Foo Fighter (UFO) Film from World War II

 

Here is the information about the Foo Fighter film that was taken in 1944 as a Soviet fighter attempts to (or actually does) shoot down a Nazi bomber. I found the information at the National UFO Reporting Center.

Following is the information as reported there. I found it interesting but I also wonder if the orb is not a tracer round from another aircraft not see on the film. If nothing else, it is an interesting piece of film:

I [the original poster and not me] stumbled across this video on YouTube while watching old WW2 dog-fights and lo and behold, I found a video where there is clearly 2 Foo-Fighters that are clearly visible in this video. There's no way in hell this is fake while this plane was using a 16MM gun camera but for some reason nobody ever saw them on this video. Most every Ufologist talks about Foo-Fighters and there's plenty of WW2 pilots that said they saw them but other than some blurry pics, and believe me I've searched, I've never seen such definitive proof than this video. Before I send the video I need to tell you some things to observe because I've studied this video to death. When you see the first craft enter the screen from the front and go under and to the left of the BF-110 watch the pilots reaction. You can clearly see his tracer rounds and his plane deviate to the left while he's watching it go by. BTW, that's 3:44 seconds into the video. When you see the next craft, it comes from the top right-hand corner of the screen and goes in front of the bombers then almost does a 90 degree turn to the left and goes right by the BF-110 on his left side. If you look when it enters the screen at the top right-hand corner you will see that pilot's tracers rounds go from hitting the bomber to his tracers flying wildly up and to right and he wasn't shooting at the craft, it’s because the nose of the plane goes up because he saw that craft and when the craft does a hard left turn, the exact thing happens again. The nose of the plane turns left and his tracer rounds do the same. BTW, that's 4:14 seconds into the video.

I'm figuring, depending on the month that this happened somewhere around Estonia or Bucharest where the Russians where advancing on the Germans because the dogfight was going on over one of the seas which was either the Baltic or the Black sea. And if you watch the beginning, there were flack guns shooting at the bombers but when the BF-110 got behind them the flack guns refrained from firing. But that's just a rough guess.

You can find the video on YouTube. The link starts the video just before the object appears:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZyJbSIFJn8&t=254s

As I say, this was posted to the NUFORC website. I thought it of interest to those who visit here. I will note that the information is as it was found with only a few minor changes… a hyphen in right-hand and left-hand and the duplication of one word was deleted.

Kingman UFO Crash and Michael Schratt

Christopher Mellon’s email chain that mentioned the Kingman UFO crash retrieval set many wheels in motion. I have been of the opinion for a long time that the crash is based on a single witness. David Rudiak and I have been researching the case which has taken us down several rabbit holes. One of them was an interview with Michael Schratt. He was talking about Harry Drew, who, apparently was the Kingman resident expert on the crash.

Michael Schratt

Learning this, I thought Schratt would be a good guest for the radio show/podcast version of A Different Perspective. I sent him a note, mentioning my interest in Kingman and we agreed on a show on September 18. Before we started the recording, I mentioned we would be talking about Kingman but he said he wanted to talk about Len Stringfield’s crash/retrieval research.

Well, we did both.

My main interest at that time was a long report that had been written by Ray Fowler about Kingman. I had been surprised that the file included a long interview with the original witness, Arthur Stansel. While those who wrote about the Kingman crash, and I include myself in that group, quoted for the first part of the Stansel interview, we ignored the second part. This was called, “A Man Who Made Contact.”

Here Stansel said that he had been part of a group of five who studied many things paranormal. He talked about astral projection and how he had contacted alien beings around our section of the galaxy. I did a post about that which you can find here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2024/08/the-kingman-ufo-crash-connumdrum.html

To me, this was somewhat problematic. Yes, Stansel had an impressive CV, but this side trip into weirdness seemed to negate some of that. I bring this up because, after Mellon’s email chain, there were several television reports about it including one conducted by a TV station in Phoenix. The reporter there had the Fowler file. I recognized the drawing that accompanied that file. I wanted to know if the reporter had seen the second part of the interview. I have never received a reply, which is not surprising. Local television news has no concept of follow up investigation. Once the initial story is reported, they have no interest in doing any more research.

I mention all this because Schratt had a copy of the Fowler file, which he received from Harry Drew who was the curator of the museum in Kingman where the file is housed. I pressed Schratt on this point because I thought it important. Had Harry Drew edited the file before putting it into the museum’s collection. Schratt didn’t think he, Drew, would do that, but it was clear to me that he, Schratt, didn’t have both parts of the interview.

Kingman, Arizona. Photo by Kevin Randle

We talked about Kingman for the first two segments of the show and then turned to the work that Len Stringfield had done. We agreed about that. We both understood that many of the cases cited in Len Stringfield’s Status Reports were single witness. We knew that he gathered the stories, published them, hoping that someone else would take an interest and follow up. Stringfield wasn’t endorsing all the reports, he was providing the information he had been given. You can listen to or watch the discussion here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/a-different-perspective-with-kevin-randle-michael-schratt-kingman-ufo-crash-crashes--62038779

https://youtu.be/FjYQlUIGmlw

But, as I say, the important part of the interview, at least to me, was the discussion of Kingman. On this, I’m the glass is half empty guy. To me, at the moment, the Kingman tale is reduced to a single witness and that is Arthur Stansel. David, and Michael Schratt seem to be the glass if half full guys.

We are still following the leads. David has uncovered a great deal of information, much of it from newspaper articles, that suggest several strange incidents around Kingman in the early 1950s. I’m not sure where all this is going but it is certainly creating a very complex tale that might completely implode at the end of the trail… or it might not.   

Rob Swiatek, EM Effects and a UFO Photo

 

Over the last week, as I prepared for my radio show/podcast and my segment on Coast-to-Coast AM, I came across several interesting UFO cases. These came from my interview with Rob Swiatek, searching for additional content and interest in cases with multiple chains of evidence.

Oddly, the first thing I found came from Stan Gorden’s UFO Anomalies Zone that had multiple witnesses, photographs and possible EM Effects. Unfortunately, the photographs aren’t very good and the two witnesses, who didn’t know one another, had the opportunity to discuss the sighting before Gordon arrived on the scene. According to Gordon’s report, the witness (who he identified as John and pointed out that John was not his real name) said that he was near Smithfield, Pennsylvania, when his car stalled as if it had been turned off.

John saw a large, black object that he described as a cylinder or pipe-shaped object that was hovering about 300 feet over him. After a few moments, it moved off until it was partially hidden by some tree branches, where it hovered again. He wanted to get a picture and got out of his car for a better perspective.

He walked out into a field for that better view but now the UFO was about a mile distant. It hovered for a few seconds and then moved again. He took a few pictures with his iPhone but the photos only showed a dark, distant object.

Gordon, who learned of the case almost as it happened, drove out immediately to investigate. He spoke to the first witness, John, who wasn’t the only one there. Another car had stopped behind the first. Gordon interviewed John and was told that the second witness (Joe, which was not his real name either) also had car trouble. Gordon confirmed that with Joe, who had also seen a large object, but his view was partially obstructed by the trees.

When Gordon arrived, he learned that the two witnesses had compared notes, which was unfortunate. They agreed on the description. Gordon examined the cars but found no unusual magnetic effects. John said that as the car stalled, the radio was filled with static, but it was working fine when Gordon checked it later.

The men had attempted to start their cars after the UFO was gone but failed. Joe had called for a tow truck. Gordon suggested they try again and both cars then started with little trouble.

The ultimate description of the UFO was a dark gray object that resembled a piece of pipe. John said there seemed to be some stuff inside the end but he couldn’t make out what it was. Joe said that he saw the UFO hovering over the John’s car as he stalled.

John said that the object was about ten to fifteen feet across and about thirty feet long. There was a haze around the craft that partially obscured his view. He said that it was a pale green haze, and that he could only see one end of the UFO.

Gordon obtained copies of the photographs to attempt to enhance them but that process hasn’t been completed. He did have an illustration made that the first witness said was a good drawing of what he had seen.

This sighting is interesting because there were two witnesses who were slightly independent, meaning they didn’t know one another at the time. There are photographs of the UFO, but those aren’t as sharp and clear as we would like. And there was the interaction with the environment, which is the electromagnetic effect. You can read Gordon’s full report here:

https://www.stangordon.info/wp/2024/09/08/two-vehicles-stall-on-pennsylvania-highway-as-cylindrical-ufo-passes-low-overhead-july-2-2024/

Also, during the show, Rob mentioned a photograph that had been taken by an airline passenger. According to the report that was filed with MUFON and is part of their Case Management System, the woman, riding in the first-class section, looked out the window when she saw a black trail of black smoke, she estimated was about 10,000 below them. She thought it was strange and it would be a good idea to snap a picture of it because she believed the plane was having serious engine problems. If there was  an accident,  she would have able to supply some photographic evidence.

She said she was on the left side of the plane and since it was so close, she believed the pilots had to be aware of it as well as other passengers. She said that it took her a bit to grab her phone, but she tried her best to get a clear picture.

The picture reminded me of a classic photograph taken in South America in the 1950s of a cigar-shaped craft that was also had a long smoke tail. Her picture follows:

Florida UFO picture.

The analysis of the picture didn’t reveal any sort of control surfaces. The smoke was thought to be a normal type of contrail. The analysis suggested the object was only about 400 feet below the airliner. The MUFON Field Investigator’s conclusion was that the object was not an aircraft.

Rob also talked about a case from Florida in which the witness was startled by a loud, metallic, ripping sound. She reported seeing a triangular-shaped UFO, seeming to parallel the highway. The object sheered the top off a tree and seemed to stall traffic. She said that she got out of her car and spoke to other witnesses who manifested some rather severe injuries. She didn’t think to get the names of any of those witnesses, and searches later for the damaged tree were unsuccessful. You can listen to our discussion here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/kevin-randle-interviews-robert-swiatek-current-ufo-sightings--61353158

When I interviewed Robert Sheaffer a couple of weeks earlier, I had asked him what he wanted in the way of evidence of off-world visitors. He suggested a case with multiple, independent witnesses and some form of other evidence such as good photographs. Ideally, and I add this myself, that radar data was available as well, not to mention an interaction with the environment. These cases fit that requirement… almost. In the Florida case, the woman said that everyone was shook up by the encounter, so no one thought to take pictures or get the addresses of the other witnesses. If they could have found the damaged tree, it would have added an important element to the case. You might say, “Close, but no cigar.”

The Stan Gordon report is the same. Two, what I think of as semi-independent witnesses, whose cars had stalled were involved. There are photographs, but by the time the first witness (John) got his cell phone into action, the object was too far away for there to be any detail in the pictures. A missed bet.

And, as I say, the witnesses, had the opportunity to discuss the sighting before Gordon arrived, meaning they aren’t all that independent. But the elements are there no matter how compromised. Oh, I don’t mean to suggest that the case rises to the level of good evidence, but the elements are there. They just needed to be refined.

Rob and I finished the show with a discussion of the statistics about UFO sightings in the last few years. They reveal some interesting trends. For those interested, You can listen that the last segment and look at those charts that he mention, which follow here.

There was a great deal of information included in the interview that I haven’t mentioned here. For those who enjoy a discussion of multiple events and observations about the current state of UFO investigation, this is a show you don’t want to miss.

David Rudiak, Kingman UFO Crash and Other Rabbit Holes

In the second interview inspired by Christopher Mellon’s “leaked” email that mentioned the Kingman UFO crash of 1973, I talked with David Rudiak about some of the rabbit holes he had gone down in his research of Kingman. While searching newspaper files about the case, he found people disappearing out of jail cells and others disappearing in an ambulance being followed by the sheriff. You can hear the interview here:

https://rumble.com/v5cztz8-a-different-perspective-with-kevin-randle-david-rudiak-the-kingman-ufo-cras.html

What David found, was information on three UFO crashes in the Kingman area in a short period of time, including the one revealed by Arthur Stansel. You can read my longer analysis of the Stansel’s tale here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2024/08/the-kingman-ufo-crash-connumdrum.html

According to Rudiak, the newspapers in the area do report on some of these events and he created web pages for those interested in following up on these tales. You can see them here:

http://www.roswellproof.com/kingman_main.html

http://www.roswellproof.com/Kingman_1950_Newspapers.html

There were mass sightings in the Kingman area, and by area, I mean southern Nevada and western California as well. There were many sightings of strange craft there starting in 1950. You can read more about this here:

http://www.roswellproof.com/UFO_CalNev_1950.html

Kingman, Arizona, photo by Kevin Randle

Our discussion showed how an investigation can be conducted from home using the incredible resources of the Internet. An investigation in the past might have required trips to libraries and towns and the searches of newspaper morgues. Today, many of those resources are available online.

Let me say here that on site investigations can result in a better understanding of the event and sometimes reveal a solution that no amount of online research can provide. But a great deal can be learned on line.

I will note here the importance of this particular research. As mentioned, it was Mellon who started this latest research with the email that suggested the May 1953 Kingman crash was something real. But the evidence (including research I had conducted years ago) does not hold up. Stansel, who originated the tale is not the credible source he has been made out to be. If Mellon and his pals were truly on the inside, you would expect them to know this. Apparently, they do not.

Read the Kingman UFO Conundrum, linked above for a good overview. There will be more to follow on this story and how it affects the latest UFO, or should I say UAP, fad. 

Dr. Jon T. Kosloski Takes Over AARO and It's More of the Same

On Monday, August 25, the Pentagon announced that Dr. Jon T. Kosloski would be taking over the job abandoned by Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick several months ago. Kosloski comes to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, commonly called AARO from the National Security Agency.

Official government portrait of 
Dr. Jon Kosloski

We are told that he held several technical and leadership positions in the NSA’s Research Directorate and that he has extensive experience working in multiple scientific fields, including quantum optics and crypto-mathematics. He was described as NSA’s subject matter expert in free space optics and that he invented an advanced language-agnostic search engine.

While we are told, according to the press release, that he possesses the unique set of scientific and technical skills, policy knowledge and proven leadership, I note there is nothing in his background that suggests he knows anything about the history of UFO research or in the thousands of credible sightings that have been reported.

His background is impressive but I see this as similar to selecting a person skilled in esoteric anthropological research to run a program designed to create the next generation of fighter aircraft. That person might be a highly skilled, high trained anthropologist but that doesn’t mean this is a person who has the background to create a military aircraft. It seems the listing of Kosloski’s impressive background as an appeal to authority. This man has studied quantum optics and crypto-mathematics so you can believe that he knows what he is talking about.

In the past, we have been treated with military officers and scientists who tell us there is nothing to flying saucers, UFOs and now UAPs. The March report written by Kirkpatrick told us there was no evidence of off-world technology flashing through our skies, but did we really expect anything else.  There is nothing new in that report. It was what I expected and I’m sure that most of us who have been around the world of the UFO from more than a week or two expected exactly what was reported. I have discussed this sort of thing in the past and you can read it here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2024/01/kirkpatrick-aaro-project-mogul-and-moore.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2023/08/dr-sean-kirkpatrick-responds-to-david.html

I can point to half a dozen of other reports, authoritative studies that told us the same thing but the trouble is they were riddled with errors, mistakes and no real understanding of the history of the UFO phenomenon. There include the Air Force Project Grudge report, the 1953 CIA-sponsored Robertson Panel that advocated a strategy to convince people that there was no mystery and the alleged scientific study of UFOs that had the conclusions written before any investigation began. You can read more about that here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2019/01/moon-dust-robert-hippler-and-project.html

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

And if you are interested in a long read that provides the evidence for this, you can find it here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2024/03/the-latest-from-arro-more-of-same.html

Seems like we are now going down the same road again. We are told that this is a serious subject, investigations are proposed and eventually it devolves into what we have seen for decades. If there was nothing to this as Sean Kirkpatrick seemed to suggest (other than a threat to aerial navigation by terrestrial based problems such as drones), why hasn’t this been discovered by now.

If we could find an official study that wasn’t driven by an agenda of cover up and lies, that would be one thing, but every time the government gets involved in UFO research, the outcome is the same. And when the documentation is located and becomes available, we can verify that the fix was in. And now, we see it all happening again. 

Imminent and the Council Bluffs UFO Incident

 

Given what we have learned from Imminent, Lue Elizondo’s UFO book, which, of course, he refers to as his UAP book, there are some developing issues. He comes at the UAP phenomenon from the point of an insider. He is someone who has supposedly had access to those hidden files and investigations that those of us on the outside don’t have. But you have to wonder what those files were and what information did he have because there seems to be problems with what he has written about some of the well-known cases and some that have not received widespread publicity.

As just a single example is a case of recovered debris that might be remnants of some sort of off-world craft. He wrote:

In 1977, on a night close to Christmas, unusual lights were spotted in the skies over Council Bluffs, Iowa. When witnesses ran to where these lights neared the ground, they found not an aircraft but what looked like a small pool of molten metal. Had the craft melted when it hit earth? Had it melted in the air and oozed to the ground? Vallée had obtained materials recovered from this incident. He suspected the multicolored lights seen in the sky by witnesses came from a wobbling craft in distress. When no craft was actually found on the ground, it begged the question: Was the pool of molten metal some sort of by-product of the craft? After some sightings, researchers had recovered a fine metallic fiber on the ground. They called it “angel hair.” I have handled some of this material. It’s a little like steel wool. The working theory is that the exteriors of these aircraft are ablative in nature; that is to say, they are capable of self-sacrificing. When the skin of the craft interacts with the propulsion unit, the craft ablates, or peels off, some of its outer surface, resulting in these fibers. Back in 1977, the Council Bluffs case had undergone an unusually rigorous amount of investigation by local and federal authorities. It was a blue-chip legacy case.

But, like so much of the book, we don’t get many facts about the case. We don’t get names and in fact, we don’t get a date. I don’t know why that is left out. A simple Google search tells us the event happened on December 17, 1977, which is, of course, a “night close to Christmas.”

Here is the rest of the story, as the late Paul Harvey used to say. At 7:45 p.m., three people saw what they said was a red object at about 500 to 600 feet above the ground, falling straight down. They lost sight of it when it disappeared behind the trees in the Big Lake State Park in Council Bluffs, Iowa. That was followed by a flash of bluish-white light and what they said were two arms of fire shooting into the air. They believed that something had hit the ground.

Article from the Cedar Rapids
Gazette, December 17, 1977

They drove to the park to investigate and saw a glowing, orange blob with a bluish crystalline substance in its center. It had impacted on a dike that was about sixteen feet from the road. They said it looked like lava running down the dike and it seemed to be cooling. They said it too hot to touch.

They were not alone. A young couple saw what they called a big round thing that seemed to be hovering. They drove to the park and then called the fire department when the saw the glowing blob.

A third couple reported a bright red object falling to the ground at Big Lake. It is interesting that some of the witnesses reported that it was falling, suggesting something out of control.

Fifteen minutes after they had called the fire department, or about 8:00 p.m., Assistance Fire Chief Jack Moore arrived. The molten metal was still glowing and had spread out into a six by four-foot area. It was about three or four inches thick and said by some to have weighed a thousand pounds. Moore described it as “some kind of metal,” and said “you can’t break it and you can’t bend it.” That, of course, suggests that it had cooled enough so that they could now touch it.

Moore called the police and then Eppley Airfield and Offutt Air Force Base. There were no missing aircraft and though the Air Force knew nothing about what had fallen, they denied that there had been an aircraft accident. Moore said that the Air Force officers were not interested in what he was telling them.

Samples of the metal were collected. There was nothing exotic about the metal. It was high carbon steel that wasn’t at all uncommon. It was used in manufacturing. Two foundries in Council Bluffs could have produced the metal, though there is no evidence to suggest that either of them was the source of the material.

There is one other aspect to the story that might be significant. Four teenagers, in what was called a small, foreign car, arrived just after the first group got there. They asked the other witnesses if they had seen the thing fall out of the sky. The teens then drove off.

There was a scientific paper about the case published years later and that is available online. It provides additional information, including the names of some of the witnesses and an in-depth report on the analysis of the metal, including a photograph of two samples. You can access it here:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0376042121000907 Manuscript_0d3637b7965056e1f5526820849aa561

I suppose the real point here is that Elizondo presented nothing new about this case. In fact, just typing Council Bluffs UFO into a search engine provided a wealth of information, including the scientific paper that resulted from the analysis of the metal.

I’ll have more to say about Elizondo’s book and I am preparing a longer and more comprehensive review of the material found there. I’ll post that as soon as I can.

(Blogger’s note: In a world in which plagiarism is claimed even with the most innocuous failures to properly footnotes, I did read an article written by Dr. Richard Warner who serves on the board of directions of the Historical and Preservation Society of Pottawattamie County, Council Bluffs being in Pottawattamie County. I also used various newspaper reports and the scientific paper mentioned above.)

Kingman, Skeptics and UAP

 

Back on August 14, I had a chat with Robert Sheaffer, a reasonable skeptic. I have always thought that we need to know how the other side thinks if for no other reason than to prepare rational and intelligent counterarguments. We had a good conversation about a variety of topics, but concentrated on the information that has come out in the last few years. I was interested in his take on the Tic-Tac videos and if the skeptical community had an alternative to the suggestion of off-world craft preforming exotic and impossible maneuvers. He provided some interesting commentary on those videos.

Robert Sheaffer

For those who have been paying attention, I did interview Kevin Day, one of the sailors on one of the ships involved in the sightings from the USS Nimitz task group that sparked the renewed interest in UFOs. While Sheaffer provided a suggestion that involved electronic glitches, Day suggested that along with the sensor detections, there were visual sightings as well. You can review the Kevin Day interviews, both audio and visual here:

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

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

Toward the end of the interview, I did ask Robert what he wanted in the way of evidence that would suggest alien visitation. His answer surprised me. You and listen to the audio and watch the video here:

https://rumble.com/v5b6gx6-a-different-perspective-with-kevin-randle-interviews-robert-sheaffer-uap-an.html

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/a-different-perspective-with-kevin-randle-interviews-robert-sheaffer-uap-and-disclosure--61052753

The following week, based on the sudden interest in the Kingman, Arizona crash, I flew solo, which means there was no guest. I had reached out to several people about coming on the show but only heard back for David Rudiak. He was continuing his search for additional information and asked for a delay of a week or two. He’ll be coming up soon with some additional insight into the Kingman crash.

David Rudiak

I also reached out to proponents of the crash who have, in the past, been ready to tell their side of the story. Neither Harry Drew nor Preston Dennett bothered to respond to my invitations. I have seen Dennett talking about the Kingman crash on other venues and have read the relevant parts of his book that contains information on Kingman. There are many problems with his analysis.

I was also concerned because the Mohave Museum of History and Arts in Kingman, was reported to have documents relating to the crash. But given some of the research I was able to conduct from my armchair, I don’t believe they have anything from an official source. I do know that they have a copy of Ray Fowler’s report on the crash, though I don’t know if the have the whole file. I suspect they do, and we know that part of that file contains the information about Arthur Stansel’s claims of astral projection and interaction with alien beings. Other documents shown were a collection of newspaper articles, which is documentation, but not necessarily accurate information. You can read about that here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2024/08/the-kingman-ufo-crash-connumdrum.html

Of course, the Kingman crash was the topic of my solo show. You can listen to the audio and watch the video here:

https://rumble.com/v5bvewk-a-different-perspective-with-kevin-randle-interview-the-kingman-ufo-crash-a.html

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/a-different-perspective-with-kevin-randle-the-kingman-ufo-crash-a-controversial-claim--61108883

The research into the Kingman crash has become important because it has been claimed to have happened and I believe it is one of David Grusch’s twelve UFO crashes. I did speculation on the list of possible crashes to which he referred and you can read that here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2024/04/david-grusch-and-his-ufo-crashes.html

Granted my list is speculation but I believe, based on other research, it is fairly accurate. As I have said, I believe that Grusch is accurately repeating what he has heard which, of course, doesn’t mean the events he heard about happened. The lone exception is the Roswell case (though if Shag Harbour made the list, that would be a second).

There will be more to come on this topic. I have been reading Lue Elizondo’s book, Imminent, and will report on it later. My first impression is that it doesn’t advance our knowledge of UFOs, or as he calls them throughout, UAP. But that is a discussion for another time.

 

Strange Creature Videoed in West Virginia

I often come across reports that I find interesting, many of them from UFO researchers I respect, but do not have the time to investigate as thoroughly as I would like. Such is the following.

Stan Gordon reported on his website, “Stan Gordon’s UFO Anomalies Zone” that he had received an email from a family in West Virginia, telling of a strange encounter a few weeks earlier, on July 31. According to that, the witness, a minor, reported, in great detail, that he had seen two short, odd looking, “snowy white” humanoid beings. The child said that other children were there as well and all watched the “snowy white” beings running around in the distance.

Ron Lanham of the “Wild & Weird West Virginia” research group investigated the incident. Lanham provided a little more detail about the humanoids. The witnesses said that they looked like skeleton babies. There is a video of the creatures available on Stan Gordon’s website and additional information about the research conducted by Lanham. He interviewed the witnesses. And he provides precise details on the investigation of that video.

You can find this on Gordon’s website. The title there is “Was a Small Mysterious Humanoid Creature Photographed in West Virginia.” The precise address is: https://www.stangordon.info/wp/2024/08/19/was-a-small-mysterious-humanoid-creature-photographed-in-west-virginia-july-31-2024/

As I say, I have not investigated the case and am relying on both Gordon and Lanham. But there is video and Lanham provides an analysis of it. Any thoughts on what was videoed would be appreciated. 

The Kingman UFO Crash Connumdrum

 

Two years before Jesse Marcel, Sr. told Stan Friedman and Len Stringfield about the UFO crash in the Roswell region, Ray Fowler published the article, What about Crashed UFOs? in Official UFO magazine. Although he touched on a couple of stories, the thrust of the article was told by “Fritz Weaver,” a pseudonym for a man later identified as Arthur Stansel.

Stansel told of a crash of a large, disc-shaped object near Kingman, Arizona. He was part of a large team of specialists brought in to examine the wreck and the body of one alien creature. Although his specific task was to determine speed and trajectory of the object, he did have the opportunity to glimpse the alien pilot and the interior of the craft. This was on May 21, 1953, according to his calendar and for more than twenty years, he kept the secret.

In February 1973, Stansel told two teenagers who were interested in UFOs about his adventure in Arizona. It wasn’t long before Ray Fowler, a respected UFO researcher, learned about this sighting and went to interview Stansel, who not only added a few new details, but produced his calendar from 1953 and signed a statement attesting to the validity of his tale. Of course, that statement was not witnessed by a notary, only by Fowler, and had no legal status as an affidavit.

I had investigated the Kingman crash long ago and was unimpressed with it for several reasons. Originally, there was only Arthur Stansel as the witness, no real documentation for the crash, and a suggestion that Stansel, after he had been drinking, told wild stories. There was a point when a second witness was discovered, but her credibility was not very good and her daughter said that her mother was a liar. You can read about some of that here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2010/05/kingman-ufo-crash.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2021/03/kingman-rises-from-dead.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2011/05/kingman-ufo-crash-really.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2010/06/kingman-ufo-crash-revisited.html

This latest flap began when Christopher Mellon, who had been a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence released a redacted email exchange he had with a person Mellon called a senior U.S. government member. We were not provided with a name. That meant, of course, that we could not verify that this source existed or if he had any inside knowledge about the Kingman UFO crash. That email, with the critical information redacted and with little in the way of useful information is seen here:

 

The Mellon email that tells us nothing of value but
does mention the recovered UAP from Kingman.

Over the course of the years, we have been treated to many accounts of the case, that began with Fowler’s article filled with direct quotes from Stansel. I do have a copy of the complete report that Fowler filed with NICAP about his rather comprehensive investigation. That includes a transcript of Jeff Young’s initial interview with Stansel that ignited Fowler’s interview and report.

I’m not going to recapitulate that story because it has been told several times. I used it in Crash: When UFOs Fall From the Sky, though my assessment of the case was critical of the data. But this latest flap (which, BTW, I think will impact on David Grusch’s UFO testimony, but that’s something for another time), inspired me to revisit Kingman. I found information from Fowler, in which he verified Stansel’s rather impressive credentials and resume. There were some problems, which centered around his claim that he had been a consultant for Project Blue Book. He originally suggested a rather long-term association, but later told Fowler that it was short-lived. Stansel suggested it lasted only a few days and was based on his examination of the crashed off-world craft.

There is one important interview that seems to have been left out of this whole tale. In a section of Fowler’s report entitled A Man Who Made Contact, we learn some disturbing things about Arthur Stansel. Fowler wrote, “On the next following pages I will explain the fascinating tales of Mr. Arthur Stansel’s flying saucer contacts.”

That part of the interview, conducted by Jeff Young and witnessed by Paul Chetham, began with the question, “Did you say that you had contacted beings from other planets?”

His astonishing answer was, “Yes, but now we’re getting into things where you’ll just have to take my word for it because I can’t produce it or prove it.”

After a short discussion about a group who met regularly met to explore the contacts with other worlds, and who Stansel said, “We were involved in the usage of seances, we weren’t out to contact relatives, but we were out to contact other things,” the questioning continued:

Q: Do you think that it’s possible for a person to convey himself to any place on or of Earth by just using his brain power?

A: Yes. I’m convinced that’s true. I know that can happen because I’ve done it…

Q: Did you gradually or all of a sudden receive contact with these extraterrestrials?

A: We did this on many, many occasions after about a year meeting once a week. We would contact beings, but we never really knew what we were going to contact that particular Sunday night. On many, many occasions we contacted beings from planets other than Earth.

Q: Were these the same beings or were these different beings each meeting.

A: Sometimes they were the same, but generally they were different.

Q: Could you see them or visualize them?

A: Onetime we had an experiment, which took place for about three weeks, in which we learned astral projection, in which you project yourself to the point where the contact is…

 

Q: That’s using your mind to convey yourself?

A: Right, using your mind.

Q: You actually conveyed yourself to some beings?

A: Yes, I did. As a matter I was the only one who was able to go to that particular space craft which was many light years away.

Q: You were on the craft?

A: I was actually on it.

The questioning then turned to what he could see and how he interacted with the beings on that craft, saying that it was some sort of prison ship. The beings had been on it for a thousand years and had no control over it.

Q: Did you [Stansel] have a physical feeling of being on the ship?

A: Yes, very much so. It’s just like I was sitting here.

Q: Would you describe the inside of the ship?

A: Well, the furniture was different than ours in the fact that it had no legs. It was as if it were suspended in the air, but I remember checking for wires holding them up…

 

Q: What were the colors in the room?

A: It was basically red and it seemed to be generated by everything in the room. I saw no light bulbs, but the room was dimly illuminated….

Q: Were they short beings?

A: They were various heights. They were short and tall, but I don’t remember seeing any fat beings.

Q: Were they uniformed or did they wear different types of clothes?

A: They were uniformed in a way, but they were in different colors.

Q: Do you think that could have signified a rank?

A: That could be and another interesting thing is that the dress of the people was no different between a man and a woman and there were males and females.

Q: Were the males in short hair and the females in long hair?

A: No, you couldn’t tell by that. You could just tell by a woman’s bodily characteristics and facial features.

They discuss some emblems that were attached where we would have put shirt pockets. Stansel said that one was in the shape of a leaf and was red against a sort of blue glistening jerkin. There was another which was just a round shape, probably three inches in diameter and it too was glistening.

With that line of questioning finished, the discussion went in another direction. Young wondered if the prisoners had met people from other planets:

A: Yes, they had talked with many, but I was the first one actually projected. They got pretty excited over my arrival, for they felt I was the savoir who could get them back to their home planet or make communication with home base.

Q: Could you have projected yourself back to their home world”

A: I tried but I couldn’t. I think they were beyond range.

They moved the discussion to the nature of the ship, meaning that it was some sort of prison. Stansel mentioned these alien beings were complaining about their incarceration. He then said:

They were complaining about being prisoners because they had so much to offer their own civilization, but they had no way to get back to their civilization except through some intermediary and they thought I could be that intermediary. They had been conducting experiments, but they had been about a thousand years on the ship, so that there had been many generations of these people…

Other things that came out of this interview. He was told that there were thousands of worlds “of intelligent occupation.” That line of questioning ended at that point.

There was more of this sort of thing but then Stansel mentioned that of all these alien worlds, there were none that were interested in Earth. Earth is too overcrowded. Stansel said that they had contact many ships but the beings weren’t interested in Earth.

Then, falling into what would become the David Jacobs theory or hybrid humans, Stansel said, “In fact, there’s more than one extraterrestrial planet that have implanted people here, but generally people don’t know it… they just become part of our civilization.”

There was more of this sort of thing that reads like poor science fiction. At one-point Stansel talked of switches and buttons on the ship but I think of our touch screens that eliminate buttons and switches.

There were other disturbing things in the interview. Stansel, at one point seemed to suggest that he had been a consultant to Project Blue Book for a long time, but there is no record of it. He claimed to have seen a UFO during one of the Atomic Tests, but later claimed he had only heard about it from others.

Stansel did say that when he was interviewed by Young and Chetham, he had been drinking. He’d had four martinis but when Fowler asked the boys about that, they said Stansel had not been drinking. So, was Stansel drinking too much and offered it as an excuse for the discrepancies between the interviews conducted by Young and Fowler. Was the alleged drinking an excuse for telling conflicting tales? Was the drinking the motivation in creating a tale of extraterrestrial contact?

Here’s where we are on this. Stansel is the only man who was involved with the crash in Kingman that had forty or more expert consultants to speak about this. He suggested those on the bus were not allowed to talk during the four-hour trip from Phoenix to the Kingman area, but when they arrived, they were called by name as they were assigned specific jobs. Everything was carefully orchestrated but Stansel managed to see the dead alien pilot and caught a glimpse into the ship. Again, poor security.

There are many reasons that I simply don’t buy this tale and the later interview with astral projection, visits to alien spaceships in flight and all that other nonsense argues that Stansel was adept at spinning tales even he had only had a beer or two and not several martinis.

What this means today, is that the leaked email from Christopher Mellon is irrelevant. There may well have been an email exchange but it is, essentially worthless. Mellon and his unidentified correspondent may well have exchanged the emails about Kingman but that doesn’t prove there is any substance to the report.

There is another element to this and that’s David Grush’s claim of twelve craft in government hands. He may well have talked with Mellon, or someone else who believes the Kingman tale, but without evidence, it is just, dare I say it, a conspiracy theory. And that also suggests that some of Grush’s claims are false, if this is one of the stories. Doesn’t mean that Grusch invented any of the tales, but he has heard them from people he believes are telling him the truth.

Finally, Len Stringfield added some commentary to the Kingman case in his 1978 MUFON Symposium paper on crash/retrievals, and later in his status reports. He suggests the possibility of additional witnesses, but he failed to supply names of any of those witnesses. I am following up on this and will report on it later.

For those interested, I have reached out to a couple of other people who might be able to shed some light on this, including some in the Kingman area. To this point I have not heard back, but will update my analysis as it is warranted by additional information.

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.