Showing posts with label Tony Bragalia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tony Bragalia. Show all posts
Thursday, March 13, 2014
The Roswell [Alien] Slides - Once Again
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Although this might be considered kicking the sleeping dogs and stirring the pot unnecessarily, I think it important to address this issue one more time. I have, previously, denied that I was involved in the investigation of the slides that allegedly show the body of an alien creature. When I said that I hadn’t participated in the investigation, some saw that as a lie on my part, but the truth then, as now, is that other than a few limited enquiries made prior to learning more of the story, I did not investigate.
To recap, about a year ago, rumors began to circulate that members of the Team had learned of two slides that showed an alien creature on a gurney. At that time, I knew nothing about this and the claim that we all were obligated to remain silent because of some kind of nondisclosure agreement (NDA) was untrue. Nick Redfern seemed to have some information about that and I called him. He told me the story and I had no reason to doubt what he was saying which is not to say that it was accurate. Nick was telling me what he had been told without investigation on his part (sort of the same thing I’ve been saying).
I emailed the members of the team, telling them what I knew and that I had signed no NDA. I was surprised to learn that Nick's information was accurate. There were two slides and an NDA had been signed. At this point, realizing that anything I said publicly could be construed as a violation of the agreement, meaning simply that the man holding the slides would believe that either Tom Carey or Don Schmitt had told me about the slides violating the NDA. This was not true. I would have liked to publish on my blog that information because my source on it was Nick Redfern, but I was afraid that the slide owner would not believe I had learned about them from another source.
That was the extent of my “investigation.” I learned that others were working on this and that anything I did could compromise their working relationship with the source. Once in a while, I would hear something new, mostly from Nick or at Rich Reynolds’ UFO Iconoclasts blog. But I was getting no new information from those involved in the investigation and was offering no advice, other than to suggest that I thought the whole thing problematic. There was no provenance for the slides and no one really knew who the photographer was. This is the same basic problem that haunted the MJ-12 nonsense for years.
At one point late last summer, after suggesting these problems, I was shown a research protocol for validating the slides. I did not solicit the document. I was provided with it because of a negative comment I had made in another arena. At the time, I thought the document was telling me about things that been done, but on rereading it, realized it was merely a proposal for investigation.
All this is just a preliminary to remind those who have not been paying attention the circumstances of this dust up. I had told many that I wasn’t involved in the investigation and I mentioned to a few that I knew some of the details but not all of them. In fact, when Nick said that the “nether” regions of the alien were covered, I thought he meant by a cloth, not by a hand-lettered sign. Such was my knowledge of the slides and my “investigation” into them.
Just a few days ago I received a copy of UFO Today. Philip Mantle supplied it to me and I found the article “Do Slides from 1947 Show A Roswell Humanoid,” written by Tony Bragalia. It is a recap of the investigation into the slides and how Tom and Don came into possession of them. It was similar to a piece he had published last year. Tony wrote, “My research associates, pioneer Roswell investigators and authors Tom Carey and Don Schmitt, began a dialog with…” Well, for my purposes here, the rest of the sentence is irrelevant (oh, okay, it said, “…with a brother and his sister, a onetime estate-cleaner.” See? It was irrelevant.).
At that point Tony tells how the unnamed brother and sister got their hands on the slides and how the discovery of them eventually reached Tom and Don. He goes into some detail about the woman who originally owned the slides, supposedly, I guess, inherited from her husband and the like. For those interested, check out the UFO Today web site to learn how you can acquire that issue of the digital magazine.
Later in the article, Tony wrote, “Anyone who may know more about Ray [the man who owned the slides] (or his professional colleagues) are encouraged to contact a Roswell investigative team member – Tom Carey, Don Schmitt, David Rudiak or this author with any relevant information.”
See, once again my name is left out. Why? Because, I was not involved in the investigation. These four were working on it without consulting me. This article, I believe, proves that I wasn’t involved in it. I was knowledgeable (as were several others), but not involved.
True, I had some inside knowledge, but that isn’t the same as participating in an investigation. I have inside knowledge of Project Blue Book (well, not so inside anymore) but I didn’t investigate UFOs for the Air Force or Project Blue Book. Yes, I know that this will do nothing to convince those who believe I lied about it that I did not. But maybe some of those who are sitting on the fence will understand that sometimes situations are just not black and white and sometimes people just make errors.
I hope that information from one of those who did participate and are participating in the investigation will be good enough but I know it won’t. They are too deeply invested in the idea that I was a participant in the investigation. Sometimes you just get caught between the rock and the hard place and there isn’t much you can do about it. This is not the first time that something like this has happened to me… guilt by association… but I can hope it will be the last.
Saturday, October 12, 2013
Roswell Controversy: Kodachrome Slides Rumored to Show a Dead Alien – 'They’re Both in Full Color and Extremely Close'
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| Example of Kodachrome slide mount of the '40's (credit: Zoggavia) |
The chainsaw blues
 | By Billy Cox De Void 10-9-13 |
There’s a scene in “Parkland,” the new film about the JFK assassination, where a shaken Abraham Zapruder, played by Paul Giamatti, has this horrific moment of clarity. Not only has he witnessed and inadvertently filmed the breathtaking murder of his hero, he understands his life, and his family’s life, will never be the same.
In the blink of an eye, Zapruder has been blasted from anonymity into the glare of multiple law-enforcement agencies. His phone rings off the hook. The media is playing tug-of-war hardball for exclusive publishing rights. Behind closed door, a Life magazine editor has an inside track on fee negotiations. Anguished, guilt-addled, the Dallas clothing manufacturer rightly insists his first priority is to protect the security of his family, whose privacy will be turned inside out through no fault of his own.
Life would ultimately purchase the images for $150,000; Zapruder would donate $25,000 to the widow of Dallas PD officer J.D. Tippit, slain minutes after Kennedy was gunned down. Zapruder would never use the Bell and Howell Zoomatic camera again. Nor would the reluctant eyewitness to history keep a copy of the footage that everyone wanted. He died in 1970 at 65. Time flies.
You may have read about the latest Roswell controversy involving two Kodachrome slides rumored to show a dead alien recovered from the alleged 1947 crash site. The reason we’re hearing about it now is that a member of the small informal group of researchers — known as the “Roswell Dream Team,” an extremely unfortunate moniker — shared information with a trigger-happy outside player, and the whole thing blew up on the Internet before their investigation was complete. It’s easy to get lost in the details, but team member Kevin Randle issued a mea culpa summary last week.
De Void, of course, has no skin in the game and has no idea about what's what. Given the “Alien Autopsy” fiasco of 1995, De Void’s suspicions here are visceral. However. What’s different this time is that, if the tale is true, the owner of the photos isn’t shopping for the highest bidder — he’s apparently scared sh*tless about having his name linked to them. Which, in the context of UFOs, sounds absolutely, perfectly, unambiguously and unremarkably sane.
Tony Bragalia is one of the researchers. He’s a Sarasota hometown guy and we’ve talked on a number of occasions. He’s an executive talent scout and he knows how and where to root out information. He’s been on the Roswell trail for years and financed his research out of his own pocket. He says he’s met the owner of the photos and seen the pix personally. “They’re both in full color and extremely close,” he says.
Story in a nutshell: an estate-cleaning outfit discovers the slides stashed in an envelope inside an attic trunk belonging to a deceased and apparently respected geologist working the Texas-New Mexico region for oil exploration in the 1940s. The geologist and his late wife have no heirs. The slides are brought to the attention of the business owner, who has read Witness to Roswell
by Thomas Carey and Donald Schmitt. The guy makes a few calls, out of curiosity. Bragalia gets pulled into the investigation last year.In many ways, it’s a fool’s errand. Even if, as Bragalia contends, the slides have been authenticated as vintage 1947 stock, the images could’ve been staged. The photographer is unknown. The time and location of the shots are unknown. The geologist is dead. Still, given the potential stakes, research proceeds, delving into the geologist’s friends, professional associates, the paper trail, the gritty thankless stuff that might produce the unanticipated revelation, or maybe another circumstantial payoff.
Then, last month, word of the photos splatters urgently onto the Internet, which forces the researchers to respond. The blogosphere lights up with accusations and invective, character attacks and omniscient screeds from The Excluded, who have no more information than I do. After fielding late-night phone calls from angry strangers demanding to see the photos, Bragalia, who has never possessed them, delivers his own retort. The subsequent comment threads merely validate the slide owner’s aversion to going public. Things like “The slides either don't exist or they're fake and someone is the victim of a scam,” “Pure, unassailable Bullshit,” “put up or shut up,” and “YOU SUCK!!!!!!!!!!”
Yeah, put me in, coach ...
“How people can comment on evidence that hasn’t been presented yet is beyond me. The drama and the politics over this thing have overwhelmed the investigation,” says Bragalia, who drew fire from the "believer" side for proving, last year, to his satisfaction, the famous 1964 Socorro UFO incident was a student hoax. “We’ve found out a lot -- the back story, the chain of custody, the provenance of the film has been well established. But why present the evidence prematurely? An attorney representing clients wouldn’t ask a judge to make an early determination until he’d completed his own investigation.”
Bragalia says the investigation is continuing, but without the photo owner coming forward to explain, this one's stillborn. But De Void gets it. Fifty years ago, confronted with the obligations of justice and history, Abraham Zapruder made the only choice he could. In a real sense, his life was no longer his own. At least his troubles were worth a measure of financial compensation.
But imagine if you stumbled across something far murkier, something potentially Earth-rocking but also, perhaps, no more substantial than a Whoopee cushion. You have no agenda because you honestly don’t know what you’re dealing with. But it defies conventional wisdom. Stepping up will provoke swift and unpredictable emotional reaction, some of it inevitably unstable. Whatever money you could get for it — if you wanted to play that angle — would never be enough to buy back the blessed obscurity you forfeited on the gamble that your exhibit might write, or re-write, history.
Right. Sorry, history -- you lose.
Continue Reading . . .
See Also:
Death of a Dream | Kevin Randle To Exit Roswell Dream Team
Roswell Dream Team member, Kevin Randle Denies Involvement in Alien Photograph Investigation
UFO NEWS | Chris Rutkowski Joins Roswell Dream Team
Roswell Investigation Dream Team
UFO NEWS | Tony Bragalia Joins Roswell Dream Team
UFO NEWS | David Rudiak Joins the Roswell Investigation Dream Team
ROSWELL UFO CRASH: New Evidence Concerning ‘Photographs’ of Alien Bodies Revealed!
Details of Alleged Photographic Evidence Re Roswell UFO Crash Leaked To The Public!
ROSWELL ALIEN PHOTOGRAPHS: Ufologist, Nick Redfern Divulges His Involvement in Scandal
Authentic Alien Images from Roswell UFO Crash Finally Found?
SHARE YOUR UFO EXPERIENCE
Sunday, October 06, 2013
Death of a Dream | Kevin Randle To Exit Roswell Dream Team
Editor's Note: It was TUFOC's understanding that the Roswell Dream Team was disbanding, not necessarily due to what we perceive as a scandal; however, DT member Tony Bragalia as well as Kevin have informed us that the DT will go on, thus we have amended the "post title"–FW
(Blogger’s Note: I published this with trepidation, simply because I have been warned that if I persist in the claim that I was not a participant in the slide investigation other confidential emails will be published to prove the point. I freely admit that it appears from those emails that I was involved but the reality is that I wasn’t even completely in the loop. But I will not be intimidated. I told the truth when I said that I had not seen the slides and that I did not participate in the investigation of them. So, even with this threat handing over my head, I post the following.)
Well, looks like this time it was I who screwed the pooch. I trusted a friend with information, which he is now outraged that I dumped on him, but that wasn’t his original reaction. The big regret here is that it is Tom Carey who gets caught in the crossfire which is not of his making.
Some two years ago, Tom approached me to do the “ultimate” Roswell book. I had already approached a publisher with a similar idea, but that publisher wasn’t interested in it, thinking that the market was saturated and besides, they liked their books to be about several cases rather than concentrating on one. That solved a dilemma for me.
We discussed the direction that we wanted to go and I think our opinions were a little different. I wanted to be sure the book was properly and completely resourced and Tom agreed, but he didn’t want the book to be written for skeptics. I thought we should follow the “what do we think, what do we know and what can we prove” adage.
Tom, gentleman that he is, didn’t want to leave Don out of it and although we hadn’t discussed it, told Don of the project. We all met sometime later and talked about what the project would need. I said that for it to work well, we would need to find something more than additional testimony. We would need some documentation, some kind of confirmation that went beyond additional testimony, but I had no idea what that would be.
As a side note, I did learn of a woman who claimed to have a diary written in 1947 that mentioned some of this. That was what we needed and I pursued that only to learn, in a conversation with Tom, that he’d actually been to the woman’s home in New Mexico and the diary, if it existed, was buried in an out building that was filled with snakes and scorpions, two of my favorite things.
Finding myself having completed my contractually obligated book, I thought that I would begin to put together the information for part of the investigation, which was an analysis of MJ-12. I don’t know how we could do anything unless we looked deeply into this controversy. It ran more than fifty pages and had 175 footnotes.
I also completed a long piece on Project Mogul in which I actually found a few things that had not been discussed before, most of them coming from the Air Force report on Roswell. I think the Air Force just threw in all this material without looking at it. Some good stuff is hidden in there. Like the MJ-12 report about Mogul was long and heavily footnoted.
Several of us were continuing to interview witnesses, or to be technically correct so that I’m not accused of lying again, men who were stationed in Roswell in July 1947. These were men who had not been located before and who had not come forward. The results were mixed with some not knowing anything and others adding to the body of testimony. At this point, as can be imagined, all were in their eighties.
We were chugging along, finding some new witnesses, developing some new information and I thought, looking for that sizzle that would bring this all home. One thing that must be said is that we were scattered all over the United States and into Canada. We communicated through email and telephone and just a few times in person. That made coordination a little difficult, but not impossible.
Then, earlier this year, Rich Reynolds published his piece about slides that had been found showing alien bodies, or I suppose, more accurately, a strange creature that might be a deformed human. Nick Redfern was the source of the information, which I had never heard until I read it on Rich’s blog. I sent Nick an email and he said I should call, which I did.
On February 10, 2013, I sent an email to the team, which must have struck most of them as odd, because it demonstrated my total lack of knowledge on the subject. I said:
I have no idea if any of you have been watching the nonsense over at Rich Reynolds’ UFO Iconoclasts blog. He is suggesting that he now has inside information of the Roswell events, which he will release in the near future… However, I noted today that he is suggesting that we all have entered into some sort of legal entanglement to cement our legacy and that we are prevented from disclosing what we know. I have entered no such agreement with anyone and have no inside knowledge that I have hidden from the group. If any one of you have done so (and no I don't think you have) it would not be legally binding on the rest of us. …. I don't know the purpose… Therefore, my advice is to ignore him completely (Ahh, had I just taken my own advise).In response I learned some of the details of the slides and given the situation, pursued it no further. It was under control by members of the team and by inserting myself into the investigation, I could screw it up. The owner of the slides seemed to be a little “gun shy.”
And that is the extent of my investigation. I talked to Nick, learned a little more about what had been written, and then received an email advising me that the situation was being handled. There was nothing more for me to do about it.
Periodically, Rich would publish a little more, but he didn’t add details and seemed to be averse to saying anything that might screw up the investigation. It was just a periodic mention of this, most of which were observed.
In August I agreed to do the podcast with Paul Kimball. By then I had heard little more about this. It was not my investigation and there simply was nothing that I could do to further it. My intervention might have screwed things up, and while I thought of this as a rather unsophisticated “alien autopsy” I also thought the investigation should continue. I did mention to one of the team members that I believed the slides to be a hoax.
After that podcast, I noticed that Kimball was being criticized for not asking me about the slides. As I have said, I would not have answered the questions because I didn’t believe the information belonged to me. It belonged to those who had conducted the investigation and who were working with the witnesses. In fact, I didn’t know that the nether regions of the creature or body had been covered until Nick Redfern mentioned in it his latest posting about this a couple of days ago.
I thought the criticism was unfair, so I sent Paul an email explaining the situation to him. I thought he could be trusted to keep the information private. In fact, on August 29, he wrote, “Thanks for sharing it with me, and of course I will keep it in confidence.” I will note here that his assurance lasted nearly a month.
In what I should have paid attention to, he also wrote, “Personally, I would reveal the whole story publicly and force a clearing out of the stables…”
And although I had learned about the slides from Nick and Rich, I felt that the information belonged to others who had originated the investigation. I was not comfortable in publishing anything for two reasons. One, it was proprietary and second, I was not confident that it was a real event, meaning that the slides had not been authenticated.
It was about the time of the podcast that I said that I didn’t think the slides were authentic, meaning that there were slides, but that the image was not of anything real. At that time I received, unsolicited, an email about an analysis of the slides, suggesting that some analysis had been accomplish back in March. It added something of a note of authenticity, so I mentioned all this to Paul. But then I realized that this was not an analysis of the slides, but a proposal of what sort of information was necessary to build a case for authenticity. I sent a second email reporting this, but note, I’m not participating in the investigation, I’m merely a recipient of the data. I hadn’t asked for it, I hadn’t interviewed anyone to get it and I hadn’t even been given access to the documents about it. I had not seen the slides in any form.
Then came Rich’s latest update on the slides. I received quite a number of emails about them, and replied to some of them. In a response that so outraged Paul, I said that I hadn’t seen the slides nor had I participated in the investigation. I knew about it but I hadn’t participated.
So, in what I guess is the classical definition of situational ethics, Paul decided that if I lied about this, he was under no obligation to hold my communications with him in confidence. I don’t understand how this would nullify that agreement. Even if I had lied, he had agreed to hold the information in confidence.
Then, to prove his point, he threatened to publish more of our confidential communications. Now, I could prove that I had not participated in the investigation, but to do so would require me to violate a confidence or two in a way similar to that of Paul, but I won’t do it.
In fact, he also said that I would have to talk about the nun’s diary, but I thought that had all been covered earlier. The tale was told by Bill English to Don and then to me in Alamogordo. English was reported to be a former Special Forces officer and a Vietnam veteran. We, meaning Don and I, also talked to a woman in Roswell who was supposed to be a nun, or former nun, who had seen the diaries and remembered the entry. But it turns out that English wasn’t in the Special Forces, wasn’t an officer, and apparently wasn’t a Vietnam veteran. We’ve chased the diaries for two decades, and if they existed, I now believe them to be irretrievable lost. Since I had reported all this earlier, I’m not sure why it is an issue.
I did suggest to Paul that I had come to the conclusion that this re-investigation simply wasn’t working and that I was going to alert the team about this. I wanted to email Tom first because I thought he deserved a personal note from me. I probably wrote a half dozen versions and finally sent one. After more than ten days, I received an email from Tom in which I noted he was a little annoyed with me… but what the hell, I expected that. I just hoped that we could remain friends. Apparently all this was not fast enough for Paul and ironically, I received the reply from Tom only a couple of hours before anonymous posted his article that lead to all this unnecessary turmoil.
And the question that pops to mind is, “Just who in the hell is Paul Kimball to make these decisions?” He might not approve of some of the team members, but that isn’t really any of his business. I knew of the problems with some of them as this began. I overlooked them, but this too has outraged Paul and gets us back to the question of “Just who in the hell is Paul Kimball?”
To pile on, now he publishes an old letter of mine, written, what, nearly twenty years ago. This doesn’t need to be rehashed. What is the point, other than to attack someone he might not like? Apparently, he believes he needs to select my friends for me.
Here’s the point that some don’t seem to understand and is the real issue. I confided in Paul and he agreed to that. He kept the confidence for nearly a month. It takes no courage to violate an agreement and what I seem to be getting hammered for is not revealing all I knew immediately because some of it came in confidential agreements. I will again note that I know of no instances in which Tom or Don violated any agreements they had made.
I will note here that I was not allowed to withdraw gracefully from the project and I believe this has irreparably damaged my friendship with Tom Carey. This I deeply regret. And, that it has brought up an issue about Don Schmitt again, I regret. Say what you will, he is a charismatic man who has a deep knowledge of the field. We had worked around our differences, but Paul Kimball is outraged that he wasn’t chased away twenty years ago.
The real point here is that after two years, we have identified more men who remember endless drumbeat of Roswell information. I know from my own military experience that I will watch almost anything that has to do with the units I served with in Vietnam or Iraq… though I haven’t seen any of the Vietnam movies other than the laughable The Green Beret (which is not to say the Green Berets are laughable, just that silly John Wayne movie is.)
To my team members, I apologize for screwing this up. I tried to do what I thought of as right, but, of course, that didn’t work out. I tried to avoid this controversy but just underscored it. To Tom, I apologize for outing this whole thing by trusting someone I thought of as a friend and to Don I apologize for unnecessarily opening an old wound.
This is much longer than I planned, but it should be clear that all this came about because a confidence was violated. Regardless of the reason, that is the bottom line here.
Continue Reading . . .
See Also:
Roswell Dream Team member, Kevin Randle Denies Involvement in Alien Photograph Investigation
UFO NEWS | Chris Rutkowski Joins Roswell Dream Team
Roswell Investigation Dream Team
UFO NEWS | Tony Bragalia Joins Roswell Dream Team
UFO NEWS | David Rudiak Joins the Roswell Investigation Dream Team
ROSWELL UFO CRASH: New Evidence Concerning ‘Photographs’ of Alien Bodies Revealed!
Details of Alleged Photographic Evidence Re Roswell UFO Crash Leaked To The Public!
ROSWELL ALIEN PHOTOGRAPHS: Ufologist, Nick Redfern Divulges His Involvement in Scandal
Authentic Alien Images from Roswell UFO Crash Finally Found?
SHARE YOUR UFO EXPERIENCE
Friday, September 27, 2013
Roswell Dream Team member, Kevin Randle Denies Involvement in Alien Photograph Investigation
UFO researcher and Roswell Dream Team member Kevin Randle told 'Orlando Paranormal Examiner' Wednesday that he has not been involved in the investigation of photographic slides of alleged aliens as recently described by blogger Rich Reynolds. “I have seen no photographs, slides, or pictures of alien creatures associated with the Roswell crash,” Randle explained. “I have participated in no investigations of such slides.”
Reynolds made several posts in recent months suggesting the Dream Team had access to slides containing images of bodies possibly associated with the Roswell event of 1947. Public opinion has been mixed on how any such slides should be handled, as well as their potential relevance. . . .
Thursday, January 12, 2012
UFO NEWS | David Rudiak Joins the Roswell Investigation Dream Team
We have expanded the team yet again. Dr. David Rudiak, who has done a great deal of work on the “Ramey memo” has accepted our invitation to join us as a consulting researcher along with Tony Bragalia and Chris Rutkowski. I’ll add here that we had planned on this long ago, but Tom thought I had sent the invitation to David and I thought he had. When we learned that neither had, I then sent one.
Rudiak (seen here at the International UFO Museum in Roswell, photo courtesy of Tom Carey) is one of the experts (and maybe only expert) about what happened in Ramey’s office on July 8, 1947. He wrote to me that, “I've reconstructed the debris in a computer ray-tracer and proven there is only one radar target there and probably one balloon (or what would fit in shoe box), in other words NOT what you would expect from a multi-balloon, multi-target Mogul but perfectly consistent with Ramey and Newton's description of a singular balloon/target and Dubose/Marcel's substituted weather balloon.”
He also said, “Another of my Roswell specialties are my various histories of the period. I have expertise in how the story was reported in numerous news outlets, not just a few. I think I have compiled the most extensive collection of U.S. and international Roswell stories anywhere. These stories present many angles and contradictions that just a few articles do not provide and tell us a lot about how the cover-up was handled. E.g., I have found only two or three newspapers out of hundreds carrying a rare AP sub-version quoting Sheriff Wilcox declining to answer further questions about the "disc" saying he was ‘working with those fellows at the base.’ That I consider to be very telling and corroboration for what his family was telling us decades later. Why are Marcel, Brazel, Wilcox, Ramey, and the press release telling sometimes very different stories, often contradicting the balloon story? Why do the AP, UP, and RDR versions of the press release differ in many details?”
David’s expertise isn’t limited to just the Roswell case, but includes the history of the time. He emailed me that, “And I think I may have the most extensive collection of UFO reports from the area, which I compiled from reviewing every regional paper I could lay my hands on. This demonstrates that Roswell didn't happen in a vacuum, which may have prompted Ramey, Kalberer, and White Sands commander Turner debunking the saucers over a week before Roswell blew up. One very interesting news article I have from a Las Cruces newspaper recounts how on the night of July 8 a fireball streaking out of the south over the Organ mountains broke up, followed by search lights from White Sands Proving Grounds sweeping the sky afterward for an indefinite period of time.”
He, along with Brad Sparks, reworked the mathematics of the Mogul flight number 4, which the skeptics claim is responsible for the debris, showing that it did not come nearly as close as Charles Moore, a Mogul engineer, suggested. (I’ll point out here the Moore’s calculations couldn’t bring the balloon array closer than seventeen miles.) Rudiak’s figures suggested that the balloon array launched from Alamogordo wouldn’t have come as close as Moore suggested. More importantly, it appears that there was no flight number 4.
Combine David’s training and research with the expertise and knowledge of other team members, including their various experiences in researching UFOs, participation in the military, and their understanding of the history of UFOs from the beginning (which is to say as far back as the nineteenth century and farther) and allows for the most comprehensive look at the Roswell case ever undertaken. David’s assistance and knowledge will prove invaluable in this research project.
Rudiak (seen here at the International UFO Museum in Roswell, photo courtesy of Tom Carey) is one of the experts (and maybe only expert) about what happened in Ramey’s office on July 8, 1947. He wrote to me that, “I've reconstructed the debris in a computer ray-tracer and proven there is only one radar target there and probably one balloon (or what would fit in shoe box), in other words NOT what you would expect from a multi-balloon, multi-target Mogul but perfectly consistent with Ramey and Newton's description of a singular balloon/target and Dubose/Marcel's substituted weather balloon.”
He also said, “Another of my Roswell specialties are my various histories of the period. I have expertise in how the story was reported in numerous news outlets, not just a few. I think I have compiled the most extensive collection of U.S. and international Roswell stories anywhere. These stories present many angles and contradictions that just a few articles do not provide and tell us a lot about how the cover-up was handled. E.g., I have found only two or three newspapers out of hundreds carrying a rare AP sub-version quoting Sheriff Wilcox declining to answer further questions about the "disc" saying he was ‘working with those fellows at the base.’ That I consider to be very telling and corroboration for what his family was telling us decades later. Why are Marcel, Brazel, Wilcox, Ramey, and the press release telling sometimes very different stories, often contradicting the balloon story? Why do the AP, UP, and RDR versions of the press release differ in many details?”
David’s expertise isn’t limited to just the Roswell case, but includes the history of the time. He emailed me that, “And I think I may have the most extensive collection of UFO reports from the area, which I compiled from reviewing every regional paper I could lay my hands on. This demonstrates that Roswell didn't happen in a vacuum, which may have prompted Ramey, Kalberer, and White Sands commander Turner debunking the saucers over a week before Roswell blew up. One very interesting news article I have from a Las Cruces newspaper recounts how on the night of July 8 a fireball streaking out of the south over the Organ mountains broke up, followed by search lights from White Sands Proving Grounds sweeping the sky afterward for an indefinite period of time.”
He, along with Brad Sparks, reworked the mathematics of the Mogul flight number 4, which the skeptics claim is responsible for the debris, showing that it did not come nearly as close as Charles Moore, a Mogul engineer, suggested. (I’ll point out here the Moore’s calculations couldn’t bring the balloon array closer than seventeen miles.) Rudiak’s figures suggested that the balloon array launched from Alamogordo wouldn’t have come as close as Moore suggested. More importantly, it appears that there was no flight number 4.
Combine David’s training and research with the expertise and knowledge of other team members, including their various experiences in researching UFOs, participation in the military, and their understanding of the history of UFOs from the beginning (which is to say as far back as the nineteenth century and farther) and allows for the most comprehensive look at the Roswell case ever undertaken. David’s assistance and knowledge will prove invaluable in this research project.
Monday, November 21, 2011
UFO NEWS | Chris Rutkowski Joins Roswell Dream Team
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We wanted to bring in someone with a skeptical bent but not someone who was rabidly anti-extraterrestrial. We wanted someone with an open mind, who would point out where we might have slipped off the rails, but not someone who would assume that we were wrong simply because there is no possibility of alien visitation. It is a fine line to walk, but we believe that Chris can walk that line.
Chris himself said, “Although I've been called both a skeptic and a believer (depending on whether you're hearing it from a ‘true believer’ or a skeptic), I tend to think of myself as an objective cynic. I sit on the fence when it comes to the question whether or not some UFOs are alien spacecraft. (The pointy slats are painful, but they can be endured.)”
About the Roswell crash case, Chris said, “I think we're a long way from declaring Roswell an ‘alien’ incident. True, according to some witnesses, the material recovered was unlike anything they had seen, and there certainly was an attempt by the military to cover up or obfuscate information about the event. It's a matter of speculation as to whether or not the material recovered was non-terrestrial in origin, since we don't have any on hand to test.”
He cautioned, and rightly so, that “We're relying on decades-old testimony in some cases, and more recently on memories of family members who may or may not recall with any accuracy statements or events from long ago. Furthermore, some military witnesses may still be reluctant to talk and some may still adhere to their military code of secrecy.”
Chris did provide us with some background information that is probably of interest to all. He wrote in a recent email to me, “My background in astronomy and education (BSc and MEd, respectively) fits well with my interest in science education, particularly when it comes to astronomy-related topics. I have greatly enjoyed showing people Jupiter's moons through small telescopes at public star fests, and telling them stories about how constellations got their names. And yes, the topic of UFOs falls under this broad category of astronomy-related subjects, although by history, not accurately. Astronomers are no better equipped than stock market analysts when it comes to dealing with objects reportedly moving low over witnesses' heads and over airports.”
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| Chris and Donna Rutkowski |
The plan is to share everything with Chris and get his take on the importance of the information, the evidence, and the thinking involved. Chris said that he liked the idea of a “cold case” investigation and thought with Roswell it was something that was long overdue.
UFO NEWS | Tony Bragalia Joins Roswell Dream Team
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The response to the announcement of the creation of a “Dream Team” has been met with nearly unanimous approval. There have been the detractors, but there will always be detractors... Nothing can be done about that, other than to say, we haven’t completed the team, and why not wait for the results before you condemn the research.
Tony Bragalia, who is known to many of us as a tireless researcher and who has an interest in a wide range of topics inside Ufology, has agreed to come on board as a consulting researcher. He’ll be working with us as we begin our new research into the Roswell case.
We all have worked with Tony on a variety of investigations. He and I collaborated on a review of the Mac Magruder story that was given to researchers by Magruder’s sons. We tried to find out when Magruder would have reported for duty at the Air War College and if he would have been available to travel to Wright Field for some sort of involvement in the research about the Roswell crash.
The reason I remember this well was because I was in Des Moines after the Iowa National Guard had been activated for duty during the devastating floods in 2008 (yes, we’re still recovering from that but you’d never know by all the news coverage of it). We shared information over the Internet, backing up each other’s findings.
The thing here is that we all don’t agree on some aspects of the case. Tony and I learned that Magruder wouldn’t have made it to Ohio until April 1948 as part of his training, which seemed to suggest Magruder wouldn’t have been deeply involved. He and I agreed, but Don and Tom do not... though it is a relatively small point and one we will revisit during the investigation.
Tom, Don and I don’t agree with Tony’s conclusion that students from the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology were responsible for the hoax in Socorro. Tony believes, based on some documentation and an interview with some that the landing was a trick played on Lonnie Zamora, though he might not have been the target. We, Tom, Don, and I think the evidence of a hoax is weak.
I mention these things just to show that we all are not in agreement on everything. It is a team of researchers who have their own opinions and read the evidence as individuals rather than by committee. This divergence of opinion should allow us to consider many different aspects and solutions as we attempt to put all this together.
I will note here that this is not the whole team. Other invitations have been issued and we plan to build a team of people that is diverse in opinion and complete in scope. There will be more announcements later.
Thursday, October 08, 2009
Veteran Ufologist & Expert On The Socorro UFO Case, Ray Stanford Challenges Newcomer & Hoax Pronouncer, Anthony Bragalia To a Live Debate On C2C!!
By Ray Stanford
Founder/Director
Organization for Physical UFO Science
10-6-09
Founder/Director
Organization for Physical UFO Science
10-6-09
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Bragalia and Sterling Colgate are going to end up with egg on their faces from promoting the unfounded 'student prank' rumor concerning the Socorro CE-III case. Their claims are of such character as to be unacceptable as testimony in any US court of law. The egg on their faces will be facts about the egg-shaped (albeit an unusually elongated 'egg') vehicle which displayed two distinct modes of sophisticated propulsion technology (also seen in cases describing the same thing, from as much as ten years earlier, in 1954) that actually landed at Socorro after being observed by five Colorado tourists because it almost took the roof off their car, so they reported it to Socorro service station operator Opal Grinder and his son BEFORE the Zamora encounter was ever known publicly.For some well-researched facts (instead of 45-years-after-the-fact totally unsubstantiated silliness) about the case from the only other person (me) who investigated the Socorro case with official USAF investigator, Dr. J. Allen Hynek, click The Paracast link, below. My in-Socorro investigation began on April 28, 1964 (the fourth day after the event), and next day, I was on-site participating, at Allen Hynek's unsolicited invitation, in the public-barred official USAF in-depth investigation involving, other than me, only Hynek, the central witness, Socorro police officer Lonnie Zamora, and N.M. State Police Sergeant Samuel Chavez (first person to arrive at the landing site after the object left), details of which are explained below:
www.theparacast.com
I can substantiate the facts presented there, and except for more recent and highly important physical-evidence findings described on The Paracast, I substantiated those facts in my 1976, 211-page book on the case titled Socorro Saucer [a pun, not the actual object shape, chosen for use in context of the rest of the title]in A Pentagon Pantry, subsequently praised in a now-published letter. To see it, click the link below and scroll down to Hynek's letter:
- click on image(s) to enlarge -
A hard-bound copy of my 211-page, well-documented report on the Socorro case was donated to the technical library of the NASA Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center by J. Allen Hynek. Personally, I'll take that as a recommendation, along with Hynek's praise letter, which you may have already read via the above link.
To anyone who can convince me that he or she is a bona-fide and relevantly-engaged employee of any of the main-stream TV, movie, radio, or print media, who provides me a 'snail-mail' address, I will quickly mail a like-new, never-read First Edition copy, with postage paid by me, of that hard-cover, 211-page, 1976 book. Just request the book and provide me evidence of employment status acceptable to my offering conditions, to: opus22@verizon.net
Now, MOST IMPORTANTLY:
I hereby challenge Anthony Bragalia and/or Dr. Sterling Colgate to A DEBATE ME ON THIS MATTER, provided that George Noory is agreeable, on Coast-to-Coast AM, and, that is, if both the prank proponents doesn't chicken-out.
But, hey, George, if they chicken out, I'd be happy to present evidence for that important case on your show, anyhow. Heck, in that case, we could share chicken barbecue, or just an old fashioned chicken plucking good time. :o)
From what I hear, I'm not the only person tired of seeing third-generation make-believe mislead a poorly-informed but UFO-interested public about the important Socorro CE-III ("Close Encounter of The Third Kind", Hynek's terminology) case of 45 years ago.
By Ray Stanford
Founder and Director:
Organization for Physical UFO Science
Author of The 211-Page Book On The Socorro Case
© 11-5-09
Founder and Director:
Organization for Physical UFO Science
Author of The 211-Page Book On The Socorro Case
© 11-5-09
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Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Lonnie Zamora, Socorro UFO, and New Theories
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By Kevin Randle
A Different Perspective
© 10-1-09
Let’s see if I have this right. The solution to the Lonnie Zamora UFO landing of April 1964, according to a big story posted at www.ufocon.com/ and written by Tony Bragalia is hoax. And this is startling news because...?A Different Perspective
© 10-1-09
Reading over the posting by Bragalia I wondered why Dr. Stirling Colgate at time president of New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, if he knew this to be a hoax back in the 1960s, had not let Dr. J. Allen Hynek (seen here) in on it.
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Hynek, at the time, was the Air Force consultant to Project Blue Book and investigated the case in person and on the scene not long after it happened. It would seem to me that if Colgate had the answer, he could have let Hynek know without violating any confidences about those who had perpetrated the hoax and saved Socorro some public embarrassment.In fact, looking at the newspaper clippings that appeared in the Socorro newspaper, the El Defensor Chieftain there was one headlined "Air Force Consultant Checks UFO Site Here. Dr. Hynek Feels Zamora’s Account Not a Hoax." That seems to indicate that everyone in town would know about Hynek, his visit and his investigation. Had there been any indication of hoax, it would seem that this would have lead those who suspected it, meaning the staff and faculty at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology to try and get some word to Hynek. I mean, Hynek is a scientist on the faculty of a university and would certainly wish to have that information, the Air Force would certainly need the information so that they could clear this case from their books but there is nothing to suggest that ever happened. Instead, everyone kept quiet about it for decades. It is only recently that we learn the case is a hoax...
Or is it?
I remembered the late Philip Klass claimed that he too had solved the Socorro landing case and he had found evidence that it was a hoax. Klass wrote, in his 1974 book, UFOs Explained:
During my two days in Socorro, I talked with many residents in addition to Zamora and [Sgt. Sam Chavez, Zamora’s superior] Chavez, including several scientists – professors at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, the town’s principal "industry." I was amazed to find that with one exception, these scientists exhibited no interest in the Socorro UFO case, despite the fact that it had achieved international fame and had brought thousands of curious tourists to the town [Well, dozens, at least]. If the story was true, the most exciting scientific event of all time – a visit from an extraterrestrial spacecraft – had occurred almost with sight of the institute. How could these scientists be so uninterested? [Which, by the way, is a damn fine question and says more about the scientists and their perceptions of UFOs than it does about the validity of the case.]After explaining all this, Klass noted that one way to attract tourists was to use the UFO landing though, at the time there was no evidence that a UFO landing would increase tourism. And then he drifted off into bizarre speculation, writing:
When I pressed one man for an explanation, he urged me to "nose around a bit." When I sought clarification, he pointed out that except for the Institute of Mining and Technology, Socorro had no industry, and some citizens feared the town was "going to seed."
The property where the UFO reportedly landed had, prior to the incident, been next to worthless "scrub land." But now, if the site became a long-lived tourist attraction, there could be need for refreshment stands, perhaps even a motel for those who might like to spent the night near the spot where an extraterrestrial spaceship had seemingly landed. By a curious coincidence, the property where the UFO reportedly landed was owned by Mayor Bursum, officer Zamora’s boss! The mayor’s principal business? He is the town banker and as such would not be unhappy to see an influx of tourist dollars.So, apparently to Klass’ way of thinking, Zamora and the mayor cooked up the UFO landing as a way of generating tourism in Socorro and dragging those tourists to a spot owned by the mayor. We all know how well that has worked out more than a quarter century after Klass made this rather ridiculous suggestion.
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In fact, it’s even worse for Klass’ (Phil Klass seen here) theory. According to the public records, in 1964, the land where the UFO landed was owned by the Delia Harris estate and in 1968 it was sold to the Richardson family. The mayor never owned it.Just goes to show us that skeptics will grab onto anything to explain a case even if they have no facts to back it up. (Yes, I know the skeptics are out there saying... and the UFO nuts will latch onto anything to prove their case even if they have no facts to back it up... so we’re both right.) There is, of course, no evidence that Zamora and the mayor were working together on this. Just speculation about it, published as if there was something truthful here with no qualification.
And now we have this latest revelation of a proven hoax. Students at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology were the perpetrators of the hoax. Dave Collis, who as a freshman in 1965, or a year after the landing, provided what some have considered new evidence of a hoax. According to Bragalia:
Dave Collis was a freshman at New Mexico Tech in 1965, a year after the Socorro UFO incident. Collis went on to become a published scientist helping to lead the Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center at NM Tech. He is considered a world expert in researching blast effects and explosives.Collis explained that he himself enjoyed planning pranks when he was a student at Tech. In 1965, he and his friends had planned a "paranormal" prank and shared the plan with one of his trusted Professors. The Professor (who had been with Tech for years) told him that NM Tech had a long history of pranking- and that one of them was especially noteworthy. Collis then said that the Professor (whose name he does not remember or does not wish to offer) had "confidentially told me that the UFO sighting by the town cop was a hoax done by Techie students." Collis did not want to press the Professor on who did it -or how. Collis says, "he was telling me this in confidence, so I didn't ask for the details and he didn't offer." When asked if the Professor could have been making up the hoax story, Collis replied that in the context of his conversation with him- there was no reason for him to lie. The Professor had told him the truth about the hoax, of that he was sure. Collis, when told about Stirling Colgate's confirmation that it was a hoax said, "Colgate is a brilliant man and he was a great College President. From what I was told by my Professor, it was a hoax. And if Colgate also says it was a hoax, it was." Collis (who is a pyrotechnics expert and often directed NM Tech's July 4 Fireworks) said that it always has surprised him that people didn't seem to realize just how "terrestrial" the reported Zamora UFO seemed to be in the first place.So there it is. We have one name who wasn’t involved, and wasn’t there but heard about from someone else who isn’t named but was there who believed it to be a hoax with no reason to lie. (I could point out here that if he truly believed the story told by the unnamed professor, and that if the unnamed professor truly believed the story of a hoax to be true, then he wasn’t lying. Misinformed... Yes... but lying, no.) We can go back to Colgate who will reaffirm that it was a hoax, but again, it is from others that he heard this and he supplies no names of the perpetrators. We’re still without names and we’re without details on how they pulled this off.
Collis had an explanation for the hoax which sounds valid and is presented as if the information is new.
Collis also explained that Lonnie Zamora had a reputation for "hounding" the Techie students during that time. The students and the Socorro police did not have a particularly good relationship back then. He said that there was "a lot of friction" at the time between what were felt to be "elitist and educated Techies" versus the "under-educated and simpler town folk." Zamora was always harassing the students for seemingly no reason, and at every opportunity. Many of the college kids just did not like him. What better way to "get back" at Zamora than for them to fool a fool?
In that same posting, Bragalia points out that Colgate had written in a letter dated 1968, that the whole thing was a hoax created by the students. The date here is important because in a letter written on September 10, 1964 by Donald Menzel of the Harvard College Observatory and sent to Dr. J. Allen Hynek Menzel wrote, "It certainly sounds to me like a hoax or, perhaps, some sort of hallucination." This is four years before the Colgate response and I suppose we should note that Menzel had not set foot in Socorro, not talked to a single witness and apparently gathered all his information from the newspaper reports. Colgate, on the other hand was right there in Socorro, so Colgate wins on that point.
Hynek however, wrote back to Menzel and said, "With respect to the Socorro case, I wish I could substantiate the idea that it was a hoax or a hallucination. Unfortunately, I cannot."
Menzel and Hynek exchanged a number of other letters over the next several months and finally, on April 29, 1965 or three years before Colgate communicated his thoughts on the matter, Hynek wrote a six page letter outlining his take on the Socorro landing. He also said that he had discussed the case with Major Hector Quintanilla, the then chief of Project Blue Book and said, "...he and I are in agreement on what follows."
Let’s remember one point here. I’m using documents found in the Project Blue Book files and given the timing, meaning the mid-1960s, I don’t think that anyone suspected that all this material would end up in private hands. In other words, they were writing for a very limited audience and didn’t expect the civilian UFO world to ever see these letters. In that respect, I believe them to be very candid.
On the second page of his long explanation, Hynek wrote, "The hoax hypothesis is, of course, one that suggests itself immediately. It is Quintanilla’s and my opinion that both Chavez and FBI agent Byrnes must have been in on the hoax if we adopt the hoax hypothesis. They testified that there were no tracks in the immediate neighborhood and so that the hoaxsters must themselves have arrived and left by balloon! Had it been a hoax, certainly some paraphernalia should have been left around if the pranksters beat a hasty retreat."
Okay, I’m not overly convinced by that either. How many times have we heard similar statements only to learn that a hoax had been perpetrated. Yes, there should have been some evidence but that there wasn’t doesn’t tell us that it was not a hoax. Only that they found no evidence of it which is not exactly the same thing.
The only part that is impressive are the opinions of Sergeant Chavez and FBI agent Byrnes. There were others who drove to the landing site right away and who were later interviewed by Ray Stanford. To make this work, they all had to be in on it and, of course, the FBI wouldn’t engage in a dirty trick... Okay, a cheap shot, but the point is that the FBI had no reason to get involved in a hoax like this.
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Hynek goes on to write, "Opal Grinder [owner of a gas station on the edge of Socorro] does have a high school student working for him, and I talked with him at length. Teenagers generally hate Zamora’s guts, but it was added that they hate all "fuzz" and that if they wanted to get even with Zamora (seen here), they would simply beat him up or do something more direct, like letting the air out of his tires or something with immediate results rather than resort to an involved hoax."Hynek finally does suggest the real problem with the hoax idea. He wrote, "If the hoax comes off well, perpetrators like to gloat abit (sic), and there would have been no point in getting even with Zamora if they couldn’t have gotten some kudos for it."
Or, exposed the hoax after they learned of Zamora’s reaction to the sighting and his sudden world fame. What better way to get even than to point out he was the victim of a hoax and overacted in a very unprofessional manner.
Hynek finally wrote, "Both Quintanilla and I find it impossible to dismiss it as a hoax unless we have some evidence that there was a hoax." Note here, they were looking for evidence of a hoax within days of the sighting and that they found none.
Even those who came at this from the skeptical side of the house have rejected the student hoax idea. In an article for Skeptical Inquirer, and later posted to New Mexicans for Science and Reason, David E. Thomas wrote, "Yet another hypothesis is that physics students with a little too much extra time played a trick on the town, but that rumor doesn't have much credible support."
This does two things for us here. It points out that this hoax idea has been floating around for years because the Skeptical Inquirer article is from the July 2001 issue and the Internet posting is from May 2006. And, it suggests that the idea doesn’t have much support. Maybe the hoax was the students taking credit for the landing but had nothing to do with it.
When the most recent article was published, we were treated to second and third-hand information. We have no names associated with it, but we are supposed to accept it as if it proves a hoax. However, there is another side to this. In a report from Colonel Eric T. de Jonckheere (I think... each place his name appears in the various reports I have, the copy is fuzzy or smeared so it’s difficult to read exactly how he spelled his name) reported on additional witnesses. On May 28, 1964, in his evaluation of the case, he wrote:
The El Defensor and Chieftain [sic] of Tuesday 28 Apr 64 carried an article indicating that an unidentified tourist traveling North on US 85 saw the UFO just before it landed. He also observed the police car heading up the hill toward the spot where the UFO landed. If this is true, the UFO not only disappeared in the direction of White Sand’s but also same from that direction.On Wednesday, April 29, 1964 the Dubuque, Iowa Telegraph-Herald carried an article headlined, "Two Dubuquers Spot Flying Saucer. In this article, the men, identified as Paul Kies, 24 and Larry Kratzer, 26, said they were driving along Highway 60 a mile east of Socorro when they saw something "shining." The article noted that a sergeant with the New Mexico State Police said that he saw the object on the ground in the desert.
I believe they mean Zamora in this case because the report continued, "He [the sergeant though Zamora wasn’t a sergeant] described it as ‘egg-shaped, about the size of a car.’ He said he saw two ‘creatures’ in white near the craft..."
Now, if this is true, then the hoax scenario fails because Kies and Kratzer were not in a position to see the object on the ground and therefore not in a position to see anything if the sighting is a hoax. What makes this more interesting than most of these most recent postings is that two men are named.
Other UFO researchers spoke to both these men, but some fourteen years after the fact. Researcher Ralph DeGraw said that their stories deviated from that told by Zamora and then from that told by each other. In other words, it seems that their report might not mean much, but in a case where we’re dealing with second and third-hand testimony, it would seem that testimony from named sources who claimed to have been there would be of more value than the vague statements attributed to unidentified others.
In fact, if the unidentified tourist is real, then there are three other witnesses who saw the craft in the air or close to the ground before Zamora found the landed object. These other people, while they certainly could have been fooled by a hoax, were simply not in a position to see anything if it was a hoax.
But I’m not arguing for the validity of any of this testimony. I’m only pointing out that it is there and is the same value as that we have from Colgate. We have faculty in Socorro saying hoax, we have Air Force investigators and consultants saying no hoax, and we have other witnesses, two of whom are named, who might have seen something in the sky.
Since the story appeared, Tony Bragalia and I have engaged in a very cordial email exchange about the case. He’s convinced that Colgate is telling the truth and that Colgate knows the truth. I pointed out that Hynek’s investigation in Socorro was well publicized and that I found it interesting that Colgate, if he knew it was a hoax, had not suggested this to Hynek, which clearly, he had not.
Bragalia wrote:
Colgate said that the perpetrator's did not want their cover blown. Perhaps Hynek did not get to the right people. More likely the right people simply did not want to talk. As Klass said, the NM scientists were strangely silent about the whole matter, why? Well, they didn't want to involve the school, or implicate any of the students, that is why. And the students themselves were certainly not going to implicate themselves!Which, I suppose makes some sense, but the real problem here is that Hynek’s investigation was official and taxpayer money was being spent in his attempt to find a solution. As I have said, and as Hynek wrote, they were looking for any solution and even a hint of a hoax would have been enough to push this from the unidentified category.
Bragalia wrote back:
Perhaps Colgate did not learn the truth about the hoax until after the USAF investigation. I think that this is likely. Maybe he learned of the details only some years later and saw no reason to bring up the whole thing again. Perhaps sometime after the event – in the mid or late 60s – someone told him the whole story. By 1970 Colgate had returned to Los Alamos. It could even be that he learned the full story many, many years later when he and his student friend were by then old me. But the point is... he says that it was the hoax with the certainty of a scientist.And while that might be the truth, we don’t know that it is. We only know that Colgate said that it was a hoax and Bragalia’s belief that it is the truth. I still have trouble accepting the fact that Colgate, as the ranking member of the faculty could have learned this vital information and not communicated it to Hynek but only sent it off to Linus Pauling some four years later.
Where does that leave us? Right where we started. The new information isn’t all that new. All that has happened is that Bragalia found a letter to a Nobel Laureate, Linus Pauling, but, of course, Pauling is only the recipient of the letter so his name here means nothing. It is Colgate, who is a reputable scientist, who says that the case is a hoax, but we don’t know what he really knows for certain. He talked of pranks and unidentified students, and even that he knows who the pranksters are but we have nothing solid.
If Colgate comes through with the details of the hoax, if those who created the hoax come forward and admit it was a hoax, then we have some powerful information and some extremely important evidence. But right now we have nothing new, other than a letter written some four years after the fact suggesting a theory that was purposed at the time the sighting was reported. In other words, we have nothing new.
* Special Thanks To Kevin Randle
More . . .
See Also:
The Socorro Incident:
A Hoax Exposed or
a Case of Jumping The Gun?
Socorro Officer Saw Two Men Step Out of Big UFO
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