In
the first of two parts, I spoke with Don Schmitt and although I had planned to
devote very little of the show to Roswell, we ended up examining some aspects
of the case in depth. You can listen to it here:
https://www.spreaker.com/episode/43273308
We
began discussing the Not Jess Marcel’s Journal. For a couple of years, we had
heard that the family had found a Journal in Marcel’s personal papers that covered
the period of the Roswell crash. Though we were told that the family was
attempting to verify the validity of the Journal and forensically checking the
paper and the ink to be sure it wasn’t a modern forgery, we weren’t told much
more. Now, we had the chance to learn so much about it and the big revelation
was that Jesse Marcel had not written it.
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| Don Schmitt |
We
were then told that Patrick Saunders might have written because a very short
sample of Saunders’ printing seemed to match, somewhat, the printing in the
Journal. We don’t know why, since the producers interviewed Saunders relatives,
they couldn’t have gotten a larger sample of Saunders’ hand writing. The only
sample they had was one that I had sent them.
We
also talked about the Ramey Memo, the source of it, and the latest attempt to
read it. From all that has been said, the latest scans, which took it down to
the molecular level, are probably as good as it will ever get. An advance in AI
might be required before all that can be put to bed. At least that was the
consensus of those who made the scans.
During
the program that examined Not Jess Marcel’s Journal, they used a short clip of
Frank Kaufmann. Don said that he talked to the producers after that show aired
and complained about it. One of them said that one of the writers had said that
it didn’t matter because all the witnesses were lying anyway. I’m not sure how
you’d get so many people to lie about this, but the statement seems to undercut
the validity of their research.
We
also talked about Walter Haut and his original support of Kaufmann. I still
believe that it harms Haut’s reputation, but Don was of the opinion that his
support of Kaufmann predated his learning of all the tales that Kaufmann was
telling. I don’t know, maybe, but I still worry about it.
We
did discuss Glenn Dennis’ missing nurse. I think there are some very
interesting comments made about all that and the validity of the Dennis tale.
And, we wondered why the military would ask for child-sized coffins when adult
coffins would have worked just as well. The problem was they were apparently
looking for coffins that could be hermetically sealed. No need to be child-sized,
other than to fit part of the narrative.
Next
week, Don and I pick up on the second hour of the discussion. We both promise
that it won’t have anything to do with Roswell. If there are questions, append
them here and I’ll try to get to them.
2 comments:
I love the Roswell stuff, no need to ever stop with it!
My listening to your interview with Donald Schmitt was interrupted by a very affectionate canine and a glass of ice tea, which combined to shut things down until I could dry off my keyboard. But I think you nailed it with the explanation of the so called "Raney Memo." Not only would it be very foolish for the general to be standing there with an Utter Total Top Secret message in his hand, but I can see no evidence of security classification markings on it. Classified teletypes feature classification info at the start of every paragraph, as well as overall markings. As you surmise, the most reasonable explanation is that it is a draft document provided by the news media.
And here are a couple of "through the transom" incident reports. Unlike the Col Bill Coleman B-25 sighting and the one where my former boss said that ATC had advised him of an approaching object, these are second hand, heard from the pilots by someone who related it to me. But it is literally second hand and not "someone told me in a bar one night that someone told him..."
It was 1944 and a squadron of P-51 Mustangs was on a fighter sweep over France ahead of a B-17 raid. That almost certainly means it took place before 6 June 1944. The 8th AF heavy bombers were attacking transportation targets in France ahead of the Normandy Invasion. The P-51's encountered some German FW-190 and BF-109 fighters. This would also indicate prior to 6 Jun 1944, since soon after the invasion the Germans had other things to worry about than engaging some USAAF fighters over France. As so often occurred a huge furball of a dog fight developed and one P-51 pilot, named Charlie, found himself alone in the sky when a very few minutes earlier it had been full of aircraft. He was over France and approaching the German border, thinking that he'd better head back home, when he looked down and saw a German Me-262 jet fighter well below him. He had been briefed on the existence of the Me-262 but had never seen one in the air.
Then Charlie looked ahead and saw another even more unfamiliar type of aircraft in front of the Me-262. He decided it was some kind experimental Luftwaffe aircraft that the Me-262 was escorting, since it looked like nothing he had ever seen, being very shiny. He decided that since he had a considerable altitude advantage he stood a chance of being able to shoot down the Me-262 and maybe even the other aircraft it was escorting as well. HE shoved his throttle to full power and dove his Mustang toward the Me-262.
It was on the way down that he noted that the shiny aircraft out in front seemed to be disk shaped. And then suddenly the disk accelerated away at incredible speed.
He pulled out of his dive and stared at the rapidly departing shiny disk. And then he realized that he was flying right next to the Me-262.
The Me-262 pilot looked over and him and threw both of his hands up in the universal gesture of "What the hell was that?" Charlie responded in kind, and then tossed the German a salute and headed home.
Back at his base in England he related what he had seen to the intelligence officer, who told Charlie he would take care of it and not to tell anyone else about it. He never heard anything about it from the intelligence officer or anyone else. I heard about the incident from my brother, who ran a small pharmacy in a very rural area of South Carolina and was friends with Charlie.
The other incident I believe took place in the 1960's, probably near Griffiss Air Force Base. One night what I think probably was a KC-135 took off from the base and was approached by an object of some kind, one that flew formation with it. A light began moving up and down inside the aircraft, as if it was being scanned in some fashion. After returning to base the crew was told to never mention the incident to anyone. I heard about this incident from a USAF officer I served with whose father in law was the pilot of the KC-135.
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