Baker Overland "Finds the REAL Roswell Crash Site," or How to Pretend to Investigate the Case

 

Normally, I ignore many of these analyses of the Roswell case. Baker Overland just posted “I Found the REAL Roswell Crash site.” I was interested in the real crash site but all he did was trespass on private property and cross Bureau of Land Management land (BLM) without permission. The real site he found, was the one that Don Schmitt and I located in 1989 with the help of Bill Brazel.

Bill Brazel and Don Schmitt on the "Real" crash site in 1989 They are standing

near the spot where Baker Overland stood to make his video. Photo by Kevin

Randle.

Let me back up a moment. He tells us about Mac Brazel, not realizing he was really Mack Brazel. He mispronounces Brazel and Carey, gives us pictures of people who were in Roswell at the time, but the pictures not of those people. We get plenty of video of him driving around in New Mexico that has little to do with the topic. Although he talked of doing a deep dive, it was into the shallow end of the pool.

We get him standing at the northwest corner of the Debris Field. Bill Brazel took Don and me there. Baker Overland talks of it being a crater. His analysis of the size of the saucer based on the size of the crater is utter nonsense. According to Bill Brazel, who was on the site within days of his father reporting it to the Army in Roswell, said there was a gouge. It was narrow at the top, spread out to about ten feet across at the center and then narrows at the other end. In other words, the object skipped along the ground before becoming airborne again. He never made it to the impact site where the craft and bodies were found. He apparently never made it that far in his Internet research.

He travels over to the VLA, the Very Large Array, radio telescope facility. He hints that it might have been built in New Mexico because of the Roswell crash… no, it was the isolation of the area and the terrain that helped isolation that was the reason for the location of the VLA. Nice pictures but it has nothing to do with Roswell.

The VLA near Magdalena, New Mexico. Photo by Kevin Randle.

He mentions Mogul, telling us the ultimate purpose of it but fails to mention that what was going on in New Mexico was unclassified. The balloon arrays were long but there was nothing on them that would have fooled anyone. And, the culprit in this, Mogul Flight No. 4, was cancelled. It never flew.  Charles Moore, one of the engineers on Mogul, told me that Flight No. 4 was configured the same as Flight No. 5, but there were no rawin targets on Flight No. 5. I suppose this is somewhat confusing, but I’ve made this argument on this blog several times and in one of those posts, are reference to several of the others. You can access that information here:

https://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2021/05/coast-to-coast-mogul-and-updates.html

Charles Moore, champion of the Mogul theory. His analysis of the
information is a complete invention not based on the facts of the case.
Photo by Kevin Randle 

I guess the point is that he didn’t find the Roswell crash site because Don and I had already located it with the help of Bill Brazel. He provides a brief history that is untrue. Had he tried a little harder he would have learned more about the case. He never made it to the impact site, though Don and I were there in 2023 when Netflix’s Unsolved Mysteries spent an hour on the case. He brought in a lot of material that wasn’t even good speculation. It was one of the worst examples of putting Roswell in the title as click bait, implying he had found the real site, but Don and I had been there decades earlier.

Don and me on the impact site about thirty miles southeast of the Debris
Field, the real crash site. Photo taken in July 2023 for the Netflix Roswell story.

This is the problem with the Internet. There is a great deal of information on about any topic you care to research. But this also takes time to understand how that information fits together. This was just a reason to use Roswell in the title and spend a little time in New Mexico. Real research requires due diligence. That didn’t happen here.

Nick Pope is Gone

 

For those who might have missed the sad news, Nick Pope, onetime British Ministry of Defence UFO expert has died. His wife, Elizabeth Weiss said, “My heart is breaking. Nick passed away this afternoon (April 6) at our home."

Nick Pope at the Las Vegas Crash Conference.

Inside the UFO community, Nick was well known for his expertise on the subject and for the insider information he offered. He was a cautious researcher who was bound by his connections to official documents that often required him to protect some of the information he had learned from classified sources. But his intimate knowledge of the UFO phenomena provided him with an insight to many of the important cases.

With Jim Penniston and John Burroughs, he wrote what is one of the best books about the Rendlesham Forest UFO sightings of late December 1980. His book, along with that written by Charles Halt, who was the deputy commander at the time, provides us with a greater understanding of that event.

I met with Nick on several occasions and even shared a dinner table with him. Quite naturally, our talk surrounded UFOs. Although we sometimes differed on certain UFO cases, it was always a cordial conversation. His knowledge was extensive and his contacts were many. He brought a clarity to the topic that others failed to grasp.

Elizabeth Weiss provided some of the medical details, telling us that Nick suffered from Stage 4 esophageal cancer that took his life at 60. It is always a sad note when a colleague passes. We begin to think of what we should have done when we had the chance. I wish his wife my best in this tragic time.

Mike Rogers "Confesses" to the Hoax

 

When I learned that Mike Rogers had passed, I put a short note up on this blog. It wasn’t so much an obituary as a notice that he was gone. I shared some of my interactions with him which I believed to be of interest, but drew no real conclusions about the validity of some of the things he’d said in the past.

Mike Rogers. Photo Courtesy of Mike Rogers.

Charlie Wiser posted a comment to that article that said:

Mike Rogers' daughter took his confession on his death bed - he confessed (for the second time) to hoaxing the TW sighting with Travis, confirming his role at the fire tower (the UFO) - he was to stop at a certain viewing point for Travis to get out, then generate panic in the truck and drive away fast after the zapping, to leave the impression Travis was abducted. Given the various changes and contradictions in their stories over the years in response to skeptical pushback, this version fits the actual facts.

Mike also confessed to the first part of the Phoenix Lights (V-shape) in which he was so interested for the past 20 years. If we read his "speculation" as confession - a lightweight wire-and-plastic construction lifted by helium, with DEFINITELY!! exactly 7 lights no matter what people reported, released near Prescott that traveled with the wind speed and direction to Casa Grand - we might solve that part of the sighting. He agrees the second part was flares.

Before I announced on Coast-to-Coast AM that Rogers was gone, I had read the comment. I told the executive producer about it with the caveat that I had not had a chance to vet the information and I wasn’t comfortable mentioning the hoax claim. I did know about some of the acrimony between Travis Walton and Mike Rogers and I knew they had put it behind them. So, I just made the announcement about Rogers’s passing on air and let it go at that.

Travis Walton at the Roswell UFO Festival.

Now I have the other side of the story, which has done nothing to resolve the issue, but does give us, well, a different perspective. André Skondras posted the following that is relevant:

Somewhere In The Skies podcaster Ryan Sprague shared Jennifer Stein’s response regarding Mike Rogers’ alleged deathbed confession about the Travis Walton case. Stein has a wonderful documentary called “Travis: The True Story of Travis Walton.”

“I think it’s incredibly disrespectful to tamper with Mike’s final statements. I do not believe he made any kind of deathbed confession, because filmmaker Patrick James visited him three days before his passing and got a completely different story directly from Mike. Patrick James, an Arizona filmmaker, will be releasing a documentary about the Walton case soon.

‘If this were truly a final statement, why didn’t his daughter post the audio? Why just a text, and then take it down? A lot of things don’t add up. I don’t believe it’s a legitimate post. I suspect it’s Charlie Wiser trying one last time to convince the world that the Walton case is a hoax. I find this behavior sad and disrespectful. I had very nice, respectful texts with Mike Rogers in the weeks before he passed, and he never mentioned any of this.’”

[https://youtube.com/.../UgkxJkWlurO32s0SAlrY...](https://youtube.com/.../UgkxJkWlurO32s0SAlrY...)

Full interview:

[https://www.youtube.com/live/iNo6BqnzY2Q...](https://www.youtube.com/live/iNo6BqnzY2Q...)

[https://x.com/likeitmatters3/status/2036941617685553567?s=43](https://x.com/likeitmatters3/status/2036941617685553567?s=43)

But to repudiate this information, Wiser published the following to the comments of the previous post. “His daughter published a summary of it on Quora - she says it was recorded. She's deleted the post now but a screenshot is on my Twitter. She's currently deciding how best to release the information.”

Although this is evidence that she posted it, that she has since deleted is currently significant. That she said that there was a recording is also significant, as is the fact that the information is no longer available to us. Without that recording, we aren’t left with much evidence expect the apparent fact that she did post it.

I confess that I’m confused by all this and it is something that happens far too often in the UFO field. I can’t count the number of times that I have run into this sort of thing. Two completely different points of view proving that a certain case is a hoax and the other underscoring the importance and validity of the event. Just look at the rumors, half-truths and outright lies that surround the Roswell crash case.

On the other hand, it is often important that we have all the information about a case, a report, a statement that illustrates the conflict so that we might come to a conclusion that fits our belief structure. This means that some who know that there is no alien visitation believe any UFO sighting that isn’t a mistaken view of natural world phenomena about us is a hoax. On the other side are the true believers who accept any story about alien visitation no matter how outlandish that claim might be.

I try to fall in the middle of that continuum because I don’t know that alien visitation is impossible but that I would like some stronger evidence proving that visitation. Here is an example of what I mean because there are two camps. Either Walton was abducted by aliens or he invented the tale with some help.

I could argue either side of the debate because the published information. Philip Klass’s attack on the case is filled with holes, but there are contradictions in Walton’s story as well. There are Roger’s statements that no one saw Walton abducted because they had driven off. So, where was he for those five days? It is a case of I just don’t know.

But the point here is that the tale of a “deathbed confession” by Rogers doesn’t seem to be accurate. That, of course, leaves us right where we were when we entered the debate. Logic suggests it must be a hoax given the problems of interstellar travel and some of the best evidence suggests that Walton was “taken.” To draw a proper conclusion, we simply need more and better information.

Mike Rogers Has Died

 Mike Rogers, who was the leader of the logging crew that included Travis Walton, died on February 6, 2026. He became something of a controversial character in the tale, often accompanying Walton to various UFO conventions, appeared with him on several documentaries, and was a featured character in the movie about the abduction, Fire in the Sky. He eventually said that no one saw Walton abducted, but seemed to believe that was what happened.

He was a gifted artist and many of the drawings and paintings of the Walton case were the work of Rogers. He was also somewhat hot headed and sometimes saw conspiracy where none existed. When I interviewed him for my X-Zone radio show and podcast, there was a glitch in the taping which he believed was our attempt to sensor some of the things he said. It was just a glitch which arose out of the complications of creating a show with the host in Iowa, the guest in Arizona and the producer in Canada. Sometimes the Internet did not cooperate and sometimes mistakes were made.

Rogers's interpretation of the Walton aliens. Used with
permission of Mike Rogers.

During that interview, Rogers said that the Phoenix Lights were not the important sightings. He, among others in widely spread parts of Arizona and southern Nevada had seen a large, triangular object that traveled across most of Arizona. He provided a detailed description of that UFO, but the lights seen over Phoenix dominated the news media reporting of the events that night.

As we discussed the Walton abduction, I told him I thought it was a little chicken that he and the others left Walton behind. True, they did return, but that was after Walton disappeared. That is, of course, why no one saw Walton abducted, but they did see him hit with that beam of light.

On March 19, 2021, Mike Rogers in a Facebook post wrote, "I, Michael H. Rogers, being of sound and rational mind, do hereby give notice that I am no longer to be considered a witness to Travis C. Walton's supposed abduction of November 5, 1975.”

That set off a firestorm of controversy. After that, Rogers told me that he not only hadn’t seen Walton abducted, but that he had been saying that for years. It was only in 2021, that people noticed. Given that discussion, I wasn’t sure exactly what Rogers was saying but note that it doesn’t bode well for the Walton tale.

To make matters worse, a couple of days later, Rogers told movie producer Ryan Gordon, " We were talking about creating a UFO hoax, okay? I don't know how the UFO got there. But I remember... when I was driving the truck and he jumped out; it was all deliberate. It was all a staged thing, okay? He ran up there and there was something about the UFO not being real, although it looked real.’”

Rogers and Walton later reconciled and Rogers issued a statement retracting his confession but the damage was done. And there was the important point that Rogers said that no one saw the abduction and that, of course, included Rogers.

I am told by others that Rogers liked to carve, built furniture and had a silly side. I had heard that he wasn’t well these last few months, and am surprised that word of his passing is nearly six weeks old. He was 78

Why Jesse A. Marcel Dropped out of the Investigation

People occasionally ask me why Jesse Marcel, Sr. was left out the investigation once he had returned from the Debris Field with samples of the strange, metallic material. They say that you don’t leave your Intelligence Officer out of the investigation.

Good question and interesting point.

Fran Ridge and I were discussing who ran security at the Impact Site, he mentioning Robert T. Darden and me saying it was Major Edwin Easley. The documentation seemed to be on my side in this, but that doesn’t matter here. The point was that it caused me to review the transcripts of the separate interviews with Bill Rickett conducted by Don Schmitt and Mark Rodeghier. Turns out there was a clue about why Marcel disappeared from the event after he had gone out of the Debris Field.

Rickett, in describing his trip to the Impact Site, mentioned that they had expected Marcel to be there, but he wasn’t. Given the time line, the reason was that Marcel had been sent to Fort Worth with samples of the debris. While the investigation was continuing in Roswell, and had shifted to the Impact Site where the craft and bodies were found, Marcel was in Fort Worth meeting, first with General Ramey and later with the press. Although Marcel had been ordered not to say anything to reporter J. Bond Johnson, who took six photographs of the balloon debris, he was later quoted in the Fort Worth Star-Telegraph about what he had seen.

Don Schmitt and me on the Impact Site. It was much closer
to Roswell than the Debris Field near Corona.

By the time that Marcel returned from Fort Worth, the clean up on the Impact Site had been completed, the material taken to the base and stored in a hangar there.

Marcel was out of the loop for two reasons. First, he had been identified in the press release, which made him a target for reporters. That wasn’t a problem, because, he was in Fort Worth while the investigation and clean up continued in Roswell. Once Ramey declared it was a weather balloon, the reporters disappeared. Second, by the time he returned, the investigation, such as it was, had been completed in Roswell. If the craft was alien, the information about it would have been classified as top secret. There was no reason to expose Marcel to what had been learned while he was in Fort Worth. There was nothing he could add to the discussion at that point.

Did Marcel know about the recovery of the bodies? I would say, based on my experience as an Intelligence Officer, probably. But he hadn’t seen them. He had heard about them but he was uncomfortable talking about something that he hadn’t seen with his own eyes. He had seen the debris field and tested some of the debris. He said that it was from something that had not been made on Earth. He had not seen the bodies. As I say, I suspect that he had heard the rumors, but to him they were only rumors. He didn’t mention them for that reason.

It was Rickett’s statement about Marcel coming out to the Impact Site that sort of triggered these thoughts. You don’t expose more people to the secrets than are necessary. With the cleanup complete, there was no reason to bring Marcel into the event. It was over.

In fact, it seems that Marcel had asked Sheridan Cavitt, the CIC OIC in Roswell about a report he had written. Cavitt refused to show it to him, suggesting again, that Marcel had no need to know. The event was over.

And Ben Franklin had said that three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead. You simply did not provide information to someone who had no need to know, and by the time Marcel returned from Fort Worth, he had no need to know.

Okay, let the firestorm begin… I just handed in the book manuscript that I have been working on these last several months and am between projects. For those keeping score at home, I’m about to begin another of the Vietnam Ground Zero books written by “Eric Helm.” 

Did the Balloon Debris Ever Reach Wright-Patterson AFB?

 

David Rudiak

Every once in a while, something new about the Roswell case pops up. David Rudiak was making a somewhat routine search of the newspapers from July 1947 and found the following from the Dayton Hearld for July 9. You might say that it provides a different perspective on our ongoing search for evidence about the Roswell events.

According to the newspaper, under the headline, “Field Test ‘Out’ On ‘Flying Disc.’”

Wright Field will not receive the weather device which for a while yesterday was believed to be a flying disc.

Plans to send the object here for study were changed when the identification was made.

The office of technical intelligence received the following message from headquarters of the Army Air Forces this morning:

“In view of positive identification of this object as a Rawin high altitude sounding device (radar target) it appears unnecessary to forward it to you.”

The FBI telex that went out from Fort Worth on the evening of July 8, was based on an interview of Major Curtan (who, in reality, was Major Kirton) who told the FBI agent that the object was “hexagonal in shape and was suspended from a ballon (sic) by cable, which ballon (sic) was approximately twenty feet in diameter… Disc and balloon being transported to Wright Field by special plane for examin[ation].”

To me, the news article suggests that the material was not sent on to Wright Field because it was identified in Fort Worth as a common weather balloon and not an alien space craft. There was no reason to send it to Wright Field with the identification and photographs made in Fort Worth. That would suggest that the interviews conducted by the Air Force in 1994 reflected poor memory about the event but were important because they underscored the Mogul explanation.

The article says the balloon and the rawin
target were not sent on to Wright-Pat.

And, I suppose the skeptics will say that it was just one more way to cover up the super-secret Mogul project. Why bother with follow up interviews or ask to see the balloon and rawin target at Wright Field because it was identified as just a common balloon and radar target?

But looking at the interviews conducted by the Air Force, several of the retired officers were asked, specifically, about a cover up. Albert Trakowski, told Colonel Jeffrey L. Butler and First Lieutenant James McAndrew, “Concerning a cover story for the project Mogul, there was no planned cover story. I do not recall any documentation nor any efforts develop a cover story even though security for Mogul was of great concern.”

And, Trakowski said, “I became aware of this only after Colonel [Marcellus] Duffy called me from Wright Field from his home. This was just an informational call, he just wanted to let me know that someone had come to him with some debris from New Mexico and he said, ‘this sure looked like some of the stuff that you launched from Alamogordo.’ Duffy was very familiar with the various apparatus and materials for the project, so if he said that it was debris from the project, I’m sure that’s what it was. He was not concerned with a breach of security for the project.”

What we have here, then, are Trakowski and Athelstan F. Spilhaus, relating what Colonel Duffy might have done. Spilhaus wrote, “All the NYU personnel had left Alomogordo [sic] when the ‘material’ was brought in – someone stated that it may have been Col Duffy’s and therefore was sent to him at Wright-Patterson – not because it was extraterrestrial. It is a logical reason to send it (the debris from the desert) there – not because it was special – Col Duffy was a fine officer and I’m sure he’d recognize it.”

Trakowski and Spilhaus, as second-hand witnesses, were providing information about the debris being forwarded to Wright Field, but suggesting it was just a few samples. Yet we have first-hand testimony from eyewitnesses suggesting more than just a few scraps of the material hand carried to Wright Pat. In fact, crates had been constructed to house the debris for the trip out of Roswell.

There were already pictures of Jesse Marcel, Roger Ramey and Thomas Dubose published in the newspapers with that balloon and target. Sort of a “Nothing to see here. Move along,” ploy. I mean, who, really thought it was an alien spacecraft in those pictures until Jesse Marcel began talking about it in those terms in 1978, so long after the event.

But since the balloon experiments being conducted in New Mexico weren’t classified, though there seemed to be a great deal of concern about possible security breaches of the ultimate purpose. The next day, that is July 10, more pictures of the balloons and rawin targets were published in newspapers around the country. You must wonder what those officers interviewed in 1994 were talking about given the documentation from 1947.

What we do have is the newspaper article that David found, telling us that the flight to Wright Field was cancelled, and the second-hand memories of two of those involved in some fashion with Mogul, telling us that Duffy had identified it. This really boils down to which of the witnesses to you care to believe. But I will note that if General Ramey and his weather officer, Warrant Officer Irving Newton, had already identified the material and given that identification to the press, what purpose would be served by sending it on to Duffy at Wright Field?

Nick Pope: A Sad Note

 

Just last night, I received some sad news about Nick Pope. He published a brief message that said:

A while ago, following some digestive issues, I was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. Unfortunately, it's Stage 4 and has metastasized to my liver. While I know that it's kindness and hope that leads people to suggest healers and supposed miracle cures, and to say things like "fight it", and "you can beat it", I'm afraid my diagnosis and my situation leaves no doubt whatsoever: I can't beat it.

Nick Pope at a UFO Crash Conference held years ago in Las Vegas.

What an amazing adventure I've had! A 21-year career at the UK Ministry of Defence, where I got involved in subjects ranging from financial policy to counter-terrorism; from military policing to UAP. And I saved six cows; it's a long story! The things I've done; the places I've been; the people I've met; and the secrets I've been privy to. I wouldn't have swapped it for the world. And then a second career, where my previous government UAP role brought me to the attention of the world's media, leading me to become a regular commentator on TV news shows and documentaries, as well as consulting and acting as spokesperson on various UFO and alien-themed movies, TV series and video games. The media called me the real Fox Mulder!

The true highlight, of course, is life with my wonderful, beautiful and incredibly smart wife, Elizabeth. She's a real-life Agent Scully: a scientist, a skeptic and a redhead. We met randomly in the lobby bar of the Fairmont Hotel in downtown San José (she was an anthropology professor at San José State University) in October 2010 and got married 3 months later. We applied successfully for my Green Card and she had me shipped over and imported to the U.S., where a new adventure began, as Elizabeth and I enjoyed wildlife watching at our wonderful home in Tucson, desert hikes, film noir, true crime, country music, Sunday lunches with my in-laws, and much more besides. Recently, we had an amazing one-year adventure in New York City, living 5 minutes from Times Square, and having a wonderful view of the Empire State Building from our apartment window.

We proofread each other's books and articles (I love commas, hyphens and exclamation points way more than Elizabeth, and managed to win at least a few of those battles), and I'm supporting her in her ongoing fight for free speech, academic freedom, and keeping political correctness, superstition and identity politics out of science and academia. The White House Press Secretary Tweeted one of her recent newspaper articles, which shows the huge impact she's having.

Nick Pope at the Las Vegas Crash Conference.

I kept working for as long as I could (right up until last week), with my various film/TV interviews, conference appearances, and live events, including my position as moderator of Ancient Aliens Live - where I think I did 94 shows. Sadly, the time has come where I've had to step away from this work.

A lot of people have followed my work on UAP. I'm loath to use the word "fans", because I'm not a celebrity. But I am a public figure, and many people have followed me on my journey as I've sought to keep the UAP subject in the public eye, and to frame it as a defense, national security and safety of flight issue - as well as a fascinating science problem. Some of this work has been public knowledge, but some such work, of necessity, has been done behind the scenes. I hope I've helped move the needle forward. But most people, of course, know me through my media interviews and live events. To everyone who's followed me on my journey, thank you - and good luck with your own journeys. I wish you every success and happiness.

It's all been amazing, and I'm grateful for the things I've done, not mournful for the things that I won't now get to do.

Per Aspera Ad Astra!

Nick Pope, Tucson, Arizona, February 12, 2026

I wish Nick all the best in this tough time.

Was He Really Joe King?

 

There are times when I find sightings that seem to fit into a pattern and are considered to be important. I was working on a book that dealt with the 1973 sightings, using a variety sources. The A.P.R.O. Bulletin published a sighting report in the March/April issue that began on page three. It said:

At about 4:30 p.m. on the 22^nd of March, 1973, Mr. Ron Miller and Joe King were enroute from Southeast Missouri State University, east of Patterson in Wayne County on Missouri State Highway 34. They observed a metallic-looking object which appeared to reflect the sunlight. They stopped the car to get a better look, glanced away for a second and when they looked back the object was gone.

I was providing the context for the wave of UFO sightings in 1973 and this short case added to the long list of reports from a specific area. In the rough draft of my book, I wrote:

The A.P.R.O. Bulletin published another sighting made by Ron Miller and Joe King. They were described as college students who said they had seen a metallic object that was reflecting sunlight. The stopped to get a better look but the object had vanished.

I was preparing the second draft, reviewing the cases when I spotted something that made me wonder if this sighting wasn’t a hoax. Give a look at the information provided by Coral Lorenzen in her report in the Bulletin and my short write up see if you can find the problem.

Jim and Coral Lorenzen, the leaders of APRO.

I decided that I wasn’t interested in a case with a witness named Joe King… joking. Yes, I did find a long list of people with that name including an actor born in 1883, a famous singer and the son of Stephen King who writes under the pen name Joe Hill. I do wonder why parents would do this to a kid, but I digress.

The trouble here is that we’re dealing with UFO sightings and there are dozens of cases in which young men of high school and college age engage in pranks and tricks and jokes. There simply isn’t enough information in the case to use it even if the name is real. Given that, I mention this because we need to be alert about this sort of information when investing UFO sightings. There is no way, in the world today, for me to verify the validity of the report. Had I been the original investigator, I would have asked for some sort of identification to make sure that I wasn’t been pranked by Joe King.

Given the few details of the sighting and the name of one of the witnesses, I took the sighting out of the book. All it had added was one more UFO sighting in the Piedmont area in 1973 and there are literally dozens of others. Many of those sightings can be found in The A.P.R.O. Bulletin.