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Still waiting on those slides
The slide story continues to spark interest as we wait for the “big reveal”, which is supposed to happen at a news conference sometime this year. Anthony Bragalia has written to me and whined about how I implied that money was a motivating factor surrounding the slides. To justify his group/the owner accepting money for displaying these slides, he compared it to Phil Klass selling
his books. I have no problem with people selling books because people are just presenting their own views (right or wrong). However, I do have a problem with people promoting a potential fraud for money. We don’t know if the slides are a hoax but there seems to be a great deal of secrecy about the slides, who has seen them, and where they came from. These are the characteristics of a hoax and it is up to those who are presenting the slides to prove it is not a hoax or something other than what they claim it to be. Will the Roswell team learn from past errors?
Bragalia also stated that it is not a human body and I was sinking to “new lows” by stating that it could be a dead airmen burned by a crash. Once again, he is admitting to having seen the slides because he knows that it is not a dead human body. However, he has refused to answer this question in public forums because he does not want to interfere with the investigation. One thing I want to point out is that, in my last Roswell corner, I stated I was speculating and that I would not be shocked if it was some airman that had been disfigured in a plane crash. I never said that it WAS the case. I still think that Bragalia and his cohorts better be sure of this because it would be very embarrassing if the body/slide was identified to be something other than what they claim it to be.
Meanwhile, Rich Reynolds leaked out a bit more information about what the slide(s) show. According to Rich Reynolds’ source, the image shows an alien body inside a building and there is a placard near it. Apparently, nobody has been able to resolve what is written on the placard because it is out of focus. Using a slow speed film like Kodachrome in low light will introduce all sorts of problems involving small depths of field (because of using a wide-open f-stop) and soft focus. One wonders how clear the image of the “body” is if this is the case.
Another item Rich Reynolds leaked out was the location for the great reveal might be in Mexico City but the Roswell investigative team prefers another location. If it is Mexico City, is it possible that Jaimie Maussan has become involved? If so, it might explain a lot and does not really help promote the idea of a proper investigation.
I predict that the slides will appear at the annual Roswell UFO festival amid much fanfare and hoopla.
Dating slides
The slide story had me trying to figure out how Kodachrome dated their slide films. My slide collection only went back to 1977, when I purchased my first 35mm camera. Since we are talking about old slide film, I would have to obtain slides from another source. Luckily, ETSY has quite a few individuals
willing to sell vintage Kodachrome slides and I was able to purchase several that were dated in 1947-8. Unfortunately, they had been transferred from the cardboard mounts to plastic ones and, in the process, had been trimmed. One did have “Kodak safety film” on the edge of the film but there were no markings
whatsoever to indicate the date of the film’s manufacture.
After disassembling many of my Kodachromes
from 1977 and beyond, I noticed the same issue. There were no edge markings that I could identify. Only the cardboard mounts (and the dates on them) gave away when they were photographed/developed (see below for two samples from 1977 and 1978).
I was about to give up but decided to purchase another batch of slides from ETSY that had cardboard mounts seen in the 1950s and early 1960s. Many were not dated but they were Kodachrome slide mounts. After photographing the slide mounts, I opened several
to see what the edge codes revealed. According to film preservation.org, there were several figures (Triangles, circles, crosses, squares) that were used in varying combinations to indicate the year of manufacture for the film. I was a bit confused because several
of the slides had edge coding that did not appear to match up with any of those listed. Others had no edge coding whatsoever (like my slides) or the section with the edge coding was not on that slide.
I found three slides (out of about 20) from the recent batch that had some form of edge marking mentioned in the film preservation. org document. They are displayed above. The left slide came from a red cardboard border slide that was from the 1955-1959 time frame (see image to left). However, the edge coding (triangle followed by a square) indicated the film was manufactured in 1944. The middle slide came from another cardboard mount from the 1955-1959 time frame. There is a single triangle between “Safety” and “film”. This would indicate a year of manufacture being 1958. However, the double triangle after “film” indicates a year of manufacture being 1941. Which is it? The last example came from a cardboard slide mount that indicated a year of development being 1958-1962 (see image below left). There is a date stamp here imprinted in the cardboard that identifies it was mounted in July of 1959. However, the “double cross” after film does not even appear in the edge coding chart!. Does this mean it was a “single cross”? If so, the year of manufacture was 1949. If not, what year does it signify?
We don’t know.
What does this all have to do with the Roswell slide(s)? It demonstrates that it will not be easy to determine if the film fits the 1947 time frame. If I am correct on the edge coding
with these slides, I would be shocked to see those examining the film that the edge coding was from 1947. It appears that most film had been manufactured a year or more prior to the film’s use, development, and mounting. As I mentioned in a previous article, it has been my experience that most store bought slide films (unless they come from professional sources) are not brand new. In 1947, unless one lived near a distributor of the film, I would expect the film to be at least a year or more old. It is my hope that when the slide(s) are released, that full scans of the actual unmounted slide(s) will be displayed. In order to prevent any “photoshop magic”, it would be important that the Roswell investigators have an outside source certify that the scan is a legitimate copy of the original. Will the investigative team go the “extra yard” to legitimize their find or will it be presented in a shady manner that raises more questions than it answers? Stay tuned.
Quelle: SUNlite 2/2014
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