Guest Post: The "Roswell Slides" depict Alien MATILDA by George Wingfield

To follow up on my previous Blog posting, I am posting this guest article by George Wingfield. The opinions are his, not necessarily mine. Comments are welcome.

Robert Sheaffer

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The "Roswell Slides" depict Alien MATILDA

by George Wingfield

Most people will have probably have lost interest in the highly dubious “Roswell Slides” story by now so I hesitate to trouble any of you with it further. However, since Jaime Maussan’s “UFO Special Event” is still a week away, it’s worth looking at what it has been possible to establish during the past month:

(1) The so-called “Roswell Slides” discovery is a carefully prepared scam.

(2) They have nothing to do with Roswell or any supposed flying saucer crash there in 1947. The alleged Roswell connection has been deliberately devised to attract and deceive UFO/alien believers who would probably not have bothered with yet another of Maussan’s fake aliens from Mexico.

(3) Veteran UFO/Alien fraudster Jaime Maussan and the man who first revealed the existence of the Roswell Slides, Adam Dew, are quite aware of the slides’ real origin.

(4) The supposed story of their origin involving Hilda Ray, finding the slides in a house clearance in AZ, etc., is completely false apart from the fact that some of the slides are marked "HILDA RAY" which is a sly reference to RAY Santilli's fake alien "HILDA".

(5) This scam is entirely similar to Ray Santilli's "Alien Autopsy" scam of 1995 and the fake alien and the photographic slides were produced by the same people.

(6) The special effects alien dummy was prepared and photographed by London based circlemakers.org (Rob Irving, John Lundberg and Rod Dickinson) that made alien dummy HILDA for Santilli's Alien Autopsy film in the UK twenty years ago.

(7) The slides have been specially prepared using old 1940s-style cardboard sleeves to hold the transparency film so as to deceive UFO researchers that they originate from 1947. It is unlikely they will ever be released now as one could soon see they are fakes.

(8) The "UFO Special Event" in Mexico City to be hosted by Jaime Maussan on May 5, 2015, exactly twenty years to the day after Santilli unveiled his "Alien Autopsy" scam in 1995, has been planned to give maximum publicity to the fraudulent claim that this is the ultimate proof of a genuine alien. Maussan will play the same role as Santilli did.

(9) The prime creator of this new "Roswell” alien dummy, John Lundberg, was director of the 2013 documentary film Mirage Men. He sees the production of the slides and the Mexico City event as an act of "ostension". That is, the displaying of a supposedly genuine alien body (or photos, or replicas of an alien) to UFO/alien believers whose faith will be reinforced since they are meant to be unaware it is a scam.

(10) John Lundberg has declined to answer questions about the Roswell Slides or admit that he and his friends created this new hoax. He has also declined a recent invitation to appear on The Paracast which would have allowed hosts Gene Steinberg and Christopher O'Brien to question him about his involvement.

It would be difficult to appreciate the extent and the deviousness of the Roswell Slides deception without being familiar with Ray Santilli’s Alien Autopsy hoax of 1995 and the people who were behind that. That scam is believed to have netted Santilli a million dollars or so from the sale of copies of the film footage to TV channels, program makers, film-makers and researchers worldwide such was the interest and the demand from those who believed it to be genuine. With each copy of the Alien Autopsy footage sold, Santilli provided a disclaimer saying that he could not guarantee the material was genuine and that he had to include the disclaimer for legal reasons. He did, of course, know full well the film footage was faked and he should have been charged with fraud anyway.

I researched the Alien Autopsy scam at the time and was able to reveal the names of the three chief hoaxers who had created the special effects alien dummy and taken part in filming its supposed autopsy. My report on this can still be found on the internet at:-

www.fsr.org.uk/fsrwng12.htm

I have never had any reason to withdraw what I wrote there twenty years ago and from that time on Santilli’s dummy alien became known as Alien HILDA (Hoaxed Irving-Lundberg-Dickinson Alien). Although there is no doubt that the Alien Autopsy film was an elaborate hoax there are still UFO/Alien believers who like to think it was genuine.

John Lundberg, the most prominent of these three hoaxers, was the director of the 2013 film documentary Mirage Men whose central character was the arch-deceptionmonger of US ufology Richard Doty. Everyone who is interested in the UFO subject should see this film which reveals just how much of modern UFO mythology has been shaped by the campaign of disinformation and deception woven by Doty and others based at Kirtland AFB, New Mexico, during the 1980s. Lundberg has always been fascinated –if not obsessed— by such deception and disinformation which is one of the reasons that he made this film. With the Roswell Slides he is attempting to supply more of the same.

These three hoaxers started out by making crop circles in England during the early 1990s. Although they admitted they were circlemakers they never admitted making any specific formation. They justified what they did by saying it was art –crop art— but denied the deception dimension of what they were doing. One could say that their work was more like that of an illusionist, or magician, than that of a regular artist. From these beginnings they went on to fake UFO photographs and even contrived UFO fly-bys using things similar to Chinese lanterns to deceive Steven Greer and his CSETI people who went out on skywatches in Wiltshire, England, during 1992. From crop circlemaking (or, maybe one should say, circlefaking) and UFOfaking, these three progressed to alienfaking in 1995 with the production of alien dummy HILDA for Ray Santilli.

Their circlemaking activities and their circlemakers.org website led by degrees to lucrative contracts to make crop circles for a whole variety of customers such as UK newspapers, TV channels, film-makers, companies and corporations who wanted their logos --or maybe some publicity ad-- imprinted in the wheatfields of England and then photographed from the air. The team of three, sometimes with additional helpers, made crop circles to order in the UK, the USA, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and other countries often charging many thousands of dollars a time plus expenses.

One of their best known crop circles in recent years was made for a computer electronics manufacturer in December 2013. John Lundberg and Rob Irving were commissioned to make a huge elaborate crop circle near Chualar, CA, for Nvidia who wanted to publicize their ultrafast Tegra microchip. The chip was announced a week later at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Lundberg and Irving’s giant crop circle resembled a vast replica of the microchip. With most commissions Circlemakers.org doesn’t reveal its authorship of the crop circles which they produce but sometimes it is disclosed and also the fact that a large elaborate circle like the Nvidia one can cost tens of thousands of dollars.

If the crop circle side of the business is the most lucrative one then alienfaking commissions are the most secretive. Apart from the Alien Autopsy and the Roswell Slides no other such productions are publicly known nor what is charged for such productions. One can be certain that these alienfakers watch the reactions of their target audience closely on blogsites and websites dealing with such matters. Acceptance by members of the UFO community is important since everything depends on belief.

John Lundberg popped up recently on one of The Paracast forums dealing with the “Roswell Slides” which he had joined with a view to checking the reactions of those who are fascinated anything to do with Roswell. On the forum he called himself ‘Ostension’ which is probably a term that is lost on many people.

Having lived years ago in staunchly Catholic Ireland I am very aware that "ostension" is the displaying of the sacrament at the altar during the mass so that it could receive the adoration of the communicants who have come up from the congregation. In these secular days some may be unaware that the sacrament is the bread (or communion wafer) and the wine that communicants receive during the mass. Transubstantiation is the supposed change whereby, according to the teaching of the Catholic Church, the bread and wine used as the communion sacrament become --in actual reality -- the body and the blood of Christ.
Not that many people, even Catholics, actually believe this today, but the parallel here to the displaying of a "genuine" alien body --or at least a supposed photographic slide of one-- at a meeting of UFO True Believers in Mexico City is not lost on some of us. That's a real piece of what Lundberg would call Perception Management for you. If such ostension actually works, one can assume that it will fill the coffers of that celebrated UFO high priest Jaime Maussan.

There is no other definition of ostension in the dictionary but John Lundberg defines it in the following terms on his Wikipedia page:

"Entire legend plots can be reduced to an allusive action. If a narrative is widely known individuals may become involved in real life activities based on all or part of that narrative. This is ostension in action; when legend alters or shapes the behavior of people. Real events patterned on an urban legend, fact mirroring fiction. In a nutshell? To folklorists, ostension is the real-life occurrence of events described by a legend. Legends we live."

Ostension is apparently John Lundberg’s justification for creating the Alien Autopsy and now the so-called Roswell Slides. There’s money in it too but to simple folk like me this is simply an attempt at mass deception that is entirely similar to the deception practiced by Richard Doty and his colleagues with regard to the UFO subject back in the 1980s. So those of us who are interested in the UFO subject should be acutely aware that there are people out there who are seeking to manipulate our belief systems by various forgeries, fakery and deception.

Finally I think this new alien dummy, successor to the infamous HILDA, needs a new name which really should be MATILDA. That, if you hadn’t already guessed, stands for Maussan’s Maussan’s Absurd Trick: Irving-Lundberg-Dickinson Alien.

MATILDA is particularly appropriate since that was the name of the little girl in Hilaire Belloc’s Cautionary Tales (1907) who told such dreadful lies:

Matilda told such Dreadful Lies,
It made one gasp and stretch one’s Eyes,
Her Aunt, who from her Earliest Youth, 
Had kept a Strict Regard for Truth, 
Attempted to believe Matilda: The effort very nearly killed her …….. 

(for the rest of this cautionary poem and its sad ending see http://www.poetry-archive.com/b/matilda.html )

Maybe one day a real extraterrestrial alien will catch up with Maussan, Dew, Lundberg and Irving and if that ever happens one wonders if they’d know what to do. Perhaps they would suffer a similar fate to the wretched Matilda who everyone had ceased to believe?

George Wingfield
April 30, 2015

Are the "Roswell Slides" a 20th Anniversary Commemoration of the Santilli "Alien Autopsy" Hoax?

Is it possible that the now-famous Roswell Slides, set to be publicly unveiled very soon on Cinco de Mayo in Mexico City, are a hoax intended to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the infamous Ray Santilli Alien Autopsy hoax, possibly even by the same people who created the Santilli alien? The slides are to be publicly revealed in a big shindig in Mexico City on May 5, sponsored by the Mexican UFO fabulist Jaime Maussan, who has a long history of promoting bogus photos of UFOs and supposed alien creatures. This is the exact twentieth anniversary of when the Santilli hoax video was first publicly shown, a fact that has not gone unnoticed.

The famous Alien Autopsy video. Spyros Melaris says he created it.

After I met and spoke with Adam Dew, the apparent owner and chief promoter of the "Roswell Slides," at the International UFO Congress in Arizona this February, my belief was that the slides were genuinely found in an old house, and probably showed some mummy on exhibit somewhere. In this scenario, Dew recognized the opportunity to promote them as showing a possible "Roswell alien." He contacted Roswell authors Donald Schmitt and Tom Carey, and the rest was history.

Adam Dew at the 2015 International UFO Congress

This "innocent scenario" is beginning to look increasingly unlikely. On April 29 , the French skeptic Gilles Fernandez wrote a Blog entry titled "What if? The Roswell Slides Saga as a Social Experiment or a Hoax of some sort?" In it he pointed out some obvious problems in the scenario we are given by Dew and the other slide promoters. One of the slides in the collection, supposedly in a slide frame that was only used in the 1940s, shows an automobile that was not manufactured until 1958. And the photos, also from the 1940s that are supposed to show Bernard and Hilda Ray, show individuals who are obviously decades older than the Rays would have been at that time. Some slides in the collection are compared to genuine 1940s Kodachrome slides, and the differences are obvious. Fernandez asks whether it is possible that "the set of the 400 slides was put together from various sources, maybe even from eBuyers or physical markets, and a story was concocted, and the two slides were inserted?"

UFO researcher George Wingfield has even stronger reservations. Back in 1995, he wrote a piece in the British publication Flying Saucer Review accusing three men of hoaxing the yet-unconfessed Santilli alien autopsy video:  John Lundberg, Robert Irving, and, and Rod Dickinson, based on their involvement with Ray Santilli, their experience in producing special effects, and their reputation as Crop Circle makers. In that Flying Saucer review article Wingfield wrote that "The alien is, of course, called HILDA, which, in case you hadn't guessed, stands for Hoaxed Irving-Lundberg-Dickinson Alien." In 1995, RAY Santilli's hoaxed alien is satirically named HILDA - and now we have HILDA RAY. It seems as if the hoaxers may have signed their work, as an inside joke.

Concerning the Roswell Slides, Wingfield (writing as George32) recently described the manner in which the Santilli Alien Autopsy dummy was produced, and suggested that

the “Roswell Alien Slides” were produced in a similar manner and supplied to targeted individuals likely to take the bait. If that’s right, the #1 suspects are John Lundberg and Rob Irving. Both of them were in California in December 2013 where they were commissioned to make a huge elaborate crop circle near Chualar, CA, for Nvidia who wanted to publicize their ultrafast Tegra microchip.

Wingfield concluded, 

Apart from their work behind and in front of the camera, Lundberg and Dickinson were the experts who made foam latex dummies for a TV series on UK's Channel 4 back then called "Crapston Villas". If Lundberg and Irving have been up to their tricks again on this 20th anniversary of Santilli’s alien autopsy hoax, it seems very likely they may have been the creators of the “Roswell Alien Slides”.

John Lundberg is now well-known as one of the Crop Circle makers at circlemakers.org. He is also the director of the documentary film Mirage Men. Based on the book of the same name by Mark Pilkington, it is a look at the purported role of government-sponsored disinformation in shaping the UFO phenomenon. I wrote to Lundberg asking for his comments on this. He might have replied something like, "I had nothing to do with either the Santilli Alien, or the Roswell Slides." Instead, he chose to reply in poetic and evasive terms, which I read as acknowledging that he was involved in those matters, but was unwilling to say so publicly. But one never knows what is to be taken seriously when dealing with Mirage Men.

If the Roswell Slides are indeed a hoax as is here suggested, it is certainly the most elaborate and sophisticated hoax since, well, the Santilli Alien Autopsy of twenty years ago. It almost feels like an act of art vandalism to betray their secrets.

A Skeptic at the UFO Congress, 2015 - Part 3 (final)

In which we finally get to The ROSWELL SLIDES!

SATURDAY FEB. 21, 9AM: Richard Dolan.

"UFOs: The Real Power Structure and the End Game"

He Talked about a shadowy secret power structure, involving the military and Wall Street. Dark money goes into secret technologies. anti-gravity etc. They are weaponizing recovered technologies, and mind control technologies. "Breakthrough technologies" are based on recovered ET technology. There is a group of "others" who have been here a long time. ETs? They have powerful telepathy.

"Disclosure" as people envision it will probably not happen. It might open individuals in positions of power to criminal prosecution. They would never risk it.

The UFO cover-up is international. Brazil, India, China, many nations involved. The conspirators - primarily, the U.S. - use bribery, blackmail, and threats against foreign leaders. NSA has been spying on them. Fearing the consequences, they comply with the cover-up.

Breakaway trans-national organizations are being formed. Nations are becoming less relevant.

He gave a conspiratorial analysis of Middle Eastern fighting, centering around a proposed "Islamic Pipeline" that would undercut Russia's energy dominance in Europe. Putin is hoarding gold.

The conspiators' goal is a police state, fascism. Government and corporate dominance. Disclosure, if it could be obtained, would prevent this. Fascism would lose, and we would have "Power to the People," if some future president tore free of these encumbrances, and disclosed the presence of aliens.

Afterwards we ran into each other several times, and had some nice chats. I told him that I found it impossible to believe that the U.S. government is able to make the likes of Putin or Iran's Ayatollahs do its bidding. If that were so, we would have dissuaded Putin from swallowing up several provinces in Georgia and the Ukraine (unless UFO secrecy is so much more important than that!). Dolan's vision of a global cover-up is, in my view, impossibly large and unwieldy. We agreed that we should have more discussions  at future events.

Yours truly (again forgetting to smile) chatting with Richard Dolan

JAIME MAUSSAN

The title of his talk is "BREAKING NEWS," meaning the most significant UFO developments of the past year. "New video technology shows that there are not just invisible UFOs close to us but even invisible creatures," says the program. Maussan has a 2-hour weekly program on national TV in Mexico. We have so much evidence to promote every week, he says.

He showed a photo of a huge "invisible" UFO seen in Las Vegas at sunset. A big translucent UFO was hovering behind the Paris casino Eiffel tower on the Las Vegas Strip. It was only seen because it was "reflecting the sun."

He showed a NASA Curiosity rover photo of a "woman" on Mars (although in my opinion she looks like Bigfoot). What looks like a rock is really a Martian house made of stones. A UFO is seen hovering over Mars.

A UFO video from Russia is clearly a reflection of a flashlight on a window.

A UFO was seen in the Rosetta photos of Comet P/67. Amazing sounds were coming from the comet (in space).

Maussan showed dozens of low-grade UFO videos, from the US and elsewhere, all from the past year. Dots of light in the sky. UFOs going in and out of  ''portholes," this has been proven. The statue of Liberty UFO video. Still no mention of the Roswell Slides.

Next he showed his best UFO videos from Mexico, starting from 2004. Then videos of "Shadow people" - semi-visible shadowy beings. They look like dark smudges, just a blurry dark spot, sneaking around. One sat in a rocking chair, and rocked it. One entity "Shadowed" Maussan in a crop circle.

Then there were "Invisible UFOs". Night-vision UFOs (flocks of birds).

Some new Crop circles, one showing the 'eye of God.'

Two minutes before his talk's scheduled end, Maussan said "I want to talk about something very important." The Roswell Slides? Nope! From Brazil we have a video in which the aliens are producing a strange sound. (A deep musical hum). Then he showed a solar balloon in Los Angeles. Weeping statues worldwide. The face of Christ in the clouds.

His talk ran five minutes late (I know this was frowned on, as they attempt to stick very closely to the published schedule). Then at that point, Maussan unexpectedly brings Adam Dew onto the stage, and promos his unveiling of the Roswell Slides in Mexico City on May 5. He showed a brief English-language video "beWitness." The narrator has Spanish accent. Donald Schmidt & Tom Carey will be there in Mexico City, as will moonwalker Edgar Mitchell. 3D & holographic technology will be used, to present the evidence as never before.

Jaime Maussan, and Adam Dew

Afterward, a number of people sought out Maussan, but nobody was talking to Dew. I introduced myself to him, and began asking him questions.

How did you first obtain the slides? The slides were found by the sister of my friend as she was cleaning out a house to be demolished in Sedona, AZ. They said, Adam is a video expert, let's give the slides to him.

Who is the owner of the slides? My company is the "owner" of the slides, it controls the slides. 

How did Schmitt and Carey get involved? I've spent two years researching and investigating the slides. I wanted to speak to people who have seen the bodies. 

Did Schmitt & Carey claim to see bodies? No, but they are the professionals. They spoke with credible people who did. I explained that Karl Pflock (certainly no UFO debunker) showed that all of the supposed "witnesses" who claimed to have seen alien bodies in Roswell have been discredited  ("only four persons claiming firsthand knowledge of alien bodies have been interviewed by Roswell authors and identified publicly... there can be no reasonable doubt that none of the purported firsthand witnesses to alien bodies and a lonesome survivor is credible. Not one." Pflock, Roswell - Inconvenient Facts and the Will to Believe, p. 118, 120.). I should also have mentioned Schmitt's well-known loose relationship with the truth. (Neither Schmitt or Carey was at the Congress this year. I spoke with Schmitt when he was there last year, but nothing was said about the Roswell Slides.)

How did Maussan get involved? Schmitt and Carey brought him in. Maussan offered a nice package.

I explained how the fact of Maussan's involvement made many knowledgeable people in the UFO field immediately suspect a hoax, given his reputation for promoting many UFO hoaxes in the past. I had the impression that Dew, clearly a newcomer to UFOlogy, was not familiar with Maussan's oeuvre, or his reputation as a purveyor of rubbish. I suspect that Dew did not realize how much trouble bringing in Maussan would cause. He felt that some people were being very unfair and making unfair accusations about the slides, that they have not even seen.

I referred to Maussan's just-concluded talk, invisible beings and such, as illustrating my point. "Was all of it fake?" "Yes" "How can you prove that?" I explained that the burden of proof is on Maussan to show that his wild claims are valid, not on me to disprove them. Dew agreed.

I'm interested to bring this thing to the public, to people who don't know Maussan. I just did an interview about this in Chicago, on WGN. 

Adam Dew interviews the interviewer - me!!

A few minutes later, Dew came up to me and asked if he could interview me about the slides! I agreed, and signed his standard release form.

We talked about the controversy over the slides.

I explained how Maussan's involvement made people extremely suspicious of the slides.

He said to me, You realize, I hope, that nobody gets rich making documentary films? Look at my crew, he said, pointing to himself and his camera. I replied, yes, I have heard that before (I was thinking of similar comments made by Paul Kimball, when he took on the late Roger Leir.). But in a few cases, I explained, large sums of money have been made, the most obvious example being Ray Santilli's Alien Autopsy hoax twenty years ago. Dew was indeed familiar with this. When the Alien Autopsy video was shown on TV, it got tremendously high ratings and made a lot of money, even though most serious persons realized it was probably a hoax. But that couldn't be proven yet. By the time that the hoax was exposed, Santilli had already made a great deal of money on it, and I said that many people think that you, Mr. Dew, will travel that same path. So I ended up comparing him to Ray Santilli, by which he seemed slightly taken aback, but I think he saw the reasoning behind that and took it humorously and without offense.

I closed repeating the observation that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof," and that two photos of unknown origin, no matter what they seem to show, cannot possibly suffice to prove the reality of crashed saucer aliens. He seemed to agree with my point.

So if someday you see my face in one of Dew's videos about the Roswell Slides, don't be surprised!

I asked Dew did he live in Chicago? He said yes, that's where I'm "based." I don't want to talk about where I live. He also told me, No matter what you hear on the internet, I really am a graduate of Northwestern University, in Journalism. I told him that I am  a Northwestern graduate, too.

Based on our conversation, here is what I understand the history (and planned future) of the "Roswell Slides" to be:

• Through a social connection, Dew obtains a collection of historical slides. He discovers that two of them seem to show what looks like a supposed alien body.
• Seeking out 'Roswell experts,' Dew (not surprisingly) happens upon Schmitt and Carey. He contacts them and shows them the slides. They share it with members of their "Roswell dream team."
• After convincing themselves that the slides seem authentic, Schmitt and Carey contact Maussan to arrange a profitable "unveiling" of the slides.
• Maussan presents an attractive offer which Dew accepts. The slides will be revealed to the world in Mexico City on Cinco de Mayo, 2015, which is also the twentieth anniversary of the premiere screening of Ray Santilli's Alien Autopsy video before an invited audience at the Museum of London.
• Afterward, assuming that the slides are authenticated, Maussan told an Italian journalist that John Rao, the wealthy businessman who operates Open Minds (the promoters of the International UFO Congress), has expressed an interest in buying them. Assuming that takes place, next year's UFO Congress (already scheduled to take place in the same location) will presumably have the Roswell Slides displayed in a glass case.

Jeremy Corbell

Jeremy Corbell

"An investigative filmmaker with unique and unprecedented access to military and private techno industry." However, he seems to believe every wild story he hears. He gave a long and rather confusing talk based on the weird people and weird stuff he has filmed. One of his films, Patient Seventeen (about Roger Leir digging out alleged alien implants) was shown at the film festival. Corbell is very pro-Lazar and pro-John Lear (which is surprising, since Lazar considers Lear to be a fabricator, and probably vice-versa.)

George Knapp.

A well-known television journalist in Las Vegas.  He was the first to interview Bob Lazar, who he compares to Edward Snowden, who blew the whistle on NSA spying. Knapp says that the comparison is valid. Knapp basically defends Lazar's reputation against 'unfair' charges.

George Knapp

He told a lot of alien jokes that were mostly pretty funny. He is certainly a good entertainer.

Knapp says he knows of dozens of Area 51 veterans who confirm Lazar's descriptions at least in part.

Special Q&A with Bob Lazar and George Knapp. Questions for Lazar had to be submitted in advance at the registration desk, for Knapp to ask him.

Asked what he is currently doing, Lazar explained that he is basically in the business of selling radioactive and otherwise dangerous stuff. He said, "I unfortunately live in Michigan." He says he moved there because the state promised aid for his business, but implied that he was disappointed in what he actually received. In his previous home in Nevada, he had a 30 ft particle accelerator(!).

Bob Lazar

Referring obliquely to questions about his credentials, he said people told him "you don't act like a physicist." He decried the kind of pompous physicists you meet at at Los Alamos and other places, implying "I'm not like them." Lazar threw some barbs at John Lear, who he suggested is not telling the truth about saucers at Area 51. (Apparently the two of them have made up mutually-inconsistent fables about Area 51, and thus can never be reconciled.)

Lazar drew an illustration of a supposed saucer hangar at Area 51, and did several other illustrations. These were all ARVs, Alien Reproduction Vehicles. He talked about gravity amplifiers. They run on element 115 (Lazarium?), of which there were 500 lbs at Area 51. The craft distorts space-time and pushes itself along. Since Lazar first told his fables about "Element 115," scientists have actually synthesised that element, albeit for an extremely brief period of time. It did not turn out to be a stable element, as Lazar claimed it was.

At the Evening Banquet, awards were given out. A "lifetime achievement award" was awarded to the late Dr. Roger Leir, a California podiatrist who would remove what were claimed to be "alien implants" in people. The Film Festival award for best documentary went to the movie Travis, that I wrote about in the previous installment.

There was much picture taking at the close of the banquet. I was asked to take photos of a group of people that included James Gilliland. Because that phone was very different from mine, I accidentally took two brief videos instead of still photos. One of them included a fast-moving object that was immediately described as an "Orb" (orbs are supposedly paranormal phenomena that are sometimes seen in photos or videos where psyschic powers are involved). I said I thought it was a tiny moth, attracted by the light on the camera. It could have been either one, I suppose. When I was on Dr. J's internet radio show Dark Matter a few days later, the woman in the photo called in to tease me about my psychic ability to cause orbs to appear.

I did not attend the Sunday session. However, I heard from a friend that there was a great shouting match between Stanton Friedman and Jeremy Corbell on the final panel. Friedman kept laying out his reasoning of why Bob Lazar is a fraud while Corbell defended him. The two of them argued for about 30 minutes straight. I'm told it was the best drama and entertainment of the entire event! Here is a Twitter report on Friedman vs. Corbell.

A Skeptic at the UFO Congress, 2015 - Part 2

Ruben Uriarte

On Friday Morning, February 20, the first speaker was Ruben Uriarte, longtime MUFON investigator and State Director for Northern California. I first met Ruben on the UFO Tour of Mexico we took in 1996. He was one of the organizers. We didn't see any UFOs, but we saw some great places in Mexico and had a lot of fun. It was good to see him again after many years.

His subject was "Border Crossings of the Third Kind," or UFO crashes in Mexico. He re-hashed the MJ-12 papers & the FBI memo, also the Marfa Lights and the Star Child Skull. He pointed out that in the movie "Earth vs the Flying Saucers," a high-frequency beam is used to bring down the saucers (as is claimed about the Aztec and some other "UFO crashes.").

He showed video excerpts of his appearances on the "History" channel. Ruben discussed 3 UFO crashes in northern Mexico in the 1950s. One in Chihuahua is reported to involve alien bodies. The U.S. military is said to have been present assisting the Mexicans. Some witnesses claim to have seen an "explosion" in the sky, and also strange creatures.

One of  the crashes supposedly occurred in 1948, near Laredo, Texas.  It has a photo of a burned and dead being commonly known as "Tomato Man"  Unfortunately, Ruben's investigation is a little behind the time. Later investigation has shown that Tomato Man is a dead pilot, and is definitely terrestrial.

James Gilliland

Next was James Gilliland, who calls his group ECETI - Enlightened Contact with Extraterrestrial Intelligence. He has a ranch in rural Washington state, where he and those who visit him claim to see all manner of implausible things. In fact, he says that ET ships have been seen at his ranch every night for thirteen years! Gilliland showed a night vision video of bugs flying about. He also showed some photos of Fairy Beings and Gnomes obtained there.

Among the claims that Gilliland made in his alloted time: Chemtrails, Black Helicopters, microwave psychotronics (i.e., mind control), and beings coming through a wall.  We have cures for everything,  but it's being suppressed. He showed videos of a door that opens up in the mountain, and objects go in and out. (You have to use a lot of imagination to see that door.) He showed a video excerpt from the show Paranormal State Illustrated where "psychic" Chip Coffey came out to the ECETI ranch, and predicted the time of a UFO appearance. However, since UFOs are apparently seen there almost constantly, the prediction, while reasonably specific, was not surprising. Gilliland  plaintively asked: with so many sightings, why is the ECETI group marginalized, even in the UFO community? Earth to James: even many UFO believers have a limit of how many weird claims they are willing to accept.

Joshua P. Warren

Next Joshua P. Warren spoke on the Brown Mountain lights. He has made extraordinary claims on just about every 'paranormal' cable TV show there is. He mentioned the USGS investigations of the alleged lights, and just about everything he said about that was counter-factual. The USGS could, and did, explain the lights. This has been written about in UFO books for decades.

He thinks that the lights are naturally-produced plasmas, and that reports of strange military activity in the area means that the military wants to study the lights. He showed a few videos of Bug UFOs, then talked about the "Wishing Machine" he is selling, which operates using the "Law of Attraction." He also teaches an expensive seminar on how to use that machine.

A crowd lines up to check out the "Wishing Machine" of Joshua P. Warren, which uses the "Law of Attraction."

Mark Pilkington

Next was Mark Pilkington, whose book (now also a movie) Mirage Men purports to show how military and intelligence operators have shaped and exploited belief in UFOs. He called his talk "The Abuses of  Enchantment." I would have to say that Pilkington is not a man who gets directly to the point.

While I can agree that such involvement has been shown to happen a few times, including incidents outside the United States - for example, he cites a Rand Corporation paper on exploiting local superstitions - I don't see how this has any real significance for our understanding of the UFO circus. I had only a brief opportunity to speak to him afterward. I said I didn't think such instances were of much significance to the UFO scene as a whole, and he agreed. I think what he was saying was that military and intelligence involvement was responsible for shaping the public perception of a UFO cover-up, which is at least partly true. Like I said, he doesn't get directly to the point, but if you can figure out what he means he seems to be pretty skeptical. Somebody asked him about crop circles - are there any that are not of human origin? Pilkington's answer: no, except for a few simple ones which may be of meteorological origin. (Thus none are made by aliens.)

But good olde Stanton Friedman, the Flying Saucer physicist, wasn't having any of this. During the Q&A period (Pilkington was among the few speakers to actually allow time for a real Q&A), Friedman, who says he is fully recovered from the heart attack he suffered last year, laid down the gauntlet: this was "effective propaganda," he said, and asked Pilkington "Who are you working for?" You, Friedman said, might be part of the Disinformation campaign.

Stanton Friedman and Kathleen Marden peddling Extraterrestrial tall tales

More Plastic Aliens

Leda Beluche, GirlieVegan Energy Healer, poses with the plastic aliens of Australian artist Alan Groves. He says that he did these sculptures during the past two years. I asked, "So these are not the same plastic aliens that Boyd Bushman photographed?" "Not the same ones," he replied, "mine are much better."

This collection of mirrors is a "Moonlight Collector," which will focus the rays of the moon (or bright star) where you want it. This of course results in "healing." This reflector is actually mounted on a goto telescope mount, which can track celestial objects. However, while the mount can be made to keep the mirror pointing at the same object, it does NOT keep that object's reflection fixed!

At the Film Festival in the evening, I stayed to watch the new movie Travis, which tells the story of the alleged UFO abduction of Travis Walton in 1975 (as does the 1993 Hollywood film Fire in the Sky, which they says is less accurate in depicting the "facts"). The movie is pretty well made, telling the story of the alleged abduction, albeit by a highly selective presentation of events. Much is made of the six woodcutters, five of whom barely knew Walton at all, passing a police polygraph test. This is not as significant as they make it, because the questions asked were primarily to determine whether Travis (still "missing") was murdered, and his body dumped in the woods. Most likely only Travis and his buddy Mike Rogers (driving the truck) were "in on" the hoax - the other five woodcutters had no idea what was going on.  Hence they could truthfully say that they didn't murder Travis, and they saw an unknown object in the woods. At least one other person needed to be in the woods, to work the light show.

Completely concealed, however, was the fact that Travis had flunked a polygraph examination, paid for by the National Enquirer, and administered by the most experienced examiner in the state of Arizona, who concluded that Travis was practicing "gross deception." APRO (which was promoting Walton's story) and the National Enquirer concealed this embarrassing fact. Walton later passed a different polygraph test (for which he had adequate time to prepare), but failed a later one on the 2008 TV show Moment of Truth. In reality, if someone is anticipating taking a polygraph exam, and practices for it, they have a very good chance of fooling the examiner. The skeptic's case against the Walton "abduction" is summarized here on my debunker.com website.

This movie clearly displays Philip J. Klass Derangement Syndrome, spending about ten minutes raving about him and denouncing him (the Walton camp hates Klass because he blew the whistle on Travis' polygraph failure, and other things, that they concealed). They repeat the unfounded claim that Klass tried to bribe Steve Pierce $10,000 to say that the case was a hoax (I have already shown that archive documents support Klass' version of events). 

Ben Hansen, of the SyFy Channel show Fact or Fake?, with Travis Walton and the movie's producer Jennifer W. Stein

After that movie, I went over to the pool area of the hotel where Ben Hansen was holding a sky view, to demonstrate some very expensive night vision equipment that he wants to sell to credulous UFO buffs. The sky was mostly cloudy, so Hansen pointed his camera at stars wherever the clouds weren't, and looked for anomalous objects. He didn't see any, and he explained quite well what was happening whenever an airplane or bird flew across the view. Such equipment, in the hands of someone who doesn't understand it well, will produce all kinds of "sightings" (mostly bugs, birds, aircraft, and satellites), but it won't show you anything that you can't see with a good pair of binoculars.

A Skeptic at the UFO Congress 2015 - Part 1

Again this year, I am attending the largest UFO conference in the world, this year's International UFO Congress Conference and Film Festival near Phoenix, Arizona. Unlike previous years, I was not able to attend all five days. Also I'm not going to try to provide a summary of every talk (although I said that previously!).  But there is obviously a lot going on here - most of UFOlogy's "heavy hitters" are here.

Boyd Bushman is vindicated - Plastic Aliens are everywhere!

The first thing to catch my eye was the display here, and elsewhere, of what appears to be the same plastic aliens allegedly photographed by Boyd Bushman at Area 51. Some people wanted to see proof that such plastic aliens actually exist. Well, here it is. These cheerful fellows are 54" tall, are being sold by Zetan.net, and cost $488.00.

Program Thursday, February 19.

Thomas Reed

9AM. Substituting for Linda Zimmerman is Thomas Reed. The talk is on the Reed family UFO encounters and abductions, in various locations. He showed a long documentary video, mostly excerpts from cable TV shows, with hideously bad audio, and a loud hum.

His case was supposedly mentioned at the UN in 1992. The same day, he says his father was murdered.

He told of alien abductions and such,  involving his brother and son. There allegedly were radiation and magnetic effects. His long and boring account told what the aliens supposedly did, but probably didn't. He hinted about family disagreements over UFO claims. One questioner noted that his brother's account of their supposed UFO abduction is completely inconsistent with his. Thom explained how his brother is, of course, mistaken. But he confessed, "I didn't pass a polygraph test."

Abductionist Yvonne Smith once came out to his house to "regress" him about his UFO experiences. The resulting video looked much like a scene from The Exorcist, with Reed writhing, panting, and thrashing about on the couch.

Reed hired a lawyer to sue the government, or somebody, over what the saucers did to him. So far, no luck. He proudly announced that his UFO case has been accepted as the first true UFO case ever by some historical society somewhere. We are supposed to be impressed.

DERRELL SIMS - the Alien Hunter!

Sims had been laying somewhat low in UFOlogy but now is boldly moving into the territory until recently occupied by his former colleague, the late Dr. Roger Leir. Sims claims to have worked for the CIA, but he doesn't have any proof of that.

A red-light camera in Los Angeles recently captured the image of an alien in the back seat of a car, abducting the driver.

Derrell Sims

More bad alien photos, much like those of Jaime Maussan. Also of Bruises caused by alien hands on peoples bodies. When ufos in photos have blurry edges, it means they are in transit. Those with sharp edges are probes.

Implants galore. However doctors often steal the alien implants after surgery. IR, fluorescence, etc.

"M I B Sperm Detection" provides documentation of alien sexual assault. One woman was forced to copulate with a creature like a pig. One of his abductees assaulted hiscaptor with a sword. In the morning, he found a lump of alien DNA on the floor. Unfortunately, it was eaten by the dog, which died soon afterward.

Sims told scary, home-style stories. The alien agenda is always hostile.

Aliens sometimes masquerade as angels, but never vice-versa. Infact, aliens flee when angels appear, according to Sims.

Chris O'Brien

Continuing in the homespun vein, Chris O'Brien talked about cattle mutilations. He says he has investigated over 200 reported cases, of which about 40 are "high strange."

He traced the parallel histories of humans and cattle, suggesting that our lives and our fates are linked in some mysterious way - and perhaps our DNA as well. Then he went into a ramblinmg discussion of all manner of weird conspiracy claims, everything from "mystery helicopters" to just about every conspiracy you've ever heard of, and a few you haven't.

Charlie Foltz

Charlie Foltz talked about the famous Allagash Abductions of 1976, of which he was one of the "victims." Also participating via Skype was another of the Allagash "abductees," Jim Weiner. Foltz had the appearance and mannerisms of Jonathan Winters, although his stories were not so entertaining.

The incident occurs in the wilderness, preceded by a lot of climbing, a lot of camping, a lot of canoeing, etc. While they were in the wilderness, they saw a bright UFO, but did not remember any abduction. (Notice that this was before Budd Hopkins burst into the UFO abduction scene. Before that, you had to go out to some remote place for aliens to find you (B-B Hill, Travis Walton, Kentucky Abductions, etc.). After Hopkins' Missing Time, you didn't need to go anywhere. Aliens would come right into your bedroom and grab you.).

Not until years later, when the Alligash Trio were hypnotized by Dr. John Mack, did this UFO sighting become an abduction story.

Foltz finished up by trying to interest the audience in his nature paintings, and also in his services as a graphic designer.

Yvonne Smith

The afternoon ended with a panel featuring these four speakers, moderated by Yvonne Smith. The subject was Rare Cases of Mass Alien Abductions.  Smith talked about her own favorite such case, which allegedly occurred in 1994 at a UFO abduction conference she had organized at the Hotel Del Coronado, near San Diego. She teased the audience with the possibility that they might experience a mass alien abduction tonight as well.

Each of the four speakers then went on to talk about their favorite "mass abduction" case.

THE FILM FESTIVAL

Patient Seventeen

A film about the surgeries of the late Dr. roger Leir to remove alleged alien implants from peoples' bodies. Dr. Leir illustrates how to find alien implants, using a stud finder.

alien art for sale

From Mexico City on Cinco de Mayo - the Roswell Slides!

So far I haven't said much in this Blog about the so-called "Roswell Slides." I did mention them in my posting this past November 23 titled American University Visits UFO Fantasyland. I quoted from a news story about that academic (believers-only) UFO panel on WTOP's website:

one of the speakers used the occasion to reveal evidence he called a "smoking gun."

"We have come into possession of a couple of Kodachrome color slides of an alien being lying in a glass case," author and researcher Thomas Carey told the near-capacity crowd in Abramson Recital Hall.

He's been researching the 1947 Roswell incident since 1991.

"What's interesting is, the film is dated 1947. We took it to the official historian of Kodak up in Rochester, New York, and he did his due diligence on it, and he said yes, this filmstrip, the slides are from 1947. It's 1947 stock. And from the emulsions on the image, it's not something that's been Photoshopped like today. It's original 1947 images, and it shows an alien who's been partially dissected lying in a case."

Carey says the being looked like what he thought an alien from the famous Roswell incident would look like.

"3 and a half to 4 feet tall, the head is almost insect-like. The head has been severed, and there's been a partial autopsy; the innards have been removed, and we believe the cadaver has been embalmed, at least at the time this picture was taken. The owners of the slide -- it's an amazing story. The woman was a high-powered Midland, Texas, lawyer with a pilot's license. We think she was involved in intelligence in World War II, and her husband was a field geologist for an oil company."

Carey says he plans to reveal the images early next year.

 Mexico City?

On February 1, Kevin Randle's Blog hosted a guest entry by Anthony Bragalia, who is researching the background of the "Roswell slides." Bragalia, arguing forcefully for the authenticity of the slides, announced that the "reveal" of the slides would take place in Mexico City on May 5. Why in the world would slides of partially-autopsied Roswell aliens be revealed in a program in Mexico City? Bragalia did not explain why. 

Dozens of comments quickly followed that piece, some of them asking why the "reveal" would take place in Mexico City, instead of in Roswell, or someplace in the U.S. Bragalia replied,

only the owner can answer that. I have indicated many times that we are only supporting his efforts in research and that any decisions about venue or manner of reveal is his alone. But why not? The official public announcement of the slides was made at American University in DC. Why not have the reveal of an item of global import be broadcast internationally and outside of the US? You are a Brit yourself, CDA yet you take extreme interest in Roswell. Don't be so US-centric.

Having taken a "Mexico UFO tour" back in 1996 (see chapter 21 of my book UFO Sightings), I was already quite familiar with the UFO and paranormal-related media empire of one Jaime Maussan, who has made himself quite wealthy by promoting highly-dubious claims about aliens and such in Mexico. He spent quite a bit of time with us, and showed us the inner workings of his dubious paranormal promotional enterprise. I posted the following comment:

Robert Sheaffer said...

Mexico City. Does this mean that Jamie Maussan will be involved? It's hard to imagine any UFO dog-and-pony show in Mexico City that doesn't involve him.

11:53 AM

In Mexico, Maussan is like Art Bell, George Noory, and Steven Greer, all rolled up into one. For quite a while, nobody answered that question. Then BINGO - the following Youtube announcement video was posted:

When Maussan's involvement was revealed, a collective groan was heard from just about everybody who knows anything about current UFOlogy. Anyone who has gone to a UFO conference anywhere in the last twenty years has likely heard a talk by Maussan, making wild claims and showing highly-dubious photos and videos. He is considered one of the least-credible UFO personalities active today. The page for ALCIONE (in Spanish) lists "more than 40 frauds" that Maussan has promoted. Tim Printy also has some interesting comments about Maussan.

 

An ad promoting Maussan's 2009 'alien revelation' show in Mexico City. "ET Contact" was "immanent" six years ago.

Why is Maussan involved in the matter of the "Roswell slides?" We don't yet know for sure, but presumably "the owner" sold the rights to the slides to the highest bidder, and the highest bidder was Maussan. It is also reported that a TV program about the slides is in production, but nobody in the know has publicly commented on this.

Under "Great Mysteries of the Third Millennium," Maussan presents a video of a horse flying across the sky.

In this video, Maussan is interviewing Adam Dew. From what he says, it appears that Dew is the person who obtained these "Roswell slides," and brought them forward. Thus it appears that Dew is claiming to be "the owner" of the slides. However, I asked Bragalia if Dew is the owner; he replied that Dew is not. (Perhaps that is true on a technicality - Dew may have sold the slides to Maussan?)

Here Maussan interviews Tom Carey about the "Roswell slides."

If you want to see lots of weird-looking creatures, go to Google Images and type in Jaime Maussan Aliens. Along those lines, here is a video of Maussan showing us aliens. Lots and lots of them. Don't worry if you can't understand the Spanish; he's just showing off his collection of photos and videos of aliens. And as of el prossimo Cinco de Mayo, Maussan will have two more photos of aliens to add to his already-impressive collection.

Did CIA U2 flights really cause 50% of UFO Sightings?

Once again, the claim has resurfaced that, during the 1950s and 60s, high-altitude CIA manned reconnaissance flights involving the U-2 and the later SR-71 were responsible for half of all UFO sightings. 

The CIA's Lockheed U-2 spy plane

This claim is now all over the internet, and treated in the usual uncritical manner.

CIA admits: All those UFO sightings in 1950s? 'It was us'

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2014/12/30/cia-admits-all-those-ufo-sightings-in-150s-it-was-us/

CIA: All Those 1950s UFO Sightings? 'It Was Us'

http://www.newser.com/story/200614/cia-all-those-1950s-ufo-sightings-it-was-us.html

One thing this CIA UFO claim has accomplished: it has united UFO skeptics and proponents in proclaiming it untrue. We might agree on little else, except that this claim is nonsense.

The claim is contained in a report issued by the CIA, The CIA and the U2 Program, 1954-1974. The once-secret document was written back in 1998. In it (on PDF (not document) page 84-85), 

"High-altitude testing of the U2 soon led to an unexpected side effect — a tremendous increase in reports of unidentified flying objects. In the mid-1950s, most commercial airliners flew at altitudes between 10,000 and 20,000 feet and military aircraft like the B47s and B57s operated at altitudes below 40,000 feet. Consequently, once U-2s started flying at altitudes above 60,000 feet, air-traffic controllers began receiving increasing numbers of UFO reports.”

Can that claim be substantiated? Nope.

 Not only did the airline pilots report their sightings to air-traffic controllers, but they and ground-based observers also wrote letters to the Air Force unit at Wright Air Development Command in Dayton charged with investigating such phenomena. This, in turn, led to the Air Force’s Operation BLUE BOOK. Based at Wright-Patterson, the operation collected all reports of UFO sightings. Air Force investigators then attempted to explain such sightings by linking them to natural phenomena. BLUE BOOK investigators regularly called on the Agency’s Project Staff in Washington to check reported UFO sightings against U-2 flight logs. This enabled the investigators to eliminate the majority of the UFO reports, although they could not reveal to the letter writers the true cause of the UFO sightings. U-2 and later OXCART flights accounted for more than one-half of all UFO reports during the 1950s and 1960s.

Mark Rodeghier of CUFOS contacted Lt. Col. (Ret.) Robert Friend, who was the head of Blue Book from about 1958 to early 1963. If anyone should know about this, it is him. "Absolutely not true," he said.

Friend "found the whole idea laughable, and he knew Blue Book did not receive more reports from pilots and air traffic controllers after the U-2 began flying."

It may well be that a few UFO reports were caused by U-2 flights, but when Friend was asked by Rodeghier if he could recall even a single such case, he said, to his recollection, no. (Frankly, I can't think of one, either.)

"Once again, he chuckled about the idea of half of all UFO reports being caused by manned reconnaissance flights."

 UFO photo analyst Bruce Maccabee says simply that the "CIA's UFO Explanation Is Preposterous."

The U-2, with its 80 ft long by 6 ft wide (front to back) wingspan flew at 60-70,000 feet and at that altitude was essentially invisible during the day. It created no contrail because of the lack of moisture at that altitude. It was, after all, intended to be invisible! During the hour before sunrise and the hour following sunset it would be possible for an unpainted aircraft to reflect the sun enough to be visible, perhaps with a reddish glow resulting from the reddening of sunlight

Maccabee used the Richard Dolan press to issue a press release that was widely shared:

Maccabee is right about this. The Blue Book files are now public records, and anyone can verify when and where sightings were reported. The bottom line is: there is absolutely no correlation between the times and places of UFO reports, and U2 flights.

Back in August of 2013, Alejandro Rojas of Open Minds pointed out another problem in the CIA's claim about the U2 flights, which began in 1954:  It says witnesses began to write letters to the Air Force, and “This, in turn, led to the Air Force’s Operation Blue Book.”

While it is most certain U-2 flights did lead to an increase in UFO reports [I would not even grant that - RS], this did not lead to the creation of the Air Force’s Project Blue Book. Project Blue Book was an official U.S. Air Force investigation of UFOs established in 1951, and was actually the third Air Force project to investigate UFO sightings. The first was Project Sign, set up in 1948, which then became Project Grudge in 1949, and finally Blue Book in 1951.

The CIA's claim that the U2 flights led to the creation of Project Blue Book is impossible, because Blue Book predates the U2 flights by several years. Other Air Force projects to investigate "flying saucer" sightings were created several years earlier still.

Why did the CIA make such an absurd claim? It's hard to say. Some see in this a sinister attempt at disinformation. I don't think that's the case, because if the CIA wanted to issue disinformation, it would have come up with a story that is not so transparently bogus as this. The footnote accompanying the "one-half" claim simply reads, "Information supplied by James Cunningham to [co-author] Donald E. Welzenbach." Who is James Cunningham? Under "Key Personnel" in Appendix B, we find:

James Cunningham, Jr. An ex-Marine Corps pilot, he became the administrative officer for the U-2 in April 1955. Cunningham handled the day-to-day management of the U-2 program and brought only the more complex problems to Richard Bissell's attention. Later he served as the Deputy Director of the Office of Special Activities and then Special Assistant to the Deputy Director for Science and Technology.

In other words, a bureaucrat in the U-2 program. What does he know about the history of UFO reports, and UFO investigations? Nothing, it would seem, except for what he has made up. The world of UFOlogy is filled with Boasters who exaggerate (if not fabricate) events to make themselves seem important. The authors of the CIA report seem to have immortalized a groundless boast by a program bureaucrat, and turned it into one of those "facts" that practically everyone has heard, and practically everyone believes, but has no foundation in truth.