Mufon UFO JournalOfficial Publication of the Mutual UFO Network Since 1967

Number 273January 1991$2.50

NEW ROSWELL REVELATIONSBy Jaime Shandera

Mufon UFO JournalJanuary 1991 Number 273

CONTENTS

PROFESSOR JEAN-PIERRE PETIT INTERVIEWED Marie-Therese de Brasses 3

ROSWELL DEBRIS REANALYZED Joe Kirk Thomas 9

NEW ROSWELL REVELATIONS: A GENERAL SPEAKS UP Jamie Shandera 12

LOOKING BACK: UFO Phenomena Through the Years Bob Gribble 18

THE FEBRUARY NIGHT SKY Walter N. Webb 22

DIRECTOR'S MESSAGE Walt Andrus 24

EDITOR'S NOTE: Deadlines are both an editor's boon and bane. A boon, because without them, we'd nevergo to press; a bane, because when we finally do go to print, it usually means some unfinished business is boundto result. In this case, the latter involves the two Roswell articles by J. K. Thomas and Jamie Shandera. Originally,Mr. Shandera was sent a copy of the Thomas article and invited to respond. In the meantime, Mr. Thomas wantedto revise his original article. Unfortunately, there was no time to provide Mr. Shandera with the revised version,and allow him to revise his response before we had to go to press. This is an unfortunate situation, and we apologizein advance to anyone inconvenienced. We feel Mr. Shandera's interview with Gen. DuBose stands on its own. Forthe record, however, it responds only to the original Thomas article, down to the subheading, "Denied Territory,"on page 10.

EDITORDennis W. Stacy

ASSOCIATE EDITORWalter H. Andrus, Jr.

COLUMNISTSWalter N. WebbRobert GribbleLucius ParishDan Wright

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AN INTERVIEW WITH PROFESSORJEAN-PIERRE PETITBy Marie-Therese de Brosses

The following interview appearedin the August 9, 1990 issue ofParis Match as a follow-up byjournalist Marie-Therese deBrosses of her earlier coverage ofthe Belgian UFO flap. (Reprintedin the August 1990 MUFON UFOJournal as "F-16 Radar TracksUFO.") Again, the translation isby New Jersey State Section Direc-tor Robert J. Durant and his wife.

Professor Petit is a cosmologistspecializing in plasma physics anda Director of the National ScienceResearch Center (CNRS) ofFrance. Albin Michel has justpublished his latest book, In-vestigating UFOs, in which Petitexplains the reasons why "we can-not exclude the possibility thatUFOs are piloted by beingsoriginating elsewhere in theuniverse."

Petit was one of the first outsidescientists to arrive in Belgiumduring the recent flap. He wasalso among the handful of in-vestigators who had direct contactwith the pilots who encountered aUFO on their radar screens, prooffor Petit and others that UFOs areanything but an optical illusion.

"It is startling," says Durant,"to find that a scientist of suchstature has done his UFOhomework and is so outspoken inhis endorsement of theextraterrestrial hypothesis."

Q: Professor Petit, given the factthat the majority of scientists refuseto study the UFO phenomenon,doesn't the publication of your bookautomatically relegate you to the do-main of "fringe" science?

A: Absolutely not. I have been work-ing at the Marseille Observatory for 15

Right to left: Dr. Jean-Pierre Petit, Renato Nicolai, Yves Bosson and PierreLagrange. (Photo by Antonio Huneeus)

years and I can assure you that nobodyin this research facility, which is partof the French National Center forScience, considers me to be a fringescientist.

I publish my scientific work in themost prestigious scientific journals oftheoretical physics, such as ModernPhysics Letters. My most recentpublication, which treated the subjectof quasars, those objects located at thefarthest reaches of the universe and thatwe think may be the kernels of form-ing galaxies, was co-authored by theastronomer Maurice Viton, who is onthe staff of the Marseille Laboratory.

Q: Do you consider yourself arationalist?

A: One hundred per cent. The readerwill not find in my book any referenceto mysticism or the phenomena that wecall paranormal.

Q: But, in the libraries they putyour book in with those dealing withmysticism.

A: That is based on the fact that un-til now the UFO phenomenon has neverbeen treated in a scientific manner. Theliterature that deals with this subject hasalways been mediocre. Let's hope thatafter a while my book will find its trueplace, in the Science department.

Q: Does the UFO constitute a scien-tific problem?

A: Yes. The work of physicistsMeesen and Brenig, as well as mine,shows clearly that the UFO phenom-enon is amenable to a scientific andrigorous approach.

Q: How can science explain thesightings? Don't we need new scien-tific concepts?

A: There exist aspects of the phe-nomenon which can be approachedwith success by using quite conven-tional tools of science. Let me give youa precise example. The people whophotographed the UFO were often veryupset when they saw that the film they

MUFON UFO JOURNAL No. 273 January 1991

took did not correspond by a long shotwith what they had seen with their eyes.We do not have any photograph of theUFO taken from very near, say lessthan 100 meters, simply because at suchclose range the object does not showup on the negative. During this recentwave of sightings in Belgium, many pic-tures were taken, but they show noth-ing. The physicist Auguste Meesen,Professor at the University of Louvain,has proposed an explanation for thisfailure. In certain conditions, infraredrays coming from an object have theability to totally inhibit the chemicalreaction that permits fixing an imageon a negative.

Q: Is this a theory?

A: Not at all. It is a fact demonstratedby experiment that has been known fora long time, but nobody up to now hasthought of it in connection with UFOphotos.

Q: So the UFOs will protect them-selves from being photographed byemitting infrared rays?

A: That is possible, but this emissionis perhaps simply tied to the normaloperation of the machines.

Q: Would there be any way, then,to trick this protection in order to ob-tain pictures despite the infraredradiation?

A: Of course. By using film sensitiveto the infrared portion of the spectrum.

Q: If I understand you correctly,given that hundreds of Belgiansobserved the UFOs from close range(some of the UFOs were quite im-mobile above the rooftops of houses),if this discovery had been made sixmonths ago, we could have the firstprecise pictures of this mysterious fly-ing object?

A: Exactly.

Q: You haven't hesitated to use theterm "machines." In your opinion,what are UFOs?

"To manufacture such a machine would requirethat the engine develop an amount of powerequivalent to that of a large nuclear powergenerating plant. And if there is anything notamenable to miniaturization, it is a nuclear powerplant. Conclusion: the machines seen in Belgiumare not of terrestrial origin."

A: Today, we can answer quitecategorically that it is a material object.At the beginning of the year a reportwas sent to SOBEPS by the Chief ofStaff of the Belgian Air Force, on theauthority of the Minister of Defense.Then, on June 22, 1990 this report wassupplemented by the documentsgathered by you for Paris Match, whichconsisted of the recordings of fiveradars, three on the ground and two onboard the F-16 fighters which were sentto chase the UFO. During this chase,which lasted 75 minutes, the two F-16smanaged three interceptions duringwhich all of the parameters of flight ofthe object were determined. This studywas done with very great care by theBelgian specialists before they divulgedthe information, in order to exclude thepossibility that .there was a malfunctionof the radars or the computers.

Q: Are they flying machines?

A: Given the speed of thosemachines, more than 1,800 kilometersper hour, they could not have beenweather balloons. Given the trajectory,it could not have been a meteorite orany satellite in the re-entry phase ofspace flight. Given the meteorologicalconditions, it could not have been eithernatural phenomena or false radarechoes. Given the accelerations thatwere measured — 40 Gs — this couldnot have been an airplane. Let's recallthat one of the machines accelerated inone second from 280 KPH to 1,830KPH.

Q: But anti-missile missiles, aren'tthey capable of accelerations of 100Gs?

A: Yes, but in fact there is at this mo-ment no man made machine that iscapable of performing at mach 1.5 closeto the ground because of heating dueto the high air density. And, in thiscase, there was no sonic boom.

Q: It was witnesses on the groundwho reported the absence of a sonicboom. Can we trust them?

T he question of witnesses is su-perfluous. If the breaching ofthe sound barrier at very low

altitude had been done with aircraftusing our technology, it would havecaused tens of thousands of windowsto be broken in suburbs south ofBrussels, above which the UFO wasflying.

Q: If I follow your argument, thismachine did not come from theEarth?

A: An earthly origin would seem tome totally excluded.

Q: But can't we imagine someultrasecret prototype?

A: The aeronautical engineer andphysicist that I am answers you,categorically, no. We are actually in-capable of building a machine withsuch performance, and don't forget thatsuch phenomena have been observedfor the last 35 years.

Q: Was this the first time a UFOwas observed on radar?

A: Certainly not, but this is the firstinterception officially acknowledged.

MUFON UFO JOURNAL No. 273 January 1991

"One way to visualize the twin universes is to thinkof a cloth and its lining. The second step consistsof imagining that the twin universes can somehowcommunicate with each other. I am doing sometheoretical work in order to develop amathematical model for the transfer of matterthrough hyperspace from one universe to anotheruniverse."

Q: But the breaking of the soundbarrier without an accompanyingboom must result from physics thatwe don't understand?

A: As surprising as it may appear, no.There is a theory that I have elaboratedas early as 1975. Between 1965 and1975, when I was experimenting in myfluid dynamics laboratory, I was work-ing on an electrical generator which isnow one of the principal gadgets in theStar Wars technology. We made shockwaves by making electromagnetic, wavesreact in a gas. I said to myself: If wecan create shock waves with elec-tromagnetic fields, one should be ablewith the same fields to annihilate shockwaves forming around an .object.

When an object moves faster thansound, the air molecules have a tenden-cy to pile up in front of the object,without being able to move off to theside and out of the way. This forms ashock wave, which is noticed by anobserver on the ground as a "boom."

To prevent this shock wave fromforming it is only required that we helpthe air molecules to escape by suckingin the air at the same time that it is pil-ing up. The machine advances throughthe air literally making a vacuum infront of it. It is a fundamental and ex-ceedingly simple idea. It happens thatwe can execute this aspiration of gas ata distance with the help of well knownelectromagnetic forces called "the forceof Laplace."

The means of acting on a gas withelectromagnetic fields is known asmagnetohydrodynamics, or Mhd. Onthe theoretical plane, these conceptsdate from the 1950s. We were left to

determine the optimum shape of objectsfor this process. I was extremely sur-prised to find that this flying saucer hadlittle in common with the shape of anairplane or missile, but that it had theshape of spheres, cylinders and saucers.And I have invented an object that Ihave called an Mhd Aerodyne, whichdevilishly resembles a flying saucer!

Q: Were these only "paper"studies?

, A: Not at all. There have been com-puter simulations as well as publica-tions in international technical journals,and two doctoral theses demonstratingthe feasibility of supersonic flightwithout a "boom" by using Mhd.

Q: Are these theories contested byother scientists?

A bsolutely not. And in this sci-entific environment, as soon aswe notice an error or a weak-

ness in a work, we are not afraid to callit out, loud and strong, in the scientificjournals or in the popularized sciencemagazines such as Science et vie, Pourla science, La Reserche, Science etavenir, etc. For the last 25 years thatI have been doing research, and the 15years that I have concentrated on thisthorny problem, none of these maga-zines have ever published a commen-tary disparaging me.

Believe me, the critics think twicebefore attacking a work of research.When I first became interested in UFOsin 1976, a member of the Academy ofScience somehow imprudently declaredduring a public conference that a ma-

chine could not fly through the air withthe help of electromagnetic forces.When it was time for my reply, he waswaiting for a response based on theory,and was extremely surprised when webrought in a very simple and clear ex-periment whose result contradicted hisproposition. He had to retreat, red-faced with confusion. When one tossescriticisms too lightly, one risks beingridiculed, and that is not pleasant foranybody.

Q: This UFO, which was chased bythe F-16s in Belgium, could it not bea very simple ultra secret Americanor Russian machine functioning withelectricity?

A: To manufacture such a machinewould require that the engine developan amount of power equivalent to thatof a large nuclear power generatingplant. And if there is anything notamenable to miniaturization, it is anuclear power plant. Conclusion: themachines seen in Belgium are not ofterrestrial origin.

Q: Given the fantastic accelerationdetected by the Belgian F-16, nohuman could have been aboard, andthe UFOs must have been simplerobots rather than a vehicle carryinga living being.

A: Even though the human body ina state of total immersion can bear greatacceleration, the 40 Gs gives us a prob-lem. But there is more to it. Numerouseyewitness reports tell of right angleturns taken at full speed. In this par-ticular case the acceleration becomes... infinite, and the machine itself couldnot support the turn without vanishing.I have tried to approach this questionin a very speculative manner in mybook. In this phase of strong accelera-tion, physical phenomena more sophis-ticated than Mhd could take such a turn.

Q: How could you explain theabsence of debate concerning UFOsin the scientific community?

A: Until now, when a scientist wantedto have some information on the sub-

MUFON UFO JOURNAL No. 273 January 1991

ject, he could only find very superficialor trivial books. Also, the contents ofthe newsletters published by someFrench UFO research groups are notof a nature to encourage further interestby scientists. Nor could a scientist befavorably impressed by the publicationsof GEPAN (Groupe d'Etude des Phe-nomenes Aerospatiaux Non-identifies,a UFO study group created within theFrench National Center for SpaceStudies). What do you want, when ascientist opens a book where the UFOsare compared to fairies and elves, andto the ministrations of the Virgin Mary?He will slam the book shut at once. Butit is not simply because a subject is"polluted" by persons with debatablecompetence that it should be brushedaside. With the reports of the Belgianmilitary in hand, we now have the ob-jective unarguable data that was former-ly absent in the files, and this shouldinterest scientists.

Q: The military has a reputationfor being very silent in general, andis particularly silent when the topicof UFOs conies up, and has gone tothe point of actually spreading disin-formation, as has been shown recent-ly by investigator Jean Sider in hiswork Ultra Top Secret — The UFOsWhich Bring Fear (Axis Mundi Edi-tions). How do you explain this sud-den about-face in the political scene,to a policy of openness and honestyon the part of the Belgian DefenseIVIinister?

A: Among the reasons for thereticence of military men to divulge theinformation in their possession is theworry that publication will causehysteria. Another reason may be thatBelgium is the only country in theworld where, for 18 years, the subjectof UFOs have been closely followed byreal scientists. So an exceptional climateof confidence has been developed.

Q: And in France?

A: France has been the scene of adisinformation campaign which haslasted for 13 years under the nameGEPAN.

"When two civilizations that are very differentculturally and technologically meet, history teachesus that with rare exceptions the more advancedliterally dissolves the other."

Q: We found enough documentsand testimony in your book to sup-port this opinion. You show very wellthat GEPAN functioned exactly likethe famous Condon Commissioncreated in the USA at the end of the1960s, and whose only aim was tomisdirect American public opinionon the UFO reports.

A: By combining the activities ofGEPAN with the low level of com-munications from those in France whocall themselves "ufologists" (a term thatdoes not say much), one has created anabsolutely total lack of interest in themedia and in particular in the researchcommunity, toward UFOs. This ex-plains the lack of attention to theBelgian wave here in France.

Q: Was the Belgian wave ofsightings so exceptional?

A: Since November 29, 1989 therehave been tens of thousands ofsightings, of which nearly 1,000 wereclose observations from distances ofaround 200 meters which have been theobject of inquiries by the Belgian Na-tional Police. On just the night ofNovember 29, 1989 between 5:30 p.m.and 9:00 p.m., 30 different groups ofwitnesses (including three police patrolsand customs officials) observed thesame two objects. These witnesses werelocated within a rectangular area about25 km by 15 km, between Liege andEupen. The similari ty in theirtestimony allowed us to reconstruct thetrajectory of the UFO.

An interesting detail: they allreported very slow movement. Awitness gave this precise description:"I could have followed it by walking."In particular, the object was seen indaylight at close range by a Belgiansoldier working in the weather servicewho saw the object doing a leisurely

turn over the village square. We alsonumber among the witnesses a Majorin the Belgian Army and a theoreticalphysicist, Professor Brenig, who is acolleague of Professor Prigogine.

Q: Where could those extrater-restrial vehicles come from? A voyageover hundreds of light years seemsinconceivable.

A: In the vision of the universebased on classical physics, this objec-tion is a very serious one. But how isthe universe constructed? Whatgeometry does it have? Given theclassical view, we live in a hyperspaceof four dimensions. In 1967 the Sovietphysicist Andrei Sakharov suggestedthat there is not "a" universe, but rathertwo universes coexisting. Which is tosay, one universe consisting of ordinarymatter, and another consisting ofanti-matter.

This twin version is for me the firststep toward a theory permitting us toimagine moving through great distancesin the cosmos. One way to visualize thetwin universes is to think of a cloth andits lining. The second step consists ofimagining that the twin universes cansomehow communicate with eachother. I am doing some theoretical workin order to develop a mathematicalmodel for the transfer of matter throughhyperspace from one universe toanother universe.

Q: You mean to say that a"hyperspatial" vehicle could sudden-ly and brutally find itself transferredwith its passengers to another partof the universe?

A: More precisely, it could be an ex-change between the same equivalentvolumes of space, one belonging to the"cloth" and the other to its "lining." Fora witness, this would be perceived as

MUFON UFO JOURNAL No. 273 January 1991

"What is actually happening on this planet? Oursocieties doubt more and more the validity of theirpolitical systems and ideologies. One feels thatwhole populations are ready to throw themselvestoward the first 'savior,' the first demagogue, whoappears on the scene."

a rough dematerialization. The machinewould make its trip through this twinspace from its planet arriving at a placein the proximity of Earth.

Q: But to make this trip, won'tthere always be an equal number oflight years of distance to travel?

A: Yes, if the "cloth and the lining"always behaved very nicely, superim-posing one upon the other with perfectsmoothness. But this can't always be thecase in practice. In order to try to makesome very abstract mathematical ideassimple, what we in the technical jargoncall "gauge fluctuations," I will con-tinue to use the image of the cloth andits lining.

The American Cosmologist, Misner,has considered the case of a very tur-bulent cosmic fabric, both folded uponitself and creased. From time to timethe cloth will be perfectly flat, but thelining creased or puckered. In such aninstance, the distance from one part ofthe twin universe to the other will bedrastically shortened, making a voyagerealistically short. Another situationcould arise in which the voyage wouldbe lengthened by a factor of 10 or 100or 1,000, making the voyage even lesspractical than it is now.

Q: So it is this phenomenon that ex-plains the otherwise incomprehensi-ble wave of UFOs? They would takeadvantage of the moment when thetrip would be the shortest?

A: By my way of thinking, the UFOwaves would be tied to a "turbulencein the gauge" of the universe. Thevoyage would only be possible when the"meteocosmic" conditions are good.The visitors would have limited time

to make their investigation on our planetand would have to reembark precipit-ously in order to avoid the closing ofthe hole in hyperspace, otherwise theywould be stuck here on Earth for aperiod of time that could be very long.

T his way of creasing the cloth ofspace, like folds of an accor-dion, would not necessarily be

isotropic, and I strongly doubt that itis: when the lining is creased in onedirection or plane, the cloth is stretchedin the perpendicular plane. Differenttypes of extraterrestrials originatingfrom planets in different locations in theheavens would thus manage to live andoperate without ever meeting eachother, at least until they meet on Earth.It is quite an amusing idea that the Earthmight be used as a sort of cosmicmailbox by extraterrestrial entities, whowould find this as the means to com-municate with each other!

Q: How do you explain the lack ofcontact between the visiting extrater-terrestrials and us?

A: When two civilizations that arevery different culturally andtechnologically meet, history teaches usthat with rare exceptions (such asJapan) the more advanced literallydissolves the other. The introduction ofexterior knowledge is comparable to aviral attack. In the majority of cases,this parasitic information totallydisorganizes the infected social body,which dies.

Q: From the point of view of thealien visitors, this lack of contact withus may be due to their behavior asconcerned ethnologists who wish toavoid destroying the object of their

studies. But in your book you insistthat there is a phenomenon sharedby the majority of terrestrials thatyou call the "immunological reflex."

A: Yes. It is a rejection, pure and sim-ple. There are two possible ways toreact when we receive informationwhich challenges our most deeply heldvalues. The first is simply to reject. Wesay to ourselves: it is wrong, it isimpossible.

The second evasion is very subtle.We "folklorize" the dissonant informa-tion. And this folklorization can be ac-complished in two ways. One way is totreat the subject with humor or ridicule,and it leads to themes such as ET (themovie) or "little green men," (whichhave never been reported by witnesses).The other takes life in a more dramaticway, such as the movie "The Creaturefrom Outer Space," or television serieslike "The Invaders." The "immuno-logic reaction" of scientists is negationof the phenomenon, pure and simple.

Q: Have you thought of a scenariodepicting the result of direct contactbetween us and extraterrestrials?

L et's imagine that one of thesefamous triangular machines thatwas seen in 90% of the cases in

Belgium lands in a field. What is go-ing to happen? The owner of the farmwill call the police. Then the police willcall the military. They will sendobservers, who will report to thegovernment. As a simple precautionarymeasure, the police will cordon off thearea in a radius of 100 meters. In thehours that follow, curious members ofthe public will arrive, creating a fan-tastic traffic jam.

Within the government, there is acrisis meeting of the Cabinet. Themembers of the Cabinet hesitate, beingunsure of what course of action to take.If the machine finally takes off,everything returns to normal order. Butif it stays there, who, exactly, mustestablish contact, and how? Would thatbe the concern of the Ministry for Na-tional Defense, or the Ministry forForeign Affairs, or the Tourist Office,or all three simultaneously?

MUFON UFO JOURNAL No. 273 January 1991

While these grave discussions aretaking place in the halls of government,thousands of journalists have set upcamp in the acres of land surroundingthe landing site. Along the securityperimeter, cameramen are elbow toelbow trying to catch the Scoop of theCentury. On all the little access roadsthe columns of the curious cross eachother on the way to the new center ofpilgrimage.

In the opposite direction you can seea true Exodus, with multitudes fleeing.Uncontrolled rumors race through theplanet in every direction, like electricdischarges. The area of the landing siteis filled with entrepreneurs andhucksters, seeking to make a profit fromthe situation. The Vatican organizes acolloquiam to determine if Christ diedfor the aliens, too.

Little by little, the knowledge of thealien presence filters into the publicconsciousness and produces a nation-wide state of shock. People leave theirwork. The professor and his studentsquestion each other. The astronomersask one another if it is still worth thetrouble to look into their telescopes.The stock market goes crazy.

Q: It is truly a catastrophic scenariothat you are proposing.

A: I simply wanted to make yourealize the incredible impact that thisalien presence would provoke evenbefore contact had taken place. Oursociety is not prepared to meet face toface with such an event, and this ap-plies to every country, not just France.And the thick silence that officialdomhas maintained has not made the situa-tion more tolerable. What is actuallyhappening on this planet? Our societiesdoubt more and more the validity oftheir political systems and ideologies.One feels that whole populations areready to throw themselves toward thefirst "savior," the first demagogue, whoappears on the scene.

L istening to you, it would seemmore in the interest of publicorder if this contact could be

avoided.

A: In fact, the event in Belgium is acontact. Everything happened as if themachine that was intercepted on thenight of March 30-31, 1990 had patient-ly waited, openly and deliberately, forthe radar to have locked on. This realevent, which is very difficult to con-test, marks the transition from thehypothetical visitation by aliens to thereal visitation.

It can force movement within boththe political and scientific worlds, andunblock imaginations and unleashcreative new solutions. And I am notspeaking merely of scientific andtechnological aspects. When manrealizes that he is not alone in theuniverse, this simple fact will be suffi-cient motivation to create philosophicaland ethical ideas without precedent inour intellectual history.

Q: As one who is firmly convincedof the existence of extraterrestrialcivilizations, you must be thrilled bya project such as SETI (Search forExtra Terrestrial Intelligence), whoseaim it is to communicate with otherworlds.

A: The SETI program consists of try-ing to receive, with the help of anten-nas, radio signals sent by otherplanetary civilizations. So it turns outto be necessary to point the antenna atthe source of the signals, but by defini-tion we don't know the source or loca-tion. As of now, about 200 stars havebeen listened to in this way. No luck.

The members of a radio astronomysymposium that met recently in theAlps calculated that for us to have achance of intercepting one signal wewould be required to listen to 200,000stars. This would require a network oflistening devices so large that the costwould be astronomical.

The problem is that the radio wavesmove at the speed of light. When weconsider the vast distance across space,this is an extremely slow speed. Andincidentally, if we are ever to intercepta message, the signal would have to bedirected very precisely toward us. Thefact is, our antennas are not able todetect signals sent from a simple om-nidirectional antenna tens of light years

distant, such as for example thetransmitters for the French radio sta-tions. All this makes the issue of a pro-ject such as SETI extremely pro-blematical. It is highly probable that theprogram, now called "Mega SETI,"will end up as a failure.

But on the other hand, the scientistsare violently hostile to any appropria-tion of money to benefit research onUFOs, a subject which they do not con-sider serious. Yet the research done onthe UFO problem has already bornefruit — contrary to the experience withSETI. This is certainly a paradox!

Q: The Belgian wave of sightings isover, and we can't predict eitherwhen or where the next wave will oc-cur. So how, according to you, shouldUFO research be organized?

A: Obviously, there is long term workto undertake. We will use the Mhdmodel to make concrete experimentaltests of the ideas of the theoreticians.On the other hand, the UFOphenomenon forces us to place intoquestion all of our ideas about theuniverse, and even physics itself. It isa fantastic "thought experiment," a truechallenge to research, and it will benecessary to create within the CNRSa UFO study group consisting of highlevel researchers, mathematicians,physicists, chemists, biochemists,psychologists, sociologists and so forth.

In conjunction with that, we willneed to build a real UFO "trap," notonly to capture one, but to gather theknowledge that will leak out. Themethodology in Belgium consisted offilling an airplane with every sort of ap-paratus, and having it ready to take offto study the UFO. This happened dur-ing the sightings on the Easter weekend,but, unfortunately, the UFO failed tocooperate and join the meeting. But thismethod should be systematically car-ried out throughout the world.

Q: Aren't you interested in themarks found on the ground at the siteof alleged landings?

MUFON UFO JOURNAL No. 273 January 1991

Y es, of course! During the last35 years some private, non-profit groups, to whom we

must give recognition, have, withpitifully meagre means and in a totallyhonest manner, gathered a minimal col-lection of information about landings.For these people the creation ofGEPAN had been an immense hope,but they were quickly disappointed.

Within CNRS there should be createda quick response team to investigate lan-ding traces using all known means ofanalysis, physical or biochemical, andto simultaneously mobilize psycholo-gists specializing in the interrogation ofwitnesses.

We know of only one case of groundtraces, connected with the close rangeobservation of a UFO landing, whichhas been subjected to serious study: thecase in Trans-en-Provence* thanks tothe work of Professor Bounias of IN-RA, who incidentally has never beenparticularly interested in the UFOphenomenon. This quite completestudy has demonstrated the existence oftraumatization of the vegetation,remarkably well correlated with thedistance of the traces from the point ofthe landing. The cause of the trauma

*See "Looking Back" in this issue.

remains unknown to this day. This typeof study should have been carried outlong ago. Other than biochemistry,there exist various other means ofphysical analysis which should be donesystematically. An analysis withmagnetic nuclear resonance, for exam-ple, would permit us to know the natureof the magnetic field which irradiatedthe ground. The problem is simple: dowe or do we not want to discover thekey to the mystery of the UFOs?

The cost of the creation andmaintenance of a team of personscapable of responding to all reports ofalleged landing spots would be relative-ly modest in comparison to the generalresearch budget. Especially if this teamcould be reinforced by a volunteer net-work of ufologists. These volunteerscould receive special training and workin cooperation with the police to per-form preliminary investigation to screenout the false reports. If we would trustthose people with a minimum of equip-ment, they could take measures topreserve and protect the site prior to thearrival of the researchers, and couldalso make a preliminary written report.

Q: In actuality, it appears that weare waiting for the scientific com-munity to mobilize?

A: In this case, one researcher haslearned very quickly the importance ofthe problem. He is Andrei Sakharov.This is how he ended his Nobel Prizeacceptance speech:

'Thousands of years ago, the humantribe suffered great privations in itsstruggle for life. Even then it was notonly important to know how to handlea club, but also to have the ability tothink intelligently, to take into con-sideration the collective knowledge andexperience hoarded by the tribe, and todevelop the basis of cooperation withother tribes.

Today, the human race must confrontan analogous ordeal. Several othercivilizations could exist in the infinityof space, among which might besocieties more established and wise andmore "accomplished" than ours. I sup-port a cosmological hypothesis inwhich the development of the universerepeats itself over and over, infinitely,but following certain essentialcharacteristics. These other aliencivilizations, some of whom are"highly accomplished," are inscribedan infinite number of times on the pages"preceding" and "following" us in theBook of the Universe.

This was written in 1975.

ANALYZING THE ROSWELL DEBRISBy Joe Kirk Thomas

In the decade since the publica-tion of The Roswell Incident, Ihave voiced only the mildest ofdoubt about the authenticity of this

affair. Although, for personal reasonshaving to do with family history, I foundthe tale of a crashed UFO retrieved nearRoswell, New Mexico, a particularlyenchanting one, I was neverthelessplagued by doubt centered largely onBill Moore's description of thewreckage itself.

If a jet fighter were to crash in thedesert, for example, a contemporaryobserver, though perhaps not up to datewith the technology involved, would

still find a rich array of clearlytechnological artifacts. These artifactswould include remnants of CRTs, in-tegrated circuits, hydraulic lines and ac-tuators, structural members, turbinesand combustors, a seat perhaps. Evenif we were able somehow to reach backin the past, say 120 years, and bring for-ward an observer raised in the Age ofSteam, there is little doubt that hewould be able to identify the remnantsas technological artifacts. I stronglysuspect that would be true even if wereached all the way back in Antiquityto say, Greece and the Age of Chariots.

Yet the alleged wreckage was nothing

of this sort. It fundamentally lacked thevariety and richness one properly ex-pects of any sophisticated technology.From the beginning it sounded sus-piciously to be just what the Army AirForce claimed it was.

Now Jaime Shandera and WilliamMoore have asserted, in the September'90 issue of this Journal, that the tat-tered remains photographed in GeneralRoger Ramey's office were the genuineremnants of a crashed UFO. This asser-tion is absurd. In fact, a casual ex-amination of the Journal photographsgive ample evidence that all thestatements made by the Air Force as to

MUFON UFO JOURNAL No. 273 January 1991

Ithe nature of the debris are true, andthat all the assertions made by Shanderaand Moore are wrong. Even thematerials shown are readily identifiable,and I have provided modern variants ofthem to the editor!

Shape Changes

Consider, for example, the allegationthat the foil material is rigid. This ispatently not so. I invite the reader toexamine the photograph on page 5 ofthe September issue. A triangular piecehas been propped up against a chair.The right side is connected to a spar,and is therefore straight. But the leftside flows over the chair and then downto the floor in a shallow V shape. I nowrefer the reader to the photo on page6, which shows the same piece held atits apex by Colonel DuBose, with thelower end of the left side again restingon the floor. Notice that the left edgeis now mildly parabolic. The shape ofthe edge has changed!

Furthermore, the curve taken by theedge of the foil approximates a curveknown to engineers as the catenary.'This curve is that of a rope suspendedat two points at the same or differentheights under the action of its ownweight, and is even represented by amathematical function called the hyper-bolic cosine. Thus the edge conformsto the shape one would expect of a flex-ible material supported at two pointsand hanging under its own weight.

On page 8, Major Marcel is shownholding what appears to be the sameroughly triangular section of foil. Notethat the lower half of the triangle isreflective, whereas the top half is white.That is because he has folded over thefoil to reveal the white backside.

But the photograph on the front coverof the Journal itself shows Marcelholding the same foil, but refoldedessentially into a flattened cone, withthe edge facing the camera folded backto reveal the white underside. Thisgeometry is decidedly different fromthat of page 8, which again challengesthe assertion that the material is stiffor rigid.

And the material itself?It's paper backed foil, or, more cor-

rectly, foiled paper. Its origin predatesthe war, and it was used, and still is,in such applications as candy bar,tobacco, cigarette and other non-porousfood packaging, as well as in numerousother commercial and industrial ap-plications. Today it has been largelysuperseded by plastic and metallizedplastic.

Plain aluminum foil, such as pur-chased at the supermarket, is usuallyabout 1/2 mil. thick, whereas the heavyduty grade is around one mil. Plain foilis easily torn, and relatively expensivecompared to foil paper. The foil onfoiled paper, however, is a small frac-tion of the thickness of aluminum foilalone, and the paper gives strength andmechanical properties better suited topackaging applications.

The two samples I have pro-vided the editor are small andbear the faint aroma ofWrigley's Spearmint Gum. It

is easy to see how the edges of the thin-ner foil can be bent over to expose thewhite paper underside, as occurs innumerous places in the Journal photos.The second sample is a heavier grade,paper-backed foil from which the gumcarton itself was made. Here Ideliberately delaminated a couple ofsections. That is, I carefully peeled thefoil from its paper backing. Careful ex-amination of some of the photos show.areas where this same delamination hadapparently occurred.

It is not clear from the photographsexactly how the foiled paper was actual-ly attached to the spars. A close ex-amination of the left end of the spardirectly under Marcel's right knee onpage 8, as well as the spar in theforeground on page 6, gives someevidence of periodically spaced tuftsof foil, which would be. indicative ofstapling, as suggested by the meteor-ologist Newton. But it is also possiblethe foil paper was glued to the spars.A careful perusal of the photos showsthat the spars are always connected tothe foil on the paper side.

(Twelve years after these photos weretaken, I was making small rockets, inmy backyard lab in El Paso, Texas, outof rolled-up tubes of heavy foiled paper.

Indeed, at age 14,1 decided to attemptto launch a small rocket from a kitewhile it was at altitude. In that vein Imade a large kite out of — that's right— foiled paper and balsa wood spars.I followed a pattern copied from a largecommercial paper kite, with the foilside facing skyward on the side of therocket's exhaust, and the foil glued tothe spars on the paper side! The timerconsisted of a long spiral of slowburning JETEX fuse, and the resultsare not worth reporting.)

Denied Territory

Shandera and Moore raise the ques-tion of why Roswell AAF didn't recog-nize the debris as remnants of a weatherballoon. This point similarly troublesSchmitt and Randle? who also wonderwhy the AAF would ask Mac Brazelto take an oath of secrecy, and whopoint out3 that weather balloons do notnormally explode and leave the stenchof burned rubber.

It is this latter piece of informationthat provides, I believe, a clue as towhat actually happened, at Roswell,and, from the hindsight of 43 years,justifies the Army Air Force's actions.

As the Cold War started to heat upin the aftermath of WWII, it becameobvious to the intelligence communitythat the United States was at a strategicdisadvantage in at least one sense.While accurate information on the posi-tion of American cities and military in-stallations was public information,similar information about the SovietUnion was unavailable. Doubt existedas to whether American bombers couldfind some Soviet, cities, much lessmilitary targets, whose existence andlocation were totally unknown.

Indeed, it was the desperate need forstrategic intelligence of this type thatin later decades fueled the developmentof sky planes such as the U2 and theSR-71, and space satellites. But thetechnology for such "technical means"was not available in 1947.

Thus, the intelligence communityturned to balloons. The idea was sim-ple enough: High altitude balloons car-rying cameras would be launched fromEurope and carried by prevailing winds

MUFON UFO JOURNAL No. 273 January 1991

across the Soviet Union. Above theoperational altitude of fighters, theywould randomly ,map the territorybelow, and, once over the Pacific, droptheir cache on radio command.

The first project of this type was call-ed "Moby Dick." Developed by the Of-fice of Naval Research4 with balloonsprovided by the Air Force, Moby Dickwas one of the first projects sponsoredby the newly created Central In-telligence Agency, and was just becom-ing operational in 1947. Unfortunate-ly, the project failed due to the loss ofballoons to the Soviets, and the poorquality of the aerial photographs takenby those few balloons that survived thetranscontinental trip. A new balloonreconnaissance program, ultimatelycode named Genetrix, was attemptedin 1956. Hundreds of balloons, carry-ing 1430-pound camera and beaconpayloads, were launched over thecourse of a week. Apparently, 243balloons were never seen again; only44 were every recovered.5

Now, anything the United Statesdoes, the Soviet Union does sooner orlater, and, on occasion, before! Andthere certainly were some sensitiveareas in the United States, of whichNew Mexico, with its nuclear bombwing at Roswell, its rocket research atWhite Sands, and its nuclear laboratoryat Los Alamos, would head the list.

But if the Soviets had in mind thesame type of balloon reconnaissance,one might expect some differences. Atthe end of WWII, most of the heliumfound in any quantity was in the UnitedStates. Thus, the Soviets may well havebeen compelled to use hydrogen in-stead, a flammable gas. A recon-naissance balloon so filled might ex-plode for a number of reasons, whichwould include lightning or possiblystatic electricity generated from beingdragged over the ground during des-cent. A balloon at high altitude mightaccidently detonate if, for example,pyrotechnic squids, possibly designedto rupture the envelope on command,fired on a spurious signal. The squiditself, in the oxygen rich lower at-mosphere, might, depending upon thematerial used in the balloon's construc-tion, cause conflagration.

The scenario I propose is simple:As the Cold War heats up, the coun-

try is suddenly beset with inexplicableUFO sightings. In the midst of theresultant publicity and anxiety, a largeballoon, of an unknown genre, has beenfound in New Mexico. When the natureof the debris becomes known, RoswellAAF concludes that objects of this typemay be behind the current hysteria.Although Colonel Blanchard is the reci-pient of sensitive targeting data, the pro-bability is high that neither he nor Ma-jor Marcel is aware of Moby Dick, asunder the theory of compartmentaliza-tion, he had no "need to know." Thepress release claiming the "capture" ofa flying saucer is authorized.

As the story goes out over the wires,however, intelligence officers "in theknow" become alarmed. A balloon? Ofunknown genre? In New Mexico? Halfway between Los Alamos and the 509that Roswell? And it's burned?

Now, the famous sequence of eventsmakes sense. Colonel Blanchard isreprimanded and ordered to fly theballoon remains to Air Technical In-telligence Command at Wright Patter-son to determine if the materials, or in-struments, if any, are of Soviet origin.The flight is to stop over in Fort Worthto take care of that other problem, thestory that the debris is from a crashedsaucer.

T here, a variously bemused andbaffled General Ramey, alsounaware of the ongoing efforts in

balloon reconnaissance, shows some ofthe debris to a journalist, wonderingwhat all the fuss is about. MajorMarcel, accompanying the remnants,entertains the same thoughts.

It's important to understand that I amnot asserting that the wreckage re-covered at Roswell was part of a Sovietattempt at balloon reconnaissance. Allthat is important as far as the scenarioabove is concerned is that someone inthe AAF, the Navy, or the CIA thoughtthat might be the case. With what isknown today about the state of strategicreconnaissance in 1947, it is clear thatthe government would have beenderelict in its duties not to have actedprecisely as it did!

Reassessment

The "Roswell Incident" is not an areain which I claim to have done research.Indeed, my predominate sources areMoore, Friedman, and others who havepublished copiously on this matter dur-ing the last decade.

But when two investigators look atphotos of obviously terrestrial mate-rials, miss obvious visual cues thatpoint to flimsy construction material,and pronounce them to be remnants ofan interplanetary, or perhaps even in-terstellar, spacecraft, it's time to join thevariorum.

These materials simply are not of ex-traterrestrial origin. And remember,Marcel himself has said that the debrison Ramey's floor was "the real stuff."If not, then Marcel's accuracy is inquestion. Some authors have suggestedthat the wreckage had been switchedwith that of a Rawin Sonde. If so, whyis part of the material burned? After all,weather balloons don't burn, do they?

And with the public disclosures ofthe history of technical intelligencemade in various books published dur-ing the '80s, the behavior of the AAFis now transparent.

As much as I admire the efforts, and.in some cases, financial sacrifices madeby the primary investigators during thelast decade, the reality is that they havefailed to make their case. Furthermore,the cost to ufology has been high. Theamount of time and money devoted tothe Roswell Incident and the relatedMJ-12 documents is probably un-precedented in UFO history. Being asunder-funded as ufology is, I suggestthat a serious reassessment is in order.

(Please see Editor's Note, page 2.)

Footnotes

1. From the latin word catena, which means"chain."

2. Don Schmitt and Kevin Randle, "Roswell,July 9, 1947," IUR Vol. 14, No. 6 (Chicago:CUFOS, Dec. 1989).3. Don Schmitt and Kevin Randle, "Fort Worth,July 8, 1947: the cover-up begins," IUR Vol. 15,No. 2 (Chicago: CUFOS, April 1990).

4. William E. Burrows, Deep Black (New York:Berkley Books, 1988), pp. 59-60.

5. Ibid., p. 75.

MUFON UFO JOURNAL No. 273 January 1991

NEW REVELATIONS ABOUT ROSWELL WRECKAGE:A GENERAL SPEAKS UPBy Jaime H. Shandera

Joe Kirk Thomas commits someof the same grievous errors thatfirst-year journalism students andother would-be sleuths frequentlycommit: he takes only the evidencehe wants to look at and completelyignores the rest. The "material"that Mr. Kirk "analyzed" is in theform of black-and-white photographs.Since he couldn't touch, test or evensee the actual color of the originalobjects, he is left only with surmisesand opinions based on same.

Mr. Kirk's most glaring oversight,however, is the obvious fact that thesame photographs contain peoplewho could lay their hands on thematerial in question; yet he appearsnot the least bit interested in theirliving testimony! A simple analogyto that approach would be to removeall the square roots from a particularmathematical equation. It might beconsiderably easier to get an"answer" that way, but it hardlyseems likely to be the right one.

Mr. Thomas does, however, makea good point when he points out ourimproper use of the words "rigid"and "stiff." What we meant to saywas that the material had greater"rigidity" and was "stiffer" than tin-foil or foiled paper. It was indeedquite flexible, but it also had a ten-sile strength unheard of in somethingso thin.

We also find it odd that while Mr.Thomas asserts early on that the AirForce cover story statements are cor-rect, he then proceeds to concludethat the pictured object is anotherdevice altogether, demonstrating acomplete lack of knowledge of radarreflectors in the process.

Finally, if Mr. Thomas wants tobelieve that the Roswell wreckagewas a giant Wrigley's SpearmintGum wrapper, what the heck. It is,after all, a free country.- William Moore/Jaime Shandera

Photographs taken at the Ft. Worth,Texas, Army Air Base on July 8, 1947are of the actual Roswell Incidentdebris, says Brigadier GeneralThomas Jefferson DuBose (USAFRetired), the only living man whowould know. At the time of theRoswell Incident, Gen. DuBose (thena full colonel) was Chief of Staff toGeneral Roger M. Ramey, com-mander of the U.S. 8th Army AirCorps, headquartered at Ft. Worth.Now retired and living in Florida,Gen. DuBose was recently inter-viewed, first by telephone and laterat his home, by acting Fair WitnessProject Board member Jaime H.Shandera. Here is the combined textof those interviews. Shandera's ques-tions and commentary are in boldand italic typeface, respectively; theGeneral's answers are in plain, orroman.

This article will also appear inFocus, the quarterly newsletter of theFair Witness Project, Inc., publishedby William Moore & Associates($20/yr.). For additional information,write 4219 W. Olive Ave., #247, Bur-bank, CA, or call (818) 980-8758.

G eneral, a witness recentlysurfaced who was the firstreporter to arrive at General

Ramey's office on July 8,1947 to takepictures of the crash debris sent overfrom Roswell. J. Bond Johnson, areporter for the Ft. Worth Star Tele-gram, stated that when he askedGeneral Ramey what this debris was,Ramey said he didn't know. You werepresent in that room at that time.Also, the Associated Press (AP) hadcarried a story indicating that Gen-eral Ramey didn't know what thedebris was when talking to General(Hoyt) Vandenberg in Washington...

Well, that's true. None of us knew whatit was.

There are two researchers (DonSchmitt and Kevin Randle) who arepresently saying that the debris inGeneral Ramey's office had beenswitched and that you men had aweather balloon there.

Oh, bull! That material was neverswitched!

So what you're saying is that thematerial in General Ramey's officewas the actual debris brought in fromRoswell?

That's absolutely right.

So not you or anyone else everswitched that material for the coverstory?

We never switched anything. We wereunder orders from Washington to lookat that material. We wouldn't haveswitched anything. We were WestPointers — we would never have donethat.

But General Ramey did put out acover story that it was a weatherdevice?

Yes. We were ordered to get the pressoff our backs — things were getting outof hand. I don't recall just who sug-gested the weather device story.

Could General Ramey or someoneelse have ordered a switch withoutyou knowing it?

I have damn good eyesight — well, itwas better back then than it is now —and I was there, and I had charge of thatmaterial, and it was never switched.

What happened to the material(which was photographed) inGeneral Ramey's office?

MUFON UFO JOURNAL No. 273 January 1991

"General McMullen or-dered me to send thatstuff off and then wipeit out of my mind andnever talk about itagain — ever."

Well, General (Clements) McMullen inWashington, he was under Vandenberg,but the actual head of the SAC asdesignated by General Kinney, heordered me by telephone to take thatdebris in Roger's (Roger Ramey's) of-fice and put it in a container, lock it,and send it to him in Washington bycourier.

Let me get this straight — GeneralMcMullen ordered you personally totake the debris in General Ramey'soffice and lock it in a container andsend it to him by courier?

That's exactly right, and he said"choose a courier you trust." So Iselected (Colonel) Al Clark who wasthe Base Commander at Carswell (Ft.Worth). I put the debris in a heavy mailpouch, sealed it and locked it. I thensealed it to the wrist of Al Clark andescorted him to a B-25 out on the run-way and sent him to General McMullenin Washington.

Have you ever talked about thisaspect of the Roswell story before?

No, not until you asked me. (Note:When Stanton Friedman and somemembers of the Fund for UFO Researchconducted a videotaped interview withGen. DuBose in the summer of 1990,they unfortunately failed to ask thesevery important questions; presumablybecause Friedman, along with Schmittand Randle of CUFOS, had alreadymade public their mistaken conclusionthat the material in the photos had tohave been debris from a weatherballoon which had been substituted forthe actual Roswell wreckage for thebenefit of the press.)

(Continuing) You see, General

Retired General Thomas Jefferson DuBose

McMullen — now you couldn't haveknown this man like I did — why hewould bypass any channel or procedureif something was important to him —he'd do whatever it took to get the jobdone, and clearly he was right underVandenberg there in Washington, sothis was important to Vandenberg —General McMullen ordered me to sendthat stuff off and then wipe it out of mymind and never talk about it again —ever.

N ow that all sounds like awfullystrange treatment for anykind of weather device.

We didn't know what it was. It justlooked like junk.

Now you say there was no switch ofmaterial — but could the materialthat came in from Roswell have beenany type of weather balloon?

Absolutely not. There was no weatherballoon there. The balloons had certainmarkings so we would have been ableto identify it.

Could it have been any type of radarreflector device?

No. This stuff was dark gray. We didn'tknow what it was.

Were you familiar with weatherballoons and radar reflectors?

Why certainly. Both Roger (Ramey) andI were very familiar with them.

Do you remember Major JesseMarcel?

Oh yes, very well. And I'll say this —whatever Marcel said about thismaterial is what you can go by. He wasa very honest, straightforward type ofindividual. And besides, he was the onewho had been at the crash site. I wasnever at the crash site, so I couldn'tassess all that was going on. But youcan go by whatever Marcel said becausehe had the most information.

When I began to ask questions aboutthe photographs from General Ramey'soffice (the ones taken by J. BondJohnson and others on July 8, 1947) ofthe Roswell debris, it became clear thatDuBose didn 't know which pictures Iwas talking about. It also became clearthat he probably had not seen the pic-tures since 1947. (Why Friedman et al.did not show them to the General dur-

MUFON UFO JOURNAL No. 273 January 1991

ing their interview with him is difficultto imagine. One can only presume thatthey saw no need to, since they hadalready reached their own conclusionsabout the matter. At the very least, thisfailure constitutes shoddy journalismand must be considered a gross errorof omission on their part.) In any case,having gotten a clear story from theGeneral before showing him anythingBill Moore and I had written, it wastime to send him the ' "Three Hours ThatShook the Press'' article from bothFOCUS with its accompanying ' 'Ros-well Revisited'' article (FOCUS, June30, 1990), and from the MUFON Jour-nal with accompanying photographsfrom Ft. Worth (MUFON Journal #269,September 1990). After more than aweek, I contacted General DuBoseagain:

General, did you receive the articlesI sent you?

Yes, I did. Thank you.

Did you get a chance to readthe material and look at thepictures?

Yes, and I studied the pictures verycarefully.

Do you recognize that material?

Oh yes. That's the material that Marcelbrought inito Ft. Worth from Roswell.

Is that the same material you sent toGeneral McMullen?

Yes, that's it.

Now, I know I told you before, butthere are a couple of researchers say-ing that that's a picture of a weatherballoon.

Well, they're full of it! That's no damnweather balloon! There wasn't onethere.

Did you read the "Three Hours ThatShook the Press" article that BillMoore and I wrote?

"/ took this pouch to Ramey's office. In it, was abunch of trash. We unbuckled it and laid it out onthe floor. It was cold potatoes as far as I was con-cerned."

Oh, yes.

Can you comment on it for me?

Well, I thought it was very well writ-ten. I think you did an excellent job.

Thank you. But can you point outany areas where we might be off baseor might be mistaken?

No, I think you've done a good job andI can't think of anything else where Imight be able to add anything.

General, I'm going to be in Floridain another week. Can I stop by andsee you?

Why yes, I'd be happy to meet withyou.

The remaining portion of this inter-view was conducted at the home ofGeneral DuBose. In person. I found thegeneral to be affable, intelligent, vital-ly concerned about many issues, in-cluding the deplorable state of oureducational system, and, in his ownwords, in ' 'hellacious good health.'' Hestands erect and leads an active life, allvery admirable for a man swiftly ap-proaching the age of 89.

General DuBose graduated from WestPoint with the class of 1929. He's hada colorful career and interacted withmany of the notable Air Force and Ar-my legends. General Hoyt Vandenbergwas his flight instructor.

Assigned to General "Hap" Arnoldin Washington early in World War II,he was in charge of training for the AirCorps. Following charges of "favor-itism" by news commentator DrewPearson, General Arnold ordered thenColonel DuBose to give actor JimmyStewart a combat assignment. DuBose,a longtime friend of Ste\vart's, hasalways held him in very high regard.

He felt Pearson was "all wet," thatStewart was doing more than any dozenother men for morale and recruitment— but no matter. Stewart went on todistinguish himself in Europe.

DuBose was also a longtime friendof General Roger Ramey, and happilytook the assignment as his Chief of Staffat Ft. Worth in 1947.

Now as to this Roswell business —let's begin when Jesse Marcel cameover from Roswell with this material.

Yes. Well, as best I can recall, I metthe airplane that came in from Roswelland I took a canvas mail pouch with thisdebris in it over to General Ramey'soffice.

What type of plane was it?

A B-29.

Did you see additional debris on theplane?

No, I was just handed this canvas mailpouch with the stuff in it, and (I) headedstraight to Roger's office.

Wasn't it unusual to take materiallike this to the chiefs office?

Well, not unusual because this (theorder to do so) had come fromWashington — somebody had said therewas something unusual that had goneon out at Roswell in General Ramey'sterritory. General McMullen hadbypassed us and told (Colonel) Blan-chard in Roswell to put this stuff on aplane and get it over to Ft. Worth forRamey to get a look at it. They weretold to put some of this stuff in a mailpouch — you know those canvas mailpouches and you could seal them — andthey were told to seal it and bring it into us. The airplane came and I met the

r'

MUFON UFO JOURNAL No. 273 January 1991

plane and the pilot said "this is thematerial picked up outside Roswell andColonel Blanchard said I was to deliverit to General Ramey," and I said "OK,"and I took it to Ramey's office so wecould take a look at it.

Now was Marcel with you at thatpoint?

No, he wasn't. Nobody was. I had metthe airplane.

So Marcel didn't come with thatbundle?

Not at that time. If he was there, I wasunaware of it — perhaps he wasn't onthat plane. (Note: The suggestion thatthere was more than one plane fromRoswell is consistent with statementsmade by other witnesses.) I took thispouch to Ramey's office. In it was abunch of trash. We unbuckled it andlaid it out on the floor. It was coldpotatoes as far as I was concerned.

Like what's in the pictures?

Yeah, that's it. That's it. Sure, the pic-ture doesn't lie. And this is what we'retalking about.

(Indicating the brown wrapping paperlaid out on the floor beneath thewreckage in the photo) It was wrap-ped in this brown paper inside thepouch?

I wouldn't swear that it was put there— but I think it was put there to keepthe stuff from getting on the rug. Welooked at it and I said, "This is just abunch of junk." So did Roger.

Did you feel this stuff — I mean, didyou test it, did you try to tear it, oranything?

No, I just looked at it. We sat there andtalked about it.

But this wasn't anything you'drecognize — like a weather balloon,or radar reflector, or whatever?

No. Hell no. It was debris. And you can

see how much of it there was and thatit would all fit in a mail pouch. Nowthis brown paper, I won't make a swornstatement, it may have come with it. Itmay have been in the pouch.

Now Marcel came along later?

Yeah, he came in. He may have beenin the same room...

But what I'm asking is, he wasn't onthe same plane?

If he was, I don't remember. I couldn'tsay that he was or was not. I would bedishonest with you if I said so.

But the only thing you rememberclearly is this mail pouch?

Yes.

There wasn't more in the cargo holdor anything?

If there was, I didn't know anythingabout it.

W ouldn't Colonel Blanchardhave contacted GeneralRamey before he contacted

Washington?

Apparently, someone in Washingtoncontacted General McMullen. Now youdon't know McMullen like I do. He

would cut through anything to get a jobdone. Proper channels and proceduresdidn't mean anything to him — nothinggot in his way. Now if my recollectionis right, McMullen told Blanchard topick this stuff up, secure it, and deliverit to Ramey to look at and see what itwas, and then to give him a call. Thenhe called me and said it was coming in."You meet the airplane, see what it is,and call me," he said.

And you must bear this in mind. Inthe final analysis, when all of this wassaid and done — (there was) a lot inthe newspapers about it, Washingtonand the chief had gotten ahold of it anda few other things — McMullen told mein no uncertain terms, he said, "Youtake this and see that it is shipped tome, and don't you ever mention this toa soul, living or dead, to your wife, toyour son, forever. Do you understand?And that's an order." And that, to me,is an order, and I forgot it. He said,"You forget it. Just wipe it off." ToldRamey the same thing.

Now that's when he ordered you toput it in the pouch, seal it...

Yeah. I put it in the canvas pouch, puton lock and key and sent it with thecommander of Carswell under lock andkey to McMullen.

That was Colonel Al Clark, right?

MUFON UFO JOURNAL No. 273 January 1991

Al Clark took it. He took it in a B-25to McMullen. What he did with it, butI can't swear to it, as I later found out,was he sent it to Wright Field to examineit and see what it was all about. Butwhen McMullen told me directly on thetelephone, "You forget about this: I don'twant to hear about this from you," andthen he said "Get Ramey on the phone,"and he said "You listen," and he toldRamey the same thing — we had an in-tercom — "This material, whatever itis, is none of your business. You forgetabout it. Don't ever mention it: don't talkabout it to anybody from the newspaperor elsewhere. Just forget it."

Now this was after the press peoplewere already there, right?

This was after it had gone: after Clarkhad it on its way to McMullen.

Balloon Order

At some point, I think in an interviewearly on, I believe you told Bill Moorethat it was McMullen that orderedyou guys to tell the press it was aweather balloon to get them off yourback?

Oh, Yeah. I can't give you exactly whoit was, but we had to have a cover-up.This was getting out of hand and we hadto stop these headlines. It wasused to quiet the press. When this ...well, this was a cover-up. WhenMcMullen ... well, I don't know whoseidea it was to call it a weather device,but that was a cover-up, to quiet thepress.

Since this stuff just looked like junk,everyone bought it?

Yeah.

Even Marcel said when he had hispicture taken with what is clearly thesame material, that it was the actualRoswell debris, but that Ramey hadtold him he couldn't talk to the pressor anybody — "just have your pic-ture taken and I'll do the talking" —then Ramey told the reporters thatthis was a weather device?

"I just know the weather balloon idea was used asa cover-up for this thing. When I was told to keepmy mouth shut and forget it, I did. And that wasthe end of it until you asked me about this stuff."

Yeah. You see, there was nothing youcould do.

Marcel said all the press saw was thisdebris, but they didn't see the moreimpressive stuff — the stuff that hadthe markings on it and the biggerpieces he said were still on the planeunder guard. He said he was orderedoff the plane (i.e. flight) and sentback to Roswell and he couldn't talkabout it.

Yeah, that's right.

Now again, these other re-searchers (Schmitt, Randleand Friedman) are saying

that you guys switched this stuff andthat this stuff was some kind of aweather balloon, and that you didthat to fool the press and the pressnever saw any of the real stuff.

Nah.

But what you're saying is that thestuff was never switched — that thisis the stuff that came in fromRoswell?

That's right. I know that because, god-dam it, I'm still alive. The story aboutthe weather balloon was to allay thepress — there was a tremendousamount of press about this — and asI told you, there's got to be somethingto all this. I don't know ...

Well, it's too important ...

Too many people ...

Too many people, and even this situa-tion became too important toWashington and everybody — sothere had to be a whole lot more stuffthan just this.

Oh, yes.

The stories out of Roswell said thedebris covered close to a square mile.Now these other researchers areclaiming that reporters were barredfrom the base — that only onereporter was allowed on the base.

Where? At Roswell?

No, at Ft. Worth. Were there anyorders to that effect?

No. That's bullshit! I don't recall anysuch thing. I would have known. I knowthere were a lot of reporters. We knewall the folks there.

Do you remember Bond Johnson,a young reporter for the Star Tele-gram?

You can't ask me to remember every-one's name.

I understand. We're talking over 40years ago and about someone youmight have seen only a few times.

Col. Kalberer was the intelligence of-ficer and Ramey used him to herd thepress around or get rid of them, or whathave you. He wasn't the press officer,but Ramey leaned on him. (Note: Thisis consistent with what Kalberer toldMoore in an interview just before hedied, and it is backed up by a briefstatement found in the historical recordsof the 8th Army Air Force.)

Do you recall the weather man, War-rant Officer Irving Newton? Heclaims he was ordered by Ramey toleave his post and get over to talk tothe press to tell them how a weatherballoon worked?

Could be. I don't know.

Now that weatherman, Newton, hetold me in a recent interview that

MUFON UFO JOURNAL No. 273 January 1991

"Johnson actually took a primary and a back-up ex-posure of each set-up, thus bringing the totalnumber of known pictures of the Roswell wreckagein Ramey's office to seven."

there was a weather balloon laid outall over that room, Ramey's office.

This room here? (Pointing to the pic-ture of Ramey and himself with thedebris in Ramey's office.)

Yeah.

At this point, the general looked at mealmost scoldingly, and then we bothlaughed.

What I said to him was, "I don'tunderstand, Mr. Newton, if there wasa weather balloon in that room, whyisn't it in the pictures. You are shownwith the same debris as everyoneelse."

No goddam weather balloon was everin that room!

And I asked the photographer whoshot this picture of you and Ramey,and the one of Ramey himself, "Wasthere anything else in that room thatyou didn't shoot?" He said no.

Hell no.

He said he was there to shoot whatwas in the room, that he wouldn'thave shot only a part of what wasthere. "I would only have shoteverything that was there," he said.

I just know the weather balloon ideawas used as a cover-up for this thing.When I was told to keep my mouth shutand forget it, I did. And that was theend of it until you asked me about thisstuff.

Had you seen these pictures since?

Oh, yeah. I'd seen them.

But not since what, 1947 or so?

No, I haven't — but there can't be anydoubt about who it was.

Have you ever told that storybefore about what McMullensaid to you?

No. No, because when someone toldme to do something, I'm a good soldierand I do what they tell me. Outside ofyou asking me about it, no, I haven'ttold anyone. Now when I tell you that,there may have been over 40 yearssomeone who would call and I wouldbrush them off, or say I don'tremember.

"New" Pictures

General DuBose's statements nowsync-up perfectly with the testimonygiven earlier by J. Bond Johnson, theFt. Worth Star Telegram photographerwhose statements to Bill Moore and meopened up the spectre of a revised vie\vof what occurred in Ft. Worth. Ttiey arealso in agreement with statements at-tributed to General Ramey by theAssociated Press, and with testimony

gained by Moore in several interviewswith Major Jesse Marcel before hisdeath in 1986 — the accuracy of whichwas attested to by Marcel in a signedstatement to the publisher of Moore &Charles Berlitz's book, The RoswellIncident.

The statements by each of these peo-ple interconnect, overlap and add newinformation, giving us the most defin-itive view of what transpired at Ft.Worth on July 8, 1947. Indeed, the on-ly out-of-sync information in the entirepicture is to be found in recent state-ments made by ex-Warrant Officer Irv-ing Newton (the weather man at Ft.Worth); and when Newton's current ver-sion of the story is compared to whathe told Moore during interviews in 1979,it can be readily seen that his story hasundergone considerable change sincethat time. Why this is, we do not know.All that can be said is that the detailsin his earlier account compare muchmore favorably with the DuBoselJohnson/Marcel testimony than dothose of the story he is presently tell-ing. Newton's revised version of eventscame to light after he was recentlyreinterviewed by Schmitt and Randle.Apparently they did not trouble to askhim why, if Moore's earlier reportingof Newton's testimony in The RoswellIncident was incorrect, he did not con-tact Moore and ask that a correctedversion be published.

Warrant Officer Irving Newton

MUFON UFO JOURNAL No. 273 January 1991

In our article titled "Three Hoursthat Shook the Press,'' Bill Moore andI reconstructed the time frame andpresented clear evidence of whatGeneral DuBose adamantly supports.In further working with J. Bond John-son and careful examination of thephotographs, another development oc-curred. When I sent Johnson a copy ofthe MUFON Journal which containedthe reprinted photos from Ft. Worth, hecalled back to say that the Ramey pic-ture wasn 't his — or so he thought. Hedidn 't think so because it was differentfrom what ran in the Star Telegram onJuly 9, 1947. Continued examinationand recollection of the mechanics of thecamera Johnson had used revealed tous that he had in actuality shot fourpictures rather than two as originallythought.

His earlier assertion of two photoswas based upon his clear recall of hav-ing had only two frames with him at thetime, and that there were only two set-

ups: one with Ramey alone and a se-cond with both Ramey and DuBose. Butnow, with a second picture of Rameybeing evident and the existence of twopictures of Ramey and DuBose — eachin the same basic set-up — it wasremembered that each frame for thatparticular camera held two shots, thesecond one of which was exposed bypulling the frame out, turning it over,and putting it back in the camera. SoJohnson actually took a primary anda back-up exposure of each set-up, thusbringing the total number of known pic-tures of the Roswell wreckage inRamey's office to seven. Schmitt andRandle had earlier reported that therewere only five such pictures, while our' 'Three Hours "piece had reported six.

Further supporting Johnson as thephotographer of four pictures is thatboth the University of Texas photo ar-chives (they have the Star Telegram col-lection) and the Bettmann Archives givephoto credits to Johnson. The photo in

the Bettmann collection is the second(or back-up) photo of Ramey andDuBose. The credit line indicates it wasan International News Photo (INP)Soundphoto. INP was a subsidiary ofInternational News Service (INS). Theonly way they could have gotten thephoto was from Johnson himself, mean-ing that someone from INS came to theStar Telegram on July 8, 1947 andsecured permission to use the photo. Weknow the relative time frame becausethe credit line indicates that the picturewas transmitted at 7:59 CST, July 8,1947.

Since it would have been transmittedout of Dallas, nearly an hour away bycar at that time, that supports the after-noon time for Johnson's return to thenewspaper as reported in our ' 'ThreeHours'' piece.

This is a classic example of how con-tinued diligent work with an openwitness can continue to produce results.

Looking BackBob GribbleJanuary 1951 • "I tracked hun-dreds of UFOs on radar," said FrancisC. Sullivan, a retired Air Force MasterSergeant. Sullivan spent 28 years in theAir Force. For 18 of them he was aradar operator at air bases in Japan andthe U.S. "I couldn't give you the exactnumber of UFOs I tracked on radar, butit must have been in the hundreds. Alot of times we'd scramble jets afterthem." But only once did a pilot suc-ceed in getting close to one — at an AirForce base near Masawa, Japan, in1951.

"An officer pilot named Brigham wasin the air and I was in radio contact withhim when he sighted something andwent after it," Sullivan said. "Heradioed, 'I've never seen such a thing!It's round — I don't know what it is —when I started closing in on it, it musthave — it's gone, Sully, it's gone! Just

gone!' When he landed he reported theincident. The very next day they ship-ped him out of there. But in 1968, Imade a telephone call to Peterson Field,Colorado, and recognized the voice atthe other end as Brigham's. I asked himwhat had happened after the incidentin Japan. He said, 'I can't talk aboutit. They took me to Washington andthat's all I can tell you. I still can'tdiscuss it and I'm told not to.' "

• A veteran airline pilot sighted amystery object "as large or half-againas large" as a B-29 in flight above SiouxCity, Iowa on the 20th. Pilot Larry W.Vinther, 32, said the object wassilhouetted in a moonlit sky "but all wecould actually see was its shape." TheUFO appeared shortly after 8:30 p.m.His Mid-Continent Airlines DC-3passenger plane and the object circled

Sioux City and he remained in radiocontact with airport control towerthroughout the strange pursuit. His co-pilot, Jim Bachmeier, also observed theobject. The cigar-shaped craft dis-appeared finally after rushing almoststraight at the airliner. It went under theplane's fuselage and continued north-westward until it was lost from view.

• 1956 Cruising at 19,000 feet, aNavy R7V-2 transport, a four engineSuper Constellation, was flying westacross the Atlantic Ocean. The nextstop was Gander, Newfoundland,Canada. Final destination. Naval AirStation, Patuxent, Maryland. Includingthe regular and relief crews, there werenearly 30 airmen — pilots, navigatorsand flight engineers — aboard the Con-stellation. As the senior pilot finishedhis cockpit check, he noticed a cluster

MUFON UFO JOURNAL No. 273 January 1991

of lights, like a village, on the waterbelow, about 25 miles ahead. As thetransport began to circle over the lights,the lights dimmed and several coloredrings appeared. One seemed to begrowing in size — it was rushing uptoward the transport. The glow wascoming from the rim of a round object.

The mysterious craft reached theiraltitude in a few seconds and appearedto be a giant disc. Dwarfing the Con-stellation, it raced in toward the aircraft.Suddenly the disc reduced its speed,tilted, and moved past the port wing.It swung around and was now abreastof the transport, in complete view ofthe airmen aboard the Navy plane.Describing the vehicle, the pilot said:"Its sheer bulk was amazing; its diam-eter was three to four times the Con-stellation's wing span. At least 30 feetthick at the center, it was like a gigan-tic dish inverted on top of another. Seenat a distance, the glow along the rimwas blurred and uneven but was brightenough to show the disc's curving sur-face, giving a hint of reflecting metal.Gradually, the craft pulled ahead, tiltedupward and accelerated out of sight."

The pilot immediately called GanderAirport. "You show any other trafficout here?" he asked the tower. "We hadsomething on the scope near you,"Gander told the Commander. "But wecouldn't get an answer." It was deter-mined that the disc was between 350and 400 feet in diameter. Time for thecraft to climb to the transport's altitude,between five and eight seconds, in-dicated a speed between 1400 and 2200knots; the disc had accelerated abovethis speed on departure. Five days afterthe incident, the senior pilot receiveda phone call from a scientist in a highgovernment agency. The next day thescientist met with the pilot and listenedto his report. Then he unlocked adispatch case and took out somephotographs. "Was it like any of these?"At the third picture, the Commanderstopped him. "That's it." The otherman took the pictures, closed hisdispatch case and left. (The source forthe above report was Captain JamesTaylor, USN Retired.)

• A pilot and an aerial cameraman

sighted and attempted to track "threecircular aircraft" over Pasadena,California, on the second, but theirplane was outdistanced by the objectswhich were traveling an estimatedspeed of 1200 miles an hour. Daniel L.Cramer said he and his cameraman,Allen B. White, were at an altitude of4000 feet when they sighted the threecraft near the mountains. "I immediate-ly threw our plane, a Cesna 180, intoa tight circle to keep the three craft inour windshield," Cramer said, "whileWhite tried to take our aerial cameraout of its mount but was prevented bythe centrifugal force exerted by our tightturn.

"The three craft made a complete cir-cle around us at a distance of four tofive miles, covering the distance in 30seconds. They made another half cir-cle and disappeared, to the west."Cramer said they computed the speedof the vehicles at 1200 miles an hourby using their plane as the hub of a cir-cle and knowing the craft took 30seconds to complete a full circle at adistance of four to five miles. Cramerestimated the craft to be 50 feet indiameter. "We had them in sight for afull 45 seconds and they were clearlyoutlined most of that time against themountains. We know what we saw."

• 1961 A UFO apparently landednear Benjamin, Texas, about 9 p.m. onthe 10th, after being spotted and trackedfrom Wichita Falls, Texas by an Abilenepilot. One Wichita Falls resident, withmilitary experience, reported hearingcode "from out of the sky" about thesame time and he tried to "copy" thecoded message, but an element of thesignal apparently was involved in a sud-den speedup and slowdown in thetransmission. "I know it soundsstrange, but the signal seemed to becoming from above," he said. He firstheard the code about 11:30 p.m. andwent outside in an effort to learn itssource. He listened until after midnight,but did not know of the UFO at thetime, which was described as travelinga zig-zag path and glowing as if on fire.

W.K. Rutledge, an Abilene attorneyand the pilot who tracked the UFO,circled it until after it landed and

directed a search for it from the air. Hesaid searchers were within about 100yards of the object when he had to endhis circling because of fuel limitations.The UFO in the meantime had ceasedglowing. Rutledge and his passenger,George Thomas, kept the object in sightabout six minutes. When the UFOstarted falling it took about two minutesto reach their level and about four tofive more to the time they thought itlanded.

• Mrs. James P. Thomas was sta-tioned with her husband at Ernest Har-mon Air Force Base, Newfoundland,Canada, where he was an F-102 jet in-terceptor pilot and assistant squadroncommander of the Fifty-Ninth FighterInterceptor Squadron, Detachment 1.While visiting her parents in New York,she said her two year stay at the basehad made her a confirmed believer inUFOs. "Occasionally," she said, "theaircraft control and warning section willsight UFOs on their radar scopes thattravel over 2000 miles per hour and canturn on a dime at that speed." She saida friend of her husband saw one of thecraft on the ground and can describeit in detail.

• 1966 George Pedley, 27, was driv-ing his tractor through a neighboringproperty on his way to his farm nearTully, Queensland, Australia, about 9a.m. on the 19th, when he heard a loudhissing sound above the engine noiseof the tractor. "It sounded like airescaping from a tire. At first I ignoredthe sound, then suddenly I saw a craftrise at great speed out of a swamp calledHorseshoe Lagoon about 25 yards infront of me. It was blue-grey, about 25feet across and nine feet high. It spunat a terrific speed as it rose verticallyto about 60 feet, then made a shallowdive and rose sharply. Traveling at afantastic speed it was out of sight inseconds. I saw no portholes or anten-nae."

As he continued to drive the tractor,he spotted a large depression in the tallgreen grass in the swampland. Thegrass had been pushed flat in an areaabout 30 feet by 20 feet. Pedley decidednot to say anything because he thought

MUFON UFO JOURNAL No. 273 January 1991

no one would believe his story. "But onmy way home to Tully that night,"Pedley said, "I met Albert Pennisi, whoowns the property where I saw thecraft. He believed me straight away andtold me he had been dreaming for aweek that a UFO would land on his pro-perty. He said that about 5:30 a.m. thatmorning his dog suddenly went madand bounded off towards the lagoon."

The next day Tom Warren, a canefarmer, and Hank Penning, a Tullyschool teacher, walked around thelagoon and discovered two more circles.One appeared to be some days old, butthe other, only a few feet away, seemedreasonably fresh. They were about 25yards from the first one, but hidden bydense brush. The fresher one was on-ly eight feet across. The grass was flat-tened in an anti-clockwise direction. Inthe first circle the grass was flattenedin a clockwise direction. Also, a patchof couch grass about four feet square,and about three feet from the perimeterof the first circle, had been clipped atwater level.

• 1971 John Clucas, 37, said a blind-ing light form, about three feet indiameter, pursued his car from Penrithto Windsor, on the outskirts of Sydney.Australia, about 10 p.m. on the fifth.For most of the 13 mile journey it waseither a few feet from his back bumperor about a quarter mile behind. "Thelight illuminated the whole inside of mycar and blinded me when I looked inthe rear view mirror," Clucas said. Thelight finally moved away when he stop-ped his car and stood ready to meet itwith his car spotlight.

• 1976 A large, oval-shaped craft in-tercepted a car driven by a 35-year-oldregistered nurse near Lompoc, Califor-nia, at 1:30 a.m. on the 23rd. Whenthe driver first spotted the lights on thevehicle, she said, "It sort of hypno-tized me ... I sort of had to keep look-ing at it ... I felt like it was somethingI had to look at." She reported that herradio "just went wild ... the sound hurtmy ears." The driver brought the carto a stop and as she did the carheadlights suddenly turned so brightthat they "lit up the area like a football

field." The light illuminated the craftwhich was hovering about 300 feet awayand about 25 feet off the ground.

The vehicle was about 50 feet longwith large orange blinking lights whichwere located around the edge. Afterviewing the vehicle for about a minute,the witness said, "I just stepped on thegas and pushed that Volkswagen as faras it would go .. I wasn't about to stickaround and see what would happen."This incident occurred about 20 milessouth of the huge missile launchingcomplex at Vandenberg Air Force Base.

• On the 29th, observers in widelyscattered parts of the Las Vegas, Nevadavalley reported seeing a large cigar-shaped object moving across the sky at8:40 p.m. About two hours later, at10:30 p.m., Johnny Sands — a touringcountry and western musician —reported that his vehicle was stoppedon Blue Diamond Road, 14 milessouthwest of Las Vegas, by a hugecigar-shaped craft and that he was ques-tioned by two of its occupants. Hedescribed them as about five feet, seveninches tall, and proportioned not unlikea human being. Their eyes weresquinted, complexion pale and besidetheir jawbones, under their ears, theyappeared to have gills. Their mouthswere small. Their faces were hairless,he said, and had "puggish" noses. Aspokesman at Nellis Air Force Baseconfirmed that he had told his story tothe Air Force Office of SpecialInvestigations.

• 1981 While working in his gardenabout 5 p.m. on the eighth — near thevillage of Trans-en-Provence, insouthern France — Renato Nicolai, 55,heard a slight whistling sound, lookedup and saw a "strange machine" des-cend from the sky and land about 30meters away from him. It was about oneand four-fifths meters high, and twoand a half meters in diameter. The colorwas that of lead. The craft rested onsmall telescopic legs. After about aminute, the vehicle took off, rose intothe air, and disappeared, leaving a cir-cular mark on the ground. Samplesfrom the site were immediately col-lected by the Draguignan police and

they sent them to Dr. Bounias, direc-tor of the biochemical laboratory of theINRA (National Institute of Agri-cultural Research) at Avignon.

Bounias established samples fromplants of the same species taken at dif-ferent distances from the point of im-pact. He analyzed the photosyntheticpigments, the glucides, the amino acids,etc. "We worked on very young leaves,"Bounias explained. "They all had theanatomic and physiologic character-istics of their age. However, they hadthe biochemical characteristics of ad-vanced senescence, of old age. And thisdoes not resemble anything known toexist on our planet."

Bounias found that the type of"biochemical trauma" revealed by theleaves diminished as the distance fromthe UFO landing site increased. Hesaid: "Certain substances which arepresent in the close range samples arenot present in those taken further away,and vice versa. There is no possible riskof mistake. We have found differencessufficiently important that the statisticalsignificance of the results is irrefutable."

The analysis of samples producedother startling results. Chlorophyll andother substances in the plants had beenreduced by between 30 and 50 percent.Soil samples indicated that an object ofextremely heavy weight had scrapedalong the ground leaving evidence ofboth thermic and mechanical effect anda residue of what was possibly combus-tion. The report also concluded fromanalysis of surrounding vegetation thatgrass was affected as if it had been sub-mitted to high temperatures withoutburning and to an unusual level ofradiation.

The director of the biochemicallaboratory concluded: "All we can sayis that something certainly happened.We have observed the effects of aphenomenon." The INRA carried outthe analysis of the landing site samplesat the request of GEPAN (Group for thestudy of Unidentified Aerial and SpacePhenomena), which is a branch of theNational Center for Space Research.

(Editor's note: For more details on thisvery significant case, please refer to the

Continued on page 22

MUFON UFO JOURNAL No. 273 January 1991

LETTERS ...Dear Editor:

I was interested to learn from Mr.Wingfield's letter in the NovemberJournal that Dr. Meaden's 'PlasmaVortex Theory' for the Crop CirclePhenomenon is "totally discredited." Iwas aware, of course, that many re-searchers, starting with Dr. Meadenhimself, recognize that the hypothesisneeds a great deal of developmentbefore it can explain the anomalousfeatures of the phenomenon: but as theonly scientific suggestion which hasbeen put forward, it remains the frontrunner until such time as someonecomes up with an alternative explana-tion which more closely fits the facts.

Has Mr. Wingfield done just that? Iam sure all researchers would bedelighted to consider his interestingsuggestion that "the Circles are pro-duced by energy fields": but before weconsider that suggestion seriously, hemust explain to us what he means by'energy fields' and show us how theyfunction and in what way they providea better explanation for the bizarreshapes than the Meaden approach.

Until that time, he must not be sur-prised that many of us, even if we haveto run the risk of being labelled 'stupid'by Mr. Wingfield, will continue to findDr. Meaden's ideas, for all their short-comings in their existing stage ofdevelopment, the best we have.

It is good to have all kinds of input,even if some of it is as bizarre as thecircles themselves; but Mr. Wingfield'sassertion that the Plasma Vortex theoryis "completely dead and buried" is notlikely to convince anyone who reads theRandies/Fuller book, with its balancedmethodical exploration and comprehen-sive discussion of the phenomenon.The Plasma Vortex hypothesis may notbe the final solution, but it is the bestapproach — because the only scientificapproach — that we have at this time.

— Hilary EvansLondon

Dear Editor:In his article, "The Implant Enigma"

(June 1990), John Schuessler suggeststhat a structure reportedly found in am-niotic fluid during a routine chrom-osome preparation (Nature, Vol. 323,Sept. 25, 1986, pg. 300) might be analien implant. In relating this uniden-tified fetal object to unidentified flyingobjects, Schuessler implores research-ers to "take the implant issue serious-ly." A number of readers did just that(see Letters to the Editor section,August 1990). Two contributors com-ment on the fact that in subsequentissues of Nature a mundane explana-tion of the structure was provided, andSchuessler is taken to task for "sloppyarticles and sloppier research."

It is correct to point out the in-complete and misleading aspects ofSchuessler's article. Indeed, his entreat-ment to "look at the possibilities" soas to avoid "wild speculation" invitessuch a response. In this same spirit, itshould be noted that the informationprovided in these Letters to the Editoris also incomplete and misleading.While both letters correctly referencecorrespondence published in the Oc-tober 23 and October 30, 1986 issuesof Nature, in which the mystery objectwas interpreted as a diatom skeleton,it is misleading to state that the objecthas been "identified" as such. Thediatom explanation was an expressionof opinion, not a presentation of proof.

Moreover, the December 25, 1986 issueof Nature provides two other "explana-tions" (a "fragment of tubular myelin";an "area of meshwork of the nuclearlamina") and yet another explanation (acontaminant originating in the fabrica-tion of semiconductors) appears in theJanuary 22, 1987 issue.

In that same issue, J. Wolstenholme,who originally reported this "mysteryobject amid the chromosomes," in-dicates that all these explanationsdescribe objects too irregular to matchthe one in question. He also rejects anextraterrestrial explanation which, in-terestingly, he indicates accounted forthe majority of the explanations sent byreaders directly to him.

To find out if this search for explana-tions has been resolved more satisfac-torily since 1987,1 wrote to Dr. Wolsten-holme and received a gracious reply. Asof July 26, 1990, he still did not havean explanation he regards as convinc-ing, but continues to believe the objectis likely to be an artifact originating ineither the laboratory environment, thereagents used in preparation, or thelaboratory equipment. He reports that"the object has been sent for moredetailed analysis elsewhere," and assuresthat he will let researchers know if andwhen the object is positively identified.

— Stuart Appelle, Ph.D.Brockport, NY

Calendar of UFO Conferences for 1991March 15, 16 & 17 — Second UFO/ET/Alien and Abduction Congress -

Holiday Inn, Bordentown, New JerseyApril 5, 6 & 7 — Ozark UFO Conference - Inn of the Ozarks, Eureka

Springs, Arkansas

May 11 & 12 — UFO Expo West - Los Angeles Airport Hyatt Hotel,Los Angeles, California

May 17, 18 & 19 — Exploring Unexplained Phenomena III - University ofNebraska Center, Lincoln, Nebraska

May 18, 19 & 20 — Fifth Annual "Recontres Europeennes de Lyon"Congress - Lyon, France

July 5, 6 & 7 — MUFON 1991 International UFO Symposium - HyattRegency O'Hare Hotel at O'Hare International Airport near Chicago,Illinois

August 16, 17 & 18 — Sixth International UFO Congress - CentralLibrary Theater, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England

October 12 & 13 — The UFO Experience - Holiday Inn, North Haven,Connecticut

MUFON UFO JOURNAL No. 273 January 1991

The Night SkyWalter N. Webb

February 1991

Bright Planets: (Evening Sky)Venus (magnitude -3.9) gleams low in the SW at dusk, setting in midmonthmore than two hours after the Sun. The brightest planet is below the lunarcrescent on the 16th.Mars (magnitude 0.3), in Taurus between another orange object, the starAldebaran, and the Pleiades cluster, stands high in the south at dusk. The ruddyworld moves westward during the evening hours.Jupiter (-2.5), retrograding in Cancer, lies low in the east at dusk and advanceswestward during the night. The giant gas planet passes the Beehive clusteron the 9th.

Bright Planets: (Morning Sky)Mars sets in the NW about 2 a.m. in mid-February.

Jupiter lies 1.6° above the gibbous Moon on the 26th. The planet sets in theWNW about 6 a.m. in midmonth.

Saturn (0.7), in Capricornus, rises only about 114 hours before the Sun in mid-February, but shows up earlier later in the month when it can be glimpsedvery low in the SE at dawn. In Hawaii on the 12th the ringed planet suddenlyreappears from behind the dark limb of the crescent Moon about 6:30 a.m.

Moon Phases:Last quarter — February 6

New moon — February 14

First quarter — February 21 ^)

Full moon — February 28 (^)

The Stars:Orion and the Winter Circle stars reign supreme in the southern sky. Highin the south astride the celestial meridian during midevening hours is Geminithe Twins, the sons of Zeus and Leda. Look for two stick figures side by side,with the Twin Stars Pollux (left) and Castor (right) marking the heads of thelegendary brothers. The two stars were regarded by sailors as their patron orprotective deities. The expression "by Jiminy" is the ancient oath "by theTwins." Two planets were discovered in this constellation. One of them wasUranus, found in 1781 by Englishman William Herschel. The other was Pluto,discovered in 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh. (Last year was the 60th anniversaryof Tombaugh's discovery.)Leo the Lion, harbinger of spring, is already above the eastern horizon at 9p.m. In the NE the Big Dipper balances on the end of its handle.

On the early morning of February 8, a fat crescent Moon occults the red 1st-magnitude star Antares low in the SE. Places in the eastern U.S. will see boththe entrance and exit of the star behind the Moon, while locations in the cen-tral part of the country experience only the star's reappearance. Some sampletimes for the event in the East: Boston, 4:18-5:31; Atlanta, 3:55-5:12 and Miami,3:57-5:14.

MESSAGE, Continued

injecting new thoughts, ideas ortheories into ufology that might seemcontroversial to some readers at "firstblush." Since none of us know all ofthe answers to the UFO enigma, wemust maintain a scientific and openmind toward theories and hypothesesproposed by our colleagues. You, thereaders, have made the MUFON UFOJournal one of the leading UFOmagazines in the world today becauseof your contributions. The editors con-tinue to solicit and welcome your help.

Jun-Ichi TakanashiMUFON National Director, Japan

BACK, Continued

English translation published in theMUFON UFO Journal issue number193, dated March 1984. pages 3-16. Seepage 3 of this issue for photo of RenatoNicolai with Dr. Petit.)

CHANGE OF ADDRESSMEMBERS/SUBSCRIBERS

Advise change of address (in-clude county and phone no.) to:

MUFON103 Oldtowne Rd.

Seguin, Texas 78155-4099

MUFON UFO JOURNAL No. 273 January 1991

MESSAGE, Continued

Larry S. Nelson (Gibsonton. FL) As-sistant State Section Director to Mr.Dunn.

The following new Consultants havevolunteered their expertise this month:Henry A. Seymour, Ed.D., (Hunts-ville, AL) in Educational Administra-tion; Ronald E. Mayhorn, M.D.(Seguin, TX) in Medicine and Anes-thesiology; Jan Michael Bielan, M.D.(San Francisco, CA) in Medicine andLaw; Michael J. Lecher, Psy.D.(Portland, OR) in Clinical Psychology;and Mark W. Swift, D.O. (Warren,OH) in Internal Medicine.

New Research Specialists joining thismonth are Bryon J. Shields, M.S. andMBA (Olathe, KS) in Philosophy andPeggy B. Tatum, M.S.W. (Syracuse,NY) in Social Work. Jabe A. Sanberg,B.S. (Champaign, IL) volunteered to bea Translator for Portuguese.

Robert E. Reid, Col. USAF(retired) has sadly submitted hisresignation as Director of Publicationsdue to personal family problems.MUFON will be seeking a replacementfor this vital responsibility on the Boardof Directors.

1991 UFO Symposium

The theme for the MUFON 1991 In-ternational UFO Symposium to be heldJuly 5, 6 and 7 at the Hyatt RegencyO'Hare Hotel at O'Hare InternationalAirport, near Chicago, is "UFOs: TheBig Picture," hosted by Tom Stults andIllinois MUFON. Confirmed speakerswill be David M. Jacobs, Ph.D., ab-ductions; Gene Phillips, ancientastronauts; Linda M. Howe and JohnAltshuler, M.D., Cattle mutilations;John Carpenter, M.S.W., clinical hyp-notherapy; Stanton T. Friedman, theRoswell Case Update; Michael M.Chorost and Dennis Stacy, CropCircles; Bruce S. Maccabee, Ph.D.,UFO photo analysis; Zecharia Sitchin,Michael D. Swords, Ph.D., ModernBiology, Close Encounters and theETH; and C. B. Scott Jones, Ph.D. Weare also negotiating with several Euro-pean researchers to provide an interna-tional flavor.

August in MoraruRepresentative for Romania

A contract has been signed withAmerican Airlines to be the official car-rier for the symposium, which also in-cludes American Eagle flights toChicago from the contiguous 48 states,Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the VirginIslands. The host committee is com-posed of Judy Stults, GeneralChairperson; Paul Fisher, Treasurer;Dave Knapp, Computerization: andRon Wolf, Technical Advisor. Hotelrates at the Hyatt Regency have beencontracted at $68 per night for singleor double occupancy, triple occupancy$78 or four people at $88. Hotel reser-vations may be made by calling (708)696-1234.

Journal Revision

Anyone not skipping rapidly over theinside cover and masthead of this issueof the Journal will notice that it hasbeen simplified considerably. Numer-ous names have appeared on themasthead over the years, while only afew have regularly contributed articlesto the Journal. Some considered it anhonor to see their name in the masthead

even though they seldom submitted ar-ticles for publication. In the revised for-mat, only those who are columnists oreditors will appear, since they are theones who should be recognized publiclyfor their work. The new format pro-vides greater space for the Table ofContents and includes only those en-tries that are required by the Post Of-fice Department, the Internal RevenueService and copyright laws.

The MUFON UFO Journal is theprime communication medium formembers, therefore everyone is invitedto submit pertinent and applicable ar-ticles to the editors for their considera-tion and evaluation. Obviously, theeditors cannot publish every article thatis submitted. Considering the immenseresearch and writing talent that existsamong our readers, however, the caliberof published material remains outstand-ing. Letters to the editor are also veryapropos as a form of two-waycommunication.

On occasion, articles are solicitedfrom notable writers as a means of

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MUFON UFO JOURNAL No. 273 January 1991

^Director's OVfesscujeWalt Andrus

Jun-Ichi Takanashi, MUFON National Director for Japan, recently an-nounced, as chairman, that the nameof their organization. Modern SpaceFlight Association (MSFA), founded in1956. has been changed to Japan UFOScience Society (JUFOSS) to betterreflect their primary study of uniden-tified Hying objects and not spaceflight . Their mail ing address is C.P.O.Box No. 1437, Osaka 530-91, Japan.They publish a magazine in Japaneseon an irregular schedule titled JapanFlying Saucer Investigation.

Augustin Moraru, Representativefor Romania since 1980, has advisedthat UFO organizations are now per-mitted to function more openly inRomania since the anti-communistrevolution of a year ago. Mr. Morarucreated a clandestine biannual UFOmagazine, UFO. and in collaborationwith the best and most active UFOresearchers in his country, organizedthe group Romanian U.F.O. Researchers(RUFOR). The most current issue ofUFO is number 26. He may be con-tacted at the following address: Bd.Republici i 122. Bl. 16 Bl. ap. 17, cod.2000 Ploiesti - 10, Romania. Augustinis making plans to attend the MUFON1991 International UFO Symposium inChicago, since citizens may now visitforeign countries, even though theircurrency cannot be exchanged.

Publications

In early spring, a new book by GrantCameron and T. Scott Grain, Jr. wi l lbe published by MUFON, t i t ledUFOs. MJ-12. and the Government: AReport on Government Involvement inUFO Crash Retrievals. The releasedate, price and other details wi l l be an-nounced in the Journal as available.Grant Cameron is a UFO researcher inWinnipeg, MB, Canada. Scott Crain isa State Section Director in Port

Matilda, PA.With the increased demand for the

MUFON Field Investigator's Manual,due to new members and Field In-vestigator t r a in ing classes beingorganized nationwide, the present sup-ply w i l l not be adequate to bridge theperiod un t i l the new fourth edition iscomposed, typed and published. So500 additional copies were orderedfrom the printers to secure thenecessary continuity. Please do notdelay conducting training classes unt i lthe fourth edition becomes available.The present manual is the finest in thefield: however, we want to up-date it inorder to stay abreast of state-of-the-artUFO investigative techniques.

Since our supply of MUFON 1988International UFO Symposium Pro-ceedings is practically extinct, 500 ad-ditional copies are now being printedto fill our present and future needs. Itwas also necessary to publish 500 ad-ditional copies of the MUFON 1989proceedings a few months ago due topopular demand. This healthy situationreflects the increased interest in ufologyand the continuous growth of MUFON.

Statewide Meetings

Two major milestones were achievedduring the past month in the two small-est states in the U.S.A. On November29, 1990. Hugh B. Horning, StateDirector for Delaware, held the state'sfirst MUFON meeting wi th theassistance of George M. Reynolds,Sr., State Section Director for Elkton.MD. Robert L. Oechsler, Asst. StateDirector for Maryland, was the featuredspeaker for the meeting. As the secondsmallest state, Delaware has alreadypassed up several other midwesternstates in membership. Congratulationsto Hugh Horning for his enthusiasticleadership.

Daved E. Rubien, State Director for

1 Rhode Island, conducted his firststatewide meeting on December 5, 1990in North Kingston, RI. He now hasenough members to form an in-vestigative team and assign State Sec-tion Directors. Mr. Rubien was ablysupported by his newly appointedAssistant State Director, Alan J.Gudaitis. Our best wishes to Davedand Alan as they build a competentteam of investigators. Statewidemeetings in these two states are farmore feasible than, for example,Alaska, Texas, California, New York,Florida or Montana.

New Officers

Robert H. Hair was appointed StateDirector for North Carolina to replaceGeorge D. Fawcett, who will becomethe State Public Relations Director. Mr.Hair, a member since 1979, recentlyretired from the business world and sowill be able to devote more time toUFOlogy. George E. Lund III(Charlotte) was promoted to AssistantState Director. George joined MUFONin 1979. Robert J. Gribble, WesternRegional Director, up-graded LaurenceT. Childs (Bothell) from Assistant toState Director for Washington, to fill thevacancy created when Bob was electedto the MUFON Board of Directors. Mr.Gribble also appointed MarilynHenry-Childs, M.S., Larry's wife, Co-State Director for Washington.

New State Section Directors ap-pointed this month were the following:Ms. Gail Downs (Lake Wylie, SC) forYork and Cherokee Counties; DouglasK. Kemp (Evansville, IN) for Vander-burgh County; Mrs. Avis V. Engle,M.E. (Gulfport, MS) for Harrison,Jackson and Hancock Counties; GaryD. Dunn (Palm Harbor, FL) for Pinel-las and Hillsborough Counties; and

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MUFON UFO JOURNAL No. 273 January 1991