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The other night I watched a program on the History Channel called “Roswell, The day After.†Every time I see a program about Roswell I always ponder the same question.

1947 was a very unusual year. The Air Force was about to go autonomous as a separate service. The Navy and the Army Air Force were involved in a huge congressional battle over funding. The Navy had demonstrated that the Battleship was history. Hence, from now on, Battle Groups and Task Forces would be formed around the aircraft carrier. The planet is 7/10’s water and the Navy could deliver an airborne force anywhere. The Army Air Force had become a strategic force and was charged with defense of U.S. airspace. It could also deliver a payload anywhere in the world.

ITEM 1: In 1947 the only nuclear equipped squadron on the planet was the 509th Bomb Group based at Roswell Army Air Force Base. The 509th was the same bomb group that delivered the atomic bombs over Japan. In 1947 it was commanded by a Colonel named Blanchard. Keeping in mind that he was in command of the most formidable weapons systems ever developed, it is highly doubtful that that command would be given to an idiot.

ITEM 2: As is the case with the commanding officer, the 509th’s Intelligence Officer could have not have been an idiot either. Its not like they scraped the bottom of the barrel to find an Intelligence Officer for the only nuclear squadron ever. Major Jessie Marcel was that officer. He also happened to be an expert in aircraft identification.

You all know the “Story†– Radar stations in West Texas began tracking a bogey as well as did the radar station at White Sands Proving Grounds in New Mexico until the target dropped off the scope. Several eye witnesses reported seeing the object descend and to most it appeared like a plane on fire. Two days later a Ranch foreman found a debris field which he thought was a plane crash. He gathered up some of the unusual crash material and took it home. Six days later he delivered it to the Sheriff in Roswell. The Sheriff notified the Air base and Marcel examined the material and notified Col. Blanchard.

Blanchard ordered Marcel to accompany the foreman, Max Brazel (sp), back to the crash site. Marcel was also instructed to pick-up a civilian intel officer.

ITEM 3: Col. Blanchard after examining the material ordered a press release that the AAF had captured a flying saucer. Why? He wasn’t stupid and was surely security conscious. I think his motive was to give the AAF a boost. “Sleep tight tonight, your soon to be Air Force is at work protecting you, just look at what we did.â€

ITEM 4: Everyone knows that all of a sudden everything was ordered quashed by the Regional Commander, one General Ramy (sp). Why? The next thing is an official denial and a photograph of Marcel holding a portion of a weather balloon.

Marcel knew what a plane crash site looks like. He knew what a weather balloon looked like. Was he that stupid to misidentify a balloon for a plane? I think not, especially since your average eight year old Cub Scout could tell the difference between a plane crash and a balloon made out of film and balsa. So why the denial?

SCENARIO 1: Both Blanchard and Marcel were total idiots and dropped the ball.

The next two involve National Security. There are times when the public cannot be told the truth. An example would be after Pearl Harbor there were five separate commissions held before the war ended. Admiral Kimmel and General Short were blamed, even though they had not been sent copies the “Purple†intercepts. Purple was the code name for the Japanese most secret diplomatic code which we had broken. Had that fact been made public it would have let the Japanese know that we had broken their code and they would have changed it. It was vital to the war effort to keep that fact classified.

SCENARIO 2: Blanchard and Marcel were made to look like idiots in the best interests of National Security. Something had crashed (man made or alien made) and we didn’t want the Russians to know about it. Remember the dust from WWII wasn’t even settled before the Cold War was being waged. When Yeager broke the sound barrier (also 1947) we clamped down on the news. We didn’t want the Russians to know that we could fly faster that sound.

SCENARIO 3: Blanchard and Marcel were made to look like idiots in the best interests of the Air Force. Something unusual happened in the New Mexico Desert. Two different radar installations tracked it. The unidentified was over flying the most sensitive area in North America. Roswell AAF Base (Nuclear equipped squadron), within 100 miles of White Sands Proving Grounds, where a new delivery system was being developed (rockets), and within a 100 miles of Los Alamos where the atomic bomb was developed and new nuclear weapons were being developed. The AAF didn’t even investigate it and it wasn’t even brought to the AAF’s attention until a week later. To add injury to insult, a civilian discovered the crash. How would that look to the public, especially when the top brass was expounding on the virtues of having a new service, the Air Force, a state of the art force charged with the security of U.S. air space and something managed to penetrate our air space and they didn’t even look for it. Blanchard and Marcel, you have just volunteered to become the Kimmel and Short of 1947.

Things have been a little slow on the board lately and I though this would liven things up a bit. I picked the Sci-Fi forum because this is where most Sci-Fi buffs hang out and I felt there would be more interest in this subject. Although I’m sure not if Roswell is Sci-Fi or fact, I do think something happened, I’m just not sure of what it was. Sorry this post is so long. I would pick scenario 3.

How about you and why?

;)

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"They flew like a saucer would if you skipped it over water" Kenneth Arnold.

I never understood that quote. Does he mean ET can't fly straight? Bouncing is what Tiggers and UFOs do best? Buzz Lightyear needs to pull them over for DUI?

Anyhoo. Recently saw a documentary that suggested UFOs were US and/or Soviet flying machines developed with captured German technology. Apprently there were plans for various circular craft that promised unheard of flight characteristics like VTOL and radical agility. The alien flying saucer mythos was created by the big bad CIA to either disguise US testing, or quell possible public panic at the thought of Commie pizza trays bouncily bombing the crap out of them.. So maybe Roswell was the first shot in a long lasting disinformation program that has seen Will Smith in dark suits and shiny silver guns twice.

I'm also sceptical of the 'unusual nature' of the materials found. Just because it was unusual to a rancher living in a big empty the size of Australia doesn't mean it wasn't 'something' in common military usage. Of course it just wouldn't do for the military investigators to blurt out 'Its not alien metal! Its the Coanda flow compensator foil from a Mikoyan Red Star class heavy fighter!' So they just shut up and let their credibility take a hit. A combination of 2 and 3 then, dependant on whether the saucer was local or foreign.

In the 80s there were sightings of a black triangular craft, later revealed to be the F-117. How come no circular planform aircraft have been revealed? Simple, just because it was tested doesn't mean it was worth a crap. Chances are the benefits promised by the German flying saucers could be achieved more easily and efficiently in other ways (vectored thrust VTOL for one) and the program quietly died. America started building Century fighters to go faster faster faster while the Soviets (assuming they even had a flying saucer program) worked on ever larger and faster bombers.

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Ken Lim - very insightful comments. We've both seen circular test AC, colloquially known as flying pancakes. Of course back then thrust vectoring wasn't even an idea yet. I wonder if that would have made a difference? :cheers:

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well...my spin is that it was a Nazi saucer left over from WW II trying to steal nuclear grade uranium/plutonium but it hit a weather balloon from Roswell AFB and crashed....see link...

At long last! The mystery is finally solved. (LOL, that was funny B) )

On the other hand, your theory is a plausible as any I've ever heard. As much as I would like hard evidence that would prove extra terrestial visitation at some point in our planet's history. I am more willing to accept your explanation.

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Since you're soliciting opinions here's mine...

Nope, don't believe Roswell ever happened. And those "documented" UFO sightings by common folk, nope don't believe those either.

However I do believe that story in the National Enquirer about ET's that were able to impregnate an Alabama woman via telekinesis such that her "alien love child" looked like her brother. B)

Randy

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:rofl::wave: Nah, don't believe in alien spacecraft. I DO believe those local Roswellian townspeople had a tad too much of that artesian water. :wave: Ivan
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If it was a UFO or a secret US/Russian craft that crashed may never be known. Unless some form of hard evidence is found...I'll go with SCENARIO 3.

I'm not saying that I believe in UFO's, just that there is no absolute proof one way or the other. I do believe, however, that for us (humans) to think that we are the only intellegent life in the universe is a bit shortsighted. With all the planets in the cosmos, there might be life out there.

Mark

Edited by indydog
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Nope, don't believe Roswell ever happened. And those "documented" UFO sightings by common folk, nope don't believe those either.

Randy - I agree with you, I don't believe anything "alien" happened at Roswell. However when it comes to UFO's, I keep an open mind (.05%) just in case. I completely eliminate all reported sightings made by the speculation freaks.

Its the people with impeccable credentials filing reports that I question. Airline pilots, military pilots, scientists, police officers, etc. To what end? What could they possibly gain. They know that the minute they make a report, they open themselves up to ridicule and evaluation. I've logged over ten thousand hours after 25 years of flying and have seen many strange things. However I've never seen anything that I would classify as a machine. Yet these people have seen something that made enough of an impression to risk their careers, especially pilots who on a daily basis identifiy airborne objects and note flight characteristics of aircraft in near proximity to their own. Even if I saw a saucer a 100 feet away from my plane and could see the pilot wave at me and then it shot forward at 2000 knots and made a 90 degree turn, I seriously doubt if I would report it or tell anyone.

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I hear what you're saying Gunner. There is some unexplained stuff out there. But I'd love to see it for myself.

Ol' Tommy Cruise took some heat for his comments about alien life out in the cosmos. I'm sure that this was all tied into the Scientology stuff that he's been pushing for the last little while. I don't jibe with him on his religious beliefs, but I do agree that there has to be other forms of life somewhere out there. It would be incredibly short-sighted of us (and arrogant too) to assume that we're the only "intelligent" life in the universe. Every star in the night sky is a sun that has planets orbiting it. And some of those planets are undoubtedly the same mass as ours and the same distance from its sun as us, setting up the perfect environment for life to thrive. Heck, maybe there's an ARC in a parallel universe.

No Tom, you're out to lunch on most of the things that you say and believe (at least with me you are), but I'll side with ya on the alien life stuff any day.

Randy

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I don't know why but some of the best pilosophical observations I've heard come from Sci-Fi movies. In the 2nd Star Trek flick (The Wrath of Kahn) Mr. Spock says "the needs of the many out weigh the needs of the few." How true.

In the movie "Contact" with Jody Foster (based on Carl Sagan's book) her character as a little girl asks her father "do you think there's life out there?"

Her father replies "if there isn't, then its a terrible waste of space."

My screen saver at home is a program from the University of Calif. at Berkley - S.E.T.I. Every 40 hours I get a block recorded from the Aracebo Radio Telescope in Puerto Rico and my PC (SETI progran) analyzes it. Its really sophiscated with oscilloscope and 3 dimentional graphs. When NASA pulled funding for SETI - Berkley continued by connecting to 1.3 million home computers and downloads a block of information previously recorded at Aracebo, along with the coodinates and azimuth. They only have a limited amount of time to use the facility so they record millions of band widths and use a network of home PC's for analysis. There's a protocol to follow if my assigned block picks up any transmission that isn't background noise or natural. If someday, somewhere, someone's, PC picks up any artificial transmissions from out there - they get co-credit for the discovery. If anyone wants to give it a shot just plug in keywords SETI - Berkley and you'll link right up. I figure since my computer is idle while I'm at work, what the heck. Its fun

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If the life that exists out there is truly intelligent, they most likely give this planet a wide detour. Can't imagine that coming here is considered a safe thing for someone from some other planet, it isn't even safe for those native to the planet itself. If these aliens are so intelligent, how come they continue to show themselves (the majority of the time) to the least reliable witnesses one can think of? I can imagine something along the lines of :

"All right, Sir. Please describe what happened."

"Dude, so there I was about to light up my bong, when I saw the flying saucer land and all these grey dudes come out...So then Bubba offered the last of his Jack Daniels to the aliens, that was okay, we already drank over half of his stash by that time. Still for a first contact, that showed no class on Bubba's part. Me I offered the Aliens a hit off my bong. That was pretty cool, huh?"

"Uhmm, yeah...."

Hopefully the Flying Saucer drivers don't bring their kids from wherever they come from. Imagine hearing the equivalent of "Are we there yet?" for a couple light years? :blink:

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dragon - your comments are hysterically funny. :blink: ;)

Sadly, I can honestly see that taking place with certain segments of our society, which would be a terrible commentary on our society for a first contact.

Since our solar system apparently does not have any other life with the exception of the possibility of microbes or bacteria it is self evident that any other intelligent life would have to originate from another star system. The biggest problem is the vast distance. I personally believe that the universe is swarming with life, animal, plant and intelligent. Again the biggest problem is the incredible distance, almost beyond human comprehension. Light speed ain't gonna cut it.

However, if a distant civilization has overcome the light speed barrier, like we did with the sound barrier, then the possibilty of contact exists. Engineers once believed the sound barrier was an absolute and couldn't be broken. One can only speculate what an advanced civilization has achieved, warp drive, short cuts through Black Holes or worm holes, time warp distortions and so on.

We've just started to understand the mysteries of stealth technology. I've always had a sneaky feeling that any civilization that has overcome and mastered the time-distance problem could most likely enter our air space totally undetected, unless they wanted us to know they're here. For all we know they might be looking over our shoulder and reading this.

"What was that! Did you hear anything?" :D

dragon, thanks for the laugh. It'll get my holiday weekend off to a plesant start. Have a pleasent and safe 4th of July.

Gunner

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Engineers once believed the sound barrier was an absolute and couldn't be broken.

Engineers approximately 100 years ago also believed that human beings would go insane if they went over 35 miles per hour or so. Then again, after seeing some of the driving going on on the Freeways here in California, I concede that they may have had a point! :thumbsup:

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I do believe in flying saucers- there are simply too many photos and eyewitnesses to ignore the possibility! Where they actually come from is a matter of pure speculation. Since most "descriptions" depict seats, windows, up-down orientation, and other things we understand, I would say that at least some U.F.O.'s are manifestations of a time when our own technology renders wings, wheels, and most likely the clock, obsolete.

The sketches I have seen of the Roswell ship resemble a winged lifting body like the H-1....maybe a German sub-orbital vehicle launched atop a two-stage V-1? I just love speculation! :thumbsup:

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As I stated earlier I like to keep an open mind (.05%) for the possibility of alien craft. But there's one thing that has bothered me for quite awhile.

Let's say that what crashed at Roswell wasn't a spy craft (highly doubtful) from another government and is wasn't alien (highly doubtful) so it must have been a balloon like the Air Force said.

Reports of alien bodies recovered at the Roswell site have surfaced and been around for years. So the official Air Force explanation was another test project (the name escapes me) this one involving high altitude parachute drops using dummies. This explains the bodies that were seen. Of course that project took place a few years after Roswell. Then a balloon with an Air Force pilot came down rapidly and he was thrown out and his head was pinned under the gondola, which caused his head to swell to twice its normal size. A good explanation for aliens with large heads when this poor guy was seen at the base hospital. Of course that event took place in 1956 so the time frame doesn't fit.

If the crash at Roswell was a balloon (Project Mogal) as the official Air Force explanation says it was, then there could not have been occupants, Soviet air crew or Alien crew. If there were no bodies, then why was it necessary to even come up with a plausible explanation for the presence of bodies in the first place. Just a little food for thought.

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In the movie "Contact" with Jody Foster (based on Carl Sagan's book) her character as a little girl asks her father "do you think there's life out there?"

Her father replies "if there isn't, then its a terrible waste of space."

Actually, to quote Monty Python' "Galaxy Song"

"there better be intelligent life somwehere out in space, cuz there's bugger all down here on earth"

Reality TV shows would seem to support this thesis...

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No. There are no flying saucers visiting us. But I do think there is lots of life out there. Like someone else pointed out, the distances are VAST! I think it takes 100,000 light-years to cross our own galaxy alone. Now add in that there are probably as many if not more galaxies out there than there are stars in our own galaxy. That makes for an awful lot of potential for whatever is possible to occur. But I think it does take quite a bit of luck for life to get a foothold. Afterall, our own planet has seen countless mass-extinctions in its history. Planets have to have the right orbit...maybe a moon to keep its wobble steady and not so severe. You also can't have giant planets perterbing the orbits of smaller ones during planet-making. Lots of radiation out there. There are plenty of stars that burst forth radiation magnitudes much greater than our sun and would fry our own atmosphere and everything on our planet (our sun is pretty docile but it has the potential.) Black holes that have everything in the center of the galaxy moving way too fast and heating everything up. Rocks flying around out there the size of Manhattan or Mt Everest that'll wipe everything out. It goes on-and-on. On our own planet, out of all the life ever seen there is only one that has ever risen to what we'd consider "intelligent life." I wonder what that ratio is of intelligent vs all the life ever seen on this planet. One life-form out of millions, if not billions (if counting microbes, etc), that is "intelligent." Still, I think there's life out there, but they aren't taking vacations to earth and the intelligent ones certainly aren't within easy reach.

We are made from nothing more than stardust. My favorite quote I heard goes something along the lines of:

"We are just a part of the universe getting to know itself." One day, some of our molecules may form a new star, or a planet, or a new life-form and maybe even a toaster.

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The word "vast" does not do astronomical distance justice! Your typical star is the sky is so far away that the light you are seeing is OLD. In many cases, the star that created it is long gone. This makes determining what is actually out there very difficult. The farther out one looks, the more piled-up afterimages one encounters. Hubble images are packed with 'em. Assuming a ship could cross this distance, it could find itself chasing ghosts. The "nearby" space, in contrast, seems rather empty, especially of Sol-like stars and systems.

Given this distance, and the fact that alien descriptions are generally humanoid in nature, the first place to look for "aliens" should be right here on Earth! As others in this thread have pointed out, many mass extinctions have occured here, and there is no reason to think we are the only ones to have ever occupied the top niche on this planet. Maybe the others are still around, and watching us. The tech required to stay one second ahead or behind the human race on earth can't be any tougher than that required to drive a starship to the edge of the galaxy. And when it screws up, we get a mysterious U.F.O right in our laps, out of thin air!

The fact that sightings went way up when we started lighting off atomic bombs seems to indicate that these beings have some stake in the planet Earth, a situation much more like that portrayed in the movie The Abyss than the one shown in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

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I agree with Rusty. With the exception of "they're lonely", I can't see why any race advanced enough to break the speed of light would want anything to do with us.

In fact, given the state of society in general now, the first alien species that announces itself to the public is TOTALLY gonna get hosed....

to any aliens reading this: better to stay away until we've sorted this mess out... if ever...

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I agree with Rusty. With the exception of "they're lonely", I can't see why any race advanced enough to break the speed of light would want anything to do with us.

In fact, given the state of society in general now, the first alien species that announces itself to the public is TOTALLY gonna get hosed....

to any aliens reading this: better to stay away until we've sorted this mess out... if ever...

What if the aliens we are "seeing" are their equivalent of Jaques-Ives Cousteau or Jane Goodall (hopefully they aren't their equivalent of THE CROCODILE HUNTER)?

Translated from alksjdr prime to English- (courtesy of Area 51 translations)

"Crickey! Now that's a beauty! Notice how he stares at our lights. Now we shall see how he reacts to the anal probe. Oh! He didn't like that one! Best let that one go."

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DISCLAIMER - views of lil ol me, not the naval officer who happens to share my adress (take note, SSO and ONI - and pack sand).

1. Yes, I think there is intelligent life somewhere else.

2. No. I don't think said intelligent life has ever visted Roswell.

3. Neither do I think intelligent life has either visited, or been brough post-crash/post-mortem to a certain unnamed dry lakebed somewhere between Las Vegas and Reno.

4. If anyone saw history channel's "UFO Files" episode about the supposed Area 51 scientist who then told his story to a local TV station - here's my personal bet (no, not insider information - I'm not cleard THAT high):

a) Yes, he worked, or is still currently working for, the government.

b. No, I don't think for a minute that he worked on extraterrestial craft.

c) yes, I think he's getting paid well SOMEHOWt to SAY that he worked on extraterresital craft.

d) why? so people have an explanation for the weirdassed things they may or may not see in the skies thereabouts. Other than the truth. And no, I have no idea what that might be - other than the fact that I have no business knowing what it is.

e) I will bet anyone a night of adult beverages (which, if you can keep up with me, is not an insignificant sum) that 80%+ of supposed UFOs in the areas north of Las Vegas from mid-70s to 1990ish can be ascribed to one entity - F-117.

Edited by Karl Sander
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