Wednesday, December 20, 2017

Socorro, Fused Sand and Mary Mayes (Update 5)

When I was researching my book on the Socorro UFO landing, I had come across information about some fused sand that had been recovered at the site. Both Ray Stanford and Jerry Clark had reported on it. The information source seemed to be unidentified, the fused sand wasn’t mentioned in the Project Blue Book files, and the analysis of other physical evidence seemed to be about whatever you wanted it to be. Jerry Clark wrote, “If such ‘notes and materials’ exist [about the fused sand], they have never come to light. They are not in the Blue Book file on the case.”

This seemed to be more of the unconfirmed information that dot this case. We have those pesky three people (or rather the three telephone calls) to the Socorro police about the flame in the sky as noted by Captain Richard Holder. We have the car of tourists talking to Opal Grinder about low-flying aircraft that nearly smashed into them. We have the auditory witnesses, mentioned by Ray Stanford, who heard the roar of the object but who apparently didn’t see an object and whose names have been lost. Given all that, and the fact that this information, about the fused sand was not very well documented, I reported what I knew and let it go.

Dick Hall
But, as always happens, once the book is published, new information is found. This time it was spurred by a question at this blog about that particular aspect of the case, one that I didn’t think of as important. I decided that I needed to know more about this, so I went back to Stanford’s book, Socorro Saucer in a Pentagon Pantry. His entry was somewhat misleading, given the way he reported on it. Although he credited Dr. James McDonald as the source, he failed to mention it was in a letter to Dick Hall of NICAP, who provided a copy to him. Stanford wrote:

…a woman who is now [1968] a radiological chemist with the Public Health Service in Las Vegas [Nevada]… [who] was involved in some special analysis of materials collected at the Socorro site, and when she was there the morning after, she claims that there was a patch of melted and resolidified [vitrified] sand right under the landing area. I [McDonald] have talked to her both by telephone and in person here in Tucson recently. Shortly after she finished the work [on the Socorro specimens], air force personnel came and took all her notes and materials and told her she wasn’t to talk about it anymore (My [Stanford’s] emphasis. A copy in my files.)
That, of course, is not the whole story. In fact, as noted, this is very misleading based on everything that McDonald put in his letter. When you read what McDonald wrote, it tells us some more about all this. He wrote (differences highlighted in bold:

One last point: Have you ever heard of any reports that there was a patch of “fused sand” near the site of the Socorro landing? As a result of a remark that Hank Kalapaca made to me at lunch in the Rayburn building on 7/29 [I will assume here the year was 1968], I followed up a lead that Stan Friedman picked up when he spoke to a nuclear society in Las Vegas. I’m still in the process of checking it, so won’t elaborate the details here. Briefly, a woman who is now a radiological chemist with the Public Health Service in Las Vegas was involved in some special analyses of materials collected at the Socorro site, and when she was there, the morning after, she claims that there was a patch of melted and resolidified sand right under the landing area. I have talked to her both by telephone and in person here in Tucson recently, and am asking Charlie Moore to do some further checking. I must say, it’s very hard to imagine how such material could have been there not only on the evening of the 24th but still there on the morning of the 25th without it ever having been reported before. She mentioned it to Stan rather casually, as if she assumed that everybody knew about the fused sand. She was surprised to be told, especially by me, that nothing like that had ever before been reports. She did the analyses on the plant-fluids exuded from the stems of greasewood and mesquite that had been scorched. She said there were a few organic materials they couldn’t identify, but most of the stuff that had come out through the cracks and blisters in the stems were just saps from the phloem and xylem. Shortly after she finished the work, Air Force personnel came and took all her notes and materials and told her she wasn’t to talk about it anymore. Grand coverup? Not necessarily. The fused sand might be another matter.
By comparing the two reports, that is, what McDonald actually wrote with what Stanford provided, you can see that this information isn’t quite as strong as Stanford suggested. In fact, McDonald didn’t seem to be particularly impressed with it, but he did what all good researchers would do. He decided to see what he could learn about the witness, who isn’t named here but whose name appears in other correspondence written by McDonald, and to see if he could find additional information.

The first thing that I wanted to know, now that I had a copy of the letter, is what Stan might have remembered about this. It was, of course, fifty years ago, so his
Mary Mayes, 1959.
memory might be a little vague. He told me that as best he could recall, “Mary Mayes approached me after I lectured to a technical group saying that she had been a student at NMIT [New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology] at Socorro when she was asked to check on the soil which she had done. I told Jim [McDonald] about it as he was much closer obviously than I was. No need for me to be a middleman.”

The next question was if this Mary Mayes’ name could be verified since it wasn’t mentioned in the original letter. On November 25, 1968, Charles Moore (yes, that Charles Moore) reported that he had talked with both Raymond Senn and Sam Chavez about the melted sand. Neither of them saw any melted sand on the site and neither remembered Mayes, though in his letter, Moore incorrectly identified her as Nayes. He also mentioned a Mary Rumph, which as I have just learned from Don  Ecsedy was her maiden name. 

And, since we’re trying to get to the bottom of all this, I’ll note here that Moore wrote, “Our instrument man at the Institute, Mr. John Reiche, visited the Zamora site on the night of April 24th, 1964. John, an active amateur scientist and rock collector, tells me that he saw nothing unusual other than a burned bush, the markings on the ground which were at that time ringed by stones. Reiche appears agnostic about the whole sighting but places no high value on Zamora’s credibility. He says that Zamora reported other highly unusual events such as deer passing through the Socorro plaza at night when no one else has ever seen such things in modern times.”

This, is, of course, disturbing. It suggests something about Zamora that had not been mentioned by anyone else over the years, and while this letter, from Moore to McDonald has been available to researchers for a long, it seems that information from it had been overlooked.

One of the landing pad impressions found by Zamora. Photo courtesy USAF.
Moore goes on to say, “Reiche has also told me that the markings on the ground (presumably made by the support gear of the flying object) seems ‘wrong’. The soil on the sides of the indentations was loose and appeared as though it had been moved by a shovel; it did not appear to have the character that it should have, had it been made by the intrusion of a load bearing support.”

Which is another bit of information that hasn’t seen much in the way of publicity. While it seems that Reiche doesn’t care about any agenda, only the truth, it is also clear that he has raised some questions about Zamora and about the landing gear traces. I haven’t seen much like this in the research that I had conducted until now. But I will note that some of that loose dirt seemed to be explained by the landing gear sliding in the dirt as the weight was applied to the landing pad and the dirt shifted under the added weight.

Charles Moore at the Institute Library. Photo copyright
by Kevin Randle.
As for the melted sand, Moore wrote, “As I told you earlier, I screened the dirt in the arroyo bottom in an effort to find any evidence of fused material and found nothing that suggested the spalling off of rhyolite, melting of any vesicular lava nor the fusing of any sand. While it is true that the arroyo is subject to washing during summer thunderstorms, the fragments of the burned bush are still there, and I examined carefully the vicinity of the roots of the burned bush but found no evidence of fusing heat.”

We now have evidence that suggests Mayes’ tale might not be true. Although Moore called her Nayes in his letter, it would seem that if Senn heard the name Nayes, he would have mentioned that he knew someone named Mayes. Instead, he denied knowing her.

To complicate the issue, McDonald asked Mayes about these negative results. He talked to her on the telephone and then in person. He said that she had “remarried as Mrs. Mary White.”

According to McDonald’s letter to Moore dated April 2, 1970, mentioning the investigation, he wrote:

She [Mayes/White] seemed to be quite astonished that Senn said he did not know her, and she said not only had her family known him for many years, but she, herself, had “stood up for him” at his wedding… I had frankly tended to dismiss her story on the basis of what you’d turned up and Senn’s not knowing her. She again went very briefly over it - - where the fused sand lay relative to the impression, etc. No signs of evasive coverup or backtracking to mend her story. And reexpressed surprise at Senn’s saying he didn’t know her.
I pointed out that Reiche saw nothing like that when he was there, and she seemed genuinely puzzled.
Don Ecsedy tells me that there was a fellow namd Rumpf at Senn's wedding and is mentioned on the documentation available on line. So it seems possible that Mayes was at the wedding but that Senn knew her as Mary Rumpf rather than Mary Mayes. But I also have to wonder why, when McDonald asked her about this, she didn't mention that she was Mary Rumpf at the time. It would have cleared up this one point of disagreement and that she didn't seems curious.

There are more technical aspects to this claim of melted sand. According to a report from McDonald to Colonel L. DeGoes (apparently an officer assigned to ATIC at the time), “Charlie [Moore] took to the lab at NMIMT specimens of vesicular lavas that are abundant near the site and also a sample of a rhyolite present in abundance. A welding torch melted the vesicular lava to a smooth obsidian-like form, without sputtering. The torch would not melt the rhyolite, but it flaked off. A thorough search by Moore and a graduate student failed to turn up any sputtered-drop spherules in the dirt near the center of the site.”

But here’s the rub. Moore told McDonald that he had gotten to know Zamora and according to that same report by McDonald:

It came out a few weeks ago in the course of a rather careful recheck done by C.B. Moore of NMIMT at Socorro. Charlie has been out to the site with Zamora and… Zamora happened to volunteer the information about a “bubbly lava” rock one side of which had melted down. It was something like a foot across… and was located near the geometric center of the four leg holes i.e., right in the most heavily charred by the flame of the object in takeoff. Zamora said “some official” took it away that night… Holder makes no mention of such a rock…
Going through the entire Blue Book file on the case, there is no mention of the fused sand by anyone who was on the scene. From the moment that Zamora saw the thing in the arroyo there were people on the site. Holder even had military
Although this picture has been published suggesting it is Mary Mayes on the scene, this photograph was staged some time later with Zamora looking on.
police from White Sands cordon the area, take measurements and preserve the scene. Although it is not clear if the MPs were there overnight, but next day, there were any number of people on the scene, but no one mentioned Mayes and her colleagues being there. They would have needed some guidance to find the right place, so they would have had to come into contact with the Socorro police or the government officials (Holder and FBI Agent Byrnes). Photographs, taken the evening of the 24th and at other times give no hint of the melted sand, and those taking samples, from the damaged bush, from the soil around the landing area, and from other parts of the arroyo have nothing to suggest a high heat that would melt the sand.

Here's something else. According to Stanford, when he was on the site with Hynek and Zamora, he, Zamora, spotted a rock with what looked like metal scrapings on it. He pointed it out, but it seemed that no one cared about these possible metal sample from an alien spacecraft. Once the site was cleared, sometime that afternoon, Stanford returned and retrieved the rock and its metallic samples. This does not seem to be the same rock that was near the melted sand that Mayes mentioned and that Zamora seemed to confirm existed some two years later but I wonder if Zamora wasn’t confused by the disappearance of the rock taken by Stanford.

Zamora, and others, thought that the Air Force had retrieved the melted sand sometime later and that it was taken to a secret lab for analysis. Again, there is no testimony anywhere in the Blue Book files to confirm that this melted sand existed or that there was any analysis done of it. There are, in the documents I now have, a suggestion that Holder had written a five-page report, but I have not located it yet.

To recap what we’ve learned here. Mayes told Friedman about the melted sand some two years after the landing and that she had analyzed it. Friedman passed the information to McDonald, who followed up on it. Mayes said she was at the scene the next day, April 25, but that seems to be unlikely given the statements of others. At any rate, she claimed to have found an area of melted sand near the burned bush and recovered it, taking it to her lab for analysis. Once that was completed, the Air Force arrived, confiscated all the material and her notes, and told her not to talk about it. She had nothing to prove any of this, though there are those who accept the story without question.

Apparently, no one who was on the site on the evening of April 24th, who examined the burned bush carefully, who studied the landing gear impressions, and made measurements, noticed the area of melted sand near the bush and therefore none reported it. Other examinations of the site, in the months and years to follow found no evidence of heat high enough to fuse the sand, or any other indications of fused sand. It would seem, if we accept Mayes as telling the truth, that she collected the entirety of this evidence.

We have found, or rather Don Ecsedy Reported, that Mary G. Mayes is listed as a junior in the University of New Mexico 1959 Yearbook (page 42). He also reported that she had two years of college in Texas, but then she seemed to have claimed that she had attended NMIMT at some point so that she was familiar with the Socorro area. She told McDonald that she was a doctoral student at the University of New Mexico. She drops out of the picture after telling her tale to Stan and the beginning of the investigation by McDonald. In a letter dated March 13, 1969, McDonald wrote, “You 11/25 letter, for which thanks, indicated that neither Senn nor Chaves could in any way confirm the statements made to me by Mrs. Mary Nayes (sic) concerning the ‘fused sand.’ That certainly tends to cast strong doubt on her account. I have written to her but she has never replied, which may be further indication of something seriously amiss there.”

This was, of course superseded by his April 2, 1970 letter that actually explains nothing, other to reaffirm her original story. In the long run, no one can place her at the scene, no one saw the fused sand she talked about and she had no documentation to back up what she had claimed. All of this might have gotten more attention than it deserved, though there are still some avenues to pursue. (I will note here that Rumpf/Mayes/White died in 2007.) For those who wish to know who is Colonel DeGoes see:


 ftp://rock.geosociety.org/pub/Memorials/v29/degoes.pdf. 


Overall, this might be as far as we can take this, which is farther than I thought we could get. I have a couple of inquiries out that might pay off, but then again, we are pursuing something that is now over half a century old. Time might just be the one hurtle that we are unable to leap.

33 comments:

Don said...

Kevin: "He also mentioned a Mary Rumph (I know nothing about this person or how she fits into the scenario)."

Rumph was Mary G. Mayes maiden name. 'Mayes', her first husband, 'White', her second. She was with the PHS at the time, either at NTS or Kirtland, or maybe both.


"We have found, or rather Don Moar reported, that Mary G. Mayes is listed as a junior in the University of New Mexico 1959 Yearbook (page 42). He also reported that she had two years of college in Texas, but then she seemed to have claimed that she had attended NMIMT at some point so that she was familiar with the Socorro area."

That sounds like me, but I am not Don Moar; my surname is Ecsedy. I don't know if she attended NMIMT, but she was a listed speaker at a conference there held on 4/11/64, so some there in the week of the 24th might have remembered her .

I'll poke around on the Senn connection to Mayes, if any.

Thank you for this research.

Don said...

This is interesting: someone in this case knew Mayes' maiden name. She did not revert to it after the marriage to Robert Mayes had ended.

Best Regards,

Don

KRandle said...

Don -

This is working out as I planned. New information coming in all the time. Only had to update the article a couple of times so far.

KRandle said...

For those interested, another question answered.

Col. Louis DeGoes (perhaps a physicist by education) was the head of a three-man team of officers—Majors Boyce M. Smith and Bruce A. Dolan were the other two—appointed by the chief scientist of the FTD to monitor and review Blue Book’s operations in 1966 and submit a report regarding its future. McDonald frequently referred to the three as “DeGoes and Co.” While they weren’t officially part of the Blue Book staff, as far as I can determine, they nonetheless assisted Blue Book and sometimes dictated its actions. DeGoes, in particular, was instrumental in McDonald obtaining a copy of the Robertson Report and had suggested to McDonald at one point that he might be employed as a consultant with BB. This, of course, never eventuated. By August 1966, DeGoes and his compadres had left Blue Book and vanished from McDonald’s life. They presumably had submitted their report.

KRandle said...

And, before anyone tells me, here is a link to his obit (or a memorial):

ftp://rock.geosociety.org/pub/Memorials/v29/degoes.pdf

albert said...

Guys,

Look up "Fulgurite"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulgurite

. .. . .. --- ....

Don said...

Kevin, one of the witnesses at the Senn wedding, probably the Best Man, was Vincent G. Rumpf. I just found the marriage certificate online. I don't know how he was related to Mary. Perhaps he'd have recognized the name 'Rumpf' if he had heard it. It is possible he only knew her as, for example, 'My friend Vinnie's cousin Mary'. Maybe.

We're still left with the evidence Mary is said to have collected, but it does look like she did know Senn.

After Christmas I'll put up the docs on my site.

Best Regards,

Don

cda said...

"At any rate, she [Mayes] claimed to have found an area of melted sand near the burned bush and recovered it, taking it to her lab for analysis. Once that was completed, the Air Force arrived, confiscated all the material and her notes, and told her not to talk about it."

Doesn't this say it all? It is such a common theme in ufology that I am surprised anyone takes this kind of statement seriously. Some anonymous official arrives, confiscates valuable material and tells the witness not to say anything more about it. It happened with Roswell didn't it (several times I believe) and with other cases?

All this means is that should any real UFO hardware or any other hardware connected with a UFO event be located by a civilian, the guys in uniform will soon find out and descend upon the unlucky possessor of this material, take it away and warn the person to keep his or her mouth shut (under the threat of death in extreme cases).

That is how ufologists make (or rather do not make) progress! The odd thing is that this only seems to happen in the USA.

couldbebetter said...

cda, You are right. The government (of any country) can take possesion of anything they want,
when they want, and use whatever reason they want. Any proof of or material from any craft
can be seized with very good reason. It may be a classified test vehicle, the residue might
be radioactive or highly poisonous. Russia and China would act in the same way. If anything
of interest crashes anywhere on this planet, some government will attempt to retrieve it.
The Glomar Explorer, built by Howard Hughes, was used to retrieve a section of a Soviet sub.
Some have speculated that the true purpose was to retrieve Alien vehicles from the ocean floor. What our government cannot seize legitamately it can always break in and steal.

With regard to Roswell and UFO's nothing on this board about the Battele Memorial Institute HQ
in Columbus, OH. Look up who they are, what they do, and when they were founded. If Alien technologies were ever found, that is where it would end up. But noone talks about it.

Paul Young said...

@ cda's post...December 22, 2017 at 9:43 AM

cda,if I'm interpreting your above comment correctly, you are criticising the consistency present in certain aspects of the UFO phenomenon?
(In this case, when physical evidence is available...it is quickly made unavailable via governmental/military intervention.)

I find this to be a strange stance for you to take.
Complaining about consistency puts ETH'ers in a no win situation. The alternative would be for witnesses to be "all over the place" and then they'd be criticised for being out of step (or "inconsistent") with the general lore.

From the earliest reports, ETH'ers have always complained that the best evidence tends to get confiscated. Mayes claim is consistent with the theory that the military has a well drilled protocol of acquiring the BEST evidence and keeping it all to themselves.

cda... "The odd thing is that this only seems to happen in the USA."

Maybe not.... Nick Pope has spoken about the extraordinarily good photo taken at Calvine in Scotland. The best he had ever seen. That was in possession of UK MOD and that suddenly became off-limits to him.
Now, I'm well aware that a snap isn't the same as "physical" evidence but it does go along with the perceived strategy of letting the public only see the blurry stuff.

Don said...

CDA, it may be a common theme, but in this instance it is near impossible as told. Neither Mayes (or anyone) could get from Las Vegas to Socorro in the time from getting a call the evening of the 24th to arrive in Socorro the following day (and prepared with a kit to take samples and perhaps with two others), then return to Las Vegas.

What we've got is info from blind men poking at an elephant.

If Mayes was at the site the next day, then she was already in Socorro or nearby, and someone involved would have to have known that. The furthest away she might have been was Albuquerque (which was her home at the time, or, at least, she had close family there).

As best I can tell from a few documents, is she did a lot of fieldwork in the early 1960s. I haven't put together a chronology or bio for her, but there was a Mary Mayes at NTS, and a Mary G Mayes at Sandia, and I think somewhere I have a reference to a Mary Mayes at Kirtland. I don't know what territory the PHS Southwest in Las Vegas was then, but I assume Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico were included.

The blind men are: Kalapaca, who made a "remark" that set McDonald onto some research; McDonald himself; Friedman, who knew the name of her employer (PHS SW) and maybe knew her name; Moore; Senn, plus Clark, Hall, and Stanford, and now Kevin, and myself.

To be there on the 25th, of the names of officials we know were there, she would have been there at the request of Holder or Byrnes. The FBI was in Socorro down from Albuquerque, I'll note. There are some odds someone from NMT may have had input -- guys who knew something about soil and rocks were right there in abundance and with labs. For the plants, they'd need a biologist; still anyone can snip twigs and bag them.

If Mayes was there as a federal employee and at request, then there was a client which was entitled to her work-product which they'd contracted for. If that client wasn't the USAF, without authorization, they had no right to it. I just don't see USAF involved on the 24th (although there is a slight trace of that). If she was a Mary Mayes who was at any one of 'Sandia', 'Kirtland', 'NTS', doing biological radiation research, then she likely had a security clearance of some sort, too. If it was classified, then she'd need no warning, except pro forma for the record, to not talk about it to unauthorized persons.

So, CDA, you are both right and wrong: right to see the UFO/ET 'genre' of the account, but wrong to dismiss it. The gist of the story may be true.

Regards,

Don


PS Kevin, a slight correction on Rumpf. I didn't find a photo copy of the Marriage Certificate, but the State of New Mexico's marriage database entry. Everything on it was correct in detail, but I don't know anything about the witnesses. The real cert would be on file with San Miguel parish or the Diocese. That would have the witnesses signatures. Usually, after the ceremony, the priest will have the witnesses sign the cert. The signatures are the actual evidence, rather than the state db. If it ever is important enough to confirm, the cert or a photo copy can be obtained (I assume it isn't lost or misfiled).

My instinct, fwiw, tells me at least two of these three knew each other in the army during the war, or in the mining industry: Ray Senn, Mary's first husband Bob Mayes, and Vincent G. Rumpf.

Don said...

Kevin, I've posted up onto http://www.foreshadower.net comments and information on the Mayes issue. I haven't had the time to prep images for uploading, though. I think my "instinct" was accurate. For example, Mary's husband Robert attended NMIT and retired after 31 years in the Army Corps of Engineers. While he was there, perhaps Mary spent lots of time in Socorro with him. I've a lead that some Mayes, possibly their son started NMIT in 1964; if so, there are odds she was in Socorro that Spring for that reason.

Something is not right about McDonald's account. The evidence is getting strong that Senn knew her, and if so, did Senn lie to Moore? Or did Moore lie to McDonald?

Vincent G. Rumpf may have been a mining engineer, as well.

Best Regards,

Don

KRandle said...

Don -

I don't think there were any lies. It might just been a matter of timing. Senn was asked about Mary Mayes and he might not have known that she was actually Mary Rumpf. So, Senn told the truth when he said he didn't know her or more accurately, I suppose, was that he didn't recognize the name. Moore communicated to McDonald this inaccurate information which he found some what confusing. The real problem here when McDonald talked to her and she said she didn't know what Senn said he didn't know her, she didn't say that he might have known her as Mary Rumpf. So, no one was lying here, just a confluence of inaccurate information and a failure to ask a relevant question or two.

Don said...

Kevin, I agree there may not be any lies, but it has to be kept in mind, until we are moved beyond a reasonable doubt. Nearly all the evidence is circumstantial and not beyond reasonable doubt, but it is building up a 'weight' which indicates that Mayes was known in Socorro at NMIT at this time.

You wrote "Neither of them [Senn and Chavez] saw any melted sand on the site and neither remembered Mayes, though in his letter, Moore incorrectly identified her as Nayes. He also mentioned a Mary Rumph...". Does this mean Moore mentioned 'Rumph'? If so, how did he learn her maiden name?

As for no one else noticing the fused sand. If it existed, it may have been covered with sand. It was a windy spot and it was April. Hynek wrote there was a lot of detritus blown about getting snagged on the bushes. Just kicking up some sand walking about can bury things. She may have tripped over it, or knelt down on it to take a sample, uncovered it and took it with her (or gave it to someone at NMIT). Zamora, describing seeing the flame from the highway: "Noticed some "commotion" at bottom -- dust? Possibly from windy day-wind was blowing hard". Then the object takes off, kicking up more sand.

Having her account (via McDonald), all of which is verifiable, names (Mayes, White, Rumph), employer (Las Vegas SW US-DHS), expertise (biology/radiation), except for the fused sand, leads me to think there likely was fused sand.

Best Regards,

Don

Lance said...

That anyone could come to the conclusion that there "likely" was fused sand is why UFOs will always be the realm of scientifical buffs with their pretend analyses.

Not one scrap of actual evidence and much disconfirming evidence but Don still thinks fused sand is "likely".

Such a farce.

ALL roads for UFO buffs lead towards supporting the UFO religion.


Lance

Don said...

Lance the problem you have is the same as CDA has. You've got spaceships and aliens haunting you. You and he are the ones talking UFO here. Why can't you two stop talking about it? Repetition compulsion? Weird Tourette variant?

Again, I ask you, why do you immediately think "ET" at the mention of fused sand?



regards,

Don

Lance said...

I didn't think ET. I just thought hack UFO buff bias.

If you don't see the folly of just accepting an unproven claim in the world of UFO's, then you are more deluded than I imagined.

This is a world where claims are made without end.
It's also a world where those claims fall short almost without exception.

To hear an unsupported claim of fused sand and assuming it to be "likely" without any actual evidence (and, indeed, considerable disconfirming evidence) is an example of what makes UFO discussion a worthless sham.

You should turn your faux-thoughtful attention to Ben Moss's plasma vortexes in the Trent photos...


Lance

Don said...

Lance, unless you have no memory at all, you are aware I am not a "believer". I don't care about all this yammering between "skeptics" and "believers", and don't care about the "world of UFO's".

What is the "considerable disconfirming evidence"? Do you even know what the word 'likely' means?

like·ly
ˈlīklē/
adjective
adjective: likely; comparative adjective: likelier; superlative adjective: likeliest
1. such as well might happen or be true; probable.
2. apparently suitable; promising.

Sort of like your belief that it is likely the crew in the Kelly Johnson case saw a lenticular cloud. It is likely, with no evidence except a probability. So, climb out of the trees.

The reason I think it likely there was fused sand is that the Mayes story, via Kevin, via Friedman, via McDonald is pretty accurate. It is therefore 'likely' or 'probable' that other parts of the story are accurate, including the fused sand.

"disconfirming evidence"

An armchair skeptic with evidence? Hell must've frozen over.

Regards,

Don

KRandle said...

Sorry, Don -

There is nothing that suggests Mayes was there other than her tale that she was. No one who was there on the first night or the next day remembered either the fuse sand or Mayes herself on the scene. She claims that the Air Force took the sample and all her notes and results, but there is nothing in the various files to confirm this. McDonald said that Holder wrote a five page report, but I haven't found that. Analysis of the soil on the site by others such as Charles Moore suggest that there was no wide-spread high heat there, and I qualify it that way because there is some evidence of burning on the bush and surrounding grasses, but nothing that caused any fusing of sand beyond what Mayes claimed.

Your research suggests that she was aware of the sighting based on her being in the area, knowing people in Socorro, and her residence at the time apparently in Albuquerque. I had been wondering, if she invented this tale, why she would have done that... but given her connections to Socorro, it doesn't seem to be beyond the realm of possibility. It might just have been she told the story to Friedman after his lecture for some sort of self gratification, never thinking it would get to McDonald and further research.

However, when Lance mentions the "disconfirming evidence," he has the evidence on his side. There is nothing to prove that she was there the next morning other than her tale, but quite a bit suggesting that she wasn't.

Don said...

Kevin: "No one who was there on the first night or the next day remembered either the fuse sand or Mayes herself on the scene."

Who are "no one"? All I know is you have written that McDonald had written, that Moore had written that Senn and Chavez did not recall (anyone like) her being there.

"She claims that the Air Force took the sample and all her notes and results, but there is nothing in the various files to confirm this."

That is true. So what? Where in PBB in a major case do you find complete records of it all? I'd like to read it.

"Analysis of the soil on the site by others such as Charles Moore suggest that there was no wide-spread high heat there, and I qualify it that way because there is some evidence of burning on the bush and surrounding grasses, but nothing that caused any fusing of sand beyond what Mayes claimed."

There wouldn't be if it were fulgarite or trinitite. Fulgarite would be expected there if it were found. Trinitite would be a sure sign of a hoax. If it were similar to the unfused sand around it, we'd want an explanation for that.

"However, when Lance mentions the "disconfirming evidence," he has the evidence on his side."

You mean the above?

"There is nothing to prove that she was there the next morning other than her tale, but quite a bit suggesting that she wasn't."

What does this mean except ufologists let it sit for over forty years until everyone was dead (I exclude Dr McDonald. He had other things on his mind back then)?


Best Regards,

Don

Larry said...

Don made the statement the other day:

"As for no one else noticing the fused sand. If it existed, it may have been covered with sand....."

Does anyone know if there was ever an attempt (after the initial flurry of activity immediately after the event) by someone other than the government investigators to systematically search the site like one might do in an archeological dig? Is the "burning bush" that was supposedly under the center of the object still there today? Does anyone know who owns the land? If someone wanted to do a cold case search of the site, who would have to give their permission?

I'm guessing that someone reading this site might know the answers \.

Lance said...

"As for no one else noticing the fused sand. If it existed, it may have been covered with sand....."

The UFO religion is built upon apologetics like this.

Or maybe the fused sand was in another dimension that was only tuned to Mary's vibrations?

Larry, you sure you don't want to regale us with your other observations about the sand (that you or no one has ever seen or has proof of). Perhaps again connect it to the Trinity explosions, etc. etc.

At this point in the sad spectacle that is UFO discussion, if any investigator had a shred of intelligence, he could surely see that such rationalizations have produced exactly nothing except a foolish fan fiction mythology.

Lance

Don said...

Larry, I doubt there has been an archeological study of the site. If what one hoped to find were not large and heavy, it is likely further down the arroyo (wash). For example, the original campground in Arches was abandoned decades ago (I know it was not in use in the early 70s). My wife and I found the trash from it about a mile (as the crow flies) down the wash from its original location. If one knows where to look, it can be seen on Google Earth.

I doubt Lance has spent time in deserts, so ignore his babble.

Regards,

Don

cda said...

Don:

I have no problem with the fused sand. I DO have a problem with those anonymous guys in uniform who turn up, demand the witness hand over the fused sand (or any other hardware), under the possible threat of death if they dont.

It is such an easy claim to make, and of course some ufologists love to take it seriously, as it becomes another platform for conspiracy theory. And we all know there is a grand official conspiracy don't we?

What on earth does 'fused sand' prove anyway (apart from the fact that sand can fuse)?

KRandle said...

CDA -

No one said a word about threats. Just that these anonymous guys showing up. The problem here is I don't understand how they would have learned that Mayes had the stuff since no one in Socorro actually saw her.

Don said...

"I have no problem with the fused sand. I DO have a problem with those anonymous guys in uniform who turn up, demand the witness hand over the fused sand (or any other hardware), under the possible threat of death if they dont."

What Kevin wrote about "threat". But you are right that it seems a bit UFO genre. I wrote (above) that I think the idea of it, as well as Mayes travelling to and from Las Vegas, is not reasonable.

"What on earth does 'fused sand' prove anyway (apart from the fact that sand can fuse)?"

If it existed (and thanks to Larry for actually quoting me), then it could clarify things. See my comments on fulgarite, trinitite etc above.

Kevin: "The problem here is I don't understand how they would have learned that Mayes had the stuff since no one in Socorro actually saw her".

I'm (and everyone) is at a disadvantage because we do not have photocopies of the correspondence, as you do. I don't even know if it was handwritten or typed.

As I wrote (above) If the USAF was the PHS's client, then it was the USAF's property and they had every right to receive the evidence and the report. Did she say they took fused sand? From the quotations you offered I do not see that. Maybe my reading is faulty, but I thought it was the report on the plants.

It's been awhile since I've read the PBB files. I recall a soil test, lots of drawings and photos, and inquiries to likely sources for the object. I don't recall any reference to plant analysis. Moody had a burnt twig and a report about it. A year later Hynek takes a sample or attempts to. He got an infection (never break your skin on a desert plant, folks). Why take a sample a year later if Moody already had one from their first visit?

No doubt Stanford and the Lorenzens took some twigs. Did APRO analyse plant samples? Did PBB request them from APRO?

So, we have a soil sample report and no plant sample report in the official files -- or have I missed something?

If Friedman's story is accurate about the USAF getting the plant samples, maybe PBB didn't know about it.

Kevin, again, who are "no one"?


Best Regards,

Don

KRandle said...

Oh, Don -

I don't know. Lonnie Zamora? Sam Chavez? Richard Holder? Arthur Byrnes? Sgt. Castle? Jim and Coral Lorenzen? J. Allen Hynek? William Conners? The Socorro Police Department? The US Air Force? More to the point, can you name anyone who saw her there and reported on it?

Don said...

No, I can't, Kevin. I'm only aware, so far, of Senn and Chavez being asked about her. We don't know if the others saw her or not, and now we can't ask them.

PBB: the soil showed no signs of foreign material, and no radiation above the norm for the area. The burnt bush (I guess Moody's) showed no signs of propellant.

A third twig-taker from the site is the FBI which took a "small sample" to Albuquerque. I haven't found the report on that, yet.

I'll browse APRO and see if they posted test results.

The USAF soil test is of interest. I know there's a story about a big chunk of fused sand (which may be from the correspondence or not, and I'm okay with you not posting up the correspondence, whether by agreement with the source, or if you want to keep it for a book, or just don't feel like doing so. It is just 4th hand to me), but the likelyhood (if it existed) is rather small bits of fused sand mixed in with the normal sand. I don't know where the USAF got its soil from. I'd guess from around the indentations the "legs" made (they were very interested in them). The Mayes samples were from the area of the flame.


"It might just have been she told the story to Friedman after his lecture for some sort of self gratification..."

CDA should note this is UFO genre, witnesses come forward to gain some advantage, psychological or celebrity.

What about this: it was a hoax on Friedman. They got Mayes' name out of a professional directory, or maybe they heard her speak at NMT earlier that month, and got a female hoaxer to pretend to be her.


Best Regards,

Don

Lance said...

Like all UFO evidence, that which is imagined to exist is always so much better than the sad stuff we have in hand.

Don said...

Lance, there's nothing like looking for finding.

Regards,

Don

KRandle said...

Don -

Did you think that through... someone hired someone to fake out Stan Friedman... but then Mayes was contacted and went along with the tale... and either way, it ends up as a hoax. The evidence does not support this tale no matter who mentioned it to Friedman first.

Don said...

Kevin: "Did you think that through..."

You are referring to hoaxing Friedman? That was a joke. I thought it better than Mayes was looking for celebrity by kissing up to him.

Since, according to CDA, Friedman is a veritable Hercules of animal magnetism, maybe he ensorcelled Mayes into believing she had fused sand.

Or, what about this, you're hoaxing me. By even bothering with these 4th hand fragments of purported correspondence, I'm expressing great faith in your probity.

Stipulating that those fragments actually exist and those words and sentences you've quoted appear in them, here is the likely candidate for Mayes for these reasons...etc. That's what I'm presenting, and you're welcome.

As for fused sand, being at the site, a family friend of Ray and Frances Senn, and Vincent G. Rumpf, that requires something more than the low hanging fruit I've gathered.

There is no proof she was there? That's true (and it is not my fault there is none). There is evidence that of all the Mary Geraldine Rumph Mayes Whites in the universe in 1964, the one I'm presenting would be the one who would have been there. That's all I've got that's strong enough to go with.

There is still another trace to confirm before approaching her and fused sand at the Zamora site. There's no point in me reinventing the wheel, so I don't bother speculating about spaceships and humanoids, or Lunar craft, or hoaxes. Instead of these things at the center, I look for traces at the margins of the tale.

Just how well did McDonald know her?


Best Regards,

Don

KRandle said...

Don -

Do you really want to go there? You write, "Or, what about this, you're hoaxing me. By even bothering with these 4th hand fragments of purported correspondence, I'm expressing great faith in your probity.

"Stipulating that those fragments actually exist and those words and sentences you've quoted appear in them, here is the likely candidate for Mayes for these reasons...etc. That's what I'm presenting, and you're welcome."

This is insulting. You're suggesting that I have made up the quotes... but there is no evidence of that, and some of them come from sources that are on line. Other quotes are in the companion piece preceding this one so that you can see them yourself.

Of course, McDonald didn't know Mayes other than their brief interactions. The letters that I quote are certainly not fourth hand. Moore's report on what he found on his examination of the site is first hand. He was there.

The only thing you have is the second-hand story told to McDonald, but we have nothing other than that story in the way of evidence. None of the documentation supports it, none of the analyses of the soil samples supports it and there is no testimony to support it. Was there a Mary Mayes? Sure. Did you talk to Friedman about this? He says so. Was she interviewed by McDonald? Apparently. Was she telling the truth? Probably not. Why? Who knows?