Don Schmitt, Adam Dew and the Roswell Slides

Adam Dew

In the last several weeks, I have been asked if Don Schmitt had ever said anything about the interview I had conducted with Adam Dew in November 2017 on the X-Zone Broadcast Network. Since I interviewed Don a couple of times, I thought that those interested could figure out on their own what his reaction might be. Listen to what Don said and what Adam said, compare the two and decide who is telling the truth and who is not. For those interested, you can listen to the interviews, starting with Dew, here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/13469927

And Don Schmitt here:

https://youtu.be/t1GAupYNIIw

and here:

https://youtu.be/fo-gK4nwZ_k 

And you can read my somewhat short analyses of the shows, again starting with Dew, here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2017/11/x-zone-broadcast-network-adam-dew-and.html

Don Schmitt. Photo copyright
by Kevin Randle

And Don Schmitt here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2017/08/xzone-broadcast-network-don-schmitt.html

And here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2016/09/x-zone-broadcast-network-don-schmitt.html

This, I think, will provide the information necessary to form an opinion about the veracity of the various tales. I did ask Don if he had listened to Adam’s interview. He emailed me that:

These were what we relied on as provided by [Joe] Beason for attempted analysis by Rudiak and others. We were never allowed possession of either slide or any slides for that matter for dating, examination, or independent testing. We relied strictly on scans provided by Beason [the man who had the slides originally] throughout our association. The second slide was only a tight shot of the body which did not enable us to see what was clearly a museum setting in the background. When I confronted [Jaime] Maussan in his office in Mexico City the day after the presentation, I demanded to see the image of the entire second slide. Placard withstanding, it was indeed a museum. Now, reexamine the placard image as provided by Beason and tell me that what you see is not undecipherable script writing - not the block lettering which truly is in the originals. You will also recall that after Mexico City I confronted Dew and demanded that they publicly release the slides to end any final dispute. He declined stating "What good would that do? They have been tested enough." I persisted and believe my wait will be infinite.

Placard scans supplied to Don Schmitt.

He did include a copy of the scan that had been supplied to both Tom Carey and him, which was supplied to David Rudiak to see if David might be able to draw out something of significance. They don’t supply much in the way of information and are only of the placard and not of the whole display.

As I have said, I’ll let both men, Don and Adam, speak for themselves on this. I believe that each of us can infer from their statements where the truth lies. I will say, however, that it seems to me, when we find ourselves in these sorts of situations, the truth is usually found somewhere between the two opposing camps. Though I don’t solicit comments but let those who wish to comment do so, in this case, I would be interested in anything anyone has to say about all of this. I have my own bias which, naturally, will color what I believe to be the truth, though I try to be as objective as possible.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Adam Dew and the Not Roswell Slides

Adam Dew and camera.

This week I talked with Adam Dew, he of the Not Roswell Slides fame. I had a long list of questions for him from how did the slides come into his possession to his reaction when the placard was deblurred within hours of the BeWitness program in Mexico City. You can hear the interview here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/13469927

As you can imagine, some of the things he said disagree with things that others have said. This is a result of the different perspectives (yeah, I said that on purpose) of those involved. One of the big controversies was who saw the slides and when. According to Adam, the slides, rather than scans, were seen by Don Schmitt and Tom Carey and they had noticed the museum setting of the slides. This is in conflict with what both Don and Tom have said. You can listen to my interview with Don about this here:

https://youtu.be/fo-gK4nwZ_k

and there was another interview about Roswell and the like with Don here:

https://youtu.be/t1GAupYNIIw

I was interested in why they all thought the image on the slides might be some sort of alien creature. Adam said that it didn’t look like any of the mummies they had seen online. The way the body looked, and their (his and Joe Beason) over estimating the size seemed to be the reason. He did describe the features that caused him to think of it as alien.

He also said that he wasn’t completely convinced that the image was a mummy, though the deblurring of the placard by the Roswell Slides Research Group and the subsequent findings suggest that is the answer. I pointed out that we know this has nothing to do with Roswell because the museum where the mummy had been displayed was identified and that it had been moved in May 1947.

From about February 2015, I posted many articles about the investigation and news about the Not Roswell Slides. You can search the blog easily for all those articles, too numerous to note here. Just click on 2015 on the left side of the blog and it will list all the articles published at that time; then just click on February. You can then follow the progression through March, April and into May. There were other articles published after the reveal in Mexico City in May.

Interestingly, Adam mentioned that some of the recent publicity about this whole affair had sparked renewed interest in his documentary. Up to that point, it had been set firmly on the back burner. The renewed interest might not be enough to induce him to finish it. As it stands right now, the fate of the documentary seems to be left up in the air.

On a side note, and for those interested, I am bothered by this whole thing because we all seem to get tied up in the discussion of the mummy and forget that it was a human child who died very young. I have refrained from publishing any pictures, though they would certainly prove the case. It’s a matter of personal taste rather than anything else and for those who wish to see them, they are available on many websites.

Tom Carey's Fourteen Points or The Roswell Slides Revisited

Tom Carey, who seems set on keeping the Roswell Slides controversy alive, contacted Rob McConnell to say that he had thought of several things that he, Carey, should have mentioned during his last interview. He had a list this time. Fourteen items that he wanted to say, though I confess I don’t know what difference it makes at this late date. You can listen to it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0oNhTsaf3M

We were treated with some of the same things that we’ve all heard in the past. We learned about Joe Beason who contracted Carey to alert him to the slides but this time Carey said that Beason had some sort of IT company which should have been

Tom Carey

a red flag for them. Then Adam Dew appeared on the scene and it was Dew, without Carey or Don Schmitt, who went to Kodak to validate the age of the film. As I have mentioned in the past, Dew, at least according to Carey, told them that the code on the side of the film was the code used by Kodak in 1947… but, of course, had Carey asked me, I would have told him that the code was for motion picture film and was rarely if ever used on slide film.

There are other things in the interview, such as them being fooled by the age and importance of other slides (or maybe Carey still believes that the photographer, that is Bernard or Hilda Ray, were pals with the Eisenhowers). This connection suggested the Rays might have been allowed to see the top secret alien bodies and to photograph them because they knew the Eisenhowers. This really makes no sense, when you think about it, but that connection to Eisenhower, because the Rays had pictures of Ike on the back of a train, seemed to suggest some sort of relationship.

But all of this has been discussed before. The interesting points come near the end of the interview. Carey said that Beason had originally contacted Stan Friedman, but Friedman was too busy to get involved in the investigation of the slides. This, as I have said, makes no sense because Friedman, who sees himself as the first Roswell investigator, has been told about the possibility of the definitive proof for the alien nature of the Roswell crash, but he’s too busy to pursue it. Instead, he said to hand this possible smoking gun over to Carey… And at no time did Carey or Schmitt ever mention any of this to Friedman even after nearly everyone in the world knew something about the slides… It is important to point out that Rob McConnell had asked Friedman about this and Friedman denied that he had ever been approached about it by Beason.

The other revelation, which also came toward the end, was that while Carey and Schmitt and those working with them had done everything they could to read the placard, it simply couldn’t be done. But Carey tells us here that there is a third slide that Dew and Beason kept to themselves. Remember, as I pointed out once we had seen the slides, they were numbers 9 and 11, and I wondered what was shown on slide number 10. Maybe there was something there that would have made reading the placard easier or revealed exactly what had been photographed.

And this is what Carey claimed. He said that while in Mexico City for the Great Reveal, there was another slide that had been shown to, or given to, Jaime Maussan. This was slide number 10, and when Richard Dolan asked for a copy of one of the slides to email to colleagues, Maussan accidentally gave him slide number 10 so that deblurring, or reading the placard, was done quickly. Well, I suppose this could be true, but the fact remains that the placard, using the proper program, could have been read prior to the Great Reveal. But Carey has confirmed that there was a third slide and that the placard seemed to be clearer in that slide which makes you wonder about them not pursuing this.

At the end, Carey seemed to accept the idea that the image was of a human child… but he sort of talked around it, so I’m not sure that if he isn’t holding out some hope that the image might not be human. He concedes that the image photographed by the Rays in the 1940s is the same as the image in photographs made in the late 19^th century and again in the 1930s. But he doesn’t seem to rule out completely the idea that it might be an alien creature that had died sometime earlier and had been interred by the native peoples. Though it seems that the answer is no, it also seems that this might be the last gasp in this sad tale.

Rob McConnell Interviews Tom Carey

Rob McConnell, on the X-Zone Broadcast Network interviewed Tom Carey about the Roswell Slides, and Carey said some very interesting things. You can hear the interview here: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQ0V-Xuzzp0

Tom Carey

We learn from Carey (at about 04:15 into the interview) that it was Joe Beason who contacted him after Beason had attempted to interest Stan Friedman in the slides. Friedman, according to Carey, was too busy to follow the lead and suggested Carey to Beason. This bothers me because it would seem that Stan, who has been very protective of his leads about Roswell, handed to Carey what could have been the most important evidence of the Roswell case. I wonder if there was something in that communication between Stan and Beason that suggested to Stan that he be wary. 

At the 5:24 (all times approximate) point, Carey said that he received an email with the scan of two slides in it. 

At 6:31, according to Carey, Beason suggested that the slides were related to Roswell. 

At 11:57, Carey said that when he first saw the slides, he thought the image matched the descriptions of the aliens that he had received from various witnesses who had claimed to have seen the bodies. 

At 15:46, in what is an important point, Carey said that Beason told him that the codes on the edge of the film matched that used by Kodak in 1947. The problem is that that code was used for motion picture film and that slide film had a different coding system (though there seems to be some suggestion that some of the slide film might have had the motion picture code on it). The problem is that when we were all shown the whole frame from one of the slides, there is no coding on it. That coding didn’t appear on every slide, but was spread out through the length of the roll of film. 

I had noticed that the slides in play were number 9 and number 11, but number 10 was missing. Carey mentioned this as well (at 17:51), but said that Beason claimed that slide number 10 was lost. Carey mentioned that this seemed to be a problem, but clearly it wasn’t a big one for him. I wondered, of course, if what was seen on number 10 wouldn’t have clearly identified the image. 

At 20:36, Carey talked about the anthropologists that he attempted to get to review the slide. He said that he sent it to the smartest anthropologist he knew and that man told him the image was not of a human. 

Screen Grab for the documentary. This is close to the

image that Tom Carey shared with anthropologists.

Rob asked, if he had permission because of the non-disclosure agreements he and Don Schmitt had signed. Carey said that Adam Dew, who had partnered with Beason, had produced a trailer of a documentary he planned, and in that documentary, the image on the slide was revealed, possibly by mistake. This image was seen at an angle on a computer screen so that those outside the inner circle now had a poor image with which to work. This lousy image is what Carey was sharing with those anthropologists whose opinion he wanted. He said that the idea of UFOs and Roswell was toxic so that the anthropologists wouldn’t discuss it with him. He gave the impression that these anthropologists refused to even look at the image. 

At 29:00 he mentioned that MUFON has an anthropologist as one of its consultants and the consultant thought it was a genetically deformed human. Then Carey mentioned that some of the anthropologists provided opinions off the record which, of course, is not the same thing as refusing to even look at the slide which is what he had claimed. They too seemed to believe in some sort of genetic deformity but according to Carey, no one said that it was a mummy (which is strange because that was the thought that most of us had even looking at the poor image captured from the documentary trailer). Of course, the real problem is that he was giving them the poor image and not the best resolution scans he had which might contributed to the lack of cooperation. 

In a big revelation, found at 36:28, Carey is talking about the logistics of the situation with everyone involved scattered over two countries. The five principals, however, met in Chicago long before the great reveal in Mexico City. At this meeting, according to Carey, they were shown the slides to prove that slides actually existed. This brings up lots of questions, especially about how clear those slides were and if they were projected on a screen… which would provide a better look at the background, meaning it should have been obvious that it was a museum setting, and if the placard which became so critical to the story could be read. Two or three minutes later, Carey again addressed the problem of reading the placard and how no one could do it at that time. 

At 40:07, after Rob McConnell asked him about the image and the identity, Carey explained that although the placard does suggest it was a child, Carey didn’t believe that the image on the slide was a two-year-old child, because it was too tall. He doesn’t believe that it is a 900-year-old mummy but something that had died more recently. He doesn’t believe it was the child found by Palmer in 1898, though it resembles it. He seemed to base this belief on the size of the mummy, but he, like everyone else is working off the image on the slide so the analysis of the size of the image can be disputed and given the documentation that exists, it is clear to nearly everyone else that the image is of a child. No measurements on the mummy can be made because the remains have been returned to the native peoples, as, of course, they should have been. 

At 57:03, Carey makes the statement that the mummy in the museum is “Not our guy.” 

This is a very interesting interview with Tom Carey providing his take on how this fiasco developed. You can read more about it on this blog beginning in 2015 or head over to Rich Reynolds UFO Conjectures to review his take on much of this. Just look for Roswell Slides in the search engine provided. 

And, for a differing take on this given by the other participant, you can listen to my interview with Don Schmitt. You can hear it here: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fo-gK4nwZ_k 

Finally, for those who would like a more concise review, a long, heavily footnoted chapter in Roswell in the 21^st Century details this information and also notes some of the arrogance by those who had seen the slides before the big reveal in Mexico City.

The Great Not Roswell Slides Coding Fiasco

Given our discussion about the date code on the Not Roswell Slides (which I sort of initiated), I did a little extra digging, though I’m not sure it was worth the effort, and discovered a few things. Tony Bragalia was the first to mention to me that the code on one of the slides proved that the film had been manufactured in 1947 (that is, a square and a triangle). Kodak had a list of codes for their film (see http://www.film-tech.com/ubb/f1/t011524.html). These were recycled every twenty years and we could discuss this at length but it is now irrelevant.

Adam Dew had asked Bragalia, or rather Tom Carey asked Bragalia, to find an expert in Kodak film and processing. Bragalia found the right man, who was both an expert in the film but also something of a historian for Kodak. Carey would later say that “we” (those investigating the slides) had made a trip to Kodak though, in fact, it was only Dew. I guess that was sort of the royal we.

The Kodak man said the slide mount was from the right era and it was clear that the film had been made in the late 1940s. One of the slides, according to Dew, had been removed from the mount. Apparently a chemical analysis of the film showed that it had been developed at the end of the 1940s. Or, in other words, the scientific evidence clearly established that the slide was from the late 1940s and at this point I don’t think anyone is disputing that.

I have since learned that neither Carey nor Don Schmitt had been in Rochester when the analysis was accomplished. They knew the results because Adam Dew had told them. I don’t know what he said, but I can make a good guess about it.

Bragalia said that the codes on the film proved it had been manufactured in 1947, which sparked some discussion here about it last year. I wondered where Bragalia got that idea and thought it came from Dew. I have learned in the last week that Carey was the one who said the codes from 1947 were on the edge of the slide that had been removed from the mount.

When Bragalia announced that these codes were from 1947, I did a little checking. Everyone with access to the Internet could have done the same thing. I learned, as did a couple of others, that the film codes some believed proved the slide film had been manufactured in 1947 was only for motion picture film. The codes for other Kodak film products were different (see http://www.brianpritchard.com/Date%20Codes.htm). If there were codes printed on the edge of the film, they wouldn’t be the same as those being discussed.

Here’s what I think happened which doesn’t suggest anyone was attempting to deceive anyone. Since neither Carey nor Schmitt were in Rochester, I believe that Dew, once he had the results, told them that those results were saying that the analysis proved the film from the late 1940s and might even said from 1947. These results, by the way, don’t seem to be in dispute and since we have now found the location that photograph was taken, it is clear that it was prior to May 1947, but that came about after the great reveal in Mexico City.

Carey, hearing what Dew said, assumed that he was talking about the codes on the edge of the film and remembered the codes that were discussed during the great Alien Autopsy boondoggle. He thought since the film had been manufactured in the right time frame that the code would be the square and triangle. He mentioned this to others including Bragalia. Bragalia then made the erroneous statement that the code proved manufacture in 1947 though to be fair Carey might have actually told him that.

There really isn’t a villain in this aspect of the slide fiasco. The scientific evidence proved the slide film had been manufactured in the right era, the mount was from the right era, and apparently the developing process used a combination of chemicals from the right era. The code, the square and the triangle is not on the edge of the film and that apparently was an assumption made by Carey and passed to others. This, I believe, should put this to rest aspect of the discussion, if anyone really cares.

New Defector from the Roswell Slides

Mesa Verde

Once again I’m dragged back into the nonsense that is the Roswell Slides. It should be clear to everyone who is able to think at all that the slides show the image of an unfortunate child who died hundreds of years ago. No one has ever offered an explanation of how we got from the image of what is clearly a mummy to the idea that it was the body of an alien creature. How did they make that first incredibly dumb leap of logic?

This is the latest development, and by latest I mean one that first appeared on Curt Collins blog last week though Jaime Maussan has now produced another document about why the body in the slide is different from the one the rest of us believe to be the same. With Maussan’s latest, Curt’s posting becomes even more important. The post can be found here:

http://www.blueblurrylines.com/2015/06/dr-richard-oconnor-on-putting-away.html

One of the experts who was defending the idea that the slides showed an alien creature was Dr. Richard O’Connor, who, as you’ll see at Curt’s site, wrote to Linda Moulton Howe that he had been able to confirm the deblurring of the placard to his satisfaction but that the statement on the placard “cannot be correct.”

O’Connor joined the alien body team after the great May 5^th fiasco. Jaime Maussan interviewed O’Connor via Skype because he had solid medical credentials and he spoke English. It was used as part of an article that claimed, “Doctors Agree: Roswell Slides Show a Nonhuman Body.”

This interview that was posted to YouTube would be of some value in supporting that idea of “two bodies” as Maussan claims, but all that has changed. O’Connor, having seen the FOIA material recovered by Shepherd Johnson, said, “Yeah, I’ve just, over the past 48 hours more or less, been looking at that, and it seems to me like it's drawing us toward the conclusion that in fact is this photograph probably does represent a native American child. There were some, a couple of photographs in the last pages of that set of documents, one of them in particular on page 176, and in my opinion it really does show a different photograph of what is very likely the same child.”

So, one of those who had once suggested the body was alien, though based solely on an examination of the slide, had now reversed himself. After seeing the available documentation, he changed his mind.

Curt, in fact, sent an email to O’Connor and was surprised to get a response and an invitation to give him a telephone call. According to Curt, at his Blue Blurry Lines website:

He told me that looking at a photograph is fraught with pitfalls, and mentioned the fact that the quality of the Slides photograph was not very good, the details were not clear due to the blurry photograph, which was taken at an angle from the body (and possibly distorted by the glass in the case).

There were some characteristics that he still didn't quite understand, like the condition of the chest cavity, but it occurred to him that the terraced cliffs of Montezuma Castle must have caused the deaths of a number of children from falling off the ledges. He wondered if that could have accounted for the injuries to the child's body, particularly the damage to the head and the fractured femur. I pointed out the shallow grave may have accounted for some of this, particularly the loss of the lower leg. (I [Curt Collins] thought later that the excavation by amateur archeologists could also be a factor.) 

Interestingly, Tom Carey was interviewed on June 2 on a KGRA show about all of this. According to what Curt reported, “Of the placard being read he says, ‘a day or two later, this bombshell hits about it being a mummified two-year-old boy. Well, talk about a right cross, or a left hook. He also seems to feel betrayed by two of the people who he’d asked to help with the placard have since ‘joined our critics.’ Of the critics, he said he’d have worked with them, ‘had they been civil.’ [Though I have to wonder about some of the less civil things that Tom had said in his comments about the placard and how quickly it was read… the data had been there, if the proper investigation had taken place] In the opening, he mentioned having plenty to keep him busy, a new book coming out with Don Schmitt, and another one planned beyond that, but first up is their appearance at the annual Roswell Festival.”

Here’s the thing. Someone in on the beginning of the investigation had to know the truth. The slide placard was deblurred so quickly that any alibi about the failure to do so prior to May 5^th falls onto those making the investigation. They should have been able to do that three years ago rather than get caught up in this sideshow. Basic research and a demand to see the original slides probably would have ended this long before we get to Mexico City. A simple question about the sequence of the slides, such as “Where is number ten?” might have done it. (I note here that according to some, the slides shown were number 9 and number 11, which left the question of “Where is number 10?)

If Adam Dew and his pal, Joe Beason, had any thoughts of proving how credulous UFO investigators are for some kind of a documentary, they failed at that. This wouldn’t have worked had they provided high quality scans of all of the slides to researchers. Given that, those researchers would have been able to read the placard in a matter of hours. How do I know? Because within hours of a high resolution scan appearing on Dew’s website, the placard was read.

I’ll throw one other thing out here. I believe that the mystery caller who told Nick Redfern about all this, the man who allegedly overheard a conversation in Midland, Texas, was probably either Beason, Dew or a pal of theirs. The idea that someone in Midland overheard this conversation, heard enough to understand so much of what was going on including the nondisclosure agreements, and then knew Nick Redfern, is just too much of a coincidence. It had to be arranged so that the story would get out and the hype could begin. And the hype did begin right there.

This should have never happened. It was a combination of the secrecy imposed by Dew and Beason and the enthusiasm of the Roswell investigators for the final “smoking gun” evidence. Had anyone looked at all the red flags and asked some very basic questions, this would have been seen for what it was. The majority of the blame probably belongs to Dew and Beason, but there is plenty to be shared by the others who participated in the long investigation and the program in Mexico City. We should all learn from this and change the way we do business.

The Roswell Slides and the Mummy's Placard

You would have thought that once the placard in the slide had been read, and once that there was nearly universal acceptance of the translation suggesting that the body in the slide is that of a young boy, the debate would have ended. But this is ufology when nothing is ever ended no matter what the proof might be. It doesn’t matter what can be shown because there are those who won’t believe anything unless it reinforces their own belief structures. Such are the Roswell Slides and the placard. We are now told that it doesn’t matter what the placard says because we have all that “scientific” evidence from all those “authorities” who have examined the body on the slides. They say the body isn’t human and the placard is wrong.

Just days after Don Schmitt had apologized for the fiasco in Mexico City, he was back telling us that the term, Roswell Slides, had been an invention of the skeptics and that neither he nor Tom Carey had ever called them the Roswell Slides… of course, overlooked in that was their attempts to link the slides to Roswell and that much of what was said and published revolved around Roswell. The Kodak expert dated the slides based on the coding, the slide mounts, and other information to the late 1940s, and former USAAF PFC Benavides said the body was like those he saw, so everyone thought of Roswell even if they hadn’t used the term, “Roswell Slides.”

On Jimmy Church’s radio show Friday night, May 29, Schmitt explained some of these things to us. The show and the Don Schmitt segment starting about twenty minutes in can be heard here:

https://www.spreaker.com/user/fade2black/ep-262

Schmitt suggested that it was strange that they had provided high resolution scans to various experts to look at the writing on the placard and were told that they couldn’t make out even one letter. Schmitt said, “What were they (the Roswell Slides Research Group, among all those others) reading? It was a screen grab.” He said that it was from the event in Mexico City and that the slides hadn’t yet been released. It was taken off the Internet. “And they’re able to read it…and nobody else has been able to read it… How do you explain that?”

Well, I can explain that because what Schmitt said was not exactly right. They all worked from a download of the slide that had been put up on Adam Dew’s website, which was a higher resolution scan than previously available and was posted not long after the May 5 extravaganza. They applied various software to that scan and were able to read the placard with relative ease. It wasn’t just the RSRG but others, unaffiliated with them, in various countries, who also read it and came to the same conclusions. Tony Bragalia and an unnamed colleague in Europe discovered a journal article, published in 1938, which contained nearly the same wording, provided a few additional clues, and the location of the museum… a museum setting that Richard Doble said looked nothing like any of the museum settings he had ever seen but then he was apparently never at Mesa Verde.

Schmitt and Carey had offered the scans to a number of organizations and individuals for their opinions on the placard. Schmitt has said that the Pentagon looked at it but couldn’t make out anything on it, implying that if the government couldn’t read then surely a civilian group wouldn’t be able to do so. Well, that’s not exactly the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Here’s what we know, based on what has been said about this in various forums including this one. In Mexico City, at the May 5 presentation, Schmitt claimed that the slides had been subjected to rigorous testing by experts in the field of photography. According to the newspaper accounts from Mexico City, “Exhaustive investigations by other photographic and medical experts have concluded that the photos are genuine. The experts list presented at the Mexico City event include Dr. David Rudiak, an expert in photographic analysis, Dr. Donald Burleson, a specialist in computer enhancement; Ray Downing, materials expert from the Studio MacBeth, New York; Col Jeffrey Thau associated with the Pentagon’s Photo Interpretation Department, and Prof Rod Slemmons, a former Director of the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Photography.”

David Rudiak is not an expert in photographic analysis, but has experience in attempting to read the Ramey Memo. Because of that, he was asked to look at the placard with the body but was unable to unscramble or deblur the image on the scan he was given.

Colonel Jeffrey Thau is a retired Air Force officer who once had offices at both Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and the Pentagon. The Photo Interpretation Department had been moved from the Pentagon to Fort Meade, Maryland. Their expertise was not in attempting to read messages on placards in museums that were obscured but in interpreting photo intelligence of various kinds including ground based military facilities and movements. It seems that this failed attempt to read the placard wasn’t actually an attempt by the experts at the Pentagon or Fort Meade, but friends seeing if they could make out anything on the placard as a favor to Colonel Thau. To suggest the Pentagon had attempted to read the message and failed was, at best, hyperbole.

"Light Blasted" Placard.

Or, in other, more precise words, those tasked with reading the placard, were not the experts they were claimed to be. To compound the problem, it is obvious that the scans submitted for the analysis were not the high resolution scans promised and had probably been manipulated to obscure the wording on the placard. The failure was not with those who had attempted to read the placard but with those who provided the original scans for analysis. And this explains why they were unable to do so. It wasn’t until a better quality scan was available and it has a provenance that is traced straight back to Adam Dew that the placard was read.

So, on the one hand, we’re told that they made a concentrated effort to read the placard but failed to do so. On the other hand, now that it has been read, and again, it seems that nearly everyone agrees with what it says, we’re told that they don’t care what the placard says.

Seriously, we’re supposed to buy that. They had suggested that reading the placard was important and that information on it would be critical to understanding exactly what is on the slides. Now that it has been read, we’re told, by Doble that the placard was created as a diversion so that the true nature of the being on display wouldn’t be obvious. He explains that he believed the general population was unprepared to learn there was alien visitation. That was the reason the placard said was created. It was to obscure the truth.

This is spin doctoring at its worst. The placard tells us what is on display. The journal article tells us more about the body. Now, with that information, we’re told that it is unimportant to what is on the slides. This is an indefensible position.

But it gets worse. The actual slides might tell us more. It is my understanding that they were numbered and those numbers were nine and eleven. Where is number ten, and what is shown on that slide? Does it make it clear that the body is a mummy? Is the placard facing the camera so that it can be read without using a computer program to deblur it?

What is unbelievable in this is that there is still an attempt to prove that the body is alien. And when the evidence argues against it, evidence right on the slide, we’re told that the slide promoters don’t care what the placard says meaning they don’t care what the evidence is. They still believe it is an alien because, I suppose, that is what they have to believe. No one wants to be this wrong about something they consider this important, this publically. But sometimes you just have to look at the evidence and realize that you blew it big time.

Translation of the Roswell Slides Placard

I will freely admit when I was told, during a telephone conversation last night (May 8) that two groups, working independently, had come to the same conclusions about the placard near the body, it didn’t overly surprise me. They both said the first line proved it was a mummy of a child. I didn’t disbelieve this claim because to me, it looked like a mummy and I was surprised that Tom and Don would go off on a years’ long search for some answers given the look of the slides.

Overnight there have been some questions raised about the legitimacy of the announcement and I have done today what I probably should have done last night but then I have more information today. Last night I contacted two people, one at each end of the spectrum and asked them about this. I had their answers in hand before I posted the link to the Blue Blurry Lines with the text of the placard translated as:

MUMMIFIED BODY OF TWO YEAR OLD BOY

At the time of burial the body was clothed in a xxx-xxx cotton

shirt. Burial wrappings consisted of these small cotton blankets.

Loaned by the Mr. Xxxxxx, San Francisco, California

If this is accurate, then the discussion ends at this point and we can relegate the slides to the footnote they should be. The evidence at the moment suggests that it is, though the reading of the placard is not universally accepted. Tony Bragalia, late last night, provided a number of scans of the placard that seem to argue against the ease with which others said they had deciphered the words.

The problem is that Tony’s scans all originated in the same place and that is with Adam Dew. These scans are difficult to read and seem to suggest that those who say they can are engaging in wishful thinking (my analysis and nothing that Tony said). Tony thought that I shouldn’t have posted anything until I had consulted with others, but I had done that last night and have been doing this today. To me the question is too important to let it slip away now. If nothing else, that posting, along with those by Rich Reynolds and Frank Warren have stirred up the conversation and provided some additional clues to what has been going on.

I asked Chris Rutkowski, who was listed as one of those operating on what is known as the Roswell Slides Research Group (RSRG), and he told me, “I don't have full confidence [in the interpretation by the RSRG], actually. It's a bit suspicious that a readable placard wasn't shown in Mexico... I did voice my concerns about its provenance, as I did about the slides themselves.”

In fairness to Chris, I asked him early this morning and he replied early this morning. Isaac Koi replied late this afternoon and said, “I think the position in relation to the analysis of the placard is now beyond any reasonable doubt.” It is a position that others have taken up as the day wears on.

Although there had been some questions about the provenance of the slides, and this would be worrisome this question has been resolved. Dew, as SlideBox Media, has not released an unmodified high resolution scan of the slides as had been promised but he did place a better scan on his web site. Using that scan it seems that the first line has been read with reliability by many different individuals using a variety of techniques on a variety of the released images. He has provided, at his site, a better scan, so any questions of provenance have been rendered moot.

Dew has responded to the announcement by the RSRG, suggesting that they are the ones who manipulated the data. He wrote, “Any claimed success should be repeatable and will be tested. You should be able to give specific and clear enough instructions that anyone could actually repeat your actions with the actual placard scan we have posted here.” You can see the scan at:

http://slideboxmedia.com/placard/

Paul Kimball, who has been recently and unjustly vilified for his anti-slides stance, has published additional information over at The Other Side of the Truth, and has linked to another site that seems to confirm that the placard does identify the body as human. In the interest of full disclosure, that other site is operated by the RSRG.

In response to Dew and to Tony, Paul wrote, “Adam Dew and Anthony Bragalia are claiming that the image from which we derived the proof that the ‘alien’ body is actually a human mummified child is a fake - that it was photoshopped. I believe Jaime Maussan has said the same thing… This is categorically untrue. The only change made was an increase in the contrast to accentuate the actual letters on the page (which were deblurred using simple commercially available software). Nothing was added.”

For those interested in that commentary, see:

http://www.roswellslides.com/

Kimball’s earlier comments do seem to suggest a bias, but then, the evidence, as it stands now, seems to support his and the RSRG’s interpretation. I did contact other members of the RSRG individually. Lance Moody believes that they had read the placard with a high degree of certainty and that suggests the body is human.

Tim Printy, another member of the group told me, “Depends on source image and how much manipulation is required.  Moody and Nab Lator are better at it than I but even using one of Bragalias and Dew’s images I could read ‘two year old boy, and ‘San Francisco California.’”

I suppose you could argue that the RSRG is made up of rabid skeptics, with a couple of exceptions, but that doesn’t actually negate their findings, especially if others not affiliated with them are coming up with the same reading. It seems that if there is manipulation going on here, it is on the part of Dew, who is keeping the debate alive by not releasing the high quality scans he said it would… and by suggesting that those offering a counterpoint are involved in a scam of some sort.

Philip Mantle, who seems to be quite offended by all this and is not part of the RSRG, has provided some interesting commentary. He wrote:

I just wanted to add a little bit more info regarding the on-going debate into the alleged Roswell slides. Unfortunately this last week I have been a little bit under the weather, however, this did allow me the opportunity to sit with my feet up in my ufological armchair and see if I could obtain a quote or two from a variety of experts regarding the alleged Roswell slide. Basically all I did was email a polite request to a number of academics and institutions respectfully asking them to comment on the photo (slide) in question.  Some came back and stated that they didn’t think the photo was of good enough quality to comment on, others requested more details, some did reply but when I asked if I could quote them they declined.

There are a number though that did indeed reply and give me permission to quote them. Personally I believe I’ve spent more than enough time on this sham already but for the record I am providing here two of the replies I obtained. They are unedited and all they were sent is the so-called Roswell slide photograph. Again, for the record, none of the academics I contacted came back with a reply that they thought the photo depicted an alien.

Here are two of several replies I received:

I confirm that the photo is of a mummy of a child, possibly Peruvian or even Egyptian.

Salima Ikram
Professor of Egyptology
American University in Cairo

Okay, it is a mummy, but very hard to tell if it Egyptian, South American or European. I see no wrappings of any kind, it appears to be a child or youth. Do you have a provenance on the slide??? That may help the determination.

Cordially

SJ Wolfe 

S.J. Wolfe

Senior Cataloger and Serials Specialist

American Antiquarian Society

And when I asked if I could have this person’s permission to quote her the reply was:

Of course you can. And if you do, please describe me as Director of the EMINA (Egyptian Mummies in North America) Project. Here is the link to the website http://egyptologyforum.org/EMINA/

Cordially

SJ

You are of course free to make of these comments you will as they are simply my humble attempt to help try and get to the bottom of what I believe is a very sorry saga. There will no doubt be those that question the abilities of the two above ladies to comment on this matter but so-be-it. The one thing that I can say regarding the above two comments is that they have both been made independently of any of the promoters of the ‘Roswell slides’ and therefore in my opinion are a great deal more credible. You can choose to agree or disagree of course but this is just one way to try and bring the matter to an end as quickly as possible in my humble opinion.

So, while those who support the slides talk of scientists who don’t believe the body is human, there are other scientists who believe it is. But that’s not the real take-away here. It is the statement by an American about the slides. Don, during one of the interviews said that Tom had failed to interest any American scientists in looking at the slides or voicing an opinion about them. Philip seems to have done that and has some sort of response by an American scientist, which just shows you can find someone with credentials to support your point of view as long as that point of view isn’t too extreme.

The real point is that if the first line does identify the body as the mummy of a human child, then a search for an exact match is irrelevant. In fact, an exact match isn’t necessary because the body in the slide looks an awful lot like many of the other mummies that have been identified from around the world. And, of course, it is not up to those who believe it to be a mummy to prove it, but to those who claim it is an alien to prove it. This they haven’t done.

There is one other fact here. A short video shows how the words on the placard were identified. This seems to suggest that those on the RSRG and others are sharing their methodology and their research into this while some others are calling names. That is always the last defense when the facts begin to crumble. You can see the video here:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkaKpPGKTV0&feature=youtu.be

We might have taken this as far as we can at this point. We might have solved the “mystery” of the alien in the slides, and all the other discussion, discourse, allegations, and claims have been rendered moot by those who were able to read the placard, it turns out so easily.

The Original Roswell Slides will not be In Mexico City

Well, there is a new development in the saga of the Roswell Slides announced over at the UFO Conjectures blog. It seems that the originals will not put in an appearance in Mexico City. Instead, those who shell out their cash, and any media who show up, will be treated to copies. I’m sure that they’ll be high quality copies, much better than the screen grabs that we’ve been saddled with for the last several weeks but they will still be copies.

But here’s the thing. Without the originals, there will be no real way to prove that the slide film was manufactured in 1947, there will be no way to be sure that something hasn’t been manipulated, and it won’t advance our knowledge all that much, though we will have been given a good look at the image. But one of the critical factors is the date of the film stock from which the slides were taken and you can have as much documentation as you want, but the question will remain, is that documentation accurate. The real thing needs to be seen.

Yes, I get that if these are slides of a real, live, well dead, alien creature, their value will be enormous. Yes, I get that you might not want to take them on a trip out of the country, or out of the vault in which they should be held. But then, there are problems… as just a single example, the date of manufacture coding doesn’t appear on all the slides from a single roll, and it would be lucky that the one slide that was removed from its cardboard sleeve had that coding on it… not to mention that other coding, if visible, would provide the point of manufacture. I suppose a photograph of the slide’s coding would help, but then we’re removed from the original and that is always problematic.

Of course there will be other documentation presented, but given the nature of the slides, it will need to be quite persuasive… and copies of the slides just might not be enough. I remember in Roswell in 1997 that we were promised a great deal about a bit of metallic debris that was said to have been picked up by a soldier in 1947. We were told that the documentation would be available and that the chain of custody had been preserved. Unfortunately the documentation was flawed, the name of the soldier was not available and the chemical analysis, while exciting, was flawed. We’re not even close to that here.

Now we’re told that the real slides will be unavailable. We’re going to have a picture of a picture and that provides for a great deal of deception in the presentation. That doesn’t mean there will be deception, I merely point out that it opens the door… and I will point out that those who have engaged in the evaluation of the slides do have a rooting interest in their authenticity. In other words, much of the analysis and work has not been by disinterested third parties.

This also tells us that contrary to what he has said, Adam Dew is not the owner of the slides… unless of course if he doesn’t show up in Mexico City. That seems unlikely because he needs to be there to complete his documentary. So, we don’t know who owns the slides now other than it apparently isn’t any of those who will be at the big presentation.

And, apropos of nothing at all, I note that the Alien Autopsy footage was equally difficult to see in its original state. Frames with the alien on them were promised for proper testing, but somehow that never happened. Now we learn that the original slides will not be available for independent examination.

Anyway, the point is this. The real evidence will not be presented in Mexico City and the mysterious owner of the slides, who does not live in Arizona (as some have suggested), will not be present with the slides. Say what you will, but this simply does not bode well. It is one more disappointed in a series of disappointments and I do not see a way to recover outside an independent analysis of the slides which doesn’t seem to be in the offing any time soon.