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

a reply to: KellyPrettyBear

The thing about Roswell that's interesting is that it had died for thirty years then resurrected in the late 70s and early 80s by questionable characters; that blew it up by revisionist tales and embellishments with some gullible ufologists in the foreground and IC spooks lurking in the background.

Now it's mere fodder for ufotainment.

a reply to: Willtell

Definitely.

Well said.

My response was about the 'much ado about nothing' of how it originated.

"Roswell" is definitely a good case study for modern mythology and hucksterism
of willing rubes both.

So where did this nonsense about tape with symbols on it come from?

Jesse Senior and his son who also viewed the wreckage said there were I beams with symbols on them, not tape.

So where does the tape rumor come from?

So, it turns out the expert who in the second episode said he’d debunk the Mogul balloon has done a 180 and now says the evidence shows he can’t prove it wasn't a Mogul balloon after all and it likely was a Mogul Balloon!.

I will treat this like I treat the Oak Island series -- wait until its over and read a summary. This will save a lot of time and cliffhanger endings.

originally posted by: pteridine
I will treat this like I treat the Oak Island series -- wait until its over and read a summary. This will save a lot of time and cliffhanger endings.

You know you right. IF and when they ever find something new, we’d have heard about long before the show.

One never thinks these shows aren’t anything but pedestrian entertainment ( I watch while eyeing the NY Knicks lose)and certainly without new revelations unless you like old wife’s tales about Roswell and on Oak Island 200-year-old rusty coins.

Thank you for the compliments. I hope my thread helped explain some of issues with the story. The Air Force bringing up Mogul #4 only gave Stanton Friedman fuel for his fire. Mogul flight engineer Charles Moore actually gave the answer:

I can think of no other explanation for Roswell than one of our early June service flight balloons.

originally posted by: Ectoplasm8
Thank you for the compliments. I hope my thread helped explain some of issues with the story. The Air Force bringing up Mogul #4 only gave Stanton Friedman fuel for his fire. Mogul flight engineer Charles Moore actually gave the answer:

"I can think of no other explanation for Roswell than one of our early June service flight balloons."

Yes that was one of my all-time favorite threads, well done!

The Air Force knew what Moore said about the service flight, right?
So the remaining mystery is, why did the Air Force say it was probably Mogul #4?
Was it bungling, or was it a planned distraction to give folks like Stanton Friedman fuel to claim the coverup continues? If they kill the Roswell story, the UFOlogy "smoke screen" loses one of its foundations, and maybe they wanted to keep the smoke screen going.

I also wondered about the crash test dummies in that light, in the Air Force's follow up report. It seems to me like they could have just said that Brazel nor Marcel nor any other base witnesses saw alien bodies, and left it at that, but they brought up crash test dummies from years later. Again I wonder was that really to provide answers, or to "stir the pot" of UFOlogy to keep the mythology going?

Col. Philip J. Corso, his reliability and respectability needs to be addressed in any debunk of Roswell.
Calling him a liar just does not fit the man IMHO, so how is it possible that Roswell was different than he says it was?

originally posted by: charlyv
Col. Philip J. Corso, his reliability and respectability needs to be addressed in any debunk of Roswell.
Calling him a liar just does not fit the man IMHO

Maybe your opinion needs some updating. Have you tried asking Senator Thurmond why he wrote a glowing foreward to Corso's book, since like you apparently do, he held a high opinion of Corso? Then ask him why he changed his opinion.

After saying Corso was a man of integrity, Thurmond subsequently published a statement saying he doesn't believe Corso's claims. Why was Thurmond able to update his opinion, but apparently you have not done so?

Senator Regrets Role in Book on Aliens

In the foreword, Senator Thurmond, a South Carolina Republican, says Mr. Corso worked for him as an aide after leaving the Army and praises him as a person of integrity who served his country well. ''

In a statement, Senator Thurmond said that he regretted that his foreword appeared to bolster claims of a Government conspiracy. ''I know of no such 'cover-up,' '' the Senator said, ''and do not believe one existed.''

Why did former astronaut Gordon Cooper start telling lies and tall tales or fantastic exaggerations?

I don't pretend to know the answer of why they do it, I only know that sometimes people do tell lies, even if they have distinguished careers. Corso is one case study though I don't know if we can really answer the question why they do it, the answer to that question seems speculative, we only know they do lie sometimes:

Why People Embellish Already Accomplished Lives with Incredible Tales of UFOs and Other Phenomena

IT STARTED WITH A SIMPLE QUESTION: WHY WOULD otherwise successful, professional people with long, prosperous careers tell wild tales? Why would someone of good reputation, education and a gainful career, embellish their record with incredible adventures? Why would a retired Lieutenant Colonel with a number of high level accomplishments in his career and awarded numerous medals and praises from superior officers, upon retirement start telling people he was part of a team that analyzed the wreckage of a crashed UFO? Why would anyone do this if it were not true? Intuitively, it seems like someone who gains credibility, status, and a reputation would be less inclined to puff themselves up with fantastic tales. Why risk losing it all by going off the rails recounting unbelievable stories?

Philip J. Corso is a case study in this phenomenon.

originally posted by: Arbitrageur

originally posted by: Ectoplasm8
Thank you for the compliments. I hope my thread helped explain some of issues with the story. The Air Force bringing up Mogul #4 only gave Stanton Friedman fuel for his fire. Mogul flight engineer Charles Moore actually gave the answer:

"I can think of no other explanation for Roswell than one of our early June service flight balloons."

Yes that was one of my all-time favorite threads, well done!

The Air Force knew what Moore said about the service flight, right?
So the remaining mystery is, why did the Air Force say it was probably Mogul #4?
Was it bungling, or was it a planned distraction to give folks like Stanton Friedman fuel to claim the coverup continues? If they kill the Roswell story, the UFOlogy "smoke screen" loses one of its foundations, and maybe they wanted to keep the smoke screen going.

I also wondered about the crash test dummies in that light, in the Air Force's follow up report. It seems to me like they could have just said that Brazel nor Marcel nor any other base witnesses saw alien bodies, and left it at that, but they brought up crash test dummies from years later. Again I wonder was that really to provide answers, or to "stir the pot" of UFOlogy to keep the mythology going?

The Air Force also supported Moores answers by providing technical drawings from both service and research flights. So they knew full Mogul arrays weren't the only balloon flights being launched out of Alamogordo. It is hard to understand why Mogul flight 4 was pushed unless it was purposeful.


I think the second report was written because the Air Force felt pressured by the public for answers. They went into detail of witnesses coming forward after an advertisement was placed in the local paper in the late 70's by authors of Roswell books. Crash Test dummies, experimental tests and victims from the 50s and 60s, and false memories are ridiculous answers for alien bodies. Then again, to me, it shows how the Air Force was honest and not trying to force-fit a created and fabricated answer into the alien bodies questions. They were giving honest answers here as well as honest answers for the first report of Roswell.

originally posted by: A51Watcher
So where did this nonsense about tape with symbols on it come from?

Jesse Senior and his son who also viewed the wreckage said there were I beams with symbols on them, not tape.

So where does the tape rumor come from?

Mac Brazel said in his July 9, 1947 newspaper interview:

There were no words to be found anywhere on the instrument, although there were letters on some of the parts. Considerable scotch tape and some tape with flowers printed upon it had been used in the construction.

The letters he mentioned is probably the model number ML- 307C/AP radar target the Air Force updated the weather targets to have hand written on them.


The tape with flowers on it was part of tape used to attach the foil-backed paper to the small wooden beams. Radar targets were farmed out to various toy companies to construct. These companies were said by Albert Trakowski, Charles Moore, Jack Peterson to use Chinese style tape with little heart and flower designs. Jesse Marcel Sr also said to Bob Pratt in his interview in 1979 that there were symbols on it like Chinese writing. There's definitely a number of Chinese references to the symbols. I relate it to firecracker style of drawings/symbols used.

a reply to: Ectoplasm8

....I think the second report was written because the Air Force felt pressured by the public for answers.

The pressure may have came right from the top. The very top.

The original Roswell Report The Roswell Report: Fact Versus Fiction in the New Mexico Desert was published on September 28th 1995.

It wasn't well received IIRC as there were claims that files and documents could not be found and the story had been whitewashed.

Two months later on November 30th 1995 President Clinton gave his Christmas peace address in Belfast. Going strangely off-topic...

..... I got a letter from 13-year old Ryan from Belfast. Now Ryan if you're out in the crowd tonight here's the answer to your question.

No as far as I know an alien spacecraft did not crash in Roswell New Mexico in 1947 and Ryan if the United States Air Force did recover alien bodies they didn't tell me about it either and I want to know!!!

Original Video from Clinton Library

I don't know whether that letter really existed. I haven't tried to find it.

But Clinton is also on record confirming that he sent an aide to fetch him all he could about Roswell.

...
"Well I don't know if you all heard this, but, there was actually, when I was president in my second term, there was an anniversary observance of Roswell. Remember that? People came to Roswell, New Mexico, from all over the world. And there was also a site in Nevada where people were convinced that the government had buried a UFO and perhaps an alien deep underground; because we wouldn't allow anybody to go there.

I can say now, because it's now been released into the public domain. This place in Nevada was really serious, that there was an alien artifact there. So I actually sent somebody there to figure it out. I did attempt to find out if there were any secret government documents that revealed things. If there were, they were concealed from me too."

-- Bill Clinton Sept 2005

Of course the man placed in charge of those Roswell reports was Colonel Weaver. Richard Doty's former boss in AFOSI during the 1980s and all the shenanigans he got involved in.

I think there's something we weren't told about Roswell. But it's probably not what most people think.

originally posted by: charlyv
Col. Philip J. Corso, his reliability and respectability needs to be addressed in any debunk of Roswell.
Calling him a liar just does not fit the man IMHO, so how is it possible that Roswell was different than he says it was?

Let's put it another way.

Considering all of his extraordinary claims. What did Phil Corso really ever prove?

a reply to: mirageman

Nothing.

There is not one SINGLE bit of technology, where you cannot easily track the history of it's development by regular old human beings.

a reply to: mirageman

They're all kinds of weird theories about Roswell: Handicapped people were sent on a mission along with the weather balloons, to Russian/Nazi experiments with short people.

And Mogul was classified top secret at the time until the early 70s.

So, sure there likely are things still hidden though having little (no pun intended) to do with aliens and crashed saucers.

a reply to: mirageman

What do you think about Nick Redfern's book on Roswell, where he discusses human experimentation
quite credibly?

originally posted by: KellyPrettyBear
a reply to: mirageman

Nothing.

There is not one SINGLE bit of technology, where you cannot easily track the history of it's development by regular old human beings.

Yeah, Corso’story is untenable and even JV I recall kind of exposed him in one of his books.


And your point is well taken, transistors and things he said in the book were alien have a definite historical provenance. Not to mention Corso’s character is NOT known as pristine to say the least.

a reply to: KellyPrettyBear

Redfern's theory is based on the premise that bodies were discovered and seen by someone. But the contemporary accounts, even Jesse Marcel's later accounts, do not include stories of the recovery of any bodies. I think Annie Jacobson presented that theory too in one of her books. I would have to check up on that. I am not sure it's even an explanation worth pursuing.

The stories of charred bodies may well have come from slighly fuzzy memories of the exact time period. The bubonic plague is prevalent in the New Mexico area. Accounting for something like half of all cases in the US during the war and early post war years. So maybe it was just livestock or wildlife was being burned and the authorities were then disposing of the carcasses?

I don't discount unethical experiments went on. I am yet to see any hard evidence they were tied into the events of July 1947 in Roswell.

a reply to: mirageman

Good points! TY for your feedback.

He did sell me on the unethical medical experiments happening.

But I was not sold on it having anything to do with 'Rowell'.

But we know how 'Roswell", the "whore of Babylon" (metaphorically) keeps on growing in mythological size, sucking up so much of UFOlogy;

Everybody and his brother tries to attach his or her brain-fevered delusion to 'Roswell'.

Kev