The Ramey Memo - The Latest Information

For nearly thirty years or more, various researchers and experts have been trying to read the Ramey Memo, believing that it might hold the key to the Roswell crash. What can be seen easily in the document held by Brigadier General Roger Ramey suggests that the text does relate to the Roswell case. While some words are obvious, others are tantalizing close to being read, but are open to various interpretations.

The Ramey Memo

Back about two decades ago, one phrase that was almost readable, suggested one of two things. In one interpretation, “victims of the wreck,” suggested a biological recovery, which, in turn, suggested something extraterrestrial. The second interpretation, “remains of the wreck,” suggested metallic debris which suggested something more mundane. Remains was a terrestrial-based answer and victims could easily be something from outer space.

From the beginning, those two phrases have been discussed at length. Both emerged from the start of the search for meaning. Another interpretation appeared just a couple of years ago, “viewing of the wreck,” which didn’t tell us much, other than the solution was probably based on Earth. Again, it was just beyond our ability to resolve the words on the memo.

Back a couple of years ago, a new, high power scan of the negative of Ramey holding the memo was made. The idea was to use the latest technology to attempt to read the new and improved scan. Universal acceptance was just out of reach. The critical line could not be resolved to the point where the majority of those interested in it would agree on an interpretation.

Josh Gates, and those at Expedition Unknown took a another look at it in 2017. The results by an independent expert suggested that “viewing” was the critical word, rather than “victims.” Viewing was seven letters and it made since in the context of the rest of the sentence, but it just wasn’t the slam dunk needed.

Josh Gates in the University of Texas at Arlington,
Special Collections. Copyright by Kevin Randle.

Research continued, with several experts from around the world attempting to decipher the word and the sentence. Now, a fellow who wishes only to be known as Kaleb, used SmartDeblur 2.3 PRO version (trial edition) to enhance these scans.

He has shared the images with very few people and cautions, “No one else has seen them as of yet, but I am sure they are big enough and strong enough to make a few waves in the UFOlogy community?”

But to be fair, I can see both “victims” and “remains” in these new images. And, one of those who worked with us completing the new scans, and who, I believe has no dog in the fight, wrote:

At the risk of being redundant, Mr. Kaleb is getting farther away with each iteration.  The process he’s using is inherently destructive and his "new" images are beginning to take on the appearance of written Sanskrit.  Until such time that the images provided … are subjected to a substitution and comparison algorithm using computers on the order of those provided to NSA the odds of the memo being any more clear and readable are slim and none.  The Texas University images clearly show sharp and perfectly clear grain image.  There is no "de-bluring" or "enhancement" to be gained to those files by imaging software of any design.  The very nature of such software destroys far more than it reveals.   Were the images to be subjected to a crypto analysis type program similar to that of the proverbial hundred monkeys pounding away on typewriters and eventually writing the complete works of Shakespeare…well, you get the idea.

Another assessment, from another of those involved in this problem, provides a little more information. It said:

… assessment I think is fair in terms of our work producing a cleaner ‘base image’ than previously available and that re-enhancing those images is going backwards.

But I do believe an approach to correct the topography of the memo (angle; orientation; perspective fall-off etc) would yield improvements which Kaleb’s efforts hint at.

If Kaleb (or others) could manipulate the memo without falling prey to destructive image enhancements - … informed concerns could be address and the work taken in a more fruitful direction.

While it might be said that progress is being made, and that any suggestion and attempt at reading the memo provides some insight into what was happening in 1947, it can also be said that we’re basically at the same place. There are two interpretations of the memo. One suggests something alien and the other suggests something terran (yeah, I used a science fiction term for those of us from Earth… I don’t like earthling).

As for me, I’m a little disappointed that we haven’t made better progress. I had hoped that our new technologies and new technics would enable us to make a better run at this. For those still engaged in the work, I have nothing but respect. The work continues, and I’ll report the findings as soon as I have them.

Treasure Quest and the Bat Cave

Well folks, last night (September 28) was maybe the worst of the episodes but only for what it revealed about the great treasure hunt. They penetrated another tunnel, or in this case a cave, filled with toxic chemicals thanks to the vampire bats, and found nothing. They reached the dead end, avoiding the bats by shining their lights down so as not to disturb them. Oh, and they created a huge air vent to blow the toxic gas out using some of the one hundred plastic bags they had brought in. Really? A hundred plastic bags?

All that really proves was that they had access to a great deal of equipment and supplies that, again, suggested, they weren’t traveling into the deep wilderness without a lot of support. If they were trekking into this remote area, I can’t think of a good reason to bring in all those plastic bags because they would have limited weight capabilities on those burros they allegedly used… but, of course, we know that isn’t true. They’re an hour or so from Quime and what, ten hours from La Paz

C. H. Prodgers

by those SUVs that have become more prevalent in the last few episodes. I note here that C. H. Prodgers, who was there a hundred years ago, wrote that the trip to La Paz would take eight to ten days. I bring this up only for perspective.

Did I mention they found a bell? It had a couple of cracks in it and was made of bronze which is not a treasure but was cool. And, they found more of that oxen chain. All that led them, indirectly, to the Bat Cave, which turned out to be a bust.

So, they’re standing there, wondering what to do next because Winter is Coming… I mean, the rainy season is coming, so they don’t have much time. They deploy a drone, which is another bit of technology that requires some kind of external support such as batteries and recharging capabilities. With it they find another area several miles away that has three rivers coming together and with a mesa close by. They decide they must get to that area because that also fits the descriptions of the Roman Document.

After a hike, they walk into the area, climb the hill and look for the egg-shaped rock that is supposed to mark the location of the tunnel of treasure. It was so big it took 500 of the locals to place on top of the hill. Prodgers had written nearly a hundred years ago that, “If you dig down underneath this stone for five yards, you will find the roof of a large cave, which took 500 men two and a half years to hollow out. The roof is seventy yards long, and there are two compartments and a long narrow passage leading from the room on the east side to the main entrance two hundred yards away.”

Prodgers continued his commentary, “The stone was exactly ten feet high above the ground, five feet below, and fourteen feet wide around the middle.”

One of our guys talked about the huge stone and they all begin a search for the rock but don’t find it. Instead they discover a boulder that has smaller rocks scattered around it. They postulate that this might have been the egg-shaped rock that weather had shattered. Prodgers, however, wrote, “I started off the excavation by blowing the big egg-shaped stone to pieces with dynamite.” That certainly would have done a better job of breaking the boulder apart.

You would think that this latest expedition, that has been talking about all its technology would have, at the very least, searched out some of these old records and stories before heading to Bolivia. You would think that they would have known that Prodgers blew up the rock so that it wouldn’t be there. I knew it. I learned about it weeks ago and didn’t even have to visit a library to learn it.

While our guys are looking around, they find a huge void underground using their ground penetrating radar and a couple of other gadgets, and I wonder where all that equipment came from because it sure didn’t look as if they had lugged it into the wild during the latest trek. Their packs were somewhat smaller so that equipment should have been visible. But never mind.

After working their way around the rock and plateau, they find a void, but Prodgers told us where it was. He wrote, nearly a century ago, “The roof of the cave was covered over by earth and grass for eighteen inches or two feet, except at the end where the big stone was, where it was covered rather deeper.”

Our guys determine it is even deeper than that. They’re going to need their excavator and wonder if they can get it up there. (Sure, I know the sentence has some syntax problems but I wanted to get all forms of there in it.) While a couple of them set up base camp, with more stuff that they hadn’t seemed to carry in with them, the others head back to the original and obviously wrong site. They crank up

Josh Gates. Photo copyright by
Kevin Randle

the excavator and one of those ubiquitous SUVs for the drive back… Yeah, they can actually drive to the new location and you have to wonder if they didn’t know that all the time. You wonder if they drove over, climbed out then waded around in the river to make it look good on television because what sort of expedition drives to its new, important location, other than Josh Gates and his pals? Certainly not those guys on Treasure Quest.

They drive the excavator up the hill, position it to dig down and wonder if it has the capability to dig as deep as they need… But, of course it does, and they breakthrough into the cavern. I will point out here the Prodgers had done that a hundred years ago. He described the cavern but he didn’t describe any treasure found in it. Prodgers, by the way, never found the treasure, as I noted in an earlier post, but he seems to have been at this very location a hundred years before our guys arrived.

They do break into the tunnel or cave, and they try to test the air. Prodgers had suggested that it was toxic. One of the men begins a descent into the hole they opened, mentioning that it looks deep. He keeps going but stops responding to them. As they panic, they realize the line is now slack and call for a medic that we’ve never seen but who was obviously there with a cameraman or two.  Before this is resolved, we cut away for commercials. When we come back it is obvious that we’ll have to wait until next week to find out if the man survived and if they have found the treasure. I’ll say “Yes and no.” Yes, he survives and no, they’ll find no treasure.

Josh Gates, the Ramey Memo and Me

As many of you know, I have been involved for years in an attempt to decipher the Ramey Memo. Many consider this the “smoking gun” which will prove that aliens have been visiting Earth. The problem is that the Memo is just beyond the range of our ability to read most of it. There have been various interpretations about what it says but there isn’t much in the way of consensus.

Me on the left and Josh Gates on the right. All photos on the
blog are copyright by Kevin Randle.

Last spring, I was contacted by the producers of Expedition Unknown starring Josh Gates. I have, over the last several years turned down opportunities to appear on various television shows, but this one had Josh Gates. I had been watching him since he had been doing Destination Truth on the Sci Fi Channel, now called Syfy for some reason that I don’t understand. (Well, maybe it was to move them from Science Fiction into some other realm so they could air programming that isn’t really Science Fiction.)

Expedition Unknown was going to do a segment on the Ramey Memo and asked for my help. My first thought was to tell them to call David Rudiak. I mentioned that David had spent years in his analysis of the Memo and would have some interesting insights into it. I told them that he had been to Fort Worth, to the Special Collections at the University of Texas at Arlington Library, in his attempts to read the Memo.

Josh Gates and Brenda McClurkin in the cold vault
reviewing the filing system for the negatives
kept there.

I don’t know if they contacted him or not, but they did say they would like me to help them. I told them that Brenda McClurkin, at the library was the person they needed to contact. I think they might have already chatted with her about getting into see the original negative of General Ramey holding the Memo. I also mentioned that here was a document with a provenance that could be clearly established. I mean, Ramey is holding it in his hand and we have a documented date for the photograph.

The producers arranged for me to meet Josh Gates at UTA to review the Ramey Memo scenario. On the morning that we were to go to the Special Collections, I was in the lobby waiting for a ride and began talking with Michael Primeau, who had been hired for the forensic analysis of the Memo. He had used the latest of the scans, supplied by UTA, but that had been created by David Rudiak and another team as part of another attempt to clarify the message on the Memo. That had taken place about two years earlier.

Josh Gates and Michael Primeau in the Library at the University of Texas, Arlington.

While we chatted, Michael mentioned that he didn’t know anything about the context of the Memo, only that he was asked to determine what he could see. The thinking had been to avoid bias. Yes, context is important when attempting to validate a document, and certainly context can help provide clues about what a document said if the lettering was obscured in a fashion similar to that on the Memo. We had learned years ago that priming, that is, giving people a little information about the Memo did influence their interpretation of it. That influence wasn’t universal, but it was a factor.

Cold Storage filing system in the basement of the library.

We did tour the cold vault where the negative is kept. It is filed with somewhere between 4 and 5 million negatives, some of them going back to the beginnings of photography in the late 19^th century. The cold is said to help preserve the negatives, especially those that are so old. People at the library had noticed that some of the older negatives were beginning to deteriorate, so the facility was created that should kept them in good shape for the next several centuries.

But, of course, the real interest was in what the negative had revealed on those earlier scans that had been made with Brenda and David contributing to the process. It had taken several days to get

Entrance to the Special Collections at UTA.

those necessary scans in that earlier attempt, and then Michael had subjected those scans to forensic analysis using his equipment. I want to make it clear that this is what he does for a living and has testified in various courts about his work and how his analyses had been made and his professional interpretation of the results. He is one of those expert witnesses that you often hear about.

The critical word or phrase, the one that had been identified by many of those who have looked at the Memo, is “victims of the wreck.” Others, in the last few years have suggested the critical word, “victims,” is actually, “viewing.” The difference in the two is important because one implies a flight crew who would be the victims and the other suggests that officers at the scene had merely viewed the wreckage. You can read about this in earlier postings at:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/search?q=viewing+the+wreck

(The problem is that this actually brings up several different articles about the Memo. To get to the specific article, just type “viewing the wreck,” into the search engine on the blog and that should narrow it down to the main article.)

This question, was it victims or viewing, was the one that interested me the most. True, Michael had clarified, to his satisfaction, other aspects of the Memo, much of it merely the mundane language you would expect in a military teletype message. But he was convinced that “viewing” was the correct word.

I add parenthetically, that I found the lack of military jargon in the Memo a little disturbing. I mean, I have seen documents so filled with jargon that they were nearly incomprehensible and others that contained little or no real jargon. I just mention this because it is one of many considerations.

While we were there in the Special Collections area of the library, sitting behind Michael’s computer and watching as he changed filters and manipulated the Memo with contrast and the like, I saw the word “viewing” clearly, but as he changed things, I could also see the word “victims.” Not overly helpful from my point of view and certainly not answering the question.

That seems to be where we are on this. I give the nod to “viewing,” simply because it seemed to be clearer on some of the filtered images. “Victims,” was often less clear, but then, there are those who believe they can make a case for it. It was interesting to watch as Michael took us through his analysis, it was interesting to see the cold vault where the negative is stored and it was nice to meet, in person, some of the people I had talked with and emailed over the years but in the end, we only moved a little closer to an answer about the content of the Memo which had been the point. Unfortunately, there just wasn’t a consensus on some of the critical words and we are left with the hope that at some near future date the technology will improve to the point where we can see, clearly, what the Memo says.