Sunday, August 19, 2018

Roswell Documentation vs. Roswell Eyewitnesses


Since I have now annoyed all my friends with my analysis of the Roswell documentation and how some of it is quite suggestive that nothing alien fell there, I thought it time to annoy all my skeptical friends. Lining up against that documentation is the testimony of some people who were on the scene in 1947. This is based on the documentation we can find about them and the stories they tell us in the world today.

Walter Haut, for example, either wrote the press release claiming the 509th had found a flying saucer, or he took the dictation from Colonel William Blanchard to create the press release. At this point it doesn’t really matter. The press release
Walter Haut being interviewed.
Photo copyright by Kevin Randle.
was issued and it claimed they had “captured” a flying saucer in the Roswell region. The definition of flying saucer confuses the issue, because in 1947, there was no universally accepted definition. It could mean almost anything you wanted it to mean. But here’s the deal. It is vague to the point of being opaque. We don’t know what it means.

I have never understood the reason for the press release. If Blanchard was attempting to grab credit for solving the flying disk mystery, the press release was unnecessarily obscure. Compare it to the story out of Circleville, Ohio, in which a farmer found the remains of a weather balloon and rawin reflector on his land. We have a story in the local paper that identifies the farmer as Sherman Campbell and includes what is claimed a picture of his wife. When I talked to the family, I learned it was actually his daughter holding the rawin target. The point is that the Circleville newspaper story was clear and it included a photograph. The Roswell press release told us nothing of real importance, provided little in the way of verification and had no photograph.

We do have testimony from Haut, which, if we limit it to what was said in the press release, and what he said to us for decades before expanding his story, we learn that what was found was something strange. No, it tells us nothing about the alien nature of the crash, just tells us that Blanchard and company were perplexed by something they should have been able to identify easily if it was a weather balloon. No reason not to supply the explanation if it was something mundane, like was done in Circleville.

If we wish to get to the extraterrestrial, then there is Edwin Easley, who was the provost marshal (please note the proper spelling of marshal here) in Roswell. When I asked him if we were following the right path, he asked what I meant by that. I told him that we (meaning Don Schmitt and I) believed that the craft had been extraterrestrial. He said, “Well, let me put it this way, it’s not the wrong path.”

Taking that a step farther, he told family members about the alien “creatures.” That was his word to them, not mine. Sure, that statement is second hand at best because we learned it talking to family members, but hey, it does confirm his mindset on this.

No, there is no reason for Easley to have lied about it. He was very reluctant to talk, didn’t grant much in the way of interviews, and you won’t see him showing up in any of the old documentaries. I was always of the impression he wished to help me, but he had taken an oath in 1947 and he wasn’t going to break the oath.

There is Joe Briley, the operations officer in 1947. He said a couple of things that don’t take us directly to the extraterrestrial but do lead us to the highly unusual. He told me, when I mentioned, “…You heard the stories…” that “And then the story was changed immediately. As soon as the people from Washington arrived.”

Jesse Marcel
Yes, it is clear from the conversation on the tape that we’re talking about the UFO crash tale. I really don’t say anything specifically about it, but Briley knew why I had called him. In fact, later in the interview, he told me, “I just was not brought into that at all even though Butch [Blanchard] and I were extremely close.”
And later still, he said, “I don’t think Butch was stupid enough to call a weather balloon something else.”

Okay, this doesn’t get us to the extraterrestrial, but it does move us away from the conventional. It suggests things in Roswell were, well, up in the air in 1947.

I haven’t touched on Jesse Marcel, Sr. yet. He was quite clear in his statements about what had happened. There are any number of videos of him telling us that it was something “that wasn’t built on Earth but it had come to Earth.”

If he was stand alone, we could certainly dismiss his testimony. But it is not and while it is true that he seemed to drift all over the place before he died, he did say some provocative things about what he had seen and had done. These were backed up by his son and his wife. Still, we need to sound a note of caution when dealing with the senior Marcel.

Before this gets too long, let’s move onto Bill Brazel. Here was another man
Bill Brazel and Don Schmitt on the debris field.
Photo copyright by Kevin Randle
extremely reluctant to talk about what he had seen. He did find a few scraps of the material that his father, Mack, described as having come from “that contraption I found.”

This debris included something that resembled fiber optics, a lead foil that seemed to have a memory, returning to its original shape when crumpled, and something that was as light a balsa but with a strength that rivaled steel. Although he lost the debris to Air Force personnel in 1949, he did show it to several others including Sallye Tadolini. Some of these witnesses, who handled the debris have affidavits about it.

Of course, Mack had shown a bit of the debris to Floyd and Loretta Proctor. She told me about the fire-resistant capabilities of the material. She mentioned, as did Marian Strickland, that Mack had been held by the military authorities for a number of days.

And I don’t want to forget Bill Rickett, the CIC NCOIC in Roswell in July 1947. He talked about his trip to see the crash site, some of the debris that he saw there, and some of the people on the scene including Sheridan Cavitt and Edwin Easley.
Here I could mention Frankie Rowe who wasn’t lying about what she said. True, she is second hand, having heard about the crash and the creatures from her father, fire fighter Dan Dwyer. But her sister confirmed the story and ironically, one of the fire fighters who Karl Pflock interviewed and used to dismiss the story,
Karl Pflock
actually told me, that Dwyer had gone to the crash site in his private car. The fire fighter, C.J. Smith, told me about Dwyer’s trip when I asked, simply, “Did you know Dan Dwyer.” Smith’s response was, “He went out there in his car.”

These are some of the things that I think about when I’m not worrying about the documents that I mentioned in the last post. Most of the people mentioned here, and a dozen or two more that I could have brought up argue against the documents conclusion. While it is true that a few people might be inventing their tales, and we’ve had more than our share of them, there are some very solid people who had talked about their involvement. If I’m willing to concede some points based on the documentation, it seems only right that those at the other end of the spectrum admit that there are some disturbing testimonies. They all aren’t lying, looking for their fifteen minutes, and just wishing to have an interesting story to tell.

Oh, and before this degenerates into another long discussion about the foibles of human memory… yeah, I get it. But not all memories are flawed and inaccurate. Many times, the person gets the facts right as has been shown by numerous scientific investigations, and yes, I know about Elizabeth Loftus’ work on false memory. Her work demonstrates how such memories can be created, so we don’t really have to talk about that. We just have to remember that sometimes, the person relating the tale has the details right, was actually there, and is telling the truth as best he or she can…

60 comments:

Nitram said...

Kevin wrote:

"Since I have now annoyed all my friends with my analysis of the Roswell documentation"...

You won't have annoyed all your friends Kevin.... the purpose of this, like most investigations, is to "determine the truth" not to define it.

I'm guessing all the debunkers won't be too happy with your latest article either.

Regards
Nitram

TheDimov said...

I thought about that too, why the original news report was so obscure. But I think, with reflection, there is no problem and it makes sense - the whole town knew already, which gives reason for the press release; the Army wants to take credit because whose ego's don't want to be accredited for finding the first flying saucer bits; and the fact that the scraps seemed so ordinary to look at yet extraordinary in property - and that they hadn't worked out how to 'put it together' as yet, suggests to me a simple keenness to get it out there and attain credit. Before, I feel, they suddenly came upon bodies and retracted the whole thing.


I think it was simply a case of Blanchard ego that sent Haut to the press, and goodwill to the local community, but then the realization that this was something more than scrap metal - and threats from higher-up, that brought the whole thing down again.


Also the ridiculously lengthy and arrogant Roswell Case Closed whereby they simply wiped off the most crucial line of all from the FBI memo without explanation, I think that the bigger the lie the more there is something to cover up, and the Roswell Case Closed tome that speaks extremely lengthily about nothing speaks volumes : that if it isn't an extraterrestrial craft, its something almost as huge they are covering up. And I think if it was some secret project with human casualties, we'd have heard from Brazel/ his family yet all he said was a comment that alluded to the possibility of creatures that were not quite human in origin.


Drives you crazy this mystery, doesn't it?

cda said...

I can offer you a perfectly valid reason why the Circleville object was identified as a balloon & radar target at once, while the Roswell one was not until about 24 hours later.

It is because the Circleville object was found almost intact and at one spot, thus making it more easily identifiable. It was NOT scattered and fragmented over a wide area as the Roswell object was. Also, the Roswell UFO had lain stranded on the desert floor for a whole month before it was gathered up by Marcel and Brazel (and maybe others).

Your logic is extraordinary. Just because one recovered object is quickly identified, it does NOT mean another similar object would also be, especially if the circumstances are different, such as the weather, i.e. winds, storms and so on. If I see an obvious jet liner in the sky it does not follow that I would immediately recognise another one seen the next day, does it?

I repeat: Ruppelt's project Blue Book (which anyway began well before he took over) would be a total farce and utter waste of resources if we suppose certain high-ups in the USAF already knew the answer and had the hardware to prove it! As a former member of the AF, do you REALLY believe such shenanigans could take place? Or is the USAF so different from, say, the RAF that such charades do indeed occur?

The same goes for any other official UFO investigation. One group investigates a subject whilst another group sits on the very evidence that the former group were looking for! This is UFO logic, is it? And no, I have never been a serving USAF officer of any kind. Nor an RAF one either.

How an 'intelligence officer' like Jesse Marcel can utter such twaddle as "it wasn't built on earth but it had come to earth" I do not know. Unless, of course, Stan Friedman put the idea into his head. Go on, admit this is more than a possibility.

And I suggest that Edwin Easley's statement "let me put it this way, it's not the wrong path" is equally dotty. You are assuming that both Marcel & Easley had the slightest idea of what a REAL ET craft would look like, which of course they had not. Perhaps they had been reading too much SF. (Why not? It is a far better answer than that they both saw a landed craft from Zeta Reticuli!).

Yes, certainly have a go at the skeptics. We lap it up. It is all part of the great debate, isn't it?

Sugarraytaylor said...

Kevin, regarding Edwin Easley.... his comments about the extraterrestrial being “not the wrong path”, if he was to say yes it was alien, on record, would he of been the highest ranking person or person UNQUESTIONABLY in the know at that time to confirm an alien crash? The reason I ask is because it would seem there had been many people who made statements about it being alien, so if he was to confirm this he wouldn’t be going it alone so to speak. Or did he know himself that a lot of the people saying it was alien weren’t actually involved or weren’t credible, and if he did state yes it was alien then he knew it would change everything because he could divulge facts that nobody else would know? His ambiguous statement has me puzzled because so many had already came out by then, so one does have to wonder exactly what it was about his potential testimony that would be different than everyone else’s, or was it just that he was very adamant about his oath? Regardless of what knowledge he had and wasn’t going to budge?
Perhaps his testimony would involve an outside the box answer? Not technically alien, but not human either?
My head hurts.

Louis Nicholson said...

Kevin said:
"The press release was issued and it claimed they had “captured” a flying saucer in the Roswell region. The definition of flying saucer confuses the issue, because in 1947, there was no universally accepted definition. It could mean almost anything you wanted it to mean. But here’s the deal. It is vague to the point of being opaque. We don’t know what it means.“

How does that confuse the issue? No one even today really knows just what a “flying saucer” or “UFO” is. Most would agree that it may or may not be an alien spaceship. Therefore, today. like in 1947, the term flying saucer or flying disc could mean whatever someone wants it to mean. My point is that the Air Force released an official press statement saying they recovered something they described as a flying disc-shaped object. Today, most people, believers and skeptics alike, would agree that description is of something which is 1) unidentified, 2) which flew and 3) which is an object. Hence, a UFO. What is so vague about that?

What is also clear beyond any doubt is what the Air Force did not say in the release. They did not say it was, or possibly could be, a weather balloon or secret military project.

 Kevin said:
“The Roswell press release told us nothing of real importance, provided little in the way of verification and had no photograph.”

Huh? If TODAY the Air Force were to issue a press release that they captured a “flying saucer” without providing any photograph, would you say, the press release “said nothing of real importance?” You claim lack of verification in the Roswell release. What? It identified Maj. Jesse Marcel, it said the debris was recovered “through the cooperation of one of the local ranchers and the sheriff's office of Chaves County," and it said the debris was “inspected by the Roswell Army Air Field.” What more verification should a newspaper article have?

You are a helicopter pilot. If a helicopter crashes and a press release says a helicopter crashed at a certain location, identifies the personnel and police department involved in the recovery of the crashed aircraft and mentions what governmental entity inspected the debris, would you say such press release meant nothing because it lacked a photograph and verification? Would you claim that such a release was “vague to the point of being opaque” and “we don't know what it means?”

09rja said...

From what I've heard/read, Easley's health and mental state was deteriorating quite rapidly when he said what he supposedly said to Roswell investigators.

In the case of Rowe, I find it very hard to believe the military would send a civilian fire company out to this. Why not their own fire personnel? Furthermore, this wasn't just a little outside of town....this was about 30 miles away.

KRandle said...

The Dimov-

Blanchard's ego had nothing to do with this. This idea that ego got in the way is simply wrong.

CDA-

You assume that the object found at Roswell had crashed a month earlier, which, of course, puts you in the Mogul camp. I will not go around again with the reasons that this is not the case. You can read about it on this blog, at other blogs which have various points of view, and in the Air Force report.

As for the shenanigans that you mention... which is essentially one hand not knowing that the other is doing... yes, I do believe those things happen. I've already explained how these things happen in a world of compartmentalize classification, but you are entitled to believe what you will.

Marcel was talking about finding the flying saucer BEFORE Friedman talked to him, so the idea that Friedman put the idea in his head is in error.

Reject Easley if you will (which, of course you do) but he was quite down to Earth.

SugarRayTaylor -

The problem here is that Easley didn't know what other had said, and wasn't aware of the coming explosion of Roswell material. In 1990, it wasn't everywhere as it is today. Besides, as a senior officer, he wasn't going to violate the oath he said he took years earlier. Just because others were talking about it, didn't mean that he was free to do so. Pappy Henderson, when he told his wife that since they were putting it in the paper, he could tell her what he had seen, was wrong. The compromise of classified information doesn't free those who were exposed to it through classified source to talk about it. He was telling me what he thought he could say without violating his oath.

In contrast, when I talked with General Cruishank about this, he said, simply, "I don't know who you are, I don't know what is still classified, and I'm not going to talk to you."

Louis -

There are no real details about the craft in the article. The original press release only mentions Marcel, who was not available in Roswell to answer questions. It doesn't describe what was found, and that it was "loaned" to higher headquarters. What more should it have had? Pictures of the object, descriptions of what the debris looked like, quotations from those involved in the recovery, information how it was discovered. The problem is that there is nothing there that tells us much of anything. It is bare bones, and if this recovery was of something extraordinary, I would expect much more about it. The Circleville story gave us much more in the way of information. That is why I suggest this press release gives us nothing of value. The Army didn't say they had an alien spacecraft, it just provides vague information, which today, confuses the issue.

Terry the Censor said...

> Roswell Documentation vs. Roswell Eyewitnesses

What little I know about Roswell is from reading this blog over the years and a couple late books, not from doing research or carefully reviewing the literature. But my reading of the Hill case suggests that pitting documents against people is too simple. That case got "better" over time, so I would like to make that factor more clear:

Contemporary government documents seem to agree with the witnesses testimony recorded at the time: the military did not possess a crashed alien saucer or alien bodies; witnesses at the time did not describe debris with definite "alien" qualities nor any alien bodies.

The "alien" qualities of the debris (see Kevin's summary copied immediately below) and the alien bodies seem not to be reported until many years later.

This debris included something that resembled fiber optics, a lead foil that seemed to have a memory, returning to its original shape when crumpled, and something that was as light a balsa but with a strength that rivaled steel.

Altered documents, or documents with no provenance, which appeared many years after the events, do corroborate these later "more alien" reports by witnesses. No contemporary documents nor the first wave of witness reports support or describe the later tales of "alien" debris or bodies.

> They all aren’t lying.

I agree there's no need to conclude that all the later witness reports must, thereby, be lies (except for the rare times when an individual has been caught lying or forging documents). We simply acknowledge there is no independent verification of the alien character of their stories -- no debris, no documents, nothing.

We just have stories. We are interested but we are not compelled.

Sugarraytaylor said...

Thanks for answering my questions, Kevin.

I recently stumbled across a re-run of an old Roswell documentary tonight on TV over here. Quite out of date, as evidenced when Kent Jeffrey came on still in the Pro ET Roswell camp. On the subject of Mr.Jeffrey Kevin, how does your current position on Roswell alter your criticism of the reasons why he no longer believed in the ET crash which he gave shortly before disappearing from the field?

From the Randle Report;

http://www.kochkyborg.de/Roswell/roswll07.htm

purrlgurrl said...

The bitter truth 71 years later . . . Roswell doesn't matter.

What will hasten the decline of Roswell is the passing of a generation that obsessed itself with this non-event that was all but totally forgotten until it was resurrected by Friedman et al decades after that ill thought-through press release in the summer of 1947.

Stanton Friedman's retirement will remove Roswell's highest profile ET advocate from the scene. Others will slowly follow because, let's be brutally honest, the "Roswell generation" is inexorably heading toward the sunset.

The UFO generations that follow will be obsessed with Tic Tac, Bigelow, AATIP, TTSA, and Tom DeLonge and his band of former government merry tricksters.

KRandle said...

09rja -

You shouldn't accept anything that Kal Korff, or those who quote him, as accurate. He confused the testimony of Edwin Easley, Curry Holden and Sheridan Cavitt, combining the testimony of these three into one, super quote that wasn't uttered by any of them.

As the only UFO researcher to ever talk to Easley, I will tell you that when I first called him, he was not ill, he was no confused, and he was articulate. When he made his comments to me about which path to follow, he was in full possession of his mental faculties. Even as h entered the terminal phase of his illness, there were no indications, according to his oncologist, that his mind was deteriorating... some have quoted his eye doctor (based on a supposed interview with him) that is contradicted by what Dr. Mark Rodegheir learned from the man.

Since the man who made these allegations did not talk to Easley at any point and his comments are in complete error, we can ignore them as ill-informed.

And the Roswell Fire Department did NOT make a run out to the crash site. According to J.C. Smith, an officer from the base (Smith said a colonel) told them that the base fire department would handle it. According to Smith, Dan Dwyer (Frankie Rowe's father) made the trip out in his private car... it was not an official visit, did not involve Roswell fire equipment and was not logged in the fire department's log book.

So, both these points are irrelevant and based on faulty or invented testimony of an anti-Roswell writer who has a habit of spinning tall tales, claimed military rank that he had not earned, and can't point to much in the way of original research on the Roswell case.

Adam S. said...

I have to second the idea that Roswell just doesn't matter now. They are far more interesting cases with better documentation. As someone else pointed out, even the Barney and Betty hill case has only gotten better/more intriguing as time has progressed. Let's also not forget the Bennewitz case on which much intriguing (indeed, disturbing) research has come to light.

Something crashed at Roswell and all "evidence" points to a classified government project which may or may not have been Project Mogul. Period. It's time to move on.

John Steiger said...

cda: A balloon crash did not cause the newfound gouge in the debris field at Foster Ranch. Go back to the drawing board.

Sugarraytaylor said...

Kevin, I have heard Don Ecker on several occasions make the point that Marcel Sr. was promoted in rank not long after the events of Roswell. The point being that had Marcel made such a blunder in mis-identifying an every day object as something “not from this Earth” , then it’s very unlikely that he would be promoted in rank as he was.
Again, these are not my thoughts, but being a long time listener to all of Don Eckers radio shows over the years, it is something which I have heard him say many times. I can’t remember Don ever mentioning this to you during your appearances on his shows, so I wanted to ask you what you thought about Don’s reasoning on this.

Sugarraytaylor said...

Kevin, I thought this may be of interest to you. Would love to know your thoughts on this.......
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6035613/Discovery-Channel-treasure-hunter-claims-hes-evidence-extra-terrestrial-visit.html

cda said...

Kevin:

Just to remind you: What has happened to the so-called diary of Jesse Marcel that you mentioned, which his grandson is said to possess? You know, the one that it was hoped would give Jesse's doings and thoughts during that critical time. Is this just another promised piece of evidence that turns out to be pie in the sky?

I cannot be the only one having sleepless nights worrying about it.

09rja said...

@KRandle.......I've heard this from other (non-Kal) sources....however, if you personally talked to him, that's good enough for me. (In terms of: I don't think you would be untruthful about what he said.) However I would prefer a diagnosis from a neurologist (rather than a oncologist) as to how lucid he was.

I'm a bit confused on your statement on Rowe. You say that: Dan Dwyer (Frankie Rowe's father) made the trip out in his private car... it was not an official visit, did not involve Roswell fire equipment and was not logged in the fire department's log book.

However in your book ('The Truth About The UFO Crash AT Roswell', 1994) you state that: As she recalls, the fire department, or rather one of the trucks, responded to a call early on the morning of July 5, 1947. "Daddy was on the crew that went," she said. (p.17)

Then you state that there was some state police and Roswell police there.

You also say (in the same book (on p.161) that "[Sheriff] Wilcox calls the local fire department to alert them about the crash. One truck, with Dan Dawyer on it, responds to the call." [emphasis added]

Sounds to me like it was more than Dawyer and not his personal car that made the visit. (At least according to the original story.) Equally suspicious is the fact one of the (ever elusive) archaeologists (who were at the supposed second crash site) is who supposedly phoned the sheriff. (Where exactly they found a phone out there is anyone's guess.)

KRandle said...

09rja -

I'd like to know those "non-Korff" sources on this and if the information can be traced back to Korff. As far as I know, I'm the only one who talked to him, on several occasions, and those were before he became ill. Korff's interview with Easley's doctor was with his eye doctor (who was also Easley's friend) and given Korff's habit of inventing information, I would reject it out of hand... but here we have an opportunity to chase a footnote or two to see where the information originated.

The information about Dwyer was developed after the book was written. I had been trying to find records that showed a Roswell Fire Department run out there. It was only after Karl Pflock noted in his book that he had spoken to three members of the fire department, that I had the chance to interview J. C. Smith. He was the one who said they didn't make an official run out to the site... when I asked if he knew Dwyer, he said, that yeah, he'd gone out there in his private car.

There is no evidence that I could find that the fire department went out there. The Army said they had it covered. That cleaned up the confusion about who had traveled out there because of the evidence of a fire.

KRandle said...

CDA -

As soon as the results are known, I will publish them. Given the way the Marcels talked about this, I was under the impression that the results wouldn't be learned for several weeks, possibly months. Forensic testing does take a while.

09rja said...

@KRandle, IIRC it was Robert Todd (via Saucer Smear back in the mid-90's). As I recall the article, Easley's family (not Easley himself) had been spoken to by Todd and they didn't exactly give ringing endorsements for his memory at that point. Todd and Korff have collaborated before so that may not put him "non-Korff" enough for you. (We've invented a new term here with the "non-Korff" stuff.) Korff did use Todd's research quite a bit.

As far as Rowe goes....here we have conflicting versions of the event. And that is troubling (but typical as far as this goes). One questionable aspect of it (to me) is why the original proponents of this (Jean and Vern Maltais) didn't mention that Barney Barnett told them this part. Their story was the military and the archeologists being there. Nothing about cops, fireman, etc.

Paul Young said...

Kevin...
I wonder what your opinion is over the comment attributed to Blanchard, by William Brainerd, concerning the wreckage, which went along the lines of (and I'm paraphrasing here) "it was the damnedest thing I ever saw,”

If this quote is accurate...and If that stuff photographed in Ramey's office was the damnedest thing Blanchard had ever seen, then all I can say is he mustn't have gotten out of his house very often.

To my mind, it can only mean that, what Blanchard saw at Roswell immediately prior to the press release, was something very different to what Ramey was displaying in his office.

Nitram said...

Dr Randle wrote:

"Given the way the Marcels talked about this, I was under the impression that the results wouldn't be learned for several weeks, possibly months. Forensic testing does take a while."

The Debunkers do have a point that it doesn't take long to find the entries from June/July 1947. There are either some entries or not.

If it doesn't say anything meaningful, no forensic testing is probably needed.
If something related to a crash is mentioned, then yes, it will take time to get it tested but we should at least be able to read it in a few seconds unlikely the bleary piece of paper in Ramey's hand.

Really, I'm sure someone has the answer already and now we have this long, at least as I see it, rather drawn out process...

Regards
Nitram

Gal220 said...

Personally I dont see any skeptic getting upset with this blog post, I think your last entry just has some details that are hard to overcome. If McCoy should have known, its case closed and they will hang their hat there.

However, how likely is it that after the discovery, they assign a team to look into it that didnt include McCoy? They dont want any leaks whatsoever, so they exclude everyone unless they have an absolute need to know. How solid is your belief that McCoy would be in the know?

If it was just a balloon or something easily identifiable, why even bother collecting it and shipping it back to Wright-Patterson?

Adam S. said...

Kevin,

I have to admit that there is one aspect of the Roswell mystery that still strikes me as intriguing...

Mac Brazel, the rancher who found and handled the debris, apparently WAS quarantined on the Roswell base for a week after the incident occurred and during that time was apparently subjected to at least one medical exam.

If true, this suggests the possibility that they were concerned about his health and this concern could have been triggered by his exposure to whatever crashed on the property. To say it is something extraterrestrial is of course an extrapolation, but it also brings into question that if something like Project Mogul was responsible, WHY would it be necessary to quarantine the primary witness?

Again, only if this part of the account is true.





John Steiger said...

purrlgurrl/Adam S.: Not only does Roswell still matter, but in fact, Roswell matters greatly because it endures as the best example of an alien spacecraft crash in which both spacecraft and alien biological remains were recovered, and secreted away by the U.S. military -- an ongoing action which continues through to the present-day and into the foreseeable future.

KRandle said...

09rja -

Part One -

Okay, I’ve tried to chase this to the source, that is, someone other than Korff making the claim about Edwin Easley. I went back to his lousy book and noticed the first thing that he got wrong was that I had claimed that Easley’s remarks were “death bed.” I never said anything like that, though I did mention that not long before he died, his granddaughter had asked him about Roswell and according to eye surgeon Dr. Harold Granik, he replied, “Oh the creatures.”

But the truth is that I first spoke to Easley in October 1989, years before he became sick. When he made the creatures comment, according to the information gather by Mark Rodeghier, Granik said that Easley was lucid, “because the disease did not cause any general deterioration of his mental faculties.”

The trouble comes from Korff. I checked his footnote in the paragraph in which he made the claim, which said, “According to Easley’s family, he was quite advanced in age when he spoke with Randle. His memory was failing him and Easley tended to place himself in events at which he was not present.”

The footnote said that the information came from Dr. Harold Granich, who Korff identified as Easley’s physician. But it is unclear when Granik learned this information, and what information should be attributed to the family and what to Granik… though it seems that since Granik was the source, the idea that Easley was somehow confused is rejected.

KRandle said...

09rja -

Part Two -

So, let’s unpack this. First, it seems that Granik was not Easley’s physician but actually knew Easley’s daughter, an attorney at one of the hospitals where Granik practiced. He contacted a friend, Scott Hynek, who Granik knew from college, and the information was passed onto Rodeghier.

But worse, is that Korff has confused information supplied by Dr. Jane Kelly, Dr. W. Curry Holden’s daughter, with that about Easley. Kelly was the one who suggested that her father sometimes jumbled his memories and would put himself in events at which he was not present. So that information couldn’t have come from Granik as Korff said, but came from Kelly about Holden and not Easley.

I have gone through Korff’s outrageously erroneous book, Karl Pflock’s book and Phil Klass’s book. Only Korff deals with this, and only Korff got so much of the information wrong. I have tried to chase this down through Robert Todd’s writing and have found nothing. But then, I haven’t gone through all the Saucer Smears, only through his Cowflop and then Spot Reports and pages and pages of correspondence with many others.

At any rate, we can reject Korff’s unsubstantiated claims as wrong, given the circumstances, and given that he has mischaracterized the timing of my interviews with Easley. I said nothing about “death bed” confessions, and have pointed out that these apply to criminal activity. They have nothing to do with the situation here. Unless we can find something else that doesn’t trace back to Korff, I think we have ended this area of discussion.

KRandle said...

Adam S -

Mack Brazel was kept at the base for four to six days, according to his son, his neighbors, and the provost marshal. I don't believe quarantined is the right word here. He complained about being in jail, but the provost marshal said he was kept at the base guest house.

KRandle said...

Gal 220 -

Given the circumstances at the time, given who McCoy was, given that he had been studying these phenomena since WWII, and given that he was Nathan Twining's intelligence officer, he should have been in the loop. The situation dictates that McCoy was in the inner circle, and I can think of no good reason he would have been left out.

Louis Nicholson said...

Paul Young said:
“Kevin... 
I wonder what your opinion is over the comment attributed to Blanchard, by William Brainerd, concerning the wreckage, which went along the lines of (and I'm paraphrasing here) "it was the damnedest thing I ever saw.”

This is VERY interesting if true. In trying to find more about this quote, I ran across an alleged 1993 affidavit of Arthur McQuiddy, editor of the Roswell Morning Dispatch. Kal Pflock, Roswell in Prospective (1994) is the named source of the affidavit.(http://roswellproof.homestead.com/McQuiddy.html). It states that he and Col. Blanchard were good friends and three or four months after the incident:

 “Blanchard reluctantly admitted he had authorized the press release.  Then, as best I remember, he said, "I will tell you this and nothing more.  The stuff I saw, I've never seen anyplace else in my life."  That was all he would say, and he never told me anything else about the matter.”

Does anyone have any information concerning this affidavit or any other statements Blanchard gave about the incident? Paul's mention of his statement is the first I've ever heard of it.

09rja said...

"Only Korff deals with this, and only Korff got so much of the information wrong. I have tried to chase this down through Robert Todd’s writing and have found nothing. But then, I haven’t gone through all the Saucer Smears, only through his Cowflop and then Spot Reports and pages and pages of correspondence with many others."~KRandle

Like I said: Saucer Smear is where I remember seeing it.

But there are plenty of other reasons do doubt Easley's story. In your book ('The Truth About The UFO Crash At Roswell', 1994) you state: Repeatedly he said, "I can't talk about it. I was sworn to secrecy."[51] But more important, Easley told family members why he could not talk about the case. He'd promised the president that he would never reveal what he had seen. [52] But Easley knew what he had seen, confirming that the craft had been extraterrestrial in origin.[53]

Citation #53 is a June 1990 interview. Ok so he doesn't tell family or anyone else for over 40 years (to keep a promise to the President).....but he tells Kevin Randle after just a couple of interviews?! Sounds pretty odd to me.

As far as I know, there is no tape of Easley saying this either.....again: I believe you in that he said it.....but it would still be great to hear something to get a idea as to the context and his condition. Even if he was perfectly "all there"....Easley was quite ill by this point and who knows what medication he was taking and what that would result in. My grandmother was as mentally sharp as it gets....but when she got ill, all the meds had her saying all sorts of stuff towards the end. A dying guy isn't the best witness in the world.

KRandle said...

09rja -

No, no, no. You can't get off the hook this way. You remember seeing something about it in Saucer Smear, but provide no other information. You remember it but can't produce it. You use it to smear (yeah, I used that word on purpose here given your remembered source) Edwin Easley. But you do not acknowledge that Korff's information is wrong, he combined family memories of the Easleys and the Holdens, that he used information from Dr. Granich, which we can't verify, but mine came from Dr. Granik by way of Mark Rodeghier, so I'm not the original source on this. I can't find any other source to back up Korff on this. It is an unfair criticism, not to mention that Korff's timing is off. Easley talked to me before he became ill.

And I have explained this two dozen times. Easley didn't talk about it for 42 years because no one had asked him about for 42 years. He was very cautious in what he said to me, telling me, repeatedly, as you noticed, that he couldn't talk about it. But I also think he wanted to help as much as he could. He avoided direct questions about the craft, but did answer those that dealt with items he did not consider part of the oath he had taken. For example, he didn't mind telling my that Mack Brazel had been held in the guest house on the base.

There is no tape of this one interview because I was at CUFOS, using their telephone. I took notes, and the instant I hung up, I broke into the board meeting to tell them what Easley had said, so there are, sort of, witnesses to this. I do have my notes about this taken that very day.

I fully expected to talk with him again. Mark Rodeghier, who had business in Fort Worth, asked me to arrange a meeting for him. I thought it would be great to have another person hear this. However, and unfortunately, Easley became ill not long after this, so I didn't speak to him and Mark didn't get to meet him.

But the real point is that your grandmother's experience is not the same as a doctor's judgement about the mental ability of a patient. Dr. Granik said he was lucid... But the real point is that he WASN'T ill when he made the comment about not following the wrong path. Korff was wrong about that, as he was about so much else. If you can't find another source to suggest that Easley was ill when he talked to me, then the point is disproved.

09rja said...

"You use it to smear (yeah, I used that word on purpose here given your remembered source) Edwin Easley.~KRandle

Nobody is smearing Easley. Certainly not me. I thought that sort of stuff was beneath you Kevin.

"Easley talked to me before he became ill."~KRandle

Easley didn't say anything to you about a alien the first time you talked. You yourself noted on this blog that after his ET "admission" that "Easley, as far as I knew, was in good health.

As far as you know? That's not particularly encouraging. No offense but you are not his physician. And why/how exactly would the eye physician be qualified to know this? Does the guy moonlight as a neurologist? Was he treating Easley for his cancer?

Anonymous said...

The Briley story has always bothered me. I've worked under a number of S-3s. I've never known one to be misleading when you're on to something but they can't really get into detail about how you're on the right track because of politics or whatever. After all, it's their job to herd cats and at Brigade level or higher, it's a tall order. I mean maybe modern INSCOM is different than how things were with the AAF in 1947 but I really don't think so, if anything the job back then is more similar to how it was in 2005-2010. It's war in everything but name and the Armed Forces were in a similar state of flux.

Same kind of thing with a Provost Marshal. The Counterintelligence Officer I don't know about. In my experience they were always straight shooters but that's not everyone's experience with dealing with their modern descendents, but the fact that the S-3 and the Provost Marshal seem to be telling the same story, before even considering Marcel, makes me lean toward thinking the Army had no idea what they were dealing with, and probably still do not.

It's a modified version of Hanlon's Razor: Never ascribe to conspiracy what can be explained through ignorance.

Just my two cents.

V/r

Franklin Adams

Sugarraytaylor said...

If Roswell is “the best example of an Alien crash in which spacecraft and biological remains were recovered” then that doesn’t say much at all about the crash retrieval subject.

No matter how much information and documentation you ignore the FACT remains that something came down and the evidence of it being an Alien craft is shaky at best.

The whole thing has been a mess from the start. The fact that the late 80s definition of “Flying Saucer” was different to that of 1947 greatly contributed to this mess.

However I do agree it is important, but for very different reasons. We can learn a lot from it. People will insert themselves into these stories even though they have nothing to gain, context is extremely important as evidenced by the retro fitting of the term flying saucer in regards to this case 40 years after it happened.
We also have to remember when we make mistakes, and always go back to check sources properly because not everyone has the same amount of journalistic integrity as Mr Randle, who has done a marvellous job in going back to the research work done at the time and “cleaning up the mess we made” . Those are Kevin’s words I heard him say in a radio interview on the subject of Roswell in the 21st century.

Sugarraytaylor said...

Another thing worth remembering is that while Saucer Smear was entertaining, it was far from being a shining example of investigative journalism at times. Moseley often printed things which just weren’t true if it meant he could make a punchline out of it or to stir up the gossip pot. Ask Don Ecker, a Vietnam veteran who Moseley more or less accused of Stolen Valour after crackpot and all around asshole Bill Cooper made one drunken comment about Ecker’s service without even bothering to check Don’s very legitimate military background. Something which he never retracted or apologised for.

09rja said...

Saucer Smear didn't always print things I agree with either.....but it was the first (that I recall) to make public the issues with Jesse Marcel's claims about his background vs. the facts. That's something a whole bunch of pro-ET Roswell failed to do.

cda said...

09RJA:

I wonder if you have read the transcript of Kevin's interview with Major Edwin Easley on Jan 11, 1990, as given in his book "Roswell UFO Crash Update". It is on p.157-161. It is worth reading, if only to show how little Easley said. He keeps falling back on his 'get out' of "I can't answer that".

In fact this transcript strongly suggests that Easley was never at the crash site at all. At one point, after saying several times that he (Easley) was sworn to secrecy, Kevin tells him that one of the counter-intelligence agents told him "that the Provost Marshal [i.e. Easley] was on the crash site". Easley responds: "He doesn't know what he's talking about".

You can make what you like of this interview. Personally it strikes me as one of the most useless interviews ever conducted over the Roswell affair.

Easley was "sworn to secrecy", so he says repeatedly. More likely he used this as an excuse because he simply couldn't remember anything about it, and didn't want to get involved in the affair decades later.

09rja said...

@ CDA:

I vaguely recall the interview. But even taking this on it's face.....the logic of it escapes me. He's promised the President to never reveal it.....but he reveals it because he's asked?! (Sure Harry S., I'll never tell....unless someone asks.) Mighty strange.

And this is why I question his health at the time. There was no follow up because he was too sick. A year and a half after this admission, he was dead.

KRandle said...

09rja -

Gees, you didn’t get the joke… You said you remembered the tale from Saucer Smear and I said that you smeared Easley… get it? Saucer Smear?

What you have presented is no evidence. You remember something but you don’t have a copy of it. You think it might have been from Robert Todd, but you don’t know. All I have been able to find is Korff’s reference to this which is riddled with errors. He attributed it to Harold Granish, but according to Rodeghier, Granik said something completely different. You then question Granik’s ability to make the judgement, though he is a doctor, did know the family, and can speak with some authority about the topic.

Korff, on the other hand, makes up stuff to suit his opinion, has been caught in all sorts of lies from his claim to have a contract to write 500 (yes, five hundred) books, to being a captain promoted overnight to colonel in a military organization that only he knows about, to shading the truth, threatening lawsuits at the drop of a hat and dozens of other things.

You seem to resist the idea that I talked to Easley years before he got sick, that the critical statement about not following the wrong path was made at that time. You ignore the fact that Korff confused the testimony (statements?) of Jane Kelly with those of Easley’s family. Instead you argue that your grandmother became confused because of the meds she was on, assuming, for no reason, that Easley suffered the same fate… even when Granik said that he was lucid at the end. I have nothing from the family to suggest that Easley was not fully aware and lucid in my communications with them after he had died.

Now, unless you can produce something other than a memory of an article in Saucer Smear (which, BTW, Moseley often wrote with tongue in cheek, and printed provocative statements to generate discussion), then I don’t see your point. All the evidence suggests that there was nothing wrong with Easley’s mental abilities when I spoke with him, and nothing other than Korff’s completely false allegations

KRandle said...

CDA -

The discussion was about Easley's state of mind, questioned because of a half remembered statement in Saucer Smear, what, two decades ago. The question of Easley's mental ability was raised by someone who had never met him, never talked to the family, and confused Jane Kelly's statements with those of the Easley family. Now you want to direct the discussion to a different place. Nope. Stay on topic.

KRandle said...

09rja -

He didn't reveal much of anything to us. The big claim was that we were not on the wrong path. I always had the impression that he was caught between what he had said in 1947 and not wanting to lie in the 1990s. He didn't answer specific questions and talked about the points. I think that anyone who had talked to him would have come away with the same impression.

I don't know if you are deliberately misreading things or if I haven't been as clear as I could have been. You wondered why he had not said anything about this for 42 years and I said because no one had asked him about it. Had they asked earlier, then he probably would have said much the same thing. I was explaining why he hadn't talked about it before then.

Pappy Henderson told his wife about the crash some 31 years after the fact, having said nothing to her before then. The trigger? He saw a story in a tabloid about the crash and said to her, "I've wanted to tell you about this for years." The point is he didn't say anything until he saw the story was out. That changes things.

Here's the real point, one last time. You said that Easley was confused or mentally unable to give us accurate information based on something you read two decades ago. I pointed out that he was lucid when I talked to him, Dr. Granik said he was lucid, and the family said that he was lucid up to the end. If you wish to reject that, fine, but you have nothing to suggest otherwise.

09rja said...

Gees, you didn’t get the joke…~KRandle

Oh I got it.....but I didn't even want it implied without me answering it.

What you have presented is no evidence. You remember something but you don’t have a copy of it. You think it might have been from Robert Todd, but you don’t know.~KRandle

Probably why I began the comment with "IIRC". But we don't need the article to really question this story. (As I have noted elsewhere.)

You then question Granik’s ability to make the judgement, though he is a doctor, did know the family, and can speak with some authority about the topic.~KRandle

Not a neurologist and wasn't treating him for his cancer. My money is on him spending very little time around Easley. How much time did the family say they spent around him?

You seem to resist the idea that I talked to Easley years before he got sick, that the critical statement about not following the wrong path was made at that time.~KRandle

You couldn't do a follow up interview after the admission right? Why? Because he was too sick. He was dead a year and a half after that. So any reasonable person would question that. He just happened to get sick after this point? Mighty convenient.

Korff, on the other hand, makes up stuff to suit his opinion, has been caught in all sorts of lies....~KRandle

No offense, but you got to get past this Korff hang up you are on. He comes up and you react like that girl in the Exorcist movie when she gets splashed with holy water. (Not that I am saying Korff is holy by the way, far from it.)

You can look at this story based on your version and see holes. (No Korff required.)

cda said...

Re Easley's state of health, there were three interviews with him, according to the references in Kevin's Roswell books. Only one interview has the transcript printed. I ask any rational person to read that transcript and decide for himself if:

(i) Easley had ever seen any bodies
(ii) Easley had ever been to the crash site
(iii) Easley had ever spoken to the President (presumably Harry Truman)

I have read and reread that transcript (and other quotes from Easley in the above books) and have reluctantly concluded that his information about the 'crash' is worthless, whether he was lucid or not.

But of course others may disagree.

Sugarraytaylor said...

I don’t believe Kevin has a “Korff hang up”.
You do realise that whenever someone cites a pathological liar, theif and borderline stalker as a reference then it’s bound to raise a few eyebrows to say the least, don’t you?

Not only in print, but he has also been caught out live on air making false accusations. Most famously when he made certain claims about Art Bell during his time as a sidekick to Rob McConnel. Art got Korff to call into his radio show the following week and really made him squirm, forcing him to Admit he made the whole thing up. Don Ecker done a fabulous deconstruction of Korff on his radio show when he was with DQRM. It was incredible and showed him for what he is. He makes things up, this is documented many times.

KRandle said...

09rja -

Let's see if I get this. You reject the information about Easley because he became sick and his medication had warped his view of the world... made with no actual proof of this, other than opinion.

You reject the observations of Dr. Granik because he was an eye surgeon and probably didn't spent much time with Easley, though he did know the family and his observations are worth more than idle speculation.

You reject Easley because I didn't follow up on his comments... but the truth of the matter is that I saw no urgency in getting back to him because, in that interview, there was no hint that he was sick. I believed that there was time for the follow up. Turned out that I was wrong about that.

While you might see holes in Easley's story, these holes seem to be based on inaccurate information about the time line, what Easley said, and a perceived desire (on your part) to reject the tale without proper foundation.

KRandle said...

SugarRayTaylor -

In all fairness here, 09rja didn't mention Korff, only that he had read, he believed, in Saucer Smear that Easley's health problems had affected his mental state. I did not have the Saucer Smear reference and couldn't find it but did find Korff saying the same thing in his worthless book. It was Korff who claimed that he had gotten the information directly from Dr. Granich (sic) so that, for the purposes here, that is the original source. I did sort of challenge 09rja to come up with the Saucer Smear reference, which he hasn't done, and for our purposes, I'm not sure it is relevant. I think that if someone does find it, we'll learn that it comes from Korff.

09rja is certainly free to accept what evidence he wishes to accept, just as I'm free to suggest that a look at all the evidence is important. I spoke with Easley and as far as I know, no one else did. I believe that had he not made the remark about us (Don Schmitt and me) not following the wrong path, then all we would have learned from him, first hand, was that he had been sworn to secrecy, he didn't really want to talk about it, and that Mack Brazel had been kept in the guest house on base, we wouldn't even be having this discussion.

Brian B said...

Easley’s comments.....

Kevin I wouldn’t read too much into Easily’s response to your (then) question whether your theory the Roswell incident was ET in nature.

As you state, Easley was reluctant to say anything, didn’t grant many interviews, and felt bonded to his 1947 security oath. If that be the case, he wasn’t going to say “yes it was” nor was he going to say “no it wasn’t”. If the man didn’t want to talk about it and didn’t want to influence anyone one way or the other, he might have easily decided the best way to politely handle your question was to give an ambiguous response so as to be as obscure as possible.

For example, let’s try your question in reverse.

If you had asked Easley if you were following the wrong path, he might have easily said, “Well, let me put it this way, it’s not the right path.”

Does that really mean you’re absolutely wrong?

That kind of response is equally ambiguous and gives no real answer at all. So if he was loyal to his oath, as you say, then he was most likely going to give an ambiguous response that really didn’t answer anything. Instead, he left it up to you to interpret just what he meant.

IMO, all he really did was restate the premise of your question back to you. It doesn’t really confirm anything, other than it let’s you leave the interview with your original thoughts unaltered and therefore not influenced by anything he shared with you.

Make sense?

Regarding his claims of “alien bodies” , it’s important to point out that you admit that this claim is nothing but second hand testimony. Second hand testimony that you typically reject as definitive proof of anything.

That testimony is clearly from family members who were aware of the claims made by Kaufmann, Haut, and others who’s statements have all been proven false and embellished (or popularized) by the Roswell myth stories.

“Yup, old granddad (or dad) saw the aliens...”... Sure he did!

So either Easely was loyal to his security oath, like you claim, or he wasn’t loyal at all. Blabbing to his family members about national security issues that he wouldn’t tell you about? Really? I doubt it.

Now before anyone says, “OK, so he was just being ambiguous on purpose — that just PROVES he was HIDING something!”. Well, no it doesn’t.

For all we know, given his reluctance to speak about the Roswell issue at all, he may have simply given you a response that purposely lead you down a silly path.

Brian B said...

@John Steiger:

“Not only does Roswell still matter, but in fact, Roswell matters greatly because it endures as the best example of an alien spacecraft crash in which both spacecraft and alien biological remains were recovered, and secreted away by the U.S. military,”

Really? You have as much proof of that as me saying that I was recruited at age 19 to serve and be trained by the USMC Space Force (on the moon) to fight a war against aliens on Mars! It’s true John! It’s true! Seven consecutive tours of duty on Mars! But I swore an oath to the President (Reagan at the time) that I wouldn’t ever tell anyone about it. I did tell all my family members though. And if you ask me if you’re on the right path to discovering the truth about NASA and Mars, I have to simply say, “Well let’s just say you’re not on the wrong path”.

@09rja

Well, I agree. I’ve always been of the opinion ANY and ALL witnesses claiming to have encountered aliens be medically examined, or at the very least release their medical histories to investigators. Any number of things can influence a person, young or old, but especially the elderly, to say something odd or to agree with someone. I know this because my wife is a physician, and her experience is such that medications, or the failure to take them properly, can significantly alter a person’s personality, mood, temper, and memory. If Easely was fighting cancer, he didn’t just “fall ill” over night. Given his age, he probably had other medical issues as well. His eye doctor may have known and treated him, but not for issues related to internal medicine. It doesn’t work that way.

@CDA

Yes, way too much is being stoked into Easley’s comment to Kevin. As if the entire truth of Roswell were almost clinging to it by bare fingernails!

On Korff —

Being skeptical that Roswell had anything to do with ETs, I believe Korff was a prime example of a goof ball who had no idea what he was doing.

09rja said...

I have read and reread that transcript (and other quotes from Easley in the above books) and have reluctantly concluded that his information about the 'crash' is worthless, whether he was lucid or not.~CDA

I hear you CDA. But this is giving full credit to the Easley admits ETs scenario here. That's what these guys are getting at.....so I'm taking it head on.

I don’t believe Kevin has a “Korff hang up”.~SugarRayTaylor

Note the fact I didn't even bring the guy into this....so I'd say you are wrong.

You do realise that whenever someone cites a pathological liar, theif and borderline stalker as a reference then it’s bound to raise a few eyebrows to say the least, don’t you?~SugarRayTaylor

Too bad I didn't cite him. But if you want to talk about liars, thieves, etc....there are plenty of guys on the other side of the aisle to talk about. (Starting with Don Schmitt and what he claimed about his back ground vs. the facts.)

Let's see if I get this. You reject the information about Easley because he became sick and his medication had warped his view of the world... made with no actual proof of this, other than opinion.

You reject the observations of Dr. Granik because he was an eye surgeon and probably didn't spent much time with Easley, though he did know the family and his observations are worth more than idle speculation.

You reject Easley because I didn't follow up on his comments... but the truth of the matter is that I saw no urgency in getting back to him because, in that interview, there was no hint that he was sick. I believed that there was time for the follow up. Turned out that I was wrong about that.
~KRandle

Again I ask: how much time did Easley (and his family) really spend with this eye doctor. Most people aren't buddies with their optometrists. So that needs some qualification (especially around the time he got ill). Saying he knew Easley and the family isn't saying much because I (and my family) "know" a optometrist myself.....but the fact is: I see him about once every 3-5 years.

I don't know what his state of mind was. And the fact of the matter is: you don't either. A guy whom you couldn't even follow up with because he was too ill leaves me with (I think) some reasonable questions.

I think that if someone does find it, we'll learn that it comes from Korff.~KRandle

Yeah, no hang up here.

Anonymous said...

Everyone is stuck in the past.

Why not ask President Trump, before he leaves office? He surely wants to go out with a bang. Someone just has to place the bug in his ear, Putin style. Does anyone want to volunteer to go on Fox, and talk to Tucker? Although, this will have to be done soon as things appear to be set to wrap up.

Or, now that the National Equirier’s (NE) vault is open, it may be a time machine transporting us to the beginning of the NE’s Roswell story. Any agreements regarding silence are now no longer enforceable. Maybe there are notes about Roswell. Maybe, it will point to where the bodies are buried, or where the saucer is parked.

There will be opportunities to make money from the leaks from the NE’s vault, and reliable sources offering to tell their story.

Capt Steve said...

CDA,

Bluebook and Roswell can co-exist rather well.

Roswell was about recovering the hardware; Bluebook (and Stork) gathered reports which could reveal how that hardware was being *used*.

It's not enough to know that an opponent or foreign country has a new tank or airplane. You also want to know what that hardware is capable of and its intended use.

Nitram said...

09rja wrote:

"Too bad I didn't cite him. But if you want to talk about liars, thieves, etc....there are plenty of guys on the other side of the aisle to talk about."

Firstly it is clear that you were referring to Korff, although I'm unsure what websites you have been visiting...
As for the "other guys", yes some of them have made mistakes in the past - unlike Korff, they have admitted to this.

I think that if someone does find it, we'll learn that it comes from Korff.~KRandle

"Yeah, no hang up here."

Maybe - but I would be betting that Kevin is probably right!

John Steiger said...

cda: I disagree with your analysis of Easley's information -- limited as Easley's information may be. Please inject some logic: If there had been nothing extraordinary, Easley would have stated so, as Cavitt attempted to do after at first denying both 1) even being at Roswell in July 1947 and then 2) denying his participation in any off the base investigation, before claiming the crash was a balloon. Instead, rather than lie, Easley's integrity and his loyalty to his security oath, neither permitted him to lie nor to confirm the full extent of his involvement at the crash sites. Because there was something extraordinary, Easley fell back on his security oath to keep from having to fully disclose all that he saw and experienced at the crash sites.

Brian Bell: Yes, really.

Unknown said...

KR said:

"I have never understood the reason for the press release."

From reading this blog for several years, I seem to recall that Blanchard and Ramey had had telephone communication earlier in the morning before the press release, and that Marcel was in the air in a B-29 to FW before the press release. The press release was made in time to make a nationwide splash for a few hours, and then came the counterpress from Ramey that it was just balloon debris. Sounds like it could have been a fairly coordinated operation to me.

I'd suggest that context is key. Just as one possible exammple, Klaus Fuchs was a spy for the USSR and had worked at Los Alamos until late '46.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaus_Fuchs

It wasn't until 1950 that Fuchs finally turned himself in to western authorities. And it was just several months after Fuchs turned himself in that the famous "Wilbert Smith memo" was written which said that UFOs were classified higher than the h-bomb. I think the Wilbert Smith memo is real, but I think this bit of information is counter intelligence to get soviet spys on a trail of anything but US nuclear capabilitites. Why would anyone ever compare the secrecy ratings of either h-bombs or UFOs in a "memo". I would guess they'd do that in the hopes that leaky Canadian officials would help get soviet spys pointed in directions that western allies wanted. As I recall, the first h-bomb wasn't even exploded until 1952, so why would Smith's memo even compare h-bombs to UFOs?

So, a few years earlier, it seems highly reasonable to me that US officials did a similar thing at Roswell, to point soviet atomic spys in the wrong direction. Whatever foo fighters, ghost rockets or flying saucers were, they were not destroying cities like Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Also note that this ruse would not disprove the reality of UFOs. If they weren't some actual phenomena then the soviets would have no reason to waste time using their resources to look into the matter. So it seems reasonable to believe that US authorities may have used the real, mostly benign UFO phenomenon as part of their intel operation. If this is possible, then Easley could have had these kinds of thoughts in mind with his comment about being on the right path.

Just a thought.

09rja said...

"Firstly it is clear that you were referring to Korff, although I'm unsure what websites you have been visiting..."~Nitram ANG

Didn't read my posts (in their entirety) did you? I named who I was referring to.....and it wasn't Korff.

It is great to watch him come up and see all the buffs go nuts like the girl in the Exorcist. (It burns. Oh it burns!)

"As for the "other guys", yes some of them have made mistakes in the past - unlike Korff, they have admitted to this."~Nitram Ang

So Schmitt has admitted lying about his background? Good. Now if all of them own up to the fact they got taken for rides by the so-called Roswell "witnesses" we can put this one to bed.

Sugarraytaylor said...

“No offence, but you got to get past this Korff hang up you are on”

You absolutely did say he had a Korff hang up. Making reference to Regan McNeil from the Exorcist not once but twice, and it wasn’t funny the first time you said it.

There absolutely are frauds on both sides, actually there’s more of them on the pro ET Roswell side, so you’re barking up the wrong tree thinking that I’m some Roswell apologist. I don’t even think it was extraterrestrial. The only reason why I don’t discount Easleys comments is because of Kevin Randle’s military experience and honesty where it comes to his current position on Roswell. Roswell in the 21st century took a lot of integrity and honesty to say “I was wrong on a lot of this” which essentially is what Kevin was saying that it’s not anywhere near as robust as it once was to him. Between his honesty and his military background then I put Easleys comments in my Grey basket.

No point referencing Don Schmitt to me because I have hit Don Schmitt harder than anyone wherever I can for his lying about his background then claiming Kevin was a government plant etc as well as the Roswell Slides debacle.

Anyway you absolutely did say he had a Korff hang up, in the future you should go back and read your own comments before denying that you said something.

09rja said...

You absolutely did say he had a Korff hang up.~SugarRayTaylor

No kidding.

"Making reference to Regan McNeil from the Exorcist not once but twice, and it wasn’t funny the first time you said it."~SugarRayTaylor

I personally thought it was hilarious.....I giggled out loud at the the image of Korff in a preacher's outfit. (He may have claimed he was that at some point as well.)

"There absolutely are frauds on both sides, actually there’s more of them on the pro ET Roswell side, so you’re barking up the wrong tree thinking that I’m some Roswell apologist. I don’t even think it was extraterrestrial."~SugarRayTaylor

Encouraging to hear.

"Anyway you absolutely did say he had a Korff hang up, in the future you should go back and read your own comments before denying that you said something."~SugarRayTaylor

Help me out here: point out exactly where I denied stating Kevin had a "Korff hang up". All I did was point out the fact I did not bring Korff up first in this.

Anonymous said...

There's nothing complicated about the press release. Haut did it himself off his own bat, as Marcel said. It's Haut's ego on being involved in the greatest event in human history that causes this not Blanchard's. Blanchard later claimed responsibility for it because, as the Commanding Officer, the buck for cockups landed on his desk. He graciously owned it on behalf of Haut and so took the rap on himself.

Conspiracy theories that the story was planted to cover up the second site discovery etc etc are not only illogical but over-complicated nonsense.

KRandle said...

Anonymous -

Haut did no such thing. It is clear from the documentation and the various testimonies that Haut was ordered to make the press release. Marcel was wrong on this point. He believed it to be true, but he was in no position to know exactly what happened outside of what was going on in his own office.