FBI Releases Document Confirming Roswell UFO 481
schwit1 writes "An investigator for the Air Force stated that three so-called flying saucers had been recovered in New Mexico. They were described as circular in shape with raised centers approximately 50 feet in diameter. Each one was occupied by three bodies of human shape, but only 3 feet tall dressed in metallic clothing of very fine texture."
Last words... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Last words... (Score:5, Funny)
Last noises heard from dying aliens: "Ack, ack, ack..."
So the aliens either were trying to speak TCP/IP or they were related to Bloom County's "Bill the cat"?
(or was somebody playing cowboy yodeling music somewhere near the crash site?)
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Um.... bill says "ack...............phhhhhhhhtttt!"
I understand he disappeared shortly after getting a job as a nuclear power plant operator in the glorious people's republic of the Ukraine.
Re:Last words... (Score:4, Interesting)
"What's in your wallet?" - Capital One, 2009
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Further, the worst cases of "primitive" societal carnage happened when the natives thought the discoverers were gods. But even that was not universally fatal to the "primitive" culture. Take Captain Cook for example. The natives thought he was a god at first, but then he royally p
Re:Last words... (Score:4, Insightful)
Um.... bill says "ack...............phhhhhhhhttt
Last noises heard from dying aliens: "Ack, ack, ack..."
On a slightly more serious note, no one here seems to be taking this even a little bit seriously ( and no, I'm not new here) It seems to me that this is the first acknowledgement by the government that the "Roswell Incident" was something real. That an actual alien craft was involved. No weather balloon, experimental Russian or American aircraft or anything else.
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The writers weren't sure what the Martians should sound like so the script read "ack, ack, ack, ack" for all of their lines of dialogue. This became the actual words spoken by the Martians in the film.
Re:Last words... (Score:5, Funny)
Last noises heard from dying aliens: "Ack, ack, ack..."
No no, the last words heard were: "Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnn!!!!"
Ahm, so they're related to Bill the Cat? (Score:2)
So they're like... related to Bill the Cat? I mean, surely... not? Bill was nothing but a collection of hairballs...
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Woo, no packet loss!
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Questions. (Score:5, Interesting)
This raises more questions than answers. For a start, this really is on vault.fbi.gov servers, so either it's real or a VERY risky hoax.
However, assuming it's real for now, WHY HAS THIS NOT LEAD TO A FLURRY OF OTHER EVIDENCE FROM ELSEWHERE?
Clearly the mask is off now? The government know about saucers, otherwise there wouldn't be such a casual write-off at the end of the doc.
So were they short Russians? Germans who found it in a barn after WWII and got it working? COME ON FBI, do your jobs and give us a proper INVESTIGATION!
Re:Questions. (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread685706/pg1 [abovetopsecret.com]
Did some more research.... apparently this was declassified in the 70s and published in several books from that time. I don't know how much I would read into it.
Re:Questions. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Clearly the mask is off now? The government know about saucers, otherwise there wouldn't be such a casual write-off at the end of the doc.So were they short Russians? Germans who found it in a barn after WWII and got it working?
Obviously, they were midget meteorologists in weather balloons.
Re:Questions. (Score:5, Insightful)
Webmistressrachel, what this document says is that an FBI agent interviewed someone who heard a rumor.
They did that a lot. They should be many, many documents just like this one, all mutually contradictory. It's to be expected.
Re:Questions. (Score:5, Insightful)
When I was young I thought there might be something to stories like these, then I grew up and realized that many people are doped up, drunk, compulsive liars or completely bat-shit insane. And some are all of those, all the time.
Re:Questions. (Score:5, Funny)
That's no way to speak of our elected representatives.
Rgds
Damon
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Even sane people misremember (a lot), and eyewitness stories [heinonline.org], especially over time, can change. What people forget or can't remember but have some importance in remembering, they often confabulate [wikipedia.org] - but still believe they are actually memories. People with Alzheimers do this a lot,
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Even sane people misremember (a lot), and eyewitness stories [heinonline.org], especially over time, can change. What people forget or can't remember but have some importance in remembering, they often confabulate [wikipedia.org] - but still believe they are actually memories. People with Alzheimers do this a lot, and can create the appearance to outsiders that they don't have Alzheimers at all.
When I was studying I had an acquaintance who when you told him a story would later retell the story as if it had happened to him. Once he did this using an anecdote I had told him not 30 minutes before and as far as I could tell he was 100% serious and unaware of what he was doing. I hope in his case it was the weed but even sober he was a bit "off".
Re:Questions. (Score:5, Informative)
If there's one time to ever RTFA, it's when it's a government document supposedly admitting UFOs of the flying-saucer variety exist and were found near Roswell.
Turns out this isn't that. It's the FBI noting that some dude claimed that two 50-foot saucers landed near Roswell because the nearby radar station disrupted their control mechanisms, and then doing nothing.
"Disrupted by the radar you say? Ah of course. And where are these saucers? Oh they've mysteriously vanished since you saw them the night of the full moon. Got it. Thank you, citizen. We'll definitely look into that -- might be the Russians you know."
Only other thing to say is -- good job, submitter. Made me look.
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"After performing a rigorous investigation, he have determined that an investigator for the Air Force did, in fact, state that three so-called flying saucers had been recovered in New Mexico."
already happened (Score:2)
" However, assuming it's real for now, WHY HAS THIS NOT LEAD TO A FLURRY OF OTHER EVIDENCE FROM ELSEWHERE? "
Already has already happened, many times. For example, respected and not discredited Retired Colonel Philip J. Corso exposed his part in this. But there is a group of crackpot disbelievers who just can't accept the truth, and just keep repeating the same nonsense like "if this were true someone would have leaked it" no matter how many times people do try to leak and expose it.
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Actually (Score:3)
What the document says is "there is this guy who says he saw flying saucers" - that doesn't really prove anything.
Hell there are constantly people who say they've seen flying saucers.
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You might want to try a better grade of LSD next time!
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However, assuming it's real for now, WHY HAS THIS NOT LEAD TO A FLURRY OF OTHER EVIDENCE FROM ELSEWHERE?
Because, if you read the document in question, there's no reason to suspect it's not real, nor to think it would lead to other evidence, because all the document says is that someone said there were flying saucers in New Mexico. This is not an incredible claim, nor is it something we don't already know. Lots of people have said there were flying saucers in New Mexico. We knew that before the FBI provided written proof that someone said it. This doesn't "lead" anywhere since it's nothing we didn't alread
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>For a start, this really is on vault.fbi.gov servers, so either it's real or a VERY risky hoax.
Maybe start by thinking it through for a second. The investigator took a statement from an Air Force officer, nothing more. At the bottom they recommended no further investigation, which tells me the subject didn't have any proof and the investigator didn't really buy it. If you have to drive all the way from the nearest field office to Roswell, you have to put something in the report.
I've worked with a
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Did you ever consider that other information on the subject is likely classified? Anyway, I'm shocked that this was released by the FBI, if it actually was.
What level of classification is "likely."
--
I'll trade you a Sasquatch scat for one of those space suits. The kid needs one.
Riiiiiight (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Riiiiiight (Score:5, Interesting)
Agreed, this is only a filing of the report, no follow-up. It's customary in every law enforcement organisation to file every report, no matter how stupid. Hell, I've heard about the police filing a report by a guy claiming every evening, after the news ran, the newscasters came out of his TV set, and beat him. No investigation was done, naturally, but the report had to be filed, as the SOP went.
Just another sensationalist samzenpus headline, it would seem...
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Agreed, this is only a filing of the report, no follow-up. It's customary in every law enforcement organisation to file every report, no matter how stupid.
No, it isn't just a "filing of the report". It's a memo to the Director of the FBI informing him of the report that they received.
Granted that they do have to file something on every report they receive, I'd still presume that they don't send a memo to the FBI director every time some crackpot reports seeing UFOs.
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Why the hell did he keep watching the news each night?
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which probably means that the FBI had a good laugh about it and then filed it away.
No, in the 40's it was still thought that Venus was probably inhabitable (ever read Heinlein's Future History?), and maybe Mars too, so the FBI guys probably were scared witless over a pending invasion.
Re:Riiiiiight (Score:4, Funny)
Oh come on, you obviously don't understand anything about proper conspiracy theory analysis. Obviously no further investigation was done because it was covered up. That fact alone (no further investigation) absolutely proves without a shadow of a doubt that the report was true and that aliens were found, taken to be autopsied, and that the autopsy findings were ultimately linked directly to the Kennedy assassination. Boy oh boy oh boy oh boy... what's become of the Slashdot commenters these days...
Hearsay (Score:5, Informative)
The document is a report outlining another individual's report. It's neither admission nor documentation of the incident by the FBI, just a record that someone has made a statement about the incident. It's worthless.
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Yes, these documents are absolute proof that someone claimed he saw a UFO. I suppose if there was a government conspiracy to deny the existence of UFO reports, this might mean something. :-)
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someone has made a statement about the incident. It's worthless.
Someone? Except that the someone was an official investigator (eye witness) giving testimony to an FBI agent (another credible party). That's world of a difference if you ask me.
Asgard! (Score:2)
Just when I'm watching DS9 this comes up. AWESOME! This doesn't actually prove that there WERE actual aliens, only confirms of the original report which could just as well be bogus.
I HOPE IT IS NOT. I want me an Asgard friend* and one of those computers that lets me build what I want!
* Everyone knows that Slashdotters have no friends.
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I have friends. My Mom said so and I believe her.
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Your mom's not a trustworthy source. After all, she told me she was clean and I still wound up with the clap.
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Just when I'm watching DS9 this comes up. AWESOME! This doesn't actually prove that there WERE actual aliens, only confirms of the original report which could just as well be bogus.
I HOPE IT IS NOT. I want me an Asgard friend* and one of those computers that lets me build what I want!
* Everyone knows that Slashdotters have no friends.
Ferengi == DS9
Asgard == SG1
I was watching DS9 at the time, not SG1 (Score:2)
Shadow == B5
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Any encounter with actual beings from another planet will 99% of the time, not turn out well
Because it already happened 100 times and only 1 of them turned out to be good right?
The sheer difference in technological development would be the equivalent difference between us, and a common fruit fly.
You make common assumptions that COULD be wrong.
April fools? (Score:5, Funny)
obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
does the document detail whether the base did, after all, belong to them?
Read the article carefully (Score:5, Informative)
Read the article carefully - it neither denies nor confirms anything. This is a report documenting what an informant said, and does not suggest any first hand knowledge about anything...
Al lwe need to know (Score:5, Funny)
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That would explain a lot. I mean what human would admit he eats arugula?
The truth is out there (Score:2)
Dwarf test pilots (Score:5, Informative)
In any event (Score:2)
No bodies, no story.
No story, no UFO industry.
No UFO industry, no Roswell.
Therefore by staying home, space aliens have destroyed Roswell, New Mexico. I get it now.
Re:Dwarf test pilots (Score:5, Interesting)
Lets assume that something happened. There was a communication blackout, the local undertaker was asked to provide three child-sized coffins and thereafter the Army Air Force claim that nothing happened.
The "oddball" theory is that a scaled-down test plane, manned by children crashed in the desert. Can you imagine the US Government ever admitting to that?
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They were obviously dwarf test pilots.
But don''t you see, that's the real coverup here!
What effect will our dealings with dwarves have on US diplomatic relations with the Rivendell Elves?
call Agent Mulder ! (Score:3)
call Agent Mulder !
Suspicious timing (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem with the Roswell folklore has always been that the story completely went away until the point in time when, coincidentally, the actual witnesses had died of old age.
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With the high prices of gasoline, it looks as if Roswell is getting desperate for tourists.
If they want to save their industry, they need to hurry up and find the bodies. Lack of bodies clear demonstrates that the entire thing is a scam, but hey that pretty well sums up business practices in the US these days.
Finally, proof... (Score:2)
...that somebody at the FBI has a sense of humor?
Aprils fool (Score:2)
Yeah, that was an aprils fool guys.
Who cares? (Score:2)
2 - Considering the number of existing suns and planets of known galaxies, one can be 100 % sure that there are other advanced civilizations far older than the 0.4 - 1.5 M years since human-like species on this planet have used fire.
3 - Would a more advanced species even bother to deal
my personal theory (Score:4, Insightful)
Area 51 is chock full of advanced but terrestrial technology. The government leaks this stuff seemingly confirming UFO's or half-assed and inadequate cover stories just to stir up conspiracy nuts. You tell someone you saw strange things in the sky over Groom Lake, people will smile and twirl their fingers in circles beside their heads.
I think the odds of alien life in this universe are very good; I think the odds for intelligent life are also good. But unless there's some lovely scifi physics waiting out there for us, space travel seems like it'll be awfully damned expensive and complicated. And little green men in flying saucers seems a little too -- how should I put it --- mundane? Too mundane for an interstellar alien intelligence.
When you consider that in light of the cheesy denials, it seems like it's not just paranoids getting worked up over nothing, it looks like the government is egging them on. Therefore my theory of using aliens to cover for the real secrets.
Re:my personal theory (Score:5, Funny)
How do you know that's not what they want you to believe?
Why there will be no more probing (Score:2)
Last Modified Date (Score:2)
Is it a coincidence that the last modified date on the PDF is March 31?
You know... as in the day before April Fools?
If that were the case, I'd be even more scared... who would have thought the FBI had a sense of humour?
Re:Last Modified Date (Score:5, Funny)
All right now, aliens in Roswell is one thing, but you actually expect me to believe a government agency has a sense of humor?
Okay, that's it (Score:2)
Samzenpus, I'm filtering your articles. This is ten levels of stupid.
Obligatory rip on slashdot (Score:2)
So, (Score:2)
Where are the bodies?
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> Where are the bodies?
They vanished mysteriously from a locked and guarded room along with all the other evidence. That proves that aliens were involved.
Nope! (Score:3)
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I am not buying the idea that the most advanced nation state the earth has even seen would pay farmers to grow surpluses of grain and then literally destroy the a portion of the harvest to support prices. Oh wait that happens...
There was a Kids in the Hall sketch that addressed the issue of why they come and probe. The punch line was that intergalactic anal probing puts allot of people to work...
Re:Great news! (Score:5, Interesting)
According to Mr. _______ informant
They debriefed their informant and recorded down what he said. It doesn't necessarily mean FBI actually believe the information provided. Under the FOIA you can't just destroy the document because the source wore a tin-foil hat.
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Exactly. In those days you could get away with lying to the feds, especially when any evidence or lack thereof was locked up in an official coverup of secret projects.
The fbi was probably investigating loose lips and the subject was spinning and yarn.
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As an aside, I find the "style" a little too informal for an official 1950 government memo; it reads like it's been edited by a tabloid sub-editor, which sounds like just the sort of source that would have an interest in sending the FBI off on such an investigation.
Re:Great news! (Score:4, Informative)
Check the memo on the FBI site. [fbi.gov]
Mr. [redacted] informant was an investigator for the USAF. Not just some random civilian, or someone who thought they knew something.
There would have been no further investigation necessary, as the USAF was already investigating, and any further investigation would be done by them, and any information necessary would be reported back to the FBI.
Pretty much, another agency had control and jurisdiction on the case, and possession of all materials relating to the case. There was nothing for the FBI to do. What were their options? Demand access to now (as of the minute the military touched it) classified materials? Good luck there. I'm surprised the FBI was provided with as much detail as they were given.
If that were to happen today, it may be something more like "We found something, and are investigating." Or as was provided to the public "Nothing to see here. Just a weather balloon. Move on." Use tthe official USAF aircraft identification chart [freeinternetpress.com] for identifying unknown flying objects.
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No, "it has to be" because the story is patently absurd.
Let's just start with: If the best way to build a craft that can travel through both outer space and all layers of a planetary atmosphere is to make it in the shape of a big disc, why have none of Earth's aerospace engineers ever built a craft using that shape? I guess it must have taken the Roswell incident to convince them it was a bad idea.
How about: How did aliens travel across countless light years of space to reach our planet in a craft that was
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All your questions could have some answer that we don't know yet. Traveling countless light years for example could not be necessary with some other kind of technology. Or why our engineers didn't come up with that shape, because there is some other kind of science behind it.
Re:Great news! (Score:5, Funny)
We have confirmation the FBI is not a serious organization...
"No, ma'am. We at the FBI do not have a sense of humor we're aware of."
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FBI Releases Document Confirming *A REPORT OF A* Roswell UFO
FTFY
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(I am not a physicist or engineer)
Yes, we can tell.
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The issue here is energy density. A very strong radar set might put out 1 megawatt of power; the intensity of that forty miles away is about a milliwatt per meter squared.
It takes *vastly* less energy to communicate (with radar or radio) than to actually do anything, like heat your food or make a magic hoohah floaty-drive work.
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Oh, that kind of stufff only exists in spy movies. Those CIA types are really cool: They eVen sent me a fre3 videp gaeme calllled "Polybius"! i;ts reallty COool.
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That's funny, I thought it was Quark, Rom, and Nog. [memory-alpha.org]
Re:It's the NUKE CODES! (Score:4, Interesting)
I thought this was a reference to early sightings of over the horizon nuclear tests that needed to be suppressed, during the time of Oppenheimer.
I had been assuming the stories were a "second cover".
This is a psychological ploy allegedly used by security agencies to hide things that are really important and worth the effort. They set up two cover stories: The first cover story is public and something plausible. The second cover story is nutty and withheld, but evidence for it is planted. When somebody realizes that the first cover is a lie and digs deeper they encounter the planted evidence for the mind-numbingly wild second cover. Then they are placed in the position of either looking like a fruitcake or giving up. (After all, anything they dig up on the REAL story could also be another lie.)
If it is a second cover, the existence of such a memo in the archives could just be a leftover piece of the planted evidence.
As for what's behind the hypothetical second cover, an explanation released a few years back seems plausible: Balloon-lofted high-altitude drop tests of a predecessor to the mercury capsule reentry heat shield - which looked a lot like the contemporary depictions of flying saucers.
The Cold War was raging at the time and the early space program was military and extremely secret. So tests on the first cut at retrieving people and devices from orbit would logically be performed at a remote, highly-classified, military aircraft test site, with the agencies going to extreme lengths to cover the work from spies, just as they did with the Manhattan Project.
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The "report" doesn't admit anything, other than admitting that some guy told somebody something, made up from whole cloth, with nothing backing it up, and no evidence to support it ever presented by anybody. An FBI agent essentially writes down the fact that some
Not proof, hearsay. (Score:4, Insightful)
You fail reading comprehension.
The document is produced by Guy Hottel and addressed to the director of the FBI.
In the document, Hottel writes that the information referred to in the document was provided to a special agent whose name is redacted. So we've already got a chain of four links here: the FBI Director, Guy Hottel at Strategic Air Command, the unnamed Special Agent, and the SA's source, whose name is also redacted after the preposition "by" in the first sentence.
Inside that, we have the contents of the report, which is that an Air Force investigator, also unnamed, stated that three bodies and three objects were recovered. The SA's source may have been the investigator, or an intermediary, the document isn't entirely clear on that. However, the long redacted portion of the first sentence after the word "by" would seem to indicate information beyond a mere name; perhaps a title, organization, or other contextual information. Such such information was redacted in the first paragraph, but the title "investigator" and the organization name "Air Force(s)" would seem to indicate that these two individuals are distinct. So that would give us five individuals: FBI Director, Guy Hottel, the Special Agent, his informant, and the Air Force investigator.
Everything in the document is essentially preceded by: The FBI acknowledges that SAC reports that a Special Agent says that an informant told him that an Air Force investigator stated... and it's all three years after the alleged events in New Mexico.
There's a word for this. It's "hearsay". In this case, it's four times removed from the only person who is actually named in the document: Guy Hottel at SAC. Putting hearsay in a document doesn't make the contents official; it's just acknowledgement on the part of FBI that people made statements-- in this case, some people made statements about what other people told them that other people told them that other people told them, with three of the individuals involved unnamed.
The important part of the document is the last paragraph-- what the Special Agent did as a result of the informant's statement: "no further investigation was attempted". In other words, it wasn't credible enough to even bother looking into.
The only question here is why Slashdot's editors, more than sixty years later, aren't as astute as that Special Agent.
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its an official fbi document, on official fbi site, stating that an official usaf investigator has had told an official fbi agent that 3 saucers were recovered in roswell.
Actually I read it as an official FBI document, on official FBI site, stating that an informant, one "Mr. [redacted]", stated that an official USAF investigator said that 3 saucers were recovered in Roswell. I doubt very much that some guy saying that the USAF knows stuff is strong evidence for much of anything.
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report says that AN INVESTIGATOR FOR AIR FORCE STATED THAT three flying saucers and bodies HAD BEEN RECOVERED.
the investigator for air force, STATES that three flying saucers were recovered at roswell.
the 'informant' part, is the last part in the last paragraph about the REASON for the saucers being found in roswell, and relevance of radar to the incident.
the 'informant' of the usaf investigator takes part in that explan