Source: CNN - Atlanta, Georgia USA
http://transcripts.cnn.com<wbr>/TRANSCRIPTS/0707/13/lkl.02<wbr>.html
July 13, 2007
CNN LARRY KING LIVE
Are UFOs Real?
Aired July 13, 2007 - 21:00 ET
This is a rush transcript. This copy may not be in its final
form and may be updated.
LARRY KING, HOST: Tonight, was a UFO buzzing around the historic
Apollo 11 moon mission? Astronaut Buzz Aldrin tells us what he
thinks he saw.
Arizona's former governor once dismissed the Phoenix lights that
stunned hundreds of eyewitnesses 10 years ago. He'll explain why
he now says they could not have been military flares.
Plus, the stories behind the close encounters former Presidents
Jerry Ford and Jimmy Carter allegedly had.
And a return to Roswell, New Mexico, where the UFO controversy
began 60 years ago with the man who says his father showed him
debris from an alien spacecraft.
It's all next on LARRY KING LIVE.
Good evening.
It's a topic that won't go away... 60 years ago, July 1947, the
small town of Roswell, New Mexico went from obscurity to global
renown after reports that UFO had crashed there.
Today, people who suggest the possibility that life exists in
other galaxies look to Roswell as a modern event that seems to
back up the theories.
We welcome Dr. Jesse Marcel, Jr. here in Los Angeles. He was
shown UFO debris by his father, Major Jesse Marcel. He's author
of "The Roswell Legacy."
Stanton Friedman, one of the foremost experts on Roswell and
UFOs.
And in Roswell, New Mexico is Julie Shuster, executive director
of the International UFO Museum and Research Center at Roswell.
Julie's father, Walter Haut, was the public information officer
at Roswell Air Base. He put out the press release about the UFO.
Dr. Marcel, tell us about your dad.
DR. JESSE MARCEL, JR. WAS SHOWN UFO DEBRIS BY HIS FATHER, MAJOR
JESSE MARCEL; AUTHOR OF "THE ROSWELL LEGACY": Well, he was the
base intelligence officer for the 509th Bomb Group, which is the
bomb group that dropped the atomic bomb on Japan that won the
war for us.
KING: They were based at Roswell?
MARCEL: They were based at Roswell, at Roswell Army Air Field.
And as the intelligence officer, his job was to investigate
unusual events. And a rancher found some strange debris on his
ranch land some miles northwest of Roswell. He called the
sheriff and brought some to the sheriff. The sheriff didn't know
what this was. So the sheriff then called the base commander,
Colonel Blanchard, to look into this. And since my dad was the
intelligence officer, he sent he and a CIC agent out to the
ranch... CIC was a forerunner of the CIA at that time.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Counter Intelligence Corps.
MARCEL: Counter Intelligence Corps.
And when my dad got out there, he found a large area of strange
looking debris. This was not remains of a weather balloon or a
radar tordid (ph), because the rancher found those before. So
this is totally different from that.
So in order to determine what this was, he picked up a certain
representative portion of the debris, brought it in to Roswell.
Now, it just so happens our house was on the way to Roswell, to
the base there. So even though it's late at night, maybe 1:00 in
the morning, he came in, woke my mother and myself up.
KING: You were a kid?
MARCEL: I was a kid. Eleven years old at that time. And he will
already spread some debris out on the kitchen floor.
And he says, "Look at this. I think this is parts of a flying
saucer," or words to that effect. And being a child, I was not
quite sure what a flying saucer was, but he was so excited I
thought, well, you know, I'd better look at this.
So, he says look for...
KING: He was a major?
MARCEL: He was a major at that time.
And he said, "Look at this. There's (INAUDIBLE) electronic
components like vacuum tubes and resistors. It wasn't anything
like that at all. But it was strange. There was foil. There was
...
KING: So what eventually happened?
Did he...
MARCEL: OK.
What he did, he... we looked at this for a period of time, then
he gathered it had back up and then brought it back to the air
base that night. And constituently he flew us to General Ramey's
office in Fort Worth. And when he came home later, he told my
mother and myself never talk about this again, that it was a
non-event, don't talk about it, period.
STANTON FRIEDMAN, LEADING EXPERT ON UFOS AND ROSWELL INCIDENT:
General Ramey was head of the 8th Air Force and Jesse reported
to his boss, Colonel Blanchard. He reported to General Ramey.
KING: And this proceeded to lead to a cover-up, in your opinion?
FREIDMAN: There's no question because General Ramey's...
KING: A cover-up of what?
FREIDMAN: Well, OK. Interesting question. I think alien
spacecraft. And they put phony wreckage out. This is General
Ramey. And here's his chief of staff...
KING: I want to show this.
FREIDMAN:... Thomas Jefferson Dubose... and I managed to locate
General Dubose, by this time a retired general, mind you, many
years later. And he told me that he took a call from Ramey's
boss in Washington telling him, "Get the press off our back. I
don't care how you do it. Send some of that wreckage up here
today."
There's a great headline, Larry.
KING: That's a great headline.
FREIDMAN: He said, "Send some of that wreckage up here today
with one of your colonel couriers and I don't want you to ever
talk about it again, not even with your buddy, Roger Ramey.
That's an order. Do I need to put it in writing?"
No, sir.
KING: I've done so many shows on this...
FREIDMAN: I know.
KING:... over the years, as you know. We went out in UFO
territory in Nevada.
Where was that?
Fifty-one, Area 51.
FREIDMAN: Yes, near Rachel, Nevada.
KING: And what has never been answered is why cover it up?
FREIDMAN: On my Web site...
KING: OK, let's say there's life in outer space.
FREIDMAN: That isn't the question...
KING: And let's say they came here. OK.
FREIDMAN: That isn't the question...
KING: Did they... were they out to destroy us, what?
FREIDMAN: I have a paper on my Web site called "The UFO Why
Questions," and that's the biggest one... why the cover-up?
I give six reasons. You want to figure out how to work, they
make wonderful delivery and defense systems. You've got
wreckage. Rule number one for security... I worked under
security for 14 years, Larry... is you can't tell your friends
without telling your enemies. They listen to you, too, after
all.
KING: So you're still working on this 40 years later?
You're still working on?
FREIDMAN: yes, believe it or not.
KING: All right, Julie...
FREIDMAN: (INAUDIBLE)...
KING: Hold on.
Julie Shuster is the executive director of the International
UFO.
Your father was... and a famous name, Walter Haut... he was
public information officer.
Was he asked to cover it up, too?
JULIE SHUSTER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL UFO MUSEUM AT
ROSWELL: My father all along said that he issued the press
release. And when he asked to see the debris, he said no.
He... as far as the cover-up, part of... being part of the
cover- up, no, to my knowledge he was not.
KING: What did the press release say?
SHUSTER: The press release basically said... and using his
words, because I've heard it many, many times... was we have in
our possession a flying saucer. It's being flown to higher
headquarters in Fort Worth. And his biggest regret on that press
release was using the words "it's being flown to higher
headquarters," because the media called from around the world
saying how did they know how to fly it?
And he had to explain it was being put on aircraft.
And then he would, you know, that was his biggest thing. And he
said... but he would also add, but it was not of this Earth.
So that was basically his story.
KING: That was the release
What did your father believe?
SHUSTER: My father believed it was not of this Earth. It was not
a craft of ours. It was something unknown. And he used the words
"not of this Earth." He was very emphatic about that.
FRIEDMAN: He told me that, too.
KING: Do you know why we have not heard of it... or what's your
guess, Jesse in, a long time?
MARCEL: Well, I'm not sure why we haven't heard about it because
I think the American public is well enough informed about space
to know about this, that they deserve to know that there's
another life out there, that we're not the only ones. Because if
we are, there's an awful lot of wasted space out there.
KING: We'll take a break and be back with more.
Our full show tonight devoted to UFOs.
We have a skeptic, as well. He'll be with us.
Don't go away.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The strange wreckage that Brasile discovered
spanned an area 300 yards wide by a mile long. That parcel of
land, known to investigators as the debris field, is where some
believe an extraterrestrial craft blew apart and fell to Earth.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, JUNE 1997)
COL. JOHN HAYNES, U.S. AIR FORCE: Over a period of time, dummies
were dropped all around there. And I think it's logical to
assume that the people there saw Air Force ambulances come out.
They saw gurneys come out. They saw body bags come out because
the dummies were put into the body bags to protect them. They
saw people in pith helmets. They saw people in shorts out there
brushing the bushes, looking for the remnants of the balloons.
And when you put all that stuff together and spin it, you find
that it fits perfectly with many of the occurrences in Roswell
during that era.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Remaining with us, Dr. Jesse Marcel, Jr. Stanton Friedman
and Julie Shuster. By the way, Dr. Marcel wrote The Roswell
Legacy.
The forward was written by Stanton Friedman.
Joining us now, Michael Shermer, the publisher of "Skeptic"
magazine. "Skeptic" did a whole issue, or a major part of an
issue, on Roswell a couple of years back.
And James Fox, filmmaker, executive producer of the feature
length documentary, "Out of the Blue: The Definitive
Investigation of the UFO Phenomenon." That documentary is
narrated by our good friend, Peter Coyote and was just released
on DVD.
Is that the one where... in which Presidents Carter and Ford
discuss their sightings?
JAMES FOX, FILMMAKER WHO EXECUTIVE PRODUCED THE AWARD-WINNING,
FEATURE-LENGTH DOCUMENTARY OUT OF THE BLUE: THE DEFINITIVE
INVESTIGATION OF THE UFO PHENOMENON: Yes.
KING: What do they say?
FOX: Jimmy Carter said he actually saw a UFO and he describes...
he was with, I think, 10 witnesses and...
KING: He was on a plane, right?
FOX: No, he was actually standing outside in Georgia, I believe.
And that was when he was a Congressman. And he said it just shot
off...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was governor.
FOX: Governor.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was governor.
FOX: Governor. I'm so sorry. Excuse me. He was governor. And it
shot off at a high rate of speed and disappeared.
KING: And Ford?
FOX: Ford was involved... it was a very major sighting. It was
the equivalent sighting that happened over at the State of
Arizona that has actually happened over in Chicago, what was it,
1966, Stanton Friedman?
FREIDMAN: I'm not sure.
FOX: I think it was 1966. But the Air Force came forward with
some swamp gas explanation and Ford...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That was Michigan.
FOX:... pushed for... Michigan, yes. Ford pushed for
Congressional hearings and he admitted that on (INAUDIBLE)...
KING: And that's out in DVD now, right?
FOX: yes.
KING: Michael, what do you make of all of this?
MICHAEL SHERMER, PUBLISHER, "SKEPTIC" MAGAZINE: Well, I think
it's good to start with separating two separate questions... are
there extraterrestrial intelligences somewhere in the cosmos and
have they come here?
So, we have no evidence for either one. The probabilities are
probably we're not alone, so... but it's a vast, empty universe,
it's hard to get here and so forth.
The set of evidences used to prove that they've come here are
sub what we would expect in a scientific debate. For example, if
you're a biologist and you want to name a new species, you have
to actually have a type specimen, an actual body. So I always
say to the Loch Ness monster people or Big Foot or aliens, show
me the body.
I mean once we have that, then we have what scientists consider
to be empirical data, where we can dissect it, photograph it,
discuss it, look at it and so forth.
So far, this is still at the level of grainy videos, blurry
photographs and anecdotes about things that go bump in the
night.
KING: But what about strange metals being taken away...
SHERMER: Well...
KING:... and told not to say anything about it?
SHERMER: OK.
So, first of all, do governments lie?
Do they have security cover-ups?
Do they have military secrets?
Yes, of course. So...
KING: But while...
SHERMER: This is in the middle of the cold war. These... this
debris that was shown in the photograph was described as... and
it looks like... balsa wood, tape, balloons. And, in fact, this
is Project...
FREIDMAN: Not true, Larry.
SHERMER:... this is Project Mogul.
So, in the middle of the cold war we're launching these high
altitude balloons to monitor Soviet upper atmosphere nuclear
explosions.
FREIDMAN: Larry, we're simply ignoring the evidence. Dr. Shermer
isn't a skeptic, he's a debunker. He starts with the presumption
there's nothing to this. The explanation is away from the
reality.
There's no question that that stuff isn't part of what Jesse
Marcel brought in.
SHERMER: Wait. This looks like balsa wood and tape...
FREIDMAN: Of course, it does.
(CROSSTALK)
FREIDMAN: But that's not what was found...
SHERMER: And that's what they said it is.
FREIDMAN: That's not what was found...
SHERMER: Yes, it is.
FREIDMAN:... out in the desert.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This stuff was switched.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They switched it. This is not what...
FREIDMAN: The original descriptions on July 8th are very
different. The rancher was grabbed, brought back into town, fed
a whole new story with information that simply doesn't fit
reality.
SHERMER: But, of course, because...
FREIDMAN: The mogul balloon explanation doesn't fit.
SHERMER: It...
FREIDMAN: The materials are wrong, the location is wrong, the
timing is wrong.
SHERMER: Would it... would it surprise anybody to learn that our
government told people don't say this, do say that, because
we're in the middle of a cold war?
FREIDMAN: That isn't the question.
SHERMER: Of course. That is what happened.
FREIDMAN: The question is to look at the evidence and what he
saw...
MARCEL: I saw something totally different from that...
KING: Now, he saw...
(CROSSTALK)
KING: Now, wait a minute.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is not what was recovered.
KING: He's the only one in the room that saw something.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
KING: Eleven years old, but remembers it.
MARCEL: I remember that very well, in spite of being 11, because
it was such a very intriguing experience. Now, the most
important thing I saw was the bean-like material that had some
strange... some symbols along the inner surface. They were
purple, violet, semi- reflective of light but small, about three
eights of an inch in diameter or in length.
KING: They didn't look like anything you'd ever seen?
MARCEL: I thought at first it was like Egyptian hieroglyphics,
but it wasn't. It was more like mathematical or geometric
symbols. And that's... they're all...
KING: Did you have another guess for it?
MARCEL: Not at that time, no.
FREIDMAN: His father told me, when I first talked to him back in
the '70s, that there was nothing conventional out on that field.
We've got an area three quarters of a mile long, hundreds of
feet wide... nothing conventional.
KING: Julie, did your father see it?
SHUSTER: My father came out with a statement after his death, we
released that, said he did see the craft, yes.
KING: He did see it?
SHUSTER: Yes, sir.
Find anything in the craft?
Did he find anything in the craft?
SHUSTER: I don't know. He doesn't go into that in the statement
and he didn't... he was not privy. He was not out at the site.
What he saw, I believe, was at the Air Force base.
KING: Weaponry aside, Michael, if there are extraterrestrials,
why hide it?
SHERMER: Yes, right?
That's what I say, why hide it?
But, look, this would be the greatest discovery in the history
of science. NASA would be elated, of course. They'd could go to
Congress and get more funding.
Why would anybody cover this up?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not at all.
SHERMER: And look what happens when they make even the smallest
discoveries. Of course, we hear all about it.
KING: James?
FOX: I have a question to ask you.
SHERMER: Yes?
FOX: If UFOs... and I'm speaking hypothetically for a moment
here... if UFOs are real, it would be one of the greatest
discoveries of our time. Do you agree with that?
SHERMER: Of course.
FOX: Now, if UFOs were... and I use the word if... were buzzing
around in our airspace, who would be best equipped to know about
it?
SHERMER: Well, our government, perhaps.
FOX: The military?
SHERMER: Maybe. But maybe not.
KING: Yes, all right...
(CROSSTALK)
FOX: So we've got the highest ranking military officials in the
world telling us right now that these things are real. We've got
generals...
SHERMER: No.
FOX: We've got admirals, we've got colonels, we've got
presidents, governors.
What do...
SHERMER: (INAUDIBLE)...
FOX: If we can't believe them, who can we believe?
SHERMER: OK.
A lack of evidence...
FOX: I'm sorry, if we can't believe them, who can we believe?
SHERMER: Well, I...
FREIDMAN: There's physical traces...
(CROSSTALK)
SHERMER: Well, I... I wouldn't necessarily...
(CROSSTALK)
SHERMER: Listen, guys, guys, wait.
FREIDMAN: Evidence. You don't talk about evidence.
SHERMER: This is simply a lack of evidence. So when I say...
FREIDMAN: No.
SHERMER: Where is the spacecraft, you say they hid it.
Where is the documentation?
They covered it up.
This is like the weapons of mass destruction thing.
Where is the evidence?
The fact that we can't find any means that they're there because
it's not (INAUDIBLE).
KING: Let me get a break and we'll be right back with more on
this edition of LARRY KING LIVE.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What is our relationship to the larger
reality?
SEAN THACKERY, CIVILIAN SIGHTING, MARIN, CALIFORNIA: I looked up
and all of a sudden there was this, you know... I've got to say
it, flying saucer.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It didn't even make a sound, not even a
sound.
RENATO NICOLAI, CIVILIAN SIGHTING, FRANCE: I saw one, but I
don't whether it just disappeared.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(VIDEO OF AN ALIEN DOLL) KING: The skeptic here is the only one
that brings these.
(LAUGHTER).
SHERMER: He drinks beer, too.
FREIDMAN: We worry about evidence. We don't worry about...
KING: The truth is, James, we want it to be true.
Don't you think 90 percent of the public wants it to be true?
FOX: I challenge anyone out there who is watching this show
tonight... and I bring this to your attention, as well... to
watch "Out of the Blue" and conclude there's nothing to this
phenomenon. It's impossible.
SHERMER: Well, when you say nothing to it, of course, there's
something to explain.
FOX: It's inexplicable.
SHERMER: Before we say something is out of this world, let's
first make sure that it's not in this world. And there's nothing
out of this world...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, (INAUDIBLE)...
SHERMER:... and there's so much we don't know about the natural
...
FOX: Process of elimination.
SHERMER:... world. There's so much we...
(CROSSTALK)
SHERMER: It could be military aircraft.
FOX: No, hang on a second.
(CROSSTALK)
KING: There's a 1997 event in your film, right?
FOX: yes.
KING: What happened?
FOX: A very massive craft flew over the State of Arizona. It was
witnessed...
SHERMER: Maybe.
FOX: No. It's a fact.
SHERMER: Light.
FOX: OK?
SHERMER: Light.
FOX: No, a craft.
(CROSSTALK)
FOX: These kids said you could have hit it with a rock...
SHERMER: Don't say massive. Just...
FOX:... it was so low.
SHERMER:... something.
FOX: It was a massive craft that flew... this... this kid said
he could have hit it with a rock.
SHERMER: Well, so what?
(CROSSTALK)
KING: We're watching this now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, you're not.
Larry, you're not watching that...
KING: Oh, That's not it?
Wrong information.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, no, that's right.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's the B roll from the footage, but it's
...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But that is the Phoenix lights. That's right.
FREIDMAN: No. Those are the flares seen at 10:00, not the
massive thing...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Think of that as eye candy over...
FREIDMAN:... seen earlier in the evening by...
(CROSSTALK)
FOX: Larry, think of any of this trying to...
KING: One at a time.
FOX: Let me finish. Let me finish.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was night.
FOX: So, there were a lot of people out under the night sky
looking up to get a glimpse of the Hale-Bopp Comet. And at about
8:30 this very large boomerang shaped craft flew over and was
witnessed by hundreds of thousands of people.
About two months later, an article brought it... it got a lot of
local media and an article broke in "USA Today" which pretty
much put it into the forefront of... in the U.S. The story
broke.
And Fife Symington came forward and had a press conference and
said he was going to get to the bottom of it. He was the
governor of Arizona at the time. And later that afternoon, he
had a press conference... an unscheduled press conference where
he had one of his aides dressed up in an alien suit and made a
joke out of the whole thing.
Well, I was always puzzled because I spoke to many of the
witnesses that saw this craft and I was wondering that like why
he did, why he did what he did.
So I contacted him 10 years later and he recanted... not only
did he recant the statement, he said he investigated...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE).
FOX:... he investigated the whole... the thing, and then he
himself, who was a captain in the Air Force, saw it.
KING: All right, let me ask some fair questions.
FOX: OK.
KING: Are you open to the possibility, Michael?
SHERMER: Of course. I mean all science is open to that. But...
but... but just being open to it and what we would like to be
true, does not make it true.
KING: Are you open to the possibility, Jesse, you're wrong?
MARCEL: I am. But not really.
(LAUGHTER).
MARCEL: Not really.
SHERMER: Well, look, Larry, this has all the earmarks of a myth.
It started, really, in the late 1980s. If you look in the UFO
literature of the 1940s, '50s and '60s, there's almost no
mention of Roswell. Other incidences are the big meccas of the
UFO-ology (ph). This becomes...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That shows you how successful they were.
SHERMER: This becomes... 40 years after the fact eyewitnesses
start remembering things. We know about the psychology of
misremembering, confabulation of different memories.
KING: Well, all right...
SHERMER: We know that... and think about just one thing.
Why would the aliens look like this?
KING: Well, that's...
SHERMER: These are bipedal...
KING: Who drew that?
Who drew that?
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, where did you get that?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They don't need to pay you money to draw an
alien.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE:... only one that believes in an alien.
SHERMER: This is... this comes from television (INAUDIBLE)...
KING: Yes, but that's not drawn (INAUDIBLE)...
SHERMER:... (INAUDIBLE) from eyewitness accounts. And once it
got started, once this image began...
KING: You mean from like from the national trade whacko
magazine?
SHERMER: Yes, that's right. But once that became the image of
what aliens would look like, that's what people began to see in
their dreams and their abduction experiences.
KING: E.T.?
SHERMER: That's right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now wait a minute.
SHERMER: So...