The Post-Second World War Period and Secret Experiments: Sometimes a UFO is a Classified Craft of Us

Now, it’s time for us to make a few, final observations on the Roswell affair. For the last few decades, Roswell has been Ufology’s number-one case. It’s a field of research that is always looking for proof that UFOs exist. And, by proof, I mean hard, solid evidence that can be examined and studied – if, of course, “they” would only “tell us the truth.” As I write this, seventy years have gone by since Kenneth Arnold kicked off the flying saucer controversy – after encountering a squadron of unidentified aerial vehicles near Mt. Rainier, Washington State. And, although we have masses of material, eye-witness testimony, photos, declassified files, etc., the fact is that we still don’t have hard evidence of – or definitive answers for – what UFOs actually are. Roswell, however, UFO researchers say, theoretically offers us those answers. If only, that is, we could uncover the bodies, the wreckage, the old files, and so on. And presuming, of course, that Roswell was an alien event and not something else. Such as something down-to-earth and which still has to remain hidden at all costs.

The fact is that Ufology is not just seeking hard, undeniable proof that UFOs exist. Much of Ufology is desperate to find pro-E.T. evidence for Roswell, chiefly so that all those decades of research won’t be seen as a waste of time. Those UFO researchers now in their sixties, seventies and eighties are faced with meeting the Grim Reaper before they get to see the doors to the “secret Roswell hangar” opened wide.  For those researchers, the answers have to come, before it’s all too late. And they have to come soon. Roswell is to them what Moby Dick was to Captain Ahab. So, for those who conclude that aliens crashed back in July 1947, the Roswell affair – with its large number of first-, second-, and third-hand witnesses, and with the government having changed its stance on what happened more than a couple of times – is the one that could really tip the scales. And, with the scales tipped, the world would know that the UFO community was right all along and it was all worth it. All thanks to Roswell.

There’s very little doubt in my mind that when Ufologists see the word “Roswell” prominently referenced in a new online article, there’s an immediate sense of “Maybe, this time, we really have it nailed.” I saw just such a thing happen when the fiasco known as “the Roswell Slides” surfaced a few years back. For those who don’t know the pathetic saga, it revolves around a photograph of a mummified child which was, for a while, touted as one of the bodies from the Roswell crash. The whole thing was an embarrassment, one that is best forgotten. There’s another reason why Roswell is so important, but from a very different perspective. It gets to the crux of this article. If, one day, Roswell is conclusively proven not to have been an extraterrestrial event – maybe, instead, some dark and murky domestic experiment of the kinds detailed in this article– then I firmly believe that the UFO community will have a collective breakdown / meltdown of epic proportions and from which it will never recover. Shaking knees, breathing slowly into paper bags, stomach ulcers, antidepressants, and uncontrollable bladders will be commonplace. Don’t even get me started on out-of-control bowel movements.

In that sense, Ufology is desperate to see Roswell confirmed as an extraterrestrial event. Ufology can barely consider Roswell as anything else. For so many, such a situation is utterly unthinkable. So, again, whenever Roswell pops up – and particularly so amid rumors that “something big” is coming – there is a dire and pressing need, and a desperate yearning, for something tangible. So, everyone clicks on the link, praying for the definitive breakthrough that has consistently failed to surface; the breakthrough that only “St. Roswell” can (maybe) deliver into Ufology’s eager hands. Roswell has been elevated and championed as an E.T. event to such an incredible degree that it can – single-handedly – completely make or break Ufology. Forever. However you look at the case – and whatever your personal opinion on what happened in ’47 on the Foster Ranch – that’s why the incident remains so incredibly important. My personal view is that for Ufology it will be break and not make. Here’s why…

Despite the words of the naysayers, and those who hope and pray I am wrong, the fact is there exists a large body of material that strongly supports the “secret experiment” theory. Such was the controversial and incriminating nature of the files and the experiments, they were buried decades ago – and they remain buried. Or, maybe, as I have suggested, all of that same incriminating data has been relegated to the furnace and the shredder. But, that doesn’t prevent a case from being made. Although pro-UFO researchers and investigators make a big fuss about the discoveries on the Foster Ranch, they seldom highlight the fact that, prior to the events of early July 1947, rancher Mack Brazel found the remains of two weather-balloons on the property. That is an important thing to note, as is this: there is no doubt that much of the material scooped up by Brazel was very balloon-like. And, we know that balloons had fallen on the ranch previously. Military balloons. Twice. If that doesn’t strike you as being notable, well, it sure as shit should. Also, recall the words of Sue Farnsworth. She said: “We were used to finding ‘funny things’ from White Sands on our ranch all the time, but this was clearly something different judging by the military reaction.”

In light of all this, few can deny that military devices – of varying degrees of secrecy – were dropping from the skies over New Mexico, in the late 1940s. Let’s see what else is on the table. Also in 1947, we have the following, found in FBI files declassified under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act: “Special Agent S. W. Reynolds of the Liaison Section, while discussing the above captioned phenomena with Lieutenant Colonel Garrett of the Air Forces Intelligence, expressed the possibility that flying discs were, in fact, a very highly classified experiment of the Army or Navy [italics mine]. Mr. Reynolds was very much surprised when Colonel Garrett not only agreed that this was a possibility, but confidentially stated it was his personal opinion that such was a probability. Colonel Garrett indicated that a Mr. [name deleted], who is a scientist attached to the Air Forces Intelligence, was of the same opinion.” Moving onto 1949, there is the highly intriguing theory of the staff at Fort Detrick (at the time, Camp Detrick) that, in the final year of the Second World War, 1945, a Japanese Fugo balloon came down in Lincoln County and unleashed a deadly cargo of plague-infected insects – such as fleas – and which eventually took hold, leading to the unfortunate death of the young boy at Fort Stanton, four years later. Fort Stanton being a place that plays a major role in this whole story and which, at various times, held Japanese “enemy aliens” and handicapped people. It’s a facility located hardly any distance at all from where Brazel made his discovery.

Onto the early 1950s, we have the shocking Sunshine program and its outrageous activities relative to body-snatching and highly controversial human experimentation. As for the 1960s, specifically 1969, we have the testimony of the family of Melvin Brown, who, while stationed at the Roswell Army Air Field in 1947, briefly saw the Roswell bodies and told his wife and children that they could have “passed for Chinese” and looked Asian. Alien “Grays” they were not. From the 1970s, there are the recollections of John A. Price. In a nearby town, Hagerman, he encountered a group of unusual children: all roughly four- to four-and-a-half-feet in height, with large and hairless heads and tiny noses and ears. In the following decade, one of Price’s sources told him of people with strange appearances held at Fort Stanton: “There were some pretty deformed young men there, several of which could be of alien nature. We only went by what we were told; please don’t tell anyone. Mongoloid large heads, small ears, pin heads who could function and had shrill voices. They were supposed to be of incest, but from their looks – Outer-space.” There was also an engineer, Robert Betz. Price said of Betz’s views on the Foster Ranch incident that: “Robert was convinced that the Roswell crash could be explained away as a top secret project of flying saucer design and that the bodies were midgets.”

Now, let’s move into the 1990s, when things really started to heat up. In 1991, Leonard Stringfield published an account of strange bodies secretly flown to Los Alamos from late 1945 to 1947. From where? The rumor was Japan. They were small corpses, with oversized heads and large eyes. Their skin was severely burned – as if they had been in some kind of accident. Nurse Marian Ehart grudgingly confirmed that she knew something of this story – but preferred not to say too much about it, beyond confirming the basic data. In this same time frame, and through 1993, John Keel was pursuing the Japanese connection to Roswell. Keel said:  “If such a project was launched, they would have selected the smallest, lightest volunteers available...It is also likely they might have expired during the trip...their complexions would have been very odd, discolored by the cold…If even one such volunteer balloonist attempted the trip and crashed, we would have the answer to all those rumors and legends which persist to this day.”

In 1997, which was Roswell’s 50th anniversary, two interesting, and relevant, developments surfaced. One was the publication of Philip Corso’s book, The Day after Roswell, a book filled with controversy. Particularly notable is the fact that Corso was good friends with Major General Charles Willoughby, a central character in the secret program to get Japan’s Unit 731 files into the hands of the United States’ military. Also in 1997, Popular Mechanics magazine revealed that its staff had been tipped off to a forthcoming release of documents that would reveal the Japanese link to Roswell. As it happens, such files did not surface. That the magazine was given the story, however, suggests that behind the scenes someone in government wanted the story put into the public domain - even though they were thwarted from doing so. Or, maybe, they backed off due to fear and possible consequences of the deadly type. Both scenarios are equally plausible. Between 2001 and 2004, I interviewed the people who provided the material that appeared in my Body Snatchers in the Desert book. Also in 2004, the original, printed manuscript of my book vanished from the offices of Simon & Schuster in New York – something which provoked a great deal of debate and concern. Months after the book was published, in the summer of 2005, Australian UFO authority, Keith Basterfield, revealed he had secured testimony from an Australian source who told him a near-identical story. Handicapped people, gigantic balloons, and secret projects – all of the key ingredients were there. 

The year 2005 was also revealing for two other reasons: (a) the “coincidence” of my book being published on June 21, 2005, and the fact that this was the very same day the Nazi War Criminal Records Interagency Working Group began addressing further wartime Japanese war crimes, including those of Unit 731, and (b) that twenty-four hours later, I was contacted by a representative of the IWG, and who specifically expressed interest in my Body Snatchers in the Desert book. Then, in 2007, there were the revelations concerning acclaimed cinema legend Billy Wilder, Roswell, psychological warfare operations, and the 1970 movie, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes – all of which suggested that, while working with psy-op staff, Wilder learned at least something about Roswell. Maybe more than we will ever know. Kathy Kasten’s voluminous files, which I received in 2012, and that I carefully studied in 2013 and 2014, added much more to the issue of the role that Fort Stanton played in the Roswell event, and introduced us to the secret role of William Randolph Lovelace II. Both 2015 and 2016 revealed more on the “victims of the wreck” controversy, as it relates to what has become known as the “Ramey Memo.” And, you have seen my argument on the “victims” angle. Aliens? Nope. And, which pretty much brings us up to date. If one puts all of these threads, sources, leads, and data together – which span from 1947 to 2016 - what one gets is a picture that is far from pretty. The picture is actually just about as bleak and terrible as it could possibly be.

As this story now comes to a close, I will leave you with one final thing to ponder on. There is one very important issue that few people ever think about when it comes to the Foster Ranch crash. It does, however, get right to the very heart of the incident and what did or did not happen. If the debris, and possibly bodies and craft, recovered outside of Roswell, New Mexico in the summer of 1947 had extra-terrestrial origins, then why did the aliens’ comrades fail to attempt to recover the priceless materials before elements of the U.S. military appeared on the scene? After all, even a cursory study of UFO history reveals that aliens are supposedly able to walk through walls, abduct people against their will and then return them to their homes without being caught in the act, steal and / or mutilate cattle right under the noses of outraged farmers, and traverse the universe. They are even said to have snatched military and private aircraft in flight – planes that were never seen again. Neither were their crews. So, in light of all their incredible skills, why weren’t the assumed aliens able to scoop up a few bodies and a bunch of scattered debris from an isolated ranch in New Mexico? It’s hardly as if everything took place in Times Square with thousands of amazed onlookers crowding around.

This question is echoed by film-maker Paul Kimball: “...surely they would have moved to recover any crashed excursion module as quickly as possible, a process which, considering the advanced technology that the aliens must possess in order to get ‘here’ from ‘there’ is something that they would have accomplished before Mack Brazel discovered the debris field and then alerted the military, even if that involved simply disintegrating the debris field so as to leave no trace behind of the crash.If E.T.s did crash, then a number of possibilities spring to mind:

The aliens wanted to introduce themselves to us in the form of a staged-crash, and as vulnerable, mortal beings, to whom we could possibly relate, and without being confronted by infinitely advanced intelligences that might blow our minds.
The event was the result of a “Trojan Horse”-style scenario - also staged by the other-worldly ones, but for far more sinister purposes, such as perhaps attempting to expose us to deadly alien viruses, but in a seemingly innocent and accidental fashion.
The aliens, far away from home, may not actually have been too far in advance of us - perhaps a century or so - and simply didn’t have the adequate resources and reserves at-hand to engage in a hasty retrieval. Possible, though the evidence suggests the true UFO phenomenon is millennia in front of us – probably more. There is, of course, another theory. It’s a far more probable one. Aliens didn’t try and recover the Roswell wreckage because…what happened at Roswell didn’t involve aliens…