The Roswell Slides: The seduction of the will to believe.

One would think that the mystery was solved concerning the Roswell Slides.  Definitive proof was offered that the slides depicted the mummified remains of a two year old child in the settings of a Colorado museum in Mesa Verde.  This coming about by deblurring the placard associated with the mummy.  But apparently this is not how professional UFO researchers go about their business.  There appears to be another aspect to their research...rebranding the product.

For the past few weeks, all of those responsible for this sordid affair have hitched their respective horses to a new hypothesis:  "The mummy is not that of a child, but that of a mummified ET and that it is possible that disinformation agents had intentionally produced the language on the placard as a means of misdirection."

This is a rather convoluted approach, but highlights the powerful aspects of the "will to believe."  The US government falsified the placard writings to hide the fact that the mummy was actually that of an alien, yet allowed this historical find to go on display for the general public to view.  I assume this could be construed as "hiding in plain sight."  

According to Jamie Maussan, et al, the bizarre appearance of the mummy continues to baffle his medical "experts."  The bizarre physical appearance apparently has led these so-called experts to conclude that the mummy can't possibly be human.  I might remind the reader that all of this "expert" analysis is coming from a mere photograph. There is no actual body to thoroughly assess and render a real expert opinion.  Most are left with speculation at best.

If one ventures over to Kevin Randle's blog, the seductive power of the "will to believe" is currently being displayed in full force.  The comments rendered on Randle's site display magnificently the art of the circular argument and/or the vain attempts just to argue a point to death regardless of the evidence that has been offered and accepted by most sensible individuals. It is as if Occam's Razor has been defecated on and tossed aside. Yes, I'm well aware that Occam has been discarded by Ufologist and ET believers, since it's basic and primordial premise is to separate the logical from the illogical.  I assume that such thoughts are not to be considered as sacrosanct. 

Some of Randle's blog commentators have resorted to the tactic of:  "The universe is so vast and complete with billions of galaxies that we surely can not be alone and it's not out of the question that we have been visited by ET civilizations."  Despite this being totally out of context to the Roswell slide issue, no one from the RSG has argued against this assertion. This tends to be a poor attempt to deflect from the issue that the slides depict a mummified human child, yet a prime example of ET proponents presenting illogical evidence combined with poor arguments defending the illogical.

In the end, believers get the brand of ufology that they deserve.  They must overcome the suductive powers of their own cognitive biases. We, the RSG, have attempted to help in this area despite the push back from others.  The RSG has offered up how we (collective we) deciphered/deblurred the placard. This process has been shown to be repeatable resulting in the same conclusions...scientific method prevails on this point so the issue has been resolved with the exception of a few delusional souls. BTW, this was offered free of charge and without dramatic fanfare.

The truth, as painful to some as it may be, is that the image is that of a mummy of human origin, bizarre as it's appearance may be to some. I'm still awaiting to see if David Rudiak has sent his request to have the images reviewed and assessed by a forensic anthropologist that he knows...no info back from David at this time. Nothing wrong with this approach as I feel confident that any half-assed anthropologist will come to the same conclusion...mummy of human origin. 

The Resurrection of National Geographic Channel? Let us hope so.

National Geographic Channel

Stumbled across National Geographic's "American Genius" last night.  It was by pure accident and all that I could do was stammer out a "hello?"

Last night's premier episode featured the rival of the Wright brothers and Glenn Curtiss.  It was informative and spot on.  We tend to forget that we went from crude power flight in 1903 to launching satellites in the late 1950s.  But what was interesting is the Wright brothers refusal to team with Curtiss early on.  Curtiss had proposed that he supply the Wright brothers with his engines.  Orville and Wilbur turned Curtiss down and had a patent approved for their design that stymied the competition and lead to a long protracted legal battle with Curtiss. Even Henry Ford attempted to come to Curtiss' rescue by supplying his legal staff to assist with the legal issues.

The irony was that long after the deaths of both Wrights and Curtiss, their respective companies would merge forming Curtiss-Wright.

This episode had value for the hour long program.  Well done with decent period props.  I personally enjoyed it as well did my wife.  Supposedly more episodes will be aired each week highlighting individual advancements in science and technology along with the rivalry from competitors. 

Could this finally be National Geographic coming to their senses and providing real informative and interesting programming?  Let's hope so.

  

Thoughts from Eusebius....something different.

Image obtained from Wikipedia

A note to readers:  I've added this post as something different as far as topic matter.  I've always been fascinated by the early Christian Church and have spent considerable time reading texts regarding the initial fathers of the Christian movement.  The likes of Paul, Origen, Tertullian, et al, continues to intrigue.  What one takes from the blog post below concerning UFOs is somewhat at the discretion of the reader, however I see elements of the necessity of the employment of critical and rational thinking hinted at by the post's subject matter.  I readily profess that I'm not an expert in the area of antiquity, but am drawn to it none the less...Tim Hebert

A few years back I had procured The History of the Church, written by the early Christian scholar, Eusebius.  This work was translated by G. A. Williamson (1965) with an introduction by Andrew Louth, 1988.  Eusebius' great work opened the door as to pointing me in the right direction as far as the works of the first generation of the Apostolic Fathers.

During Eusebius' scholarly works, he was Bishop of Caesarea. ca 313 AD.  The city of Jerusalem was a mere shell of it's former self as a result of the decimation of the Jewish population and culture by the Roman legions under Titus and Vespasian following the two Jewish Wars (66 AD, 135 AD). Even in name Jerusalem had changed to Aelia Capitolina. Thus was the changing landscape of politics and geography during Eusebius' times.

Andrew Louth, in his introduction, stated that though Eusebius was a great scholar, he was lacking in producing original Christian thought. This may be true to some extent, but Louth seems to glance over the fact that for all practical purposes, Eusebius was issued what tantamount to a gag order after being denounced at the council of Antioch in 325 for his support of Arius and Arianism.  So from then on it seems that Eusebius had to walk and talk a fine line in order to avoid excommunication from the Church.  To this day, Eusebius is largely forgotten, or ignored, by the Catholic Church.  Such is the price that he paid going against the grain of church politics.

The following is an excerpt from The History of the Church which I believe provides great insight into the past thinking of our religious scholars and a hint at some of Eusebius' original thoughts:

Why He was not preached long ago, as He is now, to all men an to every, what follows will make clear.  It was impossible for the teaching of Christ in all its wisdom and virtue to be grasped by the human race in its former state.  At the very beginning, after the original life of blessedness, the first man disregarded the divine command and fell into this mortal, transitory state, receiving this earth with its curse in place of the former heavenly delights.

His descendants, who peopled all our world, showed themselves much worse, apart from one or two, plunging into a beastly existence and a life not worth living.  City and state, arts and sciences meant nothing to them; laws and statutes, morality and philosophy were not even names...nature's gift of reason and germs of thought and culture in the human soul were destroyed by the immensity of their deliberate wickedness.

Eusebius

I've bold printed the main idea that is of importance, yet kept the full paragraphs as to keep it in the context of Eusebius' thoughts.  True the above passage pertains to Christian thought as Eusebius provides a rationalization for the coming of Christ at a specific time period in our history, but what is of interest is his reasoning that certain aspects of man's intellectual development had to be achieved to set the stage for the coming of Christ.

Let's look at Eusebius' words in a secular light.  Man's cognitive state had to evolve beyond the old hunter-gatherer days and his nomadic lifestyle to embrace new ways of thinking. Eusebius in two paragraphs of his writings encapsulates the intellectual impact of the Egyptian, Greek, Roman and Persian civilizations.  Man's ability to develop the concepts of art, science and philosophy and cultivate the fruits of these intellectual endeavors was paramount for the continuing and the fine tuning of rational thought.  It is from the nurturing of these disciplines that a sense of governance, law, morality and ethics came into being albeit not perfect, yet constantly evolving as such concepts are never static. 

As they say in the mummy business, "That's a wrap." Last thoughts.

I wanted to post my last thoughts on the Kodak slides and then future post will get back to normal, but should something sensational crop up I'll post it.  But for me this should do it after a few closing thoughts.

As most know, I'm a member of the Roswell Slides Group and I was in the process of writing up a detailed comparative analysis study of the slide image vs. that of an actual mummy of a child.  With the deciphering of the placard, my work really became unnecessary as the efforts by others in the group nailed the image as that of a mummy specimen.  Rather than rendering an opinion, I was treated to a fascinated night as I observed in real time how it all came about.

As I write, I'm being informed by others in the group that Jaime Maussan is still discounting our efforts.  He is currently under the opinion that the placard's writing/text may be an attempt to hide the fact that what is on display is still a deceased humanoid-like ET alien mascarading as a child's mummy. Such is the will to believe or the will to cover one's ass. I'll leave the reader to make the distinctions.

Images provided by Gilles Fernandez

Since Maussan and others still hold out on an alien outcome, I'll share briefly my thoughts on my initial and subsequent assessments. With my experience in anatomy and physiology, there can be no question that the image is that of a mummified child.  The clearer photo, not the deceptive dark blue lighted image, provides the evidence.  If we omit the placard for the moment, strict observation shows what appears to be the remains of a child or adolescent of undetermined age lying in the supine position on a glass shelf.  The effects of desiccation, the drying and shrinkage of tissue, is evident as what remains of tissue forms a contour around the head/skull and the exposed long bones both upper and lower extremities.  The appearance of an over enlarged head/skull may be correct or a visual distortion based on the positioning of the head and the angle of the photo shot and the surrounding lighting.

A lot was made that the remains had no teeth.  True, no dental landmarks can be seen, but that does not mean that teeth were present or not.  Again, this all depended on the age of the child at death.  The same was said of the remains showing only four fingers on the right hand.  Based on the position of the right arm/wrist/hand the thumb was out of view, yet adjacent to the right index finger, or the thumb could have been curled up under the palm of the hand or the index finger.  

The clincher in the anatomy structure of the image was the rib cage structures.  Humans have 10 sets of ribs on either side that are prominent and being attached to the vertebral column and sternum  What can be seen on the groups comparison mummy is 9 ribs with the cervical ribs out of view. The image in the Kodak slide deceptively shows only 5 sets of ribs. One should note that each of the 5 ribs are wide vs. that of our comparison mummy.  What we are actually seeing is the lack of fine demarcation that is separating the ribs.  This can be attributed to attached tissues and desiccated muscle, ie, the intercostal  muscles.  Thus we actually have the normal set of 10 ribs. What is absent is the sternum.  This is consistent with the preparation of the body for mummification as the visceral organs are removed during the process.  You will note that both images show the results of this process.

The above should give pause to Maussan and others that still harbor hope that the image depicts something else other than human.  Add the deciphered text on the placard and the identification is complete.

As far as to what should befall those that fostered these images on the general public, I suggest that we leave it to the rank and file of ufology.  They are in a better position to exact whatever cost that should be placed on the reputations of those that conjured up this story.

I here that there is a movement to shame the promoters of the May 5th event into refunding the money of those that attended the event.  To this, I say caveat emptor.  As I stated a few months ago:

Personally, I hope that Maussan fills all 10K of the seats. I want everyone to sit through hours worth of preliminary BS complete with all of the trappings Then when its time for the main attraction, I want to hear, in Spanish, English, broken English, the collective utterance..."what the hell?"

Sometimes people need to be fleeced and at the end of the day know that they've been fleeced, taken for a ride, no more than a collection of marks in a Roswell three card monty game. 

That is the only way that they will learn or understand that however long this dog and pony show last, it's time wasted, time that can never be reclaimed.

Besides if the Roswell group wants to metaphorically cut their own throats, who are we to stand in their way. We must politely allow them to oblige themselves.

I have to say that prophecy has been fulfilled.  Let's hope that people are much wiser in the future.

Kodak "Alien Slides" Sunk...It's Over. The Fat Alien Sings

I received the news a couple of hours ago as Curt Collins had published in his Blue Blurry Lines blog that the placard associated with the Kodak "alien" on display had been deciphered.

http://www.blueblurrylines.com/2015/05/the-placard-of-roswell-slides-final.html

It's as it was always thought to be:  a mummy.  It's not a dead alien involved in the Roswell crash, nor the alleged Aztec, NM crash, nor a secret display in a secret government/military lab, nor the prop for a disinformation operation. It's a mummy.

From Curt Collins' blog:

MUMMIFIED BODY OF TWO YEAR OLD BOY

At the time of burial the body was clothed in a xxx-xxx cotton

shirt. Burial wrappings consisted of these small cotton blankets.

Loaned by the MR. Xxxxxx, San Francisco, California

The "research" team of Adam Dew, Tom Carey and Don Schmitt supposedly spent a year or so researching what the Kodak images represented.  This group then turned the slides over to one Jamie Maussan, who in turn had "experts" in the fields of anthropology, forensic pathology, etc. and all supposedly came the the conclusion that the images depicted something that was not human...not of this world.

The poster child for "I want to believe", Tony Bragalia, gave the smug impression that the images shown in the Kodak slides would change every fiber of our belief system.  The slides would prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that dead alien bodies were indeed recovered at Roswell and skeptics and debunkers would be eating crow after the "Great Reveal of May 5th."

Up to six thousand people paid their hard earned money to attend the "Great Kodak Extravaganza" at Mexico City's National Auditorium.  A further 3000 or so paid to view the event on-line in a pay for view fashion.  These folks were told that they themselves would be witnesses to a changing paradigm...."BeWitness", be part of an event that would change history as we knew it.

It was dog shit!....pure unadulterated dog shit...

What took Dew, Carey and Schmitt well over a year to research and come up with a dead Roswellian ET alien, only took a few individuals 48 hours to come up with the proof that the image in the slides was definitively that of a mummified body of a young child...a human child.  So much for the field of ufology.

But it may be even worse, if such is possible.  What if all of the principles involved in this dog and pony show knew that what was being peddled was false?  The original unveiling of the slides were cast in a dark blue lighting [not the original lighting of the photos themselves] with the purpose to visually distort the images as to be seen as something bizarre and freakish...not of this world.

The placard shown in all of the photos was either heavily blurred or blotted out by white light, yet one photo shot had a fairly good quality of the writing on the placard that was not shown at the Mexico City venue.  An oversight by Dew, Carey, Schmitt and Maussan?  Or was it deliberate with the intent to obfuscate the possibility that they knew all along what was written on the placard?  

At what point in time was it determined by the group that what they had in their hands was the image of a mummy.  It was plain for all to see.  A small human mummified body lying on an open glass shelf surrounded by other artifacts.  The obvious setting for a museum.  The open chest cavity showing the results of the ritualistic removal of the visceral organs during the mummification process.  The state of desiccation of the body as a whole.  Perhaps by the time Carey, Schmitt et al made the true discovery it was way to late in the game to change direction and admit that they had made an honest mistake.  It was either incompetence as researchers or an outright attempt to scam the general public with the hopes of a big pay day. 

I had proposed this on Rich Reynold's blog:  whenever Bragalia, Carey, Dew and Schmitt are mentioned, there should be an astrik (*) by their names depicting their combined epic failure.  Ufology's version of a "scarlet" letter with an automatic admittance into Ufology's Hall of Shame

The Kodak Slides: Did They Crash and Burn?

I had to work yesterday so I missed out on getting into the live feed.  I had hoped to take a peek, but earning an honest living took precedence.  Despite this, my friend, Gilles Fernandez was kind enough to post the actual photos as they were presented last night. Gilles ponied up the cash (exchange rate?) to watch this marathon.

Judging from the response of other blogs and sites, most being pro-ET, it appears that the Kodak slides have been met with a near collective "what the hell?"  I can only image those poor unfortunate souls squirming uncomfortably in their seats in the National Auditorium.  I further get the impression that those on the stage may have been squirming also.  If not, I suspect they will as the next few days unfold.

ufocon.blogspot.com 

kevinrandle.blogspot.com

http://www.theufochronicles.com/

http://badufos.blogspot.com/

I only had access to the actual photos and 3-D imaging.  I have heard none of the assessments rendered by the so-called experts.  That should be soon coming in transcripts, or one would hope.

As a member of the Roswell Slides Group, I was able to give a preliminary assessment on the physical nature of the being in question both from an anatomical and physiological aspect.  Basically, I described what I saw and rendered a tempered yet objective assessment.  I also compared the Kodak specimen to that of what the group had as a photo of a child's mummy.

As I complete a more exact assessment and given permission by the group to do so, I will post it on this blog. 

Will Bragalia, Dew, Carey, Schmitt and Maussan wind up in ufology's witness protection program?

Tim Printy provides a prelude to the Kodak slides May 5th gala...

Tim Printy has made his latest issue of SUNlite available for viewing.  Tim has devoted most of this issue with indepth analysis and discussion pertaining to the Roswell "Alien" slides which is due to be presented to the general public [those that pay] this coming May 5th.

Tim discusses all aspects of what is known about the slides up to this point in time.  Tim opens up different areas of alternative interpretations which anyone interested in this story must read.  Its a great piece of work and arguably may be his best work.

If you want to "Be Witness" then knock yourself out, but read SUNlite first and "Be Educated."

Bookmark Tim's site:

http://www.astronomyufo.com/UFO/SUNlite7_3.pdf