Post by Watchman on Apr 19, 2007 9:57:19 GMT -5
Expert: Deathbed Revelations Point to Roswell Coverup
By Norm Starks
Special to the Gazette
BELOIT-It was a stormy night in the New Mexico desert July 3, 1947, when something unusual happened not far from Roswell.
Did an interplanetary craft crash and set off one of the most monumental cover-ups in history?
Donald R. Schmitt is convinced it did.
Schmitt, who spoke Tuesday night at Beloit College on "The Roswell Crash: What Really Happened?" is the former co-director of the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies in Chicago, and has researched the Roswell incident since 1989.
"I was a complete skeptic on the subject," Schmitt said in an interview before his lecture on Tuesday. "I had publicly stated my doubts that the government could keep something of that magnitude a secret for that length of time."
But after interviewing hundreds of people, he's convinced that whatever happened in 1947 has been covered up by the military for 60 years. He said after talking to the witnesses who had handled debris from the crash site that he concluded "maybe we should reconsider and treat this as though it might possibly be true."
Schmitt told a packed Richardson Auditorium on Tuesday night that the government has come up with four stories about what was recovered in 1947. First, an official news release announced they had recovered a "flying disk." This was quickly refuted by Pentagon officials who said it was only a weather balloon and a bombing target. Two other explanations have been officially offered, the latest in 1997.
"I have it on good information they're now working on a fifth explanation," Schmitt said.
Only one of these explanations, Schmitt said, can be confirmed by the witnesses he's interviewed during his studies.
"The question is, which explanation are the witnesses confirming is the truth?" he said. "The government is asking us to believe the most elite Air Force unit in the country, the 509th Bomb Group based at the Roswell Army Air Field, did not know the difference between some neoprene rubber, some wooden sticks, and something truly extraordinary."
Schmitt said that on their deathbeds some witnesses finally revealed that what they saw "wasn't a balloon-it wasn't from here."
"Many of those witnesses were threatened, intimidated, paid off and made to take security oaths they would never reveal what they had seen," he said. "It's only been as they've neared the end of their lives that some of them have revealed the truth to other family members or to us. They're saying, 'It was a cover-up; the balloon was a hoax.'"
Why would the government want to cover up such an event?
"I think it was a cover-up of their ignorance," said Schmitt. "They had no idea who it was, where they were from, or what had crashed. So rather than admit their ignorance, it was easier to sweep it under the rug."
Schmitt said he wasn't trying to convince anyone or prove anything. He simply invited people to come to their own conclusions.
Copyright ©2007 Bliss Communications Inc. All rights reserved.
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By Norm Starks
Special to the Gazette
BELOIT-It was a stormy night in the New Mexico desert July 3, 1947, when something unusual happened not far from Roswell.
Did an interplanetary craft crash and set off one of the most monumental cover-ups in history?
Donald R. Schmitt is convinced it did.
Schmitt, who spoke Tuesday night at Beloit College on "The Roswell Crash: What Really Happened?" is the former co-director of the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies in Chicago, and has researched the Roswell incident since 1989.
"I was a complete skeptic on the subject," Schmitt said in an interview before his lecture on Tuesday. "I had publicly stated my doubts that the government could keep something of that magnitude a secret for that length of time."
But after interviewing hundreds of people, he's convinced that whatever happened in 1947 has been covered up by the military for 60 years. He said after talking to the witnesses who had handled debris from the crash site that he concluded "maybe we should reconsider and treat this as though it might possibly be true."
Schmitt told a packed Richardson Auditorium on Tuesday night that the government has come up with four stories about what was recovered in 1947. First, an official news release announced they had recovered a "flying disk." This was quickly refuted by Pentagon officials who said it was only a weather balloon and a bombing target. Two other explanations have been officially offered, the latest in 1997.
"I have it on good information they're now working on a fifth explanation," Schmitt said.
Only one of these explanations, Schmitt said, can be confirmed by the witnesses he's interviewed during his studies.
"The question is, which explanation are the witnesses confirming is the truth?" he said. "The government is asking us to believe the most elite Air Force unit in the country, the 509th Bomb Group based at the Roswell Army Air Field, did not know the difference between some neoprene rubber, some wooden sticks, and something truly extraordinary."
Schmitt said that on their deathbeds some witnesses finally revealed that what they saw "wasn't a balloon-it wasn't from here."
"Many of those witnesses were threatened, intimidated, paid off and made to take security oaths they would never reveal what they had seen," he said. "It's only been as they've neared the end of their lives that some of them have revealed the truth to other family members or to us. They're saying, 'It was a cover-up; the balloon was a hoax.'"
Why would the government want to cover up such an event?
"I think it was a cover-up of their ignorance," said Schmitt. "They had no idea who it was, where they were from, or what had crashed. So rather than admit their ignorance, it was easier to sweep it under the rug."
Schmitt said he wasn't trying to convince anyone or prove anything. He simply invited people to come to their own conclusions.
Copyright ©2007 Bliss Communications Inc. All rights reserved.
Print this story