Robert Willingham and the Lie about the Del Rio UFO Crash

 

A couple of years ago, I heard Dr. Eric Davis mention, briefly, that the UFO crash near Del Rio, Texas, was real. It was something of a “throw away” line on Coast-to-Coast AM, and there was no follow up. Having investigated the Del Rio crash for more than two decades, I was surprised by such a bold statement and attempted to reach out to Dr. Davis to learn why he thought the case was solid.

I never received a reply… until now.

Apparently, André Skondras reached out to Dr. Davis to ask him about my assessment of the Del Rio case. According to Andre the response was, “Davis maintains that Randle’s conclusions about crash-retrieval history are incorrect and based on flawed research. He stresses that he, David Grusch, and other cleared personnel were briefed on classified evidence firsthand—information that remains inaccessible to the public due to long-standing national-security restrictions. According to Davis, critics often misunderstand how these secrecy protocols work, and the absence of public proof does not invalidate what is known inside classified programs.”

Yes, we have the old dodge that he is privy to information from classified sources and that he, among others, were briefed on classified evidence and that we, on the outside, misunderstand secrecy protocols. Except, of course, I served as an intelligence officer in both the Air Force and later the Army. I get all that, but the problem is his belief that the Del Rio crash is real.

As I have noted in the past, when the story first popped up, in 1968, the architect of the tale was Robert Willingham, identified as a lieutenant colonel in the Civil Air Patrol. You can read the entry from Skylook, the original publication of MUFON here:

The Willingham story is the 3rd paragraph down. 

This provides not only the article but identifies the 

source.

I will point out that the original source on this, the self-proclaimed Air Force colonel, Robert Willingham lied about his Air Force experiences, lied about being a fighter pilot and lied about serving in Korea. I’ll note that he eventually claimed to have been present at six other crashes. I was the first to actually vet his military record and found it wanting. I learned he had been a Civil Air Patrol lieutenant colonel, which is nowhere the same as being an Air Force officer. For those who missed it, a good recap of all this information can be found here:

https://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2018/09/dr-davis-confirms-del-rio-ufo-crash.html

The point is that in over two decades of research into the Del Rio crash, I have not found another witness to the Del Rio retrieval. The date has changed three times and Willingham told me that he wasn’t sure if it was 1954 or 1955. Please note here that I did interview the prime source and so far, as I know, the only witness to the crash.

While Dr. Davis may well have been exposed to first-hand witnesses to other crash/retrievals, he heard nothing first-hand about Del Rio. That crash was invented by Robert Willingham. Other than him, there is no evidence that the crash took place.

I’ll close this by saying that unless there is something about Del Rio that I haven’t discovered, and I freely admit that possibility, my conclusion, based on my research to date is that it is a hoax.

UFO Crash Retrievals: Three with Explanations

 

Blogger’s Note: Periodically I feel the need to commit Ufological suicide. This means, simply, that a reference in some of the latest material about UFOs annoys me because I believe I have a solution for the cited cases. In the last few days, I have been asked questions about certain UFO crash/retrieval cases in which I have inside information. Or maybe a better way is to point out that my investigations include being on the site, interviews with witnesses, and a review of documents that suggest a solution that others have glossed over.

First on this agenda, is the report of a crash in Aurora, Texas, in April, 1897. I may have been one of the first of the current crop of investigators to have actually gone there and talked to some of those residents who were still alive in 1971 when I made the trip. I have covered this case several times on this blog and you can read those analyses here:

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

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2018/04/aurora-texas-again.html

There are three facts that are often overlooked in a discussion of Aurora. First, in the decade that followed, and according to the Wise County Historical Society (Aurora is in Wide County), two histories of the county were written. Neither contained an account of the UFO crash. Since the histories were written so close to the event, there would have been many witnesses available but none were found… well, that’s not exactly accurate. There were none to be found because the case is a hoax.

Photo of Aurora, Texas by Kevin Randle

Second, in the interviews that I conducted in 1971, I talked with the man, Brawley Oates, whose hands were badly deformed. He told me then that the crash hadn’t taken place. We are now told that others, who never spoke to Oates, but who did interview his widow, that there are reports of radioactivity in the area.

Third, we are told of all the other Airship reports from the era. I’ve reviewed, literally, hundreds of them. The Airship landed in various locations and the crews were interviewed. Some said they were on the way to bomb the Spanish as the Spanish-America War was not far off. There were tales of secret testing the Airship which would soon be revealed to the world, but never was.

There are dozens of illustrations of the Airship and one photograph. The Airship had landed in Waterloo, Iowa, when the leader of crew fell overboard and drowned in the Cedar River. Later is was all admitted to be a hoax.

The Waterloo Airship, 1897.

Second, let’s talk about the Del Rio, Texas, UFO crash. I’m not going into depth here because I have provided much more information about my investigations and other aspects of this case. It is single witness, the report provided by a man who lied about his military service, who changed the data of the crash repeatedly, and did sign an affidavit for CUFOS. I am convinced that his name was Robert Willingham, but nearly everything else he said was untrue.

I mentioned the changing date. I found the first reference to the crash in Skylook, the original publication of MUFON. It said:

Col. R. B. Willingham, CAP squadron commander, has had an avid interest in UFO’s for years, dating back to 1948 when he was leading a squadron of F-94 jets near the Mexican border in Texas and was advised by radio that three UFO’s "flying formation" were near. He picked them up on his plane radar and was informed one of the UFO’s had crashed a few miles away from him in Mexico. He went to the scene of the crash but was prevented by the Mexican authorities from making an investigation or coming any closer than 60 feet. From that vantage point the wreckage seemed to consist of "numerous pieces of metal polished on the outside, very rough on the inner sides."

Please note that in one of the latest reports on this, the date is December 6, 1950. When I interviewed Willingham, he said that he didn’t remember the exact date but it was either 1954 or 1955. Willingham told Noe Torres and Ruben Uriate, that he had served in Korea in the fall of 1950. Given that tale, it would have been impossible for him to be flying fighters in the United States at the time he was in Korea.

Willingham in his CAP Uniform. He never served as an
officer in the Air Force and was not a fighter pilot.

I will point out there is no official documentation showing that Willingham was ever an officer in the Armed Forces of the United States. He did serve with the Civil Air Patrol which is not the same thing. For those interested in this whole, sad tale, you can find all the information here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2014/04/eisenhower-briefing-document-mj-12-and.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2014/04/eisenhower-briefing-document-mj-12-and.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2010/07/del-rio-ufo-crash-and-mj-12.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2012/02/willingham-1978-interview.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2011/08/roswell-festival-part-two.html

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

There are other articles, but they often repeat much of the same information. To research all of them, just type “Willingham” in the search engine and scroll through the articles. I’ll note that some of the comments do get interesting.

Finally, the Kingman UFO crash has reared its ugly head again. This was one of the first crash/retrievals to gain some traction. The original story is traced to Arthur Stansel, who was interviewed by to teenagers, Jeff Young and Paul Chetham. During that interview, Stansel told of a UFO crash near Kingman, Arizona, on May 21, 1953.

Kingman, Arizona. Photo by Kevin Randle.

He talked about taken by bus from his base in Nevada to the crash site where he put his engineering background to work. He said that the windows of the bus were blacked out and those on the bus were not allowed to share any information about themselves including their names. But, once at the crash site, their names were called as they exited the bus. That really makes no sense.

Again, rather than go through all this, I’ll just point to a series of postings here for review.

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-decline-and-fall-of-ufology.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2010/05/kingman-ufo-crash.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2011/05/kingman-ufo-crash-really.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2021/03/kingman-rises-from-dead.html

There are two points to be made here. First, Stansel said, repeatedly, that when he drank, he tended to make up stories. He told Young and Chetham that he had been drinking on that Saturday afternoon prior to the interview.

Much had been made about the affidavit he signed. The trouble is that it was in the name, Fritz Werner, which, of course, invalidates the affidavit, since that was not his real name and was a lie.

The overall problem is that in these three cases, there is clear evidence of hoax. Often these aspects are not fully reported. My philosophy has always been to report are relevant facts and let the reader decide what to belief. I’m not trying to build a case for alien visitation, just report, accurately on what I had learned. Often, I have investigated the cases myself in an attempt to discover the truth.

These are just three of the UFO crash/retrieval stories being circulated in the world today. If there were as many crashes as some have claimed, we would be having a different discussion. My hope here is to provide, well, a different perspective on some of the ongoing reports of UFO crashes. In too many cases, it is the will to believe that gets in the way of credible investigation.

'X' Zone Broadcast Network - Tom Deuley, Del Rio UFO Crash and Alien Abduction

This week I spoke with Tom Deuley, who has been around the UFO field for a long time. I believe I first met him in San Antonio at a UFO conference in the 1990s. One of the things he talked about was the Del Rio UFO crash. This was a tale told by

Tom Deuley

Robert Willingham, who claimed to be a retired Air Force colonel, fighter pilot and a veteran of the Korean War. I had investigated his background in the early 2000s after learning that no one else had done that. He had been accepted as an Air Force officer without much in the way of question or documentation. For those who wish to explore the Willingham saga at length, you can read about it here:

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

Embedded in that article are links to other stories about Willingham and his tales of UFO crashes… yes, crashes. Eventually, he claimed to have been on the scene of seven crashes. What are the odds?

Tom added a note to the Willingham saga that provides additional insight into the man and his stories.

We also talked about the Ambient Monitoring Project, which was designed to monitor the surroundings of those who have reported abduction. It’s a passive system without either audio or visual capability. The system records a variety of conditions in the bedroom and according to Tom, if the temperature varies by as little as a degree, that is noted. The theory was to gather data in a scientific way that could provide clues about the abduction phenomenon.

What I found interesting, on one hand, was that they had trouble finding people to participate in the program. However, thinking about it, I’m not sure that I would want a device that monitored the conditions in my bedroom. They did find a few who participated and the amount of evidence collected, given the way the system worked, seems to be overwhelming. Although the monitoring aspect has been concluded, analysis of that data is a Herculean task and is continuing.

Anyway, you can listen to the show in the audio player on the left, or you can link to it here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/48898776

Next up is Terry Lovelace. I haven’t had him on the program in quite a while. We’ll be talking about his abduction experience, his abduction research and his delving in to past lives… which will give me the chance to bring up Conversations, which is the book I wrote about my experience with a woman who seemed to have had a past life, or rather, several of them. 

Eric Davis, Again

 

The Devoid (Billy Cox), columnist at the Miami Herald, reignited the Admiral Thomas Wilson debate not all that long ago. Although it seemed that most of mainstream Ufology had realized that the story told by Dr. Eric Davis about his clandestine meeting with the Admiral was probably more hyperbole that truth, there are still those who believe the information is leading us to disclosure. You can read the article here:

http://devoid.blogs.heraldtribune.com/16000/eric-who-the-admiral/#comment-588557

I bring all this up because, a while back, Dr. Davis had suggested, on Coast-to-Coast, that the Del Rio UFO crash was real. That crash is based on the information of a single witness who had claimed to be a retired Air Force colonel, a former Air Force fighter pilot, and a veteran of the Korean War. I explored all this at length in a posting on this blog that you can read here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2018/09/dr-davis-confirms-del-rio-ufo-crash.html

Given that the Del Rio story is a hoax, and the lone witness to it has been less than honest about it, this does cast a shadow over the credibility of Dr. Davis. I mean, if he truly had inside information, he would have known the Del Rio crash was a hoax.

Robert Willingham, pretend
Air Force Officer.

I exposed it as such in 2010 in my book, Crash: When UFOs Fall from the Sky. I also gave a presentation at the MUFON Symposium in Denver about Robert Willingham, the discredited source, and why his tale should be rejected. This merely means that the information I uncovered was available long before Dr. Davis had his conversation with Admiral Wilson (which, BTW, Wilson has denied ever having taken place).

In the last few days, a number of people have been discussing this on the Internet, and I wouldn’t mention it but their experiences seem to match my own. As I said in the post, I had emailed Dr. Davis a couple of times, even asking George Knapp for some help in making contact, but never heard a word back from Davis. The excuse was that Dr. Davis was getting plenty of emails from all over the world and I certainly could understand his failure to reply to me.

However…

I wasn’t the only one having that sort of problem. André Skondras told Philip Mantle had he had attempted to contact Dr. Davis but hadn’t heard back. Given that had been less than twenty-four hours after he had sent his email, that wasn’t all that surprising. Now, several days later, he still hasn’t had a response.

That’s not the end of it. Don Schmitt reported, “Tracy Torme had asked me to contact Davis after his failure when he and James Fox were shooting the forthcoming docu-film. He never responded to email or personal calls. Next, because Davis was listed at that time as a MUFON consultant, I asked Jan Harzan to make the same effort. Same result.”

This was important because of Don’s efforts and the suggestion that MUFON Executive Director Jan Harzan was involved (made long before Harzan’s arrest). While I fully understand Dr. Davis ignoring some of these requests, as a consultant to MUFON, you’d think that a response to the Executive Director would be forthcoming.

This has now taken a different path with a suggestion that we contact Admiral Wilson, who has repeatedly denied that he knew Davis and wouldn’t recognize him if he walked into the room. Since the Admiral has been contacted and responded a number of times, I don’t know what good it will do to bother him again. He’s not going to change his mind.

I’m reminded of the note Kent Jeffrey received from the late Colonel Robert Barrowclough, who, in 1947, was one of the senior officers at the Roswell Army Air Field. In that note dated June 15, 1997, Barrowclough wrote, “Thank you for the copy of the [MUFON] UFO Journal on the Roswell Myth. Maybe some of those crack pots will quit calling me up and say I’m covering up a deep gov’t secret.”

Even if Admiral Wilson did know something, he would be obligated to deny it if it was still classified. I’m not saying that he does, only that continued pestering of the man will not yield any positive results… especially since he is on the record, repeatedly, as saying he had no such discussion with Dr. Davis.

The key here is Dr. Davis, but it seems to be a key that is lost. Since Dr. Davis has proclaimed a well-known hoax (Del Rio) as being authentic, I fear that there is nothing more to learn from him. All we end up doing is chasing a claim that cannot be verified and it does nothing to advance our knowledge. It only diverts us from a path that could yield better results.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - John Greenewald

This week was a two-part show with John Greenewald, inspired by the renewed interest in the Dr. Eric Davis notes about an alleged meeting with Admiral Thomas Wilson. We began, however talking about the recent events at the top of the MUFON organization and how that might hurt them in the long run. You can listen to the shows here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/39906317

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/39906311

We then talked about John’s theory that the notes Davis took read more like a

John Greenewald

Hollywood script than the notes of a meeting. John explained his theory on that, and that he’d, in the past, emailed Davis a number of times without response. John also mentioned why he didn’t accept the notes, finding fault with Davis’ discussion, in another interview, of classified documents. Davis had said that classified documents wouldn’t be released for 25 years, even under FOIA. Both John and I knew that wasn’t correct.

 I mentioned Davis’ claim that the Del Rio UFO crash was real. I have investigated that, and the alleged witness, Robert Willingham, and determined the case to be a hoax. You can read about my investigation here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2018/09/dr-davis-confirms-del-rio-ufo-crash.html

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

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

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2011/08/roswell-festival-part-two.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2010/07/del-rio-ufo-crash-and-mj-12.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2012/02/willingham-1978-interview.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2014/04/eisenhower-briefing-document-mj-12-and.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2018/06/heressomething-that-relates-to-my.html

Well, I think that proves the point if not bury it completely. Willingham’s claims annoyed me because of his creation of an Air Force career that he didn’t have and wearing of medals that he hadn’t earned (with the exception of those awarded by the Civil Air Patrol).

In the second hour, we shifted to the idea of Disclosure and to the AATIP program. John provided some information that the sightings from the USS Nimitz might not have been anything of an extraterrestrial nature. He cited documents that he had recovered through FOIA. Some of the earlier documents didn’t actually mention UAPs (the new term for UFO) but suggested terrestrial explanations. John did make it clear that there is not, at the moment, a clear solution for what was seen, only that there is some ambiguity in the witness statements and the evidence.

I said that I had thought, upon the first release of the videos, that we were moving closer to Disclosure, but John thought that hadn’t really moved us in that direction. He, like me, just don’t believe that Disclosure is close. Assuming for the moment that there is any great UFO secret to disclose, the government and the military have no motivation to disclose anything.

John did say that he thought of Disclosure as more of a personal event, meaning that each person could look at the evidence and decide what it meant. For some, the evidence of alien visitation was solid and for others the question was still open… neither of us actually thought about the skeptical point of view that there was nothing to disclose and therefore would be no Disclosure.

Next up is John M. Tiller who is a member of Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies and who edited their latest publication. We’ll delve into their mission and what that latest publication revealed.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am a member of SCU, but have done little with them in the last year. If you have any questions, submit them through the comments section here.

Len Stringfield - Liar?

When Don Schmitt and I discussed Len Stringfield’s contributions to the UFO community, I thought we had covered all the problems. However, it seems that there are still some out there who believe that Len was a liar. I think these comments were made because they disagreed with Len’s work and they disagreed with Len’s belief structure but there really is nothing in any of it that would suggest Len was a liar.

Len Stringfield

In the last decades of his life, Len was collecting tales of UFO crash retrievals. He produced a series of “Status Reports,” providing the information that had been given to him. He made no judgments about the information without additional knowledge and shared these reports with the hope that others might have a chance to verify that information. He was not advocating a position on the cases but sharing information that had been given to him.

An example of this was the tale of a crash/retrieval near Del Rio, Texas, in 1948. He reported the information as provided by Robert Willingham, who claimed to be a retired Air Force colonel and former fighter pilot. Len did note some trouble with the case as he learned of it, and reported the new information in his Status Reports.

Now, I should point out that there were many in the UFO field who accepted this case as legitimate. I was one of those, reporting on it in A History of UFO Crashes. I accepted the information because Willingham had signed an affidavit about the veracity of the tale and I believed that others had vetted the information by checking his military credentials. That I found it credible at the time

Civil Air Patrol officer,
Robert Willingham

doesn’t make me a liar because I was accurately reporting what others had told me about Willingham and his tale. These others believed the story as well because Willingham was a retired colonel and had signed an affidavit.

However, as I was working on Crash: When UFOs Fall from the Sky, I thought I would see what new information about this case was out there. In one of Len’s “Status Reports,” he mentioned that the date had changed from the original 1948 to December 1950, which, of course, was a red flag.

Worse still, as I followed up on it, I learned that no one had bothered to verify Willingham’s credentials. I requested information about Willingham from St. Louis, where NARA houses military records and learned the only documentation available was that Willingham had served a mere 13 months in the military, was a low-ranking enlisted soldier and that he left the military in early 1947. He you read the whole, sad tale here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2014/03/ihave-argued-for-years-that-eisenhower.html

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

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2010/07/del-rio-ufo-crash-and-mj-12.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2014/04/eisenhower-briefing-document-mj-12-and.html

The point is, that I hadn’t lied about Willingham, and Len hadn’t lied about him. He, as had I, reported what others had told us. We were wrong, but we hadn’t lied.

And that is what I’m trying to say here. You might disagree with Len’s conclusions or with the information he published, but that doesn’t make him a liar. You might believe, as many do, that there is no alien visitation and anything that suggests otherwise is in error, but believing in alien visitation doesn’t make you a liar.

I have advocated for a long time that we tone down the rhetoric but there are those who just can’t seem to make a point without calling names and attempting to assassinate character. Believe what you will, but make the point without slandering those with whom you disagree…

And please, understand what Len was attempting to do. He wanted to get the best information, regardless of what that information might be. He was priming the pump to get to the bottom of the reports because he couldn’t do it all himself.

But lying? Nope. Just a search for the truth.

Dr. Eric Davis and Admiral Thomas Wilson - Redux

The Devoid (Billy Cox), columnist at the Miami Herald, reignited the Admiral Thomas Wilson debate several days ago. Although it seemed that most of mainstream Ufology had realized that the story told by Dr. Eric Davis about his clandestine meeting with the Admiral was probably more hyperbole that truth, there are still those who believe the information is leading us to disclosure. You can read the article here:

http://devoid.blogs.heraldtribune.com/16000/eric-who-the-admiral/#comment-588557

I bring all this up because, a while back, Dr. Davis had suggested, on Coast-to-Coast, that the Del Rio UFO crash was real. That crash is based on the information of a single witness who had claimed to be a retired Air Force colonel, a former Air Force fighter pilot, and a veteran of the Korean War. I explored all this at length in a posting on this blog that you can read here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2018/09/dr-davis-confirms-del-rio-ufo-crash.html

Given that the Del Rio story is a hoax, and the lone witness to it has been less than honest about it, this does cast a shadow over the credibility of Dr. Davis. I mean, if he truly had inside information, he would have known the Del Rio crash

Dr. Eric Davis

was a hoax. I exposed it as such in 2010 in my book, Crash: When UFOs Fall from the Sky. I also gave a presentation at the MUFON Symposium in Denver about Willingham and why his tale should be rejected. This merely means that the information I uncovered was available long before Dr. Davis had his conversation with Admiral Wilson (which, BTW, Wilson has denied ever having taken place).

In the last few days, a number of people have been discussing this on the Internet, and I wouldn’t mention it but their experiences seem to match my own. As I said in the post, I had emailed Dr. Davis a couple of times, even asking George Knapp for some help in making contact, but never heard a word back from Davis. The excuse was that Dr. Davis was getting plenty of emails from all over the world and I certainly could understand his failure to reply to me.

However…

I wasn’t the only one having that sort of problem. André Skondras told Philip Mantle had he had attempted to contact Dr. Davis but hadn’t heard back. Given that had been less than twenty-four hours after he had sent his email, that wasn’t all that surprising. Now, several days later, he still hasn’t had a response.

Don Schmitt

That’s not the end of it. Don Schmitt reported, “Tracy Torme had asked me to contact Davis after his failure when he and James Fox were shooting the forthcoming docu-film. He never responded to email or personal calls. Next, because Davis was listed at that time as a MUFON consultant, I asked Jan Harzan to make the same effort. Same result.”

This was important because of Don’s efforts and the suggestion that MUFON Executive Director Jan Harzan was involved. While I fully understand Dr. Davis ignoring some of these requests, as a consultant to MUFON, you’d think that a response to the Executive Director would be forthcoming.

This has now taken a different path with a suggestion that we contact Admiral Wilson, who has repeatedly denied that he knew Davis and wouldn’t recognize him if he walked into the room. Since the Admiral has been contacted and responded a number of times, I don’t know what good it will do to bother him again. He’s not going to change his mind.

I’m reminded of the note Kent Jeffrey received from the late Colonel Robert Barrowclough, who, in 1947, was one of the senior officers at the Roswell Army Air Field. In that note dated June 15, 1997, Barrowclough wrote, “Thank you for the copy of the [MUFON] UFO Journal on the Roswell Myth. Maybe some of those crack pots will quit calling me up and say I’m covering up a deep gov’t secret.”

Even if Admiral Wilson did know something, he would be obligated to deny it if it was still classified. I’m not saying that he does, only that continued pestering of the man will not yield any positive results… especially since he is on the record, repeatedly, as saying he had no such discussion with Dr. Davis.

The key here is Dr. Davis, but it seems to be a key that is lost. Since Dr. Davis has proclaimed a well-known hoax (Del Rio) as being authentic, I fear that there is nothing more to learn from him. All we end up doing is chasing a claim that cannot be verified and it does nothing to advance our knowledge. It only diverts us from a path that could yield better results.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - A Retrospective

This week, given a bunch of unrelated circumstances, I decided to use the show to express some opinions about the current state of UFO research and some of the history that brought us to this place. You can listen to the show here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/18942434

The show was divided into four segments. I began talking about why I’m beginning to dislike Ufology. I have written about that in the past and you can read some of it here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/search?q=Why+I%27m+Beginning+to+dislike+Ufology

In the second segment, I finished talking about some of the fakers that seem to have nearly overrun the field. I had begun with Robert Willingham and moved onto some of the latest of those claiming extraordinary adventures with little in the way of objective evidence or common sense. I am astonished that some people accept these tales as true.

Carl Hart, Jr. of Lubbock
Lights fame.

But the real thrust in this segment was talking about Project Mogul and some of the issues raised by those who accept this as an answer to the Roswell case without much in the way of analysis.

In the third segment, I got into Project Blue Book and some of the trouble with those investigations. I ended that with commentary on the Hippler letter and the Condon Committee acceptance of the conditions outlined in the letter. You can read about the Hippler letter here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2007/03/hippler-letter.html

The final segment was about some of the best UFO cases including the Lubbock Lights, Levelland and Socorro. I touched on these because in each there was an opportunity to advance our knowledge but that chance was lost in the bickering of the various institutions and individuals attempting to advance their personal agendas rather than searching for the truth.

Anyway, I think that I touched on a number of important topics and why some of it is problematic. If you enjoyed this monologue, let me know and I’ll try it again… at least once in a while.

Next week’s guest is Mike Rogers, he of the Travis Walton abduction case. He was also a witness to the Phoenix Lights, though his take on that event is a little different than that expressed by many others.

If you have questions for Mike, send a comment, and I’ll try to get the question asked during the interview. I will note that the questions will not appear on the blog.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Retrospective, AATIP, Robert Friend and Admiral Wilson

This week’s show wasn’t quite what I thought it was going to be, nor did it include Nick Redfern. Through no fault of Nick, nor really anyone, circumstances sort of dictated that we postpone Nick’s show until later in the summer. He was fine with that and it worked out for all of us. You can listen to the show here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/18392071

I used the opportunity to reflect on the past shows and what was going on in the

LTC Robert Friend

world of the UFO today. And I used the opportunity to mention the passing of retired Lieutenant Colonel Robert Friend. From everything that I have heard or found about him, he was a true American hero.

I had received some questions about the interview that had been published with Admiral Thomas Wilson. That interview and transcript came from Dr. Eric Davis, who, had mentioned at one point that the Del Rio UFO crash was real. Although I have looked into the Del Rio crash before, and into the background of Robert Willingham who is the sole source on this, I just don’t believe the tale is grounded in reality. To me, Davis’ belief in the Del Rio crash suggested he might not have been as deeply embedded in the inside as was thought. You can read about this here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/search?q=Eric+Davis

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/search?q=Robert+Willingham

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2010/07/del-rio-ufo-crash-and-mj-12.html

And some of these links will lead to other links as well so that a complete picture can be seen if you wish to follow it to its conclusion.

Because the AATIP is still a hot topic, I touched on it as well. Most of that has been discussed in the last month on the blog. That goes hand in hand with the Unidentified program on History.

Next week, while I’m in Roswell at the Festival there, we’ll have a “best of program.” The following week, we’ll be back with a new show.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Stephen Bassett (Disclosure)

This week I reached out to Stephen Bassett, he of Disclosure fame. Given what has been happening the last few weeks, with so much that is positive coming out, I thought it time to take another look at Disclosure. Bassett provided an interesting

Stephen Bassett. Photo
copyright by Kevin Randle

history of how we reached the point we have reached, including a suggestion of a plan for President Hillary Clinton to be the “Disclosure President.” Of course, that plan failed for the obvious reason. You can listen to the interview here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/18321579

In the last several days, I have had some inquiries about Admiral Thomas Wilson, who apparently met with Dr. Eric Davis (formerly of NIDS). Davis took notes and those notes have recently been published in a number of forums. You can read the notes for yourself here:

https://richarddolanmembers.com/articles/article-ufo-leak-of-the-century-richard-dolan-analyzes-the-admiral-wilson-leak/

Davis had mentioned, on Coast-to-Coast, that the Del Rio UFO crash was real, which seemed to suggest that he wasn’t quite the authority on crash retrievals that he pretended to be. I discussed some of that here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2018/09/dr-davis-confirms-del-rio-ufo-crash.html

The problem is that the Del Rio crash is a hoax. It was started by a fellow named Robert Willingham, and I have gone over this many times on the blog. Willingham claimed to have been a fighter pilot, Air Force officer, and eventually claimed to have been involved in seven UFO crash retrievals. You can read about all that here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2012/02/willingham-1978-interview.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2014/04/eisenhower-briefing-document-mj-12-and.html

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

(All of this is probably more detail than anyone really wants, but I believe it important to make it clear that the Del Rio data came from Willingham and Willingham is completely unreliable.)

One of the points I wanted to make, but it got lost in the discussion, was that the Wilson interview had taken place in 1997, and while they talked about the Corso book, I didn’t really see that as a fatal flaw. Corso’s book came out that same year, and if you accept the crash of an alien spacecraft at Roswell as true, then Corso writing about it suggests that he might have had inside information. But the flaws in Corso’s book are many and I have written about them here as well. (Can’t be surprised by that, can you?) The relevant posts can be read here:

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

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2014/02/philip-corso-interview-with-budd.html

We ended with a discussion about the convoy from Roswell to Wright Field, Ohio. I was attempting to point out that it violated regulations… but was told that regulations were often violated. This is a standard response to such a question but it doesn’t negate the accuracy of the information. We just ran out of time before we could finish the discussion.

Next week, I’ll be joined by Nick Redfern to discuss his book, Cover ups and Secrets. If you have questions for Nick, send them along to the comments section and I’ll see about getting them answered.

And, remember, I’ll be interviewing some of the guests at the Roswell Festival. If you have questions, the same applies. Send them along to the comments section here.

Dr. Davis Confirms Del Rio UFO Crash?

A couple of weeks ago we were all told, alerted to the fact really, that the Del Rio UFO crash of the mid-1950s had been validated. New information had been mentioned to George Knapp during his hosting duties on Coast-to-Coast. Dr. Eric Davis had made the comment.

But what did he actually say?

Knapp, during their discussion, said, “That makes it sound like there is something to analyze or reverse engineer.”

Then, according to the radio program, and a brief transcript offered at a number of UFO related websites, Davis said, “Yeah, they’ve got…I would say…you know…If you’re going to throw your bets on Roswell, your bet’s really good. Del Rio, Texas, that was a 1950s case, that was another one, and the other ones I won’t bring up because those are still classified.”

That was the extent of what he said about the Del Rio crash. He added, “But um… and they have not been investigated to my knowledge, I’m sorry, they have not been REVEALED or PUBLISHED to my knowledge. So without knowing that that’s the case I won’t talk about it any further, but we have crash retrievals and they’ve been analyzed and

Dr. Eric Davis Photo copyright
by EarthTech Int'l

unfortunately our laboratory diagnostic technologies and our materials sciences and the understanding of physics that we had were not advanced enough to be able to make heads or tails of what it is, of what they had their hands on.”

And that is it.

If he knew more about the case, or had communicated more about to anyone, I wanted to know because I had come to believe that the Del Rio crash never happened. Too much of the information had radically changed over the years in a way that suggested the tale was untrue. But, in UFO research, you are required to take a look at anything that seems to be new and that provides, well, a different perspective.

The first question is: What do we know about Dr. Davis?

According to his biography published around the Internet, we learn that he has a Ph.D. and “is the Chief Science Officer of EarthTech Int’l, Inc. and the Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin. Dr. Davis’ research specializations include breakthrough propulsion physics for interstellar flight, interstellar flight science, beamed energy propulsion, advanced space nuclear power and propulsion, directed energy weapons, future and transformational technology, general relativity theory, quantum field theory, quantum gravity theories, experimental quantum optics, and SETI-xenoarchaeology.”

So, the next step is to take a look at this EarthTech Int’l website.  There we learn more about his background. According to the website he is also described as:

Dr. Davis’ research activities include megawatt-class laser propulsion physics, systems design and performance metrics, and mission applications for the U.S. Air Force laser Lightcraft program; quantum optics tomography experiments to measure negative vacuum energy; studies on the multilayered quantum vacuum structure and its applications; general relativistic time machines and causality, superluminal photons in curved spacetime, gravastars and black holes, and quantum entanglement/teleportation and nonlocality; studies on traversable wormhole and warp drive spacetimes for faster-than-light propulsion; and feasibility studies on laser inertial confinement, inertial electrostatic confinement, Z-pinch, and dense plasma focus fusion concepts for space propulsion.

Dr. Davis serves as an Adjunct Professor in the Early Universe, Cosmology and Strings Group at the Center for Astrophysics, Space Physics & Engineering Research at Baylor University in Waco, TX. He earned his Ph.D. in Astrophysics from the University of Arizona in 1991.

Dr. Davis is a Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society, Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and a member of the New York Academy of Sciences, Directed Energy Professional Society, SPIE, American Astronomical Society, and Association of Former Intelligence Officers.

That sounds pretty impressive. He has also written a number of peer reviewed papers and published a long list of other articles. So, the next thing to do is look at the organization for which he works. There we learn:

The Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin was founded in 1985 by Harold Puthoff, PhD, and later incorporated under EarthTech International, Inc., in 1991 as an innovative research facility with a high‐powered creative staff dedicated to exploring the forefront reaches of science and engineering. Our research interests include theories of spacetime, gravity and cosmology; studies of the quantum vacuum; modifications of standard theories of electrodynamics; interstellar flight science; and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, specifically as these topics may apply to developing innovative space propulsion and sources of energy. We strive to translate these ideas into laboratory experiments.

I guess the point here is that he doesn’t sound like your typical UFO guy. His credentials seem to be solid and his work seems to be advanced. That just brings us back to his comment about Del Rio. Is there more to that?

Everything that I can find suggests he just made the one comment on Coast-to-Coast. George Knapp couldn’t tell me anything more but did mention that Davis had said he was getting a lot of emails after his appearance on the show. That was not much help.

Ruben Uriarte, who was delighted with the endorsement of the Del Rio crash, didn’t know anything more about it either. He thought it would be great to obtain additional documents from the Mexican government or the US military about the crash. That, of

CAP Major Robert
Willingham

course, presupposes that there are documents from either of those sources, which Davis seemed to imply but I have no information that this is accurate.

I did attempt to learn more from Davis, but my emails to him went unanswered. I, as did so many others, wanted to know what additional information he could supply. Without anything, we are left with only the original source of the tale, Robert Willingham, who claimed to have been an Air Force officer, a fighter pilot, and the one who had seen the crashed craft in Del Rio. The problem is, Willingham was none of those things, and rather than repeat all the information here, I’ll just suggest you take a look on what I found several years ago. You can read it here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2010/07/del-rio-ufo-crash-and-mj-12.html

Or, if you are interested, I published a list of the various articles about Willingham which also covers some of the other problems with his tales here:

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

That first article will let you sort through quite a bit of information about the Del Rio crash in all its various incarnations and the ever-shifting date as supplied by Willingham. For those of us who actually served in a combat environment, who were actually military pilots, the whole Willingham tale is an insult.

The problem for me is if Dr. Davis has no additional information and was relying on the statements made by Willingham, then that calls some of his other comments into question. The Del Rio crash can be traced only to Willingham and there is no corroboration for it. That’s why I was surprised that Davis had mentioned it specifically.

I have emailed Davis again, asking for any sort of corroboration of this crash tale. I suspect I won’t learn much more because there isn’t any more to learn. Willingham invented the tale in 1968, claimed it happened in 1948, later claimed it happened in 1950 and finally said it happened in the mid-1950s. He wasn’t a colonel and he wasn’t a fighter pilot. With that, Willingham inadvertently takes some of Davis’s credibility with him.

And that is what so frequently happens in UFO research.