Well, if you haven’t seen any reportage on the slides, I can only say you haven’t missed much. I do make an effort to shut up, observe, and give my opinion. Because, let’s face it, no matter what you might believe, the Night Run is simply an opinion–though based on serious consideration of available material from all sides. I present myself as a “very well-read questioner,” simply because the term “skeptic” hits me wrong, though in comparison to those who have done quite serious work (Klass, Nickell, Sheaffer), I probably come off as a near-believer. I’m not. Emotionally, I want to be, and 100 Fox Mulders couldn’t force me into that stance. Sure, I admit re-visiting the sense of wonder I once had long ago, and hoped that the crew in Mexico might actually have withheld some mind-blowing evidence heretofore unseen. No…I was wrong. But I’m grateful to have had no part in the proceedings. It’s after 4:30 AM, and I want for once to drop any pretense at being “mannered,” or otherwise pedantic. I know that’s annoying, so how about if I speak “as if” you were right here with me, perhaps enjoying a beer?
First off, I’ll say I wanted some kind of closure. Did these ambiguous players actually have something in hand that might actually be connected to “reality”? You never know, and you can’t know, until you see. Kevin Randle doesn’t know me from Adam, as the saying goes, but I’ve been keeping up on the “doings” visible on his website. Jesus Christ in a side-car! What a can was opened there! To his credit, Randle dealt–continues to deal–with scores of nonsense, and a few comments that made sense. More than a few. If I name names, then I’ll be accused of taking sides–so I won’t. Read this blog, buy my book, BLACK LIGHT, but don’t ask me to take sides. I’ve done that. Based on reading, conversations, writing, and 100% personal speculation, I think what happened at Roswell is absolutely impenetrable. Either it was a “balloon train,” which I doubt, or something so illegal and scary and humanly damaging, I cannot know or reasonably track down. Nor can you. Or Randle, Friedman, and the still-missing Martin Cannon. The very hard work has been done. It’s quite clear SOMETHING came to ground. Why records were destroyed, I don’t know. In 1947 such things weren’t taken so seriously as they now are. I found this out by simply searching for my father’s (Stanley A. Grabowski) military record. No one is hiding anything, at least so far as who was on site at Roswell in 1947. Sometimes it seems as if “believers” think some guy is permanently crouched in a shadowed office with endless coffee and a gun, guarding the Roswell files.
Here’s another thing that bothers the hell out of me. Please get over your hatred of Annie Jacobsen, because even though she seems like a sucker, she did hint that the relevant Roswell files have never been found because FOIA requests have repeatedly gone to the wrong places. Here is where I must admit ignorance, but has anyone filed requests per Roswell with the entity once known as Atomic Energy Commission? Maybe they have. We all know the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 transferred the regulatory functions of the AEC to the new NRC, which began operations on January 19, 1975. Big deal. But has anyone filed FOIA requests? I’ll tell you right now, I lack the resources to do so. But I haven’t found evidence for anyone actually going so far. Probably. But good luck with that. It’s like asking the middle-east to come clean on the life of Jesus Christ. They might not know, since everyone accepts the Bible, even though our present texts were edited and rewritten hundreds of years after the death of the man known as Jesus.
In a nut, why does Roswell burn like radioactive waste nearly 70 years on? I don’t know. You don’t know. But we’d like some clarity, wouldn’t we? I think if I had the bad fortune of meeting the Mexico/Roswell Slides crew, I’d regret it. Sure, I’d start off a little reserved, checking anger, until the drinks calmed me so I might speak my mind. Were that to happen, I’d end up as poorly as them. Just another loser looking for a buck.
Somewhere outside of time and space, the spirit of a child looks down on this happy horseshit and wonders: “Why me?”
The Night Run 
> Sometimes it seems as if “believers” think some guy is permanently crouched in a shadowed office with endless coffee and a gun, guarding the Roswell files.
You missed: “with a giant red button on the underside of his desk.”
I would have also accepted: “trap door,” “tiger net hanging from the ceiling” or “doberman pinscher.”
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Terry, I also failed to include GET SMART’s Cone of Silence—just in case the Chief shows up and we need some spook-free conversation. DAMN that black budget!
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I should have thought of that!
I can imagine a scenario — at least for a humourous movie or book — where the Roswell case is finally solved. But the government secrecy had been so tight and covered so many decades, no one in the USG remembers who is (or where is) the guy in the office you imagined. The search takes years. One day they find him, a beaten-down old man isolated from the world for 50+ years. He doesn’t know the Berlin Wall has fallen, what a personal computer is, etc., and he has not even read the files he was protecting (he hadn’t the clearance). He has had nothing in his life but the knowledge of his faithful service. He is thanked for his service and released from duty. Somewhat wide-eyed and in shock, he asks, “So, what was it? The crashed saucer?” The officer says, sheepishly, “It was a balloon,” and marches off.
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Terry, you’ve planted (IMplanted?) a seed in my roiling mind that just might bear fruit. I’m not kidding. My 2014 short novel, JOHNNY FLASH, sends up ufology, Cold War paranoia (real and imagined), and is reeking with references only those “in-the-know” will understand, while (I hope) still giving readers a darkly humorous yarn. Your imagined scenario might work very well as a short-short story (“flash fiction,” in the modern parlance). If I pursue this, I’ll need to give you complete attribution as my inspiration. Please let me know if this is acceptable. It’s too good for me to pass up!
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Go for it.
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I’m on it like a bad suit.
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