May 29, 2016 — Stanton T. Friedman

[Constance]

That is the real absurdity of it all rather than the fact we know now it was John Lundberg (mastermind of the 1995 “Alien Autopsy” hoax and director of the 2013 documentary film Mirage Men about the Roswell Myth) who was posing as “Anthony Bragalia”.

Hi George. Who 'knows' this, other than you, and how do you 'know' it? Has Lundberg confessed this to you and can you persuade him to make this statement publicly?

Your theory about Bragalia being Lundberg does not make sense on either possible interpretation of what you've written -- either that Lundberg has been responsible for all of Bragalia's detailed Roswell-related research over the last half-decade or more, or that Lundberg successfully impersonated Bragalia to the 'dream team' for years regarding the 'Roswell slides'. What evidence do you have to support either claim?

I do think you should stop slandering Anthony Bragalia as you have been doing since last summer in your posts here and perhaps elsewhere. Perhaps you think that, because he has maintained his and his family's privacy for these many years, there can be no legal repercussions for you from your public attacks on him. If so, your behavior strikes me as unfair and unjust in the extreme.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

I only have one question. Supposedly Bragalia is a pseudonym for someone. So who is he really? Just curious.

 

[Constance]

I only have one question. Supposedly Bragalia is a pseudonym for someone. So who is he really? Just curious.

Whoever he is, he has an absolute right to protect his privacy and thereby to maintain the safety, security, and peace of mind of his family. The merit of his extensive research reports, provided freely to the 'ufo community', speaks for itself. He has earned our respect and gratitude.

George Wingfield has provided no basis whatever for any of his attempts to trash this man's reputation. There is an outrageous amount of personal attacking and trashing that goes on in this field on the internet. It's disgraceful and destructive of the collegiality that should exist in a research field as beleaguered as this one is from people outside of it, including governmental disinformation agents.

 

[Paul Kimball]

Mr. Wingfield,

I have no interest in getting involved with this because you, sir, are bonkers.

Anyone who knows me (or read anything I've ever written on the subject) knows I've always been a skeptic on Roswell, and have consistently maintained, long before this Dream Team mess, that it was something earthly, not extraterrestrial. For years I have accepted the Mogul explanation.

And I don't know how many times or ways I have to say this for you to get it through your thick skull, but I had no association with the Dream Team, whatsoever, other than as a persistent critic.

As for your completely unsubstantiated nutter "theory" about Bragalia, you have never offered a single scintilla of proof. Zero. It is beyond Trumpian in its unreality.

Now, stop talking about me here. Continue your looniness on your own, and stop publicly misrepresenting my views.

*****************************************************************************************************************************
Paul Kimball has "no interest in getting involved in this craziness” about Roswell presumably because he is embarrassed by the collapse of the false notion that it really was an ET flying saucer crash and his association with –if not actual membership of—the Roswell “Dream Team”. I believe that he now calls himself a skeptic and has even been attacked for this by other Roswellists who accuse him of betrayal.

He does however acknowledge that the Roswell Slides affair was a hoax but it seems he is unable to see that the deception was the work of “Anthony Bragalia” who did indeed become a member of the Dream Team. Here is what is truly absurd: that anyone should believe Bragalia without ever having met him in person and being only able to contact him through the internet. No doubt this person --who was being billed as the “World’s Greatest UFO Researcher”-- told the Roswellists that he could never risk appearing in public.




I asked Paul Kimball whether any of the Dream Team ever met Bragalia and he refused to answer that question. “Anthony Bragalia is a real person” I was told. Well, duh! I never said that he wasn’t a real person –only that he used a false identity to disguise the fact he was actually John Lundberg, a total Roswell skeptic and an arch-hoaxer who is one of the world’s leading experts on every aspect of the Roswell Myth. Kimball prefers to believe that the Roswell Slides hoax was the work of Adam Dew --who was of course the front man for it-- but Dew certainly isn’t smart enough to have devised the deception or the ridiculous background story about “Hilda Ray”, Mamie Eisenhower, and the alleged 1947 Kodachrome slides by himself.

Dream team members Don Schmitt and Tom Carey were evidently so impressed by Bragalia’s claims to know about the secret “Blue Room” at Wright Field (later Wright-Patterson AFB) where the Roswell saucer wreckage was supposedly taken in 1947, the alleged report on exotic ET materials found in the wreckage, and his claim that alien bodies had been taken to Dugway that they asked him to join the Dream Team. That is the real absurdity of it all rather than the fact we know now it was John Lundberg (mastermind of the 1995 “Alien Autopsy” hoax and director of the 2013 documentary film Mirage Men about the Roswell Myth) who was posing as “Anthony Bragalia”.

 

[Han]

@Standanista Re Drones in WWII: I have just re watched this:

(you can skip to 27 minutes for the "Drone" if you don't want to watch the whole thing)

It talks about and shows some of the equipment and capabilities of WWII era Drone technology. For example the inclusion or a television camera for targeting purposes.
It was basically a primitive Television guided AGM* (I believe that the Maverick AGM 65 A&B versions used a similar system in the Vietnam War era)**


*Air to Ground Missile

**
Maverick A is the basic model and uses an electro-optical television guidance system. No longer in U.S. service.
Maverick B is similar to the A model, although the B model added optical zooming to lock onto small or distant targets.

((source)): AGM-65 Maverick - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[George Wingfield]

George, to try to better nail down this one significant point, do you know what documentation Kevin Randle was referring to when he said it shows Mogul Flight #4 was cancelled, and why do you feel he is incorrect on this?

In the May 22 Paracast (at 0:59 in Paracast+) Randle said, in speaking to the skeptics, “you look at the documentation and it says the flight was cancelled. What part of ‘the flight was cancelled’ don’t you understand?”

When I heard him say this I took it to mean that there is a Mogul report that flat out states “Flight #4 - Cancelled”. Maybe there is such a document. But the only documentation I am aware of is what Randle discusses in this 2007 blog A Different Perspective: There Was No Flight No. 4. This documentation is not nearly so clear on the cancellation, and can be interpreted a couple of different ways. Randle more recently discussed the same documentation in April 2016 A Different Perspective: Truth about Mogul

The documentation discussed in Randle’s blogs is the diary of Dr Albert Crary who was present for the launching of Flight #4. It appears the diary entries were hand copied from field notes. If this is the documentation Randle was referring to on the Paracast, here is the entry from Crary’s diary which is the basis for saying Flight #4 was cancelled:
"June 4, 1947. Out to Tularosa Range and fired charges between 00 and 06 this am. No balloon flight again on account of clouds. Flew regular sonobuoy up in cluster of balloons and had good luck on receiver on ground but poor on plane. Out with Thompson pm. Shot charges from 1800 to 2400."

Kevin Randle reads this language to say Flight#4 was cancelled. Charles Moore, who was involved in the Mogul project, interprets the language to mean that the originally scheduled early morning launch of Flight #4 didn’t take place because of clouds, but Crary's last three sentences indicate the launch of the already inflated balloons did take place around dawn when the clouds had cleared. In his April 2016 blog, Randle argues that yes a launch did take place on June 4, but Crary’s wording “cluster of balloons” means it was not a full Mogul array.

For what it is worth, in the 1990s Charles Moore wrote that he could recall being there for the launch of Flight #4 (as quoted in the 2007 blog).

***************************************************************************************************************************

Sand,

Sorry for my failure to get back to you earlier on this one --I've been traveling. It is important to pin down, if possible, which balloon flight from Alamogordo could have been responsible for the debris that was found on the Foster Ranch by Mack Brazel. Apart from the diary of Dr Albert Crary there is no actual documentation available but Charles Moore had a clear recollection of Flight #4 which he wrote about. As you say, Dr Albert Crary's diary account for June 4, 1947 is contradictory but he seems to have copied all his notes into the diary at a later stage and didn't change what he had written previously even if there had been a change of plan. It seems that the scheduled launch of Flight #4 soon after midnight was initially called off, as Crary notes, but since the balloons were alraedy inflated it was later released around dawn when the cloudy sky cleared. All this is satisfactorily explained by the following passage in Karl Pflock's book Roswell :-



Please excuse my poor quality scan. The jist of this is that Flight #4 definitely did take place on June 4 and that is why I say Kevin Randle is wrong on that score. The flight was tracked to the vicinity of Capitan Peak and Arabela, NM, and lost somewhere near there when the balloons were still airborne and about 17 miles short of the Foster Ranch. (Pflock quotes Moore as mentioning Bluewater, NM, too but I think that must be a mistake as that is on I-40 about 75 miles west of Albuquerque).

There are many different suggestions as to what the debris on the Foster Ranch actually was including possible remote controlled drones, a V-2 rocket, various possible experimental aircraft and, of course, an alien spaceship but surely it is the materials which were found which provide the clincher to its true identity. As Pflock tells us, the debris included hundreds of square feet of polyester and/or neoprene balloon envelopes, many square feet of radar reflective material, several parchment parachutes, hardened balsa struts, and so on. This sounds to me far more like the remains of a very long Mogul balloon train than anything else conceivable.

 

[Sand]

Thanks George. One thing I liked hearing Kevin Randle say on the Paracast episode was that we now need to move on from Roswell to Levelland. I hope he does.

 

[Creepy Green Light]

One would have to think that at this point, Stan is so dug in with his views & theories, that even if new information points to the opposite of Stan's conclusions, that he'll never reverse himself. He's sticking to his story & I guess in a way if your Stan Friedman, you have to. You have too much to lose if all of a sudden you come out and say "Hey, that one thing that I said happened over & over the last 30 years - I found out today that I'm wrong about it."

That's never going to happen. On the other hand, I usually always enjoy listening to Stan and he has done a lot in the realm of research. It would be great to see him get validated while he's still alive just so he can say "See?! I told you so!"

 

[Standanista]

Many thanks for posting that, Han. Very interesting documentary.

(To @Han)

 

[Creepy Green Light]

@Standanista Re Drones in WWII: I have just re watched this:

(you can skip to 27 minutes for the "Drone" if you don't want to watch the whole thing)

It talks about and shows some of the equipment and capabilities of WWII era Drone technology. For example the inclusion or a television camera for targeting purposes.
It was basically a primitive Television guided AGM* (I believe that the Maverick AGM 65 A&B versions used a similar system in the Vietnam War era)**


*Air to Ground Missile

**
Maverick A is the basic model and uses an electro-optical television guidance system. No longer in U.S. service.
Maverick B is similar to the A model, although the B model added optical zooming to lock onto small or distant targets.

((source)): AGM-65 Maverick - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I used to load AGM-65's onto Lockheed P-3C Orions. Then get in the plane and go flying on a mission out of Sigonella, Sicily. We used to test the optics of the loaded Maverick on the cows grazing in the field right next to where we load them. Luckily, never had to fire one while on an actual mission.

 

[Han]

I am having major internet problems (technical problem for my area) to cut a long story short, I will make a new thread regarding technology in 1947, but I can not currently access all my links and bookmarks.
I am old enough to remember before the internet, and my current situation is a reminder how dependent I am on it now!

this is what my broadband provider says:

This is what’s happening in the area you searched.

Fault Last Updated : 09:09 28/06/2016
Services affected There is an issue with a site in your area which may be affecting the service.
Current status Our engineers are working on restoring service as quickly as possible. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.
How long will it take to fix? We’re working with our partners to get this site fixed. This can typically take 5 – 12 days, but can take longer in some cases.We are working to restore service as quickly as possible, and will keep this page updated with the latest status.

 

[ChrisJohnsen]

I am having major internet problems (technical problem for my area) to cut a long story short, I will make a new thread regarding technology in 1947, but I can not currently access all my links and bookmarks.
I am old enough to remember before the internet, and my current situation is a reminder how dependent I am on it now!

this is what my broadband provider says:

This is what’s happening in the area you searched.

Fault Last Updated : 09:09 28/06/2016
Services affected There is an issue with a site in your area which may be affecting the service.
Current status Our engineers are working on restoring service as quickly as possible. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.
How long will it take to fix? We’re working with our partners to get this site fixed. This can typically take 5 – 12 days, but can take longer in some cases.We are working to restore service as quickly as possible, and will keep this page updated with the latest status.

5-12 DAYS? Time for a new internet provider because that's simply ridiculous, short of a result of a natural disaster. At the very least there should be some hefty credits thrown your way if customer service means anything at all to them. But we all know the answer to that question already, don't we?

 

[George Wingfield]

I only have one question. Supposedly Bragalia is a pseudonym for someone. So who is he really? Just curious.

***************************************************************************************************************************

Gene,

I do apologize for my delay in answering the question which you posed last week concerning the true identity of “Anthony Bragalia”. I’m afraid I’ve been somewhat distracted by real life events of the last seven days including the Brexit vote in the referendum on the EU, Donald Trump in Scotland, and also the Glastonbury Festival which takes place just a mile down the road from my house here in Somerset, England. Without discussing any of these things on the forum, I will now sit down and return to the world of alternative realities that include Roswell Aliens, MJ-12, Anthony Bragalia, and the Roswell Dream Team fiasco.

On The Paracast’s Roswell Slides thread last year I posted considerable evidence that clearly showed that the hoax/deception –call it what you will—was the work of John Lundberg and Rob Irving who were also two of the creators of Ray Santilli’s Alien Autopsy hoax of 1995. At a later stage last year I said unequivocally that fake ufologist Anthony Bragalia must be Lundberg himself and there was every indication this was the case. In July 2015 I wrote a piece called The Roswell Slides Hoax –Who is “Anthony Bragalia?” which may have been posted on The Paracast at the time. This piece covered that question in much greater detail. If you didn't see this I can repost it or e-mail to you.

Some Roswell believers apparently still think that Bragalia --who was being billed in 2015 (by himself?) as “The World’s Greatest UFO Researcher” is genuine and --as an apparent whistleblower on the Government cover-up of Roswell, little aliens, MJ-12, etc. – has to hide his identity to protect himself and his supposed family. Such uncritical thinking by Roswellists means that what I’m saying must indicate I am a disinformation agent in the pay of the CIA, the NSA, perhaps even MJ-12 itself (!) --and indeed it has been suggested before now that I am really a secret member of the Aviary known as Mockingbird.

Apart from that absurdity, I am also sometimes bitterly attacked by various Roswell skeptics and self-appointed experts who think they’ve got it all figured out and who don’t like what I say. They quite evidently don’t know Lundberg and Irving –as I do—and they have very little knowledge of the Alien Autopsy scam of 21 years ago. These two British miscreants in that sorry business have largely covered their tracks by colluding with Philip Mantle (real name, also British, and one who presents himself as a UFO skeptic) who has written books and articles about the Alien Autopsy which make no mention of their role.

Kevin Randle, although initially very cautious as regards the Roswell Slides, was evidently taken in by Mantle and also by his belief that Anthony Bragalia was genuine. I have little doubt that Kevin was told by Bragalia and by Mantle that “Wingfield is talking nonsense”. This only goes to show that some people who present themselves as skeptics can be just as devious and equally dishonest as the perpetrators of various false UFO/alien claims.

My only interest in these matters is in finding the truth and I will gladly withdraw any assertion I’ve made which is proved to be incorrect. Although I’ve not read what Stanton Friedman had to say about the Roswell Slides in 2014/2015 I believe that he correctly smelt a huge rat and stood well back unlike Don Schmitt and Tom Carey of the so-called Roswell Dream Team.

In my opinion the actual pseudonym “Bragalia” –or the variation sometimes used: “Tony Braglia”-- is a thinly disguised combination of the words “brag(ger)” and “liar” which is typical of Lundberg and Irving’s sense of humor. These two have nothing but contempt for Roswellists and indeed for all believers in the paranormal. If you are unfamiliar with the highly skeptical John Lundberg do watch the documentary Mirage Men (2013) of which he was the director. He doesn’t actually appear in this well-made film but John’s admiration for UFO deceptionist Rick Doty and his utter disdain for Roswell believers is clearly apparent.

 

[Creepy Green Light]

I am having major internet problems (technical problem for my area) to cut a long story short, I will make a new thread regarding technology in 1947, but I can not currently access all my links and bookmarks.
I am old enough to remember before the internet, and my current situation is a reminder how dependent I am on it now!

this is what my broadband provider says:

This is what’s happening in the area you searched.

Fault Last Updated : 09:09 28/06/2016
Services affected There is an issue with a site in your area which may be affecting the service.
Current status Our engineers are working on restoring service as quickly as possible. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.
How long will it take to fix? We’re working with our partners to get this site fixed. This can typically take 5 – 12 days, but can take longer in some cases.We are working to restore service as quickly as possible, and will keep this page updated with the latest status.

You just reminded me of the days of my 300 baud modem plugged into the back of my C-64 and calling BBS's.

 

[Creepy Green Light]

***************************************************************************************************************************

Sand,

Sorry for my failure to get back to you earlier on this one --I've been traveling. It is important to pin down, if possible, which balloon flight from Alamogordo could have been responsible for the debris that was found on the Foster Ranch by Mack Brazel. Apart from the diary of Dr Albert Crary there is no actual documentation available but Charles Moore had a clear recollection of Flight #4 which he wrote about. As you say, Dr Albert Crary's diary account for June 4, 1947 is contradictory but he seems to have copied all his notes into the diary at a later stage and didn't change what he had written previously even if there had been a change of plan. It seems that the scheduled launch of Flight #4 soon after midnight was initially called off, as Crary notes, but since the balloons were alraedy inflated it was later released around dawn when the cloudy sky cleared. All this is satisfactorily explained by the following passage in Karl Pflock's book Roswell :-



Please excuse my poor quality scan. The jist of this is that Flight #4 definitely did take place on June 4 and that is why I say Kevin Randle is wrong on that score. The flight was tracked to the vicinity of Capitan Peak and Arabela, NM, and lost somewhere near there when the balloons were still airborne and about 17 miles short of the Foster Ranch. (Pflock quotes Moore as mentioning Bluewater, NM, too but I think that must be a mistake as that is on I-40 about 75 miles west of Albuquerque).

There are many different suggestions as to what the debris on the Foster Ranch actually was including possible remote controlled drones, a V-2 rocket, various possible experimental aircraft and, of course, an alien spaceship but surely it is the materials which were found which provide the clincher to its true identity. As Pflock tells us, the debris included hundreds of square feet of polyester and/or neoprene balloon envelopes, many square feet of radar reflective material, several parchment parachutes, hardened balsa struts, and so on. This sounds to me far more like the remains of a very long Mogul balloon train than anything else conceivable.

I mean, what sounds more plausible?; Mogul crash debris or a flying saucer from another world who's propulsion & navigation systems were conked out from 1940's era radar?

 

[George Wingfield]

Thanks George. One thing I liked hearing Kevin Randle say on the Paracast episode was that we now need to move on from Roswell to Levelland. I hope he does.

Hi, Sand

I’m delighted to hear that Kevin thinks the time has come to move on from Roswell at last. Perhaps he has now read what Karl Pflock wrote and concedes that the Mogul balloon train explanation for the Roswell Incident on the Foster Ranch in June/July 1947 is the only one that makes any sense.

I’m not a complete UFO skeptic but I really do suggest that any serious UFO researcher should look very carefully at all tales of alien contact, alleged recovery of alien bodies, alleged flying saucer crash/retrievals and claims that exotic metals and/or fragments were supposedly recovered from UFOs. I can think of no case where any such claim has ever been substantiated and, after looking at the supposed evidence, the researcher should look very carefully indeed at the character who is making such a claim.

 

[Lyonman]

Standanista asks whether Stanton Friedman really believes it or whether it’s all just showbusiness. That’s a question we all ask ourselves but promotion of the Roswell myth has definitely been showbusiness ever since the 1980s. I think he once sincerely believed the Roswell Crash was that of an ET flying saucer after talking to Major Jesse Marcel in 1978. Marcel, who may well have exaggerated, certainly seems to have believed that the debris at the Foster Ranch in 1947 was from a flying saucer since it clearly wasn’t a crashed airplane or a V2 rocket test –or, for that matter, a weather balloon. What else could this extended debris field (of light materials and little metal) possibly be? From the seemingly devout beliefs of Marcel and Friedman --plus some help from Moore, Randall, Schmitt, Berlitz, and others-- sprang a creed one can only call “Roswellianism” which mushroomed during the last thirty years.

Back in 1947 no one at the Roswell Army Air Force Base had the slightest inkling of the top secret Project Mogul balloon assemblies that were being flown from near Alamogordo at the time. Their purpose was long range detection and recording of Soviet atomic tests. These were from 400 to 700 feet long and consisted of perhaps 20 or more balloons plus a large sonobuoy, microphone devices, and radar reflectors all strung together. Even General Ramey may not have known about Project Mogul at the time but after the Roswell Crash he was clearly told by Washington to deflect any interest in the whole matter by saying the wreckage was merely that of an ordinary weather balloon. Most UFO researchers now accept Project Mogul was what lead to the so-called Roswell Incident but there are still hold-outs who won't allow any of it.

I’m sure Stanton always refutes the suggestion that the crash debris at the Foster Ranch came from a Project Mogul balloon train but to me the evidence for that is totally convincing. Doubters should watch a recent full episode on the Smithsonian Channel: UFOs Declassified: Roswell Report which is difficult indeed to argue with. In addition to that, a report on Project Mogul by James McAndrew, 1st Lt. USAFR, states unequivocally that some debris from the Roswell Crash which Ramey had had shipped to Wright Field was positively identified as Mogul components by Colonel Duffy, a former project officer of Mogul*. This was definitely NOT an alien spaceship!

I forget whether Gene and Chris dared mention the dreaded word “Mogul” to Stanton at any stage of the interview but I can only guess what his reaction would have been. Like many other Roswellians and paranoid conspiracy theorists who reject the Project Mogul solution as unacceptable he would probably still insist it is merely further government cover-up. “What about the small alien bodies?”, some of these guys ask --at which stage I’d know there is simply no point in ever trying to reason with Roswell true believers!

* see: Project Mogul

It's simple, Air Force shows the remains they had shipped to wright Patterson to the public for all to see! I don't buy mogul explanation but I also am not claiming UFO. It's hard to believe marcel would mistake balloons for an UFO. The Cold War is over and no use to worry about outdated technology being examined!

 

[George Wingfield]

I imagine that the Air Force dumped any debris that was removed to Wright-Patterson from Roswell a very long time ago --since they decided it came from a Mogul balloon train. If Lyonman reads Karl Pflock's book "Roswell --Inconvenient Facts and the Will to Believe" (Promethean Books, 2001) he will be left in little doubt of that. Even if the Air Force was able to wheel out the Roswell debris and show it to the public and the press after all this time do you really think many people would believe what they said? Roswell believers would be undeterred and claim this was yet another conspiracy by the US government to conceal "the truth about the flying saucers"........

 

[ALPHA ROMEO UNIFORM]

George.
Always thought it was maybe a three type crash and V1-2 Rocket was involved. High pure speculation a event where a UFO flap over the ROSWELL Military base and you have only a few options to track it at that time a V2 with a camera?

 

[George Wingfield]

Quite a few V-2 rockets that were test fired at that time from White Sands near Alamogordo went awry and crashed in the desert. I believe all of these were all accounted for. White Sands was quite close to where the Mogul balloon trains --each about 650 ft long/high-- were launched. I don't think any metal parts such as the rocket casings or fuel tanks of a V-2 were found at the Foster Ranch but there was certainly plenty of debris consistent with the material Mogul was made of: black plastic material (neoprene?), metallic foil, many small lightweight beams the color and texture of balsa wood and lengths of something like monofilament fishing line.

It was suggested before that we moved on from Roswell and looked at other truly mysterious UFO cases more closely. I've been looking at the Rendlesham Forest events in December 1980 and will publish something about this next month. There is a very compelling answer as to what that really was but I'm quite sure that most folk will continue to believe exactly what they want to believe!

George