Stan Friedman Responds to Brad Sparks' Commentary on Roswell

The original article "Roswell: The 5-Pound Alien Spacecraft"

STF: I will intersperse my comments with Brad's. We saw each other quite a lot between 1975 and 1980 when we both lived in the San Francisco Bay area.

BS: Thank you for asking my opinion on the Roswell mess. Basically, I tend to believe the first-hand testimonies of eyewitnesses to the Roswell debris, the earlier accounts the better -- and only after critical evaluation accounting for witness perceptual error and memory defects, especially the processes of folklore generation after passage of many years and the contaminating effects of publicity.

STF: I certainly prefer first hand testimony as early as possible in an investigation and before the media get involved. I am fortunate in that, unlike Brad, I was the first to talk to many of the key witnesses long before Roswell went public. Most of them aren't mentioned in his comments.

BS: The first-hand Roswell witnesses say that what was found was foil-like foil, balsa-like balsa sticks, rubber-like rubber sheets, paper-like paper parchment, plastic tape-like tape, with symbols on some of the material, plus some filaments or threads -- all of which added up to a total of about 5 pounds of material (according to Mac Brazel who was the discoverer).

STF: The above statement reflects what was printed in the Roswell Daily Record on July 9, 1947, after Mack Brazel had been detained and reprogrammed by the US Government. It does not reflect first hand testimony as obtained from Jesse Marcel, Jesse Marcel Jr., Bill Brazel, Loretta Proctor, Judd Roberts, and many others as described, for example in my 1992 book "Crash at Corona" and Bill Moore's 49 page 1985 Paper "Crashed Saucers: Evidence in Search of Proof "(Contrary to Brad's assertion below I was not a co author). Witnesses did say some wreckage had the WEIGHT of balsa wood but could not be burned, broken or cut. They said other material was LIKE foil but couldn't be torn and could be folded over and over and would unfold on its own. They did not describe any tape. Dr. Marcel described strange symbols on I-beam like pieces. We all tend to describe the new in terms of the old. LIKE does not mean "the same as" especially when clear cut differences are enunciated.

BS: This does not sound like an alien spacecraft. There is no mention of dead alien bodies, laser devices, silicon microchip wafers, Kevlar-like fabric, computers, etc., by any of the first-hand Roswell witnesses.

STF: Certainly nobody says the first hand wreckage witnesses relating to the Corona crash said anything about alien bodies, laser devices silicon microchip wafer... this latter is all Corso nonsense My comments about Corso can be found at http://http://www.v-j-enterprises.com/sfpage.html

BS: As Moore and Friedman have stated, "Marcel, Haut, and the seven Brazel family members say that as far as they are aware, there were NO BODIES FOUND."

STF: This is certainly true and is clearly reflected in "Crash at Corona" and in all my papers. Bodies were mentioned with regard to the Plains of San Agustin in testimony from Vern and Jean Maltais, Alice Knight, Harold Baca, Gerald Anderson etc. The question until the testimony of Glenn Dennis first hand to me in 1989 was "was there any connection between the PSA and Corona and why were no bodies at Corona." The EBD gives a good reason.: bodies were a few miles away. Standing on the site in rolling hills they couldn't have been seen from where Jesse and Cavitt had been. Bodies were discussed by a Photographer brought in from DC to take pictures. They would certainly have been easily spotted from the air.

BS: It is still an unshakeable fact that until Moore and Friedman came along in 1979 and mistakenly connected the apparently Scully-inspired undated Barney Barnett story in WESTERN New Mexico to the 1947 Roswell story in EASTERN New Mexico, no one had EVER thought of Roswell as involving dead alien bodies or an alien spacecraft with advanced machinery (beyond of course what the term "flying disc" used in the original 1947 news accounts might have implied to the imagination). Barnett himself was never interviewed by investigators as he had died many years earlier, so his story is only known from admittedly "hearsay" retellings literally decades after he told the story (or stories).

STF: Sorry. There was no mistake. And certainly no connection with Scully's story. Barney's boss did provide (First Hand) dates and location. There was supportive testimony from the above named witnesses, from Ruth Barnett's diary about the location and Barney's activities. One makes do with the witnesses available. Read the book Brad. I have indeed suggested since the bodies at the PSA would never have been shipped to Roswell and since there is witness testimony about a gash like 2 parentheses face to face in the almost intact PSA saucer, and since the Corona bodies smelled badly (apparently after being out in the sun for days) that there might well have been a mid air collision with one saucer coming down intact and another exploding into many pieces.. possibly caused by the tracking radar known to be on or by a huge lightning strike.

BS: No one can find a published account of Roswell prior to 1979 that mentions bodies or a sophisticated craft

STF: There were essentially no published accounts of Roswell prior to 1979. The Roswell Incident was published in 1980. It, too, said nothing about bodies at Corona, but did note bodies in the PSA. Let us not forget that the Unsolved Mysteries TV program which I instigated in 1989 brought forth more witnesses.

BS: Moore and Friedman felt compelled to "abandon" the Barnett story in 1982 as "hearsay" and "circumstantial" but it was too late, the damage had been done. Roswell was forever stamped as a crashed alien ship-with-bodies in their book The Roswell Incident (1980) despite the fact it was a mistake of investigator "hypothesis."

STF: I again suggest that Brad read my co authored 1992 book "Crash at Corona". This hardly abandons bodies in the PSA and introduces new witnesses such as retired Colonel Bill Leed, Harold Baca, Johnny Foard, and others.

BS: As Moore-Friedman candidly confessed in 1985, "We freely ADMIT that earlier attempts to tie it [the Barnett story] to the Roswell incident were somewhat overzealous and DEFINITELY PREMATURE."

STF: In case anybody hasn't noticed, it is now 2000 not l985.

BS: They "freely admitted" a "MAJOR RETRENCHMENT" of their "whole scenario" connecting the Barnett "claim" to Roswell, which was based "ONLY" on the "HYPOTHESIS" of giving the Barnett story a 1947 date which had "INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE" and may well be "SUBSTANTIALLY IN ERROR." (Of course there was more to it than just force-fitting the date. They also had to force a connection of Barnett with Roswell geographically, somehow bridging the 150 miles or so stretching clear across the State of New Mexico, and then the details of the two completely inconsistent or different stories had to be forced together.)

STF: Brad you can certainly do better than this. Read my book or my 1991 18pg. paper "Update on Crashed Saucers in New Mexico" or my 1992 21 page paper "Crashed Saucers, Majestic 12, and the Debunkers". Check your geography from the Foster Ranch to the PSA is only half way across the state of NM. Nobody has forced the stories together. Wreckage and bodies were recovered at 2 sites within a few days of each other. One craft gave signs of a mid air collision .The unusual body descriptions match.

BS: But this clarification or retraction was all but ignored by UFOlogy. History was indeed rewritten, as you said Peter. In short, the Roswell debris seems to consist of balloon-and-radar-reflector-like balloon-and-radar-reflector debris. When one looks at the points of information conflicting with this conclusion they are all hearsay data, or subject to serious question due to memory problems or folklore influences. For example, I haven't been able to find any first-hand statement from anyone who PERSONALLY supposedly tried to use a sledgehammer on the recovered.

STF: Read Moore's 1985 paper again with detailed descriptions of strange material (--p.157 in the MUFON Conf. Proc.) Jesse Marcel is on tape stating that one of his people tried to hit a piece of thin strong lightweight material with a sledgehammer and failed to make a dent. Nobody has claimed to me that he personally tried doing that.. Marcel reported what his man told him.

BS: Roswell material -- a ridiculous tall-tale story that in reality would have been a court-martial offense had any military man actually tried to damage or destroy remains of a recovered alien spaceship or US Government property in such a manner. But it's a classic of folklore embellishment to add in superlative made-up details of the biggest, strongest, tallest, most powerful, most sensational, strangest, scariest, etc.

STF: This is plain hyped BS. Nobody was calling it a spaceship. There were lots of pieces of wreckage. Perfectly normal thing to do with stuff that seemed so "strange" No harm done. Certainly a non destructive test.

BS: The alien transistor story -- that the 1947-8 invention of the transistor at Bell Labs was really due to analysis of Roswell UFO crash material -- is absolute nonsense. No one in 1947 had the equipment to discover that a MICROSCOPIC size component on an alien microchip was a transistor or anything else. And because nondestructive testing did not exist in 1947 they would have to destroy the component in order to discover what it was. And if they did figure it out, they would have to make copies to simulate the function of the circuitry in order to avoid destroying more of the alien original -- and if they made microchip copies in 1947 why did it take two decades to make the first microchips?

STF: The first transistors were certainly not microscopic nor had anything to do with microchips. Let's not bring Corso into this. There certainly was plenty of non-destructive testing being done prior to 1947.

BS: Does anyone seriously think labs would burn up precious alien materiel in destructive testing thus ruining the function of the circuit or the equipment? Is there any evidence that anyone had microscopic electronic equipment and probes in 1947? Show me how anyone on earth had the microassay equipment even capable of figuring out the chemical composition and the microscopic structure of a microtransistor in 1947.

STF: This again is a rant having nothing to do with Roswell. Brad should know better It is a strawman.

BS: Five pounds of foil, balsa wood, rubber, paper, scotch tape and thread sounds like something made in a garage, not in an alien laboratory.

STF: I will once again repeat that this is from the new story as printed in the RDR July 9. It is easy to forget that if this is all there was it would have easily fit into Brazel's truck and been brought into town and that Marcel and Cavitt would never have taken the tedious trip out to the Foster Ranch behind Brazel . The lightweight of balsa wood, thin like foil, etc doesn't make this stuff balsa wood or normal foil. It seems strange that USAF Colonel Weaver and Captain McAndrew used some of these same baseless arguments depending almost entirely on the 7/9/47 article and ignoring a host of witnesses and testimony as I have described in my 28pg,1994, paper "The Roswell Incident, the USAF, and the New York Times"

Brad Sparks' Response to Stan