Wednesday, December 30, 2020

Barbara Dugger and History's Greatest Mysteries

 

I was a little disturbed by the Barbara Dugger (as opposed to Duggar) interview on History’s Greatest Mysteries, which is to say I wondered about some of the information contained in it. Don Schmitt and I interviewed Barbara on March 4, 1991, at her home. She was kind enough to sit down for us and tell us what she remembered about her discussion of the UFO crash with her grandmother, Inez Wilcox, who, for those of you who don’t know, was the wife of Sheriff George Wilcox.

Barbara Dugger

Prior to talking to Barbara, Don and I had interviewed her mother, Elizabeth Tulk and her aunt, Phyllis McGuire. Both of these women were the daughters of the sheriff. Phyllis had been in the jail house during some of the activities when Mack Brazel arrived with a few samples of the metallic debris.

Barbara told us that she and her grandmother, who she called Big Mama, had been watching a program about space when Inez said, according to Barbara, “I have something I have never told anyone and I don’t want you to discuss it with anyone… in the ‘40s, there was a spacecraft, a flying saucer is what they called it, [that] crashed outside of Roswell.”

Barbara continued, telling us what her grandmother had told her. “Your grandfather, George, was sheriff – very hesitant to talk but there was something [that] he said don’t tell anyone.”

Barbara, again quoting her grandmother said, “When the incident happened, the military police came to the jailhouse and told George, and I never told anything about this incident, [that if we] talked about it in any way, not only would we be killed but they would get the rest of the family.”

Barbara asked her grandmother if she had witnessed that threat. “Did you hear them say that Big Mama and she said, ‘Yes, I did.’”

According to Barbara, and I must say that this is in conflict with what some of the other witnesses, including deputies, “Someone came and told my grandfather about this incident that happened outside of Roswell. My grandfather went out there and when he got out there, there was a big burned area when he first approached… they saw debris… I don’t know if he was alone. She [Inez] didn’t go with him. It was in the evening.”

Barbara asked, “Did he see any little space beings? She [Inez] said, ‘Yes. There were four of them… they were like gray… their heads were large and the little suit they had on was like silk or something like that kind of material. They were gray.’”

Barbara was told, “He [George] came back into town and they had discussed the incident. They [the military] had thought it was fine to put it over the news and apparently something happened and it was not okay.”

There were phone calls from all over the world. According to what Barbara was told, “When they found out they came into the jailhouse and said you don’t say anything or you will die and Inez will die…”

Barbara again said, “He went out there to the site. I thought the site was just like thirty miles outside of Roswell… Granddaddy wouldn’t talk about it. It was a shock to him like you wouldn’t believe.”

She provided more of the description of what the sheriff had seen, based on what Inez told her. “There were little people lying out on the ground. [The] military came in and… tell you not to talk about it.”

Oddly, Barbara said that Inez never talked about it again. It was just that one time, though she wrote an article about in the late 1940s. That article does corroborate what Barbara said, but there is a problem with it, which I’ll get to in a moment.

Barbara asked, “Were those little men alive or dead and she said ‘I think one of them was alive,’ and I said, ‘Did Granddaddy help it.?’ And she said, ‘I don’t know,’ and that was that. She didn’t tell me anything else.”

Barbara said that Inez never said another word about it… except, there is that article that Inez wrote about “Four Years in the County Jail.”

This was an article about her experiences working for the county as the matron in the jail. Seems in the 1940s that the sheriff’s wife sort of inherited the job of matron when her husband was elected sheriff. I don’t know if it was a requirement or a bonus that came with the election of George.

In that article, seen here, is the mention of the flying saucer crash, as it was typed by Inez:

 

Inez Wilcox's article about the Roswell crash.

And here is the problem. That paragraph was not in the original story. It was added later. When the Berlitz and Moore book about the crash came out, it was announced in the Roswell Daily Record on June 11, 1980, with another article published on June 13, 1980. Inez’s article is undated and the insert about the crash is undated, but since it was written later as an addition to the original article, it is possible that it was inspired by the release of The Roswell Incident, the articles in the Daily Record and the eventual broadcast on In Search Of, which covered the Roswell story. Inez died on May 25, 1988.

And the additional problem is that the information is third-hand. George was first hand, Inez was second, and Barbara third. She’d seen nothing herself. She was relying on Inez, who had seen very little herself, and none of it had to do with the alien beings. George was no longer available for interview when we arrived on the scene in 1989.

Again, here is the problem. Ben Smith, or one of the producers interviewed Barbara, but they made no attempt to get that paragraph that Inez had written into the show. They made no mention of it. At least the paragraph moved the story to the second hand. But, to trot that out would be to diminish the importance of the Not Jesse Marcel’s Journal. Focus had to remain on the Journal to the exclusion of any other good documentation, with the exception of the Ramey Memo… which, they mentioned in the second episode and then seemed to forget.

Anyway, here is additional analysis of Barbara’s tale. I have no doubt that she believes it to be true. The trouble is that, at this late date, we can’t prove it… and the real shame is that Inez didn’t date anything. That would have helped.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Here is my problem with the Roswell story, it is with the story itself. Using what we know, the military sent two of their own out to investigate. Upon arriving these guys go about picking up the debris, and eventually load most, if not all, into a vehicle, and head home. They have taken few, if any precautions in handling this highly specialized material.

The one guy drops by his home to show his wife and kid what he found. He doesn’t appear to be concerned that the material may be contaminated, and he even lets his kid see it. It appears that these guys lack specialize training in how to handle specialized material. They are not experts, given how they handled the situation.

If someone claims to be an expert, and have the knowledge then there actions should reflect that mindset. In my opinion, this is where the Roswell story falls flat. You either have material from outer space that they went about and gathered up, or you don’t. The so called experts are not experts, they are posers.


jeff thompson said...

Let's see. So now we have reports of alien bodies at the Brazel ranch. Gee, I don't recall Mac Brazel mentioning that. Pretty amazing that he wouldn't mention coming across alien bodies from another world. Just more Roswell nonsense, folks.

KRandle said...

Bamm Bamm -

I think you're thinking in 202 terms when we worry about such contamination. In 1947, I don't believe they were thinking in those terms and the thought of some sort of contamination never crossed the minds of any of them. It was only later that we all thought about possible contamination from these sources. It was probably an outgrowth of our space program in which the men returning were isolated for days to ensure there was no contamination.

jeff -

Barbara wasn't talking about bodies on the Brazel (Foster) ranch, but a location much closer to Roswell... The site that Frankie Rowe's father talked about, the one that Bill Rickett mentioned. Of course, this ignores the statement attributed to Mack Brazel. Frank Joyce said, that as Brazel was leaving the radio station, he turned at the door and said to Joyce, "You know how they talk about little green men? They weren't green." I covered this, and the evolution of the term "little green men" aka LGM, in Roswell in the 21st Century.

Clarence said...

Bamm Bamm Bahama: Kevin makes a good point; given the level of 1947 knowledge about "outer space things", what should the handlers of the alleged debris be aware of, contamination wise? What type of contamination, in particular? Surely you're not suggesting something biological or the bugaboo of "radiation"?

Anonymous said...

Clarence: At that time the base had nuclear material on site. The senior military officers on the base would have known what nuclear material could do to human physiology. This is based on the “tickling of the dragon’s tail” accidents at Los Alamos in September 1945 and May 1946 where the “demon core” went critical, and physicists lost their lives. These senior military officers would likely have known of the science coming back from Japan tracking the immediate and long term progress of Japanese survivors from fallout and contamination from nuclear bombs. If the base wasn’t prepared for a disaster it doesn’t say much about the base.

There is also the testing of the V2 rockets at White Sands NM that came back from Germany in July 1945. They would have been experimenting with propellants based on formulas of the German scientists, and would be refining them. Most rocket propellants are explosive, corrosive, and danger to handle.

Roswell is approx, 166 miles from White Sands, 225 miles to Los Alamos which is 150 miles from Corona, near the balloon/ufo crash site. Holloman Air Force Base, where the Mogul balloon #4 may or may not have launched is approx. 120 miles from Roswell.

Now, to suggest the military sent two officers to the crash site, and no one involved was aware of the events going on around them and the possibility of contamination, would suggest that no one involved was capable of identifying debris being from another world. Yet they did!

KRandle said...

Bamm -

First, according to the information I have, there were no bombs stored at Roswell. They had the aircraft to deliver the bombs, and some of the components, but the radioactive material and the triggers were stored elsewhere.

Second, there is compartmentalization, meaning that the officers at Roswell wouldn't have knowledge of what happened at Los Alamos. There would be no need to know about these things at Roswell for them to do their jobs.

Third, they weren't involved in the rocket research being conducted at White Sands at the time. Again, most of them had no need to know and probably no desire to know. These were separate units conducting separate missions... Why would the 509th Bomb Group be involved in rocket and missile research at White Sands?

While we, today, think in terms of contamination, those at Roswell in 1947, while possibly worried about radiation contamination, certainly weren't worried about biological contamination. Lewis Rickett, when taken to the impact site did ask if it was "hot" and told that it was not... so, someone had checked for radiation at some point.

When Marcel and Cavitt went out to the ranch, they didn't know what to expect. It was only after seeing the metallic debris, that they began to draw conclusions...

BTW, Mogul Flight No. 4 did not fly and therefore could not have scattered the debris. The documentation proves that.

Oh, and one of the theories about the flying saucers were that they were interplanetary craft, so any conclusion drawn based on an examination of the debris, could have reached to, dare I say it? The stars.

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

The following are my opinions:

The following link (http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2016/05/23/the-blue-flash/) provides some background on the accident at Los Alamos in 1946, and information released to the public shortly there after. The Russians operating in the USA and tracking nuclear advances would have drawn their own conclusions. In 1946, the public and the Russians knew about the accident. I am not sure if the US military knew, or if this was a closely guarded secret, or was it released on a need to know basis.

The next link (https://www.nytimes.com/1989/11/19/magazine/america-s-radiation-victims-the-hidden-files.html) provides some additional details of the physicist that survived the accident at Los Alamos in 1946, along with his request for damages. There is also a reference to correspondence with the Atomic Energy Commission in April 1947, and the need for a policy review to minimize exposure to lawsuits from victims seeking damages from exposure. It appears they were concerned about some of military men that participated as test subject, and them filing a claim against the government for damages. Not sure if this information would have made its way to the military. Interesting side note, Roswell was near the fallout zone of the Trinity test.

The next link (https://www.brookings.edu/bombs-in-the-backyard/) outlines where bombs/missiles were located in the USA. It mentioned the possibility that nuclear materials were at Roswell. If you have information to the contrary, you may want to follow-up with them so they can update their information, just a heads up, they may ask for your source.

The final link (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_H._Goddard) outlines how Robert Goddard conducted some of his rocket research at Roswell in the 1930’s to mid forties. I would expect they had developed safety guidelines for handling and recovering material where contaminates would have been present. Not sure if he would have shared this information with the Roswell base, or with those testing at White Sands.

Now, in June or July 1947 the US military sent out a team of military men to a debris field outside of Roswell NM. It is claimed that these military men were operating in a highly compartmentalized environment, and only knew what they needed to know. We also know that over the past several years there had been lots of activity within a 400 mile radius, Roswell being on point on that circle. This includes developing nuclear bombs, nuclear tests, testing captured V2 rockets at White Sands NM, and Roswell AFB designated with delivery of nuclear weapons.

Yet, after discovering the debris at Roswell, some of these military men working in a highly compartmentalized environment reach the conclusion that they found something from out of this world. To top it off, one officer takes parts of the material home with him to show his wife and kid. As a happy footnote, everyone that handles the material lives a happy life, no early deaths as a result of handling material, no signs of mental illness from learning the Earth is no longer the center of the universe, and that humans may not be as special as they thought.

We also know that the Russians obtained research on the bomb developed at Los Alamos, which indicates that although we have heard things are highly compartmentalized with special projects in the US military, we know some times things leak out. Osmosis! This also suggests that if the Russians wanted information about Roswell they would have developed their sources, paid those with the facts. I am not sure how the Russians would deal with those that provided fictionalized accounts.

Goodbye Roswell, it has been a blast!

KRandle said...

Bamm -

Told about the storage of the nuclear materials by officers of the 509th Bomb Group who were there in 1947.

Most of what you say is irrelevant to the discussion.

I bow out.