A revealing comparative study of two of the most renowned UFO incidents in history -- the Roswell crash and the Alien Autopsy film. This book is extensively illustrated with over 200 photos. The authors combine eyewitness accounts with expert analyses to refute charges that the Santilli footage is a fraud.This is the first book to try to resolve the inconsistencies between the alleged "Alien Autopsy" film and the now classic "Roswell UFO Crash." Michael Hesemann and Philip Mantle have become known for their support of the "Alien Autopsy" (AA) film and it might surprise some that the "film" is rarely mentioned in the book until Chapter 13. Indeed, this book is designed to lay out a historical framework that would allow the AA film to coexist with the theories outlined by researchers Kevin Randle, Donald Schmidt, Stanton Friedman and others. It should also be pointed out that those researchers have their own differences regarding what happened a half decade ago near that small southern New Mexico town.
In the Foreword, Jesse A. Marcel, M.D., describes events that took place in his parent's small kitchen during the first week of July 1947. He recounts his father's excitement at the discovery of debris from a "flying saucer" and his own realization that we are not alone in the universe. It is apparent that Dr. Marcel's life has been changed as the result of an event that still remains shrouded in mystery, and he calls upon the Government to end the cover-up that he believes is still in place. It is this "cover-up" that could best be described as the central theme of BEYOND ROSWELL, with the AA film becoming only one facet of a complex story of confusion, apprehension, secrecy and fear.
Chapter one begins at the dawn of UFOlogy, with the Kenneth Arnold sighting near Mount Rainier, Washington and describes the early efforts of the Army Air Force (AAF) in pursuing their investigation of reported unidentified objects in the sky. It quickly follows through to the infamous statement on July 8th by the military that a "flying disk" had been recovered, only to have that story deflated several hours later by General Roger Ramey who said the so called "disk" had been nothing more than a weather balloon.
The story is very familiar to those in the genre, but the events as described serve to lay a foundation for the chapters to follow on the discovery and clean up of the debris field, as well as the alleged military cover up. Perhaps the most surprising factor in the early chapters of the book is the ease with which Hesemann and Mantle have woven the theories created by Friedman and Randle together. Both authors have developed their own scenarios with regard to what happened near Roswell, and their differences have at times resulted in a war or words between them. However, those same theories are used by Hesemann and Mantle to describe the scene around Roswell in July 1947 as they take the reader on a tour of nearly every facet of UFOlogy that relates in some way to the alleged crash of an alien craft in New Mexico. Those facets include the "Majestic Twelve", background information on the "Aviary", the "Blue Room" at Wright-Patterson AFB, "Dreamland" and a number of other lessor known events.
If nothing else, BEYOND ROSWELL manages to be the first book to make an effort to tie it all together. Whether it succeeds in that effort will be based on the beliefs of the reader, but it weaves an interesting tale. From the initial confusion of the military, to the alleged recovery of an alien craft, and eventually to the alleged decision to withhold information until the Government could determine what they were dealing with, there are a great number of disconnected facts and events that appear to support many of the theories being proposed.
For the first time, the hand drawn maps of where the crash site is located, as provided by the alleged "cameraman" through Ray Santilli, have been published. Hesemann believes he has identified the site and describes it in his book, and the book contains several color photographs to show the alleged impact area. I have been to the site, just west of Socorro, NM and I found the area of rock that has been cut away at the base of a cliff to be quite interesting. The fact that the rock has been chiseled away does not prove that an alien craft crashed there, but there is also no record of why the rock had been removed.
The question then arises as to whether there were any local witnesses to something unusual during the time of the crash, and it turns out that several local Native American children (who are now much older) remember an unusual incident that occurred in late May of 1947. As recorded in the diary of one of those children: On May 31, 1947 they were outside in the cool of the evening when the sky lit up like daylight and a ball of fire glided silently overhead from northwest to southeast with a brightness that forced them to cover their eyes. Doctors were later called to treat their hands and arms for what was described as burn blisters, but no cause was ever determined. I would note that the cliff face where the crash allegedly occurred is facing the northwest, which would fit their description, and the timing would fit with the "cameraman's" description of the events that later unfolded.
Information from Robert Morning Sky is included, along with a chapter on "The Star Elder", which describes a Native American belief in, what would be described in more modern terms as, extraterrestrial visitation. For the Native Americans this apparently has become a part of their religion. It is also interesting to note that there are many Anasazi petroglyphs at Canyonland of Utah that show six-digit footprints. These markings date back to some 1,400 years BC and it appears that the Native American belief in beings from the stars goes back to long before Europeans crossed the Atlantic and changed the culture of Native Americans for all time.
BEYOND ROSWELL is easy to read, and full of information that is familiar to those who follow this genre with any regularity. However, it is the first time that I have seen this mix of Roswell related information in one book and those unfamiliar with it will quickly find out what the excitement is all about.
