The Demise of History's Project Blue Book

For those of you keeping score at home, you know that Project Blue Book was closed in 1969 after the University of Colorado study, known as the Condon Committee, determined that the Air Force had done a good job investigating UFOs, that UFOs posed no threat to national security and that nothing of scientific value could be learned by further research. Doesn’t matter that the truth is that the Air Force did a half-assed job, that elements of UFO research did affect national security and that there was scientific value of continued research, even that research only helped identify a new natural phenomenon.

But now we learn that Project Blue Book has again been closed and by that I mean that the History Channel’s (yes, I know the name is officially History but does that make sense without some sort of qualifier?) show, Project Blue Book has been cancelled. No more can we follow the ridiculous tales of Dr. J. Allen Hynek engaging in fist fights, Captain Quinn (who, I suspect was a stand-in for Ed

Captain Quinn, UFO Expert.

Ruppelt) flying missions chasing flying saucers, and Soviet aircraft equipped with atomic bombs crashing in Canada.

Though there has been speculation about the reason, I think ratings had something to do with it. In the second season, it seems that the ratings in that coveted 18-49 demographic (because those of us older than 49 apparently don’t have the disposable income to buy products or we’re so set in our ways that advertising won’t sway us), have dropped by just under 33% and overall the ratings are down nearly 22%.

Oh, there are some bright spots, and with Project Blue Book average just over 1.03 million viewers each week, I suspect the ad revenue just couldn’t keep up with the production costs. By contrast, Curse of Oak Island had nearly 3.5 million viewers.

But there is another problem. Those who visit here regularly know that in that first season, I was something of a champion of the show. True, they played with the facts, but I could separate the fact from the fiction and to be fair, their telling of the various UFO stories wasn’t completely off base. It seemed to inspire some to look a little deeper for information about the case presented. I noted this in other posts.

But the second season was completely outrageous. We had an Air Force general subjecting a witness to water boarding, we had Hynek and Quinn finding a huge “underground base,” and the story of the Roswell crash that was so fictionalized that it was nearly unrecognizable, not to mention that Roswell is not a case that was investigated by Blue Book. There is no Blue Book file on Roswell.

In fact, the final season was so bad that I simply stopped watching it. I no longer cared what they did, what their stories were, or how hard they attempted to bend their stories to make them seem as if there might be some semblance to a case in the Blue Book files.

Here’s something else. In typical Hollywood fashion, the writers thought they had to jazz up the stories to make them more interesting because what is a TV show without some murder, some gunfights, a car chase or two, and Soviet spies? I would think that a show about an investigation into the possibility of alien visitation wouldn’t need to rely on explosions and car chases to hold a viewer’s interest. We are talking about alien visitation after all. Surely there was enough in the Blue Book files to inspire some stories that didn’t rely on these tricks.

Sure, we’d expect some embellishments because what is Hollywood if not filled with embellishments? They can take any story that is exciting, interesting, and factual, and add something that they believe with enhance those traits, even when not needed or when they actually detract from the story.

But I digress…

The point is that Project Blue Book is no more. We just won’t get any resolution to what happened to Quinn or if the Soviets penetrated Blue Book to learn their secrets, or if Mimi Hynek ever figured out what was really going on. Personally, I don’t think the demise came any too soon. For me, the program just didn’t work any more and was doing more harm than good. Maybe, someday, someone working on a flying saucer story out there will ask for my advice on how these fictional accounts should be done… oh, they won’t listen, but it would be nice to be asked.

Flight 19: The Last Post (Probably)

This is what I hope is the last posting on this aspect of the loss of Flight 19. To recap briefly, John Steiger sent a link to a headstone for George Paonessa, a Marine sergeant who was lost with the flight. In wondered why there was a grave for him at Arlington National Cemetery and if that meant a body had been recovered. Information sent by Arlington said that those lost at sea, lost in combat or who were buried at sea were sometimes honored by a headstone in a special section of Arlington. The request, according to the information had to come from a family member, and I learned that such was the case of Paonessa.

However, there was other information presented that suggested that he had survived the disaster. This included a telegram, allegedly sent by Paonessa to his brother several weeks after he had been declared lost. Douglas Westfall thought that this was good evidence that Flight 19 hadn’t disappeared completely, and on the radio show/podcast A Different Perspective made a case for this. You can listen to it here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/25933762

A week later, I spoke with Andy Marocco who believed he knew where Flight 19 had disappeared, some thirty or forty miles outside the Bermuda Triangle. I asked, specifically, about the telegram, but he said that it was a hoax. His reasoning was that it hadn’t entered the public arena until twenty or thirty years after the loss. You can listen to that interview here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/26397002

Doug Westfall believed that George Paonessa had made his way to California and became a contractor. It was his theory that Paonessa could operate out in the open

Douglas Westfall

because President Truman had pardoned those who had deserted after the conclusion of World War II. The theory behind the pardon was that they had served honorably, but with the war over, there was no need for them to remain on active duty. President Carter pardoned those who had fled to Canada to avoid the Vietnam War, so the idea wasn’t unprecedented.

This George Paonessa, that Doug mentioned, had died in either the 1960s or the 1970s. I was unable to find either a headstone or an obituary for him, which might have mentioned family and allowing us to verify the connection to Flight 19.

Andy Marocco said that he had actually visited the cemetery where that George Paonessa was buried. There was nothing there to connect him to the lost flight or to the family living in New York, home of the original George Paonessa.

I did contact one of the family members, which was how I learned about the request for the headstone at Arlington. In that same email, he mentioned the

Andy Marocco

telegram, so I asked about this. My thinking was that if George had contacted the family in the weeks following the loss, then he certainly would have been in touch with them in the years that followed. There would be no reason for him to avoid the family if he was operating a business under his own name in California and no one was looking for him for desertion.

The answer was that the telegram was the last that anyone heard from him… if it had been him. In the world today, with everyone who had violated a law, if anyone had actually violated a law, beyond prosecution, there is no reason to maintain the fiction that George Paonessa had perished in 1945, if he had, in fact survived. In other words, they would be able to confirm that he had survived if he had. There is no family history to suggest he did. The telegram, even though it mentioned his family nickname, is a cruel hoax.

Here’s where we are, according to what I have learned. All members of Flight 19 were lost on December 5, 1945. The best evidence is that the flight stuck together, just as the Flight Leader said for them to do, and all ditched together. Although neither Doug Westfall nor Andy Marocco have hard evidence for their respective theories, given that Andy’s is based on the official Navy documents relating to the case, and with other evidence, it seems that his theory is the most accurate.

This then, is the end of this part of the discussion. At this moment, none of the aircraft have been found and it seems that the idea that they all ditched at once is the most logical explanation. When there is new information on this particular aspect of the Bermuda Triangle, well, you’ll read it here.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Andy Marocco and Flight 19

In a sort of follow up from last week, I talked with Andy Marocco about the disappearance of Flight 19. His take on what happened and where the flight might have come to rest is different than that of Douglas Westfall. You can listen to the interview here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/26397002

We did talk, briefly about the headstone for George Paonessa that is found at Arlington National Cemetery. Those of you who visit here frequently (and who have read the last couple of posts) know that the mystery has been solved. A member of

Andy Marocco

Paonessa’s family arranged for the headstone and as is policy, in cases where the body has not been recovered, a headstone was erected in a part of the cemetery devoted to those whose bodies were lost for whatever reason.

In a revelation I found interesting, when I asked about the theory that Paonessa had survived and moved to California at some point, Andy was able to clear up part of the problem. According to the information George Paonessa was buried in California. I had wondered about finding an obituary that might list family members. My thought was that we could learn if this was, in fact, the George Paonessa who had been lost with Flight 19. According to Andy, he found the man’s headstone in a California cemetery and the information available told us it was a different man.

We did talk about the idea that all the planes of Flight 19 had gone down together and that none of the pilots broke away from the formation. Andy suggested, based on the Navy records of the flight, that he was able to locate the general area of the crash site, which, ironically, is outside the limits of the Bermuda Triangle. To prove this point he revealed that the navigational records show that a mistake in reading the precise heading would have caused the planes to be some fifteen miles where they should have been. That was enough to radically throw off the navigation.

Although I wanted to talk a little more about the Martin Mariner, one of the search aircraft that was lost that same night, we didn’t have enough time to get deeply into it. I had seen an episode of Josh Gate’s Expedition Unknown where they did find wreckage on the ocean floor that might have come from a Martin Mariner. Andy said that he hoped to be able to return to the site and find evidence to prove that.

So, what has happened is that my interview with Douglas Westfall led to John Steiger’s finding of the Headstone for Paonessa, which led to research about how that happened. In less than a week, I was able to resolve this, learning exactly how that marker came to be. We have heard, in the last two shows, two theories about what happened to the various aircraft involved in the disaster, which aren’t exactly the exact opposite but which don’t exactly support one another. We have gained additional insight into what happened, learning that the aircraft took off in poor weather rather than a bright, clear, sunny sky. We learned that the Martin Mariner, which some have labeled at the “Flying Gas Tank,” was no such thing and that the evidence that it blew up was shaky at best.

But, then, we have cleared up a couple of issues. True, there still is the mystery about what, exactly, happened, but I think it is a little clearer in our minds.

Next up is Tom Carey. He listened to my interview with Don Schmitt and Tom seems to disagree with Don’s assessment of the Glenn Dennis and the missing nurse story. We’ll delve into that and some other matters Roswell related. If you have a question or two, append them here and I’ll try to get them asked.

Flight 19, George Paonessa and the Bermuda Triangle

John Steiger inadvertently launched an investigation when he provided a link to the headstone for George Paonessa at the Arlington National Cemetery. I had wondered, if Flight 19 disappeared without a trace, then how could there be a

grave for one of those lost in the disaster.

As noted in early postings, I contacted Arlington and learned that there is a section that holds markers for those whose bodies were not available for burial. Those lost at sea, those buried at sea, and those lost in combat and whose bodies were not recovered are just some of the examples.

Since only Paonessa had a marker rather than all those lost on Flight 19, I believed it had to have been a family member who requested it. Had the Navy done it, there should have been headstones for all of those lost and if the Marines had done it, then there should have been one for each of the Marines lost. Family was the only answer.

Today, I received an email from a family member that ended this one, rather minor part, of the overall mystery. He wrote, “Hi. My Aunt Louise, who has since passed away, was the one who wrote to Ogden Reid the United States Representative from Westchester County & that's how the head stone was put there.”

There is nothing mysterious about the headstone. There is nothing about the headstone to suggest a cover up by the Navy. There is a logical explanation for that headstone. I was just curious about a headstone when there was no body. The headstone suggested that this might be a link into what had happened to Flight 19. Instead was just a family member wishing to honor a Marine who died in the service of his country. A nice tribute for a man who died long ago.

A Flight 19 Mystery in the Bermuda Triangle

John Steiger, a friend who has helped me with research in the past, sent a comment about Flight 19. He’d found a grave marker for Marine Staff Sergeant George R. Paonessa, who was one of those lost on December 5, 1945, when his aircraft, along with four others disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle. This set me to thinking. Why

was there a grave for him at the Arlington National Cemetery?

If the flight disappeared and nothing of them was found, then how could there be a grave? And if there was a grave, did that suggest that the Navy knew more about the disappearance than they had let on?

Douglas Westfall, who appeared on the radio version of A Different Perspective and who, indirectly set all this in motion, told me a little more about this. According to him, Paonessa’s family hadn’t requested the marker, and they were surprised by it. He also said that those at Arlington didn’t know who had made the request and that there was no body in the grave.

All this struck me as a little strange. Why a marker at Arlington if there was no body in the grave? And, if there was a body in the grave, well then, Flight 19 hadn’t disappeared without a trace.

I sent an email to the Arlington National Cemetery, and they responded quickly, confirming that Paonessa’s grave existed, which we already knew. But it turns out that it is not uncommon for there to be a marker and grave at Arlington even if there isn’t a body to be buried in it. Those at Arlington sent the rules and regulations covering the placement of a marker when the body is unavailable. These are:

In the absence of remains, Arlington National Cemetery offers memorialization in specially designated memorial areas. Under federal regulations (32 CFR § 553.16), a memorial marker may be placed at Arlington National Cemetery to honor the memory of service members or veterans who are otherwise eligible for interment or inurnment and:  

Who are missing in action;

Whose remains have not been recovered or identified;

Whose remains were buried at sea, whether by the member's or veteran's own choice or otherwise;

Whose remains were donated to science; 

Whose remains were cremated and the cremated remains scattered without interment or inurnment of any portion of those remains. 

The one-gravesite-per-family policy applies to memorialization:

When the remains of a primarily eligible person are unavailable for one of the above reasons, and a derivatively eligible person (e.g., a dependent) is already interred or inurned at Arlington National Cemetery, the primarily eligible person may be memorialized only on the existing headstone or a replacement headstone, ordered with a new inscription. 

When a memorial marker for a primarily eligible person is already in place, and a derivatively eligible person (e.g., a dependent) is subsequently interred or inurned at Arlington National Cemetery, an inscription memorializing the primarily eligible person will be placed on the new headstone or niche cover. The memorial marker will then be removed from the memorial area. 

The second question was if there were others from Flight 19 who also had markers at Arlington? I already knew the answer because I have a list of all those lost from the Avenger flight. I had been able to

trace all of them except for two and found that a few of them had markers placed on family plots in other cemeteries. One of them mentioned, “Lost at Sea,” for example.

But then, a Martin Mariner, launched as part of the search activity for Flight 19 was also lost that night. It turns out that one of the crewmen on that aircraft, Alfred J. Zywicki, also has a marker in that section of the Arlington National Cemetery.

The information about the locations of both Paonessa and Zywicki was supplied by the officials at Arlington. According to them, “George R. Paonessa is memorialized at ANC at Section MG, Grave 191. In addition, Alfred J. Zywicki is memorialized at ANC at Section MG, Grave 73. Zywicki (US Navy) was on PBM-5 (Bureau Number 59225) that

went out to find Flight 19…”

It seems that part of the mystery is now solved. The last question is simply, who requested the marker for Paonessa? It is clear that someone had to do it.

According to what Douglas Westfall told me, the family didn’t do it. You might say the Marines did it to honor one of their own, but Paonessa wasn’t the only Marine in Flight 19, so you have to wonder why one and not the others.

I had asked a follow up question. “Do you know who asked for the marker to be placed at Arlington? Family say that they were surprised to learn that it was there.”

Those at the Arlington National Cemetery tell me that they are not allowed to release information about who requested the marker. They wrote:

Arlington National Cemetery (ANC) cannot release the interment or inurnment records without special legal permission from the family. Arrangements are made by the decedents primary next of kin (PNOK) or person authorized to direct disposition (PADD). The funeral operation, funeral elements and grave marker are provided by the United States government and the military service branches. So long as the service member is eligible for burial at Arlington National Cemetery, their funeral is scheduled and operated with government and military resources. Transportation and/or delivery of remains of retired personnel, veterans, and their dependents from place of death to the cemetery are the responsibility of the next of kin. 

While this doesn’t help solve the mystery, it does provide us with some information. It suggests that the family had requested the marker… or in this case one member of the family had made the request. It might be that whoever made the request had not conferred with other members of the family so they didn’t know what had happened. Given the rules and regulations, it had to have been a family member.

At this point, I might be done with this. One of the leads I had to a member of the family ended when the phone was answered with, “The number is not in service.”

The second was an email address of someone who was likely related to Paonessa. I have had no response.

Still, I’m not sure that this particular part of the story needed to be traced any farther. There is nothing unusual about an empty grave at Arlington, the rules require the request for the marker to be made by a member of the family, and since the other members of Flight 19 have no similar markers at Arlington, but do in their local cemeteries, that seems to pr

ove the point.

As evidence of a cover up or of something even more sinister, this fails. I found nothing to suggest this proves the flight vanished off the face of the Earth or that the Navy had a hand in creating this conundrum. Instead, it is a family honoring a member who lost his life while serving in the Marine Corps.

Carroll Wayne Watts Contact/Abduction

There has been some discussion about those of us who seem to dwell in the past in our UFO research. One of the reasons I live there is because I have been around forever and have data going back decades. To prove this point I have been looking into the case of Carroll Wayne Watts who claimed a contact/abduction that hit the national media in February 1968.

As I have mentioned several times, I was at the Army’s Primary Helicopter Flight School in Mineral Wells, Texas, in March 1968. I wasn’t stationed all that far tiny Loco, Texas, where Watts lived. I was able arrange to meet with Watts on Saturday, March 9, 1968, at his house. I recorded the interview, created a transcript, and I still have the tape. And yes, it hasn’t degraded so that you can still listen to it.

The point, however, as I reviewed the Watts interview and the other material related to the case such as the Project Blue Book file, I found a couple of paragraphs that haven’t really been examined. While it is clear that the Watts tale is a hoax, there was something that Hector Quintanilla, then the chief of Project Blue Book, wrote that is somewhat disturbing. He was describing his involvement in the case and told reporters from Amarillo who called him:

Shortly thereafter two reporters from Amarillo called. Apparently the story leaked and [name redacted but is clearly Watts] had told them that he would have no story for them until he had confirmation of the pictures from me. This, of course, he never got. I told the reporters how I felt, but that they might have a good story of the perpetration of a hoax if they looked into it.

Dr. J. Allen Hynek, then the Air Force consultant to Project Blue Book, said:

If this is a hoax, it is a very, very clever one. In fact, it would be such a clever hoax that it would be almost as interesting as what this farmer claimed has happened to him.

What we see here is a subtle manipulation of the press. The real story isn’t about the UFO, the pictures that Watts had of the object (which the Condon Committee and the Air Force managed to lose), but how the hoax had been perpetrated. This is an attempt to divert attention from Watts and his story of contact with the UFO into that of a clever hoax.

However, the Air Force reports on the sighting which included interviews with Watts and other witnesses ended saying, “Conclusive findings and cause are undetermined.”

As I say, having interviewed Watts myself, I don’t believe the

The only surviving picture allegedly taken
by Watts.

story. What is disturbing is that Hynek suggested the better story is how the hoax was perpetrated, and Quintanilla telling reporters the same thing, that the more interesting story is how the hoax was perpetrated. Then the Air Force and the Condon Committee lost the pictures and you have to wonder about just what was going on behind the scenes in the Air Force and at the University of Colorado.

In fact, Watts sent me a letter about those pictures, saying that he thought they were safer at the University of Colorado. Guess that didn’t work out so well.

All this suggests a rather cavalier attitude to this sighting in particular and the UFO investigations in general. You have to wonder what they might have found had they actually done what they had been tasked to do, that is, investigate UFOs to learn if there was anything of scientific significance that could be discovered. Instead, they attempted to manipulate the media by telling them to figure out how the hoax was perpetrated… something that neither the media nor the Air Force actually discovered.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Douglas Westfall, Flight 19 and the Bermuda Triangle

There has been a number of shows recently about the Bermuda Triangle and especially Flight 19. I found a couple of guys who were well versed in what happened to the flight. First up was Douglas Westfall. He and I talked about the disappearance of Flight 19. You can listen to that interview here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/25933762

For those who aren’t as familiar with Flight 19 as those of us who have studied all of this for decades, Flight 19 was a group of five

Douglas Westfall

Avenger Torpedo Bombers on a training mission that took off on December 5, 1945. They were supposed to make a practice torpedo run on Hens and Chicken Shoals off the coast of Florida. They were then supposed to turn north, and finally back to the east to return to the Ft. Lauderdale Naval Air Station. They never made it. All five vanished.

This is the cornerstone of the Bermuda Triangle mystery. What sort of force could destroy five aircraft at once? There had been no wreckage found which deepened the mystery. There has been a great deal written about the flight so a google search will provide additional details.

I did mention the disappearance of a C-119 in the Bermuda Triangle that provides some perspective. I had a personal connection to this and you can read about it here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-bermuda-triangle-and-c-119.html

Doug Westfall, however, mentioned that three of the aircraft had been found. The Navy swooped in to confiscate the wreckage and then destroyed it. Doug provides some information and some documentation to support this theory, not to mention that one of those crewmen survived the disaster. It makes an interesting theory. You can search for the Flight 19 information at his website at:

www.SpecialBooks.com

Next week, I’ll be talking with Andy Marocco who has investigated Flight 19 for many years and believes that the remains of the flight have been found. His theory is slightly different from that we heard from Doug. It will be interesting to learn how they disagree and maybe more importantly how the do agree.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Bernard O'Connor (and Official UFO)

Bernard O’Connor, one-time editor of Official UFO magazine was the guest this week. I had worked with Bernie back in the 1970s, in the heyday of UFO magazines. Those of us who had access to a great deal of UFO information, not on-

Bernie O'Connor

line because that didn’t exist, but through contacts with various UFO organizations and researchers, could make a nice living writing UFO articles. You can listen to the interview here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/25580581

We did, of course, talk about more than the workings of a UFO magazine. We talked about the UFO wave of 1973 and the two pictures of a silver-clad occupant, taken in Falkville, Alabama. Jeffrey Greenhaw, who is described as the chief of police but was, in fact, the only police officer in the town (which, I suppose, made him the chief) said that some woman called him around 10:00 p.m. about a landing UFO. On the outskirts of town, he saw a figure, about five and a half feet tall, standing in the middle of the road. Greenhaw stopped, got out of the car. While talking to the being, he was taking pictures. But it stepped toward him and Greenhaw flipped on the red light on top of the police car. The being turned and fled. Greenhaw, in the police car, couldn’t catch it. He lost it when the car spun out on the loose gravel even though Greenhaw was only driving at about 20 m.p.h.

Within minutes, Greenhaw was at the newspaper, and it wasn’t long until the story was out over the news wires. It grew into a massive story. I mean, there were the

Official UFO issue that describes the
destruction of Chester, Illinois.

pictures of the alien creature that Greenhaw had taken. But, a month later, the mayor asked Greenhaw to resign from his job. At the same time, Greenhaw’s marriage failed and his trailer burned. He left town soon after that.

Analysis of the photographs seemed to indicate that the figure was a human in what is known as a hot suit. Test pictures taken by UFO researchers, including Marion Webb of NICAP, seemed to bear this out. NICAP thought that Greenhaw was the victim of a hoax but Webb eventually concluded that Greenhaw and a friend had created the pictures.

I suppose the point here is that if Greenhaw had been the victim of a hoax, then the consequences were out of line. If, however, he had perpetrated the hoax, well, I’m not sure that he’s the type of person you need as a police officer. I should mention that Greenhaw never admitted to the hoax and maintained that he had seen something truly strange. For those interested, here is some additional information and the pictures:

http://outtherewithted.com/beings/articles/alabama-police-chiefs-photo-alleged-alien-published-around-globe-1973

https://realunexplainedmysteries.com/falkville-alien-the-metal-man

https://anomalien.com/the-falkville-metal-man/

We did talk about threats made to people after UFO sightings, but I wondered if some of that wasn’t overblown hype and the military just reminding service members about disclosure of classified material.

This sparked my comments about Carroll Wayne Watts, who, in 1968, reported that he had made contact, been abducted, or maybe stalked, by alien creatures in a UFO. He eventually admitted it had been a hoax but then retracted that statement. He found his life in shambles, just as Greenhaw did.

We ended talking about Bernie’s website which is filled with Fortean material, not just UFOs. You can visit it here:

http://videosofthedamned.com/

Next week, I’ll be talking with Doug Westfall about the fate of Flight 19 in the Bermuda Triangle. The following week, I’ll interview Andy Marocco, about the fate of that same Flight 19. Both men have been studying the case for years, and both believe they have a solution, though they don’t exactly agree. I think this will be a couple of interesting shows and will allow you all to decide who has found the right answer, if in fact, and answer has been found.

As always, if you have any questions for either of the men, post them in the comments section and I’ll try to get them asked during the show. Please remember that these questions might not show up on the blog which doesn’t mean I won’t ask them.

And, if you are interested in Project Blue Book, I just published The Best of Project Blue Book, an in depth look as some of the cases that those at Blue Book overlooked, ignored or labeled as hoax without a worry about the facts. If you enjoy the book, put a review up on Amazon… it does help.

Bermuda Triangle and the Witchcraft - Part Two

Looking at the case of the disappearance of the Witchcraft, again, I had a couple of thoughts. Clearly, the boat was not near Buoy Number 7. I believe that writers of Bermuda Triangle lore thought that since Dan Burack reported he was one mile off Miami and Buoy Number 7 is about one mile off Miami, they just assumed that he was near the buoy. While he might have been about one mile off shore, and he was near Miami, that doesn’t mean he was close to the buoy. You have to wonder why

Witchcraft

the Coast Guard would have asked him to fire a flare if he had been near to that landmark, which would have been easy to find.

The searches, then, have always been in the wrong place, and as noted, the wind was pushing the Witchcraft one direction but the current flowed in another. That caused the search area to be too far to the south. Of course, if the boat hadn’t been near Buoy Number 7 as reported, using that as a base for the search means they were searching in the wrong place regardless of wind and current.

But all this speculation isn’t doing us much good. The thought I had, and it’s not something that I can do, is what about the probate of the will. At some point Burack would have been declared dead and his will would have entered probate. These records, I believe, are public. Since he was supposed to be a millionaire, I got to wondering what happened to his fortune. Was there anything to be distributed to heirs? Were any sort of taxes paid on those inheritances? Who were the beneficiaries?

While searches of the ocean floor are exciting television, I’m wondering if anyone ever checked these records. If Burack’s wealth disappeared along with the boat, then we have a different sort of mystery. Or, if Burack didn’t have the wealth he claimed, then we have a different motive for the disappearance.

It just seems to me that this is one of the Triangle’s disappearances that might be explained in the records housed somewhere in courts of Miami or the state of Florida. It is an intriguing puzzle and if I lived in Florida, it is something that I would pursue… after the various lock downs are reversed and we have the opportunity to engage in these sorts of searches. If anyone has any answers, I’d sure like to hear them.

Glenn Dennis Lies?

As those of you who pay attention know, I had Don Schmitt on the radio show/podcast not all that long ago. We were talking about our investigation into the Roswell UFO crash (among other things) from the perspective of all that we had done. I asked him, given what we know today, if he still believed the Glenn Dennis tale. His answer somewhat surprised me.

Before I get into that, and as I have learned by surfing the net and watching television, now that I have teased you with this, I will go off on another tangent. In the end, it will make sense and it is something that I believe is necessary when we begin to talk about Glenn Dennis.

First, I have noticed that one of the Dennis interviews has appeared on YouTube and attributed to the National Archives. The source, according to the notes on YouTube, is the US government suggesting there is some credibility to the tale. I have written to the Archives telling them that the voices you hear interviewing Dennis are not government investigators, but are Don Schmitt, Mark Wolf and me. A copy of the tape was supplied to the Fund for UFO Research and it was, in turn, loaned to the Air Force during their search for any documents relating to Roswell. When the investigation was completed, rather than returning the tape, all the materials those Air Force officers had collected, were boxed up and sent to the National Archives. This included material that was clearly marked for return to those who had provided it.

To digress, as I was going through those boxes at the National Archives, I found a

The boxes of the Roswell material at the
National Archives. Photo copyright by
Kevin Randle.

court martial of a doctor who had been stationed in Roswell in 1957, which was completely irrelevant to the Roswell investigation. In that particular material was a notice that the record was to be returned to the Judge Advocate in the Air Force. Instead it was in a box that dealt with the Roswell crash. I pointed this out to someone at the Archive, suggesting the record be returned to the original source as was noted on the first page of the document. I don’t know if that happened.

The same thing happened with the tape of Glenn Dennis. It was to be returned to the Fund, but that never happened. Instead, it was put into some sort of video file at the archive that was eventually uploaded to YouTube. I have attempted to get it taken down but only because the labeling on YouTube gives the interview more credibility than it deserves, given what we know about Glenn Dennis in 2020. I have also tried to get the source updated so that the tape can be properly evaluated.

Glenn Dennis. Photo copyright by
Kevin Randle.

When Dennis first appeared on the Roswell scene, his name provided by Walter Haut, it seemed that Dennis was a credible source. He told a wonderful story about someone at the base ordering child-size coffins and later meeting with a nurse who told him about the alien creatures. She provided a drawing to show him what they looked like and then burned it. Dennis said that she was killed in an aircraft accident sometime after she was transferred from Roswell.

As many of you already know, there were no nurses killed in an aircraft accident as Dennis had described which seems to be the first lie. He gave a name for the nurse, but there is no evidence that a nurse with that name ever served in the Army or in Roswell, which would be the second lie. Confronted with this fact, he changed the name of the nurse and then blamed us, UFO researchers, for getting the information wrong, which would be the third and fourth lies. He then gave us a new name for the nurse, which would be the fifth lie. It was at this point that I decided that the Dennis tale was bogus.

Don, along with Tom Carey, believed that there was some truth buried somewhere in the tale. In Witness to Roswell, they quoted L.M. Hall, a former Roswell MP who

Ballard Funeral Home. Photo copyright by
Kevin Randle.

was a police office in Roswell in 1947. He told them:

One day in July 1947, I was at Ballard’s [Funeral Home] on a break, and Glenn and I were in the driveway “batting the breeze.” I was sitting on my motorcycle, and Glenn stood nearby. He remarked, “I had a funny call from the base. They wanted to know if we had several baby caskets.” Then he started laughing and said, “I asked what for and the said they wanted to bury [or ship (noted added in original)] those aliens,” or something to that effect. I thought it was one of those “gotcha!” jokes, so I didn’t bite. He never said anything else about it.

This seemed to be some corroboration for the tale told by Dennis, but was it enough to overcome the lies that he had told about the nurse? And when confronted by those lies, said that he had never given us the real name, that

he had told us he wasn’t going give us the real name and then supplied another. At what point do we look at the Dennis tale and say these new lies are just too many?

The last time that I had asked Don about Dennis tale, he said that he still believed in it. I could tell then that he was disturbed by some of the information that had come out in the last twenty-five years and that his resolve was weakening. Then, when I asked Don about Dennis on the radio show, he said that he didn’t have much faith in the Dennis tale anymore. It was an interesting revelation. You can listen to our whole talk here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/24743637

Tom Carey, who has been working with Don for a couple of decades listened to the show and thought that Don had not fairly described the situation with Dennis. He wrote to me, “On your show, Don said that ‘The Nurse’ we were looking for actually worked at Ballard’s Funeral Home, and that’s how Glenn learned what was then taking place at the RAAF base hospital. Wrong. [emphasis in original]. The nurse worked at the Marshal & Marshal [actually Marshall & Marshall] medical clinic in Roswell and accompanied one of the doctors there who had been called out to the base when the little bodies started arriving there. Here’s the kicker. Her husband worked at Ballard’s as an embalmer [emphasis in original] – the same as Glenn Dennis. That’s where Glenn got his nurse story. I came across the information by chance in the 1947 Roswell City Directory (I have a photocopy of it) [as do I] after interviewing someone who knew the name of the doctor from M&M who had been called out to the base.”

There are some wide-ranging implications in this statement, not of least of which is the confirmation that Dennis was lying. Unlike what Dennis had said, at best, he might have overheard a conversation, but he seemed to have no direct knowledge from an alleged participant. According to Tom, 1LT Adeline Fanton was the nurse he was referring to rather than the nonexistent Naomi Self. Fanton, who was a nurse at Roswell in 1947, was dead by the time researchers began looking for her. Dennis had no fear of contradiction given the circumstances. The point really is that Dennis had no inside knowledge that was based on his personal observations. Rather, he plugged himself into the tale and all he did was divert resources that could have been better used elsewhere. Dennis should be written out of the story completely, taking his place alongside Gerald Anderson and Frank Kaufmann.

This does expose one of the problems with the Roswell case. Twenty-five years ago, the case was much more robust than it is today. There are cracks in the case that we all have uncovered over the years. Tiny things that, by themselves, aren’t all that important but in the aggregate, weaken the case. It just isn’t as solid as it used to be.

If you are interested in what is the best information available about Roswell today, take a look at Roswell in the 21^st Century. You’ll see some of the problems and some of the best of the witnesses today.

X-Zone Broadcast Radio - Diane Tessman

This week I spoke with Diane Tessman about her theories of who is responsible for the UFO sightings. Her idea is that they are visitors, not from other planets, but

Diane Tessman

from our own future. You can listen to the interview here (though I must warn you that we do speak about her cat sanctuary for a couple of minutes at the beginning):

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/25138965

During our discussion, we did get into the various theories of time travel. My impression was that she accepted, as reality, specific theories that do allow travel into the past. She cited a number of scientific sources. I thought of them as more speculative than established fact. In the end, we didn’t agree on many of the time travel theories. I did suggest that I found interstellar travel as a more likely scenario than visitors from our future.

Part of the discussion was about why, if they were visitors from the future, they didn’t prevent some of the horrific things that have happened. She suggested that there was a scientific reason that prevented their interference with the course of, well, history. This exchange might have been the most interesting aspect of the discussion.

Next week, I’ll be talking to Bernie O’Connor, one-time editor of Official UFO magazine and now the host of a paranormal website: 

http://videosofthedamned.com/.

In the weeks to follow, I’ll be talking with two men, on separate shows, who believe that the infamous Flight 19 has been found… or rather parts of it. This includes the story of a man who supposedly survived the flight. If you have questions, as always, email me or append them to the comments section and I’ll try to get them asked.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Don Schmitt

This week, I spoke with Don Schmitt. My plan since between the two of us we have something like a century of experience investigating UFOs (which, when I look at that, it is horrifying…), I thought it would be interesting for us to talk about our experiences in the field. I thought it would give an idea about the depth that some of those investigations took. You can listen to the show here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/24743637

We both talked about the first investigations we had conducted. In my case, I was

Don Schmitt in Roswell.

looking for a single answer. Time and location weren’t all that important to me at that time. I just wanted to learn if one of the ways the Air Force dismissed UFO investigation by claiming that most sightings were of blurry, blobs of light in the distance, was true. According to the witness, that wasn’t the case. She saw a well defined craft not all that far away.

I did ask Don what he thought of the Glenn Dennis tale give all we know today. At one time the Dennis testimony was an important part of the Roswell case. In the world today, not so much. I hadn’t talked to Don about this in a long time and found his answer to be interesting… yes, I am withholding this statement to entice you all to listen to the program.

If you enjoyed this diversion from the normal course of the discussion, please let me know. I believe that these sorts of, well, chats, provide some insight into the way information is developed and investigations are conducted. If you did enjoy it, I will schedule others periodically.

Next week, I will be talking with Diane Tessman and her theories about the origin of the UFOs. It should be interesting, especially if you are interested in time travel. If you have questions, send them along in the comments section here and I’ll try to get them asked.

And, for a brief commercial message… my latest book, The Best of Project Blue Book is available now. It is a look at some of the best cases in the Blue Book files that might have been overlooked in years past. I bring in research that I have conducted, using resources that were unavailable to the Air Force at the time of the sightings. I believe it gives, well, a different perspective on these cases…

The Bermuda Triangle, Flight 19 and Josh Gates

In a strange coincidence, I stumbled across the second part of Josh Gates’ episode dealing with the Bermuda Triangle. I was able to learn the results of the experiment he had conducted with a couple of scientists. They launched a balloon into the upper atmosphere to find out if there were any anomalies to explain the trouble with compasses and other electronics. Yes, they found a spike in the

Josh Gates and me... published here to show that
I'm not really bald.

electromagnetic radiation that they couldn’t explain. Interesting, but not too illuminating.

He also was involved in an experiment created to explain the disappearance of the USS Cyclops, a strange looking Navy ship designed to carry coal to the fleet. That mission explains the weird metallic superstructure. Using a university’s facilities that had been designed to recreate ocean conditions, they created what is now known as a rogue wave to attempt to sink the ship. I expected it to do so, but not with the rapidity that it did. The wave hit the exact model of the ship and took it down in seconds… no time for a radio call, no time to for the sailors to abandon the ship and no time for any sort of rescue. One minute the ship was on the surface and the next it was under water. I might add that there are some portions of the Bermuda Triangle that are the deepest in the North Atlantic. If a ship or a plane sank there, no one is ever going to find any sign of it.

I was more interested in Josh’s take on Flight 19, a five-plane formation of Avenger torpedo planes that disappeared in 1945. This is the cornerstone of the Bermuda Triangle mystery. It seems inexplicable and I wondered just what Josh would do about it. He gave a good account of the preliminaries meaning that weather at the time of take- off wasn’t great, the make-up of the flight, and its training mission. Everything was fine as they approached the target, Hens and Chicken Shoals, some 70 or so nautical miles from their base.

Once beyond that, they seemed to have drifted off course. The Flight made a scheduled turn, but the Flight Leader, Charles Taylor, said that both his compasses had malfunctioned. From that point, it seems they made several turns, first flying one direction and then another until they ran out of gas. Radio contact had been lost prior to that and when it was obvious that the Flight was down, a Martin Mariner with a crew of 13 was launched to attempt a rescue. That aircraft slipped off the radar and disappeared as well.

But, unlike the Avengers, there were witnesses to this part of the disaster. The crew of a ship in the area saw an aerial explosion. When they reached the scene of the crash, they spotted floating debris but the bad weather forced them to abandon the search. They next day, no one could find the wreckage… but the ship’s crew did get a good fix on the location.

All this is important because Josh, with another crew using high tech sonar, were able to see the ocean bottom in what looked like high definition detail. Scanning the area, they found debris on the ocean floor that looked suspiciously like the remains of an aircraft. Diving down, Josh found what looked like the type of engine that the Martin Mariner had used, and a propeller blade, or rather the engine hub with all three blades on it. Given all that, it is almost certain that they had found the remains of Martin Mariner. Although Josh and crew were unable to recover the engine or the propeller, it was suggested that it should be recovered at some point.

Given that, and what he learned about Flight 19, Josh suggested that a

combination of events doomed the Flight. It was a cascade of circumstances that brought down the planes and had there been any variation in those events, even a slight one, the tragedy might have been avoided. The conclusion is that it wasn’t some mysterious force that brought down the Flight, it wasn’t aliens and it wasn’t some sort of interdimensional warp… it was bad weather, faulty navigation and a series of other events that combined to doom the Flight.

Again, I was surprised by the rationale brought to this. Josh suggested at the end that there might be some weird weather and magnetic anomalies in the Bermuda Triangle but there was nothing supernatural. That was a conclusion that I had reached many years ago after reading Lawrence Kusche’s book.

Of course, having met Josh (yes, I have to bring that up again), I’m not surprised that he came to the conclusions he did, based on the evidence and the experiments in which he was involved. For those who wish to learn the truth about this, Expedition Unknown has done a good job of relating the facts without delving into the wild speculation that obscures the reality of the situation. I believe that we can say “solved” to the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle. It is delightful to see an intelligent documentary about the Bermuda Triangle when there is so much nonsense out there.