So why the adjective between brackets? The answer is simple: To make Brazel’s testimony conform to [Gerald] Anderson’s. Anderson already knew of Armstrong and the sergeant from his reading of the Roswell literature. All Anderson did was to add a detail about the sergeant’s racial identity. By dropping in a bracketed word, which not only fails to elucidate but actively misrepresents Brazel’s testimony, Crash at Coronacreates corroboration for Anderson’s story where none existed.
Why bring this up now, you might ask. It was discussed in the July/August 1992 issue of the International UFO Reporter. Simply because the issue has been raised again. Italian UFO researcher, Paolo Martinuz, who has been following the Roswell case for years and who is completing his own book about it, wrote to Friedman, asking him about the bracketed word.
According to the information I received from Martinuz, he asked Friedman (through email and seen here), “In the book “Crash at Corona” in the interview to Bill Brazel it’s quoted an important note during the talk of Brazel with Armstrong: He had a (black) sergeant with him. Why “black” is between brackets. Really Brazel said that the sergeant was “black”?
Friedman said, “He said… [it begins with an N and is a racially charged word]. I didn’t want to use the word.”
This revelation surprised me since I had conducted the interview. After the original controversy erupted, I called Bill Brazel on December 5, 1992 to ask about it, and I recorded the interview (as I had the first). I said to him, “I’ve got one quick question for you if you don’t mind…Remember when we brought Don Berliner by? He’s now saying that you said the sergeant with Captain Armstrong was black.”
Brazel said, “No. I didn’t say that. Cause it ain’t right.”
“I just wanted to clarify that situation,” I said.
“To my recollection anyway, that’s not right. I don’t think there was any colored people in the whole contingent.”
One point to note here is that Don Berliner did have an opportunity to interview Bill Brazel in person and that was why I mentioned Berliner to Brazel. But Don Schmitt and I took Berliner to meet Brazel in his home and both Schmitt and I were present at that interview. Had the word come up then, we would have heard it and I certainly would have remembered it, especially in 1992. That was the reason I called Bill Brazel, to get him on tape about the use of the word black… no where had anyone suggested anything else.
So now the question becomes, why, after all these years do we have a new reason for the bracketed word? One that we can demonstrate is inaccurate based on the original 1989 interview, and confirmed by the 1992 interview. And yes, I listened to both tapes again to be sure of these points and I will note that Brazel did use the outdated and possibly offensive “colored” but he didn’t use the more racially charged term and, in fact, I never heard him say anything like that in all my discussions with him.
I emailed Friedman about this, providing him with a copy of the original article and asking if he had a comment. He wrote back that Don Berliner remembered the incident the same way he did. I take this to mean that Berliner remembered that Brazel had used the racially charged word and they had simply substituted the more acceptable term.
So I emailed Don Berliner about this, outlining, briefly what the controversy was about, meaning the insertion of the word into the interview that Schmitt and I conducted and this new allegation that Bill Brazel had used a very derogatory term.
Berliner wrote a brief note back and said, “I have spent very little time on Roswell matters in the past 15 years, and have no clear memory of what you and Stan are discussing.”
The bottom line here is still that Brazel never used the word in my presence, never suggested that any of the soldiers who visited were black and, in fact, denied it, all on tape. I have both tapes and can prove that Brazel didn’t say it. There is no proof available that he did, and he, in fact, denies it.
I could say that we’re back to needing a reason to insert the word into the interview, but I think the reason is clear. Jerry Clark explained it. What I don’t know is why we have this latest version for doing that. Bill Brazel never said it and it should not have been included. It merely adds to the already confused picture of the Roswell case and that we don’t need.
The DuBose Affidavit
In the last few days, those on the UFO UpDates list have been talking about the affidavit made by Colonel (later brigadier general) Thomas DuBose, who had been the Chief of Staff of the Eighth Air Force in 1947. DuBose, along with Brigadier General (later lieutenant general) Roger
Ramey were photographed with a balloon remains in Ramey’s office that was supposedly what was found at Roswell.
On September 9, 1991, when DuBose was 90, he provided an affidavit for the Fund for UFO Research. Since many have asked about it, I decided to publish it here. It says:
(1) My Name is Thomas Jefferson DuBose.
(2) My address is redacted.
(3) I retired from the U.S. Air Force in 1959 with the rank of Brigadier General.
(4) In July 1947, I was stationed at Fort Worth Army Air Field [later Carswell Air Force Base] in Fort Worth, Texas. I served as Chief of Staff to Major General (sic) Roger Ramey, Commander, Eighth Air Force. I had the rank of Colonel.
(5) In early July, I received a phone call from Gen. Clements McMullen, Deputy Commander, Strategic Air Command. He asked what we knew about the object which had been recovered outside Roswell, New Mexico, as reported by the press. I called Col. William Blanchard, Commander of the Roswell Army Air Field and directed him to send the material in a sealed container to me at Fort Worth. I so informed Gen. McMullen.
(6) After the plane from Roswell arrived with the material, I asked the Base Commander, Col. Al Clark to take possession of the material and to personally transport it in a B-26 to Gen. McMullen in Washington, D.C. I notified Gen. McMullen, and he told me he would send the material by personal courier to Benjamin Chidlaw, Commanding General of the Air Material Command at Wright Field [later Wright-Patterson AFB]. The entire operation was conducted under the strictest secrecy.
(7) The material shown in the photographs taken in Gen. Ramey’s office was a weather balloon. The weather balloon explanation for the material was a cover story to divert the attention of the press.
(8) I have not been paid anything of value to make this statement, which is the truth to the best of my recollection.
It was signed and dated by DuBose. His signature was witnessed by three people, including a notary public which made this a sworn affidavit.
The important points here are that DuBose, in the affidavit, said that the debris in Ramey’s office was a balloon and part of a cover story and that he ordered the material sent on to Washington, D.C. for examination, rather than to Wright Field.
In other interviews, DuBose said all this took place on a Sunday, with Ramey off station. In other words, some of the debris headed to Washington before the story broke nationally on Tuesday.
While this is eyewitness testimony and there are no documents to back it up, it is important given the time frame and the use of a balloon as a cover story (seen here, in chair). Here was a man who was in the office, he was photographed in the office, and he is saying that the balloon on the floor was part of a cover story. He has just taken Project Mogul out of the explanations, but the skeptics seem unable to understand that.