mantell-sparks 1

I read over the posted June 1994 CAUS article on Mantell expecting to find a RECORD of a Skyhook launch on Jan 6, 1948. I was hoping to find a THEODOLITE tracking on a MAP, since "theodolite" tracking was made much of in the article. I was bitterly disappointed to find neither. In fact there is an eerie deja vu here with the infamous C B Moore again involved in peddling questionable stories about balloon antics that are not documented and are flagrantly contradicted by the facts -- just like with his wholesale falsification of the Roswell MOGUL balloon fiction which Dave Rudiak and I thoroughly exploded as a tissue of lies, deceit and fabrication from start to finish (more on Moore's lies below).

How do we _know_ the alleged Skyhook balloon was lost after passing the Georgia/So Carolina coastline? That kind of assertion in the article makes it seem like there was a TRACKING of the balloon over a distance of 1,000+ miles out to the Georgia/SoCar coast, a seemingly solid documentary record.

Or is this just a bald assertion based simply on drawing a straight line from Camp Ripley, Minn., to Mantell's crash site near Franklin, Ky., and then continuing the line out to the Georgia/So Car? That is not a RECORD, that is a hypothetical extrapolation dressed up to LOOK like a documentary record made at the time, in 1948, which is not quite kosher, it's misleading. That would be pretty amazing given all the cross-winds at altitude that are hypothesized just to get a Camp Ripley -- Believe it or Not! -- balloon over central Kentucky at the time of the Mantell and other sightings, and to stop and start at the right time, etc.

Interestingly the AF claimed to have had actual "wind plots" (Ruppelt book p. ) to show that a Clinton County AFB Skyhook launch would have traveled SW to the sighting area in Kentucky -- about 90 degrees off of C B Moore's alleged SE heading claimed for the purported Camp Ripley balloon. How is that possible? Where are the WEATHER RECORDS to prove the Camp Ripley theory??? Moore is a meteorologist for crying out loud so where are the meteorological records to support his baseless theory??? At least the Clinton County Skyhook theory has WEATHER RECORDS, but these would seem to contradict any Camp Ripley balloon path.

The article claims that "Complete weather and tracking data for the Camp Ripley laumch are not available for the entire path." Well that implies there ARE such "weather and tracking data" available for SOME of the balloon flight path so WHERE IS IT????

Speaking of amazing coincidences, isn't it a pretty extraordinary "coincidence" that just a few hours after an alleged Skyhook balloon supposedly passes over the general region that at 7:20-8:00 PM (EST) on Jan 7, 1948, or almost 2 HOURS AFTER SUNSET AT BALLOON ALTITUDE AND WHEN THE BALLOON COULD NOT POSSIBLY BE SEEN there were Skyhook-balloon-like sightings from Lockbourne AFB and Clinton County AFB in southern Ohio??? How is that possible??? Pretty amazing when one considers a Skyhook could not possibly have been seen as a classic "ice cream cone" shape in PITCH DARKNESS of night. Even if the instrument package underneath the balloon carried a tiny light the light could not possibly have illuminated the 100-foot cone-shaped gas bag above it. These are just physical impossibilities you can take to the bank.

Here is what I found in the AF file on the Mantell case about these impossible NIGHTTIME Skyhook-like sightings of a "flaming red cone" with "intense brightness" seen by the Clinton County Air Field Control Tower operators and flight crew members, an object so bright that when a cloud drifted in front of it the object's light could still be seen even though stars were completely blotted out (Maxwell Roll 3, p. 737; see also Sign Roll 1, p. 513-4, 518, 526-7, 531, etc.):

I noticed in the article that famed astronomer Carl Seyfert's sighting of a balloon from Vanderbilt Observatory near Nashville, Tenn., is seriously MISQUOTED leaving out the crucial observation that the balloon seen in the SSE was "moving first SE" (which would fit the Camp Ripley Skyhook theory) but then it WENT WEST "then W" which would contradict the Ripley Believe It or Not Skyhook balloon theory. The part saying "then W" was left out and no ellipses indicated any deletion, and so was the word "first" left out of "moving first SE, then W" so as to further cover up the direction change. There were several other distortions in the mangled quotation or misquotation. (Maxwell Roll 3, p. 711)

If the Camp Ripley Skyhook was held stationary for 1-1/2 hours from 1:45 to 3:15 PM (CST) as the article and Moore apparently both claim, because of ascending into a "turnaround altitude" from 60,000 to 75,000 ft then how is it that astronomer Seyfert just over an hour later at 4:30 PM CST estimated the balloon was at just 25,000 ft moving at 10 mph, a speed which Moore seemed agree with. But you can't have both because if Seyfert was able to accurately estimate a 10 mph speed then he must have had a reasonable estimate of distance and height in order to calculate the speed. If the Skyhook was rapidly descending 35,000+ ft in perhaps another 1 hour then it should have impacted the ground in south-central Tennessee at about 5:30 PM CST. It could not possibly then have traveled to the Atlantic Ocean over the Georgia/So Car border as Moore claims.

The article claims, based on what Moore was alleging, that the Navy did the Skyhook launch from Camp Ripley but did not disclose this at the time to the AF investigation of the Mantell crash because the Navy did not want to get blamed for Mantell's death. We also get the usual bullshit about how Skyhook was "highly classified" at the time, too, which it WAS NOT. It was HIGHLY PUBLICIZED at the time. Certain projects using Skyhooks were classified but not the Skyhook launches or the Skyhook balloons. This is a cute new "reasonable coverup" theory similar to the Roswell MOGUL fraud but it's missing any proof that the NAVY launched the Skyhook from Camp Ripley on Jan 6, 1948. Moore's finding photos of the alleged Camp Ripley launch in his files implies that he personally was there and that he launched the Skyhook (why not say so? why conceal his personal involvement?). But Moore was under AIR FORCE CONTRACT at the time and he is able to cite chapter and verse by AF Contract Number "AF 19(122)-633" to prove that Clinton County, Ohio, was not launching Skyhooks until 1951, but doesn't do the same for Camp Ripley in 1948. Where is the NAVY CONTRACT NUMBER and PROJECT IDENTIFICATION for the Camp Ripley Skyhooks in 1948????

Where is the actual RECORD of the alleged Skyhook balloon launch from Camp Ripley, Minn., on Jan 6, 1948???? It was launched at "about" 8 AM? Why is there no exact recorded time? Is that because this "record" is actually all dependent on the confabulated convenient memory of one person, C B Moore, one of the most notorious liars in the history of UFOlogy who has been caught redhanded in numerous outright proven lies and falsifications of data and preposterous math? Moore makes George Adamski look like an honest Boy Scout in comparison.

1. Moore claims that White Sands Proving Ground had only ONE TRACKING RADAR, an SCR-584, in July 1947, when hoaxer Frank Kaufmann aka "Steve MacKenzie" had alleged a phony-baloney Roswell crash story, and that this SCR-584 radar had a range of less than 40 miles therefore could not have been working with other radars to plot a UFO crash 130 miles from White Sands as Kaufmann had claimed.

Moore knew this was a blatant lie since he personally as the project engineer for AMC Watson Labs Project MOGUL at White Sands had been in charge of at least 4 of the 5 or more different tracking radars at White Sands in July 1947, and he knew that all of these radars had been MODIFIED TO EXTEND THEIR RANGE to at least 100-250 MILES so they could track V-2 flights at 100+ miles altitude, and had been since the start of the White Sands launch program in Summer of 1946.

We know this from many different sources including teletype messages from MOORE's own AMC Watson Labs unit at White Sands in July 1947, which Bob Todd dug up, which reported the flights of 100-mile V-2 shots which had been tracked with Watson Labs' two (2) modified SCR-270 radars, one modified CPS-4 radar and one modified CPS-5 radar. There are also UFO reports in the AF files from 1947 describing trackings by Moore's MOGUL team with a "CPS-5 (Modified)" at 200+ miles range, thus belying Moore's false claim that White Sands had only one radar limited to less than 40 miles' range.

2. Moore falsified a map of Roswell's vicinity!!! Moved "Roswell AAF" itself by about 7 miles to help cover up a weakness in his debunking story against the Roswell case, in a map he claims he was merely faithfully "copying" from an earlier report he had issued in 1948 (when I compared the 1995 falsified map with the 1948 original he supposedly "copied" I found the blatant discrepancy). Can you imagine that?? Falsifying a map! How low can you get? It's like the Soviets in the Cold War who would falsify locations of military related cities on their published maps.

He moved "Roswell AAF" because he had claimed no one at Roswell AAF knew about the supposedly supersecret MOGUL project balloons and thus were surprised at the balloon debris. He didn't want anyone wondering how Roswell AAF could know nothing of MOGUL balloons when a 650-foot MOGUL balloon passed only 4 miles south of the Roswell AAF airfield and within clear sight of the Tower right along its southwest-looking main runway in broad daylight on July 5, 1947, three days before the Roswell incident. By moving "Roswell AAF" seven miles away it made the close approach of the MOGUL balloon on that date look like it was 11 miles away instead of 4 miles, and thus look like it could have been missed, or at least not arouse doubts and provoke questions in readers of his Roswell debunking book. Very shady trickery and totally dishonest for a supposed scientist claiming the mantle of scientific accuracy.

3. Moore claims he never even knew the supersecret "MOGUL" project codename while he himself worked in MOGUL in the late 40's, had no idea there was a MOGUL codename for what he had been doing until Bob Todd contacted him and revealed it to him in 1992 or thereabouts. Moore uses this bullshit story to support his claim that MOGUL was so compartmented and supersecret in 1947 that that helps explain why it took so long to come up with the MOGUL balloon explanation for Roswell, and how Roswell 509th would know nothing about MOGUL, how other activities at White Sands would have known nothing of MOGUL, etc. etc.

In fact this is just another of Moore's bold-faced lies through his teeth: Moore had in his own files a May 12, 1949, letter from White Sands PIO and Navy Unit commander, Cdr. Mclaughlin, to Dr. James Van Allen, discussing how CHARLES B. MOORE HAD BEEN IN CHARGE OF "PROJECT MOGUL" there at White Sands. Moore had this letter in his own files all along and had even shared a copy with McDonald back in 1968!!

4. Jim McDonald caught Moore lying to him about Hynek supposedly supporting a challenge to the AF over UFO policy and when this false setup trick resulted in McDonald's now famous blowup with Hynek on June 8, 1966 (when Hynek's baffled response showed he knew nothing about such a challenge), McDonald then confronted Moore and noted that Moore had ADMITTED lying that he had "not been entirely honest" with McDonald.

Thus Moore has no credibility with me after this sorry record. His statements about a Skyhook from Camp Ripley are not worth the paper they're printed on. Any value they might have can only come from completely independent credible documents, in which case Moore's contribution would become entirely superfluous.

The Mantell crash itself seems to suffer from outright doubletalk. In the same Accident Report it first says Mantell's fighter crashed because "as nose depressed, [Mantell] finally began a spiralling dive which resulted in excessive speeds causing gradual disintegration." So Mantell's aircraft was in a crash dive nose down going so fast it broke apart, yet then the report admits the plane did not hit ground nose first but came down pancaking flat on its belly, while still trying to maintain the fiction of coming "straight down," but IN A "HORIZONTAL POSITION"!!! Huh???? Note the slick weasel-wording: