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From: campbell@ufomind.com (Glenn Campbell, Las Vegas) Date: Mon, 23 Jun 1997 21:29:01 -0800 Subject: Tom Mahood's Review of Corso Book |
Philip Corso's "The Day After Roswell" Reviewed by Tom Mahood <tmahood@ibm.net> The Corso book bothers me on a number of levels. First of all, there are MANY items that suggest this is all delusional crap. I'll list enough until I get tired: The Foreword by Strom Thurmond seems to me to be clearly written as if it were for a book on the history of military intelligence, just as Thurmond claims he was mislead to believe. It seems to have nothing to do with what the book is actually about. His putting Marcel at the site of a crashed vehicle. Why didn't Marcel tell it that way if it happened? He mentions Sarabacher and his briefing of Wilbert Smith as support that this happened. Trouble is, the briefing had nothing to do with Roswell, but rather involved a crash near Aztec. That's real clear when you look at the documentation. He speculates a great deal, then just blows by it, leaving the reader with the impression that it is fact, when it is actually just his rather wild speculation. He talks of the craft being stored at Norton AFB, without seemingly being aware that Norton has been closed down for quite some time. Technical stuff (He really sucks!): His description of how the vehicle operates, where the "occupants rode within an electromagnetic wave" is just plain BS. It's right up there with the stories from the 50s that told how UFO "moved along the Earth's magnetic lines of force". Even giving great latitude for the possibility that he didn't understand how they worked, what he spiels is just nonsense. He says stealth technology is a spinoff from the craft, particularly the skin. More junk. The main component to stealth is the shape of the aircraft, although the skin plays a lesser role. The technology evolution of stealth is well documented and there is no mysterious infusion of ideas. He talks of the "laser" (which, BTW, he mistakenly calls light amplification by stimulated energy radiation....it's actually "stimulated emission of radiation") found on the craft and they believed the EBEs used them for navigation by bouncing them off objects in space and triangulating (I'm not making this up...it's on page 180!), power transmission(!), and communication. He goes on at length about how he is sure the EBE's use them to communicate. Unless you have fixed positions, lasers are not too great of a communications tool, because of their very narrow beamspread. You have to point it very carefully to keep the party you want to talk to in the beam. Even if you use it point to point, there are very large losses in the atmosphere. Here's a doozy. It's implied that HAARP (mistakenly referred to in the book as HARP) has something to do with alien technology, even on the book jacket. Then read what he has to say about it (page 220). First off he implies it's a weapon to shoot down UFOs. Then he really loses it and says it was the brainchild of Dr. Gerald Bull. Bull was the guy into building giant cannons, and was allegedly killed by Israeli agents due to his work for the arabs. Anyway, Bull has NOTHING to do with HAARP. But what's odd, is that he mentions HAARP in the first part of one paragraph (bogusly tieing in Bull), then rambles off for two pages on Bull's giant cannons, never again mentioning HAARP, this in a section specifically labeled "HARP - The High Altitude Research Project". This is his typical rambling. You see it later with almost a whole chapter on Tesla, supposedly about a death ray and having nothing to do with Roswell, aliens or anything other than his imagination. His knowledge of particle beams seems at the level of someone who read something a long time ago and forgot it. I've seen the reports on Project Horizon (the Army's proposed moon base) before. Really crazed stuff, right out of a late 1950s sci-fi movie. And totally useless. Useful for recon?? Give me a break. At 240,000 miles (11 times further than geosynchronous satellites) you'd be waaaay to damned far to see much of earth. Our spy satellites are less than 200 miles up and they have real limits. A communications relay station?? Yeah, right, with a 3 second lag. To suggest the base as a defense against aliens is just plain garbage (I'm running out of synonyms for "bullshit"!) Can you say "sitting duck"? I knew you could. There's PLENTY more, but I'm getting tired of writing and you get my drift by now. I confess, while reading it I was a little more receptive, but now as I write this and look back on the totality of it all, it's crap, crap, crap.... ------------------------------------------------------- This book also bothers me as being a fine specimen of 50s-60s military arrogance. If true, what he says about the missile crisis is a good example. Supposedly, this guy is shown top secret recon photos of Cuba with the missiles, and right away he not only leaks it to a couple of Senators, but also to the press! This, because he KNEW Kennedy wouldn't do anything about it and it would force the issue. So much for his security oath. It's assholes like this that gave rise to the Ollie Norths in the military... those that know better than the elected civilian government. This is particularly damning in light of all the info that's been declassified in recent years about what was REALLY going out about the missile crisis at the highest levels, on both sides. This boy was way outta his league and should have been slapped down real hard. This concept echoes throughout the book. The real threat was aliens(!) but it was so secret all those stupid lawmakers couldn't be told of it, so the military had to do end runs to protect us. I'm also curious (he never says) why he's taken it upon himself to blow the lid off it all. He was a rabid protector of the secret for so many years, but now HE'S decided it's OK to tell the public. Well, at least that's in keeping with his previous patterns. "Do what you think is right and to hell with procedures and the Constitution". He knows it all...the mark of a true believer. Finally, he closes on an odd note. He wants to leave the impression we have kicked some alien butt and won the "war". I guessed I missed it when it happened. It seems to me that abductions are as high as they've ever been, as are cattle mutilations, both of which he attributes to those sinister little gray guys. So where's the big win? The little lights seem to be flitting around our skies just as much as they ever were. -------------------------------------------------- Is there anything redeeming about it? Strangely, yes. The mechanism he suggests is quite plausible for covertly introducing new technology into the mainstream. That certainly doesn't make it true, but it's not as outlandish as some of his other whoppers. His remark about the real purpose for all our hardening and shielding of data and communications lines had more to do with preventing alien jamming/disruption than threats from the Soviets. Oddly, a few years ago I was told something very similar about TEMPEST shielding (the same stuff) by a source I deemed reliable. He said the real reason for the shielding was to prevent unwanted interference from aliens. A bit farfetched, but I see the same item surface again, albeit this time from an apparent loon. Then there's the obvious question of why he would write it. He's certainly had a pretty decent career, so why sully it with this UFO biz? Much of what he writes is checkable (and what I've checked comes up lacking), so if he's making it up he's gotta know he's going down. Is it some sort of "disinformation"? Many will say it is, but I don't know. Honestly, I'm not completely sure just what to make of it. I know it's not the truth, that he's likley a loon, but beyond that....
Ufomind Index: Tom Mahood Ufomind Index: Philip Corso Ufomind Index: The Day After Roswell
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