The Roswell Festival Interviews - 2019

This is the first of the interviews that I conducted while in Roswell. We had trouble with setting it all up so that Frank Kimbler, who would have been first, didn’t make it. I’ll get with him in the near future and get that accomplished. The first then was with Don Schmitt. You can listen to it here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/18473394

This was more of a conversation that ranged over a number of topics with Roswell taking the center stage, quite naturally. There are a couple of interesting points made about the case. For those interested in the current state of the Roswell

Don Schmitt

investigation, why, I’ll recommend my book, Roswell in the 21^st Century. I’ve removed all the hyperbole and tried to distill the case to its essence.

Next up is Alejandro Rojos of Open Minds. Caught up with him in Roswell as well. We talked about the show Unidentified and some of the trouble with establishing the credentials of Luis Elizondo. You can listen to it here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/18478724

I talked to Kathleen Marden on the last day of the Festival. Naturally, we talked about the Barney and Betty Hill case. I did mention the problems with the Star Map. Some of the data about the stars had been changed over the years based on better techniques and equipment. Kathleen addressed that. We also talked about some terrestrial explanations for the claims of alien abduction. You can listen to it here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/18485747

The last was a retrospective of what had gone on in Roswell during the Festival and other topics that crossed my mind at the time. Since it was recorded right after the completion of the interview with Kathleen, it wasn’t as organized as it could have been, but does provide some insight to the whole Festival idea. You can listen to it here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/18485805

That ended the interviews and shows recorded in Roswell. I had wanted to get a couple more, but as I have said, the gods worked against us on that. There were some interesting insights gained during the interviews.

Tom Carey will be the next guest, but this will take place in August, long after we all returned from Roswell. Given everything going on, I didn’t have the opportunity to chat with him there in front of the microphone. We’ll delve into quite a bit, including the Mexico City presentation of a couple of years ago.

Larry Warren, Rendlesham Forest and an Audio Tape

In 1995, I wrote a book, Project Moon Dust, in which I discussed the events at Rendlesham Forest in December 1980. It was an analysis that was based on the research that I done up to that point. For those who don’t know, back then, the case was quite confusing. Just who all was involved? How many days did the event last? Did anyone actually get close to an object or was it just lights in the forest? Lots of questions and only a few good answers.

John Burroughs

To expand on this, I had spent some time in California with Russ Estes, a documentarian who was involved in the UFO community. According to him, Larry Warren had stayed with him for several months, and Estes, as a documentarian, sat him down in front of his camera, asking him about the activities at Bentwaters. Warren, to prove his credentials, provided the evidence, including photographs and paperwork that he was, in fact, a former member of the Air Force security force at Bentwaters. And, as we all now know, his presence at the base has been confirmed by Colonel Charles Halt, John Burroughs and Jim Penniston. All of them were clearly there as well.

So, what is the problem? Wasn’t it Warren who first told the story to Barry Greenwood and Larry Fawcett? Without Warren, telling the story as Art Wallace, providing the first of the details, the story might have remained buried forever. Warren sparked the interest that lead to the breaking of the cover up or so it seemed.

According to a couple of paragraphs posted online by Philip Mantle, Warren had told Linda Moulton Howe that he hadn’t been directly involved, which changes the whole scenario. Mantle asked if any of us knew anything more about this:

Thanks to Rendlesham researcher Ronnie Dugdale for the information.

Warren admitted to Linda Moulton Howe and Benton Jamieson in an interview recorded by them both on May the 18th 1986 that he was re-telling Adrian Bustinzas story as if it had happened to him.

As recently as a couple of years ago Gary Heseltine was a guest on phenomenon radio. I was disappointed by his lack of knowledge but shocked and amazed that Gary Heseltine who claimed to be one of Britains leading researchers on the Rendlesham Forest Incident was unaware of the Howe/ Jamieson interview.

Directly after the show I sent a full transcript of the interview to Gary Heseltine so he knows the truth but chooses to ignore the evidence.!

Here is a link to my drop box for anyone who cares about the truth to read the full transcript:

https://www.dropbox.com/…/LMH%20Warren%20Jamieson%201986%20…

And, according to Halt, the story was already known in England before Warren had said anything about it. Bentwaters was being discussed in some circles, so even if Warren hadn’t talked to Greenwood and Fawcett, the story would have gotten out. Warren wasn’t all that important to the reporting of the story. Halt is the one who told me that when I interviewed him on the radio version of A Different Perspective. You can listen to that here:

https://youtu.be/lQXAFe-8CpQ

and here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEp8htP6O_g

Back then, in 1995 as I worked on Project Moon Dust, there was something of a controversy about the number of days that transpired. Some thought it was two and others thought it was three. I asked John Burroughs about it and he told me that he thought it was two but Penniston thought that it was three… or maybe it was the other way around. Warren said that he had been involved on the third day but if there was no third day, then Warren’s tale failed.

Peter Robbins

During a conversation held on February 16, 1993, among Halt, Warren and Peter Robbins, Halt told Warren that “You have events from the first night in the second or third night rather intertwined together.”

I think that I have finally solved this portion of the problem. According to what Charles Halt told me, there were three days. One day that involved several members of the security force and a second day that began early in the morning of December 27, that involved different set of witnesses. One of them, Lt. Bonnie Tamplin, who drove out into the woods, had suffered a vehicle failure, and was so freaked out by the experience that she was sent home.

It was that same day, but now late at night, just before midnight and into the morning of December 28, that Halt and the others were involved. In this respect, this is the third day. While I think this explains the problem with the number of days, meaning that everyone was right about the number of days depending on how you looked at it, it really does nothing to validate Warren’s tales. Events in the early morning of the 27^th are counted as one and those happening twenty or some hours later, late at night on the 27^th, account for the confusion. This is the point into which Warren attempted to insert himself.

Russ Estes. All photographs copyright
by Kevin Randle

In the video tape that Estes recorded, Warren seemed to hint that he hadn’t been around for two of the days because he had been on leave in Germany at the time. I mentioned that to Halt during the radio show and he was quite certain that Warren was in England, but not involved in the events in Rendlesham Forest.

There were differing accounts of who was where and who was involved on the critical day.  Halt was there, and according to him, no one was in front of him other than Burroughs and one other airman. Halt told Warren, “There are two nights there that are intertwined. Are you aware of that?”

Warren said that he didn’t and Halt continued. ““You have events from the first night in the second or in the third night rather intertwined together. It’s very puzzling.”

Later in the conversation, Warren said, “I am not married to anything I say. All I have done, or tried to do through the years…” Then as if to alibi his tale said that he had told his mother, who he said could tell whether or not he was lying. From what he said, his mother believed him.

Halt interrupted to ask, “Do you remember two separate, distinct nights, or were you involved on one night?”

Warren replied, “One. But I remember on that night… I can remember people with me and that whole bit.” And then he said the thing that seems to confirm the information that Howe and Benton Jamieson reported. He said, “Whether that is real or created or God Knows now… The strange story with me where your can put a finger on it and say God, something happened with this guy is in the paperwork… What my hopes are is that this is what my mind’s eye says.”

Warren talked about what he had seen or not seen. He said, “…whether I saw a thing explode or didn’t see a bright source of light…”

But Halt interrupted and said, “You couldn’t have been in front of us. There were no people in front of us… You had to be well behind that, at least a hundred, two hundred yards…”

With that, Warren diverted the conversation again. He talked of his eye problems, blaming them on the thing in the forest. Rather than dealing with the discrepancies in his story, he began to talk about other elements of the case.

But rather than take my word for it even though I can provide information about the interview, you can listen to it here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/yues8i851bdbdw8/Halt%20Warren.wav?dl=0

The point here, however, is that everything I quoted here is on the tape made in 1993. I would suspect that Warren has a copy of the tape and knows what is on it. I suspect he knows what Halt has said about him and he knows that he wasn’t involved in the sightings but was at Bentwaters in 1980. All this seems to verify what Howe and Jamieson reported. Warren sinks his own tale with his own words and I have no reason to suspect that the interview with Warren in 1986 is not accurate.

Project Avalon: When Stealing is Stealing

Well, talk about getting involved in all sorts of things that divert my attention and waste gobs of time. The first and easiest was another copyright infringement case. Nick Redfern alerted me, and others, to a website that held a large number of books about paranormal topics available for free download. The list of writers who

Nick Redfern who is responsible for the removal
of the free ebooks

were ripped off by this site is long. In this day and age, I understand why people do it, but they just don’t seem to think about the affects this has on the writers, publishers and even the bookstores.

Here’s the deal. Most writers, me included, do not receive huge advances for our books (unless, of course you happen to be Stephen King or J. K. Rowling). When you look at the cover price of a book, the person who receives the smallest percentage of the money is the writer. The bookstores, booksellers, take fifty to sixty percent of the cover price.

Second, most don’t realize the time and effort that goes into writing a non-fiction book, and by that, I meant those books that pay attention to the truth rather than making it all up and claiming it is the truth. There were telephone calls (which, in days past, were not free). There were travel expense such as airfare, gas, car rental, hotels, food, and a dozen other expenses. The upshot is that we weren’t sitting around with our computer on our lap and googling those things that interested us. Before we had any money in hand, we’d already spent thousands of dollars in the research because the Internet did not exist.

And third, what most people don’t know, is that the standard advance for a book today is basically the same as it was in the 1970s. You try spending a year writing a book, wait as the advance money dribbles in, and maintain a normal existence on 1970 wages.

Oh, I’m not complaining, just providing the facts of life. The point is I picked this job. I knew what it was going to be like, but there were just some stories that I wanted to tell, and if the money wasn’t all that great, well, I’d made that choice. The real pay off was getting the story.

Today, we have to compete with all those self-published books that pop up on Amazon, on bad reviews from people who don’t like our opinions and Internet sites that put the work on line for free. How many people who would have paid for a book didn’t bother to buy it because they could download it for free.

I mention all this because the writers rarely have any sort of a triumph. This week, we had one. The site that had put up all those books, dozens and dozens on line, is gone. In a note published to Facebook:

A message from the staff at Project Avalon:

" The Avalon Staff unanimously decided to remove all the ebooks from the site, whatever their age or provenance. There are no ebooks there now at all. Everything's gone. "

-- Project Avalon Staff

A small victory for the writers who toil at the far end of the publishing industry, who struggle to make a living (who are not guaranteed a fifteen dollar an hour wage), and who enjoy trying to solve this UFO mystery. At least they won’t be ripped off by this site.

Jesse Marcel's Journal - Update 2

The other day I was discussing the latest update on the Jesse Marcel, Sr. journal (or journals) and had a thought or two about it. I had mentioned that nothing being found in the journals for 1947 wouldn’t be all that surprising because it was, well, 1947, and Marcel was still in the military. Had there been a crash, and from what others had said, they were all cautioned about sharing of classified material with those who weren’t cleared to receive it.

It was pointed out that he had been talking about it in 1978. I thought that point irrelevant because so much time had passed. No mention in a 1947 journal wasn’t that important (unless, of course there was one) but no mention in journals written

Major Jesse Marcel

later, especially prior to 1978, could be very important.

But that wasn’t the important revelation. It was the sudden thought that when Marcel told Friedman about picking up the pieces of a flying saucer, he, Marcel, couldn’t remember what year it was. It wasn’t until Bill Moore, looking for information about the beginning of the modern UFO era in 1947 found pictures of Marcel kneeling near the remains of a weather balloon in General Ramey’s office, that the information fell into place.

I wondered, if Marcel had journals, then why had he been unable to give Friedman the date of the sighting? True, he might not have had the journal at his fingertips when Friedman called, but surely, he would have been able to look that up… if he had a journal.

That raises a second question. If he was keeping journals, then why didn’t he have copies of some of the newspaper articles in which he was quoted? If nothing else, maybe a notation that his name had appeared in the newspapers. It isn’t every day that ordinary people find themselves mentioned in the newspaper.  Or, at the very least, a mention that he had his name in the newspaper on July 8, 1947. True, that tells us nothing about the validity of alien aspect of the crash, but it would be something… Even a mention of the balloon explanation would be something, such as found in the 509^th Unit History.

Sure, I get that Marcel might have been embarrassed by the outcome, but there was really nothing in those articles that suggested he had made a horrible mistake. Just that he had recovered debris, taken it into Roswell and then onto Fort Worth, on the orders of his superiors, who, by the way, failed to identify the balloon in Roswell if we accept that whole story.

Anyway, all this speculation is based on a simple request for someone who might be good at cryptic analysis. I might be way off base here. It’s just that this seems to answer the question about the value of the journals to all of us. To the family, they would be invaluable but to us, looking for anything about the Roswell case, they might just be another dead end.

The Roswell Festival 2019

The Roswell Festival might be considered the highlight of the tourist season in New Mexico. Tens of thousands of people make it to Roswell for the Festival and hundreds of thousands visit the International UFO Museum and Research Center during the year. Top of the line hotels are found in the city and the downtown area reflects the economic boom that UFOs have created.

I made it to the festival for the first time in seven years and saw that much has changed. There is now a big display from The Day the Earth Stood Still and people lined up to have their pictures taken with Gort. Science fiction, though not a huge part of the museum, does have its place and I’m not sure that is such a bad thing. After all, I have written a number of science fiction novels, something that a few in the UFO field never failed to mention.

The Day the Earth Stood Still in the Roswell Museum. All photographs copyright by Kevin Randle.

One of the first things I did, on the first morning before the Festival began, before the opening “Meet and Greet” took place, was approach Derrell Sims. I mentioned something about a fellow Vietnam Veteran and he was quick to point out that he was a Vietnam Era Veteran. That means he served in the military during the war but that he had never deployed incountry (which is how we say served in Vietnam). He then launched into his resume of military service which has been well publicized over the years.

My plan was to interview six of the men and women who had been invited to give presentations. There were troubles with this from the very beginning. It started with getting the microphone, computer and WiFi connection operating. I had planned to use Skype video, but we just couldn’t get a good signal strength for it to work properly. I finally settled for four shows using only audio.

I, along with several others including Paul Davids, Tom Carey, Don Schmitt, Don Burleson and Frank Kimbler, were on two panels about the Roswell case. There were some interesting nuggets dropped there. I had mentioned that there were avenues of investigation to be followed, including research into the Ramey Memo. I did say that we hadn’t found any metallic debris but Frank said that wasn’t exactly accurate.

Don Schmitt, Kevin Randle and Frank Kimbler on the Roswell Panel. In the interest of full disclosure, this picture
is from an earlier Festival panel discussion on the Roswell case.

Frank, in his work with the Roswell case, had been finding bits and pieces of metallic debris out on the Foster (Brazel) ranch. Much of it is still being analyzed. Frank did say it was difficult to find labs to do the analysis when they learned that it related to the Roswell case.

This is something that I think all of us have encountered. Don and Tom said that as they attempted to interest anthropologists in certain aspects of the Roswell investigation, they would bail at the first mention of Roswell.

In researching the Ramey Memo, I have run into the same thing. Photo analyses and other experts backed away the moment Roswell was mentioned. Others who helped didn’t want their names associated with anything to do with Roswell.

All this means is that Frank’s trouble in finding labs for the analysis rings true. And, it is too bad that Roswell has become something of a problem for scientists and technicians who would like to investigate but fear for their professional reputations. 

Frank told me something else that I found important but that has nothing to do with UFOs. Back in the 1970s I saw a movie, McKenna’s Gold about the Lost Adams Diggings. That was a very rich placer gold deposit that had been guarded by the Apache. Adams, and several others, were taken to that hidden canyon and told not to venture above the waterfall. Of course, they did, and found a hard rock gold mine. The Apaches, angered by this violation, killed the miners except for Adams, who through good fortune, escaped to tell the tale.

I had pretty well decided that this was just another fabled gold mine story that dots the old west. There are those who believe it and spent time searching for it. Frank told me that he had found the right canyon, that it does exist, and strangely, he told me where it is… southwestern New Mexico. He’d been there, seen the landmarks that Adams had described, seen the gold of the placer deposit and knew he had found the right place. Then, to compound the story, he told me specifically where it is… Apache Box Canyon, which you can basically drive to… and Google Earth will show you the way.

But I digress.

I did talk briefly with Travis Walton, who seemed to be surrounded by fans most of the three days of the Festival. I didn’t interview him while in Roswell (though that had been part of my plan), he did agree to do the radio show later. I plan to interview him in August.

The real question was if anything new about the Roswell case turned up during the Festival. While on a panel to discuss all things Roswell I had mentioned that we were running out of avenues to explore. There was the investigation into the Ramey memo, but at this stage is seemed a long shot to think we’d ever come to a consensus. Out technology isn’t quite there and given the circumstances might never get there.

Tom and Don also mentioned additional witnesses but the problem here is that we’re now dealing with the descendants of those who were there. Such interviews

Tom Carey signing books in Roswell.

do present some problems since we’re not dealing with just old memories, but with old memories that could be misinterpretations of what was said by those telling the tales to their children. We’re moving far away from the primary sources which is not a good thing.

I gave two presentations. One was “Roswell in the 21^st Century,” which was derived from my book by that name.  It was a look at some of the evidence that had collapsed in the last 20 years, but also look at some of the positive things uncovered in that same time frame.

I think one of the best things was the value of the Jim Ragsdale story. He was the guy who said that while out in the desert, with a woman to whom he was not married. They had seen the object fall and crash near them. Ragsdale was later said that he had seem dummies or bodies, he wasn’t sure which. He repeated the word “dummies” several times. James McAndrew who wrote the anti-Roswell book, Case Closed for the Air Force, used Ragsdale’s testimony to prove that what was seen were anthropomorphic dummies dropped years after the Roswell crash. But, if Ragsdale was lying, as now seems to be the case, then his testimony about dummies or bodies is irrelevant, and a conclusion based on his testimony is fatally flawed. In other words, the Air Force used a lie to prove that these anthropomorphic dummies were what Ragsdale and others had seen. There were no alien bodies at all.

Kathleen Marden chatting with a visitor.

I did chat with Kathleen Marden for an hour, which was recorded there in Roswell to be broadcast on my radio show/podcast in the near future. We discussed the Barney and Betty Hill abduction, the star map, and other aspects of the abduction phenomenon. She seemed to have a good grasp on the topic, though I wasn’t in complete agreement with her on many of the points.

While there I did have the opportunity to speak with dozens of people. Although many seemed to understand that we lack the proof positive of an alien event, too many others seemed to embrace all the craziness from the Philip Corso story to the MJ-12 nonsense. There were some who were quite well versed in UFOs and others who were there because, well, there was a festival going on and it sounded like fun. I even saw a few people dressed as Storm Troopers (the Star Wars kind) and a couple of others in costumes from other science fiction universes. (But since I write science fiction myself on occasion, I didn’t mind chatting with those people.)

Most of my time was spent either arranging interviews for the radio show or conversing with those who were visiting the museum. I was there, at the museum, from the moment it opened until it was closed. But I just didn’t have a chance to sit in on other presentations. There were three tracks of programming, not to mention the special sessions held by some of the presenters. Too much to do and too little time to do it which, for a Festival, is probably a good thing.

I should note that the museum staff worked very hard to put on a good Festival, but had time to help me with my problems in setting up for the radio interviews. I never heard an angry word from any of them. They worked to keep everything flowing smoothly and the crowds happy. They did a great job and I never heard anyone complain about the programming, the presentations or the availability of the staff to help out.

The last thing was a tribute dinner for Stan Friedman who had died several weeks earlier. Given my experiences with Stan, some of the things he said about me, and his attempts to stop the publication of Don’s and my book, UFO Crash at Roswell, I just didn’t feel the need to attend. Instead I had Church’s Fried Chicken.

Main Street closed for the vendors during the Festival.

For those interested in analysis, I think the Festival has gone in the direction of creating a festival in recent years. While there was programing that related to UFO research, there were many other activities that had nothing to do with that. Main Street near the museum was shut down for all sorts of vendors, some of which had little or nothing to do with UFOs. Not that I’m criticizing that, just noting it in passing.

The International UFO Museum and Research Center.

For those interested in UFOs in general and Roswell in particular, the annual Festival is one of those must attends. The opportunity to talk with the researchers, those who have spent decades investigating Roswell, and others who have spent the same kind of time researching other aspects of the UFO field, is the big plus. I was able to answer lots of questions about the case that might not have been explained in detail in books, magazine articles and TV documentaries.

As for the Festival, it is something that those interested in UFOs should attend, at least once.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Stephen Bassett and Unidentified

I had been watching Unidentified on History. I wasn’t a big fan of the show, though it seemed to be presenting UFO research and government investigation into the phenomenon in a positive light. My pals Rich Reynolds and Stephen Bassett had a higher opinion of the show than did I. After the season finale, both seemed more

Stephen Bassett. Photo
copyright by Kevin Randle.

than a little annoyed. Both were critical of that episode and what it suggested or what it had implied. Bassett published a highly critical review of that show which is reprinted at the end of this post. This inspired me to invite Bassett back on my radio show to explain his thinking on this. You can listen to the show here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/18575335

I will note that my last week’s show, with Robert Sheaffer, a well-known skeptic, provided additional detail about that particular episode of Unidentified. It was surprising to me that both men, Sheaffer and Bassett, seem to have reached similar conclusions about the evidence presented in this last Unidentified episode. In other words, both thought the investigation trip to Italy and the details of the helicopter incident and burned areas had nothing to do with UFOs. The helicopter had been forced down by birds through the rotors and the burned areas were shown to be arson.

During our discussion on all this and the relation of it to the To the Stars Academy, Bassett raised some disturbing points about Tom DeLong, his involvement with UFOs and a few things that he had said in the past. You can take a look at some of that here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CJdBo0DnKaqCCr7wenAZt7cGH6jjgTa0UPapFw1aylY/edit#

https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/c4o51n/ttsa_disclosure_plan_revealed_trough_tom_delonge/

https://ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com/2019/07/ttsa-new-filing-with-us-securities-and.html?m=1&fbclid=IwAR1FeotAN8eTITCW9ycFoz4L5hlBnmSU-G7rV0-Ksdt-8D9ZfCpJp5jXl_0

Our discussion did provide some history about the last couple of years, the creation of the To the Stars Academy, and how this might be pushing us closer to Disclosure. Bassett did suggest a few things that were somewhat disturbing about various alien groups who have visited Earth, and proxy wars fought using humans. DeLong suggested that the major wars had been instigated by these various alien races. The links above note some of this.

This was something of a wild program, given some of the information provided and gives us a glimpse into some of the factors that have dogged UFO research for decades. You’ll have do decide just how much of that information is important for your own research and how much you wish to reject. If nothing else, it is interesting.

For those interested in what inspired the invitation to Stephen Bassett, here is the analysis he published:

From its launch on October 11, 2017 Paradigm Research Group has aggressively supported the core mission of the To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science in lectures and media interviews, on Facebook and Twitter, and to the PRG international email list. Hundreds of links to TTS/AAS related articles and media interviews are earmarked on PRG's website.

PRG fully expected this initiative to be heavily scrutinized and criticized, and has tried to impress upon the public the complexity and degree of difficulty in putting together this unprecedented effort from within the military/intelligence complex (MIC). Seven decades of government imposed embargo on confirming the extraterrestrial presence created considerable distrust and frustration particularly with those researcher/activists quite familiar with the evidentiary basis underpinning the reality of the phenomena. Many other actions by political leadership in concert with the MIC over the same period have added to this distrust. 

PRG's support of the TTS/AAS mission continues, but not without nontrivial concern regarding a narrative thread running through the Identified series. That narrative is about the UAP "threat."

The research program impelled upon the Pentagon by Senator Harry Reid was eventually named the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP). This was appropriate to ensure a basic acceptance within the DOD and avoid push back, as well as receiving high level media coverage such as the New York Times.

The Unidentified series would bring with detail the mission of the TTS/AAS to a large audience over a six episode season that ended on Friday, July 5. PRG watched the series with keen interest in how the TTS/AAS would address the threat meme.

There is a distinctive difference between "threat" and "potential threat." PRG noted "potential threat" was never used, or was used perhaps once or twice. On the other hand direct and indirect references to the threat posed by the UAPs escalated as the series progressed culminating in he final episode - The Revelation.

The sixth episode of Unidentified was flawed to the point of being grotesque. Every aspect of the production was designed to be dark including the cinematography, editing, and content, which was drenched in "threat" projection.

The TTS/AAS decided to go to Italy to address an incident involving a helicopter allegedly damaged and forced to land by a UAP. Meetings were held with Italian officials and researchers. Within the context of these meetings there was reference to a series of mysterious fires that occurred in the Italian village of Canetto di Caronia in 2004, 2005 and 2014. It was suggested these fires were caused by rays beaming out the sea where a UAP underwater base was located. Really?

It seemed clear to PRG the TTS/AAS had gone to some length to find a case that involved an "attack" by a UAP on a military vehicle. PRG was surprised at the TTS/AAS's lack of credulity regarding these assertions by the Italians.

The fires. In March of 2015 Giuseppe Pezzino and his father Antonio Pezzino were arrested and charged with arson, conspiracy to commit fraud, and sounding a false alarms pertaining to the events in Canetto di Caronia. Insurance fraud was the likely motivation. The Italian military police had installed hidden cameras in the streets after the fires started again in July 2014. Video captured about 40 incidents implicating Giuseppe and Antonio. There was also phone tap evidence. They were found guilty.

The TTS/ASS could have found this information on the Internet in 10 minutes.

The helicopter. Helicopter rotors hit birds. Also, it was not a "military" helicopter. It was the equivalent to a "police" helicopter.

How intense was the treat meme in Episode 6? Researcher Vern Lovic transcribed threat related statements from the Episode. Many of these takes are shown below this statement. That said, only by watching the full episode can one truly appreciate how drenched in threat was this program.

The TTS/AAS has been meeting with members of Congress - including committee chairs - for over a year. The potential threat aspect of UAPs would be helpful in bringing those members to the table and in convincing committees to hold the needed hearings. The concern is whether or not this is a strategic maneuver to get the appropriate attention (if so, then use "potential threat") or is it a core mission of the TTS/AAS to drive fear into the politicians and the American people leading to massive funding of a "space force."

If the latter, the TTS/AAS should not underestimate the knowledge base of the citizen ET researcher/activist community, its collective power or the ability of that community to marshal the media to push back.

If the TTS/AAS team has clear, compelling evidence UAPs and their creators are not just a potential threat, but a real and present danger, they should produce that evidence sooner not later.

Stephen Bassett

San Pedro, CA

July 9, 2019

His website is: https://paradigmresearchgroup.org/

Next week, as promised earlier, I’ll be talking with Don Schmitt about the Festival in Roswell in the beginning of July.

X-Zone Radio and the Assault on Area 51

I learned yesterday, which is to say July 15, that a group on Facebook was planning to storm the fences at Area 51 to get to the bottom of the alien rumors. Over a million people had signed up for this excursion, and the whole thing caused Rob McConnell to call to talk about it on his X-Zone Radio Show. You can listen to the interview here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/18558726

The whole thing is probably something of a joke, but these sorts of things just don’t do us in serious UFO research any good. Sure, it is a novel idea designed, I guess, to get lots of shares and clicks… but there are too many out here who will not see the humor, will not know the joke, and think that those of us in serious research condone this sort of thing…

Not to mention all the signs around Area 51 that suggest “Deadly Force is Authorized.” No, I don’t think the Air Force is going to shoot people, but if the misguided show, not knowing it is a joke, they’ll find themselves in legal trouble… like those buffoons who do not read the signs in airports about joking about bombs and hijacking.

The International UFO Museum and Research Center. Photo copyright by Kevin Randle.

When we finished with that, we talked about the Roswell Festival and the economic boom it has brought to Roswell, we talked about the Lonnie Zamora sighting and a few other things of interest.

I did mention that Frank Kimbler had told me about the location of the Lost Adams Diggings, a placer gold mine in southeastern New Mexico. My interest began with a movie, McKenna’s Gold and expanded from there. I gave the basics of the tale on the show.

In the next few days, I’ll post more about the Roswell Festival, and next week, the interviews I conducted in Roswell will be slipped into my program’s rotation

Jesse Marcel's Journal - Update 1

A while back, we learned that Jesse Marcel, Sr., had kept some sort of journal that family members had just discovered. I wasn’t overly concerned with the length of time it took for this discovery. Just a couple of years ago I found a stack of letters my father had written home from the Pacific Theater during the Second World War. They had been in an old suitcase just passed from hand to hand in the family. I had no idea what was in it until I opened it.

Major Jesse Marcel

So, when the Marcel family said they had just located these journals, I wasn’t surprised nor did I think it was some sort of trick. They wanted to take time to review the information and gather the documentation to prove that the journals had been written by the senior Marcel long ago.

I said that when I learned anything new, I would report it here and I have learned something new. Months and months ago the family decided that they needed the help of a linguist who had a working knowledge of cryptic writing. They thought that something might be encoded in the journals that would be of interest because Marcel had been an intelligence officer.

Let me say here that I served in a position similar to that in which Marcel served. We were both air intelligence officers. True, our assignments had been decades apart… he in the late 1940s and me in the mid-1970s, but the jobs were essentially the same. I know this because I have read the unit histories of the military organizations with which he served. For example, in the Army, the verifications of the information supplied by the soldier for a security clearance fell to the intelligence officer. Marcel, according to the 509^th Unit History had been doing that in Roswell. Before we deployed to Iraq, I had been doing that for our unit. Similar tasks separated by decades.

I can, therefore, make a number of extrapolations about what Marcel would have been doing, and based on my experiences, know how the various assignments would have been completed. There was no point in which I was introduced to any sort of comprehensive training that would have involved cryptic writing. Sure, there were the basics covered in a couple of courses, but nothing that would have been beneficial in creating a code hidden in the context of an everyday, personal journal.

But none of that is extremely important. The mere question and then search for a linguist with a knowledge of cryptic writing tells us what we want to know. It tells us there is nothing in these journals that reference the UFO sighting, the crash, the retrieval or the recovery of alien bodies. If there was, there would be no reason to attempt to “read between the lines.” No need to search for hidden messages in the journal. If it is not obvious, then I suggest it is not there.

For those who think that Marcel would have been hiding this stuff because, at the time, it would have been classified and such a journal entry would be dangerous, I say, remember, he told what he knew. We, in the UFO community, didn’t learn about this until 1978, but he had been talking about it with his ham radio buddies prior to that. And we have no journal entries prior to that point that suggest the alien spacecraft. No, I fear this is another dead end, based solely on the query about a linguist and cryptic writing.

True, this is speculation based on a simple question asked by the members of the Marcel family, but it is also a worrisome question. If there had been anything mentioned in the journals that suggested the UFO crash, then the question wouldn’t have been necessary. That it was asked suggests that nothing was found that related to it.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Robert Sheaffer and Unidentified

Given the interest in History’s Unidentified, with the suggested connections to UFO insiders in the government, I reached out to noted skeptic Robert Sheaffer. I, along with others such as Rich Reynolds and John Greenewald, had wondered about

Robert Sheaffer

Luis Elizondo’s credentials and military background which, to this point, have been ill defined. We all, however, had separated that problem from the Navy fighter pilots’ observations of some sort of unusual craft. I wanted to get the take of someone who had his feet planted firmly on the other side of the fence.

Before getting into that discussion, however, I asked a question that had been bothering me for a long time. Do skeptics ever research a case and find no terrestrial explanation? Do they ever just say, “I don’t know what it was?”

You can listen to the discussion here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/18515850

We did talk about Levelland and to be fair, I’m well-versed in that case and the question came spontaneously. Robert hadn’t been prepared for it, but did provide some interesting ideas about it… and I found our discussion about ball lightning, as a possible solution, to be, well, funny. The Air Force used a phenomenon that was not well understood, and that might not even exist as theoretically postulated to explain another phenomenon that was theoretically postulated and might not exist as described.

Given that I was in Roswell on Friday when the last episode aired, I had not seen it. I did, however, read several reviews of it. I was surprised that both Rich Reynolds and Stephen Bassett found the episode wanting. Robert, in our discussion, suggested that the Italian officer featured might not have been as credible as he was portrayed by those on the program.

We did, eventually, get about to the AATIP, the To the Stars Academy and the Navy sightings that were the basis of Unidentified. Robert’s suggestion that the video of the objects that had been played in every episode were recorded in infrared as opposed to normal digital equipment in our normal range of vision. He mentioned an analysis available at Metabunk.org. which might be illustrative of the problem. This link should take you to the proper video:

https://www.metabunk.org/?from=%40

And, you can read Robert’s take on all this at his blog which you can find here:

https://badufos.blogspot.com/

Yes, yes, at the end of the program, I said that Don Schmitt would be the next guest. However, events have over taken me, and some interesting things have been said about the last episode of Unidentified. Given that, and that one of those voices belongs to Stephen Bassett, he will be the guest next week. Don Schmitt will follow the week after that.

Midnight in the Desert

For those of you interested in this sort of thing:

Join me tonight LIVE on Midnight in the Desert with Dave Schrader

9pm – 12am Pacific Time (12am – 3am EST)

I would love to hear from you…

Lines will be Open: 480-571-3540

To listen click here: http://midnightinthedesert.com/kevin-randle/

Any questions are welcomed though I don't promise a satisfactory answer to all of them.