Responding to Bragalia’s Rebuttal to My Editorial About “The Foster Ranch and The BLM”

By Dennis Balthaser
www.truthseekeratroswell.com
1-6-10

     Unlike several comments I’ve received about my recent editorial shown above, Tony Bragalia has written a rebuttal because he is “left wondering precisely what point I was trying to make”. I have no intentions of getting into a word battle with Tony about this, and believe he fits into Stanton Friedman’s often used quote of “Don’t confuse me with facts, my minds made up”. He did the same thing in a recent article he also wrote about the Socorro New Mexico incident.

So for Tony’s sake, the point I was trying to make was simply sharing with the reader the facts about how the BLM documents were obtained by Wendy Connors and I back in 1998 and 1999, and exactly what was contained in them referring to the 1947 Roswell Incident. I had no interest in the other content of the 9 page documents, since they referred to grazing rights on the current ranch, which Tony apparently has no knowledge of here in New Mexico. I also didn’t comment on other things he mentioned in his article due to not having first-hand knowledge of those things, in contrast to the first-hand knowledge I did have about the BLM documents.

In his original article it appeared to me that Tony was indicating the BLM was covering up something by imposing restrictions on the site, while they admitted in a government document that it was the location of one of the “alleged” sites of a UFO crash in 1947.

In Tony’s rebuttal to my editorial, I noticed the following comments:

“He had no prior knowledge of this”. Well Tony, the documents (and there were two as I showed in my editorial) were written in 1998 and 1999, so I don’t suppose you did any research with the BLM back then, consequently you’re a little late coming to the dance. Did he even notice the date of the document he quoted when he did his examination of BLM documents? What he discovered “remains unclear in examining BLM online records”, according to his rebuttal.

Tony also made a comment that “the Foster’s Great Grandson and Foster daughter both believe that their family knew that the crashed object was extraterrestrial in nature”. Do they believe it or know it? There is a difference in the two Tony.

In the same paragraph Tony said, “ the grandson believes the Fosters may have been granted land rights for their silence”, and “the daughter believes her father was threatened and intimidated by the government”. Those are all possibilities, but should not be taken as a factual without more research, which Tony obviously didn’t do before writing his article.

The two paragraphs I quoted in my editorial were scanned from the original documents I have had in my files for the past 10 years, and are not of the best quality, but I was trying to show that they were copies of the original documents---not something I retyped.

See Also:

The Foster Ranch and the BLM:
A Rebuttal By Anthony Bragalia

The Foster Ranch and the BLM

Roswell Crash Revelations From The Foster Ranch

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The Foster Ranch and the BLM:A Rebuttal By Anthony Bragalia

By Anthony Bragalia
UFO Iconoclast(s)
1-5-10

     Though I enjoyed reading Dennis Balthaser's critique of my recent Foster Ranch/Roswell article, I am left wondering precisely what point he is trying to make. Though it goes on paragraph after paragraph, I still do not know it's purpose.

Mr. Balthaser apparently wishes to advise readers that he made the find of the BLM document on the Foster Ranch development restrictions (and its mention of an alleged UFO crash at the site near Roswell) a decade ago. This is very interesting, however I had no prior knowledge of this. My discovery of the document was independent of this and was resultant from an examination of BLM records to see if the Foster's were ever favored with property rights in the time period after the Roswell crash of July 1947. There are in fact transfers to the Fosters whose details remain unclear in examining BLM online records.

And the fact remains that subsurface and rights-of-way development is forbidden on that allotment. This is not a joke or "throw away" line within the BLM document, and the restriction remains in force to this day.

This is a public document -available to all to read- so I am entirely uncertain what Mr. Balthaser means by saying that I am implying that there is a "coverup" of the document. Though the significance of the document is open to interpretation, he admits that the BLM sees the site as historically significant, and therefore they wish to preserve its integrity. That is precisely my point. And no matter what Mr. Balthaser is trying to imply, development involving drilling for oil, gas or minerals is forbidden on the allotment- as is the installation of roadways, powerlines or similar land transgressions. This is a binding determination by the federal government, not an insiders's spoof or some individual's offhand remark.

Additionally, Mr. Balthaser ignores the greater part of my Foster Ranch article. Foster Great Grandson Cody Derek -as well as Foster daughter Joann Purdie- both believe that their family knew that the crashed object was extraterrestrial in nature. Derek believes that JB Foster and HS Foster may have been granted land rights in exchange for their silence. He relates telling testimony from his family about the event that leads him to the conclusion that a piloted flying saucer did crash on family land. JB Foster's daughter Joann believes that her father was threatened and intimidated by the government to keep his silence. She too feels that the Foster Ranch story has never been fully told and that the role her father and uncle played in the saga was significant.

See Also:

The Foster Ranch and the BLM

Roswell Crash Revelations From The Foster Ranch

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The Foster Ranch and the BLM

By Dennis Balthaser
www.truthseekeratroswell.com
1-1-10

     I was recently reviewing some of my old files and came upon some research I had done back in 1999, in reference to the then Foster ranch, where “Mack” Brazel had claimed to have found debris from an unknown craft in July 1947. Historical UFO researcher Wendy Connors and I had conducted several interviews with the local BLM office here in Roswell back in 1999, obtaining information and documents pertaining to the BLM’s more recent involvement at the ranch.

I was surprised when recently, (10 years later), I read an article penned by Anthony Bragalia, entitled, “Roswell Crash Revelations from the Foster Ranch”, in which I got the impression that he believed there was some conspiracy or cover-up by the BLM about the ranch. (I need to be clear here, in that I am not a big supporter of the way our government and military handled, and still handles information pertaining to the 1947 Roswell Incident.) However based on the research I did 10 years ago, I have no reason to believe the BLM is hiding or covering up anything about the ranch. In this case, I feel we may have an infrequent admission by a government agency that something did in fact happen on the Foster ranch in 1947.

In Bragalia’s article he mentions that ranch foreman “Mack” Brazel was sometimes referred to as “Mac”. That’s a true statement and many articles referred to him as “Mac”, however when I found Mack and Maggie’s burial site the spelling on their tombstone was definitely “Mack”.


I have the distinct impression that the article written about the Foster ranch by Bragalia is another of his attempts to take good research and put his own “spin” on it, as in this case, assuming that because of the restrictions put on the site by the BLM office, they are covering something up. The one paragraph in the BLM report he’s referring to that I uncovered in 1999 consisted of several visits to the local BLM office, interviews with numerous employees involved in writing the report, and acquisition of actual documents from them.

When I first contacted the local BLM office in late 1998, I did not tell them who had made me aware of a document they had referring to the crash site. I had been told that an Environmental Impact Study had been recently done on the ranch that I might be interested in. That document was a United States Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management, Environmental Assessment (EA) NM-066-99-003 on allotment #63020, concerning grazing.

I obtained a copy of the 12-page document, which was dated December 1, 1998. After reading through it, I found two paragraphs referring to the 1947 UFO crash contained in the report. Under Section III, Affected Environment, B., Affected Resources, the following paragraph on page 4 is copied from the actual document.


To imply that this paragraph got my attention would be an understatement, particularly since the document was signed off by 11 employees of the Roswell BLM office, including the cover letter, signed by the Acting Assistant Field Office Manager. I immediately contacted the BLM office to inquire about how the information was obtained and who wrote it. I was told that the gentleman who wrote it, did it as a joke to see if anyone would catch it, and it should have been removed before the document was made public. I was assured that it would not be included in the final copy. I of course requested a copy of the final report to verify if in fact that paragraph had been removed.

We also had the opportunity a day or two later to meet in person with the guy that had written that paragraph, and all the employees at BLM that we talked to were very cooperative with information, again insisting that it was a joke and that it would not be included in the final report. I was fairly emphatic in my response to them that some of us do not consider the study of Ufology a joke, and would anticipate getting a copy of the final document to review.

The second paragraph also containing a statement about the crash site is located on page 6 in the same Section III, B., Resources, as item 9., Recreation, shown here again copied from the actual document.

- click on image(s) to enlarge -

This is the paragraph that Anthony Bragalia referred to in his article, in which he assumes the BLM is involved with some conspiracy or cover-up. This paragraph remained in the final report dated August 9, 1999 which I received by certified mail from the U.S. Department of the Interior, postmarked August 10, 1999.

Having visited with several employees of the local BLM office on numerous occasions in regard to this document and other inquiries I’ve had, I do not feel that anyone associated with the BLM is involved with anything abnormal or any conspiracy about the crash site. Rather because I know of the interest at least one employee has in Ufology in general, and having listened to several other employees I believe the BLM is preserving this portion of land, unlike many of the historical buildings that no longer exist dealing with the Roswell Incident, such as Sheriff Wilcox’s office, (now court rooms), the base infirmary, (now a vacant lot) and others.

During our visits to the BLM office we were always given answers to all of our questions, given maps of the crash site area, and other information useful in our research. Additionally, a few years ago the Sci-Fi channel in conjunction with the U. of New Mexico Archeological Department conducted a dig at the site. Would the BLM have allowed that if they were trying to cover up something?

We were told that the crash site is excluded from Right-of-way and mineral leasing and withdrawn from mining claim location and designated NSO, (No Surface Occupancy), for oil and gas leasing as a means of preserving the site.

The reason 40 acres of this land is Federal land is because it was never changed to state or private land, which is common on many ranches in New Mexico. It has nothing to do with a UFO crash site allegedly being on the ranch, other then a way to preserve it, with the Environmental Assessment document. The Federal land was also shown on the maps we were given.

I am appreciative of the fact that a Federal agency (Bureau of Land Management), is acknowledging in a public document that something may have happened on the Foster ranch by stating, “One of the alleged UFO crash sites of 1947 is located on this allotment”, leaving the door open for more research.

I believe the BLM’s statement about the “alleged site” being an extraordinary notation as stated by Bragalia also, but for very different reasons than he implies. Wendy Connors and I did a lot of legwork in our research with the BLM, which many in the field of Ufology do not do, while they claim to have all the answers. Unlike most of my research, this is one project that I believe may be to our advantage in the long run, warranting further investigation.

More . . .

See Also:

Roswell Crash Revelations From The Foster Ranch

Interview: Cody Derrick - Grandson of Roswell Crash Site Owners - The Foster Ranch

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Roswell Crash Revelations From The Foster Ranch

By Anthony Bragalia
The UFO Iconoclast(s)
12-8-09

     New Mexico ranches are some of the most spectacular in the country. But one spread of land there holds a special distinction. It is said that in July of 1947 a craft from another world crashed from the sky onto the Foster Ranch outside Roswell. Strewn wide across the desert grasses, arroyos and rock outcroppings lay unearthly debris from a flying saucer.

Recently obtained information provides astonishing insight about what fell on the Foster fields. Two descendants of the famous ranching family have come forward to tell their stories of what they know about the event. A recently acquired federal document indicates that the government has forever barred the ranch from development. And as the investigation continues, we find the possibility of a pay-off for rancher silence!

What celestial secrets do the soils at the Foster Ranch hold?

The Ranch Manager's Discovery
Mac (sometimes spelled Mack) Brazel was the Ranch Manager for the Fosters at the time of the Roswell crash. He reported finding a large batch of unusual "debris" scattered on the grounds of the Foster ranch. The debris was apparently like nothing he had ever seen before. The nature of the material was so strange that Mac felt compelled to bring pieces of it to Loretta and Floyd Proctor, who owned an adjacent ranch. In a conversation with this author last year I asked Loretta (still active at 95) what she thought of the debris. I asked her if -over 60 years later- she still believed the debris shown to her to be special. She replied: "Yes." She said that it was not wood, it was not metal. It was not fiberglass nor any type of known material. She said: "I've never have seen anything like it before or since." I then asked, "Loretta, all these years on -with all of the advances in metals and plastics- do you really believe that the material you saw was not from Earth?" She replied without hesitation, "Yes, I really do."

The debris was apparently like nothing Mac had ever seen before either. The nature of the material was strange enough that he felt compelled to bring pieces of it to the Proctors. He also showed it to the owner of Wade Bar, Jesse Wade. Mac was motivated enough by his find to report it the Roswell Sheriff, George Wilcox. Mac also met with Roswell Army Air Field intelligence personnel to relate his discovery. It is known that Mac had stated that if he ever found anything at all like that again, that "they are going to have a hard time getting me to say anything about it!" True to his word, he never spoke publicly about the incident again.

The Foster Family Confesses
The owners of the Foster Ranch were twin brothers named H.S. (Henry) Foster and J.B. "Jap" or "Jasper" Foster. The Foster family had substantial land holdings throughout the states of New Mexico and Texas (including at Midland and Kent, TX.)

Often overlooked is that the Fosters -as owners of the ranch- had to have had a major role in the crash saga. After all, it was their ranch that was cordoned off for some time. It was their ranch to which access was restricted. Mac's son Paul Brazel (in a rare statement about the event) said that the military would not even allow them to water and feed their livestock during the recovery. According to Joe, his Uncle said, "You know what always riled me, even up to this day? Every time I tried to get to the main ranch house to water the horses in all that summer heat, the damn Army forced me off the ranch! I tried again the next day and they still threw me off our property. I was sure that they had done nothing for the animals."

Paul Brazel avoided discussion with Roswell researchers throughout his life. But in discussions with investigators Tom Carey and Don Schmitt, Paul's nephew related that Paul had arrived first to the ranch to take over affairs during their father's absence (as Mac was being interrogated by RAAF.) Property belonging to the Fosters was transgressed by military.

Work time and ranch profits were lost. The government had seriously impinged private property. They had sent in soldiers and equipment and had literally "taken over" the ranch for a long period of time. Ranch hands and family were removed from their own land. The Fosters (in Texas at the time of the crash) had surely been made aware that their ranch was the location of the fallen disc. Newspaper articles appearing in publications across the country must have caught there attention. It seemed likely that either Mac and/or the military itself had made the owners of the ranch aware that the property was a subject of military investigation. In fact it is now known that Mac did did indeed call his employers the Fosters to dutifully alert them to the situation. Geraldine Perkins, who ran a grocery store in Corona, indicated in a relatively recent interview that she had allowed Mac to use the telephone within the store to notify his employers of the crash.

The daughter of JB Foster was located by authors Tom Carey and Don Schmitt. Their discussion with the Foster daughter, Joann Purdie, is reported in the newly revised Witness to Roswell (2009) book by authors Tom Carey and Don Schmitt (to which this author contributed material.)

Joann Purdie agrees that something very serious and of great concern had happened at the family ranch. She said, "My Dad knew that it was a flying saucer and never changed his story. And just as the Army had warned and threatened Mack Brazel, they did the same to him."

Joann encountered Mac many times after the crash. He would say nothing to her about the event, other than that it was not a weather balloon. She maintains that Mac had called her father after the crash to tell him what had happened and that military had overrun the property. She had observed how her father's attitude and demeanor had changed so drastically after the crash. She told the researchers, "Whatever he saw or heard for himself, he too did not want to talk about it after he returned home." But Purdy believes that based on what she had gathered in bits and pieces overy the years that followed, the debris that had fallen on the family ranch was not from Earth. It was material that was entirely unknown. She is suspicious about Mac's death too. And due to specific comments made to her by her Dad, she said, "I have absolutely no doubt that he believed the threats and that they meant business."

Cody Derek, a Foster Great Grandson, has come forward to state that his family has known that it was an extraterrestrial craft that crashed on the ranch. In approximately 2000, after a TV show on Roswell had aired, Cody questioned his Grandfather, H.S. Foster's son (whom he called Papa) about the event. Papa acted very uncharacteristic and evasive with his grandson when questioned, so Cody dropped the matter sensing that it was upsetting to his grandfather to discuss the incident.

In 2005, when Papa passed away, Cody asked his Uncle about the nature of the Roswell crash. Cody's Uncle confirmed that he remembered the crash well and that he was 17 at the time. When asked by Cody point-blank if it was a UFO, his Uncle replied:

"Those boys up there told me they were certain without a doubt that it was a flying saucer." When Cody asked if there were any pilots of the craft -bodies- found within the wreckage, his Uncle sputtered, "Uh, uh, I don't know. I can't remember." Then he said sternly to his nephew that was all he knew about that. Cody sensed that this was still a very sensitive matter with the family and let the matter drop. As so often with the Roswell story, when talk comes 'round to the bodies, it is met with silence.

The Forbidding Government Document
The United States Government had issued an edict: No development at the Foster Ranch- even today.

The US Department of Interior's Bureau of Land Management (BLM) administers hundred of millions of acres of property throughout the nation. Among other administrative responsibilities, they review and approve federal land transfers and they grant authority for subsurface exploration underlying Federal, State and private land. The BLM also issues Environmental Assessments (EA's) for property. The BLM's Roswell, NM Office has recorded an assessment entitled, "Environmental Assessment for Grazing Authorization of Allotment 63020" which includes the Foster Ranch.

A stunning notation about this allotment is found within the document:

"One of the alleged UFO crashes of 1947 is located on this allotment. The UFO crash site has been excluded from rights-of-way and mineral leasing. The site will be withdrawn from mining claim location and is designated NSO for oil and gas leasing."

This notation is extraordinary. It is an official federal document that expressly forbids mineral, oil, gas or similar development at the ranch. It also forbids right of way. This means that no road, powerline, fiber optic network, railroad or highway may ever be built on the land. Why is this so? What may still lie beneath Foster soils?

A Payoff for Silence?
The Foster's Great Grandson Cody Derek states that the Fosters acquired additional properties after the period of 1947. He says that they literally "made a fortune off of oil." He believes that it is distinctly possible that the Fosters were favored with property transfer of federal lands (or other types of land rights) in exchange for the family's "compliance" during the event- and to assure their continued silence on the matter. Although these favors to the Fosters could have been granted in any state, it is interesting to note that a historic review of BLM property transfer records lists eight entries for "Henry Foster" in NM for eight different properties transfers. But details of these transfers remain unavailable. They are not recorded in these records because, according to documents, they have "not been assigned for system automation."

Something fell from afar at the Fosters. Their descendants -and the documents- tell us this. And whatever it could have been was buried beneath the silence of the involved and perhaps -the government may fear- the soils of their ranch.

More . . .

See Also:

Interview: Cody Derrick - Grandson of Roswell Crash Site Owners - The Foster Ranch

“The Other 1947 Roswell Newspaper”

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Interview: Cody Derrick - Grandson of Roswell Crash Site Owners - The Foster Ranch

By Rick Davis/Paul Demire
Open Minds Forum
May 2008

More . . .

See Also:

The Truth Is Out There: Roswell Incident Recalled By Local Vet

Roswell Incident; Once a Non-Believer, Facts Don’t Matter

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