Showing posts with label By Kevin Randle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label By Kevin Randle. Show all posts

Monday, October 14, 2024

The True Story of the Roswell UFO Incident – “Unsolved Mysteries”

The True Story of the Roswell UFO Incident – “Unsolved Mysteries” - www.theufochronicles.com

"I believe that the military experienced the recovery of an alien spacecraft. It’s where the evidence is leading us," Randle claimed in the episode. "The Air Force says they have no evidence it was extraterrestrial. I think that the files were gathered up and are in a different repository hidden deep in the archives of the government and therefore there was no paper trail to it."



     [...]

It's been nearly 80 years since the Roswell incident, and there are countless theories about what was found in New Mexico. Ufologists Don Schmitt and Kevin Randle, who have been trying to uncover
By Samantha Stutsman
MSN
10-8-24
the truth since 1989, believe Roswell is the "one case that could solve the entire UFO mystery overnight." Their findings about an alleged government cover-up are documented in Netflix's Unsolved Mysteries, volume 5, episode 4.

Friday, August 23, 2024

The Kingman UFO Crash Conundrum

The Kingman UFO Crash Conundrum  - www.theufochronicles.com

"Stansel told of a crash of a large, disc-shaped object near Kingman, Arizona. He was part of a large team of specialists brought in to examine the wreck and the body of one alien creature."



     Two years before Jesse Marcel, Sr. told Stan Friedman and Len Stringfield about the UFO crash in the Roswell region, Ray Fowler published the article, What about Crashed UFOs? in Official UFO magazine. Although he touched on a couple of stories, the thrust of the article was told by “Fritz Weaver,” a pseudonym for a man later identified as Arthur Stansel.

Stansel told of a crash of a large, disc-shaped object near Kingman, Arizona. He was part of a large team of specialists brought in to examine the wreck and the body of one alien creature. Although his specific task was to determine speed and trajectory of the object,
Kevin Randle - www.theufochronicles.com
By Kevin Randle
A Different Perspective
8-20-24

he did have the opportunity to glimpse the alien pilot and the interior of the craft. This was on May 21, 1953, according to his calendar and for more than twenty years, he kept the secret.

In February 1973, Stansel told two teenagers who were interested in UFOs about his adventure in Arizona. It wasn’t long before Ray Fowler, a respected UFO researcher, learned about this sighting and went to interview Stansel, who not only added a few new details, but produced his calendar from 1953 and signed a statement attesting to the validity of his tale. Of course, that statement was not witnessed by a notary, only by Fowler, and had no legal status as an affidavit.

I had investigated the Kingman crash long ago and was unimpressed with it for several reasons. Originally, there was only Arthur Stansel as the witness, no real documentation for the crash, and a suggestion that Stansel, after he had been drinking, told wild stories. There was a point when a second witness was discovered, but her credibility was not very good and her daughter said that her mother was a liar. You can read about some of that here:

Kingman UFO Crash

Kingman Rises from the Dead?

Kingman UFO Crash... Really?

Kingman UFO Crash Revisited

This latest flap began when Christopher Mellon, who had been a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence released a redacted email exchange he had with a person Mellon called a senior U.S. government member. We were not provided with a name. That meant, of course, that we could not verify that this source existed or if he had any inside knowledge about the Kingman UFO crash. That email, with the critical information redacted and with little in the way of useful information is seen here:

Mellon Redacted Email - www.theufochronicles.com
The Mellon email that tells us nothing of value but does mention the recovered UAP from Kingman.

Over the course of the years, we have been treated to many accounts of the case, that began with Fowler’s article filled with direct quotes from Stansel. I do have a copy of the complete report that Fowler filed with NICAP about his rather comprehensive investigation. That includes a transcript of Jeff Young’s initial interview with Stansel that ignited Fowler’s interview and report.

I’m not going to recapitulate that story because it has been told several times. I used it in Crash: When UFOs Fall From the Sky, though my assessment of the case was critical of the data. But this latest flap (which, BTW, I think will impact on David Grusch’s UFO testimony, but that’s something for another time), inspired me to revisit Kingman. I found information from Fowler, in which he verified Stansel’s rather impressive credentials and resume. There were some problems, which centered around his claim that he had been a consultant for Project Blue Book. He originally suggested a rather long-term association, but later told Fowler that it was short-lived. Stansel suggested it lasted only a few days and was based on his examination of the crashed off-world craft.

There is one important interview that seems to have been left out of this whole tale. In a section of Fowler’s report entitled A Man Who Made Contact, we learn some disturbing things about Arthur Stansel. Fowler wrote, “On the next following pages I will explain the fascinating tales of Mr. Arthur Stansel’s flying saucer contacts.”

That part of the interview, conducted by Jeff Young and witnessed by Paul Chetham, began with the question, “Did you say that you had contacted beings from other planets?”

His astonishing answer was, “Yes, but now we’re getting into things where you’ll just have to take my word for it because I can’t produce it or prove it.”

After a short discussion about a group who met regularly met to explore the contacts with other worlds, and who Stansel said, “We were involved in the usage of seances, we weren’t out to contact relatives, but we were out to contact other things,” the questioning continued:

Q: Do you think that it’s possible for a person to convey himself to any place on or of Earth by just using his brain power?

A: Yes. I’m convinced that’s true. I know that can happen because I’ve done it…

Q: Did you gradually or all of a sudden receive contact with these extraterrestrials?

A: We did this on many, many occasions after about a year meeting once a week. We would contact beings, but we never really knew what we were going to contact that particular Sunday night. On many, many occasions we contacted beings from planets other than Earth.

Q: Were these the same beings or were these different beings each meeting.

A: Sometimes they were the same, but generally they were different.

Q: Could you see them or visualize them?

A: Onetime we had an experiment, which took place for about three weeks, in which we learned astral projection, in which you project yourself to the point where the contact is…

Q: That’s using your mind to convey yourself?

A: Right, using your mind.

Q: You actually conveyed yourself to some beings?

A: Yes, I did. As a matter I was the only one who was able to go to that particular space craft which was many light years away.

Q: You were on the craft?

A: I was actually on it.

The questioning then turned to what he could see and how he interacted with the beings on that craft, saying that it was some sort of prison ship. The beings had been on it for a thousand years and had no control over it.

Q: Did you [Stansel] have a physical feeling of being on the ship?

A: Yes, very much so. It’s just like I was sitting here.

Q: Would you describe the inside of the ship?

A: Well, the furniture was different than ours in the fact that it had no legs. It was as if it were suspended in the air, but I remember checking for wires holding them up…

Q: What were the colors in the room?

A: It was basically red and it seemed to be generated by everything in the room. I saw no light bulbs, but the room was dimly illuminated….

Q: Were they short beings?

A: They were various heights. They were short and tall, but I don’t remember seeing any fat beings.

Q: Were they uniformed or did they wear different types of clothes?

A: They were uniformed in a way, but they were in different colors.

Q: Do you think that could have signified a rank?

A: That could be and another interesting thing is that the dress of the people was no different between a man and a woman and there were males and females.

Q: Were the males in short hair and the females in long hair?

A: No, you couldn’t tell by that. You could just tell by a woman’s bodily characteristics and facial features.

They discuss some emblems that were attached where we would have put shirt pockets. Stansel said that one was in the shape of a leaf and was red against a sort of blue glistening jerkin. There was another which was just a round shape, probably three inches in diameter and it too was glistening.

With that line of questioning finished, the discussion went in another direction. Young wondered if the prisoners had met people from other planets:

A: Yes, they had talked with many, but I was the first one actually projected. They got pretty excited over my arrival, for they felt I was the savoir who could get them back to their home planet or make communication with home base.

Q: Could you have projected yourself back to their home world”

A: I tried but I couldn’t. I think they were beyond range.

They moved the discussion to the nature of the ship, meaning that it was some sort of prison. Stansel mentioned these alien beings were complaining about their incarceration. He then said:

They were complaining about being prisoners because they had so much to offer their own civilization, but they had no way to get back to their civilization except through some intermediary and they thought I could be that intermediary. They had been conducting experiments, but they had been about a thousand years on the ship, so that there had been many generations of these people…

Other things that came out of this interview. He was told that there were thousands of worlds “of intelligent occupation.” That line of questioning ended at that point.

There was more of this sort of thing but then Stansel mentioned that of all these alien worlds, there were none that were interested in Earth. Earth is too overcrowded. Stansel said that they had contact many ships but the beings weren’t interested in Earth.

Then, falling into what would become the David Jacobs theory or hybrid humans, Stansel said, “In fact, there’s more than one extraterrestrial planet that have implanted people here, but generally people don’t know it… they just become part of our civilization.”

There was more of this sort of thing that reads like poor science fiction. At one-point Stansel talked of switches and buttons on the ship but I think of our touch screens that eliminate buttons and switches.

There were other disturbing things in the interview. Stansel, at one point seemed to suggest that he had been a consultant to Project Blue Book for a long time, but there is no record of it. He claimed to have seen a UFO during one of the Atomic Tests, but later claimed he had only heard about it from others.

Stansel did say that when he was interviewed by Young and Chetham, he had been drinking. He’d had four martinis but when Fowler asked the boys about that, they said Stansel had not been drinking. So, was Stansel drinking too much and offered it as an excuse for the discrepancies between the interviews conducted by Young and Fowler. Was the alleged drinking an excuse for telling conflicting tales? Was the drinking the motivation in creating a tale of extraterrestrial contact?

Here’s where we are on this. Stansel is the only man who was involved with the crash in Kingman that had forty or more expert consultants to speak about this. He suggested those on the bus were not allowed to talk during the four-hour trip from Phoenix to the Kingman area, but when they arrived, they were called by name as they were assigned specific jobs. Everything was carefully orchestrated but Stansel managed to see the dead alien pilot and caught a glimpse into the ship. Again, poor security.

There are many reasons that I simply don’t buy this tale and the later interview with astral projection, visits to alien spaceships in flight and all that other nonsense argues that Stansel was adept at spinning tales even he had only had a beer or two and not several martinis.

What this means today, is that the leaked email from Christopher Mellon is irrelevant. There may well have been an email exchange but it is, essentially worthless. Mellon and his unidentified correspondent may well have exchanged the emails about Kingman but that doesn’t prove there is any substance to the report.

There is another element to this and that’s David Grush’s claim of twelve craft in government hands. He may well have talked with Mellon, or someone else who believes the Kingman tale, but without evidence, it is just, dare I say it, a conspiracy theory. And that also suggests that some of Grush’s claims are false, if this is one of the stories. Doesn’t mean that Grusch invented any of the tales, but he has heard them from people he believes are telling him the truth.

Finally, Len Stringfield added some commentary to the Kingman case in his 1978 MUFON Symposium paper on crash/retrievals, and later in his status reports. He suggests the possibility of additional witnesses, but he failed to supply names of any of those witnesses. I am following up on this and will report on it later.

For those interested, I have reached out to a couple of other people who might be able to shed some light on this, including some in the Kingman area. To this point I have not heard back, but will update my analysis as it is warranted by additional information.

Thursday, January 04, 2024

APRO Files and The Iowa Egg-Shaped UFO Landing

APRO Files and Iowa Landing - www.theufochronicles.com



     For those new to the field, they might not know much about the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO), which was created by Coral Lorenzen in the early 1950s. At that time there were two prominent UFO Organizations with APRO being one and the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) being the other. There were dozens, if not hundreds of smaller, local organizations. I was a member of the Denver UFO Society in the late 1960s, but that was a group that operated in the Denver area and had no real investigation arm.

Kevin Randle - www.theufochronicles.com
By Kevin Randle
The UFO Chronicles
1-2-2024
Jim and Coral Lorenzen - www.theufochronicles.com
Jim and Coral Lorenzen

I mention APRO because of its size, the membership in the thousands and Coral, and later Jim and Coral Lorenzen published several good books about UFOs. Unlike NICAP, which seemed to focus on Congressional investigations and pressing the Air Force for transparency, though they certainly collected thousands of UFO reports, APRO focused on what might have been seen as the fringe areas of UFO study early on. They collected reports on landings and occupant sightings and were the first American organization to research alien abduction cases. Although they had known about the Vilas-Boas abduction in 1957, they didn’t report on it officially until the 1960s when the Barney and Betty Hill case was investigated. Interestingly, Betty Hill contacted Don Keyhoe of NICAP about her sighting and abduction. Eventually, her interest was diverted to APRO.

The point here is that the files of NICAP, the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) and even many if not most of the Project Blue Books files have been collected by various civilian research and investigation organizations. The exception was the APRO files. Upon the deaths of both Jim and Coral Lorenzen in the mid-1980s, the files ended up in the hands of the Lorenzen children after. Attempts by various organizations and individuals to obtain the files had been made over the years without success.

I provide this brief history to put all this into context. As many know, David Marler, who has created the National UFO Historical Records Center, a name that does not lend itself to an easily pronounceable acronym, has announced the acquisition of the APRO records. This means, that his Center is now the repository of the largest collection of UFO records. This includes the records and investigative activities of several foreign researchers and organizations.

Marler, and his team have been digitizing these records at the headquarters of the organization, which means that searches for specific cases, and all relevant data will become a searchable file, or as Marler wrote in his press release, the files are digitized for electronic storage, analyzation, transfer and ease of access.

Interestingly, there have been, in the past, UFO researchers who guarded their records and files with a tenacity that rivals various governmental agencies. That barrier seems to have been broken to some extent now.

As I say, the important point here is the transfer of the APRO files into Marler’s group. They are currently located in Albuquerque, New Mexico and can be found at www.nufohrc.org.

APRO was the first UFO organization to take reports of landing and alien beings seriously. They sent the first investigators into Pascagoula to interview Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker. And were in Socorro, New Mexico, within hours to interview Lonnie Zamora about the UFO landing and occupant sighting there in 1964.

One of those APRO cases was a landing in rural Iowa on June 6, 1972. The witness, identified in the APRO only as Mr. T., but his name was Edward Tieg. He said that a flash of light caught his attention. He thought it was an airplane, but the object came closer. He saw that it was egg shaped and as it began to land, legs grew out of the bottom. He said that it was about ten to twelve feet in diameter and fifteen to twenty feet tall. He said that it cast a shadow when it was sitting on the ground.

UFO Landing Rural Iowa Drawing by Edward Tieg 6-6-1972 www.theufochronicles.com
Illustration of the sighting created by Edward Tieg.
From the files of Kevin Randle

It was about a hundred yards away. A hatch opened and according to him, some people got out. The beings were about five feet tall and were wearing a one-piece flying suit. They messed around in the corn, returned to their ship and it took off.

Investigators on the Tieg UFO Landing Site - June 1972 www.theufochronicles.com
Investigators on the Tieg UFO Landing Site - June 1972
Photo by Kevin Randle.

He said that as it lifted off, a blue flame shot out of the bottom, there was a roar and the legs retracted. The corn stocks in that area looked as if they had been caught in a whirlwind but they weren’t burned. I’ll note here that Lonnie Zamora talked about a blue flame and a roar as that craft lifted off. I’m not sure if a farmer in Iowa knew about a New Mexico policeman who described some of the same features.

Although reluctant to talk about the sighting, he did provide an illustration of what he had seen. As happens so often in UFO reports, there were no other witnesses to this sighting, though there had been others in the area about the same time.

Friday, August 18, 2023

More on Whistleblower Grusch and UFO Crashes

Whislteblower, David Grusch gving opening statement at the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Implications on National Security, Public Safety, and Government Transparency congressional hearing

"... we have been bombarded by reports from David Grusch about what he heard from sources he refuses to identify, and that the US Government has, in its possession both craft and bodies from an alien source ... Yet the main street media is acting as if this is something new."

     On June 25, there was another video put up on YouTube about David Grush and his claims of captured or retrieved alien craft, and the bodies of the alien pilots. It is a long interview and you can watch it here. Here’s one of the things I found interesting. They made it clear that Grush had not been before a senate committee and he apparently had not talked to any of the senators. He did meet with senators’ staffs and answered their questions. It also seems that he met with, and was questioned by members of the House. I don’t know how long that session, or those sessions, lasted. I will not speculate about his being under oath or if those sessions were somewhat less formal.
Kevin Randle - www.theufochronicles.com
By Kevin Randle
A Different Perspective
6-27-23

I will also note that in the above commentary, there was discussion of the body language analyses that have been done. I did watch one and it seemed the conclusion was a more or less, “I don’t know.” There were no significant indications of lying, but there were hints that he might not have been comfortable with what he was saying. Well, if he’s spilling secrets, I can imagine that some of the questions might have made him nervous.

Here's the thing about this that I simply do not understand. He is not the first person with interesting credentials to make these claims. I too, have talked with military officers who have some knowledge of UFOs, crash retrievals, and the recovery of the alien flight crews.

Brigadier Arthur Exon told me about the material from the Roswell crash being taken to Wright Field, later Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. He said that he talked with those involved in the analysis of the material. He said, “We heard the material was coming to Wright Field.”
Brigadier General Arthur Exon

I asked about bodies and General Exon said, “There was another location… where they did say there were bodies… they were all found outside the craft but were in fairly good condition.”

And he said that one of the bodies had been taken to Lowry Army Air Field near Denver because the Army had a mortuary service there. They would know the best way to preserve what might be a unique biological sample. Exon said all this on audio tape.

I asked him, specifically and he told me, “Roswell was the recovery of a craft from space.” I have a letter from him in which he acknowledges that all the quotes in the book, UFO Crash at Roswell were accurate and this is one of those quotes.

The point is that here is an Air Force general acknowledging that the military had recovered a craft not built on Earth and piloted by beings who were not human. Yet this information was of no interest to the main stream media and our attempts to share that information with the Air Force during their investigation was not acknowledged.

Chester Lytle had a distinguished career. He was involved in creating the trigger for the first atomic bombs, helped develop hydrofoil technology and was a colleague of William Blanchard who was the commanding officer in Roswell in July 1947. Don Schmitt and I interviewed Lytle several times and he shared with us several UFO stories in which he was one of the primary witnesses. The most important thing he said, however, he told to Robert Hastings, who reported it in his book UFOs and Nukes.

According to Hastings, Lytle told him as he, Lytle, was making an emergency trip to Chicago on an Air Force transport, Blanchard, traveling with him, told him a little more about the strange craft that had been found in Roswell in 1947. Blanchard, who was the Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force in the 1960s, told Lytle that a spacecraft had crashed near his base and that there had been four bodies recovered.

Hastings wrote, “Startled by Lytle’s unexpected admission, I [Hastings] asked, ‘Blanchard actually told you that the Roswell object was an alien spacecraft?’ Lytle replied emphatically, ‘Oh, absolutely!’”

Patrick Saunders, who was the adjutant at the Roswell Army Air Field in 1947, bought copies of both UFO Crash at Roswell and The Truth about the UFO Crash at Roswell. He wrote on the flyleaf of one of those books, “Here’s the truth and I still haven’t told anybody anything!” He signed with “Pat.”

On that page, with a heading of “Damage Control, was a description of some of the activities at the RAAF. It said:

Files were altered. So were personal records, along with assignments and various codings and code words… After the impact site was cleaned, the soldiers were debriefed, and the bodies and the craft removed, silence fell. It would not be broken for almost forty-five years.
heading of “Damage Control, was a description of some of the activities at the RAAF
Patrick Saunders statement about the accuracy
of the information included in the book

And not to drag this out much longer, Edwin Easley, who was the Provost Marshal in Roswell, told me that he had been sworn to secrecy, that Mack Brazel (the man who reported the wreckage to the base) had been held in the base guest house for a number of days, confirming that end of the story, and mentioned “the creatures,” to family members just prior to his death in the 1990s.

The real point here is that in the last few weeks we have been bombarded by reports from David Grusch about what he heard from sources he refuses to identify, and that the US Government has, in its possession both craft and bodies from an alien source. But this is exactly what Don and I reported in the early 1990s complete with the names of sources and documentation confirming the credentials of those sources. Yet the main street media is acting as if this is something new.

I might add here, that I served as both an Army and an Air Force intelligence officer. I served in Iraq and was decorated with the Bronze Star Medal and the Combat Action Badge. In other words, I have some of the same credentials as does Grusch, and when Don and I published our books on Roswell, the response from the media was underwhelming.

My research, and Don’s research didn’t end there. I have since published Roswell in the 21st Century and Understanding Roswell, which I believe bring the whole of that case into sharper focus. And before someone mentions the nonsensical Mogul explanation for the debris recovered, I might suggest you consult both the books which demonstrate that Mogul is not a viable answer.

If you are starved for names, dates, sources and documentation, these books provide it and as my old nemesis used to say, “It only takes one case to prove that UFOs are extraterrestrial.” Roswell is that case and the evidence overlooked for decades is out there for those interested in reading about it.

Friday, August 11, 2023

Whistleblower, David Grusch and the 1933 Italian UFO Crash

Whistleblower, David Grusch and the 1933 Italian UFO Crash

"The real trouble comes from the reference to the 1933 crash in Italy. I had not heard about this and I have spent decades researching claims of UFO crashes. The Italian story comes from documents, received anonymously in the mail by Italian researchers. This smacks of the tales of MJ-12, documents that were received anonymously in the mail by American researchers. Those documents are considered to hoaxes by the majority of UFO researchers today."

     One of the problems we face after David Grusch began his whistle blowing campaign is that he provided almost no information about his sources, about the UFO crash retrievals he alleged were real and provided no documents to support his claims. All that was coming but given the rules, regulations and laws, he was unable to produce any of the required information that would allow us to vet anything he said and validate his tale.

However, we can deduce some of this by comments he has made, especially during the interview that was broadcast on one of the fledgling all-news cable channels.
Kevin Randle - www.theufochronicles.com
By Kevin Randle
A Different Perspective
6-21-23

I’m going to ignore his comment about “The Program,” which might or might not be the real name of a clandestine program because there just isn’t enough information about it to make any analysis meaningful. I will say, however, that we know about Project Moon Dust that had a UFO component, and that after the name was compromised in the mid-1980s, the name was changed and we were told that even the name was classified. Not that the project had been cancelled, only that the name had been changed and was still gathering UFO related material under umbrella of national security.

Grusch did name two UFO crashes. He mentioned both a crash in Italy in 1933 and, of course, Roswell. There was no danger in mentioning Roswell because of the controversy wrapped around the story. While the government explanation was Project Mogul, the available documentation eliminates that answer. I have written about that explanation of Roswell for, literally, decades, and believe there is no viable, terrestrial explanation for what was recovered. For those who wish to pursue my reasons for that, I suggest typing Mogul into the search engine here, or read either Roswell in the 21st Century or Understanding Roswell.

The real trouble comes from the reference to the 1933 crash in Italy. I had not heard about this and I have spent decades researching claims of UFO crashes. The Italian story comes from documents, received anonymously in the mail by Italian researchers. This smacks of the tales of MJ-12, documents that were received anonymously in the mail by American researchers. Those documents are considered to hoaxes by the majority of UFO researchers today.

Briefly, Grusch said that the UFO was retrieved in northern Italy in 1933, and was recovered by Mussolini’s fascist government. The Pope learned about it and told the US government. The material was recovered by the US after the end of the Second World War.

The story of the 1933 crash, as told by Roberto Pinotti, an Italian journalist and UFO researcher, was that the object fell in Magenta, Lambardy, Italy, on April 11, 1933. The object was described as “saucer-like” and the event resulted in an investigation by an Italian intelligence unit called RS/33 Cabinet. The UFO was stored in the hangars of SIAI Marchetti in Vergiate. Mussolini believed the craft was a secret weapon of either the Nazis or the Allies.

Pope Pius XII learned of the craft and may have been told about it by Mussolini himself. When Mussolini signed a treaty with Hitler, the Pope worried about the craft and told the US about the object. It was after the war that the craft made its way to the United States.

Lue Elizondo, who was involved in UFO investigations, said that he had seen documents from Mussolini’s office that he found, “compelling.” He seemed to suggest that the craft might not have been alien but was some sort of advanced craft using jet engines that had been developed by the Nazis. The timing, however, doesn’t seem to fit. April 1933 is too early for the development of the jet engines and the design might have been something created by the Horten brothers attempts to build a “tailless” aircraft.

There were tales of bodies that made their way, and I say allegedly here, to Wright Field. They were badly mangled, looking as if they had been in a car wreck, but whose heads were fairly intact. They were seven feet tall, had long blonde hair, clear blue eyes, small noses, small mouths, thin lips and no signs facial hair. The conclusion, based on the examination of those bodies was that they were not human.

One of the gates to Wright-Patterson AFB. Photo by Kevin Randle
One of the gates to Wright-Patterson AFB. Photo by Kevin Randle

Now here is a connection that will raise a few eyebrows. There is an account from another source to corroborate some of these details. William Brophy, said that his father, who was a lieutenant colonel, had seen the bodies at some point and told him, the son, about them. Yes, this is the same Lieutenant Colonel Brophy who supposedly flew over, or landed near, or was somehow a witness to the 1945 UFO crash described by Jacques Vallee in this book about the San Antonio (Trinity) crash. The younger Brophy’s entry into this case taints it, just as it has the San Antonio crash.

At any rate, this is the tale of the 1933 crash, not cluttered up with any sort of corroboration except for those documents that have been floating around for decades. The trouble there, according to an Italian researcher, Giuseppe Stilo, writing in UFO Rivista di Informazione Ufoligica, those documents are faked. The documents arrived anonymously and were reported to have originated in “archival sources that no one has been able to identify and verify.”

Another problem is that those holding what has been termed “The Fascist Files,” is that disinterested third parties, in this case the CISU (Centro Italiano Studi Ufogici, an Italian research group) requested an opportunity to examine the documents but that has not happened in more than twenty years.

Also disturbing, is the lack of citation of the sources. We have dealt here, on this blog, with anonymous sources in various public arenas and more often than not, when the original source is identified the information attributed to that source has been distorted, or worse, the source denied the information.

A second article, “Fascist files” Under Scrutiny, by Massimiliano Grandi, published in UFO Rivista di Informazione Ufoligica (number 29) provided more information on these documents. Published with the article are photos of the documents which demonstrates there are documents, but that doesn’t mean they are authentic because the originals have not been subjected to independent forensic examination. This is the same problem we had with the MJ-12 documents. The originals were not available for disinterested third party examination.

Grandi provides additional arguments about the authenticity of the documents and the failure to corroborate any of the sources or other information. He concludes, however:

…we would like to firmly reiterate that despite the critical tones – the intent of those who want to study such an affair cannot be to try to prove the ‘falsity’ of those papers. This would be illogical. This falsity is not proven now, but it was intended to point out that there are numerous serious weaknesses in the reasons made to support the importance of the documents.

On the basis of the evidence so far produced, we believe that an Abrahamic faith is indeed required to condition the conclusions drawn by Pinotti and Lissoni about the contents of these documents.

Or, in other words, they found nothing to indicate that the documents were authentic and without additional information, the case for the 1933 crash and retrieval is not proven. It is up to the supporters to provide that proof and for more than twenty years they have failed to do so.

If this revelation about the 1933 Italian UFO crash is accurate, then it casts a shadow over the whistle blower who suggested that he learned it from his inside sources. It means that he accepted the original publication of the material without critical thought or even making a basic Internet search because he assumed that the information was accurate. It would seem that an insider, with access to what must be highly classified information, would have been aware of the controversy surrounding this case. He wouldn’t have mentioned it as one of two that he believed to be authentic.

Since he didn’t mention the names of any of his sources, we are unable to vet them and their reliability. We now enter an area of speculation. I have run into information that Grusch had spent time at the Skinwalker Ranch. Jerry Clark had mentioned to me that linking Grusch to Skinwalker as a way of questioning his credibility was unfair. Many have traveled to Skinwalker. But my point wasn’t about the paranormal research going on there, but who conducted the research and who had visited there. That put Grusch in touch with some formerly high-ranking government and military officials, not to mention Bigelow Aerospace. Remember, Grusch had talked about some of the evidence of the crashes and the recovery of material from those crashes had been provided to corporate America. One of those specifically named by sources other than Grusch was Bigelow Aerospace.

Given that connection, then it follows that we can deduce some of the names of those involved, and we can deduce some of the other crashes that might have been mentioned. Given where some of the information has recently surfaced that included the names of Leslie Kean and Ralph Blumenthal, I believe that one of those crashes is the 1945 claim of the recovery of a craft near San Antonio, New Mexico. The story was told by two men, who had been boys in 1945, who saw the craft crash, saw the wrecked craft on the ground, the alien creatures that flew it, and the Army recovery operation.

Although the story has been accepted by some very smart people, some of them who have been around the UFO field for decades, Douglas Dean Johnson, in a comprehensive investigation that does cite sources and does provide documentation, has thoroughly debunked the tale. The shifting nature of the important features of the story suggest it is untrue. Tom Carey recorded an interview with Reme Baca, one of those witnesses, before the story received any wide spread treatment and the recording is of an event that doesn’t match much of the later story. You can read Johnson’s research and listen to Carey’s interview and analysis by other, disinterested third parties here:

Crash Story File: The Reme Baca Smoking-Gun Interview

Crash Story: The Trinity UFO Crash Hoax

www.davidhalperin.net

Given the direction of all this, I wonder if the Del Rio UFO crash in northern Mexico, just across the border from Texas, isn’t on the list. This tale appears in the MJ-12 Eisenhower Briefing Document as one of the authentic crashes, though they have moved it from Del Rio to the south, in the area of El Indio/Guerrero. There are those who believe the story because a retired Air Force colonel was the one who told it and he signed an affidavit attesting to the authenticity of his information. However, it turned out the witness, Robert Willingham, was not an Air Force colonel and his story had more changes than that of Reme Baca. You can read about how it unraveled here and that will also provide links to other Willingham and MJ-12 analysis:

Stan Gordon - www.theufochronicles.com
Researcher, author Stan Gordon

I would guess that another of the crashes that Grusch might promote is the Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, event of December 9, 1965. Stan Gordon has spent decades in research of this case and is convinced that it was an alien spacecraft that crashed. Leslie Kean, along with Gordon attempted to recover records of the crash from NASA. Gordon has found many people who saw part of the final flight of what he thinks of as alien spacecraft. I too, thought that this was one of the best UFO crash stories, and Gordon has produced some compelling evidence. However, in the world today, the answer for that event might be a meteor. A bolide, which is a very bright meteor, fell about that time, with remnants found in southern Canada.

I wonder if Shag Harbour might not be on the list. This case had many witnesses who saw something fall into Shag Harbour in 1967. There was both a law enforcement response as well as a military one. The object was not recovered, and the evidence seems to suggest that it eventually managed to leave the harbour for deeper waters. Not so much of a crash as an emergency landing. There are many witnesses, as I noted, and there are many official documents about it. Chris Styles and Don Ledger are responsible for finding the documentation and the other information that suggests that this was an anomalous event.

These are some of the obvious tales of UFO crashes that had received mention in various books, magazine articles and TV documentaries. These are the prominent ones that many accept as authentic crashes. There are some lesser known crashes that might make the list such as the one over Las Vegas in April, 1962.

There was a report of a “brilliant red explosion” over Las Vegas that was witnessed by dozens, if not hundreds. Couple this to events in Utah of an oval-shaped craft landing and then taking off, and there is a hint of a “forced landing,” if not an actual crash. Sheriff’s deputies told me of a search for the downed craft that was never located. At this point, my investigation suggests that the Las Vega end of it was a bolide that exploded in the upper atmosphere.

I suppose I could go on with this speculation, but without Grusch telling us what specific events he had encountered, what he had heard from those highly-placed sources, and what is on those documents that he has seen but hasn’t produced, all we can do is speculate.

What I do know at this point is that Grusch’s mention of the Italian crash calls part of his story and one or more of his sources into question. Insiders would know the truth about this case, if they had heard about it. That casts something of a shadow over his whistle blowing.

However, those of us who have been around the UFO field long enough have been fooled by sources that seem to have inside information, only to learn that their sources were no better than ours. The UFO field is littered with the tall tales that, originally looked good but have fallen when better research was presented. Four of the most recent examples are the MJ-12 documents, the Alien Autopsy, the Project Mogul explanation for Roswell, and what I have called the Roswell Slides. The truth about all these has been published and you can read about it on this blog by typing in the keywords, or read about in my latest books about Roswell mentioned earlier.

At this point, I’m hopeful that Grusch will be able to provide the information we need to vet his tales, but as we said in the military, “Hope is not an option.” All I can really say is there are a few red flags but these simply are not enough to reject the information that Grusch has provided. As Jerry Clark said to me, we do need to wait to see how this plays out and where the truth finally is found.

Sunday, February 21, 2021

Project Moon Dust, Operation Blue Fly and Clifford Stone (RIP)

Project Moon Dust, Operation Blue Fly and Clifford Stone (RIP)


     Clifford E. Stone, known for his relentless pursuit of UFO documentation through his use of FOIA died on February 10, in Roswell, New Mexico.

Stone rose to fame in the field with his chase of Project Moon Dust and Operation Blue Fly, two Air Force missions that dealt, in part, with UFOs and the recovery of material of either foreign manufacture or of unknown origin. Many of the documents he recovered hinted at secret programs, which the Air Force, at first, denied existed. With the help of United States Senator, Jeff Bingaman, Stone forced the military to admit that the programs did exist.
By Kevin Randle
A Different Perspective
2-14-21


But Stone was also a figure of controversy. He claimed, repeatedly, that he had been involved in some of the biggest UFO cases and said that he had been a member of a secret crash retrieval team. As a teenager, he said that he had been near the Kecksburg UFO crash and had seen the military flatbed that removed the object from the woods near the Pennsylvania town. Later, he would say, that as an enlisted soldier, he had glimpsed part of the Alien Autopsy film when it was shown to high-ranking officers on the military post where he had been assigned. The film was later admitted to be a hoax.

Stone spent 22 years in the Army, entering right out of high school, and was trained as a clerk typist. He was deployed to Vietnam and claimed four tours, though his military records showed that he had been overseas for 37 months and not all of it in Vietnam. He said that on arrival in Vietnam, he had asked for an assignment to a combat unit, but that the first sergeant rejected his request. Instead, he would sneak out at night, according to him, to hunt the enemy. There is nothing in the record to support that claim.

I met Stone in February, 1989, in Roswell. He joined Don Schmitt and me, at the Burger King on North Main. For some reason, he appeared in uniform. We eventually, retired to his house where he paced up and down, smoking a big cigar and lecturing Don and me about UFOs. His knowledge was extensive, demonstrating a long and deep interest in the topic.

It was later that he would tell us about his brushes with government agents, who harassed him repeatedly. He would say they would call at all hours and demand he meet them in some deserted location for interrogation often threatening him with firearms. There was no proof that any of this took place.

Later he would say that his involvement on a crash retrieval team gave him inside knowledge of UFOs and that alien beings from 57 different worlds were visiting Earth. The documents he had did not prove this, but did suggest a continuing US interest in UFOs.

After Stone retired from the Army, he worked for a time as a security guard at the Roswell Mall, which would be irrelevant here, except for a tragic circumstance. He was called to the scene of a motorcycle accident not knowing that the victim was his son. I can think of no more horrific circumstance than arriving to assist only to see that it was his son who had been killed.

Stone made the rounds of the talk shows, the radio programs, documentaries and UFO conventions and symposiums, describing his activities with crash retrievals. While his tales were met with an enthusiastic response, there was little in the way of evidence that what he was saying was grounded in reality.

Although I enjoyed talking with Stone, visited him at his home many times, I found his tales to border on the incredible.

Cliff Stone was 72.

Friday, December 11, 2020

Nick Pope Revisited

Did Nick Pope Investigate UFOs for the UK MoD


     Let’s start again. I was a little disturbed about the allegations slung at Nick Pope by Dr. David Clarke recently and that Nick Pope had not had the opportunity to respond to them. I also want to point out that I have no dog in this fight and was looking for a little fairness in all this. I expected some pushback, but, in this world today, who wouldn’t expect some pushback. I have now heard from a number of others about all this.

First, I suppose, is to answer the question of why Dr. David Clarke would bring this up now, if the issue had been settled decades earlier. According to what he told me; the simple answer is that he didn’t. He was responding to a question asked by Martin Willis during Willis’ podcast.

By Kevin Randle
A Different Perspective
11-30-20
Nick Redfern
Nick Redfern
Photo copyright by Kevin Randle
Second, all those who emailed me seemed to object to my use of the term “allegations” against Nick Pope. All who emailed me said that there had been no allegations, just statement of facts. One of those facts, an important one, had to do with Nick Pope’s duty at the MoD and whether or not he, Nick Pope, had conducted official UFO investigations. While serving in the MoD, Nick Pope had other duties and devoted only 20% of his salary to dealing with UFOs. In other words, the majority of his time went to other things. His UFO duties involved taking down the initial information about a UFO sighting and then passing it on to another organization. To quote Nick Redfern (and now you know why I kept saying Nick Pope), back in 1994, Nick Pope told Nick Redfern, “There is no specific ‘UFO budget,’ except the staff costs, i.e. around 20% of my salary, together with a tiny percent of some other salaries, reflecting my line management’s supervisory role.”

For those interested, here is a link to an article an Nick Redfern published a number of years ago that dealt with some of this.

That, of course, does not rule out Nick Pope having investigated UFO sightings. It suggests that there wasn’t much of a budget for any investigation. It could be said that the initial intake of information over the telephone is part of an investigation, though certainly not the most important aspect of it. However, there is additional information that is relevant to the discussion.

David Clarke noted in communication with me, “Sec(AS) [Secretariat Air Staff] where Nick worked 1991 – 1993 was not authorized or funded to investigate UFO reports.”

That seems to be fairly definitive but there is more relevant information. According to what David Clarke provided, “This is set out clearly in the attached policy document from 1997, written by Pope's line manager, that says any follow-up investigations that were required were carried out by the DI55 intelligence staff and/or the Royal Air Force.”

In still another document that came from official sources, and of which I now have a copy, it says:
Mr. Pope at one time served as EO (Band D) in the Secretariat Air Staff [a junior civil servant grade] ... [and] left Sec(AS) in 1994...and his knowledge of this issue, other than from publicly available sources, must be regarded as dated. Mr. Pope elected to describe his position as the "Head of the MoD's UFO Project", a term entirely of his own invention, and he has used his experience and information he gathered (frequently going beyond the official remit of his position) to develop a parallel career as a pundit on the topic, including writing several books, some purportedly non-fiction. Mr. Pope constantly puts himself forward in various parts of the media, solicited and unsolicited, as an "expert" (despite his lack of recent knowledge about the work carried on in the branch concerned) and seeks credit amongst other aficionados for having "forced" the MoD to reveal its "secret" files on the subject. The latter is far from the truth...
Finally, in what might be the final straw here, David Clarke provided the following, “In another document from the same period, the head of the Air Historical Branch (RAF) is even more forthright, saying ‘Far from accurately representing the Department's position, he [Pope] has sought to embellish the truth at almost every turn’.”

I suppose, that if you wish to be generous, you could say that taking the initial report and asking questions about it could be considered part of an official investigation. But that is really stretching a point and doesn’t accurately reflect the situation. The actual investigation into the reports that demanded additional work was carried about by other British government organizations and Nick Pope had virtually nothing to do with that.

But the real problem here is what Nick Pope published on his own website. Any errors, embellishments, alterations of fact can’t be blamed on the webmaster. Nick Pope approved the content. This biography said:
Nick Pope ran the British Government’s UFO project. From 1991 to 1994 he researched and investigated UFOs, alien abductions, crop circles and other strange phenomena, leading the media to call him the real Fox Mulder. His government background and his level-headed views have made him the media, film and TV industry’s go-to guy when it comes to UFOs, the unexplained and conspiracy theories.
Another aspect of this was that Nick Pope had apparently accused David Clarke of plagiarism and of being a needy, dishonest ufologist. The direct quote from David Clarke is, “Nick Pope has called me dishonest, a liar, a nut and a serial plagiarizer - despite providing absolutely no evidence for any of these things all of which are seriously defamatory.” But this particular allegation has been debunked by Hayley Stevens a post to her blog which you can read here.

I mean you can disagree with someone but this is unreasonable. There is additional information contained in this post that sheds additional light on the problem. Some of the sources or documents she mentions I have seen and have copies for verification.

I’m not sure if this is piling on, or if it is relevant information. As noted above, Nick Pope claimed that he had investigated claims of alien abduction, crop circle formations or animal mutilations as part of his job at the MoD. Philip Mantle supplied the following information: Just read this from UK documentary producer Matt Quinn. This was posted in the comments section of the martin Willis podcast:
From that reference Phillippe... "From 1991 to 1994 Mr. Pope worked as a civil servant within Secretariat (air staff). He undertook a wide range of secretariat tasks relating to central policy, political and parliamentary aspects of non-operational RAF activity. Part of his duties related to the investigation of unidentified aerial phenomena reported to the Department to see if they had any defence significance." This doesn't actually contradict what David Clark has said, and what has been 'common knowledge' for a very long time... it also completely fails to support in any way, Nick Pope's ridiculously-aggrandised claims... But in reality? I can only paraphrase Martha and the Muffins...

" _From nine to five, he had to spend his time at work His job was very boring as an office clerk The only thing that helped him pass the time away Was knowing he'd be back at Echo Beach someday_ " As we're 'buying' UK government publications (when it suits) do a search with the UK's National Archive service... And I do very much encourage you to do your own legwork; don't just take my word for it. I can tell you (as a media professional) that when 'Open Skies Closed Minds' was published it was generally received by the press as highly entertaining bollocks... riding a wave that was well in motion at the time. Just a 'jolly japes' type romp through an over-egged fantasy world... Good copy, bit of a laugh. But Nick Pope always had more in common with Dilbert than Mulder. The woman who got Nick Pope's job after him is called Kerry Philpott, and is on record stating there was no "strange phenomena section" at the MOD and that whilst Nick had been an 'EO' - Junior management grade administrator - just as she now was, she wrote "neither he nor indeed am I the head of any 'UFO' section"...

There is a chap called James Easton who is fairly well known here in Scotland as something of a 'UFOlogist'. Way back in 1999 he wrote an open letter to the MOD which posed many questions about Nick's duties and the MOD's locus in relation to various 'Fortean' phenomena... The response he got was. “The main duties of the post concern non-operational RAF activities overseas and diplomatic clearance policy for military flights abroad. A small percentage of time is spent dealing with reports from the public about alleged ‘UFO’ sightings and associated public correspondence. The MoD has not investigated a claim of alien abduction, crop circle formations or animal mutilation.” I'm sure it's now well over a decade since David Clark put that information up on his own site - over 20 since James got the response he did from the MOD and I honestly cannot tell you of anyone (except the incredibly non-credible) to whom that was in any way, shape or form a surprise. David Clark hasn't lied. - You don't have to like the guy, or not be disappointed at Nick. But David hasn't lied.
This then, is the other side of the coin. I provided Nick Pope with a platform for his comments, and it is only fair that I supply the others with a similar courtesy. I’m inclined to say that the reader should take his or her own view of the material and decide what to believe. However, that is a somewhat weasel-worded claim for me to make. I waded into this swamp because I believed that Nick Pope should be heard, but now, having seen the other side, and although I think of Nick Pope as a friend (and can say the same about Philip Mantle and Nick Redfern), I must come down on their side of the fence.

What we see here is just another of the nasty fights that erupt in this field, though this one played out in the UK rather than here in America. If you care to comment, then you must be prepared for the consequences of that commentary. It had seemed to me, originally, that this was a bit of a fight over semantics, but it has, of course, ranged far beyond that. I don’t like the name calling or the allegations of plagiarism, having had that directed at me for a long time, but sometimes you just have to make a stand.

Here then, is what I believe to be the whole truth of the matter. And while I could say that I wish I had not involved myself in it, I would rather say that I think here is enough information that we all know the truth.

Following is one of those documents that seems to clarify the situation. I append it here for those who wish to see a little more of the evidence.