
Book Review: "UFO Crash at Roswell" by Kevin D. Randle and Donald
R. Schmitt (Avon Books, 1991), 327 pages.

(Reviewed   by  Michael  Corbin  and  James  R.  Black,   ParaNet
Information  Service. Copyright 1991 by Michael Corbin and  James
R. Black. All Rights Reserved.)

There  are  some  books that everyone with an  interest  in  UFOs
should own. "UFO Crash at Roswell" is one of them. Here, for  the
first time, is a definitive answer to the long-standing question,
"Has the U.S. government ever recovered a crashed flying saucer?"
The answer is a resounding "Yes!"

The Story and the Evidence
-------------------------
In brief, "UFO Crash at Roswell" tells how an unidentified flying
object  struck the earth on July 2, 1947 near Corona, New  Mexico
during  a violent thunderstorm; how the wreckage was found  by  a
local  rancher  and reported to the 509th Bomb Group  at  Roswell
Army  Air  Field;  how the soldiers of  the  509th  gathered  the
wreckage,  discovered a second (and possibly a third)  associated
crash site, took possession of four alien bodies, and transported
their finds to Los Alamos and Wright Field for analysis; and  how
the  military  brass  in the Eighth Air Force  and  the  Pentagon
squelched  the  facts,  disinformed the  public,  and  suppressed
almost all discussion of the events for decades afterwards.

Such  a  story could easily be dismissed as the rankest  sort  of
sci-fi nonsense, and in its previous incarnations it has been  so
dismissed  by  UFO believers and debunkers  alike.  When  Charles
Berlitz  and William L. Moore's "The Roswell Incident"  made  the
first  tentative  steps  to cover this ground  in  1980,  it  was
mercilessly  derided  and  picked to  pieces  for  its  intrinsic
unbelievability and its lapses of both fact and logic. But Randle
and  Schmitt know their history, and they were determined not  to
repeat  the mistakes of the past. Randle is a  former  helicopter
pilot and Air Force intelligence officer; Schmitt is Director  of
Special Investigations for the Center for UFO Studies, one of the
oldest  and  most  respectable  of  today's  UFO   organizations.
Together, over the course of almost three years, they interviewed
more  than  200 witnesses, reviewed hundreds  of  documents,  and
conducted the first scientific site visit by private citizens  to
the  crash site itself. The result is a mountain of  proof  which
will  delight  the true believer, astound  the  open-minded,  and
hopefully give the debunkers a real run for their money.

Inevitably, much of the book is concerned with sometimes confused
tales  of  unearthly  materials  and alien  bodies.  But  in  our
estimation  this  is  not  the  most  important  and   convincing
evidence; much more telling is the downright strange behavior  of
the government itself, both then and now. Witnesses can easily be
mistaken  about esoteric technical issues outside their  everyday
experience; it's much harder to misinterpret being threatened  by
uniformed  men  carrying guns. The U.S. military has  buried  the
Roswell event under all the trappings of a full-blown  government
coverup:  the  intimidation  of  witnesses,  the  destruction  or
suppression  of evidence, and a systematic campaign of  lies  and
disinformation  to prevent the truth from becoming widely  known.
The  indisputable  fact  of  the  coverup  itself  is  enough  to
establish that Roswell is truly the tip of the "Cosmic Watergate"
iceberg.

The authors have anticipated the inevitable assault by  debunkers
who  "know"  that  the  Roswell event  cannot  have  happened  as
described.  They  consider  whether  the  Roswell  crash  can  be
explained  as  nothing more than a downed weather balloon,  or  a
stray  V-2 rocket nose cone, or a late-breaking Japanese  balloon
bomb--and  then  firmly  reject them all. In the  end,  only  one
explanation  remains:  that in 1947 the  New  Mexico  countryside
witnessed the crash of a vehicle that was "not of this world".

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
------------------------------
"UFO Crash at Roswell" is not without its flaws. It was published
as  a paperback original rather than in hardcover,  which  almost
inevitably means it will appear in few libraries and will  garner
few serious reviews. The cover art (against the authors'  wishes)
is  a  classic  "daylight  disk"  photo  which  has  been  widely
denounced  as  a  hoax and has nothing whatever to  do  with  the
Roswell crash. The text is replete with typographical errors  and
grammatical slips that even casual editing should have caught and
corrected.  There are mangled and  self-contradictory  quotations
(some of which can be repaired by reference to repetitions of the
same  material  elsewhere in the book), and there  are  "backward
glances"  to  facts that have not yet been discussed.  But  these
represent a failure by the publisher to take the book  seriously,
rather  than  a  failure by the authors to  write  a  book  worth
reading.

Perhaps more disconcerting is the authors' decision to cover  the
same  ground  four times from different perspectives: once  in  a
brief historical overview, once in a "just the facts" account  of
the  event  itself, once in a blow-by-blow description  of  their
investigation,  and finally once more in a day-by-day time  line.
This  occasionally  gives the reader an annoying sense  of  "deja
vu",  as  well as making it difficult to know which part  of  the
book to search through for any particular detail.

On the positive side, the authors have taken a very  professional
and  forthright  approach  to their work.  The  contributions  of
previous  researchers  are  acknowleged  (and,  where  necessary,
gently  corrected);  shortcomings  in  the  evidence  are  freely
admitted; witnesses are named, and sources are documented.  There
are detailed lists of interviewees and participants, a  glossary,
a  bibliography, extensive footnotes, and an index--all of  which
will greatly assist anyone who wishes to verify their information
or  to  build  on  their  efforts.  One  senses  no  "proprietary
interests"  at  work here, which is a welcome relief in  a  field
where  information  is often jealously  guarded  and  cooperation
among researchers is all too rare.

Where  Do We Go From Here?
------------------------
"UFO  Crash  at Roswell" does not mark the  end  of  crashed-disk
research;   indeed,  it  is  only  the  beginning.   A   moment's
consideration yields any number of avenues for further  research,
some of which Randle and Schmitt are no doubt already pursuing:

(1)  The material relating to the second and third  crash  sites,
the discovery of the alien bodies, and their final disposition at
the  hands  of the military is still sketchy and full  of  holes;
further  research  is definitely needed here, both to  find  more
witnesses and to establish precisely what happened and how it  is
related to the primary site.

(2) Roswell is not the only rumored UFO crash; Randle and Schmitt
list  a  number  of  them in an  appendix.  These  other  alleged
incidents  need  to be investigated with the same  vigor  as  the
Roswell crash, and conclusively verified or disproved.

(3) The role of Kirtland Air Force Base, not only in the  Roswell
recovery and its coverup but in other landmark UFO events,  needs
to  be thoroughly investigated and documented. Kirtland crops  up
over and over again in Randle and Schmitt's story--as a source of
orders  and  machinations outside the normal  military  chain  of
command,  as a transshipment point for material destined for  the
labs at Los Alamos, as the place where secret scientific  reports
on the crash were filed, and as the possible source of a military
mapping  expedition near the crash site years  afterwards.  Given
the  prominence of Kirtland in the infamous Bennewitz affair  and
other  disinformation  operations which are known  to  have  been
carried  out  by  personnel of the Air Force  Office  of  Special
Investigations, it seems highly significant that Kirtland appears
so early and so prominently in the Roswell case.

(4)  As far as we know now, Roswell was the first recovery  of  a
crashed  UFO;  but  there  is reason to  believe  that  the  U.S.
government  had, to say the least, already given the matter  some
thought.  The  speed  with which the military  responded  to  the
initial  report,  the forethought shown by the  arrangements  for
transporting  the wreckage, and the thoroughness with  which  the
witnesses  were hushed up and the evidence  eliminated,  indicate
that  the  Roswell  coverup  was not an  ad-hoc  response  to  an
unexpected  event  but rather the outworking  of  a  pre-arranged
plan.  It remains to be seen whether this plan was formulated  as
the  result of prior experience in crashed-saucer  retrievals  or
was merely a contingency plan provoked by earlier encounters with
"foo  fighters",  "ghost rockets", and "green fireballs"  in  the
postwar years.

(5)  The revelation by General Arthur Exon of the existence of  a
UFO control group outside official channels once again raises the
spectre  of  MJ-12.  Exon referred to the group  as  "the  Unholy
Thirteen"  for  lack of a better name, but of course  this  could
easily mean nothing more than the twelve principals of MJ-12 plus
the  President  himself, to whom the  control  group  undoubtedly
reported.  While the controversy surrounding the  MJ-12  briefing
paper  should not be allowed to sully the Roswell  event  itself,
the  semi-official acknowledgment that such a group once  existed
(and  presumably still exists) should add new fuel to  the  MJ-12
fire.

(6)  There  is a crying need to re-evaluate  postwar  history  in
light  of  the  now-established fact of  the  Roswell  crash  and
retrieval. If the U.S. government successfully recovered an alien
spacecraft,  alien  technology,  and alien corpses  in  1947,  it
should have had a profound impact on high-tech research  (several
witnesses  described a material similar to modern fiber  optics),
on  foreign policy, and on the aerospace industry and  the  space
program--not  to mention its effect on the government's  attitude
toward  the  UFO problem itself. Just as the  revelation  of  the
ultra-secret  Enigma machine and the allies' successful  cracking
of  Axis  codes  has  required  a  complete  rethinking  of   the
historiography of World War II, so the Roswell event necessitates
a  reinvestigation of almost everything that has happened in  the
last 44 years.

(7)  Finally,  a host of questions remain  unanswered  about  the
relationship  between the Roswell crash and the "other  half"  of
the   UFO   equation:  abductions,   occult   phenomena,   cattle
mutilations, and all the rest. Roswell *looks* like the crash  of
an  extraterrestrial  spacecraft; but that could be  because  the
event has been shaped to look that way, either by the government,
by the researchers, or by the forces behind the event itself.  It
would  be  a grave error to conclude at this point  that  Roswell
establishes the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis as the only  solution
to  the  UFO mystery. That something  extraordinary  happened  at
Roswell  is  astonishingly clear. Its  ultimate  explanation  and
significance are yet to be determined.

Conclusion
---------
If  you have any interest in UFOs, go out and get a copy of  this
book.  Better yet, get two copies--one for yourself, and  one  to
loan out to your friends. You'll be glad you did.

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PARANET FILE NAME: ROSREV.TXT

