I
knew the “This and That” post would draw some interesting responses, but I
didn’t see it moving into the arena it has. Some of the questions being asked
are quite insightful and I have some of the answers. For those answers I don’t
have, David Rudiak will probably provide some additional commentary to help us
understand the situation.
According
to Stan Friedman, he was in Baton Rouge on February 20, 1978, when one of the
directors of a television station told Friedman he should talk to Jesse Marcel.
Marcel said that he had handled pieces of a flying saucer, and though Friedman
said he was dubious, he took down Marcel’s name and using directory assistance
(does that still exist?) was given Marcel’s telephone number. At the airport
with some time to spare, he called Marcel. According to Friedman, Marcel
related to him, during that telephone conversation, the details of the crash,
though Marcel couldn’t remember the date. He knew it was Roswell where it
happened.
According
to Friedman’s book, Crash at Corona,
it seems Marcel had already
formed the idea that the debris was left by
something alien. Friedman quotes indirectly from Marcel (which means it is
Friedman telling us what Marcel said), but I don’t know if the quotes came from
that first conversation or if in writing the book and knowing the full story in
the 1990s that he recreated the quotes from other, later interviews. Since this
was a telephone interview using an airport telephone, I suspect there is no
tape.
 |
| Jesse Marcel |
On
April 7, 1978, according to Len Stringfield, he linked a Chicago reporter,
Steve Tom (I use the term reporter though Stringfield actually identified him
as an NBC radio newsman) to Jesse Marcel at his home in Houma, LA. Marcel again
talked about the event, the strange material. According to Stringfield, Marcel
said that when the press learned about the retrieval operation and “To get them
off my back, I told them we were recovering a downed weather balloon.”
In
his Status Report Number II,
Stringfield wrote, “Since the Major’s story got publicity, it has been said by
some researchers that the retrieved fragments were possibly part of the Skyhook
balloon, at that time classified as Secret. On October 5, 1979, I called him
and got this comment:
The
material I gathered did not resemble anything off a balloon. A balloon, of any
kind could not have exploded and spread its debris over a broad area… I was
later told that a military team from my base was sent to rake the entire area.
I
don’t know if Stringfield recorded any of these conversations with Marcel.
After Stringfield died, his files were donated to MUFON which restricts access
to them (and most of their other material). Those in the Chicago area might try
to find a recording of Marcel on the NBC affiliate there in 1978, though I
suspect Mark Rodeghier, who found the “Headline Edition” from ABC probably
already checked on that.
Bob
Pratt interviewed Marcel on December 8, 1979. I have posted the exact
transcript of that interview to this blog at:
Karl
Pflock published a cleaned up version of this in his book, Roswell: Inconvenient Facts and the Will to Believe. As I have
noted, in his cleaned up version, some of the problems with the Pratt interview
were, well, cleaned up. In one place the insertion of a comma changes the
meaning of the sentence.
There
is another point that raises questions and it surfaces in both the transcript
and the article that Pratt wrote. According to that article:
Wreckage
from the UFO “was scattered as far as you could see,” revealed Marcel who was
awarded five air medals for shooting down five enemy aircraft on bombers in
World War 2. [What a bizarre sentence from a professional writer.]
As
we all know, Marcel was awarded two Air Medals for combat missions during that
war. There are no indications that he shot down any enemy aircraft and I don’t
know if the error was one of Pratt’s misunderstanding what Marcel said, or if
it was a claim made by Marcel. I did ask Pratt if he had retained the tape
recording but he told me that once the story had been published, they reused
the tapes… It just shows that you never know what is going to become important.
Here’s
what I do know at this point. The first Friedman interview was by telephone
while Friedman was at the airport. Marcel didn’t say anything about the
photographs and while in today’s world, if Friedman had photographs, he could
have shown them to Marcel using the Internet, in 1978, that capability just
didn’t exist. Besides, Marcel wasn’t sure of the date and it was Bill Moore who
finally found the newspaper articles that included pictures of Marcel so
Friedman didn’t have the pictures then and didn’t know they existed.
The
subsequent Moore/Friedman interviews were apparently also conducted over the
telephone, according to a quote attributed to him in Linda Corley’s book about
Marcel and Roswell. According to her taped interview, Marcel said, “Now those
guys, Charles Berlitz and William Moore, I bet I have spent as much as ten
hours along these telephones with these two guys. I’ve never met either one of
them.”
Corley
questioned him on this point and Marcel said, “I never met them. They
interviewed me on the phone.”
At
that point, I’m sure that they have copies of the newspaper clippings some of
which contained a picture of Marcel and the balloon wreckage and might have
even gotten prints of the pictures from the Fort
Worth Star - Telegram, but they couldn’t show these pictures to Marcel over
the telephone. According to Berlitz and Moore, Marcel told them, over the
telephone:
General
Ramey allowed some members of the press in to take a picture of this stuff.
They took one picture of me on the floor holding up some of the
less-interesting metallic debris. The press was allowed to photograph this, but
were not allowed far enough into the room to touch it. The stuff in that one
photo was pieces of the actual stuff we found. It was not a staged photo. Then
they allowed photos. Those photos were taken while the actual wreckage was
already on its way to Wright Field. I believe these were taken with the general
and one of his aides…
If
we look at that, and the captions about where Berlitz and Moore got the
pictures, we see that there was some manipulation going on there. They got a
quote from Marcel that endorsed the picture of him with some of the real
debris, but we don’t know if it was the whole picture or the cropped version
they printed. What is clear is that when Johnny Mann showed him the pictures in
The Roswell Incident, Marcel said
they didn’t show the real debris.
Yes,
I know some of the skeptics just can’t imagine Marcel not keeping copies of the
newspaper articles that mentioned his name but then suggest the whole flying
saucer brouhaha was such an embarrassment to him that he would, decades later,
attempt to spin the story. But I know that things get lost as the years pass
and I know that my picture appeared in the Denver
Post in the early 1970s receiving a military award for service in Vietnam
but I do not have a copy of that article.
I
suggest that it is possible that Marcel, not having seen the heavily cropped pictures
that would be published in The Roswell
Incident because the interviews were conducted over the telephone, would
remember pictures being taken at the time but might have not remembered the
sequence. His statement about him being with the real debris when the pictures
were taken could easily refer to another event and not what had transpired in
Ramey’s office. So, when shown copies of the pictures from Ramey’s office, he
rightly said, “That’s not the stuff I picked up.”
This
seems to be a plausible explanation for this dilemma. He was photographed with
some of the real debris, but those pictures were not taken in Ramey’s office.
It wasn’t Marcel getting coached into what to say about it, but how he actually
remembered the events. Though there is another problem with this analysis and
that is Marcel told Corley that on orders for Ramey, he had covered the real
debris with the brown paper that is seen in the uncropped versions of all the
pictures taken in Ramey’s office. This suggests that Marcel’s memories of those
events might not be completely accurate.
 |
| Jesse Marcel, standing and pointing, briefing flight crews during the Second World War. Photo copyright by Kevin Randle |
There
are other problems that arise from these transcripts of earlier interviews.
Pratt said that Marcel was awarded five Air Medals for shooting down five enemy
aircraft, but given Pratt’s transcript and other information, this mistake
might be Pratt’s rather than Marcel’s. In the transcripts of the raw footage of
UFOs Are Real, it said, “10 April
1942 volunteered for active service… 1st assignment Washington five
Air Medals, the Bronze Star and several comendations [exactly as written out in
the transcript].”
Since
there is no mention of the five enemy aircraft, it would seem that the mistake
was Pratt’s. The other problem is that there is only documentation for two Air
Medals. As I have said before, my records did not contain the correct number of
Air Medals, so we might have a similar situation. This just might not be
sufficient reason to reject, out of hand, all that Marcel said.
What
is more disturbing is his claim to have received a commendation for performing
an appendectomy while in the service. This is something that should be recorded
in his military record but I find nothing about it. I did find mention of
another commendation for Marcel, but it was for service during Operation
Crossroads. Maybe the commendation for the emergency surgery slipped through
the cracks, but there comes a point when you can no longer blame Army
inefficiency for the errors in the record (though I have said that if you do
something wrong, that note has the permanence of the Pyramids and if you do
something right it has the half-life of a mayfly).
There
are two things I found in these transcripts that are interesting. First, Marcel
said that after loading his car with the debris, “I stopped by the house had
left the day before and son and wife were waiting for me.”
This
is curious because the story had always seemed to be that he had awakened them
to show them the strange debris. This suggests that he had stopped by so they
wouldn’t worry and that it wasn’t very early in the morning but late evening. A
minor problem at best.
In
the transcript (which, by the way, is strange) it is noted that on “Tape 2” at
the 24:16 minute mark, Marcel apparently told them that Haut had issued the
press release before he had even returned from the field. The exact quote on
this transcript is, “He (Walt Haut had released statement to press before Jesse
had even returned home that night.” (Yes, this is how it was written out, so it
is not exactly Marcel’s words.)
Apparently
Marcel said that his wife had been “pestered by the news media.”
In
Linda Corley’s book, Marcel makes a similar statement. He said, “She [wife]
didn’t even know where I was. By the time I got home, she had already faced the
press that was out there.”
What
this does is screw up every time line created for this because we have the
press release going out before Marcel got home… which had to be late afternoon at
best given the distance from the debris field to Roswell even making the best
time possible. Then we need to get Marcel on an aircraft early enough to get to
Fort Worth in time to have his picture taken with the balloon debris.
It
is possible, of course, that Marcel had confused coming home from the debris
field with his coming home from Fort Worth after his quick trip there. He seems
to have mixed up elements of the two events, confusing the timing, but then,
that is just my speculation.
Then
it gets worse, if possible. Marcel is quoted in the transcript, apparently
paraphrasing General Ramey, “You can go ahead and scatter some of those pieces
on the floor for the photographers and press but make sure they don’t get any
details about anything.”
There
was a question, “Was that the actual material you had found?”
“I
prepared that for the press. (That big piece was not part of it). [parens in
original document.]”
And
then it gets better. Marcel said, “Let me show you something. There’s a picture
of the same room [Ramey’s office, I will assume here] It’s not the material I
brought there.”
Then
on “Tape 3” comes more information. The director or the interviewer or the one
asking questions said, “I talk about book I’m showing him [Which has to be
something with the various pictures from Ramey’s office.] Book in Jesse’s lap
showing warrant officer [has to be Irving Newton and that rules out The Roswell Incident]. The director
asked, “This is not the material you found?” Marcel said, “Definitely not.”
The
trouble here is that Marcel in the same film said that if he was in the
photographs it was the real stuff and if it was anyone else, it was the fake.
But now we learn that he was shown those photographs during that filming and
before anyone could teach him the right answer, said that it wasn’t the
material he had brought from Roswell.
The
questions then, have been answered, sort of. We learn that the first interview
was probably not recorded and are treated to Friedman’s recollections of what
was said. We learn that the interviews of Marcel by Berlitz and Moore were
conducted over the telephone. We do find quotes from Marcel that seem to
contradict the story as it has been told for all these years which is quite
troubling. And we find other quotes that seem to support that story, which
suggests some manipulation by the various UFO researchers. Is it enough to
reject now what Marcel said? Depends on your point of view, but we do have more
information that suggests Marcel’s memories are not completely reliable on many
of these points and at this time, that might be the best we can do.
(Note:
For those interested, this has grown much larger than I anticipated. I looked
through Marcel’s service record again, I reviewed the other material in that
file, rereading after decades some of the partial transcripts that I have which
provide some disturbing information, looked again a Linda Corley’s book to see
what she said about the early interviews with Marcel, and reviewed what
Friedman had published. There is more to this story, which I’ll get into some
form for publication.)
I expect that Marcel, in these interviews with Pratt and Corley, is confusing Berlitz with Friedman. According to Friedman, Berlitz never conducted any interviews for the book nor did any research worth mentioning. It was all done by Moore, assisted by Friedman. Berlitz was merely a 'name' from his previous books, and wrote about half the text of THE ROSWELL INCIDENT.
ReplyDeleteIt tends to indicate that Marcel was not only confused over the events of decades earlier but also got confused over who he was speaking to in the late 1970s.
CDA -
ReplyDeleteThe point wasn't if Berlitz had done any of the work or interviewing but the fact that all the interviews were conducted over the telephone, meaning they didn't show him the pictures taken in Ramey's office. All it really indicates (this particular point) is that Friedman made such a small impression on Marcel that he didn't remember his name and used the names on the book... but the point is, the interviews were over the telephone.
Thanks for putting this together, Kevin.
ReplyDeleteAs I suspected, the earlier we go the more dubious the mythology gets.
Notice how Stringfield says:
“To get them off my back, I told them we were recovering a downed weather balloon.”
At this time, Marcel isn't seemingly aware of the conspiracy theory necessary with the switched debris etc.
Needless to say, the quote:
"“You can go ahead and scatter some of those pieces on the floor for the photographers and press but make sure they don’t get any details about anything.”
is devastating for the health of the mythology...
I know you somehow find it reasonable that Marcel somehow forgot that the photos we see him in on the Front Page of newspapers all over the country showed him with some crappy fake debris, debris that suggested that he made a big mistake that gained National attention. I'm not sure that I would forget that.
You say:
"Yes, I know some of the skeptics just can’t imagine Marcel not keeping copies of the newspaper articles that mentioned his name "
Nope. Just that it seems reasonable that one would remember such a milestone event.
Additionally the other Stringfield quote inadvertently aggravates another point about Marcel that sinks Roswell.
"I was later told that a military team from my base was sent to rake the entire area."
So here Marcel advances the idea that he was being briefed (or perhaps hearing through rumor) about the recovery of what believers advance as magical debris. And yet Marcel, the base intelligence officer, never heard a single word from any of the intelligence officers working beneath him or any of his other staff about the supposed flying saucer recovery that has become part of the mythology. Those guys SHOULD have been out hiding the recovery effort and so forth but Marcel, on returning to the base never noticed any of them gone and never heard even one rumor about the gigantic recovery effort. Of course, in the mythology, as believers have styled it over the years, it seems (and I exaggerate here, slightly ) that every cook, sergeant and secretary knew all about the saucer. Everyone EXCEPT the base intelligence officer.
I am disappointed that you seem to ignore here that Marcel says that REPORTERS took one photo with he real debris--not the intelligence officers, etc. who would be required for David's supposed second photo shoot.
Once again believers multiply entities (2 photo shoots, at least 2 sets of fake debris, one inexplicably containing the flowered tape! etc.) and you somehow find it more convincing to believe in the the things that are NOT in evidence over those which are.
Lance
So much to digest here! (Is there anything straight forward with this case?)
ReplyDeleteOf particular interest, to me, is the suggestion Haut had released the PR before Marcel had returned to base!!! I wrote in an earlier thread in this blog that, to square a few circles, the second crash site must have been found immediately after Marcel and Cavitt had left the base and, whilst incommunicado, what they were doing at Foster Ranch completely paled in comparison to what was happening at Site No 2. I imagine it came as some relief when they realised they could take the heat away from Site No.2 by directing the reporters over to Mrs Marcel.
“She [wife] didn’t even know where I was. By the time I got home, she had already faced the press that was out there.”
Looks like the Marcel family were convenient "fall guys" from the very start.
It might also explain part of the point brought up by Lance above :
So here Marcel advances the idea that he was being briefed (or perhaps hearing through rumor) about the recovery of what believers advance as magical debris. And yet Marcel, the base intelligence officer, never heard a single word from any of the intelligence officers working beneath him or any of his other staff about the supposed flying saucer recovery that has become part of the mythology. Those guys SHOULD have been out hiding the recovery effort and so forth but Marcel, on returning to the base never noticed any of them gone and never heard even one rumor about the gigantic recovery effort."
Marcel was already engrossed by other events!
ie... what he'd found at Foster Ranch...having to fly over to see Ramey and going along with that charade... and then finding out that his wife was having to deal with the press.
I expect he was totally "out of the loop" as regards what was happening at the main event; The second crash site.
Pure speculation on my part...of course.
As for the rest of the "conundrum"... well there's no real getting round the fact that Marcel does say that the real debris was hidden from the cover-up debris at the same photo shoot. It makes no sense. If Ramey was conducting a cover-up, then he wouldn't want real flying saucer debris to be within a mile of some press guys camera.
ReplyDeleteAll I can say is that we're talking about a chap here who was probably inundated with interview requests at all times of the day and night...and for every interview he granted he probably declined loads more.
This is a guy who technically didn't seek the limelight.
Telling his cb mates his story doesn't mean he ever dreamt it would go out to the worlds media.
If Freidman hadn't have been in that particular radio station at that particular time and spoken to that particular radio director...then Jessie Marcel might not have been a household name even in his own household.
So we've got an elderley man here, living out his last years in ill health and being mithered by the press, authors, and every UFO nut with enough brain power to look him up in the phone book.
It's not inconceivable to me that during this particular interview he had a brain fart.
...............................
Off topic...is anyone else having a delay (sometimes hours) between posting and it appearing on the thread...or is this a problem at my end?
Paul, it is a bit confusing but you do understand we are not talking about just one interview? It's at least 3 in which Marcel had the "real" debris in front of the cameras (first he said that the real stuff is what we see in the photos then he says he was hiding the real stuff--but it was still there). It's just so dumb that this whole mythology rests on such a silly foundation. But the believers rationalize it away and soldier on.
ReplyDeleteTo any objective person, though, it kills Roswell.
Lance
Paul Young writes:
ReplyDelete"If Ramey was conducting a cover-up, then he wouldn't want real flying saucer debris to be within a mile of some press guys camera."
Which reinforces my statement that Ramey would not have risked allowing anyone from the press on the base during the critical period. He only had to politely say the 'thing' was a classified balloon or airplane, and that it was not for public viewing.
[Re your last sentence, I think Kevin is now approving all posts before making them public; whereas before they were posted immediately they were sent. But not knowing the ins & outs of the blogger, I can't really answer this].
Lance wrote:"And yet Marcel, the base intelligence officer, never heard a single word from any of the intelligence officers working beneath him or any of his other staff about the supposed flying saucer recovery,,,"
ReplyDeleteIt is my understanding that Jessie commanded a squad of typists and file clerks
who examined the clearances of folks who worked at the base. I don't think he was
involved with "intelligence" and wasn't a spook. It was an administrative job.
Ed
Ed -
ReplyDeleteOnce again your ignorance is showing. While it is apparently true that he was involved with the clearances of base personnel, his job encompassed a much wider range of duties, including staying abreast of current events, the order of battle of potential enemies, and what was called combat intelligence. And while these staff jobs could be thought of as administrative in nature, they involved more than just "commanding" a squad of typists and file clerks.
Kevin,
ReplyDeleteI was remembering the Pratt interview (pg227)in Pflock's "Roswell": "See, my main job there was to clear the personnel through the AEC to be stationed at the base... I had five officers and twenty enlisted typists working for me."
Perhaps "commanding" isn't exactly correct but clearing personnel was his main duty and this aspect of his job is seldom mentioned.
Ed
Lance -- No objective person would deny the ET event of Roswell despite Major Marcel's alleged inconsistency. There is entirely too much evidence in favor of the ET interpretation, providing a sound and solid (and not silly) foundation for belief.
ReplyDeleteInstead of the rationalization of believers, rather we have here the fantasy of debunkers and their specious attacks in denial of the truth.
Lance -- No objective person would deny the ET event of Roswell despite Major Marcel's alleged inconsistency. There is entirely too much evidence in favor of the ET interpretation, providing a sound and solid (and not silly) foundation for belief.
ReplyDeleteEd -
ReplyDeleteMarcel, in that same interview, also said, "I was assigned to the Special Weapons Program collecting air samples throughout the world and [getting them] analyzed." This was, of course, after he had left Roswell but gives an indication of his training.
The Unit History for June and July provide the number of security clearances obtained given the mission of the 509th. This did take up the majority of his time in those months, but you also see briefings created for visiting VIPs and on the situation in the world at the time. It also mentions that he was understaffed and there were not enough qualified soldiers at Roswell for the work. He also lead the mapping section. All this suggests that this training was as varied as his responsibilities, so reducing to one function is somewhat misleading.
(Part 1 of 3)
ReplyDeleteFACT: Marcel was quoted/paraphrased in the newspapers (as was Ramey and Dubose), but it is unclear whether he actually spoke directly to any reporter or whether his statements came through one of Ramey's PIO's. In at least one instance we know of, Major Edward Kirton, said to be a "duty officer" and one of Ramey's intelligence officers, who spoke to Reuters, the Dallas Morning News, and the FBI, was quoted speaking on behalf of Ramey. Thus did Ramey really say early on that the object (radar target) was "hexagonal" in shape (a highly unusual description that might apply only to an intact, assembled radar target, not the torn up, flattened one eventually displayed) or was this a creation of someone else and passed to Kirton to distribute in the name of Ramey?
FACT: Regardless, Marcel did say later he was acting under Ramey's orders (as did Gen. Dubose), which would certainly be the case. The newspapers (most specifically the FW Star-Telegram) have Marcel describing Brazel bundling "together the large pile of tinfoil and broken wooden beams about one-fourth of an inch thick and half-inch wide and the torn mass of synthetic rubber that had been the balloon," also referring to Brazel upon hearing of the flying saucers July 5, then immediately rushing out the next morning to recover the "kite balloon." Thus Marcel, under orders, DID tell a weather balloon story in Fort Worth (and notice again the SINGULAR radar target/balloon description). Certain statements attributed to Marcel were echoed by Marcel decades later, such as debris scattered over a square mile (and Lance still can't explain that), Brazel living in the "middle of nowhere", and that he told Brazel it wasn't anything Army or Navy (which Bill Brazel recalled his father telling him he was told).
FACT: What Ramey, Marcel, and other Ramey minions (like Kirton & Newton) described as being found or being in Ramey's office was a SINGULAR weather balloon and radar target. And in fact, that is all that is shown in the Ramey photos, one (but broken up radar target) and one, seemingly intact weather balloon (fits in a shoe box). Lance previously said I "estimated" this, but that is not exactly true. I MEASURED it by reconstructing the scene in great detail in a 3D ray tracer. That is, e.g., how I can state the balloon envelope would fit in a shoe box. I MEASURED the approximate volume with the 3D computer model. This is why I can also say that the displayed debris does NOT agree even remotely with a Mogul balloon train or even Brazel's balloon description given several hours LATER (with even the base provost Marshal Easley admitting to Kevin they were holding Brazel at the base against his will, thus NOT a free agent but a coerced witness).
FACT: As usual, debunkers like Lance try to make Roswell all about Marcel, but Marcel had ample corroboration for just about all parts of his story, including a weather balloon cover-up in Fort Worth (regardless of the exact details of how it went down). Lance, e.g., ignores another FACT that Gen. Dubose, quite INDEPENDENTLY of Marcel (going clear back to the 1980 "Roswell Incident") stated the weather balloon was a cover story to get the press off their backs, there was indeed a weather balloon substitution, and he personally took the order from Gen. McMullen (Deputy C/S of the SAC) to begin a cover-up. Dubose also stated EVERYTHING was carried out in extreme secrecy (also ordered by McMullen). Sample Dubose quotes:
(Affidavit) "The material shown in the photographs taken in Maj. Gen. Ramey's office was a weather balloon. The weather balloon explanation for the material was a cover story to divert the attention of the press."
(Recorded interview) "Actually, it was a cover story, the balloon part of it... Somebody cooked up the idea as a cover story ...we'll use this weather balloon. ...We were told this is the story that is to be given to the press...”
(Part 1 of 3)
ReplyDeleteFACT: Marcel was quoted/paraphrased in the newspapers (as was Ramey and Dubose), but it is unclear whether he actually spoke directly to any reporter or whether his statements came through one of Ramey's PIO's. In at least one instance we know of, Major Edward Kirton, said to be a "duty officer" and one of Ramey's intelligence officers, who spoke to Reuters, the Dallas Morning News, and the FBI, was quoted speaking on behalf of Ramey. Thus did Ramey really say early on that the object (radar target) was "hexagonal" in shape (a highly unusual description that might apply only to an intact, assembled radar target, not the torn up, flattened one eventually displayed) or was this a creation of someone else and passed to Kirton to distribute in the name of Ramey?
FACT: Regardless, Marcel did say later he was acting under Ramey's orders (as did Gen. Dubose), which would certainly be the case. The newspapers (most specifically the FW Star-Telegram) have Marcel describing Brazel bundling "together the large pile of tinfoil and broken wooden beams about one-fourth of an inch thick and half-inch wide and the torn mass of synthetic rubber that had been the balloon," also referring to Brazel upon hearing of the flying saucers July 5, then immediately rushing out the next morning to recover the "kite balloon." Thus Marcel, under orders, DID tell a weather balloon story in Fort Worth (and notice again the SINGULAR radar target/balloon description). Certain statements attributed to Marcel were echoed by Marcel decades later, such as debris scattered over a square mile (and Lance still can't explain that), Brazel living in the "middle of nowhere", and that he told Brazel it wasn't anything Army or Navy (which Bill Brazel recalled his father telling him he was told).
FACT: What Ramey, Marcel, and other Ramey minions (like Kirton & Newton) described as being found or being in Ramey's office was a SINGULAR weather balloon and radar target. And in fact, that is all that is shown in the Ramey photos, one (but broken up radar target) and one, seemingly intact weather balloon (fits in a shoe box). Lance previously said I "estimated" this, but that is not exactly true. I MEASURED it by reconstructing the scene in great detail in a 3D ray tracer. That is, e.g., how I can state the balloon envelope would fit in a shoe box. I MEASURED the approximate volume with the 3D computer model. This is why I can also say that the displayed debris does NOT agree even remotely with a Mogul balloon train or even Brazel's balloon description given several hours LATER (with even the base provost Marshal Easley admitting to Kevin they were holding Brazel at the base against his will, thus NOT a free agent but a coerced witness).
FACT: As usual, debunkers like Lance try to make Roswell all about Marcel, but Marcel had ample corroboration for just about all parts of his story, including a weather balloon cover-up in Fort Worth (regardless of the exact details of how it went down). Lance, e.g., ignores another FACT that Gen. Dubose, quite INDEPENDENTLY of Marcel (going clear back to the 1980 "Roswell Incident") stated the weather balloon was a cover story to get the press off their backs, there was indeed a weather balloon substitution, and he personally took the order from Gen. McMullen (Deputy C/S of the SAC) to begin a cover-up. Dubose also stated EVERYTHING was carried out in extreme secrecy (also ordered by McMullen). Sample Dubose quotes:
(Affidavit) "The material shown in the photographs taken in Maj. Gen. Ramey's office was a weather balloon. The weather balloon explanation for the material was a cover story to divert the attention of the press."
(Recorded interview) "Actually, it was a cover story, the balloon part of it... Somebody cooked up the idea as a cover story ...we'll use this weather balloon. ...We were told this is the story that is to be given to the press...”
(Part 2 of 3)
ReplyDelete(Dubose Interview with reporter Billy Cox) "There was a host of people descending on our headquarters seeking information from Ramey, badgering him for information we didn't have. I didn't know what it was. Blanchard didn't know. Ramey didn't know... We didn’t know what the hell it was. Nobody knew. But I can tell you this — it damn sure wasn’t a weather balloon. ...McMullen said, Look, why don't you come up with something, anything you can use to get the press off our back? So we came up with this weather balloon story...”
"McMullen told me, ‘You are not to discuss this… this is more than top secret… it’s beyond that. It’s within my priority as deputy to [Gen.] George Kenney, and he in turn responsible to the President, this is the highest priority you can exhibit. And you will say nothing. And that's the end of it. ...Jesus, that's the commander and chief and you forgot about it."
"I received a phone call from Maj. Gen. Clements McMullen, Deputy Commander, Strategic Air Command. He asked what we knew about the object which had been recovered outside Roswell... I called Col. William Blanchard... and directed him to send the material in a sealed container to me at Fort Worth. After the plane from Roswell arrived with the material, I asked the Base Commander, Col. Al Clark, to take possession of the material and to personally transport it in a B-26 to... McMullen in Washington, D.C. ...McMullen told me he would send the material by personal courier on his plane to ...Wright Field. The entire operation was conducted under the strictest secrecy."
Another USAF general to confirm a high-level cover-up was Gen. Exon, who went even further than Dubose saying it was indeed the crash of a space craft and bodies were recovered, with strange debris being analyzed at Wright-Patterson by people he knew personally.
And numerous people also described anomalous debris just like Marcel. Bill Brazel, just like Marcel and quite independently, was telling us (again clear back in the "Roswell Incident") about the "memory foil" and wood-like beams he couldn't mark or cut with knife. Further, he corroborated Marcel's story of the large, linear debris field and his father finding the debris after hearing a huge explosion the night before. And he also said his father described finding "figures" on the wood-like pieces (like Marcel's "hieroglyphs"), a word he also used to describe Indian petroglyphs.
Another witness to speak of hieroglyphs (but on an “I-beam” much like what Marcel Jr. described) was asst. op officer Lt. Robert Shirkey, who saw Marcel's B-29 being loaded with boxes of debris, including another large metallic piece (perhaps the piece Marcel recalled holding up for a photo). Shirkey never mentioned witnessing something like foil-paper, and was also told it was the remains of a flying saucer.
FACT: Whenever Marcel was interviewed IN PERSON and SHOWN the actual public press photos (at least 3 known instances), he ALWAYS stated that wasn't the debris he brought from Roswell and those photos were staged or faked. He also said (on I believe at least two occasions) he was photographed one time holding a real piece of larger metallic debris, but in these instances press photos were NOT shown to him (e.g., when speaking over the phone with Bill Moore) and he could easily have been referring to internal military photos taken for historical documentation, which I suspect would also have involved Ramey, all decked out in dress uniform, or Blanchard back in Roswell.
Yes, this is speculation, but we also know of well-documented incidents where the military/government was covering up something highly secret while documenting what really happened internally (e.g., a cover story was put out for the crash of an A-12 spy plane in 1963, with photos of the recovery classified for nearly 50 years: http://tinyurl.com/A12-crash-debris-recovery )
(Part 3 of 3)
ReplyDeleteFACT: For such a supposed liar and bungler it is curious that his surviving military record PROVES:
1) He stayed on as head intelligence officer at Roswell for another year, then booted upstairs to higher intelligence work, with both the SAC and Pentagon competing for him. (Eventually ending up with the very top secret Special Weapons Project in Washington trying to find out if the Soviets had tested an A-bomb, being officer-in-charge of the war room and primary briefing officer.)
2) Upon his transfer, Gen. Ramey registered a mild protest, stating he had NOBODY in his command to replace him. (So either Ramey liked bungling intelligence officers and couldn't find a replacement equal to Marcel in the incompetence department, or Ramey liked very good intelligence officers and didn't have anyone his equal at the time. What do you think Lance?) Ramey also called Marcel's services to his command "outstanding." (Outstanding as in incompetence and lying, or outstanding as in competence and accomplishment? What do you think Lance?) Ramey also wrote he thought Marcel command officer material. (Did Ramey also want incompetent command officers?)
See: www.roswellproof.com/Eval_Ramey0848.html
3) At the same time Col. John Ryan (during Roswell Ramey's operations officer, he and Blanchard switched jobs a year later, and Ryan eventually became AF Chief of Staff and Chair of the Joint Chiefs) stated that Marcel's work and service were "most exemplary" and "most outstanding."
See: www.roswellproof.com/Eval_Ryan0848.html)
4) Following Roswell, both Blanchard and Dubose (perhaps representing Ramey's wishes) recommended Marcel for promotion to Lt.-Col. in the AF Reserve, which he received.
5) Following Roswell, Blanchard boosted Marcel's performance rating with Dubose co-signing. (In fact, all post-Roswell Marcel evaluations were generally with very good to excellent marks in all categories.) Although stating he didn't know Marcel personally and was just following Blanchard's lead, Dubose (who DID know what Marcel had done during Roswell and in Fort Worth) independently recommended Marcel for Air Staff and Training School, which would be preparation for possible future command positions, thus echoing Ramey's later statement that he thought Marcel command officer material.
6) Marcel was recommissioned the following Spring, when officer commissions were hard to get following WWII while the military was trying to sharply downsize and dump as many unneeded, lingering WWII officers as possible. (Was the military only retaining the incompetent ones who also couldn’t tell the truth? What do you think Lance?)
My point is, even if we suppose Marcel later told a few war stories (and it remains unproven that he lied about anything in his war record, which is incomplete BTW and reconstructed after the original was said burned during the St. Louis veteran's record fire), his post-Roswell record shows ZERO evidence that he in any way mishandled the Roswell event, and he retained the full confidence of higher officers involved like Ramey, Blanchard, and Dubose (“outstanding”, command officer material, promoted, recommissioned, transferred to higher intelligence work). Further, all major parts of his Roswell story had corroboration by others, including two USAF generals.
It escapes me at the moment but did Marcel ever undergo a lie detector test? How brilliant it would have been to have some of the main players go through one.. Haut, Marcel, well all of them! (yeah I know, keep dreaming..)
ReplyDeleteDavid Rudiak goes into great detail about Marcel's abilities, character and devotion to duty whilst in the USAF. But does this advance one iota the assumption that he recovered the remains of a crashed ET craft?
ReplyDeleteAlso, how did General Exon know that what was recovered was the remains of an ET craft and bodies (as quoted by DR above)? Surely Exon had no 'need to know'. He was certainly NOT part of the team that did the post-recovery analysis. So unless Exon had seen a known such craft, plus bodies, once before, AND had caught a glimpse of the Roswell debris, how precisely did he know of this remarkable identification?
Or is Exon merely talking garbage (as I submit he is)?
Paul - "If Ramey was conducting a cover-up, then he wouldn't want real flying saucer debris to be within a mile of some press guys camera."
ReplyDeleteNor would he have held a top secret memo in his hand so it could be photographed.
Dimov - "Lie detector"
I don't believe this was done, and of course if it had been done it would have been decades later after the Moore/Friedman phone interviews. While there is room to question some of Marcel's integrity (his degree for example), I personally don't think the man was creating a fictional story.
Putting it in perspective, after decades of not having any solid answers to what really occurred he (and his son) concluded the material was "not of this earth". If he had been given a lie detector test in the late '70s or early '80's, I believe he would have passed because by then his mind was convinced it must have been an alien craft.
Lie detector tests can be beaten intentionally through training; in his case he would have passed due to his own decades ingrained conclusions and belief. As Kevin has pointed out, Friedman had less influence than perhaps Moore. In any case Marcel's contact with them simply reinforced his ET conclusions mixed with his confusion.
In other words they helped to validate his conclusion even if not correct.
Marcel's first taped interviews clearly show him saying "we didn't know what it was".
Without answers, he filled in the blanks himself as many people do.
The saucer wave of '47 no doubt influenced his initial thoughts that it COULD be something from outer space. With no clear answers forthcoming over the decades he concluded it must have been.
Then decades later some guys come wanting to hear his story because he believes in alien visitation - and so do they.
Bingo - a myth is born.
David -
ReplyDeleteAs pointed out before it's quite reasonable to assume that as you say, the debris on the floor IS NOT a full Mogul array.
Why? Well we have witness testimony that SOME debris (not every last scrap) was flown to Fort Worth (in the paper package in the photo and also in a shoe box). Check the witness records and it confirms this.
So we can conclude one of two scenarios may have occurred:
1) Only a portion was brought to Ramey just as he ordered. Hence it's not the full Mogul train - just some parts.
2) As some testimony states (Dubose), they decided to cover the Mogul story by simply calling it a plain old "weather balloon" instead of "a balloon for spying on the Soviets". They sent up a common weather balloon (newer), wrecked it, brought in the parts and then mixed them with Marcel's scraps after it was determined what he actually had wasn't that special. Hence you now have a reason for why Marcel said what he did and his confusion; some of it was his junk and other parts were theirs.
You don't really think if it were a Mogul crash they would have told the world they were sending up balloons to spy on the Soviets do you? Or that they would have waited a day or two just to bring in a full Mogul balloon array's scraps? Hence they told Marcel never to speak of it. Case closed.
So.....Marcel still thinks it was from outer space, doesn't know the full context, sees them shifting junk around, and decades later decided it MUST have been from outer space since no one ever explained it.
Brian -
ReplyDeleteIf you check ALL the witness records, you'll find that they talk of more than just the shoe box and a paper package. In fact, if you check the record, you'll find that wreckage was transported to the aircraft headed to FWAFF in a couple of vehicles, so the record is not clear on that point.
DuBose said nothing of the sort that you imply. He said the wreckage was switched, as did Marcel. The other thing is that on July 10, 1947, they did in fact tell the world they were sending up these arrays of balloons and equipment with pictures printed in newspapers around the country. They talked of their constant level balloon project but said nothing about the ultimate purpose which was to detect Soviet atomic testing.
Your analysis here is flawed by cherry picked facts, misinterpretation of witness statements, a misunderstanding of the New York University balloon project in New Mexico, and an incomplete search of the relevant newspaper articles from July 9 and
10.
Hello Lance
ReplyDeleteWould be good if you could answer some of David's points, because once again, I feel he has written a good piece (if not a little wordy and yes, a bit cheeky in places!) confirming that Mogul is not a viable solution.
Kevin - I realise that we are a little off topic and you don't want to rehash all this again, but it would be nice to give Lance the chance to respond and perhaps he might be prepared to concede that his solution (a balloon or a series of balloons, or whatever combination of these you care to mention) is not quite as certain as some people claim (for many reasons that both you and DR have already explained in precise detail).
Regards
Nitram
Kevin -
ReplyDelete"In fact, if you check the record, you'll find that wreckage was transported to the aircraft headed to FWAFF in a couple of vehicles, so the record is not clear on that point."
Ok, so maybe a bit more of the junk was flown up, but exactly when did they have time to drag into town a 12 ft or 24 ft alien saucer and put it into crates they had to build? Besides, you know B-29's are not really designed to be cargo lifters and they had their own support unit that did actually have cargo planes that were never used - why? Maybe because balloon trash could be boxed up and packed much more easily.
So supposedly they built crates to hold space ship debris, picked it all up in one day, reconfigured the bomb bay to hold crates instead of bombs, and flew the entire wreckage and bodies from two different sites in that short of time frame? Doubtful. More like they picked up some more foil in a couple of trucks and packed it up. If Marcel overestimated the debris field they would have sent a couple of trucks anyway.
More importantly the actual size of a single B-29 bomb bay is about 6 ft x 3 ft. Pretty tight for massive crates and certainly no "hexagonal" craft 12 ft or 24 ft in diameter would have fit even if it was "egg shaped" as some claim.
"The other thing is that on July 10, 1947, they did in fact tell the world they were sending up these arrays of balloons and equipment with pictures printed in newspapers around the country."
Yes obviously. But as I said they did not say "we are sending these balloons up as part of a secret spy effort on Soviet nuclear testing." That's the point I made.
So they just demoed more weather balloons for the public to further distract attention away from a secret Soviet spy effort.
Brian- "Nor would he have held a top secret memo in his hand so it could be photographed."
ReplyDeleteOr so it could be seen by the photographer who may have been able to read parts of it while it was in his hand or perhaps ask Ramey what it said out of curiosity. In fact, I wonder if Ramey told the photographer or some other reporter what it said and his explanation was so mundane everyone just forgot about it.
The more I think about it, the more I am doubtful that there is anything exotic in that memo. After all, Im sure Ramey and most of the other officers on that base were very sensitive to protecting classified documents and would not have been so careless in exposing it.
For years, I was a true believer in the Roswell case. However, with the information that Kevin, who is probably the most professional, honest and objective UFO researcher out there has recently presented and my many years as criminal defense attorney prior to retirement, Im starting to see reasonable doubt all over this case.
Nitram -
ReplyDeleteNo. The discussions of Mogul never go anywhere with each side saying the same thing over and over and no one willing to give an inch. I probably shouldn't have allowed David's comments to go through but here we are. You as well as I and everyone else know what Lance will say and then David will say the same thing. This is about Jesse Marcel, Sr.
Brian -
ReplyDeleteOff you go on tangents that are not relevant to this particular discussion. No one said a thing about dragging a larger object into Roswell and to the airfield. And of course the B-29 was a bomber that had a capacity to carry a heavy load and was the fastest of the aircraft available at Roswell. Your reason for using the bomber rather than a cargo plane to take the material to Fort Worth makes no real sense. The obvious reason was speed.
Where did you get the size of the bomb bays on the B-29? Did you just make up the numbers? The "Fat Man" type atomic devices were five feet in diameter and eleven feet long. They wouldn't fit into the bomb bay you describe and there was no other delivery system available in 1947, therefore the bomb bay must have been larger than your numbers (and a Fat Man bomb was used to end the war).
The point you anted to make is irrelevant because the purpose the the constant level balloons in New Mexico was not germane to seeing the long array trains. They could say that we are sending up these balloons to develop a constant level balloon and accomplished all that they wanted.
Kevin:
ReplyDeleteTo focus on Marcel (as you wish to do), when precisely do you think Marcel formed the idea that the debris he recovered was part of an ET craft? I list some possibilities:
1. He was convinced from the very start.
2. It was a gradual conversion over the 30-plus years.
3. He had forgotten all about the episode until he was interviewed persuasively by Friedman in early 1978 and again by Moore and others in 1979.
If the answer is #1, do you REALLY believe he would have kept silent over an event of such magnitude for 3 decades (never mind his supposed oath of secrecy),knowing its implications for science and humanity in general?
The same applies to Marcel jr. When do you think HE realised the great truth?
Kevin Randle quoted Marcel Snr...“She [wife] didn’t even know where I was. By the time I got home, she had already faced the press that was out there.”
ReplyDeleteI always forget about her in all of this.
Did the press people she faced ever write anything about what she had to say about the event?
Was she ever interviewed by anyone after the story re-broke in 1978?
Louis Nicholson..."Or so it could be seen by the photographer who may have been able to read parts of it while it was in his hand or perhaps ask Ramey what it said out of curiosity."
ReplyDeleteMy eyesight is pretty good, but I wouldn't be able to read what is printed off a piece of paper,10 feet away, clutched in someone's moving hand and not, in general, facing head on to me.
CDA -
ReplyDeleteI don't know why you would expect that I know the thought processes of others.l I don't know when Marcel began to think that the debris might by of alien construction. I do know, in my discussions with Jesse, Jr., he made it clear that he and his father discussed the events periodically and long before Friedman talked to him, he had concluded that it was of alien manufacture.
And, really, you know that he hadn't forgotten about the episode until Friedman talked to him because he was telling his ham radio pals about picking up pieces of a flying saucer.
Do you really believe that a military officer exposed to what was considered, eventually as classified information would actually worry about implications for science and humanity. Stop applying your personal beliefs as a way of negating the actions of others and remember he was exposed to this in 1947 and not 2016.
Paul -
I had one opportunity to talk with Marcel's wife and her story made no sense. Jesse Jr. told me that his mother was no longer firmly attached to reality.
Given the circumstances in 1947, I believe that there would have been telephone calls to the house looking for Marcel once the story broke, but he was on his way to Fort Worth and unavailable for telephone calls. By the time he got home the next day, the story was dead because there he was, in the newspaper with pieces of what the press had been told was a weather balloon.
Paul.."My eyesight is pretty good, but I wouldn't be able to read what is printed off a piece of paper,10 feet away, clutched in someone's moving hand and not, in general, facing head on to me."
ReplyDeleteBut you don't know how close the photographer may have gotten while they were in the process of posing. If Ramey carelessly exposed the paper in his hand the whole time he was in the room with the photographer, he may have at points been very close to the photographer or maybe even put it down on a desk or something whereby anyone could have seen it. The point is, he apparently was very nonchalant in handling the document. Was that gross incompetence or because the memo did not contain anything classified?
I think I remember either you, Kevin, Don Schmidt, or someone saying on a tv show years ago that there should be a mock trial where all the existing witnesses and documents be presented and challenged before a mock jury and publicized. Sort of like Steve Bassett's mock congressional hearing. I think that would be great.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteThe discussions of Mogul never go anywhere with each side saying the same thing over and over and no one willing to give an inch. I probably shouldn't have allowed David's comments to go through but here we are. You as well as I and everyone else know what Lance will say and then David will say the same thing. This is about Jesse Marcel, Sr.
I don't get it Kevin. 99% of what I wrote in a 3 part post was about Jesse Marcel Sr., what he was reported saying in 1947, in the present, and who and what backed him up, i.e., the post was about his credibility.
The ONLY thing I wrote about Mogul was half a sentence, in the context of Marcel being one of the people in Fort Worth (including Ramey) telling a balloon story, namely a singular balloon and radar target, and that is indeed all that is shown in the Fort Worth photos. (With Marcel saying he was acting under Ramey's orders.) Then I noted that this wasn't remotely close to matching what would be expected form a Mogul balloon train. That's it!
I also said what was shown and described also did NOT match Brazel's story told several hours later under duress. Thus this ALSO supported Marcel's later statement that what was shown in Fort Worth was NOT what he brought from Roswell.
Inevitably, if you are discussing Marcel's testimony, it is about what he REALLY recovered and took to Fort Worth. Also, inevitably, since the debunkers keep insisting it was the remains of a Mogul balloon train, a mention of Mogul (or Not Mogul) will creep in peripherally in discussing Marcel's credibility.
But my actual post was, AGAIN, 99% NOT about Mogul. That last third was about Marcel's post-Roswell incident military record, which clearly indicated he continued to maintain the confidence of higher officers in-the-know about what really happened at Roswell. NOBODY was disappointed in him, instead earning high praise, including from Blanchard and Ramey ("outstanding", command officer material, etc.).
And about another third was devoted to other witnesses who backed up Marcel, very importantly Gen. Dubose, who completely backed up Marcel's story of a debris swap/ substitute weather balloon in Fort Worth and a high-level cover-up, and also stated absolutely that the debris and everything else was classified super-secret. This certainly wouldn't be true of a regular weather balloon, nor even the balloon/radar target remains of a Mogul. (Since only the purpose of Mogul, but none of the equipment, was classified.)
Louis Nicholson said...
ReplyDeleteLouis Nicholson wrote:
But you don't know how close the photographer may have gotten while they were in the process of posing.
Well, not exactly, because the distance of the camera from the memo in 3 of the 4 photos of Ramey holding the memo (the 4th negative missing) can be determined by reconstructing the scene in a computer. The camera never got closer than about 7 feet from the memo, and in the Ramey memo one, was about 9 feet away.
If Ramey carelessly exposed the paper in his hand the whole time he was in the room with the photographer, he may have at points been very close to the photographer or maybe even put it down on a desk or something whereby anyone could have seen it. The point is, he apparently was very nonchalant in handling the document.
In three of the four photos with Ramey holding the memo, the BACK of the memo is facing the camera. In the fourth photo, the front message side is STILL facing toward Ramey, but he dropped his hand and the front side came to a near-horizontal position near the floor (about 7" above). With the cameraman standing, this enabled the camera (height about 5'4" and almost 9' away) to ACCIDENTALLY get an angle on the front of the camera, probably for just a few seconds while Ramey was posing for the picture.
Thus the photos themselves contradict your statement that "Ramey carelessly exposed the paper in his hand the WHOLE time he was in the room with the photographer."
At that distance (around 9' from memo), teletype font would have been too small (only about 3 mm high) to read with the naked eye, even with the very best visual acuity. At 7 feet, the memo might be BARELY read but only with GREAT difficulty (at the edge of visual acuity), in other words, the memo would have to be DIRECTLY facing the cameraman, and even then, it would take some time and effort to read. The distance would have to be only 4 to 5 feet to be read with any facility, and that never happened. The cameraman, e.g., would have had to be standing at the edge of the debris (and Ramey would have to be cooperating, again deliberately holding the memo face out for him to read--never happened.
Was that gross incompetence or because the memo did not contain anything classified?
Or just a MOMENTARY slip-up in just one of four photo takes? Even here, the memo was still facing Ramey.
Such things are occasionally known to happen with highly classified documents sometimes being photographed, the person holding the document getting momentarily careless. I have discussed this many times before on Kevin's blog, such as Pres. Johnson's National Security Adviser allowing the NY Times in 1965 to photograph a top-secret Viet Nam document at the White House, tucked under his arm face outward, no cover sheet. It happened again in 2009 when Britain's head of antiterrorism allowed a photographer to photograph a secret document, face outward, no cover sheet.
Again, the Ramey memo was NOT face outward, but facing Ramey, and only an unusual set of circumstances, probably lasting only seconds, allowed a restricted view of the memo to be photographed. (If it was flat and face outward like in the other examples, the damn thing would have been read unambiguously a long time ago.)
Ok - Kevin wants to keep this JUST about Marcel Sr.
ReplyDeleteBut how do you have a conversation about Marcel and not discuss the case were he was the principle military officer escalating it upwards?
CDA offered a choice - "2. It was a gradual conversion over the 30-plus years."
That was my primary point in my previous posts. The guy came to his own conclusion over the years and so did his son who was only 11 at the time and as an adult followed his dad's lead on the alien hypothesis.
That belief was in turn reinforced by investigators who came along decades later who already believed in ET visitation - it just served to solidify his conclusions even more and helped him mentally validate his opinion.
And please don't bring up all the other supposed witnesses other than Marcel. It's not germaine to Kevin's blog post.
Those folks never came forward over the years like Marcel. He was blabbing his story on ham radio long before those characters came forward. I think it odd that a reportedly reputable and well respected intelligence officer who was promoted as well as told never to discuss it ever again chose to "ham it up" and blab his secrets.
I think this just reinforces the notion that the story about aliens really started with him.
DR wrote:
ReplyDelete"That last third was about Marcel's post-Roswell incident military record, which clearly indicated he continued to maintain the confidence of higher officers in-the-know about what really happened at Roswell."
I suggest that Marcel's military record, and the high confidence in which he was held by his superiors, had zilch to do with Roswell. It was purely to do with his abilities and accomplishments as a military officer. In fact, I am positive that these superiors, when writing their praise for Marcel, never gave Roswell a moment's thought.
And the reason they never gave Roswell a thought? Because it was, to his superiors, a non-event. And they were not "in the know" about anything.
One other thing. Blanchard obviously thought the matter so unimportant that he decided to take 2 (or was it 3?) weeks leave.
ReplyDeleteNever mind. Perhaps he got so used to these ET crashes near his base that he was bored with it all and thus took his leave as planned.
As I wrote before but which was deleted, I would go with CDA's #2 hypothesis - Marcel concluded on his own (after 30 years of pondering) that the junk must have been from "another world". He spoke openly about his conclusions on ham radio - not something I would expect such an important military officer would do after being asked to be silent about. It was simply his own opinion that started the entire saga.
ReplyDeleteCDA -
ReplyDeleteIf it had been a huge screw up by Marcel, it would have been noted in his records and his superiors would lose trust in his judgement. Things would have been different for him had this been a major screw up... and he'd catch the blame because he was the guy on the scene.
And we really don't need to go into that leave nonsense again... it is extremely strange that it began on a Tuesday afternoon. Just who in the hell goes on leave on Tuesday afternoon unless it is an emergency situation...
And, before I forget, and you feel the urge to moderate the blog, this post has nothing to do with Blanchard's leave. I will entertain no more points about it no matter who deeply buried in a relevant comment.
David Rudiak: "Again, the Ramey memo was NOT face outward, but facing Ramey, and only an unusual set of circumstances, probably lasting only seconds, allowed a restricted view of the memo to be photographed. (If it was flat and face outward like in the other examples, the damn thing would have been read unambiguously a long time ago.)"
ReplyDeleteThese (and your explanation supporting them) are good points.
Hello Kevin
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year
For what it's worth you don't need to respond/answer every ridiculous post/question on your blog, but I appreciate that this is up to you.
It's obvious that one or two of the regulars like seeing their name on your blog and enjoy both you and David responding to their silly posts.
Regards
Nitram
Kevin:
ReplyDeleteThere is no mention of a screw up in Marcel's records because there was NO screw up.
There is not, and never has been, any suggestion that Marcel "screwed up" anything during the investigation of Roswell. His apparent failure to identify the debris immediately was NOT a screw up in any sense. He even tried, with Brazel, to make the sticks and fabric into a kite (see the RDR). This means, or should mean, that Marcel had almost identified the debris but the fragmented nature of it, plus the fact that it was very widely scattered, caused him to have some doubts.
Trying to form a kite strongly suggests he had virtually decided what it was. The reason it was flown to Ft Worth was because Ramey demanded that it was forwarded to him. It was certainly NOT because Ramey ever supposed that it might be parts of an ET craft! And exactly the same reason applies for why Wright Field requested the stuff was forwarded on to THEM from Ft Worth. They were curious, nothing else. A 'flying disc' had been announced (foolishly), even though Marcel more or less realised it was nothing of the sort. Also, fear of Russia and Cold War fever was at its height.
I am talking about the events of 1947 and not about what various publicity seekers said decades later.
So yes, Marcel's military record is clean and untarnished (at least as regards Roswell), and naturally there is a complete absence of Roswell in those records. You, DR and other conspiracists will claim the absence was due to it being far too top secret to be mentioned in someone's personnel file. I would claim it is beacuse the whole thing at the time was virtually regarded as a non-event (which it was until 1979).
I have kept the discussion to Marcel as per your request. But I have a feeling we are going over old ground, again.
Thanks Kevin,for the information on Marcel's wife. It must have been maddening to realise that any input from her has been lost forever.
ReplyDeletecda..."I suggest that Marcel's military record, and the high confidence in which he was held by his superiors, had zilch to do with Roswell. It was purely to do with his abilities and accomplishments as a military officer."
Which, of course, is the whole basis of the view that it's inconceivable that someone like him could mistake a balloon for anything but a balloon.
CDA wrote:
ReplyDelete"There is no mention of a screw up in Marcel's records because there was NO screw up."
CDA's entire post essentially matches my own view on Marcel. It sums up my position on Marcel quite well.
Nitram:
ReplyDelete"It's obvious that one or two of the regulars like seeing their name on your blog and enjoy both you and David responding to their silly posts."
Why only one or two? Could another of these 'regulars' (more like a semi-regular) be someone known by the name of 'Nitram Ang'?
Paul:
It is entirely conceivable that Marcel would have not recognised a balloon (plus radar target) when he first saw pieces of it. This is because it was highly fragmented and spread over a wide area. In due course he came to piece it together and rcognise it. I don't know of course, but he was probably something like 90% certain of its identity. So it is still "conceivable" that he had a 10% doubt.
Use of the word "inconceivable" is simply not justified.
CDA wrote:
ReplyDeleteI would claim it is beacuse the whole thing at the time was virtually regarded as a non-event (which it was until 1979).
The thing was hardly a "non-event" at the time, but a national and international news story, often front page, even headline variety. Probably 80-90% of the U.S. dailies carried the story (often with photo). Beginning with Ramey's weather balloon story, the military worked hard to turn it into a "non-event", and so it was within a few days, but that is NOT how it started out.
So yes, Marcel's military record is clean and untarnished (at least as regards Roswell), and naturally there is a complete absence of Roswell in those records. You, DR and other conspiracists will claim the absence was due to it being far too top secret to be mentioned in someone's personnel file.
The "conspiracists" aren't arguing this--YOU are! Nothing specific about what Marcel did or did not do is mentioned in any of his performance reviews. That isn't what a performance review about anyone is about. It is a general overview of their strengths and weaknesses.
What a performance review SHOULD tell us is whether the subject's ratings went up, down, or stayed the same compared to prior ones. A massive screw-up that embarrassed your entire outfit (the 509th and the USAF) at a national and international level one would logically think might result in some decrease in various ratings and should also be reflected in Marcel's career afterward.
But instead, his next rating by Blanchard went UP, not down. In addition, Blanchard and Dubose recommended him for promotion in the USAF Reserve (which Marcel received), Dubose recommended him for command officer training, Ramey concurred and called him command officer material, added that Marcel was "outstanding" and he had nobody to replace him as he was being transferred a year later, Marcel got re-commissioned (hard to get a commission immediately post-war as the military was downsizing), and Marcel was booted upstairs to higher intelligence work (top-secret) with both the SAC and Pentagon competing for his services. (Marcel continued to receive very high marks at his new post.)
This is a very strange career arc for an intelligence officer who supposedly mistook an ordinary weather balloon plus a flimsy, very non-disc-like balsa wood kite for the remains of a large, exotic, supersonic flying craft (how "flying discs" were being described, starting with Kenneth Arnold.)
As for your claim that Marcel almost had it figured out when Ramey ordered the debris sent to Fort Worth, you seem to be leaving out Blanchard's press release that they had a real flying disc. Blanchard must have been a drooling idiot too in the Marcel mold. And what about Sheridan Cavitt's modern story that he IMMEDIATELY recognized it as a balloon? As Kevin often points out, why didn't he share his remarkable insight with Marcel or Blanchard? (After all, Blanchard had merely ordered him out--you would think he would report back with his results when he returned --but NOOOO!)
According to the press release and other stories, the device was examined by the "intelligence office" at Roswell, which would make sense if Marcel was trying to figure it out and was almost there. Wouldn't he consult with others (as would Blanchard)? So now we have not just Marcel, but an "intelligence office" that didn't recognize a super-obvious weather balloon (Ramey/Fort Worth pictures) for what it was. Thus Marcel's staff were drooling idiots too, maybe Blanchard's as well.
This was not the case for other similar radar targets reported found elsewhere, where mere farmers and reporters recognized them as some sort of weather device. The weather balloon, or part of, still attached to the target, was the dead giveaway.
But not at Roswell. Go figure.
Paul Young- "Thanks Kevin,for the information on Marcel's wife. It must have been maddening to realise that any input from her has been lost forever."
ReplyDeleteAgreed. Do we know whether she spoke to anyone, such as her children, friend, relatives or neighbors, about talking to her husband or the press that night? Did she write any letters concerning it? What about the neighbors? If the press came to her house, did any of the neighbors observe that? If some of them did, perhaps they asked her or her husband about why they were there and she told them. If this occurred, that information may have been passed on to descendants who are still living. Also, has any attempt been made to interview the journalists who may have interviewed her to see if they remember anything? Maybe those journalists made notes of their visit to the wife and some of the notes still exist in an attic somewhere or maybe they told their family members, some of who are still alive today. Just my two cents.
Hello David
ReplyDeleteYou wrote:
"This was not the case for other similar radar targets reported found elsewhere, where mere farmers and reporters recognized them as some sort of weather device."
My simple question is... how many times do we know of, that this sort of "material" was recovered by "farmers, reporters or other civilian folk"?
(David, I just would like you to give me a number of such cases please.)
Kevin - I hope you will give me a little leeway with all this please...
Regards
Nitram
DR:
ReplyDeleteWe seem to be going over old ground here.
My point is that Marcel deserved high praise and any promotions for his achievements in the USAF, regardless of what happened at Roswell (a one-off event which obviously did not reflect badly on him). You are correct that the press did briefly make great news of this event but essentially it was very soon forgotten and relegated to a non-event, which it remained until 1979, when it was revived by you know who.
Marcel did not make a fool of himself, neither did anyone else, except possibly the person responsible (Haut?) for the rushed and foolish press release. Marcel was not of course responsible for what appeared in the press. He acted naturally but was at first (but not for long) puzzled by the strange debris.
Neither was Blanchard a 'drooling idiot'. He acted perfectly as a base commander should or would. It is not stated whether he recognised the debris at the time.
Bear in mind that USAF bases were quite entitled to seek publicity at times. This 'crashed disc' affair was a suitable occasion, and did provide publicity for about 24 hours. Thereafter it sank into oblivion.
"The thing was hardly a "non-event" at the time, but a national and international news story, often front page, even headline variety. Probably 80-90% of the U.S. dailies carried the story (often with photo)."
ReplyDeleteWell, as some believers here have stated on other threads before, the press will sell any story to get readers to buy a paper. That really doesn't make the episode an "event" in the way CDA has stated.
It was a non-event in that very likely nothing really important happened despite press coverage. More importantly the public was already curious about these reports having recently become aware of Arnold's sighting. No surprise the press would make the most out of it especially given Haut's initial press release.
I can see how that would elevate it to the front page. However if Marcel had been able to identify the material, he might have simply said "Oh darn, this isn't anything more than a bunch of rawin targets from some weather balloons."
In that case the entire event wouldn't have even made it into the papers!
Brian:
ReplyDeleteI believe the 'event' got a brief mention in the monthly (or was it quarterly?) newsletter produced by the staff at the Roswell base. This would have been a few weeks afterwards. Needless to say, there is no mention of the object being an ET craft, any kind of advanced US or Russian craft, or in fact anything other than a misidentified "radar tracking balloon". The public relations office got a brief mention but no individuals were named.
Roswell proponents are in a terrible fix.
ReplyDeleteNothing from 1947 confirms or even supports their scenario. Indeed every bit of it of what exists works AGAINST their theory.
The work that has to be done in multiplying entities in order to reconcile Roswell is astounding to watch:
1. Since Brazel didn't say what they wanted him to say in his (devastating for the myth) newspaper interview, proponents had to create the idea that Brazel had been threatened into lying about the saucer parts. Of course that interview, doesn't support this conspiracy idea. Brazel says still thinks that the stuff he found wasn't a weather balloon. Wouldn't that have been the MAIN POINT of his supposed incarceration and briefing: to get him to match the supposed cover story? Roswell buffs would have us accept that Brazel slavishly followed the cover story (describing foil paper and sticks) EXCEPT for the main point of it because he was scared for his family.
2. Since the timing doesn't work out, some believers have decided to surmise that a second set of false debris had to be cobbled together in Roswell just to show to Brazel. This false debris apparently had the tape with the flowery symbols on it!
These are just a few of the multiplying entities that conspiracy buffs have no problem accepting into their worldview. I almost feel sorry for them since it seems like there ought to be at least one document or something that supports their beliefs. Instead the entirety of it, the WHOLE THING is now built from fuzzy, decades old "testimony"--testimony that contains plenty of internal contradictions, some of them absolutely fatal for the myth (all ignored with a hand wave by the believers).
It is sad.
@Paul: So I explained earlier that the skeptical story about Marcel isn't that: "someone like him could mistake a balloon for anything but a balloon" Did you not understand that. Do you keep repeating this because the straw man is comforting in your religion?
Lance
Brian Bell said:
ReplyDeleteIt was a non-event in that very likely nothing really important happened despite press coverage. More importantly the public was already curious about these reports having recently become aware of Arnold's sighting
So Brian now you have abandoned your cherished theory of a secret and sensitive testing of an extremely high tech craft with deformed japanese inside?
Woudn't have Ramey been very angry if by Marcel's mistake and the consequent wide press coverage, the secret and sensitive testing of the craft with deformed japs would have gone public?
Was not it an event for Ramey who had to deal with many reporters, probably answering phone calls from all places, to pose for photographies? Marcel's "mistake" certainly made Ramey to work very hard, and even compelled Ramey and others to display days later a lot of public demostrations of weather balloons. Yeah, Ramet felt the necessity to work very hard just because Marcel made a "mistake" regarding a "non-event".
Moreover, in the quantic Schrodinger's Cat Reality (SCR) in which CDA lives, the crash of a Mogul Balloon is simultaneusly important deserving a cover up, and, not important (non-event) such as to make that any error made by someone about the non-important event goes unpunished, no matter how much work had to do the boss to fix the "non-event-mistake". Same for Brian Bell, the failure and crash of a suposedly super secret and senstive high tech craft with deformed japanese inside is both an important event that deserves to be covered up at all costs, and at the same time is an unimportant non event (another guy living in a SCR).
I wrote: "This was not the case for other similar radar targets reported found elsewhere, where mere farmers and reporters recognized them as some sort of weather device."
ReplyDeleteNITRAM: "My simple question is... how many times do we know of, that this sort of "material" was recovered by "farmers, reporters or other civilian folk"? (David, I just would like you to give me a number of such cases please.)"
Here are several crashed balloon/rawin target cases the same time as Roswell where various civilians (including farmers and reporters) were stated to suspect from the start it was a weather device of some kind (or even know what it was):
http://www.roswellproof.com/balloon_crashes.html
Lance -
ReplyDeleteWho are these believers who think a second set of debris was cobbled together to show Mack Brazel? It was always my opinion that they told him what to say in that interview.
CDA/Brian -
It seems to me that the argument was once that Marcel and Haut had suffered for the mistakes about this? Haut left the service the next year and Marcel left in 1950. That was the direction that the argument had taken... but now this was a non event that affected neither of them nor those in other positions...
Of course, there are the newspaper articles that tell of a "blistering rebuke" of those in Roswell for causing the trouble, not to mention the Army and Navy attempting to limit reporting of flying saucers the next day.
Hi Kevin,
ReplyDeleteThat is a Rudiak concoction (from 2011). He created this howler to try to explain why Brazel mentioned the flowered tape:
"There really is a very simple, non-balloon crash explanation for all this. When Brazel was in military custody (part of Loretta Proctor's testimony you fail to mention below as well as numerous other witnesses, like Brazel Jr. and Provost Marshall Easley), they took a fresh radar target out of a box in preparation for his interview. Such a fresh target would NOT have string attached (same with a fresh target at Fort Worth). Maybe this particular target was brought in from Alamogordo and had the tape with purple patterns on it that Moore and Trakowski described, so Brazel described the target having Scotch tape and also tape with patterns."
Just one of David's "simple" explanations...
Lance
All -
ReplyDeleteWhen referring to a Provost Marshal or a town marshal or Marshal Dillon, the word marshal has one "L" and not two... and that is the end of the spelling lesson for the day.
For those of you keeping score at home, for fun, just watch movies and TV shows and see how often they don't know this either.
Kevin wrote: "Who are these believers who think a second set of debris was cobbled together to show Mack Brazel? It was always my opinion that they told him what to say in that interview."
ReplyDeleteKevin, it was just a theory of mine that one way that Brazel could have been coached in what to say would be to place actual debris in front of him. Or he could have been orally coached, or given a written script, or all of the above.
(Lance also seems to be pretty clueless about the actual chronology of this, claiming above, "the timing doesn't work out", apparently not realizing that Brazel didn't tell his story until several hours AFTER Ramey put out the weather balloon story to kill the initial "flying disc" press release--thus PLENTY of time to coach Brazel and even procure a radar target for him to examine. The fact of the matter is, what Brazel described does NOT match, except in a very superficial way, the Ramey balloon/radar target photos in Fort Worth, another point Lance avoids, except to do his own theorizing that Brazel's 5 pounds of debris was "uncobbled", Ramey leaving most of it out and allegedly showing only "representative samples", that still don't match. Did they also glue Brazel’s “rubbers strips” into a largely intact balloon? How does even 5 pounds account for Marcel’s 1947 “square mile of debris”? Where, oh where is Brazel’s “flower tape”?)
Lance is going crazy on this (my theory of how Brazel might have been coached) because I gutted his argument that Marcel was some sort of highly unreliable witness (if not outright liar) trying to redeem himself decades later. Since he can't refute my points, he tries to change the subject. (In fact, he is so off topic, not to mention his usual grossly insulting tone, I don't understand why you are even allowing it.)
In short, Marcel's military record PROVES he did nothing wrong and had nothing to redeem. If Marcel was really as incompetent as debunkers like Lance try to make him out to be, then why isn't this reflected in his subsequent performance reviews and career, especially from Roswell incident in-the-know superior officers like Blanchard, Dubose, and Ramey?
Instead Dubose and Ramey thought him command officer material, Ramey called him "outstanding" (as did future USAF C/S John Ryan, also calling Marcel's career "most exemplary"), Blanchard and Dubose recommended him for promotion, Marcel was recommissioned, Marcel stayed on another year as head intelligence officer before being booted upstairs to higher intelligence work (with Ramey protesting his transfer, saying he had nobody to replace him), Blanchard upped his service ratings (including giving him a superior rating for his ability to arrive at logical conclusions), etc., etc.
Is this the same guy who supposedly blew a balloon ID, miraculously leading to Blanchard issuing the embarrassing "flying disc" press release, and creating a national and international Army PR fiasco?
This must have been a very sensitive, touchy-feely Army, with guys like Blanchard and Ramey (and the Pentagon, who wanted Marcel transferred there for higher intelligence work) running a VERY loose ship and not holding officers beneath them in the least way accountable for major screw-ups. In this version of the Army, ALL was quickly forgiven and forgotten. (No doubt, because Roswell was a “non-event” as the debunkers HAVE to spin it, even though it was clearly anything but a “non-event” at the time.)
And a second point I brought up that Lance refuses to go near is how Dubose completely backed up Marcel's story of the weather balloon in the Fort Worth photos being a cover story and the debris in the photos was indeed NOT what was found at Roswell. In fact, more of Dubose's testimony was how the actual debris (in fact the whole incident) was cloaked in the highest of secrecy (saying it was beyond top secret).
ReplyDeleteI wrote: "This was not the case for other similar radar targets reported found elsewhere, where mere farmers and reporters recognized them as some sort of weather device."
Nitram asked: "My simple question is... how many times do we know of, that this sort of "material" was recovered by "farmers, reporters or other civilian folk"? (David, I just would like you to give me a number of such cases please.)
Several examples circa Roswell incident time of where radar targets were reported coming down elsewhere and civilians and others were generally not too mystified, often thinking it some sort of weather device (usually because weather balloon or part therefore generally attached):
http://www.roswellproof.com/balloon_crashes.html
I only wish that I could pin down David in a debate. Instead he drops in with walls of text that contain innumerable misstatements and conspiracy buff insinuations that take forever to correct. Suffice it to say that I don't agree.
ReplyDeleteAt least he does admit above, Kevin, that he creates new stories to explain whenever there is a fatal contradiction in the evidence. And when I say evidence, I only mean the crappy interviews (the only evidence that exists) which are often contradictory and can often be made to say whatever one wishes.
Let's go to Dubose. Dubose says he never saw the "real" flying saucer debris. But he says he did see the container:
"I only saw the container and the container was a plastic bag that I would say weighs 15 to 20 pounds. It was sealed. Lead seal around the top. Tied with a wire seal around the top. The only way to get into it was to cut it."
How does that jibe, David with your quarter mile of debris?
Such silly piffle.
Lance
I think DR is being needlessly protective of Marcel's abilities. As I said before, Marcel was NOT a 'drooling idiot' at the time. He had identified the debris (perhaps not with 100% certainty but, say, 80%). The nature of it, i.e. fragmented and widely scattered, caused him to have slight doubts.
ReplyDeleteIt was a period where fears about Russia and possible new hostile aircraft & missiles were uppermost and the USAF had to be on guard. Hence the immediate request from Ramey to ship the debris to Ft Worth.
Marcel was promoted because of his undoubted military abilities. The little 'flying disc' incident obviously played absolutely no part in his service record and was soon forgotten.
One thing is clear: Nobody can use Marcel's exemplary military record and career as any kind of evidence that the object he helped recover was an ET craft. The evidence for it being an ET craft can come ONLY from the debris itself and from a thorough and lengthy analysis of it by scientists. Unfortunately the only testimony that such an analysis was done comes from 2nd and 3rd hand interviews done decades afterwards. There is no hard evidence for it, and never will be.
Such is Roswellology.
@Kevin : Thanks for going back through all the material and this very informative post. So we now know that Marcel wasn't shown the photos during his early interviews by Friedman and Moore.
ReplyDeleteThere's definitely some contradictions in Marcel statements about the material and the photos. At the same time Marcel was saying that he was photographed by the press with the real debris but then that other photos were staged just after. It doesn't make any sense to allow photos of the real debris to the press only to have other staged minutes after (so screwing all up by showing different sort of materials), which by the way we know the first didn't happen since no other photos showing other material than the balloon and rawin wreckage had been published at the time. Your suggestion that Marcel was photographed with the real debris but not by the press may indeed explain the contradiction, either Marcel recollections about the photographer being some newsman was wrong or Moore wrongly paraphrased Marcel, but the timeline might get tricky then if assume JBJ took his photos around 5:15/5:30 pm...
Btw Kevin, could you please precise from which interviews are these transcripts (“tape 2”, “tape 3”…) ? I thought they were from Moore's interview by phone, but in the end we see that the person asking the questions is showing Marcel a book with Newton's photo, meaning they're not from Moore. And then you say that Marcel is contradicting himself on his own in a film!? Which makes me lost here (why transcripts if it's in a film?)
About Marcel waking up his family, I don't know about Marcel's statements about it, but his son Jesse Jr indeed said his father woke him up to show him the material he had found at Roswell. In his book “the Roswell legacy”, p. 52 : “He had left for work the previous morning and hadn't been home for dinner the previous night or this one. I don't remember what time it was when my father awakened me but I had been sleeping soundly for some time […] More than likely it was a little after midnight. My dad came into my room to tell me to come out and to see what he'd found. […] Of course, it wasn't normal for my father to wake me up late at night just to show me something, so I immediately put my robe on and followed him into the kitchen area.”
By “waiting for me”, maybe Marcel was meaning he had been away from his home for some time so that his family was awaiting for him?
Brice -
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure of the source. They are part of a shot script for a documentary and I believe it was for UFOs Are Real.
I believe Marcel confused the timing of some events... his return from the debris field and his return from Fort Worth. His wife said she had been contacted by the news media and the only time that makes sense is after the news release went on the wire and Marcel was on his way or in Fort Worth... but by the time he came back, no one cared because everything was identified as a balloon... at least according to what the press was told in Fort worth.
Lance complained (1 of 2):
ReplyDeleteI only wish that I could pin down David in a debate. Instead he drops in with walls of text
“Walls of text” are actual detailed facts, not Lance’s simplistic, debunking talking points. Detailing the facts are what real debate should be about.
that contain innumerable misstatements and conspiracy buff insinuations that take forever to correct.
Lances silly “innumerable misstatements” and “conspiracy buff insinuations” were my “walls of text” (FACTS) that Marcel’s actual military record shows no evidence that he screwed up anything, instead getting high praise afterward from Roswell in-the-know superior officers like Blanchard, Ramey, and Dubuse. I also noted with “walls of text” that Gen. Dubose completely backed up Marcel’s statements of a weather balloon cover-up in Fort.
The reader will note, Lance still does not really deal with these crucial points below. (The reason it would take him “forever to correct” is because he CAN'T rebut them, only change the subject, as he has been doing.)
At least he does admit above, Kevin, that he creates new stories to explain whenever there is a fatal contradiction in the evidence.
As usual, Lance grossly exaggerates something into a “fatal contradiction”. I speculated that Brazel’s testimony several hours AFTER Ramey put out a weather balloon story may have involved having him view a radar target, maybe even one brought over from White Sands or Alamogordo where they were used, which might account for the “flower tape” part of Brazel’s testimony. This assumes that the only place using the radar targets with reinforcing “flower tape” was W.S. or Alamogordo, but nobody actually knows this for a fact.
Somehow Lance thinks this scenario couldn’t be arranged and the timing was impossible. Well, it might not be correct, but it was easily possible, and there are hardly any "fatal contradictions". It was also quite possible that someone wrote up a balloon script used for coaching Brazel rather than showing him actual debris.
As for “creating new stories to explain whenever there is a fatal contradiction in the evidence”, this is Lance calling the kettle black. This, e.g., is exactly what Lance did when I pointed out the debris in Ramey’s balloon photos is much less than what Brazel described (or Marcel’s “square mile” of debris or the modern Mogul balloon “explanation” which Lance religiously adheres to). To this Lance “created the new story” that Ramey withheld debris, only showing “representative samples”. Even assuming this unlikely scenario was true, it still doesn’t explain the “fatal contradictions” between the stories in Fort Worth and what was shown in the photos, and Brazel’s LATER testimony. E.g., Brazel never described an intact balloon as shown in the photos, only numerous “rubber strips” (from which he said he deduced a balloon) and his “flower tape” cannot be seen in the photos.
And when I say evidence, I only mean the crappy interviews (the only evidence that exists)
“The only evidence?” What about the newspaper articles, the photos, and a few related documents (like FBI Roswell teleegram)? Aren’t they “evidence”?
which are often contradictory and can often be made to say whatever one wishes.
Gee, Lance, isn’t that exactly what YOU do, e.g. selectively quoting Marcel interviews where he said one picture of him showed him holding the real stuff? (Not noting that in these cases, Marcel was not told what photographs were being referenced.) Of course you ignore other interviews in person where Marcel shown specifically the newspaper photos stated those photos were “staged” and NOT the real stuff he brought from Roswell.
And then you ignore the interviews where Gen. Dubose totally backed up Marcel statements of the weather balloon in the photos being brought in as a cover story for the real stuff that was recovered (which Dubose also said was HIGHLY classified).
(part 2 of 2)
ReplyDeleteLet's go to Dubose.
Yes, let’s, please, but not your cartoon sketch of his testimony. I prefer “walls of text”.
Dubose says he never saw the "real" flying saucer debris. But he says he did see the container: "I only saw the container and the container was a plastic bag that I would say weighs 15 to 20 pounds. It was sealed. Lead seal around the top. Tied with a wire seal around the top. The only way to get into it was to cut it."
A perfect example of you quoting completely out of context. If you are taking the above quote from Kevin’s second Roswell book, the NEXT sentence reads: “That, according to Dubose, was the only package. He made it clear that the debris in the bag was different than the debris that would be displayed in Ramey’s office TWO DAYS LATER. The only flight with debris that Dubose knew about was the one on Sunday, July 6.”
Elsewhere it quotes Dubose saying this flight had happened “two or three days earlier”, i.e., BEFORE the press release of Tues., July 8, Marcel’s flight of retrieved debris, and Ramey’s photo op with the weather balloon (note, supposed wrapped in the brown paper also in the photos, NOT Dubose’s “plastic bag”). Note also Dubose estimating the debris in this one package weighing 15-20 pounds, thus NOT Brazel’s LATER statement of maybe 5 pounds, nor the less than 2 pounds of radar target and balloon in the photos (Ramey’s SINGULAR weather balloon and radar target). So clearly NOT the same stuff.
In other statements, Dubose said Ramey was away from the base at the time (which was why Dubose, not Ramey was handling this) and the “base commander” Col. Alvin Clarke acted as Gen. McMullen’s ordered “colonel courier”. But Clarke was normally the Deputy base commander, and would only be the acting C/O if the actual C/O, Col. Hewlitt Wheless, was away from the base. There is a unique date when BOTH Ramey and Wheless were away from the base, and that was Sunday, July 6, when both were in Denton, Texas attending an air show (documented from the newspapers).
Thus, again, an EARLIER shipment of debris from Roswell.
And Dubose also stressed (following orders from McMullen), all this was to be carried out in the strictest secrecy (beyond top secret as he put it in one interview), yet another indication that this could not have referred to Ramey’s balloon material. I notice you are ALSO avoiding discussing that, the extreme secrecy Dubose said existed.
And you are also avoiding the facts concerning Marcel’s subsequent military record which in no way supports your cartoonish sketch of Marcel being an incompetent and screwing up Roswell. Superior officers like Blanchard, Dubose, and Ramey knew better, and that is reflected in their comments about him AFTERWARD, which were highly laudatory.
How does that jibe, David with your quarter mile of debris? Such silly piffle.
Such silly piffle Lance. MY “quarter mile of debris”? Where did you get that? I think you mean Marcel’s quoted statement from 1947 (that I like to cite, demonstrating that the LARGE debris field description dates back to 1947, not decades later) that debris was scattered over a “square mile”. This is again at total odds with Ramey’s singular balloon story or Brazel’s later “5 pounds” of debris.
Well, Lance, Marcel was quoted July 8, but Dubose was talking about ANOTHER set of debris shipped July 6, thus BEFORE Marcel even had a chance to examine the debris field and report back. Sounds like you are again “creating new stories to explain the “fatal contradiction” in your version of the evidence.
Brian -
ReplyDeleteJust what post of yours did I delete? They all seem to be here, even the one with your snarky comment about me deleting it.
If the pro-ETHers, such as DR, are now telling us that there was an earlier shipment of debris both into Ft Worth and onward to, say, Wright Field, this is based SOLELY on one man's testimony decades later. This earlier debris, we are told, was the real (presumed ET) debris, whereas the stuff shown in the photos (i.e. the ersatz stuff) was somehow similar to the real stuff yet different. But in other versions of the story the REAL debris is in the same room as the substituted debris, but hidden from view! Marcel, presumably, took no part in this earlier recovery. Then who did?
ReplyDeleteSorry, but I just do not accept this scenario. It is plain dotty. We are also told that back at Roswell ANOTHER set of fake balloon debris might well have been shown to Brazel, together with the 'flower tape', so that his story tallied (more or less) with the debris pictured at Ft Worth!
Just adding to the dottiness. When is this craziness going to end?
Now we are being told that both the two top generals from Ft Worth were away from the base attending an air show on the very day when extraterrestrial debris arrived!
Did I say craziness? Did these two generals have a brief look before they departed for their more important air show, or not?
Boy, this is turning into comedy.
Yes Kevin, you can make this Roswell story into a comedy film or stage show. There is no need for a script writer. The script is all there, written up by numerous writers over a 35-year period. But you do need a producer and director.
When will tickets be available?
CDA wrote:
ReplyDeleteMarcel was promoted because of his undoubted military abilities.
Such as C/O Blanchard’s next performance review of Marcel: "The degree to which he is able to descriminate and evaluate facts to arrive at logical conclusions." Rated 9 out of 10 or superior.
Or Ramey’s statement the following year that Marcel was “outstanding” and he had nobody to replace him as he was being transferred to higher intelligence work.
Or the fact that among his military specialties was “radar intelligence officer”, so you might think he would know a little bit about weather balloons and radar targets.
But according to standard debunker line: 1) Marcel was a total incompetent, blowing a simple balloon/radar target ID, leading Blanchard to somehow put out an official press release that they had recovered one of those rumored flying discs (meaning Blanchard had to be incompetent as well), or 2) the new improved CDA version that Marcel was NOT incompetent, (after I pointed out Marcel’s record does NOT remotely support debunker scenario #1) but a bit slow in doing a simple balloon ID—he eventually figured it out, but darn it, Blanchard still put out that annoying release instead of calling it the balloon Marcel now knew that it was.
Of course, neither scenario makes any logical sense.
The little 'flying disc' incident
“The little FD incident” that involved: 1) Col. Blancard putting out a press release in the name of the Army AF that they had recovered one of those “rumored” flying discs, which 2) created a media feeding frenzy with Roswell, the Pentagon, and Fort Worth being inundated with telephone calls the rest of the day, which included 3) acting AAF chief of staff Gen. Hoyt Vandenberg interrupting his day, reported by newspapers going to the Pentagon AAF press room to personally handle the crisis, also 4) “higher headquarters” at Fort Worth, namely Gen. Ramey, having to likewise interrupt his day and spend much of the rest of it dealing with the fallout of the press release, eventually killing the story with his weather balloon, but not until 5) it was national/international front page news, with the Roswell 509th and AAF in general getting a black eye as being run by a bunch of nincompoops.
obviously played absolutely no part in his service record and was soon forgotten.
Was soon PUBLICLY forgotten. Would the higher brass like Ramey or Vandenberg be so forgiving and forget all about it? That’s NOT the way the military works. At the very least, an internal investigation would have been ordered to discover how such a blunder could have been made by officers at such an important base. But there is no record of such an investigation into the Big Blunder being carried out, maybe because nobody blundered? And it should also have shown up, at least indirectly, in Marcel’s subsequent performance reviews and career, which it did not. You cannot make blunders of that magnitude without it hurting you down the line, either in military ratings or assignments.
One thing is clear: Nobody can use Marcel's exemplary military record and career as any kind of evidence that the object he helped recover was an ET craft.
However, “Marcel’s exemplary military record and career” is extraordinarily difficult to reconcile with the standard debunking caricature of him as a bungling intel officer who mis-Ided a flimsy weather balloon made of very common materials as one of those Kenneth Arnold supersonic flying discs, supposedly leading to an AAF public relations fiasco. Highly competent at his job means Marcel had exactly the qualities to correctly ID the debris as “not made by us” and explains in part why the press release called it a “flying disc”, instead of the more logical press release that a rancher thought he had found a “flying disc”, but examination by intel officers concluded it was from a high-altitude balloon. That wouldn’t have attracted much attention at all.
@Kevin : Thanks for your answer about the transcripts (I thought they might be precisely referenced with name of the interviewers, date...)
ReplyDelete"I believe Marcel confused the timing of some events... his return from the debris field and his return from Fort Worth. His wife said she had been contacted by the news media and the only time that makes sense is after the news release went on the wire and Marcel was on his way or in Fort Worth... but by the time he came back, no one cared because everything was identified as a balloon... at least according to what the press was told in Fort worth."
It also seems to me Marcel confused his return from Fort Worth with his return from Brazel's ranch, his answers making perfect sense with the former.
DR just cannot or will not admit that Marcel never said the debris was "not made by us". As I have repeatly pointed out, he was more or less convinced the debris was indeed made by us, namely that it was a shattered balloon and radar target (else why spend time trying to make it into a kite?).
ReplyDeleteTherefore Marcel NEVER said it was anything else, until the magic moment 30+ years later when a certain Stanton Friedman tried hard to persuade him otherwise, and succeeded. Yes he DID tell a radio announcer that he once handled strange debris, but couldn't recall when. This is a very long way from saying that he handled ET debris.
And the reason no mention of it appears in Marcel's military record is that his superiors regarded it as an insignificant event. This is despite the brief 24-hour period when it made a lot of publicity.
On what grounds would Marcel ever have claimed it was "not made by us" anyway? Did he know of literally EVERY aerial device the US and Russia had produced? Of course not.
DR can decide for himself why the press release went out. I know my answer: publicity for the base. Too bad it backfired.
CDA said:
ReplyDeleteDR can decide for himself why the press release went out. I know my answer: publicity for the base. Too bad it backfired.
CDA, when I read your posts, I frequently feel that your discourse is about proposing the very first theory that pops up inside your mind in that precise milisecond.
Now we have a new instantaneus theory: "The base was looking for publicity". No neccesity for a purpose for such publicity, for a tiny bit of evidence, any mention of it by a witness, or for an explanation about what happens now with the debunking effort by USAF regarding the Mogul Balloon explanation of Charles Moore.
Lance wrote...@Paul: So I explained earlier that the skeptical story about Marcel isn't that: "someone like him could mistake a balloon for anything but a balloon" Did you not understand that. Do you keep repeating this because the straw man is comforting in your religion?
ReplyDeleteYes Lance; But as I explained earlier, this fourth scenario explanation that you are trying to push...
...ie, that Marcel reported he had found a flying saucer, but because he didn't associate flying saucers with ET spaceships, he never intended it to come out that way in the Haut press release...is total nonsense. (He specifically says, when showing his son, they mused over the possibility that this was from another planet.)
So, much as it bugs you,and though you strive to distance yourself from the only other three scenario's...(1. Marcel was a moron... 2. Marcel was a liar... 3. It was a spaceship)...they're all that you're left with, my friend.
cda..."Therefore Marcel NEVER said it was anything else, until the magic moment 30+ years later when a certain Stanton Friedman tried hard to persuade him otherwise, and succeeded."
ReplyDeleteThis is, of course, patently untrue.
Marcel Sr says (as did Marcel Jr)that when he took parts of the debris back to his house and displayed it to his son, it was discussed between them that this could well be material from another planet.
Whilst at Foster Ranch, attempting,and failing, to fashion the material into something resembling a kite only goes to show that Marcel Sr didn't simply stumble,closed minded, onto the idea that this stuff could only be ET. He was trying to make a prosaic sense of the thing...but he couldn't.
Therefore Marcel Sr believed, in June 1947, that this was a flying disc that wasn't made on earth.
In the 70's he still believed that to be the case...as he told his radio ham friends.
In 1978 he was still believing it was a flying saucer.
And by all accounts he kept on believing it until the day he died.
Unlike the US govt, the USAF and Cavitt, Marcel never changed his story. So quite why you keep peddling this bollocks that the ET Flying Saucer aspect of the story was something Freidman "mind-melded" over to Marcel in some Spockesque-like way is quite beyond me.
Brian Bell wrote...
ReplyDelete"CDA's entire post essentially matches my own view on Marcel. It sums up my position on Marcel quite well."
Hmmm...you see, this where we differ.
I have to admit that when I read cda's post about Roswell being considered an "non-event"...my first reaction was that cda had either been having a few too many afternoon pints in his local,or was simply expressing his sense of humour (unique to people from "The Potteries" region.)
(These being the only possible explanations for anyone to be thinking that way.)
Then...bang on cue...you turn up and agreed with him??? WHAT!
The thought of someone following another's ideas, (no matter how barmy that idea might be), forced upon me a mental image of you, as the rear-end (to cda's front-end) of a pantomime horse.
Seriously...How can a situation where Generals, Admirals and staff at the Pentagon, rushing about in an attempt to damage-control the story, be considered an "non-event"?
CDA -
ReplyDeleteDo you have any evidence that Marcel never said anything about the debris not being made by us? His son told me, repeatedly in our discussion that he and his talked about this in the years after it happened and before the evil Stan Friedman talked to him, and they were of the opinion that it was otherworldly. Yes, I know you'll say that we gathered this information after Friedman talked to him, but there is no evidence that Friedman influenced him.
CDA fantasized:
ReplyDeleteDR just cannot or will not admit that Marcel never said the debris was "not made by us".
Well he certainly said that the debris was so strange in its properties and unlike anything he was familiar with, that it was "not of this earth" (direct quote). And he was apparently telling his ham radio buddies that too, in fact calling it the remains of a flying saucer. That is how Stan Friedman found out about him to begin with, from one of his ham buddies. (more below)
As I have repeatly pointed out, he was more or less convinced the debris was indeed made by us, namely that it was a shattered balloon and radar target.
You have repeatedly pointed out that you BELIEVE that. But can you point out where Marcel ever said any such thing? (CDA has a VERY long history of confusing his personal beliefs or disbeliefs with actual facts.)
The closest Marcel came to saying anything like this was when he was acting under Ramey's orders in Fort Worth and reiterated the weather balloon story Ramey had already been putting out for about an hour before Marcel ever arrived. But if Marcel actually believed “more or less” that it was a balloon all along, why was the press release from Roswell about recovering a "flying disc" instead of balloon? Did Marcel forget to tell Blanchard he already knew it was just a balloon and radar target? (How about Cavitt, who was with Marcel, and later claimed he knew all along it was just balloon wreckage? Why didn’t he tell Marcel that, and Blanchard too upon his return?) Nope, Roswell base instead announces they had recovered one of those “rumored” “flying discs”.
(else why spend time trying to make it into a kite?).
Where did Marcel ever say he tried to make it into a kite, then or in the present? CDA is mixing up BRAZEL's statement of 1947, but Brazel said a lot of things, including that it didn't resemble the other weather balloons he had found "in any way". (And of course, about a dozen witnesses have told us Brazel was held in military custody and coerced at the time, including the guy in charge of holding him, base provost marshal Edwin Easley, who told Kevin they held him at the base for several days against his will).
If it was a "shattered balloon", why don't we see a "shattered balloon" (i.e., only balloon fragments) in the Fort Worth photos, only a largely intact balloon? (Remember the one that Ramey and people always referred to in the singular, and when I measured it by 3D ray tracing reconstruction of the scene found would fit in a shoe box?)
And remember, Marcel in 1947 (and decades later) was also quoted saying debris was scattered over a “square mile”. One thing Marcel did comment on decades later is that one reason it couldn't have been a balloon is because even a "shattered" balloon wouldn't have created such a large debris field. Do you think Ramey's singular balloon, even "shattered" into many tiny fragments, would elicit a comment that it was spread of a square mile? Good luck even finding the fragments extremely sparsely distributed like that over such a wide area.
Therefore Marcel NEVER said it was anything else, until the magic moment 30+ years later when a certain Stanton Friedman tried hard to persuade him otherwise, and succeeded.
Stereotypical CDA response, again confusing his personal beliefs with fact. The amazing Stan Friedman used his Jedi mind tricks to convince Marcel (and everybody else) of something they previously never believed in.
(part 2 of 2)
ReplyDeleteYes he DID tell a radio announcer that he once handled strange debris, but couldn't recall when. This is a very long way from saying that he handled ET debris.
More of CDA's revisionist "history". According to Stan, the station manager told him his ham radio buddy Marcel said he had been an AF intelligence officer and had handled pieces of a crashed flying saucer. The reason the station manager even brought it up was because Friedman had been lecturing about UFOs (not "strange debris"), and therefore the manager thought he would be interested in talking to Marcel. So clearly Marcel continued to be thinking this (crashed flying saucer) well BEFORE he ever spoke to Stan, otherwise Stan never would have heard of him. QED!
And the reason no mention of it appears in Marcel's military record is that his superiors regarded it as an insignificant event.
Because CDA says so, using his amazing psychic abilities. Yet another example of CDA's religious beliefs being treated as incontestable fact. The more likely reasons no SPECIFIC mention of Roswell would be in Marcel’s records would be: 1) military records rarely mention specific events, more generally assignments, awards, military occupations/specialties, and performance evaluations, 2) an event like Roswell might be classified out of the record, e.g., there is also no mention in Marcel’s record of him being involved in planning the A-bomb attacks on Japan. However, what DOES appear in Marcel’s record clearly contradicts the usual debunker propaganda that Marcel was a screw-up intel officer who couldn’t ID simple, common rubber balloon material, balsa wood sticks, and aluminum foil.
This is despite the brief 24-hour period when it made a lot of publicity.
Yes, a LOT of publicity, front page news, headlines, probably 80-90% of the nation’s newspapers, many international papers, with the end result being the impression that the one U.S. atomic bomber base was run by a bunch of idiots, i.e., a PR nightmare. Should have sparked an investigation to get to the bottom of it, kick out incompetent officers from command, but none of this happened. Why?
On what grounds would Marcel ever have claimed it was "not made by us" anyway? Did he know of literally EVERY aerial device the US and Russia had produced? Of course not.
Didn’t need to. He said he was familiar with nearly everything we had flying, which was probably true, but more importantly, flying thingees made by us are made of RECOGNIZABLE materials (aluminum, steel, wood, plexiglass, etc.) with known physical properties. What impressed Marcel was the debris had physical properties well beyond anything he had ever seen or which could be manufactured at the time. (Other witness reported the same thing.)
DR can decide for himself why the press release went out. I know my answer: publicity for the base. Too bad it backfired.
Were they holding a bake sale and trying to attract more customers? More confusing personal belief with fact, etc., etc.
But back on planet Earth, if that was the real reason for the press release, the resulting public relations fiasco for the Army Air Force would have resulted in a few heads rolling at Roswell. The brass would kick some ass. Instead, no known investigation and no evidence of anybody even getting a slap on the wrist. That is why Marcel's subsequent military record is important. His performance reviews were highly laudatory (including by officers who definitely knew what happened, like Blanchard, Dubose, and Ramey) and his career didn't seem damaged in any way. As for Blanchard, became a 4-star general and vice C/O of the USAF. Even Blanchard's flunky PIO Haut, who put out the press release and got most of the ridicule for it in the 1947 press, stayed on for another year and was then promoted to Captain when he left the service.
However, in CDA’s Looking Glass universe, all the Roswell drooling idiots naturally fell upwards in their careers.
Don Maor wrote:
ReplyDelete"(Some debunker - name removed), when I read your posts, I frequently feel that your discourse is about proposing the very first theory that pops up inside your mind in that precise milisecond."
Well put Don - the person in question is following the same rational as the 509th in 1947 - apparently he also likes to see his name in lights for writing such truly crazy postings.
I think this latest effort surpasses the one about the Ramey memo being a sci-fi novel.
David - have enjoyed reading your last few posts too (a bake sale!) - but please don't waste much valuable time responding to such clueless nonsense from the comedians.
Regards
Nitram
Kevin:
ReplyDeleteI thought this thread had finished, but looked again after 9 days and saw Paul Young's asinine comment about a certain sense of humor being unique to someone in "The Potteries" region of the UK. I'll repeat: it is an ASININE comment. Not that I really care as I do not originate from this region, and do not even reside in it.
Then a certain Nitram Ang (is he Chinese?) describes me and someone else as "clowns" (or was it "comedians"?) Perhaps he should change this to refer to a certain Paul Young. The latter ought to improve his geography for a start.
I presume this Marcel/Roswell topic is now closed. But I am certain it will reopen sometime. Where would we be without it?