Since at least age 25 I have liked gathering information. Subjects of particular interest, say, before age 40, included Mormonism, baseball, history, health and natural food diet, exercise, the Divine and the Human, English literature from 1300 to Samuel Johnson, Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, western US landscape beauty, geography . . . Get the idea? I acted like a not-so-organized encyclopedist.
In 2008 the age of personal computing added its swing to my encyclopedic sway. I set up a file on my computer entitled, for lack of a better term, Alpedia, or Alan's Book. In that file 9 years later I see these titles: Art history, Medicine, Respiratory Therapy, Astronony (80 pages), and 127 Reasons I walked out the rear door of the Mormon Church and never came back.
I began printing out what I had compiled or written as original work. That collection now has seven large looseleaf binders with maybe 250 pages each. I don't suppose any other person, except maybe Dead Joan or Dead Andy, really cares (this could be true of this whole blog), but here's a list
Vol 1 Autobiography: Sex and the Single Mormon Boy
Regions: Arizona, Utah, California (the main places I've lived), New Mexico, Colorado...
Vol 2 Autobio II My first sixty years in the Desert Southwest
Diaries of hit and miss years since 2000
Vol 3 Family history: 75 pages on Dad, 75 pages on Eric my son, 15 pages on Great-Gpa Hardy and 30 pages of Gr Grma Hardy
Vol 4 more diary
Vol 5 Constitutional law
Health
Medicine
Copyright law
Vol 6 Respiratory Care: theory and practice (the field I've used to make about 75% of my money)
Vol 7 Astronomy
Developing a personal library and keeping track of it
Notes on books I've read
After, oh, 2006? I began reading a large number of things on Wikipedia, Jimmy so and so's public contribution online encyclopedia. Then I began adding things in myself. Nearly as quickly as I did, at least half of my pieces got either chopped out as a whole, or severely changed and edited. That's how the system works.
Yet I began chafing at the "encyclopedic attitude" of Wikipedia. Here's an example of why. I was reading a autobiography of a writer named Alice Bailey and looked at her Wikipedia entry. Very informative and useful quotes from her autobio had been removed from earlier drafts because Wikipedia doesn't want to use too much "original material." In other words, were I to write essays or books about Bailey and quote from her own writing about herself, that could be used liberally in Wikipedia because it's from a Secondary Source instead of from a Primary Source. This attitude drives me nuts!
In fact, I blogged about my general frustration with Wikipedia and gave what seems two years later to be an almost damning indictment of the Wikipedia method and how it avoids all sorts of information that could be educational and helpful. Sept 15, 2015, Quote:
I was a tourist in NYC and wanted to learn more about the Upper East
Side. I read a multipage Wikipedia entry on it that gave general and
historical information and then turned into several pages of lists: the
Upper East Side's public schools, private schools, coeducational
schools, colleges, art institutes, museums, diplomatic missions, houses
of worship, hotels, and finally more than a dozen films about this
socially impressive segment of Manhattan. Yet Wikipedia, as it often
does, mostly told me what I more or less already knew and added some
good if limited details. It duplicated much of what my tourbook of NYC
said. Neither one got me to the spirit or heart of the Upper East
Side, if it has either one.
Further websearching found a short
piece I probably could not find again that said this is where "the New
Yorkers that run the world live." It added that gentrification had
recently led the Upper East Side to chew off from Spanish Harlem "96th
and 97th streets," though it may not have phrased it that well.
In
about 20 words of unfootnoted opinion using the literary license of
overstatement and wisecracking, this web author had told me more about
the Upper East Side than the uncounted minions of Wikipedia's founder
Jimmy Wales had been able to say in 8 or 10 pages of text backed by 58
footnotes, that had surely taken them 1000 hours to write and edit.
I
use Wikipedia "all the time" in spite of myself whenever I want basic,
hopefully reliable information on a subject with which I'm not that
familiar. I'm glad it's there. I've even donated to it twice--once I
gave $3 and the second time I moved up to $5. I have never been told by
another breathing human that s/he donated to Wikipedia, which probably
just tells you I'm in with the Out Crowd.
Yet I'd like to readily
find other less-regimented essays on subjects, and may start a website
to do just that in areas of my interest. Maybe call it InfoGuy or
Knowledge Page or ?? Question: how do you get into the web search
results? I see no evidence at all that the content of my blogs are ever
considered in web searches, but maybe I need to look below the first 75
hits.
Cheya and I could combine blogs.
Monday, February 20, 2017
Friday, February 17, 2017
Lazy Reporting About Roswell In NY Times, my favorite paper? #13
Roswell gets complicated so fast, controversial so fast, I'm always wanting to start with something simple, like Robert Porter's story.
I'm reminded of the science principle that one exception to an established theory undoes the theory. "We have absolutely no credible reason to believe in extraterrestrial technology" is the established approach (although an Army panel in about 1948 didn't agree). So it takes a cultist to go interview the 20 witnesses who say they have personal experience to contradict what is established? What does that make me if I keep writing Roswell blogs? Hell, this is #13. Maybe I'm on the Far Side already. What if I go to the museum in Roswell? Just an idle tourist yawning at the pics of E.T.? Now if I just knew how to use a yawning emogie.
Level Four: Since the Roswell debris no longer exists, the Air Force could not present clear evidence that it was Project Mogul stuff. Yet the Times writes Mogul debris "littered the New Mexico countryside." Sounds like it could have become somewhat common. It was neoprene rubber with some sticks, sensors, and metal foil tethered to it. Still, academy-educated Colonel Blanchard described something he saw as a flying disc, and the Times displays no interest in exploring the apparent contradiction.
Porter, a staff sergeant, flew with boxes of Roswell crash stuff to Fort Worth. His cargo
was transferred from his B-29 to a B-25 he was told was continuing to
Wright-Patterson in Ohio. In moving the material out of his plane, he picked up one box that was like picking up an
empty box. He was asked, "Did you ever find out what was in the boxes brought
from the crash site?"
"No."
"What
did you think about it?"
"It
wasn't a weather balloon."
Project Mogul was operating in New Mexico. What sense would there be in hurrying such stuff to Ohio? It's just one more unexplained oddity.
Now let's see if we can take a simple look at Walter Haut's statements. He was the public relations officer. Per Haut in video on You Tube (accessed Jan 2017), his commander Colonel Blanchard called and said the unit was in possession of a "flying disc." Haut took Blanchard at his word and released it to the press. Decades later the Air Force concluded WHATEVER they found that day was most likely to be Project Mogul debris. Mogul first used "meteorological" (weather) balloons, and later switched to neoprene. The NY Times wrote, "Numerous balloon flights carried both sensors and, to aid tracking,
radar reflectors. To the untrained eye, the reflectors looked extremely
odd, a geometrical hash of lightweight sticks and sharp angles made of
metal foil."
Three questions: First, does the odd "hash" of sticks and "metal foil" sound like something you would rush to a base five states away in Ohio? Second, would an Air Force colonel describe it as a "flying disk?" Third, would a dozen sort-of know-nothing civilians be likely to see the mix of sensors and reflectors and the hash and jump to the conclusion they weren't made on Earth? The short answer to all three questions is no. Would Colonel Blanchard have been looking with an untrained eye? Well, he wasn't on Project Mogul. Did he know about it?
Okay, let's take on the NY Times. I tend to give it a great deal of weight, have high regard for its reporting.
In the Air Force report concluding the Roswell debris was most likely a Mogul balloon, they couldn't be completely certain because the Mogul debris no longer existed. We have a conclusion based on a "preponderance of the evidence," not "beyond a reasonable doubt." The Times' Bill Broad (Sept 18, 1994) spelled out details about Mogul. Broad is a Pulitzer Prize-winning science journalist who in 1994 had been at the Times 13 years. Sounds very reliable to me, which only deepens the mystery, since he appears to ignore important issues in his article, including the Times' and our precious freedom of the press. After explaining Mogul, he devoted five paragraphs to statements from "flying saucer cultists." He listed books they've written, told how they've come up with a theory that the gov is hiding aliens from Roswell, and quoted them calling the new report a bunch of "pap."
Why wasn't that more significant than what a bunch of nuts are doing?
Why are cultists more useful to the public discussion than press censorship?
To me this was like
focussing on a lawyer's statement outside a courtroom, instead of taking a detailed or even a cursory look at the
evidence itself. Granted, the evidence is old but I read the Times to dig deeper than what I can read from the cultists in 10 minutes on the Net. I think it verges on bad reporting on about four
levels.
Level One. Our Pulitzer prize winner could have reported on censorship
of the press. The BBC did. In the 1980s it interviewed Frank Joyce, who worked
at Roswell's radio station, KGFL. In 1947 Joyce made the on-air
announcement that the Army said it had a flying disc in its
possession. Joyce said that, later that day, he picked up the
phone to hear a young woman's voice telling him a Colonel from the
Pentagon was ready to talk to him. The man "read me the
riot act" in a powerful voice, "of the type that really
conveys menace and power." Joyce said. 'You're gonna get
in a lot of trouble for this.' I said,
'Look, I'm a civilian. You can't tell me what to do in stories
I put on the air.' And he says, 'I'll show you what I can do!'
Bang, hung up the phone."
Oh, that's how we want our Army acting, alright. Why delve into that? Then George Roberts of KGFL told the BBC of a call Walt Whitmore,
station owner, got from [New Mexico's senator
Chavez] from Washington who said, 'Look, if you put out any stories
on this, you're gonna lose your license. It's not gonna be over
a period of time. It's gonna be the same day that we tell you
you're off the air." What the station was about to
air was an interview with discoverer Mack Brazel, with details about
the debris. That's dictatorial intimidation. It was followed by false imprisonment of Joyce. Carey, p. 62.Why wasn't that more significant than what a bunch of nuts are doing?
Why are cultists more useful to the public discussion than press censorship?
Level Two. Leave aside press issues. Broad could have written what military
officers
present at Roswell in July, 1947 have done, that contradicts the
established account. He could have spelled out Haut's take on the
"flying disk" report (above). He could have told us a little about Jesse Marcel. Or another few military types who later on contradicted the official summation.
Level Three. Here's a beef of a different type. Broad said witnesses claimed to handle gear that was "incredibly
thin and strong." In this context this is misleading because the word "incredibly" is out of
place. It gives the wrong impression by understating the case greatly. This was material thin and strong beyond what those who
handled it had ever seen produced on Earth. "Incredibly thin
and strong" makes it sound like Kevlar. When was the last time
you heard someone seeing Kevlar wonder how it could have been made on
Earth? They don't. Yet the Times describes the alleged material about as it would Kevlar. Repeatedly Roswell witnesses doubted that what they saw or handled could have come from an Earthly source. We're not talking about three witnesses, but 20 or maybe 40. To that many people, the material did not seem "incredible," it seemed unEarthly, and there's a massive difference. Why wasn't that seeming contradiction to the Air Force report worth discussion, Mr Broad?I'm reminded of the science principle that one exception to an established theory undoes the theory. "We have absolutely no credible reason to believe in extraterrestrial technology" is the established approach (although an Army panel in about 1948 didn't agree). So it takes a cultist to go interview the 20 witnesses who say they have personal experience to contradict what is established? What does that make me if I keep writing Roswell blogs? Hell, this is #13. Maybe I'm on the Far Side already. What if I go to the museum in Roswell? Just an idle tourist yawning at the pics of E.T.? Now if I just knew how to use a yawning emogie.
Level Four: Since the Roswell debris no longer exists, the Air Force could not present clear evidence that it was Project Mogul stuff. Yet the Times writes Mogul debris "littered the New Mexico countryside." Sounds like it could have become somewhat common. It was neoprene rubber with some sticks, sensors, and metal foil tethered to it. Still, academy-educated Colonel Blanchard described something he saw as a flying disc, and the Times displays no interest in exploring the apparent contradiction.
Next time we may look at evidence about the military's motives in the period of the 1994 report as unearthed by Howard Blum. Did that color how thorough the 1994 report was? In the meantime I'm sure Bill Broad will be posting comments below to help me see what I've missed. Maybe he'll offer to meet me in Roswell for spring break.
Saturday, February 4, 2017
Strategic Air Command Base Intrusions 1975. Did Blue Book Lie To US? Roswell #12
In 1969, Project Blue Book closed itself and wrote: We looked at 13,000 cases, but no UFO case evaluated by the Air Force has shown itself to be a national security threat. Nor have we found evidence of technology beyond current developments on Earth.
This is kind of a sobering statement if you accept that this branch of the service surely had access to information gathered at Roswell. On Dec 17, 1969, the Secretary (Commander) of the Air Force said the Air Force would not be getting involved in such investigations again. Howard Blum, p 68 Blum then writes the Secretary's statement "was never intended to be honored." It may be fair to conclude that its conclusions about lack of nonEarth technology weren't intended to be the whole truth?
A long series of hints that someone or something did in fact possess flying abilities beyond current Earth developments was just a few years in the future. In 1975 UFOs--literally things in the air that were tough to identify--began dicking around, err, encroaching on the Air Force's nuclear supply depots, shown by alerts called in from bases in the northern US. In Maine a report told, "Twice an unidentified helicopter has been observed ...in the near vicinity." They couldn't identify it. Had the best machines money could build and couldn't catch a helicopter? Some helicopter.
The same week in Great Falls, Montana came a Flash: "At 405 EST [we] saw one object accelerate and climb rapidly [high enough] it became indistinguishable with the stars." Some helicopter. When I collapse, I want that company to fly me in.
Two weeks later came a report from a SAC facility in Minot, ND. As my best friend in southern Utah says, "Why not Minot?" That's what these "pilots" or "drones" or ? thought. A bright starlike object was seen in the west, moving east, about the size of a car and passed over the radar station about 1120, flying 1-2000 feet high. A helicopter's about the size of a car, but this one zipped across too fast for the world's best Air Force to catch up. Serious helicopter.
Blum, p. 70, writes "similar sightings continued for eight months." Eyewitness testimony kept mounting. One person said he saw something about the size of 2 1/2 ton truck. One more of those next-generation helicopters. Norad's commander wrote that at Malmstrom Air Base something sounded like a jet but there were no jets in the area. F-106 jets were sent up to run the thing down. Ground personnel saw the F-106s approach some lights, which went out until the jets passed and then came on again. And why didn't the jets' radar hone them in on the target? Maybe more winked out than the lights? Stealth next generation?
Did the Blue Book conclusion just plain lie? Well, there were I think 701 "unexplained" sightings. Is that "no evidence" of tech better than ours, or circumstantial evidence, or repeated hints, or a disturbing pattern or . . .?
And the brass--they were kinda bored by the whole thing? Well, No. The Norad commander wrote that we need to learn what this is before the news blows it out of proportion. Whatever-the----- this is, I want you men on the site to do your job and shoot these things down before they do more than just invade our air space at will. Nobody bagged a single Russian.
Then the sightings over restricted bases stopped. That was it. The Air Force could never explain how these objects vanished without a trace or why the sightings ended.
Where does this take us? It tells us military personnel have seen objects described as being as big as a truck without being able to catch up with or identify them. Whoever it was had helicopters faster than our jets. But we don't know who--or what.
Lots of questions. Lots of hints. No answers.
This is kind of a sobering statement if you accept that this branch of the service surely had access to information gathered at Roswell. On Dec 17, 1969, the Secretary (Commander) of the Air Force said the Air Force would not be getting involved in such investigations again. Howard Blum, p 68 Blum then writes the Secretary's statement "was never intended to be honored." It may be fair to conclude that its conclusions about lack of nonEarth technology weren't intended to be the whole truth?
A long series of hints that someone or something did in fact possess flying abilities beyond current Earth developments was just a few years in the future. In 1975 UFOs--literally things in the air that were tough to identify--began dicking around, err, encroaching on the Air Force's nuclear supply depots, shown by alerts called in from bases in the northern US. In Maine a report told, "Twice an unidentified helicopter has been observed ...in the near vicinity." They couldn't identify it. Had the best machines money could build and couldn't catch a helicopter? Some helicopter.
The same week in Great Falls, Montana came a Flash: "At 405 EST [we] saw one object accelerate and climb rapidly [high enough] it became indistinguishable with the stars." Some helicopter. When I collapse, I want that company to fly me in.
Two weeks later came a report from a SAC facility in Minot, ND. As my best friend in southern Utah says, "Why not Minot?" That's what these "pilots" or "drones" or ? thought. A bright starlike object was seen in the west, moving east, about the size of a car and passed over the radar station about 1120, flying 1-2000 feet high. A helicopter's about the size of a car, but this one zipped across too fast for the world's best Air Force to catch up. Serious helicopter.
Blum, p. 70, writes "similar sightings continued for eight months." Eyewitness testimony kept mounting. One person said he saw something about the size of 2 1/2 ton truck. One more of those next-generation helicopters. Norad's commander wrote that at Malmstrom Air Base something sounded like a jet but there were no jets in the area. F-106 jets were sent up to run the thing down. Ground personnel saw the F-106s approach some lights, which went out until the jets passed and then came on again. And why didn't the jets' radar hone them in on the target? Maybe more winked out than the lights? Stealth next generation?
Did the Blue Book conclusion just plain lie? Well, there were I think 701 "unexplained" sightings. Is that "no evidence" of tech better than ours, or circumstantial evidence, or repeated hints, or a disturbing pattern or . . .?
And the brass--they were kinda bored by the whole thing? Well, No. The Norad commander wrote that we need to learn what this is before the news blows it out of proportion. Whatever-the----- this is, I want you men on the site to do your job and shoot these things down before they do more than just invade our air space at will. Nobody bagged a single Russian.
Then the sightings over restricted bases stopped. That was it. The Air Force could never explain how these objects vanished without a trace or why the sightings ended.
Where does this take us? It tells us military personnel have seen objects described as being as big as a truck without being able to catch up with or identify them. Whoever it was had helicopters faster than our jets. But we don't know who--or what.
Lots of questions. Lots of hints. No answers.
Thursday, February 2, 2017
Why American Civilization Will Fail: Arizona Medicare Woman Spends $2700 of Taxpayer Money To Get Laxative
We will never balance the budget, and I can prove it with one story.
Ronnie, we'll call her, is a 75-year-old woman in fair health who last week had outpatient surgery to fix an umbilical hernia. The wall of her tummy thinned and in 45 minutes the surgeon fixed it, spatted her on the butt, figuratively, and sent her home. Pretty routine.
Or was it? It took Ronnie an extra three hours to get out of post-operative care because her oxygen level kept dropping, and the anesthesiologist was heard wishing she had "oxygen available at home." She has never needed it at home. Did it drop because she was just sleepy from the drugs, or because she wasn't handling the whole thing as well as they hoped?
Here's a hint. Ronnie threw up twice on the 20-minute drive home. Just liquid and she felt better quickly. But a sign of vulnerability. How do we care for medical vulnerability and not break the bank? The Tea Party would just chop off care. It may come to that.
They told Ronnie a nurse would come by to tend to her dressing a couple of days after surgery, but no one came. She was in good spirits and seemed to be in good shape, but wouldn't take off her own bandage or take a shower with it on. A friend helped with the bandage and the stitching looked fine and Ronnie got clean.
Ronnie's about 75 pounds overweight, and hadn't moved her bowels in four days after surgery, in spite of taking a laxative and eating prunes. Like a huge percentage of women, and men, too, over 50, she is constitutionally allergic to all but the most minor of exercise, one of the main reasons she has some problem with constipation in the first place. And doesn't sleep well. Now she's got surgery interfering with her bowels, too. She called the surgeon's office to ask where the home nurse visit was and what to do about pooping, but says she didn't get help. Claims she called multiple times. Even talked to a nurse once. No help.
Suddenly, feeling left alone without help, the next day she up and called 911 and went to the emergency room to get a stronger laxative, and have somebody medical look at her incision. I'm assuming Medicare will be billed maybe $3000 for this episode and it will have to pay some fraction of that to the ambulance company, and the ER. Half?
That's the story that spells the doom of our system. Where was the home visit nurse? Where was the surgeon's office when Ronnie called complaining the laxative wasn't working? Where was Ronnie's ability to ride it out a bit and let things move along and be okay? She has some tendency to jerk and jump at minor problems. Then she'll calm back down, then she will get worried again. She herself used the phrase, "I refuse to live a fear-based life," but the only thing that sent her to the ambulance was fear. And/or feeling left alone a little too long. When she jerked the 911 button, nobody came on the line to do a 30-second "medical necessity review" of Ronnie's proposed use of the emergency system for an obvious nonemergency. A patient representative might have done the trick. She needed a home visit nurse and a strong laxative and incurred the system (she's on Medicaid as well as Medicare) an extra fee of some thousands to get them.
This one case shows why conservatives don't believe in socialism, or if it doesn't, it could. Yet Ronnie needed help. She needed to call her surgeon once an hour until she got it. She called twice and gave up. Maybe we need an on-call nurse practitioner or physician's assistant who can do spot home visits to spare the ambulance and the ER. Ronnie spent 7 hours in the ER, a dead giveaway she didn't really need emergency care. Maybe her Medicare plan, which will pick up the tab,
Ronnie, we'll call her, is a 75-year-old woman in fair health who last week had outpatient surgery to fix an umbilical hernia. The wall of her tummy thinned and in 45 minutes the surgeon fixed it, spatted her on the butt, figuratively, and sent her home. Pretty routine.
Or was it? It took Ronnie an extra three hours to get out of post-operative care because her oxygen level kept dropping, and the anesthesiologist was heard wishing she had "oxygen available at home." She has never needed it at home. Did it drop because she was just sleepy from the drugs, or because she wasn't handling the whole thing as well as they hoped?
Here's a hint. Ronnie threw up twice on the 20-minute drive home. Just liquid and she felt better quickly. But a sign of vulnerability. How do we care for medical vulnerability and not break the bank? The Tea Party would just chop off care. It may come to that.
They told Ronnie a nurse would come by to tend to her dressing a couple of days after surgery, but no one came. She was in good spirits and seemed to be in good shape, but wouldn't take off her own bandage or take a shower with it on. A friend helped with the bandage and the stitching looked fine and Ronnie got clean.
Ronnie's about 75 pounds overweight, and hadn't moved her bowels in four days after surgery, in spite of taking a laxative and eating prunes. Like a huge percentage of women, and men, too, over 50, she is constitutionally allergic to all but the most minor of exercise, one of the main reasons she has some problem with constipation in the first place. And doesn't sleep well. Now she's got surgery interfering with her bowels, too. She called the surgeon's office to ask where the home nurse visit was and what to do about pooping, but says she didn't get help. Claims she called multiple times. Even talked to a nurse once. No help.
Suddenly, feeling left alone without help, the next day she up and called 911 and went to the emergency room to get a stronger laxative, and have somebody medical look at her incision. I'm assuming Medicare will be billed maybe $3000 for this episode and it will have to pay some fraction of that to the ambulance company, and the ER. Half?
That's the story that spells the doom of our system. Where was the home visit nurse? Where was the surgeon's office when Ronnie called complaining the laxative wasn't working? Where was Ronnie's ability to ride it out a bit and let things move along and be okay? She has some tendency to jerk and jump at minor problems. Then she'll calm back down, then she will get worried again. She herself used the phrase, "I refuse to live a fear-based life," but the only thing that sent her to the ambulance was fear. And/or feeling left alone a little too long. When she jerked the 911 button, nobody came on the line to do a 30-second "medical necessity review" of Ronnie's proposed use of the emergency system for an obvious nonemergency. A patient representative might have done the trick. She needed a home visit nurse and a strong laxative and incurred the system (she's on Medicaid as well as Medicare) an extra fee of some thousands to get them.
This one case shows why conservatives don't believe in socialism, or if it doesn't, it could. Yet Ronnie needed help. She needed to call her surgeon once an hour until she got it. She called twice and gave up. Maybe we need an on-call nurse practitioner or physician's assistant who can do spot home visits to spare the ambulance and the ER. Ronnie spent 7 hours in the ER, a dead giveaway she didn't really need emergency care. Maybe her Medicare plan, which will pick up the tab,
Roswell at Loose Ends? #11
Here's one more undeniable fact the UFO believers like me dislike: the average person living in Roswell, NM spends little or no time thinking about aliens during a normal week.
Having spent 10 posts--say 25 hours, more than one a day over the last three weeks--on Roswell, do I have about four not-very-appealing options?
1-be rational and traditional and leave it unexplained but seductive
2-closest to #1, seek out official material (Air Force reports) and get my feet back on Planet Earth (A month later, March 2017, I've spent time reading the Weaver Air F report)
3-put in a call to the believer-writers, to Mufon, a group named something like Mutual UFO Nuts
4-keep reading and here listing fascinating "cases" like June Crain the classified office secretary, Dee Proctor the kid who was with Brazel when he first found something odd, or radio station guy Joyce who tells a semi-corroborated story of military intimidation of the press
Then there are some "further-out" things to do.
5-Go to Roswell for a week and talk to anyone who knows anything and read and read. This time of year, early Feb, it could also involve freezing my tush.
6-Branch out, having ended up with more questions than answers at Roswell, to Other Weird Related Stuff, like Howard Blum on how nuclear (SAC) bases were buzzed for months in 1975 by flying craft that could not be conclusively identified (UFOs). Restricted air space was Not respected by these "invaders."
7-Acknowledge that this blog has never had a theme until it found one in New Mexico, and keep up the hobby.
8-Hire a psychic to explain it all
9-Hire God. Pray gratefully I'm not a UFO abductee, nor do I know anyone who is or was, and kinda having wandered carelessly out onto the end of the runway, retreat sensibly and keep my distance. Go back to my knitting, whatever that is--jogging, paying bills, calling friends I neglect, reading whatever miscellaneous book I take an interest in . . . whoops, that's how I got to Roswell in the first place.
Having spent 10 posts--say 25 hours, more than one a day over the last three weeks--on Roswell, do I have about four not-very-appealing options?
1-be rational and traditional and leave it unexplained but seductive
2-closest to #1, seek out official material (Air Force reports) and get my feet back on Planet Earth (A month later, March 2017, I've spent time reading the Weaver Air F report)
3-put in a call to the believer-writers, to Mufon, a group named something like Mutual UFO Nuts
4-keep reading and here listing fascinating "cases" like June Crain the classified office secretary, Dee Proctor the kid who was with Brazel when he first found something odd, or radio station guy Joyce who tells a semi-corroborated story of military intimidation of the press
Then there are some "further-out" things to do.
5-Go to Roswell for a week and talk to anyone who knows anything and read and read. This time of year, early Feb, it could also involve freezing my tush.
6-Branch out, having ended up with more questions than answers at Roswell, to Other Weird Related Stuff, like Howard Blum on how nuclear (SAC) bases were buzzed for months in 1975 by flying craft that could not be conclusively identified (UFOs). Restricted air space was Not respected by these "invaders."
7-Acknowledge that this blog has never had a theme until it found one in New Mexico, and keep up the hobby.
8-Hire a psychic to explain it all
9-Hire God. Pray gratefully I'm not a UFO abductee, nor do I know anyone who is or was, and kinda having wandered carelessly out onto the end of the runway, retreat sensibly and keep my distance. Go back to my knitting, whatever that is--jogging, paying bills, calling friends I neglect, reading whatever miscellaneous book I take an interest in . . . whoops, that's how I got to Roswell in the first place.
Wednesday, February 1, 2017
June Crain, Dr Lovelace and Howard Blum: Roswell or Related, #10
Howard Blum's conclusion.
What I want to say about Howard Blum may be simpler, so he's first. Blum had worked for the New York Times and had written one or more bestselling "deep research" books on news subjects when he got interested in not Roswell but whether there was a hidden gov committee trying to find out about UFO sightings. There was, and they looked into Roswell. We might get back to that, but Blum himself first. He says je spent two years, 1987-1989, on the book, Out There, he published. On the last page of his just the facts book, he offers opinion. "At the end of my journey I have become a believer. There are other worlds. The day will come when . . . a noise, life shaped into a beautiful music, will travel across ink-black space and time, and into legend. . . .Then [as the UFO believers expect], this story will end and the future will begin."
Blum hasn't found the proof of other life, but he has seen enough hints that he switched from skeptic to concluding it has to be Out There somewhere. He doesn't say he believes they're already among us. Yet he appears to suspect it. p 279, Out There.
June Crain.
Like Blum, Crain can't prove Roswell, but she believes it for completely different reasons. Short version goes like this: From 1942-1953 she had a top secret and later an even higher "Q" clearance and worked at Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio in a unit that studied "way out" things. She said nothing openly about that until the Air Force in 1997 released a report that any sightings of bodies might be sightings of crash dummies. Problem with that idea is that the crash dummies didn't get started until about 1953, maybe five years after the 1947 incident.
The dummy report got June to come forward. It pissed her off. She said she had had it with the Air Force lying about extraterrestrial life when she had worked in a unit where they investigated, knew of, and took for granted that we have alien visitors. June went to an author/researcher, one of these UFOlogist crusader-guys (why are they all guys? because it's a fight and guys like to fight?), James Clarkson, write a book Tell My Story: June Crain, The Air Force and UFOs. She heard Clarkson lecture and decided she had had enough. She declared the CNN program named Roswell: Case Closed a "dammed lie." At her job she said she observed:
1) Scientists, researchers, military personnel in the unit where she was stenographer, routinely speak as if they had seen clear evidence of extraterrestrial life from one or more crashes.
2) One of them laughed out loud at the press falling for the Roswell balloon cover story. How dumb can people be? he thought.
3) A master sergeant named Clarence, to whose wedding June went, was having coffee with her and told her his "news of the day" was that he brought in two little green-blue men, about four feet tall, non-human and dead, on a transport. Probably this same friend almost lost control and cried in describing the alien bodies he saw.
4) Another military man in the unit later brought June parts from what he called a spaceship. He said, "June, you're good. See what you can do with this." June was "good" because she was considered a sharp, capable member of the team. These disciplined engineers and other such co-workers respected her abilities. It was a weightless material that she tried to cut, tear and bend, to no effect. She got scissors out and snipped at it but it couldn't be cut. Light as a feather and a piece half the size of a business card. Grayish, gun metal color.
So how do you vote? A weightless material that couldn't be cut, torn, or bent was made in 1951 by a) IBM b) Polaroid or c) Ford Motor Company or d) none of the above.
Dr Lovelace
Despatched to Roswell in 1947 and didn't come back for a couple of days. Unlike most assignments, he wouldn't talk about what he saw, except to say that at Roswell, "it was a new species." I concede this is vague. What was a new species and what kind of new species was it? Yet in the 1947 Roswell context, it's more suggestive. Also suggestive is the source: I'm a respiratory therapist who spent my professional life working with medical doctors. As a group, with exceptions, they're careful trained observers who don't rush to judgment. To have one say "it was a new species" is no small declaration, and more credible to me than if an auto mechanic or fireman said so. (Crain and Lovelace sources: Children of Roswell, 173-175, interview of Crain by James Clarkson on majesticdocuments.com. Crain's blue men story appears to be about a later crash than Roswell, about 1951-2.)
I concede that this kind of a post seems to be by a person wanting to believe. Yet we have here three serious professionals, each giving credence to the UFO "thing," and two claiming to have seen evidence of nonEarth life or material.
What I want to say about Howard Blum may be simpler, so he's first. Blum had worked for the New York Times and had written one or more bestselling "deep research" books on news subjects when he got interested in not Roswell but whether there was a hidden gov committee trying to find out about UFO sightings. There was, and they looked into Roswell. We might get back to that, but Blum himself first. He says je spent two years, 1987-1989, on the book, Out There, he published. On the last page of his just the facts book, he offers opinion. "At the end of my journey I have become a believer. There are other worlds. The day will come when . . . a noise, life shaped into a beautiful music, will travel across ink-black space and time, and into legend. . . .Then [as the UFO believers expect], this story will end and the future will begin."
Blum hasn't found the proof of other life, but he has seen enough hints that he switched from skeptic to concluding it has to be Out There somewhere. He doesn't say he believes they're already among us. Yet he appears to suspect it. p 279, Out There.
June Crain.
Like Blum, Crain can't prove Roswell, but she believes it for completely different reasons. Short version goes like this: From 1942-1953 she had a top secret and later an even higher "Q" clearance and worked at Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio in a unit that studied "way out" things. She said nothing openly about that until the Air Force in 1997 released a report that any sightings of bodies might be sightings of crash dummies. Problem with that idea is that the crash dummies didn't get started until about 1953, maybe five years after the 1947 incident.
The dummy report got June to come forward. It pissed her off. She said she had had it with the Air Force lying about extraterrestrial life when she had worked in a unit where they investigated, knew of, and took for granted that we have alien visitors. June went to an author/researcher, one of these UFOlogist crusader-guys (why are they all guys? because it's a fight and guys like to fight?), James Clarkson, write a book Tell My Story: June Crain, The Air Force and UFOs. She heard Clarkson lecture and decided she had had enough. She declared the CNN program named Roswell: Case Closed a "dammed lie." At her job she said she observed:
1) Scientists, researchers, military personnel in the unit where she was stenographer, routinely speak as if they had seen clear evidence of extraterrestrial life from one or more crashes.
2) One of them laughed out loud at the press falling for the Roswell balloon cover story. How dumb can people be? he thought.
3) A master sergeant named Clarence, to whose wedding June went, was having coffee with her and told her his "news of the day" was that he brought in two little green-blue men, about four feet tall, non-human and dead, on a transport. Probably this same friend almost lost control and cried in describing the alien bodies he saw.
4) Another military man in the unit later brought June parts from what he called a spaceship. He said, "June, you're good. See what you can do with this." June was "good" because she was considered a sharp, capable member of the team. These disciplined engineers and other such co-workers respected her abilities. It was a weightless material that she tried to cut, tear and bend, to no effect. She got scissors out and snipped at it but it couldn't be cut. Light as a feather and a piece half the size of a business card. Grayish, gun metal color.
So how do you vote? A weightless material that couldn't be cut, torn, or bent was made in 1951 by a) IBM b) Polaroid or c) Ford Motor Company or d) none of the above.
Dr Lovelace
Despatched to Roswell in 1947 and didn't come back for a couple of days. Unlike most assignments, he wouldn't talk about what he saw, except to say that at Roswell, "it was a new species." I concede this is vague. What was a new species and what kind of new species was it? Yet in the 1947 Roswell context, it's more suggestive. Also suggestive is the source: I'm a respiratory therapist who spent my professional life working with medical doctors. As a group, with exceptions, they're careful trained observers who don't rush to judgment. To have one say "it was a new species" is no small declaration, and more credible to me than if an auto mechanic or fireman said so. (Crain and Lovelace sources: Children of Roswell, 173-175, interview of Crain by James Clarkson on majesticdocuments.com. Crain's blue men story appears to be about a later crash than Roswell, about 1951-2.)
I concede that this kind of a post seems to be by a person wanting to believe. Yet we have here three serious professionals, each giving credence to the UFO "thing," and two claiming to have seen evidence of nonEarth life or material.
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