By Don Ecker
Greetings UFO readers. Here in southern California the August sun continues its brutal summer assault. My AC is presently on the fritz but I managed to save the day while writing by bringing in my living room fan. Now on to this issues rant.
I actually knew what my subject would be back in late June. A buddy of mine had called me then and asked me if I had caught Nick Redfern’s appearance on Noory’s Coast To Coast program, and his explanation of what really occurred almost 60 years ago at Roswell, New Mexico. I hadn’t, but my friend made an MP-3 recording and got it off to me immediately. Ah Ha! Once again, the final explanation? My mind raced back to 1997 and the Pentagon’s “The Roswell Report; Case Closed” explanation. Having endured what then seemed like an endless spate of radio and television interviews, I was totally familiar with the Air Force’s “spin-doctoring.”
The day the report was released by the US Air Force, I was sitting in the NBC studio’s waiting for the completed Air Force press briefing, to be interviewed on MSNBC. I watched the Air Force spokesperson once again giving the final word on what “really happened” in Roswell way back in 1947. (Unfortunately, I didn’t receive my copy of the report until after I was on this interview. What I could have done with that!) And remember, by the time this explanation was laid on the American public, the Air Force had already claimed “we got a disc” in 1947, “oop’s, nope not a disc but a weather balloon!” in 1947 and then “Nope!, it twas really a Project Mogul balloon!” in the 1990’s. Oh goody, now there going to give us one last good old college try.
I listened to this poor Air Force Colonel talk about how even he might have been fooled had he been driving somewhere down the the South West US and came across something like this! Quick camera shot to page 45 of the “Report” showing a Viking space probe from 1972! Of course not a word on how somebody in 1947 might have seen a NASA probe from 25 years into the future! Another unforgettable moment was when this guy was asked a question about the bodies a number of witnesses claimed they saw. Hey, no problem. The Air Force was ready with what I somewhat cynically thought was another “instant” explanation.
Starting in 1953 and running until 1959, the Air Force conducted high altitude parachute experiments using anthropomorphic test dummies. This dummies were dropped from altitudes as high as almost 100,000 feet. In fact one officer, Captain Joseph Kittinger, Jr. jumped from an altitude of 102,800 on August 16, 1960. This is still a world’s record. But I can already hear you asking me, “hey Ecker, the Roswell event, whatever in hell it was, was 1947. You said these tests started in 1953. What gives?” Well you’re right. What gives? Well, according to the Air Force it was “time compression!” In other words, all those folks that claimed they saw bodies at the Roswell event really were confused because what they really saw were Air Force test dummies in about 1953 or so. (For just a brief second, I tried to think what would have happened with my dad had I ever tried to convince him that what he remembered from the Battle of the Bulge in 1944, the cold winter, the snow, the Germans, etc., he really had confused with his later being sent to Korea at the start of that war. I think my ears are still ringing!” Yeah, time compression. That’s the ticket.
So, I got a copy of Nick Redfern’s interview and listened to it then I called him. As he details in his new book “"Body Snatchers in the Desert: The Horrible Truth At The Heart Of The Roswell Story" Redfern was able to locate a number of now 80 plus year old former government workers, who over the years claim that through their jobs, they stumbled over what really happened in Roswell in 1947. Speaking to Nick Redfern, I must say he was most even handed about what he dug up. As he told me, there was always the possibility that this information might be disinformation. But his sources claim that what came down was terrestrial debris and human beings from an ultra secret experiment that had its origins in Imperial Japan.
As we all know, near the latter days of World War II, the Japanese launched hundreds of what were called Fugo Balloons at the US. These were balloons carrying bombs that the Japanese hoped would be carried to the US via the jetstream. Upon reaching the west coast of the US, the balloons would release the bomb load and hopefully (according to Japanese hopes) raging fires would erupt. Some bomb loads did make it here, and a small number of civilians even became causalities, but this was successfully hidden from the Japanese military. Redfern went on to tell me that had the war not ended in August of 1945, there were plans being made for a very large array of balloons carrying a Horton type glider, and crewed by Japanese Kamakazi pilots to be sent over here carrying biological weapons to release over American airspace. Redfern’s speculation, buttressed by his unnamed sources, believe that much like Operation PaperClip, US Intelligence brought Japanese officers from their biological warefare units to the United States to study their research. The suggestion was that the US tested the concept that the Japanese came up with, to launch this Horton type craft from a balloon manned by Japanese pilots. The device (according to Redferns speculation) crashed with the balloon debris falling on the Brazel ranch, and the Horton type device with the Japanese pilots crashed elsewhere.
Of course, over the last few years, almost as many “explanations” have been proposed as years have gone by. I thanked Nick Redfern for his research on this seminal case. I told him that while I disagree with his speculation, we can never have too many researchers looking at the Roswell event. Now with the passage of almost 60 years, I question whether we will truly know what came down there. But for me, the ET explanation seems to answer most of the questions about what went down there. Over the years I’ve spoken with several first hand witnesses and they were totally convinced that what crashed there in 1947 was an alien ship. Whom am I to disagree with them?
Greetings UFO readers. Here in southern California the August sun continues its brutal summer assault. My AC is presently on the fritz but I managed to save the day while writing by bringing in my living room fan. Now on to this issues rant.
I actually knew what my subject would be back in late June. A buddy of mine had called me then and asked me if I had caught Nick Redfern’s appearance on Noory’s Coast To Coast program, and his explanation of what really occurred almost 60 years ago at Roswell, New Mexico. I hadn’t, but my friend made an MP-3 recording and got it off to me immediately. Ah Ha! Once again, the final explanation? My mind raced back to 1997 and the Pentagon’s “The Roswell Report; Case Closed” explanation. Having endured what then seemed like an endless spate of radio and television interviews, I was totally familiar with the Air Force’s “spin-doctoring.”
The day the report was released by the US Air Force, I was sitting in the NBC studio’s waiting for the completed Air Force press briefing, to be interviewed on MSNBC. I watched the Air Force spokesperson once again giving the final word on what “really happened” in Roswell way back in 1947. (Unfortunately, I didn’t receive my copy of the report until after I was on this interview. What I could have done with that!) And remember, by the time this explanation was laid on the American public, the Air Force had already claimed “we got a disc” in 1947, “oop’s, nope not a disc but a weather balloon!” in 1947 and then “Nope!, it twas really a Project Mogul balloon!” in the 1990’s. Oh goody, now there going to give us one last good old college try.
I listened to this poor Air Force Colonel talk about how even he might have been fooled had he been driving somewhere down the the South West US and came across something like this! Quick camera shot to page 45 of the “Report” showing a Viking space probe from 1972! Of course not a word on how somebody in 1947 might have seen a NASA probe from 25 years into the future! Another unforgettable moment was when this guy was asked a question about the bodies a number of witnesses claimed they saw. Hey, no problem. The Air Force was ready with what I somewhat cynically thought was another “instant” explanation.
Starting in 1953 and running until 1959, the Air Force conducted high altitude parachute experiments using anthropomorphic test dummies. This dummies were dropped from altitudes as high as almost 100,000 feet. In fact one officer, Captain Joseph Kittinger, Jr. jumped from an altitude of 102,800 on August 16, 1960. This is still a world’s record. But I can already hear you asking me, “hey Ecker, the Roswell event, whatever in hell it was, was 1947. You said these tests started in 1953. What gives?” Well you’re right. What gives? Well, according to the Air Force it was “time compression!” In other words, all those folks that claimed they saw bodies at the Roswell event really were confused because what they really saw were Air Force test dummies in about 1953 or so. (For just a brief second, I tried to think what would have happened with my dad had I ever tried to convince him that what he remembered from the Battle of the Bulge in 1944, the cold winter, the snow, the Germans, etc., he really had confused with his later being sent to Korea at the start of that war. I think my ears are still ringing!” Yeah, time compression. That’s the ticket.
So, I got a copy of Nick Redfern’s interview and listened to it then I called him. As he details in his new book “"Body Snatchers in the Desert: The Horrible Truth At The Heart Of The Roswell Story" Redfern was able to locate a number of now 80 plus year old former government workers, who over the years claim that through their jobs, they stumbled over what really happened in Roswell in 1947. Speaking to Nick Redfern, I must say he was most even handed about what he dug up. As he told me, there was always the possibility that this information might be disinformation. But his sources claim that what came down was terrestrial debris and human beings from an ultra secret experiment that had its origins in Imperial Japan.
As we all know, near the latter days of World War II, the Japanese launched hundreds of what were called Fugo Balloons at the US. These were balloons carrying bombs that the Japanese hoped would be carried to the US via the jetstream. Upon reaching the west coast of the US, the balloons would release the bomb load and hopefully (according to Japanese hopes) raging fires would erupt. Some bomb loads did make it here, and a small number of civilians even became causalities, but this was successfully hidden from the Japanese military. Redfern went on to tell me that had the war not ended in August of 1945, there were plans being made for a very large array of balloons carrying a Horton type glider, and crewed by Japanese Kamakazi pilots to be sent over here carrying biological weapons to release over American airspace. Redfern’s speculation, buttressed by his unnamed sources, believe that much like Operation PaperClip, US Intelligence brought Japanese officers from their biological warefare units to the United States to study their research. The suggestion was that the US tested the concept that the Japanese came up with, to launch this Horton type craft from a balloon manned by Japanese pilots. The device (according to Redferns speculation) crashed with the balloon debris falling on the Brazel ranch, and the Horton type device with the Japanese pilots crashed elsewhere.
Of course, over the last few years, almost as many “explanations” have been proposed as years have gone by. I thanked Nick Redfern for his research on this seminal case. I told him that while I disagree with his speculation, we can never have too many researchers looking at the Roswell event. Now with the passage of almost 60 years, I question whether we will truly know what came down there. But for me, the ET explanation seems to answer most of the questions about what went down there. Over the years I’ve spoken with several first hand witnesses and they were totally convinced that what crashed there in 1947 was an alien ship. Whom am I to disagree with them?