More On Area 51, Roswell, Jacobsen, Etc.

Well, the controversy surrounding Annie Jacobsen's Area 51 book rumbles on at a steady pace - as this latest post from Tony Bragalia demonstrates. And, for further evidence of the way in which the UFO research community has been commenting on (and continues to comment on) the controversy, check out the Comments section at this recent post at The UFO Iconoclasts.

But, there's something else I want to talk about. It's something that has not been noted thus far, but is nevertheless highly relevant to this particular saga.

The angle of insiders with links to Area 51 being told that Roswell was a Soviet hoax (involving genetically-altered human beings) is an intriguing one. Now, just so there can be no misunderstanding, I don't mean that because it's intriguing I believe it's the answer to the puzzle. I certainly don't.

However, the scenario of Area 51-linked people being told such a story does not begin and end with Jacobsen's informant. Six-months ago, my book, The NASA Conspiracies was published and included a whole chapter that told the tale of a man who had worked at Area 51 in the early 1970s, and who had heard a very similar story.

It's a strange and convoluted saga involving a man named John who was exposed to a series of weird and controversial files that told astonishing tales of alien visitation and UFO crashes in the early, formative years of the Flying Saucer era.

As I note in my book, The NASA Conspiracies:

"John stressed that although the documentation at issue certainly looked genuine, he was never able to entirely dismiss from his mind the possibility that his exposure to the files could have been a part of some large, and very curious and convoluted, mind game on the part of NASA and the intelligence services, such as the CIA, Air Force Intelligence, and the National Security Agency. Since his work at Area 51 and his access to the files surfaced as a direct result of his FBI contacts, John speculated that his superiors may have exposed him to totally bogus materials at Area 51, and then watched his every move to see if he spoke out of turn, and to those without security clearances. The fact that John never did speak out of turn in that twelve month period, and was thereafter considered utterly trustworthy, led him to be rewarded with a near decade long career in the private security sector. It was a career that saw him move, practically effortlessly, within highly influential circles in the world of U.S. Intelligence that were totally unconnected to UFOs."

To me, at least, this is all very refreshing. Whistle-blowers are generally extremely keen to have their story believed; but John noted to me from the absolute outset (and as the above extract clearly demonstrates) that the nature of the data to which he was exposed should be addressed very carefully, and not accepted uncritically at all.

But, there's more.

John related an aspect of the story to me, that was published in my NASA book, and which dealt with one specific set of papers that, today, we can see is highly relevant to the account provided to Jacobsen. I described it in the pages of my 2010 book like this:

"...John did assert, however, that there was a brief collection of documents dating from July 1947 speculating that this might have all been the result of a very ingenious hoax on the part of the Soviets – until, that is, it very quickly became acutely apparent to one and all that not even the Soviet Union would have had the required expertise to successfully pull off such a fantastic ruse, much less biologically alter, or mutate, a number of human beings into something very different."

To me, this is important, as we have old files (that ultimately found their way to Area 51 - they did not originate there) discussing the two central points of the story told to Jacobsen: (A) the idea that Roswell was a Soviet ruse; and (B) the theory that the bodies found at the crash-site might have been biologically altered or mutated by the Russians.

The story told by John, and published by me in late-2010, is astonishingly close to the one provided to Jacobsen. The big difference, of course, is that Jacobsen's Area 51 source believed the Russian theory, while the originators of the files read by John at Area 51 clearly did not accept it as having any validity.

But, that such files did apparently exist at Area 51, and did refer to both the Russian hoax angle and the issue of genetically altering human beings, does make me think that this Russian-themed story/theory was indeed in circulation amongst Area 51 personnel at some point decades ago.

And maybe some who were exposed to the files, to the rumors, and (as John speculated as a possibility) to some weird loyalty-testing mind-game, came to accept the Russian story as being utterly genuine; when in reality the truth may have been very diferent.

This controversy, I suspect, is far from over...

Stalin, Roswell, H.G. Wells & Science Fiction Secrets

One of the things that has deeply surprised me about this new Roswell/Stalin controversy is that absolutely no commentary has been given to the fact that this is not the first time that Stalin's name has surfaced in relation to matters of a Fortean/conspiratorial nature.

And, given that Annie Jacobsen's Area 51 book suggests Stalin was supposedly prompted to embark upon the program that ultimately led to the Roswell legend - as part of an effort to provoke War of the Worlds-style hysteria in the U.S. population - it's intriguing to note that this additional Fortean issue actually involved Stalin meeting none other than the author of War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells, himself.

In my book 2009 book, Science Fiction Secrets, I included an entire chapter on the very weird 1920s saga of how Stalin - allegedly prompted by H.G. Wells' novel, The Island of Dr. Moreau - had utterly crazed plans to create an "army" of half-human/half-ape soldiers that would be near-unstoppable on the battlefield. Of course, all attempts to cross-breed apes and humans ended in complete disaster and failure. The secret project was quietly closed down.

However, what is not well known is the fact that H. G. Wells visited the Soviet Union in 1934, and, on July 23 of that year, actually met and personally interviewed Joseph Stalin. Constantine Oumansky, then head of Russia's Press Bureau of the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, recorded the conversation, which lasted from 4:00 p.m. to 6:50 p.m.

As far as can be determined, the two men did not drift into a discussion of genetically-created, half-human super-apes; their exchange was largely focused upon the then-current state of the world from a purely economic perspective.

But, given that my Science Fiction Secrets book shows that Stalin met H.G. Wells - who wrote War of the Worlds (Orson Welles' 1938 radio-version of which provoked a degree of public hysteria in the United States), I have to wonder if this meeting might have had a bearing on Stalin's alleged attempt to scare the shit out of the United States via a faked UFO event; an event inspired by Wells' classic novel of alien invasion, if the scenario as provided to Annie Jacobsen is real, of course!

Roswell: White Hot!

Further to my earlier post of today, there is yet another MJ12 document that has a bearing on the Annie Jacobsen story of a Russian link to Roswell. It can be found within the the 19-page, so-called White Hot Technical Report.

The document (real, disinformation or hoax - one is forced to take one's pick) states:

"There is a good chance that the Russians may try to make use of the flying saucer scare by public news media and diplomatic means of a technological breakthrough in aircraft and missile development. We feel that such a disclosure would most certainly cause great embarrassment to our elected officials and to the military, not to mention the panic felt by the citizenry."

This is interesting, as it clearly suggests the Russians might claim to have developed Flying Saucer-style craft, with the intent of provoking "panic" in the U.S. "citizenry."

Is that what we're seeing in the Jacobsen story? Could matters have really been even more convoluted? Did Stalin essentially "hijack" a genuine UFO event? And was it his intent, after the United States was thrown into a state of hysteria (by alien invasion fears), to ultimately reveal Roswell as something of his (and Josef Mengele's) own making? Could this story get any weirder? Probably, yes it could - and it surely will!

We should also note the following Air Force report of 3 January 1952 (on the subject of flying saucer sightings investigated by the Air Force in the late 1940s and early 1950s) from Brigadier General W.M. Garland to General John A. Samford, Air Force Director of Intelligence makes this point abundantly clear and also touches upon the work of the Horten brothers:

“It is logical to relate the reported sightings to the known development of aircraft, jet propulsion, rockets and range extension capabilities in Germany and the USSR. In this connection, it is to be noted that certain developments by the Germans, particularly the Horten wing, jet propulsion, and refueling, combined with their extensive employment of V-l and V-2 weapons during World War II, lend credence to the possibility that the flying objects may be of German and Russian origin."

Roswell, Stalin & MJ12: A Thickening Plot

Further to my post of yesterday regarding Annie Jacobsen's new book, Area 51, there's another bit of data worth reporting on that also has a bearing on the story discussed in her book that has provoked so much controversy in the last few days - namely, that Roswell was a Cold War op initiated by Soviet Premier Josef Stalin and designed to cause "alien invasion"-based hysteria in the U.S.

This additional piece of data comes via the notorious MJ12 documents. I'm not talking about the original documents (the Eisenhower Briefing Document and the Truman memo) that first publicly surfaced in Tim Good's 1987 book, Above Top Secret, and that shortly afterwards surfaced just about here, there and everywhere.

Rather, I'm talking about the even more controversial collection that came to researchers Dr. Robert Wood and Ryan Wood via UFO researcher Timothy Cooper in the mid-to-late-1990s.

There seem to be four prevailing theories regarding the Cooper documents: (a) that they are the real thing (unlikely); (b) that they are government disinformation (not impossible); (c) that they are the work of someone in the public UFO arena acting alone, and who - by creating the documents - was intent on helping to champion Roswell as an alien event (interesting and plausible); and (d) that they were still the work of someone within Ufology, but who was getting the data for inclusion in the documents from old-timers who wanted to spill the beans, but in a fashion that would not come back and haunt them and provoke a government-driven backlash.

Frankly, I'm not sure where I stand on all this, beyond stating that I don't believe the documents to be authentic, original documents. I have seen some intriguing testimony that suggests the creator of the documents may have been privy to startling insider data on UFOs, and duly used this to weave the documents for their own somewhat obscure reasons. And that's something to bear in mind as we now we come to the main part of the story.

Of the near-Aladdin's Cave of documents that Cooper had in his possession, one is a highly-controversial (for its spelling errors, several date formats used throughout the document, and more) paper titled Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit Summary of 1947.

As you might guess by its title and date, the IPU summary describes the events that have come to be known collectively as the Roswell Incident. It provides names, dates, places and events that tell an extraordinary story - and it's a story that some support, many dismiss as outright fabrication, and even more have forgotten, 15-years after the files surfaced.

But, there's one very intriguing entry in the document. It appears in the last-but-one paragraph of the IPU report, and is presented as, essentially, the tentative conclusions of officialdom regarding what did, or did not, come down outside of Roswell in 1947.

It states:

"Our assessment of this investigation rests on two assumptions: 1) Either this discovery was an elaborate and well orchestrated hoax (maybe by the Russians), or; 2) Our country has played host to beings from another planet."

As I mentioned, the Cooper collection of MJ12 material is as intriguing as it is controversial. But, I do find it very thought-provoking that (regardless of who wrote or created the documents, and for whatever purpose - obscure or otherwise) the IPU document suggested that U.S. authorities had allegedly addressed the idea that the Roswell event was borne out of a "well orchestrated hoax (maybe by the Russians)."

This is, of course, all very relevant to the story told to Annie Jacobsen, and cited in her Area 51 book. Did her source seen the IPU document at some point? Did her source have access to further files (or testimony) relative to how this determination of a Russian hoax had been made? What was it that prompted the creator of the IPU document to include that particular data on the "Russian hoax" in its pages? Are the MJ12-Cooper files nothing more than fabrications, or is the revelation above indicative of something weirder going on?

I don't know, but I intend to keep digging - very, very deeply...

New Book: Roswell Was Secret Experiment

In yet another intriguing twist in the seemingly never-ending saga that goes by the name of "Roswell," we see a new story that - in several respects, at least - dovetails closely with at least some of the data contained in my own (2005) book on Roswell: Body Snatchers in the Desert.

The latest story appears in a newly-published book from author Annie Jacobsen, titled Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base. The book includes a thought-provoking story suggesting that the Roswell craft and bodies were, in reality, the diabolical creations of a near-Faustian pact between the notorious Nazi (and "Angel of Death)," Dr. Josef Mengele and Soviet premier, Joseph Stalin.

The purpose of this early Cold War plan: to plunge the United States into a kind of War of the Worlds-style panic (echoing the Orson Welles affair of 1938) by trying to convince the U.S. Government that aliens were invading.

And how would the plan work? By placing grossly deformed children (courtesy of the crazed Mengele) inside a futuristic-looking aircraft designed by the brilliant aviation experts, the Horten brothers, and then try and convince the U.S. of the alien origins of both. Unfortunately for Stalin, the plot failed when a storm brought down the craft and its "crew" in the wilds of New Mexico, an event that did not lead to widespread panic, but that instead was hastily covered-up by U.S. military authorities.

Is the story true? Was Jacobsen duped? Is it a blend of fact and fiction specifically weaved by government insiders to even further confuse the true nature of what did, or did not, happen outside of Roswell back in the summer of 1947?

I don't know, but it's intriguing that several central themes of the story divulged to Jacobsen parallel some of the data provided to me for use in my Body Snatchers in the Desert book back in 2005.

Although my book chiefly focuses on alleged diabolical human-experimentation undertaken by the Japanese during - and shortly after - the Second World War by its beyond-notorious Unit 731, I do focus to a significant degree on the two issues that are central to the data that was provided to Jacobsen, as I'll now demonstrate.

Number 1, The Horten Brothers: As my book reveals (page 149), two of the old-timers from U.S. Intelligence I interviewed said that (quote), "...at least two of the aircraft that were test-flown at [the] White Sands [Missile Range] in 1947 and led to the legend of the Roswell Incident, were based upon the revolutionary aircraft designs of the Horten brothers, Reimer and Walter."

Number 2, The Crew/Bodies: As I note, one of my informants said of the Roswell bodies that, "...there was no doubt that they were human - handicapped humans - and from Japan or China, I would say to you. Some were obviously the result of inbreeding and some showed characteristics of larger heads, some what I now know to be Progeria, six fingers; all kinds of syndromes."

Progeria (as this link demonstrates) is chiefly a condition that affects children - the reason being that those affected by Progeria simply do not (for the most part) reach adulthood, as a result of the ways in which it ravages the human body. Progeria also causes the person to exhibit certain symptoms: a dwarf-like body, an enlarged head, and a lack of hair - all reportedly characteristics of the Roswell "crew."

I also relate, in Body Snatchers in the Desert, the weird saga of one Bernard Newman that, to a degree, echoes the Stalin angle - namely to create a staged, alien event to influence and provoke government concern and response.

Published in Britain in June 1948, Bernard Newman’s novel, The Flying Saucer, was the first in the world to deal with the emotive topic of crashed flying saucers.

The book tells the tale of an elite group of scientists that decide to “stage” a series of faked flying saucer crashes, with the express purpose of attempting to unite the world against a deadly foe that, in reality, does not exist.

The Flying Saucer begins with a series of worldwide “UFO crashes” (involving distinctly terrestrial vehicles built for this specific task): the first in England, the second in New Mexico, and the third in Russia. The “crash sites” are carefully chosen and involve all of the three major powers that emerged out of the carnage of the Second World War. But, the work of the scientists is only just beginning.

Not content with creating its bogus UFO crashes, the team takes things one step further and constructs a faked “alien body” that is pulverized in one of the crashes, and is then presented to the world’s scientific community as evidence of the alien origin of the creatures that pilot the craft.

As a result of these events - and with remarkable speed - the many and varied differences between the governments of the Earth dissolve under the “Martian” threat and the final chapter of Newman’s book sees practically every international political problem hastily resolved.

So, we have a story told to me (between 2001 and 2004, and published in 2005 in Body Snatchers in the Desert), and a story provided to Annie Jacobsen and newly-published.

Yes, of course, there are big differences: in Jacobsen's book the Roswell event is the result of a failed Soviet, Cold War-era deception, and in my book the incident results from the equal failure of a secret, domestic operation.

Weird-looking aircraft designed and built by the Horten brothers, handicapped children with large heads and dwarfish bodies, and faked UFO events: key components of two stories told to two authors, and both linked with Roswell.

Are we seeing evidence of governmental deception, perhaps of a definitively psychological warfare nature? Is one story true and the other a mutated, distorted version of the truth, but spread and carefully altered by disinformation artists at an official level to confuse the Roswell saga even more?

I do not know. But I suspect the "human experiment" angle of Roswell is set to be deeply scrutinized yet again...

SOURCES:

Body Snatchers in the Desert, Nick Redfern, Simon & Schuster, 2005.

Area 51, Annie Jacobsen, Little, Brown & Company, 2011.

The Flying Saucer, Bernard Newman, Gollanz, 1948.

The Mystic and the Spy: Two Early British UFO Writers, Philip Taylor, Magonia, Winter 1997.