Just when I thought that I was taking a breather along comes James Carlson posting on Realityuncovered.net alerting to a Wikipedia article listing known UFO hoaxes. Sure enough, there's Echo and Oscar Flight's story. I suspect James had a good hand in flavoring the article, at least regarding the two Malmstrom 1967 claims.
Can both incidents be labeled as hoaxes? If we take into account of Col Walter Figel statements then it is entirely possible. Remember, Figel always viewed the report as a joke. Who actually had perpetrated the story remains unknown to me. I recall James telling me, during a past phone conversation, that he felt strongly that possibly Raymond Fowler was responsible for spreading the rumor portion of the claim. That may, or may not be, but that still does not answer the question as to who made the call to Figel. I still have not discounted the possibility that Figel may have made the story up himself. I still postulate that the evidence shows that is was highly possible, if not probable, that no maintenance teams were actually present on the day in question making the phone call on the SIN line impossible...I still tend to lean that way.
The entire story of Oscar reeks with the probability of a hoax regardless of Robert Salas' or Fred Meiwald's statements. Both individuals tell a different story with each omitting the other one's version. I'll not rehash the Oscar incident since the reader can simply archive my numerous posts. It is possible that the hoax was targeted towards Salas since all of the top side phone calls were passed on to him...not Meiwald until later in the story. If Oscar's top side personnel had wished to prank Salas, then there had to be someone in on it down in the LCC...Fred Meiwald. Perhaps that is why Meiwald wrote to Salas some years later that Salas' version of events was not quite how Meiwald had remembered it. Yet despite my speculations, I have no proof of the matter, so it remains purely speculation.
One wonders if Robert Hastings will reference the Wiki entries in future editions of his book...doubtful.
Back to my break!
