Roswell: The First Witness featuring Maj. Jesse Marcel's Secret Diary

a reply to: Direne

Your theory has to have a reason other than what Mogul was claimed for to be valid.

Also, as I remind again, the big hole is the time. Green Run was in 1949.

And as for a reason for it, well, the US has many times experimented on its own troops, citizens
( Tuskegee experiment giving black men syphilis; their own CIA spooks drugged…etc.) so experimenting on communities by radiating them like that to the US government is no big thing. Par for the course.

You might want to just decouple Green Run from Roswell, and it is a worthy topic of discussion. Still, it doesn’t seem to have much to do with Roswell, which has enough conspiracy theories related to it for a lifetime or two lifetimes.

originally posted by: Ectoplasm8
Stanton Friedman was someone that refused to back down once he believed something. I'm guessing it was an ego issue.

According to an obituary he was a "genius". Are you a super-genius Ectoplasm8? Why do you think that you were able to figure it out and Friedman couldn't? I presume because he either didn't want to because, as you say, he made a lot of money out of Roswell, or because he was still being paid consultancy fees, or the such-like, to deflect attention away from Roswell being the site of something other than a flying saucer crash.

Friedman was the first civilian to document the site of the Roswell UFO incident,[5] and supported the hypothesis that it was a genuine crash of an extraterrestrial spacecraft.[6] In 1968 Friedman told a committee of the United States House of Representatives that the evidence suggests that Earth is being visited by intelligently controlled extraterrestrial vehicles.[7] Friedman also stated he believed that UFO sightings were consistent with magnetohydrodynamic propulsion.

Friedman was outspoken in his articulation of positions and in his criticism of UFO debunkers, often stating he was not an "apologist ufologist". His positions are regarded as controversial in mainstream science and media, but Friedman claimed to have received little opposition at his many lectures, most of which were at colleges and universities, many to engineering societies and other groups of physicists[3] (p. 24).

en.wikipedia.org...

Obviously, given our power of hind-sight, was completely uninterested in solving the mystery of Roswell, such as it was before he created that mystery that is. We can believe him and conclude that his belief in extra-terrestrial visitors was genuine. Or we can consider that he was in someone's employ and he was getting paid to promote some kind of propaganda dressed up in ufology as many far-right groups were doing at that time. Or, as I have previously proposed, he was using ET to deflect attention away from something else altogether.

Given that he claimed he was inspired to quit his job and take up ufology after reading Project Bluebook and learning about the "600 unknowns" I shall myself be having a look there, but either way given GE's involvement in the V-2 programme, as well as Green Run, I am still leaning towards his being in some way working in their best interests. He's either totally innocent, a true believer or he isn't. He himself doesn't appear to have ever left any room for grey areas.

Does anyone know if any transcripts of his early university and college talks are knocking about?

originally posted by: Direne
a reply to: mirageman
Sorry, dude, I was educated in respecting all and any opinion as valid. You do not have the authority to say who's opinion is or not valid. Learn it.

That entirely depends on the nature of the opinion.
If it's a matter of personal preference like your favorite color or your favorite political party, I try to respect all opinions even if I don't agree with them.

However if it's a matter of a truth, I think your education was woefully inadequate. We have photographs from space of a more or less spherical Earth, so if you're suggesting some of us need to get an education to start respecting the opinions of flat earthers, I couldn't disagree more strongly. Flat earth is not a valid opinion; it's factually verifiable whether the earth is flat or not.

I'm not saying you're a flat earther, just pointing out the fallacy in your argument that all opinions should be respected.

After reading your hypothesis, I read McCrary's journal in the Roswell Report appendix. It's pretty interesting reading including supporting your statement about the V-2s being a priority, lots of notes on that. But it also contains references to "mikes" which I presume is how he spells what I would spell "mics" short for microphones, which would seem to confirm the balloon project he was working on involved microphones, which sounds consistent with Mogul. So while the idea they were doing something other than mogul-type objectives isn't implausible, the documentation does seem to support the mogul story as far as I can tell, with ectoplasm's correction that it was more likely a service flight Brazel found, than Mogul flight #4. .

originally posted by: KilgoreTrout
He's either totally innocent, a true believer or he isn't. He himself doesn't appear to have ever left any room for grey areas.

I remember Friedman saying something like "the question isn't if all UFOs are extraterrestrial, the question is, are any?" So this leaves some room for UFO explanations being found, say for one of those "600 unknowns", and he could still point to the other 599 unknowns and ask are any of those ET. It's sort of a "god of the gaps" argument applied to ufology ala "we don't know what these 599 unknowns are, therefore at least one of them must be extraterrestrial". While I admit it's a possibility, it's not an argument I find particularly compelling.

For example, Friedman said the Yukon UFO was everything a UFO case should me, lots of reliable witnesses, who had a close encounter with a giant mothership 3-4 football fields long...a UFO story still being touted on youtube even though years after Friedman said that, we figured out what it was.

originally posted by: KilgoreTrout
Does anyone know if any transcripts of his early university and college talks are knocking about?

Our friend Tim McMillan wrote an article about the 5 cargo vans worth of Friedman's records that are being sorted and that they may need some help. Maybe you could apply for a job helping to sort them to get a personal look at his personal records?

The Largest Single Collection of UFO Material Is Being Cataloged

“Maybe someone will start a GoFundMe or some such thing to raise money so we can hire a couple extra archivists on contract,” Kerr mused.

Even with two full-time employees working on them, Kerr says it could still take 3-4 years to finish organizing Friedman’s files.

a reply to: Direne

It's not so often that anything here catches my attention, but this conversation has. Have you read the Cryptos Conundrum by Chase Brandon? It's about Roswell from the guy who claimed to find the box of Roswell stuff.There's quite a bit of crypto in there. Sadly, something that is quiet above my capabilities although others have made some progress.

Another thought, have you considered that the event perhaps didn't happen at all. In reality, I mean.

a reply to: KilgoreTrout

I come to that conclusion based on his own actions. This isn't something I pulled out of thin air because I don't believe as he did. I don't approach things as a child.
And what does being called a genius have to do with anything? My father worked as a nuclear scientist and was intelligent and called a genius by some. So I had first hand interactions. The kicker is that when it came to that subject he was super intelligent, but being intelligent makes you knowledgeable in a certain subject, it doesn't however make you knowledgeable in every subject. Plenty of "genuises" that lack common sense. It would be a baseless argument.

As far as why can I understand what he couldn't, that's a question for the now gone Stanton Friedman to answer. It's so simple of an answer. I hoped to be challenged on my thread but I wasn't. I welcome challenges to this day. Friedman was also heavily biased in his own belief, I do know that. Again based on his own actions, not by me simply pointing an accusatory finger at him. He exhibited a lack of reasoning when it came to certain things and I couldn't understand why. He was outspoken, but his belief hinged on a belief. He didn't bring an ounce of physical evidence of UFOs or aliens in his entire career. If he had, there would be no discussion. Here's a man with the capability and access to knowledge to publically present evidence to the world, but he never had any. What he didn't bring to the UFO community should be taken into account as well.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

That entirely depends on the nature of the opinion

Arbitrageur, my complaint was not on whether one can hold a different opinion to mine, but rather on how that discrepancy is expressed. If someone tells me 2 plus 2 is 5, I won't state That's ridiculous! . I will educately point to the person the reasons why 2 plus 2 cannot be 5, I will expose the logic behind the conclusion that 2 plus 2 is always 4, and I will invite my partner in the discussion to express her arguments on the contrary. Mirageman implicitely recognised this, and he correctly exposed his doubts, questions, and counter-arguments.

I think your education was woefully inadequate

Tha's ridiculous and certainly a conclusion only ignorant people can draw. (see, Arbitrageur? I'm now making a demonstration on how there are ways and ways to express one's opinions. This is the hard way. Let's now try the educated way

I think your education was woefully inadequate

I'm sure you really mean perhaps your education is not totally adequate... for this and that reason, etc.

I'm not saying you're a flat earther

I'm not. But I do understand that depending on the scale at which you can sound and prove the environment one can correctly come to the conclusion that earth is flat. For instance, bacteria have no way to tell whether earth is flat or not because of their small size. Ants can, because they sense the sun and can certainly infer that its trajectory in the sky is not straight, but curve. On the other hand, you ignore whether the Universe is flat, curved, spheric, or a perfect cube, and that does not make of you a flat universer...

it was more likely a service flight Brazel found, than Mogul flight #4

I agree, that's the most probable conclusion, only that this conclusion is solely based on reports written by vested interested parties: the Government. I prefer to ignore all human witnesses and to focus on the debris.

However, there is a third possibility that could reconcile both those who believe an alien spaceship crashed, and those who believe it was a balloon: a mid-air collision between an alien craft and a high-altitude balloon.

This scenario would explain a mixed debris: those of the alien craft, and those of the balloon. I dismissed this scenario because the debris shows no non-earth wreckage at all. Granted that an alien spacecraft is not supposed to leave any trace at all (they are designed the way you would do it once you master metamaterial engineering by which you guarantee that, in case of a major malfunction, the entire craft reduces to dust before or after touching ground); granted that there could have been alien debris, indeed, but the recovery team cleaned up the area; granted that you can always point a gun at Mr. Brazel¡s head and tell him what to say and what not to say (remember we are here dealing with guys who, only 24 months later, radiated civilians just for the sake of it).

I accept all of those possibilities, and then go through the available data to figure out my conclusion. And after that exercise, I still find it difficult to buy the just-a-high-altitude-balloon-used-to-listen-sound-waves explanation.

No microphones were found, therefore, as Ectoplams8 states, it was a service flight, with foils thetered in order to calibrate the radar and track the balloon and get an idea of how it behaves in the atmosphere. Perfect. A balloon designed to listen sound waves to detect a possible Soviet atomic test... just when you have bombed two cities and have tested your own bomb and you know radiation is the easier way to detect such nuclear events. You know all of it, you know about Geiger counters, you know about radioactive particulate matter, and yet you wish to convince me you were testing whether we could possible listen to sound waves in the upper atmosphere.

The same guys that ordered without any remorse to irradiate their own people could certainly ask Mr. Ewing if he could help to prepare a dossier about balloons and radiosounding microphones. A request he better shouldn't refuse, unless he was ready to be transferred from New York to, say... Hanford. A bad place to be those days.

And now for something completely different … ;-)

The October 1947 Schulgen memo and Roswell – a connection?

In a 1947 memo by Gen. Schulgen (the real one, from the National Archives), he orders the collection of information on `flying saucer type aircraft’. Some of the characteristics given in this 1947 memo:

c. Extreme maneuverability and apparent ability to almost hover.
f. The ability to quickly disappear by high speed or by complete disintegration.
g. The ability to suddenly appear without warning as if from an extremely high altitude.

Schulgen clearly is worried that this is some German technology (he specifically mentions the Horten brothers), further developed by the USSR:

4. This strange object, or phenomenon, may be considered, in view of certain observations, as long-range aircraft capable of a high rate of climb, high cruising speed (possibly sub-sonic at all times) and highly maneuverable and capable of being flown in very tight formation. For the purpose of analysis and evaluation of the so-called "flying saucer" phenomenon, the object sighted is being assumed to be a manned aircraft, of Russian origin, and based on the perspective thinking and actual accomplishments of the Germans.

The memo is to be distributed very widely:

DISTRIBUTION
1. To M.A.'s England, France, Sweden, Finland, USSR, Turkey, Greece, Iran, China, Norway, Philippines, and to Commander-in-Chief, Far East, and Commanding General, United States Air Forces in Europe, through Commanding General, EUCOM.

The reason I think it may be linked to Roswell in some way:

1. It was sent in October of the same year.
2. It states that “the greatest activity in the U.S. was during the last week of June and the first week of July” - the exact time period of the Roswell incident.

3. Last but not least, it gives some indications on what to look for in terms of construction:

3. Items of Construction
a. Type of material, whether metal, ferrous, non-ferrous, or non-metallic.
b. Composite or sandwich construction utilizing various combinations of metals, plastics, and perhaps balsa wood.
c. Unusual fabrication methods to achieve extreme light weight and structural stability particularly in connection with great capacity for fuel storage.

The items found by Marcel were described as ‘resembling balsa wood’ (yet it did not burn and could not be broken), extremely lightweight (you couldn’t even feel you had anything in your hand), and remarkably sturdy (thin pieces of metal could not be bent by hand).
Hence his conclusion this was not a weather balloon. (He also told that the rubber-like material was actually porous - he could breath through it; another reason the balloon theory was written off by him).

Was Schulgen informed about Roswell and did he include this knowledge in his memo? Why else mention `perhaps balsa wood'?!

originally posted by: Arbitrageur
Our friend Tim McMillan wrote an article about the 5 cargo vans worth of Friedman's records that are being sorted and that they may need some help. Maybe you could apply for a job helping to sort them to get a personal look at his personal records?

The Largest Single Collection of UFO Material Is Being Cataloged

“Maybe someone will start a GoFundMe or some such thing to raise money so we can hire a couple extra archivists on contract,” Kerr mused.

Even with two full-time employees working on them, Kerr says it could still take 3-4 years to finish organizing Friedman’s files.

While I appreciate you passing on the "Help Wanted", I've already found an example of what I was looking for.

documents2.theblackvault.com...

I have enough trouble juggling my own papers it would be irresponsible of me to take on anyone else's - paid or otherwise.

originally posted by: Ectoplasm8
As far as why can I understand what he couldn't, that's a question for the now gone Stanton Friedman to answer. It's so simple of an answer. I hoped to be challenged on my thread but I wasn't. I welcome challenges to this day. Friedman was also heavily biased in his own belief, I do know that. Again based on his own actions, not by me simply pointing an accusatory finger at him. He exhibited a lack of reasoning when it came to certain things and I couldn't understand why. He was outspoken, but his belief hinged on a belief. He didn't bring an ounce of physical evidence of UFOs or aliens in his entire career. If he had, there would be no discussion. Here's a man with the capability and access to knowledge to publically present evidence to the world, but he never had any. What he didn't bring to the UFO community should be taken into account as well.

Skimming through the lecture I linked to above, I haven't read through it in detail as yet, I suspect that initially at least, and given his chosen audience, he was looking to inspire on some level. So yes, I agree, he was bringing something initially at least, something kind of evangelical though.

And I was again left wondering if TTSA somehow staged a ritualised reactment of key events in ufology. Or perhaps more likely, are just following step-by-step by rote from the UFO Hoax playbook.

a reply to: KilgoreTrout

He started Roswell in 1978 with a belief and by the time of the Roswell Report's release in 1994 he was already making money off the story. He never approached the answer completely and gave the standard "Roswell was not Mogul flight #4" answer. That answer is true, but the real answer is still in there. I have no stake in Roswell and nothing to gain, he did.

People hung on to his words because of their own personal bias. What Friedman said wasn't gospel but he used his nuclear physicist title to impress those that believe a title is further evidence of his theories. It is not and is still only a belief.

He again brought nothing but a promotion of several stories and no real evidence.

a reply to: Guest101

I'm sure you didn't overlook point f) in which the guy urge to locate all members of the Horton family, specially the sister. Why was Gunilda so interesting for those guys?

a reply to: Ectoplasm8

the Roswell Report's release in 1994

That report was the one released by the NSA in which for the first time they introduce Project Mogul? I mean, the explanation that what crashed was a Mogul balloon is solely based on what the NSA said in that report?

a reply to: Direne

I've been stating that for the last several days. I encourage anyone who hasn't read the Roswell Report to read it and challenge my thoughts if they still believe I'm wrong and this was an alien spacecraft.

I find with every single supporter their refusal to admit it's just a coincidence that the alien spacecraft is built with the same materials as balloons and radar targets.

originally posted by: Guest101
The items found by Marcel were described as ‘resembling balsa wood’ (yet it did not burn and could not be broken), extremely lightweight (you couldn’t even feel you had anything in your hand), and remarkably sturdy (thin pieces of metal could not be bent by hand).
Hence his conclusion this was not a weather balloon. (He also told that the rubber-like material was actually porous - he could breath through it; another reason the balloon theory was written off by him).

I was reading through The Roswell Report from 1994-1995 and one of the balloon test reports in the appendices said that UV light from the sun had such a devastating effect on the neoprene balloons that they might fail due to UV exposure after only 6 hours.

Now, consider that, and consider how long the wreckage was sitting in the field, exposed to the sun, before Marcel retrieved it. Some timelines claim days, but it was actually weeks. So what kind of shape would the neoprene be in after weeks of UV exposure if it was failing after only 6 hours of UV exposure? So I don't find it implausible that the neoprene was in really bad shape by the time Marcel collected it, but I also recognize he tended to exaggerate, like with his claims about the indestructible material which was scattered over a large field in pieces.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Exactly. But do not forget the combined effect of high pressure and extremely low temperature. That's what makes friable what in room temperature and at ground level is not. It is the combination of high pressure, low temperature, and radiation what makes some materials to degrade in such a dramatic way.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

As I'm sure you know, tests were performed on balloon material to see how it would react to sunlight. Moore mentions in his Statement as Witness:

The neoprene balloons were susceptible to degradation turning from a translucent milky White to a dark brown. Some of the material would almost look like dark gray or black flakes or ashes after exposure to the sun after only a few days.

A photo from the Roswell Report after testing:

a reply to: Ectoplasm8
Great example, thanks.
I think I could breathe through that fragment in the corner, it's got a hole in it!

originally posted by: Guest101
The items found by Marcel were described as ‘resembling balsa wood’ (yet it did not burn and could not be broken), extremely lightweight (you couldn’t even feel you had anything in your hand), and remarkably sturdy (thin pieces of metal could not be bent by hand).
Hence his conclusion this was not a weather balloon. (He also told that the rubber-like material was actually porous - he could breath through it; another reason the balloon theory was written off by him).

Was Schulgen informed about Roswell and did he include this knowledge in his memo? Why else mention `perhaps balsa wood'?!

Regarding Marcel's description of sticks that resembled balsa wood but couldn't be burned, I think it's been mentioned many times but I can't remember if it was mentioned in this thread or not, that the sticks were saturated with glue, which would tend to affect their flammability compared to uncoated balsa wood sticks.

However I have no idea if there's any balsa wood connection to Roswell in the Schulgen memo. I would expect it was already widely known that balsa wood was light which maybe a lot of kids learn when flying kites.

a reply to: Arbitrageur
It was also being used in aircraft construction at the time, by way of a balsa/aluminum sandwich called "Metalite." Used in the famous Flying Flapjack!

Found this on the Smithsonians..

It bears mentioning that neither Northrop nor the Hortens invented flying wings. Both the concept and actual flying wings have been around since the 1910s. In fact, by the late 1920s there had been enough experiments with flying wings that the configu­ration was considered passé, and both Jack Northrop and the Hortens were late to the party.

So if not a German design maybe the parabolic jets came from another factory?

a reply to: Arbitrageur

To interject again, the following is part of the interview with Charles Moore in the Roswell Report where he mentions the coating:

This thread seems to be diverging in three different directions.

Mogul/Hanford
That Mogul was used as some kind of cover-up for Hanford is a long stretch to me.

Not only would it require great foresight of how events would transpire in 1947, it would also mean someone would know how Roswell would be revived 30/40 years later as a UFO story. Plus reach such a point where it would be investigated with a formal enquiry by an organisation [the US Air Force] that didn't even exist when Mogul was conceived. As Willtell mentioned earlier, the Hanford story could stand on its own as a cover-up story free from complications with trying to force fit Roswell and Mogul into it as well.

Stanton Friedman
My take on him is, like many others that have followed, he started off with a genuine interest in the subject. Was able to make a tidy living from ufology. But reached a brickwall where he really couldn't get much further. So he continued with the bluster and hype until he retired. He was lucky that most of his career was before the internet had gone mainstream and information was much harder to cross check. I doubt he'd be as well rewarded had he started out 10 years ago.

If you check his FBI file someone even suspected him of being the Una-bomber! Stan was also recruited as part of a UFO study back in the 1960s for McDonnell Douglas. Under the stewardship of Bob Wood. For some reason both Stanton and Bob Wood were two of the main proponents of the MJ-12 documents long after most had declared them fakes.

Roswell the UFO Incident
The contemporaneous evidence is extremely weak to support that an alien spaceship crashed with parts found in Roswell. Especially if you accept that terms like 'flying disc' or 'flying saucer' had a different meaning in 1947 than it does now.

The Mogul service flight is probably the best fit for a prosaic explanation. But I still wonder why Roswell was revived and inflated 3 decades later. To include stories of a number of crash sites, dead alien bodies even autopsies on video. A whole industry has been built around it. I still think there's something more to the 'revival' of the story than has been released publicly. What exactly that is I am not sure.