Re: [nicapresearch] Fwd: A (very) short survey of the headlines of American 1947 newspapers

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1 Re: [nicapresearch] Fwd: A (very) short survey of the headlines of American 1947 newspapers From: To: Date: "fran ridge" <skyking42@gmx.com> skyking42@gmx.com Oct 7, :36:09 PM Brad Sparks wrote: Sorry Luis, Here is what the USAF Report on Roswell said in 1994, and imitated and elaborated upon by debunkers ever since to say that Roswell as seen by the public in 1947 was a barely noticed "rather pedestrian non-event" within the UFO flap (paraphrasing Charles Ziegler's words) until the Roswell "myth" was fabricated in The Ken Arnold case has always been claimed to dominate 1947 according to debunkers, displacing or eliminating Roswell entirely until The debunking references can be divided into two categories, (1) those claiming Roswell was forgotten by everyone for 30+ years, and (2) those claiming Roswell was forgotten by UFOlogists for 30+ years. Neither claims are true. USAF REPORT ON ROSWELL: "Research revealed that the "Roswell Incident" was not even considered a UFO event until the time frame. Prior to that, the incident was dismissed because the AAF originally identified the debris recovered as being that of a weather balloon. Subsequently, various authors wrote a number of books claiming that, not only was debris from an alien spacecraft recovered, but also the bodies of the craft's alien occupants.... "What was later characterized as "the UFO Wave of 1947" began with 16 alleged sightings that occurred between May 17 and July 12, 1947, (although some researchers claim there were as many as 800 sightings during that period). Interestingly, the "Roswell Incident" was not considered one of these 1947 events until the time frame." (Bold emphasis added) In the 1997 USAF Roswell report "Case Closed" the AF debunkers claimed: "From 1947 until the late 1970s, the Roswell Incident was essentially a nonstory." (Bold emphasis added) Skeptics' Dictionary: "... Roswell was ignored by UFOlogists until Charles Berlitz and William Moore published a book on the subject in 1980, more than thirty years after the event." (Bold emphasis added)

2 Wikipedia: "Subsequently the incident faded from the attention of UFO enthusiasts for more than 30 years." RationalWiki: "Roswell would remain forgotten until the late 1970s, when true believers started investigating the story, jumped to a lot of conclusions, and elevated it into a gigantic conspiracy theory." (Bold emphasis added) Skeptical Inquirer, Nov/Dec 2012: "The famous Roswell Saucer Crash claim was born, and died, in the span of about a twenty-four hour newspaper cycle in July of The story was dead and forgotten for about thirty years, even among those few who believed in saucer crashes, until brought back to life by the book The Roswell Incident by Charles Berlitz and William Moore." (Bold emphasis added) Blog posting on AboveTopSecret July 9, 2012: "The "mystery" of Roswell was quickly solved in July An insignificant event was blown out of proportion in a brief media frenzy, and then quickly identified as the nonissue that it really was. It should have been all but forgotten, a mere sidebar to the history of UFOlogy. instead, it was revived in the 1970s and became the "tent pole" of most overarching UFO theories. Time and energy wasted on Roswell could have been used by researchers for the examination of more interesting UFO stories." (Bold emphasis added) Wennergren's June 1948 master's thesis studying saucer publicity proves that Roswell was not a minor event in the summer of 1947 but was the number one major dominant event in the saucer wave publicity, his entire Chapter IV, and when it collapsed the whole saucer wave collapsed. Arnold was the focus but not exclusive focus of his Chapter I (out if 7 chapters). This is contrary to debunkers who insinuate no one even heard of Roswell until about Dave Rudiak has found annual press references to the Roswell saucer incident in an Associated Press column called "Today in History," for "July 8" (in this case for 1947), in various newspapers in 1948, 1949, 1950, 1952, 1953, 1954, and He found a 10-year retrospective column in Nov 1957 reprinted widely in the U.S. citing Roswell UFO and a similar 25-year item in 1972, another in 1977, and an article in 1974 Saga magazine. The famous LOOK Magazine Flying Saucer Special in 1967 also covered the Roswell incident with photos, including one in Gen. Ramey's office with the debris but scrambled the location giving it as Ft. Worth (where news stories had said the material was flown to for Gen. Ramey in Ft. Worth). Contrary to your assertion that "The fact that Roswell was never mentioned again until 1980, is clearly showed even by ufo historians at the time," in fact the Roswell incident was cited repeatedly for important potential UFO physical evidence in the 1950's and 60's by: Flying Saucer Review in Frank Edwards in public lectures in 1955 and 1956 CSI-NY publications in 1956 covering Edwards' lectures

3 Frank Edwards' bestselling book Flying Saucers: Serious Business in 1966 Harold Wilkins in his 1954 book Brinsley Le Poer Trench book BTW, I am a skeptic of Roswell and I cite the above not as credible UFOlogical analysis (Edwards, Wilkins and Trench were hardly credible) but merely to show what was being said in UFO literature during the supposedly nonexistent "non-story" "non-issue" years in the 1950's and 60's, which talked about Roswell as being UFO-related and/or discounting the balloon IFO explanation. Brad -----Original Message----- From: Luis R. Gonzalez <lrgm@movistar.es> To: project-1947 <project-1947@project1947.com> Sent: Thu, Oct 6, :47 am Subject: Re: [Project-1947] Fwd: A (very) short survey of the headlines of American 1947 newspapers Sorry Brad, It is NOT a debunker dogma that Roswell was a minor event in 1947 barely noticed. Even those dammed debunkers admit that It was a sensational notice that got many headlines nationwide (and also, if I recalled well, in some other countries) but, as it was quickly explained as a weather balloom (not to confuse with the real explanation of Project Mogul knpwn years later), it was never again mentioned until Even Wennergren wrote (p.58): Farmer Brazell was to give the flying saucers their grandest glory and cause them to be precipitately forgotten (my emphasis). It is understable that a 1948 thesis would focus in Roswell as the rise and fall of the flying saucer story in the newspapers. The fact that Roswell was never mentioned again until 1980, is clearly showed even by ufo historians at the time. For example, Dr. David M. Jacobs in his valuable first book The UFO controversy in America did not even mentioned it in the index. LuisR From: Brad Sparks Sent: Thursday, October 6, :09 AM To: project-1947@project1947.com Cc: nicapresearch@yahoogroups.com Subject: [Project-1947] Fwd: A (very) short survey of the headlines of American 1947 newspapers PS: I mean to add that debunker dogma claims Roswell was a minor event in 1947 barely noticed then or later until the 1980 publication of the Roswell Incident. To have one entire chapter on Roswell in a master's thesis in 1948 out of a handful of chapters is devastating to the debunker doctrine. Brad -----Original Message----- From: [nicapresearch] < nicapresearch@yahoogroups.com>

4 To: project-1947 < Cc: nicapresearch < Sent: Wed, Oct 5, :30 pm Subject: [nicapresearch] Re: A (very) short survey of the headlines of American 1947 newspapers Hi Maurizio, Thank you for your detailed comments. My "B COMMENT" responses below. Where can we access your massive online 1947 PDF database? A general comment: You should include the extraordinary thesis on saucer press coverage by Wennergren in 1948, which Barry Greenwood doggedly pursued and finally obtained recently. Among other things, Wennergren puts the lie to the debunker dogma that Roswell was virtually unknown until the 1980 Roswell Incident book popularized it -- in 1948 Wennergren devotes an ENTIRE CHAPTER to ROSWELL based on his study of the massive press coverage of it -- again in 1948 not 1980 or Original Message----- From: Maurizio Verga <mauverga@ufo.it> To: project-1947 <project-1947@project1947.com> Sent: Wed, Oct 5, :15 pm Subject: Re: [Project-1947] [SPAM] Re: A (very) short survey of the headlines of American 1947 newspapers Hi Brad and all. I really appreciated your comments, mine following below. However, I would like to take issue with your main premises which seem to be of the psychosocialist variety. "Psychosocialist" sounds like a bad thing (!) or a psychotic socialist! B COMMENT: I don't see any better term to use instead. "Psychosocials" would be psychotic (?) social events rather than persons. I am not in charge of their PR and feel no obligation to assist mortal enemies in their campaign to destroy the UFO phenomenon. [MV] I try to avoid any pre-built approach when evaluating the raw material of my short (and far from being conclusive( survey: the press coverage. I have been collecting (and reading) 1947 newsclippings from hundreds of American newspapers, and a lower number of international ones. At this time I have stockpiled an estimated amount of 19,000+ clippings out of 18,300+ PDF files. All PDF files have been OCRed and fully searchable through a powerful online database engine. Of course, OCR (and the scanned clippings) have severe limitations sometimes.

5 [B] First, these are press reports of almost entirely uninvestigated cases, or cases in which the military investigations remained classified and were not public at the time. Hence one cannot make a fair assessment of the alleged reality or purported unreality of a new phenomenon on the basis of low-quality data, in effect, worst evidence not best evidence. [MV] I don't question the reality of the 1947 phenomenon at all. Despite a large number of hoaxes, unquestionably many people saw something. The huge press coverage is a clear evidence of it. The low quality of the available (press) information is definitely the main reason why it is extremely difficulty or impossible to understand what they saw, though we can guess that a vast majority was due to mundane causes (and many were reasonably explained at the time, as you can read in the same articles). B COMMENT: I think this is the crux of the problem. Your EuroUFO profile states the following which does not sound like you endorse any reality to an unexplained UFO phenomenon at all, 1947 or otherwise: "In 2009 he began a new project to study how and why the saucer phenomenon was born in 1947, focusing on the (underestimated) presence of the ET motif and expectation in the American culture of the time [and] the development of the idea of life on Mars and likely communication to/from the red planet, as precursor and cause of the acceptance of the flying saucers and their astrounding [sic] penetration into the modern popular culture." [Emphasis added] The second part of your argument is circular -- low-quality press coverage makes for "extremely difficult" or "impossible" assessment of what they "really saw" in 1947 because of its low quality -- but avoids the existence of high-quality data and even omits any mention of the existence of any high-quality data. That is why I had my Third Point in my original response (below) citing: Multiple-witness daylight sightings in 1947 by Actual rocket scientists at White Sands, Leading meteoritics scientist (LaPaz) in NM, and Test pilots and top military officials including base commander at Muroc Flight Test Center (future Edwards AFB), in "Guesswork" about the nature and cause of the alleged "vast majority" is not scientific. Science doesn't "guess." If there are Insufficient Data then there are Insufficient Data, insufficient to identify an IFO / conventional cause or to specify a genuine UFO Unknown. Science sets aside such bad data as effectively non-data, to be excluded from analysis, in this case analysis of the reality or non-reality of a UFO phenomenon. See Hynek in the Hynek UFO Report, p. 259: " 'Insufficient Information' cases should [be] excluded from the statistical computations altogether" and not treated as "solved." (Emphasis added) [B] Do you agree that there are gradations of UFO report quality, on a scale from poor to excellent? Or do you subscribe to psychosocialist doctrine that all cases are "equal" thus reducing the best cases to the poorest quality as lowest common denominator and thus negating them?

6 [MV] I agree for sure. Cases can be reasonably explained or labeled unexplained when you have a really good and reliable investigation producing what we can call a "high quality" case (though the measurement of the case quality should be a topic of an in-depth discussion...). I think you agree that "high quality cases" are a fraction of the tremendous amount of sighting stories we have ammassed so far. The remainder is good for other (important) purposes, including the social impact of UFOs, their presence in the popular culture, and more. Of course, I am simplifying a lot the point. B COMMENT: For purposes of UFO case studies, I do not agree. Bad data are no data at all for scientific purposes. Bad data are not IFO's, they are non-data, indeterminate cases awaiting further data from actually being investigated perhaps for the first time. Even from a BB case standpoint McDonald's and Vallee's independent estimates of about 25% to 40% Unknowns, would represent far more than some mere "fraction" of a "tremendous" mass of cases. The discussion is getting slippery here when it slides from UFO phenomenon studies into sociological and cultural analyses of low-quality newspaper stories. Second, multiple-witness daylight sightings by actual rocket scientists at White Sands, leading meteoritics scientist (LaPaz) in NM, and test pilots and top military officials including base commander at Muroc Flight Test Center (future Edwards AFB), in 1947 cannot be cavalierly dismissed -- except by ignoring them and embracing crackpot claims instead. They cannot be dismissed of course. I have been trying to introduce some concepts related to the press coverage of the time though the headlines and I am surely wrong in some points at least, as I am not an American and cannot know a lot of important things about your country and the people (in 1947). Third, if the 1947 UFO wave was simply a "me too phenomenon" generated by press publicity sensationalizing "flying saucers" and the "saucer" shape then how do you explain the fact that all sightings investigated by Project SIGN were not saucer shaped? Shouldn't they ALL be "flying saucer" shaped or close to 100%? And especially the indeterminate shape cases -- why didn't the witnesses take the easy "out" of doing a "me too" and calling them saucershaped??? [MV] Maybe there is some kind of misunderstanding. I do NOT think the 1947 wave was just a "me too phenomenon", even though that attitude was an important element. Anyway the sharing of an experience like that of becoming a witness of something "popular" (the saucers) would involve some sort of personal customization, not a verbatim copy of what read/heard earlier. More, let me say that the people didn't call them "saucer-shaped" but they usually called them "saucers" or (less frequently) "discs" or "disks" because those were the terms used in the titles and in the articles. Anyway in their stories they actually reported discs, spheres, lights and, more rarely, other shapes. Best, Maurizio B COMMENT: The main purpose of direct investigation by competent investigators is to pierce

7 . through distortions caused by initial reporting (including news reports) to get at what was really seen, thus minimizing or eliminating any effects of a "me too phenomenon" (YOUR TERM). Best, Brad Privacy Unsubscribe Terms of Use,_._,