By Nick Redfern
Well, my previous article on what have become know as the “Roswell Slides” has provoked a flurry of comments, via Facebook, Twitter, and email. Several of the writers took me to task for suggesting that even if the slides are the real deal – or are perceived to be so, even by highly credible individuals – it won’t make any difference to Ufology, or in relation to clearing up what happened at Roswell. I still stand by my position, and I’ll tell you why.
For the sake of argument and clarification, I’m going to play devil’s advocate and suggest that the slides just might be the real deal. Let’s say that careful study of the slides proves them to be of 1947 vintage. Let’s also say that there is a consensus amongst those qualified to comment, that the body is not a model, or a deformed human, but of an unknown life-form…an extraterrestrial.
That’s all well and good. But, if that’s all there is, and at that point the story stalls, and hits the proverbial brick wall, we have major problems – regardless of the positive opinions made in relation to the slides. Think I’m wrong? I’m not. Take, for example, the infamous film-footage taken in 1967 by a man named Roger Patterson that alleges to show a Bigfoot.
The Patterson film – as it’s known - has the support of a number of credible people, with credentials. But, even so, it hasn’t changed the world. Why? Because the film stands alone, that’s why. It has not been supported by the recovery of a dead or a living Bigfoot that can be compared to what the film shows. In other words, it remains an intriguing bit of film – and that’s all. The very same situation could occur in relation to the “Roswell Slides.”
Unless, or until, someone provides us with a real alien body that can be compared to the body in the slides, then the images will forever be the UFO equivalent of the Patterson film. Only hard physical evidence of what happened at Roswell - for comparison – will change things. But, I don’t think that will happen, and I’ll tell you why.
I am going to play devil’s advocate again and suggest that yes, maybe, aliens did crash at Roswell. But, if they did, what, precisely, did the U.S. military of 1947 actually recover? There are more than a few reports from old-timers from Roswell (both military and civilian) who talked about the recovery of unusual, small bodies, and the discovery and subsequent retrieval of a huge amount of strange, foil-like material.
If, however, you go back and carefully review the published material, you will see very few references to a craft – intact or even semi-intact – having been found on the Foster Ranch, Lincoln County, New Mexico, in the summer of 1947. There is no talk – even from the old-timers – of the military scooping up futuristic power-plants, weird landing gear, “engines,” etc. It’s all about the odd bodies and the equally odd “foil.”
Playing devil’s advocate for no less than a third time, let’s say that this is all the military found – and it’s all that the keepers of the secret have today: namely, four or five preserved bodies (in varying degrees of quality), and a mass of curious metal. If that’s so, it’s highly possible that only a very limited amount of work could be undertaken to try and figure out what had fallen into the hands of the Human Race – or, rather, into the hands of a small, elite, number of the Human Race.
Within the field of Ufology, there are numerous accounts of government agencies, the military, and private corporations “back-engineering” alien technology at places like Area 51. Check out the controversial story of Philip Corso, in his The Day After Roswell book, as a perfect example – or take a look at Independence Day. I sometimes wonder if all these tales of advanced, back-engineering programs were merely the concoctions of Cold War-era generals and strategists, doing their utmost to freak out the Russians and have them believe we had cracked the key to understanding alien technology.
But, what if, in reality, we haven’t made any advances – at all? Such a scenario is not in the slightest bit implausible. If all that was found really was just a bunch of bodies and a mass of foil, then it may be the case that nothing has been achieved beyond two things: (A) confirming that something intelligent, something that is not of the Human Race, has visited us; and (B) realizing that their technology is so bizarre that their vehicles appear to be comprised of strange foil and of absolutely nothing else.
Faced with that, what else could you do, say, or conclude? Certainly, you could periodically bring in expert individuals to examine the bodies. Likewise, you could have some of the finest minds on board to periodically study the so-called “memory-metal” found at the crash site. But, faced with so little material to work with, those overseeing the secret of Roswell (and I’m personally sure that someone is overseeing something!), may, by now, have reached the point where no more meaningful advances can be made.
In that sense, the Roswell evidence (the bodies and the memory-metal) may have gone from being a secret that was once dedicatedly studied to a secret that, today, is dedicatedly hidden. And that’s all. Skeptics often say that it’s absurd to believe that “the government” could hide the truth of Roswell. Their reasoning: thousands of scientists would be involved in the study of the recovered evidence, and some of them would blow the whistle.
Those same skeptics, however, are working from the mindset that the Roswell materials would have to be the subject of a massive, decades-long investigation. But what if that’s not the case? What if the truth is even stranger than that? Namely, that the keepers of the secret have so little to work with (just deteriorating corpses and a pile of foil), that what was, in the immediate aftermath of the crash, a bustling lab-type environment, is now the equivalent of a grim, mausoleum, where things are merely stored, rather than studied?
In that sense, it would be very easy to hide the evidence, simply because…no-one is doing anything with it. Which brings me back to the “Roswell Slides.” Maybe they are the real deal; I don’t know. But even if they are, we need more than just slides to make a solid case that aliens crashed in New Mexico in the summer of 1947. We need materials. We need body-parts.
Granted, if the materials are being studied and back-engineered here, there, and everywhere, then, yes, we would stand a chance of someone coming forward with at least something. If, however, the truth is as I suspect it could be - that the Roswell material is locked away because nothing has been learned from it and, now, no-one knows what to do with it, beyond hide it - our chances of vindicating things are slim to none.
And that’s not being pessimistic or defeatist. It’s being what more people in Ufology need to be: realistic.
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Spying on the Roswell Slides
Well, the various articles I have recently written here at Mysterious Universe, on what have become known as the “Roswell Slides”, have resulted in a lot of questions coming my way. One of them has surfaced more than any other. It basically goes like this: Do I think that the key players in the saga of the slides are “being watched”? You know: by the dreaded “them.” Or, to get straight to the point: “the government”?
It is indeed an interesting question. I should stress that I have no data – at all – suggesting that such surveillance is going on. But, I can speak of something very strange that happened in the summer of 2014, and which has at least a bearing on this matter of someone snooping around.
It goes like this: last summer one of the “Dream Team” members investigating the slides, Tony Bragalia, was hacked. The hacker was someone using a safemail account and the name of “A Glass Darkly.” It turns out that AGD got into Bragalia’s emails and god knows where else, too.
On top of that, my emails and those of Rich Reynolds – of The UFO Conjecture(s) blog – were also compromised. Whether that was because we were directly hacked, or because we had email exchanges with Tony B, and which may simply have allowed AGD to read our emails via Tony’s In-Box, I don’t know. But, what I am in a position to say is that the hacker was real, his actions were real, and he did access Tony Bragalia’s email account.
As a result, and hardly surprisingly, the FBI was contacted on matters relative to this. I am not sure where that all stands right now. But no matter, because another push is being made to have the world of law-enforcement (specifically those people whose work covers cyber-security) take a renewed look at this entire situation, which is filled with intrigue and high-strangeness.
It became very clear from AGD’s words (he actually inserted himself into my and Rich’s emailed conversations by replying…) that he was interested in the Roswell slides. What AGD did in his quest for the truth of the slides was to 100 percent cross the line in terms of what is acceptable or legal. He chose to voyeuristically snoop through our emails (and possibly through files and folders too), in search of anything and everything relevant to the slides. I’m sure AGD was hoping that one of us, or all of us, had copies of the slides on our laptops, tablets etc. We did not, however – none of us.
As for who AGD was/is, that’s the bigger question which requires answering. Some people have said that they suspect it’s actually all the work of the Dream Team itself. In other words, there was/is no real hacker using the alias of A Glass Darkly.
In this scenario, the Dream Team concocted and stage-managed the entire caper to add to the ever-growing interest in the slides, and to generate yet more publicity. I have to say I completely reject this theory, for the very simple fact that the FBI was contacted. No-one on the Dream Team would be so stupid as to create a non-existent hacker and then try and get the FBI involved in an investigation relevant to that same non-existent hacker.
I also rule out the idea that this was the work of “the government.” The idea that any agency – of any government in the world – would need to create a safemail account to access the emails of three people (me, Reynolds, and Bragalia) is ridiculous. Such hacking could have been achieved quite easily, and without the need to hide behind a safemail account – or behind any email account.
I predict the real Roswell slide will be at least as blurry as this artist rendition. ~ Ed
My personal opinion? The hacking was done by someone in the UFO research community; someone who was overly eager to be the first with the most. Of course, now, and as of a couple of days ago, you can see one of the images right here. What it shows, I don’t know. Many who have looked at it are underwhelmed. From what I see too, I can’t say I’m particularly excited either.
In a couple of months from now, we may have more answers regarding what the slides show. I doubt those revelations will have a bearing on who A Glass Darkly was, however. But, I’m hoping that certain things which are in motion – right now – may provide us with the real identity of AGD. Stay tuned. Whatever the Roswell slides show (or don’t show) the story – and the curious, behind-the-scenes things, like the AGD-hacking saga – is going to run and run.
