How could they call in a Navy Missle expert in 1947 when the V2 rocket launches predated the U.S. having missles? The work done with the V2 rocket was research for the development of U.S. missle technology. So something is odd the credentials of the expert witness.

Page 1. I'm unsure whether this is relevant but the filing cover sheet is dated "Sep 63" bottom LHS page 1. Why would the authorities be reviewing such UFO reports 16 years after the original report ? Or was it perhaps just a simple weeding exercise carried out at the time to review the document's security classification ?

The White Sands report is dated 29th June 1947.

Kenneth Arnold, the guy who observed the classic circular shaped UFO's and who brought "flying saucers" into the public consciousness, made his report only 5 days earlier on 24th June 1947. I guess his observations were by the 29th all over the newspapers.

The subject was interviewed by the Army Liaison Office and made no mention of the UFO being circular. Yet in the newspaper reports he is quoted as describing it as a "silvery disc whirling through the unclouded sky" and that it was "elliptical in shape". Why the difference in the accounts he gave the military and those he gave the newspapers ? UFO fever perhaps ?

It's also quite revealing to see the level of dissatisfaction of Air Material Command with the stencil type questionnaire that the military investigators have been using when interviewing UFO witnesses. Basically they're telling the military investigators that their questionnaires aren't worth the paper they're written on .... so it'll be interesting to see whether these questionnaires get amended later in 1947.

All PDF. pages are “Watermarked” by ATS
for copyright reasons ( I believe)….therefore the mysterious X
on each page……
nothing hidden here


PS: Hal9000 did beat me by seconds, again
Same thing happened a few times when I replied to the FOIA documents…

(edit PS)

[edit on 27-11-2007 by frozen_snowman]

Interesting.

So both of you feel that any type of 'forensic' study of these (and perhaps other) documents would be a waste of time, yes? It would seem that most of the things that interest me are deemed a waste of time. Well, no matter.

I also seem to have fallen into the nasty habit of making myself unclear. A fault I am trying to correct but it seems to be slow in coming, my apologies.

As I stated above, I have Seen this type of marking before in FIOA documents (pdf, gif, and jpg) Usually I see what look like "L" brackets in the corners of the document, upon occasion I've seen this "X" before and also a cross like a plus sign "+".

Unless the staff jumps in and states that they did indeed hide an "X" in these documents I am going to to continue to function under my original assumption that these are artifacts generated by the original copying process and NOT 'watermarks' added by the staff of ATS.

Looking at these, it seems rather obvious to me that the staff of ATS went to great lengths to 'watermark' these documents on the outside edges, in the margins, as far away from the actual text of the documents as possible. I find it hard to believe that after making such efforts they would then turn around and muddy the works with a great big "X" right through the middle of valuable information and data, wouldn't you agree?

And how would an "X" through the middle of a document tie it to ATS in any way?

No.

The ATS 'watermarks' are clearly visible without enhancement, are carefully placed in order to Not damage the contents, and there is nothing hidden or 'mysterious' about them.

The "X", on the other hand, is only visible if we convert the pdf into some format recognized by an art program and then manipulated by that art program.

I do this with all FIOA documents. Sometimes I am able to pull a word or two out of areas that have been 'blacked out', at others I have been able to reveal indentation writings... how to explain... you know how when you write a note on a pad of paper and then tear the top sheet off of the pad there is still a faint indentation of your note left on the second sheet of paper, yes? And with the proper application of a pencil or charcoal you can reveal the indentations and read the note that was written on the other sheet of paper.

If no one else is interested in examining these (and other) documents in this manner that is fine by me. I made my original post regarding this subject to illustrate why I feel these documents to be genuine, not mysterious, and worthy of further examination.

Again I apologize for my inability to communicate that clearly and thank you both for your timely and in-depth replies.

Originally posted by daystrom
Interesting.
So both of you feel that any type of 'forensic' study of these (and perhaps other) documents would be a waste of time, yes? .

Not at all.
I stated "nothing hidden here" with looking at the watermarked "X"

We wouldn’t spend hours on the documents if they where not interesting
...

It would seem that I am once again in error and for that I apologize. Upon further examination I see that this particular "X" is in ALL of the ats / foia documents...

If ats is adding this 'hidden watermark' "X" through the center of each document along with the clearly visible ats information in the margins then I have no choice but to say 'bad move'.

This added "X" is not preservation but rather desecration and is adding to the 'noise' of the documents, making it even more difficult to pull out useful information.

Many positive points for making these documents available to us.

Many negative points for adding mess to already messy documents.

Do the 'special people' who are working with these documents have clean versions to work with or are they too cursed with the added noise of hidden watermarks?

It would be very sad if product endorsement, name branding, and the almighty dollar became more important than the facts that only raw data can provide.

No matter. Praise to the powers that be for making these documents (despite the added noise) available to us.

Originally posted by Hal9000
I think the "X" is part of the watermark the archivists are putting in. It includes the ATS info along the sides. It is just a way of showing where the pdf file came from.

Yes about that 'watermark' Is that legal? These are public documents with no copyrights attached or implied... I have found several of them from original sources (not hard with text search)

I have also seen many government sites state that such documents are free to distribute but I did not know you could then add your own "watermark' onto the papers, which to some people indicate ownership.

I would appreciate clarification on this please.