TTSA, Metamaterial and the U.S. Army

The big news for the 1997 Fiftieth Anniversary of the Roswell UFO crash was that it would be announced, with proper provenance and other documentation, that metallic debris from the spacecraft had been recovered. Scientific analysis had been performed by independent labs and by scientists with the proper training in various disciplines. That debris, small though it might be, was of extraterrestrial origin. All questions about it would be answered during a professional presentation by one of the scientists involved in the analysis, would be held in the auditorium at the New Mexico Military Institute.

It goes without saying that the venue was jam packed with standing room only. Dozens, maybe hundreds of reporters according to one source, were there to learn about this extraordinary, earth-shattering discovery. Paul Davids, who was the executive producer of the Showtime movie Roswell, was the spokesman for the show. He introduced the scientist, Dr. Russell VernonClark (that was the way he

Paul Davids

spelled it at the time) who had done some of the analysis. VernonClark went through the methods used to validate the claim of extraterrestrial origin.

VernonClark explained that carbon, for example, had two isotopes, carbon-12 and carbon-13. He then said, “Naturally occurring on the Earth, carbon is a mixture of 98.9% carbon-12 and 1.1% carbon-13. This will be true for all naturally occurring terrestrial carbon.”

He said, “If a sample [of] carbon was found to be 50% carbon-12 and 50% carbon-13 mixture, we would have to conclude the sample was not naturally occurring on the Earth.”

The keywords here are “naturally occurring.” It makes no allowances for a manipulation of isotopic ratios done in a laboratory setting of which terrestrial science is capable. In other words, the ratios could be artificially changed on Earth.

The explanation about carbon had little to do with what VernonClark found in his various tests of the debris sample. He said, “The sample, which we now know to be nearly pure silicon, shows a striking variation from natural abundance.”

Going a little further, based on tests conducted by an unnamed Texas lab, but was probably Saber Enterprises, associated with Darrell Sims, VernonClark claimed, “The Inductively Coupled Plasma/Optical Emission Spectroscopy or ICP/OES was conducted on the material by a private laboratory in Texas. It was determined that the material was most likely manufactured and not naturally occurring.”

Among the other extraordinary claims made, VernonClark said, “The atomic mass so differs from that found in known earthly elements, that it is impossible for it to be from Earth.”

He also said, “Therefore it should be considered that this material is both manufactured and extraterrestrial in origin.” That meant it came from an alien world and had been made by an alien intelligence.

Derrell Simms.

After making the extraordinary claims, VernonClark was rushed from the stage and out a backdoor without answering any questions. He had been brought to Roswell by self-proclaimed “Alien Hunter,” Darrell Simms. The same Derrell Simms who ran the Saber Enterprises. Hardly independent laboratory confirmation.

Davids, now alone on the stage, didn’t answer many questions with new and important information. Davids told reporter Leslie Linthicum of the Albuquerque Journal, “You’ve seen what we’ve offered. Please accept what you’ve been offered.”

The trouble was, no one would say where the sample have been located, who recovered it, what tests has been done and what were the credentials of those conducting the tests except in a vague and not very helpful way. Davids said that security was a major issue. He added that “The evidence is so sensitive, so unique, that it’s being treated like the Moon Rock. When you have one sample and one sample only, the risks are too great…”

It was a nice way to dodge the questions, but the questions were an outgrowth of the hype used before the presentation. None of these important questions were answered. In fact, other scientists made it clear that while the isotopic ratios found in the sample were not naturally occurring, the problem was that they could be produced in a laboratory. That meant the sample was rare, maybe unique, but this was not proof of alien creation.

In the more than twenty years since that little hiccup in the world of UFOs, nothing more has been heard about that sample. Nothing has been found to suggest it was anything other than something manufactured on Earth, and that it is no more important than the Roswell Slides that slipped into ignominy within hours of being presented to the world in Mexico City a couple of years ago.

What does that have to do with the latest announcement of recovered material of alien origin? It just suggests that we have been down this road before with the same sort of hype being made by a group with a vested interest in finding alien material.

Tom DeLonge

And, it suggests nothing other than what has happened before is happening again. The To the Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences’ (TTSA) leader, president, director, whatever, former Blink-182 front man, Tom DeLonge, announced on July 5, 2019, that something he called the Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with the Army’s Combat Capabilities Development Command had been made. In other words, the Army has bought into some of the hype presented by the TTSA to study these possibly advanced technologies to learn if they might be applied to Army vehicles.

Dr. Joseph Cannon, of the Army Futures Command said, “Our partnership with TTSA serves as an exciting, non-traditional source for novel materials and transformational technologies to enhance our military ground system capabilities… At the Army’s Ground Vehicle Systems Center, we look forward to this partnership and the potential technical innovations forthcoming.”

They would probably have better success by employing a number of science fiction writers to predict the future. It seems that many of the innovations that have been truly extraordinary came from science fiction. These range from Jules Verne’s submarines to Arthur C. Clark’s communications satellites.

Steve Justice, TTSA’s COO, and who is always mentioned as having been employed at the Skunk Works, leaped on this idea of “potential technical innovations.” He

Steve Justice.

said of this exotic material, which might have been one of the major reasons for the Army jumping on this bandwagon, “The structure and composition of these materials are not from any known existing military or commercial application… In some cases, the manufacturing technology required to fabricate the material is only now becoming available, but the material has been in documented possession since the mid-1990s.”

If the idea that the material appeared before the terrestrial technology was capable of producing it, and if there is a documented chain of custody, then this could be a major find. According Justice, the material came from Linda Moulton Howe, and was once known as Art’s Parts, since they had been shared with the late radio host Art Bell which established the mid-1990’s time frame. In the mid-1990s, Howe commissioned Nicholas A. Reiter, described as a “technologist,” to examine this material, said to have come from the Roswell UFO crash. Reiter however, said that the material was of terrestrial origin. It was rare, it was unusual, but it was not alien. Something that Justice and Cannon seemed to have missed in their hype of the TTSA partnership with the Army.

But that isn’t all. Reiter updated his findings in 2001 saying, “The combination of bismuth and magnesium had eluded us for four years. But then one day, we found a reference to an obscure industrial process used in refinement of lead. The process, called the Betterton-Krohl Process, uses molten magnesium floated over a surface of liquid lead. The magnesium sucks up, or pulls bismuth impurities out of the lead! Often the magnesium is used over and over.”

But rather being new technology, the process was patented in 1938. It produces a thin crust of layered magnesium and bismuth, which is removed from the lead. Howe rejected all of this, saying that they needed a sample of this “slag” material to test against the “alien” sample that she had. Jacques Vallee suggested that samples of this waste could be found in France, Argentina and even the United States.

There is another link to all this is the quite disturbing for the teaming of TTSA and the Army. Dr. Hal Puthoff, also affiliated with TTSA, gave a lecture at the Society

Dr. Hal Puthoff

for Scientific Explanation’s thirty-seventh annual conference not all that long ago. He didn’t answer many of the questions about the sample. Instead, he fell back on the old standard of classified material. This is the same sort of thing used in 1997 to dodge questions about the “alien debris” presented in Roswell. Security issues required them to be closed mouth about the chain of custody and the provenance of the debris.

Puthoff is a smart guy. He has a Ph.D. from Stanford University. He worked with lasers and electronic beam devices and apparently holds several patents. He also published scientific papers that have been translated into French, Russian and Chinese.

But he was also a member of the Church of Scientology, and reached its top level. He supposedly achieved “remote viewing” abilities, which is a way of seeing things at remote locations using metal powers. In the 1970s and 1980s he directed the CIA/DIA program to investigate various psychic abilities. He, along with Russell Targ, studied the psychic abilities of Ingo Swann, Pat Price, Uri Geller as well as others in the Stargate Project. Targ and Puthoff declared that Geller had real psychic powers but in other experiments, Geller was caught using magician’s tricks and sleight of hand to demonstrate his unusual talents. This indicates the bias of the researchers.

In other words, Puthoff, who has some impressive credentials, and who has had a long interest in the paranormal, has been less than scientific in his studies of the paranormal. David Marks and Richard Kammann tried to duplicate the experiments validating remote viewing in a series of studies but were unable to do it. They suggested that there had been clues hidden in the instructions provided prior to the experiments which explained their high rate of success. Puthoff and Targ might have unknowingly provided those cues, but there were there for the astute subjects to use.

The point is that Puthoff is hardly an impartial researcher but one who has a specific bias that is often overlooked. Citing him is a simple appeal to authority because he can append Ph.D. after his name. But he seems to hold some beliefs that are, well, not conducive to impartial thought as demonstrated in his work history and the records of the experiments he conducted in his attempt to validate remote viewing.

Puthoff did say that he could talk briefly about the metamaterial debris that Art Bell had told him about years ago. These were bits of debris provided to Bell by a man who claimed that he had gotten them from his grandfather, now deceased, who had picked them up on the Roswell UFO crash site. These were Art’s Parts.

Jason Colavito provided more information from Puthoff. You can read his whole article here:

http://jasoncolavito.com/blog/a-potential-solution-to-the-mystery-of-the-alien-metal-promoted-by-the-stars#)

 Colavito wrote “he [Puthoff] examined the sample after a self-described military man said he had recovered it from a UFO crash site and sent it ‘by email’ to Bell. It appears that Puthoff is not describing an actual physical sample in Bell’s possession but rather a document claiming to describe a government report on such a sample, but Linda Moulton Howe claimed in the Roswell Daily Record… that Bell had the actual sample (six in fact!) and that it had been ‘recovered’ from the Roswell UFO crash site and sent to Bell in 1996 by an Army sergeant who got it from his grandfather.”

Roswell's UFO Museum and Research Center.

But the real point is that the chain of custody for this so-called metamaterial is broken because there is no access to the man who actually picked it up. It comes from a man who said that his grandfather had recovered it and then sent it to Bell, who is also deceased. Without the names of the witnesses, without some sort of notarized statement from the grandfather or other evidence linking him to the debris, it is little more than hearsay. Unless the sample is truly unique and that the components or the manufacturing technique is something not found on Earth, all that is left is a strange bit of metal.

Puthoff, however, had more to say about the metamaterial, continuing to claim that it was something of alien origin. He said:

It was a multilayered bismuth and magnesium sample. Bismuth layers less than a human hair. Magnesium samples about ten-times the size of a human hair. Supposedly picked up in the crash retrieval of an Advance Aerospace Vehicle. It looks like it’s been in a crash. The white lines are the bismuth; the darker areas are the magnesium separations. So, the question was what about this material, so naturally we looked in all the national labs, we talked to metallurgists, we combed the entire structure of published papers. Nowhere could we find any evidence that anybody ever made one of these. … Well, years later, decades actually, finally our own science moves along. We move into an area called metamaterials, and it turns out exactly this combination of materials at exactly those dimensions turn out to be an excellent microscopic waveguide for very high frequency electromagnetic radiation.

The problem here, as mentioned above, is that all that research Puthoff and his colleagues had done in various libraries, in communication with research and industrial facilities, failed to find that patent, granted in 1938. That negates the claim that there was no terrestrial history that outlined this very structure of a composite material. Odd, rare, unusual, but terrestrially based with a provenance that goes back to the late 1930s. That negates the claim that no one had ever made anything like the debris.

Although there are claims that there are other metamaterial samples are out there, we have yet to see them. The cast of those promoting these metamaterials are the same as those who were out there, literally, decades ago, saying much of the same thing. Testing results that were not favorable to the theory of alien visitation were ignored or, at worst, buried. Those that suggested some sort of extraterrestrial technology were heavily promoted. But the bottom line is that twenty years ago, this went nowhere and is often forgotten. Today the Army has jumped on the “alien technology” bandwagon believing that all this “research” will lead to an ability to disguise, hide, improve the Army’s capability to confuse, confound and defeat the enemy. Didn’t anyone bother to research the history of the earlier claims to learn of the shaky backgrounds? Didn’t anyone want to talk to those who had originally found the metal… or if that source had died, to check the family members who inherited the material. And did anyone think to check to see if the grandfather, if someone actually knows who it was, had been in Roswell in July1947? These are basic questions that seem to have been ignored or that have not been asked.

There doesn’t seem to be much to this latest TTSA announcement other than self-promotion and a certain amount of self-delusion. There is nothing new here. Only some of the players have changed, but they are propped up by those who have been around for decades. Their failures, their biases are ignored. Instead we are treated to a list of credentials that suggest a superior intellect that should be listened to because, well, they are smarter than we are and they know all about this stuff and we don’t.

The problem is what they are promoting today had failed in the past. The source of Art’s Parts has been explained and there was nothing extraterrestrial about it, but here we are again, getting half the story. It is surprising that no one in the Army used Google to learn some of this background. It’s all out there. All they had to do was look.

Epilogue:

I did not mention the 1947 Maury Island hoax in this. It is essentially the same as Art’s Parts, meaning that worthless slag recovered at the alleged site of a UFO crash turned out to be industrial waste.

The International UFO Museum and Research Center in Roswell received a bizarre sample that didn’t look as if it had been made on Earth. It was driven across New Mexico by the police to be tested in Socorro. It turned out to be some sort of jeweler’s scrap. Certainly nothing suggesting an alien creation, other than the bizarre look of it.

I also want to mention Warren Smith’s claim that he had a piece of recovered debris that was stolen from his hotel room, which is a nice story but no evidence it actually happened. And, I didn’t mention Robert Willingham’s claim that he had a piece of recovered debris from the El Indio UFO crash that disappeared when he submitted it for analysis.

All that proves is that for more than 70 years people have been claiming to have found alien debris or alien technology but we have no independent corroboration for it. We are at the same point today that we were in 1947 when the Maury Island hoax erupted. We have no physical evidence in the form of recovered debris to prove the case.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Robert Cornett

This week I talked with an old UFO investigating and writing partner, Robert Charles Cornett, sometimes known as RC Squared. We talked about our research trip to Maxwell Air Force Base in the mid-1970s after we had learned that the Project Blue Book files were there and open for public scrutiny. We might have been the first UFO researchers to look through the files at Maxwell, which eventually were sent on to the National Archives and were then heavily redacted before the public was again allowed to view them. You can listen to the discussion here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/19655144

One of the cases we talked about was the Kinross disappearance of 1953. I mentioned that I had talked with an Air Force officer who had been there at the time. He told me that there had been two schools of thought. One was that the fighter had crashed into the lake and the other was that “it” took the plane. It being the UFO. The plane has never been found.

We also talked about our investigations into cattle mutilations in that same time frame. I did mention some of the things that I had learned in the last decade or so about some of those mutilations including my discussion with Jefferson Davis in Wisconsin.  You can read some of my thoughts about cattle mutilations here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2011/06/i-understand-skeptics.html

For those interested in those sorts of things, we did talk, briefly, about writing, and editors and that sort of behind the scenes thing. There wasn’t much about it, but just a bit of an aside look into how publishing operated thirty years ago.

Next week, I’ll interview John Greenewald about all the ins and outs of the To the Stars Academy, Lue Elizondo, and the metametal they’re all excited about. If you have questions, put them in the comments section and I’ll try to get answers during the program.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Jim Penniston

This week I reached out to Jim Penniston of Rendlesham Forest fame. I wanted to get his take on the events there. He was involved in the first night of sightings, but had not been with Colonel Charles Halt on what was apparently the third night

Jim Penniston

when Halt and John Burroughs approached the landed craft.

Penniston said he walked up to it and actually touched in on that first night. You can listen to his story here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/19539741

Penniston also provided some information about the aftermath of his sighting, including the fact that there had been a recording of the radio transmissions that had been made during the sighting. He said that a four-star general had retrieved that recording and that it disappeared into the great maw of the Pentagon.

To get a full picture of the Rendlesham Forest events, told by those who participated in them, you can read about my interviews with John Burroughs and Charles Halt and listen to them on the embedded links here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2017/01/x-zone-broadcast-network-colonel.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2017/02/x-zone-broadcast-network-return-of.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2017/04/x-zone-broadcast-network-john-burroughs.html

To help understand the actual timeline of the Rendlesham Forest events, Penniston has written a book about it. The Rendlesham Forest Enigma: Book 1: Time Line is available at Amazon.

Next week I’ll be talking to Robert Charles Cornett about our experiences in UFO research including our trip into the heart of cattle mutilation country in the mid-1970s.

If you have questions for with Bob Cornett or me, ask them in the comment section here, and I’ll attempt to get them answered during the interview.

Chasing References - Socorro Edition

As many of you know, especially those who visit here regularly, I sometimes chase footnotes because it provides, well, a different perspective on some UFO reports. Finding the footnotes to chase isn’t all that easy and it is usually the result of researching another aspect of the UFO field. Sometimes, however, it can be a single reference in a book or article that triggers a question or two.

Such is the case of an article in the September 2019 issue of The MUFON Journal. Yes, I touched on this in the report on my interview with Don Burleson, and I don’t mean to target him here, but there is a point that needs to be made. As noted, you can hear our discussion in the last half of the October 9 interview.

The statement in question, the one that caught my attention, and frankly the attention of some others, said:

April 24, 1964, when Socorro policeman Lonnie Zamora saw an egg-shaped, whitish object down in a gully and observed a red symbol on its surface. As investigator Ray Stanford discovered, authorities soon published an altered version of the symbol in order to guard against copycat reports, but area military pilots would have been given a classified briefing to warn them to be on the lookout for any airborne craft bearing the insignia the way Zamora had really seen it, an inverted V with three horizonal lines through its middle. Clearly the Socorro object and the Holloman object were somehow related, though I [Don Burleson] infer from various details that the Holloman object was probably larger.

The problem here is that there are errors in the thinking and speculation that is presented almost as if it is fact. The first real problem is the claim that the correct symbol is the inverted V with the three lines through it. This is the information supplied by Ben Moss, Tony Angiola and Ray Stanford. The trouble here is that

Zamora's sketch of the symbol made moments
after the object took off.

Zamora drew the correct symbol, that is an arc over an arrow with a line under it on two occasions. As the object departed, he drew the symbol on a scrap of paper and that scrap can be found in the Project Blue Book files. He signed that illustration.

On the evening of April 24, Zamora was interviewed by Captain Richard Holder of the Army and Arthur Byrnes of the FBI.  They suggested that Zamora not reveal the symbol to others to eliminate copycats, but he did draw it for them and he signed that image as well. This was what I think of as the umbrella symbol.

Zamora's drawing of the craft and the symbol
signed by him.

During the initial investigation, other military officers were involved during the investigation and they too, filed reports. In those documents, the umbrella symbol is identified as the true symbol.

Interestingly, Ray Stanford who was on the scene within days sent a letter to Richard Hall of NICAP in May 1964, a week or two after he had been to Socorro. In that letter he not only identified the true symbol as the umbrella symbol, but wrote that the inverted V with the three lines through it was the fake. Ten years later, when Stanford published his book, he had switched the symbols, now claiming that the inverted V was the true symbol.

Zamora had an illustration made of the craft that he had seen. The Socorro mayor thought it might be a good idea. The artist was Rick Baca. Under Zamora’s direction, the umbrella symbol was placed on that drawing.

The "Umbrella" symbol and the
inverted V with the lines through it,
as well as a couple of other variations.

Both Ben Moss and Tony Angiola believed that there had been a “secret” Socorro file that was separate from that found in the official files. All these official files entered the public domain when the Blue Book files were declassified in 1976. These unofficial “secret” files were obtained from Rob Mercer. The Socorro file was 200 pages that duplicated most of what was in the official file. In that unofficial file were two cards that held the inverted V. It is clear from the context that these cards were based on newspaper articles that were released in 1964. Ben Moss and Tony Angiola believed that this was the true symbol because it was in that file.

Carmon Marano, who was the last officer assigned to Blue Book, who had the responsibility of closing down the office after Lieutenant Colonel Hector Quintanilla had moved on to a new assignment, said that the information obtained by Rob Mercer was a document put together by those in the Blue Book office to show to reporters and others who were there to do research. You can listen to my interview with Rob Mercer here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2016/11/x-zone-broadcast-network-rob-mercer.html

In other words, it wasn’t an “official” document and it wasn’t a classified file about the Socorro landing. It was a briefing document for those without security clearances or who were civilians who had been granted access to the Project Blue Book files.

Rick Baca's drawing of the Zamora craft with the
"Umbrella" symbol added under Zamora's guidance.

What this means is that a suggestion that military pilots had been given a classified briefing containing the inverted V symbol, is in error because that is not the correct symbol. I can think of no reason that such a briefing would even take place. The pilots didn’t need to know what the symbol looked like. If they encountered an alien craft and saw a symbol, they could report that. If it doesn’t match that seen by Zamora, well, it just didn’t match. We can assume here that the military pilots wouldn’t be inventing a tale of seeing an object when they did not.

However, if you’ve told them what to look for, then you have contaminated the operation. You’ve told the pilots what they should see, and that means that they might just see what you told them to see. In other words, the classified briefing has defeated the purpose set out for it.

If you read the wording in The MUFON Journal paragraph carefully, you’ll notice the qualifiers. It said, “…area military pilots would have been given a classified briefing…” I asked Don Burleson for the source of this information. What I learned, from him, is that this was speculation based on what he believed would have happened. The real point is that no such briefing was given. It was pure speculation.

Here’s the problem with this. Someone else, writing a book about UFOs or an article about the Socorro sighting, might quote this particular paragraph, giving

the source as The MUFON Journal article. But there is no ultimate source for the information. The discussion of the symbol is flat out wrong and the classified briefing never happened. We follow it to this point and we can go no farther.

Although I don’t discuss the “classified briefing,” in Encounter in the Desert, my recent book on Socorro, I do discuss, at length, the whole sad tale of the true symbol seen by Lonnie Zamora. Much of that has also been discussed on the blog. You can read about that here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2016/09/x-zone-broadcast-network-ben-mosstony.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2016/11/a-final-analysis-of-socorro-symbol.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/search?q=Lonnie+Zamora+symbol

In the future, as others research this case, I hope that they’ll find this as well. They’ll then know that there is a problem with that information. Maybe they’ll think twice about including it, or, if the do, they’ll qualify so that their readers will understand what has happened.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Don Burleson

This week I spoke with Don Burleson, the State Director of New Mexico for MUFON. We talked about the Levelland UFO sightings and the sheriff’s role in that investigation. Don mentioned his interview with the late sheriff’s daughter, which

Dr. Don Burleson

produced some new information. She suggested that her father had seen more than just a red streak in the distance and that the Air Force had strongly suggested that the sheriff not talk about what he had seen. I noted that I had found a newspaper article from 1957 that supported the idea that the sheriff had seen more than had been reported by the Air Force investigator on the case. You can listen to the Don Burleson interview here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/19428012

We also talked about the symbol that Lonnie Zamora saw on the side the landed craft in Socorro in April 1964. This part of the discussion was important because of a claim that Don had published in The MUFON Journal about a secret briefing given to Air Force fighter pilots in 1964. For those interested in the great symbol debate, you can read about it here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2016/09/x-zone-broadcast-network-ben-mosstony.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2016/11/a-final-analysis-of-socorro-symbol.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/search?q=Lonnie+Zamora+symbol

Finally, we talked about the alleged landing at Holloman Air Force Base in late April 1964. Don had an affidavit from a man who was the son of the base commander at the time that suggested the landing was real. Interestingly, I discussed this in my book about Socorro, Encounter in the Desert, which provided a slightly different perspective (yes, I said that on purpose) about that landing. I also discuss the symbol controversy at length as well. You can find the book here:

https://www.amazon.com/Encounter-Desert-Alien-Contact-Socorro/dp/1632651130/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3P02O8BF8NPNX&keywords=encounter+in+the+desert&qid=1570725103&sprefix=Encounter+in+the+%2Caps%2C175&sr=8-1

Next week, I’ll talk with Jim Penniston of the Rendlesham Forest encounter. If you have questions for him, submit them through the comments section here, and I’ll try to get them asked during the interview.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Paul Davids

This week I spoke with Paul Davids, who was the executive producer of the ShowTime original film, Roswell. It was based, in part on the book I had written with Don Schmitt and on the continuing investigation into the events surrounding the Roswell crash story. You can listen to it here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/19145427

I began the interview by pointing out that, at best, Paul had little interest in UFOs and, at worst, he thought there was nothing to them. Although interested in science fiction, he really hadn’t thought all that much about UFOs until he had a

Paul Davids

daylight sighting of a domed disk from his daughter’s bedroom window.

Paul, an avid photographer, didn’t take any pictures, and I asked about that. I also wondered if he had searched the neighborhood for other who might have seen the same thing. His search ended abruptly, but not for the reasons you might expect.

We delved into the background of the ShowTime movie and some of the problems with getting it produced in the first place. I thought that our look at some of the behind the scenes machinations was interesting, though it had little to do with UFOs and the normal discussions I’ve held with others.

In the next few weeks, I have programs scheduled with Dr. Don Burleson to discuss the Levelland and Socorro UFO landings. As always, questions are welcomed. Just send them through the comments section and I’ll try to get them answered on the show. And, now that I think about it, if anyone would like to suggest a guest or two, use the same method. I’ll see what I can do.

Assault on Area 51

We’ve hit the big day and the hundreds of thousands of people have arrived at Area 51 to learn the truth. Aliens and alien technology are hidden there and these brave people have been able to penetrate the secrecy. The world as we know it has been altered for all time.

Wait? What?

A hundred people showed up. Local law enforcement was able to handle the “crowd.” Two arrests were made. One guy wasn’t smart enough to “go” before he reached the fence and was arrested for indecent exposure. One woman was arrested, or maybe just detained… or whatever, for “investigation.”

For those who would rather watch a video about this, then you can sort of witness what happened here:

https://youtu.be/yuz0rizdX54

I’m really not sure what the Air Force would have done if ten thousand, or even a thousand, had showed up. They wouldn’t have been allowed on the base, and

Area 51... From the air and not the
front gate.

deadly force is authorized. Air Force officers did make mention of that fact. I can’t really see the Air Force shooting the people but the military would have stopped them in some way… rubber bullets, pepper spray, and tear gas… non-lethal weapons would have been deployed and there would have been arrests.

But that didn’t happen. The joke, I guess, was on the hundred who did show up. And, if I lived in Las Vegas, or one even Kingman, Arizona, I would have shown up just for the pictures and blog post. But, at least, I would have had a real purpose and not a dream of invading… dare I say it, “Dreamland.”

Anyway, September 20 has come and nearly gone. No aliens were found and by aliens, I mean creatures from outer space. There was no announcement by the Air Force that why, yes, we do have aliens on the base. Nothing came of it… and now the media can go back to telling us why it wasn’t shameful for the Prime Minister of Canada to wear dark make up, but it was wrong for Megan Kelly, who never dressed up in a culturally inappropriate costume, to be fired for asking a question about it. (Okay, her ratings sucked and it was a good excuse).

But I digress…

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Nick RedfernNick

This week I talked with Nick Redfern about his new book, The Alien Book” A Guide to Extraterrestrial Beings on Earth. It is a huge compendium of tales of alien creatures, some of them who might have originated on other planets. Nick explains this in the course of our discussion. You can listen to the interview here:

Nick Redfern.

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/19071893

However, he was also of the opinion that some the creatures we think of as terrestrial, might not be from Earth. We talked about the theory that the Loch Ness Monster might be some sort of alien creature, based on the number of UFO sightings in the area. Sure, we understood that sightings of UFOs don’t mean that the monster was alien, only that lots of people had seen UFOs around Loch Ness. But then, we also talked about the recent release of DNA evidence that suggested the monster was a giant eel. Of course, eels have been seen in the Loch for decades so that this was no real revelation because they had no pictures of a giant eel.

We also talked about the Flatwoods Monster from 1952. Nick had mentioned, in his book, that the monster resembled a British psychological operation during the Second World War. We talked about a paper prepared in the late 1940s that examined such ideas. You can read it here:

https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_memoranda/2008/RM365.pdf

This led us to the Mothman sightings in the 1960s and eventually into the idea of a race of beings, human or otherwise, that inhabit the Earth with us but remain in hiding. In other words, we talked about just a few of the cases, a little of the information, and some of the theories that are found in the book.

Oh, for those interested, I did open the show with updates from the Mike Rogers interview. Just a couple of points we hadn’t covered and things I thought would interest some of the listeners.

Next week, I’ll be talking with Paul Davids who was the executive producer of the Show Time original movie, Roswell and who has been interested in UFOs since the 1980s. If you have questions for Paul, as always, you can ask them in the comments section here and I’ll try to get them answered during the interview.

Contact and the Williamsburg UFO Sighting

While watching that new UFO program known as Contact, I noticed that one of the things the field investigators did, when they arrived in Waynesboro, Virginia, was access the local archives. They wanted to learn the history of the Waynesboro area, so they searched a bunch of old newspaper clippings. I’ve done that myself, in locations where the newspapers have morgues that have sorted their past articles by type or subject. That means I could ask the librarian for the files about UFOs and not have to search through newspapers using microfilm.  A quick way to learn some of the local UFO lore.

Sarah Cruddas and Nick Karnaze, the field investigators in Contact, sorted through the old sightings, commenting that there had been a number of them from November 1964 to January 1965 and that there had been an official investigation. First, let me point out that not every UFO sighting, even those reported in the newspapers, made its way into the Blue Book system. If it was not officially reported, then it was rare for an investigation to be made.

I found no sightings in Blue Book reported in Virginia in November 1964. There were only two in December. The first was from Falls Church on December 14. The Air Force labeled it as the moon. The second, from Harrisonburg, was listed as radar anomalies. Interestingly, the file contained five photographs that were so faint as to be invisible. It almost looked as if they had microfilmed the back of the photos rather than the front.

Project Blue Book sighting card.

In January, 1965, there were eight sightings reported and two that were just listed as “news clippings,” which meant there was no investigation of them. Most of the sightings were of the same sort of thing as had been reported earlier. That is, mundane, terrestrial based objects and phenomena that were misidentified by the observers. And, the sightings were scattered all over Virginia, so there really wasn’t much of a cluster.

However, the sighting in Williamsburg in January, 1965, stands out. It is listed as “unidentified.” The object was seen at close range for enough time that the witness did get a good look at it. But more importantly, the UFO, whatever it was, stalled his car’s engine.

According to the Project Blue Book file, the witness (who didn’t want to be identified in the press and whose name was redacted throughout), T. F. Mains, said that his car was stalled by a mushroom-shaped object as he approached it. According to the file:

At 0830, 23 January 1965, observer first noted object after his car stalled and he looked to his left. The object was first observed hovering with its bottom four feet off the ground and on an azimuth of southwest from the observer… The object which was observed for 25 seconds began moving horizontally to the west prior to disappearing. The flight path was limited to a steady hover except for the rapid vanishing maneuver.

Observer stated that the object was shaped like a mushroom or light bulb, being 75 to 80 feet in height; 25 feet diameter at the top, and ten feet diameter at the bottom. Color was metallic gray with red-orange glow on the close side and blue glow on the far side. As object was hovering there was a sound similar to a vacuum cleaner.

After the object disappeared, first observer got out of his car and went and asked the witness that was behind him if his car had stalled. Second witness said his car had also stalled and he had also seen the object.

The observer was prompted to report his sighting after hearing of many other UFO sightings in the Virginia. First observer told investigating officer (Lt. Dockum [Air Force officer investigating the UFO sighting]) that he thinks the object was a solid object and thought it was an Air Vehicle that the Air Force has.

The document then commented on the observations. It was noted that the weather bureau reported on a low altitude temperature inversion that could have resulted in the “unusual phenomenon.” There were no weather balloons in the area according to the documentation. And it said that Lt. Dockum, the Air Force officer assigned to investigate, searched the sighting area but found nothing.

Another possible explanation, offered by the weather bureau and Dockum, was that the sun’s reflection on that inversion layer and low hanging clouds might have caused a mirage. But it was also noted, “There is nothing to account for the car stalling as observer so stated.”

The final paragraph is the important one. It said, “Since no conclusive evidence can establish the identity of the object, the case is carried as an unidentified by the Air Force.” Then oddly, it noted, “Although the possibility exists that the sighting was a descending weather balloon, this is not conclusive evidence to substantiate the identity of such.”

Does it really need to be repeated? The weather balloon explanation fails at the point that two cars were stalled by close approach to the UFO. Because there are two witnesses in two separate vehicles, most of the mundane explanations are eliminated.

There are several reports, memos and newspaper accounts that mentioned two Richmond businessmen who had seen the UFO. This verifies that there was another man involved, but nothing in the file nor in the newspapers identify the man, other that he was older. Mains apparently didn’t ask for his name and could only remember that he drove a Chevrolet. He only had asked about the object and if his car engine had been stalled.

I would never have found this case had they not mentioned, in passing, on Contact, that there had been official investigation. It is just another in those inexplicable sightings that have no terrestrial explanation. It is a multiple witness case (well, sort of since we don’t have a clue as to the identity of the second witness), with a close approach of the UFO that interacted with the environment. This was just another opportunity to do some real investigation that was passed to a lower-ranking officer who had no training for the task. It is another missed opportunity.

Faked Documents - More than You'd Think

Normally I wouldn’t watch a Melissa McCarthy movie. I just don’t care for her because of some of the things and positions she had taken in her personal life. However, I was curious about her film, Can You Ever Forgive Me? This is the story of a one-time bestselling writer, Lee Israel, who fell on hard times and her attempts to pull herself up financially.

So, you’re asking yourself, “What in the hell does this have to do with UFOs?”

Nothing.

But it was what Lee Israel (McCarthy) did to earn money… She began to forge documents. And, when it seemed that these forgeries were questioned, she began to sell the real thing. She would go to libraries, archives, and museums that held, in their collections, the real documents, make notes about them including the fonts on the typewriters, the spacing, and other details. She would then recreate the document, go to the holder of the document, and switch them.

The National Archives - Hundreds of Thousands of Documents but Some Are Fake.
Photo copyright by Kevin Randle.

The flaw in the security system was that they didn’t really examine the material being brought in but did check the material, the briefcases, purses or backpacks as the person left. She was quite successful, if you can call it success, in her attempts to acquire the documents and then to sell them. Of course, it all, eventually, fell apart.

Here’s the rub. It is estimated that over 400 fake documents, either copies or completely faked, are still held in various collections long after she was caught. Hundreds of fake documents that could be used in historical research, in writing biographies, in reconstructing real events based on alleged eyewitness testimony.

You might remember that I did review the movie Truth, about the documents that suggested President Bush had been less than candid about his Air Guard service. This episode ended up with the firing of a senior producer and eventually Dan Rather. You can read me take on that here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/search?q=Mary+Mapes

In that movie, Truth, Mary Mapes, the senior producer fired because of the badly flawed story that CBS reported, said that someone would have had to understand the chain of command, the style of the documents being forged, and have inside information on how those things played out forty years earlier. Apparently, it never occurred to her, or Rather for that matter, that if someone had copies of the originals, they could easily create authentic sounding documents. By altering a line or two, now have a document that had an authentic feel to it and that would cast doubt (throw shade?) on President Bush. And someone who had served in the Texas Air Guard would probably have those sorts of documents in his personal file. (I have dozens of documents from my time in the military including flight and training records that are over 50 years old.)

The point here, reinforced by Can You Ever Forgive Me and Truth, is that you need a proper foundation for the acceptance of historical documents. It isn’t enough for them to appear in plain envelopes or given to you mysteriously without any provenance. Unless you can establish the history of the document, you are going to end up with fakes in your collection that are either created out of whole cloth or duplicated by someone with access to the original. Someone who might have slipped a line or two in, or for that matter, taken a line or two out, and you then have a flawed perception of reality.

And the point?

Can anyone say, “MJ-12.”

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Mike Rogers (Walton Abduction and the Phoenix Lights)

This week I talked with Mike Rogers to get his take on the Travis Walton abduction, since he was one of the main players. He was completely candid in his responses and didn’t even mind my somewhat snarky question about them leaving Travis behind after being struck by the light beam. According to Mike, once the beam hit Travis, the other six took off in the truck. To their credit, they did stop and turn around to go back, but by that time, Travis was gone. You can listen to that interview here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/19005838

Although I had planned to talk about Mike’s involvement in the Phoenix Lights, we stayed with the abduction. I got his personal take on some of the events around that, learned that there had been a large-scale search for Travis and then the ultimate ending to the search when the sheriff suggested that they had murdered Travis. The lie detector said otherwise, and, of course Travis’ reappearance some five days later put that theory to bed.

We also talked, briefly, about Philip Klass’ involvement in the case, and his attempts to convince Steve Pierce, another of those with Travis that night, to admit the hoax. I had interviewed Pierce a number of years about this. You can read that here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2012/07/steve-pierce-and-travis-walton.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2012/03/philip-klass-travis-walton-and-

steve.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2012/09/project-aquarius-steve-pierce-and-other.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2012/07/travis-walton-and-me.html

One of the things that did intrigue me was the paintings that Mike had done based on the information supplied by Travis. I had thought that the beings described by Travis didn’t look much like the Grays of fame and Zeta Reticuli, but Mike thought they did look similar. I asked for, and was granted permission to reproduce his paintings here so that you might make up your own mind.

Travis Walton abduction as painted by Mike Rogers. Painting copyright by Mike Rogers, reprinted here by permission.

Given the timing, as the show wrapped up, we had not gotten to the Phoenix Lights, so I told him that we’d to that another time. Fortunately, the was a hole in the production schedule so that I had the opportunity to continue the interview right there. Now I learned that Mike had been on the scene of the Phoenix Lights, but what he saw was something different than what had been reported in the major of the stories. He saw a craft and not just lights in the distance.

I had been of the opinion that there had been two events on that night in 1997. One of them was of some kind of a structured craft that traveled the length of Arizona and the other was of the lights over Phoenix. We agreed that the Lights were flares dropped as part of military training, and that one formation of lights was of aircraft. Although Mike had no explanation for the structured craft, he did believe that it was of terrestrial manufacture. You can listen to all that here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/19005920

Next week, I’ll talk with Nick Redfern about his latest UFO book. He seems to be intent on writing more UFO books than either me or Brad Steiger. Given his age and mine, I’m sure that he’ll grab this “honor” at some point in the near future.

If you have questions for Nick, send them in the form of a comment and I’ll try to get them asked. For Mike, there were a couple of questions, but they came in while I was interviewing him, and didn’t have the chance to find them until the show ended.