The Placard of the Roswell Slides: The Final Curtain

Special Rush report from The Roswell Slides Research Group


The Roswell Slides second biggest mystery was the content of the placard on the alleged alien body.

Several statements were made about it, some contradictory:

The Roswell Slides and the Truth by Anthony Bragalia

This ‘placard’ is not very evident in the video grab image. However, it has been enlarged by experts and the writing, in red ink, is handwritten, not typed, as would be found in a biological display in a museum.

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-roswell-slides-update-by-tony.html

Tom Carey was interviewed about the Roswell Slides on the March 22, 2015 episode of Jaime Maussan’s Contacto on Tercer Milenio TV. Carey said that experts have been able to read some words on the placard on the case and that, “debunkers will be disappointed.”

The Conspiracy Show With Richard Syrett Apr 12, 2015

Tom Carey and Don Schmitt were interviewed, of the show's expert presentations, Schmitt said: 

This will be part of the event, part of the program in May, that all of these analytical reports, all of the analyses, all of the main experts as well as the photographic experts who examined- there’s a placard, very fuzzy, that can not be legibly read by the naked eye, yet we’ve had everyone from Dr. David Rudiak, to Studio MacBeth, even the Photo Interpretation Department of the Pentagon, as well as Adobe have all told us that it’s beyond the pale, that it cannot be read, it is totally up to interpretation. 

So, we truly feel we have performed due diligence; we have done everything we can to substantiate and prove what is contained within these slides, whether it is something of a human malady or something truly extraordinary. https://youtu.be/fQyAVrFnTos?t=1h24m2s

During BeWitness, it was announced that despite the work of a number of experts, the placard could absolutely not be read. 

In the second slide the placard was visible, and the writing was evident, if unclear.

News coverage, claiming the placard could not be read,

"We couldn't make anything clearly out of the placard... several others, who did not have much luck." - Adam Dew

"Nobody could read anything decisively in the placard, unfortunately. I am sure people will make attempts to do this going forward...." - Adam Dew

He was right, and most of the placard has now been read.

A member of The Roswell Slides Research Team used a newly acquired source image of the placard seen in front of the body. By manipulating the commercial software, SmartDeblur, he managed to significantly clear up the blurred text. Other members offered suggestions and helped narrow down the actual words.

Nab Lator deblurred the placard image.

Chris Isbert created an animated GIF to display the text.
http://s263.photobucket.com/user/europa73/media/macmini_1_zpsib9x40yc.gif.html

The first line was the most clearly resolved:

MUMMIFIED BODY OF TWO YEAR OLD BOY

There is little doubt that this is the true and correct text. The other 3 lines of the text are somewhat hard to read, some words more clear than others. The original results yielded:

MUMMIFIED BODY OF TWO YEAR OLD BOY

At the time of burial the body was clothed in a xxx-xxx cotton

shirt. Burial wrappings consisted of these small cotton blankets.

Loaned by the Mr. Xxxxxx, San Francisco, California

The entire effort only took hours, quite a difference from the claimed “years” of research that the Slides promoters camp claimed. Because the Slide hucksters haven’t released proper high resolution scans of the slides, our work was made more difficult. We could probably get clearer results from better images.

The mystery of the placard is solved, and so is the nature of the body in the case.

A boy, from Earth. 

The question then, becomes, how was this not discovered by the experts examining the case in the years of investigation?

Subsequent information filled in the missing placard letters. 

Mesa Verde Notes September 1938 Volume VIII, Number 1.

---

MUMMIFIED BODY OF TWO YEAR OLD BOY

At the time of burial the body was clothed in a slip-over cotton 

shirt. Burial wrappings consisted of three small cotton blankets. 

Loaned by Mr. S. L. Palmer, San Francisco, California.

The Roswell Slides Research Group

José Antonio Caravaca, Spain
Isaac Koi, UK
Nab Lator, France
Lance Moody, USA

Tim Printy, USA

Curt Collins, USA

Tim Hebert, USA

Paul Kimball, Canada

Gilles Fernandez, France

Trained Observer, USA

Chris Rutkowski, Canada

Roger Glassel, Sweden

S. Miles Lewis, USA

Thanks to our colleagues and associates, including Alejandro Espino (for the 
Israel Ampuero team, Spain), Philippe Hernandez, Jeff Ritzmann, Aaron J Gulyas, Irna France, Nick Redfern, Fin Handley and many, many more who provided help.

Photo Fakery: Washington, DC Flying Saucers 1952

The DC Deception (Last Updated 9/18/21)

The flying saucers reported over Washington, DC in July 1952 is one of the most famous events in UFO history. Objects were tracked on radar, and Air Force planes were sent out to investigate, and reportedly, UFOs were seen by at least one pilot and radar operator. 

It's an important historical event, worthy of examination, but...

There are rumors and myths too, such as it being widely witnessed by panicking citizens or that photos exist of the event.

Weird Science-Fantasy #26 from EC, 1954 

If you need a recap, it was covered at the time in the August 4, 1952 issue of LIFE magazine

It was also covered in a NBC television broadcast, "We the People," which featured interviews with the radar operator witnesses. See The Saucers That Time Forgot: UFOs on TV: The 1952 Washington, DC Saucer Flap.

Had there been a photograph of UFOs during the incidents, Life Magazine would have been happy to publish them. None surfaced despite this being among the most heavily publicized cases in US history.

The Fake

In 1965, over a decade after the events, a photograph was published, and ever since has appeared in almost every discussion and article on the Washington, DC, case, from books, to the internet, documentaries, and television shows. The trouble is, it's a phony.

Well, the photo itself is real, but it is misrepresented and fraudulently used, then accepted and repeated as genuine by people who should know better. It was taken several years after the event, and instead of UFOs, it depicts the reflection of the Capitol's lamps - lens flares.

Many versions exist, cropped in color...

black and white for a more "historical" look...

tweaked with photoshop and so on...

Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos reports:

FOTOCAT's input follows:
Event date: July 19, 1952
Location: Washington, D.C. (USA)
Date information: Non-event (actually dated 1965)
Event is filed as: Lens flares
Time: Between 23:40 and 06:00
Photographer: Unknown
 http://www.nicap.org/reports/520719washington_report.htm

The first known publication of the picture is in Ray Palmer's Flying Saucers No. 81, Summer 1973

This time, Flying Saucers are not real.

Exposed and Forgotten

As seen on the magazine cover above, it's often cropped to remove the lamps, the source of the "UFOs." It was exposed long ago, in a detailed analysis by Colman von Keviczky that was published in Official UFO Magazine #9, July 1976. A summary by Dr. Bruce Maccabee :

This picture which shows the Capitol dome and lights at the left side is, I believe, just a fraction of the total picture which shows the whole Capitol building, parking lot lights in front of it and numerous "UFO" lights in the sky at both the left and right sides of the dome. Colman von Kevicsky, years ago, showed the "UFO" light images were actually lens "flares"....reflections within the lens of the bright streetlights and parking lot lights in front of the Capitol. 

Reconstruction of the Official UFO Magazine analysis,
showing how the "UFOs" correspond to the lamps as lens flares.

UFOs: The American Scene by Michael Hervey, 1976.
“Jacket photograph: UFOs over the Capitol, Washington, D.C."

UFO Exist! by Paris Flammonde, G.P. Putnam´s, 1976, featured a large photo section in that center that included the photo, but did not present it as genuine. The caption stated it was a: “supposed UFO formation… a reoccurrence of the classic 1952 case.”

UFO Exist! by Paris Flammonde, 1976

The photo was included in April 1979 Omni magazine issue in "UFOS: A Gallery of Photographs," the Lee Spiegel article, "First Contact." The tiny caption describes the picture:

"famous UFO formation over Capitol thought by many to be a reflection in camera lens."

Omni, April 1979

The Omni article prompted skeptic James Randi to include the photo in his 1980 book, Flim-Flam!, where he included a diagram demonstrating how the lens flares reflected the lights at the base of the building.

Here's another photo analysis from 2009. 1952 Washington DC UFO (Capitol Building) photo: 
http://lookathimnow.wordpress.com/2009/03/27/1952-washington-dc-ufo-capitol-building-photo/

Motion Pictures?

Nevertheless, once a fake gets into the UFO bloodstream it lives forever. The internet and television assured its immortality. There are even phony motion pictures of it.

http://youtu.be/HedoH9PUn1g?t=10m25s

Disney's Alien Encounters from New Tommorowland, 1995 features a clip 

of animated UFOs over the Capitol at 10:26.

UFO's: The Secret Evidence 2005 featured 

a different animated version of the photo.

Breakdown - 1952 UFOs Over Washington DC Video

explaining the phony film version

Also recycled for Unseen Alien Files, where astonishingly, 

it was labelled a reconstruction.

Recycled in Stephen Greer's 2013 Sirius,
b&w to make it look "authentic!"

Steven Bassett used the same phony animation in Paradigm Research Group's 2013 in 
promo video for the Citizen Hearing on UFO Disclosure.  

MUFON's Hangar 1: The UFO Files featured many imaginative recreations.
Here, they imitate EC comics,

add in Shell Alpert's Salem, MA UFOs from July 16, 1952 = 

Hangar 1: Presidential Encounters from 2014

National Geographic produced UFO Conspiracies 
aka Invasion Earth. Their recreation from 2014.

Baloney Indicator

A Google Image search returns many, many versions.

2016 Update:

Jan Harzan, the director of MUFON, used this fake photo on a 2016 UFO lecture, saying, "These are visual photographs of the actual objects."

Jan Harzan, Oct. 29, 2016, lecture at the Explorers Club event Space Stories in New York.

These are just a tiny fraction of the appearances of the photo. By gathering some of this data, maybe this will show up alongside the search returns, and people can get some better information on the history. We've not seen the last of this one, but just remember that whenever you see it, you are looking at a lie, ineptitude, misinformation or disinformation on the part of whoever is presenting it. 

The DC deception's inclusion as an indicator of a high baloney content. It shows that they're not a trustworthy source. 

2018 Update:

The Italian UFO group CUN hosted a presentation in Rome on Oct. 27, 2018 by Tom DeLonge on the To The Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences, and Luis Elizondo on the AATIP.  Elizondo discussed some UFO history, including the famous 1952 Washington, DC saucer event saying:

"In the early 1950s, the United States had another very significant event over our nation’s Capitol. Once again, these objects were identified both with the naked eye and again on radar, and unlike Roswell, many people had cameras and were able to take photographs. And what you see here are real photographs, along with the story - the headline story that came out."

"real photographs"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQbO-jWKzVM&feature=youtu.be&t=1h30m

Elizondo's picture came from the internet, a YouTube preview image for the video, "UFO Sightings over Washington D.C. and The White House in 1952," by FindingUFO.

It is composed of two images:
1, a frame from a CGI-animated version of a picture of lens flares from UFO's: The Secret Evidence, and
2, a b&w version of an image from the 1954 comic book, Weird Science-Fantasy #26 found in the files of Project Blue Book.

Luis Elizondo published an update on the Facebook page of To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science on Nov. 1, 2018, which stated in part:

"While providing general background, I indicated that one particular slide contained real photographs of UAPs over Washington DC. It did not. The slide was intended to be illustrative but was presented as factual and with the help of a few individuals, I quickly realized the error. I acknowledge the misstatement and sent an immediate 'mea culpa' note to my TTS Academy team... it was an oversight on my part, and it will not happen again."

2021 Update

James Fox's documentary, Phenomenon was shown in by the Travel Chanel in their “Shock Docs” series about paranormal encounters as The UFO Phenomenon. 

While labeled "Artistic Rendition," Fox's use of it perpetuates the legitimacy of the phony saucer photo, which matches nothing that was witnessed or photographed.

This fake UFO photo is like Dracula in the movies. It rises from the grave again and again.

. . .

Thanks to Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos, Nab Lator, Gilles Fernandez and the others mentioned above for helping straighten out the fact from fiction in the DC picture.