Wednesday, February 08, 2012

Philip Corso Was Not The Highest-Ranking Officer to Talk

Sometimes you see something that just makes no sense. I stumbled across several web sites that proclaimed that Philip Corso was the highest-ranking officer to talk about Roswell. Overlooking that much of what Corso claimed has been discredited, let’s just deal with this other claim.

First, we must realized that Corso was not a colonel (known as an O6 in the military) but was a lieutenant colonel (known as an O5). Some believed that he was promoted upon retirement, as often happens in the reserve, but there is no documentation to support this, and while Corso held a reserve commission, he had spent his career on extended active duty (known as EAD in the world of the military). That he was known as a colonel is a mistake though he would be addressed as “colonel” and referred to as “colonel” in conversation, in formal correspondence he would be addressed as “lieutenant colonel.” His rank insignia would be a silver leaf while that for a colonel is a silver eagle.

Second, there are two brigadier generals, Thomas DuBose and Arthur Exon who have spoken about the Roswell case. DuBose was General Ramey’s Chief of Staff (and not his aide as he has been identified on some of the sites) and told us about transferring debris from Roswell, through Fort Worth and onto Washington, D.C. He also said, on tape, that the material in Ramey’s office was parts of a weather balloon and not what had been found outside of Roswell and sent on to higher headquarters.

Exon was a lieutenant colonel at Wright Field in 1947 and later, as a brigadier general was the base commander at Wright-Patterson AFB (think of this as a mayor of a good-sized city). He told us (and here I think of me along with Don Schmitt and Tom Carey) about what he had seen and heard about Roswell, including flying over the crash site. His information about the case was both direct and indirect.

Third, there are Colonels... Patrick Saunders and Edwin Easley who were both at the base in Roswell in July 1947, and both who retired in a higher grade than Corso. Saunders is responsible for a notation in one of the Roswell books that I wrote with Don Schmitt that suggested that the cover up was in place, that it was an alien craft, and that he hadn’t mentioned it.

Easley was the provost marshal (think chief of police and please notice the spelling with but a single “L”) in Roswell and was responsible for the security at the crash site (whatever that crash might have been). He told me, in a private interview, that he believed it to be of an extraterrestrial craft. Yes, that’s a paraphrase of his saying that we weren’t following the wrong path when I said we believed it to be extraterrestrial.

When you look at it, you see that there are at least four officers of superior rank, who were actually in the right places to see something useful and not at Fort Riley in Kansas in July 1947. (I should point out here that I have nothing against lieutenant colonels, I was promoted to that grade upon retirement and that I spent three months at Fort Riley in 2003.)

Corso spun an interesting story, but the facts are he was not the highest ranking officer to talk about this, he was not in the right place to see anything in 1947, and there were gaps in his knowledge that would suggest he knew no more about this than someone who had read a few of the books and viewed some of the web sites. His story is interesting, but has little relevance to our understanding of the Roswell case.

8 comments:

cda said...

I presume the highest ranking officer to "talk about Roswell" was General Roger Ramey. But you won't accept what he said in 1947, will you Kevin? You prefer to accept what his chief of staff told you 45 years later (and not what he seems to have told earlier investigators).

Ramey took the great secret to his grave. Dubose decided to reveal all. At least that is what you fervently hope is the truth.

Terry the Censor said...

It makes perfect sense, Kevin.
Advocates put forward their strongest case; they are not always making the true case. They impute courage to Corso with this puffery. If they have to inflate his rank too, they'll do it.
Advocates want to win the argument and declare their opinion to be fact. They are not concerned with determining an objective fact.

KRandle said...

CDA -

Once again you miss the point. Ramey was irrelevant to the present discussion though he certainly was another high-ranking officer to speak about Roswell and who outranked Corso.

However, I was dealing with those who spoke in the 1990s and who we were able to interview (meaning that someone was able to interview them unlike Ramey who had died prior to most of the investigations).

Second, those earlier investigators have admitted that their work was a "disgraceful hodge podge of fact and fiction," and were not above altering transcripts when the purpose suited them. So I don't cite that work unless I have been able to verify the data.

So, your criticism here is ill placed. Sorry.

PalmettoMike said...

I am currently reading John Alexanders "UFO's" snd was wondering what you thought of his take on Corso (and his work in general)? Also very curious as to the revealtion of the coded metal glyphs on the Mogul balloon? I had not heard that one before. Seems like the AF would have covered that one with the original Mogul claim.

KRandle said...

I reviewed Alexander's book for JSE and this is what I said about this particular paragraph which, naturally, had caught my attention.

"With Project Mogul, we are not so blessed. In writing about the strange symbols reported by Jesse Marcel, Jr. (whose credentials are also carefully laid out for us) Alexander said, “What was learned was that on the reflecting panels had been placed a specially designed code that could only be read by the people with access to the key. More important, it was stated that this code was not alphanumeric as are most that are frequently employed, but entailed the use of glyphs.”

"In all my discussions with project engineers and others associated with Mogul, including Charles Moore who claimed he had 'launched the Roswell UFO,' this was never mentioned. The best the Air Force could do was suggest that a flowered tape from a novelty company had been used to reinforce part of the rawin targets, but they produced nothing to prove it. If I wanted to verify Alexander’s new claim, I could not. Alexander did not provide the source for this unique bit of information.

So, I do not accept this unattributed source that "proves" the Mogul answer. What fell at Roswell was not a "Mogul" balloon.

Steve M said...

Kevin

I hate to disagree with you but from all the evidence put forward by all side the only logical answer to the Roswell Crash was debris from a balloon train from Projecy Mogul.

Silent Hill said...

Mogul flight 4 was never recorded as existing nor taking off. When asked why there was no record of this they replied that they dont log failed missions. However flights 1, 2, 3 were previously logged down as failed.

Also how would a balloon crash at two seperate sites?

What you are suggesting by this is hundreds of people have lied about what they say they saw.

Silent Hill said...

Mogul flight 4 was never recorded as existing nor taking off. When asked why there was no record of this they replied that they dont log failed missions. However flights 1, 2, 3 were previously logged down as failed.

Also how would a balloon crash at two seperate sites?

What you are suggesting by this is hundreds of people have lied about what they say they saw.