Roswell Revisited

One thing I have noticed about most books dealing with UFOs is that the author takes one position and then sticks to it. Rather than present a scientific analysis of the evidence, the writers treat it more like a debate. That is, they might be well aware of evidence that does not support their point of view, so they ignore it hoping that the opponent, or in this case, the reader, doesn’t know about.

There is nothing wrong with that approach, but I have always thought it best to present both sides of the argument so that the reader, intelligence person that he or she is, can make a more informed opinion about the subject. I try to leave it to the reader to accept or reject that data. For this reason, my writings about UFOs have sometimes been called schizophrenic.

This is why the skeptical community is aware of Curry Holden’s wife’s opinion of what he told me in Lubbock a number of years ago. I was the one who reported that she had told me that her husband, because of his advanced age (he was 96 when I spoke to him) sometime confused events in his mind and that was why she was unimpressed with the fact he had confirmed the UFO crash and the alien bodies. She was sure he was confused.

I, on the other hand, am not so sure. He seemed quite lucid when I spoke to him, and I was aware of the mental confusion that can be created by a close questioning of an elderly man. I tried to approach it carefully and I tried not to give any hint as to what I wanted to know or a direction I hoped the conversation would take. In fact, I tried to approach it from the negative so that if he was picking up cues from me, it would lead him in the wrong direction.

For those keeping score, Holden told me that he was there in Roswell and he had seen it all. He would suggest, or rather others would suggest, it was like a crashed airplane with stubby wings. The site was nearly due north of Roswell. But Holden couldn’t really provide details and my interview with him was short, while his wife sat there, not too happy with me.

I had tried to find documentation because Holden’s papers were stored at the library on the Texas Tech campus. The best I could do was learn that he had been to a wedding and had paid a bill around the time, but given the distances involved and the timing of that information, he was not excluded as a witness. He could have made a short research trip into New Mexico in the right time frame. A solid conclusion, one way or the other simply wasn’t possible.

The point is, however, that we need to look at some of the negative information that has been discovered about the Roswell case. This doesn’t mean we’ll again expose the witnesses to the negative aspects of their claims, or suggest why I don’t, and others don’t believe some of the most incredible testimony. I mean, it really doesn’t do much good to say, again, that documents found after Frank Kaufmann died suggest that he had invented a great deal of the testimony he offered on Roswell.

No, the point here is to take a look at the documentation that has been discovered and see what it says about the Roswell case. This would be documentation created before there were worries about the Freedom of Information Act so that those writing the documents wouldn’t expect them to be seen by the public. This, I believe, means that those creating the documents were writing for a specific audience and would not have been as careful in the choice of their wording and phrasing as those in today’s world might be. In other words, I think we would be getting some unvarnished truth here, and those of us who believe the evidence points to an alien spacecraft crash at Roswell need to see some of the evidence from the other side.

And, no, I’m not going to go through any more of the MJ-12 nonsense than I already have. It will live or die with what is out there, and the arguments have all been made in many different forums. I’ve been quite clear that I do not accept the MJ-12 documents as authentic, though to do so would help strengthen the Roswell case. I’m more interested in the evidence than I am in embracing something that I know to be fake.

Today I want to look at the documents created in the right time frame and that we KNOW are authentic because of where they were found, who found them, and what they reflect. In other words, we’ll look at the evidence that suggests something other than alien answers the Roswell question.

The Twining Letter

Back in September 1947, Nathan Twining, then the commanding general of the Air Materiel Command, signed a document created in his name (I word it this way because I seriously doubt that LTG Twining sat down and wrote this… I’m sure his staff created it and he signed his name when he was satisfied with the contents), that said, near the beginning, “It is the opinion that… The phenomenon [flying saucers] reported is something real and not visionary or fictitious… There are objects probably approximating the shape of a disc… appear man-made aircraft.”

Pretty impressive when considered that this was from a highranking military officer who would become the Chief of Staff of the Air Force. He was saying in this document, classified secret, that he believed the flying saucers were real, that they were intelligently controlled and they probably weren’t American.

So we have a man who said that the saucers were real, and who, given who he was, would have known about the Roswell crash, had it happened. Everything we learned about it suggested the debris, and the bodies, were taken to Wright Field where the headquarters of the Air Materiel Command were located, for analysis. In fact, it would be Twining’s people who did the analysis of that debris and who would have coordinated the examination of the biological samples, that is, the bodies.

That it why, near the end of the letter, where he (or his staff) wrote, “The lack of physical evidence in the shape of crash recovered exhibits which would undeniably prove the existence of these objects” is disturbing. If there had been a crash, Twining would have known about it, yet here, in September 1947, about ten or eleven weeks after the Roswell crash, Twining was denying there had been any crash recovered debris.

It would be nice if everything in the UFO field was cut and dried, but it isn’t. This letter, sent to Brigadier General George Schulgen was only classified as secret and because of that, nothing in it would be classified higher. If, for example, they had wanted to include a single sentence that was classified top secret, then the whole document would have to be classified at the higher level. That it was only secret the document could contain nothing that was top secret.

What this means is that it could include nothing about the Roswell crash, if it happened because such information would be top secret. This provides some “wiggle room” for those of us who believe the Roswell crash happened because Twining, to answer the questions put to him about the nature of UFOs, could accomplish the creation of a program to study them without having to admit that something had fallen at Roswell.

If this reasoning seems too tortured, let me phrase it this way. Twining would have given the assignment to respond to Schulgen to a subordinate who was unaware of the Roswell crash. He answered the questions, suggested the creation of a program to study them (probably at Twining’s direction) and gave the finished product to Twining for review. Nothing was gained by up-grading the classification by adding material about the crash, so Twining let it go, knowing full well that one important bit of information had been left out (or more to the point, obscured), but by doing so he neither wrecked the chances for further study nor risked the potential compromise of top secret material. It wouldn’t be the first time in military history that something like that had been done for security reasons. These officers who had served during the Second World War would be well aware of this.

Air Intelligence Report No. 100-203-79

This report was officially entitled "Analysis of Flying Object Incidents in the U.S.," dated 10 December 1948, and was originally classified as Top Secret. Apparently it was a joint effort between the Directorate of Intelligence of the Air Force and the Office of Naval Intelligence.

This was a report created to brief high-ranking officers on the unidentified flying object situation. It seems that the officers creating such a document would have access to all the classified information needed to accurately assess the situation. They would be in a position tell their superiors everything they knew, or could discover, about UFOs, regardless of how highly classified that information might be. And, according to the thinking of many, if Roswell represented the crash of an alien spacecraft, it would be mentioned in this report. Because there was no mention of a crash in this report, many skeptics have suggested that this alone proves there was no flying saucer crash outside Roswell.

The purpose of the study, according to the document itself was "TO EXAMINE patterns of tactics of 'Flying Saucers' (hereinafter referred to as flying objects) and to develop conclusions as to the possibility of existence."

Under facts and discussions, the report said, "THE POSSIBILITY that reported observations of flying objects over the U.S. were influenced by previous sightings of unidentified phenomena in Europe [probably a reference to the Ghost Rockets of 1946]… and that the observers reporting such incidents may have been interested in obtaining personal publicity…. However, these possibilities seem to be improbable when certain selected reports such as the one from U.S. Weather Bureau at Richmond are examined. During the observations of weather balloons at the Richmond Bureau, one well trained observer has sighted strange metallic disks on three occasions and another observer has sighted a similar object on one occasion…. On all four occasions the weather balloon and the unidentified objects were in view through a theodolite…."

The report included an interesting paragraph about the origins of the objects. It said, "THE ORIGIN of the devices is not ascertainable. There are two reasonable possibilities: (1) The objects are domestic devices, and if so, their identification or origin can be established by a survey of the launchings of airborne devices… (2) Objects are foreign, and if so, it would seem most logical to consider that they are from a Soviet source…"

The conclusions drawn by the authors, at the bottom of page two, and marked top secret, were, "SINCE the Air Force is responsible for control of the air in the defense of the U.S., it is imperative that all other agencies cooperate in confirming or denying the possibility that these objects are of domestic origin. Otherwise, if it is firmly indicated that there is no domestic explanation, the objects are a threat and warrant more active efforts of identification and interception."

And finally, the report said, "IT MUST be accepted that some type of flying objects have been observed, although their identification and origin are not discernible. In the interest of national defense it would be unwise to overlook the possibility that some of these objects are of foreign origin."

This document, because of who prepared it and where it was directed would be a complete summary of the UFO situation. Such a summary would have to include mention of the Roswell case and since it doesn’t, this suggests that there was nothing unusual about Roswell. It was, according to many skeptics, a Project Mogul balloon array so there was no reason to bring it up. Mogul had been responsible for no airborne sightings, and the wreckage recovered was identified immediately. In other words, Mogul didn’t fit into the context of the report and therefore there was no reference to anything near Roswell.

There is one fact that is important when reviewing this document. There are events left out of the Air Intelligence Report, because, according to the officers, they did not have access to all areas of military secrecy. The authors admitted, subtly, that they did not have all the privileged information they needed. The report, by itself, does not prove that Roswell UFO crash didn't happen, or that these officers were lying to their superiors if it did. They didn't know about Roswell, didn't have access to that highly restricted information and therefore, couldn't include it because they simply didn't know about it. The key here is their admission they didn’t have access to everything.

The McCoy Notes

The Scientific Advisory Board conference, chaired by rocket scientist Theodore von Karmen, was held on March 17 and 18, 1948 at the Pentagon in the Washington, D.C. area. In attendance, along with a number of high-ranking Air Force officers was Colonel Howard McCoy. He was there to talk about recently captured equipment including a Soviet made IL-7 aircraft, and to give the latest information on Project Sign, which was the first of the UFO investigations created by the Air Force.

The relevant paragraph from the document is, “We have a new project — Project Sign — which may surprise you as a development from the so-called mass hysteria of the past Summer when we had all the unidentified flying objects [so much for Captain Ed Ruppelt’s claim he invented the term] or discs. This can’t be laughed off. We have over 300 reports which haven’t been publicized in the papers from very competent personnel, in many instances — men as capable as Dr. K. D. Wood, and practically all Air Force and Airline people with broad experience. We are running down every report. I can’t even tell you how much we would give to have one of those crash in an area so that we could recover whatever they are [emphasis added].”

Remember, this was a briefing to the highest ranking of the Air Force hierarchy by a man who was the Chief of T-2, the Air Materiel Command’s intelligence division. McCoy should have known if there was anything to the Roswell case and he would have said something about it in this environment. It is difficult to believe that McCoy would be less than candid with these people or that he would have been cut out of the loop. If he felt the need to safeguard the Roswell information, the best course would be not to mention it. Here he is saying that no such crash took place.

Not long after that, in a letter dated October 7, 1948, McCoy told the CIA, that, “To date, no concrete evidence [emphasis added] as to the exact identity of any of the reported objects has been received. Similarly, the origin of the so-called ‘flying discs’ remains obscure.”

This is not quite as devastating as the earlier note simply because he didn’t say they didn’t have one, only that no evidence of the identity or of the origin had been found. Crash debris by itself certainly wouldn’t have provided that sort of information unless there were star charts included that had been deciphered. Yes, that’s splitting a fine hair, but sometimes, in government work, the words are chosen very carefully to give one impression which is false, even though the statements are true.

And, just so we have a good look at what McCoy put out there, is a letter by McCoy dated November 8. He wrote, “So far no physical evidence of the existence [emphasis added] of the unidentified sightings has been obtained… The possibility that the reported objects are vehicles from another planet has not been ignored. However, tangible evidence to support conclusions about such a possibility are completely lacking [emphasis added]…”

In the end, we can spin a couple of the comments if we want and suggest that they are not definitive. We can suggest that while these comments are true, they really don’t answer the crashed saucer question.

However, when we get to “I can’t even tell you how much we would give to have one of those crash in an area so that we could recover whatever they are,” we run into some problems. I suppose we could point out, as it was repeatedly during the Washington Post investigation of Watergate this is a sort of “non-denial denial.” It doesn’t say one didn’t crash, only suggested that the Air Force (now that it was a separate service) would give quite a bit if one would crash for them to recover…

But the November 8 letter seems to take away all possibility of spin. He states they had no physical evidence, and tangible evidence to suggest the UFOs are from another planet is lacking. This is devastating… unless there is a reason to believe that McCoy would have been kept out of the loop, and to be honest, I can think of none.

In the end I’ve split a few fine hairs here but am left without explanation for McCoy’s strong words (thought later on we’ll see some evidence that suggests McCoy might not have been in the center of the Roswell investigation). If not for a variety of other evidence, this would seem to be the very end of the Roswell UFO crash.

Captain Lorenzo Kent Kimball

In the late 1990s, a new witness surfaced who suggested that nothing at all happened at the base in Roswell, especially at the base hospital, and he would know because he was there. Captain Lorenzo Kent Kimball was indeed assigned to the base hospital as a Medical Supply Officer and his picture does appear in the Yearbook. That put him into the base hospital and he should have been aware of any unusual activity there because he would have been in the center of it. Or so he would have us believe.

Instead, he wrote, “Most of the medical staff spent their time at the Officer’s Club swimming pool every afternoon after duty hours. The biggest excitement was the cut-throat hearts game in the BOQ and an intense bingo, bango bungo golf game at the local nine hole golf course for a nickel a point!! There was absolutely NO unusual activity on the Base…”

He also presents some facts about what Don Schmitt and I wrote about the crash, the alleged autopsy in the base hospital, and Jesse Johnson who was assigned as one of the doctors in 1947. Kimball wrote:

1. There was a physician named Jesse B. Johnson assigned to the Base Hospital. However, he was a 1^st Lt., not a Major, and he was a radiologist, not a pathologist. He had no training as a pathologist and would have been the last member of the medical staff to have performed any autopsy on a human much less an alien. He is identified as a 1^st Lt. In the 509^th Yearbook.

2. After I learned of these assertions, I called Doctor Jack Comstock, who, as a Major, was the Hospital Commander in 1947, and in 1995 was living in retirement in Boulder, Colorado. I asked him if he recalled any such events occurring in July of 1947 and he said absolutely not. When I told him that Jesse B. Was supposed to have conducted a preliminary autopsy on alien bodies, he had a hard time stopping laughing — his response was: PREPOSTEROUS!!

Kimball also takes us, meaning Schmitt and me, and Stan Friedman and Don Berliner, to task for identifying a two story brick building as the base hospital. Well, according to Glenn Dennis it was, and according to documentation, it was. The problem is that it was not built until after 1947, and that might give us a clue about what Kimball could have seen. In 1947, the base hospital was made up of a number of different, one story buildings clustered together in an nice neat, military formation. In other words, you could work in one building and not know what was happening in the others. That we all got this wrong is true, but it’s not as if we invented the information for the sake of the story.

But let’s talk about Jesse Johnson. Here, I’m going to run into a little bit of a problem and it’s going to seem as if I’m trying to shift blame, but I am tired of taking flack for mistakes that others made. I will point out here that Schmitt, because of his claimed background as a medical illustrator (a story I believed because he insisted it was true until I learned otherwise) did the background check on Johnson because it seemed a natural. He would know where to go and he supplied the information that we originally published about Johnson. Later, I decided to look the stuff up myself.

I learned, during 1947, First Lieutenant Jesse Johnson was assigned to the base hospital at the Roswell Army Air Field. There is no evidence that he played any role in the alleged autopsies of alien beings found near there in July 1947, though his name has been connected to it.

Information published suggested that Johnson, a pathologist in 1947, was called upon to perform, or assist in the performance of preliminary autopsies conducted at the base hospital. That information was based on two flawed tales. One of them was by Glenn Dennis, who claimed that he had known a nurse assigned to the base in 1947 and she told him about the autopsies.

The other assumption was that in 1947, Johnson was a pathologist. Using the source that Schmitt had used, The ABMS Compendium of Medical Specialists, I learned that in 1947, Johnson had just completed his medical training. He had no training as a pathologist in 1947 so there was no reason to suspect that he would have been brought in to assist in the autopsies.

In fact, the information available suggests that Johnson did, eventually train as a pathologist at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston from 1948 to 1949. In other words, he did not have the training in 1947 but completed it after his military service. That he began the training so soon after his military service suggests an interest in it, but certainly doesn’t translate into participation in any alien autopsies.

An interview conducted with his wife in the early 1990s revealed nothing to suggest that Johnson was ever involved in the recovery of alien bodies, or the autopsy of them. She had no knowledge of any connection between her husband and the U.S. government. The fact he had once trained as a pathologist seems to have confused the issue. Dr. Johnson died in 1988.

Finally, Kimball wrote, “I got to know General Blanchard very well as an officer under his command at Roswell AAF and with the 7^th Air Division. He was, as his record surely reflects, an outstanding officer, who was highly respected. According to Lt. Haut’s testimony about the event, Colonel Blanchard ordered him to issue a press release announcing that a “flying disk” have (sic) been recovered. While I am sure this is how Lt. Haut remembers it, I would argue that this [is] not the action that a responsible commander would have taken given the importance of such a discovery…”

Say what he will, the truth of the matter is that a news release was prepared and issued and in the absence of evidence to the contrary it must be concluded that Blanchard ordered it. There is no indication that Haut was reprimanded for the release, which certainly would have happened had he issued the release on his own. Kimball is speculating here with no foundation.

Kimball raised some good points but his conclusion that nothing happened because he saw nothing and no one he talked to had seen anything is flawed. I’ve already pointed out that many officers, including several generals, say otherwise. Kimball’s attitude and his arrogance comes through in his writing. His information needs to be balanced against that from so many others who say differently.

And a final point to be made was that Kimball, while assigned to the hospital was not a doctor himself. He was a medical supply officer. His expertise in ordering equipment might be sought by the doctors and nurses, but in the matter of an alien autopsy and highly classified medical matters, he would certainly be out of the loop.

Last Comments Here

We have now looked at some of the evidence that suggests nothing happened at Roswell, or rather nothing extraordinary. I am tempted to leave it at that, but wonder if a few additional comments might not be necessary here. After all, we have seen, from a variety of important, trained, and trusted people that they believe something fell.

The evidence supporting the idea of a crash has been put forward in other sections and is there for all to see. Most of it is testimony from men who were directly involved, and from the families of men involved. Such evidence is important, sometimes persuasive, and sometimes inaccurate.

We have some documentation about the crash, including the first press release that suggests something extraordinary fell at Roswell. And there is some persuasive documentation, from those who should know, suggesting that nothing fell. In the end, it is up to each reader to decide what evidence is important, what is trivial, what is inaccurate and what is persuasive. Only then can we begin to move forward.