The Ramey Memo: Best Roswell Evidence Ever Found

Originally posted by Krusty the Klown
Just out of curiosity, what's your reason for why the army would issue a press release saying they had a captured disc if Marcel knew it was a balloon? He didn't issue the press release, it was issued by order of the base commander.

It WAS a disc, the way they were using the word Disc! A 6 sided radar target attached to a balloon, that's what they were calling a disc.

And the Ramey memo does seem to show "DISC" in quotation marks. I've already posted the FBI memo twice in this thread, if I keep posting it I'll get warned for spamming so look up my previous posts to read it, that's the "DISC" referred to in the FBI memo.

If the Ramey Memo is the "best Roswell evidence ever," then we can close the books on the subject, concluding that it was all just a big, typical Army-type snafu, with way too many people thinking they see (or saw) something that just isn't (or wasn't) there.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/4c3446bf1847.png[/atsimg]

Just because folks want it to read "VICTIMS OF THE WRECK," doesn't necessarily make it true.

Originally posted by Arbitrageur

Originally posted by Krusty the Klown
Just out of curiosity, what's your reason for why the army would issue a press release saying they had a captured disc if Marcel knew it was a balloon? He didn't issue the press release, it was issued by order of the base commander.

It WAS a disc, the way they were using the word Disc! A 6 sided radar target attached to a balloon, that's what they were calling a disc.

And the Ramey memo does seem to show "DISC" in quotation marks. I've already posted the FBI memo twice in this thread, if I keep posting it I'll get warned for spamming so look up my previous posts to read it, that's the "DISC" referred to in the FBI memo.

It doesn't just say "DISC". It says "IN THE 'DISC'". Sorry, but a radar target kite does not have any INSIDES to it. It is 2-dimensional foil-paper glued and taped onto a 1-dimensional balsa framework.

Why would anybody being talking about something "in the 'disc'" if it were a radar target? This is the problem with simplistic arguments done by taking words in isolation without considering the meaning and implications of the words around it.

Also, why would they being calling the the radar target kite a "disc" when it was very un-disc-like, particularly in a torn up state? It is utter nonsense to claim that Marcel, the intel officer, or Blanchard the base commander, would continue to call it a "disc" just because the rancher might have called it a disc, especially when it was very obviously weather balloon debris of some kind. And although rancher Brazel said he told Sheriff Wilcox that maybe he had found a flying disc and denied finding any sort of weather device, Wilcox instead told the story that Brazel came in thinking he had found a "weather meter", one of the many serious inconsistencies in the witness testimony back then. Also did you know that Wilcox back then admitted to "working with those fellows at the base?" He wasn't exactly an independent witness at the time when he was claiming Brazel was talking about a "weather meter".

Also have you read the newspaper stories at the time? A "flying disc" or "flying saucer" meant something very specific to the public, military, and the newspaper editors writing about them. They were almost invariably described as flying at very high speed, and generally described as circular or roughly circular. None of these descriptions apply to the very uncircular and slow-moving balsa wood kites. See, for example, how the very same General Ramey and his chief intelligence officer were debunking the saucers over a week before Roswell, being very aware of Kenneth Arnold's 1200 mph and disc-like description. You think the officers at Roswell might also read the newspapers and the military intelligence reports?

Roswell, the one and only atomic bomber base, was staffed by very experienced, seasoned officers in all key departments. Blanchard went on to be a 4-star general and vice C/S of the AF. Marcel retired a Lt.-Col. and was praised by Gen. Ramey afterward as "outstanding" and command officer material. He protested his transfer to higher intelligence work, saying he had nobody to replace him. How does that work if Marcel and Blanchard supposedly "bungled" by putting out a press release that they had found a real "flying disc", instead of simply IDing it as balloon material? Why would they bother to put out a press release at all if that was all that was found?

This wasn't some local event not heard of outside of Roswell. The press release was front page national and international news. The Pentagon and Eighth AAF HQ in Fort Worth, i.e. Gen. Ramey, would not look kindly on their atomic bomber base being staffed by idiot officers who made them all look foolish by misidentifying a weather balloon as a "flying disc".

Have you thought about where Ramey got the description of "hexagonal" for the radar target, such as to the FBI, when all he had was a torn-up target? The only possible way a RAWIN target might be described as "hexagonal" is if it were INTACT and fully assembled, and even here the description is bizarre and might only be used by an expert. So again, how did Ramey come up with the description, while at times to the press simultaneously claiming he didn't know for sure what it was and hadn't brought in a weather expert yet? See here for details of his impossible "hexagonal" description:

www.roswellproof.com...

And since you also seem to think it was a Mogul balloon, then why was Ramey and his men, like his weather officer, always describing it as ONE weather balloon and ONE radar target? And why do the photos also show only one balloon and one radar target? Amazing. A supposedly 28-weather-balloon Mogul shrinks down into only a single weather balloon. And five supposedly shredded radar targets shrink down to exactly one. And no hundreds of yards of Mogul rigging left behind, in fact denied by rancher Brazel as being found. How does that all work?

And finally, I'd love to see you prove that there was a real unaccounted-for Mogul balloon. All Mogul constant-altitude balloons that flew are listed and summarized in Mogul records. Only the ones that never got off the ground for various reasons are missing. This includes the missing Flight #2, canceled by high winds, Flight #3, canceled by high winds, and the equally fictitious Flight #4, the alleged Roswell culprit, canceled "again" because of excessive clouds. The first true N.M. Mogul flight was #5, and is so listed in official Mogul records and official AF and NASA histories of flight. Where is the phantom Flight #4 in any official record? Or do you think making up a non-existent balloon flight to allegedly explain things is rational or honest argumentation?

It is truly amazing how the debunkers can believe that a fictitious Mogul flight for which there is not one scrap of documentation can possibly account for the Roswell debris. The Air Force flat-out lied about the existence of such a balloon, even going so far as to flagrantly lie that Flights #2 & #3 were also real, when it is very clear from official records that they too NEVER HAPPENED. Talk about being gullible.

If that photo in his hand during the interview is anywhere close to the size of the source photo it's bunk. It would be completely impossible to enhance it enough to read that letter, unless the pic was like 5000dpi, which we can barely do now much less back then.

Hmmmm.

I want this to be true very badly. VERY badly. Nevertheless, if I clear my mind of the suggested interpretation of the blurry text, and instead see what first comes to mind, I end up with completely different interpretations of the letters and words than "the victims of the wreck." Coupled with the other studies of the text, possible bias, possible differing meanings of the alleged terminology used in the memo, etc. etc. it's enough to throw the whole thing into doubt for my skeptical side.

reply to post by Blue Shift


That's precisely the problem I have with this. I see yet another sentence there, myself. I see, "And the Vikings you conveyed to the..."

reply to post by Arbitrageur


Utter nonsense. Having checked and rechecked that sample you posted, from a believer and cynic point of view (removing myself emotionally from the discovery and just looking with 'fresh eyes'), I'd say it's pretty clear that the word "disc" is in fact what is written.

Your point no' 1 is a FAIL.

Moving through your 'clutch at straws' debunk, I'd have to say that to put something in quotation marks does not imply that the item is 'not what it's claimed to be', it simply means that they haven't come up with a technical term yet / the technical term is not memorable for ordinary use - and as a result the compilers of the memo are using the generic/popular term that has been bandied about by those who were involved in the recovery operation. It's a case of 'say what you see'. The people involved would have casually named the thing as the object or shape it most closely resembles in their human experience. Particularly applicable if they had never seen anything of the like in history previously - 'otherworldly' in appearance.

Your point no' 2 is a FAIL.

Why you got any stars for your post makes me question the psychology of those who would have us blinkered and ignorant in the face of growing evidence of a shared cosmos.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


If it was a disc, and a known one at that, why the hell would they be using quotation marks? Why are you coming up with new points of view to debunk this with? You are contradicting yourself, and unless you accepted that your first post was a load of bunk, and that this new stance is now your true opinion, your continuing efforts to debunk this are irrelevant and not to be considered...

For some reason you are keen to 'prove' that this new evidence is fake/ not worth considering as evidence of a UFO crash, and I suspect you are either desperate to be recognised as a savvy debunker, or in fact have some kind of vested interest in keeping the UFO topic under wraps.

Originally posted by debrisfield
Also, why would they being calling the the radar target kite a "disc" when it was very un-disc-like, particularly in a torn up state? It is utter nonsense to claim that Marcel, the intel officer, or Blanchard the base commander, would continue to call it a "disc" just because the rancher might have called it a disc, especially when it was very obviously weather balloon debris of some kind.

Why is it nonsense? It obviously wasn't a standard weather balloon, there was too much debris for a single weather balloon. It wasn't just the rancher using the word disc, he heard it in the media and so I'm sure did the others, so they had "disc" on the brain from media exposure regarding a large wave of sightings, that's not a difficult concept to grasp.

It is truly amazing how the debunkers can believe that a fictitious Mogul flight for which there is not one scrap of documentation can possibly account for the Roswell debris. The Air Force flat-out lied about the existence of such a balloon, even going so far as to flagrantly lie that Flights #2 & #3 were also real, when it is very clear from official records that they too NEVER HAPPENED. Talk about being gullible.

Since all the eyewitnesses, and there are a number of them, describe balloon and radar-target like debris, of foil, sticks, and tape, it seems pretty obvious to me that it was a balloon of some sort, but far more wreckage than a normal weather balloon. I don't know if it's all that important which large balloon it was. It could have been a Soviet or Japanese spy balloon for all I know (I don't necessarily favor those theories, but I can't rule them out), and that's why they had the material sent for analysis, but it still is described by pretty much everyone as remains of a large balloon of some sort.

It could also have been a balloon or balloon cluster from another branch of service:

www.csicop.org...

There were also sightings in the summer of 1947 in the western and northwestern United States. A 1949 Air Force investigation (Trakowski 1949) could not correlate those sightings with Project Mogul, but the Air Force was unaware of a Navy program launching cluster balloons in Colorado that same summer. Coordination between branches of the military was limited in the years just following World War II.

But I don't see why it couldn't be Mogul 4, do you expect to have perfect documentation for things that happened over half a century ago? And Moore has an explanation for lack of specific docmentation, compartmentalization:

www.csicop.org...

after seeing the reports and photographs from 1947 for the first time, Charles Moore realized that Flight 4 was a much better candidate for the Foster ranch debris than a polyethylene balloon...

While UFO proponents allege a lack of contemporary references to “Project Mogul Balloon Flights,” Moore says the project was so compartmentalized that such references simply may not exist. Any mention of these flights will instead be labeled as NYU constant-level balloon research.

Originally posted by muzzleflash
I am really surprised they actually used the name Majestic 12.

They didn't, AlienScientist did in his youtube description.

Majestic 12 or MJ-12 doesn't appear anywhere on the memo in the reconstruction.

www.roswellproof.com...


It looks like AlienScientist quoted an old translation by Neil Morris and Don Burleson, but then added in the "12", notice how the Rense article only says "MJ"

www.rense.com...


That's quite a different translation than David Rudiak's current one


Playing around with the 600dpi image in Photoshop and using Curves and Levels I can only make out a few words like "OF" and "THE". The rest is just to blurry.

Originally posted by The Shrike

Materials that are commonplace now but new in 1947 and not everyone had come in contact with them to develp knowledge about them.

Aluminum foil? Monofilament wire?

Originally posted by The Shrike

I accept the non-UFO crash because it doesn't violate common sense, logic, and reason. I don't accept that UFOs crash willy-nilly all over the planet. Just one real UFO crash and the subsequent finding of the debris and possibly beings would change the world instantly. You just don't find crashed UFOs everyday and the world doesn't find out about it. It would be instant news.

The Roswell crash was instant news and there is compelling evidence that it did change the world of aeronautics quite quickly . . . . see the evolution of aircraft design and the emergence of the titanium industry from nowhere.

Originally posted by The Shrike

To me Roswell never sounded as reported and some investigators such as Robert Todd who helped make public the truth about Roswell.

I've read Todd's "Cowflop" pieces. If that's your idea of research, I don't know what to say. Just a lot of sarcastic comments in my view. They're available here:

www.roswellfiles.com...

Originally posted by Arbitrageur
Why is it nonsense? It obviously wasn't a standard weather balloon

Below you transform this into arguing that witnesses described balloon-like debris. You can't have it both ways, to pretend it was something out of the ordinary for a balloon yet witnesses recognized it for what it was. That is plain silly.

they had "disc" on the brain from media exposure regarding a large wave of sightings, that's not a difficult concept to grasp.

This is nothing more than (poor) armchair psychology, not evidence. This does not transform balloon wreckage, like rubber and sticks, into a saucer.

Since all the eyewitnesses, and there are a number of them, describe balloon and radar-target like debris, of foil, sticks, and tape, it seems pretty obvious to me that it was a balloon of some sort

Since the primary issue is that much of the testimony does _not_ fit a default balloon and radar sonde debris (there would be no Roswell mystery otherwise), your point seems rather ackward. Testimony of some of the people involved only fits balloon debris if you selectively ignore much of the descriptions given or if you give more credence to certain testimony over other testimony.

You're arguing people could not recognize ordinary materials, if it had been a balloon, due to some psychological mechanism for which you have no shred of evidence and which you talked yourself into that it must have happened that way.

In short, you are being selectively dishonest, not for the first time as far as I am concerned. And even I am tired of the stupid Roswell story. I could care less if it was Mogul, or ET, or whatever.

reply to post by jclmavg
There's no conflict at all.

In fact I thought the Roswell conspiracy was a great coverup prior to 1994 because I believed eyewitness Marcel completely that the amount of wreckage was too vast for an ordinary weather balloon. I was a firm believer there was a government conspiracy to hide the truth, and in 1995 I was proven right when the government admitted that fact.

Just listen to Marcel's interview, that's one reason he ruled out a weather balloon, there was simply too much material for that.

So I didn't believe the official story for one second, I believed Marcel was being accurate about the size of the debris field and I still think that, and I can see why that would rule out a weather balloon.

But Marcel also describes the wreckage as including foil like the foil from a pack of cigarettes.

That sure sounds like a reasonable description for radar reflector material to me.

Now keep in mind the skyhook balloon program was brand new in 1947 so people hadn't seen large balloons crash before:

The Cold War’s Classified Skyhook Program

Skyhook balloons were huge. The average size of those discussed in this article was double the six million cubic feet of the Hindenberg. Their diameters were about 300 feet with a flaccid length of 430 feet. Primarily cruising in the stratosphere, the balloons change color at high altitudes during sunrises and sunsets, while the Earth below is almost dark. These characteristics equate to a superb UFO generator.

It is therefore more than a coincidence that the birth of this vehicle in 1947 coincided with the origin of the twentieth century UFO epidemic. That epidemic was highlighted by the Roswell incident, with Project Mogul the prime seed....
The prime launch site for Project Mogul was Alamogordo Air Base in New Mexico, west and therefore upwind of Roswell. The 1947 launches were in June and July, but there were initial UFO reports around the East Coast prior to the summer (Brookesmith 1995). These were preliminary test launches from New Jersey and Long Island.

So that resolves to me what you describe as a conflict. You think they should have known what it was simply because it was balloon-like material. But the fact is that the skyhook balloons had just started to be launched around that time so they didn't have prior experience with balloons that large, and had every right to be puzzled about what it was, while also being certain it was too large for a weather balloon. Due to compartmentalization few people knew the whole story about these balloons, even the guy who worked on the balloon (the author of that article) didn't know what it was.

I was busy calibrating instrumentation for top-secret Project Mogul in the spring of 1947. In retrospect, I was totally unaware of the project’s actual identity. My security clearance was for the lower rating of confidential. I was unaware of the project title for another forty-eight years, until 1995.

Welcome to the arcane world of classified Skyhook programs and Cold War intrigue. In this review, I hope to reveal many of those once-classified programs, how they generated UFO mythology, and why that relationship has not been fully addressed.

Of course you're welcome to have a different opinion and express it, that's what discussion boards are for.

Just because it makes sense to me, doesn't mean that it has to make sense to you.

Originally posted by cycondra
If that photo in his hand during the interview is anywhere close to the size of the source photo it's bunk. It would be completely impossible to enhance it enough to read that letter, unless the pic was like 5000dpi, which we can barely do now much less back then.

The camera used was an old 4" x 5" Speed Graphic press camera. The negative still exists, so researchers are working from the best possible materials, namely scans directly from the negative or 1st generation print enlargements. (This, however, wasn't true of the Air Force debunkers in 1994, who did not use such materials, but instead used simple prints or negative copy of the entire photo, not just the memo area.)

It is the large Speed Graphic negative that allows the memo to be blown up successfully and at least some things read with assurance. The 4x5 Speed Graphic film is probably the equivalent of a 100+ Megapixel digital camera in resolution.

I have read many such misnomers about the Ramey memo, including that it was faked with Photoshop or blown up off of old newspaper microfilm. This is all nonsense. Again, the negative is very real, very large with a lot of detail, and this is the basis of the current attempts at reading the contents of the memo.

Looking for the word "victims", I don't see that at all. The first thing that I saw was the word "pieces". The "p" is in line with the other letters, rather than above them, which is where you might read a "v". Of course, if it says "pieces" and not "victims", that changes the whole meaning entirely.

I don't know whether I am gullible in believing that this blown up image has any relation to what was on that victim of paper or not. If it really does, then it is incredible that some legible words on it can be read.

Originally posted by Arbitrageur

Originally posted by debrisfield
Also, why would they being calling the the radar target kite a "disc" when it was very un-disc-like, particularly in a torn up state? It is utter nonsense to claim that Marcel, the intel officer, or Blanchard the base commander, would continue to call it a "disc" just because the rancher might have called it a disc, especially when it was very obviously weather balloon debris of some kind.

Why is it nonsense? It obviously wasn't a standard weather balloon, there was too much debris for a single weather balloon.

The claimed (nonexistent) Mogul balloon WAS supposed to be made up of standard weather balloons. There was nothing unusual or mystifying about them. Your argument is like saying a child couldn't recognize an individual birthday balloon if there was more than one such balloon at the party. That's why the argument is utter nonsense.

It wasn't just the rancher using the word disc, he heard it in the media and so I'm sure did the others, so they had "disc" on the brain from media exposure regarding a large wave of sightings, that's not a difficult concept to grasp.

Are you just making this stuff up? Since the rancher lived alone on a ranch without electricity or phone or newspaper, how exactly was he supposed to have "disc on the brain from the media exposure" when there was NO MEDIA to influence him? The way he first found out about the "flying discs" was when he journeyed to the tiny town of Corona with one phone and first heard about them. Now some of those people had heard about the flying disks somewhere through the media, but this was still the middle of nowhere when most people lacked phones or electricity. It isn't like all the ranchers had Internet and satellite dishes.

It is truly amazing how the debunkers can believe that a fictitious Mogul flight for which there is not one scrap of documentation can possibly account for the Roswell debris. The Air Force flat-out lied about the existence of such a balloon, even going so far as to flagrantly lie that Flights #2 & #3 were also real, when it is very clear from official records that they too NEVER HAPPENED. Talk about being gullible.

Since all the eyewitnesses, and there are a number of them, describe balloon and radar-target like debris, of foil, sticks, and tape, it seems pretty obvious to me that it was a balloon of some sort,

No, this is another of your made-up "facts". "All" the eyewitnesses did NOT describe balloon and radar-target like debris. Where did you dream that up? You are obviously doing the usual debunker tactic of carefully cherry-picking the testimony, leaving out all of the testimony which clearly does NOT describe balloon or radar-target material.

Just one among over a dozen eyewitness examples, intel officer Marcel described thin metal debris with memory that couldn't be cut, torn, or damaged with sledge hammer blows. It would not burn. He never described anything like fragile, double-sided foil-paper used on radar targets, the same stuff used to wrap candy bars and chewing gum or make radar jamming chaff. Besides, he would have known about radar targets, since he was also a trained radar intelligence officer. He also described a metallic fabric-like material that he said clearly could NOT have come from any balloon, since it was porous. He could blow through it. So he considered the possibility of some strange balloon material, but his examination of the debris did not support it.

but far more wreckage than a normal weather balloon.

Really? Then why did rancher Brazel claim only 5 pounds of debris, when a real Mogul typically weighed 50 or 60 pounds? And how did this get further reduced to only ONE balloon and ONE radar target in Fort Worth, as described by Ramey, his men, and as shown in the photos? That's only a little over 1 pound of debris. As usual, the debunkers want it both ways. It was a huge Mogul balloon creating huge amounts of debris, but this is also completely consistent with what Brazel described or what was shown and described to the press in Fort Worth, when clearly the quantities of debris weren't even remotely close.

Gen. Ramey's public story was that a standard RAWIN target meteorological balloon was recovered, which he also said was commonly used (which it was--they were sent up every day from multiple weather stations all over the country, in fact a 100 a day according to the AP science writer at the time). As his chief of staff Brig. Gen. Thomas Dubuse clearly stated, the weather balloon in the photos was a cover story to get rid of the press. Dubose also spoke of personally taking the call to start the cover-up and the extreme secrecy surrounding the entire matter. Also that after a secret flight of material to Washington by "colonel courier", the debris was further flown on to Wright Field for even further examination. Why would a rubber balloon and balsa wood kite of aluminum foil paper and Scotch tape need such attention and scrutiny?

What is in the photos was a common singular weather balloon and radar target, but this was clearly not what was found at Roswell, but, as Dubose said, a cover story. In fact the photos and witness descriptions back then PROVE no Mogul balloon, since there is only a tiny fraction of the required debris and none of the equipment or rigging that would be associated with a Mogul was found or described.

I don't know if it's all that important which large balloon it was. It could have been a Soviet or Japanese spy balloon for all I know (I don't necessarily favor those theories, but I can't rule them out), and that's why they had the material sent for analysis, but it still is described by pretty much everyone as remains of a large balloon of some sort.

More making stuff up. All Ramey displayed was a standard weather balloon, of which hundreds were sent up every day all over the country. There is zero evidence to support a Soviet or Japanese spy balloon. And perhaps you haven't heard, but the Japanese lost the war and were then under military occupation by the U.S. Where did you get the idea that the Japanese could be spying on us under those circumstances?

It could also have been a balloon or balloon cluster from another branch of service:

www.csicop.org...

Really? More imaginary balloons flying around, not just the fictitious Mogul Flight #4 invented by the USAF and Mogul engineer Charles Moore? Name the specific balloon project, where they were stationed, and provide the documentation that not only proves they existed but could have created a balloon in that time frame that also truly matches the descriptions of eyewitnesses. I can also dream up all sorts of unicorn-like fictitious secret projects and ridiculous "Japanese spy balloons", but it is all nonsense unless you can produce actual evidence that such projects existed and could account for what happened--fictitious balloon projects and flights don't count.

There were also sightings in the summer of 1947 in the western and northwestern United States. A 1949 Air Force investigation (Trakowski 1949) could not correlate those sightings with Project Mogul, but the Air Force was unaware of a Navy program launching cluster balloons in Colorado that same summer. Coordination between branches of the military was limited in the years just following World War II.

Again, just one fellow debunkers say-so, with no real evidence presented, including any evidence that another totally undocumented balloon-flight from this alleged project in Colorado existed in the necessary time frame and could have gone against prevailing winds and ended several hundred miles south.

But I don't see why it couldn't be Mogul 4, do you expect to have perfect documentation for things that happened over half a century ago?

Yes, that's exactly what I expect . When Project Mogul clearly documented all their flown constant-altitude balloons, they would also document "Mogul 4" IF it really flew like the others. But they didn't, just like no Mogul 2 or 3, which also clearly never left the ground. And they say why--high winds and equipment failure for 2 & 3 and cloudy weather for 4. There were no flights 2, 3, 4.

And Moore has an explanation for lack of specific docmentation, compartmentalization:

www.csicop.org...

after seeing the reports and photographs from 1947 for the first time, Charles Moore realized that Flight 4 was a much better candidate for the Foster ranch debris than a polyethylene balloon...

While UFO proponents allege a lack of contemporary references to “Project Mogul Balloon Flights,” Moore says the project was so compartmentalized that such references simply may not exist. Any mention of these flights will instead be labeled as NYU constant-level balloon research.

This is more of Moore's double talk. If the constant-altitude balloons went up, they were documented in Mogul records, period. A number of the flights are listed as carrying sonobuoy microphones, the only possible reason they might not write them up, but they did. The sonobuoys themselves were not classified, but the reason they were using them (listen for distant explosions) was classified. But still, all those sonobuoy flights were recorded. They aren't missing like Flights 2, 3, 4, and 9. The reason 2, 3, 4, and 9 are missing from the records is simply because they never flew. All other three dozen Mogul flights from the 1947 time period were dutifully recorded, i.e., the ones that actually went up.

Again we are back to the desperation of the debunkers, needing to invent nonexistent balloon flights out of thin air to try to explain Roswell, even "Japanese spy balloons". Give us all a break!

Originally posted by debrisfield
The camera used was an old 4" x 5" Speed Graphic press camera. The negative still exists, so researchers are working from the best possible materials, namely scans directly from the negative

I pretty much agree with most of your post, but the "best possible materials" may be true of the time when the negative scan was made, but that would probably not be the best possible scan if it was re-done today. Modern scanners should be able to scan at a higher resolution now, I think.

www.gizmag.com...

The CanoScan 9000F scans at 9600 x 9600 dots per inch in Film mode

They don't say how much of that resolution is interpolated versus how much is physical, so it may be a somewhat exaggerated claim if it includes interpolation, however I still think it might give more detail than the older negative scan, how many dots per inch was that?

It would be interesting to see if any more detail and resolution could be obtained with a more modern scan with a better quality scanner, as a previous poster suggested.

Originally posted by XtraTL
Looking for the word "victims", I don't see that at all. The first thing that I saw was the word "pieces". The "p" is in line with the other letters, rather than above them, which is where you might read a "v". Of course, if it says "pieces" and not "victims", that changes the whole meaning entirely.

I don't know whether I am gullible in believing that this blown up image has any relation to what was on that victim of paper or not. If it really does, then it is incredible that some legible words on it can be read.

First of all, it is a 7-letter word, not 6-letters. That alone rules out "PIECES".

Also I don't know what image you are looking at, but the high-quality and enhanced images I've looked at clearly show a "V" (or "Y") in the first position and an "I" in your second "E" (or is it "C" OR "S", since the letter count is wrong?) position of "PIECES". Check out, for example, these images:

roswellproof.com...

Another thing to look for is where the center of the letters lie, which can be determined because each letter in teletype occupies the same width space. The downstrokes of P and E would lie left-of-center. But V and I would be on-center. Note that this is indeed the case for the first and fifth letters in the graphic linked to. The downstroke is centered.

reply to post by XtraTL


Replying to myself... I looked around for a better image, which I found here:

upload.wikimedia.org...

In fact google images has a few different images, enhanced from the original in various ways. The start could be either

"--- and the pieces of the wreck you collected to the"
or
"--- and the viewers of the wreck you contacted to top"

"team at Fort ~~~~~, ~~~"

"~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~ wreck ~ appear covered up intentionally negate"
or
"~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~ "disc" ~ appear covered up necessitating ~~~~~"

"~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ swap ~~~ meaning of order ~~~ ~~~~"

"~~~~~ only turn out to be weather balloons ~~~~~ ~~~~"

"...~~~ ~~~~ and ~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~"
"~~~~~"

For me at least, this doesn't constitute evidence of anything. If I can't read it myself and be sure of what it says, it isn't of any value to me, apart from interest sake.

What would be interesting would be to straighten out that piece of paper using a 3D computer model of how it is folded, adjust for the uneven lighting on it, try to work out some letters that are known for sure and match them with an actual known typeface and try to pick out other occurrences of the same known letters and other letters of the known typeface.

It is a shame it is written in all caps. It could be much easier to read if written in lower case with stems of letters above and below the line.

Anyhow, with some partial known information, put it through a dictionary for all possible words that fit.

This would be a scientific way of analysing it rather than passing it to random people to try and make words out. However, I don't know if that would end up in any more certainty about the contents. It's just too indistinct to be sure about. The brain can fill in so much missing information.

Originally posted by debrisfield
First of all, it is a 7-letter word, not 6-letters. That alone rules out "PIECES".

I think you are right. The word "pieces" seems too short, though I don't know how regular these typewriters or telex machines were.

I was looking at the video rather than a still image which I found later.

Is it just me or is it really wishful thinking that this is signed "Ramey". I can't read anything at all where it is signed. This could have been to or from Ramey. If to Ramey, then the signature could have been anyone's.