Speed Debate: Maria_Stardust vs Schrodingers dog: Roswell Never Happened. Or Did It?, page

A quick thanks to my esteemed opponent, Schrodingers Dog. We meet once again, dear friend. Also, thanks to MemoryShock to arranging this novel debate format, it ought to be interesting.

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The topic for this debate and my position, is “There Was No Alien Aircraft That Crashed In Roswell July 1947.”

Few things in this in this country have managed to capture the imagination of millions more than the events surrounding a small town located in New Mexican desert during the summer of 1947. At the time, the only thing the dusty town of Roswell had going for it was a major Air Force base. That is until that fateful July night when an alleged alien aircraft crash landed on a sparse piece of ranch, replete with several extraterrestrial casualties.

It is a fanciful tale, no doubt. One that is full of mystery, military intrigue and little gray men. Which begs the question: Is there any validity to this claim?

In a nutshell, no.

At this point, I will concede that there was an incident that occurred in Roswell during this time period which did indeed involve a crash, a military investigation and subsequent cover-up. However, it will become evident that the object that crashed was not an alien spacecraft, but a secret military project gone awry.

As with all things conspiratorial in nature, it should be noted that there were two major events playing out on the global political front during this time period, both involving the rise of Communism. The Cold War which centered upon heightened tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union, and the Red Scare, or the anti-communist witch hunt led by U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy.

To surmise that less-than-tepid relations with the Soviet Union kept the United States on edge is an understatement.

The Cold War was the state of conflict, tension and competition that existed between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies from the mid-1940s to the early 1990s. Throughout this period, rivalry between the two superpowers was expressed through military coalitions, propaganda, espionage, weapons development, industrial advances, and competitive technological development, e.g., the space race. Both superpowers engaged in costly defence spending, a massive conventional and nuclear arms race, and numerous proxy wars.

Although the US and the Soviet Union were allied against the Axis powers during World War II, the two states disagreed sharply both during and after the conflict on many topics, particularly over the shape of the post-war world. The war had either exhausted or eliminated all of the pre-war great powers leaving the US and USSR as clear economic, technological and political superpowers. In this bipolar world, countries were prompted to align themselves with one or the other of the superpower blocs (a Non-Aligned Movement would emerge later, during the 1960s).

Source 1: The Cold War

Bearing this in mind, it is not a far stretch to reason that the events which had unfolded in Roswell were nothing more than the U.S. military covering its’ collective derriere regarding a secret military project surreptitiously linked to the Cold War. After all, the military being involved in covert action against a rival superpower is not considered to be the least bit of a surprise.

Throughout the course of this debate, we will delve into:

• The socio-political climate surrounding the Cold War in 1947
  
• Secret government projects
  
• Government disinformation and deflection
  

At the conclusion of this debate, it will be abundantly clear that the events surrounding Roswell, New Mexico in the summer of 1947 were not extraterrestrial in nature, but simply a secret government project related to the Cold War.

I would also like to acknowledge my opponent and friend maria_stardust, both for coming up with the idea for this debate format and for choosing to engage once more with yours truly. My thanks also to Memoryshock for moderating us at the expense of his valuable weekend time.
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“There Was No Alien Aircraft That Crashed In Roswell July 1947.”

I will be arguing the con position.


As my opponent has stated something did happen in Roswell NM on that fateful day of July 7, 1947.

Early on Tuesday, July 8, the Roswell Army Air Field issued a press release which was immediately picked up by numerous news outlets:

"The many rumors regarding the flying disc became a reality yesterday when the intelligence office of the 509th Bomb group of the Eighth Air Force, Roswell Army Air Field, was fortunate enough to gain possession of a disc through the cooperation of one of the local ranchers and the sheriff's office of Chaves County. The flying object landed on a ranch near Roswell sometime last week. Not having phone facilities, the rancher stored the disc until such time as he was able to contact the sheriff's office, who in turn notified Maj. Jesse A. Marcel of the 509th Bomb Group Intelligence Office. Action was immediately taken and the disc was picked up at the rancher's home. It was inspected at the Roswell Army Air Field and subsequently loaned by Major Marcel to higher headquarters."1

With this brief statement was started the most notorious, infamous, and controversial UFO/Alien case in human history.
And this official statement would indicate the first and last time that Army and government officials would be truthful on the subject. Within hours the cover up would begin:

That same day, at approximately 4:30 P.M. CST., Brig. General Roger Ramey, the commander of the Eighth Air Force at Fort Worth, presented the press a counter story; a Rawin target device (weather balloon with radar reflective kite).2

The famous balloon.

I will delve into the outright fabrication in all its incarnations (weather/mogul/etc.) that the object in question was a man made balloon. I will expose all the factual omissions, inconsistencies, fabrications of all the official explanations - and there were many - including the the latest from 1994 (3).

For now I would like to address something my opponent discussed in her opening statement.

... it is not a far stretch to reason that the events which had unfolded in Roswell were nothing more than the U.S. military covering its’ collective derriere regarding a secret military project surreptitiously linked to the Cold War. After all, the military being involved in covert action against a rival superpower is not considered to be the least bit of a surprise.

Indeed, as my opponent stated there was a "Cold War" going on. That historical context applies just as much to the idea that the United States would do practically anything to control and protect any alien technology it recovered from the Roswell site. Thus the Cold War explanation is at best a push, as it is consistent with either argument.

There is however a byproduct of the Cold War that is relevant to the debate. At the time, filled with fear and anxiety, the American public was totally trusting of the American government and its armed forces. Consider the period, America had just prevailed in WWII, the USSR went critical with their first nuclear reactor in December 1946. The American public trust, for very valid reasons, was total and absolute. In fact terms and concepts such as "conspiracy theory" weren't even coined yet. As a result, at the time of the incident, despite all the obvious inconsistencies and misinformation, the public did in fact swallow the official story. It wasn't until thirty years later, when the American public had all but shed their naive view of their government, that the details of the story re-emerged and the conspiracy was methodically exposed.

When all the layers of lies, misdirections, misinformation are peeled away the unescapable truth will be revealed:

An alien craft crashed in Roswell NM in 1947 just as stated by the Army itself when the incident was raw and untainted by government agendas.

Considering that nearly a decade earlier, Orson Welles broadcast his infamous The War of the Worlds radio play, it is fair to say that the idea of extraterrestrial visitors from the beyond the heavens was already firmly planted into the American psyche. A scant two weeks before the incident at Roswell occurred a pilot, Kenneth Arnold, reported the first highly-publicized UFO sighting near Mount Rainer, Washington.

Kenneth A. Arnold (March 29, 1915 in Sebeka, Minnesota – January 16, 1984 in Bellevue, Washington) was an American businessman and pilot.

He is best-known for making what is generally considered the first widely reported unidentified flying object sighting in the United States, after claiming to see nine unusual objects flying in a chain near Mount Rainier, Washington on June 24, 1947. Arnold described the objects' shape as resembling a flat saucer or disc, and also described their erratic motion as resembling a saucer skipped across water; from this, the press quickly coining the new terms "flying saucer" and "flying disc" to describe such objects, many of which were reported within days after Arnold's sighting. Later Arnold would add that one of the objects resembled a crescent or flying wing.

Source 1: Kenneth Arnold

This is important to note, for the simple reason that this was considered a widely new phenomena and thus was fresh in the minds of the general public. In the weeks and months following Arnold’s UFO account, hundreds of eyewitnesses reported their own encounters.

The Roswell Incident

There is no doubt that some type of object crashed on a ranch not far from the Roswell Army Air Force Base. The following is a brief account of the events which occurred, the emphasis is mine.

On June 14, 1947 William "Mac" Brazel noticed some strange clusters of debris while working on the Foster homestead, where he was foreman, some 30 miles north of Roswell. This exact date (or "about three weeks" before July 8) is a point of contention but is repeated in several initial accounts, in particular the stories that quote Brazel and in a telex sent a few hours after the story broke quoting Sheriff George Wilcox (who Brazel first contacted). However, the initial press release from the Roswell Army Air Field said the find was "sometime last week," suggesting Brazel found the debris in early July. Brazel told the Roswell Daily Record that he and his son saw a "large area of bright wreckage made up of rubber strips, tinfoil, a rather tough paper and sticks." He paid little attention to it but returned on July 4 with his son, wife and daughter to gather up the material. Some accounts have described Brazel as having gathered some of the material earlier, rolling it together and stashing it under some brush. The next day, Brazel heard reports about "flying discs" and wondered if that was what he had picked up. On July 7, Brazel saw Sheriff Wilcox and "whispered kinda confidential like" that he may have found a flying disc. Another account quotes Wilcox as saying that Brazel reported the object on July 6.

Sheriff Wilcox called Roswell Army Air Field. Major Jesse Marcel and a "man in plainclothes" accompanied Brazel back to the ranch where more pieces were picked up. "[We] spent a couple of hours Monday afternoon [July 7] looking for any more parts of the weather device", said Marcel. "We found a few more patches of tinfoil and rubber." They then attempted to reassemble the object, but Brazel said they could not. Marcel took the debris to Roswell Army Air Field the next morning.

Source 2: Roswell UFO Incident
It would appear that the debris field Brazel and his family came across was not immediately considered by them to be extraterrestrial in nature. There was no indication of a flying disc, or alien bodies in this initial account. In fact, it wasn’t until Brazel heard reports about “flying discs” that he decided to contact authorities about the crash site.

A detailed description of the debris was published in the Roswell Daily Record on July 9, 1947.

"The balloon which held it up, if that was how it worked, must have been 12 feet long, [Brazel] felt, measuring the distance by the size of the room in which he sat. The rubber was smoky gray in color and scattered over an area about 200 yards in diameter. When the debris was gathered up, the tinfoil, paper, tape, and sticks made a bundle about three feet long and 7 or 8 inches thick, while the rubber made a bundle about 18 or 20 inches long and about 8 inches thick. In all, he estimated, the entire lot would have weighed maybe five pounds. There was no sign of any metal in the area which might have been used for an engine, and no sign of any propellers of any kind, although at least one paper fin had been glued onto some of the tinfoil. 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. No strings or wires were to be found but there were some eyelets in the paper to indicate that some sort of attachment may have been used.”

2

Once again, this description of the debris comes across as rather benign, and hardly befitting of an alien spacecraft capable of crossing the cosmos. Nonetheless, there is still the issue of the press release originally released by the military, only to be expanded upon later in the day.

With this brief statement was started the most notorious, infamous, and controversial UFO/Alien case in human history.

And this official statement would indicate the first and last time that Army and government officials would be truthful on the subject.

This account of events is markedly different from the brief military press release cited by Schrodingers Dog. I, for one, look forward to watching my opponent spin a whale of a conspiracy from a mere five sentence paragraph.

Socratic Questions

SQ. 1. Do you believe there is any connection between the Kenneth Arnold’s initial and highly-publicized UFO eyewitness account, and the mass sightings that sprouted almost immediately afterwards across the nation?

SQ 2. Do you believe that the Kenneth Arnold sighting played an indirect role in the hype initially surrounding the Roswell incident?

Let me begin by answering my opponent's socratic questions. Though I have to admit I am somewhat perplexed as to their nature. The subject of the Kenneth Arnold sighting is a completely different case and has no bearing as to the facts of the the Roswell incident. If my opponent wishes to emphasize the fact that the idea of UFOs was fresh in the public's psyche I am happy to concede the point. As I was more than willing to concede that the public might have also been affected by the Cold War. The public's interpretation of the Roswell incident in 1947 is not the debate topic. The topic is the incident itself, the facts that surround it, and our interpretation of said facts.

SQ. 1. Do you believe there is any connection between the Kenneth Arnold’s initial and highly-publicized UFO eyewitness account, and the mass sightings that sprouted almost immediately afterwards across the nation?

I have no idea if the two events are connected. Are you conceding that the K. Arnold UFO is the same as the Roswell one? That would really help my position in this debate.

SQ 2. Do you believe that the Kenneth Arnold sighting played an indirect role in the hype initially surrounding the Roswell incident?

The Army doesn't concede retrieving a "Flying Saucer" on a daily basis, therefore I'm quite sure the press and the public would have some interest, don't you think? But if it's important to you then sure, the public was affected.

I just don't see how any of this is crucial to the debate at hand. The fact is, as I also conceded in my opening post, the public in 1947 believed the Army's second explanation. It wasn't until thirty years later that the debunking movement gained any momentum.

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Right, not that I don't enjoy deflection and misdirection, but I believe it is time to look at the facts.

In this post I will concentrate on the actual events as they evolved on July 7th 1947 and expose the inconsistencies between the eyewitness accounts/Army's first press release and the ensuing cover up and weather balloon explanation.

(For the record, my opponent cited 22 sentences of external material therefore I will also be liberal with my citations. This is also crucial to indicate the facts of this case. I will keep further citations to the very minimum in future posts to compensate for this one.)

Sequence of Events

On July 2, 1947, during the evening, the flying saucer crashed on the Foster Ranch near Corona, New Mexico. The crash occurred during a severe thunderstorm.

On July 3, 1947, William "Mac" Brazel and his 7-year-old neighbour Dee Proctor found the remains of the crashed flying saucer. The pieces were spread out over a large area, perhaps more than half a mile long. When Brazel drove Dee back home, he showed a piece of the wreckage to Dee's parents ...

On July 6, 1947, Brazel showed pieces of the wreckage to Chaves County Sheriff George Wilcox. Wilcox called Roswell Army Air Field (AAF) and talked to Major Jesse Marcel, the intelligence officer. Marcel drove to the sheriff's office and inspected the wreckage. Marcel reported to his commanding officer, Colonel William "Butch" Blanchard. Blanchard ordered Marcel to get someone from the Counter Intelligence Corps, and to proceed to the ranch with Brazel, and to collect as much of the wreckage as they could load into their two vehicles.

Soon after this, military police arrived at the sheriff's office, collected the wreckage Brazel had left there, and delivered the wreckage to Blanchard's office. The wreckage was then flown to Eighth Air Force headquarters in Fort Worth Texas, and from there to Washington.

Meanwhile, Marcel and Sheridan Cavitt of the Counter Intelligence Corps drove to the ranch with Mac Brazel. They arrived late in the evening. They spent the night in sleeping bags in a small out-building on the ranch, and in the morning proceeded to the crash site.

On July 7, 1947, Marcel and Cavitt collected wreckage from the crash site. After filling Cavitt's vehicle with wreckage, Marcel told Cavitt to go on ahead, that Marcel would collect more wreckage, and they would meet later back at Roswell AAF. Marcel filled his vehicle with wreckage. On the way back to the air field, Marcel stopped at home to show his wife and son the strange material he had found.

On July 7, 1947, around 4:00 pm, Lydia Sleppy at Roswell radio station KSWS began transmitting a story on the teletype machine regarding a crashed flying saucer out on the Foster Ranch. Transmission was interrupted, seemingly by the FBI.

On July 8, 1947, in the morning, Marcel and Cavitt arrived back at Roswell AAF with two carloads of wreckage. Marcel accompanied this wreckage, or most it, on a flight to Fort Worth AAF.

On July 8, 1947, around noon, Colonel Blanchard at Roswell AAF ordered Second Lieutenant Walter Haut to issue a press release telling the country that the Army had found the remains of a crashed a flying saucer. Haut was the public information officer for the 509th Bomb Group at Roswell AAF. Haut delivered the press release to Frank Joyce at radio station KGFL. Joyce waited long enough for Haut to return to the base, then called Haut there to confirm the story. Joyce then sent the story on the Western Union wire to the United Press bureau.1a

On July 8, 1947, in the afternoon, General Clemence McMullen in Washington spoke by telephone with Colonel (later Brigadier General) Thomas DuBose in Fort Worth, chief of staff to Eighth Air Force Commander General Roger Ramey. McMullen ordered DuBose to tell Ramey to quash the flying saucer story by creating a cover story, and to send some of the crash material immediately to Washington.

On July 8, 1947, in the afternoon, General Roger Ramey held a press conference at Eighth Air Force headquarters in Fort Worth in which he announced that what had crashed at Corona was a weather balloon, not a flying saucer. To make this story convincing, he showed the press the remains of a damaged weather balloon that he claimed was the actual wreckage from the crash site. (Apparently, the obliging press did not ask why the Army hurriedly transported weather balloon wreckage to Fort Worth, Texas, site of the press conference, from the crash site in a remote area of New Mexico.)1b

The only newspapers that carried the initial flying saucer version of the story were evening papers from the Midwest to the West, including the Chicago Daily News, the Los Angeles Herald Express, the San Francisco Examiner, and the Roswell Daily Record. The New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Chicago Tribune were morning papers and so carried only the cover-up story the next morning.

At some point, a large group of soldiers were sent to the debris field on the Foster Ranch, including a lot of MPs whose job was to limit access to the field. A wide search was launched well beyond the limits of the debris field. Within a day or two, a few miles from the debris field, the main body of the flying saucer was found, and a mile or two from that several bodies of small humanoids were found.

The military took Mac Brazel into custody for about a week, during which time he was seen on the streets of Roswell with a military escort. His behavior aroused the curiosity of friends when he passed them without any sign of recognition. Following this period of detention, Brazel repudiated his initial story.

1c

So all of this for a weather balloon?

These are undisputed facts in the Roswell UFO case.

The public believed the official story for over thirty years until the facts we re-examined. Over the next two posts I will show how the ensuing examination exposed the UFO cover-up and the military's subsequent amendment of their official explanation to reconcile their original lies. That latest version of events shall also be exposed.

Towards the end of World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union became wary of one another. These tensions intensified over the years and the relationship between these two superpowers was dubbed the Cold War. During this period, which lasted into the late 1980s international politics were undeniably influenced by the intense rivalry between each superpower’s political ideology concerning democracy and Communism.

Long story short, the tension between these two countries rose to such a degree that there was a general air of distrust between these former Allies. The natural result of this influx of ill will led to a wave of intelligence and counter intelligence missions designed to gain the upper hand in defensive and diplomatic relations.

Now, this is where it gets interesting. The military has always been involved in top secret projects and research programs under the auspice of national security. Speaking of which, New Mexico is home to a number of remote military bases, national laboratories, and of course, Roswell.

So, if it wasn’t a flying saucer…

Well, something crashed on that ranch in Roswell. So, if it wasn’t a flying saucer, what was it?

As mentioned earlier, the military was conducting a number of top secret projects to gather intelligence on the Soviet Union as a direct result of the Cold War. One of these projects was Project Mogul. The objective of this project was to develop a way to detect Soviet nuclear explosions from incredible distances at high altitudes.

Its classified purpose was to try to develop a way to monitor possible Soviet nuclear detonations with the use of low-frequency acoustic microphones placed at high altitudes. No other means of monitoring the nuclear activities of a closed country like the USSR was yet available, and the project was given a high priority. One of the NYU tasks was the development of constant-level balloons for placing the acoustic microphones aloft. After some preliminary flights in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in April 1947, which failed due to high winds, the project moved to New Mexico.

In June and early July 1947, numerous NYU balloon flights were launched from Alamogordo Army Air Field in New Mexico. Some of these flights consisted of very long trains containing up to two dozen neoprene sounding balloons, having a total length of more than 600 feet.

Source 1: The Roswell Incident and Project Mogul



Furthermore, the description of the debris recovered from the Roswell incident is consistent with the materials used to create the high altitude balloons in Project Mogul.

Description of the debris from my previous response:

"The balloon which held it up, if that was how it worked, must have been 12 feet long, [Brazel] felt, measuring the distance by the size of the room in which he sat. The rubber was smoky gray in color and scattered over an area about 200 yards in diameter. When the debris was gathered up, the tinfoil, paper, tape, and sticks made a bundle about three feet long and 7 or 8 inches thick, while the rubber made a bundle about 18 or 20 inches long and about 8 inches thick. In all, he estimated, the entire lot would have weighed maybe five pounds. There was no sign of any metal in the area which might have been used for an engine, and no sign of any propellers of any kind, although at least one paper fin had been glued onto some of the tinfoil. 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. No strings or wires were to be found but there were some eyelets in the paper to indicate that some sort of attachment may have been used.”

It is interesting to note the description of the tape with the floral design, as this was used in the construction of the radar targets. Charles B. Moore is a scientist who was a NYU graduate student while working on Project Mogul recalled the following:

"I have prepared, in my life, probably more than a hundred of these targets for flight. And every time I have prepared one of these targets, I have always wondered what the purpose of that tape marking was. But . . . a major named John Peterson, laughed . . . and said 'What do you expect when you get your targets made by a toy factory?'"

Source 1: The Roswell Incident and Project Mogul

It would appear to be that part of the debris recovered from the Roswell crash site was a radar target used as part of one of these high-altitude balloons. This would also explain the confusion caused by the infamous press release citing the recovery of a “flying disc.”

However, following some initial confusion at Roswell Army Air Field, the “flying disc” was soon identified by Army Air Forces officials as a standard radar target.

Source 2: The Roswell Report

Now I would like to take a moment to review some of my opponent’s stated timeline of events.

Marcel reported to his commanding officer, Colonel William "Butch" Blanchard. Blanchard ordered Marcel to get someone from the Counter Intelligence Corps, and to proceed to the ranch with Brazel, and to collect as much of the wreckage as they could load into their two vehicles.

First of all, one has to consider what type of vehicles were utilized to gather and transport the wreckage from this debris field. Even if two military type trucks were used, would that allow sufficient space to gather all the wreckage?

On July 7, 1947, Marcel and Cavitt collected wreckage from the crash site. After filling Cavitt's vehicle with wreckage, Marcel told Cavitt to go on ahead, that Marcel would collect more wreckage, and they would meet later back at Roswell AAF. Marcel filled his vehicle with wreckage. On the way back to the air field, Marcel stopped at home to show his wife and son the strange material he had found.

It would appear that Marcel continued to gather debris by himself, and then stopped by his home unaccompanied to show his family some of the material recovered. That doesn’t sound like any type of military protocol that would have been allowed at the time.

Furthermore, if Marcel and Cavitt had indeed stumbled upon a genuine “flying disc,” wouldn’t it make more sense if they had closed off the area and sent for a full scale military recovery unit?

This version of events just doesn’t pass the smell test.

Socratic Questions

SQ 1. Do you consider it feasible that only two military vehicles were used to collect the wreckage of an alleged flying disc?

SQ 2. Considering the sensitive nature of military operations, do you find it feasible that Marcel would be allowed to drive around with debris recovered from a wrecked flying disc unaccompanied and without military protection?

SQ 1. Do you consider it feasible that only two military vehicles were used to collect the wreckage of an alleged flying disc?

They did use trucks

... to collect as much of the wreckage as they could load into their two vehicles.

They certainly would not need two vehicles to collect a weather balloon.

SQ 2. Considering the sensitive nature of military operations, do you find it feasible that Marcel would be allowed to drive around with debris recovered from a wrecked flying disc unaccompanied and without military protection?

Marcel was neither "allowed" or "disallowed" anything. He was so shocked by the material he had in his hands he wanted to share it with his family. Once again, what you should be asking yourself is if he would have gone through the trouble just to show them pieces of a weather balloon.

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As I indicated earlier, when the UFO incident at Roswell happened much of the detail was kept away from the public who for over 30 years either forgot about it or were placated by the government's original cover story.

Until...

In 1978, former nuclear physicist and author Stanton T. Friedman interviewed Jesse Marcel, the only person known to have accompanied the Roswell debris from where it was recovered to Fort Worth. Over the next 15 years or so, the accounts he and others gave elevated Roswell from a forgotten incident to perhaps the most famous UFO case of all time.

By the early 1990s, UFO researchers such as Friedman, William Moore, Karl T. Pflock, and the team of Kevin D. Randle and Donald R. Schmitt had interviewed several hundred people who had, or claimed to have had, a connection with the events at Roswell in 1947. Additionally, hundreds of documents were obtained via Freedom of Information Act requests, as were some apparently leaked by insiders, such as the disputed "Majestic 12 (1)" documents.

Their conclusions were that at least one alien craft had crashed in the Roswell vicinity, that aliens, some possibly still alive, were recovered, and that a massive cover-up of any knowledge of the incident was put in place.(2a)

One of the most comprehensive and widely accepted analysis of the Roswell events was put forth by Kevin D. Randle and Donald R. Schmitt in their seminal book "UFO Crash at Roswell."

They also concluded:

A UFO crashed northwest of Roswell, New Mexico, in the summer of 1947. The military acted quickly and efficiently to recover the debris after its existence was reported by a ranch hand. The debris - unlike anything these highly trained men had ever seen - was flown without delay to at least three government installations. A cover story was concocted to explain away the debris and the flurry of activity. It was explained that a weather balloon, one with a new radiosonde target device, had been found and temporarily confused the personnel of the 509th Bomb Group. Government officials took reporters' notes from their desks and warned a radio reporter not to play a recorded interview with the ranch hand. The men who took part in the recovery were told never to talk about the incident. And with a whimper, not a bang, the Roswell event faded quickly from public view and press scrutiny.(2b)

What is a government to do?

Their original "official" story utterly scrutinized, dissected, debunked, and exposed, they knew that it could no longer hold water. The old story simply didn't add up.

Solution.

Create a new cover story!

Air Force activities which occurred over a period of many years have been consolidated and are now represented to have occurred in two or three days in July 1947.

"Aliens" observed in the New Mexico desert were actually anthropomorphic test dummies that were carried aloft by U.S. Air Force high altitude balloons for scientific research.

The "unusual" military activities in the New Mexico desert were high altitude research balloon launch and recovery operations. Reports of military units that always seemed to arrive shortly after the crash of a flying saucer to retrieve the saucer and "crew," were actually accurate descriptions of Air Force personnel engaged in anthropomorphic dummy recovery operations.Air Force (3a)

Included in the report is the explanation that the aforementioned "high altitude balloon" was not the now famous "weather" balloon but now was a research balloon called "Project Mogul."

Let us take a look at the Mogul drawings:



The actual Project Mogul balloon:



Let us also take a look at these Anthropomorphic Dummies (4a) the Air Force calls "Sierra Sam" (As I am restricted to two pictures per post I am providing the link to the pictures.)

Let us take a look at what is wrong with this story.

Lie 1.

"In 1949, a contract was awarded to Sierra Engineering Company of Sierra Madre, Calif., and deliveries began in 1950.4b

So unless the Air Force is in possession of a time machine, the dummies included in their report didn't exist in 1947.

Lie 2. Project mogul was created to spy and monitor the USSR's nuclear activities/possible detonation via ultra low frequency microphones. All the balloons carried were microphones and radio transmitters. They could not carry anthropomorphic dummies

Lie 3. The project that could and did carry these dummies was "Project High Dive," which did not exist in 1947.

Operation High Dive (also known as Project High Dive) was a secret project carried out during the 1950s by the United States Air Force. It tested high-altitude parachutes using anthropomorphic dummies. The dummies went into a 200 rpm flat spin, which would be fatal to a human. Further investigations on this led to Project Excelsior. It may later have been confused with Project Mogul and thus helped form the account of the Roswell UFO Incident.(5)

Lies on top of lies on top of lies!

As I and many before me have shown, they undeniably lied when the incident first occurred in 1947. Their lies were exposed so they came up with a new story in 1994. They lie again. If something truly classified crashed in 1947 surely it would have been easy and safe to reveal it in 1994. Instead they release another poorly conceived official story, 1,000 pages long, and as flawed as the first one.

Ask yourself why, and the inescapable answer is that “An Alien Aircraft Crashed In Roswell July 1947.”

Despite the fact that there is no evidence for a flying saucer crash landing in Roswell, it is obvious that something did crash. In fact, aside from a hastily written, erroneous press release and a few snapshots of the high-altitude research balloon that was part of Project Mogul, there isn’t any evidence at all.

Now, about those aliens…

A large portion of the mystery surrounding the Roswell incident has been the alleged recovery of several dead alien bodies, and possibly even a live alien. Strangely enough, no mention of dead aliens is made until nearly 30 years after the Roswell incident, as this was not initially part of the 1947 story.

Additionally, these elaborate accounts include multiple crash sites for the same flying saucer. After all, someone or something had to man the craft (if indeed one ever existed in the first place, which it didn’t) if the tale was to pass the muster.

In general, “Roswell Incident” scenarios claim that a disabled alien craft momentarily touched down at the site 75 miles northwest of Roswell, leaving behind parts of the spaceship (material that has been subsequently identified as components of a Mogul balloon train) to create the original “debris field.” The scenarios further contend that the damaged craft again became airborne and flew to its final crash site, at either the location north of Roswell or 175 miles northwest of Roswell on the San Agustin Plains.

Source 1: The Roswell Report

Which brings us to this…

If it was a balloon, why would there be aliens?

Excellent question! Obviously, the balloons used in Project Mogul were designed to only carry light-weight microphones aloft. There is no way such a balloon would have the capacity to carry one, much less, multiple space aliens. It’s just not possible. However, this line of reasoning can only lead to one highly plausible (although unpopular in certain circles) conclusion: There were NO aliens.

But enough talk about aliens. We’ll come back to this issue momentarily, but before we do let us review a few faulty points my opponent is keen on propagating.

Lies, lies, lies…

My opponent’s views regarding the military’s use of anthropomorphic dummies:

Lie 1.

"In 1949, a contract was awarded to Sierra Engineering Company of Sierra Madre, Calif., and deliveries began in 1950.

So unless the Air Force is in possession of a time machine, the dummies included in their report didn't exist in 1947.

There were no bodies – alien, anthropomorphic or otherwise – recovered from the 1947 Roswell crash site. However, the government did run several tests in the following years that utilized these dummies. Bear in mind, eyewitness accounts of alien bodies being retrieved from various crash sites in the middle of the New Mexico desert were made more than 30 years after the Roswell incident. It is highly likely that these eyewitness accounts (at least those that seem credible) can be directly attributed to research projects using anthropomorphic dummies well after 1947.

It is also quite possible that the incidents witnessed were actually human fatalities and injuries from accidents and/or research projects gone awry.

Claims of bodies at the Roswell Army Air Field hospital were most likely a combination of two separate incidents:
1) a 1956 KC-97 aircraft accident in which 11 Air Force members lost their lives; and,
2) a 1959 manned balloon mishap in which two Air Force pilots were injured.

1

Lie 2. Project mogul was created to spy and monitor the USSR's nuclear activities/possible detonation via ultra low frequency microphones. All the balloons carried were microphones and radio transmitters. They could not carry anthropomorphic dummies

Nice move, Slick, but no cigar. As it has been previously pointed out, and conceded by my opponent, the balloon device created under Project Mogul was not capable of carrying multiple anthropomorphic dummies. It was simply impossible. It has also been pointed out that these dummies were not used until after 1947.

My opponent is desperately trying to mash events together that are not even remotely related, much less in the same time frame. This lie – much like recovered alien bodies – is merely a myth.

Lie 3. The project that could and did carry these dummies was "Project High Dive," which did not exist in 1947.

Once again, this is a moot point. Please refer to my rebuttals to Lies One and Two.

But, what about the cover-up…

My opponent contends that such an incredible amount of research has been done on the Roswell incident by many prominent UFO researchers. So much research, in fact, that there must be some validity to these claims.

By the early 1990s, UFO researchers such as Friedman, William Moore, Karl T. Pflock, and the team of Kevin D. Randle and Donald R. Schmitt had interviewed several hundred people who had, or claimed to have had, a connection with the events at Roswell in 1947.

Let’s take a closer look at one of these UFO researchers my opponent was kind enough to cite, Karl T. Pflock. Just who is this person?

After a career in Washington, D.C., that included a stint in the Reagan administration Pentagon as a deputy assistant secretary of defense, Pflock turned in 1992 to writing and UFO research full time.

*snip*

For Pflock, Roswell offered something most UFO cases do not — the possibility of tangible, physical evidence of an alien visitation. "That's the holy grail," he said.

Source 2: Bringing ‘Roswell Incident’ Back to Earth

Impressive! It’s safe to say that Pflock is a fairly credible guy in the field of UFO research. He spent nine years researching the events surrounding the Roswell incident, and well…

Nine years of investigation led Pflock to a different conclusion. It really was a research balloon, not a spacecraft, that crashed near Roswell 54 years ago, Pflock argues in his newly published book "Roswell: Inconvenient Facts and the Will to Believe."

*snip*

…The U.S. government covered it up, Pflock believes, not because it was an alien spacecraft, but because the balloon experiment was a Cold War secret.

2

Whoa! What would turn a prominent and high-profile UFO researcher who dedicated nearly a decade of his life in pursuit of the truth surrounding the Roswell incident?

Perhaps it was the lack of credible eyewitnesses whose accounts were deemed valid, and not devoid of merit.

Or, it could have been the small group of people whose recollection of events managed to pass the muster and provided eerily similar accounts.

"The bulk of what they remember," Pflock said of the eyewitnesses who actually saw the debris, "matches project Mogul."

2

So, there you have it. Straight from the lips of a renowned UFO researcher, who has investigated the Roswell incident for nearly a decade.

In the end, the Roswell incident boils down to a research balloon, crash test dummies from the 1950s, and a Cold War secret.

There was NO alien aircraft that crashed in Roswell, July 1947.

Allow me to address a few of my opponent's statements.

My opponent has chosen to single out the Roswell research and explanation of one Karl T. Pflock.

Nine years of investigation led Pflock to a different conclusion. It really was a research balloon, not a spacecraft, that crashed near Roswell 54 years ago

My opponent:

Whoa! What would turn a prominent and high-profile UFO researcher who dedicated nearly a decade of his life in pursuit of the truth surrounding the Roswell incident?

cont.

So, there you have it. Straight from the lips of a renowned UFO researcher, who has investigated the Roswell incident for nearly a decade.

You are joking, please tell us that you are joking.

From your own source:

After a career in Washington, D.C., that included a stint in the Reagan administration Pentagon as a deputy assistant secretary of defense, Pflock turned in 1992 to writing and UFO research full time.

So the ex DoD guy said there was no UFO at Roswell. Consider us placated.

I don't think so.


My opponent also wishes to dispute the recovering of alien bodies from the Roswell crash site.

As we have already established hundreds of people and witnesses were interviewed throughout the investigative process.

The constraints of the debate format preclude me from listing them all therefore allow me point you to the most notable ones:

Witness accounts of aliens, intimidation and cover-ups (1)

Amongst those who gave witness accounts for aliens we soldiers, officers, CIC agents, doctors, an a mortician. My opponent would have you believe that ALL of these officials and the countless others who bore witness are either lying, delusional, or unable to keep track of what calendar year they're in. Plus many of them were heavily intimidated to keep the truth from coming out.

One of the most telling testimony comes one Lieutenant Walter Halt, the public relations officer who issued the two press releases on the day of the incident, which he gave via affidavit prior to his death.

Haut's affidavit talks about a high-level meeting he attended with base commander Col William Blanchard and the Commander of the Eighth Army Air Force, General Roger Ramey.

Haut states that at this meeting, pieces of wreckage were handed around for participants to touch, with nobody able to identify the material.

He says the press release was issued because locals were already aware of the crash site, but in fact there had been a second crash site, where more debris from the craft had fallen.

The plan was that an announcement acknowledging the first site, which had been discovered by a farmer, would divert attention from the second and more important location.

Haut also spoke about a clean-up operation, where for months afterwards military personnel scoured both crash sites searching for all remaining pieces of debris, removing them and erasing all signs that anything unusual had occurred.

This ties in with claims made by locals that debris collected as souvenirs was seized by the military.

Haut then tells how Colonel Blanchard took him to "Building 84" - one of the hangars at Roswell - and showed him the craft itself.

He describes a metallic egg-shaped object around 3.6m-4.5m in length and around 1.8m wide ... no windows, wings, tail, landing gear or any other feature.

He saw two bodies on the floor, partially covered by a tarpaulin ... described in his statement as about 1.2m tall, with disproportionately large heads.

Towards the end of the affidavit, Haut concludes: "I am convinced that what I personally observed was some kind of craft and its crew from outer space".(2)

Wait, there's more.

Remember this picture of the fake balloon in my second post?



Notice the highlighted piece of paper in Gen. Ramey hand.
I give you the computer generated deciphered version:



Granted this latest piece of evidence should be taken with some skepticism, the original image is blurry, so even with the latest photo-analytic software we cannot be 100% sure that all the words are correctly interpreted. However the two most crucial and legible words in this communique happen to be "disk" and "the victims."


The evidence is slowly but surely becoming overwhelming, the two separate and flawed coverups have been exposed, there can now be little doubt that it wasAlien Aircraft That Crashed In Roswell July 1947

Killing the messenger…

Oh, my! Look how quickly my opponent is willing to throw Karl T. Pflock, one of the leading Roswell researchers he originally cited, under the proverbial bus. Kill ‘em with panache!

So the ex DoD guy said there was no UFO at Roswell. Consider us placated.

I don't think so.

Ooooh, guilt by association.

Pflock was not the charlatan or skeptic as has been implied by my opponent. Little does he realize just how well respected Pflock is among the small inner circle of UFO researchers and proponents. A more indepth review of his background should alleviate any doubt as to Plock’s dedication and genuine sincerity regarding his belief in UFOs.

Mr. Pflock's interest in UFOs is virtually lifelong, and his investigations have left no doubt in his mind UFOs are real. In the late 1960s and early 1970s he served as a member and chairman of the National Capital Area [investigations] Subcommittee of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP), then the world's largest private UFO research organization. He also has carried out independent research on humanoid/UFO-occupant sightings, allegations of UFO-connected animal mutilations, and claims of contact with "ufonauts."

An Associate of both the Society for Scientific Exploration and the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies, a Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) State Section Director, and a member of the Permanent Organizing Committee of the National UFO Conference, Mr. Pflock currently is pursuing retrospective research on the landmark Barney and Betty Hill experience (September 1961), the infamous Florida scoutmaster "saucer attack" case (August 1952; he contributed an article on this case to UFOs 1947-1997, edited by Hilary Evans and Dennis Stacy), and the granddaddy of all crashed flying saucer tales, the Aztec, New Mexico, hoax that spawned Frank Scully's 1950 bestseller Behind the Flying Saucers (see his "What's Really Behind the Flying Saucers?: A New Twist on Aztec," The Anomalist, Spring 2000).

Source 1: Aztec UFO Symposium

Additionally, Pflock had a personal UFO sighting as a child which led to his interest in ufology, and ultimately his research into the now infamous Roswell incident.

Pflock was not overly popular for bucking prevailing ufological wisdom, but it was not in his nature to fudge conclusions that he felt were firmly supported by the evidence. As his friend and one-time Capitol Hill colleague Fred Whiting said: “A meticulous researcher and a superb writer, Karl was the essence of intellectual honesty. He followed the facts wherever they led. And he admitted his mistakes and foibles with the same spirit in which he defended his ideas.” Although he helped to dispose of Roswell as an ‘alien’ event, and had a highly plausible debunking solution (sadly never published in full) to the notorious Travis Walton ‘abduction’, he also endorsed other well-known UFO cases as genuinely anomalous. His interest in UFOs was virtually lifelong, inspired in part by his own sighting as a boy in 1951 or 1952. Sights in the sky fascinated him: he was a member of the American Aviation Historical Society and an accomplished amateur astronomer.

Source 1: Fortean Times

So, as intent as my opponent is to completely dismiss Pflock as a fly-by-night disinformation agent, nothing could be further from the truth. The fact remains that he researched the Roswell incident for nine years and came to the conclusion that it was nothing more than a top secret project aimed at collecting intelligence on the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Grasping at straws…

Apparently desperate times call for desperate measures, as my esteemed opponent has pulled one hell of a card from his sleeve. I present for your enjoyment:

Notice the highlighted piece of paper in Gen. Ramey hand.
I give you the computer generated deciphered version:

Granted this latest piece of evidence should be taken with some skepticism, the original image is blurry, so even with the latest photo-analytic software we cannot be 100% sure that all the words are correctly interpreted. However the two most crucial and legible words in this communique happen to be "disk" and "the victims."

Where to start… First it should be noted that when a small portion of a photograph is blown up to large proportions, it loses detail and becomes grainy and blurry. So it would be virtually impossible to decipher what was on the note.

Second, if you look closely at the photograph, you will note that Gen. Ramey’s hand is obscuring the majority of the paper in his hand. How accurate can the analysis be if the majority of the type is obscured to from the start?

Third, it is quite possible and highly probable that the analyzed note was either manufactured and/or photoshopped. It is not outside the realm of possibility.

In other words, I would place very little if no credence to this last little bit of ”evidence” my opponent has presented.

In closing…

Now that the dust is beginning to settle on this debate, let’s look one last time at what has been presented.

• The debris recovered from the crash site was actually part of a research balloon from Project Mogul.
  
• The confusion over what was initially discovered at the scene led to the press release erroneously citing a “flying disc” and the subsequent recantation.
  
• The government cover-up was launched, not because a flying saucer was discovered, but because a top secret government research project related to the Cold War had been stumbled upon.
  
• There were never any alien bodies recovered from the original crash site.
  
• Eyewitness accounts that were deemed credible, all support Project Mogul.
  

As I have stated previously, the Roswell incident boils down to a research balloon, crash test dummies from the 1950s, and a Cold War secret.

In the end, the conclusion can only be that: There was NO alien aircraft that crashed in Roswell, July 1947.

Let me get this straight.

Any evidence that confirms the UFO and alien sightings in Roswell has to be dismissed because my opponent believes it is either photoshopped or manufactured. If my opponent had any evidence that this is in fact the case she should have presented it. Truth is she has no such evidence, and as such, uses one of the oldest debunkers trick of ridiculing the evidence. Of course accepting such evidence would be admitting that the an alien craft did in fact crash at Roswell, thus my opponents apprehension is understandable. But it takes more that a quick upward roll of the eyes if one wishes to challenge material evidence.

As to Mr. Pflock not only was he a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense but also an intelligence officer for the CIA. Surely that information should be weighed when assessing his credibility in this specific incident. It is not a case of guilty by association, it is simply what the man did for a living.

I would also like it to be noted that my opponent chose to completely bypass the testimony, dying declaration if you will, of one Lieutenant Walter Halt, the public relations officer who issued the two press releases on the day of the incident. I put forth direct evidence from a qualified witness to the days events, as to the presence of both a saucer and alien bodies, and it is completely disregarded. This is the point of the whole debate.

Or is it?

Apparently not for my opponent.

Just like the government before her, she has relied on blurring the facts and dates, arguing via ridicule and innuendo, disseminating false facts and red herrings, anything other than address the incontrovertible facts/details, direct testimonies, and embarrassing coverups.

My opponents tactics are well documented and are part of the debunker's handbook:

Keep your arguments as abstract and theoretical as possible. This will "send the message" that accepted theory overrides any actual evidence that might challenge it -- and that therefore no such evidence is worth examining.

Avoid examining the actual evidence. This allows you to say with impunity, "I have seen absolutely no evidence to support such ridiculous claims!

State categorically that the unconventional arises exclusively from the "will to believe" and may be dismissed as, at best, an honest misinterpretation of the conventional.

Maintain that in investigations of unconventional phenomena, a single flaw or misstep invalidates the whole.
(1)

These are the tools of the debunker who has no or little facts on their side, and this explains why my opponent has chosen not to directly address most of the evidence put before her. And why not, if the government is getting away with half baked coverups, why shouldn't she?

I implore you do not fall for these tactics of misinformation and deflection.

_________________________________________________________________

Final Thoughts/Recap


Ladies and gentlemen, these are the facts and they are not in question.

The first explanation is the only true explanation:

On July 8, 1947, around noon, Colonel Blanchard at Roswell AAF ordered Second Lieutenant Walter Haut to issue a press release telling the country that the Army had found the remains of a crashed a flying saucer. Haut was the public information officer for the 509th Bomb Group at Roswell AAF. Haut delivered the press release to Frank Joyce at radio station KGFL. Joyce waited long enough for Haut to return to the base, then called Haut there to confirm the story. Joyce then sent the story on the Western Union wire to the United Press.
2

By the same afternoon, the authorities game to grasp with the full implications, both social and military, of the event that had taken place and decided to change their story.

Thus began the greatest coverup, or should I say coverups, in UFO history.

For thirty years the fantastic events of that day and the facts that surrounded it remained dormant.

Until a new group of investigators decided to re-examine the those events. Through their unrelenting inquiry they exposed the official story of the government and the lies of the armed forces. This is beyond dispute. The ptb acknowledged these lies by releasing a different official version of events in 1994, basically saying: "We lied the first time but trust us this time, it's the honest to god's truth."

Yet as I have clearly shown, this second version is just as full of lies as the first one. Once more their stories and dates don't match the reality of the acknowledged events of those fateful days near Roswell. Instead their only explanation for the bodies observed at the Roswell crash is that the witnesses were mistaken in their dates by years.

I invite you to read through the evidence I have provided, look through all the credible eyewitness testimony, and use your deductive reasoning.

Both the craft and the alien bodies were observed, described, and documented. Both were confirmed by Lieutenant Walter Halt, a man who had nothing to lose or gain by telling the truth as one of his dying wishes. His words were the first to speak the truth, and over a half a century later, his words were the ones to confirm it once more.

For this and the plethora of other evidence I have provided throughout this debate, there can be only one conclusion:

It Was An Alien Aircraft That Crashed In Roswell July 1947

reply to post by maria_stardust

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Big hugs to you too and thank you for a challenging debate.
Both our debates have been decided by a hair's length.