The Roswell UFO: Hiatus Or Change?

If you are a regular follower of Kevin Randle’s “A Different Perspective” blog, you’ll know that he has recently posted a few new articles on Roswell. One is on the controversy concerning the so-called “Roswell Slides” – which are actually nothing of the sort. And everyone knows that. A second was on the matter of the size of the debris field on the Foster Ranch, Lincoln County, New Mexico, where the wreckage of “it” (whatever “it” may have been) was found. And the third new article from Kevin deals with a military man who suspected that what came down was an aircraft. And, if you are a regular reader of Rich Reynolds’ UFO Conjecture(s) blog, you’ll know that Rich feels Ufology may be on its last legs, and that endless debate about Roswell is pointless and cannot lead anywhere. All of which brings me to the matter of this article.

As much as I recognize Kevin’s enthusiasm for solving Roswell, I have to say that endlessly debating every tiny detail, repeatedly scrutinizing every single word spoken by those on-site, and trying to figure out the size of the debris field does not – and never will – provide answers to what really happened a few hours’ drive outside of Roswell in the summer of 1947. Here’s what I mean: the Air Force believes that what came down on the Foster Ranch was neither a weather-balloon nor a UFO, but a Mogul balloon. Now, if a debate about the size of the debris-field suggests it wasn’t a Mogul balloon or a weather-balloon…well… that’s all it achieves. And it’s all that such a debate can achieve.

It’s very much the same with the crash-test dummies that the Air Force concludes were responsible for the stories of “alien bodies" found on the ranch. Proving that the CTD program wasn’t even up and running in 1947 is interesting. Very interesting. But does it help us to understand what the bodies were? No. It does not. Demonstrating that an aircraft wasn’t the culprit sheds no light on what it really was either.

So, here’s the problem: when Roswell research began in the mid-1970s there were plenty of people from that long-gone year of 1947 who were still around and who were either directly or indirectly involved. And many of them were interviewed, such as Jesse Marcel and extremely-close-mouthed Sheridan Cavitt. Those interviews continued through the 1980s and 1990s – as well as into the 2000s. But now, in 2015, there’s practically no-one left. And that’s precisely why the Roswell research community is, today, reduced to looking back at all the old testimony and data – because there’s no way to move forward with Roswell. And that’s a big problem.

In my personal opinion, something significant happened at Roswell. Something very significant. What it was – nearly seventy years later – is anyone’s guess. I don’t know. You don’t know. The Government Accountability Office (which used to be called the General Accounting Office) went looking for answers in the early-to-mid 1990s. They got nowhere. And, as people who have read my previous articles on Roswell will know, I don’t think the Air Force lied when it presented its Mogul Balloon and crash-test dummy scenarios in 1994 and 1997. I think the USAF of the day was as baffled as we are. They probably still are baffled, but felt the onus was on them to present at least something.

So, all of this suggests the Roswell secret is in lock-down mode and probably has been since 1947. It’s – so far – completely and utterly impenetrable. It defies the inquiries and investigations of the USAF and the GAO. The UFO community cannot take things beyond witness testimony – and most of those who provided it have by now croaked. Someone knows, I’m sure. And that’s what we should be focusing on: trying to find that someone, or the project, that still ensures the truth of Roswell remains hidden.

We can debate the size of the debris field until we are blue in the face. We can endlessly argue about whether four or five bodies were found. And we can scrutinize the so-called “Ramey memo” time and again, as we try and figure out if it really does refer to “victims of the wreck.” So what? Will any of this open the door to what actually happened? No. It will just add to the suspicion we haven’t been told the true and full story. I freely admit I haven’t a clue how we get beyond where we are now. But I do know that endlessly writing about why Mogul doesn’t work is pointless. UFO researchers were doing that back in 1995 - 20 years ago! Give it a rest. Lecturing on how the crash-test-dummies (of the type the USAF said were the culprits) weren’t around in ’47 is a waste of time too. It just raises suspicions about what we haven’t been told. Which is a very different thing to actually progressing the case and achieving something.

The Roswell research community can do one of three things: (a) it can wallow in the past (as it pretty much is now) and endlessly go over old ground and old testimony; (b) it can go on hiatus until something genuinely new and ground-breaking surfaces (which is a good idea for now); or (c) it can put its collective head together and try and think of a new, radical and very different way to find the answers to Roswell. What might that new, radical and different way be? That’s the big question.

As for the answer, well the Roswellians had better find it, if they want to even come close to opening the doors to the vaults, the bunkers, or wherever the material evidence is held. If they don’t look for an alternative approach to answers then Roswell research really will become nothing more than an exercise in nostalgia. It’s practically that already.