At the risk of boring contributors to this forum with further explanation of the Roswell Slides Hoax there is obviously still a need to point out one key factor in the whole deception. This is the inescapable conclusion that “Anthony Bragalia” –billed somewhere (by himself?) as the “World’s Greatest UFO Researcher”— is one of the principal hoaxers and this is a false identity that he has been using for over three years. I suggest that his true identity is almost certainly John Lundberg who was creator of the whole charade and who was also one of the principal creators of Ray Santilli’s Alien Autopsy Scam twenty years ago.
One reason that Kevin Randle --and others-- has been deceived into believing that “Anthony Bragalia” was a real person whose claims should be trusted is that Philip Mantle (real name) has all along given the impression that his friend “Anthony Bragalia” was a genuine person. Mantle has supplied pictures of Santilli’s SFX dummy alien HILDA which were featured on Kevin Randle’s blogsite and Mantle has insisted all along that Lundberg and Irving were not involved in producing the 1995 Alien Autopsy footage. That assertion –as Mantle knows full well—is simply not true. No one should be surprised by fakery and hoaxing when it comes to claims of UFO/alien contact (and UFO crash/recovery) since it has been that way all along. Remember George Adamski, Billy Meier, Bob Lazar, Ed Walters, and Ray Santilli to name just a few? Remember too “Dr Jonathan Reid” (a.k.a. John Bradley Rutter) and his rubber alien dummy plus his faked UFO pictures from about 15 years ago? The “Roswell Slides” caper has been a similar, though rather more sophisticated, sort of deception.
The fiction that a certain Spyros Melaris was solely responsible for Ray Santilli’s Alien Autopsy production has been published over the years in
Fortean Times to which Lundberg, Irving and Mantle used to be contributors. Naïve acceptance of this untruth has meant that most Roswell Skeptics have failed to realize that the “Roswell Slides” was a further carefully prepared hoax by John Lundberg and Rob Irving who were centrally involved with Santilli’s Alien Autopsy back in 1995. Consequently many Roswell Skeptics have been unable to see that the slides saga was a hoax too and they reserved all their contempt for Tom Carey, Don Schmitt and Jaime Maussan for supposed misidentification of what is now assumed to be merely an image of a mummified child. It is abundantly clear now that these three were victims of the slides hoax rather than its perpetrators. If members of the RSRG chose to accept all they were told by Bragalia (and by Adam Dew) they too have been duped by these hoaxers in the same way that Jaime Maussan was.
The root cause of this naivety is that most interested parties seem to have swallowed the “Roswell Slides” background story hook, line and sinker. There is not one scrap of evidence to support the ludicrous background story with its tale of “Hilda Ray”, her alleged friendship with Mamie Eisenhower, a private viewing of the alleged alien/mummy corpse, the alleged box of 1940s/1950s slides found in an alleged house clearance and alleged overheard conversations in Midland, TX, etc. Every bit of this background story –accepted by Roswell Believers and Roswell Skeptics alike-- was contrived by the hoaxers to link the supposed slides to the supposed Roswell flying saucer crash of 1947 and it is FALSE. Moreover, the two alleged 1947/1948 Kodachrome slides that were said to show the dead creature --held to be either an alien (or now a mummy)-- never in fact existed as slides. It seems nothing except for digital images has ever been presented to any independent photographic expert for any sort of confirmation.
Who then supplied this utterly bogus background story? Although it was served up by Adam Dew (who claimed some part in the supposed discovery of “Hilda Ray’s Box of Slides”) it is quite evident that most of the false detail was contrived and supplied by Mr “Anthony Bragalia”. One should then look at some of the other extraordinary claims about Roswell that this person was making on the internet in the months before the May 5th “Be Witness” event in Mexico City.
OPENING THE DOOR TO THE BLUE ROOM WHERE UFO DEBRIS IS HIDDEN by Anthony Bragalia is one such article which attempts to extend the Roswell Myth by creating a new icon for Roswell Believers – the alleged notorious “Blue Room” at Wright Patterson Air Force Base. This can be found at:
index
Didn’t John Lundberg speak of creating icons for UFO True Believers, and of following --and even extending-- the Roswell “narrative?” We already have enough Roswell icons such as the EBE (Extraterrestrial Biological Entity), the strange Roswell crash metal, the Majestic 12 committee, the Eisenhower Briefing Memo, etc. Here comes a new icon from Lundberg posing as Bragalia: the Blue Room at Wright Patterson AFB.
To me this sounds very much like Roswell UFO/alien fiction based on all the 1947 flying saucer crash folklore plus a few real characters from that era like Barry Goldwater, General Exon, General Spaatz, General Le May, etc., who supposedly knew the “truth” about the Roswell UFO Crash. The writing is rather like the fictional Project SERPO hoax that appeared on the internet back in 2005 though it’s clearly not from the same source.
Then we also get Bragalia’s “confirmation” of the existence of the alleged Roswell Crash metal:-
<font color="red">ROSWELL DEBRIS CONFIRMED AS EXTRATERRESTRIAL: <br/>Lab Located, Scientists Named!</font>
Should one really believe any of what one is told by someone like “Anthony Bragalia?” I suggest that would be very foolish yet the RSRG and other Roswell Skeptics immediately accepted as true what Bragalia said when he made his amazing volte-face on the Roswell Slides on May 10th just a few days after the deblurring of the message on the placard by Nab Lator of the RSRG.
I don’t doubt that Nab Lator’s finding of the hidden message was genuine but one really has to ask whether the “MUMMIFIED BODY …” message was always on those versions of the digital images (which supposedly originated from the alleged slides) that were made available to Jaime Maussan & Co as higher resolution images than those the public were allowed to see. It seems very likely that the placard message was added to the (publicly available) image(s) on the internet soon after the Mexico City event on May 5th by the hoaxers who knew full well that it would be discovered --by use of deblurring software-- soon enough. The hoaxers must have been fully aware of David Rudiak’s work in deblurring the Ramey memo and no doubt decided this was the right time to supply their own message.
Soon afterwards “Anthony Bragalia”, well aware of the change, wrote on May 10th as follows:-
"A CASE OF MISTAKEN IDENTITY …. The word “hoax” has been used to describe the “Roswell Slides” saga. It was not. At least, the principal investigators, Tom Carey, Don Schmitt, and I did not knowingly fake or obfuscate anything. No matter, it is a serious case of mistaken identity, the consequences of which I fully accept”.
So the images merely showed a mummy! This was all too convenient and it all sounded too good to be true. The Roswell Skeptics were handed just what they wanted to hear on a plate and Bragalia was allowed to step aside with his reputation as “the World’s Greatest UFO Researcher” almost untarnished.
The unprecedented U-turn by Bragalia who went from claiming a discovery of earth-shattering scientific importance --proof of the alien presence-- one moment to conceding it was a mistaken identity the next simply did not ring true. Was this U-turn part of the hoaxers’ original plan or had Bragalia just used this excuse as an exit strategy when the BeWitness event showed that few gave the alleged Roswell Slides any further credence? We shall probably never know since the hoaxers are most unlikely to admit their role in this deception.
Even if one accepts that “Anthony Bragalia” was the master hoaxer, his original plan may have been much more ambitious than simply deceiving and discrediting Roswell Believers --and Jaime Maussan in particular. Maussan now realizes of course that Bragalia tricked him and he has accused this fake ufologist of deliberately deceiving him which he did.
The admission that the supposed “alien” images were fake immediately concentrated everyone’s attention on what the pictures actually showed rather than producing speculation on whether the “World’s Greatest UFO Researcher” himself was a fake. It was certainly a clever move by Bragalia if he was, as I suggest, the principal hoaxer in all this. I’ve already said that John Lundberg has been cropcircle-faking, ufo-faking, and alien-faking for at least 23 years and now we seem to have a case of him ufologist-faking!
What the original pictures actually showed was now immaterial since the RSRG and others whose focus had been solely on Jaime Maussan were eager to accept Bragalia's word that this was merely the mummified body of a Native American two-year-old child. Bragalia later claimed that this was a particular mummy from a particular cliff dwelling in AZ which at one time had been displayed in a particular museum. Few challenged that, but he never gave proof of it and most people have lost interest. One really has to wonder why anyone should accept his word now in view of all the unbelievable claims that he was making before May 5th.
I’ve no doubt the “Roswell Slides” has been a hoax all along and that “Anthony Bragalia” was the main perpetrator. I rather doubt that he will ever step forward and tell us exactly who he is or, say, accept an offer to appear on The Paracast to answer questions about this whole charade. It has been a very modern hoax which was almost entirely played out on the internet. Initial rumors of the “Roswell Slides” on various UFO websites drew the inevitable interest of Roswell Believers and Roswell Skeptics alike. The former were eventually supplied with versions of the images which were supposed to be scans of original 1947/48 Kodachrome slides. These, in fact, never existed and there is only the word of the hoaxers that they did. Once the interested parties had been firmly hooked the bogus UFO/alien pantomime could begin with these hoaxers (on the internet) pulling the strings at every turn.
As with other internet UFO frauds the digital images showing the supposed object(s) of interest were of uncertain date and uncertain origin. There could be no certainty whether such an object was a real alien corpse or a SFX dummy alien or, indeed, a small mummy. There were low resolution and high resolution versions of these digital images that were fed to selected parties. Whether or not some of the images had been photoshopped to display subtle non-human features on the “alien” --such as 4 fingers rather than 5—we shall probably never know. (The last time Lundberg and Irving did this with Alien HILDA one version showed the corpse with 6 fingers on each hand which some interpreted as definite signs the creature was non-human!) Different versions of the “Roswell Slides” image(s) must have superficially looked the same and it seems certain there was one version with nothing written on the blurry placard and another seemingly identical one which could be deblurred to show that “MUMMIFIED BODY…” message.
A cast of characters consisting mostly of the hoaxers and the hoaxed then debated the “Roswell Slides” on various websites and forums dealing with the UFO/alien subject. Although there were many sincere Roswell Believers and sincere Roswell Skeptics taking part in this performance the hoaxers themselves were equally vocal using a number of false identities, especially on Kevin Randle’s ‘A Different Perspective’. And, of course, there were quite a few honest folk out there too who strongly felt they should add their own opinions.
I feel sure that, by now, most of the participants in this hugely popular alien soap opera must have realized that the whole thing was a highly elaborate hoax even if they still struggle to see who was behind it. And, knowing the principal hoaxers as I do, I’m sure there’s no chance they will ever admit to it. More likely they –using their false identities on ‘A Different Perspective’ or on The Paracast forum-- will attack me and they will also try to lay the blame for this hoax on others such as Jaime Maussan. Any of you who may have expected to find UFO/alien truth one way or another in the “Roswell Slides” soap opera will have found --once again-- that it has all turned out to be more in the realm of ET, Comic-Con, reality TV, the X-Files, and ‘Paul’ (the movie) which is hardly very surprising given who the hoaxers were.
George Wingfield
