Thursday 5 February 2015

Revealing the “Roswell Slides”


By Nick Redfern

If you are fascinated by the UFO controversy and aren’t aware of the even bigger controversy of the so-called “Roswell Slides” then you must surely have been living under a rock for a fairly significant amount of time. It’s a story that goes back a couple of years and concerns the acquisition of slides – from 1947 – said to show the corpse of a strange creature allegedly (A) born on another world and; (B) scooped up by the U.S military in the summer of 1947. Yep: Roswell. The bodies. Finally. So we are told.

The story has been simmering, surfacing, submerging, and surfacing yet again for many a moon. But, finally, we have a development. In a new article titled “The Public Reveal of the Roswell Alien Slides” (which can be found at Kevin Randle’s A Different Perspective blog), Tony Bragalia (part of the “Dream Team” investigating the slides) says:

“What some say represents stunning visual evidence of a humanoid creature that was found crashed near Roswell, NM in 1947 will soon to be released in an international livestream event. Referred to by some as ‘the Roswell Slides,’ the Kodachrome images have now been authenticated by expert scientists and their provenance has been confirmed. During that long process many have speculated about precisely what these pictures show. People will now be able to see for themselves with the public reveal of the slides on May 5th 2015.”

Will the revealed slides show any resemblance to this scene at the Roswell Museum?

The location of the unveiling of the slides: the 10,000-seater, National Auditorium, Mexico.

It’s a story that revolves around a now-deceased married couple, Bernerd and Hilda Ray (he was a geologist and she was a lawyer). She had intriguing contacts and he had a connection to Roswell. In 1947. Or, in other words: take that, UFO skeptics. In a fashion that is not entirely clear (whether the events of May 5 will change things on that score remains to be seen), the Rays either took or acquired the images that are now in slide form and finally ready for disclosure.
Tony Bragalia says that various professionals agree that the thing in the slides once lived and that it is not a deformed human. He believes it to be something non-terrestrial. Alien, in other words. A lot have people have chimed in on this affair, but very little has been resolved. And, I have to wonder, how much can be resolved.
If the film has been authenticated as being of 1947 vintage (which is what we are told), and that it was also exposed in 1947 (as we are also told, but I don’t see how the latter can be confirmed), how does that specifically confirm the body – whatever it may be – came from the Foster Ranch, Lincoln County, New Mexico where all the action went down on that long-gone, fateful and fatal day? Well, it actually doesn’t, because it can’t.

For now we can only speculate as to what the slides will reveal

The 1947 dating, plus the fact that Bernerd Ray had a Roswell connection, is suggestive of a link to the Roswell affair. In situations like this, it’s always important to stress what we know for sure, and balance it against what we think is likely or logical.

I wonder, too, if the May 5 event will shed light on other aspects of the “Roswell slides” issue – such as that I was given certain details on the case (including the names of Bernerd and Hilda Ray, and their link to Midland, Texas, which is an under-appreciated aspect of the story) before the information was in the pubic domain. The Dream Team was both concerned and intrigued that I was given the information before they had released it.

Then there is the matter of a certain computer hacker who 100 percent illegally accessed the emails of me, Tony Bragalia and Rich Reynolds of the UFO Conjecture(s) blog, who has extensively written and commented on the matter of the slides. There was supposed to have been a law enforcement investigation of this. It seems to have fizzled away. No matter, a new one is soon to begin.

All of which brings me back to what’s going to happen on May 5. Maybe we will get the truth of Roswell. Maybe we won’t. Or, maybe, we will get what Ufology always gives us: more questions, more enigmas, and nothing 100 percent solid.