Encounters: The UFO Phenomenon, Exposed!/Encounters - The UFO Phenomenon, Exposed (1995).iso/misc1/misc100.txt

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From: [e-mail] (Steven Johnson)
Subject: Evening with Donald Schmitt, "Roswell" premiere.
Date: Fri, 5 Aug 1994 14:20:40 GMT
Organization: Division of Information Technology


      An evening with Donald Schmitt, SHOWTIME Premiere of Roswell
                The Human Side to an Extraordinary Story
                                 by SVJ


On July 31, 1994, on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, a small group
of nondescript supporters gathered at the private quarters of
Donald Schmitt, co-author of the recently published book "The
Truth about the UFO Crash at Roswell."  We came in peace, to
watch the premiere showing of "Roswell," an exclusive made for
cable TV SHOWTIME docudrama concerning the alleged crash of an
extraterrestrial craft in the deserted fields of New Mexico back
in July 1947.  It would appear that the Roswell incident has
reached a legendary status in our society.  As the magical hour
approached everyone jockeyed for optimum seating in the living
room next to Mr. Schmitt's TV.  I was no different, having found
a comfy spot at the end of a couch worth defending.

It should be noted that the SHOWTIME "Roswell" movie follows the
time line of their previous book "UFO Crash at Roswell" which was
first published back in July of 1991.  Randle & Schmitt's more
recent book "The Truth about the UFO Crash at Roswell" published
earlier in 1994 has changed the chronological time line of
certain events somewhat, the result of face-to-face interviews
with additional witnesses whose testimonies, I believe, have been
collaborated by independent sources.

I suspect there were many present in Donald's living room who
over the years had done what they could to lend logistical,
intellectual, as well as emotional support to the Randle &
Schmitt team.  The dynamic duo's investigations have been all-
consuming with no sign of letting up.  There have been the
inevitable problems introduced by debunkers, hoaxers, as well as
what appears to have been deliberate attempts to mislead them
down paths that would have cost them considerable time and money
chasing after mirages.  Mr. Schmitt more than once has made the
comment that there are many in the business of UFOlogy who, if
truth be told, don't want the Roswell incident solved primarily
because a considerable amount of investment money has been tied
up in perpetuating the mystique of an unsolved mystery, or
because it would be the death of alternative pet theories.

There have also been a few odd stories Donald Schmitt has
mentioned which probably will never make into print primarily
because of their anecdotal nature.  For example, there is the
curious story concerning Kevin Randle's missing galley sheets to
their most recently co-authored book, "The Truth About the UFO
Crash at Roswell."  Randle and Schmitt live in separate states,
and thus, mailed the final corrections to their galley sheets
independently to the publisher.  They both took diligent care in
packaging and mailing the manuscripts.  Donald Schmitt's package
made it to the publisher successfully.  Unfortunately, Kevin
Randle's manuscript didn't.  A postal investigation turned up
nothing.  In the end, the post office inferred that someone had
to have entered the building and had to have "walked away" with
Randle's package.  Perhaps the revised manuscript really had been
"lost," the result of ineptitude on the part of our Post Office.
On the other hand, who might possibly be interested in getting
their hands on a manuscript that deals with the names of a new
batch of Roswell witnesses.  More specifically, who might be
interested in previewing documented accounts of government
suppression and threats directed at witnesses who were involved
in recovery operations concerning a crashed extraterrestrial
craft and recovered alien bodies.  Now, whoooo might that
possibly be!

On the lighter side, Mr. Schmitt pointed out his cameo role in
the "Roswell" movie where in a couple of brief scenes he got to
play an overworked bartender for the 509 bomber squad reunion.
Of course, anyone who reads "UFO a forum on extraordinary
theories and phenomena," Vol. 9, No. 4, 1994, already knows this
little bit of trivia!  (See page 29 for details.)  There is,
however, another brief scene worth noting!  Schmitt pointed out a
pair cadaver feet briefly seen laying on a gurney in Roswell's
morgue.  You guessed it, they belong to Mr. Randle who is still
very much alive and kicking, fortunately!  (I wonder what the
going union scale is for "dead feet.")

At the end of the presentation we did our best to show our
appreciation with a round of applause a few rousing cheers.
Afterwards, Mr. Schmitt tried answering our questions concerning
the latest developments.  He mentioned that within the past two
months they have discovered the names of two dozen additional
military personnel who claim to have been involved in the Roswell
incident.  Apparently, more witnesses are beginning to feel
confident enough to come out of seclusion because of what they
have read and/or heard about the Randle & Schmitt team.  Their
most recent book lists the names of approximately 500 individuals
who claim to have had first and second hand knowledge.
Concerning all of the listed witnesses, Schmitt and Randle have
made it a point to interview each and every individual, face to
face.

Mr. Schmitt mentioned that they have acquired the services of a
very large and well known law firm located in Washington (name
withheld by Schmitt).  The firm's function would be to legally
represent a number of key first-hand Roswell witnesses should it
be deemed necessary to call a press conference and go public in
order to challenge the speculated future possibility of
governmental denial and charges of falsehood.  Mr. Schmitt
elaborated that apparently there have been a number of military
witnesses who have wanted to go "pubic" for some time.  He
mentioned that every time word got out that these individuals
were thinking about going public they were "visited" and warned
that they would have the entire bulk of their past history
erased, disproving that they had ever existed in the military,
and thus, making it next to impossible to verify their claims.

It is hard for many of us to believe that this kind of threat
could be implemented or even be considered feasible in this
modern age of alleged "Freedom Of Information."  Never the less,
it helps to understand that citizens both believed in and
followed the orders of their government with a great deal more
respect forty five years ago as compared to what our current
eroded attitudes have become.  It is also important to realize
that most of the Roswell witnesses were geographically separated
from each other after the event had been more-or-less contained.
Mr. Schmitt implied that for the past forty years most have
remained psychologically isolated having no one to talk to, that
is, except for an occasional visit by "officials" making sure
they remained motivated to stay silent.

Donald Schmitt stressed he was happy that a key point at the
conclusion of the movie had been enacted concerning the concept
of "disinformation."  It has been theorized by many that an
official program of disinformation, as dramatically enacted by
the Chiefs of Staff, or as the Schmitt & Randle duo have called
it in their book, "The Unholy Thirteen," may have been
implemented as early as 1947.  As depicted in the SHOWTIME movie,
it has been theorized that disinformation tactics would allow
accurate information to be released to the public primarily
through sources whose credibility had been made out to be
questionable and unreliable.  Meanwhile, the media would be
simultaneously bombarded with a flood of inaccurate data making
it virtually impossible to uncover the truth.

Several in the living room asked Donald Schmitt to express his
personal feelings about the movie's speculative and dramatic
conclusion.  Near the movie's end there were a number of enacted
scenes concerning "captured" extraterrestrial beings interacting
with government top brass.  Mr. Schmitt mentioned that he would
have preferred that the SHOWTIME movie had toned down the "live"
extraterrestrial special effects scenes since the enactments for
the most part revolved around second hand accounts.  However,
Schmitt mentioned that the SHOWTIME producers did honor their
requests by keeping scenes of "live" alien beings down to a
minimum.  For the technically curious, it apparently took the
rehearsed skill of five hidden puppeteers working levers and
cables in order to animate the alien who "communicated" with
Secretary of Defense, James Forrestal.

Near the end of the movie there is an enacted dramatic incident
of the speculative kind involving the Secretary of Defense, who
back in 1947 was James Vincent Forrestal, and a live "captured"
extraterrestrial.  Apparently, there have been a number of
controversial rumors suggesting that Forrestal had been deeply
involved in the extraterrestrial equation.  Prosaically speaking,
it certainly would have made logical sense to assume that our
nation's Secretary of Defense would have been personally involved
with discussions and/or interactions concerning ultra-secret
extraterrestrial meetings - had contact actually been
established.  Tragically, Forrestal allegedly committed suicide
on May 22, 1949 by jumping out of a window at Bethesda Naval
Hospital where he had been held for treatment of emotional
exhaustion which included paranoia and suicidal tendencies.

Why Forrestal needed treatment to the point that he was
essentially isolated from most of his family and friends, as well
as why he had become emotionally unstable, paranoid, and suicidal
in the first place, has been debated for decades by a number of
prominent UFO investigators.  Forrestal was (and still is, I
believe) the highest ranking U.S. government official to have
allegedly committed suicide, an incident that did not escape the
attention of communist block countries who attempted to milk the
embarrassing situation for all it was worth.  Apparently, there
are some who knew him closely and who remain convinced that his
death was not accidental or suicidal, or at least that his death
had been desired by some who, in 1949, possessed a considerable
amount of power in the United States.

As had been suggested by the SHOWTIME movie there has been a lot
of speculation concerning an alleged Forrestal "diary."  For
those who would like to do a little scholarly research of their
own, there exists an excellent biographical book on Forrestal
titled "James Forrestal, A study of Personality, Politics and
Policy" by Arnold A. Rogow.  (I believe it was published back in
the 1960s and, thus, may be somewhat hard to find.  Ask your
local librarian or professional book locator for help!)  The
author, Rogow, writes in the biography the following series of
puzzling events as well as recovered official documents on page
47:

     ... on White House orders a number of papers and documents
     were removed from Forrestal's files, either for "security"
     reasons or other reasons.  Although evidence is not
     conclusive, it is probable  that certain individuals, for a
     variety of reasons, were reluctant to make Forrestal's
     private papers available until they had been properly
     "screened."  Two such individuals, apparently, were
     President Truman and [the next] Secretary of Defense
     Johnson.  In a memorandum to the President of August 27,
     1949, Johnson wrote:

            I am glad to be able to advise you that the
          individuals who were in the best possible position to
          know the truth or falsity of the rumors about the
          Forrestal "diary," the Forrestal "recordings" of
          telephone conversations with you, etc. have assured me
          that there is absolutely no truth whatever to the
          stories which you and I have heard.

            Specifically, I have received categoric assurances to
          the following effect:

               1) There was never a recording device on
               Forrestal's White House' Phone.

               2) No conversation between you and Forrestal was
               ever recorded, either by machine or otherwise.

               3) There was never an occasion when a secretary or
               anyone else was permitted to pick up the extension
               "phone and "listen in" on conversations between
               you and Forrestal.

               4) There was never a volume that could accurately
               be described as a Forrestal "Diary."

     FOOTNOTE: In a letter to the present writer [Rogow], Johnson
     declared that he had no recollection of this memorandum, and
     therefore could not comment on its significance or discuss
     the context in which it was written.


It should be mentioned here that nowhere in Rogow's book that I'm
personally aware of is there any mention of rumors concerning
crashed extraterrestrial craft and/or alien bodies.  Never the
less, I personally find it rather odd and somewhat unconvincing
that Johnson claimed he could not "recall" the contents of the
memos he had written to Truman which likely had to have been of a
(difficult to forget) sensitive nature.  The reader is invited to
draw their own speculations.

                                  * * *

Most curiously, at the same time that Shmitt and Randle's latest
Roswell book hit the book stores, another prominent book on
UFOlogy was published and widely distributed.  It is titled
"Watch the Skies, A chronicle of the Flying Saucer Myth" by
Curtis Peebles.  Mr. Peebles's book was published by the
Smithsonian Institution, which has affiliations with the
government.  The book is packed with a number of delightful tales
and stories that leads the reader to the assumption that the UFO
phenomenon is largely the result of misidentified aerial
phenomenon, mis-communication and unsubstantiated rumors, and
just plain out right chicanery.  Peebles discusses the Roswell
incident briefly, explaining the event away in a few pages as a
"balloon."  The book was reviewed in the Washington Post on
Sunday, March 29, 1994 by Carl Sagan who concluded near the end:

     It would be a healthy sign for the United States if books
     like Peebles's were commonly found in school bookbags,
     excerpted in supermarket weeklies, and made into television
     specials.

Meanwhile, in a magazine called "UFO a forum on extraordinary
theories and phenomena, Vol. 9, No. 4 1994, George W. Early,
UFO's Opinionated Oregonian, (TM), made the following comment
about Peebles's book (See pages 40-41):

     Unlisted, and hence clearly not consulted, was anyone from
     CUFOS, MUFON or FUFOR (Center for UFO Research, Mutual UFO
     Network and Fund for UFO Research, respectively).  MUFON's
     Walt Andrus told me that when Peebles used quotes from MUFON
     sources, "They are from published papers.  He never spoke to
     anyone."  While this does ensure accurate quotations, it
     also eliminates the danger of having one's preconceptions
     challenged by discussions with real people.

                                  * * *

It was late in the evening when we left Mr. Shmitt's house.  I
think most of us felt reasonably confident that an important
historical event had been accurately enacted on the screen in the
creative guise of a docudrama.  It would appear that we may have
a sociological mystery of modern mythic proportions in the
process of unraveling before our eyes.  Is it really possible
that over forty five years ago a craft of unknown origin crashed
in the remote deserted fields of a sheep rancher in the sparsely
populated state of New Mexico?  How after all these decades could
such a momentous event be kept a secret from the world?  Is this
actual fact or enacted Myth.  In the end, perhaps the fiercely
sought after hard-edged facts CAN'T be separated from the
subjective and deeply personal mythic interpretations due to the
extraordinary nature of the incident and the experiences they
have generated.

It is hoped that the recent Roswell books by Donald Schmitt and
Kevin Randle, the earlier publication by Charles Berlitz and
William L. Moore titled "The Roswell Incident," and the newly
released SHOWTIME movie, "Roswell," may help answer some of these
riddles once and for all.

I'm sure there is more to come!


Steve
---------------------------------------------------
Respectfully, Steven Vincent Johnson
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