Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Roswell Transparency

We have always thought of the new investigation as transparent… oh, I have refused to answer Lance’s questions about the Nuns and how we obtained that information, but that is only because Lance seemed to believe I somehow owed him an explanation. Had he not been so nasty about it, I would have given him what he wanted long ago, but I’m not going to be manipulated in such a transparent way. He’ll just have to wait to learn what I know about this and how the information was originally obtained… and from whom we got it.
 
That said, I was reviewing the video interview of Marian Strickland on Friday as I looked for some information about the “strange thunderclap” during that July 1947 storm. I knew that she had said something about it and wanted to quote her exactly. In that interview, which was conducted by Don Schmitt, Don Berliner and me at Strickland’s home in Roswell, she said (about something else), “Mack thought it was a weather balloon or some sort of experiment. He was glad to do the government a favor to bring them the pieces.”

(I will note here that this interview, along with several others has been posted to YouTube by someone else. This interview had been arranged by me, recorded on my equipment, with questions by Schmitt and Berliner as well as me. Since this material is copyrighted, I’m tempted to have it taken down because whoever posted it had no right to do so… On the other hand, I think everyone should have access to the interviews so that they can see that we have quoted from them accurately and we don’t get into these meaningless little fights about the source and hints of some kind of conspiracy to hide information.)
This one sentence seems to suggest that Brazel knew it was a balloon and if you had a period after he said, “…balloon,” then you’d have a very good case for it. But she adds “or some sort of experiment.” That suggests he didn’t really know what he had found, and other information, from those who actually handled the debris could be cited to eliminate the balloon answer.
I could also mention a story appeared in the Roswell Daily Record on July 9 where he first seemed to describe balloon-borne debris but then takes it back when he said that he had found other weather observation devices and this didn’t resemble them.

In other words, a single sentence in a single interview, said by a woman talking about this in 1991, some 44 years later, doesn’t really give us much. She, as one of those who had been tangentially involved in 1947, meaning she didn’t really see anything, and according to her description, she wasn’t part of the discussion around her kitchen table in the days that followed Brazel’s return to the ranch.
She said, “They were around my table… Mack and I don’t know whether Bill Brazel was there. I don’t remember that. Mack and my kids and Lyman. I was busy carrying the coffee pot. I really heard my sketches [snatches?] of the conversation.”
So, she wasn’t privy to the entire conversation, and I suspect the weather balloon was something that came about later, after the newspaper articles, after The Roswell Incident, after Unsolved Mysteries, and after a host of other discussions about Brazel and what he might have found. Or, in other words, as our skeptical friends so often remind us, these sorts of memories are the result of other influences.
Karl Pflock (whose book it seems some of the skeptics don’t believe I have read… I actually have an autographed copy) only mentioned Strickland twice and in neither case, he didn’t mention that one line. He had access to the tape because Don Berliner had been with me and I had given a copy of the tape to the Fund for UFO Research and Pflock was a member of the FUND. He even mentioned the tape in a footnote, suggesting that the interview was available on the FUND’s Recollections of Roswell. Pflock ignored this little nugget that would have furthered his case.
This is, of course, the sort of thing that we’ve been looking for because it might help us understand what was going on in 1947. But it also has to be put into context because something taken out of context can be twisted around so that it means nearly something else… and if you don’t believe that, you don’t live in a state that is under constant bombardment with political ads.

28 comments:

Lance said...

Your comments are well taken, Kevin.

Anything I have said about the nun issue has nothing to do with whatever you may have found recently. My complaint is about the improper citation of the source in your second Roswell book...I have seen and you have provided no evidence that you or Schmidtt saw the source in question. Indeed, I thought you disavowed the citation and blamed Schmidtt for making it up!

And I apologize for being nasty on occasion...perhaps you might see my side and realize that skeptical comments are often met with suspicion and distrust, even when they aren't purely evil. I realize that you may feel the same way about your side of things and I admit that, like most debates, there are two sides.

Best,

Lance

cda said...

I agree that Strickland's 1991 remark adds little if anything to the debate. Perhaps Pflock's omission of it was because he realised it was of little value.

The whole point of witness testimony to an extraordinary event obtained decades afterwards is that taken alone, or even with other similar testimony, it must be viewed with extreme caution, due to gossip, influences and other events during the intervening years. And there was plenty of that!

If the testimony is 'negative', i.e. if it supports a mundane answer then it does not need the same degree of backup and reliability as it would if it seems to support the ET answer.

For decades you have been postulating a completely new phenomenon, unknown to science (both then and now). You are also claiming that officialdom has physical evidence of it and has stashed it away for 65 years. Yes, conspiracy theory in a big way.

That kind of argument requires far, far more substantive and hard evidence, even proof, than would testimony from someone saying it was merely a balloon, crashed plane or rocket.

I predict that the nun's diary, if ever located, will contain nothing of value. Most likely it will describe a meteor or meteorite. And where does that take you?

You would achieve a great deal more if you were to locate some diaries or other authentic written material or photos, or hardware, from the 1947-50 period showing that ANYONE involved in the case considered the downed object was, or might have been, a crashed ET craft. Something showing that scientists were genuinely interested and involved would be better still. Something BEFORE the Scully yarn was published.

I presume it is far too late to expect to find such evidence now. After all, such witnesses were sworn to secrecy, weren't they?

Hence the Roswell myth continues.

Charles Edward Frith said...

My sources tell me you're a liar and a shill for the US Military. His name is Douglas Dietrich and he's on record as saying he saw your dossier while working at the Presidio as a document destroyer. Rosewell is a pysops and plenty of parasites live off it. Not for much longer though.

cda said...

This guy obviously knows what he is talking about. He knows someone who destroyed someone else's dossier while working as a document destroyer. Obviously this Douglas Dietrich is a government doc destroyer and therefore probably destroyed all docs that might be relevant to Roswell. Not much hope now, is there Kevin?

David Rudiak said...

Charles Frith:
My sources tell me you're a liar and a shill for the US Military. His name is Douglas Dietrich and he's on record as saying he saw your dossier while working at the Presidio as a document destroyer. Rosewell is a pysops and plenty of parasites live off it. Not for much longer though.

Your sourceS turn out to be one person? Your grammar really sucks. So does your judgment if you really think a whack job and obvious charlatan like Douglas Dietrich is some sort of credible source. Let's see: Japan really won the war and forced the U.S. to surrender, Nagasaki never happened, we fire bombed Japan first to force them into war, the Third Reich lives on in an extensive system of tunnels around the planet, Rosewell [sic] was caused by dwarf Japanese kamikaze pilots committing suicide in Japanese gliders attached to Japanese dirigibles loaded with our nukes, etc., etc., etc.

Does your mother know you're playing with her computer again? Boy, are you going to be grounded!

alanborky said...

Kev whatever the truth of Roswell doesn't it strike you as slightly odd Matt Brazel and by implication even Marian Strickland were aware of weather balloons/experiments going on in the area but somehow Jesse Marcel the actual contemporary airforce guy still managed to confuse himself one of these cockamamie blow-up contraptions was a flying saucer he'd just 'captured'?

cda you say "Hence the Roswell myth continues".

But surely that's the nature of history.

Did Alexander the Great as some say solve the riddle of the Gordian Knot by cleaving it with a sword or did he solve it by releasing the ox-cart's pin?

Others of course argue none of it ever actually happened. I say both.

But if various parties ever got their way and Roswell and Stanton Friedman et al were tossed in the trash the moment aliens finally made their presence known by touching down on the Whitehouse lawn the whole thing'd be immediately dug up all over again.

Such is history.

Such is the Loren Colemanian consensus fugue which passes for reality.

David Rudiak said...

cda wrote:
This guy obviously knows what he is talking about. He knows someone who destroyed someone else's dossier while working as a document destroyer. Obviously this Douglas Dietrich is a government doc destroyer and therefore probably destroyed all docs that might be relevant to Roswell. Not much hope now, is there Kevin?

Fear not Christopher. Chase Brandon assures us that the CIA still has a copy. The Dream Team has hired Tom Cruise to break into CIA Headquarters and get it for us. (Soon to be at a movie theater near you--"Mission Impossible--Roswell Redemption!") Please keep this hush, hush for now.

Charles Edward Frith said...

David, David, David,

It's not me that believes in the fairy tale UFO/military psyops. Douglas Dietrich's explanation is far more down to earth.

Of course you may actually be a witness yourself so I'll retract my statement if that's the case.

Otherwise you're just defending something that was told by someobody to somebody else who then wrote a blog post about it and you're a mate.

In fairness to Kevin he published my comment and that means I'm prepared to listen to his defence against Douglas Dietrich that he is part of the military disinformation.

JAF said...

The 1994 Showtime movie "Roswell" had an impact site with a craft and dead aliens located about 2.5 miles from the debris field. The site was found by a spotter in a plane.

In that very same year Dee Proctor took his mother to a site about 2.5 miles from the debris field and said to her, "Here is where Mack found something else." Is Dee on the record having said anything about a site 2.5 miles from the debris field BEFORE the movie came out? Where did the idea of a crash site so close to the debris field originate?

KRandle said...

Charles -

I was trying to think of a way of answering this without offending anyone, but realized I know the allegations by Dietrich is nothing but a lie. I know what my military assignments were and what he said was something he invented.

And, I have no obligation to prove anything. He must prove that what he said is true and he cannot. Seems that my next move might be to sue of spreading this slander, based on files he didn't see and a career that seems to be little more than his invention...

Really, we lost WW II and the Japanese won... on what planet, what dimension or what alternate reality.

Charles Edward Frith said...

Kevin,

It's untrue that I support everything Douglas Dietrich says. I can assure you he has cut me off for telling him some home truths like his smearing of Pakistani muslims in a radio interview, which I found abhorrent.

So let's just stick to the issue where I do think Dietrich is telling something important. He says you're a military shill.

What evidence do you have to disprove that? That would be the best argument you could put forward as the whole Roswell story has many elements in it some real and some psyops that aren't worth getting forensic about.

Obviously proving a negative is impossible but there are ways and means to alleviate the suspicion of guilt.

Thanks

Charles

JAF said...

Charles,

Google "Roswell witnesses youtube" and you can watch videos of the witnesses giving their testimonies. You'll find that Kevin accurately reports what they've said in every case.

Grab a copy of "Roswell Revisited" and you will find that Kevin presents both the strengths and the weaknesses of the witness testimony rather than taking a one-sided I-have-the-truth approach that most UFO authors stick with. "Roswell Revisited" is 99 cents if you get the Amazon Kindle edition. If you don't have a Kindle, you can download an app which will allow you to read it on your computer.

Kevin and I have never met. He doesn't know me.

Paul Kimball said...

The best way to deal with the "suspicion" is to completely ignore suspicious lunatics.

KRandle said...

Charles -

It does not work that way. Just what evidence do you have to prove this allegation.

I tell you now it is a bald-faced lie. It is untrue. There is no evidence to suggest otherwise.

If you have no evidence, then I will entertain no further questions.

Let me say it once again. These allegations are lies. And if you find other areas in which he has no evidence, why would you accept this... other than a personal bias against me and other who have served in the United States military.

Charles Edward Frith said...

@JAF Thanks for the tips. I'll follow them and get back to you.

@Kevin

You and I both know you're not going to sue Doug Dietrich for accusing you of being a military shill. That would mean all sorts of embarrassing questions.

KRandle said...

Charles -

Actually, if I had the actual quote from his mouth, I just might. Here's why. There is nothing embarrassing to be learned. I can't make this any clearer to you... Dietrich did not see my file because he was not in any position to see it. I know what is in it, and there is nothing to suggest he is correct. According to you, he said I was a shill for the military, but that is not true... If he said it, then it is a lie. Give me the exact quote and where I can verify it, and then we'll talk.

And since he has made up so much other stuff, why in the world would you believe him about this?

cda said...

Why are we talking about a shill anyway? And what exactly is 'a shill for the military'?

This is why debate about Roswell sickens me at times. It seems we cannot have an honest discussion or debate without someone being suspected of double dealing, two-faced or acting as either a plant or an agent from elsewhere. Hynek, Hillenkoetter, Menzel, Pflock, Weaver, Cavitt, Doty, Bill Moore... The list goes on and on. Robert Hastings is the latest nutcase on these things. (Question: Is he a 'shill' himself?).

The remotest possible connection with some government agency raises suspicions that so-and-so aint what he seems.

That's ufology for you, as Gilles would say.

David Rudiak said...

cda wrote:
It seems we cannot have an honest discussion or debate without someone being suspected of double dealing, two-faced or acting as either a plant or an agent from elsewhere. Hynek, Hillenkoetter, Menzel, Pflock, Weaver, Cavitt, Doty, Bill Moore...

Well let's see...

Weaver and Doty were ACTIVE AFOSI agents, or AF counterintelligence, who among their duties is deliberate deception, disinformation, and propaganda to guard secrets.

Doty is known to have planted deliberate disinformation in the UFO community. Bill Moore publicly admitted to working with Doty and AFOSI in spying on Paul Bennewitz and participating in a psychological warfare campaign against him.

Moore also said that a man named Hennessey was Doty's boss or contact in the Pentagon and directed the whole disinformation campaign against Bennewitz. Vallee in "Revelations" thought Hennessey was in back of the whole MJ-12 scheme in complicity with Moore and Doty. (Both have denied.)

Interesting Jim Moseley, of all people, in 1995 wrote that "Hennessey" was probably Col. Barry Hennessey, who in a Pentagon phone directory was listed in the "Dept. of Special Techniques" (hint: counterintelligence). Working under him was none other than Weaver!

Weaver was, of course, the head of the AFOSI team that attempted to debunk Roswell as a Mogul balloon. At the time he wrote the debunking report, he was in the primary AFOSI unit at the Pentagon in charge of SAP's [Special Access Programs], AKA "Black Projects", the most secret of the military's R&D and weapons projects. Hennessey was his predecessor. Weaver, in his interview with Cavitt, described to fellow counterintel. agent Cavitt that: "...in my real job we handle all the Special [Access] Programs that do keep all the secrets."

Pflock did work for the CIA and DOD, though later downplayed his CIA employment after initially bragging about it (such as in "Roswell in Perspective").

Cavitt was ACTIVE Army CIC or counterintelligence at the time of Roswell. Cavitt in his interview with Weaver called Pflock "our debunker". Cavitt told numerous lies to researchers like Kevin, such as never being at Roswell, later changed to not being there at the time, then being there but never involved, etc.

Hynek self-admitted to aiding the Air Force in debunking when he already knew better. MJ-12 or no MJ-12, Hillenkoetter was, of course, first CIA director, as soon as the CIA became official, two weeks after Roswell with the passing of the National Security Act of 1947. His actual role in NICAP later on is still being debated. Pflock was another CIA person inside NICAP as it was falling apart (or deliberately undermined) in the late 1960s. MJ-12 or no MJ-12, Menzel was the most notorious UFO debunker of his time and was hip deep in the spook world since WWII, as the evil Stan Friedman found out going through his papers.

Quite unlike pathological liar Doug Dietrich's accusations against Kevin, all of the above is well-documented. I can't imagine why anybody might think any of these honorable men mentioned by CDA, half of them being military counterintelligence or working with them, of possibly being "shills" for government secrecy on UFOs.

JAF said...

Charles,

Take a look at the testimony of two people who haven't been interviewed by Kevin Randle, thus avoiding the possibility that Kevin is filtering witness testimony to further some hidden agenda as a "military shill". I'm referring to Eli Benjamin, a pseudonym, and Chester Barton. Eli Benjamin saw bodies of those in the Roswell crash. He says they were nonhuman. You can watch him tell this on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jWsJvc1f7I

Now that you've watched that video, can you tell me what kind of heels Eli has on at 3:20? Very unusual looking!

Chester Barton did not see crash victims, but he did see wreckage, confirming there was a crash. There appears on the surface to be a bit of a contradiction as Eli says the wreckage did not show burn marks, but Barton says there were burn marks in the landscape. I reconcile the two by deciding that metal could be hot enough to set desert grass on fire, but that fire would not leave burn marks on the wreckage if there was a lack of gasoline and oil to leave a darkened residue.

David Rudiak said...

More on Chester Barton's testimony here:

http://www.roswellproof.com/barton.html

He was found by researcher Joseph Stefula, previously a big Roswell skeptic, but Stefula found Barton such a compelling witness that he changed his thinking to something very strange happening, not any sort of balloon, and it was covered up.

Charles Edward Frith said...

I can provide the audio of Douglas stating that you're an military shill and that Roswell is a psyops so leave that with me.

As for all these so called witnesses this is the most convincing part of Dietrich's story. He says that Lt Col. Michael Aquino had a peg board at the Presidio and each time a threatened witness died he would celebrate as it meant one less person to go before history was revised for ever. As we know the military is a professional murdering business and lies and disinformation are tiny details. It's this peg board that I loved as a tiny detail. I'll get that audio recording Kevin. See you in court if you're not shilling or sharing terminological inexactitudes.

cda said...

"terminological inexactitudes" ?
Lovely phrase, due I believe to Winston Churchill c. 1936.

But I digress.

Charles Edward Frith said...

David Rudiak pretty much hammers home the point I've learned is most concrete. If the military are involved there are lies because the old national security canard is invoked.

KRandle said...

Charles -

I find your commentary here offensive. You forget that civilians control the military... If you have a problem with lies, look to the elected officials and their appointeesl.

Charles Edward Frith said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Paul Kimball said...

Kevin,

Haven't you learned yet that there is nothing to be gained from arguing with lunatics? I would have thought that Colonel Korff was enough for one lifetime. Just delete Frith's loony posts about you, and move forward.

Paul

KRandle said...

Charles -

I deleted your post because what you wrote was untrue. You have an unsubstantiated leegation, you offer no proof, and I know that it is a lie. He could not have seen my record because he did not have access to it and nothing he alleges is in it.

It is clear to me that you dislike the American military, you understand nothing about it, and I will no longer tolerate these posts.

new illuminati said...

Dietrich responds @ http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?38679-Roswell-Debunked-Douglas-Dietrich-Responds-To-ATS-American-Military-LIES..-