Showing posts with label Tim Printy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tim Printy. Show all posts

Monday, October 2, 2017

Hocus Pocus: The Roswell Slides Return


A mainstream media piece by The Guardian from the UK is worth a look for it's portrayal of one of ufology's biggest embarrassments. The Curious Case Of The Alien In The Photo And A Mystery That Took Years To SolveWritten by Les Carpenter, a sports journalist, it sympathetically presents the Roswell Slides story from the POV of the promoter of the events, Adam Dew. There, Dew finally names and discloses the role of his silent partner, Joseph Beason. I'm not sure just why the story was newsworthy at this late date, but it does contain a few new bits, chiefly quotes from the perpetrators, and is the first interview with Dew since the events.  It's a nice piece, but there are a few things that need to be clarified, and a few errors that need to be corrected. 
Slidebox Media: Joseph Beason & Adam Dew

I was struck by the lack citation of sources in the article, or links to the source material, but the narrative is more accurate than not. The coverage of the deblurring of the Slides is shortchanged and there’s a only a brief mention of the Roswell Slides Research Group and Nab Lator (who is called Neb). Instead, the story is all about how Adam Dew was drawn into the circus, and how two Roswell ufologists let belief lead their investigation.


Hocus Pocus?

The ufologists in the story, Tom Carey and Donald Schmitt, look bad, making unsubstantiated accusations that they were victims. “It was a very sophisticated hoax,” Carey says. “Dew manipulated the slides. The one clue we couldn’t figure out was the placard, but they played hocus pocus with the placard. We were given something that had been altered.” The story says, “Humiliated, Carey and Schmitt apologized to the Roswell Slides debunkers.” No. RSRG member Tim Printy responded on Facebook, saying, 
“It states that Carey and Schmitt apologized to the Roswell slides debunkers. I don't remember that apology. If it was given, it was some vague comment they made with little meaning. I also see that Carey and Schmitt still believe that the slides were altered by Dew. This is a lie and they are just fooling themselves. Rudiak claimed he could deblur his placard and we know that we could deblur Bragalia's. The problem with Carey and Schmitt is they believe they were too smart to not figure it out. Instead, they were just stupid UFOlogists stuck in the will to believe in the myth they created.”
Printy is correct. Carey and Schmitt’s claim that they received deceptive, manipulated versions of the scans is false. On the April 20, 2015, KGRA show, Fade to Black, a few weeks before BeWitness, Tom Carey said he was sent a high resolution version of the two Slides, and he describes both pictures in detail, the placard and the man and woman seen behind the body. (In other words, the museum setting was pictured.)

Video: "Ep. 241 FADE to BLACK Jimmy Church w/ Tom Carey, UFO Roswell Slides LIVE on air" 
Carey, on receiving the Slides by email: 131:30, describing Slides images: 137 and 140.



Portions of those same scans were sent to David Rudiak and Anthony Bragalia in an attempt to read the placard. After the RSRG deblurred the placard, those scans were made public, and they could be deblurred and read just as easily. The charges of digital manipulation of the slides against Dew and Beason are false. However Dew pleads admits to exploitation being "guilty of not discouraging the talk [of it being alien]. It was good for the project.”

 Accusations, Trolls and Rewriting History

Beason's accusations of the RSRG faking the deblurring with Photoshop. 


The story confirms that after the deblurring, it was Beason who the RSRG was corresponding with, not Dew and Beason who posted at Slidebox Media the RSRG were "internet UFO Trolls" hoaxing the placard. It was later toned down, and proven to be false, but no apology from Beason was offered. The Slidebox site, http://www.slideboxmedia.com, is now dead, but the YouTube account remains. It's reported that "Beason has moved on."

BeWitness, Dew's clip of the Nov. 2013 meeting in Chicago
The most glaring distortion in the Guardian itself is the claim that the show was a last-minute 2015 decision made as a last resort: 
"By early 2015, Beason and Dew knew they had no choice but to reveal the slides. The pressure to do so was extreme and Dew needed money to fund his documentary... The only appealing proposal came from Jamie Maussan, an investigative journalist based in Mexico City."
This is inaccurate. At BeWitness, Dew showed a clip documenting how the deal  deal was brokered in November 2013, with Carey, Schmitt and Maussan traveling to Chicago for the signing the partnership arrangement.

Old Dogs, Old Tricks

The best quote in the Guardian story is how the investigation went off the rails. The pictures looked alien to them, and after pursuing details on Hilda Blair Ray's past, Dew said, “You start to fill in the blanks." Those blanks were filled with wishful thinking instead of evidence.

BeWitness promoter Jaime Maussan didn't get much coverage in the article, and it’s almost sad that "World-famous researcher" Anthony Bragalia who dreamed up much of the Slides narrative was not even mentioned.
If at first you don't succeed...
Jaime Maussan has never given up on the Slides and continues to promote them, and has since used some of the same “experts” to promote a series of Peruvian mummies as alien bodies. The enterprise was was heavily promoted and exploited by the subscription-based video service Gaia, that bills itself as “a member-supported conscious media company.” For further details, see The Atlantic's article, The Racism Behind Alien Mummy Hoaxes by Christopher Heaney, Aug. 1, 2017

The new Guardian piece closes by saying that Dew intends to complete his documentary, Kodachrome, but otherwise life goes on. Of Carey and Schmitt, Dew says, “They got their hopes up,” but “will never get the answers they are looking for.”


There’s an interesting question that may not have been asked. Let’s assume Beason was sincere in approaching Carey and Schmitt,  asking “I want you to help verify” the Slides. If so, doesn’t  Slidebox Media, LLC have a case against Carey and Schmitt for failure to perform the contracted duty? None of the evidence produced in support of the Slides as alien turned out to be accurate.

- - -



For an insider's look of the story of the investigation and exposure of the BeWitness fiasco, there's my  essay on the Roswell Slides Research Group in UFOs: Reframing the Debate, "What's Wrong With This Picture?"Further details on that in a previous article, UFOs: Reframing the Roswell Slides Fiasco.

Friday, July 24, 2015

Questions on the Cash-Landrum UFO Investigation


I recently was invited to appear on an episode of the Paracast, “a special shop talk/listener roundtable episode...” Somehow, much of the discussion centered on the cover-up of alien bases on the dark side of the Moon, so I didn’t have much to add to the conversation. However, there were some listener’s questions that were very good, but there wasn’t time to present them all. A few very good ones came from “cosmonaut,” who'd asked about the Cash Landrum UFO case.

If it was a human military experiment why test the craft in a public area? How do you explain that?

Airport Ramada Inn, Indianapolis, Indiana
http://www.check-six.com/Crash_Sites/RamadaInn_A-7D_1987.htm

The idea that a secret or experimental craft would be tested over a populated area seems incredible, as in the ridiculously implausible sense of the word. The article “Cracks in the Black Dike” by Jim Cunningham is an excellent examination of the attempt and failure to maintain secrecy about the F-117A stealth plane. In it, he mentions two crashes from the program that were near populated areas, the July 1986 crash of a training flight near Bakersfield, California, and also an A-7D Corsair (a daytime stand-in for used to keep F-117A pilots sharp) crashed into a hotel in Indianapolis, Indiana, killing 10 people.

Also, there have been a number of accidents in populated areas involving classified transportation of nuclear materials or weapons, as you'll see in this article on U.S. Nuclear AccidentsThere must be many more projects that we’ll never know about, and it’s only because these incidents were disastrous and unsuccessful that become public knowledge. These examples can’t prove anything about the UFO in the Cash-Landrum story, but they show that the potentially dangerous military operations have often been conducted close to populated areas.

One further comment on the UFO as a secret military project. I think it is unlikely. These projects are built to solve a particular problem or serve a pressing need. US spy planes are a perfect example of that, and provide a good case to study in the developmental process. What we usually see is a five to ten year developmental period involving dozens or hundreds of people. Typically, secrecy of the project or its concept is not tightly maintained, about all that can be concealed is its purpose or function and some of the technical and operational details.  For example, the CIA’s U-2 spy plane was claimed to be a NASA project collecting weather data at high altitude. 

NASA's experimental weather plane, so the cover story said.
Eventually, most of these secret programs are eventually exposed during their operation and eventually publicly disclosed. But, if the Cash-Landrum UFO was a secret military project, it may have been scrapped and literally buried. That's just the fate of some other experimental aircraft, see Top Secret Tombs: The Classified Stealth Aircraft Burial Grounds of Area 51

What attempts have been made to get FOIA documents and the results?


The best Freedom of Information Act results on the case resulted from an inquiry from Fred Whiting of FUFOR (Fund for UFO Research) into the DAIG investigation, U.S. Army Inspector General's Office, Washington, D.C., which resulted in the release of the report by Lt. Col. George C. Sarran

Another FOIA request produced some interesting trivia, an attempt to learn more about the C-L case via a remote viewing session. I’d say they failed, but if you are interested, see:

As far as I know, these are the only materials produced and have been released to multiple individuals over the years. so far, I’ve only attempted two FOIA requests, one directed at getting the records from Bergstrom AFB, and another directed at the DAIG. both were unsuccessful.

There must be other material, but locating it and getting it released may be difficult. There should be documents from the Air Force from Captain Virginia (Ginny) Lampley’s brief investigation, from the defense prepared by Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank Conforti in the legal case, and from the various branches of the military and NASA when they prepared statements indicating that they neither owned or operated any device resembling the UFO. In addition to that, there may be court documents from the Southern District Federal Court in Houston. Probably no smoking guns in there, but material I’d like to obtain and have persevered for the study of the case. These are the known knowns and known unknowns, but there may be unknown unknowns as well.



Can you elaborate on the idea that the UFO was launched from an aircraft carrier? What is the source and evidence for that?

USS New Orleans
The aircraft carrier theory was proposed by John Schuessler, but as a source for the helicopters, not the UFO. He suggested it could have been the USS New Orleans.

Tim Printy looked into these claims, and found it unlikely, with the New Orleans in particular being ruled out. 
“There is no evidence a carrier was out on operations over the holiday period. Like the rest of the military, unless they are deployed, most ships are in a stand down period over the holidays. Sailors spend a lot of time away from home (I have personal experience with this) and to deploy at this time of the year would have caused quite an uproar with the families. I think Schuessler had proposed the theory that the USS New Orleans was in the area. I recall looking into this and the New Orleans was on the west coast getting ready for an overhaul. It also had completed a westpac/operations in the Indian Ocean in November 1980. It seems highly unlikely that they would leave their home port in California shortly after returning from a long cruise overseas (this act would alone would cause a riot among the navy wives) to go to the east coast, conduct this secret exercise, and then return to the west coast in time to go to Puget Sound.” http://badufos.blogspot.com/2013/11/between-beer-joint-and-some-kind-of.html

Additionally, such a carrier would provide only about half the number of helicopters described in the case, and we’d still have to find a source for the others. Schuessler has done just the type of thing that skeptics get hammered for, manufacturing a real-world solution that fits the story, but for which there is no evidence.


What is your plan to further investigate this spectacular case?


Three key areas:
1) Seek out unreleased civilian documents on the case. There seem to be some in the files of both MUFON and FUFOR. The key item here is the original report made by Project VISIT led by John F. Schuessler. Copies of this report were circulated to the prominent UFO organizations at the time, but for whatever reason are not available.
2) Launch targeted FOIA requests for the material described above.
3) There are surviving participants in the case, reporters, investigators, medical and perhaps military personnel. Some of these have not spoken publicly in the case since after the story initially broke. I’ve located some of these individuals and would like to travel to Texas to personally interview them.

There are some other items, probably held by the family of the witnesses. For example, Betty Cash had a big file of clippings correspondence and documents, and Vickie Landrum maintained a log of her and Colby’s health and experience after the event. These personal records are a sensitive issue, so that will depend on the cooperation of the families.


Cosmonaut, thank you for asking some very good questions about the case. The C-L story is fascinating and holds a unique place in UFO history. The response and interaction by the US government alone sets it apart from other cases and makes it worthy of study. While the case has become a legend,  underneath the layers of myth, there seems to some genuine event at the core. I also hope that by continuing to discuss the case that perhaps someone with information about it will be prompted to come forward to share it.

Saturday, May 9, 2015

How to Decipher the Roswell Slides Placard


How to Decipher the Roswell Slides Placard 



Jeff Ritzmann shows how he was able to achieve his own version of the placard using the file  at Slidebox Media, labeled "Real Placardkindly provided by Adam Dew. Jeff says,



Jeff Ritzmann's oriignal Facebook post describing his results

Nab Lator sent me the Kernel file he used to sharpen the newest image (as well as the old one) complete with cropped file he used. The results I obtained using the same dataset are identical.So that's pretty much it. Results are confirmed as far as I'm concerned. Thanks to Nab. I'll leave it to him to post the kernel and have anyone else confirm. My results are solid here. We're out.Now all that's left is to effectively ignore anything further from the "Dream Team" or any others that lent their voices in support or complacency.

Update: Jeff Ritzmann's statement describing his work on the placard.

When I saw Nab Lator's first 'deblurred' image, I have to be honest and admit I was skeptical. No source image was posted, and no dataset was posted for others to independently confirm the work. It was only stated that a custom blur model had been employed in this deblurring, using the SmartDeblur program. Knowing that if in fact this was a deblur of the placard, independent confirmation had to be made, and made immediately.
Being outside the Roswell Slides Research Group, but also being a near 30 year working veteran within the digital imaging field I asked Nab Lator to send me his blur file and source image for me to try and duplicate, thereby confirming his results, independently and separate from any influence of the group.
I was unsure if Nab was going to share the files openly with me, a non-member of the RSRG, but he agreed to do so within minutes of my message.
After he saved and sent his blur model in the appropriate way for the program to utilize, I loaded his blur kernel (model) and ran that model on the source image provided. My results are below which were immediately posted to UFOUpdates. As far as I know, mine were the first independently confirmed, identical results made public.
Jeff Ritzmann
5/13./2015 

Slidebox Media: "Real Placard"


Jeff Ritzmann's sharpened version
See the update below for Jeff Ritzmann's statement describing his work on the placard.


The same source image was used in the video blow. Paul Kimball explains:

Tim Printy provides a demonstration of how easy it was to decipher the writing on the placard on the “Roswell slide." Note that there is no manipulation of the image going on here other than an enhancement of the original – which in this case is the “drum scan” provided by slides promoter Adam Dew on his own website.



Maybe another version would be helpful. 
RSRG member Lance Moody, with audio as he explains the process:
Using these techniques, the process can be duplicated. The placard can be read, and this is not a fantasy or fabrication. 

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

As we said before, the mystery of the placard is solved, and so is the nature of the body in the case.

A boy, from Earth. 


Mesa Verde Notes September 1938 Volume VIII, Number 1.


Link to the deblur model created by Nab Lator.
The Roswell Slides Research Group






Friday, May 8, 2015

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.

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.”


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.


Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Cash-Landrum: The Light Pillar Theory Revisited by Wim VAN UTRECHT


Guest article by Wim VAN UTRECHT, a companion piece following his examination of Light Pillars and their possible role in the Cash-Landrum UFO case.
Cash-Landrum Theory & Analysis: Unpublished 2002 Wim van Utrecht Article

See also the article on weather conditions present:
The Weather: Evidence in the Cash-Landrum UFO Case

Some additional notes on the Light Pillar Theory 


by Wim VAN UTRECHT


Commentators on several lists have raised a couple of pertinent questions about my suggestion that a light pillar caused by a combustion flame was – at least partially – responsible for the CASH-LANDRUM incident. This is an attempt to respond to these posts.



How bright are light pillars in high cloud? 

This issue was raised in my initial draft article. In note 14, I mentioned a bright reflection with an estimated magnitude of -9 (note however that this observer was standing very close to the combustion flame).  My own visual observations - I think I must have observed the phenomenon about 7 or 8 times now - were all from a distance of 8.6 km (5.3 miles), and never as bright as -9.  Because of the pulsating nature of the light source and the continuous changes in thickness of the reflecting cloud layer, the brightness changes constantly.  Perhaps the average brightness of light pillars can best be compared to a spotlight creating a luminous patch on a cloud deck or the moon seen through a layer of stratus cloud. Much depends from the surroundings (my observations were from the centre of Antwerp city where there’s much light pollution). On a dark road bordered with trees I expect a pillar to show up quite bright.  Here’s what I wrote about light pillars and brightness in an article on my website
The brightness depends not only on the nature of the light source and the distance between the observer and the reflection, but also on the type of ice-crystals, their size, the smoothness of their surfaces and the way in which they are scattered within the cloud. A flat horizontal layer consisting of large ice-crystal plates with smooth surfaces will generate a crisp and colourful image, whereas a cloud of randomly scattered oscillating ice-particles of small size will produce an image with diffuse edges and a less outspoken colouring.
In one of the best cases on record, a trained observer, studying a reflection from the glow of a blast furnace converter through a telescope, reported that it looked as if the flames from the furnace mouth could actually be seen moving about inside the reflected image [SPERRA, William E., "A Night Mirage" in Popular Astronomy, Vol. XVI, No. 3, March 1908, pp. 164-167.].
In the case of the North Sea sightings referred to above, a witness who used binoculars noticed that the "object" had "a granular surface, with a large number of small points inside". This is not the only case in which the light reflected off the smooth surfaces of the individual ice crystals gave the reflection the appearance of a luminous structure made up of countless points of light. 
Using data obtained from another witness to the North Sea incident, Erik HØG of the Niels Bohr Institute for Astronomy, Physics and Geophysics department of the Niels Bohr Institute for Astronomy at Copenhagen University, found that the magnitude of the circular reflection observed that night was close to -9 [HØG, Erik, various Internet messages from November 1993 and May 1995.]. By way of comparison: the magnitude of the full moon is -13, that of a bright star -1. Normally, the reflected images are much weaker.
In evaluating the brightness of light pillars from photographs, it should be taken into account that the intensity of the streaks is sometimes exaggerated by the long exposure times needed for clear night shots. 


Actually most photographs of light pillars that are on my website gallery (http://www.caelestia.be/lightpillars2.html) are time exposures (exposure time, aperture and ISO are mentioned for most images). Normally light pillars from combustion flames are not that bright, but the strange thing is that how longer you look at them the brighter they seem to get, up to such a point even that it’s easy to make yourself believe that the sky is splitting in two and that you’re looking at a fissure in the sky with a fire behind it. 

Here’s two videos of light pillars that will give a better idea of their brightness:



and more spectacular (but reaching to the ground, so not in high clouds):



Have there every been similar incidents?

There are several incidents in my collection of possible light pillar sightings that have elements similar to what was reported in the CASH-LANDRUM case. One of these concerns a phenomenon observed by none other than earthlight researcher Paul DEVEREUX.  On pages 11-18 of his 1982 book on Earthlights there is a description of an event that marked the beginning of his work on Earthlights. The incident took place when DEVEREUX was studying fine arts at the Ravensbourne College of Art near Bromley, Kent, UK. Together with some fellow students DEVEREUX spotted a strange luminous display in the NNW sky one evening in May 1967.  I quote from my catalogue:

Description: a pulsing, preternaturally brilliant orange light in the form of an upright rectangle; moved towards the college, then came to a halt in the sky, a few hundred feet above the fields; remained stationary; it had the proportions of a door, crisp edges and corners; impossible to determine whether the shape was fully three-dimensional or somehow flat; suddenly the glowing phenomenon began to decay, the crisp rectangular shape collapsing into amorphous, organic configurations that kept churning in the sky; like a sort of animated, glowing Rorschach test in which many forms could be fancied; not a machine, but like some happening out of the Old Testament; moving within itself like a time-lapse film of a billowing, boiling cloud, albeit a small and glowing one; at one point the shape of a human form suggested itself with its arms outstretched, like a Christ-like or angelic glowing silhouette; a rosy cloud could still be made out a quarter of an hour later, until it resembled a vague smudge of rouge in the sky

When I first read about DEVEREUX’ experience, I wondered if this pulsing, orange vertical shape could not have been a mirrored image of a flare. Possible candidates were flares at the Beckton Gas Works or the Shell Haven Refinery, but these were not in the NW but in the NNE and NE. A fire was another option. In an attempt to get to the bottom of this, I sent DEVEREUX a letter asking to indicate the exact line of sight on a map. He never responded.      



A second spectacular case from the UK concerns an incident reported by three youngsters driving a car near Felixstowe, Suffolk on September 20, 1965 (at around 10h30 p.m.).  Here’s the story as told on

A group of joyriding youths consisting of the driver, 25 year-old Geoffrey Maskey, and his passengers, Mavis Fordyce and Michael Johnson had decided to pull over on the curb near a tree lined Walton Avenue.

The youngsters were engaged in lively conversation when Johnson abruptly opened the car door and walked out into the murky night.

Fordyce and Maskey were perplexed as their friend vanished into the blackness of the forest, but assumed that he must be answering “nature’s call.”

Just moments after, the youths began to overhear a “high-pitched humming” sound.

Fordyce grew anxious as the disconcerting sound began overwhelming them and Maskey leaned out the window to try and ascertain the origin of the annoying noise.

The youths spied an oval-shaped, orange object suspended in the sky over 90-feet above his car; and it was glowing so brightly that it bathed the surrounding countryside in its eerie orange glow.

Without warning, the humming object shot away from the vehicle and vanished beyond the trees. The pair stared at each other in silent astonishment, when it suddenly dawned on them that Johnson was still in the woods… and that he might no longer be alone.

The apprehensive duo — both of whom were reticent to leave the car and wander into the forest wherein the UFO and their friend were lurking — began shouting their Johnson’s name to no avail.

Johnson then suddenly emerged from the wooded area.

He staggered into the road with a dazed expression adorning his face. Maskey hoped that he was just having a go at them, but as soon as Johnson collapsed in the middle of the street he knew that this was no laughing matter.

Fordyce and Maskey wasted time in exiting the vehicle to their friend’s aid even though they were frightened and in shock.

They found Johnson laying motionless on the asphalt, totally unconscious.

Fordyce and Johnson with the friend they rescued sped away from the forbidding forest and the strange orange light toward the nearby Felixstowe hospital.

 Once at the hospital Johnson regained consciousness, but he was suffering from amnesia and could not recognize the friends who had rescued him, much to their dismay.

The doctors on duty diagnosed Johnson as having succumbed to a serious shock.

Johnson also sustained physical trauma from the UFO encounter.

Doctors noted that he had unusual burn marks on the back of his neck and a contusion above his right ear.

The alarmed doctors decided to transfer Johnston to a better equipped hospital.

The doctors then decided that it would be prudent to transfer Johnson to the hospital of Ipswich, which was far better equipped to deal with Johnson’s injuries and psychological condition.

The following day Johnson recovered his senses and when his friends came to visit them he told them of his harrowing encounter with an ostensibly alien entity in the woods.

Johnson claimed that when he abruptly got out of the car the night before he was compelled to do so by an unknown “force,” which insisted that he go into the woods.

Johnson told his friends and doctors that he was forced to walk into the dark forest — although he was unable to recall exactly how far — where he encountered what he described as a humanoid being with the large sloping eyes that were glowing in the darkness.



The odd creature was engulfed by orange flames. It was at that point that he blacked out.

I added this anecdote to my catalogue because it was suggested at the time that the youngsters had taken a flare from the nearby Propane Gas Plant at Felixstowe for a UFO. I have no idea if that theory was based on any investigation. 

A third one, directly from my catalogue:

Hellemmes, Lille (Nord) France - June 28-29, 1974 (at about 02:00 a.m.)

Description: (1) intense light lighting up the entire sky; all houses in the surrounding streets seemed to be engulfed in flames; in the sky there was a reddish cylinder which resembled melted steel; seemed to be falling from the sky; (2) like the sun in the morning, but with fusion going on in the centre; (3) blinding light.
Duration not given, but at least several minutes.

Sound: explosion followed by a scary whistling noise that filled the sky

Note: dogs barking furiously throughout the sighting; car battery found to be flat the next day; zinc terrace roof found to have been pierced over a rectangular area of about 10 cm a few days after the incident as if the zinc plate had been worked over by an oxy-acetylene torch;   

Sources
- PACAUT, René, Ils ont rencontré des extra-terrestres, Editions Alain Lefeuvre, 1978, pp. 162-164
- Gazet van Antwerpen - 12 July 1974  

Nearby chemical plant: Lille and Dunkerque

Here too, no sign of any investigative report worthy of that name.

One more:

Nantes, Loire Atlantique, France – December 15, 1979 (at about 03:00 a.m.)

Description: enormous luminous shape (about 10 times the full moon); like a vertical cigar, four times longer than wide; yellow; at the bottom there were rectilinear, vertical elements of yellow and orange colour, moving up and down fast; at the beginning the contour of the object was imprecise but it soon became sharply defined; after a while it glided to the right, growing smaller and smaller; when 1/3 was still sticking out of the buildings the phenomonenon suddenly extinguished

Note: light was so bright that it hurt the eyes  

Sound: soft alternating noise; "bchh-bchh-bchh”

Source:  Lumières Dans La Nuit  Vol. 24, No. 203 (March 1981),  pp. 19-21 

Nearby chemical plant: Industry on the south bank of the Loire

The problem is that these extreme cases are to be regarded as pure anecdotes and that, as far as I know, no attempts were ever made to document the experiences in a scientific way. So probably we will never know if light pillars were involved or not.

However, there’s one case from Vitrolles, France, that WAS investigated shortly after it had occurred (that was on January 19, 1981, at 3 a.m).  The investigation was conducted by the local gendarmerie and the country’s official UFO investigative probe GEPAN (now GEIPAN/CNES) 

Description: very bright glow; UFO moving about in the sky; pink glow getting very large and very small; large patch of diffuse light, lighting up the sky and the entire plant; fiery orange; shaped like a cigar

Note: tens of witnesses, also from surrounding communities, called the local police, who went to the site and witnessed the phenomena for themselves; photos taken but not published; vibrations felt; windows shaken over a distance of several kilometres  

Sound: loud humming noise; very intense dull sound; like a helicopter in slow motion, heard over distances of several tens of kilometres

Source: Note Technique No. 14 - Mini  enquêtes en1981 et 1982, Toulouse, GEPAN, 1983,  pp. 1.0-1.13 (now also available at http://www.geipan.fr/fileadmin/geipan-doc/VITROLLES__13__19.01.1981__E-Csep_Cl_CR_T_C_S_A__compte_rendu_enquete-R.pdf)
  

Identification: incident with a new cracking unit at the Shell Petrochemical plant at Etang de Berre

I could cite dozens of examples of vertical “cigars” and “cylinders” that were successfully identified as light pillars from flares, but the majority of these are less spectacular. Often the veracity of the purported side effects seems to depend on who spotted the lights and who investigated the sightings.  


Location of a possible candidate for the hypothetical flare

The fact that the CASH-LANDRUMS were able to see the “vertical light” in the rear mirror when driving east to Dayton rules out oil refineries south of Houston as the cause of a light pillar. What we need is a big flame much closer to where the CASH-LANDRUMs left the Huffman-New Caney road and took the turn towards Dayton.  Historical Google Earth maps show that there was (and still is) a chemical plant near Sheldon Road, Channelview, Texas. It is now called LyondellBasell Industries (formerly Lyondell Chemical Company and before that Lyondell-Citgo). The new plant was established in 1985 from facilities belonging to the Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO Chemical). This site is a good candidate I think. It is exactly in the continuation of the stretch of the Huffman-New Caney Road where the bigger part of the incident took place. It is also not too far south. A reflection in the sky of a flare at this location would have been visible in the back of the witnesses when they were heading East to Dayton.  The plant is 34.4 km (21.4 miles) south from where the fiery streak was first spotted. 
1978 Houston area satellite photo with the UAP and chemical plant locations. 

Note: a light pillar of a big flame 21.4 miles further down the road reflecting in 13,000 to 16,000 ft high cirrus (the average altitude for this type of optical phenomenon to occur) would have been visible at an elevation of roughly 13 degrees (centre of the reflection).


Light pillars cannot display lateral movements

An (valid) objection to the Light Pillar Theory is that the sighting set off with “a light” that came from the left over the tree tops. In his recent December 4 interview at podcastufo.com, Colby repeated this. But on page 4 of SCHUESSLER’s book, which was the main source for my draft article, there is no mention of an object coming from the left. Just a “glow on the horizon” and “a vertical streak of red” that “appeared to be miles away” and “appeared to be getting larger”. 

This again is different from what we read in the article SCHUESSLER wrote for the Winter 1981 issue of UFO Report, namely: 

Suddenly they observed a large light above the pine trees some distance ahead. Although the light was extremely bright, they dismissed it as an airplane en route to Houston Intercontinental Airport and continued to drive back to Dayton.

When they rounded a curve and entered a long straight stretch of highway FM 1485, they again saw the bright light. At this time it approached the road and seemed to float down into the opening between the trees lining each side of the highway”

If the witnesses themselves dismissed the light they spotted in the East as an airplane, I see no reason to contradict this. It may well be that this light - shape and colour are not mentioned - was unconnected to the fiery streak that came into sight as the car rounded the curve. As for the object coming to a stop in the middle of the road, a very simple illusion can explain this: as Betty turned right on the road, the trees on the left will have glided past the car from right to left, making it look as if a distant stationary object sailed over the trees in the opposite direction. In other words it will have looked as if the fiery streak came from the left and settled above the road. So the movement of a plane en route for Houston, and the illusion of a light pillar gliding over the trees in the same direction, could easily have created the impression that the two were one and the same object.  
  
The important thing at this stage is that the flame-coloured vertical streak appeared stationary from the moment the witnesses were on the straight stretch of the FM 1485 that runs south.  

The problem is with what happened next, i.e. after the panic took hold of the trio. The movement to the right at the end of the “close encounter” is much more difficult to explain in terms of a reflection from a stationary ground light. One explanation would be that, as the flame slowly extinguished, another flame, located at the same plant but closer by and a bit more to the right, flared up for a short moment and created the illusion that the “object” moved upward and to the right. Two flare stacks alternatingly producing a big flame is not unusual  I’ve witnessed this on several occasions here in Antwerp and this has also been photographed on two occasions. See photos below: 




Were the weather conditions favourable for light pillars to appear? 

Thanks to Tim PRINTY we now have the weather data for three places bordering the sighting location. One important piece of information is missing though: the type of clouds and their altitude. A low cloud cover may not be ideal for light pillars to appear because it would prevent the light from the flame to reach the ice-crystal clouds higher up (the clouds in which light pillars appear are usually high-altitude cirriform clouds).  So if there were low clouds, a reflection could only have been visible through gaps in the cloud.  

Fragment of 12/29/1980 area weather data supplied by Tim Printy.



The weather situation on the ground can be very different from one light pillar observation to another. What we really need is data from a weather balloon. Tim and I tried to get these through http://weather.uwyo.edu/upperair/naconf.html, but only to found that there are no soundings available for Fort Worth, Shreveport or Corpus Christi. The closest meteorological stations that did publish soundings for December 29th are Lake Charles (112 miles E of Huffman) and Little Rock (379 miles NNE of Huffman). That's all quite far away.  Moreover, these balloons were launched at 18h00 local time, i.e. almost three hours before the sighting occurred.  But our search may not have been totally in vain: a quick look at the data from Lake Charles tells us there was a rather strong temperature inversion in the lower regions of the atmosphere (with temperatures rising with 5.6 deg Celsius between 10 metres and 55 metres and another 5.8 deg between 55 m and 887 m). Inversions are not required for light pillars to occur, but they may be instrumental in spreading the falling ice-crystals into a flat horizontal layer, much like a giant mirror. 

An inversion layer may also explain why the witnesses could hear noises of flaring activities many miles distant (inversion layers refract sound to the ground and the long road bordered by trees may have acted as a large tunnel directing the noise to the witnesses). The “deafening roar” and “intermittent beeps” reported by Betty and Vickie are the typical sounds that can be heard when flaring takes place. 

There’s one problem though: according to the weather data from Houston, Galveston and Beaumont, the wind was blowing from the N to NW during the evening (wind speed was around 10 miles/h, i.e. moderate). Normally, a northern wind would have carried the sound away from the witnesses, unless – and this is clutching at straws a bit – there was a localized inversion around Lake Houston encompassing the chemical plant and the Huffman-New Caney Road but not the surrounding areas.  It is known that the air beneath an inversion layer may be completely cut off from the air circulation of the weather system moving through the region, creating a “lake” of stagnant air. But we need a meteorologist to tell us if the weather situation on December 29 could have created such an situation or not. 


How can an optical phenomenon account for the medical traumas suffered by the witnesses?

Obviously it can’t. But perhaps air pollutants from flaring operations can.

After I sent him a copy of my draft article - that was in 2009 -, veteran researcher Matthew GRAEBER called my attention to Brad SPARKS’ analysis of this aspect of the CASH-LANDRUM incident, An Analysis of the Cash-Landrum Symptomatology. Brad - and APRO consultant Dr. Richard NIEMTZOW agreed with him on this - concluded that there were sufficient indications to accept that the symptoms suffered by the CASH-LANDRUMs could not be due to ionizing radiation. Instead, Brad’s findings showed that many elements of the case indicated that the witnesses had suffered a chemical agent exposure. 
  
Brad’s findings would be in line with Vickie’s recollection of a smell that reminded her of lighter fluid (but, if I remember well, this detail only surfaced under hypnosis so we might not want to take that too seriously). If there was a localized inversion over the lake that night, and the flare stack was below the inversion layer, we could speculate further that the inversion not only trapped the sound but also the poisonous gases from the flaring activities and perhaps even the heat emanating from the flame. On the other hand, we don’t want smoke to spread too far in the direction of the witnesses as that would have prevented the light from the flare to reflect in ice crystals suspended halfway the flare and the witnesses. So probably not a good idea. Anyone?



Conclusion

By way of conclusion, I would say that the light pillar explanation is still an option, nothing more, nothing less. For the theory to be upgraded to the status of plausible explanation, we need more proof, like a confirmation that flaring was in effect taking place at the old ARCO Chemical site that evening. But it’s not clear to whom such a request should be addressed. And if we do find someone who has access to these 33 year old archives, it’s far from certain that he or she will be prepared to consult them for a request like this. During my own inquiries, now more than a decade ago, I learned that petrochemical companies are very reluctant to give this type of information. They automatically think that some kind of pollution problem is being investigated. 

And finally, I can’t help but compare the CASH-LANDRUM incident to a pseudo-religious experience. Belgium, which is where I live, has a long history of religious apparitions. In many of these instances, the events were triggered after the percipients had seen a luminous shape in the distance that looked unusual to them. In a previous message I already pointed to the Dutch case of January 7, 2007, when a bright light pillar caused by a flare at a chemical plant in Terneuzen was interpreted by accidental observers as a sign of the second coming (see photo and caption pertaining to this incident at http://www.caelestia.be/OP-PH-21.html).  


It is not a coincidence, I think, that the CASH-LANDRUMs were “very biblical” and religious people. Perhaps their religious background helped transform a light pillar into a “chariot of fire” coming out of the sky.  Experienced investigators of UFO reports know how a bright star or planet can trigger a spectacular UFO encounter. If astronomical bodies can create such grotesque misinterpretations, a much stranger light pillar will do the job too, certainly if it’s spotted on a lonely dark road together with a fleet of helicopters.  

Wim VAN UTRECHT
(December 2013)




Thank you Wim for, continuing to investigate and explain your findings. 
Thanks also to Tim Printy for his participation and interest. - Curt