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48 HOURS that SHOOK the UFO- LOGICAL world
The RSRG may not have shaken the entire UFOlogical world but it did make an impact. During the May 5th presentation we were told that a long list of experts tried and failed to resolve the wording on the placard at the feet of the body in the slide. It was also implied that everyone would have access to the high resolution images of the body after May 5th. However, on May 6th and 7th, no high resolution images of the placard were released. One fairly high resolution image was presented on Coast to Coast but the placard was essentially whited out. The same could be say for the slide shown at the presentation in Mexico City. Even Dew’s presentation of images were nothing more than squiggles on a screen. These were not useful in deblurring the placard. At least
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one member of the RSRG, by the screen name of Nab Lator, was very interested in looking at the placard and taking a crack at it. Fortunately, the group had been able to contact somebody, who had access to a high quality scan of the slides. By May 8th, the scan was given to the group for evaluation. What transpired over the next two days is an interesting account and I felt it was worth sharing with the world. All times listed are Eastern Daylight Time (EDT).
May 8th
0157 AM EDT - The placard image was posted on the RSRG facebook page.
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0358 AM - Nab Lator releases his first results and says he can read “made of two”.
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0711 AM - Tim Printy arrives and sees the first attempt, “OOOOOO.....that is interesting. Boy, that first word is probably the key word. Might it be “Mummy” as in Mummy made of two.....Maybe I am seeing Faces in the clouds.”
8:05 AM - Nab Lator reads it as “Of two year old boy”
8:06 AM - Isaac koi reads it as “mummified body of two year old boy”.
8:07 AM - Curt Collins says he sees it that way but only after being prompted.
8:20 AM - Tim Printy remarks, “I don’t want this to be a Ramey memo kind of thing. Mr. Magoo can see what he wants to see. That being
said, it is compelling.” He wonders if the other slide might help.
8:22 AM - Nab points out the other slide, which was on the coast to coast, appears to be too bright/blurry. 9:29 AM - Nab reveals the deblur that clearly says “Mummified body of two year old boy.”
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9:30 AM - Tim Printy responds, “Are you kidding me????? That is no Ramey memo”.
9:43 AM - Ricky Poole “F’ing amazing work guys!”
9:46 AM - Isaac Koi: “I have to ask as well: Are you kidding Nab Lator?? If not, well, bugger me with a broomstick - as we say here in the UK.” 10:00 AM - Nab Lator: “Not kidding. There’s an “Edit blur” button. I cleaned the clutter a bit in the blur model et voilà”
11:28 AM - Tim Printy asked permission to share the image with Ted Molczan, Peter Brookesmith, and Robert Sheaffer with the re- quest that they keep it confidential until we revealed the information. He desired to get them to read the placard without prompt- ing and see the same thing the group was seeing.
11:48 AM - Lance Moody arrives and states: “You guys see that Right? “Mummified Body of Two Year Old Boy”
11:53 AM - Lance Moody remarks, “Sorry guys, I may be out of the loop. Is this a real deblurring of the placard or are you guys joking
around?”
11:57 AM - Nab Lator: “No we are NOT joking.”
12:02 PM - Lance Moody: “Photoshop filter is shit--don’t get anything useful.”
12:29 PM - Curt Collins: “What now, get an independent party to retrace Nab’s steps without being prompted/coached on what to look for? Someone with no knowledge of the slides, if possible.”
12:32 PM - Chris Rutkowski: “So I would agree that the first line likely is: MUMMIFIED BODY OF TWO YEAR OLD BOY”
12:55 PM - Tim Printy mentioned the words of William Hyzer regarding the Ed Walter photographs, “The power to alter images is a cause of great concern among forensic image examiners and by those who depend upon their images to convey impartial information regarding a scene or object. Elements within an image can be fabricated, enhanced, distorted, shifted, cloned, erased and/or transferred to another image with a precision that virtually defies detection. Those who doubt the creative potential of digital image processing should see the film Terminator II.” He was concerned about this not being an accurate reproduction of what the placard really says. Tim added that he was getting pretty good results with the program but not as good as Nab Lator.
1:16 PM - Nab Lator: “I was lucky with my first try at editing the blur model. It’s hard to reproduce exactly and there is no way to save the blur model as far as I can see. Haven’t looked enough maybe.”
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The next two hours had people playing with the software trying to get the best image and read the smaller text.
3:02 PM - Chris Rutkowski asks the question everyone was thinking: “Good work. And - um - why didn’t the “experts” or “investigators” do this?”
3:09 PM - Nab Lator asks the question: “Should I write an e-mail to Adam Dew to show the best deconvolution so far and ask for a better scan?”
4:02 PM - Nab Lator contacts Adam Dew.
4:31 PM - Chris Rutkowski: “Just to verify... the scanned image that was deblurred is the same one that was shown at the Mexico event?
No one did a bait-and-switch?”
4:39 PM - Chris asked for the source of the image. There was a discussion about vetting the source.
4:43 PM - Chris Rutkowski was concerned this might be a plant: “So why is this version relatively clear? Are we being led deliberately
astray?”
4:50 PM - Lance asked how we were going to release this image.
5:04 PM - After much discussion, Chris Rutkowski again brought up the concern about provenance
5:10 PM - Tim Printy reports that Molczan, Brookesmith and Sheaffer all read it the same way. He also mentioned that, since Dew is aware of our findings, we should present this information in the next 24-48 hours.
5:16 PM - Nab Lator came up with the second line, “At the time of burial the body was clothed in a xxx-xxx cotton” and Lance Moody agreed.
5:18 PM - Tim Printy remarks that because Dew knew of our work, he might create some sort of scenario that explained it. 5:19 PM - Ricky Poole: “Seems pretty cut and dried short of an accusation of tampering by Dew.”
5:20 PM - Stephen Miles Lewis arrives and is ecstatic about our results.
5:21 PM - Curt Collins says that they can’t spin this away.
5:43 PM - After a discussion about being able to release the original image, Tim Printy comments that he doesn’t think we need to and the final product might inspire people to beg Dew to release a high resolution scan.
5:46 PM - Isaac Koi says it would be desirable to release the original image.
5:51 PM - Curt Collins says we need to make a video.
6:03 PM - There was concern expressed for our source. We did not want to betray them
6:17 PM - Ricky Poole: “It is a tougher sell if we can’t provide the means for others to reproduce it. We give the “noisy negativists” grounds to balk and be noisy negativists.”
7:06 PM - Lance Moody provides his best effort from the source image.
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7:37 PM - Lance Moody: “Burial wrappings consisted of these small cotton blankets”
More time spent working on getting the best possible image and attempts to read the other lines in the placard.
9:18 PM Curt Collins reports putting up the findings on his blog because the image was accidentally leaked elsewhere. 10:12 PM Dew uploads the placard image file to his web site (see the next page - time could have been 10:12 PM CDT)
May 9th
12:33 AM Paul Kimball reports that Rich Reynolds is saying that Bragalia states the image is a fake.
12:47-1:02 AM Paul Kimball expressed concern over provenance and was thinking that it might be necessary to expose the source.
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He was concerned we were being “set up” with a fake image. Tim Hebert agreed. Paul wanted us to work under higher standards than UFOlogists.
1:05 AM Tim Printy pointed out that the proponents can prove the results are fake by releasing the high resolution images. 1:11 AM Curt Collins takes responsibility for making the call to go public.
1:16 AM Tim Printy reports that Adam Dew has now put the high resolution image of the placard up for all to see.
1:23 AM Dew sends Nab Lator a message - “Your photoshop work is not that good. smile emoticon even visually its obvious” 1:26 AM Both Paul and Lance recognize that this is a breakthrough.
1:29 AM Paul uploads his blog posting about the slides.
1:37 AM Tim Printy noticed that Anthony Bragalia posted his scans.
1:45 AM Both Lance and Tim Printy have difficulty with debluring Dew’s and Bragalia’s scans.
1:50 AM Tim Printy reports that he can deblur some of the words in Bragalia’s file_text image.
2:02 AM Lance is having better results with Bragalia’s file_text image.
2:16 AM Tim Printy produces an image that shows the words “of two year old boy” from Bragalia’s file_text image.
2:35 AM Tim Printy produces a similar result with Dew’s image. This implied that the original image was correct and not a plant.
3:35 AM. Nab Lator notes that it is difficult to deblur Dew’s placard. He gets different results every time using “analyze blur”.
3:52 AM. Nab Lator states that the Dew image has much more contrast than the image we were using 24 hours ago.
5:03 AM Nab Lator states he is having problems getting a better result with the Dew image using Smart Deblur 2.2. One can read “Of two year old boy” at the top.
5:27 AM Nab Lator is telling everyone that the GIF files that are not animated make it appear that we photoshopped the placard and that we need to remove them from blogs.
8:30 AM Curt Collins is recommending we make a movie of how to deblur it. 8:33 AM Nab Lator gets a better image showing the entire first line of text.
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9:41 AM Stephen Miles lewis states he can see the top line in the Dew image without the deblur tool now that he knows what to look for.
9:50 AM Curt Collins states that Alejandro Rojas wants to know the settings for Deblur so he can replicate the results. 10:24 AM Lance Moody arrives and is informed we are trying to reproduce our results with the Dew image.
10:43 AM Lance Moody agrees with Nab Lator that the Dew scan is very contrasty
10:59 AM Tim Printy reports to Lance that he can get some of the same readings we got with the other scan but it is not consistent. (At this point, some of us did not quite understand the program and were using varying deblur models that did not quite work. We also did not realize one could save the deblur models that did work.)
11:11 AM Nab Lator states he is having problems replicating results
12:19 PM There were exchanges about misleading images on the RSRG site that gave the false impression that we had photo- shopped the result.
2:08 PM Isaac Koi reports that Dew is referring to the RSRG as a “group of internet trolls”
2:09 PM Nab Lator notices that the image on Dew’s site appears to show the words “Two year old boy” in it.
2:11 PM Tim Printy told Nab Lator that we needed to meet Curt’s request of doing a step-by-step or video.
2:15 PM Nab Lator is in contact with Jeff Ritzman who is trying to reproduce our work.
2:20 PM Isaac Koi agrees we need a step by step so others can reproduce the work.
2:21 PM Nab Lator confesses he was uncomfortable with step by step because he is getting different results every time. About that time, he changes from version 2.2 to 2.3 pro, which allows saving the deblur file.
2:34 PM Nab Lator points out that the scan we were using the day before had been cleaned up to remove scratches and dust and that Dew’s version was not.
3:09 PM Lance Moody points out that the histogram of Dew’s scan indicated that it may have been manipulated and was probably not the original scanned image.
3:21 - 3:32 PM Nab Lator explains what he is doing for all to follow. He reveals his results with the scan which reproduces most of the information.
3:32 PM Curt Collins reports the natives are getting restless since we have not responded to Dew’s claim that we photoshopped all of this.
3:41 - 3:46 PM - Tim Printy is starting to get consistent results by manually editing the blur model as instructed by Nab Lator. He posts the results from two images in a row.
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4:05 PM Jose Antonio Caravaca reports that Tony Bragalia has posted an article where he describes the group as rabid skeptics and that we were hoaxing the placard.
4:31 PM, Tim Printy posts his first video for use where he uses his own deblur model to demonstrate how to deblur the placard image provided by Dew.
5:04 PM Nab Lator finally produces a good deblur model and shows the results.
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5:10 PM, Nab Lator provides Tim Printy his deblur model and a second video is created.
5:30 PM Paul Kimball uploads the video to the RSRG site
6:03 PM Lance produces his video. It is added to the RSRG site
6:38 PM Paul Kimball reports receiving an email from Rich Reynolds reporting that Tony Bragalia is starting to change his tune and feels he was duped by Adam Dew.
8:28 PM It was noticed that Frank Warren, who was working independent of the RSRG, was reporting he has the same results as us.
8:58 PM Paul Kimball reports that Adam Dew stated on Kevin Randle’s blog: “I hope you guys are being fully honest about your work... because if you’re trying to pull a fast one... you’re going to set debunking back many many years.” This was one of the last statements made by Dew publicly for almost three weeks as he distanced himself from the debacle. Around midnight, Tony Bragalia posted an article where he accepted the RSRG’s findings. He adds that he has discovered the body was a mummified native American boy discovered in 1894 and put on display in the 1930s at the Mesa Verde museum.
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Postscript
After the revelation that the scan could be deblurred, there were many groups/individuals, who produced the same results. The RSRG web site presented many of those results as proof that we were not photoshopping anything. However, the biggest validation of our work came when we received confirmation from Smart Deblur’s designer, Vladimir Yuzhikov. On May 15th, Philip Hernandez of the RSRG reported that he finally had a response with the above image showing Yuzhikov’s deblur attempt. One wonders if Dew, or somebody else in the slide promoter camp, had contacted Mr. Yuzhikov two years earlier, would we be here to- day discussing slides showing a mummy?
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The Heroes of the Roswell Slides saga
As is often the case in history, there are those who receive the accolades for great victories and those who were behind the scenes that produced that victory. While everyone knows the great generals and admirals, nobody remembers the sailors and soldiers, who played vital roles in fighting those great battles. It was their sacrifice that were the keys to victory. The same thing happened in the case of the Roswell slides expose’.
Shortly after the May 5th event, one of our members gained access to a scan of the slide that was better than the one Richard Dolan had released on the coast to coast AM web site. This came from an unnamed source, who was possibly under the threat of legal action for what they were doing. Within hours of receiving the image, Nab Lator had begun to deblur the placard. The public reveal of this image forced Adam Dew to let everyone see the actual scan of the placard and this resulted in others deblurring the writing on their own. It is this individual, who is to be honored for exposing the Roswell slides for what they were. It is likely that, eventually, the image of the body that had the placard that could be deblurred would have surfaced but the release of the image to the RSRG sped up that process. I personally want to thank that person for sending the Roswell slides back into obscurity for whence they came.
There are other heroes worthy of mention. Many members of the RSRG were instrumental in examining the evidence but there are two individuals that deserve mention. The first is Nab Lator, whose initial efforts inspired the rest of us to help him determine what the placard stated. The second individual was not even a member of the RSRG until very recently. Shephard Johnson was the one, who chose to contact the Eisenhower library and officially demonstrate there was no Ray-Eisenhower connection that was considered a fact by the slide promoters. However, Johnson’s best work was when he took the initiative to file a Freedom of Infor- mation Act request with the National Park Service and release the documents that demonstrated the body was nothing more than a mummy.
The villains of the Roswell Slides saga
One can suggest that Don Schmitt, Tom Carey, and Anthony Bragalia are the primary villains in this UFOlogical drama. Some of their behavior during this whole event was nefarious. Accusations and insults were hurled at those who felt the slides showed a mummy or something else. People skeptical of the slides (not just skeptics/debunkers) were portrayed as people who were vin- dictive and not searching for the truth. Don Schmitt’s tirade on the March 8th episode of Contacto with Jaime Maussan was full of hate and vitriol. Bragalia chose to work behind the scenes spreading rumors, without good evidence, about people in the RSRG. Contrary to what they stated about being interested in the truth, their behavior and evaluation of the evidence appeared to be influenced mostly by their personal belief that the slides were of an alien body.
Another villain appears to be the owners of the slides. Adam Dew seems to have been answering to them. The names of these people were unknown to the world until Jaime Maussan appeared to state that somebody by the name of “Joseph Bissell” had the slides and they were not going to be in Mexico city. Because of the language barrier, Maussan appeared to mispronounce the man’s name. The RSRG identified him as Joseph Beason and his sister, who found the slides, as Catherine Cecilia Beason. Joe had ties to Adam Dew through the video industry and building web sites. It was Beason, who appeared to be controlling what was happening. He may even have been the person that put up the comments about the RSRG being “Internet UFO trolls”, who were “repeatedly spreading lies”.
Adam Dew is also a villain. Either under the orders of Beason, or through his own paranoia, he withheld the slides from serious investigation by competent individuals. He set up the “Kodachrome” website in an effort to drum up support for a film he hoped to produce. One can speculate that he viewed this as his chance to get out of the business of doing low level sports videos and get into the big world of producing real documentaries that would appear on cable networks around the world. We saw some of his amateurish efforts in the May 5th event. There was a scene where he was reenacting the discovery of the slides. What I could see on the screen did not impress me very much. The problem is, over the past few months, Adam Dew did not seem interested in the truth. His, or Beason’s, reaction to the deblurring of the slides demonstrated this. Dew, or Beason, went out of his way to denigrate the work and then ran away when it became obvious that he was wrong.
Then there is Jaime Maussan. He has always claimed to be some sort of “respected” journalist but I have yet to see any significant resume’ outside of the world of UFOlogy. He blindly accepts most UFO stories and then promotes them. Either it is because he is very dumb, very gullible, or very clever. I think it is the inability to differentiate between reality and fiction but is it possible that he knows the difference and is using UFOs for personal gain? Is it possible that he thinks that UFOs are nonsense and only does this programming for the notoriety, fame, and money? We will never know for sure but he still is a villain here because, without him, this event never would have happened.
It seems that this group was never interested in “Truth and History” when it came to the Roswell slides. It was all about fame and/or money at all costs. This makes the participants, who went out of their way to promote this disaster, villains.
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How did the Roswell slides measure up?
In my opinion, the Roswell slides saga played out almost as I predicted. SUNlite has covered the story for two years with the last two issues providing counterarguments to those presented by the promoters. I half expected to be surprised on May 5th and be- yond. Instead of being impressed, I was underwhelmed by the presentation. While many of the predictions I made about the slides did come true (there were some that did not), the biggest surprise was how easy it was to identify the body in the slides.
In SUNlite 6-5, I stated:
The reason that the slides have not been revealed is that the “research team” fears one thing above anything else. They worry that the source of these slides may actually be identified as something other than an alien body. The internet is full of sleuths with access to all sorts of information that can reveal a great deal. If somebody were to identify this “body”, it would be an incredible failure on the “team’s” part.
While it was not a case of identifying the body, the placard was finally read by our group with little effort once we became proficient at using the SmartDeblur program.
In SUNlite 7-1, I wrote:
These assurances about great UFOlogical revelations have been made before and they have never lived up to the promises. I expect the same will occur with the slides. Ten years from now, the slides will probably be mentioned in the same breath as the “alien autopsy”
This also appears to have come to pass. Many people felt swindled by the May 5th event. There were quite a few comments with the “I told you so” theme made by various individuals in UFOlogy.
In Sunlite 7-2, I predicted:
If they are successful, there will be problems for Don Schmitt, Tom Carey, and Tony Bragalia.... (they) have pinned their reputations and lives on this being the crown jewel to the Roswell story. To coin a poker term, “They are all in”. After their hand is revealed on May 5th, we will see if they have a winning hand or are bluffing.
History has shown that all the slides promoters had in their hand was garbage that would have been beaten by a pair of twos. In SUNlite 7-3, I remarked:
I envision that they will show the slides for those in the auditorium but they will not be very high resolution and may not be much better than the images we have seen on the web so far. The actual high resolution images are probably going to be safe guarded because, once they are out there, those precious items will be all over the Internet.
This was not quite what happened. After the presentation, where high resolution images were shown, only one image was given for all to see. Image 11 was somewhat overexposed and the placard could not be read. Image 9, which was the one with the best placard image, was not initially made available. When the RSRG deciphered the placard, Dew was forced to release a high resolu- tion copy of the placard. A few days later, when it became apparent the Roswell slides ship was sinking, Dew and Maussan released a full copy of slide 9.
I also stated in the same issue:
I seriously doubt that Carey, Schmitt, Bragalia, Dew, or Maussan will apologize for their actions if the body in the slide IS identified as something earthly. I suspect that, if is identified, they will either ignore the identification or find reasons to reject it.
I missed a bit on this as well. Bragalia’s apology did recognize that the it was mummified two year old but he did not apologize to the RSRG, who he had accused of hoaxing the placard reading among many other things. Don Schmitt gave an apology and then reversed it a few weeks later! In an interview with Jaime Maussan prior to the BeWitness program, Tom Carey laughed at skeptics and stated they would never apologize for being wrong. Do you think that Carey will ever apologize to the skeptics for the things that he stated about them and his failure to research this properly? The silence is deafening......
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The scientists who would not look at the slides
One of the claims made by Adam Dew, Don Schmitt, and Tom Carey was that they tried to get American scientists to look at the slides but they refused to look or comment. I have to wonder how seriously they tried. According to Adam Dew, they had con- tacted only a half-dozen anthropologists during their research.
...because most of the American anthropologists that we’ve tried and we’ve tried maybe half of a dozen that we have tried to go and show it to. Only one or two would even look and offer an opinion. And some won’t even touch it. They won’t even give us a chance to look at them... 1
We have no evidence that this is true and we don’t know who they tried to contact. Did they personally go to their offices and talk to them or did they simply send them an e-mail without the slide (We now knew that Dew did not share the slides with everybody for fear they might get out)? Getting e-mails or phone calls from strange people not in their field would probably make anybody avoid responding to them.
Don Schmitt would add that these scientists would rather lie than tell everyone the truth:
One extremely prominent anthropologist told us you will never get an American scientist who will tell you the truth about these slides... aren’t we surprised....most laboratories are government funded. That is how they keep them on a short leash and as a result we had to leave the country. Canada...Mexico...I want to assure all of you every anthropologist, every forensic expert, every pathologist told us that this was something non-human.....2
He conveniently left out the“prominent”anthropologist’s name, which makes this story hearsay and unverifiable. Based on Schmitt’s track record, we have to assume this is probably an exaggeration. It is possible that the individual stated that they would not call it “non-human” but I doubt they would say they would lie about what the body appears to be.
Tom Carey would state in a MUFON radio interview that the Anthropologists would hang up the instant the word Roswell was men- tioned.3 Remember when Carey and Schmitt stated they never called them the Roswell slides? If that were true, why would they tell scientists that the slides were associated with Roswell? Mentioning Roswell would mean that they were looking for a specific answer. Anybody interested in getting an unbiased response would simply say this came from a private collection and they would like an assessment of what type of body it might be.
The truth about what these scientists probably stated appeared in a February 10 comment by Adam Dew on the UFO Conjecture(s) blog:
What I’ve found is it is a nearly impossible task to get someone with a scientific background to look at a photo of a body with any hu- man-like characteristics and say it’s something other than human...4
This means that these scientists, who did comment, told them that the body was human and probably said that it was a mummy of some kind. The rest of the statements made by the promoters are, apparently, a myth created to make it appear that there is some sort of grand conspiracy regarding the slides.
Unable to get American scientists to call the body non-human, the slide promoters went shopping for opinions that fit the conclu- sion they had already reached. The first individual they picked was Richard Doble, who was an old classmate of Carey’s. I do not be- lieve he has a doctorate in Anthropology. If this is true, it means that he is little more than an amateur in his profession and can’t take his opinion seriously. The other experts used were from Mexico and seemed to have ties to Maussan. Of course , these individuals concluded the body was not human. However, we still have to wonder about those American Anthropologists, who commented about the body in the slide but had their opinions ignored/swept under the rug by the promoters.
Will the real anthropologists please stand up?
In order to set the record straight many people started contacted anthropologists for their opinion about the slides. The most successful in getting responses was Philip Mantle. Unlike the slide promoters, he had no problems obtaining responses from his queries and publishing them5:
Dr Daniel Antoine, Institute for Bioarchaeology - Curator of Physical Anthropology:
Based on the photograph, this appears to be the mummified remains of a very young child. The mummification process is likely to have been natural (i.e. buried in a very hot or arid environment) but it may also have been intentionally embalmed.
François Gaudard, University of Chicago:
To me it looks indeed like a mummy: the mummy of a child. The item on the other side of the mummy appears to be remnants of mummy
bandages, but it is difficult to tell for sure. However, since some parts of the mummy look a little shiny, for example, the right hand and just below the ribs, it makes me wonder whether it could be varnished or made of plastic? And also why is the text on the label not visible as if someone was trying to hide something?
Frode Storaas, University Museum of Bergen:
This seems to be a mummy, but not from old Egypt. Mummies are found many places. The photo indicates that this mummy is exhibited, or stored, somewhere and by someone who probably can tell more.
Dr. Suzanne Onstine, University of Memphis
It does appear to be human remains (and likely a child), although the photo is too blurry to tell if artificial mummification procedures were done. It is certainly possible the body was naturally mummified due to dry climate and soil. That kind of thing happened all the time in many cultures.
S.J. Wolfe, Director of the EMINA (Egyptian Mummies in North America) Project.
Okay, it is a mummy, but very hard to tell if it Egyptian, South American or European. I see no wrappings of any kind, it appears to be a child or youth. Do you have a provenance on the slide??? That may help the determination.
Dr. Ronald Leprohon, University of Toronto:
Where was this shot taken? It looks like a museum. What did the label say? Did you ask the folks there? I’m sure they’d have information on their displays. It certainly looks like a mummy but it’s pretty blurry so it’s difficult to see properly. Sorry I can’t be more helpful, and good luck in your quest.
Dr. Patricia Podzorski, University of Memphis
Based on the image you sent, it appears that what you saw is the preserved remains of a human body, or a good imitation thereof. Since no wrappings are clearly visible in the photo, I can not determine the culture (Egypt, Peru, Asia, North America, etc.) or the date/ period (ancient or recent) of origin . Given that the head is turned slightly to the side and the color, it might not be an unwrapped ancient Egyptian mummy, but I am not able to be certain based on the visual information.
Salima Ikram, American University in Cairo
I confirm that the photo is of a mummy of a child, possibly Peruvian or even Egyptian.
Denise Doxey, Curator, Ancient Egyptian, Nubian and Near Eastern Art. Museum of fine arts, Boston:
Yes, that would appear to be the mummy of a small child.
This indicates that there were anthropologists available to examine the slides and willing to comment. Most indicated that it looked like, or was, a mummy.
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Failed promises
On February 10th, Adam Dew told us that his quest for further analysis would not stop with BeWitness:
I will continue to show the slides to more pediatricians/forensic pathologists/etc. And after May 5, every forensic pathologist on Earth can take a stab at it. 6
Since May 5th, he has provided us with no new reports from scientists outside the Maussan influence. However, we do have these observations by scientists, who have examined the images. Even without knowing the contents of the placard, it appears they have come to the conclusion that it is probably a mummy of some kind.
More nails for the coffin
On May 17th, the Spanish television program, Cuarto Milenio, offered a rebuttal to the claims made by Jaime Maussan’s experts.
Granada, Spain. On that program, Professor Botella stated:
I want to start by saying that for me all this is a fable, because I do not doubt that this is a child, mummified in a natural way. It is a mum- my dehydrated by heat. [...]
In the photos there is nothing extraordinary. The report speak of many things which are not seen, nor is it true that you have a large head and the bulging forehead is logical for a child.
The body has all its ribs, has elbows, and even the color is appropriate for a mummy. The body does not exhibited signs of having been subjected to an autopsy.
(Translation by José Antonio Caravaca)7
On the website “La Nave del mysterio” (The mystery ship), another expert, Mercedes González, of the Institute for Scientific Studies in Mummies (IECIM) SPAIN, weighed in about the slides. Her opinion was:
1) It is appreciated that the subject is placed on a glass shelf, which, in turn, is supported by a bracket dark embedded in a metal rack white. If we add the reflexes that can be seen, we can say that the individual in question is inside a glass case.
2) This is a child mummified body, with all the characteristics of human beings, ergo, a humanoid.
3) It is impossible to determine whether the preservation of the body was due to natural or anthropogenic processes.
4) The size of the head seem larger than normal, but this is something common in children individuals mummified because at the de- hydrate the body, produces the consequent reduction, so the head seems, in relation to the body, of more great proportions to normal. 5) It is very difficult to specify the age at which he could die the individual, since there is no object that can be used as a scale to determine the actual length of the body and, through it, to infer the possible age of the subject .
6) In one of the slides can be seen clearly the floor of the room, and a wooden bench and in the top of the image, what appears to be another showcase. That is, we are talking about a body exhibited in a museum or similar institution.
Given the poor quality of the two slides, it is impossible to extrapolate any further evidence. The rest are but mere inference, which of them most implausible, considering that have been developed from these images.8(Translation by José Antonio Caravaca)
Once again, we have scientists more than willing to comment about the slides. The problem is, these are not the answers that the slide promoters want to hear. It appears they probably did hear these kinds of responses prior to May 5th but chose to ignore them in favor of the opinions that met their expectations. .
Desperate times call for desperate measures
Desperate for a rebuttal of the growing list of scientists, who were calling it a mummy, Jaime Maussan interviewed Tom Carey’s anthropologist friend, Richard Doble, again. The highlight of Doble’s interview was the statement, “There are scientists who will say almost anything”9. One could draw the conclusion that Doble would “say almost anything” to help out his friend or because he already has stated that it was not human and his reputation is on the line. Can we really accept his opinion as unbiased?
Maussan also decided to introduce an anesthesiologist by the name of Richard O’Connor.10 However, Maussan fails to mention that he was the “executive director” of the “Crop circles research foundation” and has a strong interest in UFOs.11 Even with this bias, he would recognize when he had made a mistake. When the FOIA documents were released showing the body, O’Connor would change his opinion:
...it seems to me like it’s drawing us towards the conclusion that this photograph does represent a Native American child.....12
Maussan continued to look for others who could proclaim the body as “non-human”. His presented a doctor by the name of Fernan- do Espinoza, whose sole area of expertise is that he is a vascular surgeon from Florida. I could find little about his level of experience other than what Maussan stated. He seems to have no knowledge about mummies or any significant accomplishments besides his current position as a vascular surgeon. I would trust his opinion in his area of expertise but not when it comes to identifying mummies.
Further efforts involved a biologist, by the name of José de la Cruz Ríos López, attempting to demonstrate that the body was too long to be a body of a two year old boy. The problem with that analysis was obvious to many outside observers. Lopez used the fist of the woman in the background to use as a ruler for measuring the body. The woman was much more distant from the camera than the body, which would mean that the body would appear much larger than it actually was. Such sloppy work was done because Lopez did not understand the principles of perspective or because Maussan demanded that he produce a measurement that fit his own preconceived conclusions.
Maussan had retreated to the position of using obscure, and possibly unqualified, individuals to perform measurements on photo- graphs and evaluate a possible mummy in order to prop up this collapsing case. It was the last refuge of a man desperately trying to keep his reputation alive.
Secrets and science
The question now is, “Why is that Philip Mantle was able to get anthropologists and other experts to comment about the slides and Dew was unable to do so?”The answer appears to be that Mantle went to these scientists with no desire for secrecy or a spe- cific desired conclusion. Meanwhile, Dew appeared to approached them wanting to hear only one answer. It may be possible that he never allowed them to look at the slides unless they agree to sign an Non-disclosure agreement (NDA). If that is the case, it is no surprise that professionals might have ignored him because they weren’t interested in this kind of secrecy. It is interesting to point out that Dew let it slip out that some of these scientists did view the slides and commented that it was human. It seems he chose to ignore these comments because Tom Carey, who has a master’s degree in anthropology from 1974, told him different and that he had a anthropologist friend, who said it was an alien body!13 One can also speculate that Carey told Dew the myth that scientists do not want to look at UFO evidence because they are afraid of their reputation being tarnished. Dew, anxious to make a splash with the production of his documentary, then repeated it to everyone as if it were true. Adam Dew’s greed and belief made him blind to the truth about the body in the slides.
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Trying to erase and rewrite history
One item that was observed by the Roswell Slides Research Group (RSRG) was that certain individuals, who had become promot- ers and chroniclers of the slides quickly began to distance themselves from their past involvement after May 9th. Rich Reynolds has always had a desire to delete blog entries that didn’t end up making him look good or resulted in commentary he did not like. In my opinion, he did a disservice to history by deleting a lot of what one of the promoters, Anthony Bragalia, had been publicly stating along with evidence that indicated what Bragalia would later say was not accurate. Fortunately, I did manage to retrieve some of this history and evidence before it vanished forever. Now we can document Bragalia’s metamorphosis from vicious slides enforcer to slide critic.
The death
On May 9th, Anthony Bragalia wrote a piece regarding the work of the RSRG in deblurring the placard. In that writing he opened with the following statement:
The public reveal of the infamous “Roswell Slides” last week has caused an internet uproar, the likes of which have never been seen before. And evidence is now accumulating that rabid slide-skeptics may have even committed photo-fraud to discredit these slides. They have voiced concerns that the being depicted is a child mummy in a museum and are apparently willing to do anything to make their point. I have deliberately waited to make any lengthy public comment on this until now...
That started a rebuttal of the deblurring, where he indicated that professionals had identified the body in the slides as not being human and that the work of the RSRG was nothing more than a hoaxed image using photoshop. He then went on to say that he was still confident that the slides showed a being that looked like it came from Roswell.
About the same time this was presented on Rich Reynolds blog, the RSRG had finished its deblur of the Dew image and conclusively proved that this was not a hoax. Within 12 hours, Bragalia had changed his mind and wrote a new piece where he admitted that it was not a Roswell alien and it was a mummified child.
The resurrection
With that article, Mr. Bragalia attempted to start his resurrection from the Roswell slides fiasco by being the first to publish the
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story about the body in the slide being a mummy found at Montezuma castle in 1894. While he mentions the RSRG as a group
of Skeptical researchers as the source for his discovery, he glossed over the fact that, less than a day before he had hurled insults and accusations at the same group of researchers. At the time, the RSRG was far too busy finalizing their work on the deblurring to be bothered with such minor details as to where the body had come from. His discovery was nothing more than a simple Google search of the words in the deblurred placard, which was replicated within hours by others. In the end, because of his article, An- thony Bragalia was given credit by some in the media for having solved the mystery.2 Mr. Bragalia still attempts to promote his find as significant.
The transfiguration
In order to absolve himself of any wrongdoing, Bragalia had to alter everyone’s perception of him from willing collaborator to trusting dupe. Bragalia then targeted Adam Dew as the prime reason for the failure of the slides. In his post May 9th statements Bragalia stated:
What people must understand is that I never saw the true-view of the slides and placard that we see today. I viewed digital reproduc- tions of the slides and its elements that were -I know now- manipulated. This was done by photo-cropping, light-blasting, color contrast changes, and by employing selective resolution. due to Dew’s techniques, I never saw the second placard on the opposite side of the body. I never saw the black furry/hairy head, I never saw the other room in the background in the second slide. This individual deliberately ob- scured the text of the placard in the slides, in one version, appearing luminescent it was so bright.
Using a photo-forensics analysis program and running the best-available version of the first slide through an image analyzer, I found that the image Dew provided Maussan was only 84% of last-saved quality. There is evidence of brightness enhancement and the application of light blur. The placard enlargements that I received over a period of a year were entirely bogus3
It is now evident that Dew ‘enhanced,’ ‘brightened,’ cropped, and manipulated color, contrast and resolution of the slides. This ‘enhance- ment’ is evident in the digital images that he made public. The skin has a more ‘organic’ patina in Dew’s version (using light blasting) as evidenced by the comparatively ‘lifeless’ skin of the Palmer excavation photo. He ‘sweetened’ and ‘tweaked’ the versions that I was made privy to, as well as those the public saw, and the photo released today by NPS proves this.4
And the placard versions that I was provided that were generated by Dew were deliberately of low resolution, had color-contrasts applied, and in many other ways were altered by him. I was dealing with a deceiver and with images that were not true images.5
Missing from all of this whining about Dew’s manipulation of the images are some important facts. Prior to May 10th, Bragalia was enthusiastic about the quality of the images he had received and evaluated. He also claimed to be one of the few people, who had access to the highest resolution images.6 Some of the comments Bragalia made regarding the quality of the images indicated that certain details were visible:
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The lower part of the face has an almost ‘insectile’ look and the upper part appears frog-like/amphibian. The chin is ‘pointed’ in the extreme, unlike any human...Though very difficult to discern, the being appears to be placed in a glass container. It does not however, resemble those display cases found in museums and we have looked at dozens of such images. It may be tubular. And the being rests on hastily-cut blanket resembling green-colored military blankets used at the time. The entire setup seems very ‘make-shift’ as if it is tempo- rary storage allowing for viewing with intended transport to another location- not at all ‘permanent.’7
Clear versions of the slides depict a being whose anatomy does not correspond to a human being.8
He also indicated that he had access to both slides.
The other slide provides greater clarity and with far more detail revealed.9
If the images were so poor and he only had limited access, why was he making such observations? Even if he had access to poor quality images, Bragalia still had a chance to point out that he was not happy with the slides he received. On May 6th, everyone had access to a high resolution image of slide #11. Many noticed the artifacts in the image and thought the body looked like a mum- my. They had no problems with the color of the skin. Between May 6 and 9th, Anthony Bragalia remained silent. On May 9th, he broke that silence in order to call the RSRG a bunch of rapid skeptics. He also felt that the slides were just fine and did not indicate a mummy was involved:
The dehydrated appearance common to all mummies is missing entirely from the slide image being. It appears that the slide being may have been embalmed, not desiccated. They are definitely not identical nor even comparable.... I have personally viewed well over 500 Google images of such un-bandaged mummies and have yet to find anything that coincides with that of the being in the slides.10
In this commentary, where he remained convinced this was not a mummy, Bragalia never mentioned having any reservations about what the released image showed compared to the ones he had in his possession. During those three days, he had every opportu- nity to publicly state that this was not an alien being and Adam Dew had misled him.
Bragalia’s post May 9th claim that the images of the placard he received were poor, do not appear to be correct. I know for a fact that at least two of the four he had posted on Rich Reynolds Blog could be deblurred enough to read the top line. The third was difficult to deblur with some of the words being partially visible. The fourth, which could not be deblurred, was the one from slide 11. It was apparently overexposed by the flash or lighting.
Anthony Bragalia can tell everyone he was duped by Adam Dew but his actions, prior to May 10th, indicate otherwise.
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Born again?
Bragalia is seeking redemption for his failures in the Roswell slides saga by trying to portray himself as a major player in solving the Roswell slide mystery. While his post May 9th minor achievements associated with the body in the slides are to be acknowl- edged, his self portrayal of what transpired before May 10th appear to be inaccurate. Mr. Bragalia is trying to paint himself as the innocent victim but the documented history indicates otherwise. He had the slides in his possession for over a year but chose to ignore the possibility of this being a mummy. Like those who were tasked to deblur the placard, Bragalia did not try hard enough to solve the mystery. He allowed his beliefs to affect his investigation of the slides. It was clear to many that Anthony Bragalia had difficulty differentiating between wild speculation and establish facts. If it were not for the work by the same “rabid skeptics” he continuously denigrated during his promotion of the Roswell slides, Bragalia would still be proclaiming that this was a dead body of a Roswell alien. He can try and rewrite his participation in all of this but Tony Bragalia left a paper trail that indicates he was not as innocent as he tries to portray.
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Matt Graeber and Bruce Duensing RIP
While I never was much of a follower of Bruce Duensing, I know that he was a respected commenter on many blogs. I don’t re- call strongly disagreeing with anything he had to say. Not that it really matters because it is always sad to see somebody you know, whether you agreed with them or not, pass away.
Matthew Graeber was in contact with me just after I started SUNlite. He was a friendly person, who was also a gifted artist. Unfor- tunately, his health was slowly deteriorating when we started exchanging pleasantries. Matt sent me many of his old articles and artwork to use as I saw fit. He was often amused by the antics of the Roswell crowd and probably would have found the recent Ros- well slides debacle fascinating. Had he been healthier, he would have created a humorous masterpiece. About a year ago, he sent me an e-mail saying he could no longer communicate because of his failing health. I had hoped that he might rebound and start chatting again but this did not happen. I am sad to see Matt’s passing and I will try to include more of his artwork in future issues to commemorate his contributions to UFOlogy.
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Quelle: SUNlite 4/2015
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