Thirty years after the meeting in Ramey’s office (I hesitate to call it a press conference because that term seems to offend so many, yet by definition, that was what it was) controversy erupted. Johnson, after he had talked to me on audio tape on more than one occasion suddenly had a new story that was now in conflict with what I had written about him. In fact, he became quite vocal about it, claiming I had misquoted him repeatedly, that I had attempted to force my views on him, and the real story of what happened in Ramey’s office and later back at the newspaper was substantially different than what I had reported.
Others, in the 1990s, came out with a new version of Johnson’s involvement. In this one, according to Johnson, he had arrived at Ramey’s office and then been left alone inside it for a few minutes. Now Johnson unwrapped the packages brought from Roswell and spread them out on the floor… Or maybe, depending on Johnson’s mood, some of the packages were already opened and he just opened some others, arranging the debris for his photographs of it.
This has become a critical point, not so much because of the controversy about Johnson’s statements, but because of what was attributed to Marcel. Remember, he allegedly said that he was in the pictures of the real stuff and everyone else was in the pictures of the switched debris, which was, of course, that of a weather balloon.
The problem developed from Moore. He provided a transcript of his 1979 interview with Marcel, but now it was subtly different. It said, “There was half a B-29-ful outside. General [Roger Maxwell (first and middle name added by Moore)] Ramey allowed the press in to take TWO [emphasis added) picture[s] of this stuff. I was in one, and he and Col. Dubose were in the other [emphasis added]. The press was allowed far enough into the room to photograph this but weren’t allowed to touch it. The stuff in these photos was the actual stuff we had found. These were not staged photos.”
So, Moore was attempting to attribute the comments to Marcel, and it seems that the attribution is accurate. If so, then the Roswell case is solved as a balloon and we all go home. But there are additional facts.
Back in the early 1980s, New Orleans TV reporter Johnny Mann accompanied Marcel to Roswell to film a five part series on UFOs for his station. Marcel now made his home in Houma, Louisiana, which is close to New Orleans, so that made Marcel’s story of a UFO crash a local story.
Mann told me that once they arrived in Roswell, had been out to the desert, and were discussing the case, Mann showed Marcel the pictures taken in Ramey’s office. First was the highly cropped version that appeared in the Roswell Incident, and then the full pictures that appeared in many newspapers nationally, and the photos as they had been retrieved from the Special Collections at the University of Texas at Arlington. Mann told Marcel that it looked like a balloon to him.
Marcel told Mann that the material in the pictures was not the material he’d picked up in Roswell. These were, in fact, staged photographs taken in Ramey’s office.
We could suggest that Moore had made up the quote and then changed it as we learned more about the situation and more pictures were found. The problem is that Marcel, on tape, does, in fact, suggest that there were pictures taken of him with the real debris. Moore is guilty of changing the quote as his books, his articles, and his letters prove, but the original idea about Marcel and photographs of the real debris are not Moore’s inventions.
I did talk to Irving Newton. He is the warrant officer in the seventh photograph. He was quite clear about the situation. He told me he had been in the weather lab when Ramey called him and told him to get over to his, Ramey’s office and Ramey didn’t care how he did it. He was to steal a car if he had to.
Newton said that when he walked into the office, he recognized the balloon right away. He had launched, he said, hundreds of balloons and rawin reflectors during the Okinawa invasion so he was quite familiar with them. He said that Ramey was on Marcel’s back about making such a mistake and that he canceled the special flight that was to take the material on to Wright Field.
So, here’s what we know today. J. Bond Johnson took six photographs of Ramey, Ramey and DuBose, and of Marcel in Ramey’s office. Contrary to what Johnson has said in the last decade, it was clear at that time that Ramey told him it was nothing more important than a weather balloon and that is exactly what Johnson wrote when he returned to the newspaper. Ramey then expanded his explanation, telling radio station WBAP in the Fort Worth-Dallas area that what was found was a weather balloon. Other newspapers and radio stations picked up the story and reported that the excitement was over nothing more than a weather balloon and the story died.
There are two final points to be made here. One is that when witnesses begin to expand their stories and contradict themselves, we need to return to the record made at the time. Memories do, in fact fade, and what a witness says today has been colored by everything he or she has witnessed, how he or she has told the story in the past, or by the simple motivations of fame and fortune. Johnson clearly began to manipulate his story, trying to find a role for himself that was more important. He did take the pictures, he did talk to Ramey on July 8, and he did write a newspaper article that gave us a very nice look into the drama inside Ramey’s office. He then cluttered it all up by claiming he had photographed the real debris, that Ramey didn’t give him the cover story when he was there, and suggesting that others had misquoted him. In the end, we were able to dig through the nonsense and arrive at the truth, but only after Johnson had hurt the importance of his overall tale.
Second, there was one piece of evidence that came out of this, and it is in a picture Johnson took. Ramey, crouched by the wreckage, is holding a sheet of paper. In the 8 x 10 glossy prints from the Special Collections, there appears to be a gray smudge on the paper. Under magnification, it is clear that these are typewritten words on the paper and seem to be clear enough that some of the words can be read. Researchers, using larger blow ups, and using sophisticated computer equipment have been able to resolve more of the smudge. This might provide the smoking gun proving that Roswell was extraterrestrial. We’ll examine all of that later.
Chapter Six: Investigations and Investigators
In the years since the Roswell case exploded all over the media and dozens of people have begun investigations, there has been quite a bit of false, faked and lousy information published. I confess that I have been guilty of my share of it, such as giving Frank Kaufmann a voice much louder than he deserved, but I’m not alone. We’ve been graced with Glenn Dennis, Gerald Anderson, Jim Ragsdale and dozens of other lesser lights who really knew no more about the case than we did.
A bigger problem, however, might be all the investigators who have national forums and who sometimes use these forums for personal agendas with the authenticity of the information taking a back seat. I want to address some of these issues here, trying for a middle of the road approach that leaves personal agenda far behind. I want to look at some of the allegations hurled in th attempts to negate or eliminate the Roswell case. In other words, I hope to answer some of the questions about Roswell with solid information rather than speculation and invention.
The case of the reports of Air Force Brigadier General Arthur Exon is a prime example of these personal agendas. Remember, Exon, as an Air Force lieutenant colonel was assigned to Wright Field when the Roswell debris was forwarded for analysis in 1947. Exon provided, from his perspective, what he knew personally and what he had learned from friends and colleagues at the base.