Roswell & The Wave of '47
Too Many Coincidences
Francis L. Ridge
Too Many Coincidences
Francis L. Ridge
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Something very important happened in July of 1947, something that will ultimately be life-altering. It was an event that was covered up so well that not even seasoned UFOlogists touched it until the 1970's, a quarter of a decade later. It was 1980 before the first book about the events at Roswell was written. The cover-up worked. If Jesse Marcel, Sr. hadn't told nuclear physicist/UFO researcher Stanton Friedman about Roswell in 1978, we may never have heard about it. Whoever was responsible for the cover-up had done a remarkable job. Now, with over 600 first and second-hand witnesses on record, the story of what really happened that summer in 1947 has become much clearer. In six weeks time there were as many UFO sightings reported to the news media as there were reports to the U. S. Air Force Project Blue Book for the entire year of 1952! I have two reasons for writing this paper about Roswell (which occurred in 1947) and the "Estimate of the Situation" produced a year later (in 1948). 1) Looking at the revised data and placing this in the historical context, I think I might have discovered some answers and/or some head-scratching coincidences. 2) I wanted to condense the Roswell enigma into something short but informative, dealing with the most impressive evidence, adding my pet theories for-the-record. This is for my friends and colleagues, and family. I confess that I used the latest information from the affidavit (Ref. 7 & 8) of Lt. Walter Haut to construct this scenario, and that a lot of the other depositions that are no doubt very relevant, but would have made a short report impossible, I left out. The argument about dates and times is not important, at least here, because I'm convinced these events happened. Besides, there were things going on simultaneously at a number of locations. Here is what I think is important and what I want researchers and others to take note of. Evidence shows that the UFO story began long before World War II, but most are familiar with the stories of objects or lights seen by pilots during the war, called "foo-fighters", etc. Compared to more recent history, this wasn't as interesting. Most of the books we have read paid only cursory attention to those sorts of things. It was the enigmatic "flying saucers" that got our interest, and those suddenly sprang upon us in the summer of 1947, the famous Kenneth Arnold sighting of June 24th being one of the highlights. But the real surprise, was the evidence put forth in the recent book, "Strange Company" (2007), by Keith Chester. (Ref 1.) This book lists about 150 more incidents than even I knew about, some of them close encounters, during WWII. Keith stated in the introduction that the book "presents one of the greatest wartime mysteries, one that has been shrouded in ignorance for more than sixty years. And it suggests that while an immense twentieth century war was raging on Earth, there appeared to be someone, or something, from somewhere else, watching us." This book provided more pieces to the puzzle which has been on my mind for decades. Planet Earth had just experienced two devastating World Wars. WW II had lasted six long years and ended on September 2, 1945. Sixty million people died in that war, making it the deadliest conflict in human history. Sadly, nearly 2/3rds of those killed were civilians. In August of 1945 the United States used the only atomic bomb group in the world, the 509th (which by November was based at Roswell, New Mexico. See previous UFO connection at Tinian Island ) to deliver two atomic bombs to Japanese targets, killing 140,000 people at Hiroshima and 74,000 at Nagasaki. As soon as the war ended we continued to develop and test bigger bombs and better delivery systems. Soon, atomic warheads could be carried to targets by ballistic missiles. Those missiles were being tested in New Mexico. History has repeatedly shown that when Earth people make things, they use them. To make things even scarier, we already HAD used nuclear weapons twice, and on civilians! And for the record, we have tested over 2,000 nuclear weapons since then, some in space! The preface of one of the most recently released books, "Witness to Roswell" (Ref. 2) by Thomas Carey and Donald Schmitt (2007), describes New Mexico very well: "The state of New Mexico in 1947 was the most sensitive and highly guarded area in our country, if not the entire world. Not only was there ongoing atomic research at Los Alamos where the first atomic bomb was developed, but there was also the testing of captured German V-2 rockets taking place just to the south at White Sands near Alamogordo. Not far from Alamogordo was also Trinity Site, where the world's first atomic bomb was detonated. And at Roswell itself was the headquarters of the 509th Bomb Group, the only atomic strike force in the world at the time. It was the 509th that just two years before had dropped the two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end World War II. Little did they know that they would also become involved in one of the most significant, most historic events of all time—the crash of an unknown object." By 1947 the night-marish events of WWII were still in the minds of many. I don't know what triggered it, but suddenly and without precedent, a massive wave of sightings of objects described as "flying discs", hit the United States. It is now sixty years later and no satisfactory explanation has been forthcoming. Beginning in June, newspapers across the country carried accounts describing the arrival of flying saucers. Witnesses throughout the country would describe flying "discs" and other assorted, metallic flying objects that defied conventional explanation. Ted Bloecher in his book, "The Report on the UFO Wave of 1947" (Ref. 3), describes newspaper accounts of military pilots being placed on 24-hour alert, and radar operators on 24-hour standby, all looking skyward and hoping that whatever was invading our airspace was not a new threat to our national security that might lead to another war. In most of these (over 1500 incidents) the objects were described as round or disc-shaped. In fact, half of them occurred in broad daylight! For more than a week, sightings were made in continuously increasing numbers. On the late evening of July 3, 1947, a severe lightning
storm raked central New Mexico. During the height of the
storm, local ranchers (10-12 miles apart) would later describe hearing
a loud explosion
that did not sound like the other thunderclaps. Records now show that
within hours, UFO sightings began to increase all over the United
States. Based on what was going on and the apparent intensity of it
all,
"somebody" else might have
thought we had actually shot down one of their craft.
 One thing I noticed almost immediately: Sightings had peaked IN NEW MEXICO during that wave on June 27 and 28th, indicating a frenzy of activity days BEFORE the crash. The sudden increase in NATIONAL sightings occurred right after the crash. I had considered the thought that the 27th-28th peak was the result of the famous Kenneth Arnold sighting near Mt. Ranier, Washington, and the press reports from all over the country days later. But this peak was definitely concentrated in New Mexico! Keep in mind that these are civilian reports from newspaper files. There are no military records to tell us what the military was experiencing, but surely there were such incidents in New Mexico. Looking at those charts one cannot help but note a very suspicious LACK of incidents reported from July 3-8 coming from New Mexico, PERIOD. We know that, according to Air Force admission during the 1994 General Accounting Office investigation, that many records were reported as destroyed along with other documents (see GAO investigation) Note this item is on the very first page of the GAO report. (Numbers of paragraphs are as in the actual report). "(2) although some of the records
concerning Roswell
activities had been destroyed, there was no information available
regarding when or under what authority the records were destroyed;"
GAO Report continued:
(3) only two government records originating in 1947 have been recovered regarding the Roswell incident; (4) a 1947 Federal Bureau of
Investigations record revealed that the military had reported that an
object resembling a high altitude weather balloon with a radar
reflector had been recovered near Roswell; and
(5) a 1947 Air Force report noted
the recovery of a flying disc that was later determined by military
officials to be a radar tracking balloon
I asked the reader to note the date, of July 7th, in regard to "the number of sightings crested on July 7th, and during the next few days reports began to diminish until, about a week later, only a handful were being made from scattered sections of the country." The sightings were dying down BEFORE General Ramey put out the balloon explanation on July 8th, ridiculing those who had mistaken a balloon for a flying saucer!!! The wave of 1947 didn't die because of the embarrassment at Roswell. Whatever the saucer mission was, it was over. Either something involving two flying saucers (which I find hard to believe based on the debris trail), or something else, struck the craft, knocking off small fragments and possibly causing decompression. The resultant train of debris was a long NW to SE corridor over 65 miles long. A few pieces were found 5 miles NW of the first official site two months later. The craft then struck the ground at a shallow angle at the Foster Ranch about 60 miles NW of Roswell and skipped back up into the air, leaving a slight gouge and a light debris field several hundred feet wide and 3/4 of a mile long. The rest of the ship, along with the remainder of the doomed crew, remained airborne and continued in an southeast direction for another 20 miles or so before it came to rest in a flat area with low, rolling hills 40 miles north/northwest of Roswell. Carey & Schmitt (Ref. 2 ) suggest, that based on their evidence, the crash occurred on July 3rd. My scenario doesn't require this. In fact, the evidence I present indicates that the crash occurred between two peaks in sightings, which includes the 3rd. Just how close to either peak the event took pace, I'm not sure. It doesn't matter. However, Jesse Marcel, Jr. (Ref. 4) says the event occurred one week after the Arnold sighting of June 24th, which means it didn't happen during the 27-28 peak.. The Sites
 "Mack" Brazel and his wife Site #1 - Sixty miles NW of Roswell - Mack Brazel, (foreman of the Foster Ranch) finds the debris on the sheep ranch he worked. The sheep will not cross the debris to get to water. The debris is described as silvery, extremely light weight, and very thin like aluminum foil. Some of the material cannot be dented or bent. Other items can be wadded up into a ball but return to the original shape when released. Site #2 - Twenty miles further SE.- According to his mother
(Loretta Proctor), the
severely-frightened Dee Proctor (who never allowed himself to be
formally
interviewed by anyone about what he witnessed as a 7-year-old boy with
Brazel that day in 1947), in 1995, takes his dying mother to one of
the sites. This one turns out to be the
exact same one identified
by Roswell researchers Kevin Randle and Don Schmitt
in 1991. Today, it appears
that the "Dee Proctor Body Site" is a legitimate one, in
the
straight-line trajectory of four sites involved in the Roswell UFO
crash, where Mack Brazel found two or three alien bodies a few days
after they were blown out or ejected from the stricken craft when it
exploded over the debris field on the evening of July 3, 1947. (Ref,
1,46)
Site #3 - Forty miles NNW of Roswell - The rest of the ship, along with the remainder of the doomed crew, remains airborne and continues in an east/southeast direction for another 20 miles before crashing in a flat area with low, rolling hills.  ***
So the story all began when Mack Brazel, the ranch foreman, found debris on what was known as the Foster Ranch. Any seven year old kid would have recognized a balloon of any kind, with or without aluminum radar reflectors, balsa wood struts and monofilament line. Mack had seen these things before. Major Jesse Marcel and CIC Agent Cavitt looked at the debris that Brazel had first brought into town and even they couldn't identify it. And remember, it was 60 miles as the crow flies, but 100+ miles by road, and over some rough terrain, to get to the crash site and they would not have wasted their time on anything like a balloon, no matter how secret its use might have been. Maj. Marcel was trained in radar and knew what balloons and radar targets looked like. The scenario: After gathering some of the debris for most of the day, Maj. Marcel sends Cavitt ahead of him and on in to Roswell AAF. By now it is late and by early the next morning (around 1:00 AM) he is on his way to base, his home an easy stopover along the way. He stops for a short while to show his wife and son, Jesse, Jr., what he and the others have found. He then takes the debris samples into the base.  .... Maj. Jesse Marcel,
Sr. Col. "Butch" Blanchard
At 6:00 AM Marcel and Cavitt visit with Col. Blanchard in his quarters and tell him what they have seen. Late, the day before, when Marcel and Cavitt are with him at
the ranch, Brazel leaves with KGFL
station manager
Walt
Whitmore or one of his associates and
is hidden out while recording "the story of the century" on a wire
recorder. KGFL is off the air by this time so the show has to be aired
the next
morning, July 8. Early in the morning, Jud Roberts (minority owner)
gets
a call from the FCC in Washington and is warned not to air the
interview, that it was in the interest of national security. If he did,
KGFL would lose its broadcasting license. A few minutes later, New
Mexico Senator Dennis Chavez strongly suggests he do exactly what the
FCC
ordered. Mack is taken into custody by the AAF and detained by the
U.S.
Army Air Forces
at the
guest house for four or five days while cleanup operations continue.
Military officers
begin to interrogate. Brazel is denied access to a phone, is given an
Army physical, and is subjected to rigorous questioning and
intimidation while under arrest. Balloons can get you into a lot of
trouble. Mack Brazel was as patriotic as one can get, as many in those
days were. All the AAF had to do was tell him not to talk about it,
that
it was extremely important he keep his mouth shut, and that would have
been all there was to....if it had been a balloon. Col. Blanchard calls the provost marshal, Maj. Edwin Easley,
and
orders him to post
guards on the roads around the debris field, armed guards encircled the
primary areas, denying access to anyone
without official business. A flying
saucer has crashed right in the middle of the hottest
technological and military area in the world, New Mexico. The Army Air
Force has the
alien technology in their possession and bodies to prove who was behind
it,
almost immediately. Here's why the military had to cover it up:
1) A plan for such a recovery was devised as early as 1944; dealing with ANY new technology found. 2) There were spies all over New Mexico; we didn't want ANYONE to know we had in our possession a new technology. 3) The Pentagon and the military in New Mexico didn't know if an invasion was imminent or not. Lieutenant General Nathan E. Twining was the commander of the Air Materiel Command (where crash debris was flown), the parent organization at Wright Field, Ohio, and the next higher headquarters for both the Alamogordo Army Air Field and the Kirtland Army Air Field. Flight records show he changes his plans (Ref. 9) due to "a very important matter that developed here" and flies to Alamogordo AAF on July 7th. Newsclippings place him at Kirtland AFB on July 8th, talking to the press about flying saucers not being a product of the armed forces. Flight records show Twining left NM on July 11. Lt. Gen. Laurence C. Craigie, chief of the Research and
Engineering Division at Headquarters Army Air Force, is sent to
investigate the crash on the orders of Gen. Curtis LeMay. The general
meets with President Harry Truman immediately afterwards. (Ref. 5)
More men arrive at the debris field at the Foster Ranch and are assigned to assist in cleaning it up. Soldiers with wheelbarrows move across the field, tossing in the debris. When the wheelbarrows are filled, the soldiers take the debris to collection points. The debris is then loaded into covered trucks to be driven into Roswell. Sometime that morning, Robin Adair, a photographer with the Associated Press receives a call from the main office in New York, is told to get to Roswell immediately, "even if it meant leasing a plane". Before landing at Roswell, Adair flies over the sites (2). Many troops, vehicles, and MPs cover the large open field. "One of them (sites) wasn't very distinct. The other was." Something has descended, impacted the ground, and then ascended into the air. (Ref. 3) Several flights carry debris and bodies to various locations. "Pappy" Henderson confides in his close friend John Kromschroeder in 1978 that he flew wreckage from a crashed saucer out of Roswell and to Dayton. My impression of the highly successful and relatively swift crash-retrieval operation at Roswell was that it was as if it had been orchestrated much earlier. I say "relatively". But I guess it wasn't all that swift nor all that successful in cover-up terms. They drove through the streets of Roswell brazenly with the flatbed truck, allowed politicians etc. into the hangar, and in many other ways showed that they really DID NOT know exactly what to do. It also took many days and hundreds or personnel to sweep the sites. Richard Hall, in a recent note, made a good point: Hall:
"I think a very strong
case can be made that the basic reasons they succeeded in the recovery
right under the noses of the populace and the base personnel are (1)
the remote locations, and (2) the tightly knit and controlled nature of
the base traditions and operations. On top of that, the blatant use of
threats of violence to keep people silent is well-established, and that
sure as hell is not good planning. Apparently they got away with it
only because of who and where they were."
But there is documentation supporting other experiences had prepared the military for such an event, even if there was no plan to ever recover a flying saucer. Keith Chester may have found the answer: Page 61 of "Strange Company": By the order of Major General
Nathan Twining, a Fifteenth Army Air Force memorandum was issued on
March 15, (1944). Superseding a November 15,1943, version, it was
titled, "Capture Intelligence Interrogation Of Air Prisoners of War,
Examination Of Enemy Equipment." It detailed the apparatus already set
in place for such matters. The Combined Services Detailed Interrogation
Center (CSDIC) was specifically set up to interrogate enemy air force
prisoners and examine their documentation or anything else in their
been possession. No prisoner was to be interrogated by anyone,
"regardless of rank," except by the CSDIC air interrogators. Fifteenth
Air Force Headquarters required all documentation sent to the A-2's
attention, whether the air interrogator thought it related to enemy
aircraft or something else. The memorandum required that all crashed
enemy aircraft or captured air material be guarded by personnel
from
'the nearest Army unit' until a 'representative of the Captured
Intelligence Section, A-2, MAAF [Mediterranean Allied Air Force]
arrived."
There was only one facility that was dedicated to the science of "reverse engineering": AMC Intelligence Dept, referred to as T-3 (Ref. 11) at Wright-Paterson AFB, Dayton, Ohio. On May 21, 1951 it would become known as ATIC (Air Technical Intelligence Center). The word "Air" was changed to "Aerospace" in 1959. Then, on July 1, 1961, it would become the Foreign Technology Division (FTD). Air Force Regulations 200-2 and 80-17 would later spell this out, requiring first the 4602nd AISS and later on the 1127th Field Activities Group, to do the investigation and secure materials.  Col. Thomas DuBose Gen. Thomas DuBose exposes
the cover-up at Roswell in an affidavit.
More
on DuBose.
DuBose:
"In early July, I received a phone call from Gen. Clements McMullen, Deputy Commander, Strategic Air Command. He asked what we knew about the object which had been recovered outside Roswell, New Mexico, as reported by the press. I called Col. William Blanchard, Commander of the Roswell Army Air Field and directed him to send the material in a sealed container to me at Fort Worth. I so informed Gen. McMullen." "The material shown in the photographs taken in Maj. Gen.
Ramey's office was a weather balloon. The weather balloon
explanation for the material was a cover story to divert the attention
of the press."
DuBose and Colonel Alan D. Clark, the base commander, meet the aircraft from Roswell. Clark receives the bag with (a sample of) the debris and walks to the "command" B-26 to fly it out to Andrews Field, Maryland. This was the Pentagon's first peek at the Roswell material. 
Gen. Roger Ramey
 Lt. Walter Haut
In 2002, Walter Haut, the Lieutenant who had put out the famous press release for Colonel Blanchard announcing the AAF recovery of a flying saucer, signs an affidavit, to be released upon his death. (8) On Tuesday morning, July 8, I would attend the regularly scheduled staff meeting at 7:30 a.m. Besides Blanchard, Marcel; CIC [Counterintelligence Corp] Capt. Sheridan Cavitt; Col. James I. Hopkins, the operations officer; Lt. Col. Ulysses S. Nero, the supply officer; and from Carswell AAF in Fort Worth, Texas, Blanchard's boss, Brig. Gen. Roger Ramey and his chief of staff, Col. Thomas J. DuBose were also in attendance. The main topic of discussion was reported by Marcel and Cavitt regarding an extensive debris field in Lincoln County approx. 75 miles NW of Roswell. A preliminary briefing was provided by Blanchard about the second site approx. 40 miles north of town. Samples of wreckage were passed around the table. It was unlike any material I had or have ever seen in my life. Pieces which resembled metal foil, paper thin yet extremely strong, and pieces with unusual markings along their length were handled from man to man, each voicing their opinion. No one was able to identify the crash debris. (9) One of the main concerns discussed at the meeting was whether we should go public or not with the discovery. Gen. Ramey proposed a plan, which I believe originated from his bosses at the Pentagon. Attention needed to be diverted from the more important site north of town by acknowledging the other location. Too many civilians were already involved and the press already was informed. I was not completely informed how this would be accomplished. (10) At approximately 9:30 a.m. Col. Blanchard phoned my office and dictated the press release of having in our possession a flying disc, coming from a ranch Northwest of Roswell, and Marcel flying the material to higher headquarters. I was to deliver the news release to radio stations KGFL and KSWS, and newspapers the Daily Record and the Morning Dispatch. (11) By the time the news release hit the wire services, my office was inundated with phone calls from around the world. Messages stacked up on my desk, and rather than deal with the media concern, Col. Blanchard suggested that I go home and "hide out." (12) Before leaving the base, Col. Blanchard took me personally to Building 84 [AKA Hangar P-3], a B-29 hangar located on the east side of the tarmac. Upon first approaching the building, I observed that it was under heavy guard both outside and inside. Once inside, I was permitted from a safe distance to first observe the object just recovered north of town. It was approx. 12 to 15 feet in length, not quite as wide, about 6 feet high, and more of an egg shape. Lighting was poor, but its surface did appear metallic. No windows, portholes, wings, tail section, or landing gear were visible. (13) Also from a distance, I was able to see a couple of bodies under a canvas tarpaulin. Only the heads extended beyond the covering, and I was not able to make out any features. The heads did appear larger than normal and the contour of the canvas suggested the size of a 10 year old child. At a later date in Blanchard's office, he would extend his arm about 4 feet above the floor to indicate the height.
(14) I was informed of a temporary morgue set up to accommodate the recovered bodies. (15) I was informed that the wreckage was not "hot" (radioactive). (16) Upon his return from Fort Worth, Major Marcel described to me taking pieces of the wreckage to Gen. Ramey's office and after returning from a map room, finding the remains of a weather balloon and radar kite substituted while he was out of the room. Marcel was very upset over this situation. We would not discuss it again. (17) I would be allowed to make at least one visit to one of the recovery sites during the military cleanup. I would return to the base with some of the wreckage which I would display in my office. (18) I was aware two separate teams would return to each site months later for periodic searches for any remaining evidence. (19) I am convinced that what I
personally observed
was some type of craft and its crew from outer space
 Ramey & DuBose with
substituted foil reflector (balloon not shown)
Gen. Ramey has Maj. Marcel and some debris on the flight to Dayton, Ohio, which is diverted to Fort Worth for the cover-up plan.  In the photo of Ramey and DuBose at Fort Worth, showing the substituted balloon debris, one can see Ramey holding a memo clutched in his left hand. It is a copy of a message he had just sent to the AAF Chief of Staff at the Pentagon about the recovery and coverup. No one would have imagined that technology would someday reach the point where we could actually read some of that memo. The photographer, the only newsman invited to help perpetrate the cover-up, is James Bond Johnson of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He is equipped with a professional-quality camera with much higher resolution than most cameras of the day. Read the memo...but first pay close attention to whom the memo was sent. Vandenberg was in-charge, says Memo. At the time of the Roswell incident, Gen. Hoyt Vandenberg was the Army Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff. With AAF Chief of Staff Gen. Spaatz out of town, Vandenberg is the acting AAF chief at the Pentagon. It was he who has Clements McMullen order the cover-up, get the material to T-2 at Dayton, Ohio. The Pentagon knows they have a flying saucer and alien bodies. (A year later, in 1948, it was the same Hoyt Vandenberg who "wouldn't buy" the Top Secret Estimate of the Situation.). Robert Shirkey, standing in the operations building, watches as MPs begin carrying wreckage through to load onto a C-54 from the First Air Transport Unit. To see better, he has to step around Colonel Blanchard. At 2:30 PM. Blanchard decides it is time to go on leave. Too
many phone callers into the base are asking to speak with him. He,
along with a few members of his staff (Haut included), drive out to the
debris field.
Those left at the base are told to inform the reporters that the
colonel is now on leave. At 2:55 PM. the
Associated Press
reports in a "95," just under a bulletin in
importance, that a flying disk had been found. Now, the bodies.
Archaeologists, including W. Curry Holden, working the sites around Roswell stumbles across the impact site where the object has crashed. One of them heads to the closest phone to tell Sheriff George Wilcox of the discovery of the remains of a crashed aircraft of some kind. At some point Blanchard calls Eighth Air Force headquarters and advises them of the new find. By this time NO ONE believes the material is from a Soviet device, and certainly not any type of balloon or reflector. Eighth Air Force relays the message up the chain of command to SAC headquarters. The military, knowing the approximate location of the saucer crash, move in with a carefully selected team for the recovery of the craft. The soldiers find civilians on the site already. They escort them off while others secure the area. Five bodies are found on the site. The site is cleaned and secured. John McBoyle, a reporter for radio station KSWS in Roswell, tries to reach the crash site. He phones to report an object looking like a crushed dishpan. He tells Lydia Sleppy, who works at the parent station in Albuquerque, to hang on. She overhears an argument and then McBoyle tells her to forget it, he has made a mistake. McBoyle is about forty miles north of Roswell. Sleppy tries to put a message out on the Teletype. According to Sleppy, the message is intercepted by the FBI in Dallas and she is ordered not to complete the transmission. (Ref. 10) The bodies arrive at the base and are taken to the hospital for examination. Two doctors who are not assigned to the base but who have arrived on one of the special flights begin the preliminary autopsy. Mirium "Andrea" Bush, 27-year-old civilian woman, secretary to the military hospital administrator (Lt. Col. Harold M. Warne) , is taken by the arm by Warne to the examination room. A number of bodies, described as like children in size, with grayish to brown skin, large heads, and eyes that wouldn't shut. Then, one of them moved. (Ref. 3) W.J. Rodden, the owner and operator of a photo studio in
Roswell, who during the War had been involved in some special
photographic assignments for the government, held a security clearance
at that time. Although he'd done nothing in an official capacity since
the end of the War, he'd proved himself to be a loyal citizen who could
be trusted with classified material. He was an expert in photography
and was used to photograph some of the material recovered outside of
Roswell. (Ref. 13) We were later told by another 509th informant that
the Bomb Group had technicians who processed film and repaired cameras,
their expertise directed at aerial photographs for bomb damage
assesments and photo reconnaissance. He claimed they were not involved
in the Roswell event. The photographer who was used at Roswell was
brought in from the outside. This man was in fact, W. J. Rodden.
At 2:00 A.M. the next morning a special flight leaves for Andrews AAF in Washington, D.C. Some of the debris and the bodies are on that flight. 8:00 AM. Members of the First Air Transport Unit begin loading crates into C-54s. They load three or four aircraft with an intermediate destination of Kirtland. From there they are to be taken on to Los Alamos. Armed guards watch the loading of the aircraft. (Ref. 1) At 9:00 A.M. CIC agents Cavitt and Rickett, having returned from assignment in Carlsbad, drive a staff car to the impact site, followed by MPs. They are stopped by the guards who are still posted. Cavitt wants "a new set of eyes on this". When they arrive, they see that a small containment of debris remains which Rickett is allowed to examine. (Ref. 1) No sooner had the original press release went out and the cover story / explanation is on the wires. The explanation is that Mack Brazel, Maj. Jesse Marcell, CIC Agent Sheridan Cavitt, and Col. Blanchard were fooled by a weather balloon and a radar target reflector! The cover-up begins
This brief paper mentioned only a few of the testimonies from the 600+ primary and secondary witnesses. For those wanting an in-depth coverage of Roswell, there are a number of books, including the latest two: "Witness At Roswell" by Tom Carey and Don Schmitt, and "The Roswell Legacy" by Jesse Marcel, Jr. The story goes way beyond Roswell, however, and with even more coincidences. It was coincidence enough for a UFO crash during the first flying saucer wave that lasted only six weeks, most notably in only ten days. It was coincidence enough for sightings to increase right after the crash and decrease before the debunking campaign started. It was a coincidence that the crash could have happened anywhere in the world, but happened in the hottest technological place you would find on Planet Earth. It was a coincidence that an object was tracked on radar, two hundred miles up, over the area of the Foster Ranch. Late August, 1947; New Mexico You can see this one for yourself. This report is in the
Project Blue Book documents. A CPS-4 radar was modified to track
objects at very high
altitude. They aimed the antenna almost straight up and picked up a
target
at 200
miles up. At an even 200 miles the angle of the radar at 70-degrees
would put the spot about
73 miles away from Alamogordo Army Air Field (later Holloman AFB).
Since the range could have been slightly higher, because of the high
angle the ground range could be as much as
76-80
miles or more. The Foster Ranch debris field (and any
fairly close-by anomalous site) was about the same distance, about 85
miles away from Alamogordo. The report leaked out. Not found in the
original Project Blue
Book as an "unknowns", this
incident IS
listed in the updated list by Brad Sparks: "AMC Watson Labs
Project Mogul engineer Rosmovski and communications
officer Lt. H. G. Markley tracked a stationary target at 200 mile
altitude using a modified
CPS-4 radar aimed at 70-degree elevation." (FOIA, Loren Gross, Aug-Dec
1947 SUPP p.28.) Certain AF operations, like Project MOGUL which did
the tracking of the 200-mile high stationary object, BELIEVED that
there was an object at 200 miles up and went to some effort to cover it
up. Two fairly high-level AMC people (Lt Col James C. Beam and Alfred
Loedding the "brains" behind Project SIGN) make special arrangements in
advance to fly out from Ohio to NM to interview Dr Peoples about the
incident and then only when they arrive they find out Dr Peoples has
conveniently LEFT and flown off to New Jersey, evidently to evade
interview, and Lt Markley is strangely unavailable.
I don't think anyone was more knowledgeable about crash/retrieval stories than Leonard Stringfield. I'm not sure though just how many crashes he researched, but there was a surprising number of alleged incidents. But none of them comes close to Roswell with over 600 witnesses, first and second hand. I do find the Roswell evidence quite compelling. Assuming on my part that real UFO crashes are extremely rare and flying saucer material is really tough, even showing any lack of vulnerability as evidenced by many reports of objects fired upon during WWII, the idea of any crash seems odd. But with the given of Roswell, in my opinion, something brought the grays' lady down. Were there two saucer crashes? Stanton Friedman thinks so. The debris train doesn't look like the result of two objects colliding, in my opinion. Was the craft struck by and downed by lightning? This appears to be extremely unlikely. One study report provided by NARCAP's Richard Haines explains why this is very rare even with our aircraft. Something brought the craft down and was extremely loud. Could an air-to-air missile have struck the craft in a vulnerable spot? There is no evidence we had any missile that had any type of reliable homing device. Whatever the cause, with such apparently indestructible material reported at Roswell, and the numerous reports from Keith Chester's new book "Strange Company", concerning Allied and Axis military firing on UFOs with no effect, whatever brought the saucer down would have been very powerful and would have been heard for many miles. We're still looking for the answers. If we had anything to do with the crash, or the crew's superiors thought we had, we could have been in big trouble. Vanderburg may have wondered about all these things, thinking the incident may have stirred up a hornet's nest. Saddened in one sense at the loss of life, and fearful of what was to come of it all, the Pentagon would have covered it up, and waited. The sudden increase in national sightings right after the crash might be explained by the possibility that somebody thought we had shot one of their saucers, maybe two, down over New Mexico. A year later, without Roswell on the minds of Project SIGN at Dayton, Ohio, the independent evidence of other major UFO incidents in general caused the drafting of the top secret Estimate of the Situation, delivered to AF Headquarters on August 5, 1948. (Ref. 6) Captain
Edward J. Ruppelt:
"...... the higher The Estimate of the Situation went in the Air Force chain of command the cooler the reception it got, and ......reports of radar picking up UFO's began to come in. How far this estimate got is something that I could never determine, but it got up into the high echelons of the Air Force before it was batted back down. The reason for batting it down was that the conclusions, interplanetary vehicles, lacked proof. A group from ATIC went to the Pentagon to sell the idea to the late General Hoyt S. Vandenburg, then Chief of Staff of the Air Force, but had no luck. The evidence didn't impress him enough to make him decide to buy the interplanetary theory." If you remember, the Pentagon's AAF Chief of Staff Gen. Spaatz was out of town when the crash occurred. Vandenberg was the acting AAF chief at the Pentagon, and was directly involved, as evidenced by historical fact and the Ramey memo. Some group, high up in the Pentagon knew about Roswell and they knew they couldn't sign the EOTS. Actually there were two estimates. ATIC's version made no mention of Roswell. I think the Pentagon's version might have. If not, the Pentagon probably didn't need an estimate. It had a spaceship and its crew! For an excellent paper on the EOTS, see Project Sign and the Estimate of the Situation By Michael D. Swords. I had a very interesting conversation with Keith Chester while writing this report and we discussed the EOTS. It seems very logical with the way the government produces reports that there were several copies out there, even though it was stamped Top Secret. Top Secret items are supposed to be locked up. Major Keyhoe saw the EOTS in 1952. Captain Edward Ruppelt had seen it and he was the first to describe it in his book. Major Dewey Fournet, HQ Monitor between Project Blue Book and the Pentagon, actually HAD a copy of it. He wasn't too impressed with it and said that it was put together too early too fast. Harry Woo of NavPIC saw it. Fournet showed him a copy of it. In any event ATIC was seriously considering that flying saucers were interplanetary from the very beginning, at least just a year after the Wave of 1947 and Roswell. The following Page 8 is from the July 30, 1947: Colonel Garrett's ATIC Estimate, which was a rough draft of the report. The finalized version has not been located. Page 8 mentions "lack of topside inquiries, when compared to the prompt and demanding inquiries that have originated topside upon former events, give more than ordinary weight to the possibility that this is a domestic project, about which the President, etc. know." This is an indication to me that somebody in the Pentagon, Spatz and Vandenburg for sure, knew about Roswell. And here's the Aug. 19, 1947 FBI Memo that says pretty much the same thing. Memo to D.W. Ladd from E.G. Fitch mentioning SAC Reynolds conversation with Lt. Col. George Garrett, re: "there were objects seen which somebody in the Government knows all about." In my opinion this made the turnaround necessary. Flying saucers HAD to be played down. Project SIGN had to be changed to Project GRUDGE and UFOs had to be explained away. ATIC was already taking the reports seriously. The Pentagon stance was way beyond taking. After a while and nothing happened (no invasion), the pressure eased. The new project Grudge became Project Blue Book. It would take another paper to go into this aspect of the UFO story, but one my colleagues put it pretty well: Keith Chester:
I don't think Bluebook personnel were informing the Pentagon about anything important. I think they were a front, a front that was compartmentalized; a vehicle for running screen for the Air Force in the Public Eye, and an intelligence gathering entity working with civilian investigations. Bluebook did conduct there own investigations, but I feel they were definitely monitored by a much more sophisticated outfit in the Air Force. I think your paper is lacking much about the OSI's role. In 1952 the massive UFO sighting wave shook up the military and the CIA. Thousands of people reported having seen things in the sky, and radar was confirming those impressions. There were photographs and movies and jet chases and reports of alien creatures. There were headlines and radio reports of activity in the skies over Washington, D.C., that ended in what was described as the largest press conference held by the military since the end of the Second World War. And while all that was going on in the public eye, a first lieutenant was sent into Roswell (Ref. 12) to review the records and documentation about the UFO crash five years earlier. Although he had not been in the military in 1947, and was certainly not involved in the events of July 1947, he now had access to everything that had been written, photographed, and documented about the crash retrieval. His job was to determine what needed to be left in Roswell, what had to be moved to another facility, and what had to be destroyed. The lieutenant said he had access to all the relevant documents, and so understood the whole story. He had seen dozens of reports told from various vantage points on the crash site, had seen the photographs of the ship, and had even handled a piece of the thin metallic debris. There was nothing about the crash that he didn't have access to, or failing that, of a way of finding it out. The lieutenant's knowledge of Roswell came from the documents he saw in 1952. This officer would eventually rise to the rank of brigadier general. After 60 years there is nothing in our inventory that even faintly resembles flying saucers or UFO technology. We haven't learned anything from Roswell. Or have we? On August 19, 2007, Brad Sparks stated: "I must admit from my highly
skeptical research that in 1949 AFOSI was almost certainly responding
to Roswell - for very compelling reasons I cannot get into here. There
is in fact
some weak, circumstantial evidence suggesting that it was a
classic Roswell coverup."
"In 2000 while doing
non-UFO-related research, I accidentally
discovered the TOP SECRET U.S. government policy response toRoswell,
which should not exist if Roswell was essentially a
non-event. <>It is disturbing because I had thought of Roswell as
a
nothing event, and because the idea the US Government took it so
gravely serious should be a disturbing revelation. One of our
own balloons (Mogul or otherwise) would not trigger any response
at all because it's one of ours."
Oct 12, 2007. Some of you probably remember anthropologist Herbert Dick's denial about being on the Plains of San Agustin in July of 1947? It would support Barney Barnett's story about seeing the military AND the archeologists at the crash site if we could prove Dick and his group WERE there and that he lied about it. Dick, who died in 1992, had a college background and advanced degree and would not have wanted to embarrass a prestigious university or jeopardize a chance to acquire a Ph.D by reporting that he was at a crashed flying saucer site with bodies in 1947. So was he there? Yes! Secretly in our possession for some time, in January of 2008 the Harvard Archives allowed Art Campbell to publish the Dick letters. The material concerning Dick's presence on the Plains is a seven-page letter, cleared to me on January 14th, that Dick sent to his advisor, justifying his side of a feud with another archaeologist, over who would do the Bat Cave dig for a thesis. These documents, provided to me by researcher Art Campbell prove Herbert Dick's group's presence on the Plains on July 1-14, 1947. In the 2007 motion picture, "National Treasure: Book of Secrets", Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nicolas Cage) and his team take another romp through U.S. history. Now, armed with a stack of long-lost pages from John Wilkes Booth's diary, Ben is obsessed with finding the truth behind President Abraham Lincoln's assassination. Forced to help is the President of the United States, who then asks a favor, for them to look at page 47. At the end of the movie, in the scene in the hanger, the President says, "Any insights, about that thing we talked about.?" And Gates replies, "Yes sir, Mr. President, life altering." References: Ref. 1. "Strange Company", Keith Chester (2007) Ref. 2. "Witness to Roswell", Thomas Carey and Donald Schmitt (2007), Ref. 3. "Report on the UFO Wave of 1947", Ted Bloecher (1964) Ref. 4. "Roswell Legacy", Jesse Marcel, Jr. (2007) Ref. 5. Veteran USAF pilot Ben Games told a local UFO group in January that he remembers flying Craigie there, (Sarasota [Fla.] Herald Tribune, May 30, 2007). Ref. 6. "Aliens From Space", Maj. Donald Keyhoe, pg. 16 (1973) Ref. 7. The Walter Haut Affidavit, Dec 6, 2002 Ref. 8. Haut Affidavit. How it was obtained (Don Schmitt) Ref. 9. Top Secret/MAJIC, 42-43 (Stanton Friedman) Ref. 10. Top Secret/MAJIC, 15-16 (Stanton Friedman) Ref. 11. Michael Swords letter to Fran Ridge, Aug. 2007 Ref. 12 Kevin Randle, Case MJ-12, 147 Ref. 13 Kevin Randle, Case MJ-12, 148 |
