Monday, May 18, 2015

In Search of the Roswell Slides Mummy


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


Files from the Crypt

The Leaked Slide

One file that was shared by members of RSRG, the Roswell Slides Research Group, was the best collection of the leaked slide images. It included some composites and 3 versions of the slide by Narrenschiffer, Frank Warren and Nab Lator. This was also used to share with other researchers or those offering professional opinions, such as Dr. Hunt.
Nab Lator's version of the leaked slide.
This was hosted at the formerly top-secret page:
Unidentified Child's Mummy



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


The Search for the Body

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








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


Boy mummy from Thebes on display at the 
National Museum of Natural History. 


Dr. Hunt scanning 2397.


A failed composite attempting to recreate the scene. 




Other comparisons were made to the skeletons of children, but again, the angle of the source photo made this difficult, not to mention the low quality of the leaked slide. 
The detached skull seemed to be placed on the chest, making the torso appear shorter.

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

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


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

The Smoking Gun

Although there was little doubt as to the size and age of the body, efforts to locate the particular mummy were unsuccessful, even after the big reveal of the clearer photographs at the show. Most people who looked objectively at the images agreed that they depicted a mummy, but it seemed unless the body was identified, doubt would always remain. 
From BeWitness
The new images from Be Witness provided more detail, but no immediate clues, and definitively ruled out our leading suspect 2397. Tim Hebert began a detailed examination of the body in the photos, but those studies were sidelined by the arrival of the  placard picture which yielded the solution to the mystery of the mummy slides. By the time you read this, period museum photos of the mummy on display will probably have been located and published.

Illustration by Nippa Downey

Thus endeth...



Of course, not everyone accepted the proof, or took the news well.
Twitter @jaimemaussan1

Wednesday, May 13, 2015

ID Confirmed: the Roswell Slides Mummy of Mesa Verde


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


The Boy mummy described.


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


Placard revealed by Nab Lator using SmartDeblur
Illustration by Nippa Downey

 Details of the Body

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


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

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

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


Mesa Verde Notes September 1938 Volume VIII, Number 1.


A further matching detail on the location


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

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




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

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

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



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


Don Schmitt and Tom Carey


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tom Carey.



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

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

The Apology

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



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

Donald R. Schmitt





Monday, May 11, 2015

Press Release: The Roswell Slides Research Group


The Roswell Slides Research Group is a very informal group of about 20 UFO researchers and skeptics formed to critically evaluate claims being made about the so-called Roswell Slides. Some very enterprising work has now been done by one member of the Roswell Slides Research Group ("Nab Lator"). He used commercial software, SmartDeblur (written by Vladimir Yuzhikov, making use of an image processing technique known as blind deconvolution"), to significantly clear up the blurred text. Other members of the Group offered some suggestions and helped narrow down the actual words. 


Following a bit of work by various members of the team over a period of a few hours, an item was posted on the Blue Blurry Lines blog setting out some of the initial results. (The words MUMMIFIED BODY OF TWO YEAR OLD BOY" were clear, with 3 further lines of text seeming to say something like: 
"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 Mr. Xxxxxx, San Francisco, California

That post provoked yet further outrage from the promoters of the Roswell Slides. Their website quickly responded with allegations that the deblurring work of the Roswell Slides Research Group was a fake - claiming, for example, that,  “The image they claim to have de-blured is its self [sic] a fake created by taking a low resolution copy of our scan and editing it in photoshop

Again within hours, instructions were posted online in the form of videos and step-by-step instructions which allowed anyone to duplicate the relevant deblurring using material on the website of the promoters of the slides. Various other researchers have now duplicated, and accepted, those results. Most members of the UFO community have now moved on to ask how the text was not clear to the promoters of the slides before a big show was held in Mexico and whether the actions of those few individuals will do lasting damage to the wider field of UFO research.

More details can be found on the website of the Roswell Slides Research Group at the first link below and in a post (which includes the relevant step-by-step instruction) on the AboveTopSecret.com discussion forum at the second link : 

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.