X-Zone Radio and the Assault on Area 51

I learned yesterday, which is to say July 15, that a group on Facebook was planning to storm the fences at Area 51 to get to the bottom of the alien rumors. Over a million people had signed up for this excursion, and the whole thing caused Rob McConnell to call to talk about it on his X-Zone Radio Show. You can listen to the interview here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/18558726

The whole thing is probably something of a joke, but these sorts of things just don’t do us in serious UFO research any good. Sure, it is a novel idea designed, I guess, to get lots of shares and clicks… but there are too many out here who will not see the humor, will not know the joke, and think that those of us in serious research condone this sort of thing…

Not to mention all the signs around Area 51 that suggest “Deadly Force is Authorized.” No, I don’t think the Air Force is going to shoot people, but if the misguided show, not knowing it is a joke, they’ll find themselves in legal trouble… like those buffoons who do not read the signs in airports about joking about bombs and hijacking.

The International UFO Museum and Research Center. Photo copyright by Kevin Randle.

When we finished with that, we talked about the Roswell Festival and the economic boom it has brought to Roswell, we talked about the Lonnie Zamora sighting and a few other things of interest.

I did mention that Frank Kimbler had told me about the location of the Lost Adams Diggings, a placer gold mine in southeastern New Mexico. My interest began with a movie, McKenna’s Gold and expanded from there. I gave the basics of the tale on the show.

In the next few days, I’ll post more about the Roswell Festival, and next week, the interviews I conducted in Roswell will be slipped into my program’s rotation

Alien Photographed at Mutilation Site

Rob McConnell, on his X-Zone Radio program on Thursday, July 21, interviewed Charles Stansburge, who is a MUFON State Section Director covering some fourteen counties in Texas. According to what Stansburge said, at that time, he had taken a photograph, or he had a photograph, that showed an alien creature and something described as a portal close to a mutilation site. He said that he was told by MUFON officials that he was not to share it with the public or the media.

McConnell commented, “It seems that MUFON - that claims that the government is suppressing information on UFOs and extraterrestrials is guilty of suppressing information themselves. If this has happened in this case, how many more cases is MUFON suppressing the information on?”

But this was not the end of the story, and within days, Stansburge was back, retracting the story. There had been no embargo on publication of the photograph, by MUFON or anyone else, at least according to what was being said now. Stansburge wanted to make that clear.

At this point, all I had heard was that there had been a photograph of an alien taken at a mutilation site, and if this was true, then it was big news. McConnell asked me if I wanted to appear on his radio program and he was attempting to get Stansburge on the show as well so that we would have an opportunity to discuss all this. While it would be relatively late at night, I agreed and learned a couple of hours later that Stansburge would be on as well.

McConnell allowed me to conduct much of the interview and there were many things that I didn’t understand. It seems that Stansburge learned of the mutilation of a sheep through an article in a Houston, Texas, newspaper and contacted the sheriff’s office to see if he might be of assistance. Stansburge is a retired police officer as well as a MUFON field investigator, and as mentioned, a State Section director.

According to Stansburge, he was not involved in the original investigation, had not taken the photographs, but had been given a complete set of them. They were taken with a digital camera and the vast majority of them were of the mutilation. There was only a single photograph that, again according to Stansburge, showed a gray alien kneeling near a small copse of trees and there was some sort of distortion to the right of the creature, near a larger tree that Stansburge said was some kind of a portal, though he didn’t know where that portal might lead.

A deputy took the photograph, as well as many others, and no one on the scene noticed an alien or the portal at the time. In fact, they hadn’t noticed any alien when they reviewed the photographs later. It was quite a distance from the lens and was back in the trees.

Stansburge interviewed the deputies who had gone out, and I believe he also interviewed the rancher. Stansburge said that the rancher had lost a number of sheep over the months. Some had completely disappeared and a few (I believe) had been found mutilated. When Stansburge finished his report, he submitted it, again I believe, to the Texas State Director and that it was eventually sent to MUFON headquarters. Interestingly, they all seemed to believe that the mutilation was damage inflicted by predators or scavengers and had nothing to do with aliens. It seemed that Stansburge was disappointed in those results, but that would suggest that aliens had nothing to do with the mutilation and made the mutilation irrelevant.

So we returned to the picture. No one had noticed the alien until Stansburge saw it on the photograph. As far as I know, there has been no analysis of it so there is no report about that. All we have, at the moment, are our impressions from it.

Now, before everyone gets all worked up, while the interview was going on, McConnell, who had a copy of the picture, sent it to me. I couldn’t find anything in it because it covered my computer screen, but as soon as Stansburge told me that everything of interest was at the top, I spotted the portal, and then to the left of that, near the copse of tress, I saw the alleged alien.

When you examined the following picture, remember I have cropped it so that the mutilated animal is no longer visible because it provides no information. I have only reproduced the small section of the photograph that shows the alleged alien and the portal.

Photo copyright by Charles Stansburge

While it can be said that it certainly looks as if there is an alien kneeling in the grass, it is a very small image, at the far end of the picture, and is more likely an optical illusion. It is not a clear image. I believe the color of the alien matches the color of some of the wood on the trees near it where the bark has been rubbed off.  suggesting optical illusion rather than alien creature. It just isn’t very clear and frankly could be about anything.

Photo copyright by Charles Stansburge.

Here’s my thinking on this, and I say this without having walked the site, is that the deputy who took the picture didn’t see any alien. The sheriff and others who examined the picture did not see any alien. It was only after some time that Stansburge spotted what he thought was the alien. The resolution of the picture is such that we can’t get a clearer image and the one that is there is open to various interpretations. The picture is not of sufficient resolution for us to use as evidence of alien visitation. It is an interesting anomaly, probably the result of the lighting, the distance, and the type of camera giving the impression of an alien. If I lived in that area, I would return to see if I could duplicate the picture and I would walk up to the trees to see what had actually been photographed which is probably still there… but at this time, I don’t believe this is a very important piece of evidence nor do I believe that it shows an alien creature.

I want to thank Rob McConnell for allowing me to conduct the interview and Charles Stansburge for his patience under my questioning. Stansburge was quite the gentleman in all this.

Project Camelot and My Life on Mars

The other day I did Rob McConnell’s X-Zone radio show. As usual, we had a lot of fun and he mentioned to me that Kerry Cassidy had been on his show a few days earlier. It was her premise that “Soldiers who are alleged to be going to Iraq or Afghanistan are actually being sent off planet to places like Mars to fight battles alongside other alien races. Those men and women will have their minds wiped when they come back. This is why we’re having a lot of suicides with ex-soldiers. In some cases their minds have been wiped so many times they become unbalanced as a result. When they return, they don’t know where they’ve been. They think they’ve been to the Middle East, but they’ve actually been elsewhere.”

In front of a statue in Babylon... or at least I think that was where
this was taken. Photo copyright by Kevin Randle.

Without fear of having my comments taken out of context (well, not a whole lot of concern), I said, “It was all true.” I didn’t mention that we had to be careful of exposure to the sun. Even though Mars doesn’t receive as much sunlight as Earth, the problem is no Ozone layer to protect us from those dangerous UV rays. The literally thousands of photographs that I took in Iraq were actually created to make it look as if I had been in Iraq when I had actually been on Mars. The souvenirs I brought home, samples of Iraqi currency, the things I bought in Babylon, the captured Iraqi Army uniforms and so much more were picked up in a huge shop we were required to go through as part of the redeployment home. In there we picked up those things so that we would have something to show for our tours in Iraq.

Standing on the Martian desert. It has been color
corrected to look like an Earth-based scene. Photo
copyright by Kevin Randle.

Using a communication system that violated the laws of physics, we were able to make telephone calls home without the long delay for the signal to travel the millions of miles between Mars and Earth.

Strange Martian creature moving across a color corrected Martian desert. Photo copyright by Kevin Randle.

When we would request something from home, or order things on line, they arrived in a matter of days, showing a complete disregard for the logistics of getting the material from Earth to Mars. Walmart, among others waved the shipping fees for us… which must have been a huge financial loss… unless, of course, they had a warehouse on Mars and you have to wonder how they keep that a secret.

Seriously, I don’t know how someone could believe any of this was true. There are some two or three million of us who served in those theaters and there would have to be so much support that it would be impossible to hide. Like my fellow soldiers, I used the Internet to order stuff that was delivered, sometimes in a matter of days. The best thing was when one of the sergeants ordered pizza making equipment and supplies that arrived quickly. Some of the best pizza ever made.

Of course, since I must have gone through that “mind wipe” thing, I would have no memory of being on Mars, which is a real shame. I’ll have to ask Arnold Schwarzenegger about that since he might be the source material for these claims. I could go on, but I think I’ll just stop. If some of you wonder why so many reject the idea of alien visitation, this is a very good reason.

Korffed Again

I haven’t wanted to turn this blog into a way to reply to others who disagree with me. I have attempted to be restrained in what I said about other researchers, especially those with whom I disagree. But Kal Korff just keeps sniping from the bushes, making allegations that are simply not accurate, and believing that somehow he will eventually be vindicated.

There are those who have advised me to ignore his comments and frankly, I’m inclined to agree with them. Why supply any sort of credibility to him by responding?

Good question.

Simply put, sometimes you just have to defend yourself. And sometimes its just fun.

But, before I get off on that, let me ask a simple question or two. Kal Korff claims to be a captain in an Israeli organization that he now describes as a "‘meta-organization’ so there won’t be some fancy building that can be targeted." He says that you can’t "Google" it because the English version of the name isn’t quite accurate and you need the Hebrew name. So, why not supply that as some have requested? The only things you can learn about this secret organization that Korff insists on naming only in the loose English translation takes you back to Korff driven documents. If another researcher attempted to pull off something like this, Korff would be all over him.

On the X-Zone radio show, Korff provided a little more information, saying that S3 was a civilian organization. So why the military rank structure? And if it is Israeli, then why is Korff wearing American captain bars (seen above at the left) rather than the Israeli insignia for the rank of Seren (seen at the left... the Israeli name for captain) in the picture he produced to "prove" that he was really a captain (seen below at the left... yeah it's difficult to see, but those sure look like American captain bars to me)?

But, once again, I digress. Korff seems to be obsessed with this idea of an independent audit of our respective works to find out who made the most mistakes. Or rather, he is going to audit my work because he believes his is so well done that there are no errors in it. Well, I know of one researcher, Greg Sandow, who did look at one aspect of this controversy and who did produce a review of the claims each of us made in our respective books.

But who really cares about such an audit? Isn’t that the job of the reader? Can’t he or she look at the information contained in each book and decide whose more closely follows the truth and who supplies the most credible explanation for the crash at Roswell?

As just a single example, I have a letter that Greg Sandow posted on UFO UpDates a number of years ago. Sandow looked at how Korff treated the testimony of the late Brigadier General Arthur Exon and provided an interesting commentary about Korff’s book and his opinions on about Exon. In response to some of the Korff nonsense, Sandow wrote:

Now a look at Kal's comments on General Arthur Exon. Remember my disclaimers -that I'm not commenting on the nature of the Roswell crash, or on the overall worth of Kal's book. I won't be drawn into arguments about those subjects. I'm only commenting on three passages in the book...

What does Kal say? Something really sharp: "There is no excuse for how Exon's 'testimony' is misrepresented in the Randle-Schmitt book. It is blatant fiction on the part of the authors...Randle and Schmitt were deceptive in their presentation of both Exon's recollections and his supposed 'involvement' in the Roswell affair."

So what's that about? The indictment, as it turns out, rests on one lone accusation, that Kevin Randle and Donald Schmitt presented Exon's remarks as if he were relating first-hand testimony, when actually he was only reporting things he'd heard from others. This, in some ways, is a remarkably trivial charge. Why do I say that? Well, suppose that it's true. Then we can shout "gotcha" to Randle and Schmitt, and we'll be careful to check anything either of them says in the future.

But then what did Exon say even as a second-hand witness? As Kal himself tells us (see p. 93 of his Roswell book), Exon talks about Roswell debris being flown to Wright-Patterson. "The boys who tested it," Exon says, "said it was very unusual....It had them pretty puzzled." First-hand, second-hand....either way we've got a banner headline, even if Exon never said one word beyond what Kal quotes. An Air Force general, even if he's only giving his general impression of what he's heard about Roswell, says the same things about the Roswell debris as some of the controversial first-hand witnesses do! If you put any weight on Exon's impressions, the Mogul theory [the glorified weather balloon explanation offered by the Air Force in 1994] takes a big hit. Isn't that more important, in the overall scheme of things, than any question about Randle and Schmitt? And, as we'll see, Exon said much more than that.

But then is Kal right to say Randle and Schmitt distorted Exon's remarks? I don't think so, for three reasons.

(1) I've heard Kevin's first interview with Exon on tape, and read Kevin's scrupulously accurate transcript. I thought Exon said exactly what he's quoted as saying in Kevin's book.

(2) Even the passage Kal quotes doesn't support his view. Here's how Kal presents it: "To read the Randle-Schmitt book, it appears that Exon corroborates the Roswell UFO recovery by providing impressive-sounding testimony that appears to be firsthand. 'We heard the material was coming to Wright Field....It was brought into our material evaluation labs. I don't know how it arrived but the boys who tested it said it was very unusual.' Exon described the material: '[Some of it] could be easily ripped or changed....there were other parts of it that were very thin but awfully strong and couldn't be dented with very heavy hammers....It was flexible to a degree,' and, according to Exon, 'some of it was flimsy and was tougher than hell and almost like foil but strong. It had them pretty puzzled.'"

"To almost anyone reading this," Kal writes, "it would appear that...[Exon] was a firsthand source who was present and personally saw what he describes." But I don't see it that way at all. Consider these statements: "We heard the material was coming....I don't know how it arrived, but the boys who tested it said...It had them pretty puzzled." Isn't it clear that Exon isn't speaking of first hand knowledge? Who wouldn't understand that Exon didn't handle this debris himself?

A page later in the Randle-Schmitt book comes another Exon quote, which Kal doesn't reprint: "The metal and material was unknown to anyone I talked to. Whatever they found, I never heard what the results were. A couple of guys thought it might be Russian but the overall consensus was that the pieces were from space."

Again, it's perfectly clear that Exon didn't handle or analyze the material himself, and even that his knowledge was limited. But he appears to think he'd spoken to people who knew at least something about what the analysis had shown. How sure was he of this knowledge? Let me quote a few suggestive passages. First, an Exon quote from Randle's book: "I know [my emphasis] that...[General Ramey] along with the people out at Roswell decided to change the story while they got their act together and got the information into the Pentagon." (UFO Crash at Roswell, paperback, p. 111.) Another Exon quote from Randle: "I just know [again my emphasis] there was a top intelligence echelon represented and the President's office was represented and the Secretary of Defense's office was represented..." (He's talking about the secret UFO
committee that he's sure existed; UFO Crash, p. 232.)

And here's something Exon said on the tape, which wasn't quoted in Randle's book. Kevin asks, referring to stories we've all heard about alien corpses at Wright-Patterson: "You've heard the rumors about the little bodies, haven't you?" "Yes, I have," answers Exon. "In fact, I know people that were involved in photographing some of the residue from the New Mexico affair near Roswell." [My emphasis.] Here's something else, about how Exon knows that there were alien bodies from Roswell at Wright-Patterson: "People I have known who were involved with that" told him so. [Sandow’s emphasis.]

Look back at the quote Kal thinks is so damning: 'We heard the material was coming to Wright Field....It was brought into our material evaluation labs. I don't know how it arrived but the boys who tested it said it was very unusual.' Exon described the material: '[Some of it] could be easily ripped or changed....there were other parts of it that were very thin but awfully strong and couldn't be dented with very heavy hammers....It was flexible to a degree,' and, according to Exon, 'some of it was flimsy and was tougher than hell and almost like foil but strong. It had them pretty puzzled.'"

Given the full context of Exon's remarks...and bearing in mind everything I've quoted from Kevin's interview with him....isn't it clear (a) that Exon certainly thought he knew quite a bit (even if not first hand) about the subjects he was quoted on, that (b) he says quite clearly that he'd talked to people who were involved first-hand, and (c) that therefore the passage Kal quotes from Kevin's book is really quite reasonable in both its tone and content? I don't think it misrepresents Exon at all. (Here's another quote from Exon, from the tape: "Most of the people you're talking to are a little bit like me. Close enough to know that there was something happening. They had no direct responsibility for any of it." Anyone who reads the complete sections on Exon from Randle's books will, I think, form exactly that impression.)

This is by no means everything that Sandow said about Korff’s reporting on Exon but does address the issue. Now, to be fair, I say once again, that I know Greg, he has visited my house, and I gave him access to everything I had on the Roswell case, letting him pick and chose what he wanted to see. He was able to review all of the Exon testimony and there is other later testimony that others have gathered about what Exon said.

So, here we are, at the end of the day, reviewing the same material that was reviewed ten years ago. It shows that an independent researcher, who has no dog in this hunt, reviewed part of Korff’s work on Roswell and part of mine. He concluded that my reporting of the Exon testimony was accurate and Korff’s conclusions were not driven by the facts. The question then becomes, "Who is misrepresenting the data?" Or an even more critical question, "Did Korff ever interview Exon, or was he working from my notes and letters from the general?"

But the real point of all this is that Korff slings allegations, threatens all sorts of dire consequences, but provides no evidence to make his case. I say, let the reader take a look at all the Roswell works and decide who is closer to the truth... And, I predict that it won’t be Korff.