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Roswell Report Case Closed
Originally published by the United States Force in 1997.
- GenresHistoryNonfiction
231 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
October 3, 2022
This entire book can be summed up in one sentence. There's nothin' to see here, move along. 👌🏼
June 27, 2018
This volume has been sitting on my to-read shelf since it came out in 1997, waiting for me to get around to reading its predecessor, The Roswell Report: Fact vs. Fiction in the New Mexico Desert. That earlier volume (which I finally read this year) covered all the data the GAO (and primarily the USAF and the US Army) could find on the episode in the summer of 1947, when W.W. Brazel discovered some debris on his ranch, and the gummint sent some people out to recover it. That volume exhaustively reviews the evidence and witness interviews, then and correlates them with several high-altitude balloon experiments (especially the Project MOGUL experiments) and concludes that there can be little doubt that the Brazel wreckage was a MOGUL balloon train.
That book mentioned the rumors of "alien bodies" associated with Roswell, but the original research quickly discovered that there was no credible connection to 1947, and didn't pursue it. (For instance, the young lad who clearly remembers the crashed saucer was much younger than he claimed to have been when he saw this saucer, and it appears that he had shifted his memory in time to make it fit.)
After the thousand-page Roswell Report was published, a number of secondary inquiries came in, along with some volunteered evidence, and HQUSAF continued their historical research. This book is the result, and it's rather amusing. In the former volume, the convincing material was in all the appendices: the interviews, the research reports and diaries, the photographs. It had relatively few footnotes. In this volume there are a huge number of footnotes, and the text is more of a narrative and summary. All known relevant witness interviews have been transcripted at the end, though. (There isn't that much firsthand testimony, it turns out.)
What they discovered was that there was fairly consistent testimony about "the operations with the alien bodies" and that those events closely match a set of experiments that were run not in 1947, but in the 50s and 60s. These involved high-altitude testing of astronaut (or test pilot) escape technology. There was repeated use of test dummies that were parachuted into the desert, and also some live humans, including long-lasting (and only recently surpassed) record-setting parachute jumps.
The interesting part of the research was the simple breaking down of the testimony into simple "factual assertions" like the vehicles that the government folks had when they arrived, the color of the alien uniforms, and type, and their baldness, and the missing fingers, etc. etc., and comparing it to these actual recovery team events. They match to a high correlation. And there were failures of the high-altitude balloon releases, in which the rack the dummies were attached to dropped with the dummies still in them, and smashed into the dirt from tens of thousands of feet at high speed, and (having been cold saturated at high altitude) were therefore quite cold to the touch for a while, despite the heat.
Some of the witnesses claimed there was a specific redheaded officer involved, and they have traced him down and figured out who he was. (There was also a redheaded officer at the Roswell base hospital, but that's a different guy.) Ditto for some other actors.
Now the "alien bodies at Roswell Base Hospital" episode has a single witness, who gave conflicting stories that involve a mysterious "missing nurse" and the redheaded officer and a base pediatrician and some autopsies. The researchers for this volume hunted down everybody they could find who had been there in 1947, and the stories don't check out. However, they do share many interesting similarities with an incident from 12 years later, in May of 1959. In that instance a low-level training balloon, with three trainee pilots (preparing for high-altitude parachute jumps), crashed, wounding two of the pilots. They were helicoptered in to Roswell's AFB, a SAC base, to take the wounded to the hospital, and then the recovery convoy followed to the base. The vehicles connected to this incident match the recovery convoy vehicles. The extra security reflects the guards who swarmed the pilots who arrived unexpectedly at a secure base. (Nobody believed them when they said they were balloon guys and had had a crash...) And some of the people referred to in testimony can be identified, though most of the names the witness remembered are wrong. One of the pilots had a scalp injury the made his head swell up so much that his eyes were closed and his nose lost to view. Not even his wife recognized him, and it makes you wonder if him sitting in the waiting room (filled with maternity ward patients) might have led to some of the stories.
So the book basically identifies the missing nurse, the supervising nurse, the pediatrician and the redheaded officer involved in the incident, pretty much proving that whatever was behind the testimony happened a decade later. Other evidence is followed up in the same way. The conclusion is that the Roswell Incident industry has conflated several different incidents into one event in 1947.
What disappoints me in this volume is that it skates quickly over what may well be the inciting incidents for this "alien saucer crash with bodies" legend, independent of the Brazel wreckage. I suspect that's because it was thoroughly handled in J. P. Cahn's reporting from 1952 to 1956, and so it's simply mentioned and committed to the footnotes. But, here's the skinny: The year after the original "Roswell Incident" there was a science fiction story published in the Aztec Independent Review "describing the crash of a flying saucer with 'little men' near Aztec, NM." What happened then was that two con men grabbed ahold of the story, claimed to be scientists, and apparently got paid to pretend that they knew it was real. Cahn revealed the fraud, but those who want Roswell to have been a saucer crash just ignore that.
In sum, we have an interesting case history in how false narratives can be strung from unrelated parts, when people are trying to make something out of not much. And it provides testimony from quite a number of people who should have known about alien bodies at Roswell, if there had ever been any. (The base hospital was so small that you couldn't keep a secret of that type from the staff, even if you'd wanted to.) So, basically, you've got two firsthand witnesses, and their stories don't have anything to do with 1947, and they don't bear much examination on the other parts, either. They do, however, use elements of incidents that really were happening out there.
Now I'm trying to figure out which one of my own science fiction short stories (or maybe the satire columns?) I should turn into a conspiracy theory, while retaining all the film and documentary rights.
That book mentioned the rumors of "alien bodies" associated with Roswell, but the original research quickly discovered that there was no credible connection to 1947, and didn't pursue it. (For instance, the young lad who clearly remembers the crashed saucer was much younger than he claimed to have been when he saw this saucer, and it appears that he had shifted his memory in time to make it fit.)
After the thousand-page Roswell Report was published, a number of secondary inquiries came in, along with some volunteered evidence, and HQUSAF continued their historical research. This book is the result, and it's rather amusing. In the former volume, the convincing material was in all the appendices: the interviews, the research reports and diaries, the photographs. It had relatively few footnotes. In this volume there are a huge number of footnotes, and the text is more of a narrative and summary. All known relevant witness interviews have been transcripted at the end, though. (There isn't that much firsthand testimony, it turns out.)
What they discovered was that there was fairly consistent testimony about "the operations with the alien bodies" and that those events closely match a set of experiments that were run not in 1947, but in the 50s and 60s. These involved high-altitude testing of astronaut (or test pilot) escape technology. There was repeated use of test dummies that were parachuted into the desert, and also some live humans, including long-lasting (and only recently surpassed) record-setting parachute jumps.
The interesting part of the research was the simple breaking down of the testimony into simple "factual assertions" like the vehicles that the government folks had when they arrived, the color of the alien uniforms, and type, and their baldness, and the missing fingers, etc. etc., and comparing it to these actual recovery team events. They match to a high correlation. And there were failures of the high-altitude balloon releases, in which the rack the dummies were attached to dropped with the dummies still in them, and smashed into the dirt from tens of thousands of feet at high speed, and (having been cold saturated at high altitude) were therefore quite cold to the touch for a while, despite the heat.
Some of the witnesses claimed there was a specific redheaded officer involved, and they have traced him down and figured out who he was. (There was also a redheaded officer at the Roswell base hospital, but that's a different guy.) Ditto for some other actors.
Now the "alien bodies at Roswell Base Hospital" episode has a single witness, who gave conflicting stories that involve a mysterious "missing nurse" and the redheaded officer and a base pediatrician and some autopsies. The researchers for this volume hunted down everybody they could find who had been there in 1947, and the stories don't check out. However, they do share many interesting similarities with an incident from 12 years later, in May of 1959. In that instance a low-level training balloon, with three trainee pilots (preparing for high-altitude parachute jumps), crashed, wounding two of the pilots. They were helicoptered in to Roswell's AFB, a SAC base, to take the wounded to the hospital, and then the recovery convoy followed to the base. The vehicles connected to this incident match the recovery convoy vehicles. The extra security reflects the guards who swarmed the pilots who arrived unexpectedly at a secure base. (Nobody believed them when they said they were balloon guys and had had a crash...) And some of the people referred to in testimony can be identified, though most of the names the witness remembered are wrong. One of the pilots had a scalp injury the made his head swell up so much that his eyes were closed and his nose lost to view. Not even his wife recognized him, and it makes you wonder if him sitting in the waiting room (filled with maternity ward patients) might have led to some of the stories.
So the book basically identifies the missing nurse, the supervising nurse, the pediatrician and the redheaded officer involved in the incident, pretty much proving that whatever was behind the testimony happened a decade later. Other evidence is followed up in the same way. The conclusion is that the Roswell Incident industry has conflated several different incidents into one event in 1947.
What disappoints me in this volume is that it skates quickly over what may well be the inciting incidents for this "alien saucer crash with bodies" legend, independent of the Brazel wreckage. I suspect that's because it was thoroughly handled in J. P. Cahn's reporting from 1952 to 1956, and so it's simply mentioned and committed to the footnotes. But, here's the skinny: The year after the original "Roswell Incident" there was a science fiction story published in the Aztec Independent Review "describing the crash of a flying saucer with 'little men' near Aztec, NM." What happened then was that two con men grabbed ahold of the story, claimed to be scientists, and apparently got paid to pretend that they knew it was real. Cahn revealed the fraud, but those who want Roswell to have been a saucer crash just ignore that.
In sum, we have an interesting case history in how false narratives can be strung from unrelated parts, when people are trying to make something out of not much. And it provides testimony from quite a number of people who should have known about alien bodies at Roswell, if there had ever been any. (The base hospital was so small that you couldn't keep a secret of that type from the staff, even if you'd wanted to.) So, basically, you've got two firsthand witnesses, and their stories don't have anything to do with 1947, and they don't bear much examination on the other parts, either. They do, however, use elements of incidents that really were happening out there.
Now I'm trying to figure out which one of my own science fiction short stories (or maybe the satire columns?) I should turn into a conspiracy theory, while retaining all the film and documentary rights.
March 25, 2021
Hallitusten viralliset raportit, kuten esimerkiksi Valtion ensi vuoden budjetti, ovat usein todella pitkäpiimäistä ja puuduttavaa luettavaa, vaikka sisältö sinänsä saattaisi olla erittäinkin kiinnostavaa.
Tilanne on kuitenkin aivan toinen, jos raportit käsittelevät historiallisesti kuuluisia tapahtumia. Ja, jos käsiteltävän raportin aihe on vielä mielikuvitusta kiihottavaa ja jännittävää, niin tylsäkin kapulakieli kääntyy hämmästyttävästi mielenkiintoiseksi.
Salaliittoteoriat ja niiden tutkiminen ovat ihan oma, kiinnostava lukunsa. Jos Kennedyn salamurhaa tutkineen ns. Warrenin komission raportti on kaikkien salaliittoteorioista kiinnostuneiden pakollista luettavaa, saman tekee USA:n ilmavoimien virallinen selvitys kesällä 1947 Uuden Meksikon Roswelliin väitetysti taivaalta tippuneen lentävän lautasen, eli ufon, tapauksesta.
James McAndrew teki tiivistelmänomaisen, mutta aihepiiristä kiinnostuneiden näkökulmasta varmasti mielenkiintoisen kirjan alunperin yli tuhatsivuisesta viranomaisraportista.
Ketään ei varmasti yllätä, että mitään hallituksen salaliittoa ei löytynyt. Kyseessä oli USA:n armeijan huippusalainen säähavaintopallohanke, jonka salaaminen johti väärinkäsityksiin kylmän sodan alkamisen aattona.
Teoksessa käydään lyhyesti lävitse tapauksen pääkohdat, alkaen siitä, kuinka paikallisen farmarin tilaltaan poimimat folion-, metallin ja bambukeppien kappaleet (säähavaintopallo) johtivat nopeasti viranomaisten paikalle saapumiseen ja tapauksen salaamiseen.
Huhumylly oli valmis, ja, vaikka tapaus aluksi vaipui unohduksiin, myöhemmin 1970-luvulla se heräsi uudelleen henkiin ja kehittyi melkeinpä uskonnolliseksi kertomukseksi, varsinkin alan harrastajien keskuudessa.
Mielenkiintoisinta teoksessa ovat USA:n ilmavoimien tutkimuksen johdosta suorittamat todistajien kuulustelut. Ne paljastavat karulla tavalla, kuinka valikoivaa muistimme on. Oletetut kertomukset aavikolta kerätyn vieraan avaruusaluksen romuista ja muukalaisten ruumiista saadaan kuulustelujen kautta selvitettyä joko väärinkäsityksiksi tai eräissä äärimmäisissä tapauksissa, sensaatiohakuisiksi valheiksi.
Jopa rehellisten ihmisten todistajalausunnot voidaan todistusaineistojen pohjalta osoittaa aivan toisiin tapahtumiin tai ajanjaksoihin yhdistettäviksi. Muun muassa ufojen ruumiit osoittautuvat taivaalta 1950-luvulla pudotetuiksi, laskuvarjoilla varustetuiksi nukeiksi, jotka olivat jälleen kerran eräs USA:n armeijan koe.
Tietysti foliohatun päähänsä laittamalla voi teosta väittää jälleen kerran hallituksen salaliitoksi ja väärennökseksi, mutta tässä tapauksessa todistusvelvoite on väärennöksiin uskovilla.
Roswellin ufo tuo salaliittoteoriana esiin uskon vahvuuden. Vaikka virallinen selvitys olisi varsin aukoton ja lukuisten tutkijoiden todistama, ihmisen kyky kääntää asia päälaelleen on hämmästyttävä.
Olen käsitellyt Roswellin ufoa yksityiskohtaisemmin toisen aihetta käsittelevän teoksen, Charlez Berlitzin "Roswellin lentävän lautasen arvoituksen" yhteydessä, joten kannattaa katsoa siitä lisää yksityiskohtia:
https://anttisorri.wordpress.com/2017...
Tilanne on kuitenkin aivan toinen, jos raportit käsittelevät historiallisesti kuuluisia tapahtumia. Ja, jos käsiteltävän raportin aihe on vielä mielikuvitusta kiihottavaa ja jännittävää, niin tylsäkin kapulakieli kääntyy hämmästyttävästi mielenkiintoiseksi.
Salaliittoteoriat ja niiden tutkiminen ovat ihan oma, kiinnostava lukunsa. Jos Kennedyn salamurhaa tutkineen ns. Warrenin komission raportti on kaikkien salaliittoteorioista kiinnostuneiden pakollista luettavaa, saman tekee USA:n ilmavoimien virallinen selvitys kesällä 1947 Uuden Meksikon Roswelliin väitetysti taivaalta tippuneen lentävän lautasen, eli ufon, tapauksesta.
James McAndrew teki tiivistelmänomaisen, mutta aihepiiristä kiinnostuneiden näkökulmasta varmasti mielenkiintoisen kirjan alunperin yli tuhatsivuisesta viranomaisraportista.
Ketään ei varmasti yllätä, että mitään hallituksen salaliittoa ei löytynyt. Kyseessä oli USA:n armeijan huippusalainen säähavaintopallohanke, jonka salaaminen johti väärinkäsityksiin kylmän sodan alkamisen aattona.
Teoksessa käydään lyhyesti lävitse tapauksen pääkohdat, alkaen siitä, kuinka paikallisen farmarin tilaltaan poimimat folion-, metallin ja bambukeppien kappaleet (säähavaintopallo) johtivat nopeasti viranomaisten paikalle saapumiseen ja tapauksen salaamiseen.
Huhumylly oli valmis, ja, vaikka tapaus aluksi vaipui unohduksiin, myöhemmin 1970-luvulla se heräsi uudelleen henkiin ja kehittyi melkeinpä uskonnolliseksi kertomukseksi, varsinkin alan harrastajien keskuudessa.
Mielenkiintoisinta teoksessa ovat USA:n ilmavoimien tutkimuksen johdosta suorittamat todistajien kuulustelut. Ne paljastavat karulla tavalla, kuinka valikoivaa muistimme on. Oletetut kertomukset aavikolta kerätyn vieraan avaruusaluksen romuista ja muukalaisten ruumiista saadaan kuulustelujen kautta selvitettyä joko väärinkäsityksiksi tai eräissä äärimmäisissä tapauksissa, sensaatiohakuisiksi valheiksi.
Jopa rehellisten ihmisten todistajalausunnot voidaan todistusaineistojen pohjalta osoittaa aivan toisiin tapahtumiin tai ajanjaksoihin yhdistettäviksi. Muun muassa ufojen ruumiit osoittautuvat taivaalta 1950-luvulla pudotetuiksi, laskuvarjoilla varustetuiksi nukeiksi, jotka olivat jälleen kerran eräs USA:n armeijan koe.
Tietysti foliohatun päähänsä laittamalla voi teosta väittää jälleen kerran hallituksen salaliitoksi ja väärennökseksi, mutta tässä tapauksessa todistusvelvoite on väärennöksiin uskovilla.
Roswellin ufo tuo salaliittoteoriana esiin uskon vahvuuden. Vaikka virallinen selvitys olisi varsin aukoton ja lukuisten tutkijoiden todistama, ihmisen kyky kääntää asia päälaelleen on hämmästyttävä.
Olen käsitellyt Roswellin ufoa yksityiskohtaisemmin toisen aihetta käsittelevän teoksen, Charlez Berlitzin "Roswellin lentävän lautasen arvoituksen" yhteydessä, joten kannattaa katsoa siitä lisää yksityiskohtia:
https://anttisorri.wordpress.com/2017...
November 13, 2014
oooh this one was boring...well I never thought much of those litle gray aliens in Roswell so I did not need to be convinced anyway.
serious book, well documented, maybe a little bit overzealous in settering the score but I guess, convincing...but soooo boring.
serious book, well documented, maybe a little bit overzealous in settering the score but I guess, convincing...but soooo boring.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews