Willingham - A 1978 Interview

It seems that when you begin to spin lies, and when you provide interviews about those lies, you have an obligation to keep the information straight. If you say the event took place in 1948, then you can’t move it to 1950 or to 1955 without someone noticing. And you should know what type of military aircraft were available in the inventory in 1948 so that you don’t claim to have been flying something that wouldn’t appear for years. (I might point out that you should also remember the type of aircraft you were flying and I base this on my own experiences as a military pilot.) If you’re going to tell a good story, you should make sure that you have enough facts straight so that it can’t be broken apart quickly and easily, when people begin to investigate.

What brought this on?

Well, I just was given a transcript of an interview with Robert Willingham and his claim to have seen a crashed flying saucer. It is dated May 1978 and provides us with still another version of his story, or rather a modified version of that story.

According to it, in May 1978, he was a lieutenant colonel (an O5 in the military vernacular) in the Air Force, or so he said. Actually, as I have pointed out time and again, he was in the Civil Air Patrol, an auxiliary of the Air Force. It is made up of civilians who receive no real compensation for their service and are a vital part of the country’s search and rescue component, but who are not part of the Air Force or the Air Force Reserve.

The important point is that he was claiming to be a lieutenant colonel in 1978, because in a later interview given to the American Legion, he said that he was promoted to full colonel (O6) when he retired. That article, entitled, “Robert B. Willingham marks 60th year in American Legion,” said, “He did return to Archer City in 1980, on disability leave, when his mother became ill. He was a Lt. Colonel at the time, but President Johnson made him a full colonel after retirement.”

Lyndon Johnson wasn’t president after 1978 (or 1969 for that matter if you count the days prior to Nixon’s inauguration) and in fact had died in 1973. There is no way that Willingham could have been promoted to colonel by Johnson. The idea of President Johnson promoting someone appeared in one of the novels by W.E.B. Griffin. I don’t know if that is where Willingham got the idea, but it just doesn’t work the way Willingham said... or Griffin for that matter.

That 1978 interview provides another clue. They are talking about the analysis to the piece of metal that Willingham said that he had recovered at the crash site. He said that he had taken it to a lab in Hagerstown, Maryland for analysis. He claimed that he had given it to a Marine major who worked there. When he tried to learn what the major had found, he was told the man did work there but he couldn’t follow up on it. According to Willingham, that was because “we were getting ready to go to Korea...”

While nowhere in the interview do they discuss an actual date for the crash, this puts it before Willingham claimed he went to Korea, and in other interviews, he suggested he served there at the beginning of the war, or in 1950. So, while Willingham claims that Todd Zechel came up with the December 6, 1950 date, the fact is that Willingham himself came up with both the 1948 date and the later 1954 date.

I could go on because in this interview Willingham claims he was flying a F-94, but these weren’t in the inventory in 1948 or 1950... He talks about the UFO being confirmed by radar on the DEW Line, but it didn’t exist in 1948 or 1950.

But this is becoming overkill. Clearly the story has evolved, contains elements that are impossible given the timing, and is littered with contradictions. This 1978 interview, which was clearly coached given the questions and wording of the answers, proves that there is little truth in the December 6, 1950 crash or any other that Willingham claims to have seen. I hope this will end it, but given the nature of UFOlogy, I know that it won’t. Nothing ever dies in UFOlogy, it’s just repeated endlessly.

Billy Cox and Philip Klass

Billy Cox, over at the Herald-Tribune has written a short piece called, “Klass act, no principles,” (see http://tinyurl.com/8793hjt). In it he suggests that Steve Pierce, a buddy of Travis Walton, he of Fire in the Sky and abduction fame (see here at the 2011 Roswell Festival), had been offered, by Klass, ten thousand dollars to say that they had hoaxed the whole thing.

My first reaction was to reject this idea because, even for Klass, it seemed a bit excessive. And then I thought back to the long article I had posted here about Klass and his attacks on witnesses and researchers and his attempts to make their lives miserable. For a full analysis, see my September 11, 2011 blog entry about Klass’ letter writing campaign.

Klass was one of those who knew that there had been no alien visitation and because there had been none, anything suggesting otherwise was a misinterpretation at best and an outright lie at worst. He was not above leaping to conclusions or providing information that was, at best, misleading. In the Socorro UFO landing case, he invented a plot between the mayor of the town and Patrolman Lonnie Zamora to create a UFO landing to boost tourism.

Oh, I suppose you could say that he just got the timing wrong, and that the attempt to promote tourism followed the UFO sighting rather than the other way around. It was an explanation that was weak to begin with and I don’t believe there are many who accept it today. But it is out there for those who don’t have much in the way of critical thinking skills.

So, given all that, it really isn’t much of a leap to believe that Klass (see here) would offer money to Pierce to “admit” to the hoax. I’m sure Klass just rationalized it by thinking that he wasn’t bribing him to make up a story, but paying him for his honesty in finally telling the “truth”... or rather what Klass wanted to believe was the truth.

The bottom line here is that Klass was certainly capable of trying something like this. Klass was rabidly anti-alien and anti-saucer, and for some reason thought everyone should believe as he did. He wanted to get his way, and this might just be another example of his zeal for his point of view... which is to say, that it is an example of what should not be done regardless of your belief structure. Klass wasn’t in search of the truth, he was attempting to bend us all to his way of thinking... and if he had to manipulate the data, the witnesses or the world, that was just the way it had to be. He was only protecting us from ourselves...

Wilbert Smith and Project Magnet

For some bizarre reason, the Wilbert Smith documents have gained new life and I’m not sure why. Smith was a Canadian radio engineer who worked with, or for the government and was well thought of. He was, for example, the Senior Engineer at the Canadian Department of Transport. He also, according to researcher Grant Cameron, was responsible for “Radio Ottawa” where the Canadian “spies” reported in and which also monitored Soviet communications. Yes, I wondered about Canadian spies as well, but that something for another time.

According to the latest information, this memo, written by Smith on November 21, 1950, has just been recovered from the Archives of the University of Ottawa. I guess that means that the document was found in their collection, but it has been available for a long time. Though originally classified as “Top Secret,” it has been downgraded over the years so that it is no longer classified (which means only that its classification was downgraded and says nothing about the importance of the information included in it.) The complete text says:

TOP SECRET -------------- (downgraded to CONFIDENTIAL 15/9/69)

D E P A R T M E N T O F T R A N S P O RT

Intra-departmental Correspondence OTTAWA, Ontario, November 21, 1950 Place date

File Subject Our file Geo-Magnetics (R.ST.)

MEMORANDUM TO THE CONTROLLER OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS:

For the past several years we have been engaged in the study of various aspects of radio wave propagation. The vagaries of this phenomenon have led us into the fields of aurora, cosmic radiation, atmospheric radio-activity and geo-magnetism. In the case of geo-magnetics our investigations have contributed little to our knowledge of radio wave propagation as yet, but nevertheless have indicated several avenues of investigation which may well be explored with profit. For example, we are on the track of a means whereby the potential energy of the earth's magnetic field may be abstracted and used.

On the basis of theoretical considerations a small and very crude experimental unit was constructed approximately a year ago and tested in our Standards Laboratory. The tests were essentially successful in that sufficient energy was abstracted from the earth's field to operate a voltmeter, approximately 50 milliwatts. Although this unit was far from being self-sustaining, it nevertheless demonstrated the soundness of the basic principles in a qualitative manner and provided useful data for the design of a better unit.

The design has now been completed for a unit which should be self- sustaining and in addition provide a small surplus of power. Such a unit, in addition to functioning as a 'pilot power plant' should be large enough to permit the study of the various reaction forces which are expected to develop.

We believe that we are on the track of something which may well prove to be the introduction to a new technology. The existence of a different technology is borne out by the investigations which are being carried on at the present time in relation to flying saucers.

While in Washington attending the NARB Conference, two books were released one titled "Behind the Flying Saucer" by Frank Scully, and the other "The Flying Saucers are Real" by Donald Keyhoe. Both books dealt mostly with the sightings of unidentified objects and both books claim that flying objects were of extra-terrestrial origin and might well be space ships from another planet. Scully claimed that the preliminary studies of one saucer which fell into the hands of the United States Government indicated that they operated on some hitherto unknown magnetic pinciples. It appeared to me that our own work in geo-magnetics might well be the linkage between our technology and the technology by which the saucers are designed and operated. If it is assumed that our geo-magnetic investigations are in the right direction, the theory of operation of the saucers becomes quite straightforward, with all observed features explained qualitatively and quantitatively.

I made discreet enquiries through the Canadian Embassy staff in Washington who were able to obtain for me the following information:

a. The matter is the most highly classified subject in the United States Government, rating higher even than the H-bomb.

b. Flying saucers exist.

c. Their modus operandi is unknown but concentrated effort is being made by a small group headed by Doctor Vannevar Bush.

d. The entire matter is considered by the United States authorities to be of tremendous significance.

I was further informed that the United States authorities are investigating along quite a number of lines which might possibly be related to the saucers such as mental phenomena and I gather that they are not doing too well since they indicated that if Canada is doing anything at all in geo-magnetics they would welcome a discussion with suitably accredited Canadians.

While I am not yet in a position to say that we have solved even the first problems in geo-magnetic energy release, I feel that the correlation between our basic theory and the available information on saucers checks too closely to be mere coincidence. It is my honest opinion that we are on the right track and are fairly close to at least some of the answers.

Mr. Wright, Defence Research Board liaison officer at the Canadian Embassy in Washington, was extremely anxious for me to get in touch with Doctor Solandt, Chairman of the Defence Research Board, to discuss with him future investigations along the line of geo-magnetic energy release.

I do not feel that we have as yet sufficient data to place before Defence Research Board which would enable a program to be initiated within that organization, but I do feel that further research is necessary and I would prefer to see it done within the frame work of our own organization with, of course, full co-operation and exchange of information with other interested bodies.

I discussed this matter fully with Doctor Solandt, Chairman of Defence Research Board, on November 20th and placed before him as much information as I have been able to gather to date. Doctor Solandt agreed that work on geo-magnetic energy should go forward as rapidly as possible and offered full co-operation of his Board inproviding laboratory facilities. Acquisition of necessary items of equipment, and specialized personnel for incidental work in the project. I indicated to Doctor Solandt that we would prefer to keep the project within the Department of Transport for the time being until we have obtained sufficient information to permit a complete assessment of the value of the work.

It is therefore recommended that a PROJECT be set up within the frame work of this Section to study this problem and that the work be carried on a part time basis until such time as sufficient tangible results can be seen to warrant more definitive action. Cost of the program in its initial stages are expected to be less than a few hundred dollars and can be carried by our Radio Standards Lab appropriation. Attached hereto is a draft of terms of reference for such a project which, if authorized, will enable us to proceed with this research work within our own organization.

(signed) W B S M I T H

(W.B. Smith) Senior Radio Engineer

That is the full text of the document and it is clearly a document that was held at a high level of classification by the Canadian government. But there are some things that we can say about it.

First, this is a report by one man telling of his meetings with others and some of their discussions. For the parts that interest us, which is, of course, the material relating to UFOs, there is no outside corroboration of the facts as he stated. It is clear that he is reporting what he believes to be the truth, as told to him by others, but that doesn’t get us to a point where there is an official confirmation of the data by either the Canadian government or by the United States.

In that respect, this is similar to the FBI document that generated all that interest last year. Yes, that document referred to UFO crashes, and yes it was an official FBI document, but that report seemed to be generated by the Frank Scully book and not by anything official. This seems to be some of the same thing.

Might I relate a bit of personal experience here. I had appeared on a national television program in 1991 and before I could get home, some fellow had attempted to contact me with important information and with evidence in the form of classified documents. He had received them from an inside government source who was credible, but who, because of his government position wanted to remain anonymous.

What did he have?

The Eisenhower Briefing and the Truman memo from MJ-12. I don’t know where he got his copies, but by 1991, they were floating all over the place. If the man had truly gotten them from an inside source, and had we had the name of the source so that we could verify his government connections, that would have been one thing. But we didn’t, so that information was as useless as the rest of the MJ-12 documents.

This document created by Smith is a report by a member of the Canadian government about several issues, including the flying saucers. He does make reference to two books, one, Behind the Flying Saucers has been discredited, and the other, by Major Don Keyhoe does not talk of crashes and bodies, but of the cover up by the Air Force. Smith doesn’t mention any other sources of information and that seems to be a critical point here.

What we have to do is see it in the context of the time and the context with which it was written. It wasn’t an official government study approved up and down the chain. It wasn’t designed to prove anything about UFOs one way or another. It was simply a report by one man about a conference he attended and he mentioned the UFOs as part of the discussions that took place there, unofficially.

In other words, it is interesting, but it doesn’t provide the evidence of either flying saucers or government cover ups. It is a document composed of rumor without foundation, and unfortunately, that is all that can be said for it.

Philip Corso Was Not The Highest-Ranking Officer to Talk

Sometimes you see something that just makes no sense. I stumbled across several web sites that proclaimed that Philip Corso was the highest-ranking officer to talk about Roswell. Overlooking that much of what Corso claimed has been discredited, let’s just deal with this other claim.

First, we must realized that Corso was not a colonel (known as an O6 in the military) but was a lieutenant colonel (known as an O5). Some believed that he was promoted upon retirement, as often happens in the reserve, but there is no documentation to support this, and while Corso held a reserve commission, he had spent his career on extended active duty (known as EAD in the world of the military). That he was known as a colonel is a mistake though he would be addressed as “colonel” and referred to as “colonel” in conversation, in formal correspondence he would be addressed as “lieutenant colonel.” His rank insignia would be a silver leaf while that for a colonel is a silver eagle.

Second, there are two brigadier generals, Thomas DuBose and Arthur Exon who have spoken about the Roswell case. DuBose was General Ramey’s Chief of Staff (and not his aide as he has been identified on some of the sites) and told us about transferring debris from Roswell, through Fort Worth and onto Washington, D.C. He also said, on tape, that the material in Ramey’s office was parts of a weather balloon and not what had been found outside of Roswell and sent on to higher headquarters.

Exon was a lieutenant colonel at Wright Field in 1947 and later, as a brigadier general was the base commander at Wright-Patterson AFB (think of this as a mayor of a good-sized city). He told us (and here I think of me along with Don Schmitt and Tom Carey) about what he had seen and heard about Roswell, including flying over the crash site. His information about the case was both direct and indirect.

Third, there are Colonels... Patrick Saunders and Edwin Easley who were both at the base in Roswell in July 1947, and both who retired in a higher grade than Corso. Saunders is responsible for a notation in one of the Roswell books that I wrote with Don Schmitt that suggested that the cover up was in place, that it was an alien craft, and that he hadn’t mentioned it.

Easley was the provost marshal (think chief of police and please notice the spelling with but a single “L”) in Roswell and was responsible for the security at the crash site (whatever that crash might have been). He told me, in a private interview, that he believed it to be of an extraterrestrial craft. Yes, that’s a paraphrase of his saying that we weren’t following the wrong path when I said we believed it to be extraterrestrial.

When you look at it, you see that there are at least four officers of superior rank, who were actually in the right places to see something useful and not at Fort Riley in Kansas in July 1947. (I should point out here that I have nothing against lieutenant colonels, I was promoted to that grade upon retirement and that I spent three months at Fort Riley in 2003.)

Corso spun an interesting story, but the facts are he was not the highest ranking officer to talk about this, he was not in the right place to see anything in 1947, and there were gaps in his knowledge that would suggest he knew no more about this than someone who had read a few of the books and viewed some of the web sites. His story is interesting, but has little relevance to our understanding of the Roswell case.

The Reality Show Poll

Well, the votes are in and I’m a little surprised. I thought Destination Truth (20 votes or 13%) would do better than it did. Sure, they really never find anything extraordinary but they seem to have a great deal of fun trying. They don’t take themselves seriously and that might be half the appeal.

UFO Hunters (40 votes or 27%) did very well, but then, since this blog is mostly about UFOs, that isn’t much of a surprise. I’ve always been a little annoyed at the show but only because of its sense of wonder. Everything seems to surprise them, even stuff that the rest of us have known for decades.

Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files (23 voted or 15%) has come under some criticism here, but only because it seems that they sometimes miss the obvious. I wonder if that isn’t because if they find the obvious, then there isn’t much of a show left. They have done some very interesting things, solved some of the mysteries, and added another layer to a few.

Ghost Hunters (15 or 10%) didn’t do well here, but again, it might be that the subject is too narrowly defined for the audience here. I confess that I have little time for chasing ghosts and don’t care to watch others do it.

But, of course, the big winner was None of the Above. After I put up the poll, I realized that I had missed any number of other shows that appeared on other cable channels such as Paranormal Kids, which frankly, has little appeal to me.

I suppose the question that needs to be asked is what of all the shows devoted to these sorts of investigations and I would include Brad Meltzer’s Decoded in this, do any of you watch. And no, Gold Rush and Storage Wars do not count.

MUFON Changes Directors -- Again

Once again the leadership of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) is changing. Clifford Cliff, citing a need for more family time, announced that he was handing over the reigns of the organization to David MacDonald on February 1. MacDonald is a current board member and the Kentucky State Director, Assistant Director of Investigations, is the STAR Team Administrator and does the testing of new field investigators.

MUFON began as the Midwest UFO Network in 1969 and part of the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization. When then director Walt Andrus moved to Texas, the organization went with him and evolved into the Mutual UFO Network.

Andrus directed the organization for decades, finally handing the directorship to John Schuessler. From that point, the leadership passed through several hands, and now is about to be taken by MacDonald.

MacDonald is moving MUFON Headquarters from Colorado to Cincinnati, Ohio. MacDonald, who said he was excited about taking over, said that the headquarters would be more easily accessible to the membership. Cincinnati is within six hours of about 60% of the United States.

Anecdotal Testimony and Scientific Observation

Here is a question that will become increasingly important in the coming years. When does anecdotal testimony become scientific observation? Or conversely, when does scientific observation deteriorate into anecdotal testimony?

We have been gathering data in the UFO field for decades (I’m not sure when a real effort began because we have divided everything into periods... The Great Airship of 1897, the Foo Fighters of WW II and the Ghost Rockets in Europe in 1946.) During some of those periods serious scientific investigations were attempted. The Foo Fighters were of intelligence interest during the war and were taken quite seriously by the military according to the good work done by Keith Chester. The Ghost Rockets were investigated by Lieutenant General Jimmy Doolittle in 1946, and the Air Force began a serious look at UFOs in 1948.

We have seen, in scientific enquiry where what would be considered in our world as anecdotal testimony has become scientific observation. Back in 1803, French naturalist, Jean-Bastiste Biot undertook a study of rocks that had fallen from the sky. The French Academy of Sciences, just the year before, had suggested that there were no rocks in the sky.

Here’s what is significant today. He talked to the witnesses of the falling rocks. These were untrained and unschooled people who had been on the scene when the rocks fell. He didn’t reject what they had to say because he knew that rocks couldn’t fall from the sky. He listened to them and recorded, carefully, what they had seen. He was careful to separate interpretation from the facts. This anecdotal testimony became scientific observation because it had been properly recorded even though the witnesses themselves were not scientists, and often had no formal schooling at all.

In today’s world, when we have witnesses to a UFO event, we are quick to dismiss their observations because they are anecdotal. They are not trained witnesses, even when we can talk to them within days of their sighting, even when they have written down what they have seen, and even if there is some sort of independent observations by instrumentality or photography. We argue about the validity of what they have seen because they are not reporting what we wish them to say.

A couple of years ago two young skeptics decided to perform an experiment to prove that eyewitnesses were unreliable and that UFO investigators were incompetent. They launched flares attached to balloons and waited for the UFO reports to come in...

But what we saw was that the witnesses, if they didn’t identify the balloons and flares for what they were, described, accurately, what they had seen. They talked about the nature of the lights, meaning they were red and moving slowly. They didn’t, for the most part, talk about anything other than the lights moving through the sky, though one of the witnesses did talk about a strange formation.

UFO investigators, called in, immediately identified the lights as of terrestrial manufacture and one police officer even told reporters that the lights were flares on balloons.

The point was that the witness testimony, and a careful listening to what the witnesses said, proved that they had been accurate. Trouble emerges when everyone begins to speculate about the nature of the lights... and most of these were reporters who tried to turn the story into something alien. One reporter even asking a child about aliens, when none of the witnesses had said anything about spacecraft or aliens.

Yes, I understand that with UFOs we need more than witness testimony, but the real question is why do we reject that testimony by labeling it as anecdotal? At what point can we accept the testimony as something more than the unschooled observations of the rube?

And why is it that only that testimony that seems to suggest that the observation was mundane is accepted at face value while that which suggests something strange is rejected automatically?

In other words, when does anecdotal testimony become scientific observation?

Reflections of a UFO Investigator

For those keeping score at home, Anomalist Books has just published Reflections of a UFO Investigator, a look at my journey through the world of UFOs.


This book begins with my very first UFO “investigation” and ends last spring, just before I left for the Roswell UFO festival. It describes my UFO “sighting” and it talks about some of the surprising things that I learned as I traveled throughout the country investigating UFOs. It explains what led me to some of the conclusions I have reached, and talks about some of the troubles I have had during those searches.

For those interested, it is available at Amazon and is an ebook through Kindle and at Barnes and Noble.

Yes, this is a commercial announcement, but then you have to learn about the book someway. Give it a look, and I’ll answer your questions about it.
To order, see:

Anomalist Books:
http://www.anomalistbooks.com/book.cfm?id=61

Amazon US:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1933665564/theanomalist

Brad Meltzer's Decoded

Those of you who have been reading the comments about the Fact or Faked: The Paranormal Files know that there has been some criticism about the same old, tired voices being interviewed on various TV shows (not that I’m particularly tired). Some viewers have liked the interjection of new blood into game and appreciate the new points of view.

While I agree with the philosophy, I will also note that there is a problem with these new voices. They often do not know the subject well enough to make intelligent comments about it... Or, they seemed surprised by the information they discover, never knowing that it has been circulating for years among those of us who study the field.

My latest case in point is Brad Meltzer’s Decoded on History (please note that History removed the “channel” from it’s name a while back). They decided to look into UFOs and seemed stunned to find that the reports come from more than the guys in bib overalls who quit school in the eighth grade (please note that this stereotype is suggested by the intellectuals who are too sophisticated to believe aliens have visited Earth.)

Here’s where I’m coming from. They go to Roswell and interview Julie (seen here), the daughter of Walter Haut, the PIO who issued the press release about finding the “flying saucer.” Of course, this is second-hand testimony, and Julie clearly believes what she is saying about what her father mentioned to her. But they don’t discuss the affidavit that Haut signed, and if they had asked some of us, we could have supplied video and audio tape of Haut himself talking about the things that Meltzer’s crew was getting second hand.

Meltzer mentions that while we all know something fell at Roswell, what we might not know was that just two weeks earlier, Kenneth Arnold had made the first sighting of a formation of objects. Well, sorry, but anyone who has paid any attention to UFOs, knows about Arnold’s sighting, knows when it took place, and even knows that the term “flying saucer” was coined at that time.

So, they talk about the Roswell (Main Street looking south toward the museum seen here) case but give us nothing new about it. Two people who were not involved describe the events in the briefest terms. If there was anything good about it, they rejected the balloon theory and didn’t even mention Project Mogul, that was, essentially, the balloon answer dressed in new clothes (I mention this with the fear that it will start another debate where everyone can copy and paste everything that they have said before, but this time I might just delete those comments).

Meltzer also talks about Project Blue Book, but says nothing about Sign, Grudge or Moon Dust (and for my skeptical friends, we do know that Moon Dust had a UFO component based on documentation). I don’t know if he didn’t know about them, or didn’t want to confuse the issue by talking about them.

They finally trot out to Area 51, mention the Extraterrestrial Highway (I bet the Air Force was thrilled when Nevada did that) and show the bullet-riddled sign announcing the route. But they drive toward the base, see the base security on the ridge watching them, and start climbing, on foot, toward the Air Force (or is it Wachenhut?) vehicle. When it moves toward them, they scramble back to their car and beat feet for Las Vegas.

They find a guy who was in security at Area 51 and he explains that he had access to everything on the base because of his security clearance... with the exception of one hangar. One weekend, on a fluke, he got a look inside, but he wouldn’t say what he had seen. It could have been anything or nothing. It was a good story, but it didn’t advance our knowledge at all. We know nothing now that we didn’t already know.

Oh, we’re treated to the Janet aircraft on the corner of McCarran, and we’re told that employees at the base fly out there everyday. But we already knew that, too.

We see John Lear and we learn about Bob Lazar, but there is nothing new there either. Meltzer does suggest that Lazar is surrounded in controversy, but then, we already knew that.

In the end, they sit around and we listen to them talk about the number of stars and the number of galaxies, and the size of the universe. But then, we’ve heard these discussions too and that aren’t particularly insightful. What we need is someone to tell us how to short circuit those vast distances.

Yes, I enjoy the show, but this one disappointed. It was a bunch of new people coming into the UFO arena, but they hadn’t done their homework (or they assumed that most people were as ignorant as they when it came to UFOs). They did suggest there are some strange things out there, but again, I believe that even my skeptical friends will agree that there is something strange out there.

In the end, it was a way to see where we stand in our search and we know that we’re way down the road from Meltzer and crew. Too bad they didn’t take time to learn a little more before they leaped into this one.

David Rudiak Joins the Dream Team

We have expanded the team yet again. Dr. David Rudiak, who has done a great deal of work on the “Ramey memo” has accepted our invitation to join us as a consulting researcher along with Tony Bragalia and Chris Rutkowski. I’ll add here that we had planned on this long ago, but Tom thought I had sent the invitation to David and I thought he had. When we learned that neither had, I then sent one.

Rudiak (seen here at the International UFO Museum in Roswell, photo courtesy of Tom Carey) is one of the experts (and maybe only expert) about what happened in Ramey’s office on July 8, 1947. He wrote to me that, “I've reconstructed the debris in a computer ray-tracer and proven there is only one radar target there and probably one balloon (or what would fit in shoe box), in other words NOT what you would expect from a multi-balloon, multi-target Mogul but perfectly consistent with Ramey and Newton's description of a singular balloon/target and Dubose/Marcel's substituted weather balloon.”

He also said, “Another of my Roswell specialties are my various histories of the period. I have expertise in how the story was reported in numerous news outlets, not just a few. I think I have compiled the most extensive collection of U.S. and international Roswell stories anywhere. These stories present many angles and contradictions that just a few articles do not provide and tell us a lot about how the cover-up was handled. E.g., I have found only two or three newspapers out of hundreds carrying a rare AP sub-version quoting Sheriff Wilcox declining to answer further questions about the "disc" saying he was ‘working with those fellows at the base.’ That I consider to be very telling and corroboration for what his family was telling us decades later. Why are Marcel, Brazel, Wilcox, Ramey, and the press release telling sometimes very different stories, often contradicting the balloon story? Why do the AP, UP, and RDR versions of the press release differ in many details?”

David’s expertise isn’t limited to just the Roswell case, but includes the history of the time. He emailed me that, “And I think I may have the most extensive collection of UFO reports from the area, which I compiled from reviewing every regional paper I could lay my hands on. This demonstrates that Roswell didn't happen in a vacuum, which may have prompted Ramey, Kalberer, and White Sands commander Turner debunking the saucers over a week before Roswell blew up. One very interesting news article I have from a Las Cruces newspaper recounts how on the night of July 8 a fireball steaking out of the south over the Organ mountains broke up, followed by search lights from White Sands Proving Grounds sweeping the sky afterward for an indefinite period of time.”

He, along with Brad Sparks, reworked the mathematics of the Mogul flight number 4, which the skeptics claim is responsible for the debris, showing that it did not come nearly as close as Charles Moore, a Mogul engineer, suggested. (I’ll point out here the Moore’s calculations couldn’t bring the balloon array closer than seventeen miles.) Rudiak’s figures suggested that the balloon array launched from Alamogordo wouldn’t have come as close as Moore suggested. More importantly, it appears that there was no flight number 4.

Combine David’s training and research with the expertise and knowledge of other team members, including their various experiences in researching UFOs, participation in the military, and their understanding of the history of UFOs from the beginning (which is to say as far back as the nineteenth century and farther) and allows for the most comprehensive look at the Roswell case ever undertaken. David’s assistance and knowledge will prove invaluable in this research project.

The FBI Memo and Roswell

Over the decades, a few documents relating to the Roswell UFO crash (or the Roswell events if you wish to remove UFO from the discussion) have been found. One of those developed after Army Brigadier General George F. Schulgen asked for FBI help “...in locating and questioning individuals who first sighted the so-called flying discs...”

On July 10, 1947, an FBI memo was created by D. M. Ladd for E. G. Fitch, outlining the Army request. That request was forward to Clyde Tolson, the number two man in the FBI at the time. Tolson endorsed the memo, writing on July 15, “I think we should do this.”

Hoover then endorsed the endorsement (seen here). He wrote, “I would do this but before agreeing to it we must insist upon full access to discs recovered. For instance, in the La. case the Army grabbed it and would not let us have it for cursory examination.”

But Hoover’s handwriting was sloppy and the crucial point, the location, as “in the La case” has been disputed for years. It seems that it can also be read as Sw or Sov or 2a. Of course, if it said, “Sw” then that could refer to the Roswell case.

Tom Carey and I have been discussing this through email for a couple of weeks. I am of the opinion that Hoover wrote “La” and this refers to a case from Shreveport, Louisiana. It is clear that the Shreveport report is a hoax, given that the disc was recovered and examined.

According to information from the Project Blue Book files, the Headquarters, Air Training Command, the office of the AC of S, A-2 [Assistant Chief of Staff, Air Intelligence] Barksdale Field, LA, had received a report that a “Flying Disc [had been] found in Shreveport, Louisiana [on] 7 July 1947.”

In the course of their investigation, they found that the disc was small (seen here), there was an electronic starter attached to it that came from a fluorescent light and two condensers from electric fans. The man who built it, and whose name had been removed from the file, also said that he had used a torch to put soot on the edges so that it looked as if the disc had been spinning.

In other words, the evidence of a hoax is well established.

But there is more.

According to the documentation available, the FBI was alerted to the Shreveport case and FBI agents did interview one of the sources. The FBI memo on the case also said that the Army had taken the disc into their possession.

This case seems to fit facts and it is an “La.”

There is another piece to this. On July 24, 1947, there is another FBI memo. This one mentions the Hoover note but now it is typewritten. It says the same thing but the term has been identified. The crucial sentence says, “For instance, in the La. case the Army grabbed it and would not let us have it for cursory examination.”

That seems to end the discussion, but Tom isn’t as sure as I am. He believes that J. G. Fitch, who provided the typewritten version, in his memo might have suffered from the same problems as the rest of us, meaning that he wasn’t sure what Hoover meant and that question remains open. Tom wants to pursue this a little further to see if he can find a concrete answer.

Tom plans to chase this using a couple of resources he has developed over the last few years. He thinks it is important enough to invest a little additional and effort in finding a solid, final conclusion. And that, really, is the purpose of the Team. To find final, solid answers to the questions that remain about the Roswell case.

Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files - A Third Time

I know that I have been quite critical of Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files in the last few weeks. I said then, and I will repeat now, that I enjoy the show. In the last couple of episodes, I have found nothing about which to complain.

Let me explain.

In a recent episode,, they were going to investigate a picture of a ghost taken at the Birdcage in Tombstone, Arizona. This was a gambling hall and house of prostitution back in the days of Wyatt Earp. A couple of dozen people were killed there and there have been reports of all sorts of ghostly occurrences inside, including an interesting picture of what looked like a man in a coffin.

They interviewed the photographer who said that he had tried to explain the picture but could not. They studied the photo and tried a number of different ways to duplicate with props on the table and a moving flashlight, but could not. Then one of the team noticed an old-fashioned coffee grinder sitting on the table and wondered if a light passing behind it would create the effect seen on the video. When they flashed a light through it, the shadows on the wall matched, perfectly, the ghost picture. They had found the solution.

In another investigation of a formation of UFOs taken in Mexico, they attempted to duplicate the taped image. They ran a couple of experiments, but nothing looked like the video they had. Finally the tried launching white, helium-filled balloons as is often done during weddings in that region. Their formation of balloons matched the motion, speed, and the grouping of the objects on the tape. They had found the solution.

Finally, they had a tape of a UFO seen above the Griffin Park Observatory taken by a motorist one night as he traveled down an LA freeway. They couldn’t run their experiments on the freeway for obvious reasons. Instead, they recreated the section of the freeway down to the lights and freeway signs to an amazing degree of accuracy. Again they ran their experiments but couldn’t quite duplicate the video.

What they eventually did, was use a helicopter, apparently with either the landing lights or a searchlight on, which overwhelmed the navigation lights and the anti-collision beacon. The bright object looked just like that on the video, as the helicopter hovered. They then had it accelerate and it looked like the object that had been filmed except that there wasn’t a sudden, rapid acceleration at the end of the video, as the object disappeared.

However, with a little digital editing, something that nearly everyone can do in today’s environment, they were able to duplicate the original video. They then used a voice stress type analysis of the witness. While I’m not a big fan of these sorts of things, and I think the jury is still out on the validity of such tests, they determined that the man who took the video was not being completely candid. Given all that, I believe they had found the solution.

They have done some other very good work in the last few weeks. They found what produced a ghostly image in a Nevada grave yard. It was the same solution that I found while investigating the Joplin, Missouri Spooklight a long time ago.

Once again, I believe that we all should watch Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files because they do put the claims of paranormal activity to the test. They do find the solutions for many of the stories, legends, claims and videos they examine. Anyone who does this kind of work, without becoming just debunkers searching for any solution, deserves our support.

Roswell Dream Team - A Brief Update

By examining a little of the material about the Roswell case, and here I mean a combination of documentation and testimony, we can draw a couple of conclusions in a limited way. I will note that I hold all the documentation for this, meaning I have copies of the relevant material, and I conducted the interviews with the witnesses, which include recordings of the conversations.

Here’s what we know and what we can prove.

According to the mythology of Roswell, the officers at Roswell were so confused by the Mogul arrays, they didn’t know that what they had were mere weather balloons and rawin radar reflectors. They flew the material to Fort Worth, their higher headquarters, where a low-ranking weather officer identified it all as nothing more than a balloon and foil-like rawin.

The problem here is that the timing doesn’t really work out if we believe that the men at Roswell didn’t know what they had until they got to Fort Worth. That would mean that the men in Fort Worth would be unable to identify it until the stuff arrived.

According to the time lines it was at 5:30 p.m. local time that the Dallas Morning News interviewed Major E. M. Kirton. According to the newspaper, the material found in Roswell was nothing more than a weather balloon.

But it was 6:00 p. m. local time that Warrant Officer Irving Newton (seen here with the rawin radar reflector) reported for duty, according to what he told me. The telephone in the office rang and he was ordered to report to Brigadier General Ramey’s office. He said that he was alone in the office and that he couldn’t leave. Ramey himself then called and told Newton, “to get your ass over here now. Use a car and if you don’t have one, take the first one with the keys in it,” according to what Newton said.

When he arrived, a colonel briefed him in the hallway (and if I was going to speculate here, I’d say that would be Colonel Thomas DuBose (later brigadier general), the Chief of Staff of the Eighth Air Force). Newton said that he didn’t remember who it was but that the message had been clear. “These officers from Roswell think they have found a flying saucer, but the general thinks it’s a weather balloon. He wants you to take a look.”

At that point, you might say, the air went out of the Roswell saucer. Nothing more than a weather balloon and a rawin radar target. Newton identified it as ordered and there is no question that the material, spread out on the floor, is the remains of a weather balloon and a radar target. From the photographs available, that is quite clear.

Okay, you say. So what?

How is it that Major Kirton could identify the material as a balloon before Newton arrived on duty, was called to Ramey’s office, and then identified it as a balloon? How did Kirton know this, at least, thirty minutes before anyone else supposedly knew?

Or is it that the cover story had already been decided upon and the actors in that little play were given their scripts. Kirton read from his, but he was more than thirty minutes too early. He should have said that the material was in Ramey’s office and it would be looked at by various experts...

In fact, why is it that only Newton was called forward to identify the material? Doesn’t this suggest that the fix was in?

And on a related point, while rereading the newspaper (specifically The Boston Herald of July 9, 1947) articles, I came across a statement by Brigader General Donald N. Yates, who in 1947 was the chief of the Army Air Forces weather service. He said, about the weather balloon and rawin radar targets, that only a very few of them are used daily, at some points where some specific project requires highly accurate wind information from extreme altitudes.

I mention this for two reasons. One is that in a letter to me, Newton used similar wording. He wrote, in 1995 I might add, that “The rawin target and balloon in question, was only used at limited locations...”

The suggestion here was that they were unusual and it wouldn’t be difficult for the men at Roswell to confuse this debris for something more exotic... except, the rawins and balloons were used at Operation Crosswords. These were the atomic tests in the Pacific in 1946, carried out with crews from the 509th, so the men at Roswell might well have been familiar with the look of the rawins.

And, second, there is the find from Circleville Ohio, as reported around the country in the days prior to the announcement from Roswell. Here a farmer found a weather balloon and rawin target in his field, but knew what it was. He took it to the sheriff, who knew what it was, and it was displayed in the window of the local newspaper, where, apparently everyone else knew what it was. Oh, they couldn’t have told you it was a rawin, but they would have told you that the object was a weather balloon and something attached to it.

Yet the guys in Roswell couldn’t identify it, even though they had the balloon envelop and the torn up target on display in Ramey’s office... and no one explained why the rawin was so torn up.

The real point here is that the timing was off, based on the documentation and testimony available. The timing of the announcements make it sound as if the answer was prepared before Newton arrived to give it. He was the window dressing. The expert who had worked with the rawins and the balloons and would know what it was. And the press, who ever they were (Newton mentioned several reporters) took that answer, as did Fort Worth Star-Telegram reporter, J. Bond Johnson, and returned to their city rooms. In a couple of hours, it was reported that the Roswell debris was a “weather forecasting device.”

And that was the end of it... for more than thirty years.

Chris Rutkowski Joins the Team

The Roswell Dream Team has expanded again. This time Chris Rutkowski (seen below), a well-known Canadian researcher has joined us.

We wanted to bring in someone with a skeptical bent but not someone who was rabidly anti-extraterrestrial. We wanted someone with an open mind, who would point out where we might have slipped off the rails, but not someone who would assume that we were wrong simply because there is no possibility of alien visitation. It is a fine line to walk, but we believe that Chris can walk that line.

Chris himself said, “Although I've been called both a skeptic and a believer (depending on whether you're hearing it from a ‘true believer’ or a skeptic), I tend to think of myself as an objective cynic. I sit on the fence when it comes to the question whether or not some UFOs are alien spacecraft. (The pointy slats are painful, but they can be endured.)”

About the Roswell crash case, Chris said, “I think we're a long way from declaring Roswell an ‘alien’ incident. True, according to some witnesses, the material recovered was unlike anything they had seen, and there certainly was an attempt by the military to cover up or obfuscate information about the event. It's a matter of speculation as to whether or not the material recovered was non-terrestrial in origin, since we don't have any on hand to test.”

He cautioned, and rightly so, that “We're relying on decades-old testimony in some cases, and more recently on memories of family members who may or may not recall with any accuracy statements or events from long ago. Furthermore, some military witnesses may still be reluctant to talk and some may still adhere to their military code of secrecy.”

Chris did provide us with some background information that is probably of interest to all. He wrote in a recent email to me, “My background in astronomy and education (BSc and MEd, respectively) fits well with my interest in science education, particularly when it comes to astronomy-related topics. I have greatly enjoyed showing people Jupiter's moons through small telescopes at public star fests, and telling them stories about how constellations got their names. And yes, the topic of UFOs falls under this broad category of astronomy-related subjects, although by history, not accurately. Astronomers are no better equipped than stock market analysts when it comes to dealing with objects reportedly moving low over witnesses' heads and over airports.”

Chris and Donna Rutkowski.

And he is not a newcomer to the world of UFO investigation. He told me, “... I've been investigating reports of UFOs since the 1970s. I've also been writing about cases and theories since about that time. With many hundreds of case investigations under my belt, I can say that there does not seem to be a single simple explanation for all reports. They're not all hoaxes or misidentifications of stars and meteors. They're not collective illusions. There's a residual percentage of cases which have enough data and detail to explain them as aircraft, stars, planets, balloons, etc., except they are not.”

The plan is to share everything with Chris and get his take on the importance of the information, the evidence, and the thinking involved. Chris said that he liked the idea of a “cold case” investigation and thought with Roswell it was something that was long overdue.

Tony Bragalia Joins Roswell Dream Team

The response to the announcement of the creation of a “Dream Team” has been met with nearly unanimous approval. There have been the detractors, but there will always be detractors... Nothing can be done about that, other than to say, we haven’t completed the team, and why not wait for the results before you condemn the research.

Tony Bragalia, who is known to many of us as a tireless researcher and who has an interest in a wide range of topics inside Ufology, has agreed to come on board as a consulting researcher. He’ll be working with us as we begin our new research into the Roswell case.

We all have worked with Tony on a variety of investigations. He and I collaborated on a review of the Mac Magruder story that was given to researchers by Magruder’s sons. We tried to find out when Magruder would have reported for duty at the Air War College and if he would have been available to travel to Wright Field for some sort of involvement in the research about the Roswell crash.

The reason I remember this well was because I was in Des Moines after the Iowa National Guard had been activated for duty during the devastating floods in 2008 (yes, we’re still recovering from that but you’d never know by all the news coverage of it). We shared information over the Internet, backing up each other’s findings.

The thing here is that we all don’t agree on some aspects of the case. Tony and I learned that Magruder wouldn’t have made it to Ohio until April 1948 as part of his training, which seemed to suggest Magruder wouldn’t have been deeply involved. He and I agreed, but Don and Tom do not... though it is a relatively small point and one we will revisit during the investigation.

Tom, Don and I don’t agree with Tony’s conclusion that students from the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology were responsible for the hoax in Socorro. Tony believes, based on some documentation and an interview with some that the landing was a trick played on Lonnie Zamora, though he might not have been the target. We, Tom, Don, and I think the evidence of a hoax is weak.

I mention these things just to show that we all are not in agreement on everything. It is a team of researchers who have their own opinions and read the evidence as individuals rather than by committee. This divergence of opinion should allow us to consider many different aspects and solutions as we attempt to put all this together.

I will note here that this is not the whole team. Other invitations have been issued and we plan to build a team of people that is diverse in opinion and complete in scope. There will be more announcements later.

Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files - Revisited

I got to thinking some more about the Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files video of a UFO crash at the White Sands Missile Range and found it strange that they had not spoken to anyone who worked there. I know that during different aspects of my research, whether into the treasure hidden in Victorio Peak (no, I don’t think there is one) to other aspects of the UFO phenomenon, the Public Affairs Office had always been courteous. So I sent them a note asking about this.

Monte Marlin, of that office, replied quickly to me. He said that he once had a email response prepared that he sent out to all that asked about the tape, which struck me as a smart thing to do. It also struck me that for him to do that, it meant that there were others who also asked the question about the footage which isn’t a bad thing. I mean there were enough people asking about the validity of the tape that he felt compelled to create a generic response to save himself some time. (The missile park at White Sands seen below.)

He suggested that this particular test was part of “an infrared shot of a Navy missile test...The high powered optics tests are part and parcel of our test mission here at the missile range. The data we collect belongs to our ‘customers,’ the weapons developers and is used for technical purposes. Once in awhile the clips make their way to the general public...”

Marlin also noted, “There are many, many launch areas and instrumentation sites on this enormous missile range. It is not uncommon to see poles in video footage. The poles may carry cabling related to the test or some poles have markings so that when we look at the footage, we can measure time/space distance.”

Which I found interesting because one of the experiments they ran on Paranormal Files was an attempt to duplicate the footage using an array of cables. It suggests that they had talked to the PAO, understood how some of the tests were conducted, but that wouldn’t have been very dramatic on TV. So, they just passed on that and ran their test.

This, I think answers one of the questions about the show... but hey, don’t get the wrong idea. I enjoy it. They have done some very useful experiments and solved some interesting mysteries. In this specific case, I think the answer was handed to them but they had thirty minutes to fill. Talking to a guy in an office isn’t nearly as exciting as running experiments in the desert, especially when you get to blow up a model rocket.

Rowell Investigation Dream Team

Tom Carey, (seen here signing a book at the Roswell festival in 2011) a UFO researcher living in Pennsylvania and one of the authors of Witness to Roswell, realized that there was a great deal of work left to be done on the Roswell UFO case. You might say that his dream was to pull all the information together, to locate and interview the witnesses who have yet to tell their stories, verify as best as possible the facts of the case, and write it all down in a coherent and rational analysis. To help with this project, Tom worked to bring together a team of researchers who understood this case. He succeeded in convincing both Don Schmitt and me to join him in his quest.

Don Schmitt had, in the late 1980s, realized there was still work to be done on the Roswell case. The surface had only been scratched by others. With the support of the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies, he began his research. One of the things he did was invite me to join him, believing that my military experience would be of help in understanding Army operations and in communicating with retired military personnel on their level.

As everyone who has been paying attention knows, Don (seen here are the Roswell Festival in 2011) and I had a falling out over some research techniques and matters unrelated to the investigation. While these seemed important then, it could be said that in time we reevaluated these issues. We reconnected after I returned from Iraq and it was as if no time had passed.

A couple of months ago Tom asked me if I was willing to join him in putting together what he thought of as the ultimate Roswell crash book. I was enthusiastic about the idea and readily agreed.

After Tom and I had discussed what we thought needed to be covered, Tom approached Don with the same idea. Don also thought it a good idea and the Dream Team was born (can I, as a participant, refer to it as a Dream Team?).

Although we are still, more or less, in the planning stages, we have already made some discoveries. I have learned of a doctor who might have participated in an autopsy of the alien creatures. True enough, we have heard this before, but the man is a doctor, was a doctor then, and is now willing to talk about what he had seen.

Also true, I have not verified all of what he said, but there are some indications that he is who he claims to be. I mention this only because it is one of the first things that we have learned.

We have also begun, again, to use FOIA in an attempt to learn more about the Air Force investigation of the Roswell case. This means, simply, that we have again gone to the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force to review documents that relate to their Roswell investigation. We wanted to know what transpired in the meetings, what was written in the memos, and what the internal reports might have said.

I tried this once before. I spent three years chasing this information, finally locating what they had at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. But all that was there was the results of that investigation and nothing about the internal operations of it (Air Force Roswell investigation files seen here. Instead there were video tapes of witnesses, most of them gathered for the Fund for UFO Research, a Court Martial of a doctor who was having an affair with a nurse in 1957 and completely irrelevant to the investigation, lots of reports on balloons and Mogul, but nothing that answered my basic questions. So now we’ve started that process all over.

What we want to do is distill the information. We want to eliminate the nonsense from the case, whether it is Air Force explanations or witness testimony that is irrelevant or untrue.

You might say that we are starting all over, on a cold case, reviewing everything related to determine what is important. Sure, we all believe that what fell at Roswell was alien, but we are going to take the path that leads to the truth. We will attempt to eliminate our personal biases in favor of determining what happened now nearly 65 years ago.

Periodically we will provide updates about the investigation, letting people know where we are going. We plan to pull it all together in a book that will answer the various questions as best we can. Yes, we know that we won’t be able to please everyone... what if we find a terrestrial explanation that actually works? Then the UFO community will be angry... And if we find that it was something alien, well, I doubt that the Skeptics will be satisfied.

So now we begin again, not from our own goal-line to be sure but somewhere down the field and this time we will find the answer and the proof to support that answer.

Fact or Faked: The Paranormal Files

I watched Fact or Faked: The Paranormal Files today and had some questions. First, I enjoy the show and am all in favor of anything that brings a note of skepticism and research into these tales. But I sometimes wonder if they know the answer before they attempt their recreations.

Not all that long ago they aired some footage of a nighttime object falling that broke into three pieces before fading out. They interviewed a couple, here meaning a man and woman which I believe were mother and son, who had seen the lights and were puzzled by them. But they didn’t interview the photographer who took the video footage and who was known to them, about it.

They eventually put together a scenario that made sense, that is, parachutists with flares strapped to their boots. They confirmed that members of the Army’s Golden Knights expert parachute team had been practicing in the area and had been using flares. Nothing faked here, but an explanation in the mundane.

Good for them... but I wondered why they hadn’t interviewed the cameraman. He worked for a local TV station and would have had access to all sorts of equipment. But they didn’t talk to him... or rather, we saw no footage of them interviewing him. I suspect it was because he knew what he had filmed. Oh, maybe not right away, but by the time the team from Paranormal Files arrived, I suspect he knew the answer.

I mention all this because in the latest episode they had footage of a UFO crash that was taken at White Sands Missile Range in 1996 or 1997. The bright object comes down, strikes the ground, skips upwards, falls and then crashes and explodes. They went to New Mexico to see what they could learn about this event.

They never made onto the White Sands Missile Range, or if they did, they showed nothing from that. Instead, they showed warning signs about the range, a long distance photograph of it, and a short interview with a UFO researcher who didn’t even know that the unit at Roswell was the 509th Bomb Group and not a squadron, let alone much about anything else... or rather the interview seemed to show that.

Then they were off to California where they conducted their experiments. They made some elaborate attempts, eventually using a model rocket fired at a low angle that did skip across the ground but did not explode. They suggested that if the object in the film was some of sort of missile test that got away from those at White Sands, it wouldn’t have been designed the way a model rocket engine is. In other words, the White Sands test might well have exploded.

While their last attempt does resemble the original footage, I still wonder why they went to New Mexico and didn’t do anything there. Why didn’t they hit the missile range and ask some questions. At worst, they would have been turned away at the gate. The last time I was there, I had to show proof of auto insurance to get on the base but had no trouble. I’m sure that someone in the public affairs office would have been delighted to speak with them. It just struck me as a hole in their investigation.

They did no better with the second segment which was of a ghost taped in a Tonopah, Nevada cemetery. The image that had been captured on tape was striking in the way that it appeared, moved across a short stretch of the cemetery and then disappeared.

They noticed that the appearance of the phantom seemed to coincide with the lights on a nearby highway. They set up an experiment to test this and were able to recreate the image on their equipment. The answer seemed obvious, but one of those reviewing the tape mentioned there had been many eyewitnesses to these apparitions. He was suggesting that there might be something paranormal there because of the multiple reports.

Not so fast. I had spent time at the site of the Joplin Spooklight and know there are hundreds of witnesses to it. But that doesn’t make it a spirit or ghost. It is quite obvious that the Spooklight is the result of light refraction from a nearby section of highway. So, a boatload of eyewitnesses does not mean the Spooklight is anything paranormal. It means that those people have seen an ambiguous light and identified it as something paranormal. The same would apply to the Tonopah apparition.

My point here is that I am a little surprised at the direction some of their investigations take. I’m surprised that they don’t interview those I would think would be critical to understanding what is being seen and photographed and taped. It seems to me that they leave out some steps... but eventually get to the correct answers... and that, I suppose, is the real point.

We Have the Wrong Roswell Crash Site?

This one is so funny that I have to laugh. I got into a discussion with someone about the location of the debris field as described by Bill Brazel. I was told that I had the wrong location.

How can this be?

Bill Brazel took me there himself.

It was early morning and we, and by we, I mean Don Schmitt and I, meant Brazel at a café in Capitan. He was driving an old red pickup and we left my car at the café. As we drove out of town, Brazel asked us if we wanted a beer. Don said he didn’t and I thought that one of us ought to have one with Brazel so I said, “Sure.”

Ah, there is nothing I like more than warm beer at eight o’clock in the morning.

Anyway, we drove out toward Corona, taking the back roads and arrived at the location where the thing, whatever it might have been, hit.

Brazel got out of the truck and pointed to the ground at his feet... No, there wasn’t a bit of debris there now. He just said that this was where he’d found a couple of the scraps.

I took a couple of pictures with Don and Bill standing there (which might be the only pictures of one of the prime witnesses on the actual debris field... and the pictures have been copyrighted, reproduction is prohibited.)

Brazel then explained where it had hit, how it had scraped along the ground, leaving a narrow neck that widened to about ten feet and then tapered again as if it had skipped. The ground was scraped to about a foot or so deep and Brazel said that it had taken a couple of years to grass back over.

No, I really don’t want to discuss all the variations about this and how Jesse Marcel never said anything about a gouge... Though “Reluctant,” Karl Pflock’s witness who was really Walt Whitmore, Jr., talked about an area of disturbed ground he had seen in one of his versions of events.

Anyway, it was Bill Brazel who showed me the site so I figure that I must have it right. (Please note these are two different pictures, though taken about the same time.)

When CUFOS did their archaeological site survey out there, we planted those little “utility” flags along the ground in a line about a half mile long where it seemed that Brazel had said the thing skipped. When we left, we pulled up all those flags, not wanting to leave anything behind that would annoy the ranch owners who had kindly allowed us to make the survey.



Archaeological dig on the ranch..

Sometime after that, Bud Payne, a Lincoln County judge who said that he had seen the military out there doing something, took us, meaning Don, Paul Davids, Robert Hastings, and me out to the site. As we got out of the truck, I looked down and saw one of the flags we had missed.

In other words, Bud Payne put us on the same stretch of New Mexican desert as did Bill Brazel. That would seem to confirm the location as given to us earlier.

Tommy Tyree, who worked for Brazel, told us of riding the range with Brazel when he pointed down into a sinkhole that had water in the bottom. Floating on it was a bit of debris... and before you ask, no, we didn’t find the sinkhole, Tyree didn’t know precisely where it had been, and the water would have been long gone (and the hole probably filled in). But he gave us directions out there and it was on the same bit of range as that shown to us by Bill Brazel.

(Off on a tangent, because I know people are going to start asking all sorts of questions... We were unable to locate the sinkhole and figured the sides had collapsed in the forty years or so before we got there. When we did the site survey, we dug around the roots of plants that looked old enough to have been there when the crash happened... We looked into animal burrows, hoping to find a scavenger that had found a bit of the debris... We used metal detectors and even tried an aerial survey in a rented plane... and no, we had no success in any of that.)

The real point here is that I’m certain we were in the right place because it is the place the witnesses took us to... independently of one another. True, there could have been some discussion over the years about the location among these various witnesses, but the point is Bill Brazel showed it to Don and me. I am not aware of him showing it to anyone else (though he certainly could have, I’m just not aware of it).

So, when people tell me I’ve got the wrong place, I wonder what is the source of their information. It didn’t come directly from Bill Brazel as did the information that I have. It didn’t come from a first-hand source, as did my information. It might have been derived some something that was told to me, or something that I, or Don, said, or from people we took out there said, but as far as I know, the two of us are the only two Brazel took out there. We have the right place.