Tom Carey and Don Schmitt, as most of you know, are veteran "ufologists" and primary members of Kevin Randle's (epitheted) "Roswell Dream Team."
Within their book, resides much about and by our colleague Anthony Bragalia, which I'll touch on, surely.
As for the book itself, the material therein, I am hesitant to recommend most of it.
Looking forward to reading the new effort, I was heavily disappointed by the content: a rehash or regurgitation of all the Roswell bromides and schlock that we've all pretty much have read and been intellectually sickened by.
The hyperbole is rampant and offputting to me, and will certainly be to moderate or objective readers:
... "biggest secret in the history of this country". [Page 21]
"As earth-shaking as that event [Roswell] was to humankind, only a select few have ever had access to the truth." [ibid]
"... for those assigned to defend and protect us. To them, the world would never be the same. From their perspective, our sovereign shores had just been obliterated[!]... That which was once relegated to the domain of science fiction was now a reality as stark as death itself". [Page23]
"How tragic that that the needs of a few [The United States Force] have decided for all of humankind that such seismic news should be kept from us forever..." [ibid]
"Be prepared. The UFO vault is about to be opened." [ibid]
"Chapter 2 The Mystery of Hangar 18 - SOLVED!" [Page 31]
(Shall I go on?)
Then, I am distraught by a significant typo on Page 53: the originator of the infamous Roswell "flying disk" press release is cited as RAAF PIO Walter HUAT [sic].
Okay, so that's a typo, no big deal, right?
Of course, the book is replete with "witness testimony" -- persons at the edge of the Roswell event or working/living somewhere near Wright-Patterson AFB; June Crain (aka Sarah Holcomb initially, to hide her identity).
Ms. Crain said she was connected to a secret Project -- Project Caucasian -- so secret it had a higher classification than that of the H-Bomb.
Typing a memo for that Project, she said "... it was so secret that I wasn't allowed to read the whole thing. I had a very small portion of it, I'd say a paragraph that I read and then I had to add another paragraph onto that. Then I had to take it out of the typewriter. I left a piece of carbon paper in the drawer and got in trouble over it... TO THIS DAY I DON'T REMEMBER WHAT THAT PARAGRAPH WAS... [Page 114]
James Clarkson (a MUFON investigator) then asks her, "What makes you think that Project Caucasian may have been related to the bodies?" [ibid]
She replied, "Well it was right after they brought the bodies to the base. I tried to get my direct boss to tell me what it was. And he looked at me like he was scared. I mean he looked like he was frightened, and he says, 'June, I can't talk about it.' I mean that he would not talk about it, and normally he would tell me anything I wanted to know, I EVEN KNEW THAT HE HAD A GIRLFRIEND.
[Pages 114-115]
(I slog on.)
Chapter 2's MYSTERY OF HANGAR 18 - SOLVED! is fraught with death bed tales from alleged workers (elevator repairmen, painters, et cetera) who claimed they saw flying saucers hanging from ceilings or bodies encased in containers, in the recessed complexes of the air base.
Sons also told the authors that their fathers saw "ALIENS ON ICE?" [Chapter 6]
There is the Senator Goldwater story of being prohibited by his friend General Curtis LeMay from even asking about the so-called "Blue Room" at Wright-Patterson.
"Hell no! And not only no, but if you ask again, I'll have you court-marshaled." (The senator was an Air Force Reserve officer in Arizona.) [Page 85]
Okay, I had had enough.
But I do want to point out that Anthony Bragalia's research on the reputed memory-metal that made up part of the Roswell debris find gets something more than short shrift.
The authors devote Chapter 4 (REVERSE-ENGINEERING THE "MEMORY-METAL") to Mr. Bragalia's efforts in locating sources that indicate some kind of study and research about nitinol, a titanium element, with the properties of "memory" or the ability to morph into a bendable, shape-recovery status, and allegedly provided to scientists at the Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio, and other laboratories (New York University, Oak Ridge, and the Lawrence Livermore Labs in California.
(I've been privy to much of what Mr. Bragalia has uncovered about "memory-metal" and his contacts with those who worked on it, purportedly from the 1947 "crash" at Roswell.
The implications seem credible, and more than circumstantial.)
But that Chapter can't save the book.
And to add intellectual insult to injury, as I see it, the final chapters really diminish any value this book may have.
Chapter 20: THE JAWBONE THAT SPOKE MARTIAN recounts an NBC documentary about a mandible that isn't human, supposedly.
Wright-Patterson air base housed a piece of jawbone that a dental technician (John Mosgrove) was asked to analyze.
The conclusion: "No comparison can be made to any existing humans or primates."
"The mandible is not from any creature that comes from Earth. That's for sure." [Page 238]
The final chapter, 21: IN THE SHADOW OF GHOSTS recounts the efforts of Don Schmitt to get on to the Wright-Patterson air base with an NBC news crew, to do some filming.
The final words?
"After explaining to Don Schmitt that everyone in the base commander's office 'knew who you were. ... Don Schmitt is not getting on this base."
The book, thus, ends not with a bang, but with a self-promoting whimper.
Yes, there are some croutons of "new" or "little-known" material, but not enough for me to tell you that this book should be in your UFO library.
But if you really need to have every UFO book extant, you can find online (Amazon) or offline bookstores.
It lists for 16.99 but can be found for less. (See Amazon)
The book is published by New Page Books, a Division of The Career Press, Inc., Pompton Plains, New Jersey.
More can be found at www.careerpress.comor www.newpagebooks.com
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