Roswell - New scans of the Ramey Memo : Can it now be enhanced/deciphered?

Section A : Introduction

Kevin Randle has recently posted on his “A Different Perspective” blog about the production of new scans of the “Ramey Memo” and posted some small versions of some of those scans. (A list of links to relevant articles on Kevin Randle’s blog is included in Section G below.

Kevin has kindly told me that he is happy for me share the full new scans online. So, 27GB of new scans and related photographs can now be accessed at THIS LINK.

The relevant directory contains LOTS of different scans created using a variety of techniques, as explained in Section D of this thread (plus a report and some other photographs). For example:





These scans are shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. You are free to share and/or adapt these materials provided:

• The use is for non-commercial purposes, and
• You provide attribution. You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may not suggest the licensor endorses you or your use.
o You must give appropriate citation and credit to Kevin Randle, David Rudiak, Simon Schollum, and Jerry Morelock for scanning the negative; and
 The Fort Worth Star Telegram Collection, Special Collections, University of Texas at Arlington Libraries, where the negative is housed.

Hopefully, the improved scans will enable some further enhancement of the images and make the text more legible. Some of the words can, I think, be read now. But largely the content cannot be read with any certainty WITHOUT ENHANCEMENT. As was the case with the the Roswell Slides placard, the possibility of enhancing the image seems to me to be a realistic possibility - but I admit I'm an optimist. I was keen to see the full versions of the new scans shared publically so that possibilities for further enhancement can be discussed. I refer to the issue of possible enhancements below in Section E.

Many of you will be familiar (at least in outline) with “the Ramey Memo”, but I’ll give some background below and details of some relevant resources.

This thread is split into the following parts:
Section A : This brief introduction
Section B : Background about the 8 July 1947 photos
Section C : Simon Schollum’s report
Section D : The new scans
Section E : Possible enhancements
Section F : Resources - Relevant previous articles
Section G : Resources - Relevant websites
Section H : Resources - Relevant previous threads on ATS

Also, here are a couple of introductory videos about the Ramey memo:

(1) This video is from a Sci-Fi Channel documentary featuring David Rudiak discussing the Ramey memo. (David Rudiak’s “Roswellproof” website is referred to below) In this video, David Rudiak claims that the document includes the words “DISK” and “VICTIMS OF THE WRECK”. He states that the word “VICTIMS” is “critical” because it is the “first documentary confirmation that there actually were casualties or bodies involved with Roswell”:


(2) This video features Ron Regehr giving a 33 minute symposium presentation focused on the Ramey memo:




For sceptical introductions, see:

(a) Tim Printy’s article “The Ramey Document : Smoking gun or empty water pistol” (a 2003 article, subsequently updated);

(b) Barry Greenwood’s articles referred to in Section F below (i.e. his articles in his “UFO Historical Revue” in 2004 and 2009 UFO Historical Revue);

(c) One of the US Air Force reports on Roswell, "The Roswell report : Fact versus Fiction in the New Mexico Desert" published in 1995 (which I have previously made available as a searchable PDF, as discussed in a thread I posted in 2014). That report stated that the relevant photo had been sent to “a national-level organization for digitizing and subsequent photo interpretation and analysis” which “reported on July 20, 1994, that even after digitizing, the photos were of insufficient quality to visualize either of the details sought for analysis”.

Section B : Background about the 8 July 1947 photos

On 8 July 1947, photographs were taken at Fort Worth Army Air Field. Some of those photographs featured Brigadier General Roger M Ramey holding a piece of paper. In one of the photographs, some text can be seen on that piece of paper. That piece of paper is commonly referred to as “the Ramey memo” although there is controversy about what it is and who wrote it. Some of that controversy exists because, to put it mildly, the relevant piece of paper has been difficult to read.

For example, some researchers have suggested that it the piece of paper is a military teletype written by Ramey.

Other UFO researchers have suggested it may simply be the wire service article which prompted the relevant photographer (J Bond Johnson) to be sent to the base. J Bond Johnson had said in one article written in 1998 (entitled [url=http://www.abduct.com/features/f25.php]“that:

“I was given the wire service "flash" announcement of this rapidly developing story by my city editor and I headed for the air base.
…
When the General entered the room I handed him the "flash" announcement printed from the news wires. He read it with interest.
I then took a couple of shots him, still wearing his hat in his office, examining the debris with the "flash" announcement held in his hand”.

Still other researchers think that the text is, and is likely to remain, illegible and is akin to a Rorschach test.

All the various scans showing the text of the “Ramey memo” are generated from part of the single photograph of Ramey in which the text is visible.
(1) A complete image of that photograph of Ramey holding the relevant piece of paper is shown below for ease of reference. Also included in this photograph is Dubose. (This is an image entitled “71P7740-HDR” within the new scans):
preview.tinyurl.com...



(2) Another image included with the new scans is one entitled “Ramey & Dubose INP Bettman archive”, again showing both Ramey and Dubose. Ramey is again holding a piece of paper, but in this photograph the text is not visible:
preview.tinyurl.com...


(3) Also included with the new scans is a copy of another image of Ramey (entitled “71P7763-HDR.psd”), this time on his own. Ramey is again holding the piece of paper but with the text not visible:
preview.tinyurl.com...


(4) A fourth image of Ramey (again on his own) was published in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, but the negative of this photograph is apparently not held in the Fort Worth Star Telegram Collection within the University of Texas at Arlington Libraries. (A copy of the newspaper image is included with the new scans under the file name “rammiss”):
preview.tinyurl.com...


(5) Marcel was also photographed with the relevant debris on 8 July 1947 (in an image included with the new scans, entitled “71P7765-HDR”):
preview.tinyurl.com...


(6) Another image of Marcel image is also included with the new scans (entitled “71P7771-HDR-Edit”):
preview.tinyurl.com...


(7) Finally, a photograph of Irving Newton was also taken on 8 July 1947. (The relevant image is included with the new scans, entitled “irving newton--Ramey weather officer--hires”):
preview.tinyurl.com...


(Most of the photos were apparently taken by J Bond Johnson. However, as with much of the Roswell saga, there are conflicting statements as to

David Rudiak helpfully created a composite from the 4 photographs holding the piece of paper, cropping the parts showing the relevant piece of paper (included with the new scans under the file name “Ramey_poses.jpg”):
preview.tinyurl.com...

Section C : Simon Schollum’s report

In order to get some understanding of the mass of files included in the directories relating to the new scans, I suggest starting with the expert report on their production dated 8 May 2015 by Simon Schollum addressed to Martin Dyer.

The conclusion of the report suggests that it will not be possible to get any better scans than these new ones and thus any improvement in legibility is likely to be obtained only from “the application of adequate search algorithms to differentiate between the type fonts and message background”.

preview.tinyurl.com...

A few sample paragraphs from that report are included here for ease of reference:

Section D : The new scans

The 27GB of new scans and related photographs can now be accessed at THIS LINK.

The hundreds of files remain in the directory structure used when sharing the material with me:



The two directories with PDF files are useful to get an overview of the scans and photographs in the other directories.



These scans are shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. You are free to share and/or adapt these materials provided:

• The use is for non-commercial purposes, and
• You provide attribution. You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may not suggest the licensor endorses you or your use.
o You must give appropriate citation and credit to Kevin Randle, David Rudiak, Simon Schollum, and Jerry Morelock for scanning the negative; and
 The Fort Worth Star Telegram Collection, Special Collections, University of Texas at Arlington Libraries, where the negative is housed.

Given the sheer number of different scans, below are links to a few sample images that I think appear to be the most legible prior to further enhancement.

(1) A PSD file entitled “MS 21st nAnd5more_fused Color Range” at:
preview.tinyurl.com...


(2) Image “IMG_0006 b”
preview.tinyurl.com...


(3) Image “71P7727-HDR”
preview.tinyurl.com...


(4) Image “71P7710-HDR”
preview.tinyurl.com...

Section E : Possible enhancements

While quite a lot has been said about the “Ramey memo” already (as can be seen in the resources I’ve collated in Section F, Section G and Section H) my real interest in posting about these new scans is to see what further possible enhancements can be done.

As noted above in Section C, Simon Schollum’s report on the production of the new scans concluded by stating that he felt that it would not be possible to obtain better scans and thus any improvement in the legibility is likely to be obtained only from “the application of adequate search algorithms to differentiate between the type fonts and message background”.

Sadly, Simon Schollum’s report did not go on to identify any relevant “adequate search algorithms”.

So, what enhancements (if any) are possible?

I’ve run several of the new scans through numerous filters and adjustments in Adobe’s Photoshop. While some of the adjustments (e.g. a low Gamma correction and focusing on the blue channel) appeared to result in rather modest improvements, none of the apparent improvements was very significant.

Some features of Photoshop that are beyond my rather modest abilities may still be productive. For example, given the fact that the paper is folded and clearly is not straight, I wonder if a puppet warp mesh could be used to straighten some of the lines – although I think the main problem is seeking to improve the apparent resolution of the text rather than its orientation.

Similarly, using FastStone Photo Resizer (which has options which enable previews of various adjustments so that you can see changes while using sliders for various settings) was also rather disappointing.

I’m hoping that identifying the right software/algorithm will result in the same sort of improvement in legibility that we saw with the the Roswell Slides placard, in relation to the use by “Nab Lator” of the Smart Deblur software was able to improve the placard in the Roswell Slides:



to this:



So, what software (if any) can improve the apparent resolution of the text in the “Ramey memo” scans?

Obviously, I’m just a barrister rather than a technical chap so I’m hoping that the sharing of the new scans results in more technically qualified people having a go or making suggestions. Apart from input from members, the uploading sample images and some background to this thread on ATS will make it easier for me (or others) to give experts a relevant link so that they can quickly see what is being talking about.

However, I’ve done a bit of background reading. One technique that initially looked promising was called “Super Resolution”. Super Resolution can be used to combine information from several frames of a video to produce a higher resolution image. It can also apparently be used to improve the resolution of a single frame. This technique is discussed, for example, on a Wikipedia page with the sample image below:



An article on the Extreme Tech website discuss single-frame Super Resolution enhancement as a “CSI-style” technique:

The “Super Resolution” algorithm is incorporated into several software packages, including Photoactute (a sample version of which is free, albeit it imposes a watermark on processed images) and AKVIS Magnifier.

I’ve had a little play with some options in both of those pieces of software without much joy – but that could simply be because I wasn’t using either package to their full advantage. I’d be interested in views on Super Resolution (including the 2 packages mentioned above) from those with more imaging experience.

More technical information about single frame image super resolution can be found in some scientific literature online. Personally, the most understandable and significant part of some of those papers is simply the name of the authors – since those individuals may be able to help with the enhancement of the Ramey memo or, alternatively, point us in more promising directions if Super Resolution is a red-herring.



More conventional image enhancement software may also produce better results than I’ve been able to achieve. In particular, background reading makes me wonder whether Lucis Pro 6 and/or some of the tools in the Fovea Pro package could be used to improve the apparent resolution of the text.

Any input from members of ATS (including pointers in the right direction) would be welcome.

I’m far from sure how much enhancement can be achieved. It is possible that the Ramey memo is destined to remain a Rorschach test for the UFO community. However, given the results that were obtain in a few hours of group work upon the Roswell Slides placard, I think it is worth having a go at an open group effort at enhancing the new scans of the Ramey Memo.

(Basically, I’d rather spend a little bit of time trying to enhance the scans in the hope that they can be rendered more legible than participate in lengthy, but ultimately futile, debates about the text in the unenhanced images...).

If you try out any software, I’d encourage you to post your results here. Even negative results may help focus any further work, rule out some potential techniques or help draw a conclusion (if necessary) that further work is unlikely to be fruitful.

Section F : Resources - Relevant previous articles

The Ramey memo has been discussed in a few books, but most of the off-line discussions have been in articles in various UFO periodicals (particularly in the MUFON Journal and the International UFO Reporter).

Relevant books have included Karl T Pflock’s “Roswell: Inconvenient Facts and the Will to Believe” (2001) which included a relevant discussion at pages 209-210, 211 (in Chapter 16) of the Prometheus hardback edition and Kevin D Randle’s book “The Roswell Encyclopedia” (2000) which discussed the Ramey Memo at pages 293-306 (in an entry entitled “Ramey Message”) of the Quill softcover edition.

Here is a chronological list of articles relating to the Ramey Memo that I’ve collated (with some additions kindly provided by Gilles Fernandez), with links when I’ve been able to find the relevant material online.

1980 : Karl Pflock’s book refers to work by Brad Sparks on the Ramey Memo in 1980, but simply cites an email from Brad Sparks to him in 2000 rather than any relevant article or publication.

1985 : Karl Pflock’s book refers to work by Brad Sparks on the Ramey Memo in 1985, but simply cites an email from Brad Sparks to him in 2000 rather than any relevant article or publication.

1995 : US Air Force / Richard Weaver "The Roswell Report - Fact vs Fiction", pages 29-30. Searchable version of report at :
app.box.com...
www.abovetopsecret.com...

1998 : Kevin Randle cited a letter to him from Estes in 1998. No copy apparently published online or offline.

1998, November : "Work continues on message that Gen. Ramey holds in hand" by George Filer, MUFON Journal page 15

1999 : MUFON Symposium : Interpretation of Ramey Letter by John E. Pawson

1999, February : "Ramey letter on CD-Rom ... reviewed by Dwight Connelly" –MUFON Journal, page 18

1999, February : "Friedman recounts experiences with photos of Ramey" by Stanton T Friedman, MUFON Journal, pages 18-19

1999, June "Roswell 1999 : What's new?" by Tom Carey and Don Schmitt, MUFON Journal pages 11-13 at page 13

1999, December : "Update on Ramey letter" by Dr. Donald Burleson - MUFON Journal, page 15


2000, March: “Progress being made in deciphering Ramey letter” by Dr. Donald Burleson MUFON Journal, pages 8-12

2000, May "Four Ramey message comparisons" by George Filer, MUFON Journal, page 16-17

2000, July "A New Discovery in the Ramey Letter", letter to the editor by Don Burleson, MUFON Journal page 13

2000, Summer: Burleson, Don “Deciphering the Ramey Memo”, IUR Summer 2000, pages 3-6 and 32


2000, December : "Possible new evidence on Roswell crash" by George Filer, MUFON Journal, page 17

2002: Houran, James and Randle, Kevin “A Message in a Bottle : Confounds in Deciphering the Ramey Memo from the Roswell UFO Case”, Journal of Scientific Exploration, Volume 16, Number 1 pages 45-66 (2002)

2002, Summer:
Houran, James and Kevin Randle. "Interpreting the Ramey memo". International UFO Reporter. Vol 27 No. 2 (Summer 2002). 10-14,26-27

2003, March : "Update on the Ramey message" by Dwight Connelly,
MUFON Journal, pages 3-7

2003, March : "Houran/Randle study missing key elements" by David Rudiak, MUFON Journal, pages 7-10

2003, April : David Rudiak "The Ramey Message : Part II", MUFON Journal, pages 3-5

2003, August : “The Ramey Document : Smoking gun or empty water pistol” by Tim Printy on Tim Printy’s website (2003 article, subsequently updated).


2003, May : Letters about the Ramey Memo by Donald Burleson, Mary Marrs and David Rudiak, MUFON Journal, pages 9-11

2003, July-August: McNeff, Bill and Glenn Fishbine. "Computer enhancement and interpretation of the Ramey memo." Minnesota MUFON Journal. ISSUE #102 July/Aug. 2003. pages 7-10.


2004, March: Barry Greenwood's article "An observation on the Ramey memo." UFO Historical Revue #11 March 2004.


2004 (Undated, but presumably in or around March/April) : Brad Sparks' undated rebuttal to Barry Greenwood's article:


2009, September : Barry Greenwood's article: "RAMEY MEMO REDUX – LINE 5" UFO Historical Review No. 13, September 2009

Section G : Resources - Relevant websites

David Rudiak’s “Roswellproof” website is a valuable resource when considering the Ramey memo. While I don't understand his apparent confidence about, well, quite a few things, I've found quite a lot of resources relevant to the Ramey memo dotted around David Rudiak’s website (not all of which are easily located) – including his summary of relevant press reports, a timeline of the Associated Press (AP) bulletins and other contemporaneous material.



Kevin Randle’s blog has included a considerable number of posts about the Ramey memo in the last few years (particularly in the last few months), with comments from David Rudiak and other researchers. Relevant items have included those listed below:

2009 May : General Ramey and His Memo
2009 September : Ramey memo and Barry Greenwood
2010 July : Roswell Ron Regehr and Me
2009 October : UFOs, Ramey Memo, J Bond Johnson and Me
2013 January : The Roswell Time Line July 8 1947
2015 September : Ramey Memo Update
2015 October : Ramey Memo and victims of Wreck
2015 October : Digital Image of Ramey Memo
2015 November : Additional Ramey Memo Scans
2015 November : J Bond Johnsons Statement on his visit
2015 November : The Timing of Roswell Photographs
2015 November : The Ramey Pictures
2015 November : The Marcel Pictures
2015 November : The Ramey Memo Copyright Issues



One of the videos in my introduction in Section A above featured a presentation by Ronald Regehr, Ronald Regehr website can be found at:
www.reocities.com...

Ronald Regehr is currently writing a book about Roswell and the Ramey Memo with Neil Morris (both of whom were part of the Roswell Photo Interpretation Group). Neil Morris had a website at this link.

Rich Reynolds has infrequently posted on his UFO Conjectures blog about the Ramey photos, e.g. his item at this link.

Section H : Relevant previous threads on ATS

There have been quite a few threads on ATS already over the last decade about the Ramey memo (before the new scans became available). The most interesting of those threads was started in 2010 by “Monts” and it obtained 106 flags.
Those previous threads include:

2003 thread, 0 flags : www.abovetopsecret.com...
2004 thread, 4 flags : www.abovetopsecret.com...
2005 thread, 1 flag : www.abovetopsecret.com...
2005 thread, 0 flags : www.abovetopsecret.com...
2007 thread, 5 flags : www.abovetopsecret.com...
2007 thread, 2 flags : www.abovetopsecret.com...
2009 thread, 5 flags: www.abovetopsecret.com...
2011 thread, 1 flag: www.abovetopsecret.com...
2011 thread, 10 flags : www.abovetopsecret.com...
***2010 thread, 106 flags: www.abovetopsecret.com...
2015 thread, 19 flags: www.abovetopsecret.com...

THIS is the kind of research and information that ATS needs to have on a daily basis--not Illuminati death camp crap. Thanks to Isaac for consistently coming through with high quality information.

I was reading a bit, decided to scroll... WOW. You put in some effort. Unfortunately I have no expertise in the matter and am only looking to learn so my contribution will be minimal. I can't attest to the genuineness of your post but S&F for effort.

A credit to ATS... excellent work as usual Keep up the good work issac..

Btw you got a mention on mysterious universe podcast for the work you did on the mummy plaque..

excellent thread im going to spend the rest of my day on this one thanks for posting this.

I am fascinated...

So, I watched the first video. I had no sound on the second one.

I remember reading there were sightings all over the place the week before.

I looked at some historical online newspapers and tried to dig up some sightings.

Apparently, the bombs we were testing got some kind of extraterrestrial attention.

So, Now I want to go start digging on my own. The week before Roswell is interesting.

What a Thread....This is stepping up ATS with style...S&F

originally posted by: schuyler
Thanks to Isaac for consistently coming through with high quality information.

Thanks for the kind words Schuyler, but the new scans are the work of Kevin Randle, David Rudiak, Simon Schollum, and Jerry Morelock.

I'm just helping make these scans freely available to the UFO community (with an implied challenge to see what enhancements, if any, can be achieved now that anyone can work/play with the full new scans...).

I'd like to see the same sort of fast and dramatic progress that resulted from the use of Smart DeBlur in relation to the Roswell Slides placard.

Wow! Impressive research and thread! Thank you for your efforts!

I always believed the story was related to a UFO and aliens and not some damned weather balloon!

a reply to: IsaacKoi

A very informative thread and a great compilation, thanks for putting so much effort into this, Isaac ...

One way of solving the puzzle could be to recreate the exact settings in that photo in a studio setup. With similar lighting, the same camera at the same distance etc. Then one could create different sample memos written on the same typewriter (one that had most likely been used at the time) with the same font. An OCR algorithm could be trained using these samples and in the end, we could feed it with the original photo. If we're lucky we might get some good results or at least pretty reliable recommendations for what the wording might be.

That would be a huge effort, I know, but perhaps it would be worth it? I'm probably not the first to come up with that idea but I think it might shed more light on what's actually written in the memo than trying to enhance the exisiting fragment. But perhaps some knowledgable folks out there might still manage to do the enhancement trick with some neat algorithm/software, who knows... would be great to get to the bottom of this!

Thank you! Im sure our ATS sleuths can work these scans out faster than anyone else out there, keeping in mind accuracy Out tech savvy people can enhance the scans rather than wait for the university that has had them for a while to come back.

I Look forward to the outcome.

Well this is another eye opener, for the finding the truth behind the Roswell crash. someday soon some programmer will make a tool to encrypt that memo,unblurring software could end allot of the mystery photographs and text.

Now knowing what could be the description of that memo, and the look on Marcel's face like saying "you're kidding me right? "

Confirms his non verbal message very clear ..

One step closer for mankind, good job ,strong thread.

You should be participating on the new Alternative News board Isaac..

Really Great Stuff.

I remember this coming up before and reading about it then. Extremely interesting. I agree 100% that the spirit of this post is the reason MANY of us come to ATS.

S+F. Good work OP!

a reply to: IsaacKoi

THIS^ is the kind of post I joined ATS for!

Haven't read through all of this yet, but I just had to say the above cause I haven't seen a thread like this in quite a while.
Bookmarked for later consumption.
Keep up the great work!