Sunday, May 19, 2013

Robert Salas and Me

While in Roswell a couple of years ago, I shared, briefly, a table with Robert Salas of Malmstrom missile fame. He was a little more serious about selling his book than I was in selling mine and at one point he snapped at me for joking with the UFO museum patrons. I hadn’t spoken to him since that time in Roswell. I mention this for the context it will provide for some later comments here.

Robert Salas
At the recent Citizen Hearing I saw him again. At the Sunday evening dinner for those who were participating in some fashion… that is, the former members of Congress, the witnesses which included researchers, and those volunteers who helped Steve Bassett to organize the Hearing, I made my way up front to speak with Bassett. On my way back I passed the table where Salas sat. He looked up at me and I said, “You can say, ‘hello,’” which, of course he did.

The next day, we ended up on the bus arranged to transport everyone from the hotel to the National Press Club and back. We were the only two on it, and we spoke again, briefly. I asked him a couple of questions about what had happened at Oscar Flight in 1967.

I have said it before and I’ll say it again. If Salas was alone in his claims, then we could reject them simply because you’d expect others to have had similar experiences. Of course, there was a series of UFO sightings near Belt, Montana on the day that Salas claimed the UFO caused the missiles of Oscar Flight to “go off-line.” And, there were the documented events of Echo Flight which had happened just days before when all ten of their missiles did the same thing. In other words, Salas was not alone, and the other man in the capsule with him at the time, Fred Meiwald, confirmed the event.

There was a minor discrepancy. Salas said all the missiles had gone off line but his boss, Meiwald said only four or five. In the original information, Salas, according to what he said to me, “Split the different and I said eight.” He now has said all ten were involved.

Meiwald, interviewed by others including Robert Hastings for UFOs and Nukes, confirmed what Salas had said. The missiles had gone off-line, in essence failed. Combined with the documentation about Echo Flight, the words of Salas took on
Swearing in of the Missileers at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., May 2013.
added weight. In fact, Salas appeared in Washington, D.C. with two other officers who had been assigned to missile flights at other military bases who had experiences with UFOs. In other words, there are a number of reports of this sort and contrary to what the Condon Committee said this was a matter of national security.

I suppose I could point out here that all said they had been required, at the time, to sign nondisclosure agreements. They wouldn’t reveal what they knew and would not talk to others at their bases about this. It was a way to keep the information from spreading among the missile crews.

At any rate, we chatted on the short ride from the National Press Club to the hotel. Salas gave me a little more information and a slight preview of what he would say the next afternoon in front of the committee. I was there to watch, listened to Salas as he reported what he had seen, heard and done, and then listened to two other officers say some of the same things. UFOs had penetrated the missile sites and shut down the missile guidance systems. If an outside source could do that, it was a matter of national security. At the time, if the Soviets had been able to do that, they could have rendered our entire strategic missile system useless. They could shut it down from outside the system and prevent retaliation. But, of course, they didn’t have that capability, but in the 1960s and the 1970s, nobody knew that for certain.

It was sometime Thursday afternoon that I bumped into Salas again. It was just after several men from around the world had told of their experiences with UFOs and their governments attitudes about UFOs had testified. Salas came up to me and wondered if I could help him sell some of his books… It was a joke, related to what we had our spat about in Roswell. For those interested, his book is Faded Giant written with Jim Klotz is available at Amazon and probably other on line bookstores.

The real point here is that Salas opened the floodgates on this one aspect of the UFO phenomenon. He was among the first to talk about UFOs interfering with US missiles. Others, such as those who testified with him, and Jim Penniston and John Burroughs who had testified that morning, suggest that UFOs have interfered with our atomic weapons (which, I must point out here might not be a bad thing but that slides off into the realm of political opinion and not relevant here). All of that made for compelling testimony (and now we can hear that Rendlesham was a lighthouse and rabbit holes), and even if it was not alien in nature, national security was involved. Someone, or something, had caused the trouble at the missile sites.

Say what you will about Salas, he is not stand alone… and for me, he seems to have mellowed a little bit as well. Such is the world in which we travel.

82 comments:

David Rudiak said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
David Rudiak said...

Kevin wrote:

"(and now we can hear that Rendlesham was a lighthouse and rabbit holes)"

Rendlesham was a flying lighthouse and radioactive rabbit holes.

Any more questions?

Lance said...

Does any star witness's story of their role in a UFO event ever get smaller? I can't think of a case.

But plenty of UFO stories get bigger with the retellings.

And believers seem to love the changes made by their UFO heroes.

For instance, Penniston's story gets more and more elaborate and ridiculous without apparently affecting his status amongst the saucer crowd. His recent invitation to the sham UFO hearings demonstrates this.

And the same can be said for many other UFO celebrities...for instance, Haut and Dennis (among others) in the Roswell mythology.

I remember talking with Howard Menger about Otis T. Carr. It was obvious that Menger didn't know much about Carr but by the end of our conversation, Howard was telling me a tale that put him in the center of Carr's story along with the FBI and CIA!

Now there are certainly cases of folk whose stories remained more or less the same as time went on. But I don't recall a case in which someone's tale got smaller or more modest.

Lance





Tim Hebert said...

Of those who know me, I have a different opinion of Salas' claims. I'll not list the reasons in this reply since I've posted extensively on my blog site providing those very reasons. (see series of posts, "The Oscar Flight Mystery")

Tim H.

Lance said...

Tim,

Unfortunately, once the stuff enters the mythology, it's hard for the believers to ever give it up.

Witness above the talk of radioactivity at Rendlesham, a completely discredited idea but still held onto like a rosary by committed conspiracy lovers.

Lance

Tim Hebert said...

Lance,

When it comes down to it, the devil is in the details.

BTW, ufology extensively relies on "Occam's Lifeboat". If he facts don't support a particular claim(s), Ufologists tend to wait a couple of years, decades for some, with the feverish hope that something may come up.

Tim H.

David Rudiak said...

Lance wrote:
Now there are certainly cases of folk whose stories remained more or less the same as time went on. But I don't recall a case in which someone's tale got smaller or more modest.

Why should it get smaller or more modest if they are telling the truth from the start? Wouldn't it stay pretty much the same? Explain that "logic" to me genius.

And, of course, if it did get smaller and more modest, then Lance would be there pointing out that the story had changed and shrunk, therefore the original more dramatic story can't be trusted. This is a classic no-win situation.

As for witness stories staying the same, try Lonnie Zamora, Socorro, who never wavered about what he saw, Brazel Jr. and the Marcels and Roswell--same story. I've tried to lead Marcel Jr. and he won't go there, ever. E.g., did his father ever mention or hint at bodies to him--nope. Did he remember the thin metal material having any memory properties--nope.

Against this, AFOSI Lt. McAndrew tried to lead Marcel Jr. the other way, namely that he had seen Mogul material. Marcel Jr. said that wasn't what he saw and handled, only very superficially similar to balloon material. Jr. never changes his core story one way or the other.

Lance also seems to ignore skeptic star witnesses whose stories have gotten larger and larger over the years or been highly inconsistent or obvious lies, in the case of Roswell people such as Cavitt, Moore, and Newton. Cavitt orginally: "Not stationed at the base at the time", to "OK, so I was there but I was never involved" to, in his AFOSI interview, he went out and found a tiny balloon crash no bigger than his living room (what, no giant Mogul?), then back to "never involved" when guys like Kevin try to interview him again. Nothing, OK slight something, big expand, big shrink.

Or with Rendlesham, how about base commander Col. Conrad who has changed his story from what he originally told OMNI magazine in 1983 soon after the incident: "Colonel Ted Conrad the base commander... recalls five Air Force policemen spotted lights from what they thought was a small plane descending into the forest. Two of the men tracked the object on foot and came upon a large tripod-mounted craft. It had no windows but was studded with brilliant red and blue lights. Each time the men came within 50 yards of the ship, Conrad relates, it levitated six feet in the air and backed away. They followed it for almost an hour through the woods and across a field until it took off at 'phenomenal speed.' Acting on the reports made by his men, Colonel Conrad began a brief investigation of the incident in the morning. He went into the forest and located a triangular pattern ostensibly made by the tripod legs. ...he did interview two of the eyewitnesses and concludes, 'Those lads saw something, but I don't know what it was'." So here was Conrad acknowledging that something very strange had indeed happened.

But when Dave Clarke got to him in 2010, his story changed to the whole thing being a hoax and nothing happened. He left base subcommander Charles Halt out to dry denying that anything described in the original 1980 Halt memo happened. Then why did Conrad authorize Halt to write that memo to begin with? Why didn't he counter it 30 years ago if nothing of significance ever happened?

As usual, Lance wants to have it both ways. No "pro-UFO" witness ever has a story that can be trusted. Any "anti-UFO" witness always has a story that can be trusted, even when obviously lying. And their decades old memories are always perfect as well, contrary to any "pro-UFO" witness.

(Yes, like Lance, I make sweeping exaggerations, but if he can do it, so will I.)

Lance said...

Dr. Rudiak (in his not at all childish way) asks:

"Why should it get smaller or more modest if they are telling the truth from the start? Wouldn't it stay pretty much the same? Explain that "logic" to me genius."

I don't know...if witnesses were telling the truth, why should their stories get bigger?

I do think Marcel was telling the truth at first. He confirmed over and over again that the stuff he is pictured with in the Ft. Worth photos is the same crappy junk he picked up on the Foster ranch.

It was only after the "researchers" worked on him a bit that he changed to the hilarious Outer Space Foil Paper and Flying Saucer Balsa Wood Stick story that the faithful push today.

Rudiak confirms above how he tries to lead people (not a startling admission but sadly exactly how skeptics think this kind of "research" by committed inept believers is conducted). That he actually admits how he poisons the witness pool shows just how little saucer buffs understand proper technique.

Lance

James Kelly said...

There are other reasons that stories change as well.

We know that memory degrades considerably over the years after a UFO incident, especially if the witness did not document their experience in detail.

With the Rendlesham UFO incident, many of the people that were there on the nights in question felt obligated to withold information due to their security clearance issues of secrecy. I know this to be the case especially with John Burroughs, who I worked with for over 12 years and we spent many hours talking about his involvement.


The Rendlesham incident remains a mystery but like most of the highly visible UFO sightings, there will always be people making up stories and accounts in their quest for media attention ( Larry Warren) and the almighty $$$$$$$$ they might see at the end of the rainbow.

Nitram said...

Lance wrote:

"I do think Marcel was telling the truth at first. He confirmed over and over again that the stuff he is pictured with in the Ft. Worth photos is the same crappy junk he picked up on the Foster ranch.

It was only after the "researchers" worked on him a bit that he changed to the hilarious Outer Space Foil Paper and Flying Saucer Balsa Wood Stick story that the faithful push today."

I think we can all agree that if the material in the photo was the stuff recovered at the Foster ranch then we have no ET crash - DR please confirm with a yes or no (show cda and Lance how it's done please).

However, this is disputed as we know and Marcel Jr who saw the stuff states quite clearly "I don't know what it was, but I do no what it wasn't" (meaning the stuff he saw wasn't the stuff in the photo.)

The other point is that it's fairly clear that the stuff in the photo is not something to get excited about is it?

Lance, you are almost certainly correct (on the balance of probabilities) that anything crashing on a ranch is not an ET craft, but it is proven (on the balance of probabilities) that what crashed on the Foster ranch in 1947 was not ANY TYPE of balloon.

We therefore need to come up with some sort of alternative explanation.

You also wrote:

"Unfortunately, once the stuff enters the mythology, it's hard for the believers to ever give it up."

The believers could reword as follows:

"Unfortunately, if no alternative solution is available, it's hard for the debunkers to ever give up Mogel."

But Lance, sorry to keep asking, wouldn't you want to be wrong (I do!)

Lance said...

Martin,

I would give up Mogul instantly if there was some good evidence (not the nutty chain of suppositions, half -truths and distortions pedaled by the believers). But there isn't such evidence. Currently all the evidence does lead towards foil, balsa and neoprene balloon debris. So I reject your claim of anything being proven otherwise (which you make without support).

Feel free to email me if you like. Is am going to try to at least somewhat hold to Kevin's request to stay on topic. Shouldn't be too hard to find my email on my blog.

Larry said...

Kevin wrote:

"...all said they had been required, at the time, to sign nondisclosure agreements."

I wonder, did they say who required them to sign the NDAs and under what authority?

What they are describing is the SOP that happens when someone (civilian or military) is "inadvertently exposed to classified information" above their clearance level. Exactly who or what agency is it that thinks it's their job to preserve secrecy on an incident of this kind?

Tim Hebert said...

BTW, when I left the Air Force I had to sign a non-disclosre form based on my security clearance TS-ESI.

And no, I wasn't sequestered in a back room with OSI agents staring me down. Rather it was a personnel airman handing me the document for my review and signature.

Since I started my blog in 2010, I've yet to see black Chevy Suburbands parked across my street.

Tim H.

Anthony Mugan said...

There is just a hint in the data of a cluster of cases around middle bases around this time (Minot and Malmstom's Echo flight incident ). There is alSo the 1968 Minot case but that is a bit later. Reminiscent of the 1975 cluster of intrusions we discussed a while ago and also of Ruppelt's suggestion of an excess of cases near some types of strategic location in the early 50's

albert said...

Posters:

Most of the posts in this comment thread have nothing to do with Salas, or the missile flights. I expected a lively discussion, and got nothing but the same old sniping on the same old tired, worn out cases.

Where's the criticism of these missile base incidents? Where's the debunking?

C'mon guys, you can do better than this.

Silence speaks volumes.


albert

Ross said...

So there we have it. Tim Herbert, a man who has never met a prosaic explanation he didn't like, has not been harangued by agents of the government advising him to keep quiet, therefore such things have clearly never happened to anyone else.

In this Herbert-centric universe if it hasn't happened to Tim it hasn't happened at all.

Lance said...

Tim makes his case over at his blog and that should be good reading over there, Albert, if you are interested.

Like most of these conspiracy-laced UFO stories, the whole gossamer construction depends not upon fact or evidence but supposition and poor reasoning--Hastings is the master of this.

Hastings revealed the deluded world he lives in when he, in all seriousness, asked for witnesses to come forward in support of a silly fake YouTube UFO video that depicted a huge UFO hanging over the busy streets of Moscow. In the nutty world of committed conspiracists, it actually makes sense that we all would find out about such a monumental news via an anonymous cheesy YouTube video!

Salas and Hastings know that their claims are directly rejected by the officers who were there but like all UFO nuttiness, the story not falsifiable. Witnesses who don't support the story are said to be on the side of the dark and evil government (we see the same with the Roswell fairy tale).

If you are interested the material is out there. I am happy to supply links if you would like.

Best,

Lance

Tim Hebert said...

Ross, merely stating a fact about my experience. That you read my short short post as being evident of a "centric universe" is equivalent to reading tea leaves.

I did have a former squadron-mate who did have an uncomfortable session with the OSI (back at Malmstrom) and who did confide in seeing a UFO, but I attributed this and his OSI encounter due to his affinity to smoking weed and snorting coke.

Albertguitar: I had posted a comment earlier about my "disagreement" with Salas" claims and directed those who were interested to my blog site as I've posted numerous Salas/Oscar articles opposing his UFO story.

Perhaps Ross Evans can access my site and enter into my "centric universe" and show me where I'm wrong. I'll not hold my breath.

Tim

Anthony Mugan said...

Albert
Whist I am perhaps not your typical debunker if you wanted to challenge some of these specific UFO over missile silo cases from this time period the place to start would be the availability of contemporary primary sources.
The best in this regard is the Echo flight at Malmstrom incident where there is some detail given in the Wing history and a SAC document discussing the urgency of follow up needed. The wing history specifically notes that rumours of a UFO connection proved unfounded, but provides no evidence for this conclusion (and rather oddly refers to interviewing November flight personnel in this regard).
The later (1968) Minot case is also well documented.
There was a Blue Book unknown near Mamlstrom on the 24th March 1967 which is claimed to be the date Salas and Mierwakd had their experience, as discussed in this post. There are no contemporary sources for an event on the base in this date however and the 'best estimate' of the date of this incident has changed slightly over time. Likewise the March 1967 Minot case lacks primary contemporary documentation has the date does not seem overly secure to me (to be fair I am pretty sure I would struggle to be exact on that after a time lag of decades!)

That said the witnesses appear credible and Captain Salas' claims are substantially supported by Colonel Mierwald. Taken in isolation this specific case wouldn't have enough evidence to make me take a firm opinion on it either way. My interest is more in how it sits within a wider picture.
As always very open to additional data...certainly I am not an expert on these specific cases.

Tim Hebert said...

@AnthonyMugan:

Your correct as to identifying "clusters" of sightings at both Malmstrom and Minot. The Malmstrom saga actually begins in 1950 with the Mariana sighting at Great Falls (F-84s mistaken for UFOs?)

Minot is confusing as there are multiple incidents ranging from 1967? thru 1968. I wrote about then Lt David Schuur's "encounter" cira 1966 or 1967. (Robert Hastings was unable to pin point the time period), but Schuur's story does not correspond to the 1968 incidents since he had left Minot towards the end of 1967.

A point that might interest you, I have a source who was at Minot at the beginning of 1969 (ICBM crew member, highly reliable) and he has relayed to me that there were never rumors or stories circulating around the base alluding to the 1968 claims. In other words the alleged sightings were not of interest to the crew force or the command for that matter. Why the lack of interest less than one year after the fact?

As far as the 24 Oct 1968 case involving missile maintenance teams and the B-52 (JAG-31), I'm currently reviewing that case and hope to post on my blog in the near future.

Tim Hebert said...

Anthony,

Regarding Malmstrom's Echo flight, you need to read the unit history carefully and closely. There are things said and not said that are of interest.

Is it 100% certain that maintenance teams were actually on two of the launch facilities in questions?

The crew commander, Eric Carlson, has always denied UFO involvement.

Walter Fiegel always, even to this day, took the report as a joke. Are there any others providing first hand statements of actual visible sightings?...the answer is a resounding NO. There is a deafening silence from those who would have been in position to make the actual report.

As far as Robert Salas being backed up by Frederick Meiwald, please read the transcripts provided by both Robert Hastings/Robert Salas concerning Meiwald's interview. Not a sound ringing endorsement on his part. Read Meiwald's 1996 letter to Salas where Meiwald states that his recollection of the day in question "differs" from Salas.

There were at least 8 support personnel on Oscars topside...not one has ever come forward to corroborate Salas's story...and it was these individuals that according to Salas saw the UFO hovering near the Launch Control Center, yet, again, a deafening roar of silence from this group.

Simply, its a disjointed story in which he characters have a different accounting of what took place. This is solid evidence of UFO activity?

Tim

Ross said...
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Ross said...

Tim,

One does need to rely on tasseography to discern your lack of objectivity.

I'm familiar with your debunking oeuvre, it's etiologically indistinguishable from other efforts based on psuedo-objectivity and founded upon the a priori that the E.T hypothesis is not a valid explanation.

The vast majority of debunkers and skeptics start any investigation with the E.T hypothesis excluded from the matrix of possible explanations; this rejection is often born of its incompatibility with their weltanschauung.

By contrast, whilst there are clearly proponents of the E.T hypothesis who overlook prosaic explanations where perhaps they are applicable, I don't think there are many who find prosaic explanations in any way threatening; disappointing perhaps, but no more than that.

The former reject out of hand one explanation, the latter are merely too attached to it.

Tim Hebert said...

Ross,

It's quite evident that IF you read any of my work, then you obviously did a quick glance thru and drew a conclusion that fits your world view.

Again, show me the "errors of my way" based on the cases that I had presented.

I'm sorry that my conclusions burst your ET bubble, but pertaining to the cases in question...it is what it is.

Lance said...

Believers rely on a set of homilies that comfort them in the face of skeptical criticism.

One of the most often repeated of these is used above by Ross Evans:

"The vast majority of debunkers and skeptics start any investigation with the E.T hypothesis excluded from the matrix of possible explanations; this rejection is often born of its incompatibility with their weltanschauung."

No they don't.

It is my experience as a skeptic in the very small world of UFO skeptics that we all start with the crap evidence.

It is that lousy evidence that skeptics argue against predominately. And it is that lousy evidence that keeps the topic firmly in the realm of pseudoscience.

Lance

David Rudiak said...

Lance rails:
It is that lousy evidence that skeptics argue against predominately. And it is that lousy evidence that keeps the topic firmly in the realm of pseudoscience.

This is Lance giving us again a perfect example of the DebunkerDoubleStandard when it comes to evidence they will accept. Everything "pro-UFO", witnesses or documents or physical evidence, is automatically "lousy evidence" whereas everything "anti-UFO" is irrefutably "good evidence" even when it obviously is not.

(Again, I exaggerate a bit like Lance does. E.g., Lance took Tony Bragalia to task for saying photos at the Paul Trent farm from LIFE magazine were actually taken by Paul Trent and supported that the Trent photos were hoaxed. I supported Lance, because facts are facts, and even supplied him with a set of the LIFE photos from Google books disproving what Tony had said.)

In my previous post I noted that only the "pro-UFO" witnesses were somehow discredited but never the "anti-UFO" ones. With regards to Rendlesham, I mentioned base commander Ted Conrad, whose public statements in 1983 right after the incident became public, were that a very unusual and inexplicable craft had been witnessed by his men. 30 years later, Conrad changed his story to nothing happened and his men were liars and hoaxers. That's a huge change of story. A TRUE skeptic would be, well, skeptical of such a dramatic shift, but apparently not Lance.

And of course, vice-commander Charles Halt wrote an internal, classified memo at the time documenting that something very strange had happened. Obviously he had to get Conrad’s OK for this. Now Conrad says it was a hoax and nothing of importance or security interest happened? As Lord Hill Norton (former chief of UK’s defense staff) would comment, Rendlesham was a high-security U.S. nuclear storage and bomber base. If anything had intruded onto such a sensitive area, that is a matter of national security interest, and if multiple men had hallucinated or made up the whole thing, including security guards and Halt, that too would be of great concern at such a facility. But Conrad changes his story to “nothing happened” and Lance doesn’t challenge that statement as not only self-contradictory but downright illogical. That’s the DebunkerDoubleStandard at work.

The same applies to multiple UFO incursions at nuclear storage, labs, missile sites, or bomber bases that have occurred going back to at least 1948. Remember the multiple incursions at Ft. Hood in 1949, or the green fireballs over Los Alamos and Kirtland AFB 1948/49 and beyond? (Ruppelt wrote most of the scientists at Los Alamos had seen them and thought them ET probes from an orbiting spacecraft—obviously they were nutcases as well.) That’s all documented by the government and doesn’t come from “conspiracist nutcases.”

Ruppelt wrote about the UFO radiation incident at Los Alamos Dec. 1950 where an observed silvery, circular UFO over a shack with radiation equipment caused radiation levels to jump to 100 times background.

Ruppelt also wrote about the multiple UFO incident at Oak Ridge Oct. 1950. These were tracked on radar, jet interceptions were attempted, and perhaps most interestingly, a visual sighting on 10/23 caused "geiger counters in the vicinity [having] unexplainable readings at about this time,” according to an FBI document (the FBI investigating an incursion at a nuclear production facility for obvious reasons of national security and possible espionage).

A CIA draft letter Aug. 16, 1952 commented on the incidents mentioned by Ruppelt: "Sightings of UFOs reported at Los Alamos and Oak Ridge, at a time when the background radiation count had risen inexpecably... Here we run out of even 'blue yonder' explanations that might be tenable, and, we are still left with numbers of incredible reports from credible observers."

So apparently, not only were the UFO eye-witnesses “smoking weed”, so were the radar sets and geiger counters, eh Tim Herbert?

David Rudiak said...

Here's another UFO incursion at a nuclear missile facility, October 24th, 1968 at Minot AFB with numerous military eyewitnesses (a B-52 crew of 6 and 16 people on the ground). It took place over three hours and the B-52 crew was asked to investigate, wherein crew members saw the huge object from the air and on radar (plus photos on the radar scope showing the unknown object pacing the B-52).

You can see Peter Jenning's UFO special recreation of the incident, which includes interviews with two witnesses on the ground and the co-pilot and navigator, the co-pilot getting a very good view of the object and how huge it was. He came away believing he had seen an alien spacecraft. (See about 36 minutes into special.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=aMGdNC45-Vs#!

Obviously all 22 military witnesses, plus B-52 radar and camera, were more "weed smokers" and liars, eh Tim Herbert?

Lance will be pleased to know Blue Book decided the "evidence" was "lousy", instead everybody suffered from a mass delusion and saw nothing but bright stars.

It was not the eyewitnesses who were "smoking weed".

KRandle said...

Tim -

You are welcome to post a link to your blog about the missile silo sightings at Malmstrom and Bob Salas if you so desire.

David -

Actually the Air force said that the sightings were solved by a "Probable" aircraft, a B-52 which the ground personnel at Minot were unable to recognise, a "Probable" star, Sirius (as in you can't be serious), a "Possible" Plasma and a second sighting of a "Possible" Plasma, proving that the Air Force was impressed with Klass' ioniztion of the atmosphere theory. I mean it sounded scientific, seemed like it would work, but of course, was off target. This just proves that they would grab anything that sounded good and run with it, even if the science behind it was lousy.

Lance said...

The fiasco caused by fellow Roswell Dream Team member, Tony Bragalia, over the Trent photos was probably not the wisest case to bring up, David.

Here Tony was trying, in his limited way, to show that one of the classic cases was a hoax.

Now, one can imagine why you wanted to discredit any such attempt as it is, with all of its many problems, one of your favorites.

But why is it that the evil lying skeptics like myself, Tim and Gilles worked so hard to show that Bragalia was as usual, dead wrong? Isn't that the opposite of the conspiracy-filled worldview that you sell here over and over in your obsessive and endless multi-part posts? Why didn't we jump on the hoax explanation like the blind irrational debunkers that haunt Rudiak-world?

David, when it comes to facts and figures related to Roswell and other UFO cases, you are an expert second to none. You have done some very clever and admirable work on many cases. I certainly respect you in that area.

But you seem unable to understand the difference between an inference and a fact and whenever you stray away from hard facts, I think you stumble badly.

I would have thought the little exhibition of this I engineered (neoprene decay) might have given you just a bit of pause but you just soldier on to the next conspiracy-laden explanation.

I realize that I also have made mistakes in regards to our discussions here but I am the first to admit such mistakes and am happy to do so.

In this venue, skeptics are already mostly unwelcome (although Kevin has been quite fair, even to bastards like me). Your constant refrain that we are unwilling to look at the facts is not supportable. What I think we are unwilling to accept is your highly speculative take on the facts.

Having to deal with conspiracy theorists in other areas as well (like 9/11 Truthers), I see the same kind of reasoning process in your posts. I realize that I can't explain to you the difference between real evidence and inference. From my perspective, that is where all of our arguments lie.

Lance

Tim Hebert said...
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Tim Hebert said...

Thanks Kevin,

Here is my site for any that are interested:

www.timhebert.blogspot.com/

@Dr. Rudiack,

I read your last two posts, thanks for the chuckles. How you roped me in with liars, radar and geiger counters baffles me.

As far as your perseveration on "weed smokers", please read my comment again.

The individual was a good friend of mine. We were in the same squadron and both of us finished our controlled tour at Malmstrom (crew tour) roughly at the same time. We both had staff positions later. I was assigned to Grand Forks, he stayed at Malmstrom.

It was afterwards that he would have been busted by the OSI for drug use (marijuana and cocaine). He was court martialed and did time in a Federal facility. This had nothing to do with his alleged UFO claim.

The UFO claim happened while we were on crew. He related a siting, vague on the details of which I don't remember. That was the end of it as we both were immersed in surviving our tours without any major screw up to our careers...SAC was a very unforgiving command back then.

As far as the Minot 1968 UFO event involving the B-52 and missile maintenance and security personnel, I started looking on the case about two weeks ago. It will take some time, but will post on my blog detailing whatever I find.

I'm in agreement that BB's conclusions need to be re-evaluated. Stellar mis-identification? Its possible. Mis-identification of the B-52? Its possible. Plasma affecting UHF transmission and radar returns? This I find troubling and somewhat dubious. But, we shall see won't we?

BTW, I've never called any of the principles involved in the Malmstrom incident's liars. I hope that you were not alluding to that in your comments. That's generally a Hastings tactic and is his trademark defensive fall back position. I honestly believe that you are better than that.

If you visit my blog site and have a point of contention, fine, let me know and we can discuss it.

Tim H.

David Rudiak said...

Lance wrote:
But you seem unable to understand the difference between an inference and a fact and whenever you stray away from hard facts, I think you stumble badly.

Lance, I'm still waiting for your "hard facts" that the nonexistent Mogul Flight #4 of Charles Moore's imagination landed on the Brazel ranch and triggered the Roswell incident.

Instead we have the blank in the Mogul records along with other clearly stated cancelled flights. But to Lance and other "skeptics" total absence of evidence becomes a "hard fact". Talk about Lance's "lousy evidence," which Lance and other skeptics accept uncritically, I guess because they have nothing else waiting in the wings.

Instead Lance's idea of an answer and "critical thinking" is to demand 110% proof that #4 couldn't have existed, i.e. prove a negative instead of the proper burden of proof being on the proponents of Mogul--show the flight existed.

Maybe Lance can also explain to us where the ghost Mogul's hundreds of yards of rigging went. Why did Brazel specifically deny finding any such thing? That would be impossible to miss amongst the wreckage of a real 600 foot Mogul balloon train.

(The easy, logical, prosaic, Occam's razor answer is ghosts don't leave footprints behind. No Mogul flight, no Mogul crash, no rigging for Brazel to find and describe.)

"Hard facts", Lance, "hard facts", no skeptical inference that it HAD to be Mogul because, well, it had to be.

I don't think you know the meaning of "hard facts" or a logical argument. Instead, when you can't come up with a canned answer to hard questions against your skeptical religious belief system, you lapse into your usual sputtering insult routine.

Perhaps we can get back on topic and you and Tim Herbert can "explain" well-documented radiation spikes at Los Alamos and Oak Ridge associated with UFO incursions at these sensitive nuclear facilities in 1950. That's from government documents, not "UFO believers". Geiger counters don't "smoke weed or engage in your "conspiracist thinking" or suffer from "UFO religion". Hard facts, Lance, hard facts, not evasion and insult and lousy skeptical "evidence".

Tim Hebert said...

@Dr. Rudiack,

Unbelievable....

Tim Hebert said...

Some where in the initial comments, someone, Albertguitar, lamented about the lack of debating based on the Kevin's post about Robert Salas.

Well Albert, based on the last few comments, this is what you get. Dr. Rudiack practicing the art of deflection, with the obvious bout of transference.

Dr. Rudiack wants to get back on topic, but its his topic. Los Alamos, radiation spikes, geiger counters etc., have nothing to do with Robert Salas, Malmstrom, or anything with Kevin's post, yet once again, here we are, drifting towards Rudiackland.

Tim

Anthony Mugan said...

In terms of the Malmstom case there is, to be fair to the wider discussion on other cases at highly sensitive installations, some potential value in exploring the apparent 'clustering' of reports at such bases.
In this case, as in so many, we have elements of credible evidence ( the witnesses own personal credibility in terms of both Salas and Mierwald) but insufficient evidence overall to form a firm opinion on the individual case. If the misidentification hypothesis is correct we might expect fewer reports from high security bases, with a higher incidence of high reliability witnesses, than we would expect on average.
Working out the actual pattern statistically is tricky as there is likely to be reporting bias. There is a paper on aviation cases on the Narcap site which may well be useful in giving us an estimate for the overall rate of military vs civilian reports for the Blue Book period. I may well have a go at this. I shall need to find a list of all the BB cases somewhere that is downloadable into spreadsheet format though...?

At first sight there does seem to be rather a lot of these cases, but lets see how the actual statistics come out

cda said...

Methinks there is an implied insult in the matter of name spelling on the part of Rudiak (alias Rudiack) and Hebert (alias Herbert) when each refers to the other.

There is also the lesser importance of 'Mogul' being misspelt 'Mogel' by someone. I forget who.

With my simple initials, I assume nobody will, or could, misspell my name.

A while back DR referred to Col Halt's classified memo on Rendlesham. Not so. The memo was, and is, unclassified. Ditto for the famous tape recording. And the Rendlesham case became public long before Halt's memo was first made public. It was known to ufologists at least 12 months before it suddenly appeared on the front page of the NEWS OF THE WORLD in Oct 1983, who paid something like £12,500 for the story. (Don't ask me who and how many got a share.)

Why no rigging found at the Brazel ranch? Here is one answer: because it was never located, that's why. Meaning it drifted or descended a long way off, perhaps a mile or more away and got dispersed. Nobody ever said the WHOLE device (i.e. several balloons, kites or whatever) was found on the ranch. Perhaps as much as 75% of the object was never recovered at all. Yes, pure speculation on my part but perfectly valid.

And I am still waiting for some genuine 1947 documented evidence of bodies being found.

Do you have any, Kevin?

Tim Hebert said...

CDA,

I attributed my misspelling of Dr. Rudiack's name to a simple typo...there was no gamesmanship to that matter.

As far as my last name being misspelled, it's always been a common mistake, I take//took no personal offense from Dr. Rudiack.

I further took no personal offense to Dr. Rudiack's inability to deal with questions raised by Kevin's post. Malmstrom and Minot are out of his comfort zone...hence his insistence on dragging the discussion to Los Alamos and Roswell minutia.

Question for Dr. Rudiack, what brand of boots was Brazel wearing on the day that he discovered the debris field?

Now that's minutia worthy of the Roswell discussions.:)

Tim

David Rudiak said...

CDA gamely goes where no debunker has dared go before to try to explain the the inexplicable:
Why no rigging found at the Brazel ranch? Here is one answer: because it was never located, that's why.

Especially true if it never existed to begin with because the balloon train never existed, a debunking ruse by AFOSI to try to explain away Roswell with a phantom balloon. Uncritical “skeptical” people like CDA, Lance, Thomas, Printy, etc., are still falling for it.

Meaning it drifted or descended a long way off, perhaps a mile or more away and got dispersed.

An extension of drooling idiot theory to the Mogul people unable to tie good knots. Or maybe they were magical knots that worked just fine to hold the whole thing together until just before the Foster Ranch when they all untied themselves to make sure Mack Brazel wouldn't find a single shred of rigging.

Nobody ever said the WHOLE device (i.e. several balloons, kites or whatever) was found on the ranch.

Nobody claimed the whole device was there, BUT there ARE claims that many parts of the phantom balloon train were indeed found at the ranch. This includes USAF report and Moore, cited by Pflock, Thomas, Printy, etc. E.g., Brazel's 200 yard debris field was supposed to square with a 200 yard tall Mogul balloon train, but how exactly can you get that if the rigging holding the balloons and other paraphernalia together disappeared before it got there? (I apologize for being too logical about this.)

But in addition to being a ghost balloon, it was a magic balloon according to CDA's theory. Besides a concentrated crash field, heavy pieces like alleged battery packs (allegedly Cavitt's "black box"), aluminum launch rings, dribbler tubes, and a 16 pound sonobuoy were all allegedly found there (these were the claims of the AF debunkers in their report with Moore's statements being used to support them), which could only be carried there still attached to the balloons and rigging. But according to CDA all the rigging had detached itself and "dispersed" before it got to the ranch so Brazel couldn't find it.

This is known as trying to have it both ways, quite typical of the whole preposterous Mogul balloon "explanation", starting with the nonexistent flight that was canceled (thus totally absent from records), but had to happen because debunkers have the religious will to believe it must have happened.

Perhaps as much as 75% of the object was never recovered at all. Yes, pure speculation on my part but perfectly valid.

Well, that might be typical for a balloon train (e.g. most of the balloons popping in the air or explosive charges cutting loose some payload), but still doesn't explain that absence of hundreds of yards of rigging still attached to the remaining intact balloons and other parts. The main line was strong twine with perhaps several hundred pounds of tensile strength--vanished.

And I am still waiting for some genuine 1947 documented evidence of bodies being found.

Ramey memo: "THE VICTIMS OF THE WRECK" (consensus read of 6 of 9 readers) and something "IN THE 'DISC'" being sent or shipped somewhere. What was INside the "disc" important enough to ship? This can't be referring to a radar target or balloon, neither of which have insides.

Your documentation task and those of other debunkers is a great deal easier. Mogul was long ago declassified and documents are in the public domain "Flight #4" doesn't exist in those documents, period. Instead Flight #5 the next day (June 5) is listed in Mogul and multiple other docs/histories as the FIRST Air Force N.M. research balloon of its type. NONE reference a similar balloon flight from the previous day as Moore and the AFOSI claimed existed—NONE. Examples:

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/Timeline/1945-49.html
http://tinyurl.com/ldyw7rr (AF Cambridge Lab Hx)
http://tinyurl.com/mww848m (AF Hx, p. 300)

Nitram said...

David Rudiak wrote regarding the "Mogul theory"

"Especially true if it never existed to begin with because the balloon train never existed, a debunking ruse by AFOSI to try to explain away Roswell with a phantom balloon. Uncritical “skeptical” people like CDA, Lance, Thomas, Printy, etc., are still falling for it."

David, you have made a mistake here... the word skeptical should read debunking.

CDA wrote:

"Perhaps as much as 75% of the object was never recovered at all. Yes, pure speculation on my part but perfectly valid."

Perhaps you can asnwer the comment made by DR... Maybe I can help you cda, you need to state we are off topic and therefore don't wish to answer the point!

Alternatively you can "man up" and admit you got this wrong.

Lance wrote earlier:

"A debate would make short work of this. It is easy to show the silliness of the Roswell myth..."

I admire your courange Lance - taking on KR & DR in a debate (cda of course would be in your team I hope). Like lambs to the slaughter... reckon you would be smashed to bits in 5 minutes - (with my help I reckon we could hold out for six minutes). But I am a skeptic not a dubunker - important difference.

This forum shouldn't be about debating - if you discover someting that changes your stance then simply put your hand up... mogul don't work...we can all clearly see this now...

DR wrote in reponse to cda's comment (And I am still waiting for some genuine 1947 documented evidence of bodies being found.)

"Ramey memo: "THE VICTIMS OF THE WRECK" (consensus read of 6 of 9 readers)"

I agree with you David that there is strong support for the word "victims" but you also know it is not proven YET.

Of course keep hammering away at mogel regardless of the word "victims" or "remains" or WHATEVER... mogel don't work

Nitram said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Tim Hebert said...

@Dr. Rudiack,

"Ramey memo: "THE VICTIMS OF THE WRECK" (consensus read of 6 of 9 readers)"

What reader's are you refering to?

That leaves 3 who state otherwise, what were their rationale for rejecting the Ramey memo? Did you ask?

Of the 6 who agreed with you, did they provide rationales for supporting your hypothesis?

Forgive me Dr. Rudiack, but this doesn't appear to provide solid evidence to support your claim.

Tim

Lance said...

Tim,

You obviously don't understand Rudiakology. It's the same kind of science that TV ghost hunters use to pretend to understand audio static.

It is amusing to imagine the list of words that Rudiak must have considered while looking at the blurry text:

"Is it 'flying saucer'?"

"Could it be 'space foil'?"

"Maybe, it's' bug-eyed'!"

That someone would actually propose that the way to confirm blurry text in a document would be to perform a popularity poll (!!!) is the kind of thing that makes this field so endlessly amusing.

Lance

Nitram said...

Tim Hebert wrote:

"Forgive me Dr. Rudiack, but this doesn't appear to provide solid evidence to support your claim."

Tim, it's Dr Rudiak (not that I can talk as far as spelling goes).

Your correct of course about the memo but can you help a bit with the mogul issues - cda and Lance look to be taking a real hammering here and we could really do with some helpful suggestions.

Tim Hebert said...

Nitram,

My apologies, you are quite right it is indeed Dr. Rudiak.

I'm afraid that I would hinder cda and Lance, but both argue from the point of known government documentation concerning Mogul.

That Mogul, a classified program, existed, is of no doubt. Further, that Mogul missions near Roswell were conducted during the time period of the alleged crash is of no doubt.

The story of a UFO crash near Roswell is in doubt. And I only say this because the if there were no doubt, then why the formation of a team of ufologist (Randle, Rudiak and Bragalia) for the purpose of re-investigating the case? A case, I might add, that has been researched and written about for nearly 60 years.

This can mean that said investigators have doubts.

Based on the above, logic then dictates that there is doubt on both sides of the question.

Tim

Steve Sawyer said...

Oh, boy...

It's always "interesting" to see how parties in opposition here seem to resort so often to such unsubtle ad hominems and blithely talk past and over each other.

(While I, too, have at times been guilty of same, I've been trying to resist that emotional "urge" to make overly reactionary comments of late, although I also do realize it sort of depends on whether your own "ox is being gored" unfairly, but c'mon guys -- aren't we better than this?)

This is one of those discussions I don't think I'm going to enter into in a more substantive way, not having much to contribute other than to counsel that the heat be turned down, by both sides in this ongoing argument, in order to hopefully better facilitate a more civil and productive discussion.

Ask yourselves, if not, what is really being accomplished? Anything?

Other than that, I also think it should be pointed out that the very first reference to Roswell in this thread was by Lance, and that perhaps that triggered the Roswell-related comments that then followed from both sides.

OTOH, I guess Roswell, being the "elephant in the room," is somewhat hard to avoid being brought up, continuously, since Kevin's blog and background research and writing history is primarily related, more than any other UFO topic, to the Roswell incident, but it does become a bit disheartening and exasperating to see the comment threads on non-Roswell blog posts here so very often get side-tracked into yet another divisive round of back-and-forth recriminations.

But, I really do appreciate Kevin's liberal tolerance for such off-track ruminations -- I just wish it wouldn't occur so frequently, or nastily. That's just my take on the matter, as a kind of "outsider" looking in upon these discussions. The tone here has taken on the characteristics of some macho "pissing contest."

Finally, I'd also like to add two very minor points that CDA (and "Nitram") also mentioned in passing:

Tim, you note above, "I attributed my misspelling of Dr. Rudiack's name to a simple typo...there was no gamesmanship to that matter."

And yet, you continue to misspell David's last name. To be explicit: it is Rudiak, not Rudiack.

Sort of reminds of the aliens in Tim Burton's hilarious "Mars Attacks!" movie, where the Martians seem to be unable to say anything other than "Ack, ack!" 8^}

Just a gentle note to suggest that I'm sure David would probably appreciate it if you spelled his last name correctly from here on out, just as I'm sure you do when people spell your last name properly.

Oh, and "Nitram," it's spelled "Mogul," not "Mogel!"

Sorry, guys -- it's the copy editor in me. Details do matter.

Carry on, troops...

Steve Sawyer said...

P.S. -- Tim's last comment, above, slipped in while I was composing mine. Glad to see he appears more reasonable, at least for the moment.

I'd add though, that while I agree, Tim, that the nature of the Roswell incident is in "doubt," a more neutral or appropriate term might be in "question," and which I agree is the case.

Also, the Roswell incident has actually been under investigation for "only" about 35 years, since Friedman was referred in 1978 to Marcel originally, not 60 years.

OTOH, where you say, "Further, that Mogul missions near Roswell were conducted during the time period of the alleged crash is of no doubt," while "technically" correct, seems to me somewhat misleading, since you're obviously implying, as you have before, that Mogul was responsible for the debris found initially by Brazel on the Foster ranch.

I simply disagree: my own review of the data, and subsequent debates on the matter, strongly suggest that there was in fact no instrumented Mogul flight #4 prior to the initial reports of something coming down near Roswell. And wasn't flight #5, the first real one, tracked to having fallen elsewhere?

So I reject, for now, the reliance by skeptics on the alleged Mogul/USAF explanation for Roswell.

The timing of the actual first known and documented Mogul flight was not in correspondence with the initial Roswell incident reports, but afterward, were they not?

OTOH, I can see how, based on the initial reports by Brazel, et al, that he may have come across some kind of balloon debris on the Foster ranch, but that does not explain the Haut press release, nor a host of other "facts" surrounding the Roswell affair.

What's more intriguing to me is the question of whether Brazel's find, and what was initially made of it by the "higher echelon" at RAAFB via Haut's PIO efforts, might have been some kind of ploy to divert attention from what has been referred to as the "second site," where allegedly the main "object" debris (and possible "bodies") may (or may not) have been located and found.

Could the Brazel part of the story have been a manipulated and spontaneous reaction to distract and cover-up something more important, located elsewhere, in the Roswell region?

I mention this because over the past few months there has been some rather sub rosa scuttlebutt and opaque references to a second, "real crash site," and associated with that, so far, rumor, some indications of photographic evidence from the "second site" now being circulated, supposedly of a body or bodies.

While one of these sources for this latest rumor has conjectured a somewhat, to me, ridiculous connection to the fraudulent Newton/GeBauer/Scully story of an Aztec "crash," from what I've been able to gather there may be some merit to at least the question of whether some so far unknown photo evidence may exist, although such circumstantial "evidence" has yet to be either fully made publicly known or independently vetted, as far as I can tell with what minimal data I've heard of.

Nick Redfern, for one, has made some hints about this some time ago. It will be quite interesting when, or if, that "other shoe" ever drops into the public realm for consideration. I have my doubts, or questions, but for now can say no more in lieu of any real or substantiated data.

I just thought that should be mentioned, since it's currently "in the air," although I have no idea whether these recent stories have real "legs" or not.

Chainsofthesea said...

Steve,

We are all waiting for the oil workers photograph to be published , come on dream team it's almost as frustrating as waiting for a disclosure announcement! Over to you Kevin!

cda said...

I hope DR does not consider his beloved Ramey memo to be genuine 1947 documentation confirming the existence of ET bodies.

Obviously if DR is right then the world has been a different place since July 8, 1947 and zillions of scientists, plus national leaders the world over, have overlooked or simply cast aside the most important scientific discovery ever made. A discovery that NASA and numerous other space agencies knew nothing about, and still don't.

If DR is really correct then he would surely qualify for a knighthood, were he a citizen of the UK or Commonwealth. Alas he is not.

But I presume DR does NOT really believe that the scrap of paper in the General's hand contains such evidence.

And what does our blog leader, Kevin himself, consider that scrap of paper contains? Or will it pale into insignificance when the long awaited and ming-boggling 'new photographic evidence' from the archaeologists finally appears?

Steve Sawyer said...

@Chainsofthesea:

I think the more accurate term would be "petroleum geologist."

And neither Kevin nor any other member of the dream team, I think, is or would be responsible for any public release or other disposition of the alleged photos. I'm guessing someone else owns/possesses them, and it's up to that person(s) to decide what to do with them, not KR or the DT.

In fact, according to one publicly disclosed source, they are all under some form of non-disclosure agreement in this regard, which I believe is most likely accurate, and cannot comment on this matter.

We will all just have to wait until the source(s) are ready to go public on their own.

I suspect a vetting process and efforts to properly control, fund, and gain appropriate media channels for the prospective release are currently pending. Another issue that may be pending is establishing proper provenance, scientific authentication, and a factual, historical narrative of the circumstances of how the photos came into being in the first place, and their "chain of custody" both before and after the geologist, long since deceased, allegedly obtained them.

If the photos can somehow be determined as "genuine," which I'd posit may be extraordinarily difficult to objectively "prove," since they are, in a sense, representations (photos), and thus circumstantial (unlike actual "non-terrestrial" alloy or debris, or an actual non-human body, which would be direct evidence), they would also be extraordinarily valuable, in both historical and financial terms, so I suspect the continuing delay is based on all these interrelated issues being very complex and difficult to resolve.

This all may take more than a few more months, I also surmise. We simply will have to be, and should be, more patient while such issues unfold behind the scenes.

But, this is off-topic, as are much of the above prior Roswell-related comments, and for which I'm now guilty of also, due to my last comment, to some extent. Apologies. I guess none of us here can help recursively returning to Roswell at times, since it's such a highly intriguing subject for those interested in the UFO phenomenon, naturally.

But the case for (or against) "the UFO" has never hinged on whether the Roswell incident was ET or not: it's the overall post-modern history, documentation, and circumstantial patterns of the best UFO cases over the past 70+ years that are more important to consider overall.

With these asides, it may now be best to return to the blog post topic at hand, which is Salas and his (and Hastings) allegations of UFOs being present, repeatedly, over and near various US nuclear missile launch sites in the 60's and 70's.

I think it should be pointed out that, beyond Salas and Hastings allegations about that subject, independent US government declassified documentation exists which, at the very least, suggest there have been numerous incidents of such "intrusions," whether coincidental to location or purportedly displaying "intent" and/or allegedly disabling, "surveilling," or being rather near nuke sites of varying types.

So the issue does not depend on the contentions of Salas or Hastings, even though they are the primary advocates of that perspective, along with numerous other nuclear weapons-related military personnel having reported several such incidents.

The initial source I found nearly 20 years ago that discusses this, and includes such government documentation, was Fawcett and Greenwood's book, "Clear Intent," now re-titled "The UFO Cover-Up / What the Government Won't Say," available in trade paperback, and which, while dated, is still a good source.

Another source to get started is at: http://www.nicap.org/ncp/ncp-home.htm, NICAP's "Nuclear Connection Project." The skeptic's data should also be read, including Tim Hebert's site, and some of James Carlson's writings, among others.

KRandle said...

All -

You have done it again. This was posting about Salas and the Citizen Hearing, not about the Ramey memo, project mogul, or photographs that may or may not exist.

Although I hate to do it again, if a comment does not relate to the post, I will delete it.

Tim Hebert said...

Soooo...anyone up to talking about Robert Salas' experience at Malmstrom?

Perhaps we can digest the following:

1. No mentioning of an incident at Oscar Flight in the 341st Unit History.

2. No mentioning of an incident at Oscar Flight in the engineering and analysis report investigating Echo Flight.

3. Bernard Nalty makes no reference to an incident at Oscar Flight in his classified ICBM history.

4. No statements supporting an incident at Oscar Flight from those individuals that were either topside at Oscar or in the field responding to a security violation.

5. Eric Carlson and Walter Figel discount an incident at Oscar Flight. Eric has recently speculated that Oscar is a fix delusion over time.

6. No one in the chain of command up-channeling reports to 15th AF and SAC HQ has come forward supporting an incident at Oscar Flight.

7. Remote, but possible practical joke played on Meiwald and Salas can not be totally ruled out. I'm leaning more now to this possibility.

Check with you good folks later!

Tim

Steve Sawyer said...

@KR:

Reference Roswell: Agreed.

Sorry, Kevin. Maybe we all have some esoteric form of UFO-related ADHD? 8^}

Returning to topic, I think the main issue that occurs to me is whether Salas' case was more harmed than helped by his attendance and presentation at the "Citizen Hearing on Disclosure" [CHD] recently. I suspect his particular presentation may have gotten obscured by the "mixed-bag" of presenters to most casual and media persons present or watching video clips online. Five days of "hearings" may have been a bit too much info to readily absorb and comprehend objectively for most "non-advocates."

I also can't help but think Greer's presence and statements, in particular, along with the rather nutty "Sirius" film showing, or like Linda Moulton Howe's attendance, for another example, was a detraction, and created further diversion from the ostensible purpose and intent of the National Press Club events in general, as I don't find those like Greer or Howe, among others there, either honest or objective, empirical UFO researchers, per se. But, then again, that was Bassett's decision, wasn't it?

Another part of the problem the mock "congressional hearings" presented was its sponsor, Bassett, and the Paradigm Research Group, the duration of the event, and the exopolitical tinge and assiduous lack of vetting Bassett is known for. Do you think Salas and his case benefited, overall, from his attendance, considering these variables?

I wonder what Salas' take on the matter is, in retrospect. Or your own, having also attended. Positive, mixed, or negative?

It also came across to me as somewhat "gimmicky," or an "appeal to authority" to have included the retired and less than knowledgeable congresspersons into the mix, but perhaps that was intentional, for the potential PR, and to create a scenario where testimony to relatively uninformed (about UFOs and their history), intelligent former politicians could be persuaded by the testimony and presentations to take a more positive stance towards the UFO question, although it seems most came to neutral conclusions, at least as to the ETH, even though a couple did seem to endorse the fact that the UFO phenomenon does deserve a more objective, comprehensive, and scientific evaluation and serious consideration, so I guess that was a partially positive consequence. But the majority of mainstream media coverage, of the event itself, seemed to have been rather skeptically biased, which is I guess is to be expected.

I'd have to say, IMHO, Salas did not do his case much real good, if only due to some of the others associated with the overall presentations, and the length of the CHD, from what I've been able to superficially gather.

Do you know if there are any online video segments of either Salas or your full presentations at the hearings as yet, or prospectively?

I'd be interested to reviewing such, if and when made available.

It's difficult to say much more than this without being able to selectively watch the proceedings and individual panel presentations themselves, and not just excerpts, online.

While there are a number of relatively brief video clips on the "Citizen Hearing on Disclosure" at YouTube (see: http://bit.ly/16OiBEr), I couldn't find either Salas or your complete CHB presentations there.

Here's an edited excerpt of Salas' presentation: http://bit.ly/14RlAba

It also appears, but is not entirely clear, that Bassett intends to provide archival streaming video of the CHB presentations, for $3.80 for a one month pass, that does not as yet seem to be set up for viewing currently.

See: http://www.citizenshearing.org/webcast_archive.html and

http://www.citizenshearing.org/video.html

Steve Sawyer said...

Postscript:

Just found this --

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzw9tY2ng8w

This is a nearly two-hour panel presentation that Kevin appeared on at the CHB.

Also, there is a YouTube channel now established for various long-form video presentations made at the CHB.

See: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheCitizenDisclosure/videos

I haven't reviewed watched much of that as yet, just having discovered this channel, but this should provide interested parties with more detailed insight and data from the presentations and panel discussions Salas and KR appeared upon, but don't know how complete the CHB hearings on this channel are.

Part of the problem is that since most of the presentations were panel discussions with several participants, along with the questioning by the former congresspersons, you don't get a single, full or one-person presentation from or by Salas, KR, et al to review -- it's several people intermittently talking and being periodically questioned, and due to the volume of video (many, many hours) at the "Citizen Disclosure" YouTube channel, it would be very difficult to get a singular impression of just one person's presentation or case due to the format of the CHB itself.

Anthony Mugan said...

@ Tim Herbert
I tend to agree with your earlier points 1 to 4 in that the balance of evidence supporting the Oscar flight event is quite limited. Taken together, for example, with the much fuller primary evidence for the Echo flight event and others, but combined with witness credibility, makes me deferr judgement on this specific incident.
I am curious about your idea of a practical joke. You know much more than me about the technical systems involved and how seriously such a joke would be viewed. I would hope it would be very hard indeed to simulate such an event as a joke and that some consequences would befall the joker! Could I ask if you have a view on how it could be done?

cda said...

Certainly let us return to Kevin's original posting. He makes some snide comments on Rendlesham.

Many years ago Jim Moseley referred to the case as RendleSHAM. Perhaps he was going too far the other way.

Yes, Kevin, Rendlesham WAS mainly caused by a revolving lighthouse beam, together with several bright stars and maybe a satellite re-entry, and YES there were rabbit holes present (big deal!), and NO the radiation levels were not significant. Further, Ian Ridpath has gone into the whole case thoroughly, so has David Clarke.

And no, there is no reason to believe Rendlesham had anything whatever to do with visiting ET craft.

But if you want to accept DR's version (where he calls Halt's memo classified) and all the subsequent (decades later) testimony of Col. Halt and Jim Penniston you are welcome to do so.

The UK government's documents, released a decade ago, make it perfectly plain that National security was not affected in any way. But perhaps you (as all conspiracists do) insist that tons of other, hidden top secret documents, give a different answer.

cda said...

Addendum:

By the way poor Colonel Halt couldn't even get his dates right. It took a real investigator to establish this. And it took Halt nearly 3 weeks after the initial incident for him to report it to his superiors.

So much for its National Security implications!

Lance said...

I appreciated Steve Sawyer's comments on the sham hearings above.

Lance

David Rudiak said...

Tim He(r)bert:

I had a lengthy response to your inquiries on the Ramey memo, but Kevin just banned further discussion on it as off-topic.

You say the sole topic of Kevin's blog was Robert Salas' claims. The more general topic Kevin raised was UFO incursions at nuclear facilities that Salas helped bring to more public light. This would include not only missile sites, but weapon storage facilities, bomber bases, bomb manufacture, and radioactive processing. Thus well-known historical UFO incursions have happened at such places as Los Alamos, Sandia/Kirtland AFB, Hanford, Oak Ridge, Fort Hood, in addition to multiple incursions at our SAC and missile bases, Rendlesham being but one example. This information mostly comes to us from government documents going back to at least 1948. The topic wasn't created by Robert Hastings and Robert Salas.

The broad incursions at our missile sites and other nuclear facilities, based on government documents, was also brought up by Fawcett and Greenwood in their 1984 book “Clear Intent”. The documents obtained revealed visual and radar sightings of UFOs over Loring AFB, Maine; Malmstrom AFB, Montana; Wurtsmith AFB, Michigan; Minot AFB, North Dakota; Grand Forks AFB, North Dakota; Kirtland AFB, Albuquerque, and other military bases.

This was one reason I raised the topic of the early 1950 UFO radiation incidents at Los Alamos and Oak Ridge mentioned by Ruppelt and FBI/CIA documents. This is independent physical evidence corroboration of a real event. Oak Ridge also had radar corroboration as well as jet scrambles. You can't write the whole topic off to the imagination or stupidity of an eyewitness, as you are Salas' testimony (please don’t deny that is exactly what you are doing). Of course you dodge the broader topic, including those radiation incidents, and pretend it has nothing to do with what Salas has been saying. Even if you forget about Salas and Hastings, the documentation of these other UFO incursions remains.

The pattern of such incursions was crystal clear to military investigators almost from the start, even if you refuse to acknowledge it. Ruppert in his book section on the 1953 CIA Robertson Panel said he brought it up. He told the panel that 27% of the UFOs were truly unidentified. The sightings were NOT randomly distributed, but were concentrated around "technically interesting places, like atomic energy installations, harbors, and critical manufacturing areas..."

Elsewhere Ruppelt mentions trying to set up liaisons with Canadian military investigators. Soon after, the topic of nuclear incursions came up again in the first meeting on May 21, 1952 of the Canadian’s Project Second Story. In the meeting minutes they bring up a Canadian A.F. report on Project Blue Book, stating that they were told UFO sightings were concentrated over U.S. ports and atomic energy establishments, and that 5% of all sightings were from scientists at White Sands missile Proving Grounds, N.M.

Even if you were right about Salas, the bigger topic is not going to go away.

David Rudiak said...

Tim He(r)bert wrote:
1. No mentioning of an incident at Oscar Flight in the 341st Unit History.
3. Bernard Nalty makes no reference to an incident at Oscar Flight in his classified ICBM history.


Very unimpressive when you consider well-documented UFO incidents are almost never mentioned in such histories or in base logs, yet they are documented in classified intelligence reports. Here are two examples I encountered when investigating UFO incidents at Edwards AFB.

On Oct. 7, 1965, up to 12 UFOs were seen over Edwards. A jet scramble was ordered by the base "UFO officer". Audio recordings on radar tapes were made of all communications regarding the incident that were later declassified, but the tapes had been cut up and researchers had to try to reassemble the snippets into some sort of coherent order. The Project BB report by the UFO officer also exists. Sgt. Chuck Sorrells was in the control tower that night and later became a Disclosure Project witness.

In 1998 or 1999 I visited Edwards. (I don't remember the exact year or date, but that doesn't mean I didn't go there and the following didn't happen, but I'm sure if it suited your purposes you would use this as "evidence" that I made the whole thing up.) I went to the history office which was staffed by Ray Puffer, PhD. He was well aware of the incident, in fact told me he was the one who had originally uncovered the tapes. Despite this, he was a HUGE UFO skeptic and claimed nothing of importance happened. Really? Then what were those hours of tapes about? Here's the NICAP page with a lot of the documentation:

http://www.nicap.org/edwards65dir.htm

Anyway, I asked him for the base logs so I could see if there was anything there. He told me I was wasting my time. He was right. There was absolutely nothing there. As far as the base logs were concerned, the elsewhere well-documented UFO incident never happened. Just reading those, if you didn't know better, it was business-as-usual at Edwards.

I also checked the base newspaper to see if there was anything mentioned. There were stories about the shortage of base housing and the dangers of drunk driving, but again nothing about a UFO incident that had the base and other nearby bases such as George on alert.

I also asked him about the well-known and documented multi-sightings at Edwards (then Muroc) in early July 1947. In fact, these were among the first Project BB unknowns. One of the witnesses was John Stapp, who later rode to fame in his rocket sled experiments. Puffer knew about Stapp but doubted there ever were UFO incidents or Stapp was involved. I later provided him web links to the contrary.

Again NOTHING in the base daily logs to indicate anything unusual at all had happened. You probably won't find Stapp's UFO sighting in any biography on him (e.g. Wikipedia). I guess that alone "proves" he never had such a sighting or filed a report, but he did. Those Edwards sightings by multiple base personnel were considered among the better flying saucer reports when Gen. George Schulgen did his air intelligence investigation starting July 9, 1947, concluding that something real was indeed flying around.

David Rudiak said...

Response Tim Hebert, part 2 of 2:

So again, I'm totally underwhelmed that Tim Hebert didn't find any mention of Salas' UFO incident in the histories he cited. That proves nothing one way or the other. It could be, as he claims, it never happened, or it could be it did happen but you again rarely find it mentioned in such histories.

Regarding Roswell, the base history says only the following: "The Office of Public Information was kept quite busy during the month answering inquiries on the 'flying disc', which was reported in possession of the 509th Bomb Group. The object turned out to be a radar tracking balloon."

From this gossamer summary, repeating the official singular weather balloon story by Gen. Ramey and the Pentagon, you would never know that the base commander put out the press release based on the findings of his two top intelligence officers or that matter was reported as being highly classified by Gen. Ramey himself, or that it created a huge ruckus clear up to the Pentagon and was headline news all over the country.

The 8th AAF History (Ramey’s command) mentions the incident not at all, including Ramey's critical participation in it. It does mention his chief intelligence officer, Col. Kalberer, going to the Lion's club to debunk the saucers in general. [Ramey and Kalberer were already doing this 10 days BEFORE Roswell, ridiculing the ET angle ("planes from Mars") only a few days after the Arnold sighting.]

At the Pentagon, Gen. Vandenberg's daily log says nary a word even though the newspapers reported him dropping into the press room there to direct calls to Roswell and Fort Worth and Ramey. But the log goes into great detail the previous day about Vandenberg personally dealing with much lesser reported incidents based on press rumors, but not a word about Roswell even though the base put out an official press release that they had recovered one. Going by Vandenberg's log alone, nothing happened and he was not involved, even though he obviously was.

Tim Hebert said...

Dr. Rudiak,

I've reviewed your last three post. The Los Alamos incident, Edwards AFB, etc, since I've not reviewed those particular incidents, I really have nothing to say about it.

You maybe absolutely spot on, but until I look closely at those incidents, what I say would have little value towards advancing a coherent discussion with you.

As far as the 7 points that I raised with Robert Salas' claims, all 7 merely raise questions concerning the mystery and oddity of the entire story.

Can you honestly tell me that after reading and hearing all of the statements(transcripts) that the totality of the story doesn't give, even you, some small degree of pause?

I noticed that you only addressed 1) and 3). So the wing's history concerning Echo Flight is summarizing a classified engineering evaluation report detailing every nut and bolt of the Echo incident, yet one week later all hell breaks loose at Oscar Flight (same indications?) and not one word from this engineering evaluation team(s) is mentioned in their final evaluation report? I find that rather odd, don't you?

As far as Bernard Nalty's classified history, he readily makes mention of the Echo Flight incident, yet he makes no mentioning of Oscar. Odd, wouldn't you say?

Of course, Nalty's mentioning of Echo is fine for the UFO buffs even though he is presumably providing a cover story for the Air Force because he didn't list a UFO component to the story.

But, because he fails to mention Oscar, that's to attributed to he and others being told to keep it
under wraps. Is that how you see it, Dr. Rudiak?

Of course there is the problem of at least 8 individuals topside who actually saw the UFO, so we are led to believe. What happened to them? Where are they to provide corroborating evidence to support the story.

I guess the AF and DoD shipped those poor bastards off to some gulag never to be heard again. Salas states that all were shipped off to Vietnam where all may have been KIA.

Again Dr. Rudiak, does the above make any logical sense?

You said, "You can't write the whole topic off to the imagination or stupidity of an eyewitness, as you are Salas' testimony (please don’t deny that is exactly what you are doing)

Imagination? There appears plenty of that.

Stupidity of the eye witness? No dear doctor, Salas was not an eye witness for he saw NOTHING as did Fred Meiwald saw nothing.

Tim Hebert said...

Dr. R,

Before you respond, take this into consideration: My analysis of both Malmstrom incidents is based on the VERY documents that both Hastings and Salas had used to make their case. I added nothing new to the mix.

I further relied on ALL,the very same, of the testimony, transcripts, letters, etc that both of the above gentleman had used to proffer their cases.

By all means, denigrate the use of the wing's unit history, for you equally denigrate Salas and Hastings' usage of the documents.

The only difference between me and the above two gents is that I read ALL of the unit history vs. stopping after the first 20 or 30 pages to cherry pick information that would loosely support their case.

I do look forward to discussing the validity of your survey (6 out 9 participants) concerning Ramey's memo. Inferential statistical analysis would be helpful, wouldn't it? That will have to come on a future post by Kevin.

Tim

James Kelly said...

To CDA,

According to John Burroughs,who was a main witness to the Rendlesham UFO incident the thought of the "Lighthouse Beam Theory" is laughable and made up by debunkers with an agenda.


That is what he told me several years ago. He went on to state that since many of the security police personnel who witnessed this ufo incident could easily tell the it was not caused by this favorite debunker theory floating around the UFO community.


Not my words. His.

Steve Sawyer said...

@Lance:

"I appreciated Steve Sawyer's comments on the sham hearings above."

Thanks, Lance, but I want to make it clear that I do not think the hearings were a sham. That's your characterization, not mine.

I merely pointed out some elements of the event that raised some concerns with me as to its purpose, effect, and continuity of evidence presentation.

I'd suggest that a similar kind of presentation, such as Randi's periodic CSI events would and do present similar problems, if not more, due to their own inferential and confirmation biases.

All in all, the CHB was a "noble" effort, but after all is said and done, did it change many people's minds or create a new opening into more objective MSM reporting or public change of opinion regarding UFOs? Very doubtful.

Like has been said about many such events in the past, pro or con, and even legit, real Congressional hearings, often the efforts are somewhat staged to arrive at a public conclusion that behind the scenes follows various agendas already in place, and becomes formalistic "Kabuki" rather than objective intent or effort to conduct genuine investigation.

Anthony Mugan said...

Can't help but feel that this specific case is not really a particularly useful one in terms of furthering the debate at this time. It is possible for new data to emerge on cases sometimes decades after the fact (e.g. Lakenheath 1956) and hopefully some more concrete supporting data will emerge at some point in the future.
I am aware that there is a Blue Book unknown report for the 24th March 1967 that occurred just on the edge of the Malmstrom base and was reported through its UFO officer and there is some other testimony which suggests that date, but the absence of any sign of a reaction by SAC etc does rather make me suspicious of that date.
Perhaps this should be one that remains in the 'grey file' - apparently credible but lacking in sufficient data at this time for a firm conclusion to be reached either way.

What is even more surprising is that this case should therefore be used at the hearings - although this is far from the only example of insecure evidence being used there.

others have commented above on a wide range of comparable events which form an interesting overall pattern, so I'm not going through a list of alternative cases here. Just as aside I do feel that those who argue for a debunking interpretation of Rendelsham may be on a sticky wicket (if that phrase makes sense across the Atlantic from the UK!) but that is a whole other discussion. I'll feedback at some point on the statistics of all these nuclear etc cases.

Anthony Mugan said...

Can't help but feel that this specific case is not really a particularly useful one in terms of furthering the debate at this time. It is possible for new data to emerge on cases sometimes decades after the fact (e.g. Lakenheath 1956) and hopefully some more concrete supporting data will emerge at some point in the future.
I am aware that there is a Blue Book unknown report for the 24th March 1967 that occurred just on the edge of the Malmstrom base and was reported through its UFO officer and there is some other testimony which suggests that date, but the absence of any sign of a reaction by SAC etc does rather make me suspicious of that date.
Perhaps this should be one that remains in the 'grey file' - apparently credible but lacking in sufficient data at this time for a firm conclusion to be reached either way.

What is even more surprising is that this case should therefore be used at the hearings - although this is far from the only example of insecure evidence being used there.

others have commented above on a wide range of comparable events which form an interesting overall pattern, so I'm not going through a list of alternative cases here. Just as aside I do feel that those who argue for a debunking interpretation of Rendelsham may be on a sticky wicket (if that phrase makes sense across the Atlantic from the UK!) but that is a whole other discussion. I'll feedback at some point on the statistics of all these nuclear etc cases.

Lance said...

@Steve:

Yes, I was characterizing the hearings. You didn't even get into the bottom of the barrel congressmen and senators that Bassett paid to participate: a disgraced, discredited and nutty collection of the worst in government. Bassett shows over that he doesn't care about the content. With him, it's all about the presentation: "Yes, Mister Hitler, but this not about the past...you were a head of government and we need people like yourself to initiate disclosure."

Lance

Tim Hebert said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Lance said...

Anthony writes:

"What is even more surprising is that this case should therefore be used at the hearings - although this is far from the only example of insecure evidence being used there."

You have hit upon one of the dirty secrets of UFO belief. Whenever UFO buffs collect together their "best" cases, the collection always includes a motley assortment of completely discredited, problematic or ridiculous stories. If these are the best, you can imagine the worst.

I suggest this underlines the fallacy that the UFO faithful make ad nauseum : pointing to the huge quantity of cases as being meaningful instead of the quality of those cases.

Lance

Tim Hebert said...

Anthony,

You're referencing the Belt, Mt UFO sighting by Ken Williams that occurred in the evening hours on 24 March 1967.

Williams and highway patrolman Bud Nader see this light of various descriptions supposedly land in a deep ravine (Frenchman's Coulee?).

The site was kept under surveillance thru out the night by numerous sheriff's deputies and base personnel. There was considerable news coverage which drew many civilians to join in the vigil.

By morning, a ground and air search revealed nothing. Some claimed that the landing area looked like it was disturbed.

So we had a gaggle of people keeping the sight under surveillance for 11 to 12 hours AND yet, no one saw the object/light lift back off?

As far as the ground being disturbed, reference the civilian on lookers that had gathered around the area. They could of easily been trouncing thru the area causing the "disturbance" of said landing site.

Anthony...is this not bizarre?

Tim

Anthony Mugan said...

Lance
The point is this isn't an example of the best evidence - or I wouldn't be interested in the topic.

Tim - yes - it is a bit odd. very odd that this one got through the BB filter as an unknown when others were so quickly dismissed

Steve Sawyer said...

@Lance:

"You didn't even get into the bottom of the barrel congressmen and senators that Bassett paid to participate: a disgraced, discredited and nutty collection of the worst in government."

The "worst in government," Lance?

That seems to be unwarranted hyperbole to me, frankly. And no, I didn't "go there," as it seemed both unnecessary and diversionary to my more general comments about the nature and effect of the CHB event itself.

We all know that the congresspersons selected, given their known histories, like Mike Gravel for example, were not the "best of the best."

What's more relevant is that the mock congressional "hearing," and the "witnesses" being "sworn in" prior to questioning or their presentations, was a form of theater. And, I'd add that the congresspersons being long retired, and being paid $20,000 apiece for their attendance and supposed "authority" or "objectivity" in acting in this capacity at CHB raises serious questions as to the legitimacy, purpose, and actual consequences of the event.

As I said, it was a rather "mixed bag" of somewhat exopolitical advocacy and a misguided attempt to raise the authentic issues which the UFO phenomenon, in the best cases, certainly do raise, but I think the CHB effort was a sort of misplaced grand-standing "Kabuki play" whose consequences, in terms of actually raising public and media conscious of non-advocates (whether pro or con) and serious consideration of the issues in a truly objective manner was generally unsuccessful, IMHO. Which is all it is, my opinion. YMMV, as the netkids used to say. 8^}

I would submit that your commentary, which is often ad hominem and seemingly biased toward the pseudo-skeptical side of advocacy, is also a bit... inappropriate. You would be better served and more effective, or respected, for your opinions if you resorted less often to being so negative, personal, and dismissive.

For example, where you say, "Bassett shows over that he doesn't care about the content. With him, it's all about the presentation: 'Yes, Mister Hitler, but this not about the past...you were a head of government and we need people like yourself to initiate disclosure,'" is really too much. By such a statement, you've broken the 'net etiquette' of avoiding comparisons of others' comments or endeavors as being Hitleresque or Nazistic in orientation or intent. I mean, really?

That's the kind of personally dismissive and insulting commentary that violates what is well-known on the intertubes as "Godwin's Law," which is where the first invocation in a comment thread of Hitler or Nazi's being comparable to the statements of others, without justification, is likely to bring further productive and reasonable comment to a halt, and generate unfounded controversy. I know you meant it as "a joke," but it's not very funny, considering the real historical horrors of the Nazi past in Europe.

From "Godwin's Law": ""As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches," and that "that once such a comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever debate was in progress."

Further, "It is considered poor form to raise such a comparison arbitrarily with the motive of ending the thread. There is a widely recognized corollary that any such ulterior-motive invocation of Godwin's law will be unsuccessful," and amounts to a kind of "association fallacy," or "Reductio ad Hitlerum" by making such a comment, and is often intended to divert or end the prior discussion or debate where it is made.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

Lance said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Steve Sawyer said...

"Of course when a skeptic does it amongst believers, I think the effect is multiplied in their eyes..."

Yes, I suppose that is true, given this and past lengthy debates here.
"Whose ox is gored" seems to be the trigger most often. And, to the skeptics and debunkers, the opposite is also just as true, isn't it?

And, if it's not an oxymoron to suggest, it seems we here all have a touch of the oppositional "secular religion" disorder. 8^}

"Which is, I suppose, why I see multiple examples of the same kind of stuff not written by me above that you apparently ignore."

Apparently ignore? Nope.

Re-read my first comment in this thread about this very topic:

"It's always "interesting" to see how parties in opposition here seem to resort so often to such unsubtle ad hominems and blithely talk past and over each other."

And:

I "...counsel that the heat be turned down, by both sides in this ongoing argument, in order to hopefully better facilitate a more civil and productive discussion."

Not the inclusive "both," in italics? I meant all of us here in the discussion. Not just skeptics, but "believers" as you term them, which itself is sort of a pejorative term.

I even admitted that I, too, have been guilty at times of the same kind of behavior, while attempting of late to resist that emotional urge, but that if only for the sake of Kevin's blog discussions being more civil, and thus productive, we all need to "cool our jets" when tempted to fire first and aim later.

I'm sure Kevin would appreciate that too, since then we can better stay on topic and not divert ourselves (both "sides"!!) as often as occurs here.

Unless it comes to cerrrtain people who are just... nuts. There are some whose statements, bordering on libel and containing lies, deserve to be unloaded upon... and called out for such heinous behavior. Heh! 8^}

Remember, "revenge is a dish best served cold."



Lance said...

Thanks Steve,

I deleted my post pretty quickly but not soon enough...

Your points are well taken and thoughtful.

Best,

Lance

Lance said...

P.S. Except the stuff about Godwin's Law.

Steve Sawyer said...

Returning now to topic:

@KR:

In re-reading your post about Salas, I noticed something that should be asked:

"...there were the documented events of Echo Flight which had happened just days before when all ten of their missiles did the same thing. In other words, Salas was not alone, and the other man in the capsule with him at the time, Fred Meiwald, confirmed the event.

"There was a minor discrepancy. Salas said all the missiles had gone off line but his boss, Meiwald said only four or five. In the original information, Salas, according to what he said to me, “Split the different and I said eight.” He now has said all ten were involved.

"Meiwald, interviewed by others including Robert Hastings for UFOs and Nukes, confirmed what Salas had said. The missiles had gone off-line, in essence failed."


What occurs to me here, Kevin, is whether the difference in opinion as to just precisely how many missiles at "Oscar Flight" actually did go off line, and whether that really is just a "minor discrepancy" or not.

It's one thing, with implications, for an entire 10-missile site to fail completely, like at Echo Flight, yet another for some or a partial failure to have occurred, and to then be in question between the two primary launch capsule personnel, isn't it?

Are there any online references to Miewald's testimony in this regard that you can point us to (or others here), to help clear up this somewhat significant discrepancy?

That would be most useful to know in these discussions.

The reason I note the above is that, if Miewald said only "4 or 5" missiles went offline and shutdown at the time of the alleged UFO being very close by, that might indicate a partial failure, or electrical or computer glitch of some kind, possibly.

On the other hand, if all 10 missiles at the Oscar site failed simultaneously, in the same circumstances of a UFO being near, that might suggest a more comprehensive failure, potentially caused by some kind of very strong external EM effect, such as a "UFO" (whether 'prosaic'"atmospheric plasma" or "something else" more unusual, or 'non-prosaic'). Of course, that's just speculation, without an objective or material basis.

But, the real issue in this is, if Salas claimed 8 or so missiles initially, or a partial failure, while Miewald claimed 4 or 5 had shutdown, not all of them, I don't think Salas can or should be allowed to "get away" with that kind of ambiguous comment, or to then shift his position now to all 10 missiles having failed. That's not the kind of casual "oh, well, split the difference" kind of opinion one might, in turn, have about how many bannanas in a bunch have spoiled or not. Not when it comes to nuclear missiles, that is. Salas shifting position, and numbers, especially in contrast to what Miewald has allegedly claimed, seems such that at least some question is raised at to Salas memory, objectivity, and reliability, and that the precise details, where it has been said th Devil resides, do in fact matter, IMHO.

Steve Sawyer said...

Kevin, one other point occurs to me:

Where you noted, "I suppose I could point out here that all said they had been required, at the time, to sign nondisclosure agreements. They wouldn’t reveal what they knew and would not talk to others at their bases about this. It was a way to keep the information from spreading among the missile crews," I'm wondering if anyone, like Salas, Hastings, or other missileers who had reported UFO proximity to nuke launch or other WSA/nuclear-related sites, who've said they were required to sign non-disclosure agreements to keep the incidents classified and discreet, have ever tried to obtain the records or copies of the non-disclosure agreements themselves, to better establish provenance, dating, and any mention of what they had agreed to not disclose originally, via the FOIA or an MDR, as obviously since then they have gone on the public record with their alleged experiences? Any one?

Seems an obvious vector for inquiry and to try to better authenticate what has been anecdotally claimed, does it not? If this has been tried, it would be interesting, even if not responsive or denials by the USG to requests for non-disclosure documentation has resulted, or been denied, just how and what the wording of any US government response to such FOIAs or MDRs might have been.

Of course, if "trufos" had been involved, or something which obviously would have been considered a very high-level direct national security threat or matter, the USG could always reply, "We don't know what you're talking about -- there were no such incidents, and therefore no such signed non-disclosure agreements to either confirm or deny," or words to that effect.

OTOH, I know for a fact that in some TS/SCI and/or SAP cases, the familiar "we cannot confirm or deny the existence of...." type boilerplate statements are not the limit of what the USG, in selected TS/codeword cases is apparently allowed, legally, to do:

In some cases, based on my own research about 25 years ago about a matter involving NSA cryptography, I found a much later FOIA-released document from internal previously classified NSA documentation that stated sometimes the government allows itself to not only lie outright to parties making such inquiries, but can also, if they think it required, create cover stories that not only deny such activities and documentation, but intentionally divert and direct such questions into the land of disinformation, cover-up, and blanket "non-denial" denial, as it were, despite some year or so old debate and publicity about whether the government permits itself to tell such lies and create psyop diversionay events and covers to misdirect and mislead the public and press about such extremely high-security national defense matters.

In the Obama/Justice Department debate of about a year ago, this same policy was being debated internally for the potential use of the DOJ and executive branch, but once it became known, the controversy resulted in a USG claim that, well, I guess we can't or shouldn't do that, so we won't. But, when it comes to very high-level matters within the military and civilian intelligence communities, that is not the case.

So, has anyone ever tried the FOIA/MDR/ISOO lawsuit route to try and obtain copies of such intriguing, signed, non-disclosure agreements, or not? And if not, why not?

cda said...

I am wondering if a "non-disclosure agreement" is similar to the Official Secrets Act in the UK.

What it means is that someone signs this 'agreement' (i.e. the OSA) when he/she is taken on as an employee at the place in question, or for the employer in question. This indicates that you may not disclose any information regarding your work to outsiders. It does NOT mean your work is always classified; even the office cleaners would have to sign this, in case they stumble across anything lying about.

It does not mean the work you do is necessarily classified, probably most of it won't be. But it covers anything and everything just in case.

So I am wondering if these non-disclosure agreements, if they existed, are simply a 'cover-all' and do not indicate that the event(s) in question were of a secret nature.

Steve Sawyer said...

@CDA:

"I am wondering if a "non-disclosure agreement" is similar to the Official Secrets Act in the UK."

Part 1 of 2:

No, not really -- the two are really rather different, in both use and coverage.

The Official Secrets Act [or, OSA] is a more general UK government act, or law, that seems very broad and much more general in nature and coverage, while a "non-disclosure agreements," or NDAs, are usually much more specific, and are used to protect, legally, both civil/business and government data from being disclosed under penalty of lawsuit or civil/criminal laws, and I used that term, "NDA," as a more generic term than the specific "NDA-like" government security forms that may have been required and signed by the nuclear missileers noted above.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_secrets_act [versus]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-disclosure_agreement

In broad strokes, any "NDA" signed by nuclear weapons personnel exposed to UFO incidents in conjunction with missile failures or related effects, whether military or civilian, I'm thinking, would also most probably _not_ mention the nature of the specific "UFO" incident that may have been the cause of several or all nuclear missiles shutting down as a possibly-related consequence of a nearby UFO or other potentially very strong electro-magnetic radiation [EMR] source, that may (or may not) have been able to penetrate hardened silos and affect missile activity or status/functionality.

And, it's unknown as to whether, if one or more UFO incidents involving the Echo or Oscar launch sites did happen, or elsewhere, if the proximate cause was a UFO or other form of "natural" or prosaic phenomena, like the fabled "atmospheric plasmas" of Klassian infamy, or other technical failure or "glitch" in the missile control systems due to some other kind of internal (not externally caused) failure source/cause.

Steve Sawyer said...

Part 2 of 2:

One additional question is whether any UFO effect on missiles or at other nuclear sites, like WSA's or national laboratories/test sites, etc., may have created an electrical or computer-related / triggered failure by "intent" _or_ was due to coincidental proximity, i.e., EMR source or kind of such intensity and/or type that it may have caused some partial or complete failure of missile function or "ready status." I've read somewhere that in one or more cases involving alleged nearby UFOs, that "damaged" missiles were removed from their silos and the guidance systems and/or programmed target site digital data was corrupted, and the missile(s) extracted for study and analysis. Does anyone have further, reliable data about this latter issue? if so, that makes me wonder what may have been found in subsequent analysis and technical "remedies" to preclude such effects from recurring, hopefully.

The reason I was wondering (does _anyone_ know, or have pointers to such info?) if, as noted, the missile crewman in the underground capsule or above ground military personnel who may have witnessed a nearby/close UFO were "required" to sign off on some kind of security form or the equivalent of an "NDA" of sorts, then just what do those forms include, as to names, dates, or other pertinent data to provide "provenance" about such incidents (even if, most probably, without any specific incident details included, as that would establish a "paper trail" of significance), and I thought it would be quite interesting to know if anyone who had signed such a document, like Salas, Miewald, etc., had ever tried to file an FOIA or MDR (alternate form of formally requesting disclosure of classified data, sometimes more useful or appropriate than an FOIA request) for copies of any such nuke-related UFO incident NDA, as that would provide some better documentation or circumstantial evidence, possibly, to supplement and back-up what we have so far, which is anecdotal witness reports in some cases.

Still a very relevant question and potentially important "vector" or means for finding more supportive data than just the anecdotal accounts that are so controversial, IMHO.

Pat said...

I just finished reading a salas book. I was very unimpressed. The description of his silo episode was of interest, then the book devolved into a cross between x files abduction script and a modern sheepdipped version of some America bashing "daily worker" editorial. I learned little from his book and won't buy another. America's nuclear arsenal wasn't created in a vacuum. One thing I found humorous was his claim to have resigned from the usaf over vietnam....in 1971.......seems a bit odd. By 1971, the handwriting was on the wall, and America was headed out the door..........if he had resigned in 68, or. 69.......or 66 for that matter........oh well, just my opinion