Talk:Roswell incident/Archive 1.1

New Page for Air Force Reports on Roswell

I've taken the liberty of moving most of the material I wrote on the Air Force reports on Roswell to this new page. I'll soon reduce the article size on the Roswell UFO Incident page.

Canada Jack 16:15, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Reference tag omitted

A request for references for the critiques of the first Air Force report was omitted. I did so because the critiques were in fact referenced. Several of the critiques are from the same source. Canada Jack 00:16, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

• Is it possible to point out which source they came from so we can specify exactly which source to prevent future questioning by others (which may happen again) (:O) -Nima Baghaei ^{talk · cont · email} 02:11, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Point taken. I will rewrite the section to better illustrate the sources of the critiques. Canada Jack 15:38, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

• Further to the above, I have decided a rewrite of the "critiques" sections is in order, and I have been in touch with Stan Friedman requesting some of the critiques he has done in the past on this subject. Canada Jack 14:22, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

I have now done a rewrite, and am awaiting some material from Stan Friedman who has graciously assembled a package of material for me. SO there likely will be an update to some of the critiques noted here. Please bear with me as I have to do the proper formatting for the references, and if someone feels my style for the points in the "critique" section is no good, feel free to change that. Canada Jack 21:24, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

• looks good (:O) -Nima Baghaei ^{talk · cont · email} 23:15, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Isn't there a possible WP:COI problem with Friedman? Bubba73 (talk), 21:16, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Shouldn't this article be titled "US Air Force reports on the Roswell UFO incident" or something along those lines? It seems rather US-centric to refer to the US Air Force as "the Air Force". Other countries have them too! :) Martin 03:10, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

• sounds good to me, let me put the rename tag up (:O) -Nima Baghaei ^{talk · cont · email} 13:39, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

I have no objections to this. Canada Jack 14:18, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

It seems OK to me. Bubba73 (talk), 23:45, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

The current title doesn't seem so bad - it makes sense without explicit mention that the Air Force being referred to is the one of the country that Roswell is situated in. Dekimasuよ! 07:35, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

That assumes anyone coming across the article knows what country Roswell is in, which is not necessarily the case. It also assumes anyone coming across the article has prior knowledge that only the US Air Force were involved in the Roswell incident. Two little letters doesn't seem much of a price to pay to remove any ambiguity. Martin 16:29, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

It was requested that this article be renamed but there was no consensus for it be moved. --Stemonitis 19:49, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

GAO report?

Was there a GAO report that was different from the two reports discussed here? (GAO report) Bubba73 (talk), 23:50, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

As far as I can know, these are the only reports generated by the GAO in regards to the Roswell incident, though there have been other more general UFO investigations so instigated. Canada Jack 18:22, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

I thought that the GAO did a search for documents, and they did a report on that. Bubba73 (talk), 18:25, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

My understanding is the the search for documents was part of the 1994 GAO request which formed a part of the investigation from which the First report emerged. That link you have seems to be part of the searches done for the 1994 report.Canada Jack 20:17, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

OK, thanks. Bubba73 (talk), 20:35, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Requested move decision

Five days and four comments in, isn't it extremely premature to say there has been no consensus? Martin 20:52, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

No, five days is normal. See WP:RM. --Stemonitis 06:25, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Watson labs

The article says "The project was run by a joint New York University/Watson Labs team." Is this the IBM Watson lab? Bubba73 (talk), 03:30, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

I checked the Air Force Report, which has copies of some of the original documentation from the team, and it makes no mention of "IBM." The report cover from the team, dated 1951 says "Watson Laboratories, Red Bank, New Jersey." Other reports from the same time period identify the lab the same way. A 1947 article reproduced in the Report calls it "Watson Laboratories of the Air Materiel Command." NOne of these documents reproduced seem to be more current than 1953. Not sure if that helps... Canada Jack 15:31, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

OK, it must be at Air Materials instead od IBM. Bubba73 (talk), 17:35, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Mogul 4 reconstruction

Dr Fil saw fit, again without discussion, on turning this page into a debate forum.

While I think some of the Mogul stuff he added was good, he seemingly cannot resist the temptation to turn this into an argument. It suffices simply to note that this reconstruction was not without challenges. These challenges were noted as was the underying point - that Mogul 4 was a POSSIBLE candidate to have landed on the ranch, which even Rudiak admits.

Indeed, he has added more stuff which turns this into a rebuttal than an actual presentation of the case, which is the point of the page.

Perhaps, Dr Fil, you are in the need of a good editor as you simply can't resist the urge, it seems, to shovel all your stuff here on the subject of choice. Quantity doesn't trump quality, and I think it would be perfectly fine to present the Mogul case with an aside to the major critques, like with the reports themselves. Why not do that, in brief form? Canada Jack 23:23, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Canada Jack is again engaged in vandalism, instantly deleting anything I try to add to these articles.

Of course there can be rebuttals to various arguments. Duhhh, there are already very short sections doing just that here and there, aren't there? But it seems Canada Jack feels only he can write the criticisms, nobody else, while 80% of the rest of the article, which he also writes, he acts as a cheering squad for the Air Force Mogul version of events. There is nothing impartial about how he writes the article. He also states things as being unquestioned "facts" even when they are clearly nothing more than undocumented claims or theories by the Air Force, another way he puts his POV into the article.

Often, there are many factual errors, such as in the Mogul 4 reconstruction section, which I tried to remedy. The reader should be aware of the numerous assumptions made by Moore which have absolutely no basis in reality. E.g., look at the Mogul documentation and you will see that ALL recorded Mogul flights carried radiosondes for tracking. The section is instead written that Flight 5 had a radiosonde only because radar tracking failed on Flight 4. Radar tracking failed, therefore there had to be radar targets on Flight 4. What is the basis for this? Simply because Moore says so. It also misleads by mentioning the radar targets on Flight 2, but failing to mention the radiosonde documented on the same flight. ALL Moguls carried radiosondes, and Moore's argument as to why Flight 4 had radar targets is complete nonsense.

It is NOT true as stated in the section that the diary documented a night flight. Quite the contrary. It instead stated "flight cancelled again on account of clouds" and gave no time at all for June 4. Instead Moore used the PREVIOUS day's diary account of getting up at 2:30 a.m. to launch (but this too being cancelled on account of clouds). Even if they had gotten up at 2:30 on June 4, this does not mean the flight would be all ready to go at 3:00 a.m. It took hours to fill the balloons, tie them all together, and assemble the gear. Most of the flights, as a result, were launched at dawn or even later in the day, which even Moore assumed the case initially for flight 4, and even admitted initially that the diary entry was ambiguous and there may indeed have never have been a flight 4. (He created the night flight later only to try to make his model work when he got real wind data that was less favorable to his flight 4 theory.) There were no night flights until much later, and these were very few in number. Does a night flight in the early Mogul development states even make sense? That would have totally eliminated all visual tracking at the same time they were trying to figure out if the balloons were flying properly by having redundant tracking systems in place.

Moore did in fact claim only Flight 4 passed near the Foster Ranch because he has this 50-year old, crystal clear memory of how they were calling out exotic N.M. locales. The fact of the matter was, these locales were actually part of a flight 3 months later, the only documented one to pass anywhere near the ranch. (Even this got no nearer than maybe 20 miles.)

Silly me for trying to make some factual corrections and point out that Moore was making a lot of assumptions that had no basis in fact.

Moore did indeed alter original Mogul trajectory plots, but not exactly as represented, and also had no basis on which to do so other than to mess with the data. Moore did not adjust rise rates to reflect a night flight as stated. Instead he clearly falsified the rise rates and fall rates, as Rudiak and Sparks were trying to point out. Moore saying 100/12 is a rise rate of 350 is clearly mathematical bunk, e.g. Rudiak noted that Moore surreptitiously removed a lifter balloon cutoff on rise that slowed ascent and would have pushed the balloons much further downrange. Brad Sparks caught Moore red-handed monkeying with the Flight 5 trajectory plot after claiming he was copying it "without change." Moore instead made several changes to make it falsely appear that Flight 5 did not come within a few miles of Roswell base.

Rudiak does not "admit" that Mogul was a possible candidate for the Foster ranch. That's just more misrepresentation by Canada Jack. Rudiak states its a highly IMPROBABLE candidate, because the winds were much too strong and would have blown such a balloon, even if it did exist, far past the ranch. Rudiak showed that's what Moore's historical wind data and model actually demonstrated, except Moore falsified the trajectory. Rudiak stated that only if you assume drastically different winds and make a lot of other unlikely assumptions can you get a "Flight 4" there.

There is a quote and link to Rudiak's web page, but zero presentation of Sparks' and Rudiak's actual arguments. But, Moore's theory, badly and inaccurately presented, is left standing almost entirely uncontested. Moore supposedly demonstrated that the winds would have taken a flight 4 to the ranch. Never mind that Sparks and Rudiak proved Moore a transparent hoaxer. This is typical of the way Canada Jack commandeers Wikipedia articles, controlling both the heavily debunking aspects, while censoring critiques or corrections. Only he can write the critiques.

Canada Jack should not be writing encyclopedia articles if he doesn't know what he is talking about and instead writes fiction instead of fact. He shouldn't be hitting the DELETE button every time people like me who actually know something try to fix the mistakes and put some perspective into the article.

I am sick and tired of Canada Jack's instantaneous censorship. I have never deleted any of his materials, even when they were heavily POV and seriously wrong, I have always tried to work around them or maybe rewrite them, usually leaving most of the argument intact, but NEVER delete them. Canada Jack pays no such respect to me. He deletes my contributions 90% of the time in full, often within minutes, and it is always with some self-serving, flimsy rationale. Basically it comes down to CJ thinking Wikipedia is his personal blog and only he gets to decide what's in it.

Why aren't the Wikipedia referees doing something about this?Dr Fil 02:17, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Dr Fil, as with the other pages, there has been an established method here. Clearly, you are from a realm where you expect any view that is counter to what you happen to believe to be open to instant rebutals. What we've done here instead is simply PRESENT THE CASE, obviously a new concept to you.

I personally have no problem with your insertion of new counter-arguments. What I have a problem with is when you take a page dedicated to a subject and you turn it into something else, typically the case AGAINST a certain subject. So, before I fixed up the Project Mogul page, it was more properly "Why Project Mogul had nothing to do with Roswell and why Sheridan Cavitt is a liar." Which is patently ridiculous for an encyclopedia. We SHOULD be here to give NPOV information on subjects, not to insert readers on some bloody debate.

So, in that case, I simply removed all that nonsense and was, predictably, called a "censor." It seems you are by nature incapable of letting ANY information which is neutral or does not have all the pro-UFO talking points front and centre...

Anyway, on THIS page, there is a format established, as we are trying to do on the "witness" page and on the "roswell" page itself. And that is to simply state the cases. On "roswell," instead of what existed before - a page which assumed the truth of a ufo cover-up - we now have a presentation of a) what was reported in 1947, b) the evolution of what ufo advocates believe happened c) the skeptical response.

On this page, since it is called "air force reports", it makes sense to simply present the report as it was presented.

":Canada Jack is again engaged in vandalism, instantly deleting anything I try to add to these articles."

A "vandal" is someone who comes in, unannounced, and alters substantially what had existed with no word, no discussion of changes, nothing. In Dr Fil's bizarre world, when I say that though some information there is valuable, you are substantially altering the NPOV way this was originally presented and we should therefore revert and discuss, I am now the "vandal." Give me a break.

The format here is to present the cases, THEN go to rebuttal. in THAT way, the casual reader doesn't get waded down in a tedious back-and-forth debate over the minituae of what various sides claim. The rebuttals to the Moore analysis were noted. You want to add more? Add some more - to the rebuttal side. But don't make the rebuttal twice as long as the article itself!

Most of my problems with your changes are not so much what you want to add, but your refusal to engage in a rational discussion on how to present what you want. AND your seeming complete inability to employ your inner editor.

"There is nothing impartial about how he writes the article. He also states things as being unquestioned "facts" even when they are clearly nothing more than undocumented claims or theories by the Air Force, another way he puts his POV into the article."

Then, the place to make those remarks is in the rebutal section, NOT in the body of the article. Remember, this page is not called "the debate over the Air force reports" it is an article describing what those reports said. Simply presenting what is said does not suggest they are "facts" - the only "fact" is that is what the Air Force asserts. It seems clear to me that far from being a POV article as you assert, you want to turn this INTO a POV article by having free reign to challenge every assertion you find questionable EVEN THOUGH THIS IS SIMPLY A PRESENTATION OF THE CASE THE AIR FORCE WAS MAKING. If you are allowed free reign, this article will turn into an argument which will likely double or triple the size of the page, with more "rebutal" than presentation. That's what you've done consistently in the past, and what I've struggled to do here and on other pages is simply to keep you from turning these pages into POV pro-ufo articles.

And here you go yet again... Canada Jack 16:28, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

"Canada Jack should not be writing encyclopedia articles if he doesn't know what he is talking about and instead writes fiction instead of fact. He shouldn't be hitting the DELETE button every time people like me who actually know something try to fix the mistakes and put some perspective into the article."

Well, I take exception to this remark. I have repeatedly stated that I have no problem with you inserting corrections and clarifactions etc. What I take exception with is your tendency to tearing up articles which simply are designed to present whatever case was being made and turning them into long-winded debates on the subjects!

Sure, you know a lot on the subject. But you seem utterly incapable of allowing what was actually presented to be presented! So, when Moore, or the Air Force, or someone like Cavitt makes a declaration or says this is what we assume or assert, YOU rush in and say "...but others point out that that is wrong because..."

ALL I am saying is that we should PRESENT THE CASES. And in the case of a page dedicated to a single subject - in this case the Air Force reports, present a PRECIS of the counter-arguments.

I reverted what you inserted here because you inserted those arguments BEFORE the rebuttal section. So, try again, and keep the rebutalls short and sweet. EMPLOY YOUR INTERNAL EDITOR. Some of those other changes like "the Report said..." or "it was asserted..." those types of changes are fine and in keeping with ensuring that this is NPOV. Instead of doing the changes myself, I've reverted and invited you to put them back in but to keep with the format which had been established since the page was created. Canada Jack 16:58, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

It might be helpful to take a look at what has been done elsewhere - like with the Warren Commission report and the Kennedy Assassination. When it comes to accusations of "cover-up" and cases where there are multiple interpretations and bitter, passionate debate over who and what to believe, what has happened with the Kennedy pages at wikipedia is an approach which I think is worth duplicating, and which I have attempted to do.

There, as here, the event and the controversy are noted in the opening paragraphs. Then, a timeline of the event is presented, as it is here. The initial FBI report is noted, THEN the criticisms. The Warren Commission report is noted, its conclusions stated. THEN, note is made of the criticisms. In the case of the Warren Report, there is a separate page which has sections thus: Overview; Method; Findings; Aftermath (including criticisms).

I think it is instructive to note that on such a serious event, the wiki editors there have chosen a structure which closely mirrors what I have done, and that is TO PRESENT THE CASE. It is hard to think of another event which elicits more passion and controversy than the Kennedy assassination and the following investigations, yet if we were to follow Dr Fil's approach, we'd be inserting objections and counter-arguments every step of the way. The effect would be to be like walking into a heated debate where, unless you already knew what the issues were, you'd be totally lost.

It is also instructive to note that the relative brevity of these articles. I think our articles are too long - Dr Fil's approach would make these long articles even longer. I believe that by comparing my approach to other controversies, we can conclude that though imperfect, my approach covers the needed ground and does it in the best manner practical and, more to the point, in a way which the casual reader will be able to make head or tail out of the complicated series of events, of claims and counter-claims. Again, I encourage Dr Fil to stick to this approach and to incorporate his changes within the established format. Canada Jack 19:29, 19 June 2007 (UTC)