1.8 Alien Encounters: The Roswell Incident & the Cover-Up

The Roswell Incident

Extracted from the Wikipedia article.

On July 8, 1947 the Army Air Field in Roswell, New Mexico issued a press release stating that personnel from the field's famed 509th Bomb Group (the Army Air Corps' new nuclear wing) had recovered a crashed “flying disc” from a nearby ranch. This sparked immediate intense public interest. Later in the same day General Roger Ramey, Eighth Air Force Commanding General, stated that in fact a weather balloon had been recovered by base personnel, rather than a “flying disc.” A subsequent press conference was called, featuring debris said to be from the crashed object that seemed to confirm the weather balloon description. The case was quickly forgotten and almost completely ignored, even by UFO researchers, for some 30 years. Later, in 1978, ufologist Stanton T. Friedman interviewed former U.S. Army officer Major Jesse Marcel, who was involved with the original recovery of the debris in 1947. Marcel expressed his belief that the military had covered up the recovery of an alien spacecraft. Marcel's story circled through UFO circles, being featured in some UFO documentaries of the time. In February 1980 the supermarket tabloid National Enquirer ran its own interview with Marcel, garnering national and worldwide attention for what has since become known as the Roswell Incident.

Additional witnesses and reports concerning the Roswell Incident emerged in the following years. They added significant new details, including claims of a large military operation dedicated to recovering alien craft and even the aliens themselves. The number of downed craft went up to 2 and 11 “crash sites” with corresponding debris fields were also claimed. Consistent with these new tales were reports of alleged witness intimidation by both the military and civilian government personnel involved with the recovery operation. In 1989 former Roswell mortician Glenn Dennis released a detailed personal account of his own purported involvement, in which he claimed that he witnessed alien autopsies being carried out at the Roswell military airfield.

In response to these new reports and a formal congressional inquiry the General Accounting Office launched an inquiry into the Roswell Incident. The Secretary of the Air Force was ordered to conduct a full investigation of the matter. The results of this investigation were summarized in two reports. The first, released in 1995, concluded that the reported recovered material was most likely debris from the military's own Project Mogul high-altitude balloon project. The second report, released in 1997, claimed that the alien bodies supposedly seen at the Roswell military airfield were most likely “transformed memories of military accidents involving injured or killed personnel, and the recovery of anthropomorphic dummies in military programs like Project High Dive conducted in the 1950s.” The psychological effects of time compression and confusion about when these events occurred supposedly explained the discrepancy of the years in question. These two reports were immediately dismissed by UFO proponents as being either disinformation or simply implausible. Even so, a significant number of serious UFO researchers now discount the probability that an alien craft was in fact involved in the Roswell Incident.

General Arthur E. Exon, an Army officer stationed at Wright-Patterson AFB in the 1950s (where the Roswell debris supposedly wound up), claimed that there was a shadowy group that he called the Unholy Thirteen who controlled the recovery effort and had access to whatever was recovered:

In the '55 time period there was also the story that whatever happened, whatever was found at Roswell was still closely held and probably would be until these fellows I mentioned had died so they wouldn't be embarrassed or they wouldn't have to explain why they covered it up … until the original thirteen died off and I don't think anyone is going to release anything [until] the last one's gone.

In November 2005 an anonymous source claiming to be part of a high level group within the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) began releasing information about the previously unknown Project Serpo. This allegedly confirms that in July 1947 there were two extraterrestrial UFOs that crashed in the state of New Mexico and that this is the same as the Roswell Incident. This source also claims that at least one alien survived the crash, living for five more terrestrial years before dying in 1952.

UFO Over Omaha

From UFOs: The Real Star Trekkers by Alan Isodore (Terra: Doubleday Press, 1995).

Picture if you will a modern naval aircraft carrier a thousand feet long and many, many tons in weight. Big, isn't it? About the size of thirty downtown blocks in any major city you care to choose. Now imagine that same aircraft carrier hanging in the sky over the Nebraska cornfields approximately two miles up in the air. Hard to believe, isn't it? It's true, though. It really happened. The government doesn't want you to believe it. The military sure as hell doesn't want you to believe it. I do. I saw it with my own eyes, just like hundreds of other people did, just like hundreds of others who got their homes ransacked by the Men In Black making off with cameras, photos, film, anything that might have an image of that mysterious thousand-foot ship in the sky back in 1969. They didn't get all of the pictures, though. Some have survived. The best are printed in this book. You be the judge and decide whether or not this UFO was real.

On July 14, 1969, at precisely 2:06 PM air traffic controllers in Omaha were startled to see a large blip suddenly materialize on their radar screens. It was way too large to be an airplane and the Navy was not operating any airships in the area. At first it was suggested that it was a large meteor coming straight down from space – a near-physical impossibility, but nobody was going to say those nasty three little letters “U.F.O.” Only air traffic controller Keenon Martin had the courage to call Omaha AFB and alert them to the situation. He was bluntly informed that “it was a military matter” and that the Air Force would handle it.

The intruder was large enough despite the altitude to be seen from the ground. Mary Hastings, who lived with her parents as a child not far from the Omaha AFB north gate, remembers playing in her yard when she heard what sounded like a loud clap of thunder. Thinking it was a sonic boom from an Air Force jet she looked up to see if she could tell what it was. What she saw was completely unexpected.

I saw this shining thing just hanging in the sky up past the contrails. At first I thought it might be a weather balloon or something, so I ran in the house and got my dad's binoculars. Once I looked with those I knew it wasn't a balloon. It was big – God, it was big. It had a saucer in front and two long sticks hanging out the back. It just hung there, like it was hurt or something. I remember thinking if the boom I heard might have been a missile shot at it. Project Blue Book was all the rage then, you know. Maybe the Air Force finally had themselves a real UFO.

The intruder remained motionless in the sky for eleven minutes. This was more than enough time for Omaha AFB to scramble its ready fighters for intercept. At 2:12 PM a flight of four F-104C Starfighters roared off the main runway at Omaha AFB and immediately went vertical. Their mission was obvious to those of us watching: intercept and down the intruder. The flight was commanded by Captain John Christopher, a Vietnam veteran and one of the base's crack pilots. Accompanying him on the scramble were fellow squadron members Captain Edward Crane, Captain Douglas DeSoto, and Lieutenant A.D. Spencer.

According to the flight transcript, which had to be obtained through multiple FOIA requests and is only available in redacted form, at 2:14 PM Christopher's flight had closed enough to make out visual details on the intruder. He described it as a mammoth craft the size of a ship, with a saucer-shaped forward section, two cylindrical projections to the rear and one underneath. He also reported that the craft appeared to be crippled but was beginning to move under its own power. At this point Omaha ordered Christopher to shoot down the intruder. Even as Christopher responded the intruder put on an amazing burst of speed and began to ascend rapidly up through the atmosphere. Christopher immediately went vertical again, firing his afterburners in a futile effort to get a radar lock on the intruder before it escaped him.

What happened next is still a mystery. Civilian ground observers swear they saw Christopher's plane get caught in some kind of beam from the intruder for a few seconds, held motionless, then let go. At the precise moment the beam cut off the intruder disappeared both from sight and civilian radar track. His story, which he has since shared with the author, remained the same throughout.

It was moving fast, but not fast enough to escape radar lock. Just a few seconds more and I would be able to carry out my orders. That's when, and this is hard to describe, everything just seemed to freeze for a split second. Images flashed before my eyes. My plane breaking up. Me being pulled aboard the UFO. A room. Voices? No, couldn't be. I was hallucinating. I had never left my plane. I was still sitting in the pilot's seat streaking upward and the UFO was gone. Vanished like it never existed. I reported in that the UFO was gone and I was returning to base.

The Air Force eventually claimed that the intruder had never been real. It was an atmospheric distortion caused by a low flying, ice heavy cloud that caused “a shimmer in the sky” as it passed overhead. Christopher and his flight were sworn to secrecy for the remainder of their active military service.

The Cover-Up Continues

Bart Dell interviews Dr. Hogan Richman, as interviewed on Coast-to-Coast AM, 23 November 1996.

Dr. Hogan Richman was a longtime regular guest of this popular Terran radio show of the day. The former NASA consultant had called in that night to discuss an unusual discrepancy concerning the return of Mars Probe One.

DELL: Are you there, Dr. Richman?

RICHMAN: Right here, Bart.

DELL: Welcome to the program, Doctor. I had a feeling you'd be calling in tonight.

RICHMAN: Now whatever gave you that idea?

DELL: Does it have something to do with today's return of the Kennedy from Mars?

RICHMAN: Right the first time.

DELL: Doctor, this press release … what do you make of it?

RICHMAN: As you know, I'm a scientist, so I'm looking at this as a scientist would. We spend billions and billions of dollars, investing years and untold manhours into the most advanced spacecraft of our time, the ship that's finally going to put man on Mars and answer all of these doggone questions that's been plaguing us ever since Viking, and Mars Global Surveyor, and what do they find? Rocks and dirt?! You've got to be kidding me.

DELL: Do you think they visited Cydonia?

RICHMAN: They say they didn't.

DELL: Do you believe them?

RICHMAN: Do you?

DELL: Noooooo ...

RICHMAN: There you go.

DELL: What do you say?

RICHMAN: There's a singular discrepancy about all of this that just reeks of conspiracy.

DELL: What do you mean?

RICHMAN: Well, some of my friends in UESPA have gotten me some of the mission data on the John Carter just before it took off to return to space and there's something awfully peculiar about it.

DELL: Such as?

RICHMAN: When the John Carter got ready to take off from Mars – that's the lander, folks, the little ship that actually touched down on the surface – they reported a fuel shortage problem. Remember that?

DELL: Yes, I remember that.

RICHMAN: They reported they had burned too much fuel on landing and wouldn't have enough to take back off again without a margin of error.

DELL: Uh-huh.

RICHMAN: They spent two more days going through the ship stripping out everything that wasn't mission critical so they'd lose enough weight to regain their safety margin.

DELL: Why a safety margin, Dr. Richman?

RICHMAN: In case they have to abort during takeoff. As long as they're below a set altitude they'll still have enough fuel to attempt to land again.

DELL: Makes perfect sense.

RICHMAN: Yes it does – on the surface, anyway. That's what's so odd about this.

DELL: What do you mean?

RICHMAN: They landed with more than enough fuel for a safety margin. Follow me, folks. I've got UESPA's actual landing report posted on the Enterprise Mission website – just follow the link on Bart's page – and you'll want to scroll down until you see the Mars Probe One banner. Look for the “John Carter Touchdown Report” and read it.

DELL: I'm looking at it right now, Doctor, and all I see are a bunch of numbers.

RICHMAN: What you're looking for is the last entry, which is the touchdown entry, and go to the column marked FSF – that's Fuel Safety Factor. Now compare that with the number they gave in the press briefing right before takeoff from Mars.

DELL: Just a … I see it. Well, now! How about that?!

RICHMAN: Now ask yourself, Bart, and all of you folks listening in tonight. Why should that number change when the John Carter is sitting still on the surface from touchdown until liftoff? They didn't go anywhere. They didn't report any fuel leaks. Why should it change so drastically right before takeoff and right after they got back from their last rover mission?

DELL: Why, Dr. Richman?

RICHMAN: The ship had too much mass. It was too heavy. Between the time they landed and the time they took off that ship put on some serious weight.

DELL: But weren't they going to take back some soil samples or something?

RICHMAN: Yes, but you've got to work the math. Better yet, I've worked it for you. Just scroll on down my web page and look at the next set of numbers. They show the weight of the John Carter, the minimum amount of fuel it needs for takeoff, and the fuel safety margin UESPA wants the ship to have. If you do the math, like I have, you'll discover that this little lander, the John Carter, this little metal speck on the surface of a big Red Planet, put on about a full metric ton bef—

DELL: A TON?!

RICHMAN: That's a lot of Mars rocks, isn't it Bart? You want to know how many Moon rocks we brought back during all of Apollo?

DELL: How much?

RICHMAN: 841 pounds from ALL SEVEN moon missions.

DELL: How the hell did that ship gain a ton in weight?

RICHMAN: There's only one answer I can think of.

DELL: They found something.

RICHMAN: Occam's Razor, Bart. The simplest answer is probably the correct one. Where was there something to find?

DELL: Cydonia.

RICHMAN: Bingo. Cydonia was within easy reach of their rovers. Now you're going to tell me they didn't go there? That they brought back a metric ton of rocks and dirt instead of something else?!

DELL: That's not what UESPA's going to say.

RICHMAN: Bart, I'm almost willing to lay you odds that even as we speak there's a big gravel truck pulling up behind UESPA Headquarters at the Cape. Some of those nice red Arizona mesa rocks you and I know very well. They're going to be hard put to explain this one. I can't wait to hear how they're going to talk their way out of THIS.

DELL: (laughs) And neither can I. There you have it folks. The greatest mystery of our time keeps getting deeper and deeper. We've got a hard break coming up but after that, we'll spend some more time with Dr. Richman and try to find out just what really UESPA is doing on Mars. A ton?!? Coast to Coast AM … back in a moment.