The Tomato Man In Retrospective

The Tomato Man in Retrospective V.J. Ballester-Olmos Introduction UFO-related imagery is powerful, it is the reason it definitely attracts me. Fantastic (in its full sense) air machines and colorful humanoids repeatedly appear in any collection of UFO and flying saucer photographs. And FOTOCAT, being an archive of 13,000 reports of this category, is packed with it. A pair of stills under the tag of alleged alien body-crash of 7/7/48 have rested in my files since the end of year 1980, and this is the excuse for the present entry. I am basically doing a selected literature review to highlight the existing major information sources, one that might be of interest to UFO students and historians. Also, to add my own bit of data. On November 21, 1980, a tri-group paper entitled Alien Body Photos: An Updated Report was published by the Coalition of Concerned Ufologists, i.e., the Mutual Anomaly Research Center and Evaluation Network (MARCEN), the UFO Information Network (UFOIN), and the Ohio UFO Investigators League (OUFOIL), headed by their respective leaders Williard McIntyre, Dennis Pilichis and Charles J. Wilhelm, the first from Maryland, the other two from Ohio (USA). In an introduction to the report, McIntyre wrote: ...after exchanging three letters with a gentleman in Tennessee, we received from a him a letter in mid-December 1978 that came with an 8x10 glossy print of a lot of debris and the charred remains of some type of body...the letter contained a challenge to identify the contents of the photo. We promptly fired off a letter giving our guess that it showed that remains of a light aircraft crash and its burned pilot. The response came in early January 1979 in the form of a three page, typed-single spaced letter detailing a fantastic odessey [sic] of a young Navy photographer flown to Mexico in 1948 as part of a team to document the crash of a 90-foot diameter flying saucer and its dead pilot. A fantastic adventure unfolded in those three pages ending with the writers concern for his own security since he was still in the service and fearful of prosecution for breaches of security. The identity and background of the sender was checked and found proper; by the end of November 1979, once MARCEN had guaranteed in writing his anonymity, the source provided the original negative, which was analyzed by Eastman Kodak and other laboratories, which concluded that the picture had been taken at least 30 years before, and that no photographic tampering had been conducted. In May 1980, the source sent a second negative. This time, the body was lying in vegetation on a hillside. By then, in their own admission, MARCEN members had begun believing this fantastic story. In August 1980, the source gave permission to make the pictures and the story public, not without warning of the possible consequences of such a release. McIntyre wrote next: Little did we know or visualize the explosion that would really come or who would detonate it. After disclosure, all hell broke loose over the Coalition of Concerned Ufologists, and apparently it was intense from the ufological heirarchy [sic]. At this point, their stand was: Universally condemned as hoaxes by skeptics and establishment ufologists alike, the photos remain unidentified....No I personally believe that these photos and the story surrounding them are either completely authentic as told by our source or it is a complete hoax perpetrated in a sophisticated manner... The source informed he had 40 negatives more, and MARCEN sent someone to his mail address in San Antonio, Texas, only to find he did not live there, but was known. We have since learnedMcIntyre finishes his prologuethat this was a mail drop used by the source to protect his actual identity even from us and that the name we knew him and checked out was actually the name of another member of the photographic team that supposedly documented the UFO crash and who has since died. A call by the source saying he would be in Washington, D.C. by Thanksgiving, when he would be willing to meet them, allowing them to probe his identity and inspect the rest of the negatives, was the last clue as to his whereabouts. What was the tale narrated by the invisible source? Allegedly (everything from now on has to be taken allegedly, this is, with a good pinch of salt), he was a photographer assigned at White Sands Proving Ground, New Mexico, when he heard that at 13:22 hours on July 7, 1948 an early warning radar tracked an object moving at great speed crossing Washington state flying southeast. When the bogey was near Albuquerque, New Mexico, two F-94s attempted to intercept, in vain. By 14:29 hours it disappeared from the radar screens. It was determined that it had landed or crashed in Mexico, in the state of Nuevo Len, between Nuevo Laredo and the Sabinas River, some 30 miles south of Laredo, Texas. The Mexican military was notified of the incident and at 18:30 hours the U.S. Army and Air Force were onsite. A Naval Intelligence officer who was in Mexico City heard about that and planted himself on location by 20:10 hours. It was he who, after surveying the site, got authorization for the sources photographic team to be airlifted to the site. They were told they were going to the site of a top secret airplane crash, where they arrived at 02:15 of the following day. There they saw the remains of the frame and structure of a disc shaped craft still smouldering and smoking some 12 hours after it had crashed. What they observed and photographed was an unearthly shaped craft made up of earthly looking debris (a contradiction in their own terms, but this is ufology!). It was perfectly circular, about 90 feet in diameter, 28 feet in thickness at the center and tapering off to 5 feet thick at the perimeter. Only one body was found, severely burned. It was 4 feet, 6 inches long [1.37 m]. Its head was extremely large for the body size by human proportions. The eyes had gone from the fire and the eye sockets were much larger than in humans and wraparound to give 180 degree vision. No visible ears or nose, but openings there. Two arms longer than in humans and the hands had four claw-like fingers. Well, other minutely-detailed data abound, as the writer-source certainly liked to spin a story. The first negative supplied was cut up, representing something like one sixth in size of the original, because of the recognizable persons appearing in the other portion of the complete photograph, as per the sender. The GSW Probe The Coalition report includes an initial analysis by Ground Saucer Watch, which concluded that there is evidence of the creature being severely burned and mutilated as a result of an obvious accident...signs of rigor mortis are indicative of the time after death...the time is calculated at 12 hours [appropriately, added emphasis]...measurement of the head and jaw bone are on the face...and a careful study of the extremities...compared to foreign pathology records, revealed a commonality between these measurements and that of a laboratory monkey...the wreackage [sic] materials revealed common terrestrial geometric shapes and signs of manufacture...the size of the creature is 836 mm...there is evidence of a horny sheath covering the toe portion of the primate. The nail, which is covered by hair, is very similar to that of a monkey. Report signers Fred Adrian and William H. Spaulding wrote that It is the consensus of the GSW photographic review staff that the photographs represent a misinterpretation of a normal laboratory monkey (either a rhesus or orangutan) that has been badly burned and partially dismembered. GSW associated this to illegal rocket tests of the U.S. Government over Texas populated areas. The solicited GSW conclusion provoked a headache in the Coalition of Concerned Ufologists, who actually believed it was a dead alien! They immediately suggested that Spaulding was manipulating the case trying to mold the evidence to fit his own personal theory advanced on national television that UFOs are not extraterrestrial and originate from mundane sources on Earth. The Coalition found out that the first United Stated rocket experiment with German V-2s with a Rhesus monkey aboard was on June 11, 1948, launched from White Sands, and the monkey died before launch. Apparently, that V-2 went astray and landed in Mexico, but it hit Juarez, some 800 km NW of Nuevo Laredo and close to White Sands. Also, the US-launched V-2s maximum range was ~110 km, while the distance from White Sands to the flying saucer crash point was not less than 900 km. Another counterargument was that the size of a primate is about 2 feet (0.61 m), shorter than the calculated length for the creature by GSW (0.86 m). (Did no one think that 0.86 m does not match either with the 1.37 m figure stated by the source?) For the Coalition, there was no evidence of any tail in the photograph either. In the GSW News Bulletin of April 1981, pages 10-13, the Adrian-Spaulding report was published in a pun-intended article by Spaulding entitled Get the Monkies Off My Back!, which included some additional content. It disclosed that the Maryland-based organization has published a feeble counter against the original analysis, based on both biased and erroneous information. GSW presented new facts to this almost-silly incident: http://www.cufos.org/GSW-Bulletin/GSW_Bulletin_1981_Apr.pdf (a) A continuing analysis of the first photograph revealed that the burnt-effect of the dead alien head is attributable to blistering on the space helmet worn by the monkey [see the following photo]. A fastening snap on the helmet has been discovered which is identical to early-space devices worn by test animals. The lighter or whitish marking on the deceased monkey is attributable to the area where the safety belt and buckle would have protected it from the intense heat/fire affects in the crash. A dark, strand-like substance covering both bodies has been tentatively identified as burnt nylon, the material used in spacesuits for test (b) Certain remarks made to the media by McIntyre are labeled as misinformation to strengthen his already weak case, by casting doubts on the photographic evaluation. From the GSW report. To close the monkey hypothesis, it is known that the United States launched flights containing primate passengers primarily between 1948 and 1961 with one flight in 1969 and one in 1985. Apes, macaques and monkeys were used to that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkeys_and_apes_in_space Ape named Able launched to space in 1959. Image borrowed. Impact in UFO Media The ufological community is like an ill-assorted family, and the 3-group coalition faced numerous other rows with colleagues, commencing with the authority on dead humanoids, Len Stringfield, he who disqualified the alien dead body pictures because they did not match with what he thought were real alien bodies, in particular the photos of an alien creature found in secret chambers beneath the Empire State Building (cover of Ancient Astronauts magazine, November 1977). Poor Stringfield was a guy most prepared to put up with a lot. He spent all his life swallowing as true every tale of UFO crashes and dead bodies he was told by innumerable anonymous sources. In this case, it was a Larry Barns from New Jersey who took a model to the offices of the publisher of AA. [He] brought in a doll 4 inches long and had it photographed by then editor Jeffrey Goodman. These photos were later used on the cover and inside the magazine. Over lunch they made up the story of an alien being buried under the Empire State Building. This quotea situation witnessed by Timothy Green Beckleycomes from a letter he sent to Dennis Pilichis dated November 4, 1980. Since August 1980, the Coalition promoted and featured the pair of photographs in local and national newspapers, TV stations and UFO outlets. It triggered a cascade of articles in UFO media, in the States but also in foreign revues, avid for sensationalism. UFOIN (D. Pilichis) submitted the information to UFO Report, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkeys_and_apes_in_space#/media/File:Able_air_and_space.jpg where it was published in December 1980, pages 10 and 12. The article strictly followed the tale as written by their unknown source and unequivocally the photos were stated as showing the body of one alien in the debris of the crash after the craft burned. The initial skeptical position has vanished. As for the magazine editors, they considered it to be the breakthrough ufologists have been waiting for...and then again it could be something else entirely! UFO magazines covering dead aliens. Left: Official UFO. Right: UFO Report (see text above). MUFON and Stringfield Theby then, largest UFO organizationMutual UFO Network (MUFON) also entered in the controversy, indirectly, with the publication of an article by Leonard H. Stringfield in the December 1980 issue of The MUFON UFO Journal, pages 11- 16 (Status Report on Alleged Alien Cadaver Photos). Conspirative-minded, Stringfield complained that his own 29 sources for retrieval of crashed saucers had dried all of a sudden: I cannot help but wonderhe wroteif someone in a powerful position pressed the silence button. Therefore, he found suspicious the timely disclosure in August 1980 of a set of photos showing a burnt alien body, under the auspices of Williard McIntyre. He attacked the GSWs conclusion that it was a monkey used in early military rocket tests, calling it disinformation. Apparently, he did not value the contrary posture by McIntyre and his partners. As a matter of fact, he talks of a master plan to discredit any photographs that may surface showing alien cadavers, and beyond that, any serious research into the story of crash/retrievals. In a follow-up to that article, in the MUFON journal of September 1981, Stringfield published The Puzzling Case of the Cadaver Photos, aimed to re-state my position as it relates to my continuing research into this sensitive and controversial issue...because of the constant noise of criticism, insult and baseless rumors. The author, in paranoid mode, did not believe it was coincidental that he and Charles Wilhelm (part of the Coalition), both from the Cincinnati area, came up with individual sets of photos displaying dead alien bodies at the very same time: Think of the odds against this coincidence. Another unbelieved coincidence is that back in September 1980 there began a broadside of blatant attacks against my photos, my work, my credibility, Stringfield said. I am not into details of that persecution, however I can but imagine that the response by rational people to pictures of aliens in a refrigerated chamber, like the ones he defended, would be nothing less than a plain laugh. Matter-of-factly, all purported evidence accumulated by Stringfield for crashed and retrieved saucers over the years, resulted in nothing but smoke. His sources were always pulling his leg. A grievous example of gullibility and intellectual blindness. Stringfield called the reaction of the Coalition members a selective vendetta because he had termed their photos a hoax. And he reacted in this familiar way: Certainly, I would not characterize Wilhelm or Pilichis or even McIntyre as secret agents, but if there is a conspiratorial meaning in the pattern of coincidental events, is it possible that all three were unwitting stooges for somebody else pulling their strings? Evidently, there are people who live in another world, in a cloud of self- The SBI Evaluation Next is The Scientific Bureau of Investigation Report (Pete Mazzola, editor) for February 1981, touching upon this subject in the cover and interior pages 2-3. It also reproduced a clipping from the Morning Journal of August 30, 1980, when the tri-UFO-group started spreading the story and the pictures. This UFO fanzine displays a tremendously ridiculous logo including the word POLICE and stars within an official-looking badge and investigative specialists in the cover that makes readers associate it to FBI. Well, they had their own analyzation of the photographs, that concluded that they fell short from 2 to 8 years to year 1948, they were genuine to their specific purpose and then misinterpreted incorrectly by the researchers involved, measurements for the fur-covered body were 0.97 to 1.12 m and from 23 to 34 kg of weight, the being wearing a helmet made of see- through glass, two black hoses of 1.3 to 2.5 cm appear to be attached to back of helmet, the military-looking outfit is revealed not to be military after photo enhancement. Finally, their opinion, based on the data relevant to the being, agreed with that of Bill Spaulding/GSW. This was monkey business for the FBI, excuse me, SBI of New York. The precision of deductions they were able to make from the photos from these amateur investigators from their Staten Island laboratories is to be praised. Their conclusions went as far as to suggest that Coalition leaders were duped into believing the photos to be true....intelligence gathering agencies of the U.S. used this ploy to continue ridicule of the phenomenon or, as second alternative, researchers involved perplexed hoax...[for]...satisfying their own egotistical motives. I do not know what is worse. Anyway, cockfighting. Other Articles, National and Foreign The issue of February 1981 of UFO Report revisited the theme on its pages 10 and 12 with info supplied by Ohioans Pilichis and Wilhelm, this time without acknowledging McIntyre. The update basically copied the imaginative account by their unknown source, as if it was the Bible. No signs of critique in their review at all. In the article, they criticized their critics (Springfield and MUFON), without mentioning them. The GSW report was included almost in full. The monkey hypothesis was not refuted or discussed but curiously i