FOR: Mike Sullivan
FROM:Scott Malone
DATE:11 MAY 1997
SUBJ: ROSWELL INCIDENT
INTRODUCTION..................................................................................... 1
NEW DOCUMENTS................................................................................ 2
MISSING NURSE................................................................................... 5
BALLOON MEMORIES.......................................................................... 7
509TH PILOTS DISAGREE.................................................................... 8
SANTILLI FILM..................................................................................... 9
LOOSE ENDS..................................................................................... 10
INTRODUCTION
Pursuant to previous investigation, I have been monitoring developments in the burgeoning field of Roswell-related evidence. The following synopsis was put together with the able assistance of Victor Golubic, Kent Jeffrey, and William P. LaParl. It should be treated in the strictest confidence and the material herein should not be used unless explicit permission is obtained from the various individuals whose work is cited.
From the journalistic perspective, Roswell was the one flying saucer case with the greatest prospect of possible resolution, one way or the other--i.e. a flying disc either crashed in July 1947 and the US Army Air Force (USAAF) recovered it, or it did not. As you will no doubt remind me, sightings and other phenomena related to this subject are simply not given to such journalistic advancement or possible resolution, and are usually based on notoriously unreliable eye-witness testimony and/or frequently arguable technical interpretations.
But as the 50th anniversary of the so-called "crash at Roswell" approaches (July 1st to the 6th), the citizens of Roswell, NM are gearing up for the biggest social event of the past half-century. Organizers are expecting a turn out of 150,000 visitors during the long holiday weekend. "As of February, Roswell's nearly 1,000 hotel rooms were completely booked," reports US News & World Report. "The chief draw will be an all-night rock concert--a kind of Woodstock for the Weird--featuring the likes of Bush, Sheryl Crow, and the Foo Fighters..." Since the publication of the first book, revealing Jesse MARCEL Sr.'s recollections in 1980, the alleged Roswell crash has now become a cultural icon, glorified on television in the hit Fox series The X-Files, and in movies like Independence Day. [USN&WR 3/31/97; Jeffrey 3/10/97] On the darker side, this past March, 39 Heaven's Gate cult members "abandoned their vehicles" in the apparent hope of meeting up with a UFO cruising behind Comet Hale-Bopp. (They were said to have been big fans of Roswell and Waco, our film included.)
Outside of some of some stimulating loose ends, however, the majority of new evidence would seem to answer the Roswell question rather definitively, (although not absolutely conclusively)--IT DID NOT HAPPEN. And, as noted in the past, disproving something can frequently be just as important, journalistically, as proving something.
NEW DOCUMENTS
Various long-lost documents have begun to resurface as a result of some rather diligent pursuit by Bill LaParl through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Most fascinating are the various 1948 reports, requests and meetings of Col. H.M. McCOY, Chief of the Intelligence Department of the by then USAF Air Materiel Command (AMC), headquartered at Wright-Patterson AFB, the long-suspected repository of any physical evidence of crashed discs. The earliest, and most interesting, item uncovered so far is the minutes of the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board conference held at the Pentagon on March 17 and 18, 1948. Dr. Theodore Von KARMAN presided over the meeting and Gen. Hoyt VANDENBERG stood in for USAF Chief of Staff Gen. SPAATZ. The briefing officer is Col. McCOY:
"...We have a new project--Project SIGN--which may surprise you as a development from the so-called mass hysteria of the past Summer when we had all the unidentified flying objects or discs. This can't be laughed off. We have over 300 reports which haven't been publicized in the papers from very competent personnel, in many instances--men as capable as Dr. K.D. Wood, and practically all Air Force, Airline people with broad experience. We are running down every report. I can't even tell you how much we would give to have one of those crash in an area so that we could recover whatever they are." (emphasis added) [S-AFSAB 3/17-18/48, p.78]
Col. McCOY also discussed various technical intelligence requirements and collection procedures, aspects of cooperation with other agencies such as the CIA, and the then-very secret program of employing Nazi rocket scientists, code-named PAPER CLIP. [S-AFSAB 3/17-18/48, pp.55-98]
Yet as Bill LaParl points out, this statement can and will be interpreted "to various extremes. You will have the 'West Coast Interpretation' (also known as the 'Full California') in which everyone present at the meeting knew about the crashed saucer--the Colonel's remark was simply to confuse historians and ufologists 50 years in the future." Another possibility, although slim, as noted by LaParl, is that this briefing was only classified SECRET, and there may have been a separate TOP SECRET investigation being kept from some if not all of the AFSAB. (There were growing fears of Soviet infiltration of the US military/scientific community at the time.) [LaParl 3/6/96]
Yet another interpretation is Air Force INCOMPETENCE--particularly the extensive and "thorough" 1994 so-called WEAVER Review, which made the Mogul Balloon theory official. Col. Richard WEAVER and company couldn't find this and the following documents, which would have bolstered the Air Force case mightily. (Or they are fiendishly clever). Another section of Col. McCOY's 1948 briefing also pretty much eliminated the possibility that Russian reconnaissance craft were the cause of the crash recovery stories, and shows Air Force Intelligence personnel at the top of their game:
"...We only have one recent item of captured equipment, which is a Russian IL-7 aircraft [a WWII-era prop-fighter like the US P-47], which crash-landed in Korea a few months ago. We first found out about it in the New York Times. (Laughter)..." [S-AFSAB 3/17-18/48, p.77]
By October 1948, Col. McCOY, in pursuit of Project SIGN, was still seeking assistance of the CIA and other agencies. In a SECRET letter to the CIA, McCOY wrote:
"This Headquarters is currently engaged in an intelligence investigation of all reported unidentified aerial phenomena. To date, no concrete evidence as to the exact identity of any of the reported objects has been received. Similarly, the origin of the so-called 'flying discs' remains obscure. The possibility exists that some of the sighted objects are of domestic origin, i.e., unrecognized configurations of some of our latest aeronautical attainments, or that they are objects not readily recognized by the public--test vehicles in various stages of development, etc." (emphasis added) [S-AMC/I 10/7?/48]
(It is interesting to note that Col. McCOY, whose office was the recipient of the Roswell crash debris in 1947, did NOT cite the MOGUL Balloon as an example of internally explainable "unrecognized configurations" or "test vehicles.")
In a 8 NOV 48 SECRET memo from AMC-Hq to the USAF Chief of Staff, entitled "Flying Object Incidents in the United States," Col. McCOY made some further observations:
"...8. The possibility that the reported objects are vehicles from another planet has not been ignored. However, tangible evidence to support conclusions about such a possibility are completely lacking. The occurrence of incidents in relation to the approach to the earth of the planets Mercury, Venus and Mars have been plotted. A periodic variation in the frequency of incidents, which appears to have some relation to the planet approach curves, is noted, but it may be purely a coincidence...
"...10...b. There is as yet no conclusive proof that unidentified flying objects, other than those which are known to be balloons, are real aircraft.
"c. Although it is obvious that some types of flying objects have been sighted, the exact nature of those objects cannot be established until physical evidence, such as that which would result from a crash, has been obtained." (emphasis added) [S-AMC/I 11/8/48]
Perhaps the most telling observation is that the USAF plotted the three nearest planets against the UFO incidents--a great waste of time if they actually had one. By the end of November 1948, Project SIGN seemed to devolve into a PR exercise as the reports made their way up the chain of command. The results of Col. McCOY's reports ended up with then-Major General Charles P. CABELL (of later CIA and JFK fame), who, as Director of Intelligence for all of the Air Force, sent out a SECRET "Air Staff Summary Sheet" to the Chief of Staff and the Secretary of the AF. The listed subject was now "Publicity on Flying Saucer Incidents:"
"...At the present time evaluation of these reports has progressed only to the extent that we must accept that some type of flying objects have been observed although their identification and origin are not yet discernible. We, therefore, conclude that insufficient data is available to date to warrant any further action except continuing attempts to determine the nature and origin of these objects. (emphasis added)
"3. There is increasing pressure on the part of the U.S. Press to publicize 'flying saucer' incidents. The Director of Intelligence, USAF, has attempted to dissuade the Press from publishing articles of this nature. It has been pointed out to the Press that these articles would necessarily be speculative in nature and would probably result in a flood of reports, making the problem of analysis and evaluation of 'flying saucer' reports increasingly difficult. Despite our efforts to limit this publicity the 'Saturday Evening Post' has directed a member of their staff, a Mr. _____ SHALLET, to write an article dealing with 'flying saucer' incidents. Mr. SHALLET has approached the Directorate of Intelligence for assistance in the preparation of this article. It is believed that an article of this nature would be less harmful to the national interests if the Directorate of Intelligence assists in its preparation." [S-ASSS/I 11/30/48]
Gen. CABELL went on to recommend that the Secretary of the Air Force approve and summit to Secretary of Defense James FORRESTAL an attached SECRET memorandum, which repeated the above, and sought authorization to "assist the Press."
MISSING NURSE
By far the most tantalizing lead remains the identification of the "missing" Roswell AAF nurse named by local mortician Glenn DENNIS. As recounted by Vic Golubic, the DENNIS story is as follows:
"Glenn recalled a happenstance encounter with sensitive activities at the the R[oswell]AAF Base Hospital in the summer of 1947. Upon entering the rear of the hospital, as he was wont to do, he bumped into a nurse friend. She and others were exiting a supply room with towels over their mouth[s], when she abruptly asked what he was doing there and warned him to leave quickly. Two nearby officers overheard this exchange and ultimately threatened Glenn with bodily harm if he were to spread news of what he had just witnessed. Glenn had just offered help, but was instead met with hostility. He presumed a plane had crashed! Being a mortician with a base contract, it was natural to make an offer of assistance...Later, Glenn met up with his nurse friend, where she relayed, in confidence, what she had witnessed. Visibly shaken, she drew pictures of the three little bodies she had seen and began drawing pictures on a napkin and also noted that other doctors had been flown in. The bodies were three and a half to four feet tall, had large heads compared with their body size, the tips of their four fingers had small suction cup-like structures, they had two small openings for a nose, two small holes for ears, slit mouths, cartilage teeth, and a flexible/pliable skull." [Golubic 2/24/97]
Glenn DENNIS recounted a similar version to me in 1994. The given name of this nurse was NAOMI SELFF [ph], who was allegedly transferred overseas immediately after this incident, and was rumored to have died in a subsequent plane crash. Vic Golubic has spent the last two years vigilantly tracking down all leads on Glenn DENNIS' nurse, from genealogical searches at the Mormon Church Family History Library to pouring over the just released 1920 US Census data. "Unfortunately for Glenn, nothing positive has emerged from documents to confirm his story. Only one other person, so far, remembers her..." Golubic's research so far seems to shrink daily the verifiability of even the existence of nurse SELFF. Vic found:
• Copies of the RAAF medical squadron Morning Reports, 10/1/46 - 12/31/47. NO MENTION is made of nurse SELFF (under any spellings.)
• Interviewed the man who prepared the Morning Reports, equally to no avail.
• Reviewed Census records, marriage records, naturalization records, WWI draft records, church records, city directory, property deeds, and voter registration cards in Minnesota and Wisconsin where DENNIS thought she was from. "NET RESULT - A family found in 1920 census that matched, as much as first names would indicate nationality [Greek], a mother with the appropriate last name who had a six-month-old child named BILLY, which fits Glenn's story [Billy would have been 27 in 1947]; however the father could not yet be identified..." NO NAOMI was listed.
• Located and interviewed two nurses who were not mentioned or depicted in the 1947 RAAF Yearbook--one stationed at the base just before July 1947 and the other just after. They remember the other nurses pictured in the yearbook, but none by the name or description of NAOMI SELFF.
• Obtained photographs of ALL 13 nurses [only 5 of whom were AAF] stationed at the base in 1947. NO NAOMI.
• Located 124,065 Cadet Nurse Corps Identification Cards, 1943-1948. Found FOUR SELFFs, but no NAOMIs or any from Minn/Wisc. "Practically all training nurses participated in this program [because] it provided badly needed financial aid," and DENNIS thought she had also participated.
• Located and interviewed the hospital commander, who did NOT recall nurse SELFF or the INCIDENT, "despite a very helpful memory." Unfortunately he died last year, but his daughter is donating his diaries to the Air Force and they can be later retrieved.
• Located five civilian women that worked in the hospital, including a woman that DENNIS refers to as Capt. WILSON. Vic has interviewed three so far, and none remember a nurse SELFF or the INCIDENT.
• Interviewed the wife of the chief surgeon (deceased), who remembered a plane crash incident, not little gray men, but has photos of various hospital parties which could prove useful. She did NOT recall a nurse SELFF.
• Interviewed three doctors from the base, who did NOT recall a nurse SELFF or the INCIDENT. "[o]ne of them said he would have been the very man who would have called Glenn about child-sized coffins, but NEVER made such a call."
• Obtained a copy of a Thanksgiving menu from November 1947 which contains all the names of military and civilian personnel at the hospital--NO nurse SELFF.
• Sent letters to all nurse licensing agencies in the US--NO SELFF yet.
• Located and interviewed approximately 20 other men/women stationed at the base--Most did not recall anything about this INCIDENT. And NO NURSE. [Golubic 2/24/97]
Vic Golubic has many other outstanding leads worthy of pursuit, which will be detailed in a later memo. Vic has all the "ordering numbers" for file film footage of the RAAF Base and environs/operations. He also has access to at least 40 photos from base hospital personnel and the 1947 RAAF Yearbook.
Some of the more vivid memories of various personnel at Roswell may very well center on at least two B-29 crashes during this period, as uncovered by Bill LaParl and Vic Golubic. Extensive details can be provided. [LaParl 4/15/97; Golubic 2/24/97]
BALLOON MEMORIES
Kent Jeffrey is the acknowledged expert on Jesse MARCEL, the USAAF major and base intelligence officer who in 1947 recovered the "not of this earth" material from the BRAZEL ranch. As Kent has noted elsewhere, Jesse MARCEL was later contradicted by Army CIC officer Sheridan CAVIT (who I interviewed briefly in 1994), who had accompanied MARCEL out to the scene of the crash. "CAVIT stated that he immediately recognized the debris--dried up rubber, balsa wood sticks, reflective foil, etc.--as being that from a weather balloon." [Jeffrey 9/96]
As Kent further notes, "Major MARCEL stopped by his house on his way back to the base and laid the debris out on the kitchen floor to show his wife and [then-11 year old] son, Jesse MARCEL Jr. [who] got a good look at the controversial debris." So earlier this year, Kent, through the recommendation of our old FBI friend Clint VAN ZANDT, contacted Dr. Neil HIBLER clinical psychologist "and one of the world's leading experts in the use of hypnotic regression for forensic purposes."
According to Kent's 6-hour VIDEOTAPED session with Jesse JR. and Dr. HIBLER:
"Dr. HIBLER had Jesse go through the entire story both with and without the aid of hypnosis. The hypnosis did not bring out anything dramatically new, but served more to 'fine tune' Jesse's conscious memories of the event. This aspect is important because it eliminates confabulation or false memory syndrome as a factor...
"Instead of providing new hope, the outcome of the session in Washington, DC, was, for me, the final coffin of the Roswell crashed saucer hypothesis. The bottom line is that the material recovered from the Foster ranch outside of Roswell in 1947 was extremely mundane.
"The material consisted primarily of pieces of metallic foil, a few short beams or sticks, and a few pieces of a plastic substance. Certainly, such mundane debris would not constitute wreckage from any kind of sophisticated vehicle or craft, much less one capable of interstellar travel. There were no artifacts representative of a super-advanced technological device--no remnants of motors, servos, a propulsion system, a guidance system, instruments, controls, etc.--nothing. Even the debris from a two-thousand-year-old Roman Chariot would be more interesting and varied than the debris that was laid out on the MARCEL kitchen floor...
"Furthermore, in addition to being mundane, the material recovered from the Foster [Brazel] ranch is, for the most part, reconcilable with the debris from an ML-307 radar reflector--the length and cross-sectional size of the beams or sticks, the pieces of foil, the light weight, etc. Even the color of the 'symbols' that Jesse JR. remembers and the color of the flowers on the reinforcing tape [used on the MOGUL Balloon] that Irving NEWTON and Charles MOORE remember is almost a perfect match." [Jeffrey 3/10/97]
How Maj. MARCEL and Col. Butch BLANCHARD could mistake balloon debris, even highly-classified balloon debris, as a flying saucer, while a ground-based ARMY Counterintelligence Lt. 'immediately' identified it as such, is still a mystery. But as Kent notes, "if you eliminate the original source of a story, subsequent corroborative testimony doesn't really count for much."
509TH PILOTS DISAGREE
Other investigation done by Kent Jeffrey does not bode well for the Roswell flying disc crash hypothesis. Kent's father was an USAF fighter pilot, and Kent himself flies for Delta Airlines. "Upon attending the reunion of the 509th Bomb Group...last September, I spoke with several of the pilots who were at Roswell in 1947 and was told, in no uncertain terms, that the crashed saucer event never occurred, period. These pilots pointed out that the 509th was a very close-knit group [the only atomic bomber group in existence at the time], and that there was no way an event as spectacular as the recovery of a crashed space ship from another world could have happened at the base without them having known about it. Despite the fact that they, individually, may not have been directly involved with the recovery operation and despite the pervasiveness of the 'need to know' philosophy in the military, these men maintained that there was no way that something of such magnitude and so earthshaking would not have been communicated amongst the members of the group--especially within the inner circle of the upper echelon of B-29 command pilots--all of whom had top-secret clearances." [Jeffrey 3/10/97]
SANTILLI FILM
Some of the best work done on the subject to date has been done by Kent Jeffrey and Rebecca Schatte. It should be noted that ABC 20/20 has been filming a Santilli film story, but about the Santilli film only. Apparently a possible seam has been discovered on the dummy by an SF/FX specialist.
Jeffrey found three of the top military photographers from the period who totally trash the film. The highlights from his 1996 MUFON Journal story are as follows:
• "Problems with the alleged body and autopsy procedures are noted by leading medical experts.
• When polled, special-effects artists unanimously believed the body to be a special-effects dummy.
• False claims have been made by Santilli concerning authentication of the alleged original film.
• A mysterious 'collector' cited by Santilli as the reason for the film's unavailability is a business partner of Santilli's.
• 'Security markings' disappeared from the film after being labeled phony by military experts.
• 'Hieroglyphics' on the supposed debris spell out two slightly disguised English words.
• Santilli changed his story about how he acquired the film after he was caught in a gross 'inconsistency' on a French TV program.
• Three highly qualified former WWII military cameramen have pointed out major flaws in both the film itself and the story surrounding it." [Jeffrey-MUFON Journal 3/96]
Numerous other sources can point out additional flaws in this specious hoax.
LOOSE ENDS
(TK)--There is still the possibility that something from another planet crashed, but not at Roswell in July 1947.
President CARTER.
Senator GOLDWATER and his friend Gen. BLANCHARD.
President REAGAN.
"The wife of the chief surgeon and another doctor do recall the husband/surgeon making a midnight trip to the mountains west of Roswell [around] the summer of 1947." [Golubic 2/24/97]
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