An Editorial Comment

Looking back at many of the columns that I have written for this blog, I am a little disturbed about the negative nature of many of them. I have offered solutions to many sightings, have suggested that some witnesses and researchers are less than reliable, and provided prosaic answers to some of the more interesting mysteries. When I began this, I had envisioned a place where ideas could be discussed calmly and rationally and where we all could search for some of these answers.

The problem, I think, is that as we age, our sense of wonder is tempered, if not ruined, by the intrusion of reality. As a young adult, having had the responsibility as a helicopter pilot and a flight lead in Vietnam before I turned twenty, I still had some of that sense of wonder. I believed that mysterious forces were causing ships and airplanes to disappear in the Bermuda Triangle, I thought there was some kind of undefined and undescribed fantastic creature living in Loch Ness, I thought Bigfoot roamed the more desolate areas of the Pacific Northwest, and believed the Allende Letters might actually be a key to understanding UFOs as was claimed by some researchers.

But then I read Lawrence Kusche’s book, The Bermuda Triangle Mystery - Solved. I had originally bought it believing in the old adage, "Know Your Enemy." If I was going argue persuasively that various craft really did vanish mysteriously in the Bermuda Triangle, I had to understand the arguments against that theory. Here was one book that flew in the face of all the others. One book that offered a solution, as opposed to all the others that offered more mystery.

Imagine my surprise when I found the answers making sense to me. Ships that weren’t really found drifting and abandoned in the Bermuda Triangle as often claimed. In one case, the ship, alleged to be found without crew and abandoned was recovered in the Pacific Ocean and had nothing to do with the Bermuda Triangle. (Wreckage, on the left, from the Marine Sulfur Queen proves it didn't disappear without a trace in the Bermuda Triangle.) That certainly removed it from the rolls of those lost in the Bermuda Triangle.

I had the opportunity to investigate one of the aircraft disappearances, but not as an outside researcher, but as an inside intelligence officer. In the late 1970s, I was assigned to the 928th Tactical Airlift Group of the Air Force Reserve. Our parent organization was the 440th Tactical Airlift Wing and one of its C-119s (a similar aircraft seen below and on the left) had disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle without a trace, according to legend (see Disappearing Aircraft - Part 3: The Bermuda Triangle published here in September 2006).

Since I was now a member of that unit, I could ask questions of my counterparts at the higher headquarters that an outsider or reporter might ask and might be ignored if he thought to ask them. We had a conference there, meaning hosted by the parent unit, and in the course of the conversations, I asked, casually, about the aircraft. I was careful, but only because I didn’t know if any of those I asked had been friends with the crew that had been lost.

I was told then that the aircraft had a history of electrical problems which is a real clue to what happened. I was told that they were lost at the end of a leg which could mean they were tired and not as sharp as they might have been. And, I was told that the crew had reported electrical problems on that flight, which meant, if they lost electrical power, they would lose their flight instruments, and at night, in the kind of weather they were in, not bad, but hazy, the horizon could disappear, meaning the sky merged with the ocean and without that reference, and without instruments, they could become disoriented and crash.

And, I was told that wreckage had been found. The aircraft hadn’t disappeared without a trace. The majority of the aircraft had not been found, but debris identified by serial numbers and markings had been found. This was not a mysterious disappearance, it was a tragic accident that cost the lives of the men involved.

Kusche was able to provide other answers by looking at the primary sources. He found that writers of later books reported information from earlier books, apparently assuming that those first writers had reviewed the primary sources. By looking at the primary sources himself, he learned that disappearances often happened in bad weather, or the facts didn’t check out, or that the ship or airplane had not disappeared without a trace. Some wreckage was found. Many of the mysteries of the Triangle were solved that way.

Which sort of leads us back to the Warren Smith post not so long ago (See Warren Smith: UFO Investigator or Hoaxster, published here in May, 2007). Smith made up stuff when he needed to add detail or credibility to a story. He seemed to think nothing of this. He thought it was part of doing business as a writer of the unusual and paranormal. If you didn’t have what you needed, why you just invented it.

Others, following Smith, then quoted his published work, assuming that some kind of vetting process had taken place. They believed that Smith wouldn’t have made it up and that if the facts didn’t check out, well then, the fact checkers at the publisher would catch them and correct them. The sad truth is that many publishers don’t care what the facts are as long as the book is interesting and the public will buy it. Cash in the pocket is the bottom line and truth has nothing to do with it.

Which, I suppose, brings us to some scientific truth. For the Loch Ness monster to be a real, viable creature, there must be more than one. As an anthropology student at the University of Iowa, I was introduced to the concept of a breeding population. This is the number of animals that must exist to keep a population alive and reproducing. If the number falls too low, say under about thirty healthy individuals, then that population is on the verge of extinction. Any minor disaster can wipe them out. A reduction in the food supply, an outbreak of disease, a reduction in the size of the habitat or just encounters with trigger-happy humans.

This means that there must be thirty or forty creatures in Loch Ness, not just one. And while I can accept the idea that some kind of huge, bottom dwelling creature in the loch could escape detection, even with all the attempts made to find it, it is not so easy to accept the idea that thirty or forty could have done so.
These attempts to find the creature, some of them quite sophisticated and some of them well equipped with the latest technology, should have found something other than rather murky photographs that show something exciting, but only after they have been enhanced.

No, in this case, science seems to suggest that there is no Loch Ness monster. If there was, we’d have better data about it. And like so much of the rest of the paranormal world, the best bits of evidence have been exposed over the years. The surgeon photograph, taken in the 1930s is now an admitted hoax ( seen on the left). There really is no reason to challenge this conclusion given who made it and the circumstances under which he made the claim. Until other, better evidence is presented, we must conclude that there is no monster in Loch Ness.

Which is really what we can conclude about Big Foot. Same problems as with Loch Ness. You need a population large enough to breed and a population of that size would leave bigger and better clues than we have.

Once again, we do not have the proof necessary. We have some poor photographs. We have hundreds of footprints, many of which were left by people who thought it amusing to confuse the issue. We have some hair samples that do not lead us to conclude that an unknown primate is roaming the Pacific Northwest, but that known creatures are.

Which brings us to the Allende Letters, those mysterious documents that so interested the Office of Naval Research back in the late 1950s. The story, as it is usually told, is that a copy of Morris K. Jessup’s The Case for the UFO, apparently annotated by three unidentified, but very knowledgeable men, was received at the Office of Naval Research. Over a period of weeks, a number of letters, obviously written by one or all of those mysterious men, arrived at the home of Jessup. He turned them over to the ONR. Officers there were so impressed with all this, according to the legend, that they had it duplicated, notations and all, and included the letters in an appendix. The Navy began to investigate the claims in the book and because the Navy was involved, it lent a note of authenticity to the story.

The story was a wild one. According to the letters, the Navy, during the Second World War had teleported a ship in an experiment that had something to do with Einstein’s Unified Field Theory. According to Carlos Allende (the man who signed two of the letters, the third was signed by Carl Allen and is seen on the left), the experiment had been a success. The ship was teleported. The sailors, however, were failures. They manifested all sorts of bizarre side effects from their teleportation.

In the early 1970s, while I was still on active duty with the Army, and right after I had returned from Vietnam, I learned that one of those involved in the creation of the annotated copy of Jessup’s book., Sidney Sherby, was working for Varo Manufacturing in nearby Arlington, Texas. I called him to arrange an interview.

He told me that contrary to the published information, the Navy had not been interested in the Allende Letters or the annotated copy of the book ( a sample page seen on the left). Two of the officers there were (Sherby and a guy named Hoover) and the Navy had no objection to their following up on it as long as it didn’t involve any Navy resources or personnel. In other words, according to Sherby, the Navy had no interest in the matter and the investigation was not Navy sponsored.

Then, in the 1970s Carlos Allende appeared at the headquarters of the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization and told the international director, Jim Lorenzen, that the whole thing was a hoax. He’d made it up because the writings of Jessup had scared him. He signed a statement saying that, left a suitcase or two with Lorezen for safe keeping, and left.

But in the world of the paranormal, nothing is that easy. Allende surfaced again several years later saying that his claim of hoax had been coerced by, who else, the CIA, and that the story contained in the letters was all true. The CIA had made him claim it was all a hoax.

Still later, Robert A. Goerman, a researcher living in Pennsylvania, discovered that Allende, or Allen’s family, lived nearby. He investigated and in an article published in the October 1980 issue of Fate, explained the whole tale, concluding, based on the evidence, that the Allende Letter saga was a hoax. It is a conclusion that should be noted because, like so much else, it is often ignored. The man who created the Allende Letters said it was a hoax, those who were at the Office of Naval Research said there was no interest in them by the Navy, and independent investigation has shown the case to be a hoax, and yet, we still discuss it. (In the mid-1970s I wrote an article about my findings... Allende or Allen... saw it and sent an annotated copy back to the magazine and is seen at the left. Yes, those are Allende's markings and comments.)

The point here is not to rehash old UFO cases, or to argue for or against some claim of the paranormal, but to examine what we know, and why it continues to recycle. We have good answers for some cases. The mystery has been solved and when we look at the evidence with an open mind and in a dispassionate way we can seen that the answers are correct.

I believe that we need to publicize those answers periodically, and we must publicize new answers to old cases as we find them so that we can spend our limited time and resources on the cases that deserve them. I believe that we must publish this "negative" information as we learn it so that our whole inquiry can be advanced.

To me, the discovery of an answer for a mystery, the solution to a UFO case is as exciting as the mystery itself. I am delighted that we can look back at the disappearance of the Stardust, an airplane that disappeared without a trace in the late 1940s and say we now know what happened to it. A tragedy for those on board but a mystery that has been solved, in this case, by chance.

And, of course, the discovery of the airplane doesn’t answer one of the questions about that. Just what did the word, "STENDIC" mean? (See Disappearing Aircraft - Part 1: Stardust, August 2006).

So, sometimes it looks as if this blog is negative, but the truth is, I’m just reporting, as accurately as possible, what I see as the truth, positive or negative. Solutions come at us slowly sometimes, and there are those who truly wish we had no solutions so they ignore them, but it is all part of what we do.

Roswell Questions and Answers

Over the course of the last few weeks, British skeptic (or should I say sceptic) Christopher Allen and I have engaged in a discussion of the Roswell case. It was sparked by my thoughts on Sheridan Cavitt, the counter- intelligence agent who accompanied Jesse Marcel out to the debris field in the Roswell UFO crash case. I thought it was of sufficient interest, and of a civil tone, that it might be better to move it to a more prominent place here. For those who wish to read the essay that began this, and the other comments about it, see the Saturday, April 28, 2007 blog which can be accessed under the archives.

In the last of his comments CDA wrote:

Re: David Rudiak and the Ramey memo; you suggest that Rudiak may be right. I am not going into all the intricate letter-by-letter, word-by-word analysis, as this has been done ad nauseam by others. I will instead give what is known as a 'reductio ad absurdum' answer.

If Rudiak is right, this would be the first official document acknowledging an event of momentous importance to the world, namely the discovery of intelligent ET life and its visit to our planet. Therefore there would be (as per my previous posting) several miles deep of official documentation on it, involving the work of countless scientists, committees, institutions, etc etc. As such the GAO would undoubtedly have unearthed this stuff during their searches (which is what they were contracted to do). Since no such documents surfaced and since all the relevant agencies deny the existence of any such documentation, Rudiak is wrong. QED.

Nothing more need be said; but I would rate the chance of Rudiak being right on a par with the chance that the CIA murdered Princess Diana.

Re: the FBI teletype, again there was no follow-up because there was nothing to follow up. The AF explained it all at Ft Worth, hence the FBI decided there was nothing further to do. There are no inaccuracies in the teletype either, merely a disagreement between those at Ft Worth, who had seen the debris, and those at Wright Patterson who had not (at least not at that point). Had there been a follow-up message, that too ought to have been found by the GAO.

The AF were concerned enough about the Arnold sighting to send two officers to interview him, and keep in touch with him. They spent far more time on this case than on Roswell, and there is quite a bit of paperwork on the case. These same officers later died in the plane crash after Maury island (another cover-up of course!).

The Mogul answer fits quite well if you go by the 1947 accounts. It is not such a good fit if you go by accounts given 30-50 years afterwards. It has its problems sure, but it is a far better answer than the ET one. (A 60 year ET secret indeed. And not one iota of hardware or paperwork to back it up).

Brazel held incommunicado by the military for a week? I just don't believe it. Brazel, and other civilians, never once saying anything about this amazing, extraordinary discovery (if that be what it was) until his death? I don't believe that either.

Elsewhere you talk about General Exon. According to Karl Pflock Exon did not even have second-hand evidence about wreckage & bodies, let alone firsthand evidence. His story was based entirely on rumors he had heard at WPAFB. And rumors do not count as secondhand or even thirdhand evidence. They are rumors, nothing else. Perhaps Exon was referring to rumors following the Scully book in 1950, as certainly was Sarbacher in his infamous letter of Nov 1983. (The Exon story is in Pflock's book, p.124. )

David Rudiak and others are clutching at straws. And that is all they ever will be clutching at.

CDA

First, let me say that your (CDA) belief in something or disbelief is totally irrelevant. Believe Mack was held by military authorities or don’t, but the fact is that family members other than Bessie say he was. Military men, including Edwin Easley said he was. Friends saw him in Roswell and friends reported that he complained to them about being held in jail when he visited them within days of his release. True, the guest house on the base is not the same thing as a cell in the sheriff’s office, but if you’re not allowed to leave, then it is close enough. Finally, once again, there are the newspaper articles that put him in Roswell on Wednesday so we know, contrary to what Bessie said, her father did return to Roswell.

There was no one with him when he died in the early 1960s, so we don’t have a "deathbed" statement about it. We do, however, have a number of his friends telling us that Brazel did complain about his treatment on his return from Roswell. It seems that we run into this belief roadblock of yours all the time and when all else fails, you retreat to the "I don’t believe it" tactic.

Second, let me say that I’m not married to Dave Rudiak’s interpretation of the Ramey memo. Clearly some words can be read in memo held by Ramey. Just as clearly there is some wild speculation about many of the other words in it. I have read the various documents about it and even helped design some of the experimentation to check on it (and don’t think that made me a hero in the eyes of the UFO community). While I believe that the evidence in the memo is taken about as far as it can be, and that I doubt we’ll ever have a universally accepted interpretation, there is always the possibility that some sort of breakthrough will allow us to read the memo accurately... and that will be interesting.

But now let’s talk about General Exon. Karl Pflock devoted very little in the way to a discussion of Exon, most of that quite dismissive. Philip Klass, in his book, was even more dismissive, never really addressing the testimony, but rejecting it because of what Pflock had to say about it. Pflock’s attempt, Klass’s attempt and your attempt to dismiss what he said as nothing more than rumor and second or third-hand stories is just flat wrong, an attempt to appeal to authority, and certainly not part of a sustained and intelligent dialogue.

Exon told me, and he told others, that he had flown over the sites in New Mexico. He gave us the orientation that was correct, meaning northwest to southeast. He talked of seeing markings on the ground that include the gouge and then vehicle tracks. If correct, then Mogul is eliminated because Mogul wouldn’t gouge the ground (as Charles Moore told me personally) and there wouldn’t have been two sites. This then, would be first-hand testimony. And I point out, that unlike some others who have been dismissive of Exon (Pflock interviewed him on the telephone once), I met him in person at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, as well as interviewed him on the telephone.

But here’s the total of what Pflock said on page 124, " When first made public in 1991, it seemed Exon’s memories of the possibility that the bodies had been flown from Roswell to Wright Field in 1947 might be based on firsthand information. If so, this would be highly significant, especially since Exon also seemed to have firsthand knowledge of the debris field and crash site, as well as a shadowy high-level group established to keep the truth about Roswell under wraps. However, in a lengthy September 1992 telephone conversation, Exon told me his comments about bodies and debris at Wright Field were based solely upon rumors he heard from colleagues at Wright Field and nothing more. As for the ‘control group,’ he said he was merely making educated guesses as to who likely would have been selected for such a group. Finally, with respect to his all alleged knowledge of the debris and crash sites, he told me he remembered flying over several sites in New Mexico quite some time after July 1947, on missions having nothing to do with the Roswell incident. One such location might have fit what he had been told about the crash site by ufologists because it had vehicle tracks running to it."

That’s all that Pflock has to say about Exon. He references a personal telephone call to Exon, provides nothing in the way of transcripts or tape of that conversation, and then dismisses the testimony as irrelevant and unimportant. Exon didn’t see anything first hand. Exon heard rumors. Exon didn’t fly over the crash site... well, maybe he did, but it was later and it might not have been the right place.

But we don’t have to rely, in my case, on my impressions of what Exon said in private telephone calls that can be filtered through my belief structures. I have the tapes, have published quotes in my books on Roswell, and Exon even said the quotes were accurate. Remember that point. Exon said the quotes were accurate. Exon wrote to me, "Further, you both [Don Schmitt and I] likely recall on many occasions during my visits with you in person and on the phone [please note the phrase, "on many occasions during my visits with you in person and on the phone," which means more than an undocumented telephone conversation offered by Pflock] ...that I did not know anything firsthand. Although I believe you did quote me accurately, I do believe that in your writings you gave more credence and impression of personal and direct knowledge that [sic] my recordings would indicate on their own! I felt that throughout the portions where my name was used." Please note he didn’t like the weight I assigned his statements, but that’s an editorial choice on my part and it in no way compromises the validity of the quotes... "I believe you did quote me accurately."

So, then what did Exon say even if we just take everything and label it as second hand? Exon talked about Roswell debris being flown to Wright-Patterson. "The boys who tested it," Exon said, "said it was very unusual....It had them pretty puzzled." Here an Air Force general, even if he's only giving his general impression of what he's heard about Roswell, says the same things about the Roswell debris as some of the controversial first-hand witnesses do. If you put any weight on Exon's impressions, the Mogul theory takes a big hit which might be why we now have to reduce Exon’s testimony to alleged rumor.

Also remember that Exon said, "The metal and material was unknown to anyone I talked to. Whatever they found, I never heard what the results were. A couple of guys thought it might be Russian but the overall consensus was that the pieces were from space."

It’s clear that Exon didn't handle or analyze the material himself, and even that his knowledge was limited. But he appears to think he'd spoken to people who knew at least something about what the analysis had shown. How sure was he of this knowledge? Exon said, "I know [my emphasis] that...[General Ramey] along with the people out at Roswell decided to change the story while they got their act together and got the information into the Pentagon." (UFO Crash at Roswell, paperback, p. 111.) Another Exon quote, "I just know [again my emphasis] there was a top intelligence echelon represented and the President's office was represented and the Secretary of Defense's office was represented..." (He's talking about the secret UFO committee that he's sure existed; UFO Crash, p. 232.)

Here’s what we learn from Exon quotes (which Pflock ignores in his book, and which the Air Force ignores in their latest Roswell investigation), (a) that Exon certainly thought he knew quite a bit (even if not first hand) about the subjects he was quoted on, that (b) he says quite clearly that he'd talked to people who were involved first-hand, and (c) "Most of the people you're talking to are a little bit like me. Close enough to know that there was something happening. They had no direct responsibility for any of it."

Here’s what Exon said, which is far beyond anything Pflock discussed in his book. You might also want to ask yourself why the Air Force didn’t interview Exon. They certainly could have because he was alive during their investigation and I gave them his telephone number and address (as if they couldn’t have found that themselves). Then, rather than interview some civilians 9like those working on Project Mogul) who had no real knowledge of the Roswell case, they could have talked to one of their own and gotten his impressions... not to mention the taped (video and audio) with other officers who were involved, which they didn’t bother to do.

So, Exon said:

1. He believed the Roswell crash was extraterrestrial. ("Roswell was the recovery of a craft from space.")

2. He said he knew that debris from the crash was studied at Wright-Patterson, and that the debris was extremely unusual. His description matches that of alleged first-hand witnesses and moves it away from Mogul.

3. He said that "apparently" there were bodies found, and that they were located at "another location," or in other words not at the location of the metallic debris. The main body of the craft, he said, was also found there.

4. He said the bodies were taken to Wright-Patterson. He said that one was taken to Denver because the Army had a mortuary service there.

5. He said he flew over the Roswell crash site, and saw the "gouge" the crashed object made in the ground.

6. He said there was a coverup. In fact, he called it (on the tape) "a national coverup project."

Is all of this remarkable? Of course it is. An Air Force general, whose assignment at Wright-Patterson suggests he might have been in a position to know what he was talking about, says, in great detail, that he thinks the Roswell crash was real. Yet, you wish to ignore this testimony and rely on the very little that Pflock offered in the way of evidence for his position on the Exon testimony. Believe or disbelief, the problem here is that Exon was at Wright Field in 1947, he had first-hand knowledge, he talked to people involved in the research, and when questions about the validity of the quotes were raised, Exon verified that they were accurate.

Philip Klass is even more dismissive than Pflock, reducing mention of Exon to a footnote and the claim that Exon was engaging in gossip (or to be accurate, just telling rumors he had heard... rumor being defined as an unverified or unfounded report, story, etc., circulating from person to person). Exon was clear that his information came from specific people who were the ones who conducted the testing on the debris and who were involved in the retrieval and preservation of the bodies of the aliens. Kal Korff was even worse, misinterpreting Exon’s statements and cherry picking the information to fit his preconceived notions.

But the real point is that Exon provided both first and second-hand testimony, based his statements on what he had observed himself and provided by officers he trusted, and who, when push came to shove, verified the accuracy of the quotes I attributed to him.

(NOTE: Yes, some of this is taken from a letter that Greg Sandow wrote on UFO Updates a number of years ago, and from which I quoted in one of my postings about Kal Korff and his suggestions that I was less than accurate in my reporting. In my upcoming Roswell Revisited, from Fate and due out this summer, I go into greater detail about this.)

For those interested, I have limited copies of:

The UFO Crash at Roswell ($5.00)
The Truth about the UFO Crash at Roswell ($10.00 hardback, $5.00 paperback)
and
Roswell UFO Crash Update ($10.00) (in which is information about Frank Kaufmann that is now horribly out of date, which is to say, inaccurate).

Plus $5.00 shipping and handling

Available at :

PO Box 10934
Cedar Rapids, IA 52410

A Roswell Chronology

The chronology of the events outside of Roswell is sometimes very confusing, as bob koford noted in his questions about the Bessie Brazel involvement in the recovery of what she said was a weather balloon. The problem is that we must base some of the chronology on speculation because there are discrepancies in the published record, there are conflicting statements made by witnesses, and there is a confusion caused by the personal agendas of Roswell authors and the point of view of the Air Force.

If we are dealing with a Project Mogul explanation, we probably should start the chronology before Mack Brazel finds anything on his ranch. We need to start with the balloon experiments in Alamogordo.

June 4, 1947 - According to the diary kept be Dr. Albert Crary, the man in charge of the balloon experiments in New Mexico: Out to Tularosa Range and fired charges between 00 and 06 this am. No balloon flight again on account of clouds. Flew regular sonobuoy up in cluster of balloons and had good luck on receiver on ground but poor on plane. Out with Thompson pm. Shot charges from 1800 to 2400.

So we have contradictory accounts here in the only documented source. Charles Moore, who was with Crary on these tests wrote, "My examination of his original handwritten entries suggests that he copied from other notes; the entries from June 2 through the first half of June 5 appear to have been written in one sitting with the same pencil and without any corrections or false starts."

This is really unhelpful because the key Mogul launch is that of Flight No. 4, that is, the June 4 launch. The remains of the other balloon launches were recovered or spotted. The next possible culprit, Flight No. 9, turns out was not a viable alternative, leaving, for the Project Mogul crowd, only Flight No. 4.

What this means is that the flight, which Moore said he remembered got close to Arabella, NM, and which he used winds aloft data to attempt to plot a course some fifty years later, might have come down on the Brazel (Foster) ranch. It would have fallen late on June 4 or early on June 5. It must be stated here that Moore’s calculations take it no closer than 17 miles of the recovery area which, of course, only puts it in the area and not down where Brazel found debris.

June 14, 1947 - According to the article published in the Roswell Daily Record, Brazel said that he and his 8-year-old son were on the range some seven or eight miles from the ranch house when they found the debris.

This suggests that Brazel discovered the material three weeks before he reported it to the sheriff. What doesn’t make sense here is why he would leave it in the field for three weeks, then clean it up himself and then report it to the sheriff.

July 4, 1947 - Brazel, quoted in the Roswell Daily Record, said that he, his wife, son Vernon and 14-year-old daughter Bessie (identified as Betty in the newspaper) went out to the range and cleaned up the debris.

Bill Brazel, who at the time lived in Albuquerque says that the family was in Tularosa because when he arrived at the ranch, no one was there. He was there for a couple of days or so before his father returned from Roswell.

July 6, 1947 - Brazel traveled to Roswell and told local authorities of the debris, according to the time lines developed by various UFO researchers. According to wire service stories dated July 8, "Sheriff [George] Wilcox [Chaves County Sheriff] says the rancher does not have a telephone, and that he did not report finding the disc until the day before yesterday [meaning July 6 here].

This seems to document the Sunday trip by Brazel into Roswell even though later newspaper articles suggest that he didn’t drive into town until Monday, July 7.

July 6, 1947 - Major Jesse Marcel is called by the sheriff and eventually drives out to the ranch with Brazel to see the debris. Marcel would say that he went out with Captain Sheridan Cavitt, who would deny this and then confirm it.Marcel would later say he didn’t know what it was.

July 8, 1947 - Walt Whitmore, Sr., majority owner of KGFL apparently drove out to find Brazel and took him back to Roswell. There he was interviewed at length.

Jud Roberts, the minority owner of the station told various investigators and researchers that they had an hour long recording of Brazel, but before they could broadcast it, they were ordered not to. That recording has long since disappeared.

July 8, 1947 - There are a number of wire service stories. Frank Joyce, who worked at KGFL radio in Roswell at the time, kept teletype messages so that we can see what was being said over the wire.

July 9, 1947 - the Roswell Daily Record supplies office space so that two reporters from the Associated Press can interview Brazel.

Here are the problems. According to ranchers, they wouldn’t leave the debris in the field once they found it because the livestock would eat it and that could prove fatal. They would have picked it up. So, if Brazel had found it on June 14 (which, BTW negates Mogul Flight No. 9), he would have had it cleaned up around that date.

There is conflicting data about the timing of Brazel’s first trip into Roswell. This really isn’t a major concern. We have the story, told by Marcel, of remaining overnight at the Brazel ranch. Bessie Brazel said no to that. Mary Cavitt said no, basing that on her opinion that if her husband had just arrived in Roswell and then was gone overnight, she’d remember.

Clearly Brazel was in Roswell on the evening of July 8 and on July 9. He provided his story to the reporters in Roswell, there are pictures of him there, and there are witnesses to his presence there. There is no reason to reject this idea even though Bessie said that her father did not remain overnight in Roswell.

Both Bill Brazel, who drove from Albuquerque to Corona, and Major Edwin Easley, the provost marshal, said that Mack remained at the base for a number of days. Neighbors report that Mack complained about being held on the base.

This then, provides a chronology of events that might help put it all into perspective. We all can see the problems. We have conflicting data from documents, from witnesses, and from various investigators, researchers and governmental officials. It seems that everyone who comments on this has some sort of agenda so all we can do is attempt to put together the best information we can.

(Be sure to watch for Roswell Revisited, coming from Fate this summer.)

Project Blue Book - Exposed

(Note: A number of years ago, I wrote a book called Project Blue Book - Exposed. It was an examination of cases that had been buried in the Blue Book files for years. Some were quite interesting, including reports of alien creatures. Many more were just misidentifications of natural or human created objects. I looked at the whole range of cases and then selected those that were representative and that would provide a perspective of that investigation. One of the chapters (one of the shorter ones), January 17, 1969: One of the Last of the Unidentifieds, is reproduced here.)

In an example of how the Air Force can’t win for losing, I thought we’d take a look at one of the last cases submitted to Project Blue Book that was labeled unidentified. The Project record (seen below at the left) card stated, "The most likely stimulus was a helicopter with an unusual lighting system. However, a check of the four airports in the area revealed that three definitely did not have any helo activity and the other had destroyed flight records for that date and was therefore unable to say if any helicopter activity originated from their airfield that night. It is also possible that a light aircraft such as an aerial advertiser, the Goodyear blimp, or an aircraft doing infrared photography may have been the stimulus of the sighting. However, because it has not been definitely established that an aircraft of this type was in the area, the sighting is being carried as unidentified."

If that isn’t a load of double-talk, I don’t know what it would be. It might be a helicopter, but we can’t find any records that one was flying that night and in that location. It might be an advertising plane, but there are no records of it, and, at the time of the sighting, about four in the morning, who would be awake to see the thing anyway? It might be the Goodyear blimp, but there are no records that the Goodyear blimp was anywhere near the location of the sighting. Or it might have been an aircraft doing infrared photography, but, again, there are no records to support that suggestion.

Using this same logic, we could suggest it was the space shuttle, though none had been built in 1969. Maybe it was an advance design fighter plane that had a single test flight. Maybe it was an Apollo capsule re-entering the atmosphere, but there are no records of such a flight. Besides, at four in the morning, NASA would miss the best TV audiences.

The case began at 3:24 a.m. on January 17, 1969 in Crittenden, Virginia when Roman K. Lupton was awakened by an unusual sound. He said it was like an electric motor about to go bad. His wife said that she, too, could hear the same, somewhat annoying hum.

According to Lupton, "I went to the bedroom window... looked in the direction of the sound for a few seconds before it came into sight... I watched this object with lights all around the bottom move slowly forward with an up-and-down motion which was also slow, 30 miles per hour, varying not more than 25 feet up and down. It went forward over yard light in my neighbor’s yard next door, a little further forward and started in a banking left turn with the same speed and motion as before. At this point the object seems to tilt and turn instead of changing elevation - except for this banking motion it was the same as it had been previously... At this time as it was turning the blinking light was clearest and possibly could have been the first time I saw it... At this point it went out of sight."

Lupton said that he had seen a series of windows around the bottom of the UFO that were all brightly lighted except one in the rear that blinked. The windows were rectangular and appeared translucent. They allowed the light out but Lupton couldn’t see in, and each seemed to be surrounded by a glow or haze. Lupton could see the center of the craft in the light and said that it was solid, apparently metallic, and reflected some of the light.

Lupton asked his wife if she had seen the object and she said she had. Next he called the operator in Smithfield and was startled when she said that she could hear the sound in the background.

When the noise faded out, Lupton decided that he should alert someone in authority and finally asked the operator to place a call to Langley Air Force Base. He was connected to an airman who took the UFO report.

The next day, Lupton tried to find the operator that he had talked to hoping to establish some corroboration but failed to find her. Finally, on January 22, he spoke to the supervisor who told him that the only thing the operator could have heard was some kind of aircraft. Lupton insisted, but the supervisor was equally insistent. The supervisor refused to supply the name of the operator or even let him talk to her.

Also on January 17, Lupton decided to try find others who might have heard the noise. According to Lupton, "When I got home I started looking for someone... The wife [of his next door neighbor]... remembered her mother saying she had heard something. Sure enough the lady and her three-year-old granddaughter both had heard it. The lady [Louise Bailey] stated ‘it had awakened the girl [Robin Harvill] and both were frightened,’ but the lady did not look out of her window to see what was making the sound... She also stated that ‘it sounded as if it were coming through the roof.’"

The next day, Lupton did the same thing and found another neighbor who said that she had heard the sound. Adrienne Carron (or Corbor, it’s spelled both ways in the Air Force file) said that "the sound was loud and varying and it was coming from almost right on the roof top" and it also frightened her four-year-old daughter, Evelyn.

In the letter that Lupton wrote to the Air Force about the experience, he listed all those who had heard the sound. What is interesting about the list is that the Air Force officers who reviewed the file left in all the names except a Sunday-school teacher, and a hint that someone else had reported the sound to Langley AFB.

The Air Force eventually decided to investigate the case. Almost two months after Lupton filed his report which included the standard Air Force Form 117, that is the UFO form, a NICAP form, a post card, and a road map, the Air Force got into it. Lieutenant Colonel Everett M. Worthington wrote, "After discussing this sighting with Mr. Lupton, I attempted to bring into focus the similarity between his UFO sighting and a jet-powered helicopter. He was not receptive to this line of reasoning."

On April 7, after Lieutenant Colonel Worthington had completed his investigation and suggested a helicopter, Lieutenant Colonel Hector Quintanilla (then chief of Project Blue Book) wrote to a number of agencies around the Crittenden, Virginia area asking if they had any helicopter traffic flying at that time of the morning. All the agencies except one responded they had no traffic in the area. The lone exception was the FAA which reported that such records were destroyed after fifteen days. They didn’t know if there had been any helicopter traffic in the area because they no longer had their records.

The response from Fort Eutis was the most interesting. Not only didn’t they have helicopters flying, Lurlene Martin, the flight scheduling clerk at Felker Army Air Field, said that poor weather conditions had grounded all their aircraft at 9:30 p.m. and they did not resume flying until the following morning. That would seem to suggest poor weather throughout the region that would have kept all helicopter, and other aviation activity such as flying advertisements on the ground.

This one note, in the files, could be quite important only because it suggests that the weather was bad. The poor weather could have been localized and therefore not apply to a larger region. Air Force investigators didn’t bother to find out. They had decided that Lupton saw a helicopter and tried to convince him of it.

The other question is, "If it had been a helicopter, what kind was it?" There was obviously a strange lighting configuration, and it would seem to me, that an investigation could have attacked the problem from that direction. Had they been able to locate a helicopter with a strange lighting configuration on it, that would have gone a long way to solving the case. Even if they couldn’t prove the aircraft was flying at the time of the sighting, the configuration of the lights would have been persuasive evidence. However, there is no indication in the file that the Air Force investigators even tried to do that.

In the end, we are left with a case where one man and his wife apparently saw a strange object and about a dozen others heard the sound it made. That would, of course, rule out hallucination. It does not prove that Lupton saw a flying saucer, just that he did see something strange.

It is too bad that the one of last unidentified UFO sightings in the Project Blue Book files had to be so non spectacular. There were no photographs, radar tracks, or movies taken. It was just a sighting in the early morning caused by a low-flying, and very noisy object.

What might be more important in this is the reaction of the military. Rather than investigate the case, they spent their time trying to convince the witness he had seen a helicopter when the evidence showed that no helicopters were flying in his area at the time of the sighting. And even with those negative results, they noted on the Project Card that a helicopter was the most likely answer.

To that, all I can say is, "Did I miss something?"

And now for the sales pitch. I have a limited number of the hardback copies of the book, Project Blue Book - Exposed, that originally sold for $22.95. For those interested in a copy, I would send it to you for just $10.00 plus shipping and handling of $5.00 (yeah, you have to pay the postage and for the envelop, but hey, you get the book for less than half price and if you tell me how you’d like it inscribed, why, I’d even sign it). For those interested, send a check or money order to:

Kevin Randle
PO Box 10934
Cedar Rapids, IA 52410-0934

Thanks.

Warren Smith: UFO Investigator or Hoaxster

Removed at the request of the original author.

The DuBose Affidavit

In the last few days, those on the UFO UpDates list have been talking about the affidavit made by Colonel (later brigadier general) Thomas DuBose (seen at the left), who had been the Chief of Staff of the Eighth Air Force in 1947. DuBose, along with Brigadier General (later lieutenant general) Roger Ramey were photographed with a balloon remains in Ramey’s office that was supposedly what was found at Roswell.

On September 9, 1991, when DuBose was 90, he provided an affidavit for the Fund for UFO Research. Since many have asked about it, I decided to publish it here. It says:

(1) My Name is Thomas Jefferson DuBose.

(2) My address is redacted.

(3) I retired from the U.S. Air Force in 1959 with the rank of Brigadier General.

(4) In July 1947, I was stationed at Fort Worth Army Air Field [later Carswell Air Force Base] in Fort Worth, Texas. I served as Chief of Staff to Major General (sic) Roger Ramey, Commander, Eighth Air Force. I had the rank of Colonel.

(5) In early July, I received a phone call from Gen. Clements McMullen, Deputy Commander, Strategic Air Command. He asked what we knew about the object which had been recovered outside Roswell, New Mexico, as reported by the press. I called Col. William Blanchard, Commander of the Roswell Army Air Field and directed him to send the material in a sealed container to me at Fort Worth. I so informed Gen. McMullen.

(6) After the plane from Roswell arrived with the material, I asked the Base Commander, Col. Al Clark to take possession of the material and to personally transport it in a B-26 to Gen. McMullen in Washington, D.C. I notified Gen. McMullen, and he told me he would send the material by personal courier to Benjamin Chidlaw, Commanding General of the Air Material Command at Wright Field [later Wright-Patterson AFB]. The entire operation was conducted under the strictest secrecy.

(7) The material shown in the photographs taken in Gen. Ramey’s office was a weather balloon (Ramey crouched, with DuBose seated and the wather balloon). The weather balloon explanation for the material was a cover story to divert the attention of the press.

(8) I have not been paid anything of value to make this statement, which is the truth to the best of my recollection.

It was signed and dated by DuBose. His signature was witnessed by three people, including a notary public which made this a sworn affidavit.

For those interested a photo of the affidavit follows.

(And for those interested, look for Roswell Revisited, an examination of some of the latest information about the Roswell case, coming from Galde Press this summer.)

Bessie Brazel and the Roswell Case

The skeptics believe they have a slam dunk on the Roswell, coming at us with information that simply is not proven as we look at it. Much of it is single witness and contradicts that given by many others. One of the best examples of this is the testimony provided by Bessie Brazel, who seems to be a very nice woman but who stands nearly alone in her testimony.

In the early 1990s, the Fund for UFO Research, FUFOR, initiated a program to gather testimony and affidavits from Roswell witnesses. Naturally, one of those was Bessie Brazel. In her affidavit, she said:

William W. "Mack" Brazel was my father. In 1947, when I was 14, he was the manager of the Foster Ranch in Lincoln County, New Mexico, near Corona. Our family had a home in Tularosa, when my mother, my younger brother Vernon, and I lived during the school year. The three of us spent the summers on the Foster place with dad.

In July 1947, right around the Fourth, did found a lot of debris scattered over a pasture some distance from the house we lived in on the ranch. None of us was riding with him when he found the material, and I do not remember anyone else being with him. He told us about it when he came in at the end of the day.

Dad was concerned because the debris was near a surface-water stock tank. He thought having it blowing around would scare the sheep and they would not water. So, a day or two later, he, Vernon and I went to the site to pick up the material. We went on horseback and took several feed sacks to collect the debris. I do not recall just how far the site was from the house, but the ride out there took some time.

There as a lot of debris scattered sparsely over an area that seems to me now to have about the size of a football field [or about an acre]. There may have been additional material spread out more widely by the wind, which was blowing quite strongly.

The debris looked like pieces of a large balloon which had burst. The pieces were small, the largest were small, the largest I remember measuring about the same as the diameter of a basketball. Most of it was a kind of double-sided material, foil-like on one side and rubber-like on the other. Both sides were grayish silver in color, the foil more silvery than the rubber. Sticks, like kite sticks, were three inches wide and had flower-like designs on it. The "flowers" were faint, a variety of pastel colors, and reminded me of Japanese paintings in which the flowers are not all connected. I do not recall any other types of material or markings, nor do I remember seeing gouges in the ground or any other signs that anything may have hit the ground hard.

The foil-rubber material could not be torn like ordinary aluminum foil can be torn. I do not recall anything else about the strength or other properties of what we picked up.

We spent several hours collecting the debris and putting it in sacks. I believe we filled about three sacks, and we took them back to the ranch house. We speculated a bit about what the material could be. I remember dad saying "Oh, it’s just a bunch of garbage."

Soon after, dad went to Roswell to order winter feed. It was on this trip that he told the sheriff what he had found. I think we all went into two with him, but I am not certain about this, as he made two or three trips to Roswell about that time, and we did not go on all of them. (In those days, it was an all-day trip, leaving very early in the morning and returning after dark.) I am quite sure that it was no more than a day trip, and I do not remember dad taking any overnight or longer trips away from the ranch around that time.

Within a day or two, several military people came to the ranch. There may have been as many as 15 of them. One or two officers spoke with dad and mom, while the rest of us waited. No one spoke with Vernon and me. Since I seem to recall that the military were on the ranch most of a day, they may have gone out to where we picked up the material. I am not sure about this, one way or the other, but I do remember they took the sacks of debris with them.

Although it is certainly possible, I do not recall anyone finding any more of the material later. Dad’s comment on the whole business was, "They made one hell of a hullabaloo out of nothing."

Since she gave that affidavit, she has been interviewed by others. The story told to them is substantially the same as that in the affidavit, though, when interviewed by John Kirby and Don Mitchell told them, "I wasn’t terribly excited or interested in it [the debris recovery] when it happened and I haven’t really gotten any more interested in it."

She did said that her father had found the debris sometime before July 4 and that she, her father and her brother Vernon, collected it. She said, "We had three or four sacks... we stuffed the sacks and tied [them] to the saddle... Dad just stuck it [the sacks of debris] under the steps."
It was the following week that her father took the debris into Roswell. She confirmed to Kirby and Newman that she, her mother and brother had gone with him. While he was in the sheriff’s office, they were in a nearby park. She said, "He was there quite a while because it was late afternoon or early evening when we started back to the ranch."

According to her, when they returned, they were not followed by any military vehicles. That means that the testimony of Jesse Marcel was in error. It also means that Sheridan Cavitt and his testimony is in error, if we accept that of Bessie.

She said, "They didn’t go with us. They came up, I don’t know, if it was the next day or a couple of days later."

She also said that they had cleaned the field and picked up all the debris. She said that they had it all. There was nothing for Marcel or Cavitt to see when they went to the field. In fact, in talking with ranchers in the area about this debris, whether from a Mogul balloon array or an alien spacecraft, I learned that they would not allow this sort of thing to remain out there. The animals had a habit of eating things like that as part of their grazing and if the animals eat it, it would make them sick. Brazel would clean it up as quickly as possible.

If we believe Bessie, then her father did not clean it up right away, but did within a couple of days. Yet, we know that when Marcel arrived, there was a large field filled with debris. And, if we want to reject the testimony of Marcel, there is Cavitt. While his description of the debris field suggests it was smaller than that suggested by Marcel, he still said there was debris out there for them to find and for him to identify as the remains of a balloon.

So, Bessie’s story is contradicted by both Marcel and Cavitt, one who thought it was a spacecraft and one who said it was a balloon. It doesn’t matter which side of the fence you come down on, there is testimony to contradict what Bessie remembers. She is stand alone on this.

Bessie also said that her father didn’t return to Roswell a day or so later and there is nothing in her affidavit to suggest otherwise. She added, telling Kirby and Newman that if he had gone to Roswell and didn’t return for three or four days, there would have been hell to pay. There was no reason for him to return to Roswell after they all had gone there earlier in the week.

But once again, there is evidence that such is not the case. First, and probably best, is the article that appeared in the Roswell Daily Record on July 9. Mack Brazel was photographed while there. He gave an interview to two AP reporters at the newspaper office in Roswell. Clearly, he returned to Roswell at some point. Bessie’s memory of the events is wrong about his not returning.

Major Edwin Easley was the provost marshal in Roswell in 1947. He told me that Mack Brazel had been held in the guest house for several days. Brazel said he was in jail and I suppose that if you’re not allowed to leave without escort, and that the doors are locked, then being in the guest house is about the same thing.

Bill Brazel, Bessie’s older brother told me that he saw an article about his father in one of the Albuquerque newspapers and realized that his father needed help. When Bill arrived at the ranch, his father was not there and didn’t return for three or four days. In fact, according to Bill, there was no one at the ranch at that time.

Neighbors like Marian Strickland told me that Mack had complained to her about being held in jail. Although she didn’t see Mack until after the events, she did say that he sat in her kitchen complaining about being held in Roswell. While there is some second-hand aspect in this, Strickland was telling me that Mack complained to her and her husband that he had been held in Roswell.

Walt Whitmore, Jr., son of the KGFL radio’s majority owner, told me that he had run into Brazel early in the morning after Brazel spent the night at his father’s house. This was before Brazel was taken out to the base. Whitmore claims that Brazel told him about the debris an Whitmore said that he then drove out there to see the field. He claimed to have picked up some of the debris, which he said was part of a balloon. He kept it for years, he said, but when the time came to produce it, he could not.

Here’s another important point. Bessie said that she recognized the material as a balloon. So, we have a 14-year-old girl who knows a balloon when she sees one, but the air intelligence officer, not to mention several others, are incapable of this. If the material was so readily identifiable to some, especially civilians, why were so many in the military fooled? And why the high powered effort to recover it, if it was only a balloon?

What this means, simply, is that there are a number of witnesses and a newspaper articles that shows that Mack was in Roswell overnight. It means that Bessie’s memories of July 1947 agree with nothing else. It means that when all the evidence is aligned against a specific claim, we must reject the claim.

I’m sure that Bessie was trying to help and I’m equally sure that she is mistaken about these events. There are too many facts and too many witnesses who contradict her story. It is possible that she is right and everyone else is wrong, but it’s not very likely.

For a more comprehensive look at the latest information about the Roswell case, watch for Roswell Revisited, a book length examination of the case, coming this summer.

Sheridan Cavitt and the Roswell Crash

We have seen Jesse Marcel, Sr. beat up over the interview that he gave to Bob Pratt of the National Enquirer. We have seen every remark he made scrutinized for every nuance, every misstatement that can be turned into a lie, and every flaw in his record turned into a reason not to believe him.

On the other side of the aisle, we see Sheridan Cavitt as the poster boy for the balloon theory. Cavitt, who made many statements about his involvement, or lack of involvement, seems to have received a pass on this. So, let’s look at the record.

My first interview with Cavitt was held on January 29,1990 while Cavitt and his wife Mary stayed in Sierra Vista, Arizona. They had rented a small apartment there to get away from the weather in Sequim, Washington where they lived the rest of the year. Cavitt was cordial but careful in what he said. He made it clear that he had not been involved in any balloon retrievals, that he had no time for that sort of nonsense, and in fact, hinted that he hadn’t even been in Roswell at the time, so it couldn’t have been him.

He did say that if he had written a report, it would have gone to Washington and not to the 8th Air Force, parent organization of the 509th Bomb Group. This makes sense to me because Cavitt was with the Counter-Intelligence Corps (CIC) and his chain of command ran through them and not the 509th.

He said that witnesses who put him on the crash site were wrong and asked me why I thought they would say that. I thought at the time because he was there, but I didn’t say that. I would later learn that I was right.

During that interview, he was only nervous once and that was when we began talking about the bodies. He looked at me, leaned forward and picked up a magazine, sat back, tossed the magazine to the table and asked "Bill Rickett tell you that?"

Lewis "Bill" Rickett (seen at the left) was the non-commissioned officer in charge (NCOIC) of the CIC office in Roswell in July 1947. Cavitt worked closely with him.

When I said, "No," Cavitt visibly relaxed.

I saw him again in 1993, when Don Schmitt and I visited him at his home in Washington. He told us that he had been sent to Roswell on Special Order No. 121, dated 11 June 1947. He was given a five day delay in route. He claimed not to have been physically present at Roswell in early July, 1947, so he could not have been involved in the retrieval. That, we would learn later was not accurate.

During the interview held on March 27, 1993, Cavitt again said that he had not gone out to the Brazel ranch. We talked about that for a while and then Cavitt asked, "Are you guys convinced that I wasn’t there."

Mary Cavitt said, "If he had been way overnight, at that time... I would for sure remember it."

I mentioned that there were some problems with the Marcel testimony, meaning the things that Pratt had reported.

Cavitt said, "You better believe that. He [Marcel] says I was out there is his biggest problem."

But then, as we continued to talk with Cavitt, he made it clear that he was, in fact, in Roswell at the right time. He had just arrived, or was about to arrive, depending on the date of the crash and his mood at the moment. His wife had arrived on July 2, after a wedding in Oregon and Cavitt was supposed to have arrived a day or so after that.

The last personal interview with Cavitt took place on June 25, 1994, just weeks after Colonel Richard Weaver had been there for the Air Force investigation of Roswell. We covered much of the same ground. I mention that Marcel had identified him as the one who went out to the site. That Marcel had described him as "a good west Texas boy from San Angelo."

Cavitt said, "Sort of nails me, doesn’t it?" But he would go no further, and even though Weaver had identified him as the man who had gone out with Marcel, and that interview would be published, Cavitt still tried to make us believe that he had not participated in the event. This despite what Marcel said and what Rickett said.

What all this boils down to is that Cavitt said he wasn’t in Roswell at the time of the recovery, that he was there but that he didn’t go out, he didn’t go out with Marcel, that he was involved in no recoveries of balloon debris, he wasn’t gone overnight, and he doesn’t know why he was cast into this role.

It is, you might say, Cavitt’s word against Marcel, and if you are in the debunker camp, you naturally fall on the side of Cavitt. He was just a good officer, doing his duty, at that time the only living witness according to the story, of what happened at the Brazel (Foster) ranch. So, who do you believe?

To answer that, let’s take a look at Cavitt’s testimony to Colonel Weaver, who visited him in 1995. That interview was published in Air Force produced, The Roswell Report: Fact vs Fiction in the New Mexico Desert (and we’ll see who wrote the fiction as we try to sort through all of this).

Remember that Cavitt told me, on tape and in other conversations that he had not participated in any balloon recoveries (Storm clouds over a portion of the debris field in 1989). Remember also, he was quite clear that he had not gone out with Marcel. That he wished Marcel hadn’t named him. He said, "You better believe that. He says I was out there is his biggest problem."

Now, here is what he told Weaver. "Well, there again I couldn’t swear to the dates, but in that time, which must have been July, we heard that someone had found some debris out not to far from Roswell and it looked suspicious; it was unidentified. So, I went out and I do not recall whether Marcel went with Rickett and me; I had Rickett with me. We went out to his site. There were no, as I understand, checkpoints or anything like that (going through guards and that sort of garbage) we went out there and we found it. It was a small amount of, as I recall, bamboo sticks, reflective sort of material that would, well at first glance, you would probably think it was aluminum foil, something of that type. And we gathered up some of it. I don’t know where we even tried to get all of it. It wasn’t scattered, well, what I would call, you know, extensively. Like it didn’t go along the ground and splatter off some here and some there. We gathered up some of it and took it back to the base and I remember I had turned it over to Marcel. As I say, I do not remember whether Marcel was there or not on the site. He could have been. We took it back to the intelligence room... in the CIC office."

So, here we now have Cavitt saying that he had gone out on a balloon recovery, that he might have gone out with Marcel, but he wasn’t sure, that he was involved in the recovery in early July, and that he might have turned over some of the recovered material to Marcel.

Weaver’s next question was, "What do you think it was when you recovered it?"

"I thought it was a weather balloon."

So Cavitt was able to identify it immediately. To me, Weaver’s next question, given the history of the case, should have been, "Did you communicate this rather important piece of information to Marcel?"

Instead, he asked, "Were you familiar with weather balloons at the time?"

And Cavitt said, "I had seen them."

It has always been an article of faith that the Mogul balloon array was unusual enough that it could stump the people who found it (One of the arrays seen at the left). Because it wasn’t a single balloon, but many, with many radar reflectors and long strings connecting everything, people who were familiar with weather balloons might not recognize them as such. But Cavitt claimed that he did. More importantly, he didn’t bother to tell Marcel what it was.

What we now know is that Marcel said that Cavitt had gone out there with him, but Cavitt had made it clear that he had not. We know that Marcel was right on that point, given Cavitt’s new information that Marcel might have been with him. It isn’t Marcel vs Cavitt here, but Cavitt vs Cavitt.

We can go further. Remember Cavitt said, "There were no, as I understand, checkpoints or anything like that (going through guards and that sort of garbage) we went out there and we found it."

Cavitt said he was with Rickett. Here is what Rickett said about that in a taped interview conducted by Don Schmitt, "I [meaning Rickett], Marcel went back out there that same afternoon. This time they had some security people from the Provost Marshal’s office out there."

Just so we have this straight, because it could be argued that Cavitt had not seen the security out there because it was put there after he had been in the field, Rickett said, "Cavitt and I came back together and I’m not sure if Marcel came with us... it was being protected..." So, Rickett was out there more than once, he was with Cavitt on, at least one of those trips, and Rickett saw the guards.
Later, to confirm this, Rickett said, "On the road we drove on, [there were] MP s standing there..."

The argument here is between Rickett and Cavitt. Cavitt said no guards and Rickett said guards. Others, such as Judd Roberts, William Woody and even C. Bertram Schultz said there were checkpoints along the dirt roads leading off the main highways to the north and west. This means that Cavitt was wrong on that point as well.

If we look at his description of the debris that he claimed he picked up, we find that it doesn’t match Project Mogul. There weren’t bamboo sticks in it. Balsa wood, yes. His description of the crash site matches no one else, including that supplied by Bessie Brazel, daughter of Mack, and who told investigators what she, her father and her brother Vernon, had seen. She also said that they picked up the debris so there was nothing in the field for Cavitt to see. But that is something to examine in another post.

What this means is that the testimony given by Cavitt is not very reliable. Clearly he was saying to Weaver what Weaver wanted him to say. Clearly, he was telling me things that were not consistent and that have since been proven false. He even proved to me that his statement that he wasn’t in Roswell was wrong because he showed me copies of his orders assigning him there.

This means that we must look at the statements provided by Cavitt and compare them with the statements of others. Do they fit into the picture, or it is Cavitt standing alone, making statements that are not corroborated by others. With Cavitt, even the man who worked directly under him, is contradicting him and as I noted, Cavitt doesn’t even agree with Cavitt.

While this doesn’t prove that Roswell involved extraterrestrial contact, it does show the extraordinary effort the Air Force went to in 1947 and later in 1994 to prove that it was just a weather balloon (yes, but Mogul was made up of weather balloons). And it shows that the testimony of Sheridan Cavitt, like so many others, isn’t completely reliable.

Don Ecker Quits Ufology

In the last several days, I have been asked, repeatedly, for a web address where those interested can read Don's long article about his quitting UFO research. The article is in PDF format and can be accessed at:

http://www.ufowatchdog.com/ufo_fog.pdf

Those who wish to comment can certainly do so here. Don Ecker does look at this blog. We talked about putting up this link and it was he who supplied the information.

More Roswell Debris?

Ten years ago, on the anniversary of the Roswell UFO crash, the talk of the festival (when not consumed with the nonsense spouted by Lieutenant Colonel Philip Corso) was a piece of metallic debris that had been subjected to chemical analysis and testing by a credentialed scientist. This debris, if it could be linked to the Roswell UFO crash, and we were assured that the chain of custody existed to do that, and if the analysis was accurate, would provide proof that the UFO was an extraterrestrial craft. There was no longer any reason for speculation.

Dr. Russell VernonClark (yes, the last name is spelled that way, run together) was hustled into Roswell for his morning presentation to a packed auditorium that was also well attended by members of the media. If what had been analyzed was an actual artifact from another world, as VernonClark said, then this was big news. Certainly the biggest in the last thousand years.

VernonClark, in his presentation said, "The atomic mass so differs from that found in known earthly elements, that it is impossible for it to be from Earth."

That would mean, of course, that it was of extraterrestrial manufacture. It would mean that an alien race had visited Earth and the evidence they left behind was now in the hands of investigators and scientists. VernonClark did not equivocate. He was definite about the meaning of his findings.

VernonClark was talking of the isotopic ratios that were not found naturally in Earth-based elements. It meant that the isotopes had to come from an outside source and that meant someone had brought them here from another world or so he concluded.

VernonClark, escorted into Roswell by UFO researcher Derrell Simms, having made his announcement, then fled from the auditorium. Some say they ran out the back door to a waiting car to get them out of town. At that point VernonClark was no longer available for questions.

Paul Davids, the executive producer of the ShowTime original movie, Roswell, took the stage to provide additional information about the artifact, but did not fulfill the promise to produce the chain of custody. Although the artifact supposedly was offered by a relative of the man who picked it up on the crash site, no name was given, no affidavit presented, and no way of checking the accuracy of the information about the discovery of the artifact was provided. In other words, we were required to take the information on faith and wait for further announcements.

There was no back up for the testing presented, although it was alleged that such additional and independent testing had taken place. Davids said it had been done but wouldn’t say by whom. He said, "This is so controversial that men’s reputations have been ruined over their seriously making conclusions."

A nice way to dodge the question and not provide the confirming evidence. Unfortunately, there is also a ring of truth in it. Credentialed people who have come out supporting an aspect of the UFO phenomena have found themselves on the short side of the debate. Dr. James MacDonald and his trouble springs to mind here.

Paul said that he wouldn’t explain who had the artifact, nor would he say how he could be sure that the artifact came from Roswell, though such a promise had been made. All he would say was that someone had given the artifact to Simms.

So it boils down to the testing of the artifact and what could be learned from it. Even if the debris hadn’t come from the Roswell UFO crash, the artifact itself seemed to scream extraterrestrial manufacture and that would still be big news even if it couldn’t be linked to the Roswell case. VernonClark had made it clear that his research had shown the artifact to be alien.

Other scientists, when contacted by reporters, said that the isotopic ratios described by VernonClark, while not natural, could easily be produced in an university laboratory. In other words, the artifact didn’t necessarily have to be alien.

In an article published by the Albuquerque Journal, reporter John Fleck quoted a number of scientists who disagreed with VernonClark’s conclusions. One of them, a University of Kentucky chemist Rob Toreki said, "You can do it here."

He meant that you could manipulate the isotopic ratios. And VernonClark eventually said the same thing. In a telephone conversation with me, he said it could be done so that the isotopic ratios, while not naturally occurring, could be produced in a lab. He added that it was an expensive proposition.

Other scientists suggested there were huge mistakes made in the original testing. They pointed out that one of the elements, Germanium-75, a radioactive isotope has a very short half-life and would decay into other elements in less than a day.

So where are we on this? First, there is no chain of custody that leads us to the Roswell crash site and therefore there is no provenance. We can’t say with any degree of certainty that the material came from the Roswell crash and without that we are left with an interesting anomaly that might not be connected to the Roswell case at all.

Second, the analysis seems to be flawed. The suggestion that the isotopic ratios are not naturally occurring leads to the conclusion that this artifact was manufactured but not to the extraterrestrial. Chemists and scientists say that all this can be created in a lab, and while a few suggest it would be expensive and difficult, others say that it is not. More importantly we then have VernonClark who tells us that he might have overstated the case and the it was possible to construct the material on Earth, effectively wiping away the extraterrestrial and extraordinary in this case.

And finally, and possibly most importantly, there is no follow up on this. I was in the auditorium when VernonClark made his announcement and I saw the reporters reactions. They were very interested, especially when they were promised the information to confirm the chain of custody and the results of additional, independent testing.

But that didn’t happen and I saw their reaction to that as well. If you are going to make an extraordinary claim, then you had better be prepared to provide the confirming evidence. And when you withhold that and other scientists do not agree with the conclusions you put forward, then you have lost your audience. Yes, they were very interested until they could not corroborate anything about the artifact.

The real proof here is that there has been no follow up. If this artifact was as extraordinary as claimed, then some of those dozens of reporters would have been following up on it. Even if the chain of custody couldn’t establish it as a piece of material from the Roswell UFO crash, it would still be an alien artifact and that would be a worldwide sensation.

When that last conclusion faded, the reporters lost interest. In the ten years to follow, there has been nothing more about this. No reports from other labs. No reports from the person who picked up the debris or the family or friends to establish the chain of custody and no new reports about the alien properties of the metal. It has become nothing more than an interesting footnote to the Roswell case and that’s it.

Don Ecker Quits UFO Research

Word has reached me, meaning that Don Ecker called me, to tell me that he was quitting the UFO business. He had been around it for more than twenty years and probably a lot longer as an interested party. He served as the Director of Research for the US version of UFO Magazine for a number of years and was key in exposing some of the biggest UFO frauds. Even when the magazine seemed to endorse the ridiculous stories of some claimed witnesses, Don would write companion pieces explaining why he, at least, was not taken with a specific tale.

In a long paper that he published recently, Ecker wrote:

One thing that I’ve discovered being in this field for 20 years is a very simple truth, but a truth that is most profound. Most "researchers" are ignorant of what has happened previously in the field of UFO research. They are ignorant of the claims made in the past, ignorant of past hoaxes perpetrated by "players" in the field and are intolerant of views that conflict with their deep seated erroneous beliefs. Quite frankly, I’ve grown tired of this field.

I’m tired of the media that is blinded by their prejudice about UFOs, their snide and condescending remarks about something that quite frankly they know nothing about. I’m tired of people claiming to be researchers that refuse to accept the truth about something regardless of how many times it jumps up and bites them in the ass. I’m tired of government agencies that continuously lie about a subject that has shown to be something real and even possibly affect our national security … and getting away with it for over 60 years. I’m tired of believers that become upset when their fuzzy illogic is shown to be as full of holes as Swiss Cheese. I’m tired of frauds and clowns in this field that are shown to be frauds and clowns and yet still are treated like they are stars with something important to say. I suppose you could just say I’m tired of all of it.

20 years ago I thought that genuine study, research and investigation might make a difference. Alas!! I was most profoundly wrong! Today (even though I most certainly believe this is a genuine and legitimate subject of study and UFOs must come from somewhere), I have had enough! So, this is my goodbye from the wonderful and wacky field of UFOs. For any of you that, through the years, have found any of my writing on the subject to be of interest … thank you. It has been an up and down thing, this UFO enigma. However, if you are a believer in Bill Cooper, Mel Noel, Billy Meier, Project Serpo, or benevolent ET’s from the Pleiades here to show us a better way … or possibly how to build a better mouse trap … preferably a humane one, I’m sure you will be glad to see my exit … on stage right. So with that in mind I now make my exit. Thanks, because if nothing else … this has been an interesting but frustrating 20 years.

We see that Ecker’s paper tells of his years fighting the nonsense in the field and of the personal toll that sometimes takes. Although he doesn’t point it out specifically, this field, like much found in academia, is contentious, with claims and counterclaims thrown about, allegations of all sorts, and when that fails, then it moves into the legal arena, or more often, threats of legal action with no follow up.

I understand much of what Ecker says. I have been threatened with lawsuits for years and used to count the days in each new year until the first threat of a lawsuit was made. One year it was in early January.

This comes with disagreements and perceived slights. Stan Friedman once complained that in the acknowledgment section of my first book on Roswell, I had given Robert Hastings more lines that I had given him. I mean, who counts the number of lines in an acknowledgment?

But it does demonstrate one of the problems with UFO research and that is the ego of the researcher. We fight with one another in the fashion that O.C. Marsh used to fight with Edward Drinker Cope in the early days of dinosaur hunting. They would lie about their finds, collect specimens and then dynamite the fossil beds so that others couldn’t find them or excavate them and called each other all sorts of names. It did nothing to further the research and hindered it many times. Ufology should look at these "Dinosaur Wars" and try to learn from them.

So, in Ufology, we simply smear those with whom we disagree. I have been labeled, in recent weeks as a liar, poor researcher, incompetent and a fraud. In the past, I have been called a government agent and one misguided person even reported that I had worked with Hector Quintanilla, he once the chief of the Air Force’s Project Blue Book, on some kind of recovery team. Of course, when Quintanilla was leading Blue Book, I was in high school, but such facts do nothing to defuse the situation.

To give you a feel for how this works, back in 1988, Don Schmitt, then the Director of Research at the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies, invited me to join them in a project about Roswell. They planned to look at the evidence and search for witnesses who might not have been interviewed during the initial research. Remember, Schmitt asked me, because of my military background, to assist them. I agreed.

Imagine my surprise in the mid-1990s, when my partner was telling people that he suspected I was a government agent planted on him. He refused to supply people with my contact information when they asked for it and kept convention bookings for himself, telling the hosts that I wouldn’t be available. This is how it is in Ufology all too often. Partners working at what turns out to be opposite goals.

I can point to other examples but why bother? The story is sad and those who have called convention or lecture sponsors to attempt to steal the bookings know who they are. It can be documented. It has been but then, no one seems to pay attention to these underhanded tactics as long as the researcher says what the people want to hear. Often times the truth gets left behind.

What this demonstrates is simply, as many have said, we eat our young. We turn on one another so that we can move to the top of the heap in a field in which the heap is small and so often ignored. But fight for that top place we do, and this, I think, explains some of what Don Ecker was talking about in his article. He has grown tired of the infighting that benefits no one except the skeptics.

Which leads to another point that Ecker made. He wrote, "One thing that I’ve discovered being in this field for 20 years is a very simple truth, but a truth that is most profound. Most ‘researchers’ are ignorant of what has happened previously in the field of UFO research. They are ignorant of the claims made in the past, ignorant of past hoaxes perpetrated by ‘players’ in the field and are intolerant of views that conflict with their deep seated erroneous beliefs."

The example I think of here is the Mantell case. I believe that most of the old time researchers realize that Captain Thomas Mantell, a transport pilot during the Second World War, and who had just transitioned into fighters in 1947, was killed in a tragic accident. Mantell, asked to attempt to identify an object seen over the Godman Army Air Field at Ft. Knox, Kentucky, died when his F-51 crashed.

We now know, based on the files released by the Air Force, by the statements of those involved, research by Robert Todd, Jerry Clark and a dozen others, that Mantell climbed too high and blacked out due to oxygen starvation. His aircraft, trimmed to climb, continued upward to about 30,000 feet where the torque of the engine and the thin air conspired to pull the aircraft over, into a power dive. The aircraft was seen to begin to break up at about 20,000 feet. Mantell died in the crash.

The object he was chasing was a skyhook balloon which was part of a classified project in 1948. Descriptions released with the declassification of the Project Blue Files seem to confirm this. The answer, tragically, is that Mantell was trying to reach a balloon that was at 80,000 feet, way above him.

Today, we begin to argue about the case again. There are those who believe there was something more here. Mantell was chasing an alien space craft and regardless of the evidence, will not be persuaded otherwise. So, we waste more time and effort on a case, tragic though it was, that is only tangentially connected to UFOs. For those interested in the full treatment of the case see:

http://www.virtuallystrange.net/ufo/updates/

and scroll down to the segment about Mantell. All the information is there so that the reader can decide if Mantell was chasing a craft from another world or if he was chasing a balloon.
Ecker continued in this vein, writing:

As most reading this will know, Birne’s [meaning William Birne who is now the publisher of UFO magazine] was co-author with Phil Corso of the blockbuster "The Day After Roswell." However Birne’s is an academic and writer where I was a researcher and investigator. They began allowing previously verboten bullshit spewing airbags into the magazine that in my opinion don’t have a clue nor could they buy a vowel.

So, what are they doing in UFO? Birne’s feels that regardless, all should have a say and then let the public decide. I most strongly disagree with that position. (For example, there is a vocal minority claiming that the NASA Moon landings were done on a studio stage, and the entire Moon Program was a government disinformation program. Should we give these morons a public position in the magazine?) If one strives to be the publication of record in this confusing field, one has to be willing to separate the wheat from the chaff. As I write this paper, the most recent egregious example of slip shod editorial decisions was allowing one wind-bag columnist to revisit one of the biggest hoaxes in recent memory by allowing the inclusion of the ‘Dulce alien base shoot out with U.S. Forces in 1979!’ (With neither Birnes wife especially, or Birnes being aware of the last 20 odd years of UFO history, this type of egregious error is routinely made.) This came from the John Lear/ Paul Bennowitz disinformation all the way back to 1987, and has been effectively shown to be total crap!

Which means that some, unaware of the history of these stories will now accept them because there have been printed again without commentary. The bright spot is that with the Internet, some will try to learn more and will find the controversy that rages, though, in my mind, there is no real controversy. We know, as Ecker said, this is "total crap!"

So, we see that nothing in Ufology changes. We see that old cases are repeated as if newly discovered and that solid explanations are ignored because the mystery is more important than the truth. As some in the news media say, "Why ruin a good story with the facts?"

Don, I at least, am sorry to see you go. Voices of reason are too few in this field and the clouds of deceit and confusion far too many. The commentaries offered by you put some of this into perspective and now we’ve lost that. I hope that, at some point, you’ll return and that we’ll have another voice for reason because, without that, the bad guys win.

(Note: In the latest issue of UFO they only report that both Don and Vicki Ecker have decided to retire from the field...)

The whole of Ecker's article can be seen at:

http://www.ufowatchdog.com/ufo_fog.pdf

And a thanks to Don Ecker for forwarding the link.

Water Outside the Solar System

In the 1960s, Frank Drake, he of the original SETI program (Project Ozma), created a formula for deducing the number of planets with intelligent life in the galaxy. It was filled with variables that when the equation was created couldn’t be answered. For example, you plugged in the number of inhabitable planets in the galaxy. At the time, we didn’t know if all stars had planets, some of them, or if the Solar System was a rarity.

To understand Drake’s equation and understand it’s impact, we need to take a look at it. Written out, it looks like this:

N = R* fp ne fl fi fc L

The values for each are:

N = The number of communicative civilizations.

R* = The rate of formation of suitable stars ( such as our Sun)

fp = The fraction of those stars with planets. (Current evidence indicates that planetary systems may be common for stars like the Sun. In fact, planetary systems have been found where astronomers had once believed that they couldn’t.)

ne = The number of Earth-like worlds per planetary system

fl = The fraction of those Earth-like planets where life actually develops

fi = The fraction of those planets on which life develops where intelligence develops

fc = The fraction of communicative planets (those on which communications technology develops that might be something like radio, or something that involves light)

L = The "lifetime" of communicating civilizations

Drake himself seemed to think that the eventual answer was there were about ten thousand worlds in our galaxy that what he called communicative civilization, which means that 10,000 worlds have an industrial civilization that is sufficiently advanced that it could, theoretically communicate with it’s neighbors (An artisits conception of an extrasolar planet courtesy of NASA). Earth would be an example of this.

When Drake first developed his equation, we didn’t know of any planets but the nine in our Solar System (yes, I said nine because in 1960, that was the accepted fact. Now we have eight planets and three dwarf planets, but that doesn’t change the fact that in 1960, Drake only knew of the planets circling our sun). Any attempt to assign a number to the fraction of stars with planets was speculative. I think most believed that most other stars had planetary systems, but the truth is, in 1960, we didn’t know.

Even today, we don’t know of any "real" Earth-like planets among the many extrasolar planets that have been discovered. We might say that most systems would are made up of gas giants that are many times larger than Jupiter. Of course, as scientists refine the process, smaller worlds are being found.

Now comes word of another important discovery that helps polish the Drake Equation. Astronomers believe they had detected water in the atmosphere of one of those extasolar planets. Scientists have believed that many of these huge worlds have water, but this is the first time that it has been detected, according to a report in an upcoming issue of Astrophysical Journal.

HD209458b (which is the planet’s name and that reminds me of the "namebers in Ira Levin’s This Perfect Day) is the first world to be directly observed orbiting a normal star outside the Solar System. It is the first extrasolar planet where oxygen and carbon have been detected in its atmosphere. And now water has been discovered.

Of course, it’s not an Earth-like world. It is only about four million miles from its sun and is so hot that astronomers believe it’s losing about 10,000 tons of material every second as vented gas.

So, HD209458b is not a good candidate for any kind of life, or maybe I should say, any life as we know it. There are creatures on Earth that live in some very extreme climates that would boil or fry most species.

But the point here is that we have been able to understand a little more about the galaxy around us and we have been able to define the terms in the Drake Equation with a little more precision.

This means that the likelihood that other worlds like Earth exist has increased, and that the elements that they we believe are necessary for life exist on, at the very least, one planet outside our Solar System. If that it true, then it becomes more likely that life exists outside of our Solar System and that some of that life would have evolved into intelligence and some of those intelligent creatures evolved before we did. Their advanced civilizations might have been able to solve the problem of interstellar flight and have discovered us.

In other words, this discovery has increased the chances that some UFOs are intelligently controlled vehicles from another world.