Plock, Korff and Exon
Karl Pflock ignored Exon’s testimony, mentioning it in only two paragraphs in his book. In one of those paragraphs he noted what I had written about Exon and then suggested, “As we will see, General Exon has quite a different take on what he actually said and intended to convey.”
Later in his book, on page 124, Pflock wrote, “When first made public in 1991, it seemed Exon’s memories of the possibility that the bodies had been flown from Roswell to Wright Field in 1947 might be based on firsthand information. If so, this would be highly significant, especially since Exon also seemed to have firsthand knowledge of the debris field and crash site, as well as a shadowy high-level group established to keep the truth about Roswell under wraps. However, in a lengthy September 1992 telephone conversation, Exon told me his comments about bodies and debris at Wright Field were based solely upon rumors he heard from colleagues at Wright Field and nothing more. As for the ‘control group,’ he said he was merely making educated guesses as to who likely would have been selected for such a group. Finally, with respect to his all alleged knowledge of the debris and crash sites, he told me he remembered flying over several sites in New Mexico quite some time after July 1947, on missions having nothing to do with the Roswell incident. One such location might have fit what he had been told about the crash site by ufologists because it had vehicle tracks running to it.”
That’s all that Pflock has to say about Exon. He references a personal telephone call to Exon, provides nothing in the way of transcripts or tape of that conversation, and then dismisses the testimony as irrelevant and unimportant. Exon didn’t see anything first hand. Exon heard rumors. Exon didn’t fly over the crash site… well, maybe he did, but it was later and it might not have been the right place.
As we have seen, and as will be reinforced later, Pflock’s assessment of the importance of Exon and what he said is way off base. In fact, some corroboration for Exon’s testimony has come from George W. Towles, who, in 1947 was also at Wright Field and worked inside the T-2 Intelligence there. Wendy Connors and Michael Hall, in Alfred C. Loedding and the Great Flying saucer Wave of 1947, report that Towles had told them that T-2 Intelligence knew of a crash of an object and the some of the personnel were dispatched to Roswell for further investigation.
Kal Korff, in his hostile and poorly researched, The Roswell UFO Crash: What They Don’t Want You to Know, takes the same reductive course with Exon. I could go on at length about the mistakes that Korff makes and the misrepresentations that he makes, but that would just be more of the same he said, he said variety of argument.
Fortunately, a third party, Greg Sandow, provided an interesting commentary about Korff’s book and his opinions on Errol Bruce Knapp’s UFO UpDates Internet discussion group not long after Korff’s book was published. In response to some of the Korff nonsense, Sandow wrote:
Now a look at Kal's comments on General Arthur Exon. Remember my disclaimers — that I'm not commenting on the nature of the Roswell crash, or on the overall worth of Kal's book. I won't be drawn into arguments about those subjects. I'm only commenting on three passages in the book…
What does Kal say? Something really sharp: "There is no excuse for how Exon's 'testimony' is misrepresented in the Randle-Schmitt book. It is blatant fiction on the part of the authors…Randle and Schmitt were deceptive in their presentation of both Exon's recollections and his supposed 'involvement' in the Roswell affair."
So what's that about? The indictment, as it turns out, rests on one lone accusation, that Kevin Randle and Donald Schmitt presented Exon's remarks as if he were relating first-hand testimony, when actually he was only reporting things he'd heard from others. This, in some ways, is a remarkably trivial charge. Why do I say that? Well, suppose that it's true. Then we can shout "gotcha" to Randle and Schmitt, and we'll be careful to check anything either of them says in the future.
But then what did Exon say even as a second-hand witness? As Kal himself tells us (see p. 93 of his Roswell book), Exon talks about Roswell debris being flown to Wright-Patterson. "The boys who tested it," Exon says, "said it was very unusual….It had them pretty puzzled." First-hand, second-hand….either way we've got a banner headline, even if Exon never said one word beyond what Kal quotes. An Air Force general, even if he's only giving his general impression of what he's heard about Roswell, says the same things about the Roswell debris as some of the controversial first-hand witnesses do! If you put any weight on Exon's impressions, the Mogul theory [the glorified weather balloon explanation offered by the Air Force in 1994] takes a big hit. Isn't that more important, in the overall scheme of things, than any question about Randle and Schmitt? And, as we'll see, Exon said much more than that.
But then is Kal right to say Randle and Schmitt distorted Exon's remarks? I don't think so, for three reasons.
(1) I've heard Kevin's first interview with Exon on tape, and read Kevin's scrupulously accurate transcript. I thought Exon said exactly what he's quoted as saying in Kevin's book.
(2) Even the passage Kal quotes doesn't support his view. Here's how Kal presents it: "To read the RandleSchmitt book, it appears that Exon corroborates the Roswell UFO recovery by providing impressive-sounding testimony that appears to be firsthand. 'We heard the material was coming to Wright Field….It was brought into our material evaluation labs. I don't know how it arrived but the boys who tested it said it was very unusual.' Exon described the materiaclass="underline" '[Some of it] could be easily ripped or changed….there were other parts of it that were very thin but awfully strong and couldn't be dented with very heavy hammers….It was flexible to a degree,' and, according to Exon, 'some of it was flimsy and was tougher than hell and almost like foil but strong. It had them pretty puzzled.'"
"To almost anyone reading this," Kal writes, "it would appear that…[Exon] was a firsthand source who was present and personally saw what he describes." But I don't see it that way at all. Consider these statements: "We heard the material was coming….I don't know how it arrived, but the boys who tested it said…It had them pretty puzzled." Isn't it clear that Exon isn't speaking of first hand knowledge? Who wouldn't understand that Exon didn't handle this debris himself?
A page later in the Randle-Schmitt book comes another Exon quote, which Kal doesn't reprint: "The metal and material was unknown to anyone I talked to. Whatever they found, I never heard what the results were. A couple of guys thought it might be Russian but the overall consensus was that the pieces were from space."
Again, it's perfectly clear that Exon didn't handle or analyze the material himself, and even that his knowledge was limited. But he appears to think he'd spoken to people who knew at least something about what the analysis had shown. How sure was he of this knowledge? Let me quote a few suggestive passages. First, an Exon quote from Randle's book: "I know [my emphasis] that…[General Ramey] along with the people out at Roswell decided to change the story while they got their act together and got the information into the Pentagon." (UFO Crash at Roswell, paperback, p. 111.) Another Exon quote from Randle: "I just know [again my emphasis] there was a top intelligence echelon represented and the President's office was represented and the Secretary of Defense's office was represented…" (He's talking about the secret UFO committee that he's sure existed; UFO Crash, p. 232.)