No Socorro Solution by Chief of Project Blue Book

Rick Baca holding the illustration of the Socorro craft as
described by Lonnie Zamora. Photo copyright by
Rick Baca.

In 1964, Hector Quintanilla was a captain in charge of the Air Force’s UFO investigation known as Project Blue Book. It would become clear that the mission of that project was to explain UFO sightings rather than actually investigating them. On April 24, there was a sighting in Socorro, New Mexico, by police officer Lonnie Zamora that involved a landed craft and two humanoid creatures. Quintanilla would later write in his memoirs, that this was a sighting that he really wanted to explain.

In his unpublished manuscript, Quintanilla described his investigation into the Socorro landing. He wrote that he was determined to solve the case and decided that he had to talk with the base commander at Holloman Air Force Base in Alamogordo, not all that far from Socorro, Colonel Garman. According to Quintanilla, Garman told him that he, Quintanilla, could go anywhere and visit any activity on the base that interested him as his orders had cleared him to review the classified projects on the base. Quintanilla said that he spent four days talking to everyone he could find and spent time with the down range controllers at White Sands. Quintanilla wrote, “I left Holloman dejected and convinced that the answer to Zamora’s experience did not originate and terminate at that base.”

See below for link to the book.

But that might not have covered the Lunar Lander. Quintanilla knew that some of the research had been carried out at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, so when he returned there, he asked to be briefed on those projects. He learned that it wasn’t operational in 1964. That ruled it out, but the Lunar Lander isn’t quite the same thing as the Lunar Surveyor. Is that ruled out as well?

The published logs showed some sort of test on April 24, was carried out at White Sands. The trouble here is Richard Holder. He was the commander of the Stallion Station at White Sands and his duty location, meaning where he actually worked was closer to Socorro than it was to the White Sands Missile Range main complex which is near Alamogordo. Had the answer been that simple, Holder would have known about a test that had left the range for whatever reason, or he could have learned about it with a few telephone calls. Such information would have been in his report written early on the morning of April 25 after his interview with Zamora but nothing like that is mentioned. Holder was as puzzled as the rest of them.

Skeptics will say that Ockham’s Razor eliminates alien visitation because any explanation that requires the invention of interstellar flight is not a simple explanation. The terrestrial answers are simpler because there isn’t that requirement. But Ockham’s Razor also mentions something about covering all the facts, not just those that are convenient for an explanation. Quintanilla, after all the work he had done, all the explanations he had tried, and all the experimental aircraft and space craft he reviewed, and after all the letters he had written to various governmental agencies and defense contractors who might have has something going on, came up empty.

Quintanilla wrote, “I labeled the case ‘Unidentified’ and the UFO buffs and hobby clubs had themselves a field day… Although I labeled the case ‘Unidentified’ I’ve never been satisfied with that classification. I’ve always felt that too many essential elements of the case were missing. These are the intangible elements which are impossible to check, so the solution to this case could very well be lying dormant in Lonnie Zamora’s head.”

You can read about this and more in Encounter in the Desert: The Case for Alien Contact at Socorro. The book can be found here:

https://www.amazon.com/Encounter-Desert-Alien-Contact-Socorro/dp/1632651130/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1508096455&sr=8-1&keywords=encounter+in+the+desert

UFO Sightings on November 3, 1957

In my quest to verify UFO information that has been reprinted and analyzed for years, and as I was working on my last UFO book, I began looking at the UFO sightings at White Sands Missile Range on November 3, 1957. To put this into context, the Levelland sightings took place during the evening and night of November 2. About the time the sightings were ending in Levelland, they were beginning at White Sands some 250 miles away. Those who made the first reports in New Mexico had not heard of the sightings in Texas and were unaware of what was happening.

Two MPs on patrol out near the Trinity Site, on the northern edge of the missile range saw something strange. In a sworn statement given to his commanding officer written on the day of the event, November 3, Glenn Toy said:

At about 0238 – 0300 Sunday Morning [November 3, 1957] I, CPL X [Glenn H. Toy] and PFC Y [James Wilbanks] were on patrol in Range Area when we noticed a very bright object high in the sky. We were proceeding north toward South Gate and object kept coming down toward the ground. Object stopped approximately fifty (50) yards from the ground and went out and nothing could be seen. A few minutes later object became real bright (like the sun) then fell in an angle to the ground and went out. Object was approximately seventy-five (75) to 100 yards in diameter and shaped like an egg. Object landed by bunker area approximately three (3) miles from us. Object was not seen again. /END OF STATEMENT

Wilbanks also gave a statement to his commander. Later Toy would be interviewed by an Air Force investigator but Wilbanks was unavailable. According to the files, he was on a three-day pass. Thinking about it, and knowing what I know about Army regulations, this made no sense to me. A three-day pass has a limited travel radius because the Army didn’t want soldiers attempting to travel farther than was safe. They didn’t want soldiers killed in traffic accidents. Besides that the soldier had to leave contact information. Had the Army wanted him to return, they could have gotten him back so that the Air Force could interview him. Why hadn’t that been done?

According to one source who had been there in 1957, Wilbanks was not available because he was in the hospital, the result of the sighting. That information was kept out of the Air Force file and to cover the point, the story of the three-day pass was created.

For those who have only bothered to look at the Air Force file on the case, we see that these two soldiers were young, Toy was 21 (according to one document in the Project Blue Book files) at the time and Wilbanks younger. The Air Force thought that discussions of flying saucers might have influenced their reports by, according to the Air Force records, “the famous Levelland case,” though nothing had been reported prior to Toy and Wilbanks’ sighting. Both suggested they had heard nothing about this until after the event.

The Air Force eventually solved the sighting. According to the Project card, Toy and Wilbanks were “very young (18 20), impressionable & on duty in a lonely, isolated desert post. Interviewers agreed that their sightings were magnified out of proportion.” According to the Air Force, it was the moon.

To get to that point, the Air Force ignored the information from the witnesses which suggested that the object was close to the ground. They ignored the estimate of the size and that there were references on the ground to help Toy and Wilbanks in those estimates. It wasn’t as if the object was a pinpoint of light in a dark sky with no points of reference.

While it seems that the Air Force made a solid investigation, they actually spent little time on it, sent a single officer to White Sands, and then slapped an explanation on it as quickly as possible. Reinhold Schmidt who claimed to have been taken on-board a UFO that had landed in Nebraska in the days that followed the White Sands sightings, was interviewed by officers from the Continental Air Defense Command and Army Intelligence. For some reason they thought this case more important, though Schmidt had a shady background and he was talking about seeing the inside of the craft, escorted by alien creatures.

The point here? The Air Force, in 1957, was not engaged in investigating UFOs, but was more interested in offering explanations. These cases prove the point. Ignore the reliable reports from military personnel, slap ridiculous explanations on them with little or no real investigation, and move onto the obvious frauds which can be explained easily. Make it seem as if there is a real interest in all UFO cases, but remember, they controlled the sighting at White Sands. It wasn’t very dramatic so there wasn’t a widespread interest in it.

Instead, make a real show of investigating a case that was an obvious fraud. Send in several officers and then explain the sighting with solid information. It creates a mindset in the general public that allows the Air Force to avoid having to answer any tough questions about UFOs. It buries the important sightings at White Sands where people were injured by the UFO (this would be the Stokes UFO sighting on November 5 not far from Alamogordo and that might include Wilbanks), and focuses on the ridiculous.

These White Sands sightings deserve another look. They deserve a proper investigation and there are enough problems with the official files that show something more was happening there at the time. But then, the Air Force didn’t want an answer for the case, other than one they dreamed up. Looking at the facts might suggest something other than the moon. 

A Little Help

As you all know, I have been working on a new book and in the course of that, I was looking at the November 3, 1957, sightings at White Sands Proving Grounds, now White Sands Missile Range. According to the information I have, one of the soldiers who saw the UFO (identified as the Moon by Project Blue Book investigators) was unavailable for the Air Force to interview a couple of days later. They were told that he was on a three-day pass. The story told by a reporter in the area in 1957 was that the man, James Wilbanks, had been put into the hospital.

In early August I sent a request to the Records Center in St. Louis, asking for the morning reports of his unit for the week of November 3 through 10. The morning reports should tell us if he was on his pass or in the hospital. After nearly four months, I received a form letter telling me how much the search would cost and that I couldn't ask for the morning reports for more than a 90 period. I am assuming that it will be another four months before I get a reply.

However, the Public Affairs Officer either at White Sands or Holloman Air Force Base had issued a press release about the soldiers and their involvement in the UFO sighting and might have addressed the problem of where Wilbanks was. I have tried to search on line for copies of the Alamogordo newspaper but the only records I can access go back to 1997 or there abouts.

I'm hoping that someone will be able to look at the newspaper files for November 1957 and find an article that talks about the soldiers from White Sands and what happened to them....

Oh, and I should mention that the White Sands Missile Range has been less than helpful. In the past they have been quite prompt in answering email, but after asking a bunch of irrelevant questions, they too have gone silent.

Anyway, I'm hoping that someone in that area can learn a little more from reviewing the microfilm from November 1957 and tell me what happened to Wilbanks. The tale of his three-day pass doesn't not hold water.

Philip Corso and The Day After Roswell, Again

(Blogger’s Note: In the last few days I have been asked about Philip Corso and his tales of seeing the Roswell bodies and of seeding alien technology into American industry. I have updated the information to reflect what we now know. This is my take on the stories Corso told, and once again, I find myself attempting to explain why I don’t accept what he said as real.)

As everyone now knows, Philip Corso burst on the Roswell UFO scene in the summer of 1997 with the publication of his book, The Day After Roswell. It was Corso’s story of his involvement with the flying saucer crash at Roswell, first as an officer at Fort Riley, Kansas, and later as a staff officer in the Pentagon, the Eisenhower White House, and finally on the staff of Lieutenant General Arthur Trudeau. Corso claimed that he had been responsible, under orders from Trudeau, for leaking bits and pieces of alien technology to American industry for reverse engineering, duplication and replication.

There is no doubt that Corso had served as a military officer and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel. He served in World War II and stayed on active duty until he retired and did work for Trudeau. Although he did say that he had retired as a full colonel, there is no evidence to back up this claim.

It was during his assignment at Fort Riley that Corso was introduced, according to him, to the alien crash at Roswell. Corso, again according to him, was an above average bowler and because of his skill was invited to participate on a Fort Riley team by then Master Sergeant Bill Brown (which is a name nearly as common as John Smith for those who wish to attempt to learn more about this guy). Corso was surprised because enlisted men weren’t supposed to fraternize with officers at that time, but apparently Corso’s skill was such that the master sergeant took a chance and breached military protocol.

The friendship that developed between Corso and the master sergeant, who he now called by the nickname Brownie, would play an important role in what would happen on the evening of July 6, 1947, after the arrival of a “secret” convoy. Corso was assigned as the post duty officer, in charge of security and as he described it, the “human firewall between emergency and disaster.” As he walked his post, checking the security, he failed to find Sergeant Brown where he was supposed to be. Instead, Brown was in the doorway of the veterinary clinic. There was something inside that Corso just had to see.

Forget for the moment that Brown would have had no reason to enter the building unless there was some sort of a disturbance inside, or that the secret convoy of five “deuce and half” (two and a half ton trucks) with its accompanying “Low boy” side by side trailers would have been guarded by the men who brought them to Fort Riley to ensure that the contents were not compromised. Forget also that the best evidence suggests that the material from the crash was shipped by air to its various destinations because it was the quickest and safest way to move it and the 509^th Bomb Group had access to a wide range of military aircraft. Corso, in his first-hand account, claimed that the convoy stopped at Fort Riley, and the Military Police assigned to it as guards were all armed, which, of course, they would be so that wasn’t unusual. These guards, once the material was secured in the veterinary clinic, apparently abandoned their posts to leave the guarding of the crates to the local soldiers. These guards would have been no reason to unload the cargo, so there is no reason that it would have been in the veterinary clinic but without this wrinkle Corso’s story collapses.

Those local soldiers, being curious men, began to search the material from the top-secret convoy. What they found so upset them that they risked the wrath of the post duty officer and court martial by telling him that there was something he had to see. Brown told Corso that he had to take a look at what the convoy was transporting. Corso warned Brown that he wasn’t supposed to be there and had better leave. Brown, apparently ignoring this advice, which would actually have the force of a lawful order, said that he would watch the door while Corso snooped.

Inside the building, Corso found the crates but hesitated at prying open any of them, which would have been closed with a seal to expose any tampering. He searched among them until he found one that had apparently already been opened by the Fort Riley soldiers so that the nails were loose. He opened that crate and then looked down inside. In a glass tube containing a blue fluid, floating, suspended, was what Corso thought, at first, was a small child. Then he knew it wasn’t a child, but a human-looking creature with “bizarre-looking four-fingered hands... thin legs and feet, and an oversized incandescent light bulb-shaped head...”

Rifling the crate, Corso found an Army Intelligence document detailing that the creature was from a craft that had crashed outside of Roswell, which also doesn’t make sense. The documents wouldn’t have been stashed in a crate carrying the body. The paperwork appeared to manifest the remains, first to the Air Materiel Command at Wright Field, and then to Walter Reed Hospital for what Corso believed would be autopsy (which is in conflict with data provided by the late and former Brigadier General Arthur Exon). Of course, such a manifest would have been in the hands of the convoy commander rather than stuck in a crate where he wouldn’t have easy access to it. Corso, realizing that he was not supposed to have read the document, seen the creature, opened the crate, or penetrated the security around the cargo, put everything back the way he found it, and hurried outside. He told Brown that he had seen nothing and that he Brown, was to tell no one.

That wasn’t, of course, Corso’s last brush with the Roswell case. It was however, more than a decade before he again saw anything dealing with Roswell. Instead he had a number of military assignments, moving him to Washington, D.C., and then to Fort Bliss, Texas. At Bliss he was trained in anti-aircraft artillery, then assigned as an inspector of training and finally assigned as battalion commander for several weeks before he was reassigned to Europe. While at Bliss, according to Corso, he was assigned as the commander of the White Sands Missile Range. At least that is what he told reporters in the summer of 1997 as he was describing his background for them.

In Germany, in 1957, he was a commander of a Nike battalion. In March, 1959, he became the Special Assistant to the Chief of Staff at the Seventh Army Headquarters. In May 1959, he became an Inspector General at Seventh Army HQ, and continued in that assignment for about a year. In 1960 he returned to the United States. In 1961, he was assigned as a staff officer of the Plans Division in Washington, D.C. and then as a staff officer of the Army’s Foreign Technology Division until April 1961 when he became the Chief of Foreign Technology. Three months later he was reassigned as a staff officer at Plans and less than a year later he retired.

It was during the tour in 1961 that he became involved, once again, with the Roswell case. According to an affidavit prepared by Peter Gersten, and according to Corso, “...In 1961, I came into possession of what I refer to as the ‘Roswell File.’ This file contained field reports, medical autopsy reports and technological debris from the crash of an extraterrestrial vehicle in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947.”

Corso’s job, in 1961, was to parcel the debris into American industry hands for research and development which doesn’t explain why he was exposed to information that was irrelevant to his assignment and in violation of the “Need to Know” rule. The idea here was to suggest to various companies that the small artifact or metal had come from an unknown source, which of course shows that there was no need to provide Corso with the background of a UFO crash. The expertise of the scientists at the companies was supposed to unlock the secrets of the debris. This led, according to Corso, to the creation of the transistor, night vision equipment, fiber optics, lasers, microwave ovens and a host of other recent developments though the scientific papers and history of the times suggests that this is not accurate.

All of this was outlined in Corso’s book which became news in July 1997. He appeared on NBC’s Dateline for an exclusive interview. About a week later he appeared in Roswell for a press conference, a lecture, and a book signing. For three weeks in August, his book appeared on the New York Times bestseller list.

Corso was, in 1997, the highest-ranking officer to write a book about Roswell and to make public claims about the case of what he had seen and done (Colonel Jesse Marcel, Jr. now holds that distinction). According to him, he had been a member of NSC, had worked inside Eisenhower’s White House, and had served with the Army’s Foreign Technology Division. If he could be believed, then here was the truth about the Roswell crash. Finally a witness with impressive credentials had gone on the record.

The stories told by Corso to friends and family are even more impressive than those detailed in his book. In a proposed chapter that was edited out of his book, Corso claimed that in 1957 he had taken command of missiles at Red Canyon, where he trained specialists in the management of sophisticated radar and range finding equipment. It was here that Corso saw a series of radar contacts showing objects that could outperform the best Air Force interceptors.

Corso, according to the details of the missing chapter, had been told to report all unidentifiable sightings and then, finally, was told to forget them. He also claimed that at “times of intense UFO activity during his tenure as commander... he is ordered to turn his targeting radars completely off because, he believes, the craft themselves are in danger from our missiles as well as from our high-energy radars.”

Naturally the claims of Corso were subjected to intense scrutiny. Problems with his book began to arise almost immediately. For example, Corso had claimed to be a member of the NSC in the Eisenhower White House. Herbert L. Pankratz, an archivist at the Eisenhower Library, reported Corso was not a member of the National Security Council or its ancillary agency known as the Operations Coordinating Board. There was nothing to link Corso to the NSC.

Corso, in his book, told of how he had intimidated the CIA director of covert operations after Corso learned the CIA was following him. He told Frank “Wiesner” that he was going to start carrying a gun and if he ever spotted a CIA agent following him, they would find the agent’s body with bullet holes in the head. Corso then noted that Wiesner was found dead in his London hotel room in 1961. Wiesner had killed himself by hanging, which is not to say that Corso’s threat so unhinged Wiesner that he committed suicide.

The problem is that most of the facts used by Corso to support this story, from the claim that he had charged into the Langley Headquarters of the CIA, to the facts surrounding the death of Frank Wisner (note correct spelling) are wrong. Corso couldn’t have charged into the Langley headquarters because they weren’t opened when Corso supposedly entered the building. Corso couldn’t have driven to Wisner’s office as he claimed because, in April 1961, Wisner was, in fact, assigned to the CIA’s London office. Wisner did, eventually commit suicide, but it was with a shotgun, at the family farm, and on October 29, 1965.

In what may be the most telling of the events surrounding the publication of Corso’s book is the Foreword written by Senator Strom Thurmond. Here seems to be an endorsement for Corso’s book from a man who has served in the United States Senate longer than almost anyone. When the book was published, Thurmond, objected, claiming that the Foreword he had written had been for a different book. The publisher, Simon and Schuster issued an apology and pulled the Foreword from future printings of the book.

Corso tried to explain it away, saying that Thurmond’s staff had written the Foreword and that “the old man knew it” and that they hadn’t really known the nature of the book. The whole flap, according to Corso, was a misunderstanding about the nature of the book and who actually authored the Foreword. As a matter of courtesy, given the controversy, Simon and Schuster decided to pull the Foreword.

Karl Pflock, who had been around Washington, D.C. in various capacities, decided to look into the matter himself, believing that his friends and sources inside the Beltway would give him a unique perspective on the matter. Pflock, it turned out, knew the senator’s press secretary, and learned that “Yes, it’s true the foreword was drafted by one of the senator’s staff... It was done at the senator’s direction on the understanding he had from Corso that it was to be for Corso’s memoirs, for which he and his staff were supplied an outline, a document which made no mention of UFOs.” Pflock added, “I know of my own certain knowledge the senator was and is mad as hell about the cheap trick that Corso pulled on him...”

Pflock continued, pointing out that Deputy General Counsel Eric Raymond demanded, “Recall all copies of the first printing - failing that, remove all dust jackets with the senator’s name on them; stop using any reference to the foreword by the senator in promoting the book; do not use the foreword in any subsequent printings of the book; issue a statement acknowledging the truth, ‘to establish for the public record’ that the senator ‘had no intention or desire to write the foreword to The Day After Roswell,’ a ‘project I completely disavow.’”

The apology issued by Simon and Schuster was not as bland as Corso had characterized it but was, in fact, damning in its wording. It was clear that Thurmond did not know the nature of the book and that the outline he had read was for a completely different book. The publisher did remove the foreword from all subsequent editions of the book.

This might seem as if it is an argument over trivia, but it does speak to the general attitude of Corso in constructing his book. If he was willing to mislead a United States Senator, one who Corso considered a friend, why believe that he wouldn’t want to mislead the rest of the country? The evidence is that he played fast and loose with the truth.

For example, it was Corso who said that he had been the commander at the White Sands Missile Range but a check of the Range’s website revealed that, with two exceptions, the Range had been commanded by a general officer. The first exception was Colonel Turner who had been the first commander, and the second was when a full colonel took over temporarily when the commanding general died. Corso’s name did not surface as a commander.

However, as noted, his records indicated that he had been a battalion commander at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas. The two organizations, Fort Bliss and White Sands Missile Range, share some facilities. So, it might be said Corso was a commander at White Sands but not the commander. Clearly Corso was inflating his record when speaking to members of the press.

During those same press conferences, Corso made other statements that were quite revealing. He mentioned the Philadelphia Experiment, a hoax that began in 1956 when a man claimed he had witnessed, during the Second World War, Navy efforts to teleport a destroyer. The story is an admitted hoax, but Corso began telling reporters about the event, claiming that he had read the top-secret files about it.

Research into Corso’s claims showed that they were firmly grounded in the UFO community. Corso had read and reviewed everything that had been printed, published on the Internet, or shown in television documentaries over the last five or six years as it related to the Roswell case. There was nothing new in Corso’s book, except for his claim that he had seen one of the bodies at Fort Riley and then that he was the conduit for the alien technology to American industry. For evidence, he offered nothing more than his claim it happened and documentation offered as some sort of evidence had nothing to do with his claims.

In fact, when Corso came into conflict with other witnesses, or information that was contrary to his point of view, he retreated. He appeared on a radio program with Frank Kaufmann but at every point of disagreement, Corso deferred to Kaufman as if Kaufman was the real authority. Kaufmann’s tales have since been shown to be untrue, a fact which Corso should have known if he had the inside knowledge that he claimed he had.

He was quick to suggest that his information might not have been the best. In other cases, it seemed to have been the worst. The caption over a photograph in his book read, “Lt. Col. Corso was never able to confirm the veracity of the following purported UFO surveillance photos which were in Army Intelligence files as support for material for the R&D project to harvest the Roswell alien technology for military purposes.”

The first of the pictures is of a well-known hoax. The photographer, Guy B. Marquand, Jr. told various UFO researchers, as well as the editors of Look, that he was sorry, but it was a hoax. He had been young and foolish and thought it a great joke. It would seem that if Corso was on the inside as he claimed, he would have been aware that this particular UFO photograph was faked.

Given the information available, given the mistakes in Corso’s book, and given his inflation of his own importance during his military career, it seems that the logical conclusion is that Corso’s claims are of little value. They added nothing to what was already known, and certainly have detracted from the whole of the Roswell case. When his claims break apart, those who know little about Roswell become convinced that the whole case is built on structures similar to those built by Corso.

Chasing UFOs - Part Two

To be fair to Chasing UFOs, I suppose I should note that they have put up a response which seems to be because so many complained about their Roswell presentation. You can find it at:

http://tvblogs.nationalgeographic.com/2012/07/16/the-science-of-chasing-ufos-ufo-landing-zone-2/#.UAbeSNIM01o.twitter

But this is really too little too late. They concede the points that we all made about their investigation into Roswell but the mistakes should not have happened.

About the missile test footage, which they had originally said (or rather Ryder said couldn’t be a missile based on what her missile expert said), McGee wrote, “Again, in light of the evidence as detailed above without additional compelling evidence to the contrary, there is no scientifically compelling reason to question the hypothesis that the object captured on film is likely a rocket exhaust plume as viewed during an unusual missile or rocket bounce and crash. (To claim otherwise and invoke extraterrestrial technology is, again, to commit an argument from ignorance.)”

All well and good, but had they checked with White Sands, they would have known where the footage originated and wouldn’t have had to speculate. If they had checked the Internet they could have found the explanation.

McGee explains the initial excitement over the button. Those of us who know our history (and by this I merely mean the separation of the Air Force from the Army in September 1947) knew that no Air Force button would have been lost during the recovery operation. Those of us with military training knew that a button from a Class A uniform would have no significance in the Roswell case.

McGee now tells us, “Buttons of this nature were included on more formal uniform coats, which don’t necessarily make sense under a “hands-and-knees” recovery operation scenario. Field recovery personnel would not have been wearing more formal uniforms.”

Chasing UFOs' pristine Air Force
button. It is from 1949 at the latest.

Or, in other words, those out in the field would not have been wearing a Class A uniform. They would have been in fatigues. The buttons would have been different.

And he tells us, “The button was sent to an expert historian from the National Button Society during post-production, who concluded that the button (based on the manufacturer and button-backing) was at earliest from the year 1949.”

Without having to consult a “button expert” (okay, the unidentified expert clearly knew the history of buttons), many of us knew that the button couldn’t have been dropped during the retrieval. Had anyone been out there in a Class A uniform in July 1947, the button would have been Army and not Air Force.

Which leads back to the question of where did it come from?

Best guess… It was planted out there for them to find. It was planted by someone who knew of Frank Kimbler’s buttons but who had not seen them. It was planted by someone who just went out to buy an Air Force button. Did any of them, James Fox, Ben McGee or Erin Ryder do it?

Of course not.

Can we determine who did it?

Is that is really important now? Had we had some controversy over the button, then yes, it would be important. But, with all of us on the same page, it really becomes a moot point. The button was there, it didn’t belong there, it was from the wrong military service, from the wrong uniform, and it was manufactured some two years after the crash.

We now have the whole story. I do not understand why all this information had to wait until after the broadcast. I do not understand why, at the end, they couldn’t have mentioned these things with a scroll, which everyone seems to want to put at the bottom of our screens today. The information should have been included because it just wasn’t that difficult to find.

But kudos to McGee, and his fellows at Chasing UFOs, for giving us the rest of the story.

(A final and trivial note here. I did attempt to contact both Ben McGee and James Fox and have not heard back from them. I would guess that if you are on a national TV show, the public email addresses are probably overwhelmed with letters and comments. I didn’t expect that I would succeed in getting a response, but hey, I did try.)

Roswell and Chasing UFOs

I have waited to comment on the National Geographic Channel’s Chasing UFOs because I wanted to see the episode that dealt with the Roswell case. I wanted to see how they handled it and I wanted to see if the button that they had used on the web to promote the program actually showed up in that program. There had been talk that the buttons they would use were those metallic fatigue uniform buttons that Frank Kimbler had found during earlier searches.

I now have the answers for my questions and it is not good.

White Sands UFO

First, let’s divert for a moment. They used that old video from White Sands of something that looked disc shaped that angled to the ground, bounced high and then hit with an explosion. They were quite impressed with it and at the end said that their missile expert had said that it wasn’t a missile.

But this video has been around for a decade or more and those on the SyFy Channel’s Fact or Faked: The Paranormal Files had explored the possibility that the footage was of a missile test that had gone astray. They attempted to replicate the footage themselves and did a fairly convincing job.

White Sands UFO near telephone pole.

I wondered then, and I wonder now, why these investigators don’t bother with checking with the White Sands Missile Range. I did that and Monte Marlin said that he once had an email response prepared that he sent out to all who asked about the video. It struck me that for him to do that, it meant that there were many others who also asked the question about the footage which isn’t a bad thing. I mean there were enough people asking about the validity of the tape that he felt compelled to create a generic response to save himself some time.

White Sands explosion.

Marlin, in his email to me said that this particular video was part of “an infrared shot of a Navy missile test...The high powered optics tests are part and parcel of our test mission here at the missile range. The data we collect belongs to our ‘customers,’ the weapons developers and is used for technical purposes. Once in a while the clips make their way to the general public...”

Marlin also noted, “There are many, many launch areas and instrumentation sites on this enormous missile range. It is not uncommon to see poles in video footage. The poles may carry cabling related to the test or some poles have markings so that when we look at the footage, we can measure time/space distance.”

This seems to explain what the video shows, and it seems that there is a terrestrial explanation for it. I do wonder why, we are once again treated to this footage when a good explanation for it has been offered and why those on this new show didn’t bother with that or even know it.

Frank Kimbler

After interviewing Cliff Stone, who seems to be a nice fellow who has studied UFOs for quite a while, but who has no special knowledge about the Roswell case, they move onto the Debris Field. They did take Frank Kimbler out there with them. He explains how he located the field, talking about getting the information from the International UFO Museum and Research Center.

With metal detectors, they begin to sweep the field. Quickly (and I say quickly because it is clear they didn’t spend many hours out there), they find a bit of metal. While everyone stands around speculating about how this might be part of the craft or it might be the remnants of the recovery operation, but not seeming to be able to identify the metal as a rusted can, they move on.

After Frank returns to Roswell, they decide to spend the night, using their metal detectors, night vision photography, and their enthusiasm. Eventually, Erin Ryder discovers something. They all crowd around as they dig it up and find a button. They don’t recognize it, but believe it to be military, and if so, why then that is highly significant.

Back in LA they analyze the things they have found. They mention their missile expert but nothing from White Sands. The first metal they found was nothing more important than the remains of a tin can. They had mentioned how desolate the area was, but failed to mention that it was a working ranch and that UFO investigators had been out there, on and off, for two decades. A rusted can has no significance.

A button similar to the one they found.

They have now identified the button as Air Force. The instant I saw it, I knew it was an Air Force button. But I also realized, the instant I saw it, that the button was irrelevant. In July 1947, when the recovery operation was underway, there was no Air Force. There was the Army Air Forces, but the point is, it was the Army Air Force Forces. The Air Force wouldn’t become a separate service until September.

Here’s something else. The button is from a Class A uniform which is basically a coat and a tie. While not exactly a dress uniform, it is much fancier than the fatigues that would be worn into the field. The soldiers, who were cleaning the debris field, would have been in fatigues, and while the officers wouldn’t be down on their hands and knees, they might well have been dressed in a similar fashion because they were also in the field. Had they not been wearing fatigues, they would have been in khakis, a Class B uniform that would not have had the fancier buttons on it.

And if they were, for some reason, out there in a Class A uniform, the buttons would not have been Air Force, they would have been Army.

In other, more precise words, that button, that great find by the Chasing UFOs team, had nothing to do with the recovery operation, whether picking up an alien craft or the remains of a weather balloon (which would have taken a couple of guys most of an hour… ).

It is quite clear that the button was planted out there by someone who didn’t understand military history, military operations, or the proper wear of the uniform. That button, from a Class A uniform, did not belong out there because those recovering the debris wouldn’t have been wearing Class A uniforms.

Here is something else about that button. It seemed to be too good. The button I used for the photograph had not been buried, but only exposed to the open air for a couple of decades. It is tarnished to a bronze color. The button they found seemed to be nearly pristine. I would expect that if it had been buried for any length of time it would have degraded more than my button that had not.

What this tells me is that the National Geographic has gone the same way as the Arts and Entertainment Channel, Bravo, History Channel and a couple of others. Arts and Entertainment was originally about programing from high culture but has changed until its highest rated show is Storage Wars about those who buy abandoned storage lockers.

Bravo, which once broadcast ballet and opera now gives us Tabatha’s Salon Takeover where she teaches the owners of hair salons how to keep the place clean, treat customers and cut hair. They also broadcast the Real Housewives of NYC and Pregnant in Heels.

The point is that National Geographic is now more about ratings than research. It is about audience share and entertainment and not about finding the truth, whatever that truth might be. It is about superficial research that avoids asking the difficult questions or asking those who might actually have an answer.

Had anyone there asked me about the button, I could have told them that the Air Force didn’t exist in July 1947. I could have told them that the Air Force came into existence in September 1947 so that a button from an Air Force uniform would have been dropped some time after that. I would have told them that I would not expect to find such a button and at best it was dropped by someone in a Class A uniform long after the recovery operation. At worse, it was planted out there for someone to find and draw the wrong conclusions.

I suppose this is no worse than any other documentary. While I get that the producers seem to have an attitude that some UFOs are alien craft, I would rather see something with a little more substance. The reaction to finding the rusted tin can struck me as over the top. The excitement over the button was somewhat strained. In other words, I didn’t believe the “acting” around the finds and that detracted from the overall message of the program.

This is just another example of a program that doesn’t have research at its heart but entertainment. In this case, the entertainment seems to suggest that aliens do visit Earth. In other programs, the emphasis seems to be that those reporting UFOs are somehow deluded, mistaken or uneducated. In neither case are the programs fair… they take a point of view to the exclusion of contradictory information.

Chasing UFOs is no better and no worse than any of the others. I just wish they knew the subject a little better

Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files - Revisited

I got to thinking some more about the Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files video of a UFO crash at the White Sands Missile Range and found it strange that they had not spoken to anyone who worked there. I know that during different aspects of my research, whether into the treasure hidden in Victorio Peak (no, I don’t think there is one) to other aspects of the UFO phenomenon, the Public Affairs Office had always been courteous. So I sent them a note asking about this.

Monte Marlin, of that office, replied quickly to me. He said that he once had a email response prepared that he sent out to all that asked about the tape, which struck me as a smart thing to do. It also struck me that for him to do that, it meant that there were others who also asked the question about the footage which isn’t a bad thing. I mean there were enough people asking about the validity of the tape that he felt compelled to create a generic response to save himself some time. (The missile park at White Sands seen below.)

He suggested that this particular test was part of “an infrared shot of a Navy missile test...The high powered optics tests are part and parcel of our test mission here at the missile range. The data we collect belongs to our ‘customers,’ the weapons developers and is used for technical purposes. Once in awhile the clips make their way to the general public...”

Marlin also noted, “There are many, many launch areas and instrumentation sites on this enormous missile range. It is not uncommon to see poles in video footage. The poles may carry cabling related to the test or some poles have markings so that when we look at the footage, we can measure time/space distance.”

Which I found interesting because one of the experiments they ran on Paranormal Files was an attempt to duplicate the footage using an array of cables. It suggests that they had talked to the PAO, understood how some of the tests were conducted, but that wouldn’t have been very dramatic on TV. So, they just passed on that and ran their test.

This, I think answers one of the questions about the show... but hey, don’t get the wrong idea. I enjoy it. They have done some very useful experiments and solved some interesting mysteries. In this specific case, I think the answer was handed to them but they had thirty minutes to fill. Talking to a guy in an office isn’t nearly as exciting as running experiments in the desert, especially when you get to blow up a model rocket.

Fact or Faked: The Paranormal Files

I watched Fact or Faked: The Paranormal Files today and had some questions. First, I enjoy the show and am all in favor of anything that brings a note of skepticism and research into these tales. But I sometimes wonder if they know the answer before they attempt their recreations.

Not all that long ago they aired some footage of a nighttime object falling that broke into three pieces before fading out. They interviewed a couple, here meaning a man and woman which I believe were mother and son, who had seen the lights and were puzzled by them. But they didn’t interview the photographer who took the video footage and who was known to them, about it.

They eventually put together a scenario that made sense, that is, parachutists with flares strapped to their boots. They confirmed that members of the Army’s Golden Knights expert parachute team had been practicing in the area and had been using flares. Nothing faked here, but an explanation in the mundane.

Good for them... but I wondered why they hadn’t interviewed the cameraman. He worked for a local TV station and would have had access to all sorts of equipment. But they didn’t talk to him... or rather, we saw no footage of them interviewing him. I suspect it was because he knew what he had filmed. Oh, maybe not right away, but by the time the team from Paranormal Files arrived, I suspect he knew the answer.

I mention all this because in the latest episode they had footage of a UFO crash that was taken at White Sands Missile Range in 1996 or 1997. The bright object comes down, strikes the ground, skips upwards, falls and then crashes and explodes. They went to New Mexico to see what they could learn about this event.

They never made onto the White Sands Missile Range, or if they did, they showed nothing from that. Instead, they showed warning signs about the range, a long distance photograph of it, and a short interview with a UFO researcher who didn’t even know that the unit at Roswell was the 509th Bomb Group and not a squadron, let alone much about anything else... or rather the interview seemed to show that.

Then they were off to California where they conducted their experiments. They made some elaborate attempts, eventually using a model rocket fired at a low angle that did skip across the ground but did not explode. They suggested that if the object in the film was some of sort of missile test that got away from those at White Sands, it wouldn’t have been designed the way a model rocket engine is. In other words, the White Sands test might well have exploded.

While their last attempt does resemble the original footage, I still wonder why they went to New Mexico and didn’t do anything there. Why didn’t they hit the missile range and ask some questions. At worst, they would have been turned away at the gate. The last time I was there, I had to show proof of auto insurance to get on the base but had no trouble. I’m sure that someone in the public affairs office would have been delighted to speak with them. It just struck me as a hole in their investigation.

They did no better with the second segment which was of a ghost taped in a Tonopah, Nevada cemetery. The image that had been captured on tape was striking in the way that it appeared, moved across a short stretch of the cemetery and then disappeared.

They noticed that the appearance of the phantom seemed to coincide with the lights on a nearby highway. They set up an experiment to test this and were able to recreate the image on their equipment. The answer seemed obvious, but one of those reviewing the tape mentioned there had been many eyewitnesses to these apparitions. He was suggesting that there might be something paranormal there because of the multiple reports.

Not so fast. I had spent time at the site of the Joplin Spooklight and know there are hundreds of witnesses to it. But that doesn’t make it a spirit or ghost. It is quite obvious that the Spooklight is the result of light refraction from a nearby section of highway. So, a boatload of eyewitnesses does not mean the Spooklight is anything paranormal. It means that those people have seen an ambiguous light and identified it as something paranormal. The same would apply to the Tonopah apparition.

My point here is that I am a little surprised at the direction some of their investigations take. I’m surprised that they don’t interview those I would think would be critical to understanding what is being seen and photographed and taped. It seems to me that they leave out some steps... but eventually get to the correct answers... and that, I suppose, is the real point.

Roswell UFO Crash Survey Results

Once again I’ll start by pointing out that this is not a scientific survey. The participants were self-selected and although should have voted only once, the mechanism to stop multiple votes is relatively simple to defeat.

The results were almost what I expected, except for the high number of votes to explain Roswell as an experimental aircraft and the two votes that suggested some kind of White Sands missile off course.

Those reading this blog, for the most part, accept the idea that some UFOs represent alien visitation, so I expected the large number of votes for Roswell being extraterrestrial. I also know that many skeptics visit and I expected many votes for the Mogul explanation.

What I don’t understand is why anyone would think that Roswell could be explained as an experimental aircraft. What could they possibly have been testing in 1947 that isn’t overwhelmed by our technology today? There is nothing that would have been classified and experimental in 1947 that isn’t superceded by the latest, 21st century, technologies. By 2010 standards, anything from 1947 would look primitive (unless, of course, it was extraterrestrial).

If this had been some kind of experimental craft, don’t you think the Air Force would have trotted it out in 1995 when they pretended to investigate the Roswell case? If the attempts to build an atomic engine for aircraft is well known today... even the plans to dump the atomic engine, if it began to fail, have been documented, then what could they be hiding? We know where they would have dropped it according to the information easily available through multiple sources.

In fact, some of the biggest mistakes made last century are now public record. For example, that the Air Force dropped an atomic bomb close to Albuquerque in the late 1950s is a matter was published in the newspapers. And no, the bomb didn’t detonate.

So, I don’t know what logic would suggest some sort of failed experimental aircraft. The same is true of missile launches. All of them are accounted for in the records of the White Sands Missile Range. Nothing is missing, and there certainly isn’t anything in the 1947 technology that isn’t replaced by much better equipment of today.

No, neither of those two answers make sense and I’m surprised at the numbers, though relatively small, who thought these would explain what had fallen at Roswell.

To me there are but two answers currently on the table that make sense. One of them, Project Mogul simply does not cover all the facts and the documentation to prove there was even a Mogul flight in the right time frame is somewhat ambiguous.

The other is, of course, the extraterrestrial, which does a better job of covering the facts... oh, I know, the skeptics will say that the government couldn’t keep a secret like this for more than 60 years, but really, they haven’t. I mean, we’re talking about it today and have been for the last forty or so years.

And all I am saying here is that the extraterrestrial doesn’t require us to overlook testimony and other evidence. It’s by no means perfect and a bit of physical evidence would be nice, but it does cover the facts better than Mogul.

So, the results here are not very surprising. They are in keeping with those who regularly visit this blog. In the long run, they provide us with little insight into the thinking around here and tell us nothing about the reasons for those thoughts. To understand that, we need to read the comments section. Maybe someone will tell us why he or she believed that experimental aircraft made sense. If not, then we’ll just have to keep guessing about that or move on to other issues.

V-2 Launches and UFOs

In the continuing argument about the UFO crash at Roswell and the mundane solutions offered, there came a new question. As noted in my blog about the V-2 and biological samples, someone had released a document about a missile launch on July 4, at White Sands Proving Ground. The records from White Sands for missile launches, copies of which I have, show no launch on July 4. Lance Moody wondered what, exactly, those records looked like, so I scanned the relevant portions.

I will note here, as you look at them, that two "rounds" in July seem to be missing. What the records show is that those rounds were postponed and show up later in the records. Apparently the test firings kept the original number, but was noted out of sequence. I have included the page for those later rounds.

There was also a launch of a "Corporal ‘E’" in July 1947. I have included the document for that launch as well. Finally, there was a table that showed all launches from White Sands for 1947, as well as many other years. I have included that page.

First, the page for V-2 launches in July 1947.

Next, the page to show that the missing rounds are accounted for in th record at a later date.


Third, is the page for the Corporal "E" launch in July 1947.




Finally the overall totals page that includes July 1947 that shows only three launches that month, and all are accounted for.

I will say here that I looked at the records at White Sands, at the Space Museum in Alamogordo, at the National Archives, and at Fort Bliss (El Paso, Texas) to see if I could find anything that would account for the debris recovered on the Brazel ranch. Nothing appeared in any of the records, there were no suspicious gaps in the data, and nothing that was still classified.

Everything is accounted for in the record, so this new document is clearly a forgery. This report provides all the documentation necessary to refute the idea that what fell was a V-2.