Demolishing the Roswell `Alien' Myth
Klass's previous books include UFOs: The Public Deceived and UFO
Abductions: A Dangerous Game, both published by Prometheus books. He has
spent over thirty years investigating famous UFO incidents, hoping to
find credible, scientific evidence of extraterrestrial visitors. He
currently publishes the Skeptics UFO Newsletter (SUN), and is a Fellow
of CSICOP and chair of its UFO Subcommittee. Klass, in short, is well
qualified to separate the truths from the myths about the alleged
Roswell crashed saucer. Through impartial research and meticulous
documentation, Phil Klass has written the definitive book on the Roswell
myth.
Klass starts off with contemporary accounts from 1947 -- cold, hard
facts that are not subject to the whims of memory. He details the UFO
"craze" that swept the country in the summer of 1947, the Army
Air Force announcement of the capture of a "flying disk," and
the explanation of the find as weather balloons and radar targets.
Nowadays, UFO promoters maintain that the announcement of the "flying
disk" came from high up the command -- Col. Blanchard himself.
(And, of course, top brass wouldn't have been fooled by a
"balloon.") But original reports indicate that the
"disk" claim came from the intelligence office at the Roswell
Army Air Force base -- namely, one man, Major Jesse A. Marcel.
After its correct identification as weather equipment, the Roswell event
drew no attention for decades. Klass details how both leading UFO groups
(NICAP and APRO) did not even mention Roswell in their lists of "most
important UFO cases" submitted for the Condon Report in 1966.
Details of Marcel's earliest Roswell interviews, in February 1978, are
provided by Klass. Marcel did not save any news clippings from this
"historic" encounter; he couldn't even remember what year the
incident took place.
Klass describes, and demolishes, the accounts of the long string of
witnesses who waited decades before coming forward to claim their 15
minutes of fame: Grady Barnett, Glenn Dennis, Walter Haut, Gerald
Anderson, Jim Ragsdale, Frank Kaufmann, Frankie Rowe, Col. Thomas
Dubose, and more. Page 105 lists the wildly different estimates of the
numbers of alien bodies (three living; three dead; four dead/one living;
three dead; one living; and, one dead). The search for mortician Glenn
Dennis's "missing nurse" (Naomi Marie Selff) is detailed, along
with strong evidence that she never existed. Witness Anderson's diary
copying and phone-record tampering severely damage his credibility.
Klass takes on all of the major pro-Roswell authors as well: Stanton
Friedman, William Moore, Kevin Randle, Donald Schmitt, and others. He
clearly documents how Friedman, Randle, and Schmitt all have changed the
day rancher Brazel brought the debris into Roswell from Monday, July 7
(the actual day), to Sunday, July 6. They did so because that's the only
way they could reconcile events with witness Dubose's testimony that the
famous photographs of the debris in General Ramey's office were taken at
least two days after the debris was supposedly flown from Roswell to
Fort Worth. (In actuality, the pictures were taken the same afternoon as
the flight). Original reports, and Brazel's comments that he came to
Roswell to sell wool, clearly show that he did not go into town on the
last day of a (then) rare three-day weekend. Klass also describes how
author Donald Schmitt was caught faking his credentials.
The book also turns to UFO researcher Robert Todd's discovery of the
connection of the debris to New York University experiments performed in
support of secret project Mogul, and the further evidence for this
explanation developed by physicist/balloonist Charles B. Moore, UFO
author Karl Pflock, and by the United States Air Force. The General
Accounting Office report was portrayed by New Mexico Congressman Steve
Schiff as leaving unanswered questions regarding some missing message
traffic. But, Klass points out that the bottom-line conclusion of the
GAO report was completely missed by most of the media: there is not one
shred of evidence in the archives of the federal government that lends
any credence to the supposed alien crash at Roswell (or any other
locale). He also relates how once pro-Roswell pilot Kent Jeffrey came to
agree that the Roswell Incident was due entirely to misidentification of
weather equipment.
A major theme of the book is the continuing coverup of the truth about
Roswell -- not by the government, but by producers and authors of
television shows, movies, and books. Klass tells how he has repeatedly
tried to get TV producers to show formerly secret documents that prove
the US did not have any physical evidence of alien visitors, even after
Roswell. And Klass tells how, time and again, the truth has ended up on
the cutting-room floor.
Klass concludes the book by discussing his work at Aviation Week and
Space Technology. Aviation Week has revealed so many sensitive aerospace
secrets that many government employees disparagingly refer to it as
"Aviation Leak." Yet, this fiercely independent magazine has
never uncovered even a trace of a sinister coverup of alien visitation.
This book is a very valuable addition to the shelf of anyone with an
interest in Roswell, or in the UFO movement in general. It does seem to
hop around from topic to topic at times, and there is some unnecessary
duplication. For example, a story from the Fort Worth Morning-Star
Telegram appears on pages 17 and 18, but again (in its entirety) on
pages 85 and 86. The same goes for the McCoy briefing (page 175, and
repeated on page 208). But the biggest flaw of the book is the material
that's missing, such as Klass' resounding debunking of the supposed
"Majestic 12" forgeries. (Klass's MJ-12 exposës are nevertheless
available in book form, reprinted in the 1997 SI anthology The UFO
Invasion.)
When I give talks about Roswell, I always show how Klass found that
President Truman's alleged signature on an MJ-12 letter was really just
photocopied from a different, legitimate letter (see Skeptical Inquirer,
Vol. 14, No.2, Winter 1990). As transparencies of both signatures are
overlaid, the audience always gasps in surprise as the different
signatures blend into a single trace. Incredibly, Stanton Friedman still
maintains the validity of MJ-12. When I confronted him on a radio show
last year, he said Klass's methods were shown false in his new book Top
Secret/Majic. And what is Friedman's new attack on the signature
analysis? "The signatures are clearly not identical." Simply
outrageous!
Similarly, there was no mention of the supposed alien autopsy, or the
Penthouse "photograph" of the alien's body. I'm hoping that
someday, some of these gaps will be filled, and that we'll be treated to
a second edition of this excellent book. But even with its minor omissions,
this book destroys the "Roswell" mythos once and for all.
About the Author
Books:
Return to The Skeptic Tank's main Index page.
David E. Thomas
Book Review
The Real Roswell Crashed Saucer Coverup
By Philip J. Klass.
Prometheus Books, New York, 1997.
ISBN 1-57392-164-5. 240 pp.
Hardcover, $24.95.
The question isn't "Did an alien spaceship crash at Roswell in
1947?" The question is, why do many prominent UFO authors persist
in claiming the Roswell Incident is still UFOdom's best case? In case
there were still doubts, Phil Klass's new book should help settle them.
His case against the Roswell "alien" myth is devastating.
David E. Thomas is a physicist. He is a Skeptical Inquirer consulting
editor and is president of New Mexicans for Science and Reason.
Related Information
The Real Roswell Crashed Saucer Coverup
UFOs: The Public Deceived UFO Abductions: A Dangerous Game
The UFO Invasion
Top Secret/Majic
Aviation Week and Space Technology
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