Philip Corso and The Day After Roswell, Again

(Blogger’s Note: In the last few days I have been asked about Philip Corso and his tales of seeing the Roswell bodies and of seeding alien technology into American industry. I have updated the information to reflect what we now know. This is my take on the stories Corso told, and once again, I find myself attempting to explain why I don’t accept what he said as real.)

As everyone now knows, Philip Corso burst on the Roswell UFO scene in the summer of 1997 with the publication of his book, The Day After Roswell. It was Corso’s story of his involvement with the flying saucer crash at Roswell, first as an officer at Fort Riley, Kansas, and later as a staff officer in the Pentagon, the Eisenhower White House, and finally on the staff of Lieutenant General Arthur Trudeau. Corso claimed that he had been responsible, under orders from Trudeau, for leaking bits and pieces of alien technology to American industry for reverse engineering, duplication and replication.

There is no doubt that Corso had served as a military officer and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel. He served in World War II and stayed on active duty until he retired and did work for Trudeau. Although he did say that he had retired as a full colonel, there is no evidence to back up this claim.

It was during his assignment at Fort Riley that Corso was introduced, according to him, to the alien crash at Roswell. Corso, again according to him, was an above average bowler and because of his skill was invited to participate on a Fort Riley team by then Master Sergeant Bill Brown (which is a name nearly as common as John Smith for those who wish to attempt to learn more about this guy). Corso was surprised because enlisted men weren’t supposed to fraternize with officers at that time, but apparently Corso’s skill was such that the master sergeant took a chance and breached military protocol.

The friendship that developed between Corso and the master sergeant, who he now called by the nickname Brownie, would play an important role in what would happen on the evening of July 6, 1947, after the arrival of a “secret” convoy. Corso was assigned as the post duty officer, in charge of security and as he described it, the “human firewall between emergency and disaster.” As he walked his post, checking the security, he failed to find Sergeant Brown where he was supposed to be. Instead, Brown was in the doorway of the veterinary clinic. There was something inside that Corso just had to see.

Forget for the moment that Brown would have had no reason to enter the building unless there was some sort of a disturbance inside, or that the secret convoy of five “deuce and half” (two and a half ton trucks) with its accompanying “Low boy” side by side trailers would have been guarded by the men who brought them to Fort Riley to ensure that the contents were not compromised. Forget also that the best evidence suggests that the material from the crash was shipped by air to its various destinations because it was the quickest and safest way to move it and the 509^th Bomb Group had access to a wide range of military aircraft. Corso, in his first-hand account, claimed that the convoy stopped at Fort Riley, and the Military Police assigned to it as guards were all armed, which, of course, they would be so that wasn’t unusual. These guards, once the material was secured in the veterinary clinic, apparently abandoned their posts to leave the guarding of the crates to the local soldiers. These guards would have been no reason to unload the cargo, so there is no reason that it would have been in the veterinary clinic but without this wrinkle Corso’s story collapses.

Those local soldiers, being curious men, began to search the material from the top-secret convoy. What they found so upset them that they risked the wrath of the post duty officer and court martial by telling him that there was something he had to see. Brown told Corso that he had to take a look at what the convoy was transporting. Corso warned Brown that he wasn’t supposed to be there and had better leave. Brown, apparently ignoring this advice, which would actually have the force of a lawful order, said that he would watch the door while Corso snooped.

Inside the building, Corso found the crates but hesitated at prying open any of them, which would have been closed with a seal to expose any tampering. He searched among them until he found one that had apparently already been opened by the Fort Riley soldiers so that the nails were loose. He opened that crate and then looked down inside. In a glass tube containing a blue fluid, floating, suspended, was what Corso thought, at first, was a small child. Then he knew it wasn’t a child, but a human-looking creature with “bizarre-looking four-fingered hands... thin legs and feet, and an oversized incandescent light bulb-shaped head...”

Rifling the crate, Corso found an Army Intelligence document detailing that the creature was from a craft that had crashed outside of Roswell, which also doesn’t make sense. The documents wouldn’t have been stashed in a crate carrying the body. The paperwork appeared to manifest the remains, first to the Air Materiel Command at Wright Field, and then to Walter Reed Hospital for what Corso believed would be autopsy (which is in conflict with data provided by the late and former Brigadier General Arthur Exon). Of course, such a manifest would have been in the hands of the convoy commander rather than stuck in a crate where he wouldn’t have easy access to it. Corso, realizing that he was not supposed to have read the document, seen the creature, opened the crate, or penetrated the security around the cargo, put everything back the way he found it, and hurried outside. He told Brown that he had seen nothing and that he Brown, was to tell no one.

That wasn’t, of course, Corso’s last brush with the Roswell case. It was however, more than a decade before he again saw anything dealing with Roswell. Instead he had a number of military assignments, moving him to Washington, D.C., and then to Fort Bliss, Texas. At Bliss he was trained in anti-aircraft artillery, then assigned as an inspector of training and finally assigned as battalion commander for several weeks before he was reassigned to Europe. While at Bliss, according to Corso, he was assigned as the commander of the White Sands Missile Range. At least that is what he told reporters in the summer of 1997 as he was describing his background for them.

In Germany, in 1957, he was a commander of a Nike battalion. In March, 1959, he became the Special Assistant to the Chief of Staff at the Seventh Army Headquarters. In May 1959, he became an Inspector General at Seventh Army HQ, and continued in that assignment for about a year. In 1960 he returned to the United States. In 1961, he was assigned as a staff officer of the Plans Division in Washington, D.C. and then as a staff officer of the Army’s Foreign Technology Division until April 1961 when he became the Chief of Foreign Technology. Three months later he was reassigned as a staff officer at Plans and less than a year later he retired.

It was during the tour in 1961 that he became involved, once again, with the Roswell case. According to an affidavit prepared by Peter Gersten, and according to Corso, “...In 1961, I came into possession of what I refer to as the ‘Roswell File.’ This file contained field reports, medical autopsy reports and technological debris from the crash of an extraterrestrial vehicle in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947.”

Corso’s job, in 1961, was to parcel the debris into American industry hands for research and development which doesn’t explain why he was exposed to information that was irrelevant to his assignment and in violation of the “Need to Know” rule. The idea here was to suggest to various companies that the small artifact or metal had come from an unknown source, which of course shows that there was no need to provide Corso with the background of a UFO crash. The expertise of the scientists at the companies was supposed to unlock the secrets of the debris. This led, according to Corso, to the creation of the transistor, night vision equipment, fiber optics, lasers, microwave ovens and a host of other recent developments though the scientific papers and history of the times suggests that this is not accurate.

All of this was outlined in Corso’s book which became news in July 1997. He appeared on NBC’s Dateline for an exclusive interview. About a week later he appeared in Roswell for a press conference, a lecture, and a book signing. For three weeks in August, his book appeared on the New York Times bestseller list.

Corso was, in 1997, the highest-ranking officer to write a book about Roswell and to make public claims about the case of what he had seen and done (Colonel Jesse Marcel, Jr. now holds that distinction). According to him, he had been a member of NSC, had worked inside Eisenhower’s White House, and had served with the Army’s Foreign Technology Division. If he could be believed, then here was the truth about the Roswell crash. Finally a witness with impressive credentials had gone on the record.

The stories told by Corso to friends and family are even more impressive than those detailed in his book. In a proposed chapter that was edited out of his book, Corso claimed that in 1957 he had taken command of missiles at Red Canyon, where he trained specialists in the management of sophisticated radar and range finding equipment. It was here that Corso saw a series of radar contacts showing objects that could outperform the best Air Force interceptors.

Corso, according to the details of the missing chapter, had been told to report all unidentifiable sightings and then, finally, was told to forget them. He also claimed that at “times of intense UFO activity during his tenure as commander... he is ordered to turn his targeting radars completely off because, he believes, the craft themselves are in danger from our missiles as well as from our high-energy radars.”

Naturally the claims of Corso were subjected to intense scrutiny. Problems with his book began to arise almost immediately. For example, Corso had claimed to be a member of the NSC in the Eisenhower White House. Herbert L. Pankratz, an archivist at the Eisenhower Library, reported Corso was not a member of the National Security Council or its ancillary agency known as the Operations Coordinating Board. There was nothing to link Corso to the NSC.

Corso, in his book, told of how he had intimidated the CIA director of covert operations after Corso learned the CIA was following him. He told Frank “Wiesner” that he was going to start carrying a gun and if he ever spotted a CIA agent following him, they would find the agent’s body with bullet holes in the head. Corso then noted that Wiesner was found dead in his London hotel room in 1961. Wiesner had killed himself by hanging, which is not to say that Corso’s threat so unhinged Wiesner that he committed suicide.

The problem is that most of the facts used by Corso to support this story, from the claim that he had charged into the Langley Headquarters of the CIA, to the facts surrounding the death of Frank Wisner (note correct spelling) are wrong. Corso couldn’t have charged into the Langley headquarters because they weren’t opened when Corso supposedly entered the building. Corso couldn’t have driven to Wisner’s office as he claimed because, in April 1961, Wisner was, in fact, assigned to the CIA’s London office. Wisner did, eventually commit suicide, but it was with a shotgun, at the family farm, and on October 29, 1965.

In what may be the most telling of the events surrounding the publication of Corso’s book is the Foreword written by Senator Strom Thurmond. Here seems to be an endorsement for Corso’s book from a man who has served in the United States Senate longer than almost anyone. When the book was published, Thurmond, objected, claiming that the Foreword he had written had been for a different book. The publisher, Simon and Schuster issued an apology and pulled the Foreword from future printings of the book.

Corso tried to explain it away, saying that Thurmond’s staff had written the Foreword and that “the old man knew it” and that they hadn’t really known the nature of the book. The whole flap, according to Corso, was a misunderstanding about the nature of the book and who actually authored the Foreword. As a matter of courtesy, given the controversy, Simon and Schuster decided to pull the Foreword.

Karl Pflock, who had been around Washington, D.C. in various capacities, decided to look into the matter himself, believing that his friends and sources inside the Beltway would give him a unique perspective on the matter. Pflock, it turned out, knew the senator’s press secretary, and learned that “Yes, it’s true the foreword was drafted by one of the senator’s staff... It was done at the senator’s direction on the understanding he had from Corso that it was to be for Corso’s memoirs, for which he and his staff were supplied an outline, a document which made no mention of UFOs.” Pflock added, “I know of my own certain knowledge the senator was and is mad as hell about the cheap trick that Corso pulled on him...”

Pflock continued, pointing out that Deputy General Counsel Eric Raymond demanded, “Recall all copies of the first printing - failing that, remove all dust jackets with the senator’s name on them; stop using any reference to the foreword by the senator in promoting the book; do not use the foreword in any subsequent printings of the book; issue a statement acknowledging the truth, ‘to establish for the public record’ that the senator ‘had no intention or desire to write the foreword to The Day After Roswell,’ a ‘project I completely disavow.’”

The apology issued by Simon and Schuster was not as bland as Corso had characterized it but was, in fact, damning in its wording. It was clear that Thurmond did not know the nature of the book and that the outline he had read was for a completely different book. The publisher did remove the foreword from all subsequent editions of the book.

This might seem as if it is an argument over trivia, but it does speak to the general attitude of Corso in constructing his book. If he was willing to mislead a United States Senator, one who Corso considered a friend, why believe that he wouldn’t want to mislead the rest of the country? The evidence is that he played fast and loose with the truth.

For example, it was Corso who said that he had been the commander at the White Sands Missile Range but a check of the Range’s website revealed that, with two exceptions, the Range had been commanded by a general officer. The first exception was Colonel Turner who had been the first commander, and the second was when a full colonel took over temporarily when the commanding general died. Corso’s name did not surface as a commander.

However, as noted, his records indicated that he had been a battalion commander at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas. The two organizations, Fort Bliss and White Sands Missile Range, share some facilities. So, it might be said Corso was a commander at White Sands but not the commander. Clearly Corso was inflating his record when speaking to members of the press.

During those same press conferences, Corso made other statements that were quite revealing. He mentioned the Philadelphia Experiment, a hoax that began in 1956 when a man claimed he had witnessed, during the Second World War, Navy efforts to teleport a destroyer. The story is an admitted hoax, but Corso began telling reporters about the event, claiming that he had read the top-secret files about it.

Research into Corso’s claims showed that they were firmly grounded in the UFO community. Corso had read and reviewed everything that had been printed, published on the Internet, or shown in television documentaries over the last five or six years as it related to the Roswell case. There was nothing new in Corso’s book, except for his claim that he had seen one of the bodies at Fort Riley and then that he was the conduit for the alien technology to American industry. For evidence, he offered nothing more than his claim it happened and documentation offered as some sort of evidence had nothing to do with his claims.

In fact, when Corso came into conflict with other witnesses, or information that was contrary to his point of view, he retreated. He appeared on a radio program with Frank Kaufmann but at every point of disagreement, Corso deferred to Kaufman as if Kaufman was the real authority. Kaufmann’s tales have since been shown to be untrue, a fact which Corso should have known if he had the inside knowledge that he claimed he had.

He was quick to suggest that his information might not have been the best. In other cases, it seemed to have been the worst. The caption over a photograph in his book read, “Lt. Col. Corso was never able to confirm the veracity of the following purported UFO surveillance photos which were in Army Intelligence files as support for material for the R&D project to harvest the Roswell alien technology for military purposes.”

The first of the pictures is of a well-known hoax. The photographer, Guy B. Marquand, Jr. told various UFO researchers, as well as the editors of Look, that he was sorry, but it was a hoax. He had been young and foolish and thought it a great joke. It would seem that if Corso was on the inside as he claimed, he would have been aware that this particular UFO photograph was faked.

Given the information available, given the mistakes in Corso’s book, and given his inflation of his own importance during his military career, it seems that the logical conclusion is that Corso’s claims are of little value. They added nothing to what was already known, and certainly have detracted from the whole of the Roswell case. When his claims break apart, those who know little about Roswell become convinced that the whole case is built on structures similar to those built by Corso.

Rumor Control

There are a couple of things that I think need to be straightened out. First, as I was surfing the net (yes, I googled my name… Oh yeah, you’ve never done that) I discovered a number of my books were being offered as free downloads. There are apparently many out there who believe that if a book is twenty years old, there are no copyright issues. Well, this isn’t true. The books are still under copyright protection and the penalties for violation can be stiff.

I attempted to download one of the books so that I could get a handle on the site and let the owners know that they were guilty of copyright infringement. But what they wanted was a credit card number. If the download is free, then why a credit card number? If they are selling something in conjunction with my books, then it changes things slightly.

I note here that I have nothing to do with this site, receive no money from it, and believe it to be some sort of scam. I would advise against giving them any credit card information…

And one other thing about this. I do not understand the attitude of some that my work in producing the books shouldn’t be compensated in some fashion. I will note that of the cover price of a book, the writer receives the smallest percentage. Bookstores and distributors take something over eighty percent, which doesn’t leave much for the publisher and even less for the writer. Besides, I supply a great deal of information at this blog with no compensation at all.

Second, there is a rumor circulating that now I have been retired from the military for five years, I am released from my obligations to protect classified material to which I might have been exposed. There are stories suggesting I will now be able to talk about experiences at Wright-Patterson and seeing the alien bodies (and yes, I have sometimes joked about this). These rumors are not true. Material that is classified as Top Secret is considered classified until properly downgraded and anything that I learned would still be classified. As one general told me so long ago, “I don’t know what is still classified and what is not and I’m not going to talk to you.”

So, don’t attempt to download my books for free because you might end up paying for something and probably won’t get the books… and, I’m not about to make some great revelation about the things I learned in the military.

Unsealed: Alien Files.... Seriously?

While searching for something interesting to watch, I stumbled across a program called Unsealed: Alien Files and my only comment is, “Seriously?”

This is one of the reasons that we have trouble getting science and journalism to take UFO reports seriously. It is one of the reasons that so many people have so little time for UFOs or who believe those seeing UFOs are deluded. This program, in the guise of a documentary, was filled with every half-baked idea, every conspiracy theory associated with UFOs, and every lousy piece of evidence available. It was horrendous.

John Greenewald. Photo
copyright by Kevin Randle

What surprised me was that some very respectable people… Nick Pope and John Greenewald to name but two… were on it. In fact, the program that featured Pope and the UK’s investigation of UFOs made some sense and provided some interesting evidence. It was clear from that program that a serious UFO investigation had been conducted by England’s Ministry of Defence and that UFO information had been hidden in classified files by the authorities there.

But in another episode (they showed four in a row but luckily I was only exposed to two and a half) explained how Dwight Eisenhower, while president, had met with alien creatures.* It suggested that most of the alien races were up to no good but that one seemed to be aiding the human race. We were told that the Reptoids have a shape-shifting capability which means they can appear to be human, and that the greys have a treaty with the US to allow for

Nick Pope. Photo
copyright by Kevin Randle

animal mutilations and human abduction… Oh, and I don’t want to forget the big gunfight in the hidden base at Dulce, New Mexico in which dozens of US service members were killed.

All this told as if it were proven fact. They even had some in the form of a newspaper article about an underground complex found in the middle of Los Angeles. We know it was a newspaper article because it said, right on the screen, “actual newspaper article.” Of course it didn’t provide a date for the article or the newspaper, but we saw it anyway with no way to check.

We learned that UFO researchers believe this or that, but the UFO researchers are never identified. We learn, for example, that if what researchers believe about human history is true, then there is evidence for this alien infestation. Of course, we’re not sure exactly who those UFO researchers are or what those things about human history are and we know that if the first part of the statement is false, then so is the conclusion based on it.

There really isn’t much to say about this series. It is based on paranoia, the lies of some people who claim intimate knowledge of these clandestine events, and every rumor that has ever been spread inside the UFO community. This is the sort of thing that I have fought for a long time. People claiming military records and credentials who don’t have them, stories that can be checked through documentation such as the Foo Fighter incident centered around the USS New York that don’t check out, and the other nonsense that circulates through the Internet. If we are ever going to learn the truth here, we must clear away the nonsense around us. Unsealed: Alien Files just piles it deeper and deeper and makes the job harder and harder. We really don’t need this.

*To support this Eisenhower visit they used a picture taken by Ella Louise Fortune near Holloman Air Force Base in October 1957. They claimed that Eisenhower met the aliens there for the second time in October 1957 but those paying close attention realized that the UFO expert talking about this event was talking about something that took place in 1964, or long after Eisenhower left office. Clearly the documentary producers were attempting to link the Fortune picture with the Holloman UFO landing, but the dates simply don’t track for those of us who have been around longer than ten minutes. This just gives an additional insight into the quality of the program… Oh, and I believe the Fortune picture is actually of a lenticular cloud…but that is a discussion for another time.

(Note: I hesitate to mention this, but Unsealed: Alien Files can be found on the Destination America channel on Thursday nights. I thought some might like to see how bad a UFO documentary can be but tune in sparingly because we don’t want to encourage them.)  

The Newhouse Utah Movie - Part Two

Well, as I have said, repeatedly, nothing is simple in the world of the UFO. Skeptics have made a big deal out of a letter written by Dr. James McDonald in which he quotes from his 1970 interview with Delbert Newhouse that he, Newhouse, was “…positive they had cut the first 10 or 20 feet [of the film], which were shot when the objects were very much closer…” There was also discussion by Newhouse that he had not received the original film back and that seems to be borne out by various letters and memos contained in the Project Blue Book files.

Given a review of McDonald’s letter, it seemed that Newhouse, at best was confused and confabulating and at worse telling lies to strengthen his case. One of the major points was that the Air Force had altered his film. I wrote:

The real point where this falls apart, at least for me, is when Newhouse began talking to McDonald about his film. Here is the one thing that is well documented in the Project Blue Book files and for the believers we have the statements made by Newhouse himself about the film when he submitted it to the Air Force…

So we talked about the length of the film and how it doesn’t seem that it had been altered. Everything pointed to there being some thirty feet of film of the UFOs and then additional vacation footage that was removed and returned to Newhouse. Everything in the Blue Book file seemed to line up and showed that Newhouse was mistaken.

Before we go on, I should point out that I was using a microfilm copy of the Project Blue Book files and according to the available index, the Tremonton case is on Roll 11. It is the first case there. The last case on Roll 10, according to the index was from Phoenix, Arizona.

The thing is, it seemed that some of the Blue Book file on Tremonton was missing, so I put Roll 10 in the microfilm reader, and found more documents that were part of the that case. All this would be irrelevant had it not been for an unsigned and undated document on Roll 10 that was addressed to “L/C [Lt. Col.] Adams w/orig film 10/22/52.”

This was a list of requirements for the Air Force investigation of the Tremonton Movie and point number five is the part that is relevant to us. It said, “The loose (unspliced) portion of 17 frames belongs at the end of the footage having a deep blue background and no sound track. The last frame of this loose portion is immediately adjacent to the splice with the broken frame having the sound track.”

The 17 frames comprise about one second of film and it was noted that it should go at the end of the film when the objects were farther away as opposed to the beginning when Newhouse said they were closer. We also know that the Air Force cut off the last 20 feet of film which was Newhouse vacation footage and had nothing to do with the UFO sighting.

What does this mean?

Well, if we attempt to look at it dispassionately, we see that Newhouse was correct when he said the film had been altered. True, he was saying the first 10 or 20 feet were missing but it was the last 20 that had been cut off. It had nothing to do with the UFOs, but after nearly 20 years, it seems reasonable for Newhouse to say that the film had been cut and some was missing.

That, of course, doesn’t quite match what he was claiming, and it was only the vacation footage… at least that was reasonable until we find this other memo. Now we know that some of the UFO footage was “loose” from the rest of it and we don’t know if the prints of the film that circulated afterward, especially those that leaked into the civilian world, had those frames reattached.

The thing we have to remember is that the documents now available to us were written at the time and I believe that those writing them didn’t think of the future or who might have access to them in the future. In other words, they were candid in what they said rather than trying to “talk around” a point. Had they detached a longer segment of the film from the beginning, I believe the description in the files would have related this. In this case, however, I suspect that the missing frames reveal nothing that can’t be seen on the rest of the film.

However, this does seem to strengthen, to a degree, Newhouse’s statements to McDonald some twenty (or 18) years after the fact. He said the film was altered, he said that frames were missing, and he was correct about both those things.

Is all this enough for us to now accept as real everything else he said after the fact?

Well, no. It points out that his memory was accurate to a point, but the details, the minutia of the sighting, still seems to be slightly in error. There is no evidence that any footage is missing from the beginning of the film, but there is footage missing from the film as documented in the Blue Book file... or rather that some 17 frames was detached from the original film.

What this does is add a little bit of strength to the overall case, showing that Newhouse was correct about some of what he said. It doesn’t really move the bar very far but moves it a little. For some that will be enough but for others it won’t matter at all. I just point this out for the sake of clarity in an otherwise complicated case.

UFO UpDates Fades to Black

I had noticed over the last few months that there were fewer posts to UFO UpDates than there had been in recent years. I’m not sure why there was a decline, but there is fallout from it. Errol Bruce-Knapp who ran the list for many, many years, has posted the following:

Not, perhaps, the merriest Christmas news for some subscribers and readers to/of UFO UpDates, but the time has come...

The world has moved on, apparently beyond the need of a centralised service such as this List - witness the dramatic drop in List-bound traffic of the last few years.

So, the plan is to mothball the List and for Glenn Campbell to take-back the Archive, by this coming New Year's Day, via his hosting company. Glenn wrote the script that made the Archive work and originally hosted it. The post@ufoupdateslist.com will also be retired at the end of the year.

The Archive's addresses - depending on how you access it - should not change. Nor should the search facility. "Should",because until we actually move the Archive we won't know.

I'm grateful to all those who contributed 90,00+ posts to UFO UpDates over these many years, increasing the awareness and knowledge of the phenomena and my 'ufological' education.

My thanks to Glenn Campbell for his advice and support over the years and for taking over the Archive for the benefit of succeeding generations of the 'seriously interested'.

I've been retired for the past six years tho' there are still things on my bucket list to be completed, such as the digitising and uploading of several hundred hours of my Strange Days... Indeed radio program to virtuallystrange.net ...


Trusting that all will be revealed, eventually,

Errol Bruce-Knapp
Late-Moderator of UFO UpDates - Toronto

Facebook & Twitter
errolbk_at_virtuallystrange.net

Over the years the discussions have sometimes been acrimonious, sometimes heated but always interesting. It was a way to communicate with fellow travelers, a way to see rich and divergent points of view, and to learn a little about some of the more obscure cases. Errol, as moderator often directed the conversation and eliminated some of the more heated comments, keeping the list on a fairly even keel. It was a fun way to start a day, seeing what others had to say about the world of UFOs.

For Errol, this was truly a labor of love because I can think of no other reason someone would devote so much time to the list. He kept it going, gently reminding the subscribers of the rules and generating controversy. I know that I used the list to learn more about specific cases, engaged in dialogue with a wide range of researchers around the world, and to expand my horizons.

UFO UpDates was a fine source of information and controversy and I have missed it in the last year. In fact, just the other day I noticed that it had been a long time since I had seen anything from it. I’m sad to see it go, but I wish Errol the best and thank him for providing the resource and keeping it going for so long.

The Project Mogul Double Standard

Here’s an interesting question that is generated by the recent discussions of Delbert Newhouse and his UFO footage. There are those on the skeptical side of the fence who reject his close up description of objects that were gunmetal-colored disks because that description doesn’t appear in the written record until nearly two years after the fact. One debunker seemed to be outraged that I had mentioned that this was what Newhouse told me because I didn’t talk to him until 1976. Of course, I was merely pointing out that I had talked to him and that this description of the UFOs had come from him rather than a survey of the literature, which, of course, makes that first-hand testimony regardless of when gathered.

The theory among the debunkers is that Newhouse embellished his sighing to make it more interesting for some obscure personal reasons. Maybe he didn’t want to be identified as a Navy officer who couldn’t identify sea gulls when he saw them. Maybe he was embarrassed by the identification made by those who apparently never bothered to interview him and only believed what they read in the Project Blue Book files. Maybe Newhouse wanted to increase the importance of his sighting.

Yes, we all understand that memories are often flawed and that they can be unconsciously embellished over time in a process that is known as confabulation. That means simply that the mind has filled in details that might not have been observed. The witness is not lying in the classical sense, is not aware that he or she is not relating reality, and truly believes what he or she says about the situation.

So, what does this have to do with Project Mogul and double standards?

Well, there are those on the skeptical side of the fence who believe that a Project Mogul array fell near Roswell, was partially recovered by Mack Brazel, and that is what caused all the fuss about a crashed alien spacecraft. Ironically, and ignored by those same skeptics is the theory that is refuted by the written records made at the time. Never mind that because Charles Moore, one of the engineers who worked on Project Mogul told us all that he remembered that flight, that it was the first successful balloon flight in New Mexico, and the reason for the delay in identifying it was because Project Mogul was so highly classified that he hadn’t heard the name until Robert Todd told him in 1992 (we, of course, know that the name appeared in the records made at the time in 1946 and 1947 which is one of the first indications that Moore might not be relating reality to us).

To flog this dead horse, I will repeat what we all know. According to the written record Mogul Flight No. 4 was cancelled. There is no equivocation about it. The flight was cancelled, which should be the end of the story… but no, Albert Crary’s diary, the written record and part of the source material, mentions that a cluster of balloons was flown on the date in question. This is Flight No. 4. We know this because Moore told us so fifty years after the fact and his memory, which is in conflict with the written record, is acceptable, while Newhouse’s memory is not.

Charles Moore, who knew exactly what that cluster of balloons was, told everyone that this was actually Flight No. 4. And although the Mogul flights were not scheduled before dawn in June 1947, Flight No. 4 was launched, not at dawn, but around 3:00 in the morning, according to Moore. Why? Because a weather front went through Alamogordo about dawn and the weather data from it suggest that the balloon trajectory would have not been toward the Brazel ranch. However, if it was launched about 3:00, then the winds aloft data can be used to predict a path toward Corona, New Mexico and the Brazel ranch.

The documentation from the New York University balloon project shows that the first successful flight in New Mexico was Flight No. 5. But Moore claimed that Flight No. 4 was just as successful; they just didn’t record it. If it was as successful, then why not record it and tout it as the first successful flight in New Mexico? Why not report the data collected rather than leave it out of the record altogether. Why would Crary say the flight had been cancelled if it had actually flown and was successful?

Because a cluster of balloons was just that… a cluster of balloons. We know from later entries what that means. When flights were cancelled, they sometimes conducted experiments using some of the balloons and equipment. So, Flight No. 4 was not launched in the dark, which would have violated the CAA regulations under which they operated, and was cancelled because of clouds at dawn, which was demanded by the CAA. If it was cancelled at dawn, then how could it be launched some three hours earlier at 3:00?

Let’s also remember that Moore had originally calculated the launch time as about 5:00 a.m. because that was dawn in New Mexico in July 1947, and Flight No. 5 was launched just after 5:00 the next day. That was, of course, before the winds aloft data ruled out the dawn launch. And, explain how it would make sense to say that the flight was cancelled but it was launched before the clouds became an issue… well, obviously this is true because that is what Charles Moore remembered fifty years after the fact and his memories of those long ago events are not flawed.

Oh, so we don’t get lost in arguments over source material, in his 1995 paper, Moore calculated the launch time as about 5:00 but in the Benson, Saler, Zieler, and Moore book, ironically called UFO Crash at Roswell: Genesis of a Modern Myth, on page 102, he changes the time. What we have here is clear evidence of Moore changing the times, not based on newer and better evidence, but on his memory to prove his own theory... or maybe I should say his alleged memory because there is no documentation to support the earlier launch.

The documentation available from that time also tells us that the CAA governed the launch of these Mogul balloon trains because they were some 600 or so feet long and would be a threat to aerial navigation. They couldn’t be launched when there were clouds to hide them and they couldn’t be launched at night because pilots wouldn’t be able to see them. The rules and regulations in place in 1947 are clear and the documentation is clear on those points.

True, in July, as they worked the project and the length of the arrays was reduced considerably, these factors were altered, but in June, they were in place. They couldn’t launch at night and they couldn’t launch because of clouds, so Flight No. 4 was cancelled. Until Moore said otherwise and we can believe him because it is true that he would never embellish his self-proclaimed place in history as the man who launched the Roswell wreck.

Here’s another interesting side note. There was a discussion about NOTAMs, which are Notices to Airmen about information that would be important for aviation safety. The launches of these arrays required a NOTAM to be filed, but Moore said that no NOTAM had been filed for Flight No. 4 because they expected it to remain over restricted airspace on the Alamogordo (White Sands Proving Ground) ranges until it was above normal aviation operating altitudes or something around 30,000 feet. The questions are: why would he remember that, and why should we believe him?

I could go on, but is there a point? We know, based on the records that Flight No. 4 was cancelled and that the cluster of balloons does not a Mogul array make. We know that the flight did not fly at 3:00 in the morning, but had it been launched then, it would have been noted as being launched then and there wouldn’t be the note that it had been cancelled. We know what the cluster was, based on other entries, and Moore had to know that as well but just made contradictory statements about it anyway. (In 1995, Moore acknowledged that a valid interpretation of Crary’s diary was that Flight No. 4 was cancelled.)

I say that if you reject Newhouse because his later statements about the length of his movie disagree with the documentation made within weeks of his shooting it, then Moore’s statements about Mogul Flight No. 4 can be rejected because they are in conflict with the written record. I really don’t see any difference here. In both cases we have statements made after the fact, years after the fact, which are contradicted by information gathered at the time.

I just want to see the same standards applied to both sides of the coin. But I will say this in defense of Newhouse. I don’t believe (please note the qualification here) Newhouse was consciously changing his story and there is some evidence to back that up. For example, only about 40 seconds of his movie was released, meaning that some 35 seconds are not readily available. I think he believed he was telling the truth… Moore knew what he was doing and deliberately misled us all in his attempt to be the man who launched the Roswell case. What I don’t understand is how anyone looking at the facts can believe that Moore and Mogul had anything to do with Roswell. Remember, that doesn’t prove it was alien, only that this particular explanation has failed… based on the documentation and not on the fifty year old memories of one man

Newhouse's Tremonton, Utah Movie Revisited

I hadn’t planned on doing this simply because it was more work at this point than I wanted to take on, but there seems to be a real interest in the film and there is a lot of misinformation floating around about it. These are distortions that I believe are lodged in the belief structures of the various commentators rather than in the facts of the case. I’m using as many of the original sources as possible, including the reports of others who interviewed the photographer after the event, sometimes years afterwards and will point out that when I interviewed him, I just wanted to confirm that he had told others what they had reported he told them.

The film was shot by Navy warrant officer Delbert C. Newhouse north of the small Utah town of Tremonton, Utah (though it has been spelled Trementon by many over the years). He provided a brief statement to the Air Force about the case that is woefully inadequate and I’m not sure why no one in the Air Force attempted to get something a little more comprehensive from him about the shape of the objects. According to the Project Blue Book files:

Driving from Washington, D.C. to Portland, Ore., on the morning of 2 July my wife noticed a group of objects in the sky that she could not identify. She asked me to stop the car and look. There was a group of about ten or twelve objects - that bore no relation to anything I had seen before - milling about in a rough formation and proceeding in a westerly direction. I opened the luggage compartment of the car and got my camera out of a suitcase. Loading it hurriedly, I exposed approximately thirty feet of film. There was no reference point in the sky and it was impossible for me to make any estimate of speed, size, altitude or distance. Toward the end one of the objects reversed course and proceeded away from the main group. I held the camera still and allowed this single one to cross the field of view, picking it up again and repeating for three or four such passes. By this time all of the objects had disappeared. I expended the balance of the film late that afternoon on a mountain somewhere in Idaho.

When he finished with the filming, he put the equipment away and they all got back in the car to continue the trip. Then, apparently after arriving at his new duty station, developed the film and sent the original off to Hill Air Force Base in Utah which eventually sent it on to Project Blue Book in Dayton, Ohio. According to the Condon Committee report (on page 420 of the Bantam paperback edition) William Hartmann, the investigator wrote, “The witness’s original letter of 11 August offers the film for whatever value it may have in connection with your investigation of the so-called flying saucers.”

And while all that is interesting, it turns out not to be the most important thing in that letter. Newhouse wrote, “(1) one (1) fifty-foot roll of processed 16mm color motion picture film.”

Ed Ruppelt, the chief of Project Blue Book at the time wrote, “When I received the Tremonton films I took them right over to the Wright Field photo lab, along with the Montana Movie [a short, color film shot over Great Falls in 1950 showing two bright lights], and the photo technicians and I ran them twenty or thirty times. The two movies were similar in that in both of them the objects appeared to be large, circular lights – in neither one could you see any detail. But, unlike the Montana Movie, the lights in the Tremonton Movie would fade out, then come back in again. This fading immediately suggested airplanes reflecting light, but the roar of a king-sized dogfight could have been heard for miles and the Newhouse family heard no sound.”

The inadequate statement provided in the letter with the film didn’t tell much and according to Ruppelt, they sent a list of questions to an intelligence officer. This interview was conducted on September 10, 1952, and included not only Newhouse, but his wife, Norma; son, Delbert Newhouse, Jr. then aged 14 and daughter Anne, then aged 12. This interview did nothing to clear up the questions that we would have so many years later and, according to Ruppelt, “The question ‘What did the UFO’s look like?’ wasn’t one of them because when you have a picture of something you don’t normally ask what it looks like.”

The answers to the questions were received by teletype on September 12 and do little to resolve the questions of today. I don’t know why certain things were not asked and why certain information is not found in the files. While Ruppelt explained why they hadn’t asked what the objects looked like, I also noted that there is no real description of the length of the film. Going through the Project Blue Book files, I found a few, vague references to the film being about thirty feet long, which, given the frames per second rate, works out to about 75 seconds. William Hartmann, who conducted the investigation for the Condon Committee in the late 1960s, wrote, “The film contains about 1200 frames… i.e. about 75 seconds…”

According to the teletype, all the Newhouses were interviewed at home and the answers to the questions were as follows:

1. No sound heard during the observation. 2. No exhaust trails or contrails observed. 3. No aircraft, birds, balloons, or other identifiable objects seen in the air immediately before, during, or immediately after observation. 4. Single object which detached itself from the group did head in direction opposite original course and disappeared from view while still traveling in this direction. 5. Camera pointed at estimated 70 degrees elevation and described and [sic] arc from approx. [sic] due east to due west then from due west to approx. 60 degrees from north in photographing detached obj [sic] heading in direction opposite original course. 6. Sun was approx overhead of observer. Objects were approx. 70 degrees above terrain on a course several miles from observer. 7. Weather conditions: Bright sunlight, clear, approx. 80 degrees temperature, slight breeze from east northeast approx. 3 to 5 mph. 8. No meteorological activity noted during that day. 9. Opinion regarding objects following CLN [sic] A. Light from objects caused by reflection: B. Objects appeared approx. as long as they were wide and thin, C. Appeared identical in shape, D. 12 to 14 objects, E. All appeared light color, F. No opinion, G. Appeared to have same type of motion except one object which reversed its course, H. Disappeared from view by moving out of range of eyesight. 10. No filters used. 11. One low hill 2 or 3 miles to right of US HWY 30 dash S with observer facing north. Located approx. 10 miles north of Tremonton, Utah. 12. Other persons sighting object [names of wife, children]. Whole Newhouse family included in interview. 13. CPO [sic s/b CWO] Newhouse and family have never sighted unidentified flying objects before. Newhouse stated that he never believed he would join the ranks of those reporting such objects prior to this observation… CPO [sic] Newhouse stated he has been in the Naval service for over 19 years with service as a commissioned officer during WW 2…

From this point, the Blue Book file is filled with questions about the technical aspects of the film and the camera. On one document, in which it was revealed that Newhouse had not used a tripod, someone underscored that and added an exclamation point.

The Air Force analysis, done in the months following the sighting, did not yield any positive results. According to Ruppelt, “All they had to say was, ‘We don’t know what they are but they aren’t aircraft or balloons, and we don’t think they are birds.”

It would seem that the next time that Newhouse was interviewed about the sighting in depth was when he met with Ruppelt as they were shooting the commercial film Unidentified Flying Objects, aka UFO. Ruppelt wrote about that meeting in his book The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects. Ruppelt said:

After I got out of the Air Force I met Newhouse and talked to him for two hours [in 1954, I believe]. I’ve talked to many people who have reported UFOs, but few impressed me as much as Newhouse. I learned that when he and his family first saw the UFOs they were close to the car, much closer than when he took the movie. To use Newhouse’s own words, “If they had been the size of a B-29 they would have been at 10,000 feet altitude.” And the Navy man and his family had taken a good look at the objects – they looked like “two pie pans, one inverted on the top of the other!” He didn’t just think the UFO’s were disk-shaped; he knew that they were; he had plainly seen them. I asked him why he hadn’t told this to the intelligence officer who interrogated him. He said that he had. Then I remember that I’d sent the intelligence officer a list of questions I wanted Newhouse to answer. The question “What did the UFO’s look like?” wasn’t one of them because when you have a picture of something you don’t normally ask what it looks like. Why the intelligence officer didn’t pass this information along to us I’ll never know.

The next mention of Newhouse’s experience came in January 1953, when the Robertson Panel, a CIA sponsored study of UFOs was made. Because there was physical evidence available, meaning the film, it was one of those reports they wanted to review. Luis Alvarez, one of the scientists involved, asked that the film be run several times and then suggested that the objects looked to him like sea gulls riding on thermals. The rest of the panel agreed with him and that was the answer they appended to the case.

Ruppelt, in his book wrote that they, meaning those at Blue Book and ATIC had thought of the birds explanation months earlier. He wrote, “…several months later I as in San Francisco… and I watched gulls soaring in a cloudless sky. They were ‘riding a thermal,’ and they were so high that you couldn’t see them until they banked just a certain way; then they appeared to be a bright white flash, much larger than one would expect from sea gulls. There was a strong resemblance to the UFO’s in the Tremonton Movie. But I’m not sure this is the answer.”

Also found in the Project Blue Book files, and dated 1955, is a report, “Analysis of Photographic Material Photogrammetric Analysis of the ‘Utah’ Film, Tracking UFO’s,” created for the Douglas Aircraft Company and written by Dr. R. M. L. Baker. He provides an overview of the sighting that is consistent with the earlier reports found in the Blue Book file, but then wrote, “He [Newhouse] described them as ‘gun metal colored objects shaped like two saucers, one inverted over the other.’”

Baker’s conclusion written on May 16, 1956, or nearly four years after the sighting, was, “The evidence remains rather contradictory and no single hypothesis of a natural phenomenon yet suggested seems to completely account for the UFO involved. The possibility of multiple hypotheses, i.e. that the Utah UFO’s are the result of two simultaneous natural phenomena might possibly yield the answer. However… no definite conclusion could be obtained.”

But even this isn’t without controversy. Tim Printy at his skeptics web site wrote:

In 1955, Dr. Robert Baker conducted an evaluation of the film and also interviewed Newhouse again. Newhouse now added more information that seemed to disagree with his earlier testimony.

When he got out, he observed the objects (twelve to fourteen of them) to be directly overhead and milling about. He described them as ‘gun metal colored objects shaped like two saucers, one inverted on top of the other.’ He estimated that they subtended ‘about the same angle as B29’s at 10,000 ft.’ (about half a degree i.e. about the angular diameter of the moon.”

In his earliest reports he stated that he could not estimate size or distance, now he was able to do this as well as describe the shape. Newhouse suggests before filming they appeared overhead and then went off in the distance when he finally got the camera going.

A close reading of the various sources including Ruppelt’s book and the Condon Committee report does not support the conclusion that Newhouse was giving any different answers. Baker’s source seemed not to be a new interview, but what Newhouse had told Ruppelt in 1954 and that Newhouse was not saying the objects were the size of B-29s at ten thousand feet, but looked to be the size of the bomber if it was at that altitude. It was the same as a witness describing a UFO as the size of a dime held at arm’s length.

At the same time, that is 1956, the Air Force, in response to the release of UFO, put together a press package to explain some of the cases mentioned in the film. At that point the Air Force endorsed the “birds” explanation, and that is the way it is carried in the Blue Book records. The documents suggest that the Air Force was more interested in lessening the impact of the movie than they were in supplying proper solutions to the cases. In other words, their acceptance of the birds explanation was a public relations ploy.

The next analysis came when the Condon Committee conducted its investigation in the late 1960s. William Hartmann added little of importance to the case. He noted the length of the film, which agreed with the claim that the sequence was about 30 feet long or about 75 seconds. Lance Moody had suggested that if the film could be recovered now, the length could be measured, which would answer some questions that have developed in the last few years. The problem is that Air Force file makes it clear the film had been cut. On September 15, 1952, Major Robert E. Kennedy sent Newhouse a letter saying, “The final footage of the mountain scenery will be detached and returned to you as soon as possible.” This point too, would become important later.

Hartmann reviewed all the information available, including, apparently, a complete copy of the Project Blue Book file. He provided a quick history of the investigations and did mention that during Baker’s earlier investigation Newhouse provided “…substantially the same account, with the additional information: ‘When he got out [of the car], he observed the objects (twelve to fourteen of them) to be directly overhead and milling about. He described them as ‘gun metal colored objects, shaped like two saucers, one inverted of top of the other.’…”

Hartmann then made his own analysis, finally concluding, “These observations give strong evidence that the Tremonton films do show birds… and I now regard the objects as so identified.”

But this comes only after Hartmann rejected the statements by Newhouse seeing the objects at close range. Hartmann wrote, “The strongest negative argument was stated later by the witness that the objects were seen to subtend an angle of about 0.5 degrees and were then seen as gun metal colored and shaped like two saucers held together rim to rim, but the photographs and circumstances indicate that this observation could not have been meaningful.”

Baker, in 1969 and in response to the negative findings of the Condon Committee, at a symposium sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science said that while Hartmann’s analysis might be appealing “[The] motion [of the objects] is not what one would expect from a flock of soaring birds; there are erratic brightness fluctuations, but there is no indication of periodic decreases in brightness due to turning with the wind or flapping. No cumulus clouds are shown on the film that might betray the presence of thermal updraft… The motion pictures I have taken of birds at various distances have no similarity to the Utah film.”

Now the case becomes more complicated. In 1970, Dr. James E. McDonald interviewed Newhouse over the telephone, with his wife on the extension. In a letter to Arthur C. Lundahl and found on the NICAP web site, McDonald wrote:

It was particularly good to have Mrs. Newhouse on the phone, since she was the one who first spotted the objects and watched them for an estimated minute or so while she was trying to persuade Newhouse to stop the car for a better look…

Both of them emphasized that it must have taken two or three minutes for Newhouse to hunt through their luggage and locate the camera and film, which were in separate suitcases. In the initial period, the objects were considerably closer to them than at the time he finally began shooting, Newhouse stressed. It was his estimate that the objects lay only about 10 degrees east of their zenith when they first got out of the car. He reported his angular-size estimate that has been noted elsewhere, namely about the comparative size of a B-17 at 10,000ft…

… [O]ne of the key points that I wanted to check with Newhouse concerned the description given by Ruppelt… namely, that they appeared to be silvery-gray, “gunmetal”, and like two pie pans face-to-face. Both Newhouse and his wife fully confirmed that, Newhouse comparing the shape to a discus…

I asked Newhouse if it was correct that he had given that description to Ruppelt after the latter had left the Air Force. He confirmed that, saying that the only time he personally talked to Ruppelt was at a filming session for that movie entitles “UFO” produced in 1954 or 1955. He guessed that meeting must have been in 1954, and Al Chop was also present at that discussion. He brought out the important point that he had also stressed the visually observed shape in those early portions of the sighting, when he was interviewed at his duty station in Oakland by an Air Force officer. He further remarked that he saw a copy of the officer’s transcript of the interview, and that point appeared in the transcript…

…A rather interesting point, which I have never seen brought out before, was mentioned, almost by happenstance. It turned out that the footage which Newhouse submitted to the Air Force was spliced from about 20 feet that he shot at the end of one 50-foot magazine, plus about 40 feet that he shot on the first part of the next magazine. In other words, he had to change magazine in the middle of that shooting…

Newhouse said that the Air Force didn’t send the originals back to him at any time. He wrote ATIC when a long time had elapsed, and what they did finally send back to him was a color print which he stressed was distinctly inferior to the original. Not only that, but he was positive that they had cut out the first 10 or 20 feet, which were shot when the objects were very much closer and appeared much sharper on the film… The missing footage, which he seemed positive was from the earliest and best parts of his original…

I found it interesting to learn that no contacts of any sort have been made with Newhouse since that movie was made. This evidently included Baker, as well as Hartmann and the Condon Project team. I was particularly surprised that Bob Baker had not contacted him…

There are some things that we can deduce from all this. First, strangely, in the original interviews, there is no indication that anyone asked Newhouse or his family what the objects looked like. The statement he supplied as he submitted the film is devoid of any important information other than time and location. He does not describe the objects in any way other than to say, “…that bore no relation to anything I had seen before…”

The point to be made here is that Newhouse had more than 19 years of service in the Navy and it is reasonable to assume that he had seen sea gulls soaring in the past. It would seem that if five minutes or so passed during the sighting, which includes 75 seconds of the filming, sea gulls would have revealed themselves as such at some point. If he saw them at close range, as he claims, then the sea gull explanation fails.

Newhouse told McDonald that he had told the intelligence officer about the shape and that the description had been included in the transcript of the interview. There is nothing like that in the Project Blue Book file, which means one of two things: Either Newhouse is mistaken or the transcript was removed from the files.

Although some believe that Newhouse didn’t mention the shape until more than twenty years later when I interviewed him, it is clear that Newhouse was talking about the shape within two years. He told Ruppelt that he had told that to the intelligence officer, but there is nothing to back up the claim. The best we can say was that he mentioned it in 1954 and was consistent in those statements from that point. His original statement does not preclude the observation, only that it can’t be documented in the Project Blue Book file.

The criticism that Newhouse was unable to give size, distance and shape estimates at first but later came up with them is invalid. It is quite clear he was merely saying that the objects appeared to be the size of a bomber at 10,000 feet. The description he offered the September interview suggests a circular object (or one that is square or diamond shaped and very thin) isn’t very helpful. In fact, given that vague information, it would seem that someone, Newhouse, his wife or children, would have said something more definitive.

The real point where this falls apart, at least for me, is when Newhouse began talking to McDonald about his film. Here is the one thing that is well documented in the Project Blue Book files and for the believers we have the statements made by Newhouse himself about the film when he submitted it to the Air Force.

First, when he submitted the film, he made it clear there was a single enclosure and that was a fifty foot roll of film. The document was created by Newhouse so there is no reason to dispute it. It says nothing about there being more than fifty feet of film or that it was a spliced film. Just the whole roll that included some of his vacation pictures and that it had been processed.

Second, there is Major Kennedy’s letter of September 15, in which he mentioned the final footage of the mountain scenery would be “detached” and returned. In that same letter, Kennedy wrote, “If it is agreeable to you, a duplicate of the aerial phenomena will be made and forwarded to you in lieu of the original. It is desired to retain the original for analysis.”

Third, on February 17, 1953, Major Robert C. Brown wrote, “A copy of the original movie film taken by you near Tremonton, Utah, on 2 July 1952 is being returned.”

On November 17, 1953, Newhouse wrote to the Air Force, “About a year ago I mailed for evaluation a 16mm Kodachrome original film to the Commanding Officer, Hill Air Force Base in Utah. The film was of unidentified flying objects sighted by my wife, my children and myself… I gave the Air Force permission to retain the original for use in the investigation… My copy of the film has been damaged… If the Air Force has completed its evaluation and has no further use for it, I would appreciate the return of the original…”

On January 27, 1954, Lieutenant Barbara Conners wrote, “The Air Technical Intelligence Center is attempting to locate the original of a 35 mm [sic] film of unidentified flying objects taken by a Mr. D. C. Newhouse near Tremonton, Utah…” and then on February 23, 1954, CWO R. C. Schum wrote, “We are forwarding as Inclosure [sic] 1 one copy of you Tremonton, Utah film...”

This means the Air Force attempted to cooperate with Newhouse and that Newhouse had given them permission to keep the original. They supplied a copy which Newhouse ruined. He asked for the original, and the Air Force attempted to comply. We now know that Newhouse’s discussion of all this with McDonald is in error.

But more important than this trivia about originals and copies is the claim that Newhouse shot footage on two separate rolls and that there was more than sixty feet of film. The documentation, including that written by Newhouse himself does not bear this out. The best estimate is that there was thirty feet of film. There is a suggestion that the film lasted about 75 seconds, and with a 16 frame per second use that works out to about thirty feet of film.

In the end, there is no good evidence that Newhouse altered his story because the original investigation lacked competence. There are hints in the September 1952 interview but it is not very clear. It can be argued that the description is of the saucers but it could also be argued that the description is too vague to be of any real value to determine what he meant. It could be argued that his description was vague because he didn’t get a good, close up look at the objects.

It is clear that by 1954 Newhouse was providing a description that if accurate, eliminates the sea gulls as an explanation. It also seems that others such as Baker and Hartmann took the description from Ruppelt’s book but didn’t attempt to verify the accuracy of the information by contacting Newhouse. In 1976, when I talked to Newhouse, he verified that he had said that, which, of course, doesn’t mean that the description was accurate, only that he said it to Ruppelt.

The one point that seems to stand out here is that Newhouse made the comment in 1954 before the Air Force began pushing the sea gull explanation, but after the Robertson Panel had determined, to their satisfaction, that birds was the answer.

Here, I suppose, it boils down to the nonsense about the length of the film and if Newhouse switched magazines during the filming. Given the documentation available, it seems that these new details do not reflect the reality of the situation. Newhouse himself made it clear there was but a single roll of film, that it was only fifty feet long, and we know that part of it was detached and returned to him. If we wish to reject the case, this seems to be a good reason to do so. It suggests that his memory of the event has been clouded by outside influences.

I will note here that I have not engaged in a discussion of what the film showed or the various analyses of it. All of the investigators seem to find the conclusions that fit their own biases. The Air Force originally said it wasn’t balloons, airplanes and probably not birds. Robertson said it was birds and dismissed it. The Navy said they couldn’t identify them. The Air Force then said it was birds. Baker said he couldn’t identify the objects and Hartmann said he could

So, you look at the evidence, all the evidence, what the witnesses said and did and what the film shows and decide for yourself what to believe. I said in the beginning that this (the last post) was a case that provided some physical evidence. That evidence could lead to proof of something unusual in the air and that terrestrial explanations didn’t cover all the facts, if Newhouse saw the objects close by and that they were saucer shaped. If he didn’t, then the evidence is not as strong as it could be.

To my mind, the case is not resolved simply because there is not a consensus for the solution… but on the other hand, the evidence is not all that strong either, which, unfortunately seems to be the situation in a large number of UFO sightings.