Roswell UFO Memo, A challenge for the Straight Dope Forums

[Lance_M]

You may be familiar with Roswell UFO crash lore? That case is built mostly upon the supposed memories of “witnesses” and precious little physical or documentary evidence.

One interesting bit of the latter is a famous photo taken in 1947 of General Roger Ramey. Ramey is pictured with some debris that was originally thought to be from a flying disc. That debris is actually just some balsa wood sticks, foil, and the remains of balloons: completely prosaic. But one interesting aspect of the photo is that Ramey is holding a teletype-like document and the text of much of that document is facing the camera.

Unfortunately that text is mostly unreadable: just a little too small or blurry to make out. Most folks looking at enlargements of the photo believe they can make out a few words but nothing more.

Like many UFO stories, a mythology had formed around the document with some UFO believers claiming that they are able to decipher the text and the message confirms their beliefs in flying saucers. Most everyone else finds this work unconvincing.

But the text does look tantalizingly close to being readable.

Recently a group of interested parties attempted to rescan, using modern equipment, the negative of this famous photo, something that had not been done in several years. They hired a professional forensics investigator and he produced many (many many) images using a variety of devices.

The results of this experiment were disappointing. The text seems to still be out of reach.

I wonder if anyone here might have any ideas as to how one might decipher the Ramey Memo photo?

Most everyone on both the skeptical and less skeptical sides suspects that, at the very least, there might be some interesting info in the document.

A gentleman in New Zealand (who funded the rescanning project) has offered a $10,000 reward for an unambiguous solution.

And that unambiguous part is key–many, many saucer nuts have given their guesses as to what the text says, all of that is worthless.

Here is a Dropbox link with all of the new scans.
[deleted link]

[running_coach]

That’s strange. The University of Texas at Arlington is offering the same 10,000 reward. And the scans to download without an anonymous dropbox account.
ETA:Reported.

[Bone]

@Lance_M

I wonder if anyone here might have any ideas as to how one might decipher the Ramey Memo photo?

Welcome to the Straight Dope, Lance M!

Typically users should be wary of links to dropbox and other unknown type sites where they may be asked to download or otherwise engage in suspicious activity. Accordingly I have deleted the link you posted.

Since this also isn’t really a debate, I am moving this to a more appropriate forum.

Moved from Great Debates to MPSIMS.

[/moderating]

[Gatopescado]

It’s the “real” lyrics to The Kingsmen’s Louie Louie.

[CalMeacham]

An article in Skeptrical Inquirer many years ago reprinted images of the “hieroglyphics”. It claimed that the tape was simply commercially available tape with decorations on it.

Here you go:

http://www.csicop.org/si/show/roswell_incident_and_project_mogul

The debris Brazel picked up—and which was later taken to Fort Worth, Texas, for inspection by Brigadier General Roger Ramey, the Air Force commander there—matches NYU Flight 4 in several different ways. Some of the debris consisted of patches of a smelly, smoky gray, rubber-like material, which is consistent with the neoprene balloons used in NYU Flight 4. Much of the Roswell debris—sticks, metallic paper, and strangely marked tape—is similar to material used for the radar reflectors. When Warrant Officer Irving Newton saw the debris in General Ramey’s office, he recognized it as pieces of a radar target. Moore points out that the Ramey photographs show parts of more than one reflector; Flight 4 contained three Signal Corps ML-307B RAWIN targets.

Many witnesses of the debris described tape with flower designs or hieroglyphics on it. Moore recalls that the reinforcing tape used on NYU targets had curious markings. “There were about four of us who were involved in this, and all remember that our targets had sort of a stylized, flowerlike design. I have prepared, in my life, probably more than a hundred of these targets for flight. And every time I have prepared one of these targets, I have always wondered what the purpose of that tape marking was. But . . . a major named John Peterson, laughed . . . and said ‘What do you expect when you get your targets made by a toy factory?'”

The radar targets contained small eyelets. Moore showed the NMSR audience a similar target with the eyelets. In an article in the Roswell Daily Record on July 9, 1947, rancher Brazel described the debris as having no strings or wire, but as having eyelets for some sort of attachment.

While many UFO proponents claim the wreckage shown in General Ramey’s office was just a weather balloon switched for the “real debris,” Moore pointed out that the radar targets used by NYU were unlike anything flown in New Mexico before and that “they were not available in Fort Worth to be substituted for the debris in General Ramey’s office.” Warrant Officer Newton was able to recognize the debris in General Ramey’s office because he happened to have used an early version of the same targets while serving as a weatherman in Okinawa. The earlier-model targets Newton used did not have the reinforcing tape with the pinkish-purple flower designs.

The cited article has an illustration of the hieroglyphics on the tape.

[SingleMalt]

“Send more Chuck Berry!”

[snfaulkner]

It’s the script to lost alternative ending to Big!

[carnivorousplant]

@CalMeacham

The cited article has an illustration of the hieroglyphics on the tape.

They look like something to be entertaining to children. It has been suggested that the tape was purchased surplus to use in the construction of balloons to measure radioactivity in the USSR.

[Channing_Idaho_Banks]

Only Donald Trump can declassify the documents now!

[Lance_M]

Hi, thanks for the replies.

I don’t think the University is actually offering the reward (although their page on the memo does seem to imply this–I am quite sure that this is just poor communication and that the situation is as I described it above).

My name is Lance Moody. I am a longtime UFO skeptic.

The Dropbox is just my personal account and contains all of the scans which I got from the man who funded the recent rescanning project (and is funding the reward).

No big secret on who is behind the scanning and reward but the fellow just doesn’t want his name attached to the effort.

Nothing nefarious but I understand the reservations.

The mention of the tape above is unrelated to the memo issue–Roswell has a lot of controversies.

Please feel free to ask any questions.

Personally I think there is no chance that the thing can actually be deciphered (other than perhaps a few words) but I am attempting to help by spreading the word in case there might be some new technique or angle that might help.

Lance

[Oakminster]

“How to Serve Man: A Chef’s Guide”