Back
in 1988, when Don Schmitt and I began our investigation into the Roswell case,
there were no documents available, other than newspaper articles and a single
report from the FBI. The newspaper reports were less than accurate with
misspellings of names, and descriptions of the debris. The FBI document, which
was based on an interview with Major Kirton (misspelled as Curtan in the FBI
report) suggested that the object found was a weather balloon and a radar
reflector. It also mentioned that this analysis was not verified by other
sources.
It
is unclear in the report if the FBI called the 8th Air Force to find
out what was happening or if Kirton had called the FBI to tell them about the
recovery. Given the timing of the telex and breaking news, it is more likely
that Kirton had called the FBI. That actually isn’t overly important here. I
just thought I would mention it as an interesting observation.
Neither
the newspaper articles nor the FBI telex do anything to help us understand the
Roswell case. There is too little information in them for any conclusive
analysis. We are left with questions about the identity of the object found and
both the telex and the newspapers can be used to support almost any explanation
for Roswell.
But
that isn’t the whole story and here I will probably annoy my pals who accept
Roswell as an alien spacecraft crash, and may even offend those who believe the
answer can be found somewhere on Earth. Since Don and I began our work, other
documents have surfaced and been brought into the discussion.
One
the first, which was published in its entirety in The MUFON UFO Journal for July 1985, is a top-secret report entitled
Air Intelligence Report No. 100-203-79 and dated December 10, 1948. There is
another version of it, or rather the same report, but it is dated April 28, 1949.
Neither version of this report makes mention of crash recovered debris, and in
fact, says that the origin of the objects cannot be determined. The thinking is
that the men responsible for the report, who had top security clearances, would
have been able to learn about the Roswell crash had it happened. Since they
make no reference to it, this is circumstantial evidence that there wasn’t a
crash.
There
was a caveat in that report. The officers involved suggested that there needed
to be better communication among the military branches to ensure a free flow of
information. There could have been some project or information that would have
explained everything about the flying saucers if such a free flow existed. In
other words, this doesn’t exclude Roswell.
 |
| Col. Howard McCoy |
Karl
Pflock, among others, found another document that reported on the Scientific
Advisory Board Conference held on March 17 – 18, 1948, in the Pentagon. Colonel
Howard McCoy was discussing Project Sign, the number of reports they had
received, suggesting that there was something important going on. He said, “I
can’t tell you how much we would give to have one of those crash in an area so
that we could recover whatever they are.”
McCoy
was the intelligence officer at Wright Field and the Air Materiel Command. He
was Nathan Twining’s intelligence officer. If there had been a crash near
Roswell, McCoy would have been involved in the study or reverse engineering of
anything recovered. In fact, McCoy had been involved in the first of the
investigations of unidentified aerial phenomena starting with the Foo Fighters
in WW II. He was the guy who knew everything about them and was, you might say,
Twining’s “go to guy.” If there had been a crash he would have known about it.
 |
| General Nathan F. Twining |
There
are those who say, me among them, that had Roswell involved the crash of an
alien spacecraft, it would have been classified top secret. Given that, McCoy
was restricted from mentioning this in a briefing that was only classified as
secret and some of the participants in it might not have held the proper
security clearances to hear top secrets.
But
I have always worried about that analysis. While he might not be able to
discuss a crash in a conference that was only secret, I wondered why bring it
up at all. If none of the participants was thinking in terms of a crash, he had
just planted the idea in their minds. True, he had told them that nothing had
been recovered and if you know something doesn’t exist, you are not inclined to
look for it. Still this was not a good idea. He planted the seed.
This
wasn’t the only time that McCoy had brought up the possibility of crash debris.
In a letter sent up the chain of command, to those who would have held the
proper security clearances and who would have had the need to know. He
expressed the same thought. Crash recovered debris would go a long way to
answering questions about the identity of the flying saucers.
McCoy
sent that letter to the Chief of Staff on November 3, 1948, discussing flying
saucers. This was a recap of what they knew, or thought they knew about the
“Flying Objects.” In paragraph 8, McCoy wrote:
The
possibility that the reported objects are vehicles from another planet has not
been ignored. However, tangible evidence to support conclusions about such a
possibility are completely lacking.
This
becomes more worrisome. McCoy would have no expectation that this letter would
be seen by anyone other than those to which it was addressed and it was going
to the top guy in the Air Force. He wouldn’t be telling stories out of school
and he wouldn’t dare lie. If there had been a crash, he was writing to those
who would know about it; more importantly these were the people who had to know
about it. They might not have all the specifics, but they would know that there
had been a crash of something that was highly unusual. They would know that the
craft had been built somewhere else, meaning not on Earth. McCoy would have no
reason to lie to them about a crash because of who he was addressing in the
letter.
Here's
where we stand on this. The documentation that does exist, that came from
identified government sources, signed by the men involved who we are able to
vet, suggest that they know nothing of crash recovered debris. Being who they
were and what their jobs were, they would have known and the discussion would
take a different track.
For
those believing Roswell involved the crash of an alien spacecraft, this has to
be worrisome. It is arrayed against testimony that suggests otherwise. The
problem is that it is just testimony and over the years much of that testimony
has been found to be inaccurate. The longer we investigate the more of these
testimonies have fallen by the wayside.
There
is some compelling testimonial evidence of a crash but there is this
documentation that suggests otherwise. While that documentation might not
completely close the door, it is certainly narrowing the possibility. As I say,
for those of us who do attempt to look at all the evidence, this is quite
worrisome.
39 comments:
Hi Kevin
Another interesting article...
Yes, if Roswell really was an ET visit then I would have expected something a bit more concrete to have surfaced by now also.
Regards
Nitram
Dr. Randle (Kevin): Thank you for writing this blog entry, because it reveals more of where you stand re: Roswell today.
In response I will now state that you have become the "doubting Thomas" of Roswell. This comes from Roswell Revisited; CRASH: When UFOs Fell From the Sky; Roswell in the 21st Century, and your recent blog entries.
HOWEVER, you also wrote UFO Crash at Roswell; The Truth About the UFO Crash at Roswell; A History of UFO Crashes; Roswell UFO Crash Update; and The Roswell Encyclopedia. I bought and have read all of these AND YOU -- more than anyone else -- convinced ME that the Roswell crash was an extraterrestrial (ET) event. I remain of this conviction -- Truth Does Not Change (!)
How right you are Kevin! It has taken you some 30 years to finally realise this. The skeptics had come to the same conclusion a long time ago, yet only now have you decided to join them (partially at least). You talk about these negative documents being "worrisome". Yes I agree, but would take it a lot further than that.
The ET case for Roswell is simply non-existent and always has been.
So, unless someone turns up the 70-year old pile of documents that Stan Friedman, Don Schmitt, David Rudiak and a number of others, including at one time yourself, insist is still under wraps as 'Top Secret', Roswell-as-ET is dead and buried.
One last faint hope: I am a Brit and of course would not know the true workings and tricks of the top rank US military on things such as this.
I notice you have given your blog the title "Decline of Roswell".
It has been declining for some time of course; maybe now it should be called "The Decline and Fall of Roswell".
Suitable title for a largish book of six volumes! But who could, or would, dare write it?
@John Steiger
KDR has rejected much of the testimony in his earlier works. But hang in there. :)
I don't think McCoy planted any seed. In March 1948, less than a year had passed since Roswell. It had caused a sensation, however briefly, at the time, so it was likely many remembered it (and such memories were the "seed"). I suggest McCoy, like Twining in September 1947, was doing his best to keep Roswell under wraps. The idea wasn't to plant a seed but to kill it, among those who remembered Roswell but weren't privy to TOP secret. By appearing to hope for a saucer to crash, McCoy sought to give the impression none had and thereby kill Roswell i.e. break any lingering association with the phenomenon.
John -
You must remember that this is an investigation and not a debate as Nitram likes to remind us. If we do not report on all the information we have, then we are intellectually dishonest. I just found the second letter written by McCoy (though it had been out there for a while) and saw how it changes some of my perceptions. Looking at it, we have four different scenarios.
First, McCoy was lying about crash recovered debris. I have explained why I rejected that. He would have been lying to superiors who would know the truth. Not a good policy.
Second, even though McCoy was Twining's intelligence officer and had been involved in the investigation of these sorts of things since World War II, he had been excluded from the inside information on Roswell. In this case, he wasn't lying to his superiors. He was telling them the truth as he knew it. This is highly unlikely.
Third, there was no crash of an alien craft outside of Roswell. What fell there was something else. We just haven't identified it yet.
Fourth, what fell was indeed alien, but McCoy was not at liberty to talk about it and used the strategy of saying he wish one would crash as a way of diverting attention...
But the point here is to show that the case is not as strong as it had been thought to be and that we, if we are going to been seen an impartial researchers and not half-blind advocates, are required to report what we have found rather than attempt to ignore it.
So, the truth does not change but our perceptions of it can when we are presented with new information.
I will not that on the far end of the spectrum, we see that many debunkers will not accept evidence that tends to refute their favorite theories. We have the documented evidence that Mogul Flight No. 4 did not fly and we know what Crary meant by a cluster of balloons, but they argue the point. They will not let go of Mogul because, if they do, there is no fallback position.
It is all about looking at all the evidence and that is something that I tried to make clear in Roswell in the 21st Century.
CDA -
I fear the skeptics came to this conclusion 30 years ago by the simple logic there is no alien visitation, therefore anything that suggests otherwise is wrong. Not exactly the best research method.
At this point, what happened at Roswell seems to me to have been a chain of unfortunate events. My following proposed scenario, while having no evidence to support it, is based on a lifetime of observation of human behavior in groups across a wide variety of organizations, private and public. What the hell. This “explanation” is as valid as any other unproven Roswell claims. So here it goes:
I believe that nothing at all happened in July 1947 but a series of screw ups beginning with Brazel finding some bits of debris that were unusual to him (but actually mundane) that also were not immediately recognized by whomever he originally gave them to at the base.
Eager to receive the credit and glory for being the group that conclusively identified whatever was being seen in the skies in 1947 led those given the debris to jump to a hugely erroneous conclusion about what Brazel had brought in.
This eagerness to be proclaimed the heroes who solved the mystery in the skies led to a premature public announcement. When everyone caught their breath and realized (or were informed) what they had was nothing out of the ordinary and didn't prove the sensational claim just made to the public, a retraction had to be quickly issued. The episode then faded from the public consciousness and was forgotten.
Years later, whenever Marcell was asked about what happened, not wanting to look foolish in retrospect, his natural human inclination was to deny an error was made and defend the initial misidentification of the debris. After all, who would want to be seen as an incompetent, especially when you were the base intelligence officer and should have known what the debris really was or at least exercised the necessary caution and due diligence to keep an embarrassing internal snafu from being widely publicized? And besides, Roswell by then was an obscure event known only to a tiny handful of fringe geeks, so what was the harm in telling a self-serving fib to some random guy whose hobby was UFOs?
However, as it turned out Stanton Friedman was one of those “harmless” UFO guys Marcell regaled with his story. Friedman was a UFO nerd who also needed a secondary career after the one he had as a nuclear physicist was beginning to dry up because his credentials were no longer adequate (no doctorate). So, he latched onto Marcell’s self-exculpatory version of events as a possible new supplementary meal ticket and ran like hell with it. Well, it eventually reached popular CNN tabloid entertainment anchor, Larry King, who brought Friedman and this long-forgotten crashed flying saucer tale to a wide audience.
As a result, it began heavily raining down mostly incompetent UFO “researchers”, biased ETH advocates, and outright con men on Roswell, its residents, and Marcell in particular.
And as they say, the rest is history.
Assuming that the Roswell Crash was indeed an alien or ET craft, of course it would be
highly classified so the US could learn about the technology, motives of the aliens,
and develop strategies to insure our enemies would not benefit from other such events.
In order to insure all other strange encounters with alien craft were reported the
regulations would insure that anything unknown be reported to the proper commands
or through the proper channels. Of course counter-intelligence would be used to mask
the truth with lies or whatever methods were authorised. My own reason for believing aliens
exist has more to do with their interest in our nuclear weapons/technology as Mr. Hastings
has so expertly documented. Our government has proven time and time again that they
will to us whenever the truth makes them unconfortable. If a researcher like LTC Randle
gives up then someone in CI has scored a victory.
The point is that as time has passed over the years, the testimony of those who were claiming it was alien has deteriorated rapidly over time as one by one they lost all credibility. Some were misrepresenting what they had seen and others were just flat out lying.
Your point about Kevin’s books should actually give you a reality check. Here is a researcher who has spent decades trying to uncover whatever evidence was locked away so that we could answer the question once and for all. Kevin has been on numerous TV shows over the years saying he had no doubt it was an alien craft, and has spent years of his life trying to prove it.
After all his battles against the likes of Phil Klass, it takes guts and real integrity to stand up and say “I’m starting to think I was wrong”
“Doubting Thomas” .....seriously??
He has spent the last 30 years trying to uncover the truth, and more and more the ET argument is dying rapidly. He is also a Military veteran, so he knows how damning the above documentation is to the ET argument.
If you want your belief structure reinforced, and good documentation ignored when it does not support the ET claim, then stick to reading people like Tom Carey and Don Schmitt. They, just like you, have already made their minds up about it being an alien craft and will ignore any inconvenient truths that comes their way. Particularly when they have another awful book to sell such as Children of Roswell.
Kevin’s integrity and non biased approach should be celebrated.
Dr. Randle (Kevin): Thank you for elaborating your response to my entry. I do appreciate it.
While McCoy's writings may be worrisome, there are numerous other points -- as developed in your and others' investigations -- which should be worrisome to legitimate skeptics questioning the ET aspects of the Roswell crash.
Unfortunately, many skeptics appear to have closed (as opposed to open) minds with regard to UFOs and ETs in general, and Roswell in particular.
Purllgurll:
You have hit the nail firmly on the head. Stan Friedman was a pro-ETHer long before he took up the Roswell case. One point often overlooked is that Marcel, when first interviewed by Stan, could NOT recall the date of the affair at all. This was only discovered, almost by chance, by his colleague Bill Moore when pouring over some local newspapers from a library, from the 1947-48 era. Marcel had given them a time-frame spanning about 12 months to work on.
Now what about those precious Marcel diary notes that await us?
Purrgurrl: Your "proposed scenario" is very interesting. One thing you do not address is why the Air Force lied about the event being Project Mogul and crash dummies (or maybe you believe that story).
If it was something mundane, why don't they just simply tell the truth about what it was? If it was something terrestrial that was (and still is) classified, then why won't they just say that? If it was, as some skeptics on this blog have asserted, some type of illicit experiment that they want to keep secret, then why did they issue a press release saying it was flying saucer, which they knew would do nothing but attract international attention to such an clandestine experiment?
SugarRay Taylor: It is an overstatement to assert that the testimony of ALL pro-ET Roswell crash witnesses has lost credibility. There are numerous witnesses (Brazel, Jr.; Sleppy, Rickett, Adair, DuBose, Exon, Rowe, and Gonzales -- to the extent his testimony developed) for whom lack of credibility in not the case.
"Doubting Thomas" is meant as an observation, not an insult. I apologize if anyone takes it that way.
I dispute that the ET argument is "dying rapidly." For those with an open mind, the preponderance of the credible evidence re: Roswell leads to the crash of an ET spacecraft.
Carey and Schmitt are essentially correct in their conclusion re: a pro-Roswell ET, although I do not agree with nor support everything they have said and done over the years.
I also dispute that pro-Roswell ET supporters "ignore any inconvenient truths that come [our] way." We have answered Klass, Pflock, Korf, etc.
"Kevin’s integrity and non biased approach should be celebrated." I wholeheartedly agree!
I would just like to add that my post was directed at John Steiger
Kevin, I recently listened to your appearance on a podcast/radio show, I believe it was called PANG radio. You and Ken Storch had what was described as a “debate”. A more accurate description would be “Ken Storch screams and shouts irrelevant points whilst never once refuting any of Kevin Randles statements with facts”. The “I want to believe” argument has become a cliche but it is so apparent during that interview. Storch’s position is that we should completely forget everything that happened after the initial press release because their first answer is the true one and we shouldn’t believe anyone from “the government”. When Kevin dismantled such a silly argument Mr Storch began shouting and the “I want to believe” dynamic is so apparent in his voice it’s actually painful to listen to.
Ken also kept saying that if this was a case that came up when he was a cop then they would have more than enough to be granted a search warrant. That might be true, but search warrants are granted regularly without leading to any kind of prosecution if nothing is found.
The one thing that really irked me about this interview though, was his statement that the credibility and reality of the UFO issue should rest entirely on the shoulders of Roswell. I was shocked that someone would make such a foolish statement.
One thing I would like to add regarding those who are annoyed at Kevin for criticising the Roswell evidence as it stands in 2018, is that you have to remember that he has been looking for ANY kind of documentation that was created in 1947. Everything from personal diary entries, journals etc. He is not standing here saying “well if you don’t give me an alien body then it’s all bullshit “.
As anyone who has read the comments section in any UFO related blog or news articles will tell you, everybody loves being correct and will defend their beliefs to the very end. Go and do some digging and you can see for yourself just how far some “UFO researchers” will go to avoid saying “hey I was wrong”. The Roswell Slides FARCE was a prime example with Schmitt and Carey going to embarrassing lengths because they didn’t want to admit they screwed up royally.
Randle, along with Stanton Friedman and Dennis Balthaser has been THE authority on The Roswell incident, spending 30 years of his life doing so. His honesty is refreshing and we should celebrate his journalistic integrity, not getting upset with him because your belief structure hangs entirely on the Roswell crash being ET.
I am someone who accepts alien visitation as possible explanations behind the UFO phenomena and I am someone who is desperate to see these things explained. I was 99% sure about Roswell being an alien crash around 25 years ago when I first got into this subject . Does anyone not find find it curious that amongst all these things which Kevin points out and others point out that damage the ET Roswell argument, there’s hardly ever anything that comes out which supports the ET Roswell argument.
I’m always amazed at how certain people who have never been in any of the US armed forces or worked in classified positions try and tell Kevin “oh well they didn’t have a need to know” etc. He lists several people who WOULD have known without a doubt, and nothing in their writings or behaviour suggests that something of the magnitude of a crashed flying saucer.
@John Steiger who wrote:
“Unfortunately, many skeptics appear to have closed (as opposed to open) minds with regard to UFOs and ETs in general, and Roswell in particular.”
Yes some skeptics have John, but not ALL skeptics. Some of the people on this blog (along with myself) are plenty “opened minded”. But in the case of Roswell, EVERYTHING that was once quite convincing in the 1970-80’s has since been shown to be false.
Everything from fictional claims, falsified records, unsubstantiated 2nd, 3rd and 4th hand testimony, and so on. Very little is left other than a few tiny bits of personal testimony that largely cannot be verified nor leads to a definitive conclusion.
Once a “believer”, I changed my mind some 25 years ago when so-called “witnesses” key to the Roswell tale were proven liars.
An honest skeptic has to admit the USAF did a very poor job of attempting to investigate and explain the Roswell incident. Additionally, skeptics should reject Flight #4 based on the documentation and the weather data.
Even so, skeptics are more likely to be correct in concluding this “event” was not the crash of an alien spaceship. There’s really nothing (anymore) to support it.
All things considered, whatever crashed, if indeed there was a crash, was of terrestrial original — most likely benign, unimportant, and probably explainable. Lost to time, it seems whatever documents that did explain it are simply gone; not important enough to even archive them.
Considering everything, the hypothesis proposed by purrlgurrl is probably the truth. The “human factor” in all of this is too hard to ignore and has easily repeated itself many times over in other worldly events.
Ufology has always hung too much on Roswell believing it to be the “holy grail” of a long standing belief in an ET presence on earth. It isn’t. Nor will it ever be.
KDR’s comments on the decline of Roswell (and his evolving conclusions) are indeed highly relevant to skeptics and believers alike.
An end to the decades long “Roswell myth” is clearly not the end of ufology. There are far more interesting cases that do not have the baggage that clutters all the theories about Roswell. Clearly the story got blown way out of hand over the last many decades.
Are Aliens visiting us? I don’t know. So far no one to date can actually prove it. Plenty of stories, photos, etc., but none of that proves an ET presence.
Something unknown occasionally flys up there. The percentage of unexplainable incidents is pretty small though. This leaves me with the distinct impression we may be dealing with something else.
Very interesting article, Mr. Randle: on the subject of bias, perception, skepticism, everyone here should do a Full Disclosure and answer the following questions:
1.) Do you believe ET exists (anywhere in the universe)?
2.) If you agree that ET might exists, do you think they have, or are, visiting the Earth?
3.) Does the idea of ET frighten you (due to, but not limited to, deeply held a priori religious or philosophical stance)?
4. Do you secretly like or dislike the idea of a universe filled with life, or are you more comfortable with a lifeless universe?
5.) If you could wave a magic wand, what would you like Roswell to be, explanation wise?
I can admit my biases up front: the idea of a universe filled with other life is very appealing to me......no doubt this impacts how I see Roswell...I kinda WANT it to be a flying saucer....what say the rest of you?
@Louis Nicholson:
Your questions are good ones. However I think they are more easily explainable than say alien spaceship crashes.
Why doesn’t the USAF tell us the truth? I’m guessing the following:
— The “investigation” they conducted “twice” (more or less), was a less-than-desirable job done by officers assigned to something they (probably) thought was ridiculous to begin with but had to do it anyway. The crash dummy explanation practically proves this.
— If the incident was something nefarious, or an alien crash of some sort, these officers wouldn’t likely be in on the “secret” anyway. So what they published was largely a waste of effort.
— Whatever documents existed, if they even did exist, probably aren’t archived anymore. They’ve been dispensed with as they either didn’t contain anything worth keeping, or if covering some sort of nefarious test were purposely destroyed to avoid the legal and public issues.
— Most all of the people in service at that time are deceased. There really is no “they” left alive who could tell “us” anything about it other than what they have already.
— RAAF issued that press release because, as already stated, they “jumped the gun” and were eager to be the unit that “discovered” a flying saucer.
— Remember that press release didn’t say they found anything they could accurately describe. They clearly weren’t thinking “alien invasion” or they wouldn’t have sent it out. They probably thought these saucers were some type of aerial device the Soviets put up like the Japanese in WWII. Nothing piloted. If they had found dead aliens from Mars and their wrecked saucer, they might have simply told us that in their press release since it seemed so important for them to tell the public anyway. But they didn’t because that’s not what they found.
— They published a retraction because they goofed. They had to retract it because it was false information.
You know, if what they found was just odd bits of foil, laminated wood, fishing line, and burnt rubber, that material isn’t easily identifiable to the average newspaper reader.
So if the story about “switching out” the real material for a busted up weather balloon and foil radar target is true, Ramey might have just asked his men to go get some local pieces that made for a better photo in the newspaper. Nothing covert, just something to make the photo more descriptive than the tiny pieces of balloon junk Marcel brought in.
Mr. Bell (Brian): Thank you so much for writing ...
So "some 25 years ago when so-called 'witnesses' key to the Roswell tale were proven liars," you gave up on the Roswell crash?
A year before Kevin co-authored THE TRUTH ABOUT THE UFO CRASH AT ROSWELL, you gave up on Roswell because you saw right through it for the "fake news" that it was ... How Perceptive!
***
Actually through your other writings on this blog, I am of the belief that you are more open-minded than certain of the other skeptics hereon. However, you (and they) are far afield when it comes to Roswell. You are accepting that "the hypothesis proposed by purrlgurrl is probably the truth," which by purrlgurrl's own admission has "no evidence to support it." No evidence to support it (aka pure speculation).
I advise you (and others) that proven liars aside (of which there certainly were some), there is plenty and ample evidence remaining to support the truth of a UFO crash near Roswell in July 1947.
What about the Hottel memo of 1950? It was written as a confidential communication to the FBI director based on what was told to him by an Air Force investigator: three crashed discs and dead bodies. Why would an Air Force investigator say such a thing to an agent of the FBI just a few years after the weather balloon story was told to the public by an Air Force General (Ramey). If McCoy and the people at Wright-Pat had never seen anything resembling a crashed disc or alien bodies in 1947-1948 and said so at the time on official channels, it only deepens the mystery of why an Air Force investigator said exactly the opposite (or passed along rumors) just a couple of years later. I'm not arguing for the reality of Roswell as an alien crash, but I am genuinely confused.
HEARS A BOMB THROWER....I just picked up an old book written during that time period and i found it VERY COMPELLING that the author Major Donald Keyhoe of the U.S. Marine Corps stated that during the first two weeks of July 1947 flying saucer sightings were on the increase day and night, but before then sightings were mostly being reported at night of strange objects so a crash or crashes of these things could have indeed occured! He also wrote that secretary of defense James Forrestal wanted the true facts of what was being withheld from the public to slowly leak out indicating that the air force most defantly hiding information they would not reveal to the public! This proves to me that a crash of an alien space craft would probably be labeled ABOVE TOP SECRET and remember that some who were serving in the military were revealing that the subject of UFOs were considered as being above that of an H bomb!
Brian Bell... "— RAAF issued that press release because, as already stated, they “jumped the gun” and were eager to be the unit that “discovered” a flying saucer."
That scenario could be feasible if it ended with the press release. But it didn't.
Why was there the need to send this "junk" to higher command?
I think we all agree that the stuff photographed in Ramey's office was mundane material. The butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker could have told us that.
And if it was instantly recognisable as mundane material in Ramey's office, then it had to have been instantly recognisable mundane material before it was packed onto that plane at Roswell AAFB... UNLESS, of course, it was swapped. (And let's be serious here, there's simply no other explanation.)
Between the time the stuff had been brought from Foster Ranch to Roswell, to the guys who packed it onto the plane, someone other than Marcel had to have handled it. (Unless we're saying Marcel collected it, drove it straight to the plane on the apron, and boxed it and loaded it himself.)
You'd think that someone, somewhere on Roswell AAFB base who might have seen it would have intervened and said "hang on a minute...it's a balloon, for crying out loud. The guys at Wright Patterson, when they stop laughing, will nail our heads to a tree."
But no one did!
It can't have been the same material. It must have been swapped somewhere in between.
I knew a guy who was an enlisted man at Roswell when this incident occurred. He was a friend of a friend. His name was Dennis. He passed away quite a few years ago now, but not before my friend put him in touch with Stanton Friedman so he could relate his account. And my friend also introduced me to Dennis; the three of us had lunch one day so Dennis could tell me his story.
One of the guys in his barracks was part of the crew that picked up the foil-like material that day, and that guy smuggled a piece into the barracks. Dennis told us the guys played around with it that night. If you rolled it into a ball, it would unfurl and show no creases. Could not burn it. Could not cut it. Dennis said, not sure if it was the next day, or within days, that the men on base were assembled and told to not talk about the incident at all.
There may be more detail then that, but my friend is not here to ask at the moment. I know Dennis's interview, over the phone, by Friedman, was taped, but again, I'm just relating what I remember Dennis telling me. I never had reason to doubt the story Dennis related, and I've always considered it an honor to say I knew someone who was at Roswell at that time, and an honor to hear his account.
Can't help it, got to point out that the Roswell incident was largely forgotten until Berlitz and Moore published their book in 1980. At best, the book presented an hypothesis, or what is logically known as an abductive inference, not a deductive or even inductive argument. As such, there was never a reliable argument to substantiate their speculation that aliens crashed in New Mexico, however, as I pointed out to Bill Moore, he and Berlitz were in the right place at the right time to initiate a near global awareness of the possibility that life in our galaxy is ubiquitous and trigger in us the apparent emotional need we have to believe we are not alone, despite NASA's persistent insistence that life, at present, only exists on earth. Moore looked at me sideways with a disbelieving grin as if to say, "that was never our intention."
But hell, Roswell speculation true or false does not deter me from my awareness that we are probably not alone, more likely just one of many intelligent species in the galaxy or, as U.S.A.F. General Carlton Everhart recently stated, "I am convinced there are more man-made domains that will come, and I will offer you that if we look at galaxies -sounds nuts- but there's going to be a man-made domain in galaxies." He added, "Space has got different galaxies. And in those galaxies in the future we're going to actually have capability we have right now in the air. We just don't know what it is because we haven't freed our mind to think about what is that space and how are we going to utilize it. Space is contested. It's going to happen." (from thedrive.com/the-war-zone via a post on Special Access Programs.)
Note: In 2015 the galaxy Reticulum II was discovered at 30 kpc, a satellite of the Milky Way in the constellation Reticulum with unusual enhancements of r-process elements heavier that zinc, common gold and europium elements and the possibility of elements heavier than those found on earth.
@Paul
There are witnesses who claim (at least one I believe) the only thing transported was a brown paper package wrapped with string that Marcel took with him to Fort Worth. Yes, I realize there are other testimonies about “huge crates” and what-not, but IMO those testimonies are less reliable because we have no photos of it. Just words and claims made decades later to the sensationalized Roswell saga.
But we do have the press photos of Marcel in Ramey’s office with the paper bag clearly seen which makes that testimony accurate.
The famous photo of Marcel holding the debris shows a large wrapped package against the wall. At the same time the junk he’s holding is spread out onto a roll of brown butcher paper on the floor— but it doesn’t seem wrinkled and may have been newly placed there to better show off the junk on the floor.
In other words the junk he brought was looked at, declared a balloon, then rewrapped, and some new, more identifiable, junk was collected and thrown onto the floor with new brown paper underneath. Why? Because it’s more visually descriptive for newspaper readers.
The one problem we all have is the junk on the floor looks pretty well used, and the neoprene rubber is dark and weathered as if it was in the sun. So the question then is where the heck did Ramey just happen to find a busted up, sun exposed, wreck of a Rawin Target?— such junk was unlikely to be “just sitting around in a hanger”. Why would they even keep such junk at Fort Worth?
So if Ramey by chance actually DID have some larger pieces of junk, then it looks like he placed it on the floor making the “switch”. In this case nothing nefarious. There’s too much junk on the floor to fit inside that brown bag behind Marcel. Too many big pieces, sticks, etc. Or is that package behind Marcel actually a document satchel? Who knows.
Even so that junk does look weathered and just might be what Marcel really found — he seems mighty pleased with himself in that photo! And if you recall he said it WAS the real stuff initially, then changed his mind saying it was “switched”. Perhaps he’s correct, but the switch isn’t anything unique.
So yes, I can see a switch of material occurring to better make a point in the newspapers. So we agree on that.
We all know stock photos and representative items are used to describe things that aren’t well photographed.
And as stated earlier, isn’t it possible that Marcel DIDN’T recognize this junk for what it was? He may have been perplexed as to why this foil was out on the ranch. He knew RAAF didn’t send it up, and he knew Brazel and the Sheriff “sort-of” thought the junk may have been from a flying saucer.
Thinking it might be, even if it looks sort-of like stuff he may have seen before, it was all busted up too much to tell. So he takes it in saying “I think it may really be from a flying saucer” and eager to be the ones to resolve the mystery sightings Blanchard tells Haut to send out a press release.
Ramey, knowing they did a press release without him knowing, would likely have said, “So you did a press release without authorization? Great you f-ing morons. Ok, send that crap to me ASAP”. Sure, someone may have said, “...ah sir it’s maybe just a balloon target or something”. Ramey replies, “I don’t give a rats ass. You did a press release and I want to see the stuff anyway...and send me that Intel Officer who found it....yeah, send me Major Marcel immediately”.
Make sense? You have to admit it’s as plausible as any dead alien story....
@ John Steiger:
Yes, it was about 1993-94 when I had my fill of it. Why is that so strange? Was I supposed to read KDR’s book (with coauthor Schmitt) and be persuaded they were 100% correct? Not really. Obviously people were talking about Roswell long before some of these books were published. I was a member of MUFON for a year or two then quit. I also previously had Dr. Jack Kasher for an Astronomy class and as you know he is a MUFON member and UFO advocate. Nothing I read in newspapers, books, and symposiums convinced me that all the talk about alien crashes had any merit. It was “pure speculation” as you say. So yes, after hearing lecture after lecture in MUFON meetings from “alien contactees” who made things up and who were weirdly held on high by MUFON members, I decided everyone pursuing the ETH was likely wrong or nuts, as nothing was ever proven — same old hash. The same is true today. There’s absolutely ZERO proof of alien visitation. Nothing but hypothesis, misinterpreted ancient artifacts, suggestion, and fantasy. Is something flying up there? Yes but there’s no proof it’s ET. We don’t know what it is and it’s very infrequently observed all things considered.
@ Bill:
It’s my understanding that FBI memo was simply a field agent’s report on a rumor that was passed to him. He didn’t verify anything. Rumors are rumors and there’s plenty of mundane reasons why a USAF officer might tell someone the rumors he’s heard. The FBI wanted intel on this subject. There’s always the chance it was simply and deliberately seeded misinformation. The memo is considered by most to have little real significance.
@ James:
Unfortunately Major Keyhoe’s books have been shown to have a great deal of misinformation and incorrect stories. I’m sure Keyhoe was attempting to do the right thing, but time has shown he had some things factually incorrect and many reports totally unsubstantiated.
BOMB THROWER RELOADED.......Brian Bell.........while i agree that Major Donald Keyhoe could have made some mistakes in his writings, i most certainly do not agree that his sighting reports of July 1947 were wrong for the rather obvious reason he had acsess to those reported sightings from the military and air force plus there was no internet or telivision cable back then so was spot on about the UFO storm that was increasing after the war and Kennith Arnolds sighting of a fleet of these things. His statement that the first two weeks of July 1947 were increasing with reports of flying disks during day light hours was very compelling to me since the Roswell UFO crash occured during that same time period! But what really floored me was his comment that the air force under secretary of defenses orders by James Forrestial at first to hide information about UFOs, then in 1949 James Forrestial reversed that position ordering the gradual slow leak of what the air force knew about UFOs to the public. Something very big must have occured then that they did not want the public to know about! plus this book was written during those times so i do think it has reliable information that should be checked out other modern investigators may have missed. the book is called FLYING SAUCERS FROM OUTER SPACE by Major Donald E.Keyhoe
Kevin has provided a cogent analysis of what the government knew (or believed they knew) about Roswell: not a crashed saucer. True believers, nonetheless, are unmoved. But...
None of the diehards mentioned MJ-12 or Corso.
Maybe we are moving forward!
Kevin has indeed provided a cogent analysis of what the government would seem to have known about Roswell based upon the public record which isn't surprising as his work has always seemed the most astute and well researched evaluation of the subject. In fact, at one time his Roswell Encyclopedia was the only book on the subject I had because the only way to reasonably approach the subject was to split the subject apart by source and evaluate each separately and that book did so. The fact is there was so much disinformation put out during the 1990s that I didn't even want or care to deal with the subject in general. Something crashed that was definitely NOT a radar target, fine. Too much garbage to go through. It doesn't surprise me that much to see his evaluation drift to a more skeptical position with respect to the crash. That's where I was and would be right now if I hadn't gotten the notes of the late Dr William Jervis. He was a business associate of Nate Jr back in the 1990s with respect to oil related real estate investments. They corresponded and they visited and when he visited Nate back in 1994 he spoke with candor about his father and about "Roswell" and the things they talked about were things I thought were either disinformation or bad science fiction but these ideas of 'sense' don't really mean much when these things that seem ridiculous or unsupported by publicly available credible information in fact turn out to be true based on information that might not be as publicly available. I say this because I have no reason to believe that someone like Dr Jervis would falsify his accounts of his conversations with Nathan Twining's son that he would then keep to himself until he dropped dead 24 years later. Nor do I believe that Nathan Jr would have any reason to lie about the things that Dr Jervis reports he said at that time. Now does this have more or less authority than a document from September of 1947 in which Nathan Twining would indicate a complete ignorance of any knowledge of crashed flying saucer debris or an account that in all likelihood came from his son back in 1994 describing how his father cradled the body of an off-world visitor in his arms back in Early July of 1947? Which am I supposed to believe? Can I find out everything that I need to know from the available documentation or do I have to look elsewhere for the truth?
It's no proof of anything, but it makes some difference to a person, as it did me, when you knew an enlisted man stationed at Roswell at the time, and who handled the "foil" personally, and he tells you, as he did me, that neither he nor anyone else in his barracks that night, understood what they were handling. They were not familiar with the material, and had not seen before, a material with the properties they described.
i was a rabid kevin randall fan until i read "the roswell UFO crash published by cal k. korff in july 1999. one by one korff destroys the following witnesses in randall's publication: the wilmonts, lydia sleppy, walt whitmore jr., floyd and loretta proctor, col blancher's widow, major hughes green, vern and jean maltais, barney barnett, major jesse antoine marcel, ruben anaya, gerald anderson, , sgt melvin e. brown, glen dennis, major edwin easley, brig general author exon, pappy henderson, frank kaufmann (alias joseph osborn and frank mckenzie), jim ragsdale, frankie rowe, the franciscan nuns, corp pyles, lewis s. ricket and dr. lincoln lapaz. also the descriptions of the materials recovered basically described by bill brazel jr. and his daughter bessie brazen schreiber as aluminum foil, wax paper, balsa like sticks, and tape with flowers would certainly not reflect the basic construction of an advanced kraft visiting from another planet or galaxy but rather items found right here on earth. i kept waiting for randall to challenge korf but never saw a rebuttal, (maybe i missed it ?)
keep in mind that i am of the opinion that other forms of advanced life must exist and that there is a good possibility that we have and are being visited but the roswell case is exactly what is was was a device (large balloon) designed to spy on the russians who we suspected were detonating atomic devices.
boake lacey
april 11, 2019
Boake Lacey -
Well, I think I might have more impressed with your analysis had you spelled my name and Korff's name correctly.
If Korff had actually told the truth in his book, it would be a devastating analysis. All that he said about Easley, for example, was inaccurate. He confused the statements by three different men and wrapped them into one. He said that Brown's wife and other daughter had not confirmed what Beverly Bean said, but on tape, to which he had access, he failed to note that both did, in fact, support what Beverly said.
The descriptions by Bill Brazel are not of balsa wood, but of a material that seemed to have the density of balsa but was of great strength. The foil like material could be wadded into a ball and then would unfold itself without sign of a wrinkle. Bessie Brazel Schriber has since repudiated her statements.
I have published articles on this blog refuted much of what Korff wrote, pointed out the holes in his analysis, and the lies he has told. He said that Mack Brazel's picture had never appeared on the front page of a newspaper... I found it on the front page of the Roswell Daily Record on July 10. He said there were no black soldiers in Roswell because the service was segregated. Squadron S was made up of black soldiers. I was the one who exposed Gerald Anderson as a liar and NEVER supported his tale.
I suggest you type Korff's name into the search engine on this blog and refer the material and then let me know if you still believe what he wrote... from unidentified FBI agents who told him what he wanted to hear to unidentified Pentagon historians who also told him what he wanted to hear... no way to verify what they said.
As I say, you missed a great deal of rebuttal, and you also missed his attempted character assassination of me... take a look at all that and let me know if you have some specific questions. If you want to read the best "anti-Roswell" book, I suggest Karl Pflock's Roswell: Inconvenient Truths... and if you want to read my latest and best analysis of the Roswell material, I suggest Roswell in the 21st Century.
Kevin i also find it hard to believe that no one in the military would have recognized what these mogul balloons and radar targets would have looked like! It is stunning to me that a lot of skeptics still want to say that the roswell wreckage was nothing but flimsy everyday aluminum foil, cardboard sticks, strings, tape with flower markings, radar targets and so on when all the witness statements about the strange material clearly contradict this explanation many times over, but i don't know if we will ever find out what these people in the military or civilian witnesses actually saw since all the first hand witnesses are now dead and i am one of those believers that there may have been more than one craft involved in thee UFO crash since all these people cant all be lying!
Boake Lacey -
Since you brought up General Exon, here is an analysis of Korff's comments by a disinterested third party. It examines the claims by Korff. I thought you might not bother to search for these articles. You can read it here:
http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/search?q=greg+sandow
See if this doesn't alter your opinion of the value of Korff's terribly inaccurate book.
> all these people can't all be lying!
Just the many witnesses who have been exposed as liars.
I heard you on Coast to Coast AM. Excellent work 👍
I believe that the increase in sightings is due to the global tension brought on by multiple issues primarily the pandemic and its economic fallout. I would put forth the suggestion that the massive amount of energy we emitted as a planet back in the 1940s during the testing and implementation of nuclear weapons has caught the attention of much higher intelligent life across the galaxy. I would point out that the crafts resembling a pyramid very well could have visited here thousands of years ago and left quite an impression and perhaps a vast amount of knowledge with the Egyptians. It makes perfect sense that the governments of the world when they realized what was really happening would suppress and cover up the truth. It's not hard to understand because they do it all the time with other issues let alone an issue that would change the paradigm of human existence. Happy Earth Day 😉
Have listened to you for decades, have to say you have become so opinionated that your analysis are almost useless. Declaring that everything Corso said was wrong is pretty extreme....which is where you have gone .. extreme.
Your pocast audio levels are all over the map, not very professional. Have some respect for your listeners, please.
Unknown -
Just love the criticisms from those who don't sign their names.
As for Corso, the first lie is on the cover of the book. He wasn't a colonel, he was a lieutenant colonel, which is not the same thing. There is a big distinction between colonel and lieutenant colonel.
The second lie was in the foreword to the book, written by Strom Thurmond, which is to say that the synopsis for the book given to Thurmond did not mention UFOs, had nothing to do with UFOs, and so outraged the senator, that he demanded it be withdrawn.
I mention these two things to provide a prospective here. I am tired of having to answer questions that come up because of this book. It is filled with nonsense, and my interactions with Corso, limited though they were, provided no hint that anything in the book is accurate.
BTW: The show is recorded by the studio at another location and I have no control over the audio levels. I will pass your comment about them on to the producer. Maybe you'd be happier with the Video version, which you can view here:
https://rumble.com/v17sl7t-a-different-perspective-with-kevin-randle-government-ufo-hoaxes-the-key.html?mref=yqkns&mc=7zk0c
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