which can be explained despite people claiming they can't. Such is the case with Roswell.

David Rudiak said...

Lance wrote:
You really don't understand. I think that Marcel's story was a creation of his (just like the one about his college record or how he was hiding the real debris behind some paper in the photos). He made stuff up.

How about YOU making stuff up? Like knowing with 100% certainty nearly 70 years later that "real debris" couldn't have been hidden (because you say so). Apparently you possess X-ray vision that can see behind things even in photos. Or are you holding seances with Marcel using your skeptic’s Ouija board?

And when I bring up the FACT that there is hardly any debris in the FW photos, just a balloon and a radar target (exactly the same as Ramey's story in 1947), further Ramey denying they found any sort of equipment, thus VERY FAR removed indeed from a TRUE Mogul balloon, you further make up that Ramey MUST have hidden the rest of the recovered Mogul debris. This you determined how exactly?

Thus Marcel says he hid some fragments of real debris samples behind the brown paper in the photos (VERY easy and quick to do), but Marcel must have been fabricating that (because you say so). But Ramey was capable of and must have hidden an entire Mogul balloon array from the cameras (because you say so), and that you consider more true, based nothing on your religious belief that it MUST have been a Mogul array recovered. (I'm still awaiting your evidence of such a missing Mogul balloon array, that they so carelessly failed to record a word about, unlike their REAL balloon aways.)

The point is that, if he thought some fast moving craft had crashed from the sky AND he didn't know what it was, his actions afterwards don't support that.

I still don't get your "point". The point I see you ignoring is that in more than one interview, Marcel mentioned he thought the debris came from a fast flying object that exploded or came apart in the air based on how the debris was concentrated over a wide area along a long, linear debris field, perhaps up to a mile long (although he also said he didn't have time to examine all of the debris field). Thus, where is your evidence that Marcel was constantly changing his story? Instead, Marcel was ALWAYS very consistent about the VERY LARGE debris field.

In fact, he was telling much the same story back in 1947 when he was quoted as saying debris was scattered over a square mile, again what one would expect from a flying object at high speed disinterating in mid-air.

As for your claim that Marcel's actions were different from somebody who didn't know what it was, you are again misrepresenting his testimony. When he examined the debris up close, he couldn't match the physical properties to anything man-made at the time, thus came to the LOGICAL conclusion that it wasn't man-made. (This clearly would NOT have been true if all he found was Ramey's one rubber balloon and a balsa/foil-paper radar target, all entirely mundane materials that even a child could identify.)

This is entirely consistent with Marcel Jr. telling us his father came home saying he had the pieces of a real flying saucer, Blanchard soon after putting out the flying disc press release (thus Blanchard would have to be a moron as well plus anyone else at the base whom Blanchard got an opinion from), and Marcel decades later stating the debris was not of this Earth. (Which sounds exactly like Gen. Exon who said the same thing: "Roswell was the recovery of a craft from space." "Everyone from the White House on down knew that what we had found was not of this world within 24 hours of our finding it.")

Marcel said he didn't know exactly what the material was (composition, manufacture), but knew that neither we or the Russians were capable of making stuff with those physical properties. Further, MANY people described the same anomalous properties of the debris besides Marcel. It wasn’t just Marcel making the claim (another point you continue to ignore).

Lance said...

Yes, yes David. Under your startlingly new (to my knowledge) theory, Marcel conducted field tests and CONCLUDED at the ranch that the material was NOT MAN MADE!

This is hilarious.

It's even worse than if he thought it was an airplane.

So he decided that he found a flying disk FROM ANOTHER WORLD and then slowly picked up stuff, put it into his trunk, drove home and got some shut eye?

Really?

I guess there were no phones back then where someone who found a flying disk that was NOT MANMADE might have called back to his base to alert them to this history changing information!

Too silly for words!


Lance

Nitram said...

Hello David & Lance

Happy New Year to you both...

Lance,

I agree there was no alien visitation in July 1947 @ Roswell, however:

There are now so many howlers related to the ever changing stories of the military that it would actually be embarrassing if the US Government had the capacity to be embarrassed by their silly stories.

The crystal clear evidence of how the military changed it's story "5" times about what happened at Roswell would give a thinking person pause. I realize I can't always expect that here, of course.

Lance, if David's interpretation of the Ramey memo is correct - and you have conceded that he "could be right" - then please pause for thought and give us your explanation as to who the, "victims" are, that Ramey is referring too please?

One final question Lance - do you accept that Marcel woke his family up to show there the material when he arrived back from the "Foster Ranch"?

David,

I do agree with Lance that the idea of Marcel covering up the material behind a sheet of paper (or whatever) is quite ridiculous also... but then again I have paused for thought and simply cannot explain this.

To be fair to Lance, perhaps David, you could agree, that while there are "problems" (LOL) with the "Mogul theory" there are also problems with the testimony of Marcel, which is not as "rock solid" as it could be?

Unknown said...

I am confused by a few things.

1. Lance, what size do you think the debris field is? Reason for question is the quantity of material and equipment found on a Mogul train is fairly limited. If Marcel or even Brazel description is accurate then a single Mogul train couldn't have provided enough debris.

2. David, on your website you don't list the description of debris Brazel quoted in the Roswell Daily Chronicle on July 9th. Why not?

3. David, do you dismiss the Roswell Daily Chronicle July 9th article as being accurate? If yes, please explain why (or tell me where to look it up)? If your answer is yes, I struggle with idea that a ranch foreman would be sophisticated enough to pull off an interview.

4. If someone believes that a Mogul train would explode above ground and create a large debris please explain what would cause it to do so.

Thanks

Mark

PS. Zoam, read your response back to me dated 12/21. I died laughing when I read " But thanks for a good example of how political correctness makes people illogical." I never suspected that showing common courtesy would be considered as being politically correct.

cda said...

DR wrote:

"Marcel said he didn't know exactly what the material was (composition, manufacture), but knew that neither we or the Russians were capable of making stuff with those physical properties."

What physical properties were these?

So Marcel possessed such super intelligence that he knew the US could not manufacture such stuff as was recovered. Moreover, he knew the Russians were just as incapable.
And just how and where did Marcel acquire this remarkable information? Was he aware of everything going on in the secret labs and factories in the US or Russia? Did he, I wonder, ever suspect the Brits (heaven forbid!) could have manufactured the stuff?

"This is entirely consistent with Marcel Jr. telling us his father came home saying he had the pieces of a real flying saucer,..., and Marcel decades later stating the debris was not of this Earth."

See above. Marcel Sr. obviously had advanced intelligence of what was or was not made on earth to utter such a statement. Amazing.

The fact is that nobody, repeat NOBODY, at the time knew (or knows even now) ANYTHING about such debris being "not of this earth", apart from meteorites of course.

Thus such a statement by Marcel, 35 or so years later, is just plain twaddle.

I have seen far too many accounts, probably 'borrowed' from other quotes, of how Roswell witnesses decades later just 'knew' the stuff "was not of this earth". And this at a time when scientists the world over are still hoping and trying to discover evidence of ET life!

cda said...

So Gen Exon said:

"Roswell was the recovery of a craft from space."

"Everyone from the White House on down knew that what we had found was not of this world within 24 hours of our finding it.")

If General Exon really said this, my only response is that Exon was also talking pure twaddle. Why anyone should even consider such an utterance to have any value is beyond me. (But maybe I just don't understand the working of certain people's minds).

Brian B said...

If Marcel was so highly favored by Ramey and others, how do you explain the fact he was literally kept in the dark and never included in any of the clean-up and post event discussions? He's cut out of every ounce of control yet others all seem to get their private viewing of bodies and egg shaped craft in the hanger and such. This is a major problem for a supposedly respected intelligence officer.

KRandle said...

Lance Moody wrote:

David Rudiak said:

"you further make up that Ramey MUST have hidden the rest of the recovered Mogul debris. This you determined how exactly?"

Where did I say this?
Let's see the quote....
I never said anything of the sort.

I said that is is possible (in the real world) that Ramey decided not to pile every scrap of the silly junk found at the ranch onto his office floor, offering instead a representative sample. Your framing of what I never said amounts to the same thing as a lie.


Lance

Paul Young said...

Lance wrote..."I guess there were no phones back then where someone who found a flying disk that was NOT MANMADE might have called back to his base to alert them to this history changing information!


My understanding was that Cavitt had left the debris field, with samples, and had travelled back to the AAFB ahead of Marcel.
This might explain why Marcel wasn't in too much of a hurry to return with the "big news" himself.

Lance said...

Mark,

The issue concerning the size of the debris field is related to language.

As an example, our next door neighbor's kids sometimes leave their stuff in our backyard: a baseball glove, a shoe, a sock.

Now sometimes if I get mad about this, I could say that our backyard was filled with their crap.

But the reality is that it is only a few items.

This is the problem.

UFO proponents pedantically take figures that are obviously off-the-cuff estimates and then pretend that they can do all sorts of calculations of how much debris we are talking about. I suggest we cannot. Because we don't know the density of the thing.

A Mogul train can be quite large. And, not knowing the density of the debris field, I suggest that we cannot make statements like:

"a single Mogul train couldn't have provided enough debris"

I have no problem with the idea that what we see in the photos is not all of the debris--this is immaterial. It seems a reasonable possibility that a representative sample of debris was presented for the press photos.

Additionally, I agree that we cannot see the flowered tape in the photos. I am not sure if that is because the designs were very faint purple and simply don't show up or not. BUT I can't see sign of ANY tape and yet we know tape was used for Rawin targets! That is something that David glosses over, isn't it?

Perhaps the tape was stripped off (or examination or because the flowers might have been embarrassing, who knows?).

Again these kinds of small discrepancies, so loved by conspiracy theorists, never support the conclusion: THEREFORE aliens! despite the grasping and desperate need believers bring to the table.

Lance

Brice said...

First happy new year to everyone, I've been occupied lately so couldn't have the time to write any comment.

Lance said :

"Many of your "objections" take the form of explaining to me what people would have or would not have done according to your worldview which contains an obvious bias towards flying saucers. "

Not at all, I brought up real facts (absence of any mention of balloon identification and a will of secrecy of the RAAFB about the disk in the PR, material transfered to higher quarters and asked to be identified by a weather officer, consistent testimonies about the unusual properties of the material, Marcel specifically saying in Pratt's itw it wasn't part of a balloon), all of which that don't support in anyway the idea that the material was identified as some sort of balloon by the RAAF officers, but totally the contrary. Facts you obviously choose to ignore (as the documentionnal evidence that the Mogul Flight #4 was cancelled)

Your mention about the idea of an aircraft crash by Marcel Sr in Pratt's itw is inaccurate. In the exercepts you mentionned, he suggested something crashed in the air but he was affirmative it was not part of any aircraft at the same time (thing you again choose to ignore, talk about bias)

"As far as I am aware there is not one factual disagreement between Kevin and myself over what I said about the photos. Can you mention the controversial portion?"

I don't know what you're refering to when talking about "factual disagreement" (since you're not pointing to anything) but the controversy about Marcel and the photos is right here on Kevin's blog : http://kevinrandle.blogspot.fr/2009/10/roswell-ufo-and-jesse-marcel.html

What I would like to know, which is not mentionned in Kevin's post, is if in his interview with Friedman, Marcel was at the same time he was asked, shown the JBJ photos (I seem to recall he was not), because when he was shown the JBJ photos later he denied it was the real stuff in it. Maybe Kevin could enlighten us on this question?

And Lance, before you'll accuse me of "striking and looking away" I will tell you my comments might be less frequent simply because I have less spare time I had a few months ago.

cda said...

Brice:

Marcel was shown just one photo by Moore & Friedman. (See THE ROSWELL INCIDENT, ch 4). He thereafter referred to this one as showing him. He did say there were other photos, but only this one with him in it. He was wrong of course. There were two.

Also, the photo showed to Marcel was not the full photo, but a cropped one which was not shown in full until Kevin & Don Schmitt published their first book. The one in the Moore-Berlitz book was only about one quarter to one third of the full size.

A further complication is that Marcel said this one contained the REAL debris whilst the others (which were not published in the Berlitz-Moore book) were of substituted debris, which readers were left to assume looked very different. When all 6 pictures were finally published, it was obvious they all showed the same material.

KRandle said...

All -

Try as I might, I keep getting dragged back into the minutiae of the case. Friedman first interviewed Marcel on the telephone, and if you look at the interview, you notice that Marcel wasn't sure of the date... Friedman contacted Moore who began a search of the newspaper files and found, after a short search (because it was national news) the story out of Roswell. So, Friedman did not have the pictures of Marcel and the balloon debris when he interviewed him and had no real idea of what Marcel would say or knew.

What Marcel said was that if he was in the pictures it was the real debris and if it was anyone else, then it was the substituted debris (I thought about saying "unreal debris" but then it is real debris on the floor in Ramey's office, meaning it is real debris of a weather balloon but not necessarily that collected outside of Roswell). I don't know if Moore showed any pictures to Marcel, but I do know that the pictures were heavily cropped and that Moore changed the Marcel testimony to fit the facts as they were developing.

To complicate all this, Marcel did say on video tape (or film, I don't really know the medium used) that if he was in the pictures, it was the real debris. But when he was shown the pictures in The Roswell Incident by WWL-TV reporter Johnny Mann, he said that the material in the pictures was not the stuff he had found outside of Roswell. And please, we don't need to go into the argument that by the time Mann (who had no dog in the fight) showed him the pictures he had been well-coached to the right answer. Mann said that Marcel said those pictures did not hold the real debris and he told Moore and Friedman that if he was in the pictures it was the real stuff. We get all that.

CDA -

Of no real importance, but there are seven pictures.

I believe this answers all the points raised, for the most part again (though Brice's question about Friedman showing Marcel pictures in that first interview is new), so I now retreat into other projects for a Sunday afternoon (meaning football as in football and not soccer).

Nitram said...

Lance

Would you please answer the questions I posed earlier:

1. If David's interpretation of the Ramey memo is correct - and you have conceded that he "could be right" - then please pause for thought and give us your explanation as to who the, "victims" are, that Ramey is referring too please?

2. Do you accept that Marcel woke his family up to show there the material when he arrived back from the "Foster Ranch"?

Kevin

The only reason the USA is so good at "American football" (as apposed to Rugby) is that your the only country in the world that plays it.

Happy New Year!
Regards
Nitram

David Rudiak said...

Mark Davis wrote:

2. David, on your website you don't list the description of debris Brazel quoted in the Roswell Daily Chronicle on July 9th. Why not?

Bum rap Mark. Go to the various subdivisions of my debris descriptions, and I DO include the Brazel newspaper debris descriptions (www.roswellproof.com/debris_main.html), under "press reports" (beam section and debris field size section), "Mack Brazel newspaper quote" (tape section), and "Brazel in Roswell Daily Record (parchment section) . You can also download the entire debris description file in Word DOC format at http://www.roswellproof.com/files/ROSDEBRI.DOC and search for Brazel quotes there.

BTW, both the RDR Brazel story and the AP version written by Jason Kellahin can be found here:

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

3. David, do you dismiss the Roswell Daily Chronicle July 9th article as being accurate? If yes, please explain why (or tell me where to look it up)? If your answer is yes, I struggle with idea that a ranch foreman would be sophisticated enough to pull off an interview.

It's not a matter if the reporters got the quotes right but whether Brazel was a free agent or coerced and coached by the military at the time of the interview. According to about a dozen witnesses (including base provost marshal Col. Edwin Easley), Brazel was in military custody, coerced, and NOT a free agent at the time of the interview. This is in part also indicated by Brazel disowning his own balloon story at the end of the Daily Record story, saying he had previously found two weather balloons on the ranch and this wasn't like those in "any way", also adding that he would never report anything again unless it was a bomb. Sounds like a totally pissed off witness to me at the way he was being treated.

Also Brazel was in direct contradiction on some points with Sheriff Wilcox, also quoted at the time, and Marcel and Ramey in Fort Worth, also the photos taken in Fort Worth. E.g., the quantity and condition of the debris in FW is in disagreement with what Brazel described, Marcel said Brazel cleaned up the debris immediately when he found it mid-June whereas Brazel said he waited until July 4 because he was busy (in contradiction to how a real sheep rancher would have behaved), Brazel described only small pieces and no intact balloon (which is pictured in FW), and none of Brazel's "flower tape" can be found by anybody in the photos (the Air Force in 1994 even had the CIA's National Photointerpretation lab looking for it with negative results).

BTW, Sheriff Wilcox in 1947 admitted in one AP story not being a free agent, refusing to answer a question about what Brazel supposedly found, saying he "was working with those fellows at the base." Decades later, family members told researchers that the Sheriff had gotten death threats if he refused to cooperate.

4. If someone believes that a Mogul train would explode above ground and create a large debris please explain what would cause it to do so.

Magical thinking or drugs.

David Rudiak said...

Kevin wrote:
What Marcel said was that if he was in the pictures it was the real debris and if it was anyone else, then it was the substituted debris (I thought about saying "unreal debris" but then it is real debris on the floor in Ramey's office, meaning it is real debris of a weather balloon but not necessarily that collected outside of Roswell). I don't know if Moore showed any pictures to Marcel, but I do know that the pictures were heavily cropped and that Moore changed the Marcel testimony to fit the facts as they were developing.

According to the Linda Corley interview with Marcel, Marcel said Berlitz/Moore interviewed him over the phone, NOT in person. Therefore there was no way for Marcel to know what photos were being referenced by Berlitz/Moore.

To complicate all this, Marcel did say on video tape (or film, I don't really know the medium used) that if he was in the pictures, it was the real debris. But when he was shown the pictures in The Roswell Incident by WWL-TV reporter Johnny Mann, he said that the material in the pictures was not the stuff he had found outside of Roswell. And please, we don't need to go into the argument that by the time Mann (who had no dog in the fight) showed him the pictures he had been well-coached to the right answer. Mann said that Marcel said those pictures did not hold the real debris and he told Moore and Friedman that if he was in the pictures it was the real stuff. We get all that.

Both Mann and Corley interviewed Marcel IN PERSON and Marcel could look at the newspaper photos being referenced. In both cases, Marcel indicated that wasn't the stuff he brought from Roswell and recovered in the field.

The statements are easily reconciled if Marcel (and maybe others like Ramey) was photographed at least twice with the debris, first having internal, classified, military photos taken with the actual debris, then later having the 2 photos taken with the balloon debris. This would have been SOP for documenting the event for historical purposes (photos of principles with debris) had something else been found. (Was Ramey all dressed up only to be photographed with a stupid weather balloon?)

Marcel may simply have forgotten about the second photo session interviewed 30+ years later. It was Marcel's recollection that he was photographed with the real debris BEFORE the Ramey & Ramey/Dubose sessions. Of the seven known public newspaper photos, Marcel was photographed AFTER the four Ramey and Ramey/Dubose photos, and just before the weather officer Newton separate photo taken by someone else.

Lance said...

Hi Nitram,

I have talked with you on this subject before, haven't I?

"1. If David's interpretation of the Ramey memo is correct - and you have conceded that he "could be right" - then please pause for thought and give us your explanation as to who the, "victims" are, that Ramey is referring too please?"

No idea, hopefully the context of the full message would help us understand that.

2. Do you accept that Marcel woke his family up to show there the material when he arrived back from the "Foster Ranch"?

It's not about me accepting or not accepting. It's an account from a guy who was spinning tales 30-40 years later about his memories. As someone who has interviewed folks about their decades old memories, I know, for sure, just how unreliable that stuff is. My own memory is that is some evidence that Marcel was anxious for attention for Roswell (talking about it to Ham radio buddies). Add in zealot UFO believers and their helpful leading questions and you get a mixture that is toxic towards the truth.

I just watched a terrific (if ultimately misleading) documentary series on Netflix called Making of a Murderer. SPOILER ALERT: That series details, in part, the events around a brutal rape that occurred in Wisconsin. The victim, during the crime, says she made a point of carefully noting and memorizing as many details as possible about her attacker. She was able to pick him out of line-up and the man was convicted. During the trial, she said that there was no doubt that the accused man was her attacker. She was 100% sure.

Except she was wrong.

DNA evidence proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that her attacker actually was another criminal, who only vaguely looked like the convicted man. It turns out the cops made some subtle suggestions to the victim that resulted in her "remembering" and accusing the wrong man. The real rapist attacked other women while he was out and the innocent man served 18 years for a crime he didn't do.

These kinds of cautionary illustrations of the fallacy of memory are often lost on UFO believers to the great detriment of their, no doubt, righteous cause.

Now, note that none of my above objections mean anything, however, if the Roswell tales are supported by some concrete evidence. They aren't. Indeed after all these years, there is NOT ONE single bit of physical or documentary evidence supporting the Roswell myth, not even anything tangential.

And I realize that you have gone great effort to perhaps fix that with the memo and I appreciate it. Unfortunately the only result so far is an even more strident (but perhaps even more unconvincing) David Rudiak.

Lance

cda said...

This gets more and more complicated. DR now says Marcel may well have been photographed twice with the real debris, but that these pics were top secret and thus never shown. The pics that were shown (7 in all) are merely of the substituted debris.

Very well, if DR can suggest this scenario, perhaps I can suggest one too. The document in Ramey's hand in the displayed photo is a substitute document, intended for the photographer (Johnson) to catch on camera. The REAL Ramey document, i.e. the one referring to ET craft debris and bodies, was of course top secret and thus never shown in the Ft Worth photos.

Thus no analysis of the displayed piece of paper will yield anything of value. The actual memo we need to see has been hidden from the public for 68 years.

What about an FOIA request to release it? While at it, why not an FOIA request to reveal the two hidden photos of Marcel and the real debris?

Lance said...

It's worse than that, Christopher.

I think David has also said that there must have been at least 2 sets of false debris, one for Ft. Worth and one to show the witnesses in Roswell so they got the stories straight. The supposed false set in Roswell featured the odd tape with flowers on it (a detail that connects it to Mogul) for some unknown (but surely hilariously grasping) reason.

So what we are asked to believe is that Ramey decided to switch the debris but foolishly left some of the magical "real "stuff on the floor when taking Marcel's photo that was only hidden due to the sharp thinking of Marcel (although Marcel seems to have abandoned the tale about hiding the debris later).

Then Ramey tuned his top secret memo towards the camera (and the civilian photographer)and told the photographer to snap away.

That is a hoot!

Lance

Nitram said...

Hi Lance

Thank yo for your reply. Let me rephrase what I wrote

Do you believe that Marcel woke his family up to show them the material when he arrived back from the "Foster Ranch" - yes or no?

Regards
Nitram

cda said...

Lance:

There is a further matter concerning that story of Marcel bringing the debris home. His son, decades later, makes a big thing about it being the remains of a strange craft that exploded either on or before impact. At least this is what he wrote in a letter to a certain Lee Graham in Jan 1981.

If Marcel jr was only 11 or 12 in 1947 he was under no oath of secrecy then or at any time thereafter. Therefore, if he really thought the stuff so strange at the time he was perfectly free to tell his school friends about the incident. Did he? Is there any record, provably dating from the late 1940s, of Marcel jr relating this story to any of his friends, even if they were only children? If no such record exists, I suggest Marcel thought nothing of it at the time and only got 'interested' after prompting by Friedman and Moore in the late 1970s.

Lance said...

Nitram,

Again, belief doesn't mean anything. Is there evidence he did? Yes: Marcel and his son's accounts. Is such testimony reliable? No. Not really. Is Marcel reliable? I say no. So where does that leave us? Maybe?

Christopher,

Isn't there some evidence that Marcel was talking about this stuff on ham radio (or something like that) prior to Friedman? I vaguely remember such but could be wrong.

I was talking with Kevin today about how I think the initial Marcel interview with Friedman might shed as much light on this as any other evidence. Unfortunately, Kevin tells me that he believes that the 1st interview wasn't taped and there is no transcript.

Thanks,

Lance

KRandle said...

CDA -

While you are correct that Marcel, Jr. was under no secrecy oath, his father had asked him (told him) not to talk about it to his friends... which suggests that is why he didn't go blabbing to everyone about it. And yes, we learned from his babysitter that he had told her back in 1947 but that was probably before his father told him not to talk about it.

Lance -

It seems that Marcel, Sr. was talking to his ham radio buddies about picking up pieces of a flying saucer which by that time he had decided it was something alien without having talked to Friedman (Jesse, Jr. told me that in the years after the event he and his father would talk about it being from another world). One of those buddies told Friedman about this, which is how he found out about it. So, Friedman's first interview was on the telephone from an airport so there is no transcript for it. If you read his book, there are long quotes there, but I think they are actually from later interviews.

It seems that the majority of those other interviews, meaning Bill Moore, et. al. were also over the telephone and I have some of a transcript of one of those interviews, but at the moment I can't lay my hands on it. I never thought of it as important because I actually have three versions of it, meaning that Moore altered it as the situation change... like finding the second picture of Marcel.

I'm working on putting all of this in a posting which means I'm not doing what I wanted to do, but am chasing down as much of this Marcel stuff as I can. I'll get it up in the next few days so we can really get down in the weeds...

And for those interested such as CDA and Nitram... CDA, the NFL played three games this year in London and there is talk of an NFL team coming to London, not to mention the now defunct NFL Europe... Nitram, the Canadians play "American" football, though there are some specific rules that are different and I'm sure they won't like me suggesting it is American football when it is Canadian football... and I think this will end the discussion of football, though I am the one who brought it up.

Lance said...

Kevin, I certainly appreciate it--but please don't feel any pressure from me. There's always plenty of time with Roswell!

Lance

cda said...

The Friedman connection arose after he met a radio station announcer at Baton Rouge, LA, in early 1978, so I believe. This announcer then told Friedman (who was about to give a UFO lecture at a local college) that a radio ham named Jesse Marcel had disclosed to him that he had at one time handled fragments of a flying saucer, but could not recall exactly when this was. Friedman then got in touch with Marcel by phone and the story unfolded from there. But I think it was nearly 12 months before Friedman & Moore located the press reports and finally established the date.

Friedman made no mention in his book that Marcel was sworn to secrecy, either at the time or in 1978. Obviously if he had been, he would have never have said anything to either the radio announcer or Friedman; thus the entire Roswell story would never have unfolded and we would be none the wiser.

Question: Would it have been far better for us if Marcel had kept his mouth shut?

David Rudiak said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Brice said...

@CDA, Kevin and David :

Thank you all for your answers about Marcel's photos relating to his interviews with Moore and Friedman. It's these kind of details that are important to have a fair appreciation about this issue IMO.

To resume, Marcel wasn't showed any photos when he was interviewed by Friedman and accordind to Corley/Marcel, his interview was made by phone so he couldn't have been shown a photo either (it might have been shown later but the photo was heavily cropped). Btw, I'm also really doubtful of Moore's trustworthiness after what Kevin is saying about his alterations and since he completely screwed out later (heard a lot about him from Don Ecker show Dark Matters). Adding that when shown the full photos later, Marcel denied the stuff being te real one, his quotes of him with the real stuff in the photos is clearly not the black and white issue some are portraying, since it appears he was not shown the photos when interviewed and that part of the interviews originates from a source of disputable trustworthiness.

Anyway, I'll be very interested to read about your findings on this issue Kevin and will look forward it.

David Rudiak said...

Lance wrote: (part 1 of 2)
I think David has also said that there must have been at least 2 sets of false debris, one for Ft. Worth and one to show the witnesses in Roswell so they got the stories straight.

Yes, it is truly hilarious to think that a military that launched 7000 ships for D-Day could possibly rummage up 2 different balsa wood kites to promote a cover story.

Fort Worth wasn't supposed to have rawin targets or radar either, yet there they were 2 days later for another photo op at the base to again debunk Roswell and the flying saucers (part of a national debunking campaign by the military to debunk the saucers).

http://www.roswellproof.com/FWSTJuly11.html
http://www.roswellproof.com/militarydebunk.html

The point is, these things are very mobile and can be moved into place quickly if needed. Rummaging up two radar targets from elsewhere would not have been a big deal.

The supposed false set in Roswell featured the odd tape with flowers on it (a detail that connects it to Mogul) for some unknown (but surely hilariously grasping) reason.

Brazel didn't tell his own tale until several hours AFTER Ramey issued the weather balloon explanation, so plenty of time to coach Brazel in what to say, or even bring in a radar target or him to examine, if that is what it took, from nearby Alamogordo or White Sands, where they were used. Roswell base also flew in supplies to Operation Crossroads the previous year, including radar targets. So, for all we know, some of these targets were still laying around the base a year later.

Nobody knows when the toy company reinforcing "flower tape" first appeared, that Mogul's Charles Moore spoke about.. (E.g., White Sands was using the radar targets for a year BEFORE Mogul to chart high-altitude winds before V-2 launches.) Moore thought they were manufactured special for Mogul, but that was nothing but conjecture, not to mention those totally unreliable decades old memories you say we can't trust, EVER!

So what we are asked to believe is that Ramey decided to switch the debris but foolishly left some of the magical "real "stuff on the floor when taking Marcel's photo that was only hidden due to the sharp thinking of Marcel.

Marcel, in his Linda Corley interview, said Ramey told him not to tell or show anything (compromising) to reporters, therefore he covered up the "real debris" samples he brought BEFORE any photos were taken with the weather balloon debris.

All we can say it is impossible to know if this really happened or not. (Unlike you or CDA, I do not have X-ray vision through space & time to peer through the paper and know with your absolute certainty that nothing was there, but it would have have been VERY simple and quick to do, therefore plausible.)

HOWEVER, from what CAN be seen and measured in the photos, there is nothing obviously there other than one broken up radar target and one weather balloon (would fit in a shoe box), thus Ramey's SINGULAR weather balloon/radar target story. They also appear to be too pristine to have lain in the hot desert sun for a month and dragged across the desert floor by winds. (Standard Mogul balloon scenario.)

Thus if Marcel brought the remains of an actual Mogul balloon train with him, where is the rest of it? You choose to claim that Ramey showed only a representative sample of it. Where is your evidence for this? E.g., all Brazel spoke about was finding "rubber strips", not an actual intact balloon, as shown by Ramey. (Further, Brazel denied finding anything that in "any way" resembled the previous two weather balloons he had found.) Brazel said he rolled the sticks and foil into a bundle, which would mix multiple remains of radar targets together, instead of only one target in the photos. Where is Brazel's "flower tape" in the photos? And where, for God's sake, is the documentary evidence that there ever was such a "Mogul balloon train?"

David Rudiak said...

(Part 2 of 2)
(although Marcel seems to have abandoned the tale about hiding the debris later).

Since Marcel only seems to have mentioned this in his LAST known interview (the one with Corley), perhaps you can explain how he abandoned this part of his "tale" "later".

Then Ramey tuned his top secret memo towards the camera (and the civilian photographer)and told the photographer to snap away.

The memo was NEVER "turned towards the camera" in any of the four photos of Ramey holding the memo. In all four photos, the front side is always facing Ramey (or in one, Ramey has it scrunched up in his hand, but only the backside is showing). The difference in the Ramey memo photo is that Ramey dropped his hand down and the memo flopped down with it (but message STILL facing Ramey), placing memo in a more horizontal position very near the floor. This enabled the camera (with the cameraman standing), to catch an angle on the front of the memo.

The REAL situation was quite different than your insinuation that Ramey turned the memo directly towards the camera. Since the memo was still facing toward him (look at the photo), Ramey could easily have thought that it was not visible to the camera.

Now if you want a good example of a highly classified document being truly face outward toward a photographer where it was photographed in total clarity (unlike Ramey memo), see:

http://tinyurl.com/jh67ku2

These things do sometimes happen. Another example was President Johnson’s national security adviser McGeorge Bundy in 1965 carelessly allowing the New York Times to photograph a top secret Viet Nam document tucked under his arm, face outward, no cover page, the top-secret code name clearly visible in the published photo. Bundy’s desktop full of papers, probably some classified, was also photographed from a distance (resolution and steep slant angle more akin to Ramey memo) and also published in the article.

David Rudiak said...

I wrote: "you further make up that Ramey MUST have hidden the rest of the recovered Mogul debris. This you determined how exactly?"

Lance responded in his usual gracious way:

Where did I say this?
Let's see the quote....
I never said anything of the sort.

I said that is is possible (in the real world) that Ramey decided not to pile every scrap of the silly junk found at the ranch onto his office floor, offering instead a representative sample. Your framing of what I never said amounts to the same thing as a lie.


My good friend Lance. Please explain how "Ramey decided not to pile very scrap of silly junk found at the ranch onto his office floor, offering instead a representative sample" is in any way different from my "you further make up that Ramey MUST have hidden the rest of the recovered Mogul debris."

The original Lance statement on this that I was referencing from memory said:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2014/05/in-last-day-or-so-i-have-been-asked.html

"The amount of debris keeps coming up over and over. David, I know you have estimated how much debris is seen in the Ft. Worth photos and you use that information to denigrate the prosaic explanation. I believe you have been asked before but let me clearly ask again, what allows you to determine that the stuff seen in the photos is being presented as ALL of the recovered debris. Why isn't it possible that only a representative selection of debris was laid out for the photos?

AGAIN, if he decided not to show all of it in his office, "only a representative sample," then you were indeed claiming the rest of it must not be there, or "hidden", as I said. Perhaps you can explain to everybody how "this amounts to the same thing as a lie."

I would still like to see your evidence to back up your statement. A single weather balloon and radar target does not remotely add up to a "Mogul balloon train" (roughly 2 dozen weather balloons and allegedly 3 to 5 radar targets, plus several parachutes, several hundred yards of balloon rigging, and various Mogul equipment, such as a radiosonde with batteries, sonobuoy with batteries, ballast and other constant altitude control equipment). Typical launch weight was 50 to 60 pounds, not remotely close to the approximately 1-1/2 pounds of balloon and radar target in the Ramey photos or Brazel's estimated 5 pounds of "rubber strips" and sticks and foil-paper, which he allegedly rolled into two separate bundles.

Why an intact balloon instead of Brazel's "rubber strips", how do pieces of several radar targets rolled into a bundle end up forming one radar target, why did Brazel deny finding ANY balloon rigging, why did he deny finding anything resembling the previous two weather balloons he had found (which might presumably include the actual weather balloon), why no "flower tape" found in the photos, why no description of Mogul equipment by Brazel (and denial of any equipment found by Ramey)?

Yes, the embarrassing absence of all the expected Mogul debris DOES need some explaining. The best you can come up with is that Ramey showed only "a representative sample", which doesn't even match Brazel's debris descriptions.

And, AGAIN, where is your evidence of a totally undocumented Mogul balloon train?

Assuming that Ramey necessarily withheld debris from display is circular reasoning, using a premise to arrive at a conclusion: "This must have been from a Mogul balloon array (premise), therefore if there isn't sufficient debris displayed, it must have been held back." (conclusion)

Invoking Occam's Razor, the simplest, most economical answer to the reason we see only one balloon and radar target in the photos is because that is all they procured for the photo shoot, not what was necessarily found and brought from Roswell.

cda said...

Aha! We have the Occam's Razor argument again.

Using Occam's Razor, I think we can safely say that the debris depicted in the photos is exactly what was recovered from the ranch. This is the simplest solution and does not require circular reasoning.

Any other solution requires that a swap was done at Fort Worth, and possibly at Roswell also. It also requires that Ramey had agreement from above (i.e. Washington) to do all this, that he had time to do it that afternoon, then had the motivation to summon a press reporter out to take the phoney photos (and thereby run the risk of the whole operation going wrong when it would be far easier to tell the press it was a classified matter and to stay away), and to synchronise Brazel's descriptive statements at Roswell with those of people at Ft Worth. Plus, of course, ensuring the real debris was guaranteed hidden from the camera. But the best part of this Occam's Razor methodology was to ensure this great and wonderful secret could be kept for seven decades thereafter, and is still officially under wraps even now.

But we know that the USAF, CIA, etc is capable of all this, don't we? Even to the extent of commissioning a new investigation and 900-page report some 50 years later which more or less gave the same answer as it did back in '47. (All right, perhaps a slightly different answer but still a very, VERY long way from even hinting it was an ET craft).

Meanwhile scientists the world over continue their search for evidence of ET life. Poor things. If they only knew the truth!

KRandle said...

CDA -

You have assumed facts not in evidence to create your "theory."

I thought Occam's Razor suggested that the simplest solution that explained ALL the facts was probably the correct one. The way you suggest it, you get to ignore those facts that don't seem to fit.

You also said, "... then had the motivation to summon a press reporter out to take the phoney photos..."

But, as explained before, Cullen Greene, the editor at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram assigned Johnson to the story based on the news wire and not some mythical invitation from Ramey. There is no evidence that Ramey called any news agency but much that they called him.

Second, you say, "But we know that the USAF, CIA, etc is capable of all this, don't we? Even to the extent of commissioning a new investigation and 900-page report some 50 years later which more or less gave the same answer as it did back in '47."

But this isn't exactly accurate either. The Air Force investigation was not about Roswell but about examining some the procedures in place. Notice that they did not contact any of the Air Force officers available to them, they did not bother with any of the audio tapes of interviews conducted with those who had some knowledge and who had participated in the events of 1947 but instead, interviewed those involved with balloon research in New Mexico and the vast majority of their 900 page report dealt with the unclassified experiments conducted by the NYU constant level balloon project rather than anything that had anything to do with the Roswell case... and then, as you point out, they came to the same solution that had been announced in 1947 regardless of what the facts were.

But, of course, we all know that the government can't keep secrets therefore there must have been no recovery in New Mexico.

cda said...

Kevin:

All right, maybe the newspaper called Ramey (and not the other way round). You surely realise that it was far simpler for Ramey to reply to the effect that they had parts of a downed classified balloon, aircraft or rocket at Ft Worth, rather than let reporters or photographers come out to the base, thereby running a big risk of something going wrong and the great ET secret being betrayed?

As to the great ET secret still being under wraps, we need not go over this again (and again). Suffice to say that only a conspiracist would continue to believe such a thing. As I said, scientists continue their search for ET life and ignore Roswell. Are they deluded fools or not?

KRandle said...

CDA -

Nope. The paper did not call Ramey. They sent Johnson out there to get the story and any pictures he could. Other newspapers called Ramey because we have the stories they published about it.

He did reply that they had a weather balloon, nothing that was classified or all that important. They controlled the material and access to all areas of the base. For example, it took a special pass to get on the flight line so they weren't running a big risk. You just keep forcing your opinions into the story without evidence at all.

Scientists don't ignore Roswell... they ignore all things UFO related because Condon said there was nothing to it. It is the rare scientist who bucks the conventional wisdom of his colleagues and none of them want to be labeled "that UFO guy."

You whole premise here is based on your speculations.

Lance said...

David,


If you truly don't understand the difference between hiding something and simply not pulling it out for display then it must be dark world you live in. Do you walk through department stores, cursing the staff for hiding items from you in the back room?

I find your response to be disingenuous (which I am used to, I just don't like it when you are mischaracterizing what I say) or perhaps an inadvertent glimpse into the mindset of the paranoid conspiracy buff. Don't let them hide that foil paper in the back, call them on it, David!

Lance

Nitram said...

Hello Kevin & David

Happy new year to you both.
Before I respond to some of Lance's posts there are a couple of points/questions you might like to answer, which are a little of topic - but at least relate to Roswell...

1.I can't understand why most of the witnesses to the event simply don't know how many bodies there were dead or alive? I would have thought that the people who arrived at the crash site first (like Easley for example) would be fairly definitive on this...

2. "This must have been from a Mogul balloon array (premise), therefore if there isn't sufficient debris displayed, it must have been held back." (conclusion)

Well, to be fair to Lance, I suppose if we never have been visited by aliens, then there has to be a prosaic explanation for all this and I don't think the "above conclusion" is that unreasonable...

Regards
Nitram

Nitram said...

Lance replied to me:

"Again, belief doesn't mean anything. Is there evidence he did? Yes: Marcel and his son's accounts. Is such testimony reliable? No. Not really. Is Marcel reliable? I say no. So where does that leave us? Maybe?"

Is there evidence for flight No 4 or whatever you would like to call it. No, according to a diary it was cancelled. Is Charles Moore reliable. No, not at all. Is there evidence that there were "victims" involved - I say maybe. So where does that leave us?

You can't have it both ways Lance.

Regards
Nitram

cda said...

Nitram:

The answer to your question about Easley is in Kevin's paperback ROSWELL UFO CRASH UPDATE, where you will find the transcript of an interview with Kevin. Easley is VERY circumspect over what he says - in fact he says virtually nothing at all. You see he was under an great oath of secrecy and, contrary to the other tale tellers, refused to reveal anything of interest, let alone the number of bodies.

Lance said...

My dear Nitram,

You misjudge the equation we have before us.

Proving that a FLYING SAUCER FROM OUTER SPACE (or whatever esoteric fantasy you wish to connect to Roswell) takes a HELL of a lot more good evidence than would be required from those us suggesting possible prosaic causes for the tottering Roswell myth.

That is not to say that skeptics can make up evidence or lie about it. It's just that we are not on the same footing. I realize this is a very hard concept for some believers to understand. Most never do.

Note: I am not calling you a believer necessarily.

But your dismissal of Flight 4 is purely rhetorical (and somewhat understandable since certain Roswell diehards have sought to blur the truth with their blanket "There was no Flight 4! mantra) and it's misleading. It certainly doesn't help anyone get to the truth. Essentially you have simplified the argument to the point that it becomes a falsehood.

All sides agree that SOMETHING was launched that night. Kevin and David, I believe, suggest it was just some balloons and couldn't be responsible for what was found on the ranch. Skeptics think it was something more like a full train.

Both sides have some evidence that supports their scenario. None of that evidence is perfect.

We certainly disagree about Moore. Most of the scurrilous charges against him come from a certain diehard rabid paranoid conspiracy believer, someone whom, you, yourself, have witnessed just recently misrepresenting evidence.

Some of the charges Kevin brings against Moore (that he must have known the name Mogu)l, for instance strike me as incredibly weak as proof of anything dastardly on Moore's party and are virtually immaterial towards the truth of the case.

On the other hand, the machinations and rationalizations that believers have to go through to make Marcel's silly stories work are a wonder to behold. And Marcel, unlike Moore, goes directly to the heart of the case.

Remember that proving Mogul was responsible for the Foster ranch debris has nothing to do with the bald and inescapable fact that those promoting the Roswell Flying Saucer have fallen far far short of the burden of proving their case with robust evidence.

If you are of the mind that, if Mogul is disproven, then you have proven that aliens (or time machines or whatever) exist, then you are not thinking clearly.

Now I think Mogul is a reasonable conclusion.

But one never even has to even mention Mogul to understand that the Roswell Saucer Myth is unproven and indeed, highly dubious.

Lance



KRandle said...

All-

I'm not going to entertain another discussion of Mogul at this time. We've been through it all on several occasions and it goes nowhere. I won't respond to Lance's points here because I have said it all before. Everyone is free to believe whatever he or she wishes to believe on this. Mogul on this threat is a dead issue and any more conversation about it will be deleted.

cda said...

Surely the real point is that from the contemporary evidence, i.e. the press reports and photographs, the only reasonable conclusion as to the identity of the debris is that it was balloon fragments OF SOME KIND plus a radar reflector or reflectors.

No other possible conclusion fits the facts as known and published in July 1947.

ALL ideas and conclusions, without exception, pointing to the ET hypothesis date from when the Moore-Friedman interviews began in 1979. Of course the ETHers had to find a way to account for the fact that it took 32 years for anyone to speak out (can you imagine anyone, civilian or military, keeping silent for this length of time about a revolutionary scientific discovery such as an ET craft visiting our planet?). The pro-Roswell writers & researchers found such a way, and are still doing so, by proposing the official cover-up/conspiracy idea and telling us that witnesses were even threatened with court-martials, loss of their pensions, having their children taken away, being buried in the desert, and even death. And all this based on decades-old testimony, most of it second or third hand. A few, supposedly, even took the great never-to-be-revealed secret to their graves.

Of course, the conspiracy idea was nothing new; it existed in the days of Scully, Keyhoe, Adamski and others. It continues to this day and will continue well into the future. It is an integral part of ufology. Or, as Gilles F. would say, "such is ufology".

KRandle said...

Lance -

It's not only that he knew Mogul's name, but that he changed the launch time for the June 4 cluster of balloons from just after dawn to a point two or three hours earlier so that his theoretical track of that cluster would drift toward the Brazel ranch. He also claimed that when he and other member of their team who had recovered balloon debris tried to stop to refuel their vehicle at Roswell AAF, they were denied admittance... though they were driving a weapons carrier assigned to the base at Alamogordo... not to mention, a similar circumstance a week earlier, Crary was allowed to refuel at the base... to his claim that there was no NOTAM for the June 4 launch because they expected the balloons to climb through 20,000 feet while over the restricted area but that wasn't the CAA requirement and made no allowances for the balloons coming down to endanger aerial navigation... and so on and so forth. The point is that he knowing fudged the data.

Nitram said...

Hello Lance :)

Kevin has already addressed some of the points for me - and he knows a lot more about Roswell than you AND I combined.

I do however enjoy reading your posts and yes, you do help with the investigation.... but please can you leave out references such as "a certain diehard rabid paranoid conspiracy believer" - this does nothing to further your/our case.
All you do throwing dirt, is lose ground.

Regards
Nitram

Lance said...

Well, Kevin, we I know that some of this, we have attempted to hash out with you. And I would be happy to try again but it would take a bit of give and take discussion and is too complicated to do so here. It seems to me that NONE of your list above is clearcut evidence of anything but perhaps that is just me. Do you feel that the items above are more or less clearcut than Marcel's changing story about the debris?

Lance

KRandle said...

Lance -

Some of the above is more clear cut than Marcel's changing story of the debris.

David Rudiak said...

Kevin wrote:
It's not only that he knew Mogul's name, but that he changed the launch time for the June 4 cluster of balloons from just after dawn to a point two or three hours earlier so that his theoretical track of that cluster would drift toward the Brazel ranch. He also claimed....

Quite right. The list of Moore's deceptions about Mogul is quite long. Here are a few more:

1) Made 3 alterations to the trajectory map of the real Flight #5 (after saying he was reproducing it from Mogul records "without change") to make it seem this first true Mogul flight in N.M. passed and crashed much further from Roswell base than it really did. (According to the original map, came with 6 miles of the base, hung in their airspace for around an hour, and crashed about 16 miles east of the base.) He may have done this to support another claim of his that Roswell base knew nothing of the Mogul flights.

www.roswellproof.com/Flight4_Addendums.html#anchor_3600

2) When Brad Sparks pointed this out to Moore, Moore compounded the lying, continuing to maintain the flight was much further from the base than the map indicates and that they might not have seen it because of cloudy weather, when he must have known from the records that the flight was tracked visually from Alamogordo clear to Roswell.

3) Changed his story (1997), claiming he had a distinct memory of "Flight #4" (after first claiming he had NO memory of it), because it passed over "exotically" named N.M. locations like Arabela, and this was the ONLY time he ever had any connection with these places. In reality, the REAL Flight #17 in September took the same trajectory over the same exotically named places and was lost track of in the same place he claimed they lost track of " #4". (So bad decades-old memory or more lying?)

http://www.roswellproof.com/Flight4_Addendums.html#anchor_3666

5) Claimed their was no record for "Flight #4" because it had an incomplete track, knowing full well that most real Mogul flights were incompletely tracked (like #17, which they lost track of around Arabela), yet they are ALL in the records.

6) Claimed "Flight #4" worked even better than the real Flight #5, which Mogul records list as their first "successful" constant-altitude flight, begging the question why the even supposedly better "Flight 4" didn't earn that distinction. But, more importantly, in his mathematical trajectory model, Moore actually treated #4 as a faulty balloon, more like the unsuccessful real Flight #6, with damaged altitude control, drastically shortening the rise and fall times over the real comparable flights in order to severely shorten the trajectory. (Instead, had he modeled it after the real successful #5, it would have overshot the Foster Ranch crash site by 70-100 miles.)

7) Moore deliberately pulled more mathematical shennaningans to get his model #4 to the Foster Ranch (too complicated to go into here), then declared the winds were "exactly right" to get it there, when in reality they were NOT.

8) Moore flip-flopped on the original assumed launch time. In his first 1995 model, he assumed "#4" would have gone up around dawn (about 5:15 a.m.), like most of the other Mogul flights of that period. But when he got more accurate wind data, he realized that wasn't going to work. THAT is when he suddenly shifted the launch time to 3:00 am, in order to extend the flight time to get his already fatally compromised model to work. (Note also that launching in complete darkness would have taken away their visual tracking systems, which makes no sense.) He also began playing games with the real cloud cover data (which wouldn't have supported a 3:00 a.m. launch) and also played word games with when they supposedly got up to launch. Details here:

www.roswellproof.com/flight4_trajectory.html#anchor_3596

David Rudiak said...

CDA wrote:
Surely the real point is that from the contemporary evidence, i.e. the press reports and photographs, the only reasonable conclusion as to the identity of the debris is that it was balloon fragments OF SOME KIND plus a radar reflector or reflectors.

The unspoken assumption here is that there was no cover-up in 1947, no coercion, and there was no substitution of debris as Marcel and Gen. Dubose said happened. And STILL, what you see in the Fort Worth photos does NOT match what Mack Brazel described several hours earlier. (One example, where are Brazel's "rubber strips"?)

No, there is NOT a mass of "balloon fragments", but a seemingly intact, somewhat used, small weather balloon. As I've said before, I have reconstructed the scene in a 3D ray tracer, and have MEASURED its approximate volume. It would fit in a shoe box (or that roundish paper package leaning against Ramey's radiator in some of the photos.) Here is the reconstruction and the approximate measurements of the balloon:

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

The balloon envelope also shows clear stretch marks and pleated folds, indicating continued pliability, not at all what one would expect of a true neoprene weather balloon flown at high altitude, then lying on the hot N.M. desert month for a month before Brazel supposedly picked it up July 4. This web page shows what a real balloon in the NM sun looks like after only 2 to 3 weeks exposure, according to multiple demonstrations by Mogul's Charles Moore. It becomes very dark, brittle, and ragged, if not fragmented into small pieces, NOT at all what we see in the photos.

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

It also appears to be almost entirely intact, not broken into multiple "fragments" or Brazel's "rubber strips".

And the same analysis shows there there are no plural radar reflectorS, just one radar reflector. Here is a graphic summarizing the results, and for a more complete description of analysis and results see second link:

http://www.roswellproof.com/Analysis2.gif
http://www.roswellproof.com/rawin_construction.html

Note there are 2 or 3 extra bare sticks without glue beads or foil shards sticking to them. In order for the radar reflectors to fold down flat into triangles for convenient packing and shipping, two balsa sticks had to be left out of the completed radar target (see second link on radar target construction showing this). From documentation of one target manufacturer (2nd link again), they packed 24 targets to a box, and threw in 48 bare sticks on top, plus 4 spares, for completing the target framework once they were unfolded. Thus those bare, isolated sticks apart from the target become very significant, as they indicate this target was probably new and taken out of a box, along with 2 or 3 extra packing sticks, broken up by hand, and thrown in a heap. Another indication of newness is the white paper foil backing in the various photos shows NO sign of any water staining or dirt (is instead an even, lily white), not exactly what would be expected of a target supposedly sitting in the desert for a month, blown about by the wind to tear it up, and exposed to the elements, including rain.

In ALL instances, Ramey and his people put out a SINGULAR weather balloon/radar target story in Fort Worth, and that is all that is shown in the photos, no multiple balloons or radar targets. That is, e.g., what his weather officer Irving Newton said back in 1947 (saying it could have come from any of 80 weather stations). He has also said exactly the same thing in the present day when interviewed, including by me. Even though he is a big crashed saucer skeptic, he told me, e.g., that he doesn't think what he viewed had anything to do with Mogul.

Mogul is just a modern mythical update of the original weather balloon story, with AF counterintelligence conjuring up a nonexistent Mogul flight to try to derail a Congressional inquiry by N.M. Congressman Steven Schiff.