Sections 4 and 5

SECTION 4: OUT-DATED KNOWLEDGE

Is there any evidence that the Dogon knowledge came from the West?

Yes.

Probably the most compelling evidence that the Dogon knowledge originated in the West is that the information they reportedly gave Griaule represented the state of knowledge in the West at that time.The Dogon did not anticipate any subsequent discoveries.

Indeed, subsequent discoveries have falsified some of the views held in the WestThree examples have been highlighted by sceptics, relatingto statements reportedly by the Dogon in relation to:(a) the density of Sirius B;(b) Rings around other planets;(c) Jupiter's moons;(d) Our solar system's outermost planets.

Out-dated knowledge: (a) the density of Sirius BOk, let's ignore the fact that the Dogon rather under-estimated the mass of Sirius B if they stated (as reported by Griaule and Dieterlen) that the star weighs the equivalent of 480 donkey-loads (about 38,000 kg. = 85,000 lb.) (Griaule and Dieterlen, 1950, at Temple, 1976, page 42-44; Temple, 1998, page 492).

Such remarks can (if we are fairly generous) be written off on the basis of some cultural idiosyncrasy. Perhaps 480 donkey-loads is the greatest weight the culture of the Dogon has.

On the same basis, let's be generous and also ignore the reported comment that Sirius B is the size of a stretched ox-skin or a mortar (Griaule and Dieterlen, 1950, at Temple, 1976, page 42-44; Temple, 1998, page 492).

A rather more substantive difficulty arises in relation to the lack of mention by the Dogon of any heavenly objects smaller and heavier than Sirius B.

Marcel Griaule and Germaine Dieterlen state that the Dogon consider Sirius B to be the smallest thing there is. It is the heaviest star Temple, 1976, page 42-44; Temple, 1998, page 492).

Several researchers have pointed out that, in fact, since the 1930s it has been discovered that there are in fact smaller and heavier objects in the universe.

James Oberg has commented that, while in the late 1920s, Europeans too believed that the 'white dwarf' Sirius-B star was the heaviest thing in the universe, in later years astronomers were to find thousands of similar objects along with even heavier and denser objects such as neutron stars and black holes (Oberg, 1982, page 123).

Similarly, Ronald Story has commented that white dwarf stars are no longer believed to be the smallest and heaviest bodies in the universe. Rapidly rotating neutron stars called pulsars (about 100 million times as dense) and the incredible 'black holes' are the new candidates for such honours (Story, 1980, page 119). The same point has been made by Ian Ridpath (Ridpath, 1978a, page 196).

Out-dated knowledge: (b) Rings around other planets.

Robert Temple, and several of his researchers, have trumpeted alleged Dogon knowledge of Saturn's rings. For example, Robert Temple has stated Their drawing of the planet Saturn has a ring around it (Temple, 1976, pages 27 and 29; Temple, 1998, pages 104 and 106-107).

However, the Dogon did not talk about any planet beyond Saturn with rings.This reflected European knowledge of the 1920s-1930s.Since the 1930s:- A Cornell University research team led by James Elliot discovered in 1977 that the planet Uranus is surrounded by rings (Sagan, 1979, page 90).- Jupiter was subsequently discovered to have rings as well (Oberg, 1982, page 130).

Out-dated knowledge: (c) Jupiter's moons.

Robert Temple refers to Dogon knowledge of 4 moons of Jupiter. The other moons of Jupiter are small and insignificant, having formerly been asteroids which were captured by Jupiter's gravitation at some unknown time in the past (Temple, 1976, pages 27-28; Temple, 1998, pages 105-106):

Four moons of Jupiter were first observed by Galileo in 1610.

However, those are merely the largest (by far) of Jupiter's moons.

Writing in 1982, James Oberg wrote that Jupiter has at least twelve moons (Oberg, 1982, page 124). In November 2007, Wikipedia states Sixty-three moons orbiting Jupiter have been discovered:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moons_of_Jupiter

Thus, James Oberg and other skeptics have suggested that any visiting spaceman would have known that Jupiter has more than four moons (e.g. Ridpath, 1978a, page 196).

Temple, and one or two other researchers, have responded that the smaller moons of Jupiter are relativelyinsignificant and/or are not really moons at all (e.g.Spencer, 1997, page 59). However, this really does smack of seeking to explain away a fairly damning point (particularly when taken in conjunction with similar points made in relation to the Dogon's outdated knowledge of rings aroundother planets, no to mention their knowledge of Saturn and Sirius B).

Out-dated knowledge:

(d) Our solar system's outermost planets

Robert Temple's book states that Saturn is the outermost planet which the Dogon mention (Temple, 1976, page 29; Temple, 1998, page 107).

However, we now know that Saturn is not the outermost planet

in our solar system:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_system

If the Dogon had access to information provided by alien visitors to Earth, why didn't they appear to know this?To be fair to Robert Temple and his supporters I must say that some sceptics have somewhat overstated this point. For example, James Oberg has stated that the Dogon insist that Saturn is the outermost planet (Oberg, 1982, page 124). This isn't strictly accurate. The relevant records of alleged statements by the Dogon do not record them as insisting that Saturn is the outermost planet.

However, Temple does state that the Dogon as referring to Saturn as the star of limiting the place in association somehow with the Milky Way (Temple, 1976, page 29; Temple, 1998, page 107). In my view, this (rather ambiguous) statement does imply that Saturn was regarded as the outermost planet in our solar system, particularly given the lack of any reference to any planet beyond Saturn.

SECTION 5: WHAT ABOUT SIRIUS C?

But Digitaria is not Sirius's only companion: the star emme ya, Sorghum-Female, is larger than it, four times as light (in weight), and travels along a greater trajectory in the same direction and in the same time as it (fifty years). Their respective positions are such that the angle of the radii is at right angles. (Griaule and Dieterlen, 1950, at Temple, 1976, page 42-44; Temple, 1998, page 492).

Back in 1978, Ian Ridpath suggested that the true test of a good extraterrestrial story is that it should tell us something we don't already know (Ridpath, 1978a, page 199).

A similar comment was made by Edward Ashpole in 1989. He said Like all such stories we need information unknown to us, predictions that we can check. The Dogons provided just one piece of information that we did not already know: that in the Sirius system, there is a third star, four times the size of Sirius B, but this astronomers have not found (Ashpole, 1989, page 152).

Robert Temple has claimed that a third star, Sirius C, has been discovered relying upon an article by Daniel Benest and J L Duvent published in 1995.

Robert Temple has made some fairly grand claims about this purported discovery. The revised and expanded version of his book (published in 1998) only refers in passing to his various critics, on the basis of a contention that the discovery of Sirius C has rendered most criticism obsolete (Temple, 1998, page 23).

Robert Temple has said that the hypothesis of 'The Sirius Mystery' has now been verified in a dramatic fashion. This verification is a highly specific astrophysical prediction which has now been confirmed (Temple, 1998, pages 3-4).

The claims about the significance of the purported discovery of Sirius C have been echoed by others in various articles and on various webpages.

For example, in a discussion on the AboveTopSecret forums, NGC2736 wrote that: Even if the Dogon were 'contaminated' by the original contact, we're still left with the third star idea to ponder. How could even Temple himself have such information so long before this new research and the publication of it in the journal 'Astronomy and Astrophysics' in 1995?

However:

(1) The article by Daniel Benest and J L Duvent published in 1995 does not, in fact, claim that Sirius C has been discovered. The relevant article discusses a 6 year perturbation in the motion of Sirius A-B, which may indicate the existence of Sirius C. The article concludes that stable orbits with 6-year periods exist around Sirius A, but does not claim that there is definitely a star (i.e. Sirius C) within any of those orbits. The article provides information which may assist in the search for Sirius C, if it exists (Benest and Duvent, 1995, page 627).

(2) Far more importantly, the discovery of Sirius C would not be very significant to any proper assessment of the Sirius Mystery. Given the crucial significance of this point, I consider it in some detail below.There is a simple reason for the latter point - there were reports of sightings of Sirius C in the 1920s.

In fact, Sirius C was observed about twenty times between 1920 and 1930 (Benest and Duvent, 1995, page 621).American astronomer Philip Fox believed he had seen a close companion of Sirius B in 1921 (Ridpath, 1978a, page 194). Various other authors also refer to reported sightings of, or speculation about, Sirius C in the 1920s (e.g. Oberg, 1982, page 123; Spencer, 1997, page 59)

While the new introduction to Robert Temple's revised book trumpets the importance of the purported discovery of Sirius C, much later in the same book is buried the following information in relation to Sirius C: Fox claimed to see it in 1920, and in 1926, 1928, and 1929 it was supposedly seen by van den Bos, Finsen, and others at the Union Observatory (Temple, 1976, page 12 - citing Aitken, R. G., The Binary Stars, Dover Publications, New York, 1964, pp. 240-1;Temple, 1998, page 81).

Indeed, Sirius C was suspected to exist prior to the various reported observations during the 1920s. From 1894, there have been suggestions of irregularities in the motion of Sirius B which have resulted in suggestions that Sirius C may exist (Benest and Duvent, 1995, page 621).

The views held by astronomers regarding the existence of Sirius C have changed like fashions during the last century. After the 1920s and 1930s, Sirius C went out of fashion. It was rarely observed by astronomers and considerable doubt existed by the 1970s regarding its existence. Those doubts increased considerably in 1973, when Irving W Lindenblad reported that a series of photographic observations showed no evidence of a close companion to either Sirius A or Sirius B. In 2000, scientists suggested that the sightings in the 1920s were probably due to an unrelated background star but the existence of a long-period companion cannot definitely be ruled out (Bonnet-Bidaud, Colas and Lecacheux, 2000).

Thus, the earlier reported observations of Sirius C were widely regarded as observational errors. Irving W Lindenblad informed Ian Ridpath during the 1970s that the possibility of a very distant third body cannot be ruled out theoretically (Ridpath, 1978a, page 194). Thus, at the time Robert Temple's book was published in 1976 few astronomers considered it probable that Sirius C existed.

So, the possible existence of Sirius C currently remains in doubt.

However, even if the claims attributed to the Dogon people regarding the existence of Sirius C turn out to have been correct, this would NOT demonstrate that the Dogon had any knowledge beyond that of the rest of the human race.

Such views are perfectly consistent with the theory that the views attributed to the Dogon people was, in fact, the result of cultural contamination in, or prior to, the 1930s.The existence of Sirius C had been made in the West (based on reported observations) prior to the Dogon's claims.

Sirius C's orbital periodWhile the mere suggestion that Sirius C exists does not provide tells us anything that was not known (or at least believed) prior to the 1930s, what about other details supposedly provided by the Dogon to Griaule about Sirius C?Robert Temple indicates that the Dogon supposedly stated that Sirius C travels along a greater trajectory in the same direction and in the same time as [Sirius B] (fifty years). (Temple, 1976, 26; Temple, 1998, page 102).

Is that statement about Sirius C's orbit correct?

According to the known laws of physics, no. As Ian Ridpath has stated: This is a physical impossibility. According to Kepler's laws, the larger an orbit, the longer an object takes to go around it (Ridpath, 1978a, page 195). Similarly, Krupp has commented that the information which the Dogon supposedly provide on the orbit of Sirius C is inconsistent with itself as well as with Kepler's laws (Krupp, 1981, page 292).

Le Renard Pale states that the orbital period of Sirius C is 32 years (i.e. not the same as Sirius B), which would make its orbit smaller than that of Sirius B (Ridpath, 1978a, page 195). It is notable that this is considerably different to the orbit suggested in the article by Daniel Benest and J L Duvent published in 1995 heavily relied upon by Robert Temple in the revised edition of his book. As noted above, that article indicates the possible existence of a third star in the Sirius system which orbits Sirius A with an orbital period of about six years.

It is interesting to note that Robert Temple's discussion of the article published in 1995 by Benest and Duvent fails to discuss the fact that the orbital period for Sirius C is different from the various figures which had been supposedly been put forward by the Dogon.

Section 6 and Section 7

SECTION 6: DID THE DOGON EVEN SAYANYTHING ABOUT SIRIUS B AND SIRIUS C?

Following the publication of Robert Temple's The Sirius Mystery in 1976, points made by sceptics focused strongly on whether the knowledge attributed to the Dogon could be explained on the basis of possible gaining of knowledge from the West. Most of the relevant discussion either assumed that the Dogon had the knowledge attributed to them, or at most briefly mentioned the possibility of inaccurate reporting of that alleged knowledge.

In 1991, the position changed.

As a result of an article published in 1991, the following fundamental question arises: Did the Dogon even say anything about Sirius B and Sirius C to Griaule?The relevant article was written by anthropologist Walter E. A. Van Beek and was entitled Dogon Restudied --A Field Evaluation of the Work of Marcel Griaule (van Beek, 1991). Van Beek stated that he could not replicate despite systematic attempts to do so findings reported by Griaule regarding Dogon knowledge of Sirius.

Contrary to the results reported by Griaule, Van Beek reported following his own investigation of the Dogon: (1) That Sirius is a double star is unknown (van Beek, 1991, page 148) and (2) the purported knowledge of the mass of Sirius B or the orbiting time was absent (van Beek, 1991, pages 149-150).

Van Beek's article included the following: The Dogon, of course, know Sirius as a star (it is after all the brightest in the sky), calling it dana tolo, the hunter's star . Knowledge of the stars is not important either in daily life or in ritual . no one, even within the circle of Griaule informants, had ever heard or understood that Sirius was a double star . Consequently, the purported knowledge of the mass of Sirius B or the orbiting time was absent (van Beek, 1991, pages 149-150).

Some of the various articles on the Internet which discuss van Beek's article suggest that Griaule had managed to unearth secret knowledge known to only a few within the Dogon people, and that van Beek had failed to ask the right people and/or had not had the secret knowledge revealed to him. Such suggestions are supported by an article written by Griaule's daughter. She has suggested that van Beek has not gone through the appropriate steps for acquiring knowledge (Calame-Griaule, 1991, page 575).

However, van Beek actually includes a reasonably detailed discussion of Griaule's clear statement that the deeper Dogon knowledge belongs to a class of secrets hidden from the majority of the population, as well as outsiders. He refers to an estimate by Griaule that 15% of the population had this secret knowledge (citing Griaule, 1952 pages 32-33). Van Beek commented that rediscovering this knowledge will not be easy; yet it must be possible (van Beek, 1991, page 143). Thus, van Beek clearly had in mind the suggestion that the relevant knowledge was confined to a certain part of the Dogon population. He discusses this suggestion in considerable depth in his article.

Following his study of the the Dogon, van Beek reported that they have various myths, many of which are conveyed by song texts. However, he reports that neither the myths nor the song text . are secret, commenting that every Dogon knows the myths and parts of the songs, though not everyone can tell or sing them in full. Some individuals are trained to recite the myths without fault or hesitation, but their knowledge does not go beyond the pubic knowledge.

Van Beek concluded: Thus, the secrets of Dogon society are not at all of the initiatory kind. The knowledge defined by the Dogon as secret is, in fact, of the 'skeleton in the cupboard' variety. The best-guarded secrets in Dogon society pertain to facts that shame them as members of their families or lineages, such as divisive past quarrels, or to the mechanisms and trappings of witchcraft and sorcery (van Beek, 1991, page 150).

The article by Griaule's daugther which comments upon Van Beek's work repeatedly refers to many misreadings and errors in van Beek's article, but does a remarkably poor job of coming up with specific examples of material errors (Calame-Griaule, 1991, page 576).

On the other hand, another academic has referred to spending 10 years working among the Dogon and has confirmed the validity van Beek's finding regarding lack of knowledge of Sirius (Bouju, 1991). Importantly, Bouju also commented that the domain of secrecy is indeed not that of esoteric knowledge revealed only to a few great initiates but that of historical or current events that are considered shameful - instance of conflict, past (serious transgressions, betrayals, wars, massacres) or present (over land, women, or sorcery) (Bouju, 1991, page 159).

Thus, the suggestion that the Dogon do not in fact have knowledge of the Sirius solar system is not confined to van Beek alone.

In one related, but separate, respect van Beek's article goes further. He provides one account of discussions between Ambara and Griaule. Van Beek reports that According to Amadingue. Ambara never spoke in terms of a double-star system. What he did speak about always. were stars of different generations (togu; the French translation is his), meaning (and pointing out) two adjacent stars in the sky, which were to be considered as father and son to Sirius as a grandfather. These stars, as Amadingue pointed them out to me [van Beek], were the two other stars of the Dog constellation. If this is so, then Griaule must have interpreted the information given by Ambara and Yebene in a different fashion, as a system of double and triple stars (van Beek, 1991, page 157).

Thus, it seems that the debate regarding Dogon knowledge of the Sirius solar system may have provided on a rather faulty basis during the period 1976-1991.Indeed, it is notable that many of the discussions of The Sirius Mystery on the Internet today do not refer to van Beek's article (or comments from individuals confirming the facts within that article, e.g. by Bouju).

What did Robert Temple say about van Beek's 1991 article when Temple revised his book in 1998?Nothing.Nothing at all.Temple did not even refer to van Beek.

A Google search of Robert Temple's website during December 2007 failed to find any reference to van Beek, although I have read (and referred above) to some of Robert Temple's comments on some of the other points made by sceptics since1976.

SECTION 7: CONCLUSION

Articles continue to be written on the Internet and in print about the Dogon mystery which ignore various criticisms and facts which have been raised by numerous sceptics since the publication of Robert Temple's book The Sirius Mystery in 1976.

Robert Temple revised his book in 1998, but the expanded text of that book fails to deal with many of the points that have been made.Ufologists will never be taken seriously if the arguments put forward by scientists are simply ignored. It is important to acknowledge and consider the points made by prominent authors such as Carl Sagan. Failing to acknowledge counter-arguments will result in ufologists appearing ignorant of, or unable to consider, the evidence against their claims.

Of course, some sceptics have also written material which fails to accurately reflect the debate regarding the Dogon. For example, Philip Coppens has written a skeptical article entitled Dogon Shame which asserts that Robert Temple's book's reputation was first dented in 1999, when LynnPicknett and Clive Prince published The Stargate Conspiracy.

As can be seen from the discussion above, Robert Temple's book had been subjected to detailed and forceful criticism much earlier than 1999. (Coppens concise articles about the Dogon are, however, well worth reading for details of a suggestion that Temple had been highly influenced in his thinking by Arthur M. Young).

Has the Dogon mystery been resolved?

Well, as with many questions in relation to UFOs and aliens, it depends upon your views regarding the burden of proof and the appropriate standard of proof. The Dogon mystery can therefore usefully be considered in the context of a wider debate about Ancient Astronauts and UFOs.

During the debate regarding the Dogon, several ufologists and sceptics have expressly raised these issues.

For example, ufologist Randall Fitzgerald has written that dispelling [the] bias against the prospect of visitation by ancient astronauts will require nothing less than extraordinary, irrefutable evidence. (Fitzgerald, 1998, Page 15).

Such remarks echo the statement popularised by Carl Sagan that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

I note in passing that the suggestion that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence actually reflects English law in relation to proving matters on the balance of probabilities. In the leading House of Lords case of Re H [1996] AC 563, Lord Nicholls said: the more serious the allegation the less likely it is that the event occurred and hence, the stronger should be the evidence before the court concludes that the allegation is established on the balance of probability .. The more improbable the event, the stronger must be the evidence that it did occur before, on the balance of probability, its occurrence will be established (emphasis added).

Most skeptics do not claim that the Dogon mystery has been conclusively shown to have any one particular solution. For example, James Oberg has commented that the evidence for the recent acquisition of the knowledge is still entirely circumstantial. It seems likely that we will never know for sure (Oberg, 1982, page 131). However, there are various plausible explanations for each part of the mystery.In these circumstances, several sceptics have made remarks along the lines of the following comment by Carl Sagan: There are too many loopholes, too many alternative explanations for such a myth to provide reliable evidence of past extraterrestrial contact (Sagan, 1979, page 99).

In comments helpfully provided by Ian Ridpath, he noted the following: Looking at the case again in the light of criticisms from anthropologists, I was forced to conclude that the main contaminator was Griaule himself and that all the emphasis on earlier contact may have been irrelevant. As I am fond of saying in relation to UFO cases, before you try to explain something, first establish what it is that needs to be explained! (Ridpath, 2007).

Ian Ridpath concluded In this case, in particular, it seems that there really wasn't much to explain after all(Ridpath, 2007).

Endnotes and References

ENDNOTES:

Endnote 1:Le Mali by Joseph Roger de Benoist, Paris, L'Harmattab, 1998, page 204: Amadou Hampate Ba nous a dit un jour: Dans la tradition africaine, il y a quatre personnes auxquelles on ne dit pas 'non': on ne dit pas 'non' au roi, on ne dit pas 'non' aux personnes plus agees, qu'on appelle les engendreurs, on ne dit pas 'non' au maître initiateur, on ne dit pas 'non' a l'etranger que Dieu vous envoie. A tous ceux-la, on leur sert un 'oui' de politesse et pas un 'oui' de verite. L'Europeen, quand il arrive, est un hote envoye par Dieu. On ne lui dit pas 'non'. On le laisse demander ce qu'il veut. Si l'on sent qu'il est venu avec une idee fixe et qu'il veut trouver quelque chose, on l'aide a trouver ce qu'il est venu chercher, et cela en inventant des legendes qui correspondent. On le laisse d'abord poser des questions, puis, vite, on invente une reponse, on improvise une legende. On appelle cela: 'mettre dans la paille', ce qui signifie 'econduire poliment'. Les Dogon se sont defendus ainsi, ils se sont forges des traditions extraordinaires.

SECTION 8: REFERENCES

Ashpole, Edward The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (1989) at pages 149-152 (in Chapter 9) of the Blandford softcover edition. [4 page discussion]

Benest, D., & Duvent, J. L. (July 1995). Is Sirius a triple star?. Astronomy and Astrophysics volume 299: pages 621-628. Available online at the link below: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1995A&A...299..621

BBessel, F. W. (December 1844). On the Variations of the Proper Motions of Procyon and Sirius. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 6: 136-141. Available online at the link below: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1844MNRAS...6..136.

Bonnet-Bidaud, J. M.; Colas, F.; Lecacheux, J. (August 2000). Search For Companions Around Sirius. Astronomy and Astrophysics 360: 991-996.

Bouju, Jacky Comments, Current Anthropology 32:2, April 1991, pages 159-160.

Bullard, Thomas The UFO Encyclopedia: The Phenomenon From The Beginning - 2nd edition (1998) in Volume 1:A-K at page 135 (forming part of the entry entitled Anomalous Aerial Phenomena before 1800 at pages 121-138) of the Omnigraphics hardback edition. [1 page discussion]

Calame-Griaule, Genevieve. On the Dogon Restudied. Current Anthropology 32:5, Dec 1991, p.575-577.Coomer, David The UFO Investigator's Guide (1999) at pages 13-14 (in the Introduction) of the Blandford softback edition. [2 page discussion]

Coppens, Philip (sometimes spelt Fillip) on his website in an article entitled Dogon Shame, first published in the Fortean Times. Available online at: http://www.philipcoppens.com/dogonshame.html

Coppens, Philip (sometimes spelt Fillip) in The Encyclopedia Of Extraterrestrial Encounters (2001) (edited by Ronald Story) at pages 550-552 (in an entry entitled Sirius Mystery, The) of the New American Library softcover edition, at pages 538-540 of the pdf edition (with the same page numbering in the Microsoft Word edition). [3 page discussion] Available online at: http://www.ufoevidence.org/documents/doc134.htm

Fitzgerald, Randall The Cosmic Test Tube (1998) at pages 11-15, 50-52 (in Section 1), 313-314, 315 (in Section 4) with a one sentence summary at page 368 (in the Guide To Books) of the Moonlake Media softcover edition. [11 page discussion]

Flammarion, Camille (August 1877). The Companion Of Sirius. The Astronomical Register 15 (176): 186-189. Available online at the link below: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1877AReg...15..186F

Griaule, M and Dieterlen, G Un Systeme Soudanais de Sirius, Journal de la Societe des Africainistes, Tome XX, Fascicule 2, 1950, pages 273-294. An English translation of this article was included by Robert Temple in his book The Sirius Mystery Temple, 1976, pages 35-54; Temple, 1998, Appendix 1, pages 476-503). The 1976 edition of this book (which is considerably shorter than the 1998 revised edition) can be found as a searchable html document in a zip file online on the Truly Free website at:

http://www.truly-free.org/

specifically at the link below:

http://tinyurl.com/2k2bzu

Hansen, Terry The Missing Times: News Media Complicity In The UFO Cover-Up (2000) at pages 191-192 (in Chapter 5) of the Xlibris softcover edition. [2 page discussion]

Krupp, E C in Science And The Paranormal (1981) (edited by Abell, George O and Singer, Barry) at pages 289-295 (in Chapter 16) of the Junction Books hardback edition. [7 page discussion]

Moore, Patrick Can You Speak Venusian? (1976 edition) at pages 115-117 (in Chapter 13) of the Star Books paperback edition. [3 page discussion]

Oberg, James UFOs and Outer Space Mysteries (1982) at pages 121-131 (in Chapter 6 generally, The Sirius Mystery) of the Donning paperback edition. [11 page discussion]. The relevant chapter is available online at the link below: http://www.debunker.com/texts/dogon.html

Ovenden, Michael Mustard Seed Of Mystery, Nature, Volume 261, Issue 5561, pp. 617-618 (1976). Available online at the link below: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1976Natur.261..617O

Page, Ivan (Father), email entitled Dogon to Isaac Koi dated 29 October 2007.

Pesch, Peter and Pesch, Roland The Dogon and Sirius The Observatory, Vol. 97, p. 26-28 (1977).

Ridpath, Ian Messages From The Stars (1978a) at pages 189-202 (Chapter 12 generally) of the Fontana paperback edition. [14 page discussion]Ridpath, Ian in his article Investigating The Sirius Mystery (1978b), Skeptical Inquirer, Volume 3, Number 1, Fall 1978, at pages 56-62. Article available online at: http://www.csicop.org/si/7809/sirius.html [7 page discussion]

Ridpath, Ian in email entitled to Isaac Koi dated 3 December 2007.

Sagan, Carl Broca's Brain (1979) at pages 66 (in Chapter 5), 85-99 (in Chapter 6) of the Coronet paperback edition. [16 page discussion]

Spencer, John and Spencer, Anne True Life Encounters - Alien Contact (1997) at pages 53-60 (in Chapter 5 generally) of the Millenium paperback edition. [8 page discussion]

Story, Ronald Guardians of the Universe? (1980) at pages 113-126 (in Chapter 12 generally) of the New English Library paperback edition. [14 page discussion]

Temple, Robert The Sirius Mystery (1976) generally. [Whole book]. The 1976 edition of this book (which is considerably shorter than the 1998 revised edition) can be found as a searchable html document in a zip file online on the Truly Free website at http://www.truly-free.org/, specifically atthe link below: http://tinyurl.com/2k2bzu

Temple, Robert On The Sirius Mystery: An Open Letter to Carl Sagan, Zetetic Scholar, Issue Number 8 (July, 1981), page 29. Available online at the link below: http://tinyurl.com/2ld3tf

Temple, Robert The Sirius Mystery (1998) generally, particularly at pages 3-16 (in Chapter 1) of the 1998 revised Arrow paperback edition. [Whole book] The 1976 edition of this book (which is considerably shorter than the 1998 revised edition) can be found as a searchable html document in a zip file online on the Truly Free website at http://www.truly-free.org/

specifically at the link below: http://tinyurl.com/2k2bzu

Van Beek, Walter E. A. Dogon Restudied --A Field Evaluationof the Work of Marcel Griaule Current Anthropology 32:2,April 1991, p.139-167.Von Daniken, Erich According To The Evidence (1977) at pages 81-92 (in Chapter 3) of the Souvenir Press hardback edition. [12 page discussion]

Aeroshell Flying Saucer

A while ago I was wandering around on the White Sands Missile Range, looking at the various missile displays when I found something interesting... a flying saucer in among the rockets and the missiles.

The legend said:

AEROSHELL "FLYING SAUCER"

This spacecraft was a section of the Voyager Balloon System which was launched near Rosewell [sic], NM. and landed on White Sands Missile Range. These bright, shiny aeroshells projected an illusion of flying saucers. Aeroshell was designed for slowing down a missile for landing on Mars. This display is believed to be the only one "in captivity".

U.S. Air Force

DIAMETER: 15 Ft.
PROPELLANT: Liquid/Solid
SPEED: MACH 1.6 (1,100 mph)
RANGE: Maximum 140,000 Ft.
FIRST FIRING DATE: 1966/1967

I’m not sure why the Air Force didn’t trot this out to explain some of the Roswell case. Although launched some twenty years after the crash, that time problem would mean little to the Air Force. I mean, they came up with the anthropomorphic dummies (seen here, Photo Courtesy US Air Force) that weren’t used for testing until the 1950s with the first drop near Roswell in 1957. Dates never seemed to get in the way.

In reality, this craft might have explained some of the later UFO sightings in New Mexico and there seems to be no suggestion that it ever flew anywhere else. And, if nothing else, it does look like a flying saucer.

Walter Haut's Affidavit

I have some problems with the new affidavit (if we want to call the document an affidavit) by Walter Haut and thought maybe we all could discuss this. I have waited to post on this so that I might gather additional information. Speculation about my reasons by others is just that, speculation. I wanted to understand the circumstances under which the document was created, how it was signed, and if it fit the definition of affidavit.

First, I have no problem with Don Schmitt (seen here) drafting the thing and having Walter review it prior to signing it. All Schmitt did was pull it into a cohesive whole for Walter’s review and then signature. I understand that both Walter’s doctor and his daughter were present when he signed the document. So far, so good.

But then we run into some trouble. As many know, Wendy Connors and Dennis Balthaser interviewed Walter prior to this latest document being created, but after a French film crew had been to New Mexico to interview Walter and he told them that he had seen the bodies... or body, depending on which statement by Walter you wish to accept.

This doesn’t include research by Gildas Bourdais who recently said that in he had talked to the French crew director and that Walter said nothing about bodies on camera to him. On UFO UpDates, Bourais wrote, " He [Vincent Gielly] told me that, when he did his filmed interview of Walter Haut, with Wendy Connors, Haut looked like someone who wished to say more, but could not. This lasted a long time, and he finally decided, a little disappointed, to end the interview. But then, he found Wendy, alone in another room, extremely disappointed because, she told him, she felt Haut was just about to talk when he ended the interview. That's what Gielly told me. He did not tell me that Haut had talked about seeing the craft and bodies. If he did, he may have promised not to repeat it, I don't know."

So, there is now a question of just what Walter (seen here on the set of the ShowTime original movie Roswell) did say to the French crew and what he said on camera as opposed to what he said in private. Connors and Balthaser say that Walter said something to the French which inspired the two of them to seek an audience with Walter to explain his earlier years in the military, and, according to them, ask a few questions to clarify the situation Walter found himself in back in 1947.

For those of us who have seen the Connors/Balthaser interview, there are some very disturbing statements by Walter... he is either badly confused, he is deeply conflicted about revealing secret he had kept for more than fifty years, or he just couldn’t keep his new story straight. It leaves us with a rambling mishmash of contradictory information.

Here is just a short portion of that rather confused statement:

"That’s a rough one I haven’t even thought about it low these many years and I honestly can’t even visualize it, whether still in it’s shape, but a lot of dings in it.... I do not remember... I would venture a guess that probably a diameter of, uh, somewhere around 25ft... To the best of my remembrance there was one body... it was relatively a small body comparable to uh, oh maybe a 11 year old, 10 or 11 year old child. It was pretty well beat up. I cannot come and give you, to be honest, anything other than that. I remember something about the arms and I am trying to visualize that and all of a sudden it starts going through my little head that that they show some of those long arms in the cartoons... I thought there was several bodies... for some reason I feel there were several bodies... the more I think about it the more I start to get an idea it was single body."

And then to thoroughly confuse the issue, Walter retreated to the line he had been using from the very beginning, in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He said, "I didn’t even see one. I just wrote a press release."

So, Connors then said, "I am talking about when you saw a body in the hanger partly covered by the tarp. You only saw the one."

Walter said, "Yes."

But so we can get real confused, Walter also said, in that same interview:

"I don’t really know. I ..it hurts me to try and give an answer because I am not certain of the whole thing. I feel there has been information released that uh maybe shouldn’t have been released, maybe the information that we got in the operation of releases maybe something you can put out to anybody. I just... I don’t know, I don’t want to talk about a lot of the detail number one because I don’t have a lot of knowledge about the detail, everybody thinks that I saw them, I didn’t, I put out a press release that Colonel Blanchard told me what he wanted in the press release and I ran it into town and gave it to the news media and went home and ate lunch."

In the affidavit we have a very clear and concise statement about all this. Walter said (or rather signed the statement that said... and that is probably a distinction we should make at this point because of some of the controversy):

(12) Before leaving the base, Col. Blanchard took me personally to Building 84, a B-29 hangar located on the east side of the tarmac. Upon first approaching the building, I observed that it was under heavy guard both outside and inside. Once inside, I was permitted from a safe distance to first observe the object just recovered north of town. It was approx. 12 to 15 feet in length, not quite as wide, about 6 feet high, and more of an egg shape. Lighting was poor, but its surface did appear metallic. No windows, portholes, wings, tail section, or landing gear were visible.

(13) Also from a distance, I was able to see a couple of bodies under a canvas tarpaulin. Only the heads extended beyond the covering, and I was not able to make out any features. The heads did appear larger than normal and the contour of the canvas suggested the size of a 10-year-old child. At a later date in Blanchard's office, he would extend his arm about 4 feet above the floor to indicate the height

.

I could pull up other statements that Walter made over the years, including ones that he made to me, but there is little point in that. We all know that he said, for decades, all he had done was write the press release. Now we have a new statement in which he is in the middle of this with all the inside knowledge that anyone could hope for.

The problem is not that his earlier statements contradict his later statements but that his later statements were highly confused, and highly contradictory even inside one interview, and inside one statement in that interview.

The skeptics are going to seize these later statements and contrast them to the earlier statements and it’s going to be nearly impossible to spin this. Walter is on the record in too many places saying that all he did was write the press release. He is seen in the Connor/Balthaser interview giving that same story but wrapping it around tales of bodies and craft.

There are those who suggest that Walter was conflicted about all this. He wanted to honor the oath he had taken so long ago. He wanted to honor the promise he had made to Colonel Blanchard so long ago. But he also believed that the information was too important to be withheld and that it belonged, not to the Army, the Air Force of the government, but to every one. So even as he provided hints about what he had seen and what he knew, he wasn’t able to take us directly there. He had to come at it from the side.

You simply can’t hide the information about Walter’s confusing statements. There are too many of us out there who have seen and heard most of the witnesses and while some of us have the will to believe, there are many others who want to learn the truth. You can’t cherry-pick the information and make it seem as if it all fits together.

Had Walter’s later statements been consistent inside the context of the interview and had they been consistent throughout, then we could say that he was providing us with information that he’d had all these years. But that’s not what we have here. We have contradictory statements.

And I know that many will say that Walter was an honorable man trying to provide us with information that we all seek and all want. The problem is that it doesn’t come to us in a straight forward manner, but in a couple of interviews that have more curves than a NASCAR speedway. He twists and turns and doubles back on himself. Straightened out, as it is in the affidavit, it seems crisp and clear, but when we review the tapes of the interviews we find it is not quite as direct.

On the other side of the coin, I do have one confirmation of Walter’s new story that came from a man who lived in Albuquerque and who was the assistant finance officer for the 509th Bomb Group.

I first met Richard C. Harris (seen here) in the mid-1990s when I visited him at his home. He was a frail man then, with live-in help. He was, naturally, quite interested in the Roswell UFO case, having served at the base in 1947. And yes, he’s in the Yearbook, so we know he was there at the right time.

In his living room was a small bookcase and I mention this because there was a stack of books dealing with UFOs, the Roswell case and MJ-12. Harris was a firm believer in MJ-12.

What all this means is that he was familiar with the case as it had been written about in the various books. He had seen many of the documentaries of the case so he could have been badly contaminated as a source. Having seen the documentaries, read the books and magazine articles doesn’t mean that what he told me was based on what he had read and seen and not wholly on his memories, we must be aware that it all could be colored by those other sources.

Anyone who has served in a command position or a position of responsibility in the military knows that everything must be paid for. There are all sorts of funds that are designated for all sorts of purposes and it is considered illegal to take funds appropriated for one purpose and use them for another. This means that funds meant to pay for a unit’s flight training, for example, can’t be used to transport alien bodies and craft from one location to another. Funds must be designated for that purpose. (Unless, of course, it’s a cross country navigation problem and therefore training... if some of the wreckage, or an alien body or two are on the aircraft, hey, that’s just a bonus.)

No, it doesn’t have to say moving an alien body from Roswell to Wright Field, but the funds will have to be appropriated for moving equipment from Roswell to Wright Field. The money must be juggled. (I might point out here that, for example, money paid to the state of Iowa for National Guard training or equipment maintenance can’t be used for firefighting in California. That doesn’t mean that Iowa will allow California to burn if Iowa has a means to help, it means that funds for that assistance must come from California and not Iowa... yeah, it’s complicated, but it shows how these things work.)

Harris told me that they worked hard to find the money from legal sources, that they worked hard to cover the real purpose because there would be audits and there would be examinations that had nothing to do with the crash but everything to do with looking for fraud. So the money spent to house those brought in, for the aircraft flights to and from various locations, for the special equipment and to pay the soldiers were all juggled around so that it was properly annotated and properly spent. Harris was proud of the job they had done covering the paper trail (not unlike comments that Patrick Saunders, the base adjutant had made earlier to family members who shared these thoughts with me).

The key point of Harris’ story was this little anecdote. He said that he had been out near one of the hangars and ran into Walter. Walter told him what was on the other side of the door, meaning one of the dead aliens and told Harris he could take a quick look. Harris said that he put his hand on the door knob, but didn’t turn it. For some reason his curiosity failed him at that point. He didn’t take the look that Walter had told him to.

This, of course, suggests that Walter had deeper knowledge and Harris told me this more than a decade ago. It is, sort of, some corroboration for Walter’s new story. It’s not a very good corroboration, but it is some.

I have been looking for something to suggest that Ramey and DuBose traveled to Roswell for a morning staff meeting. It’s hard to move the commanding general around without leaving some kind of paper trail but I have found none. I have searched the records of the 509th Bomb Group and the 8th Air Force without finding a clue.

It seems to me that there would be no real reason to hide this trip... except that it would have put Ramey on the scene and that might be the reason to erase the record. If some clever person put Ramey in Roswell on July 7 or 8, then the next question can always be, "Why?"

So far, I have failed to find anything, but there are avenues to be searched.

So, here’s where we are. Walter has told us he was on the inside. He has told us that he saw the craft and, at least, one body. He gave us a couple of points that would allow for some corroboration, but we have yet to find it. Harris provides a little piece of that but not enough. So, we continue to search for the truth.

CSICOP (I mean CSI)

Let’s talk for a moment about CSICOP which has changed it’s name to CSI which I suppose it a marketing ploy to snag the unwary. I mean, if you type CSI into your search engine, and I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that many do and have, you’ll eventually find your way to what used to be CSICOP. They’re probably less than pleased to have me decode their plan.

CSICOP, which originally stood for Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (a worthy endeavor) is now know as the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, another worthy endeavor. Unfortunately, my experience with them, and the experience of others suggest that they are more of an advocacy group rather than an organization that investigates the paranormal, including UFOs. They would rather make pronouncements about the non existence of these phenomena than actually investigate them. And it seems when the few investigations they conduct provide no real answer, they are willing to accept any conclusion as long as it does not suggest the reality of a paranormal phenomena (With the Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting, they continue to offer solutions that make no sense. Recently it was suggested that Arnold had seen B-47s in flight. None of the skeptics, and here it wasn’t a CSI explanation, bothered to learn that the first B-47 hadn’t flown until December, 1947, six months AFTER Arnold made his report.)

Just what does this mean? Well, in one of the anti-Roswell UFO crash books CSICOP, I mean CSI, published, the author wrote, "Finally as the pro-UFO Roswell researchers will admit when pressed, Beverly Bean is the only person in the Brown family who has made these claims about her father. Bean’s sister and her own mother have never confirmed the account."

The Brown in this statement in Melvin Brown who was a sergeant assigned to the Roswell base in 1947 as a cook. He told family members that he had seen the bodies of the aliens killed in the crash, but for several years only his daughter, Beverly Bean, made this claim. Later Brown’s widow, and his other daughter, confirmed that they had heard her husband and their father make similar statements.

The CSICOP inspired statement, is, of course, not true and since the author referenced the 1991 interview conducted with the Brown family (video taped by Brad Radcliffe), he should have known that both Bean’s sister and her mother confirmed the account on video tape. So, even though he must have known the truth but rather than writing, "In 1991, both Bean’s sister and mother who had failed to corroborate the story earlier, are now on the record..." he chose to conceal this evidence from his readers.

This withholding of information is exactly the same thing that the writer had been complaining that I, as well as my colleagues, had been doing. And while I can show, repeatedly, how I attempted to present all the information about the case, allowing the reader to make up his or her mind about the validity of the case, CSI, through this writer was not engaging in scientific analysis, but was involved in a debate. In debate, you never give the other side information favorable to its argument. You allow them to find it on their own.

In on
e more example, on page 91, the author wrote, "After initially refusing to confirm to Randle that he was even there at Roswell, Randle claims that Easley [that would be Major Edwin Easley, seen here, who was the provost marshal Roswell in 1947], on his deathbed, eventually confessed that not only had he "been there," but that he had also seen bodies."
This is a mishmash of testimony and statements. In my initial conversation with Easley, he not only confirmed he had been there, but that he was the provost marshal. In the taped interview conducted on January 11, 1990, I said, "I’m doing some research into the 509th Bomb Group and I understand you were the Provost Marshal there at one time."

Easley said, "That’s right."

I said, "At the 509th?"

He said, "Yes."

And I said, "During July of 1947?"

And he said, "Yes."

I wrote to CSI and asked them, based on their claims of scientific investigation, if they shouldn’t be held to a higher standard than a publisher of books on the paranormal. I mean, if you look at Berkley Books, for example, you’ll find that they publish books on both sides of the controversy. I suspect they don’t do this because they want to provide both sides of the case but because there are business reasons for it. Berkley Books, like so many other publishers, desire to make money and make their publishing decisions based on that.

CSI, h
owever, publishes books only on one side. Karl Pflock told me once that CSI (when it was still known as CSICOP) refused to publish his Roswell in Perspective because it wasn’t skeptical enough. Not that the information might be inaccurate, or that there might be flaws in the reasoning, but because its tone wasn’t skeptical enough. Eventually they published it as Roswell: Inconvenient Facts and the Will to Believe.

You might wondering, by now, what was CSI’s response to my inquiry. Well, there hasn’t been one. They have never really responded to anything I asked of them. The main example comes from the late Phil Klass. We corresponded regularly over the years. We traded barbs a number of times and I have often thought that Phil got backed into his anti-saucer and therefore anti-Roswell corner in the 1960s. Phil came up with the idea that ionized air, glowing in the night, was the cause of UFO sightings. The idea was quickly killed by physicists, and Phil went on to other, similar ridiculous explanations but he had become the resident UFO expert.

In the 1990s I hosted a radio show on KTSM radio in El Paso, Texas (as seen here). The topic was the paranormal, and Phil appeared on the show a couple of times. I asked for others from CSICOP (as it was kno wn then) but never got any response. Phil said he’d arrange some interviews, but no one ever came on. I thought this a strange response from a group of skeptics who wanted to get their message out.

My philosophy on the show was to allow the guest to make his or her point, talk with the listeners, and to defend his or her points of view. I was more of a facilitator than a participant. If the guest had a point of view I didn’t like, well, it was his or her opinion and on the next show we might discuss that or move on to another topic.

Irene Hughes, one of the most celebrated psychics in the country appeared once. During a commercial break, she commented that I was protecting my guest very well. I figured if she was a good psychic, she’d be able to defend herself and didn’t need me to step in. Her comment sort of annoyed me because when the tables were reversed, meaning I was on someone else’s show, I always felt it was my job to defend my position rather than rely on the host.

I will note here, apropos of nothing at all, that I asked Hughes who was going to win the Super Bowl. There were four teams left in the running because the companionship games had yet to be played. She said it would be the Packers. After she left the show, I said, on the air, and recorded on tape, "Everyone knows its going to be the Cowboys over the Steelers by 11." In fact, it was the Cowboys over the Steelers by 10 (27 to 17 if you must know). She didn’t even get the two teams right and I missed the spread by a single point.

The point here, however, is that I provided the guest a chance to present his or her point of view without a challenge from me. CSICOP (or CSI) had nothing to fear from me and Phil Klass did the show a couple of times. No one else from CSI even bothered to respond to my invitations.

So I’m not surprised that they didn’t answer my question about having a higher standard. It is clear from some of the books they have published that reality means little to them. Debunking is their business so why allow facts to get in the way.

I could, of course, support their cause because I have debunked my share of stories. I have provided answers to mysteries when I have them. But I do not create answers out of nonsense, I do not invent witness testimonies that do not exist, and I do not enter an investigation believing in one answer because that answer happens to be my favorite. I can, of course, provide more examples of CSI caring little for the truth but there is no point.

And I will mention, once again, that yes, those of us on the other side of the fence are often guilty of selective use of the data (cherry-picking it), or of leaping to far-ranging conclusions, but we do not hold ourselves up as an authority whose only mission is to explain the nearly inexplicable. We don’t claim to be the only rational thinkers on the planet with a self-selected mandate to remove the paranormal, the unusual, or the exotic from the minds of those too dumb, stupid or ignorant to see the light.

CSI does and with that comes an obligation to get it right. Tell us that UFOs don’t exist, that the evidence for the Roswell UFO crash is thin, but don’t wrap that pronouncement around poor research, sloppy investigation and half-truths. Make your case without a superior attitude and you probably will have an easier time with it.

CSI won’t answer questions. They will not consider alternative answers which explains why they believe some of the dumbest things on the face of the planet. Oh, it removes the extraterrestrial from the discussion but it certainly doesn’t explain anything.

(Yes, I know you all want to know what I mean. Remember Lonnie Zamora, the New Mexico police officer who saw a landed UFO and two occupants back in the 1960s? Well, Phil Klass explained the case. Zamora and the mayor of tiny Socorro, New Mexico were attempting to create a tourist interest in their town and would build a museum close to the site where the UFO was spotted... on land already owned by the mayor. No evidence of this ever surfaced, but to many in CSI, the Socorro case is explained as a hoax. It is not.)

CSI should do a better job of policing themselves and they shouldn’t accept a solution because it is mundane rather than exotic. They should take their own advice and they should do what they originally set out to do, which is investigate claims of the paranormal... Oh, wait, they took that out of their name. Now they’re just the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. I guess investigation was too tough for them. Now they’ll just ask questions and ignore the answers they don’t like. They have become what they have accused us on the other side of becoming... True Believers... The evidence be damned.

In Search Of ... Answers Part II

Back when I began this blog, I had in mind that I would explore those things that interested me, especially in the realm of the unusual and the paranormal. I have, in the past, talked about global warming on Mars (and, apparently on Pluto), how many planets are in the Solar System (eight for those of you who haven’t been keeping track), and if Anna Anderson was really the Russian princess Anastasia. In that column, based on DNA, I thought the answer was no (see In Search Of... Answers in June 2005).

Some disagreed. Although the bodies of the Czar and most of his family had been found ending part of the mystery, two of the children were still missing. That could mean that they had survived and that Anderson could have been Anastasia. Anderson wasn’t the only woman who made this claim. She was merely the most famous. Certainly all of them couldn’t be telling the truth, and as so often happens, it was pretty clear that none of them were.

The story that had circulated for years was that Nicholas II, his wife, five children, a doctor and three servants were killed in the basement of a house where they had been imprisoned after the Russian Revolution. The records of those murders became available to the world after the collapse of the Soviet Union confirming the story that had been a fairly well known "secret". In 1991, the remains of several bodies were found... with a couple of important exceptions.

And, to complicate the story even more, there seems to be some confusion about who was found in 1991. Aleksei, the 13-year-old son, and one of his sisters seemed to be missing from the mass grave. Many believed the missing girl was Anastasia, but others suggested it was her sister, the 19-year-old Maria.

And there the mystery remained until this year. Vitaly Shitov (and yes, that name bothers me too), who is reported to live in the Yekaterinburg (Russia) area where the bodies were found, said that he believed that the two missing children would be located in the same place, just not in the same, common grave. This year, he, and fellow amateur archaeologists discovered, on a raised area about 70 yards from the first grave, a second. It contained two bodies, (or rather bones of two bodies), believed to be those of Aleksei and one of his sisters.

If the information is verified and the DNA tests are conclusive as expected, this ends the mystery once and for all. The Czar and his family were all murdered on that July night in1918. Anastasia did not survive and escape into the West, and the DNA tests on the genetic material of Anna Anderson that proved she wasn’t Anastasia is further confirmed.

I will note one thing here and it is an outgrowth of the tabloid mentality that was so prevalent in the 1970s and 1980s. These supermarket newspapers often made claims that couldn’t be verified, naming experts in foreign lands and providing those experts with degrees from equally vague universities. And this is not to mention the nonsense that circulates on the Internet.

Here we’re dealing with a man living in the region with a name that looks like it was invented for the humor it provides. I believe that this mystery has been solved and I believe it was solved with the DNA tests conducted on Anna Anderson and with the discoveries in the Russia archives and in the Russian fields in the 1990s.

So there is really little doubt. Anna Anderson kept the story going during her life and though many thought we would never learn the truth, science, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and amateur archaeologists have given us the answer. Anna Anderson wasn’t Anastasia. The Czar and his family were all murdered and then buried in two graves that were hidden to prevent them from becoming a rallying point for opponents of the Communists. Another of the mysteries of the 20th Century didn’t survive very long into the 21st.

Brigadier General Harry Cordes

There has been a great deal revealed about the Roswell case in the last few months. New witnesses, well, second-hand witnesses have been quoted extensively. Men and women who say that family members told them about the UFO crash, but who had not seen anything themselves have been located. With a second-hand witness, it is always possible that he or she miss heard or misunderstood what was being said.

But sometimes we get a hint of a first-hand witness and have those statements corroborated by a second-hand witness. Sure, this is confusing, but let’s just take a moment and examine one such case.

We know that 1st Lt. Harry N. Cordes served with the 509th Bomb Group in Roswell in 1947, specifically with the 393rd Bomb Squadron. And yes, his picture is in the Yearbook that Walter Haut prepared.. According to his official Air Force biography, in 1946 General Cordes [as a lieutenant] participated in the first atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll. From 1946 to 1949 he was assigned to the 509th Bombardment Group, Roswell Air Force Base, N.M., as a radar observer on a B-29 crew. His crew won the first annual SAC bombing competition in 1948. He entered pilot training in August 1949 and when he graduated in 1950 returned to the 509th Bomb Group as a pilot and was later aircraft commander of a B-50. He served in a variety of assignments after he left Roswell, and eventually, as a brigadier general (seen below) assumed duties as deputy chief of staff, intelligence, at the Headquarters of the Strategic Air Command (SAC), Offutt Air Force Base in April 1970. He retired on July 1, 1973 and he died on May 10, 2004.

Cordes has been reported as saying that when he was assigned to the CIA one of the first things he had done was look for the Roswell files but they were missing. It is an interesting statement, but by itself, means little.

Tony Brangalia decided to follow up on this. He located Cordes widow who told him that she was surprised that Cordes would say anything like that to anyone outside the family. But then she went on and confirmed the fact saying that he told her that he had unsuccessfully tried to find the Roswell file back in the 1950s.

According to the notes that Brangalia shared with me, as a lieutenant, Cordes admired Jesse Marcel, Sr. (who was an intelligence officer and Cordes would find himself assigned to intelligence later in his career) and said that there was no reason for him to lie about anything. She said that Glenn Dennis’ nurse had been committed to a home before she died (Hey, I’m just reporting what was said, but here is a little corroboration for the Dennis story). She said that Blanchard was "a believer and anyone in the military who wanted to stay in didn’t talk about it."

Because she had grown up on a farm near Roswell and had worked in the First National Bank there, she knew many of the players in this story, knew some things about the case outside the military. She said that she had lived two doors down from the Wilcox family and said that they "were threatened and were afraid for their own reasons."

Working in the bank she heard things from the ranchers and wrote, "At the bank I heard the ranchers discussing Mack Brazel and they thought his new red pickup was his payoff."

But her story wasn’t just about what she had heard in the bank. She wrote, "My story begins the night of July 3rd with my family in Ruidoso where we always celebrated the 4th and I had to close the bank and was tasked with icing the soda and beer and driving to meet them. As I made the usual rounds for ice I was told that the Air Base had bought all the ice so I went to the train station looking for dry ice but was told the AFB had wiped them out..."

She added, "Then when our family returned that week to go back to our ranch to attend to our stock we were barred from the Pine Lodge hiway by camaflogued [sic] airmen with machine guns that some fear entered the picture. Many stories at the bank from early rising ranchers about long trucks covered in canvas going to the base before dawn!!"

She said, "My husband flew 25 different planes including the U-2 and Air-borne [sic] Looking Glass [which was the airborne command post during the Cold War] and said there was nothing hidden at Area-51 except planes [sorry Bob Lazar fans]. He also wondered his whole life why there was a cover-up and yes, he did tell me that he perused the files as a CIA agent but found everything empty."

I will note here that there is nothing in Cordes official biography that suggests he was detailed to the CIA, but, by the same token, there are gaps in it. However, after his completion of Command and Staff School he was assigned as an intelligence staff officer which could mean he worked with the CIA and would have had some access to their records.

There is one other point to be made here. Kent Jeffrey, as he was conducting his Roswell research, contacted Cordes. Apparently Cordes said nothing to him about his involvement or knowledge but referred Kent to George Weinbrenner. Jeffrey wrote about this saying, "After my conversations with Klinikowsky and Vatunac, Harry Cordes, a former 509th pilot and a retired brigadier general suggested I call a former acquaintance of his, George Weinbrenner, who had also been at the FTD [Foreign Technology Division, where Klinikowsky and Vatunac had also served]... Weinbrenner told me pretty much what I had already learned from Klinikowsky and Vatunac, but it was interesting to talk to him, nonetheless. With respect to the crashed UFO subject, he also found it humorous and stated that if something like that had happened, I would have know about it..."

But now we have evidence, from both Cordes and his widow that Cordes knew about it. So the question is, why didn’t Weinbrenner know? Could it be that Weinbrenner was keeping the secret? And why would Cordes tell Jeffrey to talk to Weinbrenner?

In the end, we have an intriguing story that begins with a quote from a former Air Force brigadier general and then we have additional information from his wife. First-hand quotes from the general, first-hand quotes and observations from the wife, and then her memories of things her husband had shared with her. Maybe not the smoking gun, but certainly interesting testimony to add to the stack.

Who is the Crazy One?

Just the other day, Presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich (seen here) was outed by Shirley MacLaine. She said that while visiting her, they had seen a UFO... meaning, clearly, an unidentified flying object.

This whole tale is not important because we have many known people who claim to have seen a UFO. Jimmy Carter made a similar claim, and recently explained that he had seen an object in the air that was unidentified and that doesn’t translate into an alien spacecraft or a belief in flying saucers. It means that Carter, along with MacLaine and Kucinich saw something they could not explain.

Now, just recently I have been told that some of those who claimed to have been involved in the Roswell crashed saucer recovery didn’t behave the way debunkers believe they should. Melvin Brown, for example, when he learned that William Moore and Charles Berlitz had written a book about Roswell should have contacted them with his insider information. Or, better yet, he should have gone to the newspaper to tell them what he had seen.

Instead, Brown merely told his family, wife and daughters, about it. The debunkers seem to believe that this is prima facie evidence that Brown was exaggerating his role in Roswell. Brown had been assigned as a cook and it seems that he shouldn’t have been in a position to see anything. And, if he did, why he’d want to shout it to the world when he learned that Moore and Berlitz had written their book.

But doesn’t this latest about Dennis Kucinich prove just the opposite. First, Kucinich didn’t rush to the newspapers to relate his story. And second, the headline at FoxNews.Com said, "Dennis Kucinich’s UFO Comments Prove He’s Nuts."

John Gibson, who, by the way, I met at the 50th Anniversary of the Roswell Crash, on the highway just outside of town, near the turnoff to Hub Corn’s ranch where it was said that something had fallen, wrote, "This is the guy who feels free to say Bush is crazy one day and admit something the next day that many, if not most, people think proves a person is crazy."

He continued in this vein, saying, "If you’ve seen UFOs you probably shouldn’t go around calling other people nuts. If you admit to seeing a UFO, martians [sic], space creatures, big foot [sic] and all the rest, you are by definition on the defensive against a charge of craziness."

He goes on and said, "And the rest of you who have seen UFOs, please don’t send angry e-mails. It’s not going to make any difference – I’ll still think y’all are crazy."

I’m not going to talk about the attitude here. Gibson knows that there are no UFOs, meaning spaceships, and he’s not interested in evidence to the contrary. He’ll stick with the discredited Mogul explanation for Roswell because that’s easier to believe than the military officers who retrieved the spaceship debris in 1947.

I’ve run into this attitude before. I was scheduled for an interview at the Chicago Tribune (you remember them... Dewey Defeats Truman was their banner headline in 1948). They sent an intern (not that I have anything against interns) but she told me that the editors didn’t want to do anything because they knew there was nothing to UFOs. When I said we had some very powerful evidence, she said that they didn’t care. They knew the truth.

Which is why every time you see a story about the end of the dinosaurs, you’ll see the media talking about the huge meteoric impact that wiped them out though there isn’t scientific consensus on that point. Or why you hear, repeatedly that we can’t win in Iraq when these same media types really don’t know it and have no basis for saying it, other than they probably believe it being the experts in military tactics they all are.

But I digress...

The point here is that we have moved into the 21st Century where we communicate with friends around the world on the Internet, where libraries are becoming obsolete because we can find virtually anything we need on the Internet using our home computers, where newspapers are dying, we have high definition TV and hundreds of channels, where people are actually booking passage for space flight (and where some wealthy people have already done it) and dozens of other marvels that people 50 years ago never thought possible and where we have to put up with the opinions of pundits on TV who don’t know what they’re talking about but can say anything they please because they have a forum.

So why should someone come forward with his or her story of UFOs when we all know, as it has been proven so many times recently (and I just picked on John Gibson because he had been to Roswell and his was the first bit of nastiness I found) that to come forward with a UFO report is to tell the world you’re crazy? It is no wonder that people like Melvin Brown, among many others, said nothing to the news media about this. They just didn’t want to be called crazy, belittled and insulted by those who know more than the rest of us.

And maybe some of them just want to be left alone because to admit something like this opens the door for the true loons out there. Bill Brazel told me that he would periodically get late night telephone calls from drunks in bars wondering if his tale of finding bits of debris was true. Others have been subjected to the "truly" religious who felt an obligation to explain the UFOs as the work of the devil and scream at them about it.

We supposedly live in an enlightened age, but how enlightened is it when someone, because he or she has a televised forum can call someone else crazy for reporting an unidentified object in the night sky? Maybe it is time that we limit the pundits and their ilk to staying inside the bounds where they do have some sort of expertise and realize that they simply don’t have all the answers though they seem to believe they do. Of course, if we limited them to that, then the news channels would have about twenty-three hours a day to fill with real news.

And maybe it’s time to realize that not everyone reacts the same way to things and what I might do in a specific circumstance is not what you would do. Maybe I see the flaws in the Mogul explanation for Roswell that you believe to be insignificant. And maybe you are telling the truth as best you can and haven’t decided to make it up so that you too can get your fifteen minutes of fame.

But really, it’s about understanding we don’t have all the answers and that calling Kucinich crazy and then using that brush to tar everyone else who has had some kind of an experience that we find inexplicable is, well, crazy.

I Understand Kent Jeffrey

Back in the mid-1990s, airline pilot Kent Jeffrey (in th red shirt with Tom Carey center, and Colonel Jeffrey on right) developed an interest in the Roswell case. He believed, at that time, that something alien had fallen there and that the cover up of it should be broken. He believed that we all had the right to know what happened and he was willing to put up some of his own money and his own time in an attempt to learn the truth.

He began the Roswell Initiative which was a worldwide petition to the US government to release all its Roswell information and all its UFO files. He put it online and he gave copies to friends in other countries to demonstrate the worldwide interest in learning the truth. He met with the witnesses and offered them the services of a legal team if they got into trouble for telling what they knew. He traveled to Roswell to meet them.

About the time that we arrived at the 50th anniversary of the crash, in July 1997, Kent had changed his mind. He believed that the Roswell crash, if there was anything at all, was caused by something mundane. He no longer thought of it as extraterrestrial and he appeared on several radio and television shows explaining why he had changed his mind. I debated him in a couple of those forums and responded, at length, to his article about what he thought of as the "real" truth that appeared in the MUFON UFO Journal.

He did complete his Initiative and delivered some twenty or thirty thousand petitions to Washington, but included a letter that watered down the whole thing. It sort of undermined the power of the petitions by saying that he now believed Roswell was explained, but there were still UFO truths to be learned.

I won’t go into all of that here. In wrote about it in the Roswell Encyclopedia, including Kent’s article. He granted permission to use it and though I edited it slightly because of space limitations, I didn’t change it. For those who wish to read this, they can do so in that book.

I will note, however, that one of Kent’s reasons for changing his mind was because he had attended some of the 509th Bomb Group reunions, talking with officers who served in Roswell in 1947 and who said they had heard nothing about the UFO crash. They said that had it happened, they would have known.

I don’t believe that is right, given the nature of security regulations and how these things work. I believe that if the crash was highly classified, many of these officers might have heard rumors, but they wouldn’t have been involved in the retrieval and now, fifty and sixty years later can provide us with nothing more than their opinion that nothing happened. Kent thought this persuasive. I do not.

It was Frank Kaufmann who might have killed it all for Kent, though I don’t know this for certain. I know that Kent, and his father, a World War II triple ace, meaning he shot down, at least, fifteen enemy aircraft, met with Frank on a couple of occasions in Roswell. Frank told them the same story that he had told me and others. He talked of his hobnobbing with generals, and mentioned General Robert Thomas who had sneaked into Roswell in the guise of a warrant officer... or, at least that was what Frank said.

But Kent’s father was a retired, high-ranking Air Force officer and had friends who could check all this out. He could find no evidence of this General Thomas and this, I believe made Kent suspicious.

Given all this, I believe Kent decided that there couldn’t have been a crash because he would have been able to get something from these officers at the reunions. He would have found some trace of this General Thomas even if the general would corroborate any of the story. And his failure to find independent corroboration of the crash beyond those in Roswell talking about it suggested to him that there had been no crash.

I think Kent was further disillusioned by some of the "revelations" about Major Jesse Marcel. Marcel’s entire military record was leaked into the public arena in violation of the 1974 Privacy Act. You can read the story of Marcel in the Archive in the April 2007 list on this blog.

And he had talked with officers who had been at Wright Field or who had been part of the Air Technical Intelligence Center (ATIC) and who told him that nothing happened. Kent believed this to be the truth, though had there been a crash and had they been ordered not to talk about it, they very possibly would have said nothing happened. The lies told would be lies to protect national security and would therefore be part of the job.

I talked to a general who had been the chief of ATIC, or had overseen a larger part of the intelligence operation at Wright-Patterson AFB and when I asked him some questions he said, not kindly, "I don’t know who you are and I don’t know what is still classified and what is no longer classified and I can’t talk to you."

For a few moments more I tried to ask questions but it was clear that he wasn’t going to tell me anything. Does this prove a cover up in Roswell? No, it proves that there are military secrets and some are better at keeping them than others.

Kent didn’t get a chance to talk to Edwin Easley or Chester Barton, who worked for Easley and only had a couple of interesting things to say about the crash. He didn’t talk to Marcel but he was concerned about the contradictions in the Marcel’s military record and what Marcel had told Bob Pratt. He was concerned with the denials of men who claimed if something had happened, they would have known it, never understanding that sometimes military secrecy trumps friendship and those who thought they would have known were not inside the loop and they didn’t know.

I think Kent’s attempts to validate the information failed him and he lost some of his confidence in the Roswell case. I think that learning that Kaufmann was not who he claimed to be before we knew it for a fact, shook him. I think that learning that Glenn Dennis’s nurse didn’t exist under the name Dennis gave us, eliminated one of the better testimonies that led to the extraterrestrial. At the end of the day, there just wasn’t sufficient evidence for Kent to conclude that Roswell was alien. The Air Force explanation, the failure of so many of the eyewitnesses, and the damage done by those inventing their tales was enough for Kent. He concluded that Roswell was nothing alien.

I understand this because I too think some of the same things at times. Rumors should have circulated at Roswell among the pilots and surely some of them would have heard enough to suggest the crash was real. But I also know, having served with various military units that some secrets simply do not leak and sometimes those who think they have an inside track do not.

And while I might sometimes have my doubts about all Marcel said, when we look at his record we see a fine officer. Some of the things he told Bob Pratt are not borne out in the record, but then, it is possible that Pratt got some of it wrong. I do know the words are important and that Marcel never claimed his was a pilot as some have reported but said only that he had flown as one, and that is an important difference.

And I have watched the collapse of some testimony. Gerald Anderson was clearly making it up. It wasn’t quite as clear with Frank Kaufmann, but he too, was making it up. Glenn Dennis seemed to have a solid tale, but there were little things that went wrong with it. We learned the truth about him when he began to blame others for misunderstanding about the nurse’s name. The destruction there was more subtle, but when he began to say he had made up the nurse’s name, it reset everything to zero. Not quite as evident as Frank’s faked documents but enough to suggest Dennis was no more honest about this than Kaufmann.

So Kent looked at all this and decided that it was evidence that nothing alien happened. It could be explained as the Air Force said it could. Kent just couldn’t find sufficient evidence otherwise.

When I looked at this cesspool of useless evidence, I sometimes thought the same things. But then, I did talk to Edwin Easley and Chester Barton and a dozen others. I know what Easley told me but circumstances prevented a recording of the critical statement. For Kent that was a failure, but I heard what the man said. I can’t prove it for others, but I do know what was said.

And, I haven’t even touched on what Brigadier General Arthur Exon (seen here) told me. Yes, the debunkers and the Air Force have had little to say about him. So there are those who talk of something alien and who are who they claimed to be and who just might know something about it.

All that was too late for Kent. And if I hadn’t had the chance to talk to some of these people, then I might just agree with him. But I did talk to them, and I have talked to others, so I’m not as jaded as he has become. I can understand how it happened and the difference between the two of us is that I talked to some of the people he didn’t.