Friday, February 27, 2015

The "Roswell Slides" Witness

Much has been made by the Dream Teamers of a military witness who confirmed for them that he saw the same body that is depicted in the two "Roswell slides," and that it was at Roswell in 1947 and it was alien.

Here is Adam Dew, the filmmaker behind all of this, talking about the "slides" on WGN 9 News in Chicago. The relevant part is at 4:42 when Dew states, "We did show them to a Roswell military veteran who was on site in 1947 who says he saw bodies and he says that the slides look like what he saw in July of 1947."


In the trailer for his Kodachrome documentary, Dew refers to the witness as a "Lieutenant." At 2:38 Dew states: "And then there's this guy, who was an army lieutenant at Roswell air force base in 1947."


That veteran does indeed exist. A source provided me with the name - Eleazar N. Benavides. He currently lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. If you go to Google you can track him down and see a photo of where he lives, which matches the location you see in the film trailer above (apparently interviewing witnesses standing in their driveway is Dew's style).

Thanks to researcher Tim Printy, who is part of an ad hoc, sub rosa group of skeptics who are looking into the slides (of which I am also an associate), here is a photo of a much younger Mr. Benavides in the Roswell base yearbook from 1947.


As you can see, at the time of the Roswell Incident, Benavides was indeed stationed at Roswell, so that much is true, but he was a Private First Class in the 390th Air Service Squadron. He was not, as Dew erroneously claims in the trailer, a Lieutenant.

In fact, he is also not a new "witness." He is the "Pfc. Benjamin" referred to in the book Witness to Roswell by Roswell slides promoters / "Dream Team" members Tom Carey and Donald Schmitt (see. pp. 209 - 217 - "Eli Benjamin" was a pseudonym used by the authors). He can be seen in an episode about Roswell on the short-lived Sci-Fi Investigates series in this clip:


Benavides is repeating the same sort of story that "witnesses" to the "creature" have repeated before. Is he lying, as other "witnesses" like Glenn Dennis were, or did he actually see a body that had been injured somehow, and after all of these years (and no small amount of prodding from Roswell researchers) he has conflated what he saw at some point in the past into the Roswell space aliens narrative? Who knows, although history and hard experience tells us that the former is by far the most likely possibility. The idea that he would be afraid he was going to lose his pension (ergo the pseudonym), but was willing to show his face on national television (and now in Dew's film) seems... well, let's just say that it requires a great deal of "belief suspension" to buy it. But it sure adds to the mysterious and secretive nature of the story that the Roswell myth-makers have used over the years.

Either way, Benavides, aka Benjamin, is the man that the Dream Team is hanging their hats on as a witness to validate the space alien nature of the "Roswell slides." Without him, they just have a couple of slides. Make of that what you will.

Meanwhile, the work of skeptics continues in terms of debunking this con. Perhaps we should schedule a big reveal with the real story... on May 5th.

Paul Kimball 

22 comments:

Anthony Bragalia said...

You are reprehensible. By publishing this man's name and showing his home,etc. you are endangering him.

If he receives harassing phone calls, you are to blame.

Just how low can you go? You have no filter- doing this to a very elderly man and making it easy for people to bother him in the winter of his life- you are one sick one.

Paul Kimball said...

I have no sympathy. These idiots trot out the following line all the time: "We have the evidence that would prove this in a court of law." Here's the problem with that - in a court of law, lawyers are permitted to cross-examine the other side's witnesses, to test and challenge their claims. Without that, the entire system is worthless. Only in the most dangerous of cases is witness anonymity granted, and even then it is the rarest of exceptions to the rule. Mr. Benavides is in no such danger, and if he is then he has only himself and the Roswellites to blame - after all, no skeptic forced him to show his face on Sci Fi Investigates, or stand outside his home in Dew's trailer and talk about his fantastical claims. I hope someone does pick up the mantle and contact him, and politely question him about his claims. Otherwise, all we have is the word of the Roswellites for it... and whilst I understand why they would rather not have their witnesses challenged (it has never worked out well for them in the past), that's simply not acceptable. It's not how real research is done.

The Dream Team criticizes the government for keeping information secret, but then they do it themselves when it suits their purposes. The hypocrisy is appalling.

So Mr. Bragalia can sit on his high horse all he wants. It doesn't wash with me.

Paul

Anthony Bragalia said...

I am contacting the Halifax police. You are inciting harassment. And you got his name from information derived from a hacker who stole my emails. The police will be made aware of this.

What you have done to an elderly man is beyond belief. How would you like your mother and father brought into this?

Making public private things is a 'thing' with you.

Mike Jamieson said...

Interesting attempt here at intimidating legitimate reporting and inquiry. That attempt seems to be based on a cultic type mind set which makes people pretty dumb about commonsensical stuff, like ordinary delving into stories like this. Kimball isn't doing anything out of the ordinary here.

Paul Kimball said...

It's not a "private" thing when the guy has been on network television. I wish Mr. Bragalia could get that through his head. ;-)

As for contacting the Halifax police, go for it. I know more than a few of them, and I'm sure they'll be most amused. Who knows - they may even open a file on Mr. Bragalia. They take a dim view of people who waste their time.

PK

Paul Kimball said...

P.S. My parents haven't put themselves forward as witnesses to a space alien's dead body and then appeared on television and in books telling the tale. But if they had, I can guarantee you that they would know full well that they were subject to public scrutiny and cross-examination. It comes with the territory. I wouldn't have to divulge their names; they would never have hidden in the first place.

PK

Terry the Censor said...

> By publishing this man's name and showing his home, etc. you are endangering him.

Tony, enough bullshit. The witness was already "out" years ago, and Dew himself published recent images of the witness and his house.

Show me you're not a reprehensible con man, Tony: report Adam Dew to the FBI for endangering this old man!

Terry the Censor said...

By the way, Paul, a most welcome post. I appreciate this nice bit of detective work by Tim.

I hope we hear more from the "slider skeptic" group in the future.

Paul Kimball said...

Thanks, Terry. It's a group of real researchers, with real credentials and an objective POV doing real research on multiple angles. Not sure what the endgame is, but we will probably publish a report when we're done. I only published this one because it was a relatively minor thread that I had initiated, and I thought folks should know (especially as Dew was misrepresenting the man as an officer when he was in fact a simple Pfc.). The truth abhors a vacuum.

Now, back to fielding e-mails from Bragalia threatening to contact everyone we know and harass them. Because that's how he rolls.

PK

Lance said...

Ok, road trip!

Paul Kimball said...

I'm in! I love ABQ, and I've always wanted to interview a witness to the Cosmic Watergate in his driveway. It's very much like Bergman without being anything like Bergman!

Tim Printy said...

I did nothing but provide the Roswell yearbook image. I don't want it believed that I was the one who "outed" Benjamin. However, I do endorse this blog entry despite AB DEMANDING that I publicly renounce it or he will carry through with his "threats" against me.
On another note, I am curious. Is this how Roswell researchers get witnesses to tell them what they want? Do they threaten them and try to intimidate old men into telling them stories that they want to hear?

Paul Kimball said...

Tim is quite right. He had nothing to do with revealing the real identity of Mr. Benavides. All that he did was provide the yearbook photo once I had made Benavides' identity known within our working group. I only mentioned Tim in this blog post because I wanted to give credit where credit is due on that one point.

He also raises an interesting question - does Mr. Bragalia threaten witnesses when they don't tell him what he wants to hear? Does he badger them, and their family members, until they give in? One has to wonder.

Thanks for your support, Tim. That's why you're a Zorgy Award winner! :-)

Paul

Ryan P. said...

Great work Paul! This Bragalia is a wacko!
RP

Terry the Censor said...

> or [AJB] will carry through with his "threats" against me.

Believers sometimes fume that I use a handle online instead of giving my full legal name.

In part, it's because zealots who don't like to argue facts and logic will retaliate by doing background checks on you, threatening to call the cops on you (to the extreme of "swatting your home"), hacking your email and social media accounts, ordering denial of service attacks on your sites, issuing DMCA Takedown Notices on your web pages, etc.

To me, such measures seem less dignified than just admitting one has been wrong. But I would think that because I do not suffer from delusions of certainty.

zoamchomsky said...

I love ABQ too, and after that, it's on to Mexico City!

purrlgurrl said...

I can only imagine the hilarious response by the Halifax police upon receiving Bragalia's call.

Paul Kimball said...

Bragalia is a classic bully - he likes to threaten, because he clearly has an anger management problem, but he never actually carries out those threats... fortunately for him in most cases, including this one. I know more than a few officers on the Halifax force, as well as the RCMP (and CSIS, too), and I doubt they would take kindly to be bothered with crank calls from a UFO nut.

PK

James Quirk said...

If anybody is a bully it's Kimball. You are actually jealous that you didn't get the slides. That's what it seems like. Oh, sure, you and your braindead buddies will respond with denials all around, pat each other on the backs and claim your "reseach" is valid. But you're an idiot. Everybody knows this. You are riding on the coattails of the people who have the slides in an effort to shine a spotlight on yourself. You are the con and the bully, and everybody sees it.

Paul Kimball said...

James,

I trust you and Mr. Bragalia will heap similar amounts of opprobrium on Dream Team member Kevin Randle, who has just published Benavides' name at his blog, which has a much greater readership than mine.

I eagerly await your comments there excoriating Randle, and threatening to call the police in Cedar Rapids.

Paul

Terry the Censor said...

> You are actually jealous

Has this charge ever stuck on anyone, ever?

It is easily one of the worst defences of a fringe argument -- though it does require mind reading skills, so that's fun.

Paul Kimball said...

I'm a lot of things, but jealous of these buffoons is definitely not one of them.

PK