Roswell Slides aftermath: Odds and Ends

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

Hopefully, the events will be examined, and some lasting lessons will be learned about objectivity, transparency and accountability.

Interviews

There were several early radio and podcast interviews with members of the Roswell Slides Research  Group and others interested in the case. Here are the earliest ones, while the dust was still settling.

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

Radio Misterioso

The Gralien Report from May 5, 2015. Micah Hanks presents: 
"A friend of the program, researcher and filmmaker Paul Kimball, was one of the operative members of the Roswell Slides Research Group, who helped determine the origins of the mummy depicted in the images. Paul joins us in hour two of the program to discuss the need for better judgement and discernment in the field of UFO studies."

The Gralien Report

Podcast UFO by Martin Willis: "This show is dedicated to the recent Roswell Kodachrome 'Alien' Slide release, starting out with a pre-recorded Philip Mantle of UFO Today, Curt Collins of Blue Blurry Lines comes up before hour two to speak for the 'Roswell Slide' Research Group. In the bonus hour hear what Kevin Randle has to share of the latest events including his talk with Don Schmitt."

Podcast UFO

Articles

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

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

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

The (NOT) Roswell Slides Saga… by Stephen Miles Lewis
A collection of resources so fine, that I refer you to it instead of continuing this list!

Thanks to all that helped, including

It was great to see the UFO community dig in and take part in trying to get the facts on the Slides story. A few thank yous to some not previously mentioned:

Philip Mantle for collecting a list of statements from experts on mummies.
Shepherd Johnson for his work on the Mesa Verde museum and with the Eisenhower Presidential Library.
Cristian Contini, HeywoodFloyd and many others for their independent verification of the placard.
Frank Warren at UFO Chronicles for his diligence in pursuing the truth on this story.
Roberto Labanti, Harry A. Newton, Mortem Foray, Dr. David Clarke, Stan Ho, Scott Brando, and many, many more who've offered information, support and encouragement.

What's next for the RSRG?

Some people have suggested the RSRG become a UFO truth squad, but I'm not so sure about that. The way the RSRG folks were brought together was more luck than science. We happened to have some very bright and talented people, and sought outside expertise whenever we needed it. The "Slides" case was unique in many ways, chiefly in that the key evidence ultimately provided exactly the information to conclusively provide the solution. It's almost like something out of an old Batman comic, with the Joker passing out clues.

Can we do it again? Probably not, but I think the model is a good one for co-operative research. We banded together as volunteers sharing a common interest and goal, which was to find out the truth behind the Roswell Slides. The group itself was private, but within it, information was openly shared, and there was the freedom within the group to explore and develop ideas. It produced good results and as soon as we verified material it was shared publicly.

Could someone else do it? I hope so, but I caution that it can't be forced, or it could wind up a committee, and bureaucracy tends to kill the creativity and sense of fun that fueled our energy. In the meantime, the key players are still doing good work on their own. Should the need arise again, and if it sounds like fun, then we'll be there.

• José Antonio Caravaca – Esos Misteriosos Objetos Celestes y sus Tripulantes (Spain)
• Isaac Koi – IsaacKoi.com (England)
• Nab Lator – Nabbed! (France)
• Lance Moody – NotAGhost.com (USA, Ohio)
• Tim Printy – AstronomyUFO.com, UFOs, SUNlite eJournal (USA, New Hampshire)
• Curt Collins – BlueBlurryLines.com (USA, Mississippi)
• Tim Hebert – DidItReallyHappen (USA, California)
• Paul Kimball – The Other Side of Truth / Red Star Films, Paul Kimball Media  (Canada, Nova Scotia)
• Gilles Fernandez – Sceptiques vs. les Soucoupes Volantes (France)
• Chris Rutkowski – Ufology Research (Canada, Manitoba)
• Roger Glassel – @RogerGlassel (Sweden)
• S. Miles Lewis – AnomalyArchives.org / SMilesLewis.com (USA, Texas)
• Jeff Ritzmann – Paranormal Waypoint (USA, Maryland)

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

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

I wanted to call attention to the fact that Nab Lator of the RSRG created an excellent
analysis of the “Roswell Slides,” that deals with the frequently asked questions and issues discussed in relation to them.

Analysis of the “Roswell Slides” (FAQ)

The section dealing with Prof. Miguel Botella, anthropologist, Director of the Physical Anthropology Lab, University of Granada, Spain is particularly interesting,  and it refutes the lingering claims by Jaime Maussan that the mummified child is an alien from a UFO crash at Roswell.

Nabbed: Analysis of the “Roswell Slides” (FAQ)

The Roswell Slides: the Anthropologist from Canada

A lot of questions about the Roswell Slides fiasco remain, but no one is talking except Jaime Maussan. To get some answers of how it all came together, we have to start examining the statements made by the players before the event.

Tom Carey had been waiting for a "smoking gun" on the Roswell case for decades. Describing when he first saw the image in the slides, he said, "a chill ran down my spine..." and he knew it was genuine. On March 1, 2015, Tercer Milenio TV aired the program "Contacto Con Jaime Maussan." In the second hour of the show,  Tom Carey joined the program via a Skype interview to promote BeWitness and talk about the Roswell Slides.

Tom Carey on the man from Toronto

Tom Carey on Contacto

"I contacted one of my fellow graduate students when I was in the University of Toronto years ago, and I confess he was, and remains, a friend of mine, but he will tell me the truth. I respect his opinion more than anyone on anything relating to Anthropology. He’s that bright of a fellow, he still is. So, I sent him a copy of this fuzzy image that’s going around I did not send him one of the originals. I sent him the one that’s going around that someone has enhanced up.  So, I had him look at it.

Leaked "enhanced up" image
By Narrenschiffer 

I didn’t tell him what it was, I told him, ‘look at this, and you tell me what you think it is. Well, most Anthropologists that we talked to, that will talk to us, most of them run away, as you know, they do not want to get involved in anything related to UFOs or Roswell, they run away as fast as they can, but we do have a number of them who did go on the record.

But, my friend up in Toronto, he looked at this, and he did ask me a few questions about it, when it was taken, where it was, which we don’t know exactly where it was taken. And he went a step further. Most of the Anthropologists will tell us what it is not. It’s not a non-human primate, it’s not a child, it’s not a human child, it’s not a deformed child, stuff like that. Well, my friend up in Toronto went a step further. His final conclusion was-  'I said, what is your final conclusion?' And he emailed me back, he said, “This critter (that’s what he called it) the critter, this being is not from this planet. That was his conclusion.” He wouldn’t tell me what it is, he just said, whatever it is, it’s not from this planet. So, I received this yesterday, and I thanked him for his honest opinion.”

It seems strange that Carey would send the leaked slide image for analysis, as it has been widely disparaged by the slides promoters. Jaime Maussan said of it, 

"It is a picture that they took and with which they wanted to base all the research. It is a figure that is not very clear , it’s something they stretched , then modified and adjusted . I say it is more like the canary Tweety from the cartoons, the one who is always against the cat and well ... it looks more like Tweety than reality."

We now know that the former Toronto classmate that Carey was describing is Richard Doble. As the only English speaking expert featured in BeWitness, a lot of attention was focused on Doble's opinion. So far, nothing has been presented to show if he was allowed to see the original images of the slides before offering his dramatic conclusions.

"It's nothing like us, we can see that his feet, his legs appear to be a reptile, could have evolved from something like a gecko..." Richard Doble

Richard Doble

Richard Doble presented video analysis of the alien in BeWitness.

Richard Doble's written report



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

Jaime Maussan's interview with "anthropologist" Richard Doble

In Search of the Roswell Slides Mummy

There's a huge pile of study material that was prepared in the RSRG examination of the Roswell Slides, but much of it will never be used due to the quick turn of events. Still, it's interesting for some to see how the puzzle pieces were fit together, so here's a peek at some of my files on the search. 

Files from the Crypt

The Leaked Slide

One file that was shared by members of RSRG, the Roswell Slides Research Group, was the best collection of the leaked slide images. It included some composites and 3 versions of the slide by Narrenschiffer, Frank Warren and Nab Lator. This was also used to share with other researchers or those offering professional opinions, such as Dr. Hunt.

Nab Lator's version of the leaked slide.

This was hosted at the formerly top-secret page:
Unidentified Child's Mummy

Trees, as well as pixels, were sacrificed in this investigation.

The Search for the Body

 Early on, a good match for the mummy was located. When we first started looking at mummies in the precursor to RSRG, on Feb. 11, Trained Observer posted "Here is one showing a child mummy on fabric with a placard." Later the same morning, Roger Glassel, "I found a PDF which states that before 1958 the child mummy was (designated specimen 2397) at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, and later moved to the National Museum of Natural History." That was the article by Dr. David Hunt, whom he later contacted for a preliminary opinion.

A Child's Mummy by David Hunt AnthroNotes Volume 33 No. Spring 2012

Although the mummy was not an exact match for the child in the slides, the size, position, and proportions and condition of the body were nearly identical to it. Some members of our group were convinced it was a match, and that the differences came from the angle and lighting in the photograph, or differences in the positioning of the severed head.

Boy mummy from Thebes on display at the 

National Museum of Natural History. 

Dr. Hunt scanning 2397.

A failed composite attempting to recreate the scene. 

Other comparisons were made to the skeletons of children, but again, the angle of the source photo made this difficult, not to mention the low quality of the leaked slide. 

The detached skull seemed to be placed on the chest, making the torso appear shorter.

This comparison demonstrates how closely the mummy matched different child skeletons. 

This composite took elements from different pictures in an attempt to reconstruct the entire body's display as well as the surrounding room.

Similar collections were assembled of various mummies, side-show exhibits, and also things like museum cases and shelving.

The Smoking Gun

Although there was little doubt as to the size and age of the body, efforts to locate the particular mummy were unsuccessful, even after the big reveal of the clearer photographs at the show. Most people who looked objectively at the images agreed that they depicted a mummy, but it seemed unless the body was identified, doubt would always remain. 

From BeWitness

The new images from Be Witness provided more detail, but no immediate clues, and definitively ruled out our leading suspect 2397. Tim Hebert began a detailed examination of the body in the photos, but those studies were sidelined by the arrival of the  placard picture which yielded the solution to the mystery of the mummy slides. By the time you read this, period museum photos of the mummy on display will probably have been located and published.

Illustration by Nippa Downey

Thus endeth...

Of course, not everyone accepted the proof, or took the news well.

Twitter @jaimemaussan1

ID Confirmed: the Roswell Slides Mummy of Mesa Verde

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

The Boy mummy described.

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

Placard revealed by Nab Lator using SmartDeblur

Illustration by Nippa Downey

 Details of the Body

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

Region III Quarterly Volume 2 - No. 1   January, 1940

HUMAN PRUNES By Don Watson,

Park Naturalist, Mesa Verde National Park.

http://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/region_111/vol2-1c.htm

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

"Another excellent mummy in the Mesa Verde Museum is that of a small boy of perhaps two or three. X-rays of the teeth have not been taken so the exact age is uncertain. The body is well mummified, but small patches of skin are missing and the lower part of the right leg has disappeared. The skin has lost all of its former color and is an uninteresting dull gray shade. Part of a small slip-over cotton shirt still hangs around the shoulders. Several pieces of cotton in which the body was wrapped are well preserved. This mummy is not popular with visitors. It has such a negative personality that it has never been named. Even though it is well preserved, it fails to click. The spark is not there; that certain something is missing."

 The placard has been read, and matched to historical documents that precisely describe it. The location is known, and no real mystery remains about it.

Mesa Verde Notes September 1938 Volume VIII, Number 1.

---

A further matching detail on the location

Located by Roger Glassel of RSRG.

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

Now that the location is known,many other details are also being matched. The placard font and distinctive border.

Chapin Mesa Archeological Museum 
Thanks to Shepherd Johnson

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