I
am growing very tired of the Internet and the number of people who use it to
expose their ignorance. Please note the term ignorance. I am granting them the
intelligence to realize their mistakes when speaking about UFOs. When they
claim a deep dive, it seems to be into the shallow end of the pool, and I realize
my task is greater than I thought.
Let’s
talk about TheSneezingMonkey and his latest rant about some things Ufological.
It is clear to me, that he just doesn’t bother with the deep dive research he
claimed which, in the world today and the Internet, is much simpler than it was
even a decade ago. The answers are out there, if you’re smart enough to find
them.
Take
the analysis by TheSneezingMonkey when he is talking about the Kenneth Arnold
sighting of June 24, 1947. He grabbed several explanations but he talked about
the Flying Wing, suggesting that it might be what Arnold had seen. He did question
if there would have been several of them flying in formation.
He
was talking about the YB-35 Flying Wing which did exist at the time. Several of
them were being tested at Muroc Army Air Field (later Edwards Air Force Base).
What he didn’t find, and what I published more than two decades ago, is that in
June 1947, all of them were grounded.
Here’s
what I know about that. The YB-35, a full-scale Flying Wing, first flew on June
25, 1946 from Muroc AAF. On September 11, 1946, the YB-35, suffering from gear
box and propeller problems was grounded. A full-scale flying program would not
resume until February 1948. There were test flights made on June 26, 1947 (two
days after the Arnold sighting) but the single aircraft did not leave Southern California.
The Flying Wing simply was not available in the numbers or location to be seen
by Arnold. It really has no place in this discussion in the world today.
 |
| Arnold's original drawing to the Army. It looks nothing like the Flying Wing, which is probably a better way to eliminated that aircraft as the source |
But
what really set the tone here was a comment made to the YouTube channel by
someone calling himself or herself @RUTHAN667. That comment said, “Rosswell is
mostly based on Marcell story and he is proven liar, got his moment of fame,
lied to be pilot, lied about that he shoot down 5 planes.. Whole family,
started finding diaries and milked story dry.. Later someone invented 2nd
crash, bodies.. Brasel imprisonning. Corso cashed on it too.”
Well,
it’s not Rosswell but Roswell and it’s not Marcell but Marcel. From there we
move into territory that isn’t as black and white as it seems. While I wouldn’t
call Jesse Marcel, Sr. a liar, the problem is that he made some claims that
were less than truthful. He didn’t say he was a pilot, but had flown as a pilot
while serving in the Pacific with the Army Air Forces during World War II.
True,
I’m splitting a fine hair here, and it seems unlikely that an officer who is
not rated would accumulate that much flight time. I can envision him getting
some stick time but not 3000 hours. I can say that I flew as a door gunner in
Vietnam but I was not rated in that position. I was a helicopter pilot and
later an aircraft commander and accumulated just under 2000 hours during that
portion of my career. I’m willing to give him a pass on that particular claim
because of the way things worked in aviation units. Clearly, Marcel did participate
in combat missions during his tour in the Pacific and was awarded two air medals
for that.
 |
| Kevin Randle in Vietnam in 1969 |
However,
as we break this down, Marcel apparently told Bob Pratt that he, Marcel, had
five air medals for shooting down five enemy aircraft. I got Marcel’s records
and the Unit Histories from the units in which he served. There is no indication
that he shot down any enemy aircraft. The Army Air Forces kept records of the majority
of those who downed enemy aircraft and Marcel’s name does not appear on the
list. And yes, that list includes the names of the men who shot down enemy aircraft
in all theaters of the war, and those flying as gunners but not pilots. The enlisted man with the most recorded
kills shot down 19 enemy planes, but he was not a pilot. I believe it was
Richard Bong who holds the American record with 40. Pappy Boyington, I believe
shot down 28 (though I think he was only credited with 26).
At
any rate, Marcel doesn’t get a pass on this. There is simply no evidence to support
his claim of five air medals (though I have the citations for the two he did
receive).
There
are other things that he said that we can’t verify. His testimony is
problematic. I will note, however, where we have additional witnesses and documentation,
then what he said was probably accurate. He did travel to the Brazel (Foster)
ranch and he did gather up metallic debris. He did escort that material to Fort
Worth.
 |
| Bill Brazel and Don Schmitt on the Debris Field, 1989. Photo by Kevin Randle. |
The
whole Marcel family did not begin to find diaries. In going through the papers
and files handed down from Jesse Marcel, Sr. to his son and then to the
grandchildren in 2013, they did find a “Memorandum Book,” which the Army passed
out by the thousands. I have two of them. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem that
Marcel was the author of the notations and even if he was, there is nothing in
that diary to confirm the events of July 1947. The criticism about finding
diaries is inaccurate.
The
idea that “later someone invented 2nd crash, bodies…” is not an accurate
picture either. The trouble was that we had Bill Brazil, the son of the man who
found the debris field, showing us where he had picked up some of the strange
debris. It is located southeast of Corona, New Mexico. We, that is Don Schmitt,
Tom Carey and I were able to find witnesses to that field other than just
Marcel (and these include Sheridan Cavitt, the CIC officer who accompanied
Marcel out to the field). Bill Brazel took Don and me to the debris field. He
parked his truck and said that this was where he had found some of that debris.
Others, such as Loretta Proctor and Bud Payne pointed to the same location.
However,
during our investigation, we interviewed several officers and senior NCOs who
talked about a much shorter trip to the crash site. While it took three hours
or more to arrive at the debris field, they talked about a short trip of under
an hour. These included Bill Rickett and Chester Barton. Brigadier General
Arthur Exon told us about two sites, oriented northwest to southeast that he
had flown over in the weeks that followed. Eventually, witnesses to that second
site, where bodies were located, were found.
 |
| Don Schmitt and me on the Impact Site, 2023. Site was identified by several eyewitnesses. |
The
stories were not invented but recovered through careful investigation and corroboration.
It is established that there were two sites and we, Don, Tom and I invented
nothing. We just went where the testimonies took us and reported accurately what
others said. In many cases, it took long contact with the witnesses for them to trust us
with the tale, and then, often, only if we didn’t reveal who they were.
Mack
Brazel, the man who started this by taking samples of the metallic debris to Chaves County Sheriff George Wilcox, was held at the Roswell Army Air Field.
The base Provost Marshal, Major Edwin Easley, told me Brazel had been held in
the guest house, which not the same as being in the stockade, but then, if you’re
not allowed to leave, what really, is the difference?
We, Don, Tom and I talked to neighbors of Mack, such as Marian Strickland, who told us he complained about being held on the base. Neighbor Floyd Proctor told researchers that he’d seen Mack in Roswell in the company of several Army officers. That suggests that the story about his being held at the base is true even if the cell didn’t have bars... just guards watching.
So,
we see that @RUTHAN667’s rant contains a single fact about Marcel embellishing
his resume, which really is lying no matter how I attempt to sugarcoat it. And
there are other things that Marcel said that weren’t true. If Marcel was the single
witness to this, we could certainly dismiss it as a tale invented by him. But,
every member of Colonel Blanchard’s primary staff that we interviewed, with a
single exception, verified parts of the story. When we expanded the search to
other members of the 509th Bomb Group, we found many officers and
enlisted men who were involved in bits and pieces of the story. They might have
seen only some of the metal recovered, or were involved in security at various
sites, and even a few who did mention the bodies, the story is not stand alone.
Many of them did not approach us. We found them and asked questions about those
events.
I’ll
note here that Major Easley, told me that the craft was extraterrestrial. Well,
it was a little different than that. I asked him if we were following the right
path. He asked what I meant by that and I said, “We think it was
extraterrestrial.” He said, “It’s not the wrong path.”
 |
| Major Edwin Easley in 1947. Photo courtesy of the Roswell Army Air Field Yearbook. |
There
is so much more that could be said here. You want to talk about mistakes we
made. Sure. We believed that Frank Kaufmann was telling the truth until we
found evidence that he wasn’t. We, again Don, Mark Rodeghier, Mark Chesney and
I exposed those lies in an issue of International UFO Reporter.
But
the only fact that @RUTHAN667 got right was that Marcel claimed five aerial
victories and had none. Everything else is misinterpretation of the facts or ignoring
body of evidence that has been accumulated, vetted, repaired and reported by
us. I would suggest reading Roswell in the 21st Century and Understanding
Roswell that I wrote and Tom Carey and Don Schmitt’s Witness to Roswell
to get a better interpretation of the situation. And if you want the other
side, I’d recommend Karl Pflock’s Roswell: Inconvenient Facts and the Will
to Believe. I’d especially recommend you read the affidavit section of his
book. These affidavits were gathered by several of us over many weeks.
I
suggest that you, @RUTHAN667, do a little more research before you shoot your
mouth off (and learn to spell) and TheSneezingMonkey, if you’re going to be
skeptical and claim a deep dive, do a great deal more research.
If
the mood moves me, I think next time I’ll attack the Washington National
sightings. I interviewed two of the officers who were in the radar room during
some of those sightings, and have transcripts of interviews with one of the
fighter pilots who talked about the lights surrounding him during an attempted
intercept.
And don’t even get me started on the Pascagoula abduction. Yes, I talked to both Hickson and Parker and TheSneezingMonkey wasn’t even close on his ridiculous analysis.
24 comments:
Outstanding article Kevin. Ignorant, uninformed statements are thrown around like footballs at the old Mile High Stadium. Hope you're doing well.
Kevin,
I hope this remark doesn’t come across as nitpicky or annoying. However, in your rush to respond, and probably out of some irritation while writing the article, you made a few typos here and there. Some of them are actually quite noticeable. If it’s not too much trouble, I’d suggest going back and fixing them all to make the piece easier to read.
I’m saying this because debunkers and pseudo-skeptics often have the bad habit of latching onto things like that to try and discredit the person rather than the argument. It’s happened to me more than once: I’d write something with a few typos or grammatical mistakes here and there, and then pseudo-skeptics would jump at the chance to say, “Ha, you can’t even write properly, why should I take your arguments seriously?” So that’s exactly why I recommend fixing all the typos and grammatical errors, just to make sure those debunkers don’t have anything to cling to if they show up trying to cause trouble.
In any case...
The reason Arnold’s sighting couldn’t have involved Flying Wings is actually much simpler than you make it sound. They couldn’t have been Flying Wings for the simple fact that, contrary to what many people believe, Arnold never described seeing crescent-shaped objects in the first place.
The whole idea that he saw crescent-shaped objects and that the media misunderstood his words and came up with the term “flying saucer” was completely invented by debunkers as a way to argue that all sightings of disc-shaped UFOs since 1947 are just the result of mass hysteria. This narrative doesn’t match what Arnold himself said back in 1947.
Right after his sighting on June 24, 1947, Arnold gave a recorded statement on June 26, where he described the objects as looking “something like a pie plate that was cut in half with a convex triangle in the rear.” This matches a drawing he later gave to the Army, showing an object that’s almost a full disc with just small parts missing. Early reports from 1947 also show that Arnold used words like “saucer,” “disc,” and “pie pan” to describe the objects. It wasn’t until 1952 that Arnold mentioned one object looking different from the others, suggesting a single crescent-shaped object might have been among the nine he saw. Even then, he still said most of the objects were disc-shaped. Decades later, in 1978, Arnold gave an interview saying all nine objects were crescents, which contradicts his earlier statements. It’s important to note that the evolution of Arnold’s account doesn’t imply that he was lying about his experience. Rather, it simply suggests a case of memory distortion over time, a phenomenon that is well-documented in psychology.
Debunkers often argue that human memory isn’t perfect and fades over time, which is true. So it’s curious that they pick and choose to trust Arnold’s later recollections while ignoring his earliest statements. The best approach would be to focus on the earliest information, recorded when Arnold’s memory was freshest. For a clearer look at Arnold’s earliest statements, I highly recommend reading this Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/173dr0w/kenneth_arnolds_story_went_from_9_discssaucers_to/?share_id=QjzjHRG0FZsFi549GzEbC&utm_content=2&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_source=share&utm_term=1
I've generally enjoyed his debunking of videos, but his Roswell piece was embarrassingly awful. I posted a comment pointing out errors but received no reply.
Spartacus 01 wrote:
The reason Arnold’s sighting couldn’t have involved Flying Wings is actually much simpler than you make it sound. They couldn’t have been Flying Wings for the simple fact that, contrary to what many people believe, Arnold never described seeing crescent-shaped objects in the first place.
The whole idea that he saw crescent-shaped objects and that the media misunderstood his words and came up with the term “flying saucer” was completely invented by debunkers as a way to argue that all sightings of disc-shaped UFOs since 1947 are just the result of mass hysteria. This narrative doesn’t match what Arnold himself said back in 1947.
Right after his sighting on June 24, 1947, Arnold gave a recorded statement on June 26, where he described the objects as looking “something like a pie plate that was cut in half with a convex triangle in the rear.” This matches a drawing he later gave to the Army, showing an object that’s almost a full disc with just small parts missing. Early reports from 1947 also show that Arnold used words like “saucer,” “disc,” and “pie pan” to describe the objects. It wasn’t until 1952 that Arnold mentioned one object looking different from the others, suggesting a single crescent-shaped object might have been among the nine he saw.
Yes, exactly. The only quibble I have here is that Arnold began talking about also seeing one crescent-shaped object (the last object in the chain of objects) starting about a month later in his written report to AAF intelligence. He also drew a simple picture, looking like a "3" on its side or how a kid might draw flying birds in profile, with two arcs for the wings joined in the middle where the body is.
But yes, ALL of his other early drawings and descriptions were of disc-like objects which he described as thin and rounded in the front and convex or coming to a point in the back. E.g., in a surviving recorded interview made 2 days after the sighting (June 26), Arnold described the objects as looking "something like a pie plate that was cut in half with a sort of a convex triangle in the rear." His motion descriptions were: "I noticed to the left of me a chain which looked to me like the tail of a Chinese kite, kind of weaving... they seemed to flip and flash in the sun, just like a mirror... they seemed to kind of weave in and out right above the mountaintops..."
shaped'."[27]
So nothing here or anywhere else early on about how they flew like saucers skipping off water like flat stones, something he didn't start saying for another 2 or 3 years, claiming he was misquoted originally. Not from what I have seen having reviewed the early newspaper stories and documents. He referred to the SHAPE as saucer- or disc-like, or like pie pans or pie plates, or half moon shaped, and the MOTION as like the weaving of the tail of Chinese kite and erratic flipping and flashing in the sun.
Thanks. Hopefully we now have the correct description of whatever Kenneth Arnold witnessed over the Cascade Mountains in 1947. Every time anybody retells the story we are told that somehow the images in the media are wrong.
Spartacus 01 wrote, "The whole idea that he saw crescent-shaped objects and that the media misunderstood his words and came up with the term “flying saucer” was completely invented by debunkers as a way to argue that all sightings of disc-shaped UFOs since 1947 are just the result of mass hysteria."
Thinking it may be messier now that mystical thought has come to dominate. Remember George Knapp said that sightings of flying saucer shaped objects were the result of the intelligence behind the phenomenon mimicking humans' expectations of what spacecraft should look like after the media mislead the public by calling the things Kenneth Arnold sighted "flying saucers". I thought the disk shape served a purpose in the design of unidentified vehicles, but no, we are now told the intelligence got the idea from humanity's collective psyche. Does anybody here believe it? Sorry, that type of thinking gives me headaches. Also wondering if anybody here has opinions on Kenneth Arnold's ideas as to the origin of the flying saucers. Creepy macabre stuff, not spoken of often. Honestly, the way that mysticism, parapsychology, religion, and spirituality have come to dominate ufology after having been present since the beginning should be a cause for concern among the few remaining rational minded folk.
The picture Kenneth Arnold drew of one object resembles the thing in Rhodes' photograph as well as the artwork Don Schmidt made of the delta wing looking thing that crashed near Roswell, New Mexico in 1947. Not unreasonable to think crafts of that configuration flew over America in the summer of 1947, suggesting the things reported were part of the same group if not the same. Would that be too much of a reach? Thanks again. Goodbye for now.
Hi Kevin. I've left a message on the ignorant monkey's youtube gibberish and requested that he have a chat with me so I can put him right about the Pascagoula case. I doubt if he'll agree.
(Part 1 of 2)
Kevin wrote:
i>While I wouldn’t call Jesse Marcel, Sr. a liar, the problem is that he made some claims that were less than truthful. He didn’t say he was a pilot, but had flown as a pilot while serving in the Pacific with the Army Air Forces during World War II.
True, I’m splitting a fine hair here, and it seems unlikely that an officer who is not rated would accumulate that much flight time. I can envision him getting some stick time but not 3000 hours.he had several thousand hours of pilot time in the right seat, meaning copilot time. It would seem, from the records available, that Marcel had no pilot's license, but that he would have ridden in the right seat as part of his mapping job. His military record shows nothing of this bootleg time and we know that after he got out of the service he did no private flying."
Marcel worked for about a decade prewar as an aerial cartographer, first for the Army Corp of Engineers, then starting around 1936 for Shell Oil. Several thousand hours "bootleg" time in the copilots seat while he did this over 6-10 years is by no means out of the question.
Second, Marcel wasn't bragging about being a pilot when this came up in his Bob Pratt interview for the National Inquirer. He was emphasizing that he was very familiar with just about all aircraft at the time of Roswell and what he found couldn't have been from a human aircraft. It's worth repeating the parts of the Pratt interview where Marcel’s background in aviation came up to see exactly what was asked and said. I’ve also added in Karl Pflock’s interpretation of Pratt’s transcript since Pratt often highly abbreviated his questions and sometimes Marcel’s answers:
Marcel stated early in the interview: "I had flying experience before going in service -- started flying in 1928 -- being in [the] air was not foreign to me. Did lot of flying, combat flying, [in] B-24s."
Here's another statement a short time later in the interview:
(PFLOCK) Q: Was the flying you did before the war part of your work?
(PRATT) Q: (flying before—work)
MARCEL: Private pilot.
(PFLOCK) Q: What work did you do before the war?
(PRATT) Q: (Work?)
MARCEL: I was a cartographer, map maker. Worked for U.S. Engineers and Shell Oil Company. I was working for Shell Oil Company as a photographer when the war began. All my map making for the Engineers and Shell Oil Company was derived from aerial photographs.
Except for the one terse statement "private pilot," Marcel made no specific representation in this interview of piloting done before the war, when, how much, or in what capacity.
(Part 2 of 2)
Then the part where Marcel emphasized his familiarity with aircraft and what he investigated at Roswell wasn’t anything like that:
(PRATT) Q: What do you think this thing was?
MARCEL: Well, as far as I know, or can surmise, it -- I was pretty well acquainted with most of the things that were in the air at the time, not only from my own military aircraft but also in a lot of foreign countries, and I still believe it was nothing that came from earth....
So it looks to me like Marcel was referencing his prewar civilian aviation experience, first by saying "not only from my own military aircraft", i.e. is military experience from 1942 until Roswell, then adding "but also in a lot of foreign countries," i.e., presumably, his overseas aerial cartography work for Shell Oil.
Then Pratt tried to clarify Marcel's flight experience. The transcript then says:
PRATT Q: 3000 hrs pilot
,
MARCEL(?): (right)
Q(?) or Marcel: 8000 hrs flying time
So lots of ambiguity here as to whether Marcel actually claimed 3000 hours of piloting experience and 8000 hours total flight time. It’s unclear from the Pratt transcript exactly where these numbers came from. From Marcel? From Pratt? Perhaps they arose in casual conversation before the taped interview began and Pratt brought them up again during the interview. I don’t know. As here, Pratt's transcript of Marcel's answers was often abbreviated and ambiguous, perhaps partly the difficulty of compiling a transcript from a tape and also hurried under the pressures of a publishing deadline. Karl Pflock in his interpretation of the Pratt transcript wrote it as the following:
PFLOCK Q: You had three thousand hours as a pilot --
MARCEL: Right, [and] 8000 hours [total] flying time.
Perhaps that is exactly what Marcel meant, but it isn't 100% clear. What is clear is that Marcel did NOT claim anything like that amount of pilot/flight experience while in the military, though it is documented in his military records that he had nearly 500 hours of combat flight time. And being in the Air Force, he would have been flying a lot more than that over his 8 year stint from 1942-1950.
David -
Here's the problem with this flight time argument and it's that we have no real documentation about Marcel's flight time. As you noted, this is all based on what he told Bob Pratt. However, he never presented any flight records to verify his flight time. The Unit History of his unit in the Pacific, and from the citations for his two air medals, suggest total flight time as a crew member as around 500 hours.
Looking at my own flight records, there is flight time that isn't documented and if asked, I can't give an accurate figure. However, the documentation notes just over 200 hours in flight school, some 1200 hours of combat flight time (which isn't accurate because records were lost when I destroyed a helicopter on a land mine, flew a fire fly mission with the Dragons, and sat in the right seat for maintenance flights). Marcel didn't have these sorts of records, which is why I suggested we give him a pass on this because of the vagueness of his statements to Pratt.
However, there are other statements that are not true. He did not shoot down any Japanese aircraft, he was not awarded five air medals for that and his discussion of the college education is very shaky as well.
And, as a ground pounder (as we called those who were not rated), his opportunities for flight were restricted. And I don't count time as a passenger in the rear of the aircraft, so I'm saying that this 8000 hours is not explained nor is it documented.
map any slide,
The idea that the intelligence behind the UFO phenomenon changes its appearance based on what humans expect to see comes from Jacques Vallée and John Keel. According to their theory, UFOs aren’t alien spacecraft from other planets, but some kind of interdimensional phenomenon that manipulates us and chooses forms that align with the beliefs of the time.
In other words, these beings adapt their appearances to match human expectations and present themselves in ways that reflect the cultural beliefs and fears of each era. In ancient times, they appeared as angels, demons, and gods; in the Middle Ages, they appeared as ghosts, fairies, goblins, gnomes, and other creatures; in the late 19th century, they appeared as crews of mysterious airships; in 1946, they appeared as Ghost Rockets; and from 1947 onward, they appeared as extraterrestrials piloting flying saucers.
Personally, I think this is pure speculation. It seems like an unnecessary attempt to link completely unrelated phenomena into one overarching theory. I don’t see any reason to connect ancient stories of angels and demons, medieval fairies and goblins, the 1897 airship reports, the Ghost Rockets, and modern UFO sightings. To me, these are all separate phenomena that don’t really have anything to do with each other.
As for Kenneth Arnold, there’s a famous photo of him holding a picture that shows a model of a crescent-shaped aircraft and pointing at it with his finger. However, I’m not sure exactly when that photo was taken. As I mentioned in my initial comment, in 1947 he claimed that all the objects he saw were almost completely circular, with just a small part at the back indented. It wasn’t until 1952 that he suggested one of those objects might have been crescent-shaped. So it’s possible that the photo was taken around 1952, but I can’t say for sure.
Well, look, if Marcel was flying B-24's in the Pacific and was pilot or copilot when the airplanes he was in shot down 5 Japanese aircraft, that means "He" shot them down, since he was a vital part of the crew. As far as the 5 Air medals there are more than one kind of medal awarded and he could have been awarded 5 medals of different kinds as a result of his service. Also, do not forget that units receive awards in the form of unit citations, and that translates into ribbons and other devices (e.g. Oak leaf Clusters) that you wear on your uniform. Marcel's wife said in a video that her husband had been in charge of 5 (I think) US Army Air Force planes, which would mean he was Pilot in Command of those aircraft.
RWE -
I don't know who your are, but you known nothing about military aviation. Marcel was not in command of a flight of aircraft, ever. I have his complete 201 file, and he has two citations for the air medal, neither for shooting down an enemy aircraft. He in fact, had six different medals with oak leaf clusters on those for multiple awards (specifically the two air medals). I don't think you know what an oak leaf cluster designates.
The Army Air Forces kept records of all men who shot down enemy aircraft regardless of position in the flight, meaning that the gunners in other positions (waist gunners, ball turret, top turret and rear) would be credited with any aircraft they shot down but that does not translate into a "kill" for the pilots. They didn't shoot the enemy down.
Marcel was not a "vital" part of the crew. He was in the aircraft as part of his job as an intelligence officer, but he was not with the flight on every mission. According to his records, he had 428 hours of flight time and his two air medals were for meritorious service and not for valor. He was never the pilot in command, and had he been, there would have been orders in his records showing this.
So, nearly everything h wrote here is your speculation based not on military records or an understanding of the Army Air Forces during the war. To be clear, he shot down no enemy aircraft, he was not awarded five air medals, his was not flying in a pilot's position during his flights, there is no indication in his file about unit awards and you certainly don't understand oak leaf clusters.
Don't know how to make this any clearer, but nothing you postulate is accurate.
Hi Kevin...
I was just thinking (maybe) in @RUTHAN667’s defense, maybe this person, when referring to “invented 2nd crash” could be referring to Gerald Anderson and the “2nd crash site” at the Plains of San Augustin. In which case, the statement would be accurate as to being made up. Just a thought. Also, Eric Davis recently came out in an interview and stated that the ONLY crash site was near Corona, insinuating that the impact site didn’t exist. Not sure what you thought about that but I just found it an interesting statement.
Karl -
I think you are right about the second crash site. It probably is a reference to the Plains... when I read it, and because we located the impact site so late in the investigation, my mind went there first.
Eric Davis has made a couple of problematic statements about UFO crashes. I don't think that he is quite as inside as he would like us to believe.
Karl -
Had to go back and check, but it was Eric Davis who said the Del Rio crash was real but the story was based on an affidavit signed by Robert Williingham, who made up just about everything about his military career... Just type Willingham into the search engine at the left of the blog and you'll see the evidence that Willingham lied about so much and he is the ONLY available source for Del Rio. I tried to contact Davis about this but he never responded. There was no Del Rio crash, and if there was no crash, what does that say about Davis?
Davis’s claims seem to line up very closely with what’s written in the MJ-12 Eisenhower Briefing Document.
If Karl is right and Davis claimed that the only actual crash site was the one near Corona, then he’s basically repeating the version of the Roswell crash reported in the document, which doesn’t mention two impact sites but only one, stating that the craft exploded in midair and created the debris field.
Also, the fact that he claims the December 6, 1950 UFO crash was a real event aligns with what’s in the document, which refers to the crash as an actual event.
Since it’s been proven countless times that the Eisenhower Briefing Document is a hoax, the fact that Davis’s claims line up so closely with what’s written in that document doesn’t look good for him. It suggests he probably believes the document is genuine and uses it as a source, which supports Kevin’s point that he isn’t nearly as much of an insider as he tries to make people believe.
Glad I returned to check here this morning. I feel inspired to comment in reaction to what Karl wrote on Sunday and your two replies you made in response on Tuesday, Kevin. Also reminded me to reread the post you wrote over three years ago when Luis Elizondo spoke about a fake second crash site. Feel like I am always last to find out about news in the fringe as I just now found out here about how Dr. Eric Davis did an interview recently. Can anybody please tell more about the recent interview with Dr. Eric Davis while it is news?
Yes, I agree with you, Kevin, there are too many examples of problematic statements Dr. Eric Davis has made, more than a couple. With that said, Dr. Eric Davis's statements remain fascinating, and they can tell us more about the company he keeps. Remember that Dr. Eric Davis works for Harold Puthoff's company Earth Tech International. Harold Puthoff met Jacques Vallée at Stanford Research Institute in 1972. Brings us back to the Ultra-Terrestrial Hypothesis of John Keel and Jacques Vallée whom Spartacus mentioned. Think I should paste URLs to relevant posts on skeptic Jason Colavito's blog.
https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/another-bizarre-claim-from-the-bigelow-to-the-stars-team-this-time-about-underground-humanoids-and-mind-altering-ufos
https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/j-allen-hynek-and-the-invention-of-the-poltergeist-ufo-connection
https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/l-a-marzulli-cites-jacques-vallee-and-j-allen-hynek-on-interdimensional-ufos
By the way, has anybody watched L. A. Marzulli's documentary about Roswell? I have not. Apologies for the digression. Back to the topic, we know that Dr. Eric Davis is part of a group that might as well be called the Invisible College which includes Harold Puthoff who worked with A.F.O.S.I. agent Richard Doty in the creation of what became known as the Project Serpo Hoax.
https://badufos.blogspot.com/2019/03/aawsap-meets-serpo-hoax.html
https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/deep-prasad-probes-magnesium-metamaterials-in-project-serpo-and-to-the-stars
Sorry, I know I pasted the same URLs to those two posts on the blogs of skeptics Robert Sheaffer and Jason Colavito under a previous post here. Thought they would be relevant under this one too. The Project Serpo Hoax builds upon the earlier Majestic Twelve Hoax which tried to convince us that the Del Rio crash was real, but the fact is there was no Del Rio crash, as you wrote above here, Kevin. Sometimes I wonder if these people are con-artists, victims of con-artists, or victims who joined confidence games thinking, "if you cannot beat them, join them".
Eagerly anticipating listening to your next report on the radio tonight or tomorrow morning! Over three hours ago, I finished listening to an author talk of numerous hoaxes as if they were real including the Trinity crash hoax, the Maury Island hoax, the fake letter that Albert Einstein and Robert Oppenheimer did not send to Harry Truman, and those fake mummies Jaime Maussan continues to pass off as real in macabre displays to politicians. Let's hope somebody can remedy the fraud that unfortunately persists. Thanks!
Speaking of the interdimensional/ultraterrestrial hypothesis of UFOs, I think it would be great if Kevin wrote a long, detailed post sharing his thoughts on that specific topic. I’ve searched through his entire blog and even his books, but I’ve never found any reference or comment from him about it. It would be really interesting if he wrote something about it, maybe discussing John Keel, Jacques Vallée, and J. Allen Hynek's theories along with their objections to the extraterrestrial hypothesis of UFOs. A post like that would definitely spark an interesting discussion in the comments.
(Part 1 of 4)
Not that I'm any sort of expert in this, but when I tried to research the awarding of air medals during WWII, I discovered that it was pretty complicated and confusing. The rules kept changing and also varied a lot depending on theater of operation. Commanders had a lot of discretion on the criteria for awarding air medals. Also the criteria kept changing after the war. So what might have applied when Kevin was in Viet Nam was not necessarily the same as when Marcel was in the South Pacific. I think this adds to the confusion. (E.g., the citations during WWII typically specified only "meritorious achievement" and rarely mentioned valor in the wording. "Meritorious achievement" was usually used to cover everything. An additional air medal award for valor was added post-WWII. More later.)
The shifting regulations seems to be largely because the danger associated with combat flights varied a lot with the theater of operation. Bombing missions out of England over Europe met with almost constant fire once they crossed the English Channel. But if you were in the Mediterranean, while your missions were generally longer, you were also less likely to get shot down or killed. And even less so for the South Pacific, where the mission were usually even longer but usually came under less fire.
The air medal was set up in 1942 to try to improve the morale of combat crews, giving them recognition for important, dangerous work that didn't necessarily rise to the level of the Distinguished Flying Cross. It was like a mini-DFC. Initially I think the regulations called for an air medal every 25 missions, but the bomber crews in England complained that the Mediterranean crews were getting the medals for having to endure a lot less. Feeling that the criteria were unjust did not help morale either. Commanders in different theaters were given discretion to try to match the air medal to their particular circumstances. The number of missions for English crews to get the medal dropped to 5. Completing 25 missions got you the DFC, whether you were “heroic” or not. In contrast. in the South Pacific, it might take 25 missions to get an air medal instead of 5. Flying the India-China route where they were not under fire took like 100 missions. Again, it varied a lot.
According to Google’s AI, which I asked if words like “valor”, “bravery”, etc. were used in WWII air medal citations, it instead answered the citations typically used the words “meritorious achievement” to cover everything. The air medal might be individualized to specify why the air medal was handed out, such as for valor or shooting down planes, but not usually. It just wasn’t practical. There were over one million air medals handed out during the war because of all the missions. However, after WWII, if the air medal was awarded primarily for valor, a “V” attachment was added to the air medal ribbon to distinguish it from other forms of “meritorious achievement.”
Marcel's two air medals had obviously boilerplate wording. The citations read for "for meritorious achievement while participating in sustained operational flight missions [time period] during which hostile contact was probable and expected… The courage and devotion to duty displayed during these flights are worthy of commendation." In addition, the citations state that, “These operations consisted of bombing missions against enemy airdromes and installation and attacks on enemy naval vessels and shipping.”
The wording of Marcel’s air medals made it pretty clear he was awarded for combat flying. In other words, Marcel didn’t get his air medals just for being a passenger. They were dropping bombs and being shot at.
Though usually awarded for number of missions or flight hours, air medals could also be awarded for singular acts of heroism or meritorious achievement, which might include shooting down enemy aircraft, or even such things as aerial surveillance, which can be extremely dangerous.
(part 2 of 4)
Simultaneous with the period of Marcel’s recorded air medals, he also received a Bronze Star, the wording of which again said for “meritorious achievement”. When asked in his Bob Pratt interview why he received it, he said it was for training new “greenhorn” crews from the States on how to fly combat in the South Pacific. This again suggests Marcel wasn’t just some passive agent on the planes. He was actively engaged with the regular flight crews. He was a combat intelligence officer, but also an aerial photo-intelligence officer who had taught these subjects for a year and a half back in the States before being shipped to the South Pacific. And before the war, he had been an aerial cartographer for a decade, the reason he was drafted to be a photo-intelligence officer to begin with. In other words, he was an expert at reading the ground from the air.
South Pacific combat flying involved many difficulties in navigation because of the general lack of landmarks. He was stationed primarily in Port Moresby, Papua, New Guinea. They might have to fly over several hundred miles of jungle or ocean to get to their targets. It was easy to get lost, not knowing how to find their targets or get back home. Marcel might also plan attack routes, then train crews in how to follow them. So, yes, it made perfect sense that Marcel would be on these missions training crews in how to survive and carry out their missions. When Marcel in his Pratt interview said he WAS the bomb wing intelligence officer, but also sometimes acted AS a pilot, navigator, and bombardier, that also isn’t unbelievable at all. He could have filled in these positions for various reasons, for instructional purposes in navigation, for relief of the regulars during long missions, or in an emergency if the regular crew member was incapacitated. This happened all the time in combat where for survival reasons someone lacking an MOS (military occupational specialty) might have to assume somebody else’s position.
Other statements by the AI were that if an air medal was claimed for shooting down an enemy aircraft, it was difficult and often impossible to determine if one specific gunner on a bomber actually had the “victory” or “kill”. Bomber missions usually flew in tight formations and multiple gunners might be shooting at the same planes. Unlike fighters, there was no gun camera to document whether some gunner actually shot down a plane. It was based on eyewitness testimony of crews. It was well known that the number of air medals awarded for “kills” was greatly exaggerated because of this. Multiple gunners might claim the same kill. This was one reason for the glut of air medals handed out and why the wording usually was NOT personalized with the reason for the air medal.
The AI also said that there was a post-war review of the situation. “Following the war, a review board largely dismissed aerial victory claims made by bomber crews, stating that the confusion of combat made it nearly impossible to award definitive victories. Awards received during the war were not rescinded, but bomber crew victories were left off the official U.S. Air Force aerial victory lists.” In other words, kills might NOT show up in post-war documentation.
There might be other reasons for this not showing up in individual records according to the AI, such as lost records for various reasons, e.g. the confusion of war, or maybe low priority for keeping thorough records when basic survival and winning the war had much higher priorities.
(Part 3 of 4)
Marcel was in the South Pacific for 22 months. His surviving record has around 200 pages, but his stint in the Pacific has only about a dozen. That’s not much documentation for what Marcel was up to then or what he did or didn’t do. Marcel’s original record was destroyed in the 1973 St. Louis fire and what we have now was apparently reconstructed from other sources.
Kevin has often written that he was awarded only 2 air medals for his helicopter piloting in Viet Nam, yet by regulations he was entitled to 41! (Recently he wrote he got this corrected, but that was 50 years later.) Another Viet Nam helicopter Vet named Alfred Lehmberg on UFO Updates likewise wrote that his record had only 2 air medals, but he had really earned 35.
So Marcel’s official record had only 2 air medals and he gets accused of lying about having more. How do we know for sure that is true when there are good examples of where earned air medals do not show up in official records?
With this background, let’s further address some of what Kevin wrote:
“The Army Air Forces kept records of all men who shot down enemy aircraft regardless of position in the flight, meaning that the gunners in other positions (waist gunners, ball turret, top turret and rear) would be credited with any aircraft they shot down but that does not translate into a "kill" for the pilots. They didn't shoot the enemy down.”
Again, I’m no expert, but from what I’ve read, it was usually NOT the case that individual gunners were credited with kills, in part because of the difficulty in determining if a kill actually took place and who was actually responsible, plus the feeling that in a bomber or bomber squadron, kills were more of a team rather than individual effort. It again depended on command and theater of operation. There were also well-documented cases of certain gunners who did receive a lot of acclaim for their skill in shooting down enemy planes.
But it wasn’t the case of literally “all men” who shot down planes getting credit and having records about it. As one website (www.airandspaceforces.com/article/0491gunners/) put it: “The thousands of planes downed by bombers usually were counted as team, rather than individual, successes. The Air Force maintains that it is too hard to assign credit to individual gunners on missions where dozens of guns may have been blazing away at the same target. Spreading the credit among the gunners in formations of 100 to 1,000 bombers would have been a bookkeeping nightmare.” This is another conceivable reason why Marcel could have shot down planes and yet not have an official record of it.
“Marcel was not a "vital" part of the crew. He was in the aircraft as part of his job as an intelligence officer, but he was not with the flight on every mission.”
I’m not sure exactly what is being said here. How could he be on a mission and not be “with the flight”? What exactly is a “vital” part of the crew? Anybody who was on these combat flights was in mortal danger.
What exactly was Marcel as an intelligence officer doing on these bombing missions anyway? He could have been doing reconnaissance to plan for future missions. But that likely wouldn’t justify the very large number of hours of total combat flight he put in (see below). Instead, it seems likely it had more to do with the reason Marcel gave for receiving the Bronze Star on these missions, namely teaching newly trained crews how to fly combat in the South Pacific. Does that make him a “vital” crew member? You decide.
(Part 4 of 4)
“According to his records, he had 428 hours of flight time”
Actually, according to his records, he had 468 hours of combat flight time, not 428. 468 was also the number he claimed in his Bob Pratt interview—in this case verifiable from surviving records, otherwise might have drawn further accusations of lying. The correct number is a nitpick, but might affect the number of air medals he received for total missions or flight hours. And it should be stressed the air medal wording makes it pretty clear they were bombing the Japanese and normally being shot at. This was combat flight time, not just some ambiguous “flight time.” At least let’s give the man credit for doing some extremely dangerous work many times over.
“and his two air medals were for meritorious service and not for valor.”
This is stated as some sort of indisputable fact, but is not. As discussed, “meritorious achievement” was standard wording and covered a lot of situations, including those that might involve valor. Even if the air medal was awarded for a singular act of valor, it was usually NOT specified. It involved too much work to individualize the wording of every air medal citation (remember, over a million). The wording on Marcel’s air medals do also state “for courage and devotion to duty”, which might suggest valor, but this was probably more boilerplate wording. The key point here, is that if valor is not specified, it doesn’t mean valor wasn’t involved. And note that “meritorious achievement” in general means doing something beyond the usual requirements or call of duty. If his 2 known air medals were awarded for total missions (perhaps at least 50), he obviously was still doing something more “vital” than just twiddling his thumbs while being along for the ride.
Another point is that shortly after Marcel received his 2nd known air medal, a performance review (Dec. 31, 1944) noted that Marcel had received favorable mention in official communications. There was an asterisk (*) by this, suggesting that the reasons for the favorable comments were specified elsewhere, but this is missing from Marcel’s file (at least the copy I received from Kevin 20 years ago). So we don’t know what created the favorable commentary. Maybe it was for valor on these missions, maybe even shooting down planes, or maybe something else entirely.
We do know that he was selected as one of the original members of the 509th Bomb Group, created to drop the A-bomb on Japan, and helped plan the bomb drops on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (according to son Marcel Jr.), just as he probably planned bombing missions as the squadron intelligence officer in New Guinea. (His involvement with planning the A-bomb missions isn’t in his military record either. Not everything is there by any means.) The point here is that, yes, higher command obviously held a very favorable view of Marcel, or he would never have been selected for such a sensitive job. It is very likely this would have required a Q-clearance, which means the FBI would have extensively investigated his background and record to see if he was thoroughly trustworthy. Apparently he was, given this and his subsequent intelligence work involving nuclear weapons (Operation Crossroads 1946, Roswell AAF 1946-1948, Special Weapons Project, Washington 1948-1950).
David -
You need to think of the air medal for meritorious service and the air medal for valor as two separate awards. I have a document that was preprinted where my name was inserted and notes it is for the first through thirty-ninth oak leaf clusters for the air medal. The ones for valor note, specifically, that it is single award for heroism. In other words, Marcel's two air medals were for meritorious service. There is no evidence that I can find, and none you have presented to suggest that Marcel had more than two air medals.
I can say that during the Vietnam War, the air medal, in the Army was awarded for 25 hours of combat assault flight time and for 50 hours of direct combat assault. During those missions we were shot at periodically. The requirement for the air medal has changed to read six months of flying in a combat arena, so changes are made.
But the real point is that there is no evidence for Marcel's claim to five air medals, nor is there evidence that he shot down any enemy aircraft. During WW II, the Army Air Forces did kept track of those sorts of things for the enlisted gunners on bombers. Marcel's name does not appear in those records, kept at Maxwell Air Force Base where the Air Force Archives are kept.
There is no question that his air medals were awarded for meritorious achievement, but there is no indication that they were awarded for valor. The valor award required the specific act of heroism be presented in the citation for the award. I have just gone through his 201 file and I have the unit histories of the units he served with in the Pacific, and again, no evidence that he shot down any enemy aircraft. That's the real problem... and yes, I'm being somewhat redundant here.
PS: Yes, he had 468 hours of flight time. That was a typo on my part, but it doesn't really change the situation. There is no evidence for the additional three awards and no evidence that he shot down any enemy aircraft and that is where the problem is.
I've never believed in the existence of a second crash site for Roswell beyond what Mac Brazel found on the property he was working, but I'm open to more info. Can anyone recommend a book that makes a very good case for the existence of a second crash site?
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