Sir Arthur C.B.E. Wholeflaffers A.S.A. wrote:
> Fifty Years Of Unanswered Questions by Donald Schmitt
> ********
>
> How could an event such as a UFO crash in 1947 be kept a secret so
> long? Surely the real story would have leaked before now, as has
> seemingly happened to every government secret in the past twenty-five
> years. President Nixon himself, with all his powers and resources,
> wasn't able to prevent Woodward and Bernstein from uncovering the
> Watergate conspiracy.
>
> Secrets surely do leak but some secrets don't for long periods of
> time. Consider these instances:
>
> 1) The F 1 17 Stealth fighter, aircraft, was developed in secret and
> was flying at a time when the public was told the aircraft was still
> on the drawing board.
>
> 2) Project Ultra, the Allied Word War II project that allowed us to
> break the codes of the Germans and thereby hasten their defeat, was a
> secret for almost forty years until revealed in the early 1980s.
>
> 3) Only recently have the numerous military accidents with nuclear
> devices been disclosed, not because of a desire by the government to
> admit the truth, but because of the dedicated probing of a civilian
> organization.
>
> So it is certainly true that the government can keep secrets, but to
> what lengths are officials preparing to go to enact a cover-up?
> Consider this one instance from an event that occurred during World
> War II. The Boeing Airplane Company was then secretly developing the
> B-29 bomber for the Army Air Force at its main plant near Seattle. On
> February 18, 1943, a prototype B-29 caught on fire during a test
> flight and crashed in Seattle onto a meat packing plant. The plane
> actually passed over downtown Seattle during its rapid descent. All
> members of the crew died, along with several employees of the plant
> and some of the firemen who fought the blaze that engulfed the plane
> and plant.
>
> Thousands of people saw the plane coming down and the subsequent fire
> and rescue efforts. Did the story of the crash of a secret aircraft
> go out over the wires that same day, with accounts from these many
> witnesses? Although it seems unlikely, the FBI succeeded in
> preventing any but the most garbled information from leaking out. FBI
> agents went so far as to intercept all copies of City Transit Weekly,
> an employee newsletter that carried photos of the plane taken by a
> Seattle city bus driver.
>
> So the government does keep secrets, and it will take extreme
> measures to protect those secrets in matters of national security.
> Could the Roswell event have been sufficiently important to warrant
> such treatment? We think so, and so must two men, one still living,
> whom we have interviewed.
>
> The Provost Marshal at the Roswell base, the equivalent of the chief
> of police, was in charge of all security at the crash site in 1947.
> When we located and then contacted him in late 1989, it was the first
> time anyone had extensively questioned him about what had occurred.
> The Provost Marshal did not tell us the weather balloon cover story,
> nor did he give us a true account of the Roswell recovery. Instead,
> he told us that he considered himself still sworn to secrecy about
> the event -- after forty-three years!
>
> The second fellow we interviewed was an agent in the
> Counter-Intelligence Corps. He accompanied another intelligence
> officer on the initial trip to the crash site and, we believe, wrote
> a report on the incident for his superiors in Washington. At first,
> this intelligence agent refused to admit that the event had occurred
> at all! There had been no newspaper story, no fuss, not even the
> recovery of a weather balloon. After much prodding, he was willing to
> admit that something came down and was recovered, but that was as far
> as he would go. He admits no personal involvement, even though other
> reliable sources give him a central role. Now, he is considered the
> number one witness for the Air Force, endorsing their Mogul balloon
> theory.
>
> We admire how seriously these gentlemen took their oaths of secrecy
> for almost fifty years, but we must raise this question: Why the need
> to conceal the recovery of a weather balloon?
>
> The government cover-up extends to the public records of the Air
> Force UFO investigation as well. Those records were released in 1976,
> and the file on Roswell contains but a single press clipping. No
> letters, no notes, no investigative forms, no official weather
> balloon explanation, nothing but that lone clipping. The file for the
> recovery of an actual weather balloon in Circleville, Ohio, a week
> before the Roswell event, contains far more documentation on its
> particulars. Where is the material that should be in the Roswell
> file?
>
> The evidence presented here, and that which will be shortly discussed
> establishes that the Roswell crash was one of those events that had
> to be kept secret by whatever means were necessary. Files and notes
> were confiscated from reporters, 71 radio stations were warned not to
> air stories, a phony story was concocted, and men were sworn to
> secrecy.
>
> As you can well imagine, it has not been an easy task to reconstruct
> what actually occurred in July of 1947. Many of the men (and the few
> women) involved are now dead, and those living are quite old. Human
> memory does not record events with complete accuracy, especially
> after years have elapsed. As Kevin Tierney has explained in his book
> How to Be A Witness, when someone has been asked to recount his
> memory of an event several times, "For the most part what he says
> will be the same, but there will generally be minor discrepancies
> between his recollection on one occasion and the next." This is
> certainly true for the accounts we have gathered concerning Roswell,
> and the natural errors that creep into an individual's memory mean
> that some inconsistencies exist in the testimony you will read.
> Nevertheless, the general pattern of events we have recorded from
> essentially all the witnesses does fit one consistent picture.
>
> As those above the age of five at the time of President Kennedy's
> assassination can relate, the moment when they first learned of that
> gruesome event is permanently etched in their minds -- a snapshot
> memory. Several of the Roswell witnesses have compared their memories
> of the 1947 event to that of the assassination: the Roswell memories
> are vivid and detailed, despite the passage of fifty years.
>
> Government secrecy is not always something evil and unjustified. We
> understand and support the practice of secrecy as it applies to
> certain types of information. Some information should remain hidden,
> such as nuclear firing codes, court records, police files, and
> information about the intelligence agents working undercover, but
> records documenting the recovery of a weather balloon hardly merit
> such treatment.
>
> What could have happened so long ago at Roswell to cause former
> intelligence officers to abide by their oaths of secrecy today, even
> though previous accounts of the recovery have been published and
> broadcast? What kind of event required such high levels of security
> that the intelligence officer who participated in the initial
> recovery of the debris, and who was entrusted with the task of taking
> some of the debris to higher levels of command, was not allowed to
> read the written report upon his return. What caused the military to
> place the ranch manager whom reported finding the debris under house
> arrest? Why have the military records of men involved with the crash
> remains disappeared? Why, indeed?
>
> If the crash and retrieval of a UFO in New Mexico in 1947 actually
> happened, shouldn't there be other reliable reports from other
> reliable sources since then? The answer is yes, if the statement is
> true. There should be many good, reliable reports from solid
> citizens, from men and women whose credentials are impeccable. Men
> and women who have nothing to gain by claiming they saw a flying
> saucer. And some of those sightings should have been made by highly
> respected sources.
>
> General Michael Rexrold said that he viewed Chester Lytle as one of
> the great, unsung heroes of this country. Lytle was a key player in
> the Manhattan Project and developed the radio commands that detonated
> the first atomic bomb dropped on Japan.
>
> In the years that followed, Lytle served in government designing and
> engineering communication systems for the old Atomic Energy
> Commission. The military called on him many times for secret projects
> at different bases across the country.
>
> Lytle is, therefore, one of those impeccable sources. Lytle said that
> while he was on assignment at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in the
> late 1950s, the base suddenly went on alert. Lytle and a number of
> officers were escorted to a special radio room in the operations
> building. Inside, while the military personnel worked, Lytle watched
> an intercept on a small television monitor.
>
> According to Lytle, one of the jet interceptors was equipped with a
> television camera in the gun camera position. He was transmitting the
> intercept to the operations radio room. In the clear daylight, Lytle
> watched a smooth, metallic disk play cat and mouse with the lead
> fighter. For a moment, Lytle thought he had to be watching some kind
> of science fiction movie, but there was no doubt that the intercept
> was real. Everyone around him acted as if the event was routine.
> Then, suddenly, the UFO disappeared, leaving the interceptors far
> behind it.
>
> Afterward, Lytle was told by the base commander that this type of
> activity was a regular event, not only at Wright-Patterson, but at
> other Air Force bases as well. In fact, over the years, Lytle had
> heard numerous, similar accounts from both military officers and
> governmental officials.
>
> Today, Lytle, who is the president of a telecommunications company,
> is adamant about what he knows to be the truth. What he witnessed
> defied all conventional explanation. He faces the same problem that
> researchers face - lack of physical evidence. While it is true that
> all efforts by civilian researchers have yielded no tangible proof,
> it is also true that Roswell demonstrates that the 'nuts and bolts'
> evidence does exist. For the first time the 'smoking gun' has been
> found. It has been documented.
>
> With the Roswell case, the enigma of UFOs is no longer spurious or
> abstruse. Answers, though known only by a select few, are still being
> withheld. However, we can now, in total confidence and conviction,
> direct the public to the undeniable source of the proof. Proof which
> would enable us to finally lift the veil of secrecy that surrounds
> Roswell. Put aside all political agenda, all preconceived opinions,
> all bias, and consider the following:
>
> * If the debris originated from a top secret test, why was there no
> recovery or search operation under way until Brazel reported the
> debris to Sheriff Wilcox two after the find? An aerial search over
> open range and high desert would have taken only a few hours to
> locate any downed object. This has been confirmed by retired military
> officers, who were involved in actual search and rescue missions in
> New Mexico. We, too, have flown private planes over the Brazel site.
> Given that the debris field was three-quarters of a mile long, a
> search and recovery team would have located it long before Brazel
> did.
>
> * Weather balloons had fallen onto Brazel's ranch on a number of
> occasions, and he turned them in for the rewards offered. In 1945, he
> discovered the remains of a Japanese Balloon Bomb which he reported.
> This time, however, he was angry because of the amount of debris. His
> sheep would not cross the pasture because of the material. It is
> interesting to note that weather balloons are still dropping on the
> ranch. The current owners store them in an old silo. One large
> balloon, about twenty feet in diameter, took one man two minutes to
> retrieve it.
>
> * After examining samples of the material, why did Brazel's neighbors
> encourage him to report the crash as physical evidence of a flying
> disk and not for the five dollar balloon reward?
>
> * How did highly trained and experienced military officers, the elite
> in their fields, mistake a conventional weather instrument for an
> object they all, without exception, concluded to be an actual flying
> disk? Those who believe that it was a special radar reflecting
> balloon have said that the men, Blanchard, Marcel, and all the other
> officers at Roswell were not familiar with the specialized equipment.
> Marcel, however, had a radar interpretation officer assigned to his
> office. He would have been able to recognize the balloon, even if the
> others were fooled.
>
> * What type of balloon could scatter debris over an area
> three-quarters of a mile long and could make a 500 foot gouge in the
> tough New Mexican soil of mostly shale and slate stone.
>
> * What type of balloon would fill a 1942 Buick convertible, a jeep
> carryall box, and then require fifty to sixty troops two days to
> complete the cleanup?
>
> * Why did the military check the site for possible radiation if the
> downed object was nothing more than a common weather balloon?
>
> * After he was found at the home of Walt Whitmore Sr. on the morning
> of July 8, why was Brazel held in detention at the base for another
> seven days? According to Brazel, he was not allowed to place any
> outside calls, not even to his wife. He was also given a physical
> examination. His family and neighbors remember that he later
> complained how he had been asked the same questions over and over,
> and that he described the experience by saying he "was in jail."
>
> * Why the need for extreme security measures at the crash site of a
> downed meteorological instrument? Measures such as: armed guards
> surrounding the inner gouge area, another cordon around the
> perimeter, riflemen posted on the surrounding hills, and MPs
> stationed on the outlying roads.
>
> * Why was Bud Payne, a hired hand at one of the neighboring ranches,
> bodily removed from the Brazel ranch during the military occupation
> of the site? As Payne was attempting to round up a stray cow, a
> military jeep roared up to him and an MP physically forced him off
> the ranch.
>
> * Why were there seven confirmed (possibly eight) flights to
> transport the remains of a balloon? Most of the wreckage was flown
> out under high security.

Amen!