Saturday, January 19, 2019

The Roswell Deception - A Review


(Blogger’s Note: For those interested in more information about this, I interviewed James Carrion on my A Different Perspective radio show. You can listen to both hours here:


And for those who wish to read the book, you can find it here:


All this will provide information about Carrion’s theories, some of my thoughts on them, and additional points of view.)

In the interest of full disclosure, I should point out that I have been involved in the investigation of the Roswell case for more than thirty years. I am deep into the minutia of the case and know where the mistakes were made and what witnesses are more than likely being less than candid. In other words, you might think that I
James Carrion. Photo copyright
by Kevin Randle
bring bias to this examination of The Roswell Deception, but I believe I can view it in a very dispassionate light. I have tried to separate what might be considered a kneejerk reaction to a new theory that moves us beyond those which has been traditionally assigned to the Roswell case.

Before we begin, there are a few things that I want to make clear. Just looking at this book as an historical thesis, we are shown a history of the United States as it existed in the late 1940s. We are shown the paranoia that seemed to run rampant, the distrust of our one-time ally, the Soviet Union, and a belief that if our government did it, there are good reasons for it. This is all demonstrated through the newspaper articles and government documents that are linked to the book through the Internet.

There are “mini-biographies” of many of the people who populated the upper echelons of both the military and civilian worlds in the late 1940s. Those are interesting in and of themselves but some of them are irrelevant to understanding UFOs. To learn a little more about the men who were running things gives us an insight into the how and why of certain decisions were made but that doesn’t really help us understand the philosophy of the times.

There was a great deal of information about the use of deception during the Second World War. This included the use of faked divisions, rubber tanks and military vehicles, and radio traffic designed to convince the Germans that the coming invasion of France would be directed at the Pas de Calais rather than Normandy as but one example. This was designed to prove that militaries, including the United States, had successfully engaged in deception in recent history.

Second, and of little importance, are a number of small errors that do suggest a problem with the overall scholarship. Walter Haut is continually referred to as Warren Haught, the name that so many newspapers used for him. I’m not sure why this wasn’t picked up and corrected. It doesn’t seem that Carrion realized this.

In keeping with misnamed people, Carrion refers to Major Curtan and provides information about Major Eugene Curtain (page 204). But this is irrelevant because the man in Fort Worth was Major Edwin M. Kirton. The FBI didn’t bother to get the correct spelling of the man’s name. They just assumed it was spelled “Curtan.”

Third, there were other things. COMINT, which is jargon for communications intelligence is defined as code breaking. True, code breaking is part of the COMINT mission, but it goes far beyond that. It is monitoring of communications, the interception of those communications and study of them. There are many aspects to COMINT.

Fourth, is the constant suggestion that the men of the 509th Bomb Group were “handpicked.” There is no evidence that this is true, especially when we look at the unit rosters from the summer of 1947. Edwin Easley complained that his MPs were routinely rotated out of the group, to be replaced by others who now had to be trained in the procedures for handling the atomic weapons and secrets. There didn’t seem to be anyone handpicking them.

And there are assumptions that are not backed up by evidence. Often, we read about what the Soviet analysts would think about a flying saucer case, or how they would have interpreted certain information, but that is all speculation. At one point, Carrion wrote, “Astute Soviet intelligence analysts would have paid attention to the flying disc news reports quoting the anonymous Cal Tech physicist.” No documentation has been offered to prove that these assumptions are valid, and in some instances, we find them contradicted in later portions of the book.

Before we get too deep into the book, we are told, “…the flying saucer stories that proliferated in the summer of 1947 were part and parcel of a U.S. led strategic deception operation…that U.S. had amazing aerial technology… goals to stay Stalin’s hand from invading Europe, smoke out spies and to break Soviet codes…”

It is later in the book that we move back to the flying saucers beginning with an analysis of the motives behind the Kenneth Arnold sighting. This was one of those aerial deceptions that Carrion wrote about. Arnold, the man who launched the flying saucers, was lured into the area by a reward offered for finding the wreckage of a Marine aircraft that had crashed some months earlier, killing all aboard but that had not been located. The theory, according to Carrion, was that the military would be interested in the Pacific Northwest because this was the route that Soviet missiles would take during an attack. By providing an opportunity for someone, anyone, to see these radical new aircraft, in the Pacific Northwest, it would suggest to the Soviets that the U.S. capability was far superior than it actually was. This would prevent the Soviets from attacking Western Europe and by extension, the United States.

The flaw here is that the U.S. had nuclear weapons and the Soviet Union did not. This would seem to be the real deterrent and this aerial deception was unnecessary. If the U.S. could obliterate the Soviet Union with those atomic weapons, that would keep the Soviets in check, at least until they developed their own atomic arsenal. Mutually assured destruction would stay their hand at that point. Carrion suggested that we had few actual bombs and that convincing the Soviets that we had a delivery system that they could not defeat was the real purpose.

But what was it that Arnold saw that was so radical that he didn’t recognize it as terrestrially based aircraft? According to Carrion (page 84), “Perhaps Arnold was not familiar with the flying wing designs which were tailless, even though they were
XB-35
not a military secret. Newspapers reported in May 1946 the test flight of three N9M flying wings… and Northrop’s giant XB-35 winged bomber…”

The problems with this are many. Only four N9Ms were built. One crashed in 1946, two had been detailed to the Air Force for training and by June 1947, it seems that only one was flying. These were test aircraft and only about a third the size of the XB-35, so it is debatable that had there been nine of them and they might not have been visible at the distance reported by Arnold.

As for the larger XB-35, in June, according to the documentation, there were only two in existence. According to the PIO at MUFOC Army Air Field, “None of our flying wings has been in the air recently.”

This seems to negate the idea that Arnold saw something that was part of an aerial deception, which undermines the theory in the book. If it wasn’t an aerial deception, then what Arnold saw has another explanation. Carrion counters by saying that they might have been towing something, though it is difficult to believe that the inherently unstable XB-35 would be capable of towing anything.

Carrion tells us (page 114), that the deceivers had anticipated that the Arnold story would be a “flash in the pan,” so they began feeding new sightings to reporters, which, according to Carrion’s theory, culminated in the Roswell case. This seems to suggest they anticipated Roswell, or had planned it in advance. This would keep flying saucers in the news. But the day after the Roswell crash was reported, the news was that both the Army and the Navy had moved to suppress news stories about flying saucers. Rather than encouraging the proliferation of flying saucer tales, they were trying to keep the media from publishing more about them.

But more importantly, Carrion offers no documentation and no evidence that anyone was watching the flying saucers with an eye to keeping the story alive. No evidence that the Soviets were interested in it, or that the aerial deception had been created to suggest a superior aircraft. In fact, there are news reports and speculation that the flying saucers were “… a Soviet plot to create US panic.” This is a Soviet aerial deception.

Carrion, in writing about the Roswell crash, noted, as did some newspapers, that there had been a “blistering rebuke” (page 201) to the 509th subordinates for issuing the press release. Walter Haut, however, told me there had been no such rebuke. Maybe the press assumed it or maybe a spokesman said it, but those in Roswell were unaware of it. Karl Pflock, in his book (Roswell: Inconvenient Facts and the Will to Believe, page 290, reported that George Walsh had received a second call from Haut asking what he, Walsh, had done because he, Haut, had just received a call telling him to shut up. Of course, there is no documentation for
Walter Haut. Photo
copyright by Kevin Randle
this either and it conflicts with what Haut himself had said repeatedly.

On that same page, Carrion wrote, “Something that didn’t smell right in this news article was the revelation that ‘not all the principals were satisfied with the announcement that the wreckage found on the New Mexico ranch was that of a weather balloon.’ Which principals? Making a baseless statement was borderline gaslighting the public.”

But the answer to that question is there in the newspapers. Mack Brazel, who found the original wreckage, was quoted as saying that he had found weather observation devices on two other occasions and this was nothing like those (Roswell Daily Record, July 9, 1947, page 1.)

Eventually we learn that “Lieutenant Warren Haught delivered two entirely different press releases to the local Associated Press and United Press outlets – a purposeful decision that will make sense later in the story.”

Which might be true if there were, in fact, two different press releases delivered to the media outlets in Roswell. Walter Haut told me that he wasn’t sure if he had, in fact, delivered the press releases in person. He might have read them over the telephone. Both George Walsh and Jud Roberts said that there was no hard copy of the release (and a news wire copy reported that the press release was verbal and not written). They received it over the telephone and since one of the recipients, Walsh worked for the AP and another, Frank Joyce, worked for the UP, it seems that this explains the subtle differences in the two. It was not some sort of clever deception to out spies or break codes but just the expected differences that would develop in the ways that the press release was distributed to the news wires and then published in the newspapers.

But there is a third version of the press release which, of course, suggests that Carrion’s claim is wrong. Haut provided the press release to the Roswell Daily Record. Their story is different than those reported by the UP and AP. In other words, rather than having been filtered through Walsh and Joyce, and then rewritten by editors at the two wire services and later by editors at the newspapers that reported it, the Roswell Daily Record had the information directly from Haut. They wrote their story based on what Haut told them and not what have been sent in to the wire services.

Carrion, however, suggests that this is unimportant how many press releases there were because all the key words were in both of them (A Different Perspective radio broadcast). That would allow for the code breaking operations to go forward… but, if there was actually no need for two or more releases, why even create them?

Later, we are told (page 248), “Bottom line being that Blanchard would never have unilaterally sent out the press release unless he was under orders to do so.”

A page later, Carrion wrote, “one question that has not been adequately answered however is who authorized the Roswell press release to be sent out. As it was highly unlikely that Colonel Blanchard pulled the trigger on this decision, UFO proponents shift the finger to SAC’s deputy Commanding General Clements McMullen.”

These are more bold statements that have no facts to back them up. Blanchard, as both the 509th and the base commander, certainly had the authority to send out the press release. He was not required to ask permission from his higher
Colonel William Blanchard
headquarters. Notice that in one statement we are told he would never do it and in the next that it was highly unlikely. We are not told who these UFO proponents are.

Without actually supplying any documentation that the Soviets were at all interested in the Roswell crash, and with the story not only printed in newspapers all around the country, it was killed within three hours. It was claimed they had a flying saucer and then it was nothing more than a weather balloon and you have to ask, would the Soviet spies inside the United States actually be interested enough in this tale, as it developed, to transmit to Moscow using a code? Why not just send the information in the clear, referencing all the newspaper articles about it? No reason to encode it. Send clippings out in a diplomatic pouch because, once the explanation had been offered, there was no urgency to get the information to the Soviet Union. Carrion suggested to me that Stalin wanted the information fast and that couriers and diplomatic pouches would take too long (A Different Perspective radio broadcast).

Having provided an explanation for the Roswell crash, that is an aerial deception to fool the Soviets and a way of providing hints about Soviet codes, Carrion moves back to Kenneth Arnold. This time, however, Arnold isn’t the witness, he is the investigator. Ray Palmer, a Chicago publisher, wanted Arnold to investigate the Maury Island UFO incident. This was a semi-flying saucer crash. It was more of an emergency landing, but it resulted in damage to a fishing boat, the death of a dog, and injuries to the son of one of the men on the boat.

Maury Island is a notorious hoax. The investigation into it indirectly resulted in the deaths of two Army Air Forces officers. The aircraft they had used to travel to meet with Arnold developed engine trouble. It crashed after the crew chief and a passenger parachuted to safety. The pilots were unable to bail out and died in the crash.

All of this, from the Arnold sighting to Arnold’s investigation into Maury Island is an unnecessary diversion. Palmer, who had printed stories called the Shaver Mystery in his science fiction magazine, saw Arnold’s sighting as a way of validating some of those science fiction tales. The Shaver Mystery suggested a race hidden inside the Earth was responsible for all the troubles we face on the surface. The flying saucers were manifestations of craft used by those hidden away. Since the Shaver Mystery had been presented as truth hiding in fiction, and because these stories had boosted his circulation amazingly, Palmer wanted more. If the flying saucers could be tied to Shaver, then that would be best.

Arnold was to investigate Maury Island, the sighting reported by Harold Dahl and Fred Crisman. It has become clear over the years that Maury Island was a story invented by Dahl and Crisman to capitalize on the flying saucer craze of the moment. But there was an earlier connection. In 1946, Crisman had sent a letter to Palmer’s magazine suggesting that while he, Crisman, served in the China-Burma-India Theater during the Second World War, he had found one of the hidden caves that lead into the inner Earth. He could corroborate some of the Shaver Mystery with his first-hand observations.

All of this, about Maury Island and landed flying saucers, would have been ignored, if not for mystery calls made to newspapers about Arnold’s investigation of Maury Island. It seemed that the caller knew everything that was going on in Arnold’s hotel room as he interviewed the witnesses and discussed the matter with Captain E. J. Smith of United Airlines who’d had his own flying saucer sighting a few days earlier. This greatly disturbed both Arnold and Smith, and at one point, they nearly torn the room apart looking for hidden microphones.

But there were no hidden microphones and although the mystery caller was never identified, it is clear that it was either Dahl or Crisman. (On A Different Perspective, Carrion suggests that it was David Johnson). Given the nature of Crisman, he was probably the one making the calls. He never provided information to which he had not been privy. To prove he was on the inside, he was able to give the names of the two officers killed in the plane crash before they had been publicly released, but only because he had met them that day in Arnold’s room. Dahl and Crisman had tried to give the Army Air Forces officers some of the recovered residue from the damaged saucer but both officers knew what it was and it wasn’t part of a flying saucer. This is contrary to what Carrion suggested. George Early, in UFO, laid all this out in a series published in October, 2010; January 2011, and finally in October 2011.

The one very interesting point that comes out in all of this is that a fellow, David Johnson, had a large role in keeping the flying saucers in the newspapers. He seemed to have inserted himself into all Maury Island investigation through Arnold. Johnson, according to Carrion, singlehandedly convinced another newspaper reporter to push the Maury Island story out, over the news wire. Johnson was in communication with Arnold and knew Arnold’s plans. Johnson and Arnold would later go flying in search of the flying saucers, and Johnson would have his own sighting. If there was an outsider, a ringleader in this grand deception on a local level, then David Johnson would be a prime candidate for that. As I say, this is an interesting point made in Carrion’s book and on A Different Perspective. That alone might be enough for us all to take notice of it.

The one name that doesn’t surface in the book is that of Colonel Howard McCoy. He was involved with the Foo Fighters during the Second World War, he investigated the Ghost Rockets over Scandinavia in 1946, and then was a part of the early investigations of the flying saucers. He was an intelligence officer who seemed to be on the inside of everything, which makes him a candidate for the Roswell deception.

But the real point here is that contrary to Carrion’s belief that this was part of the grand deception, Maury Island was nothing more than a hoax carried about by two men who did not have sterling reputations and a Chicago publisher who wanted to boost his science fiction magazine’s circulation. They offered nothing that would be of interest to anyone other than those who thought the Shaver Mystery is real. The perpetrator of this was not some government organization but a magazine publisher who wanted to validate the Shaver Mystery to keep his circulation high. In this case, it was for the money.

This review could go on for much longer with these sorts of revelations. The problem for Carrion is that while he supplies links to interesting documentation, he has nothing that proves his case. He does not supply the smoking gun but suggests this lack of evidence is proof of it. He wrote, “The ‘perfect deception’ is a classic example. It is out there somewhere, but like the perfect crime, it manifests itself only in results. It is difficult to prove, and harder to study because quite often the study would attack comfortable beliefs.” (page 214)

Which is a way of saying that it must be true because we can’t prove it. We can only look at the results, but the results are inferred from documentation and information that is sometimes vague and sometimes irrelevant. The foundation is very weak and nearly nonexistent.

Worse still is what Carrion wrote early in his book. “Unfortunately, no U.S. strategic deception operations since WW2 have been declassified so I cannot offer official smoking gun documents that confirm unequivocally that the U.S. perpetrated strategic deception in the year of 1947…”

Carrion does provide an interesting history of the paranoid world of 1947, of the espionage going on by the United States as intelligence officials read all telegraph messages leaving the United States in something known as Operation Shamrock which was exposed decades ago. But all that does not lead us to an aerial deception of the magnitude claimed, that was designed to keep the Soviets from invading western Europe, to keep them from launching missiles over the Pacific Northwest and to help break the codes being used by Soviet agents.

He wrote that he was supplying a theory that could be falsified. In this case, we can say that Arnold had not been fooled by flying wing aircraft as part of an aerial deception because there were not sufficient flying wing aircraft to form a flight of nine. Of course, it might have been some other aircraft, or flying wing aircraft towing something, but again, the evidence does not support such a claim.

We can say that the Roswell press release was not part of a purposeful deception because there were not two purposeful versions. There was the single version that Haut supplied over the telephone and any variation of that version is the result of the communication over the telephone, the notes taken by those who received the calls, and the stylistic differences between the two wire services. Besides, with the information about the crash out in the public arena, and identified within three hours as a weather balloon, there would be no reason for Soviet spies to send a coded message about anything even if they thought there was something important there. In other words, the two purposeful versions did not exist and the documentation and testimony bears out this conclusion.

We can look at the Maury Island affair as a hoax dreamed up by two men with the assistance of Ray Palmer. It was a ploy to validate the Shaver Mystery and not some conspiracy by a secret government agency to convince the Soviets that we had superior military aircraft. Arnold was not part of the deception. He was just a handy foil for those perpetrating the hoax.

But in the end, Carrion admits that he provides a lot of speculation but no real evidence. While he challenges us to “falsify” his theory, to do so, we need access to still classified records of this grand deception. The problem is, such records might not exist and might never have existed. We can’t falsify the theory by proving an alternative to it because we need those records to do so.

The book is interesting for those of us interested in the minutia of the time, and the theory is clever, but it fails without any sort of evidence. Speculation is fine, but in the end, there is nothing left… the foundation is built on quick sand and rapidly collapses without the support necessary to make the case. Read the book for the history of time, for the information about the cases on which it touches, but remember that the theory is not proved.

28 comments:

William Strathmann said...

Thanks for this review Kevin. You've pointed out several of the issues of James's book that bothered me, even though I'm no Roswell researcher by any means.

Maybe I'm overstating, but I seem to recall James using the term "script" for his scenario of strategic deception that supposedly linked Arnold's sighting report and Roswell. If so, then an additional problem that I have not seen mentioned is that according to what I've read, Mack Brazel actually discovered the debris on the ranch on June 14th, ten days prior to Arnold's sighting report.

http://www.roswellproof.com/Brazel_Interview.html

If so, it seems Brazel was in no big hurry to report the debris.

One wonders if Brazel had actually reported the debris to Wilcox only a day or two after discovery, a week or so prior to Arnold's report, if there would have been all the hubbub of the last 40 years about Roswell.

cda said...

Yes you have dealt with it pretty well. I have not read Carrion's book, but it certainly sounds like he has not done his research properly. How on earth he can equate Arnold's sighting, at twice the speed of sound and 9 objects (as reported) with a flimsy balsa wood wreckage on the desert floor, i.e. Roswell, is beyond me. Does he really believe the US would try to frighten the Soviets in two totally opposite and contradictory ways? Remember, Roswell was not even a sighting, it was merely some common junk found on the ground. Oh well!

James Carrion said...

Kevin,


I will just respond to what I think are your most poignant critiques as the mention of Haut, Curtan, COMINT are so insignificant that I take exception to you stating that they "suggest a problem with the overall scholarship".

Kevin said: "And there are assumptions that are not backed up by evidence. Often, we read about what the Soviet analysts would think about a flying saucer case, or how they would have interpreted certain information, but that is all speculation. At one point, Carrion wrote, “Astute Soviet intelligence analysts would have paid attention to the flying disc news reports quoting the anonymous Cal Tech physicist.” No documentation has been offered to prove that these assumptions are valid, and in some instances, we find them contradicted in later portions of the book."

James response: What are the contradictions you mention showing up later in the book?

Kevin said: "The theory, according to Carrion, was that the military would be interested in the Pacific Northwest because this was the route that Soviet missiles would take during an attack. By providing an opportunity for someone, anyone, to see these radical new aircraft, in the Pacific Northwest, it would suggest to the Soviets that the U.S. capability was far superior than it actually was. This would prevent the Soviets from attacking Western Europe and by extension, the United States."

James response: This is the complete opposite of what I stated in my book. The US was expecting a Soviet air attack from the East while the western U.S. was considered an area where the US could conduct its own aerial testing. The Soviets would have used the shortest routes from their existing bases to stage an attack via the East. If something was flying over ther western U.S., the Soviets would have believed it to be purely American and for testing purposes.

Kevin said: "The flaw here is that the U.S. had nuclear weapons and the Soviet Union did not. This would seem to be the real deterrent and this aerial deception was unnecessary. If the U.S. could obliterate the Soviet Union with those atomic weapons, that would keep the Soviets in check, at least until they developed their own atomic arsenal. Mutually assured destruction would stay their hand at that point. Carrion suggested that we had few actual bombs and that convincing the Soviets that we had a delivery system that they could not defeat was the real purpose."

James response: Please provide evidence that the U.S. had ready to drop nuclear weapons in June of 1947. I provide documented evidence that they did not. If you are going to assign the label of "flawed" to my theory, you should be able to back your own assertions with hard evidence to the contrary.

Continued in next post.

James Carrion said...


Kevin said: "This seems to negate the idea that Arnold saw something that was part of an aerial deception, which undermines the theory in the book. If it wasn’t an aerial deception, then what Arnold saw has another explanation. Carrion counters by saying that they might have been towing something, though it is difficult to believe that the inherently unstable XB-35 would be capable of towing anything."

James response: I don't think we can rule anything out pending more research. You thought the N9M was not even flying in 1947 until I showed you newspaper proof to the contrary. I don't claim what Arnold saw had to be a flying wing. It could have been any number of possibilities, including conventional aircraft with their tails camouflaged as Arnold himself initially thought.


Kevin said: "Carrion tells us (page 114), that the deceivers had anticipated that the Arnold story would be a “flash in the pan,” so they began feeding new sightings to reporters, which, according to Carrion’s theory, culminated in the Roswell case. This seems to suggest they anticipated Roswell, or had planned it in advance. This would keep flying saucers in the news. But the day after the Roswell crash was reported, the news was that both the Army and the Navy had moved to suppress news stories about flying saucers. Rather than encouraging the proliferation of flying saucer tales, they were trying to keep the media from publishing more about them."

James response: And I don't see a contradiction in the Roswell balloon deflation story. If it generated news, which both the reveal and the detraction were overwhelming successful at, then it served its purpose based on my theory. I do believe that the timeframe for this deception like the Ghost rocket stories of 1946 were intended to have a limited shelf life.


Kevin said: "In fact, there are news reports and speculation that the flying saucers were “… a Soviet plot to create US panic.” This is a Soviet aerial deception."

James response: What are your sources for the Soviet aerial deception?

Kevin said: "Eventually we learn that “Lieutenant Warren Haught delivered two entirely different press releases to the local Associated Press and United Press outlets – a purposeful decision that will make sense later in the story.”
Carrion, however, suggests that this is unimportant how many press releases there were because all the key words were in both of them (A Different Perspective radio broadcast). That would allow for the code breaking operations to go forward… but, if there was actually no need for two or more releases, why even create them?""

James response: "Actually it has nothing to do with how many press releases or whether they had the same keywords or how editors rewrote or added to the press releases. The codebreakers would only need the ultimately printed newspaper articles and the intercepted encrypted Soviet telegrams to do their job."

Kevin said: "These are more bold statements that have no facts to back them up. Blanchard, as both the 509th and the base commander, certainly had the authority to send out the press release. He was not required to ask permission from his higher."

James response: "Yes he would have required authority from Joint Security Control if what was recovered was a potential secret weapon, i.e. if it was an ET crash as UFO proponents believe. Yes, he would also require authority if as Mogulists believe, it was a cover story for Project Mogul. Or do you believe Blanchard to be so incompetent as to mistake a weather balloon for a flying disc?

cda said...

In the summer of 1946 the Scandinavian 'ghost rockets' were at one time thought to be Russian tests of advanced missiles captured, and improved upon, from the former Nazi rocket base at Peenemunde. This was allegedly done to impress the US and Europe that the Soviets possessed a 'secret weapon'. That idea was discarded long, long ago.

Now, 72 years later, we have someone telling us that the American UFO wave of 1947 was due to the testing of advanced US secret aircraft to impress the Soviet Union.

I wonder, did the German scientists/engineers captured by the Russians create the 1946 wave, and those captured by the Americans create the 1947 wave?

Would anyone like to speculate further?

James Carrion said...


Kevin said: "But there were no hidden microphones and although the mystery caller was never identified, it is clear that it was either Dahl or Crisman."

James response: "Except Arnold in his book clearly states it could not be Dahl or Crisman because both were in his hotel room when the mystery called made one of his calls."

Kevin said: "This review could go on for much longer with these sorts of revelations. The problem for Carrion is that while he supplies links to interesting documentation, he has nothing that proves his case. He does not supply the smoking gun but suggests this lack of evidence is proof of it. He wrote, “The ‘perfect deception’ is a classic example. It is out there somewhere, but like the perfect crime, it manifests itself only in results. It is difficult to prove, and harder to study because quite often the study would attack comfortable beliefs.” (page 214) Which is a way of saying that it must be true because we can’t prove it. We can only look at the results, but the results are inferred from documentation and information that is sometimes vague and sometimes irrelevant. The foundation is very weak and nearly nonexistent.

James response: I present a hypothesis. I don't claim truth. I ask for critical thinkers to consider the hypothesis with the supporting evidence and decide for themselves. The events of the summer of 1947 did not occur in a vacuum. There is a rationale behind these events. All I have heard from your critique is: Arnold was an unusual sighting, Roswell was "something" and Maury Island was a hoax. I don't see them as discreet events, but closely related. There is nothing vague or irrelevant about the supporting documentation I provide.

Kevin said: "But in the end, Carrion admits that he provides a lot of speculation but no real evidence. While he challenges us to “falsify” his theory, to do so, we need access to still classified records of this grand deception. The problem is, such records might not exist and might never have existed. We can’t falsify the theory by proving an alternative to it because we need those records to do so."

James response: "I wrote this book because I believe that it is a much more plausible explanation for what happened in the saucer summer of 1947 that ET visitation. The problem is not about whether the evidence is out there in a classified archive, the problem is that no one has bothered to look before, too focused on the ET hypothesis that has been peddled by researchers who have come up empty handed. There will be others that will pick up my book and follow the trail and will spend the time in archives, sending FOIA requests and requesting record declassifications and will either add or detract from the hypothesis. Don't believe me, prove me wrong - but not by saying it can't be so because of baseless critique but hard evidence to the contrary. You have failed to provide that."

James Carrion said...

cda:
Before making comments about the Ghost Rockets of 1946, perhaps you should read my book Anachronism first which covers the Ghost Rockets in depth. But since you have already admitted to not reading my book The Roswell Deception while readily agreeing with Kevin's critique, that tells me that you are just an arm chair know-nothing who comments purely out of belief and ignorance.

cda said...

James:

You want people to prove you are wrong. OK, Kevin and I ask that YOU prove you are right. The upshot is that we are getting nowhere fast. And, to be frank, that is precisely where we will stand on this topic forever and a day.

Roswell was nothing but a pile of junk (yes junk) found in the desert by a rancher 3 weeks before it ever got into the newspapers. It consisted of balsa wood, torn up balloon fabric, and maybe bits and pieces of light metal. That is all it was. Yet you appear to say it was all part of some grand deception to fool the Russians that the US possessed some advanced high-performance aircraft!

Where is, or was, that great aerial craft? Is it, or was it, ever on show anywhere? Can you find ANY documentation on it? It is up to YOU to prove your thesis, and not up to anyone else to disprove it.

Maury Island is even crazier, merely bits and pieces of lava! And it is on record in AF files that Dahl & Crisman made a full confession to the hoax.

We can agree on one thing, however. I do accept that the ET theory on Roswell is just plain dotty.

Brian B said...

@ cda who wrote:

“I wonder, did the German scientists/engineers captured by the Russians create the 1946 wave, and those captured by the Americans create the 1947 wave? Would anyone like to speculate further?”

Not certain if you’re being serious or perhaps just facetious, but I can tell you this.

Very solid research has documented that the German rocket scientists employed by the Soviets were not yet ready to test fly any A-4 (V-2) rockets between May-December 1946, the period known as the “Ghost Rockets”.

Nothing flew from Peenemünde then or afterwards as the groups assembled to produce and test these rockets were still in the organization phase in eastern Germany then under Soviet control.

Some 7,000 German specialists including several key A-4 scientists help establish several “centers” in eastern Germany each focusing on some aspect of reconstructing the A-4.

During 1945 and the most part of 1946, Soviet specialists with the help of German engineers reestablished an A-4 production line in Germany, which turned out around a dozen missiles.

According to one Russian source, 20 rockets were assembled at Plant No. 3 in Kleinbodungen and five more rockets in the underground plant in Nordhausen. However none were launched at that time.

Along with having their rocket program exposed to Western intelligence, the USSR was now restoring military-industrial potential of Germany, something the Soviet government was least interested to do. Not to mention, Soviet authorities were concerned they would be accused by the allies of noncompliance with Allied Control Council agreements on the liquidation of the German war machine, which could lead to demands by the allies for inspections.

By October 1946 everything including some 3,500 Germans were deported to the Soviet Union to a facility outside Moscow. Most of these were not scientists but technical workers.

After that Russian engineers largely took over the research and the Germans added very little. The actual number of deported German rocket specialists reached 177 people, including 24 people with doctorate degrees, 17 people with master degrees, 71 people with engineering degrees and 27 workers.

It wasn’t until Sept-December 1947 before any A-4’s were test flown and then all of them at Kapustin Yar.

So NO, captured Germans were not responsible for the Ghost Rocket sightings.

In fact, US documents show both the Swedish and Greek investigators concluded that the rockets were extraterrestrial in nature.

The Swedish Air Intelligence (in 1946) concluded that “these phenomena are obviously the result of a high technical skill which cannot be credited to any presently known culture on earth”. The US document states, “They are therefore assuming that these objects originate from some previously unknown or unidentified technology, possibly outside the earth.”

I find that interesting.

Brian B said...

@ Kevin and James

Regarding US nuclear capability in 1947.

Ah....you’re both correct and just missing each other’s point in this debate.

Kevin: You’re right, as far as the Soviets were concerned (or knew) we had dozens of atomic bombs ready for use. They couldn’t be sure, so yes that’s a significant enough reason not to embark on Jame’s theorized counter intelligence plan. That is if you rely on fear as your major leveraging point with nothing to back it up if pressed.

James: You’re right. History shows we had ZERO assembled atomic bombs in 1947 and mainly just parts. We were hopelessly relying on Soviet fear to keep them at bay.

@ cda

My read is that James isn’t saying we had this super technological wonder aircraft — but that because we didn’t have any way to quickly deliver warheads over the Soviet Union that this entire plan was conceived to make the Soviets think we did. And not just from Western European occupation zones, but via fast moving aircraft flying over the pole and thus basically unstoppable in a surprise attack.

James P Carrion said...

Brian B. said:
“They couldn’t be sure, so yes that’s a significant enough reason not to embark on Jame’s theorized counter intelligence plan.”

Except the Manhattan Project was already infiltrated and if we didn’t know how deep the Soviet penetration went how would we know for sure that they were not already aware of our little nuclear availability problem in 1947 and how effective it’s deterrence value was to them?

RRRGroup said...

Although the Roswell incident ended up and remains, as CDA notes, a "dotty" affair, James' scenario has to be considered seriously as in the time-frame Soviet espionage and activity was on the front burner for the FBI, the nascent CIA, and various government agencies, including members of Congress.

James presents one of several, perhaps, synchronous activities that was undertaken when the "disc" thing became public.

Whatever happened at Roswell, minor as it turned out in the immediate aftermath. only became a glorified UFO/ET story because of the 1978 insertions of biased ufologists who pushed, and continue to push, the idea that ETs ended up on the ground near Roswell.

RR

John Steiger said...

cda wrote: "Roswell was nothing but a pile of junk .... It consisted of balsa wood, torn up balloon fabric, and maybe bits and pieces of light metal. That is all it was. cda also wrote: "... flimsy balsa wood wreckage on the desert floor, i.e. Roswell ...."

Not true. The debris that was found was unbreakable, non-flammable, and incapable of permanently folding (among its many non-terrestrial properties). Many firsthand witnesses have so stated.

This evidence also proves a fatal flaw in the "hypothesis" advanced by Mr. Carrion.

KRandle said...

James-

I have neither the time nor the inclination to engage in a protracted discussion of the review. However, as always, there are some points that do require further explanation and I’ll address those. I believe that most of the points were brought out in our radio interviews and that those interested in learning more about this can listen to that.

First, your point about the scholarship of your book that I based on what you thought of insignificant points, might have been a little harsh. I did go back and forth on that for a long time… but my thinking there was that the information was out there to found relatively easily. And, I will note that we all are sometimes guilty of that, even when we try our best to get all the facts first. However, I do think that these issues, and there are others, are important to note and let the reader’s judge if I was too harsh in that assessment.

You did talk about a missile attack coming over the Pacific Northwest and you did worry about the Soviet invasion into Western Europe which would be an attack from the east… But it seemed that the aerial deception was played out in the northwest which is why Arnold had been drawn into it.

I don’t need to provide evidence that the US was ready to drop bombs. I suggested it was a deterrent because we had demonstrated the capability to lay waste to the Soviet Union with nuclear weapons. We had the technical ability, we had the components and we have the aircraft modified to carry them… Silverplate B-29s. If the Soviets invaded Europe, we had the ability to create many weapons, which was my point.

And this sort of addresses my other point about a protracted discussion. We can now argue if that would have been a deterrent and how much the Soviets knew about are nuclear capability. They knew the bombs worked but would that be enough to stop them?

KRandle said...

Ahh… The Soviet aerial deception. I point you to the Albuquerque Tribune, July 9, 1947, page five “Discs” in which the Russian Vice Consul “scoffed at the suggestions that the saucers might be from Russia.” I don’t really care to look further. This suggests that there were those making the claim.

Yes, Arnold does say that but I still think it was Crisman who was the mystery caller… you suggested that it was David Johnson, which, BTW, I do mention in the review.
And I would agree that a terrestrial-based solution is better than an alien one but only because of the problems with interstellar flight seem to be impossible to overcome. However, any solution must account for the facts… your theory requires documentation that is not in evidence and that you suggest might not exist.

Rather than go on, I will point out that I have suggested that others read your book. I have suggested that portions of it are valuable. And I have pointed out that there are failures in your theory. You write that there were two press releases for the purpose of breaking Soviet codes, but the evidence does not bear that out. It is on points like this that I believe that the theory fails… at this time. Without the documentation, without the evidence, you are in the same boat as the ET proponents that you suggest are, “too focused on the ET hypothesis that has been peddled by researchers who have come up empty handed.” But you too, are empty handed.

Please notice, that I am keeping the debate alive here so that you have the opportunity to engage with those who wish to question you or those who wish to file their own FOIA in an attempt to find the documentation. I am providing a forum for that discussion.

Brian B said...

@ John Steiger who wrote:

“Not true. The debris that was found was unbreakable, non-flammable, and incapable of permanently folding (among its many non-terrestrial properties). Many firsthand witnesses have so stated.”

That’s false. There are no contemporary 1947 descriptions of the material having these qualities. What you have are first and second hand testimonies given 30 + years later fueled by a desire to insert oneself into a supposed historical event fueled by a swarm of UFO researchers who flocked to Roswell seeking proof of alien visitation and competing for the chance to be the first in Ufology to discover a “truth” they already believed in all the while profiting from books, interviews, and conferences.

That’s it. Why do you and so many other believers continue to spin this kind of nonsense as though it was a bonafide undeniable truth? Not one iota of debris has ever been found, examined, or seen by anyone. We just have fantastic 30 year old stories (now 70+ year old stories) which can’t be backed up by a single piece of evidence.

James Carrion said...

John Steiger: Your evidence consists of words uttered by individuals decades after the fact. Actual evidence would be the out of this world debris you mention. I will consider my hypothesis flawed when someone can produce the debris.

John Steiger said...

Brian B: READ my quote again. It does not reference quotations from 1947. There is nothing false herein, except for your assertions about it.

In fact, debris with extraordinary properties was found at both the Lincoln County and Chaves County sites. However, as you know, the military authorities confiscated it under threat of harm for noncompliance.

I pity you that you have to continually lie to yourself and others in denial of this.

James Carrion: You are prejudiced against history. The "words uttered by [many] individuals decades after the fact" are not all untrue.

Your "hypothesis" is flawed because it denies the truth that Roswell investigators have discovered. If you intend to write alternate history, I refer you to the exemplary works of Gingrich/Forstchen and Dr. Randle's own Time Mercenaries series.

William Strathmann said...

James, below is a passage in your book from page 264 that serves as an example of why I find your writing so tedious and unenjoyable. First of all, you continually use Thaddeus Holt to strongly bolster your argument, but when Holt instead mentions something completely at odds with your thesis, you ignore his remark, and instead jump to a far different conclusion by sheer assertion:

"Thaddeus Holt in the epilogue of his book The Deceivers noted that:

'Given Eisenhower’s enthusiasm for the subject, it might have been expected that during his administration, the height of the Cold War, efforts at strategic deception at a high level would be made. If they were, we do not know about them.' {emphasis added}

[This is not good for James's thesis, but James asserts:]

Eisenhower didn’t have to wait to assume the presidency to initiate strategic deception as this story reveals. The greatest deception in world history – the Roswell Deception – will be his enduring legacy. {emphasis added}

[Here James assumes as proven the case he ostensibly is trying to prove. This continual use of assertion for a yet unproven thesis is very annoying. Hyperbole also seems a bit wreckless. James follows that with a similar comment:]

"In July 1947, in a news blurb captioned 'No White Lies', Eisenhower was quoted saying:

"Talking to friends about the Russians recently, General Eisenhower remarked: 'Dealing with the Russians is like telling your wife a lie. If you tell her a lie once, you keep on and it piles up until eventually she finds out. It’s much better to tell her the truth. Likewise, it’s best to talk straight to the Russians.'"384 {emphasis added}

[So, here James quotes Eisenhower about talking straight with the Russians, which is not good for James's thesis. But James remarks:]

"Ironically, it was Eisenhower as Chief of Staff whose authorization was necessary before Joint Security Control and Plans and Ops could initiate a deception plan. Along with his fellow Joint Chiefs, Eisenhower was a participant in one of the greatest white lies ever told – one that continues to pile up and reverberate to this day."

[This is again simply an assertion for a thesis that is "as yet" unproven.]

Because of this continual assumption that the case for a Roswell deception has already been proven -- in a book about trying to prove the case -- I am only able to read a few pages at a time before I have to stop. You have a lot of useful information, but this "assertion equals proof" is very annoying.

KRandle said...

James -

I will consider my review flawed when you can produce the smoking gun documents you claim that are still classified.

Brian -

I get that you don't think Roswell was anything extraordinary, but you simply can't reject all the testimony from so many individuals because you don't like it. True, memories change and perceptions can be altered over time, but that doesn't mean that all memories are inaccurate and all perceptions are flawed. There is, currently, no terrestrial explanation that explains all the evidence surrounding the Roswell case.

cda said...

Kevin:

"There is, currently, no terrestrial explanation that explains all the evidence surrounding the Roswell case."

It depends what you accept as evidence. An explanation for Roswell, or any UFO sighting, does not need to account for literally EVERYTHING about a case. The reason is that, especially with Roswell, there is NO hard evidence of any kind and never has been. You are relying totally on ancient verbal testimony.

If you want to accept certain decades-old testimony and reject others you must provide very good grounds for such acceptance/rejection. You are forced to believe what witnesses have told you many years later; you have nothing else to fall back on. There is not even one shred of documentation to support a non-terrestrial answer. There is, however, plenty to support a terrestrial answer, even if it IS slightly deficient in places.

The ONLY way an ET solution becomes acceptable to science is where there is real hard evidence for it, either in paperwork or in actual hardware. Neither exists, does it?

I apply the same reasoning to James Carrion. If he wants his ideas to be accepted he MUST provide real documentation for it - something he has not done. And I firmly predict he never will. He has gone about things hoping that, because his thesis keeps firmly to the terrestrial 'military deception' concept, it will more easily satisfy the ET doubters than the official answer.

I predict his supporting documentation will never turn up, any more than the ET documentation will.

John Steiger said...

cda: A commendable try, but when you state "there is No hard evidence of any kind and never has been," you are overlooking Bill Brazel's box of debris evidence which he accumulated little by little in the months and years following the ET crash at the Foster Ranch site. Of course, Bill Brazel's debris material constitutes HARD EVIDENCE in contrast to your assertion.

Dr. Randle conducted interviews of Bill Brazel and numerous other witnesses. While some of them have been proven over time to have spouted bullcrap, many remain unimpeached, including Bill Brazel. The military confiscated this Hard Evidence, but it did exist for a time in Bill Brazel's possession and may well still exist somewhere behind lock and key. In any event your assertion is not wholly true.

Brian B said...

Kevin wrote:

“And I would agree that a terrestrial-based solution is better than an alien one but only because of the problems with interstellar flight seem to be impossible to overcome.”

I’m not certain the problems with interstellar flight are impossible to overcome.

A thorough search for related literature on advanced propulsion systems yields several different ways by which this can be accomplished. All of this confirmed by mathematics related to physics and the bending of space-time by manipulation of gravity. The science is far more mainstream than most people know.

This science goes way back — in fact Tesla proposed a particular drive mechanism which mathematically confirmed a method of achieving superluminal speeds by pushing gravity.

Other methods considered possible include the Alcubierre Warp Drive— a mechanism that creates a gravity well in front of the object and a hill behind. The effect is the object is propelled at superluminal speeds as it falls into the gravity well.

Mathematics has shown these methods do not violate Einstein’s theories because each is a work around that manipulates space-time. Mass is reduced, time remains local, and speeds are accelerated while travelers sit in a space-time bubble.

I’m sure you’ve heard of these theories. The only thing holding anyone back is supposedly how to achieve the energy necessary to create these effects.

That’s answered by what is now accepted science regarding Zero Point energy.

The recent AATIP program disclosure references the DIA’s validation of these methods.

Personally I suspect some branch of the US Military or Intelligence Agencies have already tested such mechanisms over decades of research with trillions of dollars of black budget money. Money documented as having gone “missing” without a trace.

The only reason we don’t use this technology today is because it’s tied up in ultra classified compartmentalized projects. Projects worth billions of dollars to contractors with government oversight to ensure national security is not breached while the technology falls into the wrong hands.

If such energy systems went mainstream public, it would collapse the world’s economy and bankrupt the energy and banking industries. The financial world is still reliant on fossil fuels and semi-alternative resources. Such disclosure would put many nation’s economies in jeopardy and that causes destabilizing effects on society and government controls.

So, technically if a super advanced alien society really did exist, it’s likely their understanding of physics might produce space faring travelers that could go anywhere in a matter of days or hours, and return back again without having been gone any longer than their actual flight time.

I suspect many UFOs people report are these craft under the control of human pilots, not aliens. If aliens have ever really visited, this would be the only known mechanism by which they might get here.

It’s not so much science fiction anymore.

KRandle said...

Brian -

Please note the qualifier... seem to overcome.

Brian B said...

@ John Steiger

John — saying that real evidence exists because Brazil’s son had a box of material from the crash is NOT hard evidence of anything. It’s just a piece of testimony. Testimony is important, but without physical evidence of the actual materials existing it’s nothing but here-say. Nothing but one man’s story.

Anyone, including me, could say I once had a box of UFO crash debris that proves aliens have visited, but I can’t show them to you because the military asked me to give it to them.

Do you believe me? You shouldn’t. Because I have no proof. Nothing to verify the story and nothing to show. The same is the case for Brazel’s son and most of the supposed witnesses of the Roswell story.

You’re simply choosing to believe these accounts because you’ve made up your mind it must be true because they said it happened.

Well many people involved in the Roswell incident have been proven liars, false testimony, faked documents, unsubstantiated claims, and so on.

If you believe Brazel’s son, then you also must believe that I once had a box of UFO debris too — Why? Because I said I did.

cda said...

Brian:

You have said exactly what I was going to say, so I won't repeat it.

John Steiger is also willing to believe that the discovery of ETs visiting our planet could be, and has been, kept under wraps for 72 years. Think of all the numerous scientists and military personnel who would have to be 'in the know' and all the written reports, new scientific concepts and so on evolving from this discovery. Astronomy & astrophysics, both of great international scientific interest, would be very different to what they are now. To suggest all this is STILL top secret after 7 decades is preposterous.

ET case closed, preferably for good.

John Steiger said...

Brian B.: I don't believe that you ever had a box of UFO debris because you are not being sincere in your statement asserting such as evidenced by your tone. HOWEVER, Dr. Randle spoke directly with Mack's son, Bill Brazel who witnessed to finding such debris over time. And Mr. Brazel's statement has been reported as a sincere statement of truth. This is a great difference from your example -- there is no comparison.

P.S. to Brian B. -- Your prior post in defense of interstellar flight was one of the best you have ever written on this blog. I am amazed that it came forth from YOU ... Congratulations!

cda: I am sorry you find yourself incapable of accepting/believing the truth about the ET cover-up.

Adam S. said...

Brian B wrote,
"Personally I suspect some branch of the US Military or Intelligence Agencies have already tested such mechanisms over decades of research with trillions of dollars of black budget money. Money documented as having gone “missing” without a trace.

The only reason we don’t use this technology today is because it’s tied up in ultra classified compartmentalized projects. Projects worth billions of dollars to contractors with government oversight to ensure national security is not breached while the technology falls into the wrong hands.
"

This is what I like to call the Nick Cook argument after his book on the topic. Somewhere, the US government has perfected zero point energy drives and have kept these from the public. The problem is these arguments reside on much of the same spurious accounts as the claims of ET craft.

In reality, black budget projects aren't always as exotic as they sound. Just to single out aviation projects: for one, a large amount of money is spent on prototypes, testing, electronics and computer systems (which are far more advanced now than in the 80s). The prototypes can crash, the systems malfunction, etc. For advanced stealth aircraft the costs alone can go in the billions PER AIRCRAFT...and this is just the aircraft side of the Black Budget. It doesn't include other areas such as weapons testing (very expensive), cyber warfare, and other fun DARPA projects.

It's a long arduous process from the theoretical side to the operation side even with the money involved.

Some of it also is probably leaked disinformation...similar as most UFO stories. It's better to have the public believe in the TB-3B and the exotic propulsion system for instance then the current active camouflage systems and space based weapons they are really working on.