1&33dshu - nicap...when i set up the roswell email list, which included all of the big names. my...

Nuclear Connection Project

NCP Paper NCP-18

Roswell 200 Miles Up - The Boys Upstairs

Fran Ridge

051710, updated 040115

New Mexico is the home of the atomic bomb at Los Alamos. The Trinity Site is not far from Socorro, where on July16, 1945, it was reported that an object from the sky crashed to the ground at around the very time the first atomicbomb was scheduled to go off at 4:00 a.m. MDT. The Trinity device was a plutonium fueled bomb. The plutoniumthat was in the device came from the Hanford Atomic Plant at Hanford, Washington. One clear day in the middle ofthe month radar detected an object that was in a holding pattern directly above the plant. The object was describedby F6F pilots as the size of three aircraft carriers side by side. The object had disappeared going straight-up. UFOswere observing our nuclear activities. But two years later, in the summer of 1947, something much more profoundthan surveillance and possible interference with an atomic test, occurred that shook up the military so bad thatmajor policy changes were put into play. What is important is that there is no doubt what the military thought wasgoing on, and they had good reason to believe it. And the evidence indicates they were not wrong.

A number of times in our history we have been witness to things that have brought fear into our heartsand created great conflicts, even wars. One that comes to mind for many people is the Cuban MissileCrisis of October 1962. American U-2 flights photographed Russian missiles being readied on Cubansoil, just 90 miles from the coast of the United States. It was a very scary time and we could have goneinto a nuclear war situation very easily.

A more recent example of how things escalate from general surveillance and discovery was thesituation in Iraq. We had a military presence in the region, which included aircraft carriers andwarships in the Gulf and photographic missions with the U-2R, plus more sophisticated satelliteimagery. But in this case we were surprised when the invasion of Kuwait began on August 2, 1990.The initial conflict to expel Iraqi troops from Kuwait began with an aerial bombardment on 17 January1991. This was followed by a ground assault on 23 February 1991.

All one has to do is look at UFO history, from before the great World Wars, even much earlier, to seethat we have been observed by "someone" for a long time. This would be comparable to a randomstudy to a more systematic presence, and eventually, a worldwide presence using large carriers, scoutships, and unmanned probes, all of which have been seen and reported throughout the years.

It is my opinion that something serious was going on in the summer of 1947, something that triggeredone of the most intense UFO waves in history. A number of us in the Nuclear Connection Project thinkthat it was a multitude of events that had gone on for several years and seemed to come to a head. Wewere engaged in a potentially cataclysmic nuclear arms race.

I had two sons involved in the Gulf War, and during the 1990's I had a lot of things on my mind. Mywork with the UFO subject had been disrupted as I wondered if we were going to make it through thisordeal, either as a family or a nation or a world. My UFO interest had been fueled by the usual Roswellresearcher's findings, but I had not been in contact with many of them directly. That came much laterwhen I set up the Roswell email list, which included all of the big names. My contacts at that timeincluded Pat Packard, Kevin Randle, Robert Durant & Mark Rodeghier, which was years before Ibegan work on the NICAP site and the Nuclear Connection Project.

The July 1947 UFO Sighting peak

Somewhere after the Iraqi War had broken out I had a phone conversation with CUFOS MarkRodeghier. My concern then was, that from the standpoint of research around Roswell and the UFOWave of 1947, I was convinced that the two events were not a coincidence. The fact that the two weekwave of over a two thousand sightings ended with the "explanation" of the Roswell event as a downedweather balloon was no surprise, at least to me. In my opinion the reporting stopped because of the badpublicity the flying discs had gotten when General Ramey & the weather balloon were shown coast tocoast in the newspapers on July 8th. Just what happened after that is harder to determine becausewitnesses probably kept their reports to themselves. But the fact was/is that the wave began out of theblue, and this was something new in the skies for most people. "Flying discs" were being reported inbroad daylight all over the United States. Equally important was that the wave amplitude spiked rightafter the crash at Roswell as if the downed UFO had triggered some kind of frenzied activity.

For a comprehensive list of sightings for 1947, visit NICAP's 1947 UFO Chronology at:

http://www.nicap.org/waves/1947fullrep.htm

Signifying the importance of the wave and its effect on the military, I remembered what Project BlueBook's Capt. Edward Ruppelt had said:

By the end of July the UFO security lid was down tight. The few members of the press who didinquire about what the Air Force was doing got the same treatment that you would get today ifyou inquired about the number of thermonuclear weapons stock-piled in the U.S. atomic arsenal. .. (At ATIC there was) confusion almost to the point of panic. ("Report on Unidentified FlyingObjects", p.39)

Mark & I had been discussing all this. I was commenting on how it was as if we had created athreatening problem that summer, which in turn caused stepped up surveillance that resulted in thewave, and that the intensity, unseen in many years or sighting waves since, may have contributed to thecrash of one of the objects or the collision of two of them over New Mexico. In my mind it was as ifthe crash had stirred up a "hornet's nest" of much more intense activity, or a form of retaliation insome way. I also suggested to Mark that "they", whoever they were, surely must have been looking forthe craft or its unfortunate occupants.

In Iraq, or any other war or conflict, when an aircraft goes down, we try our best to get to it and rescuethe pilots and navigators. If the aircraft is carrying anything secret or a new technology, we either usedemolition charges to destroy it or possibly try to recover it or specific parts so that the technologydoesn't get into the wrong hands. With Roswell, we surmised that if "someone" had crashed a flyingsaucer, they must have tried to recover the pilots or the craft or parts thereof. At least that was thethinking back when Mark & I were going over that type of possible scenario. The conventionalwisdom now suggests that, given the craft at Roswell was not ours, and was manned, "they" didn'tseem to care about bodies or debris. They simply left everything behind. So, what were "they" lookingfor when they flew over the debris field in the summer and fall of 1947?

M/Sgt. Lewis S. "Bill" RickettTom Carey:

When M/Sgt. Lewis S. "Bill" Rickett was escorting meteor expert Dr. Lincoln LaPaz around thestate of New Mexico in the fall of 1947 trying to determine the speed and trajectory of the"object" that had crashed there a few months previously, they interviewed some Corona ranchers

http://www.nicap.org/waves/1947fullrep.htm

who told them that they had seen lights traveling slowly over the crash site shortly after the crashas if they were looking for something. I can't recall if they said that they had also seen beams oflight coming from them that were traversing the desert floor. The implication is that "they" mayhave been looking for their downed comrades. We got our information about the hoveringdiscs over the crash site directly from Rickett himself in interviews conducted circa 1989, 1990,1991. .

Don Schmitt:Bill Rickett, in numerous conversations with me went into good detail about his field work withLincoln La Paz. Just as in his meteorite investigations, La Paz attempted triangulation in hisassigned Roswell work. That required them to interview as many of the ranchers and other peopleliving around the crash region. According to CIC Rickett, a number of ranchers recountedobserving bright lights projected onto the ground from above, scanning that very area. Rickettwouldn't read anything into those reports, but he stated that the witnesses were clear that this tookplace weeks after the military cleanup.

There were more than two areas where metallic debris was found, but yet another was confirmed byRickett and LaPaz. In September, while trying to determine the speed and trajectory of the unknownobject they found a possible touchdown point about 5 miles NW of the Foster Ranch with melted sandAND small pieces identical to what Rickett had handled before. And Corona ranchers had their homesindescriminately ransacked in the military's mad search for "souvenirs" from the crash. The pointbeing, that over two to three months after the crash there were pieces of debris still on the ground ornot in military custody.

But it gets even more interesting. With that in mind, why would a craft be hovering in space, 200 milesup, over the Roswell debris field a little over a month after the crash? Is there any evidence to supportthis contention? Is there evidence in the Blue Book files? And could this high-altitude craft have beenlooking for scraps that might get into the wrong hands?

In May of 2005, while doing research on the Project Blue Book files for the NICAP site, Dan Wilsonsubmitted some interesting documents he had found. Here is what we found.

Late August of 1947. The location was Holloman AFB, New Mexico. The timing and the location wasno coincidence. The radar was modified to track objects at very high altitude. They aimed the antennaalmost straight up and picked up a target at 200 miles. In 1948 the report leaked out, Project SIGN senttwo high-level investigators, but the prime witnesses disappeared.

CPS-4 antenna

The original CPS-4 was designed to be used in conjunction with the SCR-270 and SCR-271 searchsets. It required six operators. This S-band radar, operating in the 2700 to 2900 MHz range, coulddetect targets at a distance of ninety miles. This radar was modified with its 20' wide by 5' highantenna turned on its side and the range extended to 250 miles.

http://www.bluebookarchive.org/page.aspx?PageCode=MAXW-PBB3-107

Some researchers had told me that this was all a mistake and that the object was tracked sometime in1948, not in August of 1947, and that the radar actually picked up the mountain tops, and that's whatone of the prime witnesses actually said!. This would all be OK, except that Air Force documentsprove this is incorrect and later, the witness lied.

This ATIC Form 329 confirms the time frame as "Late Aug. 47", nails Holloman AFB, New Mexico,radar technicians, and a "motionless" object at "altitude (not range) 200 miles" tracked by radar.Besides that, Project Mogul abandoned use of radar after the summer of 1947, so the 200-mile highradar tracking could not have happened in 1948.

Brad Sparks:

The radar tracking was late Aug 1947 and it is in my BB UNK's Catalog. (The visual sighting ofApril 5, 1948, is different.) AMC Watson Labs Project Mogul engineer Rosmovski and communications officer Lt. H. G.Markley tracked a stationary target at 200 mile altitude using a modified CPS-4 radar aimed at70-degree elevation." (FOIA, Loren Gross, Aug-Dec 1947 SUPP p.28.)


TELETYPE MESSAGEAir Service Command Teletype Network

FROM: AMC DATE: 30 Apr 48

TO. COMMANDING OFFICERHOLLOMAN AFBALAMOGORDO, NEW MEXICOATTN:COL. PAUL F. HELMICK

MR. ZABRISKI OF THIS HQ INDICATED THAT DR. J. (?) PEOPLES OF THEWATSONLABORATORIES HAS INFORMATION THAT WOULD BE OF VITAL IMPORTANCETO THEINTELLIGENCE DEPARTMENT. CONFERENCE WITH DR. PEOPLES REQUESTEDON5 OR 6 MAY 1948. ADVISE IF CONVENIENT. INTELLIGENCE REPRESENTATIVELT. COL. JAMES C. BEAN AND MR. A.C. LOEDDING WILL TRAVEL BY MILITARYAIR.SIGNED, TECHNICAL INTELLIGENCE DIVISION


With this document it is requested that travel orders be prepared for James C. Bean, Lt. Col. and AlfredC. Loedding, Aeronautical Engineer, travel to begin on or about 3 May 1948 for approximately 2 daysto the Office of the Director of Intelligence, Air Intelligence Requirements Division (AFOIR) Hq,USAF, Washington, D.C. Purpose of travel: Discuss classified Project MT-304 , per orders of Col.Clingerman.


11 May 1948

Report of Trip to Holloman Air Force Base, 5-6 May 1948

1. The primary purpose of this trip was to interview Dr. Peoples, repre-

senting the Watson Laboratories, who was temporarily on loan to Holloman AirForce Base. Upon arrival, it was learned that Dr. Peoples had returned tothe Watson Laboratories at Red Bank, N. J. A teletype sent from Holloman AirForce Base stating that Dr. Peoples would not be available for interview didnot reach HQ, AMC in sufficient time to postpone the visit. However, it waslearned that Dr. Peoples would be at Maxwell Air Force Base, Montgomery, Ala.on or about 11 May 1948 for an indefinite period of time.

2. A civilian, Mr. Joseph Olsen, who works in the same laboratory withDr. Peoples had also seen the unidentified flying object while in the presenceof Dr. Peoples. Mr. Olsen was interviewed with the following stated results:

a. The object definitely was not a balloon. b. The object appeared round and white; was at a great altitude andmoved at a high rate of speed.

3. Mr. Olsen promised to send in a detailed report through channels, to-gether with the report of another civilian who also witnessed the phenomenon.

4. It was also learned that a Lt. Markley who works in the Radar Laboratoryat Holloman AF Base has, on several occasions in the past, witnessed on hisscope unidentified flying objects at high altitude, moving at a very highrate of speed. Lt Markley was not available for interview; however, a requestfor a detailed report of these observations was forwarded to the CommandingOfficer, Holloman Air Force Base. 5. Lt Colonel James C. Beam and Mr. Alfred C. Loedding proceeded toPhoenix, Ariz, to interview Mr. William A. Rhodes and follow up on the reportand photographs submitted by him some months ago. <snip>.

James C. BeamLt. Col. USAFProject Officer

Concurred in:Alfred C. Loedding

On May 12, 1948, Col. W.R. Clingerman, Chief of the Technical Intelligence Division at AMC wrotethe Commanding General of Holloman AFB at Alamogordo:


This memo dated 12 May 1948From AMC (Air Materiel Command)To Commanding Officer, Holloman AFB, Alamogordo, NM

1. On 5 May 1948, Lt Colonel James C. Beam and Mr. Alfred C.

Loedding, representatives of Intelligence Department, this Command,visited your headquarters for the purpose of interviewing Dr. Peoplesof the Watson Laboratories.2. It was learned that a Lt Markley has, in several instancesin the past, detected on a radar scope unidentified flying objectsmoving at an excessive rate of speed. It is desired that a reportbe submitted to this headquarters giving all available informationon these reported sightings. Future observations of this type shouldbe reported to this headquarters immediately.

By Command of Gen. McNarneysignedW. R. ClingermanChief, Tech Intelligence Div.Intelligence Department

Here Lt. Markley, while denying he saw high speed objects on radar, leaks information about the 200mile high radar track of a motionless object.


HOLLOMAN AIR FORCE BASEALAMOGORDO, NEW MEXICOOPERATIONS & PROJECTSELECTRONICS & ATMOSPHERICS DIVISION

S-T-A-T-E-M-E-N-T

1. Reference is made to Par 2, basic communication. Apparently amisunderstanding exists in that I did not personally see unidentified ob-jects moving at an excessive rate of speed on a radar scope. Rather,Mr. P. Rosmovski, of Watson Laboratories, very probably saw unidentifiedobjects. However, Mr. Rosmovski informed me that the objects seen werenot moving at an excessive speed, but rather were motionless at an altitudesomewhere in the vicinity of 200 miles. When these were seen on the Radarscope of the CPS-4 (Modified) the angle of elevation of the Radar antennawas approximately 70 degrees from horizontal.

2. During the latter part of August, 1947, this organization was carry-ing on several test runs with a modified SCR-270 at this base. I had re-leased a corner reflector and two balloons and was watching them in theirflight as they drifted to the southeast from this base. While watching theballoons through a pair of ten power binoculars, a white object, appearingto be round, came into my field of vision. I followed the object as far aspossible but lost it within seconds after picking it up. The object wastraveling at an unprecedented rate of speed and appeared to be severalthousand feet over the top of the Sacramento mountain range, traveling inhorizontal flight south to north.

3. There have been other times when manning the M-2 Optical tracker,that I have seen round or flat-round objects that were unexplainable.

4. In view of Par 1, this endorsement, it is suggested that Mr. P.Rosmovski of the Radar Laboratory, AMC Watson Laboratories, Red Bank NewJersey be contacted.

Robert G. Markley1st Lt. USAFCommunications Officer

Over 5 years ago, Brad Sparks, who was aware of the incident and had posted the basics of it in hisComprehensive Catalog of Project Blue Book Unknowns, was engaged in a lengthy email thread withus and had commented:

The CPS-4 height-finding radar apparently had only a 4-degree wide beam not 10 degrees (asMartin Shough had suggested in the 23 page discussion). However it was pointed almost straightup (70 degs elevation) and picking up "targets" at about 200 miles altitude. There is "nothing"that should be "out there" to reflect a near-perpendicular incidence radar beam in 1947. There areno "mountains" 200 miles high or 1,000,000 feet tall.

Brad was more interested in the fact that the ground range of a 70-deg beam with a 200-mile hightarget is 200 miles/tan 70 = 73 miles. In otherwords the target would have been hovering in space 200miles high over a spot about 73 miles away from Alamogordo Army Air Field (later Holloman AFB).

Considering that 200 miles is a rounded number, it could easily be 210 or even 220 miles and then theground range could be 76-80 miles or more. "You see, the Foster Ranch debris field (and any fairlyclose-by anomalous site) was about the same distance, about 85 miles away from Alamogordo."


This document is hard to read and was not transcribed. It is a supplement to a trip report that is twopages long (PBB3-845-846).

Personnel interviewed were Dr. Peoples, Mr. Chance, Mr. Olsen, and Mr. Johnson of the GeophysicsLaboratory Section and Mr. Rosmovski of the Radar Laboratory. This document pertains to UFOsobserved on April 5, 1948 and is only relevant to our August 1947 report in the sense UFOs werebeing observed by these trained observers in New Mexico.


6. All agreed on the following: the object was very high, moved fasterthan any known aircraft, possessed a rounded, indistinct form, and disappearedsuddenly rather than fading away in the distance. It was under observation ½ minutesor slightly less. It was definitely not a balloon and apparently not manned judging fromthe violent maneuvers which were performed at a high rate of speed.<snip> 8. Mr. Rosmovski of the Radar Laboratory was interviewed on 4 June1948. His statements do not check very closely with those contained in Lt. Markley'sreport to this office. Mr. Rosmovski stated that Lt. Markley was one of two observerson a modified CPS-4 Optical Tracking Device. The observations Lt. Markley reportedseeing on this equipment could not be confirmed at any time by the other tracker. Mr.Rosmovski passed off the "ghost pip" he personally observed on the radar equipment asmerely the illusion of the equipment. He explained that this "ghost" did not move, andwas possibly the echo from a distant mountain on a side wave of the radar equipment. He also spoke of "crazing" which is the effect on radar by the white gypsum sand in thearea directly west of the Air Base. He also mentioned another form of "ghost" called"Angels" which have been detected and which are believed to be caused by changes inair density. Such phenomena have been observed and reported from Camp Edwards.

Brad Sparks:But let me preface this by saying that I am not necessarily arguing that there was a real object at200 miles height above the earth, in outer space, at all. I do not "believe in ETH" anyway, but Ido recognize this case however weak it is, is nonetheless unique and unprecedented potentiallyDIRECT evidence of extraterrestrial UFO's (contrary to my anti-ETH position) since there wereno manmade satellites or anything else at 200 miles up in space in 1947 and nothing even todaythat can stand still motionless at 200 miles.

What Brad was arguing is that certain AF operations, like Project MOGUL which did the tracking ofthe 200-mile high stationary object, believed that there was an object at 200 miles up and went to someeffort to cover it up by outright lying about it. And they were caught red-handed and had to admit it"and by extraordinary evasion of official inquiries." Two fairly high-level AMC people (Lt Col JamesC. Beam and Alfred Loedding, the "brains" behind Project SIGN) made special arrangements inadvance to fly out from Ohio to NM to interview Dr Peoples about the incident and then only whenthey arrive they find out Dr Peoples has conveniently left and flown off to New Jersey, evidently toevade interview, and Lt Markley is strangely unavailable.

As Brad commented back then, not only is this incredibly rude behavior but it is potentially reportableoffenses by personnel all under AMC's Commanding General McNarney, in effect defiance of GenMcNarney's orders making Project SIGN a Priority 1-A project, excusable only if superseded byhigher classification orders. MOGUL personnel had to leak the information in the first place, from oneAMC unit (Project MOGUL) to another AMC unit (Project SIGN), since it was never officiallyreported as it should have been reported. This in itself is very strange since this was all internal toAMC, Air Materiel Command (which is why Brad thought it was the only reason it leaked in the firstplace). One would think that AMC units would be more cooperative amongst themselves than to lieand hide personnel from interview. One gets the impression there was a behind-the-scenes struggle byAMC personnel on whether to tell the SIGN investigators the truth or how much of it to let out,because SIGN investigators had stumbled onto a highly classified operation. "This blatant evasion of

an official investigation is virtually unprecedented in UFO history. If one wanted to find telltale signsof a coverup this is exactly the kind of thing one should look for, all hidden in classified files nevermeant to go public."

As per the radar tracking, we do not have an azimuth, so we do not know the exact direction, butregardless, the altitude would allow surveillance of the relevent sites and there is no currently knownreason why the object might not have been in an even more provocative position.

To summarize:We had a massive sighting wave in 1947, with well over a thousand reports of unidentified flyingobjects that descended on a completely unaware public, with half of the incidents taking place in broaddaylight. During the climbing six week wave, an unknown craft crashed near Roswell or collided withanother disc during the intense surveillance that spiked on July 5th. Even without the Roswell incidentthe Air Force knew something serious was going on and by Ruppelt's own admission, by the end ofJuly "the UFO security lid was down tight." Sometime within the next month, someone in the military,working outside of AMC's guidelines, modified a CPS-4 and aimed it almost straight up and picked upa hovering target 200 miles up. When other serious incidents over New Mexico, involving informationtermed "of vital importance to the intelligence department", came to AMC's attention in 1948, theincident with the CPS-4 leaked out. AMC wired ahead and received travel orders to meet with theradar people. Those radar people not only disappeared, but since they were not AWOL, those in chargeof the action were also part of the cover-up.

This UFO report isn't just another radar case. It involves an object tracked by military radar in one ofthe "hottest" nuclear areas in the world and a little over a month after the Roswell crash. This objectwas doing something we can't even do today, hover motionless in space at 200 miles up, and right overNew Mexico in 1947. At this vantage point any part of New Mexico could be scrutiized. Two yearsbefore, two atomic weapons had been rushed into a World War and had killed over 200,000 civilians.By now New Mexico and other strategic parts of the United States were buzzing with activity to makesure nuclear weapons were available for use on aircraft, missiles, and submarines, even mines. By Juneof 1947 the nuclear arms race was on, and "somebody" watching couldn't help but get the idea that, ifwe build something, we always seem to use it.

1&33dshu - nicap...when i set up the roswell email list, which included all of the big names. my...

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