Fifty Years Of Unanswered Questions by Donald Schmitt
********
How could an event such as a UFO crash in 1947 be kept a secret so
long? Surely the real story would have leaked before now, as has
seemingly happened to every government secret in the past twenty-five
years. President Nixon himself, with all his powers and resources,
wasn't able to prevent Woodward and Bernstein from uncovering the
Watergate conspiracy.
Secrets surely do leak but some secrets don't for long periods of
time. Consider these instances:
1) The F 1 17 Stealth fighter, aircraft, was developed in secret and
was flying at a time when the public was told the aircraft was still
on the drawing board.
2) Project Ultra, the Allied Word War II project that allowed us to
break the codes of the Germans and thereby hasten their defeat, was a
secret for almost forty years until revealed in the early 1980s.
3) Only recently have the numerous military accidents with nuclear
devices been disclosed, not because of a desire by the government to
admit the truth, but because of the dedicated probing of a civilian
organization.
So it is certainly true that the government can keep secrets, but to
what lengths are officials preparing to go to enact a cover-up?
Consider this one instance from an event that occurred during World
War II. The Boeing Airplane Company was then secretly developing the
B-29 bomber for the Army Air Force at its main plant near Seattle. On
February 18, 1943, a prototype B-29 caught on fire during a test
flight and crashed in Seattle onto a meat packing plant. The plane
actually passed over downtown Seattle during its rapid descent. All
members of the crew died, along with several employees of the plant
and some of the firemen who fought the blaze that engulfed the plane
and plant.
Thousands of people saw the plane coming down and the subsequent fire
and rescue efforts. Did the story of the crash of a secret aircraft
go out over the wires that same day, with accounts from these many
witnesses? Although it seems unlikely, the FBI succeeded in
preventing any but the most garbled information from leaking out. FBI
agents went so far as to intercept all copies of City Transit Weekly,
an employee newsletter that carried photos of the plane taken by a
Seattle city bus driver.
So the government does keep secrets, and it will take extreme
measures to protect those secrets in matters of national security.
Could the Roswell event have been sufficiently important to warrant
such treatment? We think so, and so must two men, one still living,
whom we have interviewed.
The Provost Marshal at the Roswell base, the equivalent of the chief
of police, was in charge of all security at the crash site in 1947.
When we located and then contacted him in late 1989, it was the first
time anyone had extensively questioned him about what had occurred.
The Provost Marshal did not tell us the weather balloon cover story,
nor did he give us a true account of the Roswell recovery. Instead,
he told us that he considered himself still sworn to secrecy about
the event -- after forty-three years!
The second fellow we interviewed was an agent in the
Counter-Intelligence Corps. He accompanied another intelligence
officer on the initial trip to the crash site and, we believe, wrote
a report on the incident for his superiors in Washington. At first,
this intelligence agent refused to admit that the event had occurred
at all! There had been no newspaper story, no fuss, not even the
recovery of a weather balloon. After much prodding, he was willing to
admit that something came down and was recovered, but that was as far
as he would go. He admits no personal involvement, even though other
reliable sources give him a central role. Now, he is considered the
number one witness for the Air Force, endorsing their Mogul balloon
theory.
We admire how seriously these gentlemen took their oaths of secrecy
for almost fifty years, but we must raise this question: Why the need
to conceal the recovery of a weather balloon?
The government cover-up extends to the public records of the Air
Force UFO investigation as well. Those records were released in 1976,
and the file on Roswell contains but a single press clipping. No
letters, no notes, no investigative forms, no official weather
balloon explanation, nothing but that lone clipping. The file for the
recovery of an actual weather balloon in Circleville, Ohio, a week
before the Roswell event, contains far more documentation on its
particulars. Where is the material that should be in the Roswell
file?
The evidence presented here, and that which will be shortly discussed
establishes that the Roswell crash was one of those events that had
to be kept secret by whatever means were necessary. Files and notes
were confiscated from reporters, 71 radio stations were warned not to
air stories, a phony story was concocted, and men were sworn to
secrecy.
As you can well imagine, it has not been an easy task to reconstruct
what actually occurred in July of 1947. Many of the men (and the few
women) involved are now dead, and those living are quite old. Human
memory does not record events with complete accuracy, especially
after years have elapsed. As Kevin Tierney has explained in his book
How to Be A Witness, when someone has been asked to recount his
memory of an event several times, "For the most part what he says
will be the same, but there will generally be minor discrepancies
between his recollection on one occasion and the next." This is
certainly true for the accounts we have gathered concerning Roswell,
and the natural errors that creep into an individual's memory mean
that some inconsistencies exist in the testimony you will read.
Nevertheless, the general pattern of events we have recorded from
essentially all the witnesses does fit one consistent picture.
As those above the age of five at the time of President Kennedy's
assassination can relate, the moment when they first learned of that
gruesome event is permanently etched in their minds -- a snapshot
memory. Several of the Roswell witnesses have compared their memories
of the 1947 event to that of the assassination: the Roswell memories
are vivid and detailed, despite the passage of fifty years.
Government secrecy is not always something evil and unjustified. We
understand and support the practice of secrecy as it applies to
certain types of information. Some information should remain hidden,
such as nuclear firing codes, court records, police files, and
information about the intelligence agents working undercover, but
records documenting the recovery of a weather balloon hardly merit
such treatment.
What could have happened so long ago at Roswell to cause former
intelligence officers to abide by their oaths of secrecy today, even
though previous accounts of the recovery have been published and
broadcast? What kind of event required such high levels of security
that the intelligence officer who participated in the initial
recovery of the debris, and who was entrusted with the task of taking
some of the debris to higher levels of command, was not allowed to
read the written report upon his return. What caused the military to
place the ranch manager whom reported finding the debris under house
arrest? Why have the military records of men involved with the crash
remains disappeared? Why, indeed?
If the crash and retrieval of a UFO in New Mexico in 1947 actually
happened, shouldn't there be other reliable reports from other
reliable sources since then? The answer is yes, if the statement is
true. There should be many good, reliable reports from solid
citizens, from men and women whose credentials are impeccable. Men
and women who have nothing to gain by claiming they saw a flying
saucer. And some of those sightings should have been made by highly
respected sources.
General Michael Rexrold said that he viewed Chester Lytle as one of
the great, unsung heroes of this country. Lytle was a key player in
the Manhattan Project and developed the radio commands that detonated
the first atomic bomb dropped on Japan.
In the years that followed, Lytle served in government designing and
engineering communication systems for the old Atomic Energy
Commission. The military called on him many times for secret projects
at different bases across the country.
Lytle is, therefore, one of those impeccable sources. Lytle said that
while he was on assignment at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in the
late 1950s, the base suddenly went on alert. Lytle and a number of
officers were escorted to a special radio room in the operations
building. Inside, while the military personnel worked, Lytle watched
an intercept on a small television monitor.
According to Lytle, one of the jet interceptors was equipped with a
television camera in the gun camera position. He was transmitting the
intercept to the operations radio room. In the clear daylight, Lytle
watched a smooth, metallic disk play cat and mouse with the lead
fighter. For a moment, Lytle thought he had to be watching some kind
of science fiction movie, but there was no doubt that the intercept
was real. Everyone around him acted as if the event was routine.
Then, suddenly, the UFO disappeared, leaving the interceptors far
behind it.
Afterward, Lytle was told by the base commander that this type of
activity was a regular event, not only at Wright-Patterson, but at
other Air Force bases as well. In fact, over the years, Lytle had
heard numerous, similar accounts from both military officers and
governmental officials.
Today, Lytle, who is the president of a telecommunications company,
is adamant about what he knows to be the truth. What he witnessed
defied all conventional explanation. He faces the same problem that
researchers face - lack of physical evidence. While it is true that
all efforts by civilian researchers have yielded no tangible proof,
it is also true that Roswell demonstrates that the 'nuts and bolts'
evidence does exist. For the first time the 'smoking gun' has been
found. It has been documented.
With the Roswell case, the enigma of UFOs is no longer spurious or
abstruse. Answers, though known only by a select few, are still being
withheld. However, we can now, in total confidence and conviction,
direct the public to the undeniable source of the proof. Proof which
would enable us to finally lift the veil of secrecy that surrounds
Roswell. Put aside all political agenda, all preconceived opinions,
all bias, and consider the following:
* If the debris originated from a top secret test, why was there no
recovery or search operation under way until Brazel reported the
debris to Sheriff Wilcox two after the find? An aerial search over
open range and high desert would have taken only a few hours to
locate any downed object. This has been confirmed by retired military
officers, who were involved in actual search and rescue missions in
New Mexico. We, too, have flown private planes over the Brazel site.
Given that the debris field was three-quarters of a mile long, a
search and recovery team would have located it long before Brazel
did.
* Weather balloons had fallen onto Brazel's ranch on a number of
occasions, and he turned them in for the rewards offered. In 1945, he
discovered the remains of a Japanese Balloon Bomb which he reported.
This time, however, he was angry because of the amount of debris. His
sheep would not cross the pasture because of the material. It is
interesting to note that weather balloons are still dropping on the
ranch. The current owners store them in an old silo. One large
balloon, about twenty feet in diameter, took one man two minutes to
retrieve it.
* After examining samples of the material, why did Brazel's neighbors
encourage him to report the crash as physical evidence of a flying
disk and not for the five dollar balloon reward?
* How did highly trained and experienced military officers, the elite
in their fields, mistake a conventional weather instrument for an
object they all, without exception, concluded to be an actual flying
disk? Those who believe that it was a special radar reflecting
balloon have said that the men, Blanchard, Marcel, and all the other
officers at Roswell were not familiar with the specialized equipment.
Marcel, however, had a radar interpretation officer assigned to his
office. He would have been able to recognize the balloon, even if the
others were fooled.
* What type of balloon could scatter debris over an area
three-quarters of a mile long and could make a 500 foot gouge in the
tough New Mexican soil of mostly shale and slate stone.
* What type of balloon would fill a 1942 Buick convertible, a jeep
carryall box, and then require fifty to sixty troops two days to
complete the cleanup?
* Why did the military check the site for possible radiation if the
downed object was nothing more than a common weather balloon?
* After he was found at the home of Walt Whitmore Sr. on the morning
of July 8, why was Brazel held in detention at the base for another
seven days? According to Brazel, he was not allowed to place any
outside calls, not even to his wife. He was also given a physical
examination. His family and neighbors remember that he later
complained how he had been asked the same questions over and over,
and that he described the experience by saying he "was in jail."
* Why the need for extreme security measures at the crash site of a
downed meteorological instrument? Measures such as: armed guards
surrounding the inner gouge area, another cordon around the
perimeter, riflemen posted on the surrounding hills, and MPs
stationed on the outlying roads.
* Why was Bud Payne, a hired hand at one of the neighboring ranches,
bodily removed from the Brazel ranch during the military occupation
of the site? As Payne was attempting to round up a stray cow, a
military jeep roared up to him and an MP physically forced him off
the ranch.
* Why were there seven confirmed (possibly eight) flights to
transport the remains of a balloon? Most of the wreckage was flown
out under high security.