AF Roswell Study Contributor Admits, "It Was ET!"
(originally published April 2009)
The Lt. Colonel who was a major contributor to the Air Force's official 1997 study that concluded that the Roswell ET crash of 1947 is a "myth", now states that the Air Force's Roswell report is itself a lie. The Colonel goes further to state that what he really believes to be true is that aliens actually did crash to Earth decades ago! He adds that he was "used" and that the author of the Air Force report "was on a mission" with no interest in discovering what really happened at Roswell.
In the Air Force's publication Roswell Report: Case Closed (authored by Intelligence Officer Captain James McAndrew in 1997), the Roswell crash is debunked. The report serves as the US Air Force's official and "final word" on the matter. Captain McAndrew explains in the Air Force report that "crash test dummies" that dropped from airplanes were mistaken by witnesses for the rumored Roswell "aliens". McAndrew contends that local ranchers, when confronted with these humanoid figures laying on the desert floor, confused them in some way with creatures from another world. An earlier Air Force Roswell report had concluded that the "craft" that was witnessed was actually a fallen top-secret "Mogul" spy balloon project.
Lt. Col. Raymond Madson, now 79, recently related to this author that he was the Project Officer that led the Air Force's "crash test dummy" program, known as "Project High Dive" from 1956-1960 at Holloman Air Force Base. He designed and managed tests that used anthropomorphic dummies in aerial "dummy drop" tests. These tests were part of an Air Force project to identify ways to safely parachute pilots from aircraft at very high altitudes. He tested and analyzed problems that pilots might encounter with the ejection mechanisms for bailing out of new generation aircraft.
Lt. Col. Madson is extensively quoted and referred to by Captain McAndrew throughout the Air Force's Roswell debunking report, issued in book form. His affidavit is found on page 180. Madson even provided many of the famous crash test dummy pictures used in the book. He says that he made it clear to McAndrew that although the "dummies could be mistaken for something they are not" – they could never be mistaken for small alien beings! Madson was visited by Captain McAndrew for in-person interviews over a period of two days. Madson told McAndrew that the dummies did not appear alien – and that anyone would know that these are "essentially large dolls." Madson also expressed to McAndrew that the period of time in which these dummy drop tests occurred could not possibly coincide with the time of the Roswell event – the events were too many years apart from one another. McAndrew listened – but did not comment – on Madson's opinion. Madson also told McAndrew that "we were testing with these 6' dummies to try to protect grown men. The aliens reported at Roswell were said to be child-sized."
In fact, McAndrew's Roswell report did not include Madson's real opinion on the matter at all! It appears as though McAndrew wanted to get desired comments out of Madson to be later used to support the crash dummy
program explanation for the alien bodies. McAndrew took Madson's words and placed them in the Air Force debunking report in such a way that it did not convey the truth about the way Madson actually felt about the nature of the Roswell event!
Madson says that the statement that he signed for McAndrew (which appears in the report) was accurate, but that, in the context of the overall Air Force report, it is misleading. Madson feels that he was "used for purposes" and that his intent was misrepresented – he did not "buy into" the idea of his "Air Force dummies as aliens." Madson adds that the dummies had tags on them with instructions for getting a $25 reward for their return. He says that this is another reason why the Air Force explanation makes no sense whatsoever. Clearly McAndrew wanted to get all of the historical details from Madson about the dummy drop program that he could (details that only Madson could offer) and then make all of this information seem to support the Air Force debunking efforts.
Madson got an "uneasy" feeling about the whole inquiry. He now wonders why the Air Force even felt compelled in the first place to come up with an explanation for "supposed bodies" resulting from a crash "that supposedly never happened." He adds, "The whole need to even do that is unusual, now that I look back on it."
We discussed that the Air Force had (in 1994) already issued a "final word" debunking report on Roswell, explaining that the crash resulted from a top-secret Mogul balloon project. Why then the need in 1997 – three years later – to come up with yet another "final word" report detailing the explanation, this time for the bodies? If it was a balloon, then that should have been the end of the inquiry. Paraphrasing Shakespeare, "Methinks doth protest too much." McAndrew objected so much to the idea of the ET nature of the crash, that he lost credibility and he has revealed a hidden motive.
Madson then becomes more emphatic: "I didn't trust McAndrew. In fact, I don't even like him. I don't like the way that he operates." Madson goes on to say that he even gave McAndrew some of the famous photos of the crash test dummies that are used throughout the Air Force debunking report. Madson states that McAndrew never returned any of the original materials that he had offered to McAndrew for reproduction. Madson said that after the Air Force's Roswell report was issued and he read it – alarmed – he called McAndrew repeatedly, but McAndrew never returned Madson's calls. So incensed was Madson that he debated whether to call McAndrew's Air Force superior.
Very tellingly Madson now says that "McAndrew was sent on a mission." Today he has no doubt that McAndrew "was assigned to carry out a directive" that was intended to "produce a specific result." I asked him, "Was McAndrew on a mission to uncover the truth about Roswell?" Madson simply repeated, "No, he was on a mission." Asked if he felt that McAndrew himself believed his own report's conclusions, Madson paused and again intoned, "McAndrew was sent on a mission."
But Madson goes far beyond saying that the Air Force used his "crash dummy program" as a feeble explanation and "cover story" to debunk the stories of Roswell alien beings.
Amazingly, Madson believes that an extraterrestrial crash actually had happened – and that the bodies were stored for a period of time at Wright-Patterson! He bases this on the fact that he himself had served at Wright-Patterson in the early 1950s, before going to Holloman AFB to conduct the crash dummy tests. He personally had heard – just a few years after the Roswell event – directly from "others who would have been positioned to know" that there was a "very secure facility" at the base that served as the storage place for the alien bodies that were recovered from a crash sometime before he began employment at Wright. Although he was intrigued by what he had heard about all of this, he told me, "you just didn't ask a whole lot of questions like that in those days." Madson adds, "I believe that the talk was serious, but that the matter was kept highly secret at the time." Madson also feels that it is likely that there is a reverse-engineering program of the recovered technology in place that he says, "is only accessible by those with a Need to Know."
What makes this even more interesting is that Col. Madson met Mrs. Madson – his future wife – while employed at Wright in the early 1950s. Mrs. Madson was employed at the time as a secretary for Wright's base medical laboratory. Astonishingly, she had also been hearing the very same "scuttlebutt" as heard by her soon-to-be husband. She had been told by some of those who she had worked with about child-sized beings "from another world" who had crashed to Earth. Sometime prior to her employment, they had been retrieved, brought back to the base, and then studied secretly.
Madson says, "We both knew not to say anything much to each other about it at the time. But today, my wife can't stop thinking about it – and neither can I."