By Myth & Mystery | Guest Post
In July 1997, the US Air Force held a press conference to stop rumours that they recovered a “flying saucer” and extraterrestrial bodies during the incident. But it did not go well. Instead of satisfactory answers, Col. John Haynes brought more confusion and curiosity to the case. The Air Force took 50 years just to say, “I don’t know what they saw in 1947.”
Roswell UFO Incident Brief
On July 8, 1947, Colonel Jesse Marcel stated in a press release that “the US Air Force has recovered a flying disk with alien bodies had crashed in New Mexico.” Unfortunately, a new press release was issued later, which certainly was to change the facts of the first one, and now the crashed UFO turned into a crashed weather balloon.
The updated weather balloon theory did not add any significant details that would explain why or how a highly decorated war officer (Col. Marcel), who participated in delivering the first nuclear weapons used in war, mistook a weather balloon for a crashed disk with alien bodies.
Dozens of US military officers claimed that the crash involved extraterrestrial craft with aliens, while sceptics tried hard to deny it. Besides, the US government covered the whole incident calling it a military program (Project Mogul).
Last Roswell Press Conference
The 1997 press conference (Below you can find a full 24-minute video) was to justify that it was the invasion of the crash-test dummies, mannequins designed to test high-altitude parachutes. The Air force Colonel John Haynes based his statements on a detailed 231-page report named “The Roswell Report,” which included photographs, film footage, original records and witness statements of the event at Roswell on the night of July 4, 1947.
“This will be the final word on the Roswell incident. Whether you accept that as the explanation is up to you, but we do,” said Colonel John Haynes at a press conference.
Haynes explained that the alien bodies were mannequins, sent aloft with sensitive auditory equipment to detect nuclear detonations in Russia. Dummies were sent aloft for scientific research. But on carefully listening to Hayne’s words, he does not say aliens’ bodies were mannequins. He said “bodies observed in New Mexico desert were probably test-dummies” as an explanation for aliens.
Now it raises a question as to how a highly decorated war officer, lieutenant colonel Jesse Marcel, mistook mannequins for aliens.
The report of alien autopsies was discussed in the press conference. Haynes explained multiple Air Force accidents resulted in the loss of human lives. So, does it mean from this report that not only cannot Air Force officers recognize dummies, but medical staff have never seen human cadavers before? Did this 1997 report help close the Roswell case, or just raise more suspicion?
The first question posed to Haynes by a journalist was “Why did it take so long to come to this conclusion, after multiple other conclusions?” With a pause, Haynes stated: “The first report…” and then in essence: “It took a while for our historians to find any photo evidence of what I am now telling you.” Isn’t it ridiculous that the scientist did not take any photo evidence to document how the test dummies held up under stress in a crash?
The second question, essentially calling Haynes out, “You’re talking about 1950s test dummies, that happened nearly a decade after the Roswell incident…” Again, Haynes says, “Well… That’s the problem with time compression. I don’t know what they saw in 1947. But I am quite sure it was “probably” Project Mogul.”
The third question was “Why don’t ‘conspiracy theorists’ believe you?” Before the 2017 New York Times report that UFOs were only in conspiracies, only some people knew the real truth. But it is true that the US government has been covering up the UFO truth for decades. Still, there is no proper explanation for Roswell crashes.
Anyway, Haynes replied to this question by saying that he does not have a clue why people believe what they believe. Isn’t that kind of the job of the military in general, to speculate what and why people believe things so you can predict reactions and formulate proactive responses to deescalate potential volatile situations?
As per Haynes, there were “lots” of dummies dropped, around 2,500 hundred balloons in New Mexico alone, then why is there no photographic evidence of that? Haynes, to a conspiracy theorist: “But they must look at the evidence,” and then holds up the New Roswell Testament, “Here’s this book.”
According to him, the book had everything that people wanted to know about Roswell. He clearly meant to disregard all of the hard work done on The Project Blue Book, Project Sign, Project Grudge, and The Robertson’s Panel. But then 30 years later, NY Times exposed the Pentagon’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program which single-handedly dismissed Col. Hayne’s statement given in the 1997 Roswell press conference.
The following question: “Does the US Airforce regret not declassifying crash test dummies and weather balloons?” Haynes: “Great question. Nothing in this book was ever classified.” Then why did it take the USAF 50 years to come down to this conclusion? He further said, “In the first reports, everything was classified in the ’70s,” by this time, Hayne created confusion among the reporters. It was NEVER classified, or it was classified in the 70s, which means he did not answer the question.
According to Haynes, test dummies were not used until 1953. But, if you “overlay” the material from his book and extrapolate backward in time, you may have a better explanation than what was initially reported “it’s aliens,” followed by “it’s not aliens,” which means… Why was there a need for the press conference again?
Haynes was very proud of this report. According to him, it answered lots of questions. But he could not even answer the questions being put to him, and several times said: “Well, the answer escapes me, but it is in the book.”
The last question to Haynes was essentially, “How do you know you’re not being used for misinformation and you don’t know everything?” Haynes replied: “It’s my job to know everything.” Then how does the Navy seems to know more than the Air Force about UFOs? Why is the Air Force still silent on this subject?
On March 13, 1997, thousands of witnesses in Phoenix, including the governor of Arizona, John Fife Symington III, witnessed a UFO. The event lasted from 7:30 pm and 10:30 pm MST, made no noise, and was the size of a football field, based on witness testimony suggesting it occluded large swaths of stars from the sky. The military said it happened due to the “flares” they dropped.
The most interesting thing about the Phoenix Lights was it took place in March. It did not make national headlines, the cover of The USA Today, until June. Interestingly, the final statement on Roswell just happened to fall in June.
The 1997 Roswell Press conference ended with the word “Probably.” However, there was no “probably” in the first new release about Roswell. There was no “probably” in the Nimitz TicTac incident report. The UAP, the new term for UFOs, went from 80,000 feet to sea level in less than one second, without a single sonic boom. Interestingly, David Fravor and his Wingman, did not say “probably.” It was definitely non-human.
Highly trained and reputable military and law enforcement officers, government officials, journalists, and scientists have been telling “it’s aliens.” There are more credible people saying it’s aliens, for example, Haim Eshed and Chris Mellon. The Phoenix Lights should have been issued in the year of disclosure in 1997, but instead, the US Air Force doubled down on “it was a weather balloon.”
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