Well, here it is ..finally.. the episode I've been telling all my friends about. THIS Friday, on Hangar 1: The UFO Files, see "The Smoking Gun." Yeah, yeah, I was going to wait to post this clip until we broke through 1,000 visitors to this page, but ..well, forget that! This episode is my favorite of the whole season. Just wait until you hear Clifford Stone's testimony. Yikes! Please share this video and get folks to watch.
Posted by Dwight Equitz on Hangar 1 on Monday, May 25, 2015
The episode featured the Strategic Operating Manual, better known as SOM 1-01. If that sounds familiar, you may have read my article about it when it was used as the basis for the fabricated Mandate 0463 document in the very first episode of Hangar 1. If you missed it, or need a refresher, here it is:
Hopefully, the events will be examined, and some lasting lessons will be learned about objectivity, transparency and accountability.
Interviews
There were several early radio and podcast interviews with members of the Roswell Slides Research Group and others interested in the case. Here are the earliest ones, while the dust was still settling.
The Gralien Report from May 5, 2015. Micah Hanks presents: "A friend of the program, researcher and filmmaker Paul Kimball, was one of the operative members of the Roswell Slides Research Group, who helped determine the origins of the mummy depicted in the images. Paul joins us in hour two of the program to discuss the need for better judgement and discernment in the field of UFO studies."
Podcast UFOby Martin Willis: "This show is dedicated to the recent Roswell Kodachrome 'Alien' Slide release, starting out with a pre-recorded Philip Mantle of UFO Today, Curt Collins of Blue Blurry Lines comes up before hour two to speak for the 'Roswell Slide' Research Group. In the bonus hour hear what Kevin Randle has to share of the latest events including his talk with Don Schmitt."
The (NOT) Roswell Slides Saga… byStephen Miles Lewis A collection of resources so fine, that I refer you to it instead of continuing this list!
Thanks to all that helped, including
It was great to see the UFO community dig in and take part in trying to get the facts on the Slides story. A few thank yous to some not previously mentioned:
Philip Mantle for collecting a list of statements from experts on mummies. Shepherd Johnson for his work on the Mesa Verde museum and with the Eisenhower Presidential Library. Cristian Contini, HeywoodFloyd and many others for their independent verification of the placard. Frank Warren at UFO Chronicles for his diligence in pursuing the truth on this story.
Roberto Labanti, Harry A. Newton, Mortem Foray, Dr. David Clarke, Stan Ho, Scott Brando, and many, many more who've offered information, support and encouragement.
What's next for the RSRG?
Some people have suggested the RSRG become a UFO truth squad, but I'm not so sure about that. The way the RSRG folks were brought together was more luck than science. We happened to have some very bright and talented people, and sought outside expertise whenever we needed it. The "Slides" case was unique in many ways, chiefly in that the key evidence ultimately provided exactly the information to conclusively provide the solution. It's almost like something out of an old Batman comic, with the Joker passing out clues. Can we do it again? Probably not, but I think the model is a good one for co-operative research. We banded together as volunteers sharing a common interest and goal, which was to find out the truth behind the Roswell Slides. The group itself was private, but within it, information was openly shared, and there was the freedom within the group to explore and develop ideas. It produced good results and as soon as we verified material it was shared publicly. Could someone else do it? I hope so, but I caution that it can't be forced, or it could wind up a committee, and bureaucracy tends to kill the creativity and sense of fun that fueled our energy. In the meantime, the key players are still doing good work on their own. Should the need arise again, and if it sounds like fun, then we'll be there.
I wanted to call attention to the fact that Nab Lator of the RSRG created an excellent analysis of the “Roswell Slides,” that deals with the frequently asked questions and issues discussed in relation to them. Analysis of the “Roswell Slides” (FAQ) The section dealing with Prof. Miguel Botella, anthropologist, Director of the Physical Anthropology Lab, University of Granada, Spain is particularly interesting, and it refutes the lingering claims by Jaime Maussan that the mummified child is an alien from a UFO crash at Roswell.
A lot of questions about the Roswell Slides fiasco remain, but no one is talking except Jaime Maussan. To get some answers of how it all came together, we have to start examining the statements made by the players before the event. Tom Carey had been waiting for a "smoking gun" on the Roswell case for decades. Describing when he first saw the image in the slides, he said, "achillran down my spine..." and he knew it was genuine. On March 1, 2015, Tercer Milenio TV aired the program "Contacto Con Jaime Maussan." In the second hour of the show, Tom Carey joined the program via a Skype interview to promote BeWitness and talk about the Roswell Slides.
Tom Carey on the man from Toronto
Tom Carey on Contacto
"I contacted one of my fellow graduate students when I was in the University of Toronto years ago, and I confess he was, and remains, a friend of mine, but he will tell me the truth. I respect his opinion more than anyone on anything relating to Anthropology. He’s that bright of a fellow, he still is. So, I sent him a copy of this fuzzy image that’s going around I did not send him one of the originals. I sent him the one that’s going around that someone has enhanced up. So, I had him look at it.
I didn’t tell him what it was, I told him, ‘look at this, and you tell me what you think it is. Well, most Anthropologists that we talked to, that will talk to us, most of them run away, as you know, they do not want to get involved in anything related to UFOs or Roswell, they run away as fast as they can, but we do have a number of them who did go on the record.
But, my friend up in Toronto, he looked at this, and he did ask me a few questions about it, when it was taken, where it was, which we don’t know exactly where it was taken. And he went a step further. Most of the Anthropologists will tell us what it is not. It’s not a non-human primate, it’s not a child, it’s not a human child, it’s not a deformed child, stuff like that. Well, my friend up in Toronto went a step further. His final conclusion was- 'I said, what is your final conclusion?' And he emailed me back, he said, “This critter (that’s what he called it) the critter, this being is not from this planet. That was his conclusion.” He wouldn’t tell me what it is, he just said, whatever it is, it’s not from this planet. So, I received this yesterday, and I thanked him for his honest opinion.”
It seems strange that Carey would send the leaked slide image for analysis, as it has been widely disparaged by the slides promoters. Jaime Maussan said of it,
"It is a picture that they took and with which they wanted to base all the research. It is a figure that is not very clear , it’s something they stretched , then modified and adjusted . I say it is more like the canary Tweety from the cartoons, the one who is always against the cat and well ... it looks more like Tweety than reality."
We now know that the former Toronto classmate that Carey was describing is Richard Doble. As the only English speaking expert featured in BeWitness, a lot of attention was focused on Doble's opinion. So far, nothing has been presented to show if he was allowed to see the original images of the slides before offering his dramatic conclusions.
"It's nothing like us, we can see that his feet, his legs appear to be a reptile, could have evolved from something like a gecko..." Richard Doble
There's a huge pile of study material that was prepared in the RSRG examination of the Roswell Slides, but much of it will never be used due to the quick turn of events. Still, it's interesting for some to see how the puzzle pieces were fit together, so here's a peek at some of my files on the search.
Files from the Crypt
The Leaked Slide
One file that was shared by members of RSRG, the Roswell Slides Research Group, was the best collection of the leaked slide images. It included some composites and 3 versions of the slide by Narrenschiffer, Frank Warren and Nab Lator. This was also used to share with other researchers or those offering professional opinions, such as Dr. Hunt.
Trees, as well as pixels, were sacrificed in this investigation.
The Search for the Body
Early on, a good match for the mummy was located. When we first started looking at mummies in the precursor to RSRG, on Feb. 11, Trained Observer posted "Here is one showing a child mummy on fabric with a placard." Later the same morning, Roger Glassel, "I found a PDF which states that before 1958 the child mummy was (designated specimen 2397) at theWistarInstitute in Philadelphia, and later moved to the National Museum of Natural History." That was the article by Dr. David Hunt, whom he later contacted for a preliminary opinion.
Although the mummy was not an exact match for the child in the slides, the size, position, and proportions and condition of the body were nearly identical to it. Some members of our group were convinced it was a match, and that the differences came from the angle and lighting in the photograph, or differences in the positioning of the severed head.
Boy mummy from Thebes on display at the
National Museum of Natural History.
Dr. Hunt scanning 2397.
A failed composite attempting to recreate the scene.
Other comparisons were made to the skeletons of children, but again, the angle of the source photo made this difficult, not to mention the low quality of the leaked slide.
The detached skull seemed to be placed on the chest, making the torso appear shorter.
This comparison demonstrates how closely the mummy matched different child skeletons.
This composite took elements from different pictures in an attempt to reconstruct the entire body's display as well as the surrounding room.
Similar collections were assembled of various mummies, side-show exhibits, and also things like museum cases and shelving.
The Smoking Gun
Although there was little doubt as to the size and age of the body, efforts to locate the particular mummy were unsuccessful, even after the big reveal of the clearer photographs at the show. Most people who looked objectively at the images agreed that they depicted a mummy, but it seemed unless the body was identified, doubt would always remain.
From BeWitness
The new images from Be Witness provided more detail, but no immediate clues, and definitively ruled out our leading suspect 2397. Tim Hebert began a detailed examination of the body in the photos, but those studies were sidelined by the arrival of the placard picture which yielded the solution to the mystery of the mummy slides. By the time you read this, period museum photos of the mummy on display will probably have been located and published.
Illustration by Nippa Downey
Thus endeth...
Of course, not everyone accepted the proof, or took the news well.
