UFO Photo Hoaxes

The conventional wisdom is that there are very few hoaxes in the UFO field. Researchers suggest that 90 to 95 percent of all UFO sightings can be explained in the mundane as simple misidentifications of natural phenomena, misidentifications of aircraft or balloons, or as normal things seen under abnormal conditions. Of that 90 or 95 percent, some, maybe as few as two percent are hoaxes, according to the researchers. In fact, Project Blue Book officials suggested that there were so few hoaxes, they didn’t even deserve their own category.

The truth of the matter is that there have been major hoaxes in the UFO field from the very beginning in 1947. The reason so few of them have been discussed in the UFO literature is that it is very difficult to call someone a liar in print. When a case is labeled as a hoax, those who tell the story are being called, in essence, liars. Most researcher begin to look for other words and other labels to apply to the case. An alternative, if available, is often used instead of the word hoax.

In the UFO field there have been a large number of photographs offered as evidence that we have been visited. Unfortunately, the majority of them seem to have been taken by teenaged boys and most of those are hoaxes. This is a fact that is easily verified by a quick examination of those photographs.

It must be noted, however, that many of the UFO researchers have missed those explanations so that pictures, exposed as hoaxes surface in UFO books, articles, and on television documentaries as if they are legitimate. It is an area that creates confusion in the general public and journalistic communities, and leads those who do not study UFOs, who have a passing interest in them, to believe that there is nothing to them. There is a belief that all of the UFO sighting reports are made by hoaxers, tricksters and pranksters.

The 1997 bestseller, The Day After Roswell, by retired Lieutenant Colonel Philip J. Corso is a case in point. Corso claimed that during his long military career, he was exposed to the top-secret files of various governmental agencies dealing with UFOs. Corso claimed to have an intimate insider’s knowledge of what was happening with UFOs, that he had been told about and had seen personally the files about the Roswell UFO crash, and that he could answer the questions about the crash that had plagued researchers since 1947. Corso, however, demonstrated that he didn’t have access to everything and made a mistake that suggested he might not have access to anything. In the photo section of his book, he published a picture of a UFO over some hills in southern California. He noted that he was never able to confirm the veracity of the "UFO surveillance photos" which he had found in Army Intelligence files. If Corso was who he said he was, he should have recognized the picture as a hoax. It had been labeled a hoax in the public arena as early as 1966 and the Project Blue Book files had it listed as a fake.

That photograph, according to the editors of a special UFO edition of Look magazine was taken by Guy B. Marquard, Jr. on a mountain road near Riverside, California (Seen on the left). Marquard said that it was a hoax, that he was sorry to disillusion people, but he was 21 years old at the time and was having some fun. Project Blue Book files suggested it was the hub cab to a 1930s Ford thrown into the air.

It would seem that if the vast majority of UFO researchers knew the photograph was a hoax, Corso would have known that as well, if he truly was the insider he claimed to be. Instead, as if to prove the point here, Corso reprinted the photograph as if it was something that had stumped the military investigators.

But Corso isn’t alone in his belief that certain photographs reveal the presence of extraterrestrial visitors which were later proven to be, admitted to be, or shown to be, hoaxes. In May 1952, professional photographer Ed Keffel was standing on a cliff near Barra Da Tijuca, Brazil when he saw, what he at first believed to be an airplane. The man standing next to him recognized that the craft was something extraordinary and yelled for him to "Shoot! Shoot!"

Keffel managed to take five photographs showing an object that was clearly disk shaped with a dome on the top and a raised ring on the bottom. He was lucky that the maneuvers of the UFO revealed it to him from all angles. There was no doubt that what he photographed was not an airplane, balloon, or a natural phenomena.

The Brazilian Air Force investigated, tracked down an estimated forty witnesses to the sighting, tried to reproduce the pictures with trick photography, and made diagrams of the sighting on site and of the UFO itself. In the end, according to the report forwarded to the U.S. by Dr. Olavo Fontes of APRO, they found no evidence of a hoax. At APRO Headquarters, the pictures were studied again. APRO researchers found nothing that suggested hoax to them. The pictures, at this point, were termed to be authentic.

The APRO analysis wasn’t the last to be performed. During the University of Colorado study in the late 1960s, the pictures were again analyzed. According to the final report, there was a "glaring internal inconsistency." In the fourth of the five pictures, the object was illuminated from one direction but the trees in the foreground, specifically a palm tree standing above the others, was illuminated from another direction (The photgraph with the palm tree seen on the left). "This is evidence of a hoax unless there were two suns in the sky," according to the University scientists.

ARPO responded to the analysis by insisting that they had known about the problem. According to them, blow-ups of the photograph showed that one of the palm branches was broken so that it appeared that the tree’s trunk was in the shade indicating the two suns. If not for the broken branch, the trunk would be in the sun. Everything in the picture would then be consistent and the evidence of a hoax was lost.

Even that wasn’t the end of it. People who lived in the area claimed they had seen men with models taking pictures. The Brazilian Air Force suggested that the people had seen Air Force officers attempting to duplicate the pictures. They had not seen Keffel and his companion trying to fake it.

As it stands today, it seems that these photographs, once considered among the best ever taken are, in fact, fakes. It is this sort of thing that has plagued UFO researchers from the very beginning of the modern era in 1947. Keffel wasn’t the only man to engage in such a hoax. Paul Villa, Jr. of Albuquerque released a number of photographs that he had taken on June 16, 1963. He provided copies of his photographs to the Air Force for analysis. Not surprisingly, the Air Force concluded that the pictures were of a small model.

Captain William L. Turner, Chief of the Air Force Photo Analysis Division wrote in his official report to Project Blue Book, "All photographs have a sky background with an unobstructed view of the object. It seems unlikely that anyone photographing a UFO from several angles would have all good, clear unobstructed photographs of the object."

While that might be true, it is also true that Villa might just have been very lucky or even a very good photographer (One of the Villa photographs seen on the left). That, however, doesn’t seem to be the case. Turner wrote, "Photograph #7 shows the UFO at close range with a leafless branch on the left side of the print, passing behind the object. Two twigs from this branch are readily visible on the right side of the object and in good alignment with the main branch. It does not seem possible that these twigs are from the tree on the right which is further away. Therefore, the object is between the branch and the camera. The object is estimated to be 20 inches in diameter and seven inches high."

Turner also noticed one other important fact. He wrote, "In photographs #1 and #2 the object appears to be a sharper image than the near and far trees. This indicates the UFO is between the near trees and the camera."

Given all that information, it would seem that the Air Force had thoroughly destroyed the credibility of the pictures. The question that has been asked by many is why accept the Air Force conclusions here but reject them in other cases. The answer is simply "Duplication." The Air Force results have been duplicated by UFO researchers and civilian photographic experts. It wasn’t that the Air Force presented a complete analysis but that others, when examining the photographs were able to see the same things Turner saw. The explanation was fair and that is why the Air Force explanation is accepted.

There are many other pictures that have been published that we now know to be hoaxes. In 1957, for example, Radio Officer T. Fogel claimed to have photographed a UFO near San Pedro, California (Fogel photo seen on the left). He admitted that he had built the object from a model airplane kit. ARPO published a photograph taken in 1963 that showed an object flying beneath an airplane. The shadows of both could be seen on the ground but it turned out to be a hoax. Two teenagers from Lake St. Clair, Michigan created a stir with their photographs of a UFO with an antenna on the rear, but later admitted the pictures to be a hoax. One of the very first of the UFO pictures, taken at a steel mill in Hamilton, Ohio in 1947 is now an admitted hoax.

The list could continue until it was pages long. Today, the problem is getting even worse. Before the advent of computers and various software programs that allowed for the manipulation of photographs, it was difficult, but not impossible, to fake good UFO pictures. Something tossed into the air, small models suspended above the ground, objects cut from paper and pasted on the window all contributed to the problem. Analysis by experts could sometimes detect the problems or inconsistencies. It allowed investigators to label a case. If no such inconsistencies were found, it didn’t mean that the photographs showed an extraterrestrial craft, only that it couldn’t be proven to be a hoax.

What this meant, simply, was that in the good old days, researchers had a fighting chance. The pictures had to be created physically and mechanically and if they were created in that fashion, there could be something left behind for researchers to find. In today’s environment, such is not the case. Any computer and software program can allow the hoaxer to create a negative that can be examined and on which there will be no evidence of that manipulation. The job just became that much more difficult.

This also explains the problem with video tape. It is why we have ignored video taped evidence here. It is just too easy to fake a credible video tape with a good computer and very little in the way of video equipment or even expertise. To prove the point we have created just such a tape, but we made the UFO look more like a worm with windows than anything extraterrestrial. We did it so that there could be no confusion about the origin of this tape.

If, however, we submitted it to any of those specializing in the analysis of video tape, they could digitize it, pixelize it, and analyze it any way they wanted, but they would not be able to tell that we had artificially created that tape. We put the appropriate dialogue on it, making it sound as if we were in awe of what we were seeing. We manipulated the object so that it swooped in, passed behind a tree and then disappeared in the distance.

The equipment used is not all that expensive, nor is it all that unavailable to the tricksters and the pranksters. Add in the computer software to clean up any problems and then claim tape is the original. No one would be able to tell the difference. The analysis is right back to the credibility of the witness or witnesses. And if they sound sincere, if they have no history of playing jokes and tricks, then there is very little the UFO researcher can do.

So, when studying the photographic evidence of visitor spacecraft, we return to those earlier pictures. Could the witnesses have faked them thirty, forty, or fifty years ago? Certainly. But in that time frame the task was more difficult and the evidence for it often showed on the original negatives. That is why, that long ago, investigators, whether Air Force officers or civilian researchers, wanted to see the original negatives.

The ideal photographic case would involve multiple witnesses at multiple locations producing both video tape and still pictures. We have often recommended that those with a still camera take a photograph and then move right or left fifty or sixty feet and take a second picture. If possible, the two points from which the pictures were taken should be marked so that precise measurements can be made later by researchers.

What this does is allow investigators to make a stereoscopic view of the object which would provide, on the film, important evidence. The altitude, distance from the camera and size of the object could all be deduced from a set of photographs made that way.

Now, if there were video tapes of the object, taking by other witnesses in widely separated locations, then corroborative evidence could be collected. It would provide other views of the craft and possibly give additional information about height and speed. It would be a case that would be nearly impossible for the debunkers to destroy because of the physical evidence in the forms of video tapes and stereoscopic pictures. It would end the debate and allow us to move to the next level of investigation.

It would seem, given all the cameras in this country, and now all the video tape cameras available that we should have something like this. Since we don’t, it suggests to some that there are no UFOs and spaceships of the visitors.

The answer, if we think about it is that real UFO sightings are extremely rare. They are usually close to the ground, no more than at a thousand feet or so. That means that only a limited number of people will see them, if they happen to be looking up. It limits the number of available witnesses and the number of cameras.

To argue that meteorites, especially bright ones, are seen by thousands, and they are not only short lived, but also rare, misses the point. The meteorites are usually thirty to forty miles in the air. They can be seen over a wide area. The especially bright ones light the sky drawing attention to themselves. Often there is a roar associated with the bolides that also draws attention to them. The UFOs are most often lower, darker and quieter. Yes, there are a few exceptions, but the vast majority of the cases reflect the lower and quieter component.

So, we are left with a rare and low flying phenomena. We are left with photographs, some of which are extremely interesting, but none of which can prove the case. The University of Colorado scientists, when studying the McMinneville, Oregon pictures noted they found no evidence of a hoax, but they also found that the pictures, by themselves, were insufficient to prove that some UFOs were extraterrestrial craft (One of the two photos seen on the left).

To us, that seems to be a reasonable conclusion because there could be other explanations that do not require interstellar travel. The fact that we don’t have those explanations doesn’t mean they don’t exist. There might be a natural phenomenon that could account for the pictures. There could be some kind of experimental craft, that never reached production that could account for them. We just don’t know.

What we do know, however, is that hoaxes, those admitted by the perpetrators and those discovered by analysis by investigators, have plagued the study of UFOs from the very beginning and beyond. The Great Airship of 1897 seems to have been little more than a fleet of hoaxes launched by those tricksters and liars interested in a good story and a good laugh.

Photographic evidence, unless there is a great deal of it from independent witnesses, is never going to provide us with the final solution to the UFO mystery. All they can do is muddy the waters as we learn how many of those photographs were faked by teenagers with too much time on their hands and access to a camera. It seems that nothing has changed since 1897. The people still enjoy a good joke.

(Note: All the pictures reprodued here are admitted fakes, with the exception of the Trent photos from McMinneville, Oregon. As of today, there is no solid evidence these pictures are faked.)

For those who would like more information about UFO photographs, both real and faked, I have a limited number of Spaceships of the Visitors available for $10.00 (four dollars off the cover price) plus five dollars for shipping and handling (and yes, the postage, envelopes and the like works out to about five bucks).

Send a check or money order to:

Kevin D. Randle

PO BOx 10934

Cedar Rapids, IA 52410

An Editorial Comment

Looking back at many of the columns that I have written for this blog, I am a little disturbed about the negative nature of many of them. I have offered solutions to many sightings, have suggested that some witnesses and researchers are less than reliable, and provided prosaic answers to some of the more interesting mysteries. When I began this, I had envisioned a place where ideas could be discussed calmly and rationally and where we all could search for some of these answers.

The problem, I think, is that as we age, our sense of wonder is tempered, if not ruined, by the intrusion of reality. As a young adult, having had the responsibility as a helicopter pilot and a flight lead in Vietnam before I turned twenty, I still had some of that sense of wonder. I believed that mysterious forces were causing ships and airplanes to disappear in the Bermuda Triangle, I thought there was some kind of undefined and undescribed fantastic creature living in Loch Ness, I thought Bigfoot roamed the more desolate areas of the Pacific Northwest, and believed the Allende Letters might actually be a key to understanding UFOs as was claimed by some researchers.

But then I read Lawrence Kusche’s book, The Bermuda Triangle Mystery - Solved. I had originally bought it believing in the old adage, "Know Your Enemy." If I was going argue persuasively that various craft really did vanish mysteriously in the Bermuda Triangle, I had to understand the arguments against that theory. Here was one book that flew in the face of all the others. One book that offered a solution, as opposed to all the others that offered more mystery.

Imagine my surprise when I found the answers making sense to me. Ships that weren’t really found drifting and abandoned in the Bermuda Triangle as often claimed. In one case, the ship, alleged to be found without crew and abandoned was recovered in the Pacific Ocean and had nothing to do with the Bermuda Triangle. (Wreckage, on the left, from the Marine Sulfur Queen proves it didn't disappear without a trace in the Bermuda Triangle.) That certainly removed it from the rolls of those lost in the Bermuda Triangle.

I had the opportunity to investigate one of the aircraft disappearances, but not as an outside researcher, but as an inside intelligence officer. In the late 1970s, I was assigned to the 928th Tactical Airlift Group of the Air Force Reserve. Our parent organization was the 440th Tactical Airlift Wing and one of its C-119s (a similar aircraft seen below and on the left) had disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle without a trace, according to legend (see Disappearing Aircraft - Part 3: The Bermuda Triangle published here in September 2006).

Since I was now a member of that unit, I could ask questions of my counterparts at the higher headquarters that an outsider or reporter might ask and might be ignored if he thought to ask them. We had a conference there, meaning hosted by the parent unit, and in the course of the conversations, I asked, casually, about the aircraft. I was careful, but only because I didn’t know if any of those I asked had been friends with the crew that had been lost.

I was told then that the aircraft had a history of electrical problems which is a real clue to what happened. I was told that they were lost at the end of a leg which could mean they were tired and not as sharp as they might have been. And, I was told that the crew had reported electrical problems on that flight, which meant, if they lost electrical power, they would lose their flight instruments, and at night, in the kind of weather they were in, not bad, but hazy, the horizon could disappear, meaning the sky merged with the ocean and without that reference, and without instruments, they could become disoriented and crash.

And, I was told that wreckage had been found. The aircraft hadn’t disappeared without a trace. The majority of the aircraft had not been found, but debris identified by serial numbers and markings had been found. This was not a mysterious disappearance, it was a tragic accident that cost the lives of the men involved.

Kusche was able to provide other answers by looking at the primary sources. He found that writers of later books reported information from earlier books, apparently assuming that those first writers had reviewed the primary sources. By looking at the primary sources himself, he learned that disappearances often happened in bad weather, or the facts didn’t check out, or that the ship or airplane had not disappeared without a trace. Some wreckage was found. Many of the mysteries of the Triangle were solved that way.

Which sort of leads us back to the Warren Smith post not so long ago (See Warren Smith: UFO Investigator or Hoaxster, published here in May, 2007). Smith made up stuff when he needed to add detail or credibility to a story. He seemed to think nothing of this. He thought it was part of doing business as a writer of the unusual and paranormal. If you didn’t have what you needed, why you just invented it.

Others, following Smith, then quoted his published work, assuming that some kind of vetting process had taken place. They believed that Smith wouldn’t have made it up and that if the facts didn’t check out, well then, the fact checkers at the publisher would catch them and correct them. The sad truth is that many publishers don’t care what the facts are as long as the book is interesting and the public will buy it. Cash in the pocket is the bottom line and truth has nothing to do with it.

Which, I suppose, brings us to some scientific truth. For the Loch Ness monster to be a real, viable creature, there must be more than one. As an anthropology student at the University of Iowa, I was introduced to the concept of a breeding population. This is the number of animals that must exist to keep a population alive and reproducing. If the number falls too low, say under about thirty healthy individuals, then that population is on the verge of extinction. Any minor disaster can wipe them out. A reduction in the food supply, an outbreak of disease, a reduction in the size of the habitat or just encounters with trigger-happy humans.

This means that there must be thirty or forty creatures in Loch Ness, not just one. And while I can accept the idea that some kind of huge, bottom dwelling creature in the loch could escape detection, even with all the attempts made to find it, it is not so easy to accept the idea that thirty or forty could have done so.
These attempts to find the creature, some of them quite sophisticated and some of them well equipped with the latest technology, should have found something other than rather murky photographs that show something exciting, but only after they have been enhanced.

No, in this case, science seems to suggest that there is no Loch Ness monster. If there was, we’d have better data about it. And like so much of the rest of the paranormal world, the best bits of evidence have been exposed over the years. The surgeon photograph, taken in the 1930s is now an admitted hoax ( seen on the left). There really is no reason to challenge this conclusion given who made it and the circumstances under which he made the claim. Until other, better evidence is presented, we must conclude that there is no monster in Loch Ness.

Which is really what we can conclude about Big Foot. Same problems as with Loch Ness. You need a population large enough to breed and a population of that size would leave bigger and better clues than we have.

Once again, we do not have the proof necessary. We have some poor photographs. We have hundreds of footprints, many of which were left by people who thought it amusing to confuse the issue. We have some hair samples that do not lead us to conclude that an unknown primate is roaming the Pacific Northwest, but that known creatures are.

Which brings us to the Allende Letters, those mysterious documents that so interested the Office of Naval Research back in the late 1950s. The story, as it is usually told, is that a copy of Morris K. Jessup’s The Case for the UFO, apparently annotated by three unidentified, but very knowledgeable men, was received at the Office of Naval Research. Over a period of weeks, a number of letters, obviously written by one or all of those mysterious men, arrived at the home of Jessup. He turned them over to the ONR. Officers there were so impressed with all this, according to the legend, that they had it duplicated, notations and all, and included the letters in an appendix. The Navy began to investigate the claims in the book and because the Navy was involved, it lent a note of authenticity to the story.

The story was a wild one. According to the letters, the Navy, during the Second World War had teleported a ship in an experiment that had something to do with Einstein’s Unified Field Theory. According to Carlos Allende (the man who signed two of the letters, the third was signed by Carl Allen and is seen on the left), the experiment had been a success. The ship was teleported. The sailors, however, were failures. They manifested all sorts of bizarre side effects from their teleportation.

In the early 1970s, while I was still on active duty with the Army, and right after I had returned from Vietnam, I learned that one of those involved in the creation of the annotated copy of Jessup’s book., Sidney Sherby, was working for Varo Manufacturing in nearby Arlington, Texas. I called him to arrange an interview.

He told me that contrary to the published information, the Navy had not been interested in the Allende Letters or the annotated copy of the book ( a sample page seen on the left). Two of the officers there were (Sherby and a guy named Hoover) and the Navy had no objection to their following up on it as long as it didn’t involve any Navy resources or personnel. In other words, according to Sherby, the Navy had no interest in the matter and the investigation was not Navy sponsored.

Then, in the 1970s Carlos Allende appeared at the headquarters of the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization and told the international director, Jim Lorenzen, that the whole thing was a hoax. He’d made it up because the writings of Jessup had scared him. He signed a statement saying that, left a suitcase or two with Lorezen for safe keeping, and left.

But in the world of the paranormal, nothing is that easy. Allende surfaced again several years later saying that his claim of hoax had been coerced by, who else, the CIA, and that the story contained in the letters was all true. The CIA had made him claim it was all a hoax.

Still later, Robert A. Goerman, a researcher living in Pennsylvania, discovered that Allende, or Allen’s family, lived nearby. He investigated and in an article published in the October 1980 issue of Fate, explained the whole tale, concluding, based on the evidence, that the Allende Letter saga was a hoax. It is a conclusion that should be noted because, like so much else, it is often ignored. The man who created the Allende Letters said it was a hoax, those who were at the Office of Naval Research said there was no interest in them by the Navy, and independent investigation has shown the case to be a hoax, and yet, we still discuss it. (In the mid-1970s I wrote an article about my findings... Allende or Allen... saw it and sent an annotated copy back to the magazine and is seen at the left. Yes, those are Allende's markings and comments.)

The point here is not to rehash old UFO cases, or to argue for or against some claim of the paranormal, but to examine what we know, and why it continues to recycle. We have good answers for some cases. The mystery has been solved and when we look at the evidence with an open mind and in a dispassionate way we can seen that the answers are correct.

I believe that we need to publicize those answers periodically, and we must publicize new answers to old cases as we find them so that we can spend our limited time and resources on the cases that deserve them. I believe that we must publish this "negative" information as we learn it so that our whole inquiry can be advanced.

To me, the discovery of an answer for a mystery, the solution to a UFO case is as exciting as the mystery itself. I am delighted that we can look back at the disappearance of the Stardust, an airplane that disappeared without a trace in the late 1940s and say we now know what happened to it. A tragedy for those on board but a mystery that has been solved, in this case, by chance.

And, of course, the discovery of the airplane doesn’t answer one of the questions about that. Just what did the word, "STENDIC" mean? (See Disappearing Aircraft - Part 1: Stardust, August 2006).

So, sometimes it looks as if this blog is negative, but the truth is, I’m just reporting, as accurately as possible, what I see as the truth, positive or negative. Solutions come at us slowly sometimes, and there are those who truly wish we had no solutions so they ignore them, but it is all part of what we do.

Roswell Questions and Answers

Over the course of the last few weeks, British skeptic (or should I say sceptic) Christopher Allen and I have engaged in a discussion of the Roswell case. It was sparked by my thoughts on Sheridan Cavitt, the counter- intelligence agent who accompanied Jesse Marcel out to the debris field in the Roswell UFO crash case. I thought it was of sufficient interest, and of a civil tone, that it might be better to move it to a more prominent place here. For those who wish to read the essay that began this, and the other comments about it, see the Saturday, April 28, 2007 blog which can be accessed under the archives.

In the last of his comments CDA wrote:

Re: David Rudiak and the Ramey memo; you suggest that Rudiak may be right. I am not going into all the intricate letter-by-letter, word-by-word analysis, as this has been done ad nauseam by others. I will instead give what is known as a 'reductio ad absurdum' answer.

If Rudiak is right, this would be the first official document acknowledging an event of momentous importance to the world, namely the discovery of intelligent ET life and its visit to our planet. Therefore there would be (as per my previous posting) several miles deep of official documentation on it, involving the work of countless scientists, committees, institutions, etc etc. As such the GAO would undoubtedly have unearthed this stuff during their searches (which is what they were contracted to do). Since no such documents surfaced and since all the relevant agencies deny the existence of any such documentation, Rudiak is wrong. QED.

Nothing more need be said; but I would rate the chance of Rudiak being right on a par with the chance that the CIA murdered Princess Diana.

Re: the FBI teletype, again there was no follow-up because there was nothing to follow up. The AF explained it all at Ft Worth, hence the FBI decided there was nothing further to do. There are no inaccuracies in the teletype either, merely a disagreement between those at Ft Worth, who had seen the debris, and those at Wright Patterson who had not (at least not at that point). Had there been a follow-up message, that too ought to have been found by the GAO.

The AF were concerned enough about the Arnold sighting to send two officers to interview him, and keep in touch with him. They spent far more time on this case than on Roswell, and there is quite a bit of paperwork on the case. These same officers later died in the plane crash after Maury island (another cover-up of course!).

The Mogul answer fits quite well if you go by the 1947 accounts. It is not such a good fit if you go by accounts given 30-50 years afterwards. It has its problems sure, but it is a far better answer than the ET one. (A 60 year ET secret indeed. And not one iota of hardware or paperwork to back it up).

Brazel held incommunicado by the military for a week? I just don't believe it. Brazel, and other civilians, never once saying anything about this amazing, extraordinary discovery (if that be what it was) until his death? I don't believe that either.

Elsewhere you talk about General Exon. According to Karl Pflock Exon did not even have second-hand evidence about wreckage & bodies, let alone firsthand evidence. His story was based entirely on rumors he had heard at WPAFB. And rumors do not count as secondhand or even thirdhand evidence. They are rumors, nothing else. Perhaps Exon was referring to rumors following the Scully book in 1950, as certainly was Sarbacher in his infamous letter of Nov 1983. (The Exon story is in Pflock's book, p.124. )

David Rudiak and others are clutching at straws. And that is all they ever will be clutching at.

CDA

First, let me say that your (CDA) belief in something or disbelief is totally irrelevant. Believe Mack was held by military authorities or don’t, but the fact is that family members other than Bessie say he was. Military men, including Edwin Easley said he was. Friends saw him in Roswell and friends reported that he complained to them about being held in jail when he visited them within days of his release. True, the guest house on the base is not the same thing as a cell in the sheriff’s office, but if you’re not allowed to leave, then it is close enough. Finally, once again, there are the newspaper articles that put him in Roswell on Wednesday so we know, contrary to what Bessie said, her father did return to Roswell.

There was no one with him when he died in the early 1960s, so we don’t have a "deathbed" statement about it. We do, however, have a number of his friends telling us that Brazel did complain about his treatment on his return from Roswell. It seems that we run into this belief roadblock of yours all the time and when all else fails, you retreat to the "I don’t believe it" tactic.

Second, let me say that I’m not married to Dave Rudiak’s interpretation of the Ramey memo. Clearly some words can be read in memo held by Ramey. Just as clearly there is some wild speculation about many of the other words in it. I have read the various documents about it and even helped design some of the experimentation to check on it (and don’t think that made me a hero in the eyes of the UFO community). While I believe that the evidence in the memo is taken about as far as it can be, and that I doubt we’ll ever have a universally accepted interpretation, there is always the possibility that some sort of breakthrough will allow us to read the memo accurately... and that will be interesting.

But now let’s talk about General Exon. Karl Pflock devoted very little in the way to a discussion of Exon, most of that quite dismissive. Philip Klass, in his book, was even more dismissive, never really addressing the testimony, but rejecting it because of what Pflock had to say about it. Pflock’s attempt, Klass’s attempt and your attempt to dismiss what he said as nothing more than rumor and second or third-hand stories is just flat wrong, an attempt to appeal to authority, and certainly not part of a sustained and intelligent dialogue.

Exon told me, and he told others, that he had flown over the sites in New Mexico. He gave us the orientation that was correct, meaning northwest to southeast. He talked of seeing markings on the ground that include the gouge and then vehicle tracks. If correct, then Mogul is eliminated because Mogul wouldn’t gouge the ground (as Charles Moore told me personally) and there wouldn’t have been two sites. This then, would be first-hand testimony. And I point out, that unlike some others who have been dismissive of Exon (Pflock interviewed him on the telephone once), I met him in person at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, as well as interviewed him on the telephone.

But here’s the total of what Pflock said on page 124, " When first made public in 1991, it seemed Exon’s memories of the possibility that the bodies had been flown from Roswell to Wright Field in 1947 might be based on firsthand information. If so, this would be highly significant, especially since Exon also seemed to have firsthand knowledge of the debris field and crash site, as well as a shadowy high-level group established to keep the truth about Roswell under wraps. However, in a lengthy September 1992 telephone conversation, Exon told me his comments about bodies and debris at Wright Field were based solely upon rumors he heard from colleagues at Wright Field and nothing more. As for the ‘control group,’ he said he was merely making educated guesses as to who likely would have been selected for such a group. Finally, with respect to his all alleged knowledge of the debris and crash sites, he told me he remembered flying over several sites in New Mexico quite some time after July 1947, on missions having nothing to do with the Roswell incident. One such location might have fit what he had been told about the crash site by ufologists because it had vehicle tracks running to it."

That’s all that Pflock has to say about Exon. He references a personal telephone call to Exon, provides nothing in the way of transcripts or tape of that conversation, and then dismisses the testimony as irrelevant and unimportant. Exon didn’t see anything first hand. Exon heard rumors. Exon didn’t fly over the crash site... well, maybe he did, but it was later and it might not have been the right place.

But we don’t have to rely, in my case, on my impressions of what Exon said in private telephone calls that can be filtered through my belief structures. I have the tapes, have published quotes in my books on Roswell, and Exon even said the quotes were accurate. Remember that point. Exon said the quotes were accurate. Exon wrote to me, "Further, you both [Don Schmitt and I] likely recall on many occasions during my visits with you in person and on the phone [please note the phrase, "on many occasions during my visits with you in person and on the phone," which means more than an undocumented telephone conversation offered by Pflock] ...that I did not know anything firsthand. Although I believe you did quote me accurately, I do believe that in your writings you gave more credence and impression of personal and direct knowledge that [sic] my recordings would indicate on their own! I felt that throughout the portions where my name was used." Please note he didn’t like the weight I assigned his statements, but that’s an editorial choice on my part and it in no way compromises the validity of the quotes... "I believe you did quote me accurately."

So, then what did Exon say even if we just take everything and label it as second hand? Exon talked about Roswell debris being flown to Wright-Patterson. "The boys who tested it," Exon said, "said it was very unusual....It had them pretty puzzled." Here 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 takes a big hit which might be why we now have to reduce Exon’s testimony to alleged rumor.

Also remember that Exon said, "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."

It’s 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? Exon said, "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, "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.)

Here’s what we learn from Exon quotes (which Pflock ignores in his book, and which the Air Force ignores in their latest Roswell investigation), (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) "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."

Here’s what Exon said, which is far beyond anything Pflock discussed in his book. You might also want to ask yourself why the Air Force didn’t interview Exon. They certainly could have because he was alive during their investigation and I gave them his telephone number and address (as if they couldn’t have found that themselves). Then, rather than interview some civilians 9like those working on Project Mogul) who had no real knowledge of the Roswell case, they could have talked to one of their own and gotten his impressions... not to mention the taped (video and audio) with other officers who were involved, which they didn’t bother to do.

So, Exon said:

1. He believed the Roswell crash was extraterrestrial. ("Roswell was the recovery of a craft from space.")

2. He said he knew that debris from the crash was studied at Wright-Patterson, and that the debris was extremely unusual. His description matches that of alleged first-hand witnesses and moves it away from Mogul.

3. He said that "apparently" there were bodies found, and that they were located at "another location," or in other words not at the location of the metallic debris. The main body of the craft, he said, was also found there.

4. He said the bodies were taken to Wright-Patterson. He said that one was taken to Denver because the Army had a mortuary service there.

5. He said he flew over the Roswell crash site, and saw the "gouge" the crashed object made in the ground.

6. He said there was a coverup. In fact, he called it (on the tape) "a national coverup project."

Is all of this remarkable? Of course it is. An Air Force general, whose assignment at Wright-Patterson suggests he might have been in a position to know what he was talking about, says, in great detail, that he thinks the Roswell crash was real. Yet, you wish to ignore this testimony and rely on the very little that Pflock offered in the way of evidence for his position on the Exon testimony. Believe or disbelief, the problem here is that Exon was at Wright Field in 1947, he had first-hand knowledge, he talked to people involved in the research, and when questions about the validity of the quotes were raised, Exon verified that they were accurate.

Philip Klass is even more dismissive than Pflock, reducing mention of Exon to a footnote and the claim that Exon was engaging in gossip (or to be accurate, just telling rumors he had heard... rumor being defined as an unverified or unfounded report, story, etc., circulating from person to person). Exon was clear that his information came from specific people who were the ones who conducted the testing on the debris and who were involved in the retrieval and preservation of the bodies of the aliens. Kal Korff was even worse, misinterpreting Exon’s statements and cherry picking the information to fit his preconceived notions.

But the real point is that Exon provided both first and second-hand testimony, based his statements on what he had observed himself and provided by officers he trusted, and who, when push came to shove, verified the accuracy of the quotes I attributed to him.

(NOTE: Yes, some of this is taken from a letter that Greg Sandow wrote on UFO Updates a number of years ago, and from which I quoted in one of my postings about Kal Korff and his suggestions that I was less than accurate in my reporting. In my upcoming Roswell Revisited, from Fate and due out this summer, I go into greater detail about this.)

For those interested, I have limited copies of:

The UFO Crash at Roswell ($5.00)
The Truth about the UFO Crash at Roswell ($10.00 hardback, $5.00 paperback)
and
Roswell UFO Crash Update ($10.00) (in which is information about Frank Kaufmann that is now horribly out of date, which is to say, inaccurate).

Plus $5.00 shipping and handling

Available at :

PO Box 10934
Cedar Rapids, IA 52410

A Roswell Chronology

The chronology of the events outside of Roswell is sometimes very confusing, as bob koford noted in his questions about the Bessie Brazel involvement in the recovery of what she said was a weather balloon. The problem is that we must base some of the chronology on speculation because there are discrepancies in the published record, there are conflicting statements made by witnesses, and there is a confusion caused by the personal agendas of Roswell authors and the point of view of the Air Force.

If we are dealing with a Project Mogul explanation, we probably should start the chronology before Mack Brazel finds anything on his ranch. We need to start with the balloon experiments in Alamogordo.

June 4, 1947 - According to the diary kept be Dr. Albert Crary, the man in charge of the balloon experiments in New Mexico: Out to Tularosa Range and fired charges between 00 and 06 this am. No balloon flight again on account of clouds. Flew regular sonobuoy up in cluster of balloons and had good luck on receiver on ground but poor on plane. Out with Thompson pm. Shot charges from 1800 to 2400.

So we have contradictory accounts here in the only documented source. Charles Moore, who was with Crary on these tests wrote, "My examination of his original handwritten entries suggests that he copied from other notes; the entries from June 2 through the first half of June 5 appear to have been written in one sitting with the same pencil and without any corrections or false starts."

This is really unhelpful because the key Mogul launch is that of Flight No. 4, that is, the June 4 launch. The remains of the other balloon launches were recovered or spotted. The next possible culprit, Flight No. 9, turns out was not a viable alternative, leaving, for the Project Mogul crowd, only Flight No. 4.

What this means is that the flight, which Moore said he remembered got close to Arabella, NM, and which he used winds aloft data to attempt to plot a course some fifty years later, might have come down on the Brazel (Foster) ranch. It would have fallen late on June 4 or early on June 5. It must be stated here that Moore’s calculations take it no closer than 17 miles of the recovery area which, of course, only puts it in the area and not down where Brazel found debris.

June 14, 1947 - According to the article published in the Roswell Daily Record, Brazel said that he and his 8-year-old son were on the range some seven or eight miles from the ranch house when they found the debris.

This suggests that Brazel discovered the material three weeks before he reported it to the sheriff. What doesn’t make sense here is why he would leave it in the field for three weeks, then clean it up himself and then report it to the sheriff.

July 4, 1947 - Brazel, quoted in the Roswell Daily Record, said that he, his wife, son Vernon and 14-year-old daughter Bessie (identified as Betty in the newspaper) went out to the range and cleaned up the debris.

Bill Brazel, who at the time lived in Albuquerque says that the family was in Tularosa because when he arrived at the ranch, no one was there. He was there for a couple of days or so before his father returned from Roswell.

July 6, 1947 - Brazel traveled to Roswell and told local authorities of the debris, according to the time lines developed by various UFO researchers. According to wire service stories dated July 8, "Sheriff [George] Wilcox [Chaves County Sheriff] says the rancher does not have a telephone, and that he did not report finding the disc until the day before yesterday [meaning July 6 here].

This seems to document the Sunday trip by Brazel into Roswell even though later newspaper articles suggest that he didn’t drive into town until Monday, July 7.

July 6, 1947 - Major Jesse Marcel is called by the sheriff and eventually drives out to the ranch with Brazel to see the debris. Marcel would say that he went out with Captain Sheridan Cavitt, who would deny this and then confirm it.Marcel would later say he didn’t know what it was.

July 8, 1947 - Walt Whitmore, Sr., majority owner of KGFL apparently drove out to find Brazel and took him back to Roswell. There he was interviewed at length.

Jud Roberts, the minority owner of the station told various investigators and researchers that they had an hour long recording of Brazel, but before they could broadcast it, they were ordered not to. That recording has long since disappeared.

July 8, 1947 - There are a number of wire service stories. Frank Joyce, who worked at KGFL radio in Roswell at the time, kept teletype messages so that we can see what was being said over the wire.

July 9, 1947 - the Roswell Daily Record supplies office space so that two reporters from the Associated Press can interview Brazel.

Here are the problems. According to ranchers, they wouldn’t leave the debris in the field once they found it because the livestock would eat it and that could prove fatal. They would have picked it up. So, if Brazel had found it on June 14 (which, BTW negates Mogul Flight No. 9), he would have had it cleaned up around that date.

There is conflicting data about the timing of Brazel’s first trip into Roswell. This really isn’t a major concern. We have the story, told by Marcel, of remaining overnight at the Brazel ranch. Bessie Brazel said no to that. Mary Cavitt said no, basing that on her opinion that if her husband had just arrived in Roswell and then was gone overnight, she’d remember.

Clearly Brazel was in Roswell on the evening of July 8 and on July 9. He provided his story to the reporters in Roswell, there are pictures of him there, and there are witnesses to his presence there. There is no reason to reject this idea even though Bessie said that her father did not remain overnight in Roswell.

Both Bill Brazel, who drove from Albuquerque to Corona, and Major Edwin Easley, the provost marshal, said that Mack remained at the base for a number of days. Neighbors report that Mack complained about being held on the base.

This then, provides a chronology of events that might help put it all into perspective. We all can see the problems. We have conflicting data from documents, from witnesses, and from various investigators, researchers and governmental officials. It seems that everyone who comments on this has some sort of agenda so all we can do is attempt to put together the best information we can.

(Be sure to watch for Roswell Revisited, coming from Fate this summer.)

Project Blue Book - Exposed

(Note: A number of years ago, I wrote a book called Project Blue Book - Exposed. It was an examination of cases that had been buried in the Blue Book files for years. Some were quite interesting, including reports of alien creatures. Many more were just misidentifications of natural or human created objects. I looked at the whole range of cases and then selected those that were representative and that would provide a perspective of that investigation. One of the chapters (one of the shorter ones), January 17, 1969: One of the Last of the Unidentifieds, is reproduced here.)

In an example of how the Air Force can’t win for losing, I thought we’d take a look at one of the last cases submitted to Project Blue Book that was labeled unidentified. The Project record (seen below at the left) card stated, "The most likely stimulus was a helicopter with an unusual lighting system. However, a check of the four airports in the area revealed that three definitely did not have any helo activity and the other had destroyed flight records for that date and was therefore unable to say if any helicopter activity originated from their airfield that night. It is also possible that a light aircraft such as an aerial advertiser, the Goodyear blimp, or an aircraft doing infrared photography may have been the stimulus of the sighting. However, because it has not been definitely established that an aircraft of this type was in the area, the sighting is being carried as unidentified."

If that isn’t a load of double-talk, I don’t know what it would be. It might be a helicopter, but we can’t find any records that one was flying that night and in that location. It might be an advertising plane, but there are no records of it, and, at the time of the sighting, about four in the morning, who would be awake to see the thing anyway? It might be the Goodyear blimp, but there are no records that the Goodyear blimp was anywhere near the location of the sighting. Or it might have been an aircraft doing infrared photography, but, again, there are no records to support that suggestion.

Using this same logic, we could suggest it was the space shuttle, though none had been built in 1969. Maybe it was an advance design fighter plane that had a single test flight. Maybe it was an Apollo capsule re-entering the atmosphere, but there are no records of such a flight. Besides, at four in the morning, NASA would miss the best TV audiences.

The case began at 3:24 a.m. on January 17, 1969 in Crittenden, Virginia when Roman K. Lupton was awakened by an unusual sound. He said it was like an electric motor about to go bad. His wife said that she, too, could hear the same, somewhat annoying hum.

According to Lupton, "I went to the bedroom window... looked in the direction of the sound for a few seconds before it came into sight... I watched this object with lights all around the bottom move slowly forward with an up-and-down motion which was also slow, 30 miles per hour, varying not more than 25 feet up and down. It went forward over yard light in my neighbor’s yard next door, a little further forward and started in a banking left turn with the same speed and motion as before. At this point the object seems to tilt and turn instead of changing elevation - except for this banking motion it was the same as it had been previously... At this time as it was turning the blinking light was clearest and possibly could have been the first time I saw it... At this point it went out of sight."

Lupton said that he had seen a series of windows around the bottom of the UFO that were all brightly lighted except one in the rear that blinked. The windows were rectangular and appeared translucent. They allowed the light out but Lupton couldn’t see in, and each seemed to be surrounded by a glow or haze. Lupton could see the center of the craft in the light and said that it was solid, apparently metallic, and reflected some of the light.

Lupton asked his wife if she had seen the object and she said she had. Next he called the operator in Smithfield and was startled when she said that she could hear the sound in the background.

When the noise faded out, Lupton decided that he should alert someone in authority and finally asked the operator to place a call to Langley Air Force Base. He was connected to an airman who took the UFO report.

The next day, Lupton tried to find the operator that he had talked to hoping to establish some corroboration but failed to find her. Finally, on January 22, he spoke to the supervisor who told him that the only thing the operator could have heard was some kind of aircraft. Lupton insisted, but the supervisor was equally insistent. The supervisor refused to supply the name of the operator or even let him talk to her.

Also on January 17, Lupton decided to try find others who might have heard the noise. According to Lupton, "When I got home I started looking for someone... The wife [of his next door neighbor]... remembered her mother saying she had heard something. Sure enough the lady and her three-year-old granddaughter both had heard it. The lady [Louise Bailey] stated ‘it had awakened the girl [Robin Harvill] and both were frightened,’ but the lady did not look out of her window to see what was making the sound... She also stated that ‘it sounded as if it were coming through the roof.’"

The next day, Lupton did the same thing and found another neighbor who said that she had heard the sound. Adrienne Carron (or Corbor, it’s spelled both ways in the Air Force file) said that "the sound was loud and varying and it was coming from almost right on the roof top" and it also frightened her four-year-old daughter, Evelyn.

In the letter that Lupton wrote to the Air Force about the experience, he listed all those who had heard the sound. What is interesting about the list is that the Air Force officers who reviewed the file left in all the names except a Sunday-school teacher, and a hint that someone else had reported the sound to Langley AFB.

The Air Force eventually decided to investigate the case. Almost two months after Lupton filed his report which included the standard Air Force Form 117, that is the UFO form, a NICAP form, a post card, and a road map, the Air Force got into it. Lieutenant Colonel Everett M. Worthington wrote, "After discussing this sighting with Mr. Lupton, I attempted to bring into focus the similarity between his UFO sighting and a jet-powered helicopter. He was not receptive to this line of reasoning."

On April 7, after Lieutenant Colonel Worthington had completed his investigation and suggested a helicopter, Lieutenant Colonel Hector Quintanilla (then chief of Project Blue Book) wrote to a number of agencies around the Crittenden, Virginia area asking if they had any helicopter traffic flying at that time of the morning. All the agencies except one responded they had no traffic in the area. The lone exception was the FAA which reported that such records were destroyed after fifteen days. They didn’t know if there had been any helicopter traffic in the area because they no longer had their records.

The response from Fort Eutis was the most interesting. Not only didn’t they have helicopters flying, Lurlene Martin, the flight scheduling clerk at Felker Army Air Field, said that poor weather conditions had grounded all their aircraft at 9:30 p.m. and they did not resume flying until the following morning. That would seem to suggest poor weather throughout the region that would have kept all helicopter, and other aviation activity such as flying advertisements on the ground.

This one note, in the files, could be quite important only because it suggests that the weather was bad. The poor weather could have been localized and therefore not apply to a larger region. Air Force investigators didn’t bother to find out. They had decided that Lupton saw a helicopter and tried to convince him of it.

The other question is, "If it had been a helicopter, what kind was it?" There was obviously a strange lighting configuration, and it would seem to me, that an investigation could have attacked the problem from that direction. Had they been able to locate a helicopter with a strange lighting configuration on it, that would have gone a long way to solving the case. Even if they couldn’t prove the aircraft was flying at the time of the sighting, the configuration of the lights would have been persuasive evidence. However, there is no indication in the file that the Air Force investigators even tried to do that.

In the end, we are left with a case where one man and his wife apparently saw a strange object and about a dozen others heard the sound it made. That would, of course, rule out hallucination. It does not prove that Lupton saw a flying saucer, just that he did see something strange.

It is too bad that the one of last unidentified UFO sightings in the Project Blue Book files had to be so non spectacular. There were no photographs, radar tracks, or movies taken. It was just a sighting in the early morning caused by a low-flying, and very noisy object.

What might be more important in this is the reaction of the military. Rather than investigate the case, they spent their time trying to convince the witness he had seen a helicopter when the evidence showed that no helicopters were flying in his area at the time of the sighting. And even with those negative results, they noted on the Project Card that a helicopter was the most likely answer.

To that, all I can say is, "Did I miss something?"

And now for the sales pitch. I have a limited number of the hardback copies of the book, Project Blue Book - Exposed, that originally sold for $22.95. For those interested in a copy, I would send it to you for just $10.00 plus shipping and handling of $5.00 (yeah, you have to pay the postage and for the envelop, but hey, you get the book for less than half price and if you tell me how you’d like it inscribed, why, I’d even sign it). For those interested, send a check or money order to:

Kevin Randle
PO Box 10934
Cedar Rapids, IA 52410-0934

Thanks.

Warren Smith: UFO Investigator or Hoaxster

Removed at the request of the original author.

The DuBose Affidavit

In the last few days, those on the UFO UpDates list have been talking about the affidavit made by Colonel (later brigadier general) Thomas DuBose (seen at the left), who had been the Chief of Staff of the Eighth Air Force in 1947. DuBose, along with Brigadier General (later lieutenant general) Roger Ramey were photographed with a balloon remains in Ramey’s office that was supposedly what was found at Roswell.

On September 9, 1991, when DuBose was 90, he provided an affidavit for the Fund for UFO Research. Since many have asked about it, I decided to publish it here. It says:

(1) My Name is Thomas Jefferson DuBose.

(2) My address is redacted.

(3) I retired from the U.S. Air Force in 1959 with the rank of Brigadier General.

(4) In July 1947, I was stationed at Fort Worth Army Air Field [later Carswell Air Force Base] in Fort Worth, Texas. I served as Chief of Staff to Major General (sic) Roger Ramey, Commander, Eighth Air Force. I had the rank of Colonel.

(5) In early July, I received a phone call from Gen. Clements McMullen, Deputy Commander, Strategic Air Command. He asked what we knew about the object which had been recovered outside Roswell, New Mexico, as reported by the press. I called Col. William Blanchard, Commander of the Roswell Army Air Field and directed him to send the material in a sealed container to me at Fort Worth. I so informed Gen. McMullen.

(6) After the plane from Roswell arrived with the material, I asked the Base Commander, Col. Al Clark to take possession of the material and to personally transport it in a B-26 to Gen. McMullen in Washington, D.C. I notified Gen. McMullen, and he told me he would send the material by personal courier to Benjamin Chidlaw, Commanding General of the Air Material Command at Wright Field [later Wright-Patterson AFB]. The entire operation was conducted under the strictest secrecy.

(7) The material shown in the photographs taken in Gen. Ramey’s office was a weather balloon (Ramey crouched, with DuBose seated and the wather balloon). The weather balloon explanation for the material was a cover story to divert the attention of the press.

(8) I have not been paid anything of value to make this statement, which is the truth to the best of my recollection.

It was signed and dated by DuBose. His signature was witnessed by three people, including a notary public which made this a sworn affidavit.

For those interested a photo of the affidavit follows.

(And for those interested, look for Roswell Revisited, an examination of some of the latest information about the Roswell case, coming from Galde Press this summer.)

Bessie Brazel and the Roswell Case

The skeptics believe they have a slam dunk on the Roswell, coming at us with information that simply is not proven as we look at it. Much of it is single witness and contradicts that given by many others. One of the best examples of this is the testimony provided by Bessie Brazel, who seems to be a very nice woman but who stands nearly alone in her testimony.

In the early 1990s, the Fund for UFO Research, FUFOR, initiated a program to gather testimony and affidavits from Roswell witnesses. Naturally, one of those was Bessie Brazel. In her affidavit, she said:

William W. "Mack" Brazel was my father. In 1947, when I was 14, he was the manager of the Foster Ranch in Lincoln County, New Mexico, near Corona. Our family had a home in Tularosa, when my mother, my younger brother Vernon, and I lived during the school year. The three of us spent the summers on the Foster place with dad.

In July 1947, right around the Fourth, did found a lot of debris scattered over a pasture some distance from the house we lived in on the ranch. None of us was riding with him when he found the material, and I do not remember anyone else being with him. He told us about it when he came in at the end of the day.

Dad was concerned because the debris was near a surface-water stock tank. He thought having it blowing around would scare the sheep and they would not water. So, a day or two later, he, Vernon and I went to the site to pick up the material. We went on horseback and took several feed sacks to collect the debris. I do not recall just how far the site was from the house, but the ride out there took some time.

There as a lot of debris scattered sparsely over an area that seems to me now to have about the size of a football field [or about an acre]. There may have been additional material spread out more widely by the wind, which was blowing quite strongly.

The debris looked like pieces of a large balloon which had burst. The pieces were small, the largest were small, the largest I remember measuring about the same as the diameter of a basketball. Most of it was a kind of double-sided material, foil-like on one side and rubber-like on the other. Both sides were grayish silver in color, the foil more silvery than the rubber. Sticks, like kite sticks, were three inches wide and had flower-like designs on it. The "flowers" were faint, a variety of pastel colors, and reminded me of Japanese paintings in which the flowers are not all connected. I do not recall any other types of material or markings, nor do I remember seeing gouges in the ground or any other signs that anything may have hit the ground hard.

The foil-rubber material could not be torn like ordinary aluminum foil can be torn. I do not recall anything else about the strength or other properties of what we picked up.

We spent several hours collecting the debris and putting it in sacks. I believe we filled about three sacks, and we took them back to the ranch house. We speculated a bit about what the material could be. I remember dad saying "Oh, it’s just a bunch of garbage."

Soon after, dad went to Roswell to order winter feed. It was on this trip that he told the sheriff what he had found. I think we all went into two with him, but I am not certain about this, as he made two or three trips to Roswell about that time, and we did not go on all of them. (In those days, it was an all-day trip, leaving very early in the morning and returning after dark.) I am quite sure that it was no more than a day trip, and I do not remember dad taking any overnight or longer trips away from the ranch around that time.

Within a day or two, several military people came to the ranch. There may have been as many as 15 of them. One or two officers spoke with dad and mom, while the rest of us waited. No one spoke with Vernon and me. Since I seem to recall that the military were on the ranch most of a day, they may have gone out to where we picked up the material. I am not sure about this, one way or the other, but I do remember they took the sacks of debris with them.

Although it is certainly possible, I do not recall anyone finding any more of the material later. Dad’s comment on the whole business was, "They made one hell of a hullabaloo out of nothing."

Since she gave that affidavit, she has been interviewed by others. The story told to them is substantially the same as that in the affidavit, though, when interviewed by John Kirby and Don Mitchell told them, "I wasn’t terribly excited or interested in it [the debris recovery] when it happened and I haven’t really gotten any more interested in it."

She did said that her father had found the debris sometime before July 4 and that she, her father and her brother Vernon, collected it. She said, "We had three or four sacks... we stuffed the sacks and tied [them] to the saddle... Dad just stuck it [the sacks of debris] under the steps."
It was the following week that her father took the debris into Roswell. She confirmed to Kirby and Newman that she, her mother and brother had gone with him. While he was in the sheriff’s office, they were in a nearby park. She said, "He was there quite a while because it was late afternoon or early evening when we started back to the ranch."

According to her, when they returned, they were not followed by any military vehicles. That means that the testimony of Jesse Marcel was in error. It also means that Sheridan Cavitt and his testimony is in error, if we accept that of Bessie.

She said, "They didn’t go with us. They came up, I don’t know, if it was the next day or a couple of days later."

She also said that they had cleaned the field and picked up all the debris. She said that they had it all. There was nothing for Marcel or Cavitt to see when they went to the field. In fact, in talking with ranchers in the area about this debris, whether from a Mogul balloon array or an alien spacecraft, I learned that they would not allow this sort of thing to remain out there. The animals had a habit of eating things like that as part of their grazing and if the animals eat it, it would make them sick. Brazel would clean it up as quickly as possible.

If we believe Bessie, then her father did not clean it up right away, but did within a couple of days. Yet, we know that when Marcel arrived, there was a large field filled with debris. And, if we want to reject the testimony of Marcel, there is Cavitt. While his description of the debris field suggests it was smaller than that suggested by Marcel, he still said there was debris out there for them to find and for him to identify as the remains of a balloon.

So, Bessie’s story is contradicted by both Marcel and Cavitt, one who thought it was a spacecraft and one who said it was a balloon. It doesn’t matter which side of the fence you come down on, there is testimony to contradict what Bessie remembers. She is stand alone on this.

Bessie also said that her father didn’t return to Roswell a day or so later and there is nothing in her affidavit to suggest otherwise. She added, telling Kirby and Newman that if he had gone to Roswell and didn’t return for three or four days, there would have been hell to pay. There was no reason for him to return to Roswell after they all had gone there earlier in the week.

But once again, there is evidence that such is not the case. First, and probably best, is the article that appeared in the Roswell Daily Record on July 9. Mack Brazel was photographed while there. He gave an interview to two AP reporters at the newspaper office in Roswell. Clearly, he returned to Roswell at some point. Bessie’s memory of the events is wrong about his not returning.

Major Edwin Easley was the provost marshal in Roswell in 1947. He told me that Mack Brazel had been held in the guest house for several days. Brazel said he was in jail and I suppose that if you’re not allowed to leave without escort, and that the doors are locked, then being in the guest house is about the same thing.

Bill Brazel, Bessie’s older brother told me that he saw an article about his father in one of the Albuquerque newspapers and realized that his father needed help. When Bill arrived at the ranch, his father was not there and didn’t return for three or four days. In fact, according to Bill, there was no one at the ranch at that time.

Neighbors like Marian Strickland told me that Mack had complained to her about being held in jail. Although she didn’t see Mack until after the events, she did say that he sat in her kitchen complaining about being held in Roswell. While there is some second-hand aspect in this, Strickland was telling me that Mack complained to her and her husband that he had been held in Roswell.

Walt Whitmore, Jr., son of the KGFL radio’s majority owner, told me that he had run into Brazel early in the morning after Brazel spent the night at his father’s house. This was before Brazel was taken out to the base. Whitmore claims that Brazel told him about the debris an Whitmore said that he then drove out there to see the field. He claimed to have picked up some of the debris, which he said was part of a balloon. He kept it for years, he said, but when the time came to produce it, he could not.

Here’s another important point. Bessie said that she recognized the material as a balloon. So, we have a 14-year-old girl who knows a balloon when she sees one, but the air intelligence officer, not to mention several others, are incapable of this. If the material was so readily identifiable to some, especially civilians, why were so many in the military fooled? And why the high powered effort to recover it, if it was only a balloon?

What this means, simply, is that there are a number of witnesses and a newspaper articles that shows that Mack was in Roswell overnight. It means that Bessie’s memories of July 1947 agree with nothing else. It means that when all the evidence is aligned against a specific claim, we must reject the claim.

I’m sure that Bessie was trying to help and I’m equally sure that she is mistaken about these events. There are too many facts and too many witnesses who contradict her story. It is possible that she is right and everyone else is wrong, but it’s not very likely.

For a more comprehensive look at the latest information about the Roswell case, watch for Roswell Revisited, a book length examination of the case, coming this summer.

Sheridan Cavitt and the Roswell Crash

We have seen Jesse Marcel, Sr. beat up over the interview that he gave to Bob Pratt of the National Enquirer. We have seen every remark he made scrutinized for every nuance, every misstatement that can be turned into a lie, and every flaw in his record turned into a reason not to believe him.

On the other side of the aisle, we see Sheridan Cavitt as the poster boy for the balloon theory. Cavitt, who made many statements about his involvement, or lack of involvement, seems to have received a pass on this. So, let’s look at the record.

My first interview with Cavitt was held on January 29,1990 while Cavitt and his wife Mary stayed in Sierra Vista, Arizona. They had rented a small apartment there to get away from the weather in Sequim, Washington where they lived the rest of the year. Cavitt was cordial but careful in what he said. He made it clear that he had not been involved in any balloon retrievals, that he had no time for that sort of nonsense, and in fact, hinted that he hadn’t even been in Roswell at the time, so it couldn’t have been him.

He did say that if he had written a report, it would have gone to Washington and not to the 8th Air Force, parent organization of the 509th Bomb Group. This makes sense to me because Cavitt was with the Counter-Intelligence Corps (CIC) and his chain of command ran through them and not the 509th.

He said that witnesses who put him on the crash site were wrong and asked me why I thought they would say that. I thought at the time because he was there, but I didn’t say that. I would later learn that I was right.

During that interview, he was only nervous once and that was when we began talking about the bodies. He looked at me, leaned forward and picked up a magazine, sat back, tossed the magazine to the table and asked "Bill Rickett tell you that?"

Lewis "Bill" Rickett (seen at the left) was the non-commissioned officer in charge (NCOIC) of the CIC office in Roswell in July 1947. Cavitt worked closely with him.

When I said, "No," Cavitt visibly relaxed.

I saw him again in 1993, when Don Schmitt and I visited him at his home in Washington. He told us that he had been sent to Roswell on Special Order No. 121, dated 11 June 1947. He was given a five day delay in route. He claimed not to have been physically present at Roswell in early July, 1947, so he could not have been involved in the retrieval. That, we would learn later was not accurate.

During the interview held on March 27, 1993, Cavitt again said that he had not gone out to the Brazel ranch. We talked about that for a while and then Cavitt asked, "Are you guys convinced that I wasn’t there."

Mary Cavitt said, "If he had been way overnight, at that time... I would for sure remember it."

I mentioned that there were some problems with the Marcel testimony, meaning the things that Pratt had reported.

Cavitt said, "You better believe that. He [Marcel] says I was out there is his biggest problem."

But then, as we continued to talk with Cavitt, he made it clear that he was, in fact, in Roswell at the right time. He had just arrived, or was about to arrive, depending on the date of the crash and his mood at the moment. His wife had arrived on July 2, after a wedding in Oregon and Cavitt was supposed to have arrived a day or so after that.

The last personal interview with Cavitt took place on June 25, 1994, just weeks after Colonel Richard Weaver had been there for the Air Force investigation of Roswell. We covered much of the same ground. I mention that Marcel had identified him as the one who went out to the site. That Marcel had described him as "a good west Texas boy from San Angelo."

Cavitt said, "Sort of nails me, doesn’t it?" But he would go no further, and even though Weaver had identified him as the man who had gone out with Marcel, and that interview would be published, Cavitt still tried to make us believe that he had not participated in the event. This despite what Marcel said and what Rickett said.

What all this boils down to is that Cavitt said he wasn’t in Roswell at the time of the recovery, that he was there but that he didn’t go out, he didn’t go out with Marcel, that he was involved in no recoveries of balloon debris, he wasn’t gone overnight, and he doesn’t know why he was cast into this role.

It is, you might say, Cavitt’s word against Marcel, and if you are in the debunker camp, you naturally fall on the side of Cavitt. He was just a good officer, doing his duty, at that time the only living witness according to the story, of what happened at the Brazel (Foster) ranch. So, who do you believe?

To answer that, let’s take a look at Cavitt’s testimony to Colonel Weaver, who visited him in 1995. That interview was published in Air Force produced, The Roswell Report: Fact vs Fiction in the New Mexico Desert (and we’ll see who wrote the fiction as we try to sort through all of this).

Remember that Cavitt told me, on tape and in other conversations that he had not participated in any balloon recoveries (Storm clouds over a portion of the debris field in 1989). Remember also, he was quite clear that he had not gone out with Marcel. That he wished Marcel hadn’t named him. He said, "You better believe that. He says I was out there is his biggest problem."

Now, here is what he told Weaver. "Well, there again I couldn’t swear to the dates, but in that time, which must have been July, we heard that someone had found some debris out not to far from Roswell and it looked suspicious; it was unidentified. So, I went out and I do not recall whether Marcel went with Rickett and me; I had Rickett with me. We went out to his site. There were no, as I understand, checkpoints or anything like that (going through guards and that sort of garbage) we went out there and we found it. It was a small amount of, as I recall, bamboo sticks, reflective sort of material that would, well at first glance, you would probably think it was aluminum foil, something of that type. And we gathered up some of it. I don’t know where we even tried to get all of it. It wasn’t scattered, well, what I would call, you know, extensively. Like it didn’t go along the ground and splatter off some here and some there. We gathered up some of it and took it back to the base and I remember I had turned it over to Marcel. As I say, I do not remember whether Marcel was there or not on the site. He could have been. We took it back to the intelligence room... in the CIC office."

So, here we now have Cavitt saying that he had gone out on a balloon recovery, that he might have gone out with Marcel, but he wasn’t sure, that he was involved in the recovery in early July, and that he might have turned over some of the recovered material to Marcel.

Weaver’s next question was, "What do you think it was when you recovered it?"

"I thought it was a weather balloon."

So Cavitt was able to identify it immediately. To me, Weaver’s next question, given the history of the case, should have been, "Did you communicate this rather important piece of information to Marcel?"

Instead, he asked, "Were you familiar with weather balloons at the time?"

And Cavitt said, "I had seen them."

It has always been an article of faith that the Mogul balloon array was unusual enough that it could stump the people who found it (One of the arrays seen at the left). Because it wasn’t a single balloon, but many, with many radar reflectors and long strings connecting everything, people who were familiar with weather balloons might not recognize them as such. But Cavitt claimed that he did. More importantly, he didn’t bother to tell Marcel what it was.

What we now know is that Marcel said that Cavitt had gone out there with him, but Cavitt had made it clear that he had not. We know that Marcel was right on that point, given Cavitt’s new information that Marcel might have been with him. It isn’t Marcel vs Cavitt here, but Cavitt vs Cavitt.

We can go further. Remember Cavitt said, "There were no, as I understand, checkpoints or anything like that (going through guards and that sort of garbage) we went out there and we found it."

Cavitt said he was with Rickett. Here is what Rickett said about that in a taped interview conducted by Don Schmitt, "I [meaning Rickett], Marcel went back out there that same afternoon. This time they had some security people from the Provost Marshal’s office out there."

Just so we have this straight, because it could be argued that Cavitt had not seen the security out there because it was put there after he had been in the field, Rickett said, "Cavitt and I came back together and I’m not sure if Marcel came with us... it was being protected..." So, Rickett was out there more than once, he was with Cavitt on, at least one of those trips, and Rickett saw the guards.
Later, to confirm this, Rickett said, "On the road we drove on, [there were] MP s standing there..."

The argument here is between Rickett and Cavitt. Cavitt said no guards and Rickett said guards. Others, such as Judd Roberts, William Woody and even C. Bertram Schultz said there were checkpoints along the dirt roads leading off the main highways to the north and west. This means that Cavitt was wrong on that point as well.

If we look at his description of the debris that he claimed he picked up, we find that it doesn’t match Project Mogul. There weren’t bamboo sticks in it. Balsa wood, yes. His description of the crash site matches no one else, including that supplied by Bessie Brazel, daughter of Mack, and who told investigators what she, her father and her brother Vernon, had seen. She also said that they picked up the debris so there was nothing in the field for Cavitt to see. But that is something to examine in another post.

What this means is that the testimony given by Cavitt is not very reliable. Clearly he was saying to Weaver what Weaver wanted him to say. Clearly, he was telling me things that were not consistent and that have since been proven false. He even proved to me that his statement that he wasn’t in Roswell was wrong because he showed me copies of his orders assigning him there.

This means that we must look at the statements provided by Cavitt and compare them with the statements of others. Do they fit into the picture, or it is Cavitt standing alone, making statements that are not corroborated by others. With Cavitt, even the man who worked directly under him, is contradicting him and as I noted, Cavitt doesn’t even agree with Cavitt.

While this doesn’t prove that Roswell involved extraterrestrial contact, it does show the extraordinary effort the Air Force went to in 1947 and later in 1994 to prove that it was just a weather balloon (yes, but Mogul was made up of weather balloons). And it shows that the testimony of Sheridan Cavitt, like so many others, isn’t completely reliable.