Temple, Oklahoma UFO Landing

The problem with chasing footnotes is that I never know when I’ll find something of importance. Well, this isn’t exactly chasing a footnote to find the original source, but it does involve a sighting of a landed object and the occupant seen in conjunction with the sighting. This has been discussed in a couple of places on the Internet in the last few days. This was the Temple, Oklahoma, sighting of March 23, 1966. You can read about it here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-temple-oklahoma-ufo-occupant.html

What prompted this was a note from a researcher that suggested he had found a newspaper article that mentioned some sort of design or insignia on the craft. He wrote that he hadn’t read or seen anything like a symbol being addressed by others and he found nothing about it in the Project Blue Book files.

According to the article in the Amarillo Globe-Times, the object had a T over an L and the numbers 168 or 468 on it. But this is not the first time that these markings have been mentioned by others in the past. In fact, I mentioned those letters and numbers in The Government UFO Files as I reviewed the case. Well, I had a slightly different set of numbers, but I did address the issue. And, by looking at the illustration, these numbers can be interpreted as TLA rather than TL4. William Laxson himself was not sure if the second number (or first depending on the interpretation) was a 1 or a 7.

That’s not all. I found lots of other references to them as well. J. Allen Hynek reported the same thing in The Hynek UFO Report, page 200 (1997, Barnes and Noble edition). Hynek attributes the information to the Dallas Times – Herald and the Associated Press of March 27, 1966.

Jerry Clark, in High Strangeness, reported, " [William] Laxson recalled them as looking like the letter "T" over "L", with four-digit numbers (either 4738 or 4138) immediately underneath." He attributes this to Hayden Hewes in the Spring 1976 issue of True Flying Saucers and UFO Quarterly, pages 12 - 17.

And, while the letters and numbers aren’t written about in the Blue Book files, the illustration created by Laxson show the placement and orientation of the numbers on the side of the craft. The “T” is somewhat obscured, but it can be seen. That illustration is in the Blue Book files.

William Laxson's illustration of the craft. Drawing from the Project Blue Book files.

The letters and numbers seen
on the drawing.

The question becomes, then, what is the best source for this? Given that Laxson drew the craft and added the letters and numbers, this would seem to be the best source. Those other sources provide most of the data and I’m not exactly sure why we have the variations we do. I mean, the various entries  have the same letters and numbers but some of those entries don't have all of them. I suppose we can say that everything lines up fairly the same way and the only real question is if the second number was a 1 or a 7.

The point here was to note that there were multiple sources for the description of the letters and the numbers so that we didn’t have to rely on the single story. We have Laxson’s original statements to the Air Force, multiple newspaper articles about it, and of course, Hayden Hewes report based on his interviews with the witnesses. Our examination of the illustration demonstrates how this confusion came about.

The interesting thing, for me, was that this case is one of three in the Project Blue Book files where a crew member is seen and described that is labeled as “Unidentified,” rather than as some sort of psychological problem of the witness.

Philip Schneider, Cliff Stone and a History UFO Program

While I was waiting for Gold Rush to start, I was flipping around, looking for something else to watch. I came across a “documentary” on History and I put documentary in quotes because it struck me as more fiction than fact. All the interviews, all the alleged information, was presented without critical comment and I wondered if anyone would actually swallow any of the nonsense.

We started off, or I should say, I started off, watching the tale of Philip Schneider, a geological engineer who was working at the top secret military installation built under Dulce, New Mexico. He said that while he was working deep inside, either drilling for a new tunnel, just working in that tunnel, or trying to find what has caused a problem, he was confronted by a tall, smelly, gray alien. Without missing a beat, he drew his sidearm and opened fire, killing the alien creature.

That sparked a firefight between the human forces and the aliens. Sixty of the humans were killed and an unknown number of the aliens died. Schneider was one of the three human survivors, though badly wounded. Why, he even had the scars to prove that he had taken a hit in the chest, by a ray beam fired from the chest of one of the aliens.

Yeah, I have problems with this. The first question that sprang to my mind was why was a geological engineer carrying a sidearm? I suppose you could suggest it was in case he ran into snakes, but I think he said it was a Walther PPK, or one of the weapons used by James Bond. Besides, a shotgun using birdshot would make a better anti-snake weapon.

And, of course, if he was working on the base, wouldn’t he have been aware of what some of the occupants looked like? He did say, at some point, that these aliens absorbed the blood of humans and cattle for sustenance. Doesn’t that suggest that he had some knowledge of them prior to his unexpected and deadly encounter?

On this documentary, one of the talking heads said that Schneider had the scars to prove his story. They then showed Schneider pulling up his shirt showing us a long scar on his chest. But that only proved that he had a scar and I seem to remember an anti-smoking commercial where the guy showed his chest after heart surgery and it looked remarkedly like that Schneider showed us on that documentary.

There was one other point to be made here. Schneider said during one of his lectures, that there are seven friendly alien races on Earth and they are opposed by four evil races.

Well, I wasn’t convinced by this, and it would seem that practically anyone who was paying attention would see the trouble with what Schneider had to say. When I was at Dulce, I could find no evidence of this massive underground base and it seemed that those living in the area had no knowledge of it… But then it is

A much younger Cliff Stone. Photo copyright
by Kevin Randle

supposed to be top secret, which would mean that we aren’t supposed to know anything about it and it isn’t supposed to be easy to find.

Next up was Cliff Stone, a Roswell resident who, according to him, was involved in almost every important UFO event in the last half century or so. Stone was interviewed about his involvement with some sort of retrieval team, telling all that they’d get a call, and head out to the scene of a UFO crash. As I have said before, it seems these things are just raining out of the sky.

There is no indication that Stone had any sort of specialized training that would make him an asset to any sort of retrieval team. His military records show no special schooling, though they do document his training as a clerk-typist. He is a high school graduate but there is no indication of any college courses. That would seem to make him a poor choice for the specialized work of retrieving alien spacecraft.

I will note here that I first met Stone in February 1989 on the first trip to Roswell that Don Schmitt and I made. Stone made a big deal of going out to his car and returning with a file that had a Top Secret cover sheet on it. I knew at the moment that Stone had a flare for the fantastic because if he really had a top secret document in his car and not just the cover sheet, he was in violation of the law. Military regulations covering the storage of top secret material requires a vault… not just a safe, but a vault and Stone does not have a vault in his house. Obviously, that was meant to impress Don and me. It failed because it told me quite a bit about Cliff Stone… and no, it wasn’t all that great.

Anyway, here’s the real reason I bring this up. On that same program with Schneider, claiming 11 alien races involved here on and around Earth, Stone tells us about 57 alien species. Why the big discrepancy and why had no one at the documentary asked the simple question about the discrepancy? I would have liked to see someone question the outrageous statements rather than accepting everything as if was the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I would really like to see some tough questions asked of these people rather than the complete acceptance of what they say. That would make an interesting documentary.

Gosia Duszak and Billy Meier

Looks like Billy Meier has some competition. Seems that a woman, Gosia Duszak, who will be speaking at an upcoming UFO conference, says that she has been in communication with the Pleiadeans.

The Pleiades

It seems, according to the information published about her, she is an owner of a YouTube channel “through which the Taygetean Pleidain communication is shared… Since 2017 in almost daily direct live written contact with Swaruu (the Leader) and the Taygetean Pleidian crew in orbit of the Earth, assisting humans with the planetary liberation, liberation from the ‘Matrix’ and removal of artificially imposed 3d frequencies into our natural 5D state…”

There is some support out there for Duszak. I found this: “Dale Harder, a former NASA engineer and specialist in several fields of science, has recently contacted me to support the work of Swaruu of Erra (Taygeta, Pleiades). As he indicates, he himself claims to be a Taygetean starseed and in this video we talk about his experiences, what he knows and remembers, and also how Swaruu’s information fits with his personal knowledge and his cosmological, metaphysical and scientific vision.”

Harder has been interviewed by Kerry Cassidy at the Project Camelot, which, I’m not convinced, is the most credible of websites. Previously I had looked at her interview with Lt. Col. Robert French which didn’t seem to be a critical evaluation of his tales. She just bought everything he said. Anyway, you can listen to that interview here:

http://projectcamelotportal.com/2019/02/12/dale-harder-pleiadian-an-interview/

And you can learn more about Harder and his beliefs here:

https://conspiracyrevelation.com/2019/03/18/dale-harder-pleiadian-formerly-with-nasa-and-honeywell/

Anyway, I just thought I would mention that Billy Meier’s Pleiadeans have another Earth contact, though I’m not sure it is the same group of Pleiadeans. After all the Pleiades is what is known as an open star cluster and what we see from Earth is the seven brightest of the stars. The real point is that the Pleiades is not a solar system like ours, but a loose grouping of stars that are separated by light years. We can travel to the edges of our solar system over several years, but without faster than light travel, the distances between the stars of the Pleiades would take, well, decades, at best. The point being it is not a single star system but a group of star systems, which, BTW, aren’t all that old, astronomically speaking.

Anyway, I just wonder if the two groups of Pleiadeans are in communication with one another. And I wonder, of course, if Billy Meier is in communication with Gosia Duszak. It would seem that if this is true, why, we’d get some real proof.

Curse of Oak Island and Red Water

As those of you who visit here know, I have about given up on Curse of Oak Island. They had been tearing up the island for years and all they have to show for all that destruction are some crummy artifacts that are essentially worthless and a pack of speculations that are laughable in the extreme.

Oak Island, obviously.

Remember back in the early days when we were repeatedly shown that lousy video from Borehole 10X. There were images seen on that video that resembled a body, there was a hammer seen, and some sort of box that suggested treasure. When was the last time they showed that? Certainly not after they managed to put a diver down to the bottom of the hole and he found nothing of the sort. There was no body or tool or box. It was just an empty cavern that had a current in the water that suggested a connection to the ocean.

We were told they had found a mythical treasure vault because one of the holes they drilled had penetrated some sort of wooden structure. Never mind that the island is riddled with tunnels and holes and excavations in which wood was used to prop up everything. This, they said was the vault… except they haven’t been able to find it again and their one connection to it produced nothing but that wood.

They have dug up Smith’s Cove and found all sorts of structures that suggest some sort of military or nautical facility on the island. They have actually found historical records that seem to match those structures to actual installations built in the 1700s proving that someone was there in the years before the alleged Money Pit was found. In fact, everything they have found suggests an occupation that was abandoned before the boys showed up to start digging away at their imagined treasure.

I bring all this up because of something I saw in the last episode. Before I get to that, I want you all to remember that a few episodes ago they tossed some red dye into one of the holes they had dug to see where it would come up. At Smith’s Cove they had found a stone structure and by structure, I mean two stones that were tipped together to suggest the possibility of a triangle-shaped stone drain (changed from the box drain they spent years telling us about) that would lead to the Money Pit. Eventually, some red water trickled out and they all said that it proved a connection to the pit, whichever pit they’d tossed the dye into.

Now, we have them using an excavator to dig down deeper, farther inland, until they hit the water table. There was water seeping into the hole and that water had the same strange, reddish-orange color of that water that had been seen back on Smith’s Cove. What does this tell us? Well, I’d say that it showed that there was some sort of natural element that colored some of the water on the island. What they had seen in that earlier episode was not evidence of the dye migrating to Smith’s Cove, but a result of tapping into a water source that had been stained. In other, plainer words, they found nothing of interest and yet hyped it as some kind of proof of the treasure.

I was going to ask, “At what point do they admit defeat, pack up and go home?”

But the answer is obvious. When the ad revenue dries up and the show becomes a liability rather than an asset.

I believe that we have the answers here. We know what was going on, and the explanation of a military or nautical installation makes more sense than a hidden treasure of the Knights Templar, the lost manuscripts from William Shakespeare, or the French crown jewels.

But, in the positive, they have answered the question of what is hidden on Oak Island. Nothing of importance.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - John Burroughs

After I had interviewed Charles Halt a few weeks ago, I heard from John Burroughs. During our discussion about the Halt interview, John said a couple of intriguing things. I thought he might be able to provide a different perspective on the Rendlesham Forest encounter, so I talked with him this week. You can listen to the interview here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/20665258

We started out discussing his involvement in two days of the main events of late

John Burroughs

December 1980, but delved into some of the reports that suggested strange things had been seen in the area for months before that and after. John was just telling us that sightings were not limited to those three days.

I had been somewhat confused some of this until I had talked with John about his involvement. Jim Penniston and John worked for different organizations on the base. There was a separation of police and security forces. Two different functions for two different units with two difference chains of command under most circumstance.  I learned that John was out there with Jim for the first big event on the first night and while Jim saw what he thought of as a craft, John saw lights.

We talked about the second day that involved a different crew and how one member of that crew had been badly frightened by what she saw. John suggested

Jim Penniston

that she was gone from the base in what seemed like a matter of days, maybe a matter of hours.

On the third night, John wasn’t on duty, but when he learned that something was going on out in the forest, he and a couple of others moved to East Gate on the base perimeter. Eventually, John went forward and although Chuck Halt mentioned on this program that John had been in the background on that third night, I have a taped interview on which Halt mentions that only John and one other were in front of him. Is this the fog of memory, or is there something a little more nefarious involved? You can listen to both the latest Chuck Halt and Jim Penniston interviews here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/20149199

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/19539741

From there we got into a discussion that suggested that others, from outside the Bentwaters base, had been flown in, quickly, to conduct “debriefings.” They arrived on an aircraft that had Langley Air Force Base markings. Although it seems that hypnosis was used on the enlisted personnel, it is also possible that there were chemical interrogations. John wasn’t sure if chemicals had been used, but thought there was to a real possibility.

We ended the discussion with a couple of theories that suggested that there might have been a more terrestrial explanation for those events… one that did not involve the lighthouse that is a favorite of the skeptics, but something that might have to do with some of the experiments being conducted by British scientists in the area. Apparently, there was a history of British research in the area for, what, decades.

Yes, we jammed quite a bit into the hour. There were so many other avenues to explore but we just ran out of time. I’m now going to take a couple of weeks off for the holidays, but will be back with some more interesting interviews. We’ll be running some of the “best of” segments during this short hiatus.

Treasure Quest - Season Four?

In the last few weeks, I have been asked about the new season of Treasure Quest: Once Upon a Time on Snake Island. As everyone knows, the first two seasons dealt with the Treasure of Trinity but has been moved from Snake Island and eastern South America to Bolivia and the Sacambaya Treasure. The Sacambaya Treasure is said to be three times as large as the Treasure of the Trinity.

For those who have been keeping score at home, the last season ended with those involved believing they had found a stash of gold bars in about four feet of water. You would think, if they had that sort of evidence and had been that close, they would have been back the next season, ready to recover that treasure rather than

The hotel near the site of the Sacambaya treasure.

telling the world exactly where it was. Wouldn’t that inspire someone, somewhere to attempt to sneak in there to grab some of the gold before Treasure Quest hunters returned. Contrary to what they claimed at the beginning of season 3, you could actually drive to that location. Unless there were guards in place at the site, I can’t see why someone else wouldn’t try to get in there first. Might be dangerous but those gold bars aren’t hidden in deep water and we do know the location… if they are actually there as claimed.

And what about the Bolivian government? Wouldn’t they have a claim to any treasure found inside the borders of their country? I haven’t even mentioned the church which might believe the treasure was theirs because it was mined by their priests. Or it belongs to the natives forced into slavery to mine the treasure. Wouldn’t their descendants have a real claim on the treasure? But I digress…

Overlooking all the historical and legal issues here, I would think that had a treasure been found, there would have been big news about it. We’d already have the answer, not to mention all the free advertising for the show. Who wouldn’t want to watch these guys grab billions in gold?

Here’s what I can find about the program…

It is produced by MAR Pictures for the Discovery. Their website provides a list of all the programs that they produce. The page for Treasure Quest is no longer there and seems to have been deleted. But then, I couldn’t get any of the other pages to load either which either means there is a problem on the site, or MAR Pictures is having trouble with the programs they produce.

On Discovery, there is a promo for season 3, which aired last year (2018). There seems to be no update on that. You can, if you wish, watch episodes there. And, it is implied that you can also watch them on Amazon Prime, but I haven’t bothered

Cappy Plaskett, who was in the first two seasons
but didn't make the cut for the third.

to look.

According to some sources, the show is popular enough for a new season, but you have to wonder if the production costs haven’t outstripped any other financial benefit. In other words, it costs more to produce than any revenue recovered… unless, of course, they found the treasure and get to keep some of it.

The new season is supposed to begin in March 2020, but I can find no corroboration for that start date. There is even some speculation that they won’t be after the Sacambaya treasure but on another “Quest.” If that’s true, then we have learned all we need to know about this whole series.

Let’s not forget what Cappy Plaskett told us about auditions and scripts and internal strife. This reality show isn’t about reality, but sort of an adventure series like King Solomon’s Mines, which was a good movie but not a reality TV show. We have the same thing here. Two versions of the show about adventurers searching for a lost treasure. It’s interesting, it’s fun, but it is also just a show.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Ryan Wood and MJ-12

This week I spoke with Ryan Wood. He had sent out an email complaining about the anti-UFO bias on Wikipedia. I thought that would be an interesting topic, and since he is a proponent of MJ-12, I thought we could spend some time on that as well. But, as usual, the conversation took on a life of its own. You can listen to it here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/20493888

We veered off into the Cape Girardeau UFO crash of 1941, which, as everyone will tell you, is six years older than the Roswell case. The problem here is that there are no first-hand witnesses and while the granddaughter of minister who was called to scene heard about it from family, the problem is that she heard about it from family. There really is no documentation in the form of newspaper articles and diary entries, or anything of that nature. And while I didn’t make the comment

Ryan Wood. Photo copyright
by Kevin Randle.

during the show because, well, we went off in other discussions, I always worry about these pre-Roswell cases. If this had happened, it would seem to me that the military might have been better prepared for the events in Roswell.

Ryan said that his book, Majic Eyes Only, listed 74 crash retrievals. I thought that there just weren’t that many because it would be impossible to keep all that secret for so long. At some point one of those crashes would have produced evidence no matter how hard the various government agencies attempted to suppress it all. I did point out that in my book, Crash: When UFOs Fall from the Sky, I listed something like 110. One of those was an alternative look at the Cape Girardeau crash. An analysis of that case follows this posting.

Given there were so many alleged crashes, I asked what Ryan thought were the best. He suggested Roswell, Kecksburg and Shag Harbour. I mentioned that I thought of Shag Harbour as more of an emergency landing than an actual crash. But the real point was that each of these had documentation and newspaper articles while most of the other crashes were single witness with no documentation at all. Some were clearly mundane objects seen under unusual circumstances. Some were clearly meteors, others debris from missile tests, and a few outright hoaxes.

We finally did make it to MJ-12 and the so-called Operations Manual. I mentioned that there were some anachronisms in it. Ryan pointed out that skeptics said the War Department seal on the front was one, but that he had found that symbol on other manuals printed after the War Department ceased to exist in 1947, meaning that, in this one case, it might not be an anachronism.

I wondered about the lack of a provenance for the manual and asked if there were any MJ-12 documents from a legitimate government source that lead to support MJ-12. Ryan said that there was a letter from Lieutenant Colonel Robert Blount to Dr. Robley Evans that did lead to MJ-12. You can see that letter here:

http://www.majesticdocuments.com/pdf/blount_evans.pdf

I believe the top-secret report to which Blount referred is the Air Intelligence Report (AIR) 100-203-79 with a date of April 29, 1949. There is nothing in it about UFO crashes or anything like that. Blount seemed to think it was more of a psychological analysis, which the AIR report is not.

But there is a real problem with the Blount letter that I’m sure if obvious to everyone. To sort of prove that point, I think the Hottel Memo makes the case. Here is an FBI document that mentions a UFO crash. You can read it here:

https://vault.fbi.gov/hottel_guy/Guy%20Hottel%20Part%201%20of%201/view

The point is, the Hottel Memo refers to the Aztec crash hoax and is based on information from Frank Scully’s book, Behind the Flying Saucers. Time magazine, in January, 1950, printed an article about little men from Venus. That predates the Blount letter and might well be the source of the rumor.

Next week, John Burroughs is the guest. He’ll be offering some new information about the Rendlesham Forest events of December 1980. If you have questions for him, put them in a comment here, and I’ll try to get them answered during the program.

Cape Girardeau UFO Crash, 1941

Charlette Mann wrote to Ray Fowler, a long time and well-trusted UFO researcher, who sent the letter on to Len Stringfield because Fowler thought Stringfield would be interested. Mann wrote that her grandfather, a minister, received a telephone call asking him to go to the scene of an aircraft accident. Stringfield, quite naturally, called her to ask for more detail and convinced her to rewrite her letter into a more structured report which he published in his UFO Crash/Retrievals: The Inner Sanctum and which is dated July 1991. He shared his report with many of his fellow UFO researchers, especially those interested in crash retrievals.

According to Mann’s letter, her grandfather, Reverend William Huffman was “born in August, 1888 and he grew up in Missouri. He attended college in Bolivar and after graduation, he went to a seminary. He was an ordained Baptist minister... he was a quiet man who was well respected.”

Alleged crash site. Photo copyright by
Michael Huntington.

Which, of course, means that his credentials are just fine. He was a well-educated man for the times and he was a minister which suggests he was also an honest man... again for the times. But he died before telling Mann about the case. This information came from her grandmother, known as Floy and I don’t believe I need to point out that it is, therefore, second hand and as related by Mann, third hand.

In her May 6, 1991 letter to Stringfield, she provided all the details that she had heard from her grandmother. She wrote:

It happened in the Spring of 1941. About 9 to 9:30 one evening, granddad got a telephone call from the police department, saying they had received reports that a plane had crashed outside of town and would he go in case someone needed him. Of course he said yes. A car was sent to get him, but my grandmother said it wasn’t a police car.

After grandfather returned that night, he explained what he had seen to grandmother, my father, Guy, and Uncle Wayne, but that they were never to speak of it again...

He said they drove out of town 13 - 15 miles or so, then parked the cars on the side of the road and had to walk 1/4 of a mile or so into a field where he could see fire burning.

Grandfather said it wasn’t an airplane or like any craft he’d ever seen. It was broken and scattered all around, but one large piece was still together and it appeared to have a rounded shape with no edges or seams. It had a very shiny metallic finish. You could see inside one section and see what looked like a metal chair with a panel with many dials and gauges – – none familiar looking to him. He said that when he got there, men were already sifting through things. There were some police officers, plain clothes people and military men. There were three bodies not human, that had been taken from the wreckage and laid on the ground. Grandfather said prayers over them so he got a close look but didn’t touch them. He didn’t know what had killed them because they didn’t appear to have any injuries and they weren’t burnt. It was hard for him to tell if they had on suits or if it was their skin but they were covered head to foot in what looked like wrinkled aluminum foil. He could see no hair on the bodies and they had no ears. They were small framed like a child about 4 feet tall, but had larger heads and longer arms. They had very large oval shaped eyes, no noses just holes and no lips just small slits for mouths. There were several people with cameras taking pictures of everything. Two of the plain clothes men picked up one of the little men, held it under its arms. A picture was taken. That was the picture I later saw. Then, one of the military officers talked to granddad and told him he was not to talk about or repeat anything that had taken place for security reasons and so as not to alarm people. Granddad returned home, told his family. That was all. About two weeks after it happened, he came home with a picture of the two men holding the little man.

After my grandfather died, my Dad kept the picture and was very interested in UFO info. Then when I was 10 or 11, a close friend of my Dad’s asked if he could borrow it to show to his folks so Dad let him have it and never got it back.

Stringfield was concerned about that picture. First, as has happened in all similar stories, the picture has disappeared, so we don’t have that bit of physical evidence. Of course, you have to wonder if there was actual security on the field, why were there people taking pictures… unless in an official capacity. Then you have to ask why Huffman was given one.

But Stringfield was also worried because he had seen, as I have seen, a picture that sounds similar and has been published around the UFO field for many years. In it are two military men holding the long arms of what is supposed to be an alien creature but what is clearly a monkey. It is an obvious but not a particularly well-known hoax.

Mann, in her May 6, 1991, provided a lengthy description of that photograph. She wrote:

My recollection from what I saw in the picture was a small man about 4 feet tall with a large head and long arms. He was thin and no bone structure was apparent; kind of soft looking. He had no hair on his head or body with large, oval, slightly slanted eyes but not like oriental from left to right, more up and down. He had no ears at all and nose like ours. His mouth was as if you had just cut a small straight line where it should have been. His skin or suit looked like crinkled-up tin foil and it covered all of him... I believe he had three fingers, all quite long, but I can’t be sure on this.

Stringfield got a copy of the picture he remembered from Michael Hesemann and sent it on to Mann. She replied, “It is nothing like what I saw. Your picture showed men in overcoats while in my picture, the man had no coats (sic)... Your picture shows two women; mine none. The alien in yours looks like a tiny doll, much smaller and shorter than mine.”

Mann has now granted interviews to many others and some of the details of her story have expanded. For example, in a 2008 interview she said that when her grandfather arrived, two of the alien creatures were dead but the third was still alive. She said that it, or he, or possibly even she, died while her grandfather was praying over it. He then moved on to the other two to offer prayers for them.

She also said that the symbols he had seen inside the craft “looked similar to hieroglyphics.”

Neither of these details were in the original story and I’m not sure that makes much difference. Oh, the skeptics will grab on to this and suggest it is proof that she is inventing the tale. I think a more likely situation is that she either remembered more as she thought about it or it could be a simple case of confabulation, which is not exactly lying, but just filling in missing details. That does nothing to negate the core of the story.

And, according to other reports, there is some corroboration. In what might be considered a not very persuasive bit of evidence, Clarance R. Schade, who is the brother of the sheriff in the Cape Girardeau area in the 1940s said that he remembered hearing of a crash and he seems to remember talk of little people

Ryan Wood. Photo copyright
by Kevin Randle.

associated with it. Certainly not startling information, but not a quick denial either.

Ryan Wood, in his Majic Eyes Only, reported that Mann’s sister provided a sworn affidavit, confirmed the story. In other words, other members of the family are aware of the family history and report they too have seen the photograph.

In February 2008, Tyler, Texas, television reporter Gillian Sheridan interviewed Charlette Mann. According to that report, Mann said, “We got validation by going to the archives in Washington D.C. and to see a top secret declassified document that stated that there was in fact a crash retrieval in 1941 in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, for me, I have not forgotten holding that paper in my hand and realizing that my families story was real, was solid, and for me was just an answer to a long time question.”

Samples of that document appeared on Frank Warren’s blog (found at www.theufochronicles.com) but they seem to be almost too good to be true. One of the samples said, “Based on all available evidence collected from recovered exhibits currently under study by AMC, AFSWP, NEPA, AEC, ONR, NACA, JRDB, RAND, USAAF, SAG and MIT, are deemed extraterrestrial in nature. This conclusion was reached as a result of comparison of artifacts (small part redacted) discovered in 1941. The technology is outside the scope of US science, even that of German rocket and aircraft development.”

The problem with this statement is that it proves that there have been extraterrestrial recoveries, and even uses that term. This is apparently part of a leaked MJ-12 document and is dated 24 Sep 47. The MJ-12 documents themselves are wrapped in controversy.

Which returns us to the original story. At the moment, the major witness is Charlette Mann. Her sister has corroborated hearing the family talk of the night their grandfather, Rev. William Huffman, was called out to pray over the bodies recovered from the wrecked craft, and the brother of the sheriff also seems to remember something about this.

The problem for me is simply this. If there had been this crash in 1941, then the military would have been aware of the possibility of interplanetary (as opposed to interstellar because people in the era thought in terms of interplanetary) travel, they would have been on the lookout for other examples. That means they wouldn’t have been caught by surprise with the flying saucers were first reported in June

Ed Ruppelt

1947 and would have been better prepared for the Roswell crash when it happened in July 1947.

In fact, Ed Ruppelt, the one time chief of Project Blue Book, reported that in the summer of 1947, those in the Pentagon were in a near panic because of the stories of the flying saucers. Ruppelt wrote:

The memos and correspondence that Project Blue Book inherited from the old UFO projects told the story of the early flying saucer era. These memos and pieces of correspondence showed that the UFO situation was considered serious; in fact, very serious. The paper work of that period also indicated the confusion that surrounded the investigation; confusion almost to the point of panic. The brass wanted an answer quickly and people were taking off in all directions.

That argues against the extraterrestrial nature of this case. If there had been a crash near Cape Girardeau in 1941, then the answer was already held at the highest levels. There would be no panic because they would know what was happening. They wouldn’t create a project to find answers in a hurry, because they had the answer already. Such an investigation ran the risk of compromising the classified project. A quiet word would have been issued and the whole investigation never have been started.

But there seems to be more than enough here. Additional investigation for the case is deserved. There is an old prospecting saying, “You don’t always expect to find the gold, but you have to look.” This is a case where you have to look. There are interesting leads that need to be followed and there are certainly witnesses that could be located, though time is growing short.

Glenn Dennis and the Interview on YouTube

On Monday, someone had posted to Facebook, a YouTube link to an interview with Glenn Dennis conducted on November 19, 1990. Dennis is seen in casual clothes, relaxed, and told the story of his missing nurse, his involvement in the Roswell UFO crash case, and what all he knew about it. He told an intriguing story that has many people convinced that what he said was true. That was underscored by the source of the tape which was listed as the Department of Defense, Department of the Air Force, Office of the Secretary. Office of the Administrative Assistant. Office of the Deputy for Security and Special Investigative Programs. Research Declassification Team.

All that is untrue.

Glenn Dennis in 1990.

Oh, the tape was made on November 19, 1990, and it was Glenn Dennis sitting in the chair in Roswell, but the government, the Air Force, and all those others mentioned had nothing to do with the creation of the tape, and that is the real problem here.

The first interviewer’s voice you hear on the tape is Don Schmitt. The second is Mark Wolf and the third is me. This was an informal interview and was conducted mainly by Mark Wolf with both Don and me offering questions and advice.

Two days later we did a more formal interview that I conducted. These were done as part of the documentary, UFO Secret – The Roswell Crash. I have the original tape (on Beta, if you can believe that) of the first interview. Mark Wolf took the second interview with him when we all left Roswell. Wolf was afraid that something might happen to the tape as he passed through airport security and since I was driving back home, I took the first interview with me. His thought was that we wouldn’t lose both interviews.

Wolf said later that there had been some trouble at one of the airport check points and he thought someone might have searched his luggage and had fiddled with the tape. When he got home, he found that there was nothing wrong with any of the tapes, other than evidence of a close examination of them.

Given the state of the investigation in 1990, we had no reason to suspect that Dennis might not have been as candid as he could be. After all, it was Walter Haut who supplied Dennis’ name. Subsequent research demonstrated the unreliability of Dennis’ testimony. You can read about that journey here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2011/01/glenn-dennis-revisited.html

(As an aside, you can see a picture of Glenn Dennis from that interview posted to that YouTube entry.)

The real problem here is that the posting of the Dennis interview to YouTube does not cite any of this. Instead, it looks as if some government agency conducted the interviews and that provides a note of authenticity to the tape. Comments are not allowed which prohibits me from providing the necessary context for the interview and the resulting investigation.

This worries me because those not familiar with the story will now believe that Glenn Dennis was involved in the case and that his nurse friend was killed not long after her involvement in Roswell. What might not be clear is that there is no truth to what Dennis said on the tape other than his name, he lived in Roswell and that he had worked at Ballard’s Funeral Home.

There is enough of these fake stories circulating through Ufology in general and the Roswell case in particular to alter the truth. It is a problem because all too often those doing research will find the confirming information and look no further. This tape should be labeled for what it is… the fantasy of a man who had no real involvement other than he lived in Roswell in 1947.

I should note here that I have notified the National Archives of the error in claiming the tapes were created by those government agencies cited. No military or government agencies were involved in this interview and we supplied copies of the tapes to the Air Force during their investigation and to both CUFOS and FUFOR in the earlier 1990s. Since comments are not permitted on YouTube to correct the error, I have suggested that the posting is in violation of copyright. Had the source been revealed, this drastic action would not have been needed.