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Interview with Stan Friedman on UFOs & Roswell

By Glenn Danforth

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Summary: Nuclear Physicist Stanton Friedman is, arguably, the world's most respected and well-known UFO researcher. Friedman believes two alien spaceships crashed in New Mexico in 1947. He offers what many people feel is proof the U.S. Government has conducted a continuing cover-up of the truth behind what newspaper headlines at the time called the crash of a flying saucer (now known as the Roswell incident).

Nuclear Physicist Stanton Friedman is, arguably, the world's most respected and well-known UFO researcher. Co-author of Crash at Corona, and the just released Top Secret/Majic, Friedman has appeared on numerous television programs such as Nightline and Larry King. His lectures have drawn huge crowds in 50 states and on three continents.

Friedman believes two alien spaceships crashed in New Mexico in 1947. He offers what many people feel is proof the U.S. Government has conducted a continuing cover-up of the truth behind what newspaper headlines at the time called the crash of a flying saucer (now known as the Roswell incident).

A controversial figure, Friedman isn't the stereotypical conspiracy theorist. Well educated, intelligent and humorous, he claims to seek truth regardless of where it takes him and often debunks outrageous claims (including the recent Alien Autopsy film shown on the FOX network).

DANFORTH: Have you ever seen what you believe to be a flying saucer?

FRIEDMAN: No. But I check all my audiences, and there have been over 700 groups, and I consistently find about 10 percent who believe they've seen one. Then I ask how many of them have reported the siting, and it's usually one in 20. Sightings are common, reports are uncommon, and good investigations are rare. I've never seen a flying saucer.

DANFORTH: Do you hope to have a personal encounter with one someday?

FRIEDMAN: It's no big deal either way. I tend to get two different reactions when people find out I haven't seen one. First is; how can you talk about something you've never seen. I always point out that I've been chasing neutrons and gamma rays for 40 years and I've never seen a neutron or a gamma ray. I've never seen Tokyo. It's there.

On the other hand, people say I can be more objective if I haven't seen one. Well, objectivity is an approach to problem solving and whether you have or haven't had the experience shouldn't really matter.

DANFORTH: How did you first meet Major Jesse Marcel?

FRIEDMAN: I was the first one to talk to him. A lot of people don't know that. I was referred to Jesse by a television station manager in 1978, who was embarrassed because his reporter was late in arriving for an interview with me before my talk at Louisiana State University.

As we sat drinking cup after cup of coffee, the station manager said, "You know who you ought to talk to, Jesse Marcel. "Being the brilliant investigator that I am I asked, "Who's he?" He said, "Marcel handled pieces of one of those flying saucers you're interested in when he was in the military." That really caught my attention.

I called information the next day, got Jesse's number and called him. He told me about it, but couldn't remember the exact date, after all it was 31 years later. He was the intelligence officer for the only atomic bombing group in the world, the 509. There wasn't much I could do with the story, since he didn't have a date, so I filed it.

Then I heard another story. A couple came up to me after a lecture at another packed house, the packed house is important because people feel better when they realize they aren't alone in their beliefs, and asked me if I'd ever heard a story about a crashed saucer in New Mexico. I said I'd heard stories, but tell me more.

They told me about their friend Barney Barnett, who was working for the government in soil conservation, and stumbled across a downed saucer with bodies around it. The military came along and shut everyone up.

Bill Moore had the third, and key story. An English actor, Huey Green, was quoted in an article in 1955 about hearing a story regarding a crashed saucer in the Western United States. He tried to find out more, and managed to pin down a date. He went to the University of Minnesota library, and found the story.

I go through this long story because the Air Force has attempted to tabloidize (sic) this story. They claimed that, in 1978, the National Enquirer ran a story in which Major Marcel was claiming he'd recovered pieces of a flying saucer in 1947.

They also said that, in 1978 a UFO researcher -- they can't call me a nuclear physicist of course -- Stanton Friedman talked to Marcel and started looking for other witnesses. You can see the sequence developing: Angry old man goes to the National Enquirer, and stupid UFO researcher gets his leads from the National Enquirer.

Well, the facts are a little different. There was a story in the National Enquirer in 1980, after Bill Moore and I had talked to 62 people about this case. The point is the Air Force was telling a total untruth as they did in many other places in their report about Roswell, which came out September 8, 1994. I'm sick and tired of all the garbage that goes on out there.

DANFORTH: Florida Today (newspaper) writer Billy Cox has written many stories about UFO's and has spoken with at least one Roswell witness that I'm aware of, General Thomas Jefferson Dubose. Could you tell us about the general?

FRIEDMAN: He was a key officer who was, when I met him, retired. At the time, in 1947, he was Colonel Dubose, chief of staff of General Roger Ramey, head of the 8th Air Force, based in Fort Worth, Texas. That's where the saucer wreckage went on it's first stop. That's where Ramey put out the story, after being instructed to do so, that it was just a weather balloon.

Now, Dubose is the one, and we have sworn testimony, and he's on video, that took the call from the head of the Strategic Air Command, Clemence McMullen, who told him, in no uncertain terms, three instructions (this was after the press had already written the story on Roswell):

1) Send some of that wreckage up here with one of your colonel couriers, immediately.

2) Cover it up with the media, I don't care how you do it.

3) I don't want you to ever talk about it again, not even with General Ramey.

Those are direct quotes from Colonel Dubose. And, you know, typical of us UFO nuts, he's a West Point graduate with over 18,000 hours as a pilot. So he's on file, and Billy Cox had guts enough to talk to him.

DANFORTH: How do you react to the "Roswell Report" issued by the Air Force?

FRIEDMAN: The Air Force is lying through it's teeth. Most people don't realize just how grossly inconsistent that originally 25-page attack on Roswell is. It's since expanded to almost 1,000 pages, the size of the Manhattan phone book, and is called The Roswell Report, Truth vs. Fiction in the New Mexico Desert.

Boy did the Air Force supply the fiction. (Editors note: Friedman discussed many of the report's inconsistencies at length. We didn't print them originally due to space restraints in the newspaper. They are covered in Friedman's books.)

DANFORTH: What did Roswell witnesses claim to have found at the crash site?

FRIEDMAN: The people who handled the wreckage say it was several different things out there. One of them was an I-beam-like piece only 3/8 inch high and about the weight of balsa wood. It couldn't be cut, burned or broken. It had strange, pastel symbols along the inside. There was material that they would fold over several times and it would unfold on its own, foil-like material, extraordinarily light.

There was a material they couldn't break with a sledge hammer because it was so strong, but very light. There was nothing conventional, no wiring, no propellers or vacuum tubes. But, of course, it was (according to the Air Force) a standard issue balloon. The Air Force's explanation is baloney. They ought to serve it at a delicatessen.

DANFORTH: Assuming the Roswell story is true, why should I or anyone else care?

FRIEDMAN: It's crucial for several reasons. One, it proves there is other intelligent life in the universe. I shouldn't say other, we're not sure there's intelligent life on earth.

It proves the government has recovered wreckage and bodies, and has known since 1947 that there are alien visitors. It proves we're dealing with a cosmic Watergate. There was intimidation of witnesses. Several people were threatened.

DANFORTH: If you believe people were intimidated why haven't they gone after you? You would seem to be an enormous threat to blow their cover?

FRIEDMAN: Because I never handled a piece of wreckage, I never saw a body, I've never been directly involved. It's also because I'm a high profile guy, and if I stay high enough they don't dare to do anything to me.

DANFORTH: If there is life on other planets, what is the significance to mankind?

FRIEDMAN: It's extremely significant. It means we're not alone. If they're coming here, we ain't the big shots in the neighborhood. Man doesn't like that much.

We have to recognize that our future lies in space. We're not limited to earth. We're going to be reaching out, and when doing so, we better darn well recognize we're not the big shots in the neighborhood.

I think the best hope for the future of the planet is an earthling orientation as opposed to, say, a Chinese, Greek, or American orientation. I think the best way to get that is to recognize that there are aliens coming here.

My goal is, I suppose, to behave in such a way, us earthlings, that we qualify for admission to the cosmic kindergarten.

In other words, I think it's very important to mankind to get a handle on where he sits in the real scheme of things. Often times it takes a special event to induce people to change the way they look at things.

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