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The Roswell Corner
Rumor has it.........
Anthony Bragalia contacted me shortly after the release of SUNlite 5-5 complaining that I was doing nothing but spreading ru- mors that were not true. I would later be referred to as a “gossip girl”. I found this all quite humorous since many of the stories that Bragalia writes about are based on second hand testimony, rumors and speculation. TherumorsheisupsetaboutaretheonesbeingstatedbyRichReynolds,whichIhadcommentedoninrecentissues. Iwasskeptical about the rumors mentioned by Reynolds and felt that I had expressed this in my writings as I offered my opinions. In my opinion, there is a difference between this and blindly repeating these rumors as if they are facts. I allow Roswell proponents to do that sort of thing since they seem to be perfectly willing to blindly accept and repeat the rumors spread in books like “Witness to Roswell”.
I pointed out to Mr. Bragalia that all he needed to do was to publicly renounce what Reynolds was saying in order to put these sto- ries to rest. Bragalia said that he was too close to Reynolds to publicly denounce him and had no problem with him reporting what he “heard”. This seems hypocritical in my opinion. He is offended by me discussing Reynold’s rumors but it was OK for Reynolds to spread those rumors and make all sorts of statements that were, supposedly, not accurate.
Bragalia also scolded me for not checking with him before commenting in SUNlite! SUNlite is my publication and not Bragalia’s so I am not sure why I would need to check with him about any story. Did Bragalia have inside knowledge about the “evidence”? Since Bragalia contacted me about these rumors, I felt I would take him up on his offer about verifying if the story was true. I asked him for a public position on these questions:
1. Are there any photographs being examined or discovered by the “dream team” that supposedly show alien bodies or a military recovery operation from 1947?
2. If so, have these photographs been “shopped” around to television producers or other media outlets by any member of the “dream team” or the owner of the photographs?
3. Have any of the members of the “dream team” been involved in leaking this information to Reynolds?
4. In the case of question 3, if the answer is no, can you explain how Mr. Reynolds is receiving this information since there is a bit
of truth to it?
The first three only required a Yes or No answer. The fourth was to elaborate on the apparent leak in the dream team’s ship. My questions were designed to clear up the rumors he was so concerned about and end the shenanigans that had being played over at the UFO iconoclast(s)’ blog. Bragalia refused to comment publicly stating I was blackmailing him even though I made no effort to contact Bragalia prior to this. I was only offering him a chance to clear the air about these rumors. His negative response indicated that even if I contacted him before commenting in SUNlite, as he stated I should have done, I would have been no closer to the truth of the matter. The articles would have been essentially the same.
This “rumor” that Bragalia wanted me to believe was not true exploded into a full fire storm just a few weeks after this e-mail ex- change when Rich Reynolds let the “genie out of the bottle” on his blog.
Fire storm leads to a blog war of words
Afew weeks after Bragalia’s e-mails, an anonymous writer would publicly announce what the “new evidence” apparently was on Rich Reynold’s blog. In a rather bizarre story, some Kodachrome slides were found by a woman, who was handling the estate of a Bernard Ray’s widow. According to Reynold’s source, Bernard Ray worked with Silas Newton and he took these photographs in thesummerof1947nearRoswell. Tosummarize,thewomanapparentlyrecognizedtheimportanceoftheslidesandgavethemto her brother, who gave them to Tom Carey. At some point, according to this writer, somebody attempted to get CNN involved but they dismissed them because of their proponent status.
Many would comment about the information speculating on what it all meant. Among my concerns was the chain of custody is- sue. Why did the source go directly to a Roswell proponent when they could have gone elsewhere? Is it possible the bodies in the images are simply bodies from a car or airplane crash that were burned? Without more details it was hard to make an assessment of the evidence. It turned out that the slides themselves became secondary as the dream team began a form of damage control in order to stop the rumors.
Anthony Bragalia would jump into the public fray and declare the story, as told, was not true. He pretty much repeated what he told me in his e-mails. Paul Kimball, who had some inside information on this, would publicly respond that it was time for the “dream team” to come clean on all of this and tell everyone the truth about the slides. Bragalia responded that he would not publicly com- ment about any on-going research.
What broke everything open was Jack Brewer asking Kevin Randle directly about the slides. Randle would respond that he was not involved in investigating any slides. When Brewer published his article, Paul Kimball would state this was not true and prompted him to write his own article. That article included a private e-mail from Randle to Kimball, where he clearly states he was aware of the slides and the issues associated with them. Technically speaking, Randle did not lie to Brewer. He stated he was not involved in any investigation of slides and had not seen any slides. However, his failure to reveal that he was aware of the slides and that they
did exist makes him guilty of withholding information. Kimball revealing the private e-mail got all sorts of comments from Randle and Bragalia. Bragalia ended up referring to Kimball as a “double-crosser” and “squealer”. For a person who blindly accepts the testimony of anybody “squealing” about an alien spaceship crash, I find his labeling of Kimball hypocritical.
Nick Redfern would also write an article describing his knowledge of the slides. He confirmed that there was an anonymous indi- vidual, who seemed to be interested in finding how much the photographs were worth. This confirms the rumor that there was some interest in obtaining monetary gain from these slides. One has to wonder how this individual learned about the slides. Was he the same person that had contacted Schmitt/Carey?
This brings us back to Anthony Bragalia, who would respond with an article where he decided to finally tell the “truth” about the slides. He quickly pointed the blame towards “skeptics” and “mean-spirited” individuals for trying to derail the “dream team”. Bra- galia also mentioned people were trying to “extort” him for information. He repeated the party line that “they” were trying to get all their information straight before releasing anything. Billy Cox would later state that Bragalia has personally seen the slides and that they showed an alien body up close and in color. I guess Bragalia felt it was OK to speak about the slides on the record to Cox but chose to evade discussing them when people started to ask more difficult questions. Bragalia made the incredible claim that the slides will never be revealed because of all of this. If that is the case, there must be something about the slides that makes people suspect they are fake or show something that is not really an alien. Bragalia received some negative criticism for his article simply because his original comments for Reynolds’ story stated the story was not true. In reality, a good portion of the story WAS true (at least as far as we know it). They may have been no direct link to Aztec but the existence of the slides, how they were discovered, and that there was interest in their value, which is at the core of all of this, was pretty accurate. Several of the comments began to question Bragalia’s already suspect credibility.
Kevin Randle would eventually publish a response that blamed Paul Kimball for creating discourse between he and the rest of the “dream team” by publishing their private e-mail exchanges. Kimball would respond with another blog posting stating that Randle had the ethical compass of a kumquat . Kimball received a lot of negative comments from UFO proponents (among them were Bragalia) and, shortly after this, Kimball would shut down his blog. This little blog war really did not resolve anything about the “evidence”. All we really discovered is that Randle was skeptical of the slides and what they supposedly showed. As best I can tell the following is the case regarding the slides themselves:
1. There are two slides that show a body (or bodies) in, what appears to be, a morgue/hospital. The body (bodies) appears to be alien in nature
2. The slides were shot on Kodachrome film.
3. The slides may or may not have been tested to determine if they were from 1947 film stock. I question that it was possible to
specifically date the film because it appears that only motion picture film stock has date coding of this type. The slide mounts themselves may indicate when the film was developed but it is possible that somebody can mount modern film in old mounts. The most important thing is that any testing that will be presented has to be aboveboard and independent of the UFO com- munity. Based on their track record, I am concerned that certain members of the “dream team” will try to avoid releasing all information associated with any tests.
Even if the film can be identified as being from a 1947 lot, one has to wonder what the chances are that a fresh batch of Kodak film would have reached the photographer’s local distributor by July of 1947. In 1947, I am not sure that the distribution of film was as rapid as it is today. It seems reasonable to conclude that while New York City would have fresh lots of film, more remote locations (like Roswell) would probably have pre-1947 film populating the shelves. Of course, just because the film was manufactured in 1947, does not mean the slides were actually shot in 1947! The date of film’s manufacture probably is not going to resolve anything.
The two members of the “dream team” , who are publicly commenting want to assign blame for all of this on people like Kimball and “skeptics/debunkers”. In my opinion, the “dream team” should look itself in the mirror and blame themselves. Somebody could not control themselves about the slides and allowed the information about them to leak out. Who that individual is does not re- ally matter. What matters is that the information became public knowledge through various channels and no amount of damage control could plug the leak. Instead of being elusive and misleading, they should have cleared the air right away once the story had appeared. They could have simply confirmed the details and stated the slides were still being examined.
I think the lesson learned in all of this is that keeping secrets of such information is not as easy as the crashologists claim it to be. In this instance, a very small group of people were aware of the slides but, somehow, the information quickly circulated. How is it that the “dream team” can’t keep a secret between a few people but the US government was able to keep Roswell a secret for decades even though hundreds/thousands of people knew the truth?
Quelle: SUNlite 6/2013
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