Cosmic Whistleblowers - Simon Sharman

The other day I had the opportunity to watch a documentary by Simon Sharman called Cosmic Whistleblowers. You can see a preview, or rather a short trailer about the film, here.

http://cosmicwhistleblowers.com/

This is sort of his pursuit of the “Roswell Slides” tale, his discussions with various individuals including some of those who were directly involved in the Roswell crash in some fashion, and with Don Schmitt and Tom Carey who have been investigating it for years. It ends just after the big fiasco in Mexico City and what

Tom Carey. Photo copyright
by Kevin Randle

he learned about this after the fact, including information from the Roswell Slides Research Group and how they deburred the placard. It is an interesting story if for no other reason that you get to see the players in this little drama before Mexico City, during that presentation, and then the aftereffects of learning the truth.

Their website provides a short synopsis for the film. They describe it like this (and please ignore the all caps, but this is take directly from their site):

WHEN YOU LOOK AT ALL THE CONSPIRACY THEORIES THAT EVER WAS, THERE'S ONE THAT'S BIGGER THAN ALL OF THEM - THE ROSWELL INCIDENT.

THE LAST LIVING WITNESSES WHO SAW WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN ROSWELL IN 1947 ARE FEW IN NUMBER AND ALL TOO SOON THEY'LL BE GONE FOREVER. WHEN THAT DAY COMES ANY CHANCE AT GETTING TO THE BOTTOM OF THE MYSTERY WILL BE LOST AND THE ROSWELL UFO CASE WILL BECOME NOTHING MORE THAN A MYTH.

COSMIC WHISTLEBLOWERS IS ONE MAN'S QUEST FOR TRUTH ON A JOURNEY THAT TAKES HIM AROUND THE GLOBE IN SEARCH OF ANSWERS. YEARS IN THE MAKING, THE INVESTIGATION TAKES US TO THE HEART OF WHAT RETIRED THE NUCLEAR PHYSICIST STANTON FRIEDMAN ONCE DESCRIBED AS THE 'COSMIC WATERGATE'.

IF YOU THINK YOU KNOW THE FULL STORY BEHIND THE ROSWELL INCIDENT, YOU'D BETTER THINK AGAIN.

What caught my attention and this segment was obviously recorded before everything came crashing down (pun intended), was a statement by Tom Carey. He was explaining who was conducting which parts of the investigation and why they were allegedly being careful in their research, something that we all can understand. He said:

Don Schmitt and I want to get our own analysis. We’re not going to sign to something that blows up in our face. In this business that’s terminal.

It really does no good to go through all this again and you can read my analysis, reports, conclusions and opinions on all this by looking back on the blog, especially starting in February 2015 as more information was being revealed by those conducting their investigations. It is clear that bits and pieces of the story were being leaked by all sorts of people for their own purposes and to build suspense until the big reveal in Mexico City.

Tom said that a mistake of the proportions that had been made would be “terminal” but anyone who has been around the UFO field for a while knows that simply isn’t true. The only real mistake is to reveal the truth of a case that suggests something other than alien visitation. As long as you embrace all that suggests there is alien visitation, it really doesn’t matter all that much what mistakes you have made in the past.

The point is that they didn’t actually do their “due diligence” on the case, they didn’t get their own analysis and seemed to reject anything that suggested the slide showed anything other than an alien creature. We all seem to know this and most of us just ignore it. After all, anyone can make a mistake, even a huge one, and come back from it once enough time has passed.

Yes, I’m beating the dead horse here, but I found that one statement by Tom to be rather ironic. He wanted to be careful in his research of the slides because an error made there could be “terminal.” The error was huge, the data badly corrupted, the red flags ignored for a variety of reasons and even when the image was identified and other pictures of it found in a museum in the southwestern United States, there were, and are, arguments that it isn’t the same image. An examination of the slide, reveals the setting, and an examination of the picture taken as the child was recovered in 1898 show it to be the same as that on the slide, but people still seem to disbelieve it.

I mention all this simply because I’m not surprised by this. I have seen it time and again in the UFO field. Find the plausible (and that is the key word) explanation and no matter how solid that explanation is, it will be rejected by some… but then we know the moon landings were hoaxed, the Bermuda Triangle is dangerous and the Cardiff giant is real.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Lance Moody

Lance Moody

This week I tried something completely different and invited a dyed in the wool skeptic to join me. Lance Moody told about his conversion to skepticism from a younger man who was more open to the idea of alien visitation… as many of us were. Although we did talk about his sometimes rather nasty postings, and attempted postings to my blog, Moody, when engaged in private conversation (or in this case a rather public conversation) is quite rational and not at all snarky. You can listen to the interview here:

http://differentperspective.rnn.libsynpro.com/a-different-perspective-with-kevin-randle-ep-0038-guest-lance-moody-ufo-slepticism 

His main argument with much of the paranormal crowd, and this includes those in the UFO community, is the lack of critical thinking. He has a point because we all sometimes accept testimony that is lacking in logic and that we sometimes refuse to accept answers when they are obviously correct. I think here of the Chiles – Whitted cigar-shaped UFO reported in 1948. To me, and many others, the answer is bolide, and as I have said before, the re-entry of the Zond IV in 1968 is the best example of this. You can read some of these arguments on this blog by simply searching for Chiles – Whitted.

An even better example of the lack of logic, one that we didn’t discuss is the Barney Barnett tale of a crashed saucer on the Plains of San Agustin. When coupled with the Eisenhower Briefing Document of MJ-12 fame you have a logical conundrum. If the Barnett tale is true, then it should have been mentioned in the EBD because this was allegedly a briefing for the incoming President about crashed saucers. That it was excluded suggests that it never happened.

If the Barnett tale is true, and it is not in the EBD, then that suggests the document is false. You simply can’t have it both ways because they are mutually exclusive. Both can’t be true and authentic, but, on the other hand, both could be false. The point is that the logic of the situation seems to be lost on some of those who believe that both are true. If you are interested in this in more detail, much of it has been published here, but you can look for the complete details in Roswell in the 21^st Century.

Next week’s guest: Jan Harzan

Topic: UFOs/MUFON

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Chase Kloetzke

This week I talked with Chase Kloetzke, a MUFON member who was involved with their STAR Team and their Special Assignment Team, which are sort of quick reaction forces designed to get to the scene of a UFO event quickly. Although we talked a little about that, we eventually talked about one of her weird experiences as a field investigator and member of the SAT that took place in Tennessee. You can listen to the interview here:

https://youtu.be/BvBrRxkjzmc

Although there wasn’t much detail provided for the sighting, a google search did provide some additional interviews and information about the case. You can find that here:

http://www.theufochronicles.com/2011/04/mufon-star-team-experiences-close.html

http://hiddenexperience.blogspot.com/2012/12/audio-conversation-with-chase-kloetzke.htm

But, as they say, it isn’t all rainbows and kittens. There are some negative comments out there as well. To be an informed person, you should take a look at one or two of them. The nastiest is here:

http://w11.zetaboards.com/The_Church_Of_Mabus/topic/11140745/1/

Given that there isn’t actually a corroborative witness that is named and that one of the investigators who was there said that she saw nothing on the ground, I wondered if what she glimpsed might have been a trick played by a very bright flashlight in a very dark field. This was why I mentioned the Chiles-Whitted case and some of the meteor videos that play on YouTube.

Next weeks' guest: Lance Moody
Topic: UFO Skepticism

John Keel was Right - Another New Roswell Witness

Well, it’s happened again, just as John Keel said it would. As I have mentioned before, Keel had written in 1991 that by the end of the century (meaning going into the 21^st century) there would be dozens of people, if not hundreds, claiming to have been in Roswell at the time of the UFO crash. Another one has appeared on the scene by the name of Charles H. Forgus, a soldier who served during the Second World War and who was a deputy sheriff in 1947. No, he wasn’t a deputy in Roswell but one in Big Spring, Texas, which is Howard County.

Here’s how this plays out. According to him, he, with the Sheriff in Big Spring, had traveled to Roswell to pick up a prisoner. While they were on their way, they heard, over the police radio, about the flying saucer crash. They drove out to the site, saw hundreds of soldiers, though Forgus didn’t know which branch of the service they were in (the US Army on their fatigues should have been a big clue), and saw a huge disk crashed into the side of a mountain.

He was asked if there were lights on the craft and he said, “No, they went out when it banged into the wall in the creek. It was like a mountain on the side of the creek.” (Though I’m not sure how he would have known that the lights went out when it hit because he wasn’t there.)

He also said, “We couldn’t see that well because of the trees. It was in a riverbank. It slammed into a river bank. I saw them lifting one up with the crane.”

I recognized the place he was talking about. I had been there, I had walked the land and I knew that there was no creek or river there but from the picture that had been printed in The Truth about the UFO Crash at Roswell, it looked as if there was. You can see for yourself that his description matches the picture except for the water.

He added, “The saucer hit the bank on this side of the creek and I was standing on the other side of the bank, at the top of the hill. I was looking down at the site…” (This is the point of view of the picture.)

Kaufmann's alleged crash site. Photo copyright by Kevin Randle.

This is what Frank Kaufmann had said as well. Same description of the craft having hit the side of the canyon wall near what looked like a creek or river. Of course, we all know that Kaufmann’s testimony has been discredited. And if Forgus is describing the scene as if he was standing on a cliff some distance away, then his tale is bogus as well.

Forgus added some detail that is interesting, but also somewhat contradictory. I know this because I have been to that place. From where he was allegedly standing, he said he could see the bodies, though he didn’t have a good description of them. He talked about the big eyes. He said, “They eyes looked like the ones we see on television and the pictures of them.”

But he was so far away, according to him, it is difficult to believe that he would have seen the eyes. The real clue is about having seen alien creatures on television. He just picked the most popular version of the aliens to describe.

Here’s another nugget. According to several of the witnesses, and this includes CIC agent, Bill Rickett, William Woody and former part owner of KGFL radio Jud Roberts, the roads out to the area had been blocked and the crash site was cordoned off. Forgus and his sheriff wouldn’t have been able to get anywhere near the site before they would have been stopped by the military. Forgus made it clear that the military was already there with hundreds of soldiers, a big crane and trucks to remove the craft (Can you say “Alien Autopsy?”). If that is true, then the cordons were up and a sheriff from Texas wouldn’t have been allowed to penetrate it. He and Forgus would have been stopped before they got close enough to see anything at all simply because they weren’t military, they weren’t the local law enforcement and they had no legal authority in New Mexico.

The other part of the story that fails is that they heard about this on the police radio, which seems unlikely, but even if that had been true, they wouldn’t have heard instructions on how to find the place. You can’t see it from the main roads, and the gravel and dirt roads into the area are quite rough and quite confusing. If you don’t know where you are going, you’d get lost. Without someone leading them in, or precise directions which wouldn’t have been broadcast, they would never have found their way to the crash site.

This story was uncovered by Philip Mantle and was told to Deanna Bever in 1999, a Los Angeles private investigator. The tale appears in the book, UFOs Today: 70 Years of Lies, Disinformation and Government Cover-Up by Irena McCammon Scott, Ph.D. and published by Flying Disk Press. It was edited by Philip Mantle.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - John Burroughs

John Burroughs, of Rendlesham Forest fame, was my guest. We focused, quite naturally, on the December, 1980, sightings there and what all happened from his perspective. You can listen to the program here:

https://youtu.be/rN2llEG7v3s

John Burroughs

I, for a long time, had been confused about the number of days over which the events took place. I had asked Jim Penniston, John Burroughs and Charles Halt that very question and I believe I now know the answer. There were events on three days. On two of them, the first and the last, several members of the security force were involved, and on the middle day, there were only two people were ventured outside the perimeter. From Penniston’s point of view, there were but two days. He and Burroughs were involved on them. But, from the overall perspective (or to get overly punny about it, from A Different Perspective) there were three days. In their book, Encounter in Rendlesham Forest, it is laid out so that all this becomes clearer.

I did ask about the interrogations, but John said he had no real memories of this. He did acknowledge that he had undergone hypnotic regression in an attempt to remember more of what had happened. And we learned, of course, that he now receives VA compensation for service connected disabilities.

This interview is in stark contrast to those provided by Charles Halt. And there are still questions about what had happened, but the real story here might be the reaction of the authorities to the events rather than the events themselves.

Next weeks’ guest: Chase Kloetzke

Topic: MUFON’s Special Assignment Team

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Alex Tsakiris

This week, my friends at Anomalist Books put me in touch with Alex Tsakiris who wrote, Why Science is Wrong … about Almost Everything. The book wasn’t exactly what I thought it was going to be. It was about things that would be more normally found in the world of the paranormal but with a scientific slant to it. While we began talking about consciousness, or rather the nature of it, we evolved quickly into a discussion of Darwin and evolution (yes, I did that on purpose), past lives and eventually Near Death Experiences. I pressed him on the scientific research and publication in peer-reviewed journals, and to learn who were the scientists who are studying these phenomena. He provided answers that included the names and universities and corporations that sponsored some of the research. You can listen to the program here:

https://youtu.be/xrVDf7GKN7w

Because some of the topics were complicated and we couldn’t do justice to them in the hour we had, I asked for some links to articles and he provided the following:

http://skeptiko.com/239-dr-jim-tucker-database-of-past-life-memories/

and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyhZV-LGtJ8

And for those who might be interested, I did a book on Near Death Experiences some twenty or so years ago, so it might be slightly out of date and when talking about past lives, and I did a book, Conversations, several years ago that has a unique twist on all this. You can find it on Amazon, of course.

Next week’s guest: John Burroughs

Topic: Rendlesham Forest, quite naturally… if you have questions, let me know.

Aliens and Rhinoplasty

The other day as I was working on something else, I came across a note that triggered (or in today’s world, with triggered having degenerated into a political term, maybe I should say inspired… or inclined, but I digress…) a random thought or two. The discussion centered on the Barney and Betty Hill abduction and the comment suggested that the tale was based in reality because it had remained so consistent throughout the years. This wasn’t quite accurate and I thought I would comment on it.

In The Interrupted Journey, Betty Hill, in the Appendix, in which her dreams about the abduction are recalled in detail tells us about the alien creatures she saw. These are notes from her dreams, as written down by her and, “…are printed here for those readers who would like to compare in detail the content of her dreams with her recall of the amnesic period as it came out under hypnosis.”

Jimmy Durante and his
nose.

On page 298 of the hardback edition of the book, she wrote (or said) of the aliens, “Their chests are larger than ours; their noses were larger (longer) [parentheses in the original] than the average size although I have seen people with noses like theirs – like Jimmy Durante’s.”

But now, it seems that the description is more in line with the grays from the Zeta Reticuli star system. Little noses that are more like slits rather than noses. So, what happened here?

A Zeta Reticulan?

Well, it seems that the look of the alien creatures has evolved over time. We can blame Whitley Strieber for some of it. The cover of Transformation seems to have cemented the large-eyed, big-headed, nearly noseless aliens into our consciousness so that here, in the US, that is the dominant alien… but not so much in other parts of the world. I draw no conclusion here, merely point out something that I have noticed.