Stanton Friedman Reports On This Year's (2011) Roswell UFO Festival

By Stanton Friedman
www.stantonfriedman.com
7-15-11

I wasn't sure what to expect this year what with the political battles that had gone on in Roswell since last year and without a city sponsored slate of speakers competing with those of us at the International UFO Museum and Research Center. In addition, I was concerned because it took a long time for there to be a program of lectures posted on line. The raging forest and desert fires in the southwest didn't help and there had been no rain near Roswell for many many months The temperature reached near the 100 mark every day.Fortunately it cooled down to the 70s at night. Of course there was no humidity.There were even fireworks on July 4.

It turns out the crowds were excellent both at the museum itself and at the various panels and lectures. The museum had just obtained access to a pretty good sized hall just north of it so that it could be used for evening events rather than having to break down the main room at the museum in the evening and re set it up with vendor tables each morning. That worked out very well.

The sessions were well attended indeed. On Saturday more than 1800 visitors came to the museum. Many bought books and DVDs (as well as T-shirts, souvenirs etc), took pictures, asked for autographs and wanted to chat or visit with the celebrities such as Roy Thinnes, and various authors and speakers and experiencers such as Travis Walton (Abducted in Arizona and author of "Fire in the Sky")., Robert Salas, an officer at Malmstrom AFB when 10 Minuteman missiles went off line when a UFO hovered near the main gate, Kathleen Marden, Betty Hill's niece who did most of the work on "Captured! The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience'.

There was a unique Roswell panel which filled the hall. Panelists included Don Schmitt, Tom Carey,Kevin Randle, myself and a new academic researcher Frank Kimbler of New Mexico Military Institute.

I had been in touch with him in advance as he had done some fascinating work on some small pieces of wreckage that might possibly have been debris of a crashed flying saucer.. He noted privately that at visits to another site over near Horse Springs some so called researchers were claiming that every piece of metal was special rather than rubbish that had been dumped there. More tests will be done. Apparently it is an unusual aluminum alloy with some unusual isotope ratios for the magnesium in it.It was the first time the first four had been together on a panel and the discussion ran 20 minutes longer than expected.

I had wrongly been anticipating a battle with Kevin because he had made the strange claim that because a Mr. Willingham had apparently lied about his military credentials when claiming that he had witnessed a saucer crash near Del Rio,near the Mexican border, that therefore the Eisenhower Briefing Document was a hoax because it had mentioned a crash at that location. The reasoning strikes me as totally faulty.. absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.. .The EBD states that what remained of the wreckage was taken to Sandia Nuclear Weapons Lab. and of course named no names. I have been to Sandia and am certain trying to get information from them would be impossible. Furthermore I have gone into gory detail about the EBD, The Cutler-Twining memo, and the Truman- Forrestal memo in my book 2005 "TOP Secret/MAJIC", in an MJ-12 update chapter of my 2008 "Flying Saucers and Science" and in a long posting about the documents at my website www.stantonfriedman.com. I am convinced after visits to many archives, discussions with many relevant people, families of the MJ-12 members, my incredibly surprising findings on Donald Menzel, that indeed those 3 documents are genuine and have seen no evidence that they are phony though many unsubstantiated claims have been made to that effect. I believe I have rebutted all those false claims. I certainly acknowledge there are over 100 false MJ-12 documents..just as there are more than 100 isotopes that are not fissionable.So what? . I have never claimed that somehow Willingham's story validated the document. The website posting also deals with the many false claims made by Kevin in his book about MJ-12. As it turns out there was no discussion about Willingham or the documents. Mostly we focused on historical bits and pieces about how we each got involved in Roswell Research, the difficulties and expense in the pre internet days of locating people, the false arguments of the debunkers.etc.

Some attendees were indeed surprised at the crowds. Many are aware that Roswell isn't on the way to anywhere and is 200 miles from Albuquerque, Amarillo, El Paso. I would gather that those who came enjoyed themselves. I certainly hope to be back next year. We all seemed to agree that Roswell represented a crashed alien flying saucer. I for one am looking forward to next year at Festival time.and am also hoping to be in Roswell as a guide during a Southwestern Tour in late September and early October during which we will also visit Trinity site, Los Alamos etc. It is listed under events at my website.

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