The major problem is that Shandera, and at times his partner, Moore, are trying to confuse the Roswell issue. They publish statements that are in direct contradiction with statements they have published in the past. They have reinterviewed witnesses and then claim that there are changes in the testimony.
Klass, wanting to destroy the Roswell testimony, uses these supposed discrepancies to refute the good work being done. He claims that witnesses can't be relied on to remember accurately events of more than forty years ago. In fact, Klass has admitted that his job is to debuke UFO reports. Not investigate them to learn the truth, but to debuke them regardless of what that truth might be.
Klass continues to misinterpret facts. In his May 1994 Skeptics UFO Newsletter, he suggests that "Mrs. Frankie Rowe, who R/S [Randle/Schmitt] (erroneously) refer to as a 'firsthand witness,'…" Yet he is aware that she said that she had handled a piece of metallic debris brought to the Roswell Fire Department by a state trooper. That makes her a first-hand witness to part of the story but it is easier to dismiss here if she had no firsthand knowledge.
Klass (centered, seen here is fans) also reports that "If a crashed saucer had been found 40 miles south of the debris field found on the Brazel ranch, the 'retrieval team' surely would have spent many days searching along the 40-mile flight path between the two sites, looking for more debris and perhaps even an ET who might have parachuted to safety. Yet no such search effort is reported by R/S's 'witnesses.'"
Klass is assuming that because we, or our witnesses, reported no such effort, it is a flaw in the story. It is true that none reported such an effort immediately after the event, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen, only that those we have interviewed were not participants in it. The only legitimate conclusion to be drawn is that it hasn't been reported, not that it didn't happen.
Klass, in his conclusions, writes, "And Kevin Randle, who formerly served in the Army and later in the Air Force Reserve, enjoys Government benefits as a veteran. MORE AND MORE PIECES OF THE PUZZLE FIT TOGETHER."
I have never understood what Klass was implying here. That I’m some sort of government agent attempting to expose the truth about the crash. Wouldn’t it make more sense if I was arguing that there was no cover-up?
When I responded that I currently receive no government benefits at the time as alleged by Klass, Klass responded, "It is regrettable that you fail to reply to question I pose. In my letter of April 29 [1994], I asked: 'Do you enjoy absolutely NO present or potential future benefits for having served in Vietnam?' (Emphasis added here.) Your evasive answer is: 'I currently enjoy no benefits…'(Emphasis added.)"
In response, I said that I had used the qualifier because the laws are subject to change and my military status was subject to change. At that time, I didn’t anticipate a war in Iraq or that I would be a part of the military force engaged there. I wrote, "There are no benefits that I receive today, nor are there any for which I am eligible. The question is without relevance."
Yet when I asked Klass what his military service had been, he responded writing, "I served 60 years with AFOSI, which included short stints as a B-17 pilot over Europe, a B-29 pilot over Japan, an F-86 pilot over Korea and an A-10 pilot in Vietnam." I had tried to answer Klass' question honestly. In response to my legitimate question about Klass' military service, I was treated to a sarcastic reply.
Here’s where we are on this. We are treated to his analysis of the facts, but as we've seen, the conclusions drawn are not accurate. He leaves out that which doesn't conform to his opinions, and attempts to discredit testimony by claiming the memories are nearly fifty years old and can't be trusted to be reliable. His purpose is not to get at the truth, but to persuade others that there was no UFO crash. But a scientific investigation is a search for the truth and not an endorsement of a particular agenda. Here we see what is really going on, and once aware of it, can examine all the information in the light of that knowledge.
And that, really, is what we all should be doing.
When Debunking Goes Bad
I know that I said I was done with responding to Kal Korff, and I know that when I watch Countdownwith Keith Oberman, I get tired of his rants about Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh, but sometimes it’s just so much fun.
Take the latest rant. Korff quotes from one of my books and goes into a typical rant.
The quotes that annoy him so much are these:
Marcel said about the debris, “I’d never seen anything like that. I didn’t know what we were picking up.” He said that some of the debris was thin as newsprint, feather light but so strong they couldn’t dent it or burn it. He described foil-like material, I-beams, and “…other stuff there that looked very much like parchment that didn’t burn.”
Marcel was so impressed by what he had seen that he stopped at his house on the way back to the base. He wanted his wife and son to see the debris. When Jesse Marcel, Jr. saw the strange material, he asked his father what it was. Marcel, Sr. “It’s a flying saucer.”
Marcel, Jr. said that he saw some foil material that was thicker than lead foil and that was much stronger. He mentioned the I-beams which seemed to be made out of layered foil and that was embossed with writing. Marcel Jr. described the writing as, “Purple. Strange. Never saw anything like it.
Korff then says, “Well, no folks, he didn’t say it was a flying saucer. They didn’t use that word back then. They said flying disk. That’s it.”
Here is the front page of the Roswell Daily Recordfor July 8, 1947. Clearly it says, “RAAF Captures Flying Saucer On Ranch in Roswell Region.”
The next day, the headline reads, “Gen. Ramey Empties Roswell Saucer.”
In case you think that it was only in Roswell that they used that term, though it certainly proves my case because it shows the term in use in Roswell, here, from the Des Moines Registerof July 4, 1947, “Army Probes ‘Flying Saucer’ Stories.”
And from the Herald American(Syracuse, New York) “Flying Saucers Reported By Scores in 28 States.”
So where did he get the idea that they didn’t use the term flying saucer in July 1947? I found lots more examples, so clearly they did.
The other part of the quote that sets him off is the term I-beam. He says that Marcel didn’t use that term and in fact, Marcel said that his son got it wrong.
Well, looking at the interview that Linda Corley did with Jesse Marcel, Sr. in 1981 (and not available until after 1993), it appears that Marcel did say that during her interview. At least it seems that way. Marcel drew a picture of the cross section of one of the smaller members and it is rectangular. If you look at the “I-beam” that Marcel, Jr. (seen on the next page with the replica of the I-beam) had made, you see that it is nearly rectangular as well. Yes, there is a “I” shape to it, but the top and bottom cross beams are small.
And something that Korff fails to report is that Corley said when she shared her tapes with Stan Friedman, she had to go back to create transcripts because the tapes, sitting on a shelf, had degraded quite a bit. They were difficult to understand and Corley had to interpret the words and phrases, so it’s possible that the senior Marcel wasn’t quite as positive as Korff and others now believe.
Korff goes on to say, “Jesse Marcel, Jr., he claims he saw an I-beam and he’s the only one who did… And his father Jesse Marcel, Sr. says, ‘No.’”