Saturday, March 06, 2010

Charles B. Moore Dies

Blogger's note -- The following was picked from the New Mexico Institute of Technology web site is the following article on the passing of Dr. Charles B. Moore. Moore is seen here as he and I check atmospheric records in an attempt to learn if a Mogul balloon could have reached the Brazel (Foster) ranch in July 1947. I have interrupted the series on the Washington National UFO Sighting Press Conference for what I think of as important news.

SOCORRO, N.M., March 4, 2010 – Charles B. Moore, renowned researcher on atmospheric physics, passed away on March 2, 2010, in Socorro.

Moore was professor emeritus of physics at New Mexico Tech and former chairman of Tech’s Langmuir Laboratory for Atmospheric Research. Although he retired in 1985, he remained active in his research until the last few years, when Alzheimer’s disease affected him. He is survived by his wife, Wilma, and their three children, Charles III, Rita, and Malcolm.

Moore took a long and circuitous route to the heights of his profession, managing to bypass a Ph.D. along the way, until 2003, when he was awarded an honorary Ph.D. by New Mexico Tech. He received numerous awards from fellow scientists, including a fellowship awarded by the American Geophysical Union, the Otto C. Winzen Lifetime Achievement Award of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Atmospheric Electricity Community.

Moore was born on October 28, 1920, in Maryville, Tenn. He started college at Georgia Institute of Technology in 1940, but like many of his generation, his education was interrupted by service in World War II. He served as a weather equipment officer for the U.S. Army Air Corps in the China-Burma-India theater, and later was a weather observer in occupied China.

Moore returned to Georgia Tech, where he completed his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering in 1947. He was then recruited for Project Mogul by New York University, which conducted the project for the U. S. Army Air Corps.

He later recalled that the extended field trips were what ended his graduate schooling.

Project Mogul involved launching balloons to carry microphones up to the base of the stratosphere, where the temperature of the atmosphere is highly effective at refracting sound waves. At the time, 1947, the United States was concerned with listening for nuclear testing by other countries, especially the Soviet Union, so the microphone-bearing balloons were launched to listen for the sounds.

The experiment succeeded in detecting U.S. nuclear tests in the South Pacific, 6,000 miles away, but it also added an important footnote to American cultural history. A balloon launched by Moore in June of 1947 later proved to be the item that is enshrined at Roswell as a “UFO.” Moore didn't realize the part he had played in the drama until he happened to see a newspaper picture of the pieces of the “UFO” in the 1990s.

Moore was considered a pioneer in the development and testing of modern polyethylene balloons as atmospheric research tools. In 1947, he made the first flight in a such a balloon, and in a later test, he made a 24-hour balloon flight from Minneapolis to New Jersey. In 1957, he made a record-breaking flight to the altitude of 82,000 feet in a pressurized balloon gondola, with Commander Malcolm D. Ross. During this flight, he made the first measurements which discovered traces of water vapor in the atmosphere of Venus.

After he carried reconnaissance cameras to high altitude for the U.S. Air Force, a program to fly balloons carrying these cameras over the Soviet Union was established by General Mills, for whom Moore worked until 1953. He was then offered an opportunity to work for Arthur D. Little, a research company in Cambridge, Mass., again on a project involving research by balloon. While there, he designed and built the first alkaline-metal vaporizers used in rocket-borne ionospheric probes. Also at Little, Moore met and began his long collaboration with Dr. Bernard Vonnegut.

Vonnegut was well-known as the scientist who had discovered that silver iodide could be used for cloud seeding. In 1956, Moore and Vonnegut were invited to New Mexico by E. J. Workman, then president of New Mexico Tech, to conduct thunderstorm research at Mt. Withington, some 70 miles west of Tech. For three successive summers, Moore and Vonnegut hauled truckloads of equipment to and from Boston each year, until the fateful day in 1958 when Moore suggested that what they needed was a mountaintop lab where the equipment could be kept year round.

Workman and his colleague Marx Brook liked the idea, but instead of Mt. Withington, as Moore proposed, they decided to put their lab in the Magdalena Mountains, closer to Socorro and within line-of-sight of the campus. By 1964, their lab – Langmuir Laboratory for Atmospheric Research – was built and ready to put into operation. In 1965, Dr. Stirling Colgate, the new president of New Mexico Tech, offered jobs to both Moore and Vonnegut. The latter chose to stay at Arthur D. Little – and later moved to SUNY Albany – but Moore was delighted at the opportunity and came to Tech as an associate professor of physics and research physicist.

In 1969, he became the chairman of Langmuir Laboratory. During his time at the helm, Moore greatly expanded the lab's facilities. He obtained funding for and organized the construction of a large addition to the Main Building, a balloon hangar, an airplane hangar, and underground shielded rooms (Faraday cages) on South Baldy Peak for studying nearby lightning. He was also responsible for the construction of a vertically-scanning radar and for solving the political problems to allow the launching of instrumented rockets into thunderstorms over Langmuir Laboratory. In addition, he organized the modification and instrumentation of an airplane that has flown into thunderstorms for many years.

Moore also taught techniques of launching balloons in severe weather to a number of Tech faculty members and students, many of whom continued their work in the field. Thus, he was the mentor of many of today's scientists who study electrical properties of severe storms.

Moore nominally retired from New Mexico Tech in 1985, but continued to be active in research. He developed the first real improvement to the lightning rod since Benjamin Franklin invented it in the 18th Century, by proving that blunt-tipped rods were more effective than pointed-tipped ones. As a result of his work, most of the lightning rods manufactured in the United States today are blunt-tipped.

Moore was a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and received New Mexico Tech's Distinguished Research Award in 1984 and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics in 1997. He was a fellow in three scientific societies: The Royal Meteorological Society, American Meteorological Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Upon presenting Moore with an honorary doctorate in 2003, Dr. Daniel H. Lopez of New Mexico Tech said, “In a real sense, this is not an honorary doctorate at all. Charles B. Moore has been a leader in the field of atmospheric physics, and he has done research that would have earned him a Ph.D. many times over, had he consented to accept one before now.”

Dr. Paul Krehbiel, an atmospheric researcher who knew Moore well, commented, “Charlie was a person of many talents. He was a pioneer in the study of thunderstorms and lightning and a font of scientific knowledge. He was a true student of history and a historian in his own right, and possessed an excellent memory. He was a mentor and educator of many, myself included. His legacy lives on in the ideas, studies and projects that he developed and worked on over his long and amazingly varied career.”

Dr. William Winn, who worked with Charles Moore for many years, said, “Charles inspired me and many other young investigators with his enthusiasm, independent thinking, and precise use of the English language, and he was a delightful companion because of his good humor and storytelling skills."

-- NMT --

110 comments:

David Rudiak said...

The official NM Tech bio states, as incontestable fact, that one of Moore's Mogul balloons caused the Roswell incident. This leaves out the inconvenient truths that this conclusion is based on nothing more than Moore's ever-shifting ancient memories of what may have happened and that the one and only piece of documentation says that the alleged balloon flight was canceled on account of cloudy weather. Therefore, the balloon that never was was spun by Moore, with Air Force propagandists, into the "final solution" for the Roswell case.

Moore, most likely, was instead confusing a real Mogul flight from 3 months later (Flight #17) that did take an initial trajectory much like what he ascribed to his fictitious balloon of June 1947. This, in fact, was the only documented Mogul flight to ever pass even remotely near the Foster ranch crash site.

On top of that, Moore then started playing games with the real Mogul data to try to reinforce his "solution" (first noted by Brad Sparks), such as altering or misrepresenting Mogul maps, and finally I and Sparks caught him red-handed in a inarguable hoax, where he played numerous games with wind data to guide his non-existent balloon "exactly" to the Foster ranch crash site. In reality, a proper calculation of his own model would have had such a balloon missing by at least 70 miles.

Thus Moore seemed to have no problems with promoting a scientific fraud when it came to "solving" the Roswell case.

Sparks also found another instance of Moore inserting himself Zelig-like into a historical UFO case in order to debunk it, namely the infamous Thomas Mantell case of 1948. Moore claimed he was part of the launch team that sent up the Skyhook that supposedly explained the UFO that Mantell chased to his death. Moore had said he knew all along that was what caused Mantell's UFO. But the AF actually checked out his story and found that he didn't arrive as part of the Skyhook team until later that month. Moore had to back off and admit that maybe his memory of events wasn't so good. That, however, didn't stop the same AF team from using his muddled memories of Mogul launches to promote their Mogul Roswell explanation.

In his old age, Moore seemed to enjoy debunking big UFO cases. The irony here is that in his relative youth Moore had a very famous sighting of his own while preparing to launch another balloon and was indeed part of various other balloon teams that had numerous other UFO sightings. These clearly weren't caused by their balloons, and Moore expressed indignation at how the AF would either ignore their UFO reports or try to explain them away as balloons.

You certainly won't see these UFO facts reported in Moore's NM Tech obituary. Those NM Tech guys are just too smart for us UFO loonies. Why just last November some of them "explained" away another classic UFO case, the Lonnie Zamora encounter in Socorro in 1964. It was allegedly just a "hoax" done by their own students. Or maybe it was a lunar lander that strayed away from White Sands. Yeah, right! Moore, incidentally, was one of those proposing the last bit of nonsense a decade ago.

Moore no doubt made many valuable contributions to atmospheric science, but like many scientists, when the topic turns to UFOs, their scientific objectivity and devotion to facts seems to vanish. Lying and nonsense "explanations" then become perfectly acceptable.

Gilles Fernandez said...

Sincerly, and frankly David Rudiak,

It is not the best thread to post your "HET Roswell opinion" imho. Go out this topic then.

R.I.P. Charles B. Moore.

KRandle said...

David -

I posted the obituary as it was written by the Tech people. I knew Moore, had been to his house, and he had always been cordial to me. I supplied the winds aloof data that he used in his analysis and while I didn't agree with him about it or his ultimate conclusion, this was not the forum for that.

I believe that everyone who visits this blog is aware of our (Moore's and mine) disagreement about what fell at Roswell and about many of the arguments against Mogul. We have covered that ground and we will again.

As I have done in the past, when a colleague, pro or con passes, I try to put up a rather neutral posting. Some have thought I was too kind to Phil Klass or Bob Todd, but hey, they're dead, so I win. I can argue against their points and they are in no position to rebut...

Anyway, we all understand that Mogul is not a suitable answer and there are many reasons for that. We'll cover it later.

cda said...

There is no certainty of either Moore being right about the balloon trajectory or Rudiak being right about it. Nobody will ever know exactly what path the balloon would have taken, because of all the doubtful elements in the case. A lot of it was based on guesswork and interpolation. Moore himself conjectured that part of the array fell on the Foster ranch, but he never claimed all of it did. DR claims none of it could have or did.
Moore entitled his table 5 in "UFO Crash at Roswell", chapter 3 as "Possible Trajectory for NYU Flight 4". He never claimed it was the definitive answer; merely saying on p.108 that "NYU flight 4 cannot be excluded as a likely source of the debris that W.W.Brazel found..."
Although leaning towards Mogul, these comments do not sound like a ringing endorsement of Mogul flight 4 to me, although DR obviously interprets Moore's remarks as such an endorsement.

starman said...

cda:

"Moore himself conjectured that part of the array fell on the Foster ranch but he never claimed all of it did."

If only part of it did, that would make Mogul even less tenable, considering the size of the debris field reported by Marcel.

Thanks to David Rudiak for another great post. I appreciate hearing the full truth, about Moore's less than honest role in Roswell and in the Mantell case.

Gilles Fernandez said...

Grrr, It is not the best topic to exchange all of this ! But well, now it is done and sounds "oki".

Part 1 :

If the size of the debris field alleged by Marcel is similar to the number of medails and reasons why he obtained the rewards and other demonstrated false memories elements in his testimony, we have one other element pointing how Roswell is a retrospective falsification (in Rawcliffe psychological sens of course).

In other words, a story that is factual to some extent (Marcel found a flying saucer, but as it was in 1947 - contextualized - no one ET semantic), but which gets distorted and falsified over time by retelling it with embellishments.

Concerning the size, we have Brazel 1947 (then concomitant) estimation or Bessie one, not very similar.

Loretta Proctor remembered Brazel describing the (Merri-Lei) tape with purple writting, a typical ML307 signature, when Brazel visited her and her husband.

She remember this episode BEFORE july the 4th for sure, when explaining him the existence of Flying Saucers (contextualized, so no one ET semantic), as the $ 3000 $ rewards.

What he founds in mi-june then becomed interresting NOW (not before) and a good and legitimated candidat of one the so called flying saucers (contextualized).

Before june the 25th, and K. Arnold press release, and until start of july important press releases and first rewards offers, the debris he founds were... just garbage.

The mention of the tape described to her by Brazel is probably part of the Mogul conspiracy ??

"There was also something he [Mac Brazel] described as tape which had printing on it.  The color of the printing was a kind of purple."

Mention in a moment taking place BEFORE july the 4th (independance day landmark I suppose helping her to "well" remember the moment of the visite)

As Brazel, she mentions the tape too. Difficult to invoke she was menaced as some explain ad hoc for Brazel interview, it isn't ?

Brazel was menaced to mention the tape, but a detail which will never serve the 1947 pseudo complotist demonstrations or the 1947 press conference.

Army dictated to mention the tape, insolite detail for a meteo balloon, but forget to use this detail in the press conference or other public 1947 demonstration :

To present a merri-lei corner deflector and the tape have been the best thing to do to if complot ! They didn't...

Gilles Fernandez said...

Part 2 :


So another element showing Brazel didn't menaced by the army for the interview (CDA gived others in another thread), and one other element showing NYU balloons (Mogul), Merri-Lei tape, are the best candidat for this legitimated "flying saucer" (contextualized, and not ET).

When I read the ML 307 blue print of june 1946 (he is in USAF big report in appendixe) and see the nota "22" indicating the use of scotch acetate tape or similar, to reinforce the structure, I see another similarity between ML307 componants and the ET wreckage !

The ET's mimetism is... marvelous ;)

I will not list dimensional isomorphisms too between ML307 comonant and debris alleged. And many others.

Flight 3 and 4 existed and flyed, even if some will explain they were cancelled. Never they were. They were simply "service" flights and not "research flights", explaining why they are not listed in appendixe 27 of the USAF report.

But if a 1 and 5 is listed, 2 3 and 4 were service. NYU was not obligated to make reports for "service flight". Cancelled flights were not labelled too. So, there exists in fine a 3 and 4, and Crary's diary source is "clear" like spring water: May, the 29th, june the 4th.

The are listed in Crary's diary. They were not recuperated by army, like the 5 (near Roswell).

When you use meteo dataes, you have wind direction perflectly cmpatible of a trajectory to Brazel ranch, and more, as to explain the flight was "delayed" cause clouds, but better conditions some hours after, allowing to laucnh the balloons already assembled and inflated..

To modelize a balloon trajectory, as CDA explained or I point in my book is pure speculations, by Moore or the others. But the wind directions are a good indicator, perflectly compatible.

Difficult in english, but hoping very soon to have an open discussion with french Roswell "specialist" Gildas Bourdais when my cartesian book will be released (in 10 days normaly).

Cordialy,

Gilles F.

starman said...

KDR:

"Anyway, we all understand that Mogul is not a suitable answer and there are many reasons for that."

Agreed but...tell that to Monsieur Crapaud here, lol.

cda said...

What Kevin (KDR) means is that Mogul is not a suitable answer for those who accept and promote the ET answer. Surprise!
For others, such as myself, Mogul is a perfectly acceptable answer. This does NOT mean Mogul provides an answer to every possible question about the case.

David Rudiak said...

cda wrote:
There is no certainty of either Moore being right about the balloon trajectory or Rudiak being right about it.

Typical cda debunker spin. There IS certainty (absolute mathematical proof) that Moore fraudulently calculated his trajectory. There is also certainty that he tried to represent this as the final answer to the Roswell case, e.g. stating on a 1997 TV program (of which I have the tape):

"The winds on the morning of June 4th were exactly right to carry the balloon from Alamogordo to the Arabela area. If the balloon behaved as the balloons did on the next two flights we made, i.e. going into the stratosphere and catching the easterly winds in the stratosphere, it is possible -- I have calculated a trajectory that would have exactly landed the balloon on the Foster Ranch."

Now let us see if cda can tell us how something can be "exactly right" if you have to cheat to make it so.

Nobody will ever know exactly what path the balloon would have taken, because of all the doubtful elements in the case.

We will indeed never know because the alleged balloon probably never went up. All official histories indicate that Flight #5 the next day was the FIRST Mogul flight in N.M. and that the planned flight the previous day (Flight #4) was canceled because of cloudy weather, just like the attempted flight the day before that.

As for "doubtful elements", let us assume cda means actual winds, balloon configuration (of the nonexistent balloon), etc. OK, but then you don't go saying the winds were "exactly right" to take it "exactly" to the crash site, then use fraudulent calculations to make it so, now do you? That is the M.O. of somebody trying to deceive the public.

A lot of it was based on guesswork and interpolation.

Don’t forget the cheating.

Moore himself conjectured that part of the array fell on the Foster ranch, but he never claimed all of it did.

Not even relevant. I’m talking about Moore’s clearly cheating with his numbers to get anything there.

DR claims none of it could have or did.

What DR actually claims is that: 1) The only documentation that exists strongly suggests there never was a Mogul flight; 2) Moore's "calculation" is clearly fraudulent; 3) If you take the same wind data and calculate it correctly, the way Moore said he was doing (but didn't), the hypothetical balloon misses by 70 miles or more; 4) You have to make a number of ad hoc and unlikely assumptions to get such balloons to the crash site (substantially drop wind speeds, rotate wind directions, etc.)

Yes, you can always play such games with the data to force a desired conclusion (like Moore did, in addition to his blatant cheating), but the actual overall probability of such a trajectory is extremely low, and it is considered very bad “science” to arbitrarily manipulate data like this to force an end.

David Rudiak said...

Part 2
cda continued to write:
Moore entitled his table 5 in "UFO Crash at Roswell", chapter 3 as "Possible Trajectory for NYU Flight 4". He never claimed it was the definitive answer; merely saying on p.108 that "NYU flight 4 cannot be excluded as a likely source of the debris that W.W.Brazel found..."

You can definitely exclude Moore's calculated trajectory, because it is simply fraudulent. And a correctly calculated trajectory that would take balloons to the ranch is very improbable, because of the numerous assumptions and alterations being made with the data to create such a trajectory.

You similarly can't "exclude" that you will draw a straight flush and win the big poker game, but you can say that the probability is very low, unless, of course, you cheat, which is what Moore did. Then, after cheating with your numbers, you say the winds were "exactly right" and rake in the debunking chips.

In the end, what cda (and other debunkers like Dave Thomas or Tim Printy) are reduced to are word games to try to exonerate Moore, instead of admitting Moore deliberately created a fraud to push an idea (his Mogul balloon created the famous Roswell incident).

Although leaning towards Mogul, these comments do not sound like a ringing endorsement of Mogul flight 4 to me, although DR obviously interprets Moore's remarks as such an endorsement.

More of cda’s word games. Moore did a lot more than just “lean towards Mogul.” English is my native tongue, and when a fellow English speaker says the winds were "exactly right" to take the balloons "exactly" to the Foster Ranch by his "calculation" (which turn out to be fraudulent) then yes, I interpret that as Moore giving a "ringing endorsement" to Flight #4 and Mogul.

Moore has also played other games with the data to push his Mogul conclusions, including altering a Mogul Flight #5 trajectory map (while saying he was reproducing it "without change") to distance this flight from Roswell base (which it practically flew directly over the next day), misrepresenting cloud data from surrounding weather stations (which again strongly suggest cloudy weather that would have canceled any Flight #4), altering standard Mogul launch time from dawn to 3:00 a.m. trying to artificially extend flight time (meaning they would have been flying blind without their standard optical tracking), misrepresenting Crary’s diary entries to try to justify the absurd 3 a.m. launch, claiming clear memories of this flight being near the Foster ranch because of the "exotic" N.M. towns called out (actually Flight #17 3 months later), and numerous other things that I can't go into here which indicate he very definitely was pushing the fictitious Mogul Flight #4 as the final solution to Roswell.

I know people like Kevin think it inappropriate to say bad of the recently dead, but the fact remains that in addition to Moore’s distinguished scientific career in atmospheric science, he also perpetrated a fraud on the public to debunk the Roswell incident. In addition to Moore’s dishonesty, what really burns me are the so-called “scientific” debunkers who don’t have the intellectual integrity to condemn what Moore did and instead play word games and dance around the issue. Hey guys, the emperor has no clothes! Do the math.

David Rudiak said...

Kevin wrote
As I have done in the past, when a colleague, pro or con passes, I try to put up a rather neutral posting. Some have thought I was too kind to Phil Klass or Bob Todd, but hey, they're dead, so I win. I can argue against their points and they are in no position to rebut...

While I understand that traditionally one doesn't speak ill of the dead soon after their passing, Moore never made any attempt to rebut anything Brad Sparks or I accused him of when he was very much alive. It would have been quite easy for him to do so if we were falsely accusing him of fraud, but we had him dead to rights, and he knew it. So he kept his mouth shut and let the likes of debunkers Dave Thomas or Tim Printy try to defend him by personally attacking the messengers, particularly me, instead of arguing the mathematical facts.

While Moore was alive, Brad Sparks did manage to get into an email debate with Moore (mediated by the late Karl Pflock) about his alterations of the Mogul Flight #5 trajectory map, seemingly done to distance this Mogul from Roswell base (listed on the map as simply "Roswell").

The Flight #5 plot shows the balloons passing only 4 miles south of the base and crashing about 16 miles due east. Moore substituted the town of Roswell 6 miles north for Roswell base (the base is no longer on the map), further moved Roswell town 2 or 3 miles west, and moved the balloon crash site about another 13 miles east.

The effect of these manipulations were to seemingly move Flight #5 10 miles south of "Roswell" (instead of 4 miles) and crashing 31 miles east (instead of 16 miles). You can see these alterations plus Moore claiming he redrew the map "without change" from the original Mogul plot here:

http://roswellproof.com/Flight4and5_changes.html

If you aren't blind or stupid and can read a simple map, it is quite clear that Moore did in fact make several unexplainable and important changes to the original data while claiming he did no such thing.

Sparks pointed this out and asked Moore what part of “without change” didn’t he understand. Sparks also asked Moore why Roswell base wouldn't have noticed the balloons when so close, Moore continued to confabulate, claiming that Flight #5 came no closer than 15 to 20 miles from the base. That's nothing but another blatant lie. In addition he suggested that clouds may have hidden Flight #5 from the base, even when Mogul records show that this flight was tracked optically from the ground through theodolites clear to Roswell, a distance of almost 100 miles from Alamogordo. So they could see it from Alamogordo, but not from Roswell base, only a few miles away.

This is another very clear example of Moore playing games with the historical Mogul data. I don't feel like letting him off the hook on this just because he is dead. We aren't discussing simple differences in interpretations of data here, but Moore actually altering data and engaging in very clear deception.

Moore's various Mogul frauds weren't of the type where people were actually hurt, say Bernie Madoff style where people lost their life savings. Instead they were scientific frauds that badly muddied the truth. Toward the end of his life, Moore seemingly had an agenda to debunk Roswell through any means necessary. Why he did this we’ll probably never know.

KRandle said...

David -

I believe I know why Moore took such an anti-Roswell stand. When I visited him in Socorro, he made it clear to me that he disliked the men at roswell because they refused to help track the Mogul arrays. He, along with a couple of others, had gone to Roswell to ask for help, but, according to Moore, they were too busy to help a bunch of college boys.

He talked of his attempts to track balloons, using a radio in Roswell and hanging out a window in his attempt to get a signal.

So, this was payback. You too busy to help? Well, I have proof that you were too dumb to recognize a balloon when you saw it.

Of course, the Mogul balloon arrays were nothing more than weather balloons and radar reflectors, something that the men of Roswell could recognize. They'd all seen them before.

But that answer is simply this. Moore was getting a little payback.

Gilles Fernandez said...

Greetings,

I suppose "Monsieur crapaud" is a scientific argument, for a Roswell HET fan, to have an ET aircraft, he wants to believe to ? Nice. Clap clap ! What a demonstration !

More seriously, to claim flight n°5 was the first Mogul flight, West Coast, is fallacious. As previous ones, West Coast, were cancelled. Sounds like Roswell Et proponents dont like prosaïc explanation.

Oki doki :

One Mogul's specifity is to level off sonobuoy in the sky. Not ?

June, the 4th, Crary's dairy saids :

"Flew regular sonobuoy in cluster of balloons and had good luck on receiver on ground but poor on plane. "

Of course, not a proof of Mogul specificity, for HET Roswell proponents...

Before,

May 29 thurs. « Mears and Hackman got balloon ascension off about 1 pm today with B-17 plan to follow it. »

There are the n°4 and n°3 "Service" flights.

"Service flights" have a specifity and the important nuance here, when some claim official argument : to be not obligatory reported in regular reports, as the "research" flights must be, so the appendix 27 cant "report" service flights, cause devoted to notice "research flights". The NYU document "jump" those number flights which flew (or not a fly).

Taking into account, one more time, the specifity of those 2 service flights, with ML307 with merri-lei tape (one more time ?),

"For others, such as myself, Mogul is a perfectly acceptable answer."

Dont Forget Loretta Proctor testimony, when she and her husband received the visite of Brazel, before july, the 4th, mentions Brazel, and the famous tape with purple symbols : A NYU signature, by essence.

Best Regards,

Gilles F.

cda said...

Charles Moore was over zealous in trying to pin down a 'perfect' flight path for his calculated Mogul flight 4 trajectory. His table 5 is just a bit too perfect a match to be acceptable. This certainly does not rule out a flight 4 crash at the Foster ranch, whatever David Rudiak says. There is simply no way anyone can prove anything one way or the other due to all the uncertainties such as launch time, exact winds speeds, possible thunderstorms, changes in pressure, sudden changes in wind directions at high altitudes and so on. Therefore DR's assumed miss of 70 miles is as fictional as Moore's 'exact hit' on the ranch.

So let's get off this idea that the path can ever be known with any accuracy.

Why don't ETHers like Kevin and DR take a good look at the contemporary press reports and answer one simple question: What exactly do they claim the debris as described in those reports is? Something from another star system perhaps, or something like a balloon plus attachments from earth? Forget the evidence from 30 - 50 years afterwards, most of which is tittle-tattle anyway. What was the stuff as reported AT THE TIME? Any ideas Kevin or DR? Or was it all put there by the USAF to mislead the public, as part of the 'grand deception'?

What is the answer, please?

Yes there was a flight 3 and a flight 4 (you can call them anything you like such as 3A, 3B, 4A etc but they WERE launched.) The diary notes prove it. To say there was no flight 4 is "playing with words" as DR accuses me of doing. DR describes flight 4 as "fictitious". The number may well be 'fictitious' but the flight was real. And the array was never officially recovered, was it?

Kevin: Charles Moore may also have been getting some revenge on William Moore, who interviewed him in 1979 and withheld vital information from him (such as the July 1947 newspaper reports) and tried to steer him (Charles) towards an ET crash answer, and even told him of the Plains of San Augustin crash! Charles reveals this in his 1992 letters to Robert Todd and others. By withholding valuable data on the Roswell debris, Bill Moore deliberately sought a negative response from Charles re the possibility of a balloon launch being the cause of the Roswell 'crash'. Bill Moore also told Charles about the gouge in the desert, knowing the latter would confirm no balloon could possibly have caused it. (I have read somewhere that this gouge existed in 1946 anyway).

So yes, maybe Moore was getting his own back on some of the guys who refused to play ball with him.
But his overall news and views on Roswell makes a great deal more sense than the ET crash and official cover-up fantasies that prevail to this day.


Oh, and thanks Gilles F.

David Rudiak said...

Kevin wrote:
I believe I know why Moore took such an anti-Roswell stand. When I visited him in Socorro, he made it clear to me that he disliked the men at roswell because they refused to help track the Mogul arrays. ...So, this was payback. You too busy to help? Well, I have proof that you were too dumb to recognize a balloon when you saw it.

Well I honestly don't know Kevin. Moore would create a hoax to debunk Roswell because he felt slighted by the military guys 50 years before? That would be a portrait of a very petty and vindictive individual who nursed grudges for a lifetime. I suppose that is possible, particularly if Moore was already in the early stages of senile dementia that can exaggerate negative personality traits.

When I read Moore's early statements in the original "Roswell Incident", he struck me as a neutral and genuinely curious scientific type. 15 years later, he was a hard-core Roswell debunker willing to lie and commit fraud to make his case that his alleged little lost Mogul was responsible for Roswell.

It could be what I call the "last hurrah" syndrome for some old guys, particularly very egotistical ones, trying to claim major responsibility for what happened even if they played a very minor peripheral role, as Moore did with Roswell.

Another one that comes to mind was James Bond Johnson, as most people here know, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram photographer who took the infamous photos of the weather balloon in Gen. Ramey's office. He also started off fairly straightforward, then started telling an ever more fantastic and inconsistent story, including some blatant lies, in order to make himself the photographer of the "real" flying saucer debris.

Another theory I have for Moore is a more conspiratorial one. Moore was a military/government scientist with a very high security clearance, including working for the CIA in the 1950s. Maybe somebody put him up to it with a little bonus in his government pension to make life easier in his old age. An easy way to launder such money would be a big fat book advance for writing a few chapters in the 1997 Roswell debunking book with Ziegler and Saler, published by a government printing house, the prestigious Smithsonian Press. (I think little did the editors know they were publishing a scientific fraud by Moore.) This was one of several Roswell debunking books that came out just in time for Roswell's 50th anniversary. Of course, there was also the idiotic "Case Closed" USAF crash dummy report in 1997, the other government sponsored 50th Roswell debunking tome.

Brad Sparks emailed me at one time and said Moore had a long history of mischief making, and cited how he lied to James McDonald that Hynek wanted to confront the AF over its incompetent investigations. It turned out Hynek never said any such thing (which Moore later admitted to McDonald), but it led to a heated exchange and a falling out between McDonald and Hynek when they met. Read it here (see June 8, 1966):

http://www.nicap.org/waves/1966fullrep.htm

Why did Moore deceive McDonald? As a gummint agent trying to disrupt a potentially dangerous alliance between the two top UFO researchers, or as a mischievous private jerk getting the better of his betters and having fun while doing so? I don't know, and again doubt that I will ever know

Lance said...

Rudiak calling someone like Moore a liar (in his obit thread) is not surprising. It's a measure of the kind of "man" he is.

As I clearly documented here, Rudiak is a certain liar and fabricator. I'll be glad to bring up the clear case again (which the reprehensible and impotent little Rudiak has never refuted.

Lance

Gilles Fernandez said...

CDA wrotes : Why don't ETHers like Kevin and DR take a good look at the contemporary press reports and answer one simple question: What exactly do they claim the debris as described in those reports is?

Exactly. As Human sciences teacher and researcher, one my first reflex when I decided to counter-investigate Roswell case, cause French cartesian books absent, I was directed to try to understand mental representations of flying saucers in 1947.

Bloecher, Kottmeyer and others works are important landmarks to understand why Roswell (and 1947 wave witnesses in general) protagonists acted, though, etc. like they did.

As you point, 1947 Flying saucers must be not victims of anachronisms or "semantic ethnocentrism".

Any insolite objects, falling from the sky, could be FS and have been reported as FS. None ET semantic.

Mogul stuffes didn't escape this "law". It is how Roswell started. NYU stuffes falling in mi-june in Brazel ranch didn't interrest him. No FS wave june the 14th.

You must wait june 25th first press releases, and particulary the "pic" exactly when Roswell started. IT will now interrest Brazel, but A POSTERIORI.

A posteriori when he visited Proctor couple, BEFORE july the 4th, (then out conspiracy hypothesis concerning his interview) taking knowledge of FS and the $3000$ rewards. What Loretta Proctor remembers he described ? A balloon with insolite details. She remember the tape with purplish symbols.

As we can explain again and again, anyone interrested by how ML307 were conceived will notice that tape is necessary to reinforce the sticks (read note 22 in ML307 blue print). Hoefflich Brooklyn manufactory (and not manhattan)(American Merri-Lei Corps) conceived the corner reflectors and the tape is corrobated by other direct witnesses.

Flights 3 and 4 used this stuffes and FLEW, even if or not some HET proponents try to claim. This is corrobated by historical and contempory sources. They were not recuperated like fligh 5 stuffes were.

It is utopical to modelize ballons trajectory cause the lack of parameters. But winds directions in meteorical stations around alamogordo gives not equivoc dataes : perfect compatibility.

Legitimaly in 1947 psychosociological context, few men acted and though they were front a "flying saucer", cause the stuff "insolite", mainly cause the symbols.

Note, among others important details, they remember some alphabetical marks. They were stupid to thing ET have invented the same alphabet of humen ?

No, because Flying Saucers and Roswell stuffes never habe been though as an ET craft : it was a Flying Saucer, contextualised. Period.

Cordialy,

Gilles F.

cda said...

So we now have DR suggesting Moore was a government agent who was paid a "big fat book advance" for his contribution to an anti-Roswell book.
Truly the mind boggles. When will these idiotic conspiracists finally cease? Are there literally no boundaries to their completely dotty ideas? Apparently not.
The MJ-12 'mentality' lives on!

starman said...

cda:

"What was the stuff as reported AT THE TIME."

The press release indicates that identification of Roswell material as something other than Mogul occurred at the time. Even if some Mogul flight might have reached the Foster ranch, what fell was obiously not considered something mundane by those who would've recognized it.

David Rudiak said...

cda wrote:
"What was the stuff as reported AT THE TIME."

Starman responded:
The press release indicates that identification of Roswell material as something other than Mogul occurred at the time. Even if some Mogul flight might have reached the Foster ranch, what fell was obiously not considered something mundane by those who would've recognized it.

Much, much else was written back then about what was supposedly found or not found. Here are some other gross inconsistencies with official weather balloon and later Mogul balloon stories:
* Marcel BACK THEN was quoted saying debris was scattered over a square mile!
* Brazel claimed 200 yards across.
* But Brazel also said the material made up only 2 small bundles weighing maybe 5 pounds. (less than 10% of the weight of a real Mogul)
* Gen. Ramey, in contrast, was quoted saying that a piece of balloon or "fragments of junk" were found nearby, hardly sounding like the large debris fields described by either Brazel or Marcel.
* Ramey and his people always indicated that the material in his office came from a SINGULAR weather balloon and radar target--not a multi-balloon, multi-target Mogul. (I spoke with his weather officer Irving Newton, who again confirmed this and didn't think what he saw came from Mogul, but was an ordinary Rawin weather balloon that could have come from anywhere. My 3D computer reconstruction of the photos also confirms the singular nature of the radar target and probably the balloon.)
* How did so little material get scattered over Brazel’s 200 yards or Marcel’s “square mile”? (And why didn’t Brazel simply bring the small quantity of debris to Roswell instead of dragging the two top intelligence officers back to his ranch in two separate vehicles to pick up the rest—the rest of what?)
* Gen. Ramey denied any other equipment was found with the SINGULAR balloon and radar target. (Again, where is the connection to Mogul?)
* Gen. Ramey was quoted saying the object (what he called a “boxkite”) would have been 25 feet across if reconstructed (right after he reportedly first looked at the object in his office)! The real radar targets were only 4 feet across. It would be impossible to get the two sizes confused. (Sheriff Wilcox, in contrast, was quoted saying 3 to 4 feet across, descriptions he claimed he got from Brazel.)
* Ramey and his people, from the very beginning BEFORE any sort of official identification and before claiming they had any idea what it was, described the object as "hexagonal" in shape, though it would have impossible to deduce this from a torn up radar target. Where did Ramey get the impossible “hexagonal” description of an intact ML307 radar target? (How about scripted for him?)
* The radar target in the Fort Worth photos has a perfectly clean white paper backing with no staining, like it is brand new and not from something dragged through dirt and left in the elements for a month. The balloon in the photos is still intact and pliable. A real neoprene weather balloon left exposed for a month would have deteriorated into black, brittle, ash-like flakes. (As demonstrated multiple times by Charles Moore himself.)

David Rudiak said...

(Part 2)
* Brazel denied finding any sort of string or wire holding the thing together. A real Mogul crash would have had hundreds of feet of twine, string, etc., left behind. Nobody ever described seeing anything like this. This is the magical, disappearing string act.
* Although Brazel described “flower tape” (supposedly the clear link to Mogul), nobody has ever found anything resembling that, or any tape at all in the Fort Worth photos, despite intense scrutiny. (In fact, no photo of a radar target from that period seems to show any “flower tape.”)
* Mack Brazel, after seemingly telling a balloon story, then recanted, saying what he found wasn't at all like the other weather observation balloons he had found on his property.
* Brazel and Sheriff Wilcox couldn't get their stories straight as to what Brazel reported. Brazel said he reported maybe finding a "flying saucer"; Wilcox claimed Brazel came in reporting a "weather meter."
* Wilcox also couldn't get his stories straight as to when Brazel made his discovery or came to Roswell, giving inconsistent stories to different wire services. (e.g., discovered it several days before vs. 3 weeks before).
* In fact, the stories of when Brazel found the “flying disc” are all over the place, starting with the base press release saying “sometime last week” and UP initially reporting with the press release a "strange blue light" seen by residents near the ranch several days before at 3 a.m.
* Wilcox also refused to answer more questions about what the object looked like, saying he was "working with those fellows at the base."
* Marcel and Brazel couldn't get their stories straight as to when Brazel picked up the debris after supposedly finding it mid-June. Marcel said he gathered it up immediately and tossed it under some brush, then later rushed out to collect it again on July 6 after first hearing of the flying saucers on July 5 in Corona. Brazel said he was busy with chores and didn't think much of it, later collected debris with his family on July 4 before first hearing of the saucers on July 5.

These stories from 1947 (not 30 years later) are all over the place, are not consistent with a Mogul crash (which would have left much other debris behind), and clearly point to something else having taken place. E.g., what would leave debris scattered over a “square mile” or create an object “25 feet across if reconstructed”?

David Rudiak said...

cda wrote:
So we now have DR suggesting Moore was a government agent who was paid a "big fat book advance" for his contribution to an anti-Roswell book.
Truly the mind boggles. When will these idiotic conspiracists finally cease? Are there literally no boundaries to their completely dotty ideas? Apparently not.
The MJ-12 'mentality' lives on!


Actually I mentioned it only as a possibility and even labeled it a conspiracy theory.

Such things do indeed happen at times. Intelligence agencies do employ agent provocateurs to infiltrate organizations to spy on and disrupt them from within. This, in fact, was one of the recommendations of the CIA's Robertson Panel, to spy on civilian UFO organizations.

No less than William Moore admitted to working with AFOSI to spy on fellow UFO researchers, particularly Paul Bennewitz.

The CIA also admitted during the Church hearings in the 1970s of having 500 newsmen on their payroll, a good way to influence public opinion at home, no?

I also mentioned it being possibly nothing more than Moore's personality at play. Kevin suggested Moore did it as "payback" for old, perceived slights from military personnel at Roswell.

And some guy named "cda" (any relation?) just yesterday came up with a wild theory that Charles Moore did it as "revenge" against William Moore for trying to convince him it wasn't Mogul and trying to steer him toward a flying saucer crash conclusion.

In other words, another theory that Moore was a petty, vindictive person who held long-term grudges for perceived slights. Why wouldn't that drive anyone to hoax and lie and alter data, as Moore did?

Truly the mind boggles. Are there literally no boundaries to these completely dotty ideas?

Gilles Fernandez said...

@ David Rudiak,

Enlight me, please, on a paradoxe.

What I like concerning complotist proponents, denoncing the "true", and the omnipotence of Army and Gouvernement concerning Roswell you claim, is why they (you) are allowed to have a free voice and to speack free, for long time now, despite the big USAF allocations to "cover-up" a secret of this magnitude, you claim.

Postal Schmitt (sorry Kevin) have been "allowed" to publish books, despite avancing university cursus nver he have follow.

You all have a special visa card and what you denounce concerning Roswell seems not dangerous for the cover-up BIG ressources allocation you claim.

What your secret ?

Sorry or this joke, but well, frankly.

Gilles F.

Lance said...

In Rudiak's self-serving scenario, when something lightweight lands on the ground, it definitely (everything in the believer world is definite if it supports the religion) stays put and never blows away like say, my trash can lid blows down the street after trash pickup each week.

Is it possible in the real world that some of the debris simply blew away and was never found?

In such a case, which apparently never even crossed the minds of the saucer enthusiasts, all of the above Rudiak blather means nothing

Ramey's description of "fragments of junk" seems fairly accurate as a casual description of what was found despite Rudiak's flaccid screeches otherwise.

I am reminded of the fact that Marcel himself twice CONFIRMED that the stuff in the pictures was what he collected. I know that stubborn belief compels supporters to suggest he must have been mistaken and had forgotten the photos (and true to form, they "helpfully" corrected him as what he was supposed to say--typical believer contamination of witness testimony) but, as I confirmed with Kevin, this requires us to believe that Marcel forgot about photos in which he appeared on the front page of the paper, something that seems very unlikely.

Notice that I didn't present any aspect of the above as absolute. Now look through Rudiak's stuff and try to find anything he presents as less than absolute.

Some people are just comfortable with dogmatic assertions if they confirm their religious beliefs.

Lance

cda said...

It is not only possible that some of the debris got blown away, but it is entirely possible (as Moore admitted) that a lot of the upper portion of the balloon train never landed on the ranch at all.

DR does not answer my question; instead he merely shows how the early press reports were confused, sometimes contradictory, sometimes talking about the balloon fabric and sometimes about the kite (or radar target). But this is nitpicking and nothing else. I challenge him or Kevin to deny that what was decribed in the New Mexico press at the time is VERY STRONGLY indicative of balloon debris. If not, what precisely was this debris? Hardly a spaceship from Zeta Reticuli, was it?

I know some of the 'witnesses' decades later had more fanciful ideas as to its identity (their minds were conditioned by the intervening flying saucer era, their desire for publicity, and, perhaps most of all, by a certain Stanton Friedman and his highly pro-ETH ideas). After all, a nuclear physicist must know what he is talking about, mustn't he?

DR says Moore faked his Mogul 4 trajectory. I agree this trajectory does look a bit 'cooked' and a bit too accurate for acceptance. DR's trajectory, which has been challenged by Tim Printy, is just as 'cooked' but with a different bias. But Moore offered his trajectory as a possible answer; not a definitive one.

If very balloon-like debris was discovered on the ground (as it certainly was) then how did it get there? I repeat: did the AF plant it to start their grand deception, knowing an ET craft was about to crash there?

To even suggest Moore was part of some government conspiracy, and paid a big advance for writing a chapter in an anti-ET Roswell book, is something that can only come from the mind of someone with conspiratorial leanings, as DR certainly has.

starman said...

Gilles F (Monsieur Crapaud:):

There is an obvious, big difference between DR,KDR etc and those who've actually handled wreckage or documents pertaining to it. The latter group are in a position to know as a fact what came down. As long as those who KNOW for sure can be kept quiet, and actual evidence is covered up, the ET nature of the event just won't become firmly established. It's not necessary to silence KDR or DR--they have you and Korff etc to put up with, because the coverup prevents them from clinching their case. Researchers may have learned enough to be confident of an ET event, but they just can't prove it conclusively.
IMO the quantity of material is much less important than the fact that it was NOT recognized as mundane balloon etc junk, by those who easily could've recognized it as such.

Gilles Fernandez said...

Dear Starman,

I will not comment the "tautologies" of the first part of your reply.

But you writed :

"the fact that it was NOT recognized as mundane balloon etc junk, by those who easily could've recognized it as such."

Competent people have immediatly recognized the wreckage as prosaic ones.

Some others and previously didn't. Those stuff were insolite cause they were not simple balloons, but non othodoxe ones. They have then probably "concluded" that those stuff could be one those famous so-called "flying saucers" or "disks".

By contextualization method, I mean 1947 terms which NEVER meaned they thought about an ET craft as contemporans they were.

In the Roswell press releases, you find sometimes there were alphabetical marks.

This simple mention is one among others details that people NEVER MATCHED Roswell flying saucer or disk to an ET craft in their mind. Flying saucer only or disk only. Period.

When speacking, thinking, acting, etc. on flying saucer, the alphebitical marks didn't embarassed comtemporan protagonists. If they matched disk or FS as Extraterrestrials, alphabetical marks have been a non sens and something very embarrassing or ambiguous. ET using our alphabet ! It was not embarrassing for them.

Why ? One more time because Disk or Flying Saucer semantic for Roswell protagonists have nothing to do with ET.

To ask you "why those protagonists confused prosaic things to extraterrial craft, if it wasn't ?" is a total anachronism.

The good question is "why they though those handman stuffes could be a FS ?"

Because FS semantic for 1947 Roswell protagonists have nothing to do with ET. Legitimatly then, they though it was probably a good candidat of those things (what ?), little size, newpapers releases are uncredibly abondant in this period.

Cordialy.

Gilles F.

David Rudiak said...

cda wrote:
It is not only possible that some of the debris got blown away, but it is entirely possible (as Moore admitted) that a lot of the upper portion of the balloon train never landed on the ranch at all.

Typical debunker magical thinking at work. Yes, the upper part separated, magically leaving exactly one weather balloon and one radar target behind, to form Gen. Ramey's SINGULAR weather balloon and radar target, which would thus be indistinguishable from any other standard weather balloon/radar target, such as those being shown in the press crashing elsewhere at the time, such as in Circleville, Ohio, or Bakersfield, California, or White Plains, N.Y., or which the military then demonstrated afterward as the definitive solution to the flying saucer mystery (such as in Fort Worth, Alamogordo, Atlanta, Kansas City, Wilmington, Ohio, etc.)

Hmmm, is it just remotely possible that Ramey's singular balloon/target had nothing to do with Mogul? Could it possibly be exactly what Gen. Dubose said it was, a shill weather balloon brought in to get rid of the press? He was there. You would think he might know.

In addition, there still should have been cord that bound this SINGULAR balloon and radar target together. But this also magically disappeared. Where did it go? Remember Brazel specifically denied finding anything like that, and we do have to go by the 1947 accounts, don't we?

Also magically disappearing was the rest of the standard Mogul equipment at the BOTTOM of the balloon train (including its cord rigging): the heavy altitude control equipment, the radiosonde and batteries, the alleged sonobuoy microphone and batteries, the parachutes, etc.

All gone without a trace. Remember, if we go only by 1947 newspaper accounts, Gen. Ramey said what was in the pictures is ALL that was recovered: a SINGULAR balloon and radar target, and the rest of the standard weather balloon paraphernalia was NOT found.

By debunker rules, we can't go by later accounts of what else might have been found: Cavitt's black box, a thermos-like cylinder, the Marcel’s parchment-like material, the thin memory metal that couldn’t be cut or damaged, the hieroglyphics, the uncuttable, unburnable beams, etc. Those are all unreliable ancient memories. E.g., we would also have to accept Cavitt's statement of finding nothing like "flower tape" (that was all made up by money-grubbing saucer authors said Cavitt) or that the crash area was no bigger than his living room. And we can't have that, now can we?

This SINGULAR balloon/target also magically spread itself out over Mack Brazel's 200 yards across, or was it Marcel's "square mile"? Certainly not Cavitt’s “20 feet square”. No wait—that is just what you would expect for a relatively intact singular weather balloon/radar target crash. Could it be Cavitt was just reiterating the 1947 singular balloon/target story? What happened to the alleged 600 foot Mogul that created Brazel’s 200 yards across debris field? Under debunker magical thinking, what was found can be both tiny and huge at the same time. Just don’t think about it too hard.

The balloon, after a month in the hot sun and elements, also magically remained intact and pliable, as evidenced by the photos, instead of disintegrating into to brittle black ash, as Charles Moore himself demonstrated would happen after only 2 or 3 weeks of exposure. Remember, Brazel’s story was that he just left the debris out in the open when he allegedly found it June 14, and didn’t bother to gather it up until July 4. And we have to go by what Brazel said. All those more modern stories about him being in military custody and forced to tell a balloon story are just ancient memories and lies.

David Rudiak said...

(part 2)
The radar target white paper backing remained unstained after the same exposure: no staining from dew or the rains weather records indicate occurred, or from allegedly being dragged through the dirt. Instead, we see a pristine white backing in the Fort Worth photos. Could it be this was a NEW radar target just out of a box, such as the one demonstrated at Fort Worth only 2 days later? No, we aren’t allowed to entertain such ideas. Radar targets could only come from Mogul.

What happened to Brazel’s “flower tape”? The same FW photos have been intensely scrutinized, and nobody (not even the USAF) could find anything like that. Where did it go? Apparently down the same rabbit hole with the missing balloon twine and Mogul paraphernalia and all the other balloons and radar targets. The Roswell crash object is magically both a singular balloon/target shown in Ramey’s office and a giant, multi-balloon, multi-target Mogul.

And the radar target, in spite of being broken into pieces and flattened out, was described by Ramey as "hexagonal" in shape, while at the same time claiming that nobody at the base recognized it for it was. But a radar target could only be described as hexagonal if you already knew what it was and had seen one fully intact and assembled, and then viewed from only a narrow perspective. So how could Ramey possibly come up with a hexagonal description under the circumstances?

How could witnesses like Brazel, Marcel, Wilcox, and even Ramey or the base press release come up with statements that were so totally contradictory with one another? Brazel and Wilcox even contradicted themselves. Brazel basically said he found a balloon, then denied it. Wilcox couldn't make up his mind when Brazel found it or when Brazel came to see him. He admitted to working with the military. Why does the base press release contradict the finding date that came from Marcel and Ramey out of Fort Worth? (Wilcox apparently solved the dilemma by using both.) Where did Ramey's "hexagonal" description come from or his equally bizarre description of his "boxkite" as "25 feet across if reconstructed"?

A point I didn't even raise previously is what was Brazel doing in Roswell to even give a press statement? Remember, the Daily Record story of Brazel's account states: "Then Major Marcel brought it to Roswell and that was the last he heard of it until the story broke that he had found a flying disk."

So Brazel had just come to Roswell (leaving his livestock unattended) to report his “flying saucer”, takes Marcel and Cavitt back to his ranch to show them his saucer (because he can't be bothered to bring his singular balloon and target with him, even after just gathering it all into 2 small bundles), Marcel then leaves him behind at the ranch to tend his sheep, etc., but magically Brazel hears the story break late in the afternoon the next day (even though he has no radio, telephone, etc.), and is magically back in Roswell to give his press statement within a few hours. How does that work? (Remember, only 1947 press accounts allowed--ancient, unreliable memories are forbidden under debunker rules).

Of course, besides magical thinking, there is also the debunker rule of denial--just deny that any of this matters, like cda is doing. But if a cop were investigating a crime and saw all these HUGE inconsistencies in the various stories, he would smell a big fat rat.

cda said...

What a magnificent tirade.

DR leaves me with only one possible conclusion to the nature of the debris. It was (as hinted in the contemporary newspapers) portions of a crashed ET craft from Zeta Reticuli. But these Reticulans just happened to construct their craft to resemble our balloon-plus-radar attachment arrays that were being released from a nearby Air Force Base on earth.

Superb engineering indeed!

Lance said...

I certainly make no secret of my disdain for Rudiak. The reason for this is that, unlike honest researchers, Rudiak willfully lies about and distorts the facts to make his case.

This is something that Kevin has never done to my knowledge and even though I disagree with Kevin's conclusions about Roswell, I know that if he presents something as data, it can be relied upon.

In Rudiak's world, the idea that a long train of lightweight debris might get torn up and separated and lost in the rugged terrain of New Mexico is "magical thinking." Does any honest person really feel this way?

Rudiak presents as fact the idea that the debris that appears in the famous photos is EVERY scrap of debris recovered. Is it not possible that it was decided to simply show SOME of the stuff, since much of it looked like the same old garbage (that Marcel confirmed as the SAME stuff he picked up)?

Rudiak says:

"Also magically disappearing was the rest of the standard Mogul equipment at the BOTTOM of the balloon train (including its cord rigging): the heavy altitude control equipment, the radiosonde and batteries, the alleged sonobuoy microphone and batteries, the parachutes, etc."

Mr Moore documented that this was EXACTLY what he had seen (and he was there) in other Mogul flights: that "Often the equipment was ripped off as a result of wind forces."

Only among the truly religious could the words of someone like Rudiak carry weight. This is the sad state of UFO research and unfortunately it has always been that way.

Lance

Gilles Fernandez said...

Greetings,

Concerning the absence of cord rigging, that's not totaly exact. William Brazel Jr testimony :

"[There was] something on the order of heavy-gauge monofilament fishing line... The "string", I couldn’t break it."

"There was some thread-like material. It looked like silk and there were several pieces of it. It was not large enough to call string, but yet not so small as sewing thread either. To all appearances it was silk, except that it wasn’t silk. Whatever it was, it too was a very strong material. You could take it in two hands and try to snap it, but it wouldn’t snap at all. Nor did it have strands or fibers like silk thread would have. This was more like a wire--all one piece or substance. In fact, I suppose it could have been a sort of -that thought never occurred to me before."

Taking into account the tension resistance of the cable (150/200 pounds if I well remember USAF dataes), it is normal they cant breack it with 2 hands !

Cordialy,

Gilles F.

cda said...

There is also the report of a "giant thermos jug" being sent to Wright Field from Ft Worth (Randle/Schmitt first book p.103). However this is a 2nd hand story from a John G.Tiffany about his father's involvement. This object is accepted in the USAF September 1994 report as being consistent with an AN/CRT-1 Sonabuoy. However I do have my doubts over this (even though the AF writer seems to have accepted it).

It is pointless to argue with DR over all the things that 'could' or 'should' have been there or not there. You can always find contradictions and inconsistencies in the 1947 reports if you look for them. They hardly change the basic description of the debris that was found. As far as the charred or disintegrated state the balloon would have been in if left outside for 4-5 weeks, Moore made it clear in his writings that he frequently dipped the balloon fabrics in boiling water prior to launch to increase their durability.

Perhaps the Zeta Reticulans did the same.

starman said...

Lance:

"..the idea that a long train of lighweight debris might get torn up and separated and lost in the rugged terrain of New Mexico is "magical thinking."

I'd assume that it WOULD get scattered far and wide, IF it had been there since right after the alleged launch on the 4rth. After a month, so little would've been left that Brazel could've brought all of what remained there to Roswell. There wouldn't have been a "debris field" for Marcel to see. Had it been "lightweight" Mogul stuff, the bulk of it would've either disappeared after a month, or got caught in fences surrounding the property. That's not what anyone reported. Inasmuch as a June 4rth Mogul seems the only one which might, conceivably, have reached the ranch (and perhaps already truncated to begin with) a strong tendency to break up and disappear is another coffin in the nail of the idea. Despite steps Moore said he took to "increase its durability" the stuff would be in far from pristine condition as well.

Lance said...

I'm not sure what you are suggesting Starman.

I am reminded of the tale of Goldilocks:

Rudiak says there is not enough debris to be Mogul.

You say there is too much.

One thing for certain is that no amount would be "just right" since we are dealing with religion instead of fact.

The stuff in the photos is not in pristine condition. The white backing paper cannot be said to be in pristine condition, either--we don't see that much of it and (as often happens when photographing white objects) what we do see appears to be over-exposed. This would likely hide any stains or marks (not that I am saying dogmatically that such marks MUST exist like a certain befuddled fraudster might. I am making this claim as someone with much experience in this topic as a film editor and sometime professional photographer).

It is a sad state of affairs that nowhere on the net can you find even a reasonably high rez version of these photos.

I know that Rudiak has a high rez scan of at least the area of the telegram (The methodology of obtaining that scan was not ideal--coming from a blowup instead of the negative). Apparently Tom Carey and Donald Schmitt have a scan from the actual negative but it is described as low resolution).

Has anyone ever properly scanned the negatives at super high rez so that they may be examined?

I suspect that since the debris is obviously not a saucer, most researchers have no interest in it.

Lance

David Rudiak said...

As far as the charred or disintegrated state the balloon would have been in if left outside for 4-5 weeks, Moore made it clear in his writings that he frequently dipped the balloon fabrics in boiling water prior to launch to increase their durability.

The same Charles Moore also did a number of demonstrations of what happened to the same neoprene balloons if left in the N.M. sun for only 2 to 3 weeks. They disintegrate into a brittle, black paper ash-like state. (I've a video and several photos of his demonstrations. You can even hear the brittle, stiff material rustle and crinkle like cellophane.)

Moore's point was that Brazel described the rubber material he supposedly found as "smoky gray", and Moore was saying this is what happened to the whitish balloons when exposed to the sun--they darkened.

Moore was arguing this explained what Brazel found, but his own demonstrations destroyed his own argument.

The balloon in the Fort Worth photos isn't in the state of Moore's demo balloons after only 2 to 3 weeks of sun exposure. It is darkened, but it also hasn't fallen apart into an ashlike state. You can see the folds and the stretch marks and has the appearance of a balloon that is still pliable, not brittle.

In other words, this is a used balloon but relatively fresh. It is indistinguishable from the hundreds of weather balloons sent up all over the country every day to determine wind direction. They also return to earth darkened from just a few hours of intense UV exposure in the upper atmosphere. Lots of them were turned in to authorities, and any one of them could have served as a shill balloon.

I'm sorry, but you can't have it both ways. The balloon in the FW photos did not come from some Mogul launch in early June. It's condition is too good.

Likewise the radar target white paper backing is completely clean, like it just came out of a box, which it probably did. Such targets were widely available. In fact another one was demonstrated at Fort Worth only 2 days later as part of the Army/Navy campaign to kill the saucer rumors:

http://roswellproof.com/FWSTJuly11.html

I have yet to see a clear connection between Ramey's balloon/target and Project Mogul. His weather officer back then, Irving Newton, said they were widely used and what Ramey had could have come from any number of weather stations. He told me the same thing in the present day.

I also have yet to hear a convincing explanation as to how the alleged multi-balloon, multi-targeted Mogul magically boiled itself down exactly one balloon and one radar target for display. Then you have to reconcile that with Marcel's 1947 description of debris scattered over a square mile or Brazel's "rubber strips" scattered over a 200 yard diameter. What "rubber strips" was Brazel talking about? There's just a singular balloon that is seemingly intact, i.e. in one piece.

The story is again all over the place.

David Rudiak said...

Regarding the Fort Worth photos, four of the negatives are in the Special Collections divisions of the University of Texas at Arlington. Anyone is free to order prints and scan and examine to their heart's delight, as a number of researchers have already done. (There are copyright issues with placing high-resolution copies on the Net.)

And BTW, the Air Force had them examined in 1994 looking for the mythical Mogul "flower tape" and couldn't find it. And neither has anybody else.

Lance said...

Where has Rudiak proven that the debris in the photographs was ALL of the debris?

And how do I get the ability to tell if something is "pliable" by looking at it in a photo.

If the balloons take a couple of days to darken, how did they pull one "out of a box" pre-darkened?

Rudiak is the kind of person whose arguments would wilt if he was debating face to face. Here he can post the same crap over and over, even after reasonable doubts have been raised. He simply ignores criticism in the finest style of the world's great truth seekers.

He would be a laughing stock in any endeavor outside of this field. In the saucer game, he hilariously, is considered a top researcher.

Lance

David Rudiak said...

Gilles F wrote:
Concerning the absence of cord rigging, that's not totaly exact. William Brazel Jr testimony :

"[There was] something on the order of heavy-gauge monofilament fishing line... The "string", I couldn’t break it."

"There was some thread-like material. It looked like silk and there were several pieces of it.


A few small pieces of such material does not explain the complete absence of hundreds of yards of rigging that held a real Mogul together. It isn't going to ALL magically disappear.

Even if you assume just one balloon and one target magically separated from the rest of the Mogul (to form Ramey's singular demo weather balloon/radar target), what happened to the lines attached to that balloon and that target?

Brazel, for one, denied finding any rigging at all, although he described the eyelets to which rigging would be tied. All the knots disappeared also on the eyelets?

Lt. McAndrew of the USAF noticed the missing rigging as well and brought it up in his interview with Moore. He asked Moore if it could have disintegrated in the sun, and Moore said he didn't think so. At that point, the subject was forever dropped, and you won't find the magic missing rigging discussed anywhere else in the AF Roswell report. Out of sight, out of mind. Got a Mogul debunking theory to sell to the public.

I have found fishing line snarled in brush along river banks that has obviously been there for a long time because it is starting to get a little brittle with age. It doesn't magically disintegrate, nor does it magically snap into a few small pieces, like Brazel Jr. described. It doesn't blow away. It is a long snarled mess tangled up in brush and stays right there.

You can't have a Mogul crash forming Brazel's 200 yard across "rubber strip" debris area (or Marcel's "square mile" of debris), and have absolutely no rigging left behind that strung it all together. It isn't possible, not in the real world.

Gilles Fernandez said...

David,

The point is when you have something as first hand debris testimoned, the relational identity, isomorphisms, similarities between "FS" wreckage and Balloon componants is to high to be a simple coincidence : isomorphisms analycaly, globaly and dimensionaly.

But more important imho.

Sorry to disturb you again, but I INSIST ONE MORE TIME on the scotch tape mention by several (Brazel interview, Bessie, etc.), but mainly Loretta Proctor when she was visited by Brazel before all, before julu the 4th as she remember (you cant invoke cover up).

You must admit FW Conference
Press never used this mention, or later in 1947, in what you call a "cover-up".

BUT this detail cant be invented : they then shown it (scotch tape).

Better: when you are facing the ML307 blueprint, you see the "22" nota, indicating to reinforce ML307 by this acetate scotch... A detail !

ET mimetism (?), as CDA pointed, is very detailled !

How they have "invented" it, a detail typical of ML307, if they were not facing a ML307 ?

This detail is IMHO the best "evidence" of the prosaïc thesis as the best candidat I have no pretention you share, but a sort of "chess and mat" without offense.

Cordialy,

Gilles F.

Lance said...

Nice job, Gilles!

Lance

starman said...

Gilles F:

"scotch tape mention by several...mainly Loretta Proctor.....before julu the 4th as she remember..."

The May 5, 1991 Loretta Proctor affidavit does not mention "scotch" tape, just "something" Brazel "described as tape." Mac seems to have said "tape" for lack of a better term. Furthermore, she just said this was in July 1947; NO specific date was given. Proctor also mentioned Brazel brought a brown object, resembling plastic, like nothing she had ever seen before; which couldn't be cut or burned. I suppose you think that was from Mogul...
Nice job David Rudiak.

Gilles Fernandez said...

No, she precised it was before july the 4th in an interview if I well remember (must retrieve the link).


First hand Witnesses, as july 1947 interview, mention the tape.

This "detail" takes all its signification when you discover in the blueprint ML307 (in the USAF big report, "Blueprint, Corner Reflector, ML307-c/AP Assembly" appendixe the mention "22" in the picture assembly, going you to read the little right marge :

« Shall be acetate scotch film tape [illisible] as made by Minesotta Mining [I cant read] or egal »

Your ET high technological spacecraft (sic) have retro-ingeniered ML307 and balloons ! :

It is a spacecraft in balsa like, neoprene like, sticks like, laminated metal-paper foils like, monofilament fishing line like, etc.

Balloons and ML307 like. Hoo, with "extraordinary" properties added post 1978, cause false memory, retrospective falsifiction, guided interview consciously or not, psychosociological contamination, etc.

But for ET advocats, it is not balloons or radar-targets, you know... It is pure coincidences !

But more : the ET have not forgotted to read the note "22" of the original ML307 blueprint.

They though too, when manufacturing their craft, to usea scotch tape-like material too !

But as usual in pro-HET rethoric, it is not exactly the tape indicated in the "22" blueprint nota ! Coincidence, you know.

We can speack about precise dimensions of sticks given by some first hand witnesses, compared to ML307 real sicks dimensions later, where similarity (mm order !) can be found.

Dunno how you say in english, but in law courts, HET thesis versus prosaic one would be "fun".

For several monthes, an important amount of new prosaïc arguments have been presented here, as Lance Moody already pointed in another thread.

Humblely, I have to say : "what else, dear readers ?"

My very best regards,

Gilles F.

cda said...

Gilles has made some very good points.

Notice that neither DR nor KDR has responded to the obvious question of the two entirely separate press reports of July 9 describing the debris found at the ranch.

These reports, one is by Jason Kellahin (based on Brazel's testimony) in Roswell; the other is by, most probably, J.Bond Johnson (based mainly on Marcel's testimony) in Fort Worth. They describe almost IDENTICAL debris. These reports were written independently; there was no collusion or such like. Yet the debris is virtually the same in each. Isn't that strange?! All right, someone can always find slight discrepancies if he looks, but any unbiased reader/researcher would concede that they are more or less identical and appear to describe the same object(s).

Why was this? The simple logical reason is that they are describing the same object(s).

So I'll repeat my question to DR and KDR (and any other doubter):

What is this stuff? Is it balloon debris or is it something from a distant planet or star?

Are we really to believe that someone high up in the AF said to Brazel: "The stuff in Ft Worth is going to be described as a balloon plus radar reflector, therefore you (i.e. Brazel) must describe it as such here in Roswell so the two accounts match and we (i.e. the USAF) can maintain the cover-up"?

The idea is simply too preposterous. It is laughable.

Incidentally, the Kellahin story shows that a balloon and kite were both being considered, according to Brazel. A good indicator that he and Marcel had suspected its identity before Marcel departed for Ft Worth. Then Brazel said at the end that he doubted a simple weather balloon was the cause (without knowing what had transpired at Ft.Worth).

I think Gilles, for one, will agree with me. But I also know certain others will not.

Lance said...

There were also "letters" described as being on some of the parts in the 1st press report and "Considerable Scotch tape and some tape with flowers printed upon it had been used in the construction."

Of course at the time the people involved weren't thinking about the how every word they say could be twisted into whatever a saucer believer might want it to mean.

Gilles Fernandez said...

Lance,

You "precedated" (english word ?) my new response to Starman.

SCOTCH tape then (and not simply "tape") is mentionned in 9 july 1947 newpaper, relative to Brazel interview, then a concomitant source in time (and space).

"Considerable Scotch tape and some tape with flowers printed upon it had been used in the construction." as you pointed

This scotch is a "detail" when you read the ML307 blueprint (nota 22) in order to reinforce the sticks. But what a detail now.

A detail testimoned however. What a precision, impossible to invent this detail, a "signature" of ML307. Totaly insolit.

Cover-up advocats said Brazel was briefed. But new problem with this tape.

WHY then the 1947 pseudo cover-up didn't utilize this insolite mention they have "dicted", which, in a particular point of view deserves the USAAF explanation (as Brazel conclusion do) ?

Because nothing was dicted to Brazel.

Christopher's previous arguments concerning the independant reports without collusion is very interresting too imho and a new possibility why Brazel concluded as he did in his interview... I will read with better attention tomorrow, cause restaurant in few minutes ^^

Loretta Proctor remembers Brazel describing her a tape, episode taking place BEFORE Brazel contacted the army, then out in time the "cover-up ad hoc explanation".

Affidavit 5/5/1991. "There was also something he [Mac Brazel] described as tape which had printing on it. The color
of the printing was a kind of purple ."
Kevin Randle and Don Schmitt, UFO Crash at Roswell, 1991. "He said there was more stuff there, like a tape that had some sort of figures on it. "

Of course, taking into account Trakowky interview (appendixe 23 & 24 USAF big report if correct), where he recall an anecdote (the joke concerning this tape with purplish flowers), we understand it is surely toy's american merri-lei Corp tape, similar as the acetate scotch the blueprint explains to be necessary (several "22" nota in the assembly plan).

Because the blueprint writed : « Shall be acetate scotch film tape [illisible] as made by Minesotta Mining [I cant read] or EGAL ».

Very best regards, sorry for my "crapaud" english.

Gilles F.

Gilles Fernandez said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Gilles Fernandez said...

(sorry deleted, part of text disapearing cause bad manip).

@ CDA :

You writted : "A good indicator that he and MARCEL had suspected its identity before Marcel departed for Ft Worth. Then Brazel said at the end that he doubted a simple weather balloon was the cause (without knowing what had transpired at Ft.Worth)."

I emphazed MARCEL cause I dunno if you wanted to write "Brazel" or "Marcel" ?

Yes, I find your argument very interresting concerning the two separate non collusive writters, as, linked to, the new prosaic hypothesis concerning why Brazel concluded as he did in his interview.

Simple, economical, parcimony principle respecting.

Best Regards,

Gilles F.

PS : if you find the 1946 reference of the "gounge", I'm very interrested too ! I ignored totaly this "detail", if "detail" must be used for such an info

starman said...

Gilles F:

OK so where did Loretta Proctor say Brazel told her about debris before July 4, and where does she mention SCOTCH tape?

Besides the affidavit of '91, there is another interview I read, in which KDR asked LP if she didn't know the "exact chronology of events." She replied:

"No, I don't really. I'm getting old myself and forgetful." And this was in April 1989--see KDR's "Crash Update" book page 163.I didn't see any exact dates in the interview. You say Marcel is no good because he spoke 30 years or so after the fact. But Proctor is reliable about "tape" over a decade after Marcel spoke, and despite the fact she was mostly just repeating what Mac said he saw. But let's assume she IS (or was)reliable. "But he said there was some more stuff in there, like a tape that had some sort of figures on it and it wasn't any kind of writing that either or print or anything that we knew that was written on it." Was Mac illiterate, or unable to recognize printed flowers??

Btw KDR, if you don't close this thread, you'll never got anyone to lok at newer posts, lol.

Gilles Fernandez said...

Greetings Starman,

Mac wasn't illeterate to recognize and to mention "Flowers". Lance already remembered you the press report using Brazel as source :

"Considerable Scotch tape and some tape with FLOWERS printed upon it had been used in the construction."

As pointed above, some will play with "tape" without "scotch" mention, ad hoc argument in order to point little discrenpencies to have an ET craft (with tape however !).

I suppose when historicographical sources, like newspaper writes "scotch tape", you need the "acetate" mention too ?

Concerning "false memories", it is another big chapter. I consacred one big appendixe for my readers to explain what are "false memories", "retrospective falsification" and other experimental studies concerning memories, consciously or not guided interview, bad testimony's record method (non-standardized method) effects, etc.

Concerning Marcel claims in interviews, to esquive false memories proofs he gived about ordinary things (medails, reasons to obtain these medails, cursus, etc) is very strange. It is not to insult him, just to show "false memories", retrospective falsifications are universal. Roswell protagonists aren't surhumen, they are like us...

Concerning Loretta Proctor, there exist some articles summerized her claims. One in english is the following :

http://www.abqjournal.com/roswell/roslived1.htm

"I don't remember just exactly what day it was but it was just before the Fourth of July and Mac Brazel came by our house and he had a small fragment of this material he showed us. [...]"

I admit I dunno where it comes, but well, she was visited before all starts : it is this visit which "provides" a good reason to Brazel to go to Roswell : knowledge of FS existence (contextualized, no one ET semantic) and the rewards. Tape was mentionned.

Best Regards,

Gilles F.

starman said...

Gilles F:

"Considerable Scotch tape and some tape with FLOWERS printed upon it had been used in the construction."

Brazel said that, wholly on his own initiative?? Ha. Seems unlike what you'd expect from a cowboy/hick, more like some armed forces bureaucrat. I don't believe those were his own words.....

Concerning # of air medals: Did you read KDR's THE RANDLE REPORT? He addressed those issues, pointing out, as an analogy IIRC that he has over 40 air medals but only five are listed.

As for ms "I don't remember just exactly what day it was but it was just before the Fourth of July..."

That was dated 1982; so you don't know its provenance i.e. who interviewed her? The website contains the old AF claim on crash dummies, but it couldn't be THAT old, lol. I'd assume an interview as old as '82 would've appeared in some book or magazine of the '80s or '90s, but does anyone recall seeing it other than on that website??? Considering the importance of such testimony, it would've been in print. Even if it is real and not a fabrication by skeptics (like the crash dummy thesis on that site)some in the ET camp suggested the crash occurred July 2. That's one possibility, and faulty memory may be another...

starman said...

Sorry I confused LP's age with the date of the putative interview!!?? But I noticed something else: in a July 1990 interview she said the object shown to her by Brazel was about 4 inches long. That's consistent with the size estimate she gave KDR in the April 1989 interview appearing in the Crash Update book (3 to 4 inches). (No size estimate appears in the '91 affidavit.) Surprisingly, though, in the same interview in which she says Brazel showed up before the 4rth, the object was SIX TO SEVEN inches long. I'm not sure what to make of that. Might it suggest a forgery in which the forger "didn't do his homework"?

starman said...

But I suppose the best explanation is memory issues--already a problem by '89 by LP's own admission. As the website indicates, her statement that Brazel came before July 4rth was made around the time of the 50th anniversary of Roswell (c 1997 I presume) so it was years after the '89 interview and the '91 affidavit. Some have suggested the memories of witnesses "improved" over time, with new details being added or things being embellished. That may well be true here. LP gave a bigger estimate of the size of the object Mac brought than she did several years earlier in '89 and '90. One could argue that this 50th anniversary statement is the least reliable, so I wouldn't insist Brazel came before the 4rth, even if I were a skeptic. :)

Gilles Fernandez said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Gilles Fernandez said...

"so I wouldn't insist Brazel came before the 4rth, even if I were a skeptic. :)"

Dunno if I was clear cause my crapaud english : I was speacking the date Brazel cames to Proctor, not Brazel coming to Roswell. I meant the date of the visit where Brazel first listened about "Flying Saucer" and about the reward offered by "press, by LP and FP.

This episode taking place before he comes to Roswell, what LP remembers is out "cover-up".

That's the point (out cover-up supposition). What is described to her ?

Balloon, ML307 or a spacecraft ?

A "paper" craft is described, and one more time, what it is described is compatible in what is described by press, etc.

Awesome ET craft one more time.

starman said...

Gilles F:

"I was speacking the date Brazel cames to Proctor, not Brazel coming to Roswell."

Yes I know that. My point was that LP only said that once, AFAIK, and several years after an interview, and affidavit, in which she didn't say anything about the timing of Brazel's visit in relation to July 4rth. Already by 1989 she noted having memory problems. She didn't say Brazel came to her place before July 4rth then, in '89, (or in '90 or '91)just several years later, at the time of the 50th anniversary of Roswell c '97 (I presume). It was at that later time that her estimate of the size of the object Brazel showed her "grew" from 3-4" to 6-7" leading me to suspect that the notion of witness embellishment over time applies here, hence the added detail of '97--including "before the Fourth of July"--is questionable. But let's assume her recollections in '97 were accurate. As I said before, some in the ET camp have said the crash occurred--or might've--as early as July 2. Ergo, Proctor's c 1997 claim--even if real--doesn't prove/disprove anything.
Of course Proctor saw Brazel before the coverup, and as her affidavit and other statements indicate, was shown something that seemed anything but prosaic, and heard about other material which Brazel indicated was unlike anything they had "ever heard of." Btw Proctor didn't say Brazel mentioned balloons, which he most certainly would have had Mogul come down there.:)

Gilles Fernandez said...

One more time :

What LP remembers coming from Brazel, or herself, as regarding real and first hand witnesses, is closer to an ET spacecraft or Ballons + ML307 ?

Exactly or closer, more or less the same of the prosaïc proposition, but with strange properties, "remembered" post-1978.

Witnesses used balsa, laminated foils, tape-like, fish-lines-like, etc-like, cause they laked terms to described how ET was they saw !


BTW : How do you conceive, draft, picture, imagine, what you want..., your ET spacecraft with balsa sticks like, tin-foils like, (scotch) tape like, neoprene like, fishing-lines- like ,Etc. ?

You need Ragsdale, Kaufmann, etc. to help you about this obvious question ? As for several ones proposed and asking previously ? To add engine and Aliens ?

The coincidence it is matching Balloons + ML307, is a great conspiracy in your country in 1947, in a period where the medias were invaded and dicted by gouvernement buraucrats ! Seriously...

You want the list of free and important US and independant journalists in 1947, so famous for this, whom are in my memories and for sure in american one concerning this period ?

BTW, never my goal to "spamm" Kevin Randle blog. I thx this blog to open discussions one more time.

So, without new things added, receive my very best regards.

Gilles F.

starman said...

I notice you were prepared to accept LP's c 1997 memory of being visited by Brazel before July 4rth, even though that may be the least reliable testimony she gave, but don't accept her recollections of exotic material, including a piece she saw herself. Btw, the unusual (plastic) appearance of the thing wasn't the only unusual feature; she saw her husband and Brazel fail to cut it, and heard how the stuff "like aluminum foil" couldn't be damaged either.

David Rudiak said...

Regarding Gilles F. comments about Scotch tape, “flower tape”, what Loretta Proctor, Mack Brazel, and Bessie Brazel Schreiber reported, I have the following comments (some reiterating what Starman has already written):

1. Gilles F. is confusing the clear Scotch acetate tape, noted on the Mogul schematic as being used along foil-paper seams and what appears to date, according to a note, from 1945, with Charles Moore’s claims of the toy maker’s “flower tape” allegedly dating from Mogul times, maybe 1947 or 1948 (who knows?), supposedly added LATER as reinforcement because the foil/paper glued to the central balsa sticks tended to rip loose under the stress of the Mogul flights. Moore further claimed that this tape was “clear or milky and semi-opaque, about two inches wide” (Pflock), in other words, NOT the typical, narrow, clear office Scotch tape we all commonly use.

2. Moore further claimed that this broad “flower tape” was added to BOTH sides of the sticks to reinforce them, and in a drawing he made indicates he was referring to the central 3 core sticks of the radar target, the length of each being about 4 feet. So there should have been 2 x 3 x 4’ or 24’ of “flower tape.”

3. We can see the some of these central core sticks exposed in the Fort Worth photos, but where is Brazel’s “flower tape”? Nobody can find it anywhere in the surviving photos, including the USAF unidentified photoanalysts in 1994. And nobody else mentioned anything about it back then either, not Marcel, not Ramey, not Wilcox, etc.

4. While I don’t find it at all implausible that such additional reinforcement might have been added at some time, the only notes on the actual radar target schematic about reinforcement to areas easily torn indicates the use of “buckram”, not some other larger tape. Buckram is a coarse cotton fabric or mesh glued onto materials for reinforcement, commonly used, e.g., in book bindings and to stiffen some clothes. Buckram is not “flower tape”.

5. Gilles F. notes Brazel commenting about the “flower tape”, but fails to note Brazel distinguishes between this and large quantities of ordinary Scotch tape he said he also found. He’s talking about two different types of tape.

6. Overall Brazel does indeed seem to be describing a radar target, but then we get back to the question of whether this is what he really found or whether he was delivering a message the military wanted him to deliver well after Ramey had put out balloon/radar target story in Fort Worth. We have multiple witnesses having him being accompanied to his press conference by military officers (including reporters who were there, such as Jason Kellahin, who wrote the story for AP, and an editor of the Roswell Daily Record). Provost marshal Edwin Easley admitted to Kevin that they held Brazel at the base and he wasn’t free to leave, rather difficult to understand if all he found was his “five pounds” of “rubber strips” and sticks, tape, tinfoil, etc. And, of course, we have many more witnesses to Brazel saying he was coerced and/or complaining bitterly to family and friends about his treatment at the hands of the military.

7. Gilles F. makes a big deal about Loretta Proctor saying that Brazel described the “Scotch tape” and flower patterns. Well no, we have quotes from Proctor that Brazel described some sort of tape with purplish “figures” on it, but not the common clear Scotch acetate tape of the radar target schematic. And nothing specific about “flower” patterns. In addition, as Starman has also just pointed out, it isn’t clear as to exactly when Brazel told Proctor about this tape: was it before going to Roswell or after being held by the military?

David Rudiak said...

(part 2)
8. Gilles F., in his own bit of selective “retrospective falsification” leaves out the rest of Proctor’s testimony about Brazel also describing strange properties to the debris, such as finding “memory foil” described by many others, or being unable to cut any of the material with his knife. Or the fact that he brought a brown stick of some kind which Proctor said Brazel and her husband Floyd couldn’t cut with a knife or burn (this she personally witnessed). This was really weird “rubber strips”, “balsa wood”, “tinfoil”, and “Scotch tape”.

9. Both Floyd and Loretta Proctor also mentioned how unusually excited and talkative Brazel was about all the strange debris on his property and how he tried to convince them to come to his ranch to see for themselves. Why would he do that if all he found was small quantities of rubber strips, tinfoil, Scotch tape, etc.?

10. Floyd Proctor was also one of several witnesses saying they saw Brazel being walked around Roswell surrounded by military people. Why, because he found 5 pounds of Scotch tape, foil, etc., etc.?

11. Gilles F. also makes a big deal out of Bessie Brazel Schreiber describing flower tape as well. First of all, Schreiber claimed whitish tape, not clear acetate Scotch tape. In addition, more of Loretta Proctor’s story was that Schreiber wasn’t there at all at the time and got her story mixed up. Schreiber toward the end of her life agreed, and said she now thought she got it confused with some other event. In fact, if you look at her other debris descriptions, such as the “silver-rubber”-like material she couldn’t tear, it DOESN’T match flimsy radar-target foil paper but does resemble an experimental balloon material tried by Mogul of cloth, rubber coated on one side and painted with aluminum on the other. The first of these balloons came down roughly in the area 5 months later and could conceivably have been the event confused by Schreiber. (This, in fact, is the ONLY Mogul documented to have crashed anywhere near the Foster Ranch.)

12. Another possibility is that Schreiber could also have picked up some of her descriptions elsewhere, such as reading her father’s description in a newspaper, or having him repeat it to her at some time, and then retold through the “fog of time” decades later. If Gilles F. can use such “retrospective falsification” theories to dismiss the ton of testimony pointing to an actual flying saucer crash, by the same criteria we can dismiss the slight bit of testimony that might support a Mogul balloon crash. Fair is fair.

13. In the end, there has never been any actual documentation that there ever was “flower tape” used on Mogul radar targets, such as instructions on the schematic, a manufacturer’s catalog, or a radar target photo showing it, including the photos in Fort Worth. All we have is the testimony of Charles Moore decades after the fact that he saw it used on Mogul radar targets and second- hand testimony of the former project director (Trakowski) that he was allegedly told about it. By the same debunking rules used to dismiss crashed saucer and alien body testimony, we can therefore safely dismiss what Moore or Trakowski said about “flower tape” as “retrospective falsification”, not to mention that Moore has been caught red-handed lying about a number of things Mogul related, thus making him an unreliable witness. For all we know, both Moore and Trakowski read Brazel’s “flower tape” description in the newspapers at the time or decades later when the Roswell case reemerged, and then through “retrospective falsification” claimed it was part of Project Mogul. Again, if the debunkers can use such theories, why can’t the other side? What’s debunking sauce for the goose is debunking sauce for the gander.

Lance said...

In other words, Rudiak doesn't care one iota about the truth, he just wants to be using the best tactics support his religion.

This is why any material from him should be suspect unless you are a UFO zealot (the obvious lies like the one I documented on his hilariously poorly designed site and the more insidious ones that are his stock in trade).

Lance

cda said...

DR in his part 1 item 6 tries to answer the points I raised about the virtually identical descriptions of the debris given by Jason Kellahin in the Roswell Daily Record and that given by J Bond Johnson in the Ft Worth press. DR naturally responds with his only 'way out' namely that Brazel gave a false description, under military pressure, so that it would match that Marcel gave in Ft Worth. The 'balloon plus radar target' explanation was fixed beforehand; therefore Brazel had to admit to this (even if what he had really discovered were parts of an ET craft!). I invite any rational impartial person to consider the complete absurdity of this scenario. The USAF even told him to give a false date of June 14 for the original discovery, alter the dates of his coming into Roswell, his whole description of the stuff, his motive for coming into town and so on. And all so the USAF could cover up probably the greatest scientific discovery ever made. Even to the extent of Brazel talking about trying to assemble the junk into a kite and balloon and then saying at the end that he did not believe it was a weather balloon anyway!

These two accounts were written separately, neither had any knowledge of the other, and neither mentions the other.

Yet some diehard ETHers insist a cover-up was already in place, and began before Marcel left for Ft. Worth. Thet just cannot or will not accept the (very) obvious: namely that BOTH independent descriptions are of balloon debris and that is what was, almost certainly, discovered and recovered at the Foster ranch.

Yes, Brazel perhaps was accompanied around the town by an AF officer or officers, for maybe a few hours. So what? Does this constitute harassment or pressure to tell a false tale? Imprisoned for a week by the USAF? I do not believe a word of it. What I do accept is that he was advised to keep quiet to protect him from too much unwanted publicity.

These accounts are based on 30+ year-old memories anyway, and may have been influenced by subtle pressure brought to bear on these witnesses by the early researchers, i.e. Moore & Friedman.

Gilles Fernandez said...

David,

Brazel gone in Roswell and accepted to meet USAAF, he accepted USAAF came in his ranch, they passed a night at his little neighboor grange, etc...

What a surprise that Brazel was maybe accompanied around the town by an AF officer or officers, as CDA points ! Totaly strange and surprising !

I point too some other whitnesses remember Brazel not accompagnied by military, but passing the night in a journalist home and coming to the interview accompagnied with. But well, testimonies selective choices, when sensationnalism only must count for some...

Concerning Mogul n°38 to evacuate Bessie testimony, who presented her this ? Impartial searchers of course... We reach the paroxism of ad hoc attempt to have an ET craft by some searchers !

This december 1947 new explanation cant be serious : you must eliminate her in all testimonies or tales when she is part in,july 1947 protagonists actions. Magicaly ! You must erase her each time she is mentionned or testimoned in july events, Brazel mentionned her in newspaper, etc. Abracadabra she is teleportated in december 1947. Her presence in july events, related by testimonies was dicted by USAAF too, you know.

In other terms, all prosaic testimonies must be eliminated. Some testimonies are magicaly absent (ie Kimball and I pass others).

When you cant, this is army pressure to them, or they are part of the conspiracy : Navy, USAAF, Battelle, Howard Hugues, etc. are part of the myth. In few times, all americans will have a place in Roswell affair.

Alcoolism is now a proof of the post event traumatism (Bagralia) : In the absence of solid proofs, 3 decades silence, there comes the liquid ones.

But well, I want not spam, and I wait an answer of CDA obvious question concerning the 2 independant reports he argues. How you will magicaly invent a collusion and how USAAF did it ?

Regards,

Gilles F.

cda said...

Gilles F.
I love your reference to Bragalia's 'liquid proof'. Excellent! It beats the absent 'solid proof' anytime.

starman said...

cda:

"And all so the USAF could cover up probably the greatest scientific discovery ever made."

But this was FAR more than some purely academic thing; this had the potential to turn current society on its head! Considering the potential impact, of course they'd cover it up, and go to whatever lengths necessary to do so.

"The two accounts were written separately, neither had any knowledge of the other..."

How do you know?? Were you there? Once the balloon story decision was made, all they had to do was pick up the phone in Ft. Worth, call the Roswell base and tell them how to "coach" Mac, to ensure the necessary "corroboration." It would only take a few minutes and was vital. In order for the balloon tale to stand up they had to get the principal civilian witness at the ranch to go along with it--after a little "friendly persuasion" in custodia militaris.

"and neither mentions the other."

Of course not!! What were the Roswell AF people and Mac supposed to say: we were told to repeat the same line Ft. Worth put out? Maybe Brazel's account slightly differed, to avoid that impression.

"..he was advised to keep quiet to protect him from too much unwanted publicity."

HA. What could they care? Unless what he knew was potentially injurious to the higher interests of the US, "unwanted publicity" was his problem. He didn't HAVE to come to Roswell to show off that stuff in the first place.

cda said...

Starman:
You are invoking the usual conspiracy theory. One little problem: if you are right, is it not strange, very strange, that Marcel showed the debris to his wife and son during the night before? Strange also how the AF managed to get themselves so organised in a short space of time, perhaps two hours or so that morning, to put together such a perfect 'way out' of their problem, at two AF bases no less. The stories matched almost perfectly. (And for all the AF knew, numerous others had already seen the debris anyway, so the deception was pointless).

Even more strange how they have managed to keep it officially highly secret since then for a little matter of 63 years!

Sorry, but there comes a time when you have to draw the line at these vast conspiracy theories and adopt a common sense attitude.
That is what Gilles, Lance, myself and some others have done.

No solid proof, so we now have 'liquid proof', courtesy of Mr Bragalia!

Lance said...

Rarely mentioned is the equally unlikely idea of the instant location of the ersatz actual saucer out in the desert, supposedly having the military in place almost immediately after the crash.

How? It doesn't seem (to judge from real life air crash recoveries) that we have such fast response even today.

The unlikely ideas pile on and on to such a height that I wonder how anyone can possibly still believe them.

I genuinely don't think Kevin would have walked so far down this road had he not encountered the parade of liars that initially seemed to confirm the crash idea. The liars are now all exposed but they planted the idea and the damage had been done: their story became a modern myth.

Lance

David Rudiak said...

cda wrote:
"The two accounts were written separately, neither had any knowledge of the other..."

Starman responded:
Once the balloon story decision was made, all they had to do was pick up the phone in Ft. Worth, call the Roswell base and tell them how to "coach" Mac, to ensure the necessary "corroboration." It would only take a few minutes and was vital.

LOL! Yes, our resident skeptics must think they were still using Pony Express back then instead of instantaneous electronic communications. In the real world of 1947, it would not be hard at all to coordinate cover stories cooked up in Washington or Fort Worth with the people in Roswell.

Another key element here is control of the witnesses. Reporter/photographer Bond Johnson in Fort Worth didn't need to be coerced. Claiming he was some sort of "independent" Roswell witness is nonsense. He wasn't at Roswell and had no way of knowing what might or might not have been recovered. He just repeated what he is told by the military in Fort Worth and photographed what he was shown. That proves nothing.

Mack Brazel or Sheriff Wilcox did know what happened and would have to be convinced in some way to go along with the official story. There are all sorts of ways to get people to cooperate, from friendly patriotic appeals to bribes or physical threats.

Wilcox was quoted in 1947 saying he was "working with those fellows at the base" when he refused to answer more reporter questions about what the crash object looked like, so at the very least, this strongly suggests wasn't a truly independent witness. (Also Wilcox was unable to tell a consistent story of when Brazel found the object, came to Roswell, or what he found. His story was all over the place.)

Regarding Brazel, we have about a dozen witnesses indicating that Brazel was also "working with those fellows at the base", stating that he outright admitted to being coerced or mistreated (e.g., reporter Frank Joyce), they saw him in military custody, or knew of him being kept at the base against his will. The most striking of these I believe to be provost marshal Easley's confession to Kevin that they held Brazel there under armed guard for several days.

And all this because of two small bundles and "5 pounds" of "rubber strips", tinfoil, paper, and Scotch tape (Brazel's story)?

Gilles Fernandez said...

David,

"And ALL this because of two small bundles and "5 pounds" of "rubber strips", tinfoil, paper, and Scotch tape (Brazel's story)?"

And nothing of your "ALL" (I emphazed) before 1978 for a thing like this (pseudo)-magnitude ? You have an idea of what such a discovery have as consequence when you input the "human factor" in the equation ? Do you ?

Nothing reported to influent and fecond NICAP, CUFOS, APRO, etc... Nothing.

All you point is post-1978 appeared. The event falls in a 3 decades silence : no one panic, interrest, personnal journal, personnal dairy's, family letters, correspondances, etc. NOTHING.

The witnesses have not collected newspapers in "memories" of what they saw. Nothing. You too have done the same I suppose ?

I avoid too how such a discovery have needed as eminent scientifics of this period your country have, giving research papers, counter-analysis, progress reports etc, etc. How the Science works in fact.

It would create tons of papers, progress reports, etc. Noone FOIA have found or will. (I discuss Battelle Bragalia "smocking gun" document in my book, helping by a french chimist, it is a "water pistol").

All is in AF Hangar or Area 51, and militaries have been specialy scientific formed, you know... There exists a parallele scientific special world, Roswell event have created.

And many others serious arguments.

Anyway, I suppose all of this obvious questions will change nothing : "I want to believe".

It is a pity. But when you input the "human factor" in the equation, there is a big problem, again.

Regards,

Gilles F.

David Rudiak said...

cda wrote:
is it not strange, very strange, that Marcel showed the debris to his wife and son during the night before?

How is this strange? Apparently your point is that Marcel didn't recover anything remarkable. But what would be truly strange is that Marcel would wake up his wife and son in the middle of the night to show them something unremarkable like "rubber strips" and Scotch tape. Instead, he clearly thought, by his own and Marcel Jr.'s testimony years later, he had a real flying disc on his hands. That is why he woke up his wife and son--to show them something he thought extraordinary.

Strange also how the AF managed to get themselves so organised in a short space of time, perhaps two hours or so that morning, to put together such a perfect 'way out' of their problem, at two AF bases no less.

Yeah, the USAF could not be that organized or competent. That's why they lost WWII.

However, in the real world, they had electronic communications, highly experienced staffs of counterintelligence experts, and a fleet of aircraft at their disposal to procure whatever they wanted in a matter of hours, if it wasn't already on hand.

Stories and photos about the Circleville, Ohio radar target as the "solution" to the flying disc mystery had already appeared on the front pages of many newspapers, including the FW Star-Telegram the day before. Likewise, Ramey's op officer, Col. John Ryan, also the day before, was already talking about radar targets in an AP story theorizing about the origins of the flying discs.

As. Gen. Exon stated, the weather balloon story was "ready made" for Roswell.

Finding a slightly used weather balloon? No problem. Hundreds sent up every day, often turned into authorities when they came down. Radar targets? Also no problem. Used by many military and civilian weather stations back then. E.g., Fort Worth AAF demonstrated one 2 days later (one of a number of such follow-up military weather balloon demonstrations to debunk the saucers). See:

http://www.roswellproof.com/FWSTJuly11.html

The stories matched almost perfectly.

No, that's not true, which is why I printed a long list of details emerging from Fort Worth and Roswell that had huge inconsistencies in the official story. You have, of course, instead chosen to blow off these off as "minor" differences in reporting.

Aside from the basic weather balloon story being put out in Roswell, Fort Worth, and Washington, they never totally got on the same page.

To cite but one huge inconsistency I noted, how did Marcel's story in Fort Worth of debris scattered over a "square mile" square with Ramey's singular weather balloon and radar target on display in FW, or Brazel's story of two small bundles weighing no more than five pounds?

Even more strange how they have managed to keep it officially highly secret since then for a little matter of 63 years!

Not hard at all. Just clean up and hide the physical evidence, keep the documentation highly classified, and keep officially denying anything.

Of course, some people eventually do talk, but skeptics, like you, will do the rest, brushing off anything witnesses have to say, even A.F. Generals like Exon or Dubose.

Nations have deep dark secrets that they keep hidden for decades. To cite but one example, illegal radiation experiments on U.S. civilians were hidden or denied for almost 50 years. American citizens were also lied to for decades about the dangers of radioactive fallout from atomic testing in the U.S.

There are many similar examples of long-term government cover-ups or classification of sensitive information. In the UK, e.g., all the code breaking equipment for the Enigma machines at Bletchley Park was dismantled or destroyed, all documentation was highly classified and hidden away, and everybody involved was sworn to secrecy and didn't talk for at least the next 30 years.

cda said...

DR says:
"Not hard at all. Just clean up and hide the physical evidence, keep the documentation highly classified, and keep officially denying anything".

Amazing how simple it is. Just keep it hidden from the whole scientific world for 6 decades, when there are scientists searching for signs of life elsewhere who would give ten years of their lives to get a look at a genuine alien spaceship or alien bodies. Yet the military (just one branch of it) of one country are sitting on all this hardware, plus a few tons of documentation (as Gilles says), and all top secret since 1947.

Never mind all the real space research, astronomy, biology etc. that has gone on since then in many countries and goes on still, costing trillions of dollars by now. Never, never must these people be let in on the USAF's grand secret. It belongs to one country, and always will (and only the select few in that country).

Yet the conspiracy goes on and on, and the conspiracy- mongers go on and on.

What DR is in effect saying is that the whole of science has been taken for a gigantic ride for 63 years. Stanton Friedman calls the cover-up a "Cosmic Watergate". I would call the conspiracy-mongers' disease "The Stanton Friedman Syndrome". Named after the originator, of course. But a new (post-2000) variant would be "The David Rudiak Syndrome".

I await the introduction of these terms in the medical literature.

starman said...

Lance:

"Rarely mentioned is the equally unlikely idea of the instant location of the actual ersatz saucer out in the desert..."

The ranch debris didn't come to the attention of the military for over 24 hours at least. As for the other site, there was a civilian report of a bright object going down north of Roswell. If a civilian could see it, I'd assume the military could too. Civilians nearby also called to report an apparent plane accident.

Gilles F:

"All you point is post-1978 appeared."

Come now, Monsieur, haven't you heard of Edwards' FLYING SAUCERS SERIOUS BUSINESS? Or what KDR has found out about Sleppy? By the way, Marcel began talking in 1978 not "post-1978."

cda:


"Just keep it hidden from the whole scientific world for 6 decades..."

When are you EVER gonna learn?? As I've pointed out before, this is FAR from a purely academic thing, that can be divulged to those engaged in purely ACADEMIC research. Can't you see that knowledge of ADVANCED ETS, right HERE, could have highly adverse societal effects?? As great as the potential scientific and lay interest is, the need to avert a possible BREAKDOWN of society TRUMPS all other considerations. Considering the potential consequences of disclosure, a long, thorough cover-up is something we should expect.
Thanks to DR for good answers to his other remarks.

Gilles Fernandez said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
cda said...

To Starman:
The world's population is getting ever larger, there are more & more worries about global warming, Islamic threats, and racial/political unrest. Therefore, by your reckoning I assume the probably greatest ever scientific discovery can never (literally never) be made public, for fear of causing a breakdown of society!

Perhaps you can give us a simple answer to this: When, if ever, will it be safe for those lucky few 'in the know' to release the truth about Roswell to the rest of the world? Any ideas?

Or is it just possible that you have been influenced a bit too much by Stan Friedman's "CRASH AT CORONA" (1st ed.), particularly chapter 15?

David Rudiak said...

Since this thread was originally about Charles Moore, here's another factoid about how Moore played games with the alleged Mogul Flight #4 (the Mogul flight that never was).

(This was passed on to me by a NASA aerospace engineer who's been going over Moore's Flight #4 trajectory model and agrees that Moore, to use his words, "cherry-picked 'data'" and was contradicting himself.

At one point, to try to justify why there was no record of a Mogul Flight #4, Moore stated, "Flight #4 did not make it into the NYU records because only those flights in which an attempt was made to control the altitude of the balloon are included in the summary." [Emphasis mine]

Let's repeat that: only the constant altitude flights were included in the records. Thus, there had to be some means of controlling the altitude, usually constant-altitude ballast equipment. Otherwise, these were Moore's "service flights", that weren't written down, usually a small balloon cluster testing some specific piece of equipment. (Moore drew a picture of a typical small cluster "service flight".)

But what does Moore assume for his model Flight #4 to plot his "exact" (phony) trajectory to the Foster Ranch crash site? Why he assumes a fully-configured constant-altitude balloon with the same sort of equipment as the REAL Flight #5 the next day. He does this because he has to justify his "Flight #4" staying aloft a really, really long time (much longer than the real flights).

So in Moore-speak, "Flight #4" is simultaneously NOT a constant-altitude flight (to justify it not being in records) and the first succesful N.M. constant altitude flight, in his futile and fraudulent attempt to demonstrate how the winds were "exactly right" to take the balloons "exactly" to the Foster Ranch.

This is typical DebunkerScience at work, trying to have it both ways.

In the end, it doesn't really matter what you assume about balloon configuration--constant-altitude or small service flight-- because the winds were far from "exactly right" to take any sort of balloon to the Foster Ranch. That's why Moore ultimately resorted to numerous cheats to get it there.

Gilles Fernandez said...

"only the constant altitude flights were included in the records."

No David, you are wrong.

Flight A and B, reported in NYU appendixe, mentions "did not level off".

In aeronautic "jargon", it means they have not reached the altitude wished and, then, parallaly, werent in constant altitude.

Flights 3 and 4 were "service" and flew. I know you wanted, but it is.

Regards,

Gilles F.

David Rudiak said...

Gilles F. wrote:
No David, you are wrong.

Flight A and B, reported in NYU appendixe, mentions "did not level off".


No Gilles, you are wrong. If the intention was to have a constant altitude flight by configuring it that way, the flight was still recorded, even if it failed to achieve constant altitude flight.

This is how they would know if they were progressing towards their goal of constant-altitude control, by tracking and recording ALL balloon flights for constant-altitude, whether success or failure.

Thus flights A & B were recorded because they were configured for constant altitude flight, not whether they succeeded or not.

So was the N.M. Flight #6 on June 7, even though it too was a failed constant-altitude flight (noted as having damaged constant-altitude equipment on launch and instead went straight up and came straight down).

If there was no intention and no configuration for constant altitude flight, these flights were not recorded. (That's the quote from Moore I gave.) These were Moore's "service flights", usually, again according to Moore, small balloon clusters with a test piece of equipment.

There is no record of a "Flight #4". Therefore there was NOT a constant-altitude flight on June 4, period. Otherwise it too would have been in Mogul records, success or failure.

Again, you can't have it both ways.

Instead it was the RECORDED Flight #5, June 5, noted as being the first "successful" constant-altitude flight, not Moore's made-up "Flight #4".

And, as already noted, the next constant-altitude flight 2 days later, #6, was also recorded, even though a complete failure.

The probably originally planned constant-altitude flight on June 4 was "cancelled" on account of cloudy weather (Crary's first diary entry). At best, any balloon flight later that day was a much smaller service flight (Crary's later note of a cluster of balloons with sonobuoy sent up, probably to test sonobuoy reception of Crary's explosive charges on ground.)

Either way there was virtually no chance any balloon flight of any kind would have reached the Foster Ranch that day given the wind records Moore used. (That's why he ultimately resorted to cheating with his numbers).

The ONLY way balloons of any kind that day could have reached there would be if the winds were drastically different than the historical wind records at Moore's disposal.

But then we would have to be making up wind data, along with imaginary constant-altitude balloon flights.

Larry said...

Gilles F. said:

“No David, you are wrong.

Flight A and B, reported in NYU appendixe, mentions "did not level off".


Actually, Gilles, I think you are probably wrong. What Moore is quoted as saying is that "only those flights in which an attempt was made to control the altitude of the balloon are included in the summary."

An attempt to control the altitude is a different issue than whether that attempt was successful. The important point here is that making an attempt to control the altitude required the presence of the “dribbler” ballast control on the balloon train at the time it was launched. A simple cluster of neoprene balloons tied on to a fixed weight (such as a sonobouy) cannot maintain level flight; it can only ascend if its buoyancy is greater than its weight, or descend if its weight is greater than its buoyancy (as when some of the balloons pop.) So Moore’s statement is equivalent to saying that only those balloon flights on which a ballast control system was installed are reported in the summary. Whether the altitude control system actually worked as intended is a separate question. This interpretation makes sense because, after all, the main innovation of the entire Mogul project was to come up with a technology that would allow balloons to stay in a relatively constant altitude band (between about 50,000 and 60,000 ft.) for an extended period of time, where they needed to be in order to acquire the desired acoustic signal. Any flights that didn't test the ability of the altitide control system to maintain altitude didn't really count toward the objectives of the project.

I do not have information for flights A or B available to me since I don’t have the appendix you refer to, but I would infer from the presence of the notation “did not level off” that there was an expectation that they should have leveled off and therefore that they must have been equipped to allow that possibility. So, the notation regarding flights A and B is consistent with DR's interpretation of Moore's quote.

This is an important point and should receive some serious attention from the community interested in resolving the Mogul controversy as it pertains to the Roswell incident. If it turns out that the balloon train launched for flight #4 did not contain an altitude control system--exactly as Moore's quote and Crary's diary entry would indicate, then Mogul Flight #4 could not have taken the trajectory that Moore calculated and would not have landed on the Foster Ranch.

If anyone has definitive and conclusive evidence that would resolve the issue one way or the other, this would be a good time to produce it.

David Rudiak said...

Larry wrote:
If it turns out that the balloon train launched for flight #4 did not contain an altitude control system--exactly as Moore's quote and Crary's diary entry would indicate, then Mogul Flight #4 could not have taken the trajectory that Moore calculated and would not have landed on the Foster Ranch.

I agree with everything else Larry wrote, but not this statement.

Even with an altitude-control system, the hypothetical Flight #4 still would not have taken the trajectory Moore calculated because Moore cheated with his calculation:

1. Unlike the successful Flight #5 he said he was modeling #4 after (with lifter balloon and equipment cutoff devices), in his data table he covertly eliminated the altitude control of #4 on rise and fall, thus making his balloons rise and fall much too fast, thus drastically shortening the rise and fall trajectory portions. Instead Moore treated #4 more like the failed #6 3 days later that went straight up and down because of damaged constant-altitude control equipment.

2. His calculation of his data table was bogus and at odds with a note as to how he said he was doing it (which would have been correct). Again, this drastically shortened the rise time and trajectory and bogusly extended the back-drift constant-altitude time in the stratosphere, another cheat to force his balloons further westward toward the Foster Ranch.

Take out his bogus table calculation, the balloons miss by 20 miles. Calculate the table correctly plus use Flight #5 rise/fall profiles with altitude equipment control, the balloons miss by 70 miles. Take out his absurd night flight (again done to extend stratospheric time and backward westward drift), use the normal post-dawn Mogul launch time with the important optical tracking (Moore's initial assumption as to launch time before flip-flopping), and the balloons miss by 100 miles.

Gilles Fernandez said...

Well, if after all the previous demonstrations, you are sure n°3 and 4 were cancelled ; in order to have your ET craft ; Passing your time against Mogul or sceptics, without solid proofs (or liquid one as Bragalia ones).

And if balsa-like and other ML-307-like, make your E.T craft wished, with pastel tape and scotch, and more, (E.T. special tuning craft, you know).

Let it be in your church ;)

Regards,

Gilles F.

Gilles Fernandez said...

Dear Larry,

I understood, when reading David's line "Let's repeat that: only the constant altitude flights were included in the records."

But A & B mention "did not level off" and are however reported in NYU summary. So, I "reacted", they failled to flight in constant altitude, but were reported. That's all.

Now, if I well understand you, and in short, only flights with equipments for constant altitude are reported in NYU summary.

I think it is not exactly the reasons to report or not. NYU summery includes "research" flights, and the numbers "jumped" are "service" ones, sort of "tests" in essence. Period. They reported flights when dataes collected have interrest and those dataes were top secret (1946 memo concerning Mogul).

From n°5 (excepted 7 if I'm correct), the team decided to return in a normal configuration, with traditional radio-sondes to be short.

To go back for such a "traditional" configuration, it have as cause you have tested another thing and configuration (with multiple targets)you have not been "satisfact". How it is possible to go back to traditional configuration if you have not tested something before ? With test flights and then "service" flights then.

Crary indicated concerning 4th june flight (n°4) "Flew regular sono buoy in cluster of balloons and had good luck on receiver on ground but poor on plane."

When you read n°5 Crary's diary, too much occurences between 4 and 5. So, personaly, I dont find any reasons to claim n°4 was so "special" it cant be considered as the best candidat for Roswell debris.

It means they collected some acoustic telemeasures dataes and/or radar echo with the multiple targets configuration (it is a little more complex), like in N°5.

To have that, you must have a flight "flying" by essence, as a sonobuoy cant levitate alone. At least, for some monthes, I hope all is oki now to show that to claim "n°4" was cancelled is totaly fallacious. A "cheat" then, if you use this word as I read here against Moore.

I considere personnaly that materials testimoned in Roswell are too closed of Balloons + radar targets to be a simple coincidence. Of course, it is possible to loose time about discrepencies, but balsa, scotch, tape, sticks, oeillets, "fish"-line, plastic, paper, laminated foils are here or there.

I find this E.T. craft or material a little "rudimentar" even if I have big imagination, and sorry, but my common sens comes to help. And out the material itselves, to much other elements conducing to prosaism in this "affair".

Regards,

Gilles F.

cda said...

We can all agree, I hope, that the debris described in both the Roswell press and the Fort Worth press is that of a balloon & radar reflector, or possibly two or more of these. There is absolutely no reason to suppose the stuff is of anything else, based on those descriptions.

We may also assume that Marcel, over the intervening years, may well have thought that what he collected from the ranch was a bit strange, and recalling Haut's press release, may have even considered the debris as part of a UFO. Marcel would certainly have become familiar with the flying saucer phenomenon. At times he might have slipped out little titbits that he had once handled one. It was only when Stan Friedman, a very pro-ETHer, happened to come across someone (in 1978) whom Marcel had told about it that Friedman's ears picked up. Friedman interviewed Marcel, learned all about the 'flying disc', plied him with his UFO research papers (with the grand title 'Nuclear Physicist' proudly displayed on the front page) which caused Marcel to ponder it all and (I surmise) say to himself "Dammit, this guy is a nuclear physicist, knowledgable and highly persuasive, so maybe I did see and handle an ET craft after all". Friedman then persuaded Marcel to appear in a new film documentary "FLYING SAUCERS ARE REAL" he was consultant on, and from then on Marcel was 'hooked'. True, Marcel still had slight doubts, but Friedman gently swayed him, so that he became more pro ET in his later years.

This, in essence, is the genesis of the Roswell ET-myth. The principal witness is hooked, other witnesses (not all of them of course) get likewise hooked, and away we go.

The stuff, as described at the time, is with 99.9 % certainty, balloon debris. Magically, some 30-40 years later, it gets transformed into alien spaceship debris, by the process given above.

And the whole idea of the grand cover-up, of course, originated with Friedman (with help from Bill Moore).
This, plus the idea of getting some publicity out of it, permeated into the witnesses' minds and stayed there.

Nobody thought the story worth relating to any of the prominent UFO organisations in the intervening years, and nobody kept any of the press reports. Boy, what a remarkable event!

It was a complete 'non-story' until 1978-79. The very few earlier references, in books, were very brief and got their facts wrong anyway.

Yes Gilles, I have to agree. The whole Roswell ET idea is a romantic fantasy.

Gilles Fernandez said...

Concerning one earlier reference to Roswell, I have already pointed T. Bragalia "cutted" half the short paragraph of his "proof".

"There are such difficult cases as the rancher near Roswell, New Mexico, who phoned the Sheriff that a blazing disc-shaped object had passed over his house at low altitiide and had crashed and burned on a hillside within view of the house. The Sheriff called the military; the military came on the double quick. Newsmen were not permitted in the area. A week later, however, the government released a photograph of a service man holding up a box kite with an aluminum disc about the size of a large pie pan dangling from the bottom of the kite. This, the official report explained, was a device borne aloft on the kite and used to test radar gear by bouncing the signals off the pie pan. And this, we were told, was the sort of thing that had so excited the rancher. We were NOT told, however, how the alleged kite caught fire—nor why the military cordoned off the area while they inspected the wreckage of a burned-out box kite with a non-inflammable pie pan tied to it."

Readers must admit this "chapter" coming to help the strange 3 decades silence is a joke, I mean it is not with such thing, you can avoid the obvious question 3 decades of silence and absence of something solid it should exist for an event of this magnitude, claimed by some.

starman said...

cda:

I haven't read Crash at Corona though I have seen Friedman's ideas in Top Secret/Majik. They didn't impress me a great deal and aren't the basis of my own ideas.
So when may we finally see disclosure? IMO the key problem now is that the aliens are still generally well ahead and their intentions aren't known. If the AF or government were to admit that there are advanced aliens RIGHT HERE, over which they have essentially NO control, and no idea of what their plans are....in other words, any time they want, the aliens could land and KILL US ALL, one can imagine the public reaction. This is something completely unlike Islamist terrorists, poverty and political unrest. Problems like those are NOWHERE NEAR as potentially dangerous AND we have the means to deal with them--look at how US drones keep picking off Taliban figures. Whereas other issues CONCERN the public, ETs might well PANIC them. But that doesn't mean we'll never be told. Fortunately we are fast progressing ourselves. Given the exponential rate of our progress, we may, in coming decades, attain a sufficiently high level relative to them to ward off any attack. Under those conditions, the government will finally be in a position to tell te public about ET, since they'll also be able to say that whatever he may try, it's OK, we can deter or handle him.
Marcel did NOT need Haut's press release, Friedman or ANYBODY to tell him the Roswell debris was highly strange. He knew that RIGHT AWAY. That's why he stopped by his house during the night to show his family the stuff. As DR note, he wouldn't have excitedly showed his family mogul garbage. His son also knew it was strange.
Edwards's account was presumably based on the press release, which erroneously stated that a disc was recovered at the ranch. He didn't mention Brazel specifically but others DID call. Edwards' also wrote that people there were not talking. They had been warned not to. Since they were quiet, of course there was a long period of silence. Not until Marcel spoke with impunity did others gradually follow suit.

David Rudiak said...

We can all agree, I hope, that the debris described in both the Roswell press and the Fort Worth press is that of a balloon & radar reflector, or possibly two or more of these. There is absolutely no reason to suppose the stuff is of anything else, based on those descriptions.

This is a strawman argument. Of course we agree, because this was the official story being put out at the time, complete with photos.

What is and has always been disputed is whether this was indeed what was found at the Foster Ranch.

Just because the military back then said this was found, doesn't mean it was found. (Same with Brazel's story, when you factor in the dozen witnesses to his coercion and detention by the military.) Militaries and governments put out cover stories all the time.

Did you know the 1960 U2 spy plane was really a NASA weather plane? Or that it wasn't shot down? It crashed because the pilot passed out from oxygen deprivation, also why it supposedly wandered over Soviet territory.

That was the official story put out by the U.S. government the first few days of the U2 crisis. Turned out to be a complete crock, didn't it?

The only reason the cover story didn't stand up was because the U.S. government wasn't in complete control of the physical evidence or the witnesses. The Russians had both the semi-intact plane with spy cameras and the live pilot and wanted to make propaganda use of both.

Did you know the U.S. had a secret astronaut spy program that started in 1965? The program was totally concealed for over 40 years and is still mostly classified.

In addition to the astronauts and their families, there were probably hundreds or thousands of support people involved. Nobody said a word for over 40 years.

But under DebunkerLogic, because this program wasn't written about and nobody talked for so long, the program obviously never existed, or was greatly exaggerated, or is a "myth", and anybody involved who might say otherwise is guilty of "retrospective falsification", etc., etc.

There are many, many other examples of secrets concealed for decades: Korean War massacres by Allied forces concealed for nearly 60 years; WWII UK Enigma program concealed for 30 years (thousands involved--nobody talked); Corona spy satellite program classified for over 30 years; radiation experiments on U.S. citizens concealed and denied for 50 years.

(Probably a decent size book could be written with numerous examples of big secrets classified and hidden for a very long time.)

But again, if little or nothing was written about any of this or few people or no one talked for decades, none of these things ever happened.

The "will to disbelieve" enters into it. I don't want to believe Allied forces would execute tens of thousands of POWs and political prisoners during the Korean War. Therefore it never happened.

Such is the "church" of debunking "religious belief" built, on a foundation of psychological denial.

cda said...

To DR and Starman:

You both have the most extraordinary mindset. It seems to have no bounds.
Here we have two independent newspaper reports from different locations, describing the same debris found on a ranch. We have photos of the debris taken at one location, showing what it looks like. The descriptions are both given by the people who saw it first-hand, one a civilian rancher, the other an AF officer. Yet both of you refuse to accept these descriptions as genuine. Instead, the words were put into their mouths by the military. The photos were fakes (of substituted material), and both press conferences were set up by the USAF in advance, with the description given in Roswell being pre-arranged to tally perfectly with the description given in Ft Worth. Both newspapers were fooled, nobody anywhere (even civilians) were allowed to speak to anyone about it for an indefinite time. Some were even threatened with death, and their families also, if they talked.

I put the facts to you: Brazel could (and did) tell several people about his find long BEFORE the military guys got at him, he was free to show the stuff to whoever he wished, free to photograph it, free to take it to a university lab; he was even free to destroy it all if he wished. And there was absolutely no way the AF could know that a lot of the stuff had fallen elsewhere, maybe in several places, and totally beyond their control. Every civilian witness was free to tell whoever they wanted, even after the USAF got hold of it. The local sherriff, a civilian, could, and did, tell inquisitive phone callers the story. Boy, some secret!

In spite of all these potential, and real, leaks, the USAF could still (according to you both) put out a cock-and-bull cover story, perfectly managed, without the slightest fear of the great cover-up leaking out. Amazing!

And of course the AF knew no other ET craft would ever crash again elsewhere (say Siberia, Mongolia, China, India) and risk blowing the story, because the USAF had full control over other governments' actions, and even control over the ETs actions (Ha!).

This is the mindset of you both. I would call it 'Friedman's Syndrome.'
Unfortunately no cure is known for this affliction.

Anonymous said...

Truly a nice blog! Thanks for your great work! Wish you a nice day!
cheap puma shoes
cheap sport shoes

David Rudiak said...

cda:
"To DR and Starman: You both have the most extraordinary mindset. It seems to have no bounds."

Let us summarize the rest of cda's argument and his prior arguments. Basically if cda doesn't personally believe it could happen, then it didn't happen. That's it. All reality is determined by cda's brain.

Cover-ups never happen, or newspapers are never lied to or fooled by the government, or military officers never follow orders and lie as part of a cover-up, civilians can never be forced to sign secrecy oaths or are never intimidated as part of a cover-up, or nothing can be kept secret for decades, or surely you can simply file a FOIA and the government will hand over its deepest secrets upon your request, and on and on.

Let us not even discuss Roswell for the moment. Let us discuss a few documented historical events where we see many elements of all the things the so-called UFO crazies claim happened at Roswell.

July 11, 1986: Very secret military plane (suspected of being a Stealth) crashed near Bakersfield, CA and Sequoia National Park, starting a large fire. Newspapers do report the crash and the high secrecy imposed, including the Air Force cordoning the area with armed guards, newsmen and other civilians being physically kept away and warned away from the area, commercial and civilian pilots being warned that flying anywhere near the area was illegal and they even risked being shot down, local and Federal officials and fireman being instructed not to talk about it and made to sign statements swearing them to secrecy, and extensive military cleanup operation being put into effect to pick up as many of the pieces as possible and blow up most of the rest.

So cordons and guards with lethal weapons to keep civilians out, civilian pilots threatened with prison or death for flying over, civilians in-the-know being sworn to silence and forced to sign security oaths (meaning fines and/or imprisonment for violation).

Obviously none of this happened because nothing like this would ever be done to civilians to protect a big secret, because cda says so.

Another example, April 11, 1950: B-29 carrying a nuke bound for Roswell crashes soon after takeoff from Kirtland AFB, Albuquerque. The press is not told what the plane is carrying or the exact mission, only that it was training in navigation. The area was cordoned off and the press barred from entering. The press was further told that high security had been imposed, that not even the President would be able get in, but not told why.

So military cordons, high secrecy, cover-up, and after about 2 days, the story disappeared for decades.

Other such nuclear accidents have been totally covered up for decades, until they were not because the government decided to lift secrecy, which is why we know what that B29 was really carrying when it crashed.

Just because they were covered up and not discussed doesn’t mean they never happened.

And remember, the 1960 U2 was just a civilian weather plane. And Watergate was just a bungled amateur burglary with no White House involvement (and nobody was paid off to keep quiet and Martha Mitchell was not drugged and held against her will to keep her quiet). And civilians were never subjected to illegal radiation experiments by the government. And the CIA never conducted illegal mind-control experiments with drugs (MK-ULTRA), and the CIA director didn't try to cover it up by ordering the documents destroyed when the story started to leak out. And the government didn't lie about and cover up the dangers to the U.S. civilian population of fallout from nuclear testing.

Nah, the press is never lied to by government officials and there are no cover-ups and civilians are never abused, placed in harm's way, or forced into silence, because guys like cda can't believe such fantastic things would ever happen, even though history proves otherwise.

Talk about an "extraordinary mindset".

cda said...

There is a simple answer to all DR's examples of well-kept secrets. In every case the events were under the control of one country's (the US) military. In the proposed Roswell ET scenario the events were under the control of the ETs, and nobody else.

If a Nobel Prize was awarded for logical thinking, I am quite certain that neither Starman nor David Rudiak would get past round one.

I now bow out of this debate.

starman said...

cda:

The substitution was confirmed by Dubose while Marcel, his son and others indicated the material was highly exotic, quite UNLIKE stuff in the public photos. Again, we can be sure Marcel thought it was highly unusual at the start because on his way back to the base he showed it to his family.

"Brazel could (and did)tell several people about his find long BEFORE the military guys got at him.."

Not LONG before. The only Mogul flight which might cnceivably have come down at the Foster ranch was the one supposedly launched on June 4th. But Proctor clearly stated that Brazel came a month later, in July. The stuff was there for maybe 4 days at most before Marcel came.

"..he was even free to destroy it all if he wished."

He appears to have ACTUALLY TRIED but told the Proctors it couldn't be cut or burned, which Floyd confirmed.

"And there was absolutely no way the AF could know that a lot of the stuff had fallen elsewhere.."

They had recon planes.

"And of course the AF knew no other ET craft would ever crash again (say Siberia, Mongolia, China, India)..."

But many foreign governments were closely allied to the US, and could've coordinated policy. Even those that weren't could easily have drawn the same conclusions: Disclosure now would be extremely detrimental. No government could tell its people it can't control ET and had no idea what he might do. That would invite panic. Maybe future governments will be in a position to reassure and protect people. This certainly hasn't been true of ANY government these past 63 years.

Larry said...

Gilles F. said:

“Now, if I well understand you, and in short, only flights with equipments for constant altitude are reported in NYU summary.

I think it is not exactly the reasons to report or not. NYU summery includes "research" flights, and the numbers "jumped" are "service" ones, sort of "tests" in essence.”

It might appear that way to you, but that is not how NYU interpreted the terms. As stated explicitly in the NYU TECHNICAL REPORT NO 1, page 27:

“The flight numbering system has been revised since its inception and now only those flights in which an attempt was made to control the altitude of the balloon are included
in the summary. Excluded are flights made to test special gear…”

As a professional aerospace engineer having conducted several high altitude balloon flights for my own research, the NYU policy makes perfect sense to me. The NYU team was responsible only for developing and testing the altitude control system and the balloons to go along with it; so-called “constant level” balloon flight was their only research goal and the only activity their contract required them (or for that matter, allowed them) to report on. To the NYU group, a sonobouy or any other listening device on a balloon would have been “special” gear and outside their purview. Of course, in the process of reporting their research their summary would have to make reference to the existence of “service’ flights, in order to explain why the “research” flights had numbers missing in the sequence (i.e., #4).

However, there appears to be an even more compelling reason that “service” Flight #4 was not discussed in the NYU summary—that is because it was classified. The Air Force “Case Closed” document gives the transcript of an interview with Athelstan Spilhaus from 1994 in which he is quoted as explaining in conjunction with the NYU Final Report:
“service flights” probably refer to the then Top Security project AFOAT 1 (related to MOGUL) which was to produce a report to the President when the Russians exploded an atomic device and were ready to produce a droppable atomic bomb.”

So, the words, “service” flights and “special” gear are code words for “classified”, which means that such flights and gear and the results of any tests conducted with that gear could not legally be discussed in an unclassified document, such as the NYU Report. “Service” flights and “special” gear are the means by which the unclassified University research served as a cover for the highly classified attempt to collect the acoustic signature of nuclear detonations.

Crary, as a very senior and respected scientist was the overall field test director and is known to have had very high security clearances, including an Atomic Energy Commission “Q” clearance (which is exactly what he would have needed to be working on the detection of nuclear explosions). Due to compartmentalization, Moore would not have had a need to know what the real objectives of Flight #4 was and Crary could not have discussed it with him. Crary had the big picture and Moore did not. There is absolutely zero reason to doubt Crary’s diary entry and therefore zero reason to believe that a predawn launch of any kind of balloon took place on June 4. There is also zero reason to expect any discussion of Flight #4 to appear in the NYU final report.

David Rudiak said...

I keep making this point and never get any sensible response back from the skeptics: What exactly was so extraordinary about the remains of a weather balloon and basically a child's balsa wood kite that could possibly confuse multiple people and get them to freak out so?

Remember all Brazel described was maybe 5 pounds in 2 small bundles of "rubber strips", "Scotch tape", tinfoil, paper, and wooden sticks (alleged balsa wood).

And all that is shown in the Fort Worth photos is Gen. Ramey's singular weather balloon and radar target, total weight of which probably doesn't add up to even 2 pounds. (350 gram target, 350 gram weather balloon)

If you've ever seen or handled this stuff, you know just how flimsy it is and how little there is to it (anybody who hasn't handled rubber balloons, balsa wood, Scotch tape, aluminum foil, etc.?). At best, if you found it in your yard, it might be considered a curiosity. Who's was it and how did it get there? Maybe you might consider it minor littering and a nuisance because you have to clean it up. That's about it.

You could pick the whole lot of it up in no time, toss it in a garbage bag, and throw it out with the rest of the trash.

But according to his closest neighbors the Proctors (by "neighbors" I mean they lived a dozen miles away over very bad roads), the normally taciturn Brazel was very excited about the debris, very talkative, and tried very hard to get the Proctors to come over to his place to see what he had. Why? Over flimsy junk? Why didn't he just bring over his junk in a bag and show them?

Brazel did bring one small piece of the wood-like material, which Loretta Proctor said they couldn't cut or mark and wouldn't burn. This is NOT a physical description of balsa wood, that even a new-born babe could snap with ease.

Then Brazel goes to Sheriff Wilcox in Roswell to report, because he supposedly now thinks he has a "flying disc" after visiting the Proctors and others in Corona. Why would the Proctors or the people in Corona think rubber strips, tinfoil, etc., etc., equated to the fast-moving flying discs being reported in the newspapers.

Again, Brazel can't be bothered to bring his two small bundles with him to demonstrate what he has found. Why not?

After presumably giving Wilcox a physical description of the balloon junk, why would Wilcox think Brazel had anything of significance? Why would Wilcox then call Marcel, the head intelligence officer at the base, to report it?

Why would Marcel also think Brazel had anything important after hearing descriptions of small amounts of junk, so much so that he reports to base commander Blanchard?

Blanchard somehow also becomes convinced that a find of small quantities of "rubber strips", "Scotch tape", tinfoil, etc. needs full field investigation, and requires not just Marcel, but also Cavitt, the head of counterintelligence, to help him out. They follow Brazel back to his remote ranch, not in one car, but two (to pick up "5 pounds" of junk?), and spend at least several hours if not a day searching the area. Why? What would they care if a few more pieces of rubber and tinfoil were scattered around?

Why after all this would neither report back to Blanchard that it was nothing but balloon junk, as Marcel was later to describe in Fort Worth (or as Cavitt was to finally claim 47 years later after initially denying any involvement or even being at Roswell)?

Why instead would Marcel be so convinced he had a real flying disc on his hands that he would stop at his home first and wake up his family to show them the debris? Would you do this over "rubber strips", "Scotch tape", etc., etc.?

David Rudiak said...

(part 2)

After this, Marcel reports to Blanchard, and somehow convinces him balloon debris is again a real flying disc. Given what follows, Blanchard apparently doesn't insist on seeing the debris for himself to verify this assessment. Why not? Instead Blanchard issues the infamous press release that they had an actual flying disc on their hands, triggering an international press firestorm.

Our skeptics uncritically buy into this whole cock-and-bull scenario.

But in the real world, absolutely none of this behavior makes any sense, if all Brazel found was a few pounds of "rubber strips", "Scotch tape", tinfoil, etc., etc. Every last one of the principles would have to be utter fools.

David Rudiak said...

Larry wrote:
So, the words, “service” flights and “special” gear are code words for “classified”, which means that such flights and gear and the results of any tests conducted with that gear could not legally be discussed in an unclassified document, such as the NYU Report. “Service” flights and “special” gear are the means by which the unclassified University research served as a cover for the highly classified attempt to collect the acoustic signature of nuclear detonations.

Larry, again another well thought out and researched post, though I don't think the statement above is totally correct.

E.g., Moore's drawing of a "service flight" was of three weather balloons lofting three radar targets, supposedly with the purpose of testing radar tracking.

Sonobuoys were also unclassified equipment, used only temporarily in lieu of special microphones that were being developed for Mogul, that were classified. Therefore I'm not sure a sonobuoy special flight would necessarily be considered classified either.

There are in fact several counter-examples from the Mogul summaries and Crary's diary. The recorded Flight #6, June 7, also carried a sonobuoy, according to Crary, as did Flight #11A, July 7.

Interestingly, Crary notes two other unnumbered balloon flights as part of "11A". The second Crary says were "met[eorological] balloons with radiosonde" and the third carried 2-1/2 pounds of TNT to explode at 35,000'. The last two unnumbered balloons were apparently also examples of "service flights", and whether the one carrying a bomb (probably to test sonobuoy reception of the fully-configured constant-altitude #11A) would of been classified is anybody's guess.

Also, incidentally, #11A came down not too far west from Roswell base, and possibly so did balloon #2 with the meteorological balloons. This could conceivably have been the source of Ramey's slightly used weather balloon the next day in Fort Worth. (All pure conjecture, of course)

Another reason for gaps in the NYU numbered balloon summaries were simple cancellations of the flights, a very good example being Flight #9, July 3. This was canceled after a coordinated V-2 rocket launch (again carrying explosives) was scrubbed because of an accident. Crary's note here is, "Sent up cluster balloons with dummy load."

Karl Pflock was initially pushing for the missing (and canceled) #9 as the Roswell crash balloon, but later got on board with the missing (and likewise "canceled") "Flight #4" when Moore and the Air Force debunkers started pushing it.

The point here is that missing numbered flights like #2-#4 could be do to simple cancellation of planned constant-altitude flights and not because of anything classified.

Gilles Fernandez said...

"I now bow out of this debate."

Nice decision, CDA. Same.

A discussion with complotists is like to speack with "telepathy is real " proponents or fans : despite the scientific consensus ...
Ad hoc, "telepathy fans" will claim "telephone is a distant communications and then telepathy, exists".

David did the same. Tautologies.

So let it be.

To David :

Present your files, David, to advocats, and scientists, I'm sure they will be convinced (they didn't for 1978 ? hooo !).

Big conspiracy if they were, are and will no be convinced ?!

Regards,

Gilles F.

starman said...

cda:

"I now bow out of this debate."

Gilles F:

"Same."

Great job DR, Larry etc.

Larry said...

Since this thread seems to be reaching its natural conclusion, perhaps this is a good time to put in my concluding remarks.

Let’s recall that Kevin started this thread due to the sad demise of Charles Moore, whose main connection to the UFO debate is that he was the leading proponent of the hypothesis that a particular unaccounted-for Mogul balloon landed on the Foster Ranch and was therefore materially involved in the "Roswell Incident" story that subsequently evolved. Following the debate on this thread has provided a motivation for me as a fellow scientist to dig into the details of Moore’s hypothesis for the first time and to follow his chain of logic. Ultimately, the point of this particular thread for me has been the question of whether Moore’s hypothesis is correct or not. What those without a background in the quantitative sciences don’t seem to appreciate is that a mathematics-based hypothesis such as Moore posed actually has a yes/no answer. Moore knew this and is to be commended for his commitment to the principle of using the forces of reason and intellect to understand the world around him. The fact that he ultimately arrived at a logically indefensible and factually incorrect conclusion is regrettable, but is sometimes part of the process of science. To the unbiased truth seeker, a “no” answer is as good as a “yes” answer, as long as it’s the truth. For my part, the preponderance of evidence indicates that Mogul Flight #14 probably did not land on the Foster Ranch, but probably landed somewhere else. This finding is based only on the facts of the case at hand and does not require any particular belief position—pro or con—regarding the larger “Roswell Incident”. This includes the ETH, the truth or falsity of telepathy, or any of the other red herrings that some have introduced into the debate. If additional facts emerge in the future that would warrant a change in this conclusion, I would embrace them.

David Rudiak said...

Larry wrote:
What those without a background in the quantitative sciences don’t seem to appreciate is that a mathematics-based hypothesis such as Moore posed actually has a yes/no answer.

A point I've tried to make many times: Does Moore's trajectory model show, as Moore claimed, that the winds were "exactly right" to take a hypothetical Flight #4 "exactly" to the Foster Ranch? The answer is a resounding NO (!!!!), and in fact Moore cheated outrageously with the numbers to make his model support his conclusion.

So the unequivocal mathematical answer is "No" which Moore by cheating turned into "Yes". The Roswell debunkers, however, are so fanatically attached to Moore's Mogul hypthesis that not one has had the courage to admit that Moore perpetrated a fraud on the public.

Moore knew this and is to be commended for his commitment to the principle of using the forces of reason and intellect to understand the world around him. The fact that he ultimately arrived at a logically indefensible and factually incorrect conclusion is regrettable, but is sometimes part of the process of science.

Larry, I think you are much too polite. This makes it sound like Moore's conclusion was a simple mistake instead of a very deliberate and carefully concocted hoax.

Moore's modeling idea was a good one and I think he probably started out thinking that the winds were indeed right. But when he ran the model, he quickly realized that wasn't the case. The winds were too strong and also blowing too hard to the east. In fact, at one time he said the tough part was going to be getting the balloon way back to the west so that it could land at the Foster Ranch.

If he had been honest, he would have published THAT result, that the winds were wrong, not right. But by that time, perhaps he had too much psychologically invested in the Mogul idea.

That's when I think the mathematical cheating and the crappy logic began, such as twisting things into a highly implausible night launch, plus claiming he was making certain assumptions, but when you examine his table and calculations, he was really doing other things entirely, such as treating his balloons on rise and fall as faulty instead of perfect and calculating his own table wrong.

So in the end a hoax. Does this prove a flying saucer crash? No, but ironically the wind data ends up being just one more nail in the Mogul hypothesis coffin.

Gilles Fernandez said...

As explaining before : it is impossible to modelize Flight 4 trajectory correctly.

Too much dataes and parameters are lacking, even if you use the "argument authority" (I'm a mathematician !).

Just speculations to input the dataes, for proponents of each "field", when calculating Flight4 trajectory.

Winds in neightboor stations are oki to Foster ranch. Period.

You have Alamogordo Meteo dataes ?

You have sensors in the different strates of the atmosphere ?

You have modelized what if "up" or "down" Mogul components have broken ?

Etc.. Etc.. Etc...

To calculate the exact trajectory is impossible for a mathematician (without exact parameters).

CDA have posted before about it. I done the same in my own work.



But you have balsa, scotch, laminated foils, fish-line, etc..

Non orthodoxe ET craft ! ET mimetism, for sure ;)

Regards,

Gilles.F

David Rudiak said...

Gilles F.
"As explaining before : it is impossible to modelize Flight 4 trajectory correctly.

Too much dataes and parameters are lacking, even if you use the "argument authority" (I'm a mathematician !)."


However, mathematics CAN unambiguously determine whether Moore hoaxed his own model. But no skeptic has yet admitted that his trajectory calculation is a fraud. How about you Gilles? If you are a mathematician, you should have no problem figuring it out.

You can start here with Moore's table for the imaginary "Flight #4":

http://roswellproof.com/Flight4_Table5.html

Did he calculate it the way it said he did (notes for "x" and "y" at bottom), which is correct, or did he secretly substitute another way, which is mathematical bunk?

How about numbers like 100/12.1 = 350 or 852/2.8 = 100 for rise rates (plus about 18 others that are way off)? Does that sound like proper math? You don't need to be a mathematician to figure that one out.

Did his stated assumptions conform to the way he actually set his table up? E.g., said he was assuming perfectly functioning equipment, like Flight #5, yet he clearly eliminated the standard lifter balloon cutoff on ascent and ballast drops on descent. He made his #4 fall much faster than #5, and even faster than the defective #6. How can that be justified?

If you haven't read it already, the fraud is detailed here:

http://roswellproof.com/flight4_trajectory.html

More clear fraud from Moore was how he made changes to the existing Flight #5 trajectory map to distance these balloons from Roswell base, after claiming that he adapted the map "without change". Have a look:

http://roswellproof.com/Flight4_Addendums.html#anchor_3600

http://roswellproof.com/Flight4and5_changes.html

What does such provable hoaxing say about the believability of his other statements? Was there really "flower tape". If so, shouldn't it be present in the four surviving high-resolution Fort Worth photos of the alleged Mogul crash? Good luck finding it. Also good luck finding all the other alleged Mogul balloons and radar targets in Gen. Ramey's singular balloon/target public display.

Finally, even though one can't be definitive about "exactly" where a constant-altitude balloon would go and crash with the given wind data (even though Moore DID make such a claim, saying in his hoax the winds were "exactly right" to take the balloons "exactly" to the Foster Ranch), one CAN make statements of probability given various scenarios, as I have done on my website. The conclusion is only by drastically altering wind speeds and directions of the given wind set can one hope to get anywhere near the Foster Ranch. Any balloon crash there would have been very improbable unless you basically make up new wind data.

I've done the work. You are still waving your hands and making excuses for Moore and the total lack of documentation supporting even the existence of "Flight #4".

Flight #5 the next day was instead documented as the first N.M. constant-altitude flight. If there really were a constant-altitude Flight #4 sent up, it would have been clearly recorded, just like all the others that went up and were tracked. It wasn't. Ergo it didn't exist. QED

Gilles Fernandez said...

Dear David,

I just replied indirectly to Larry. To claim argument of autority like "I'm a mathematician" "or mathematic saids" is fallacious, as argument, and out the matter to convince non convinced people.

Why ?

Cause Moore or dunno who CANT modelize flight 4 trajectory, cause the lack of parameters.

For example, we have not Alamogordo meteo dataes, but the ones around ? EVEN IF we had, there exists several other parameters a mathematician cant input in the model, cause no records (meteo dataes in the different atmosphere strates, ie).

No one modelization I have seen considers "what if ?" the cluster disassembled in the sky (I or other skeptic doesn't need ALL a cluster in Foster ranch to have the good candidat).

Balsa sticks, scotch, fish-line, laminated "alu-paper", etc, never warm you. You do, did and will do as if this coincidence is out the matter. Or you will notice some discrepencies, "strange properties" added post-1978, as if human testimony is irrefutable.

Too much studies prooves the contrary. Several works about false memories, retrospective falsification exist and are scientificaly documented.

As you understand 1947 "Flying Saucers" as ET crafts in 1947 US contemporans minds : total anachronism.

But, it is out the matter for pro ET in Roswell.

Crary's diary stipulated a flight in june the 4th. Some ET's proponents cheated to claim it was cancelled with genious rethoric.

Just rethoric, cause a sonobuoy cant levitate in my mind.

But one more time, the goal is not to convince you, David. But several of us, and "Gran public" aren't.

I just participated humblely to expose why and shared;)

Very best Regards,

Gilles F.

Unknown said...

when your book release mr gilles.f?in french or english?thanks.

Gilles Fernandez said...

Greetings bar5294,

Hihi ! Taking into account the level of my english, in french of course ^^.

The other reason is that francophons have few "cartesian" or "skeptic" counter arguments in our tong. Excepting Pflock book's translation (dating) and Pierre Lagrange 1995 one ("The Roswell Rumor"), quasi nothing "new".

The release in scheduled next week end : taking into account it is an "home book" and not my main activity, it takes times. Just few "form" points to work in order to be in adequation with publisher format.

Best Regards,

Gilles F.

David Rudiak said...

Well Gilles, I'm sorry to see that you too are dodging the question as to whether Charles Moore cheated with his trajectory calculation. This DOES have a definite answer, just like a company that plays games with its accounting ledgers to perpetrate fraud. Really Gilles, is a number like 100/12.1 = 350 valid (just one of about 20 bogus Moore rise/fall rates)? How could anyone argue that?

The same with his map alterations on Flight #5. He claimed he made no changes, but made three very definite ones to distance Flight #5 from Roswell base, such as moving the crash site double the distance from the base.

These are just two instances of where Moore clearly manipulated data to try to push his Mogul argument. No skeptic, apparently including you now, will dare admit it. I think that is because it clearly undermines his overall credibility as a witness. And Moore is the basis of about 90% of the various Mogul claims.

When it suited the skeptical camp's interest, Moore's "exact" "calculation" was considered virtually the final proof that Mogul caused the Roswell crash. But when Brad Sparks and I pointed out Moore's fraud, that's when the hand-waving arguments, the double-talk, and the excuses began: well of course there is no way to know exactly where such a balloon flight would have gone, but it is "possible" (never defined) that it made it there.

Yes it is also "possible" I might win a poker hand with a royal flush or four aces. It just isn't very probable. You as a mathematician should at least understand that argument.

You CAN make probabilistic arguments about where such a flight would likely go with various flight profiles and wind data sets.

In fact, my website writeup has pointed out just how much you would have to alter the given wind set to get a real constant-altitude flight as Moore proposed anywhere near the crash site. And that's using a semi-plausible flight profile (unlike Moore's) and correct calculation (unlike Moore's clearly fraudulent one).

Then we get to the problem of a "real constant-altitude flight". ALL such flights, failures or not, WERE recorded in Mogul records. Only the ones that never went up were not. Flight #9 is missing from records. It was canceled and never flew. And the same with #4. The probably intended constant altitude flight was canceled by cloudy weather, just as recorded in Crary's diary.

If it had been launched and tracked (another of Moore's claims), then it certainly would have been recorded, like the real #5 the next day.

To be logically consistent, you can't have it both ways. And surely a mathematician should understand that. Math is logic in its purest form.

David Rudiak said...

Gilles F. wrote:
Balsa sticks, scotch, fish-line, laminated "alu-paper", etc, never warm you. You do, did and will do as if this coincidence is out the matter. Or you will notice some discrepencies, "strange properties" added post-1978, as if human testimony is irrefutable.

Gilles, I guess I missed the part where Brazel or anyone else, described "fish-line" back in 1947. In fact, Brazel specifically denied finding any string or wire that supposedly strung his wood/foil contraption to his balloon fragments. This is one of the great unsolved mysteries of the Mogul theory: Where did the hundreds of feet of balloon twine that held these balloon arrays together magically vanish to?

Brazel if nothing else described "eyelets", but nothing tied to them, not even a remaining knot. How can that be?

Instead the whole question of the missing "Mogul"balloon twine is just swept under the rug: out of sight, out of mind.

Indeed, the testimony of something like "fishing line", but not fishing line, came post-1978, not 1947, from Bill Brazel, who said he found a few fragments of it. It had fiber-optic-like properties, but was clearly NOT fishing line because he couldn't cut it with his knife, just like he couldn't cut the wood-like fragments he found. Bill Brazel compared it to having more the physical properties of wire in its resistance to cutting.

What's odd is how logically inconsistent you are in which debris testimony you accept. Brazel's 1947 testimony you accept unquestioningly, while ignoring the serious inconsistencies in it, such as the missing twine question, where you tack on post-1978 testimony of Bill Brazel of "fishing line", while ignoring the rest of his testimony about the physical properties being all wrong, not only in the "fishing line", but the "wood" and the mysterious "memory foil".

You also dismiss absolutely all other testimony of anomalous physical properties, such as Marcel, Proctor, Rickett, Smith, Rowe, and many others, just because it is "post-1978", and didn't come out of a newspaper in 1947.

And finally you arbitrarily ignore or dismiss absolutely all other testimony (around a dozen people) about Brazel being in military custody at the time of his statements, including the base provost marshal Easley, and Bill Brazel again.

So Bill Brazel's "fishing line" post-1978 is OK; all of the rest of his testimony is not, or anybody elses, unless it in some way supports Mogul.

In English, we call this "cherry-picking" the evidence.

Gilles Fernandez said...

Well David,

Roswell is complex and passional, or there have been solved for long time !

But when you keep "pro ET" and skeptic arguments in a sort of mental "balance", each is free to make his choice. I did mine, step by step, objectivaly.

The fist main thing (and one the KEY imho) which helping to understand Roswell for me is to understand Flying Saucers and Disks in 1947 US CONTEMPORAN mind. Bloecher 1967 made a good work even if convinced of ET visiting us. Martin Kottmeyer, Paul Ferrughelli, James McDonald, Otoo Binder, etc too.

In the first part of my book I give several "keys" to readers in order to understand "the invention of Flying Saucers" and how 1947 contemporans acted, thought and have in mind considering FS. And how the phenomenom is "plastic" as semantic, step by step.

A 2001 NICAP works demonstrated no one report was recorded BEFORE Kenneth Arnold press report released, concerning the 1947 wave. I remember you he never described the form of the objects as FS like, but it concerned the moovment of the objects. But people saw FS.

ET's changed the configuration of their aircrafts in order to be in adequation with a journalistic mistake (Bequette)? All 1947 reports are a posteriori K.A. release, even if some described observation taking place before (49). It is important to regard 1947 cases WHEN they were reported, and NOT when the observation is testimoned to take place.

Such points (shortly summerized), among several others of course, suggesting imho FS is a psychosocial phenomenon "created" by press.

A lingustic approach too of american and canadian 1947 Press releases allowed me to point FS and Disc have not Extraterrestrial "seme" (minimal lingustic signification of a term, dunno if existing in english or correct).

(to followed)

Gilles Fernandez said...

Part2

In other word, any objects with some insolit things could be good candidat of those famous FS the press is speacking for. More, it was offered rewards.

And in essence, to pose the Roswell's problem (for Brazel, Marcel, etc) as "how those guys can confound Balloons componants with an extraterrestrial craft, if what they found wasn't extraterrestrial" is the BIG mistake made by the investigator. Never Roswell protagonists, in 1947, though like that. They reported something sufficiantly insolit to be a good candidat of FS CONTEXTUALIZED. All started like this.

After, there exists several scientific element, like false memory, retrospective falsification, etc to explain post 1978 thing with parcimony.

The listing is long too, but one major is imho the absence of standardized method (as there exists in criminology or psychology) to question, drive interview, etc with witnesses post 1978.

Concerning flight 4, you well know how the meteo changed in the night, taking into account around station, and how it relected in alamogordo, permitting inflated ballons cluster to flight. As May, the 29th, Mears, Alden and Hackman realized a flight. You know too, NYU realized short flights used short cluster including ML307, weekly.

Difficult to summerize in one post all "indicators", but one more time, I'm convinced Roswell, as 1947 wave is a sociopsychological phenomenon, too much "indicators" for an human scientist.

It is a pity, cause "paraphrazing" Sagan, if there existed 0.001 % probability something extraterrestrial indicator in the affair, I have devoted 100% my time on. But there is definitivaly not the case. But you call such a demarch as "debunking", but sincerly, I focused objectivaly 2 or 3 years on the subject, and frustrating or not : Nothing extraordinary here.

Hoo, one more time, no goal to convince you, I worked 10 years on cognitive consonance and dissonance thema, and I have not the pretention to change your mind. I'm oki with "each chooses".

As I concluded in my book, the only FS debris people can touch is the 1947 famous press release, sadly.

Very best regards, and one more time, that's cool to free discut here, cause the french Roswell "specialist" not allowed me to continue to post in his blog (QED ?).

Gilles F.

Gilles Fernandez said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Gilles Fernandez said...

Part 3 ( - in fact 2 - one part was zapped ^^).

I have tons of questions to you or anyone. Allow me to this first please :

You writed before something like "Marcel found the debris so strange he gone at family home in order they see it".

Yep, that's right. But another time, a little detail is imho very indicating.

Oki. Trie to take Marcel Senior place 2s. The ET version speack about memory foils. You should admit it is the debris the more "insolit" and extraordinary, no ?". As "father", It was the thing I wanted to present my family and son.

In National Geographic TV release, I remember Marcel Junior declaring (by memory, cause not the exact quote here) :

"It have been said about memory foil materials, I have never seen it."

How do you explain Marcel Senior didn't take with him the more extraordinary "ET" material at home ?

(I noticed "strangely" too that it is not the case in the Roswell 1994 Jeremy Kagan's Moovie, Marcel Junior is taking place with memory foils at home).

Regards,

Gilles.F

PS :

You writed :

"Indeed, the testimony of something like "fishing line", but not fishing line, came post-1978, not 1947, from Bill Brazel, who said he found a few fragments of it. It had fiber-optic-like properties, but was clearly NOT fishing line because he couldn't cut it with his KNIFE, [...] "

Sorry, which knife ?

If I'm correct, he tried to breack it with his two hands.

"The "string", I couldn't break it."
and,

"Whatever it was, it too was a very strong material. You could take it in two hands and try to snap it, but it wouldn't snap at all."

Taking into account the resistance tension of the real string (150/300 pounds), well, not really surprising.