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I believe that specifically the paragraph that starts with "If, though, it was ..." is far too insinuating. It should not be the purpose of an encyclopedia to imply that the US government is lying, as much as this paragraph does. Especially the sentence that US military might hold 'alien' weapons is beside the purpose of an encyclopedia article. Still... I didn't change the text because I'd like to hear other opinions about this first... Hwebers 6 Jan 2004

This article makes a couple of logical leaps that cannot be supported. You say that if it were ever established that the thing that crashed at Roswell was indeed an alien craft, this was would prove that (a) the film of the purported autopsy of an alien would be verified as true, and (b) it would be proven that the USA has adopted alien technology.

Neither of these outcomes follows at all.

If the film was bogus rather than a true record of an actual alien autopsy, then any proof that whatever crashed was alien would not suddenly convert the film from being bogus to being true. The same argument for the alien technology - because just because the US govt could be proven to have had contact with alien life forms does not of itself prove that they have been able to adopt any of their technology. Cheers JackofOz 10:20, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I call Six Days... a "semi"documentary because some of the framing elements are staged. The Maysles Brothers, it ain't. Will elaborate in a separate entry on the film at some point. LazloNibble 29 Apr 2004

POV

This article is heavily slanted toward the idea that there was an alien crash and cover up at Roswell in 1947. It is structured in such a way that dissenting viewpoints are immediately rebutted and often unfairly. For instance it was noted that the the governement has suggested that people who claim to have seen bodies may be remembering the bodies of dummies used in the 50's and 60's and mistakely associating them with the Roswell crash. The article then claim that this is at odds with the original report which does not mention bodies. But how was a report written in 1947 supposed to mention events that would not occur until the 1950s! The article is full of these problems to the point that fixing it will be a very involved process. The article also ingnores any significant problems with the conspiracy theory.--198.93.113.49 13:29, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

The "original report" referred to was the Air Force's 1994 report, not 1947. I thought this was clear but apparently not. (BTW, there was no 1947 public investigation and "report", just brief press releases, which are something else entirely.) Regardless, a minor edit was added to remove any ambiguity. I've also added some language to make it clearer that other counterarguments presented elsewhere represent the POV of some.

The 1994 report did indeed skirt the issue of bodies, instead saying it wasn't necessary to consider because the crash was caused by a Mogul balloon, which didn't have an alien crew therein. That was how the Air Force in 1994 (not 1947) worded it and dealt with it.

I felt the article as originally written was heavily slanted towards the skeptical viewpoint, and for balance, opposing arguments were presented while leaving the skeptical viewpoint in place. E.g., there really is zero historical evidence to support Roswell as a "broken arrow" atomic accident--there were no bombs in the atomic arsenal then and no records of such a crash. Why not point that out? Encyclopedia articles are supposed to be based on facts, not mere speculation. (Incidentally, the first "broken arrow" air crash in the U.S. was near Albuquerque in 1950, not Roswell in 1947.)

Regarding a Mogul crash, why not point out that there are also serious objections with that theory. It is just another POV of some and certainly not a given. There is another side to this.

Unlike many encyclopedia articles, Roswell is not a neutral subject and there are strong viewpoints on both sides, which need to be presented in as factual a way as possible while trying to maintain a sense of overall neutrality. Some point/counterpoint is essential when dealing with such topics. I do have a POV but did strive for balance and to let both sides have their say.

If you think a brief counter to the "conspiracy theory" is warranted, go ahead and add it. BTW, labeling something a "conspiracy theory" is already loaded and expressing a strong POV, as are some who label legitimate researchers as "believers" or "UFO buffs" or "conspiratorialists." These are propaganda terms and have no place in an encyclopedia article. Simply say something like, "An argument against this theory is..." or "Advocates of this position believe ...", or similar neutral wording to that effect.

Incidentally, the presented theories from Pflock's book, such as the burned bodies from an aircraft accident years later or "the blunder of a particular officer suffering from an attack of hubris" are best described as highly biased, wild-assed speculation rather than fact-driven. They probably don't even belong in an encyclopedia article. I considered editing them out entirely, but left them in without rebuttal so that a particular skeptical POV could be presented. Dr Fil

I feel that the article is not POV, although it could use some cleaning up in that regard. Why is it NPOV? Because it describes the existent viewpoints, and in this case, there are two important ones - that there was an alien crash and a coverup, or that there was not. Argumentation is presented for both viewpoints, and the chosen argumentation is that which is indeed usually presented by supporters of either viewpoint.

All arguments are supposed to be placed together with their refutals. That's what makes sense. With how, before crash-support arguments, words and phrases like "as some continue to instist", "if indeed it was", etc., are inserted, I absolutely fail to see how this article is biased towards the crash point of view. Solver 22:26, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Clinton comments completely out of context

The section about Bill Clinton's Roswell statement is inaccurate and out of context, it implies he was in the Irish Republic when a member of the press put a question about Roswell to him. None of that happened, he was not "asked", he wasn't in the Republic.

What actually happened was this (I saw the speech on television, it was a big event at the time): He was on a trip to Northern Ireland (which whether you agree with it or not is part of Britain, and officially recognised as such by the Irish Republic's new constitution). He was due to switch on the Belfast Christmas tree lights. Before doing so he gave a speech during which he read out several letters sent to him by children from Northern Ireland before he came there.

-- Sorry, but if you want be TOTALLY accurate, Northern Ireland is NOT part of Britain, it's part of the UK. --

Most of them were (obviously) to do with the peace process which he'd invested a lot of time in, but as a moment of light relief he said that a child (can't remember the name, let's call him Timmy) had written to ask if alien bodies were recovered by the US Air Force in Roswell in 1947 and being stored at a secret base. Clinton had a broad smile on his face when answering the question, "No, Timmy, as far as I know they did not. And if they DO have them stored somewhere, I want to know about it!" There wasn't an ounce of seriousness in the statement, and it's impossible to tell from it if Clinton has any genuine interest in Roswell at all.

OK, so in the interest of absolute factual accuracy, let's change Ireland to Northern Ireland and reword slightly to indicate that he was responding to a letter from a child.

The fact that the question was in a prescreened letter rather than a spontaneously asked question actually strengthens the argument about Clinton's interest. Prearranged presidential statements are usually carefully vetted to prevent Presidents from saying the wrong thing. Out of all the things Clinton could have responded to, he and his staff deliberately had him answer a potentially loaded question about Roswell, something they could have easily avoided. The question is why?

Also read the part about Clinton instructing Webster Hubbell to find out about UFOs. That's in Hubbell's book written after he left the White House. That's a fact, not an interpretation. Clinton also had a book on Roswell (the first one by Randle and Schmitt) on his Presidential bookshelf when his books were inventoried while he was under investigation by Kenneth Starr. That's another fact. The book was given to him by Paul Davids, who produced the HBO movie "Roswell." According to Davids, his father, Dr. Jules Davids, was one of Clinton's professors at Georgetown. That was the connection between Davids and Clinton.

Another indication of Clinton's deep interest in UFOs was attested to by senior White House Correspondent Sarah McClendon, who noted other senior officials in the White House were also briefed on the matter. See, e.g., http://www.thecosmicfrontier.com/Cosmic/Sara%20Article117.htm .

The recent quotes on Roswell and UFOs from N.M. Governor Bill Richardson, Clinton's DOE head, and John Podesta, Clinton's chief of staff, are also part of the public record. Dr Fil 22 May 2005

I'm not saying ANYTHING about Clinton's opinions on Roswell, I have no idea what they are. The other references you mention sound like more important sources about this topic.

All I'm saying is I saw the speech and the particular reference included in the article doesn't really tell you anything about Clinton's views either. If you want to present convincing evidence of something you have to be careful not to read too much into less convincing things.

The context of the speech was in a region where there had been mass murder for 40 years, with literally thousands of people killed, beaten and jailed in a self-sustaining cycle of violence and persecution from both sides that seemed to have no end in sight. The work Clinton was doing in Belfast was literally a matter of life and death for his audience, the Good Friday Agreement which he helped to broker was hanging in the balance.

The speech was meant about very serious issues but it also needed to be upbeat and hopeful, especially as it was at Christmas, so Clinton needed a few lighter items completely unconnected to any of the feuds in Ulster.

You asked why he mentioned Roswell as if the reference had no reasonable explanation, but it definitely does have an eminently reasonable explanation: Clinton wanted to lighten a serious speech in a very serious life-threatening situation with something totally utterly unlikely to offend either Catholics or Protestants, so what could be less likely to offend than a joke about aliens?

Also, at the time he made the speech Roswell was very much a "pop culture" reference with the recent huge successes of things like X-Files, Independence Day and Men In Black, and nearly all politicians love to make references to anything that's fashionable (that's why George W Bush tried a Segway in front of TV cameras, for example).

As well as Roswell, in the same speech he also talked about the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, saying he didn't have their amazing athletic ability. It lightened the speech and was another pop culture reference (the MMPR were extremely popular at the time), just like the Roswell mention.

First of all, I got the date of Clinton's Belfast comments on Roswell wrong. It was November 30, 1995, not 1999 (this has been corrected). I am looking at Clinton's comments in a much broader context than you are. It is part of the public record that various people in the Clinton White House were very interested in the subject, including the Clintons. For more on this, see:

Another important part of the context is to realize that Clinton made his Belfast comments just a few days before the Air Force issued their final version of their initial Roswell report. (They issued a short "executive summary" a year before in Sept. 1994, what Newsweek magazine called a "preemptive strike," but their much longer "phone book" version came out right after Clinton's remarks.)

Given the context, I seriously doubt Clinton's remarks were made for comic relief, though they were made in a light-hearted manner. This tone has a rather more direct interpretation than Clinton doing a stand-up comedy act to relieve tension in Northern Ireland. One has to realize that taboo subjects like UFOs and Roswell are one of the third rails of politics. Almost no politician dares to go near it for fear of ridicule. New Mexico Congressman Steven Schiff, who got the initial Roswell GAO probe going, was the rare exception. Clinton couldn't publicly discuss the subject with total seriousness. Hence the lighthearted approach, giving him plausible deniability should he be asked afterwards whether he did take it seriously. In the meantime, Clinton and his speechwriters were delivering a prepared, carefully worded message to the Air Force. "You didn't touch the subject of bodies in your first report, I'm the President, and I want to know."

(You might be interested to know that when the Air Force issed their press release about the Roswell report a few days after Clinton's comments, they quoted the first half of Clinton's remarks, that he was unaware of a saucer crash at Roswell, as supporting their conclusions, while leaving out the second half of his remarks, that the Air Force hadn't told him anything and also hadn't addressed the issue of bodies. Talk about quoting out of context!)

A year and half later out came the "crash dummy" report. This was released exactly on the 50th anniversary of Kenneth Arnold's sighting of June 24, 1947, and also just in time for Roswell's 50th anniversary. This again was no accident, but another "pre-emptive strike" by the AF public relations spin-meisters.

Incidentally, Clinton's remarks did not predate X-files, but they did predate Independence Day (1996) and Men In Black (1997), and also "The Rock" (1996), which also mentioned Roswell. Even if these popular movies somehow made Roswell "fashionable," they had nothing to do with what Clinton said before they came out. Dr Fil 00:03, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

source?

"It should also be known that a theory has been postulated that the Roswell incident was, in fact, a mid-air collision between two alien spacecraft. The first completely fragmented and its remains were found over Mack Brazel's ranch. The second, according to witnesses and people who uphold this theory, landed a short distance away. It was reported that four extraterrestrial entities were found--one alive, one dying, and two dead. This was witnessed by many people, including a university professor and his class, who were going on a field trip. Then the army came, warned the others away, and took care of the crash. The surviving alien was christened Extraterrestrial Biological Entity 1 (EBE-1), and survived at a safe house in New Mexico until 1952, where it died of unknown causes."

Where's the source for this?

--- Not sure, but I've seen SciFi movies claiming things like that. Like most if not all "proof" of aliens at Rosswell it seems to be a myth perpetuated by UFO adherents and SciFi authors in order to make themselves look important and/or make money out of disinformation. After all, UFOs sell a lot more books and advertising revenue than do weather balloons.

At current the only evidence for any alien involvement are the original two newspaper articles which are nothing more than speculation from junior USAAF officers who had no experience or knowledge of Mogul balloons. The "disc shaped" object might well have existed but in fact be a roughly circular piece of mylar from the balloon (for example) misidentified as something else (or maybe the latter part was omitted by the press to stir up a story that wasn't there).

This artile is seriously slanted towards the "believer" point of view. For example, testimony of purported witnesses to the event is offered as being a true and accurate repetition of their statements, but the article doesn't say who reported their testimony, an important element in judging whether to credit that the "witness" ever said it.

Use of terms_UFO_and_purported_

This may be nitpicking on my part, but it seems like the use of purported describing the UFO crash is unnecessary, as it is very widely believed that something did indeed crash at Roswell. It is only the identity of the object that is in dispute. All that UFO means is Unidentified Flying Object. This would include flying saucers and weather balloons--exept of course that many people claim they know what the object was so calling it unidentified would to them be a misnomer. My recommendation for the first sentence is one of the following:

The Roswell UFO incident is the crash of an unidentified flying object (UFO) in Roswell, New Mexico, USA, in 1947.

Or, if you would prefer to avoid the term UFO entirely:

The Roswell UFO incident is the purported crash of an object in Roswell, New Mexico, USA, in 1947, which some claim to have been a weather balloon or other man-made device, and others claim to have been a flying saucer.

Theshibboleth 00:11, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Regardless of what UFO means, the common usage of it is going to be for alien spacecraft, not Unidentified Flying Object as it stands. Using UFO broadly instead of its common use will only slant the article to the casual viewer. -Senori 19:10, August 13, 2005 (UTC)

Influence (small suggestion)

Didn't the TV show futurama do an entire episode about Roswell too? I'd write up the details....but I don't actually know them.--Joewithajay 22:48, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

In essence, they go through a singularity and end up in Roswell, where Bender is tossed about and his wreckage left on the desert is thought to be a spacecraft, while Zoidberg is the alien. -Senori 19:13, August 13, 2005 (UTC)

UFO game series

A strong influence can be seen in UFO (later X-Com) games where SECTOIDS default alien race + UFO`s are EXACTLY THE SAME as in Roswell

--Rastavox 01:24, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

The Leak-Free Conspiracy

One of the things which has always amazed me about the Roswell "alien" claim is that this is a conspiracy theory with no leaks. If anyone can track down the people who organised this completely leak-free conspiracy, I think the current POTU would be interested, and some previous Presidents would have been more than happy to meet those guys!

It is also interesting to note that none of the first-hand witnesses to what actually happened near Roswell in July 1947 ever said that they saw aliens. Bubba73 (talk) 15:59, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

reverted

I reverted the last edits because of NPOV issues. To begin with, the article was almost totally on the pro-extraterrestial spacecraft POV. When I started working on the article, ALL of the sources listed were from the pro-ET POV. There was almost no balance. I tried to make it more balanced, but even then it was strongly pro-ET POV. I put in undisputed facts about what was actually reported at the time. Now someone is claiming that I'm putting in POV!

I changed some inflamatory wording, for instance "claim". The Air Force didn't "claim" that the debris was from a Mogul balloon, they proved it beyond a reasonable doubt. But I didn't say that in the article, I said that their conclusion was that it was a baloon. All the ET-POV has is second-hand rumors.

A "claim" is a statement made without proof. I can claim that my neighbor threw trash in my yard. That is a claim. If I have proof then it goes beyond a claim. Like in a court of law ... evidence. And, similarly, all the ET-POV has is hearsay. Bubba73 (talk) 00:56, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Your extreme bias is again showing. You repeatedly claim the Air Force proved its case, end of story, and then use language in the article saying as much. Please don't pretend that the language of your edits doesn't have a strongly biased POV. When you state that the A.F. presented "overwhelming evidence" showing a Mogul balloon explained Roswell, you are using blatantly obvious POV language. When you state about their "crash dummy" report, "They showed that the testimony of the people saying they had seen bodies near Roswell was in good agreement with actual events..." you are again using POV language that has no place in an encyclopedia article. When you state above, "I put in undisputed facts about what was actually reported at the time," you are again making a biased POV statement. The point is the "facts" are disputed. There are inconsistencies in newspaper accounts, and the independence of the accounts, such as Brazel's, are also disputed. Just because the newspapers were told certain things by the military doesn't necessarily make them true.

A "claim" is indeed a statement made without proof. You then again assert that the Air Force somehow proved its case, somehow confusing "evidence" presented with proof. No, your BELIEF that the A.F. proved their case is just that, your personal belief.

I honestly don't see how "claim" is "inflamatory" language. The Air Force did indeed make unproven claims. Do you really think 6 foot human mannequins or a man with a swollen head from a balloon accident would be confused with small aliens with big heads or that witnesses could be so grossly confused about times, locations, and body descriptions because of "time distortion" of memory? Well maybe you believe such rubbish, but most people don't (including most of the normally cynical press, BTW) and such absurd claims hardly constitute "proof."

I have no problem with the A.F. arguments being briefly summarized with neutral language, but I have a big problem with your language and your rants defending A.F. methods, which you just reinserted. This section as orginally written was a quick summary for the general reader of recent Roswell theories, including Air Force conclusions, using neutral language. Some arguments for and against the Mogul theory were presented further below. Then you jump in and change the language to the A.F. absolutely proving their case and inserted a lot of unnecessary and biased material. Every time I tried to make the language more neutral, such as using "claim," you couldn't stand that. No the A.F. always "showed" beyond all doubt. No, they claimed to show, just as the pro-ET POV claims to show. It only goes beyond claims if the evidence presented by one side or the other is absolutely incontestable, which it is not, despite your personal _opinion_ to the contrary.

It is also not your place to literally invent rationales for why the Air Force didn't interview or mention key witnesses to bodies, reasons even the A.F. didn't use. They originally said that witnesses to bodies were not credible and besides, there were no aliens bodies on Mogul balloons. (Of course, in 1997, those same unreliable witnesses suddenly become credible, even the hoaxers, and by gosh, there was something to those body stories after all.) I tried to quickly summarize their actual arguments, but you removed that, and reinserted your own personal rationales for them not dealing with bodies. Again, an encyclopedia article isn't supposed to be your personal soapbox.

I also removed your paragraph on Gen. Exon, because it was indeed redundant. The skeptical position about Exon had already been amply made in a paragraph in the previous section. There was no need to repeat it, interrupt the flow of the article, and unnecessarily lengthen it with your POV defense of the A.F. ignoring Gen. Exon. It's completely out of place.

I also notice you are putting an endless number of unnecessary links to skeptical treatments of the Roswell case, even extremely trivial treatments. A few carefully chosen ones would suffice. The A.F. report has been linked to more than once. So has Peebles. Isn't once enough? Maybe you hope to sway readers through shear numbers of links to skeptical articles?

There is no need to insert the texts of the FBI telegram or Brazel's interview into the article. Simple links to the text would be sufficient. Be warned, I'll insert links to differing interpretations of the same material.

The reason the article is beginning to turn into an unreadable monstrosity is that you are inserting all sorts of unnecessary, highly biased, and often inaccurate material. You need to learn to edit more effectively and be much more terse in your points. And for godssake, stop the soapbox rants and try to keep your language more neutral. We all have our biases. But you don't even seem to recognize that you are biased. At the very least, try to curb the highly biased POV language, please.

Having said all that, I would like to comment further about your repeated claims that the A.F. unquestionably proved their case.

What the Air Force really did to "prove" their case was interview a carefully selected and small group of people to give it a one-sided Mogul slant and ignore, ridicule, or carefully edit all contradictory evidence and witnesses.

The whole report is shabby affair of distorted evidence written by AFOSI officers, i.e., counterintelligence people. The head guy, Col. Richard Weaver, used to teach propaganda courses and there is some evidence he was involved in putting out UFO disinformation in the 1980s. Guys like Weaver are trained and paid to lie and deceive. That's their job. Even the GAO in their investigation said the Air Force wasn't cooperating and was hiding something. And contrary to all government protocol, the Air Force deliberately preempted the findings of the GAO by putting out its "Executive Summary" 9 months before the GAO had finished. What they should have done is given their findings to the GAO for them to include in their final report. But these weren't independent historians the Air Force used to "investigate." Instead they used their own internal spook unit to investigate themselves, a classic example of the fox guarding the hen house.

As for their carefully selected group of witnesses, Mogul engineer Charles Moore, has since been shown to be a hoaxer (though I don't think he started out that way). In his book published in 1997 he fraudulently calculated a trajectory for his Mogul Flight #4 to try to "prove" winds would take it to Brazel's place. (The fact that his calculation is fraudulent can be unambiguously proven from his own math.) Also, might I point out, that Moore was in no way directly involved with Roswell. He wasn't in the military, he wasn't at Roswell base; he wasn't on the Brazel debris field to see what was really there; he wasn't in Fort Worth when the story switched to a weather balloon. He's another one of those second-hand witnesses telling stories decades after the fact, frequently changing his story and clearly lying at times to promote his lost Mogul hypothesis. But his second-hand, decades-after testimony is probably OK with you because it fits your prejudices.

Another witness, Sheridan Cavitt of the Roswsell CIC, was the only witness interviewed by the A.F. who was directly involved. But he was also clearly lying in his interview on a number of major points and his testimony actually does NOT support Mogul, unless you think a Mogul crash would be no bigger than his living room and he could find it in the middle of nowhere without help from rancher Brazel, whom he claimed he never met. He also denied there were any markings or "hieroglyphics" on the debris, the infamous "flower patterns" that were supposed to be the "proof" that this was from Mogul. Instead he said stories of "hieroglyphics" were the inventions of crashed saucer promotors trying to make money. Did you also know that before being interviewed by the A.F., Cavitt denied for years being at Roswell or in any way being involved? His wife Mary told researchers that he would never talk about what really happened.

Unlike somebody like Marcel, Cavitt had nobody to back him up, conflicting with everybody else's testimony, including his wife. His CIC aide Lewis Rickett contradicted him, saying the metal was indeed anomalous, there was high secrecy and security including secret shipments of debris, and there was a large, follow-up clean-up operation at the ranch which he witnessed. Marcel, of course, contradicted him about the debris, large debris field, and being with Brazel. So did Mack Brazel himself in his interview, saying that "a man in plain clothes" accompanied Marcel and him to his ranch. How does this square with Cavitt saying he had never made Brazel or not going out with Marcel? Or how does Brazel's 1947 statement of the crash site being 200 yards across or Marcel's 1947 statement from the AP that debris was scattered over a SQUARE MILE fit with Cavitt's statements of a tiny balloon crash no bigger than his living room that could all fit in the trunk of a car?

And Cavitt and Moore were the Air Force's star witnesses.

As for your precious contemporaneous news stories, since when does contemporaneous necessarily equal true or accurate, which seems to be your logic? Similarly, since when does decades later or second-hand testimony necessarily equal false, which also seems to be your logic (but only when applied to "pro-ET" testimony, not to "pro-Mogul" testimony)? Contemporaneous simply means that is how the press reported the story, i.e., that is what they were told by various sources and how the various reporters and editors interpreted it. The many Roswell press stories back then were not uniform and full of contradictions. You also seem to make no allowances for even the possibility that the press was being lied to about some things, or even the FBI in their telegram. (There's a whole documented history of the FBI usually being kept out of the loop by the Air Force on the UFO question, and J. Edgar Hoover being furious about it.)

Note the telegram also mentions only a singular balloon and radar target--inconsistent with a Mogul. That story came directly from Gen. Ramey, who had his intel officer Kirton give it to the FBI.

What about Brazel's balloon story? Did you mention that it is full of internal inconsistencies (e.g., Brazel basically recanted it at the end) or did you mention testimony of about 10 other witnesses, including the Roswell base provost marshall, that Brazel was detained by the military, and directly admitted to one witness, Frank Joyce, of being coerced into changing his story? Most of that is first-hand testimony from people who were there.

If multiple-witness testimony like that was admitted in a court of law that a key witness had been coerced by the prosecution into changing testimony, a mistrial would likely be declared. (And BTW, even second-hand testimony is admittable evidence in a court of law and frequently used. Only debunkers who don't like what they hear reject it, unless, of course, it supports their own POV.)

How about Marcel's 1947 balloon comments? Again you failed to mention that Marcel and Gen. Dubose stated that everybody was under orders from Gen. Ramey and that the weather balloon was just a cover story to get the press off their backs. Dubose stated he was ordered from Washington to start covering it up. Don't you find it interesting that the AFOSI agents never quoted Dubose's testimony about the cover-up, one of their own generals and an important first-hand witness? No I suppose not. I'm sure you have another rationalization for that as well, why they treated Dubose as a complete nonentity, just like Gen. Exon, another of their generals.

Is it therefore surprising that both Dubose and Marcel would be quoted in Ramey's presence telling a balloon story back in 1947? It's very simple. Both men were under orders to do that. Under the circumstances, two military guys could hardly tell the press back then that the balloon story was a setup ordered by the general, now could they?

But no doubt, you will dismiss this as well, even though they were first-hand witnesses, because both men told their stories decades later when they were civilians. By your usual inconsistent logic, only stories told by old Mogul guys decades later who had no direct involvement should be be accepted as evidence, if not "proof." Only ET-POV testimony is "hearsay."

But even back in 1947, Marcel slipped in that the debris was scattered over a square mile, totally inconsistent with what was displayed in Ramey's office or what would even be expected from a Mogul balloon crash. And even back in 1947 Gen. Ramey was always describing the debris as coming from one balloon and one radar target, again totally inconsistent with a Mogul. And even back in 1947 (and today) his weather officer stated that what he saw was from an ordinary, single weather balloon that could have come from anywhere.

Wasn't Mogul supposed to be multiple weather balloons and multiple radar targets. Where are they in the balloon photos taken? Where's the so-called "flower tape" that's suppose to clearly link Ramey's balloon debris with Mogul? Those balloon photos have been blown up and carefully scrutinized, including by the Air Force, and even they admitted that their photoanalysts couldn't find any evidence of it in the photos.

So please tell us what the "overwhelming evidence" is that so clearly proves Roswell was caused by a Mogul balloon.

Governments do put out cover stories to conceal secrets. When the first A-bomb was tested at Trinity, the cover story was that an ammunition dump had exploded. When the U-2 was shot down, the cover story was that it was an errant NASA weather plane that crashed because the pilot passed out from oxygen deprivation. The CIA even had NASA contrive phony transcripts of the pilot's last conversations and repainted another U-2 with a NASA symbol and phony ID number and then showed it to the press. The U-2 incident is a great example because it shows the lengths the government will go to cover up their secrets. The only reason they recanted is because they had no choice. Unfortunately for them, the Soviets within a week produced both the live pilot and the spy cameras from the plane and caught the Eisenhower Administration in an awkward lie.

But by your logic, the official story as originally reported in the newspapers is necessarily the 100% unvarnished truth, even all the lying and contrived "evidence" that goes with it, like the phony NASA weather plane explanation, pilot transcripts, and repainted U-2. These are quite similar to Gen. Ramey's singular weather balloon story, what both Marcel and Dubose stated was the cover story to get the press off their backs. But because such comments didn't appear in the newspapers in 1947, you will no doubt continue to dismiss their testimony as unreliable or "hearsay" because it doesn't fit your own POV. Dr Fil

Beyond Top Secret

Just a quick note on the meaning of top secret. In the article, someone states that the truth is "beyond top secret," but in actuality, that isn't saying much. "Top Secret" is the second lowest clearance that can be granted in the military. Secret clearance is given to every officer as soon as they commission, and several immediately get "Top Secret" if their job involves any kind of intelligence.