The Roswell "Dream Team" Nightmare

On August 28th, I received an unsolicited e-mail from my friend Kevin Randle, in response to a note I had sent him thanking him for appearing on my podcast and offering my condolences on the death of Jesse Marcel, Jr. I am publishing it here in full, with no additions or alterations of any kind. I do so with great regret, because I value confidence highly and I had agreed after receiving it to keep this communication between Kevin and I private, even though I had not asked to receive the information and was therefore under no obligation to do so. But now, when to keep that confidence requires me to stand by and say nothing about subsequent statements that I know to be untrue, then the ethical balance as I see it has shifted, and I have a duty to set the record straight, even on a matter as inconsequential to me in the grand scheme of things as the Roswell Incident.

There has been, for several months now, speculation at the UFO Iconoclasts blog about rumoured "new evidence" that could break the Roswell case wide open. Some of the statements have come from Rich Reynolds, the man who runs the blog - others have come from various commenters at the blog, including Anthony Bragalia, one of the members of the self-proclaimed "Dream Team" that came together ostensibly to examine the Roswell case with a fresh outlook. That "team" also includes Kevin, his former research partner Donald Schmitt, Schmitt's current partner Tom Carey, longtime Roswell-as-ET proponent David Rudiak, and Canadian UFO researcher Chris Rutkowski, whom I had recommended to Kevin for the spot as "team skeptic" when I turned down his invitation to join. For the full history of all this, I recommend readers go to the UFO Iconoclasts blog and look through the archives. 

Things reached a head this week when Mr. Reynolds published an article titled "The Rumored 'New Roswell Evidence' by Anonymous", the central claim of which centered on the question of whether or not the "new evidence" which is the focus of the investigation by members of the "Dream Team" was photographic slides purportedly from 1947 showing alien bodies (there were other peripheral claims made, but those are beside the point). Previously, Mr. Reynolds had published claims that the slides existed but were subject to a non-disclosure agreement, among other things.

Mr. Bragalia responded at the UFO Iconoclasts blog as follows: 

Folks... bogus information from Richard Reynolds... and from anonymous. He is threading a tale to create whole cloth... but there are too many holes in Mr. Reynolds tale.

I knew this to be false, at least with respect to the central point of the existence of the slides and the Dream Team's interest in them, because of what I had been told by Kevin in the e-mail of August 28th. I asked Mr. Bragalia a simple question - was the central claim by Anonymous about the slides true? As I wrote in a comment at the UFO Iconoclasts blog:

How about Mr. Bragalia answer one simple question then that goes to the heart of the matter - are there slides, or not, that the "Dream Team" have access to and which purport to be from the Roswell "crash" in 1947? 

If the answer is "yes" then the story as reported by Rich is, in it's most fundamental aspect, correct. If not, then Mr. Bragalia should say so, clearly and unambiguously, and in a public venue. 

This is one of those "come to Jesus" moments where people have to make a choice. Admittedly, it's penny ante stuff in the grand scheme of things, so it's more like a "come to Jebus" moment, but still... within the context of the world in which Mr. Bragalia and the Dream Teamers live, it's the moment of truth. Is the basic story true... or not? Is Anonymous a liar (and Rich one too by implication), or is his / her account accurate in its core claim? 

Mr. Bragalia's response? "Paul Kimball you must be kidding. I owe you nothing. Come to Jesus? How about go to hell?" 

And that is where it would have ended for me, if not for comments that Kevin made to columnist Jack Brewer yesterday. 

"I have seen no photographs, slides, or pictures of alien creatures associated with the Roswell crash," Randle explained. "I have participated in no investigations of such slides."

That was the straw that shifted the balance for me, because the truth, as readers will see from the text of the e-mail below, is markedly different. There are slides. There is a non-disclosure agreement (which has clearly been breached, because the information made its way to me via a "Dream Team" member), and Kevin has investigated the claims of the slides.

In follow-up e-mails after August 28th I pleaded with Kevin to release this information himself, or at the very least disassociate himself from the "Dream Team" for reasons that should be clear from reading his e-mail (especially as they relate to Schmitt). He told me he was going to do so, and then several weeks later sent a note apologizing for "dilly-dallying". Last night he sent me a note saying that he could not do so now that Mr. Reynolds had published what is clearly substantially correct information, and because I had commented on it at the UFO Iconoclasts blog. "Now is no longer the proper moment to bail. If Reynolds had waited a week or two, I would have been long gone." I am afraid that given how the past month has unfolded, I simply do not believe that, but the point is moot.

My response? The proper time to bail was the end of August at the latest, given what the e-mail published below exposes - skulduggery, mistrust, half truths and complete untruths, profiteering, true believerism... all the things that undermine real research, a point Kevin made to me twelve years ago when I first met him.

Whether people believe it or not, it pains me greatly to publish this, because Kevin is one of the very few UFO researchers for whom I still had any respect. At his core, I still believe him to be a decent and honourable man. But it is clear to me now that he cannot be objective when it comes to Roswell, and that has led him to participate in the evasions, half-truths and untruths, and behind-the-scenes skulduggery that is the bread and butter of the Ufology circus, and Roswell in particular, but which has no place in a true, honest, open and objective search for the truth. 

I didn't ask to be dragged into all of this, and I won't be a party to it further for any reason. It offends me on many levels. 

The truth abhors a vacuum. It is time for someone to fill in the void with the real story, and let the chips fall where they may. 

Paul Kimball

From Kevin Randle to Paul Kimball, August 28th, 11:11 pm.

Good Evening, Paul –

Okay, here’s the deal, again just between you and me, and because Carey’s book has really screwed the pooch on this one. He had told me that it was about Wright Field and Wright Patterson Air Force Base. It was about what was there and I had no idea that he was going to delve as deeply in the Roswell pool as he did. 

Two years ago we had a meeting (and a few others since then) about doing the ultimate Roswell book. I told him, and Schmitt after Tom invited him aboard, that for this to work, we’d need to come up with something new and exciting. I said that we could review the data as presented, weed out the crap, and present the case as dispassionately as possible, but we needed something beyond the witness testimony and the few documents held. This had to be heavily and properly footnoted with all sources revealed for the “peer” review to follow. (I put peer in quotes simply because I figured that some of the peer review wouldn’t actually fit the definition, but that everyone had to be able to evaluate the sources.) 

They agreed with that but said nothing to me at the time. Now, here’s where it gets good. They knew, at that time, of a source who approached them and who claimed he had photographic evidence. Two color slides of the alien bodies, taken by a reputable geologist. The Kodak coding on the slides was proper for 1947 and there were plans underway to have the photographs properly analyzed. 

To get that information, both had to sign a “nondisclosure” agreement and both foolishly did. The investigation took off from there. I don’t know if you’ve seen The Newsroom on HBO but they talked of a Red Team to evaluate the data that the White Team was getting. Although I was excluded, and I think of my role as the Red Team, I don’t believe that was actually their thinking. They’d signed the damned agreement and they were stuck with it. 

What they didn’t count on was that the source would be down in Midland, Texas, talking to the geologist buddies of the man who took the photographs, and the story got out from there. I’m not sure what the purpose of the Midland trip was, but all it did was put the information out for others to find, including Nick Redfern. I’ve talked to Nick about this. 

Here’s where the train slips off the rails. I have learned that the man with the photographs is not the man who took them. The man with them got them from his sister who was cleaning out an attic in Sedona, Arizona but the sister was helping her boyfriend in the cleaning who worked for an estate service. (Convoluted enough for you?) The slides were found in a box in a separate envelop taped to an inner box lid, away from other slides. The box apparently belonged to the second wife of the photographer… the other slides in the box contained pictures from that “era” including one of Eisenhower (which is obviously five years too late). 

Neither Schmitt nor Carey told me the photographer’s name or the name of the man who allegedly took the pictures (though given the chain of custody, I’m not sure who might have taken the pictures but I had a name of the man who died decades ago and I know the name of the man who allegedly took them), but I have been able to learn all that, and found a telephone number of the man who lives in Chicago. 

I’m sure that I don’t have to tell you the problem with these slides… oh, and the man who has them now and who has approached a number of media outlets attempting to sell them, is a graphic artist. And the date code on the slides is correct for 1947. Well, Kodak recycled the codes so the date could have been 1927, 1947 or 1967. No real help there. 

I have been reluctant to say anything about this because, in the very off chance that the photographs are authentic, if I revel what I know, the owner will blame Schmitt and Carey for telling me, even though I learned everything through other sources. I haven’t wanted to screw up their chances of getting the pictures, but I really don’t believe the photos to be real. 

This is the alien autopsy without the motion, without the photographer, or without a chain of custody. Say what you will about Santilli, but at least he claimed to have talked to the photographer. Carey and Schmitt aren’t even sure who that might have been. Someone other than the geologist might have taken them and given them to the man who taped them in the box. 

While this little conspiracy of silence has annoyed me, I understood the necessity for it. If the photos were real, premature release could jeopardize the investigation and if they were fakes, then Roswell had just taken an unnecessary hit. If the investigation revealed them to be fake we could make that announcement without having to retract anything about their authenticity. 

So, you say, what changed? Carey and Schmitt’s book… which, when I saw the nature of it, revealed more about the Roswell case. They simply couldn’t talk about what went on at Wright Field; they had to get deeply into Roswell as well. It looks as if we’re putting out the information piecemeal, put I had nothing to do with that. 

My dilemma, then, is how to tell Tom that I’m now out. I hung in there with the unilateral decision to invite in Schmitt, even given his history of lying (which, BTW, continues in some arenas, and Schmitt’s grab for the spotlight to the exclusion of all others). But this latest book seems to sink our effort before we even get to the end point. 

No, I do not believe the story which is the main reason for not mentioning it. Why get everyone all excited about something that is going to blow up… and I suspect Rich Reynolds, knows it and is hoping to catch me in this web. 

I think that brings you up to date, other than to say that, again, between you and me, I have enough income from pensions that I could never sell another word and live quite comfortably. I write what pleases me now rather than what might be more commercially successful. 

I don’t know if this fully explains the situation, but if you have questions, feel free to ask. I tell all this privately, but will maintain publicly the attitude I have shown up to now. I see no reason to reveal this even though there are some who believe they have a right to everything we had found. 

Of course any comments you care to make would be greatly appreciated. I just can’t wrap my head around the chain of custody.

Kevin

Note: An addendum, at 11:20 pm Thursday, September 25th.

Kevin has commented at the UFO Iconoclasts blog as follows:

Now that the betrayal is out in full, let me say that there was nothing in my statement that wasn't the truth. Whatever Paul might believe, or think he's proved, I have never seen the slides, and I have not participated in the investigation of them.  

Because it was not my investigation, I believed it was up to those others to publish what they had when they were satisfied that it was authentic. I simply had no role in it. I am astonished that Paul would violate my trust by publishing an email that was clearly meant to be held between Paul and me... and then I'm accused of duplicity.

My reply:

Kevin wrote: "I have not participated in the investigation of them. 

From Kevin's e-mail to me: 

"I have learned that the man with the photographs is not the man who took them. The man with them got them from his sister who was cleaning out an attic in Sedona, Arizona but the sister was helping her boyfriend in the cleaning who worked for an estate service. (Convoluted enough for you?) The slides were found in a box in a separate envelop taped to an inner box lid, away from other slides. The box apparently belonged to the second wife of the photographer… the other slides in the box contained pictures from that “era” including one of Eisenhower (which is obviously five years too late).  

Neither Schmitt nor Carey told me the photographer’s name or the name of the man who allegedly took the pictures (though given the chain of custody, I’m not sure who might have taken the pictures but I had a name of the man who died decades ago and I know the name of the man who allegedly took them), but I have been able to learn all that, and found a telephone number of the man who lives in Chicago." 

Kevin may want to try and split ethical and moral hairs, but the claim that he has "not participated in the investigation of them" is clearly false, because he conducted his own investigation, and reached conclusions from it.

And yet Kevin thinks I'm the bad guy here. Given what can be seen in that e-mail (and others that I will not publish but which followed this one), it sadly comes as no surprise to me that Kevin is trying the one tactic left to him, the last refuge of the PR scoundrel - blame the messenger, and try to shift the story.

To which I will add a final note. Kevin's comments to Brewer shaded the truth to a degree where the grey and the black are indistinguishable, and the white is long gone. I was appalled. I was also terribly disappointed that despite obviously knowing what the right course was, he refused to take it (despite saying he would), and continued his association with a known liar who once accused him of being a government agent, and whom he acknowledged is still lying (Kevin's words, not mine). But that alone wouldn't have led me to publish - his comments to Brewer did, because they were public and they were not fully truthful.

I regret it's come to this, but I never asked him to send me that information, and I'm not the bad guy here. I realized when I published it that this would almost certainly cause an irreparable breach between Kevin and myself, not because he would never forgive me (anyone who forgave Schmitt clearly has a high degree of forbearance), but because I'll never be able to trust or respect him again. I honestly wish it were otherwise. As I said, I'm terribly disappointed in him.

And there it rests, for each to judge on their own.

The Transfiguration of the Paranormal

Max Beckmann, Birds' Hell (1938)

Apropos of the general theme discussed in my book The Other Side of Truth: The Paranormal, The Art of the Imagination, and The Human Condition (namely, that the "paranormal" is an artistic presentation to us by an advanced non-human intelligence), as well as some ongoing discussions in the comments section on various posts at Rich Reynolds' UFO Iconoclasts blog about the nature of our possible interaction with this advanced non-human intelligence, I think this quote by one of my favourite painters, Max Beckmann, is apropos:

Art is creative for the sake of realization, not for amusement: for transfiguration, not for the sake of play. It is the quest of our self that drives us along the eternal and never-ending journey we must all make. 

As I wrote at Rich's blog, I don't really care who is caressing the canvas with the brush, or when, or what it looks like - I'm more interested in what it all means, or is meant to mean. And therein lies the philosophical conversation that ufology (and all of the crazy paranormal stuff) has been missing, as does most modern formalized religion. But it's the only part of the puzzle that really matters, at least to me. 

In the quest for meaning we find ourselves, and are transfigured in the process.

But why would an advanced non-human intelligence engage in all of this, often in what seems to the modern rationalist / materialist to be the most obtuse and in many cases ridiculous ways? I quote again from Beckmann, who stated:

Imagination is perhaps the most decisive characteristic of mankind. My dream is the imagination of space – to change the optical impression of the world of objects by a transcendental arithmetic progression of the inner being. That is the precept. In principal any alteration of the object is allowed which has a sufficiently strong creative power behind it. Whether such alteration causes excitement or boredom in the spectator is for you to decide.

In order to understand "the other" (whatever that "other" may be), we must first think like an artist, whether a painter, a musician, a poet, an actor, a magician, a dancer... whatever. We must use our imagination, and try to feel what it is like to be a creator and a performer.

In short, we must think like them... and only then can we begin to understand them, and appreciate the works that they are creating.

Paul Kimball

UFOs and Wish Fulfillment

Rich Reynolds at the UFO Iconoclasts has a new post titled UFOs: Alone in the woods with your thoughts and a wish-fulfillment wherein he speculates about UFOs as a result of wish fulfillment on the part of the observer. An excerpt: You can read the entire post here. I find this an interesting line of thought worthy of discussion, but perhaps from a slightly different angle than Rich takes. I left the following comment:

Drab lives, with sexual frustration, could easily spark a wish to see or experience something unique or unusual. Today, the public (the masses) with their need to have fifteen minutes of fame – that damn Andy Warhol perquisite for life – could evoke, and often does, a wish-fulfillment, and in some, at the edge of geekiness, would use UFOs to bring that about. We often find, don’t we, that those who’ve seen a UFO or had an experience are people with a prior-to-their incidents interest in science fiction and its accoutrements (movies, TV shows, books, magazines)... That would be the basis for their wish-fulfillment, the underlying material(s) for their claim to unique human experience. 

I find this idea to be an interesting area of thought experimentation, although perhaps not quite in the same way as Rich does. I left the following comment at his blog:

This leads me back to the idea I posited in my book, that some advanced non-human intelligence is interacting with us as a way to inspire us to imagine a much broader world (for lack of a better term - interesting and fulfilling also work) than the one to which we have confined ourselves (or been confined, depending upon how you look at it). That's what art, in all it's forms, does, and I see the paranormal as an artistic presentation (and sometimes co-creation). Thus, in a sense, "they" are encouraging us not just to "wish" (upon a star?)... but ultimately to make those wishes come true.

Paul Kimball 

Advanced Intelligence... Without Art?

Continuing my riffing on the question of a possible advanced non-human intelligence and art, as originally posed by Rich Reynolds, one can look to science fiction for some clever, and I think realistic, speculation about how such an intelligence could evolve and be totally devoid of a need or use for anything even remotely resembling what we would call the arts.

Perhaps Doctor Who has covered it best over the years, with the creation of two classic villainous races, the Daleks and the Cybermen.

And of course there are the Borg from Star Trek, perhaps the greatest villain that the series ever had, because it was the one which represented a completely alien and truly existential threat to the Federation in a way that Klingons, Romulans and the Dominion did not - at least until the writers ruined it all by trying to make the Borg more... well, human. The Borg appeared as cybernetically enhanced humanoid drones of multiple species, organized as an interconnected collective, the decisions of which are made by a hive mind, linked to subspace domain.

They were scary, because they spoke to our fears about mechaization, artificial intelligence, and our own possible future someday.

None of these sci-fi villains would have had any use for art - the Borg and the Cybermen were concerned with assimilating technology, and humans to replenish their ranks, not culture, whereas the Daleks were bent on simple conquest, and all other species were considered inferior.

The point is that if we project into the far future (or is it really that far?), we can imagine such a cybernetic reality for ourselves, or any other advanced species... or perhaps a world where our creations have superceded us.

Indeed, the late Mac Tonnies was hardly alone in his fascination with the idea that someday we may be able to transcend our humanity, and become posthuman. But would such a species have any use for "the finer things" of life, particularly art in all of its myriad forms?

What use would Debussy string quartet be to a Dalek, or a Cezanne painting to a Cyberman, or the works of Bertolt Brecht to the Borg?

There is a very real possibility that art would be of no use at all. Indeed, for beings that in all cases came from "organic" origins, one might expect that they would view any form of art, with its attendant appeal to "humanity" and "emotion", as an abomination - an affront to the perfection of being that they had achieved.

Of course, this is just one possible answer to the question Rich raised about why ET doesn't seem interested in our art and culture, should it exist "out there" and be coming here. In fact, if life "out there" has developed beyond the biological form into something that we would call "artificial", it might well be that "they" have no use for, or even concept of, art and culture at all.

A sobering thought, particularly as it might also be a portent of our own bleak, emotionless future as a species.

Paul Kimball

UFOs as performance art

At his UFO Iconoclasts blog, Rich Reynolds has recently been musing about the lack of any art exhibited by the mysterious extraterrestrial creatures who supposedly pilot UFOs from somewhere "out there" to here.

He writes, in part:

No UFO or flying saucer reports have identified music as endemic to the sightings. And no art, aside from those militaristic or corporate-like insignia/symbols, has been registered – none like that which Lemarchand thinks would be intrinsic to an advanced extraterrestrial race.

What does this tell us about UFOs? That whatever they are, or whomever “mans” them, are either not advanced in a way that would include moral imperatives (as Lemarchand articulates) nor are they as advanced in even a small way as that of the Neanderthals or early man was, as indicated by the art in the caves of Lascaux and Chauvet-Pont d’Arc.

This means, for us, that UFOs are either created by Earthlings or are artifacts without a cultural or living species origination - a physical manifestation of some kind - or UFOs belong to a race or races that are without moral imperatives (ethics) and refinements which would ameliorate contact between us and them as (we hate to note) some abduction accounts seem to warn.

While it is true, so far as I know, that no UFO or its supposed occupants has ever produced an alien Rembrandt or Van Gogh for our inspection, nor have they treated us to any alien version of Bach or the Beatles (although, as I have posted elsewhere, it is possible that they have, but only through interaction with individuals who have the ability to comprehend what the non-human intelligence might be trying to communicate), Rich misses the proverbial forest for the trees, even as he raises an excellent topic for discussion.

So, to Rich I would say - what if the UFOs themselves are a form of non-human "performance art"?

After all, one can find not dissimilar displays of the lights often shown by UFOs in our own culture.

Black light theatre is a wonderful example, and one I've been lucky enough to experience. Here's a sample:



Then, if one were to travel to Nevada for the annual Burning Man festival (something on my "bucket list"), one might see something like this:



Perhaps a non-human intelligence, whether from another solar system, or another dimension, or even another time, is doing something similar for us with UFOs?

After all, our art is capable of as many manifestations as there are human beings with imagination and creativity. Think of  how much more a non-human intelligence with the same desire to create, and a greater capacity to do so, might be capable of achieving.

Paul Kimball

David Eagleman, Possibilianism, and Transcending the Boundaries of Belief and Disbelief

Rich Reynolds at the UFO Iconoclasts has written a short post encouraging people to take a look at the work of neuroscientist / author David Eagleman, in particular with respect to his ideas about memory, and his philosophy of Possibilianism, and I couldn't agree with Rich more. Eagleman is one of the most interesting thinkers of our time. His book Sum: forty tales from the afterlives, is one of my favourite novels (although to call it a novel, i.e. a work of complete fiction, isn't quite accurate).

The podcast above contains an excerpt from Sum, read by the actor Jeffrey Tambor. It also has biologist Lee Silver telling the story of a physician’s ambitious 1907 experiment to discover the weight of the soul, a discussion of when people actually die with author and researcher Gary Greenberg and John Troyer, and a conversation with neuroscientist Adrian Owen about whether or not the dead can play tennis?

Consider it an Easter gift, from me to you!

As for Possibilianism, here is Eagleman explaining it in twenty minutes:

Three quotes from Eagleman in his lecture that pretty much sum up the way I look at both science, religion, and all things about the paranormal.

After you walk the pier of everything we know in science, at some point you reach the end of the pier. And beyond the pier is everything that we don't know; it's all of the uncharted waters, the deep mysteries that we don't have insight into yet. That's the real lesson that you get from science - it's about the vastness of our ignorance.

And...

Science is really about the creativity of making up new hypotheses. Part of the scientific temperment is the tolerance for holding multiple hypotheses in mind at the same time. Now, what we actually do is we make up new stories in the laboratory every day, and then we go and we seek evidence. We gather evidence to weigh in favour of some stories over others. But it's often the case that some questions are too far out right now. They're beyond the toolbox of science, and as a result we're unable to gather evidence for them. And in that situation it's okay. Science is comfortable holding multiple hypotheses on the table. That ambiguity is accepted as part of the relationship we have with Mother Nature. It's part of the vast mysteries around us. We have to have that ambiguity.

And finally:

This is not just a plea for simple-openmindedness, but for an active exploration of new ideas... Look around the strange world you're in, and see if you can live a life that is free from dogma, and full of awe and wonder, and see if you can celebrate possibility, and praise uncertainty.

Fascinating and thought-provoking stuff, and an example of the kind of thinking that transcends the boundaries imposed by those who insist we should simply believe or disbelieve in something.

Possibilianism is exactly the approach that I'll be taking with Beyond Best Evidence, the UFO-related documentary for which we're currently trying to raise the financing, because it's the only reasonable way of looking at the UFO enigma.

Paul Kimball

UFOs = Holographs?

Rich Reynolds has raised an interesting idea at his blog UFO Iconoclasts which deserves wider consideration, not just because it may be related to the UFO phenomenon, but because it may relate to our very existence.

An excerpt:

Let us assume that what are seen in the skies, sometimes – not the mistaken Earthly aircraft or misperceived meteorological manifestations – may be images produced by computers, or computers themselves... What we're porposing here is that some UFO sightings may be virtual realities and some may actually involve computers (machines) of a quasi-tangible nature programmed to intersect and interact with humans.

You can read the full article (with a link to a thought-provoking second article) at UFOs: The Computer Model.

Paul Kimball