(MSF) is valiantly battling back against charges that the Majestic-12
documents, released by the team in April, are fraudulent. The charges were
raised in a press release issued by CSICOP on August 20th [MJ12.SR], in
which arch-skeptic Phil Klass called the documents “clumsy counterfeits,”
and cited a letter from the National Archives [MJ12DOC6.UFO] which raised
doubts about the authenticity of a key piece of corroborative evidence,
the so-called Cutler-to-Twining memo of July 14, 1954 [MJ12DOC3.UFO].

In an attempt to provide the opportunity for MSF to answer the objec-
tions raised in the press release, ParaNet has talked with all three mem-
bers of the MSF team: William L. Moore of Burbank, CA, UFO investigator
and co-author of “The Philadelphia Experiment” and “The Roswell Incident”
(the latter detailing a UFO crash in 1947 which stands to be confirmed if
the MJ-12 documents are real); Jaime Shandera of North Hollywood, CA, an
independent television producer who had little to do with UFOs until team-
ing up with Moore in 1981; and Stanton T. Friedman of New Brunswick, Cana-
da, a nuclear physicist and UFO lecturer.
All three members of the team agreed that nothing brought out by Klass in the release conclusively showed Majestic-12 to be a hoax; i
n fact none of the members seemed to acknowledge that any damage was done whatsoever.
Below are some of the objections raised by Klass, and selected ans-
wers given by the team members.

o Item: Robert Cutler was in Europe at the time the Cutler-to-Twining Memo
was allegedly written.

Friedman: “That’s a stupid argument. The memo wasn’t signed by
Cutler. [But] he gave his people instructions to keep the ball
rolling while he was gone.
“We have two other memos from Cutler to Twining, which we’ve
gotten at the Library of Congress, one is signed and the other
isn’t. The one that’s not signed has an `/s/’ indicating where the
original was signed.”

Moore: “The absence of a signature on the document is consistent
with the fact that Cutler was overseas when it was written. If the
document had been signed, then we would have reason to worry.

o Item: The lack of the characteristic “Eagle” watermark found on all of
Cutler’s memoranda stationery.

Friedman: “But how many? They didn’t have at the Eisenhower Library
OR the National Archives, these two Cutler memoranda that we found
at the Library of Congress! Absence of evidence is not evidence for
absence.”

o Item: The lack of a Top-Secret registration number on the document.

Friedman: “Neither of the other documents we got from the Library of
Congress had registration numbers, either.”

Moore: “NONE of the Top-Secret Cutler memoranda we have seen have
registration numbers.”

o Item: The presence of typewriter key impressions through the back of the
document indicates it was typed as an original, not as a carbon.

Moore: “This just shows that [Klass] has not done a shred of
original research. He couldn’t have looked at the original. If he
had, he would have seen that the paper is definitely old, and the
ink on the paper is blue.

Friedman: “I have trouble with that. The ink is blue. Who uses blue
typewriter ribbons?”

o Item: The use of the security classification “Top Secret - Restricted,”
which did not come into use by the NSC until at least a decade later.

Friedman: “Well, that’s what these guys are saying, but I don’t even
know that that’s true. `Restricted’ can mean `nobody else sees.’
Also, in that same year of ‘54, the Atomic Energy Act brought in the
use of `Secret-Restricted Data’ when you’re dealing with anything
nuclear…and Twining obviously thought there was a nuclear
connection with UFOs because in a 1947 memo he said all the data
should go to the AEC and the Nuclear Energy Propulsion Applications
Project.”

o Item: The Sept. 24, 1947 letter from Pres. Truman to Secy. Forrestal is
not consistent in format with other Truman letters to Cabinet members.

Moore: “Nonsense. We have a letter from a Congressional historian
that says that the form and style ARE consistent.”

o Item: The Truman letter was created by “superimposing a spurious message
on a photocopy of an authentic Truman letter.”

Shandera: “The 35mm film we have of the [Truman] document is very
clear, its a very good photo. If anything like that had been done,
it would easily show up.”

Moore: “He’s dreaming. The evidence is just the opposite. If you
look at the document on the film, there are some areas where a
different color ink was probably used, probably red, which contrast
highly with the rest of the document. If this were a [composite
photocopy], there wouldn’t be this much contrast.”

In the CSICOP press release, and previously in other media, Klass
has said that he has invited Moore and his associates to “join in his own
efforts” to get to the bottom of the MJ-12 scenario. Moore claims that
Klass “has never extended such an invitation to any one of us.”

Moore says that more information on MJ-12 will be released “toward
the end of September,” including a point-by-point response to the
objections raised by Klass in the release. As usual, ParaNet will be the
first computer-based media in the world to carry the story as it unfolds.

Date: 20-Jun-87 20:31 MST
From: Executive News Svc. [76374,303]
Subj: APfl 06/20 1301 UFO Investigations

By BILL KACZOR Associated Press Writer
FORT WALTON BEACH, Fla. (AP) — A retired Air Force pilot says he
suspects, contrary to official denials, an unknown federal agency is
investigating reports of unidentified flying objects and other close
encounters with extraterrestrial beings.
Donald M. Ware, Florida state director of the Mutual UFO Network Inc., a
private “ufology” organization, says he doesn’t have any direct knowledge but
nearly a lifetime of study leads him to believe probes are secretly being
conducted by some national intelligence agency.
“That idea doesn’t bother me. I don’t mind being an unequal partner,” Ware
said in a recent interview. “I support the policy of secrecy.”
He said secrecy would be necessary because, official statements
notwithstanding, he is convinced the subject involves national security in the
form of advanced alien technology.
Ware said he intends to take that message to the Annual MUFON UFO Symposium
June 26-28 at American University in Washington, D.C., where he is to be part
of a panel discussion on UFOs and the government.
His position is unlikely to be shared by many UFO investigators, Ware
admitted. A common complaint of ufologists is the government’s professed lack
of interest and its failure to cooperate with private UFO studies.
“I’m so bold as to suggest there is a possibility of cooperation with some
unknown government agency if we show a little more tolerance of their policy
of secrecy,” Ware said.
“As long as we publicly take such an antagonistic attitude, as long as we
place the government in an adversarial relationship,” Ware said, “we are not
going to get much cooperation from them whoever they are.”
The Air Force closed its Project Blue Book investigation of more than
12,000 UFOs in 1969 after a panel of scientists found no evidence of visitors
from outer space. Most sightings were found to be such things as planets,
stars, meteors, weather balloons, satellites, false radar echoes, marsh gas,
clouds, aircraft or optical illusions, but a few have remained unexplained.
The official word ever since has been that the government has nothing to do
with UFO investigations and whatever they might be they pose no threat to
national security.
Ware, 51, joined the service in 1957. He said he was uninvolved in the Air
Force’s UFO activities during his 26-year military career as a teacher, staff
scientist and fighter pilot, including two combat tours in Vietnam.
“That’s one reason I can speak so freely,” he said. “I have no information
from the Air Force.”
His interest began as a teen-ager in 1952 when he saw star-like objects
streaking through the sky while walking near his home in the nation’s capital.
Similar sightings, including radar returns, had been reported a week earlier
and Ware said they remain unexplained.
He began reading everything about UFOs he could get his hands on, including
books in the library at Duke University where he received a mechanical
engineering degree. He later earned a master’s degree in nuclear engineering
from the Air Force Institute of Technology.
Ware kept up his interest in UFOs, building up a personal library on the
subject and questioning other pilots.
“I had no qualms about saying, `Anybody seen a UFO?’ ” Ware said. The
answer, he said, usually was “yes.”
However, until March of 1970, military personnel were ordered not to talk
about UFOs, Ware said.
“I think that in the late ’40s and early ’50s the U.S. government really
wanted the public to tell them what they saw and that those people primarily
responsible for investigating UFOs were not listed in the phone book,” Ware
said. “The U.S. Air Force was chosen as Uncle Sam’s public relations agent
because they were listed in the phone book.”
No one thing has convinced him of government involvement, Ware said. “Two
years of study after I saw the UFOs in 1952 convinced me that somebody is
watching us,” he said. “Ten more years of study caused me to think somebody
in our government has known that as a fact at least since 1947.”
Ware said his goals in becoming state director of MUFON, an international
scientific organization based in Seguin, Texas, were to improve relations
between “ufologists” and the government and to learn all he could about alien
technology from abductees and other witnesses of close encounters.
Ware said he hasn’t seen any more UFOs since 1952 and doesn’t expect to.
“I haven’t been selected,” he said. He still scans the skies, but not for
UFOs. When he’s not investigating UFO reports or giving talks about the
subject to civic groups, he is bird watching. He is treasurer of and runs an
annual bird count for the Choctawhatchee Audubon Society and does surveys for
the Florida Breeding Bird Atlas project.
Ware said his two avocations are unrelated. “Lots of people have accused
me of getting a lot of satisfaction from identifying feathered objects,” he
said, grinning. “No, I’m just a nature boy.”

Copyright 1987 by the Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Summary: this file is a thread from the Fido computer network UFO
Echo, early 1989, about Hanger 18 at Wright Patterson Air Force Base.
It has long been rumored that a UFO was stored there at some time.
This file consists of messages, edited for relevance, that say that
the UFO is no longer there, if it ever was.
There is also a description of another wreck that was brought in
to the Great Lakes Naval Base. Also, another one collected by the
Army and stored temporarily in a firehouse.
File length just over four typed pages.
An additional source for this subject is “The Roswell Incident”
by Bill Moore and Charles Berlitz.
====
From: John Frey To: Steven Northover 15-Jan-89
I know that Aquarius exists. A close relative of mine was
stationed at Great Lakes Naval Base when they brought in under VERY
HEAVY security a crashed UFO that was supposedly shot down by a
aircraft carrier back in the early ’50s.
Also I have another relative that worked at Wright Patterson who
said “I’ve seen some strange business that I can’t talk about”, when
I asked about the rumors the UFO’s stored there.
* Origin: Astral Board (1:129/39.0) 1(412)8246566
====
From: John Frey To:Kevin Colquitt 29-Jan-89
My aunt used to work at Wright-Pat. but they live far away in
Indiana now so I don’t get to talk to her as much as I would like.
Anyway she heard many stories about strange experiments being carried
out by scientists there.
* Origin: Astral Board * Home of UFO echo * (1:129/39.0)
====
From: John Frey To: Joe Holland 22-Jan-89
Well,I don’t know any major details about it other than what I
told except that it was structually damaged badly and they picked up
alot of wreckage. I don’t know why they shot it or if there were any
bodies but I do know that my relative was asigned to moving some of
the material into a building late at night under TIGHT security. They
made him go through a metal detector before he left.
* Origin: Astral Board * Home of UFO echo * (1:129/39.0)
====
From: Dick Copits To: John Frey 20-Jan-89
I lived in Dayton and worked at Wright-Pat in fairborn for years
and although there were lots of rumors about UFO’s, no one ever saw
anything dealing with them. I have been in EVERY building and hangar
on that base, and believe me, there ain’t no such animal. You now
have an authoratative source that says - wherever they is, they
ain’t at Wright-Pat.!!!
* Origin: (c)1988 Rogers & Blake (508)373-2204 (1:324/120)
====
From: John Frey To:Dick Copits 23-Jan-89
Hangar 18 exists! Notice I did not say there was a UFO in it. It
would be stupid to keep it in the same place long.
A UFO that crashed in PA was taken by a lot of people from the
Army back in the 50’s. It was in the newspaper and a local reporter
researched it and found that it was taken by a Cleveland, OH group.
The TV reporter was unable to find any members of the group (since it
broke up in the late ’50s) but did find a eyewitness of the recovery
operation that was a volunteer fireman. All the wreckage was hauled
from the crash site to the firehouse and later moved out with the
army. The reporter is very credible and so is the eyewitness.
* Origin: Astral Board * Home of UFO echo * (1:129/39.0)
====
From Joe Holland to Dick Copits 1/25/89
On what date did you first get into Hanger 18? Recently, or some
long time ago? Here below, for comparison, are three messages sent in
to Paranet Alpha AZ last April. After posting these, George Ray never
came on again with the follow up he was expecting to get.
Also, I have documentation that Senator Goldwater was denied
access to Hanger 18. (This item is corrected further on in this
file). And you got in easily, with no instructions about secrecy?
———————————————————————
Paranet messages:
Msg: #7816 01-APR-88 From: George Ray To: Jim Delton
Jim why dont you go to Wright-Pat. AFB in ILL. (see later
correction) and see if you can get inside of the large black hanger
at the back of the base, after you have seen the inside of it then
come tell me the A.F. doesn’t believe in UFOs.
====
Msg: #7837 01-APR-88 From: George Ray To: Nick Ianuzzi
The entire time that I was in the Air Force (over 12 years) I
only knew one person who had actually been inside that structure.
That was because he worked there. It seems that the government did
not like the job that the Security Police (AF COPS) were doing so the
control of this hanger and surrounding buildings was placed into the
hands of the N.S.A. and the Federal Police Agency (supposedly a
branch of the U.S. Marshall’s Office, Under the Dept. of Justice).
Anyway prior to the security exchange this person had to do an
inventory. He said that the items that were in those buildings
could not be beleived. He told me some of what he had seen but the
time I just blew it off. This was almost ten years ago, I will try
to get hold of him this weekend to see if he will restate for me
just what he saw and I will give you a full report when I get it
onto a disk and upload it. Hopefully that should be done by Wed at
the outside.
====
Msg: #7839 01-APR-88 From: George Ray To: Jim Delton
Jim, I left an earlier message in regards to this. But I can tell
you this while stationed at an Alert Site in Alaska, we scrambled
more than once on objects that were not aircraft, the pilots would
not tell us what they saw, yet after every time this happened all
aircrews involved were immediately rotated back to the home station.
Even when they would wind up back out there with us they would not
tell us what they had seen. I know that this happened four times
while I was stationed there and I could not tell you how many times
total that it has happened. I just have to accept that they saw
something that was not of standard aircraft design and until they are
allowed to come forward with eye-witness reports, it will continue
to be a rumor generating mill.
(End Paranet messages of April 1, 1988. Fido thread resumes here)
———————————————————————
From: Dick Copits To: Joe Holland 30-Jan-89
Joe - First, and I think symptomatic of the messages - Wright
Patterson AFB is NOT in Ill!!! It’s in Fairborne Ohio, a short
distance from Dayton. It’s also the home of the Air Force Logistics
Center, a SAC refueling wing and the home of the analysis section for
spacecraft observation photos.
Hangar 18 is very visible from Harshman road, generally has (and
always had) the doors open so that you can see in it with a good pair
of binoculars, and is painted (at least since 1946) grey! When you go
to the Air Force Museum, look past the xb-70 and there it is. No
guards, No searchlights, No barbed wire, and in fact if you come in
from the third street gate you can almost drive right up to it. Joe -
this is a MYSTIQUE that has been propagated by people such as your
friend who maybe even visited WP (even though it’s never been in
Ill…).
In fact, take a weekend and fly into Dayton and drive over there
and see for yourself. It’s an open base, and unless you screw around
the SAC planes you can pretty much move around and take pictures at
will. How long ago am I talking about? Last year. When was I there?
During the 60-70 era. My brother is still working there, has for the
last 29 years, and knows everyone who is anyone on the base. Believe
me, there’s no UFO there, no parts there, and nothing else. Comments?
* Origin: (c)1988 Rogers & Blake (508)373-2204 (1:324/120)
====
From: Dick Copits To: Joe Holland 30-Jan-89
Joe - why do you think those messages have the dates they do?
April 1 !!!
* Origin: (c)1988 Rogers & Blake (508)373-2204 (1:324/120)
====
From Joe Holland to Dick Copits 2/3/89
Now, if we can take this apart somewhat, maybe we can study the
anatomy of a myth, or else find out why this information is
contradictory. Well, OK, I am accepting your description that hanger
18 is accessible.
>How long ago am I talking about? Last year. When was I there?
During the 60-70 era. My brother is still working there, has for the
last 29 years<
The remaining question then would be the dates. Its a long time,
42 years, back to 1947 when the UFO crashed in New Mexico. There
might also be a question about which building it is.
The Goldwater letter, which I will post separately, is dated
1979, and refers to an earlier time. Someone should find out from
him, how much earlier. But what I missed before is that the letter
does not say hanger 18, but rather “a facility at Wright Patterson”.
This letter appears on page 41 of the Nov 88 issue of UFO Universe.
But an introduction on page 3 has already assumed that this is
Hanger 18. Also in this introduction, Senator Goldwater is quoted in
another quotation, but this again does not say Hanger 18, but “in the
building where the information is stored”. Note the word is not “the
UFO” but “the information”. The magazine appears not to have strictly
conformed in the text, to the evidence that it presented.
The April 1 letter from George Ray refers to a time “almost ten
years” earlier. This is in conflict with what I assume you said in
your message, quoted above, about 29 years. Since you are on the
scene, I give my credence to you. George Ray was quoting second
hand, and might have never been to Wright-Patterson, or so it might
seem from having gotten the location wrong.
I noticed the April 1st date, and regarded it with suspicion,
when I first re-ran the message into Paranet last year. But I missed
the wrong location of Wright-Patterson, so I’m glad I chose to
repeat all three messages this time, instead of just one.
*Source: Third World, Chatsworth CA 1(818)7009591
====
From Joe Holland to All 2/3/89
Here is one of the letters from Senator Barry Goldwater about
Wright-Patterson:
——————————————————————–
United States Senate
Commitee on Commerce, Science,
and Transportation
Washington DC 20510

April 11, 1979

Mr. Lee M Graham
526 West Maple
Monrovia, California 91016

Dear Mr. Graham:

It is true I was denied access to a faclity at
Wright-Patterson. Because I never got in, I can’t
tell you what was inside. We both know about the
rumors.

Apart from that, let me make my position clear: I
do not beleive that we are the only planet, and of
some two billion that exist, that has life on it. I
have never seen what I would call a UFO, but I have
intelligent friends who have, so I can sort of argue
either way.

Sincerely,
(Signature)
Barry Goldwater.
—————————
Source: UFO Universe (magazine) Nov 88 page 41
See also page 3.
351 W. 54th ST. NY, NY 10012.
====
From Joe Holland to Dick Copits 2/3/89
Wright Patterson is plainly marked on my AAA Road Atlas as on
the east side of Dayton, Ohio. Everything should be so easy to
check! I had meant to look it up, but it never occured to me someone
would miss on a thing like that. Well, I’m the one who goes around
reminding people that things may be easier to check than you think,
and trying to get people to do it.
If that story is true about the crashed disk, then the disk went
somewhere. Why they would move it a long distance would be a
question, although there could be a number of reasons. If the
expertise for rebuilding craft existed back then at Wright-Patterson,
as it does now, then that’s a possible answer. Also, you say they
look at the space photos there.
However, it would have soon become evident, from your
description, that Wright-Patterson was not a highest security area,
so it would have been reasonable to move it.
——————-
File prepared by Joe Holland, 2/23/89.

When a Leave is not a Leave: Col. Blanchard and the Roswell Timeline
by Kevin D. Randle

(IUR, International UFO Reporter, July/August 1994, Volume 19, Number 4.
Copyright 1994 by the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies, 2457 West
Peterson Ave., Chicago, IL 60659, published bimonthly with a
subscription rate of $25/yr.)

In the complex story that comprises the Roswell incident, side
issues sometimes attain a momentary importance. For example, Gerald
Anderson, who claimed to have seen a crashed saucer on the Plains of San
Agustin in early July 1947, submitted a phone bill which purported to
document the length of a conversation with me. The length of the call in
and of itself was trivial. It became significant only when it became
apparent that the bill had been doctored. Without that bill and
Anderson’s subsequent admission that he had tampered with it, we might
still be debating the validity of his story. It revealed something
critical to our understanding of Anderson’ s testimony and its place in
the larger scheme of things. A discussion of the matter appears in IUR,
July/August 1992.

A new question, seemingly trivial but in fact important,
concerns the time Col. William Blanchard, commanding officer of the
509th Bomb Group, went on leave in July 1947. In his recent monograph
Roswell in Perspective (published by the Fund for UFO Research, Box 277,
Mount Rainier, Maryland 20712), Karl T. Pflock suggests that Blanchard
began his leave on July 9, 1947, instead of July 8, as Donald R. Schmitt
and I have insisted. Pflock writes, “According to the 509th’s
headquarters morning report and a tiny Associated Press story in the
July 10 Albuquerque Journal, the ninth (not the eighth) was the day he
began ‘a three week leave in Santa Fe and Colorado.’ . . . [H]e was on
his way north on a long planned vacation.”

Pflock continues:

Taken together, these admittedly fragmentary and in some part
questionable bits of testimony and documentation point to a delay
before the 509th was instructed to treat the Brazel discovery as a
sensitive matter. They also suggest Blanchard may have personally
conveyed this guidance to those in the field, perhaps as he was on
his way north on a long-planned vacation - although some have
contended he headed somewhere else entirely.

It appears that Pflock has misunderstood the significance of
Blanchard’s leave and the timing of the events. In fact, when examined
carefully, it becomes clear that the timing actually reinforces the
theory that the 509th was involved in the situation before rancher Mac
Brazel arrived in Roswell with the box of debris on July 6.

The first part of Pflock’s analysis can be resolved without
debate, varied interpretation of eyewitness testimony, or rancor. We can
review the situation and draw a valid conclusion about it based on all
the documentation currently available.

First, we have the testimony of Lt. Col. Joseph Briley.
(According to the unit history, Briley became the Operations Officer in
the middle of July. Prior to that he had been a squadron commander.)
Briley asserts Blanchard had gone to the crash site. Available
information indicates that this visit was made on July 8 and that
Blanchard’s leave began on July 8. The leave was actually a cover for
Blanchard’s activities revolving around the crash.

But Pflock attempts to refute this idea, drawing on Robert
Shirkey’s testimony:

It is entirely possible, even likely, Blanchard went to the debris
field to survey the situation personally. However, reliable
testimony suggests he did not do so on the afternoon of July 8.
First, according to Robert Shirkey, about mid-afternoon that day
he was with Blanchard in the Roswell AAF [Army Air Force]
operations building, where the colonel personally was overseeing
the dispatch of the B-29 which took Jesse Marcel and some of the
debris to Fort Worth. Second, Walter Haut vividly recalls
Blanchard['s] colorfully complaining to him that same afternoon
about not being able to place outside telephone calls because the
base switchboard was tied up with inquiries about the flying
saucer.

While this is interesting, it is not especially significant.
According to other testimony, the debris put on the aircraft arrived in
Fort Worth, Texas, about 4 p.m. local time, or 3 p.m. Roswell time.
Newspaper articles and testimony from J. Bond Johnson suggest the debris
was in Eighth Air Force Commander Brig. Gen. Roger Ramey’s office about
that time. It means, simply, that Blanchard was on the base at Roswell
until the flight’s departure, about 1:30 p.m. Roswell time, and then
left on his leave. There is nothing contradictory about this, and it
allows for both points to be correct.

Second, as Pflock suggests, the morning reports show that
Blanchard was present for duty on July 8 but had signed out on leave
before the morning report was created on July 9. These documents are
available from the Army in St. Louis, and I recovered a complete set of
the headquarters morning reports (which were indirectly supplied to
Pflock) from June 1 to July 31, 1947, through the Freedom of Information
Act.

This, too, does not contradict the proposition that Blanchard
went on leave on July 8. If Blanchard signed out on leave in the
afternoon of July 8, then the morning report would show him present on
the eighth and gone on the ninth - which is exactly what it does show.

The newspaper article Pflock quotes is interesting but probably
irrelevant. It is, after all, a newspaper article, and it shows, again,
that Blanchard was gone on the ninth. It does not tell us when he signed
out from the base.

The critical piece of evidence is Special Order Number 9, issued
by Headquarters, 509th Bomb Group, and dated July 8, 1947. It says,
“Pursuant to the authority contained in Hqs. 8th Air Force TWX number A1
1593 6 July 1947, the undersigned hereby assumes control of the Roswell
Army Air Field, Roswell New Mexico. Effective this date.” It was signed
by Payne Jennings, Lt. Col. A.C. (Air Corps), commanding.

Here is the definitive proof. Jennings assumed command on the
eighth. Therefore Blanchard went on leave on the eighth. If Blanchard
went on leave on the ninth, as Pflock would have us believe, then the
special order would reflect that. Eighth Air Force would not want to
create a situation whereby two commanders were on station at the same
time.

OTHER EVIDENCE

Some other points must be considered. What the Special Order
does is show military interest in the case days before July 8. It shows
that Blanchard’s leave was not long planned because the TWX was sent on
July 6, a Sunday. Had it been a long-planned leave, the TWX would have
been sent earlier. If it was a long-planned leave, there was no reason
to wait until Sunday, July 6, before sending the TWX. That date becomes
important when it is placed in the context of all the activities of that
critical weekend.

In fact. we can see that the military were interested in the
case before Mac Brazel’s arrival. If his arrival had been the reason for
that interest, nothing official would have happened on July 6. Brazel
arrived with debris that was interesting, but if we follow the
conventional wisdom, that is all it was, until Jesse Marcel and the
counter-intelligence agent returned late on July 7. If the headquarters
had waited for their return and for the cursory examination of the
debris on the morning of July 8, then the documentation would have been
dated no earlier than that day. The TWX demonstrates the military were
interested prior to July 8.

The TWX and the Special Order resulted from rumors circulating
in Roswell. Military officials, in both Roswell and Fort Worth, probably
in consultation with Washington, decided that Blanchard had better
monitor the activities. Their problem was, after the story began to
leak, the news media would have noticed Blanchard’s absence. Without
Brazel’s arrival and the rumors spreading through Roswell, there would
have been no reason to cover Blanchard’s absence or to grant him a
leave.

This leads to another point, one not lost on the military
planners. If the story was so important, if it involved a real flying
saucer, would Blanchard leave the base? Surely the commanding officer of
the 509th would not want to be off the base and out of town when the
biggest event of the twentieth century took place, unless his leave
itself was part of the cover-up.

On the other hand, if it was nothing more than a weather
balloon, as the military claimed publicly, then the absence of the
commander wouldn’t matter. Blanchard wouldn’t be expected to cancel his
leave over something so trivial as a crashed weather balloon.

So the TWX on July 6 becomes as important as the Special Order
because it demonstrates what was happening inside the military. They
were responding to the events of the day before. They were preparing for
what was coming. The TWX on July 6 suggests that the military already
knew about the crash on the sixth, and they knew because of what had
been found on the impact site by military officers on July 5.

Let us examine one more aspect of the case. By July 8, when the
press got interested in the Roswell case, the key players had been
removed. Mac Brazel was in military custody, held in the guest house at
the base, according to Maj. Edwin Easley, the 509th Provost Marshal.
Jesse Marcel, the only man mentioned by name in the press release, is no
longer in Roswell but on his way to Fort Worth, or already there and
insulated by Gen. Ramey. And Col. Blanchard? He was on leave, heading to
the north and into Colorado.

Even if we ignore the testimonies of Steve MacKenzie and Jim
Ragsdale, who describe activities on the impact site during the recovery
of the craft and bodies, we can still offer testimony to the 509th’s
involvement prior to the July 8 press announcement. Leo Spear, a
military policeman in Roswell in July 1947, reported hearing other MPs
return to the barracks talking about the crashed flying saucer. Like the
others who had not been used as guards, Spear thought they were making
up the story. But Spear says that when he read about the saucer in the
newspaper (July 8), a day or two after he had heard from his fellow MPs,
he changed his mind.

In other words, he had heard about the crash from the guards
prior to the press release. The release convinced him their stories were
true. This corroborates the reports of those who claim military
involvement on july 5 and supports the idea that the military were
preparing for contingencies on July 6. It suggests they knew a great
deal more much earlier than researchers have believed until recently.

SUPPORT FOR THE NEW TIMELINE

All of this refutes Pflock’s theories about Blanchard’s leave.
Pflock appears to have drawn his conclusions without having reviewed all
the relevant documents or testimonies. It is clear that the military
were active in the Roswell affair on July 5 and that they were planning
for all contingencies on July 6 by, among other things, putting
Blanchard on leave.

What we can do is restructure the timeline based on the
testimony of the participants and underscore the validity of those
changes with existing documentation. The old timeline suggested no
military interest until Mac Brazel arrived. After all, how could the
military begin a recovery before they knew a crash had occurred?

We now know they didn’t. They knew of the crash on July 5 and
commenced recovery operations then. Blanchard’s leave is the key to
understanding this. First we have to ask, why would anyone begin a leave
on a Tuesday afternoon? Or, even if we accept Pflock’s analysis, why
begin on a Wednesday?

Leaves normally start at the close of business on Friday
afternoon, allowing two extra days because of the weekend. With
Blanchard in a high-profile position, he might not have been able to do
that, but surely he would have signed out on Monday morning, not Tuesday
afternoon. The only exception would be an emergency leave, but that
doesn’t seem to have been the case. Nothing in the documentation
indicates that Blanchard was responding to a personal emergency such as
a sick family member. Based on the fragmentary documentation he
produces, Pflock concludes that the leave was routine.

The circumstances and the Special Order No. 9 refute that
notion. They show the military were responding to a critical situation.
Blanchard’s leave was neither routine nor emergency in the normal sense.
Blanchard was being freed to respond to the situation as necessary
without having to worry about awkward questions from reporters. To
summarize: Blanchard began his leave on Tuesday, July 8. It was not long
planned. It was a response to the events of July 5, when the military
recovered a flying saucer just north of Roswell. The situation became
critical when Brazel found the debris field and reported it, not only to
the military officers at the Roswell Army Air Field but also to the
local sheriff and a reporter for a radio station.

——————–

Kevin D. Randle, an IUR contributing editor, is coauthor of The
Truth About the UFO Crash at Roswell (1994).