The Erosion of Echo's UFO Corner Stone

Earlier this week, James Carlson contacted me on the Realityuncovered Forum, about his interactions with Robert Hastings on the Marine Corps Times Blog.  I have been following the back and forth between James and Robert for the past few weeks and as usual found it to be amusing and predictable.  Given all of that, James had provided an excerpt from Hastings that I found interesting as pertaining to Walter Figel.  Per Hastings to James:

Robert Hastings:  "Figel, after accusing Salas of making up the UFO-related events at Oscar, as you mention above, never acknowledged that he had been wrong when he said that Salas’ statements were fiction, never called Col. Meiwald (whose number I provided to him) to verify the authenticity of Meiwald’s tape recorded comments in support of Salas—which contradicted his own uninformed opinions entirely—and frankly, never had the decency to apologize to Salas, even after Col. Meiwald supported Salas without reservation.
Figel’s tendency to talk out of both sides of his mouth is one of the reasons he was not initially invited to participate in my press conference—where seven USAF veterans *with backbone* stuck to their stories and talked in detail about multiple UFO encounters at ICBM sites, including the Echo and Oscar shutdowns.
With this caliber of witness (seven of them, actually) at the press conference, why would I include Figel, who told me on tape that he didn’t want to get caught up in the debate between you and me and fan the controversy further? That kind of wishy-washy attitude didn’t make the cut. (all bold typed by TH)

I've always contended that Figel's absence at the 2010 press conference was suspect and possibly due to a riff with Hastings.  Figel's story was only that he had heard of a UFO sighting by a maintenance team on one of Echo's Launch Facilities (LF).  Walter Figel saw nothing himself.

Robert Hastings has "pasted" together a UFO story based solely on Figel's receipt of a phone call (SIN line).   Who and when was the phone call issued is still a mystery.  The 341st Strategic Missile Wing's Unit History makes no mentioning of any maintenance teams in the flight area during the shutdown.  The Unit History goes into depth concerning the the launch crew (Carlson and Figel) as far as debriefings by wing evaluation personnel, yet nothing is mentioned about the debriefing of any missile maintenance teams or site security teams.  Were there any teams actually on site?  Or, perhaps Figel received the call from one of the responding maintenance teams, such as H. Barlow's, thus setting off a possible prank morphing Echo into missile folklore?

Hastings' ire directed towards Figel's repudiation of Salas' Oscar shutdown claim further garners interest.  In my past blog posts (still an on-going series) analyzing the "Oscar UFO Mystery", Meiwald has proven not to be the "solid" witness who provides confirmation of Salas' claims.  Figel relegates Oscar to pure myth and fabrication, I'll have a future post looking at this angle...damnation by one's peers.

Can Robert Hastings be trusted to provide honest information to both "believer" and skeptic?  A while back I had asked Robert the following on Frank Warren's web site:

TH:  Why was Walter Figel missing at the press conference, since he is Robert's star witness? Perhaps Robert would be willing to explain this oddity as this has been a mystery to me and others.

RH:  Figel chose not to attend the event, despite a written invitation from me to do so. (TH's emphasis) Following his detailed, tape-recorded admissions to me--in 2008, 2009, and 2010--about a UFO presence during the Echo Flight shutdown incident, he explicitly told me, after the last conversation, that he didn't want to get further involved in my disclosure efforts, which is his prerogative. Hence no affidavit from him and no participation in the press conference.

Nevertheless, every time I posted our taped conversations online, Figel was immediately provided with the link to them. He never objected to my doing so or disputed anything I posted, written or taped, relating to his remarks to me. His silence these days--toward me and James Carlson--is indicative of his desire to say no more.

Jesus, like he needs to! Listen to the tapes, Tim. He has already provided the facts and stands by what he says.

BTW, only you and James Carlson call Figel my "star witness". Actually, most of the other individuals who participated in the press conference had more important things to say than Figel. The same goes for dozens of other veterans--among the nearly 130 I have interviewed since 1973--who have gone on-the-record about the UFO-Nukes Connection.

That said, Figel is indeed the most important source relating to the Echo Flight shutdown, given that he was there, and took the call, when the guard reported the UFO hovering over one of the missiles, just as he was there during the debriefing when he and Eric Carlson were told by their squadron commander not to discuss the incident. Which, by the way, is the reason debunkers like you and James Carlson are desperately attempting to discredit Figel's candid statements to me.

Robert

I've asked this before in a past blog post:  Which candid statements is Hastings referring to?  Those that Figel gave to Hastings?...or, those that Figel gave to Salas twelve years prior?  Two remarkable different versions of events, but what the hell, Robert has "something" on tape regardless.

So, Hastings never did invite Figel to the press conference and the reasons are quite clear...Figel's repudiation of Salas' claims and his reluctance to go along with the Echo charade despite his views that the UFO report was said in jest.  But Hastings got what he wanted from Figel and appears to have thrown him under the ufological bus.  And he apparently was dishonest towards me as well...go figure.

Addendum:

James Carlson has always stated that he had numerous emails from Walter Figel stating that Hastings UFO claims were bogus.  James has posted these on realityuncovered.net for all to see.  Some of these emails directly challenge Salas' claims of UFO involvement at Oscar Flight.  Hastings is supposedly in receipt of one or more of Figel's emails as he had cc'ed Hastings. 

To say that James Carlson has never produced the emails (as Hastings contends) is pure B.S.  In one of the Figel emails, James is told that he (Figel) never received an invitation to the 2010 Press Conference though he was only ten miles away from Washington D.C. at the time.

In the past, I've accused Hastings of using his sources for his own personal agenda regardless of the facts.  Hastings treatment of Col. Walter Figel provides a prime example of his methodologies.  Hastings personal attacks on James Carlson provides an in-depth look into his own psyche.