wembley 8: > "They only came later as the mythos grew".
Tales of the recovery of small alien bodies in the region came as early as the summer of 49. Not many years, only two years later. They were complete with all of the lore, saucer retrieval, military threats, cover-up, indestructible material etc... To be as complete at this date, that suggests they had been already in fruition for a time. Interestingly, they came before the alien theory was commonplace among the public.
Hanslune:
Your review may apply to the alien craft story. Surely, this story is full of holes. It's odd that their fellow aliens didn't come to retrieve them before the US military (but some would answer that the crash was staged, so that it matters not)
But you're making too general assumptions by using some of the old-fashioned arguments, "someone should have blown the cover", "goverments can't keep secrets" etc... Governments surely can keep secrets. But relating to this story, it's not necessary. Have a look at the Roswell arena, it has its share of people who have supposedly blown the cover. Too many, in fact. Yes, it is curious that Marcel et al were never threatened or silenced. But, the circumstances of the (re)emergence of the case in the 70s are curious as a whole. And curious too, if they were only tall tellers, that they were never sanctionned. Other elements are problematic, whatever hypothesis you choose to follow: like the non-sanctionning of BLANCHARD.
The Roswell side put apart, can we say that no 'ultra-top-secret groups' existed? Well, the possibility during the 50s is certainly not a fanciful idea. We know that reports were studied, but not by Blue Book. There are mentions of unregistered organizations. The only thing we are reasonnably sure is that files from 1947 prove that the Air Force had not retrieved any saucer (unless a UFO group existed prior to that, not impossible but unlikely).
And the Roswell legend is not a simple matter. It's not a matter of alien craft vs delusion/hoax. Disinformation, anti-soviet manipulations, attempts at discredit played an important part. More may be revealed in the future. For example, take the Gebauer/Newton/Scully affair. For many years, some ufologists accepted that it was part of a disnformation ploy. Somewhat blindly, without proof or evidence. They were criticized for that. Until evidence surfaced recently that, maybe, it was a disinformation ploy after all.
As the thread relates to declassification of documents, is it possible to fool us on such a scale, to eradicate massive files? The answer is unequivocally: yes. We know that many ones are missing, destroyed or removed (to where?), often following illegal procedures. And it was not restricted to the Roswell/Walker base (likely not to protect a Mogul recovery - and they included the communications). Other bases were affected (although not as indiscriminately). The Advisory Commitee on Human Radiation Experiments stated that whole collections of files, from the 40s and the 50s, were lost or destroyed. We know too of reports who refer to experimentations otherwise unknown. The problem is not if it is possible to hide secret retrievals (not necessarily of alien craft), experimentations or organizations 60 years later. It surely is, and probably happened. And when the GAO report noted the illegal disappearence of four year of files, few seemed bothered. If those people hoped that the public's indifference would prevail, that was a good move. In fact, betting on it rarely led to failure.
:lol: