Kevin Randle

Kevin Randle and I have been sniping at each other since we fell out in the fall of 2013. I do it directly, and he tends to do it by allowing people like Anthony Bragalia to publish columns at Randle's blog bashing me. Two sides of the same coin.

Well, it ends here, at least for my part. I did what I did, and I said what I said. Would I change it now if I could? Probably, but only because none of this paranormal stuff is really important to me to the point where I want to get enmeshed in feuds. I have a happy life that has nothing to do with all of these interpersonal squabbles about and within a subject that only the tiniest fraction of the population care about.

Besides, my original criticism of Randle was for mistakes he was making and half-truths that he was telling. I believe I was right, and Randle disputes that... but here's the thing - I've done the exact same things. I've made plenty of mistakes (including an entire feature film that was an unmitigated disaster), and I've also been less than completely honest at times. Who hasn't? So time to bury the hatchet, at least from my end, in my own way - I'll give Kevin the last word, traveling back in time to an interview I did with him in 2005 wherein I asked him about the media, which is at least in part what I do for a living. Here is his answer.

Randle isn't the anti-Christ, and neither am I. We're no more or less than two flawed human beings, making our way through this life as best we can... just like everyone else.

Paul Kimball

Nick Redfern - Pigeon Man!

For those who think that paranormal research is earth-shattering and paradigm altering stuff that requires everyone to be deadly serious all the time, here's a reminder that some of us, aka members of the infamous Cabal, know how to have a laugh, including at our own expense. We understand that having fun and a good time is what life is really all about.

Maybe one of these days I'll get around to posting photos of Nick in his actual Pigeon Man costume, as he fights his arch-foe, Montezuma Hall!

Paul Kimball

Nick Redfern and Orlando Pla - Puerto Rico chupacabra case, 2005

Researchers Nick Redfern and Orlando Pla travel deep into rural Puerto Rico to interview "Henry," a pig farmer who claims his animals were attacked by the legendary chupacabra. This is a clip from footage shot in 2005 for my documentary Fields of Fear that didn't make the final film.

Paul Kimball

Greg Bishop - Evidence for Human Involvement in Cattle Mutilations

My good friend Greg Bishop offers some thoughts on evidence for the cattle mutilation phenomenon and what it might mean in this clip from an interview I conducted with him in 2005.

Paul Kimball

Nick Redfern - The UK and UFOs

Nick Redfern discusses British government interest in the UFO phenomenon in this excerpt from an interview I conducted with him in Aztec, New Mexico, in March 2003.

Paul Kimball

Karl Pflock - Debunking the Roswell Myth

The late Karl Pflock, author of the book Roswell: Inconvenient Facts and the Will to Believe, deconstructs the Roswell case in this interview I conducted with him in September, 2001, and explains how and why the crash of a relatively simple (albeit top secret) military project in 1947 got turned into one of the great myths of the 20th century.

Karl did more legitimate and useful research into Roswell than any other Roswell researcher. Despite being a proponent for the extraterrestrial hypothesis (he thought the Hill case was a real abduction, for example), he tackled Roswell with rigorous objectivity. For any fair-minded person, his book stands as the sine qua non of the Roswell case. 

Paul Kimball

Rozzy - Commemorative Swag

You know, I've decided that the time has come to embrace Roswell Slides mania, in my own unique way. Why fight the tide of human history?

In that spirit, I encourage everyone to venture to my on-line store and pick up your some of the commemorative Roswell Slides swag that I have created, featuring our favourite alleged space alien, along with the slogan I came up with: "The Roswell Slides - It's a Mummy, Dummy!" All of the proceeds will be going to my favourite charity - me!!

Buy early, and buy often!

Paul Kimball

Karl Pflock sums up modern Ufology

My good friend the late Karl Pflock sums up what really drives modern conspiracy-oriented ufology, particularly Roswell researchers, in this clip from an interview I conducted with him on 9 September, 2001. 

Paul Kimball

Bragalia on mummies and the "Roswell slides"

Child mummy at Penn Museum

This just in from Anthony Bragalia by way of e-mail to Lance Moody, Tim Printy and yours truly. It's the first note I have ever received from him wherein he doesn't threaten me, so I suppose that constitutes progress of a sort. Anyway, here is the letter as it was received.  

Given the ‘anti-sliders’ group’s belief that the slides depict a mummy and their forthcoming conclusion, here is a summation I am sending to several interested parties to help people to understand that the being shown in the slides is simply not a mummy. One must understand that we have thought about the ‘mummy possibility’ thoroughly and have consulted experts and cannot come to the conclusion that it is for these reasons: 

SKIN
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6F7xcPcfeA 

There are two basic types of mummies: Accidental and Intentional. 

Accidental mummies have their bodies preserved through atmospheric conditions such as extreme cold or burial in snow or ice. This short video is the best example of mummification through accidental exposure to extreme cold. 

Intentional mummies have their bodies preserved through the application of chemicals and the removal of all organs, and then use desiccation (or extreme drying) to fully dehydrate the remaining corpse. Wraps are then applied, sealed with resin. 

The slides being does not have the skin-look of an accidental mummy. 

The slides being does not have the skin-look of an intentional mummy- it simply is not desiccated. It appears to have been recently embalmed or dead. There is an ‘organic’ patina to the skin tissue. It is possible that their skin is more resistant to necrosis - but no matter, the skin appearance of the being depicted in the slide is not the skin of a mummy. 

FOUR DIGITS 

The being depicted has only four digits (fingers) instead of five like a human mummy. 

EYES 

The being depicted has very wide set eyes. Its eyes/eye sockets are also twice the size of any human. 

FACIAL FEATURES 

The face features and countenance appear totally non-human. The lower part of the face has an almost ‘insectile’ look and the upper part appears frog-like/amphibian. The chin is ‘pointed’ in the extreme, unlike any human. The head is large, but not hydrocephalic. 

EARS 

The ears (such as they are) appear vestigial. They are ‘embedded’ into the skull and they are pointed at the top. 

APPENDAGES 

The limbs (legs and arms) are disproportionately long relative to the body. They are very, very thin and ‘spindly.’ The body appears to be about 3.5 feet long, just as the beings reported at Roswell. The image that anti-sliders are working with is compressed and gives a false sense of size. The body itself is very frail-fragile and under-sized. 

ENCASEMENT 

Though very difficult to discern, the being appears to be placed in a glass container. It does not however, resemble those display cases found in museums and we have looked at dozens of such images. It may be tubular. And the being rests on hastily-cut blanket resembling green-colored military blankets used at the time. The entire setup seems very ‘make-shift’ as if it is temporary storage allowing for viewing with intended transport to another location- not at all ‘permanent.’ 

FRAMING OF THE SLIDES 

Finally, the pictures themselves were not ‘framed’ properly- they are taken ‘askew’ as if taken surreptitiously in a hurried fashion. Had they been taken at a museum, the framing of the slides would have been far better. Every other slide found in the chest is wholly different than the slides of the being in terms of the angle they were taken and the framing of the shots. 

HIDING THE SLIDES 

The Rays hid them separately from the rest of the slides as if to assign them special meaning. There are no other pictures of any other beings in the chest- including those of mummies. There are no other museum pictures. No other ‘travel’ slides were found separately packaged and hidden away from the other slides as were the slides of the being. 

THE SLIDES OWNER 

And given the 1947 provenance of the slides; and that Ray worked the Roswell region in the 1940s as an oil exploration geologist who was confirmed to have taken photographs using Kodachrome film while on oil explorations in NM; it is difficult to come to any other non-Roswell conclusion. 

INDEPENDENT WITNESS CONFIRMATION 

A Roswell vet who saw the bodies acknowledges this is what the slides depict; and that these 1947 slides reveal a creature very similar to those reported at Roswell. 

For all of these combined reasons, most everyone who has viewed the actual two slides agrees that the being depicted is humanoid, but not human.

Anthony Bragalia 

None of this should come as any surprise given that it's Mr. Bragalia, whose "research" on this has been driven by belief from the first day. Despite what he says, the most likely answer to the identity of the body is a mummy on display. The Roswell Slides Research Group is investigating this angle extensively, and we will post our findings when we are ready. Still, I post it here in the interests of fairness, even though it doesn't really contain anything new.

Meanwhile, I'll give the final word to UFOs-as-space-aliens true believer Robert Hastings, who wrote today:

I will conclude by predicting, perhaps redundantly, that this affair will end badly for the Roswell Slide promoters. If, as I contend, the body in the slides is the mummy of an Inca child, or some such, then Carey, Schmitt and Maussan will owe the whole world an apology. They should also seriously consider returning whatever money they made as a result of their unfortunate, unfounded and misguided claims.

If you can't even convince Hastings of the space alien nature of the person depicted in the slides, you know that you're in real trouble.

Paul Kimball 

Adam Dew... Wrong Again!

"Roswell slides" promoter Adam Dew. Photo by Robert Sheaffer.

Roswell slides promoter Adam Dew has been doing a fair bit of media lately to gin up interest and sales for the May 5th reveal event of the slides in Mexico City, hosted by paranormal con promoter Jaime Maussan, and along the way he has made a number of statements that are simply wrong. For example, he identified the military "witness" to the dead alien as a Lieutenant in his film trailer when in fact he was a Private First Class, Eleazar Benavides.

Another egregious example can be seen in Dew's oft-repeated statement that nothing in pop culture looked like the small bodied big-headed alien prior to 1947. In a recent interview with Open Minds, Dew states, "People in the late 40s were not staging aliens, as far as I can tell. That image of the big head and skinny body didn’t become popular in pop culture until the 60s. So we know that it is not a fake staged alien, as far as I can tell.”

This is Dew responding to a straw man of his own creation. Nobody is suggesting that the bodies depicted in the slides were faked in 1947. Therefore, his argument is irrelevant. Making matters worse, however, is that it is also incorrect. In fact, big-headed small-bodied strange creatures were indeed a staple of science fiction and pop culture well before 1947. If someone had wanted to fake an alien body in 1947, they could have easily drawn upon this meme.

As just a couple of examples, here are two covers from the popular pulp magazine Thrilling Wonder Stories, both from the 1930s, and both featuring alien creatures with big heads and much smaller bodies.

Thrilling Wonder Stories, Vol. 8, No. 1, August 1936

Thrilling Wonder Stories, Vol. 13, No. 3, June 1939

There are plenty of other examples for anyone willing to look. Here are two from 1940.

Thrilling Wonder Stories, March 1940

Thrilling Wonder Stories, August 1940

Again, this is all an irrelevant sideshow to the basic question of whether the slides were hoaxed or not, because when people talk of a con or hoax they are invariably referring to either someone who created the slides much later than 1947, a la the "alien autopsy" film of Ray Santilli, or of someone who has used actual slides of a mummy-like human figure that may have been taken around the late 1940s and represented them as space aliens today. But Dew and his fellow slides promoters want you to focus on the straw man suggestion that what skeptics are saying when they talk of a hoax is that someone hoaxed them in 1947, which is not the case at all. However, even if it was what skeptics were suggesting, then it is clear that Dew is wrong in his assertion that there was nothing in pop culture that a hoaxer in 1947 could have drawn upon to come up with such a hoax.

In short, even when Dew is making irrelevant arguments, they seem to have a tendency to be flat-out wrong. The only question people are left to determine is whether this is the result of incompetence, or dishonesty. Given the crowd with which Dew has chosen to associate himself, either option is plausible.

Paul Kimball

Eleazar Benavides Strikes Again!

For a man who supposedly cherishes his privacy, Eleazar Benavides, aka Pfc. Eli Benjamin aka The Mystery Lieutenant in Adam Dew's Roswell Slides film trailer, sure gets around. He can be seen starting at 10:20 in this episode of the new Canadian television series UFOs Declassified.

 

Not only does he appear in this episode, but so does his photo from the Roswell base yearbook from 1947 - you know, the one that Anthony Bragalia went ballistic about when Tim Printy sent it to me and I published it a few days ago? You know, the one that specifically identifies "Benjamin" as Benavides? Yeah... that one.

As usual, I'm the bad guy here, but that's because I happened to be first out of the gate with what was already known to many privately, and what was easily discovered by anyone with a little spare time on their hands and a commitment to the whole truth, and not the skewed self-serving version that Bragalia and his cohorts choose to present. Bragalia is also upset that I published a photo of Benavides' house, which anyone can find with Google Earth, and says that it served no journalistic purpose. I beg to differ - it was important to show that Benavides and the "witness" in Dew's trailer are one and the same. It was Dew, after all, who filmed in his driveway. I could have published Benavides' address and phone number as well, but did not (even though those are also publicly available), as there was no reason to do so. The photo of his home was enough to establish the link that, given their track record, one could reasonably expect the Dream Teamers to otherwise deny.

Meanwhile, in somewhat related news, the Halifax Police Department are still waiting for that complaint from Bragalia to be filed against me. I know, because I checked. I assume the police in Tim Printy's neck of the woods are also still waiting. Perhaps Bragalia hasn't filed his threatened complaints yet because he's so been so busy, what with virtually everyone outing Benavides now, including Bragalia's research partner and fellow "Dream Teamer" Kevin Randle. I presume the charges are on the verge of being filed in Randle's hometown of Cedar Rapids as I type.

Paul Kimball

Benson Saler - Evidence and The Roswell UFO Case

In this clip from an interview I conducted with him in 2001, anthropologist Dr. Benson Saler discusses the concept of evidence and how it has been applied to the Roswell UFO case by both believers and skeptics. With all the bluster from the "Dream Team" about the "Roswell slides," it's always nice to remind oneself of how a proper academic approaches the subject. 

 Paul Kimball

The Roswell "Dream Team" and the "Slides"

From my friend Jose Antonio Caravaca, who is part of the group of skeptical researchers looking into the Roswell slides. It sums things up nicely. From left to right, Bragalia, Randle, Carey and Schmitt.

Paul Kimball

East Coast Paracon 2015

Just an FYI that I'll be speaking at the 2015 East Coast Paracon here in Nova Scotia this coming August. You can get the lowdown at their website. Whilst I was sorely tempted to talk about the Roswell slides, my actual presentation will be about my ghost investigating exploits from my 2009 TV series Ghost Cases, as recounted in my book The Other Side of Truth: The Paranormal, The Art of the Imagination, and The Human Condition.

Hope to see you there!

Paul Kimball

This looks like fun. I should probably attend!

A Reminder of Anthony Bragalia's Hypocrisy

Read here for a reminder about Anthony Bragalia's previous position on the anonymity of elderly alleged Roswell witnesses. The comments section is illuminating as well, as Bragalia happily takes kudos for his work.

A quote:

This author has identified and located Annie Jacobsen’s anonymous source. I have also decided, after much consideration, to “out” him. In this article I will openly name him. I have also contacted him very recently. He reluctantly spoke with me for some time. 

David Rudiak wrote in the comments: "You are to be congratulated for figuring out Jacobsen's source and interviewing him, even though he told you bupkis."

I would expect to see Mr. Rudiak offer the same congratulations here... but I won't hold my breath.

Meanwhile, I trust that everyone can now see Mr. Bragalia for the base and delusional hypocrite that he really is.

Paul Kimball

The Double Standards of Anthony Bragalia (and Roswell researchers in general)

Below is the text of an e-mail just sent to me from Dream Team member and all around nut-case Anthony Bragalia (I have kept the spelling errors and bolding to show you how it looked). Remember, folks, that all I did was publish the name of a witness to a fantasy tale so that people who are less inclined than Bragalia et al to accept every word uttered from someone who confirms their belief system could, should they want to, check this witness out and not have to rely on the Dream Team to filter the information. But for Bragalia, that goes too far.

" Kimball-

How dare you make public the name and location of an elderly man who was a witness to Roswell?

You have no filter- no care for others. This is an old man who does not need this. A pseudonym was used in the Witness book to shield him from unwanted calls.

If he begins to receive phone calls from strangers or visits to his home by strangers- we are calling the police and providing them your name.

Your actions are reprehensible and I swear that I am going to authorities if this man is harassed. Are you mentally ill? What do you not understand about publishing this man’s name and home? Are you trying to incite him? Harm him?

Why do you want to make this man miserable. He is nearing 90- you are really of-the-chain, and I am going to do something about it.

Tony Bragalia"

Apparently it's just fine for Roswell believers (and I use that term very, very loosely) to contact people, and to question them about their claims (and I use the term "question" very, very loosely as well), but not for skeptics to do the same. It's fine for them to demand to know everything, whether it's from the government that is supposedly hiding the truth, or from witnesses that know the truth, but they wish to keep their own secrets for themselves.

Let's remember that Mr. Benavides agreed to appear on Sci Fi Investigates, a network television show. He agreed to appear in Adam Dew's forthcoming film. His identity was known to these people. But they did not want you to know it. It is not as if the man has been hiding away in his house. He's been on television, for crying out loud.

No, this has nothing to do with them wanting to protect a frail old man from the  harassment of evil skeptics. Instead, it has everything to do with the true believers wanting to control the narrative that they are spinning.

An artist's representation of a typical Roswell "researcher," hoarding their secrets.

I suppose I don't blame them. Every time an independent, objective researcher looks into the witness claims out of Roswell, those claims (from Glenn Dennis to Frank Kaufmann to Jim Ragsdale to Gerald Anderson, and all point in between) fall apart. The claims have never withstood close scrutiny. The same kind of sturm and drang was raised when Robert Todd got access to Jesse Marcel's military records, and found discrepancies in his stories about his background. These "researchers" only want you to know their version of the story - a story that is worth a fair bit of money. The one thing they absolutely don't want you to know is the truth. Mr. Bragalia and his fellow travelers want to stifle dissent, and avoid at all costs having their claims cross-examined. They are the very antithesis of true researchers, and are as far away from being honest seekers of the truth as one can get.

Paul Kimball

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 

Latest Trailer for the Dream Team!

Breaking news - I was just sent a super-duper advance look at the next trailer for the Dream Team's My 5th "Roswell Slides" release in Mexico City. What make this interesting is that all of the members are in it.

Enjoy!

Paul Kimball 

Walter Haut & Glenn Dennis - The Roswell UFO Museum and Stan Friedman

Stepping away from the "slides" imbroglio for a bit, but remaining with Roswell, here is a clip from an interview I conducted with Glenn Dennis and Walter Haut in 2001 wherein they discuss the Roswell UFO museum and their relationship with Stan Friedman.

Paul Kimball