THE 1947
ROSWELL INCIDENT: A PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE
By
Lorenzo Kent Kimball
(Editor's Note: Lorenzo Kimball passed away in June, 1999. His web
site, from where the following text was obtained, has since been taken
down.)
In early July, 1947 there occurred near Roswell, New Mexico what one
researcher has described as a "cataclysmic event." A "flying saucer"
reportedly crashed on the Foster Ranch near Corona, New Mexico. Debris
from the crash site was found by William "Mac" Brazel, the ranch
foreman. Brazel took samples of the debris to the Chavez County Sheriffs
Office where the Country Sheriff, George Wilcox suggested that Brazel
contact the Base Intelligence Officer, Major Jesse Marcel, at Roswell
Army Air Field. Under the direction of Colonel William H. Blanchard,
Commanding Officer of the 509th Bomb Group at Roswell Army Air Field,
Major Marcel and CIC Agent Sheridan Cavitt accompanied Mac Brazel to the
Foster ranch to recover some of the debris, which they did. The debris
was taken to the office of Colonel Blanchard and under orders from
higher authority some of the materiel was flown to 8th Air Force
Headquarters, Carswell Army Air Field, Ft. Worth, Texas where it was
announced that the debris was not from a "flying disc" but that it was
the remnants of a weather balloon. (See comments below about Colonel
Blanchard)
Several books have been published by UFO researchers about the "Roswell
Incident" claiming that what happened was in reality a crash of an
extraterrestrial spacecraft, that alien remains were recovered and that
the U.S. military covered up the whole affair. There have been a spate
of TV shows and movies supporting this premise. As a consequence, this
has been accepted as fact by popular opinion.
I have read two books that support this thesis. Both books have
received considerable notoriety and circulation. they are:
Crash At Corona: The U.S. Military Retrieval and Cover-up of a
UFO by Stanton T.
Friedman and Don Berliner, New York: Paragon House, 1992.
The testimony of people closely associated with the Roswell Incident
based on this book can by found at this site:
http://www.westnet.com/~teack/roswell.html
(Note: Stanton T. Friedman is a nuclear physicist who has lectured
nationally and internationally on UFOs and has appeared on numerous
television programs, including Nightline and Unsolved
Mysteries. He has been acknowledged as one of the first
investigators of the Roswell Incident.)
The Truth About the UFO Crash at Roswell by Kevin D.
Randle & Donald R. Schmitt, New York: Avon Books, 1994.
The Roswell Resource Center has considerable information and
discussion of the incident as well as a discussion of the Ray Santilli
Alien autopsy film with clips from the film. In 1995 I was interviewed
by a Japanese Documentary Film Company about the Alien autopsy film.
After viewing the film I told the interviewer that the scenes of the
autopsy in no way resembled any military operating room suite with which
I was familiar. As a member of the 8th Air Force Inspector General Team
from 1953 to 1957 I inspected over a dozen U.S. Air Force medical
facilities, including Roswell AFB and Carswell AFB, Ft. Worth, Texas and
I saw no such facility. No one apparently is sure where the autopsy took
place but I am reasonably sure it was NOT in an AF medical facility.
Kent Jeffrey has summarized the incident in his article,
Roswell: The Whole Story.
Jeffrey has done considerable research and was responsible for the
so-called International Roswell Initiative to uncover the alleged
cover-up of the event with the implication that there was indeed a crash
of an extraterrestrial craft. His further research, which included
numerous interviews with former members of the 509th Bomb Group, has led
him to conclude otherwise. He has prepared a comprehensive
Anatomy of a Myth which is a full explanation of why he changed
his mind.
Kal K. Korff has written a major work, The Roswell UFO Crash:
What They Don't Want You to Know (New York: Prometheus Books,
1997) which contains facts and analyses not previously published about
the incident. He convincingly exposes the inconsistencies and flaws in
nearly all of the major publications about the event.
The July/August issue of the
Skeptical Inquirer: The Magazine for Science and Reason,
published by the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of the
Paranormal (CSICOP) includes excerpts from the Korff book.
See below my comments on the Philip J. Klass book, The Real
Roswell Crashed-Coverup,(New York: Prometheus Books, 1997)
Other web sites with information on the incident are:
The J. Allen
Hynek Center for UFO Studies;
The International UFO Museum and Research Center;
UFOlogy Society International and a site in
Roswell, New Mexico.
In 1947 I was a Captain, U.S. Army (Medical Administrative Corps)
assigned to Squadron M (Base Hospital), 509th Bomb Group at Roswell Army
Air Base. My primary duty was Medical Supply Officer for the Base
Hospital. You would think that with all of the books that have been
written, TV shows fictionalizing the incident, and the coverage the
summer of 1997 in the media (major articles in the New York
Times, cover stories in Time Magazine and
Popular Science) that there must have been a great furor at the
Base at that time (July 1947). To the contrary, life went on as usual.
Most of the medical staff spent their time at the Officer's Club
swimming pool every afternoon after duty hours. The biggest excitement
was the cut-throat hearts game in the BOQ and an intense bingo, bango
bungo golf game at the local nine hole golf course for a nickel a
point!! There was absolutely NO unusual activity on the Base, no
base alerts, no hysteria, no panic in July 1947. Life went on as usual.
(See additional comments below concerning the 8th Air
Force football team)
In fact, the first I heard of this "cataclysmic event" was in the Fall
of 1992 when I was called by Stanton Friedman to see if I could verify
any of the activities that allegedly occurred at the Base Hospital
concerning the recovery of alien remains. Friedman had found my name and
picture in the 1947 RAAF Yearbook. My wife, Jane (who was with me
in Roswell and who worked on the base), and I decided we had better try
and find out what had supposedly happened. We did a library search and
later obtained the Friedman/Berliner book and the Randle/Schmitt book
cited above. What we have found is that much of what is in these books
concerning the Base Hospital is incorrect and more fiction than fact.
In Crash at Corona, Glenn
Dennis, a young mortician employed by the Ballard Funeral Home in
Roswell, is reported as having brought an injured GI "to the base
infirmary, which was in the same building as the hospital and mortuary."
(p.116) Dennis is also quoted as saying he had received numerous calls
from the Roswell AAF mortuary officer concerning sealed caskets . One of
the photographs following p. 70 is captioned: "Rear of the hospital at
Roswell Army Air Field. It was here that Glenn Dennis parked and walked
in while small humanoid bodies were being prepared for shipment."
Dennis, in his statements, tells of discussions with a young nurse,
later identified as Naomi Maria Selff, who told him (Dennis) details
about "three little bodies" being autopsied at the Base Hospital.
FACTS:
- There was no mortuary on the Base. There was no AAF mortuary officer
with such an assignment. As Medical Supply Officer I was responsible for
obtaining, maintaining and issuing all supplies and equipment for the
Base Hospital and any functions of a mortuary officer would have been
within my responsibilities. I never met Glenn Dennis and I don't recall
ever calling him for anything.
- There was no nurse named Naomi Maria Selff assigned to the Base
Hospital during the period I was assigned there (1946-1948). I was well
acquainted with all five nurses assigned during this time and none of
them anywhere near fit Dennis' description of the nurse he knew. Further
research by UFO researcher Victor Golubic has determined that no nurse
by that name was ever commissioned in the U.S. Army or assigned to the
Army Air Force.
- The photograph cited above is of a two story brick structure. The
entire hospital complex was a World War II cantonment type, one-story,
wooden frame structure. There were NO two story buildings and NO brick
structures in the complex.
In their book, The Truth About the UFO Crash at Roswell,
Randle and Schmitt state that a Major Jesse B. Johnson, Squadron M,
509th Bomb Group, (Base Hospital), was the base pathologist, who
assisted in a preliminary autopsies on alien bodies. In their footnotes
to Chapter 10, Randle & Schmitt claim that "Johnson's position as a
pathologist has been verified by a number of former members of the 509th
Bomb Group {and} verified by the 509th yearbook and the RAAF unit
history."
FACTS:
There was a physician named Jesse B. Johnson
assigned to the Base Hospital. However, he was a 1st Lt., not a Major,
and he was a radiologist, not a pathologist. He had no training as a
pathologist and would have been the last member of the medical staff to
have performed any autopsy on a human much less an alien!! He is
identified as a 1st Lt in the 509th Yearbook.
After I learned of these assertions, I called Doctor
Jack Comstock, who, as a Major, was the Hospital Commander in 1947, and
in 1995 was living in retirement in Boulder, Colorado. I asked him if he
recalled any such events occurring in July of 1947 and he said
absolutely not. When I told him that Jesse B. was supposed to have
conducted a preliminary autopsy on alien bodies, he had a hard time
stopping laughing - his response was: PREPOSTEROUS!!
- Major Comstock lived in the Hospital BOQ, located in the hospital
complex. Any unusual activity was immediately reported to him by members
of the medical and nursing staff. He told me (this was in 1995 prior to
his death in February 1996) that NOTHING of this nature occurred in July
1947 at the Base Hospital.
CONCLUSIONS AND OBSERVATIONS:
From first-hand knowledge, I am reasonably certain that no alien bodies
were brought to the Base Hospital in July 1947 where "preliminary
autopsies" were supposedly conducted. There was no nurse by the name of
Naomi Maria Selff ever assigned to Squadron M, 509th Bomb Group. The
statements made by Glenn Dennis are not credible. The accounts in the
Randle/Schmitt book concerning Jesse B. Johnson are fiction.
8TH AIR FORCE FOOTBALL TEAM
One of my problems with all of the literature I have read on the
subject is that none of the researchers, with perhaps the exception of
Kent Jeffrey in his Anatomy of a Myth, have paid any
attention to the activities at Roswell Army Air Field during the summer
and fall of 1947, apparently on the assumption we were all involved with
the "crash."
In fact, during the late summer and fall of 1947, in addition to
routine training, Roswell AAF became the home of an 8th Air Force
football team. Lt. Al Nemetz, an All-American, who played tackle on the
1945-46 Army National Championship team at West Point, was assigned to
the 509th Bomb Group. Colonel Blanchard asked him if he would coach an
8th AF football team if he could get General Roger Ramey's approval to
form such a team. Briefly, Al said "yes," General Ramey approved and a
team was organized. Players were recruited from all 8th AF units and
those with high school or college football experience were sent to RAAF
on temporary duty. (Players included Lts Bobby Dobbs and Max Minor who
also played on the West Point National Championship team) The team
practiced most of the summer and games were scheduled. Games were played
against teams from Ft. Bliss, Randolph AAF, played at TCU's Farrington
Field in Fort Worth, Texas (the Randolph team included All-Americans Doc
Blanchard and Arnold Tucker from the National Champions), games in
Tucson, Denver(Lowry AAF), and Los Alamos. We even flew at team in from
Carrol College, Minnesota for a game in Roswell. Games in Roswell were
played on the local high school field. The team included officers and
enlisted men from various bases and units. Roswell, New Mexico was then
a small community and rather isolated and Colonel Blanchard did this as
morale effort.
It is inconceivable that such an undertaking would have taken place if
there was the remote possibilty that a "cataclytic event" had occurred
which could have been perceived as a threat to national security.
I know all of this first hand as Colonel Blanchard asked me to be the
"Business Manager" for the team, in addition to my other duties at the
Base Hospital. As such, I scheduled all games, arranged for the housing,
feeding and equipment for the team, and scheduled all travel
arrangements. There is a picture of the entire team in the 1947 RAAF
Yearbook. Here is a shot of Lt Al Nemetz and others on the sideline
during a game in Roswell, New Mexico.
[Picture not included here]
I got to know General Blanchard very well as an officer under his
command at Roswell AAF and with the 7th Air Division. He was, as his
record surely reflects, an outstanding officer, who was highly
respected. According to Lt. Haut's testimony about the event, Colonel
Blanchard ordered him to issue a press release announcing that a "flying
disk" have been recovered. While I am sure this is how Lt. Haut
remembers it, I would argue that this not the action that a responsible
commander would have taken given the importance of such a discovery. He
would have first reported the fact to his commander, General
Ramey, at Hq, 8th Air Force. Also, if Colonel Blanchard had believed
that this "finding" was of such magnitude it is highly unlikely that he
would have delegated the responsibility of transporting the debris to
others. He would probably done so himself. And he surely would have
avoided any publicity until he knew what he was dealing with.
Those of us who served in the 509th Bomb Group at the time had
considerable pride in our unit and respected our commanders. I believe
we would have acted responsibly and promptly if there had been such a
"cataclysmic event." The accusations that any of us have been involved
in some sort of massive cover-up is ludicrous for one simple reason:
Nothing occurred to cover up! |
