Kevin Randle on Witnesses and the "Truth"

The following comes from Kevin Randle. It was posted at UFO Updates yesterday. As usual, Kevin is right on the mark.

Fans of the Wilbert Smith story in particular should take note - especially of the final paragraph. Everything Kevin is saying about Spitsbergen, and Arneson, applies to Smith, and probably Robert Sarbacher as well.

Paul Kimball

"So, I'm finishing up the work on the so-called BG Lovekin andI'm reading one of the Disclosure Project's documents. There I learn that Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Dwynne Arneson told Greer or one of his minions, "I was a top-secret control officer. I happened to see a classified message go through my com center which said, 'A UFO has crashed on the Island of Spitsbergen , Norway, and a team of scientists are coming toinvestigate it.'"

I have no real doubt that Dwynne Arneson was an Air Force Lieutenant Colonel or that he was a top-secret control officer. In fact, I have no doubt he saw the document he claimed to have seen because I have seen similar documents. That is, I have seen the once classified documents that related to the Spitsbergen crash.

But, as most of us know, the Spitsbergen crash, which can befound in the Project Blue Book files, is a hoax. It did appear in the German newspaper, the Berliner Volksblatt on July 9, 1952 and suggested that the crashed craft was of Soviet manufacture.

In later tellings of the story, the fact it was suspected ofbeing Russian because of the symbols on the craft andinstruments has been lost.

Other evidence suggests the story first appeared in anotherGerman publication Saarbrucker Zeitung on June 28. This article,too, suggested the craft was of Russian origin.

Later the information made it into UFO books without the references to Russian markings but a suggestion that this was an extraterrestrial craft. Researchers who have carefully reviewed the information believe the story to be a hoax, which ironically, agrees with the Blue Book assessment.

The point here, however, is that we have a witness who might be telling the truth about what he had seen, in fact probably is, but it's about a story that was a hoax. Too bad those involved with Project Disclosure couldn't take the time to research the case before releasing their information."