AARO learning lessons: no hard questions please
25 years after a press debacle on the Roswell Case, the USA’s current UFO bureau is being more careful with journalists
In 1947, something happened at Roswell, New Mexico. How do we know this? The US Air Force informed the press that they had recovered a “flying disk”, which made it to the headlines of the Roswell Daily Record on July 8. The next day, the same US Air Force issued a contradictory statement: it was actually a weather balloon. Major Jesse Marcel was asked to pose in front of photographers with supposed debris from said balloon, before saying, 30 years later, that the photo op had been staged, and that the debris shown to the press was not what he had retrieved and brought to his superiors. Suspicion of disinformation on the Roswell case by the Air Force has been strong ever since.
In 1997, the US Air Force published “The Roswell Report: case closed”, the result of an investigation by the Air Force itself, with one conclusion: there is “no evidence whatsoever of flying saucers, space aliens, or sinister government cover ups.”
Nevertheless, the report didn’t exactly fly with everyone. Colonel John Haynes, sent to the frontlines - meaning in front of the press to answer pressing questions - had a hard time addressing inconsistencies in the report, which were raised by the journalists, and ended up stuttering trying to answer questions.
Still shaping the narrative
25 years after Col. Haynes went through this ordeal, the Pentagon seems to have learned its lesson. Not that they changed their tune on what happened at Roswell - AARO’s Report on the Historical Record of the US government’s role in UAP simply repeats the conclusions reached by the Air Force report. But contrary to what happened in 1997, there was no filmed presentation of the UAP agency’s publication in front of the press. Instead, AARO opted for an invite-only private engagement, 48 hours before the release. Handpicked journalists from the New York Times among others, were given the report in advance, allowing them to be the first to publish on the topic, and notably preventing UAP-interested news network NewsNation from participating - and potentially asking pressing questions. A choice that didn’t go unnoticed, journalist Matt Ford even calling it “propaganda”, and Liberation Times adding “true investigative journalism in old media is dead.”
Indeed, far from Congress members’ call for transparency on the issue, such a move is more reminiscent of the CIA’s use of journalists to control narratives, as called out in 1997 by the Senate Intelligence Committee.
75 years after the US Air Force’s change of heart, turning a flying disk into weather balloon overnight, the Pentagon is still working hard on its communication strategy, consistent with one line when it comes to UAP: there is nothing non human with them, directly contradicting whistleblowers and Congressmen. Controlling output from private entities like Garry Nolan’s SOL foundation, Avi Loeb’s Gallileo Project or Ryan Graves’ Americans For Safe Aerospace should prove trickier.
Excerpts of the 1997 press conference at the Pentagon on “Roswell: case closed”
Col. Haynes : We're confident once the report is out and digested by the public that this will be the final word on the Roswell incident. The conclusion of the first report left no doubt that what was recovered near Roswell, New Mexico in July 1947 was debris from a formerly top-secret Army Air Forces research project codenamed Mogul. Today we're releasing the final report to address questions about alleged bodies associated with the Roswell story. If you have your books, turn to page 3. We'll have a lesson. Bodies observed in the New Mexico desert were probably test dummies that were carried aloft by US Air Force high-altitude balloons for scientific research. Claims of bodies at the Roswell Army Airfield Hospital were most likely a combination of two separate incidents. One was a 1956 KC-97 aircraft accident in which 11 Air Force members lost their lives or a 1959 manned balloon mishap in which two Air Force pilots were injured. (...)
Journalist 1 : Colonel, how do you square the UFO enthusiasts saying that they're talking about 1947 when you're talking about dummies used in the 50s, almost a decade later?
Col. Haynes : Well, I'm afraid that's a problem that we have with time compression. I don't know what they saw in 47, but I'm quite sure it probably was Project Mogul. But I think if you find that people talk about things over a period of time, they begin to lose exactly when the date was. And there were lots of dummies dropped. There were about 2,500 balloons launched during this 30-year period in New Mexico alone.
Journalist 2 : Let me just clear up two things that you sort of brushed over quickly. Number one was the time frame that people are going to say - but this is 10 years! How could they possibly make a mistake on 10 years? And number two, you said it was never classified. And yet, why didn't people at the time say, well, my goodness, we were having dummy tests. This explains the answer.
Col. Haynes : Well, the dummy test, actually, er, you need to get the book. Actually, you need to look in there. If you look in there, you'll find there are a couple of things in which the dummy tests get lots of media attention, er… And, er… I should have it tabbed and I should be able to find it, but quite frankly, I'm standing here and my knees are shaking.
Voice : Twenty-six, sir.
Col. Haynes : Page 26.
Journalist : Yes, explain those two things.
Col. Haynes : Okay, there's a picture for that. But let me tell you that I don't know why they can't associate that time period. I'm sorry. I just don't have any information on that. All I know is what the Air Force did and that if you overlay much of their claims and you look at the Air Force scientific research, you can see it's obvious that what we're talking about at Roswell - and I don't mean Roswell in 47, because that was Project Mogul. That was unmanned. I want to make that very clear. And that's the first report. But over that period of time, dummies were dropped all around there. And I think it's logical to… To assume that the people there saw Air Force ambulances come out, they saw gurneys come out, they saw body bags come out because the dummies were put into body bags to protect them. They saw people in pit helmets, they saw people in shorts out there brushing the bushes looking for the remnants of the balloons. And when you put all that stuff together and spin it, you find that it fits perfectly with many of the occurrences in Roswell during that era.
Journalist 3 : But they also said that these figures were much smaller statues than full-sized adult figures. How do you reconcile that?
Col. Haynes : I don't reconcile that. I just have no idea why they say that.
Journalist 1 : Can you help us with when the dummies were first used? What year?
Col. Haynes : 1953.
Journalist 4 : And how many, you say, numbers?
Col. Haynes : The actual balloon launchings were about 2,500. The Actual number of dummies dropped were, it's actually in the book and it's very specific, but the number just escapes me. It's more than three or four hundred. Yes, sir?
Journalist 5 : Why did they make it, the design, to resemble a flying saucer? It makes it very suspicious.
Col. Haynes : The flying saucer? (...) What you’re looking at is payloads. What they were doing is they wanted to recover these payloads and so they were testing the parachutes. And I totally agree. If I saw something like that, I'm riding along out there and I'm wandering out in the desert and I see this funny-looking dish out there, I might want to poke around at it. But quite frankly, this is probably what it was.
Journalist 2 : You keep saying, using the word probably, and you say ‘case closed’. Those two don't jive. How do you reconcile that?
Col. Haynes : Okay, let me say, from the Air Force perspective, that's exactly what it was. And I don't mean to be rude about that. I want you to understand we are very, very proud of this report. We think, in our office, that this answers lots of questions and it answers them logically and with integrity. And one other thing I might add is if you want to do your own research, in the back is a complete technical report, bibliography, and also there is a terrific, terrific set of end notes. And I recommend that if you're interested in this, that you take these and you do your own research and come to your own conclusions.
Journalist 2 : Colonel, let me just go back one more time that you say this is ‘case closed’ and people should now believe it. But with the major hole, though, er, you're saying that they're wrong about the date and the date being six years' time that they're wrong about, how can you - what explanation can you give them other than just saying, well, we just think they're just mistaken by six years?
Col. Haynes : Ma'am, I have no other explanation. I'm sorry. I just, I have no other explanation. I'm looking at the facts as we have studied them. And I have no other explanation for that but what I've already given.
Journalist 2 : But how would that make it case closed?
Col. Haynes : Because we've reviewed all the relevant information and we have finished this and we're not going to revisit it. And, in fact, it's all unclassified. You have an opportunity on your own behalf. I recommend you get the report, start digging in, get on the web, see what you can find out.
Journalist 6 : Is it possible that the Air Force could have missed something in its investigation? In other words, is it possible that there are unidentified flying objects, that there are extraterrestrial visits and the Air Force simply has not found it or been able to detect it?
Col. Haynes : We have researched the Air Force projects and the Air Force information for these year groups. We have nothing else to say about them. We don't believe there's anything else. I don't think, I have no way of even vaguely believing there's anything else. I promised a gentleman right back here a question, sir, in the... Yes, sir.
Journalist 7 : Well, about 50 years ago today, an Air Force pilot spied a big array of saucers supposedly flying over Washington state. That may have started all this. Does the Air Force think it will never again investigate these reports, as Project Blue Book was the end and that's it?
Col. Haynes : You know, I don't ever want to speak for the Air Force about never again, but it's my opinion that they will not. One more question.
Journalist 8 : Do you believe in UFOs?
Col. Haynes : Firstly, no, sir.
Journalist 2 : Why not?
Col. Hayes : Ma'am, I have no reason to believe that they're real.
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