Project Galileo and Sightings for this Week.

 

It’s been just over a year since Dr. Avi Loeb announced the formation of the Galileo Project, which was a response to what he suggested was an alien artifact passing through our Solar System. It was a slower than light probe that he suggested was sent out by an alien intelligence searching for other life but had been in space for tens of thousands of years. Although his theory was not universally accepted, it resulted in the formation of an organization with the mission for systematic scientific research to look for similar artifacts or remnants of extraterrestrial technological civilizations that he postulated were flying around the galaxy. Project Galileo is, I suppose, a more robust search than SETI, though it certainly retains some of the elements of SETI.

In the coming year, he said that they hoped to “get our full suite of instruments to work, filming a movie of the entire sky in radio, infrared and visible light, as well as audio.”

From our perspective, meaning those of us in the UFO community, Loeb said, “We hope to get new high-quality data in a location where UAP were reported, and make our data open after publishing our results in peer-reviewed journals. The goal is to accomplish all of that within a year, before our next in-person conference." That conference was held at the beginning of this month.

I did wonder what his position on the new NASA effort was. Loeb said that he thought it was wonderful that NASA would be attempting to understand the mystery of UFOs, though he actually said, “UAPs.”

He did say, in something of a paraphrase of Stan Friedman, “But even if we have high-quality data on just a single object that demonstrates something else, such as an extraterrestrial technological origin, it would represent the most important discovery in human history.”

Stan had always said that it only takes one to prove the case.

But closer to home, a group partying on a boat near Port Orchard, Washington, on August 21 of this year, saw a group of very bright orbs in the sky. They thought the UFOs were near the SeaTac Airport but they didn’t look like any aircraft they had ever seen.

The lights were very bright and steady. They moved from being in a row, one trailing the other, to a triangle. Then another would join as one faded out. They watched the lights with binoculars and had a good view of them. They all agreed that it didn’t look like the usual line of up aircraft in a landing pattern, and the lights didn’t resolve themselves in the binoculars.

They did take a series of photograph, two of which follow. William Puckett published them on his UFOSNW website.

A day later, on August 22, a man and woman, driving along Interstate 80 near Grand Island, Nebraska, noticed a single bright light in front of them. They thought it was another car coming toward them until they realized that there were no mountains for the car to be on in the area. They thought it was Venus but the colors changed from a blue-white to a red to a green and back again. Confused, they pulled over to get a better look at the UFO.

They only saw the bright light as it cycled through the colors and just as they were about to get into the car, the UFO shot straight up and disappeared in seconds. For a minute or two they stood there, thinking it might come back, but it was gone. They said they had never seen anything like it and hadn’t thought about their cell phones until it was too late.

'X' Zone Broadcast Network - Brian Dunning on Belt, Montana and Cattle Mutilations

 

As I mentioned during the interview, I had found a reference about the Belt, Montana, UFO sightings and its relation to a shutdown of an entire flight of Minuteman Missiles in March 1967. Brian Dunning of https://skeptoid.com suggested that he had investigated the events and was less than impressed. I reached out to him and he agreed to come on the program to talk about his research. You can, of course, listen to it here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/51021375

And, as I say, those of a more visual mindset, you can watch the discussion here:

https://rumble.com/v1h7vqz-a-different-perspective-with-kevin-randle-interviews-brian-dunning.html

I mentioned the Belt, Montana, sightings at the beginning of the show, but he wasn’t that interested in them. He was more interested in the tale of the missile shutdown.

Brian Dunning

For those interested in the UFO sightings, which were investigated by the Air Force, and are carried as unidentified… or I probably should say, more accurately, the sighting is carried as unidentified, I have provided the statement from the witness. According to the Air Force, there was but a single witness, Ken Williams, who also reported his sighting to NICAP. He wrote to NICAP which shared the information with the Air Force:

Gentlemen:

Object was first observed approximately 5 miles southeast of Belt, Montana. I was traveling North on Highway 87 enroute to Great Falls, Montana. Object was approximately 1 mile to my left and appeared to be about 5 or 6 hundred yards [1500 – 1800 feet] altitude. I would estimate its speed to vary from 40 to 50 miles per hour. I am judging this speed by the speed I was traveling as object seemed to be running evenly with me. Its appearance was that of a large doomed [sic] shaped light or that of a giant headlight. Upon climbing up the Belt Hill in my truck, I looked to my left and about ½ mile up a gully. I witnessed the object at about 200 yards [600 feet] in the air in a still position. I stopped my truck and the object dropped slowly to what appeared to me to be within a very few feet from the ground. [Underlining in original]. It was at this time that I felt something or someone was watching me. As a very bright effecting light emerged from the object it momentarily blinded me. This extremely bright light seemed to flare three times. Each time holding its brightness. By the third time the light was so bright [underlining in original] that it was nearly impossible to look directly at it. It was at this time that I drove my truck onto the top of the hill which was about another ½ mile. I stopped a car and asked the people [Don Knotts of Great Falls] if they would stop at a station at the foot of the hill and call the Highway Patrol. I went back down the hill and viewed the object for several more minutes. It was while watching it the second time that it rose and disappeared like a bolt of lightning. I went back to the top of the hill where my truck was parked and just as the Highway Patrolmen [sic] Bud Nader, arrived the object appeared once again. About 2 miles away and traveling in a Northeast direction, whereas it stopped once again and appeared to drop to the ground [Underlining in the original.]. There are several deep gullys [sic] in the area where it appeared to drop out of sight. This was my last sighting of the object.

The Project Blue Book file on this case contains what was known as a Project Record Card, which was a 4 x 6 card that outlined the details of the case. While the case is labeled as “unidentified,” it also noted that there was “(1 witness),” which they believed to be so important that it was underlined. Even with that, they still labeled the case as “Unidentified.”

The important point here is that the sighting took place about a week after the missile shutdown that caused the national security uproar. Brian suggested that the week, and the fact that the UFO sighting near Belt was about a hundred miles from there suggested the two events, are unrelated.

The real problem is that most of the information about the missile shutdowns at both Echo and Oscar Flights is a bit confusing. While it seems that all the missiles at Echo were shutdown, those at Oscar, only part of them went off-line, at least that’s what Robert Salas said to me a number of years ago. There is no documentation to back up the claim.

Anyway, the shutdown was apparently caused by a transient event, that is an electrical spike sent as a power substation failed, according to Brian. Salas seemed to suggest that the missiles were off-line for hours while the evidence seems to suggest seconds, as the back up generators cut in and the missiles rebooted. At any rate, there is some controversy about all this, meaning that there are those who believe that some sort of UFO event was the cause. Listening to Brian, and going back through the documentation I have on this, I’m not so sure there is much in the way of controversy about the missile shutdown. Brian’s point of view, you might say his different perspective, is outlined during the program.

We also had an interesting discussion on cattle mutilations. We both are on the same page there, suggesting that the evidence points to terrestrial solutions rather than anything in the paranormal or alien. I have been looking into this for, literally, decades, and have yet to see anything that points to other aspects of this, other than natural and terrestrial causes. I’ll have more to say about it in a couple of weeks.

At the end of the interview, we did talk briefly about Brian’s attitude about NASA entering into UFO investigation and Dr. Avi Loeb’s Galileo Project. I was a little surprised at his attitude.

Next week, I’ll be talking with John Greenewald about the UAP/UFO information he has recovered through FOIA, and his latest victory about the Hottel FBI memo. He just received an unredacted version, which really doesn’t tell us much more about the case, but is interesting.

Chasing Footnotes - Cattle Mutilation Edition

In the past, I have mentioned that it is sometimes difficult to find footnotes that need to be chased. I usually just stumble on them and this is another case of that. While researching another project, I stumbled on the claim that cattle mutilations had a long, century’s old history, which suggested something truly anomalous. I’m not sure how that proved the paranormal or UFO connection to the mutilations, but I was more concerned with the claim that they extended into the distant past.

I found a reference that suggested there was an unexplained death of dozens of sheep in England in 1606. It was claimed that “nothing was taken from the sheep but their tallow and some inward parts, the whole carcasses, and fleece remaining behind. Of this sundry conjectures but most agree that it tendeth towards some fireworks.”

The footnote associated with this said that the source was Christopher O’Brien’s Stalking the Herd. I have a couple of O’Brien’s books in my library but Stalking the Herd was not among them. This wasn’t a major problem and I emailed my friend about this.

He responded quickly, telling me that the reference came from Tom Adams’ Project Stigmata, and Adams had received it from Elizabeth Hills, who lived in Regina, Saskatchewan. According to what Chris sent, Adams published it in his:

private book of ‘Oddities’ and appears to derive from a diary (or other personal papers) from the court of James I of England. The quotation is:

10 February 1606: The minds of men are much troubled with a strange accident lately fallen out, which yet by no means can be discovered, about the City of London and some of the shires adjoining. Whole slaughters of sheep have been made, in some places to number 100, in others less, where nothing is taken from the sheep but their tallow and some inward parts, the whole carcasses and fleece remaining still behind. Of this sundry conjectures, but most agree that it tendeth towards some fireworks.”

That does take us into the seventeenth century, but sometimes these things get garbled in the translation. But in the world of the Internet, it is often easy to trace a quote or a book. I was able to find the more information at:

https://archive.org/details/courtandtimesja00willgoog

What I learned there was that the book had been published in 1848 and was a collection of letters and other writings and the quoted material could be found on pages 44-45. Specifically:

The Court and times of James the First: illustrated by authentic and confidential letters, from various public and private collections

 

By Thomas Birch, Robert Folkestone Williams

Publication date: 1848

Topics: James I, King of England, 1566-1625, James I, King of England, 1566-1625, Great Britain -- History -- James I, 1603-1625, Great Britain

Publisher London: Henry Colburn

Collection” americana

Digitizing sponsor: Google

Book from the collections of Harvard University

Or, in other words, this seemed to be an exact copy of those letters, though I suspect the language might have been “modernized” somewhat so that we would be able to understand it. The original English, at that time, 1606, would have been somewhat different than we would speak in the modern world.

Anyway, I have found the original source, though I was led there by Chris. What has been reported by both Tom Adams and Chris is accurate. It seems that only the interpretation might differ. We are talking about one of the first reported cases of large-scale animal mutilation. But does it equate with our modern cases? I’m not so sure.

The description, vague though it is, does not sound like something we would see today. There is talk of the tallow being removed and apparently some of the soft, internal organs, though there is no description of them. The fleece and the meat are left behind which would seem to have been of greater value than what was taken. I mean, the tallow, according to various sources, was used for many purposes at the time such as candle making and soap. That seems to be the motivation here. The crime is of an economic nature. Tallow would be difficult to trace and of value to those making the candles and other things, but a sudden glut of meat and fleece might lead back to the butchers.

I will also note here that I have seen the documents that proceed and those that follow and there is nothing in any of them that would suggest the tale is taken out of context. I have little hope of actually seeing the originals, meaning the letters and diary entries that were made in the early seventeenth century.

But rather than argue about interpretation, I will note that the information provided by the sources cited was accurately repeated. Nothing was added, left out or altered. All that is left is our interpretations of the event. For those interested in a little more context, though I’m not sure about the relevance, Stalking the Herd provides it, suggesting that it had to do with Guy Fawks and his attempt to assassinate James 1, which gets us to the reference about fireworks. Anyway, Chris provides some interesting points about all that in his very readable book.

I suppose what is amazing is that I can sit here, in 2022, and find, rather easily and quickly, documents from so long ago without leaving my chair. At the moment, it seems that the information is correct and I’ll let it go at that. 

NASA and UAPs (UFOs)

 

More than a half century ago, the Air Force sponsored at the University of Colorado, a study of UFOs. Lead by Dr. Edward U. Condon, they concluded that there was no national security issue, that nothing of scientific value would be learned by further study, and that the Air Force had done a good job during its twenty-two-year investigation. From that point on, other scientists, journalists, news organizations and DoD officials used those conclusions to ignore the UFO phenomenon and often to ridicule those who took it seriously or who claimed to have seen an alien spacecraft.

Dr. Edward Condon

None of this came as a surprise to those who were paying close attention. The conclusions for the Condon Committee as it became known, were written at the very beginning of the investigation. Lieutenant Colonel Robert Hippler wrote to Robert Low of the Condon Committee to outline the Air Force expectations. These were to find no national security issues, to find nothing of a scientific value in additional research and to say some positive things about the Air Force investigation. As noted, all this came to pass.

For those interested in exploring this aspect of the “scientific study” of UFOs, you can read about it here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2007/03/hippler-letter.html

Condon even expressed his belief about UFOs and what the ultimate conclusions would be at a meeting in Corning, New York, on January 25, 1967, where he told the audience that UFO’s “are not the business of the Air Force… It is my inclination right now to recommend that the government get out of this business. My attitude is that there’s nothing to it… but I’m not supposed to reach a conclusion for another year.” That was reported in the January 26, 1967, edition of the Elmira Star-Gazette.

Ten years later, Frank Press, who was the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and was President Jimmy Carter’s science advisor, wrote to Robert Frosch, the administrator of NASA. In a friendly letter, Press suggested that UFOs were a subject that should be a focal point for NASA. In other words, Press seemed to be suggesting that NASA take an interest in UFO reports and sightings.

In his response, Frosch, mentioned the negative conclusions of the Condon Committee, cited other organizations with opposite views, including CUFOS and NICAP, but also thought that some sort of inquiry might discover significant new findings. He also suggested that NASA had to be assured that there was a justification for opening such an inquiry because of the time and resources that would be involved.

In a response to this, Noel Hinners, the Space Science director, was appointed to formulate a response. There were rumors, or leaks (which I suppose are much the same thing) that Stephen P. Maran, of the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), would spend two months examining the UFO world post Condon, meaning he would look at the developments from 1969 to 1977. Instead of this, and other positive ideas, Hinners sent a letter to Forsch. In keeping with the skeptical view, Hinners wrote, “There are two major problems involved in considering any review of the UFO phenomenon, by NASA: first, an apparent lack of any tangible or physical evidence for laboratory analysis (emphasis added); second the absence of any sound scientific protocol for investigating the phenomenon firsthand. There is a plethora of secondary source material – human observation and reports thereon – but hearsay is difficult to deal with scientifically…”

Finally, on December 21, Forsch wrote to Press, telling him that NASA was leaving the door open to examine any evidence, though he again mentioned the lack of any physical evidence. He wrote, “I wish in no way to indicate that NASA has come to any conclusion about the phenomena as such; institutionally we retain an open mind, a keen sense of scientific curiosity and a willingness to analyze technical problems within our competence.”

While they continued to cite the lack of physical evidence, Dr. Peter Sturrock of Stanford University, wrote Frosch on December 30, saying, “my colleagues and I in the Study Group on Anomalous Phenomena have obtained access to some physical evidence such as films, material samples, etc.”

NASA Headquarters was somewhat surprised and was unprepared to deal with Sturrock’s suggestion about “obtaining meaningful assessment of these items of evidence.” NASA did, however, think that Dr. Stephen Maran of Goddard Space Flight Center was the man to take on the task of assessing the materials because “He is a skeptic on UFOs; he is extremely sharp and energetic; and he is politically acute.”

Assigning a skeptic to the investigation is not a bad thing. I would think that someone of a skeptic nature, who is interested in reviewing the evidence would be the man to do the job. But, for some reason that never happened. It seemed that NASA decided that any sort of study would consume time, money and resources and it would distract the agency from its original and primary mission which dealt with rocketry, launching satellites and developing a vehicle that could be reused.

I will also note that this idea that he is “politically acute,” suggests that he might have been swayed by the political arena surrounding UFOs, believing that any finding suggesting alien visitation would not be well received. In other words, the wrong conclusion might jeopardize his career. I have no evidence that such is the case other than that one minor phrase.

Today NASA is now saying, according to Daniel Evans, the assistant deputy associate administrator at the Science Mission Directorate that, “We’re going full force on the UAP study… This is really important to us and we’re placing a high priority on it.”

But this wasn’t the only thing said by the NASA representatives at the town hall meeting where this was discussed. They had to add a disclaimer, saying, “NASA has said there is no evidence that UAPs are visiting aliens.”

Please note that this is the same thing they said decades ago. They now reduce the observations of witnesses to little more than anecdotal testimony because that diminishes the important of that evidence. And yet, I would have told them about important observations in and around the Levelland UFO sightings from November, 1957. As I researched the book, Levelland, about those sightings, it became clear that it was much more complicated and robust than we thought. Here was a sighting that had many of the elements that science demanded. There were multiple, independent eyewitness to the object, seen at close range for as long as five to fifteen minutes. It interacted with the environment by stalling car engines and filling the radios with static. There are reports of landing traces, again with multiple witnesses. And what was the official investigation about? The number of witnesses. The Air Force said only three had seen an object, but their own investigation produced more than that.

In the past, while it seemed that NASA was interested in UFOs, there were those who were less than enthusiastic, especially when scientists outside of NASA and the editors various magazines with a more skeptical tone mentioned the nightmare of having to deal with a subject that many considered to be phony and a waste of time. This is, of course, an outgrowth of the Condon Committee’s negative findings which, as I mentioned, were bought by the Air Force with half a million bucks (which in today’s dollars would be something much higher).

Skeptics (or I should say, “debunkers”) entered the discussion at some point. Philip Klass wrote that President Carter had barely had time to find his way around the White House his inauguration before he was inundated with letters and telegrams from people Klass described as uneducated, inarticulate and confused. There was also the allegation that 87% of those who wrote NASA about UFOs were eleven or twelve years old. Or, here was a group of people who didn’t know what they were talking about trying to force a policy on a government agency. The attitude of hostility grew out of this.

NASA, though it seemed would be the perfect agency to investigate claims of alien visitation, rejected all suggestions they do so. While it would seem that evidence that interstellar flight was possible would increase their research budgets, they seemed to think it would bring discredit on the agency.

But now we seem to have come full circle. We have moved from a time in which many of those at NASA thought UFO investigation might be worthwhile, to those who worried that it would damage the agency in some way, back around to it being something NASA should do. Of course, they mention again, that there is no evidence of alien visitation and that they believe the answers are all terrestrially based, but they are now going “full force on the UAP study…”

Please paint me as skeptical, but hopeful. I fear that this will end up where all other good intentioned investigations in the topic had ended up… There is no evidence that they find acceptable no matter what that evidence might be.

'X' Zone Broadcast Network - Tom Carey Retires

 

This week I reached out to Tom Carey, who, while in Roswell for the 75^th Anniversary, announced his retirement from UFO research. I thought it would be interesting to talk about that and learn just what it meant. You can listen to the show here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/50879536

And for those with a more visual orientation, you can watch the show here:

https://rumble.com/v1fjsbd-kevin-randle-interviews-tom-carey-his-retirement-from-ufo-research.html

Before we got to that, we did talk about how he had gotten into UFO research, and I learned it wasn’t so much an interest in UFOs as it was an interest in the Roswell case. He had joined MUFON and later CUFOS, for the publications rather than being sucked into UFO investigation. He did do some of that, but soon realized that a tale of another light in the sky didn’t actually advance our knowledge. There were lots of those stories but with little evidence other than the testimony of the witness.

Tom Carey at his table at the Roswell Festival.

This was a conclusion that I had realized as well. A private pilot flying over the town at three in the morning with his landing light on and the wind blowing away from the witness might only see the light. Without other information, just the witness on the ground reporting the light, there is no real way to find an explanation.

Tom concentrated on the Roswell case to the exclusion of most other cases. But he said that the witnesses are all gone now. If the soldier was twenty in 1947, he was now 95, if still alive. The case had devolved into the second and third hand witnesses. Those who heard the story from fathers or brothers or others who had been in Roswell in 1947.

I mentioned Dalton Smith who had popped up on my radar about a week earlier. As noted in the posting about him, we hadn’t run into that name before. I learned through the documentation available that he had served in Roswell and more importantly, had shared an office with Jesse Marcel.

What I hadn’t mentioned in that earlier post but did during the show, was that the diary, that had been the focus of a documentary a few years back, which wasn’t written by Marcel based on a handwriting analysis, might well have been written by Smith. It was in a “Memorandum” booklet that was everywhere in the Army as one point. Tens of thousands of them had been issued for taking notes. It is possible that when Marcel was reassigned and took his person possessions with him, had picked up the diary that Smith had been keeping… or when Smith left, he didn’t take the diary with him so that Marcel ended up with it.

None of that really matters because there was nothing in the diary about the UFO found near Corona in 1947. Not even a reference to the “official answer” of weather balloon. It was an interesting but irrelevant document.

And speaking of documents, I asked Tom about his opinion of the Ramey Memo. Tom said that the first time he had projected the memo in an enlarged fashion, he saw the critical term, “victims of the wreck.” That reading is not universal and there are other interpretations of it that do not lead to the extraterrestrial.

There were other questions I wanted to ask but we ran out of time. We could have talked about MJ-12 and the Alien Autopsy, for example. Next week, however, I’ll be talking with John Shirley who has a more skeptical approach to the subject of UFOs.

Coast to Coast AM - Alien Abductions

 

Those who follow my work know that I’m not a fan of abduction tales. I believe that many have a terrestrial explanation but also think that some, such as the Hickson – Parker abduction of 1973, with its multiple witnesses makes a good case for a 

Calvin Parker

limited number of abduction tales. In the Hickson – Parker abduction, there is an Air Force document dated October 12, 1973, the day after the abduction in which two other men are named as having witnessed part of the event. That makes for some interesting corroboration.

We now might be able to supply another case that has some outside, corroborating evidence, thanks to Fran Ridge and his MADAR network. On April 10 of this year, near Clarksburg, West Virginia, the witnesses, returning home, saw a cigar-shaped object hovering about 30 feet in the air displaying rainbow-colored lights. As the witnesses approached a blue-green light was shined down on them.

After about three or four minutes, the UFO shot up to a few hundred feet and disappeared into the northwest. The witnesses heard no sound but said they were aware of a low audible hum or buzz while it hovered near them.

One of the witnesses looked back down the hill and saw another object that seemed to appear out of nowhere. This second craft scanned the car with a blue-green light, paying particular attention to the woman, who was pregnant. The light seemed to linger on her, worrying the man greatly. This apparently lasted about ten minutes and then the UFO climbed rapidly and disappeared in the same direction as the first object.

Once the UFO was gone, the couple finished their journey home. They realized there was a time lapse of about two hours, suggesting an encounter that lasted much longer than they thought. Once they reached home, they both worried about possible contamination from the UFO. They both showered. The male witness said that he hadn’t felt right since the encounter.

Ridge reported that MADAR Node 192 recorded interesting spikes at the time of the incident. There were multiple sensor readings, including a compass heading deviation. This is, of course, suggestive of some sort of anomaly in the area at the time of the encounter, providing corroboration for the report.

Fred Saluga, the MUFON State Director for West Virginia and Brian Seech, a MUFON Field Investigator, made several attempts to contact the witnesses through phone, email and letters, but have received no responses. Fran Ridge tried as well and failed as well.

Ridge said that this was strange because the witnesses had reported the sighting to the National UFO Reporting Center and checked the box for investigation, meaning, of course, they were interested in someone following up on the case.

What they don’t know, which is important, is that the closest MADAR site recorded anomalies at the time of the sighting. That might influence them to cooperate with some of the investigating parties but if they continue to refuse, then there is little else that can be done.

Bob Spearing reported that this was similar to two cases from Yorkshire, England, including one told by Police Constable Alan Godfrey. While out on assignment in late 1980, he saw a rotating, diamond-shaped object some twenty feet tall and fourteen feet wide. He said that bushes under the craft were trembling though there wasn’t any wind.

Godfrey said that he was attracted to the object, but that he was also frightened by it. While he sat in his car, he realized that he was seeing something unconventional and tried to use his radio. When that failed, his police training kicked in and he made a sketch of the UFO.

He reported that one moment he was looking at the UFO and the next he was about one hundred yards down the road. The object was gone but he had flashbacks of getting out of his car and a voice telling him he should not look at the UFO.

Realizing that something did not fit, Godfrey was eventually put into a hypnotic trace by psychologist Dr. Robert Blair and psychiatrist Dr. Joseph Jaffee. That provided additional information. Godfrey said that he had gotten out of the car, but then returned to it, but it wouldn’t start. He was then struck with a light and lost consciousness.

He was floated to the craft and through an opening in it. There was a rounded room that had some corners, seemed to be carpeted, contained a bed and machinery. There was a man called Joseph sitting at a table, who was described as human with a thin nose, beard and moustache. Although sitting down, Godfrey said the man was six feet tall, was wearing a skull cap and sheet, making him look somewhat biblical.

Also present were eight metallic robots about three and a half feet tall, wearing what was described as lampshades on their heads, and eyes that were in a line. They touched him, making beeping sounds. There was a large black dog present.

Without resisting, Godfrey was led to the bed and laid down. A light from the ceiling shone down on him and through telepathy was told that all this was not meant for him. Joseph touched Godfrey and everything went black for a while.

He said that the robots removed his shoes and manipulated his toes while instruments were painfully attached to his arms and legs. While this was happened, Godfrey remembered a ball of fire he had seen as a child and Joseph explained they had met before.

Godfrey remembered other events that can only be called paranormal. In one, he and his girlfriend were driving when a woman stepped out in front of the car. Although he thought he hit her, they could find no trace of the woman. He said that when he got home, he could not account for two hours.

I’m not sure why Spearing thought this case matched the latest report, but it is one of the two he pointed out. There wasn’t enough information available, at the moment, to locate the other report.

All this information was assembled thanks to Fran Ridge, NUFORC, Jennie Randles (no relation, please note the ending “S”) and Dr. Thomas Bullard. I will attempt to learn more about that second case and will report anything of interest that I find here.

Roswell Intelligence Officer Dalton Smith

 

I have been asked many times if there is anything else we can learn about the Roswell UFO crash now that the first-hand witnesses are no longer available. We are now talking with the second and third hand witnesses, meaning the children and grandchildren of those who were there. As the stories become farther removed from the original, there are distortions that develop through no fault of those telling them. It makes it more difficult to get at the truth.

However, to my surprise, sometimes things happen to suggest there are some important avenues that we can follow. Just this last week, I received an email asking that if I had ever heard of Dalton Smith. According to the email, Smith was an intelligence officer who had been assigned to the 509^th Bomb Group in Roswell in 1947. The correspondent wanted to know if that was true, or more precisely, what I knew about Smith.

The late Dalton Smith

In all the years of research, Smith’s name had never come up. In the discussions with those who had been there including the counterintelligence soldiers assigned, no one had mentioned him. We knew of James Breece who had died long before we began our research, but nothing about Smith.

The first place to look was the index for the 509^th Yearbook. George Eberhart had created the index decades ago and for those interested, it is only good for my copy of the Yearbook. I had all the pages that had information and photographs of those assigned to the base but the numbering didn’t include some of the other pages that were, more or less, irrelevant. So, if you attempt to apply that index to other copies, it just won’t match. But I digress.

Smith’s name was not among those in the Yearbook. Walter Haut, who created the Yearbook told me that some 10 to 20 percent of the personnel assigned to the base were not in the book. Next stop was the base telephone directory. I quickly found Major Dalton Smith listed with a telephone number of 312.

On the same page and not far from Smith’s name was that of Jesse Marcel and Marcel’s telephone number was 312. That meant that Smith had shared an office and a telephone with Marcel, which put him right in the middle of the activity in 1947.

Given that, I knew that Breece was assigned to the intelligence section, but his telephone number was 459. Breece was not in the same office as Marcel. Given that I’d discovered that Smith and Marcel shared a telephone, I wondered if I could find a similar pairing with Breece. I didn’t find another person who shared his telephone but did find that he was located in Building 31, as were Marcel and Smith.

Under Intelligence Officer in that phone book, I learned that the base S-2 (Intelligence) number was 312, which would be Marcel. The Security Office was 316, Combat Intelligence (Breece) was 459, and the Historical Office was 312.

I also learned that Building 31 was apparently assigned to the 715^th Bomb Squadron and housed its Operations, Communications and Personal Equipment offices as well as the base Intelligence Office. It does strike me as strange that the base Intelligence Office is found in a building assigned to a specific squadron, but it’s probably not overly significant.

There is little more to be said about this. I did learn that at the time Smith retired from the Air Force, he was Chief of Staff for Air Force Intelligence at the Pentagon. He left the military after more than 23 years of continuous active duty including World War II, in which he served in Europe and North Africa. Among numerous decorations, he received the Bronze Star Medal, the European-African-Middle East Medal with twelve bronze service stars, and the Korean Service Medal. At one point, he was Deputy for Intelligence in the Far East Air Force Bomber Command in Japan.

When Colonel Smith retired in 1964, the Director of Administrative Services of the U.S. Air Force cited his "sound judgment and high professional ability" during "a long and honorable career."

All of this does verify his service. The telephone directory verifies his position in Roswell at that critical time. There are a few additional leads to follow now. I’ll see what I can learn but I fear I learned all this too late. Smith died in 2013. Had we only known.