Is Roswell In The Eye Of The Beholder?
Many readers may know about the famous photograph from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram taken on July 8th of 1947. A young photographer on the staff, J. Bond Johnson, was sent to the Fort Worth Army Airfield and shown to the office of General Roger Ramey to take pictures of debris recovered from the crash of an object near Roswell. In the 1990s, researchers noticed that in one of the photos, General Ramey was holding a piece of paper in his hand. Some claimed that words such as “victims” “crash,” and “weather balloons” could be made out when the photo was magnified.
The controversy raged for many years until James Houran from the Dept. of Psychiatry of the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine and Roswell UFO crash researcher and advocate Kevin Randle decided to put the “Ramey memo” to a test. A paper published in Vol. 16 #1 (2002) of the Journal of Scientific Exploration described an experiment that presented three groups of subjects with the best images available and asked them to pick out any words that they could see:
Previous analyses of a photograph showing a document held by General Ramey from the Roswell UFO case reportedly revealed content that supported a crashed extraterrestrial craft scenario. Other investigators of this document suggested, however, that it was ambiguous stimuli being interpreted by pro-Roswell investigators in accordance with their expectations. To assess the possible extent of bias in these interpretations, we had three randomly assigned groups of participants attempt to decipher the document under different suggestion conditions: one condition in which we told participants (N= 59) they were looking at a document pertaining to the famous Roswell UFO case, a second condition in which we told participants (N= 58) that they were looking at a document pertaining to secret testing of the atomic bomb, and a final condition in which participants (N= 59) were told nothing about the possible content of the document.
What the study found was that at least in this case, the participants saw what they expected to see. The lowest number of words were discerned by the group who were told nothing about the image. The most words “found” (almost the same amount from both groups) were from the participants who were told that the photo either pertained to the Roswell UFO crash or some sort of atomic test.
The surprisingly high agreement between our participants and previous investigators on specific words in identical locations in the Ramey memo suggests that some of the document is indeed legible, even without computer enhancement. However, the meaning or context of those words remains ambiguous because the degree of interpretation of the document is strongly influenced by suggestion effects and the interpreter’s cognitive style. We are inclined to believe that such effects have also tainted the previous studies on the memo using sophisticated software because there appears to be weak interrater reliability among these earlier analysts. In fact, ufologists are probably among the least effective people to be trying to decipher the document. This opinion stems from our observation that one of the main factors arguably influencing the number of words deciphered in this study is the motivation of the participants. Note that those in the Pro-UFO condition spent more time examining the images and subsequently perceived the greatest number of words in the Ramey memo.
We might expand this idea to the whole problem of perception amongst those who try to convince us that something exists (UFOs) which are not currently testable in the scientific sense, and their confusion as to why more people cannot see what is “obvious” to them. Unfortunately, a large portion of this group are locked in to a belief system which dictates that this untestable phenomenon is the result of visitors from other planets, which is an assumption riding on a theory. This attitude has still not garnered serious attention from some who should be looking at the enigma.
It is fairly certain that many people have witnessed anomalous flying objects and even apparent entities associated with them for millenia, but the problem is getting the gatekeepers of consensus reality to acknowledge that the weight of observed evidence is worthy of at least some serious attention and study. Whether this involves a closer examination of our perception and beliefs, or of the reports themselves (or more likely both) deserves consideration.
P.S. Happy 62nd Anniversary of the Kenneth Arnold sighting!
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Jun 24 2009 
June 25th, 2009 at 1:31 am
“We prefer to believe what we prefer
to be true”
-Bacon*
I ran across this quotation years ago,
and its seems to bear on this study.
I do think there is useful and
important work still to be done in
Ufology, but there’s no getting away
from investigators bias, no matter
what the field of study.
I understand your seeming sense of
frustration at the continuing
stranglehold of the ETH on the field,
Greg, but to be fair, it is the
least bizarre of the notions
that attach to UAPs. Ultraterrestrials,
InfraTerrestrials, and thought-form
projections are all ‘untestable’ in
our current frame of reference. All
the committed observer can really do
is continue to document, and persevere.
For what its worth, I’m glad you do.
June 25th, 2009 at 3:19 am
I wish Buzz Aldrin’s new rap CD wasn’t true.
http://www.hiphopmusic.com/2009/06/video_buzz_aldrin_rocket_exper.html
June 26th, 2009 at 3:18 am
“I understand your seeming sense of
frustration at the continuing
stranglehold of the ETH on the field,
Greg, but to be fair, it is the
least bizarre of the notions
that attach to UAPs.”
Aren’t “mistaken identity of terrestrial objects”, “fraud” and “classified terrestrial aircraft” even less bizarre notions that attach to UAP?
June 26th, 2009 at 4:26 am
Alcalde-
As individual explanations for
individual cases, yes, certainly.
As blanket explanations for the
phenomena as a whole, not so much.
Having been an armchair student
of aviation projects for better
than thirty years, I find the
“Classified Terrestrial Aircraft”
one of the least plausible explanations
for sightings, though its clear that
was the cause in a number of specific
flaps.
June 26th, 2009 at 9:49 am
Hi Greg:
I just became aware of this site and am catching up on this good information. The implications of the Roswell document interpretations are interesting. Good stuff.
June 26th, 2009 at 11:52 am
1.
Mr. York – with all due respect, I think we’ll have to disagree that classified aircraft is overall less likely than (presumably) faster-than-light travel from an alien world to do nothing more than buzz around and abduct out cattle and random citizens and perform bizarre experiments that make no sense.
I’m not endorsing that as a blanket explanation, I just think that it’s far from ruled out and that it’s a more mundane explanation that needs proof or refutation before alien life becomes the most plausible of the remaining alternatives.
2. Is that THE Greg Little? Or another Greg Little?
June 26th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Craig,
Thanks! Yes, we need to consider many alternatives, even the seemingly bizarre ones.
I don’t think that the ETH is the least plausible, I think it it just about equally plausible. It probably seems so because it’s the one that most people can most easily wrap their minds around.
June 26th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
Greg L.
Your books have had a real influence on me, and I’d be glad to get in touch off list.
June 27th, 2009 at 12:57 am
Alcalde: I am “a” Greg Little. It’s a common name. But I’m the only one of the group that I am aware of in ufology, underwater exploration, documentary making, and criminal psychology.
Greg B: I’m in the beginning of research for a dual ufo project, which I’m doing with the UK’s Andrew Collins. It is a book & documentary. Sorry about the influence (kidding). I assume you have my email address…no problem.
June 27th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Mr. Little, if you are the author of “People Of the Web”, I’d just like to say that I recall reading the book as a young man and finding it fascinating. If you’re not that Greg Little, well, you sound fascinating too.
June 28th, 2009 at 12:45 am
Yes I am the author of People of the Web. “Grand Illusions” was the followup to “Web” and “The Archetype Experience” was the first in the series. In Web I mentioned an encyclopedia of Indian mounds, which finally was done and released this year…26 years after I started it. I have written regularly about UFOs over the years mainly in magazines and websites, but really turned my main focus to Atlantis, ancient mysteries, Edgar Cayce, and the Bermuda Triangle around 1998 or so. I find all of the blogs here really very interesting and well-reasoned. People of the Web affected quite a few people, which I found surprising.