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| Ray Stanford |
Ray
Stanford, died over the weekend. He was born in 1938 and had a nearly lifelong
passion researching UFOs. But he also had an interest in many topics, some
firmly in the realm of the paranormal and others embedded in the science of
paleontology. Riley Black, writing in Smithsonian magazine noted:
Amateur ichnologist Ray Stanford has
a knack for finding dinosaur tracks and traces in the Baltimore, Maryland and
Washington, D.C. area. Among his recent finds are an
impression of a baby ankylosaur–on display at the Smithsonian National
Museum of Natural History–and a track made by an adult of a similar
dinosaur on
the grounds of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
As our paleontology curator Matthew Carrano says in the video above, Stanford’s
talent for tracking dinosaurs has helped fill out our understanding of east
coast dinosaurs in deposits where bones are scarce.
If
you’re interested in Stanford’s work in paleontology, you can access his paper
here:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/23020141?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
There
are other stories about his paleontology work that provides credibility for his
work in that field. In feature in the Washington Post, on April 19, 2012, Brian
Vestag wrote about their experiences in searching for dinosaur evidence. I
searched the story for a quote but there were so many. I finally settled on
this because of the name of world renown paleontologists who seen Ray’s
collection of dinosaur fossils known as the Stanford Museum. Robert Bakker said,
“My jaw stayed dropped for an hour. You can read the full article here:
He
wrote a variety of books on UFOs, including an early work about George Adamski
and some of those in the Contactee movement. Asked about it later, he said that
was much younger then.
He
also wrote Fatima Prophecy, What Your Aura Tells Me and other
books in a similar vein but his passion was UFOs. He was on the scene quickly
when the story of Lonnie Zamora’s landed egg-shaped craft had landed in
Socorro, New Mexico, broke. That culminated in Socorro ‘Saucer’ in a
Pentagon Pantry, which was the first book about that historic case. For
many years later he would joking say that he wrote the book on the case.
The
book wasn’t without controversy and Dick Hall, a respected UFO historian,
suggested that there were some exaggerations in the Ray’s book. Stanford and
his followers argued that it was the nature of the story rather than the
research that went into it. Ray and Hall argued about it in the pages of The
MUFON Journal. I think the support was about evenly spread between those
accepting Ray’s point of view and those who preferred Hall’s. That’s the very
definition of controversial and seem to be where Ray lived in the UFO field.
One
of those controversies surrounded a picture that Ray took some months after the
Socorro landing. He hadn’t noticed an egg-shaped object until the picture was
developed. Although it would be interesting proof for the Socorro case, he kept
it hidden. The man who has it has said that with Ray gone, it’s time to release
the picture. He also noted that there had been some interesting research of the
picture that leaned more to authentic than hoax.
He
was the director of Project Starlight International, which employed a broad
array of scientific instruments for recording the passing of UFOs. He was also
the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Instrumented UFO Research. Over the years he founded and participated
in several organizations that studied UFOs, hoping to find that one bit of
evidence that would eventually silence his critics.
If nothing else, it can be said that he polarized
what he touched and created an interesting, if sometimes irrelevant controversy
throughout his career. It will be interesting to see if the photographs that he
kept hidden will now be produced. That would certainly change the course of the
dialogue… if the pictures are as advertised.
Ray Stanford was 87 when he passed.
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34 comments:
sad news indeed. I'm curious to ask for your opinion about the legendary fragments recovered by Ray in 1964 at Socorro, lost after Ray sent them to government labs for analysis. In november 2023 at Sol's foundation meeting Garry Nolan talked about fragments recovered at Socorro and analyzed by his lab (you can check at youtube official page). The same samples?
As a young man (mid-20s), I was on the staff of the Austin-based organization (the Association for the Understanding of Man) that was created to promote Ray Stanford's projects, for three and one-half years (late 1974-early 1978). This was at the height of Stanford's "career" as an ostensible psychic "channel" for various entities, including extraterrestrials. I was also a member of the core group of Stanford's "Project Starlight International" (P.S.I.) research group during that period, and an editor of its short-lived journal. Since that era, I have intermittently monitored and retained Stanford's public claims, podcast appearances, etc. From 2019 through 2024, I published a series of in-depth examinations of various claims made by Stanford dealing with UFOs and/or alien contacts, as well as his 1960s-70s project to build a time machine, and other endeavors. All of those articles are now accessible through a single gateway page here:
https://douglasjohnson.ghost.io/the-ray-stanford-ufo-alien-legacy/
My overall assessments of Ray Stanford's contributions to matters pertaining to UFOs and purported alien visitation are mostly negative. I have written that I am personally not aware of anyone who could approach Stanford's lifetime total of promoting unsubstantiated and/or definitively discredited claims to personally obtained UFO-alien evidences, especially photographic-evidence claims. However, there is rather little in my articles that I ask the reader to simply take my word for. My articles are heavily embedded with PDFs of original publications and documents, video clips, audio recordings of lectures and trance-discourses by Ray Stanford, and other primary documentation.
Here is one single example: In recent years, Ray Stanford claimed that as a UFO hovered in the distance on December 10, 1975, he received direct permission from the Air Force to shoot his laser at it, did so, and obtained a photograph of the laser striking the UFO. I was there during that 1975 incident, operating a camera only yards from Ray Stanford during the entire event. The bright object in the distance was probably a small plane carrying a bright light; at best, the event was mildly interesting. Importantly, materials circulated by Stanford himself not long afterwards DENIED hitting the object with our little science-lab laser. The claim regarding Air Force permission was sheer fiction, inserted into the tale years later. I documented the entire history of this morphing Ray Stanford tale-- including documentation from 1975-76-- in Section 6 of this article:
https://douglasjohnson.ghost.io/beam-ship-or-bullshit/
(2 of 2) In one of my articles, I did a deep dive on the mythology Stanford built up around Project Starlight International. P.S.I. was real, but the reality was far less impressive than the mythology fabricated by Stanford over a period of decades. In my article, I included an 11-page letter from Daniel H. Harris, Ph.D. (astronomy), who was Research Director of P.S.I. in 1977-78. Dr. Harris wrote, "It has come to my attention that over a period of decades, Mr. Stanford has referred to me...in such a manner as to leave the listener or reader with the false impression that I [Dr. Harris] have validated or otherwise endorsed the quite varied extreme claims and representations made by Mr. Stanford...The impression that Mr. Stanford apparently seeks to convey is misleading, because in all instances that have come to my attention, I would in fact challenge Mr. Stanford's UFO-related claims." He proceeded to provide many details.
https://douglasjohnson.ghost.io/the-research-director-of-project-starlight-speaks-out-about-his-long-ago-association-with-ray-stanford-and-what-he-thinks-about-stanfords-ufo-evidence-claims/
I did copy-editing (not content control) on Stanford's 1976 book "Socorro 'Saucer' in a Pentagon Pantry." (Stanford thanked me in the acknowledgments). You wrote, "Dick Hall, a respected UFO historian, suggested that there were some exaggerations in the Ray’s book." To say the least! Hall was a key player in events that Stanford purported to relate in the book; Stanford suggested that Hall was part of a government cover-up. Hall's critiques were very strong: "Stanford presents conspiracy theories based on his presupposition that he, in fact, had metallic traces of a UFO. NASA's failure to confirm this could only be explained by a cover-up." And, "There are numerous other gross distortions in the book, and some outright false statements." Having now often seen and documented Ray Stanford's proclivity for fabricating conversations and events, I give total credence to Hall's version.
As for that photo that Stanford took at Socorro, purported to show a distant egg-shaped craft, Stanford and acolytes talked about it incessantly for years. (Stanford described it as "a wonderful photograph in which...people will be able to see, in broad daylight...the Socorro object, with its landing gear deployed.") But Stanford himself repudiated that particular claim in a live call-in to Martin Willis's podcast on November 15, 2020. Stanford said that he had finally located the original negative, and that it had not been cleaned properly. "So, we can forget that," Stanford concluded. Anyone can listen to Stanford's repudiation at the link below.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cejH86D2Tc31IV8u6ph8yQDuIc8wWU0c/view?usp=sharing
You are quite are correct to note that Ray Stanford did indeed make very significant paleontological discoveries in Maryland over the past several decades. Those discoveries were checked "from the ground up," you might say, and validated by people with technical expertise. Nothing was accepted simply because Stanford said so. Regrettably, that is quite different from the credulous approach of some UFO-friendly scientists, who have been willing to unskeptically accept unsubstantiated images from a lifelong fabulist, and publicly extrapolate on the basis of such untrustworthy data.
Douglas Dean Johnson
(part 1 in serial reply) I am glad you asked about that. I know of four stories dealing with purported laboratory analyses of metallic samples purportedly linked to the 1964 Socorro incident. The four stories are completely inconsistent with each other.
In late 1964, Ray Stanford, in concert with Richard Hall and Walter Webb, took to the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, a rock that he believed contained bits of metal scraped off one of the craft's landing-gear pads. ("tiny pin-points of shiny metal of unknown type, clinging to the stone's surface in a very limited area. . .") NICAP subsequently published the Goddard analysis, dated Sept. 11, 1964, which found the specks in question to "be Silica (Sl02) and other complex silicate minerals..."
Twelve years later, Stanford self-published his book "Socorro 'Saucer' in a Pentagon Pantry" (1976), in which he claimed that NASA scientist Frankel had called him (2/5) In the book, Stanford claimed that Goddard metallurgist Dr. Henry Frankel called him on August 5, 1964, and said, "The particles are comprised of a material that could not occur naturally. Specifically, it consists predominantly of two metallic elements, zinc and iron, with minute traces of other elements. . . Our charts of all alloys known to be manufactured on Earth, the U.S.S.R. included, do not show any alloy of the specific combination or ratio of the two main elements involved here. . . I am virtually certain that the alloy involved here is not manufactured anywhere on Earth."
Richard Hall sharply disputed Stanford's version of events, which I also consider to bear the hallmarks of Stanford's oft-demonstrated proclivity for engaging in uninhibited and sometimes unhinged embellishments of prosaic events. Space writer James Oberg told me in a 1979 letter, "On seeing Stanford's [1976] book, Frankel's wife advised him to sue [Stanford], but he just wants to forget the whole thing."
So that's two versions so far: Goddard says the specks were silica, but Stanford claimed he had earlier been told that it was an unknown zinc-iron alloy.
A third Socorro-metal story is found in Jacques Vallee's "Forbidden Science 5" (2023). In a journal entry dated May 3, 2003 (page 185), Vallee claimed that ex-CIA doctor Kit Green said that "'the [Ray Stanford] sample showed up at CIA sometime in 1982. They were analyzed at LANL where we had a metallugical services contract.' The results: 'not any aluminum-titanium alloy we ever saw from this earth (?).' When Kit found himself the executive director of materials research at GM in 1992, he had the samples re-examined: 'The main constituents were definitely titanium and aluminum.'"
When this "Forbidden Science" entry came to my attention in May 2024, it puzzled me in several respects. Even supposing tiny specks of Ray Stanford material reached the CIA and Kit Green, how does either zinc-iron or silica become titanium and aluminum? So I queried Kit Green about it. After considerable off-the-record discussion, he gave me this response on-the-record (on May 22, 2024): "I have personally no knowledge of any metallic samples said to have been taken from the site of the April 1964 Socorro UFO event and tested at Goddard in 1964, were also tested at the CIA or any other government laboratory. There were also no such tests ever done under my auspices, at any other private or corporate laboratory. Put another way: I have no knowledge of, or have I ever had involvement with, any tests of metallic samples associated with the 1964 Socorro UFO event. -- Christopher Green MD PhD FAAFS"
(part 2 of serial reply) A third Socorro-metal story is found in Jacques Vallee's "Forbidden Science 5" (2023). In a journal entry dated May 3, 2003 (page 185), Vallee claimed that ex-CIA doctor Kit Green said that "'the [Ray Stanford] sample showed up at CIA sometime in 1982. They were analyzed at LANL where we had a metallugical services contract.' The results: 'not any aluminum-titanium alloy we ever saw from this earth (?).' When Kit found himself the executive director of materials research at GM in 1992, he had the samples re-examined: 'The main constituents were definitely titanium and aluminum.'"
When this "Forbidden Science" entry came to my attention in May 2024, it puzzled me in several respects. Even supposing tiny specks of Ray Stanford material reached the CIA and Kit Green, how does either zinc-iron or silica become titanium and aluminum? So I queried Kit Green about it. After considerable off-the-record discussion, he gave me this response on-the-record (on May 22, 2024): "I have personally no knowledge of any metallic samples said to have been taken from the site of the April 1964 Socorro UFO event and tested at Goddard in 1964, were also tested at the CIA or any other government laboratory. There were also no such tests ever done under my auspices, at any other private or corporate laboratory. Put another way: I have no knowledge of, or have I ever had involvement with, any tests of metallic samples associated with the 1964 Socorro UFO event. -- Christopher Green MD PhD FAAFS"
This brings us to the Garry Nolan presentation at the November 2023 Sol Foundation event--the focus of your question. In a short portion of a long slideshow, Nolan made remarks about a Socorro-associated sample that he attributed to Jacques Vallee. Basically, Nolan said electron microscopy showed the sample to consist of extraordinarily pure aluminum in one location, and zinc with contaminants in an adjacent location. He displayed graphics showing the distribution of the aluminum atoms (in blue) and the zinc atoms (in green). Nolan said the sample shows "clear sign of engineering. I mean, the interface between those things is exact, down to the atom."
A remarkable claim. Yet as far as I know, Nolan has published no paper giving details on the provenance of his sample, nor of the laboratory analysis that he described in that cursory fashion. (Note that in the story Vallee told in his book spoke of an aluminum-titanium alloy, but Nolan spoke of pure aluminum.) Vallee has accepted and repeated the Ray Stanford stolen-metal claim in both "Forbidden Science 5" and "Trinity: The Best-Kept Secret," but in either book did he claim to have obtained any of the Stanford material, nor did Garry Nolan mention Ray Stanford in his 2023 presentation.
So, it is all a muddle of claims that range from questionable to credibly repudiated.
Douglas, thank you very much for this very interesting recap of a very intricate topic. All this point in a single , specific direction: guess who?
Douglas Dean Johnson wrote:
"As for that photo that Stanford took at Socorro, purported to show a distant egg-shaped craft, Stanford and acolytes talked about it incessantly for years. (Stanford described it as "a wonderful photograph in which...people will be able to see, in broad daylight...the Socorro object, with its landing gear deployed.") But Stanford himself repudiated that particular claim in a live call-in to Martin Willis's podcast on November 15, 2020. Stanford said that he had finally located the original negative, and that it had not been cleaned properly. "So, we can forget that," Stanford concluded. Anyone can listen to Stanford's repudiation at the link below.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cejH86D2Tc31IV8u6ph8yQDuIc8wWU0c/view?usp=sharing"
So what exactly is the problem here? You seem to be criticizing him for doing his due diligence.
When Stanford looked at his prints, thought they showed the Socorro craft and talked about it, I recall he said he wanted to be sure by looking at the negative first. Amidst his ~70 years of files, he wasn't sure where it was. When he finally found the negative and analyzed it, he decided there was nothing there. Then he made that conclusion public.
So he thought he had something (as many researchers in many disciplines do), double-checked, decided he was wrong, then corrected the public record. Sounds very professional to me.
(Ray Stanford dinosaur discoveries, part 1)
Douglas Dean Johnson wrote:
"You are quite are correct to note that Ray Stanford did indeed make very significant paleontological discoveries in Maryland over the past several decades. Those discoveries were checked "from the ground up," you might say, and validated by people with technical expertise. Nothing was accepted simply because Stanford said so. Regrettably, that is quite different from the credulous approach of some UFO-friendly scientists, who have been willing to unskeptically accept unsubstantiated images from a lifelong fabulist, and publicly extrapolate on the basis of such untrustworthy data."
I believe this is called damning with faint praise. Ray's dinosaur and Cretaceous mammal discoveries are recognized as being unique and of high importance, as the following articles make abundantly clear:
http://paleo.cc/NASA-slab/NASA-slab-GK-NCFC.htm
"Amateur paleontologist Ray has been collecting loose track slabs in streams in and around Washington, D.C. since 1992, amassing what may be the world's largest and most diverse collection of Lower Cretaceous tracks (approx. 115 million years old). While visiting Ray in 2000, I was amazed at the scores of tracks that he had already collected, representing several types of Mesozoic animals. These include footprints of various theropods (bipedal meat-eating dinosaurs), ornithopods (bipedal plant-eating dinosaurs), plus rare tracks (some never found before in the eastern US), of juvenile sauropods ("brontosaurs"), pterosaurs (flying reptiles), hypsilodontids, nodosaurs (tank-like dinosaurs such as Ankylosaurus, sporting heavy plates and spikes), and even early mammals. Ray seems to have a special eye for spotting small and rare specimens. He has found the smallest dinosaur tracks ever reported (only 9 mm; approx. 3/8 inch long), and while traveling in Texas, found the only known hatchling sauropod tracks (with rear prints only about 2 inches long-compared to adult tracks that are often over a yard long). Another juvenile sauropod track he and his wife found in four pieces over multiple trips to a MD creek, and many yards apart, but they fit together perfectly. Ray also discovered the only baby anylosaur ever found -a natural cast showing the head, arms, and ribs. This unique find was declared a new species: Propanoplosaurus marylandicus, and put on display at the Smithsonian, where Ray plans to donate his entire collection.
As fabulous as these finds were, none compare to his 2012 discovery of an approx. 8 x 3 ft track slab, which is being hailed as one of the most important fossil finds of all time.
...a cast of the slab was delivered to Ray's home for his study... he and Sheila [wife] began to spot more and more tracks and unusual features. Before long, they had recognized almost 70 tracks of at least eight different animals. These included baby nodosaur prints alongside the original large one, several small theropods trails taking very short steps (some with heel impressions), some bird-like tracks, pterosaur prints (wing, foot, and beak marks), three sizes and types of early mammal tracks (the most ever found on one surface--including the largest Cretaceous mammal track ever found), a sauropod front foot track, a possible crocodile track, plus a nodosaur scute, coprolites, and invertebrates (apparent insect larva). Many of these features appear to suggest interesting behaviors and interactions, such as a baby nodosaur walking with a parent, a group of theropods moving very slowly and in the same direction (possibly stalking the smaller mammals or avoiding the larger ones), and pterosaurs stabbing at insect larva, and hopping mammals.
(Stanford dinosaur discoveries, part 2)
In short, the find exhibits an almost unimaginable variety and density of tracks and behaviors on one relatively small slab, inspiring track expert Martin Lockley to call it the "Rosetta Stone of Cretaceous tracks." Ray himself calls it a virtual "time machine." The find has been featured in many news stories, and was described in the prestigious science journal Nature, with Ray and Lockley as lead authors.
Here's another article about Ray's Goddard find:
https://www.nasa.gov/general/dinosaur-age-meets-the-space-age-at-nasa-goddard/
The remarkable Goddard specimen, about 8 feet by 3 feet in size, is imprinted with nearly 70 tracks from eight species, including squirrel-sized mammals and tank-sized dinosaurs. Analysis suggests that all of the tracks were likely made within a few days of each other at a location that might have been the edge of a wetland, and could even capture the footprints of predator and prey.
“The concentration of mammal tracks on this site is orders of magnitude higher than any other site in the world,” said Martin Lockley, paleontologist with the University of Colorado, Denver, a co-author on the new paper. Lockley began studying footprints in the 1980s, and was one of the first to do so. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a slab this size, which is a couple of square meters, where you have over 70 footprints of so many different types. This is the mother lode of Cretaceous mammal tracks.”
The dinosaur tracks are impressive, but it is the collection of mammal tracks that make the slab significant. At least 26 mammal tracks have been identified on the slab since the 2012 discovery — making it one of two known sites in the world with such a concentration of prints. Furthermore, the slab also contains the largest mammal track ever discovered from the Cretaceous. It is about four inches square, or the size of a raccoon’s prints.
...“This could be the key to understanding some of the smaller finds from the area, so it brings everything together,” Lockley said. “This is the Cretaceous equivalent of the Rosetta stone.”
And this:
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/lessons-from-ray-stanford-a-self-taught-dinosaur-tracker-fossil-hunting-101-1868669
It's an astonishing assemblage. There are perfectly round dinosaur eggs and weird-looking blobs of fossilized poop; footprints of creatures that could crush a person; tracks of primitive mammals so well-preserved that they might have been made yesterday by a raccoon. Though Stanford doesn't have a college degree and has never taken a formal paleontology class, he is arguably the most successful fossil hunter in the Mid-Atlantic region. Thanks to his careful eye and dogged tracking, the number of dinosaur species known in Maryland has tripled.
(Stanford dinosaur discoveries, part 3)
...Lockley, now a friend of Stanford's who helped him analyze the tracks for a paper published in the journal Scientific Reports, compared the 2012 discovery to the Rosetta Stone.
"A generation ago, people thought that tracks were nothing," Lockley said when that discovery was announced in January. "They weren't interesting; they weren't the complete skeleton."
But thanks in part to self-taught seekers like Stanford, "there's been an absolutely huge renaissance," he said. "Maryland is a really good example. Here we have a place where prior to the 1990s there were no fossil footprints at all, and then a guy who is an amateur, who is observant, goes out and he's finding them in the middle of a high-security federal facility. ... This stuff is right at our feet, and we didn't even know it was there."
Not a bad scientific legacy for someone who is nothing but a “fabulist”.
(Part 1)
Douglas Dean Johnson wrote:
...I know of four stories dealing with purported laboratory analyses of metallic samples purportedly linked to the 1964 Socorro incident. The four stories are completely inconsistent with each other….
In a later series of posts, I’ll try to deal in detail with the actual Stanford claims about what happened to his 1964 Socorro metallic sample. But here I’ll deal with DDJ’s other “purported” metallic samples “purportedly” linked to the 1964 case, and which DDJ writes are “completely inconsistent with each other.”
As DDJ presents his case, note he also presents ZERO evidence that these purported samples actually originated with the 1964 Socorro case or that Stanford had anything to do with them. Hence, “purported”, Therefore, whether the stories are “completely inconsistent” is also completely irrelevant to Ray Stanford’s original claims about 1964 Socorro or his credibility.
A third Socorro-metal story is found in Jacques Vallee's "Forbidden Science 5" (2023). In a journal entry dated May 3, 2003 (page 185), Vallee claimed that ex-CIA doctor Kit Green said that "'the [Ray Stanford] sample...
Did it really say “the [Ray Stanford]” sample or suggest that it was, or did DDJ just insert “[Ray Stanford]” in brackets on his own and just assume it was the Stanford Socorro sample? (Sorry, but I don’t have Vallee’s book to check.) In any event, the story is Vallee’s, not Stanford’s, so what does Stanford have to do with this? Stanford also maintained in his book he never got any of his sample back from NASA.
...showed up at CIA sometime in 1982. They were analyzed at LANL where we had a metallugical services contract.' The results: 'not any aluminum-titanium alloy we ever saw from this earth (?).' When Kit found himself the executive director of materials research at GM in 1992, he had the samples re-examined: 'The main constituents were definitely titanium and aluminum.'"
When this "Forbidden Science" entry came to my attention in May 2024, it puzzled me in several respects. Even supposing tiny specks of Ray Stanford material reached the CIA and Kit Green, how does either zinc-iron or silica become titanium and aluminum? So I queried Kit Green about it…
In brief, Green denied everything. It’s a story from Vallee about Green, that Green denies. Again, what does Stanford have to do with any of this?
Part 2:
DDJ continues:
This brings us to the Garry Nolan presentation at the November 2023 Sol Foundation event--the focus of your question. In a short portion of a long slideshow, Nolan made remarks about a Socorro-associated sample that he attributed to Jacques Vallee…
Vallee has accepted and repeated the Ray Stanford stolen-metal claim in both "Forbidden Science 5" and "Trinity: The Best-Kept Secret," but in [n]either book did he claim to have obtained any of the Stanford material, nor did Garry Nolan mention Ray Stanford in his 2023 presentation.
This is all very interesting, but also totally irrelevant to the credibility of Stanford. In DDJ’s seeming attempt to totally discredit Ray Stanford, he is conflating the claims of OTHERS with Stanford, who from what I’ve seen presented by him, had absolutely nothing to do with any of this.
Could there have been other “Socorro” samples that have nothing to do with the 1964 Socorro incident and Stanford? E.g., Diane Pasulka has stated that the mysterious CIA-affiliated “Tim Taylor” (“Tyler D”) took her and Garry Nolan to a supposed crash site on the Plains of San Augustin, about a 40 min. drive west of Socorro. (What “Taylor” apparently called the “donation site”.)
(Canadian researcher Grant Cameron was also taken there at some point and has a sample he brought back. So the site is real, but who created it and what the junk retrieved really is remains unclear, nor is why various researchers have been taken out there. This is a very deep rabbit hole I just don’t have the time to explore right now.)
Nolan finally clarified that initially he thought the samples he tested with a mass spectrometer were anomalous, but discovered he wasn’t using the instrument right:
I found no anomalous isotope ratios, and I think the reports in that book MIGHT suggest all these weird masses they saw are just "diatomics." I saw them, too, until I checked with a mass spec specialist who taught me how to reset the instrument to avoid diatomics. If you don't set the mass spectrometer correctly, you get these 2-atom conglomerates that look like something at the higher ends of the elemental table. You can filter them out a specific techie way (setting the bias, as I recall), or if your mass spec has the necessary precision, you will see the weight is slightly off the exact mass of the element.
(Part 3)
“The ‘alien honeycomb’ is entirely prosaic. We found examples in the US inventory, and the "loops" of plastic embedded in the resin are fancy netting loops initially developed for fishing in the early 1900s. The netting is placed over the metal, and the resin is poured into it. The netting holds the resin in place. It's a process STILL used in aerofoil design, with higher precision these days. You can find multiple companies that sell it. I studied the "honeycomb" for two years until a colleague with a background at NASA took a look at it and knew the necessary reference books to investigate it. It always bothered me when I was studying it that it looked so crudely made. Well, it was because it was the first of its kind—the stuff was developed in the 40s and 50s, according to my NASA friend.
The site WAS weird in that who would dump all the metal can trash in the middle of the desert half a mile from the road?
Sadly, nothing I tested upon deeper review turned out to be anomalous. That doesn't mean it didn't come from a crash, but there was nothing I would call more than data—no "evidence" or proof of anything.
It might be said that Nolan tested “Socorro” samples, since they were retrieved from a location not far from the closest town of any size—Socorro. (Just like the “Roswell” incident is placed in Roswell, though the crash happened dozens of miles away.) But AGAIN, I don’t see that any of this has anything to do with Stanford’s 1964 Socorro sample other than the word “Socorro” being attached to various real or alleged samples tested or allegedly tested much later, all based on the stories of OTHERS, not Stanford.
(Part 1 in new series of replies)
David Rudiak on July 2, 2025, posted four replies which were all directed to my June 24 posts about Ray Stanford. I will offer this one reply to Mr. Rudiak's July 2 comments, while simultaneously addressing other readers who may have encountered one or another UFO-evidence claim originating with Ray Stanford.
(On July 4, Mr. Rudiak posted another series of replies to my answer to a question that had been posted by ilfarkiro, who asked whether the "fragments recovered at Socorro and analyzed by [Garry Nolan's] lab" were "the same samples" as those Ray Stanford took to Goddard in 1964. I will reply separately to Mr. Rudiak's comments regarding various metallic samples.)
I do dislike it when people put words into my mouth. I did not say that Ray Stanford was "NOTHNG BUT a 'fabulist.'" I did say Stanford was a "lifelong fabulist" in the specific context of my summary discussion of his UFO evidence claims. And in that context, a "lifelong fabulist" Stanford was, beginning with his many encounters with the "Space Brothers" in the 1950s, his trance-channeling of purported extraterrestrials from about 1960-1980, his innumerable claims to have obtained photographic evidences of craft exhibiting exotic technical effects, his claim to have obtained a photograph of an alien pilot so clear you can count the fingers on his hand, and on and on. I have documented my assessment in articles totaling hundreds of thousands of words, in which are embedded hundreds of audio records of lectures and trance discourses by Stanford himself, letters he signed, interviews he gave, assessments of specific "evidences" by truly independent sources, and much more.
Contrary to Mr. Rudiak, neither did I criticize Stanford for revealing in 2020 that there was no egg-shaped alien craft found on the discovered original negative of the "dynamite shack photo." Rather, my criticism goes to Stanford's years of extravagant public claims about the photo that preceded that 2020 repudiation, and the energetic promotion of those claims by Stanford and various acolytes.
For example, was it "professional" when Stanford when on a 2015 Martin Willis podcast and said that he was planning to write an entire second book about Socorro, of which the dynamite-shack photo would be an important element? He characterized it as "a wonderful photograph in which...people will be able to see, in broad daylight...the Socorro object [egg-shaped UFO], with its landing gear deployed." He added, "I wish Lonnie Zamora were alive to see it." Was that "professional"? Was that science? (Here is the actual audio clip from the 2015 show-- it's only a couple of minutes long, why not listen to it? Then listen to Stanford's 2020 call-in, linked in my earlier post, repudiating the claim. Was this an exercise in science?)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1viGtHahfNIer9lsLGrKfEYYGx37d3KRU/view
By the way, in 2016, Stanford associate Ben Moss wrote that the dynamite-shack photo had been "cleaned up by a respected Goddard employee who is an expert in photo analysis," who had determined that the primary egg-shaped object was 0.6 miles from the camera. Was that science?
Yet despite Stanford's clear repudiation of these claims in his call-in of Nov. 15, 2020, there are still Stanford acolytes out there who promote the dynamite-shack photo as having evidential value.
(No. 2 in new series of replies)
As to Ray Stanford's paleontological finds, in my June 24 reply I characterized them as "very significant paleontological discoveries in Maryland." Stanford's contributions to that field (which began very approximately when he was in his early 50s) have been very widely publicized (as Rudiak's links demonstrate), and they are not disputed. But this is a UFO-oriented blog, and on UFO-related matters, Stanford spent nearly seven decades promoting claims pertaining to UFOs and aliens that fall apart under even a modicum of critical scrutiny and reference to sources of information that go beyond Stanford's inventive, elaborate, and often-morphing stories.
Yet I am not surprised that Mr. Rudiak squarely addressed none of Stanford's innumerable specific claims of remarkable self-obtained evidence of UFO exotic physics and aliens, but instead piled up links further documenting Stanford's undisputed paleontological contributions. Not surprised, because for quite a few years now, I have often observed this phenomenon: One or another UFO researcher become attached to one (or more) of Stanford's "UFO" films or images, and the elaborate story that Stanford attached to that film or image, without actually doing any independent depth research either into the actual history of that specific purported piece of evidence (i.e., they simply accept the current story attached to the image by Stanford, although it may be very different from earlier Stanford stories about the same event/evidence). What the researcher thinks he knows about Stanford's overall history regarding UFOs-aliens is usually also largely limited to what he has been told by Stanford.
If this already-hooked researcher then encounters me or my large body of documentation-heavy material on Stanford's history, and my critical assessments, I find that their first impulse is often to cite the dinosaur stuff. It is as if they think that is somehow an answer to the very extensive and abysmal Stanford record specifically on UFO evidence claims, or somehow validates by osmosis a specific dubious UFO evidence claim. Such hooked researchers are oddly disinclined to even delve deeply into the origins of the specific evidence-claim that hooked them, preferring to shoot at the messenger.
(No. 3 in new series of replies)
Yet we do not have to look very hard to find in the history of science, examples of persons who made valid significant contributions in a scientific field, but propagated delusions or fabrications in the same scientific field or in another scientific field. To cite just one example: Flinders Petrie did absolutely stellar work in Egyptology-- discoveries, methods, chronologies, etc. It remains foundational in that field to this day. Yet Petrie also put out a large body of work that based on skull measurements and the like, he claimed proved that a superior “Dynastic Race” brought civilization to Egypt, and established the "cerebral superiority" of certain skulls, especially those he associated with Semitic or Caucasoid features; modern science regards that entire body of Petrie work as thoroughly discredited.
So, several things are also true of Ray Stanford. He was a verbally facile person with an above-average IQ. He certainly possessed some unusual attributes, some of which I witnessed first-hand during our near-daily association extending more than three years (1974-1978). Beginning I think in his late 40s or early 50s, he made significant contributions to paleontology, and he did it without benefit of any formal training in the field. But another thing is equally true: From the latter-1950s through recent times, Stanford promulgated a remarkable number of UFO-alien-evidence claims that were the products of untrammeled imagination and gross subjectivity (subjectivity particularly about his own mental creations), coupled with with severe deficiencies of candor. Many of Stanford's UFO-alien-related "evidences" and associated stories were product of grossly distorted or purely invented events and conversations. I have documented in much detail multiple examples of this, which can be accessed through the links I provided in my earlier posts. As discussed below, I am happy to entertain challenges to any factual assertion or document that I have published in any of these writings.
Aside from seeking to change the subject to dinosaurs, I find that Stanford's defenders are most often disinclined to really drill down on any specific piece of "UFO evidence" produced by Stanford, including--or especially--the items to which they are most attached. This is unfortunate, because they often know nothing about the true origins of an image or a movie, other than the story Ray Stanford has told them about it. In my experience, what they think they know about Stanford's overall UFO history is also mostly what Stanford himself has told them, and much of what they think they know is false.
Without any significant exception that I can think of right now, Ray Stanford's best-known public UFO-related stories and associated claims fall part when they are examined in the light of testimony from other witnesses, reference to documents issued by Stanford himself decades ago, other documents, and basic investigative methods such as I have employed in multiple cases. I will assert here and now that Ray Stanford never produced any UFO image or other evidence that yielded anything of value to science after being subjected to a investigation by persons with competent technical expertise and/or thorough knowledge of the provenance of the "evidence," checked against sources independent of Ray Stanford.
(No. 4 in new series of replies)
Consciously or unconsciously, most of Ray Stanford's defenders like to keep the discussion at a very high level of generality, but I pose this challenge to any reader: Provide, here if permitted, or elsewhere, a complete description of the single specific item of Ray Stanford-originated UFO evidence that you think is most significant, or that you personally are most interested in. Explain what you think you know about the item and its significance to understanding the nature of UFOs. Explain your understanding of the circumstances in which the film or other evidence was obtained, and the sources from which you derived that information.
Once you have laid out the case for a single specific piece of UFO-related evidence originating with Ray Stanford, I will offer any additional information that I have in my files about that particular piece of evidence, and/or pose the questions that I think would have to be answered before any weight could be placed on a specific claim at issue.
For example, Christian Lambright devoted a portion of a 2011 book to extrapolations based on a single image derived from a Ray Stanford movie taken October 5, 1985-- the so-called "beam ship" photo. After much study and multiple interviews, I published a 15,000-word article raising very substantial questions about the origins of this image, and the various claims based on it by Stanford, Lambright, Kevin Knuth, and some others. Lambright's response was not to publicly challenge a single point of fact found in my reporting, nor to address a single one of the substantial questions that I raised, but to attack in various fora what he imagined to be my religious or political views.
https://douglasjohnson.ghost.io/beam-ship-or-bullshit/
From 2019-2024, I wrote many very detailed, densely documented articles about Ray Stanford's history and his UFO-alien-evidence claims. No person has yet come to me with a single substantial factual assertion, in any of those articles, that was shown to be in error, nor impugned the authenticity of any of the innumerable documents and audio recordings that I have posted (many of which documented statements by Stanford himself in decades past). Some substantial error may yet be discovered, and if that happens, I will correct the error on the record (no stealth edits). But until then, enough about fossils, please. If somebody wants to step forward to defend a Stanford UFO-alien claim, go to it, but be sure to specify the source for any images and the sources for the associated narrative.
[Response to Mr. Rudiak's replies about Socorro-associated metallic samples]
I have now read all of Mr. Rudiak's replies regarding what I posted on July 2, 2025, regarding Socorro-associated metallic samples, and I find myself baffled by Mr. Rudiak's tendentious misreading of what I wrote. He is battling with his own straw man. He seems to have overlooked, or hopes the reader will overlook, that I was merely replying to the following specific question from ilfakiro: "I'm curious to ask for your opinion about the legendary fragments recovered by Ray in 1964 at Socorro, lost after Ray sent them to government labs for analysis. In november 2023 at Sol's foundation meeting Garry Nolan talked about fragments recovered at Socorro and analyzed by his lab (you can check at youtube official page). The same samples?"
In light of that specific question, I find no fault with anything that I wrote in response. Yes, as I wrote, Jacques Vallee did explicitly link a sample that he claimed was analyzed twice under Kit Green's auspices (which Green denied), with the Ray Stanford sample taken to Goddard in 1964. If anybody would like me to send them an image of the page from Vallee's "Forbidden Science 5" (page 185), I would be happy to do so; my gmail address is my full name, Douglas Dean Johnson, with a period on each side of "Dean."
Likewise, I accurately summarized what Mr. Nolan said in his 2023 Sol presentation; he explicitly associated his sample with Vallee and with Socorro. I also wrote, "Vallee has accepted and repeated the Ray Stanford stolen-metal claim in both 'Forbidden Science 5' and 'Trinity: The Best-Kept Secret,' but in either book did he claim to have obtained any of the Stanford material, nor did Garry Nolan mention Ray Stanford in his 2023 presentation." Through mental processes obscure to me, Mr. Rudiak construes this as me implicating Stanford in the Nolan claim. ("In DDJ’s seeming attempt to totally discredit Ray Stanford, he is conflating the claims of OTHERS with Stanford...," etc.) It seems that Mr. Rudiak has adopted something of a free-association method of projecting his own excited and imaginative overlays over what I actually write. I would simply refer the reader back to the actual question from ilfakiro, and to my answer.
[The only flaw I find in my answer to ilfakiro is that in one place I said there were "three" Socorro-metal stories, in another place I said "four." I got to "four" by counting the story in Stanford's 1976 book (stolen non-earthy metal) is no. 1, the Richard Hall-Goddard version (silica) as no. 2, the Vallee-Green story as no. 3, and the 2023 Nolan story as no. 4.]
Finally: Mr. Rudiak also wrote, "Nolan finally clarified that initially he thought the samples he tested with a mass spectrometer were anomalous, but discovered he wasn’t using the instrument right." But, the Nolan quote that Mr. Rudiak then presents concerned a different sample, not the Vallee "Socorro" sample. I will be surprised if Mr. Rudiak can actually produce a quote in which Nolan said he got something wrong in what he presented in Nov. 2023 regarding the Valleee-Socorro sample, But, if in fact Nolan somewhere actually has said something about the Vallee-"Socorro" sample more recently than his Nov. 2023 Sol slideshow, I would very much like to see it what he said-- in the original source, in context, please-- not a paraphrase or snippet or imaginative interpretation.
By the way, in his 2023 Sol presentation regarding the Vallee-Socorro sample, if memory serves I think that Nolan didn't suggest anything unusual about the isotopic ratios. He stressed an ostensible extraordinarily sharp demarcation between two elements (showing "clear sign of engineering"), one of them being pure aluminum. I am not defending Nolan's 2023 public assertions about this sample--they are at best cursory and unsubstantiated.
@Douglas, @David: my point is very simple. Many years ago Stanford claimed that he recovered metallic samples on socorro landing site. 60 years later Garry Nolan showed at first sol foundation meeting some results on metallic samples recovered at socorro. It's so intriguing to know today that, as stanford claimed, there were metallic samples at socorro landing site. It's so weird that preliminary analysis shows exotic properties of these samples.
ilfakiro wrote:
@Douglas, @David: my point is very simple. Many years ago Stanford claimed that he recovered metallic samples on socorro landing site. 60 years later Garry Nolan showed at first sol foundation meeting some results on metallic samples recovered at socorro. It's so intriguing to know today that, as stanford claimed, there were metallic samples at socorro landing site. It's so weird that preliminary analysis shows exotic properties of these samples.
Good question. I reviewed the Nolan Sol video, and Nolan says "again this [sample] is something from Jacques," meaning Jacques Vallee. He also clearly says it is from April 24, 1964 Socorro, so NOT some other possible Socorro case. See 28:30 in:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UW1jyN2o8A&t=1914s
Well, this simply makes no sense. Where would Vallee get a sample? There was no mention of any other metal samples, other than by Stanford on a broken rock, presumed scraped off the landing pad that broke it.
The only other mention of something like that were allegations of fused sand under the "blast-off" area when Zamora saw a bluish flame seem to slice into the soil instead of bounce off it like a rocket flame would (also left no crater, like a rocket would have under the circumstances). This was reported by Dr. James McDonald, who said he interviewed a Mary Mayes, who was a radiation biologist from the Univ. of New Mexico at Albuquerque, brought in to analyze the burnt foliage. Here was one discussion of this on Kevin's blog
https://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2017/12/socorro-fused-sand-and-mary-mayes.html
Stanford also discusses this briefly in his book (pp. 73-74) and quotes from a letter he says he got from McDonald, where McDonald wrote: "Shortly after she finished the work [on Socorro specimens], air force personnel came and took all her notes and materials and told her she wasn't to talk about it any more." So another allegation of a possible cover-up of physical evidence at Socorro, from Dr. James McDonald.
Another piece of possible physical evidence was noted by Stanford (pp. 74-75), namely a rock with a seemingly vitrified bubbly surface, noticed by one of the Air Force investigators (who were there April 26), with Zamora verifying it was exactly where he had seen the blue flame come down. Stanford said he didn't hear of this until 3 years later when he was told by 3 police sources about it. As he notes, if the rock and vitrified sand existed, they weren't mentioned in any official report.
So the short answer to your question is that Jacques Vallee seems to be the source, but where he got it or whether it is actually from Socorro 1964 are open questions.
I suppose somebody needs to ask Jacque Vallee about this. And yes, where-ever the sample came from, it does seem very anomalous.
(Part 1)
Douglas Dean Johnson wrote:
In late 1964, Ray Stanford, in concert with Richard Hall and Walter Webb, took to the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, a rock that he believed contained bits of metal scraped off one of the craft's landing-gear pads.
First of all, the broken rock was first noticed by Lonnie Zamora himself. It was embedded in the dirt at the edge of one of the landing impressions and appeared to have been cracked open by the weight of the landing gear pad. Stanford in his book (p. 61) published a handwritten/signed note by Zamora. Dated 8/26/64, verifying that he (Zamora) on 4/29/64 pointed out the broken rock to Hynek, Stanford, and fellow officer Sam Chavez, noting that it was indeed at the edge of the “UFO ‘foot’” and seemed to be chipped by it.
Hynek ignored it for some reason. I would say to Stanford’s credit, he immediately realized the importance of possible trace evidence, and when Hynek continued to ignore it, Stanford later extracted the rock sample.
It’s also not somehow crazy to assume that trace evidence from a landed craft might be scraped off and left behind given the circumstances. That’s just basic forensic science.
As DDJ notes, Hall and Webb, a professional astronomer, were also involved in the lab analysis. None of the three were dummies, yet all three apparently thought they had metal trace evidence on the rock (metallic sheen).
Stanford also mentions having a teenage friend with him from Phoenix, Robert Geary, who was privy to what happened at Goddard and some of the conversations. He would be a valuable witness if still alive to corroborate or refute what Stanford wrote in his book, but I’m not sure that he is.
("tiny pin-points of shiny metal of unknown type, clinging to the stone's surface in a very limited area. . .")
Seen by EVERYBODY (Hall, Webb, Stanford, Geary, and Frankel, the NASA expert), including under an optical microscope at Goddard. So it wasn’t exactly a matter of “belief” that there were metallic-looking specks there on the broken rock surface Words like “believed” are standard debunkery terms to suggest it was all imaginary.
What exactly did Frankel/NASA extract from the rock anyway for analysis if it wasn’t the metallic appearing flecks? Why would Frankel even bother? Why couldn’t a material’s expert like Frankel tell the difference from the gitgo between a shiny metal trace and what NASA subsequently claimed they found, namely silica, which made up most of the rest of the rock? There’s a BIG difference between the appearance of a metal and silicate materials, like sand, mica, quartz, glass, etc.
(Part 2)
NICAP subsequently published the Goddard analysis, dated Sept.11, 1964, which found the specks in question to "be Silica (Sl02) and other complex silicate minerals…"
To see what was written about the test in the Sept.-Oct 1964 UFO Investigator:
https://cufos.org/resources/nicap-publications-2/
Probably written by Richard Hall. Hall left out a lot of important details, which are discussed directly below. Most importantly, Hall failed to report that he was told directly by Frankel, as was Stanford, that initial testing showed the metallic-looking flecks were indeed a metal, namely an alloy of zinc/iron. This can’t then magically morph with further testing into something completely different like silicate materials.
Twelve years later, Stanford self-published his book "Socorro 'Saucer' in a Pentagon Pantry" (1976),… Stanford claimed that Goddard metallurgist Dr. Henry Frankel called him on August 5, 1964, and said, "The particles are comprised of a material that could not occur naturally. Specifically, it consists predominantly of two metallic elements, zinc and iron, with minute traces of other elements. . . Our charts of all alloys known to be manufactured on Earth, the U.S.S.R. included, do not show any alloy of the specific combination or ratio of the two main elements involved here. . . I am virtually certain that the alloy involved here is not manufactured anywhere on Earth."
And then, said Stanford, after several attempts to get through to Frankel with the final testing results, two weeks later he was finally told Frankel was no longer involved and the material was instead silica. Nothing to see here, move along.
Well, this absolutely begs the question, which Stanford naturally raises in his book, how the hell can flecks of what appear to be a very shiny metal somehow morph into common silica? Silica is literally dirt common, being the primary constituent of most sand, or minerals like quartz or mica, or common glass. Do any of these look like “shiny metal”? Nope, not even close. Silicates tend to be transparent or whitish. If a smooth surface, like mica or quartz crystals or glass, they can have a sheen, but it is not a bright metallic sheen, and tends to vary a lot with viewing angle. Metals are good electrical conductors and can reflect light strongly, including over a wide range of angles and broad range of colors, giving them a very shiny, silvery, mirror-like appearance. Silicates are insulators and any reflection is much weaker, and varies a lot with viewing angle and wavelength. If they don’t have a smooth surface, they don’t have a metal’s mirror-like surface, instead scattering light and having a dull, matte-like appearance.
Whatever anyone may think of Ray Stanford, he was no dummy and well aware of this (and metallurgist Frankel for sure would have been too, as would most 5-year-olds). As Stanford wrote when he first closely examined the rock (p. 113):
“All along the edge of the stone where the edge of the landing gear had pressed on its way to a firm footing in the earth were small fragments and rolled up shavings of brilliant metal. ...turning the rock in all directions relative to the sunlight, it was plainly evident that the substance appeared equally metallic from all angles, as is NOT the case with pseudometallic materials. In fact, three or four distinctly rolled-up metallic shavings could also be seen clinging to the area, all oriented parallel to each other and perpendicular to the direction from which the landing gear had crushed down on the rock.”
(Part 3)
DDJ also left out here what Richard Hall wrote about this, which is IMPORTANT, but which DDJ wrote up in more detail here:
https://alienexpanse.com/index.php?threads/ray-stanford-and-his-nasa-goddard-ufo-metal-cover-up-claim-1964.3284/
First of all, Stanford wrote that he talked to Frankel after he had FIRST talked to Hall. Also left out here, but included in his more detailed writeup:
Stanford asked, "Have you called Dick Hall and told him this?" Frankel answered, according to Stanford, "Yes, he was very interested."
Now what Hall wrote, as DDJ quotes:
”I consider Stanford's account of NICAP's part in the Socorro investigation -- and particularly his unfounded claims of a secret, positive analysis report on the alleged "metal scrapings on the rock"-- to be both a highly distorted and a highly subjective version of what transpired. . . .
“If I am called to testify before a Congressional committee investigating an alleged cover-up of the Socorro case (Stanford's apparent goal), I will testify to what I am quite confident is the truth: Neither Dr. Frankel nor anyone else at NASA ever suggested to me that they were leaning toward an extraterrestrial interpretation. In fact, when Dr. Frankel talked to me about tentative findings of a ZINC-IRON ALLOY [emphasis mine], he said to me that the results suggested a zinc pail! No quantitative analysis had been conducted at this point, so that Stanford's claims of significant findings at this time make no sense at all -- except in terms of what he wanted to believe. . . .”
POINTS:
1. Hall CONFIRMS that Frankel originally told him it was a ZINC-IRON ALLOY, just as Stanford said he was told originally. Even if Frankel compared it to a “zinc pail”, he was still definitely saying the material was metallic, NOT anything like “silica”. In this respect, it certainly WAS a “positive analysis report”. Hall failed to mention this when he reported on the analysis in NICAP’s “UFO Investigator” printing ONLY the final NASA “silica” conclusion.
2. Hall said that Frankel hadn’t conducted a quantitative analysis yet. Such a quantitative analysis would be required to help determine if the sample was anomalous or not, as Stanford claimed he was told by Frankel when he talked him LATER.
3. As Stanford reported in his Socorro book (p. 131), Frankel told them all at their initial meeting on Friday he would conduct an X-ray diffraction test on Monday (to determine gross elemental composition) and would call Hall first with the results. Then, according to Stanford, Frankel suggested Stanford call him Wednesday when he would be able to tell him “something very definite.” Notice Stanford’s account here is completely consistent with what Hall said about being called BEFORE there had been a “quantitative analysis.” Stanford also wrote that when he called Wednesday, he also asked Frankel if he had spoken to Hall and Frankel said he had, which is again consistent with Stanford speaking to Frankel AFTER he had conducted more conclusive tests.
4. This means BOTH Hall’s and Stanford’s accounts are not necessarily contradictory at all on these points Hall got the early analysis of it being zinc-iron (which he did indeed keep secret from NICAP membership in the NICAP newsletter); Stanford got the later, more quantitative analysis that (allegedly) Frankel wasn’t able to match it to any zinc-iron alloy in NASA’s database.
(Part 5)
DDJ continues:
Richard Hall sharply disputed Stanford's version of events, which I also consider to bear the hallmarks of Stanford's oft-demonstrated proclivity for engaging in uninhibited and sometimes unhinged embellishments of prosaic events.
As shown above, Hall ended up (finally) CONFIRMING Stanford’s account that both he and Stanford were initially told by Frankel that the shiny metallic-looking sample was indeed a metal alloy (zinc-iron) after x-ray diffraction testing. Maybe DDJ can explain why Hall failed to report this to NICAP membership (or, for that matter, why DDJ doesn’t recognize this critical agreement). Maybe he can also explain how everyone involved, including Hall and Frankel, apparently thought the sample metallic viewed visually and even bother testing, and how an expert like Frankel could possibly confuse a metallic-looking substance with a silicate, either by eye or with sophisticated testing.
I guess Stanford reporting this constitutes “uninhibited and unhinged embellishment”. The only real point of contention that I can see is whether Frankel also told Stanford, after further testing, that the metal zinc/iron alloy was anomalous, namely couldn’t be matched with any known such alloy in the comprehensive NASA database and didn’t think it earthly in origin.
Space writer James Oberg told me in a 1979 letter, "On seeing Stanford's [1976] book, Frankel's wife advised him to sue [Stanford], but he just wants to forget the whole thing."
Well if an expert metallurgist and head of the NASA materials R&D department at Goddard can’t tell the difference between a metal and common silicates, even by eye, that would be pretty embarrassing and he probably would want to forget the whole thing. Also , if he sued Stanford, this would result in discovery, where all witnesses (Stanford, Hall, Webb, Geary and Frankel) would have to testify UNDER OATH about what they saw and what they thought it was (namely brightly metallic), and BOTH Hall and Stanford would testify that Frankel told them it WAS a metal alloy (zinc-alloy) after initial testing by x-ray diffraction, and other evidence would come to light (photos, x-ray diffraction results, other tests, etc.) Those are all very good reasons NOT to sue, because some very embarrassing details could have come out that the plaintiff (Frankel) might have a hard time explaining away.
Also I wouldn’t put too much stock into anything Oberg might tell you. First of all, it was third-hand. Second, Oberg, a self-proclaimed aerospace expert, has been caught many times, fabricating evidence in order to debunk UFO cases and attack witnesses.
(Part 6—Examples of James Oberg misinformation)
E.g., back in 2009, Oberg claimed in an “Above Top Secret” UFO forum (now no longer online), that in the Trent/McMinnville UFO photo case that Paul Trent, in addition to the two famous UFO photos he took in 1950, took other photos on the same roll of film, including of his son on a step ladder, and this proved that Trent was practicing his hoax photos. A few years later Anthony Bragalia ran with Oberg’s statement and claimed it was evidence of a hoax. Then there was a big brou-ha-ha over this. The truth of the matter is the son on the step ladder photo was taken by LIFE Magazine photographer Loomis Dean (not Trent). one of about 4 dozen other photos. I and other UFO researchers were well aware that Google Images had the Loomis Dean photos. To prove the point to Trent debunkers, I located most of these on Google images and put them online (roswellproof.com/LIFE_Magazine_Trent_Photoshoot_1950.html) Bragalia then wrote on his website that Oberg finally retracted the claim. But only 2 years ago on Reddit, Oberg was back debunking the Trent photos. When called out on his completely false claim on Above Top Secret about Trent taking more photos, he actually denied it. Look for yourself: www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/17qmriu/mcminnville_oregon_ufo_this_is_one_of_the_few_ufo/
Another example: In OMNI Magazine Sept. 1993, Oberg declared that the Kecksburg, PA crash object of Dec. 9, 1965 was really the recovery of a failed Soviet Venus probe Kosmos 96. Allegedly the government allowed the public to think it was a true UFO and the gullible UFO buffs helped this cover-up. But when Leslie Kean did an investigation for the Sci-Fi channel in 2003, Nicholas L. Johnson, NASA's chief scientist for orbital debris, determined the object couldn't be a Russian satellite or any other man-made object. He said it was impossible, that orbital mechanics was very precise. This is ironic, since Oberg also declares himself an orbital mechanics expert, but apparently he either didn’t check first or knew better and put out misinformation anyway. In Dec. 2005, just before the Kecksburg 40th anniversary, a NASA spokesperson put out a public statement that it WAS a Russian satellite, but all records were lost by NASA. I spoke to Kean personally about this and she says she never could get to the bottom of it, such as the “Russian satellite” statement (but I have my suspicions).
Another example: In late Nov./early Dec. 2001 on UFO Updates, concerning the Bob White X-15 “UFO” sighting, where White reported a paper-thin object the size of a hand floating about 30-40 feet away from his window, Oberg declared it was nothing but an ice sheet broken off the rear of the X-15. Several of us went after him about this, and to try to salvage his explanation he variously declared the X-15 flew “straight up” (total nonsense), was flying no more than several hundred miles an hour at the time (off by a factor of 10; used it to try to explain why ice wouldn’t be swept away by residual air friction), and maneuvered into a backward position to try to explain how ice from the rear could appear outside White’s window in front (more total nonsense and suicidal). These were all complete fabrications by Oberg, who again proclaims himself an aerospace expert. There were others. A decent summary of the debate by skeptic Curtis Peebles here: https://magoniamagazine.blogspot.com/2014/01/fireflies.html
(I don’t think DDJ’s famous aerospace grandfather Kelly Johnson would have been amused by Oberg’s many obvious, outrageous fabrications in the X-15 debate.)
(Part 7--final)
DDJ:
So that's two versions so far: Goddard says the specks were silica, but Stanford claimed he had earlier been told that it was an unknown zinc-iron alloy.
Not accurate, and DDJ must know it. Why does DDJ never acknowledge that BOTH Stanford AND Richard Hall said that Frankel, head materials scientist at Goddard, told them that that initial testing showed it was a zinc/iron alloy?
Also DDJ somehow never notes that Hall failed to report these initial test results from Frankel to NICAP’s membership, reporting only the eventual Goddard conclusion that it was just silica.
A dozen years later, Hall not only corroborated that Frankel told him about the zinc/iron finding, but also confirmed Frankel said he hadn’t done a quantitative analysis yet. Stanford spoke to Frankel 2 days later, when presumably the analysis had been done. That is when Stanford said Frankel also told him the zinc/iron sample was anomalous. That is really the major bone of contention between Hall’s account and Stanford’s: was the zinc-metal alloy anomalous?
DDJ may choose to disbelieve Stanford, but his story on these key points is otherwise consistent with Hall’s. And if Stanford made this all up, how does DDJ explain how an expert like Frankel could screw up so badly and mistake metal with silica? It only makes sense to me if there was indeed a cover-up of the results as Stanford claimed.
(I may not be able to respond further in any detail as I am leaving soon for my once-a-year visit with my grandchildren. I’m not ducking anything. I just don’t have the time right now.)
If Ray Stanford's dinosaur track discoveries somehow validate his claims of extraordinary UFO evidence, then do they also validate his claims of building a time machine, or his channeling of Jesus Christ? Conversely, do those obviously very dubious claims somehow invalidate his dinosaur track discoveries? Paleontologists don't seem to think so. Point is, Stanford's claims, be they of finding dinosaur tracks, or having astounding evidence of alien visits, or of incredible psychic abilities, stand or fall on their own merits.
As far as I know, the only actual evidence from Stanford's vast hoard of "alien proof" to be released to the public was a single image Chris O'Brien posted on his own website. It was intended to silence all of us clueless rubes on the Paracast forum who were skeptical of Stanford's extravagant claims. It was incredibly underwhelming, and disappeared very quickly. I don't think the Internet Archive caught it, and I have not been able to find it anywhere. It was astonishing in its total lack of proof of anything. For some of us, it seriously tarnished O'Brien's credibility, if not his judgment.
I would encourage anyone who really wants Ray Stanford's claims to be real, to read Douglas Dean Johnson's work on the subject. It is very well organized, insightful, and I can't find anything questionable about it.
(Part 1 of response to Mr. Rudiak's July 6, 2025 replies regarding Ray Stanford)
There a great many misstatements in Mr. Rudiak's latest chain about Ray Stanford, but I will confine my response to what I regard as a few key points.
Mr. Rudiak states, "I don’t think DDJ’s famous aerospace grandfather Kelly Johnson would have been amused by [Jim] Oberg’s many obvious, outrageous fabrications in the X-15 debate."
I am not related to Kelly Johnson. The claim that Kelly Johnson is my grandfather was fabricated by an unbalanced individual on X/Twitter last year. The fabricator's only "evidence" was (1) I once quoted Kelly Johnson in a published letter about UFOs, and (2) we are both named Johnson. For Mr. Rudiak to uncritically adopt this claim as fact, adds to the growing body of evidence that he is not very discerning in evaluating the reliability of his sources.
I never met Richard Hall; I know him only by his writings, and by his good reputation. But I knew Ray Stanford very well. In my opinion, if you're talking about an event or conversation in which Hall and Stanford both claim personal knowledge but have different versions, it is a no-brainer who to believe. In my book, the two men are nearly at opposite polls on the credibility scale. I speak here not of opinions or theories, but claims involving personal knowledge of events and conversations.
Regarding the Socorro-Goddard affair, Mr. Rudiak suggests that Stanford's "story on key points is otherwise consistent with Halls." Before accepting that representation, I strongly encourage the reader to read Richard Hall's 1976 review of Ray Stanford's book "Socorro 'Saucer' in a Pentagon Pantry," which had been self-published by Stanford that same year. Hall wrote in part: "It is apparent to me that, far from 'verbatim' quotes, Stanford has paraphrased remarks out of context, and taken serious liberties in doing so. His psychic and 'contactee' background and his conspiratorial turn of mind give me little confidence that he, along, as succeeded in uncovering truth where others have failed. Instead, I see in his writings example after example of 'reading into' events that which he is already prone to believe. He shows every evidence of what I prefer to call 'systematic self-delusion' rather than malicious intent. The Socorro case is a strong one, and not all the facts have come out yet about analyses done on other samples obtained at the site or full testimony from other witnesses."
Here is the entire 1976 Hall review in a PDF:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mrmYjLBwReA3kE8CuACzOP66a6jltfzX/view?usp=sharing
(Part 2 of response to Mr. Rudiak's July 6, 2025 replies regarding Ray Stanford)
In addition, I encourage every reader to look at what Richard Hall posted about the book on UFO-oriented listserv in 2003, which was much shorter but perhaps even harder hitting. He wrote of "numerous other gross distortions in the book, and some outright false statements...Stanford claimed to have surreptitiously taped Walt Webb and me during the car ride to NASA-Goddard. When I challenged him in a letter dated July 21, 1976, to produce a copy of the tape or event a transcript, he admitted that he was bluffing and had not done what he claimed. In the same letter, I asked him for copies of the notes or phone memos made of the alleged conversations with the two NASA scientists upon which he claims to have based his 'verbatim quotes.' I am still waiting."
Here is the entire 2003 Hall Socorro post in a PDF:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XvVbpGNF6KSPnzHXtpM_Net9vhVKjejb/view?usp=sharing
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I did the copy-editing on Ray Stanford's Socorro book (this did not involve content control). I interacted with Stanford nearly daily about the project during the entire process of writing and publishing the book. Stanford did not have any tape recordings or detailed notes about any of the purported conversations from the Goddard episode. It all came straight out of his "memory," which is to say, his imagination.
And Ray Stanford did not lack for imagination. Keep in mind that this same man, during the same period (and until age 40), was renown for going into an "unconscious state" and delivering fluid discourses for hours without interruption, dealing with past events, predicted future events, distant happenings, undiscovered physics, and a hundred other things, all attributed to a super-clairvoyant "Source of the Readings," or to members of the "White Brotherhood." Most of this material in retrospect was worthless-- and indeed, Stanford himself later dismissed his 20-year livelihood of giving "psychic readings" (I think the phrase he used in later life was "bullshit from my unconscious," or something close to that).
I know of multiple other examples in which Stanford claimed to have a tape recording of some highly significant conversation, which he promised to produce at an appropriate time, but never did--this was one of his favorite BS tactics.
(Part 3 of response to Mr. Rudiak's July 6, 2025 replies regarding Ray Stanford)
Finally, there was another and very revealing 2003 exchange on a UFO-oriented listserve, in which Ray Stanford commanded Richard Hall to "zip your rabid mouth." Stanford also asserted "I never believed space beings were speaking through me." If Stanford never believed that, then he was lying profusely to the dues-paying members of the Association for the Understanding of Man in the 1970s, which sold transcripts and even audio recordings of Stanford's trance discourses from purported extraterrestrials (among others). I was personally present for such trance discourses on multiple occasions.
I was also personally present at a lecture given by Stanford on August 24, 1974 (awake, not in a trance), in which he said that he clearly remembered his first association with one of these ETs ("Aramda of the Planet Keepers") during a previous incarnation, 38,000 years ago. ("[O]ne night a gigantic craft -- and I remember well the scene, and how it appeared -- a gigantic craft, probably at least 200 feet tall . . .landed at Telos, and it was an expedition from outside the Earth." Etc.)
"I remember well the scene." You might keep that in assurance mind, Mr. Rudiak, the next time you are inclined to rely on Ray Stanford's memory of some event or conversation.
I personally recorded that lecture (titled "First-Hand Contacts with Extraterrestrial Life"), and I have embedded the entire unedited recording in one of my articles about Stanford's history, linked below.
So, Ray Stanford either lied to the A.U.M. members in the 1970s, or he lied in the 2003 attack on Richard Hall, regarding whether he ever believed that ETs were speaking through him. (Aramda was not the only purported ET that Stanford channeled, by the way.) This is just one among innumerable examples in which documents of indisputable provenance prove Stanford to have been a brazen liar, although at times it was hard to tell where the his delusional subjectivity ended and the conscious lying began.
Here is the 2003 Stanford-Hall exchange in PDF:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OwNS5UQBpwDztwGEO7tu3l85bRSH72pf/view?usp=sharing
By the way, it is perfectly safe to download the PDFs above from my Google Drive, but anybody who is uncomfortable with that or who has a technical difficulty, feel free to send me a request by email, and I will send you the PDFs as attachments. My gmail address is my full name, Douglas Dean Johnson, with periods on each side of my middle name.
If you want to actually hear one of Ray Stanford's 1974 lectures discussing his ET pal Aramda of the Planet Keepers, go to the bottom of this article, where I have embedded .mp3 audio files of the entire lecture. There is a more complete discussion of the context about halfway through the article. Here is the link:
https://douglasjohnson.ghost.io/wild-woolly-alien-claims-lifetime-achievement-award-goes-to-ray-stanford/
(Part 1 of 2)
Unfortunately this whole discussion has gone down too many rabbit holes. (I confess I have a lot of responsibility for this.) I want to focus on just the 1964 Socorro UFO physical sample and testing results, and boil it down into the basic, generally agreed-upon FACTS.
1. Primary witness, policeman Lonnie Zamora, noticed a rock at the edge of a landing impression that appeared to be cracked open or chipped by the weight of whatever was there.
2. He called this to the attention of investigators Dr. Allen Hynek for the USAF’s Project Blue Book, and Ray Stanford, representing NICAP. A few months later, Zamora later signed a handwritten statement to this effect, reproduced in Stanford’s book.
3. When Hynek ignored it, Stanford recovered the rock. Upon close inspection, he noticed shiny, metallic-looking presumed trace evidence along the cracked-open surface. He notified Richard Hall, (later asst. director of NICAP). about it.
4. Hall eventually arranged for it to be tested at NASA’s Goddard facility near Washington DC by Dr. Henry Frankel, who headed the materials R&D at Goddard.
5. Going with Stanford to Goddard were Hall and astronomer Walter Webb of NICAP (www.nicap.org/bios/NICAP-Bios/Webb.htm). Stanford also said he had a teenage friend with him named Robert Geary.
6. The rock was inspected by everyone under an optical microscope.
7. Most rocks are composed of silicates like quartz and mica, which are primarily silicon dioxide, or Silica. Feldspar, which is aluminum silicate, is also extremely common. Granite is commonly composed of all of these and can have a speckled appearance due to being composed of many crystals. Testing ordinary rock will therefore yield primarily silicate compounds.
8. Silicates are generally transparent or whitish in color (though colors can vary with impurities). If smooth surfaced or crystalline, they may have a sheen or appear speckled, like a metal, but it is not nearly as bright and varies a lot with angle viewed, Stanford said he did this basic field optical test to distinguish between a metal and a “pseudometal”, which may superficially resemble a metal.
9. Of those who inspected the rock by naked eye and under the microscope, particularly important here was Frankel. He was an expert metallurgist and it is almost impossible to believe he couldn’t distinguish something like a metal from ordinary silica making up most rocks. Otherwise what was the point of even doing any testing given the context? (Suspected trace evidence scraped off an unidentified flying craft.) Why would the busy Frankel want to spend any time on it or the resources of NASA’s lab analyzing ordinary rock?
10. Frankel first tested the extracted specks by X-ray diffraction to determine basic elemental content. X-ray diffraction alone can tell you which elements are in the sample but not how much of each.
11. Frankel soon told BOTH Richard Hall and Ray Stanford by phone on separate days that the metallic-looking stuff was an alloy of zinc-iron. Later Frankel disappeared from the case. NASA Goddard eventually put out a report that further testing revealed it was nothing but common Silica, or basically saying it was no metal and just common rock. They also claimed that Silica could appear to have a “submetallic luster” (an apparent attempt to explain why it might look metallic).
12. The report also said: “The gross sample is composed of grantoid minerals, e.g., silica, micas, and other complex silicates. The X-ray diffraction analysis substantiates the presence of these minerals…” (That would no doubt be true if the “gross sample” being referred to was the main rock, or samples thereof used as controls, but not necessarily the shiny, metallic-looking stuff. Notice the ambiguity here, perhaps deliberate.)
(part 2 of 2)
13. Richard Hall in the next issue of NICAP’s “UFO Investigator” printed only the NASA Goddard Silica report, and somehow failed to mention that he was personally told by Frankel, when first tested by X-ray diffraction, that the metallic-looking specks were zinc-iron, not Silica.
14. 12 years later after the publication of Stanford’s Socorro book, Hall hotly disputed Stanford’s overall version of events and accused him of making things up. BUT (KEY POINT!!!) Hall finally confirmed that Frankel had told him that the material when first tested was zinc-iron, just as Stanford wrote in his book and said he was also told.
CONCLUSION: Here is the basic thing that needs to be explained. BOTH Hall and Stanford finally agreed Frankel told them it was zinc-iron when tested by X-ray diffraction. How could an expert like Frankel, head of his department at NASA Goddard, possibly confuse a metal like zinc-iron with ordinary Silica, either by naked eye or under a microscope or more objectively tested by instrument?
Was Frankel on drugs? Was he incompetent? Was he a practical joker and just screwing with both Hall and Stanford, i.e., lying about the zinc-iron result? Did Stanford make it up, which would also mean that Richard Hall was likewise lying when he finally agreed with Stanford that he too was told by Frankel it was zinc-iron? Was the X-ray diffraction machine broken, spitting out erroneous results somehow confusing “Silica” with a very different zinc-iron alloy, and Frankel somehow didn’t notice anything wrong. Do any of these make any sense at all?
Those are the basic FACTS of the case. It doesn’t matter what one may think of Stanford’s credibility otherwise. Unless one can PLAUSIBLY explain how this could ever happen, then, to me, the only LOGICAL conclusion is that NASA did engage in a cover-up here, just as Stanford reported.
PS: It wouldn’t be like Stanford was the only one at NICAP claiming a government agency was covering up UFO information. NICAP’s director, Donald Keyhoe, was a co-founder (1956) of NICAP and practically made a career of UFO cover-up accusations. (E.g. his 1955 book “The Flying Saucer Conspiracy.) He focused initially on the Air Force, but later also accused the CIA.
PSS: It is also a thoroughly documented historical fact that NASA was a major participant in an attempted government cover-up of the 1960 CIA U-2 spy plane shoot-down over Russia. NASA claimed it was one of their weather planes that went off course because the pilot passed out from oxygen deprivation. They released a supposed “transcript” of the pilot’s last conversation, all fabricated. They also participated in a photo op at Edward’s AFB where a U-2 was shown to the press, but with a NASA logo added and a false identification number. NASA didn’t direct this cover-up. They were a government agency funded with government money and just followed orders. (The history of this dates back to 1956 when NASA was then NACA and agreed to be the “weather” plane fall guy in case one of the U-2’s came down over hostile territory. Just ask ChatGPT.)
(part 1 of 2)
Here's another example of NASA likely being involved in a coverup, the Dec. 9, 1965 Kecksburg UFO incident, where a fireball seen by hundreds or thousands over multiple states was followed by some witnesses in Kecksburg, PA near Pittsburg saying that an acorn-shaped object with "hieroglyphics" crashed in the woods near there. This was heavily covered in the newspapers, state police and military showed up at the site and kept people away, and ultimately it was publicly announced nothing had been found. Eyewitnesses disagree to this day, a few saying the object was loaded on a flat-bed truck and driven away. At the time newspapers and some science journals said people had probably seen a meteor fireball.
Fast forward about 30 years, NASA's James Oberg in Sept. 1993 OMNI Magazine made the claim that there was a cover-up, but of the Russian Kosmos-96, a Venus probe that malfunctioned, came out of orbit and crashed at Kecksburg. He further claimed the government encouraged UFO rumors to hide what it really was, since they should have returned the probe to the Russians, but wanted to study the Russian technology. Other than Kosmos-96 indeed coming down that day, Oberg offered no evidence that it had actually come down at Kecksburg.
In 1996, I happened to be in the Cleveland area. Since newspaper stories reported debris coming down in nearby Elyria, Ohio, and starting brush fires I drove over there to the library to see what the local newspaper had to say. I found the following front page article with photo showing three local boys claiming to have recovered metallic debris, with pictures of the boys and debris shown. (Now available on newspapers.com)
http://www.roswellproof.com/Elyria_debris_Elyria_Chronicle-Herald_12-11-1965.jpg
When I got home, I located one of the now-grown boys who still lived in Elyria and spoke to him by phone. He stood by the story. The newspaper story also said that a professor at a local college was going to analyze the samples. But the witness said that before that happened, 2 or 3 white cars sporting NASA logos showed up and took the samples instead. There was/is a NASA facility at Cleveland’s airport about a dozen miles away. Keep this in mind in the events that followed.
Now forward to 2002. Investigative reporter Leslie Kean, on behalf of the Sci-Fi channel, spearheaded a FOIA initiative to reopen the case. Leslie called me at the time and I told her about what the witness told me, namely that NASA (or masquerading as NASA) had recovered the metallic debris in Elyria. Thus she was aware of this information. A summary of her involvement in the FOIA initiative can be found here:
www.theufochronicles.com/2009/11/conclusion-of-nasa-lawsuit-concerning_10.html
Among other things, she checked with Nicholas Johnson, NASA’s chief scientist for orbital debris . He completely contradicted Oberg’s thesis that Kosmos-96 could have come down at Kecksburg, stating neither Kosmos-96 nor any other known object in NASA’s database could possibly account for what came down, adding orbital mechanics was a very exact science. Kean also filed a lawsuit in 2005 when NASA failed to send her anything after a FOIA request.
Then in a surprise move, just in time for Kecksburg’s 40th anniversary, a NASA spokesman named David Steitz told the AP : “the ‘UFO’ [Kecksburg object] was a Russian satellite, but government records documenting it have been lost.”
Kean continues,:“Steitz said that NASA experts studied fragments from the object, but records of what they found were lost in the 1990s.’As a rule, we don't track UFOs. What we could do, and what we apparently did as experts in spacecraft in the 1960s, was to take a look at whatever it was and give our expert opinion’ he said. ‘We did that. We boxed (the case) up, and that was the end of it. Unfortunately, the documents supporting those findings were misplaced.’"
Were the “fragments” the same stuff my Elyria witness said the NASA-marked cars had taken? I can’t say, but maybe.
(part 2 of 2)
Kean goes on: “We had a lawsuit in federal court because NASA had never given any answers to questions about the Kecksburg object, and now, suddenly, the agency was saying it was a Russian satellite - even when NASA’s own leading expert checked the records and said it couldn’t possibly be
any satellite from any country! Steitz was never willing to reply to my many requests for further information about this statement, such as where the information came from, since he said the documents about it were lost. Without the documents, how would he know?”
I ran into Kean at a UFO conference a few years later and asked her about this. She said she was never able to get a hold of Steitz to see where he got his information.
If you check the NASA website today, you will see that they have gone back to the original meteor explanation that was put out in the press.
https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraft/display.action?id=1965-094A
Finally, Kean continued the Federal lawsuit, NASA continued to stonewall, and the frustrated judge in 2007 ordered NASA to do a more diligent search, damnit. By 2009 they told the court that missing Kecksburg box with debris just couldn’t be found. Kean reported one interesting item that NASA did turn over was one of the Project Blue Book files:
“This practice of conveniently stating that the phenomenon was a meteorite or satellite, when in fact it was unidentified, relates back to one of the Project Blue Book files, dated December 10, 1965, written the day after the Kecksburg incident. This “memo for the record” states that Major Howard from the Pentagon called Major Quintanilla, the head of Blue Book, to ask what he could tell the public about the “meteor” seen over Pennsylvania. Quintanilla replied that a team had been out to search for a fallen object, but had been unsuccessful. “Major Quintanilla said that it was Ok to call it a meteor that entered the atmosphere. He said that investigation is still under way. There was no space debris which entered the atmosphere on 9 December 1965.” It seemed to be an unwritten government policy that objects would be publicly explained as meteors or whatever worked best, even before it was actually determined what they were, and before investigations were complete.”
So NASA changing stories and contradicting themselves, putting out misleading statements, key NASA person becomes unavailable for comment, disappearing physical evidence. Sounds familiar to someone else’s claimed dealings with NASA in 1964 concerning the handling of physical evidence.
(I’m busy preparing for trip and dashed this out in a hurry, so I apologize if I made any mistakes. I may not be available for response until next week.)
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