Talk:Witness accounts of the Roswell UFO incident/Archive 1

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Turning NPOV article into a POV article

I've noted that Dr Fil has decided to editorialize some of the witness descriptions here, particularily those by Sheridan Cavitt who was one of only a small handful of people known to have encountered the debris.

Let's remind folks that the purpose here is to present terstimony at face value, NOT to insert POV objections to particular witnesses.

Otherwise, we could have literally dozens of asides and addendums to witness testimony which, for whatever reason, is seen as "flawed" by advocates of whatever side here...

Canada Jack 20:20, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I've started a clean-up of some of this.
There are a number of additional quotes Dr Fil has supplied which are very good and I feel add more detail and depth to this, but some of them I've ommitted as they come from second-hand sources to the debris and debris field, the same with descriptions of exotic material.
Unfortunately, there are a myriad number of people who claimed to have been present at various times at various sites. Limiting to those who we are certain were present at the debris site at Foster ranch is what I've done.
Later on, when we talk of alien recoveries etc - which aren't associated with these "primary" witnesses - those associated with what we read from 1947 - then THOSE accounts are more properly included. Since there are something like 11 crash sites claimed, it is not clear whether, for example, "gouges" or other debris from these accounts (like Exon's) refer to Foster ranch or to other claimed crash sites.
That is why I made the distinction between "primary" and "secondary" witness accounts, perhaps I should re-iterate that in case some think I mean people who were there (primary) and people whi heard from those who were there (secondary).

Canada Jack 21:13, 7 November 2006 (UTC)


Yegods, Dr Fil!

You are, again, crossing the NPOV line with a lot of this. I'm not sure Haut is much of a witness here as he never saw the debris (until a dubious death-bed account - since he was a whistle-blower, why wait until he was near-death to give this sort of testimony?), and his opinion on the competence of others is just that - an opinion and is not really "evidence."

"He also clearly described mostly metallic debris clearly not from a balloon." That's POV, Dr. Fil. You may think it "clearly" is not from a weather/Mogul balloon, researchers may think that, but that is only an opinion - others say that material sounds consistent with Mogul.

And, following the format of the page, the alien stuff should properly be placed in the next section.

I'm not sure what the Robert Smith account adds here - it could be reduced to a line or two.

Zimmerman is a) in the wrong section and b) doesn't really add anything as its an account of rumours and second-hand reports which are not that interesting.

Ricket needs to be there, but the stuff about his handling of the debris. I think his other accounts about aliens should be in the following section.

The FT Worth witness stuff is really straying into POV. Fort examplel while going into extensive details over Newton's differing stories, you don't mention that Marcel and Dubose can more strongly be accused of the same. That's editorializing...

I'll clean this up, or just get this on the Group's watchlist.

Canada Jack 22:19, 8 November 2006 (UTC)


I've omitted - again - the POV stuff Dr Fil inserted to several witness accounts, which question the veracity only of those who thought this was no UFO. As I earlier pointed out, rather lenghty asides could be added to every witness on this page, but our purpose is simply to present those accounts of witnesses close to event at face value. Otherwise people exploring the issue get bogged down in a debate they have no way to easily assess.
I reluctantly omitted Ricket's testimony but only because there were no quotes attached. Dr. Fil, if you could supply his various descriptions and insert them in the appropriate places, that would be appreciated.
Canada Jack 21:50, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Since I wrote the original article, Dr Fil, and you are changing the intent of what I wrote, I think is a) goddamm rude to not even bother to respond to my complaints about what you are doing and b) labelling my changes as "censorship".

The INTENT was to present witness accounts VERBATIM and to leave the debate about how compelling witness A or witness B was to the other pages - the main page and the Reports page.

If you see what I removed, it was a) editorializing remarks (for example critiques of Cavitt, saying witness X was "clearly" not describing a weather balloon, etc) b) excising witnesses who say stuff like "I loaded a crate" and "I heard buddies talking about a 'flying saucer'" but who do NOT say "I handled or saw the debris" or "I saw or heard about aliens." If I was truly "censoring" I would not have included the alien accounts IN THE FIRST PLACE.

As for the debris field, I personally don't think that this needs all the space you enlarged it to. This isn't "censorship," it's a case of what needs to be said here to describe the range of accounts is what I had before. Putting in all these extra accounts is redundant and needlessly lenghthens the piece. Is it REALLY necessary to have a Brazel Jr account further corrobating the size his father said? this stuff with Bill Payne? Tyree? The latter doesn't really say anything other than the debris field had to be under a mile, which is anything within the original range I mentioned! WHich is why I deleted it!

I note that you "censored" the fact that Brazel Jr gave several accounts ranging from no disturbance to substabtial disturbance. Now, I found the quote you have there quite readily, but I am not familiar with the "shallow groove" account. I'd be inclined to omit that unless you can supply an actual quote for that.

The 2002 archaelogical dig to me says NOTHING and is NOT a witness account.

I'd appreciate a response underlining why you think some of these acounts are so important to the story that they must be retained.

Now, the Marcel stuff in the "cover-up" section is simply inadequate. It should not be our place to say he said something, quotes where he said there was a cover-up and the debris being switched or stage should be inserted. This is not "censorship," this is following the general thrust of the article where verbatim quotes are preferred.

Canada Jack 15:46, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

The title of the article is "Witness accounts of the Roswell UFO incident." It does not read "Witness accounts, but only in the way Canada Jack thinks they should be given, everything else to be arbitrary deleted or reorganized only in the way he thinks it should be reorganized." If you want to do that, go write a blog.
"Witness accounts" means "witness accounts." It does not mean arbitrarily dividing accounts into "primary" or "secondary" according to your personal definition of "primary" and "secondary” or deleting testimony because it isn’t presented exactly in the way you wanted it.
"Primary" does not mean only people whose names happened to make it into the newspapers in 1947 are equally important witnesses. By that rather arbitary criterion, Sheridan Cavitt is not a "primary witness." Neither is "Jesse Marcel Jr." Yet you have them as "primary witnesses."
In contrast, Marcel Sr. and Gen. Dubose are definitely "primary" Fort Worth witnesses by your own definition. Further, they are obviously very IMPORTANT witnesses, because they were both senior officers with direct involvement with the recovery at Roswell and in the inner circle of command. Yet when I put them into the Fort Worth witnesses section to contrast with the testimony of a low-level civilian and military witness, namely Johnson and Newton with no direct involvement, you again arbitrarily removed them and shuffled them off into "Accounts of a coverup." Your arbitrary rationale: they didn't give testimony about debris in Fort Worth.
First of all, that isn't true. Both did have something to say about the debris. E.g., Marcel said he brought debris samples from Roswell to show to Gen. Ramey and specifically mentioned the beams covered with "hieoglyphics," which he thought to be the most interesting. He also said he covered up this debris with paper before the press came in to take the familiar public photos of the weather balloon debris. Dubose talked about another secret shipment of debris carried out in high secrecy, the debris being concealed in a bag when it arrived in Fort Worth from Roswell, en route to Washington D.C. and then Wright Field. Further, Dubose said even he was never allowed to see the actual Roswell debris because of the secrecy. The direct implication of this is that the photographs of Dubose with the weather balloon were not photographs of Dubose with the "real" debris. As to the weather balloon shown in the photos, Dubose said that was a cover story to get rid of the press.
Second, that these high-level insiders both said there was a cover-up and a debris swap is important information in evaluating what Newton and Johnson had to say. Newton & Johnson are merely witnesses to what they were shown in Gen. Ramey's office & told came from Roswell. But neither man was at Roswell or part of Ramey's command like Marcel and Dubose were. They didn't have direct knowledge of what really happened. In that sense, neither Newton or Johnson is really a "primary" Roswell witness, even though both their names appear in 1947 as being "involved." That's one reason I have lot's of problems with your definition of "primary" and "secondary." It's a poor way to organize the material.
Finally, I really don't care if you feel only debris testimony goes here or what your personal intent was. Again, this isn't your personal article. The sections are "Roswell witnesses" and "Fort Worth witnesses," not "Only Roswell debris witnesses", etc. All relevant information should be in these sections that helps readers to logically evaluate the individual testimony. I definitely think you don't want statements by Marcel and Dubose in there about a debris swap and cover-up, because you are trying to slant the article to only weather balloon debris being present at Fort Worth. Omitting Marcel and Dubose leaves the reader with that impression. It's patently dishonest and again a lousy way to write history.
We can sit and discuss maybe the best way to organize the material. One way is to organize by topics, such as "debris testimony," "spacecraft & alien testimony," "cover-up testimony," etc. But there is also a lot of overlap in what people reported. Organization this way can sometimes so fragment people's stories that they become difficult to follow or diffuses the overall import of what they had to say. Again, it can be a lousy way to write history. For example, Robert Smith testified to high security, unknown men in plain clothes at the base flashing badges with the name of some project and controlling everything, seeing anomalous debris handled, loading large quantities of the debris onto planes, naming Oliver Henderson as one of the pilots (corroborating the testimony of Henderson's family and acquaintances), a Secret Service relative representing Truman being there, and more. When you put it all together, it makes a lot of sense when he says that he was convinced what happened was a crashed UFO, even though he didn't directly witness an intact craft or alien bodies. That's why I put the statment into the accounts of spacecraft and aliens. You deleted it.
Same with the B-29 flight of Slusher and "Tim." You again arbitrarily deleted it, saying they didn't directly witness aliens or a spacecraft. But their flight was part of a logical progression of independent testimony from Dennis, the Anayas, and Bean, about the alien bodies being taken out to a hangar to be flown to Texas the next day. Then we have Slusher and Tim saying they crew members on a highly unusual flight where they flew a crate under armed guard, being met by a mortician at Fort Worth, being then told to forget about it, and also hearing rumors just before this of the recovery of a flying saucer with bodies outside of Roswell. Hmmm, not overwhelming evidence of a flight of alien bodies to Fort Worth in isolation, but definitely interesting in light of the accompanying testimony of other witnesses. That’s why it belongs there.
Histories are often best written by compiling testimony from multiple witnesses and contrasting them. This brings out differences and similarities. Often witnesses cross-corroborate portions of each others testimony. Putting them in some sort of chronological or logical order is often also useful. This I the way I personally prefer to write historical articles.
You use many rationalizations for your many removals of testimony. Your constant demand for direct quotes, e.g. Now I like direct quotes myself, but sometimes it's not always easy to find a nice pithy one from a witness to fit into an encyclopedia article. In real interviews, the interviewers and interviewee meander around. They might say a few words about a particular topic, then go off on various tangents for another ten pages before the interviewer manages to bring the discussion back to the topic, wherein a few more words might be said, before going off on another tangent. Transcripts are rarely nice and clean. E.g., here is what Marcel had to say in his 1981 interview with Linda Corley about concealing Roswell debris from the press:
Linda: [Referencing news photo of Marcel in Ramey's office] And this is what? Like that foil that they described in here [The Roswell Incident book].
Jesse: What you see there is nothing but a piece of brown paper that I put over so that the news media couldn't get a picture of what I had.
Linda: Oh, you were covering the stuff?
Jesse: I was covering it, yeah. But nobody knew that. I was told by my commanding General, "Just don't say anything. Don't show anything." And the moment he walked into that room, I had long pow-wow with him in his office.
Corley and Mrs. Marcel then spend 4 lines talking about how handsome and young Marcel looks in the photo.
Jesse: You see this picture right here? [Photo of Gen. Ramey on page 35 of the Roswell Incident] That's a fake. After I left there... he's the Commanding General... General Ramey. He claimed that it was fragments of a weather balloon. So they too this [photo]. This is part of a weather balloon. They had that picture made here with this. I wasn't even there then. They had this picture made, strictly for the press.
Linda: Yeah? But when they let the press take this picture [Marcel photo] they still told you to cover the stuff up?
Jesse: Right. Well, he didn't have to tell me that. I knew that.
Linda: Oh? You knew better than to show [debris]?
Jesse: That's what I did.
Linda: But didn't they think that people weren't going to be stupid enough to believe that it was a weather balloon like that?
Jesse: I knew it wasn't a weather balloon. And Gen. Ramey knew it wasn't a weather balloon. I want to show you something else. [Interview changes to a completely different topic]
In this sort of meandering and somewhat broken conversation, I think it is often better to paraphrase what somebody said. So at one point, I wrote that Marcel in the Corley interview said that the photos of the weather balloon in Ramey's office were "fake" and that he had concealed the real debris from the press. I think that pretty accurately conveys in a very short space what Marcel said above, don't you think? But you again deleted it.
Regarding Brazel Jr. being "inconsistent" about the gouge--where did you dream that up? Witnesses don't always repeat everything in each and every interview. A topic may not come up in a particular conversation. To my knowledge, Brazel Jr. never said that he never saw a gouge or ground disturbance. That would be inconsistent. If you can find a quote or paraphrase to that effect, show me. Perhaps you are confusing what Brazel Jr. had to say with Marcel, who said he didn’t see anyplace where it had impacted. That’s conflicting testimony between witnesses, but not a case of a particular witness being “inconsistent.” Could be a simple explanation, e.g., uneven terrain and Marcel not covering every bit on foot, or Brazel Jr. being on horseback and being there much longer riding the ranch. Or maybe the military created the gouge during recovery, scooping up soil to get everything embedded in it. Smith reported seeing a lot of farm soil in the hangar as he loaded debris onto planes. So Marcel didn’t see a gouge because it was created later. Just a possibility. Other witnesses also reported a gouge, such as Rickett and Whitmore Jr. Whitmore also gave a figure for length: 175-200 yards, very similar to the cited Brazel Jr. 500 feet.
Regarding my inclusion of the Sci Fi archeological dig showing a ground disturbance at the exact place Brazel Jr. showing a gouge, that's called corroborating a witness' testimony, like presenting physical evidence in a court of law. I also noted that the origins of the disturbance couldn't be determined. Seems pretty factual and NPOV to me. Deleting it is another of your arbitrary decisions.
Regarding your statement that Brazel Jr.s account of the debris field should be deleted because it merely repeats what his father originally said, your math seems a little weak. Brazel Sr.'s newspaper interview says the debris field was 200 yards across, whereas Brazel Jr. recalled his father saying it was 200-300 feet wide by 1/4 mile or 800 yards long, a good contrast to Marcel's 200-300 feet wide by 3/4 mile long. Both Marcel and Brazel Jr. are giving the same width and describing a linear debris field, much longer than it was wide, very different than the Brazel Sr. newspaper account, which is still around 1000 times bigger than what Cavitt described. The combination Brazel/Paine debris field size in one dimension is again 3/4 mile. The Tyree account of diverting sheep around the debris field by a mile, again conveys a very large debris field. Brazel Schreiber's relative modest recollection of seeing one football field size area is still at least 100 times bigger than the one Cavitt described. Despite the differences, all are describing a debris area several orders of magnitude larger than Cavitt's "living room" size. I think that's the real reason you don't want those accounts in there.
Regarding a direct quote from Brazel Jr., I provided a citation to the Randle & Schmitt book where I got the item and that’s enough for now as far as I’m concerned. I didn’t make it up. Could be there’s no transcript or recording because it’s from field notes when he showed Randle & Schmitt exactly where he saw the gouge. That’s one possibility. Or maybe it came from another meandering conversation where they felt it better to paraphrase. I could email Kevin Randle, e.g., find out the situation and if there is a transcript.
Regarding your claims that I’m single-handedly injecting "POV" into the article, perhaps you should read a few of the things you’ve written, such as you editorializing several times that most debris accounts are consistent with a weather balloon whereas only a few describe exotic material. You are also clearly trying to slant the article that way by your carefully selection of quoted material and organization. Or how about your comment concerning Sleppy’s testimony that it was very "inconsistent"? Yet when I pointed out that Cavitt was grossly inconsistent about his involvement, you screamed "POV" and deleted it, despite the citations I provided from Friedman and Randle which documented it in detail.
In reality, every single account by Sleppy has her talking about being called by McBoyle, of him describing something like a crushed dishpan at the Brazel ranch, trying to put out the story on the teletype, but then getting cut off by the FBI. Her story also has some corroboration from her boss and McBoyle himself. The part of the story where she see said McBoyle told her Brazel had dragged a large piece off the field and stored it in a shed had totally independent corroboration from Brazel Jr. and Marcel. Again, I think it’s a good way to write history by contrasting various witness accounts like this instead pretending they don’t exist because you don't like them.Dr Fil 08:31, 12 November 2006 (UTC)


If people doubted that Dr Fil was turning this into his personal POV on the Roswell incident before, there should be no doubts now after the above.

AS the article originally stood, we had face-value verbatim accounts, for the most part, of: a) the debris described in 1947; b) the size of the debris field; c) disturbance of the ground.

Then the article had a) accounts of aliens and alien recoveries; b) accounts of intimidation; c) accounts of cover-ups.

What Dr Fil instead proposes is: To add caveats and critiques to selected witnesses, notably the ones who didn't think this had anything to do to aliens, but no critques to any pro-ufo witnesses; add numerous MORE witnesses who in almost every case simply repeat what has already been said, despite this making an alredy-too lengthy article even longer.

Then cries "censorship" when I remove the critiques to witnesses when I point out that crituqes are extant on more appropriate pages; and remove some of the witnesses EVEN WHEN OTHER ACCOUNTS WHICH REMAIN HAVE THE SAME INFORMATION.

But there are some points he addresses which I feel stem from a basic misunderstanding of what this page is intended to do.

The original article moves from what I call "primary" to secondary for a very good reason - the "primary" accounts of debris were ALL we had heard about for something more than 30 years. The "secondary" witnesses come in after with accounts of coverups and aliens!

So far, everyone on the initial page seems perfectly fine with the way this has been constructed - except for you, Dr Fil.

"'Primary' does not mean only people whose names happened to make it into the newspapers in 1947 are equally important witnesses."

Uh, I never said it did, Dr Fil. What I DID say that those primary ACCOUNTS - ie from 1947 - are what are addressed by the "primary" witnesses. NOT that they are "primary" witnesses simply because they were mentioned in 1947. There are several witnesses which were NOT mentioned then but who are witnesses to the "primary" reported event.

The "Secondary" witnesses are those witnesses to the later stories of aliens and coverup, NONE of which appeared in 1947 (the ACCOUNTS, not the witnesses). THAT is why Marcel gives both testimony to the PRIMARY event and the SECONDARY event.

If this has to be reworded or the terminolgy changed so as to be less confusing, then fine. But the reason this structure is in place is because it mirrors the Roswell page, it is NOT "arbritary."

"In contrast, Marcel Sr. and Gen. Dubose are definitely "primary" Fort Worth witnesses by your own definition. Further, they are obviously very IMPORTANT witnesses, because they were both senior officers with direct involvement with the recovery at Roswell and in the inner circle of command."

Dr Fil, as I stated above, there is a very good reason to distinguishe between what I call "primary" - those who can expand on thr 1947 accounts - and those, like Dubose, who can speak to the "secondary" issues - cover-ups - it's because that is how the Roswell article is structured.

This is NOT arbritary, and to be consistent, we'd have to tear up the original article just to accomodate your specious claims that witnesses are being "censored." Since I largely deleted accounts which repeated what others say, how is this "censorship"?

"In that sense, neither Newton or Johnson is really a "primary" Roswell witness, even though both their names appear in 1947 as being "involved." That's one reason I have lot's of problems with your definition of "primary" and "secondary." It's a poor way to organize the material."

Again, this speaks to a misunderstanding of what is meant. We are NOT saying "first-hand" witnesses and "second-hand witnesses." We are talking about the initial ACCOUNTS (primary) and the later accounts (secondary). If that still feel this needs to be changed, then take it up on the "Roswell" page. As it stands, the structure here is dictated by the structure there. So, go over there and suggest a new way to structure the article and then we can do that here as well.

What you propose here is putting the cart before the horse - if we throw out that approach here, it makes this page incoherent in comparison to the main Roswell page.

"In contrast, Marcel Sr. and Gen. Dubose are definitely "primary" Fort Worth witnesses by your own definition. Further, they are obviously very IMPORTANT witnesses, because they were both senior officers with direct involvement with the recovery at Roswell and in the inner circle of command."

When I say "primary witness" accounts, those are accounts which speak to the sequence of events as reported in 1947, namely the debris and transport thereof.

The "Secondary" accounts are those accounts which speak to cover-ups and aliens, accounts which did not emerge until the late 1970s and 1980s. In many cases, like with Marcel Sr., individuals can BOTH have primary and secondary accounts as they spoke BOTH to original debris accounts and later cover-up accounts (as in the case of Marcel).

Cavitt and Marcel Jr., in contrast, did not speak of a "cover-up" or alien recovery, their testimony had to do with the debris and with the condition of the debris field. They are "primary" witnesses, witnesses to the "primary" event which is the event as recorded in 1947.

"Further, Dubose said even he was never allowed to see the actual Roswell debris because of the secrecy. The direct implication of this is that the photographs of Dubose with the weather balloon were not photographs of Dubose with the "real" debris."

But I don't have accounts of debris from Dubose, I have his comments from the affidavit suggesting a "cover-up." Which is a "secondary" account, "Secondary" because this was not the "primary" story as reported in 1947.

Obviously if you are confused, perhaps we should rework the phrasing to clarify this, keeping in mind that it should replicate the accounts as given on the main Roswell page.

"Finally, I really don't care if you feel only debris testimony goes here or what your personal intent was. Again, this isn't your personal article."

Yet you are turning this into YOUR personal article. This article replicated the format of the "Roswell" page, which, I should add, has had numerous people contributing to it. So, far from this being "my" article, this is a reflection of what collaborators have made the main page. And THAT is a far better article than what appeared when I first started these rewrites.

If you choose to redo the structure, you should take your debate over to the main Roswell page.

I agree that it may be a bit confusing as to what is meant by "primary." But all I think we need here is to clarify the meaning as the structure makes eminent sense.

"I definitely think you don't want statements by Marcel and Dubose in there about a debris swap and cover-up, because you are trying to slant the article to only weather balloon debris being present at Fort Worth. Omitting Marcel and Dubose leaves the reader with that impression. It's patently dishonest and again a lousy way to write history."

But I had put those accounts in initially! Which is why I requested you get the actualt quotes of Marcel regarding the cover-up, not because I didn't think he said it - he most certainly did - I just think we should have his actual quotes. This "slant" is simply a reflection of the accounts as they were presented.

We start with the accounts which speak to what Marcel recovered in 1947. Then we move on to the other accounts. If this is "slanted," then, again, you should take this debate to the Roswell page.

"Despite the differences, all are describing a debris area several orders of magnitude larger than Cavitt's "living room" size. I think that's the real reason you don't want those accounts in there."

Uh, you are the only here who has ever put comments in disparaging one witness over another. YOU have a problem with Cavitt, well, so what? That has to be included? You seem to think so.

I suggested that the range of accounts suffice. If one read what I had originally, we see that Cavitt gives a very small debris field read - in 1994 - which is at odds with the range elsewhere given. You seem to feel a great need to expand those accounts as if it isn;t clear ALREADY that Cavitt is the odd man out here!

YOU are the one editorialing! I simply had the range of different debris field descriptions, you feel some sort of need to "counter" one account or the other! Anyway, my critique stands - all these extra accounts are superfluous and it would seem from your words are there only to counter an account you want to dispute. And, I'm sorry, but saying you had to divert a mile only suggests the debris field was smaller than the diversion. There is NOTHING there which suggests the field is barely under a mile or signifigantly smaller. Which is why I don't see it adding anything as other accounts are specific about the debris field itself.

"We can sit and discuss maybe the best way to organize the material. One way is to organize by topics, such as "debris testimony," "spacecraft & alien testimony," "cover-up testimony," etc. But there is also a lot of overlap in what people reported. Organization this way can sometimes so fragment people's stories that they become difficult to follow or diffuses the overall import of what they had to say. Again, it can be a lousy way to write history."

That's what I in fact did before you started to mess with the page. If we deal with the initial accounts - replicating the Roswell page - then move onto to the alien, cover-up accounts etc., I feel this makes it far easier to follow the threads. Otherwise, we have maybe 30 people giving accounts which speak to many aspects of this. To me, I don't see the problem in say having Marcel Sr's debris account split from his coverup accounts. It doesn't "confuse" matters at all.

There are few accounts which really over-lap a lot anyway. Dubose doesn't describe the debris (unless you have some account I've not heard of). A lot of those guys in hangars either saw debris or aliens, but not both. This is a minor issue of confusion as it doesn't come up a lot.

"Same with the B-29 flight of Slusher and "Tim." You again arbitrarily deleted it, saying they didn't directly witness aliens or a spacecraft. But their flight was part of a logical progression of independent testimony from Dennis, the Anayas, and Bean, about the alien bodies being taken out to a hangar to be flown to Texas the next day."

They were removed PRECISELY because they said nothing about aliens or a cover-up! YOU feel they need to be included simply to butress an account which is in fact covered on the Roswell page. This "logical progression" doesn't really speak to anything unless you are trying to insert some POV on what actually happened (IOW, "here is the 'real' scenario and my witness accounts to back it up. ALl other accounts shall be ignored).

To me - and I'm sure to the casual reader - all that is there is an account from some guys who said they heard about a flying saucer recovery (not surprising since that is what Roswell base said they had) and guys loading crates. As if it is a bizarre unusual occurence to have a) high security and b) crates flying in and out of bases with nuclear devices during the Cold War. The average person would say "so what?" to these accounts - the ones which didn;t specifically say anything about aliens which is why I felt they weren't needed. The accounts are therefore suplerfluous and needlessly lengthen the page.

"You use many rationalizations for your many removals of testimony. Your constant demand for direct quotes, e.g. Now I like direct quotes myself, but sometimes it's not always easy to find a nice pithy one from a witness to fit into an encyclopedia article."

TWO quotes I requested, Dr Fil. One I KNOW is out there - I just thought it'd be easier for to get it - Marcel speaking of a cover-up, etc. If you get that original Friedman piece I'm sure you pull a pithy quote from that.

"[re Marcel quote] In this sort of meandering and somewhat broken conversation, I think it is often better to paraphrase what somebody said."

Maybe in that particular case, Dr Fil. But I can't believe you can't find a pithy quote from Marcel, in fact I'm SURE you can. It's no big deal, no "gothya" task, as I know the quotes are there. Want me to fetch it?

As for the Brazel Jr quote for the description of a rut etc., I asked for that as I had never seen a quote from him describing such a gouge. To me, that's an important piece of testimony and the quote it appears in - even if it is Randle and Schmitt saying he said that (which should be mentioned if no direct quote appears) should be inserted. BTW, it is important to say THEY say he said that.

"Or maybe it came from another meandering conversation where they felt it better to paraphrase. I could email Kevin Randle, e.g., find out the situation and if there is a transcript."

Then why not say that authors Randle and Schmitt say Brazel described a rut... If we can't directly quote Brazel, then you should do that. I think you can see that I have tried to keep this a verbatim as possible without providing "context."

"Regarding Brazel Jr. being "inconsistent" about the gouge--where did you dream that up? Witnesses don't always repeat everything in each and every interview."

He was asked about what his father said about the condition of the ground and he described the ground as not being disturbed. He asked about "singing" and reported none, which seemed to indicate no disturbances. Later, he talked of it making "quite a track".

"Regarding your claims that I’m single-handedly injecting "POV" into the article, perhaps you should read a few of the things you’ve written, such as you editorializing several times that most debris accounts are consistent with a weather balloon whereas only a few describe exotic material."

I think that's a fair comment. I'd say it'd be more neutral to simply say something like "accounts roughly corroborate each other in terms of the appearance of the debris, though some witnesses (did I say "a few"?) described exotic properties." That was really a lead-in to contrast the various accounts of the debris field, with disparate descriptions of its size and its condition.

"Or how about your comment concerning Sleppy’s testimony that it was very "inconsistent"? Yet when I pointed out that Cavitt was grossly inconsistent about his involvement, you screamed "POV" and deleted it, despite the citations I provided from Friedman and Randle which documented it in detail. "

But this Sleppy critique comes from many ufo researchers themselves, Dr Fil. Sleppy's transcripts sometimes say completely different things. At least that is what I have read and from what I can see on ufo-friendly sites, her accounts are discounted because they are all over the map. However, I did feel she should be mentioned for the general thrust of her comments. As for Cavitt, what we have there are crituqes that his comments are inconsistent WITH OTHER WITNESSES. Some say he denied being there - but do you honestly doubt he was, Dr Fil?

What I object to here is an attempt to simply paint his testimony as "not credible" not because he described things differently elsewhere but because it doesn't fit in with other witness testimony! Who are we to say that he is right or wrong? Who is ANYONE to say ANY witness is right or wrong? The intent here is to simply present what those witnesses say not to point out problems with the testimony (which is done elsewhere).

If we apply this "context" to many other witnesses, then as I have repeatedly said, we will get bogged down in debates better done on other pages and GREATLY increase the size of the article.

"Again, I think it’s a good way to write history by contrasting various witness [SLEPPY]accounts like this instead pretending they don’t exist because you don't like them."

Dr Fil, I INCLUDED SLEPPY'S ACCOUNT(!) You seem to think it was pretty consistent, but that is not what I have read, which is why in this single case, I had the caveat. It was TOO inconsistent to know precisely the sequence of events, but I included the general thrust of what she said.

"Regarding my inclusion of the Sci Fi archeological dig showing a ground disturbance at the exact place Brazel Jr. showing a gouge, that's called corroborating a witness' testimony, like presenting physical evidence in a court of law. I also noted that the origins of the disturbance couldn't be determined. Seems pretty factual and NPOV to me. Deleting it is another of your arbitrary decisions."

Uh, even if you buy that argument, (this is the WITNESS page, not the the "testing the witnesses' testimony" page) the test "corroborated" nothing. It couldn't conclude if this had anything to do with Roswell. Besides, it is mentioned on the main page.

Canada Jack 19:25, 12 November 2006 (UTC)


I've taken a look at what you've done and you've taken an article of reasonable length into a way-too-long piece which WAY too much extraneous stuff. It's nuts. Do we need reems and reems of witness stuff for alien accounts?
Canada Jack 19:32, 12 November 2006 (UTC)



Page clean-up needed

I've redone the intro and changed the section head to eliminate confusion over "primary" and "secondary" witnesses. Now they are witnesses to the debris as described in 1947, and the accounts of aliens etc.

THAT was the original structure I had here and since Dr Fil objected to what seemed to him to be arbritary placement of witnesses, I have clarified what the structure means and hope that that suffices.

So, accounts of Dubose and Marcel talking about "coverup" in the first section are deleted as those accounts are in the NEXT section.

We still like a proper citation for the Brazel Jr comment - one follows the quote, but that is for the QUOTE not the claimed description.

The main problem with the article now is it is WAY too long. THAT is why the debris description section should properly only be a few paragraphs long. I feel the range of descriptions as originally presented is more than adequate and like the exotic descriptions elsewhere, need only several representative quotes and a "for more see here".

The alien accounts should be handled in a similar fashion - what you;ve put here, Dr Fil, is WAY too much detail. We, again, need only about four or five quotes, the best ones, the ones where X has a first-hand description. The second a clean-up crew comes to this page (and they probably will after "Rowell" gets done), they will chop tons of those quotes out of there, likely saying exactly what I say here.

Cheers

Canada Jack 20:36, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

1. Again, the article's title is "Witness accounts of the Roswell UFO incident", not Canada Jack's arbitrary division of witness accounts into "primary" and "secondary" nor so-called "primary" accounts being limited exclusively to descriptions of debris and aliens, nor only certain types of testimony being allowed in certain sections. Again, I don't care what CJ's "intentions" were. He doesn't own Wikipedia and this isn't his personal article.

2. Newspaper report what they are told, not necessarily what happened. Further, they report only a fraction of the story. Not everybody involved is necessarily going to be named. Not everybody named and quoted is necessarily going to know what is going on, nor are they necessarily telling the truth. That is one limitation of trying to rely solely on 1947 accounts or arbitrarily dividing into "primary" and "secondary". Roswell base had several thousand personnel and civilians working there. 20,000 people lived in the Roswell/Corona, N.M. area back then. Lot's of people aren't named who knew something. That doesn't make their testimony less reliable or "secondary."

3. Guys like Sheridan Cavitt aren't even "primary" yet CJ writes him up as if he is. Cavitt is not mentioned by name in 1947. He is not quoted anywhere. There is Brazel's peripheral reference to a "man in plain clothes" accompanying him and Marcel to the ranch and then Marcel's LATER testimony that Cavitt was with them, but by CJ's own definition that make him a so-called "secondary" witness. When I try to point out that Cavitt said over and over again to multiple investigators that he was in no way involved, not even stationed at Roswell, CJ always DELETES this, and calls it "irrelevant". Yet, this too is part of Cavitt's testimony and obviously incredibly relevant, since Cavitt is seriously contradicting himself. It is just as much his "account" of what happened as his one-time account to the Air Force of his tiny balloon crash site.

I should note that I pointed out some other contradictions elsewhere, such as Walter Haut, the base PIO, claiming that besides putting out the press release, he didn't have any direct inside knowledge as to what else might have happened. This changed in an oral history done in 2000, when Haut said he saw the crashed disk and bodies at the base. The difference here (with these comments not inserted into the article) is that Cavitt claimed in his AF interview he saw basically nothing and there were no security oaths or secrecy involved. If this was true, then there is no good reason why he couldn't say this civilian investigators, even after his AF interview. Randle said he continued to deny involvement to him even then. Haut, on the other hand, was telling the exact opposite sort of story and might have very good reasons to keep his mouth shut, including a security oath.

4. "Primary" witnesses Dubose and Marcel told us later there was a cover-up going on in Fort Worth. They are the major "Fort Worth witnesses" and direct participants in what happened at Roswell, and at least a brief summary of their statements concerning a coverup and debris swap definitely needs to be here. In contrast, Newton and Johnson are secondary, low-level "primary" characters with absolutely no direct knowledge of what happened over at Roswell. They were shown a weather balloon, told (didn't directly know) that it came from Roswell, and that is all that they are describing. Yet, whenever I put the Marcel/Dubose coverup statements to contrast with the Newton/Johnson statements, Canada Jack DELETES it. He obviously doesn't want the reader being clearly made aware of the limitations of the Newton/Johnson testimony. This is yet another way in which he definitely is trying to slant the article. A brief mention of Dubose and Marcel definitely goes back in, with a reference to more detailed testimony in the "coverup" section.

Another of his totally arbitrary reasons for DELETING it was he alone decided Fort Worth witnesses should only describe debris. So to try to meet him halfway on this, I added brief Marcel/Dubose accounts of debris in Fort Worth PLUS their testimony that the debris Newton/Johnson were shown was the swapped, cover-up weather balloon. Nope, still won't do. DELETE.

5. Limits on the length of Wiki articles are arbitrary. Some articles just demand more detail because of their complexity. The exotic debris section can be relatively short because there is a Web site, Roswellproof.com, that has a very large compilation of exotic debris descriptions that can be referenced.

6. On the other hand, that isn't true for some of the other sections, such as alien bodies or witness intimidation, for which there is no good comprehensive listing of testimony elsewhere easily accessible to the average reader. The testimony tends to be scattered around in the various Roswell books. What's the point of having a separate Roswell witness accounts Wiki article if you don't go into some of the details of testimony and the many various witnesses? Why not make this Wiki article a centralized Net resource for some of this testimony?

I've greatly expanded these testimony sections because there is a helluva lot of testimony concerning weird goings on at Roswell. E.g., I've now listed 14 witnesses (!!!!) who've discussed military detention and coercion of Brazel. I'm sure Canada Jack will attempt to DELETE this too because it destroys the pretense that Brazel gave an uncoherced account of what happened in his Daily Record interview. The testimony is also cross-corroboratory. E.g., provost marshal Easley admitted they held Brazel at the base under guard for days. This corroborated much earlier testimony by Brazel Jr. about his father saying they "threw him and jail" and held him against his will. Neighbor Strickland remembered Brazel saying something similar. Four witnesses, including two reporters, separately testified seeing Brazel in military hands when he went to the Daily Record for his interview. But if you provide only one or two accounts of this, the force of the total testimony together is greatly diluted.

One reason these sections are as long as they are, is because CJ demanded as much quotation as possible, rather than paraphrasing. OK, so I put a lot of quotes in. Now he says "cleanup" is required. Hey, let's make up your mind. Quotes is quotes, not just the quotes you want in there.

7. I already provided a "proper" citation for the Bill Brazel gouge dimension description: p. 50, Randle & Schmitt, 1991, the same book which CJ got the Brazel quote from concerning the gouge. I just combined the two into one citation, listing the two page numbers. I suggested Canada Jack read the added one with the dimension description. He didn't, and instead demanded the citation again. (Sigh!) Randle gave a slightly expanded Brazel gouge description in his later "Roswell Encyclopedia" (2000), so I just threw that in as well. Will we now be treated to yet another [citation needed] demand? Please read the given citations first before endlessly demanding them.

8. CJ again DELETED a brief description I provided of the 2002 archeological dig corroborating a soil disturbance at the exact location Brazel Jr. said he the gouge. Why? Well allegedly because it isn't testimony. Well, actually it is a form of testimony by the archeologists involved. I will turn this into testimony from Bill Doleman, the Univ. of N.M. archeologist who led the dig. Won't be as concise, however. Let's see if CJ can dream up some other arbitrary reason to delete it. Dr Fil 03:19, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

9. There's a very thin line between "clean-up" and obvious attempts to slant an article to one's personal POV by severely limiting contrary evidence. I would rather have a very long article that details and contrasts corroborating and contradictory testimony, including the testimony CJ wants in there. This is the much better way to reconstruct history.Dr Fil 03:19, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

God this is shit. It's not even an encyclopedia article really, I can't think of any other Wikipedia articles that are just summaries of witness accounts of historical events. Useful information should be integrated into another page on Roswell I guess, but this is just not what Wikipedia is for. --P4k 10:54, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Earth to Dr Fil - Explain why Cavitt's denial of being at site relevant!

Obviously, Dr Fil, you feel great weight must be attached to the claim that Cavitt denied being at Roswell.

Answer me this:

Is there ANY doubt that he in fact was there?

If not, then how in god's name is it RELEVANT!?!

If you read Cavitt's Air Force testimony, it is clear from his point of view that Randle and particulary Schmitt were hostile interviewers, accusing him of hiding his past when he claims he readily talked about his involvement there.

Since Randle has now distanced himself from research by Scmitt, one wonders if the latter was simply spinning Cavitt's words because he wasn't telling the story they wanted to hear? Cavitt sure thought so.

Whatever the truth is here, I don't see it as any way relevant to the page - especially since we can qualify the testimony of many key witnesses in the same way. THAT is why this is a verbatim page, Dr Fil.

Do you really want me to pull the quotes up where Marcel and Dubose state, unequivically, that the debris they posed with was what they recovered from the ranch?

The intent of this page is to present the testimony as was given. When it comes to comments which suggest "cover-up" and "aliens" you should have noted that I didn't qualify the various comments with stuff like "but others point out that x said this elsewhere," as I simply presented the testimony at face value. When it came to Brazel Jr., however, there were differing accounts which suggested a changed story over time. Since the section was "debris" and whatever was the range of descriptions, I included that. When it came to "aliens" and "cover up," the approach was to show the quotes which suggest that, and not show the quotes by the same people which didn't suggest that.

And, again, I point out to you that I noted the objections to Cavitt's testimony on another page.

IF there is Cavitt testimony which says something different about the debris, then let's see it. Otherwise, unless you are seriously suggesting Cavitt was NOT there, then this stuff is IRRELEVANT and shall be omitted.

Canada Jack 02:49, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Earth back to Canada Jack

If you actually bothered to look up the references I provided, instead of automatically hitting the DELETE button (and probably violating Wiki rules for 3 successive deletions of somebody else's material in a short time), you might discover the following:

1. Randle says he was there PERSONALLY on multiple occasions (3 detailed) when Cavitt denied to his face being in any way involved or being at the base, including AFTER the AF took its statement from him. Further, the Randle reference is 1997, AFTER, Randle had already tried to distance himself from Schmitt. Saying this is all Schmitt's invention or a case of Randle distancing himself from Schmitt or that Cavitt was somehow intimidated by Randle & Schmitt is just more of your fanciful rationales to delete obviously relevant TESTIMONY from Cavitt.

2. Randle & Schmitt weren't the only people to hear this from Cavitt. Friedman and Moore separately tried to interview Cavitt and got the same story that he wasn't involved, wasn't there, etc. Read the Friedman reference I provided in "Top Secret/Majic." I know Friedman and everybody who knows Friedman knows he's one of the nicest guys around. Another person to try to interview Cavitt and getting the same "not involved" story from Cavitt was Mark Rodeghier, director of CUFOS. I guess all of these people are just making it up.

3. Why didn't Cavitt just tell the same story he told the A.F.: It was nothing, just a little bit of balloon debris, there was no secrecy or security oaths involved, etc.? If it wasn't a big secret, there was no good reason NOT to tell them this. If they pressed him, all he had to say, was "Really, that's all there was, sorry I can't help you more." Hey, the guy was a retired counterintelligence agent. I think he could handle a little skeptical cross-examination from researchers.

4. Yes, everybody agrees that Cavitt was probably involved, but there is no conclusive evidence to that effect, certainly not from 1947 news articles, plus we have Cavitt's many denials. He is NOT a "primary" witness no matter how much you try to paint him that way.

5. Is there other testimony from Cavitt about what he saw? Yes, absolutely! He repeatedly said he saw NOTHING because he wasn't there and not involved in any way.

6. Why are Cavitt's many denials of involvement relevant? Hah! Because Cavitt IMPEACHED himself BIG-TIME. Good thing you're not on a jury.

7. If you noted objections to Cavitt's testimony on another page, there is no Wiki rule that says objections can't ALSO be noted on this page.

8. I noted some other contradictory accounts, such as Haut's testimony on seeing a crashed disk and aliens at the base. (The difference here is that if Haut was telling the truth, he might have a very good reason not to say anything earlier. He would be keeping a big secret and perhaps violating a security oath, the exact opposite situation that Cavitt story places him in.) I also pointed out that the UP person Dixon is reported by Randle & Schmitt and Pflock as giving contradictory accounts of the military confiscating evidence afterwards. That actually undercuts Joyce's story of confiscation a little bit. I don't see any problem in pointing this conflicting testimony. Why do you?

9. I am totally unaware of your alleged major changes of story in Brazel Jr.'s testimony. Perhaps you can detail this. Except for minor points, mainly having to do with exact times, Brazel told a highly consistent story over the years, particularly descriptions of strange debris he found.

10. The quotes from Marcel and Dubose where they allegedly say what was shown in Ramey's office was what Marcel brought from Roswell are always carefully massaged by skeptics, including you, leaving out important relevant information. E.g., in the Marcel quote from Berlitz in Moore, you left out the words Marcel was quoted as saying immediately following, namely that after a picture of him was taken with the real debris, they removed it and substituted the balloon for the subsequent press photos. You also left out that Marcel wasn't being interviewed in person, but over the phone. He didn't know what photo was being referenced, unlike in some other interviews, when people were showing him actual press photos and he repeatedly stated that they were faked. A possible, very simple explanation for the discrepancy is the military took an internal photo of Marcel with debris for historical reasons. In fact, it is very likely they would have done this considering the importance of the story that day, which was headline news.

But EVERY time Marcel was actually SHOWN the photo of him posed with the weather balloon, he declared the photo as a fake, and always said the photos of Ramey and Dubose, showing the exact same balloon debris, were also faked . Why would he think photos of the same thing would be not fake in one photo but fake in all the others?

Regarding Dubose, there are no recorded interviews of Dubose saying what was in Ramey's office was the real Roswell debris. There are numerous recorded interviews where he is obviously saying the exact opposite.

That's why I ended up detailing several of the Marcel & Dubose quotes where it makes it clearer exactly what they were saying: there was a debris swap and what was photographed was the substitute cover-story weather balloon designed to get rid of the press.

Who claimed that Dubose said the pictures showed the real Roswell debris? Shandera and Moore, Moore making the same original claim for the Marcel photo back in "The Roswell Incident" (which Marcel never saw -- phone conversation). But they can't produce a recording, nor can they produce even notes of the conversation, despite repeated requests for same. Yet they have a very detailed transcript. How does that work?

Moore also produced several different versions of the Marcel "direct quote." Shandera & Moore also promoted the MJ-12 papers, which most researchers feel are probably faked. Moore admitted in 1990 working with AFOSI on a disinformation campaign against an Albuquerque physicist named Paul Bennewitz in order to discredit him. Moore definitely has some credibility problems.

10. There is no reason why this has to be a strictly verbatim page of testimony. That is you again trying to unilaterally define what goes here. Interviews meander all over the place. Interviewees jump around from one topic to another. Paraphrasing is often a very good way to represent such testimony. Historians do this all the time. Direct quotes are great when the witness provides a nice sound bite, but when they don't, there is nothing wrong with accurate paraphrasing. Dr Fil 04:30, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

As usual, Dr Fil, you completely and utterly miss the point.
This page is - was - designed to allow those who read the main Roswell page to see the range of accounts from witnesses in regards to the incident. Since the main page followed a particular approach - going from what was reported in 1947, to the re-emergence of the story in 1947 to the scenario which ufo proponents like yourself promoted, to the skeptical response centred on the Air Force reports, it made sense to partly mimic that approach on this page.
Accordingly, I structured the article so that the initial account is what was focussed on in terms of what witnesses reported. So we have a) the military personnel who made it to the ranch and their description of the debris, b) the Brazel and Marcel family and thier descriptions of the debris, then c) the various personnel at the two bases who saw or handled the debris.
Then, the various accounts of the debris which was anomalous.
Then, the varying sizes and conditioons of the debris field. In my view, since there was a general range of descriptions (save for Cavitt) I saw no particular need to go into tons of detail here. Why? There was a general concensus on the size, we don't need a dozen people saying the same thing. Makes sense to me.
The next section was to deal with (preferably) first-hand accounts of aliens, then various accounts of cover-ups and intimidation.
You still have an issue with "primary" even though I have reworked the phrasing to reflect the true intention here - the descriptions of the debris as described in 1947 (the initial story we heard) followed by the emerging accounts of aliens etc (the secondary accounts). To me, this is logical and sensible - and, most importantly, follows the structure of the Roswell page.
What you seem intent on doing to this page is turn it from a rather straight-forward collection of accounts to an exhaustive point-by-point case for the "ufo" explanation, as if this page was "The court case in favour of the ufo interpretation of Roswell, with rebuttals to those who think otherwise."
This stuff on Cavitt is a case in point.
Even YOU acknowlege he was there, Dr Fil. If there was a true dispute on whether he was there or not (something, I should point out, there is genuine dispute when it comes to some of the people YOU mention, yet I fail to see any note of the controversy), then it is relevant to insert comments. OR, if he said in one place that the debris looked like A and elsewhere said it loooked completely different, then that should be noted.
Instead, you insist on creating a strawman argument which likely will mislead people into thinking there is some dispute as to whether he was there in the first place WHEN THERE IS NO DISPUTE!
"Why didn't Cavitt just tell the same story he told the A.F.: It was nothing, just a little bit of balloon debris, there was no secrecy or security oaths involved, etc.? If it wasn't a big secret, there was no good reason NOT to tell them this. If they pressed him, all he had to say, was "Really, that's all there was, sorry I can't help you more." Hey, the guy was a retired counterintelligence agent. I think he could handle a little skeptical cross-examination from researchers."
Who knows, and, more to the point, WHO CARES? In fact, he DOES say that researchers a) were hostile and b) misrepresented what he did say to them. That debate, fascinating as it is, is not germane to his descriptions of the debris as long as it is acknowledged he was in fact present to see it. In the end, there is no dispute that Cavitt and the researchers didn't cooperate with each other. SO WHAT.
If you want to start a page called "why Cavitt was such a jerk" then go ahead. But this page is about what he said about THE DEBRIS. That's all we are interested in here. WHICH IS WHY THIS DEBATE IS IRRELEVANT.
"Why are Cavitt's many denials of involvement relevant? Hah! Because Cavitt IMPEACHED himself BIG-TIME. Good thing you're not on a jury."
Well you revealed yourself there, didn't you, Dr Fil? You are trying to turn this page into some sort of court-case, where depositions are open to debate.
If this was a court case, then a judge would say, "is this true, did you deny it?" And Cavitt may have said a) the researchers were hostile and b) in the end he just stopped cooperating. Then the judge would ask him "Were you in fact there?" and he'd say yes. Then the judge would ask the researchers who say he denied being there, "do you dispute that he was there?" And they'd likely say, "he probably was there." Then the judge would say "fine." And tell the jury to disregard that because it was clear Cavitt and the researchers were adversaries and were not cooperating with each other. The issue here is not whether Cavitt SAID or didn't say he was there - the issue is whether he was there or not. And on that point, there is little serious dispute.
If you, in a court of law, kept on about this point, objections would be raised and sustained by any competent judge. Because IT IS NOT GERMANE TO THE MAIN ISSUE.
"If you noted objections to Cavitt's testimony on another page, there is no Wiki rule that says objections can't ALSO be noted on this page."
As I said, the purpose of this page is to present witness statements in a NPOV fashion. If we are to open the door to objections to testimony - even ones as specious as yours - then why not the much more damaging (to your case) objections to what Marcel and Dubose said where they at times outright state that at least some of the debris they posed with was what they recovered! I could easily have inserted a lot of that stuff there - but my intention was to include the evidence which suggested a cover-up or alien recovery AT FACE VALUE. I did this in good faith and, beside your objections to a note that Brazel Jr changed a description and Sleppy was inconsistent, you mentioned no fault with my presentation of these witness statements!
Then why the double standard, Dr Fil? Why do we only note objections to a witness who denied there was anything else here but balloon debris?
Because you are clearly seeing this as an opportunity to turn this into a POV article even though most of the accounts, at face value, suggest aliens and a cover-up(!).
"I noted some other contradictory accounts, such as Haut's testimony on seeing a crashed disk and aliens at the base. (The difference here is that if Haut was telling the truth, he might have a very good reason not to say anything earlier. He would be keeping a big secret and perhaps violating a security oath, the exact opposite situation that Cavitt story places him in.)"
Haut to me isn't your best candidate for an alien account. It doesn't seem to me to be very credible, when you are stating the government lied and covered up the story of aliens, and when you are involved with a museum dedicated to this incident claiming "cover-up" that Haut only decides to mention he actually SAW aliens on his death-bed. That was an attempt to cut this down to a reasonable size, to leave intact the best accounts. Surely, Dr Fil, you must look at Haut's "confession" with a bit of suspicion. If he is claiming "security oath," I'd say his involvement with the museum itself, if such an oath exists, with its very premise that the government is LYING and covering up and here is a former officer saying so - well, wouldn't that be somewhat problematic?
"I also pointed out that the UP person Dixon is reported by Randle & Schmitt and Pflock as giving contradictory accounts of the military confiscating evidence afterwards. That actually undercuts Joyce's story of confiscation a little bit. I don't see any problem in pointing this conflicting testimony. Why do you?"
Because the "contradiction" is over the claim Cavitt was there or not. And there is no serious dispute over that issue. It would be germane if he gave contradictory testimony over the debris testimony - which is what is presented here.
"I am totally unaware of your alleged major changes of story in Brazel Jr.'s testimony. Perhaps you can detail this. Except for minor points, mainly having to do with exact times, Brazel told a highly consistent story over the years, particularly descriptions of strange debris he found."
He originally told a story of how his father was asked if there was any singeing to any of the foilage etc. He descrirbed no disturbance. And the direction of the debris changed over time. I'll supply the references when I have the time.
The Brazel issue is one I am frankly rather pissed off with you about. I think it is important to actually supply either the quote or the context of the statement. So, "I saw a rut 300 feet..." OR Researchers Moore (or whomever) report Brazel described a rut...
This is what wiki editors routinely would request, Dr Fil. Either supply the actual quote or the context of the quote. I in fact had to do a lot of this on the main page when it came to opinions (in which case I simply supplied a link or page reference as you did), but for a specific claim, more is needed. That's all.
"The quotes from Marcel and Dubose where they allegedly say what was shown in Ramey's office was what Marcel brought from Roswell are always carefully massaged by skeptics, including you, leaving out important relevant information."
That's a lie, Dr Fil.
ON THIS PAGE I presented their testimony at face value. I made NO MENTION of any dispute or discrepancy in terms of his testimony, nor with Dubose - which I inserted verbatim, without comment.
Obviously, I have an opinion here, but this page is not the place to insert the opinion, which is why I am so pissed off with what you have done here. I made what I felt was a good-faith attempt to fairly lay out the cases, without any editorializing. It wasn't perfect, I admit, and I addressed some of your complaints, and removed what I now agree were editorializing comments (like "descriptions are consistent with balloon material...")
But I expect some more good faith here from you, Dr Fil.
"There is no reason why this has to be a strictly verbatim page of testimony. That is you again trying to unilaterally define what goes here. Interviews meander all over the place. Interviewees jump around from one topic to another. Paraphrasing is often a very good way to represent such testimony."
I NEVER said that, Dr Fil. In fact, I repeatedly said that, lacking an actual quote, you should say "author x said witness y said..." Besides, the requested quote has quite specific information which, presumably, came from a specific quote or passage.
I don't think we are miles apart on this page, in truth, but I do feel you are needlessly burying this page under the weight of side-bar debates (like with Cavitt) and with WAY too much testimony.
Also, you are buttressing side-debates which I feel don't really need to be here. Remember, we are here to supply witness accounts to the main points here casual readers will want to know about, like what debris looked like, what alien accounts were like etc.
Inserting tons of quotes on the whereabouts of Brazel Sr, on pilots who flew planes with crates etc is a lot of extraneous material. It is part of the case to suggest UFOs, I agree, but that is not, nor should it be, the function of this page.
I endeavoured to make this page a bunch of face-value quotes without descending into a debate on the credibiltiy of various witnesses. I did so imperfectly, but I feel I have corrected those errors on my part, and I feel it is time for you to stop turning this page into something else.
Take a deep breath and ask yourself: Is it REALLY necessary to note Cavitt's past statements on whether he was present when it is acknowledged, even by you, that he was? And, if I was so bent on turning this into a skeptic page, then why did I leave comments by Dubose etc which suggests coverup and/or aliens stand without any comments like "but others point out he also said..."
Ideally, I think the structure of the article should stand (and it seems you tactitly agree to that) ie, debris descriptions, then aliens, etc.
And, ideally, you should chop away a good 2/3 of a lot of these witness descriptions. That's not "censorship," it puts this page into a manageable size. Also, as newcomers come here and see witnesses like Zimmerman say they heard rumours and flew crates, they'd start to ask: "where are the aliens?" To me, the best alien quotes are the ones to stay, not all this vaguelly connected stuff. Whatever needs to go, there is a lot of chopping to be done, IMHO.
Canada Jack 17:31, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Recent edits

I've taken out some stuff, Dr Fil, that you seem to feel fits here when it clearly does not.

I think you've added a lot of good stuff to the page, but what I've omitted is taking this page beyond its scope.

And I've not bothered to take out all the extraneous quotes - someone else no doubt will do that. I simply feel that it suffices to have maybe a half dozen representative quotes, you feel it needs more. IMHO, even the JFK assassination page does not require an exhaustive list of accounts!

Anyway, you have several times inserted Marcel and Dubose into the "debris" section where it clearly is not required as a) Dubose doesn't actually describe the debris, and b) Marcel's account is already in the section!

As I have stated above, that section is on debris descriptions, not a list of all the witnesses by category of place. Later, when we get to "cover ups" THAT is where the Marcel and Dubose quotes - ESPECIALLY Dubose properly reside.

As for the Brazel "kidnap" accounts, this is getting beyond the scope of the article.

The article is a collection of accounts of a) debris, b) aliens and alien recoveries, c) witness intimidation, d) cover-up. To include reams of Brazel stuff extends this into supporting evidence for the ufo scenario, where the contention that Brazel's story was changed and he was forced to do so. This is already noted on the main page as part of the ufo scenario, but THAT will be referenced elsewhere. IOW, these accounts are here to explain away the fact that Brazel didn't describe aliens etc.

The reason I made the page was to provide a collection of accounts, NOT to be a dossier of accounts to support the ufo hypothesis. THAT turns this into a POV article.

You feel it is crucial to the scenario - it may well be. But it is not crucial to this page - as this page is not "witness statements which support the ufo scenario," it is "witness accounts of the Roswell ufo incident."

Canada Jack 19:07, 21 November 2006 (UTC)


I see that you've, again, tried to add all this stuff, ignoring my stated reasons why some of this has to go. The McMullen stuff you've now corrected as it previously was stated as fact when it was what Dubose said - which was not clear. Now it is.
AS for the Dubose and Marcel quotes, it seems to me that you are willfully ignoring the structure and scope of this page when you repeatedly re-insert this stuff. This is not "arbritary" or "censorship," I spelled quite specifically what the page entails and where, properly, this stuff should reside.
"You are willfully ignoring the structure and scope of this page... I spelled quite specifically what the page entails and where, properly, this stuff should reside."
QUESTION: Why do you think you are the only person who gets to decide these things?
As I have repeatedly pointed out, you are WAY out of line in how treat this article as your personal plaything. I'm sorry, but this is Wikipedia. Articles evolve and undergo restructuring all the time, and no one person has the right to unilaterally and arbitrarily DICTATE content, scope, and organization, as you have been doing here over and over again. Dr Fil 23:39, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
And the Brazel stuff (yes, "Mack," though I should point out his name was in fact "Bill"...). This effectively adds a new section when the page is way too big as it is.
In point of fact, even though his full name was William W. Brazel, he has never been referred to as "Bill". He has always been referred to by either his full name or W. W. Brazel or nickname of "Mack". Only his son is referred to as Bill Brazel or Bill Brazel Jr.
What you refer to as the "Brazel stuff" is a highly important list of actual witness accounts of Brazel being in military custody, being mistreated, intimidated, complaining bitterly afterwards, etc. Obviously you do not want readers to see this, hence your repeated censorship of it. You have previously offered three different reasons (two of them bizarre) for deleting the material. First you claimed it wasn't alien related (huh?), then the "problem" became it was alien or ufo related (huh?), then you decided it was somehow beyond the "scope" of the article (only to be defined by you, of course). You are just all over the place, yet you claim you are not being arbitrary nor engaging in censorship. Dr Fil 23:39, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
I also note that you are not using your name "Dr Fil," - perhaps your tactics have been noted and you have had censure?
Canada Jack 20:22, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Maybe it has to do with Wikipedia timing-out registered users while they are editing for long periods of time. Every consider the obvious, Jack? Dr Fil 23:39, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

POV, Factual Accuracy tags added

Though I'm generally loathe to do it, I have added POV and factual accuracy tags throughout the article. The problem is Canada Jack is still treating this like his personal article. He has arbitrary and unilaterally defined the organization and "scope" of the article and then censors (no other word for it) material which is totally factual and verifiable but which he personally doesn't like, or he shuffles it off to some other section to diffuse its import. The frustrating thing is he can't be reasoned with and won't compromise. It's his way or the highway.

Here are some major problems with the article which I have tried to deal with but which CJ keeps censoring:

  • Roswell base witnesses: For factual accuracy and clarity, I divided this into Roswell base and Fort Worth witnesses, even though there is some overlap, such as Jesse Marcel and Robert Porter, who were in both places. J. B. Johnson and Irving Newton are NOT Roswell base witnesses. Depicting them this way makes the section factually inaccurate. (hence the tag, added only after CJ reverted to the old inaccurate depiction) Furthermore, Jesse Marcel and Gen. Dubose are without any doubt the two most important FW witnesses, yet CJ has repeatedly censored their inclusion here. The reason is their stories of what happened contrast sharply with those of Johnson and Newton, who were merely told what to think, instead of knowing first-hand what was going on, like primary military insiders Marcel and Dubose.

For logical organization or testimony, what Marcel and Dubose had to say here should at least be summarized, which I have repeatedly tried to do, only to have CJ repeatedly censor. His "rationale" is that their stories belong in the cover-up section, but this is really just a classic way of slanting an article through organization, as pointed out in the Wiki POV discussion. Another totally arbitrary "rationale" he has used is that the section can only have debris descriptions. Again, he alone has decided this, and he isn't even consistent, because Marcel and Dubose's testimony included what was going on with the debris. Again censorship by CJ when I have tried to include their debris testimony in the section.

  • Witness intimidation: Although CJ has deigned to allow some of my additions here, he has also arbitrary and repeatedly censored the very important accounts of intimidation of rancher Brazel WITHOUT DISCUSSION. He has given several arbitrary, contradictory, and sometimes absurd reasons for doing so. First he deleted it claiming "accounts of Bill Brazel in custody not relevant here - these are accounts of aliens etc." Foolish me for thinking the title of the section was actually "Accounts of intimidation," not "Accounts of aliens." When I tried to put it back in, he then gave this contradictory reason: "omit Brazel section - page is witness accounts, this speaks to the "case" for ufos, beyond scope of page)." Again, no, the material was strictly about "witness accounts," not the "case for ufos" or "aliens". Maybe CJ feared 14 accounts of Brazel being incarcerated and mistreated by the military might give the reader notions that maybe this was ufo related, but this certainly wasn't the way the material was written. It was strictly about witness intimidation. When I again tried to insert the material, he deleted it again: "this section beyond scope of article - see discussion page," to which he then adds above: "it seems to me that you are willfully ignoring the structure and scope of this page when you repeatedly re-insert this stuff. This is not 'arbritary' or 'censorship,' I spelled quite specifically what the page entails and where, properly, this stuff should reside. And the Brazel stuff... This effectively adds a new section when the page is way too big as it is."

So there it is. ONLY Canada Jack can define the "structure and scope" of the article and he reserves the right to censor any material which he alone does not approve of (only don't call it "arbitrary" or "censorship"). Five different reasons were given for obvious censorship of the very important Brazel intimidation section: it wasn't about aliens (huh?), then it was about aliens (huh?), then it was somehow beyond the scope of the article (huh?), then he personally didn't like a new section being added and he personally felt the article was getting too long. Only the very last reason might make sense, but even here total censorship was not called for. The length could have been negotiated and maybe edited down, but certainly 100% deletion is way out of line.

  • Marcel Family Section: CJ has carefully edited out some important Bill Brazel Jr. comments of unusual physical properties to the debris he found, particularly about the memory foil. That's the main reason I threw the "neutrality" tag on it. The way CJ originally structured the article was to make it seem that mostly balloon-like debris descriptions were given by witnesses, which is inaccurate and misleading, hence the various tags.
  • Sheridan Cavitt Section: CJ has repeatedly and arbitarily removed my well-cited and I thought neutral comments about how Cavitt had repeatedly denied any involvement. He calls it POV, but I also made similar observations elsewhere, such as for Walter Haut. Deleting my material is also POV, a way of removing the context of Cavitt's overall testimony of his involvment. Cavitt also is NOT a "primary" witness, as CJ has tried to depict and define him. Maybe one way to deal with this is to add the testimony of Rickett and Cavitt's wife immediately afterward, which are in direct contradiction to what Cavitt had to say.

Dr Fil 23:39, 3 December 2006 (UTC)


Well, if any neutral reader here had any doubt that Dr Fil seeks to turn this into an article which promotes a single side of the debate, the above should remove any doubt.
I've repeatedly set out the structure of this article which seems in my mind to be balanced and fair. Because I've excised what are irrelevant critiques on some witnesses, Dr Fil cries "censorship," when he utterly fails to explain why witness testimony should be countered when there is no dispute over the fact that certain witnesses were in fact present. A critique, I might point out, which would certainly seem relevant in the case of some other witnesses who many argue were not even there. By focussing on one or two witnesses for this critisim, Dr Fil is turning this into a POV article. To keep it NPOV, the article must either a) expand like critiques to ALL witnesses (and, believe me, there are many critiques about the credibilty of witnesses here) or b) let witness statements stand at face value. B) has been my approach from the start, and given the fact that Dr Fil has hugely expanded this article with what I view a lot of superfluos material, to accomodate his approach would be to double or triple the size of the article, which is, in my view COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY.
And, after carefully and repeatedly explaining the structure and scope of the article, Dr Fil seeks to ignore that and accuse me of "censorship" even though virtually ALL HIS WITNESS ACCOUNTS ARE THERE.
AS I have repeatedly pointed out, it makes sense to somewhat mimic the structure of the main Roswell page, and that page has a) the incident as reported followed by b) the later accounts of aliens and cover-ups. For that reason, the accounts start with a) what the debris was looked like (as reported in 1947) followed by b) anomolous descriptions (none of which appeared for 30+ years). THEN, we get alien accounts and accounts of cover ups. (accounts which also appeared later)
He chose to insert an entire section on testimony which is part of a secondary argument - that a particular witness was kept by the military. But this section a) greatly lengthens the page and b) forms the basis for a case THIS PAGE IS NOT DESIGNED TO MAKE. As I have also said, if this page was "the case for an alien UFO recovery at Roswell," then we'd have that stuff in so as to explain how that view is substantiated. BUT THAT IS NOT THE FUNCTION OF THE PAGE. The function is to supply preferably first-hand accounts so readers can see for themselves what witnesses were saying about the debris, aliens and coverups.
"*Roswell base witnesses: For factual accuracy and clarity, I divided this into Roswell base and Fort Worth witnesses, even though there is some overlap, such as Jesse Marcel and Robert Porter, who were in both places."
True, this should be both Roswell and Ft Worth - I reverted Dr Fil's inserts here because he was including witnesses who were NOT describing the debris at the stated locations. The section is on DEBRIS descriptions, yet we had accounts from Dubose who wasn't describing the debris! INdeed, that account is quite fully fleshed out in the "cover up" section where it rightly belongs.
"Furthermore, Jesse Marcel and Gen. Dubose are without any doubt the two most important FW witnesses, yet CJ has repeatedly censored their inclusion here. The reason is their stories of what happened contrast sharply with those of Johnson and Newton, who were merely told what to think, instead of knowing first-hand what was going on, like primary military insiders Marcel and Dubose."
I don't really understand the critique, to be quite honest, The section is headed "Witness accounts of the debris described in 1947".(!) And who is given the first, lenghty description? Marcel! Why in God's name include him again in the same section!?! And, as I have repeatedly pointed out, DuBose, important though his testimony was, DOES NOT DESCRIBE THE MATERIAL!
There is no "censorship" here - Marcel's account is there, and when we get to the areas Dr Fil is worried about - the claims of "cover ups," there are rather lengthy accounts from both in the "accounts of cover up" section. By repeatedly ignoring the structure of the page, Dr Fil seeks to turn this into something else, even though his concerns - the important claims made by these witnesses - are fully covered in the relevant sections!
"For logical organization or testimony, what Marcel and Dubose had to say here should at least be summarized, which I have repeatedly tried to do, only to have CJ repeatedly censor. His "rationale" is that their stories belong in the cover-up section, but this is really just a classic way of slanting an article through organization, as pointed out in the Wiki POV discussion. Another totally arbitrary "rationale" he has used is that the section can only have debris descriptions. Again, he alone has decided this, and he isn't even consistent, because Marcel and Dubose's testimony included what was going on with the debris. Again censorship by CJ when I have tried to include their debris testimony in the section."
It is NOT "logical" to include this testimony here, and it is not "arbritary" to shift the accounts elsewhere. Why start with only debris descriptions? Because that is all we had for 30 years on the incident! Makes sense to start with what started the incident - debris - then to move on to the other issues. And that is the consensus reached on the main page. If you have a problem with the structure here, then you by implication have a problem with the structure of the main Roswell page as well. Yet I see NOTHING from you there on why THAT needs to be changed as well.
Therefore it is NOT "arbritary" or "censorship" to do it this way - it a) follows the structure of the other page and b) is far more coherent.
The main problem with the original "Roswell" page was that it was an incoherent mess. That has been largely rectified. One main reason it was a mess was because people like Dr Fil were seeking to turn it into "the truth on Roswell and how the government covered up alien recoveries, with asides to some specious skeptical objections" . Now, it seems, Dr Fil seeks the same here.
"*Witness intimidation: Although CJ has deigned to allow some of my additions here, he has also arbitrary and repeatedly censored the very important accounts of intimidation of rancher Brazel WITHOUT DISCUSSION."
More like, you took the page I built and added WITHOUT DISCUSSION a NEW section on Brazel. The section, as originally described, was simply "witness intimidation." And there were about half a dozen accounts of this. People saying quite plainly that they would be hauled off into the dessert and punished - killed even - if they breathed a word. The accounts seemed to me to be sufficient, but, in his quest to turn this into something else, a NEW section on ONE witness needs to be added, he claims.
So, now, we don't have an added account from someone who claimed intimidation - we have a new section with 14 accounts on ONE witness's alleged intimidation! Well, what the hell for? Why not ONE account for a witness who claimed intimidation?
I fail to see why we need an entire section dedicated to accounts corroborating the intimidation of a single witness unless we seek to have a case spelling out one viewpoint on the incident. I hasten to add, this is not the function - nor should it be - of a page dedicated to witness accounts.
AT BEST, an account of intimidation of this one witness should be AN account of initimidation, so that he joins the list of the others who either claimed or others claimed were intimidated.
Why is this so important? Why do we need more than a DOZEN accounts of this one witness included? Beats me. At best, one might do the trick. IMHO, the ones included initially were more dramatic and compelling. But it seems Dr Fil is desperate to give the impression that any descriptions that Brazel gave were ones he was coerced or intimidated into, therefore for Dr Fil it is paramount to give acounts which might focus doubt on other accounts on this page which might suggest aliens were not involved. But, again, that is not the function of the page. The function of the page is to give unadorned accounts of the various witnesses to a) debris, b) aliens c) intimidation d) cover-ups, NOT to present a pro- or anti-ufo case.
Dr Fil claims this structure is biased towards the skeptical view - a laughable claim given the numerous accounts I incorporated which include alien recovery accounts, cover-ups etc. In his view, NOT including qualifing remarks on hostile witnesses or incompatible accounts is "biased" even though almost NONE of the "pro-ufo" quotes have ANY of these "qualifying" remarks (and there are MANY which could be added!).
UFO proponents have long and detailed - I would call contrived - explanations for any accounts from the main witnesses as to why their testimony is to be dismissed or disbelieved. And skeptics have THEIR long and detailed explanations for why certain witness testimony is to be believed or disbelieved. To start attaching all these extraneous accounts is seeking to turn this page into something it shouldn't be - a court case for one side of the debate.
"Maybe CJ feared 14 accounts of Brazel being incarcerated and mistreated by the military might give the reader notions that maybe this was ufo related, but this certainly wasn't the way the material was written."
Uh, since I put in accounts of witnesses describing actual aliens, Dr Fil, and the Brazel accounts involve neither aliens nor ufos but incarceration, your complaint is rather specious. I just simply see no point in 14 (!) accounts of Brazel's incarceration - unless you were trying to build a pro-ufo case, because on the surface it is hard to see why it is necessary to include 14(!) accounts of a single witness's alleged intimidation. The average person would say "why is this so important," and perhaps conclude that anything this witness says is not to be believed. Which is, IMHO, why the emphasis is there in the first place - to discredit anything this witness said. So, to remove that BIAS - which is what this is - I eliminated the section. I agree that AN account of Brazel's could very easily go in, under the "witness intimidation" section, but to make a new section on this turns this into a case for one side of the debate.
"So there it is. ONLY Canada Jack can define the "structure and scope" of the article and he reserves the right to censor any material which he alone does not approve of (only don't call it "arbitrary" or "censorship")."
Try again, Dr Fil. I REPEATEDLY brought up reasons why this and other sections you incorporated were inappropriate, for many reasons. You? You simply ignored me - until you wrote the above - and tore apart the old structure without giving any reason other than, apparently, you felt like it. When I reversed those changes which were not compatible to the structure, you claimed "censorship" and "arbritary" while not bothering - until now - to give any cogent regent why these changes were warranted. Me? I explained, repeatedly, what the structure is and why changes were made. YOU have YET to suggest a NEW structure why complaining that I have no "right" to "dictate" the structure.
Worse, it is clear you haven't READ my responses or even noted the various changes I made to the points you made which I agreed were relevant. Like the "primary witness" issue you repeat even though that issue had been long addressed - and modified - owing to your justified complaints.
To me, the debate is rather ludicrous. Far from being the "skeptic" page you want to imply, the accounts in many cases are compellingly suggesting "aliens" and "cover up." But that, apparently, is not good enough. It's not good enough to have, as I did, a half dozen accounts suggesting anomolies in the debris and a large disturbance at the crash site. You "need" a dozen on each. Even though, as I pointed out, some of these accounts are a) redundant and b) not specific. Cutting those out are "arbritary" and "censorship."
The same goes with alien accounts. Six or 10 accounts are innsuffiecient to suggest that aliens were involved, it would seem. Dr Fil needs more. Twenty-three. When I tried to cut down these accounts down, suggesting that a few of them, at the very least, were not compelling and the focus should be on those who claimed to have SEEN aliens, this suggestion was called "arbritary" and "censorship."
And the same follows with intimidation. A half-dozen compelling accounts of people saying they were threatened into silence is, in Dr Fil's mind, somehow reflecting the "skeptic" view on this. So, now we have THIRTEEN accounts and a new section supplying 14 accounts of a single witness's alleged intimidation into silence. When I took out that section, I hear "censorship" and "arbritary."
The same goes for "cover up." I included the statements from DuBose. Dr Fil saw this as somehow insuffiicent and pulled out four paragraphs of quotes, and did likewise for Marcel, even though what had been there originally covered the same ground.
"Marcel Family Section: CJ has carefully edited out some important Bill Brazel Jr. comments of unusual physical properties to the debris he found, particularly about the memory foil. That's the main reason I threw the "neutrality" tag on it. The way CJ originally structured the article was to make it seem that mostly balloon-like debris descriptions were given by witnesses, which is inaccurate and misleading, hence the various tags."
Uh, no, Dr Fil. I simply provided the various descriptions of the debris as given by the witnesses. Nowhere do I say "balloon-like" descriptions. Indeed, a lonmg time ago after an objection that an original comment saying descrioptions were consistent with balloons was POV, I agreed and changed the wording.
I have to conclude, therefore, you are ignoring my posts on this and ignoring the changes which I have made which go beyond the deletions you mention.
AS for the anomlies, those descriptions were given an entire section onto their own. As were the debris field descriptions. How this is not "neutral", when I included the statements you refer to in its own section with a descriptor "Material with Exotic Qualites" I fail to comprehend. Indeed, I also mentioned that numerous others said similar things and provided a link to a pro-ufo site which had collated a lot of those similar descriptions. That was my NPOV approach. If I was truly the "censor" you claimed, I would have not included those statements or "clarified" them as you have with Cavitt and Mack Brazel's statements.
"*Sheridan Cavitt Section: CJ has repeatedly and arbitarily removed my well-cited and I thought neutral comments about how Cavitt had repeatedly denied any involvement. He calls it POV, but I also made similar observations elsewhere, such as for Walter Haut. Deleting my material is also POV, a way of removing the context of Cavitt's overall testimony of his involvment. Cavitt also is NOT a "primary" witness, as CJ has tried to depict and define him. Maybe one way to deal with this is to add the testimony of Rickett and Cavitt's wife immediately afterward, which are in direct contradiction to what Cavitt had to say."
These claims are NOT "neutral" - they come from pro-ufo authors whose aim is to discredit Caviit's testimony. NONE of these authors seriously dispute that Cavitt in fact was at the site in question which is the only issue here. The only "fact" is that ufo authors claim he said otherwise which is entirely IRRELEVANT. Since even you have acknowledged that Cavitt was most probably there, you have to prooffer some reason why this is in any way relevant. Since most people who casually reading the page might assume that if he wasn't there by this qualifying remark he can't be a witness, I removed the reference as it served only to discredit an account when the claim is NOT a point of contention. There is no serios dispute as to his presence.
This is TOTALLY a POV insertion on your part, Dr Fil. It is designed to call doubt into Cavitt's account, and the Haut point is not relevant as in THAT case, there are doubts as to certain aspects of his testimony and to your credit you include that. As for Cavitt, this issue of his presence is not disputed, therefore it is not relevant, therefore I removed it.
As for the "primary" witness issue, I repeatedly defined what that meant - and since there was obviously confusion, I changed the wording to remove such phrases - and I did that many weeks ago! The phrase "primary witness" is no longer there. Perhaps you should reread the intro etc. The sections, quite clearly, are divided into those descriptions as per the ORIGINAL (1947) accounts, followed by the later accounts which were not reported in 1947 (aliens, intimidation, cover-ups).
Again, I have to conclude that you are a) not reading my responses and b) not bothering to note the changes I have made to accomodate your critiques. Some "arbritary" "censor."
Finally, as for the Ricket and Cavitt testimony, you again seek to turn this into a POV page. The accounts on the page are given at face value, unless there are very differing accounts from the same person. Ricket and the wife may have given accounts at odds with Cavitt, but those accounts should not be placed simply to "counter" another witness.
The function of this page should be to show as often as possible, what people who were actually there - or knew people who were there - actually saw and actually described.
It should NOT be a forum to "counter" those witnesses you happen to have a problem with. Cavitt was there, therefore what he said is important. It doesn't match other accounts? So? That's what he said. We have no right to cast doubt on it for the simple reason it doesn't "fit." The casual reader will have to decide if his account - given 47 years after the fact - is more or less accurate and why that may be so. Personally, it sounds to me that he had simply forgotten details about the incident and, after 47 years, got a lot of details wrong or confused. You think he is doing something else. Whatever. THAT debate has no place on the page. And that is what you don't seem to get.
But HE was there, so his testimony should be there, and without a lot of qualifiying comments.
Canada Jack 21:06, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
Cheers

Since you reinserted - again - the Brazel stuff under a new section and I was forced to omit it, perhaps you should just do what I suggested above - insert a single reference to him under the "intimidation" section.

If you did THAT and avoided inserting all that stuff about Cavitt, I think we could let this page stand as is. I still think this page is WAY too long and we could easily cut down to a half dozen or ten quotes for each section, but otherwise I'm fine with itCanada Jack 15:42, 5 December 2006 (UTC).


Just want to comment on one thing I did not comment on - all these "neutrality" wiki things you've added, Dr Fil.
I find it rather incredible that you feel this page is "unbalanced", as if this some skeptical list of accounts which anyone would conclude means there were no aliens at Roswell. How is it possible to conclude THAT when one sees: 11 accounts of strange materials; 10 or so accounts of huge gouges in the ground; 23 (!) accounts of aliens and alien spacecraft; 13 accounts of witness intimidation; 7 or more accounts of cover ups?
Only you would find a page like this "unbalanced" because a) a single witness whose testimony is unabashed anti-ufo is not challenged with pro-ufo disclaimers and b) I omitted a new section with more than 13 accounts of a single person's alleged intimidation (instead of, say, adding one reference to this individual to the extant section called "witness intimidation").
It's one thing to have a point of view and express it. It's quite another to pretend that not allowing you free reign to impose your pro-ufo beliefs onto EVERY aspect of the page - when one could argue that it is as it stands 90 per cent pro-ufo in content - makes this page "unbalanced" and not "neutral."
Perhaps that's just an indication of the fanaticism one has to expect when dealing with "true believers" of a particular subject. If any accusation of "bias" and "balance" is to be laid to this page, it is to the fact that it seems WAY too credulous in presenting the pro-ufo point of view in terms of reams of unchallenged pro-ufo quotes, many from people even ufo authors like Randle now dismiss as not being credible.
159.33.10.92 22:00, 5 December 2006 (UTC)


In looking back at some of the earlier posts here, it is clear, from my point of view, that Dr Fil has an intention for this page which is not consistent with the encyclopedic approach here at wikipedia.

For example, his rationale for including reams and reams of witness accounts, even though many do not describe anything exotic except the belief from the individuals that aliens or flying saucers were involved.

"For example, Robert Smith testified to high security, unknown men in plain clothes at the base flashing badges with the name of some project and controlling everything, seeing anomalous debris handled, loading large quantities of the debris onto planes, naming Oliver Henderson as one of the pilots (corroborating the testimony of Henderson's family and acquaintances), a Secret Service relative representing Truman being there, and more. When you put it all together, it makes a lot of sense when he says that he was convinced what happened was a crashed UFO, even though he didn't directly witness an intact craft or alien bodies. That's why I put the statment into the accounts of spacecraft and aliens. You deleted it."

Dr Fil seems to think that all these quotes have to be here to build the CASE for the alien interpretation - IOW, a chain of events with witness corroboration and, in the case of Cavitt and Brazel Sr's troublesome testimony, a chain of events to explain AWAY that testimony.

Here's another example:

All relevant information should be in these sections that helps readers to logically evaluate the individual testimony. I definitely think you don't want statements by Marcel and Dubose in there about a debris swap and cover-up, because you are trying to slant the article to only weather balloon debris being present at Fort Worth. Omitting Marcel and Dubose leaves the reader with that impression. It's patently dishonest and again a lousy way to write history.

Here we see, quite baldly, his intent. He wants to "counter" the evidence of witnesses at the bases who described debris, by inserting statements from DuBose and Marcel who claimed elsewhere "cover-up." He seeks to have a venue here for readers to "logically evaluate" individual testimony, but by inserting asides and information to DIRECT that "logical evaluation" to the pro-ufo conclusions.

Me? Instead of inserting asides and addendum and "context," I simply provided the testimony as given. Did certain witnesses speak accurately? lie? were mistaken? or were they describing the wrong material? I have a particular opinion on many, but this is an NPOV arena here, so it is not my place to add "context," unless in cases where a witness seems to say different things at different times. With virtually EVERY witness we ask similar questions. But, of course, for Dr Fil, certain witnesses are unimpeachable, and others need to be given "context."

Dr Fil's approach presupposes that there is a single, coherent sequence of events which suggests the ufo explanation.

Nothing could be further from the truth, however, and if you read the main Roswell page, you will see that not only are their NUMEROUS different scenarios, with almost a dozen different crash sites involved, depending on the author, witnesses are either saying the gospel truth or are lying - and this from those who believe a UFO crashed!

When he says certain people corroborate the Dennis account elsewhere, he fails to note that many pro ufo authors now say that Dennis himself made up his story! Randle certainly does, and he was the one who had him front and centre in the 1994 book he did with Schmitt.

IOW, what Dr Fil is doing is trying to "build a case" when there are in fact NUMEROUS scenarios - not just the skeptical one - as to what was the "true" scenario!

THAT is why so much of this stuff is not only NOT necessary - as it serves simply to butress a particular account - to corroborate (which is why he wanted a "witness" account from 2002 in there) - it is POV to assume a particular account, ESPECIALLY in a subject as controversial as this, should be inserted here!

Indeed, as any one who has looked at the literature out there on this, there is a particular pattern - ufo researchers SAY that witnesses said one thing or another. And those authors typically have a particular scenario they are trying to sell.

To be NPOV, we have to eliminate those presumptions - that witness A is there to support witness B because Author C states that this is what happened and these accounts support this. But why is author C the one who is "right" here? In using this approach, Dr Fil seeks to make a COURT CASE for a particular scenario.

THAT is why I have been scrupulous in sticking to what witnesses said and keeping out - very deliberately - of the various controversies of the various authors. Dr Fil seems to think I am trying to insert a "skeptical" approach here. Since something like 90 per cent of the quotes suggest aliens, that is clearly a specious critique. In truth, many of the witnesses are contested by the PRO-UFO authors themselves!

Including 14 quotes about Brazel's detention really makes no sense UNLESS one feels it has to be there to explain away the testimony he gave in 1947. But THAT presupposes that that needs to be there because the original testimony was coerced. That however is NOT a view universally held by even ufo researchers, it is one held by a few who see it as crucial evidence designed to explain away other testimony. IOW, Dr Fil sees it as "crucial" evidence - sure, "crucial" to his particular point of view of what happened, which presupposes a scenario of events to explain WHY x did that and WHY y said that. But here, we are only interested what witnesses said about what they saw or did IN TERMS OF debris, aliens, coverups and intimidation.

Which is why I have deleted it. We don't presuppose a scenario here - Dr Fil does. Therefore that inclusion is POV.

The main Roswell page talks of this, how Freidman and Randle almost violentally are at odds, how Randle has repudiated some of the "star" witnesses - like Dennis, Kaufman - who formed the bulk of the 1994 book. Dr Fil seems intent on reproducing a scenario that some of these authors have already repudiated, which says to me he isn't looking at this either rationally or objectively.

Canada Jack 22:30, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Simply incredible

Reading this discussion page was incomparably amusing. You two need to calm the hell down and step back from what sounds like a matter of mere organization. The fact that there is hours worth of bickering here about such a trivial matter--on such a trivial subject--just goes to show that unless a large number of people are involved in the editing of an article, there are going to be petty disputes that can't be easily resolved. Put out an announcement and have more people look into this. -216.145.255.2 08:04, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

You must be new here... this sort of stuff is par for the course. Personally, the most amusing aspect of this for me is the fact that Dr Fil has pasted all these "unbalanced" thingys on a page which to the casual reader must seem decidedly pro-ufo in the first place. Which, to me, shows how unreasonable some people can be. Canada Jack 17:34, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Removing redundant accounts

I've taken the liberty of omitting a lot of extraneous accounts here, for example where there is a single witness, but a half dozen who "corroborate" that that witness in fact said what others claimed he said. That's not "corroboration" at all - it simply confirms that that person SAID that. This is WITNESS accounts, failing that, second-hand accounts of what witnesses said (but NOT witness accounts of witness accounts). Accordingly, a lot of the accounts of Henderson are omitted which confirm simply that he SAID some things about aliens. The same for Wilcox - the daughter and granddaughter simply confirmed that Wilcox SAID something - they themselves were not threatened. Also, since what the sherrif and his wife actually said says nothing about intimidation, those accounts were omitted. Lastly, the issue of Mac Brazel - again, he is a witness who it is claimed was intimidated. It suffices to note that he was a witness - I utterly fail to see any point in listing numerous OTHERS who say he was intimidated. It suffices to note that others say he was intimidated.

I think enacting these changes greatly shortens the article and allows readers to see who claimed what, and frees them from being bogged down by a lot of extraneous material which simply serves to confirm that, indeed, witness A claimed that he saw aliens. After all this isn't "People who can confirm that certain witnesses at Roswell indeed claimed to have said they saw aliens," it is "Witnesses who claimed they say aliens." Canada Jack 15:41, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Photographer?

The article says "Newton's photo was also taken with the balloon debris by an unknown photographer. " Was it J. Bond Johnson? Bubba73 (talk), 04:55, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Good question. I've seen references to the photos, though I've not seen the photo. I'd guess it'd be a photo by Johnson, but I don't know.Canada Jack 15:15, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
I thought I've seen the photo of Newton on Wikipedia, but I can't find it. However, it is in Roswell, by Karl Pflock. It is very similar to the J. Bond Johnson photos, but the book credits it to "Charles A. Cashon, USAF". Bubba73 (talk), 17:54, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
The photo is also in this link from the references. Bubba73 (talk), 19:36, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Hey, Bubba, I've left this page alone more or less since my battles with Dr Fil. But it drastically needs a clean-up. Not sure who stuck in all those stupid links to stuff like "crashed flying saucer" and "alien bodies" but those gotta go. As does all those silly "neutrality" tags which really boil down to Dr Fil objecting to me removing all those editorial comments on certain witnesses whose testimony didn't fit the "alien" scenario. When you look at the bulk of the comments, one wonders how those ommissions make this an article slanted towards skeptics, but I suppose that demonstrates how rabid some people can be on this subject. Canada Jack 18:33, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

I read about 80% of it yesterday, and I was wondering about the neutrality tags. If it is what they said, and it is not taken out of context to slant it one way or the other, then I don't see how it could possibly be POV. Bubba73 (talk), 18:42, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Good question. It seems that because the witness of accounts of some were NOT presented with numerous counter-arguments, this rendered the section "biased." In particular with Cavitt. His testimony, simply put, is at odds with those who call this an alien craft. So, the attempt was to discredit everything he said, with notes that he previously denied being there, his testimony doesn't fit the "established" set of "facts." In my view, he was unquestionably a witness, and therefore his testimony is crucial. And whether his statements "fit" or not is not for us to decide. He was there, we weren't. Interestingly, I have YET to see a transcript of any of the previous interviews done by ufo researchers with Cavitt.

AS for the rest, it seems that because I was trying to limit the scope of the accounts there was a problem. In the end, when it came to numerous accounts from people saying witness X (who was dead) at times said y and z, I'd simply identify the witness x, and note that numerous witnesses said he said y and z. It got a bit ludicrous with Brazel and his incarceration - Dr Fil insisted on including a dozen witnesses saying he was incarcerated! Sufffice to say, witnesses said that Brazel was seen in the company of the military and that he complained of the treatment and of incarceration.

I think the problem is that some really don't understand what a "witness" truly is - it's someone who saw something germane to the case. It is NOT someone who talked to someone who saw something germane, those are second-hand or worse witnesses. And in a court of law, those statements are considered hear-say. Yet it seems that a case in the minds of some is more compelling when we have 10 people saying that witness x indeed claimed to have seen an alien, instead of just one. Canada Jack 17:57, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

In a court of law, anybody who testifies is a witness by definition. It doesn't matter if they personally witnessed it (first-hand), or heard somebody say they witnessed it (second-hand). Both are considered admissable legal testimony and both are "witnesses." A second-hand witness to an event is treated as an eyewitness or first-hand witness to somebody else talking about it.
This is different from "hearsay" or mere rumor. If you repeat what somebody tells you they only know from others, that is "hearsay" (or at best third-hand). If they tell you they personally witnessed something, and you repeat what they tell you, that is not "hearsay." It's second-hand testimony. You are a witness to what an eyewitness has said.
Hearsay evidence is also evidence spoken or written out of court, such as by dead people, which an attorney may attempt to introduce into evidence. Often it is not admissable but there are many exceptions. Diaries, legal affidavits, taped testimony, transcripts, deathbed confessions (as testified to by others), e.g., are often admitted into evidence. Nichole Simpson telling friends or relatives she feared O.J. Simpson would murder her was hearsay evidence, but was admitted into the Simpson trial. Legal rules of evidence also vary considerably depending on whether it is a criminal or civil case, and also vary between countries.
Historical research is not bound by the strict rules of evidence of court cases. There are rules of thumb used, such as first-hand testimony is usually better than second, fresh testimony is usually better than old testimony, sources closer in origin to the event are usually better than later ones, documents with provenance are usually better than documents without, etc. But historians also know that there are numerous exceptions. They certainly do not ignore second-hand testimony or later accounts nor do they necessarily trust original accounts, knowing full well that sources like newspapers can be full of inaccuracies, don't have time to adequately investigate the stories, can be misled, and so on. Information often comes out much later that wasn't originally available. Most information is never put down in print. If you really want a complete picture of what happened in some battle, e.g., it won't necessarily show up in the newspaper accounts or in documents. It may not even show up at all. You also have to interview the people who were there or maybe surviving family members or friends who they spoke to. Historians try to look at the evidence in toto to arrive at conclusions as to what may or may not have transpired.
You don't always get an accurate picture from initial accounts. Cover-ups do occur. The My Lai massacre in Viet Nahm was a military cover-up which certainly was not reported in the newspapers and which the military officers tried to bury afterwards. It was only through the later persistence of a few witnesses (some second-hand) and reporters that the cover-up and massacre were exposed. If a historian only went by the initial white-washed military investigations, i.e. the official story in some documents, it would say that nothing happened, which we now know wasn't the case.Dr Fil 20:55, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

section

I think it would be a good idea to have a section for descriptions and statements made by people in July 1947 who actually saw the debris - not what they said 30+ years later. I put some of these contemporaneous accounts in the main Roswell article about 1-1/2 years ago, but I doubt they survived. Bubba73 (talk), 20:35, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Mac Brazel

According to The Real Roswell on the National Geographic channel, Brazel had only one press interview and it was on June 8, 1947 (they must mean July) and he said "bright wreckage made up on rubber strips, tinfoil, a rather tough paper and sticks". I think this should go in the article, but I don't know of a paper reference. Was it in the Roswell newspaper? Bubba73 (talk), 20:35, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I added a link to the complete newspaper article. More of that interview needs to be included. Bubba73 (talk), 02:15, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

The reason that there wasn't a witness account from Brazel was because there was no verbatim transcript of that press conference, the only direct quote being his contention this was no weather balloon. SOme other witnesses below are not quoted directly, but there are verbatim transcripts, or signed statements. I'd say we should make the distinction - the Roswell Daily News reported that Brazel said this about the debris. Canada Jack 15:55, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

OK, say that the newspaper interviewed him and reported that he said such and such. Looking at the whole newspaper article (online), there are several significant things in there that seem like they should be stated in this article. Also, I think it would be good to state when these witnesses made these statements - it makes a difference whether they said it in 1947 or 1980 or 1997. Bubba73 (talk), 16:26, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry - I didn't notice your "1947" section from above. I'd hesitate to get too far along on focusing on who said what in 1947 - for the simple reasons that a) we have very little from then and b) most of the case for the aliens etc is based on later testimony. Remember, this is a link from a section which describes cases for aliens based on witness testimony, so, by definition, many of these accounts will suggest aliens and cover-ups. What I am trying to avoid here is the editorializing of each witness' testimony, keeping in mind NPOV. We already had a huge fight on that through my insistence of removing editorializing comments on Cavitt, etc. Editorializing is something that happens in part on the Air Force Reports page, and on the skeptic section of the Roswell main page where the case of the skeptics are presented. BTW, I am currently doing a clean-up of the "skeptic" section of the main page as I don't feel it covers that side of it very well. I've got three of the big skeptic books on the Roswell incident and I will over the next little while endeavour to better present the con-case. You may have noticed that I went to considerable lengths to flesh out the cases as presented in the various pro-books these past few weeks.

I'd like to get this done by the end of this month as, if you haven't realized it yet, early July marks the 60th anniversary of the incident! Canada Jack 17:46, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I realize that the 60th anniversary is comming up soon. I remember the 50th! I think I know which three major books you are talking about. I also have them, plus UFO Crash at Roswell by Saler, Zeigler, and Moore. I've ordered Little Grey Men by Toby Smith, who was featured in the National Geographic program.
I like the idea of seperating the article into contempuraneous first-hand witness reports and the rest. It is well known that reports closer to an event are usually more accurate. Bubba73 (talk), 20:08, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

The problem is there is almost nothing from 1947. Canada Jack 20:27, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but what there is from 1947 is the most important. If there isn't a section for contemporaneous reports, I think the article should clearly indicate when the person said this. Brazel said this in 1947, Marcel said this in 1978, Dennis said this in 1980, etc. Bubba73 (talk), 21:08, 1 June 2007 (UTC)


Dr Fil returns!

Dr Fil is back, adding more information. Think this an appropriate time to make a few changes to this page to more closely correspond to the main Roswell page, in particular, incorporating the accounts of Kaufmann, Ragsdale and Anderson. Sure, their accounts have been largely discredited, but so have all the accounts found on this page as well, at least the alien ones. Since much of the Roswell story was (at least initially) based on some of thsee accounts, we should include them.

And I further propose to differentiate between actual "witness" accounts in terms of aliens, and second-hand recitations of alien accounts. As it is, one has to wade through a lot of dross to find any actual first-hand account of aliens. Canada Jack 01:22, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Please cite your actual evidence that "all of the accounts found on this page, at least the alien ones" have been "discredited." Your mere sayso that "all" these accounts are "discredited" does not count. Please provide factual citations clearly demonstrating (not just more sayso of fellow debunkers) that these dozens of people have unquestionably fabricated every single one of these accounts (yet somehow kept them remarkably consistent in details).
I added these accounts, because many have them have just be published in the new Carey and Schmitt book, coming out right now. Do you have any evidence that Carey/Schmitt misrepresented any of these accounts? Just saying Kevin Randle doesn't trust Schmitt demonstrates nothing. I want documented proof that every witness is lying, as you claim.
A number of these accounts of bodies and aliens are now first-hand, mostly from military personnel who were verifiably at Roswell. Were you? And we now have a dozens of second-hand accounts from wives and children, often reporting on what their husband/father told them literally on their deathbed. I think they knew the credibility of their husband/father a bit better than you. Also, you can't be intellectually honest and artificially separate the primary witness story from second-hand corroboration of hearing it from the primary witness from family members or friends. In a court of law, the second-hand corroboration is deliberately allowed as supporting evidence as to credibility of a primary witness. Also, I've ALREADY made it very clear which accounts are said to be first-hand and which are second-hand from family or friends. As written, nobody is going to be confused as to which is which and I give readers credit for being able to make their own judgments about the credibility of 1st vs. 2nd-hand testimony. Do you?
Also, it is also very clear in most cases when the witness first told their story: shortly before they died, in the 1960s, in 1998, in 1980 when the story first publicly came out, when they were married in 1949, etc., etc. The reader is not going to confuse newspaper stories from 1947 from these later witness accounts.
Some of the testimony is sworn in legal affidavits. There's nothing to distort or misquote here. The witness wrote it down in their own words. Others also have left recorded testimony that can be listened to and reviewed. A prime example of both was Walter Haut, the base PIO, right in the inner circle of command at Roswell, a close friend of base commander Blanchard. Yeah, he must be lying too about seeing the crash object and bodies at the base hangar and knowing the details of how the cover-up was cooked up at the morning meeting with Gen. Ramey in attendance.
Or how about the military photographer Frederick Benthal, who also gave sworn and videotaped testimony that he actually photographed the bodies out in the field inside a tent? Have you read his account in Friedman in Berliner and the new Carey and Schmitt book? Prove he was actually lying. How has the story been "discredited." Just because you don't believe the story doesn't count.
The accounts, both first and second-hand, have been organized into what I believe is a logical order, where independent witness stories cross-corroborate each other in details. (This also better lets the reader compare and sort out the multitude of accounts.) Thus, e.g., I've grouped several military witnesses, named MPs or from the engineering unit, who mentioned being at what seems to be the same site as Benthal and describing the crash object and/or bodies. One MP even mentions guarding what seems to be the same tent that Benthal said he photographed the bodies in. (The MP said he was ordered to shoot any unauthorized person who tried to enter--think there was a Mogul balloon or crash dummies in there?) Others describe the debris field, including a new witness with the engineering squadron (S. Sgt. Earl Fulford) who said he was sent out to finish cleaning it up with 15 to 20 others. Like many other witnesses, civilian and military, he too described finding the "memory foil" and the military cordon around the site. (Yeah, he must have lied about that too, simply because you don't believe there was such a large scale recovery, a cordon, or such debris.) And Benthal also described seeing at the base a lowboy truck carrying a tarped object headed for hangar P-3 (which Benthal routinely worked at on aircraft maintenance) and driven by a personal friend of his (who to this day refuses to tell anybody what was under the tarp), and which by another amazing coincidence matches up exactly with yet another account from MP PFC Rolland Menagh (related second-hand by his sons), of escorting the recovered tarped crash object on a truck back to the base. Do these people get together in pro-Roswell conspiracy parties to get their stories to agree so well with one another?
Everybody is lying, every single one of these dozens and dozens of people. That's your absurd, totally unsupported claim. I count about 50 such witnesses just in this listing of body/craft stories, and there are more, such as two other accounts from friends of Cpt. Oliver Henderson about flying debris to Wright Field and seeing the bodies, which you previously deleted as "redundant." Yeah, can't let the Wiki reader jury read the huge volume of corroborating "redundant" accounts. They might get the wrong idea that there are vastly more such accounts than your debunkery star witness Cavitt or a few hoaxers you like to throw to try to discredit the whole story, as if that was all there was to it.
All accounts from many witnesses about the debris field and the craft/body site closer to Roswell eventually lead to Hangar P-3 (or Hangar 84 as it was later called), which is mentioned independently in numerous accounts. Just another amazing coincidence, of course, or a vast conspiracy on the part of dozens of people who mostly have never heard of one another. According to many accounts, the crash object plus the debris was taken there for shipping. The bodies were also taken there, again according to multiple accounts, including first-hand from Haut, Lt. Governor Joseph Montoya (told second-hand by the Anaya family), several MPs who guarded the hangar (second-hand from family members), and now one eyewitness account from an MP escorting the alien bodies to the base hospital from the same hangar, including seeing a live one being worked on by doctors at the hospital. The live alien is also independently described in the Montoya/Anaya account and a new one from the many sons of Lt. Col. Marion Magruder (a heavily decorated WWII Marine pilot), who the sons swear told them on his deathbed of seeing the live alien at Wright Field two weeks later along with a lot of other top military officers. There are several other lesser or more removed accounts of the live alien (such as from Steven Lovekin he says was told to him in a Pentagon briefing around 1960). Of course, there is former Wright-Patterson C/O Brig. Gen. Arthur Exon's account of learning of the spacecraft crash, debris analysis, and recovered bodies from others at W-P from men he personally knew and trusted. You would think the base commander at W-P would know what he was talking about. He was there. You weren't. He knew the people. You didn't Why isn't his story credible? Because you say so?
What is there, a vast conspiracy amongst all these people to tell alien and spacecraft stories at Roswell just for fun? Are all of them lying? What possible reason would somebody like Exon lie about this?
Fragmenting and scattering the accounts (and no doubt you will end up deleting most of them--please prove me wrong) is your standard operating procedure to diffuse the overwhelming impact of this large mass of witnesses telling very similar, cross-corroborating stories. (Just like you repeatedly deleted over a dozen accounts I listed of Mack Brazel being incarcerated and intimidated by the military.) Why are you so afraid to let Wiki readers read these accounts and make up their own minds? It can't be the length of the article. There are much longer Wikipedia articles than this. Serious, interested readers will read through it. Frivolous readers or those suffering from ADD won't.
I've tried to be very matter-of-fact in writing these accounts up, not expressing an opinion one way or the other as to whether the witnesses are telling the truth or not. This is what these people have stated, nothing more. In fact, you insisted that the article be written this way, without commentary, which you also (rightly) pointed out would make the article exceedingly long. Now you want to put your personal commentary back in that absolutely absolutely none of these people are credible?
Kaufmann, Ragsdale and Anderson have been left out for good reason, as you have already stated, because the vast majority of even "pro" researchers do not find their stories credible, being riddled with demonstrated lies or very, very serious inconsistencies. Why include them now? Also, wasn't the point to include the many witness stories that couldn't be listed or discussed in the main article? Kaufmann, Ragsdale, and Anderson have already had more than their fair share of space over in the main article, now almost entirely written by you to ridicule the Roswell case. Is the plan now to carry your ridicule over to this article too?
Again, why not just the Wiki readers read the witness accounts, every single one of them, and make up their own minds? Why are you so afraid of this? Dr Fil 06:08, 11 June 2007 (UTC)


Here we go again, folks.

If anyone needed any proof that the "true believers" are, uh, obsessed with this case, one should look no further.

Let's see - the events in question happened just short of SIXTY years ago and now a new book is out claiming new FIRST HAND witness accounts of alien corpses?

Up to now, we have four of five first-hand witness accounts of aliens at Roswell. I am truly fascinated as to what new evidence has surfaced after sixty years and what memories were unlocked from new witnesses.

The page was set up with as-claimed witness accounts of debris/aliens. EACH AND EVERY CLAIM HAS SERIOUS FLAWS. But did I add tons of "yes, but..." in terms of these claims? NO! You, being the true believer you are saw fit to editorialize those statements which didn't happen to fit your scenario, and stuck a bunch of "biased" notes on them when I removed your editorializing.

I could quite easily point out that the ONLY person to claim Brazel saw aliens - Joyce - also claimed that in fact WHITMORE made the "green men" quote on his deathbed (before he claimed Brazel said it) and also claimed to have driven out to the ranch with a strange man who hypnotized him into staying into a shack while out there with Whitmore. To put it mildly, many of these claims have serious credibility problems, not simply that what is claimed is incredible, but simply don't add up.

You are completely wrong about this, and it is just another instance where you do not know as nearly as much about the Roswell case as you think you do. Stop relying so much on the bogus statements of debunkers like Tim Printy, who you are probably citing.
Ironically, it was none other than Roswell debunker Karl Pflock in his book who disproved your above claim. Pflock clearly established that William Moore misquoted Joyce because he got his notes and two conversations (about Whitmore and Brazel) confused. Moore admitted it. To quote from Pflock's book, p. 122:
      • "Joyce told me Moore misquoted him***, so I contacted Moore. In November 1994, Moore sent me a copy of the letter in which Joyce provided corrections to and approved the transcript of their interview. ***One of the corrections was that it was Brazel with whom he had the exchange about LGMs.*** It seems Joyce had told Moore about his conversation with Brazel after the formal interview was concluded and they were walking to Joyce's car. ***Moore told me he made the error in notes he wrote later.*** In subsequent versions of the paper from which the above quote was taken, Moore presented the corrected version of Joyce's deathbed exchange with Whitmore--sans LGMs--although without acknowledging the previously published error."
Thus Moore screwed up, Printy, or whoever you got your bogus information from, was either too dishonest to make the correction or too clueless to know better, and the debunking myth of Joyce contradicting himself on the LGM statement goes on and on like the Energizer bunny. Hopefully you will stop repeating it now that you've been educated a little bit.Dr Fil 00:00, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

But the function of the page is to spell out what is claimed, not lay out the cases one way or the other.

Which is why we should include the Kaufmann, Ragsdale and Anderson claims.


Anyway, now that you are back, Dr Fil, maybe you could answer the question I posed before: Have you published any work on the Roswell incident, in any form? Canada Jack 14:51, 11 June 2007 (UTC)


"Also, you can't be intellectually honest and artificially separate the primary witness story from second-hand corroboration of hearing it from the primary witness from family members or friends. In a court of law, the second-hand corroboration is deliberately allowed as supporting evidence as to credibility of a primary witness. Also, I've ALREADY made it very clear which accounts are said to be first-hand and which are second-hand from family or friends. As written, nobody is going to be confused as to which is which and I give readers credit for being able to make their own judgments about the credibility of 1st vs. 2nd-hand testimony. Do you?"
Uh, not sure what courts you go to, Dr Fil, but the sort of second-hand evidence you bring forward is something called HEARSAY. True, a court would ask others to corroborate evidence given by witnesses to support their credibilty, but that is not what we are seeing here. We in fact see only a very FEW cases of actual witnesses - about seven in terms of those who handled the debris, for example, something like four or five who saw aliens - and a TON of accounts from people who claim OTHERS (who never gave accounts) said they saw aliens. So, while you like to pretend that accounts from, say, Joyce "corroborate" accounts that Brazel saw aliens, what you fail to mention is that you can't "corroborate" an account which was never given! At no time did Brazel testify he saw aliens! Only one person said he did, and a court would call that inadmissable hearsay evidence and question quite rightly why none of the myriad of others who knew Brazel don't mention he said anything about aliens - many of whom spoke with him AFTER he made his discovery but BEFORE he was supposedly brow beaten into changing his story.
To say there are credibilty problems with most if not all of these claims is, uh, putting it mildly. But we are not particularlity interested in resolving that here - we are interested in putting out these claims unadorned. But I think it would be inportant to underline which accounts are in fact first-hand and which are not. Too often authors like to confuse the issue by claiming "hundreds" of witnesses, when the casual reader would like to hear about what witnesses actually claim. The first people to read about are the actual witnesses, then the second-hand accounts. It seems you perceive this approach - which is a reasonable approach, I'd say - as somehow in the "debunking" arena. What you fail to appreciate is that it makes it much more coherent to follow if the accounts are laid out that way for readers of the main page to find these accounts.Canada Jack 15:07, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
If aliens were found then why didn't anyone say that in 1947? Bubba73 (talk), 15:33, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
The vast majority of the alien witnesses cited were military personnel. They couldn't talk to the newspapers, now could they?
Researchers have uncovered a lot of witnesses, military and civilian, who tell us rumors were flying around Roswell and the base about a flying saucer crash and little alien bodies. So people were talking about it back then, and certainly the base acknowledged initially in their press release that they recovered a "flying disc," only to quickly retract the story and say it was a weather balloon. One example of the subject matter being discussed back then came from former Roswell police chief L. M. Hall, who said mortician Glenn Dennis told him back in 1947 only a few days after the press release about receiving strange calls from the base for child-size caskets so that they could bury or ship those aliens. Hall said he thought Dennis was joking with him and they never discussed it again.
Among key civilian witnesses, we have Brazel, e.g., who a dozen or so witnesses tell us was in military custody. The key eyewitness here was the Roswell Provost Marshal William Easley who admitted they held Brazel at the base under armed guard for several days. He was the guy in charge, so I think he would know what he was talking about. Of course Canada Jack censored all this first-hand testimony from eyewitnesses of Brazel's detention by the military, even though it's absolutely critical in placing his 1947 interview into proper context. Such clear evidence of coerced testimony from a witness would not only make the testimony unadmissable but would be grounds for a mistrial.
There are other examples of where the government has coerced civilian witnesses. When a top-secret stealth plane under development crashed outside of Bakersfield in 1987, the military cordoned off the area and civilians who made it the crash site were made to sign security oaths. Such security oaths carry strict penalities for violating them, including prosecution, heavy fines, and imprisonment. That alone can be a strong deterrant to keep people from talking.
Also keep in mind just how poor communications and roads were back in 1947 in central New Mexico. The ranch roads (really more cow paths) were all dirt. The ranchers had no electricity or phones (phone service to these remote ranchers near Brazel only went in the 1980s). That makes it very hard for witnesses out in the remote areas who might have seen something to talk to anyone. And what if they had contacted a newspaper? Would the newspaper necessarily have printed the story? If you called your local newspaper and claimed to have seen an alien body, do you think they would publish the story? They would probably consider you to be a lunatic. Most people wouldn't even try to report something bizarre for exactly that reason. They would fear the ridicule or just prefer not to draw any unnecessary attention to themselves. Most witnesses never talk at all, regardless of the subject matter.
You skeptibunker guys seem to have a peculiar mindset that anything printed in the newspapers at the time must be true, all witnesses will talk to the newspapers, the newspapers print everything they are told, newspapers thoroughly investigate all stories they print, anything not printed at the time never happened, witness statements made after the fact are worthless, second-hand testimony is worthless, and on an on.
Needless to say, none of this is true. Newspapers frequently make mistakes, make no in-depth investigation with the short time available to them, and publish only a tiny fraction of the information that might be available. (The two tiny Roswell newspapers with their very limited resources ran standard AP stories about Roswell the next day rather than cover the story themselves.)
And newspapers can and do get lied to by official sources and then repeat the lies in print. Governments frequently lie and cover-up embarrassing or sensitive events. When the U-2 was shot down in 1960, they issued a cover story (errant NASA weather plane--even had NASA cook up phony transcripts of the pilot passing out from oxygen deprivation). That's what the papers printed intially, the government cover story. When the Watergate break-in occurred, the Nixon White House of course denied any involvement or knowledge of the burglary. It took several years of going after government inside witnesses to finally break that cover-up. None of these witnesses spoke to the newspapers at the time the story first came out either. The White House people who did speak at the time all lied.
The Wiki article on historical articles discusses how historians generally prefer sources closer to the original event, but don't completely rely on them because things like cover-ups do in fact occur and important information may only come out much later. No historian, detective, etc., worth his salt will ever ignore witness testimony offered after the fact. Only a miniscule fraction of what goes on in the world ever makes it into print and sometimes the only way to get a complete picture of what probably happened is to speak to the people who were involved or their friends and families if they are dead. Second-hand testimony is very important. Ask any professional historian. It's also used all the time in courts of law. It is simply NOT true that only eyewitnesses to events testify in court. People who are eyewitnesses to what the eyewitnesses might tell them also testify. Anybody who testify in court is considered a "witness" by definition. It doesn't matter if they are reporting an event first or second-hand.
One witness' testimony decades later may not be worth much, but multiple witness accounts telling different aspects of what happened can be extremely valuable, particularly if many of the details agree. This is cross-corroborations. One witness might be lying or remembering badly, but when multiple people who don't know one another tell very similar stories, it becomes very unlikely that they are all lying or remembering wrongly in the same way.Dr Fil 19:14, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

If you read the above, you will see that to people like Dr Fil a "witness" can be someone who simply heard a rumour about aliens. "Researchers have uncovered a lot of witnesses, military and civilian, who tell us rumors were flying around Roswell and the base about a flying saucer crash and little alien bodies."

As I have carefully and repeatedly pointed out, someone who hears a rumour is NOT a "witness." Which is why I have omitted (Dr Fil prefers the term "censored") and such references to "witness" So And So who says they heard "rumours" about aliens. Unless the person a) SAW the aliens, or b) knew someone who said they saw aliens, their account has no place on this page.

Here's more nonsense: "Among key civilian witnesses, we have Brazel, e.g., who a dozen or so witnesses tell us was in military custody. The key eyewitness here was the Roswell Provost Marshal William Easley who admitted they held Brazel at the base under armed guard for several days. He was the guy in charge, so I think he would know what he was talking about. Of course Canada Jack censored all this first-hand testimony from eyewitnesses of Brazel's detention by the military, even though it's absolutely critical in placing his 1947 interview into proper context. Such clear evidence of coerced testimony from a witness would not only make the testimony unadmissable but would be grounds for a mistrial."

What "censorship" are we talking about? The dispute here is NOT whether witnesses claimed that Brazel was detained, the dispute is whether we list those who claim or it is claimed were intimidated OR whether we have a separate section on Brazel's detention. I stuck to the former - under the "intimidation" section listing those who claimed it, like Joyce, like Dugger, like Rowe, then also listing Brazel and noting that numerous witnesses say he was detained. How this constitutes "censorship" is beyond me. I even mention his detention on the main Roswell page!

As for the "inadmissible" charge of "coerced" testimony, a court would likely try to find testimony as close to the date as possible. Since news accounts quite clearly state Brazel was in the company of Whitmore and OTHER witnesses state Whitmore tried to keep Brazel to himself - and had him before any military sequester, a judge would likely conclude that any "coercion" likely happened AFTER he left the company of Whitmore - which was AFTER he spoke to the press. To believe otherwise, you'd have to take the testimony of those speaking at least three decades after the fact over the published account delivered within hours of the events in question.

"If you called your local newspaper and claimed to have seen an alien body, do you think they would publish the story?... Most witnesses never talk at all, regardless of the subject matter."

So? You don't built a case on what wasn't said, you built it on what WAS said. And in this case, too much is made of "rumours" when the only thing that counts are actual accounts. Those "rumours" could very well have been the result of the very news reports that broke the story! We have no way to know one way or the other, therefore they are completely useless and irrelevant on the page.

"You skeptibunker guys seem to have a peculiar mindset that anything printed in the newspapers at the time must be true, all witnesses will talk to the newspapers, the newspapers print everything they are told, newspapers thoroughly investigate all stories they print, anything not printed at the time never happened, witness statements made after the fact are worthless, second-hand testimony is worthless, and on an on."

??? What is all this blather, Dr Fil? We have the initial accounts, which the original article notes, are not consistent. Then, we have witness accounts which paint certain scenarios. As noted on the main page, those scenarios evolve over the year. Nowhere is it said that witness accounts are "worthless" etc. What IS said (and not on this page) is that there are major discrepancies, discrepancies which the UFO authors THEMSELVES point out. Like Randle dismissing the Barnett/Anderson accounts. It is noted that witness accounts delivered 30+ years after the fact may not be reliable, and second-hand accounts even less so. But those comments are in the "skeptic" section, not in the main body of the alien accounts, etc. But all we are doing there is describing what the scenarios are and then what the skeptics say about it. You make the strawman argument, but you have nothing here to argue, because I am not guilty as charged.

"Newspapers frequently make mistakes, make no in-depth investigation with the short time available to them, and publish only a tiny fraction of the information that might be available....And newspapers can and do get lied to by official sources and then repeat the lies in print. Governments frequently lie and cover-up embarrassing or sensitive events."

Fair enough, but, again, all we have to go on is what was reported and what witnesses later said. We can still paint a likely scenario, and piece together what has happened. And in the case of the UFO proponents, they have a number of scenarios which rise or fall on the credibility of the information they have. If MJ12 was proven to be a fraud, for example, there'd be a serious problem with some of the researchers' conclusions (like Friedman's). And if certain witnesses were shown to be wrong - like Marcel - then that would cause other problems. Which is really what this case is built on - a lot of incomplete and often contradictory accounts and claims which have to be assessed.

What I have tried to do is simply present the cases as offered and then go to the skeptical response and let the reader decide. One of the key things, however, is to let this page stand as a basically unadorned list of various accounts. I've always felt that we shouldn't weight this down with a lot of extraneous stuff - like your endless accounts of Brazel's confinement - or "rumours." This page is not here to make a "case" one way or the other - which is also why we need the Anderson, Ragsdale and Kaufmann accounts.

"Second-hand testimony is very important. Ask any professional historian. It's also used all the time in courts of law. It is simply NOT true that only eyewitnesses to events testify in court. People who are eyewitnesses to what the eyewitnesses might tell them also testify. Anybody who testify in court is considered a "witness" by definition. It doesn't matter if they are reporting an event first or second-hand."

Too often, impressive lists of "witnesses" are presented to give the impression of a huge number of people who saw something. In fact, relatively few DID see something. If this went to court, we'd have a relative few who actually reported something and, unlike the way these authors present them, we'd have counter-witnesses. So, when someone they heard "alien" from person X, then we'd look for other people for corroboration. Too often, authors find a SINGLE person who claims person X said "alien," while ignoring the fact that no one else ever heard this. Like with Joyce's claims of what Brazel said about "green men." In a REAL court, the other side would ask, quite reasonably, why not a single other witness reported Brazel saying anything remotely similar, why Brazel, if he saw such things took a rather non-challant approach to driving into town, etc, and why none of the others on that debris field said ANYTHING about aliens. I'm not saying this is true of all witness accounts. But it is an example of the problems not only with second-hand accounts, but the willingness too often of some proUFO Roswell authors to accept ANY testimony, no matter how problematic, and sticking with it. But this is, again, not even an issue here where unadorned accounts are presented. And while it IS an issue with skeptics and comes up in the relevant sections, it DOESN'T come up in this page nor in the pages dealing with the pro-UFO case. Therefore your point, while interesting, is not particularily relevant.

"One witness' testimony decades later may not be worth much, but multiple witness accounts telling different aspects of what happened can be extremely valuable, particularly if many of the details agree. This is cross-corroborations." Only if something is added to what is know or someone tells a similar story. It is NOT "corroboration" if someone simply recounts hearing rumours. And a court would toss out any such witness statement as being irrelevant. Citing people saying there were high security measures in place, mysterious crates is utterly meaningless unless you have someone saying "I saw a non-human corpse" or some such thing. I mean, we are talking about a highly secretive and security-conscious organization (the US military) operating at the start of one of the most paranoid eras of our times (the Cold War). You have to do far more than cite secrecy and mysterious flights and rumours as "cross corroboration" - you have to supply accounts of actual aliens and their craft.Canada Jack 20:32, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Sgt. Thomas Gonzales

Dr Fil, Please confirm the reference to this individual. You cite the '94 Randle/Schmitt book, but I can't find a mention of him there. Canada Jack 16:03, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm using the paperback edition and the page cite is correct. Some additional material was added to the paperback from the hardback version that came out a little earlier. Perhaps this is one example. His alien description is also given on p. 175. Check the index in your book edition.Dr Fil 17:01, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
Must be later info added to the paperback edition, as there is no reference to him in the index. Perhaps he is identified by initial, like the photographer Frederick Benthal you cite who appears in "Corona"? Canada Jack 17:05, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps. Benthal is identified only by his initials "F.B" in "Crash at Corona." Jesse Marcel was identified initially only as J.M. by Leonard Stringfield. (Incidentally, Stringfield reported Marcel telling him debris was scattered over a square mile, which is exactly the way Marcel was quoted 30 years before in 1947. Marcel's large debris field description goes way back to the beginning and was reported in the newspapers.) Some go under pseudonyms, such as "Tim" of the B-29 crate flight who Carey and Schmitt now identify as Lloyd Thompson.
Gonzales was first interviewed by Don Ecker of UFO Magazine. Randle & Schmitt also report this in a December 1994 newsletter [1], so the Ecker interview may have taken place too early to get into the hardback edition. Randle & Schmitt in their newsletter also mention a Lt. Colonel Albert Lovejoy Duncan, a member of White Sands MP unit who they said told them he was involved and that he saw "bodies." They say they mention him in their book, but he's not listed in my paperback edition index.Dr Fil 20:05, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Duran (not "Duncan") is in the hardback edition, but only in a footnote on page 8. He's not in the index. Perhaps he is there in the footnote of the paperback edition in the early pages. Canada Jack 21:01, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Duran is not mentioned in any of the footnotes for Chapt. 1 in the paperback edition.Dr Fil 17:36, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Heresay

Just to clarify, here is the definition of heresay:

1. Unverified information heard or received from another; rumor.
2. Law. Evidence based on the reports of others rather than the personal knowledge of a witness and therefore generally not admissible as testimony.

from here. Bubba73 (talk), 21:13, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

First, you may not understand the difference between common hearsay (not "heresay") or rumor and second-hand testimony, which is usually admissable. Someone who testifies that, "Everybody I've talked to who knows O.J. says he killed his wife," would be obvious hearsay or rumor and not admissable. But somebody who testifies, "O.J. told me how he did it," would be admissable testimony even though they personally did not witness the murder. They would be a second-hand hand witness to how the murder was committed and a first-hand witness to the confession. If somebody testified that a personal friend of Simpson told him that Simpson confessed to the murder, that too might be admissable, even though it is second-hand testimony to the confession. It would almost definitely be admissable as corroborating testimony if the personal friend also testified to the confession.
Second, there are many exceptions to the hearsay evidence exclusionary rules. Hearsay also refers to evidence, oral or written, presented out of court and not subject to cross examination because the person is not available. E.g., in the Simpson trial, testimony that Nicole Simpson expressed fear for her life before her murder was admitted into evidence. Nicole Simpson could not testify to her fears in court and be cross-examined, but others were allowed to testify to her state of mind in her stead. Similarly deathbed confessions (as related in court by others or by written statement of the deceased) are usually admitted, as are personal diaries, letters, business records and such. The dead person isn't around to authenticate them anymore, but courts feel that such evidence is usually reliable.
Third, legal rules of evidence vary with the circumstances and jurisdictions. Civil trials have laxer rules than criminal justice trials, for obvious reasons. E.g., testimony and evidence that was excluded in the Simpson murder trial was admissable in the civil trial.
Fourth, are we conducting a murder trial here or a historical reconstruction? Courts have well-defined legal rules of evidence that must be adhered to (but even here, judges have much discretionary power), but historians have no such rules. They are free to use whatever they wish, even rumor, though they know that first-hand testimony carries more weight than second-hand, fresher recountings of events are usually more reliable than older ones, authenticated documents have more weight than non-authenticated ones, and so on. Witnesses do not testify under oath, they may be carefully grilled but are rarely cross-examined, friends and relatives of deceased first-hand witnesses are routinely questioned to try to determine what the deceased related and may have known, and so on.
Historians also know that government cover-ups do occur--My Lai Massacre, Watergate, U-2 incident, radiation experiments on civilians, to name a few--and sometimes testimony after-the-fact is more reliable than testimony or documents of the time, because lying and concealment was going on. Cases are often cracked open on testimony alone (including second-hand), such as in Watergate and My Lai. Historians (or any investigator of events such as reporters) can use whatever resources and evidence that are available to try to get at the truth of what happened. They do NOT arbitrarily restrict themselves only to first-hand witnesses or contemporary accounts, though recognizing these are usually more reliable. Dr Fil 17:29, 12 June 2007 (UTC)


The point, Dr Fil, is that if this WAS a trial, the so-called "proof" offered by those who claim a) an alien landing at Roswell and b) a subsequent government cover-up of same would be likely thrown out of court as the "evidence" is flimsy, mostly second-hand and hearsay (which is why I deleted talk of "rumours of aliens").

First of all, there are large numbers of first-hand witnesses, particularly to the debris and coercion. Second-hand evidence is not routinely "thrown out of court" even in criminal trials and is almost always admissable as corroboration for first-hand testimony. Standards of "proof" vary with the circumstances. A criminal trial has a much higher standard of proof than a civil one, which has a higher standard of proof than a historical reconstruction. This is NOT a criminal trial where somebody could lose their freedom or life depending on what evidence is admissable. It is history, and we are free to look at anything we like.
I agree that base personnel and civilians saying they heard rumors of a flying saucer crash and alien bodies proves nothing on their own. On the other hand, they correspond to first and second-hand witness accounts that there was a F.S. crash and bodies. One of the engineering people said more than just hearing the rumors. He was an eyewitness to the base being in lockdown or at a high security level at the same time that he heard the rumors. He wasn't the only one. I didn't even mention the one nurse that did get interviewed (who I didn't bother to mention). She didn't see alien bodies or know anybody that said they did, but she said she had no trouble believing the stories because the base WAS on a high security at the time. Another one of the medical personnel told Victor Golubic (grew up in Roswell, knew of the incident his entire life, and interviewed many medical personnel) the same thing. He remembered the exact dates because he was getting married on the base. They had to postphone the marriage to July 10, he said, because the base was in lockdown on July 7, when they originally planned to be married. Others said that besides just hearing the rumors, they knew some of the people directly involved in the recovery. I agree that isn't specific enough, but it is a form of second-hand testimony to what others said, not just rumor.
I just thought you might want to know if you are interested in the case. However, I don't have a lot of problems with ditching the mere rumor stories, since there are already a helluva lot of first and second-hand accounts to witnessing an actual spacecraft and alien bodies.66.117.135.19 23:12, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Of course, this is no trial and as you correctly point out, many historical events are based on fewer accounts than what we have for Roswell. The PROBLEM is that there are a great many OTHER accounts which suggest something rather mundane in fact happened here. In the case of, say, Hastings, we may have fewer eyewitnesses to the event in question, but we also are not similarly presented with a parade of witnesses who insist nothing happened at all.

I guess I missed the "great many other accounts which suggest something rather mundane happened." They don't exist. I'm sorry, but people who don't know anything are generally not considered witnesses. Police canvassing a neighborhood looking for eyewitnesses to a crime do not find people who say they didn't see anything, hear anything, and as far as they are concerned, nothing ever happened to be particularly useful. That will be generally be true of most people the police speak to.
Somebody saying they were at the base and never observed anything are not witnesses. They are non-witnesses and don't somehow prove a negative or nothing happened, because something clearly DID happen. The base issued a press release saying they had captured a flying disk, and it created a well-documented national brouhaha, QED. If somebody was completely unaware of any of this going on, then it doesn't say much for their awareness or memory of events.66.117.135.19 23:32, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

The point, Dr Fil, is that if this WAS a trial, the so-called "proof" offered by those who claim a) an alien landing at Roswell and b) a subsequent government cover-up of same would be likely thrown out of court as the "evidence" is flimsy, mostly second-hand and hearsay (which is why I deleted talk of "rumours of aliens").

Of course, this is no trial and as you correctly point out, many historical events are based on fewer accounts than what we have for Roswell. The PROBLEM is that there are a great many OTHER accounts which suggest something rather mundane in fact happened here. In the case of, say, Hastings, we may have fewer eyewitnesses to the event in question, but we also are not similarly presented with a parade of witnesses who insist nothing happened at all.

Indeed, as I have on the main Roswell page, one indication to social anthropologists that Roswell is an elaborate folk-tale is the tendency of many Roswell UFO proponents to ignore and vilify those witnesses who don't support the established narrative.

Allow me to count on one hand those "many" witnesses: Cavitt, Bessie Brazel maybe, Mack Brazel's press interview, Marcel's quotes from 1947, Sheriff Wilcox. Are there any more? All of them have serious problems (Cavitt a counterintelligence agent very obviously lying, accounts of Wilcox/Brazel coercion, Marcel under orders, was Bessie even there?), and the stories directly contradict one another on key points.66.117.135.19 23:12, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Cavitt is a case in point. If this was simply a historical investigation of what actually happened at Roswell in 1947 - which you are pretending this is - then there would be NO "established narrative." I have YET to see a transcript of what Cavitt actually said to the various UFO researchers who interviewed him, this despite the fact that he - if this was truly "historical" investigation - was clearly one of the three or four crucial witnesses to what was actually found on the ranch. Actually, since you seem to have an "in" with some of these guys, perhaps you could help me out here if there is a transcript somewhere. (Besides, of course, the Air Force interview)

The reason there are no transcripts of interviews with Cavitt is because Cavitt refused to be interviewed! He wouldn't even say, "I found a balloon." It's that simple. He said he wasn't at the base, wasn't involved, and had nothing more to say. He continued to say this even after he was interviewed by the A.F. Cavitt lied about his lack of involvement to at least half a dozen investigators who tried to interview him.66.117.135.19 23:12, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

As to the thrust of what you are saying, there is no "arbritary" limiting going on here. The page is called WITNESS accounts. And that means, generally, accounts from people who actually saw the debris or aliens in question, or who have heard accounts of people who did and can relate those accounts.

Therefore people saying they didn't see or hear anything are not witnesses other than to not knowing anything. Glad we finally got that established. There go your "many witnesses" to something mundane.
Kidding aside, I am genuinely pleased you are willing to work with me on the alien/spacecraft accounts. I have my reservations about separating them into first and second-hand accounts instead of grouping them by similarity or contrasting accounts, but am willing to leave that alone for now.
Do remember also that the witnesses are not just to debris and "aliens", but also to a cover-up and intimidation.

It is enough to establish that a person claimed to have seen something - or to note that several people say a particular person said he saw something. It's not particularly useful to list separate accounts of people saying that a particular person said or did something - like you had on Marcel.

This brings me to your repeated deletions of the many FIRST-HAND witness accounts of Brazel's intimidation by the military. It is NOT enough to merely mention in passing that some unspecified people said this. All you will allow is Frank Joyce's account, but what about provost marshall Easley's admission that they held Brazel at the base under guard, or Brazel's son saying the same thing, or the other reporters saying they saw Brazel accompanied by military to his interview? I've been trying to meet you halfway by summarizing all this into one short paragraph with citations to details elsewhere, instead of listing out all the witnesses and their stories one by one in a long list. But AGAIN, you delete even this. This certainly IS arbitrarily limiting the testimony to only that which you want the reader to see.
It is definitely useful to the reader to know that there are such witnesses and to at least have some idea who they were, e.g., the base provost marshall and Brazel's adult son, for crying out loud. These are critical witnesses, and your rationales for censoring their mention are the lamest I've ever heard. Clearly you do not want readers ever seeing this because it exposes the Brazel press interview as very likely being coerced testimony. (Brazel even recanted his balloon story at the very end, didn't he? That should tell you something.)
If this WAS a court case and Brazel's press story was presented as a key piece of evidence of something mundane, the opposing council would very definitely put every witness testifying to coercion up on the witness stand as rebuttal witnesses. One might be lying. Two might be lying. But would a dozen people make up the same story? The more people saying they witnessed the same or similar things, the more credible it becomes. THAT'S WHY CORROBORATING TESTIMONY IS CONSIDERED IMPORTANT in all fields of inquiry. In a court of law, if this many witnesses testified to key witness coercion, it would be clear grounds for a mistrial, no questions.

Since the main page discusses first-hand alien accounts from Ragsdale, Anderson and Kaufmann, we should include those accounts here, under "first hand accounts" probably. Not sure your objection here - several key books were based on the testimony of some of these guys and therefore it is important to note what was said.

And, it is also important to note, contrary to what you imply, I didn't suggest that we label certain accounts as "only" second-hand accounts or what have you, but accounts which do not originate with the witness mentioned have to be clearly identified as such - like the archaeologist you mentioned.

I believe I have clearly and correctly identified all witnesses as such, unlike you. You should do the same. You just erroneously tried to change C. Bertrum Schultz story into second-hand testimony ("some claim") when it was his direct testimony. I had to fix that. I also just tried to correct your erroneous statement that Bill Brazel corroborated his sister's debris description. Instead, you gave a second-hand quote from Bill Brazel of what HIS FATHER said, but suggest it was a first-hand debris description from Brazel Jr. This is clear misrepresentation of testimony. Furthermore, you provided no first-hand descriptions from Bill Brazel under the Brazel family section as you did from Bessie Brazel. I just did that and you DELETED all of it. Why? Was it because Bill Brazel's first-hand debris testimony exactly matched Marcel's, not Bessie Brazel's?66.117.135.19 23:12, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

You seem to want to turn this page into the case for aliens at Roswell. It isn't.

I could just as easily argue that misrepresenting witness testimony or deleting/censoring critical parts of it, as you have done with Bill Brazel, Sheridan Cavitt, or the Brazel coercion testimony, is your attempt to put an "anti-alien" slant on the material by denying readers critical testimony against the "pro-Mogul" balloonie view. This is why I put "disputed" on some of the sections to begin with.
However, we do seem to be making progress on the alien/spacecraft accounts section. Yay! I just hope this can be expanded into other sections instead of constantly fighting.66.117.135.19 23:12, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

It's simply unadorned accounts of debris and aliens.

And debris field descriptions, and coercion, and cover-up, sections you yourself defined. You seem to have "aliens" on the brain about everything. E.g., you once deleted my Brazel coercion testimony with the weird rationale that it was "alien" related and beyond the scope of the section. Huh? Not a word was said about "aliens." It was all coercion testimony, the section subject topic. 66.117.135.19 23:12, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Accordingly, there is no need for "corroborating" accounts as that is beyond the scope of the page. Canada Jack 18:43, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

???? Would a reporter, or lawyer, or historian, or jury say "there is no need for 'corroborating' accounts?" Honestly, some your rationales for deleting testimony can only be described as illogical if not self-serving.
Since when is giving Bill Brazel's actual debris descriptions right after his sister's "beyond the scope of the page?" Why is giving Sheridan Cavitt's denial of seeing "flower tape" or hieroglyphics "beyond the scope of the page?" You just deleted that too for no good reason Those are also debris descriptions, and contrast directly with what Bessie Brazel, Brazel Sr., and Jesse Marcel had to say. Why is it OK to give Sheridan Cavitt's tiny balloon crash alongside his balloon description, but not OK to give Marcel's or Rickett's large debris field right alongside their debris descriptions? It's not like the two descriptions have no connection. Why do they have to be separated out into a separate section, but not Cavitt's? It seems like "beyond the scope of the page" is whatever you arbitrarily decide it to be, because you are afraid of the testimony in some way. You define it as "beyond the scope" or "irrelevant" even when it clearly falls within the scope of testimony as you alone have already defined it.
I'm sorry if the number of witnesses talking about weird debris, spacecraft, and aliens at Roswell plus coercion and cover-up outnumbers the number saying otherwise by about 50 to 1. Reality can be so cruel sometimes. That there are vastly more such witnesses on one side is not me "turning this page into the case for aliens." No such lengthy list of witnesses reporting mundane debris can be made because they DON'T EXIST. People who say they don't know anything are not witnesses, much less witnesses against the "pro-alien" side. They are non-witnesses, period, even by your own definition. 66.117.135.19 23:12, 14 June 2007 (UTC)


Despite a lot of heating talk between us, DF, I see signs here that we can reach a consensus. First, let me say that when I talk about the court analogy and first- and second-hand testimony, I am simply making the point that a lot of evidence presented as "proof" would not stand scrutiny in court. Not all, but a lot. And when it comes to second-hand testimony - in the absence of first-hand testimony - upon which a lot of testimony rests, then the "case" would have serious problems in terms of achieving reasonable standards of proof. You make it seem the second-hand accounts simply corroborate first-hand accounts. But in many case we don't have that, but second-hand accounts alone. Like with many of the alien accounts. And even with the first-hand accounts, we are stuck with many accounts which seemingly contradict one another. How can Ragsdale and Anderson and many of the second-hand accounts be squared? The truth is, they can't and as a UFO advocate, you have to decide who to believe and who not to. If this went to court, then a judge would quite rightly say how can we say there is "proof" when we have so many conflicting accounts of what happened? Even the pro-UFO guys don't agree on what happened, when it happened and where it happened! ALL the accounts can't be right, and if some are wrong, then how we determine who is right and who is wrong when we have, by and large, second-hand accounts?


But I'm not suggesting we get waded down in those debates. I have consistently said: unadorned accounts. I've noted some of your objections to the "Brazel" debris stuff and agree you have a point. My main PROBLEM is the tendency to have this page way too long.
"First of all, there are large numbers of first-hand witnesses, particularly to the debris and coercion. Second-hand evidence is not routinely "thrown out of court" even in criminal trials and is almost always admissable as corroboration for first-hand testimony."
Then why bother with second-hand corroboration when we have so many debris and coercion accounts? None is needed in those cases, as we have numerous first-hand accounts there. When it comes to alien accounts, that is different. There are fewer there, readers would be drawn to reading the first-hand accounts, so they should be flagged, then followed by the second-hand accounts and alien debris accounts (first-hand ones which do not include aliens). I take pains to point out that though in terms of what I believe in terms of "court" I am NOT suggesting chucking out such accounts, nor am I suggesting inserting some sort of "flag" suggesting this is somehow unreliable information. You should note that I have nowhere inserted such language.
"One of the engineering people said more than just hearing the rumors. He was an eyewitness to the base being in lockdown or at a high security level at the same time that he heard the rumors. He wasn't the only one."
Again, this to me isn't a "witness" in any true sense of the word, and I fail to see the need to add these "rumours" accounts. But it seems to me that you are coming around to my view - when we have - what? 20 accounts of alien 1st and 2nd h - do we REALLY need some people saying there was a lockdown the same time they heard rumours? Why bog the page down like this?
"I just thought you might want to know if you are interested in the case. However, I don't have a lot of problems with ditching the mere rumor stories, since there are already a helluva lot of first and second-hand accounts to witnessing an actual spacecraft and alien bodies."
Well, that's really what I am saying, Fil. Surely, if I was the "censor" you claim I was, I'd be omitting the GOOD claims, or adding "witness x was a proven liar" or whatever instead of taking out "rumour" claims which, you have to admit, aren't nearly as compelling.
"I guess I missed the "great many other accounts which suggest something rather mundane happened." They don't exist. I'm sorry, but people who don't know anything are generally not considered witnesses."
There ARE quite a few people, on the base, at the ranch, who claim nothing out of the ordinary. Perhaps you think I am suggesting we add such people? It is really only relevant in terms of the debris; alien accounts don't apply (I'm not suggesting we add accounts to Henderson, for example, who say he said nothing of the sort about aliens or he was a practical joker, etc.).
"Allow me to count on one hand those "many" witnesses: Cavitt, Bessie Brazel maybe, Mack Brazel's press interview, Marcel's quotes from 1947, Sheriff Wilcox. Are there any more?"
How many witnesses actually touched the debris, Dr Fil? Seven? And we have at least three who ascribe no super-natural qualities to such debris. Sure, that's only a "handful," but of only a "handful" who actually encountered the material! And while it is true accounts have problems, this is, again, unadorned witness accounts.
"The reason there are no transcripts of interviews with Cavitt is because Cavitt refused to be interviewed! He wouldn't even say, "I found a balloon." It's that simple. He said he wasn't at the base, wasn't involved, and had nothing more to say. He continued to say this even after he was interviewed by the A.F. Cavitt lied about his lack of involvement to at least half a dozen investigators who tried to interview him."
He's in the 1991 Schmitt/Randle book, though unidentified. He most certainly WAS interviewed. They paraphrase him. Perhaps I will ask Friedman if he has a transcript of anything he did, you might ask S or M if they kept a transcript. If you read the AF report from his point of view, the researchers were hounding him and abusive towards him when he insisted there was nothing odd in his view that happened. The way he described the Randle/Schmitt interview techniques, it is clear they sat down and interviewed him. So where is the transcript? He eventually started to "lie" to get them to stop hounding him and accusing him of being some sort of government cover-up agent, which, clearly, you and others are still doing long after his death.
"Kidding aside, I am genuinely pleased you are willing to work with me on the alien/spacecraft accounts. I have my reservations about separating them into first and second-hand accounts instead of grouping them by similarity or contrasting accounts, but am willing to leave that alone for now. Do remember also that the witnesses are not just to debris and "aliens", but also to a cover-up and intimidation."
Good - though I understand your hesitancy, I think that it in fact will serve to allow the casual reader to better access the accounts of more interest. Which in my mind is all the more reason to omit the "rumour" stuff. Why have to wade through all that stuff to find buried somewhere an actual first-hand account? As to the other witness stuff, yes, understood. I changed the intro to make that clearer. Really, this mostly applied to alien accounts where the majority are second-hand accounts.
"This brings me to your repeated deletions of the many FIRST-HAND witness accounts of Brazel's intimidation by the military. It is NOT enough to merely mention in passing that some unspecified people said this. All you will allow is Frank Joyce's account, but what about provost marshall Easley's admission that they held Brazel at the base under guard, or Brazel's son saying the same thing, or the other reporters saying they saw Brazel accompanied by military to his interview? I've been trying to meet you halfway by summarizing all this into one short paragraph with citations to details elsewhere, instead of listing out all the witnesses and their stories one by one in a long list. But AGAIN, you delete even this. This certainly IS arbitrarily limiting the testimony to only that which you want the reader to see."
The point is not that they are first-hand accounts or not, the point is that we have a single person who, it is claimed, was intimidated. I KNOW it is important to the case that he was intimidated into making a changed account, but it surely suffices to note "numerous" witnesses say he was kept on the base, etc. As for deleting that the last time, I just reverted what you had done as it was simpler to do that than to pick through all the goddamn changes. Why not go back and do that single paragraph on Brazel, saying numerous witnesses, etc., and add a pile of citations, with maybe one or two sample claims? I mean, before you had 10 or 12 separate quotes, it was kinda ludicrous.
"I believe I have clearly and correctly identified all witnesses as such, unlike you. You should do the same. You just erroneously tried to change C. Bertrum Schultz story into second-hand testimony ("some claim") when it was his direct testimony. I had to fix that."
I was wrong on that one _ got confused when I checked the reference, not realizing Schultz had driven by the site (not seeing anything) then talked to the other guy who DID see something, but that guy didn't go beyond saying "I was there" while his kid said he described aliens. So... now I have it straight so I apologize for messing up on that one.
As for the rest, let's get down to business here. Personally, the page feels like a mess. I think we are coming to an agreement on the structure, I think you agree with me on the sequence and the various categories of witnesses etc. And I hope you see that though I made comments on the admissibility of evidence in court that was more of a debate topic than a suggestion of what should appear here. All I really think we should avoid is "rumours," and you it seems agree we don't need it.
Okay, we are in agreement on structure. Next, what is missing? I think the challenge here is to include whatever is missing, but keep this article down to a manageable size. THAT is the real problem here, and I think it serves your desire - to let people see some of the meatier accounts suggesting "aliens" - rather than to be so bogged down in, many cases, repetitive accounts which say much the same thing. I don;t believe we truly need to have ALL the accounts here. I know you'd prefer otherwise, but to do so would make the article too long, in my view. We also need to add some of the missing "alien" accounts, you know the ones.
HOW ABOUT inserting the accounts you feel are needed, I will edit to size and we'll make the tough choices about what should go? In the end, my concern is more about keeping this page readable and manageable, and I think you should share those concerns.
"Since when is giving Bill Brazel's actual debris descriptions right after his sister's "beyond the scope of the page?" Why is giving Sheridan Cavitt's denial of seeing "flower tape" or hieroglyphics "beyond the scope of the page?" You just deleted that too for no good reason Those are also debris descriptions, and contrast directly with what Bessie Brazel, Brazel Sr., and Jesse Marcel had to say. Why is it OK to give Sheridan Cavitt's tiny balloon crash alongside his balloon description, but not OK to give Marcel's or Rickett's large debris field right alongside their debris descriptions? It's not like the two descriptions have no connection. Why do they have to be separated out into a separate section, but not Cavitt's?"
Well, like I said, this is a bit of a mess. We should list debris desriptions, bang, bang bang., Debris field, bang bang bang. OR we give it all by witness, which I think is a bit better. As for "beyond the scope", I meant that it is not our place to compare and contrast differing accounts, just to present them. Flower tape? Cavitt didn't see it, so why mention it? I mean, if I was MR Skeptic, I could go to the "alien" section and list all those people who DIDN'T see aliens... and you yourself said there's no point in listing testimony of people who didn't see stuff...
Tell me what you think. 159.33.10.92 01:51, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Dr Fil, page is WITNESS ACCOUNTS

AGAIN, Dr Fil, let me remind you, since it was I who created the page in the first place, that this page is supposed to be UNADORNED WITNESS ACCOUNTS. Accordingly, we don't insert a lot of "background" to witness statements to either provide "context" to statements which on the surface do or don't support whatever scenario one wants to accept.

If this were your personal blog, you would be free to define it anyway you like.
But this is not your personal blog. It is Wikipedia. Even if you originally created the page, YOU DO NOT HAVE THE UNILATERAL RIGHT TO DEFINE THE CONTENT OF THE PAGE. You are quite right that it is WITNESS ACCOUNTS, not WITNESS ACCOUNTS TO BE SOLELY DETERMINED AS BEING HERE OR NOT BY CANADA JACK JUST BECAUSE HE SAYS SO.

Your "context" is in fact POV commentary - explaining why witness A's statement seemingly doesn't fit into whatever scenario YOU happen to favour. That is not the function of this page. It should be removed when it comes to Marcel's testimony, it most certainly should be removed when it comes to Cavitt's.

You quoted Cavitt's debris area description along with his debris, so I did the same with Marcel, both in 1947 and 30 years later. Same with Rickett's debris area description. Gee, I was just presenting the same type of testimony as you did. I provided a wee bit of context as to why Cavitt would have been sent out with Marcel. Would Marcel need help to pick up a balloon crash no bigger than Cavitt's living room? Marcel WOULD need help if there a large debris field and lots of debris. Marcel WAS quoted in 1947 that the debris was scattered over a square mile, so it's hardly a recent "fabrication" of his.

We don't note, for example, note that the testimony of some witnesses to their relation who "saw" aliens is denied by siblings and others, do we?

We don't note that while Joyce says Brazel said "little green men," NONE of his relations say ANYTHING about such a claim, and none of the other officers who were with Brazel at the ranch say ANYTHING about them, do we?

Again, you bizarrely think non-testimony supports a negative. I bet there are a lot of things your father witnessed in his life that he never told you. According to your logic, your ignorance of such matters would somehow be evidence that these events never happened, or that people saying otherwise were somehow not credible.
We do have multiple statements from people that Brazel's was coerced by the military, said he had sworn an oath, and refused to talk about in detail what had happened. This is testimony, not non-testimony. So if Brazel Sr. never told him about "aliens," all it demonstrates is that father didn't mention it to him afterwards. It doesn't somehow "prove" one way or the other whether his father saw aliens. Same with the nontestimony Bessie Brazel Schreiber.
Bill Brazel DID describe personally witnessing very weird debris that exactly matched Marcel's descriptions (but you just deleted this and misrepresented his father's statement to him as his own). Bill Brazel said his father told him that the Army said the debris wasn't anything from them. You can find the same quote from Brazel Sr. in 1947 stories. Fancy that. I thought a Mogul balloon WAS from the Army.
Bill Brazel DID testify that his father told him about the huge explosion during the thunderstorm just before finding the debris. So did Jesse Marcel. Both stories were independent. Bill Brazel DID testify to his father describing to him a large, linear debris field, very similar to the one described by Marcel, and thousands of times bigger than Cavitt's "no bigger than my living room." Bill Brazel DID testify to his father describing "figures" like Japanese or Chinese writing or Indian pictographs. Marcel also described "heiroglyphics" (but not Cavitt). Bill Brazel did describe having his debris samples being confiscated by two military men, who also said, according to him, that his father was cooperating and so should he. And of course Bill Brazel talked about the ranch being abandoned when he got there, how they held his father for a week at the base, how his father said he had been mistreated and thrown in jail, how he'd sworn an oath not to say what happened, etc., etc.
So Bill Brazel told us a lot he observed and his father DID tell him that doesn't seem to point to a simple balloon crash. But Bill never mentioned his father talking about "aliens," therefore this somehow discredits Joyce's story. Huh???????
You also seem to forget that Bill Brazel DID recite a Roswell alien story which he said he heard years later after telling a co-worker what his dad had found. See "The Roswell Incident." He said the guys name was Lamme and he had been part of the main craft recovery. There were some "creatures found with it." Like some other witnesses, he described them as 3-1/2 to 4 feet tall and bald. Two on the inside were still alive (perhaps the original Roswell "live alien" story). Now that I think about, maybe Brazel's alien story should be added to the list.
Cavitt never talked about "aliens" but everybody with a brain can see that Cavitt was lying like a good, old-fashioned counterintelligence agent, being contradicted by everybody and repeatedly lying about never being involved.
Did Marcel talk about "aliens"? According to at least one relative and one person who worked with him as part of his intelligence team, Marcel DID describe aliens. Tech Sgt. Herschel Grice in 2002 claimed that Marcel once told him about seeing alien bodies which he described as "white rubbery figures." Sue Marcel Methane said she talked with Marcel shortly before his death in 1986 and he described dead aliens to her, which she remembered him describing as "white powdery figures." (Carey & Schmitt, 79-80) Kevin Randle also wrote (forgot the details) that another relative also remembered Marcel discussing alien bodies one time. I didn't include Marcel "alien bodies" stories in the current list, because it still seems a little thin.
Marcel Jr.'s book about what his father didn't tell will be out in three weeks. It will be interesting if there is anything about bodies.66.117.135.19 01:33, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I could go on and on - which is the point. As soon as we start taking sides, this page becomes unweildy and ceases to actually be a resource, which is what it was intended to be, not a recitation of a particular viewpoint of what happened at Roswell.Canada Jack 02:02, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I thought the "point" was to list the witnesses and what their testimony was. It's not my fault if it stacks up overwhelmingly on one side. The reason there isn't similarly long list of witnesses to mundane things is because it doesn't exist. You seem to equate this with "recitation of a particular viewpoint." To me, deliberate omission of testimony, i.e., failing to properly represent the relative testimony on both sides, including the numerical lopsideness of same, would be presenting a "particular viewpoint." E.g., conservatives often argue that global warming is a "fraud" and there is considerable controversy in scientific community about it. In reality, there is almost 0% controversy about the reality of global warming or that humans are contributing significantly to it. Listing the hundreds of climate scientists on one side vs. maybe a handful on the other does not represent "recitation of a particular viewpoint." There is a similar lopsideness to the Roswell case.
If Brazel didn't tell his kids about aliens, they do not somehow magically become "nonalien" witnesses nor can their lack of knowledge be used to discredit another witness such as Joyce, who says Brazel did tell him about aliens. Besides there are now dozens of witnesses, first and second-hand, who do back up Joyce's second-hand story of an alien event, including one first-hand witness saying he was there with Mack Brazel at a body site. The non-testimony of the Brazel family on this point is totally irrelevant.66.117.135.19 01:33, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

AGAIN, I'm not suggesting we include these sort of "non" reports, where it is noted that X said this but Y and Z did not. I am simply pointing out that as soon as you start adding "context" to descriptions of Cavitt - which serve only to cast doubt on his accounts to support a particular scenario - then why not ask some pointed questions of other questionable testimony. I don't suggest we do that for the simple reasons a) this is witness accounts, unadorned, and b) the page is unweildy enough as it is and c) this is not the place to establish a case.

And this stuff about "overwhelmingly on one side" - I'm not, again, insisting on ADDING stuff here - besides the missing alien accounts - I am insisted we DON'T add stuff to the various accounts which you seem almost genetically pre-disposed in doing.

As for Cavitt, Randle and Schmitt said they sat with him for two hours, so, again, I'd be curious to see the transcript. As it stands, we only have THEIR characterization of that meeting and the way it is worded, Cavitt could have quite readily stated he had been at the ranch. Which is why a transcript would be helpful.

This is what 1991 book says, p 170: "According to a number of witnesses, the man had been at the debris field on more than one occasion, but he denied it, saying that it had to be someone else. Everyone was mistaken about his presence there.... there wasn't anything he could say about the crash. 'I wasn't there.' ...Randle asked if he rememmbered any talk at all about a flying saucer crash but he insisted nothing had happened."

If you read that carefully, you could say that we he said to the Air Force matches that because he DID NOT deny going to the debris field - he denied going TWICE. He said he went once. His denial is about who had been there the second time, perhaps. As to talk about about a flying saucer crash, yes he denied it, because by his recollection a weather balloon had crashed, not a flying saucer.

Am I being picky here? We can't know without the transcript. And knowing how Randle and Schmitt used misleading language at the time, we have to see EXACTLY what was said. I mean, Schmitt was a guy who had his post-master deny published reports that he had been a letter carrier since 1974 by saying "...it is implied that Donald Schmitt has worked full-time for the U.S. Postal Service since 1974. Not only is this untrue, but I have never made such a statement..."

It was very quickly revealed that Schmitt HAD worked at the post office since 1974 - but, like all posties, started in a PART-TIME capacity.

Which is why, before we believe what THEY say Cavitt said, let's see a transcript. Because what I have seen doesn't sound like a categorical denial. Canada Jack 16:48, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

"Green Men" remark

"Ironically, it was none other than Roswell debunker Karl Pflock in his book who disproved your above claim. Pflock clearly established that William Moore misquoted Joyce because he got his notes and two conversations (about Whitmore and Brazel) confused. Moore admitted it. To quote from Pflock's book, p. 122:

"Joyce told me Moore misquoted him***, so I contacted Moore. In November 1994, Moore sent me a copy of the letter in which Joyce provided corrections to and approved the transcript of their interview. ***One of the corrections was that it was Brazel with whom he had the exchange about LGMs.*** It seems Joyce had told Moore about his conversation with Brazel after the formal interview was concluded and they were walking to Joyce's car. ***Moore told me he made the error in notes he wrote later.*** In subsequent versions of the paper from which the above quote was taken, Moore presented the corrected version of Joyce's deathbed exchange with Whitmore--sans LGMs--although without acknowledging the previously published error."

Thus Moore screwed up, Printy, or whoever you got your bogus information from, was either too dishonest to make the correction or too clueless to know better, and the debunking myth of Joyce contradicting himself on the LGM statement goes on and on like the Energizer bunny. Hopefully you will stop repeating it now that you've been educated a little bit.Dr Fil 00:00, 12 June 2007 (UTC)"

I missed this from you the other day, Dr Fil.

Actually, you may be surprised to know I got this not from Pflock or Printy - I was well aware of Pflock's investigation of this. But what Pflock concluded on this is what I conclude - Joyce is not credible with his "correction." And THAT is because I have the original MUFON 1982 symposium document in which this appeared in!

IF Joyce in fact did NOT say the comment in relation to Whitmore and instead meant Joyce, one has to quite reasonably wonder what the point of the entire Whitmore anecdote was. Further, you also have to wonder why he chose a casual stroll back to the car as a time to "spill the beans" on Brazel when he consistently to that point had refused to. AND, more to the point, you'd have to wonder why, once having been told about "little green men" and clearly accepting it to a point (angrily wondering why Brazel changed his story a day or two later), he journeyed to the ranch with Whitmore and a weird mind-control dude who left him supposedly hypnotized in a shed on the ranch while the greatest scoop of his life was outside the door - with Whitmore getting it!

Pflock said that the tale makes Joyce even LESS credible. To me, it seems obvious that he attributed a remark (Joyce did) from Whitmore to Brazel, which neatly explains why the anachronistic "little green men" remark was made, because it was made years later, AND it explains Joyce's disinterest in exploring these creatures he later claimed Brazel spoke with, even though he went to the farm and had a chance to do so! Canada Jack 02:13, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I can only conclude after reading this that you are either seriously reading impaired or living in a total fantasy world of denial. And what's with your last statement? Joyce said only that Brazel reported finding dead non-human bodies, not that Brazel "spoke with" them.
I gave you the direct quote from Pflock's book where Moore admits he screwed up his notes, misquoted Joyce, and then corrected the quote in LATER writeups. What he wrote in his original 1982 MUFON article therefore is totally IRRELEVANT, since Moore, the original source of the quote, admitted it was wrong. I would think even a child could understand this. Encyclopedia articles are supposed to be as factual as possible. The admitted misquote obviously has no place in the article, but you still inserted this KNOWINGLY FALSE statement to try to discredit Joyce's other remarks. I've properly deleted it, and left Joyce's actual comments as-is about Brazel's alien body remarks, without your attempts to insert your personal POV.
Oh, and your supposed show-stopper that "Little green men" was an "anachronistic" term only used "years later". It's been traced clear back to 1908 in describing Martians, if you would bother to read the Wikipedia article on LGM. The term was also used in all sorts of other sarcastic ways prior to 1947. Electronic literature searches have proved this. Dr Fil 04:48, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Latest revelations from an eyewitness upon his death

Last week there appeared an astonishing new twist to the Roswell mystery.

Excerpt:

Lieutenant Walter Haut was the public relations officer at the base in 
1947 and was the man who issued the original and subsequent press 
releases after the crash on the orders of the base commander, Colonel 
William Blanchard.

Haut died last year but left a sworn affidavit to be opened only after 
his death.

Last week, the text was released and asserts that the weather balloon 
claim was a cover story and that the real object had been recovered by 
the military and stored in a hangar.

He described seeing not just the craft, but alien bodies.


http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21994224-2,00.html

--24.182.195.68 13:52, 2 July 2007 (UTC) Chuck Harvey 00:16, July 1 2007 (UTC)

Not sure where you are getting your information, but Haut's testimony was revealed quite a while ago. Skeptics have long questioned why Haut would hold back on this information until his death since he was for a long time involved with the museum which supposedly told the "truth" about aliens at Roswell. On also wonders why none of the others who were there - Marcel, for one - made no mention of such events. Canada Jack 22:04, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Robert Shirkey's son said on the Art Bell show June 30, 2007, that his dad told him about the alien bodies in the hangar back in 1989, and the source of Shirkey's information was Walter Haut. Both lived in Roswell and Shirkey and Haut were friends. So Haut was telling Shirkey privately way back, but wasn't saying anything publicly. This was two years before the museum even started up and well before Roswell became a household word.
Two witnesses in the new Carey and Schmitt book say Marcel did tell them he saw bodies. One was a relative and the other worked with him in his intelligence office. Marcel never said anything publicly about bodies, but all that proves is that he didn't say anything publicly, not that he necessarily didn't see them. Marcel DID say that there were some things that he knew that he would never talk about "for the sake of my country," presumably meaning for national security reasons.
Most of the people who were at the morning meeting when these things were discussed were dead by the time Roswell got rediscovered in 1978. Dead men tell no tales, and even the live ones have reasons to not talk, two very good ones being security oaths and the savage ridicule and slander always heaped on witnesses who do talk, not mentioning any names of course.Dr Fil 06:00, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Alien accounts added; page cleaned up and shortened

I've added the several first-hand alien accounts which were conspicuously missing - conspicuously since they were mentioned on the main Roswell page. Again, these have been added as face value though in subsequent years all these accounts have been seriously doubted or been more or less established to be hoaxes. But, in truth, ALL of these accounts have serious problems and discrepancies, right down to the latest from Haut who, if he is being honest, suggests that Marcel was in on the meetings making this a cover up. This is hard to reconcile with the comments that Marcel himself made.

Marcel was the head intelligence officer, and would have been at the staff meeting regardless, since all chief staff officers regularly attended the morning meeting. There is even a quote from 1947 attributed to Marcel stating, "Marcel brought back the discovery to Roswell Army Air field early Tuesday morning, and at 8 a.m. reported to his commanding officer, Col. William H. Blanchard." Well, Jack, that's the morning meeting going on at that time. Do you think Marcel was reporting to Blanchard in his bathtub? Dr Fil 05:40, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Which is why I have removed all the stuff Dr Fil tried to add on Cavitt, one of the very few witnesses here who adamantly suggested there was nothing "alien" about what was found at Roswell.

Oddly, you removed Chester Barton, an actual eyewitness, who was also saying he thought there was nothing "alien" about it. Barton was reporting a crash site with a large, heavily guarded burn area, radioactivity, crash debris he guessed came from a plane though not obviously from a plane, and saying he heard the bodies were taken to the base hospital. He thought the crash site was from a plane carrying a nuclear weapon and the bodies were the crew. Unfortunately, he also said that he knew the balloon story was a cover story that couldn't possibly account for what he saw at the crash site. And the details about the crash site corroborated details of others who WERE telling "alien" stories, such as the Sheriff Wilcox story of the large burn area with metal debris where he saw alien bodies, the various stories of alien bodies at the base hospital. I put Barton back in, because he is a highly relevant witness. Joseph Stefula, who interviewed him, is actually a big Roswell skeptic, but found Barton so completely credible that it totally shook his conviction that there was nothing to the Roswell story.
Why limit to just "alien" stories? I retitled the section to accounts of crash sites, bodies, and craft, which is a MORE NEUTRAL and more all-inclusive way of describing various relevant witness testimony. Barton's story is ALSO about a crash site, debris from a craft, and bodies, even if Barton himself didn't think it was "alien" related. It definitely should be in here, especially because a self-confessed Roswell skeptic says it has a very high credibility factor.Dr Fil 05:40, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

By adding caveats to this page, we greatly lengthen it, ESPECIALLY since virtually EVERY witness on the page suggesting aliens, coverups or intimidation has serious credibility problems. Instead, my approach has been to simply supply the claims made by, or on behalf of the various witnesses.

Boy are you disingenous! Frank Joyce's testimony about Brazel saying he had found alien bodies was originally written up at "face value." Then you inserted a totally FALSE statement about Joyce's comment on "little green men" in an obvious attempt to cast doubt on the rest Joyce's story. So much for "face value" reporting and trying to shorten the article. Bill Moore admitted he misquoted Joyce, having confused two different conversations. Pflock wrote this all up, and agreed Joyce was misquoted. Ah, but Canada Jack knows better, and stuck the false information in anyway into an ENCYCLOPEDIA article. If you want to lie Jack, write a blog.Dr Fil 05:40, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I have also pruned a lot of accounts which tended to add superfluous detail. And, when we have a witness saying "X" we DON'T need "corroboration" from some relative saying that that witness, indeed, was saying "x" years ago. True corroboration comes from someone who can supply a near-identical account of an event, NOT from someone who confirms that, yes, that person in fact said that before.(!)When the account comes from someone who said someone else said "x", then I've generally kept a reference to the fact that others heard the same story. In THAT case, "corroboration," of course, extends to the fact that someone indeed claimed something, NOT to the truth of what was being said.

When it comes to Marcel and "cover up," it's hard to see what he is really saying, at least from the quotes. AT first he seems to say that the real debris was photographed, then switched, THEN, it was photographed but he was covering up the "real" stuff. Which is not at all what DuBose said. Instead of inserting what we THINK Marcel said, I am letting that one go with a description of what he actually said. If something more direct can be found, someone please insert it. Canada Jack 19:58, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

"Marcel was the head intelligence officer, and would have been at the staff meeting regardless, since all chief staff officers regularly attended the morning meeting."
And you don't find it just a little odd that given what Haut claims was discussed at that meeting that Marcel in the late 70s and early 80s seems clearly oblivious to anything other than the debris he described? that he only SUSPECTED some sort of cover-up?
"Oddly, you removed Chester Barton, an actual eyewitness, who was also saying he thought there was nothing "alien" about it. Barton was reporting a crash site with a large, heavily guarded burn area, radioactivity, crash debris he guessed came from a plane though not obviously from a plane, and saying he heard the bodies were taken to the base hospital."
Barton made no claim he saw an alien craft or alien bodies. This page is witness descriptions of people who handled debris at the Foster ranch/Roswell or claimed they saw alien debris. I utterly fail to see how this adds to that. AGAIN, this page is not designed to make a case for one scenario or another, with loads of "corroborating" evidence, it is simply designed to supply unvarnished witness accounts. Besides, as also noted, the page is lengthy as it is.
"Bill Moore admitted he misquoted Joyce, having confused two different conversations. Pflock wrote this all up, and agreed Joyce was misquoted. Ah, but Canada Jack knows better, and stuck the false information in anyway into an ENCYCLOPEDIA article. If you want to lie Jack, write a blog."
Uh, no. Dr. Fil. Do you have the original Mufon Symposium Proceedings from 1982 in which this appeared? Assuming you do, I turn you attention to page 91 where Joyce gives a rather different account of Bazel's reluctance to stick to his old story. "Now I never heard anything about any balsa parts or weather balloon parts; although, as I've told you, later on that's all I did hear. But from that rancher I never heard anything that had to do with a lot of things that came into this story later.... But the rancher definitely told me his story on the phone before anyone except maybe the military had heard it."... then, confronting Brazel about his changed story: "...finally he said, 'Look son. You keep this to yourself. They told me to come here and tell you this story or it would be awfully hard on me.' So I once again thought we must be dealing with some kind of military secret here... Still, I thought, they are really going to a lot of trouble to stop this. But I really couldn't understand why. If they thought this was a danger from outer space, why should they be reluctant to tell the people?"
THEN, Joyce describes a drive to the ranch with Whitmore and "a very strange man" which happened the day after Joyce first talked to Brazel, or perhaps two days later. He describes going to the ranch with Whitmore, standing in a room, while Whitmore and the man were outside.
THEN the "green man" quote is mentioned. He specifically mentions the ranch trip above and asks Whitmore what he thought of it, whether there was anything to it. Then, as he is leaving, he makes the "green man" remark.
Now, what did Pflock say? Did he "agree Joyce was misquoted"? NO, he says that Joyce claimed he was misquoted by Moore, and Moore when contacted sent Pflock a copy of a letter with corrections from Joyce to the transcript, one of them being the LGM comment being with Brazel and not with Whitmore. Moore said that quote was from an informal interview on the way to the car and he made an error in notes he wrote later.
So, did Pflock buy that argument? Judging by this quote at the end of that section, I'd say, emphatically, NO. "Still, earlier in the audio-taped portion of the interview, Joyce is quoted at length with respect to Brazel's alleged visit to KGFL, and nothing there even hints at a mention of LGMs by either the rancher or Joyce."
Time to get your facts straight, Dr Fil. Judging from what Joyce said in 1982 and what he later said, he wasn't "misquoted," he CHANGED HIS STORY and tried to explain that away. Canada Jack 16:33, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I've reverted all the stuff Dr Fil changed. The section has been changed back to "alien" accounts from "bodies" which could entail a lot of airplane crashes etc. Accordingly, the Barton quote WHICH MAKES NO CLAIM OF ALIENS is excised. Indeed, the witness says he said this was probably a plane crash.(!) Also, he saw fit to insert an IRRELEVANT note about someone's son saying that that witness had told him the story. If someone supplies an identical or near-identical witness account to someone else, THAT is corroboration. Simply supplying a quote from someone who says that someone made a similar claim years before WHEN WE ALREADY HAVE THE FIRST-HAND ACCOUNT is not the function of this page!

As for Joyce, it is a FACT that his claim was that Whitemore said "LGMs" was published. A dozen years later, Joyce had a different story and claimed he was misquoted in 1982. Which was mentioned in the account. Yes, Dr Fil, this is an encyclopedia, but the inconvenient FACT is that the initial claim was about Whitmore. The claim changed, and, since this is an encyclopedia, that is noted. What is NOT noted is the DEBATE over the change. YOU seem to feel that this rather inconvenient, verifiable fact should be omitted. Well, that's the problem with second-hand accounts. Sometimes details change. In this case, since it is about the sighting of actual aliens, it should be noted, NOT omitted. Canada Jack 16:56, 11 July 2007 (UTC)