THE UFO CHRONICLES

Showing posts with label Roswell UFO Festival. Show all posts

Friday, July 04, 2014

"Mainstream UFO Coverage Doesn’t Get Much Better Than This Clash of Titans"

Pure fireworks

By Billy Cox
De Void
7-1-14

While we know corporate media has a glandular aversion to covering the UFO controversy, we also know the spectacle of little green man costumes and deely-bopper pageantry acts like catnip on their news judgement. They can’t help it — they pounce, they lather up in the images, they know what we like. Charlie Sheen would take a rain check on a booty call before the MSM passes on a space alien parade.

Well, it’s that time of year again, when tens of thousands of American party monsters converge in New Mexico for the annual Roswell UFO Festival, and we know the newsies will be out there in the streets, not at the lecture halls. But this year, not even The Economist — the distinguished British zine that wouldn’t normally deign to soil its white gloves with UFO skank — could resist the occasion. After reviewing sighting reports from the National UFO Reporting Center logs going back to Y2K, the periodical published its findings under the headline “Everything You Need To Know About UFOs.” And you’re not gonna believe the punchline: “(UFOs) tend to arrive in the evening, especially on Fridays, when folks are sitting on the front porch nursing their fourth beer, the better to appreciate flashing lights in the heavens.”

Whoa! Ha-HAAA! Damn! This really IS everything we need to know!

OK now, when you’re finished laughing and you’ve managed to scrape yourself off the floor, you’re not gonna believe who attacks the Economist's data — The Atlantic magazine! I know, right? But forget the title, “The Hard Data on UFO Sightings: It's Mostly Drunk People in the West” — the roundhouse is coming, man, and it's in the subtitle: “At least, that's one interpretation.”

Oh yeah, the Brits are in for a whumpin' now, and The Atlantic’s statistical analyst Derek Thompson really zings ‘em good. “What the Economist calls drinking hours,” Thompson writes, “are also the hours we're most likely to be outside looking at anything bright contrasting with the dark sky.” Ka-pow! The mouthguard comes hurtling toward spectators in the mezzanine! SportsCenter face-music highlight reel, dawg! But Thompson doesn’t stop there. The pundit notes how the state with the lowest beer consumption has a far higher UFO reporting rate than the state with the highest beer-drinking levels. And the state with the highest number of reports consumes less booze than all but six states. "There is more to the story," warns Thompson, merely winding up, "than alcohol, sheeple."

Then he polishes off The Economist with a wicked coup de grace, the kind of pile-driver stuff you'd see in the Roman Forum around 75 AD. “Have you considered,” Thompson concludes, “aliens ‘choose’ to fly over drunk people to destroy witnesses' credibility?”

Slam dunk Atlantic. Mainstream UFO coverage doesn’t get much better than this clash of titans. But hey, look at the clock -- it’s almost the Fourth. Can I knock off early and go look for UFOs at The Gator Club?

Continue Reading . . .

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Saturday, October 15, 2011

Daughter Recounts Her Father's Death Bed Confession of Seeing Roswell 'Spaceship' and 'Little People'

By Kevin Randle
A Different Perspective
7-21-11

While sitting at my table in the International UFO Museum and Research Center in Roswell, I heard a woman behind me say, “That was my father.” She was pointing to a picture of one of the soldiers assigned to the base in 1947.

I listened to her for a moment and then stood up to learn who she was and what she had been told.

Her name was Carlene Green (seen here pointing to her father's picture) who was the daughter of Sergeant Homer G. Rowlette, a member of the 603rd Air Engineering Squadron. And as established by the Yearbook produced by Walter Haut in 1947, he was clearly in Roswell at the right time.

According to what she said, she learned of her father’s part in the crash retrieval just days before he died. He was on a Gurney and about to be wheeled into an operating room when he asked her to come closer so that he could speak to her.

He told her that he had been at the base when the “spaceship” crashed and that he had seen it. He said that the craft was rounded and that he had seen three “little people,” and suggested that one of them had survived the crash.

He apologized for not telling her sooner but that he had told her brother the story sometime earlier. (The Yearbook picture of Sergeant Rowlette seen here).

Finally he cautioned her to keep it all to herself, or else.

This all happened in 1988, which is, of course, ten years after Jesse Marcel, Sr. told his story and eight years after the publication of The Roswell Incident.
While the story of the Roswell crash wasn’t as well known then as it is today, there were television shows that touched on it, there were documentaries about it and some magazine articles that told of it. In other words, this information didn’t appear in the vacuum that existed prior to 1980.

And yes, this is another second-hand story. It would have been nice to find it prior to Rowlette’s death in 1988 but that didn’t happen. We are left with these tales and we each must decide how important they are to the overall case. It does provide some interesting details, some of which have been suggested by others, but in the end, it is still second hand.

At any rate, Carlene Green was a nice woman who took a few minutes to share with me the information her father had given her so long ago.

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Thursday, July 22, 2010

Change Needed in Roswell

By Dennis Balthaser
www.truthseekeratroswell.com
7-20-10

Another Roswell UFO Festival is now in the history books, and in spite of a few “hiccups” along the way in preparation for the 2010 annual event, it was in my opinion a very successful event. During the 4-day event, the attendance on Saturday at the Roswell Convention and Visitors Center was as big as any I have attended.

The newly elected Mayor and one of the recently elected city councilmen made some comments that were picked up by the National media a few weeks before this years Festival was scheduled, that were detrimental to the city committee’s planning, and caused several entertainers and vendors to cancel. I agree with the Mayor that the cost of planning and operating such an event should be reviewed, however the return on such an investment to the benefit of Roswell appears to far outweigh the cost. The Festival affects everyone involved from the local t-shirt producer to American Airlines who are all involved, and looking to benefit from the Festival.

UFO Symposium Coordinator, City Festival Adviser and UFO researcher Peter Robbins gave an excellent presentation to the Mayor and city council at their monthly meeting July 8, emphasizing the importance of the city continuing to finance the annual festival. The Mayor thanked Peter, and agreed that the city of Roswell would continue to support the annual event, and anticipated that 2011 would be bigger than this year. I’m pleased that the Mayor and certain councilmen may have seen the benefits of continuing to support the Festival.

As it has been for the past few years, there are three conferences going on in Roswell during the annual event each July.

Guy Malone has one that examines the Roswell Incident from a theological perspective, assuming it was not an “ET” related incident. I personally welcome consideration of all possibilities in our combined effort to get the truth after 63 years, (although I may not agree with all.)

The UFO Museum, under the leadership of its current Director Julie Shuster, has an annual conference, which started back in the early 1990’s, when a few gentlemen in Roswell, and years before Shuster became involved as the Director, decided to organize an event. It grew in popularity each year with the 50th anniversary in 1997 possibly being the largest attended to date, nearly doubling the population of Roswell for a few days. When Shuster took over the Directorship of the Museum, problems began between her and several researchers and city personnel, resulting in a decline in attendance for the annual event.

Although the Museum received its share of the lodger’s tax in previous years from the city, the relationship between her and the city grew more hostile with each passing year. To the credit of the Museum (not it’s Director), the Museum does attract 150,000 people to Roswell each year, a considerable boost to the economy through merchants, t-shirt shops, restaurants, hotels and motels.

Realizing that the Roswell Festival was no longer reaching out to expand under the guidance of the Museum Director, and in fact declining in popularity, the former Mayor Sam LaGrone, stepped up and assembled a committee to organize a festival under the city of Roswell banner. On numerous occasions while I was on the city committee a few years ago, the city reached out to the Museum Director to join in with the city for the annual event. Shuster refused that offer time and time again, resulting in separate festivals the past few years, which is confusing to those attending each year, and has drawn a line in the sand between the city and the Museum Director.

Since becoming the Director of the Museum, Shuster has acquired a hand-selected board, utilized several CPAs, and started charging an admission to the museum, which the original founders of the Museum, (Walter Haut, Glenn Dennis and Max Littell), had strongly emphasized would never happen. More damaging in my opinion is the “control” she now attempts to place on speakers who participate in her annual event. They are instructed to NOT ATTEND any functions the city Festival has at the Convention and Visitors center because they are under contract to her for the duration of their stay in Roswell. Most of us researchers know each other and enjoy the infrequent times that we can get together during the festival, however this is no longer possible.

The problems caused by the Museum Director are much too numerous to list in this article, however I believe she hit a new low this past week. Last year the city Festival Committee created a Roswell UFO Hall of Fame induction ceremony to honor people to be drawn from three different categories: those involved in the incident itself, researchers, authors, investigators and lecturers, and contributors from the film, TV and documentary fields. The first inductee last year was Major Jesse Marcel, (the Intelligence officer of the 509th bomb wing stationed in Roswell in 1947.) Major Marcel’s award was graciously accepted by non other than Major Marcel’s son Jesse Marcel Jr., who himself became involved as a young boy, when his father brought debris by the house from the crash site, before returning to the base.

This year the city nominating committee selected three individuals to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. Stanton Friedman, the original civilian Roswell Incident researcher, known world wide for his investigations, Paul Davids, movie producer of the 1994 feature film Roswell, and by unanimous selection by the committee, Walter Haut, the Base Public Relations Officer who wrote the July 8, 1947 newspaper article that we had captured a Flying Saucer. Only two inductees were installed in the Hall of fame however, because when the UFO Museum Director Julie Shuster, (who is Walter Haut’s daughter) was asked to accept the award on behalf of her father she refused to participate. Not only was that disrespectful of her father and the Roswell Incident, but also again indicated her unwillingness to work with anyone not under her domination, and only added more animosity to an already bad situation.

In an article in the Roswell Daily Record newspaper Sunday July 11th, Shuster said, “Peter Robbins had contacted her sister about nominating their Dad (Walter Haut) into the city Hall of Fame, and if you were inducting someone into the Hall of Fame, you’d think you’d ask their family.” Is a sister not family?

Walter Haut will eventually be inducted into the Roswell Hall of Fame as he well should be, with or without the current Museum Directors approval.

It’s time for a change at the Museum, and the continued support of her hand-selected Board of Directors that appear to ignore the ill will she creates within the community, with researchers and the media. Visitors to Roswell are not aware of these problems and don’t need to be, but those that are aware need to look at making changes for the betterment of the annual Festival, and what locals have to deal with throughout the year.

The Roswell Festival is an important part of the community and local businesses, and must start being handled so all will benefit. The UFO Museum is also an important part of the community, and vitally needed for those interested in the subject of Ufology, but the attitude of the museum’s leadership is a hindrance to that being accomplished.

Vendors and researchers I talked to at the Visitors and Convention Center after the event, indicated this was one of the best years they have had participating in the city Festival, and my congratulations to Festival Director Renee’ Roach, Peter Robbins, the members of the City’s UFO Festival Committee and to all of the volunteers for a job well done.

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Thursday, July 15, 2010

Stanton Friedman: Beamed up into UFO Hall of Fame

By STEPHEN LLEWELLYN
The Daily Gleaner
7-15-10

Fredericton ufologist Stanton Friedman has been inducted into the Roswell UFO Hall of Fame.

Friedman was appointed to the hall of fame at a ceremony in Roswell, New Mexico, recently during the annual Roswell UFO Festival.

"I feel very good," said Friedman in an interview Wednesday. "I am the original civilian investigator of the Roswell incident.

"I started the ufological world on the Roswell train, if you will."

Roswell is the site of the alleged but famous flying saucer crash in 1947. Some believe the United States government recovered dead aliens, alien technology and covered it up.

The official explanation of the incident is that it was a top secret, high altitude surveillance balloon that crashed.

Friedman, 75, became famous in UFO circles in 1978 when he interviewed the late major Jesse Marcel who was involved in the recovery of debris from the incident in 1947.

Marcel said he thought there was a military coverup of a crash of an alien spacecraft.

At the time of the alleged crash, the Roswell military air base was home to the only nuclear bombing squadron in the world.

"I was the first one to talk to Jesse," said Friedman.

Marcel was inducted into the Roswell UFO Hall of Fame in 2009, the year the hall of fame was created.

"I have been delighted to be able to go back there many, many times, especially for the festival," said Friedman. "I like Roswell. They like me.

"I gave three lectures at the museum when I was down there over the July 4 weekend and was on a panel."

He said there were great crowds at the annual festival.

Friedman said he was presented with his hall of fame trophy by Dr. Jesse Marcel Jr., son of the late military officer.

According to Friedman, Marcel Jr. briefly handled some of the alleged spacecraft debris brought home by his father in 1947.

Friedman, a former nuclear scientist, said the hall of fame is a means of giving recognition to people who have contributed in some way to spreading the story of Roswell.

"There will be others who will be honoured for standing up and being counted.''

Friedman said the best proof that aliens are visiting Earth isn't a new video of an object in the sky but the many large-scale scientific studies that have been done on the subject over the years.

"The cumulative evidence based on 60 years of collection," he said. "Sure, most of the evidence gets thrown out."

But there are always cases that can't be explained by natural phenomenon, said Friedman.

"I would say in the general public the great majority of people believe some UFOs are alien spacecraft, but they are afraid to admit it.''

He said he has lectured at universities all over Canada and the United States and done hundreds of radio and television interviews.

One of the things he does at his lectures is ask university students to answer questions by a show of hands while they have their eyes closed so they aren't influenced by their neighbours. Friedman first asks them how many people they think believe in UFOs and the answer is usually around 20 per cent.

Then he asks them to close their eyes and raise their hands if they believe in UFOs.

He said about 80 per cent of his audience raises its hands.

"So we have the crazy situation that most people believe but they believe most people don't so therefore they act accordingly," said Friedman.