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Air Force ... I will debate the Air Force's best
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... Flying saucers are real, the debunker's tactics,
and the problem with the media.
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Latest Online Articles
CD, Videos and
Books and how to order at Special Reduced Web
Site Prices
Guest Appearance
and Lecture Schedule Stan Friedman's
Biography
My Challenge to the
Air Force ... I will debate the Air Force's best
ANY TIME and ANY PLACE.
The UFO
Challenge ... Flying saucers are real, the
debunker's tactics, and the problem with the media.
... and more of my
Latest Online Articles
CD, Videos and
Books and how to order at Special Reduced Web
Site Prices Guest Appearance
and Lecture Schedule
Stan Friedman's
Biography
My Challenge to the
Air Force ... I will debate the Air Force's best
ANY TIME and ANY PLACE.
The UFO
Challenge ... Flying saucers are real, the
debunker's tactics, and the problem with the media.
... and more of my
Latest Online Articles
The History Channel, the "H" logo and "Pictures in
Time" are registered trademarks of A&E Television Networks.
©2001 AETN. All rights reserved.
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Open Challenge To The History Channel
By Stanton Friedman
December 21, 1999
History Channel 235 East 45th St.
New York, NY l0017
Subject: December 13, 1999 program Roswell: Secrets Revealed
Dear History Channel:
As the nuclear physicist who began the civilian investigation of
the Roswell Incident back in the 1970s, who has co-authored a
book "Crash at Corona: The Definitive Story of the Roswell
Incident" and numerous papers about Roswell, and, of course, was
the first to talk to many of the key witnesses (almost all of
whom you somehow missed), I naturally viewed the subject program
with great interest, especially since I was in Roswell on
December 13... I must congratulate you on providing a Masterpiece
of Misrepresentation. A splendid example of propaganda, excellent
for teaching purposes. You demonstrated the primary rules such as
selective choice of data, false reasoning, positive and negative
name calling. You also demonstrated the 4 basic rules of UFO
debunkery:
- What the public doesn't know, we are not going to tell
them.
- Don't bother us with the facts, our minds are made up.
- If we can't attack the data, we will attack the people; it is
much easier.
- Do one's research by proclamation, rather than investigation. It
is much easier and most people won't know the difference.
I have discussed the two Air Force reports in my enclosed papers
"The Roswell Incident, the USAF, and the NY Times" (28 pages) and
my Review of "The Roswell Report: Case Closed." You seem to have
blindly accepted any comment from a noisy negativist and didn't
bother with the work of professionals such as myself. Let me give
some specific examples, although I found that I can't
get a copy of the show for 4-6 weeks to give precise
quotes.
A. How do you dare to show a small heap of wreckage? In my first
conversation with Major Jesse Marcel, the Intelligence Officer
for the 509th Composite Bomb Group, in 1978, he described
wreckage strewn out over an area 3/4 of a mile long. The Roswell
Daily Record cover-up article of July 9, 1947, stated the
wreckage covered an area 200 yards in diameter. Your depiction
was at most a few yards across. If that is all there had been,
rancher Mack Brazel would have taken it all in his truck to the
Sheriff's office and there would have been no reason for Major
Marcel and Captain Cavitt to have followed him on the long rough
journey back to the Foster Ranch operated by Mack. You have
blindly accepted a fairly recent statement by Cavitt to Colonel
Weaver about him recalling it was just a balloon covering an area
only 20' square and easily fitting in one vehicle. Apparently
Cavitt wasn't told it was supposed to be a MOGUL balloon which
included 23 standard helium filled neoprene balloons (at 20'
intervals) and a whole bunch of radar reflectors, sonobuoys,
ballast tanks, etc all strung together. Some small pile. Of
course Cavitt hadn't remembered that simple fact when asked many
times by many people for the previous fifteen years, even denying
that he had been on the base at the time.
B. Dr. C.B. Moore, whom I have met, himself strongly claimed that
neoprene out in the sun for weeks would be totally degraded. Did he
forget that little detail? A June 4 or June 14 launching could not
possibly have survived so well until early July. You also neglected to
mention that many of the July 8 newspaper articles claimed the wreckage
was found "last week." But Rancher Brazel had been in the area just a
few days earlier and could never have left that mountain of garbage
where the sheep could ingest it. Mack had of course previously found two
balloons. The newspaper of July 9 quotes him saying he was sure what he
found wasn't any weather balloon.
Colonel Weaver left this quote out of his recital of the article.
C. Too bad you couldn't mention that the 509th was the most elite
military group in the world with hand picked officers and men,
and high security. They had dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki, and the two tested in the Pacific in July, 1946, in
Operation Crossroads. You noted the July 9, 1947, press release
and then stated nobody knows why it was issued. Why didn't you
bother to ask Walter Haut who issued it? He still lives in
Roswell and has been interviewed hundreds of times. His story
hasn't changed since I first spoke to him more than twenty years
ago. Incidentally he also had been a bombardier on thirty raids
over Japan and dropped the instrument package over one of the
Crossroads tests. He issued the press release because he was
ordered to do so by Colonel William Blanchard, Commander of the
509th and of Roswell Army Air Field. Before suggesting he must
have been incompetent, as have some who haven't done their
homework, I should add he was a member of the West Point All Star
class of 1938, became a four-star general by the time he was 48
and was Vice Chief of Staff of the USAF when he died of a massive
heart attack at the Pentagon in 1966. There was ,of course, a
lengthy obituary in the NY times. Doesn't sound much like he was
thought to be incompetent, does it?
It was stated that Blanchard retracted the press release four
hours later. This is nonsense. Blanchard's boss, General Roger
Ramey in Fort Worth, Texas, (Blanchard was in Roswell) issued a
new story after being informed by hisChief of Staff, Colonel
Thomas J. DuBose that Ramey's boss, General Clements McMullen,
had given orders to cover up the story. I heard that first hand
from retired General DuBose whose testimony is available on film.
He was a West Pointer as well and had 18,000 hours as a pilot and
set up the USAF Search and Rescue command. No slouch at
all.
D. Why do you show only the Roswell Daily Record? After all there
were front page headline stories in the Chicago Daily News, the
Sacramento Bee, the Los Angeles Herald Express, the Spokane
Chronicle, etc all evening papers for July 8. The West coast
papers in general had done a lot of checking before publishing
detailed articles. Too bad you did none.
E. Where did the comment come from about bodies cold to
touch?
F. The notion that Pilot Kittinger was the red haired officer is
more absurdity. After all he wasn't at the Roswell hospital until
1959. I was the first to hear two independent stories about a
nasty red haired officer and a black Sergeant. Both events taking
place in 1947. Has the air force invented time travel? There is
no other way to get crash test dummies, all of whom were the
height and weight of pilots, back to 1947 from 1953 at the
earliest or to get Kittinger to the Roswell hospital in 1947.
This is flat out fiction.
G. Why did you not talk to others still alive who had first hand
involvement such as Jesse A. Marcel Jr., a medical doctor, who
handled wreckage, has served on military aircraft accident
investigative teams and was a pilot? Or Loretta Proctor, neighbor
of Mack Brazel, who handled wreckage? or Mack Brazel's son Bill
who found strange (thin strong memory material) wreckage out in
the pasture? How about the sheriff's two daughters? All this
testimony has been readily available for many years.
H. One of the first things Major Jesse Marcel told me is that
there was nothing conventional to be found on the debris field.
No wires, no vacuum tubes, no rivets. He was very familiar with
aircraft and aircraft wreckage and balloons and radar reflectors
and rockets. The notion that he wouldn't have recognized balloon
wreckage or radar reflectors is frankly absurd. You are also
implying that Blanchard, who had also served in the Pacific,
would have ordered the press release and the B-29 flight with the
wreckage brought back from the ranch and Marcel to Fort Worth is
equally absurd, if all there was was totally conventional stuff.
You know of any materials such as the I-beam like pieces with
strange symbols that couldn't be cut, burned, or broken? Or
memory metals that were like foil but couldn't be cut and, when
folded over and over, would unfold on their own? Why couldn't the
USAF find any of that toy maker tape in the pictures taken in
Ramey's office?
I. Brazel didn't make his discovery on July 5th. It was earlier.
He did go to the store-pool hall in Corona on the 5th which is
when, not having electricity or a phone or a radio, he first
heard about all the saucer sightings and a reward and was told he
ought to go to the Sheriff in Roswell which he did on the 6th --
NOT on the 7th as you claimed. You made it sound as though
Sheriff Wilcox looked in the phone book to find a nearby Air
Base. There was a standing arrangement that anything that might
effect the military would be reported to Roswell Army Air Field.
There was no other base in the area.
J. I have met with Dr. Schirmer, Dr. Moore, Mr. Gildenberg. They
haven't investigated the case. They have made proclamation after
proclamation about second and third hand testimony. Why use the
term "conspiracy theorist" so many times without ever justifying
it? Who are these theorists? I began the investigation and have
always provided evidence for the claims that I make which is more
than can be said for your trio. They have actually created a
conspiracy theory namely that a bunch of stupid UFO researchers
and lying witnesses have created a fantastic story for fun and
profit. This, of course, ignores the fact that loads of testimony
was obtained by us serious researchers long before the cameras
started rolling. My phone bills used to run several hundred
dollars a month.
By the way, I do know something about security having worked as a
nuclear physicist on a wide variety of highly classified advanced
nuclear and space system programs for such companies as General
Electric, General Motors, Westinghouse, TRW Systems, McDonnell
Douglas, and Aerojet General Nucleonics. I have also been to
nineteen different government document archives.
Just how much experience with security has Dr. Schirmer
had?
K. What was this nonsense about a 1956 plane crash somehow
confusing Glenn Dennis about bodies at the base in 1947? A few
years ago I went with Glenn to the Ballard funeral home. We
reviewed records with full permission of the operator there who
obviously respected Glenn. There were a number of military plane
crashes for which he handled the bodies even after bad fires.
That was his job. No possible way such a crash could have
confused him. Yet another false conspiracy theory from your
trio.
L. At one point early on in the program the word UFO was used.
Sorry. It was not used until after 1951. Several times when
showing balloons and talking about Mogul you showed tear drop
shaped polyethylene balloons. Round standard Neoprene balloons
were used for all MOGUL launches before July -- the same kind
that Mack had retrieved. And that rapidly disintegrate in the
sun.
In summary then, the History Channel has presented myth and
propaganda in the guise of truth.
You have supplied misrepresentation instead of investigative
journalism. You should be ashamed and should apologize to your
audience. It seems to me you have also violated FCC rules with
regard to fairness, honesty, and accuracy in so doing. My
colleagues and I would be happy to debate your trio of amateurs
any time. I would suggest that they do their homework
first.
Cordially,
Stanton T. Friedman
Enclosures.
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