Friday, June 12, 2015

The Smoking Gun: RIP to the Roswell Slides

I'm trying to get out of the Roswell Slides business, but as long as the promoters keep pushing the false claims and making accusations there's some unfinished business.




Most of it is silly, but there are a few points to clear up.

The placard was handwritten in cursive script, how can it deblur into text? 

Tom Carey on the placard from the March 22, 2015 Contacto show with Jaime Maussan: 
“It’s handwritten, it's not typed like it would be in a museum; you know, a museum would have a professional display placard identifying what it is that’s there in the background behind it. This is hand written as though it was written- with just- put together fairly quickly, perhaps for a limited viewing. It's not in the museum, it’s in a indoor location- where we don't know, but it's obviously to us, for a limited viewing, that’s temporary construction.And on the plaque, there is writing, and we have been actively researching, trying to quote unquote “read” what's on the placard for three years and we’ve only recently come into contact with some experts in this sort of thing. We tried reading it on her own, we’ve used several outside people, some of whom, one of whom had done some work on the famous Ramey memo from General Ramey in 1947 and we are now able to read a few of the words, based on what the experts are telling us, and the debunkers who have been debunking this are going to be disappointed, I can tell you that."

Well, that's a curious claim, but let's focus on the "handwriting" for now.

Dr. David Rudiak was one of the experts recruited by Carey and Schmitt to decipher the placard. After Nab Lator deblurred the placard and the RSRG published the results, Rudiak was one of many who was able to duplicate the process:
  "...the motion blur, which was 'boomerang-shaped', jerked horizontally right then diagonally upward to the right (or vice versa). This probably resulted in the printed text having a hand-written script-like appearance.
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=11558306&postID=8159526343263081173 
Dr. David Rudiak on SmartDeblur of the placard

Why did previous attempts fail but the RSRG and others succeed? 

David Rudiak (in the same statement from above) explains:  
I think the failure to deblur the image previously had nothing to do with the scans provided and had everything to do with the blur being complex in nature (both simple focus and two directions of motion blur), which most deblurring software cannot handle (at least the deblurring software I tried). E.g., to handle motion blur, most packages require you hand-set the direction of blur, which wasn't known here, plus having two directions to deal with. 
It might have helped had we been provided the high resolution scans of the entire slide, which showed the nature of the motion blur.”
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=11558306&postID=8159526343263081173 
A demonstration by Fin Handley of the "handwriting" to text.

The New News: Laying the story to rest

Below are two stories by RSRG team member S. Miles Lewis, first an excellent history of the whole Slides story (well, except for the missing pieces that still remain hidden).

The (NOT) Roswell Slides Saga…


And finally, the Smoking Gun



The second story is new and important. It covers the recent discovery of an independent photo of the child mummy, one photographed in 1956 at the Montezuma Castle museum in Arizona.
Believe it or not, it's another slide.

Breaking News on the (NOT) Roswell “Alien” Slides


Wait, what about all the claims of anomalies in the body in the photos?

First, I'd note that the people making these claims have not examined the body, not even the slides themselves, only digital copies. The best evidence presented for the case that the photos depict an alien, are the same pictures that include details of the museum where it was displayed, and the label that was placed on the body by people who actually saw and handled the body.  They can be considered the real experts, and they were confident enough put their testimony in writing:
"MUMMIFIED BODY OF TWO YEAR OLD BOY"




Sunday, May 31, 2015

SOM1-01 is back from the dead on Hangar 1





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:




Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Roswell Slides aftermath: Odds and Ends


This piece is odds and ends, mostly some housecleaning from the Roswell Slides affair. Anyone following the story knows that Jaime Maussan is holding on the claim that the child mummy is really an alien from Roswell. He's even put out a bounty for other photos of it, or the body itself. Maussan's not the only one holding on to this sunken ship, either. To follow the aftermath of this fiasco, stay tuned to the blog of José Antonio Caravaca.

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 first and best was "The Roswell Slides Explained" on Greg Bishop's Radio Misterioso
"In an exclusive interview, my guests Curt Collins, Paul Kimball, and Lance Moody described the events and cooperation that led to this revelation. The 'Roswell Slides Research Group(RSRG) used freely available image-enhancing software to decode a blurred placard..." Red Pill Junkie also joined the conversation. http://radiomisterioso.com/audio/Roswell_Slides.mp3



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 UFO by 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."



Articles

Roswell Alien Slides placard deciphered, says it is a mummy by Alejandro Rojas
Alejandro's story is unique in that he knows all the key players, and personally verified the deblurring of the placard.

The Roswell Slides: Chronicle of a Mummy Foretold by Red Pill Junkie
This is an excellent article written from the perspective of a member of the BeWitness audience.

What Can We Learn From The Roswell Slides? by Adam Gorightly
An examination of the of the mess and the mess it left.

The (NOT) Roswell Slides Saga… by Stephen 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 ContiniHeywoodFloyd 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.







Also, I should note that I try to reserve this space for focused pieces, but post smaller bits and links on Facebook at the Blue Blurry Lines page. I'm fond of  Errol Bruce-Knapp's UFO UpDates group there as well. Twitter? Yes there's a bit of that, too: https://twitter.com/CurtCollins579


Friday, May 22, 2015

Nab Lator's Analysis of the “Roswell Slides” (FAQ)




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.




Thursday, May 21, 2015

The Roswell Slides: the Anthropologist from Canada



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, "a chill ran 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.


Leaked "enhanced up" image
By Narrenschiffer 


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

Richard Doble


Richard Doble presented video analysis of the alien in BeWitness.

Richard Doble's written report



Update: Richard Doble responds to exposure of the placard revealing the body to be a mummy. 

Jaime Maussan's interview with "anthropologist" Richard Doble







Monday, May 18, 2015

In Search of the Roswell Slides Mummy


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.
Nab Lator's version of the leaked slide.
This was hosted at the formerly top-secret page:
Unidentified Child's Mummy



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 the Wistar Institute 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.
Twitter @jaimemaussan1

Wednesday, May 13, 2015

ID Confirmed: the Roswell Slides Mummy of Mesa Verde


Roger Glassel, with help from other cooperating researchers has provided details proving that the location where the "Roswell Slides" mummy was photographed.


The Boy mummy described.


In a previous article here, The Placard of the Roswell Slides: The Final Curtain, it was shown that the placard on the body shown in "Roswell Slides" had been read, and confirmed the identity of it as a mummy in a museum. Further information has been collected  and published at the Roswell Slides Research Group site: The Child Identified


Placard revealed by Nab Lator using SmartDeblur
Illustration by Nippa Downey

 Details of the Body

Further information and documentation continues to be found, and it has been proven that the mummy was a young child that was displayed at the Mesa Verde Museum. Specific details present in the photograph are described.


Region III Quarterly Volume 2 - No. 1   January, 1940
HUMAN PRUNES By Don Watson,
Park Naturalist, Mesa Verde National Park.
http://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/region_111/vol2-1c.htm

The text refers to specific characteristics that match the body presented in the "Roswell Slides"

"Another excellent mummy in the Mesa Verde Museum is that of a small boy of perhaps two or three. X-rays of the teeth have not been taken so the exact age is uncertain. The body is well mummified, but small patches of skin are missing and the lower part of the right leg has disappeared. The skin has lost all of its former color and is an uninteresting dull gray shade. Part of a small slip-over cotton shirt still hangs around the shoulders. Several pieces of cotton in which the body was wrapped are well preserved. This mummy is not popular with visitors. It has such a negative personality that it has never been named. Even though it is well preserved, it fails to click. The spark is not there; that certain something is missing."
 The placard has been read, and matched to historical documents that precisely describe it. The location is known, and no real mystery remains about it.


Mesa Verde Notes September 1938 Volume VIII, Number 1.


A further matching detail on the location


Located by Roger Glassel of RSRG.
A bench seen in behind the museum case seems to match that in this photograph of  the Chapin Mesa Archeological Museum at Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado. http://npshistory.com/nature_notes/meve/vol8-1f.htm

Now that the location is known,many other details are also being matched. The placard font and distinctive border.
Chapin Mesa Archeological Museum 
Thanks to Shepherd Johnson




For further facts on this story, see the Roswell Slides Research Group.

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Roswell Slides: Tom Carey’s Statement On Behalf of the Group



For posting, here is our current position at this moment in time regarding the slides and the placard. Thank you for your patience. I will advise you accordingly of any new developments, as they occur. Best
Tom Carey 


Don Schmitt and Tom Carey


We believe that the recently released "reading" of the placard by the so-called "Roswell Slides Research Group" was faked. Some of the names in this group, in itself, should give pause and raise red warning flags do damage to anyone actually searching for truth. Ever since Don Schmitt and I became aware of the slides three years ago, our modus operandi has been four-fold: (1) to authenticate the age and integrity of the slides; (2) to obtain professional anthropological and forensic opinion as to what the body on the slides represented; (3) to find out as much as we could about Bernerd and Hilda Blair Ray, the long-deceased owners of the slides; and (4) to "read" the placard located at the foot of the body on the slides. 

We physically took the slides to Kodak's historian, who is an expert regarding Kodachrome., and, using several parameters of interrogation, he determined that the slides dated from the 1947-49 time period (manufacture to exposure). For the most part, the American anthropologists we contacted did not want to even look at the slides when they learned that they might be "UFO-related." Those who did, however, did so "off the record." They all concluded that the body on the slides was not that of a mummy but possibly that of a congenitally deformed child. Fortunately, we were able to secure Canadian and Mexican anthropologists and forensic anatomical experts who went "on the record" at our May 5th "beWitness" event in Mexico City. In short, their detailed presentations concluded that the body on the slides was: not a mammal, not a primate and not human. One, Richard Doble, after a detailed morphological examination, concluded that the creature on the slides did not evolve on earth. You already have Doble's report, and the report of the two Mexican authorities is still in translation.

The Rays had no children or close relatives we could interview who could shed some light on their activities. Bernerd was an oil geologist whose whose zone of activity was the Permian Basin of west Texas and eastern New Mexico. He was also the President of a geological society in west Texas. Hilda was an oil attorney in Midland, Texas and an amateur pilot who, according a friend in the nursing home where Hilda passed away in 1988, was also friends with Mamie Eisenhower (General and later President Dwight D. Eisenhower's wife). There are a number of color slides in the collection that do appear to show Mamie Eisenhower in various situations. Prior to her death, Hilda Ray bequeathed almost $1M to the American Association of University Women.

Regarding the placard, we quickly determined that (1) its content would be key to interpreting the slides; and (2) we could not read it. So, we sent copies to Dr. David Rudiak and Dr. Donald Burleson. Both had done exemplary work in trying to decipher the so-called "Ramey Memo" - a situation very similar to placard issue here. Both responded to us that the placard was "unreadable." Through a contact, we had the Photo Interpretation Unit at the Pentagon in Washington, DC take a look at it. They said that it was "unreadable." A copy went to a company in New York now requesting anonymity that conducted the analysis on a major historical artifact. That company's response to us was that the placard was "unreadable." Another copy went to the people at Adobe, Inc. (manufacturers of Adobe Photoshop and the Adobe Reader on your computer). Their response? "It's unreadable." A copy also was also sent to aggressive Roswell researcher Anthony Bragalia who also reported to me that it was "unreadable." (Bragalia has now aggressively joined in with our critics). Our own computer guy says that he applied the "SmartDeblur" software to the placard over a year ago without any success. He did so again this week to an enhanced, sharper version of the placard with the latest edition of the "SmartDeBlur" program, again without success.

Now, we are told (not asked) to believe that a cast of characters, one of whom has clearly become unhinged and was himself party to a known UFO body hoax some years ago, has used the same program (SmartDeBlur) on a distorted,"screen-grab" of the placard and is somehow able to "read" it when all of the above, some of whom had much more sophisticated equipment and techniques at their disposal, could not. I ask you, what's wrong with this picture?

Finally, lost in all of the vile invective being hurled our way by the members of the RSRG and their fellow travelers, is what the analysis of the physical body on the slides is saying. The RSRG has used a note from an obscure late 1800's journal to weave their tale that the slides show the "mummified body of a two year old boy" (the word "mummy" or "mummified" appears nowhere in their alleged de-blurred "reading" of the placard). In their excitement to play "Gotcha!," it apparently has not crossed their thought processes (I'm being charitable here) that a mummy of a two year old boy several thousand years old would be less than half the size of the body shown on the slides!

So, what are we to make of all this? Jaime Maussan relied upon Tom Carey and Don Schmitt, who relied on all of the above to reach the conclusions that were reached. We have, at this point in the proceedings, have sent out additional copies of the placard image to third parties whose opinions we can trust to run the SmartDeBlur application on it and are prepared to abide by their findings, wherever the chips fall.

Tom Carey.



Note: "I am the one who was given permission by Tom Carey to post his team's position re the slides and the placard." -André Skondras
This statement has also appeared at The Black Vault.
http://www.theblackvault.com/casefiles/the-roswell-slide-alien-kodachrome-slide-released-but-just-one/

Carey's statement was released Tuesday, May 12Later the same day, a revised statement was issued and published at Kevin D. Randle's blog, A Different Perspective. It contained tempering revisions by Don Schmitt.

The Apology

Thursday, May 14 brought an announcement from one of the slides promoters, an apology.



It would seem like I've been here before... Asking my friends and colleagues to accept my sincerest apology for my participation in the recent event in Mexico City. I accept full responsibility for the fact that I allowed myself to be drawn into this situation, albeit with the best of intentions, I sacrificed my better judgement by being overly trusting when I should have known better. As one strives to make up for the mistakes of the past, there are times that emotions cause one to outrun their headlights. In my case, I ran it right off the road. Through the years I have worked hard to earn back your respect and confidence in my work only to presently jeopardize it all. For that I am especially remorseful. I am afraid that after spending almost half of my life devoted to one specific investigation, I allowed the allure of final resolution cloud my skeptical nature to be replaced by a false vision of hope. I now realize that the image in the slides is a mummy as specified by the display placard. At this time I consider the matter concluded and intend on moving forward. My only desire is that you try to understand that I never willfully did anything to mislead or misrepresent what I thought was the truth and I only acted with the best of objectives. Still, if I have offended or hurt anyone through my participation in this event, you have my deepest apology and have every right to hold it against me. When the truth finally was made known to all of us, I realized that I could only blame myself for not only failing you, but more sadly, failing myself. I must do better. And with God's help and your understanding, I promise I will.
  
Sincerely, 

Donald R. Schmitt