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From: KRandle993@aol.com
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 18:06:08 -0400 (EDT)
Fwd Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1997 00:26:01 -0400
Subject: Re: 'Roswell-- Anatomy of A Myth'

Since Kent's article has been posted to this forum, I thought
my response would be of interest. There are many problems
with his theories.  This is what I think of it:

Kent Jeffrey, in his latest article, essentially challenges those
of us who believe that something crashed outside of Roswell in
July 1947 to prove the case to him. To do so, he suggests that
we must deal with seven points that he brought up at the end of
his article. He raises other questions in his article which are
easily challenged, and he accuses us of selective reporting of
the data. Let's take a quick look at some of that, and then answer
his seven points one at a time. Please remember that I do not
have endless space in which to address his comments
and therefore have selected some of them for response but not others.

Kent writes, about the men of the 509th Bomb Group, "Most of
them heard nothing about the supposed crashed-saucer
incident until years later, after all the publicity started. The few
men who did recall hearing about the incident at the time of its
occurrence said that the inside word was that the debris was
from a downed balloon of some kind and that there was no
more than 'one wheelbarrow full'."

Overlooking the fact that highly classified events would not
be discussed among the officers because they were, by
definition, highly classified, let's look at a statement by Colonel
(later brigadier general) Thomas DuBose. According to him, and
recorded on video tape (August 10, 1990), "He (Major General
Clements McMullen, deputy commander of SAC) called me
and said... Nobody, and I must stress this, no one was to discuss
this with their wives, me with Ramey, with anyone. The matter,
as far as we're concerned, it was closed."

What we have here is evidence of orders, coming from the
headquarters of the Strategic Air Command that the officers
of the Eighth Air Force and the 509th Bomb Group were not
to discuss this matter amongst themselves. Those who were
not involved would not be told about it because of the high
classification. And those former members of the 509th who
believe that had something like this happened they would
have heard about it must rethink their theory. Many military
units have secrets that are shared only with those who
have a need to know. To suggest a sharing of classified
material with those who are not cleared to hear it reveals a
misunderstanding of how this works. And, remember, DuBose
acknowledged that an order had been given.

Kent also uses the testimony that was published by
William L. Moore in The Roswell Incident and later by
Moore and Jaime Shandera in their articles about the
debris taken to Brigadier General Roger Ramey's office.
I have suggested all along that the debris photographed
was not the real stuff. Kent, however, writes, "Among
Marcel's responses were 'They took one picture of me
on the floor holding up some of the less-interesting metallic
debris... The stuff in that one photo was pieces of the
actual stuff we had found. It was not a staged photo."

Kent does not report the rest of the quote which
tends to refute his contention that the debris on the floor
was never switched. Marcel supposedly also said, "Later,
they cleared out our wreckage and substituted some of their
own. They then allowed more photos. Those photos were taken
while the actual wreckage was on its way to Wright Field. I
was not in those."

If that wasn't enough, when we check the record, we find
hat Moore and Shandera have published three versions of
the original quote, each altered to fit the circumstances as
they were  developing during various investigations. Moore
provided a transcript of the February 1979 interview with
Marcel that now said, "General (Roger Maxwell) Ramey
allowed the press in to take two pictures of this stuff. I was
in one, and he and Col. DuBose were in the other. [Emphasis
added to show the difference in the quote.]"

In their article "Three Hours That Shook the Press," Focus,
new series Vol. 5, nos. 7-9, September 30, 1990, Shandera
and Moore write, "In his interview with Moore (The Roswell
Incident) Maj. Marcel maintained that the debris in the two
photos of him is the real stuff [Emphasis added]."

So we see that the quotes by Moore and Shandera
referring to the number of pictures taken in General Ramey's
office, who was in those pictures, and the situation around them,
can't be trusted. In fact, Marcel himself has been quoted by a
disinterested third party. Reporter Johnny Mann accompanied
Marcel to Roswell in 1980 to interview him about the UFO crash.
Mann found the picture of Marcel posed by the weather balloon
and told him, "Jess, I gotta tell you. This looks like a weather
balloon."

According to Mann, Marcel said, "That's not the stuff I found
on the ranch."

In other words, the only ones to report that Marcel was
photographed with the "real" debris was Moore and Shandera.
All evidence to the contrary was apparently overlooked by
Kent as he attempted to prove that what was on the floor in
Ramey's office was the material found out on the Foster ranch.

Kent also wrote, "Rancher Mac Brazel is quoted as talking
about sticks, foil, and tape with flower patterns." But Kent
doesn't quote the last, and possibly most important part of the
July 9, 1947 story. Speaking of the balloon explanation, the
newspaper reported, "Brazel said, that he had previously
found weather observation balloons on two other occasions...
but that what he found this time did not in any way resemble
either of these."

But, if what was found was a Project Mogul balloon as
alleged, or just any sort of balloon as Kent suggests,
then it would have been exactly like those. That is what we
are talking about when we talk of Mogul Flight #4. It was a
cluster of regular weather balloons and contained nothing to fool
Brazel, Marcel, or anyone else.

But, with space running out, let's look at Kent's seven
points that must be addressed according to Kent himself.
He wrote, "A machine with unimaginable technological
sophistication and consequent incredible reliability would
have simply broken down and crashed."

Even if the "perfect" machine could be built, there are
always the human factors (in this case alien factor unless
you want to believe them infallible too), and the environmental
factors in this extremely weak argument. In today's world,
aircraft are designed to withstand strikes by lightning.
However, according to a recent PrimeTime Live on ABC, l
ightning was a contributing factor in the recent destruction
of a commercial jet.

Yes, the mean time to failure has improved. Yes, our
computers, electronics, and machinery all operate much
longer, but they do still break. And when they don't break
on their own, there is always someone there to make a
mistake causing them to break. In other words, this
argument is without foundation.

Kent next wrote, "The only known wreckage from this
sophisticated vehicle, capable of interstellar travel, would
have consisted solely of a few short beams, pieces of foil-like
material, and small pieces of thin plastic-like material."

Yes, that is basically the debris as described by those
who were on the Foster ranch. I would add the fiber optics
described by Bill Brazel, Jr., but that doesn't alter Kent's
point. There is not the range of debris you would expect
from a crashing craft.

Of course, that doesn't cover the craft and bodies found
elsewhere. Kent was quick to tell me, angrily, that there
was no craft and there were no bodies and therefore his
point remains valid. He rejects, out of hand, all reference
to the craft and bodies, weakening his argument
considerably. You can't reject testimony simply because
you don't like it. If you can offer a reasonable motive for that
rejection, then you can proceed with your case. If you
reject it because it is inconvenient, then your point is
not valid. Kent has ignored the statements by Major
(later full colonel) Edwin Easley, Major (later full colonel)
Patrick Saunders, Brigadier General Arthur Exon, Dr. W.
Curry Holden, reporter Johnny McBoyle and many others.
Each spoke of the second crash site in first-hand terms.

Kent's next point is "Despite the fact that this would
have been the most spectacular event in recorded history,
and despite the fact that word was already out that
something had happened (because of Lt. Haut's press release),
there was absolutely no contemporary discussion or talk about
such an earthshaking event among the pilots and navigators
of the close-knit 509th Bomb Group."

This is absolutely ridiculous when it is remembered that these
were trained officers who were schooled in keeping their
mouths shut and when it is remembered, according to
General DuBose, orders had been issued. When the 509th
was formed, with the purpose of dropping the atomic bombs,
the men were brought to the base and told that they would be
involved in a special assignment. They were told to tell no
one of this. As a security check, they were allowed to glimpse
"special" equipment, or "special" orders. They all were given
a leave before having to report back for training.

Herculean efforts were made to track each of these men,
engage them in conversation, and to see just how much
they would talk about their "special" assignments, or the
"special" equipment they saw. Each who mentioned
anything was dismissed from the unit and returned to
his original assignment. The point is, these men knew
that you didn't talk out of school to anyone who did not
have "A NEED TO KNOW."

Kent then wrote, "West Point graduate and retired
general Thomas DuBose, would have had lied nine
times in an interview when he stated that the debris
(definitely that from an ML-307 radar reflector) shown
in the pictures in Ramey's office was not substituted
material and was "real debris" recovered from the ranch
northwest of Roswell."

This is one of the weakest arguments that Kent has
made. First, he accepts, as completely accurate, Shandera's
interview with DuBose, but according to DuBose and his wife,
Shandera took neither notes nor made a tape recording. In other
words, we are treated to Shandera's version of the events with
no corroboration.

But, when DuBose was asked if he had seen the Roswell
debris, he said, "Never." After the publication of Shandera's
interview, he was asked again if he had ever seen the real
debris and in a letter, he wrote, "NO!"

Billy Cox, a disinterested third party and a writer for
Florida Today, interviewed DuBose for an article he wrote
for the November 24, 1991 edition of that newspaper. Cox
reported that DuBose told him essentially the same story as
outlined in UFO Crash at Roswell. In a letter dated
September 30, 1991, Cox wrote, "I was aware of the recent
controversy generated by an interview he (DuBose) had with
Jamie Shandera, during which he stated that the display
debris at Fort Worth was genuine UFO wreckage and not a
weather balloon, as he had previously stated. But I chose not
to complicate matters by asking him to illuminate what he
had told Shandera; instead, I simply asked him, without
pressure, to recall events as he remembered them...
he seemed especially adamant about his role in the
Roswell case. While he stated that he didn't think the
debris was extraterrestrial in nature (though he had no
facts to support his opinion), he was insistent that the
material that Ramey displayed for the press was in fact
a weather balloon, and that he had personally transferred
the real stuff in a lead-lined mail pouch to a courier going
to Washington... I can only conclude that the Shandera
interview was the end result of the confusion that might
occur when someone attempts to press a narrow point
of view upon a 90 year old man. I had no ambiguity in my
mind that Mr. DuBose was telling me the truth."

What we see here is that DuBose didn't lie nine
times. We have a disagreement between what Shandera
reported about what DuBose said, and the video tape and
reporters notes of what DuBose actually said. The problem
is not Dubose but Shandera.

Next Kent wrote, "Major General C.P. Cabell, Director of
Intelligence for the Air Force at the Pentagon, who
prepared a report on the unidentified flying object situation
for the Secretary of Defense, astoundingly, would have been
preparing the report totally ignorant of the fact that the Air
Force was in possession of a crashed flying saucer."

Actually that is not exactly true. Can we find any instances
in which military officers wrote to civilian representatives of
the government and lied? Yes. Senator Jeff Bingaman asked
the Congressional Inquiry Division, Office of Legislative Liaison
about Project Moon Dust. Lieutenant Colonel John E. Madison
wrote, "In addition there is no Project Moon Dust or Operation
Blue Fly. Those missions have never existed." This is not an
accurate statement.

More importantly, when Madison's statements were challenged,
Colonel George M.  Mattingley, Jr. wrote that Moon Dust had
existed, but it was never used. Mattingley had to know that
Moon Dust had been deployed. He gave Bingaman a history
of Moon Dust. Therefore, Mattingley knowing lied to a United
States Senator, as did Madison.

This is not exactly the same situation as described by Kent
but it does establish a precedence. Yes, military officers
have knowingly lied to the civilian governmental representatives
when they believed national security was at stake.

Finally Kent wrote, "Three retired Air Force colonels, all former
top officials at the Foreign Technology Division at
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base would have been lying
to me -- unnecessarily wasting inordinate amounts of their
own personal time in a protracted game of charades."

Again, this argument is weak on the face of it. If we look at
history we find many examples of military officers serving
in critical positions but not in possession of complete
information. During the Second World War we had
broken a number of the Japanese codes and were reading
intercepted messages under the code name Magic. Very
few knew about it. I believe that MacArthur's staff in the
Southwest Pacific contained two people who were "Magic"
qualified, MacArthur and MacArthur's chief of intelligence.
To suggest that Magic didn't exist because other, high-ranking
members of MacArthur's staff had said they heard nothing
about it is ridiculous. If you interview those men, would they
be lying if they said Magic didn't exist, because,
to them, it didn't.

Finished with that, Kent asked, "What basis
is there now for postulating the existence of a
crashed UFO?"

Simple. The testimony of Edwin Easley, himself a
retired colonel who told me the craft was extraterrestrial.
The testimony of Patrick Saunders, himself a retired colonel
who wrote on the flyleaf to The Truth about the UFO
Crash at Roswell that "Here's the truth and I still haven't
told anybody anything!" which he then signed. And the
testimony of Arthur Exon, himself a retired brigadier general,
who talked of two distinct sites, and who talked of the
people at Wright-Patterson who had examined the debris
and bodies of the alien creatures. My two colonels and
one brigadier general trump Kent's three colonels.

The question that can be asked here, in sort of a
everse on what Kent has written is "Why would these
men create this story if it was not true?" They did not
seek the spotlight as so many others have. They did not
expect a monetary reward for their information. In fact,
they gained nothing by suggesting there was anything
true to the story of the crashed saucer. Would they
spend their time lying to me? Exon and I even ate lunch in
the Wright-Patterson officers' club.

I had hoped, in reading Kent's article, I would find
something that was persuasive. I had hoped that there
would be a revelation that would suggest a good reason
for Kent to so radically alter his position. That I didn't
find. Kent has written that the case is closed. To his
mind, he has solved it with interviews he conducted
and his analysis of the situation. But such isn't the
case because he dismissed too much of the
testimony that doesn't fit with his view.  As I said,
you can't reject inconvenient testimony until you
provide a proper framework for that rejection. He has
failed to do so and therefore his reasons for rejecting the
Roswell UFO crash are less than persuasive.

KRandle