Things Are Gonna Slide!

Extraordinary Claims and Historical Proof

Steamshovel Press recently came across some internet flaming between long-time UFO magazine and book publisher Timothy Beckley and NASA space engineer James Oberg, two nice guys at loggerheads over the issue of astronaut UFO sightings. At one point Oberg argued that the idea of alien bodies found at the Roswell crash began with the researcher interest of the early 1980s. Not wanting to jump into the middle of a carefully argued debate, Steamshovel Press editor Kenn Thomas nevertheless chimed in with the observation that "The notion that the Roswell story happened in 1947 and was dropped until 1981 is wrong. Wilhelm Reich went to Roswell in 1955 looking for aliens; stories of bodies were in the newspapers in 1950, as demonstrated in the book, Flying Saucers Over Los Angeles. The Roswell story clearly had a currency that preceded the researcher interest of the early 1980s."

Oberg responded: "Thanks for the correction -- you are saying that ALIEN BODIES at ROSWELL were in newspapers in the 1950s? Can you provide any examples? Reich going to Roswell in 1955 is indeed news to me. What are your original sources? Is there ANY other UFO-related assertion by Reich that you find credible? Leading US UFO groups listed "Roswell" in their "Hoax/Mistake" files until 1981, I'm told."

In addition to pointing out that the Air Force took Reich seriously enough to set up meetings with him about his UFO encounters, he reported his Roswell experience in the book he published, Contact With Space. (Jim Martin's new book, Wilhelm Reich and the Cold War, set for a December release date, deals with it and adds corrorborative detail.) Thomas also notes: "The examples are in FSOLA. The Ray Dimmick story from 1950 has remarkably similar details about bodies, although Jerry Clark dismisses the Dimmick thing as a con. These news stories and others are reproduced in FSOLA. There is also suggestion that the Rosenwald Museum in Chicago had one of the bodies in formaldehyde, 'a man 3 1/2 feet tall taken dead from a saucer in New Mexico.' This is in a newsclipping and correspondence from 1950."

Oberg's last word (before returning to his fight with Beckley): "Thanks. These refer to BODIES at ROSWELL, correct?"

Actually, the word "Roswell" is not used in the above cited examples, and Reich didn't pick up any alien bodies in that town in 1955, but certainly Mr. Oberg is not such a literalist that he will ignore the connection in the future.

Coleman Spots Cryptids in Alton, Illinois

Photos from the recent visit by cryptozoologist Loren Coleman, at the monument to the mysterious Piasa bird in Alton, IL; and with unidentified hairy creature from Missouri at Alton's historic Beall mansion.

Previous Things Are Gonna Slide! Column

Steamshovel!