Scanned: Case Number 243544: 42-t-1127712-20060476F-001-001-2013

MUFON UFO JOURNAL
a,board member of that organization, was a
well-known Roswell researcher and the co-au
thor of a leading book on the subject. I had no
reason to question his credibility.
In part the letter read:
"... a very important trip to New Mexico
where we secured another first-hand wit
ness to the bodies. This brings our total
to EIGHT (emphasis in the original) with
yet additional prospects. "
My immediate thought was that if these (se
cret and primarily military, I was told) witnesses
could be convinced to come forward, we ~ould
be able to break the Roswell case wide open.
The letter represented a major turning point in
my support for and involvement with the
Roswell crashed-UFO investigation.
I subsequelltly retained, at my personal ex
pense, a major Washington, D.C., law firm to
offer counsel to the eight witnesses in the hope
of encouraging them to come forward. In
September, 1993, I arranged for two of the attor
neys from the firm to travel to New Mexico,
where they were to be put in touch with three of
the supposed eight secret witnesses. Once the at
torneys arrived in Roswell, however, they were
put in contact with only one such witness. I
would later learn that this particular so-called se
cret witness was already known to other re
searchers and that his story was considered out
landish and unbelievable - an assessment with
which I now fully agree.
Sending the two attorneys to New Mexico
was a tremendously expensive waste of time and
resources. The researcher and author who wrote
the March 20, 1993. letter telling of the eight
witnesses was, himself, eventually discredited.
Although a very personable individual, he
proved to be less than honest. He was subse
quently removed from the board of the UFO or
ganization with which he was affiliated and his
co-author, still a respected researcher. dis
avowed any association with him. As for the
other seven "secret" witnesses, llothing has ever
been heard from or about them since.
LIFO Crashes
Even before the advent of recent negative de
velopments in the Roswell case, I have always
felt that a UFO would never crash. However, be
cause of the impressive witness testimony about
which I was told, I suspended judgment and al
lowed for the possibility that Roswell might be
an exception - some kind of one-in-a-quintil
lion fluke. That was, in retrospect, a mistake.
The problem with the concept of a UFO
crashing is that as technology advances, so does
reliability. Be it with cars, airplanes, televisions,
or wristwatches, the reliability of today's tech
nology far exceeds that of the technology of just
a few decades ago. For example, because of the
high reliability of their engines, long-range,
twin-engine commercial jetliners are now autho
rized to fly nonstop across the North Atlantic. A
few decades ago, that would have been unthink
able. (The positive correlation between advanc
ing technology and reliability applies to
"proven" technology, not experimental state-of
the art machines still in the developmental
phase, such as experimental aircraft or space ve
hicles.)
With today's industry-average engine-failure
rate of less than one failure per 100,000 flight
hours, the chances of both engines of a two-en
gine jetliner failing during a given hour of flight
are less than one out of 10 billion. Figuring
50,000 aircraft-ocean crossings per year, and
factoring in such variables as average time over
the water and average distance from land, the
odds are less than fifty-fifty of a double-engine
failure and consequent ditching in the North
Atlantic of even one such aircraft over the next
10,000 years.
This incredible degree of reliability is found
with a technology that would be primitive com
pared with a UFO. Even with today's relatively
"primitive" technology, our commercial aircraft
have very efficient collision avoidance systems,
as well as excellent radar systems for avoiding
thunderstorms and their associated hail and
lightning (phenomena, incidentally, that are
surely not unique to this planet).
If we assume that UFOs are extraterrestrial
spacecraft and that some of the many reported
UFO sightings are genuine UFOs. we are deal
ing with machines apparently capable of high
speed right-angle turns, incredible accelerations
and speeds, and wingless flight - not to men
tion of traveling light-years through the void of
empty space in, presumably, a relatively short
period of time. Such capability would require a
technology totally beyond our present under
standing of physics - a technology the sophisti
cation of which we cannot even begin to imag
ine.
Because of the positive correlation between
technology and reliability, such incredibly ad
vanced technology would most certainly mean a
correspondingly high degree of reliability.
Common sense dictates that the chances of such
machines crashing, breaking down, or colliding
The problem
with the con
cept ofa UFO
crashing is that
as technology
advances,so
does reliability.
Be it with cars,
airplanes, tele
visions, or
wristwatches,
the reliability of
today's tech
nology far ex
ceeds that of
the technology
of just a few
decades ago.
June
1997
Number 350
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