"The Roswell Dream Team Nightmare"

[Muadib]

The source wasn't anonymous. Stirling Colgate is a noted scientist and university president. What Colgate said to Tony was consistent with what he wrote in private correspondence to Nobel Prize winning scientist Linus Pauling more than 40 years ago. Maybe a year or so ago, Tony did some follow up and Colgate wrote that the hoaxers did use a balloon for their prank . . . . which is what Zamora said he saw in his original report.

Yep, I had that wrong, but it doesn't make his case that much stronger, at least imo. I'm not saying this because I'm hell bent on it being ET either, I'm just unimpressed by someone who would claim to have solved a case based on incomplete second hand information. If anything Tony should have been a little less sensational in his presentation and simply stated that he uncovered an interesting new wrinkle in the famous case, though I doubt that would drive as much traffic to his blog or bestow the same level of notoriety.

 

[Frank Stalter]

Ok, I see where I went wrong, the source wasn't anonymous, it was a letter from one of the former presidents of the school to a scientist, other than that, my analysis stands. Bragallia's "corroboration" was basically "we do a lot of pranks here, so it could have been a prank" I wasn't able to find anything about the names of those involved or a definitive expose of how it was done.

Take a closer look at Zamora's original account.

http://www.ufocasebook.com/Zamorareport.html

 

[Muadib]

Take a closer look at Zamora's original account.

http://www.ufocasebook.com/Zamorareport.html

Why? I get what you're saying, Zamora said it looked like a balloon, so yes, it could have been a balloon, I'm fine with that. We still don't know for sure what kind of balloon it was, how the prank was set up, how the perpetrators made their escape and so on and so forth. It's incomplete second hand information. Colgate wasn't there himself and does not admit to participating in the prank, so it's incomplete second hand information, at best. We don't know who the student was making the claim and we don't know how it was done, how do we know that the student wasn't simply lying to Colgate? I'm sorry but that strikes me as being far from definitive. Yes, it matches Zamora's original testimony, but that's about all it has going for it, and that isn't much.

 

[Frank Stalter]

Why? I get what you're saying, Zamora said it looked like a balloon, so yes, it could have been a balloon, I'm fine with that. We still don't know for sure what kind of balloon it was, how the prank was set up, how the perpetrators made their escape and so on and so forth. It's incomplete second hand information. Colgate wasn't there himself and does not admit to participating in the prank, so it's incomplete second hand information, at best. We don't know who the student was making the claim and we don't know how it was done, how do we know that the student wasn't simply lying to Colgate? I'm sorry but that strikes me as being far from definitive. Yes, it matches Zamora's original testimony, but that's about all it has going for it, and that isn't much.

Zamora's is one of those cases where I don't think anyone disagrees that he saw essentially what he said he saw, so it had to be something. The ideas I've seen floated are: some sort of experimental lander, either government or commercial, an ET vehicle or the student hoax. I can't really think of anything else it might have been. Dave Rudiak's wind information is fair and presents a problem if Zamora was accurate about that portion of the incident. Zamora was self-admittedly haziest about that segment of the incident. Read his original account. The explosion scared the daylights out of him. He said so and those who saw him right after said the same. It's a problem but looking at it from the other side, which account best fits his description, which I think under the circumstances was pretty damn good . . . . "It looks like a balloon" . . . . along with the details that led him to the site, the site itself, the accounts of the site via Chavez, Hynek and David Moody, the private Colgate/Pauling correspondence never meant for public inspection and Colgate's follow up with Tony. The student hoax fits best far and away. If you don't accept that, what's left? An experimental vehicle, that looked like a balloon, that never materialized in the almost 50 years since, or ET, or what? Nothing happened at all? Of course something happened. It's a process of elimination exercise and you can't eliminate all of the explanations. One has to be right, problematic or not. If I had to bet $1, I'd bet hoax.

 

[Muadib]

Zamora's is one of those cases where I don't think anyone disagrees that he saw essentially what he said he saw, so it had to be something. The ideas I've seen floated are: some sort of experimental lander, either government or commercial, an ET vehicle or the student hoax. I can't really think of anything else it might have been. Dave Rudiak's wind information is fair and presents a problem if Zamora was accurate about that portion of the incident. Zamora was self-admittedly haziest about that segment of the incident. Read his original account. The explosion scared the shit out of him. He said so and those who saw him right after said the same. It's a problem but looking at it from the other side, which account best fits his description, which I think under the circumstances was pretty damn good . . . . "It looks like a balloon" . . . . along with the details that led him to the site, the site itself, the accounts of the site via Chavez, Hynek and David Moody, the private Colgate/Pauling correspondence never meant for public inspection and Colgate's follow up with Tony. The student hoax fits best far and away. If you don't accept that, what's left? An experimental vehicle, that looked like a balloon, that never materialized in the almost 50 years since, or ET, or what? Nothing happened at all? Of course something happened. It's a process of elimination exercise and you can't eliminate all of the explanations. One has to be right, problematic or not. If I had to bet $1, I'd bet hoax.

Sure, I can respect that, I can even agree with you, up to a point. What I can't agree on is this case being in any way solved, we have what some might refer to as a probable explanation, but that's not solved in the strictest sense of the word. Often that's the best we can do in the UFO field and sometimes witness testimony and circumstantial evidence is all we have. Still, though it may be the best match in terms of Zamora's initial report, there are too many peripheral issues to label it solved, the main reason being we don't have anything from anyone who was actually involved. In order to definitively prove a hoax, you need the person who devised the hoax to admit to it and explain how it was done, that's the only way to 100% prove a hoax. We can all say that given the balance of probabilities and the evidence, that the Billy Meier case is a probable hoax, but proving it beyond the shadow of a doubt would require Meier to cop to it and explain how it was done, until then we can only refer to it as a probable hoax and that's all I can say about the Soccoro case, it may have been a hoax, but it certainly isn't solved and someone who claims to be an investigator, like Bragallia, should know better. Claiming the case has been solved when it actually hasn't strikes me as a move to garner publicity, but that's just my own personal opinion.

 

[Muadib]

Back on topic, I think it would be great for the show to get Kevin Randle on and hear his side of the story, Kimball as well, if he's willing. Kevin has always struck me as a straight shooter and though he may be a bit biased on the whole Roswell thing, I think it would be great to hear it straight from him how this all went down.

 

[Randall]

Ok, I see where I went wrong, the source wasn't anonymous, it was a letter from one of the former presidents of the school to a scientist, other than that, my analysis stands. Bragallia's "corroboration" was basically "we do a lot of pranks here, so it could have been a prank" I wasn't able to find anything about the names of those involved or a definitive expose of how it was done.

I went through all this went I was preparing the entry for the USI website:

Excerpt ( COURTESY USI ) :

"The rest of the case for a hoax rests on a bit of hearsay in a casual note between Stirling A. Colgate, President of New Mexico Tech. and Linus Pauling. The note itself is somewhat curious in that Pauling seems to have hand written the question of a possible hoax to Colagate, who then allegedly answers on the same piece of paper saying only, "I have good indication of student who engineered hoax. Student has left." So if the response was even written by Colgate, it still doesn't confirm that he knows for certain it was a hoax, or who did it or where they are. It is also possible that these scribblings made after the fact are themselves hoaxes. No actual hoaxers have come forward and no proof has been recovered. So far, the hoax theory is nothing more than speculation by debunkers and skeptics."

Hope that helps.

 

[Frank Stalter]

Sure, I can respect that, I can even agree with you, up to a point. What I can't agree on is this case being in any way solved, we have what some might refer to as a probable explanation, but that's not solved in the strictest sense of the word. Often that's the best we can do in the UFO field and sometimes witness testimony and circumstantial evidence is all we have. Still, though it may be the best match in terms of Zamora's initial report, there are too many peripheral issues to label it solved, the main reason being we don't have anything from anyone who was actually involved. In order to definitively prove a hoax, you need the person who devised the hoax to admit to it and explain how it was done, that's the only way to 100% prove a hoax. We can all say that given the balance of probabilities and the evidence, that the Billy Meier case is a probable hoax, but proving it beyond the shadow of a doubt would require Meier to cop to it and explain how it was done, until then we can only refer to it as a probable hoax and that's all I can say about the Soccoro case, it may have been a hoax, but it certainly isn't solved and someone who claims to be an investigator, like Bragallia, should know better. Claiming the case has been solved when it actually hasn't strikes me as a move to garner publicity, but that's just my own personal opinion.

The whole thing didn't really generate all that much publicity even within the UFO field. I would personally love to know the full details of how the hoaxers did it, but the event has intelligent design written all over it. I'm more than a little ambivalent about the whole thing as I never thought it was an ET case and with something exciting like a potential home run in the Roswell case here I am writing about it again.

 

[Jeff Davis]

Richie and Tony have both been very good to me. As far as the "What's wrong with Ufology" and "Ufology is dead" material . . . . and lots of people write and dwell on this type of thing . . . . there are two quotes from much, much better men than me I keep close to heart.

“We must become the change we want to see.” - Mahatma Gandhi

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” -Buckminster Fuller

Frank,
You are wise. I commend you on being as straight as an arrow as per usual. As far as those quotes, I could not agree more with each of them. They literally sum up the reasons for my formal participatory departure from TUFOI. That's why I specifically stated here:Are There No Real Words for UFO's? | The Paracast Community Forums that it was because of Jerry Clark that I came to reside at the Paracast Forums, precisely.

BTW Frank, just real quick. I was extremely pleased, even a bit relieved, when I realized that you participated here from time to time. There are MANY uniquely brilliant minds that I miss from that time frame. Bruce for one. His Blog is all screwed up. I tried and tried to get something published there with my Google ID logged in and it just would not publish. Just "poof" and gone. Not even a message stating that something had been submitted. Bruce is so BRILLIANT and I was just so bummed I couldn't get in on that excellent post maybe 1.5 weeks back. A TRANSIT OF CONTINGENCIES: Non Material Extraterrestrials

I would really like to see Bruce Duensing considered for a Paracast future episode and will make just that suggestion in the appropriate section of this forum.

 

[Frank Stalter]

I went through all this went I was preparing the entry for the USI website:

Excerpt ( COURTESY USI ) :

"The rest of the case for a hoax rests on a bit of hearsay in a casual note between Stirling A. Colgate, President of New Mexico Tech. and Linus Pauling. The note itself is somewhat curious in that Pauling seems to have hand written the question of a possible hoax to Colagate, who then allegedly answers on the same piece of paper saying only, "I have good indication of student who engineered hoax. Student has left." So if the response was even written by Colgate, it still doesn't confirm that he knows for certain it was a hoax, or who did it or where they are. It is also possible that these scribblings made after the fact are themselves hoaxes. No actual hoaxers have come forward and no proof has been recovered. So far, the hoax theory is nothing more than speculation by debunkers and skeptics."

Hope that helps.

Hahaha! Talk about shoddy research. Colgate confirmed he wrote the response to Pauling. There is no "if" involved.

 

[Randall]

Hahaha! Talk about shoddy research. Colgate confirmed he wrote the response to Pauling. There is no "if" involved.

If you have verifiable evidence for the above, by all means share it and if it's sound I'd be happy to update the article. In the meantime, there are far less complete and discerning mentions of the Socorro Landing incident out there, and I offer all of what I find free and at my own expense, so you might want to lighten up. I'm making a genuine effort to do responsible ufology within my meager means, and I do a pretty good job considering. You're welcome to join the effort if you can provide genuine, constructive, and objective content or information. I'm not the bad guy here.

 

[Frank Stalter]

If you have verifiable evidence for the above, by all means share it and if it's sound I'd be happy to update the article. In the meantime, there are far less complete and discerning mentions of the Socorro Landing incident out there, and I offer all of what I find free and at my own expense, so you might want to lighten up. I'm making a genuine effort to do responsible ufology within my meager means, and I do a pretty good job considering. You're welcome to join the effort if you can provide genuine, constructive, and objective content or information. I'm not the bad guy here.

What evidence do you have to suggest otherwise?

 

[Burnt State]

re: UFO toxicity

What's the answer?

Well, first and foremost, no one should ever make claims that go, "I have definitive evidence that you can not see..." because that type of myth perpetuation serves to do more credible damage to a faulty field than any hoax ever could. The distaste it leaves me with is so acrid that I immediately scratch said claimant from the trustworthy list, yank them out of the grey basket and right into the puppeteer casket department. It's a stage for only fools to believe in.

 

[Muadib]

What evidence do you have to suggest otherwise?

That seems like the wrong way to approach this, Bragallia is the one making the claim so it's on him to provide evidence of the claim, it's not on Ufology to prove anything. From what I understand, Colgate did admit to Bragallia that he wrote the letter or memo, now, whether that's based on Bragallia's word or there's some written corroboration, I don't know. I would hope that the guy claiming to have "solved" this case would have more than just something that was mentioned in a private conversation between the two and that he would have presented this evidence at some point. Otherwise, this case is even further from "solved" than I originally imagined. Anyone can make up anything, and in the UFO field, they often do, imo something more than confirmation based on a private conversation that none of us can hear or see is required. It's one thing if he has it in writing, it's quite another if we have to take Bragallia at his word and he has nothing else to back up his claim, besides that it seems to fit with Zamora's original report.

 

[dyingsun]

And yet, you still can't spell the guys name correctly.... I agree otherwise.

 

[Frank Stalter]

That seems like the wrong way to approach this, Bragallia is the one making the claim so it's on him to provide evidence of the claim, it's not on Ufology to prove anything. From what I understand, Colgate did admit to Bragallia that he wrote the letter or memo, now, whether that's based on Bragallia's word or there's some written corroboration, I don't know. I would hope that the guy claiming to have "solved" this case would have more than just something that was mentioned in a private conversation between the two and that he would have presented this evidence at some point. Otherwise, this case is even further from "solved" than I originally imagined. Anyone can make up anything, and in the UFO field, they often do, imo something more than confirmation based on a private conversation that none of us can hear or see is required. It's one thing if he has it in writing, it's quite another if we have to take Bragallia at his word and he has nothing else to back up his claim, besides its similarity to Zamora's original report.

It's not the wrong way to approach it. No one, no matter what they think of the case, has suggested the letter is a forgery. It's completely irresponsible. Not David Rudiak, Lance Moody, Ray Stanford, Chris O'Brien or Tim Printy has made such a ridiculous claim backed up by nothing. Printy questioned Tony's accuracy regarding his exchanges with Colgate, and Colgate confirmed their accuracy. This was printed in one of Printy's Sunrise issues. Of course, Tony himself wrote that Colgate confirmed the letter. I've seen that correspondence myself. Frankly, the claim is so spurious, I'm not even going to bother to look it up. The facts of the case were covered ad nauseum four years ago.

 

[Muadib]

It's not the wrong way to approach it. No one, no matter what they think of the case, has suggested the letter is a forgery. It's completely irresponsible. Not David Rudiak, Lance Moody, Ray Stanford, Chris O'Brien or Tim Printy has made such a ridiculous claim backed up by nothing. Printy questioned Tony's accuracy regarding his exchanges with Colgate, and Colgate confirmed their accuracy. This was printed in one of Printy's Sunrise issues. Of course, Tony himself wrote that Colgate confirmed the letter. I've seen that correspondence myself. Frankly, the claim is so spurious, I'm not even going to bother to look it up. The facts of the case were covered ad nauseum four years ago.

It is the wrong way to approach it because it's based on a wrong assumption, I didn't think that Ufology was saying that the letter may be a forgery, I'm pretty sure he hasn't seen the letter where Colgate confirms the accuracy of Tony's report at all. If you would've just stated that there's a letter from Colgate that we can all go see, Ufology would've admitted to being wrong and changed the entry on his site, at least I hope he would.

I apologize if I'm wrong about Ufology's position and I apologize to dyingsun for my spelling mistakes

 

[Frank Stalter]

It is the wrong way to approach it because it's based on a wrong assumption, I didn't think that Ufology was saying that the letter may be a forgery, I'm pretty sure he hasn't seen the letter where Colgate confirms the accuracy of Tony''s report at all. If you would've just stated that there's a letter from Colgate that we can all go see, Ufology would've admitted to being wrong and changed the entry on his site, at least I hope he would.

I apologize if I'm wrong about Ufology's position and I apologize to dyingsun for my spelling mistakes

He obviously did see the letter. He described it accurately enough.

The note itself is somewhat curious in that Pauling seems to have hand written the question of a possible hoax to Colagate, who then allegedly answers on the same piece of paper saying only, "I have good indication of student who engineered hoax. Student has left."

Here's the letter:

 

[Muadib]

He obviously did see the letter. He described it accurately enough.

You're actually misunderstanding what I'm saying, yes he saw the first letter, but his issue was that there was no confirmation from Colgate that he wrote the letter. As you pointed out, there is written confirmation that Tony's reporting was accurate from Colgate, I think that's what Ufology was after, but I could be wrong about that. If so, allow me to apologize again.

 

[Frank Stalter]

You're actually misunderstanding what I'm saying, yes he saw the first letter, but his issue was that there was no confirmation from Colgate that he wrote the letter. As you pointed out, there is written confirmation that Tony's reporting was accurate from Colgate, I think that's what Ufology was after, but I could be wrong about that. If so, allow me to apologize again.

You don't owe any apologies. It's part of the game.