Roswell Intelligence Officer Dalton Smith

 

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

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

The late Dalton Smith

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chasing Footnotes: Kevin Randle Edition

 

Well, this is going to be a weird one…

For those who visit here regularly, you’ll remember, just a few weeks ago, we were talking about the DIRD reports, specifically, that one created by Kit Green. That one, which actually dealt with UFOs, referenced a number of sightings in which the witnesses were injured in some fashion. Dr. Michael Swords had connected some of those sighting reports to an article written by Walter Webb that appeared in Official UFO in 1976.

That launched a search for the article which I eventually published here. The problem was that the entries were not very detailed and while Webb did mention the sources at the end of the article, he didn’t provide any way to connect those sources to a specific report, which meant that we needed to search all the mentioned sources for the specific case we wanted to identify. A rather tedious task.

I was able to do it with a few exceptions and one of those was the case from Mannford, Oklahoma. Webb provided a little information about it. He wrote:

Mannford, Oklahoma. October 16, 1973. As the UFO hovered nearby, witnesses in a pickup truck heard or felt, or both, an intense and penetrating low-pitched hum. The air seemed charged and oppressive.

That was it. I went through my books and sources, looking for anything to provide additional information. Remember, I did have Webb’s list of sources, but since the list included The UFO Investigator published by NICAP and The APRO Bulletin, published by, well, APRO, it meant searching through many issues. The task was complicated because sometimes a case would be reported months or years after the fact. And, of course, there was the final note that some of the sightings were from his personal files, which I couldn’t search.

Anyway, there was only three or four that I couldn’t find anything beyond what Webb had published. The Mannford, Oklahoma, case was one of those. In the catalog that I was preparing of the sources Webb used, I was stymied by these cases.

George Eberhart, was doing the same thing, or rather, had cataloged a number of the cases in the past so that he was able to provide a long listing to those of us interested in it. His listing included additional sources, almost as if he was chasing the footnotes or sources back to their original appearance before the latest interest brought all this to our attention.

He did have a longer entry for the Munnford, Oklahoma, case, which was helpful. He wrote:

Night. William and Donna Hatchett are driving down a country road near Mannford, Oklahoma, when she sees a bright light coming from the south. They first think it is a security light on a pole, but then realize the object is pacing them and descending. When the Hatchetts stop the truck, the light also stops in front of them. As the object hovers, it gives off a blinding light and a penetrating low-pitched hum. They have a feeling that there are occupants who know everything they are thinking. Donna is so afraid that she twice leaves the truck cab and goes into the back. William manages to persuade her to return, and they set off, the object rising up in the opposite direction. 

That was something, and the names of the witnesses struck a chord with me. I mean I recognized the names but I didn’t know where I had heard or read them. That meant that his source was a real shock to me, when I reached that point. It said, “Kevin D. Randle, The UFO Casebook, Warner, 1989, pp. 143–144.

Unfortunately, The UFO Casebook was made up of magazine articles I had written back when I was starting out as a writer, and in keeping with the conventions of the time, sources were generally not included. There was a sort of “Reference” section in the back of the book, and for the entry on the October 1973, sightings, it didn’t provide much in the way of help for finding the original source. It said:

October 1973: The UFO Occupants

Charles Hickson [yes, I had actually interviewed him], Pat Roach, James Harder, Susan Ramstead, Leigh Proctor, Coral Lorenzen, the APRO Bulletin, various newspapers from October 1973, and a number of witnesses who asked their names be withheld.

In other words, I didn’t know now where that information had originated and wasn’t sure how to find it. There were hints, but suggesting the that I had found information in various newspapers and The APRO Bulletin, just didn’t tell me much. However, I had a very good working relation with Coral Lorenzen, and the entry in the book seemed to suggest more than just a newspaper report. I suspected it might have been something that Coral had provided. I do have a file labeled, “October 1973 Occupant Reports.” I was surprised to find that it contained several issues of The APRO Bulletin from 1973.

Yes, the information I sought came from the September-October 1973 issue. The Bulletin usually ran a month or two behind so that information gathered by APRO in October, would have appeared in the September-October issue. Credit is given to APRO Field Investigator L.G. Sikes for the investigation, whom I would guess lived in Oklahoma at the time.

This is about as far as I can take this. Rather than retype the entry for inclusion here, I’ve just scanned the relevant parts which you can read here:

The APRO Bulletin entry for the Mannford UFO sightings

 

Unless someone knows Sikes or how I might contact him, this is the end of the road. I did find an email address but it bounced as not existing now. I did, however, make it to the original published source that I had used and the only way to improve on it would be to talk with Sikes, or even better, the witnesses themselves. But, at least, I have found the source that I used to prepare the entry for The UFO Casebook.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Fallout from February 27, 2019

Over the last several days some of my colleagues have suggested that I was overly harsh in my interview with Christopher Montgomery. They seemed to think that my challenging of his statements and pressing him on his lack of response to some of my questions was too mean. I should have toned down the rhetoric. I say, “Crapola.”

The interview was inspired after I learned that he had told Rob McConnell on his X-Zone radio show that, “…he’s [Randle] written books about UFOs and yet you can find red herrings in his book too. For example, he believes that the aliens recovered at Roswell were crash test dummies, and crash test dummies didn’t come along in the 50s.”

I asked for a source on this and he responded, “No comment.”

But here’s the deal. I never said anything like that to anyone. In fact, had I said something like that, I would have said “anthropomorphic dummies,” which was what the Air Force had claimed. But the real point is that I have never suggested that bodies recovered near Roswell were either crash test dummies or anthropomorphic dummies.

I thought that my categorically denying any such statement would give him pause, and maybe think that his sources were in error, whoever they might be. But, no, he provided no source for the statement but wouldn’t retract or amend it.

In his book, Montgomery wrote, “Randle devoted an entire chapter in his book The Plains of San Augustin, New Mexico to debunk Anderson.”

Of course, while I never wrote a book with that title and I would have spelled San Agustin correctly, I do believe I know where this originated. Back when the Gerald Anderson nonsense surfaced, there was a bit of a controversy over his reliability. CUFOS and FUFOR arranged a conference in Chicago in February 1992 to discuss all aspects of this. We spent two days going over the information. The conference was attended by Stan Friedman, Don Berliner, Mark Rodeghier, Fred Whiting, Tom Carey, Don Schmitt, Michael Swords and me. Conspicuous by his absence was Gerald Anderson, who was invited, expenses paid, but he failed to make it for some rather lame reason.

Participants in the Plains of San Agustin Conference. Left to right, Kevin Randle, Don Schmitt, Tom Carey
Mark Rodeghier, Mike Swords, Fred Whiting. Standing, Don Berliner and Stan Friedman.

Each side was to prepare a written statement outlining their perspectives, limited to 25 pages. Friedman and Berliner wrote theirs and Carey, Schmitt and I provided ours. Our commentary suggested that there were great holes in the Anderson story, and we learned later that Anderson had a habit of embellishing his accomplishments and that he had identified his high school anthropology teacher as the leader of the archaeologists who had stumbled onto the alien ship. This was called, The Plains of San Agustin Controversy, July 1947, edited by George Eberhart, and published jointly by CUFOS and FUFOR. For those who wish to read all this for themselves, see:

http://www.cufos.org/books/Plains_of_San_AgustinR.pdf

So, his comment was wrong, didn’t acknowledge the context in which that chapter was written or by whom, failed to note our 184 footnotes that provided our sources, and that subsequent events had suggested that Anderson’s tale was not credible. Even Don Berliner, who had been arguing that Anderson should be believed realized his mistake. Both he and Friedman published a statement in the January 1993 MUFON UFO Journal, issue No. 297, explaining they had lost faith in Anderson as a source. Friedman, oddly, later repudiated that statement. The note signed by both Friedman and Berliner, said:

…Don Berliner and Stanton Friedman, authors of Crash at Corona (Paragon House, New York, 1992), no longer have confidence in the testimony of Gerald Anderson, who claims to have stumbled upon a crash site with members of his family. Anderson admitted falsifying a document, and so his testimony about finding wreckage of a crashed flying saucer near the Plains of San Augustin [sic] in western New Mexico and then being escorted out by the U.S. military, can no longer be seen as sufficiently reliable.

The authors regret the need to take this step, but feel it is absolutely necessary if they are to stand behind their book and subsequent research into what continues to be the most important story of the millennium. This does not mean they feel there was no crash at the Plains of San Augustin; there is considerable impressive testimony to such an event. Nor does it mean that everything reported by Gerald Anderson is without value.

Dennis Stacy, editor of the Journal at the time added his own note. “Although it strongly suggests it!”

For those interested in how some of this finally played out, though it has little real relevance to the discussion of Montgomery’s book, John Carpenter wrote an article about this in the March 1993 issue of The MUFON UFO Journal entitled “Gerald Anderson: Disturbing Revelations.”

Although this too is of no real relevance here, Anderson also claimed to have been a member of the elite Navy SEALs and provided some documents to prove it. However, the SEALs, who do not like having men claim to have been a SEAL but who were not, put his name on their Hall of Shame list. These are men who claim to have been SEALs but were not.

Continuing, after a fashion, with this, Montgomery wrote, “Stan Friedman took up his [Anderson] cause and published details about the site of the actual wreckage recovered at the arroyo on the Plains of San Augustin [sic], near Corona, New Mexico. Randle never mentioned the actual location of the wreckage, which I believe he had knowledge of.”

While it is true that Friedman supported and still supports the Anderson tale, the crash site Anderson identified was on the far side of the Plains of San Agustin, not in some arroyo near Corona. I’m not sure what it means that I had knowledge of the actual location that I never mentioned. The only site that isn’t in dispute is the debris field located by Mack Brazel. Other sites have been suggested, where the craft and bodies were found, but there is no solid information confirming any of them.

He wrote, in another attack on my integrity, “I believe Randle is probably a shill for the Air Force in a campaign to debunk UFOs.”

On my radio show, he did suggest that I was an unwitting participant in it but made that claim again. I wasn’t acting on orders, but my actions suggested I was an unwitting dupe. I wondered if researching a sighting and following the evidence to a conclusion was acting as a shill. I mentioned, specifically, the Chiles-Whitted sighting of July1948. I’ve discussed that on this blog which you can read here (if you wish to understand this):

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2016/01/chiles-and-whitted-revisited.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2018/12/history-channel-project-blue-book-and.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2016/01/chileswhitted-and-skepticism.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2010/04/meteorite-men-and-ufos.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2017/03/chiles-whitted-turbulence-and-ed-ruppelt.html

The point is that the evidence, as we now understand it, suggests a mundane explanation for their sighting. I wondered if, as we applied better information and research to a case, and found a logical solution, we shouldn’t publish that because of what the information said. Aren’t we obligated to share all information, no matter where that information might take us? Isn’t that point of investigation? To learn the truth. And if I publish that truth, how does that make me a shill, unwitting or otherwise, for the Air Force?

I had other, difficult questions for him about things I had found in his book. I suggested that Philip Corso might not have been the most honest of sources. We can go through his various tales at length, but it was clear that Montgomery had no real insight into Corso’s background or stories. He just accepted all that Corso said as if it was true. You can read about Corso here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2014/01/philip-corso-and-day-after-roswell-again.html

Finally, I will note that I invited him back to the show, to finish up where we left off when he disconnected. He thought it a good idea, but wanted to read a prepared statement and wanted a list of the topics we would discuss. Given it was my show, I said I wouldn’t allow the statement, realizing that if he was clever, he could have made the points without having to read them. He could just inject them into the conversation.

At his request, I also sent a long list of items I thought we could discuss. But I also mentioned that the first time he said, “No comment,” the connection would be severed. I would ask the questions and if he didn’t want to answer, then he would have to find someway to say that other than, “No comment.” I thought it only fair that he provide the source for some of the allegations he had slung at me.

But after writing that he thought it was a good idea, he never answered any of my follow up emails. I don’t know why, if he was confident in his information and believed his book was an accurate representation of the UFO field, he decided to no longer communicate with me. I was willing to engage in the conversation but he wasn’t. He had bailed on the first… though he said his connection was disrupted, the information in the studio was it was a disconnection rather than a service interruption. In other words, he hung up.

So, if you still believe I was too harsh, this might provide some insight to that. I’m not sure why I’m subjected to these attacks and misrepresentations of my position or why I find myself having to explain that my investigations were not influenced by the Air Force. I have tried to provide the best information available, have corrected errors that I have made in the past, and continue to research carefully. If that makes me a shill for the Air Force, then I suggest it makes many others shills for the Air Force as well. Careful research should not be attacked because you don’t like the outcome. It should be embraced as we all search for answers.