Monday, June 12, 2017

UFOs: Reframing the Roswell Slides Fiasco



UFOs: Reframing the Debate is the new book edited by Robbie Graham. It's a collection of essays, sort of an estimate of the situation from many voices. "Critical but constructive, this challenging volume represents a range of differing (even conflicting) alternative viewpoints on UFOs and related phenomena." More details on the contributing authors and content can be found at 

Robbie Graham asked me to contribute by sharing the story of the Roswell Slides Research Group's work. I was reluctant to revisit the episode, but was persuaded by the value of putting it under the microscope as a case study. Robbie recently posted on Facebook about the essay and the illustration that introduces it:

This original artwork from 'UFOs: Reframing the Debate' was created by the brilliant Red Pill Junkie (aka Miguel Romero). It illustrates a tremendously valuable essay in the book, titled 'What's Wrong with This Picture?', written by Curt Collins.



Collins was one of several members of the Roswell Slides Research Group (RSRG), which, in 2015, successfully debunked those now infamous slides which purported to show the image of a deceased alien entity. Collins' essay in the book is the definitive accounting of how the RSRG operated in tackling one of the greatest ufological blunders (or hoaxes, depending on your perspective) of the 21st Century.
The essay is intricate in its detail and reads like a true-life detective story of how a handful of researchers, separated in some cases by thousands of miles but united in cyberspace, took it upon themselves to expose as fraudulent the claims of dubious UFO personalities screaming from the hilltops that they had found the smoking-gun for Roswell, and that UFO Disclosure was now just a step away.
The reader can make up their own mind as to what motivated the Slides’ promoters, but, for me, this was less a conscious hoax, and more a case of blind belief. The promoters wanted so desperately for the “evidence” to fit their firmly-established perspective on Roswell and UFOs more broadly, that they fooled themselves completely, seeing only what they wanted to see. And they fooled a great many UFO enthusiasts and researchers in the process. When the truth was exposed—that the Slides showed not an alien body, but something entirely down to Earth—it felt to many like the final nail in the coffin for popular ufology. Certainly, it can be said that the Slides debacle represents everything that’s wrong with “ufology” today.
In 'UFOs: Reframing the Debate,' Collins presents the RSRG investigation as a potential model for future UFO research and investigation—an example of how researchers can work together to solve definitively certain cases and prevent the spread of misinformation in the field. Collins reflects on the strengths and weaknesses of his group’s methodology and observes:
“Groups can be great tools, but they have their limitations. Each of us must remain objective, seek the best evidence and ask challenging questions, whether as part of a team or as individuals."
OWN THE BOOK: http://amzn.to/2siXeZp

I'm honored to be included, and thank Robbie for the nice introduction, and Miguel for the great illustration. I would like to add that my goal in writing it was to reveal previously unknown details, both about the events and the investigation. Even those already familiar with the Slides saga will learn something new things about how and why the events unfolded and the aftermath. As part of the Reframing book, I hope it will help inspire readers to think about ways to bring about some positive changes in the collective efforts to understand the phenomenon of UFOs.


What's Wrong with This Picture? Bonus Features

The book did not allow for the inclusion of case photographs, but the key images related to the slides can be shown here.

The leaked slide from the Kodachrome trailer.


The image was adjusted into proportion by Narrenschiffer.

Carey showed this "forensic drawing" by Schmitt during
BeWitness, saying it was a close match for the body in the Slides.


Slide 11


Slide 9

Nablator used SmartDeblur to reveal the placard text.


Photo from National Park Service documents.


Jorge Peredo located a 1956 photo taken by Frank Hadl.


The show goes on: Jaime Maussan lecture from 
March 15, 2017 at the University of Colorado.


Endnotes for What's Wrong with This Picture?


Here are the sources cited in the essay, saving the effort of typing those many long URLs:

1. Michelle Basch, "UFO experts say ‘we are not alone’," WTOP, Nov. 13, 2014

2. Jaime Maussan, BeWitness Press Conference, Conferencia de Prensa Jaime Maussan beWITNESS / Sé Testigo Auditorio Nacional, February 4, 2015

3. Narrenschiffer, Der Ufo-Absturz bei Roswell, 08.02.2015 at 21:30, Allmystery, Feb. 8, 2015

4. “Roswell Slides Today's Update,” A Different Perspective, Feb. 10, 2015

5. David Hunt, “A Child’s Mummy,” AnthroNotes Volume 33, No. Spring 2012.

6. WGN News, “Vivian Maier Meets the X-Files: Has Chicago Man Uncovered Secret Alien Pics?” Feb. 18, 2015

7. Paul Kimball,  “The ‘Roswell Slides’ Witness,” The Other Side of Truth, Feb. 27, 2015

8. Rich Reynolds, “The [New] Roswell Slides Group,” UFO Conjecture(s), March 2, 2015

9. José Antonio Caravaca, “¿Es Esta la Momia, El Famoso 'Extraterrestre’ de las Diapositivas de Roswell?¿,” Esos Misteriosos Objetos Celestes y sus Tripulantes, March 25, 2015

10. Gilles Fernandez, “The Roswell Slides Saga: Some Claims vs. Facts,” Sceptiques vs. les Soucoupes Volantes, March 25, 2015

11. “12am Roswell Slides” The Conspiracy Show with Richard Syrett, April 12, 2015

12. Tim Printy, SUNlite, Vol. 7, no. 3, May/June 2015

13. BeWitness Part 1 and 2, The Face of Roswell, May 19, 2015

14. Curt Collins, “The Placard of the Roswell Slides: The Final Curtain,” Blue Blurry Lines, May 8, 2015

15. Slidebox Media, “Real Placard,” Kodachrome: Documentary about the Roswell Slides 1947, May 9, 2015 (original screenshot archived at)

16. Rich Reynolds, “The Roswell Team's placard scans and the new Anti-Slider's placard scan,” UFO Conjecture(s), May 8, 2015 (archived at)

17. Press Release, The ‘Roswell Slides’ Research Group, May 8, 2015

18. Isaac Koi,”Roswell Slides Solve the mystery in 1.5 minutes,” Above Top Secret

19. Nab Lator, “Analysis of the ‘Roswell Slides’ (FAQ),” Nabbed, May 18, 2015

20. Anthony Bragalia, “The ‘Roswell Alien Slides’ and My apology to a Dead Child of the Mesa Verde,” A Different Perspective, May 10, 2015

21. Tom Carey and Don Schmitt, “Statement,” Blue Blurry Lines, May 12, 2015

22. Curt Collins, “Shepherd Johnson finds documents that finish the Roswell Slides,” Blue Blurry Lines, June 13, 2015

23. Jorge Peredo, post on Facebook, June 9, 2015

24. “Jaime Maussan Video Evidence That UFOs are real,” (at 57m,23s) YouTube channel, Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), Aug. 27, 2015, published, Jan. 6, 2016

25. “Interview with Tom Carey & Don Schmitt,” Podcast UFO, July 20, 2016


Further Resources

BeWitness, May 5, 2015

Red Pill Junkie's article, "The Roswell Slides: Chronicle of a Mummy Foretold" is perhaps the only piece by a member of the audience, and describes the experience of being there in Mexico City to see "the changing of history," 
http://www.dailygrail.com/Essays/2015/5/The-Roswell-Slides-Chronicle-Mummy-Foretold

S. Miles Lewis' "The (NOT) Roswell Slides Saga…" at the Anomaly Archives prompted to write, 
"When the history of the Roswell Slides is written, this page will be a primary resource.”
http://www.anomalyarchives.org/public-hall/collections/files/roswell-slides/


Monday, June 5, 2017

The Flying Saucers Are Real(ly Profitable)




This is a fragment of an unfinished piece (one of many) on UFOs, and the focus is on how Kenneth Arnold's 1947 report of flying saucers became the inspiration for industry, from advertising stunts to motion pictures.


Flying Saucer Merchandise


The first to benefit from flying saucers was newspapers and radio networks, and they built the interest up in the public, and then capitalized on satisfying the demand by keeping saucer stories in the news. Other businesses wanted a piece of the action and soon there were flying saucer-themed hamburgers, sundaes, cocktails hats, and more. See UFOPOP's UFO/Flying Saucer Merchandising Gallery.

One of the first commercial stunts was for radio stations to have planes drop paper or foil disks with slogans advertising their station. This started as early as July of 1947, and the photo seen below is from 1951.  
The Telegraph-Herald, Dubuque, Iowa, Sunday, April 08, 1951, page 17.


The fastest way to cash in was to rename an old or recycle existing products, such as Republic did in 1950, taking leftovers from The Purple Monster Strikes to make Flying Disc Man from Mars.



It took longer to get original products manufactured, but in time those appeared with and there were flying saucer kites, toys, arcade games and amusement park rides. Billboard magazine announced  a debut: November 20, 1948. "The Flying Disc is a brand new ride being put out by Bisch-Rocco... a spinning ride and will carry 32 passengers at one time.”  They later renamed it the Flying Saucer. 


There were also coin operated rides for kids that were placed in the front of stores.


Through one of these coin operated models, many years later, novelist Stephen King indirectly received inspiration from Kenneth Arnold:

"I took a trip to the shopping mall. I watched one of those machines that you plug a quarter into and this thing goes around and around. It's a flying-saucer ride made for kids. And I thought, Suppose the kid disappeared. Just disappeared in front of his mother and the people walking around. What would that be like? Now, that interested me very much." Magistrale, Tony. Stephen King, The Second Decade. 1992.

The Flying Saucers Business Today

 The first and most famous non-fiction book on UFOs by Donald Keyhoe was a paperback best-seller titled, The Flying Saucers Are Real. Keyhoe was able to persuade a good many people of that possibility, and gave the topic a big boost incredibility, helping keep it alive into the 1960s when mainstream media discussed the investigation of UFOs seriously. Since then, the scientific side of things has withered, while the fictional and entertainment merchandising of UFOs has thrived, continuing to do big business.



Sunday, May 28, 2017

Flying Saucer Musings


What gives? Both these guys seem to need more information.

There have not been a lot of new entries here lately, but it's not all due to inactivity on my part. Although I've used the blog format for convenience, the intent has been to present some content of substance. There's a place where I do share some trivia and topical thoughts on a more regular basis,
Blue Blurry Lines on Facebook (and far less often on Twitter.)


There are a number of unfinished projects in the works, including the Cash-Landrum UFO case, a look at the relationship between Science Fiction and Flying Saucers, an examination on real-world secret projects versus to the legend of the "Cosmic Watergate" UFO cover-up, and several UFO history pieces. The problem I have is that it's more fun for me to gather the research than it is to do the work of getting it written. Besides, in UFO matters, there's usually no clear place to stop, no convenient "ending."

 Reframing the Debate

"What's Wrong with this Picture?" is one piece I managed to actually complete, an essay to published in Robbie Graham's UFOs: Reframing the Debate. His Silver Screen Saucers is a fascinating look at the feedback loop between flying saucers and commercial entertainment.
UFOs: Reframing the Debate
This new book is described as "a collection of original essays exploring alternative perspectives on UFOs and how we might more usefully study the phenomenon in the 21st Century." My chapter, "What's Wrong With This Picture?" deals with UFO investigation methods, using the fiasco of the Roswell Slides as a case study, and it focuses on the inside story of the Roswell Slides Research Group, how the team worked, and almost didn't.
UFOs: Reframing the Debate is available from the publisher  White Crow Books and online retailer, Amazon .


Cinema: Flying Saucer Musings

Claude Falkstrom (purportedly)
Norio Hayakawa recommends this new YouTube clip:
"Another great work by UFO Culture Satirist, Claude Falkstrom. I nominate this for an Academy Award for editing...LOL!!"
The Curse of Roswell

Claude Falkstrom's got a few other his clips collected in the playlist, Flying Saucer Musings, skewering ufology, Disclosure, skeptics, believers, hoaxers, MUFON, Project Blue Book and UFOtainers.


Wednesday, May 10, 2017

Ray Bradbury's Orbs from Mars

Ray Bradbury on UFOs- sort of.




Ray A. Palmer started Imagination in 1950, and it was a in the same pulpy vein as Fantastic Adventures and Other Worlds (which eventually transformer to Flying Saucers) featuring space opera tales of fantasy and Bug-Eyed Monsters. After only three issues, Palmer passed the torch to William L. Hamling, who incidentally was one of the few science fiction authors who promoted the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis.

According to Michael Ashley in Transformations: The Story of the Science-fiction Magazines from 1950 to 1970,
"Hamling was less provocative and daring than Palmer. He knew a good story when he saw one, but avoided the extremes of Palmer. The result was fewer abominations, but also less excitement, and under Hamling Imagination became more bland than it had started out under Palmer."
Even so, occasionally a story of anomalous quality slipped in, transcending Imagination's pulpy origins. 



Ray Bradbury grew up loving Buck Rogers and monsters like King Kong, but his fantasy and science fiction stories were more more about the human heart. The April 1951 Imagination featured "In This Sign..." a story by Bradbury about Episcopalian missionaries led by Father Peregrine who'd traveled to Mars trying to save the souls of the natives by converting them to Christianity. The hitch being, the Martians they found were sentient beings who looked like spheres of blue light. It's an outstanding story, and proved to be a classic, touching on many important themes about religion and just what it means to be human. A scan of the the original magazine can be viewed at https://archive.org/stream/Imagination_v02n02_1951-04_cape1736#page/n0/mode/2up.




The piece was later retitled "The Fire Balloons," featured in the anthology The Illustrated Man and frequently reprinted in science fiction anthologies in different languages around the world. In 1980 it was adapted as part of the NBC television miniseries The Martian Chronicles, in the episode "The Settlers."



July 4, 1925





In his introduction to the 1974 edition of Dandelion Wine, Bradbury described the inspiration for the story:
"...one of the last memories I have of my grandfather is the last hour of a Fourth of July night forty-eight years ago when Grandpa and I walked out on the lawn and lit a small fire and filled the pear-shaped red-white-and-blue-striped paper balloon with hot air, and held the flickering bright-angel presence in our hands... and then, very softly, let the thing that was life and light and mystery go out of our fingers up on the summer air and away over the beginning-to-sleep houses, among the stars, as fragile, as wondrous, as vulnerable, as lovely as life itself."

It was a memory that lasted a lifetime. Bradbury mentioned it in 1990 in an interview with John Ezard
"At the end my grandfather would take me out to the end of the lawn at midnight. We'd light a little cup of shavings and put it underneath a Japanese fire balloon. We'd stand there waiting for the balloon to fill with warm air. Then we'd let it drift up into the night. I would stand there with my grandfather and cry because it was so beautiful. It was all over and it was going away. My grandfather died the next year and in a way he was a fire balloon going away."
Shortly before his death, Bradbury again described the childhood events that inspired the story in "Take Me Home," a biographical piece in the June 2012 special science fiction issue of The New Yorker that serves as his own epitaph. "...the paper balloon held between us for a final moment, filled with warm exhalations, ready to go."




Orbs

Ray Bradbury called them fire balloons, and they date back to ancient China and go by many names, such as sky candles, Japanese or Chinese lanterns, hot air balloons, sky lanterns and others. The invention eventually spread through Europe and then to the United States, where it was most often used as part of Independence Day fireworks. The Boy's Holiday Book by Reverend T. E. Fuller from 1865 provided instructions for constructing a fire balloon in the section on fireworks, in a day when you literally had to make your own fun. Bradbury's grandfather was passing on the tradition of flying them in 1925. Later generations of kids took shortcuts, making their sky lanterns out of dry cleaning bags powered by hot air generated from birthday candles. Some of these have been sent up with the intent of hoaxing a UFO.

Ray Bradbury regarded the sight of these balloons flight as a magical thing, and he was able to imagine them as otherworldly spherical glowing intelligent living things. He's not the only one.  



Friday, March 31, 2017

UFO Contact: April 1, 1967, from Loco, TX

Watts being interviewed in 1968 by UFO investigators.

Carroll Wayne Watts said he had a close encounter with a UFO the night of March 31, 1967, but it was not reported until the following day, on April 1. Watts lived in the tiny town of Loco, in the Texas Panhandle, just south of Wellington, about 100 miles east of Amarillo. His story was carried in United Press International news service, UPI, and published March 2, as reprinted below.

Loco, Texas, near the Oklahoma border. 

Saucer Speaks 

A Wellington farmer said today that he spoke to a flying saucer Friday night. The man, Carroll Watts, said he was returning home from his father`s residence about a mile north of his home at about 10:30 Friday night when he saw a light from about where an abandoned house stands. He turned off the dirt road and headed toward the light. He said he drove to within about 20 feet of an object which “appeared to be about 100 feet long and eight or ten feet high.” 

"I walked around the side of it, and about 20 feet down the side. I found a port or door. I knocked on it three or four times and it opened mechanically,” he said. “A voice began speaking to me - it was an unemotional voice neither masculine nor feminine. It asked me if I would be willing to submit to a rigorous physical examination. “I asked them why I would want to take a physical and they told me that if I passed it, I would be able to make a flight with them. They said any man who passed the physical could make a flight, but no women or children would be taken.” 

“They pointed out a machine against the opposite wall from where I was standing outside the door. They said all I had to do was stand before the machine to take a physical. About two or three feet forward from the machine was a map. It was about a yard square and began about a foot from the floor. It appeared to be a large-scale land map - but I couldn’t tell what it was a map of." 

“Then they informed me that they had a machine that, when the ship within 300 yards of a building, could tell how many people were in the building and their ages. They (the voice) then asked me again to take the physical - and when I declined, they told me that several people had taken the test and had made the flights." 

“They, whoever they were, said they were stationed all over the world and could come and go as they pleased - no one could stop them. I told them I didn’t want to take that physical and I got back in my car and turned the lights on the ship. As I pulled in front of it, it rose slightly and turned to the south. There was a light, about 20 inches across, on the of the nose. As the ship was sitting, it gave off a clear fluorescent light, but when the ship began to move, the light took on a reddish cast. As I drove off, the object lifted from the ground and took a heading to the south. It made no noise whatsoever. I guess the whole thing lasted about ten to 15 minutes.” 


Project Blue Book file card: "Psychological"

As he spoke to UPI by telephone, Watts had two Air Force investigators at his home. The investigators were sent to Wellington from Altus Air Force Base, Okla. One man in Wellington said Watts was considered to be “above reproach.”

The incident is the third reported in the Wellington area in the last month. On March 21, Watts reported sighting such a craft flying at about 50 miles an hour over a road for about eight miles. On March 23 an Air Force man reported that he was chased along a road by a similar craft for some time.

- - -

Dr. Hynek is baffled.

This was only the beginning of Watts' story. He had a series of encounters over the following months with events and players that resemble the Barney and Betty Hill story, hypnotic regression by a Budd Hopkins type, Polaroid UFO photography like Ed Walters, and close encounters of the postal and telephonic kind with astronomer Dr. J. Allen Hynek, who said:

"If this is a hoax, it is a very, very clever one. In fact, it would be such a clever hoax that it would be almost as interesting as what this farmer claims has happened to him."

 More on Watts' incredible saga to come.

Thursday, March 23, 2017

UFO Books 101: Required Reading by Paul Dean


Paul Dean is a UFO document researcher from Melbourne, Australia, who uses an evidence-based approach and focuses on "air safety policy, military communications, radar tracking and space object identification to understand the wider UFO matter at a government/military level." There's a wealth of credible information available, but sadly, many people are satisfied with the shallow, sensational, and inaccurate UFO infotainment from television shows and random websites. 

Below is a guest article from Paul, prompted by my request for the best and most credible literature for newcomers to the UFO topic. Many of his book selections are available to read free online, and when found, links are included. My personal advice however, is whenever possible, get real books, and go to a bookstore to find them. 


UFO Books 101: Required Reading by Paul Dean



I have put a list of books together that are what one would call ''required reading." It amazes me how few people have actually read the great, scholarly, foundational works of Ufology. No one will agree in full on a ''best'' books list... But a ''required'' or ''essential'' reading list is a different matter. UFO enthusiasts beware: Don't think that Klass and Menzel, and Condon, don't make the cut. Also, some books make the list not because of voluminous or heavily technical density, but because they are filled with an extraordinary look at the politics of the times. Keyhoe's work is the best example of this.

Whatever ones leanings, there is no way that ''researchers'' can bestow such a title on themselves without having absorbed at least some of these great tomes. There is simply no alternative. Most of these books must be on shelves.
Also, this is not in any order as such. Don't see this is a top-to-bottom list. It ain't.


Here it is folks:

  • Challenge to Science (1966) by Jacques Vallee;
  • UFO’s: A Scientific Debate (1973) by Carl Sagan and Thornton Page;
  • The UFO Evidence: Volume II (2001) by Richard H. Hall;
  • Flying Saucers (1953) by Donald Menzel;
  • UFO Study (1981) by Jenny Randles;
  • UFOs Explained (1976) by Philip J. Klass;
  • UFO Handbook (1980) by Allan Hendry;
  • The UFO Enigma: A New Review of the Physical Evidence (1999) by Peter Sturrock;
  • UFOs and Government: A Historical Inquiry (2012) by Michael Swords, Robert Powell, Barry Greenwood, Jan Aldrich, Clas Svahn, Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos, Bill Chalker, Steve Purcell and Richard Thieme.

Paul Dean has recently been focused on unearthing military UFO documents, with a special emphasis on NORAD. See his series of reports at his blog, 

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

UFOs, Kenneth Arnold and the American Bible



Kenneth Arnold was the original credible witness, a straight-shooting, down-to-earth ex-Boy Scout. Jacques Vallee wrote, "I now think of referring to the (flying saucer) problem as 'the Arnold Phenomenon' after that celebrated witness, businessman Kenneth Arnold." (11 April 1963 entry,  Forbidden Science Volume I.)  However, in the years since, Arnold's role as the herald of the UFO age has been diminished by the overemphasis and promotion of the Roswell crash franchise. His role is important, and there's a lot more to his story.



Shortly after his encounter, Arnold had the first of many other sightings on his flight to Maury Island, a trip that began his informal role as the first civilian UFO investigator. He became interested in Charles Fort's books of phenomena and joined the Fortean Society. Over the years, he came to believe that the objects he'd seen were living creatures, possibly related to "Ezekiel's wheel" described in the Book of Revelation. There's a lot more to Kenneth Arnold's story than just his first sighting, but UFO history has largely ignored it.


Ray Palmer and an Amazing Book

UFO historians have sought to diminish or deny the role of another pioneer, Raymond A. Palmer, who was promoting the reality of extraterrestrials space ships visiting the Earth as early as 1945. Palmer was a science fiction author, but interested in the reality of space travel, Fortean phenomena, Theosophy and all sorts of paranormal topics, so in 1948 he created a non-fiction magazine to discuss them, Fate magazine. Palmer wrote to Kenneth Arnold and persuaded him to tell his story, which became the cover feature for the first issue of Fate. As a result, the two men became life-long friends and worked together, the best-known example being their collaboration on the 1952 book, The Coming of the Saucers.

In 1945 Ray Palmer became fascinated with something that's been called the American Bible, "... an amazing book called 'Oahspe' which purports to be a history of the past 79,000 years, both of the earth and of heaven... which ties into a cohesive whole all the legends and folktales of the world, and all the archeological discoveries of the past, and depicts a logical and convincing, and for the most part provable relationship between all the races of mankind for LONGER than science says civilized men existed on the earth, or even cave-men!" (Amazing Stories December 1945)




"Oahspe, A New Bible in the Words of Jehovih and His Angel Embassadors" was published in 1882, by John Ballou Newbrough supposedly written by automatic writing, channeling the word of Ormazd, "the Creator." In The UFO Phenomenon: Fact, Fantasy and Disinformation,  John Michael Greer describes it's significance to UFOs and the extraterrestrial hypothesis. 
"Like many channeled works, Oahspe defies easy characterization. Written in the style of the King James Bible, it combines Christian imagery with ideas borrowed from many other religions... What sets it apart most strikingly from the religious visions of a previous century, thoughis the way it locates its theology in outer space. Its angels and gods live on countless planets... and travel from world to world in Etherean vessels that range from little scout craft to vast mother ships the size of a planet." 

Ray Palmer's Mystic Magazine, May, 1954

 These vessels are referred to as fire, sun and "star-ships." An example from Oahspe: "Then Osire left this high place and with his host, aboard the etherean ship of fire, sat out toward the earth, at break-neck speed; for such was the disposition of this most determined god."

Ray Palmer promoted the text in the pages of his magazines over the years, and went on to publish three versions of it between 1960 and 1972, writing that, "Oahspe is truly a gateway to understanding."


Arnold's Souvenir Card

In 1950 Kenneth Arnold published The Flying Saucer as I Saw It, an the illustrated pamphlet to be sold as a souvenir at his lectures on the topic. He used the same saucer image for a calling card. His daughter, Kim Arnold wrote: “Kenneth Arnold used to give out philosophy cards to the many people he would meet. They were the size of a common business card. The front of the card had the image of the second to the last of the nine flying saucers he saw on June 24, 1947. The back of the card expressed this quote:”



     Many people have inquired as to my philosophy – due to my involvement in the phenomenon known as "Flying Saucers.” The following I accept is worth thinking about. 
     A great man is the unbelieving man; he is without spiritual sight or spiritual hearing; his glory is in understanding his own understanding. It is he who subdues the forest, tames the beasts of the field to service. He goes alone in the dark, unafraid. He follows no man’s course, but, searches for himself; the priests cannot make him believe, nor the angels of heaven; none can subdue his judgment. He says: why permit others even priests, to you think for you? Stand on your own feet – be a man. Through his arm are tyrants and evil kings overthrown. Through him are doctrines and religions sifted to the bottom and the falsehood and evil in them cast aside. Who but the Creator could have created so great a man as the unbeliever? 
KENNETH ARNOLD

It's an unusual piece of writing, not what you'd expect out of a man like Arnold. It turns out the language is taken from scripture. It's taken from Ray Palmer's beloved Oahspe.


Oahspe, a New Bible in the Words of Jehovih and His Angel Embassadors, Page 361

26. Nevertheless, the Creator created a great man amongst these; and such is the unbelieving man. He hath neither gold nor silver, nor house nor land; and he is without spiritual sight or spiritual hearing; but his glory is in understanding his own understanding.
27. He it is that subdueth the forest, and tameth the beasts of the field to man's service. He goeth alone in the dark, fearing naught. He followeth not the course of any man, but searcheth for himself; the priest cannot make him believe, nor can the angels of heaven; none can subdue his judgment. He beholdeth the glory of the earth and of manhood. He calleth to the multitude, saying: Why permit ye others, even priests, to think for you? Arise, O thou, and be a man! Arise, O thou, and be a woman!
28. He inspireth of the earth and for the earth; through his arms are tyrants and evil kings overthrown. Through him are doctrines and religions sifted to the bottom, and the falsehood and evil in them cast aside. Yea, who but Ormazd could have created so great a man as the unbeliever?

We can't know exactly how Arnold came to use the Oahspe text on his calling card, but there can be little doubt that his friend, Ray Palmer, was influential in its genesis.




Update: Kenneth Arnold's story was on the front cover of the 1st issue of FATE Magazine, but I had forgotten what was on the back cover: