Immaculate Constellation - My Analysis

 

Last night, on my normal UFO segment on Coast-to-Coast AM, I mentioned something called Immaculate Constellation, which, according to a whistleblower, who is never identified, is a top-secret archive of UFO, well, UAP images. According to the whistleblower, the military and intelligence community are operating a database of videos and images taken from "infrared (IR), forward-looking infrared (FLIR), full motion video (FMV), and still photography of UAPs.

The whistleblower alleged that the Department of Defense created Immaculate Constellation under what's known as an Unacknowledged Special Access Program (USAP) in 2017 after The New York Times reported on an informal Pentagon UAP program known as AATIP.

Reporter Michael Shellenberger of Public said on "Joe Rogan Experience" that in the whistleblower's report, the Pentagon is "illegally" hiding information about this program from Congress.

The whistleblower said that simply printing the name "Immaculate Constellation" could trigger government surveillance of whoever publishes the name using the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act as probable cause. They won't comment on it, but talking about it will put you in the danger zone. I guess that means I am now in the “Danger Zone,” which sounds like a good name for a podcast or a rock band. BTW: Agents, if you come for me, please don’t crash through the door. I’ll happily open it for you.

DoD spokeswoman Sue Gough, who has been called on many times as UFO and UAP questions are asked, denied on Wednesday, any knowledge of a special access program known as Immaculate Constellation. I’m not sure that this is relevant because if it was a special access program which would also suggest a need to know and she might not have been in the loop. Would a spokeswoman, or spokesman for that matter, be read into every highly classified program? If they are not then they have plausible deniability, meaning that she can say such things as having no knowledge of a program and be telling the truth. Doesn’t mean the program doesn’t exist, only that she doesn’t know about it.

I am reminded that when the Moon Dust was inadvertently revealed in 1986, the Air Force denied that such a program existed. When shown official documents with the name Moon Dust on them, a higher-ranking Air Force officer said Moon Dust did exist but had not been used. Other documents refuted that claim as well. For more precise information on this see:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2024/03/aaro-and-beginning-of-moon-dust.html

The point is that the first officer, Lieutenant Colonel John E. Madison, of the Congressional Inquiry Division, Office of Liaison, wrote, “There is no agency, nor has there ever been, at Fort Belvoir, Viriginia, which would deal with UFOs or have any information about the incident in Roswell. In addition, there is no Project Moon Dust or Operation Blue Fly. Those missions have never existed.”

Most of what Madison wrote was the truth. There may well not have been any agency at Fort Belvoir that dealt with UFOs or Roswell, which, course, doesn’t mean that such agencies might not exist at other installations. And he is accurate in saying there is no Project Moon Dust because Moon Dust was the code words dealing with UFO material.

So, Madison wasn’t lying, he just didn’t have access to all the information he needed to properly answer the questions put to him. However, when the documents were presented and properly vetted, meaning the source of the documents was legitimate, Colonel George M. Mattingley, Jr., wrote, “…Upon further review of the case (which was aided by the several attachments to Mr. Stone’s letter), we wish to amend the statements contained in the previous response…”

Cliff Stone

The point is that even people at the highest levels aren’t read into all programs and a denial by Gough that she had no knowledge of such a program doesn’t mean there is no such program.

The real problem here is that Shellenberger has not identified his source. Years ago, decades really, we were presented with documents suggesting a cover up of the Roswell UFO crash. These papers, known as MJ-12, appeared at the home of a UFO researcher. Well, photographic film arrived and when developed, revealed the existence of a special group known as MJ-12 to exploit and direct the recovery of the Roswell UFO.

The trouble with these documents was that we didn’t know who had sent them. We didn’t know where they originated. Finally, we didn’t have the originals which could have been tested. What good would it do to test the paper on which they were printed? We all know that it was photographic paper.

Investigation into the information provided by the MJ-12 documents suggested they had been created in 1984 rather than 1952 as alleged on the documents. In 1984, there was a believe that the Del Rio UFO crash, which in the MJ-12 documents, is mentioned as El Indio-Guerrero crash. But there is no evidence and the lone witness changed so much about it over the years, that it is clear that it was invented. You can read one analysis of the case here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2011/08/absense-of-evidence.html

The point is that originally the MJ-12 documents caused a stir not only in the UFO community but among the news media and those interested in UFOs. Investigation revealed the flaws and the major flaw was we didn’t know the original source. Without that, we were left with an interesting aside into the possibility of a cover up. Eventually, nearly everyone agreed that the documents were a hoax and that was underscored by the lack of the original source.

That’s where we are with Immaculate Constellation. We have no source and we don’t even have copies of documents suggesting there is something to the claims. At least, MJ-12 had documents, which led to the revelation that it was a hoax. For an in depth analysis see Case MJ-12: Updated.

I’ll note here that for years Stan Friedman held up several documents that related to UFOs that were nearly all redacted. There were only one or two words on a page that could be read. This was proof of the cover up. However, we now have the unredacted versions of those documents and realize that the missing information had nothing to do with UFOs but with intelligence collection methods in certain parts of the world. That information would have been of value to our competitors in the world and was rightly redacted. This merely shows that sometimes, we over react to government secrecy.

We can look to whistleblower David Grusch. He talked of high-level, important people who told him about UFO crashes, but he supplied no names. I can deduce some of those names and while they had once held important posts in the government or were respected scientists, that didn’t say anything about Grusch’s sources other than we have the names. Didn’t prove what they had told Grush, or that Grush overheard, was accurate information, only that they might have said it.

I point all this out because we now have more information about an important government program hidden from the public which, supposedly hides information about UFOs or rather UAP. But we have no way of vetting the information. We have no way of finding corroboration. We just must believe the stories told by this unidentified source. And I ask, “Why?”

Here's something else that hasn’t been considered and that is that this collection of UFO images might not have a thing to do with alien visitation, but is, instead, images of terrestrial craft that have been flying around various locations in the US. It might be that the images are held in secrecy because revelation of them might provide information of intelligence value to our competitors. In other word, national security might have raised its ugly head.

I could go on about other great stories circulating or circulated in the UFO field that intrigued and excited people inside and outside the UFO community that blew up when we finally were able to get to the sources.

Right now, I can’t verify that Immaculate Constellation exists, but then I can’t reject the tale either because the evidence to do that doesn’t yet exist. I can only caution against drawing any concrete conclusions now because we simply don’t have enough information to just either way to justify any conclusion.

David Grusch and the 1933 Italian UFO Crash

 

One of the problems we face after David Grusch began his whistle blowing campaign is that he provided almost no information about his sources, about the UFO crash retrievals he alleged were real and provided no documents to support his claims. All that was coming but given the rules, regulations and laws, he was unable to produce any of the required information that would allow us to vet anything he said and validate his tale.

However, we can deduce some of this by comments he has made, especially during the interview that was broadcast on one of the fledgling all-news cable channels. I’m going to ignore his comment about “The Program,” which might or might not be the real name of a clandestine program because there just isn’t enough information about it to make any analysis meaningful. I will say, however, that we know about Project Moon Dust that had a UFO component, and that after the name was compromised in the mid-1980s, the name was changed and we were told that even the name was classified. Not that the project had been cancelled, only that the name had been changed and was still gathering UFO related material under umbrella of national security.

David Grusch and his military resume.

Grusch did name two UFO crashes. He mentioned both a crash in Italy in 1933 and, of course, Roswell. There was no danger in mentioning Roswell because of the controversy wrapped around the story. While the government explanation was Project Mogul, the available documentation eliminates that answer. I have written about that explanation of Roswell for, literally, decades, and believe there is no viable, terrestrial explanation for what was recovered. For those who wish to pursue my reasons for that, I suggest typing Mogul into the search engine here, or read either Roswell in the 21^st Century or Understanding Roswell.

The real trouble comes from the reference to the 1933 crash in Italy. I had not heard about this and I have spent decades researching claims of UFO crashes. The Italian story comes from documents, received anonymously in the mail by Italian researchers. This smacks of the tales of MJ-12, documents that were received anonymously in the mail by American researchers. Those documents are considered to hoaxes by the majority of UFO researchers today.

Briefly, Grusch said that the UFO was retrieved in northern Italy in 1933, and was recovered by Mussolini’s fascist government. The Pope learned about it and told the US government. The material was recovered by the US after the end of the Second World War.

The story of the 1933 crash, as told by Roberto Pinotti, an Italian journalist and UFO researcher, was that the object fell in Magenta, Lambardy, Italy, on April 11, 1933. The object was described as “saucer-like” and the event resulted in an investigation by an Italian intelligence unit called RS/33 Cabinet. The UFO was stored in the hangars of SIAI Marchetti in Vergiate. Mussolini believed the craft was a secret weapon of either the Nazis or the Allies.

Pope Pius XII learned of the craft and may have been told about it by Mussolini himself. When Mussolini signed a treaty with Hitler, the Pope worried about the craft and told the US about the object. It was after the war that the craft made its way to the United States.

Lue Elizondo, who was involved in UFO investigations, said that he had seen documents from Mussolini’s office that he found, “compelling.” He seemed to suggest that the craft might not have been alien but was some sort of advanced craft using jet engines that had been developed by the Nazis. The timing, however, doesn’t seem to fit. April 1933 is too early for the development of the jet engines and the design might have been something created by the Horten brothers attempts to build a “tailless” aircraft.

There were tales of bodies that made their way, and I say allegedly here, to Wright Field. They were badly mangled, looking as if they had been in a car wreck, but whose heads were fairly intact. They were seven feet tall, had long blonde hair, clear blue eyes, small noses, small mouths, thin lips and no signs facial hair.  The conclusion, based on the examination of those bodies was that they were not human.

One of the gates to Wright-Patterson AFB. Photo by Kevin Randle.

Now here is a connection that will raise a few eyebrows. There is an account from another source to corroborate some of these details. William Brophy, said that his father, who was a lieutenant colonel, had seen the bodies at some point and told him, the son, about them. Yes, this is the same Lieutenant Colonel Brophy who supposedly flew over, or landed near, or was somehow a witness to the 1945 UFO crash described by Jacques Vallee in this book about the San Antonio (Trinity) crash. The younger Brophy’s entry into this case taints it, just as it has the San Antonio crash.

At any rate, this is the tale of the 1933 crash, not cluttered up with any sort of corroboration except for those documents that have been floating around for decades. The trouble there, according to an Italian researcher, Giuseppe Stilo, writing in UFO Rivista di Informazione Ufoligica, those documents are faked. The documents arrived anonymously and were reported to have originated in “archival sources that no one has been able to identify and verify.”

Another problem is that those holding what has been termed “The Fascist Files,” is that disinterested third parties, in this case the CISU (Centro Italiano Studi Ufogici, an Italian research group) requested an opportunity to examine the documents but that has not happened in more than twenty years.

Also disturbing, is the lack of citation of the sources. We have dealt here, on this blog, with anonymous sources in various public arenas and more often than not, when the original source is identified the information attributed to that source has been distorted, or worse, the source denied the information.

A second article, “Fascist files” Under Scrutiny, by Massimiliano Grandi, published in UFO Rivista di Informazione Ufoligica (number 29) provided more information on these documents. Published with the article are photos of the documents which demonstrates there are documents, but that doesn’t mean they are authentic because the originals have not been subjected to independent forensic examination. This is the same problem we had with the MJ-12 documents. The originals were not available for disinterested third party examination.

Grandi provides additional arguments about the authenticity of the documents and the failure to corroborate any of the sources or other information. He concludes, however:

…we would like to firmly reiterate that despite the critical tones – the intent of those who want to study such an affair cannot be to try to prove the ‘falsity’ of those papers. This would be illogical. This falsity is not proven now, but it was intended to point out that there are numerous serious weaknesses in the reasons made to support the importance of the documents.

On the basis of the evidence so far produced, we believe that an Abrahamic faith is indeed required to condition the conclusions drawn by Pinotti and Lissoni about the contents of these documents.

Or, in other words, they found nothing to indicate that the documents were authentic and without additional information, the case for the 1933 crash and retrieval is not proven. It is up to the supporters to provide that proof and for more than twenty years they have failed to do so.

If this revelation about the 1933 Italian UFO crash is accurate, then it casts a shadow over the whistle blower who suggested that he learned it from his inside sources. It means that he accepted the original publication of the material without critical thought or even making a basic Internet search because he assumed that the information was accurate. It would seem that an insider, with access to what must be highly classified information, would have been aware of the controversy surrounding this case. He wouldn’t have mentioned it as one of two that he believed to be authentic.

Since he didn’t mention the names of any of his sources, we are unable to vet them and their reliability. We now enter an area of speculation. I have run into information that Grusch had spent time at the Skinwalker Ranch. Jerry Clark had mentioned to me that linking Grusch to Skinwalker as a way of questioning his credibility was unfair. Many have traveled to Skinwalker. But my point wasn’t about the paranormal research going on there, but who conducted the research and who had visited there. That put Grusch in touch with some formerly high-ranking government and military officials, not to mention Bigelow Aerospace. Remember, Grusch had talked about some of the evidence of the crashes and the recovery of material from those crashes had been provided to corporate America. One of those specifically named by sources other than Grusch was Bigelow Aerospace.

Given that connection, then it follows that we can deduce some of the names of those involved, and we can deduce some of the other crashes that might have been mentioned. Given where some of the information has recently surfaced that included the names of Leslie Kean and Ralph Blumenthal, I believe that one of those crashes is the 1945 claim of the recovery of a craft near San Antonio, New Mexico. The story was told by two men, who had been boys in 1945, who saw the craft crash, saw the wrecked craft on the ground, the alien creatures that flew it, and the Army recovery operation.

Although the story has been accepted by some very smart people, some of them who have been around the UFO field for decades, Douglas Dean Johnson, in a comprehensive investigation that does cite sources and does provide documentation, has thoroughly debunked the tale. The shifting nature of the important features of the story suggest it is untrue. Tom Carey recorded an interview with Reme Baca, one of those witnesses, before the story received any wide spread treatment and the recording is of an event that doesn’t match much of the later story. You can read Johnson’s research and listen to Carey’s interview and analysis by other, disinterested third parties here:

https://douglasjohnson.ghost.io/crash-story-file-the-reme-baca-smoking-gun-interview/

https://douglasjohnson.ghost.io/crash-story-the-trinity-ufo-crash-hoax/

https://www.davidhalperin.net/

Given the direction of all this, I wonder if the Del Rio UFO crash in northern Mexico, just across the border from Texas, isn’t on the list. This tale appears in the MJ-12 Eisenhower Briefing Document as one of the authentic crashes, though they have moved it from Del Rio to the south, in the area of El Indio/Guerrero. There are those who believe the story because a retired Air Force colonel was the one who told it and he signed an affidavit attesting to the authenticity of his information. However, it turned out the witness, Robert Willingham, was not an Air Force colonel and his story had more changes than that of Reme Baca. You can read about how it unraveled here and that will also provide links to other Willingham and MJ-12 analysis:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2018/06/mj-12-and-cognitive-dissonance.html

I would guess that another of the crashes that Grusch might promote is the Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, event of December 9, 1965. Stan Gordon has spent decades in research of this case and is convinced that it was an alien spacecraft that crashed. Leslie Kean, along with Gordon attempted to recover records of the crash from NASA. Gordon has found many people who saw part of the final flight of what he thinks of as alien spacecraft. I too, thought that this was one of the best UFO crash stories, and Gordon has produced some compelling evidence. However, in the world today, the answer for that event might be a meteor. A bolide, which is a very bright meteor, fell about that time, with remnants found in southern Canada.

Stan Gordon of Kecksburg UFO Crash fame.

I wonder if Shag Harbour might not be on the list. This case had many witnesses who saw something fall into Shag Harbour in 1967. There was both a law enforcement response as well as a military one. The object was not recovered, and the evidence seems to suggest that it eventually managed to leave the harbour for deeper waters. Not so much of a crash as an emergency landing. There are many witnesses, as I noted, and there are many official documents about it. Chris Styles and Don Ledger are responsible for finding the documentation and the other information that suggests that this was an anomalous event.

These are some of the obvious tales of UFO crashes that had received mention in various books, magazine articles and TV documentaries. These are the prominent ones that many accept as authentic crashes. There are some lesser known crashes that might make the list such as the one over Las Vegas in April, 1962.

There was a report of a “brilliant red explosion” over Las Vegas that was witnessed by dozens, if not hundreds. Couple this to events in Utah of an oval-shaped craft landing and then taking off, and there is a hint of a “forced landing,” if not an actual crash. Sheriff’s deputies told me of a search for the downed craft that was never located. At this point, my investigation suggests that the Las Vega end of it was a bolide that exploded in the upper atmosphere.

I suppose I could go on with this speculation, but without Grusch telling us what specific events he had encountered, what he had heard from those highly-placed sources, and what is on those documents that he has seen but hasn’t produced, all we can do is speculate.

What I do know at this point is that Grusch’s mention of the Italian crash calls part of his story and one or more of his sources into question. Insiders would know the truth about this case, if they had heard about it. That casts something of a shadow over his whistle blowing.

However, those of us who have been around the UFO field long enough have been fooled by sources that seem to have inside information, only to learn that their sources were no better than ours. The UFO field is littered with the tall tales that, originally looked good but have fallen when better research was presented. Four of the most recent examples are the MJ-12 documents, the Alien Autopsy, the Project Mogul explanation for Roswell, and what I have called the Roswell Slides. The truth about all these has been published and you can read about it on this blog by typing in the keywords, or read about in my latest books about Roswell mentioned earlier.

At this point, I’m hopeful that Grusch will be able to provide the information we need to vet his tales, but as we said in the military, “Hope is not an option.” All I can really say is there are a few red flags but these simply are not enough to reject the information that Grusch has provided. As Jerry Clark said to me, we do need to wait to see how this plays out and where the truth finally is found.

 

David Grusch and the Latest Crash Retrieval Story

 

By now nearly everyone interested in UFOs, or rather UAPs, has heard about the latest revelations that the US Government has recovered not only alien artifacts, but apparently intact craft and the bodies of the pilots killed in UFO crashes. There are those who say this is the first time that anything like this has received positive public scrutiny, and all is backed up with endorsements by high-ranking military and government officials who are the same ones who have been making claims for years or who are not all that high ranking.

David Charles Grusch, who has some interesting credentials, has been interviewed by several journalists, who also have some interesting credentials, saying that there is evidence suggesting a secret program to recover the UFO material. We do know of a program called Moon Dust, that was originally hidden behind a curtain of classification, that had the mission of recovering unknown objects that have fallen to Earth that are of either foreign manufacture or unknown origin. This project, however, was not highly classified and operated in various government agencies including the Department of State. My book, cleverly called Project Moon Dust covers a great deal of that material, including reporting on the retrieval of many of these objects.

David Grusch and his visible resume.

In fact, Air Force Brigadier General C. H. Bolander made a statement in 1969 that said, “Reports of unidentified flying objects which could affect national security… are not part of the Blue Book system... [and] should continue to be handled through the standard Air Force procedure designed for this purpose.” He meant that some sightings were not reported to Project Blue Book, the official and publicly identified entity responsible for UFO investigation. This then, could be interpretated as evidence of a secret investigation that was not known to the public, which is indirect confirmation of what Grusch has claimed.

Grusch was adamant that there are several craft, intact, and that the bodies of the pilots were recovered. Unfortunately, and one thing that we need to remember, is that he said he had not seen these himself but was telling what others he respected told him. He said there were documents, but those were not available at the moment. This is the same problem that has plagued such claims for decades.

I did talk to Daniel Sheehan, a lawyer who consulted for a time with the Carter Administration, who said that he too, had seen photographs of downed craft with American military personnel on the site and related, highly classified documents. That interview was reported in UFOs and the Deep State.

I mention those two books because, my research tends to validate some of what Grusch said. But we’re in the same place without the documents or photographs of the debris that we have always found ourselves. I have talked with people who claimed insider status, but who are reluctant to go on the record but talked of secret studies and investigations and recovered artifacts.

This is not the first time that someone has suggested evidence of a secret government program to gain some attention by the main stream media. However, in the past, those claims have never been proven and some of the documentation has been discredited by members of the UFO community.

In the mid-1980s, the media, the UFO community, and most of the United States were fascinated to learn of something called Majestic Twelve or MJ-12. The proponents, who had received several documents anonymously through the mail, alleged that the MJ-12 was a highly placed group of scientists, military officers and government officials who were responsible for the investigation of a UFO recovered outside of Roswell, New Mexico and other alleged crashes.

Those proponents were seen on various TV shows including Nightline, were the subject of a two-hour nationally broadcast documentary that described the whole MJ-12 operation, and were interviewed by countless newspaper reporters. There was very little initial skepticism because they had the documents to show, including a letter or memo written by and signed by then president Harry Truman. Although the coverage was initially positive, it was later shown that MJ-12 and all the subsequent documents were faked. I outlined all this in the book, Case MJ-12, which was updated not all that long ago. You can read more about it here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2007/09/mj-12-is-dead.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2006/08/mj-12-revisited.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2011/08/absense-of-evidence.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2010/10/end-of-mj-12.html

And, of course, you can read more information about it in Roswell in the 21^st Century and in Understanding Roswell. There is also a section on the Majestic War Plan, a real document that was code named Majestic but that has nothing to do with the MJ-12 or alien spacecraft but does suggest a real problem. There wouldn’t be two separate programs using the same classified code word because of the obvious confusion that would create. The Majestic war plan has a known provenance but the MJ-12 documents have none.

And another worldwide sensation that received positive media coverage was the announcement that several cans of black and white movie footage had been found that showed the autopsy of an alien being. There were claims that some of the footage showed President Truman on the UFO crash site. This was going to blow the lid off the whole UFO question.

One of the creators of the Alien Autopsy video with the crash victim.

Documentaries were prepared about the footage. Most of those documentaries provided little in the way of critical content. In a press conference held in London, attended by reporters and other interested parties from around the world, some of that footage was shown. Naturally, there were critics, but they were mostly ignored because there was actual film footage shown and a promise that more would becoming.

It was later revealed to be a hoax, with those who had created the alien creature providing photographs that showed the creation of the creatures. But the real point is that, in the beginning, those making the claims had something besides the second-hand statements of a man with good credentials. You can read more about the alien autopsy here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2018/03/why-im-beginning-to-dislike-ufology.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2012/05/aiien-autopsy-and-philip-mantle.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2016/05/alien-autopsy-and-h-beam.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2006/04/end-of-alien-autopsy.html

The definitive book on this is Philip Mantle’s Roswell Alien Autopsy. Given his sources, it pretty well ends the discussion.

Or the latest of the worldwide UFO phenomena with a promise of absolute proof including photographs of the alien bodies was announced just a few years ago. This was big news on the world stage for several months with the promise that all would be revealed. The story was that two people, from Midland, Texas, had been friends with President Eisenhower and he had allowed them to not only see the bodies of the beings killed in the Roswell crash, but allowed them to photograph them.

In the beginning, a very poor photo was released online, as sort of a teaser to the big presentation to be held in Mexico City. It was to be streamed live throughout the world, and interest was high for weeks prior to the presentation.

In the end, it was all hype and little else. When we finally saw a high-quality photograph, it took only hours to identify it as an unfortunate child who had died several hundred years ago. You can learn more about it here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2019/08/x-zone-broadcast-network-tom-carey.html

Although this post has a long list of other articles about the Roswell Slides, this one post might provide the best evidence against that whole sad saga. Just type Roswell Slides into the search engine for a more comprehensive list. And, of course, Roswell in the 21^st Century has a long analysis of the situation.

In other words, I’m cautious about all this latest interest from the whistleblower and would like to see some evidence other than second-hand statements before I climb out on a limb. As shown, we have been down this road before, and in many of those cases, there was some form of physical evidence attached to the claims being made. It might be in the form of documents, or it might be film of an alien being undergoing a rather cavalier autopsy, but it was something more than one man with good credentials making claims that can’t be backed up at this point.

Here's the thing. Too many of us want to believe, so we are sometimes blinded to the flaws in the story. I have talked to a general, who wished to remain anonymous, who said that the Roswell story was true. He had seen the evidence. Now, why would he risk his career to make a statement like that? I don’t know, but I heard him say it.

While two reputable journalists have reported on the story and the Grasch has been vetted, the point is that he has offered nothing in the way of corroborative evidence. He has promised it is out there but this is not the time to reveal it. So, I report on what has been said, I note that this is not the first time this has happened, and I wait patiently for the evidence to be presented. Until then, this tale joins all the others we have been fed over the years. Without the corroborative evidence, all we really have is an interesting story told by a man who has offered no evidence and that many of us want to believe.

'X' Zone Broadcast Network - Curt Collins

 

This week’s guest on A Different Perspective was Curt Collins, he of www.blueblurrylines.com and www.thesaucersthattimeforgot.com. I had invited him on to talk about the series he writes about the more obscure but no less interesting stories about flying saucers. You can listen to the show here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/48381122

We began by talking about some of the things he had found in his searches. He mentioned my chasing footnotes as an example of looking for the primary sources of information. This might include speaking to the main witnesses when they could be

Curt Collins

found, or the original articles that appeared in newspapers or magazines. We both have found times when the information being circulated today doesn’t resemble accurately the information as it was originally presented. I thought specifically of a metal vessel blow out of solid rock in Massachusetts in the 19^th century. For those interested in this analysis, see:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2006/11/ooparts-and-tubal-cain.html

Curt mentioned a story that seemed to reflect on the abduction phenomenon as written today, called The Outer Limit (and as he said, not to be confused with the old TV show, The Outer Limits). This program had to do with atomic testing causing damage to the Earth, something that is in the news today.

We also talked, briefly about Carroll Wayne Watts, who, in 1967, claimed that he had an encounter that was sort of a cross between a contact and an abduction. It was an admitted hoax. Watts ended up divorces and in prison. He blamed it on something that had happened to him that he didn’t understand. You can read the whole tale here:

https://www.blueblurrylines.com/2021/11/contact-in-texas-lost-ufo-photos.html#comment-form

I did ask about hoaxes, since he had mentioned them. He drew a distinction between actual hoaxes and stories in which the witnesses might have been fooled by some natural phenomenon or some terrestrially based technology seen under unusual circumstances. This led to a brief discussion of MJ-12 and the alien autopsy both of which were hoaxes designed with specific intents.

We did touch on the Roswell Slides and how that fiasco seems to have slipped from the public mind. Several years ago it was a hot topic but it crashed within, literally hours, after the Mexico City presentation when the museum setting was recognized and the card on the display was read.

We did talk about Roswell and Aztec. The Aztec crash seems to be a hoax (though I know Scott Ramsey would disagree). You can read more about the Aztec Crash here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-roswell-slides-and-aztec-ufo-crash.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2012/06/aztec-karl-pflock-and-scott-ramsey.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-real-honest-to-goodness-date-of.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2012/06/aztec-scott-ramsey-and-fred-reed.html

All these cases and reports cloud the issue of UFOs as extraterrestrial craft. With Roswell, everyone agrees that something fell, it’s just a question of what it was. I’m of the opinion that all terrestrial explanations have been eliminated and did mention the Air Force helped with that. They ruled out everything but the Project Mogul arrays.

During the show we did talk about the Ramey Memo and how AI might be the only way we’re going to learn anything more. We also touched on Jesse Marcel’s diary and the research done with that.

In the end, we ran out of time. Those looking for more information can visit Curt’s websites mention at the top of the article. They make for some very interesting reading.

Next week, if all works out and the creek don’t rise, I’ll be talking with Robert Sheaffer about his take on UFOs and from what he said, my take on UFO’s and the Deep State. We’ll probably delve into the current interest in UFOs by Congress and by extension, the military.

When Einstein Went to Roswell by Dr. Peter Strassberg -An Interview

 

I had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Peter Strassberg about his book, When Einstein Went to Roswell. The material about Roswell and UFOs was limited with the majority of the book dealing with his theories about astrophysics and gravity. The real problem with the book was the sixty some pages at the back that were MJ-12 documents that had been copied from the Internet and published without critical comment.

Dr. Peter Strassberg

About the first thing I learned during the discussion, because I asked about it, was if he had been in contact with Tony Bragalia. Bragalia had published, on his website, the tale of Shirley Wright, who claimed that she had accompanied Einstein to Roswell. Her story and her description of the area does not fit in with Roswell narrative as we know it, which is not to say that she didn’t accompany Einstein somewhere else to see the wrecked saucer and alien bodies. I believe, based on what she said, on her description of the security in place, and several other factors, that her tale is, at best, dubious.

I had wondered what documentation that Strassberg had, or what testimony he had, to corroborate the Einstein story. I learned it was his opinion that the MJ-12 documents he published were legitimate and because of that, the tale of Einstein in Roswell was confirmed. We did talk about the history of MJ-12, but he had no real knowledge of that and seemed somewhat surprised to learn about it. To him, the complexity of the MJ-12 documents and the information included in them, suggested they were authentic. However, if they weren’t authentic, and the evidence proves they are not, then the corroboration of the Einstein tale fails at that point.

He was impressed with the Shirley Wright end of it, she claiming to have accompanied Einstein to Roswell, and he had both read Bragalia’s article and listened to the short audio segments of Wright’s story available on his, Bragalia’s, website. I had the impression that he didn’t understand that I too, had listened to the audio segments, given some of his comments. While I found those audio clips impressive given the detail on them, I also realized there were great areas of contradiction. Having served as an Intelligence Officer in both the Air Force and the Army (and yes, Stan, on active duty), I realized that security was broken several times. Wright seemed to be suggesting that because she held some sort of security clearance, though we don’t know what kind or how high (secret? Top secret?) her clearance was, she was cleared to see and hear all. But even if she held a top secret clearance, that doesn’t mean she was cleared to see and hear everything that had been classified at that level. There is that important “need to know” caveat, and she had no need to know any of this. She even admitted that she had been quartered away from the main party during this trip, which suggests that she wouldn’t have been allowed into the secure areas. And when Einstein was allegedly show the alien craft and the bodies of the flight crew, she had no need to accompany him into the hangar, wherever it might have been.

What all this boiled down to was that Strassberg had thought the documents interesting, but as he said, repeatedly, he couldn’t prove they were real. My thought was that since he was the one presenting them as real in his book, wasn’t he obligated to find out if they were legitimate? A simple google search would have led to some of the criticism of the specific documents he used and that might have altered his opinion. It might not, but he would have had a better perspective on them.

He did say, however, that his book was more for entertainment than serious research, and that he liked to write. He gives the book away to his patience and makes no money on them. His other books were more scientifically oriented and, according to him, dealt with problems in the universe. This little venture into UFOs was something of a departure, though he did say he had an interest in the paranormal.

The problem here was the title of the book. It had very little to do with Roswell and Einstein. Had he explored that claim a little deeper, he might have realized that it was unlikely though if he had found Bragalia’s website, he would have taken that as corroboration. This is obvious because he used that information repeatedly to suggest that the MJ-12 documents were real. Such is the problem with the Internet.

And although I hesitate to mention it, he also accepted the Aztec UFO crash as authentic. As we talked about it, he was aware of Scully’s book, Behind the Flying Saucers, and seemed to know a little about that case. But the tale as he told it matches virtually nothing that has been reported on it. I was surprised he hear Strassberg talk about it as a landing rather than a crash, in fact, insisting that it was a landing rather than a crash. To amplify the difference between the information and what Strassberg was saying, he said that there were survivors. I believe he said that twelve alien beings had been found in cryonic suspension, including a number of infants. In the attempts to resuscitate those individuals, most were lost. One survived for a while and provided all sorts of details about its life and mission.

He seemed to be unaware of the history of Aztec. It matters little here what side you fall on, the information he had doesn’t track with any of it. I don’t believe he was aware of either Steinman’s or Ramsay’s books on the subject. Strassberg struck me as overly naïve on the topic, and I did mention that his book was something of a disserve because of the uncritical nature of it. I suppose I could say, the bad information in it and the reliance of the MJ-12 documents as evidence of the disservice.

In the end, his rallying cry seemed to be that he was not out to prove anything. His mission was to entertain, and to be fair, I had an entertaining hour chatting with him about all this, though not so much in reading his book. Of course, I don’t think I made much of an impression on him. As they say, he just wasn’t that into the topic. For him, UFOs are mildly interesting but not to the point of diving below the surface before committing his thoughts to paper (or should I say to electronic data in his computer).

Oh BTW, the book is not for those who have any knowledge of the UFO field. As Strassberg said, it was more for entertainment and seen as a research tool. In fact, according to the publisher, Full Court Press, they are “For the discerning author: Self publishing with style.” There seems to be no vetting of the information, but then, that is often a problem in the world today.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Rob Brun Del Re and UFOs: Proof Positive

 

This week I spoke with Rob Brun Del Re about his book, UFOs: Proof Positive. But before we got to that, we talked about other things. One of the first things that came up was MJ-12 and the Wilbur Smith “Top Secret” report to the Canadian Department of Transportation. In it, Smith had suggested that UFOs were alien craft and he had received this information from Robert Sarbacher. You can listen to the program here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/44916522

I did point out that Sarbacher had seen nothing himself, but had gotten his information from some other, unidentified sources. This made Smith’s data third hand at best, and might be even farther removed from any source of reliable source. This did lead us into a discussion of MJ-12, which rarely goes anywhere. Proving that I’m not very good at promoting my own work, I failed to mention Case MJ-12, a book that I had written examining the story of MJ-12 and that was heavily updated just a couple of years ago. In Del Re’s bibliography he listed four books about MJ-12 but not mine, which does not contain a ringing endorsement of the whole MJ-12 theory.

Rob Brun Del Re

One of the things that did come up, or rather that I brought up, was the information supplied by Brigadier General Arthur Exon and his discussion of what he called “The Unholy Thirteen.” This was not an official name, or nickname, just Exon’s way of describing the group. The membership of it is at odds with MJ-12 and since we can point to Exon as the source, and the MJ-12 documents have no provenance, Exon’s information is more important.

We did discuss the idea that the book, UFO’s: Proof Positive, provided logical arguments about UFOs but no real evidence, it seemed to me that the title was misleading. Rob’s answer was that he was more interested in providing arguments explaining how the skeptics and non-believers were wrong in their thoughts. For example, he argued that because we can’t travel interstellar distances, it doesn’t mean that another race having evolved on another planet hasn’t figured out a way to do it. While I concede that argument, it needs to be said that we don’t have a way of defeating those distances.

We did discuss some UFO sightings. Roswell, of course, entered the conversation, as did the Phoenix Lights and Shag Harbour. I don’t need to provide a list of my writings on Roswell. I think they’re well know and culminate in Roswell in the 21^st Century. I have discussed the Phoenix Lights on past programs including a long discussion with Mike Rogers about his observations.

Next week, I’ll be speaking with Don Ecker who has a long history in the UFO field and has some very interesting insights into what has happened in the past and what is going on today.

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. 

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Tom Whitmore

This week I talked with Tom Whitmore, a member of the MUFON broad of directors and a man who has been interested in the UFO phenomenon for decades. I had approached him because I knew that he had an interest in MJ-12 and I thought

Tom Whitmore

that we’d have an interesting discussion on that topic. You can listen to the program here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/21966402

I had mentioned the fatal flaw in the Eisenhower Briefing Document that proves that both the document and MJ-12 are hoaxes. You can read that analysis here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2018/06/mj-12-and-cognitive-dissonance.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2016/09/truth-mj-12-and-fatal-flaws.html

MJ-12, of course, was not the only thing that we discussed. We actually began with the travesty that is known as Project Blue Book airing on History. Of all my colleagues in the UFO community, I don’t know of one who approves of the show… it is doing a great disservice to UFO research with its suggestions of cover-up, threats, and adding details that never happened to cases we all know. The post following this one goes into the reasons that this show has taken a nose dive.

After exploring this, we did talk about the real oversight committee and how it would have been formed. You can read about that here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2014/08/wheni-began-roswell-investigation-with.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2014/08/mj-12-unholy-thirteen-and-roswell.html

We eventually got around to President Jimmy Carter and his desire to declassify, or in the world today, disclose, the hidden information about UFOs. Daniel Sheehan, a lawyer who worked with Marcia Smith, had some inside knowledge about this. We did talk about Linda Moulton Howe who had seen a document that was alleged to have been used to brief President Carter about UFOs. I covered this at length in Case MJ-12. You can find the updated version of the book here:

https://www.amazon.com/Case-MJ-12-Kevin-D-Randle-ebook/dp/B07DKJP2YH/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Case+MJ-12&qid=1579811832&sr=8-1

Next week, I’ll be talking with Peter Davenport about his UFO Reporting Center. If you have questions, let me know in the comments section here. I’ll try to get them asked during the show.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Ryan Wood and MJ-12

This week I spoke with Ryan Wood. He had sent out an email complaining about the anti-UFO bias on Wikipedia. I thought that would be an interesting topic, and since he is a proponent of MJ-12, I thought we could spend some time on that as well. But, as usual, the conversation took on a life of its own. You can listen to it here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/20493888

We veered off into the Cape Girardeau UFO crash of 1941, which, as everyone will tell you, is six years older than the Roswell case. The problem here is that there are no first-hand witnesses and while the granddaughter of minister who was called to scene heard about it from family, the problem is that she heard about it from family. There really is no documentation in the form of newspaper articles and diary entries, or anything of that nature. And while I didn’t make the comment

Ryan Wood. Photo copyright
by Kevin Randle.

during the show because, well, we went off in other discussions, I always worry about these pre-Roswell cases. If this had happened, it would seem to me that the military might have been better prepared for the events in Roswell.

Ryan said that his book, Majic Eyes Only, listed 74 crash retrievals. I thought that there just weren’t that many because it would be impossible to keep all that secret for so long. At some point one of those crashes would have produced evidence no matter how hard the various government agencies attempted to suppress it all. I did point out that in my book, Crash: When UFOs Fall from the Sky, I listed something like 110. One of those was an alternative look at the Cape Girardeau crash. An analysis of that case follows this posting.

Given there were so many alleged crashes, I asked what Ryan thought were the best. He suggested Roswell, Kecksburg and Shag Harbour. I mentioned that I thought of Shag Harbour as more of an emergency landing than an actual crash. But the real point was that each of these had documentation and newspaper articles while most of the other crashes were single witness with no documentation at all. Some were clearly mundane objects seen under unusual circumstances. Some were clearly meteors, others debris from missile tests, and a few outright hoaxes.

We finally did make it to MJ-12 and the so-called Operations Manual. I mentioned that there were some anachronisms in it. Ryan pointed out that skeptics said the War Department seal on the front was one, but that he had found that symbol on other manuals printed after the War Department ceased to exist in 1947, meaning that, in this one case, it might not be an anachronism.

I wondered about the lack of a provenance for the manual and asked if there were any MJ-12 documents from a legitimate government source that lead to support MJ-12. Ryan said that there was a letter from Lieutenant Colonel Robert Blount to Dr. Robley Evans that did lead to MJ-12. You can see that letter here:

http://www.majesticdocuments.com/pdf/blount_evans.pdf

I believe the top-secret report to which Blount referred is the Air Intelligence Report (AIR) 100-203-79 with a date of April 29, 1949. There is nothing in it about UFO crashes or anything like that. Blount seemed to think it was more of a psychological analysis, which the AIR report is not.

But there is a real problem with the Blount letter that I’m sure if obvious to everyone. To sort of prove that point, I think the Hottel Memo makes the case. Here is an FBI document that mentions a UFO crash. You can read it here:

https://vault.fbi.gov/hottel_guy/Guy%20Hottel%20Part%201%20of%201/view

The point is, the Hottel Memo refers to the Aztec crash hoax and is based on information from Frank Scully’s book, Behind the Flying Saucers. Time magazine, in January, 1950, printed an article about little men from Venus. That predates the Blount letter and might well be the source of the rumor.

Next week, John Burroughs is the guest. He’ll be offering some new information about the Rendlesham Forest events of December 1980. If you have questions for him, put them in a comment here, and I’ll try to get them answered during the program.