Seth Shostak On UFOs: A Few Comments: Part Three

Dr. Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer at the SETI Institute in California has authored or co-authored a trio of books to date about life in the universe in general and extraterrestrial intelligence in particular. It’s difficult to address these topics without having to mention either in passing or at length the subject of UFOs and possible association with extraterrestrials. This Dr. Shostak has done, but painted with a very skeptical, perhaps in places with a misleading, paint brush. This trilogy and my abbreviations for them throughout this essay are as follows.

Sharing the Universe (STU)

Cosmic Company (CC)

Confessions of an Alien Hunter (CAH)

For complete bibliographic details, see at bottom.

While Dr. Shostak’s book trilogy isn’t the sum total of his opinions on the UFO phenomena, they no doubt represent a solid representation of his UFO philosophy, and since these tomes are readily accessible to the general public, they form as good a source as any.

Continued from Part Two.

Roswell, July 1947 (STU, CC, CAH)

Dr. Shostak is a Roswell skeptic, at least so far as ET is concerned. What Dr. Shostak doesn’t answer or otherwise come to terms with is how experienced military officers (plural) could mistake balloon materials (weather or Mogul) for a metallic crashed ‘flying disk’. I maintain they couldn’t make that oops. I would maintain that Dr. Shostak himself could distinguish between the two and he’s no military officer in the air force or a balloon expert. I’d expect even the little old lady from Pasadena would detect the difference. In fact the discovery of any bit of balloon material in that Roswell debris would give the game away immediately. See also my comments on government cover-ups/censorship above. Dr. Shostak also made a minor mistake in attributing the Roswell incident as involving USAF instead of USAAF (Army Air Force) personnel (STU).

As related above, Dr. Shostak wants hard physical stuff to place on the slab-in-the-lab. That’s the only evidence he will accept for the UFO ETH. The only bona-fide UFO case we know of for absolute certain involving hard physical stuff is Roswell. Since Dr. Shostak acknowledges that Roswell is associated with hard physical evidence that’s testable on the slab-in-the-lab (that Roswell debris or wreckage), perhaps he could politely ask the USAF to loan him some of those Roswell bits and pieces for his analysis since he knows the debris exists. Where is the Roswell wreckage now and why can’t Dr. Shostak be loaned some? 

Of course Dr. Shostak, if successful, would have to take it on pure faith and trust that he’d be getting the Right Stuff; the Real Deal; the Real McCoy to test. Not a given I’d suspect.

Project Mogul (STU, CAH)

Dr. Shostak has swallowed hook, line and proverbial sinker the new and improved 1995 USAF explanation for the July 1947 Roswell incident and debris. It was a Top Secret Project Mogul balloon (just a variation or upgrade on the previous weather balloon explanation). However, even that massive (lots of unnecessary filler of no relevance) 1995 USAF report pointing the Project Mogul finger at Roswell could only conclude that a Mogul balloon or balloon train was the most likely maybe explanation. The 1995 USAF report could not provide any actual evidence that Roswell WAS a Mogul balloon. Thus, the Roswell case is still open, although Dr. Shostak would have us apparently believe otherwise.  

Roswell: Reverse Engineering (STU, CC, CAH)

Dr. Shostak maintains that if Roswell were true, that the powers-that-be actually obtained real extraterrestrial materials and thus alien technologies, that America should be light years ahead of the rest of the world in high-tech, especially aerospace technologies, since those powers-that-be would have reversed engineered those alien technologies and put them to American use – good old American know-how strikes again. Of course Dr. Shostak assumes we could actually reverse engineer alien technologies, but that is not a given. One hundred plus years ago, even a team of Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla and Guglielmo Marconi couldn’t have reverse engineered today’s ever present Smart Phone. 

I quite agree with Dr. Shostak however that lasers and fiber optics and the transistor, etc. were human inventions and not reverse engineered from alien technologies despite some claims to the contrary by some UFO buffs. Even UFO buffs can go a bit over-the-top with their claims.

Abductions (STU, CC, CAH)

If you stop and think about this abduction facet rationally, you’ll see a parallel with our own wildlife biologists who often (via a trap or a tranquiller dart) capture, transport, examine, measure, take samples (blood, tissues, etc.), tag, then transport back and release their wildlife specimens. Substitute aliens for wildlife biologists and humans for wildlife, and it makes scientific sense. Why millions of humans? Isn’t that overkill? Why do we do unmentionable things to millions of lab rats and fruit flies? Isn’t that overkill too?

Human-Alien Sex (STU)

Dr. Shostak notes that in the UFO abduction literature there is an emphasis on sex and reproduction and that from a biological point of view, this is as absurd as a pussy cat mating with a petunia. We’ll ignore Mr. Spock’s parentage here since he’s a fictional character.

Well actually the sex or reproduction referred to is not really akin to what happens in human bedrooms, on top of the kitchen table or in the back seats of automobiles. It’s more akin to what happens in fertility clinics. The scenario is more like aliens manipulating human eggs and sperm and genetic material that’s been removed from their unwilling human hosts than actual alien-human intercourse. Admittedly, this is still pretty far out stuff and one is hard pressed to come up with an alien motive for this behavior. What could the motivation really be? I don’t profess to understand this, but I can point out that we have a lot of trouble understanding motivation at times in our fellow life forms. I’m damned if I can comprehend at times what goes on in that brain thingy that’s housed between my pet cat’s ears. On the flip side of that coin, probably 95% of what I do is no doubt unexplainable and meaningless to the felines. Trying to comprehend alien motivations when it’s difficult to come to terms with our companion animals’ behavior is fraught with danger.  

Crop Circles (STU, CC, CAH)

Dr. Shostak likes to ridicule and poke fun at the UFO ETH by pointing out the absurdity of aliens coming all the way to Planet Earth across the void of interstellar space just to do agricultural graffiti in the crop fields of southeastern England (in particular). And some people do make a UFO/crop ‘circle’ connection. I’m not one of those people. Crop ‘circles’ are a huge anomaly. They aren’t natural formations, but while some are hoaxes, there’s sufficient evidence that not all of them could be. There really is something screwy somewhere. I just can’t figure out a motive (again, dangerous to try one’s hand at alien psychology) for ET to do crop ‘circles’ unless they share a common trait with humans – a sense of humor, a sense of the absurd, a love of pulling pranks and causing mischief for its own sake. So, to make a long story short, I just shunt crop ‘circles’ to one side as an interesting anomaly but one which probably has bugger-all to do with any ETI (extraterrestrial intelligence) connection. 

The ‘Face’ on Mars (CAH)

Dr. Shostak goes on for some length about the so-called ‘face’ on Mars photographed by the Viking mission in 1976, and re-photographed in 1998, 2006 and 2007 and probably many times thereafter given all the probes orbiting Mars today. Conclusion – close, but no cigar. Mother Nature played a trick (of the lighting) on us. There is no artificially constructed ‘face’ on Mars. In this I totally agree with Dr. Shostak. But the ‘face’ is just a diversion from there real issue at hand here – UFOs.  

Hostility (CAH)

Apparently, though overall a sweeping generalization, SETI (and other physical) scientists are way less hostile to UFO buffs (a few of which are also scientists) than the other way around (and that imbalance probably applies to other ‘fringe’ buffs as well like inventors of perpetual motion machines who get cranky at the Patent Office and creationists who bucket evolutionary biologists). And I sympathize and feel for those scientists on the receiving end of nasty and personal comments just because they don’t share the exact same worldview as their antagonists. There’s no excuse for that.

However, for Dr. Shostak to suggest that UFO buffs are overly hostile to SETI and therefore SETI scientists who aren’t UFO buffs just because SETI might succeed in proving the existence of ET first, thus leaving the UFO buffs in PR limbo, can cut both ways. How would Dr. Shostak feel if after decades of fruitless dedication to traditional radio SETI along with the spending of multi-millions of dollars on sophisticated equipment, Mary Citizen holds a press conference and walks in with her arm around a bona-fide ‘Grey’ alien?

In any event, a positive SETI hit doesn’t of necessity negate the UFO ETH and Mary Citizen’s press conference doesn’t mean SETI won’t get a positive hit a day later. Even though I don’t see the UFO ETH and SETI in competition, rather as being complementary, if there’s a Nobel Prize or any other public recognition at stake, defending their turf and their claim to priority, even scientists have been known to behave badly towards each other, a trait hardly confined to recent times – scientist-to-scientist hostility goes back centuries - so I’ll cut a bit of slack, but only a bit, for the less professional UFO enthusiast.

My Personal Conclusions

IMHO, Dr. Shostak has a rather shallow comprehension of the entire UFO issue and I doubt that he has really studied the field, at least relative to many that he has debated. He apparently hasn’t gotten his hands dirty doing any actual onsite fieldwork and interviewing witnesses and doing photographic analysis. Further, based on his written works, I don’t believe he has adequately thought through many of the various facets of the phenomena and how those jigsaw puzzle pieces might fit together.

Dr. Shostak might argue that it’s not his job to be on top of the UFO topic and research same, but I suggest otherwise if for no other reason than to play fair with the great unwashed that go to him for advice and information on the subject. It is his job if he is going to write and speak on the subject for the public’s consumption and voice professional opinions for their benefit.

I get the impression that he uses his public profile and his scientific authority as a senior astronomer to convincingly wax lyrical on a subject to Joe and Mary Citizen who know less about UFOs that he does and who aren’t by nature skeptical enough or knowledgeable enough to think the issue through themselves. We tend to rely on authority figures to tell us what’s what.

That aside, there’s nothing in the “S” in SETI which specifies how to search or what to search when it comes to pinning the tail on ET. UFOs are as legit as radio telescopes, so by ignoring any active participation in UFO investigation he’s effectively tying one hand behind his back. To profess an interest in ETI and yet ignore UFOs in the same breath is strange scientific behavior IMHO.

Finally, to end on a positive note, Dr. Shostak has made some valid points as related above; he has put his ‘money’ where his mouth is and been willing to engage politely in dialog with those who hold alternate worldviews.

Bibliographic Details:

Shostak, Seth; Sharing the Universe: Perspectives on Extraterrestrial Life; Berkeley Hills Books, Berkeley, California; 1998:

Shostak, Seth & Barnett, Alex; Cosmic Company: The Search for Life in the Universe; Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K.; 2003:

Shostak, Seth; Confessions of An Alien Hunter: A Scientist’s Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence; National Geographic, Washington, D.C.; 2009:



Seth Shostak On UFOs: A Few Comments: Part Two

Dr. Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer at the SETI Institute in California has authored or co-authored a trio of books to date about life in the universe in general and extraterrestrial intelligence in particular. It’s difficult to address these topics without having to mention either in passing or at length the subject of UFOs and possible association with extraterrestrials. This Dr. Shostak has done, but painted with a very skeptical, perhaps in places with a misleading, paint brush. This trilogy, and my abbreviations for them throughout this essay are as follows.

Sharing the Universe (STU)

Cosmic Company (CC)

Confessions of an Alien Hunter (CAH)

For complete bibliographic details, see at bottom.

While Dr. Shostak’s book trilogy isn’t the sum total of his opinions on the UFO phenomena, they no doubt represent a solid representation of his UFO philosophy, and since these tomes are readily accessible to the general public, they form as good a source as any.

Continued from Part One.

Motivation (CC, CAH)

Dr. Shostak can’t seem to find a real motive(s) for why UFOs (as ET) would want to be here and waste their time out in our galactic boondocks. Some of the obvious candidates as related in sci-fi are apparently off their agenda, given the lapse of time since the ‘modern’ UFO era’ began – 1947 to date. For example, it’s highly unlikely by now that invasion is their motive or have a motivation as in ‘take me to your leader’ or establishing diplomatic and/or trade relations. The obvious parallel is do wildlife biologists establish these sorts of relationships with elephants (a highly intelligent mammal, unfortunately probably soon to be driven to extinction); do you establish these sorts of relationships with your pet companion animals?

Dr. Shostak notes that it is highly unlikely advanced high-tech aliens are coveting and stealing our technology and industrial secrets. Industrial espionage isn’t their agenda either though maybe through quirks in their industrial revolution they missed out on smart phones, amplifiers, plastics and the ability to brew beer. Dr. Shostak equally and correctly IMHO notes and that’s nicking our natural resources isn’t on their agenda either as anything Planet Earth has or our solar system has can be found closer to ET’s own home. We’re not likely to journey to Alpha Centauri for ices or minerals when there is an entire local asteroid belt, Oort Cloud and Kuiper Belt to tap, enough to last humanity a very, very long time.

But there is one resource local to Planet Earth that aliens can’t find closer to home and that’s terrestrial biochemistry, a resource we exploit for the pharmaceutical industry. Exactly why aliens would want to harvest terrestrial biochemistry is beyond me (maybe for their drug or pharmaceutical needs?) but I’m not prepared to rule it out entirely even if it is a far out in left field. [See also Human-Alien Sex]

Among the other negatives, ET doesn’t appear to be here as missionaries come to promote even ram their alien religious philosophy down our collective throats. ET doesn’t appear to be interested in helping humanity achieve universal peace or provide us with new and improved environmentally friendly technologies, like the key to controllable nuclear fusion.

So what is the motivation of our potential UFO-related aliens? Well, and I’m sure Dr. Shostak can appreciate this, it is SETI! Of course in this case the “S” has been achieved and we’re their “ETI”. I find it strange that Dr. Shostak doesn’t acknowledge or list the possibility that their motivation is exactly the same as his very own calling card – scientific exploration. In Dr. Shostak’s case it is via radio telescopes. In the case of aliens, it is more like the Star Trek scenario – the boldly going scenario that Earthlings can appreciate given our past history of boldly going, finding new lands and new peoples.

Why Now (CC, CAH)

Dr. Shostak asks the very logical question about the UFO/alien presence here on Earth – why now, now being 1947 to date. He means, given the age of our planet and the probability that aliens could come visiting anytime during that interval; it would be highly improbable that it would be ‘now’. He correctly points out that unless aliens were already in our neck of the woods (think here the film scenario of Star Trek: First Contact) then UFOs have bugger-all to do with recent (say first half of the 20^th Century) human activities since they would have to be too far away to witness same and still get here by 1947.  

Dr. Shostak briefly discusses and dismisses the ‘ancient astronaut’ issue even though it partly answers his own ‘why now’ objection  which is that it defies probability that UFOs would become a presence and a force to be reckoned with just in the last several decades plus. For the here and now, the ‘ancient astronaut’ issue is another essay for another time but I’ll just say I ground the reality of ‘ancient astronauts’ based on universal mythologies, not archaeology. Sufficient to say that the answer to ‘why now’ is that the alien presence has been an ever ongoing one (even if token), so it’s not just here and ‘now’. It’s that biosphere argument. We’re interesting on an ongoing basis, not just now, not just a quickie visit every million years or so.

Consider an Antarctic penguin seeing his (or her) first human wildlife biologist that’s about to abduct, tag, and release it. The penguin might ask ‘why now’ and gee-whiz aren’t I ‘lucky’ to be so special as to have such an advanced being interested in little old me right here and ‘now’. Of course the penguin might say ‘why me’ and ‘why now’ instead of why not some other penguin from fifty years ago. What the penguin wouldn’t know is that humans (and wildlife biologists) have had an ongoing presence in Antarctica for decades and decades. Humans didn’t arrive in Antarctica just ‘now’ and there probably really was some other penguin from fifty years past who also asked ‘why me’ and ‘why now’ and there might be another penguin fifty years from now who will go through the same ‘why me’ and ‘why now’ process.  

Evidence (CC)

If there is one phrase or mantra repeated again and again by UFO skeptics is “show me the evidence” for the UFO ETH, though apparently by his own admission there’s sufficient evidence to convince some scientists that there really are “alien rocket jockeys” here and now.

Unfortunately, Dr. Shostak has a very narrow definition of what evidence is, and it’s not eyewitness testimony – the profession and the quality of the eyewitness is irrelevant, it’s not multi-eyewitnesses, it’s not radar, it’s not eyewitnesses combined with radar, it’s not photographs, it’s not films, it’s not physiological effects or electromagnetic effects or ground traces. One thing and only one things qualifies as really real evidence and that’s a physical something that he can put on the slab in his lab. That’s it. Pity he couldn’t use that criteria in a courtroom as to what constitutes real evidence.

But that’s not the real point. The real UFO issue is that there’s more than sufficient evidence that something really, really interesting is going on and ongoing. Maybe it’s psychological, maybe it’s pathological, maybe it is sociological or a cultural phenomena. Maybe it’s human time travelers from our future or maybe it is terrorists (or hippies) lacing our water with hallucinogenic drugs. Maybe it really is ET buzzing our aircraft and/or doing agricultural graffiti and/or abducting Joe and Mary Citizen for Frankenstein-like experiments. But something INTERESTING is going on and scientists, or so I thought, love to investigate INTERESTING things, topics, subjects, whatever.  

The Condon Report (STU)

Dr. Shostak loves the USAF sponsored University of Colorado study of UFOs that was done (after quite some considerable difficulty in coming up with an academic institution willing to take the money on offer) under the direction of physicist Edward U. Condon – thus oft referred to as the Condon Study and Condon Report. Why? It nailed shut the door on the UFO ETH (extraterrestrial hypothesis) and that UFOs had any legit connection with all things scientific. UFOs were pseudoscience; the Condon Report said as much. Therefore, the USAF could bail out of the UFO business (a PR headache) with head held high. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out quite so cut and dried as Dr. Shostak might have his readers believe.

Dr. Shostak got one thing right (STU) in quoting Dr. Condon in Condon’s summary/conclusions preface to the report proper. That is, that summary/conclusions section was entirely all Condon’s work. None of his staff saw before-the-fact the conclusions section which were personally Condon’s and Condon’s alone. The staff only read Condon’s conclusions after the entire report had been published. Dr. Shostak neglects to mention the historical and well documented fact that the Condon Study was wracked with internal dissension not the least because Condon had gone public with his anti-UFO conclusions while the study was still in progress.

Dr. Shostak notes that the National Academy of Sciences endorsed the Condon Report, but fails to mention that the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) gave it the thumbs-down, as did the scientific consultant to the USAF’s various UFO investigations (Projects Sign, Grudge and Blue Book), the late Dr. J. Allen Hynek. In fact Dr. Shostak seems to have been unaware there ever was a Project Sign and a Project Grudge before Project Blue Book as he only notes the latter (STU). That must have been pointed out to him by someone since Projects Sign and Grudge get a mention in a later book (CAH).  

Finally, Dr. Shostak fails to mention that fully 30% of the UFO cases studied by Condon’s staff (Condon himself never got his hands dirty with actual on-site investigation) could not be explained and thus remained bona-fide UFOs. Now I wonder why Dr. Shostak didn’t mention that little tidbit and how that contradicts Condon’s own conclusions.  

So, perhaps it isn’t all that surprising that Dr. Shostak drops the mention of Condon from his later UFO coverage (CC, CAH). The light bulb about how bad the Condon Report was probably came on since his first book (STU). 

Surveillance: Detection from the Top on Down (STU, CC, CAH)

Dr. Shostak makes an apparently valid point when he notes that all of our surveillance of terra firma via those spy and other satellites like weather satellites, Google Earth images, all that massive 24/7 surveillance coverage from the top (space) down (ground level) hasn’t reveled diddly-squat in terms of spotting any UFOs. Conclusion: there are no UFOs to spot! Well one can ignore the spy military surveillance since anything unusual detected could be, probably should be, classified. As to the rest, well there’s a relatively easy answer – stealth technology.  If you know enough physics to cross interstellar space, you know enough physics to adapt physical principles into stealth technologies if it is to your advantage to do so and given the human track record of shoot-first-and-ask-questions-afterwards stealth technology is a wise precaution. If you can use stealth technologies to absorb radar photons (make yourself invisible to radar) you can adapt that sort of high-tech to absorb light photons (make yourself invisible to the eye, the camera, etc.) By analogy, terrestrial stealth technologies and ever ongoing R&D of stealth technologies are part and parcel of every advanced military nation (the US, Russia, China, etc.). Nations are using and are working on stealth technologies, and not necessarily 100% towards military applications. Law enforcement makes use of such advancements too. So, if we do stealth technology, why not ET?  

But just because commercial satellites have apparently not photographed UFOs (have all images been examined in exacting detail with that objective in mind?) doesn’t mean UFOs don’t exist. UFOs are not a fixed feature on the landscape, unlike say the pyramids at Giza or Easter Island. Any UFO would have to be in exactly the right spot at exactly the right time and that’s relatively unlikely as the numbers of alien craft are probably very few and far between. What? Multi-thousands of eyewitness sightings and there are just a few craft? Yes! Subtract all those IFOs from the UFOs and then note that one craft could be witnessed hundreds of times over the many decades. There are vastly more sightings of aircraft than there are aircraft since one aircraft can be witnessed multi-thousands upon thousands of time over the lifetime of that aircraft. If there were only a dozen or so bona-fide UFOs shared around the globe what odds one will be in the right place at the right time to have its picture taken by a satellite?  

To be continued.

Bibliographic Details:

Shostak, Seth; Sharing the Universe: Perspectives on Extraterrestrial Life; Berkeley Hills Books, Berkeley, California; 1998:

Shostak, Seth & Barnett, Alex; Cosmic Company: The Search for Life in the Universe; Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K.; 2003:

Shostak, Seth; Confessions of An Alien Hunter: A Scientist’s Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence; National Geographic, Washington, D.C.; 2009:



Seth Shostak On UFOs: A Few Comments: Part One

Dr. Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer at the SETI Institute in California has authored or co-authored a trio of books to date about life in the universe in general and extraterrestrial intelligence in particular. It’s difficult to address these topics without having to mention either in passing or at length the subject of UFOs and possible association with extraterrestrials. This Dr. Shostak has done, but painted with a very skeptical, perhaps in places with a misleading, paint brush. This trilogy, and by abbreviations for them throughout this essay are as follows.

Sharing the Universe (STU)

Cosmic Company (CC)

Confessions of an Alien Hunter (CAH)

For complete bibliographic details, see at bottom.

While Dr. Shostak’s book trilogy isn’t the sum total of his opinions on the UFO phenomena, they no doubt represent a solid representation of his UFO philosophy, and since these tomes are readily accessible to the general public, they form as good a source as any.

This is where Dr. Shostak and I start off agreeing with each other. Firstly, there exist a reasonable number of advanced extraterrestrial civilizations out in our Milky Way Galaxy. For Dr. Shostak to believe otherwise would make a farce of his chosen profession as a traditional SETI (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) scientist.

Secondly, we both would agree that there is no physical law(s), relationship(s) or principle(s) in physics that prohibit interstellar travel and journeys from one solar system to another solar system.

Thirdly, and this is where we might start diverging, given the age of the Milky Way Galaxy and the time available for civilizations to rise and achieve a status of ‘boldly going’ (in person or via artificially intelligent robotic surrogates), it’s a near certainty that ET has been in our local neck of the cosmic woods and that we (Planet Earth with biosphere) has been noted and logged in at least one ET database, perhaps many, especially if there’s such a thing as a cosmic version of the Internet. That’s the famous or infamous “where is everybody” Fermi Paradox. That said, I maintain that once here, and once we (Planet Earth) was discovered, their presence, their monitoring, even if a token one, would be ongoing, all the more so when our biosphere got really interesting with the arrival of multi-cellular land-lubbers - terrestrial critters.

Dr. Shostak asks the question (STU) “are we really that interesting” such that aliens would pay so much attention to our little cosmic neck of the woods. He suggests that that scenario is highly doubtful. I say “yes” because biospheres are going to be relatively rare; multi-cellular biospheres rarer still and biospheres with intelligent life rarer still. Biospheres are interesting; rarity is interesting; therefore Planet Earth in the relatively recent here and now is interesting.

Public Opinion Polls & UFOs (STU, CC, CAH)

Dr. Shostak makes a point of noting that public opinion poll after public opinion poll after public opinion poll, across the board, rich or poor, male or female, elderly or young, black or white, Ph.D. or high school dropout, atheistic or Catholic, a healthy percentage of the population believe that there is a connection between ET and UFOs. He’s probably muttering under his breath something like ‘stupid people’ but really real physical scientists know better – or most of them anyway. He tends to put these polls down to an ‘it’s time’ factor. World War Two and the Cold War and the dawning of the Space Age are all involved with relatively high-tech aeronautical and astronautical stuff from ICBMs that carry nuclear payloads to the U-2 to spy satellites to Telstar to the Space Shuttle to Moon landings, etc. Since roughly the WWII era, we’re talking about the ‘high ground’ that has us all interested in and ‘watching the skies’. The popularity of sci-fi, especially aliens and alien invasions didn’t hurt and the concept of extraterrestrials is just so damn interesting. Dr. Shostak got hooked on aliens too; otherwise he’d still be doing routine radio astronomy research on galaxies. So we all got space and aliens on the noggin. 

But the conclusion I draw is that where there’s smoke, there’s at least smoke, and probably fire. In other words, there must be something really suggestive in the data that’s been presented over the past six decades to support this UFO/ET connection; that lends people to lean towards this conclusion and not some other like maybe UFOs represent human time travelers from our future or terrorist organizations that have been putting hallucinogenic substances in our water supply. 

Public Opinion Polls & Alien Abductions (CC)

Based on public surveys, millions upon millions of otherwise apparently normal and sane people believe that they have been abducted by extraterrestrials, usually the ‘Greys’. I get the impression that Dr. Shostak kind of rolls his eyeballs at that subject and those findings. He probably mutters some more about ‘silly people’ or gullible people. However, IMHO, no matter how you slice and dice those findings, what a fascinating area for scientists to research. [See also: Abductions]

Public Opinion Polls & Government Cover-ups/Censorship of UFOs (STU)

Dr. Shostak also notes that these same public opinion polls note that Americans (in this case) are highly suspicious of officialdom claims that there’s nothing to the UFO story at all. It’s all just hoaxes and misidentifications albeit honest misidentifications. There is no UFO/ET connection. The public widely suspect that the powers-that-be aren’t being 100% aboveboard on the issue. Shostak might silently mumble ‘silly humans’, but I have a different conclusion, since I say who can blame Joe and Mary Citizen for being suspicious of officialdom’s word given the track record of secret projects (like the U-2) and covert operations (incursions into other countries during the Vietnam War) and surveillance (NSA) and dozens of other case histories that have come to light (Nixon and Watergate comes to mind here).

If there is a UFO/ET connection and the powers-that-be know this, that information would be classified (therefore by definition censored from the public or in other words covered-up). Then too, every citizen knows, and respects, that proper authorities like the Defense Department and the various diplomatic agencies and departments have and need to keep some stuff classified on a need-to-know basis. It’s sometimes called being economical with the truth. Anyone who believes that any administration from any country at any time tells their people the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth is living in cloud cuckoo land. Those opinion poll results are therefore hardly surprising.

But Dr. Shostak appears to have a real bee in his bonnet over the advocates that insist or at least claim that there’s a UFO cover-up or censorship. Dr. Shostak insists that a really real conspiracy would have to be global in nature and given the diversity of nations and leaderships and political systems and cultures, over six plus decades that’s as likely as winning lotto ten times in a row. Unfortunately, the logic doesn’t follow. Those relatively few, perhaps even one nation in the know, are not only not going to share that info with their own great unwashed who have no need to know, but they are not going to share that info with any other nation either, friend or foe.

It’s not the notion that ET is here that’s being censored but that they (the USA for example) have in their possession ET technologies of potential military value, and you know how the military likes to protect its secrets, as in Area 51 (Groom Lake, Nevada) which is sign posted for all to see with “No Trespassing” signs that further warn you that “Use of Deadly Force is Authorized” (i.e. - shoot to kill) for those who do enter illegally. Armed guards are visible from outside the perimeter fence as are various electronic surveillance gizmos. The US Government covered up the very existence of this top secret Groom Lake military facility (despite it being common knowledge to the relatively few locals in the area) for decades until commercial satellite photographs made the cover-up of its existence untenable and a farce. Area 51’s existence is now acknowledged by officialdom. That cover-up aside, in general, just try to enter any restricted military area and see how quick-smart you are dealt with.

By analogy, the Nuclear Club doesn’t tell its citizens how to obtain nuclear weapons grade materials and how to build nuclear weapons and neither do they share these technologies with other countries, friend or foe. They don’t share with each other since today’s friend or ally – Russia in WWII for example - could be tomorrows foe. You figure things out for yourself.

Just because UFOs are seen worldwide doesn’t mean each and every government has the Smoking Gun evidence, the sort of slab-in-the-lab evidence that Dr. Shostak craves. Most countries don’t have that sort of proof that enables them to go public that ET is here, even if they wanted to. Most, maybe nearly all countries need the corpse they don’t have. Both Uganda (1971) and Grenada (1977) tried that via the United Nations and got nowhere.

Many Explained Suggests All Are Explainable (STU, CC)

Dr. Shostak makes the point that, as even UFO buffs acknowledge, most UFO events are quickly explained and get filed in the IFO bin. Dr. Shostak suggests that if 19 out of 20 UFO incidents turn out to be solved as IFOs, then in all probability 20 out of 20 UFO incidents are theoretically solvable, there’s just some piece(s) of the puzzle missing preventing that 20^th UFO case turning into an IFO.

Mr. Spock of Star Trek fame would probably roast Dr. Shostak over Vulcan coals for logically suggesting that if 19 out of 20 UFO events weren’t really bona-fide UFOs at all but solved cases, that therefore 20 out of 20 UFO cases would be solved if only X, Y or Z data had been available. Unfortunately, that logic does not follow. If you recover from the flu 19 times in a row, that doesn’t mean that you will recover from flu round #20. If you hit 19 green traffic lights in a row, that’s no guarantee that your 20^th traffic light will be green, and the same logic applies to just about any other either/or scenarios. Of special relevance to Dr. Shostak, just because the first 19 interesting SETI signals turn out to be prosaic, mundane and ultimately terrestrial in origin, doesn’t mean #20 won’t be the real extraterrestrial deal, or so I would imagine Dr. Shostak hopes. And I hope he’s right. Otherwise, what’s the point of carrying on carrying on?    

But what would Dr. Shostak think if I adopted the Shostak philosophy on UFO cases and applied it to his profession? Clearly if 19 out of 20 SETI signals are false alarms then all SETI signals are false alarms and Dr. Shostak might as well give up the ghost and permanently retire home to smell the roses.  

To be continued.

Bibliographic Details:

Shostak, Seth; Sharing the Universe: Perspectives on Extraterrestrial Life; Berkeley Hills Books, Berkeley, California; 1998:

Shostak, Seth & Barnett, Alex; Cosmic Company: The Search for Life in the Universe; Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K.; 2003:

Shostak, Seth; Confessions of An Alien Hunter: A Scientist’s Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence; National Geographic, Washington, D.C.; 2009:



Roswell: ET vs. Project Mogul: Part Three

Here are some further thoughts about that July 1947 Roswell “flying saucer” that crashed or crashed-landed outside of that town, with some additional emphasis on the prosaic Project Mogul explanation that explains all – not.

Continued from Part Two.

Other Stuff: Reports and scuttlebutt of a second crash and crash site and alien bodies, while interesting, are actually surplus to needs and contributes nothing further to evidence provided by the Roswell incident that extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) exists, or at least existed in July 1947. They just muddy the waters with extraneous information. A second crash site and alien bodies go beyond the information given in the original Lt. Haut press release which is the actual smoking gun document. In fact given the history of deliberate misinformation and disinformation being fed to all and sundry by the powers-that-be, I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if information regarding a second crash site and alien bodies were deliberate misinformation and disinformation feeds from those powers-that-be to help discredit the original Roswell story by tainting the entire topic as so over-the-top as to have it lose all credibility in the eyes of all and sundry. 

Some sceptics might argue that the prime document doesn’t exist since all copies of Haut’s press release were ordered to be confiscated, or otherwise collected back from which they had been distributed. That retrieval done, the offending document copies were then destroyed. However, the original Roswell information didn’t get into the media (local, national and international), both in print and audio (recording of radio broadcasts exist) by magic. The media didn’t dream this up as an April Fools Day prank. The press release existed; Colonel Blanchard ordered it; Lt. Haut wrote it up on information provided by Colonel Blanchard and then hand-carried and delivered it to the two local Roswell newspaper offices and the two radio stations where it took off with a life of its own. You can’t get the worms back into the can once the can is opened (or the cat back into the bag).

Museum Pieces: If the Roswell debris were just the remains of a weather balloon, or the now declassified remains of a Project Mogul balloon, there’s absolutely no reason why the powers-that-be shouldn’t put those actual remains on display in a museum, say the Air Force Museum or the Air & Space Museum. It would make a really popular attraction given all the publicity Roswell has generated. I’ve never seen any documentation that the debris was ever disposed of in the rubbish bin. It still should exist.

However, if the Roswell debris were actually the remains of extraterrestrial technology then it should be obvious to Blind Freddy why it’s not on public display. Since it’s not on public display, well you can come to your own conclusion as to why.

I bring up the topic of museums because it has been asked of me what definitive piece of UFO evidence would I see fit to put into a museum as an exhibit and evidence, even proof of extraterrestrial visitations for the whole wide world to see. As to what I would put in the Powerhouse Museum, or the Air Force Museum or the Air & Space Museum, etc. it would be the debris from the Roswell incident – if I had it. I don’t, but the American Government does, so why don’t you folks out there kindly ask the powers-that-be to place it there – assuming they are through with it of course. I bet if they did it wouldn’t be anything that originated from Project Mogul.

Scepticism & Double Standards: Can anyone show me the evidence that Roswell actually is (not might be) explainable by Project Mogul. No one can do it. People who accept the Project Mogul explanation have to rely 100% on the say-so of others. They (Roswell sceptics) appear to have swallowed hook, line and sinker the (third version of the) official Roswell explanation without raising a single sceptical eyebrow. They just have to (and they apparently do) take officialdom’s word for it. Why - obviously because they are so biased against Roswell having any ETI connection (they say there’s no evidence that Roswell = ET) that any alternative explanation no matter how absurd it is, is preferable even though that explanation also lacks any evidence. Professional sceptics tend to be old enough and worldly enough not to be so naïve as to believe that the powers-that-be (and that’s ANY administration of any country) always tells people – including Roswell sceptics - the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Might I cite the U-2; the Pentagon Papers; the recent NSA eavesdropping issue, etc. as just a few case histories where the powers-that-be didn’t give a stuff about anyone’s right to know.

There seems to be a philosophy regarding Roswell that it is perfectly acceptable to be sceptical in the extreme when it comes to an ET explanation, yet exhibit not one sceptical body bone or issue one sceptical peep when it comes to alternative explanations given by officialdom. They just put their otherwise sceptical brains into neutral gear. Scepticism, even for the professional sceptics, flies out the window when something comes along that is compatible with or reinforces whatever philosophical worldview that person has.  

Of course in other times and places skeptics no doubt would have substituted UFOs for something like ‘can black holes actually and not just theoretically exist’ (“no”) or debated against those who advocated the existence of atoms or of antimatter or of neutrinos (all once very theoretical and iffy). In biology would skeptics have argued against the survival of the coelacanth into the present or in archaeology against the reality of Troy? Probably yes. Why? Guess what? Scientists are human beings with deeply entrenched worldviews just like you or me. They have vested interests. They can’t for years and years publicly say X and then suddenly turn around and say not-X. They are subjected to peer-pressure. To get grant money they have to tow the establishment line. Surely most of you have heard of the philosophy that science only really advances because the old farts finally die off making room for the next generation with different worldviews, who in turn become the entrenched old farts who eventually get replaced by another generation, etc.  

One Final Puzzlement: One thing puzzles me in a funny-peculiar not funny-ha-ha way.  It’s a discrepancy I’ve never seen anyone else pick up on. If you read the original Roswell AAF press release or read the first accounts in the media (say the Roswell Daily Record, 8 July 1947) you will get phrases like “flying saucer”; “flying disk”; “disk was recovered”; “found the instrument”; “recovered the disk”; “inspected the instrument”; “saucer’s construction, or it’s appearance”; “gain possession of a disk”; “the flying object landed”; “the rancher stored the disk”; “the disk was picked up at the rancher’s home”, etc.  Note that the words “crashed” or “crashed landed”; “debris”; “wreckage”; “pieces”, etc. never appear. That’s odd and I’m not sure what to make of it since how do you ascertain something is a “disk” if everything is in bits and pieces. It may have absolutely no significance at all.

Summary:

The Roswell incident is on the public record and has ample documentation.

You have numerous prime adult witnesses that handled the Roswell debris.

You have multi secondary witnesses (involved but who didn’t see or handle the debris).

No sceptic has ever demonstrated that any witness has been anything other than a solid citizen – many being officers in the US Army Air Force.

No sceptic, not even the USAF can say with 100% assurance and give absolute proof that a non-extraterrestrial explanation is the be-all-and-end-all of the Roswell case whether that prosaic explanation is a weather balloon or a Project Mogul balloon. 

The essential question is, IMHO, if Roswell really happened the way it did according to Brazel, Blanchard, Marcel, Haut, etc., if Roswell has a bona fide extraterrestrial explanation, what are the implications?

Conclusion: Roswell = Mogul? Mogul is a nonsense answer. No matter how you slice and dice it, it’s still balloon material. If you find one scrap of balloon material or stuff that pretty much gives the game away, no matter what else is attached. Keep in mind it was the purpose of the mission, not the materials that was classified. I repeat, if senior military personnel cannot distinguish balloon debris from a crashed metallic disc, something is screwy somewhere. It’s like an astronomer not being able to distinguish the sun from the moon – pretty implausible. Further, why did the powers-that-be wait until 1995 to come out with the Mogul theory as the ultimate Roswell explanation? You can’t possibly tell me that the project was only declassified some fifty years after the fact when its usefulness and purpose was worthless the minute the U-2 and then orbiting satellites started monitoring the Soviet Union. No, Mogul is pure bovine fertilizer; deliberate misinformation.



Roswell: ET vs. Project Mogul: Part Two

Here are some further thoughts about that July 1947 Roswell “flying saucer” that crashed or crashed-landed outside of that town, with some additional emphasis on the prosaic Project Mogul explanation that explains all – not.

Continued from Part One.

The General Ramey Photo-Op: The whole photo-op that was staged in Forth Worth was clearly to reinforce the new official line that Roswell wreckage was just balloon material, and any book about Roswell will contain one or more of the official photographs taken by both civilian photographers and a base photographer. As far as the photographers were concerned, it was an all look but don’t touch quickie session – in and out ASAP. Present were of course Brigadier General Roger Ramey; Ramey’s Chief-of-Staff Colonel Thomas J. DuBose; Major Jesse Marcel (who wasn’t allowed to say one word; just pose and smile for the camera and grin and bear the embarrassment); and Warrant Officer Irving Newton, the base weather officer whose presence was just to confirm for the record that the wreckage displayed was that from a weather balloon.

It should have been sufficient IMHO for General Ramey to just issue a press statement downplaying the Roswell event with the weather balloon cover-up, or cover story, and ordering all other relevant RAAF personnel to back up that weather balloon tale if asked (an order which of course General Ramey, well, so ordered), and thus letting the story quickly fade away as having been explained by something mundane.

Instead, General Ramey goes over-the-top at far greater expense (and exposure) to strut the public stage and demonstrate the (apparent) reality of the weather balloon story or explanation with actual weather balloon materials and actual photographic ‘evidence’ of same. Of course you don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out that what was photographed in General Ramey’s office may not had any connection whatever with the actual Roswell debris. The photo-op wasn’t really evidence since there was ample opportunity to substitute real weather balloon debris for the Roswell wreckage before-the-fact. You don’t have to watch too many whodunits to realise the numerous ways of the slight-of-hand.

But that exposure wasn’t all positive. If Ramey had not of staged that photo-op there would be a lot less meat on the Roswell bone since it has given the pro-Roswell faction a whole lot of ammo, a whole separate avenue to attack from. Obviously once out of the clutches of the military, Marcel denied that what was photographed in Ramey’s office had anything to do with what he and others found outside of Roswell. It was chalk and cheese. Independent verification for the deception comes from Ramey’s former Chief-of-Staff, Colonel DuBose (who retired as a Brigadier General).  In a signed affidavit (16 September 1991 – after he retired from the military) DuBose stated “The material shown in the photographs taken in Gen. Ramey’s office was a weather balloon. The weather balloon explanation for the [Roswell] material was a cover story to divert the attention of the press.” It’s on the public record.

Despite claims to the contrary, if you go with the philosophy that if you weren’t someone who saw and handled the debris then you weren’t a primary witness, then the photographs taken of the ‘wreckage’ in General Ramey’s office is not primary evidence for Roswell = balloon given the chance for substitution of debris materials to conform to the new official ‘weather balloon’ line.

Transport of Roswell Debris: How Much Stuff Was Removed?

For starters, the amount of Roswell material or wreckage according to the original discoverer W. W. “Mac” Brazel, confirmed by Major Jesse Marcel, well Brazel noted that the debris field was about 200 yards wide and 3/4ths of a mile long (or some 240,000 square yards), the entirety of that massive area covered with this stuff that Brazel couldn’t identify and he had previously found a couple of downed weather balloons on the property (of which he was the foreman, not the owner). That Brazel couldn’t identify the stuff was the stimulus that set in train the chain of events that led to him calling the civilian authorise (local law enforcement) hence they in turn alerting the military at the nearby RAAF. And the rest as they say is history! A Mogul balloon train is at best only 600 feet long – assuming that’s the reality behind Roswell. Alas, that’s not hardly sufficient quantity of stuff to account for the size of the debris field as related by Brazel. Okay, once the debris was discovered and collected, it was transported.   

To Fort Worth: A B-29 was half-loaded or half-filled with crated Roswell wreckage, along with a separate satchel for General Ramey and along with Major Marcel transported to Fort Worth AAF for that General Ramey photo-op. A half-filled B-29 amounts to an awful lot of stuff but that’s what Major Marcel claimed to be the case, and he was there. Apparently then the Roswell material was reloaded onto a B-25 and hence continued on to Wright Field with the bulk of the Roswell cargo. Marcel returned to RAAF the following day.

To Wright Field: Both an FBI-telex (evening of 8 July 1947) and statements by Brigadier General Arthur Exon who was stationed at Wright Field in July 1947 and later became the base CO, an officer in a position to know what went on, confirmed that Roswell debris was sent to Wright Field for analysis. In fairness of course neither the FBI nor General Exon actually examined the debris at Wright Field (because of that military and otherwise official policy of ‘need to know’ officially called compartmentation). The flight from RAAF to Wright Field was via a C-54 piloted by Captain Oliver W. “Pappy” Henderson, which, to be honest, doesn’t make Henderson either an actual eyewitness to the debris itself (that ‘need to know’ again). Regarding your need to know, even if you have a need to know you are only given as much knowledge as you need to have in order to do your job – no more, no less. Most people albeit in the loop rarely see the Big Picture.

To Washington, D.C.: That Roswell debris was forwarded onto Washington, D.C. was confirmed by Ramey’s Chief-of-Staff, Thomas DuBose, in DuBose’s affidavit referred to above. DuBose stated that “The entire operation was conducted under the strictest secrecy.” The orders to immediately ship Roswell debris via Fort Worth to Andrews Air Field (Washington, D.C.) was given by the Deputy Commander of the Strategic Air Command (SAC), Major General Clements McMullen, stationed at the Pentagon. General McMullen’s orders were given directly to Colonel Blanchard at Roswell and also given directly to Colonel Thomas DuBose (Chief-of-Staff to General Ramey) at Fort Worth AAF according to DuBose himself in that 16 September 1991 signed affidavit.  

To Los Alamos: On 9 July 1947 three C-54’s carried Roswell debris from RAAF to Los Alamos, New Mexico via Kirtland Field.

So we have Roswell debris material distributed between four separate locations via six separate military aircraft – that’s a lot of aircraft, especially four C-54’s, to transport the remains of one balloon, even a Mogul balloon. Not even the Roswell sceptics deny that Roswell wreckage was sent to Fort Worth AAF, Wright Field and Washington, D.C. which is all very mysterious if the Roswell wreckage was just run-of-the-mill terrestrial-in-origin balloon stuff.

Why Was Roswell Stuff Transported? We know the Roswell debris was ordered removed from the RAAF premises and ordered transported to Fort Worth Army Air Field; Wright Field (now Wright-Patterson AFB); Los Alamos and Washington, D.C. Why? If the debris material(s) were routine terrestrial balloon and foil type stuff, what was the point? Okay, a satchel full of the material went to General Ramey at Fort Worth for his photo-op PR stunt instead of Ramey going to Roswell AAF (rank has its privileges), but why Wright Field; Los Alamos and Washington, DC?  Of course if the debris wasn’t routine terrestrial stuff but potentially out-of-this-world stuff, well, mystery solved. Wright Field and Los Alamos have the technical labs for out-of-this-world analysis; Washington, D.C. is of course where officialdom has its HQ.  

Timeline Discrepancies: A great deal has been made of some timeline discrepancies given by relevant Roswell witnesses in testimony. I’m not too worried about these slight discrepancies in recollections that constitute a definitive timeline. The Roswell events only seriously resurfaced in 1980, some 33 years after the fact and from those relatively few witnesses still alive. Again, all that testimony was at least 33 years old or greater, often much greater (it’s not always easy to track down witnesses so long after-the-fact). Let’s just say that I’d be hard pressed to recall exact ordering of important/unique events in my life 33 years on. I’d be sure to be slightly off when placing specifics into a broader context.

While on all things fodder for the sceptics, while any one or two facets regarding the Roswell incident can be debated and disputed (other than Roswell personnel confusing balloon material for a crashed disk that’s just too far beyond the pale so that point is not up for debate), there’s collectively just too many bits and pieces when taken together that the total package can not be dismissed or disputed. One quickly begins to butt heads against pure improbability that all facets are pure bovine fertilizer.

Was There A Roswell Cover-Up? Apart from the General Ramey photo-op (which we now know for certain was a cover-up since Roswell has now been ‘explained away’ as a Project Mogul balloon), and because of public pressure for answers to the bona fides behind the July 1947 Roswell event, the General Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative arm of the US Congress, requested all relevant government records and documentation, especially those RAAF records, only to find and so reported in their July 1995 findings that all RAAF administrative records from March 1945 through December 1949 had been inexplicably destroyed, as had been outgoing messages from October 1946 through December 1949. These were documents that by law should not have been destroyed, but from the point of view of officialdom, how very bloody convenient they were. And by the way, the GAO document is a publicly available document which any Roswell sceptic can check. It goes under the title Results of a Search for Records Concerning the 1947 Crash Near Roswell, New Mexico.     

Eyewitness Testimony: UFO skeptics always hammer home the point that eyewitness testimony is about as reliable as a $7 bill. While total rubbishing any and all eyewitness testimony is more than just a slight exaggeration on the part of skeptics that is a valid point as any courtroom lawyer will affirm. In any event, eyewitness testimony regarding points of lights in the sky with no frames of reference is one thing – eyewitness testimony about physical stuff you are actually holding in your hand (like Roswell’s debris) is quite a different matter.

The Nature of the Debris: The eyewitness description of the found and recovered Roswell wreckage doesn’t seem to be at face value something that’s very alien and exotic, not that we collectively have a lot of firsthand experience dealing with alien stuff.

The debris seems to sort itself into three categories. There’s aluminium foil-like stuff that is frequently noted as two-sided; foil on one side; rubberish or leatherish on the other. The anomaly is that this ‘foil’ was extremely strong; it couldn’t be torn or cut; it wouldn’t burn; it wouldn’t permanently crush but would return to its original shape. Then there’s ‘I-beams’ or bamboo-like or balsawood-like sticks. The anomaly is that these had strange hieroglyphic-like or petroglyph-like. Lastly there was a brittle plastic-like stuff, like Bakelite. It doesn’t seem anomalous. All the three categories were lightweight.

Misidentification: There has got to have been tens of thousands of large balloons (weather, secret and other) that have been launched and come back down to terra firma and been found by your average Joe & Mary Citizen, yet there’s only been one Roswell type event where a balloon was allegedly misidentified as a “flying saucer” by not just one but a potful of military officers from the US Army Air Force. If Joe & Mary Citizen don’t ever misidentify downed balloon material for alien spaceships, it’s pretty absurd that military offices in the US AAF would. As we have read from statements by those who actually handled the stuff, there was no chance of a misidentification of the Roswell stuff for balloon materials.

To be continued.



Roswell: ET vs. Project Mogul: Part One

UFO sceptics in general and Roswell sceptics in particular have embraced with relish, or was that swallowed hook, line and sinker, the most recent explanation for the July 1947 Roswell, New Mexico UFO (only it wasn’t called a UFO back then) incident. The Roswell debris was just the remains of a Project Mogul balloon train. However, the Mogul balloon theory suffers equally the faults of the previous weather balloon explanation. 

Here are some further thoughts about that July 1947 Roswell “flying saucer” that crashed or crashed-landed outside of that town, with some additional emphasis on the prosaic Project Mogul explanation that explains all – not.

Firstly, I consider any bona-fide UFO that remains a UFO after investigation by those qualified to do so as bona-fide evidence that something extraordinary – and therefore of scientific interest – is going on. That’s even more the case when the numbers mount up into the hundreds, even thousands worldwide. Every bona-fide UFO case, every solid unknown, is a “WOW” event in the same way that that “WOW” event in SETI circles is cited again and again as something extraordinary.

Secondly, when it comes to UFO incidents, the earlier the better in order to minimize all of the cultural and social related stuff that now goes with the subject and taints it.

There are dozens of excellent bona-fide cases from 1947 through 1952 (especially Washington, DC – July 1952). After that, things get potentially more tainted but there are still lots of good unknowns.

Here’s a case and quote from the Condon Report that skeptics put so much stock in – that Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects - regarding the McMinnville, Oregon UFO photographs taken 11 May 1950.

“This is one of the few UFO reports in which all factors investigated, geometric, psychological, and physical appear to be consistent with the assertion  that an extraordinary flying object , silvery, metallic, disk-shaped, tens of meters in diameter, and evidently artificial, flew within sight of two witnesses.”

Then we have footage from the two classic UFO films from Great Falls, Montana (August 1950) and Tremonton, Utah (July 1952) both of which to this very day still carry the tag “unidentified”. One could go one and on with UFO “WOW” cases.

But if one wants THE case, let’s start with Roswell.  

So, even though the following case is ‘explained’, the very fact that it happened so early on in UFO lore and the major participants are no nonsense military officers, and there’s material on the public record that cannot be dismissed or disputed, I’d have to go with Roswell as the cream of the crop (I can see readers rolling their eyes up now).

Roswell Is Boring: Apparently Roswell is not regarded by most of the UFO experts in America as an interesting case. Roswell seems to be considered a very weak case by UFO investigators.  Some prefer this case (like Rendlesham Forest) or that case or some other case as the bees-knees of ufology but not Roswell. However if Roswell is such an uninteresting case, why are more books devoted to that case than any other UFO case? I bet if I Google “Roswell” vs. “Rendlesham Forest” I’d get way more hits on the former! In any event, Roswell is the only bona-fide UFO case I know of where the US military admitted publicly it was in possession of an actual “flying saucer” (and they have been back-pedalling furiously ever since). That alone, IMHO, makes it unique and therefore highly interesting.

Relevant Roswell Personnel: The buck obviously stops with Colonel Blanchard, the Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF) CO, who dictated and ordered the issuing of the initial Roswell press release. According to the sceptical Roswell UFO tome authored by Kal K. Korff, The Roswell UFO Crash: What They Don’t Want You To Know [Prometheus Books, Amherst, N.Y. 1997; p.28], “Ramey telephones Colonel Blanchard and conveys to him both General [Lt. Gen Hoyt S.] Vandenburg’s and his own ‘extreme displeasure’ over the fact that a press release was issued without proper authority.” However, Colonel Blanchard was never officially reprimanded, and eventually rose to the rank of a full four-star general in the USAF. That Colonel Blanchard was not reprimanded is puzzling since it was because of his ‘mistake’ that he created a major headache for officialdom, one which persists down to this very day. The obvious question was whether this rise in rank and lack of a reprimand was payment for Blanchard to keep his mouth shut over the reality of the Roswell event. It has been reported (Korff – p.49) that Mrs. Blanchard has allegedly stated that following the death of her husband that he had believed the Roswell debris had an out of this world origin, for what that’s worth.

Former Lt. Walter Haut, the RAAF PIO Officer in July 1947 who wrote up (under the direction and orders of Colonel Blanchard) that press release, stated in a signed affidavit dated 14 May 1993 that “there is no chance that he [Colonel Blanchard] would have mistaken it [“a flying saucer or parts thereof”] for a weather balloon. Neither is there any chance that Major Marcel would have been mistaken.” Haut also stated that “In 1980, Jesse Marcel told me that the material photographed in Gen. Ramey’s office was not the material he recovered.” [See also The General Ramey Photo-op section below.] Haut continued that “I am convinced that the material recovered was some type of craft from outer space.”

W.W. ‘Mac’ Brazel, who discovered the wreckage is on record (Roswell Daily Record, 9 July 1947) as stating that he had previously discovered two downed balloons (presumably weather) on the property and that this new debris did not correspond to that type of artefact.

The 1995 USAF Report: As a result of public and congressional pressure, the USAF reopened the Roswell case in about 1994, publishing their findings in their 1995 document The Roswell Report: Fact vs. Fiction in the New Mexico Desert. There’s a whole potful of points to be made with respect to this document and findings, which in brief that Roswell is explainable by a downed Project Mogul balloon.

Point One: The USAF searched internally for relevant documents or records regarding Roswell. They found nothing unusual had occurred involving extraterrestrial materials or alien bodies that was officially documented. Of course that search only could have extended to unclassified or declassified records. And that’s the whole crux of the matter. If Roswell had something to do with or involved extraterrestrial materials and/or alien bodies, and that had been documented, that material and documents would still be classified and hence not be available to those doing this reinvestigation for official historical records. Thus, their findings via a document search that the Roswell case as far as ET was concerned was lacking documentation hence validity and thus incorrect resulted in their ‘final word’ on the matter, a ‘case closed’ conclusion, is bogus. Even if the compilers of this 1995 report knew about classified Roswell documentation involving ET, they couldn’t say so in an unclassified public report.

Point Two: Their search for documentation was confined to what records the USAF had under their control. Omitted from the search were documents that other agencies might have held, including the US Army. That’s a major flaw in that in July 1947 there was no USAF, only the US Army Air Force.    

Point Three: A big deal was made over the fact that there appeared to be no nationwide heightened military alert or operation or security activity during that immediate post recovery interval. There was no higher tempo of operational activity or messages going to and fro, etc. which the report says is highly suggestive that nothing unusual was going on. Well, why would there be, heightened activity that is. We’re not talking “Earth vs. the Flying Saucers” or “Independence Day” here. We’re talking wreckage from just one location here, not nationwide invasion by Bug-Eyed Monsters with heat rays and ray guns a-blazing. Was the military going to declare war on ET based on some alien debris?

Point Four: The only thing they found were records about a then ultra Top Secret Priority 1A project called Mogul, instrumentation lofted high into the atmosphere by balloons to detect above ground Soviet nuclear testing. These flights were launched from New Mexico in June and July of 1947. Ah! What goes up must come down; two plus two equals four; Roswell case solved. Roswell wasn’t a weather balloon; that WAS a cover-up story. Roswell was a Mogul balloon! At least the USAF admitted that something out of the ordinary happened.

                                                                                                         

Point Five: The 1995 USAF report did state or conclude was Roswell was not. Roswell was not an airplane crash. Roswell was not a missile crash. Roswell was not a nuclear accident. Roswell was not an extraterrestrial craft. Of course they would say that, even truthfully if no unclassified or declassified documents said otherwise – it’s all that classified stuff that might let that Roswell cat out of the Roswell bag.

Point Six: We finally get around to the official conclusions which in a quickie version amounts to a whopping big MAYBE when it comes to Mogul. Let’s quote the quotes and see where the chips fall. “The Air Force research did not locate or develop any information that the ‘Roswell Incident’ was a UFO event” [Obviously for reasons already gone into]. “All available official materials, although they do not directly address Roswell per se [their italics], indicate that the most likely source of the wreckage recovered from the Brazel Ranch [sic – actually the Foster Ranch; Brazel was just the foreman, not the owner] was from one of the Project Mogul balloon trains.” [Reference: page 30 of the 1995 USAF report.] Of course there was no identification of exactly which one of those Mogul balloon trains.

So in other words, no established causality was found between Mogul and Roswell, its all conjecture. So, no cause and effect was established and Mogul is concluded to be only a “most likely source”. That’s hardly proof beyond reasonable doubt. However, if one turns back to page 22 of the 1995 USAF report, you’re led to believe under the section “WHAT THE ‘ROSWELL INCIDENT’ WAS” was that Mogul was the be-all-and-end-all of the matter. It wasn’t they; it isn’t now.  

Point Seven: I can’t really accuse the USAF of an initial cover-up as most pro-Roswell buffs do since their cover-up orders would have come from even higher authority. I can’t say this 1995 report is a cover-up since for reasons noted above the report, to drive the point home, could not reveal the existence of anything that was still classified.

 Lost and Found: Isn’t it absolutely amazing that the team responsible for operating (launching and recovering) those top secret Project Mogul balloon flights lost one somewhere outside of Roswell, N.M. That’s rather gross, in fact absolute negligence IMHO. And apparently they made no effort to recover their lost top secret property from the RAAF immediately the Roswell incident broke out in the press. In fairness, some of the Mogul flights were “service flights or test flights and thus the powers-that-be might have been more nonchalant about them and losing one. Now Mogul balloons were tagged with whom to contact (University of New York) if found, along with a reward offered and reimbursement for time and trouble taken. No doubt the powers-that-be thought that there was no real chance Joe & Mary Citizen would have figured out the real top secret purpose of the stuff. To Joe & Mary Citizen it would have just been a weather balloon. That misidentification was reinforced on the “to be contacted” tag which clearly noted (that misinformation) that this was “weather equipment”. So, with all that Roswell debris recovered, the RAAF personnel never did find that “please contact if found” Mogul tag, logical if the debris wasn’t from a Mogul balloon flight.

If the Roswell debris collected by the RAAF [Roswell Army Air Field] personnel proved not to be the property of the RAAF they seemed not to have gone through any official channels to find out the proper owners (and maybe get financial compensation for cleaning up their mess). Why’s that? Of course if the materials were from ‘out of this world’ that might explain that.

Here’s a contradiction. Even the 1995 USAF report on Roswell stated it was only probable that a Project Mogul balloon was the cause of the Roswell incident, yet the Roswell debris was in the hands of the AAF (now USAF) and should have been easily identified as the debris from the missing (lost) Mogul flight and therefore there should have been no probability involved in the Roswell explanation, rather instead a certainty.

To be continued.