Page 13 - 200901 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - January 2009

Roswell Incident and Project Mogul 13 Roswell Incident and Project Mogul 13 Roswell Crash of 1947 media spread the word of Arnold's "flying and alien creatures were all delusions. His son Roswell Crash of 1947 “A Realistic View” saucers." The success of the movie Close has written: "I am so very sorry that my father's “A Realistic View” Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) probably pathological prevarication has turned out to be also contributed to the atmosphere that led to the foundation on which such a monstrous On or around Independence Day, 1947, the rising of Roswell like the Phoenix from mountain of falsehoods has been heaped" (Carr during a severe thunderstorm near Roswell, alien ashes to the top of the UFO myth list some 1997). It was that mountain of falsehoods that New Mexico, an Air Force experiment using three decades after the alleged fact. became part of the UFO memory, fixating high altitude balloons blew apart and fell to the UFO buffs trust Berlitz and others with conviction in a remarkable tale. It happened at earth. This minor event in the history of fantastic stories based on 30-year-old Fatima (during a time when the only aliens reconnaissance turned out to be the Big Bang of memories. That the government made errors thought to be visiting our planet were UFOlogy. UFO enthusiasts have come to see and was inconsistent is taken as sufficient messengers from God) and it happened at that 4th of July as the day an alien spaceship evidence that there is a massive conspiracy by Roswell. crashed on Earth. Some UFOlogists claim that the government and mass media. They are One might think, however, that unlike aliens were taken away by the U.S. Air Force trying to conceal the truth from the general the belief in our Lady of Fatima and other and other government coconspirators for an public that the aliens have landed. Some even apparitions from the supernatural world, interrogation or an autopsy. Some claim that all believe that the U.S. government has signed a Roswell might be settled some day since it our modern technology was learned by treaty with the aliens. involves testable hypotheses and refutable analyzing and copying the technology of the Skeptics agree that something crashed claims. Don't count on it. UFO enthusiasts are aliens. near Roswell in 1947, but not an alien craft. every bit as devoted to their belief system as The actual crash site was on the Foster Skeptical explanations have varied from religious devotees are to theirs. Evidence and ranch 75 miles north of Roswell, a small town weather balloons to secret aircraft to espionage rational argument are of little concern to those doing a big business feeding the who consider science fiction to be a insatiable appetite of UFO enthusiasts. wiser guide than science, logic and Roswell now houses two UFO reasonable probability. [] museums and hosts an annual alien The Roswell festival. Shops cater to this curious The Roswell tourist trade, much as Inverness caters Incident to the Loch Ness crowd. This seems a Incident bit unfair to Corona, New Mexico, and Project which is actually the closest town to the and Project alleged crash site. Roswell is the Mogul nearest military base, however, and Mogul that is where the remains of the alien Skeptical Inquirer Skeptical Inquirer craft and its occupants were allegedly BY DAVE THOMAS taken. Why the aliens were not taken to BY DAVE THOMAS a superior medical facility remains a mystery. A September 1994 Air Force William "Mac" Brazel, foreman report strongly supported the theory that of the Foster Ranch, along with a 7- the "UFO" debris found by rancher Mac year old girl, Dee Proctor, found the Brazel in 1947 northwest of Roswell, most famous debris in modern history. New Mexico, was in fact a remnant of a They had never seen anything like it balloon flight launched as part of a top- before. Millions now agree: the stuff secret program called Project Mogul. was strange. Actually, it was pretty The possible connection between the mundane stuff, including a piece of Roswell Incident and Mogul was first reinforcing tape whose flower-like realized by researcher Robert G. Todd, design was taken to be alien and independently by Karl T. Pflock. hieroglyphics. But the Air Force was Recently, Charles B. Moore, one not consistent in describing the debris of three surviving Project Mogul and has suggested that ardent scientists identified in and interviewed UFOlogists have had a little trouble for the Air Force report, spoke to the with their source memory. Perhaps New Mexicans for Science and Reason what people are recalling as a single (NMSR) in Albuquerque. He discussed the event is actually a mixture of several events that devices. Current conventional wisdom among background of the project, the New York occurred in different years (such as weather skeptics is that what was found on the Brazel University (NYU) balloon flights, and the balloon and nuclear explosion detection ranch was part of Project Mogul, a top secret Roswell connection. He provided new details balloon tests, airplane crashes with burned project testing giant, high-flying balloons to that would appear to virtually clinch the idea bodies, and dumping of featureless dummies detect Soviet nuclear explosions. that the debris Brazel found was indeed from from airplanes). The likelihood that Roswell is To skeptics, Roswell is a classic one of the Project Mogul flights that Moore a reconstruction involving many events over example of what D.H. Rawcliffe called helped launch. many years is supported by the fact that retrospective falsification. An extraordinary What follows is based on Moore's Roswell was ignored by UFOlogists until story is told, then retold with embellishments presentation, his answers to audience questions, Charles Berlitz and William Moore published a and remodeled with favorable points subsequent meetings and discussions with him, book on the subject in 1980, more than thirty emphasized while unfavorable ones are documents he provided, and a monograph he is years after the event. dropped. False witnesses put in their two cents, preparing on these flights. The National Enquirer also brought such as mortician Glen Dennis (Gildenberg Roswell to the forefront in 1980 with a story 2003). In the case of Roswell, we also have a PROJECT MOGUL Continued on Page 14 featuring Jesse Marcel, the Army Major who, in few unreliable characters who add their 1947 may have been responsible for a press delusions, such as Whitley Strieber, Budd THE ‘X’ ZONE RADIO & TV release that claimed our military had possession Hopkins and John Mack (see the alien of parts of a flying disk, the kind that Kenneth abduction entry). There is also Robert Spencer SHOW Arnold had reported seeing just a couple of Carr, the high school graduate who liked to be www.xzoneradio.com weeks earlier. Roswell was one of hundreds of called "Professor Carr." Carr is a hero in the www.xzonetv.com such "sightings" reported shortly after the news UFO literature, but his stories of flying saucers