Roswell "Balloon Switch" Story Shot Down

Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 21:57:15 EDT
From: KRandle993@aol.com
To:     marklcenter@iname.com

BTW, are you aware that Jesse Marcel, Jr. has said to a number of people that he did not make the statements that Bond Johnson is quoting him as saying? In an ironic twist of fate, Jesse told me that Johnson had put words in his mouth and that he had taken statements out of context. Jesse has told the same thing to Stan Friedman and Bob Durant, to name just a couple.
 

Isn't ufology fun?

KRandle

Check out this James Bond Johnson information

To clarify more of this story, here, including direct quotes from Johnson, is how the story plays today.

Once again I find myself having to defend my reporting of the events that took place outside of Roswell, New Mexico in 1947. Once again, I'm being accused of misquoting a source now that the source has changed his story significantly, with the obvious intent of moving himself from obscurity into the spotlight. And, once again, I have the audio tape back-up to show that my quotes were not wrong, but that the source has made the mistakes as he has altered his story so that he can become more important to the Roswell case.

I first learned about J. Bond Johnson in 1989 as I began to actively investigate the Roswell UFO crash case. Photographs of material claimed to be debris from the crash site had been taken in the office of Brigadier General Roger M. Ramey on July 8, 1947. It was clear from the captions that the photographs were in the possession of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram because they had been taken by one of their photographers.

I called them only to learn that many of their photographs had been donated to the Special Collections being housed at the University of Texas at Arlington library. So I called there and spoke to Betsy Hudon who was in charge of that collection. I told her what I wanted and she told me that they had four photographs taken of Roger Ramey with a rawin target device on July 8. I asked for copies, and they were sent. I probably should note here, for clarification, that the labeling at the library said they had four pictures of Ramey but in reality two of them were of Major Jesse A. Marcel, Sr. While talking to her, she mentioned that another fellow had recently called about those same pictures and said that he was the man who had taken them.

If that was true, here was a witness who had been in General Ramey's office at the critical time on July 8. He might be able to provide some valuable insight into those events that transpired in there.  Here was a man to whom I had to speak. But Hudon didn't think it was right to give me his name. I asked her if she would forward a letter to him, from me, and that way he could contact me, if he wanted. She said that would be fine. I wrote the letter, sent it, and she forward it on to, at that point, the unidentified photographer.

Within days I heard from J. Bond Johnson. He wanted to talk about the events in Ramey's office. I called him back on February 27, 1989 and we spoke for about forty minutes. I recorded the conversation so that a record of it exists. A record that Johnson now denies, by the way.

This was the first big break in my Roswell investigation. A few days before, I had interviewed Bill Brazel in Carizozo, New Mexico, and he had confirmed his handling of the strange metallic debris, his father's discovery of the field of metallic debris, and the suggestions by military officials that neither Brazel nor his son talk of what they had seen. But Brazel had spoken to others, telling them much the same thing that he told me. Johnson was a new witness, one who had not been identified by others and who had not been interviewed by others. Here was the first, critical discovery.

Looking at the transcripts of that interview now, I see where my enthusiasm has overwhelmed me. Listening to the tapes, I can hear where I should have spent more time listening and a little less time talking about the case. From some of my comments I can see where the criticism that I was coaching the witness might originate. Well, not really, but then, a sharing of information before I have fully questioned the witness is not the best interrogation technique. I should  have been quiet.

For example, Johnson said, "I took the picture of General Ramey and the wreckage. General Ramey was the commander of the Twentieth Air Force at that time. Or maybe not the Twentieth, maybe the Fifteenth."

I said that I thought it was the Eighth Air Force, but Johnson said, "I think that's not right." Of course it was right, but it could be suggested that I was coaching the witness when all I was doing was correcting a minor, factual error that means nothing in the overall picture.

After that, Johnson said, in a fairly disjointed way, "The Star-Telegram. The interesting things that you get into, that you may know about... oh, those pictures have been used on a couple of TV shows. One was Star Trek. No, Star... In Search OF which Leonard Nimoy was the host of. And I was sitting watching the TV and it popped up and showed this picture and oh, there's my picture. That kind of thing..."

Johnson then brought Marcel into the story, saying that Alan Lansbury, the producer of In Search Of had hosted a party to which Johnson was invited. He said, "This major was going to be there, the one from Roswell."

I asked, naturally, "Marcel?" Again it might be seen as coaching the witness, though Johnson already knew the name. He just couldn't think of it at that moment.

"Is he the one that got the..."

I interrupted to say, "He was the one that went out and picked up the material."

"From the rancher, yes. He heard about it in a bar and the guy says, 'Oh, I got one of those out at the place.'"

I said, again, filling in detail, "Wait a minute. The problem is that Mac Brazel found the thing on his ranch and he contacted the folks at Roswell. There was a subsequent story. His son, Bill Brazel came down to take care of the ranch because his dad was being held at Roswell and undergoing tests or something like that. Bill Brazel picked up some of the material. He found some scrape of it and he was in the bar talking about it and the Air Force came out the next day and picked it up. The fellow who came out was a fellow named Armstrong."

"That wasn't the major there?"

This is becoming one more annoyance in a case filled with them. The following article is filled with misinformation and mistakes. It is being widely circulated and it's time to set the record straight, one more time.

> It has been announced by the University of Texas at Arlington that on June 1, 1998, a special exhibit will open in the Special Collections Section of the Main Library featuring super-enlargements of the more than half-century old famous Roswell UFO crash photographs.

> In making the announcement, Dr. Gerald D. Saxon, Associate Director for Special Collections, Branch Libraries and Programs, University Libraries, stated that the special exhibit will be offered in response to an
unprecedented demand by the public to view at close range details of the newly enhanced photographs of the most famous and controversial UFO wreckage, which was "captured" by United States military forces near Roswell, New Mexico in 1947.
 
> Dr. Saxon stated that photographic exhibits at the library usually are scheduled at least two years in advance, but that this special photo exhibit  has been arranged on very short notice due to world wide attention once
again being focused on the UTA Library following a recent announcement that it has finally been established that the photos are of portions of the actual Roswell crash debris.
 
> Dr. Saxon said that due to a series of recent telephone calls being received at the library inquiring as to details of the library security system, that  increased surveillance plans will be in effect.  Visitors to the exhibit
will not be permitted to bring into the library any purses or brief cases but that hand magnifying glasses will be allowed.

> The UFO research community was electrified this week by the surprise announcement that modern technology has debunked a longtime charge by some UFO writers of a blatant "cover-up" by Air Force Lt. General Roger M. Ramey in  connection with the sensational Roswell Incident of 1947, which involved the  announced "capture" of a crashed UFO.

> The results of a new digital scan applied to super-enlargements of the famous UFO photos taken by a reporter-photographer for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram show that the debris displayed in General Ramey's 8th Air Force Headquarters office in Fort Worth on July 8, 1947, is clearly consistent with eyewitness descriptions of the world's best-known "flying saucer" which had crashed near Roswell, New Mexico, a few days before and is not a "weather balloon" which had been substituted on orders of General Ramey.  This includes clear identification of the "hieroglyphic-like" characters displayed along stick-  like structures, including I-beams, and inclusion of very thin, but super strong metal-like material that resisted bending or crumpling.

Actually, there is no way that these scans could prove this. All it could prove is that the material in General Ramey's office was a balloon. It does not debunk the cover up charge. In fact, this allegation comes from, among
others, Brigadier General Thomas J. DuBose who said that the weather balloon story had been designed to get reporters off General Ramey's back.

He also said, "Actually it was a cover story, the balloon part of it. I don't know whether it was McMullen [Major General Clements McMullen] or Kalberer [Colonel Alfred Kalberer, 8th Air Force chief of intelligence] or who, somebody cooked up the idea of this cover story... we'll use this weather balloon. That was the direction we were told... We were told this is the story that is to be given to the press, and that is it, and anything else, forget it."

>The resulting new discoveries discredit frequently repeated claims that General Ramey had concocted the "weather balloon" ruse and then had ordered the substitution of the "weather balloon" for the real wreckage, which had been flown secretly to Wright-Patterson Air Force base -- then known as Wright Field -- in Ohio for "further analysis" and where it reportedly has been kept under tight security for more than a half century.

The balloon explanation may have come from Washington D.C., according to DuBose. He did not know who originated the idea. It is clear from DuBose that a weather balloon was substituted. (See above for exact quote.)
 
>The newly obtained, digitally enhanced photographs reveal for the first time that "out of this world" qualities described by Major Jesse A. Marcel, Sr., Intelligence Officer stationed then at Roswell Army Air Base, who retrieved parts of the wreckage of the alleged alien-operated craft, are clearly established in the photos.

Not true. Marcel said that the debris would not burn, that those who hit it with a sledge hammer could not dent it. How can photographs establish this?
 
>The photographs were taken by Dr. J. Bond Johnson, who had been a reporter for the Star-Telegram since January of 1943. At the time of the Roswell Incident in 1947, Dr. Johnson had been discharged from the Army Air Corps after World War II service, which included training as an aircraft mechanic and pilot.  He has practiced as a clinical psychologist and United Methodist minister for the past 35 years in Long Beach, California.  He also is a retired US Army colonel.

>Upon arrival at General Ramey's office on July 8, 1947, Johnson unpacked portions of the wreckage from its paper wrappings and arranged the pieces for the photos while awaiting the arrival of General Ramey at his office.
Johnson  then took six shots with General Ramey, Colonel (later Brig. General) Thomas J. Dubose, Ramey's chief of staff, and Major (later Lt. Col.) Marcel, who had couriered the wreckage from Roswell to Ramey's headquarters in Fort Worth. Other packages of the wreckage, still unopened, also appear in the photos

This is a new invention by Johnson, something that he didn't say originally. I wonder if he also rifled Ramey's desk while he was there. Did he read Ramey's letters or go through the file cabinents too? This is a ridiculous statement.

>Two of the negatives have disappeared from the files of the UTA Library but four original negatives remain and are safeguarded under heavy security. These four photographs will be featured in the special exhibition.
The frequently quoted descriptions by Marcel, and repeated by Marcel's son, Dr. Jesse A. Marcel, Jr., an Army helicopter pilot and flight surgeon, who was shown some of the wreckage parts by his dad prior to their being turned over to the Roswell base commander, are further corroborated by civilian eye  witnesses who were employees of the Brazell Ranch 85 miles northwest of Roswell, where the craft crashed, and some of their neighbors.
 
>The witnesses described the wreckage as including material that was "very lightweight, lead foil-like, very thin, metallic-like but not metal, and very tough."  It also included very light "balsa-wood appearing sticks," including I-beams, some of which included "hieroglyphic-like" characters, possibly  depicting some unknown writing.  One witness described the "figures" as similar to the petroglyphs the ancient Native Americans etched on rocks in the Roswell area.

How are these symbols, described as "hieroglyphic-like" and "similar to petroglyphs" translated into the flower design on the tape allegedly used on Project Mogul radar reflectors? Marcel Sr., when asked to draw what the
designs looked like produced nothing remotely similar to the tape. Marcel Jr., when asked to draw what the designs looked like produced a single symbol that could be considered "flower-like," but it does not resemble those reportedly used on Mogul.

>Further, the witnesses described that some of the material, even though very thin, when crushed tended to "smooth-out" when released.  There also was a quantity of black plastic looking material "which looked organic in nature that had either been melted or burned."  Johnson also described the strong odor of burned debris when he was in the general's office with the wreckage.

These witnesses include Bill Brazel, Frankie Rowe and Sallye Tadolini. All described a material that when wadded up would return to its original shape with no sign of a wrinkle or a crease. What material are they describing?
Where was it to be found on a Project Mogul balloon train?

> When questioned, Marcel -- who retired from the Air Force as a Lt. Colonel -- described the unusual markings on the sticks as "like Chinese writing....nothing you could make any sense out of."  In his interviews Marcel stated that "they took a photo of me on the floor holding up some of the less- interesting metallic debris...pieces of the actual stuff we had found."

> Marcel said that the debris was scattered over a square mile of a ranch near  Roswell.  "It was something that must have exploded above ground and
fell...it scattered all over."

First, Marcel was not retired from the Air Force but was discharged after nine years of service. Second, although promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in the reserve, he never wore that rank on active duty.

The quote, "they took a photo of me on the floor holding up some of the less- interesting metallic debris," has been reported in three different versions by Bill Moore. In fact, Marcel told reporter Johnny Mann, upon examination of the photographs taken in Ramey's office said that they WERE NOT of the debris that he had brought from Roswell.

>The new digitally enhanced, super-enlargements clearly show the strange metallic debris as described, including some thin metal-like parts, which are quite rigid and smooth, and the I-beams identical with the witnesses'
descriptions.  Marcel stated that the solid members were mostly square, "of  varied lengths, and along the length of some of those they had little markings...two color markings as I can recall...like Chinese writing."  His son described the markings as "flower-like" figures printed along the sticks.

Witnesses said that the beams were like balsa wood but were not. The figures were not described by Marcel's son as "flower-like" but as geometric symbols. And again, only a single symbol drawn by him could be considered flower-like. The others were nothing like those flowers on the Mogul tape.
 
> Yet for nearly 20 years UFO writers have claimed that the Air Corps engaged in a dramatic fraud to protect the UFO wreckage from Roswell and to mislead the press -- and the American public.  The story concocted by the writers tell it generally this way:

> When Marcell turned the portions of the UFO wreckage he had recovered over to his base commander, Colonel William Blanchard.  Blanchard then issued an official public announcement that the Air Corps had "captured" a flying saucer near Roswell and then notified his boss, General Ramey, of this dramatic event.  The military had been widely searching for UFOs following sightings in many parts of the country during June and early July 1947.
 
> For some unknown reason, the writers decided that Ramey had concocted and executed a careful hoax.  It was claimed that he sent the real UFO wreckage directly to Wright Field in Ohio for study and while the burning of a weather balloon and Rawin target.  This fraudulent substitute was dispatched along with Major Marcel to 8th Air Force Headquarters in Fort Worth.

There is no unknown reason here. Colonel DuBose said as much on August 10, 1990 in video taped interviews that have been conveniently ignored here. (See quotes mentioned above.) His statements to Billy Cox and published in FLORIDA TODAY have been conveniently ignored. His statements to Don Ecker of UFO magazine have been conveniently ignored. The reason it has been stated is because many of those who were there and who were interviewed said it.

> There, the bogus material was displayed in Ramey's office and the Star- Telegram was invited to send out a reporter-photographer to cover the story. Johnson was selected and dispatched by his editor with camera in hand. When Ramey told Johnson that he didn't know what the unimpressive looking debris was, Johnson took his pictures and left.

This is blatantly untrue. On February 27, 1989 Johnson told Kevin Randle, "I took two pictures and then they said - but that time said, ‘Oh, we've found out what it is and you know, it's a weather balloon.

In a second interview conducted on March 24, 1989, Johnson told Randle, "I posed General Ramey with this debris. At that time I was briefed on the idea that it was not a flying disk as first reported but in fact was a weather balloon."

Johnson now claims that he never made these statements, but they were recorded on audio tape. He has copies of the tapes.

> No other media representatives were allowed to view the debris or take any  pictures.  All these exotic actions apparently were taken solely to mislead and misinform one 21-year-old photographer-reporter.  Later that day, Ramey summoned a weather officer, Warrant Officer Irving Newton, to his office and instructed him to agree that the debris displayed was only a "weather balloon" and Newton was then photographed by a military photographer holding portions of this debris.

This is demonstratably untrue. A picture was taken of Newton that was not one of those taken by Johnson. It is clearly taken at a different time and by a different photographer.
 

> Other Roswell writers have claimed that Marcel did accompany the actual debris to Fort Worth and was photographed by Johnson holding pieces of the wreckage.  However, the actual debris was switched with the fake "weather  balloon" before Ramey, Dubose and Newton were photographed.  The new studies confirm that pieces of the wreckage seen in all the photos actually are  identical.

Which is what most of those interested in the case have said all along. The material in the photographs was a balloon. Had it not been for the statements attributed to Marcel by Charles Berlitz and Bill Moore, there would be no confusion about this. Moore has described his own book, in which the quote surfaces for the first time as a "disgraceful hodgepodge of fact and fiction."

These new studies were unnecessary to prove this point. And since it has been claimed that the debris was switched BEFORE any photographs were taken, the point is moot.
 
> General Ramey then quickly went to a Fort Worth radio station and announced that his weather officer had decided that the Roswell crash was only a weather balloon with an attached radar target.  Also, a news release was distributed to the press containing this false information.

> The press and the American public accepted the story based on the word of a  distinguished war-hero general.  There never has been any reason given as to  why Ramey would have taken such a drastic and risky action to deceive the  press and the public in this very dramatic way.
 
Sure there has. General DuBose said "He [Major General Clements McMullen, deputy commander of SAC] called me and said that I was... there was talk of some elements that had been found on the ground outside of Roswell, New Mexico... Nobody, and I must stress this, no one was to discuss it with their wives, me with ramey, with anyone. The matter as far as we're concerned was closed..."

McMullen told them to put out the fire as quickly as possible. This sounds like a reason that General Ramey would take such an action.

> Roswell UFO writers generally have continued to repeat the "balloon switch" fable.  Nevertheless, Lt. Col. Marcel contended until his death in 1986 that the material he recovered and which he posed with in Ramey's office was "not part of any kind of weather balloon or experimental craft ... it was not made of anything available on earth."  This description also has been corroborated by the civilian primary witnesses.

> Likewise, General Dubose was very clear when interviewed by UFO researcher Jaime Shandera shortly before the general's death.  When asked to describe details of the photo session in General Ramey's office Dubose made the following statements:

> Shandera: J. Bond Johnson, reporter for the Fort Worth-StarTelegram, has stated that when he asked General Ramey what this debris was, Ramey said that he didn't know.  You were present in that room at that time.  Also, the Associated Press had carried a story indicating that General Ramey didn't know what the debris was when talking to (Air Corps Chief of Staff) General (Hoyt) Vandenberg in Washington."
 
> Dubose: "Well, that's true.  None of us knew what it was."

This is a direct contradiction of what DuBose was quoted as saying on August 10, 1990. It could also be interpreted to mean that the material found in Roswell was unidentified, but that the debris in Ramey's office was not.
Clearly the stuff on the floor is from a balloon and radar detector.
 
> Shandera: "There are two researchers (Don Schmitt and Kevin Randle) who are presently saying that the debris in General Ramey's office had been switched and that you men had a weather balloon there."
 
> Dubose: "Oh Bull!  That material was never switched."
 
> Shandera: "So what you're saying is that the material in General Ramey's office was the actual debris brought in from Roswell?"
 
> Dubose: "That's absolutely right."

And, if that is absolutely right, then the mystery has been solved. But that is the point here. The material photographed was a balloon and no matter how Shandera tries to spin the conversation, this is not what DuBose told other investigators. Those comments are taped, but Shandera has never shared a copy of his tape with anyone. In fact, both DuBose and his wife said that Shandera did not tape the conversation and he didn't take notes. What we have is Shandera's reconstruction of the conversation based on his memories of it. There is no way to independently verify it.
 
> Shandera: "So not you or anyone else ever switched that material for
the cover story."
 
> Dubose: "We never switched anything.  We were under orders from Washington to  look at that material.  We wouldn't have switched anything.  We were West  Pointers -- we would never have done that."

> Shandera: "But General Ramey did put out a cover story that it was a weather device."
 
> Dubose: "Yes.  We were ordered to get the press off our backs --
things were getting out of hand."

Shandera's interview is in direct conflict with what General DuBose told many others including Billy Cox of FLORIDA TODAY. Cox, in a letter written after his interviews with DuBose said that Shandera's report was the result of a close questioning about a narrow point of view of an elderly man. That DuBose, when asked general questions, suggested that the balloon in Ramey's office was not the real debris found in Roswell. DuBose told investigators on video tape that he had never seen the "real" debris. This suggests that what was photographed on the floor was not the "real" stuff.
 
> Memories of witnesses may dim over the span of half a century and more.  But West Pointer General Dubose remembered that day in July of 1947 very accurately it now appears.  But digitally enhanced, super-enlarged photos taken by a 21-year-old reporter-photographer provide even a more convincing  record.  The debris of the Roswell crash photographed in General Ramey's  office is indeed genuine.  General Ramey, General Dubose and Lt. Colonel Marcel all were telling the truth about the Roswell Incident of 1947.  Their reputations remain intact!  And now the public also will be able to view the famous photos and speculate for themselves whether debris is from an extraterrestrial spacecraft or some earthly earth device.  Now that it has been established what the Roswell wreckage is NOT -- maybe modern technology can help to solve the half-century old mystery of what the Roswell debris in fact IS!

All the photographs can establish is that the wreckage in General Ramey's office is of a weather balloon. If it was NOT the wreckage recovered outside of Roswell, as has been said by a number of different witnesses, then it proves nothing. You can blow up the pictures until they are billboard sized, and they will still be of a balloon, which is exactly what almost all of the researchers claim.
 
> Meanwhile, from her home in Denton, Texas, Mrs. Latane Ramey, widow of General Ramey, issued through an official of the Air Force Association a statement that the family is very grateful that this new information has
been released finally clearing General Ramey of any wrongdoing in handling the Roswell Incident.

No one ever suggested that General Ramey had done anything wrong. He was following his lawful orders and he was protecting national security. This
statement is a red herring.
 
>"We all want to keep him in high esteem.  He was a wonderful man. Apparently everyone liked and respected him", Mrs. Ramey said. General Ramey was a native of Denton and attended North Texas State Teachers
College before entering the US Military Academy, where he was graduated in 1928.  During World War II he led the 58th Bomb Wing of the 20th Air Force, a B-29 unit, on several fire bomb raids over Japan.

> He later commanded a task force in the Army Air Corps during the Army-Navy participation in the 1946 atom bomb tests at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific.

>He was assigned to the Fort Worth Army Air Field in the spring of 1947 to reorganize the 8th Air Force, which had gained fame in leading the bombing of Germany during World War II.

 
> In 1949 he was honored by the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce as "man of the year" for rescue work during the Trinity River flood that year. In 1950 he was named director of operations for the Air Force in Washington, DC, and promoted to three-star rank.  After retirement from the Air Force, General Ramey served as vice president of Northrop Aircraft in Los Angeles.

> He was the father of a son, Kent, and daughter, Mary Latane, both of Denton.

This whole thing is filled with inaccuracy, error and misinformation. And, finding the symbols on the sticks, if the computer enhanced photos can be believed has proved nothing. But remember, such photographs would not be
admissable in a court in some states because it is so easy to manipulate photos with computers.

KRandle