Roswell Solved: I Think Not

 

A little more than thirty years ago, a conflict erupted in the Roswell case when it was discovered that in a picture of Brigadier General Roger Ramey, portions of a document he held could be read. Anyone with an engagement of the picture and a magnifying glass could see that it mentioned Fort Worth, Texas and weather balloons. There was one interesting word that most researchers agreed on and that was disk. Given that the date of the photograph was established as July 8, 1947, and that it was Ramey who held it, the obvious conclusion was that the document related in some fashion to the Roswell UFO crash.

BG Roger Ramey and COL Thomas Dubose with
the rawin target. Photograph taken on July 8, 1947.

Everyone agrees that something fell near Corona, New Mexico, sometime in early July 1947, and everyone agrees that Major Jesse Marcel, Sr., of the 509^th Bomb Group, stationed at the Roswell Army Air Field, along with Captain Sheridan Cavitt of the Army’s Counterintelligence Corps, had traveled to the site of the wreck. They recovered debris which they transported to the air field either late on July 7 or early on July 8. At this point, the consensus deviates dramatically. One is the theory of an alien off-world spacecraft and at the opposite end is weather balloons with rawin radar reflectors.

Attempts to read the entire document held by General Ramey, who commanded the Eighth Air Force, were sparked by the theory that this document, with an undisputed provenance relates to the Roswell crash case. The negative for the picture is held in the Special Collections Library at the University of Texas at Arlington. The photograph, taken by J. Bond Johnson, was donated to the library, along with thousands of others taken by Fort Worth Star-Telegram reporters and photographers over the decades.

Entrance to the Special Collections at the University of Texas at Arlington.
Photo by Kevin Randle.

There are those who dismiss the importance of this photograph and the information contained on what is called the Ramey Memo because, what “crashed” near Corona, New Mexico in early July 1947 was nothing more than weather balloons and rawin radar reflectors which were part of the top-secret Project Mogul. The nature of the project was the reason for the secrecy and the cover story that was handed to the press.

The trouble with this scenario is that the balloon launches in New Mexico were part of an attempt to create a constant level balloon, meaning an array of balloons that would remain at a constant altitude for a long time. The project was using off the shelf weather balloons and rawin radar targets. Nothing in New Mexico was classified and a report of those experiments, along with several photographs, was published in newspapers around the country on July 10, 1947.

One of the many newspapers reporting on Project Mogul, showing that it
wasn't the great secret as claimed. Charles Moore told me that he bought
the ladder shown in the center picture, tying this to Mogul.

One of the project engineers in New Mexico, Charles Moore, told me that the June 4, 1947 launch, which is the culprit in the case, contained no rawin targets which argues against the authenticity of the debris displayed and photographed in General Ramey’s office on July 8.

Well, to be perfectly accurate, what he told me was that Flight No. 4 was configured just like that of Flight No. 5. Flight No. 5, according to the documentation, contained no rawin targets. The question then becomes, if Flight No. 4 had no rawin targets, where did the rawin target photographed in Ramey’s office originate?

Flight No. 5, which, according to the documentation was the first successful flight in New Mexico, raises an additional question. Since there was no data captured by Flight No. 4, and that, according Dr. Albert Crary’s field diary and field notes, was cancelled, the next question is where did the debris found by Mack Brazel originate. It certainly wasn’t part of Project Mogul.

Both Jesse Marcel, Sr. and Thomas Dubose, who appear in other photographs taken in Ramey’s office at time, when shown those pictures said that it wasn’t what had been brought from Roswell. Johnny Mann, a reporter for WWL-TV in New Orleans, accompanied Marcel to Roswell for an interview conducted in the early 1980s. Mann showed Marcel one of the pictures of the debris taken in Ramey’s office. Marcel told Mann that the debris displayed there was not what he had found on the Brazel (Foster) ranch. And Mann told me that during an interview at his home in Amarillo, Texas, in the mid-1990s.

Jesse Marcel, Sr. holding part of a rawin target. He 
would tell reporter Johnny Mann that this was
not the material he had brought from Roswell

Thomas Dubose was interviewed in his home by Don Schmitt and Stan Friedman in the early 1990s. Dubose was quite clear that the material photographed was not samples of the debris recovered on the Brazel ranch. According to Dubose, the debris had been switched.

If the debris in Ramey’s office was not what had been found in New Mexico, then what relevance does studying that debris have? Since it was not what was found, it has no importance in learning about the Roswell crash.

Where does that leave us? Flight No. 4 was cancelled, according to Dr. Albert Crary’s field notes, and if it was cancelled, then it couldn’t have left the debris found by Mack Brazel. As noted, Charles Moore told me that Flight No. 4 was configured in the same way as Flight No. 5, which contained no rawin targets. That means that even if we concede that Flight No. 4 was launched, it had no rawin targets and therefore couldn’t have scattered the metallic debris in the field.

Official records showing nothing for Flight No. 4. Moore claimed
that it performed as well as Flight No. 5.

There is one other minor point often overlooked in this discussion. The records suggest the proposed launch of Flight No. 4 was June 4, 1947. That means it laid in that field for nearly a month before it was discovered by Mack Brazel. Bill Brazel told Don Schmitt and me, repeatedly, that his father was in that particular field nearly every day. Brazel reported the debris only a day or two after he found it. If that is true, and there is no evidence to contradict Bill Brazel’s claim, then what was found was not the remnants of Flight No. 4.

All of this means is that no matter what interpretation is put on an examination of the photographs taken in Ramey’s office, they prove nothing about what fell. That debris is a substitution for the real debris. Any conclusions drawn from those photographs, as related to the debris, are moot. They mean nothing to understanding the overall case.  

That takes us back to the document held by General Ramey. That photograph becomes important to the Roswell case because, if we can read the text, we might learn something of relevance. But the latest interpretation has little to nothing to do with what was photographed. We are directed to a picture of Jesse Marcel, Sr., crouched by the debris, holding a piece of it. Sticking out to the left is a small stick, that appeared to have had part of the foil material from the rawin target attached to it.

In enlargements of that picture, and now in a colorized version of it, there appeared to be some markings on the stick. According to one interpretation, these markings resemble the embossed lettering that Jesse Marcel, Jr., said that he had seen on what he called an I-beam. If true, them this takes us right back to rawin targets and the June 4, 1947 balloon launch.

Colorized version of the photograph that shows
the blobs of glue on the support under
Marcel's right hand.

This claim was examined thirty years ago when the controversy first erupted. Those same blobs were suggested as what Jesse Marcel, Jr. had mistaken for specific alien symbols that might represent off-world writing. Marcel himself said that those blobs didn’t look like anything he had seen on the remains of the debris.

The circumstances suggest that those blobs were nothing more than the residue of the glue to attach the foil to the support structures of the rawin target.

What we have here, is evidence that Flight No. 4, the culprit in all this, was cancelled. Charles Moore contradicts this documentation by claiming that Flight No. 4 was launched in the dark, in cloudy weather in violation of the regulations under which they operated. He said that the launch was at 2:30 or 3:00 a.m. in contradiction with Albert Crary’s field notes which indicated the flight had been cancelled at dawn because of clouds. Dawn was two and half to three hours after that alleged launch.

Moore claims that Brazel had found the remains of the June 4 balloon array nearly a month later. Remember, Bill Brazel said that an important water station for the livestock was in the field so that his father would have been there every other day and in some cases every day. Mack Brazel complained to family and friends about the big mess and wondered who was going to clean it up.

Tommy Tyree, who was a sometimes ranch hand helping Brazel, told Don Schmitt and me that the sheep refused to cross the field that was densely packed by the debris. Brazel had to drive them around it. Of course, had it been a Mogul array, Brazel could have picked it up himself in about twenty minutes, especially since the arrays created in New Mexico were two thirds the length of those launched in the East Coast.

All the evidence, when examined dispassionately, tells us that the balloon wreckage in Ramey’s office has little to do with the Roswell case. Clearly, it was meant to cover up a much bigger secret and since the experiments being conducted in New Mexico were not classified, that secret had to be something else.

That leaves us with the Ramey memo and what it might say. That document could be the smoking gun. The problem there is that current technology doesn’t allow us to provide a consensus interpretation of most of the memo. Artificial Intelligence might be able to resolve this problem. But at the moment we haven’t had any luck with AI.

Kevin Day, David Marler and Flying Solo

 

I recently had an interesting discussion with Kevin Day, he of the Nimitz UAP sighting. And yes, I used the term UAP here because that is how the Navy and the government have been labeling these sightings. Although it seems the Navy has attempted to explain the sightings as some sort of technological glitch in the new systems, Day said that there were visual sightings that underscored the anomalous nature of those encounters. These visual sightings were made at the same locations and at the same time as the sensor and radar returns.

He mentioned Sailor’s Anthology, his collections of stories about the Nimitz events as a way of putting the information on the record.  He filed them in the Library of Congress. He had fictionalized it somewhat, changing the names to protect those who were still on active duty. Now that is all part of the public record and Day provided a link to his book, Sailor’s Anthology which you can read here:

 Sailors Anthology Book I by Kevin Day - Issuu 

Interestingly, he began the discussion with some comments about the USS Vincennes, which was responsible for shooting down an Iranian passenger jet many years ago. Day said that he was in the CIC on the Vincennes at the time. He was understandable horrified by that event.

He then described what had happened with the Nimitz, emphasizing that no only the sensors and radars on his ship showed the objects, but others on other ships reported the same thing. He said that the next day, two men, in civilian clothes boarded the ship and removed all the data that had been collected. For those interested, you can listen to that interview here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/a-different-perspective-with-kevin-randle-kevin-day-us-navy-witness-to-nimitz-uaps-and-tic-tac--60795293

And for those who have a more visual outlook on life, you can watch the interview here:

https://rumble.com/v58bktu-a-different-perspective-with-kevin-randle-interviews-kevin-day-uaps-and-tic.html

Let me add a note of caution. In the last segment, Day seemed to delve into the political arena. I try to avoid political discussions because they can turn nasty in a heartbeat and political discussion is not part of this blog. However, his statements aren’t an endorsement of a specific candidate, but commentary on what his research using a computer-based analysis revealed. In that context, it isn’t so much a political commentary but an unbiased look at what the data showed.

However, any political commentary will not be posted to the comments section here. In the world today, it is nice to get away from the politics.

The updated face of the Roswell UFO Museum.

Last week, given the circumstances, and because it is an easier show to do, I flew solo, meaning there was no guest. I talked about a variety of topics including the recent Roswell Festival, some of the older cases that deserve our attention, the current state of Ufology, the attempted theft of the material recovered at the Debris Field and finally, a few thoughts on where we should go now. You can listen to that discussion here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/a-different-perspective-with-kevin-randle-the-2024-roswell-festival--60747100

And for those who can stand not only listening to me but watching me at the same time, you can watch the discussion here:

https://rumble.com/v57m8xx-a-different-perspective-with-kevin-randle-discusses-his-visit-to-the-roswel.html

Before the Roswell Festival, I had a chance to interview David Marler about his activities and the creation of the National UFO Historical Records Center. This massive project is an attempt to digitize the history of UFO research so that those with an interest in the topic will be able to search those records from their homes. This should radically alter UFO research, and create an archive for that UFO research.

David Marler

The latest acquisition was the records from APRO, one of the prime UFO organizations from the 1950s, 60s, 70s and into the 1980s. The story of that acquisition and some of the fascinating cases were discussed. You can listen to that interview here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/a-different-perspective-with-kevin-randle-interviews-david-marler-national-ufo-historical-records-center--60531690

And, as always, there is a video version which you can watch here:

https://rumble.com/v541jmi-kevin-randle-interviews-david-marler-national-ufo-historical-records-center.html

As I often say, if there is a topic you’d like me to explore, or an interview you’d like to see, let me know in the comments.

I should also mention that I have written several books that cover some of these topics in detail. Of course, Roswell in the 21^st Century provides a good basic history of the case, while Understanding Roswell tells the story from a different perspective. Levelland analyzes those sightings, 1973 details the sightings of that year that led to the abduction of Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker and Encounter in the Desert explores the Lonnie Zamora sighting in Socorro, New Mexico. You can find those books and more on Amazon. And be sure to check out the Eric Helm books have nothing to do with UFOs but are books that I have written in the action/adventure arena.

Did Herbert Dick Lie about Being on the Plains of San Agustin?

 

Did Herbert Dick Lie about Being on the Plains of San Agustin?

Blogger's note: For some bizarre reason this controversy has erupted again. This is a repost of a posting made a couple of years ago about it. The important point is that I am the only researcher to actually speak with Herbert Dick and I know what he said. Not once did he "categorically lie" about being on the Plains of San Agustin. He confirmed he had been working there in July 1947 but he wasn't sure when he arrived. Ironically, the letter found by Art Campbell, putting Dick on the Plains on July 1, argues against the idea of a UFO crash. We are today, right where we were a couple of years ago. Barney Barnett is the only known witness. Those mentioning the crash on the Plains, such as the Vern and Jean Maltais heard the story from Barnett but didn't see anything themselves. So, once again, is what my research has provided that includes my recovery of the Ruth Barnett diary courtesy of Alice Knight, my interviews with the men who worked the Plains in July 1947, and Tom Carey and Don Schmitt's personal research into this. The truth of the matter is that Herbert Dick did not lie.

A fellow identifying himself as Lemurian is often commenting here but most of those comments don’t see the light of day. That’s because they’re just nasty and often appended to the wrong posting. It’s as if he just clicks on one and then writes whatever moves him regardless of the topic. I delete them because they are nasty and inappropriate. Recently, however, he did provide a comment that wasn’t nasty, only inappropriate. He suggested that we all access a website that contained information about the Barney Barnett aspect of the Roswell case. You can access that story here:

https://www.ufoexplorations.com/other-roswell-crash-secret-of-plain

While the story is interesting, it is also somewhat misleading, and it is filled with misinformation. Please note here that I said “Misinformation,” rather than “Disinformation.” There is a difference.

Rather than go through this one segment at a time, I’ll just make a few general comments. First, there are no other first-hand witnesses to the Barnett tale. The archaeologists have never been found and the Gerald Anderson story, sometimes used to bolster the case, is a hoax. Anderson is little more than a footnote in the overall picture. He destroyed his own credibility by lying about his Naval career and forging a number of documents. For those interested you can read about it here (You’ll need to scroll down a bit to find the relevant segment:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2020/08/stan-friedman-vs-philip-klass-whats.html

I spoke with Fleck Danley, who was instrumental in providing a date for the Plains of San Agustin crash that Barnett had discussed. It was clear to me, that Danley had no real idea of when the alleged discussion with Barnett took place. Danley was pushed into agreeing with the July 1947 date by Bill Moore so that there would be a tale of alien bodies for his book, The Roswell Incident. Without Barnett, they had only stories of strange metal and the Army’s efforts to recover the debris and change the narrative.

Barnett’s wife, Ruth, kept a diary for 1947. It was, apparently, the only year in which she did that. I was able to obtain the diary from Alice Knight, Barnett’s niece, so that we might copy it. There is no mention of any event on the Plains that suggest Barnett was involved in anything unusual or strange. In fact, the only date in the diary that works, meaning that Barnett was out of his office and over in the area of the Plains to see the crashed saucer is on July 2, 1947. If we follow the conventional wisdom, that is a day too early because the Roswell crash took place later.

Although the counterargument is that Barnett wouldn’t have shared this startling information with his wife so we wouldn’t read about in the diary, there are no indications of anything unusual happening at the time. Barney didn’t come home upset, didn’t suggest anything out of the ordinary. Just that he’d been out of the office that day. Later, however, we see that Barnett told many people the story of crash including friends and family. You can read about this aspect of the case in Roswell in the 21^st Century. I will note here that no one has ever found a document in which any of that was discussed. You would think that someone would have written something that would provide a little corroboration in the proper time frame. Instead, all we have are memories that were decades old when they were finally discussed and Barnett had been dead for those decades.

There is one interesting point here. Although nearly everyone who discusses the story places it on the Plains of San Agustin, in reality, according to Jean Maltais, Barnett’s description was somewhat vague about the location. She only mentioned “the flats,” which could mean any number of places in New Mexico. Most ignore this minor glitch in the tale to focus on the Plains.

But let’s get to the meat of this claim. Tony Bragalia wrote about Dr. Herbert Dick, “While considering various archaeologists, researchers uncovered Harvard-trained Dr Herbert Dick. Dick was a noted archaeologist who passed away in 1992. Some years before his death however, he was located and questioned. Dick categorically denied that he had ever worked around the Plains of San Augustin region in July of 1947 (highlight added). Dick had told researchers he had not been there, telling one of them, "If I knew anything I would have told you." One of his dig party, Jeff Morris, also denied it. These denials were reported in early 1990's issues of the publication IUR – International UFO Reporter and elsewhere.”

Much of this is inaccurate. I did talk to Herbert Dick about this and rather than “categorically [denying] that he had ever worked about the Plains of San Augustin (sic),” the truth is that he wasn’t sure exactly when he arrived there in July 1947. What he denied was that he had seen any sort of a UFO crash retrieval operation on the Plains. This was not reported in the IUR as claimed.

Dick told me (not one of them) that if he knew anything about this, he’d tell me. What is important here that another member of his team denied that “it,” meaning, here, I suppose, that they had seen nothing suggesting a flying saucer crash. This was not reported in the IUR.

Although Bragalia wrote, “It turns out though that Dick had lied [highlight added] to these researchers when he was interviewed by them. In 2006 a revealing letter was uncovered by researcher Art Campbell. Campbell has been active in the UFO field for decades, including with NICAP. He is the author of "UFO Crash at San Augustin" and maintains the UFO Crash Book website. The documents that he discovered confirm that Dick had not told the truth. Dick was in fact at the Plains at the very time that he said that he was not.” As we have seen, Dick had told me he was on the Plains in July 1947, he just wasn’t sure exactly when he arrived.

Bragalia went even further, when he wrote, “A thorough search of records finds that no other group of archaeologists were working on the Plains in early July of 1947 except Herbert Dick and party – and Dick lied that [highlight added] he was even there. Lies are used [highlight added] to cover up the truth by those who wish to evade it. To have ever spoken of the event, Dick may have felt that he could have risked a security breach, his own professional advancement, future professional credibility, award of grant monies or – later in life – damage to his impressive professional legacy.”

But Dick didn’t lie. In an interview I conducted on June 23, 1991, Dick told me that he had worked in the area called Bat Cave on the southeastern edge of the Plains in 1947. He just wasn’t sure exactly when he arrived. The letters and notes found by Art Campbell, showed that he had arrived in time to have seen the crash, had it taken place on July 2, and would have been in a position to see the recovery operation in the days that followed, had there been one.

Don Schmitt at one of the alleged Plains of San Agustin crash sites. The Bat Cave
is across the Plains in the mountains seen behind Don.

I provided this information to Stan Friedman, telling him that Dick had been at the Bat Cave on July 1. Friedman’s response? He said we didn’t know how far back in the cave they were working and we didn’t know which way the cave faced. I told him that it faced to the west and that they wouldn’t be very deep because they were researching human habitation. Humans would have been very close to the mouth of the cave because to move in deeper would have put them in darkness. Besides, according to the information, the only level spot for camping was about a hundred yards from the mouth of the cave. They had a panoramic view of the whole of the Plains and the alleged crash site in the days prior to that alleged crash and of the recovery operation had there been one.

The point is that Bragalia’s speculations about Dick are not borne out in the interview I conducted with the man. According to Bragalia himself, he was using information provided by Campbell and the source mentioned, the International UFO Reporter, does not contain this information. Instead, it comes from Art Campbell’s analysis of the situation which is highly speculative. Campbell mentioned a paper found in The Magdalena Fact Book. This was a document that I created for the single meeting in Chicago to discuss the problems with the Plains of San Agustin tale. The book was created for the meeting, there were only five copies and I have one of them. I’m surprised that Campbell had seen a copy of it and can only guess that it was Friedman who showed it to him.

The real point here is that the information about Dick’s involvement, that he lied repeatedly about what he was doing and where he was, is inaccurate. Dick wasn’t confused. He had forgotten the exact date he arrived. He was quite candid in his conversation with me about where he was and what he was doing. What Dick’s statements do, corroborated by the documentation from by Campbell, is destroy the remaining threads of the Gerald Anderson claims of what he had seen on the Plains, and calls into question that Barnett saw anything there in the summer of 1947.

Dick denied the involvement because there was no involvement. I can say this with confidence because I talked to the man. I don’t have to rely on what others have said or written. I have the first-hand source, that trumps all the second and third-hand reports and all the speculation that permeates Bragalia’s article.

Bragalia’s analysis here is more of the same sort of over-the-top rhetoric we’ve seen before. He has taken some poorly researched information and created a scenario in his mind that fits into his theory. He writes in a fashion that suggests he knows what is going on, but a careful reading and an examination of all the facts, including my interview with Dick, show the flaws in his theory. He even cites a source that doesn’t exist.

One more thing for those of you of a conspiratorial mindset. According to Dick, he knew Winfred Buskirk (Anderson’s archaeologist on the Plains) in the 1940s. Since both were working on their PhDs at the time, and both were in New Mexico (well, Buskirk was working in Arizona in the summer of 1947, he lived in Albuquerque), it is not surprising. I just thought I’d mention it to stir the pot and before someone creates another whole scenario about government secrecy and lying anthropologists.