Roswell question

After watching a BBC documentary on Roswell I had a few questions.

For one, the Brazle guy who first happened onto wreckage said it was tin-foil-like stuff and flimsy beams. No ufo ship.
Then the original article in the paper, before it was changed, did say "Flying Saucer Crash", but the article goes on to say it was pretty much a broken box kite looking thing made of unknown bendable alloy. It even says it had scotch tape on it.
THEN it was retracted and called a weather balloon and a new picture taken with an actual w. balloon.

That does match up with that thing the military said it was in the 90's. The military could have had aluminum alloy before it was on the market.

The alien craft/bodies part starts with a story from another guy in the video who was a sergeant. But his story starts out with something that sounds like a lie. He claims he was there because strange objects were being seen on radar. He claims to have been watching the radar when an unknown came onto the radar screen and then exploded. On radar.
Does one actually see explosions on radar? Does this guy have any proof of credentials that he was qualified to be in a radar room?

What about the scotch tape?

That original article was supposedly the truth until it was taken out of the paper and replaced with a cover-up.
But the original article says it was like a kite? A kite with tape. How is that part overlooked?

The debris was reported to cover quite a distance, it did not crash "intact".

Here is what the rancher said he thought he saw as the size of the debris field.

They came out on the side of a hill. In front of them was a shallow, narrow valley with a rounded, rocky area at one end. The other end opened gradually until it was nothing more than a pasture sloping down into another, bigger valley. "The gouge started up there and moved down in that direction," said Brazel. He described the gouge as running from the northwest to the southeast. It looked as if the thing had hit and bounced, scattering debris in the field. The gouge wasn't very deep but was about ten feet wide in places. The whole thing was about five hundred feet long.

roswellproof.homestead.com...

I'm no Roswell expert, but the witnesses also claimed the material wouldn't burn break or bend, even when hit with sledgehammers and such.

Most TV documentaries give a slanted view of things, either because of their bias or because they don't have the time to explore the case in detail. If you really want to know about Roswell, I'd suggest reading some of the numerous books written about it.

A good pro-alien argument is made in Thomas Carey and Donald Schmidt's book, and I think Karl Phlock makes the best skeptical argument.

The debris was from a rawin sonde, or corner reflector, made from balsa wood, mylar (which was unknown to most people in 1947) and balsa wood. These very light weight radar targets were held together by scotch tape.
The corner reflectors were attached to high altitude balloons which carried aloft low frequency microphones in an attempt to detect Soviet nuclear tests.
This classified project was known as Project Mogul and is the real basis for the Roswell myth.

On a side note, because of the war effort the manufacture of these corner reflectors was contracted to a toy factory in New York. During the construction they used tape with colorful pink/purplish markings that were later mistaken for alien heiroglyphics.

originally posted by: abe froman
During the construction they used tape with colorful pink/purplish markings that were later mistaken for alien heiroglyphics.

Do you know of any pictures of this tape with the markings on it? I'm curious to see what it looks like.

a reply to: thesearchfortruth

They ended up calling it "Memory Metal". It would bend but always go back into place no matter what you did to it.

One of the keys to understanding Roswell is that there was a reward and Brazel wanted to try and claim it. The reward was for retrieval of a crashed non-terrestrial craft. I think he probably knew it was not a 'saucer' or 'flying disk'.

There have been lots of theories about what crashed at Roswell. At the end of the day, we'll never truly know what it was I don't think. So really, this is one of those "choose your flavor" situations and pick one of the many theories that are out there that fits in with your belief system and roll with it.

originally posted by: abe froman
The debris was from a rawin sonde, or corner reflector, made from balsa wood, mylar (which was unknown to most people in 1947) and balsa wood. These very light weight radar targets were held together by scotch tape.
The corner reflectors were attached to high altitude balloons which carried aloft low frequency microphones in an attempt to detect Soviet nuclear tests.
This classified project was known as Project Mogul and is the real basis for the Roswell myth.

On a side note, because of the war effort the manufacture of these corner reflectors was contracted to a toy factory in New York. During the construction they used tape with colorful pink/purplish markings that were later mistaken for alien heiroglyphics.

And that became our biggest UFO mythology????


Thanks for all the different replies.

I've seen several documentaries, one actually had Brazle I think talking about what he saw. Or his son? UFO Hunters did a show on it. On that they had a firsthand witness who held the metal and saw the debris and only mentioned that foil metal strewn over a large area. Seems like if there was a craft he would have saw it, since it exploded. And the ground divit would point to it. He must have walked around?

I remember the UFO Hunter show where the old guy was standing in the field saying "all I could see was tin foil all over the place". I was thinking, ok were was the saucer and why would a flying saucer turn into tin foil.
And that turned out to be aluminum alloy or whatever. When they say it didn't burn.....burn with what, a match?
How is bendy foil-like metal pieces at all suspicious?

That newspaper clipping is always used as one of the big selling points. They say "Look, it WAS a flying saucer, because it says so!".
Right but it also says it's a taped up kite.

The thing is I like the UFO research field but when something starts to look like it may have been a mythology created for selling books it stinks on so many levels. It ends up that people are taking advantage of others who just want to find out the truth. I'm not even trying to debunk it, it's just not looking very alien-y.

How is it known that Brazle was really trying to just win a flying saucer prize?

If this is all fake then are Roswell "UFO" authors mostly just trying to make a quick buck or being lied to by witnesses?

From the description of the "clean up" detail by one of the guys who participated, the amount and type of debris collected was less consistent with a crashed craft than downed balloon with radar target train.

originally posted by: abe froman
The debris was from a rawin sonde, or corner reflector, made from balsa wood, mylar (which was unknown to most people in 1947) and balsa wood. These very light weight radar targets were held together by scotch tape.
The corner reflectors were attached to high altitude balloons which carried aloft low frequency microphones in an attempt to detect Soviet nuclear tests.
This classified project was known as Project Mogul and is the real basis for the Roswell myth.

On a side note, because of the war effort the manufacture of these corner reflectors was contracted to a toy factory in New York. During the construction they used tape with colorful pink/purplish markings that were later mistaken for alien heiroglyphics.

and there we go...mystery solved...

You might want to start your posts with ..."here's what I think happened"....

Bear in mind that the term "Flying Saucer" has only been quoted a couple of weeks before by Kenneth Arnold in June 1947 when Roswell happened so that headline in the newspaper cannot be interpreted the same way it would be if it appeared now.

But far from me to tell you what happened.

You may want to glance through some of the threads on Roswell on here and decide for yourself what happened.

Roswell for Dummies

The Ramey Memo: Best Roswell Evidence Ever Found

The Day Before Roswell

Popular Mechanics & Science - What Really Happened at Roswell?

a reply to: MarioOnTheFly

Here is what really happened and also includes a drawing of the tape with heiroglyphics. The best book on the subject is ROSWELL:WHAT THEY DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW by Kal K.Korff.
link

a reply to: abe froman

many books have been written on the subject Abe...

originally posted by: mirageman
Bear in mind that the term "Flying Saucer" has only been quoted a couple of weeks before by Kenneth Arnold in June 1947 when Roswell happened so that headline in the newspaper cannot be interpreted the same way it would be if it appeared now.

But far from me to tell you what happened.

You may want to glance through some of the threads on Roswell on here and decide for yourself what happened.

Roswell for Dummies

The Ramey Memo: Best Roswell Evidence Ever Found

The Day Before Roswell

Popular Mechanics & Science - What Really Happened at Roswell?

Those are good links.
One is specifically about the problem of the debris and description being of a kite. The question was also put to Stanton F. and he ignored it.

Another article made the same mistake "the RAAF (Roswell Army Air Force) first declared they had found a flying disc and how the story was changed next day. " Again, the headline did say "disk" but the description in the article said "box kite". It's really surprising that this mistake is made.
Although I realize it's probably not a mistake but people trying to make money on modern myths. Money from books, magazine articles, sensationalism will sell more than debunking.

The Raney memo is suspicious. A great way to promote your computer business. Another experiment that no one has duplicated. He easily could have taken the pencil tool to smudges and formed some letters.
That was from a while ago, with current tech anyone should be able to duplicate those results if they were legit.

Looks like Sgt. Kaufman started the whole mythology. He claims he saw an explosion on radar, on the video he describes it as a growing flash of light on the radar. I'm not a radar expert but I know radar can pick up dense masses of particles like smoke, but an explosion? Photons do not bounce off other photons to make a radar hit and fire is a plasma that shouldn't produce an image either.

The whole thing is disappointing. I though Stanton F was credible?

a reply to: joelr

joelr>>Does this guy have any proof of credentials that he was qualified to be in a radar room?

He don't need credentials cause there was no "radar room" for him to be in. The SCR-584 at WSPG was not in a room; it was built into a K-78 trailer.

www.project1947.com...

joelr>>Looks like Sgt. Kaufman started the whole mythology.

Uh...no. That's like giving your family doctor credit for discovering the common cold when you sneezed in his office.

www.roswellfiles.com...

originally posted by: nightwing
a reply to: joelr

joelr>>Does this guy have any proof of credentials that he was qualified to be in a radar room?

He don't need credentials cause there was no "radar room" for him to be in. The SCR-584 at WSPG was not in a room; it was built into a K-78 trailer.

www.project1947.com...

joelr>>Looks like Sgt. Kaufman started the whole mythology.

Uh...no. That's like giving your family doctor credit for discovering the common cold when you sneezed in his office.

www.roswellfiles.com...

I don't know who actually started the mythology then. Like I said though I don't believe you see explosions on radar. But still, the first eyewitness and newspaper report says box kite with tape. And a major selling point of the theory is the newspaper article that was retracted. Therefore what that article says is very important. And it says it's a lot like what project Mogul was.
That's what newspapers do, you make an eye-catching headline to get readers to buy the paper. Then tell the facts a bit clearer in the article. Back then maybe the reporter considered the idea that a ufo was actually made of tin foil and tape. Indestructible metal that broke up into pieces.

I haven't seen any researcher deal with that fact. If it's a documentary they flash the headline quickly and move on.

Is there some alternate theory, that Brazle found a foil balloon and then a ufo crashed at some other place?
Brazle went back to the scene with his wife. Again no ufo. All the ufo stuff are tales other people tell.

Anyone can choose to believe any story they want to, but I'm saying have those first hand accounts of the wreckage been dealt with in a way so that they don't make the whole story seem like a created mythology? Or at least some attempt? Or is it always swept over like the UFO hunters did?

Later stories say - crashed disk, alien walking around, bodies.... clearly a huge discrepancy here.

originally posted by: abe froman
The debris was from a rawin sonde, or corner reflector, made from balsa wood, mylar (which was unknown to most people in 1947) and balsa wood. These very light weight radar targets were held together by scotch tape.
The corner reflectors were attached to high altitude balloons which carried aloft low frequency microphones in an attempt to detect Soviet nuclear tests.
This classified project was known as Project Mogul and is the real basis for the Roswell myth.

On a side note, because of the war effort the manufacture of these corner reflectors was contracted to a toy factory in New York. During the construction they used tape with colorful pink/purplish markings that were later mistaken for alien heiroglyphics.

Wow...I bet you have absolutely how technically wrong that is...

Balsa wood and Mylar...I presume you mean the metalized kind. Would be far too light to withstand going aloft under a balloon. Next...corner reflectors typically were not even sent aloft...they were used to disguise high value targets...like run ways.

"Low frequency microphones"...I nearly "busted a gut" over this. There is no difference between a "typical" microphone, especially from 1947, and anything designed for low frequencies. This is due to the length of the wave..a microphone is a compact, portable device...as you said carried aloft on a balloon. The kind of detection you are talking about, if carried out by "special" microphones would require a microphone that would be difficult to get air borne even with modern technology...they would be rather large.

Oh an finally...I thought that Project Mogul was in the 1950's...

In any case this wee notion here is absolutely wrong...the basis of the technology would preclude virtually all you have reported.

By-the-way; in the late 60's / early 70's I was an Electronics Countermeasures specialist in the Air Force.

a reply to: joelr

joelr, I like the questions you ask. I assume from your initial post that you are new to the subject of Roswell. If so, kudos, you ask better questions than some of the experts.

I think the real key to Roswell is to treat testimony as data sets, and properly time-tag the testimony. You will end up with a very small data-set of first hand testimony with a time-tag of 1947. You will also have a massive data-set time-tagged with various dates after 1978. And a lot of that is just not usable. For example, somebody named XX says Brazel told him that his sheep would not cross the debris field. This appears in a book published post 1978. In a later docu-drama, this becomes "firsthand 1947" testimony when the narrator simply overlays the cool music and rendition of the foster ranch with something like "the rancher noticed that his sheep would not go near the debris". So today we have the following condition: look at the posts above, all in this topic so far (except for mirageman and maybe trollz) and we have a similiar thing, everybody discussing second or third hand post 1978 stories as if they were direct testimony from 1947. The myth is self-perpetuating and gets a boost anytime somebody decides to throw in their own "fishing story" into the fray.

Speaking of mirageman, in one of his referenced threads, he has a good discussion of the context of the day. Understanding Roswell of 1947 requires thinking very culturally different from today. Lets see if I can come up with a different example than what he has done. OK lets do this:

joelr>> Back then maybe the reporter considered the idea that a ufo was actually made of tin foil and tape.

Back then mirageman reminds us that the term "flying saucer" had just been coined (and erroneously so since Arnold said he saw "boomerang shaped" things). I will add that the term quoted in joelr statement above of "UFO" did not exist yet, but was more like five years in the future.

www.oxforddictionaries.com...

Back to the data set for the original 1947 incident. It is unique in that there is actual historical evidence in the form of news articles to back up "original" first hand testimony, but sadly, there aint much original first hand 1947 testimony. Even the bulk of Maj. Marcels testimony is in the Post 1978 data set. Let's do an Occam's Razor and cut to the chase. The original news release sounds pretty striking, today. In 1947 it had a very different and far lessor impact. Cultural fact. The follow up news release showing what appears to be tin foil and sticks is NOT a flying disc but is called a weather balloon. Fact: what is shown is NOT a weather balloon. It certainly appears to be something which most likely served the function of a radar reflector. Historical fact: from 1947 until 1978, the Ramey news release ended interest in the Roswell incident. Nor was it included in Project Bluebook and prior efforts. If you concentrate on the original data set, there are many anomalies that don't make sense. Meaning they sorta point in random directions. The big difference when you jump to the Post 1978 data set is everything points in the same direction. (Agenda bias in the data set)

originally posted by: nightwing
a reply to: joelr

joelr, I like the questions you ask. I assume from your initial post that you are new to the subject of Roswell. If so, kudos, you ask better questions than some of the experts.

I think the real key to Roswell is to treat testimony as data sets, and properly time-tag the testimony. You will end up with a very small data-set of first hand testimony with a time-tag of 1947. You will also have a massive data-set time-tagged with various dates after 1978. And a lot of that is just not usable. For example, somebody named XX says Brazel told him that his sheep would not cross the debris field. This appears in a book published post 1978. In a later docu-drama, this becomes "firsthand 1947" testimony when the narrator simply overlays the cool music and rendition of the foster ranch with something like "the rancher noticed that his sheep would not go near the debris". So today we have the following condition: look at the posts above, all in this topic so far (except for mirageman and maybe trollz) and we have a similiar thing, everybody discussing second or third hand post 1978 stories as if they were direct testimony from 1947. The myth is self-perpetuating and gets a boost anytime somebody decides to throw in their own "fishing story" into the fray.

Speaking of mirageman, in one of his referenced threads, he has a good discussion of the context of the day. Understanding Roswell of 1947 requires thinking very culturally different from today. Lets see if I can come up with a different example than what he has done. OK lets do this:

joelr>> Back then maybe the reporter considered the idea that a ufo was actually made of tin foil and tape.

Back then mirageman reminds us that the term "flying saucer" had just been coined (and erroneously so since Arnold said he saw "boomerang shaped" things). I will add that the term quoted in joelr statement above of "UFO" did not exist yet, but was more like five years in the future.

www.oxforddictionaries.com...

Back to the data set for the original 1947 incident. It is unique in that there is actual historical evidence in the form of news articles to back up "original" first hand testimony, but sadly, there aint much original first hand 1947 testimony. Even the bulk of Maj. Marcels testimony is in the Post 1978 data set. Let's do an Occam's Razor and cut to the chase. The original news release sounds pretty striking, today. In 1947 it had a very different and far lessor impact. Cultural fact. The follow up news release showing what appears to be tin foil and sticks is NOT a flying disc but is called a weather balloon. Fact: what is shown is NOT a weather balloon. It certainly appears to be something which most likely served the function of a radar reflector. Historical fact: from 1947 until 1978, the Ramey news release ended interest in the Roswell incident. Nor was it included in Project Bluebook and prior efforts. If you concentrate on the original data set, there are many anomalies that don't make sense. Meaning they sorta point in random directions. The big difference when you jump to the Post 1978 data set is everything points in the same direction. (Agenda bias in the data set)

Thank you for the information. A lot of that is what I suspected, that the crazier aspects were added after the fact and the headlines must be taken in context.
Another historical context is that project Mogul probably was a really big deal, very classified, highly secret and cover-up worthy. Now it seems trivial but then it was new tech and the whole atomic bomb/WW3 with Russia thing was a serious reality. General Patton wanted to invade immediately after WW2.

I've always known about Roswell and was on the fence about it. After Ufo Hunters did a show on it and had a first hand witness I realized they mainly just
established the fact that the debris field was tin foil-like with tape and rubber pieces.
The Roswell Proof site has many other similar accounts on this page:

www.roswellproof.com...

But I was shocked and disappointed that the story actually fits the project Mogul story and the first witnesses were there for hours and there was no craft or bodies. Again, also confirmed by many other stories. So we have some obvious mischief makers who started telling stories right after the incident.
But the UFO Hunters didn't even go near that subject, they completely ignored it and moved on as if this debris witness helped prove their case? Insulting.

Has any pro-ufo author who writes about Roswell ever said, "well all the people on the scene saw a tin foil thing not built for speed and no obvious power source or structure, but with obvious rubber and tape, so now I'll tell you why I still believe there was a full spaceship that we reversed engineered, with dead aliens and one live alien, at that same place and I'll give you evidence to at least suggest that I'm not a huge liar and fraud."?

Or do they all try to play it up like "look a huge mysterious debris field of nothing alien is helping prove my alien crash hypothesis" ?