FROM THE FILES OF MARTIN CANNON |
FILE #22 |
Can we blithely discount all of the witnesses to the second crash site and recovered alien cadavers? No. Individually, certain testimonials may present problems; collectively, they are impossible to ignore. Neither, alas, can we embrace these tales -- not even the very best of them. All are undercut by a significant flaw, a flaw which Randle, for reasons best known to himself, never addresses in his books.
If, as the witnesses claim, Roswell personnel recovered bodies on July 4 or July 5, why didn't Jesse Marcel know?
He was, after all, the chief intelligence officer at the base. Surely, he had need to know. Surely, any nearby crash (terrestrial or non-) would be impossible to hide from him. If, as Randall believes, Roswell soldiers went out by the jeep-ful on July 4 to gather flying saucer wreckage, Marcel would probably have been out directing traffic. All the furious activity described by the "second site" witnesses -- a massive retrieval operation, special storage of debris, alien autopsies, perhaps the capture of a live alien -- undoubtedly would have come to the Major's attention, and would have figured in the interviews he gave many years later.
But Randle and other Roswell proponents would have us think otherwise. We are supposed to believe that during all this extraordinary activity, Jesse Marcel -- the base's primary intelligence officer -- stood by like the p roverbial potted plant, blissfully ignorant of his surroundings.
In point of fact, Marcel does not enter the picture until the afternoon of July 6, when rancher Brazel spoke to him. The next day, July 7, the Major and Cavitt examined the site, and Marcel became very excited to discover what he believed to be the remains of a flying saucer. He showed the material to his family, something he would not have done if high security measures already surrounded such matters. Kevin Randle himself tells us that, according to Marcel, the recovered wreckage became classified after July 7.
Let us suppose that Marcel's superiors, for some inexplicable reason, decided to keep the chief intelligence officer at Roswell "out of the loop." Let us suppose that, throughout July 4-6, Colonel Blanchard kept sending Major Marcel out for coffee and donuts while the boys back at the base hauled in the crashed spaceship and the alien corpses. Why, then, did the Colonel later allow -- no, order -- Marcel to examine the Brazel debris field? If Marcel couldn't be trusted with this sort of information on July 5, what made him trustworthy on July 7?
And if, on July 5, the highest secrecy surrounded the main crash site, why was the unfortunate Haut ordered, on July 8, to announce the capture of a flying saucer, accomplished with the help of a local rancher? Why did Haut's press release speak openly of the Brazel find, and not of the more important discoveries which allegedly preceded it?
Kevin Randle, Donald Schmitt, and other Roswologists deal with this issue by never raising it, in the apparent hope that readers won't notice the omission. That tactic simply won't do. Even more troubling is the tactic employed by the made-for-cable dramatization Roswell, and by the video documentary UFO Secret: The Roswell Crash (which lists Schmitt and Randle as the production's chief investigators). These influential presentations pretend that the second site was discovered after the Marcel crash was reported. Morevoer, both the film and the documentary never allude to the controversy surrounding the location of the second debris field, leaving viewers with the false impression that the Barnett site is th e same as the one identified by the Randle/Schmitt witnesses.
When Roswell researchers are privately confronted with the problem of Marcel's ignorance, they usually mutter something along these lines: "Well, maybe Marcel kept the events of July 4 and 5 secret, even after he decided to talk about the Brazel material." But why? Why would he reveal the truth about the "extraterrestrial" debris on Brazel's ranch, yet withold all information concerning site #2? If the late Jesse Marcel was less than candid in his interviews, do we even have a Roswell case left?
Indeed, ufologist Robert Todd - not a hard-core UFO skeptic - has made the case that Jesse Marcel occasionally embellished the truth in his interviews. For example, Marcel claimed to have received five Air Medals for shooting down five enemy planes during World War II combat missions. According to Todd, Marcel was never a gunner or pilot, and received only two Air Medals - neither one for a shoot-down. Marcel also once claimed to have written the statement which President Truman read on the air after the USSR exploded a nuclear device. In fact, Truman did not take to the airwaves on that occasion, which prompted only a written announcement from the White House.
Robert Todd has uncovered further evidence of Marcel's propensity for exaggeration. Todd's report is, at this writing, quite new - and undoubtedly his attack will prompt a brisk defensive strike from Roswell partisans, who may yet win this particular battle. But even if we can favorably resolve the issue of Marcel's honesty, the issue of Marcel's ignorance remains a sticking point. If a second crash site existed close to the Roswell base, why didn't the Major know?
Until someone resolves that conundrum, we must put "on hold" all the testimony from second-site witnesses, and all the testimony of recovered ETs. The only proven wreckage remains that found on Brazel's ranch. The first site is the only site.
Back we come to the old question: Just what caused all that wreckage on Mac Brazel's land?
We have already examined, and rejected, the Mogul explanation. Skeptic Ron Schaffner has proposed that a wayward V2 rocket caused the debris, while Fortean John Keel has speculated that a Japanese "Fugo" balloon bomb somehow drifted over New Mexico two years after the war. Randle and others have argued persuasively against the Fugo thesis, and there is no need to recapitulate their points here. As for the V2: Schaffner's opponents feel that descriptions of the recovered materials do not tally with what one might expect from such a source. No known V2 launch corresponds with the date of the Roswell crash. Besides, the press openly reported other V2 r ocket accidents, which makes the paranoiac secrecy surrounding the Brazel find seem rather absurd.
In his book Revelations, computer scientist Jacques Vallee offered a suggestion which at first struck me as rather too speculative. Now, after further research, I feel that he came closest to the truth.
Vallee posits that the debris came from a special floating drone designed to test radioactivity; these were, after all, the days of open A-bomb tests. The technology of the time could have produced Roswell-type material: "Aluminized Saran...was paper-thin, was not dented by a hammer blow, and was restored to a smooth finish after crushing."
Did such drones exist? Indeed so.
The Navy possessed jet-type drone airplanes which took air samples during the 1946 Hydrogen bomb tests on Bikini atoll. Some of these drones even carried passengers -- test animals, flown through the clouds rising after an atomic explosion. We know that at least one such drone was lost in the New Mexican desert in 1960, due to equipment failure.
None of this is very surprising. But few people know about the proposed use of drone aircraft to deliver weapons of mass destruction.
Well before the first atomic explosion at Trinity, New Mexico, in 1945, American strategists seriously considered the military uses of Plutonium and other highly radioactive materials -- not as key ingredients in the bomb-maker's recipe book, but as weapons in and of themselves. Such substances are so very toxic that a small amount can do severe damage to a large city. All one needs is a means to deliver and disperse the goods.
The proposed use radiaoactivity as a weapon of mass destruction is one reason why American scientists were so intent on measuring the dispersal patterns of airborne particles. Throughout the 1940s, Los Alamos National Laboratories conducted a number of open-air radioactivity releases throughout the late 1940 - perhaps as many as 250 - and the effects were measured many miles away. Nor was Los Alamos the only New Mexican locale chosen for such studies. That state's vast desert expanses -- sparsely populated, yet home to key military installations -- provided an ideal site for such tests.
Delivery remained a conundrum. Radioactive gases were all very fine, but how could one get them over enemy skies?
A government report dated July 3, 1948 lists a number of options (rockets, fragmentation bombs, sprays from aircraft, etc.), and rejects most of them. But the final delivery option -- "Use of Drone Planes" -- elicits the following commentary: "As a result of discussions with representatives of the Air Corps, it is believed that the use of drone planes to transport the radioactive materials, and dispersed by one or more of the methods described above, may prove to be the most practical. The main advantage lies in the fact that the shielding problems are greatly simplified." This same report, under the heading "Method of Delivery," notes that "It is now believed that high altitude missions are the type that merit the most attention." (Italics added.)
For all weapons of mass destruction, the big problem wasn't creating the parcel, but mailing it. Nowadays, most people tend to forget that American bombers in 1947 were capable of only a limited penetration into the vast Soviet territory, even when the planes were launched from bases in Turkey; this is the primary reason why Stalin fought to surround his country with compliant buffer states. An aircraft such as the Enola Gay might not reach Moscow. But a high-altitude, floating drone -- a helium-filled craft, or a hybrid craft -- could do the job. Moreover, such a vehicle could deliver a payload which might prove fatal to a conventional aircraft's crew members.
Interestingly, Professor Moore (of Mogul fame) once participated in an effort which used lighter-than-air craft to penetrate "unfriendly" skies. He has told one interviewer that he prepared a "balloon bomb" designed to deliver propaganda leaflets to the people of Hungary, just prior to their unfortunate 1956 uprising. Indeed, as far back as World War II, balloons were used to deliver propaganda broadsides (as part of "Operation Sykewar") over German cities.
If fairly conventional balloon clusters could rain leaflets fairly accurately, deep within enemy territory, we can fairly deduce that more advanced types of lighter-than-air craft could haul deadly substances across national boundaries. We can also fairly presume that such a device would have been tested on American soil, using unwitting human beings as test subjects. In those days, tests involving radiation were considered so important that the scientists involved took little heed of ethical constraints. For example: In 1947, the same year as the Roswell crash, government-funded scientists deliberately injected plutonium into the left leg of an African-American railroad porter named Elmer Allen. A few days later, the doctors removed the leg for study, having falsely assured Allen that a bone cancer made amputation necessary. There are many, many more such stories.
The craft which came down on Brazel's farm may thus have been a drone -- something akin to a miniature dirigible, or blimp -- designed either to measure or to deliver radioactive particles. Granted, the Roswell literature reports that Jesse Marcel checked the debris field with a radiation detector, and found no signs of radioactivity. But this fact need not invalidate our hypothesis. If the drone carried a radiation measurement device, it may not yet have reached its destination. If the craft carried a delivery device, the radioactive "payload" could have remained intact within its sealed container (a fortunate circumstance for Marcel and Brazel).
Or -- quite possibly -- the payload was not radioactive at all.
The concept of Plutonium-as-weapon forces us to consider all the other methodologies of "toxic warfare." Every schoolchild knows that the great powers have experimented with chemical and biological warfare agents since the infamous mustard gas attacks of World War I. During the 1950s, CBW research went arm-and-arm with the drug experimentation conducted pursuant to MKULTRA.
As always, the problem of delivery confronted the strategic planners. During World War II, the British facility at Porton Down conducted a massive research program into chemical warfare, and concocted an unmanned "gliding bomb" designed to rain thickened mustard gas behind enemy lines. This device -- which, without stretching definitions too far, might be considered an aerial drone -- was jovially nicknamed the "Flying Cow." (A similar device, which sprayed unthickened mustard gas, was called the "Flying Lavoratory.")
Jeremy Paxman and Robert Harris fill many a chapter of their excellent book A Higher Form of Killing with unnerving descriptions of mustard gas launchers, anthrax bombs, radiation gas bombs, and even less pleasant inventions. Most Americans do not realize the scope of this research. One facility -- the arsenal at Pine Bluff, Arkansas -- spent half-a-billion dollars on chemical and biological weaponry during World War II (when a dollar went much farther than it does today), and Pine Bluff was scarcely America's only research center dedicated to such grim studies. After the war, the United States commandeered the results of the large-scale CBW research programs undertaken by Germany and Japan, and by our British allies.
Paxman and Harris describe how American and British scientists, often in contravention of both ethics and common sense, sprayed disease-laden clouds over populated areas. These mock attacks, which usually utilized non-fatal germs such as brucellosis, were meant to simulate enemy attacks using more deadly substances, such as sarin. The most infamous of these mock attacks occurred in 1950, when minesweepers exposed all residents of San Francisco to clouds containing two allegedly "harmless" bacteria, Bacillus globigii and Serratia marcescans.
It was all very easy for the military to attack San Francisco, but how (in 1947) could they hope to drench Moscow in clouds of toxicity? (The reader will recall the problem posed by limited bomber range.) Drone aircraft -- particularly of the lighter-than-air variety -- neatly resolved this quandry.
Of course, officials needed to test such a delivery system -- covertly. The released documents on radiation testing repeatedly emphasize the secrecy which surrounded all experiments involving unwitting subjects, particularly civilian test subjects. As noted previously, the sparsely-populated American desert provided an excellent environment for such tests.
One can easily comprehend why test planners would want to target a population under military control. Military physicians could track human susceptibility to an airborne germ. "Coincidentally" or otherwise, the Brazel ranch is located quite near Fort Stanton Mesa, an old military outpost commanded by Kit Carson during the Indian wars. By the time of the Spanish-American War, this facility was converted to use as an army hospital. During World War II, soldiers suffering from combat fatigue and other psychological ailments were remanded here. Researcher Kathy Kasten visited Fort Stanton Mesa, and toured the facility's cemetery. She noted with great interest the sharp increase in deaths in the 1947-51 period.
In short: The area northwest of Roswell Army Air Field was the ideal location for secret aerial testing of health-impacting substances.
In my opinion, the craft which crashed onto Mac Brazel's field was a drone, perhaps involved with airborne radiation tests, more likely involved with CBW testing. The "Flying Cow" sired at Porton Down had offspring, one of which probably ended up on a New Mexican ranch.
A drone of this sort would necessarily be constructed of the most durable -- yet most lightweight -- materials available. The enormous world-wide investment into CBW during WWII led to striking advances in materials science, as researchers on both sides of the conflict constantly improved designs for gas masks, protective clothing and other materials. The results of this research would, in all likelihood, have struck many members of the general public - and even many within the regular military - as impossibly futuristic.
Even the "heiroglyphics" found on the lightweight struts are not without explanation. Ironically, Kevin Randall and Don Schmitt touch on this explanation in their book The Truth About the UFO Crash at Roswell, which discusses the Japanese Fugo balloon bombs. Randall and Schmitt quote an expert named Robert Mikesh concerning the markings on Fugo balloon components: "While Japanese markings and stamps would normally be used to facillitate assembly of components, alphabetical letters and figures were used instead. No trace of the origin of the balloon was to be allowed...[for fear] of disclosing the manufacturing location or launch site, which would result in reprisal attacks by B-29s." Why wouldn't the American manufacturers of a lighter-than-air "secret weapon" incorporate a similar gambit? Imprinting drone components with an oriental language or a visual code (as opposed to plain English) would have given such craft plausible deniability, if ever one floated, intact, into the wrong hands.
The "toxic drone" explanation elegantly resolves the problem of Marcel's ignorance. If a drone craft were spreading Serratia marcescans -- or worse -- over the New Mexican desert, Marcel would have no need to know the truth. Once his superiors determined the actual cause of the debris, they would certainly withold such knowledge from Major Marcel -- and from anyone else who touched the wreckage.
The reader will recall one important fact cited in a previous chapter: In 1947, the Supreme Court had not yet issued the Feres decision, and thus had not yet ruled on the right of an American soldier to sue the United States government. If Jesse Marcel ever learned the truth about the debris, he might not have taken kindly to the idea of serving as an unwitting test subject, especially if his wife and child were also within range of airborne bacteria or radioactive particles. Had Marcel known that the wreckage came from a craft which carried an infectious, radioactive or otherwise toxic agent, he surely would have prevented other soldiers from gathering up the material without protective clothing, and he would have required the Brazels to vacate the property temporarily. One can imagine the resultant publicity.
But the managers of the drone project encountered a stroke of luck: Marcel -- inspired by news accounts of flying saucer sightings -- jumped to the conclusion that the Brazel debris resulted from a wayward spacecraft. His superiors had no motive to disabuse him of this notion. Not for the last time, "flying saucers" proved an excellent cover story.
Of course, those in the know would have insisted upon the collection of every scrap of debris, even years later. Had even a tiny amount remained in the hands of, say, Brazel's son, someone might have suggested that the substance receive scientific testing. Analysis could have revealed some hint of the drone's original bacteriological or radioactive payload.
One can easily imagine the international outcry and blow to American prestige that would have resulted had the world learned, in 1947, of plans to attack the Soviet Union using drones laden with plutonium and other toxins. Friendly nations would have led the protest, since any accident involving such drones could have placed allied countries at risk. Indeed, the accident which caused the Brazel crash probably convinced U.S. military planners that high-altitude drones were simply too risky an option.
If my hypothesis is correct, the threat of scandal and legal challenge hid, and still hides, the truth about Roswell. The military has never wanted to become mired in any embarassing lawsuits resulting from their open-air tests.
Keep in mind one important fact: Some activists in the San Francisco still hope to sue the United States government over the 1950 germ releases over that city. Many believe that the bacteriological clouds were hardly so harmless as scientists then presumed; the experiments may have unleashed carcinogens on an unwitting populace, resulting in higher-than-normal cancer rates. Whether such concerns are valid or not is outside the scope of this inquiry. The important point is that cancer claims may yet lead to an expensive court battle, more than 45 years after the event.
One can, therefore, easily understand why the Pentagon would continue to hush up any similar releases in New Mexico. If newspapers suddenly announced that what happened to San Francisco in 1950 also happened to Roswell in 1947, the citizens of New Mexico would raise up a cry of outrage. In all likelihood, the families of anyone in that area who contracted cancer during the past half-century might come to believe -- rightly or wrongly -- that they have legal standing to bring suit against the government. The results could become expensive.
In their 1994 book The Truth About the UFO Crash at Roswell, Kevin Randall and Donald Schmitt discount the notion that an experimental aircraft caused the Roswell wreckage. "A craft classified as top secret in 1947 would no longer be classified today," they write. Maybe. But what about the crash of a drone aircraft involved with measuring or delivering health-impacting substances? Such an event would, in all likelihood, remain classified -- for excellent reasons involving lawyers, dollars, headlines, and national pride.
Can I prove this proposed solution to the Roswell enigma? No. Despite Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary's admirable efforts to release the files on radiation test data, the documentary record concerning aerial delivery systems remains sparse and frustrating. Interestingly, the Air Force and the General Accounting Office specifically state that they did not examine Department of Energy records during their re-investigation of Roswell. No "smoking gun" document conclusively substantiates the Roswell hypothesis outlined here, and I doubt that such an incriminating piece of paper will ever come to light.
Which brings us, finally, to the question of standards of proof. Kevin Randle has said of the Mogul theory (which, I agree, does not suffice) that it will remain unproven until someone can produce a document demonstrating that just such a balloon came down on Brazel's ranch. Fair enough. On the other hand, neither Kevin Randle nor anyone else in the ufological community has produced an authentic document demonstrating that an extraterrestrial craft came down at Roswell. Thus, by his own high stand ards, Randle declares the case unresolved. Roswell has not transmuted the extraterrestrial hypothesis into an established fact -- despite the rather smug claims some have made -- and the mystery therefore remains open to other proposed solutions, such as the one outlined here.
The "drone warfare" theory outlined in the preceding pages does not give us the final answer, but I consider it the most promising line of inquiry. Admittedly, my analysis of the Roswell crash depends on circumstantial evidence and a fair amount of (I hope) reasonable surmise. 'Too much surmise,' some will aver, and perhaps they are right. However, we are within our rights to draw logical inferences from five indisputable facts - five facts which ufologists should consider carefully:
Secret, experimental high-altitude drones did exist in 1947.
Military planners considered such drones the best means to deliver toxic agents.
Open-air tests involving decidedly unhealthful substances have occurred in many locales, particularly in New Mexico.
Drones have crashed in New Mexico.
The military and the government have always greatly feared the legal consequences of civilian experimentation, and have gone to great lengths to keep their tests secret.
I believe that one such test came to a premature halt over a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico. Of course, if my reconstruction is accurate, the Pentagon would have no reason to confirm it, and every reason to maintain a cover-up.
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