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.

Cosmic Whistleblowers - Simon Sharman

The other day I had the opportunity to watch a documentary by Simon Sharman called Cosmic Whistleblowers. You can see a preview, or rather a short trailer about the film, here.

http://cosmicwhistleblowers.com/

This is sort of his pursuit of the “Roswell Slides” tale, his discussions with various individuals including some of those who were directly involved in the Roswell crash in some fashion, and with Don Schmitt and Tom Carey who have been investigating it for years. It ends just after the big fiasco in Mexico City and what

Tom Carey. Photo copyright
by Kevin Randle

he learned about this after the fact, including information from the Roswell Slides Research Group and how they deburred the placard. It is an interesting story if for no other reason that you get to see the players in this little drama before Mexico City, during that presentation, and then the aftereffects of learning the truth.

Their website provides a short synopsis for the film. They describe it like this (and please ignore the all caps, but this is take directly from their site):

WHEN YOU LOOK AT ALL THE CONSPIRACY THEORIES THAT EVER WAS, THERE'S ONE THAT'S BIGGER THAN ALL OF THEM - THE ROSWELL INCIDENT.

THE LAST LIVING WITNESSES WHO SAW WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN ROSWELL IN 1947 ARE FEW IN NUMBER AND ALL TOO SOON THEY'LL BE GONE FOREVER. WHEN THAT DAY COMES ANY CHANCE AT GETTING TO THE BOTTOM OF THE MYSTERY WILL BE LOST AND THE ROSWELL UFO CASE WILL BECOME NOTHING MORE THAN A MYTH.

COSMIC WHISTLEBLOWERS IS ONE MAN'S QUEST FOR TRUTH ON A JOURNEY THAT TAKES HIM AROUND THE GLOBE IN SEARCH OF ANSWERS. YEARS IN THE MAKING, THE INVESTIGATION TAKES US TO THE HEART OF WHAT RETIRED THE NUCLEAR PHYSICIST STANTON FRIEDMAN ONCE DESCRIBED AS THE 'COSMIC WATERGATE'.

IF YOU THINK YOU KNOW THE FULL STORY BEHIND THE ROSWELL INCIDENT, YOU'D BETTER THINK AGAIN.

What caught my attention and this segment was obviously recorded before everything came crashing down (pun intended), was a statement by Tom Carey. He was explaining who was conducting which parts of the investigation and why they were allegedly being careful in their research, something that we all can understand. He said:

Don Schmitt and I want to get our own analysis. We’re not going to sign to something that blows up in our face. In this business that’s terminal.

It really does no good to go through all this again and you can read my analysis, reports, conclusions and opinions on all this by looking back on the blog, especially starting in February 2015 as more information was being revealed by those conducting their investigations. It is clear that bits and pieces of the story were being leaked by all sorts of people for their own purposes and to build suspense until the big reveal in Mexico City.

Tom said that a mistake of the proportions that had been made would be “terminal” but anyone who has been around the UFO field for a while knows that simply isn’t true. The only real mistake is to reveal the truth of a case that suggests something other than alien visitation. As long as you embrace all that suggests there is alien visitation, it really doesn’t matter all that much what mistakes you have made in the past.

The point is that they didn’t actually do their “due diligence” on the case, they didn’t get their own analysis and seemed to reject anything that suggested the slide showed anything other than an alien creature. We all seem to know this and most of us just ignore it. After all, anyone can make a mistake, even a huge one, and come back from it once enough time has passed.

Yes, I’m beating the dead horse here, but I found that one statement by Tom to be rather ironic. He wanted to be careful in his research of the slides because an error made there could be “terminal.” The error was huge, the data badly corrupted, the red flags ignored for a variety of reasons and even when the image was identified and other pictures of it found in a museum in the southwestern United States, there were, and are, arguments that it isn’t the same image. An examination of the slide, reveals the setting, and an examination of the picture taken as the child was recovered in 1898 show it to be the same as that on the slide, but people still seem to disbelieve it.

I mention all this simply because I’m not surprised by this. I have seen it time and again in the UFO field. Find the plausible (and that is the key word) explanation and no matter how solid that explanation is, it will be rejected by some… but then we know the moon landings were hoaxed, the Bermuda Triangle is dangerous and the Cardiff giant is real.

Digital Image of the Ramey Memo

There has been some discussion that suggests our research into the Ramey memo has been accomplished behind closed doors in a manner similar to the way the Not Roswell Slides were investigated. While we certainly did arrange with those at the University of Texas – Arlington to make new scans of the negative, it was not for sinister purposes. Arrangements, which including several experts in forensic photography who donated their time, were difficult to make in all came together in April of 2015. They spent several long days preparing to make the scans, accomplishing that work, and ensuring that there were no other tests to be done. They then returned to their home bases to make additional observations using the scans they made. Some of the digital files were nearly 250 MB in size, yes 250 megabytes.

It had been hoped that the latest techniques would produce immediate results. Such was not the case. The analysis has not reached any universal conclusions so that little has been said about all of this. Several people, some on the skeptical side of the fence, Lance Moody being one, have been given copies of the scans to see if they can come up with a way to read the memo in much the same way that those working with the Roswell Slides Research Group had done.

There is a journal article that is nearly finished. It lacks the conclusions which, if they are negative, meaning the issue has not been resolved, might not find a publisher. If we had positive results, meaning the memo could be read then a publisher could probably be found… I will note by positive results, I refer only to success in reading the memo and not about the content of it.

However, this process is going slower than any of us expected. Given that, we decided to publish here one of the better scans to see what might be seen by others. As I say, some of the files are gigantic…

Copyright by University of Texas - Arlington Special Collections and Kevin D. Randle

We still have a copyright issue, so for all intents and purposes, the copyright of this particular image is protected and cannot be published elsewhere without permission from us and the University of Texas – Arlington. It doesn’t mean that researchers can’t share it with one another, it just means it can’t be published anywhere including on the Internet without permission.

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.

Fallout from the Fiasco

Yes, I know, but this really isn’t about that. It’s about lessons learned and what we all can do to improve the state of UFO research… though at this point it might be a lost cause.

There were two loose groups operating here. One of them was engaged in secrecy and nondisclosure agreements and limited release of information. The other was an international coalition that shared all the information they could and relied on the expertise of their members to get things done. In one case, the story kept building to a climax that was less than accurate (to put it kindly) and the other solved the mystery rapidly. Had the information been shared the fiasco in Mexico could have been avoided.

So, what is the take away on this?

We have the opportunity here to engage in changing the face of the research in the UFO community. We could create a coalition made up of believers and skeptics and try to avoid the rabid ends of the spectrum whether true believers or debunkers. We could work together to share information about cases and attempt to come to a consensus about it. We have seen, in recent years, that better knowledge, better education and access to the World Wide Web, allows us to solve cases that were once puzzling.

Back in July 1947, Major George Garrett, at the urging of his boss, Brigadier General George Schulgen, created a mini Estimate of the Situation. It consisted of some eighteen cases that they found puzzling and asked for assistance in solving them.

In today’s world, some of those cases aren’t particularly puzzling. Solutions have been offered and some of that, I think, are the results of investigators who are no longer overwhelmed by the information. I mean, that assumptions, such as these people seeing something strange in the sky would be able to tell the difference between something truly strange and something mundane, are not being made. We now know that sometimes conditions converge to fool even the most careful and experienced observer.

The point of this is that we have better techniques, we have access to a wide range of information and we can communicate easily with others around the world. It seems to me that a loose coalition of researchers, bringing their expertise to bear on a particular problem or sighting might resolve that sighting in a matter of hours or days and give us some insight into what is happening.

I don’t believe we’d want to create a formal organization simply because that could result in a “corporate” philosophy that would dictate results rather than search of a logical and solid answer. It would have to be made up of people from across the spectrum so that a charge of pandering to a specific belief structure would not be a valid claim. The members of the coalition would ebb and flow with the sightings because sometimes specific expertise would be required and other times it would not.

It would seem that a web site, blog, or Facebook page could be created that would facilitate the communication and where results could be published. The activities of the Roswell Slide Research Group is a good model for the beginnings of this because, once they had the proper material (meaning a good quality scan of the slide) they were open and transparent, providing the information to anyone who cared to look at it. And so it shouldn’t be forgotten, their results were replicated from a half dozen other sources around the world.

This would also provide a forum for peer review, which is something I have advocated for fifteen years. Instead of hiding information behind a veil of secrecy, it is all open to be discussed by those who had knowledge of the situation and of the various disciplines necessary for unraveling the mystery.

And finally, some of the nasty and snarky things that appear in the comments section of this blog and so many others would have to be eliminated. The assumption must be that all of us are searching for the truth and not just to impress our own belief structures on others. Sometimes the answers will be simply and obvious when all the information is available, and sometimes there just might not be an answer. This would be a search for answers whatever those answers might be and not an advocacy for a point of view.

Roswell Slides Statement by Tom Carey with Note from Don Schmitt

(Blogger’s note: Yes, I said there would be nothing more about the Roswell Slides, but I also said that if there was a statement issued by Tom and Don, I would publish it without editorial comment. There is a statement that Tom issued. Before it was published elsewhere, Don had asked for a couple of modifications. That statement was published before Don asked for the changes. This is the statement, slightly modified from the original version. Don made the changes.)

Don Schmitt

We believe that the recently released "reading" of the placard by the so-called "Roswell Slides Research Group" is still open to debate. Ever since Don Schmitt and I became aware of the slides three years ago, our modus operandi has been four-fold: (1) to authenticate the age and integrity of the slides; (2) to obtain professional anthropological and forensic opinion as to what the body on the slides represented; (3) to find out as much as we could about Bernerd and Hilda Blair Ray, the long-deceased owners of the slides; and (4) to "read" the placard located at the foot of the body on the slides.     

 

We physically took the slides to Kodak's historian, who is an expert regarding Kodachrome., and, using several parameters of interrogation, he determined that the slides dated from the 1947-49 time period (manufacture to exposure). For the most part, the American anthropologists we contacted did not want to even look at the slides when they learned that they might be "UFO-related." Those who did, however, did so "off the record." They all concluded that the body on the slides was not that of a mummy but possibly that of a congenitally deformed child. Fortunately, we were able to secure Canadian and Mexican anthropologists and forensic anatomical experts who went "on the record" at our May 5th "beWitness" event in Mexico City. In short, their detailed presentations concluded that the body on the slides was: not a mammal, not a primate and not human. One, Richard Doble, after a detailed morphological examination, concluded that the creature on the slides did not evolve on earth. You already have Doble's report, and the report of the two Mexican authorities is still in translation.

 

The Rays had no children or close relatives we could interview who could shed some light on their activities. Bernerd was an oil geologist whose zone of activity was the Permian Basin of west Texas and eastern New Mexico. He was also the President of a geological society in west Texas. Hilda was an oil attorney in Midland, Texas and an amateur pilot who, according a friend in the nursing home where Hilda passed away in 1988, was also friends with Mamie Eisenhower (General and later President Dwight D. Eisenhower's wife). There are a number of color slides in the collection that do appear to show Mamie Eisenhower in various situations. Prior to her death, Hilda Ray bequeathed almost $1M to the American Association of University Women.

 

Regarding the placard, we quickly determined that (1) its content would be key to interpreting the slides; and (2) we could not read it. So, we sent copies to Dr. David Rudiak and Dr. Donald Burleson. Both had done exemplary work in trying to decipher the so-called "Ramey Memo" - a situation very similar to placard issue here. Both responded to us that the placard was "unreadable." Through a contact, we had the Photo Interpretation Unit at the Pentagon in Washington, DC take a look at it. They said that it was "unreadable." A copy went to a company in New York now requesting anonymity that conducted the analysis on a major historical artifact. That company's response to us was that the placard was "unreadable." Another copy went to the people at Adobe, Inc. (manufacturers of Adobe Photoshop and the Adobe Reader on your computer). Their response?  "It's unreadable." A copy also was also sent to aggressive Roswell researcher Anthony Bragalia who also reported to me that it was "unreadable." (Bragalia has now aggressively joined in with our critics). Our own computer guy says that he applied the "SmartDeblur" software to the placard over a year ago without any success. He did so again this week to an enhanced, sharper version of the placard with the latest edition of the "SmartDeBlur" program, again without success.

 

Now, we are told (not asked) to believe that a cast of characters, one of whom has clearly become unhinged and was himself party to a known UFO body hoax some years ago, has used the same program (SmartDeBlur) on a distorted, "screen-grab" of the placard and is somehow able to "read" it when all of the above, some of whom had much more sophisticated equipment and techniques at their disposal, could not. I ask you, what's wrong with this picture?

 

Tom Carey

Finally, lost in all of the vile invective being hurled our way by the members of the RSRG and their fellow travelers, is what the analysis of the physical body on the slides is saying. The RSRG has used a note from an obscure late 1800's journal to weave their tale that the slides show the "mummified body of a two year old boy" (the word "mummy" or "mummified" appears nowhere in their alleged de-blurred "reading" of the placard). In their excitement to play "Gotcha!," it apparently has not crossed their thought processes (I'm being charitable here) that a mummy of a two year old boy several thousand years old would be less than half the size of the body shown on the slides!

 

So, what are we to make of all this? Jaime Maussan, Tom Carey and Don Schmitt, relied on all of the above to reach the conclusions that were reached. They were not our conclusions but those scientists we consulted. We have, at this point in the proceedings, have sent out additional copies of the placard image to third parties whose opinions we can trust to run the SmartDeBlur application on it and are prepared to abide by their findings, wherever the chips fall.

 

 

Tom Carey

(With modifications by Don Schmitt who added, “As I said to Tom this morning, if the independent analysis of the placard comes back in support of the opposition's read, then I will accept that read. I will remain a gentleman and concede that point.)

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.