Roswell Slides Solve the mystery in 1.5 minutes (Your independent verification welcomed)

originally posted by: CardDown
One of the most annoying things is when someone barges into a thread,adds nothing of content, just to post a cheeky meme. Worse, when they try to avoid a low-content post by adding an unnecessary second line.

That picture pretty well sums it all up.

Isaac is it true Paul Kimbell was one of the people that contacted Stanton Friedman to warn him not to attend the BeWitness event?

I know you asked Isaac, but this is exactly what I have heard too.a reply to: thepixelpusher

a reply to: thepixelpusher

I only spoke to Stan after he had already made his decision, and after I had heard about it from someone else. All that I did was ask him if it was true, and then congratulated him on his common sense.

originally posted by: paulandrewkimball
a reply to: thepixelpusher

I only spoke to Stan after he had already made his decision, and after I had heard about it from someone else. All that I did was ask him if it was true, and then congratulated him on his common sense.

I'm wondering, in addition to your contacting Stanton Friedman, if the Roswell Slide Team had contacted other people that were planning on presenting at the BeWitness event too. You guys had done a wonderful and thorough job in your research. Were Carey, Schmitt, Dolan, etc. contacted as well with news of your progress?

originally posted by: thepixelpusher
Isaac is it true Paul Kimbell was one of the people that contacted Stanton Friedman to warn him not to attend the BeWitness event?

Hi thepixelpusher,

I've checked with Paul Kimball:

"That is categorically untrue. I only spoke to Stan AFTER he had already made his decision, and after I had heard about it from someone else. All that I did was ask him if it was true, and then congratulated him on his common sense.

Edit to add : Sorry, I didn't see that Paul also posted his answer above after I passed on the enquiry.

These guys better hope there's no such thing as the mummy's curse.

originally posted by: torsion
These guys better hope there's no such thing as the mummy's curse.

PERFECT!!!!!

originally posted by: IsaacKoi
That post provoked yet further outrage from the promoters of the Roswell Slides. Their website quickly responded with allegations that the deblurring work of the Roswell Slides Research team was a fake by liars - claiming, for example, that "The image they claim to have de-blured is its self a fake created by taking a low resolution copy of our scan and editing it in photoshop".

I was not very impressed with that allegation, which is one of the reasons I'm writing this thread after I should be tucked up in bed...

I see that the relevant part of the website of the promoters of the "Roswell Slides" has slightly toned down their comments (although they clearly still give grounds for a claim for libel):



I probably don't need to respond any further to these allegations, since anyone that wants to has been able to follow the step-by-step instructions in my OP (USING AN IMAGE WHICH ANYONE CAN INDEPENDENTLY DOWNLOAD FROM THE WEBSITE OF THE PROMOTERS OF THE SLIDES!) for several days.

The proof is in the pudding - and many of you have had one or two helpings of that pudding and posted confirmation of the position (including several people that initially tended to support the promoters of the slides).

However, for anyone that still has any doubts (not that I recall seeing any recently in this thread and I think the UFO community has almost universally accepted that the results are not faked...), I have been in touch with David Rudiak to ask him if he has been able to duplicate our results independently.

David Rudiak is one of the experts relied upon at Maussan's big show in Mexico in relation to attempts to enhance the image. You can see his name at the top of the list of those experts in this image from the show in Mexico:


David Rudiak kindly took the time to respond to my queries in the comments section of a post on Kevin Randle's blog with the following post (with my emphasis added of the final line):

Isaac Koi wrote:

While I think your current position is clearly implicit in your comments above, can you please state very, very briefly (ideally one brief sentence) in words of one syllable, that I can pass on to others, whether or not you have now been able to replicate the deblurred placard USING AN IMAGE SUPPLIED BY DEW (ideally WITHOUT using the kernel shared by Nab Lator and the Roswell Slides Research Group, due to one or two people suggesting that the kernel manipulates the true image).

Yes, once you know that the deblurring program of choice is Smart DeBlur (automatically figures out both lens and motion blur and hones in on optimum solution) and has given others good results, then it is a simple matter to download a trial copy, fiddle with the settings, and at least clarify the top line of bigger letters in all caps to the point that most words can be easily read.

(That's one long sentence--OK? Sorry the words aren't all monosyllabic for the benefit of your caveman audience. You also threw a lot of polysyllabic words at me in your question--it's so unfair!)

Dew's scan image is identical to one I received, except it isn't cropped down to just the placard. Using either image, setting blur area to about 60x60 and smoothness to medium and about 80, and after a minute or two of processing, out pops most of the top line quite clearly, except for the "MUMMIFIED BODY" at the beginning, which takes some interpretation.

Playing with the settings more might improve it some, as might adjusting sharpness and contrast in a paint program. This was just a quick and dirty example.

Again, however, this is all 20-20 hindsight. Other deblurring software I tried, such as Topaz, didn't do nearly as well.

So, yes, no need to use your "kern" to get. (One short sentence, all monosyllabic.)

In a follow-up post, David Rudiak kindly made things even clearer (with my emphasis added again of the final line):

Isaac Koi wrote:

That last sentence (reproducible deblurring of placard) in particular may be useful to deal with some of the comments I'm still seeing (although the number of people advancing that view continues to fall to a rather small number).

Isaac,

No doubt this weak 'scuse shall not last long since it is just plain wrong. (One sentence, all monosyllabic.)

Curt Collins, Paul Kimball, and Lance Moody talk to Greg Bishop about the Roswell Slides on Radio Misterioso.

one of these days, we are going to get a daylight, clear, digital, "no-way-in-hell-faked" picture or clip of an alien and/or craft. until then, it devolves down to these last few pages, this is just embarrassing to the critical-thinking ATS members.

I guess I'm confused since I was late to the game on this (apparently this has been going on for at least a year). Was the Roswell Slide Team working with the slide researchers or Adam Dew to help research this? Sounds like the Roswell Slide Team put a lot of time and effort to help reveal the placard and find the mummy's location. Wouldn't you be contacting or sharing that with them? Or maybe you did contact them and they didn't respond?

originally posted by: jimmyx
one of these days, we are going to get a daylight, clear, digital, "no-way-in-hell-faked" picture or clip of an alien and/or craft. until then, it devolves down to these last few pages, this is just embarrassing to the critical-thinking ATS members.

I don't think the critical thinkers had much to do with the promotion of this embarrassment, or the residual apologetics.

Thanks to these guys, should such a day arrive, it will likely be written off as yet another fraud.

originally posted by: draknoir2

originally posted by: jimmyx
one of these days, we are going to get a daylight, clear, digital, "no-way-in-hell-faked" picture or clip of an alien and/or craft. until then, it devolves down to these last few pages, this is just embarrassing to the critical-thinking ATS members.

I don't think the critical thinkers had much to do with the promotion of this embarrassment, or the residual apologetics.

Thanks to these guys, should such a day arrive, it will likely be written off as yet another fraud.

Well I think you'd have to include a bigger audience to blame then if we only consider peer reviewed and undisputed facts in UFO research before we present it to the public. Under your assessment we'd have to include Coast to Coast AM that broadcasts conjecture on UFO's too. And we'd also have to include Above Top Secret that is host to people's opinions and conjecture without facts to a worldwide audience every day. And many other sources of paid advertising media and personalities.

a reply to: thepixelpusher

I don't know how old you are, but I remember the hype and excitement around the Santilli hoax. I was sucked in.

What strikes me about all this is the sheer laziness of the "Roswell Slides" by way of comparison. One would think such a fraud would have been far more elaborate in the current net-connected environment, where pretty much anyone can immediately debunk such claims with a bit of effort. The Alien Autopsy video was quite sophisticated, and the average Joe didn't have the same research tools back then... and still I think he would have cried foul at a photo of a mummy in a glass museum case with a whited out placard billed as a "Roswell Alien"..

originally posted by: draknoir2
a reply to: thepixelpusher

I don't know how old you are, but I remember the hype and excitement around the Santilli hoax. I was sucked in.

Older than the Santilli debacle

I think we agree that crowd sourcing is the thing that worked in this, with a team of people coming together. I am still wondering why the Roswell Slide Team information wasn't used by Slidebox Media.

Kodachrome Production Notes from IMDb

Status: Pre-production | See complete list of in-production titles »
Comments: Funding in place and has been cast currently securing locations
Updated: 10 April 2015

Source

Maybe the "Kodachrome" documentary, which is listed under comedy, will answer our questions. It seems to show it's been funded.

And, curiously Chicago-based Adam Dew of Slidebox Media is not the director. Catherine A. Callahan is listed as Director/Writer. A woman who's played comedy roles on TV and film.

New public statement by one of the main promoters of the Roswell Slides, Tom Carey (Roswell book author):

Posted by Philip Mantle on Facebook at
www.facebook.com...

My emphasis added.

For posting, here is our current position at this moment in time regarding the slides and the placard. Thank you for your patience. I will advise you accordingly of any new developments, as they occur. Best

Tom Carey

We believe that the recently released "reading" of the placard by the so-called "Roswell Slides Research Group" was faked. Some of the names in this group, in itself, should give pause and raise red warning flags do damage to anyone actually searching for truth. Ever since Don Schmitt and I became aware of the slides three years ago, our modus operandi has been four-fold: (1) to authenticate the age and integrity of the slides; (2) to obtain professional anthropological and forensic opinion as to what the body on the slides represented; (3) to find out as much as we could about Bernerd and Hilda Blair Ray, the long-deceased owners of the slides; and (4) to "read" the placard located at the foot of the body on the slides.

We physically took the slides to Kodak's historian, who is an expert regarding Kodachrome., and, using several parameters of interrogation, he determined that the slides dated from the 1947-49 time period (manufacture to exposure). For the most part, the American anthropologists we contacted did not want to even look at the slides when they learned that they might be "UFO-related." Those who did, however, did so "off the record." They all concluded that the body on the slides was not that of a mummy but possibly that of a congenitally deformed child. Fortunately, we were able to secure Canadian and Mexican anthropologists and forensic anatomical experts who went "on the record" at our May 5th "beWitness" event in Mexico City. In short, their detailed presentations concluded that the body on the slides was: not a mammal, not a primate and not human. One, Richard Doble, after a detailed morphological examination, concluded that the creature on the slides did not evolve on earth. You already have Doble's report, and the report of the two Mexican authorities is still in translation.

The Rays had no children or close relatives we could interview who could shed some light on their activities. Bernerd was an oil geologist whose whose zone of activity was the Permian Basin of west Texas and eastern New Mexico. He was also the President of a geological society in west Texas. Hilda was an oil attorney in Midland, Texas and an amateur pilot who, according a friend in the nursing home where Hilda passed away in 1988, was also friends with Mamie Eisenhower (General and later President Dwight D. Eisenhower's wife). There are a number of color slides in the collection that do appear to show Mamie Eisenhower in various situations. Prior to her death, Hilda Ray bequeathed almost $1M to the American Association of University Women.

Regarding the placard, we quickly determined that (1) its content would be key to interpreting the slides; and (2) we could not read it. So, we sent copies to Dr. David Rudiak and Dr. Donald Burleson. Both had done exemplary work in trying to decipher the so-called "Ramey Memo" - a situation very similar to placard issue here. Both responded to us that the placard was "unreadable." Through a contact, we had the Photo Interpretation Unit at the Pentagon in Washington, DC take a look at it. They said that it was "unreadable." A copy went to a company in New York now requesting anonymity that conducted the analysis on a major historical artifact. That company's response to us was that the placard was "unreadable." Another copy went to the people at Adobe, Inc. (manufacturers of Adobe Photoshop and the Adobe Reader on your computer). Their response? "It's unreadable." A copy also was also sent to aggressive Roswell researcher Anthony Bragalia who also reported to me that it was "unreadable." (Bragalia has now aggressively joined in with our critics). Our own computer guy says that he applied the "SmartDeblur" software to the placard over a year ago without any success. He did so again this week to an enhanced, sharper version of the placard with the latest edition of the "SmartDeBlur" program, again without success.

Now, we are told (not asked) to believe that a cast of characters, one of whom has clearly become unhinged and was himself party to a known UFO body hoax some years ago, has used the same program (SmartDeBlur) on a distorted,"screen-grab" of the placard and is somehow able to "read" it when all of the above, some of whom had much more sophisticated equipment and techniques at their disposal, could not. I ask you, what's wrong with this picture?

Finally, lost in all of the vile invective being hurled our way by the members of the RSRG and their fellow travelers, is what the analysis of the physical body on the slides is saying. The RSRG has used a note from an obscure late 1800's journal to weave their tale that the slides show the "mummified body of a two year old boy" (the word "mummy" or "mummified" appears nowhere in their alleged de-blurred "reading" of the placard). In their excitement to play "Gotcha!," it apparently has not crossed their thought processes (I'm being charitable here) that a mummy of a two year old boy several thousand years old would be less than half the size of the body shown on the slides!

So, what are we to make of all this? Jaime Maussan relied upon Tom Carey and Don Schmitt, who relied on all of the above to reach the conclusions that were reached. We have, at this point in the proceedings, have sent out additional copies of the placard image to third parties whose opinions we can trust to run the SmartDeBlur application on it and are prepared to abide by their findings, wherever the chips fall.

Tom Carey.

I think most people interested in the Roswell Slides know by now that various videos online and/or the instructions in my item below allow anyone to independently confirm the deblurring of the placard USING AN IMAGE OF THE PLACARD ON THE WEBSITE OF THE PROMOTERS OF THE SLIDES in under 1.5 minutes.

I've also posted above a new comment by David Rudiak (one of the experts previously relied upon by the promoters of the slidess) that he has independently verified the deblurring and commenting that suggestions of a fake placard are a weak excuse which is "clearly wrong".


Perhaps someone should send Tom Carey the new comments of his own expert...

Or perhaps Tom Carey should be asked if he followed the step-by-step instructions I posted here on ATS a few days ago to enable anyone to independently verify the results in under 2 minutes USING AN IMAGE ON THE WEBSITE OF THE PROMOTERS OF THE SLIDES.

Or perhaps he should have a glance through this thread so that he can see the information from various people that have used various ways to get to the same results.

Or perhaps ... - Oh, forget it.

for those who are interested:

I was initially skeptical about the SmartDeblur results on the placard.
the result did not seem to match the original.

However, I decided to check myself.

After 12-14 attempts with different settings of the software,
the result came out.

and, to my surprise, it was consistent with what IsaacKoi and his team has found out.

Parts of the writings on the placard could be clearly seen:

MUMMIFIED BODY OF TWO YEAR OLD BOY

and in the last line: San Francisco, California
(perhaps also L. S. Palmer)

As Art Director first, and Marketing & Communications Executive later,
I have 18 years experience in using imaging processing software,
so I can confirm with confidence what the others have found about the placard.

if someone is interested, I can post the images.

Thanks and hats off to IsaacKoi and his team.

I just want to add, for everyone who wants to try, than you don't need a preset kernel to do it.
The SmartDeblur software generates the "kernel" itself.

These are the steps:

once you have installed the software (trial version):

1.- open the original placard file >>> placard-TEXT1.jpg

2.- settings of SmartDeblur:

A.- Auto-detect blur

B.- Blur size: 100x100


then:

3.- press Analyze blur

4.- wait for the processing to be done by the software (1 to 4 minutes)


after processing is done:

5.- smoothness at 80%

and you get the results...


6.- save the file


--------------------------------------------

here is the SmartDeblur tutorial:

smartdeblur.net...

a reply to: draknoir2

Yeh the Santilli tape. Half a lifetime ago now for me and I was actually quite open minded as well at the time. Santilli still doesn't admit it was a complete hoax to this day. Perhaps to protect himself going to prison? Even though he's made a fortune out of "Alien Autopsy" and the 'follow up' comedy Britflick of the same name.

The thing about this latest squeezing the last drops from the Roswell case is, that even if we couldn't decipher that label, the rest of the story is still highly questionable.


Pic courtesy : Daily Mirror UK




1) There is no real evidence to the link this slide to being anything alien. It is up to the claimants to offer the proof not (as many believers do) try to push the burden of proof on the doubter by saying "prove it isn't an alien".

2) If this really was an alien body would it be on open display like this where people can stand right next to it? The claims are it was from 1947 because of the clothing the woman standing behind the glass cabinet. Well I'd expect to see someone in highly protective clothing not civilian clothes. This would have presented the risk of a highly dangerous bio-hazard being released. (At least Santilli worked on that). C'mon this even looks like it was taken in a museum.

3) The whole story is just so weak. It would never, as Don Schmitt, claimed on Coast to Coast last week be allowed to stand in a court of law.

. if we were take this into a court of law before a judge and jury. Then unless someone can demonstrate other circumstances, other evidence suggesting another occasion. Another set of circumstance that would provide us with this opportunity...One would have to conclude that, yes, there is indeed a direct link to Roswell.

Ref back to this post

In fact he should be more worried about defending himself against a jury..

The focus has been driven towards the words of a placard/label but the rest of the story doesn't add up either.


In spite of all that, I take absolutely no satisfaction from this whole episode and you have to question where it leaves the Roswell case and ufology in general.

Are people still willing to take the likes of Cary and Schmitt and their 'Roswell Research' seriously after this debacle?

Richard Dolan may just be able to wriggle out of this by dusting himself down and masking the stench for a while. But where does he go next?

The work is drying up for those who make a living in this field now. There are very few good cases from the decade and half of this century. Even some of those classic UFO cases from the 1947 -1997 era, like Roswell, are looking less robust these days. Meanwhile space science is getting close and closer to finding aliens.

Are we are witnessing the terminal decline of 'commercial ufology'.

And if so who will be there to pick up the pieces when the 70th anniversary of Roswell comes around?