Roswell Incident Had Victims, Program Says

AP | 11/22/02

[Davea]

Roswell Incident Had Victims, Program Says

By RICHARD BENKE | The Associated Press 11/22/2002

ALBUQUERQUE - While he told the world that a weather balloon went down in Roswell, an Army general had in his hand a memo telling Pentagon brass of a UFO crash with "victims," according to a new television documentary.

A computer analysis of that memo, held by Brig. Gen. Roger Ramey during a July 1947 press briefing, is the "smoking gun" of the Roswell Incident, researchers say in the documentary being broadcast today on the Sci-Fi Channel.

Using a digital photo scanner to enlarge and enhance words printed on the folded piece of paper Ramey held, and using another computer program to select the most likely words, researcher David Rudiak, who has a Ph.D. in physics from UC Berkeley, found two key phrases: "the victims of the wreck" and "in the 'disc' they will ship."

With the textual study plus University of New Mexico archaeological findings from one of three alleged UFO crash sites, science fiction seeks to close the gap with fact, producers say.

A photograph taken July 8, 1947, in Fort Worth, Texas, by James Bond Johnson of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram shows Ramey clutching a communique to Washington, D.C., while he displays a deflated weather balloon just hours after other Army officers in Roswell had reported a UFO crash.

It was one of a series of inconsistent military reports about the incident, which has become part of American mythology.

"Unless national security is at stake, there is absolutely no reason to keep this information from the public," said Thomas Vitale, a Sci-Fi Channel vice president. "Whatever crashed at Roswell, let us know what the truth is."

The Air Force had responded to a 1994 call from the late U.S. Rep. Steve Schiff, R-N.M., by saying it had no information on the Roswell Incident. Schiff, an Air Force reserve judge advocate general's officer, then took his query to the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress.

In 1997, the Air Force acknowledged the weather balloon had been a false cover story, but a new story also was called into question. In a report written by Lt. William McAndrew, the Air Force suggested reports of alien bodies in the wreckage must have originated because of a crash-test program in which mannequins were dropped from balloons. The mannequins did not come close to matching 1947 descriptions of alien bodies, and the crash-test program was not introduced until 1953, Rudiak said.

Sci-Fi, guided by longtime Roswell UFO researchers Tom Carey and Don Schmitt, commissioned William Doleman, an archaeologist with UNM's Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, to excavate the alleged initial crash contact point on the ranch where the late Mack Brazel worked as foreman.

Doleman said he knows little about the Roswell Incident but agreed to excavate the site using purely scientific methods because it is "culturally significant" and because so much of what is circulated about the Roswell crash landing is based on hearsay. What was needed, Doleman said, was physical evidence.

"So this project is a very bold step by people who claim to know what happened and where it happened," Doleman said. "What makes it bold is they were willing to go out there and look for physical evidence."

Details of the excavation are being kept confidential until after today's premiere. But Doleman said he agrees "that obviously something happened in July 1947 in southeastern New Mexico." After his work there, though, he said, "I'm still uncertain" about UFOs and alien beings.

The documentary will introduce some witnesses who have not been heard from publicly before, attesting to the existence of alien bodies in the wreckage of the "flying disc," Carey said by phone from his home in Pennsylvania.

"This is where we loaded the bodies," he quotes one New Mexico witness, Robert Slusher, as saying. Slusher, among those appearing in the documentary, was part of a B-29 crew that he said loaded bodies up through the plane's bomb bay at the Roswell Army Airfield.

Three victims were supposedly recovered from the final crash site, and a team of archaeologists, coincidentally, were in the area doing research on ancient Indians at the time, Carey said. Among them was Curry Holden, an archaeologist from Texas Tech in Lubbock, whom Carey located in 1992.

"Curry Holden said he saw everything - the craft and the bodies," Carey said. Holden died a few months later.

Carey, an investigator for a private corporation, said he started looking into Roswell 12 years ago "as a hobby."

But it became more than that. And now, he said, he and Schmitt are in a race against time, as witnesses become scarcer.

©Santa Fe New Mexican 2002

[Quix]

Maybe you have had more top secret jobs than I have.

But you seem very glib in glossing over human frailties.

Certainly rules and hyper secrecy can have a lot of effective influence on behavior. But in a fast moving complex situation that's startlingly new and full of conflicting facts, emotions and directives--all kinds of chaos and errors can crop up.

It is surprising that you can discount that so easily and wholesale.

Actually, Ramey looks like he's in a bit of a trance--stunned to say the least.

How sharp and quick on your feet are you when you're stunned?

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the heads up!

[Quix]

And your alternative explanation and analysis of the memo in his hands is . . . ?????

I'll be particularly eager to see your careful computer analysis of each letter in the memo and your alternative list of words.

[r9etb]

And your alternative explanation and analysis of the memo in his hands is . . . ?????

The same explanation that suffices to explain the "Face" on Mars: wishful thinking on the part of those enhancing the photo.

[Quix]

So, in summary, your experience in such jobs is either lacking or unwilling to be reported.

You have NO alternative analysis to put forth.

You choose to somewhat arrogantly and glibly dismiss whatever the memo may say as totally immaterial without support except some vague, extremely tenuous association with an entirely different planet and entirely different order of artifact.

And I'm supposed to be impressed with your logic and analysis. Please excuse my reluctance.

[Quix]

Incidentally, the ET's and knowledgeable humans insist your assumptions about Mars artifacts are extremely lacking.

[r9etb]

You choose to somewhat arrogantly and glibly dismiss whatever the memo may say as totally immaterial without support except some vague, extremely tenuous association with an entirely different planet and entirely different order of artifact.

Hmmmm. Given that you confess to having no access to the doctored enhanced photo/memo in question, I don't see how you've got much of a case here, either.

The hooraw about the "Face on Mars" is a perfect analog to this bit of tripe. From a single picture with suggestive shadows -- and subsequent enhancements of the picture to make it more face-like -- was launched a huge industry for tinfoilers.

But, alas, it was merely a Martian hillside:

Seen from the side, it's even less amazing:

[Quix]

I found the memo analysis on the show very interesting and perhaps convincing--it takes a fair amount of time and different sources to leave me solidly convinced about most things--but it was still convincing to a degree.

The Mars face--I'm no expert--I've been on both sides of the issue.

But it is interesting that credible sources in Greer's project assert that there are ancient buildings on the moon and Mars and some of the other moons in the system. Some insist some of the bases may be active.

And I'm most convinced from your posts that your bias overwhelmingly controls your logic and perceptions.

[dinodino]

Paranoid Schizophrenia: What You Should Know

http://www.healthsquare.com/mc/fgmc2415.htm

[r9etb]

And I'm most convinced from your posts that your bias overwhelmingly controls your logic and perceptions.

So some guy merely tells you about his alleged enhancement of a document, and because his supposed results suit your preconceived notions, that's proof enough for you.

The fact that it's EXTREMELY unlikely that the good general would be waving the document around in the first place is apparently immaterial, as is the fact that you cannot actually produce a copy of the enhanced document with which to convince us skeptics.

All in all, and in full consideration of your previous posts on this thread, at best I can say you've performed wonderfully in the service of sarcasm. At worst (i.e., you're serious), well ... let's just hope you're funnin' us.

[Quix]

I was part of a school that helped rewrite the DSM [Diagnostic and Statistical Manual].

And I say again . . .

In the context of our era, anyone not at least a bit paranoid is just not paying attention!

[Quix]

Did you watch the program?

There were sufficient illustration of his process and type of analysis to be sufficiently convincing to me.

Sometimes I mix the 2 up--but I hope you enjoy your seeming affections for a type II error.

It still escapes me why you think it is so much more protective and righteous than a type I error.

In terms of the vast array of data points/puzzle pieces in this broad subject area, I'm quite comfortable that my analysis accounts for more than yours does.

You also conveniently avoid a number of points in my posts. That's OK. It must be tough.

[Quix]

Waving the document around???

Seemed to me like he was slanting it away from the camera somewhat.

But, help yourself. You are certainly free to construe your own reality.

Of course, if you construe it extremely uniquely enough . . .

[dinodino]

r9etb, you're wasting your breath. Quix is a determined and closed-minded fanatic, and will not give counter arguments the time of day. Remember, even discredited hoaxes count as "proof" in Quix's mind.

As far as the Ramey memo goes: the cat who photo-analyzed the memo should publish his findings for review. Personally, I think it's the same deal as with the "Face on Mars": artifacts of computer image processing, combined with wishful thinking. The human brain excels at pattern detection, and thus we can find patterns where none exist: faces in clouds, canals on Mars, and English words from hopelessly blurred photo enlargements.

[r9etb]

There were sufficient illustration of his process and type of analysis to be sufficiently convincing to me.

IOW, he did not actually show the enhanced document?

[r9etb]

Seemed to me like he was slanting it away from the camera somewhat.

So now he's not only grabbed the TS document from the safe and taken it to the press conference where he plans to lie to the reporters; but now, rather than merely stick the paper into his pocket where it cannot be seen, he decides to keep it in the open with the type showing, and tries to hide it from the cameras?

You are certainly free to construe your own reality.

You speak from experience, I see.

[MHGinTN]

Is it possible that Ramey carried the memo with him as ammunition he could use to expose something if there were people at the press showing who could refute the balloon story?... Kind of like, 'Here's what they've sent to me, and it's the most astonishing discovery in the history of humankind, and now I've been told to offer the balloon but you've exposed the truth, so here's what is really going on world.'

[dinodino]

This whole "aliens at Roswell" thing is ridiculous. I believe the weather balloon story was a fabricated cover. However, I don't think the government were hiding a crashed alien saucer.

Remember, in addition to Project Mogul (which we certainly would have covered up!), more than one nation was experimenting with flying disc aircraft at the time. Doesn't it seem more likely that a secret Air Force aircraft crashed?

[MHGinTN]

I tend to agree regarding the secret airforce craft ... 509th being the only a-bomb group at the time. I would love to see some alternate 'translations' of the memo in Ramey's hand, but I have to say the program made a strong case for the 'translation' they offered. Ther emight just be alternate translation potential, along lines you've suggested! Survivors? Well ya, of bomber crew members perhaps.

[dinodino]

I recall reading somewhere where we were developing nuclear-powered disc aircraft; I think it was in Popular Mechanics. In fact, because nuclear tech was involved, the records were still classified decades later. The crash of a prototype would certainly account for the aviators and the heightened secrecy.