X-Zone Broadcast Network - Paul Kimball (Oak Island and More)

This week I talked with Paul Kimball about a variety of topics that included Oak Island, reality TV, and some of the best UFO sightings. You can listen to the program here:

https://youtu.be/Qxo55By5zWg

For those interested, since Paul lives in Nova Scotia, the scene of the Oak Island program, and since they have teased us with the idea that treasure has been

Paul Kimball

found, I asked if he had heard anything about that. He said that he hadn’t, but that he didn’t pay close attention to the newspaper reports and he wasn’t overly interested in Oak Island anyway. I wondered if the gold coin they found, according to the tease, and that had been brought up during their latest dig, might have been planted. But, of course, he had no idea if that happened or not. We just speculated that it might have happened and I mentioned an Air Force button allegedly found on the Brazel (Foster) ranch in New Mexico during one of these reality shows had obviously been planted there. The Air Force didn’t exist in 1947 and even if it had, no one would have been wearing a Class “A” uniform out to the remote ranch to lose a button.

Back in January of this year, at www.Inquistr.com, they reported that no treasure had been found on Oak Island. They noted the same thing that I suggested, which is if the treasure had been found, the information would have leaked into the mainstream. The news would have been huge and too big to contain. Or, in other words, no treasure was found and they suggested there is none to find.

We did talk about some of the best UFO cases, and how he had determined which ones to use in his documentary. He’s still interested in Shag Harbour and mentioned that he had talked with people who were involved in the case. Like Roswell, everyone agrees that something fell, it’s just not clear what it was. He thought the idea of a cover-up had not been proved, though there was certainly some government secrecy.

Interestingly, he talked with a crew man who had once been involved in the same sort of radar and training flights as had been the crew of the RB-47, which was a radar and visual sighting case in 1957. He mentioned that Brad Sparks had provided him with some of the analysis and that he had challenged Tim Printy, who writes and publishes the SUNlite skeptical newsletter, to come up with a solution. Printy spent on issue of his newsletter on analysis and Paul said that the analysis was interesting. What I noticed was that the man Paul talked to, who had been flying the same sort of mission as those on the RB-47 that had the first sighting, reported a similar incident. Asked what it was, the crewman said, “A UFO.” Sometimes it just comes down to where you sit on the no alien – alien visitation continuum.

Next week’s guest: Colonel Charles Halt

Topic: Rendlesham and Left at East Gate

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 Roswell Slides and Stan Friedman

While many seem to be tired of the Roswell Slides nonsense, there has been one additional announcement. Stan Friedman, who now labels himself as the “first civilian investigator of Roswell,” was invited to participant in the Mexico City extravaganza by Jaime Maussan and then Don Schmitt.

Friedman, who had remained somewhat silent as the controversy swirled finally chimed in. In a well-publicized statement he wrote:

My first thought was since I would be asked my views, as the first civilian investigator of the Roswell crashed saucer event, it would be nice to have first hand [sic] information…. So I read as much as I could, positive and negative. I have not held copies of the slides. I could find no convincing information that there is any connection between the slides and Roswell. How would an outsider gain access to the real bodies? ... I have seen no specific data to convince me these are phony. But that doesn’t establish a connection to the Roswell events…. But I don’t want to appear to add legitimacy by my presence in Mexico City in the absence of serious evidence of the slides being what is being claimed they are. Absence of evidence is NOT evidence of absence…

Overlooking the fact that what is claimed without proof can be denied without proof, Friedman’s statement sums up the situation as most of us understand it. There is no proof that the creature in the slide is alien or from the Roswell crash. There seems to be no solid evidence that the slides were made in 1947, near Roswell or who took the pictures. There are too many loose ends in this and unless they can be cleared up, this will end badly for those involved, something that Friedman seems to understand.

Don Schmitt, once Friedman made his position clear, issued his own statement. He said that Friedman had been offered an opportunity to review all their information including, if I understood it correctly, a chance to see high quality copies of the slides. Friedman didn’t take this opportunity, which seems a little strange. He certainly could have looked at the slides and received his briefing, unless it was tied to an agreement to attend the Mexico City presentation.

At any rate it would seem strange that Friedman, who has endorsed the nonsensical Aztec UFO crash and continues to endorse the long discredited MJ-12 documents, would pass up this opportunity. I think that says something about the slides themselves and the situation around them.

Paul Kimball, a nephew of Friedman’s by marriage (if I have that relation right) talked to his uncle about this because some thought the statement hadn’t been issued by Friedman. Friedman confirmed that he would not be among those in Mexico City. In this case, it seems that Friedman understands the real consequences of involvement in Mexico City and was wise enough to avoid it.

Jesse Marcel, Sr., Bob Pratt and the Interview

Okay, here’s the deal. In my interview with Paul Kimball, I suggested that the Bob Pratt interview with Jesse Marcel, Sr. was not as cut and dried as it seemed. I suggested that there were areas of interpretation that could be altered by the insertion or deletion of a comma. I explained what I meant by this, but apparently that explanation wasn’t good enough or wasn’t completely understood. Seems that some thought I was attacking Pratt’s ability as a journalist and everyone knew how careful he was.

The problem, I believe, is that many of those making such comments have not seen the original transcript. Karl Pflock published it in his book, but he cleaned it up for clarity, and I think that is where the problem lies. Karl put his interpretation on parts of it and that might have reflected the sometimes confusing nature of the interview.

So, I thought I’ll publish the original interview as Pratt typed it himself. Remember, also, that I asked Pratt about the tape from which the interview was made, and Pratt told me that it no longer existed. Once a story was finished, they reused the tape. Nothing nefarious here, just a bunch of people who didn’t understand the value of taped interviews to those of us who came later. It would have been nice to hear Jesse Marcel, Sr., say the things in the transcript to Pratt. It might have answered a question or two.

Following are scans of the eight pages that Pratt typed himself after the interview so that they can be compared to Karl’s cleaned up version… and for those who can’t understand these things, I’m not saying that Karl was engaged in anything nefarious. He was just attempting to make it simpler for everyone to understand the interview. These are scanned from actual copies of the Pratt interview Marcel:

Page 1

 

Page 2 (Highlighting and underlining is Pratt's)

Page 3

Page 4 (Highlighting is mine)

Page 5

Page 6

Page 7

 



Page 8

 



Aztec, Scott Ramsey and Fred Reed

After my book, Crash – When UFOs Fall from the Sky was published, Scott Ramsey told one radio show host that he wanted to debate with me about the Aztec UFO crash. I declined, but only because I hadn’t read his book so I wasn’t aware of what Ramsey might have learned. I try to keep an open mind, although the Aztec crash seemed to have been proved a hoax more than once long ago.

Since that time, I have seen Ramsey’s book, spoken with him twice, and exchanged emails with him. I didn’t want to review the book because it seemed to be filled with errors, some minor and some egregious. I suggested that it was a fun little book, which it is in a distorted, perverted sort of way, but it is also a dishonest book, leaving out information that would underscore the false nature of the Aztec case.

There is the story of Fred Reed (although he is identified as Art Reed in, at least, one place on page 198). Reed, according to Ramsey was a former OSS member (the OSS being the Office of Strategic Services, a World War II organization that gathered information about the Axis and operated behind enemy lines), who was sent into Aztec to clean up after the saucer either crashed or landed, depending on which interpretation of the event you chose to believe.

According to Ramsey, in a 1999 interview with Reed, he learned that Reed and his team "...were dispatched to aircraft crash sites from time to time, especially when they were prototype aircraft of something secret..."

Fair enough. Nothing too outrageous here.

Reed said that they were brought in to make it look as if nothing had ever happened. He said that one of those times was "in the area northeast of Aztec, something big had been removed. I can tell you that."

He talked about seeing large equipment tracks, areas where trees had been damaged and the like. They were told to pick up everything from cigarette butts, c-ration cans, or whatever and bury them 18 inches deep, which doesn’t seem all that deep to me and which would leave the evidence on site for others to find. In fact, had I been in charge, I would have had them remove anything like that rather than leave it behind, but then, that’s just me.

Reed said that he had cleaned up a lot of places over the years. He suggested that some of these were just experimental craft and they wanted nothing left for enemy agents (well, that’s my interpretation of it) to find.

But then Reed told Ramsey, "You have a bunch of young guys traveling and living in motel or hotel rooms, and at night we would talk. We never heard the word Flying Saucer or Flying Disc, but years later I ran into my old C.O. and asked him what the hell crashed up in Aztec back years ago. He responded it was no aircraft, but he hinted to a flying disc."

Okay, we now have a hint about it, but Ramsey asked Reed to be more specific and according to Ramsey, Reed said, "My. C. O. said it was no aircraft – nothing as far as the U.S. was concerned. He alluded that it was one of those flying discs."

Overlooking the fact that it seems strange that the C.O. would share classified information with Reed (which does happen after so many years), this is very good information from a first-hand witness... Or is it?

It seems that in the days prior to Ramsey’s interview with Reed, Reed wrote a letter to Aztec Local News. In the March 27, 1999 letter, Reed wrote:

Dear Sir,

Today, my wife and I took advantage of the big celebration and went out to the site of the UFO crash of late 1948 in Hart Canyon. The workers who dedicated their time to this presentation of an important part of New Mexico history are to be commended. The road signs to guide the visitors were strategically placed, and the plaque marking the spot was in the right place. The aliens had built stone cairns marking the path from the oil field road to the crash site. These cairns are still in place today. The trees around the crash site open to the south, which is a typical distress signal for extraterrestrials.

The area looked essentially as it had in 1948 when the OSS sent our group there. We were to make a detailed survey of the area and report back to them, which we did. We were then reassigned elsewhere. We were never told what the OSS was looking for.

But a traveling survey crew like that eats in cafes, sleeps in motels, has no close family, and knows intimately only the men they work with. So, of course, we spect many long nights trying to figure out just what did happen in Hart Canyon.

We had heard rumors that a UFO had crashed there. But it did not look like a crash site. And we had heard that army personnel had rushed in there and cleaned up the site. But it did not look like a clean-up site either. One thing did stand out. There appeared to be some heavy traffic - not on any graded road - leading through the large rock slides to the canyon northwest of the site.

So what it boiled down to was this: No UFO crash. Instead, the UFO landed there for some specific intent to place (bury?) some instrument or thing there. They they got into their saucer and flew away. All of the other stories were put out by the government to cover up what they did not know about it. I guess the answer might be found in the old files of the OSS. But not in my time.

Yours truly,

Fred Reed 　 There is a great deal wrong with this, but look at the differences in the stories. Now he is talking about it being an OSS mission, unaware, at the time, that the OSS had ceased to exist in the months following the war, replaced by the Central Intelligence Group that was replaced by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Note also that he is not ambivalent about the object that crashed. It is alien, and the trees on the south side of the site are open which is "typical" of an extraterrestrial distress signal.

He also wrote, "The aliens had built stone cairns marking the path from the oil field road to the crash site. These cairns are still in place today." That observation is missing in his interview with Ramsey about a week later.

Although the letter was written in 1999, it would seem that a document, created prior to the first interview would be valuable. It would suggest that the investigator had not contaminated the witness... except in this case, the story changed radically. The letter should raise red flags about the importance and the reliability of the witness. Such radical alterations suggest that the witness is not being candid with the interviewer and is taking his cues from him.

Paul Kimball, who produced and directed a documentary about the Aztec UFO crash noted on his blog:

1. Reed, in his letter, specifically states that nothing crashed on the mesa. Instead, the "rumour" that he heard was that a flying saucer had landed, planted a device, and then flown away - NO recovery! After his interview with Scott, this had changed to "a crashed flying saucer" that had been recovered by the military.

2. Reed, in his letter, refers to several stone cairns which the aliens had left in place to mark the road from the oil road to the "crash site" (note the contradictory statement even within this letter - "crash site" vs. "landing site"). After his interview with Scott, we now have the "out of place, large concrete pad" that had been poured to aid in the recovery.

3. Reed, in his letter, states that the "clean-up" operation occurred in late 1948. After his interview withe Scott, this date has been "corrected" back to April, 1948.

4. Reed, in his letter, talks about how the trees around the crash site open to the south, which is a "typical distress signal for the aliens." This ridiculous statement, which shows more than anything else that Reed is blowing smoke, is nowhere to be found after his interview with Scott.

5. Reed, in his letter, states that his group was sent to the site to make a "detailed survey of the area" and "report back" to the O.S.S. After the interview with Scott, this has morphed into a "cleanup" operation, despite the fact that in his letter, Reed stated that "We had heard that army personnel had rushed in there and cleaned up the site."

This should drive a stake into the heart of this testimony. Given this letter, written days before the Ramsey interview, it is clear that Reed’s story evolved quickly and drastically. Since Ramsey had a copy of the letter, he should have reported on these problems but did not.

Yes, we all have been caught by "witnesses" who were spinning tales. Frank Kaufmann and Gerald Anderson spring to mind. But in those cases, neither had presented a story that was so clearly changed from the beginning so quickly. Anderson began to adjust his tale, adding information to cover discrepancies, but not within a week of his original interviews. Kaufmann was able to produce documents to support his stories because he had a stash of old military letterhead and a couple of vintage typewriters.

But the other side of that coin is that when I learn that a witness has fabricated some of his testimony, inflated his credentials by claiming military rank and awards that were unearned, or made other statements that can’t be verified, I expose them myself. Here we have a case in which the testimony is at odds with what was written just days earlier, but there is no indication in subsequent reporting that the man has radically altered his statements.

And yes, I know that the telling of a tale from memory often has little twists and turns and that is expected. But this goes far beyond that. While I could accept the OSS statement if the guy had served with them during the war and continued with them through their various permutations, the other changes are just too much. It should have raised red flags, as Paul Kimball suggested, but those seem to have been ignored.

Karl Pflock, to his credit, had made it clear that he couldn’t name the source for the Newton diary and he couldn’t prove there was a diary. He thought the information should be published, probably with the hope that someone else, with similar knowledge would come forward to prove the case. Here, we just have the contradictory information ignored, but it should also be published.

What this means, simply, is that we have a compelling reason to reject the Reed testimony. The story is inaccurate, it is contradictory, and it detracts from the case for the Aztec crash. It should be published so that those who wish to judge the reality of the Aztec crash for themselves will have access to all information available. It shouldn’t be forgotten or ignored by the new primary investigator on the case.

And as an aside, I should make it clear that I do not believe there was a crash, landing, touch down, or anything else involving an alien craft near Aztec in 1948. The story is clearly the invention of a con man who hoped that the idea of alien technology would create interest in his oil finding (doodlebugs) gadgets. That the story survives until today is a testament to the lack of research capabilities of some of those in the UFO field.

Nazi UFOs and Roswell

Oh, this is really fair. The book (Roswell and the Reich by Joseph P. Farrell) came out in March and I hadn’t heard about it until either Gene Steinberg or Paul Kimball asked about it on the Paracast show in May. I said I hadn’t read it but I was bothered by the Nazi aspect. It seemed logical to me that had the Nazis been able to develop something like that the war would have ended differently. And I just don’t see this great secret Nazi network hidden in South America that can control such things... Yes, I know of Odessa and I knew that many of the Nazis fled to South America, but they weren’t developing flying saucers.

First we have to put up with the Air Force and their recapitulation of the weather balloon, now in the guise of Mogul. Then we have to put up with the anthropomorphic dummies dropped a decade later. Then Nick Redfern tells us of deformed Japanese and Unit 731. Next is Jim Carrion at the MUFON Symposium talking about Project Seal and secret weapons. And now we have Nazi UFOs and I’m the bad guy because I hadn’t heard of this book back in May.

Well, now I’ve looked at it and I find it flawed.

"Why?" you ask.

The reliance of the nonsense spouted by Kal Korff, if for no other reason. Korff never heard an anti-Roswell theory he didn’t like and if he had to misinterpret information, it didn’t matter. He said, for example, there were no black (African-American) sergeants at Roswell. He knew because he asked some unidentified Pentagon historian who told him the military was segregated in 1947. Apparently Korff didn’t know that this meant that African-American soldiers were in their own units and at Roswell this was Squadron S. According to the Yearbook produced in 1947 by Walter Haut in Roswell, there were at least 24 black sergeants at the base.

Korff dismisses and then Farrell dismisses (in his Roswell and the Reich) the Beverly Bean testimony for no legitimate reason. Korff complained that we had not been fair in our assessment of the Melvin Brown body story as related by Bean. Farrell quotes Korff, but doesn’t bother to analyze the validity of what Korff had written.

Let’s examine this one bit of nonsense that Farrell finds so important.

Korff in his poorly researched book which Farrell quotes, accuses us, meaning Don Schmitt and me of "journalistic license" and suggests that a more honest way to convey Brown’s testimony would have been to have written, "According to Beverly Bean, Brown’s daughter, he said..."

What Korff objects to is that in describing the Brown information, we had written that Brown had seen the bodies and that he had been involved in escorting two or three of them back to the base. Korff thought this unfair because in our time line of events, and in our description of the events early in the book, we hadn’t mentioned, specifically, that this information came from Bean rather than Brown. But this is an invalid criticism because the footnotes make it clear how the information was obtained. Korff is criticizing me for using a footnote, which is a proper thing to have done and Farrell seems oblivious to this fact, not mentioning it.

On page 96 of UFO Crash at Roswell, we do explain exactly how the information was obtained. The reader knows that the information came from Brown through Bean... and they know who was present at the interview and that it was videotaped... Something that both Korff and Farrell ignore.

On page 82 of The Truth about the UFO Crash at Roswell, we again mention Brown and write, "Melvin E. Brown, a sergeant with the 509th , told family members that..." Which, of course, means that we have been fair with our treatment of the Brown testimony. Korff should know this because all of this information was published prior to the publication of his book, but he choose to ignore it.

I can say Korff deceives the public by writing in his highly misleading book, "Finally as the pro-UFO Roswell researchers will admit when pressed, Beverly Bean is the only person in the Brown family who has made these claims about her father. Bean’s sister and her own mother have never confirmed the account."

This is, of course, not true and since Korff referenced the 1991 interview conducted with the Brown family, he should have known that both her sister and her mother confirmed the account on video tape. So, Korff rather than writing, "In 1991, both Bean’s sister and mother who had failed to corroborate the story earlier, are now on the record..." Korff chose to conceal this evidence from his readers.

Farrell dismissed the Brown story because of the misinformation published by Korff. Had he bothered to follow through, or had he bothered to ask me, I could have supplied the proper information.

And what makes all this so funny is that Korff, at one point in his book, chastises Don and me for talking about weather casters who were able to identify the rawin target and balloon from the photographs in Ramey’s office. We don’t say who they were, and I’m not sure that it mattered. We were suggesting that anyone could take the pictures to virtually any weather caster and have them attempt to identify the items in the picture. The irony here will become clear later.

Farrell, in his book, again quotes Korff and the Lydia Sleppy story of having her teletype interrupted. Korff knew it was untrue because he checked with the FBI and according to him, they didn’t do it, though Sleppy, in later interviews said they did.

Two questions spring to mind. Why should be believe the FBI on this point? It wasn’t has if they hadn’t been spying on Americans for a long time and it wouldn’t have been difficult for them to tap into the main AP lines at the AP headquarters if they wanted... though I don’t believe this to be the case.

And second, why should we believe Korff on this? He said he checked with the various offices, but provides nothing in the way of documentation for it. He notes in his book, "Kal K. Korff, personal phone conversation with representatives of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington, D.C., and Dallas, Texas, August 1, 1996, through October 15, 1996."

One hell of a bit of documentation. Not a name of who he talked to, not a letter to prove that he had contacted them. Just his bold statement that he had and the FBI denied that they had been running any sort of an operation.

As noted earlier Korff, in his footnotes, also failed to name the Pentagon historian who told him that the military had been segregated in 1947 so no one can check on the validity of his claims. And he had the guts to accuse us of failing to provide names on a point that was more of a side note than an important revelation. Korff, of course, does the opposite by not supplying the names of those who he claims provided him with important information.

Farrell makes another, somewhat similar mistake in discussing the Gerald Anderson story. He wrote that Anderson and I had a falling out sometime during or just after that first interview. But the truth of the matter is, there was no bad blood between us until Stan Friedman interviewed Anderson. During that interview, you hear Friedman tell Anderson not to talk to me, that I’m strange because I write Romances (which is not true... that is, I don’t write Romances but I might be considered strange by some) and that he, Anderson, should only talk to him, Friedman. At that point Anderson would no longer talk to me.

In fact, if you listen to my tape of the interview with Anderson, as noted by John Carpenter in the MUFON Journal (March 1993, No. 299, page 7), you’ll find out that such is not the case. Carpenter wrote, "I finally was able to learn that Gerald had indeed had a friendly 54-minute phone call just as Randle had claimed". So the conclusions drawn by Farrell on this were incorrect and the documentation was out there for him to find.

I always believed that when I’m looking at the writing of someone else I need to make sure that the facts, as presented, are accurate. It took me nearly a year to find the first mention of the Del Rio crash by Robert Willingham so that I could compare it to his later statements. I mean, I want to be sure that the writer actually checked the information for himself and that it is accurate. Farrell apparently didn’t do that.

I only bring all this up because I had been criticized for not reading Farrell’s book even though I hadn’t known of its existence until mentioned on the Paracast. I have read where the research in the book is the best of any that has been done by we UFO investigators, though I wonder how you get around the fact that it seems that Farrell has only reviewed the literature, whether other books, articles or documents. Apparently he did not conduct many personal interviews and did nothing to verify the information in his book.

No, I really shouldn’t be ragging on Farrell this much because it is his fans who have gone off the deep end. My point was that he relied too much on the nonsense spewed by Korff and that he didn’t fact-check what Korff had written.

I think too often that those who haven’t written a book or dealt with a publisher assume that they do fact-checking. Mostly, what publishers do is check to make sure that something won’t get them sued, but the data in a book is not fact-checked. That’s how Korff was able to confuse witness testimony, make claims that weren’t true, and actually have a few people believe what he wrote. Farrell assumed that there was some good there but didn’t check it out.

Yes, I know that Farrell will probably look at this criticism (if he even sees it) and think about it. Korff will launch into another diatribe, threaten lawsuits, threaten more audits of the facts by financial institutions and make up more facts to support himself. He will stamp his foot, insist that we call him "colonel" because of his employment by some mythical organization and continue to slander others. But he won’t offer anything to validate his claims.

Sometimes you just have to risk the wrath of the unwashed to make an important point.

Paul Kimball, Lance Moody, UFOs and Me

Not too long ago, I posted an article about the "Old Geezers" in Ufology. A critic had suggested it was time for the old guys to get out of the way because we had failed to solve the riddle of the UFO. Once before he had suggested it was time for us all to die because we were inhibiting the younger, smarter, more rational researchers.

I suggested that we had, in fact, solved the riddle of the UFO proving that some UFOs were extraterrestrial in origin, meaning here that they were under intelligent control. Paul Kimball and Lance Moody suggested I might have overstated the case and that we hadn’t proved it.

First, permit me a short digression. I wonder why things must always take a nasty turn. Why suggest that someone will be happy when we all die? Why take what I would term a civil discussion and turn it nasty? Why can’t we all agree that we’ll not accept some things the other side says without suggesting something about parents and thought processes? Why not realize that I have sometimes read the various arguments and reject them... not that I’m unaware of them, but because they do not persuade me.

And I direct none of this at either Paul or Lance, two gentlemen who have argued with me about some of the things I have said or published in the past. I have had some very interesting and satisfying personal discussions with Paul, both online and in person. I do not know Lance personally, but his postings here have always struck me as well reasoned and well intentioned. Certainly not the nasty ones that have appeared elsewhere.

As I say, they disagreed with my statement that some UFOs are intelligently controlled alien spacecraft. To them, if I understood their arguments, the evidence was not persuasive. They wanted more. Lance, I believe, suggested that my understanding of the scientific method and scientific thought left something to be desired. I believe he objected to my suggestion that there is a level of repeatability in UFO landing trace cases.

Let’s take a look at some of this. I know that I have one piece of information that is not universally accepted as legitimate and that is really my fault. When I got involved in the Roswell case with the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies and Don Schmitt, I was spending a great deal of money each month on telephone calls to witnesses and in research. Sometimes the bill was over three hundred dollars. It’s something of a tribute to my wife for never complaining about the costs of the investigation. Well, not much.

Anyway, I was at the Center’s Chicago office and while they held a board meeting, they suggested that I use the telephone if I had some witnesses to call. An opportunity, for toll free calls (or rather calls that would be billed to someone else) was not to be missed. I wanted to follow up with several people, one of those being Edwin Easley.

Easley was the Provost Marshal at Roswell, sort of the top law enforcement officer on the base. When I had talked with him earlier, he had told me, repeatedly, that he had been sworn to secrecy and couldn’t talk about the events. Much to CDA’s annoyance, he told me that Mack Brazel had been held on base, in the guest house... CDA simply doesn’t believe this, and that certainly is his right.

So I called Easley, without benefit of my tape recorder. I was making notes about the various things we had talked about earlier. Then I asked him a question that would, for me, become critical. I asked, "Are we following the right path?"

He said, "What do you mean?"

I said, "We think it was extraterrestrial."

And then he said, "Well, let me put it this way. It’s not the wrong path."

I was so excited by this admission that when we finished our conversation, I interrupted the meeting to tell them what I had heard. Easley, one of the top officers at Roswell in July 1947 had confirmed that the craft was extraterrestrial, although in a somewhat round about fashion.

At that time, Easley, as far as I knew, was in good health. I planned to visit him at his home, video tape a conversation if he would allow it, audio tape if not, and get the discussion on the record. A few months later, Mark Rodeghier, the scientific director at the Center said that he was going to be in Fort Worth and would I arrange a meeting with Easley. I thought this a wonderful idea because it would provide a... well, a different perspective.

When I called to arrange the meeting, I learned that Easley was extremely ill. He would die not long after this. An opportunity for corroboration through a disinterested third party had been lost. Now everything hinged on what I had heard, how I interpreted it, and what I had reported. I simply couldn’t prove what Easley had said to me during that conversation. If some wish to reject it, that is certainly their right. Without Easley on tape, his statement can be considered too good to be true and he’s not around to contradict me.

Oh, I can point out that other officers in Roswell such as Patrick Saunders, provided some interesting written evidence. There have been some interviews, conducted by other researchers that have tended to corroborate some of this. Joe Stefula’s interview of Chester Barton, one of the officers who worked for Easley for example, suggests that something extraordinary was recovered and that Easley knew about it. But that isn’t the same thing as Easley saying it was extraterrestrial on tape.

And to be fair, Barton believed, at least at first, that what had crashed was a B-29 carrying nuclear weapons and not an alien spacecraft. But Barton also said he never got all that close to the debris and the burned areas. He did say he thought the amount of debris field was smaller than would be accounted for in a B-29 crash.

Easley’s family, and one of Easley’s doctors, have suggested they heard about the extraterrestrial nature of the crash from Easley. Some researchers have dismissed this, confusing Easley with both Sheridan Cavitt and Curry Holden’s discussions of the crash, attributing to Easley things that were said by Cavitt or by Holden’s family.

I mention all this to provide a little bit of a context. These are all things that I know. It comes down to this. Easley told me, basically, that the crash was extraterrestrial and I can prove it to no one. For me, this is important information, but for others, it is not. If I had a tape, then we would be having a different discussion.

There are some who said that the very instant that Easley made that admission, they would have gone out, bought a tape recorder and called him back. While I thought about it, I believed, at the time, I would have an opportunity, several opportunities to discuss all this with him again. I did not anticipate his illness. If I had it to do over again, I would have called him the first chance I got and hade him repeat the information.

This interview with Easley was important to me... but is not important to anyone else. This is one of the reasons that I have accepted the idea that some UFOs represent alien visitation.

Science is often about repeatability which means that what I observe you can also observe. It means that a phenomenon, whatever it might be or how rare it might be, has been observed by others. We can say that a meteor fall is something like a UFO sighting. We can’t repeat them at will but we can interview those who have seen them. In today’s world, we know what meteors are (and do I really need to point out they are of extraterrestrial origin?). But not all that long ago, at the beginning of the 19th century, science rejected the idea that there were rocks in the sky. Yes, there had been meteoric falls, and meteorites, known as thunderbolts, had been recovered, but the idea of a meteor was outside of the science of the day.

And it was into the 1950s that science failed to recognize that some craters were of meteoric origin. Many scientists believed them to be extinct volcanos. Although I’ve always though about the craters on the moon having their origin in impacts, that wasn’t always the scientific thought.

I bring this up merely to point out that some things in science are not readily reproducible. The observations must be taken where they can be found and often are not made by scientists but by the public. It is the job of those scientists to gather the observations in a detached and dispassionate fashion so that we all can understand what has happened.

There has been a level of reproducibility in the UFO field. Ted Philips has been studying UFO landing trace cases for decades. His catalog has some 4000 different cases in it. There have been all sorts of UFO landings in which traces have been found. This would be, of course, the UFO interacting with the environment.

Philips, at the MUFON Press Conference held in Denver in August pointed out that he knew the kind of landing trace he would find based on the witness description of the craft. That, to me, suggested that there was something more than a random nature to the landing traces. It meant there was a predictability here that science would demand. You give me a listing of the object’s characteristics and I will predict the type of landing traces that we will find.

There are hundreds of cases in which instrumentality was used as part of the UFO observation. This might be radar, might be cameras, might be other types of sensors but all of it leads to the conclusion that something physical and real had been observed. That doesn’t necessarily mean that it was extraterrestrial, only that what was seen was neither hallucination nor illusion. It might be misidentification but it was real.

Another factor weighing in here is how hard the Air Force, and other parts of the government, have worked to conceal information. A look at the Project Blue Book files shows us that these investigations were less than adequate and while they claim that only some 700 reports are labeled as unidentified, about 4000 cases, or one-third, are labeled as insufficient data for a scientific analysis. That means they are unidentified.

We can prove that the Condon Committee was designed, not to learn if there was a reason to study UFOs but to end the Air Force involvement in UFO investigations... or rather their public involvement. This documentation exists and suggests, at the very lease, a bit of duplicity.

All of this, and many other things, have lead me to the conclusion that some UFOs are extraterrestrial visitors. To me the evidence is overwhelming and convincing. To others it is not. It is a question of what evidence you see and what evidence you believe and what evidence is persuasive.

What is interesting here is that both Paul Kimball and Lance Moody can make their points without descending into the nastiness that others employ. Over the years I have been called all sorts of names just because my opinion is different from that of someone else. I have been accused of all sorts of things from being a government agent to being a liar and a coward, simply because I disagreed with someone’s analysis of a UFO case or bit of evidence. But that doesn’t make them right and me wrong. It only makes them nasty.

So, to Paul and Lance, I say, we disagree and I believe the evidence is overwhelming. I say, I am satisfied by the evidence I have seen and the witnesses I have interviewed. If you find the evidence to be insufficient and the witnesses less than believable, then that is your right. I am hoping that someday we all can find the evidence we need to prove our points... (And yes, I understand that we approach from opposite directions and if I am right, they must be wrong and if they are right, then I am wrong).

And for those out there who wonder about this, I have changed my mind when the evidence warrants it. I believed Frank Kaufmann until we had the evidence that he was not being candid. It is one thing to reject his testimony because you know that there has been no alien visitation and therefore he must be lying and another thing to reject it because the evidence suggests he was lying.

We will continue to march here, providing information as best we can (and that would be the editorial we which means, of course, me). As new information appears, it will be published, regardless of what it is. I hope that we can leave the nastiness aside and continue to discuss all these phenomena intelligently, rationally and civilly.

As a final thought... if those who wish that the old geezers would get out of the way, I say this. Buy my files, records, tapes, microfilms and photographs for one million dollars, meaning that after taxes are paid, I have one million dollars, and I’m gone. I won’t write anymore UFO books, I won’t appear at anymore conferences or symposiums as a speaker, and I will take down this blog. Then you youngsters can have the open field. Just let me know when you have the money.

Thanks.

PS to Korff

I really had planned to add this to the last post about Korff because I wanted to avoid a public flame war. It serves no useful purpose but I kept finding things that needed to be pointed out. I mean, we could engage in the allegations all we wanted but without some sort of proof from one side or the other it boiled down to "he said... he said." I thought that maybe a little longer post might induce Korff to provide some evidence rather than continue to sling allegations and make threats.

Korff loves to accuse others of putting words in his mouth. He writes, "In a recent posting on his [meaning mine] blog [which he has now figured out is not part of Paul Kimball’s blog which, in his bellicose world would make it a LIE], Kevin Randle makes the false claim that Kal Korff ‘now suddenly describes’ the Israeli based Special Secret Services as a ‘meta-organization.’"

Well, here is what I actually wrote, "Kal Korff claims to be a captain in an Israeli organization that he now describes as a "‘meta-organization’..."

So, I didn’t say "suddenly".

Trivial point?

Certainly.

But, who is putting words in whose mouth?

Korff then writes, "By comparison, I was never stupid enough, literally, to fall for the LIES of Frank Kaufmann, Glen (whose name he misspells) Dennis, Frankie Rowe, Jim Ragsdale, Trudy Truelove, etc. — ALL of which Randle not only "fell for" but even force fit and fudged and hyped "evidence" to fit."

Here’s the problem with this. Frankie Rowe wasn’t lying and Trudy Truelove, according to Ragsdale was killed in a car wreck, so what story did she produce? Why smear her name when it was provided by Ragsdale and she said nothing? Ragsdale said that he was with her on the night he saw the crash. And since she never talked about this, should we now characterize Korff’s mistake as a LIE?

Korff then complains, "Finally, what Kevin Randle does NOT tell you is something he ALREADY KNOWS: The name "Special Secret Services" is a ROUGH TRANSLATION from the orignal (sic) Hebrew.

"KEVIN RANDLE DOES NOT SPEAK HEBREW. HE DOES NOT KNOW THE NAME OF S3 IN HEBREW. THEREFORE HE WILL NEVER FIND ANY INFO ABOUT IT WITHOUT KNOWING THE HEBREW NAME — DUH!"

But isn’t that what I said up front in the blog? I wrote, "He [Korff] says that you can’t 'Google' it because the English version of the name isn’t quite accurate and you need the Hebrew name". So, why not supply that as some have requested? You can decide for yourself if Korff’s criticism is valid. And notice that Korff still hasn’t supplied the Hebrew name for us so that we can independently verify the existence of this organization. Remember, it is up to him to prove this "meta-organization" exists and not up to us to disprove it.

In another post, he wrote, "For the record, I sent Kevin Randle only a few emails, and the last one was simply a friendly warning letting Randle know that he had upset other people with his false, liberlous (sic) and slanderous remarks and that I was giving him some friendly advice to try and spare him some pain from some parties who would not tolerate this."

We see here that his warnings weren’t very friendly and that there were a few of them.

He then makes the claim that if anyone else had made about him he would say that it is a LIE. He wrote, "But wait, folks, it gets worse for Randle. A real scandal in fact. Not only has he lied about me ‘bombarding’ him, but what Randle does NOT tell you is that he (Randle) DELETED the emails he claims he was ‘bombarded’ with!"

He adds, "In other words, Randle didn’t bother reading them. But yet he ‘comments’ on them, as if he alone was the final word and the right word."

Of course he doesn’t know if I read them or not, only that I deleted them when I was through with them. So, Korff, in a not very clever attempt to smear me has jumped to another false conclusion which, if I had said it about him, he would call a LIE. If he suggests otherwise, then I suppose I will have to post the contents of some of this so everyone will know the truth.

Korff reports about CPT Lorenzo Kent Kimball, who was the medical supply officer at Roswell in July 1947 and whose office was on the perimeter of the hospital complex (See my column published in December 2006 about Kimball, in which Paul Kimball and I discuss this), "After I (meaning CPT Kimball) learned of these assertions, I called Doctor Jack Comstock, who, as a Major, was the Hospital Commander in 1947, and in 1995 was living in retirement in Boulder, Colorado. I asked him if he recalled any such events occurring in July of 1947 and he said absolutely not. When I told him that Jesse B. was supposed to have conducted a preliminary autopsy on alien bodies, he had a hard time stopping laughing - his response was: PREPOSTEROUS!!"

What Korff has failed to report is that Jack Comstock was NOT the hospital commander in July 1947. He was just one of the doctors. In 1947, the hospital commander was Lieutenant Colonel Harold Warne. So Korff printed the inaccurate information without bothering to check it. If it was somehow negative, it must be true.

But look at it from another point of view. I asked some tough questions that weren’t answered. I showed some pictures to underscore the validity of those questions. And all Kal Korff can do is respond by saying that he has always called the Special Secret Services a "meta-organization" and add the word suddenly to my statement, then invent criticisms about what he thinks I said, makes more claims about witnesses he doesn’t believe and doesn’t know, and finally suggest that I don’t speak Hebrew, written in all caps as if this is some kind of important revelation. And he still dodges the questions...

So, decide for yourself who is being reasonable and who is not. Read what he has to say with all his hyperbole and what I have to say, and decide for yourself.

I now try to bow out of this once again.