Sunday, March 27, 2016

Reports of the Roswell Crash before Jesse Marcel's Revelation

Since this point comes up periodically, I thought it time to deal with it. There are those who suggest that there was nothing about a crash mentioned in the 1947 newspapers and other documentation. The claim is that no one was really talking about a crash until Stan Friedman and Bill Moore put the idea into the heads of the witnesses with their leading questions and their enthusiasm for the crashed saucer tales.

Len Stringfield
To refute this idea, we need to look at the rather sparse history of tales of the Roswell crash. Oh, and we’ll overlook the tales of the Aztec crash here, though it can be argued that this story, which began appearing in 1948 and was published in Behind the Flying Saucers in 1950 prove that talk of spacecraft crashes in New Mexico predated the Roswell revelations by Jesse Marcel, Sr., in 1978. Even Time got into the act with a story about recovered alien bodies in 1950, but the source of that was the reports by Frank Scully and of Aztec. The Hottel memo to the FBI about flying saucer crashes in that same era suggests that the story was widespread, but we’ll just ignore that to explore Roswell.

In the Winter 1974 issue of Saga’s UFO Report, B. Ann Slate and Stan Friedman, wrote about the Roswell crash. The two paragraphs buried deep in the article said:

During that same time in New Mexico, a woman with a responsible position at a radio station received a call from the station manager. He had been out checking reports of a UFO which had crashed in a field and was trying to track down the rumor that pieces of the object were supposedly stored in a local barn. In his excited call to the newsroom, the station manager verified the UFO crash report, and also claimed he had seen metallic pieces of the UFO being carried into a waiting Air Force plane which was destined for Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
As the woman began typing out the fantastic news over the teletype to their other two radio stations, a line appeared in the middle of her text, tapped in from somewhere, with the official order: “Do not continue this transmission!”
Okay, there is a lot wrong here because the information you might really want to see, rather than this unattributed tale, are names, dates and locations. Without that there isn’t much of value. But then investigation in other arenas have lead back to this and we all now know that the woman was Lydia Sleppy, she worked for Merle Tucker at his fledgling New Mexico radio network and she was talking about the Roswell crash. The reporter talking to Sleppy was Johnny McBoyle who, when I talked to him so much later, sort of confirmed the story for me.

Before the skeptics rush to point all this out, Sleppy’s order to not transmit mentions nothing about the FBI though when I talked to her, she said the FBI had ordered her to stop typing… and yes, we can all discuss the foibles of human memory again, or we can just look at the point being made here which is that this story pre-dates Marcel’s revelations by four years and she certainly wasn’t influenced by all that discussion. She interjected the crashed UFO into the tale without prompting by anyone.

This isn’t the only documented evidence of a discussion of Roswell prior to Marcel. In 1966, Frank Edwards published Flying Saucers – Serious Business. In chapter four, “Pick Up the Pieces,” he wrote:

There are such difficult cases as the rancher near Roswell, New Mexico, who phoned the Sheriff that a blazing disc-shaped object had passed over his house at low altitude and had crashed and burned on a hillside within view of the house. The sheriff called the military; the military came on the double quick. Newsmen were not permitted in the area. A week later, however, the government released a photograph of a service man holding up a box kite with an aluminum disc about the size of a large pie plate dangling from the bottom of the kite. This, the official report explained, was a device borne aloft on the kite and used to test radar gear by bouncing signals off the pie plate. And this, we were told, was the sort of thing that had so excited the rancher. We were NOT [emphasis in original] told, however, how the alleged kite caught fire – nor why the military cordoned off the area while they inspected the wreckage of a burned-out kite with a non-inflammable pie plate tied to it.
Again, there is quite a bit wrong here and I’m not going to bother with it. The point is here are the basics of the story printed in 1966, or more than a decade before Marcel told his story to Friedman and then Len Stringfield. We know, of course,
Mack Brazel in 1947.
that the rancher was Mack Brazel, he didn’t telephone the sheriff but went to visit him, he couldn’t see the flaming wreckage from the house and in fact, there is no mention of a flaming disk at all in any of the accounts or by Bill Brazel. But the basics are here.

Yes, but this was published nearly two decades after the events. What about news reports from 1947? While I have found none in my hasty search (and if they are out there, I’m sure David Rudiak will chime in), there are stories that suggest a crash. For example, the Oregon Journal (which also carried a picture of Brazel smoking a cigar) reported, “Headquarters of the Eighth army air force at Fort Worth, Texas, announced that the wreckage of a tin-foil covered object found on a New Mexico ranch were nothing more than the remnants of a weather observation balloon.”

While the story doesn’t use the word “crash” it does say “wreckage” and that implies a crash of some kind. It trots out the official explanation which, in fact, explains nothing. But the point is that there is talk of wreckage which certainly puts the idea of a crash in the minds of those who might have read it back there in 1947.

For those who believe that the officers at Roswell wouldn’t be reading the Oregon Journal, that article was from the United Press which means it was a wire service story. Looking further I found the same line in the Phoenix Gazette. If Phoenix isn’t close enough, the same story ran in the Albuquerque Tribune. That is a newspaper that could easily have been seen by some at Roswell.


This, I believe, eliminates the theory that the idea of a crash was somehow created after Jesse Marcel had talked to researchers in 1978. The idea was in play in 1947 unless someone wishes to dispute the idea that wreckage suggests a crash. I have been able to provide documentation for that idea that precedes Marcel’s statements to Friedman and Stringfield and that the documentation extends back to 1947. This doesn’t prove that what fell and was recovered was a spaceship but it does prove that the idea that something crashed had been in play from the very beginning.

75 comments:

TheDimov said...

terrific work, Kevin. Every bit advances things further, cancels certain things out.

Don Maor said...

Kevin,

I would add that, in the same book by Frank Edwards, in the paragraph following the paragraph you quoted, Edwards introduced and stressed two basic ideas: (1) the ridiculousness of the "official explanation" for Roswell, and (2) the reluctance of people involved (a.k.a witnesses) to discuss the topic publicly. These two ideas also predate 1978's Friedman, by more than 10 years.

I would quote the paragraph by myself, but the version of the book I have is in spanish.

Unknown said...

Kevin-

This is an excellent addition to historical events that fills out a bit of the whole Roswell Crash Reports timeline. Very well done, sir.

Brian B said...


Kevin -

I think I can beat that 1966 date a little with an even earlier reference by Edwards.

April 28, 1956 - Frank Edward's First Public Talk on UFO's

http://saturdaynightuforia.com/html/edwards2.html

The above link highlights the 1947 Roswell incident as told by Edwards during a UFO talk in New York (see Q&A section). When asked in 1956 if he thought any saucers had crashed, Edwards states:

"I'm not too sure some of them haven't. Way back in 1947, at Roswell, New Mexico, a farmer reported he saw something strike a mountainside and crash. According to what I was told, they threw troops in a circle all around that place, and would let nobody in for five days. Finally they came up with a picture of a man holding a little crumpled kite with aluminum foil on it --- a radar target --- they said this was it --- believe it or not. There have been many other rumors since then of saucers having crashed. I don't know whether there's any truth in them."

As noted, Edwards has elements of the Roswell story down quite well. Of course the 1947 newspapers did not give details like these, so Edwards clearly heard it from someone.

As the claim goes, he heard it from a man who La Paz had with him at the time of the "crash", and this man (an archeologist) lived in the area and had access to the Foster Ranch debris field then and years later. This man's nephew was also there as a child, and claims his uncle and La Paz attempted to verify if any wreckage had "hieroglyphics", which they never confirmed. The uncle supposedly met with Edwards in 1955 and related what he knew from his experience with La Paz (who got him and the nephew approval to visit the debris field).

Although, Edwards also states that as early as 1948 he discussed some objects seen in Alaska with two Army Air Corps men who told him the objects were classified US projects flown in advance of Congressional budget hearings as means to grant more budget to the Army.

It's all very interesting. And while I can't confirm the validity of the La Paz-Uncle-Nephew claim, clearly the Edwards story as told in 1954 is accurate based on the transcript.

I can't speak for CDA, but I believe what he is conveying is that prior to the late 1970's most witnesses didn't know what had crashed exactly. I'm sure "aliens" would have been one of the many things that ran through their minds given the flap of 1947 and Arnold's sighting.

BUT once forgotten it wasn't until after inquiries were made by Moore and Friedman that possible alien contact grew in their minds as the most "probable" explanation, and that snowballed into what we know today.

Anonymous said...

I wish I had the 60s era LOOK magazine UFO issue number that has a page about Roswell in it. It shows both the captured flying disc newspaper headline and a picture of Marcel holding the weather balloon. There was definitely awareness of Roswell before 1978. When Roswell became a big story later, I was shocked because that LOOK piece had me convinced the whole affair was a mistake about a balloon.

cda said...

Kevin:

The SAGA story was co-written by Stan Friedman. He had met Lydia Sleppy that year or the year before, more or less by chance. You have no way of knowing whether Lydia actually used the word 'crash' in that interview. All you have is what Friedman wrote (which may not have been precisely what she told him).

We just do not know the terminology she first used, and never will.

I assume Frank Edwards got his botched tale from finding some of the newspapers from 1947 (or from someone else supplying them to him), and weaved in a lot of extraneous nonsense as 'padding' to the story.

Again, we do not know.

By the way, I'll answer DR's point from another post about how the debris got so scattered. It was some ten days until Brazel discovered the debris on his ranch (i.e. ten days after the said Mogul was launched) so it had plenty of time to be scattered by desert winds. Thus no 'crash' was necessary. Of course we could debate what constitutes a 'crash', but I assume you would prefer we did not, as it will be semantics, again. Anyway Mogul is taboo, isn't it?

KRandle said...

Dr. Whammy -

The picture shows Irving Newton crouched with the wrecked weather balloon debris.

CDA -

Friedman was not a big fan of crashed saucer tales in the mid-1970s. You may deduce that from the treatment of the story then and the lack of follow up. Same thing with Marcel in 1978... he didn't follow up on it.

Of course Edwards weaved nonsense into his tale to make it more exciting, but the point is that he was talking about a saucer crash in 1966 and as Brian has pointed out, you can go earlier than that and read what he was saying in the 1950s.

I do not understand how you can keep pushing Mogul when the documentation proves that it never flew. A cluster of balloons with a sonobuoy is not a Mogul flight. If you can provide some documentation that Flight No. 4 flew, then we can open the discussion.

And even with Mogul eliminated, that doesn't prove that it was alien... but to assume that the balloon array blew around the field created this huge debris field is just making up facts to fit your scenario.

So, the idea of a saucer crash predates Jesse Marcel in 1978 so you can not stop claiming that Friedman put the idea into the heads of all these witnesses including those he never interviewed.

ufonalyzer said...

Anthony Bragalia also wrote a very similar article to this one back in 2009 or so which I can't find anymore, but this article is discussed in the comments of the RRR blog at:
http://ufocon.blogspot.com/2009/05/roswell-lacuna.html.

BTW, what happened to Anthony? He remains one of my favorite ufologists and was overly vilified after the mexico city alien corpse debacle.

KRandle said...

ufoanlyzer -

Tony took a vacation from the UFO arena when it was learned that the Roswell Slides did not show an alien creature but an unfortunate child. Given his original enthusiasm for the slides, his total and sometimes hostile defense of them, he decided he would step back for a while. This he has done.

cda said...

Kevin:

Re pre-1978 Roswell references, here is a quote which you are probably not aware of:
Frank Scully, "Behind the Flying Saucers" (pub 1950) chapter 16, question 13 of the set of questions Scully sent to the Pentagon: [he got no reply]

"Did you ever see a radio like the one which was on the flying saucer that landed on a ranch in New Mexico?" No date given for this event.

Where did Scully learn about this, and is it Roswell he is talking about? Better still, where did he learn about the supposed radio? It was certainly NOT in the press reports of '47.

I also note, on looking at Scully's book again, that on p.25 and p.130 the Aztec saucers "simply settled quietly to earth". All three craft "landed under the guidance of their own instruments and did not crash".

Therefore not only was the 'crash' at Roswell added later by person or persons unknown, but even the supposed 'crash' at Aztec was NOT in the original reports at all, either in Silas Newton's lecture at Denver or in Scully's book.

So who is responsible for adding this 'crash' scenario to either of these incidents? As far as I can see, regarding the 'crash' concept each incident is as embellished as the other.

Daniel Transit said...

'..When I saw my first Flying Saucer I started.. a U.F.O. Scrapbook.. In its pages I can relive again those exciting times in the past when unknown, undreamed of things happened in the skies of the world and people of all walks of life and of all nationalities looked up and wondered...

Turning the pages, I am once again surprised at the tremendous range of experience mirrored here: a famous stage star hears reports on his car radio whilst motoring in America, reports that tell of a crashed Saucer being found in New Mexico. He listens a short time later and hears the report again. Upon enquiring at his destination he is met by blank stares. No-one else has heard these reports and he finds no-one else picked up that particular station on their radio sets. Intrigued, he makes intensive enquiries of the police, the radio networks of the U.S.A., the army even. No-one anywhere has heard the two broadcasts that he heard on his car radio. Crazy? Maybe. But his is a well-known name in British and American entertainment and he needs none of this kind of publicity to help him on his way. Imagination? Perhaps. But twice? About this time, in June 1947, other reports had seeped through the official cordon sanitaire about a crashed Saucer in New Mexico and had been howled down by the government circles and press alike. The cuttings are all here in my scrapbook. Tie them all together and the odour of rat becomes as pronounced as garlic on a Sicilian festa day...'

Gavin Gibbons, 1956.

David Rudiak said...

(1 of 2)
The fact that Jesse Marcel was quoted back in 1947 in many AP stories that the debris was scattered over a "square mile" is strongly suggestive of a catastrophe, like an explosion of something in the air (also Marcel's and Bill Brazel's story much later of Mack Brazel hearing a tremendous explosion, then finding the extensive debris the next day when investigating).

Even Mack Brazel mentioned everything being in small pieces and scattered over a still large but more modest area 200 yards across.

And Gen. Ramey being quoted (then the story being repeated by military spokespeople) that the box-kite object would have been 20-25 feet across if reconstructed, also suggests something much larger (and in MANY pieces) than a 4-foot radar target being found (and then displayed in Ramey's office).

More specifically, the Seattle Times 7/8/47 wrote: "(The United Press reported the disk landed on a ranch at Corona, N.M. and was discovered by W. W. Brizell [sic] of the Poster [sic] Ranch. The news agency said residents near the ranch reported seeing a strange blue light in the early morning on which the object crashed to earth.)

And as Kevin mentioned, UP stories used the word "wreckage" in them.

I found doing mostly electronic searches that there were actually quite a few direct and indirect media references to Roswell between 1947 and 1978, when Friedman revived the case, including a number of references to nonspecific crashed saucers:

www.roswellproof.com/Post-1947-Roswell-references.html

E.g, Hughie Green, British entertainer, said in Flying Saucer Review, 1955, that while driving across country in the U.S. in 1947, "About 250 miles out of Philadelphia, a commentator interrupted the programme to announce that a flying saucer had crashed in New Mexico, and that the Army were moving in to investigate."

FSR commented: "This is not the first time the story has been heard. But it is the first time someone who actually listened in to the transmissions has been interviewed. The question arising from Hughie Green’s account is: ‘Do the Americans have a Flying Saucer in their possession?’ Reports from America suggest that the U.S.A.F. has more than one. One, or parts of one, at Wright Patterson Field… and another at Edwards Air Force Base…"

What strikes me most about Green's story is that he heard the story on the radio, including it being a crashed saucer and the Army was moving in to investigate, something you don't read in the newspaper stories. Radio reports, being more timely, may have reported things quite differently than the newspapers. We have almost no radio recordings from that period (and only one about Roswell), so we really have no idea how the story was being reported on the radio vs. the newspapers. (However Green's story does resemble Lydia Sleppy's Roswell story, of them trying to notify ABC News radio in Hollywood with reporter Johnny McBoyle's story of seeing the Army recovering Brazel's crashed saucer. It makes me wonder if maybe that story DID get out to a limited extent on the radio, but never made it into the newspapers.)

David Rudiak said...

(2 of 2)
Another interesting reference to the Air Force having crashed saucers came from airline pilot William Nash (of the famous Nash-Fortenberry 1952 sighting), who in a 1954 AP article said, "he was convinced that 'the air force has collected hardware from outer space. I do not believe the air force cares to make all its findings public so long as the United States is threatened by unfriendly powers.'"

In a 1965, Nash told Jim Moseley's Saucer News: "Before the interview [interrogation by military intelligence officers right after their sighting], Fortenberry and I had agreed to ask the Intelligence men if there was any truth behind the rumor that the Air Force had one or more saucers at Wright-Patterson Field. Bill remembered to ask, and on of the investigators said 'Yes, it is true!' Later, when we were all in one room following separate de-briefings, I remembered to ask the question. All the investigators opened their mouth at the same time to answer, but Major Sharp, who was in command, broke in with a quick 'NO!' It appeared as if he was telling the others to shut up..."

In addition, the article said:

"Nash said that an unnamed informant told him that LIFE magazine had been briefed by U.S. intelligence to the effect that the government does have crashed saucers..."

David Rudiak said...

CDA wrote:
"I assume Frank Edwards got his botched tale from finding some of the newspapers from 1947 (or from someone else supplying them to him), and weaved in a lot of extraneous nonsense as 'padding' to the story."

As usual, CDA puts no thought into his comments. It is quite clear from Edwards' accounts that he had a source or sources that was/were different from the newspapers, because he included details that were NOT in the newspapers, such as his 1955 public lecture: "According to what I was told [not what he read in the newspapers], they threw troops in a circle all around that place, and would let nobody in for five days." In his 1966 "Flying Saucers: Serious Business", he again speaks of the military cordoning off the area, something that you just don't find mentioned in the newspapers. Also that there was a lengthy time during which the area was cordoned off. The cordon over days did not come again until witnesses were interviewed years later.

Maybe Stan Friedman's Jedi mind tricks also extend back in time, whereupon he also planted these ideas in Frank Edward's brain, starting over two decades before he found Jesse Marcel.

cda said...

DR comments:

"What strikes me most about Green's story is that he heard the story on the radio, including it being a crashed saucer and the Army was moving in to investigate..."

But this is another example of someone reporting what they heard from someone else years later, whether by word of mouth or by radio. How do we KNOW what the radio broadcast actually said? (Does anyone have a recording of these ancient broadcasts?).

For all we know Hughie Green inserted the word 'crash' into his memory after reading Scully's book, or reviews of it, or from another source, and assumed the broadcast he heard was about a 'crash' not a soft landing. Incidentally when I asked Green about it many years afterwards, he told me he COULD NOT recall the date, only that it was post-war. Assuming it refers to Roswell (and I accept that it does), either he had forgotten the year or someone else inserted the 1947 date in that FSR article.

The reason FSR asked about other possible saucers being held at USAF bases was, presumably, because of the reverberations from the Scully and Keyhoe books (which had been serialised in British newspapers), and other rumors going around at the time which talked about such things.

As for Frank Edwards, he picked up all sorts of UFO gossip during his time as a radio newscaster and was very pro-ET (see Keyhoe's books). He could easily have embellished what he heard or read. How did the "troops in a circle" round the Roswell crash site reach him? Yes I wonder too. Did he actually speak to any witnesses? Not as far as we know. Was there mention of such a "circle of troops" in Scully's book, perhaps? I leave it to someone else to check this. All we can say for certain is that most of Edwards' tale is fiction, even if elements of it are true.

And I ask again: Where did Scully learn of the radio being discovered among the Roswell debris? (This was, at the very latest, by May 1950). And how did 'crash' get into Scully's tale anyway? As I quoted above, it is NOT in his original book or the Newton lecture.

Does DR have any ideas?

Note to Daniel Transit: I presume Gavin Gibbons' scrapbook was taken from Flying Saucer Review. He wrote up at least two contactee tales in the late 1950s and was a devoted ETHer.





Brian B said...

While we are discussing how far back the story of Roswell goes (clearly as far back as the 1950's), can someone highlight:

How far back does the story of debris with extraordinary characteristics go?

In other words:

What's the earliest date we have on record for a description of "out of this world" crash debris?

Looking at Kevin's prior explanations:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2013/08/a-few-facts-about-project-mogul.html?m=1

I get the argument as to why Flight #4 is always in question, however the early newspaper accounts describe balloon like material, an instrument, etc.

Other than Brazel's comment in the paper that it didn't resemble other balloons he had seen, what's the earliest date we have on record for alien-like crash debris?

KRandle said...

All -

Robert Hastings asked me to post this to this thread. I'm not sure why he didn't do it himself, but here, unedited are his comments.

Regarding reports of crashed UFOs prior to the re-emergence of the Roswell affair, as recounted by Jesse Marcel in 1978, I offer comments by former CIA executive Victor Marchetti, who left the agency in 1969 and wrote the best-selling exposé, The CIA and The Cult of Intelligence, which laid bare some of the highly-illegal activities in which the agency engaged during the first two decades of its existence:

“During my years in the CIA, UFOs were not a subject of common discussion. But neither were they treated in a disdainful or derisive manner, especially not by the agency’s scientists. Instead, the topic was rarely discussed at internal meetings. It seemed to fall into the category of ‘very sensitive activities’...There were, however, rumors at high levels of the CIA…..rumors of unexplained sightings by qualified observers, of strange signals being received by the National Security Agency...and even of little gray men whose ships had crashed, or had been shot down, being kept ‘on ice’ by the Air Force at FTD (Foreign Technology Division) at Wright-Patterson AF Base in Dayton, Ohio.”

(http://www.sitepalace.com/Tripko/VMarchettiEN.html)

Yes, this was published in 1979, in the May issue of the now-defunct Second Look magazine—well after Marcel’s disclosures—but, again, Marchetti had resigned from the CIA some ten years earlier, therefore, the rumors he had heard had to have been circulating prior to that time.

I will also note that Marchetti’s use of the word “rumors” results from his own non-involvement in the “very sensitive activities” CIA had in play relating to the UFO phenomenon. Consequently, whatever information Marchetti was privy to derived from informal and probably unauthorized conversations he had with others at CIA headquarters.

But if accounts of crashed UFOs and alien bodies in cold storage were indeed discussed at “high levels” within the agency, one might reasonably infer that those stories were being taken seriously.

Don said...

Kevin: "There are those who suggest that there was nothing about a crash mentioned in the 1947 newspapers and other documentation".

Here ya go:

Owosso Argus Press, 1947-07-09
Fort Worth. Tex. (AP)

Headline: "Crashed Disc" Is Weather Balloon

Regards,

Don

KRandle said...

Don -

Thanks. I knew there had to be something out there but I really thought it would be David Rudiak who found it first. Nicely done.

It will be interesting to see the mental gymnastics that some of the skeptics will go through to explain why this doesn't count.

Don said...

Thanks, Kevin. The skeptics ask a good question: why were there no stories about crashed saucers (and now, perhaps, why are they so rare [only one, so far]) about Roswell. I think there would have been lots, if saucer news stories hadn't been suppressed immediately after Roswell. It's a natural: flying disc wreckage found. Doesn't 'crashed saucer/disc' immediately suggest itself to damn near everybody?

Anyway, that's why I think such statements are rare re Roswell in July, 1947.

Regards,

Don

cda said...

Kevin:

You have been going through "mental gymnastics" for over 25 years to try and prove the blessed debris was a visiting ET craft, a device that science declares does not exist in any shape or form. So I have no problem with the discovery (in a headline) of the term 'crash'.

My answer is in the form of a question: How did a 'crashed disc' metamorphose into a weather balloon (as per the headline)? If you don't like my response, I'll put the headline the other way around: how did a weather balloon, or indeed any kind of balloon, become a spacecraft from another celestial body (as you insist)?

But yes, Don HAS discovered something, at last. All I can say is: "Thanks; it is no big deal but at least it is something".

By the way, what WAS that radio supposedly found among the Roswell debris (see Scully's book)? Perish the thought, but could it have been a communications device the ETs used?

It is all good fun, isn't it?

David Rudiak said...

"How far back does the story of debris with extraordinary characteristics go?"

At least as far back as Frank Scully's 1950 "Behind the Flying Saucers". The story of the Aztec crash and other alleged saucer crashes included the exterior shells of the saucers made of lightweight, superhard, superstrong metal resembling aluminum that couldn’t be bent and couldn’t be cut through with diamond drills or acetylene torches. Inside was parchment-like material with hieroglyphics. All these debris descriptions are also part of Roswell. (I would say identical--doesn't prove, however that Roswell witnesses were copying Scully. It could have been the reverse, with Scully's informants hearing from sources who did know about Roswell.)

Bernard Newman's 1948 novel "The Flying Saucer" (but written toward the end of 1947) has three hoaxed saucer crashes (one in New Mexico) by a covert MJ-12-type organization of scientists and intelligence agents trying to convince the world of a Martian invasion in order to unite the planet. The story includes the "saucers" being made of a previously unknown exotic, hard metals extremely difficult to cut through and thin metal sheets on the inside with “hieroglyphics” that needed to be decrypted.

Now whether these descriptions were just imagination or based on overheard rumors of something like Roswell is anybody's guess. Unlike Scully, Newman spent a part of his book mocking the recent flying saucer wave in the U.S. and earlier Scandanavian Ghost Rockets of 1946. But he also knew a great deal about the intelligence world and was well-connected, so maybe he heard a thing or two, then decided to make a novel out of it. (E.g., his WWII novel “Secret Weapon” was about a new bomb that would bring an early end to the war, and WAS based on his knowledge of development of the super-secret A-bomb, so he did have the inside line on some things.)

The most convincing early descriptions I know of of actual alien hardware came from interviews with Canada's Wilbert Smith in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Smith said there was "tons" of recovered alien hardware in U.S. hands, resembling our own metals, but being much harder. Smith also said he was lent the material for analysis by something like an MJ-12 group, a "highly classified group", above the Air Force or CIA. (www.roswellproof.com/debris8_misc.html#anchor_3697)

One of Smith's 1950 memos, based at least in part on a briefing by physicist Dr. Robert Sarbacher, a consultant to the Defence Dept.'s Research and Development Board, stated again there was a very highly classified group within the RDB headed by Dr. Vannevar Bush. Sarbacher in a letter 1983 stated "...my participation was limited [in RDB-related discussions about crashed saucers]. About the only thing I remember at this time is that certain materials reported to have come from flying saucer crashes were extremely light and very tough."

David Rudiak said...

As for CDA's alien "radio" mentioned by Scully, if CDA would look through Scully's book you will see the "radio" mentioned by "Dr. G" as being found with the Aztec saucer, called "tubeless" and about the size of a cigarette pack, also lacking an antenna (hypothesizing the whole saucer acted as an antenna).

(No explanation was provided as to how they supposedly deduced it was a radio.)

David Rudiak said...

Don:
Owosso Argus Press, 1947-07-09
Fort Worth. Tex. (AP)

Headline: "Crashed Disc" Is Weather Balloon


Kevin:
Thanks. I knew there had to be something out there but I really thought it would be David Rudiak who found it first. Nicely done.

Harumph! But I already beat Don's headline with the item from the July 8 "Seattle Times" : "(The United Press reported the disk landed on a ranch at Corona, N.M. and was discovered by W. W. Brizell [sic] of the Poster [sic] Ranch. The news agency said residents near the ranch reported seeing a strange blue light in the early morning on which the object crashed to earth.)"

I think Don's headline is a nice catch and trump's my item by being more noticeable to readers of the paper. So that is now TWO examples of where "crash" was used. There are probably a few more examples out there of where newspapers used the word "crash" referring to the Roswell object. Let us remember there were around 12,000 newspapers in the U.S. alone, only a fraction of which have been searched and even fewer readily available in digitized form to be searched.

It will be interesting to see the mental gymnastics that some of the skeptics will go through to explain why this doesn't count.

CDA has already weighed in with it being "no big deal", which it isn't, but neither was his long-standing whine that the word was not used, which never proved anything one way or the other anyway. It's just CDA nitpicking nothings and treating them like showstoppers.

As for my point that Marcel was quoted saying debris was scattered over a square mile, implying a major disaster such as something exploding in the air, he rationalized it away as Brazel's balloon being scattered by the winds. Apparently Marcel, Cavitt, and Brazel covered a square mile picking up the pieces of Ramey's singular, intact weather balloon and one broken radar target (weighing under two pounds), and missed not a piece. CDA previously has also insisted Brazel came to town Monday, July 7 (not the previous day), so Marcel and Cavitt had only a few hours that afternoon to pick up everything over that square mile. No wonder they are called the Greatest Generation.

KRandle said...

David -

Sorry, I somehow missed that note in your comments. Both finds are important because it shows the word crash used in July 1947... as did the story that mentioned wreckage.

Brian B said...

"It will be interesting to see the mental gymnastics that some of the skeptics will go through to explain why this doesn't count."

I remain skeptical on the Roswell issue, but as I said before I clearly believe something "crashed". "Wreckage" is also a noun that can be applied to a balloon, an aircraft, or a flying saucer or other object.

I'm not certain it proves anything other than something hit the ground and left debris, which is important in the sense it demonstrates something did.

On David's clarification of how far back "extraordinary" debris was described as such (thanks), it's too bad we can't firmly establish who influenced who and exactly when. Were witnesses influenced by what they read or other stories they heard, in the 1930-50's or visa versa?

Difficult to assess, but interesting that such material was described as lightweight and highly durable.

Was it truly alien, or did pulp fiction of the time (or prior) also describe spaceships made with such material?

Wonder Stories (1930's), Amazing Stories (1930's), Astounding Science Fiction (1940's), etc. These all have spaceship stories as standard fair.

Nitram said...

Hello CDA

What you meant to post was:

Kevin, you have been researching the Roswell Incident for over 25 years to try and identify what crashed and fell at Roswell in July 1947. In my opinion no ET craft, (a device that science declares does not exist in any shape or form) was responsible for this event - although I don't have a plausible explanation either for what actually happened.

I must concede that I was wrong to say nothing crashed - it is quite clear from witness testimony and newspaper clippings at the time that "something" did indeed crash on the Foster Ranch.

I don't like to admit that I am wrong, but your research on this matter has clearly shown this to be the case.

Thank you for taking the time to answer my posts.

Jeanne Ruppert said...

KRandle said...

"David -

Sorry, I somehow missed that note in your comments. Both finds are important because it shows the word crash used in July 1947... as did the story that mentioned wreckage."

Indeed, and I wonder if there are any other instances of newspaper reports re Roswell in Ted Bloecher's extensive catalogue published at NICAP. If not, others could probably be found today by researchers motivated enough to follow Bloecher's lead and scour the morgues of other newspapers published in early July 1947 that might also have reprinted the UPI wire story.

In any event, I'm surprised that anyone is surprised that key references to the event, the military follow up, the conflicting statements made by Air Force spokesmen at the time, and even references to the nature of residual materials handled by many soldiers and airmen during the cleanup (and described by family members of individuals at the crash sites -- both civilians and officials) would not spread out from Roswell and the other regional air bases involved in the clean-up by word of mouth. Even, apparently, to the author of the 1948 novel David Rudiak describes. Do debunkers actually believe that intense curiosity about ufos among the public was not maintained by the continuing ufo waves over this country and others beginning in the spring and summer of 1947? Discussions of returning WWII pilots about the 'foo fighters' and also fast-moving aerial discs encountered in both theatres of war would supplement the widespread curiosity about anomalous flying objects in the US and elsewhere around the planet. The military PTB might be able to suppress talk about these matters by many or most enlisted personnel, but they couldn't stop civilians from speaking about them everywhere where ordinary people experienced their own sightings and talked about them with their families, friends, and associates.

Local and regional newspapers continued to cover ufo sightings for years after Roswell, until the Roberson Panel's recommendations began to be effectively implemented. Every ufo researcher should have read Bloecher's remarkable catalogue of 1947 newspaper reports of ufos (with interesting updates added in recent years). Without a sense of the frequency and pressure of these sightings it's easy to misunderstand and misrepresent what happened that summer and how it affected public consciousness.

http://nicap.org/waves/Wave47Rpt/ReportOnWaveOf1947.pdf

Unknown said...

I think there is an Air Force document from 1952 about an interrogation of a military guy who had talked to a sergeant about Scullys "behind the flying saucers". This sergeant told him that he has knowledge about two crashed saucers and alien bodies which were stored at wright patterson . His source was somebody who worked there.
The commander of the military police commented on this, that either somebody wanted to make himself important or there is a potential security leak in the flying saucer programm, which I think is very interesting, that talking about crashed saucers and alien bodies were considered as a potential security leak.

cda said...

So DR has found another mention of the word 'crash'. Actually Brad Sparks wrote many years ago that he had seen this word in a 1947 headline, but didn't know exactly where.

Unfortunately each time this word is used it is followed by the 'weather balloon' identification. Not exactly helpful to the crashed saucer cause or the ET cause, is it?

Wilbert Smith's "tons of alien hardware" refers to the large chunk of 3000lb he talks about that was once discovered on the banks of the St.Lawrence river. It was later debunked as ordinary foundry waste (see Condon Report). The deluded Mr. Smith somehow thought this 'hardware' so special that it had got lifted away for analysis by a supersecret agency.

Nitram once wrote how I brought up a boring topic for the 257th time. Perhaps he will now have a go at DR for bringing up the subject of Wilbert Smith and his fantasies for the 357th time, or whatever. Perhaps.

But we are straying off topic (for the umpteenth time!).

KRandle said...

Zak -

I hate to say this but this information is virtually useless. The only name that surfaces is Scully and his book Behind the Flying Saucers which is not a reliable source. There is no way to verify the information without additional detail.

cda said...

Nitram:

In addition to not putting forward any ideas of your own, you seem unable to put your remarks into a proper format.

In your last comment where do the quotation marks come? I do not see whether what you write in those last two sentences is intended to be my imagined remarks to Kevin or your own remarks to me. You need to use quotes appropriately. Otherwise I agree: you don't like to admit you were wrong, and yes my research has clearly shown this to be the case.

(And no, I am not and never have been, a school teacher.)

Please now tell us whether you consider DR has, possibly, overdone it regarding the discoveries amd pronouncements of Wilbert Smith.

Finally: Do you have ANY views of your own on either the 'crash' or the 'soft landing'? I suspect not.

Unknown said...


No problem, although there is info beyond Scullys book, I didn´t find the document groundbreaking, either. But I personally think it is remarkable, that talks about crashed saucers and alien bodies are even considered as a potential security leak.

Don said...

CDA, I doubt if Scully's question 13 referred to Roswell, but if it had been from another source, then it might. Scully meant 'Aztec'. He was being coy. News stories referring to old news stories referring to a saucer crash or landing or being found in "New Mexico" or "in the Southwest" might refer to Roswell, and some do, but others perhaps not. The Roswell problem is that 'Roswell' (the "incident") was not forgotten, but Roswell, New Mexico was. I recall a local review of the Roswell Incident in 1980 (or '81) in the RDR said it was about a saucer found near Socorro (I've got a copy around and will confirm that). So, maybe not even Roswellians back then thought of it as being 'Roswell', as we do. Anyway looking for references to Roswell NM in old documents may not be the best approach to finding references to 'Roswell'.

Scully's radio was first mentioned (to my knowledge; I haven't read Scully's Variety articles or recall the Wyandotte Echo stories) according to the AF who got it from the FBI who got it from Bruce Cabot that "Cy" Newton had displayed it to his golf buddies on November 24, 1949. Cabot described its size as 7x2x2 inches and that Newton said he used it as a doodlebug and that it was from a flying saucer. Newton and his witnesses during his trial in Colorado denied the war surplus devices presented by the prosecution as Newton's doodlebugs were Newton's doodlebug. Probably Cabot's description is accurate.

The reason why "crashed disc" and "weather balloon" appear together should be obvious: 99 & 44/100ths percent of news stores and 99 & 44/100ths percent of those who read them, occurred after Ft Worth. Remember the Roswell newscycle lasted barely 5 hours and occurred during the time newspapers that published afternoon editions were already being printed or on their way as the story broke. The earliest stories I've found hardly have more than the first wire or two of the Daily Illini AP chronology.

The Roswell news cycle is very short and the stories were mostly the work of the AAF (press release and Ft Worth).

Regards,

Don

Gilles Fernandez said...

Hello,

A lot a comments, to one more time, in order to "demonstrate" Roswell was previously mentioned by some using newspapers or dunno what.
And you have your "flying saucer" crashed and a scientific evidence for an ET crash.
Wow... You are progressing!

Well, that's ufology, after all...

Gilles

Nitram said...

CDA asked

"Please now tell us whether you consider DR has, possibly, overdone it regarding the discoveries amd (and) pronouncements of Wilbert Smith."

I'm unsure about this and would need to review some of DR's posts. His posts are often quite lengthy, but can be instructive to read, if you take the time to carefully study what he has written.

CDA also asked

"Finally: Do you have ANY views of your own on either the 'crash' or the 'soft landing'? I suspect not."

My on view, for what it's worth, is that there was a crash, hence the scattering of the debris. A soft landing is unlikely to leave "parts" scattered over a large area - this would be the logical assumption.

Regards
Nitram

KRandle said...

Gilles -

I think you missed the point here. There had been a suggestion that no one was talking about a crash in 1947. It was pointed out that the newspapers used words like found, landed, recovered but not crash. It was suggested that therefore the idea of a crash, of whatever came about much later.

All we have done here is prove that the word crash was associated with news stories from 1947. That does not mean it was an extraterrestrial craft, only that something crashed whatever your favorite solution might be. It was not UFO researchers who put the word crash into the mix, but the witnesses and reporters from 1947.

I'm not sure what other conclusion can be drawn here, other than something fell out of the sky and crashed... which, I believe, nearly everyone accepts. We just differ as to what it was.

Brian B said...

Perhaps Kevin can start a new thread on Wilbert Smith, but since it was brought up you might find these links helpful.

If you want more on Wilbert Smith and his proof of alien visitation then visit David's website here:

http://roswellproof.homestead.com/smith_papers.html

Some of the links are no longer active but the summary he wrote states the case as to why some believe Smith knew the truth about alien saucers.

For the skeptical, see the write up that Paul Kimball wrote some time ago at his blog which states why Smith was a target for disinformation and why his notes are not proof at all.

http://redstarfilms.blogspot.com/2005/03/oh-canada-wilbert-smith-ufos.html?m=1

cda said...

Brian:

We are off topic but Wilbert Smith was a contactee (in case you did not know). Kevin will probably not want to start a blog on this. This contactee aspect is played down (i.e. never or rarely mentioned) by those, such as DR, who want to bring forth Smith's testimony and written memos as supporting evidence for Roswell.

When I brought up this 'contactee' matter with Stan Friedman long ago, he replied that Smith was a perfectly normal guy in the early 1950s, but tended a bit towards the fringe in later years.

Therefore, when evaluating Smith's evidence, you must make up your own mind as to its relevance. I will tell you that the 'scientific' papers I have seen (in FLYING SAUCER REVIEW and other places) are mainly pseudo-scientific trash. But you may well think differently. And his Sept 1950 memo mentioning Vannevar Bush lies at the heart of the supposed official knowledge of the Roswell-ET connection.

I suspect Kevin would prefer we did NOT pursue this line.

David Rudiak said...

Don wrote:

The reason why "crashed disc" and "weather balloon" [DON'T????] appear together should be obvious: 99 & 44/100ths percent of news stores and 99 & 44/100ths percent of those who read them, occurred after Ft Worth. Remember the Roswell newscycle lasted barely 5 hours and occurred during the time newspapers that published afternoon editions were already being printed or on their way as the story broke. The earliest stories I've found hardly have more than the first wire or two of the Daily Illini AP chronology.

The Roswell news cycle is very short and the stories were mostly the work of the AAF (press release and Ft Worth).

I think that about sums it up. The press in double-checking the facts of the original press release had few people to call, all controlled or likely controlled by the military. The following are the ONLY people I've found mentioned by the newspapers with supposed knowledge of what happened:
1) Roswell base (press release and followup calls, no names cited)
2) Fort Worth base (Ramey, Dubose, Marcel, Newton, PIO, intel officer)
3) Pentagon (unnamed PIO spokespeople)
4) Wright Field (ABC news radio story--unnamed spokesperson saying they were expecting arrival of the "disc" but it hadn't gotten there yet)
5) Sheriff George Wilcox (quoted by AP, UP)
6) Mack Brazel Roswell Daily Record interview (AP and RDR)

Thus only two civilians, everybody else military. Although the debunkers dispute Wilcox and Brazel being controlled witnesses, I do have a quote from Wilcox back then (AP) where he refused to answer more questions about what Brazel brought in, stating, "I'm working with those fellows at the base." Family members interviewed decades later tell us the military got his "cooperation" through death threats.

As for Brazel, he did disown his own balloon story at the end. Testimony of about a dozen witnesses also make it pretty clear he was also a coerced witness. (Such as Kevin's interview with provost marshal Easley where Easley admitted they held Brazel against his will at the base for several days.)

Since the military seemed to be in total control of the story through the people interviewed, if the military didn't want any indication of a violent crash getting out, nothing was likely to be said about it in the newspapers. There were the slip-ups with Marcel being quoted that the debris was scattered over a square mile and Ramey/Pentagon saying the crash object would have been 20-25 feet across if reconstructed, both suggesting a crash/breakup of a MUCH larger object than Ramey's displayed singular weather balloon and four-foot balsa wood kite.

I am still very curious, however, how the story may have been reported on the radio, which may have had a very different slant on things. (Such as the ABC news radio story that Wright Field was still expecting arrival of the "disc" after Ramey had supposedly cancelled the flight, or Huey Green's 1955 FSR memory of the radio broadcasts mentioning an actual flying saucer crash and the Army closing in to investigate.

David Rudiak said...

CDA confabulated:
Wilbert Smith's "tons of alien hardware" refers to the large chunk of 3000lb he talks about that was once discovered on the banks of the St.Lawrence river. It was later debunked as ordinary foundry waste (see Condon Report). The deluded Mr. Smith somehow thought this 'hardware' so special that it had got lifted away for analysis by a supersecret agency.

More CDA bunk. This is what Smith was quoted as saying on the matters:

http://www.roswellproof.com/debris8_misc.html#anchor_3697

Bob Groves who interviewed Smith shortly before his death in 1962 reported that Smith told him,

"According to Smith the United States military intelligence has tons of hardware. They readily admitted this to Smith upon interview by Smith when he was the director of the research project (Project Magnet 1950-1954). Smith also stated they had much film."

Thus the "tons of hardware" the U.S. had was from information that Smith learned when he was director of the Canadian research program, Project Magnet, early 1950s.

But according to Smith in the 1961 interview, the 3000 lb chunk of metal was on Canadian territory and found in 1960, with no indication it was turned over to the U.S. "Our Canadian Research Group recovered one mass of very strange metal . . . it was found within a few days of July 1, 1960. There is about three thousand pounds of it."

In addition, the Groves interview revealed: "He was constantly visited by Canadian government officials as well as American government officials who of course were upper echelon people with attaché cases that were chained and locked to make sure none of the information would drop of be left behind... He had a number of these visits. They had samples they wanted him to analyze - hardware and metal that had been found."

Thus, EARLY ON (1950-1954), Smith was told the U.S. had "tons of [UFO] hardware" and received small samples to analyze. (Does CDA think they packed a 3000 lb sample in an attache case?)

The Canadians LATER recovered the 3000 lb piece. (And where did CDA get his information that a supersecret U.S. organization seized it? Pure fabrication on his part.)

In addition, Canadian researcher Grant Cameron (probably the authority on Smith and who knows the Smith family well) also contacted Smith's metallurgist, who told him they were also given a piece of Roswell metal to analyze. "I'll tell you flat out Grant. I analyzed a piece that was 'pulled off' that New Mexico thing. I know that thing was analyzed. It was a super light material."

Another piece analyzed was said to have been shot off by a jet from a tiny saucer flying over Washington D.C. in July 1952 (during the highly publicized radar-visual-jet intercept sightings over Washington at that time). Smith said he showed it to Admiral Herbert Knowles, and Knowles when interviewed remembered Smith showing it to him. No 3000 lb chunks here either.

(Adm. Knowles has more UFO connections, including being a neighbor of both Betty Hill and 1950s contactee Francis Swan, including writing an intelligence memo in 1954 that ended up on Eisenhower's desk, based on Swan's claimed telepathic communications with an alien named AFFA, about them being into two orbiting satellites. Two months later, a story broke in the press that two such satellites had been found by astronomers Clyde Tombaugh and Dr. Lincoln LaPaz, names you might recognize connected with Roswell and UFOs. Both Tombaugh and LaPaz denied the story.)

David Rudiak said...

More CDA bunk:

You have been going through "mental gymnastics" for over 25 years to try and prove the blessed debris was a visiting ET craft, a device that science declares does not exist in any shape or form.

There is no monolithic entity called "science" that declares "a visiting ET craft" "does not exist in any shape of form. Perhaps CDA hasn't heard the truism that you can't absolutely prove a negative.

That visiting ET craft do not exist may be the OPINIONS of individual scientists, maybe even a majority, but this is not some sort of proof. Even if these negativists were well-informed about the available UFO evidence (and most are not), or had the necessary scientific expertise to evaluate the evidence (does a microbiologist's opinion equal that of an aerospace engineer?--there are MANY types of "scientists"), there would always be the possibility that key evidence has been missed or overlooked, that a saucer could crash into the White House tomorrow.

As to the scientific studies on UFOs that have been done, ALL conclude that there is a substantial fraction of cases that have no obvious prosaic explanation. That includes the infamous Condon Commission study, where when it is PROPERLY reviewed, indicates that about a third of the cases had no explanation. The idea that Condon "proved" UFOs are not from space comes from Condon himself, who wrote a summary chapter basically ignoring and misrepresenting the studies of his own scientists.

Another scientific study was Project Blue Book Special Report #14, 1952-1955, in which the panel of four Battelle Memorial Institute scientists reviewed 2200 USAF reports and concluded that about 22% had no plausible prosaic scientific explanation. All four scientists had to agree that there was no explanation for a case to be classified as an unknown, whereas only two needed to agree that a case had a plausible or definite explanation. When only the best cases were examined, the percentage of unexplained jumped to 33%.

Similar results have been obtained by the ongoing French 40-year scientific UFO study under their space agency. About 14% of the cases have been deemed to have no conceivable conventional explanation, and all directors of the study have made public statements that the extraterrestrial hypothesis for the unknowns seems to be the only one that makes sense.

Those are just a few examples of where serious (Battelle, French) or semi-serious (Condon) scientific investigations of UFOs have been undertaken and where the results are not remotely close to some sort of "scientific" proof that visiting alien space craft "do not exist in any shape or form." At the very least, the studies ACTUALLY show that the BEST UFO cases seem to be nearly impossible to explain away by conventional means.

Brian B said...

David - not to pick a fight but....

"I'm working with those fellows at the base." Family members interviewed decades later tell us the military got his "cooperation" through death threats."

To be honest this comment by Wilcox can be taken two different ways. First as you stated, but second from the vantage point that if a plane crashed today and local police were involved it is protocol for them to withhold information and not make public comments about what's going on - especially to the media - until the higher authority (FAA, Military, FBI, etc.) have approved it. That doesn't mean that something is being deliberately and covertly hidden, but rather that a sheriff (such as Wilcox) was only doing his job appropriately stating essentially the equivalent of "I have no comment at this time". As for his family saying he was threatened, well that's hearsay and second hand commentary unless Wilcox at some point claimed himself that he was threatened with death by the military. Did he? I don't recall he ever did unless Kevin has it on tape somewhere.

I don't believe Wilcox's comments and purported (second hand) testimony gets us any closer to the truth behind what landed on the Foster Ranch.

cda said...

Oh dear, we are delving into Wilbert Smith yet again.

It was my mistake to refer to the 3000lb of material that a supersecret agency took away. It was another piece of hardware altogether. It was a piece from a UFO that the USAF allegedly shot down over Washington DC in July '52. This piece was handed to Smith and his Canadian group to examine, after which it was handed back (or demanded, according to which version you accept) to some US secret agency. (Tim Good says this was MJ-12, but presumably he has changed his mind since writing this). Smith was very coy about exactly who this secret group was.

Why the US would ever give such a supposed top secret fragment to group in another country to examine we are not told. DR carefully avoids this.

The "several tons" that the US authorities possess is a tale related by Smith in 1962. By then Smith was well 'over the top' and was fantasing about anything and everything UFO-wise. He had had several contacts with the space people by then, all on another plane as he never met them physically. Naturally DR won't tell you this. There is absolutely no reason to believe Smith's "several tons" story dates from the 1950s or is even factual at all. I would say that, if it has any meaning whatever, it refers to the 1.5 tons of St Lawrence River "unidentified metal", which stuff turned out to be ordinary foundry waste (as per Condon report, p.90-92)

Here is a remark Smith wrote to a colleague of Tim Good in 1959: "For your information EVERY NATION on this planet has been officially informed of the existence of the spacecraft and their occupants from elsewhere..." [emphasis is mine].

And who did this informing, I wonder - The United Nations or the ETs themselves? Or is it just more Smith fiction? Make of it what you will.

And here is what Stuart Nixon of NICAP says in UFO QUARTERLY REVIEW (Jan -Mar 1973, p.11): "Like Adamski, and hundreds of others after him, Smith sought a marriage of science, religion and philosophy - a triangle that has always held peculiar fascination for the contact fringe".

People should read his writings in FSR and then assess his true worth to science and ufology. I doubt very much that either David Rudiak or Grant Cameron would approve of Wilbert Smith being compared to Adamski. But there it is.

cda said...

Slight error in the date of Wilbert Smith's (in)famous memorandum: this was Nov 21, 1950 (not Sept). Vannevar Bush's name is mentioned therein. We cannot say exactly how Smith learned his name (perhaps from meeting Keyhoe in Washington two months earlier, but certainly not from Sarbacher). What we CAN say, with virtual certainty, is that by dropping Bush's name in this memo (which memo was only discovered 19 years later), Smith inadvertently gave birth to the whole MJ-12 phony documents affair.

Brian B said...

Regarding Smith and Project Magnet, in Smith's own words:

"May I point out that the Project Magnet I was associated with, which received much publicity, was not an official Government project. It was a project that I talked the Deputy Minister into letting me carry out, making use of the extensive field organization of the Department of Transport. No funds were spent on it and we merely had access to the very large field organization and opened a number of files."

Furthermore it was focused on geo-magnetic fields as means of propulsion, something Smith thought was a source of UFO energy.

Solandt also stated Smith's work was "never really classified top secret, or anything else", and that "he never had any institutional base which gave him authority to classify a document.

He just put TOP Secret on his personal papers." Solandt went on to state that while the Defence Research Board may have temporarily classified some of his work, it was quickly declassified. There was no Top Secret Canadian UFO program, noted Solandt, nor was there, as far as he knew, an American one.

I think that pretty much demonstrates Smith's documents and claims have no basis in fact.

David Rudiak said...

(part 1 of 2)
Brian Bell asked why Sheriff Wilcox's 1947 quoted "I'm working with those fellows at the base" wasn't just some innocent "no comment" from a public official?

The quote IN ISOLATION might be innocent, but I don't think it is in the context of all the information we now have from interviewing many witnesses and applying a little logic as to what would be plausible behavior and what would not.

The quote is from a rare regional AP story, dateline Roswell, July 8, that I found in the July 9 Albuquerque Journal and San Antonio Express:

www.roswellproof.com/AP5_July9.html

"Wilcox said he did not see the object but was told by Brazell [sic] it was 'about three feet across.' The sheriff declined to elaborate. 'I'm working with those fellows at the base,' he said."

Now compare with the affidavit statement of Jason Kellahin, AP reporter sent to Roswell from Albuquerque after the base press release:

http://www.roswellproof.com/kellahin.html#anchor_3377

"After interviewing Brazel, I spoke with the military people outside then went over to see Sheriff George Wilcox, whom I knew well. Wilcox said the military indicated to him it would be best if he did not say anything. I then phoned in my story to the AP office in Albuquerque." [Although the AP story with the Wilcox quote carried no reporter byline, I would guess the Wilcox quote came from Kellahin after speaking with the sheriff, hence the highly unusual Roswell dateline.]

The Sheriff's wife Inez Wilcox wrote down some details soon afterward, which are now at the Roswell Historical Society. The last part read, "...the officer who picked up the suspicious looking saucer [which Inez Wilcox also claimed Brazel brought with him] admonished Mr. Wilcox to tell as little as possible about it and refer all calls to the base. A secret well-kept."

All are saying basically saying the same thing--the military told Wilcox to keep his mouth shut.

This begs the question “why”? Why wouldn't or couldn't Wilcox say anything beyond the object being 3 feet across, or about the size of his safe--another quote (in other words, a description similar to a radar target)? If this was truly nothing but a balsa radar target kite, why couldn't Wilcox, e.g., add a few details, like it was made of sticks and foil? Surely Brazel would have described a few things beyond it being "3 feet across"? What great military secret would be revealed with such minor details?

According to some Wilcox family members, Brazel HAD brought debris, which Wilcox had put in his safe. The military later confiscated these. Why would Wilcox even bring the military into it by calling the base if all Brazel brought with him were shards of balsa wood and aluminum foil and fragments of a rubber balloon?

Something must have impressed Wilcox to call the base and also Marcel and Blanchard that they chose to investigate. It had to be that the debris field was huge and/or that the debris was NOT mundane (see further below, where Wilcox’s daughter said Brazel had brought in some of the “memory foil”). Marcel in one interview said that after speaking with Brazel at the Sheriff’s office, he returned to the base to confer with Col. Blanchard, both agreeing it sounded like the crash of an exotic aircraft of some type. Foil, stick, and rubber fragments would NOT elicit such a conclusion and ensuing military response.

Thus there is no plausible reason for Wilcox not to elaborate on what Brazel found if it was all very mundane. But there is every reason not to go into detail if it wasn't mundane, or the military indeed telling him to "shut the f____ up".

David Rudiak said...

(part 2 of 2)

In addition to the family also telling us the Sheriff was threatened to keep him quiet, we have quite a few other civilians saying they got stern warnings, even death threats, to keep them quiet. The warnings to the civilians to stay quiet were often delivered by Wilcox himself. The Wilcox family also tells us the incident broke his spirit and he refused to run for Sheriff again.

BTW, although testimony from the Wilcox family is mostly (but NOT all second-hand), it is not Brian Bell's "purported" testimony. E.g., here is the affidavit of Wilcox's granddaughter Barbara Dugger about what her grandmother Inez Wilcox told her, including the Sheriff personally seeing the spacecraft and bodies and the two of them getting death threats from MPs if they talked:

http://roswellproof.homestead.com/dugger.html

Wilcox's daughter Phyllis Wilcox McGuire wrote in a letter: "When I read in the Roswell paper about the Flying Saucer being found, I went into his [her father's] office to ask about it... I asked my father if he thought the information about the saucer was true. He said: 'I don't know why Brazell [sic] ... would come all the way in here if there wasn't something to it.' He said Brazell had brought in some of the material to show, and that it looked like tinfoil, (a material like aluminum foil), but when you wadded this material up it would come right back to its original shape. He felt it was an important finding and he sent deputies out to investigate."

And on video: [quoting her father when Brazel first came to his office]: "He had some material with him ... which I did not know what it was. ...He said that he had sent some deputies out there and they had seen some things. They had seen a corral that had some of the material in it and they had seen a large burnt spot on some grass about the size of a football field."

KRandle said...

All -

I believe we have exhausted the Smith nonsense. Let's move back to the original intent of the post.

Daniel Transit said...

cda said...

1. Note to Daniel Transit: I presume Gavin Gibbons' scrapbook was taken from Flying Saucer Review. He wrote up at least two contactee tales in the late 1950s and was a devoted ETHer......

2. When I brought up this 'contactee' matter with Stan Friedman long ago, he replied that Smith was a perfectly normal guy in the early 1950s, but tended a bit towards the fringe in later years......

It was from his book The Coming Of The Space Ships. If you look on-line, you'll find that he authored more than a few books, though only 2 non-fiction ones dealing with UFOs/ETs.

He only had three letters and one article published in Flying Saucer Review. The title of the article was Beware The Lunatic Fringe! His concept of the meaning of 'Lunatic Fringe' was probably different from that of Stanton Friedman; Nitram Ang, and yourself.

Lack of consensus on what the phrase means is a very good reason not to use it at all, surely?

cda said...

DR says that Jason Kellahin wrote:

"The Sheriff's wife Inez Wilcox wrote down some details soon afterward, which are now at the Roswell Historical Society. The last part read, "...the officer who picked up the suspicious looking saucer [which Inez Wilcox also claimed Brazel brought with him] admonished Mr. Wilcox to tell as little as possible about it and refer all calls to the base. A secret well-kept." "

Have I understood this right? Are those very handwritten words by Inez Wilcox now at the Roswell Historical Society, as claimed by Kellahin? And if so, can visitors view them? Or is it something written years or decades afterwards?

This is a serious claim, because if so, we at last have a contemporary handwritten account available for public viewing.

For the sake of accuracy we need to get to the bottom of this. Did Inez indeed write the alleged words in July 1947 or not?

[Re the Smith nonsense, Kevin: I couldn't agree more]

KRandle said...

CDA -

The quote does not come from Kellahin but from an article that Inez Wilcox wrote called, "Four Years in the County Jail" which was about her experiences when her husband was the sheriff. It was not part of the original article (which was undated) but something added sometime later. There is no date on it either. Inez Wilcox lived until about 1989, or long after the book The Roswell Incident was published... which, BTW was reviewed in the Roswell Daily Record. Without a date on this, we cannot claim that it was some sort of document created in 1947...

There is a part of the document that speaks of her attempt to run for sheriff once Wilcox's term expired which would put the date of the article in 1952 at the earliest. But, as I say, there is no date on this... it was typed on a typewriter as opposed to a computer, but that means very little...

So, in reality we have an undated document that surfaced after Don and I began our investigation. I got a copy from either one of the daughters or the granddaughters but I don't remember which.

KRandle said...

All -

Just looked up Inez Wilcox obit... she died May 25, 1988.

David Rudiak said...

Kevin: "I believe we have exhausted the Smith nonsense. Let's move back to the original intent of the post."

I beg to differ. My discussion of the "Smith nonsense" was right on topic. Smith's collection of documents (plus public statements) were on recovered crashed saucers and alien debris long before (1950-1962) Marcel was first interviewed. If that isn't consistent with the original intent of the thread, I don't know what is.

Dr. Robert Sarbacher, who briefed Smith Sept. 15, 1950, through the Canadian embassy military attache, confirmed in a 1983 letter to William Steinem that the meeting had taken place. There were discussions of crashed saucers within the U.S. Research and Development Board that he had been invited to (but said he did not attend), had received written reports while he was at the Pentagon, and had discussions with some RDB members on the topic. He said Dr. Vannevar Bush was definitely involved, and confirmed some of the anomalous nature of the alien materials (very strong and very lightweight).

1951 correspondence between Smith and Gordon Cox of the Canadian embassy is also very relevant, discussing an article that Donald Keyhoe was writing for TRUE magazine on Smith's theories of saucer propulsion, where it was clearly indicated that Vannevar Bush and the RDB needed to clear it for publication, as well as their Canadian counterparts, the Defence Research Board headed by Dr. Omand Solandt. If there was nothing to do this, why would such an article need clearance at all from high-level government agencies and officials of two nations?

In fact, Smith indicates in his letter to Cox that it was Solandt who sent the Keyhoe article to him for review and revision. Smith also indicates that he was receiving full cooperation from the Canadian DRB and National Research Council and had 3 engineers and 2 technicians working full time on Project Magnet, classified Secret. Smith also states that Solandt insisted that they respect U.S. classification on the subject matter.

This is the same Dr. Solandt who when contacted years later (including by CDA, who tries to make a big deal out of it) tried to pretend that he never treated Smith or the subject matter with any seriousness. Really?

Cox wrote back stating that Smith's revised Keyhoe article was passed back to Solandt through Dr. Arnauld Wright, DRB Liaison Officer at the embassy, and Cox did not know what Vannevar Bush's response to it might be (AGAIN Bush being definitely involved) and hadn't heard from Keyhoe. Cox states that the Canadian ambassador's instructions were that only Cox and Wright were to discuss the matter with anybody and the official position of the embassy was that nobody knew anything about it.

CDA tries to portray Smith as some lone nutcase with no support from any Canadian officials, including Solandt, but the documented record clearly indicates that NOT to be the case. The Canadian embassy was critical in getting the interview with Sarbacher through their military attache, was passing information from and to Solandt through the Wright/Solandt channel, and Smith's initial work most definitely got the green light and official support from Solandt and the Canadian RDB. On the U.S. side, Vannevar Bush and the RDB were up to their necks in this, Bush being mentioned as heading the highly classified group looking into the saucers in Smith's first memo to Solandt (Nov. 21, 1950), LONG before "MJ-12" in the 1980s reared its ugly head.

I just don't see how anyone can claim this very important DOCUMENTED evidence long predating the revival of the Roswell case is not relevant to the discussion of crashed saucers and official secrecy.

Again, anyone interested can see the Smith/Canadian embassy/Sarbacher/Solandt documents at my website: www.roswellproof.smith_papers.html

Links and summaries of the documents are at the bottom of the page.

Brian B said...

David states:

"BTW, although testimony from the Wilcox family is mostly (but NOT all second-hand), it is not Brian Bell's "purported" testimony. E.g., here is the affidavit of Wilcox's granddaughter Barbara Dugger about what her grandmother Inez Wilcox told her, including the Sheriff personally seeing the spacecraft and bodies and the two of them getting death threats from MPs if they talked:

http://roswellproof.homestead.com/dugger.html

Well David this isn't first hand testimony, it's second hand testimony from his granddaughter (Dugger) restating third hand testimony from Wilcox's wife Mrs. Inez Wilcox (Dugger's long deceased grandmother).

Barbara Dugger never saw a spacecraft, alien bodies, or was threatened in any way. She is REPEATING what she claims her grandmother told her.

You call this first hand testimony?

If we look at what Wilcox's daughter (Phyllis Wilcox) says, she states "I am of the opinion that..." and goes on to summarize what she THINKS happened. Opinion? Really?

She never saw the material and simply came to ask her father if Haut's initial press release in the RDR was real. Everything she states beyond this is pure speculation in regards to an alien crash. In fact, she's speculating on what her father was speculating on concerning Brazel's reason for coming to town!

Wilcox's other daughter, Elizabeth Tulk, has no additional details other than her dad was asked "not to talk about it". She didn't say he was threatened with death!

More revealing is the fact that his wife, Inez Wilcox, initially wrote in her own private diary entitled "My Four Years in the County Jail" the following: READ IT

"One day a rancher north of town brought in what he called a "flying saucer." There had been many reports all over the country by people who claimed they had seen a flying saucer. The rumors had many variations. The saucer was from a different planet, and the people flying it were looking us over. The Germans had invented this strange contraption, a formidable weapon. There were other tales, that one had landed and strange looking people all 7 feet tall or more walked from it, but quickly departed on sighting any onlooker. All of the papers played the story up and many people searched the skies at night to catch sight of one. Since no one had seen a flying saucer, Mr. Wilcox called headquarters at the Air Force Base and reported the find. Almost before he hung up the telephone, an officer walked in. He quickly loaded the object onto the truck, and that was the last glimpse anyone had of it. Simultaneously, the telephone began to ring; long-distance calls from newspapers in New York, England, France, government officials. They would speak to no one but the sheriff. The calls kept up for 24 hours straight. However, the officer who picked up the suspicious looking saucer admonished Mr. Wilcox to tell as little as possible about it and refer all calls to the airbase. A secret well-kept, for to this day we never found out if this was really a flying saucer."

Don't you think in her personal diary written at the time of the incident she would state that if both she and her husband were threatened with death she would have made note of it?

And we hear there "are no diaries" from that time....just not the ones you're looking for I suppose.

Watch these very early interviews yourself (link below) and see them speak in their own words. Also please note Loretta Proctor stating Mac Brazel described "a sort of tape with writing on it". Tape...yes she said HE described it as tape! Sounds like Moore's flower patterned Rawin tape to me. Right?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gEu2CxbccRk

David Rudiak said...

CDA wrote:
Have I understood this right? Are those very handwritten words by Inez Wilcox now at the Roswell Historical Society, as claimed by Kellahin? And if so, can visitors view them? Or is it something written years or decades afterwards?

Where did you get the idea that Jason Kellahin claimed this. What I DID write is that Kellahin's affidavit ALSO stated that when he spoke to the Wilcox after interviewing Brazel (evening of July 8), Wilcox indicated that the military said he shouldn't talk about it, just like Inez Wilcox's write-up. I also wrote that the 1947 AP article quoting Wilcox saying he was "working with those fellows at the base", to explain why he wouldn't answer further questions about what Brazel found, had a Roswell July 8 dateline, and I guessed was based on AP Kellahin's talking to Wilcox and then phoning in his story.

This is a serious claim, because if so, we at last have a contemporary handwritten account available for public viewing.

For the sake of accuracy we need to get to the bottom of this. Did Inez indeed write the alleged words in July 1947 or not?


We don't know exactly when she wrote this up, but according to her granddaughter Barbara Dugger in her affidavit, "She wrote an article about the event right after it happened to see if anyone else knew anything about it." (www.roswellproof.com/dugger.html)

I don't know if it was really "right after", because it is a somewhat garbled recollection of everything happening very quickly over hours, rather than several days. More of Inez Wilcox's writeup at: www.roswellproof.com/post-1947-roswell-references.html

"One day a rancher north of town brought in what he called a flying saucer. There had been many reports all over the United States by people who claimed they had seen a flying saucer. The rumors were in many variations: The saucer was from a different planet, and the people flying it were looking down over us. The Germans had invented this strange contraption, a formidable weapon... Since no one had seen a flying saucer (up close) Mr. Wilcox called headquarters at Walker Air Force Base (formerly RAAF) and reported the find. Before he hung up the telephone almost, an officer walked in. He quickly loaded the object into a truck and that was the last glimpse that any one had of it."

"Simultaneously the telephone began to ring, long distance calls from newspapers in New York, England, France and from government officials, military officials and the calls kept up for 24 hours straight. They would talk to no one but the Sheriff. However the officer who picked up the suspicious looking saucer admonished Mr. Wilcox to tell as little as possible about it and refer all calls to the base. A secret well-kept."


You can hear some of the testimony of Wilcox's two daughters, Elizabeth Tulk and Phyllis McGuire, and granddaughter Barbara Dugger at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAsD4UpzVvo starting at about 4:00 min. ("Recollections of Roswell") Tulk also knew about her mother's article, but doesn't give a date for it. However, Tulk also states that the Air Force came to Wilcox's office to retrieve whatever Brazel had brought and "reprimanded" him not to ever talk about it, and she added he never did when she was around. Dugger again states her grandmother told her the MPs threatened her and her husband with death and the family too if they ever spoke about it, apparently because he had gone to one of the sites with the burned area and seen the four space beings. Recalling the talk with her grandmother, Dugger gets very emotional about it.

Brian B said...

Reading upwards I see that the date of Inez's comments are in question...

Even if Inez Wilcox wrote this in 1952 (just five years after the incident) she clearly would have mentioned death threats.

So for any reader here or elsewhere to suggest it was (or is) irrelevant ignores the very thing she wrote herself in her own words very close to the event itself (if not actually in 1947 anyway).

For the record the diary came from Phyllis Wilcox and the paragraph I provided was the only commentary Inez had about the incident at that time. Bill Birnes is on record for stating that this paragraph from her diary was provided to him first for a magazine write up by Phyllis who stated it was her mother's personal and very private diary. Birnes states that he was given this paragraph before Jesse Marcel ever came forward and before Friedman ever interviewed him (See Birnes' UFO Magazine UFO Encylopedia).

KRandle said...

All -

For the record, Don Schmitt and I were apparently the first to interview any of the Wilcox family about this. We were the first to receive the document which is not part of a diary but apparently an article she wrote with an eye to publication. The original article did not contain anything about the flying saucer, which I see as significant. The paragraph you all are so excited about is an addition written sometime after the article and was to be added into it. So, even if the original article was written in 1952 (which is about the only indication of a date based on Inez running for sheriff after George's term had expired) we have no idea when the addition was written. I would suggest it was written sometime after 1980 when The Roswell Incident was published.

With the Wilcox family, we did not interview Inez because by the time we started, she had already died... We interviewed Phyllis first and she said that she had been in the office when the Army arrived (the Air Force as a separate branch did not exist in July 1947) but was chased out.

Both Phyllis and Elizabeth provided some first-hand testimony... as did Elizabeth's husband, but none of it was significant. Jay Tulk did see the military in the office and saw some of the debris that Brazel brought in (and BTW it's MACK nor Mac).

So where are we on this... The daughters can talk about the military in the office on a first-hand basis but little else. Jay Tulk had seen the military and the debris in the office, but had not seen anything beyond that. Barbara Dugger does get emotional about it, but then she is only relating what her grandmother told her, which seems to be based on what George Wilcox said and we are now far from the original source.

The real point is while the article written by Inez Wilcox is interesting and housed in an archive, though lots of copies exist and I have one given to me by the family, it is basically all hearsay (the flying saucer part) and was clearly written years after the event.

cda said...

I do not believe ANY death threats were ever made by the military against civilians, and that any such tales are just plain fiction.

If Inez Wilcox's original article, whenever it was written, made no mention of the flying saucer, this can be for one of two reasons:

1. She omitted all mention of it due to fears of being persecuted or prosecuted by the military.

2. She omitted all mention of it because it either never happened, or was a very insignificant happening in the general run of events at the time.

I go for option 2, but am certain there are others who prefer 1. Take your pick. Exciting stuff, eh?

Brian B said...

CDA:

Even though we don't know the exact date it as written, if it was written in say 1988 it still says a lot - or better - it says a lot by why of what it doesn't say.

Kevin -

Are you suggesting this is just some random discrediting attemp typed and handed out, or that Phyllis just chose to cobble some jibberish together to reinforce her claims?

NOTE: No comment on the "tape" Proctor said Brazel described himself? It's right in the videotaped interview and corroborates Moore's claims about "flower" tape. Perhaps Brazel had seen common balloons before, but not ones constructed with this tape, hence his reason for thinking it was something unusual.

David Rudiak said...

Kevin wrote:
So where are we on this... The daughters can talk about the military in the office on a first-hand basis but little else. Jay Tulk had seen the military and the debris in the office, but had not seen anything beyond that.

The fact that Jay Tulk recalls debris in the Sheriff's office is itself very significant, and corroborates the written Inez Wilcox account and granddaughter Barbara Dugger's story that Inez Wilcox told her Brazel brought debris with him that was quickly confiscated by the military (one reason why the military would be in the office).

Wilcox daughter Phyllis McGuire also recalled her father telling her Brazel brought in strange material that he thought significant, namely the infamous memory foil, thus at least one reason why Wilcox would bother to investigate and most likely why he called the base, and why the base ultimately investigated. While Marcel never mentioned Brazel bringing debris, he did say that when he discussed the matter with Col. Blanchard, they agreed it sounded like the crash of an exotic aircraft. Why would they think that if all Brazel brought in was balloon debris?

And it also ties in with Gen. Dubose's account of Gen. McMullen calling him up at Fort Worth with Ramey away and ordering him to fly debris samples from Roswell to Fort Worth, then to Washington, which could only happen if Brazel had brought in debris to the Sheriff's office

So the Wilcox family may not have seen most of this first-hand, but what they did know are important clues as to what happened.

Barbara Dugger does get emotional about it, but then she is only relating what her grandmother told her, which seems to be based on what George Wilcox said and we are now far from the original source.

If you take Dugger's testimony at face value, Inez Wilcox told her she was also with her husband when the death threats were made against the two of them. That would make the statement second-hand, not third-hand.

Dugger also indicates her grandmother took the threat very seriously, in fact was reluctant to even tell her the story. That would be a good reason why Inez Wilcox would not go into complete detail about what happened when she wrote down the story.

I would agree that the written account seems like it was written years later, not "right after" the incident as per Dugger. There are too many mistakes in it, particularly compression of several days of events into a few hours, what might happen if recalled years later. I brought it up, because Inez Wilcox's account AGAIN states that her husband was told not to talk about it, the same as George Wilcox was quoted by AP in 1947, I assume direct from his own mouth. That was also AP reporter Jason Kellahin's recollection of his conversation with Wilcox at the time.

Bottom line, Wilcox was clearly told not to talk about it, death threats or no death threats. Why in the world would Wilcox be told not to talk about it if all that was found was what Gen. Ramey was to display (weather balloon/radar target)? Even a Mogul balloon, had it existed, would not elicit such a demand, since there was nothing at all sensitive about the debris. Why would Wilcox even bother to call the base, and why would Marcel and Blanchard even think it worth investigating? Why would George and Inez Wilcox never talk about it again with their own daughters, with Inez Wilcox still reluctant to tell her granddaughter Dugger about it decades later?

Note that Dugger explains she was living with her grandmother at the time and the two of them were very close. I can understand why Dugger would get very emotional about it as she recalled the story because she strongly empathized with the fear of her grandmother. Unless Dugger is some incredible actor, the emotion struck me as entirely genuine and lent a strong degree of authenticity to her account. Not all the nuances of testimony come through written down in black and white.

KRandle said...

Brian -

I'm saying that Inez Wilcox wrote the article and the "add," and not Phyllis. I don't remember if I got the copy from Phyllis or Barbara Dugger. I am saying that after the publicity about the Roswell crash, that Inez added the long paragraph because it would be of interest to a wider range of people. It was not disinformation or anything else. Just a remembrance of an event decades in the past. I see no ulterior motive in it.

David -

Now you wish to argue over whether something is second hand or third hand when the real point is that the original source is unavailable.

There was never any question that Brazel brought some of the debris to the sheriff's office. That's been acknowledged from the very beginning and the fact that Jay Tulk told me he had see some of it doesn't actually add much to this.

Yes, Dugger suggested that her grandmother took the threats seriously, just as she told me when I first interviewed her. But this idea that she had to be some incredible actor to pull this off means very little in the great scheme of things. Let's say, for whatever reason her grandmother made up the death threats but if Dugger believed that to be true, then that might have been sufficiently traumatic for her, so her emotions are real... but what if, over the years, a request by the military not to say anything about this morphed into something more sinister, maybe inspired by some of the things said in all those documentaries... well, we have the military telling the sheriff to keep quiet, maybe threatening with prosecution under the Espionage Act which would be quite serious, but that has now begun something even more serious... especially when we're dealing with something that wasn't heard first hand.

My problem is that almost all of this is second hand at best. The first-hand statements are all things that can be verified through documentation. Even the article that everyone loves to quote bits of about the "Harassed Rancher" mention the material brought to the sheriff's office.

Finally, I do not take Dugger's statements at face value. I want additional evidence, which is not to say she isn't telling the truth as she knows it, only that the truth might have been garbled in the telling or by the years.

KRandle said...

Brian -

You do love to take things out of context or report things from a single source when so much else is available...

In her first interview with Bill Moore (and we don't have transcripts or anything else) as published in The Roswell Incident, Loretta doesn't say much about this at all. It was Floyd who did the talking. He said that there were designs on it that looked like Chinese or Japanese figures. He said it wasn't paper because you couldn't cut it. He said that they were pastel colored.

When I talked to Loretta on April 20, 1989, she said, "...he did bring a little sliver of a wood looking stuff up but you couldn't burn it... just a little sliver of, or about the size of a pencil." Which isn't very much at all.

She did say, "But he said there was some more stuff in there, like a tape that had some sort of figures on it..." But she didn't see this and said it was "like tape" not that it was tape. Splitting a hair to be sure but that's what she said. I'll note here that Floyd hadn't seen any of this either. He was just repeating what Mack had told him.

In an interview conducted much later, she said that Brazel mentioned hieroglyphics on some of the other debris... she said that the hieroglyphics were in the material and not attached to it... which means little because she only saw a small piece that apparently had no writing on it. She was telling us what Brazel had told her and her husband... so the point about tape doesn't actually corroborate what Charles Moore had said.

If you wanted some corroboration, you should have gone to the Bessie Brazel Schreiber testimony in The Roswell Incident. She said, "Some of the metal-foil pieces had a sort of tape stuck to them, and when held up to the light they showed what looked like pastel flowers or designs. Even though the stuff looked like tape it could not be peeled off or removed."

So, here is some corroboration for what Loretta said, but then we have to remember that Bessie repudiated much of her testimony in later years. And no, I don't know if she did that to make peace with her brother or that she realized she had confused two events.

And you have to wonder about this holding it up to the light because if it was reinforcing tape on the balsa members and the foil of a rawin the light wouldn't have passed through it.

Where does all this leave you?

cda said...

There is a big difference between being "told, or ordered, not to talk about it" and being "advised not to talk about it".

DR naturally assumes these were actual commands and threats from the military to civilians, but it is just as likely that the military personnel merely said to Wilcox, and maybe his wife as well, that to avoid too much publicity they ought to say as little as possible about the debris, especially if it was, at that point, still unidentified.

Many years later this bit of advice turned far more sinister and, with the Roswell legend rapidly developing, the advice transformed into an order, accompanied by death threats. Hence the interpretation, in the 1980s, that the military were threatening civilians in '47.

Kevin is right on this. I simply cannot see how anyone can trust people's supposed emotions (in the 80s) about an affair 35-40 years earlier, particularly when the person relating the tale was only a child or not even present at the original time. This sort of evidence is, to put it bluntly, worthless.

I also cannot see anything in the reports of 1947 saying that Wilcox was told, or even advised, by the military to shut up about the case. If he did shut up, it only indicates that he chose to do so himself.

Brian B said...

David wrote:

"Why in the world would Wilcox be told not to talk about it if all that was found was what Gen. Ramey was to display (weather balloon/radar target)? Even a Mogul balloon, had it existed, would not elicit such a demand, since there was nothing at all sensitive about the debris."

A logical explanation could be that Mack found stuff he hadn't seen before with other balloon landings he stumbled on (for example did he ever say he saw dozens of Rawin targets prior to the incident?)

Tape or no tape, lightweight wood, and flexible reinforced foil wasn't the same as the sun burnt or torn apart neoprene balloons he had seen previously.

He's going into town anyway so brings some of the junk with him including probably one of the triangular portions (which later gets paper wrapped and sent to Fort Worth).

Wilcox took his report seriously and at his word that something crashed - and since it was airborne he thought best to call the army air base. Wilcox was just doing his job. He put the samples in the safe, and not long after the army arrives and collects it.

Wilcox was just doing his job. He didn't know what it was either (was he versed in aerial technology?) and properly alerted the military based on Mack's curiosity or concern.

The army told him to be quiet about it because they were still in the process of investigating it - sure, maybe some at the base even thought Mack's junk was common looking debris - but based on orders and protocol they were told to be quiet about it until they knew more and collected it as part of their responsibilities.

While just speculation, this seems like a logical set of reasons as to why Wilcox called the base and showed some interest in the stuff Mack brought in.

Decades later, memory fails. Others connected to primary witnesses, now having been influenced by decades worth of speculative suggestions that it really was a saucer (rumors and stories of a coverup etc.) these people repeat what they THINK happened and become convinced they are right. It's why Phyllis said "In my opinion..." when explaining what she knew in the video interview.

Terry the Censor said...

> Bernard Newman's 1948 novel "The Flying Saucer" ...a covert MJ-12-type organization of scientists and intelligence agents

Point of information.

The only resemblance to MJ-12 was that Newman's group contained scientists and intelligent agents (as David correctly noted), and that both groups are works of fiction. Newman's freelancers did not act on the orders of any government or military group, but colluded to dupe their various governments and military forces into peaceful coexistence. (Newman's group got their funding by blackmailing a gangster -- not from a government black budget.) And Newman's group publicly promoted an elaborate and horrifying alien invasion hoax; they did not work to suppress the idea of saucers and alien contact.

But I suspect we can agree the book is a quality satire of the politics and foreign relations of the time.

> The story includes the "saucers" being made of a previously unknown exotic, hard metals extremely difficult to cut through and thin metal sheets on the inside with “hieroglyphics” that needed to be decrypted.

I suggest this was imagination. From a narrative standpoint, alien space tech would be more convincing dramatically if it were superior to the pre-spacefaring human tech of the time. The alien rockets could not have been made from recycled tin cans and Victrola parts; that would dampen the alien effect. And we should not be surprised that an off-world language would need to be decrypted, especially as this required Newman's scientists to take possession of the found rockets and control their investigation and testing. So there is no warrant here to reason that fiction is really fact.

David Rudiak said...

Kevin,

We have it first-hand from Wilcox himself in that Roswell-datelined AP article, that after saying the object Brazel found was about three feet across (and elsewhere, about the size of his safe, or 3 ft. by 4 ft.), Wilcox refused to say more with the explanation that he was "working with those fellows at the base."

Brian Bell tries to spin this as a totally innocent cooperation between the Sheriff and the base while they continued to investigate, or like a "no comment". But that makes no logical sense. What was left to investigate if all that was found was the displayed weather balloon and torn-up balsa radar kite in Ramey's office? Why couldn't the Sheriff comment about that? What's the big secret here?

This is where the memories of witnesses like the Sheriff's family, Inez Wilcox's written story, and AP reporter Kellahin come in, however fallible such old memories might be. Here too we keep getting the same story that, at the very least, the Sheriff was instructed (or "admonished"--Inez Wilcox's word, meaning warned or advised strongly) by the military not to talk about it. And from daughter Phyllis McGuire, a statement (yes, second-hand from her father), that the metal Brazel brought in WAS exotic, namely the "memory foil". The Wilcox family also described the Sheriff and his deputies finding a large burned area (quite incompatable with a balloon crash).

I also asked what I think are very pertinent questions about why the Sheriff would have brought the military into this to begin with? What was it about Brazel's story or the debris that would be of concern to the Sheriff or the military? Otherwise it would have been just commonplace balloon junk. The weird "memory foil" would be one thing, and Brazel talking about a huge area of debris would be another (Marcel also mentioned Brazel talking about this, as did reporter Frank Joyce and there's Marcel's "square mile" quote form 1947).

The same questions need to be asked of the base and Marcel/Blanchard's response. After interviewing Marcel at the Sheriff's office, Marcel said he returned to the base to confer with Blanchard, and both agreed it sounded like the crash of an exotic aircraft of some sort. Blanchard told him to take Cavitt along because Brazel said there was a large debris field and Marcel would need help.

There is also the question, if it was simple balloon debris, why would Blanchard send out his two top intel people instead of small detail of low-ranking flunkies? Again none of this testimony (exotic nature, large debris field, use of top officers) points to a balloon crash.

Even a real Mogul balloon would not remotely have created that much. Typical Mogul balloon trains--balloons, sonobuoys, altitude control equipment, etc.--started out on launch at only 50-60 pounds, much less at crash sites, not all that much to pick up. Brazel could easily have cleaned it up himself. I can't think of a single documented example where a Mogul crash EVER created a large debris field, certainly not scattering debris over Marcel's "square mile".

We already have an example of Mogul Flight #6 from June 7, 1947. Rancher Sid West directly contacted Alamogordo AAF (probably because of ID tags that Moguls routinely carried, what Brazel curiously seems to have NOT noticed) and Crary's diary indicates they sent out two guys to pick up the remains.

I know we are drifting back into a Mogul debate here, but this all began when I mentioned Inez Wilcox's memoir predating the revival of Roswell. This included mention of her husband being told by the military not to talk about it, in fact something he never spoke about again ("a secret well kept" she wrote), not just while the base allegedly was still investigating. Inevitably this involves questions about what the big "secret" might be that husband George wasn't to talk about--ever. Surely not Ramey's pictured weather balloon debris.

Unknown said...

" The Wilcox family also described the Sheriff and his deputies finding a large burned area (quite incompatable with a balloon crash)."

Afaik the family was talking about a baked field , with a circular touched down.
I found this interesting , because according to Lewis Rickett such a field was discovered 2 months after this incident. This touchdown point hadn´t been discovered earlier because there were still debris laying there. If that´s the same field, it would suggest that Wilcox didn´t report his findings to the base.

David Rudiak said...

Zak,

I can find no mention from any witness of a large burned area at the Foster Ranch itself, but there is mention of such a burned area at the second, closer site north of town, where an actual craft and bodies were supposedly found. One of the more interesting and credible such reports was from a little-known witness, 1st Lt. Chester Barton:

http://roswellproof.homestead.com/barton.html

Barton was interesting because he was found by a very skeptical researcher named Joseph Stefula, who was so convinced by Barton's story that it totally switched his thinking on Roswell. Although he still didn't think a saucer had crashed, he became convinced that something extremely sensitive and unusual had happened that was still being covered up, maybe a nuke accident. Barton himself thought it the crash of a B-29 and some sort of nuke accident, but there is no historical evidence of that. But Barton also, from his personal observations at the burnt north site, totally dismissed the idea of a the published balloon story. Much of Barton's story lines up completely with that of other witnesses, including the site being found by archeologists, bodies being taken to the base hospital and then flown to Fort Worth.

David Rudiak said...

Don earlier wrote:

Owosso Argus Press, 1947-07-09
Fort Worth. Tex. (AP)

Headline: "Crashed Disc" Is Weather Balloon


I was just reworking my web page of post 1947 Roswell references (adding an illustration from a 1963 book of a crashing saucer), when I re-read my section on Ted Bloecher's botched Roswell recounting in his classic 1967 "Report on the UFO Wave of 1947" based on a large review of 1947 newspaper reports. Bloecher wrote:

www.roswellproof.com/post-1947-roswell-references.html

"Through a series of clumsy blunders in public relations, and a desire by the press to manufacture a crashed disc if none would obligingly crash of itself, the story got blown up out of all proportions that read ‘Crashed Disc Found in New Mexico.’"

Well maybe Bloecher actually found another headline with "Crashed Disc", but if he did he didn't reference it. Do note, however that Bloecher was discussing Roswell as being a "crashed disc" story (even claiming the press back then was itching for it) long before the evil and gifted mind-control expert Stanton Friedman implanted the meme in his weak-minded witnesses (who CDA assures us had never ever considered it before).

David Rudiak said...

I'm surprised no skeptic has raised the point that if there were any crashed saucer stories before Marcel, they were mostly inspired by Frank Scully's 1950 book. I found it odd that Scully never mentioned Roswell, in fact may have written it off as actually being a weather balloon. (E.g., Scully mentions another crashed saucer story that came out in March 1950 from a California businessman named Raymond Dimmick, who claimed he was told about a recent saucer crash in Mexico with a dead two-foot pilot. Scully wrote that off as a hoax.) Scully was very familiar with newspaper saucer stories, in fact included a large section at the end of his book summarizing such stories since 1947. But nothing about Roswell.

Ironically, Scully's debunker and nemesis, journalist J. P. Kahn, was very familiar with Roswell, and used it as an example of a pre-Scully "fallen saucer" story:

http://www.roswellproof.com/post-1947-roswell-references.html

Sept. 1952
TRUE Magazine
“The Flying Saucers and the Mysterious Little Men”,
by J. P. Cahn

"...Fallen-saucer stories weren't, in fact, new even at that time. Back on July 9, 1947, only two weeks after private-flier Kenneth Arnold had alerted the nation with his nine disks seen skipping "saucer-like" near Mt. Rainier, Southwest newspapers headlined that captured disk that had fallen on a New Mexico ranch was a dud. That one, when delivered to the Eighth Army Air Force, was identified as a tinfoil-covered reflector from a weather balloon."


I commented: "A quibble with the accuracy is the statement that the story was confined to Southwest newspapers, when in fact it was nationwide and even international."

Kahn clearly treated Roswell in the same vein as Scully treated Aztec, namely a crashed saucer story, even if Kahn used "fallen" instead of "crashed".

Brian B said...

Gentlemen:

Let's not forget that in the New Mexican desert a burned mark can be found in various places due to brush fires and lightning strikes not to mention human initiated burning activity (like brush clearing)..

A "burned spot" in the desert does not automatically imply a crashed alien craft with bodies.

https://nmfireinfo.com

Don Maor said...

An early mention of alien bodies possibly related to Roswell is included in the book "The Search for Life on Other Worlds" (1967) by USN captain David Holmes. It is a book about astrobiology, space exploration, etc. On page 12, the book says:

"Perhaps they will even quote the rumor that somewhere in Wright-Patterson Air Force Base there are hidden away the embalmed bodies of several small humanoid figures who were allegedly pulled from the wreckage of a space craft which crashed in the south West a few years ago"

This rumor might be related to Scully's book, but is more likely related to Roswell. It seems hard to believe that an extremely knowledgeable David Holmes would be ignorant that Scully's book story was declared to be a hoax long before 1967. Additionally, Scully's book does not mention embalmed bodies, so the rumor quoted by Holmes is more likely to be consistent with more realistic accounts, such as Stringfield's research on alien bodies being analyzed by medical people in Wright-Patterson AFB.

Later in the book, Holmes clarifies that he does not feel inclined to believe in conspiratorial scenarios of government cover-ups, but nevertheless he also seems to be pretty knowledgeable on UFOs, and admits UFOs constitute an enigma that requires more research. In general, Holmes seems to be dialectical in all his judgments.

In another part of the book, curiously, Holmes makes the strong bet that

"it is quite likely that we will someday discover in outer space someone quite man-like. We are the product of a precise and inexorable selection system -the survival of the fittest. Similar conditions on other worlds may very possibly produce a creature similar to man"

He certainly wrote that with confidence which makes think that maybe the rumor of the embalmed little figures was not that farfetched in Holmes’ opinion.

We can say with certainty that THERE INDEED WERE, long before 1978, rumors of aliens bodies recovered by MPs.

Unknown said...

My father, who was a worker with a roofing crew in Roswell, says that while they were on top of a building near a warehouse, saw trucks with metallic debris entering the warehouse. When the trucks were driving inside, the MP's noticed the roofing men watching and one of them climbed their ladder and said something like "You didn't see nothing, you understand? You didn't see this!" Dad said he saw greenish blue pieces of metal in the trucks. I wish I'd asked more questions; he died a couple of years ago.

Terry the Censor said...

@Unknown

The debris was not covered but the soldier didn't want anyone to see it? Your dad told you this important story but apparently only to you? Though he died recently, at age 90+, you didn't ask more questions, ever? And you are Mr. Unknown, claiming to know about crashed debris at Roswell while offering not a single verifiable detail of any kind?

How convenient for you.