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The Roswell corner

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New Fireman witness
Roswell investigators and authors continue to look for more story tellers to make it seem like everybody in town knew about the greatest secret ever kept. Now we are told that an aging old fireman “proves” that Frankie Rowe’s story is true! After all the other pretenders that have turned up over the years, it is nice to hear about another “reliable” and “credible” witness. He is so credible that his name is to remain secret so skeptics and debunkers won’t bother him with difficult questions. Call me skeptical but this sounds a lot like Randle/Bragalia are trying to avoid anybody talking to the guy and getting a completely different story. This “proves” nothing since Rowe’s story has been public for over a decade. Ignoring the possibility that his testimony is tainted by what has been in the media over the years is ignoring the lessons of past discredited witnesses. Randle also wrote that Kaufmann’s story was true because of all the other supporting testimony. How did that work out?

News Alert: Kevin Randle calls Professor Charles Moore a liar with bad information.
The idea that Professor Charles Moore has lied and deceived everyone has become part of Roswell mania. Kevin Randle, among others, has jumped onto the bandwagon to produce items that make it appear that Moore has gone out of his way to fabricate data and information. Randle recently attempted to call Moore a liar by stating he invented numbers for the range of the SCR-584 radar at White Sands in 1947. Well, Randle had gotten all his facts about this wrong. Did he get corrected by the throng of idolizing well-wishers on his blog? Amazingly, nobody said a word and, instead, they apparently accepted what he wrote as factual. I finally had to step in and point out that his accusation about the number being “invented” was completely false. Randle would later state that he had accepted the information from a “rabid believer”without any fact checking. I can hazard a guess to his source but we will just let that person enjoy the fact that Randle threw him under the bus. Didn’t that happen before?

Patrick Saunders: Roswell hero or Roswell joker?

Kevin Randle continues to peddle more Roswell stories in his blog. Another effort I noticed involved painting Patrick Saunders as a Roswell hero. Saunders had written some little cryptic notes in various Roswell books before he died. Randle had acquired one of these books about ten years ago. He discovered that in the flyleaf of The truth about the UFO crash at Roswell, Saunders had written that this was the truth and he hadn’t told anybody. Most of this book was based on the lies of Frank Kaufmann, Jim Ragsdale, and Glenn Dennis. How could this be the “truth”?
In Randle’s newest revelation, he produced a copy of UFO Crash at Roswell with the hand written note to his daughter state “You were there”. Who is “you”? Is he addressing his daughter? If so, how could she be there? The key to this mystery appears to be at the bottom of the page where he listed page numbers where his name was mentioned. The note is apparently a joke and he wanted everyone to see where he was mentioned. In this context it appears to be a little humor involved and indicates the other statement in The truth about the UFO crash at Roswell was probably also a joke. When you think about it, if he really wanted to tell the “truth”, wouldn’t he have just left us a book/document/diary outlining everything that would be released after he died? Instead, Roswell aficionados scan every fragment and innuendo as if they were the holy grail. Is this anything new? It has been over 60 years and we are still waiting for one piece of verifiable evidence that can demonstrate the “crash” really happened as claimed.

Repeat after me.......

Moving on, I noticed something in Randle’s blog as well as the other various commentaries about the greatest secret ever kept. Roswell proponents like to repeat the same lines over and over again like a religious mantra. For instance, I have seen Randle keep repeating over and over that flight number four was “canceled” and that it is “mythical”. Christopher Allen correctly pointed out to him that even if flight number four was “canceled” , Crary’s journal mentions a “cluster of balloons” was eventually launched on the fourth of June, 1947. One can call this “Flight no. 4” without being wrong since it was sent up with a sonobouy to test reception. Randle’s exercise is just a way to reinforce the idea that there were no balloons trains launched that were never found, which would eliminate MOGUL as the source of the Foster Ranch debris.
Proponents continue this little charade with the ML-307 radar reflectors used by the NYU team. They attempt to tell everybody that the flight did not have ML-307s because Crary’s entry does not mention them. Again, Allen has correctly noted that the journal was not an accurate/official record of what was being flown. The team had used the reflectors on flight no. 2 only two months prior so the possibility exists they were attached. It is not unreasonable to suggest that this flight, even it were not an official NYU flight, might include the reflectors to see how well they performed in conjunction with the radar at Alamogordo. The repetition exercise performed by proponents is used to reinforce the idea that ML-307s could not have been attached to the “cluster of balloons”.David Rudiak has also taken great effort to repeat the same idea over and over that Moore’s calculations were incorrect and then produced what he believes is the correct path of the flight that day. What is missed in all of this is that Moore’s effort was trying to show how the flight could have made it to the ranch. Rudiak is trying to imply that Moore’s flight could NEVER have reached the ranch. This is another exercise to eliminate the June 4th flight as a source of the materials described by Brazel. Despite Rudiak’s protestations, there remains a possibility that the flight could have made it to the ranch. Rudiaks’ work has been effective. I have seen several proponents parrot that the flight COULD NEVER have made it to the ranch based on what he has written.
You won’t read on any of the proponents web sites or blogs that there is the possibility this “cluster of balloons” could have had ML-307s attached and might have made it to Foster Ranch. To suggest it is possible is...well...sacrilegious.

UFO Truthseeker gets his FACTS wrong but takes skeptics to task anyway.
Dave Thomas, the president of the New Mexicans for Science and Reasoning (NMSR), has written numerous skeptical articles about Roswell. One of the most significant was his 1995 article for the Skeptical Inquirer describing project MOGUL. Recently, UFO truthseeker Dennis Balthasar discovered this article next to another in the “X” Chronicle Newspaper. Apparently, Balthasar never read either article before and he decided to go after Thomas. However, the first article had come from Robert Carroll’s Skeptic dictionary website and had not been written by Thomas at all. Therefore, Balthasar had got a FACT wrong (the author of the article) before he even started his diatribe about skeptics getting FACTS wrong.

The “Truthseeker” starts off his rebuttal by defining what a FACT is. FACTS are things that actually exist or are known to have happened. Balthasar’s argument is that skeptics never get their FACTS right before writing about Roswell. He found some points that, in some cases were erroneous (i.e. Dee Proctor being listed as a girl) or were out of date (One of the town’s UFO museums has now closed). However, Balthasar seemed to “pad” the amount of errors he could list by mentioning that Carroll did not spell “Mac” Brazel’s nickname correctly! It is interesting to note that the recent Roswell dig diaries (Doleman, Schmitt and Carey) and Roswell Encyclopedia (Randle) spelled it as “Mack” . Even more amusing is that Balthasar spelled it as “Mack” in his August 1st, 2003 editorial on his website! If the UFOlogists are going to spell it wrong, I can’t see why it is important to note that a skeptic misspelled it. Maybe there is a double standard in UFOlogy when it comes to misspelling nicknames. To feel this was important enough tomention demonstrates Balthasar is trying really hard to paint a certain picture.
When Balthasar did attack the points raised by Thomas he repeated two of the standard mantra lines already discussed:
1. Flight number 4 was canceled
2. David Rudiak has demonstrated that the balloons launched on 4 June could never have made it to the ranch.
As I have stated previously, neither of these statements are exactly accurate, which means he got his FACTS about this wrong as well.
The “Truthseeker” then spent time trying to point out that there is no MOGUL debris in the photographs other than weather balloons and radar reflector. To Balthasar, this apparently meant the debris could not have come from a project MOGUL balloon train. Balthasar can’t get his FACTS regarding this right either. It is well known that Marcel stated that the media did not see all the debris and complained a great more debris was still on the plane! Additionally, Balthasar wonders what is in an unopened box in the photographs? Maybe, just maybe, it might just contain some of those parts from the MOGUL balloon train.

Balthasar also gets some more FACTS wrong when he repeats the standard Roswell crashed spaceship time line. According to him, the only time the 14th of June recovery date was mentioned was in the Roswell Daily Record interview. He missed the Frank Joyce teletypes where Wilcox stated Brazel had found it three weeks ago. He also had not read the Fort Worth newspaper, where Jesse Marcel Sr is quoted repeating the same time period. Balthasar choice of FACTS seems highly selective.
Another mistake was the “Truthseeker’s” conviction that Mac Brazel came into town on the 6th of July with debris in hand. Apparently, he ignored the teletypes presented by Frank Joyce where it stated he came in on the 7th and that nobody had seen the debris. There wasalso the comments made in the Fort Worth paper and Roswell Daily Dispatch, which also described his arrival on the 7th. Jesse Marcel Sr. even stated in The Roswell Incident that Brazel had come in on a Monday! As for the debris that supposedly came into town with him, nobody seems to report seeing that debris in any if the articles from 1947. Bill Brazel even stated in 1997 that his father did not bring any material into town. Even though it is part of the accepted story that he brought the debris into town does not make it a FACT.
In an unrelated argument he twists FACTS around when he states the Soviets did not start any nuclear testing until 1949 in order to make it sound like project MOGUL was not needed to detect Soviet explosions in 1947! 1949 is when the Soviets performed their first successful nuclear explosion but not when they began their nuclear program. The US was quite aware that the Soviets could construct a bomb and they did not want to be unaware of it’s development. MOGUL was one of the programs under development in 1947 to detect such an explosion. It would be stupid to develop such a program after they already executed a test.Balthasar’s motto appears to be always to tell the truth so you don’t have to remember anything. Maybe Balthasar should start looking some information up and not relying upon memory to write articles. Many of the items that Balthasar considers to be FACTS are not. It may be a FACT that somebody stated something. However, it does not make what they state is true. They are just stories that are blindly accepted as FACTS.
Dave Thomas has his own commentary about this on the NMSR website. He mirrors my comments here and adds that Stanton Friedman, who verified all the FACTS in Balthasar’s piece, failed to conduct an adequate review. Thomas notes, “Sadly, things like this happen all too often in the world of UFOlogy.”

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Jesse Marcel- The Evolution of a Roswell Witness

Of course, the main period in Jesse’s life we are interested in is the second week of July, 1947. When he was sent out to meet Mac Brazel in Roswell, he obviously had no way of knowing that his name would be forever etched in the annals of UFO history. But as important as that week would later prove to be for Jesse, it is certain elements of his biography he later related to UFO investigators that have become so interesting.

When Jesse Marcel Sr. was interviewed about his recovery of the “crashed flying disk” by Bill Moore (who co-authored “The Roswell Incident”) and then by Bob Pratt (who was at the time a reporter for the National Enquirer), he was also asked about his personal accomplishments and his wartime experiences. Questions like these are common—not only to provide a background of the interviewee, but to establish his credibility.
Jesse’s bio, as he told it, was pretty impressive: Well educated with a degree in Physics, a certified, decorated war hero who shot down 5 enemy planes, a former personal aide to General Hap Arnold, a pilot (with 3000 hours behind the stick)… Jesse was indeed a “highly credible” witness. Moore and Charles Berlitz, co-authors of “The Roswell Incident”, naturally treated Marcel as a hero in the first book to be published about the case.
However, over the next fifteen years, Jesse’s testimony gradually became one of the more curious facets of the Roswell Saga. On one hand, he and his story were, in some sense, revered, as it was his account of the recovery of debris he described as “not of this world” that first put the Roswell Incident on the UFO map. His credibility at the time was not questioned, but as other witnesses stepped forward with their far more exciting versions of events, it became clear that for many of the Storytellers, Jesse Marcel’s tale was starting to lose its luster.
There was Glenn Dennis, and his story of a request for child-sized coffins, a red-headed Captain and what “the Nurse” saw. Nextthere was Jim Ragsdale’s story of his tryst in the desert with Trudy Truelove that led to his discovery of the crashed saucer, several aliens, and massive recovery teams. These two became the focus of the book “UFO Crash at Roswell” (Randle/Schmitt). Then special agent Frank Kaufmann became the primary witness in “The Truth About the UFO Crash at Roswell” (Randle/Schmitt), because of his heroic tale of tracking the UFO by Radar, seeing the ship “explode” on the radar screen, and his role in the recovery of the ship and its alien crew. And, of course, we have Gerald Anderson’s memories as a 6 year old finding a saucer and its alien crew and the third-hand tales of Barney Barnett providing most the excitement in “Crash at Corona” (Friedman).
In all of these books, Marcel’s story was not only relegated to the “back bench”, but many of his descriptions of events and the debris were flatly contradicted by others. Even more interesting is that the Storytellers all clearly preferred the other versions over Marcel’s:

Marcel’s clearly described wooden • “members” became metal beams, then “ Metal I-Beams”. (“...but it didn’t look like metal. It looked more like wood.” --Pratt Interview)
Marcel’s observation that it was clear • that the craft must have “exploded in the air” because there were no signs on the ground of any impact, has now been supplanted by a “huge gouge” made by the craft as it crashed. (“One thing I did notice – nothing actually hit the ground bounced on the ground. It was something that must have exploded above ground and fell.” --Pratt Interview)
Jesse related that he and Sheridan • Cavitt picked up what they could fit into their vehicles, and claimed that they left behind a lot more. What they brought back was the debris that was sent to Ft. Worth to be inspected by General Ramey. However, he never mentioned any kind of massive, HighHutchinsonSecurity effort to recover what they left behind, nor did he mention any additional “plane loads” of debris flown out of the base-- all of which are now accepted by the Storytellers as “facts”. As the Group Intelligence Officer, these are activities that he would have been very aware of.
Marcel’s early assertions that the • pictures of him taken in General Ramey’s office showed the real debris that he brought in, were ignored in favor of the claims made by other witnesses that the real wreckage was switched out as part of the cover-up conspiracy. “UFOs Are Real” -- Television Documentary, 1981
Marcel never mentioned any aliens-- • dead or alive. Not at the crash site OR on the base. Yet the Storytellers, based on accounts from others, are all in agreement that bodies were recovered, autopsied on base, and eventually shipped to …. somewhere else.
Jesse never mentioned or gave any • hint that the base was under any kind of unusual security alert. But the prevailing story, as related by other witnesses, is that the entire base was under locked-down Very Highest Security.
The authors of the Roswell books in the ‘90s clearly preferred these new, more exciting tales over Marcel’s. So without explicitly saying that Marcel’s story and descriptions were suspect, they simply related, then ignored many of the details of his story, thus relegating Jesse to more of a historical footnote than a pivotal witness.

Jesse Marcel’s Military Records
In 1995, not long after publication of the Randle/Schmitt book “The Truth about the UFO Crash at Roswell”, another researcher—Robert Todd—successfully acquired Jesse Marcel’s military records via a Freedom Of Information Act request, and suddenly the appellation of “a highly credible witness” was brought into question. Many began to ask; If Jesse was inclined to embellish the reality of his wartime “heroics” and his education, was he equally cavalier with his story of the “flying disk”?
Marcel’s records showed that contrary to the background he gave to the early researchers, he was not and never had been a pilot, nor was he a college graduate, and he never served as an aide to General Hap Arnold. He did receive two Air Medals, but not five, and they were not awarded for shooting down enemy airplanes-- there is no indication that he shot down even one. In the eyes of many, Marcel’s tale of the Flying Disk that was “not of this world” started to look a little suspect.
Meanwhile, disaster was falling on all of the most coveted Roswell witnesses. Gerry Anderson was caught fabricating documents and a diary, and lying about the “archaeologist”… Jim Ragsdale, whose stories were suspiciously increasing in dramatic content with each retelling, abruptly changed the location of his crash site some 70 miles away... The diary of Barney Barnett’s wife showed conclusively that he was nowhere near the Plains of San Agustin during that critical week… Glenn Dennis’s mysterious nurse apparently never existed, and many of his details were found to be misplaced memories from other times.
Then finally, Frank Kaufmann’s widow allowed researchers access to his papers after his death. These papers convincingly showed that Frank had forged the documentation he had shown to the storytellers, and that he was nothing more than an accomplished fabricator of his role in the Roswell Saga.
The Storytellers now found themselves without all of their best Witnesses. Huge holes had been ripped from their published stories, and it became clear that a renewed effort was required to try and resurrect the Saga from certain ruin.

Re-enter Major Jesse Marcel.
With the loss of their most exciting witnesses, long time crash advocates and Roswell researchers like Kevin Randlebecame desperate for a new headliner. So despite the obvious problems dealing with Marcel’s discredited stories of his military service, and because they apparently have no one better, they have gone back to the witness that started the whole saga. Today, Jesse is once again being promoted as a Key Witness.
However, this resurrection effort continues to ignore the very real problems that have plagued Marcel’s testimony since 1989. There are still these enormous discrepancies between Marcel’s comparatively sedate tale, and the far more exciting stories of massive clean up operations, a huge gouge, alien bodies, a base locked down on high security alert, plane-loads (or truck-loads) of alien ship debris, specialists being flown in from Washington DC, Colorado, California… all of which have to be addressed by anyone who seriously wants to try and understand Roswell.

Jesse’s War:
So if Jesse’s tale of his war-time exploits and education got a little “enhancement” 35 years later, just what is the reality of his time in service?
His service records indicate the Jesse fought the war well, but not exceptionally well. Every indication is that Jesse performed his wartime duties competently and was not shy about taking some risks—while in the Pacific Theater, he was promoted twice, and awarded two Air Medals and the Bronze Star. The records make absolutely no mention of him taking over a gun and shooting down a plane (let alone five planes!). Nor is there any mention what-so-ever of him as a pilot--which, considering the branch of service he was in, would be a decidedly noteworthy item. Gen. Ramey even noted in an evaluation of Marcel that his lack of pilot credentials would hurt his chances of advancement in the Air Force.
The common criticism voiced in his Efficiency Evaluations for ’43-‘45 was that he lacked in leadership and was deficient in his “personal appearance”. However, praises for his abilities as an Intelligence Officer, his attention to detail and his work ethic, overshadowed those shortcomings. His rating officers were all in agreement that Jesse was of value to the military, recommending that the Army Air Force retain his services and advance him in rank and duties. It is worth noting here that none of his wartime efficiency reports gave him an overall rating as “exceptional” or “superior”.
His post-war Efficiency Ratings through 1948 followed the same pattern— lacking in leadership, personal appearance and initiative, but skilled in his job with a good work ethic. He received written commendations for his work during “Operation Crossroads” and recommendations for advancement. Interestingly, in two Efficiency Reports completed during his time with the 509th, Jesse was ranked last or second-to-last by the report author (Col. Blanchard was one) when asked to compare him to the other officers in his command.
It wasn’t until his period with SAC that deficiencies in personal appearance stopped appearing in the reports- apparently it had been explained to him just how important it was to be “squared away” when you worked at the Pentagon.
Overall, Jesse’s record with the Army (and the post-split Air Force) could be rated as Good to Very Good, but not Superior. He was never in trouble, did his job well, and generally pleased his superiors, but showed little in the way of Leadership abilities. The Army thought enough of him that he was not let go during the post war demobilization that saw a huge proportion of the troops sent home, and until his mother’s illness intervened, he seemed to be well on his way to a comfortable career as a military bureaucrat.

Today:
Ever since Marcel’s military records were acquired, there have been periodic “discussions” between crash advocates and skeptics over the validity and the importance of what Marcel said in those interviews. A tape of Bill Moore’s interview has never surfaced, and neither has any from Stanton Friedman’s sessions. However, Bob Pratt did give copy of his interview tape to Karl Pflock, who published a transcription. It is from this transcription, and the quotes Moore published in “The Roswell Incident”, that we get Jesse’senhanced version of how he fought the war.
As I write this (February 2009), there is a renewed battle being waged on the Internet and in a book by Jesse Marcel Jr., to again try to resurrect Maj. Marcel’s Credibility from the disaster wrought by the reality of his military records. Tactics such as excusing his grandiose tales as “résumé building”, or “kill the messenger” (in this case, Bob Todd), and “please cut him some slack” are being used to try and elevate Jesse’s story from the quagmire his fanciful exaggerations created.
At the same time, The Storytellers seem loathe to give up the exciting stories of alien bodies, high security alerts and the plane loads of debris that their now discredited witnesses had brought to the Saga. As a result, the argument over Jesse’s credibility continues to ignore the huge gulf between his version of The Incident, and the versions that The Storytellers are actually selling.
Thanks to Bruce Hutchinson for sharing this article with everyone. You can find it at the new website, the Aerial Anomalies Research Exchange. It looks like it is website worth watching for new and informative articles about researching UFOs.

The Roswell Incident has emerged as a myth of such power and allure that it is no longer in anybody’s best interests to seek - or admit - the truth. The town of Roswell profits from increased tourism. The supposed Roswell ‘witnesses’ get their two hours of fame, and immortality in the history books. The Roswell ‘investigators’ garner the adulation of their peers (assuming they have any), and the royalties from book and movie deals. The UFO ‘organizations’ enjoy a new respectability they otherwise haven’t been able to achieve after nearly fifty years of worthless ‘research’... Is it any wonder the truth has been lost in this hodgepodge of vested interests? -
Robert Todd
Kowflop Quarterly December 8, 1995.

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THE GREATEST SECRET NEVER KEPT

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It has always been part of UFOlogy’s belief that the proof of alien visitation existed and the government was concealing this great secret. By the 1970s, it had become commonly accepted that the government was concealing all sorts of secrets. So when the Roswell story broke, it was not unexpected that part of the story would include a cabal that would go to enormous lengths to cover-up what transpired. For some reason, their ability to silence people failed when it came to Jesse Marcel.
Jesse Marcel stated that he first heard about it when he got a phone call from the sheriff’s office. One would think if there had been a crashed spaceship found prior to this and base activity significantly increased, Jesse would have known because of his position. Instead, he reports that Colonel Blanchard sent only Sheridan Cavitt and himself out to the ranch. What he discovered there was so secret that Jesse stopped by his home on the way back so his wife and son could examine it. He did not seemed to be concerned for security until a day later, when he would then tell his son not to talk about it. Jesse would later add that he never received direction about how secret the event really was but he knew he was not supposed to talk about it.
This is the way things were for thirty years. Most people in the world knew nothing about a crashed spaceship recovery. Even Presidents were kept in the dark about it. Meanwhile, the people in Roswell were scared into silence by the gestapo-like tactics employed by the Military Police of Roswell Army Air Field under the command of Major Edwin Easley. Easley, according to the story told today, ensured that nobody was going to talk by selecting brutish MPs that could intimidate children and their parents as well as the men in town. By threatening their families, they assured nobody was ever going to talk. Major Edwin Easley’s diabolical actions ensured the greatest secret ever kept would not be revealed by anybody who was there.Easley’s and the governments reach apparently did not extend into Louisianna. There, Jesse Marcel Sr. told all of his friends about how he helped recover a crashed UFO back in 1947. Apparently, he either forgot his security oath or felt that nobody was going to harm him or his family. The greatest secret ever kept was going to be revealed through casual conversation with friends who could spread the word to anyone they met. This is how the Roswell story broke and the rest is history.
The special group designated for keeping the greatest secret apparently became complacent. Otherwise, they would have been paying close attention to Jesse Marcel. The secret could have been kept had they simply jetted down to Louisianna and forced Jesse to keep quiet the instant he began to tell his story to friends who did not need to know. Instead, the greatest secret ever kept was allowed to appear in print without even a hint of concern. It was almost as if nobody really cared.
As the years passed, a parade of witnesses appeared to talk about the events of that July. Easley’s stranglehold on the town of Roswell had been released. The cabal, who dropped the ball by not eliminating the threat Marcel posed, now had to go into damage control. They would plant information in the archives that others could find indicating a more mundane solution. They would secretly encourage or pay individuals to hide the greatest secret never kept. The greatest secret never kept would be allowed to appear as nothing more than a balloon project run by a bunch idiot college boys, who would later try and claim they were the cause of the Roswell debris.
The greatest secret never kept can now be told thanks to Jesse Marcel Sr. In 1947, he was just a bumbling Major, who goofed. By the 1970s, while others cowered, Jesse stood tall and told the real story about Roswell. Today, he is almost like a demi-god, who is incapable of fault. The shrine in Roswell is a testament to Jesse Marcel’s courage in exposing “the greatest secret never kept”.

Bruce Hutchinson

Quelle: Sunlite 1/2009