TheSneezingMonkey Fails in Debunking Roswell

I am growing very tired of the Internet and the number of people who use it to expose their ignorance. Please note the term ignorance. I am granting them the intelligence to realize their mistakes when speaking about UFOs. When they claim a deep dive, it seems to be into the shallow end of the pool, and I realize my task is greater than I thought.

Let’s talk about TheSneezingMonkey and his latest rant about some things Ufological. It is clear to me, that he just doesn’t bother with the deep dive research he claimed which, in the world today and the Internet, is much simpler than it was even a decade ago. The answers are out there, if you’re smart enough to find them.

Take the analysis by TheSneezingMonkey when he is talking about the Kenneth Arnold sighting of June 24, 1947. He grabbed several explanations but he talked about the Flying Wing, suggesting that it might be what Arnold had seen. He did question if there would have been several of them flying in formation.  

He was talking about the YB-35 Flying Wing which did exist at the time. Several of them were being tested at Muroc Army Air Field (later Edwards Air Force Base). What he didn’t find, and what I published more than two decades ago, is that in June 1947, all of them were grounded.

Here’s what I know about that. The YB-35, a full-scale Flying Wing, first flew on June 25, 1946 from Muroc AAF. On September 11, 1946, the YB-35, suffering from gear box and propeller problems was grounded. A full-scale flying program would not resume until February 1948. There were test flights made on June 26, 1947 (two days after the Arnold sighting) but the single aircraft did not leave Southern California. The Flying Wing simply was not available in the numbers or location to be seen by Arnold. It really has no place in this discussion in the world today.

Arnold's original drawing to the Army. It looks nothing like the Flying Wing,
which is probably a better way to eliminated that aircraft as the source

But what really set the tone here was a comment made to the YouTube channel by someone calling himself or herself @RUTHAN667. That comment said, “Rosswell is mostly based on Marcell story and he is proven liar, got his moment of fame, lied to be pilot, lied about that he shoot down 5 planes.. Whole family, started finding diaries and milked story dry.. Later someone invented 2nd crash, bodies.. Brasel imprisonning. Corso cashed on it too.”

Well, it’s not Rosswell but Roswell and it’s not Marcell but Marcel. From there we move into territory that isn’t as black and white as it seems. While I wouldn’t call Jesse Marcel, Sr. a liar, the problem is that he made some claims that were less than truthful. He didn’t say he was a pilot, but had flown as a pilot while serving in the Pacific with the Army Air Forces during World War II.

True, I’m splitting a fine hair here, and it seems unlikely that an officer who is not rated would accumulate that much flight time. I can envision him getting some stick time but not 3000 hours. I can say that I flew as a door gunner in Vietnam but I was not rated in that position. I was a helicopter pilot and later an aircraft commander and accumulated just under 2000 hours during that portion of my career. I’m willing to give him a pass on that particular claim because of the way things worked in aviation units. Clearly, Marcel did participate in combat missions during his tour in the Pacific and was awarded two air medals for that.

Kevin Randle in Vietnam in 1969

However, as we break this down, Marcel apparently told Bob Pratt that he, Marcel, had five air medals for shooting down five enemy aircraft. I got Marcel’s records and the Unit Histories from the units in which he served. There is no indication that he shot down any enemy aircraft. The Army Air Forces kept records of the majority of those who downed enemy aircraft and Marcel’s name does not appear on the list. And yes, that list includes the names of the men who shot down enemy aircraft in all theaters of the war, and those flying as gunners but not pilots. The enlisted man with the most recorded kills shot down 19 enemy planes, but he was not a pilot. I believe it was Richard Bong who holds the American record with 40. Pappy Boyington, I believe shot down 28 (though I think he was only credited with 26).

At any rate, Marcel doesn’t get a pass on this. There is simply no evidence to support his claim of five air medals (though I have the citations for the two he did receive).

There are other things that he said that we can’t verify. His testimony is problematic. I will note, however, where we have additional witnesses and documentation, then what he said was probably accurate. He did travel to the Brazel (Foster) ranch and he did gather up metallic debris. He did escort that material to Fort Worth.

Bill Brazel and Don Schmitt on the Debris Field, 1989.
Photo by Kevin Randle.

The whole Marcel family did not begin to find diaries. In going through the papers and files handed down from Jesse Marcel, Sr. to his son and then to the grandchildren in 2013, they did find a “Memorandum Book,” which the Army passed out by the thousands. I have two of them. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem that Marcel was the author of the notations and even if he was, there is nothing in that diary to confirm the events of July 1947. The criticism about finding diaries is inaccurate.

The idea that “later someone invented 2nd crash, bodies…” is not an accurate picture either. The trouble was that we had Bill Brazil, the son of the man who found the debris field, showing us where he had picked up some of the strange debris. It is located southeast of Corona, New Mexico. We, that is Don Schmitt, Tom Carey and I were able to find witnesses to that field other than just Marcel (and these include Sheridan Cavitt, the CIC officer who accompanied Marcel out to the field). Bill Brazel took Don and me to the debris field. He parked his truck and said that this was where he had found some of that debris. Others, such as Loretta Proctor and Bud Payne pointed to the same location.

However, during our investigation, we interviewed several officers and senior NCOs who talked about a much shorter trip to the crash site. While it took three hours or more to arrive at the debris field, they talked about a short trip of under an hour. These included Bill Rickett and Chester Barton. Brigadier General Arthur Exon told us about two sites, oriented northwest to southeast that he had flown over in the weeks that followed. Eventually, witnesses to that second site, where bodies were located, were found.

Don Schmitt and me on the Impact Site, 2023. Site was identified by
several eyewitnesses.

The stories were not invented but recovered through careful investigation and corroboration. It is established that there were two sites and we, Don, Tom and I invented nothing. We just went where the testimonies took us and reported accurately what others said. In many cases, it took long contact with the witnesses for them to trust us with the tale, and then, often, only if we didn’t reveal who they were.

Mack Brazel, the man who started this by taking samples of the metallic debris to  Chaves County Sheriff George Wilcox, was held at the Roswell Army Air Field. The base Provost Marshal, Major Edwin Easley, told me Brazel had been held in the guest house, which not the same as being in the stockade, but then, if you’re not allowed to leave, what really, is the difference?

We, Don, Tom and I talked to neighbors of Mack, such as Marian Strickland, who told us he complained about being held on the base. Neighbor Floyd Proctor told researchers that he’d seen Mack in Roswell in the company of several Army officers. That suggests that the story about his being held at the base is true even if the cell didn’t have bars... just guards watching.

So, we see that @RUTHAN667’s rant contains a single fact about Marcel embellishing his resume, which really is lying no matter how I attempt to sugarcoat it. And there are other things that Marcel said that weren’t true. If Marcel was the single witness to this, we could certainly dismiss it as a tale invented by him. But, every member of Colonel Blanchard’s primary staff that we interviewed, with a single exception, verified parts of the story. When we expanded the search to other members of the 509^th Bomb Group, we found many officers and enlisted men who were involved in bits and pieces of the story. They might have seen only some of the metal recovered, or were involved in security at various sites, and even a few who did mention the bodies, the story is not stand alone. Many of them did not approach us. We found them and asked questions about those events.

I’ll note here that Major Easley, told me that the craft was extraterrestrial. Well, it was a little different than that. I asked him if we were following the right path. He asked what I meant by that and I said, “We think it was extraterrestrial.” He said, “It’s not the wrong path.”

Major Edwin Easley in 1947. Photo courtesy
of the Roswell Army Air Field Yearbook.

There is so much more that could be said here. You want to talk about mistakes we made. Sure. We believed that Frank Kaufmann was telling the truth until we found evidence that he wasn’t. We, again Don, Mark Rodeghier, Mark Chesney and I exposed those lies in an issue of International UFO Reporter.

But the only fact that @RUTHAN667 got right was that Marcel claimed five aerial victories and had none. Everything else is misinterpretation of the facts or ignoring body of evidence that has been accumulated, vetted, repaired and reported by us. I would suggest reading Roswell in the 21^st Century and Understanding Roswell that I wrote and Tom Carey and Don Schmitt’s Witness to Roswell to get a better interpretation of the situation. And if you want the other side, I’d recommend Karl Pflock’s Roswell: Inconvenient Facts and the Will to Believe. I’d especially recommend you read the affidavit section of his book. These affidavits were gathered by several of us over many weeks.

I suggest that you, @RUTHAN667, do a little more research before you shoot your mouth off (and learn to spell) and TheSneezingMonkey, if you’re going to be skeptical and claim a deep dive, do a great deal more research.

If the mood moves me, I think next time I’ll attack the Washington National sightings. I interviewed two of the officers who were in the radar room during some of those sightings, and have transcripts of interviews with one of the fighter pilots who talked about the lights surrounding him during an attempted intercept.

And don’t even get me started on the Pascagoula abduction. Yes, I talked to both Hickson and Parker and TheSneezingMonkey wasn’t even close on his ridiculous analysis. 

The General Exon Quotes are Accurate and I can Prove it

 

About once a decade, someone challenges the information and the reporting of what Brigadier General Arthur Exon said to Don Schmitt and me in 1990. True, there were several challenges at that time and a number of writers did what they could to

General Exon

dismiss Exon’s statements without bothering to interview him though Karl Pflock did call him in 1992.

In Pflock’s book, Roswell: Inconvenient Facts and the Will to Believe, he mentions Exon only briefly in two places. On page 36, Pflock wrote:

In 1989, Roswell authors Randle and Schmitt located retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Arthur E. Exon. The general was stationed at Wright Field in July 1947 as a lieutenant colonel and student at the Air Force Institute of Technology, following an assignment on the staff of the Air Materiel Command, also at Wright Field. According to Randle and Schmitt, Exon was aware alien bodies and debris from Roswell were on the base and knew of research being conducted on the debris. Randle and Schmitt also reported that Exon told them he flew over what may have been the debris field and crash site and knew of a high-level group established to control “access to the wreckage, bodies and information about the crash.” As we will see, General Exon has quite a different take on what he actually said and intended to convey.

This really doesn’t say much but it does, to some extent, provide an introduction to Exon and a suggestion that our reporting, that is Don’s and mine, was more enthusiastic than the information warranted. On page 124, Pflock wrote:

…However, what of the recollections attributed by Kevin Randle and Don Schmitt to retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Arthur E. Exon?

When first made public in 1991, it seemed Exon’s memories of the possibility that bodies had been flown from Roswell to Wright Field in 1947 might be based upon firsthand information. If so, this would be highly significant, especially since Exon also seemed to have firsthand knowledge of the debris field and crash site, as well as a shadowy high-level group established to keep the truth about Roswell under wraps. However, in a lengthy September 1992 telephone conversation, Exon told me [Pflock] his comments about bodies and debris at Wright Field were based solely upon rumors he heard from colleagues at Wright Field and nothing more. As for the “control group,” he said he merely was making educated guesses as to who likely would have been selected for such a group. Finally, with respect to his alleged knowledge of the debris field and crash sites, he told me he remembered flying over several sites in New Mexico quite some time after July 1947, on missions that had nothing to do with the Roswell incident. One such location might have fit what he had been told about the crash site by ufologists because it had vehicle tracks running to it.

With that, Pflock is finished with his discussion of Exon and what he said. We have no way of judging what Exon might have said to him because no recordings exist of the conversation. Without going into depth about this, there are a couple of important points to be made here. Just what did Exon say to me during the May 19, 1990, interview with him? Although I didn’t ask about Roswell, I did mention flying saucers and retrievals. Exon said to me:

As a result of that, I know they saw the one sighting and then where there, a good bit of the information came down. There was another location where it was, where apparently the main body of the spacecraft was, where they did say there were bodies there. I’ve been, I’ve got special information, but it may be more rumor than fact about what happened to those bodies, although they were all found apparently outside the craft itself, but were in fairly good condition. In other words, they weren’t broken up a lot.

…But one of them was that it went to the mortuary outfit, I think it was in Denver, where these people were being identified. But the strongest information was that they were brought into Wright-Pat. But whatever happened to the metal residue, I imagine it’s still there in the [unintelligible] some place.

While Exon does mention rumors, it seems, based on the context here, that he was referring to what happened to the bodies rather than there being bodies. Of course, that’s my somewhat biased interpretation and others might believe he was suggesting that all the information about the bodies was rumor. It is clear that Exon is not suggesting that he had seen the bodies himself.

We can see, however, that Exon had some information about bodies. He also has some very specific information about those bodies which would seem to make the information a little stronger. But it is also interesting that these rumors came from his colleagues at Wright Field and you have to wonder what would prompt them to invent such stories and then share them, especially in 1947. From the history, it is clear that the Air Force was downplaying the Roswell crash and didn’t even create a file for their records.

Exon, in my interview with him, moved from talking about the bodies directly into this control group, which is something he mentioned spontaneously with no prompting from me. He said:

Of course, President Truman and General Spaatz [commanding of the Army Air Forces in 1947], the Secretary of Defense [although that office wouldn’t exist for another few months], who has now passed away, and other people who were close to the ones who made up the key investigative teams in relation to the released information.

This means it was Exon who introduced the idea of this special investigative team into the conversation and it was not some leading question from me. He then said:

One of my officers who did some research, who worked for me at Wright-Patterson, who had done some research on this as part of his school, came up with a deal that there was great concern at that time and there was fear that the people would panic if the sketchy information that they had such as what was it and where did it come from and what was their mission and so on and so on, got out. So, they decided to make it a national cover up. And that there probably wouldn’t be much released until everybody who as involved in it, including the 13 people I’m talking about and their immediate staff who made up the, oh what was it, the twelve people who made up the investigative team had passed away.

This really doesn’t sound like idle speculation, but does seem to suggest some inside knowledge of what was happening in 1947. Exon wasn’t a guy deeply emersed in UFO lore, though he did have some specialized knowledge based on his military career. He might have been guessing about some of the participants, but he was talking about something with which he was familiar.

On June 18, 1990, Don Schmitt met with Exon in California. Although there were problems with the tape recording, important parts of the interview were recorded. Don had asked about any name for the operation and Exon finally said:

They were involved in what to do about the residue from that, those two findings.

Don said, “You say those two?”

Probably part of the same accident, but two distinct sites. One, assuming that the thing, as I understand it, as I remember flying the area later, that the damage to the vehicle seemed to be coming from southeast to northwest but it could have been going in the opposite direction but it doesn’t seem likely. So, the farther northwest pieces found on the ranch, those pieces were mostly metal.

The point is that Pflock, in his analysis, provides us with nothing to review. He wrote that Exon said this and that and was somewhat dismissive of what we had written. However, when the context of what Exon said to Don and me, it suggests a somewhat more intimate knowledge of the situation based on his own experiences and the information gathered in conversation with those directly involved.

Philip Klass, in his book, The Real Roswell Crashed-Saucer Coverup, doesn’t directly address Exon’s testimony. Klass wrote, quoting Pflock, “Moreover, the GAO will pursue its own hands-on review of Air Force records, paying particulate attention to such ‘oversights’ as the bodies issue and, it is hoped, the reasons for the Air Force’s failure to interview retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Arthur E. Exon.”

This seems to suggest that Pflock believed that Exon was critical to understanding the Roswell case. I suspect that Pflock thought that, under questioning by his fellow Air Force officers, Exon would be a little more forthcoming with information about what he had seen, what he had done and what he had heard. I suspect the Air Force avoided Exon because they didn’t want to call a high-ranking and highly decorated Air Force officer a liar.

Klass noticed the same thing. The only other mention of Exon in Klass’ book was a footnote on page 143. Klass wrote, “This criticism of the USAF for failing to interview Exon is surprising in view of Pflock’s own interview with him, as reported in Roswell in Perspective (p. 30) [the forerunner to his book on the topic and is essentially the same thing he wrote there].”

Klass then recapped that information and said nothing more about Exon and the possible importance of these interviews. We are left chasing the footnote back to Pflock but we are unable to assess the importance of that because we don’t have access to Pflock’s interview.

Stan Friedman also spoke with Exon, and, according to Friedman, Exon said that Don and I had misquoted him. I pointed out that I had the interviews on tape and Friedman’s response that he didn’t care what I had on tape, it was what Exon told him (Friedman) and he was going to keep saying we had misquoted the general. Ironically, this would become important, but not for the reasons that Friedman thought.

Knowing that I had carefully transcribed the interviews from the tapes, I knew that I had not misquoted Exon. Since Friedman insisted, he was still going make this false charge, I sent a copy of the book, a copy of the transcripts, and copies of the tape to Exon and asked what I had gotten wrong.

Exon reviewed the material that I sent and then wrote a response. Exon, in his letter to me of November 24, 1991, wrote, “Although I believe you did quote me accurately, I do believe that in your writings you gave more credence and impression of personal and direct knowledge that my recordings would indicate on their own.”

At that point, no more was heard from Friedman about misquotes. Friedman’s false claims were relegated to the trash. But now we had a statement from Exon saying that the quotes were accurate. We are arguing about interpretation at this point. Following is the letter from Exon.

It was Kal Korff who took things to the extreme with his endless assaults and misquoting of me and his claims that we were misleading the public in a very non journalistic way. I have addressed those comments at length before now. Greg Sandow, a disinterested third party who had the opportunity to review the transcripts, listen to the tapes, and ask a few other questions provided an in-depth analysis of Korff’s suggestions. You can read that here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2007/04/i-havent-wanted-to-turn-this-blog-into.html 

And, of course, for those who would like to review Sandow’s analysis for themselves, you can read his entire report in the following:

Which brings us to the latest challenge. A fellow had emailed Mark Rodeghier that he wanted to review the material, that is our tapes, transcripts and other assorted contacts with General Exon. Rodeghier replied that he was unable to locate the material requested. I believe that is because the CUFOS office had been closed as the rents skyrocketed (or the landlord wanted to sell the building). The files were split among several places, and if I understand the situation, many of the files had been transferred to Texas for a project to scan the material as a way of saving it and making access available to researchers.

This prompted the man to suggest that he was now going to tell anyone who asked him that the information that Don and I had published was “unsubstantiated” unless the material “miraculously” reappeared. Had he bothered to contact either Don or me, we could have supplied the material. I have the tapes. I have the transcripts. I have the notes from the meetings with Exon.

But the point here is that none of that is necessary and even if the source material no longer existed, I can prove the accuracy of the quotes. Exon supplied that when he reviewed the material. That was the irony of Friedman’s attack. Had Friedman not claimed we had misquoted Exon; I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to ask Exon what was inaccurate. That, of course, resulted in Exon’s review of the material and his letter saying the quotes were accurate. What better endorsement could we have? The man himself said the quotes were accurate.

And even if that didn’t exist, there is still the review of the material by Greg Sandow, who mentioned the accuracy of the quotes in the books that Don and I wrote. In other words, there is nothing unsubstantiated in the books and our take on the interviews have been validated.

I hope that this is the last time that we have to go through this, though it is sometimes a little bit of fun. A challenge to our reporting, validated by those involved, meaning Exon, and then the review of all that material by another who also provided a written commentary on it.

This means that those who read the books, who look at the testimony of Exon, can rest assured that we accurately reported what he said. The interpretation of those statements might be an area for additional discussion, but that discussion begins with the importance of what Exon said and not the accuracy of the quotes.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Colonel Richard Weaver and the Roswell Report

For years Colonel Richard Weaver has been seen as the villain in the Roswell UFO crash tale. He was the man in charge of the Air Force investigation that culminated in that huge report that contained so much information. He was the guest on the latest edition of the A Different Perspective radio show/podcast. You can listen to both hours here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/41931979

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/41932179

Colonel Richard Weaver... Incognito.

We began with a discussion of the process that ended up with his assignment for the Air Force, and then in the details of how the investigation was conducted. For those interested in the way this manipulated by those working through Congressman Schiff, it is eye opening. You can read the details in his book found at:

https://www.amazon.com/Backstory-Roswell-Exclusive-Disclosures-Inquiry-ebook/dp/B08GY9WXCL/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=Colonel+Richard+Weaver+Backstory&qid=1605299084&sr=8-2

Although we did discuss the role that Karl Pflock played in getting Schiff to request the GAO investigation, it wasn’t the most important part of the show. Pflock, at least according to Rich, was maneuvering behind the scenes, attempting to improve his status and interest a publisher in a book deal. In fact, according to a letter that Pflock had sent to retired AFOSI agent Sheridan Cavitt, he was looking to make some money out of the deal.

We did analyze the role that Jesse Marcel played in the whole Roswell case. There are some points in Marcel’s claims, not about Roswell but about his military career, that are worrisome. Part of the trouble, I suspect, came from the notes of Bob Pratt’s 1978 interview with Marcel and the way that Pratt transcribed the tape. You can read that interview here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2013/09/jesse-marcel-sr-bob-pratt-and-interview.html

We touched on the claim that Marcel had shot down five enemy aircraft during WWII. Rich pointed out that there were records of soldiers who were gunners in aircraft who had shot down enough enemy to become “aces,” but Marcel wasn’t among them. I thought the claim might have been confused by Marcel’s claim of five Air Medals… I, and Rich, could only document two.

Captain Jesse Marcel (at the map board) briefing flight crews in the
South Pacific during the Second World War.

We also looked at the press conference held in General Ramey’s office once Marcel had brought material from Roswell to Fort Worth. I had interview Irving Newton in 1990 about his role in explaining the debris. Clearly, what is seen in the photographs is debris from a weather balloon and a rawin radar reflector. But I didn’t mention the interview that Don Schmitt had with retired Brigadier General Thomas DuBose who was also in the office. He said that the debris on the floor was not the same as the debris that had been brought from Roswell. You can read about it here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2018/07/thomas-dubose-and-switched-roswell.html

This, of course, lead, indirectly to a discussion of Project Mogul. Rich believes that it is a viable explanation for the debris found by rancher Mack Brazel. I do not. I’ve covered the reasons several times and you can read them here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2018/07/thomas-dubose-and-switched-roswell.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2007/02/national-geographics-and-ufos.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-project-mogul-double-standard.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2013/08/a-few-facts-about-project-mogul.html

And, since it is fun to show both sides of a tale, I will note that Tim Printy, at his website had this to say about Mogul:

http://www.astronomyufo.com/UFO/flight4.htm

And, it wouldn’t have been a well rounded two hours had we not discussed MJ-12. Here we both are on the same page. Rich provided the Air Force reasons for not accepting MJ-12 as a legitimate set of documents and I explained what I believe is the fatal flaw in the documents. You can read more about that here:

These are some of the highlights of the shows. There is much more about the Roswell case and the Air Force investigation into those events. I keep thinking of things to add. For example, we discussed the Ramey Memo, and the fact that the high-powered lab used by the Air Force to attempt to read anything on it failed, when a kid with a magnifying glass can pick out five or six words. There is a great deal of inside information in those shows and anyone interested in Roswell, regardless of which came in which they reside, will find something of interest.

Next up is William Puckett who hosts a website that publishes current UFO sightings as well as dealing with other aspects of the UFO phenomena. 

Roswell and Wernher von Braun

It struck me that since I have published a couple of articles that either attempted to explain the Roswell debris or explain the whole of the crash scenario, it was only fair to look at it from the other side. Just yesterday, as I was provided many references to James Carrion’s book, I also received, from Tony Bragalia, a link to an article he had written about Wernher von Braun and his connection to the Roswell case. You can read it here:

www.ufoexplorations.com

I will note, apropos of nothing, but which might be of interest, Frank Kaufmann had told me a couple of decades ago that he, Kaufmann, had discussed the Roswell crash with von Braun. That wasn’t quite as far fetched as it seemed. A couple of

Wernher von Braun

decades earlier than my interview with Kaufmann, there had been a dedication of the museum in Roswell. One of the features was a replication of Robert Goddard’s lab. Goddard is considered the father of American rocketry, and von Braun had praised him for his innovations. Von Braun said that his work had been built on the foundation laid by Goodard.

Karl Pflock challenged this claim (about Kaufmann talking with von Braun and not von Braun’s praise of Goodard), but I was actually able, through documentation, to place von Braun and Kaufmann in the same room at the same time. Kaufmann was the chairman of the Roswell Chamber of Commerce during the dedication, and he had something called a Congressional Record that established that. This simply means that this document had mentioned Kaufmann’s position and that he and von Braun had attended the dedication. That put them in the same room at the same time and I wouldn’t be surprised if Kaufmann didn’t speak with von Braun.

Now, before you all write to tell me that Kaufmann has been caught in fudging his tales, I am not suggesting that they talked about the Roswell UFO crash. I’m only saying that Kaufmann met von Braun. I would be surprised, stunned actually, if either of them mentioned the crash. If there was a crash, it would be highly classified, and even if they both realized that the other was in on the secret, I just don’t see them discussing that in a room full of people at the dedication. In fact, I would be surprised if they exchanged much in the way of conversation, given the circumstances.

So, no, I don’t believe that Kaufmann knew anything about the crash stories that he hadn’t picked up over the years by watching television or talking with Walter Haut. In fact, in my first conversation with Kaufmann, he mentioned the 1989 Unsolved Mysteries broadcast that told the tale of Roswell. (And yes, I was on that show and no, I didn’t get to meet Robert Stack.)

Bragalia’s article will tell you that von Braun was brought in as a consultant to study the craft. He mentioned these things to his colleagues over the years. They are the ones who are suggesting that von Braun was involved. You can pick up the details in Bragalia’s article at his website. If you have questions about Bragalia’s article, you can contact him through the website.

Roswell Documentation vs. Roswell Eyewitnesses

Since I have now annoyed all my friends with my analysis of the Roswell documentation and how some of it is quite suggestive that nothing alien fell there, I thought it time to annoy all my skeptical friends. Lining up against that documentation is the testimony of some people who were on the scene in 1947. This is based on the documentation we can find about them and the stories they tell us in the world today.

Walter Haut, for example, either wrote the press release claiming the 509^th had found a flying saucer, or he took the dictation from Colonel William Blanchard to create the press release. At this point it doesn’t really matter. The press release

Walter Haut being interviewed.
Photo copyright by Kevin Randle.

was issued and it claimed they had “captured” a flying saucer in the Roswell region. The definition of flying saucer confuses the issue, because in 1947, there was no universally accepted definition. It could mean almost anything you wanted it to mean. But here’s the deal. It is vague to the point of being opaque. We don’t know what it means.

I have never understood the reason for the press release. If Blanchard was attempting to grab credit for solving the flying disk mystery, the press release was unnecessarily obscure. Compare it to the story out of Circleville, Ohio, in which a farmer found the remains of a weather balloon and rawin reflector on his land. We have a story in the local paper that identifies the farmer as Sherman Campbell and includes what is claimed a picture of his wife. When I talked to the family, I learned it was actually his daughter holding the rawin target. The point is that the Circleville newspaper story was clear and it included a photograph. The Roswell press release told us nothing of real importance, provided little in the way of verification and had no photograph.

We do have testimony from Haut, which, if we limit it to what was said in the press release, and what he said to us for decades before expanding his story, we learn that what was found was something strange. No, it tells us nothing about the alien nature of the crash, just tells us that Blanchard and company were perplexed by something they should have been able to identify easily if it was a weather balloon. No reason not to supply the explanation if it was something mundane, like was done in Circleville.

If we wish to get to the extraterrestrial, then there is Edwin Easley, who was the provost marshal (please note the proper spelling of marshal here) in Roswell. When I asked him if we were following the right path, he asked what I meant by that. I told him that we (meaning Don Schmitt and I) believed that the craft had been extraterrestrial. He said, “Well, let me put it this way, it’s not the wrong path.”

Taking that a step farther, he told family members about the alien “creatures.” That was his word to them, not mine. Sure, that statement is second hand at best because we learned it talking to family members, but hey, it does confirm his mindset on this.

No, there is no reason for Easley to have lied about it. He was very reluctant to talk, didn’t grant much in the way of interviews, and you won’t see him showing up in any of the old documentaries. I was always of the impression he wished to help me, but he had taken an oath in 1947 and he wasn’t going to break the oath.

There is Joe Briley, the operations officer in 1947. He said a couple of things that don’t take us directly to the extraterrestrial but do lead us to the highly unusual. He told me, when I mentioned, “…You heard the stories…” that “And then the story was changed immediately. As soon as the people from Washington arrived.”

Jesse Marcel

Yes, it is clear from the conversation on the tape that we’re talking about the UFO crash tale. I really don’t say anything specifically about it, but Briley knew why I had called him. In fact, later in the interview, he told me, “I just was not brought into that at all even though Butch [Blanchard] and I were extremely close.”

And later still, he said, “I don’t think Butch was stupid enough to call a weather balloon something else.”

Okay, this doesn’t get us to the extraterrestrial, but it does move us away from the conventional. It suggests things in Roswell were, well, up in the air in 1947.

I haven’t touched on Jesse Marcel, Sr. yet. He was quite clear in his statements about what had happened. There are any number of videos of him telling us that it was something “that wasn’t built on Earth but it had come to Earth.”

If he was stand alone, we could certainly dismiss his testimony. But it is not and while it is true that he seemed to drift all over the place before he died, he did say some provocative things about what he had seen and had done. These were backed up by his son and his wife. Still, we need to sound a note of caution when dealing with the senior Marcel.

Before this gets too long, let’s move onto Bill Brazel. Here was another man

Bill Brazel and Don Schmitt on the debris field.
Photo copyright by Kevin Randle

extremely reluctant to talk about what he had seen. He did find a few scraps of the material that his father, Mack, described as having come from “that contraption I found.”

This debris included something that resembled fiber optics, a lead foil that seemed to have a memory, returning to its original shape when crumpled, and something that was as light a balsa but with a strength that rivaled steel. Although he lost the debris to Air Force personnel in 1949, he did show it to several others including Sallye Tadolini. Some of these witnesses, who handled the debris have affidavits about it.

Of course, Mack had shown a bit of the debris to Floyd and Loretta Proctor. She told me about the fire-resistant capabilities of the material. She mentioned, as did Marian Strickland, that Mack had been held by the military authorities for a number of days.

And I don’t want to forget Bill Rickett, the CIC NCOIC in Roswell in July 1947. He talked about his trip to see the crash site, some of the debris that he saw there, and some of the people on the scene including Sheridan Cavitt and Edwin Easley.

Here I could mention Frankie Rowe who wasn’t lying about what she said. True, she is second hand, having heard about the crash and the creatures from her father, fire fighter Dan Dwyer. But her sister confirmed the story and ironically, one of the fire fighters who Karl Pflock interviewed and used to dismiss the story,

Karl Pflock

actually told me, that Dwyer had gone to the crash site in his private car. The fire fighter, C.J. Smith, told me about Dwyer’s trip when I asked, simply, “Did you know Dan Dwyer.” Smith’s response was, “He went out there in his car.”

These are some of the things that I think about when I’m not worrying about the documents that I mentioned in the last post. Most of the people mentioned here, and a dozen or two more that I could have brought up argue against the documents conclusion. While it is true that a few people might be inventing their tales, and we’ve had more than our share of them, there are some very solid people who had talked about their involvement. If I’m willing to concede some points based on the documentation, it seems only right that those at the other end of the spectrum admit that there are some disturbing testimonies. They all aren’t lying, looking for their fifteen minutes, and just wishing to have an interesting story to tell.

Oh, and before this degenerates into another long discussion about the foibles of human memory… yeah, I get it. But not all memories are flawed and inaccurate. Many times, the person gets the facts right as has been shown by numerous scientific investigations, and yes, I know about Elizabeth Loftus’ work on false memory. Her work demonstrates how such memories can be created, so we don’t really have to talk about that. We just have to remember that sometimes, the person relating the tale has the details right, was actually there, and is telling the truth as best he or she can…

Anatomy of an Investigation

Once again, going through older material looking for nothing specific, I have stumbled over something that might be of some significance. It all began when, scanning a document created by the Air Force that listed 49 UFO organizations in the United States that investigated UFOs, I spotted Karl Pflock’s name. He was listed as the director of something called the National Committee for

Karl Pflock

Investigation of UFO’s. The name, I suspect was designed to feed off that of the bigger and better known National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena which was listed by the Air Force as the National Investigative Committee on Aerial Phenomena providing a glimpse into how careful they were in their investigations.

I attached nothing of importance to this discovery, other than Karl had been interested in UFOs for a long time and that he had apparently created his own organization to study them. In the mid-1960s, a friend and I created the Office of Scientific Investigation, a name we learned from a science fiction film. We did hold some meetings, created an investigation form, did investigate a few sightings, and began a small library of UFO related books. Nothing nefarious in that. We all (and here I include Karl) were just interested in the topic.

All this lead to a bigger revelation and confirmation of something that has been said for decades. The Air Force did keep track of the civilian UFO organizations and were aware of the policies of some and were worried about their influence on public perception. This was included in a secret document from December 18, 1958. I will note for the purists out that that part of it was secret, part of it was confidential and some of it was unclassified. By government regulations, the entire document, at that time, would have been considered secret because that was the highest classification contained inside the document. For the record, the list of UFO organizations was confidential, a classification level just below secret.

In the secret part of that document, which was inclosure [sic] one, and labeled as a draft proposal, it was noted:

Forty-nine (49) UFO organizations… exist in the ZI [Zone of the Interior, which is to say, the continental United States]in addition to many individual self-proclaimed experts whose affiliations or specific intentions are not clear. It is clear, however, that for various reasons these individuals and agencies such as NICAP, CSI [oddly, there are two organizations on the list that could be this particular CSI – Civilian Saucer Intelligence or Civilian Saucer Investigation] APRO, etc. feel a need for, and do everything possible to discredit the Air Force, its investigations, and its ultimate evaluation of reported sightings. These organizations, and for the most part individuals, are well equipped, and do in fact conduct a very comprehensive, although biased, field investigation. These generally result in well documented reports which are used for their chosen purposes… Some, such as Mr. Haber [of an investigation of a UFO sighting] for reason known only to him, take advantage of every opportunity to incite others.

The real take away here is that the Air Force is tracking UFO organizations though their spokesmen sometimes denied that, and that they found these civilian investigators to be competent, producing comprehensive reports. They suggested that the investigations were biased, but then the same can be said for Air Force investigations, especially when a body of documentation suggests that UFO sightings were to be explained, and if not, then classified. See Air Force regulations, 200-2 and 80-17.

There is another part of this secret document that is relevant to the discussion here. It said:

Ed Ruppelt

Some of the UFO organizations, such as NICAP, well know the deficiencies in the Air Force Program and take advantage of every opportunity to place us in a defensive position. In fact, it is understood that Captain Ruppelt, who was responsible for the ATIC part of the UFO Program from early 1951 until September 1953, is now affiliated with NICAP. In this organization alone ex-marine corps Major Kehoe [sic], a political adventurist, [this description was toned down in subsequent drafts of this document], and Captain Ruppelt, an ex-ATIC specialist, represent a formidable team from which plenty of trouble can be expected in the future. Both appear to be in the business for the money involved. Comparable conditions involving eminent authorities of questionable intensions exist in other of the 49 organizations.

Donald Keyhoe

This is another example of an outrageous and false allegation. I’m not sure why it is thrown around. Isn’t nearly everyone in it for the money or some other reward? Are journalists reporting news because it makes them feel good, or are they looking to climb the ladder to bigger assignments, more prestige, and a higher paycheck?

I have been told on many occasions that I’m only in it for the money but the real driving force is that I wanted to be a writer. The money was, of course, an important component of that, but then, once I had sold four books (none of which dealt with UFOs), I quit my job that included health and dental benefits to write full time.

But there was also the desire to tell a good story, to get at the truth in the UFO field, and report that truth, which explains why there is no monetization on this blog. I provide the information, and of course, my point of view for no monetary reward.

And while Keyhoe was director at NICAP and paid for his leadership, Ruppelt was not being paid. He wrote his book and was paid for that, but anyone who writes a book expects some monetary reward… but for the majority of us, that works out to less than minimum wage, not to mention all the rip-offs created by many of the others in the book business… Did you know that as much as 60 or 70% of the cover price of a book goes to the bookstore and the distributor? Doesn’t leave much for the publisher, his or her employees and then at the bottom of the ladder – the writer. But I digress (please excuse the editorial comment).

What we see here is that much of the response to the UFO question by the Air Force is secret. More importantly, and the real point here as noted, is that the Air Force was keeping tabs on the UFO organizations. That is something that they denied and many believed to be paranoia based on nothing other than a delusion of importance for the work done by those civilian organizations.

And yet the Air Force denied all this, while understanding what was going on out in the field. They denied this surveillance while engaged in it. Makes you wonder what other things the Air Force said about UFO investigations that were untrue and hidden by that veil of secrecy. But, as I say, we now know that the Air Force was watching… though it might not have been all that close or all the time. Still, it tells us a little about the importance of the UFO research and how seriously the Air Force took that all the while denying that there was anything of value to be learned in UFO investigation. 

Truth about Mogul

Over on Rich Reynolds UFO Conjectures we’ve just had a lesson in some of the skeptical thought processes. In a conversation that was tangential to the main point, one of the commentators

Dr. Albert Crary

 wrote, “The only plausible explanation is Flight #4 did fly and there were many, many errors in how it was recorded (incorrectly) giving the impression it never did fly at all.”

My first thought was, “Seriously?”

The leader of Project Mogul in New Mexico was Dr. Albert Crary and it is his field notes and his documentation that apparently, according to some in the skeptical community, contained “many, many errors.”

And what were those errors?

He wrote, of Flight No. 4, scheduled to be launched at dawn on June 4, 1947, “Out to Tularosa Range and fired charges between 00 [midnight] and 06 this am. No balloon flights again on account of clouds. Flew regular sono buoy up in cluster of balloons and had good luck on receiver on ground but poor on plane. Out with Thompson pm. Shot charges from 1800 to 2400.”

Nothing really confusing here when you understand the New York University balloon project in New Mexico. They were attempting to create a constant level balloon, one that would remain at a specific altitude for a long period carrying a microphone to be used to detect explosions on the ground, or more specifically, atomic detonations by the Soviet Union. The ultimate purpose was to spy on the

Mogul test detonation.

Soviets, though I suspect that none of those in New Mexico knew that.

The note about “No balloon flights again,” referred to the attempt on June 3. And here is where Charles Moore, who would later claim he launched the Roswell saucer, got the idea of flights in the dark. The diary said, “Up at 0230 am ready to fly balloon but abandoned due to cloudy skies.” We know, based on the other reports and documentation that the CAA, forerunner to the FAA, that “Restrictions on the project is the Civil Aeronautics Authority requirement that balloon flights be made only on days that are cloudless to 20,000 feet.”

We know that a sonobuoy is in reality a microphone and it would be used to detect the explosions and transmit that information. According to the notes, that worked fine with the ground receiver but not as well for that in the aircraft, which we know was a B-17 according to other information in the notes.

Notes elsewhere show that a “cluster of balloons” is not a full array. According to the documentation, “This cluster method is of use and interest only as a stop-gap method of lifting the Army equipment to altitude now, and has been the method used while awaiting delivery of the non-extensible plastic balloons…. A flight was made on 3 April 1947 using this method. A cluster of 12 balloons meteorological [yes, that was the wording in the report] carrying a radiosonde, a 15 lb. dummy load and a series of ballast dropping devices was released from the football field at Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA.” This is from “Special Report #1, May, 1947.”

So, where is the evidence that Flight No. 4 flew? The field notes said expressly that it did not. We know that their fallback position, when the full array was cancelled, was to fly a cluster of balloons to perform other experiments, and we have a definition of what is meant by a cluster of balloons.

Charles Moore in New Mexico.
Photo copyright by Kevin Randle.

For those who wish to invoke Charles Moore’s statement that Flight No. 4 was launched at sometime around 0300, in the dark and apparently in cloudy weather, we have the documentation to show that this is, to be generous, an error on his part and not from the notes in Crary’s diary. They arrived on the morning of June 3 at 0230 to prepare for the dawn launch, and in fact the June 5 launch was made just after dawn as required by the CAA instructions which are documented.

But never let the documentation get in the way of an explanation when you can confound the issue. Another comment over at UFO Conjectures was, “… missing data on the Mogul flight is a wrinkle, but you’re [the above comment] surely correct some sort of ‘admin’ error is to blame.”

But there is no missing data because the flight had been cancelled. The cluster of balloons was not a full array and the first launch of a Mogul flight in New Mexico was on June 5 and it is accounted for in the records. There was no admin error but a precise record of what happened until Charles Moore changed his story and complicated the issue to keep the myth of Mogul alive for his own, personal reasons.

Here’s something else. The Mogul array displayed in the Air Force report was Flight No. 2 and contained rawin targets which are necessary to explain the metallic debris reported by so many of those stationed in Roswell in 1947. But Flight No. 5, the first flight in New Mexico, and the one used by Karl Pflock to demonstrate the size of the arrays has no rawin targets. In fact, none of the illustrations of the make-up of the arrays in New Mexico show any rawins as part of the package. The only exception seems to be the demonstration array launched from Alamogordo on July 10 which needed rawins to explain the debris. All the flights were launched in the daylight, most in early morning until November when some were launched in the afternoon.

Further, the idea that the soldiers at Roswell were unaware of what these arrays were is false. First, Dr. Crary, on May 20, wrote that he had been over at the RAAF to fill with gas. Later, Moore would claim that he was turned back at the front gate even though he was driving a weapons carrier drawn from and with the markings of the Alamogordo Army Air Field on it while carrying the remains of a Mogul flight. On June 5, Flight No. 5 landed some 25 miles east of Roswell, which means that whole array would have been visible from the airfield which means tower crews and others on the airfield would have seen one in flight. The CAA required NOTAMs, which meant that the operations staff would have been aware of them as well, and such information would have been passed not only to flight crews but to the group commander.

All this documentation is available in various sources including Pflock’s book, Roswell: Inconvenient Facts and the Will to Believe and the massive Air Force report which provides details about the balloon project in New Mexico, which Charles Moore made clear was the New York University balloon project and not Mogul. Mogul, a name that was clearly known to those in New Mexico in 1947, as demonstrated by Crary’s field notes and diary, was the code name for spying on the Soviets and it was the mission that was classified, not the name nor the experiments in New Mexico which negates the idea that Mogul was so highly classified that very few knew the name or what the arrays looked like.

The conclusion borne out by all the documentation is that it is not filled with “many, many errors” nor the idea that the “missing data on the Mogul flight is a wrinkle,” but that Flight No. 4 was cancelled, first on June 3 and then on June 4. Had it flown as Moore claimed, had it produced results as good as if not better than Flight No. 5 as Moore claimed, it would have been listed in the documentation.

The point here is that I’m at a loss to understand the tenacious way that debunkers cling to the Mogul explanation in the face of the evidence that has been mounted against it. I fail to understand how they can be so dismissive of that documentation by saying things like “The only plausible explanation is Flight #4 did fly and there were many, many errors in how it was recorded (incorrectly) giving the impression it never did fly at all,” and “…missing data on the Mogul flight is a wrinkle, but you’re [the above comment] surely some sort of ‘admin’ error is to blame.” The data are not missing and the evidence is quite clear.

And yes, I know that the documentation for a crash of an alien spacecraft is based almost solely on witness testimony gathered decades after the fact and there is some documentation that what was found was not alien, but there are some areas where it is not as clear cut as it is with Flight No. 4. I also realize that the elimination of Flight No. 4 as the culprit does not translate into evidence that what fell outside of Roswell was alien. It only means that this particular explanation, when you examine all the evidence, has failed.