Roswell: The Smoking Gun: Part Two

There have been hundreds of outstanding unidentifiable UFO events since June 1947, from the 700+ unknowns the USAF couldn’t resolve to the 30% of UFO cases the University of Colorado (Condon Committee) investigation couldn’t solve, all multiplied by the residue of unknowns as recorded by other official investigations around the world. Even though the unsolved to solved ratio of UFO reports is 1 to 19 (5% of UFO sightings remain as unknowns after investigation by those qualified to investigate), that still translates into a vast database of mystery. But the real Smoking Gun episode has to be one in which you can put something physical on the slab in the lab. Fortunately, one case points specifically in that exact direction – Roswell, July 1947. Someone, somewhere, has extraterrestrial stuff on the slab in their lab. The fact that you can’t put it on your slab in your lab is beside the point. Not everyone can be a have; there are the have-nots too.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

National Security Issues, Official Censorship and Cover-Ups

Now if you, you being the US of A superpower, have obtained extraterrestrial technology (especially at the very beginnings of the Cold War) you are not going to disclose that to anyone, foreign friends or foes or even your own citizens (which would be the same as telling the rest of the world). [I mean if you have sole access to a secret gold mine, are you going to blab the geographical details (latitude and longitude) all over Facebook?] The minimum number of people necessary will be in the loop. Everyone who has no need to know, regardless of their security clearance or military rank or political position, will not be told; will not be given access and therefore will be out of the loop. What you don’t know about you can’t blab about.

So all those other official UFO players – military officers, civilians, consultants (i.e. – J. Allen Hynek) – who officially investigated UFOs (i.e. – Project Blue Book among others), including the University of Colorado (Condon Committee) study, all these people were out of the loop, which just reaffirms that the public face of official UFO investigation was all just a public relations stunt to reassure the great unwashed that their government was on top of things. Those in the loop already knew the answer so there was no point for other serious official investigations by outsiders (those not in the loop). Of course those outside the loop, doing the PR, wouldn’t have been told their employment and efforts were just for PR purposes.

If you, again you being the USA, are in possession of advanced alien technologies you are going to do your darnedest to reverse engineer the technology and adapt it to your own national defence/security needs. You might not be able to do so, any more than advisors to Alexander-the-Great could reverse engineer the hydrogen bomb, a laser pointer or even a ‘simple’ radio receiver set no matter how badly old Alex wanted or demanded to make it so. But you would try your damnedest. Maybe you’d make inroads – maybe not. 

Inept Aliens?

Now much has been made of the fact that here you have apparently highly advanced, technologically capable, interstellar space-faring aliens who travel vast distances – crossing light years worth of interstellar space – only to arrive here on Earth then immediately, oops, crash! How dumb is that! Well, accidents happen.

But there’s another logical explanation. The Roswell event (early July 1947) was just a fortnight after the highly publicized Kenneth Arnold flying discs sighting (late June 1947), an event which launched the entire modern flying saucer era. The Arnold sighting precipitated an avalanche of other sightings over the next few days, weeks and months. So here in June 1947, also the beginnings of the Cold War era, all of a sudden you have credible observers reporting relatively incredible things - unidentified ‘aircraft’ or rather unconventional flying discs – that are invading your airspace, purpose(s) and intention(s) unknown. The powers-that-be knew perfectly well these unknowns, whatever they were, were not made-in-America. The logical military and national defence and security response therefore would be to shoot them down if they refuse to land and identify themselves.

Now the powers-that-be have never confirmed or denied that such an order was ever given, a ‘shoot them down’ directive or policy instrument that was established, communicated and in force in early July 1947. If it wasn’t, it damn well should have been otherwise the powers-that-be were derelict in their duty to defend the United States from a possible invasion by unknown forces. Despite the lack of confirm or deny, there are no shortage of newspaper headlines and articles attesting to that shoot-them-down policy as any Internet search will quickly confirm.* So, what if the Roswell craft that crashed wasn’t an oops by inept aliens but the result of hostile action taken against them by U.S. military forces?

Is There Another Terrestrial Alternative?

Might the Roswell object have actually been a classified experimental metallic but terrestrial military aircraft? Alas, in that case, the required cover-up cover story would have immediately been given out as something mundane, like a weather balloon, and not something as equally exotic, if not more so, as in a crashed flying saucer. And by the way, just because something is exotic (like flying saucers and crashed discs) doesn’t make it impossible. In any event, now 65 years after-the-fact, there would be no harm done in saying that the Roswell event was a classified experimental metallic but terrestrial military aircraft and put the remains on public view in a museum – say the Air and Space Museum or other facility the public can visit and gawk at. That’s of course if, and that’s a very big if, the Roswell object was a then classified experimental metallic but terrestrial military aircraft.

What Stinks?

The fact that the powers-that-be changed their spots; their initial story, not once but at least twice, reeks of WTF is going on here, or in other words, of a mix of hydrogen sulphide gas and rotting dead fish. I have to use the dead fish analogy since there’s something really fishy somewhere. Anyone or any organisation that keeps changing their story loses credibility.

Key Points Summary

# Some unusual occurrence involving the landing or crash-landing of an aerial device happened near the town of Roswell, New Mexico in early July 1947. That is not in dispute.

# Local military authorities stationed at the Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF) collected up all the debris from this object and publicly identified it as a flying disc or flying saucer. That is not in dispute.

# Higher authority not stationed at Roswell (therefore not on the spot) immediately contacted the responsible military officials that were stationed at Roswell (who were on the spot) ordering a change in emphasis from the exotic (flying saucer) to the mundane (weather balloon **). They then orchestrated a photo opportunity, showing off the Roswell Intelligence Officer (Major Marcel) holding real weather balloon debris, passing it off as the real Roswell stuff. As an aside, as noted above, the USAF changed their story yet again (roughly around 1995) – still a balloon but a balloon with a secret mission, to monitor secret Soviet nuclear tests (Project Mogul) ***. All that is not in dispute, but does tend to lend a bad odour to the whole sordid affair making the official balloon line highly suspect.

# That the Roswell Intelligence Officer (Major Marcel) and veteran of World War Two, not to mention all the other personnel that would have seen and handled the debris up through and including the Commanding Officer (Colonel Blanchard), that they could all mistake real balloon debris for a metallic flying saucer or disc is absurd in the extreme. The entire Roswell extraterrestrial vs. terrestrial case hinges around this very point. Is it credible that senior military personnel could mistake what was crashed balloon debris for a downed metallic disc or flying saucer? IMHO the answer is clearly “NO”.

# Both the Roswell Public Information Officer (Lt. Haut) and the Intelligence Officer (Major Marcel) after exiting their military careers went publicly, on the record, supporting the original flying saucer/disc diagnosis as being the real nature of the Roswell incident and strongly supporting a point of view that the craft was out-of-this-world. Their testimony is part now of the Roswell incident public record.

To conclude, that’s a Smoking Gun IMHO but it’s a pity that the Gun is behind highly classified, tightly closed security doors, forever to be locked away. No doubt the Roswell debris is as valuable now to the national security and defence of the United States as it was back then. Alien spaceships don’t tend to fall into your backyard as an everyday occurrence!

*Most newspaper reports of a shoot-them-down policy cluster around late July 1952 following the second time within a week that ‘saucers’ invaded the restricted airspace with impunity over the national capitol – Washington, D.C.

“Air Force alerts jets to chase ‘flying saucers’ anywhere in U.S.” – United Press (UP), 29 July 1952:

“Air Force orders jet pilots to shoot down flying saucers if they refuse to land” – The Seattle Post Intelligencer, 29 July 1952:

“Air Force seeks solution, gives ‘shoot down order’” – Washington-INS (International News Service), 28 July 1952:

“Jets on 24 hour alert to shoot down saucers” – The San Francisco Examiner, 29 July 1952:

“Jets told to shoot down flying discs” – The Fall River (Mass.) Herald-News, 29 July 1952.

“Shoot to kill: Pacific Navy fliers ordered to engage saucers” – Fullerton (CA) News-Tribune, 26 July 1956.  

**Isn’t it amazing that no other recovered weather balloon, or a balloon of any kind in the entire history of balloon launches and recoveries, has caused such confusion. What odds then that the Roswell object was really recovered balloon debris?

***The top secret balloon story, if true, well that tale of woe could have been released publicly as early as 1965 (if not earlier) instead of waiting until 1995 to spill the beans. Newer and better post-1947 technologies would have done the same job – monitoring Soviet nuclear tests – way more efficiently by 1965. 1947 balloon monitoring was yesterday’s way outdated technology by 1965. So why wait until 1995 to admit it? Actually there’s little doubt there was a top secret balloon project in operation monitoring Soviet nuclear tests, but that doesn’t mean what came down near Roswell in July 1947 was such a balloon.



Roswell: The Smoking Gun: Part One

Of all reported UFO events, the best known and documented was the Roswell incident in July 1947. If you’re not one of the powers-that-be (i.e. – in the loop), it’s easy to get mired or bogged down in the masses of names, trivia and after-the-fact events that may, or may not have happened. One needs to focus on the key names and events that took place at the very start and take the logic from there. Logic should then compel you to treat Roswell as the UFO Smoking Gun. It’s all a matter of applying common sense to what is on the public record.

The Significance of Roswell, July 1947

# Roswell was a very, very early event in UFO history and participants were therefore relatively untainted by the decades of UFO lore that would have been the case if the Roswell event happened today.

# Roswell has historical documentation that nobody can dispute.

# Roswell involved local on-the-spot senior, no-nonsense, responsible and knowledgeable military officials. They had no need for an agenda to fabricate or exaggerate what transpired.  

# The Roswell event involved multiple witnesses, both civilian and military. A child’s prank or an orchestrated hoax this most certainly wasn’t.

# The Roswell event was a close encounter that left behind slab-in-the-lab evidence for analysis. This was no vague fleeting point-of-light-in-the-night-sky sighting.

# Delightfully the Roswell event caught the higher-up powers-that-be with their pants down, otherwise we wouldn’t have what initial facts we do have! Roswell proved an acne event to the powers-that-be back then and remains a sore thumb to them over six decades later. Roswell is unlikely to fade away over the next six decades unless there’s a breakthrough in proving or disproving the censorship and cover-ups, real or imagined, associated with its history. The powers-that-be have made a dog’s breakfast of the Roswell incident, the sort of mess that only powers-that-be can accomplish.

# Lastly, if the original version of the Roswell event as related by the RAAF press release and associated media coverage of that release – the capture of a flying disc – then there’s no question but that the powers-that-be are knowledgeable about the real bona-fide existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life, an E.T. that’s up close and personal.

The RAAF (Roswell Army Air Field) Media Release (8 July 1947)

“The many rumors regarding the flying disc became a reality yesterday when the intelligence office of the 509th Bomb Group of the Eighth Air Force, Roswell Army Air Field, was fortunate enough to gain possession of a disc through the cooperation of one of the local ranchers and the sheriff’s office of Chaves County”.

“The flying object landed on a ranch near Roswell sometime last week. Not having phone facilities, the rancher stored the disc until such time as he was able to contact the sheriff’s office, who in turn notified Maj. Jesse A. Marcel of the 509th Bomb Group Intelligence Office.”

“Action was immediately taken and the disc was picked up at the rancher’s home. It was inspected at the Roswell Army Air Field and subsequently loaned by Major Marcel to higher headquarters.”

It’s an historical (on or for the record) fact that this military document existed – no fraud or fakery can be alleged. That the press release received reasonably widespread national, even international media (radio and newspaper) coverage is not in dispute. That too is an historical fact with no allowance for any wriggle room. The most oft displayed newspaper headline and associated article text reproduced in books and websites is from the Roswell Daily Record, 8 July 1947 – “RAAF Captures Flying Saucer On Ranch in Roswell Region: No Details of Flying Disk Are Revealed”.

The local Roswell coverage was more extensive and detailed since Lt. Haut, the RAAF Public Information Officer (PIO), handed out the press release personally to the media and was able to flesh out the details to the locals. In addition other local residents were able to contribute their observations to the local media.

The Key Players

# The RAAF (Roswell Army Air Field) Commanding Officer was Colonel William H. Blanchard. The buck always stops with the CO but for some reason Colonel Blanchard was never disciplined over the Roswell AAF stuff-up that 1) an RAAF staffer, an intelligence officer under his command, couldn’t tell the difference between a metallic disc and a weather balloon; 2) that his Public Information Officer, Lt. Haut, apparently under his directive, issued a media release that had to be countermanded within 24 hours by higher authority. Colonel Blanchard in fact went on to achieve the four-star rank of General as Vice Chief of Staff for the USAF. That suggests that something’s screwy somewhere unless the Roswell events transpired as originally stated.

# The RAAF Intelligence Officer: The RAAF (Roswell Army Air Field) Intelligence Officer, Major Jesse Marcel (Senior) was first on the crash site scene as ordered. He was never reprimanded for making such a boneheaded mistake – one the little old lady from Pasadena wouldn’t make – that of misidentifying weather balloon materials for a metallic disc. But because he was a career military officer, Major Marcel went along with the official storyline (i.e. – deception) that the Roswell event was just a downed weather balloon, at least until after his discharge and retirement. Then Marcel lowered the boom, rather pissed off that he had been made to look the incompetent fool and gave his version which you can find in his interviews on YouTube. Needless to say, Marcel gives short shrift to the weather balloon explanation, or the explanation that a balloon of any kind was involved.

# The RAAF (Roswell Army Air Field) Public Information Officer was First Lieutenant Walter Haut. He was directed by the RAAF Base Commander (Colonel Blanchard) to draft a press release to the public announcing that the US Army Air Forces (at Roswell) had recovered a ‘flying disc’ (a.k.a. – flying saucer) from a nearby ranch. That recovered object was quickly changed from metallic disc to that of a weather balloon under the orders of higher authority (Brigadier General Roger Ramey). Despite the apparent stuff-up, Lt. Haut was never reprimanded. After leaving the military, Haut made several signed and sealed affidavits attesting to the bona-fides of the Roswell event as that of a flying disc. These were in addition to interviews given in which he never retracted his story that the extraterrestrial nature of the events at Roswell was the really real reality of what transpired. Readers can find YouTube video interviews that feature Walter Haut’s position on Roswell.

# William W. (Mac) Brazel was the ranch hand foreman, not the ranch owner proper as is sometimes given, that first came across the Roswell debris field while tending to livestock. Mac Brazel then alerted civilian authorities (the local Sheriff’s Office) who in turn notified personnel at the RAAF in case this was something of a military matter. Mac Brazel had previously found two weather balloons on the ranch-land and this new stuff wasn’t like what he had found on earlier occasions. As a civilian not subject to military authority, he apparently was bribed with a brand new pickup truck and an appeal to patriotism, to keep his mouth shut about what he saw. Apparently there was a bit of intimidation or some additional hard-leaning involved as well. In any event, Brazel, due to all the unwanted publicity and unwanted military attention he received ended up wishing he had never seen the stuff in the first place. Mac Brazel passed away (1963) prior to the reawakening of interest in the Roswell event (roughly 1980) and thus there’s relatively little on the record about the Roswell event directly attributed from him.

Little Grey Bodies

Though the initial press release made no mention of bodies, alien or terrestrial, little grey bodies have been attested to by various witnesses including testimony as part of his to-be-released-after-his-death (deathbed) affidavit, the public information officer, 1^st Lt. Walter Haut. Bodies make sense in that it would be rather rare for a terrestrial aircraft to crash without any bodies being on board on the ground – unless sufficient parachutes were provided and all occupants bailed out – always a possibility. By analogy, the same should apply to an extraterrestrial ‘aircraft’.

Also possible, if you dismiss the little grey bodies part of Roswell, is that just as you have unmanned terrestrial drones (a very topical subject today) you could have un-aliened but extraterrestrial drones. A case in point might well have been the aerial ‘foo-fighters’ sighted by all sides during World War Two (especially 1944-45) that have never been adequately explained.

However, alien bodies, alive or dead, are actually irrelevant if you have an actual extraterrestrial craft in hand – a flying saucer or disc in 1947 terminology. The disc or saucer alone proves the bona-fides of the extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH).

Why Did the Roswell Debris Leave RAAF?

That the Roswell object, or what was left of it, was squirreled away from the RAAF is made clear in the initial press release and is not in doubt. Higher headquarters in this case was Brigadier General Roger Ramey stationed at Fort Worth AAF (Texas). The Roswell debris allegedly but apparently ultimately ended up at Wright Field (Ohio), now renamed Wright-Patterson AFB, going via Fort Worth. Now the real question is, if the Roswell debris was just constructed out of ordinary balloon materials, regardless of what the purpose of the balloon’s mission was, why not just stuff the tattered remains into the local RAAF trashcan or dumpster? No, if the Roswell object or debris left the RAAF it was because there was something extraordinary about it. 

To be continued…



The Roswell Incident, July 1947: Part Two

Even if you have relatively little or just a casual acquaintance with UFOs, you’ve no doubt heard of the alleged 1947 UFO crash at Roswell, New Mexico. If you’re a serious UFO buff, then Roswell is probably something you have well and truly researched. IMHO, there is a case to be answered here, that to date has not been answered satisfactorily about what really happened in early July, 1947.

Dateline, Roswell, New Mexico, July, 1947:

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

But wait, there’s still more! After Marcel (Senior) retired from the military, he went public with his side of the story – weather balloon? Not a snowball’s chance in hell. His son (Jesse Marcel, Junior), 11 years old at the time daddy (JM, Senior) woke him up, ultimately became a medical doctor and also a career military officer. But he too has now spoken out publicly and written about his, and his father’s encounters with what they both termed not-of-this-world technology. Marcel (Junior) remembers vividly that night and that material from the crashed disc collected by his father.

You can find relevant interviews with (now the late) Jesse Marcel (Senior), and his son, Dr. Jesse Marcel (Junior) on YouTube.

The Roswell AAF base commander (Colonel William Blanchard) was never reprimanded or disciplined for ordering the ‘crashed disc’ press release. In fact he eventually rose to the rank of that of a four-star General.

The First Lieutenant, Walter Haut, who actually issued that press release, also issued a death bed affidavit attesting to the accuracy of the actual crashed disc (not weather balloon) explanation to the Roswell event. That affidavit can be found on the Internet at the following address: (http://roswellproof.homestead.com/index.html). 

One large factor in the Roswell story is the alligations of official governmental cover-up at the highest levels. This actually makes quite logical sense. If you come into possession of advanced extraterrestrial technology, you’re not going to share that with anyone, not even your closest allies, as many times in the history of our civilization, your ally today is your enemy tomorrow. That aside, once you decide to withhold that titbit of information, you’ve painted yourself into a corner. It becomes very awkward, in any sort of diplomatic sense, to have to admit later on down the track that you withheld something from your closest allies. It’s better just to keep your collective mouths firmly shut. 

Finally, why, after over six decades on, if the Roswell incident has been so satisfactorily explained by the powers-that-be, is the issue, the explanation, their explanation, still something that’s topical and being debated.?

Roswell has taken on such a life of its own that it has featured not only in a novel (see Strieber below), but as a TV series “Roswell” as well as the starting point for another “Taken”, as well as a “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” episode. The film “Independence Day” featured the Roswell incident, as did, obviously, the made for TV film titled “Roswell: The UFO Cover Up”.

Further readings:

Berliner, Don & Friedman, Stanton T.; Crash at Corona: The U.S. Military Retrieval and Cover-Up of A UFO; Paragon House, New York; 1992:

Berlitz, Charles & Moore, William L.; The Roswell Incident; Grosset & Dunlap, New York; 1980:

Carey, Thomas J. & Schmitt, Donald R.; Witness to Roswell: Unmasking the 60-Year Cover-Up; Career Press, Franklin Lakes, New Jersey; 2007: 

Corso, Philip J. & Birnes, William J.; The Day After Roswell; Pocket Books, New York; 1997: 

Eberhart, George M. (Editor); The Roswell Report: A Historical Perspective; Center for UFO Studies, Chicago; 1991:

Hesemann, Michael & Mantle, Philip; Beyond Roswell: The Alien Autopsy Film, Area 51, & the U.S. Government Coverup of UFOs; Michael O’Mara Books Limited, London; 1997:

Klass, Philip J.; The Real Roswell Crashed-Saucer Coverup; Prometheus Books, Amherst, New York; 1997:

Korff, Kal K.; The Roswell UFO Crash: What They Don’t Want You To Know; Prometheus Books, Amherst, New York; 1997:

*Marcel, Jesse (Jr.) & Marcel, Linda; The Roswell Legacy: The Untold Story of the First Military Officer at the 1947 Crash Site; New Page Books, Franklin Lakes, New Jersey; 2009:

McAndrew, James & Weaver, Richard L.; The Roswell Report: Fact Versus Fiction in the New Mexico Desert; Headquarters United States Air Force, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC; 1995:

Moore, Charles B., Saler, Benson & Ziegler, Charles A.; UFO Crash at Roswell: The Genesis of A Modern Myth; Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC; 1997:

Randle, Kevin; Roswell UFO Crash Update: Exposing the Military Cover-up of the Century; Global Communications, New Brunswick, New Jersey; 1995:

Randle, Kevin D. & Schmitt, Donald R.; The Truth About the UFO Crash at Roswell; Avon Books, New York; 1994:

Randle, Kevin D. & Schmitt, Donald R.; UFO Crash at Roswell; Avon Books, New York; 1991:

Shawcross, Tim; The Roswell File; Bloomsbury, London; 1997:

Strieber, Whitley; Majestic; G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York; 1989: [Note: A novel and fictional account.]

*Key eyewitness document.

Addendum: Based on feedback from a colleague, “I was shocked to hear that a military officer took home some crash debris to show his family!  Shouldn’t that have been absolutely forbidden?  What about quarantine?  What about radioactivity?  Weren’t they concerned about such things in 1947?  There is the military secret issue too.”

Well, the behaviour of Marcel Senior isn’t odd at all. Say you find a leaf outside on the ground in your yard – no big deal. Now say you find a lump of gold – big deal! Well I predict you’d be running around showing your family, relatives, your neighbours, etc. the unexpected discovery, and any thought that it might also be radioactive or contaminated wouldn’t even dawn on you in your excitement. Well, if Roswell was a weather balloon, that’s your leaf – an everyday item. If Roswell was a crashed disc, that’s akin to your lump of gold – a totally unexpected discovery. If Roswell were just an ordinary weather balloon, there wouldn’t have been any valid reason to bring pieces of it home to show the wife and kids, and even if he did, there was no security issue involved. I mean Marcel Senior could have taken Marcel Junior to the Roswell base anytime to see a weather balloon – there was nothing classified about such an object. No, something really odd happened and the full story has yet to come out.

The Roswell Incident, July 1947: Part One

Even if you have relatively little or just a casual acquaintance with UFOs, you’ve no doubt heard of the alleged 1947 UFO crash at Roswell, New Mexico. If you’re a serious UFO buff, then Roswell is probably something you have well and truly researched. IMHO, there is a case to be answered here, that to date has not been answered satisfactorily about what really happened in early July, 1947.

Dateline, Roswell, New Mexico, July, 1947:

The basic story is that a civilian farmer came across some debris wreckage located at some distance from the nearest town of Roswell, New Mexico, of something that he could not identify and thus, thinking this an important discovery, ultimately notified the proper authorities, in case the debris was something of significance. The local officials, thinking the debris had to be military in nature, notified the nearby Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF). The base commander sent out an intelligence officer who collected some of the material, showing same to his family. After that, he duly reported his findings and eventually, all of the debris was collected, shipped firstly to Texas, then apparently on to another base far removed from the original site. The questions are, what was the nature of the debris; why has the official story of what was discovered so often been changed, and is there anything that can be read into the incident that would lend credibility to the UFO extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH)?

Starting with that point immediately related to the UFO ETH, are unconfirmed tales and rumours of alien bodies associated with the Roswell incident. I mean, it all makes sense if the Roswell incident involved a crashed alien spaceship – you’d expect alien bodies. Unfortunately, that trail is fairly cold, but a trail nonetheless.

However, and unfortunately, recovered ‘alien bodies’ are the biggest ‘giggle’ factor detrimental to any credibility about the Roswell Incident. Why this should be so is beyond me for, again, if UFOs are ‘manned’ by aliens, and if a UFO crashed, then it stands to reason that there will be alien bodies too – alive or dead. Of course one could argue that maybe the UFOs aren’t ‘manned’, but remote controlled drones – we have such things ourselves. Maybe the alien is actually  a form of extraterrestrial artificial intelligence – an onboard machine intelligence that controls/pilots the UFO, and resulting crash debris one couldn’t tell the difference between the remains of the ‘pilot’ from the rest of the nuts and bolts. But back to the bodies – by analogy, on balance, it would seem odd for an airliner to crash and there be no bodies. I find the idea of ‘alien bodies’ to contribute no extra ‘giggle’ factor to the Roswell incident.

However, as if to confirm the UFO ETH, one must point out that the then US Army Air Force admitted publicly, in the media, in newspapers, on radio, that they had captured one of those mysterious (and only recently in the limelight – the modern UFO era was just weeks old) flying discs. No amount of back-pedalling can alter that now historical fact. It’s on the record. Look it up yourself!

Clearly something crash landed near Roswell in New Mexico in July 1947. That’s not under any doubt. Clearly the RAAF (Roswell Army Air Field) admitted it had captured a flying disc. That’s not under any dispute. Clearly the RAAF (or on orders from higher USAAF authority – US Army Air Forces) changed the story the next day to one of retrieval of a downed weather balloon. That’s not under dispute. The (now) USAF has in fact changed the story a couple more times in the decades since. It’s still a balloon, but now one that was the top secret Project Mogul (keeping in mind it was the Project Mogul mission, not the materials that were top secret so why gather up and cart away the materials). As to the bodies (those alien bodies noted above) well they were test crash dummies. Unfortunately for that off-the-cuff or off-the-top-of-the-head explanation, test crash dummies weren’t so tested for a few years after the Roswell incident – oops!

Now I would maintain that military personnel would be able to tell the difference between balloon materials, and wreckage from a metallic flying disc (not to mention being able to distinguish alien bodies from mannequins). How could they get it so absolutely originally wrong? I would maintain that ‘the little old lady from Pasadena’ could differentiate between the two.  Anything after the original USAAF ‘it was a crashed disc’ explanation (i.e. – balloons) is absurd. Further, we have statements, including death bed affidavits from key witnesses that reiterate that there was debris from a crashed disc and non-human bodies in evidence. That’s not in dispute either. While there’s a lot of mythology surrounding Roswell, and not all the story has been fully told IMHO, there would seem little doubt that Roswell is as close to a UFO ETH ‘smoking gun’ as we have. It only takes one, out of multi-hundreds of thousands of UFO reports, to seal the evidence for the existence an extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI).

But wait, there’s more, and I’m not making any of this up. Firstly, forget the dozens of after-the-fact investigators into Roswell and their tomes. The only thing that really counts here is first hand, on-the-spot, eye-witness accounts. When it comes to that, the name Marcel should ring your bells and whistles.

Major Jesse Marcel (Senior) was the Army Air Force (AAF) as it was then called, military officer directed to investigate the report of some mysterious debris scattered outside of town. Now to achieve a rank of Major, in the military, suggests you’ve been around for a while. You’re not some newly commissioned greenhorn Second Louie. It suggests that one is competent enough to distinguish wheat from chaff. So, Major Marcel (Senior), upon on-site investigation of this crashed debris, became so excited about the nature of the material that he actually took some of the debris home to show his family, waking up his young child (Jesse Marcel, Junior) in the middle of the night. It’s the sort of thing a SETI (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) scientist might just as excitedly do if he or she received ‘that’ radio signal from E.T.

That a Major in the US AAF somehow could not tell the difference between debris from a crashed weather balloon (or even in yet another turnaround about-face, a Project Mogul balloon trail – well it’s still just a balloon) and a metallic crashed disc is too implausible or incredible to believe or take seriously. It’s like saying a SETI scientist couldn’t tell the difference between Morse Code and the radio hiss from the Big Bang’s cosmic microwave background radiation, or a dog breeder the difference between a German Shepard and a French Poodle!

Afterwards, of course, that, and all the other debris was collected by and turned over to the local AAF. Because of the unusual and highly suggestive other-worldly nature of the debris, the base commander (Colonel William Blanchard) ordered his public relations officer (First Lieutenant, Walter Haut) to issue a press statement that the AAF at Roswell had collected the crashed remains of one of these new fangled flying discs – or flying saucers as they were first termed. Within 24 hours, higher authority directed that the story be changed and what had actually been recovered was a weather balloon. Major Marcel, the base commander and the press officer, being dutiful military types, just followed orders, made the required about-face turnabout, and said nothing further – then. The actual debris was flown off-site, off the Roswell base, first to Texas (where real weather balloon bits were displayed for a press conference), hence onwards elsewhere (Wright Field as it was then known, now Wright-Patterson AFB, is implicated), but the debris (weather balloon or otherwise) has now apparently vanished off the face of the Earth, unless of course it is still stored under classified wraps which of course is denied.

To be continued...

UFOs: Bits and Pieces: Washington, D.C., July 1952

With both the existence of pure theory and applied evidence supporting the plausibility of the UFO extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) – where the UFO remains a UFO after appropriate expert analysis has failed to find a more terrestrial explanation – lets look at a few snippets of the phenomena, this time one of the most famous of all UFO events – dateline, Washington, D.C., July 1952.

In July 1952, on two separate occasions, separated by one week, UFOs buzzed America’s National Capitol, making long term incursions over restricted air space. They were tracked, independently, by various civilian and military radars. Military jet fighters were scrambled to intercept and identify the UFOs, but were outmatched and didn’t succeed, although they were witnessed by the pilots. The objects were also witnessed from the ground. USAF Major-General John A. Samford, at the largest Pentagon press conference ever held since WWII, in late July 1952, made the statement with respect to the recent Washington D.C. UFO flap that these sightings were made by “credible observers of relatively incredible things”. It’s on the public record.

Now of course these sightings had to be explained by any means necessary since you just cannot admit to having unknown aerial objects fly over restricted air space. So the idea of ‘temperature inversions’ explained all - hogwash. It’s amazing that the common occurrence of ‘temperature inversions’ had never before, and never since, caused such commotion.

Further reading regarding Washington, D.C. (July 1952):

Randle, Kevin D.; Invasion Washington: UFOs Over the Capitol; HarperCollins Publishers, New York; 2001:

Ruppelt, Edward J.; The Washington Merry-Go-Round (in); The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects; Ace Books, inc, New York; 1956; pages 207-227:

UFOs: Bits and Pieces: Stargate: SG-1

With both the existence of pure theory and applied evidence supporting the plausibility of the UFO extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) – where the UFO remains a UFO after appropriate expert analysis has failed to find a more terrestrial explanation – lets look at a few snippets of the phenomena, this time, apparently with official USAF endorsement, a TV series that often featured the typical alien abduction ‘Greys’ as well as Area 51 – “Stargate: SG-1”.

“Stargate: SG-1” was a TV spin-off of the feature film “Stargate”. That TV show ran for ten seasons (and inspired in turn two more TV spin-offs) and featured several alien races that in the main had links to ancient terrestrial mythology. One such race was the Asgards, and as the name suggests had connection with our Old Norse mythology. The interesting bit was that in appearance, the Asgards just happen to look exactly like the standard ‘Greys’ of modern UFO (Roswell and alien abduction, etc.) lore. This was I’m sure quite by design and no coincidence. This fictional show also confirmed several times over that Area 51 both housed and studied extraterrestrial technology.

The fact that both ‘Greys’ and Area 51 feature on the show makes one other observation an interesting observation. That other interesting bit is that “Stargate: SG-1” featured a fictional operation or program run under the direction of the USAF. The TV show featuring the fictional stargate had the endorsement and cooperation of the actual USAF, probably because the “Stargate: SG-1” TV show portrayed the USAF in a highly positive light. In fact, two actual then currently serving USAF Chiefs of Staff (4-star generals) appeared in the actual TV show starring as themselves! How’s that for endorsement! So, we have the actual USAF assisting (by providing an advisory role, aircraft and personnel to the show) and endorsing a TV show that prominently featured UFO ‘Greys’ and Area 51. Okay, I’m probably reading way too much into that. In all probability the real USAF connection probably had no actual relevance to any indirect approval of the UFO ‘Greys’ and Area 51 in the show by the USAF. That part of the ‘endorsement’ is just pure speculation on my part. So I do have to admit that overall there’s probably no deep meaning underlying this connection, but I still find it interesting, very, very interesting.

UFOs: Bits and Pieces: Roswell 1947

With both the existence of pure theory and applied evidence supporting the plausibility of the UFO extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) – where the UFO remains a UFO after appropriate expert analysis has failed to find a more terrestrial explanation – lets look at a few snippets of the phenomena, this time the alleged crash of a UFO near Roswell, New Mexico in early July of 1947.

My bits and pieces wouldn’t be complete without reference to Roswell. I don’t wish to say too much about the Roswell, N.M. case (July 1947), other than to point out that the then US Army Air Force admitted publicly, in the media, in newspapers, on radio, that they had captured one of those mysterious (and only recently sighted – the modern UFO era was just weeks old) flying discs. No amount of back-pedalling can alter that now historical fact. It’s on the record. Look it up yourself! But wait, there’s more, and I’m not making any of this up. Firstly, forget the dozens of after-the-fact investigators into Roswell and their tomes. The only thing that really counts here is first hand, on-the-spot, eye-witness accounts. When it comes to that, the name Marcel should ring your bells and whistles.

Major Jesse Marcel (Senior) was the Army Air Force (AAF) as it was then called, military officer directed to investigate the report of some mysterious debris scattered outside of town. Now to achieve a rank of Major, in the military, suggests you’ve been around for a while. You’re not some newly commissioned greenhorn Second Louie. It suggests that one is competent enough to distinguish wheat from chaff. So, Major Marcel (Senior), upon on-site investigation of this crashed debris, became so excited that he actually took some of the debris home to show his family, waking up his young child (Jesse Marcel, Junior) in the middle of the night. It’s the sort of thing a SETI scientist might excitedly do if s/he received ‘that’ signal. Afterwards, of course, that, and all the other debris was collected by and turned over to the local AAF. Because of the unusual and highly suggestive other-worldly nature of the debris, the base commander ordered his public relations officer to issue a press statement that the AAF at Roswell had collected the crashed remains of one of these new fangled flying discs. Within 24 hours, higher authority directed that the story be changed and what had actually been recovered was a weather balloon. Major Marcel, the base commander and the press officer, being dutiful military types, just followed orders and said nothing – then. The actual debris was then flown off-site, off the Roswell base, first to Texas (where real weather balloon bits were displayed for a press conference), hence onwards elsewhere, but has apparently vanished now off the face of the Earth, unless of course it is still stored under classified wraps.

That a Major in the US AAF somehow could not tell the difference between debris from a crashed weather balloon (or even in yet another turnaround about-face, a Project Mogul balloon trail – well it’s still just a balloon) and a metallic crashed disc is too implausible or incredible to believe or take seriously. It’s like saying a SETI scientist couldn’t tell the difference between Morse Code and the radio hiss from the Big Bang’s cosmic microwave background radiation!

But wait, there’s more! After Marcel (Senior) retired from the military, he went public with his side of the story – weather balloon? Not a snowballs chance in Hell. His son, 11 years old at the time daddy woke him up, became a medical doctor and also a career military officer. But he now too has spoken out publicly and written about his, and his father’s encounters with what they both termed not-of-this-world technology. Marcel (Junior) remembers vividly that night and that material from the crashed disc collected by his father.

You can find relevant interviews with (now the late) Jesse Marcel (Senior), and his son, Dr. Jesse Marcel (Junior) on YouTube.

The Roswell AAF base commander (Colonel William Blanchard) was never reprimanded or disciplined for ordering the ‘crashed disc’ press release. In fact he eventually rose to the rank of that of Four-Star General.

The First Lieutenant, Walter Haut, who actually issued that press release, also issued a death bed affidavit attesting to the accuracy of the actual (no weather balloon) Roswell events. That affidavit can be found on the Internet at the following address: (http://roswellproof.homestead.com/index.html). 

Finally, the biggest ‘giggle’ factor detrimental to Roswell credibility are the reports of the alien bodies recovered. Why this should be so is beyond me for if UFOs are ‘manned’ by aliens, and if a UFO crashed, then it stands to reason that there will be alien bodies too – alive or dead. Of course one could argue that maybe the UFOs aren’t ‘manned’, but remote controlled drones – we have such things ourselves. Maybe the alien is actually  a form of extraterrestrial artificial intelligence – an onboard machine intelligence that controls/pilots the UFO, and resulting crash debris one couldn’t tell the difference between the remains of the ‘pilot’ from the rest of the nuts and bolts. But back to the bodies – by analogy, on balance, it would seem odd for an airliner to crash and there be no bodies. I find the idea of ‘alien bodies’ to contribute no extra ‘giggle’ factor to the Roswell incident.

Further reading on Roswell:

Berliner, Don & Friedman, Stanton T.; Crash at Corona: The U.S. Military Retrieval and Cover-Up of A UFO; Paragon House, New York; 1992:

Berlitz, Charles & Moore, William L.; The Roswell Incident; Grosset & Dunlap, New York; 1980:

Carey, Thomas J. & Schmitt, Donald R.; Witness to Roswell: Unmasking the 60-Year Cover-Up; Career Press, Franklin Lakes, New Jersey; 2007: 

Corso, Philip J. & Birnes, William J.; The Day After Roswell; Pocket Books, New York; 1997: 

Eberhart, George M. (Editor); The Roswell Report: A Historical Perspective; Center for UFO Studies, Chicago; 1991:

Hesemann, Michael & Mantle, Philip; Beyond Roswell: The Alien Autopsy Film, Area 51, & the U.S. Government Coverup of UFOs; Michael O’Mara Books Limited, London; 1997:

Klass, Philip J.; The Real Roswell Crashed-Saucer Coverup; Prometheus Books, Amherst, New York; 1997:

Korff, Kal K.; The Roswell UFO Crash: What They Don’t Want You To Know; Prometheus Books, Amherst, New York; 1997:

*Marcel, Jesse (Jr.) & Marcel, Linda; The Roswell Legacy: The Untold Story of the First Military Officer at the 1947 Crash Site; New Page Books, Franklin Lakes, New Jersey; 2009:

McAndrew, James & Weaver, Richard L.; The Roswell Report: Fact Versus Fiction in the New Mexico Desert; Headquarters United States Air Force, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC; 1995:

Moore, Charles B., Saler, Benson & Ziegler, Charles A.; UFO Crash at Roswell: The Genesis of A Modern Myth; Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC; 1997:

Randle, Kevin; Roswell UFO Crash Update: Exposing the Military Cover-up of the Century; Global Communications, New Brunswick, New Jersey; 1995:

Randle, Kevin D. & Schmitt, Donald R.; The Truth About the UFO Crash at Roswell; Avon Books, New York; 1994:

Randle, Kevin D. & Schmitt, Donald R.; UFO Crash at Roswell; Avon Books, New York; 1991:

Shawcross, Tim; The Roswell File; Bloomsbury, London; 1997:

Strieber, Whitley; Majestic; G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York; 1989: [Note: A novel and fictional account.]

*Key eyewitness document.

UFOs: Bits and Pieces: Name Dropping

With both the existence of pure theory and applied evidence supporting the plausibility of the UFO extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) – where the UFO remains a UFO after appropriate expert analysis has failed to find a more terrestrial explanation – lets look at a few snippets of the phenomena, this time naming some of the pro-UFO (as a serious scientific issue) people who have had first hand and hands-on experiences with UFOs.   

Given that a large percentage of the population of developed nations believe that there is something to the UFO subject beyond UFOs being just ‘silly-season’ fodder for the tabloids, it’s not surprising that a lot of household names would be among them. However, just because you’re famous as an actor or musician or politician or industrialist, etc. doesn’t by itself translate into having any more credibility when speaking out on the UFO subject vis-à-vis any old Jane Doe private citizen. However, there are some people who have had a more direct relationship with the subjects. While police and pilots and other qualified and trained observers of UFOs have credibility, they aren’t household names. In short, fame has nothing to do with UFO credibility. When I refer to ‘name dropping’, I mean naming people who, when it comes to the UFO as a credible scientific subject, have the runs on the board and have to be taken seriously by the UFO sceptics.

There are physical and other scientists with professional academic qualifications, who took (or take) the UFOs in general and often the UFO ETH (extraterrestrial hypothesis) question in particular very seriously. Scientists and academics like J. Allen Hynek (scientific advisor the USAF Project Blue Book who later founded to Center for UFO Studies), James E. McDonald, Berthold E. Schwarz (M.D.), John E. Mack (M.D.), Michael Swords, Ron Westrum, Jacques Vallee, Bruce Maccabee, David M. Jacobs, Thomas E. Bullard, Karla Turner, Stanton Friedman, Frank B. Salisbury, Ivan T. Sanderson, and Richard F. Haines. I could extend the list, but you get the gist.

I should also point out that both the former heads of the USAF Project Blue Book (Edward J. Ruppelt) and the British Dept. of Defence UFO study (Nick Pope) wrote books detailing their experiences, and both took the subject very seriously indeed.

Then there are former NASA astronauts like Gordon Cooper and Edgar Mitchell who have come out in no uncertain terms that the UFO ETH is not only plausible, but beyond doubt.

There’s also a host of top military officers who have given credibility to the subject. One such notable was Barry Goldwater, better known as a politician and presidential candidate; he was also a USAF general officer.

For every well known UFO debunker or sceptic, there’s an equal and opposite pro-UFO (as in UFOs are serious business) counterpart. In fact, based on my own four decades of serious interest in this field, I’ve noted that there have been far more sceptics turned UFO believers (though not of necessity a believer in the ETH), than the other way around.