In the Air: U.S. Presidents, Balloons and UFOs FILE
– FBI special agents assigned to the Evidence Response Team process imagesofa high-altitude balloon recovered off the coast of South Carolina. The material was processed and transported to the FBI laboratory in Quantico, Virginia.
WASHINGTON-
Three mystery objects shot down by the U.S. military this month again compelled government officials to tamp down speculation of extraterrestrial connections.
Military and civilian sightings of unidentified flying objects have generated sensational headlines going back to the 1940s, repeatedly prompting reporters to ask government officials for explanations.MikeTurner,chairmanofthe House Intelligence Committee,saidat the Munich Security Conference:“Iwill not reveal classified information by saying this: None of the objects recentlylaunched over North America were fromMars.”
President Joe Biden saidduring a briefinginthe White House: “The current intelligence assessment is that these three objects are most likely balloons associatedwith private companies, recreationalfacilities or research facilitiesthatstudy weather or conduct other scientific research.”
FILE – President Joe Biden speaks about a Chinese surveillance balloon and other unidentified objects shot down by the U.S. military in Washingtonon Feb. 16, 2023.
During the campaign, presidential candidates vowed to reveal government secrets about thephenomenonof unidentified aircraft. but that willchangeifheis elected.
Donald Trump confirmedthathehadbeen briefed on the matter, saying, “Welooklikealiens,”butmadeitclear that he doesn’t particularly believe people who claim to have seen UFOs and wonderaloudwhethertheyreallyexist.
Barack Obama saidon a latenight talk show that aftertakingoffice he was asked about aliens and was told that the US government does not keep aliens in a laboratory, as some ufologists claim. Obama confirmed that objects in the sky weremoving in unexplainedways.
George W. Bush saidin a late-night televisiondebate that aspresident he would not reveal anything anyone had told himaboutit,not even his curious daughter.
Bill Clinton expressed interest in the phenomenon, saying during a visit to Northern Ireland in 1996: “If the US Air Force hasindeedfound alien bodies, they haven’ttold me about it.”neither, and I want to know.
Jimmy Carter recounted his close encounter with a floatingglowing object that turned from blue to red in 1969, a year before hewas elected governor of Georgia, calling it “the mostscrewed-up thing I ever did.”.Oneof the first candidates to promise to release “all information” on the issue, he changed course afterthe 1976 election, saying public disclosure could have “defense implications” and pose a threat to national security.
Harry Truman wasperhaps the most knowledgeableAmericanpresidentabout unexplained aerial phenomena,havingbeencommanderinchief in July 1947 when something unusual occurred in Lincoln County, New Mexico.
Roswell and UFOs
Decades later, I went there to interview severalpeople who claimed to have seen what happened.
Roswell, New Mexico has turned its UFO legacy into a tourism industry. Visitors to this sleepy desert town are greeted by dozens of pairs of hazel eyes staring at them from billboards decoratedwithalienimages and fromthe windows of Roswell’s fast-food restaurants,souvenir shops and motels.
Roswell Daily Record FrontPage July 8, 1947
The International UFO Museum and Research Center featuresUFOnerd-themed historical exhibitions,documents,photos and artwork.Although the museum convinced few skeptics, conversations with some people who were in the Roswell area in the summer of 1947 led me tobelieve their stories.
Almost all Roswell witnesses kept the story quiet for about half a centuryforfearof ridicule, recallingsignedoathsof secrecy or threats from military officials.
Walter Haut was 76 years old when I met him in 1999.Asone of the few survivors andmaincharacterinthis story, he walked the halls of the Main Street attraction he helped create. Haut was a member of the 509th Composite Bomb Group, then the world’s only nuclear air force, which dropped warheads on Hiroshima and NagasakiinAugust1945.AfterWorldWarII,heservedasaninformationofficerat the Roswell Army’sHiroshimaAirport. On July 8, 1947, hiscommander ordered him to issue an unprecedented press release stating that the Army had recovered a crashed flying saucerin
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Flyingsaucersand flying saucers have been in the news for several days.(The acronym UFO,meaning“UnidentifiedFlyingObject,”appearedseveral decades ago. During World War II, pilots called the mysterious aircraft “Foofighters.”) The Roswell incident was not an isolated incident.Theyhave been spotted in nearly all48statesover the pasttwoweeks.
Afew hours laterthefirstlieutenant.InTopMidday’s press release, the story appearedin Associated Press and United Press reports,aswellason the front pages of afternoonnewspapersinthe western UnitedStates. Later that same day, seniorofficials outside of New Mexico released a new statement that, in short, said: Itdoesn’tmatter, it’s just a balloon.
It is disputed whether the subsequent announcement was true or a cover-up and whether Col.William Blanchard’s assignment to Haut to distribute flying saucer pressure was the result of an error or misunderstanding. Haut told me, “Ofcoursenot.” Blanchard wasn’twrong.–I’m sure Blanchard hasseenexcerpts of the footage.
FILE – This photo is from the U.S. Air Force’s “RoswellReport”dated June 24, 1997, aboutan alleged UFO crash in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947. Duringthehotair balloon flights, test dummies were placed in insulating bags to protect thetemperature. sensitive material. These bags may have been described by at least one witness as “body bags” used to recover alien victims after a flying saucercrash.(US Air Force via AP)
Debrisfalling from the sky was scattered across a remote ranch about 80miles(135kilometers) northwest of Roswell. It was first noticed by farmer Mac Brazell, who was ridinghishorse on July 3 andobserving the aftermath of the previousnight’sviolentstorm. He gatheredsurprising material and setout to visit his nearest neighbors, the Proctors, eight miles away.
“NowIwould say it looks like plastic. But wedidn’thaveplastic back then,” said Loretta Proctor, who was 85, when I spoke to her during my visitto New Mexico.
Proctor, who died in 2013, reportedthat the material was brownish-brown with a purplepart containing thedigits.Although extremely flexible, it wasimpossibletoburn or break with heavy ranch tools.
Proctor,a mother of eight who hasdriven a school bus on dirt roads for nearly 20 years, bristled at skeptics who portrayed Brazell and her family as naive,misguided country idiots.He pointed out that the UnitedStatesThe military told “at least three different stories” about what happenednearhis ranch.
The Pentagon’s latest versionfrom1994 said the accident was part of Project Mogul, an attempt to develop hotair balloons that would fly at consistently high altitudes to acousticallymonitor expected Soviet nuclear explosions.
Glenn Dennis was a young undertaker in Roswell in 1947. He believes the AirForce may have found alien bodies in the New Mexico desert afterreceiving several calls from the Roswell base on July 8thsayingsheaskedhimtobuychildren’scoffins and storefabrics. a body exposedto the sun for several days. He told me thatlaterthatday he was transporting a slightly injured soldier to the base hospital and saw strange debris in the slightly openrear door of FieldAmbulance
and an unprecedented level of security at the base hospital.Shenoticed a friend, whomshe described as a deeply religious nurse, in thehallway holding a towel over her face.
“Heyelled at me, ‘Glenn,run as fast as you can!’” Dennis remembers. Moments later, he saidthat an army captain hadthreatened him not to spread rumors and that if he mentioned what had happened, “someonewouldrip your bones out of the sand.”
The next day he dined with a nurse baseforlunch. He said she told him she had been called to take dictation in the makeshift autopsy room that began with the words “shattered bag, two small mutilated bodies.”Dennis said the monastery-trainedspecialist was almostshockedwhen she drewthefour-fingeredalien,whosefacebore a strikingresemblance to the wide-eyed, slit-mouthed creature that wouldbecome ubiquitous on T-shirts, keychains and mugsdecadeslater..Overcoffee, Dennis said shewasmissing when he tried to call her back to base later that afternoon. Later thatweek, he was told she was no longer assigned to the base and was never heard from again.
“She asked me to take a secret oath never to reveal her name,” said Dennis, who was 73 when I spoke toher.“So I never didit.He died in 2015.
Memories of events can change over time and dependonwhat they hear, but in my half century as a journalist Ihavemetthousandsofpeople and Ithink I have developed a goodskill,recognizing when aconversationpartner is being evasive, exaggerating or lying. Haut, Brazell and Dennis seemed as sincere as anyone I spoketo.
However, after decades of research, UFO investigators have failed to provideconvincingevidence that aliens landedin Roswell. This is tantalizing, perhaps unexcitingevidence that couldstare skeptics in the face for decades.
FILE – Air Force Brigadier General Roger Ramey(left) and Colonel Thomas DuBose inspect a windforecasting device at Fort Worth AirForceAirfield, brought from Roswell, New Mexico, July 8, 1947. (Photo courtesy of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram Photograph Collection, Special Collections, University of Texas at Arlington Library, Arlington, Texas)
A few months before myappearance in Roswell in 1999, there was a digital enhancement tothe AP photodatedApril8th July 1947. Ft. Worth Star-Telegram showsAirborne Brigadier General Roger Ramey and Col. Thomas DuBose pose next to parts of a weatherballoon radar reflector.In the general’s hands is a seemingly previously illegibletelegram. Various experts whostudy digital enhancementshavecompiled unencrypted tickersets that they say include “Roswell NMEX,” “Victims,””Rescuers,”“WeatherBalloons,”“History” and “Record.”
Skeptics arguethat some of these words meanthatpeople are more likely tosee what they want to see and that the telegram maybe a pressrelease rather than a military message.
FILE – The University of Texas at Arlington Library says there willbe a reward for the first person to decipher this note. (Photo courtesy of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram Photograph Collection, Special Collections, The University of Texas Library, Arlington, Texas)
The University of Texas Library,Arlington,reportsthatonepersonhas a $10,000 reward for the “first person” or group/workshop that can provide thefinalreading of Ramey’smemo.(email: rameymemo@gmail.com if you can).
“Nobodywon the prize”, Kevin Randle, a member of the library research team thatworkedon the memo, told VOA.
“ShortlybeforeCovid-19hit,werescannedthenegative[ofthephoto],butitrevealedno new details,” says Randle, a retired military officer and author of books on UFOs and Roswell.Accident.
Another member of the research team, Brenda McClurkin, head of the library’s special collections and archives, agrees.
“Although technology hasadvanced, the mystery remainsamystery,”hesaid.
Steve Herman is VOA’s chief national correspondent. While working for the Discovery Channel,heinvestigatedtheRoswellcrashin1999.