Beyond Moon Dust

 

Last fall, I received an email from a publisher who wanted to republish my book, Project Moon Dust. I noted that the book was more than twenty years old and a lot had changed. The book was out of date and had to be updated. I used the best information available at the time I wrote the original book, interviewed those who might have some insight into what was happening, and tried to be as accurate as possible.

Nearly everyone knows that situations change, more information is declassified and witnesses who were reluctant to talk have changed their minds and provide new and better information. In the world today, I know a great deal more about this subject and the mission that was named Moon Dust than I did two decades ago. While it might seem that this new book is a revision, it is much more. It is a complete rewrite.

Think of the old book as a rather thick outline for the new book. I have replaced one chapter and one of the appendices. I have added the newest and best information available at this time, 2022, and have come to a new conclusion about Moon Dust. Oh, don’t get me wrong, there was a mission known as Moon Dust and it operated around the world in secrecy, but we now understand much more about it. This new book then, is the culmination of another two decades of work on this topic. With the help of many others, with insight into the way the military, and by extension, the government works, I believe we have unraveled much of this particular mystery. This book contains what is known about Moon Dust in the 21st century, a title I wanted to use but the publisher insisted on the old one.

I mention all that so that those of you who visit here might understand the situation. This new book is not really the old book with a new cover but a complete rewrite. If you are interested in the latest information about Moon Dust, this is the place to find it.

The General Exon Quotes are Accurate and I can Prove it

 

About once a decade, someone challenges the information and the reporting of what Brigadier General Arthur Exon said to Don Schmitt and me in 1990. True, there were several challenges at that time and a number of writers did what they could to

General Exon

dismiss Exon’s statements without bothering to interview him though Karl Pflock did call him in 1992.

In Pflock’s book, Roswell: Inconvenient Facts and the Will to Believe, he mentions Exon only briefly in two places. On page 36, Pflock wrote:

In 1989, Roswell authors Randle and Schmitt located retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Arthur E. Exon. The general was stationed at Wright Field in July 1947 as a lieutenant colonel and student at the Air Force Institute of Technology, following an assignment on the staff of the Air Materiel Command, also at Wright Field. According to Randle and Schmitt, Exon was aware alien bodies and debris from Roswell were on the base and knew of research being conducted on the debris. Randle and Schmitt also reported that Exon told them he flew over what may have been the debris field and crash site and knew of a high-level group established to control “access to the wreckage, bodies and information about the crash.” As we will see, General Exon has quite a different take on what he actually said and intended to convey.

This really doesn’t say much but it does, to some extent, provide an introduction to Exon and a suggestion that our reporting, that is Don’s and mine, was more enthusiastic than the information warranted. On page 124, Pflock wrote:

…However, what of the recollections attributed by Kevin Randle and Don Schmitt to retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Arthur E. Exon?

When first made public in 1991, it seemed Exon’s memories of the possibility that bodies had been flown from Roswell to Wright Field in 1947 might be based upon firsthand information. If so, this would be highly significant, especially since Exon also seemed to have firsthand knowledge of the debris field and crash site, as well as a shadowy high-level group established to keep the truth about Roswell under wraps. However, in a lengthy September 1992 telephone conversation, Exon told me [Pflock] his comments about bodies and debris at Wright Field were based solely upon rumors he heard from colleagues at Wright Field and nothing more. As for the “control group,” he said he merely was making educated guesses as to who likely would have been selected for such a group. Finally, with respect to his alleged knowledge of the debris field and crash sites, he told me he remembered flying over several sites in New Mexico quite some time after July 1947, on missions that had nothing to do with the Roswell incident. One such location might have fit what he had been told about the crash site by ufologists because it had vehicle tracks running to it.

With that, Pflock is finished with his discussion of Exon and what he said. We have no way of judging what Exon might have said to him because no recordings exist of the conversation. Without going into depth about this, there are a couple of important points to be made here. Just what did Exon say to me during the May 19, 1990, interview with him? Although I didn’t ask about Roswell, I did mention flying saucers and retrievals. Exon said to me:

As a result of that, I know they saw the one sighting and then where there, a good bit of the information came down. There was another location where it was, where apparently the main body of the spacecraft was, where they did say there were bodies there. I’ve been, I’ve got special information, but it may be more rumor than fact about what happened to those bodies, although they were all found apparently outside the craft itself, but were in fairly good condition. In other words, they weren’t broken up a lot.

…But one of them was that it went to the mortuary outfit, I think it was in Denver, where these people were being identified. But the strongest information was that they were brought into Wright-Pat. But whatever happened to the metal residue, I imagine it’s still there in the [unintelligible] some place.

While Exon does mention rumors, it seems, based on the context here, that he was referring to what happened to the bodies rather than there being bodies. Of course, that’s my somewhat biased interpretation and others might believe he was suggesting that all the information about the bodies was rumor. It is clear that Exon is not suggesting that he had seen the bodies himself.

We can see, however, that Exon had some information about bodies. He also has some very specific information about those bodies which would seem to make the information a little stronger. But it is also interesting that these rumors came from his colleagues at Wright Field and you have to wonder what would prompt them to invent such stories and then share them, especially in 1947. From the history, it is clear that the Air Force was downplaying the Roswell crash and didn’t even create a file for their records.

Exon, in my interview with him, moved from talking about the bodies directly into this control group, which is something he mentioned spontaneously with no prompting from me. He said:

Of course, President Truman and General Spaatz [commanding of the Army Air Forces in 1947], the Secretary of Defense [although that office wouldn’t exist for another few months], who has now passed away, and other people who were close to the ones who made up the key investigative teams in relation to the released information.

This means it was Exon who introduced the idea of this special investigative team into the conversation and it was not some leading question from me. He then said:

One of my officers who did some research, who worked for me at Wright-Patterson, who had done some research on this as part of his school, came up with a deal that there was great concern at that time and there was fear that the people would panic if the sketchy information that they had such as what was it and where did it come from and what was their mission and so on and so on, got out. So, they decided to make it a national cover up. And that there probably wouldn’t be much released until everybody who as involved in it, including the 13 people I’m talking about and their immediate staff who made up the, oh what was it, the twelve people who made up the investigative team had passed away.

This really doesn’t sound like idle speculation, but does seem to suggest some inside knowledge of what was happening in 1947. Exon wasn’t a guy deeply emersed in UFO lore, though he did have some specialized knowledge based on his military career. He might have been guessing about some of the participants, but he was talking about something with which he was familiar.

On June 18, 1990, Don Schmitt met with Exon in California. Although there were problems with the tape recording, important parts of the interview were recorded. Don had asked about any name for the operation and Exon finally said:

They were involved in what to do about the residue from that, those two findings.

Don said, “You say those two?”

Probably part of the same accident, but two distinct sites. One, assuming that the thing, as I understand it, as I remember flying the area later, that the damage to the vehicle seemed to be coming from southeast to northwest but it could have been going in the opposite direction but it doesn’t seem likely. So, the farther northwest pieces found on the ranch, those pieces were mostly metal.

The point is that Pflock, in his analysis, provides us with nothing to review. He wrote that Exon said this and that and was somewhat dismissive of what we had written. However, when the context of what Exon said to Don and me, it suggests a somewhat more intimate knowledge of the situation based on his own experiences and the information gathered in conversation with those directly involved.

Philip Klass, in his book, The Real Roswell Crashed-Saucer Coverup, doesn’t directly address Exon’s testimony. Klass wrote, quoting Pflock, “Moreover, the GAO will pursue its own hands-on review of Air Force records, paying particulate attention to such ‘oversights’ as the bodies issue and, it is hoped, the reasons for the Air Force’s failure to interview retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Arthur E. Exon.”

This seems to suggest that Pflock believed that Exon was critical to understanding the Roswell case. I suspect that Pflock thought that, under questioning by his fellow Air Force officers, Exon would be a little more forthcoming with information about what he had seen, what he had done and what he had heard. I suspect the Air Force avoided Exon because they didn’t want to call a high-ranking and highly decorated Air Force officer a liar.

Klass noticed the same thing. The only other mention of Exon in Klass’ book was a footnote on page 143. Klass wrote, “This criticism of the USAF for failing to interview Exon is surprising in view of Pflock’s own interview with him, as reported in Roswell in Perspective (p. 30) [the forerunner to his book on the topic and is essentially the same thing he wrote there].”

Klass then recapped that information and said nothing more about Exon and the possible importance of these interviews. We are left chasing the footnote back to Pflock but we are unable to assess the importance of that because we don’t have access to Pflock’s interview.

Stan Friedman also spoke with Exon, and, according to Friedman, Exon said that Don and I had misquoted him. I pointed out that I had the interviews on tape and Friedman’s response that he didn’t care what I had on tape, it was what Exon told him (Friedman) and he was going to keep saying we had misquoted the general. Ironically, this would become important, but not for the reasons that Friedman thought.

Knowing that I had carefully transcribed the interviews from the tapes, I knew that I had not misquoted Exon. Since Friedman insisted, he was still going make this false charge, I sent a copy of the book, a copy of the transcripts, and copies of the tape to Exon and asked what I had gotten wrong.

Exon reviewed the material that I sent and then wrote a response. Exon, in his letter to me of November 24, 1991, wrote, “Although I believe you did quote me accurately, I do believe that in your writings you gave more credence and impression of personal and direct knowledge that my recordings would indicate on their own.”

At that point, no more was heard from Friedman about misquotes. Friedman’s false claims were relegated to the trash. But now we had a statement from Exon saying that the quotes were accurate. We are arguing about interpretation at this point. Following is the letter from Exon.

It was Kal Korff who took things to the extreme with his endless assaults and misquoting of me and his claims that we were misleading the public in a very non journalistic way. I have addressed those comments at length before now. Greg Sandow, a disinterested third party who had the opportunity to review the transcripts, listen to the tapes, and ask a few other questions provided an in-depth analysis of Korff’s suggestions. You can read that here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2007/04/i-havent-wanted-to-turn-this-blog-into.html 

And, of course, for those who would like to review Sandow’s analysis for themselves, you can read his entire report in the following:

Which brings us to the latest challenge. A fellow had emailed Mark Rodeghier that he wanted to review the material, that is our tapes, transcripts and other assorted contacts with General Exon. Rodeghier replied that he was unable to locate the material requested. I believe that is because the CUFOS office had been closed as the rents skyrocketed (or the landlord wanted to sell the building). The files were split among several places, and if I understand the situation, many of the files had been transferred to Texas for a project to scan the material as a way of saving it and making access available to researchers.

This prompted the man to suggest that he was now going to tell anyone who asked him that the information that Don and I had published was “unsubstantiated” unless the material “miraculously” reappeared. Had he bothered to contact either Don or me, we could have supplied the material. I have the tapes. I have the transcripts. I have the notes from the meetings with Exon.

But the point here is that none of that is necessary and even if the source material no longer existed, I can prove the accuracy of the quotes. Exon supplied that when he reviewed the material. That was the irony of Friedman’s attack. Had Friedman not claimed we had misquoted Exon; I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to ask Exon what was inaccurate. That, of course, resulted in Exon’s review of the material and his letter saying the quotes were accurate. What better endorsement could we have? The man himself said the quotes were accurate.

And even if that didn’t exist, there is still the review of the material by Greg Sandow, who mentioned the accuracy of the quotes in the books that Don and I wrote. In other words, there is nothing unsubstantiated in the books and our take on the interviews have been validated.

I hope that this is the last time that we have to go through this, though it is sometimes a little bit of fun. A challenge to our reporting, validated by those involved, meaning Exon, and then the review of all that material by another who also provided a written commentary on it.

This means that those who read the books, who look at the testimony of Exon, can rest assured that we accurately reported what he said. The interpretation of those statements might be an area for additional discussion, but that discussion begins with the importance of what Exon said and not the accuracy of the quotes.

John Greenewald, UAPs and Current Sightings

 

You might have heard that former President Obama’s library, in Illinois, has documents relating to UFOs stored there. John Greenewald told me that he filed a FOIA request seeking that information but probably won’t see anything for quite a while. According to him, he was told to expect a 16-year delay on action on his request.

John Greenewald

While that sounds unreasonable in this alleged climate of transparency, it does make some sense. The response to John suggested they had some four million documents to review, which doesn’t mean just four million pages because most, if not all, would be much longer than a page.

In his response, John said that he was just looking for unclassified UFO material, but that didn’t significantly reduce the time frame for the response. I mentioned that I lived close to Illinois but John said he had told them the same thing. Traveling to the library just wouldn’t be enough because all the documents had to be reviewed regardless of classified status.

John also received, just yesterday, the version of the report supplied to Congress about UAPs due last June. It was heavily redacted. For those interested in seeing the document, which you can see here:

https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/june-2021-classified-uap-ufo-report-given-to-congress-partially-released/

Again, much of it was redacted so we don’t even know if there were 144 incidents or if there were 144 reports which could mean multiple reports of the same incident. In other words, there would be fewer than 144 incidents. We just don’t know what that number might be. This certainly doesn’t suggest that transparency is the watch word in this new investigation.

He also mentioned that there was a chart of UFO shapes (well, UAP shapes) included, but most of that was redacted so that we don’t know what shapes were being reported. To John, it seemed strange that the shapes would be redacted.

In fact, during my interview with John, which can be accessed on the audio player to the left, we discussed Disclosure. Neither one of us believed that we were moving in that direction and the Chris Mellon statements a few days ago, and a confirmation that most of the reports would be classified, suggested that secrecy was already in place. For those interested in the visual aspect of all this, you can watch the interview here:

https://rumble.com/vy9yg5-a-different-perspective-with-kevin-randle-interviews-john-greenwalde-uap-an.html?mref=yqkns&mc=7zk0c

So, while we wait for that, we can look at other sighting reports. There was a recent report from Islamabad, Pakistan. The witness said that when he first spotted the object, it was just a round, dark spot high overhead. The witness said the UFO was in sight for two hours and that he took thirteen minutes of video, zooming in and out on the object. Although it had no real shape to the unaided eye, when he zoomed in, he saw a rough triangular shape.

While he was puzzled by the UFO, there were suggestions that it might be a giant kite that was related to the Pakistan Basant Festival, that was taking place at the time. 

https://www.ndtv.com/offbeat/video-mysterious-triangle-ufo-spotted-over-islamabad-2784082

I also found the report from a military pilot flying over the South China sea on November 4. He said that he spotted a dozen UFOs, in three formations that eventually disappeared into the clouds. There were three sets of four lights, each line following the one in front of it. The pilot said that he didn’t know what it was and had through it might be a reflection on the cockpit canopy. But the video lasted for nearly a minute which tended to rule out reflections. He was flying at 39,000 feet and said that the lights looked like no aircraft with which he was familiar.

Finally, the witness in Phoenix, Arizona, on March 3 of this year, reported that he had seen an egg-shaped object that that he thought was weird looking. He said it

wasn’t a helicopter and it made no noise. Not a very impressive sighting, except for the photograph. It reminded me of the Pakistan sighting of the somewhat triangular-shaped UFO. While this isn’t exactly repeatability, it is close. That made it interesting and if I can develop additional details, I will report them here. The photograph can be found there as well.

I mentioned these sightings just because they are some of the latest reported but also because they suggest a trend, well, two actually. First is the number of sightings of triangular objects has increased dramatically in the last few years. Second, with so many cell phones out in the world, with better and better camera capabilities, we should be seeing more and better UFO photographs. It is only a matter of time before we have a sighting in which there are multiple independent witnesses that will provide some very interesting and scientific data.

Another UFO "Magazine"

 

They sucked me in again…

Just last week on the radio show, I suggested that I was tired of all these people writing books about UFOs who didn’t bother to do their research. I didn’t want to single out any one writer because, hey, I understand being criticized for something that took me months to write… even if those months weren’t filled with in depth research.

But then I saw, on what used to be the magazine rack but now holds all these one-time special magazine format, well, magazines, another one devoted to UFOs. This one was called The Complete Guide to Aliens & UFOs: The Search for the Truth. A pretty grandiose title for something that had so many pictures and irrelevant side trips. Does it really tell us anything useful about UFOs because the “stars” such as Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato, January Jones and Jaden Smith have an opinion about them?

When I see one of these “magazines,” the first thing I do is look at the segment on Roswell because everyone of them has a segment on Roswell. I’ll start here where they (whoever they are) wrote, “…what really happened in the summer of 1947 on

William Mack Brazel

rancher William ‘Mac’ Brazel’s ranch…” We, of course, know that it was the Foster ranch and Brazel was the ranch foreman. We know, because more than two decades ago Tom Carey and Don Schmitt photographed Brazel’s grave showing us it as Mack rather than Mac.

In that paragraph they continued, “It started when Brazel and his son Vernon came upon odd debris – “bright wreckage made up of rubber strips, tinfoil and rather rough paper and sticks – strewn across a field.” But, of course, it wasn’t Brazel and his son, but Brazel and Dee Proctor, the son of his neighbors.

I was going to stop at this point, but the next paragraph provides the paradox that I examine in a little more detail in Understanding Roswell. They wrote, “Brazel gathered up what he could and took it to Roswell Sheriff George Wilcox.” But if the debris was as described above, and Major Jesse Marcel had the opportunity to examine it in the sheriff’s office, what would have compelled him to drive out the ranch to see more of the same? I mean, according to that description, the material brought in by Brazel was nothing so extraordinary that the Air Intelligence Officer, the highest-ranking intelligence officer on the base, couldn’t recognize it for what it was… parts of a weather balloon and a rawin radar reflector. At that point, Marcel would have had no reason to drive out to the ranch because there was nothing for him to investigate out there.

Okay, just one more little slip up here. They write, “It was Marcel who made a public statement on July 8…” No, it was Colonel William Blanchard, the commanding officer in Roswell, who ordered Lieutenant Walter Haut to make that statement. Marcel did not provide any information to Haut, he did not write the statement, and he had no authority to issue the statement without Blanchard’s permission.

All this nonsense in the space of two paragraphs and it gets worse. They mention Philip Corso’s nonsensical and discredited book about the reverse engineering. They do nothing to suggest that Corso’s account couldn’t be trusted, other than ask, “Where is the hard evidence?”

We are then treated to the Roswell Slides fiasco. They mention Adam Dew and Joe Beason, who claimed to have gotten pictures of an alien body from Beason’s sister. Of course, we all know the outcome of that. I will note that I did interview Dew a number of years ago and you can listen to that conversation here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/13469927

And for those who wish to revisit the Roswell Slides, or, rather explore this in a little greater depth, you can find it here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2018/02/don-schmitt-adam-dew-and-roswell-slides.html

The magazine writers conclude this somewhat inaccurate and more than a little biased account by quoting Karl Pflock and invoking Project Mogul. They end the segment with Karl’s quote, “… all but certainly something from the Top-Secret Project Mogul.” They don’t mention that while the ultimate purpose of Mogul was classified, the experiments in New Mexico and the equipment used were not.

Ramey, crouching and DuBose, sitting,
examine the remains of a weather
balloon and rawin target.

I did have to grin at the caption (cutline in the world of newspapers and magazines) on the picture of General Ramey and Colonel DuBose with some metallic debris. They wrote, “Alien Tech? Army Brass identify metallic fragments and balloon.” Absolutely correct. They didn’t tell us, however, that one of the men in the picture, Colonel DuBose, told UFO researchers that these pictures did not show the material brought from New Mexico.

Yes, I found other errors. In what I think of as a sidebar, they briefly, very briefly, discuss Project Blue Book. They note that Pamela Weintraub, their editor-in-chief, interviewed Dr. J. Allen Hynek in Scottsdale, Arizona before Hynek died in 1986 (which I note only to suggest the interview is decades old and did not mean to suggest the interview took place after Hynek’s death). They introduce Hynek by saying he ran Project Blue Book from 1952-1969. Of course, we know that Blue Book had been preceded by Project Sign in 1948 and then Project Grudge before it became Blue Book, and that it was always “run” by an Air Force officer. Hynek was the scientific consultant and never ran the project.

I was going to provide some limited praise for this compilation of poor reporting, but then I found this quote, “For the first time in the 75-year history of UFO sightings, the military has admitted some objects are ‘real’ – but what does that mean?” I was a little surprised to find the quote attributed to A.J.S. Rayl. She should know better… in September 1947, Lieutenant General Nathan F. Twining, in a letter calling for the creation of an investigation into the flying saucers, wrote “The phenomenon reported is something real and not visionary or fictitious.” That seems to be the military admitting, 75 years ago, that the objects are real.

But enough of this. I was most outraged in the segment called “Stellar Selections,” that reviewed “The greatest alien movies of all time.” While I agreed with most of the picks, I couldn’t believe they missed the greatest of all of them… The Thing from Another World (1951) starring Ken Tobey,

In case you missed the point here, this was a superficial examination of the UFO field that provided nothing extraordinary. It followed, what? The party line?  Roswell was Mogul. Shag Harbour was the result of a Soviet spacecraft crash? And which one would that be…

This isn’t a very good introduction to the world of UFOs, alien visitation, the search for extraterrestrial life. I can’t see where those who would be interested in this wouldn’t already be familiar with the information contained in here… on the other hand, there are a lot of color pictures.

'X' Zone Broadcast Network -Flying Solo with a Variety of Topics

 

As I mentioned last week, I thought I would be flying solo on the show this week. It has to do with finding interesting guests who can spend about an hour in the middle of a Wednesday. Sometimes the gods just conspire to make things a little bit more difficult than they need to be.

I did begin with something of a rant that dealt with those who don’t do their research but feel competent to write books about UFOs. I could name several that I have read recently that head in that direction, but just wonder about the wisdom of doing that, especially in the world today. You can listen to the show here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/49090909

Or you can access the video version, though I warn you that it just me, sitting there talking about these topics. You can watch it here:

https://rumble.com/vxn039-a-different-perspective-with-kevin-randle-alien-abduction-roswell-ufo-crash.html

From that point, I talked about some of the early history of UFO investigations from the Twining letter of September, 1947, to the new office known as the Airborne Object Identification and Synchronization Group which doesn’t lend itself to a pronounceable acronym.

Then, I decided to commit what I think of Ufological suicide. It means that I was going to explain my position on some of the subordinate areas of UFO research. This means that I explained what I thought about cattle mutilations, alien abductions, crop circles, and finally a brief mention of the nonsense known as MJ-12. You can, of course, hear me explain all that on the show.

I did talk about those who have used fake military service to boost their credibility in the UFO field. While many of them are unable to prove military service, making all sorts of claims about why there is no record of their service, I mentioned that there is even a picture of me with my flight school class on the Internet. That would prove, if nothing else, that I was, at one point in training to become a helicopter pilot. Of course, a visit to the 187^th AHC website, would document my Vietnam service as a helicopter pilot (And for those interested, a visit to www.vietnamgroundzero.blogspot.com would provide additional evidence.

My Flight School class from 1967 (which I hesitate to mention because it shows my age).

I thought it might be a good idea from that point to talk about the Levelland UFO sightings of November, 1957. I think of these sightings as the second-best case for the extraterrestrial explanation for UFOs. It is the case that makes it obvious that by 1957, the Air Force wasn’t interested in investigating UFOs. Their job was to explain them, regardless of how silly that explanation might by. Of course, it helps if you’ve read Levelland, my recent book about these sightings in particular and the EM Effects associated with some sightings in general.

Finally, to prove that I have been busy, I talked about the Roswell case, coming up on its 75^th anniversary. In Understanding Roswell, I try to provide a better understanding on the case, looking at the witnesses who were they, how the case unfolded, and examining the mythology that has grown up around it.

Next week, I will interview John Greenewald on his recent recoveries of FOIA material related to the new official investigation into UFOs, which the government now calls UAPS. We’ll take the discussion in the direction of possible disclosure, but I think we moving into a new Dark Ages, as Ruppelt labeled the era around the 1950s.

Coast-to-Coast AM: Secrecy and Updates

 

And I say, once again, welcome to 1947. I’ve mentioned in the past that in 1947, the military created a project to investigate the flying saucers. They treated the topic as something real and not imaginary. They were concerned about national security implications and Ed Ruppelt reported that high-ranking officers were in something of a panic. The project was classified and the official name was not releasable to the general public given the classified nature of the investigation. It was called Project Saucer in public but was code named Project Sign officially.

Just this last weekend, Christopher Mellon reported that the military, the government and the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF) had issued new guidelines that would classify as “Secret” the videos like those released publicly in 2017. These “Tic-Tac) videos were not classified at the time, but would now, under the new guidelines, be classified. These new guidelines state, “Except for its existence, and the mission/purpose, virtually everything else about the UAPTF is classified, per the signed Security Classification Guide.”

This seems to suggest that everything that will be gathered by the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group, which seems to be a much more complicated name than necessary, will be operating under the same guidelines. In other words, nearly everything will be classified, which keeps it out of our hands, but more importantly, would inhibit the sharing of the information among the various government agencies that would benefit from easy access to the information. The Navy, because the information is now classified might be inclined to deny access to the Air Force, and the Air Force might be inclined to deny access to the Army. It is a situation that has plagued the military and various government agencies for decades.

As I say, so much for transparency.

This doesn’t mean that we no longer have access to interesting UFO reports. On February 15 of this year, in Aurora, Illinois, the witness opened the living room blinds and saw what he believed was a plane flying very low, just under the clouds. Which provides us with a suggestion that the object, whatever it was, was not an astronomical phenomenon, eliminating these explanations.

Although the witness thought it might be landing at a nearby airport, the craft did not look like a conventional airplane. It was triangular shaped with a white light at each corner. The object was in sight for about two minutes and then it just vanished rather than landing.

Near Holloman AFB in Alamogordo, New Mexico, the witness saw what was described as a formation of six lights on two separate craft on January 26 of this year. The witness was driving towards town and saw the lights that were stationary. The witness said that there were many aircraft and drones in the area, but the light configuration was nothing like those. The witness mentioned a good knowledge of the various aircraft and drone configurations that were often seen around Holloman. Although the witness stopped to take a picture with a cell phone, the UFOs simply disappeared before any photograph was taken. The witness said that these were UFOs and that weird things had been happening around Holloman.

Finally, on Christmas Eve last year, the witness reported a formation of steady red lights that were traveling north to south in Bettendorf, Iowa. As the UFOs approached, they suddenly disappeared. There was no noise and the witness said he originally thought they were drones until they disappeared. The witness took pictures of the formation.

Bettendorf, Iowa on Christmas Even, 2021.

I’ll note here that I selected these last cases because the witnesses’ first thoughts were about drones. This seems to be a growing problem because there are now so many drones around and by putting a few LEDs on them, a rather convincing sighting can be faked. It’s just one more thing that we must watch for as we investigate UFO sightings.

Canadian Texas vs. Temple Oklahoma - A Minor Correction

Just yesterday (Saturday, March 12) I noticed a problem. I have been doing many radio shows/podcasts talking about my book, Levelland. I sometimes mention that the first of the UFO sightings in the area, that is, the panhandle of Texas, took place at 3:30 a.m., near Canadian. To my horror, I realized that I had confused some of the information about that sighting with another one that took, not all that far away, in Temple, Oklahoma. Time to straighten this out.

According to the information provided to Project Blue Book in the days that followed, the observer whose name was redacted by the Air Force, rounded a curve. He then drove over a slight knoll so that his headlights played across an object sitting in a field near the road. As he approached there was a flash of light over the car and his headlights went out.

He then stopped about a hundred feet beyond the submarine-shaped craft. He estimated the UFO as being as long as two or three cars and about eight feet high with a conning tower at about the midway point on the object. There was a white flag attached to its top and a humanoid figure that wasn’t described, standing by it.

The witness started to back up, thought better of it and started forward again. As he drove away, his headlights came on again. He didn’t see the craft depart and reported no other effects of his close approach.

The Project Blue Book file on the sighting contains a bare bones report and little else. The conclusion is that the source is unreliable, which is almost the universal conclusion when a witness, or witnesses, claim to have seen some sort of being or creature associated with the craft. Apparently, the report of a creature was sufficient reason for project officers to decide that no further investigation was required.

There is one thing that is surprising about the sighting. The “Project Record Card” in the Blue Book file mentioned that it was a “military and civilian” sighting. On the Air Intelligence Information Report, which was collected on November 4, 1957, there is the name of the military source. According to that document, T/SGT Alfred A. Calvin, who was assigned to the 386^th Fighter-Bomber Squadron, at Cannon Air Force Base, near Clovis, New Mexico, was the military witness.

All that is known about the second source is he was a civilian, who, in 1957, was 41, and whose name has been redacted from the form. The civilian was from Enid, Oklahoma, and was a Civil Service employee at Vance Air Force Base, Oklahoma. There is no indication in the file that any Air Force investigator interviewed the civilian source. Given the fact, based on the assignments of the witnesses, they were independent of one another, so that an interview with the civilian should have been conducted. It might have yielded some important information and would certainly have improved the credibility of the T/SGT Calvin.

According to the Project Blue Book files, the case is labeled as Temple, Oklahoma, and is dated as March 23, 1966. That file said:

Observer [W. E. Eddie Laxson] was driving his car along the highway at approximately 0505 [a.m.], 23 March 1966, when he noticed an object parked on the road in front of him. He stopped the car and got out so as to get a better view of the object. The object was so parked that it blocked out a portion of the road curve sign. There were no sharp edges noted by the observer. The object had the appearance of a conventional aircraft (C-124) without wings or motors. There was a plexiglas [sic] bubble on top, similar to a B-26 canopy. As observer approached, he noticed a man wearing a baseball cap enter the object by steps from the bottom. After the man entered the object, it began to rise from the pavement and headed on a southeasterly direction at approximately 720 mph. The object had forward and aft lights that were very bright. As the object rose from the ground, a high speed drill type of sound was heard, plus a sound like that of welding rod when an arc is struck. Object was 75’ long, nearly 8’ from top to bottom and about 12’ wide. There were some type of supports up the bottom of the object.

After the object disappeared the witness got back into his car and drove approximately fifteen miles down the highway. At this time the original witness stopped and talked with another individual who had also stopped along the roadway to watch some lights over Red River which is approximately five or six miles to the southeast.

COMMENTS

Various organizations were contacted around the Temple [Oklahoma] area for a possible experimental or conventional aircraft. The observer stated that he thought the object was some type of Army or Air Force research aircraft. All attempts at such an explanation proved fruitless, since there were no aircraft in the area at the time of the sighting. Although there are numerous helicopters and other experimental in the area, none could be put in the area of Temple at approximately 0500, 23 March 1966. Because of this factor the case is listed as unidentified by the Air Force.

The second witness, who was not interviewed by the Air Force and who, according to the Blue Book files did not fill out their report form, was C. W. Anderson. Anderson confirmed for the newspaper that he had seen the craft as well. He told the reporter, “I know that people will say that Laxson is durned crazy. But that’s what I saw.”

Anderson said that he thought the object had been following him down the road. He had watched it in his rearview mirror for several miles. The problem for the Air Force was that Anderson did not see the pilot or crewman.

The drawing of the object made by Laxson, resembled, grossly, that Lonnie Zamora had made of the craft he saw in Socorro, New Mexico in 1964, which means it was sort of egg-shaped. It was certainly longer and was lying on its side. Like Zamora, Laxson said that he saw symbols on the object, but unlike Zamora, he recognized them. He told the report that, “On the side I made out… ‘TLA’ with the last two figures ’38.’”

Temple, Oklahoma object.

In what might be described as a fit of honesty, the Air Force admitted they had no solution for the case. The description of the “alien” was more human than humanoid and he seemed to be dressed in conventional clothes right to the “mechanics” hat. Investigation revealed a second witness and that might have influenced the Air Force, especially since the men had never met prior to the sighting. In the end, they labeled the case as “Unidentified.”

Here's the point, I thought the being, entity, creature, sighted at Canadian, had been human-like and wearing a baseball cap. That is the description for the Temple UFO sighting. Notice that there was no description offered of the creature offered for the Canadian sighting, just a rejection of the information even with two independent witnesses involved.

And to be sure that we’re all on the same page here, let me note that the Canadian EM Effect was the headlights going out but not the engine stalling. Of course, in the Temple case, there was no apparent EM Effect.

I think this straightens out the confusion. There was a creature in both sightings, but it was only in Temple, Oklahoma, that the entity was described. Of course, the other difference in is that the Canadian case was written off as unreliable but oddly, Temple was considered unidentified.

For those interested in such things, I did contact the newspaper in Canadian and received a very nice response. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any article about that particular UFO sighting. I was hoping that a report would provide the name of the civilian witness. 

'X' Zone Broadcast Network - Terry Lovelace, Alien Abductions and Past Lives

 

Terry Lovelace was the guest this week. He appeared in the UFO community after the publication of his book, Incident at Devil’s Den, which told the story of his

abduction and subsequent interrogation by the Air Force Office of Special Investigation. He described, briefly, the incident in this latest interview. I had spoken with him months earlier to learn more about the experience. You can listen to that original interview here for additional information:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/17671590

Before we started, however, I did mention pictures that have been circulating on the Internet, which are supposed to be the remains of the Roswell UFO. They are, in fact, the remains of an A-12 spy plane that crashed in Utah in 1963. You can read my original posting about that here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2022/01/attip-philip-corso-and-roswell-crash.html

From that point, we did talk about Terry’s experiences and his observations. The important point was the involvement of the AFOSI. That had led me to write, UFOs and the Deep State, in which I do mention Terry’s experiences. I also noted that his involvement with the AFOSI mirrored the experiences of those who had been in Rendlesham Forest including John Burroughs and Jim Penniston. Charles Halt suggested that he had not been interrogated by the AFOSI but knew that many of the airmen involved had been. All of this suggested corroboration for Terry’s story. You can listen to the new interview here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/49027816

We did also talk about his experiences with past life regressions. He had done six of them were some interesting results and did mention the story of a small boy who was apparently a reincarnated Corsair pilot from the Second World War. Although I hesitate to mention it because this becoming a commercial for my books, I had dealt with an alien abduction case that evolved into a past life regression some decades earlier. That book Conversations is an interesting story and can be found on Amazon.

He had mentioned to me, prior to the interview, that he had become interested in exploring those past lives after he was trained in the techniques of hypnotic regression. He hadn’t interviewed many persons about this. I think he said six, but he had some success with it. I mentioned the Bridey Murphy case, which was a quite controversial episode from the 1950s. There is plenty of information about this on the Internet, but if you chose to explore it, be aware of the bias of those making the reports.

In the next couple of weeks, I’ll be talking with John Greenewald about his latest findings from his FOIA requests and his opinions on what is happening in the world of the UFO. The following week, I’ll interview David Marler about triangular UFOs and the project to scan many UFO related documents held by UFO researchers. As always, if you have questions for either of these men, append them to the comments section… and remember, these are not necessarily published.

Coast-to-CoastAM: Roswell Crash and Newer Sightings

 

Just yesterday, I came across another website that I won’t name here, that was again claiming that recently declassified pictures proved that the Roswell crash was real, meaning extraterrestrial. The declassified pictures were not of an alien space craft, but of the crashed remains of an A-12 spy plane. The pictures came from the National Geographic website and were labeled as “Exclusive Area 51 Pictures: Secret Plane Crash Revealed” and were originally posted on May 21, 2011. National Geographics noted that the crash happened in 1963 in Utah, and that the pictures had been declassified by the CIA recently, meaning in 2011 and not in the last couple of weeks. I fully expect to run into these pictures again and again as those who don’t bother to check the original source will believe they show an alien craft. A careful look at the pictures should reveal the terrestrial nature of the craft.

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2022/01/attip-philip-corso-and-roswell-crash.html  

Continuing in this vein, John Greenewald of Black Vault fame, has managed, through the Freedom of Information Act, to obtain a copy of the 19-page report that was sent to Congress about UAPs. This is the more comprehensive version the one that was released in June of last year.

Well, it tells us nothing. It is nearly completely redacted with only a few words on the first page that have not been edited out. It’s not unlike the document that Stan Friedman used to show that was nearly blank, though we now have that entire document. Most of those redactions in Friedman’s document had to do with intelligence gathering rather than UFO sightings. Very little dealt with UFOs, but given the heavy redaction we didn’t know that at the time.

In this case, however, we know that it deals with UFOs, or as they now want to call them, UAPs, because that was the purpose of the report. But rather than transparency, we have a document that is as dark as the inside of a cave at midnight with no moon. There is no real hint about what was seen, who saw what, or anything to do with evidence. All we know is that we have those cockpit videos that the Navy has verified as having come from Navy fighters, but tells us nothing about the images recorded.

As I have said, none of this suggests that we are moving toward disclosure. Rather, we are retreating to the same situation that we have endured for more than seventy years. Just take a look at the historical situation as it existed in the fall of 1947 when Lieutenant General Nathan Twining set up program to study the flying saucers, something that he labeled as real.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t some interesting sightings being made in the world today. On March 1, 2022, the witness in Pacific, Missouri, reported a single craft that was flying low and slow. At first, it seemed it was a flock of birds, but it soon became clear that it was a triangular-shaped craft that had lights all around it. The UFO continued to glide off and was beginning a slight climb. The witness attempted to photograph the UFO, but there was nothing to be seen in the picture. The UFO was in sight for about a minute.

Another triangle was seen in Johnson Valley, California on February 22 of this year. The witness said that a bright white light that looked, at first, like a planet or star, continued to approach, growing bigger until it took up a large portion of the sky. It seemed to jump, or teleport to another part of the sky. The shape was that of a triangle that was emitting another light. I’ll note here that orange light, or lights, are frequently reported with this sort of craft. The UFO was in sight for two to three minutes and the witness reported no fear but thought of this as a casual observation.

Keeping with this trend of triangular craft and orange light, was a report from Wauchula, Florida, on February 19 of this year. According to the witness, it was rectangular shaped at first but then appeared to transform into a triangle. There was no sound associated with the object but interestingly, there were aircraft in the area that seemed to be chasing the UFO. The witness watched for about ten minutes as the formation, that is, the UFO and the aircraft flew toward the south.

On February 15, the witness in Smicksburg, Pennsylvania reported three lights in a triangular formation was in sight about two minutes. The witness stopped, got out of the car to take pictures of the UFO. It was slow moving and made no sound. Following is the photograph:

The Pennsylvania UFO Photograph.

In the coming few weeks, I'll be chatting with John Greenewald about what he had found in his latest FOIA requests and with David Marler about the CUFOS scanning project which is to put as much data about UFO on the web as possible. He's working with Clas Svahn on this as well 

 

The End of Project Mogul

 

In Understanding Roswell, I looked again, at the Air Force’s ultimate answer for the UFO crash, which had written off as a balloon array from the “highly classified” Project Mogul. The Air Force, in their investigation, had eliminated all possible terrestrial answers, as civilian UFO researchers had done in the years before the Air Force entered the arena. We knew, based on our research, that there had been no aircraft accidents, civilian, military or experimental. There were no stray rockets or missiles from the White Sands Proving Ground and nothing associated with the 509^th Bomb Group that would account for the debris. There was no sort of nuclear accident that would have accounted for the high level of security testified to by the witnesses, both military and civilian. Had there been some sort of highly classified project in play, that would have explained the security, but since all that happened seventy-five years ago, there would be no legitimate reason for the secret to be kept in today’s environment.

This means that all of us, military, civilian, interested and uninterested, reached the same basic conclusion about what had fallen near tiny Corona, New Mexico, in July 1947. We all agreed that something had fallen. It was the identify of object that had left the debris scattered over about three quarters of a mile of pasture land in the high desert that was the question.

The lone exception to this was the classified balloon project code named “Mogul.” According to the Air Force investigation, this program, designed to place a constant level balloon in the upper atmosphere allowing American scientists and intelligence officers to listen for atomic detonations in the Soviet Union, left the debris. This was the reason for the high-level of security because no one in Washington, D.C., or the Pentagon for that matter, wanted the Soviets to know that we were listening for their atomic bomb testing.

While this would explain the classification of the ultimate purpose, that did not cover the experiments in Alamogordo, New Mexico, that began in June, 1947. The activities there, known to those who participated in them as the New York University balloon project, were not classified, and, in fact, information about those activities was printed in newspapers around the United States on July 10, 1947. This negates the claim of high security in New Mexico and the reason for the secrecy there.

Phyllis McGuire

There are other aspects to this. According to the testimony of Phyllis McGuire, the teenaged daughter of Chaves County, New Mexico, Sheriff George Wilcox, when rancher Mack Brazel appeared in the Roswell office, she was there. The Wilcox family lived above the sheriff’s office. She reported that Brazel told the sheriff about the strange metal debris that he had found in one of the fields on the ranch he managed. More importantly, she mentioned that Brazel had brought samples of the debris with him.

While there are those who would suggest that the teenaged daughter revealing this decades later might not be the most reliable of sources, there is corroboration for this. General Thomas DuBose, the Chief of Staff for the Eighth Air Force in Fort Worth in 1947, interview by Don Schmitt and others, said that strange metallic debris discovered by Brazel, was sent by special flight to Fort Worth.

According to DuBose, the debris was taken to Fort Worth “two or three days earlier,” meaning, of course two or three days prior to the July 8 announcement that a “flying saucer” had been captured. It was DuBose who had alerted those in Washington that something had been found and it was DuBose who received orders from Major General Clements McMullen to bring a sample of that debris to Washington, sometime on Sunday, July 6.

BG Thomas Dubose

In a recorded interview, DuBose said, “He [McMullen] called me and said that I was, there was some talk of some elements that had been found on the ground outside Roswell, New Mexico. That the debris or elements were to be placed in a suitable container, and Blanchard was to see that they were delivered… and [Colonel] Al Clark… would pick them up and hand deliver them to McMullen in Washington. Nobody, and I must stress this, no one was to discuss it with their wives, me with Ramey, with anyone.”

DuBose then called Blanchard and relayed the instructions to him. At that moment, the samples of the debris that Brazel had taken to the Chaves County Sheriff’s Office, and mentioned by Phyllis McGuire, were taken, under orders from Blanchard to the Roswell Army Air Field and eventually on to Fort Worth.

All this suggests that the officers at the Roswell Army Air Field were unable to identify the material as the remains of a weather balloon and a rawin radar target. There was nothing special about the weather balloon that would have fooled anyone who had seen it.

Wilcox thought enough of Brazel’s tale that he dispatched two deputies to the area of the crash. Brazel gave them directions, but given the nature of the terrain, and the distance from Roswell, the deputies failed to find the field, though they did find a large, circular burned area to the north of town.

Wilcox, who was unable to identify the debris, then called out to the Roswell Army Air Field to report what the rancher had found. The call eventually reached Major Jesse A. Marcel, Sr., the Air Intelligence Officer. He drove from the base to the sheriff’s office where he met with Brazel and was shown the debris that Brazel had brought with him.

Apparently, Marcel was unable to identify the material and thought it strange enough that he should investigate further. In consultation with the base commander, Colonel William Blanchard, it was decided that Marcel should accompany Brazel back to the ranch. Blanchard mentioned the base had just acquired a counterintelligence office. He thought Marcel should take Captain Sheridan Cavitt, the officer in charge of that office, out to the ranch.

Marcel, had returned to the base, picked up Cavitt and then drove to the sheriff’s office. With Brazel leading the way, the small convoy, Brazel in his pickup, Marcel in his Buick, and Cavitt in a Jeep Carryall, arrived too late in the day to do much. They spent the night in a small house, and according to Marcel, had a later supper of beans.

The next morning, Brazel, Marcel and Cavitt made their way to the Debris Field. Marcel said that it was about three-quarters of a mile long, and two to three hundred yards wide. Cavitt would tell Air Force investigator, Colonel Richard Weaver in 1994, that it was much smaller, no bigger than a large room in a house. More importantly, Cavitt would tell Weaver that the moment he saw the material, he recognized it as the remains of balloons. Weaver didn’t ask, and Cavitt didn’t explain, why he had not told Marcel this, nor why he didn’t mention to Blanchard when he returned to the base.

The misleadingly captioned claim that this array, including the rawin radar targets was launched by New
York University scientists on June 4, 1947. This was actually Flight No. 2, flown on the east coast.
The arrays launched in New Mexico were a third shorter and carried no rawin targets.

The actual make up of the array trains flown in New Mexico. Flight No. 4 had been cancelled, but 

Flight No. 5, designated as the first successful flight, was launched on June 5, 1947. There is no 

evidence that any rawin targets were used on it or most subsequent flights.

There is the other, important problem. Cavitt didn’t explain why he had been fooled by the debris in Roswell, but recognized it once he arrived on the ranch. Had the debris been part of Project Mogul, which was made up of off-the-shelf weather balloons and rawin radar targets, there is no reason for it to have fooled Brazel, Wilcox, and Marcel. Had it been part of Project Mogul, and recognized as balloon debris, there is no reason for the trip to the ranch and clean up wouldn’t have been all that difficult.

There is still another, important aspect to all this. The Project Mogul balloons were launched from Alamogordo Army Air Field. Dr. Albert Crary, the man in charge of the experiments in New Mexico, kept records of the launches, and that record of his field notes, diary entries and final report are all available both online and in the massive Air Force report on the Roswell case. Based on all that data, we know that all Mogul flights prior to July 6, which is the date that Brazel drove into Roswell, were accounted for with the exception of Flight No. 4, which had been scheduled for launch on June 3, but postponed until June 4. Another attempt was made on the following morning. Crary's entry for this attempt said:

June 4 Wed

Out to Tularosa Range and fired charges between 00 and 06 this am. No balloon flight again on account of clouds. Flew regular sonobuoy mike up in cluster of balloons and had good luck on receiver on ground but poor on plane. Out with Thompson pm. Shot charges 1800 to 2400.

This provided the timing of the events in Alamogordo, and because of the regulations under which they operated, they were forced to cancel the flight. There is nothing ambiguous in the documentation. Flight No. 4 was cancelled. Later that morning, they flew a cluster of balloons with a sonobuoy, but this wasn’t a full Mogul array and no evidence that the balloon cluster ever left the Alamogordo area.

To take this one step further, an examination of the documentation available in Crary’s notes, showed they weren’t using the rawin radar targets at this stage of their research. Flight No. 5, which flew the next day, June 5, did not have any radar targets on it, according to the illustrations available in the final reports. If there were no rawin targets attached to the flight, then where did the rawin originate that was displayed in General Ramey’s office. And, if there were no rawin targets, then isn’t that photograph taken in Ramey’s office evidence of a coverup?

There are pictures of an array being prepared that do show the rawin radar targets as part of the assembly but that photograph was taken on July 22, 1948, more than a year after the crash in Roswell. Another photograph, published on July 10, 1947, shows the launch of the two balloons, with but a single rawin target attached.

Here is where we are. The June 4, 1947, launch of Flight No. 4, was cancelled according to the documentation. Later in the day, there was the launch of a cluster of balloons, but this was not a full array. It was made up of the already inflated balloons and a sonobuoy to test the radio reception. There is no evidence that it left the Alamogordo area and no evidence that it contained a rawin radar target. Without Flight No. 4, the explanation of a Mogul balloon array accounting for the debris found by Mack Brazel, fails.

An alleged Mogul array being prepared for flight. This one was launched more than a year after the
cancelled June 4, Mogul Flight No. 4.

The date the photograph was taken, July 22, 1948.

The documentation, provided in the various field notes, diary entries, and other evidence, shows that rawin targets were not part of the arrays being launched in New Mexico, and if there were no such targets, then the balloon explanation fails at that point as well.

Although the Air Force claimed that Project Mogul was highly classified and that would account for those in Roswell being unable to identify the balloon is misleading. The ultimate purpose was classified, but the work being done in New Mexico was not. The newspaper articles published on July 10, 1947, proves this claim to be false.

With the elimination of the Mogul explanation, based on the overwhelming evidence that Flight No. 4 was cancelled, there is no terrestrial explanation for what fell on the Brazel managed ranch. Remember, the Air Force eliminated all other mundane explanations before settling on Mogul. There could be, somewhere, a super-secret project that would account for the debris, but no one has identified it yet, and it is difficult to believe that revelation of such a program would adversely affect national security in the world today. Had there been such an explanation, the Air Force would have used it years ago and the Roswell case would have been solved.

Until and unless, such a program or project is revealed and it can be shown to have scattered the debris in New Mexico, the only conclusion to be drawn is that whatever fell that day is unknown. To many, that leads directly to the extraterrestrial. The lack of evidence for the terrestrial does suggest something alien. Is sufficient to prove the case? That’s left up to the individual but it the most logical explanation at the moment.