Saturday, January 19, 2013

The Roswell Time Line - July 8, 1947


(Blogger’s Note: We have engaged in a lot of discussion that surround the events described below. It shows the extent of research into the news coverage, which one asked about, it provides documentation about the events of July 8, and it tries for sort out the story of the press release as it has been told and retold. It doesn’t prove that what fell outside Roswell was an alien spacecraft but it does show, to some extent, who was doing what and where. I think it answers some of the questions that have been raised. As an aside, I see that the footnotes reset after a certain point. I was unable to get them to run properly in sequence, so be aware of that as you scroll through the article.)

At about 9:30 that on July 8, 1947, Colonel William Blanchard called First Lieutenant Walter Haut in his office and dictated the “Flying Saucer” press release to him.[1] He was told to deliver the press release to the four media outlets in Roswell, that is, the two radio stations and the two daily newspapers. In what would become a discrepancy in Haut’s memory of the event, Haut would suggest at one time that he drove the release into town, and later say that he used the telephone to dictate it.[2] Either way, the press release went out to the press, and then was put on the news wire either by Frank Joyce[3] or George Walsh[4] or by both of them.
Walsh remembered that Haut had telephoned the press release to him “about mid-day.”[5] He said he copied the press release exactly, as Haut read it to him over the phone. Walsh, in turn called it into the Associated Press in Albuquerque. From there the release was put on the AP wire and that story was published in a number of newspapers.[6]

Art McQuiddy, who was the editor of the Roswell Morning Dispatch said, “I can remember quite a bit about what happened that day. It was about noon and Walter brought in a press release. He’d already been to one of the radio stations, and I raised hell with him about playing favorites.”[7]
Unfortunately for McQuiddy, the Dispatch was a morning newspaper, so there wasn’t much for him to do with the story. He said, “By the time Haut got to me, it hadn’t been ten minutes[8] and the phone started ringing. I didn’t get off the phone until late afternoon… The story died, literally, as fast as it started.”[9]
 
At 2:30 p.m. (MST), Blanchard announced that he was going on leave (which, of course, makes no real sense). He would not be available to take telephone calls about the flying saucer and would be out of touch for four days.[10]
There is a document, created in 1947, that provides the exact times for some of this. According The Daily Illini, the first of the stories on the Associated Press wire appeared at 4:26 p.m. on the east coast.[11] That would mean that the stories went out from Albuquerque, sometime prior to 2:26 p.m.[12]
 
The Associated Press version, as it appeared in a number of west coast newspapers said:

The many rumors regarding the flying disc became a reality yesterday when the intelligence office of the 509th Bomb Group of the Eighth Air Force, Roswell Army Air Field, was fortunate enough to gain possession of a disc through the cooperation of one of the local ranchers and the sheriff’s office of Chavez County.
The flying object landed on a ranch near Roswell sometime last week. Not having phone facilities, the rancher stored the disc until such time as he was able to contact the sheriff’s office, who in turn notified Major Jesse A. Marcel of the 509th Bomb Group Intelligence Office.
Action was immediately taken and the disc was picked up at the rancher’s home. It was inspected at the Roswell Army Air Field and subsequently loaned by Major Marcel to higher headquarters.[13]  

At 4:30 p.m. (EST), there is the first “add” to the AP story, which mentioned “Lt. Warren Haught [Walter Haut],” who was described as the public information officer at the “Roswell Field.” This new information suggested that the object had been found “last week” and that the object had been sent onto “higher headquarters.”
The original United Press bulletin, which went out fifteen minutes later, at 4:41 p.m. (EST), according to newspaper sources, said:
 
Roswell, N.M. – The army air forces here today announced a flying disc had been found on a ranch near Roswell and is in army possession.
The Intelligence office reports that it gained possession of the ‘Dis:’ [sic] through the cooperation of a Roswell rancher and Sheriff George Wilson [sic] of Roswell.
The disc landed on a ranch near Roswell sometime last week. Not having phone facilities, the rancher, whose name has not yet been obtained, stored the disc until such time as he was able to contact the Roswell sheriff’s office.
The sheriff’s office notified a major of the 509th Intelligence Office.
Action was taken immediately and the disc was picked up at the rancher’s home and taken to the Roswell Air Base. Following examination, the disc was flown by intelligence officers in a superfortress (B-29) to an undisclosed “Higher Headquarters.”
The air base has refused to give details of construction of the disc or its appearance.
Residents near the ranch on which the disc was found reported seeing a strange blue light several days ago about three o’clock in the morning.[14]

In Fort Worth, Texas (3:30 p.m. CST, 4:30 p.m. EST) Cullen Greene, an editor at the Fort Worth Star Telegram would have read the story as it came over the wire. J. Bond Johnson who worked at the newspaper in July 1947 said, “I don’t know the mechanics. We’d get those alerts. The bells would ring and it would be an attention thing. It would be an editor thing.”[15]
At 4:55 p.m. (EST) on the east coast 2:55 p.m. (MST) in New Mexico, the location of the discovery, that is New Mexico, is given. This bulletin, described as a “95” which is just below bulletin in importance, was repeated at 5:08 (EST) and a minute later, at 5:09,[16] there was another repeat of the story that said the information came from a radio reporter, but the identity of the reporter was not given.[17]

Johnson, who described himself as a reporter in July 1947[18] said, “…late in the afternoon, I returned to the office… My city editor… ran over and said, ‘Bond, have you got your camera?’ I said, ‘Yes, I had it out in my car.’ He said to get out to General Ramey’s office and… he said they’ve got something there… [and] get a picture… He said something crashed out there or whatever and they’re… we just got an alert on the AP wire.”[19]
At 5:10 p.m. (EST) or 3:10 p. m. (MST), there was a message that was addressed to the newspaper editors to let them know that the Associated Press had now gone to work on the story.[20]
 
According to the Daily Illini, “One minute later, at 5:11 [p. m. EST], the third add [additional information] to the bulletin announced, ‘The war department in Washington had nothing to say immediately about the reported find.’  That meant the AP was on the job investigating.”[21]
In was about 4:30 p.m. (CST, 5:30 EST) that Johnson arrived at the Fort Worth Army Air Field. He told Bill Moore and Jaime Shandera that it was about a twenty minute trip from the newspaper office out to the airfield.[22] He said that he routinely covered activities at the airfield, so when he reached the gate, he showed his press pass. He also had a Civil Air Patrol sticker on his car, which would have made it easier for him to enter the airfield. He had been told to go to Ramey’s office, though he normally would visit the Public Information Officer.[23]
 
Johnson said, “I posed General Ramey with this debris piled in the middle of his rather large and plush office. It seemed incongruous to have this smelly garbage piled up on the floor… spread out on the floor of this rather plush, big office… I posed General Ramey with this debris. At that time, I was briefed on the idea that it was not a flying saucer but in fact was a weather balloon that had crashed.”[24]
Johnson, according to what he said, didn’t stay long in Ramey’s office because generals were busy. He said, “As I remember, I probably wasn’t there more than twenty minutes, which was not unusual.” He took the photographs, gathered some information and left.[25]
 
He said, “It was entirely possible that I was briefed by the PIO.”[26]
This last quote could be important. The story that Johnson wrote to accompany the pictures, contained no direct quotes from Ramey, DuBose or Marcel, but did quote Irving Newton, the weather officer called in to identify the debris.[27] But the timing seems to suggest that Johnson had arrived before Newton had been called Ramey’s office so it is puzzling. Why is Newton quoted directly, but none of the others are?
At 5:53 p.m. (EST), 4:53 p.m. (CST), there was another bulletin which had a Washington dateline but was a statement by Ramey, which had to originate in Fort Worth, which said the disk had been sent to Wright Field.[28] What is critical here is the use of the past tense. The story didn’t say it would be forwarded, but that it had already been sent.
At 6:02 p.m. (EST, 5:02 p.m. CST), the AP put together the whole story and started the transmission of the “First Lead Disk.” This story, datelined Albuquerque said, “The army air forces has gained possession of a flying disk, Lt. Warren Haught [Walter Haut], public information officer at Roswell army airfield announced today.” That new lead was to be integrated into the stories that had already been transmitted.[29]
 
Dallas Morning News reporters called out to the Fort Worth Army Air Field, according to them, at 5:30 p.m. (CST, 6:30 EST) and interviewed Major E. M. Kirton, an intelligence officer at Eighth Air Force Headquarters. He told reporters that “there is nothing to it… It was a rawin high altitude sounding device.” Kirton said that the identification was final and there was no reason to send it on to Wright Field for confirmation. He confirmed that the material had been flown to Fort Worth on a B-29.[30]
Warrant Officer Irving Newton said that he was alone in the weather office and when he received a call ordering him to General Ramey’s office. Newton said that he was the only one there and couldn’t leave. General Ramey then called and told him to “get your ass over here now. Use a car and if you have to, take the first one with the keys in it.”[31]
 
When Newton arrived, around 6:00 p.m. (CST, 7:00 EST), a colonel or a lieutenant colonel stopped him and briefed him. Newton didn’t remember who it was, only that he was told that “These officers from Roswell think they found a flying saucer, but the general thinks it’s a weather balloon. He wants you to take a look at it.”[32]
Newton, in his signed statement for the Air Force said, “Several people were in the room when I went in, among them General Ramey, a couple of press people, a Major, I learned later to be Major Marcel and some other folks. Someone introduced Major Marcel as the person who found this material… While I was examining the debris, Major Marcel was picking up pieces of the target sticks and trying to convince me that some notations on the sticks were alien writings. There were figures on the sticks lavender or pink in color, appeared to be weather faded markings with no rhyme or reason. He did not convince me these were alien writings.”[33]
 
At 7:03 p.m. (EST, 6:03 CST), there was another “first lead” story from Washington, but this one hinted that there was nothing spectacular about the disc. It was now being identified as some sort of a meteorological device, or in other words, a weather balloon.[1]
Twelve minutes later, at 7:15 p.m. (EST, 6:15 CST), there was a bulletin that said General Ramey would make a statement on national radio. WBAP, a Dallas radio station, had arranged for the national hook up for Ramey[2]over the NBC radio network.
The FBI entered the picture just two minutes later, at 6:17 p.m. (CST, 7:17 EST). The FBI office in Dallas sent a message to the FBI office in Cincinnati, about the story. The message was sent to the director, J. Edgar Hoover, and to the SAC (Special Agent in Charge) and was titled, “Flying Disc, Information Concerning.” The text said:
 

Major Curtan [sic, Edwin Kirton], Headquarters Eighth Air Force, telephonically advised this office that an object purporting to be a flying disc was recovered near Roswell, New Mexico, this date [July 8, 1947]. The disc was hexagonal in shape and was suspended from a balloon by cable, which baloon [sic] was approximately twenty feet in diameter. Major Curtan further advised that the object found resembles a high altitude weather balloon with a radar reflector, but that telephonic conversation between their office and Wright Field had not borne out this belief. Disc and balloon being transported to Wright Field by special plane for examin [sic]. Information provided this office because of national interest in case and fact that National Broadcasting Company, Associated Press, and others attempting to break the story of location of the disc today. Major Curtan advised would request Wright Field to advise Cincinnati office results of examination. No further investigation being conducted.[3]

Then, at 7:29 p.m. EST (6:29 p.m. CST), came another new lead for the story. It said, “Procede [sic] Washington. Lead All Disk.” This meant, simply, that the lead on the story that had been transmitted prior to this would be changed and the new lead substituted.
This was broken with another bulletin almost immediately. It said, “Fort Worth – Roswell’s celebrated ‘flying disk’ was rudely stripped of its glamor by a Fort Worth army airfield weather officer who late today identified the object as a ‘weather balloon.’”[4]
At the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Johnson had developed the pictures quickly and on orders from Greene, he brought out a wet print. There were others waiting for him, including technicians from Dallas who had brought in a portable wire photo machine so that they could get the pictures out over the AP wire immediately.[5]

He would say that he wrote the first story about the recovery that appeared in an early edition of the newspaper. The last line of that story became important because it said, “After his first look, Ramey declared all it was was a weather balloon. The weather officer verified his view.[6]
Johnson had been given the solution, apparently before Newton arrived to provide the final, conclusive word. But that solution had been handed to the reporter for the Dallas Morning News, not by Ramey or Newton, but by Kirton, who was the intelligence officer. This would suggest that Newton was called in to provide some drama for the other reporters who did drive out to the airfield.
DuBose’s suggestion of a cover up seems to confirm the suspicions that had arisen given the timing of various press stories. The timing of statements, such as that given by Kirton to the Dallas Morning News, suggest that the weather balloon identification had been made before Newton arrived at Ramey’s office.
Even with the questions that should have been asked about how an experienced intelligence officer could mistake the remains of a flimsy weather balloon and an aluminum foil radar reflector for a flying saucer or why no one at Roswell could identify the wreckage for what it was, the cover story was accepted. According to one story, “Brigadier General Donald M. Yates, chief of the AAF weather service, said only a very few of them are used daily, at points were some specific project requires highly accurate wind information from extreme altitudes.”[7]
Newton, on the other hand, wasn’t saying the rawins were quite so rare. The Star-Telegram reported, “Newton said there are some 80 weather stations in the United States using this type of gadget, and it could have come from any of them.”[8]
That wasn’t the only point on which the stories disagreed. In earlier editions of the newspaper, it mentioned that “The disc landed on a ranch near Roswell sometime last week.”[9] Later is was reported, “Brazell [sic], whose ranch is 30 miles from the nearest telephone and has no radio, knew nothing about the flying discs when he found the remains of the weather device scattered over a square mile of his property three weeks ago.”[10]
That same day, in the Albuquerque Journal, Jason Kellahin reported, “Scattered with the materials over an area about 200 years across were pieces of grey rubber. All pieces were small.”[11]
Interestingly, that is not the only fact that Kellahin reported that disagreed with the official story line. He wrote, “On July 4, after hearing about ‘flying discs,’ he took the find to Sheriff George Wilcox at Roswell who referred the discovery to intelligence officers at the Roswell field.”[12]

This is an interesting statement because it is in conflict with almost all newspaper accounts that suggest Brazel had gone into Roswell on July 7. Marcel, in describing his activities, suggesting that they remained overnight on the Brazel ranch and went out the next morning, suggests a time line that put Brazel into Roswell on Sunday, July 6. After spending all day in the field, Marcel returned, arriving in Roswell, late on the evening or early in the morning of July 8, and then briefing Blanchard quite earlier.
By 10:00 p.m. (CST, 11:00 p.m. EST), the story was virtually over. Ramey had not appeared on NBC, but at 10:00 he was quoted on ABC’s “Headline Edition,” and the weather balloon story entered the public consciousness. The newspapers were reporting the error on the part of the officers in Roswell. The Las Vegas Review Journal reported:

The excitement ran through this cycle:

1. Lieutenant Warren Haught [Walter Haut], public relations officer at the Roswell base, released a statement in the name of Colonel William Blanchard, base commander. It said that an object described as a “flying disk” was found on the nearby Foster ranch three weeks ago by W. W. Brazel and had been sent to “higher officials” for examination.
2. Brigadier General Roger B. Ramey, commander of the 8th air force, said at Fort Worth that he believed the object was the “remnant of a weather balloon and radar reflector,” and was “nothing to be excited about.” He allowed photographers to take a picture of it. It was announced that the object would be sent to Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio, for examination by experts.
3. Later, Warrant Officer Irving Newton, Stessonville, Wisconsin, weather officer at Fort Worth, examined the object and said definitely that it was nothing but a badly smashed target used to determine the direction and velocity of high altitude winds.

4. Lieutenant Haught reportedly told reporters that he had been “shut up by two blistering phone calls from Washington.”[13]

5. Efforts to contact Colonel Blanchard brought the information that “he is now on leave.”[14]

6. Major Jesse A. Marcel, intelligence officer of the 509th bombardment group, reportedly told Brazel, the finder of the object, that it “has nothing to do with army or navy so far as I can tell.”
7. Brazel told reporters that he had found weather balloon equipment before but had seen nothing that resembled his latest find.
Those who saw the object said it had a flowered paper tape around it bearing the initials “D. P.”[15]
 

While this story was winding down, with the principals unavailable for comment, that is Brazel being held by the military[16], Marcel either in Fort Worth or enroute back to Roswell, and with Blanchard on leave, reporters were unable to gather any additional information. Sheriff Wilcox would say little. It was reported, “Wilcox said he did not see the object but was told by Brazell [sic] it was ‘about three feet across.’ The sheriff declined to elaborate. ‘I’m working with those fellows at the base,’ he said.”[17]
This then, gives an outline of the events of July 8 based on the available documentation including newspaper reports, interviews conducted with the principals in the story, and a timeline that was reconstructed more than a half century after the incident. I think that you all can draw your own conclusions about what it means, but the information here is the latest available.
I will note that as I went through this I did find a couple of places where the footnotes were inaccurate. In one instance, I sourced the Albuquerque Journal when it was the Albuquerque Tribune. I have tried to make sure that everything is accurate but some questions still might arise. Those will be dealt with as they appear.


[1] “AP Wires Burn With ‘Captured Disk’ Story,” Daily Illini, July 9, 1947, p. 5.
 
[2] Ibid.
 
[3] FBI Telex, July 8, 1947.
 
[4] “AP Wires Burn With ‘Captured Disk’ Story,” July 9, 1947, p. 5. 
 
[5] Johnson, personal interview with Randle, March 24, 1989.
 
[6] Johnson, claimed authorship of “’Disk-overy’ Near Roswell Identified as Weather Balloon by FWAAF Officer,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, July 9, 1947. He would later deny that he had written the article.
 
[7] “AAF Finds ‘Saucer’, But Wishes it Hadn’t,” The Boston Herald, July 9, 1947, pp. 1 – 2.
 
[8] “New Mexico Rancher’s ‘Flying Disk’ Proves to Be Weather Balloon-Kite,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, July 9, 1947, p. 1. This is from a later edition of the July 9, 1947, newspaper and adds details that were not reported in the earlier edition.
 
[9] This is from the United Press teletypes provided by Frank Joyce.
 
[10] “New Mexico Rancher’s ‘Flying Disk’ Proves to Be Weather Balloon-Kite,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, July 9, 1947, p. 1.
 
[11] Jason Kellahin, “NM Rancher Sorry He Said Anything About ‘Disc Find,’” Albuquerque Tribune, July 9, 1947, p. 2.
 
[12] Ibid.
[13] Haut, in a personal interview with Randle on April 20, 1989, said that he had received no calls from Washington, D.C. He said, “Well, I think that had I really gotten any calls from Washington, a first lieutenant getting calls from the big boys, I’d remember it.” On the other hand, in an interview with Randle on December 5, 1990, George Walsh said, “He [Haut] said the just got a call from the War Department and [they] told him in two words, ‘Shut up.’”
 
[14] As noted earlier, it was about 2:30 p. m. (MST) that Blanchard announced his leave. It seems to be a strange time to begin a leave, especially when it is about the same time that all the interest developed, based on the time lines published in 1947.
 
[15] “Flying Disc Tales Decline As Army, Navy Crack Down,” Las Vegas Review-Journal, July 9, 1947, pp. 1 – 2; Army, Navy Open Drive To Dry Up Saucer Talk,” Phoenix Gazette, July 9, 1947, p. 4
 
[16] Major Edwin Easley, Provost Marshal at the RAAF in July 1947, in a telephone interview with Randle, February 1990.
 
[17] “Disc Mystery Is ‘Solved’ For Three Hours Until Roswell Find Collapses,” Albuquerque Journal, July 9, 1947, pp. 1 – 2.
 



[1] In other interviews, Haut would say that he didn’t remember if Blanchard had called him and given him the facts of the story or if he had dictated the finished release to him. He said didn’t remember if he had gone to Blanchard’s office, or received a telephone call about it. See Carey and Schmitt, Witness to Roswell, pp. 252 – 253;
Pflock, Roswell: Inconvenient Facts, p. 26; Philip Klass, Real Roswell Cover-up, pp. 31 -32; Randle and Schmitt, UFO Crash, pp. 68 -76; Walter Haut personal interview by Randle, April 1, 1990.
 
[2] In the documentation provided by Frank Joyce, there had been a query from Denver, to Santa Fe, asking for the text of the announcement. Santa Fe responded, “Army gave verbal ann[oun]c[e]ment. No text.”
 
[3] Joyce would suggest that after he received the press release, he called Haut and warned him that the wording of it was incorrect. It had to do with who was issuing the release and what it said. Joyce claimed he warned Haut that he would get into trouble based on that wording.
 
[4] Walsh worked at the other Roswell radio station, KSWS.
 
[5] George Walsh, affidavit signed September 13, 1993.
 
[6] Pflock, Roswell: Inconvenient Facts and the Will to Believe, p. 62.
 
[7] Art McQuiddy, personal interview by Randle, January 19, 1990.
 
[8] Given the sequence of events, based on time lines published in other newspapers and interviews conducted with other witnesses, the telephone calls to McQuiddy probably didn’t start for two hours. He, like others in Roswell said that he received telephone calls from all over the world, mentioning London, Rome, Paris and Hong Kong.
 
[9] McQuiddy, personal interview by Randle, January 19, 1990.
 
[10] Donald Schmitt, UFO Crash at Roswell II, The Author, 1997: p. 60
 
[11] We have no information how long the story was in Albuquerque, how it was vetted, or how long it took to type it into the news wire.
 
[12] “AP Wires Burn With ‘Captured Disk’ Story,” July 9, 1947, p. 5. Although the Daily Illini story gives all times in relation to the Associated Press, the line quoted at the beginning for the article is actually from the United Press International.
 
[13] “Disc Solution Collapses,” San Francisco Chronicle, July 9, 1947, p. 1
[14] “AP Wires Burn With ‘Captured Disk’ Story,” July 9, 1947, p. 5, which only published the first line of the story, and had attributed it to the Associated Press. Frank Joyce retained the teletype copy which he had sent to the United Press. He provided copies of these documents to various UFO researchers including Randle, Schmitt, Carey, and Pflock. See also, Pflock.  Roswell: Inconvenient Facts, pp. 244 – 248; Randle and Schmitt, Truth About, pp.46 - 50.
 
[15] J. Bond Johnson, personal interview by Randle, February 27, 1989, March 24, 1990; Johnson in interviews conducted by Bill Moore and Jaime Shandera would later change much of his story. For these alternative views, see, Shandera and Moore, “Three Hours that Shook the Press,” Focus, 1990, 3 – 7; Shandera and Moore, “Three Hours that Shook the Press,” MUFON UFO Journal 269, September 1990: 3 - 10; Schmitt and Randle, “What Happened in Ramey’s Office?” MUFON UFO Journal 276, April 1991: 3 – 9.
 
[16] “AP Wires Burn With ‘Captured Disk’ Story,” Daily Illini, July 9, 1947, p. 5.
 
[17] Years later, both George Walsh and Frank Joyce would claim credit for breaking this story. It would seem that Walsh put the story on the AP wire, which did get it out nationally first. Joyce, a stringer for the United Press had to take the story to the Western Union office for transmittal to Albuquerque. Documentation suggests that the AP story hit the wires about fifteen minutes before the UP story, which gives the nod to Walsh.
 
[18] Johnson, interview by Randle, March 24, 1989.
 
[19] Ibid. For additional information see Schmitt and Randle, “Fort Worth, July 8, 1947: The Cover up Begins,” International UFO Reporter, 15,2, March/April 1990; 21 – 23; Schmitt and Randle, “The Fort Worth Press Conference: The J. Bond Johnson Connection,” International UFO Reporter, 15,6, November/December 1990: 5 – 16.
 
[20] “AP Wires Burn With ‘Captured Disk’ Story,” Daily Illini, July 9, 1947, p. 5.
 
[21] “AP Wires Burn With ‘Captured Disk’ Story,” Daily Illini, July 9, 1947, p. 5.
 
[22] Shandera. “Three Hours that Shook the Press,” MUFON UFO Journal 269, September 1990:  3 - 10.
 
[23]  Johnson, interview by Randle, March 24, 1989.
 
[24] Johnson, interview by Randle, March 24, 1989.
 
[25] Johnson, interview by Randle, March 24, 1989.
 
[26] Ibid. The problem is that the PIO would have been in the office. In other interviews, Irving Newton suggested he was there when all the pictures were taken, which would mean that Johnson saw him as well. Johnson’s claim that only Ramey and DuBose were there does not hold up when other information is considered.
 
[27] J. Bond Johnson, “’Disk-overy’ Near Roswell Identified As Weather Balloon by FWAAF Officer,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, July 9, 1947: pp. 1 – 2
 
[28] “AP Wires Burn With ‘Captured Disk’ Story,” Daily Illini, July 9, 1947, p. 5.
 
[29] Ibid
 
[30] “Suspected ‘Disk’ Only Flying Weather Vane,” Dallas Morning News, July 9, 1947.
 
[31] Irving Newton, telephone Interviews with Randle, October 20, 1989, March 24, 1990 and January 1991. See also, Weaver and McAndrew, The Roswell Report, Statement Thirty (Irving Newton). A similar account is found in Berlitz and Moore, The Roswell Incident, pp. 31 – 37.
 
[32] Newton, personal telephone with Randle, January 1991. See also, Randle and Schmitt, Truth About UFO Crash at Roswell, pp. 42 – 43. It should be noted that Newton was not sure about the time and had suggested it was just after he had come on duty at 2:00 p.m., but the documentation available suggests that Newton was called to Ramey’s office about 6:00 p.m.
 
[33] Weaver and McAndrew, The Roswell Report, Statement Thirty (Irving Newton).
 

60 comments:

David Rudiak said...

(part 1)
Kevin, my initial quibble with your chronology is how soon you have J. Bond Johnson going out to photograph Ramey, as soon as 4:30 CST. In the Daily Illini AP chronology, the 5:53 EST AP bulletin (4:53 CST or Fort Worth) was the first mention by AP of Ramey being involved.

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

"At 5:53, the AP story began to be moved. Another bulletin was sent with a Washington dateline. It was a story about a statement by Brig. Gen. Roger Ramey, saying the "disk" had been sent to Wright Field, Ohio."

Even here, it wasn't evident that the "disk" was still with Ramey.

However, the evening edition of the Los Angeles Herald-Express with a more detailed bulletin suggested that maybe Ramey still had the object:

"Washington, July 8--Brig. Gen. Roger Ramey said today that a battered object which previously had been been described as a flying disc, found near Roswell, N.M., is being shipped by air to the A.A.F. research center at Wright Field, Ohio.

"Ramey, commander of the Eighth Air Force with headquarters at Fort Worth, received the object from the Roswell army air base."

Before then, AP had only reported Marcel and the disc had only been flown to "higher headquarters," without being specific where or whom that might be.

One of Johnson's original recollections (before his story began to shift substantially) was coming in at the shift change, which I think would more likely be around 5:00 p.m., not 4:00 p.m.

The UP bulletins kept by Frank Joyce first placed Marcel in Fort Worth at 4:42 CST:

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

REPORTS FROM THE ROSWELL BASE SAID THAT MAJOR MARCEL WAS AT EIGHTH ARMY HEADQUARTERS IN FORT WORTH, TEXT, BUT THAT "HE MIGHT BE ON HIS WAY BACK TO ROSWELL BY PLANE NOW." HOWEVER, OFFICIALS AT THE ROSWELL BASE SAY THEY KNOW NOTHING ABOUT THE DISC OR ITS DESCRIPTION, OR WHERE THE "HIGHER HEADQUARTERS" WHERE IT REPORTEDLY WAS TAKEN ARE LOCATED.

So again, no specific mention of Ramey being involved, having the "disc", etc.

Reporter Dick Pearce of the San Francisco Examiner, who knew Ramey, apparently read between the lines and said he called Ramey within an hour of the press release, was the first to reach him and get the true story that it was a weather balloon and radar reflector:

http://www.roswellproof.com/SFExaminer_July9.html

This is also reflected in the LA Herald-Express article with an INS bulletin (the Hearst paper Examiner would have put out a bulletin over INS), where it announces Ramey's ID:

" FORT WORTH, Texas, July 8--Brig. Gen. Roger Ramey, commanding general of the Eighth Army airforces field, asserted tonight the purported 'flying disc' found in eastern New Mexico is 'evidently nothing other than a weather or radar instrument of some sort.'"

It is worth noting that this was the LAST AP item to appear in any newspaper on July 8 and the coverage reflected the first 1-1/2 hours (~3:30-5:00 CST) of reporting after the press release went out 3:26 CST. The next 1-1/2 hours (5:00-6:30 CST), with Ramey calling in his weather expert (Newton) and getting the official ID, didn't appear in newspapers until July 9.

The Herald-Express sub-headline also made it clear that Ramey was IDing it as a radar target before Newton ever appeared: "General Believes It Is Radar Weather Gadget"

Newspapers the next day reported Gen. Vandenberg dropping in on the Pentagon press room within an hour after the release and directing calls to Ramey, so again around 4:15-4:30 CST, but this information wasn't reflected on any of the major newswires.

So I think the bulk of evidence points to Johnson being dispatched to Ramey's around 4:53 CST when Ramey's involvement was first mentioned by AP, getting there around 5:15. (There is also shadow evidence through the curtains in the Ramey memo photo that might support his time.)

David Rudiak said...

part 2:
Immediately after Johnson was there Newton was cal, weather officer Newton was brought in and had his picture taken by somebody else, perhaps Rameys PIO.

The Dallas Morning News reported that around 5:30 they had contacted Major Kirton (one of Ramey's intel officers) who told them that it was definitely a "rawin" (even correctly spelled, unlike the AP story afterward). Further he used the same description as Newton in the AP stories of it resembling a "six-pointed star".

http://www.roswellproof.com/DallasMorningNews_July9.html

There's a little uncertainty in my mind as to exactly when Newton arrived, but apparently very soon after Johnson. The Newton photo debris positions has commonalities with the Marcel photos (but not Ramey and Dubose photos), therefore the probable sequence of photos were Johnson's six, first four of Ramey and Dubose, then Marcel (though Johnson didn't remember taking those or meeting Marcel), followed by Johnson leaving and Newton immediately following. The timing is a little cramped, but there may be some slop in the 5:30 time of the Dallas M.N. which may only be approximate.

KRandle said...

David -

I based it on what Johnson had said, realizing that Johnson couldn't be counted on to give us any real facts. I would suggest that Green's idea was to send someone out to the base to get their take on this, no necessarily on going to see Ramey... Of course, Johnson makes a couple of suggests that negate that.

An additional problem is that the the photograph that went over the wire had a time of 11:59 p.m. You have to wonder what they were doing with the pictures... It wouldn't take more than an hour to develop the film and get a print from it.

Johnson had the chance to provide some valuable information but decided to wreck it with his multiple tails and his ever changing scenarios.

It is clear, however, that the weather balloon story was out before Johnson left... and Kirton certainly had it to give to the Dallas Morning News.

cda said...

You have done a reasonably good job of reconstructing the timescale. Certainly I am in no position to correct it, except that all your times should be Daylight Saving Time (I presume) not standard time.

You mention Blanchard's leave as "which of course makes no real sense". Why does it not make sense?

I agree that it makes no sense whatever IF the recovered object was suspected of being a crashed ET craft with bodies (or even if it was suspected as coming from Russia, with or without bodies), but it makes perfect sense if Blanchard & the others had realised the object was something trivial and had no significance to the USAF.

It is no good claiming Blanchard's leave was a subterfuge or cover story, and that he 'disappeared' to give a false impression. That is the conspiracists' view of course. I suggest he chose to go on leave on a Tuesday because he had personal things to do or for family reasons - can you prove otherwise?

As it stands we are left with 3 scenarios:

1. Blanchard was not interested in ETs and thus took his leave regardless of the discovery.

2. An ET craft was captured and Blanchard's leave was a cover story.

3. Blanchard went on genuine leave because he knew the object was merely a balloon & radar target and he had better things to do than spend time at the base with inquisitive reporters.

I would choose option 3. Which option do you prefer? Which does the dream team prefer?

KRandle said...

CDA -

Daylight Saving Time was not standardized in the US until 1966. It was an on again, off again proposition... I used the standard time as a way of distinguishing among the various time zones in this story.

Blanchard's leave was makes no sense because it begins on a Tuesday. Unless it was an emergency leave (which it was not) there is no reason to begin it on a Tuesday.

I found a note in the Unit History that noted on July 8, LTC Jennings assumed command based on G.O. (General Order) #9, para 1 at the Roswell Army Air Field.

I found the GO. It said, "Pursuant to authority contained in Hqs. 8th Air Force TWX number AI (I think, that is not clear) 1593 dated 6 July 1947, the undersigned hereby assumes command of the Roswell Army Air Field, Roswell, New Mexico. Effective this date."

And this too makes no sense because July 6 is a Sunday... This should have been planned earlier so that the TWX would have gone out sooner... unless it was an emergency leave, which would have been noted in the TWX or in the Unit History notation.

So, this is very odd... He gets charged with a day of leave even though he was there for part of the day... it should have begun the next day... or on Monday. Just very odd.

David Rudiak said...

Kevin wrote:
I found the GO. It said, "Pursuant to authority contained in Hqs. 8th Air Force TWX number AI (I think, that is not clear) 1593 dated 6 July 1947, the undersigned hereby assumes command of the Roswell Army Air Field, Roswell, New Mexico. Effective this date."

And this too makes no sense because July 6 is a Sunday... This should have been planned earlier so that the TWX would have gone out sooner... unless it was an emergency leave, which would have been noted in the TWX or in the Unit History notation.

So, this is very odd... He gets charged with a day of leave even though he was there for part of the day... it should have begun the next day... or on Monday. Just very odd.


I too found it very odd that Blanchard's leave would begin in the middle of the work week instead of the end or beginning. What Jennings order suggests to me is that Blanchard's leave was supposed to start Sunday or Monday morning, but something came up to delay his leave. Hmmm, I wonder what that could have been?

Lots of commanders were on leave from their commands during the July 4th period, e.g., Gen. Spaatz supposedly fishing in the Pacific Northwest during Roswell leaving Gen. Vandenberg in charge of the AAF at the Pentagon, and Gen. Kenney, head of the Strategic Air Command, leaving Gen. McMullen in charge. Thus Vandenberg and McMullen enter into the Roswell story much more so than Spaatz and Kenney.

So I would guess that Blanchand also had a preplanned leave during this period (including a scheduled ceremonial signing of Air Force Day with Gov. Mabry on July 9), but fate intervened as to when the leave actually began.

Ironically the delayed leave also helps refute CDAs incessant claims that nothing of importance happened because Blanchard went on leave in the middle of the ruckus. But something of importance had come up, Brazel's reported find, hence why Blanchard didn't go on his leave as scheduled. Also Blanchard never met with the Governor to sign the proclamation. Instead the Governer and his wife suddenly took off for the mountains.

Where was Blanchard? Out in the field making a personal assessment, according to his op officer Joe Briley and Gen. Exon, both of whom referred to the reported leave as a "screen". It got Blanchard out of town and away from follow-up by reporters. Also with the operation now being directed from outside and teams brought into Roswell to handle the situatio, Blanchard was no longer needed at the base.

The July 6 order for Jennings to assume command also supports the evidence that Brazel first reported on Sunday, July 6, not Monday, July 7, as most papers reported (citing AP). Sheriff Wilcox in July 8 UP newswires was quoted saying Brazel came in the "day before yesterday". Marcel remembered spending the night at the ranch because they arrived too late to investigate, and then spent the entire next day investigating. And Dubose remembered Ramey being away from the base when the report about the crash first came in from Roswell. Newspapers prove Ramey was indeed away on Sunday July 6 attending an air show in his home town of Denton, Texas, as was the Fort Worth base commander, Col. Hewitt T. Wheless. Thus the acting base commander, Col. Alvin Clark, became the Gen. McMullen ordered "colonel courier" taking the bagged debris sample by plane from Fort Worth to Washington.

David Rudiak said...

Regarding the Daylight Savings Time vs. Standard Time issue, the otherwise journalistically hideous Boston Herald story nailed down when the press release came out: "It was about 5:30 PM (EDT) when Lieut. Warren Haught [sic] of the AAF's public relations office at Roswell field, New Mexico, issued his first pardonably pompous statement..."

http://www.roswellproof.com/Boston_Herald_July9.html

This means all the times in the Daily Illini chronology are EST, not EDT:

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

Frank Joyces UP telexes, which start at 2:41, are correspondingly all local Roswell MST:

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

Texas was not on Daylight Savings Time, thus the Dallas Morning News story of speaking to Major Kirton at 5:30 refers to 5:30 CST, or two hours after the press release (~3:30 CST).

The FBI telegram of 6:17 is EST (not MST as Kevin has it). I found this out with some difficulty, after first contacting the FBI for info and being treated like a spy. They refused to tell me anything. Instead I looked at a lot of period FBI telexes and determined the marked transmission time was always referenced to FBI HQ in Washington and always standard time. (E.g., the stamped reception time of a transmission from the west coast might be only a few minutes after the printed transmission time on the telex.)

So 6:17 on the FBI telex was 5:17 MST in Fort Worth, about 15 minutes before the Dallas M.N. spoke to Major Kirton, now saying it was definitely a Rawin and the flight to Wright Field had been cancelled.

The FBI telex was also largely based on info from the same Major Kirton (but spelled "Curtan"), who was reciting an earlier version of the story that Kirton also provided Reuters at a still earlier time, (but to Reuters saying it was _possibly_ a high altitude balloon but nobody recognized it as an Army type balloon, instead of the FBI version of it being a balloon and radar target). To Reuters Kirton said that Ramey reported the tinfoil-covered object as being "hexagonal" in shape, something impossible to determine from the actual broken, torn, and flattened rawin Ramey actually displayed. This means the "hexagonal" description had been scripted for Ramey and the Rawin "explanation" was all predetermined. The FBI was given the same "hexagonal" description as Reuters.

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

Because the FBI telex description of the object was so similar to Reuters (which hadn't been told the radar target explanation yet, which didn't begin until about 4:30 CST), I would guess Kirton spoke to the FBI roughly half an hour before the Dallas FBI sent their telex (or roughly 4:45 CST). The FBI also apparently made a call to Wright Field during this interval, who told them they disagreed with the radar target/balloon provided by Kirton. This information also appeared in the telex (but is never quoted by the skeptics).

JAF said...

I'm looking at a poor photocopy of the Morning Report for July 9, 1947 in Pflock's Roswell Inconvenient Facts and the Will to Believe, page 250. It sure looks to me like it shows Blanchard's name with a notation that he is on 21 day leave.

A way to determine when leave was intended to start would be to find out when Blanchard returned from leave and deduct 21 days.

Robert Todd supplies this date in his Cowflop Quarterly; July 5, 1996 ( http://www.roswellfiles.com/pdf/Cowflop070596.pdf ). He says it is July 26 (page 2, column 2). If you walk back 21 days from the 26th, you get that Blanchard's leave was originally supposed to start on July 5, which makes complete sense. Except that it didn't start then.

Could some of this be the handiwork of Major Saunders who wrote that curious note about "Here's the truth..." at the top of one of the pages of The Truth About the UFO Crash at Roswell? Or is just coincidental that the paragraph below where he wrote starts out with "Files were altered. So were personnel records"?

Can anybody confirm when Blanchard's leave ended?

cda said...

Re DR's last paragraph, the FBI did not phone Wright Field; the phone call (i.e. the one before Kirton spoke to FBI Dallas) was between the 8th Air Force and Wright Field, not between the FBI and Wright Field. The FBI teletype makes this plain.

All it means is that the person at the end of the phone at Wright Field had doubts about the radar target/balloon explanation without seeing the debris. A perfectly natural response.

As to Blanchard's leave: oh yes, we can be quite sure Blanchard had no interest in such trivia as an ET visit to earth, nor had the state Governor (assuming he was ever let into the great secret). So Blanchard also has a 'cover story' set up for him, and the Governor also takes a vacation.

DR's analysis is an excellent example of a conspiracist's mind at work. Anything and everything that took place on July 7 and 8 fits perfectly with his crashed ET craft/cover-up thesis. Everything.

And he accepts Haut's 2nd affidavit unreservedly, despite the fact that it was written by Don Schmitt and signed by Haut. But everything falls into place, doesn't it?

David Rudiak said...

cda wrote: (part 1)
Re DR's last paragraph, the FBI did not phone Wright Field; the phone call (i.e. the one before Kirton spoke to FBI Dallas) was between the 8th Air Force and Wright Field, not between the FBI and Wright Field. The FBI teletype makes this plain.

Ah, write in haste, repent in leisure. CDA is right (for once), my fault for not going back and rereading the telegram first. The FBI writes "their office" (8th AAF) not "our office."

All it means is that the person at the end of the phone at Wright Field had doubts about the radar target/balloon explanation without seeing the debris. A perfectly natural response.

Here's another classic example of CDA invoking his usual Drooling Idiot theory. What is there to describe? A deflated rubberish thingee that looks like a large version of a kid's party balloon. Now what could that be? Hmmmm....

Major Kirton, Ramey's intel officer, was making it pretty explicit, telling the FBI: 1) "The disc" "was suspended from the ballon [sic] by a cable," 2) "which ballon [sic] was approximately twenty feet in diameter, and 3) it "resembles a high altitude weather balloon".

Brilliant deduction Sherlock! What's for the Wright Field dummy or dummies to disagree with here? (Maybe they got confused because twice "balloon" was misspelled as "ballon" over the phone?)

Then there's the other thing, the "flying disc", which Kirton describes as "The disc is hexagonal in shape and suspended from a ballon by a cable" and "the object resembles a high altitude weather balloon with a radar reflector."

Then there is the rest of the sentence, "...but that telephonic conversation between their office and Wright Field had not borne out this belief."

Well let's see, what exactly would 8th AAF describe to the dummy/dummies at Wright Field? Surely they would describe the balsa wood sticks, the foil attached to with with paper backing, the size, etc. They tell them they think it it is a radar reflector.

Again, what's to disagree with here, if that is indeed what was described?

You can contrast the situation with the Circleville radar target of 2 or 3 days before, where one of the Columbus newspapers reported the following: "The Citizen, advised of the Chillcothe discovery, checked official sources, however, and soon learned the balloon-kite was an instrument oft-used by weather observers in studying the atmosphere. Lt. Robert Straub, officer of the day at the Clinton County Air Base [Wilminton, Ohio] scene of the Army Air Forces All-Weather Flying Center [25 miles SW of Wright Field] said the device was known as a "radiosone." "It is used to take sounding by radar of the atmosphere," he said. "Every weather station in the country uses them."

So a newspaper reporter figures out to call the main Army weather people responsible for weather observation for the area (including Wright Field) and they have zero trouble figuring out what the Circleville object is, but FWAAF calls Wright Field, tells them it is a weather balloon and radar reflector, and nobody has a clue?

Here's another reason why this is ridiculous. The Rawins were developed by the Army Signal Corp, which was headquartered at Wright Field (in fact that is where the engineering division of the Air Materiel Command at Wright had its origins.

So in order to make CDA's scenario work, you have to invoke Drooling Idiot theory. (Drooling Idiots always seem to spring up at the right moments to explain the various oddities of Roswell, like the press release.) FWAAF gets nothing but Drooling Idiots at Wright, none of whom has any idea what a weather balloon and radar reflector is, even when told that is what FWAAF thought it was. Further nobody has the sense, either at FWAAF or Wright, to contact the weather people and get their opinion, like the newspaper reporter did.

David Rudiak said...

Response CDA, part 2:

Instead, I see what the FBI was told quite differently. The next sentence in the FBI telex has "Disc and balloon being transported to Wright Field by special plane for examination."

If you already know what it is (duhhh!) why bother to fly a stupid weather balloon and radar reflector to Wright Field for still further examination? (As I've often written, this must have been the most mysterious weather balloon and radar target in history!)

That flight had to be justified somehow to the FBI, hence Wright Field disagreeing with FWAAF about it being a balloon and radar reflector. "That's why we have to send it on to Wright Field, guys, but don't worry about it."


David Rudiak said...

CDA wrote:

As to Blanchard's leave: oh yes, we can be quite sure Blanchard had no interest in such trivia as an ET visit to earth, nor had the state Governor (assuming he was ever let into the great secret). So Blanchard also has a 'cover story' set up for him, and the Governor also takes a vacation.

First of all, CDA is deliberately dodging the point being raised here by me and JAF. Blanchard's leave was DELAYED by 2 or 3 days. JAF counts back the 21 day leave from when Blanchard returned (July 26) and gets July 5 for the start. (Or it could be July 6 if Blanchard wasn't due back until midnight July 26--that would also be 21 days.)

Or looking at his replacement, Jennings, his first order to take command from Blanchard was July 6. So why didn't Blanchard take off on the weekend, Sunday July 6th, or maybe the morning of Monday July 7, instead waiting until July 8 to leave just when Roswell heats up in the press? CDA doesn't see that something is a bit odd here?

As to Blanchard's leave: oh yes, we can be quite sure Blanchard had no interest in such trivia as an ET visit to earth, nor had the state Governor (assuming he was ever let into the great secret). So Blanchard also has a 'cover story' set up for him, and the Governor also takes a vacation.

A telex July 7, 8:17 am, from C/O RAAF to the CG (Commanding General) AAF Washington D.C., states that Blanchard and a Mr. Oliver LaFarge [of Santa Fe who arranged everything] were scheduled to meet with Gov. Mabry July 9 to "request" he proclaim Air Force Day.

Some effort had been put into making this happen. E.g, the 509th Unit History (http://www.project1947.com/roswell/509hist.htm) states that "the main project of the month was making arrangements for a successful Air Force Day. Lt. Col. Oliver LaFarge, Air Reserve Corps, at Santa Fe, made arrangements for Colonel Blanchard to visit the Governor of New Mexico and ask him to declare Air Force Day in New Mexico on August 1."

Gov. Mabry was then supposed to leave to go to the national governor's conference in Salt Lake. But the meeting between Blanchard and Mabry never came off July 9, and instead the Santa Fe New Mexican reported Mabry and wife heading for the mountains, not Salt Lake. (Mabry would later go to Salt Lake.)

Blanchard supposedly goes on leave the afternoon of July 8 (instead of July 6), is supposed to meet Mabry in Santa Fe July 9, and can't drive the 4 hours to Santa Fe and make the appointment next day? Why not? What happened to Blanchard?

Again CDA apparently doesn't have the curiosity to even ask why didn't the meeting take place after some effort had been made to arrange it?

DR's analysis is an excellent example of a conspiracist's mind at work. Anything and everything that took place on July 7 and 8 fits perfectly with his crashed ET craft/cover-up thesis. Anything and everything that took place on July 7 and 8 fits perfectly with his crashed ET craft/cover-up thesis. Everything.

And when CDA isn't invoking skeptical Drooling Idiot theory to try to explain away various Roswell conundrums as "nothing", he goes to his knee-jerk skeptical "conspiracist" accusations against anyone who points out the conundrums. In CDA's incurious, mind, nothing ever conflicts with his "nothing happened here" theory, nothing. Governments never mislead their people, governments never have secrets, and there are never any coverups, ever. To point out otherwise makes one a "conspiracist."

Anthony Mugan said...

Congratulations on such detailed reconstruction of events.
The discussion around Blanchard's leave is very interesting. For whatever it is worth there seem three points of potential relevance, in my opinion:
1) It seems reasonable from the evidence presented that Blanchard did actually delay the start of his leave. This seems reasonable in any interpretation as the 6th-8th July covers the period up to and including the press release, when events were clearly being seen as of some significance by officers at Roswell.
2) The apparent actual departure on the 8th seems a touch premature as the story was recieving considerable attention. The argument that the leave started to avoid answering questions therefore is possible, although clearly not definately established.
3) Blanchard's absence from the pre-planned events of the 9th July seems the most significant element of data. His plans were clearly still being changed at that point in time. This is inconsistent with the hypothesis that eveything was back to normal by then...

cda said...

I could continue this debate further, but Kevin is "monumentally uninterested" in my views (as per a previous blog).

With luck he may be slightly more interested in your views.

Most probably Col Blanchard was monumentally uninterested in space travel in reverse, which accounts for his 21-day leave at this crucial time.

Simple, isn't it?

Don said...

This was a good chronology of the national news events, and also Ft Worth (with all the caveats about Johnson's story considered), however what happened in Roswell's news media? Where's the chronology for that?

Walsh's affidavit: "I immediately put the story on the air as a news bulletin." Then, he called Albuquerque.

Joyce quoted in the Albuquerque Journal 50th Anniversary edition:

"The phone started ringing. I took the story off the wire and read it (on the air) as a bulletin a couple of times."

"Took the story off the wire...", that is after 2:41pm.

There's the 'missing time' again. Walsh breaks his news bulletin a little after noon, and Joyce 2 1/2 hours later. A "bulletin" means new news, not old news.

The 2 1/2 hour discrepancy needs to be resolved.

About 1 hour after the story went on the national wires, as David noted above, the SF Examiner reporter had the weather balloon story. Note in Joyce's UP telexes about 1 hour into the story, an unconfirmed report from Carrizozo referred to a foil and rubber device being found, which sounds like the weather balloon and rawin story Pearce was getting at the same time. Both occur long before Newton's identification.

***

Does anyone know whether there was an FBI office in Roswell? Anyone with access to a 1947 Roswell phone book? Was there any civilian federal investigative agency in Roswell town?

Regards,

Don

JAF said...

Don, I'm thinking that the method that was used to get the initial news on the wires (telegram from Joyce; phone call from Walsh) was not the method used to get any later updates onto the wires. Once the initial bulletin was noticed in UP and AP news centers, they took the lead and phone called Haut directly. This dramatically speeded up the time delay.

Kevin Randle and Pflock interpret the UP wire which says "ARMY GAVE VERBAL ANNCMENT. NO TEXT" said to be from the Santa Fe office to mean Haut did not hand out a printed press release. All it means to me is that the Santa Fe office has no printed announcement. They have a telegram from Joyce which prompted them to call Haut directly and talk to him.

The end result was that there was an initial long delay in getting the news centers interested in the story and this delay disappears as soon as they are interested. There was a time delay in getting the telegram from Joyce examined in Santa Fe and dealt with and a similar time delay in Walsh's phone call to Albuquerque which probably resulted in a telex to some other center, possibly in Los Angeles, where it sat for awhile because lunch hour had thinned out the staff in the office.

Does this seem reasonable to you?

David Rudiak said...

Don wrote:
About 1 hour after the story went on the national wires, as David noted above, the SF Examiner reporter had the weather balloon story. Note in Joyce's UP telexes about 1 hour into the story, an unconfirmed report from Carrizozo referred to a foil and rubber device being found, which sounds like the weather balloon and rawin story Pearce was getting at the same time. Both occur long before Newton's identification.

Yes, long before. It wasn't just Pearce with the S.F. Examiner getting the story. UP was quoting Ramey saying the same thing before Newton came into the story, e.g., this UP-based story the evening of July 8 in the S.F. News (therefore early on in the story because they had to go to press):

http://www.roswellproof.com/UP_SFNews_July8.html

...in Fort Worth, Brig. Gen. Roger B. Ramey... said he believed the object was the "remnant of a weather balloon and a radar reflector."

General Ramey said part of a weather balloon was found nearby when the object was picked up on a New Mexico ranch about three weeks ago.

"The object is in my office right now and as far as I can see there is nothing to get excited about."

General Ramey informed Army Air Force national headquarters the object was "of very flimsy construction -- almost like a box-kite."


[Note: from the Washington Post we know this happened during the period when Gen. Vandenberg left his office at 4:16 CST to go to the AAF press office and directed calls to Ramey, finally returning at 5:15.]

Then this irony, where some people with the AAF, maybe the weather people, weren't on the same page:

(In Washington, AAF sources ruled out the possibility it might have been an Army weather-kite. Helium balloons have been used for weather recording for the past seven or eight years.)

The evening July 8 L.A. Herald-Express printed one INS bulletin, perhaps based on Pearce speaking to Ramey (INS was the wire service of the Hearst newspapers), also spelling out Ramey's weather balloon story. Again, this had to be before Newton:

http://www.roswellproof.com/LA_HeraldExpress_July8.html

FORT WORTH, Texas, July 8--Brig. Gen. Roger Ramey, commanding general of the Eighth Army airforces field, asserted tonight the purported "flying disc" found in eastern New Mexico is "evidently nothing other than a weather or radar instrument of some sort."

And then immediately following, another INS bulletin again with the weather balloon/radar target explanation:

DENVER, July 8--Senator Ed C. Johnson, of Colorado, told the Denver Post by long distance from Washington today that the object found in New Mexico may have been "either a radar target or a meteorological balloon."

To this day I am totally baffled as to where Sen. Johnson got the story and why he was putting it out. (I've looked at the Denver newspapers and there is no mention of Johnson's involvement.) But it is just one more indication that the balloon/target story was all predetermined and quickly put out after the press release.

This should be contrasted with the historically inaccurate nonsense of Col. Richard Weaver in his Executive Summary in the 1994 USAF "preemptive strike" against Congressman Schiff and his GAO inquiry:

"Although the Air Force did not find documented evidence that Gen. Ramey was directed to espouse a weather balloon in his press conference, he may have done so because he was either aware of Project Mogul and was trying to deflect interest from it, or he readily perceived the material to be a weather balloon based on the identification from his weather officer, Irving Newton."

No, Ramey and others were putting out the story long before Newton. In fact, stories like the SF Examiner spell that out: "A weather officer... finally was called in... and made a definite identification."

cda said...

Here is a common sense note:

Newton's identification was obviously a final ID. This did not preclude a preliminary ID made hours earlier by the Roswell guys. I assume several phone calls went from Roswell to Fort Worth on this very point, before the plane departed for FW. Ramey, at FW, requested the debris to be sent to them for the same reason Wright Field later requested FW to forward on it to them. They simply wanted to see it, that's all, whatever it was. A case of confirming what an earlier inspection suggested. At the early post-WW2 height of the cold war this is hardly surprising.

At least that is my common sense version.

But as the ET protagonists have it, the "drooling idiots" at Roswell never ID'd the debris and still assumed (all of them) that the debris was part of a flying disc!

And Blanchard, drooling idiot that he was, decided to take his 21-day leave whilst an event of overriding scientific and military importance is still in its very early days of discovery, analysis and debate, with likely high-level conferences imminent, and while he and his personnel were at the very center of it.

Amazing! But as Gilles says, that's ufoology.

Don said...

JAF: "Does this seem reasonable to you?"

I am sure there were delays in the wires -- I'll defer to David, who has a better grasp of the news cycle chronology than I do. But those delays wouldn't resolve the issues in Roswell.

Joyce said after he got back from Western Union, Santa Fe UP called him, then the story came over the wire. The way it is written, in appears these things happened 1,2,3...Joyce said he took the story off the wire and made a broadcast of it as a news bulletin.

Walsh also said in his affidavit, after broadcasting the story as a news bulletin, he called Kellahin in Albuquerque and read out Haut's story to him over the phone, then he went into the teletype room and saw the story coming over the wire.

Then there is McQuiddy, complaining to Haut about, despite the fact the RMD was a morning paper, he hadn't been given the opportunity to compete for placing the story with the AP...a little before noon.

I doubt the delays upstream in placing the stories on the wires will answer to these discrepancies. There is something else going on. The 'missing time' only appears related to the news media. At least, I haven't found it elsewhere (except Sleppy's affidavit, and that is Roswell news media related).

It may be a memory phenomenon, perhaps a compression of two very similar events, involving the same people, same subject, at close to the same time: Haut's call and Haut's visit.

If the Daily Record didn't get the press release before the paper was being printed, that gives us an idea of when Haut was there. Newspapers often printed the front page last, in case of breaking news. But the RDR story isn't the press release. It seems it published material from what was announced at noon (possibly Walsh's news bulletin) and whatever the reporters could get from the Sheriff's office and the RAAF.

Regards,

Don

David Rudiak said...

Newton's identification was obviously a final ID. This did not preclude a preliminary ID made
hours earlier by the Roswell guys.


"Hours earlier?" If that had been the case then there would have been no "flying disc" press release, no need to fly it on to "higher headquarters", no need to fly it on further to Wright Field. (In yet another "common sense" version by CDA, the reason the FBI telegram said that Wright Field didn't agree with FWAAF's assessment of weather balloon/radar target, hence must be further flown to Wright Field for still more examination, is because they only spoke to a drooling idiot at Wright Field, yet "hours before" the guys at Roswell already knew what it was, FWAAF and Ramey knew what it was, etc., etc.

If this latest "common sense" version were correct, then the press release, if there was one at all, would more likely have read, "a rancher near Roswell reported to the base that he thought he found a 'flying disc' but the intelligence guys at Roswell after examining it, said it was really a common weather balloon with a radar target made of foil." End of story and no sensation, like the REAL press release created.

Let's again consider the REAL sequence of events. Press release of RAAF recovering a real "flying disc" goes virile at 2:30 p.m. MST, but WITHIN AN HOUR, Ramey and others are already putting out the new weather balloon explanation, Ramey also being quoted saying he hadn't let anybody see or photograph it yet because it was slapped with high security. Let's talk real "common sense" here. They already knew it was an ordinary weather balloon yet they still imposed high security on it?

I assume several phone calls went from Roswell to Fort Worth on this very point, before the plane departed for FW. Ramey, at FW, requested the debris to be sent to them for the same reason Wright Field later requested FW to forward on it to them. They simply wanted to see it, that's all, whatever it was

Yep, none of them had ever seen a weather balloon before, so order it put on a B-29 flown by the new base commander (Jennings) with the chief intelligence officer (Marcel) accompanying it, because a weather balloon/balsa wood kite radar target is just so damn important and requires such special treatment! And nobody at Wright Field had seen either one either, even though the Signal Corp HQed at Wright Field developed the damn things.

. A case of confirming what an earlier inspection suggested. At the early post-WW2 height of the cold war this is hardly surprising. At least that is my common sense version.

Everything could easily have been confirmed over the telephone with simple descriptions of what was found: big rubber balloon with balsa wood kite covered with paper foil. That's all anyone over the phone would need to hear, even if necessary making a quick call to a weather expert on their staff.

Col. Dubose in the FW Star-Telegram story the next day obviously knew about radar targets, a story the day before had Ramey's op officer Col. John Ryan knowing about radar targets, Marcel was also radar intelligence officer, Wright Field had Signal Corp people who knew all about them, etc., etc. Even Ramey is quoted immediately "suspicioning" a weather device. IDing a radar target and especially a stupid weather balloon is not exactly rocket science.

But as the ET protagonists have it, the "drooling idiots" at Roswell never ID'd the debris and still assumed (all of them) that the debris was part of a flying disc!

Then why the press release that the debris was part of a flying disc? Answer that Mr. "Common Sense".

David Rudiak said...

JAF wrote:
The end result was that there was an initial long delay in getting the news centers interested in the story and this delay disappears as soon as they are interested. There was a time delay in getting the telegram from Joyce examined in Santa Fe and dealt with and a similar time delay in Walsh's phone call to Albuquerque which probably resulted in a telex to some other center, possibly in Los Angeles, where it sat for awhile because lunch hour had thinned out the staff in the office.

Either they killed the teletype lines in New Mexico to delay the story (because maybe Haut put it out too early), as per the Sleppy story and Frank Joyce's memory, or maybe Haut phoned the news media in Roswell around noon with an abbreviated version, also telling them an official and more detailed printed version would be delivered later. (something along Don's theory)

If the latter happened (and the verbal and written announcements got compressed into one event in the memories of the participants), maybe this possibly explains the delay. Locally they announced Haut's noon verbal bulletin, but held off sending this on to media "higher headquarters" until the printed version arrived. Or maybe they called and alerted others that such a written story was coming, and then phone calls started to be made to the Sheriff, the base, the local media people, looking for more details. (This would have been much more limited and not the press feeding frenzy that everybody recalls following national release of the press release where everybody was inundated with phone calls.)

E.g., besides the "missing time" conundrum of the missing 2-1/2 hours between noon and when AP finally nationally wired the press release, there is also the different story conundrum of how AP, UP, and the Roswell Daily Record reported the story.

E.g., UP added some information that AP didn't have and was missing some information that AP did have (e.g., Marcel's name). I'm particularly struck by the UP item about the "strange blue light" that Brazel neighbors supposedly reported at 3 a.m. several days before. Where did that come from? I asked Frank Joyce, the UP stringer, if he knew, and he said he didn't. But it came from somewhere, maybe some other UP person calling around before the written release came out. Then when they did receive it (presumably from Joyce), they rolled this additional information into the story.

Both AP and the RDR had Marcel's name, so perhaps they learned of it by calling around as well and added it to their stories, whereas UP only reported it as a "major" who went out to recover the object.

As Don points out, UP and AP versions have the same basic sequencing and some of the same phrases and wording, but one or both have had some rewriting and editing, because they are far from identical. One example is UP reporting that the disc was "flown by intelligence officers in a superfortress [B29] to an undisclosed higher headquarters", whereas AP said it was "loaned" specifically by Marcel to simply "higher headquarters" with no mention of the B29 flight.

According to Haut, he DID receive a call asking about the word "flown," since the reporter thought he meant Marcel had piloted the actual disc, wherein Haut substituted "loaned" to avoid this particular confusion. If Haut's memory was correct, then this indicates there WAS some precalling and rewriting by AP before they finally put the release on the national newswire. So it would not have been quite as simple or quick as Walsh remembered it, phoning in the press release to AP in Albuquerque and then almost immediately seeing it come out over the wire.

I'm not sure we will ever figure this out for sure. I asked Haut about the differences, and he couldn't explain them either. He did tell me routine would be for all media outlets to receive the same release instead of different ones.

KRandle said...

CDA -

The reason I am monumentally uninterested in your opinions is because you pretend expertise where you have none, and continue to parrot nonsense because it fits into your world view... Ah, you wish an exampled.

Fair enough.

Blanchard's leave. You find nothing strange about it coming on a Tuesday afternoon. Had you ever served in the American military, you would know this is strange.

You find nothing strange about the TWX dated July 6, a Sunday. These things, because Blanchard was the CO, had to be coordinated and there is no reason for the July 6 TWX. It should have been dated July 3 or earlier.

The leave should have started on Monday morning, not Tuesday afternoon. This is strange. Not to mention that he cost himself a day of leave.

This does not mean an alien spacecraft crashed, but it is strange.

You seem incapable of understanding that the leave takes Blanchard out of the reporters' sight and they run off chasing something else. Can't talk to Blanchard because he is on leave. What better way to remove him from the story?

You seem incapable of understanding that even with Blanchard on leave, he is not gone from the face of the planet. He could still communicate with his command. He could still be on top of what was happening and not be available to reporters.

And again, this doesn't mean that an alien spacecraft crashed, but it is irregular.

So Blanchaard was "gone" but not forgotten and his leave could be part of a larger plan, but you refuse to look at it from any perspective except that which says there are no alien spacecraft at all. But then, that is debunkerdumb.

Gilles Fernandez said...

Kevin wrote:
You seem incapable of understanding that the leave takes Blanchard out of the reporters' sight and they run off chasing something else. Can't talk to Blanchard because he is on leave. What better way to remove him from the story?

I dont understand something, Kevin (I'm a Frenchie, you know) : it is not the role of the PIO (here Walter Haut) to provide information to the medias and to the public ?
Then to the reporters ?
Then, not Blanchard role.

I mean by that and if more or less correct, the argument he was on leave "as screen" to avoid reporters is "few".

More generaly, a posteriori, it is easy to find many things as strange and to incorporate it in order it matches a scenario - wathever it is - (by confirmation bias). BTW, how in your research you assure yourselves beeing not commiting this sort of cognitive bias?

For example, do you have the intention to submit a paper to "neutrals", I mean nor UFO Skeptics, nor pro HET UFOlogists, ie journalists in other area (militaria) or academic field (History, ethnology, sociology, etc) ?
It is in your agenda? It could be a great test for your approach of the Roswell story imho.

Regards,

Gilles

cda said...

Kevin:

Yes, my knowledge of USAF procedures is close to zero. Nonetheless, I put this to you in all seriousness:

Do you really believe Blanchard's leave was a smokescreen for just getting him out of the way during the aftermath of the crashed disc affair, or do you think his leave was genuine? And I do not want any 'could be' answers.

He may have had family or personal reasons for delaying his leave by one or two days. (Now there's a 'could be' but at least credible response for you). Do you prefer this reason or do prefer to believe there was some other sudden, maybe supersecret, reason?

I suggest to you that you locate some genuine new documentation that Blanchard pretended to go on leave when he really hung around just in case he was needed because of the crashed disc affair.

And when you have done that maybe you can, at some time, locate some genuine ET hardware, bodies or documentation to back up your ET claims. Then, and only then, will science even begin to take this ET yarn seriously.

And if you can't do it, maybe DR, Tony Bragalia or some other member of your dream team can do it. It is long (very long) overdue.

I await this revelation with baited breath.

I "parrot nonsense", do I? I cannot think of a bigger nonsense than the lunatic idea that the USAF captured an ET craft and its occupants 65 years ago and are STILL keeping it top secret from the world.

cda said...

DR:

"Then why the press release that the debris was part of a flying disc? Answer that Mr. 'Common Sense'."

Because the base wanted some publicity, maybe? Because someone, maybe even Blanchard, wanted to tell the world: "here folks - we have a landed flying disc at last", after they had ID'd the junk with 80 to 90% certainty but still had slight doubts.

Anyway, I think Don is trying to unravel the press release - its whys and wherefores. So in time perhaps he will be able to answer your question better than I can.

In the meantime, I'll go further and say that not only was the debris virtually identified (by the 'drooling idiots') before it left for Ft Worth but probably at the ranch before it even reached RAAF.

But you go your own way. Who am I to stop you. Happy ET hunting!

Don said...

David, the "blue light" story...if it wasn't Joyce (or anyone else at KGFL) then there was likely a "stringer" in Carrizozo. Someone filed this UP story, and also the one mentioned in the UP telexes.

DXR54:

"RESIDENTS NEAR THE RANCH ON WHICH THE DISC WAS FOUND REPORTED SEEING A STRANGE BLUE LIGHT SEVERAL DAYS AGO ABOUT THREE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING."

This reporter implies he knows the ranch, which would mean he likely knew it was Brazel's place. Is this story early enough that the names of the ranch and rancher were still unknown to the national press? If so, it reinforces the idea the reporter was local.

Correct me if I'm wrong, David, but wasn't the UP the first to report the names of the rancher and the ranch (I think they got Brizell and Poster for Brazel and Foster).

The time discrepancies -- 'missing time': We have two facts from 1947. The Daily Record reported a noon announcement, and the national press accounts have timestamps, 2 1/2 hrs after noon, before which times there are no known stories.

If the wire services had been given the story by their Roswell stringers (Joyce and Walsh) at noon, why did they take 2 1/2 hrs to publish? JAF notes there are likely delays in the normal course of doing business. This is true. David notes Joyce mentioning the wires going dead for a time. Worth some research. A Albuquerque newspaper search should give an answer.

Both Joyce and Walsh recall the 'moments' of their accounts, from Haut's first phone call to the story coming over the wires as occurring close together in time. The two facts from 1947 indicate they have compressed the time element. I haven't found it anywhere but in the news media, which indicates it is dependent on the specific narrative -- you had to have been there and done that...

This is a good example of what skeptics call "false memories". What they forget is it is the conflation of memories that is false, not the memories themselves. Everything in these "false memories" are true, just not the time compression (there is also false institutional memory). It is the sequencing, 'chronologizing', the time element gluing the memories together into a narrative
that should be questioned, not necessarily the memories themselves.

Then there is Haut. If the noon announcement was not in the plan and that's why all the 'rebuking' happened, who was responsible? I am not inclined to think it was Haut's fault. There is no reason to think he was not following his orders. In that case the fault lies with the orders. There was no damage done. The story did not go national at noon.

In the past I've read opinions that the timing of the press release was such that it limited the propagation of the story to mostly the West. The big east coast afternoon dailies would have already hit the streets. Unless they had a late editon or extra, they would not carry the story, but would get the Ft Worth story, as would the next days morning papers.

Maybe the planners took care to time the release that way. It appears though, they forgot about radio.

Regards,

Don

JAF said...

One can test cda's hypothesis that the debris was suspected as being from a weather balloon by looking at later statements by the participants. I can find one person who agrees with him: Sheridan Cavitt, who initially didn't even remember serving at Roswell airbase during the period in question. Curiously, his wife undermines his testimony with the following story found on page 78 of Witness to Roswell:

Furthermore, the captain’s wife, Mary Cavitt, told a most interesting story. According to her, within a few nights of Jesse’s return from his special flight to Fort Worth, the two couples got together for their weekly game of bridge. But this night was different. The wives remained in the main room while the two husbands toiled over the stove in the kitchen. As Mary described, “The men turned up the heat as high as it would go, and it still had no effect.”6 That’s because the focus of their efforts was no simple pot of boiling water—it was a piece of the real crash debris. Mrs. Cavitt claimed this rather astonishing scenario ended when, “Cav [her husband] reminded Jess that the material was classified ‘Top Secret’ and he had better get rid of it.”

The almost universal response by the participants is that they were either ordered or told not to talk about the crash. If they had suspected a weather balloon as being the cause, they would most likely embrace General Ramey's explanation as being true and support it. Instead, what you find is that the inital order to keep quiet persisted, it created a mental attitude that the crash material must be something mysterious and the explanation by Ramey, even if it is the truth, is not to be believed. A key example of this is Colonel Dubose who doesn't think he even saw the real debris - the real debris was sealed in a black packet attached to a courier's wrist and forwarded on to Washington. He has concluded that Ramey's statement is nothing but a cover-up. But was it? Or is Dubose's conclusion the expected result of having to resolve the contradiction between being told something is top secret, which is not to be discussed, and hearing that this top secret is openly shared with the public?

I believe a much stronger skeptical case can be made for saying that the initial orders that the crash was top secret primed the participants to disbelieve, even refuse to believe, any simple explanation as to the origins of the debris. Even if the debris is just a weather balloon, the participants are in such a frame of mind as to refuse to believe that and hence don't.

For example, Brazel isn't released to go home, he is stuck at the base for a few more days because Ramey's explanation doesn't sink in. The clean-up operation at his ranch becomes one displaying a meticulousness bordering on obsession. Major Saunders buys up a bunch of books and writes "I still haven't told anbody anything!"

David Rudiak said...

cda wrote:
I suggest to you that you locate some genuine new documentation that Blanchard pretended to go on leave when he really hung around just in case he was needed because of the crashed disc affair.

And when you have done that maybe you can, at some time, locate some genuine ET hardware, bodies or documentation to back up your ET claims. Then, and only then, will science even begin to take this ET yarn seriously.

And if you can't do it, maybe DR, Tony Bragalia or some other member of your dream team can do it. It is long (very long) overdue.


And I've been asking for a very long time for documentation that should be far easier to locate, namely documentation that there ever was a Mogul Flight #4 instead of the a cancelled flight and blank in the flight records.

It is long (very long) overdue.

As for the real flying disc crash, I think the Ramey memo comes very close to documenting that with phrases like "the victims of the wreck" and "in the 'disc'". Absolutely no doubt about the 'disc' word and RAWIN targets (the cover-up 'disc' story) have no insides. But "flying discs" probably do, like "victims" or a dead crew.

David Rudiak said...

Don wrote:
If the wire services had been given the story by their Roswell stringers (Joyce and Walsh) at noon, why did they take 2 1/2 hrs to publish? JAF notes there are likely delays in the normal course of doing business. This is true. David notes Joyce mentioning the wires going dead for a time. Worth some research. A Albuquerque newspaper search should give an answer.

I've already searched the Albuquerque newspapers and there is no mention of this, so the memory can't be documented. Doesn't prove it didn't happen. Lots of things never make it into the newspapers, especially if not considered newsworthy or important.

E.g. Sheriff Wilcox recalled various newspapers calling him for further information. So I checked some of those newspapers (like the Milwaukee Journal) hoping for some unique quotes from Wilcox, but they just ran the standard wire service stories with no mention of calling Wilcox.

Or the evening July 8 LA Herald-Express INS item where Senator Ed Johnson of Colorado called the Denver Post from Washington and told them the solution to the flying disc found in NM was either a radar target or a weather balloon. This raised all sorts of questions, such as where did Johnson get the story so early and why was he calling the newspaper to tell them? So I checked the Denver Post, also the Denver Rocky Mountain News, hoping there would be additional information. But they had absolutely nothing. Of the hundreds of newspapers I've looked at, the only mention I've ever found of Sen. Johnson's involvement was that one short INS bulletin in the Herald-Express.

(Nitpickers like CDA don't seem to get this. Even relatively low-level public information is usually not written down and archived for eternity. It's not for lack of trying to locate it. It just wasn't deemed important enough at the time to make it into permanent print. Or it was read over the radio, but almost no radio broadcasts were recorded permanently back then, so the event vanishes forever. Maybe if you get lucky and look in the right archive it might turn up, but it takes money and considerable time to do this sort of research and nobody is paying the bills. Government secrets may or may not be written down--and often they are deliberately NOT written down to avoid a paper trail--but even if documented, try to get at them if they are still classified. You can't force the government to disclose anything if deemed harmful to the national security.)

As for Joyce's memory of the teletypes going dead, he wasn't certain as to exactly when this happened. It wasn't even clear whether it was the same day as the press release, but in his memory he thought the two were associated (or at least that's what I remember of the conversation).

Don said...

David: "Or it was read over the radio, but almost no radio broadcasts were recorded permanently back then, so the event vanishes forever."

Newspapers and radio news (and later tv news) did not get along. The papers were convinced radio news was stealing their work-product for free, and would sometimes plant false stories to see if radio news would broadcast them. If it happened, the papers could point to the proof of the poaching. I recall in the early 70s in San Francisco, KGO radio pulled this on the papers, broadcasting a false story that the papers picked up.

The Daily Record did not cite where they heard the 'announcement'. That is almost proof it was on radio news.

Regards,

Don

David Rudiak said...

Don,

An example of some interplay between radio and newspaper news is in yet another thread of the Roswell story, this time in Kalamazoo, Michigan. A radio news editor for WKZO (Tony Gaston) there the evening of July 8 seems to have contacted Col. Marcellus Duffy at Spring Lake, N.J., the first project officer of Project Mogul and one of the inventor's of the ML-307 radar target displayed by Ramey. (Mogul was HQed nearby.) Duffy seems to have fed Gaston the story that the radar targets explained the saucers. Gaston then dutifully sent this off to "War Dept, Intelligence Div WashDC" informing them of this.

http://www.project1947.com/roswell/wkzo.htm

This is a very important telegram, because, for one thing, it refutes the Air Force's Roswell Report claim that the same Col. Duffy was at Wright Field that night when the flight from Fort Worth with Roswell debris came in and allegedly immediately IDed the debris as coming from Project Mogul. (Apparently Duffy was in two places at once, or else the Army had teleporters back in 1947.) Duffy in two letters to Robert Todd shortly before he died, also never confirmed any such thing, going all around what he supposedly viewed that night. (Probably because he never viewed anything.)

So I tried to find out more. I located Gaston's widow in Kalamazoo and called her. Not surprisingly, she knew absolutely nothing about it, never knew that her husband ever handled a flying saucer story of any kind. So a dead end.

Eventually I got a hold of the Kalamazoo Gazette from July 9, and there was a story where the Gazette somehow discovered a local ex-Signal Corp guy in Kalamazoo who had been at Spring Lake during the War and knew all about the radar targets.

http://www.roswellproof.com/Kalamazoo_July9.html

Naturally he likewise cited the then party line that the radar targets likely explained the flying saucers. Was he instructed to say this or was this purely his personal opinion without outside influence? I don't know, but it sounded a lot like yet another military scientist who had been interviewed in New Jersey:

http://www.roswellproof.com/Asbury_Park_July13.html

My suspicion was Gaston when he talked to Duffy was referred to the local guy, or Gaston had something broadcast over WKZO radio, the local newspaper picked up on it and called Duffy, who referred them back to the local guy.

KRandle said...

Oh, David -

I hate to do this but the Navy did... remember the "Philadelphia Experiment."

Sorry, but I couldn't resist.

David Rudiak said...

I wrote in jest:

"Apparently Duffy was in two places at once, or else the Army had teleporters back in 1947."

...but Kevin quickly noted:

"I hate to do this but the Navy did... remember the 'Philadelphia Experiment.'"

(Head slap!) So the Duffy story finally proves the Philadelphia Experiment Tesla technology teleportation/time travel story. Go figure.

Therefore, Andrew Basiago, Alfred Webre, Susan Eisenhower, and the whole Exopolitics crowd are telling the truth about our teleportation/time travel capabilities, our colony on Mars, Obama being known as a future President in the 1970s, etc., etc. Ditto go figure.

Here I had the scoop of the century and didn't even know it. Thanks for the catch.

Larry said...

OK, the story that is emerging is that Blanchard originally requested a 21 day leave (presumably for R & R) but that he didn’t actually leave on the first day he was authorized to do so. This suggests that maybe he was obliged to stay around and take care of some AAF business—so his leave slipped by a day or so.

What about the alternative explanation that he wasn’t personally planning leave at all, and that on Sunday, Ramey suddenly (on his presumed day off) signs an order telling Blanchard to take leave and turn the base command over to his deputy? Isn’t this also consistent with the idea that something suddenly came up over the weekend that caused Ramey to quickly set in motion some plan, for some reason that required Blanchard to be somewhere other than at the Base?

Maybe I’m missing something here, but how do we distinguish between the two possibilities?

David Rudiak said...

Larry, I can't prove anything here (and maybe Kevin knows more), but it seemed that commanding officers commonly took leave around the 4th of July. AAF Chief of Staff Spaatz was on leave; SAC C/S Kenney was on leave; Truman and Eisenhower were giving Fourth of July speeches outside Washington. This strikes me as the "dog days" of the year when typically not much was happening. So I wouldn't find it surprising that Blanchard would go on leave during this period and the leave was preplanned.

Then, I think purely by coincidence, Brazel came to town July 6 reporting a flying saucer and threw a monkey wrench into Blanchard's plans. So he did stick around at the base until July 8 until he was no longer needed, since we have testimony to the recovery operation being handled from the outside, probably by the CIC teams at the base under direction from the Pentagon. Blanchard's op officer Briley has him then going out into the field to make a personal determination.

I think the preplanned meeting with the Governor July 9 that never came off has everything to do with this. He was still dealing with Roswell, but not necessarily at the base.

We know Blanchard was in Santa Fe July 14 with Lt. Governor Montoya finally getting the Air Force Day proclamation signed that was supposed to originally happen on July 9. But we don't know exactly what he was doing or where he was in between these dates. His vacation was first supposed to be in Santa Fe, then to Colorado. So at some point, maybe July 9 or 10, he finally went up to Santa Fe with others wrapping up the situation back at Roswell.

cda said...

Let me throw another 'monkey wrench' into things:

Both the "Roswell Daily Record" and the "Fort Worth Star Telegram" for July 9 report that Brazel came into town to see the sheriff on Monday July 7 (not Sunday July 6). The 2nd morning edition of the latter also repeats this date, and adds that the discovery was reported to Col Blanchard at 8 AM on Tuesday July 8, who in turn reported it to Ramey, presumably by phone.

Therefore Blanchard would NOT have altered his leave plans because of the flying disc (and Ramey would equally not have ordered him to) until about 8 AM on Tuesday July 8 at the earliest. If Blanchard's leave was altered prior to Tuesday morning it was for other reasons - most likely personal/family ones, as I have stated.

Why is there this insistence by some that Brazel came into town on the Sunday? Is it because the July 7 date doesn't fit in with certain other presumed events, i.e. events assumed by ET proponents from testimony gathered post-1980?

Gilles Fernandez said...

Don remarked that Brazel didn't meet the sherif of his ranch County. OK.

But if he gone to Roswell not only to report the debris he found - for work's or life matters too - (and remember it seems he contacted the Weather Office first, so question about how were so strange the debris for him, probably closed to materials used by meteorologists to go first to such an office), it is normal he gone to the first sherif office available to him (local conjecture).

Another conjecture which should explain why this sherif county office, and not the one of his ranch, must maybe be taking into account:

We can read here or there that he was advised to contact the sherif office (by Joyce?). Then, he have not that in mind when going to Roswell.

In other words,

1 )he could have gone to Roswell not only to report his find, but to do another thing too.

2) As for the debris, he could have in mind to go on the weather Office at first - because the debris are sufficient to think it was like the stuffes meteorologists launch) and/or
3) to the local Radios because he was reported to him a possible rewards (in corona or by the Proctor).

===> The visite to the sherif office (not the one in his County) could be due to a posteriori interactions with the locals when in situ (ie: advised by Joyce to do so), as the claim he gone first to the Weather Office seems to indicate he have not in mind to go to a sherif office.

This visite to sherif could be then due to the advises he received in situ when in Roswell, despite he have in mind to go in the Weather Office and after to radio.

No? Drolling-idiot hypothesis?

Regards,

Gilles

Don said...

Gilles, I want to make sure you (and CDA) understand that sheriffs are not civil servants appointed or nominated by a central authority, but are a local phenonmenon at the county level. A sheriff's jurisdiction is the county he serves.

Assuming the skeptics' position that Brazel had nothing serious to report, then we must assume he wanted the debris cleared off his land by whomever it belonged to. In that case, it would be the Lincoln County sheriffs he would report it to.

Maybe somewhere in their notes, the investigators might have something about Brazel not getting along with the sheriffs, even so, there were other county offices in Carrizozo he could have visited. He would have filed a complaint, perhaps, and that office would take it to the sheriffs.

My question isn't so much about going to the Chaves County sheriffs, but that he went to Chaves county at all, including the weather bureau in Roswell, if this were a normal event.

According to Bill Brazel, it was the weather bureau that advised Mac to take his complaint to the sheriffs. If whoever he spoke to had known the trouble was in Lincoln county, they might have specified those sheriffs, not Wilcox.

If this were a normal situation, I would expect Wilcox to call the Lincoln county sheriffs, not the RAAF, on Brazel's behalf, or just tell him it was outside the Chaves sheriffs jurisdiction and for Brazel to take it to Carrizozo.

But none of these normal things happened, as far as we know.

For skeptics weather bureau = balloon = Mogul. For me, it means Brazel was trying to find some agency that could help him with a problem that was something more than some trash littering his ranch. It tells me the Chaves sheriff's were not his first choice, and likely the weather bureau wasn't his first choice. He also speaks to two radio reporters, Joyce and McBoyle, according to their accounts (weather bureaus, radio stations, army air fields, and other airports, are places people did report their sightings, so not uncommon in those circumstances).

According to Bill, Mac intended to buy a pickup truck in Roswell, but he didn't. According to the RDR Mac was in town to sell some wool. Bill thought that was not true because they had buyers come down from Utah to buy the wool.

This should be an easy conflict to resolve by anyone with access to the Roswell newspaper archives. Was there a wool auction in Roswell at the time? I researched the issue, and there were wool auctions in Roswell and at least one occurred in a July, but I can't find anything for 1947. Other years, yes, I found several stories about wool auctions in Roswell from the 1920s into this century. A search of the local papers 1947 editions can resolve the issue.

Suppose Bill was right. In that case, why would Mac tell the RDR he was in town to sell some wool?

Kevin, David, and myself have driven a stake through the heart of the rewards story here on several occasions. The reward story was first published the day Brazel reported to the Chaves sheriffs. Loretta Proctor was wrong, or was misunderstood. The only person who might have heard the rewards story was Brazel while he was being interviewed, and that is unlikely, though possible. Loretta may have heard about the rewards from Brazel when he returned to the ranch.

Regards,

Don

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



Don : For skeptics weather bureau = balloon = Mogul.

In English (which is hard for me, but in French at least too) I trie to use the conditionnal mode (would, could, should, etc) meaning I place myself in hypothesis / assumptions etc. mode. (Even if I think NYU stuffes is the best candidat, but will not start again).

The reward story was first published the day Brazel reported to the Chaves sheriffs

I remember (?) Kevin wrote somewhere in this blog comments section, when we discussed this issue already in the past concerning the rewards, that there were probably rewards offers in the Independance Day week end in US radios, near 4 July then. (?)

Gilles

cda said...

Don:

Brazel came into town on the Monday. That much is down in black and white at least twice, and is taken from first-hand witnesses. Never mind that some researchers, for their own purposes, insist it was the Sunday.

The debris was clearly not that important or needed urgent attention, or he would certainly have made the trip on the Sunday. Gilles is perfectly correct in assuming Brazel came into town mainly for other reasons (whatever they were), and decided to see the sheriff at the same time. Otherwise he would have to make two journeys, one to do whatever he wanted in Roswell, and another to Carizozo to see the sheriff there.

I see nothing unusual in this itinerary, nothing that suggests Brazel thought the debris was so important to at once notify the police, weather bureau or anyone else. He did it as an 'extra', because someone at Corona on the Saturday had told him about the flying discs and he recalled the debris he found on his ranch.

He might well have gone into Carizozo to see the sheriff there but for the fact that his main intention was to sell wool, or do other things, in Roswell.

Don said...

Gilles: "The reward story was first published the day Brazel reported to the Chaves sheriffs"

Radio...

There were 3 rewards in the news stories, $1,000 each. It is possible none of them were serious, and as far as I know, no one has researched them in detail. It might have been carried on the radio if there was any story at all before the 8th. There was a later reward offered by a store, too.

Was it Marcel in Ft Worth who said Brazel didn't have a radio or a phone? He was at the ranch and would know.

The press release said he didn't have a phone. That's interesting, the data point, as there is no reason to have included it in the press release. It is as if the army was anticipating the question. Then in Ft Worth, Marcel reinforces it and adds he didn't have a radio, either. Brazel's cabin didn't have electricity.

I find it odd the army should want to stress Brazel's isolation from the news or the events of the Wave (if Brazel found the object on June 14, then it was prior to Arnold and the wave). In fact, in the news stories Brazel is never quoted saying "flying" anything. The closest we have is the RDR version of the interview:

[Brazel] “whispered kinda confidential like” that he might have found a flying disk.

Note the quotation is closed before flying disk.

It seems to me that the army was doing whatever it could to isolate Brazel, in the eyes of the press, from the ongoing saucer stories, including anticipating questions the press might have about the Brazel story.

Regards,

Don

Gilles Fernandez said...

Was it Marcel in Ft Worth who said Brazel didn't have a radio or a phone?

Yes, perfectly, Don. But my point was concerning that he possibly heard about "flying saucers", or in his "Corona trip" or by the Proctor (or the two), many such people having "media news", paper or radio.
It was cause the others reported him "the existence" of the Flying Saucers, the stuffes he have found 3 weeks ago could have taken a new "signification" for him. (?)

Profiting he have something important (concerning whool? a car offer, dunno what) to do/see in Roswell, the debris have been "an extra" to him, as Christopher suggested.

Maybe he heard too the existence of a reward (in Corona or by the Proctor?) "on the air" in the Radio? Or not? This is not really important, but it could have been another "motivation" if there were rewards on the air.

In a National Geographic TV show, Joyce, if I'm correct, reported have had Brazel at the phone, and was not realy interrested at first. He said in this TV show it is him who suggested Brazel to go to the sheriff Wilcox. (?)

It is why "I" spocke about "local conjecture" concerning why Brazel meets this sheriff office and not the one "waited" by you or the one on the Ranch "jurisdiction". That's all.

***

Concerning the fact he gone FIRST to a Weather Office, following his son, you defend that he was trying to find some agency that could help him with a problem that was something more than some trash littering his ranch

Seriously, maybe, but why to go first to a Weather Office?
If it not because you believe the materials you found have something to do or closed to a meteorogical apparatus, then "balloons materials" ?

Have meteorigical apparatus, "memory form properties" or abble carrying individuals, if you believe Brazel saw such material properties or bodies?

Without animosity, it have few sens. What do you suggest to invalidate this possibility/paradoxe (he gone to a Weather Office cause the materials he found have for him " by balloons carried apparatus" signification?

Regards,

Gilles

David Rudiak said...

cda wrote: (part 1)
Brazel came into town on the Monday. That much is down in black and white at least twice, and is taken from first-hand witnesses. Never mind that some researchers, for their own purposes, insist it was the Sunday.

And Sheriff Wilcox contradictorily said on Tuesday July 8, according to UP telexes (from Frank Joyce) immediately after the press release came out, that Brazel came to town "the day before yesterday", or Sunday July 6. That also shows up in UP stories derived from the telexes. That's in black and white as well and from a first-hand witness (Wilcox).

Also in black and white in the Washington Post story which said the object was finally identified "nearly two days after the 'disc' had been in official hands," which would again take it back to Sunday. But later the story ambiguously also states, that "Brizell [sic] waited a week until he was coming into town, then turned over to the sheriff. The latter turned it over to the Army Monday." "Brizell" is a typical UP misspelling as is the Sunday date, while Monday and the recent discovery is AP reporting. The story is thus a confusing and sometimes contradictory blend of UP, AP, and proprietary Post reporting

Thus, as usual, Roswell is never straight-forward. Wilcox contradictorily told AP that Brazel came on Monday. He also told AP that Brazel found the object "two or three days before" or "several days ago", but contradictorily told UP "about three weeks ago." To UP he claimed Brazel came in reporting a "weather meter", but Brazel was later quoted by the RDR saying he reported to the Sheriff that maybe he had found a "flying disc" and that it definitely WASN'T any weather observation device.

That's in black and white as well and certainly conflicts with Bill Brazel's memory of his father visiting the weather bureau first. This is one of those "ancient memories" that skeptics love to trash--except when it serves their own purposes (right Gilles, CDA?). But there is nowhere in the period news accounts that mention this, instead, as Don points out, Brazel allegedly came to town to sell some wool, contradicted later by Bill Brazel saying they sold wool only to buyers right at the ranch.

The Monday story also conflicts with the ancient memories of two other first-hand witnesses, Marcel and Dubose. Marcel remembered being contacted about Brazel's find around lunch time, going to the Sheriff's, back to the base to confer with Blanchard, getting Cavitt to help him, back to the Sheriff's to meet up with Brazel (who Marcel said was doing errands in town), who then took them back to the ranch, a 3 or 4 hour drive. Do the math. They wouldn't get there until late in the day, too late to properly examine the "square mile" debris field that Marcel was quoted on July 8 as being the size. (That's in black and white too) Marcel remembered staying the night and examining the debris field the rest of the next day, which would have been Monday, July 7.

Marcel was also quoted in 1947 saying Brazel had immediately cleaned up the debris when he first found it in the middle of June (contradicting Brazel who said he waited until July 4) and threw it under some brush. Then he heard about the flying saucers the night of July 5 in Corona, and thinking that is what he found rushed out bright and early the next morning (July 6) to retrieve the debris he had rolled under the brush. But then for inexplicable reasons, he waited until Monday to finally report to Roswell with his "flying saucer" and failed to bring any of his rapidly retrieved debris with him to show what he found. (continued next post)

David Rudiak said...

(response cda, part 2)
Gen. Dubose remembered the first calls and flight with debris from Roswell came when Ramey was away from the base (why Dubose was handling it). It can be documented from the newspapers that Ramey was indeed away from the base on Sunday July 6 in Denton, Texas, as was FWAAF base commander Col. Wheless, both off at an air show. This jibes with another part of Dubose's story of Gen. McMullen ordering him to send a "colonel courier" to accompany the debris to Washington, which Dubose remembered as being Col. Clark, the then acting base commander. So again, this points to a Sunday date for Brazel reporting his find.

As I've pointed out many times, there are many serious contradiction in the reported official story back in 1947, so claiming some stories have Monday as the day Brazel came to town (AP based stories) as settling the issue while ignoring contradictory stories (UP based) is being disingenuous. Same with which ancient memory testimony one accepts while totally rejecting other such testimony.

Thus a dozen witnesses, mostly first-hand, place Brazel in military custody and held held at the base, that is totally rejected by Gilles and CDA as all false or contaminated memories, but only one second-hand witness, Bill Brazel, reports his father saying he first went to the weather bureau, and that becomes golden.

As Kevin correctly noted the other day, well that's Skepticdumb.

Don said...

Chris, I am not arguing in support of Kevin's or David's opinion or chronology. My method is to take what was reported in 1947, and look at the later accounts when the 1947 story is perplexing. For example, what Walsh and Joyce had to say related to the 'missing time' context which exists in the 1947 documentation. There is no point in me re-inventing the wheel. There are no witnesses anymore for me to interview. All there is for me is to study the original stories, and to not gloss my reading with what material came later. I tend not to read much of the later material, otherwise. I'll wait for the dream team to publish an up-to-date definitive account of their investigations.

"He did it as an 'extra', because someone at Corona on the Saturday had told him about the flying discs and he recalled the debris he found on his ranch."

So, he's in Corona and there are telephones, as there was, too, in Carrizozo. Who would Brazel have called had he a phone in his cabin...? The RAAF? Brazel didn't go to the RAAF. The Chaves sheriffs? They weren't his first choice. The Weather Bureau in Roswell?

So, who would he call for something routine? Weather Bureau in Roswell or his county sheriffs?

The weather bureau in Roswell could not help Brazel and recommended going to the sheriffs. The Chaves sheriffs could not help Brazel, and they called the RAAF.

This indicates to me whatever Brazel had found was not ordinary.

That the RAAF passed it on to Eighth Army Air Forces command also says "not ordinary" to me.

Ramey issued two orders to Blanchard:

1) Send the object and Marcel to Ft Worth AAF. He did not do this out of "natural curiosity". He suited up for a photo op and news story, was interviewed on the radio about it, and planned a national broadcast.

2) Issue the press release.

No, I don't have copies of the orders. But before flatlining on the Bloecher Effect, note that the public relations of 1) above is impossible without 2).

"He might well have gone into Carizozo to see the sheriff there but for the fact that his main intention was to sell wool, or do other things, in Roswell."

Whatever we think Mac Brazel's main intention was doesn't change anything. As I wrote: the selling wool story can be verified with a simple search. Facts are what they are and the narratives we tell, in order to be plausible, must conform to them.


Regards,

Don

Gilles Fernandez said...

David wrote: Thus a dozen witnesses, mostly first-hand, place Brazel in military custody and held held at the base, that is totally rejected by Gilles and CDA as all false or contaminated memories, but only one second-hand witness, Bill Brazel, reports his father saying he first went to the weather bureau, and that becomes golden.

MP or USAAF was allowed to get in custody a civilian? And "one week"? It existed such a law, legal possibility, previous cases?
Of course "I" reject it! Until real proofs, historiographical ones, ie.

KRandle said...

All -

Everyone is talking right pass one another. No one is looking at the information provided, or they are rejecting it out of hand without even a cursory peek.

Case in point: CDA's (don't mean to pick on you, but yours is the best example) insistence that Brazel went into town on July 7 because it said so in the newspaper. But in the time line I just published, I wrote,“On July 4, after hearing about ‘flying discs,’ he took the find to Sheriff George Wilcox at Roswell who referred the discovery to intelligence officers at the Roswell field.” That is from the Albuquerque Tribune.

Gilles and others: Yes, Joyce said that he suggested that Brazel talk to the sheriff. There are ranchers who told me that they had suggested he take the stuff into Roswell because it was obviously something from the air and they should clean it up.

Bill Brazel said that they often went into Roswell because that was where they conducted business. At one time Roswell had been in Lincoln County and when county lines were redrawn, the locals didn't pay much attention to such things.

In the military, the PIO is often an additional duty. Haut had no formal training as a journalist, so, if he did something that wasn't by the book it was because he had not seen the book. A reporter, wanting more information about the flying saucer that had been recovered would, quite naturally, ask for the CO who would be thought to have better information. So they would ask for him rather than a low-ranking PIO.

Gilles - you reject the idea that Brazel was held on the base, even with so many of his neighbors reporting that, even with his son reporting that, even with the Provost Marshal confirming it? This is the problem... you reject it out of hand.

I will also note that the lines of authority in that time frame are not quite as clear as now. Yes, I am aware of Posse Comitatus enacted in the late 19th Century (as revised in 1955 which has no relevance here) which prohibits the use of federal troops in law enforcement, but that doesn't quite apply here... if they are attempting to protect a secret (regardless of that secret) and considering that that many of the wartime regulations were only just being recinded (not to mention that the war didn't officially end until the middle of 1946, please note here I said officially and not when the various treaties were signed), it isn't all that surprising.

All - for the "missing two hours..." I'm not sure they are missing. Haut said he went around Roswell about noon giving out the press release and then went home for lunch, but what if he was an hour or so later... and how long would it take to get the information from Roswell to the AP and then out over the wire?

So, all, let's attempt to pay a little bit of attention before running off in all directions.

Don said...

Whether the army could hold Brazel in custody...the army would have the right to investigate civilians working on the base, making deliveries to the base or providing services. Beyond that was the domain of the FBI -- which is why I ask if there was an FBI Office in Roswell. At this time, the army normally would have liased with the FBI on a civilian investigation beyond their perimeter.

The army made the Brazel story an army matter. We do not know why. Brazel didn't call the RAAF. The press release documents the transfer of this civilian matter to the army on the initiative of a local civilian authority (Wilcox).

We know exactly how the CIC operated in civilian ufo cases in the summer of 1947 from both the Rhodes case and Maury Island. The FBI permitted CIC special agents to pose as "government agents" (Rhodes) or CIC agents identified themselves as "military intelligence" (Maury Island). They set up informants among the witnesses to inform on each other (Maury Island, both Johnson from the Boise Statesmen, and EJ Smith, UAL pilot), too.

The above is from army and FBI files of the cases.

With growing FBI resistance, the army ran an operation (Col. Donald L. Springer, leading), and Hoover soon removed the FBI from the saucer investigations. CIC/AFOSI continued their operations against civilians until the Church Committee in the 1970s. They probably still do, legality never having stopped them before.



Regards,

Don

Gilles Fernandez said...

The army made the Brazel story an army matter. We do not know why.

Don,

There is none "we dunno why?" until if it is NOT established and prooved Brazel was in Army custody!
You guys, propose Brazel was and let it be. "We dunno why?" or "The army made the Brazel story an army matter". Ouch, what think about it your country Army of such "accusation", "diffamation" against a civilian?

"Militaria" neutral specialist(s) about your ufological claims?

Despite it is not MP or USAAF jurisdiction to take a civilian in custody or "in prison" one week, dunno what exactly Brazel made as wrong, to receive such a pseudo-treatment by the Army, you are defending?
What Brazel did to receive it, you imagine?
It have few sens, again & again. What is this "woowoo land" you are presenting regarding USA in 1947?

Dont forget, Don, SVP - and not Rudiak -, to explain me why Brazel gone in a Weather Office first, if not the debris he found weren't not "balloons + apparatus" looking like... ?

Regards,

Gilles

cda said...

DR:

"That's in black and white as well and from a first-hand witness (Wilcox)."

Do you REALLY think Wilcox counts as a first-hand witness?

Notice that the same WASHINGTON POST article you refer to (by John G. Norris) also says that Brazel "dug up the remnants of the kite & balloon on Sunday and Monday headed for Roswell and the sheriff's office". Monday was July 7. In other words, he took his time and did not rush into town on the Sunday.

There are indeed quotes whizzing round the July 8 teletypes which talk about "the day before yesterday". A case of frantic breaking news being typed out in a rush. The July 9 press reports I cited are interviews with genuine first-hand witnesses (Brazel & Marcel) and give a coherent and consistent chronology. The teletypes are a bit of a mish-mash.

The Roswell Morning Dispatch also says: "the furor started Monday when W.W.Brazel .... came in the [sheriff's] office".

As far as dates go, which would you trust, two or three contemporary press reports from the first-hand witnesses, or the flaky memories of second-hand participants 3 decades afterwards (e.g. duBose)?

Marcel told the 2nd morning edition of the FW Star Telegram, after accompanying Brazel out to the ranch on July 7: "And we spent a couple of hours Monday afternoon looking for any more parts of the weather device. We found a few more patches of tinfoil and rubber". He then says he returned and reported back to Blanchard at about 8 AM on Tuesday July 8.

The July 6 date is a fiction.

Kevin:

I didn't say "in the newspaper". I cited 3 such newspapers, all based on first-hand witnesses. The one you cited did NOT get it straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak. Yes, I agree it was carelessness but you know as well as I do that Brazel did not come into town on July 4 (just think of all those fireworks he missed!).

Don said...

"There is none "we dunno why?" until if it is NOT established and prooved Brazel was in Army custody!"


Gilles, Brazel wasn't in the army. What he found wasn't on army property. He didn't report it to the army. A civilian authority turned Brazel's story over to the army.

I don't know why the army took over the case, which was a civilian matter unrelated to anything army, at least that we know of. I don't know if it was "legal" to have done so. Questioning whether they could have held Brazel because it was illegal ignores that the army had no legal grounds to be involved and to investigate this civilian matter at all (Ramey said the army was investigating it).

You think it odd the army would hold Brazel. I think it odd they took over the case in the first place. They had no authority to do so.

I have no idea why Brazel went to the weather bureau, if he did. I have no idea why he went to the Chaves sheriffs, either -- which is my point, if the matter was an ordinary thing.

Regards,

Don

KRandle said...

All -

And away we go again....

CDA -

The story was written by Jason Kellihan who got it from Brazel...

Don said...

Gilles: "You guys..."

I'm not aligned with Roswell advocates, Gilles, and I am not arguing from the ETH. I have my own reasons.

There is good information in this discussion that helps me to understand the 'missing time' problem in Roswell, though I don't understand its appearance in Sleppy's affidavit, but there it is, and I don't think it harms the skeptics case. But the Bloecher Effect is a serious criticism of the skeptics attempt to find someone at the RAAF who was "elated" (either Blanchard, Marcel or, Haut) and who produced the press release.

There are two things I've posted here that I'm surprised the skeptics haven't followed-up on. I think they fit with some skeptical opinions of Roswell. Maybe it will come to you or CDA after awhile.

The only thing I know of that could be a game-changer is if evidence turns up the Lincoln County sheriffs were involved. I don't have any secret info about it. I'm only putting two and two together about some things. Posting about it without any evidence connecting Brazel to those sheriffs would just lead to an annoying fight. I only have a question at this point.

I think my contribution to this discussion is over. I'll answer questions directed to me, but I've nothing more to add.

Regards to all,

Don

David Rudiak said...

(Part 1 of 2)I wrote:
"That's in black and white as well and from a first-hand witness (Wilcox)."

CDA:
Do you REALLY think Wilcox counts as a first-hand witness?

CDA being deliberately obtuse again. Wilcox was certainly a first-hand witness as to when Brazel came to his office. Sheesh!

Notice that the same WASHINGTON POST article you refer to (by John G. Norris) also says that Brazel "dug up the remnants of the kite & balloon on Sunday and Monday headed for Roswell and the sheriff's office". Monday was July 7...

This is AP reporting again, whereas UP reported Sunday, also reflected in the Post article (the disc had been in Army hands for nearly two days). Like I also said, the Post was a mix of AP and UP reporting (such as also misspelling Brazel as Brizell).

There are indeed quotes whizzing round the July 8 teletypes which talk about "the day before yesterday".

Directly quoting Wilcox, certainly a first-hand witness as to when Brazel reported to him.

A case of frantic breaking news being typed out in a rush.

In other words, CDA will simply rationalize it away, as he always does, because it doesn't fit with his own belief system. However, no doubt he will NOT dismiss UP also quoting Wilcox, in the same “frantic breaking news being typed out in a rush,” saying that Brazel found the object “about” three weeks ago” because that is what he wants to believe.

The July 9 press reports I cited are interviews with genuine first-hand witnesses (Brazel & Marcel)

First of all, Marcel was not a "first-hand witness" as to when Marcel found the object, no more so than Wilcox, who would also have to quote Brazel. However, Wilcox was certainly a "genuine first-hand witness" to some things even if CDA disingenuously pretends otherwise.

and give a coherent and consistent chronology. The teletypes are a bit of a mish-mash.

Nearly all the reported news was based on teletypes. But the portions CDA doesn’t want to believe become “mish-mashes” and the portions he does believe are not, even if in the same teletype. The story is actually all over the place:

When object was discovered:
Press release, AP and UP (no doubt based on Marcel's investigation): "Sometime last week."
UP add to press release: “Strange blue light” several days ago near the ranch.
Marcel or Ramey, FWAAF: "Three weeks ago."
Wilcox: "2 or 3 days before" or "a few days ago" (AP) vs. "about three weeks ago" (UP) in the same telex saying Brazel came to the Sheriff's office "the day before yesterday."
Brazel: Precisely June 14 (amazing memory the man had for something he didn't consider important because he ignored it for 3 more weeks--see below)

So where's the "coherent and consistent chronology" here that CDA claims?

Or how about when Brazel picked up the debris?
Marcel (FW Star-Telegram and derived AP stories): Immediately picked it up and rolled it under some brush when he found it three weeks before (and what a sheep rancher would really do--immediately clean it up to keep the sheep from munching on it).
Brazel (RDR story): "At the time Brazel was in a hurry to get his round made and he did not pay much attention to it." So he waited until July 4 to pick it up with his family.

Yep, another real "coherent chronology" again.

David Rudiak said...

(part 2 of 2 response to cda)
The Roswell Morning Dispatch also says: "the furor started Monday when W.W.Brazel .... came in the [sheriff's] office".

The RMD story is also clearly AP-based lifting multiple quotes from AP articles, instead of writing their own home-grown story. So no surprise there--AP's “Monday” again. They also twice reported the device was flown to Fort Worth by B-25 instead of a B-29, so I guess we have to accept that as well.

As far as dates go, which would you trust, two or three contemporary press reports from the first-hand witnesses,

Once again, dummkopf, Wilcox was a first-hand witness as to when Brazel came to his office and he told UP "the day before yesterday." He contradicted himself as to what happened or what Brazel said depending on whom he spoke to. And in one AP story, he admitted that he was "working with those fellows at the base" when declining to answer further questions. So not exactly an independent witness any more.

or the flaky memories of second-hand participants 3 decades afterwards (e.g. duBose)?

But of course, if second-hand witness Brazel Jr. 3 decades later remembered his father telling him he first went to the weather bureau, that is no long a "flaky memory" but absolute truth, even if it contradicts Brazel Sr. in 1947 denying he found any sort of weather device.

As for Dubose, his "flaky memory" of the first calls from Roswell happening while Ramey was away from the base is documented by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and Denton Record-Chronicle which have both Ramey and base commander Wheless attending an air show in Denton on Sunday July 6. This would also explain and be consistent with why Wheless couldn’t be the “colonel courier” taking the first flight of debris to Washington as ordered by Gen. McMullen, according to Dubose. Instead the deputy base commander, Col. Clark, was the courier.

Marcel told the 2nd morning edition of the FW Star Telegram, after accompanying Brazel out to the ranch on July 7: "And we spent a couple of hours Monday afternoon looking for any more parts of the weather device. We found a few more patches of tinfoil and rubber". He then says he returned and reported back to Blanchard at about 8 AM on Tuesday July 8.

Right, AP again (most AP stories were directly derived from the FWST story), which contradicted most UP reporting. Again, CDA blindly accepts AP and arbitrarily rejects UP reporting of this particular detail.

As I keep pointing out, not only did this contradict the info in the press release ("sometime last week"), this part of Marcel's story clearly contradicts another quote from the SAME article of the debris of "the weather device [being] scattered over a square mile of his property." That doesn't square with the tiny amount of debris on display or being able to investigate a square mile of desert land in only a few hours of the afternoon.

Nor does it square with the MATH of Brazel being able to travel to Roswell (3-4 hours or more, if as son Brazel Jr. also remembered in one interview, he drove his family back to Tulerosa first), report to the Sheriff, speak to Joyce on the phone shortly before noon (with Joyce looking for news items to broadcast for the noon news), contacting Marcel at the base, Marcel driving out to the Sheriff's to interview Brazel (6 miles, so at least 15 minutes each way), driving back to the base to talk to Blanchard, rounding up equipment and Cavitt to help him, driving back to the Sheriff's to meet up with Brazel who had been doing errands, then driving back to the ranch and the debris field.

You can't do all this and then spend "a couple of hours Monday afternoon" looking for more debris. Why? Because the "afternoon" is gone by the time they get back there.

The July 6 date is a fiction.

As usual, CDA stating his personal opinion as if it were absolute fact and deliberately blowing off contradictory evidence.

Nitram said...

bfnbmnvg

Unknown said...

Pt 1 of 2

http://www.nicap.org/rosbraz.htm

WHAT BRAZEL FOUND
As related by William Moore in The Roswell Incident, Mack told friends and family that the debris came from an airborne explosion not a crash-because it consisted of separate pieces spread over a large area. Vegetation in the area of the debris was singed. The debris was like nothing he had ever seen before: "very odd... the strangest stuff he had ever seen." The metal was different from any metal he was familiar with because he could not cut, scratch or whittle it with his knife.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H._Blanchard
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044324/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradummy
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056197/?ref_=nv_sr_1

https://www.nsa.gov/public_info/declass/venona/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venona_project

The following conjecture is based on the information at the above links and this post:

The Foster ranch “crashed disc” debris field may have been a US counter intelligence operation designed to flush out Soviet assets operating in the US that were endeavoring to acquire (and were acquiring) nuclear secrets. The operation would be effective only if major intel agencies, East and West, had concluded that foo fighters, ghost rockets, saucers and discs actually existed, were intelligently controlled, and that they were not of human origin.

There are two sides of the “drooling idiot” coin. First, that officers of the lone atomic bomb group in the world misidentified mundane rawin debris. Surely the Soviets of the ‘40’s would doubt such a dim-witted mistake by US officers of such a unit.

Second, West Point graduate Blanchard was among the best of the best and could not have become commander of the 509th unless he was committed to the culture of secrecy that his position demanded. A 1952 movie, Above and Beyond, dramatizes the very heavy secrecy associated with this unit. Brazel found the debris in desolate country and he told few people, and those few were evidently local, rural NM residents. But just after the report reached the sheriff and the RAAF, Blanchard ordered his PIO to notify the world of capturing a disc. Sensational short-lived publicity about capturing a disc makes extremely good sense if the idea was to put stress on Soviet intelligence rings. The Soviets were certainly after US nuclear secrets in 1947 and surely they monitored RAAF activities as well as the wire services. If they thought exotic technology was now suddenly in US possession, and that it could possibly deliver nuclear weapons, then very likely acquiring intel would become an ultra high priority. But if this conjecture is correct, then it actually was a wild goose chase designed to expose Soviet agents. If this is so, then the Roswell crashed disc operation was an actual event that rode the back of truly unexplained phenomena—foo fighters, ghost rockets, saucers and discs—in an attempt to safeguard US nuclear secrets. Otherwise, if the debris really was exotic material from a disc that possibly came from outer space, then it seems hard to deny that immediate world-wide publicity was a “drooling idiot” SNAFU far worse than misidentification of rawin material.

Unknown said...

Pt 2 of 2

A debris field could have been created easily. For example, A C-47 Dakota could dump a load of cutting edge, human manufactured aviation materials of aluminum, titanium and magnesium alloys, and whatever else the planners wanted to throw into the batch. A night flight over the desolate NM countryside (where no Soviet agents operated), push the debris out the open cargo door, and a debris field of real exotic materials is created, though completely mundane, just waiting for Mack Brazel to find and report, and for US soldiers to collect and transport. Presumably the region was so desolate that ground operations by a small group could have been conducted in conjunction with the air drop, for scorched vegetation, and if there actually were “bodies” discovered then they too could have been planted. Only three years earlier, on the evening of June 5th – 6th 1944 US and British aircraft dropped “Rupert” (or Oscar) dummy paratroops to bewilder the German Wehrmacht during the Normandy invasion. Surely the intelligence organization that created dummy paratroops could be called back into action for another special operation. A few specially created alien dummies planted in the debris could convince a few soldiers who caught a brief glimpse of them that ET had landed.

If this conjecture is correct, then the number of people “in the know” was most likely very small. Probably Hoover and a few other military and civilian intelligence figures. Presumably Ramey and Blanchard. The Ramey memo might have been part of the operation and may explain why Ramey held it in front of cameras. Possibly an FBI field agent contacted local sheriffs and told them to point Brazel in the direction of the RAAF. Probably Marcel and Cavitt knew. However, it may be that no one else in the 509th actually would have had to know the debris field was planted. Then too, since the cold war continued, Marcel kept the cover story to his end. Marcel Jr. reported what he knew and he was accurate.

If the Roswell crashed disc was an intel operation then its success is measured in the large number of reasonable people who do not find the drooling idiot misidentification of rawin debris convincing, and who see Ramey’s immediate refutation of a disc report as a blatant cover-up by higher command. Surely the Soviets would have gotten a similar impression and would have been forced to assign assets to acquire intel. The operation might have been designed to shake something loose, since it seems that intel on the Soviets was waning after 1945. The USAF response of 1990’s fits this profile since intel activities might still be classified.

If the Roswell crash was an intel operation, then that would not mean all other UFO sightings were staged. A staged crash would only work if intelligence services knew that UFO phenomena were real. If everyone knew UFO phenomena was staged, then the Roswell operation was a waste of time and effort.

Unknown said...

addendum to pt 1 and 2 above

So after further internet searches, I find that several years ago James Carrion took the concept of an intelligence op at Roswell and ran with it in his The Rosetta Deception. While Carrion's book provides interesting information, it seems to me that he has far overstated the scope and effectiveness of covert ops. Carrion's critics have also pointed out that the sheer number of UFO reports (including for Ghost Rockets) and their world-wide distribution cannot have been the result of Anglo-US covert ops. Nevertheless, it is baffling to me that the CO of the 509th atomic bomb group ensured world-wide publicity days after discovery of material that would have been of immense national security, if it actually was known to be non-earthly. So it still seems likely to me that Roswell was a covert op to try to shake something loose in Soviet intel. But this kind of op cannot be repeated ad infinitum since intel agencies will eventually get wise. I also believe many UFO reports are credible and describe objects/events of non-human origin.