Okay,
here’s the deal. In my interview with Paul Kimball, I suggested that the Bob
Pratt interview with Jesse Marcel, Sr. was not as cut and dried as it seemed. I
suggested that there were areas of interpretation that could be altered by the
insertion or deletion of a comma. I explained what I meant by this, but
apparently that explanation wasn’t good enough or wasn’t completely understood.
Seems that some thought I was attacking Pratt’s ability as a journalist and
everyone knew how careful he was.
The
problem, I believe, is that many of those making such comments have not seen
the original transcript. Karl Pflock published it in his book, but he cleaned
it up for clarity, and I think that is where the problem lies. Karl put his
interpretation on parts of it and that might have reflected the sometimes
confusing nature of the interview.
So,
I thought I’ll publish the original interview as Pratt typed it himself.
Remember, also, that I asked Pratt about the tape from which the interview was
made, and Pratt told me that it no longer existed. Once a story was finished,
they reused the tape. Nothing nefarious here, just a bunch of people who didn’t
understand the value of taped interviews to those of us who came later. It
would have been nice to hear Jesse Marcel, Sr., say the things in the transcript
to Pratt. It might have answered a question or two.
Following
are scans of the eight pages that Pratt typed himself after the interview so
that they can be compared to Karl’s cleaned up version… and for those who can’t
understand these things, I’m not saying that Karl was engaged in anything
nefarious. He was just attempting to make it simpler for everyone to understand
the interview. These are scanned from actual copies of the Pratt interview
Marcel:
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| Page 1 |
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| Page 2 (Highlighting and underlining is Pratt's) |
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| Page 3 |
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| Page 4 (Highlighting is mine) |
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| Page 5 |
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| Page 6 |
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Page 8
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thank you, Kevin.
ReplyDeletethis is useful... while I realize that researchers understandably tend to keep their raw materials sequestered, allowing them to present an 'expert' interpretative face to the world, your offering this bit from your files is most decent of you.
Thank you, very much, Kevin, for showing this to us. Though this stuff has been bantered about for some time, certain points stand out to me:
ReplyDelete"he (Brazel) said he found something on his ranch that crashed either the day before or a dew days before (his trip to town to sell sheep, I assume-BK) and he doesn't know what it is"
So, this rancher, who had admittedly found weather devices before, didn't recognize any of this material. Skeptics have honed in on the middle-June time frame, but Marcel here says otherwise. He also mentions (later) the loud thunder clap mentioned by the "rancher," the night before.
As for the typical balloon material...Mogul or otherwise...what did Marcel say?
"...and the following morning we got up and took off. he took us to that place and we started picking up fragments, which was foreign to me. I'd never seen anything like that. I didn't know what we were picking up. I still don't know. As of this day I still don't know what it was, and I brought as much of it back to the base as I could and, well, some ingenious young GI thought he'd try to put a few pieces together and see if he could match something. I don't think he ever matched two pieces."
Couldn't even match two pieces? What about the quote from Ramey about trying to form a kite out of it?
"It was so fragmented it was strewn over a wide area, I guess maybe 3/4s of a mile long and a few hundred feet wide..."
No mention of anyone even thinking it was a weather device. The opposite is true. Though later he mentions the heiroglyphs, not one mention of "tape", flowered or otherwise.
You can see, however, other statements that could be taken out of context, purposely, to insinuate something other than what Marcel was saying. Such as, "...there was other stuff there that looked very much like parchment..." but you have to skip the very next statement: "...that again didn't burn...I was aquainted with just about every method of weather observation devices used by the military, and I couldn't recognize any of that as being weather observation devices."
As for the pilot controversy, based on this interview I could easily see, based on Marcel's constant rambling, with facts strewn together, that too much was made out of those statements by skeptics.
Thanks agin for this.
/Bob
According to this testimony, Jesse didn't see or touch the mystery material until after he had been out to Brazel's ranch. This implies that either Brazel did not bring a sample of it into town with him, or did not show it to Marcel.
ReplyDeleteSo where did the newspaper article that described the material as being a package 3 to 5 pounds, with sticks and rubber material, etc., come from?
Larry, the packages of 5 pounds of "rubber and sticks" came from Mack Brazel's interview at the Roswell Daily Record the evening of July 8, perhaps 5 or 6 hours after the base press "flying disc" release had come out and about 4 to 5 hours after Gen. Ramey began to change the story to weather balloon.
ReplyDeletewww.roswellproof.com/Brazel_interview.html
This resulted in two interview stories: the RDR and also a more widely circulated AP story written by Jason Kellahin, who had been dispatched to Roswell from Albuquerque to cover the story shortly after the press release went viral.
According to testimony from two of the reporters (one being Kellahin) and several ranch neighbors of Brazels who happened to be in town, he was accompanied by an escort of military people on his way to and from the RDR.
Because of the time elapsed after Ramey was changing the story to weather balloon, there would have been more than sufficient time to coach Brazel on what to say or even show him actual balloon debris that he was to describe.
I think it highly significant what Brazel DOESN'T describe. He denied finding a scrap of balloon rigging (no wire or string, if that is what held things up), which alone demolishes any sort of Mogul balloon theory. Nor was there any piece of equipment that might connect this with Mogul, like a sonobuoy, altitude-control ballast, reward tags, sonobuoy, etc.
Also, Brazel never described an intact balloon (only rubber pieces), also emphasized he was very familiar with weather balloons and what he found in no way resembled one, yet an intact one showed up in the FW Ramey photos. Where did it come from?
As to Brazel's tape with flower patterns, assuming this was strictly Mogul, there was plenty of time to fly in a sample from Alamogordo, if that is where it came from. (According to the AP science writer 12 days later, about 100 radar targets were sent up daily over the U.S., so these weren't nearly so rare or exclusive to Mogul as skeptics try to claim. A sample radar target could have come from anywhere, not necessarily Alamogordo.)
The fact is, there are four hi-res negatives of the radar target debris from Fort Worth and nobody has ever found the alleged flower tape on that particular radar target. Also the debris displayed by Ramey adds up to only about 1.5 pounds (single balloon and radar target), not Brazel's 5 pounds, the balloon appears intact and not Brazel's "rubber strips", so how do we know this is even what Brazel claimed he found? There are other reasons I believe the FW radar target is a new one from a box (e.g., lack of any dirt or stains on the white paper backing).
Final point, why would Marcel and Blanchard even be interested in investigating if all Brazel found is what he described in his interview? (5 pounds of rubber strips, foil and sticks he gathered into two small bundles) Why didn't he just bring such a small quantity of debris to town when he first reported it?
Obviously Brazel must have described or shown something far more interesting, including an extensive field of debris, requiring Blanchard to also order out Cavitt with Marcel to investigate in two vehicles to haul back as much debris as possible. (Hence Marcel's quote from 1947 that debris was scattered over a square mile.) This was apparently a job for the two top intel people at Roswell instead of two privates.
There was something far more peculiar than a small quantity of aged balloon debris being described by Brazel to trigger such an investigation.
Thanks for posting the original transcript - very interesting.
ReplyDeleteThe porous nature of the debris (or some element of it) is quite an interesting point that is rarely discussed.
I'm not aware of if Marcel was ever asked to clarify which elements of the debris were porous and the extent of porosity etc., but could easily have missed something. Is anyone aware of any further background on that?
(part 1 of 2)
ReplyDeleteAnthony,
Please see my collection of testimony about the debris:
www.roswellproof.com/debris2_memory_foil.htm
In Marcel's last interview in 1981 with Linda Corley, this point was brought up, when Marcel described a "metallic cloth" that was different than the other foil:
"...the material was unusual. Of course the Air Force called it a balloon. It couldn't have been. It was porous. It couldn't hold any air. The material was a fabric... I tried to blow though it. It would go right through it. I tried to blow it with my mouth." [Corley asking for clarification: "What piece? That foil looking stuff?"] "No, no. ...what looked like balloon material. A cloth. ...It wouldn't hold any air. ...it's a cloth-like material, but it was also metallic. ...It was a metallic cloth. It [air] would go right through it. I even tried to burn it. It wouldn't burn. ...a balloon has to have ...gas to go up in the air -- even hot air. This could not hold anything like that. It was porous."
A second eyewitness who described a cloth-like (by feel) metallic material was Linda Strickland Tadolini (in affidavit), who was 9 at the time:
"What Bill [Brazel Jr.] showed us was a piece of what I still think as fabric. It was something like aluminum foil, something like satin, something like well-tanned leather in its toughness, yet was not precisely like any one of those materials. While I do not recall this with certainty, I think the fabric measured about four by eight to ten inches. Its edges, where were smooth, were not exactly parallel, and its shape was roughly trapezoidal. It was about the thickness of a very fine kidskin glove leather and a dull metallic grayish silver, one side slightly darker than the other. I do not remember it having any design or embossing on it. Bill passed it around, and we all felt it. I did a lot of sewing, so the feel made a great impression on me. It felt like no fabric I have touched before or since. It was very silky or satiny, with the same texture on both sides. Yet when I crumpled it in my hands, the feel was like that you notice when you crumple a leather glove in your hand. When it was released, it sprang back into its original shape, quickly flattening out with no wrinkles. I did this several times, as did the others. I remember some of the others stretching it between their hands and "popping" it, but I do not think anyone tried to cut or tear it."
So according to this, the the metallic cloth-like material also had the infamous memory properties.
The final cloth-like eyewitness I'm familiar with was Sgt. Earl Fulford, who said he was part of one of the clean-up crews on the debris field (from 2008 interview on OpenMinds):
"We did pick up some shreds of some kind of material that was one of the most unique things I ever saw, because you could pick it up—it looked like aluminum foil—didn’t appear to have any weight whatsoever—and you could fold it up and wad it up and lay it down and it would just return to its original position. It felt more like a cloth, but it looked metallic.. It was about like bending cardboard. You bend a piece of cardboard and it might come back out a little. But this would come back in a perfect, flat position with no crease marks or no damage left whatsoever."
Lastly, indirectly through Whitley Strieber who said he interviewed Dr. Robert Sarbacher by phone shortly before his death, written down immediately afterward from memory (according to an email I had with Strieber):
"That fabric we obtained at Roswell had molecular welds so small you couldn't even identify what they were until the sixties, when the microscopes to do it became available. ...What I can be certain about is that it was not produced by any technology we were aware of in 1947, or now."
(part 2 of 2)
ReplyDeleteThe Strieber/Sarbacher quote is consistent with the history of scanning electron microscopes, not developed until the 1960s capable of producing 3D imaging of 3D metallic objects through backscattering of the electron beam, unlike earlier developed electron microscopes which are 2D electron transmission images and work only with ultrathin slices of material, generally nonmetallic.
I speculated with Larry in private email a few years ago, and on my website, that the various properties described (metallic appearance, great strength, resistance to heat, high heat transmission, memory, and porosity) could be replicated by a carbon nanotube fabric or composite of same, which of course did not exist in 1947 and exists only in labs now.
Thanks David
ReplyDeleteAnthony, David:
ReplyDeleteI started to put together a draft of a paper on the topic of "what is the Roswell memeory metal made of?" a few years ago as David alludes to, but then I unexpectedly developed some health issues that took all my spare time, for a while, so I never finished it.
Briefly, there are half a dozen or so individual properties that the witnesses described independently, that would need explaining from a materials science standpoint.
First, there is the metallic appearance. This consistent description strongly suggests that at least the outer layer of the material was metallic. All of the visual appearance properties of a metal (silvery, shiny, highly reflective, etc) derive from the fact that the valence electrons exist in a kind of "sea" surrounding the matrix of nuclei. This set of properties is hard to fake, or produce by other means, so it is probably the simplest explanation.
Second, the extreme strength described would only need to be a factor of 4 or 5 higher than materials that were common in 1947, like steel, for example, in order to create some of the reports, such as shooting it with a 30-06 bullet, and pounding it with a sledge hammer--to no effect. Materials science has known for quite some time that common alloys like carbon steels only reach perhaps 1/10 the maximum strength predicted by atomic theory. Recent progress in the manufacturing of metallic glasses, for example, are starting to approach the theoretical strength limit.
Then there is the light weight. As I recall, one witness described some pieces of the material as floating on the top of rain puddles that had collected out in the prairie. A specific gravity less than 1, would mean that the material was underdense by some means--like woven, foamed, or filled with microbubbles, etc.
I think there is a little bit of confusion as to whether the witnesses were describing one or two different materials--one being a foil and the other being a porous fabric. If the pores of a fabric were small enough, they wouldn't be noticeable by the unaided eye.
In any case, there is then the "memory" aspect of the material. Ironically, this property is the least mysterious one of the lot. ALL materials have a "memory", to some extent or another. It is called the "elastic limit" of the material. Most common metallic materials have an elastic limit of a fraction of 1%. If you stretch or compress them beyond that amount, they will permanently deform and ultimately, break. It is obvious that the memory foil/cloth simply had an unusually large elastic limit--about like rubber, for example. (You can do the experiment yourself if you can obtain a thin sheet of rubber. Crumple it up in your fist and then release it, and watch what happens).
The most mysterious property of the material that was described was its imperviousness to heat. After considering and discarding various different possible explanations, I came to the conclusion that the material was a room-temperature thermal superconductor (not to be confused with electrical superconductors).
Some of the large-scale defect-free carbon materials (e.g., Graphene) approach the strength levels required, and are much better heat conductors than, for example, Copper, but fail the tests of super elasticity, superconductivity, and metallic appearance.
Overall, my guess would be that the Roswell material is what today we woud call a metallic nanomaterial or a metamaterial. It appears to be a material that has been engineered on the atomic scale and assembled on the macroscopic scale. The only property described that we can't explain yet is the thermal superconductivity, and that may yield to spinor theory.
I find it interesting that modern materials science is approaching an understanding of how the Roswell memory metal could work, but we are not quite there yet. Everyone has been assuming that the science and technology behind UFOs is millenia ahead of us; it may have been only 100 years or so.
Larry
ReplyDeleteThank you. You've clearly been rather ahead of me on this thought process. It is very important that a hypothesis 'hangs together' from all directions that it could be considered from so I had begun to think about if the set of characteristics described worked coherently or not.
Think your paper would make a very interesting read if and when it becomes available. I'm not from a materials science background so can't offer any critique one way or the other, but it would be fascinating to see how the debate evolved.
Thanks again
Amthony
(part 1 of 2)
ReplyDeleteLarry, I concur with your conclusion that the described Roswell material properties are those of advanced nanomaterials. When I first read these Roswell material properties back in 1994, they seemed impossible. But unaware to me at the time, materials technology had already advanced to the point where lightness with great strength, memory, and heat resistance/conductivity were already theoretical possibilities if not already appearing in labs (e.g., carbon nanotubuoles were first discovered in 1991). Now we have graphene (the "chicken wire" unrolled, flat version of nanotubuoles), liquid metals, etc., all mimicking various described Roswell debris properties.
I too am no materials technology expert, but I did put together a web page noting the similarities between these modern materials and Roswell debris descriptions:
www.roswellproof.com/debris9_nanotech.html
Carbon nanotubes and graphene are not strictly superconductors but they are hyperconductors, i.e. much better conductors (i.e., very low electrical resistance) than traditional metal electrical conductors like silver, copper, or aluminum.
Low resistance and high electron mobility are also directly related to high heat conductivity. Carbon nanotubes have the highest heat conductivity of any known substance. The point here is even if not superconducting, the heat conductivity might still be high enough to replicate some anecdotal witness discriptions, such as heating with a torch but being "immediately" cool to the touch when the flame was removed. This would also make it extremely difficult to melt/cut with something like an oxyacetylene torch (more anecdotal testimony).
I also find it interesting that you can tweak the electrical properties of nanotubes by how you form the tubules. They can be highly conductive, which which case some material made with them might be a metallic, reflective silver/aluminum metal in color, or they can be made semiconductors, in which case they might have a dull grayish cast to them. Both qualities have been described by various Roswell witnesses of metallic-like materials, suggesting perhaps different varieties of such materials found, such as one kind resembling aluminum foil, but another kind resembling a "metallic fabric". It wasn't just "foil and sticks" as the skeptics constantly try to oversimplify but multiple materials perhaps made of the same basic underlying materials but with some different physical properties. Anther example is some thin metals were described as very flexible like foil or cloth whereas others as extraordinarily stiff, unable to be bent by ordinary human strength.
Skeptics also mock the idea of a spaceship made of "foil". But Larry is a NASA aerospace engineer and would probably kill to have such a material at his disposal in the design of aircraft and spacecraft. A thin, very lightweight, metallic material of tremendous strength, flexibility, and heat dispersal is absolutely IDEAL for making high speed, high-performance flying craft.
We also have anecdotal testimony or questionable documents of captured UFOs lacking any discernible power plant or energy storage, and that maybe the energy storage is built into the shell of the craft. How would that work? Well, if the energy is stored electrically (rather than being something like nuclear), the hull might be a giant supercapacitor or hypercapacitor.
Basic capacitors are usually 2 thin sheets of metallic conductor separated by an insulating dielectric. The bigger the surface, the larger the energy storage. For compactness, most capacitors are rolled up into tubes. You can get a lot of "foil" into a small area.
(2 of 2)
ReplyDeleteThus if the Roswell craft hull had a thin foil skin both for the usual reasons of putting a thin skin on an aircraft for aerodynamics and to separate inside from outside, plus for energy storage, you might expect tremendous amounts of foil-like material (also the insulating dielectric material, maybe Marcel Jr.'s "bakelite-like" material) if the craft exploded.
Another thing about capacitors is they do explode. Overload the capacitor with a voltage that exceeds the breakdown voltage of the dielectric and it explodes. Or if the dielectric has an inherent defect and the capacitor shorts out, it can again explode. I've seen both happen. A lightning strike would be one possible way to overload such an energy supply if there was some flaw in the system.
Usually lightning strikes will be conducted harmlessly through the metallic skin of an aircraft, but not always. Apollo 12, e.g., almost ended in disaster when it was hit not once, but twice, by lighting during initial takeoff. Some damage was done to electrical systems, but work-arounds were quickly figured out and the mission went on.
Larry would likely know a great deal more about the effects of lightning strikes on aircraft than I do and whether my hypothetical cause of the Roswell explosion (lighting strike overloading a supercapacitor hull) would be feasible. (Yes, even I am human and can make mistakes.)
David:
ReplyDeleteI, too made the mental connection of the thin, strong foil material to the idea of supercapacitors, pretty much for the same reasons you mention.
When a foil-type capacitor charges up, the repulsion that the different layers experience ends up as tension forces in the foil. Thus, the more force they can contain, the more energy they can store. A charged up foil capacitor is basically a coiled-up spring.
One of the factors that I have not seen discussed is the question of why, if the foil material was so strong, did it turn into smithereens (a large number of small fragments) basically, instantly? I don't think a simple mechanical collision--whether with the ground or with another airborne object would do it.
When you take a simple inflated rubber balloon at room temperature, and puncture it with a pin, it does not turn into smithereens. Usually it ends up in one or at most two, pieces. That is because the puncture propagates through the stressed skin material at the speed of sound in that material. If the speed of sound is slow, that gives the stresses in the material time to readjust themselves around the rip in a nice linear fashion and you end up with only one tear. If the speed of sound in the material increases, the disruption propagates faster than the material can respond, inertially, and you end up with a large number of small pieces. There are videos on the internet that show the difference between a balloon bursting at room temperature and one that is bursting at high altitude and very cold temperatures, where the speed of sound in rubber is much higher. The room temperature balloon ends up in one or two pieces and the ultracold balloon ends up in a thousand pieces.
The fact that there was a "debris field" says that the disruptive force proceeded through the bulk of the material at a speed much greater than the speed of sound in the material. Because, the speed of sound in a material is related to the strength of the material and the Roswell foil was very strong, we can deduce that the disruptive force propagating through it was not caused by simple mechanical strain.
This leads me to speculate that the disruptive force was propagated by a field effect. The electromagnetic field would be a good candidate. This is a long way around to agreeing with you that the disruptive event that created the smithereens was probably a lot like a capacitor blowing up.
However, there is nothing to indicate that the foil material was on the outside of the object as opposed to being blown out from inside it.
Larry, and David:
ReplyDeleteCouldn't the descriptions of the parchment-like material also play into the capacitor theory, i.e., the insulator?
/Bob
A very interesting set of observations. Can I ask a question in a sort of 'devil's advocate' role?
ReplyDeleteTo what extent could someone reasonably well read in the relevant areas of research in, say, 1979 or the early 80's been aware of the possibility of this type of material?
Some memory materials have been around since the 60's if I understand it correctly, but some of this sounds too recent to have been ideas in circulation at the time of the various early interviews, but as I'm no expert on this side of things I thought I'd ask...
It is too early to draw this connection in anything other than a very tentative way... As I was reading the comments about capacitors I was reminded of the experiment Dr White is putting together at JPL...
ReplyDeleteNow that would be just too much of a coincidence if it pans out, but extreme caution is required as in many ways that experiment is as much a test of somewhat speculative theoretical models as anything. Interesting though....and no results yet
Anthony Mugan wrote:
ReplyDeleteTo what extent could someone reasonably well read in the relevant areas of research in, say, 1979 or the early 80's been aware of the possibility of this type of material?
Some memory materials have been around since the 60's if I understand it correctly, but some of this sounds too recent to have been ideas in circulation at the time of the various early interviews...
Nitinol, or nickel/titanium alloy, is the first memory metal of note. The apochryphal story is the alloy was originally developed for corrosion resistance and the large memory property was noticed by the Navy around 1960. I happen to know slightly one of the experts on nitinol, Ridgeway Banks, and he was developing low temperature difference heat engines with nitinol in the early 1970s at Lawrence Berkeley Lab (he's still at it).
Nitinol does have a lot of strength and flexibility, but if you flex it enough it will still develop creases. Last year at the Roswell museum, Frank Kimbler showed us a 3"x3" thin sheet of nitinol that he had crumpled up hundreds of times and it still sprang back to almost flatness, but not perfect flatness anymore. There were some minor creases in it.
Also heat nitinol too much and it loses its memory properties.
The more modern supermaterials like nanotubes, graphene, and so-called liquid metals I think are closer to what witnesses described early on in terms of high strength, hardness, memory, resistance to heat, and lightness in weight (for nanotubes/graphene). The first of these weren't developed until the the early 1990s, well after the first eyewitness descriptions.
It was the uniformity of such early descriptions of extraordinary properties that got me interested in the Roswell case to begin with and made me think there was something to it. I was particularly struck by the consistency of such testimony between Marcel Sr. and Brazel Jr. These men never knew one another yet gave virtually identical testimony about debris properties, debris field extent, and Brazel Sr. finding the debris after hearing a tremendous explosion.
(In all the character attacks on Marcel Sr. by debunkers, you rarely hear them talk about how Marcel's story was completely backed up by other very credible witnesses like Brazel Jr. or Gen.'s Dubose and Exon. They try to make Roswell into a single witness case and then trash the man to discredit the whole case.)
I am also struck that Marcel was already being quoted in 1947 about the huge extent of the debris field--a square mile. (This is completely counter to another debunker canard that the large debris field was invented only in modern times.)
A supercapacitor built into the hull of a craft that exploded when the capacitor overloaded would scatter shattered foil plates far and wide.
I once overloaded a small capacitor in a lab and had it explode, with the the many pieces of "foil" (more likely aluminized mylar) scattering over about a 20 square foot area. The capacitor was at most only about 2 cm long and 1 cm wide, yet created a huge "debris field" compared to its size when it exploded.
The extent of scatter would also depend on the height of the object when it exploded and its speed. The main, densest part of the debris field described by Marcel and Brazel Jr. was linear, about 200-300 ft. wide and 1/4 mile (Brazel) to 3/4 miles long (Marcel), but minor deposits of debris could extend well beyond this and account for the "square mile" description. Marcel said he concluded from the linearity of the main debris field that the object had been traveling at high speed when it exploded or came apart in the air.
Bob Koford wrote:
ReplyDeleteCouldn't the descriptions of the parchment-like material also play into the capacitor theory, i.e., the insulator?
It certainly might, though Marcel also mentioned "hieroglyphics" on the parchment-like material he found.
The other likely candidate would be the blackish and somewhat brittle bakelite-like material described by Marcel Jr.
Of course, we are all speculating here about the function of these described materials.
Thanks David.
ReplyDeleteYes, but speculation isn't bad to begin the process, as long as we know thats what is going on ;)
Also, I blew up capacitors in electronics class, and the smell was very distinct, and it lingered. I recall my instructor being upset, because he didn't like the smell. Did anyone ever mention a smell, associated with the material itself?
Bob,
ReplyDeleteI once Jesse Marcel Jr. the question about smell and he didn't recall any smell at all to the debris. No other debris field witness or anyone seeing or handling debris in Roswell mentioned anything either. Usually very unpleasant smells linger in the mind. (This includes the horrible body smells mentioned by a few witnesses.)
The only report of debris smell that I'm aware of was reporter/photographer J. Bond Johnson in Fort Worth when he entered Ramey's office and noted the somewhat acrid smell of the decaying neoprene weather balloon. That lingered in his memory.
But, of course, I don't think that was what was recovered at Brazel's place. In fact smell in FW and no smell mentioned by multiple witnesses at Roswell is one tiny bit of evidence AGAINST the balloon being the real Roswell debris.
Smell in a blown capacitor would be something electrically burned when it shorted out, usually the dielectric or casing, which are often plastic.
Part 1
ReplyDeleteBob wrote:
“Couldn't the descriptions of the parchment-like material also play into the capacitor theory, i.e., the insulator?”
Possibly; I agree with David. That idea is speculation but worth filing in the memory banks for future reference.
Anthony asked:
“To what extent could someone reasonably well read in the relevant areas of research in, say, 1979 or the early 80's been aware of the possibility of this type of material?”
A simple question with a complicated answer; it depends on what you mean by “reasonably well read “ and “the possibility of this type of material”.
In 1947, all metallic materials that any of the Roswell witnesses would have come in contact with before July of that year would have been produced in the same way they were produced since the time homo sapiens gave up rocks in favor of bronze tools. You start with a mass of the metal you want to use, which has been acquired by heating the metal to its melting point and then allowing it to run into some kind of heat resistant container, where it cools into a solid. You can then either re-melt it and pour it into a more useful shape, or pound it into some useful shape, like an axe, a shovel, a pocketknife blade, a piece of barbed wire, etc.
There are a number of characteristics that all of these first-generation metals have in common. First, they are predominantly (but not always) pure—typically around 90+% a single species of atom (say, iron). This means that the atom-to-atom bonds are predominantly of a single length and therefore of a uniform strength. Because of this, these first generation metals form crystals of a characteristic shape and size when the metal is allowed to cool naturally. When cooling into solidity, nuclei of crystallization form spontaneously all throughout the melt and become the centers of formation of a microscopic crystalline “grain”. Because the crystal grains are oriented randomly, they grow until their boundaries touch. The chaotic boundaries between grains are the weakest points in the body of a normal metal and are usually where it fails, when the metal is stressed beyond its yield point. This picture leads to the model I mentioned above, in which a metal is envisioned as a group of nuclei held in a crystalline lattice and surrounded by a sea of valence electrons which make the metal a good conductor of heat and electricity, a good reflector of light, etc. In 1947 and up to this day, it is common for an undergraduate education in, say, engineering, to include a description of the macroscopic properties of metallic materials (a so-called Strength of Materials course, but it would be unusual for anyone short of a graduate student in Physics to have much education in the origins of those properties, at the atomic level.
Part 2
ReplyDeleteBy about 1950, there was a small group at Cal Tech working on the theory and practice of making amorphous metals (sometimes referred to as glassy metals). The theory is that if you take a mixture of different metal atoms in the molten state and cool it fast enough, the atoms will not have time to arrange themselves into nice, orderly crystals; the atoms will be frozen into a chaotic, random pattern more characteristic of a liquid. In chaotic mixtures, it is possible for any average atom to be connected to more nearby atoms than if it were in an orderly crystal. This higher level of connectedness can make the bulk strength of the material greater than in a crystal, and it also can eliminate the grain boundaries that are often the source of failure in natural metals. One way of achieving this is to create a mixture of metal atoms of different sizes. Imagine a cardboard box, 24 inches on a side, and filled with Styrofoam balls, each of which is 4 inches in diameter. If you jiggle the box around a little, you would end up with the bottom of the box covered with a 6 by 6 array of Styrofoam balls, another identical layer of 12 balls on top of that, and so on, up to the rim of the box. That would be analogous to a pure crystal. Now imagine that you had a mixture of some balls 4 inches in diameter, some 2 inches, some 1 inch, and some ½ inch in diameter. Jiggle them around and you end up with an amorphous mixture in which each ball is touching a greater number of balls than if it were a crystal. This idea is the basis for the materials that are being produced by the LiquidMetal Technologies group—essentially an outgrowth of Prof. William Johnson and all his graduate students. Their first successful products didn’t start appearing in the open until the early 2000’s. Back around 1980, this was an unexplored avenue of research.
Also in the early 1950’s, Nitinol was discovered as a fortuitous outcome of the US military investment in Titanium alloy research (as Tony Bragalia has researched). The unusual properties of Nitinol result from a completely different physical principle. As I said, in the standard model of metals, 1 atom resides at each node in a crystalline array and the valence electrons form a kind of sea around the lattice. In Nitinol, it is not individual atoms, but pairs of Titanium and Nickel atoms that define the crystalline structure. That’s why it wasn’t discovered until the researchers who were determining the mutual solubility of Titanium and Nickel reached the 50-50 proportions. Nitinol is an interesting alloy, but it doesn’t really display any characteristics reported by the Roswell witnesses. It’s so-called shape memory is actually a thermally triggered phase change. All the Roswell witnesses reported simple superelasticity, at strain rates approaching 100%. Nitinol is one example of the class of materials known as intermetallics and includes such materials as Titanium Aluminide. Like the field of glassy metals, some of the theory behind intermetallics was understood in 1980 by specialists, but industrially producible quantities of the stuff did not appear until the late 1980s, as I recall.
Part 3
ReplyDeleteExtending this idea further, Daniel Shechtman, from Israel, won the Nobel prize in 2011 for discovery of a category of metals that are intermediate between fully crystalline and fully amorphous metals—known as quasicrystals. Shechtman presented this theory to his boss in 1982 and was promptly considered to be totally crackpot.
To summarize: from the stone age until approximately the end of WWII, humans used metals in substantially the form that Mother Nature provided them. Since that time, we have been endeavoring with relatively consistent success, to engineer metals with combinations of properties that are not observed in nature. These properties include greater strength-to-weight ratio, surface hardness, superelasticity, resistance to fatigue, thermal conductivity, and tailored interaction with electromagnetic radiation (nanomaterials). The key to this process is to be able to design the identity of an atom’s nearest neighbor atoms out to increasingly greater distances and then manufacture that design in macroscopic quantities. Imagine a 3-D printer at the atomic scale turning out nano-scale engineered material by the square meter. We have been making progress on both those fronts but, I would argue, do not yet know (at least in the unclassified literature) what the atom-by-atom blueprint would be for the Roswell memory foil nor how to produce it on a large scale.
However, in my opinion, the probability of a reasonably well read individual in 1980 inventing the (fictitious) properties of the “Roswell memory foil” based on an understanding and prediction of the progress we would make in materials science in the ensuing 30 years is practically negligible.
Thanks Larry and David. Good stuff. :)
ReplyDeleteThanks again all.
ReplyDeleteJust to continue the 'devil's advocate' role (as this sounds like it could be significant, and so worth probing)...
ReplyDeleteI wonder if any experts on sci-fi literature out there may be able to moment on if anything like this debris appeared in print prior to 1979?
Overall though this is sounding like it is unlikely to be a coincidence
Or even comment on... Don't you just love predictive text!
ReplyDeleteAnthony asked:
ReplyDelete"I wonder if any experts on sci-fi literature out there may be able to comment on if anything like this debris appeared in print prior to 1979?"
Back in the early to mid 1950s some of the mainstream sci-fi movies seemed to be consciously incorporating parts of what I guess today some would call the "flying saucer meme". For example, Klaatu arrived in a flying saucer in "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951), the United Planet Cruiser in "Forbidden Planet" (1956) was clearly a flying saucer.
One of my favorites, however, was "This Island Earth" (1955). In that film, the aliens sent some materials as a kind of intelligence test to the hero (a combination nuclear physicist, rocket scientist, and pilot--a man after my own heart). One piece of material was (as I recall) a super hard plastic that would break diamond drills, etc.
To pursue the psycho-social explanation for a moment, I suppose it would be natural for someone making up a myth about flying saucers and their inhabitants to attribute super powers (or at least advanced science and technology) to them. So, I can see how super hardness and strength could be made up, but super-elasticity seems counterintuitive.
I know of a few instances of super hardness and strength in the sci-fi genre (including Forbidden Planet), but the superelasticity/memory property does not show up to my knowledge. Another oft-mentioned characteristic of Roswell debris was its unusual lightness even for the metallic-like material, again not a theme I'm familiar with from sci-fi.
ReplyDeleteIn the pre-modern-Roswell era, other crashed saucer tales also sometimes mention unusual strong, hard metals. (See my compilation of post 1947 Roswell/Roswell-like mentions: www.roswellproof.com/post-1947-Roswell-references.html)
Shadowy British author Bernard Newman at the end of 1947 wrote a crashed "saucer" book (the first) with many elements of Roswell, MJ-12, and conspiracies to fool everyone into thinking we were being invaded. The faked crashed spacecraft (one in New Mexico) had unknown, exotic, superhard metals extremely difficult to cut through and thin metal sheets on the insides with "hieroglyphics" that needed to be decrypted. So was this just Newman's imagination at work or did he hear something through his connections to British intelligence?
Frank Scully's 1950 "Behind the Flying Saucers" was even more similar. Scully wrote about the exterior shells of the saucers being made of superhard, superstrong metal resembling aluminum that couldn’t be bent and couldn’t be cut through with diamond drills or acetylene torches. Inside was parchment-like material with hieroglyphics.
1950 was also the Wilbert Smith memo based largely on information from Dr. Robert Sarbacher. Smith's memos don't mention material properties, but Sarbacher contacted by William Steinman in 1983 wrote that based on the "official reports" he read "certain materials reported to have come from flying saucer crashes were extremely light and extremely tough."
In an interview from 1961, Smith stated he had been allowed to analyze some crash debris and it differed primarily in being much harder than our materials.
David:
ReplyDeleteI'm assuming that your reference to super strong, super hard metal in Forbidden Planet was the so-called "Krell Metal"--a technological product of the super race of Krell, who had supposedly created all the wonders that the humans discovered on Altair 4.
I remember the Krell Metal as being famously resistant to high temperatures such as blasts from disintegrator ray guns. In that regard, I guess Krell Metal could be considered a precursor to the Roswell foil, in that several different individuals reported doing the experiment of exposing it to open flames of different intensity. At least one was supposedly an OxyAcetylene torch.
As I mentioned above, that is the one property of the memory foil that modern materials science can not yet explain. Actually, I think it is pretty easy to describe WHAT is happening but not HOW it is being achieved.
The various reports are that not only did the material not melt, it did not even glow or feel warm to the touch afterward. Without getting into the detailed Physics of the situation, what this means is that some process was transporting the heat from the torch flame away from its point of contact with the foil as fast as it was being put in by the torch.
I did a calculation some time ago to see whether the best thermal conductor we know of (Graphene) could conduct the heat away from an OxyAcetylene flame fast enough to keep the surface of the foil below the temperature where it would start to glow red (around 500 C, as I recall). The answer is no; it misses by several orders of magnitude. For all practical purposes, the material would have to have been a thermal superconductor. A thermal superconductor would act in such a way as to keep all points on the surface of the foil at the same temperature and eliminate hot spots. In such a case, applying a heat source to one location would raise the temperature of the entire piece of foil up at the same time. Simultaneously, the surrounding air would have been dissipating the applied heat.
I have been unable to find any modern theory of how to create a room-temperature thermal superconductor. My conjecture would be that if such a thing is possible, it would necessarily involve the sea of valence electrons acting as a single, macroscopic quantum state--much like a macroscopic volume of superfluid Helium being able to crawl out of a dewar. This would be another indication that the material properties were engineered down at the atom-to-atom level, but on a macroscopic scale.
I wanted to point Newmann's book when a replier of this blog asked if they are S.F precursors of what Roswell witnesses described.
ReplyDeleteI hesitated, cause Doctor es CosmicGate, Doctor Rudiak will have a reflex as conspiracist to point it is part of the true concerning Roswell, despite the question was if or not there are precursors in the S.F....
Rudiak did it, above!
With Rudiak, Jesse Marcel Junior was send in Irak cause Roswell.
That's ufology!
Gilles.
Yet another instance of being called a "conspiracist". CDA does it all the time too. I guess that just makes you debunking guys feel better. (Grrr, that Rudiak makes me so mad! Out, out damn conspiracist!)
ReplyDeleteOf course Gilles and CDA also believe in a conspiracy of researchers manipulating Roswell witnesses into only thinking an ET event happened in 1947. All witnesses are so gullible and feeble-minded they are incapable of remembering anything on their own and easy prey for unscrupulous researchers with Rasputin-like powers of persuasion.
Gilles and CDA also seem to be big believers in "witness contamination", which basically means all witnesses are wittingly or unwittingly making each other believe the same ET-conspiracy stories. This vast conspiracy now extends to hundreds and hundreds of interviewed witnesses, who if they claim to know anything at all first or second hand, it always points to the crashed spaceship conclusion rather than a balloon.
And since the debunkers know with absolute certainty (debunkers also seem to have amazing remote viewing abilities such that they always know better than people who were actually there), that an alien spaceship couldn't possibly reach Earth much less crash, than the unanimity of testimony must be due to a great conspiracy.
But only "believers" are "conspiracists".
Of course, I was already being relentlessly labeled a "conspiracist" for having the gall to believe that Roswell was covered up. That also makes Kevin a "conspiracist" for believing the same, Stan Friedman (of course), and anybody else. Apparently GAO investigators for Congressman Schiff were also "conspiracists" when they told columnist Jack Anderson that the USAF was being dishonest with them and still covering up something, and Schiff I guess was too when he said the USAF gave him the runaround.
Honestly, I don't believe CDA and Gilles are gummint disinformation agents and part of the great cover-up, if I was really into conspiracy theories. Instead I think they suffer from psychological denial (or the will to disbelieve anything that makes one a little uncomfortable), inability to think critically, and general cluelessness. Also throw in a pinch of arrogance now and then that they are superior to the "believers" and all-knowing of what MUST have happened. (Again, those remote-viewing super powers are very handy.) In other words, common human frailties.
Now guys, would you believe that the NSA has cracked just about all Net encryption schemes and can read just about anything, including everybody's email? A few months ago, anybody telling you that would have been labeled a crackpot, a paranoid, and a "conspiracist". But since the revelations rolling out of the Edward Snowden scandal, it is now conventional wisdom instead of wacko stuff. That's how quickly an alleged conspiracy theory can flip over into being the truth. Also happened with such things as post WWII illegal government radiation experiments on civilians, finally admitted to in the 1990s.
In the meantime, we were having an interesting discussion about the Roswell debris based in actual science. I know this makes Gilles feel intellectual inferior because his specialty is the squishy, psycho-sociological sciences, where it is possible to dismiss anything with psychobabble theories and epithets like "conspiracist".
DR wrote
ReplyDelete"But only "believers" are "conspiracists"."
I don't understand why you (DR) give the "debunkers" the courtesy of a reply...
Silence on your part does not mean "admission to random accusations".
David, your conclusion of the Roswell incident is not the same as mine - I am skeptical... but I have no logical explanation for what happened in July of 1947.
I enjoy reading most of what people have to say on this blog, but don't let the ridiculous comments of the debunkers get you down...
Regards
Nitram
Metamaterials seem to be a field that is moving fast so this question of combining thermal superconductivity into the mix of properties could provide, in effect, a prediction that could in time provide a test.
ReplyDeleteThis definitely isn't my area, so hesitate to refer to these papers as I can't judge the extent to which these are nonsense or not applicable - both are available on the arXiv...
Beyond Stefan-Boltzmann Law: Thermal Hyper-Conductivity
Authors: Evgenii E. Narimanov, Igor I. Smolyaninov
Abstract: We demonstrate that the broadband divergence of the photonic density of states in hyperbolic metamaterials leads to giant increase in radiative heat transfer, beyond the limit set by the Stefan-Boltzmann law. The resulting radiative thermal "hyper-conductivity" may approach or even exceed heat conductivity via electrons and phonons in regular solids.
arXiv:1109.5444v1
Evidence for hyperconductivity and thermal superconductivity
Authors: V.A.Vdovenkov
Abstract: Physical explanation of hyperconductivity and thermal superconductivity existence is done in given article on the basis of inherent atomic nuclei oscillations in atoms of materials which are connected with electrons and phonons and in accordance with the well known Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer superconductivity theory.
It is shown that hyperconductivity is the self-supporting, independent physical phenomenon which is caused by oscillations of atomic nuclei in atoms of materials and the minimal temperature of its existence does not reach absolute zero temperature. Hyperconductivity represents the typical dynamic condition of a material with zero electrical and zero thermal resistances.
arXiv:0801.4212v1
In relation to the actual topic,
ReplyDeleteIt's too bad that Marcel isn't around to help you guys build your fantasy saucer.
He could have put his fantasy degree to good use.
Lance
Anthony:
ReplyDeleteGood catch. I will read those papers and digest them. (I learn something new every day!)
Generally speaking, there are two conventional mechanisms for transfer of heat (kinetic energy) through a material. One is via electron-electron collisions and the other is via vibrations propagating through the fixed lattice of nuclei (phonons). The material with the highest known thermal conductivity, Graphene, achieves it's high conductivity via phonons by having an extremely regular crystal lattice that extends over macroscopic scales. It's high degree of regularity eliminates defects which tend to scatter phonons and contribute to resistance to heat flow.
Because electrons are also very mobile charge carriers, electron-electron collisions can also serve to carry current. For that reason, one would expect thermal superconductivity and electrical superconductivity to be linked in the case of electron-electron collisions, but not in the case of phonons.
I have privately speculated about another method for anomalously high heat transfer and discussed it with some of my physicist friends, and that method would be if nanostructures in the material can somehow function as resonant cavities for radiation (let's say in the IR portion of the spectrum). In that model, localized application of heat somehow excites the cavities and they exchange energy with each other via electromagnetic radiation. All the resonant cavities would come into equilibrium with each other with signals travelling at the speed of light. I say "somehow" because I couldn't figure out how to turn high-entropy heat energy into low-entropy electromagnetic energy. It looks like these two Russians have figured out a way.
Lance -
ReplyDeleteToo bad Moore isn't around to answer your questions.
He could have used his fantasy of Flight No. 4 to explain everything.
Kevin,
ReplyDeleteI know you can't understand the difference. But Moore ALWAYS said that his interpretation about Flight 4 was just that. I know you guys have built up a whole conspiracy firewall (no night flights were possible, [except for one which you guys somehow rationalize LOL], etc. etc.). All of the stuff you present as fact in regards to flight 4 is actually just supposition. You can't understand that, I realize.
On the other hand you forgive Marcel for obvious confabulation about his war record and his education.
I know why you do that but surely you understand that other people can see why as well. Even though you get reinforcement from the nutty conspiracy theorists here, in the real world, with normal people, this tapestry of supposition doesn't hold much weight.
Lance
David,
ReplyDeleteI think it is laughable to defend yourself that you are not a conspiracist when finaly, your site, is defending cover-up etc about Roswell, as your comments in Kevin's blog.
Recently, you defended Jesse Marcel was sent in Irak due to Roswell.
I know that my English is bad, but conspiracist = One holding a conspiracy theory.
Conspiracy = a secret plan or agreement to carry out an illegal or harmful act, esp with political motivation.
Or the act of making such plans in secret.
For the rest, I'm sure if we give in your hands an agenda or diary journal of a General, a Gouvernor, or dunno who, you are abble to make a part 4 or 250 texts in this blog to demonstrate it is Roswell linked... !!
As I commented in other medias, I think you are the best Texas sharpshooter I have ever meet in Ufology.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_sharpshooter_fallacy
Regards,
Gilles
Dr Kevin Randle wrote:
ReplyDelete"Lance -
Too bad Moore isn't around to answer your questions.
He could have used his fantasy of Flight No. 4 to explain everything."
Kevin, your comment is off topic and not related to your post...
And on a serious note as per my earlier post
"I enjoy reading most of what people have to say on this blog, but don't let the ridiculous comments of the debunkers get you down..."
Best wishes
Nitram
Lance wrote (1 of 2):
ReplyDelete"On the other hand you forgive Marcel for obvious confabulation about his war record and his education."
Let's just deal with the war record here since Lance is arguing from ignorance. What “confabulations” about his war record? I have Marcel's reconstructed military file (the original presumably burning in the 1973 St. Louis fire) and there are no clear “confabulations” in there between what Marcel remembered decades later and his INCOMPLETE (many gaps) reconstructed record. Instead the surviving record almost 100% supports Marcel's memory of it.
All attacks on Marcel stem from Todd’s original hit piece on him, endlessly recycled by ignorant skeptics like Lance. But what Todd really did was deliberately and grossly misrepresent Marcel's printed record plus make accusations of lying based on nothing more than Todd's psychic abilities to know exactly what happened to Marcel decades in the past.
Unlike Lance, I will deal with a few specific examples to make the point:
TODD: Marcel lied about having pre-war flying experience because he never mentioned it in his Air Force Reserve applications. He ridicules him for writing in his hobbies and sports activities.
FACT: What Todd deliberately hides is that the application specifically asked for such trivial activities like hobbies, which is why Marcel put them down. Furthermore in the form Todd refers to, it asked strictly for civilian job titles and descriptions (devoting only one line for each with no room to elaborate on what might be involved in the job), but did NOT ask for any military much less piloting experience (even though Marcel had been in the National Guard since 1928). That’s just the way the form was constructed, whether it makes sense or not. Marcel filled out the form exactly as written, nothing more and nothing less.
CONCLUSION: Todd grossly distorted the actual make-up of the document. Flagrant lying by omission and commission by Todd, plus the usual debunker ridicule.
TODD: Marcel didn't list any civilian piloting experience on any of his military forms.
FACT: Again Todd doesn’t tell you is that the forms he refers to ask specifically for MILITARY flight training and ratings, not civilian. Unless personnel have military aviation ratings, they necessarily must leave this blank, even if they had civilian aviation experience. Furthermore, Marcel never claimed to have official pilot training or rating in the Air Force. He did, however, fly extensively in the A.F. as part of his job as intelligence officer, such as on combat bombing missions during WWII.
Marcel also said in the Pratt interview that his regular job in the South Pacific "WAS" combat intelligence officer of the bomb wing (100% FACT), but he also sometimes acted "AS" a pilot, navigator, and gunner on combat bombing missions. (Never said he "was" or was rated on any of those things.) His two recorded air medals in the file document that he did indeed go on numerous bombing missions over a at least a ten month period. Crew often assume other non-rated duties, as Kevin can tell you from experience. E.g., acting as a navigator or copilot at times would have been consistent with Marcel's duties (for which he was awarded the Bronze Star) of teaching inexperienced new flight crews how to fly combat over the South Pacific, where you can easily get disoriented with lack of landmarks. Marcel's expertise was in reading the land from the air (actually taught the subject for over a year when he graduated from intel school).
CONCLUSION: Todd again misrepresented forms and his accusations of lying by Marcel about possibly piloting at times during combat missions are pure conjecture (not fact), while Marcel actually doing this is neither refuted nor supported by the record, though not implausible in war time given what real military people do in real combat situations.
Response Lance (2 of 2)
ReplyDeleteTODD: Marcel (Pratt interview) said he entered service in Washington D.C. and briefly worked as an aide to Gen. Hap Arnold (head of the Army Air Force). "He" (Arnold?) then recommended Marcel attend air intelligence school in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Todd claims the recommendation to attend intelligence school came from others before Marcel entered the service and Marcel was always at Harrisburg, not in Washington. Therefore Marcel lied about being an aide to Arnold and suffered from "delusions of grandeur."
FACT: Marcel's record clearly indicated that he entered active duty in Washington, just like he said, and was assigned to Air Corp, Army Air Force while there. Further (2 documents), it was initially recommended that he attend the intel school at nearby College Park, Maryland, not Penn., all critical facts that Todd omitted from the very documents he used to attack Marcel.
Marcel's record is completely blank as to what he was initially doing in Washington, or when and upon whose recommendation that he was subsequently transferred to Harrisburg. A later service summary does state that he was given the job designation "Air Intelligence Officer (Combat)" only one week after his arrival in Washington, and "Photo Interpreter" a month later, long before he even graduated from intel school, perhaps suggesting he had some other assignment.
Marcel's record also clearly indicates that he was actively sought by AAF intelligence because of his civilian aerial cartography skills, which might very well have been put to good use by Gen. Arnold's staff. E.g., we know historically of Arnold's interest in improved photoreconnaissance and mapmaking with which to fight the war. Among other things, he assigned Gen. George Cabell, the future A.F. intelligence chief, to be part of his brain trust in early 1942 (just before Marcel arrived) after Cabell had spent a year studying British photo-reconnaissance techniques. It is very conceivable that Marcel could have been briefly involved with this because of his own expertise along these lines.
CONCLUSION: More deliberate omissions of corroborating evidence and flagrant lying by Todd along with accusations of lying by Marcel based on a complete absence of evidence to support them. Everything that IS in the surviving record currently supports Marcel (such as first being assigned to intelligence in Washington). Kevin can also tell you he briefly worked as a general’s aide, but this isn’t in his record either.
I could go on for some time about all the completely baseless, trumped-up accusations by Todd against Marcel, but that gives you a rough idea. No doubt, Lance believes every one of them with no attempt to vet any of them on his own.
So who is the more credible: a man like Marcel who held jobs of high responsibility in the military, just about all of what he said about himself decades later from memory corresponded to what is there in the surviving file with no clear contradictions.
Or do you believe Todd, a demonstrable liar when it came to misrepresenting Marcel's record, and with a pathological hatred of the Marcel's and all-things Roswell? (I haven’t begun to scratch the surface of the incredibly vile things Todd has written about both Marcel’s, such as calling Marcel Jr. a “girl”, a “fairy”, a “con-man”, etc. Homosexual slurs were an MO with Todd, a man with no job living with his parents.)
It is also notable for what Marcel’s record does NOT say. No place post-Roswell is there any indication that he bungled anything. Instead officers in-the-know about Roswell (Blanchard, Dubose, Ramey) boosted his performance ratings, and gave him high praise and recommendations for promotion and command officer training. He was recommissioned (not thrown out) and transferred to higher intelligence work in Washington for the SAC and the AF Special Weapons Group for Atomic Testing where he was in charge of briefings and listed as an "assistant for atomic energy".
Lance -
ReplyDeleteI know that you are so wrapped up in your opinions, that you can't seem to understand that Moore's claims about Flight No. 4 are all confabulation. There would have been no need to launch in the middle of the night (2:30 in the morning of June 4) because the Flight had yet to be cancelled. Flight No. 4 was scheduled for just after dawn, as all these flights were until they changed the struture of them significantly reducing the size (get it, they reduced the size, changing the nature of the flights and the need to launch only in daylight hours).
There was no Flight No. 4. It was cancelled. The cluster of balloons with a sonobuoy was something else, launched later in the day, after the front had passed through... because of that front, Moore had to change the time to make his intepretation work. Yet you cling to this nonsense as if it would explain the debris. As I have said, repeatedly, apparently to no avail, is that the elimination of Flight No. 4 does not mean that what fell was alien, only that it is not explained by Mogul.
Larry
ReplyDeleteHope you don 't think I was trying to catch you out....? Our earlier conversation had prompted a memory of a recent article on someone who has created a room temperature BEC and in hunting for that ( probably not actually relevant ?) I stumbled accross those papers.
Hopefully the catch you refer to has a different implication in US than UK English...? Suspect you may well be on to something with your analysis of the debris and very much appreciate your expert comment
Anthony:
ReplyDeleteNo, I was being sincere. I have been trying for some time to find out what the current state of theory is on thermal superconductivity. There are a huge number of publications on electrical superconductivity, but I couldn't find anyone to point me in the right direction on thermal superconductivity.
DR mentions Sarbacher a while back. So Whitley Strieber spoke to Sarbacher on the phone shortly before the latter's death and learned about the Roswell material.
ReplyDeleteSarbacher must have spoken to, and did speak to, literally dozens of people post-1980 about crashed saucers as a result of the publication of Wilbert Smith's handwritten notes, first made public c. 1980. This includes Friedman, Steinman, Jerry Clark and others, plus a mystery conspiracy-minded Brit called 'Armen Victorian' (who was once 'done' for smuggling wild orchids into the UK!).
There is no evidence that Sarbacher had ever heard of Roswell until then, let alone taken part in analysing the 'metal'. He had picked up things from books and post-1980 conversations. He also remembered the Scully story. Moreover, Sarbacher referred to the ETs as "insect-like" in his 1983 letter to Steinman! (NO I am NOT kidding).
Any why should Sarbacher have been let in on this great secret anyway? Did he have a 'need to know'? He specifically told Steinman in a letter (now widely circulated) in Nov 1983 that he knew nothing first-hand. It all came from other alleged scientists, whose names had been suggested by Steinman beforehand.
So forget about Sarbacher's evidence to Strieber. It doesn't advance the ET case one iota.
Also, I doubt that DR seriously supposes that Marcel jr was sent to Iraq because of his (Marcel's) knowledge of Roswell. DR only put this forward as a possibility. Some 'possibility'! On the other hand, if he wishes not to be considered a conspiracist, I suggest he avoids putting out such lunatic ideas in future, even as a 'possibility'.
One day, when I have nothing better to do, I am going to compile a list of those umpteen scientists, military personnel of all ranks, and even civilians, who supposedly knew the great Roswell secret and either told others about it (when they should have kept their mouths shut), or took the secret to their graves.
ReplyDeleteThe list gets so large that one wonders...
But, as I say, this can only be done when I have nothing better to spend my time on.
Would anyone else like to take on this arduous task?
CDA -
ReplyDeleteI would have thought that you would know this. Strieber reported in Communion (1987) that Sarbacher had "died a few days before I became aware of his letter..." (That is, William Steinman's letter from Sarbacher.) Stieber wrote, "I was unable to interview him."
Kevin wrote:
ReplyDeleteI would have thought that you would know this. Strieber reported in Communion (1987) that Sarbacher had "died a few days before I became aware of his letter..." (That is, William Steinman's letter from Sarbacher.) Stieber wrote, "I was unable to interview him."
But in 1995 Strieber wrote in "Breakthrough" that he had spoken to Sarbacher just before he died.
I emailed Strieber about this and his explanation (as best I remember--I'll try to find the old email) was that he had indeed spoken with somebody who he thought was Sarbacher, but when he tried to follow-up in writing he learned that Sarbacher had died.
Then he got paranoid and wondered whether he really had spoken with Sarbacher or somebody just pretending to be him. He therefore decided to leave out the talk with "Sarbacher" in Communion, saying he never spoke to him.
Then after he spoke with Gen. Exon in 1991, introduced to him by his uncle Col. Edward Strieber, who had also told him about the Majestic project and the Roswell crash, Strieber decided he really had spoken with Sarbacher.
That isn't exactly what Strieber wrote me, but along those lines. Strieber also wrote in "Breakthrough" that when he interviewed Exon again in Dec. 1994, Exon was much more cautious. Allegedly he was fearful he was currently under government surveillance (this was in the middle of Schiff's investigation and right after AFOSI came out with its Mogul balloon explanation). Strieber wrote that Exon did say the Roswell material could not be explained by a balloon crash, came from a "sophisticated device of great import" that wasn't American, and it had been covered up "by a very concerted, organized effort at the highest level." However he stopped short of calling it extraterrestrial.
(1 of 3) Let’s go on about the lies Marcel supposedly told about his education, since Lance has raised this issue. Again, this all hinges on what Robert Todd wrote with debunkers like Lance just repeating what Todd said without bothering to check it out to see what, if any substance, there is to the charges.
ReplyDeleteThis gets into the Pratt interview, original, somewhat garbled transcript vs. Karl Pflock’s version. Asking about Marcel’s background, Marcel at end said:
PRATT transcript: “...degree in nuclear physics (bachelors) at completed work at GW Univ in Wash. attended (LSU, Houston, U of Wis, NY Univ, Ohio, docotr pool? and GW..."
PFLOCK version: “...[I have] a degree in nuclear physics, bachelors, at – completed work at George Washington University in Washington[, D.C.]. [I} attended LSU [Louisiana State University], Houston, University of Wisconsin, New York University, Ohio State, [unintelligible -- Pratt], and GW.
Earlier when speaking of his working days before the war, Marcel said "No degree then. Got one LATER, 6 different schools...."
And that is the sum total of ALL that Marcel ever said about his education, since it was never raised again in any interview.
First of all, it was never made clear WHEN Marcel claimed to receive a degree. Was it when he was in the service, when he left the service, the late 1950s when he severed all ties to the military and nothing would be recorded thereafter in his military record? This is important for conducting searches, which Todd said he did of LSU and GWU (but none of the other schools). But Todd NEVER specified his search parameters. What years did he search? E.g., he said LSU had no records of Marcel attending classes there (more on this in a moment). Presumably this meant Todd searched pre-War when Marcel on his service application said he did 1-1/2 years “noncredit” coursework in physics and math as a “special student”. This I interpret as meaning Marcel audited the courses, in which case there would be no credit and no record of attendance.
Kevin did a search post-service and found Marcel had taken a course at LSU in 1952 in TV and radio repair after he had returned home and became a TV repairman. (Pre- and postwar he had been a Ham radio operator and built his own equipment. His expertise in electronics was noted on one of his service evaluations, mentioning he had an unusually diverse technical background for an intel officer.) The point is Todd missed that. He also must have missed Marcel going to graphics and design school at LSU during the Depression (from Marcel Jr.s book), where Marcel became an expert draftsman. That in turn led him to being an aerial cartographer for the Army Corp of Engineers and Shell Oil pre-War. Again these technical skills are noted on service evaluations and in commendations when Marcel ran the briefing room for the 8th AAF and the 509th during Operation Crossroads in 1946. Presumably Marcel DID take classes to learn these skills. Obviously Todd’s search of LSU was very narrow or he should have picked this up.
It also wasn't clear from Pratt's garbled transcript which schools Marcel claimed to have personally attended or when. Todd raised the issue that Marcel didn’t live near some of these schools, but he didn’t necessarily have to. He could have done much of this coursework in physics through correspondence school after he left the service.
(2 of 3) E.g., it is clearly documented in one of his A.F. Reserve papers dated 26 June 1957 that he applied for coursework through the USAF Extension Course Institute program, Gunter AFB, Montgomery, Alabama. Todd missed that too, or chose not to mention it. Unfortunately, the courses applied for aren’t specified, nor is/are the institution(s) who prepared the correspondence courses. That could have cleared up some confusion. Marcel left the Reserve shortly after this, so any coursework he might have done or degree he picked up LATER wouldn’t appear in his service record.
ReplyDeletePeople DO get degrees later in life. A friend of mine just got a PhD in Library Science at age 62. The problem here is that when you do searches and don’t know what year or years to search, you can easily miss stuff. I also know from contacting registrars at both LSU and GWU that they will refuse to do extensive searches just because you are curious. This are pre-electronic databases. Imagine going through 20 years of microfilm because someone wants you to. They searched 2 or 3 years and then told me to buzz off. I GUESSED, e.g., that coursework at GWU would have been when Marcel was stationed in Washington from 1948 to 1950, but that was just a guess. The registrar said they had no record of him taking courses at that time. But even this isn’t necessarily as clear-cut as it may seem, as noted below.
As to his background in atomic energy, which would be relevant as to whether he might have gotten a degree in nuclear physics, Marcel was involved from the beginning of the atomic age. He was one of the “old-men” of the 509th Bomb Group, created at the end of WWII specifically for the task of dropping the A-bomb. Marcel helped plan the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Marcel's commendations indicate he handled security, complex intelligence reports, and briefings for the Eighth Air Force during Operation Crossroads, the A-bomb tests in the South Pacific in 1946. Marcel's top secret job with the Special Weapons Program from 1948-1950 also required familiarity with nuclear physics, since he was in charge of preparing briefings and special reports for the brass on Soviet nuclear capabilities. He was listed as an "Assistant for Atomic Energy." His evaluation officer of this period also made special note of Marcel's personal intelligence and unusually broad technical-intelligence background, and stated that he was self-motivated, reading and studying regularly in his fields of interest.
A physics professor at GWU, doing a biography on pioneering GWU nuclear physicist Prof. George Gamow, also told me that going through Gamow’s papers he found that Gamow taught special courses in physics to military personnel off campus (since many couldn’t attend regular classes), leading to the possibility that SWP personnel such as Marcel had coursework in nuclear physics in this unconventional fashion so as they could properly do their jobs. (This is why the GWU registrar’s negative search of this period isn’t necessarily definitive.) GWU was also only 3 blocks from the location of SWP. Furthermore, Gamow's regular nuclear physics course at GWU was taught at night, which would have also enabled Marcel to drop in after work to attend classes. Another possible connection may have occurred earlier during Operation Crossroads in which Gamow also participated. Marcel might also have received credit later on for work experience.
Marcel obviously did have some familiarity with nuclear physics, but whether Marcel got a degree in it or lied has really never been resolved. That’s the bottom line. It’s just more of Todd’s say so. He did do some cursory negative searches, as I did, but the rest is nothing but Todd’s psychic superpowers at work.
(3 of 3) Finally let’s go into another education charge by Todd against Marcel that is clearly idiotic.
ReplyDeleteMarcel's military record variously lists him having 1 year or 1-1/2 years of college education at LSU as an uncredited "special student," majoring in physics. Todd also tried to make a Federal case over the half year variation in length of education listed on various forms. This is an incredibly petty quibble, which might be little more than sometimes rounding off on a form, probably by some 18-year-old PFC clerk who typed up Marcel’s service summary. Furthermore, if Marcel was truly trying to self-aggrandize his prewar education, he likely would have claimed far more for his college education than he did. E.g., claiming an actual degree could have automatically made him an officer. As it was, the Air Force waved the usual degree requirement for officers to draft him as an intelligence officer, so eager were they to make use of his civilian job skills.
Marcel made similar modest claims about his background in the National Guard before the war, all of which were later completely verified by the Air Force when he left the service (affected his pay grade). It would be strange for him to have lied in such a small way about his pre-war education, yet not about his pre-war military background. What did he have to gain?
So that’s it about all the supposed lies Marcel told about his education. Some of them are pure fluff on Todd’s part. Possibly the claim that Marcel lied about his degree has substance but we don’t really know for sure. Exhaustive searches have never been done (we don’t know the dates used and Todd said he didn't contact four of the schools), and possibilities that at least some of these old records might be lost, destroyed, misfiled, etc. have not been considered. Marcel might have been able to clear this up if someone had thought to ask him (such as what year did you get your degree?).
It is so much easier for complete nobodies like Todd with a clear axe to grind to make charges against dead people without them being around to defend themselves. As I noted in a previous post, Todd’s charges that Marcel lied about his military record are based on gross misrepresentations of Marcel’s actual surviving record, which includes Todd misrepresenting forms and deliberately leaving out anything that substantiated what Marcel said in interviews decades later. What is in the record almost 100% agrees with Marcel’s memory of it.
Todd simply LIED in various ways about Marcel’s military record. Labeling him a liar was Todd’s way of trying to destroy the Roswell by calling into question a key witness’ testimony.
Of course, this would also mean other seemingly credible witnesses lied as well. Bill Brazel Jr., another very early witness, must have lied because he told virtually the identical story as Marcel about the anomalous debris, the explosion mentioned by his father, the extensive debris field. Gen. Dubose lied about the high secrecy, the debris shipment, and a cover-up. Gen. Exon lied about it being ET, high secrecy, anomalous debris, bodies, and a cover-up at the highest level. The list goes on.
We know Marcel was exactly who he said he was and involved in exactly the way he said he was and a lot of people back up his core story. Whether he had only one or 1-1/2 years of noncredit college courses listed on his military files really isn’t the issue, is it?
Thanks Kevin and DR.
ReplyDeleteYou have both shown how contradictory and useless the so-called testimony given by Sarbacher, Exon and Whitley Strieber (and probably many others) really is.
First they report what others supposedly told them, then they repeat the stories to more people but with differences, then they imagine they have spoken to others who may or may not have died beforehand (!). And so on.
Yet we, the interested public, are supposed to take these tales seriously as evidence of ETs and an official cover-up. Strieber was a SF writer well before his first abduction book.
Marvellous, isn't it?
As Gilles says, that's ufology. As far as Roswell goes, it certainly is.
And I am still very concerned about Sarbacher's insects. I think I know the origin of these, but will let others decide. (No, it was certainly NOT the Roswell crash).
CDA:
ReplyDeleteThanks for your usual misrepresentations of testimony. Sarbacher never said the aliens WERE insects. He said he got the "impression" from discussions with others that they were "constructed" like insects in that they were of low mass that would enable them to withstand high inertial forces better.
Exact quote from letter to William Steinman:
"There were reports that instruments or people operating these machines were also of very light weight, sufficient to withstand the tremendous deceleration and acceleration associated with their machinery. I remember in talking with some of the people at the office that I got the impression these 'aliens' were constructed like certain insects we have observed on earth, wherein because of the the low mass the inertial forces involved in operation of these instruments would be quite low."
http://www.roswellproof.com/Sarbacher_Nov1983.html
This makes it quite clear that the insect-like METAPHOR meant that they were low mass. And though he didn't say so explicitly, the "constructed" word _might_ mean he thought they were artificial life forms, perhaps robots or androids of some kind.
David:
ReplyDeleteAnother point to consider is that since Marcel was one of the "old men" of the 509th, having participated in planning of the atomic strikes on Japan, we know that he held a Manhattan Project security clearance from the Army at that time and, in 1947, held the equivalent Q clearance granted by the Atomic Energy Commission. I have no idea whether Todd or any other of the commentators on Marcel's honesty have a clue about the security clearance process, but basically it starts with the applicant making an extremely detailed statement about the circumstances of their life, from birth up through the time of application. This includes, of course, a description of schools attended and degrees received, if any. Then, an extremely thorough investigation is performed by field investigators who scrutinize ALL (and I do mean all) the applicant's claims with a fine tooth comb for any lies, distortions, or omissions. The point of course, is to assess the applicant's reliability and honesty. By the time someone is granted a security clearance and given access to classified information, the only thing standing between that classified information being released or not, is that individual's honesty and integrity. Essentially, they give their word (in the form of a non-disclosure agreement) that they will not divulge secrets; the question, ultimately, is will they keep their word?
To get a Q clearance in 1947, all background investigations were conducted by the FBI. So, by July of 1947 both Army Intelligence and the FBI had been crawling all throughout Marcel's history for several years, frankly trying to find character defects. Their ability and motivation to do so, would have been infinitely greater than Todd's or, for that matter, yours, mine, or anyone else that came later. Apparently they were happy with whatever Marcel put on his application.
What happened after Marcel left the military is, of course, a different question.
With regard to his claim of earning a Bachelor's degree in Nuclear Physics; it is almost impossible that that could have happened before the War. In 1941 Nuclear Physics was a highly esoteric field of study considered to be the purview of a few egghead professors at exclusive Universities. Only a handful of Universities HAD anything you could consider a Degree Program in Nuclear Physics. Because of that, the number of students in Nuclear Physics was small and they were an elite. Marcel, frankly, wouldn't have qualified. After the Bomb was dropped, it became instantly and abundantly clear that Nuclear Physics was now highly important from a political and strategic point of view. Accordingly, a small amount of information that had been obtained during the war on the science and engineering of nuclear weapons and reactors was deliberately declassified so that Universities could create programs in that field (see, for example, Samuel Glasstone's, "The Effects of Nuclear Weapons", first published in 1950). After the War , a Bachelor's degree in Nuclear Physics became accessible to a much larger segment of the student body. (I know, because I earned one in 1976). I don't think there can be any ambiguity that Marcel was referring to that degree having been earned AFTER WWII (whether he was lying or not).
CDA -
ReplyDeleteNo, we have shown how the reporting of testimony by others has been interpreted, which is sort of what this posting was about. You can't condemn Sarbacher or Exon because Streiber changed his story from Sarbacher dying before he talked to him to talking to him, to thinking he might have talked to someone impersonating him. I had this discussion with Philip Klass more than a decade ago when Bill Moore and others began to change testimony to suit them.
DR:
ReplyDeleteHave a look at Gerald Heard's "Is another world watching?" published 1950/51, one of the very earliest UFO books. Insects from Mars was Heard's answer to the UFO mystery.
I surmise that Sarbacher got the 'insect' or 'insect like' idea from office discussions on this book. But if you have a better suggestion, please tell us. And if you can locate anything showing, or even suggesting, that Sarbacher had heard of the Roswell case before 1980, please tell us also.
Heard believed that only an insect could withstand the tremendous speeds, accelerations and manoeuvres reported of UFOs.
(1 of 2)
ReplyDeleteLarry,
According to the Pratt interview, Marcel claimed to have gotten the degree LATER, though how much "later" was unclear. I thought the most probable time for him getting a degree in nuclear physics was when Marcel was stationed near GWU 1948-1950 when he was doing top secret atomic energy intelligence work (did the Russians have the bomb?). This included radioactive fallout monitoring by "sniffer" planes flying near the Russian border looking for radioactive isotopes from an atomic test (the way the test was ultiamtely detected). This was one of the long-range detection programs, the other two I'm aware of being seismic detection and atmospheric sonic detection (directly related to Project Mogul).
Marcel's job description on one of his evaluations while stationed there was, "Officer in Charge of War Room"..."Supervises the preparation of charts, diagrams, and reports on Intelligence data received and keeps Chief, Intelligence Branch, informed of all intelligence data and changes. Prepares special briefing material for Commanding General, Chief of Operations, and Technical Director."
http://www.roswellproof.com/Eval_McDuffee0750.html
My point is that he had to know something about nuclear physics to interpret the intelligence properly and prepare the necessary reports and briefing material as in the job description. (More on this later when I discuss whether Marcel could possibly have written a report used by the White House to announce the test. From the job description, it sounds like “yes”.)
He was practically next door to GWU and I was told by a physics professor there that nuclear physicist George Gamow taught special classes off campus for military personnel who either couldn't attend normal day classes or because of the security of their jobs (such as Marcel's). The professor didn't know about these special classes until he went through Gamow's papers.
Unfortunately, I was told, Gamow didn't say who he was teaching, maybe for security reasons. I therefore don't think it much of a stretch that Gamow walked a few blocks over to Marcel's group and taught classes there. But this would have been strictly off-the-books.
I also don't consider it a big stretch that Marcel might possibly have gotten some academic credit for his atomic energy intelligence work during such things as Operation Crossroads, which Gamow was also involved with.
But when I checked with the registrar at GWU, there was no record of Marcel "attending" classes there or getting a degree in the 1948-1950 time period. So Marcel either 1) Lied, 2) got a degree there at some later time period, and/or 3) did indeed get credited instruction from someone like Gamow and maybe even a degree, but "off-the-books" at the time for security reasons.
I do know from Marcel's file that a year after Roswell, SAC and the Pentagon (the Special Weapons Project) were both vying for Marcel's intelligence work (a strange thing if Marcel was really a bungler at Roswell who missed a simple balloon ID). Marcel first went to SAC for a few months, then someone pulled some strings and Marcel was transferred to the SWP. My suspicion is that it was Major General W. E. Kepner, who at Crossroads had been the Deputy Task Force Commander for Aviation, and then became chief of the Atomic Energy Division, USAF HQ. Kepner wrote Marcel a commendation for intel work at Crossroad and obviously knew Marcel. (The other two commendations were by Gen. "weather balloon" Ramey, in charge of aerial operations, and Adm. Blandy, in charge of the whole operation, who wrote the commendation AFTER Roswell.)
So my point here is that somebody at the Pentagon, perhaps Kepner, also obviously had a high opinion of Marcel and his ability to handle the atomic intelligence work at the SWP.
(2 of 2)
ReplyDeleteYour point that Marcel would have been thoroughly vetted for this job, including his previous college claims of coursework in physics and math (though "noncredit"), is a very good one. Had that proven not to be true, likely he wouldn't have gotten the job. I do know that when the White House finally announced the Russian A-bomb test in 1949, the Washington Post in a front page storage also quoted the AEC head that he couldn't tell them how they knew, and anybody who talked about it “would likely get shot.” That's how sensitive this all was and how sensitive Marcel's job would have been. This was considered very high security stuff, which I'm assuming would also mean concealing the identities of most who worked for the program. This gets back to my point that it is conceivable that Marcel could have received coursework (maybe even a degree) "off-the-books" from GWU for security reasons. Yes, I’m speculating, but it’s not so clear-cut as Todd and the aping debunkers who quote him religiously make it out to be.
This also relates to another charge of lying by Todd against Marcel. In the Pratt interview, Marcel said he wrote the very report that Truman read over the radio announcing the Soviet A-test. Todd said Truman never read the announcment on the air (true), but also Marcel couldn’t possibly have written it (false).
The first charge of “lying” I consider a quibble. The announcement was read over the radio in the name of Truman and also published in full in various newspapers, such as the Washington Post, which Marcel could easily have read. This could have been nothing more than a minor, normal error of memory by Marcel in an interview 30+ years later.
The real issue is could Marcel have written a report on which the press release was based? Would he have been in a position to do so? The answer is it was quite possible based on Marcel’s job description (part 1 above) which placed him directly in-the-loop. Obviously Marcel DID write reports and briefing materials on all important changes of intelligence for the brass in charge. This is another piece of corroborating evidence that Todd seems to have deliberately omitted. (Lying by omission)
So Marcel WAS exactly in the position to have written a briefing summary, it was signed off on by the generals, then passed on to the White House. This could have been incorporated into a final White House press release. Marcel may never have received proper credit because in most large organizations, whether military, governmental, or private, the "grunt" work is usually done by the technical underlings and then passed on up to those in charge for review and approval. Some modifications might be made at this level, but often the person in charge simply signs off on the report in their own name. The underlings who did most of the actual work usually remain anonymous. Presidents rarely write their own speeches and Gen. Twining probably did not wrote the infamous Twining memo saying flying saucers were real. Some underlings at Wright-Patterson probably did and Twining approved and signed off on it.
I suspect the actual press release was probably written in the White House for public consumption (I think it’s a safe bet that Truman himself did not write it), since it is full of reassurances that the Soviet test had been expected for some time and nothing had significantly changed. However, aside from the obvious political spin, portions of the statement could have been lifted directly from an intelligence summary written exactly by someone like Marcel.
This certainly does not prove Marcel wrote the press release or portions of it, though he WAS in a position to have possibly done so. Todd hid the latter fact in order to accuse Marcel of lying. But this is still far from proven and may very well be false.
cda wrote:
ReplyDeleteHave a look at Gerald Heard's "Is another world watching?" published 1950/51, one of the very earliest UFO books. Insects from Mars was Heard's answer to the UFO mystery. I surmise that Sarbacher got the 'insect' or 'insect like' idea from office discussions on this book. But if you have a better suggestion, please tell us. Heard believed that only an insect could withstand the tremendous speeds, accelerations and manoeuvres reported of UFOs.
Another moldy argument by CDA, who doesn't like to throw any of his silly theories away. As Jerry Clark responded to you on UFO Updates back in March 2005:
"I doubt it. Heard's book was not published in the United States
until April 1951. Before then, references to it in the American
press and in official documents of the period are scant to nonexistent. (Keyhoe's first book and Scully's work, of course,
attracted considerable attention.) The 1950 date you cite is for
the British edition of the Heard opus. There is no reason to believe that Heard's eccentric theories (borrowed from astronomer Gerard P. Kuiper, who made a passing statement, probably a joke, in a Los Angeles newspaper) were known to Sarbacher."
Brad Sparks then added not quite true, since Cmdr. Robert McLaughlin in his March 1950 True Magazine article speculated the beings were small to reduce high inertial forces, much like insects can withstand high inertia.
So wrong date for the book, unless Sarbacher and colleagues were using a British edition. Instead, I surmise, using my extraordinary psychic power even greater than yours (my "better idea"), that Sarbacher got the "insect" idea in 1967 from watching "5 Million Years to Earth", about insectoid Martians coming to Earth in flying saucers. Hey, it could be!
But back on planet Earth, Sarbacher was very obviously using the insect-like METAPHOR for low-mass, low inertia beings of some sort that could withstand high accelerations associated with saucers. And if you read the quote, he spoke as if this wasn't just physics 101 speculation by his colleagues, but based on actual examination of the material and beings.
And if you can locate anything showing, or even suggesting, that Sarbacher had heard of the Roswell case before 1980, please tell us also.
Wilbert Smith's 1950 memo and notes of the interview with Sarbacher, which the exact reason anybody contacted him 30+ years later. Sheesh!
http://www.roswellproof.com/Smith_9_15_50.html
Q: I have read Scully's book on the saucers and would like to know to know how much of it is true.
A: The facts reported in the book are substantially correct.
[This is Sarbacher basically confirming that at least one saucer had crashed and been recovered, which as the key theme of Scully's book. Whether Sarbacher was speaking specifically about Roswell or somewhere else is really little more than a debating quibble.]
Q: Then the saucers do exist?
A: Yes, they exist...
Q: Do they come from some other planet?
A: All we know is, we didn't make them, and it's pretty certain they didn't originate on earth.
[How would they know that with relative certainty unless they actually had one?]
Q: I understand the subject of saucers in classified.
A: Yes, it is classified two points higher than the H-bomb. In fact, it is the most highly classified subject in the U.S. Government at the present time...
Sarbacher in Sept. 1950 was clearly claiming he knew something about crashed saucer recovery, without being specific where his information was coming from. The follow-up interviews in the 1980s had him saying he was invited to the conferences at Wright-Patterson about crashed saucers but didn't attend, instead learning 2nd-hand from colleagues who had attended.
DR has not provided an iota of evidence that Sarbacher had ever heard of the Roswell case prior to 1980. Instead he digs up those old well trodden handwritten notes of Wilbert Smith who was referring to the Aztec case from Scully's book (very much in the news in Sept 1950 whereas Roswell was certainly not).
ReplyDeleteYes, UFOs were classified "two points higher than the H-Bomb", they were the most secret subject in the USA, maybe in the world, (and still are) and of course Sarbacher was privy to all of this because of his job. Some guy - he ought to have been on MJ-12.
Except that he never saw anything firsthand. Perhaps he really did but had to deny it. What a pity.
Methinks we have strayed from Kevin's topic. But what the heck; even that is commonplace now.
CDA said:
ReplyDelete"DR has not provided an iota of evidence that Sarbacher had ever heard of the Roswell case prior to 1980"
If Sarbacher said in a interview from 1950 that the tales of Scully's book were "substantially" correct, that suggests strongly that Sarbacher knew of a _REAL_ case very much like Roswell. Not necessarily the Aztec case. He also knew that the case inspired the fictional book. This was 30 years before 1980.
This advances many "iotas" the extraterrestrial explanation. Sorry.
The purported insect like nature of the beings is irrelevant. It seems to be a speculation from someone at the time.
CDA clearly is distorting and twisting what is written in the interview to Sarbacher, to suit his beliefs.
Don:
ReplyDeleteI don't understand you. Are you saying Scully's book was fiction?
If so, you will severely offend Stan Friedman and the two authors of a recent book on the Aztec case.
CDA:
ReplyDeleteThe book certainly cannot be presented as demonstration of anything. A better question would be: Was the book inspired by a real case? Probably yes.
|| If Sarbacher said in a interview from 1950 that the tales of Scully's book were "substantially" correct.... Was the book inspired by a real case? Probably yes.||
ReplyDeleteIn reality, No and No.
It was Wilbert Smith who claimed in a memo that Sarbacher said so. But Smith was a flying-saucer crackpot who believed he was in telepathic communication with space aliens, so any claim he made was most probably equally fantastical. Sarbacher told STF that he only vaguely remembered Smith, and said his claims were "silly."
The very tall tale of Scully's book was provided by two oil conmen who were later convicted and sent to prison. The saucer story itself was just the latest enhanced retelling of a silly "crashed spaceship and alien bodies" folktale that had been in circulation for over half a century. Did a popular fiction suddenly become reality?
I very much doubt it.
Zoam,
ReplyDeleteBy outlining facts, you only reinforce the "probably, yes" belief for the saucer enthusiasts.
Note above how finding absolutely no evidence for a degree in Nuclear Physics for Marcel (and indeed, pretty compelling evidence that he lied about that) still leads to a "probably, yes" belief for the conspiracy zealots.
Did Marcel also have the 1 million flying hours he claimed(hilariously) as a fill-in combat pilot? For the buffs, "probably yes"!
Lance
Zoam -
ReplyDeleteIn regards to Newton and Gebauer, you are technically correct but historically inaccurate. They were convicted of fraud in their "doodlebug" schemes, sentenced to prison, but were given probation if they made restitution. Gebauer did, partially, Newton did not. Other than jail time prior to bailing out before the trial, they were not in prison.
Lance -
Marcel did not claim to be a "fill-in" combat pilot, but did say that he had flown as a pilot, which is not the same thing. He did log 435 hours as an aircrew member in combat and was awarded two air medals for his service in that respect.
The major problem (if you forgive the pun) is the claim of a degree in nuclear physics, and while degrees obtained after his military service would not be reflected in his record, I have been unable to find any evidence for one. I have contacted the various schools he mentioned, I have asked if he might have obtained college credit through off campus programs for military personnel, and have searched for correspondence courses but have found nothing. I asked Jesse Jr. about this and he was surprised by the claims. He had no knowledge of them, and this is apparently the only place that the claims were made (I have seen nothing else, though it is certainly possible he said something to someone else at another time.
And just for the record, he claimed 3000 hours as a pilot which seems like an awful lot for someone who wasn't rated (and if asked, I can't give you my total time, but it is somewhere north of 1600 hours including nearly 1200 in combat).
So, we have no degree, and what seems to be an excessive number of flying hours. We do find some college credits, and some flying time.
When push comes to shove, it is the claimed degrees that worry me more than the flying hours. Remember, I flew as a door gunner more than once and you'll find nothing in the record to back that up.
Thanks Kevin,
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree with your assessment and find it to be a reasonable position. My argument is with the hard core conspiracy mongers (one of whom is above) and the way they twist facts whenever they aren't just making them up.
Lance
Zoam said:
ReplyDelete"It was Wilbert Smith who claimed in a memo that Sarbacher said so. But Smith was a flying-saucer crackpot who believed he was in telepathic communication with space aliens, so any claim he made was most probably equally fantastical. Sarbacher told STF that he only vaguely remembered Smith, and said his claims were "silly.""
This is doubly irrelevant. One is not required to remember with exactitude an interview performed 30 years ago, and much less remember the interviewer or agree with him. What else did Sarbacher tell to STF?
It seems that Smith tried the telepathic communication later in life (not in 1950). At any rate, I would not be so fast in blaming him for that. If a government or military agent confirmed him the reality of the extraterrestrial UFOs, then the enthusiasm could easily have made him to try unorthodox methods to know more, such as the mentioned. This does not convert Smith into a dishonest or stupid man, able to falsify an interview. So your argument is irrelevant.
"The very tall tale of Scully's book was provided by two oil conmen who were later convicted and sent to prison. The saucer story itself was just the latest enhanced retelling of a silly "crashed spaceship and alien bodies" folktale that had been in circulation for over half a century. Did a popular fiction suddenly become reality?"
Wow... ¿a Folktale from 50 years before Roswell? Provide a link (trustable please). Too bad the two conmen did not inspire the book in 1945. Just before Roswell. We would not be discussing this.
But again, your logic seems to be irrelavant. So there were needed two Conmen to inspire a folktale? I did not know that Conmen were more adept to invent folk fantasies and compile rural legends than real and honest fiction folklore writers? Another good question: If Roswell, or Aztec were real ET cases: Who would be more prone to take advantage of the hidden and sordid story: a Conmen or a honest fiction writer?
Your better argument until now seems to be the "No, no". It would seem that writing "No" three or four times would make your case even stronger.
We are supposed to be discussing Marcel and his military/academic record. The one very significant omission from his record is surely the fact that he participated in the recovery of a crashed extraterrestrial vehicle and bodies.
ReplyDeleteI would expect that if he had indeed taken part in such an exercise this would receive highlighted paragraphs in his military files. His file would be almost unique in military history.
Why is it missing? Did Ramey and Blanchard conspire to keep it out?
Oh I forgot. Of course, it had to be excised as it was far too much a matter of official secrecy to ever be put in someone's personnel file.
Presumably the same applies to the records of Ramey, Blanchard, Easley and so on. In fact, anyone else who took part.
What a great pity. What a disappointment for future military and space historians.
CDA wrote:
ReplyDelete"I would expect that if he had indeed taken part in such an exercise this would receive highlighted paragraphs in his military files."
That's because you"re an idiot. In saying this, I am of course, using the classic Athenian definition of idiot as someone "characterized by self-centeredness and concerned almost exclusively with private—as opposed to public—affairs".
If you ever bothered to think about or research anything before dashing off the first thought that pops into your mind, you might learn that it is standard operating procedure for military personnel to not have classified references placed into their official records.
This is especially true if the operations, projects, or programs that the personnel were involved in were classified at the "Special Access" level. In that case, even the existence of the operation is required to be kept secret. Personnel files are after all, unclassified records.
Larry is correct concerning not having classified information in one's official military records/file.
ReplyDeleteHowever, this omission does not prove one way or the other that someone may have been assigned to a clandestine operation or special assignment.
Don; The well-known facts of these matters are irrelevant? No, it's woos' habitual primitive "If [twisting of facts] then [some upside-down unreality]" style of tortured logic, general irrationality, and intentionally stupid ignoring of the real-world facts that's irrelevant. In what venue has this sort of behavior been productive for you?
ReplyDeleteSarbacher only grudgingly admitted to having ever met Smith and said his claims were "silly." There were "UFO" crash stories of all kinds in practically every state beginning fifty years before 1947. You seem to be confused about the simple facts of these matters: Scully's 1950 book—a fraud inspired by older hoaxes—was nearly thirty years before the 1978 emergence of the "crashed saucer and alien bodies" Roswell fiction—a reinvention of Scully's fraud and promoted as real à la Palmer.
Larry wrote:
ReplyDeleteThis is especially true if the operations, projects, or programs that the personnel were involved in were classified at the "Special Access" level. In that case, even the existence of the operation is required to be kept secret. Personnel files are after all, unclassified records.
Marcel being part of the 509th from the beginning and participating in the A-bombing of Japan is nowhere to be found in his personnel file, so I guess it never happened. About the only official allusion to it is in the Roswell yearbook calling Marcel one of the "old men" of the 509th who had been with it since its inception.
Marcel Jr. mentions his father's involvement with planning the A-bomb attacks, but I haven't seen this any any official records, at least the surviving military file, which was probably reconstructed from other sources after the original was probably destroyed in the 1972 St. Louis fire of military personnel records.
There is obviously a lot of things missing from Marcel's file, such as his promotion to captain when he was in the South Pacific--nada. Marcel was in the South Pacific for 22 months and there is only about 15 pages of material for the entire period out of a surviving 200 page file. There is no way to document his day-to-day activities.
If Marcel had mentioned in his Pratt interview his involvement with the 509th when they bombed Japan, no doubt Robert Todd would have again accused Marcel of lying and having "delusions of grandeur".
This was an MO of Todd's. If it wasn't specifically documented in the file and Marcel casually brought it up when interviewed, then he was necessarily a liar, just because Todd said so. But it was all allegations based on absence of evidence and Todd's psychic superpowers to travel back in time and know with absolute certainty what Marcel "really" did instead of what he said he did.
And the other thing I mentioned Todd doing was continually misrepresenting the content of military files and leaving out absolutely anything that might corroborate what Marcel said. This included citing documents for one thing to put a particular twist on his debunking arguments, but somehow failing to mention the rest of the documents that supported Marcel.
Thus to accuse Marcel of lying about working as an aide for Gen. Hap Arnold and Arnold recommending he attend intelligence school in Pennsylvania, Todd claimed two pre-induction documents recommended Marcel for intelligence school, not Arnold. But these very same documents recommended Marcel go to intelligence school in Washington D.C., not Pennsylvania. These and other documents placed Marcel in Washington when he was inducted, and he was drafted as an intelligence officer from the beginning and made one only a week after induction. That is in the file, but Todd deliberately misrepresented it in order to smear Marcel.
He also cut Marcel zero slack for any simple and normal errors of memory in an impromptu interview decades later. E.g., Marcel said he left Roswell and went to Washington at the end of 1947, instead of 1948. That was just a simple slip-up, but Todd tried to turn it into a Federal offense, then created some ridiculous psychobabble theory that Marcel was trying to make himself look better after his big boo-boo at Roswell by getting a quick transfer to higher intelligence work, not even realizing or caring about the absurdity of the argument. Why would the brass in Washington kick him upstairs if he was a big screw-up?
As it was, Ramey registered a mild protest against the transfer, saying he had nobody to replace Marcel. (Of course, Todd left that out, plus Ramey saying Marcel was command officer material and "outstanding".) I guess competent intelligence officer just didn't exist back then.
Zoam:
ReplyDeleteRe Wilbert Smith, Dr Sarbacher told Friedman by phone in 1983 that he thought he met Smith. But just before then (in Nov 83) he told Steinman in that famous letter that he (Sarbacher) had spoken to a Col Bremner, not Smith at all.
This is confirmed in Smith's handwritten notes made at the time in 1950. It seems clear that Sarbacher never met Smith in person. The meeting was with this guy Bremner who must have supplied Smith with Sarbacher's answers to the questions Smith had prepared beforehand. Presumably it was decided that Smith should not meet Sarbacher firsthand.
Thus by 1983 Sarbacher was giving two versions of his 1950 meeting. One version (to Steinman) was that he spoke to Bremner, the other version (in the phone call from Friedman) was that he met Smith, although he is rather vague about this.
Take your pick which is correct. You may also wonder whether Sarbacher's memory in 1983 can be trusted on anything.
As to whether the saucers were classified "two points higher than the H-bomb", again Sarbacher seems to think this was "silly", but notice how often Friedman has to prompt him throughout the conversation. Sarbacher seems to remember very little.
Sarbacher does not actually attribute any 'silliness' to Smith during that phone call. The 'silliness' was in the high classification of the saucers.
But in the end that phone interview reveals very little in the way of useful historical UFO information. And nothing at all relevant to Roswell, no doubt a great disappointment for Friedman.
Larry:
ReplyDeleteYes, I am very certain that if Marcel, as part of his military duties, had really taken part in the recovery of an ET craft in the desert, then this would indeed be noted in his personnel file. It would constitute a unique achievement - both for him and the few others involved.
And if not inserted at the time, then it would be soon afterwards when the truth was realised.
And it would not be classified, at any level. The reason the affair was omitted from Marcel's file is that it was a piece of trivia, i.e. not worth a passing mention.
CDA thoughtlessly wrote:
ReplyDeleteRe Wilbert Smith, Dr Sarbacher told Friedman by phone in 1983 that he thought he met Smith. But just before then (in Nov 83) he told Steinman in that famous letter that he (Sarbacher) had spoken to a Col Bremner, not Smith at all.
This is confirmed in Smith's handwritten notes made at the time in 1950. It seems clear that Sarbacher never met Smith in person. The meeting was with this guy Bremner who must have supplied Smith with Sarbacher's answers to the questions Smith had prepared beforehand. Presumably it was decided that Smith should not meet Sarbacher firsthand.
Thus by 1983 Sarbacher was giving two versions of his 1950 meeting. One version (to Steinman) was that he spoke to Bremner, the other version (in the phone call from Friedman) was that he met Smith, although he is rather vague about this.
As I wrote in some detail in the comments of a previous Kevin blog, it was pretty explicit from the notes that Smith was in the room while Bremner asked Sarbacher Smith's questions. For some reason, protocol required Bremner to act as an intermediary. As the notes read:
http://www.roswellproof.com/Smith_9_15_50.html
Beginning comment: "Notes on interview THROUGH Bremner with Dr. Robert I. Sarbacher"
Question initials: "WBS" (Wilbert B. Smith)
End note: "The above is written out FROM MEMORY following the interview. I have tried to keep it as nearly VERBATIM as possible."
Now applying just a tad of reading comprehension and logic (try it sometime), Smith could hardly write out the interview "nearly verbatim" "from memory" if he wasn't there in the room, now could he?
This means that Sarbacher certainly DID meet BOTH Bremner and Smith, but spoke only to Bremner during the interview for some sort of protocol reasons.
There are NO inconsistencies here in Sarbacher's various statements, only ones contrived by one either nonthinking or disingenuous CDA, again trying to debunk a witness.
And, yes, these are Smith's handwritten notes, not Bremner's. That's easily determined by comparing the handwriting against other Smith handwriting, some of which I have.
Take your pick which is correct. You may also wonder whether Sarbacher's memory in 1983 can be trusted on anything.
Take your pick which is correct. You may also wonder whether Christopher Allen's ability to think or relate anything accurately in 2013 can be trusted on anything.
DR:
ReplyDelete"There are NO inconsistencies here in Sarbacher's various statements..."
Oh yes there are.
Sarbacher told Steinman, in his letter, that he spoke with Bremner. Sarbacher told Friedman, by phone, that he spoke with Smith.
Which was it?
There is nothing to indicate both Smith and Bremner were present. And the Q & A as per Smith's handwritten notes do not read like those of a face-to-face interview. They read more like a series of questions Smith put on paper for Bremner to read to Sarbacher, and the replies Bremner got and passed on to Smith. Moreover it looks like it was done at more than one meeting.
"Verbatim" can mean from the spoken word or the written word.
Note Smith's memo (on Geomagnetics) where he says "I made discreet enquiries through the Canadian Embassy in Washington, who were able to obtain for me the following information." Thus indicating that Smith himself did not obtain the information; he did it through a third party, i.e. Bremner.
DR would have us believe that Brenmer put the questions to Sarbacher, with Smith (who is the one who really wanted the information) sitting nearby in the same room (within earshot?) but keeping silent. Sounds a mighty unusual situation to me! Makes no sense.
Smith claims it was "written out from memory following the interview....as nearly verbatim as possible", which can mean either Smith was present and within earshot or that he merely copied Bremner's notes as near as possible afterwards.
But the real point is that everything Sarbacher said, either in the phone call with STF or in the letter to Steinman (after numerous previous letters and phone calls from Steinman) is based on hints & reminders. Sarbacher simply did not remember what took place 33 years earlier or even whom he spoke to. All the names of those involved in the crashed saucer analysis had to be suggested to him first.
No, his memory certainly cannot be trusted. Still less can it be used as evidence that he had ever heard of Roswell back in 1950. (He HAD of course heard of Aztec, from Scully's book).
But of course if DR, or anyone else, can find a Sarbacher reference to Roswell from that timeframe then we might at last be able to make some real progress.
Larry wrote (referring to CDA):
ReplyDelete"That's because you"re an idiot. In saying this, I am of course, using the classic Athenian definition of idiot as someone "characterized by self-centeredness and concerned almost exclusively with private—as opposed to public—affairs".
If you ever bothered to think about or research anything before dashing off the first thought that pops into your mind, you might learn that it is standard operating procedure for military personnel to not have classified references placed into their official records."
Well said Larry, I appreciate your frustration - what I don't really understand is why you, Kevin Randle & David Rudiak (& possibly others) spend so much time commenting on CDA's ridiculous posts; many of which are bordering on the ludicrous!
Regards
Nitram
Nitram (or Martin):
ReplyDeleteDo you not realise that the reason Larry, Kevin and DR spend so much time commenting on mine or other people's "ridiculous posts" is that they have spent a quarter of a century now on examining every aspect of Roswell in order to try and square the circle and have failed miserably.
Before they took over, another gang had spent a decade on the case, and failed even more miserably.
But if you think any of them have the minutest chance of ever proving their fantasies, why don't you join in or, better still, join the dream team? Your research and investigation experience would be invaluable.
And if you ever go so far as to discover an extraterrestrial craft, be sure to claim it has to be hushed up (with death threats made against you) so that you don't have to breathe a word of it to the scientific community, won't you?
Zoam said:
ReplyDelete"The well-known facts of these matters are irrelevant?"
Well, the facts mentioned by you effectively are irrelevant.
"No, it's woos' habitual primitive "If [twisting of facts] then [some upside-down unreality]" style of tortured logic, general irrationality, and intentionally stupid ignoring of the real-world facts that's irrelevant. In what venue has this sort of behavior been productive for you?"
Oh. No comments here.
"Sarbacher only grudgingly admitted to having ever met Smith and said his claims were "silly.""
Irrelevant (again). Only in the parallel universe in which you live "silly" is equivalent to "dishonest" or "false".
"There were "UFO" crash stories of all kinds in practically every state beginning fifty years before 1947."
Yeah right. I don’t believe you.
“You seem to be confused about the simple facts of these matters: Scully's 1950 book—a fraud inspired by older hoaxes—was nearly thirty years before the 1978 emergence of the "crashed saucer and alien bodies" Roswell fiction—a reinvention of Scully's fraud and promoted as real à la Palmer."
Yes, but suspiciously enough, Scully's book also appeared three years AFTER the army admitted by radio to have recovered a crashed flying saucer. Sorry for looking at rthing from other angle.
Should I be HORRIFIED by the factoid that Scully's book was inspired by two evil and horrible "Conmen"??? Well not necessarily . In the real world, bad guys tell the truth sometimes, and many, many times, bad guys take economic advantage of things that really happened. In your parallel universe it may happen that bad guys lie 100% of the times. In your parallel universe the "good" guys tell the truth 100% of the times.
Greetings.
The highly dogmatic and dishonest "Zoam Chomsky" wrote:
ReplyDelete"Sarbacher only grudgingly admitted to having ever met Smith and said his claims were 'silly.'"
To which Don Maor responded:
"Irrelevant (again). Only in the parallel universe in which you live 'silly' is equivalent to 'dishonest' or 'false'."
Quite right, both a dishonest and false representation of what Sarbacher REALLY said. First of all, what Sarbacher said in his interview with Stan Friedman is that he "vaguely" remembered Smith, not that he "grudgingly" remembered, which is something else entirely, like Friedman beat the confession out of him. Transcript:
http://tinyurl.com/mptjv6k
The "silly" comment was in the context of the extreme high-security surrounding the subject, which came from Sarbacher, not Smith:
F: He asked you a question that you didn't answer at that time which was rather fascinating (??) maybe you've just given me the answer in a sense, ah he quotes you as saying " Yes it is classified two points higher even than the H Bomb. In fact the most highly classified subject in the US government at the present time." and...
S: I don't have the slightest idea why.
F: Well
S: It seems silly to me.
F: Well, his next comment, that was supposedly what you said and then his next comment was ah "May I ask the reason for the classification" and you said " You may ask but I can't tell you." Well think that (cut off)
S: Well probably cause I didn't know.
So when you read the actual transcript, Sarbacher WASN'T saying Smith's "claims" were "silly", but instead he thought "it", the extremely high classification, was "silly" and he didn't know the reason why it was so high. ("You may ask but I can't tell you," per the original Smith notes of the interview.)
CDA
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately I feel compelled to respond briefly to your last post.
I have reworded Larry's post to you slightly
"Have you ever bothered to think about or research anything before dashing off the first thought that pops into your mind?"
Just quickly dealing with your comment "Do you not realise that the reason Larry, Kevin and DR spend so much time commenting on mine or other people's "ridiculous posts" is that they have spent a quarter of a century now on examining every aspect of Roswell in order to try and square the circle and have failed miserably."
I cannot comment on Larry as I have never met him or seen any of his work, but I have been fortunate enough to have read material kindly provided/sourced to me by both Kevin & David and while I am disappointed that neither of them has shown me the memory metal or the aliens, I commend them for their work.
Despite what you believe, they also have their doubts about the ET hypothesis and would be prepared to consider an alternative explanation - but in that regard they have failed - they can only offer one possible solution - and it ain't Mogul.
Nitram (or Martin):
ReplyDeleteDo you have that feeling that we are way off topic?
I am curious about Kevin and DR having their "doubts about the ET hypothesis". It is certainly news to me.
It would probably be unwise for either of them to comment on this, as it would not only take us even further off-topic but consume an awful lot of time & space on this blog.
But it is a start (perhaps) to better times ahead.
Thanks David for clarifying the comment with the word "silly" from Sarbacher.
ReplyDelete"No, it's woos' habitual primitive "If [twisting of facts] then [some upside-down unreality]" style of tortured logic, general irrationality, and intentionally stupid ignoring of the real-world facts that's irrelevant. In what venue has this sort of behavior been productive for you?"
ReplyDelete|| No comments here.||
Because the answer is "None." Woos' inveterate "ignore the obvious facts and appeal to ignorance, the negative," is always completely worthless.
"Sarbacher only grudgingly admitted to having ever met Smith and said his claims were "silly.""
||"silly" is equivalent to "dishonest" or "false".||
It is, it means not only "false" but ridiculous, nonsensical, having no value.
"There were "UFO" crash stories of all kinds in practically every state beginning fifty years before 1947."
|| I don’t believe you.||
Ignorance of the subject is no excuse. Here's an article by Nigel Watson describing the completely fictional origins of the "crashed saucer and alien bodies" myth, and containing two dozen early examples from a catalogue containing dozens of other crashes or aerial explosions, producing wreckage, bodies, mysterious metals, parts and heiroglyphics from nearly every US state that experienced mass-media manufactured Airship mania.
http://magonia.haaan.com/2009/down-to-earth/
“You seem to be confused about the simple facts of these matters: Scully's 1950 book—a fraud inspired by older hoaxes—was nearly thirty years before the 1978 emergence of the "crashed saucer and alien bodies" Roswell fiction—a reinvention of Scully's fraud and promoted as real à la Palmer."
|| Scully's book also appeared three years AFTER the army admitted by radio to have recovered a crashed flying saucer.||
No. Ramey was on local radio the night of the press release saying the material was definitely NOT a "flying disk." And there was no mention of "alien bodies" in any of it, that fantasy was part of Scully's--completely unrelated--fiction book three years later. And by his own admission, Scully's book was part of a larger fraud by two conmen, whose "crashed saucer and alien bodies" fantasy was inspired by previous "crash" fictions and hoaxes.
|| Sorry for looking at rthing from other angle.||
Again, woos' ignoring the facts and ways of the real world and appealing to ignorance, the negative, and the fantastic (convicted conmen might sometimes tell extraordinary but true "crashed flying saucer" stories) is worthless, period. The suggestion--barely possible but utterly implausible--is laughable.
CDA wrote:
ReplyDelete"Do you not realise that ... Larry, Kevin and DR ... have spent a quarter of a century now on examining every aspect of Roswell in order to try and square the circle and have failed miserably."
That sure doesn't feel like what I've been doing.
Can you state for the record exactly which aspect of the matter is the circle and which one the square? Your metaphor is too obscure to even understand what claim you are actually mqking.
Contactee Wilbert Smith could claim anything, however ridiculous. He claimed he was in telepathic communication with space aliens. He stamped his insane "flying saucer propulsion" speculations "TOP SECRET" when they were nothing of the sort. And on the words of this crackpot--Wilbert Smith--you place so much faith?
ReplyDeleteUtterly Ridiculous! Now, let me help DR with his English reading comprehension.
About STF's interview with Sarbacher, in which STF attempts unsuccessfully to lead and coax information from the elderly Sarbacher using Smith's ridiculously insane and unfounded claims about a purported Q&A from over thirty years before, I wrote:
"Sarbacher only grudgingly admitted to having ever met Smith and said his claims were 'silly.'"
http://tinyurl.com/mptjv6k
F: He asked you a question that you didn't answer at that time which was rather fascinating (??) maybe you've just given me the answer in a sense, ah he quotes you as saying " Yes it is classified two points higher even than the H Bomb. In fact the most highly classified subject in the US government at the present time." and...
S: I don't have the slightest idea why.
Meaning: [Grudgingly] I don't have slightest idea why Smith or anyone would make such a claim. And I don't appreciate someone putting words in my mouth.
S: It seems silly to me.
Meaning: It's silly, it's a silly claim to make. It's very obviously a silly claim.
F: Well, his next comment, that was supposedly what you said and then his next comment was ah "May I ask the reason for the classification" and you said " You may ask but I can't tell you." Well think that (cut off)
S: Well probably cause I didn't know.
Meaning: If Smith asked such a question and I answered that "I didn't know" it was because--as I just said--it's a silly claim. If Smith claims that I answered in such a way, it IS because I neither had nor have knowledge of such a classification or that it actually was classified as such.
DR's bizarre misinterpretation: "So when you read the actual transcript, Sarbacher WASN'T saying Smith's "claims" were "silly", but instead he thought "it", the extremely high classification, was "silly" and he didn't know the reason why it was so high."
So it's not that crackpot Smith's claim that the reality of ET flying saucers was the most highly classified subject in the US government was "silly" but Sarbacher's belief that a real US government classification was "silly?" That's Ridiculous! The subject of that part of the conversation is what Smith had claimed in a note--not what Sarbacher believes. And what sort of "confirmation" is that? Your misinterpretation only impugnes Sarbacher's credibility, and on which Smith's supposedly depends!
Yet another example of the "Occultist's Razor:" The most convoluted and ridiculously preposterous explanation--even if worthless and self-defeating--is probably the best.
Now, what would Sarbacher have said about the rest of Smith's "SILLY" claims? (g)
Correction
ReplyDeleteMeaning: If Smith asked such a question and I answered that "I can't tell you" it was because--as I just said--it's a silly claim.
Meaning is the same.
Zoam:
ReplyDeleteIt is obvious from both the Friedman-Sarbacher phone call and the Sarbacher-Steinman letter (both were in the last few weeks of 1983) that Sarbacher recalled very little of those events of 1950. Smith's handwritten notes of Sept 1950 indicate he did not speak directly with Sarbacher.
As regards the names of the people involved in analysing the supposed 'crashes', Steinman had to supply Sarbacher with the names, Sarbacher only using the names Steinman had previously suggested to him.
As regards Wilbert Smith, again Sarbacher had no memory of whom he actually spoke to - in his letter to Steinman he says it was Lt Col Bremner (who was mentioned by Steinman first), whereas in his phone call with Stan Friedman he thinks he spoke with Smith (but only because Friedman had put Smith's name in his head beforehand!).
As I wrote before, take your pick which is correct - and forgetting for the moment Smith's later propensity for communicating with ETs via telepathy - you may take both Smith's utterances in 1950 and Sarbacher's in 1983 with a large pinch of salt.
You can also learn a lot about Smith from his pseudo-scientific writings in FSR during 1958-62.
I am really baffled to see how different can be the interpretation of what is written in the same document.
ReplyDeleteFor example zoamchomsky took out of context the word "silly" from the Sarbacher's 1950's interview and later converted it to that "fact" that Smith was "silly", then went even further to believe that "Silly Smith"
converted to "Dishonest Smith" able to falsify an interview.
Then, in the Sarbacher's 1980's interview
the word "vaguely" was magically made equivalent to the word "grudgingly".
Another guy, CDA, advanced his concern that 1950' Sarbacher himself was pretty much able to confound reality and fiction (insect like beings from a book were supposedly inserted by sarbacher into his own view of the reality. (apparently CDA did not provide evidence that Sarbacher really have had read that book, which was released in 1951)
Generally speaking, the skeptics view on Roswell seems to be one of a complete, brutal, and implacable denial of positive testimonies, or of the mental sanity of participants. These are extremists.
Don Maor wrote:
ReplyDeleteFor example zoamchomsky took out of context the word "silly" from the Sarbacher's 1950's interview and later converted it to that "fact" that Smith was "silly", then went even further to believe that "Silly Smith" converted to "Dishonest Smith" able to falsify an interview.
Which was so far out an "interpretation" (nicer word than lying) of what was actually written, even our own CDA chose to correct the ZoamTroll a few posts up:
"Sarbacher does not actually attribute any 'silliness' to Smith during that phone call. The 'silliness' was in the high classification of the saucers."
CDA got that, if he got nothing else, but not the ZoamBot, which is funny and ironic. The man ain't got no reading comprehension.
Yes we are dealing with skeptoid zealots here who will invent any "silly" rationale to dismiss testimony that goes against their religious beliefs. But at least CDA in real life goes by the name of Christopher Allen and is presumably mostly human and not a reptilian. But who the hell is "Zoam Chomsky"? Whomever, he doesn't have the guts to post under his real name.
Mouarf "Doctor" Rudiak.
ReplyDeleteIf you have presented one time "your findings" to the scientific community and received positive aknowlegements, rewards or dunno what, you could be in a posture to state about what is rationale or not, against the "Skeptics". You are irrational about this myth, disguishing your long speeches as rational only.
You (as the so-called DreamTeam) have prooved nothing your extraordinary claim (an alien spececraft crashed in the desert in 1947 with bodies, materials, etc.) requires ;) NADA.
For the moment, you have ZERO publication or scientific consensus about your Chimera... I'm sorry to wake up your dream :(
and Yes, Zoam was right when stating such UFO crashes, alien bodies, wreckages, hieroglyphic writtings, etc. were already present "50 years" before the Roswell myth.
But Don Maor have "kicked into touch", despite he didnt believe in it! We saw nothing, Don ;) You didn't believe in it, but believe to the Roswell myth! It speacks for itself imho...
Regards,
Gilles
Merci, Gilles! Vive Scepticisme Scientifique! Vive L'hypothese Sociopsychologique!
ReplyDeleteDR; With whom does the wild CLAIM originate?
ReplyDeleteHere's a tip, when Friedman says: ...he [Smith] quotes you as saying....
Sarbacher responds: I don't have the slightest idea why.
And then Sarbacher says: It seems silly to me.
Sarbacher never confirms Smith's CLAIM. He says it's silly.
I never said Smith was silly. I said he was a flying-saucer crackpot, which is completely true. Smith most probably made up the ridiculous claim for which Sarbacher refused responsibility, despite Friedman's irritating leading questions, and which the aged Sarbacher refused to corroborate. Sarbacher's frank tone is obvious. And when Friedman tries "Smith" again, Sarbacher gives him a blunt "No."
Are you getting it, DR? You might try to look at these patently false articles of the flying-saucer faith more objectively instead of blindly accepting them as inviolate truths and repeating. In no way did Sarbacher confirm Smith's "silly" flying-saucer claims. And neither did Sarbacher provide "information" to Smith in any other way, as you falsely claimed. Got it now?
Here's another tip, when their false beliefs are exploded, rational people learn—not attack others.
Now, other than style and focus, there's not a dime's difference between what the knowledgeable and rapier-witted cda has said and what I'm telling you, or what the Skeptics here think of DR "Occultist's" worthless flying-saucer belief-before-facts and house-of-cards Internet-conspiracist style of woo presentation. Other than Don you're not fooling anyone.
ufoolery is history, make belief in the "UFO" myth and delusion history as well.