Roswell and the Dog that Didn't Bark

Here’s an interesting revelation. I was watching the recent Unsolved Mysteries report on the Roswell case and Colonel Richard Weaver said something that caught my attention. He was talking about having reviewed a million documents and files and miles of microfilm during his review of the Roswell case. The implication is that they, meaning he and his team, had made a Herculean effort to find evidence and failed do it. His conclusion, based on his investigation, was the correct conclusion but it wasn’t accurate.

Don Schmitt, Tom Carey and I had done the same thing, and I could name a couple of dozen others who had followed leads, researched specific aspects of the Roswell case and in the end, there was limited documentation mainly in the form of newspaper stories and the testimony of hundreds of people who had first or second-hand observations. In other words, the documentation was limited, the testimonies were called anecdotal, and we all had searched for documentation and other testimony for nearly forty years for it.

And then I had a thought. I had made a comprehensive search for mention of Roswell and documents relating to it in what could be considered the microcosm of Weaver’s world and search, of Project Blue Book. Although it had officially begun as Project Sign in January 1948, its records begin earlier, even with sightings that pre-dated the Kenneth Arnold sighting of June 24, 1947. In fact, the earliest dated case in the Blue Book files is from June 2. When you look at the record of sightings for July 1947, they cover a single-spaced page. The military was investigating what was happening during the summer that preceded the creation of the official investigation in 1948.

When the Army announced, on July 8, 1947, that they had found a flying saucer, it was international news. I will say that nearly every newspaper in the United States covered the story in some form, beginning with the early announcement on the afternoon of July 8 and ending the next day when Brigadier General Roger Ramey announced it was just a weather balloon. Pictures of Ramey, his chief of staff, Colonel Thomas Dubose, and Major Jesse Marcel, holding pieces of the weather balloon, were printed in the newspapers the next day.

BG Roger Ramey and COL Thomas Dubose with
the balloon wreckage that served as a
cover for the real wreckage.

There are stories of crashed UFOs in the Blue Book files in July 1947. The solutions, all legitimate, ranged from advertising gimmicks to small saucers created to fool friends. A report, from Shreveport, Louisiana, even came to the attention of then FBI director, J. Edgar Hoover. That caused us a great deal of aggravation as we tried to reconcile a note written on an FBI document by Hoover with that report. It had nothing to do with the Roswell case. The file for that case, dated July 7, 1947, is quite thick. And no, I believe the military was correct in labeling it a hoax.

The point here is that by July 8, the military was gathering sighting reports and there are 47 cases for the month in what are now the Blue Book files. There are alleged crashes, files that are labeled as “Folders,” because of the thickness of the file, and many in which there is a notation for a report but labeled as “case missing.”

What I noticed is several crash reports, comprehensive investigations, and an apparent real effort to determine what was going on. All this happening with the “high profile” cases that were extensively investigated and not a single file dedicated to the Roswell case. Here was the story that probably generated some of the highest interest around the world and there is no file on it. The only reference I can find in the Blue Book files is the third paragraph of a four-paragraph story that mentions, in passing, that the officers at Roswell had received a “blistering rebuke” for their claim they had a flying disk.

Colonel Weaver had access to a great deal more official information than any of the civilian researchers and said that he found nothing. I say, I looked through the Blue Book files, which I’m sure were reviewed by Weaver’s team, and they found nothing there either. It made me wonder why a great deal of effort was expended investigating many reports from July 1947, but there is no reference to what could be called the most important story from July 1947. A single mention in a newspaper clipping buried in another Blue Book file but nothing that referenced Roswell specifically.

Doesn’t my search, of the Blue Book files, mirror the research done in the 1990s by the Air Force? There should have been a rather thick file on the Roswell case that included not only newspaper clippings, but the pictures of three of the principals in that case. True, the balloon explanation was floated (pun intended) within about three hours of the initial story, but it was a story of international interest. Walter Haut, the Public Information Officer in Roswell at the time, told me that he received telephone calls from around the world.

Walter Haut being interviewed.
Photo by Kevin Randle.

But there is nothing in the files except that one paragraph in a newspaper clipping. I did ask Haut about that blistering rebuke and he told me that it never happened. His words were something to the effect that if he’d been called by the Pentagon and chewed out, he would remember it.

Again, my point is that a search of the Blue Book files, which were dedicated to gathering UFO information, has nothing about Roswell. It was a case filled with military officers which means it was originally reported officially, but there is no file. Why the emphasis on other reports of crashes and other generic sightings but nothing on what was the biggest UFO story for two days in July? Sure, had it been included in Blue Book, it would have been labeled as a balloon, but that isn’t there. Nothing…

Just as Colonel Weaver found with his inside sources, high-level security clearance and his orders that came, virtually, from the Secretary of the Air Force, no documents relating to Roswell, I found nothing in the declassified Blue Book files. It should have been there, but it was not.

One final comment about all this. For those who would argue that the secrecy was to protect Project Mogul, I point to the newspapers, especially the Alamogordo News, on July 10. There was a long article about the balloon project being carried out at the Alamogordo Army Air Field. Pictures showed a Mogul array (and no, they didn’t call it a Mogul array in the article), explained what they were doing and what it all meant. Charles Moore, one of those working on the project told me that he had bought the ladder that was featured in one of the pictures.

Alamogordo News with pictures of a Constant Level Balloon launch, which
is a Project Mogul balloon launch published on July 10, 1947.

This means, of course, that what was happening in Alamogordo was not highly classified. The balloon launches were conducted by the civilians from the University of New York attempting to create what they called a Constant Level Balloon, meaning it would remain at a certain altitude. Although offered as the solution in 1947, it did not explain what had been found. I have already, many times, explained this about the Mogul solution, the one that the Air Force used to solve the mystery of what fell decades after the fact.

I found Colonel Weaver’s comment on the Unsolved Mysteries show quite telling. There should have been specific documentation that lead to the constant level balloons but not back to Project Mogul. The search would have ended with the balloons from Alamogordo. By the mid-1990s, Mogul was no longer a secret, and several UFO researchers were aware of it. We all had been talking about it for years before the Air Force came up with it as the solution for the Roswell case.

Weaver’s comment, about finding nothing is quite telling. The significant fact, as Sherlock Holmes said in the murder case he was investigating, was that the dog didn’t bark. The significance fact here is as Weaver said he found nothing about the Roswell case in all those files both classified and unclassified. This lack of results screams the problem, because there should have been something given the impact of the original news release and widespread interest in the tale. You might say that this is another example of the dog not barking. *

 

*I thought a note of explanation might be necessary for those who haven’t read the Holmes story. There was a murder committed, and Holmes was investigating. All thought it might be a stranger, but Holmes said that the watch dog didn’t bark. It meant that the murder was someone the dog knew, so it didn’t bark.

Immaculate Constellation, Moon Dust, and Sean Kirkpatrick

 

There have been several interesting developments recently into what the officials insist are UAP reports and what we still think of as UFOs. All this provides us, indirectly, with additional information about Immaculate Constellation and ongoing covert investigations.

According to Matthew Phelan, the Senior Science Reporter for the Daily Mail, Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, who was until recently the man in charge of AARO, revealed what he described as a new government program to recover alleged alien technology in the event of a shoot down. I believe he mentioned shoot down in reference to the Chinese balloon that flew over a great deal of North America recently. I don’t think he was referring to shooting down an alien spacecraft, though in the 1950s, there were orders to do just that.

Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick at a poorly attended Senate Hearing. He is sitting
with his back to the camera.

Anyway, the retrieval program’s protocols covered what he called UAP recoveries that ranged from balloons to alien technology. This, it was claimed, is the first time that a government official acknowledged any UFO retrieval program, even if that retrieval program referred to terrestrially manufactured objects. He suggested the retrieval program began early in 2023.

But there was a program called Moon Dust that began in 1957, according to documents recovered by Robert Todd, Cliff Stone and me, that had, as one of its missions, and I quote, “to collect and analyze raw intelligence reports from the field of fallen space debris and objects of unknown origin.” Unknown origin certainly could refer to craft from off world.

The late Cliff  Stone.

I found this information in an official US Air Force Message, #54322 and dated December 23, 1957. Although it doesn’t mention Moon Dust specifically, it is clear from the document that it is describing Moon Dust and the Moon Dust mission involving UFO information.

Kirkpatrick said, “AARO is Congressionally directed to come up with not just standard reporting procedures, but also mitigation and response procedures in the event of a shoot down or a collection of any sort of UAP.”

But, as earlier documentation proves, that sort of mandate had already been put into place and despite Air Force original denials that no program known as Moon Dust existed, the documentation proved otherwise. And for those who claim that its mission was directed at recovering what was then Soviet debris, the mention of unknown origin suggests otherwise. You can read more about Moon Dust in my book, Project Moon Dust and here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2021/04/coast-to-coast-am-moon-dust-controversy.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2024/06/moon-dust-documents-online.html

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

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2018/04/moon-dust-and-4602nd-aiss.html

I should point out here, that I can demonstrate the UFO connection to Moon Dust. While examining the Project Blue Book files several years ago, I found reference to Moon Dust cases. The cases are not very impressive, but are important because they are labeled “Moon Dust” and reinforce the theory that Moon Dust had a UFO component. You can read about that here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2013/11/project-moon-dust-revisited.html

I want to acknowledge that the Air Force, when asked about Moon Dust by US Senator Jeff Bingaman from New Mexico, the Air Force response was that no such program existed. When documents, with a clear and established provenance were provided, the Air Force amended the statement claimed that it did exist, but had never been deployed. That was not true as other documents proved. There was an added note that the name Moon Dust had been changed and it was properly classified. That was in 1985. From that point on, there had been no inadvertent disclosures about this program.

There is another, important point. There no evidence that this program under whatever the new name it had been given, had been terminated. We can’t use FOIA because we don’t know the name in use after Moon Dust, and Immaculate Constellation didn’t begin until years after this other long ongoing program was discovered. Immaculate Constellation is not a follow-on project, but a new one invented by those now charged with UAP research.

But you have to wonder if this new program doesn’t have a secondary purpose and that is to disguise what had been learned under Moon Dust and that follow-on project. You don’t look for another program if you have been told that this is something that began in 2023.

While these government officials who have just been tasked with dealing with UAP, who have tried to sever this new investigation from the history of UFO research, and seem to be disinterested in that earlier history, aren’t attempting to sidetrack legitimate questions about alien visitation. They’re looking at it as a new phenomenon rather than something that it over eighty years old. They don’t need to worry about the massive stacks of evidence that was accumulated prior to 2017 when the Leslie Kean and Ralph Fromental story was published by the New York Times. That earlier information is hidden behind a thick national security wall and what we are allowed to see now just doesn’t have the impact of some of those earlier UFO events.

(Note: There is additional information on this blog. Use a keyword in the search engine to bring up that information.)

Coast-to-Coast AM: The Rhodes Photographs Revisited

 

Given one of the developing situations in the world of the UFO, I thought I would revisit the information swirling around two photographs taken by William Rhodes in July 1947. There are two reasons for this. I have found a great deal of misinformation about Rhodes on the Internet recently, and the official investigation into the sighting shows the bias against witnesses, even when they have photographic evidence ignored by those charged with the investigation. This is something that persists even in today’s more enlightened environment. And that’s not to mention the recent NASA report that suggested no solid evidence of alien visitation had been found. Had the Air Force (yes, I know it was the Army Air Forces at the time) investigation in 1947 been conducted properly, the photos might have provided the sort of solid evidence that NASA desires, if they were inclined to research any of the history of UFOs.

Rhodes, according to what he told reporters and later military and government investigators, was on his way to his backyard lab when a “whooshing” sound caught his attention. He thought it was a jet, but when he spotted the object, he realized his mistake. He ran to his lab and grabbed his camera. Back outside, he photographed the UFO.

It was a black, heel-shaped object with what he described as a clear dome in the center. In the drawing he made it was more of a domed disc than heel shaped, but that might be a matter of perspective. He took one picture and realized there was a single frame left on the film. He hoped the object would come closer and when it didn’t, he took the last picture.

The best of the two Rhodes photos, showing the "dome" in the
center and the heel shape that would become important.

The Air Force investigated, were unimpressed with Rhode’s lifestyle, suggesting he was living off his wife’s occupation rather than earning a living himself. They noted he sometimes played piano in a local bar but I’m not sure why that would be a disqualification. They didn’t care for his claim to be the director of the Panorama Research Lab, which was the well-equipped lab in his backyard. They officially wrote the case off as a hoax. I believe that was mainly because they just didn’t like him.

However, Kenneth Arnold, the man whose sighting brought us the term flying saucer, had been asked by Ray Palmer, the editor of a science fiction magazine, to investigate the Maury Island sighting of June, 1947. That was because he and Arnold had something of a professional relation, meaning Arnold had supplied an article about his sighting to the magazine. Arnold traveled to meet the witnesses but found himself overwhelmed by the task. Arnold called on Lieutenant Frank M. Brown, who had investigated Arnold’s sighting.

None of that would be relevant to the Rhodes’ sighting, except that Brown and Captain William L. Davidson, joined Arnold in that investigation. Arnold asked Brown what was happening with that flying saucer business. Confidentially, Brown told him about Rhodes. Arnold asked what was happening with the whole flying saucer business. Brown said they, meaning the Army Air Forces had received two pictures that looked like Arnold’s original heel-shaped object. Although Brown didn’t supply much in the way of information, just mentioned evidence in Phoenix, but that was a clear reference to the Rhodes.

The original drawing Arnold provided to the Air Force. It shows the heel
shaped-object. Rhodes would not known about that in 1947.

The Air Force smeared Rhodes’s with allegations about his character. They interviewed his neighbors who said that Rhodes didn’t like their animals running around on his property. Most of it was trivia like that. And the investigation ignored information that would shed a more favorable light on Rhodes. Others since then have used the Air Force file as a source to reject the value of the Rhodes photographs. Not many look beyond what is found in the Project Blue Book file.

I have learned more about Rhodes. He claimed a Ph.D., but could not produce documentation except for a replicate of his diploma in a small, plastic sealed card. Rhodes explained that while serving with the Navy at the beginning of WW II, the Navy gave its civilian employees a test. Depending on the score, they were awarded the equivalency of a Bachelor’s, Master’s, or a Doctorate. Rhodes scored high enough for the doctorate. That might be the source of the confusion, though Rhodes seems to be a little vague about it.

I spoke with a friend of Rhodes who told me that Rhodes had something of an abrasive personality, but that he was a genius. Rhodes liked to solve problems and this man said that they had hired Rhodes to solve a problem at an Arizona university.

As I say, I have written more about this here and in a couple of my UFO books. You can find that information in no particular order here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2023/05/coast-to-coast-am-flir-and-william.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2012/04/kenneth-arnold-william-rhodes-and-maury.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2006/11/more-of-best-ufo-photographs.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2010/10/beyond-rhodes-photographs.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2010/10/william-rhodes-and-his-phd.html

The point here is that we have some very good information about specific UFO sightings but they are overlooked because of controversy. Often that controversy is injected as a way of eliminating compelling testimony and evidence without a good reason. That’s where we are with Rhodes, and it is where we are going with much of the latest testimony. Nobody remembers the good, only the bad. Just ask Bill Buckner.

Chasing Footnotes - The Kevin Randle Edition (Sort of)

 

Well, this isn’t exactly chasing footnotes but it comes close. Curt Collins sent me an email about a photograph that had accompanied a magazine article that I had written in the 1970s. This was a time when there were half a dozen magazines that were devoted to UFOs and I was writing articles for them to, at first pay my college bills, and later to earn a living. Curt wrote:

I'm hoping you can answer a question, hopefully an easy one. Your article, "The Truth about the 1957 UFO Flap," Official UFO, March 1977, labeled as being by Kirby. 

Your article, "The Truth about the 1957 UFO Flap," in Official UFO, March 1977, labeled as being by Kirby. I suspect this is a photo from somewhere else, but if it is from Kirby, can you verify it and tell me where you found it?

 

Two of his photos were submitted to the Air Force, and as far as I know only one has ever been published. I came across an ad that stated there were 6 photos by Kirby. So, if this is one of the others, I'd love to know about it.

 

I looked at the picture and had no memory of having submitted it. I did recognize some of the other pictures with the article. They had come from the Project Blue Book files. I believe now that the editor of the magazine, or one of the other staff members, had found the picture and included it with my article.

The magazine picture that began the hunt.

I did remember, however, that I had seen the picture before. In my mind, I could see that it was on the cover of a magazine. I don’t know why I had such a clear memory of it and it took me about ten minutes to find the magazine. It was in a file of random UFO magazines, meaning simply that I only had an issue or two of the magazine, rather than the number I have for others such as UFO Report or UFO.

I scanned the cover and emailed Curt a copy of the cover and the title page that provided information about the publisher, which, I suspect, was of little help. Other than learning that the picture was in a magazine for 1968, this did little to make an identification.

Not long after that I received an email from Curt that said he found the original story. It said:

RCAF pilot Childerhose Canada 1956 Photo over the Canadian Rockies near Ft. MacCleod, Alberta by Canadian Air Force pilot R. J. Childerhose.

A Royal Canadian Air Force pilot while flying in a 4 plane formation at an altitude of about 11 km on 27-Aug-1958 [sic], saw and photographed a bright disc, that was remaining stationary between the clouds.

From a letter to Philip Klass: “I had the object in good view for upwards of 45 seconds. It was stationary, with sharply defined edges. Looked like a shiny silver dollar sitting horizontal. The light emitted was much brighter than the existing sunlight and overexposed the film causing the blurred edges in the picture… It neither moved nor changed shape while I had it in sight.”

From a letter to Dr. James McDonald: “the photo of the bright object doesn’t represent quite what appeared to the naked eye. When I first saw the object it appeared as a very bright, clearly defined discoid, like a silver dollar lying on its side. The photo makes it look like a blob of light, the result of light intensity. It appeared much brighter than that (sic) of the sun which, of course, was setting behind the clouds up ahead. What appears in the Kodachrome slide is a disappointment, really.” It was in good view for some minutes because I looked at it trying to figure out what I was seeing and I called the attention of the formation to it before remembering that I had a camera in my leg pocket.”

That wasn’t the end of it for me. Curt supplied the photographer’s name and provided the information from a story about the picture. I used that and learned more about Childerhose. It turns out that the pilot held several aviation records and was a respected airman. Dr. Bruce Maccabee investigated the photograph several years ago and published a paper about what he had learned. You can read the paper here:

http://data0.eklablog.com/scienceetovnis/perso/brucemaccabeechilderhose.pdf

Included in that paper was an affidavit completed by Childerhose about the event. Rather than retype it here, following is that affidavit.

I will note that this is an interesting case now that we have more information about it. It’s the sort of case that AARO would investigate if it happened in today’s environment. And think about it. A multiple witness sighting that has a photograph for additional support. Information could be derived from the photograph that could improve our overall knowledge.

Anyway, I will note that the cover of the magazine doesn’t provide us with the best look at the photo, but it does give us a clue about the case. Given that the picture was taken nearly 70 years ago, there isn’t much we can do with it today. And had it been taken today, there is so much more we could have done with it. Here, however, is the journey I took to get to this point, sparked by Curt Collins and my memory of seeing the magazine cover.

Trinity UFO Crash, UAPs and Jacques Vallee

 

Once again, I find myself wondering just what in the hell is going on, though I suspect we are being set up. We have heard, in the last few weeks that the new government investigation into UFOs, I mean UAPs, is only going to deal with military sightings and then we’re told that they’re going to look at sightings going back to 1996. There was a story that NASA was going to investigate sightings starting in 1945. And now we learn that the government is going to investigate the crash of a UFO in 1945.

This latest is from Nick Pope who made the claims on Tucker Carlson’s show, mentioning what he called the “Roswell before Roswell.” The problem is that this refers to case that Dr. Jacques Vallee promoted in his book, Trinity: The Best Kept Secret. It is the story told by a man, who in 1945 was a child. He claimed that he, and his child-aged pal, stumbled on the recovery of this avocado-shaped UFO that crashed near the site of the first atomic explosion, known now as the Trinity Site.

Nick Pope at the Las Vegas Crash Conference

Vallee has contributed a great deal to the study of what we now must call anomalous phenomena, which are, of course, the latest in a long list of names that began with flying saucers. I do not understand Vallee’s interest in this tale, nor his lack of critical thinking about it. He seems to have embraced it when the evidence, from the source is dubious at best. I’ve gone through this at length in the past and you can read my analysis of his book and the tale here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2021/06/trinity-best-kept-secret-critique.html

Let me point out here, that Reme Baca, the man with the story, approached Stan Friedman and later Don Schmitt in the 1990s. At that time, the crash seems to have happened over on the Plains of San Agustin. Baca wanted to know how to sell the story. Neither Friedman nor Schmitt were interested in it after doing a bit of the preliminary work. They recognized the flaws in the story, including details that seemed to have been borrowed from the Roswell crash.

When I heard about this story back in 2010, I was bothered by the military reaction, or rather, their lack of urgency when presented with the crash of an aerial vehicle that was obviously not of American design. The Japanese had bombed the American mainland starting in 1944 which killed six Americans using balloon bombs. These were the only deaths on the American mainland caused by enemy action. The point is, this avocado craft could be the vehicle created to kill Americans and destroy property. The military would have had no way of knowing anything about this craft at the time but would know that it was critical for them to find out immediately.

We learn that Baca and his pal watched the military retrieval operation from hiding off and on for a couple of days. Toward the end, when all, and I mean ALL, the soldiers left the site, they were able to explore the craft. I can think of no circumstance in which such an unknown vehicle, once loaded on the flatbed truck for removal, would have been left unguarded. Why didn’t they just drive off at that point?

And, we are told that the boys, and later several adults, walked the site, recovered samples of debris, some of which was later incorporated in Christmas decorations. But, of course, all that debris has disappeared and is therefore unavailable for analysis.

I believe that no one reading the book, which presents scant evidence for the event, would believe this fairy tale. It makes no sense at all. Vallee makes the case for other such events in the book as a way of validating the Trinity crash. But I have gone into that at length in other postings about some of that evidence, which you can read here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2005/03/aurora-texas-story-that-wont-die.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2018/12/jefferson-airship-vs-aurora-crash.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2013/09/ufo-crashes-fifty-years-before-roswell.html

And you can listen to my interview with Vallee and Harris about Trinty and other aspects of the UFO phenomenon here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/45140594

As I said, this smacks of a set up. The government is now going to investigate this tale of a crash seriously, only to discover that it is not based in reality. They can then say, “Why, yes, we did investigate this, and like all other claims of a spacecraft crash, we found that it was not true. Like Roswell, there is no substance to this.”

Again, as I have said in the past, this is right out of the debunking playbook described by Dr. H. P. Robertson in 1953. He, and his CIA-sponsored panel, after a week of reviewing the UFO evidence assembled by Project Blue Book and the Air Force, decided that the evidence did not support the conclusion of alien visitation. They suggested that the public be told of mysterious UFO events and then trot out the explanations, removing the mystery. They suggested that teachers not allow students to read books about UFOs for book reports. They had a whole program to stimy interest in UFOs, which, for some reason they believed posed a threat to national security… but all that is a discussion for another time.

I wonder if we can find parallels with this thinking in our government today… but I digress.

Trinty is not a true story. It is based on two first-hand witnesses, only one of whom is alive today. They incorporate the statements of a second-hand witness or two in this tale. There are many better cases for the government to research if they truly wish to understand what has gone on over the last 80 years. If they’d like a list, I can provide one for them… cases of multiple witnesses with physical evidence, interaction with the environment, radar sightings and photographs and film (and no, I do not have a single case will all those elements, but I can name several that do contain multiple chains of evidence.)  

However, this story would not be on that list. And that’s the real point. Why waste time on a case that even the most enthusiastic UFO researcher knows isn’t true?

Canadian Texas vs. Temple Oklahoma - A Minor Correction

Just yesterday (Saturday, March 12) I noticed a problem. I have been doing many radio shows/podcasts talking about my book, Levelland. I sometimes mention that the first of the UFO sightings in the area, that is, the panhandle of Texas, took place at 3:30 a.m., near Canadian. To my horror, I realized that I had confused some of the information about that sighting with another one that took, not all that far away, in Temple, Oklahoma. Time to straighten this out.

According to the information provided to Project Blue Book in the days that followed, the observer whose name was redacted by the Air Force, rounded a curve. He then drove over a slight knoll so that his headlights played across an object sitting in a field near the road. As he approached there was a flash of light over the car and his headlights went out.

He then stopped about a hundred feet beyond the submarine-shaped craft. He estimated the UFO as being as long as two or three cars and about eight feet high with a conning tower at about the midway point on the object. There was a white flag attached to its top and a humanoid figure that wasn’t described, standing by it.

The witness started to back up, thought better of it and started forward again. As he drove away, his headlights came on again. He didn’t see the craft depart and reported no other effects of his close approach.

The Project Blue Book file on the sighting contains a bare bones report and little else. The conclusion is that the source is unreliable, which is almost the universal conclusion when a witness, or witnesses, claim to have seen some sort of being or creature associated with the craft. Apparently, the report of a creature was sufficient reason for project officers to decide that no further investigation was required.

There is one thing that is surprising about the sighting. The “Project Record Card” in the Blue Book file mentioned that it was a “military and civilian” sighting. On the Air Intelligence Information Report, which was collected on November 4, 1957, there is the name of the military source. According to that document, T/SGT Alfred A. Calvin, who was assigned to the 386^th Fighter-Bomber Squadron, at Cannon Air Force Base, near Clovis, New Mexico, was the military witness.

All that is known about the second source is he was a civilian, who, in 1957, was 41, and whose name has been redacted from the form. The civilian was from Enid, Oklahoma, and was a Civil Service employee at Vance Air Force Base, Oklahoma. There is no indication in the file that any Air Force investigator interviewed the civilian source. Given the fact, based on the assignments of the witnesses, they were independent of one another, so that an interview with the civilian should have been conducted. It might have yielded some important information and would certainly have improved the credibility of the T/SGT Calvin.

According to the Project Blue Book files, the case is labeled as Temple, Oklahoma, and is dated as March 23, 1966. That file said:

Observer [W. E. Eddie Laxson] was driving his car along the highway at approximately 0505 [a.m.], 23 March 1966, when he noticed an object parked on the road in front of him. He stopped the car and got out so as to get a better view of the object. The object was so parked that it blocked out a portion of the road curve sign. There were no sharp edges noted by the observer. The object had the appearance of a conventional aircraft (C-124) without wings or motors. There was a plexiglas [sic] bubble on top, similar to a B-26 canopy. As observer approached, he noticed a man wearing a baseball cap enter the object by steps from the bottom. After the man entered the object, it began to rise from the pavement and headed on a southeasterly direction at approximately 720 mph. The object had forward and aft lights that were very bright. As the object rose from the ground, a high speed drill type of sound was heard, plus a sound like that of welding rod when an arc is struck. Object was 75’ long, nearly 8’ from top to bottom and about 12’ wide. There were some type of supports up the bottom of the object.

After the object disappeared the witness got back into his car and drove approximately fifteen miles down the highway. At this time the original witness stopped and talked with another individual who had also stopped along the roadway to watch some lights over Red River which is approximately five or six miles to the southeast.

COMMENTS

Various organizations were contacted around the Temple [Oklahoma] area for a possible experimental or conventional aircraft. The observer stated that he thought the object was some type of Army or Air Force research aircraft. All attempts at such an explanation proved fruitless, since there were no aircraft in the area at the time of the sighting. Although there are numerous helicopters and other experimental in the area, none could be put in the area of Temple at approximately 0500, 23 March 1966. Because of this factor the case is listed as unidentified by the Air Force.

The second witness, who was not interviewed by the Air Force and who, according to the Blue Book files did not fill out their report form, was C. W. Anderson. Anderson confirmed for the newspaper that he had seen the craft as well. He told the reporter, “I know that people will say that Laxson is durned crazy. But that’s what I saw.”

Anderson said that he thought the object had been following him down the road. He had watched it in his rearview mirror for several miles. The problem for the Air Force was that Anderson did not see the pilot or crewman.

The drawing of the object made by Laxson, resembled, grossly, that Lonnie Zamora had made of the craft he saw in Socorro, New Mexico in 1964, which means it was sort of egg-shaped. It was certainly longer and was lying on its side. Like Zamora, Laxson said that he saw symbols on the object, but unlike Zamora, he recognized them. He told the report that, “On the side I made out… ‘TLA’ with the last two figures ’38.’”

Temple, Oklahoma object.

In what might be described as a fit of honesty, the Air Force admitted they had no solution for the case. The description of the “alien” was more human than humanoid and he seemed to be dressed in conventional clothes right to the “mechanics” hat. Investigation revealed a second witness and that might have influenced the Air Force, especially since the men had never met prior to the sighting. In the end, they labeled the case as “Unidentified.”

Here's the point, I thought the being, entity, creature, sighted at Canadian, had been human-like and wearing a baseball cap. That is the description for the Temple UFO sighting. Notice that there was no description offered of the creature offered for the Canadian sighting, just a rejection of the information even with two independent witnesses involved.

And to be sure that we’re all on the same page here, let me note that the Canadian EM Effect was the headlights going out but not the engine stalling. Of course, in the Temple case, there was no apparent EM Effect.

I think this straightens out the confusion. There was a creature in both sightings, but it was only in Temple, Oklahoma, that the entity was described. Of course, the other difference in is that the Canadian case was written off as unreliable but oddly, Temple was considered unidentified.

For those interested in such things, I did contact the newspaper in Canadian and received a very nice response. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any article about that particular UFO sighting. I was hoping that a report would provide the name of the civilian witness. 

Did Blue Book Obtain Alien Debris - The La Camp UFO Case

 

There are many jewels hidden in the Project Blue Book files. Had I discovered the information about this case earlier (which is to say, had I paid attention to it), it would have been included it in The Best of Project Blue Book. This is a physical evidence case that was marked as “unidentified,” even after samples had been taken and analyzed. They too, remain unidentified.

According to the documentation and newspaper reports, a farmer, Monroe Arnold, living in the Lacamp, (sometimes La Camp) Louisiana area, reported that he had seen a fiery red, disk-shaped object strike the ground about 300 yards from where he was standing. He estimated that it was about eight feet thick, eight feet wide and twelve feet long with a short exhaust flame extending about a foot from one end. This happened about 9:00 on April 12, 1960.

The UFO struck the ground, bounced, and there were three or four explosions. Arnold was the only one to see the object but others, in the area, heard the explosions. The object bounced along for about a thousand feet, finally became airborne again, turned west and disappeared in the distance.

The ground where the UFO hit, was plowed up and there was damage to a nearby tree. The grass and the tree had been scorched but not burned according to the investigation. Metallic residue was recovered, described as looking like paint chips of some kind.

Deputy Sheriff Oscar Haymon, of the Leesville, Louisiana, Sheriff’s Office was the civilian who investigated. The newspaper quoted Haymon as saying:

It came from the dark and landed about 300 yards from the Monroe Arnold home. When it hit the ground there was an explosion that could be heard for miles around.

After landing it bounced around on the ground in an easterly direction… then rose and headed west just above the tree tops.

You could see where it bounced around on the ground and places where it hit the ground and made an impression about the size of a water bucket. It scorched but did not burn the grass.

It cut the top out of a tree and strange as it seems, hit only the one tree.

The sighting was investigated for the Air Force by Major Ray F. Grodhaus and Master Sergeant Robert F. Plympton. Both men were assigned to the intelligence office of the 401^st Tactical Fighter Wing at England Air Force Base, Louisiana, which is not all that far from the crash site.

Included in the Blue Book report were nine photographs of the crash site (landing site?) and a description of damage to the tree. According to the report prepared by Plympton:

A piece of scorched bark and a branch of scorched tree leaves… were taken from the tree at the impact area… at approximately 0300 Zulu 13 April 1960. [Zulu is GMT and the event took place at 9:00 p.m. local time).

The leaves and the bark were removed by the UFOB [which is what they were designating UFOs at that time… to be added to the term UAO, UAP and UAV being used today]. This is evident because the leaves and the bark are missing from one area of the tree only. The branch… that the officer is holding [in one of the photographs] was broken off and laying beside the tree. It is not known if the UFOB did this or not.

Officer holding the branch broken from the tree. Notice
the leaves are missing from part of the tree
.

In an additional report, also prepared by Plympton, said that he found Arnold to be a credible witness. He pointed out that Arnold had found military debris, JATO bottles, that is, jet assisted take off rockets just to shorten the take-off roll for aircraft on his farm in the past. The debris from the object did not resemble them. That conclusion was held up by scientific analysis. In other words, whatever it was that fell, it was not the remains of a JATO bottle.

Plympton also interviewed B. E. Allbritton, Jr., who lived about five miles from the UFO landing site. Although Allbritton, who had not seen nor heard the UFO, pointed out that he had heard, over the radio, that the Navy had been conducting missile tests in the Gulf of Texas. He said that what he heard was a warning to stay away from the area and he thought that a runaway missile might have been responsible for the sighting. Plympton wrote, “This office has no way to inquire to the Navy about these related missile firings.”

I’m not sure why this would even be included in the report. One man heard a radio broadcast about missile tests more than one hundred miles away and thought this might be an explanation. And I’m not sure why the intelligence officer (well, the NCOIC) couldn’t figure out which military department to call for information. This seems to be something of a red herring.

Listed as other contacts, but with no names attached, Plympton wrote, “Other contacts were made with people in the general area. All contacts shared the same description of the sound as it passed over their houses; that it sounded like artillery shells passing overhead, but much louder with a high velocity shrieking sound and low in altitude.”

An official teletype message received at ATIC on April 18, 1960, at 10:50 a.m., provided a couple of additional, and a few additional and interesting, details. According to that document:

The 1908 AACS (RAPCON UNIT) picked up an unidentified target on their radar screens at approximately the time of this sighting. This unidentified target was travelling at an estimated speed of 800 knots. Further investigation is being conducted on this unidentified target…

Major Ray F. Grodhaus... 401^st TFW intelligence officer… From interrogation of the witnesses and the marks on the ground it was apparent that the object hit the ground at a terrific rate of speed. It is my opinion that some type of rocket hit the ground and then ricocheted off across country. It is possible that a wing-tip could have made the impressions on the ground, but I think it is very improbable. There was no sign of, or pieces of any type of equipment in the area at the time of the investigation. Mr. W. P. Harper, a fifty (50) year old farmer, who lives approximately 100 yards from the source said that his T.V. set blacked out for about five (5) seconds at approximately 130310Z Apr. [9:03 local time on April 12]. Before it blacked out, he heard a high whine followed by about ten (10) to (12) fast explosions sounding like, but louder than artillery shells, since these two men live on the border of Fort Polk Reservation, they have much experience in hearing artillery fired. However, Fort Polk is now closed* and no artillery fire is being accomplished. Mr. Monroe Arnold has little formal education but is a keen observer with a passion for accuracy that is common with country folks of his generation. He had had JATO bottles fall on his farm before without causing undue excitement… All the people in the general area heard the explosions, i.e., Buddy Spurgen, Pete Brown, and Wes Geeter.

The document ended, “It is impossible at this time for me to give any estimate of what could have caused the sighting. It is possible that equipment could have been removed from the area prior to my investigation. However, this possibility was denied by Mr. Arnold and Mr. Harper.”

In the interest in fairness, and because it is relevant, there is supplemental information to the initial report. According to that document, received at ATIC on April 21, “It has been determined that the unidentified target could not have been the object in question. Subsequent investigation revealed that the unidentified target was picked up by upon the radar scope was subsequent to 0545 Zuly, 13 April 1960, which is approximately two and thirty minutes later than the original sighting.”

The Lacamp landing (crash?) site.

That would be, basically, the end of the reporting on the case. However, I received a letter from Robert Plympton that provided more information and provides us with a little bit of insight into Project Book and this investigation. He told me that he, and another sergeant, Warren E. Moore had made the investigation. He wrote:

This sighting is without a doubt one of those to which you refer on the inside cover of your book [Project Blue Book – Exposed] as: “…some reports are tagged with labels that don’t fit the facts…”

For instance, Mr. ARNOLD observed the object for longer period than stated. He reported hearing it passover his house, seeing it land, and seeing it lift off. Also, the physical evidence not only included a substantial quantity of paint samples (metal shavings) and soil samples but also tree limbs (branches) which had the appearance of having been scorched. Additionally, a number of high-quality photographs were taken from the air by a professional photographer and included close-up shots of “holes” and other indentations in the ground possibly caused by the object.

I and my associate [I will note here that it is probably Moore] conducted two visits to the point of the sighting. The second visit was prompted by Dr. HYNEK follow [sic] his receipt of my report. He called by phone asking that I return to the sight [sic] and obtain more soil samples from each “hole” as well as from other indentations in the ground with may have been caused by the object. Additionally he requested that additional photographs be taken of certain key points at the sighting. He instructed that all matters be properly packaged, including the tree limbs, and sent by Airfreight (Military or Commercial Airlines) to ATIC as soon as possible. His request was immediately complied with.

After several weeks had passed, I phoned Dr. HYNEK inquiring about the current status of my reports. He thanked me for our prompt handling of his telephone request and stated that we had conducted a very good investigation. He also told me that this was the first time that a report had been received under the Project Bluebook [sic] program where physical evidence was obtained from a reported UFO landing. He said that the paint samples (metal shavings) could not be identified as having come from ore deposits found on this planet. Those were his exact words. He concluded by saying that he would let me know if further assistance was needed. This was the last contact I had with Dr. HYNEK or with anyone else having interest in this report.

In my judgement, this was the only noteworthy UFO investigation that I ever covered. Considering the public focus on UFO’s [sic] at the time (1960), it was surprising to me that no one from ATIC or other Air Force interests come [sic] to the scene to assist us in our investigation of this unusual sighting.

It should be noted here that the Air Force did attempt to analyze the “paint” samples that were recovered. According to the Project Blue Book file, “Samples of paint from impact area obtained and correspondence with paint from rocket samples proved negative. Apparent rocket, however paint samples proved negative and no other physical evidence found.”

We have here, an opportunity to look beyond the activities of Blue Book at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. We see that some investigations were carried out by the intelligence officers and NCOs at the Air Force base closest to the event. There is nothing here to suggest that the investigation wasn’t competent. They talked to the witnesses, both Arnold who saw the object and those who heard it fly over. They gathered samples of soil, the metal debris labeled as “paint chips” for some reason, and the tree limbs and leaves. We do have some results from the analysis but those seem to be inadequate at best. We also know that Hynek requested additional samples be gathered but we don’t know anything about the analysis of that additional material.

I’m not sure why they even worried about the alleged missile testing in the Gulf of Texas. That gulf is, at least, more than a hundred miles from the impact site, and the actual testing, if there was such testing, could have been several hundred miles away. The only indication of this is one man who heard a warning issued over the commercial radio. Had such a warning been issued, then the FAA would have issued a NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) and that warning would be available in the Operations section at England Air Force Base. Given that this was an Air Force base, I’m not sure why Plympton or one of the others didn’t ask the Operations Officer about it. This information is unverified and at this point, useless.

The real problem here, at least for me, was the disappearance of the samples and the analysis of them. Once the material had been gathered in Louisiana and sent on to ATIC and Blue Book, we learn very little about it in the case file. We know it was gathered and we know that the metallic debris was not identified. I’m not overly impressed with the unverified statement from Plympton that Hynek had said that the debris could not be identified as “having come from ore deposits found on this planet.” If there was something in writing in the file, some additional analysis, then would be a major find. Without that sort of documentation, it is interesting but it is also unverified. While I don’t believe Plympton invented the quote, it is certainly possible that he misinterpreted it, or that subsequent analysis revealed the source of the debris. No one ever got back to Plympton with that analysis and I find no reference to it anywhere in the Blue Book files.

However, it must be noted that the case was labeled as “unidentified,” at a time when Blue Book was busy changing designations to remove cases from the unidentified category and when the prevailing attitude was to accept “possible” answers as the true answer without qualification. That this one was left as “unidentified,” especially since there was physical evidence involved is significant.

In the end we have a case that has no explanation, with physical evidence and a suggestion by one of the investigating officials that, at one point, those at Blue Book were looking toward the extraterrestrial as the solution. Granted, without additional information, we shouldn’t make that leap, but the conclusion is intriguing.

*I can find no evidence that Fort Polk was closed at this time. I note that the armor division that had been stationed there was moved to Fort Hood in 1959, which would have required a draw down of forces at Polk. While the fort, in 1960, might have had areas closed (artillery ranges for example), it seems that the post was not completely closed and eventually became a huge training site for infantry soldiers. I took my basic training at Polk in 1967.