Malmstrom AFB Missile/UFO Incident, March 1967

[ryguy]

Hey Pork,

I'm not sure why you feel the need to be defensive, but I never once thought you were a tin-foiled nutter based on anything you've posted here so far. I know that requests for documents/proof/evidence can sometimes come across as a slight against your credibility or honesty - but I hope you understand the position we're in at RU. You seem to understand, based on what you wrote above. We are often confronted with hearsay. Whether it's via email in talking to a witness, family members, officials. No matter their social standing or level of skepticism - in a field like Ufology where hearsay has become gospel, asking for documentation is the only way to turn things around.

I respect your story - and absolutely respect your father for his service and his experience. However, the one thing that I think everyone is learning, as we carefully dissect age-old stories that have been accepted for so long is this: even military witnesses make mistakes, misidentify what they see, or misunderstand what really went on.

Even worse, I think by now it's obvious that there are con-men, liars, cheats and outright criminals that have overrun the entire field and have turned it into a cottage industry of untruths for sale in the form of "entertainment." Many of these people defend that revenue to the death. Given this reality, I'm sure you can be somewhat forgiving when a few folks have a knee-jerk "show-me-proof" reaction to additional hearsay.

-Ryan

[James Carlson]

Look, Pork -- even people who agree with me think I go overboard a lot; they're welcome to that opinion, and I don't mind it when they express it, 'cause I'm a jerk, okay? At the same time, my opinions -- like yours -- are formed as a result of my experiences, and I've been the subject of some of the most vicious personal attacks you can imagine. Robert Hastings has actually written letters to active duty personnel at Malmstrom AFB telling them that according to my father, I've got a serious mental disorder that has my whole family on edge. I am considered, collectively, to be at best far too eccentric for my own good, and at worst a raving lunatic who needs to be locked up, and I'm the guy who's actually denying that the stars in the sky are UFOs. You tell me how the hell that happens? All I've done to deserve this is to tell the truth, and insist, on the basis of that truth, that a couple of limelights on the UFO big star horizon are being a whole hell of a lot less than honest to the rest of the world. I think I've made a pretty damn good case of it, too, and all I hear in response is a lot of bellyaches and more insults than anyone should have to deal with, and I don't mind telling you, I'm sick of it. So when I come across someone who appears to insist that UFOs remain a fact of human existence, but he has no intention of arguing the point, my first inclination is to say, take it someplace else then, pal, 'cause I'm not in the mood. I came here to talk about it, and I'm not going to roll over and accept the theory in the absence of the facts. Now you can deal with this by staying quiet for a couple of days, letting the anger or the injustice or whatever you want to call it build up inside, and probably making your dinner taste worse than it actually does, or you can say "what's your problem -- don't you think you're overreacting a little bit here?" It seems to me that you handle it one way, your dinner sucks when it shouldn't, and the other way, your dinner tastes fine and your wife or your best friend or whomever doesn't have to wonder why you're pissed off for a couple of days. The point is, if what I say offends you for some reason, then say something. I'm just a guy on a keyboard who's probably a little ticked off over something Paul Kimball wrote about me on Paracast. If I was sitting across from you, you'd say "bite me, dickhead," and we'd probably be okay. So do that -- of course, if you didn't come here to talk, then do whatever the hell you want. You turn the world into whatever you want it to be, and I'll do the same thing, and then between us we'll have something new, and hopefully it won't just bore the hell out of both of us.

[Access Denied]

Can't argue with that James....

Robert Hastings has actually written letters to active duty personnel at Malmstrom AFB telling them that according to my father, I've got a serious mental disorder that has my whole family on edge.

Seriously? May I ask how you know that? The reason I ask is because if you have some way of documenting that, that's the kind of stuff that needs to go on the record so folks know who they're really dealing with. That is of course if they don't already based on everything that you've written here and elsewhere... and I'm not talking about the "true believers"... I'm talking about innocent people like your father and Walt Figel that he's still actively trolling for to get unwittingly sucked into his scam. Based on what your father wrote it should be pretty obvious how that works.

Did I mention Hastings threatened to sue me too?

I know he's posted allegations like that on ATS (which the management evidently had absolutely no problem with) but the chances of anyone wading through all the crap that's plastered over that place to find it are practically nil I’m afraid.

[some links may be in order]

I will get the service record out of the attic tomorrow; but it is not that important to me.

Well then don't bother if you're not looking for any help or possible answers and your mind is already made up. We may not have any for you anyway...

I emailed Salas a time or two, and never found him to be looney or less than normal. He wasn't interested in the 'phenom' as a whole, hoaxes or aspects other than the Malmstrom issues.

Straw man. What's not normal about seeking fame and fortune? If you're seriously defending Salas after everything that's been written here and elsewhere then I really don't know what to say to you...

[James Carlson]

Seriously? May I ask how you know that? The reason I ask is because if you have some way of documenting that, that's the kind of stuff that needs to go on the record so folks know who they're really dealing with. That is of course if they don't already based on everything that you've written here and elsewhere... and I'm not talking about the "true believers"... I'm talking about innocent people like your father and Walt Figel that he's still actively trolling for to get unwittingly sucked into his scam. Based on what your father wrote it should be pretty obvious how that works.

Did I mention Hastings threatened to sue me too?

I know he's posted allegations like that on ATS (which the management evidently had absolutely no problem with) but the chances of anyone wading through all the crap that's plastered over that place to find it are practically nil I’m afraid.

Yeah, I found out about it because he was kind enough to email it to me. This is what he sent out via Frank Warren:

Note: I'm Forwarding This Response For Robert Who Is Experiencing E-Mail Problems-FW

JTC: But don't take my word for it -- go to http://www.scribd.com/doc/26641522/Amer ... es-Carlson, download a free copy and decide for yourself. I have no doubts whatsoever that the evidence I present will convince you of the truth. All I ask is that you read it before reaching a conclusion based on my supposed mental condition.

RH: Gee, I wonder where I first got the idea that you had some “problems” (as the situation was explained to me). BTW, James, have you contacted your father since our last email exchange on this topic, in December 2008? When I tape recorded my conversation with him two months earlier, with his permission, he told me that he hadn’t talked to you for years and didn’t even have your phone number.

Further, as you know James, when I first mentioned your alleged problems to you in an email, rather than denying them, you responded, on December 30, 2008:

“…you were so sloppy and careless…a piss-poor writer and researcher…you're really just a pathetic, egotistical nothing of a person, an unhealthy canker sore on the world, and, even worse, you know that, you're actually conscious of exactly how pathetic you really are, and how unimportant and worthless your thoughts and theories are to the rest of the world, and how your scheming and lying in the long run will compare less favorably to the average ambitions of an otherwise ignorant man…

And since you're not a very honest individual -- even to yourself (after all, a man who is as pathetic as you are and realizes the true extent of that must lie an awful lot to himself on a regular basis just to get through the day -- I bet you hate mirrors) -- you tell yourself that one more little worthless expression of your will is all you need to make this heretic admit that he was wrong and that the liar is after all telling the truth…

After all of this explanation regarding your personality flaws and your motivations and the effect your own bad writing and research has on your point of view and why it's so necessary for you to get the last word in, so you can feel for one bare-headed moment in time that maybe you're not the pathetic loser your every second on earth shouts out to the universe that you are, it's ironic that tomorrow morning, I'll still be the only one of us telling the truth, and you'll still be the idiot who has to re-interview his sources before answering a few questions on a subject he's already written a book about. And so, the world keeps turning, and we both greet the morning sun, each of us fully aware that you really are a sad and pathetic piece of s^~t.”

RH: Oh yeah, James, you are obviously a very calm, stable individual.

JC: In addition, I wouldn't stay awake waiting for Robert Hastings to "provide a more detailed response soon." He's said that a lot, and has never actually followed through.

RH: Oh really, James? Actually, I posted two lengthy responses to your nonsense. But maybe you’ve actually forgotten about those. I’m no mental health expert, but this seems like you are in deep denial. Or maybe, your memory just isn’t what it once was. In any case, anyone can read my lengthy rebuttals at:

http://www.theufochronicles.com/2009/01 ... es-at.html

and

http://www.theufochronicles.com/2008/12 ... ms-at.html

Please note that James continues to sidestep the fact that he still refuses to call retired Col. Walter Figel, to hear what actually happened in the Echo Flight launch capsule when his father’s missiles shut down. As noted earlier, Figel completely contradicts Eric Carlson’s claim that no UFOs were involved.

Most of the people he sent it to had Malmstrom AFB addresses. He really is one of the worst people I've ever come across, but a lot of folks don't understand that, so when I react with justifiable anger, everybody immediately assumes that I'm the one going off the deep end. That's one of the reasons I asked my Dad to address that particular slander; and as you've read in his statement, he didn't discuss anybody's mental health at all.

Hastings really is a vicious person, particular when he's losing the argument. He's got a disgusting personality, and I'm sure that eventually he'll burn in hell for it. The comments from me that he quotes above were private emails -- he's the one who made them public, and it's obvious that he considered all of it a strategic act. He's garbage -- period.

[James Carlson]

This is another one -- also sent out to Malmstrom AFB active duty personnel:

All,

James Carlson is a psychologically-troubled person, the son of one of the officers on duty at Malmstrom AFB's Echo Flight when UFOs shut down those missiles on March 16, 1967. His father lied to him about no UFO involvement in the shutdown and James swallowed it.

I interviewed his father's deputy missile commander that day, retired Col. Walter Figel, who confirmed that a UFO was indeed reported at Echo Flight and that James' father, Eric, was sitting "two feet away" from Figel when he took the calls from a missile maintenance technician and a Security Alert Team guard, both of whom were observing the "round object" hovering directly over one of the missile launch facilities (silos). Moments earlier, all ten of Echo's missiles had dropped off alert status (malfunctioned).

Figel also told me that Eric was standing next to him back at Malmstrom when both launch officers were debriefed and told not to discuss the incident. Figel waited nearly 30 years before doing so. Eric Carlson continues to stonewall.

James knows all of this, because I posted a transcript of my audiotaped conversation with Figel at the UFO Chronicles website last year, but he is so deluded that he can't accept the truth. I urged him to call Figel himself, to hear all of this directly, but he still refuses to do so, preferring instead to continue slandering and libeling anyone who attempts to expose the actual facts of the case.

I will provide a more detailed response soon.

Yeah -- Hastings is an officious little SOB.

[astrophotographer]

My experience with Hastings was over at BAUT. There he got expelled as he kept spamming his book instead of answering questions that people were asking him about Malmstrom and Big Sur. He sent me copies of some letters that were written and I scanned them for him (for some reason Hastings seems to be not very knowledgable on how to do these things). He then posted them on the UFO chronicles website as if he had done them himself. I could care less to be honest but it just demonstrates he is not a very nice person (oh yeah, he threatened to sue me because I had the nerve to doubt the integrity of Bob Jacobs). I question his personal integrity as well based on what I have seen him write and say.

[DrDil]

<snip>

The point is, if what I say offends you for some reason, then say something. I'm just a guy on a keyboard who's probably a little ticked off over something Paul Kimball wrote about me on Paracast.

Hi James,

I hope you’re well and nice job with the press release.

I don’t know if you seen this but Kimball wrote the following over at UFOEvo a couple of days ago, whilst it's not congratulatory neither does it strike me as particularly unreasonable:

The problem that James Carlson has is that he presents himself, and his material, in the poorest possible manner – and that kind of thing matters. As the old saying goes, you only get one chance to make a first impression, and Carlson’s first impression with me was not favourable.

However, the response by Hastings to Carlson’s claims has been equally unprofessional. It should be easy to refute Carlson’s claims if Hastings has those audio tapes that he claims to have. It’s a simple thing to place them, in their entirety (so that there is no hint of manipulation), on the Internet, for everyone to see and judge for themselves. That he has not as of yet done so, speaks volumes. That he has not, to my knowledge, offered a reasonable explanation for Carlson's claims, including e-mail correspondence with people like Walt Figel which appear to support Carlson, also speaks volumes.

As noted above, the case was featured in my film Best Evidence: Top 10 UFO Sightings in 2007, for television in Canada and New Zealand. The choice of the top 9 cases was determined by a group of over 40 UFO researchers, each of whom submitted a top ten list, which was then averaged together (I added the 10th case, the 1561 Nuremberg case, to make a point about the fact that people have been reporting things in the skies long before 1947). The Malmstrom case came in at #6. It did not make my own personal top 10 list, nor does it today, particularly given the questions that have been raised about it. If James Carlson, in spite of his problems with presentation and his hotheadedness, can solve the case, then that’s great. At the moment, it looks to me as if he’s presented a pretty good case, albeit one that has gotten lost in his bluster until recently.

Paul

http://www.ufoevolution.com/forums/show ... ostcount=9

[James Carlson]

<snip>

The point is, if what I say offends you for some reason, then say something. I'm just a guy on a keyboard who's probably a little ticked off over something Paul Kimball wrote about me on Paracast.

Hi James,

I hope you’re well and nice job with the press release.

I don’t know if you seen this but Kimball wrote the following over at UFOEvo a couple of days ago, whilst it's not congratulatory neither does it strike me as particularly unreasonable:

The problem that James Carlson has is that he presents himself, and his material, in the poorest possible manner – and that kind of thing matters. As the old saying goes, you only get one chance to make a first impression, and Carlson’s first impression with me was not favourable.

However, the response by Hastings to Carlson’s claims has been equally unprofessional. It should be easy to refute Carlson’s claims if Hastings has those audio tapes that he claims to have. It’s a simple thing to place them, in their entirety (so that there is no hint of manipulation), on the Internet, for everyone to see and judge for themselves. That he has not as of yet done so, speaks volumes. That he has not, to my knowledge, offered a reasonable explanation for Carlson's claims, including e-mail correspondence with people like Walt Figel which appear to support Carlson, also speaks volumes.

As noted above, the case was featured in my film Best Evidence: Top 10 UFO Sightings in 2007, for television in Canada and New Zealand. The choice of the top 9 cases was determined by a group of over 40 UFO researchers, each of whom submitted a top ten list, which was then averaged together (I added the 10th case, the 1561 Nuremberg case, to make a point about the fact that people have been reporting things in the skies long before 1947). The Malmstrom case came in at #6. It did not make my own personal top 10 list, nor does it today, particularly given the questions that have been raised about it. If James Carlson, in spite of his problems with presentation and his hotheadedness, can solve the case, then that’s great. At the moment, it looks to me as if he’s presented a pretty good case, albeit one that has gotten lost in his bluster until recently.

Paul

http://www.ufoevolution.com/forums/show ... ostcount=9

Hi, DrDil -- thanks for the kind words. I hope everyone's doing well.

Looks like Paul has been making the rounds with his word for word take on this whole thing. Check out the comments at the bottom of http://www.realityuncovered.net/blog/20 ... t-part-ii/

This just supports my conviction that all he's doing is a little damage control. The bottom line is that I provided plenty of footnotes and resources for everything I've ever written on the subject of Echo Flight, and his response was pretty definite at the time:

I've read much of your report. Your confrontational and inflammatory tone, epitomized by comments that I would consider to be insulting and uncalled for at best, and libelous at worst, undermines the points that you claim you are trying to make. My training as an historian, lawyer and filmmaker compels me to look at things objectively. However, while your report contains some interesting information (much of which was already known to me), the manner and spirit in which you have presented that information has removed any veneer of objectivity. You are as bad as the people on the pro-ET side that you spend so much time denigrating. Accordingly, I am not interested in further communication with you on this or any other issue.

Well, he can talk all he wants about how my biggest problem is that I speak for myself, but the only response I have is that for a good three years nobody else was that interested in doing the job. I never claimed that what I wrote was supposed to be objective. By the time I wrote it, my experiences with the people on the other side of the fence -- on Paul Kimball's side of the fence -- the strategies they use to to put forth their arguments, to stifle any associated argument or disagreement, to stamp out any attempts to redefine the issues at stake, and the absolutely disgusting personalities they possess made objectivity impossible for me -- but nobody else would do it. It's pretty pathetic that good ol' Paul Kimball is now taking steps that in my opinion have only one purpose -- a strategic retreat from his previous point of view, the one he took in his film, that Echo Flight is one of the top ten UFO incidents supported by the best evidence -- and that he's been forced to do so as a result of someone like me, a guy who uses comments that Paul "would consider to be insulting and uncalled for at best, and libelous at worst", doing nothing more than asking Walt Figel a few simple questions that either nobody else bothered to ask, or lied about the answers they got.

These people are pathetic, and my lack of objectivity is entirely a result of the strategies they have used in the past and continue to use to formulate an argument that wouldn't even exist if they weren't the worst possible liars and most irresponsible chroniclers that I've ever come across in my life. Paul Kimball's "training as an historian, lawyer and filmmaker" sure didn't do him a whole hell of a lot of good when it came to figuring out what actually happened on March 16, 1967 at Echo Flight, did it? This is all just damage control for him, because he claimed that a story he told was true, and it wasn't. When I was growing up, we called that a "lie"; he wants folks to know that this "lie" was actually "determined by a group of over 40 UFO researchers, each of whom submitted a top ten list, which was then averaged together", and that it never made his own "personal top 10 list, nor does it today, particularly given the questions that have been raised about it." Hell, all I did was talk to the alleged witnesses. It's pretty damn sad that nobody did that before me, and that once I did, the first reaction was for everyone to curse my tone, my presentation, and my hotheadedness. Well, as far as I'm concerned, I have a lot of very good reasons for my tone, my presentation, and my hotheadedness. What reasons are there for people to accept the claims of Robert Salas and Robert Hastings without once questioning any of the outrageous events they've proposed? And Paul Kimball is actually insisting that the truth got lost in my bluster? The truth got lost because they preferred the lie to the truth. It got lost because his training as an historian, lawyer and filmmaker didn't do him a whole hell of a lot of good when it came to figuring out whether someone was bullshitting him or not. The truth got lost in spite of my bluster. My bluster is the only thing that eventually got his attention, because he, like a whole lot of other people, wasn't prepared to believe that maybe this guy talking about UFOs taking out a whole flight of nuclear missiles in 1967 might not be telling the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God. I've never even mentioned half the crap I've had to put up with from people like him, and I don't even care about UFOs, so you can imagine how it all sounded to me three years ago.

"If James Carlson, in spite of his problems with presentation and his hotheadedness, can solve the case, then that’s great." All I did was look at the evidence and talk to the witnesses -- and I shouldn't have had to do that. Paul Kimball can go f---- himself.

But it was nice hearing from you, DrDil. Thanks.

[James Carlson]

Further, as you know James, when I first mentioned your alleged problems to you in an email, rather than denying them, you responded, on December 30, 2008:

“…you were so sloppy and careless…a piss-poor writer and researcher…you're really just a pathetic, egotistical nothing of a person, an unhealthy canker sore on the world, and, even worse, you know that, you're actually conscious of exactly how pathetic you really are, and how unimportant and worthless your thoughts and theories are to the rest of the world, and how your scheming and lying in the long run will compare less favorably to the average ambitions of an otherwise ignorant man…

And since you're not a very honest individual -- even to yourself (after all, a man who is as pathetic as you are and realizes the true extent of that must lie an awful lot to himself on a regular basis just to get through the day -- I bet you hate mirrors) -- you tell yourself that one more little worthless expression of your will is all you need to make this heretic admit that he was wrong and that the liar is after all telling the truth…

After all of this explanation regarding your personality flaws and your motivations and the effect your own bad writing and research has on your point of view and why it's so necessary for you to get the last word in, so you can feel for one bare-headed moment in time that maybe you're not the pathetic loser your every second on earth shouts out to the universe that you are, it's ironic that tomorrow morning, I'll still be the only one of us telling the truth, and you'll still be the idiot who has to re-interview his sources before answering a few questions on a subject he's already written a book about. And so, the world keeps turning, and we both greet the morning sun, each of us fully aware that you really are a sad and pathetic piece of s^~t.”

RH: Oh yeah, James, you are obviously a very calm, stable individual.

I've been told that the above commentary makes it seem like I'm the one going off the deep end -- I should put this in context so people will understand where it came from; these comments were made after numerous emails that Hastings sent me -- every time someone in the news reported a UFO, he sent me the announcement, asking "are these guys lying too?" I had told him repeatedly to quit bothering me, and eventually I resorted to the above rhetoric, at which point he made it public at UFOCHRONICLES and emailed it to a bunch of active duty military personnel at Malmstrom AFB. That's just one of many methods he uses to stifle debate; the guy's a real prick.

[Access Denied]

Well, I woiuld suggest there may be something to be said for quitting while your ahead...

...or at the vety least, pacing yourself.

[James Carlson]

Well, I woiuld suggest there may be something to be said for quitting while your ahead...

...or at the vety least, pacing yourself.

Well, you're probably right -- you usually are; still, sometimes people need to be told how worthless they are over and over again, many times a day, and in my opinion Hastings is one of those people. It's like Wyatt Earp once said: some folks just need shootin' so that other folks can sleep safe at night. No, but seriously -- Bladerunner is truly a great movie ... what were we talking about?

[Access Denied]

Sure, Hastings is a thug but what about "Give a man enough rope and he'll hang himself" or "A watched pot never boils"?

I'll spare you the seed planting analogy...

[DrDil]

Hi again James,

<snip>

This just supports my conviction that all he's doing is a little damage control. The bottom line is that I provided plenty of footnotes and resources for everything I've ever written on the subject of Echo Flight, and his response was pretty definite at the time:

I've read much of your report. Your confrontational and inflammatory tone, epitomized by comments that I would consider to be insulting and uncalled for at best, and libelous at worst, undermines the points that you claim you are trying to make. My training as an historian, lawyer and filmmaker compels me to look at things objectively. However, while your report contains some interesting information (much of which was already known to me), the manner and spirit in which you have presented that information has removed any veneer of objectivity. You are as bad as the people on the pro-ET side that you spend so much time denigrating.

Accordingly, I am not interested in further communication with you on this or any other issue.

<snip>

Oh I see, I wasn’t aware of the specifics of Kimball’s earlier criticisms.

<snip>

Paul Kimball can go f---- himself.

<snip>

A fair point well made!!


Cheers.

[James Carlson]

Sure, Hastings is a thug but what about "Give a man enough rope and he'll hang himself" or "A watched pot never boils"?

I'll spare you the seed planting analogy...

You make some very good points and I completely agree. At the moment, however, I'm more concerned with the fact that your above post was number 1967 -- and God only knows what the Illuminati numerologists are going to say about that ... we could be looking at a sychronicity storm the likes of which this country hasn't seen since 1980, when ol' 666 himself was elected President. Thank God Stephen Hawking has a new book out. We might just make it through to Christmas.

[ryguy]

At the moment, however, I'm more concerned with the fact that your above post was number 1967 -- and God only knows what the Illuminati numerologists are going to say about that ... we could be looking at a sychronicity storm the likes of which this country hasn't seen since 1980, when ol' 666 himself was elected President. Thank God Stephen Hawking has a new book out. We might just make it through to Christmas.

Creepy!