Roswell UFO witness: Sgt. Melvin E. Brown

[Rory]

In googling Dwyer and Rowe I don't find as much as I expected. I do notice that Kevin Randle is a defender of Rowe and that there's much disagreement about if and how Dwyer could have gone out to the crash site. I also notice their names pop up in the cautionary tale of "The Roswell Slides", which I'm sure everyone here knows about.

The stand-out bit of the article, for me, is this section:

[Dew] loaded a copy of the slides on to his phone and went to Roswell. He showed the photos to the children of witnesses and filmed their responses. Then he tracked down Eleazar Benavides, an air force base veteran who claims to have seen the aliens when they were brought to the Roswell base.

"That's what I saw in 1947," Benavides said after looking at the slides.

The slides, of course, show the body of a mummified Native American toddler.

 

[johne1618]

That sounds incredibly silly to me (though it did make me laugh, so that's a good thing).

Why would firemen be involved?

Well firemen and state troopers are first responders so why wouldn't they be involved initially? Firemen like Dan Dwyer could have taken their private cars if they were not allowed to take the Roswell fire engine beyond city limits.

 

[johne1618]

Why didn't the USAF Roswell Report mention Frankie Rowe's testimony about the metal foil that she handled? Was it because it didn't agree with their narrative that the debris was unremarkable?

 

[Bradley Johansson]

Well firemen and state troopers are first responders so why wouldn't they be involved initially? Firemen like Dan Dwyer could have taken their private cars if they were not allowed to take the Roswell fire engine beyond city limits.

There's just no evidence that this happened, and several reasons to think that it probably did not happen:

- Dwyer's living colleagues from that time did not recall it happening.
- It was not policy to respond to such calls, and we have no information about where the call allegedly came from.
- The scenario of firefighters responding to a fiery spaceship wreck does not fit with any of what we know about the events from verifiable witnesses or contemporaneous reporting.
- Rowe's description of the debris is unlike that of verifiable witnesses.

Rowe's claims could be a mixture of real events and others' claims about Roswell. It's possible her father told her this story. But it is not supported by anyone else's recollections, or the known circumstances. I do not see any reason to think it reflects true events.

Why didn't the USAF Roswell Report mention Frankie Rowe's testimony about the metal foil that she handled? Was it because it didn't agree with their narrative that the debris was unremarkable?

Rowe never told the story publicly until 1991, and I expect the USAF was more concerned with explaining the incident than addressing all the claims out there from people with no verifiable connection to the events (like Rowe and Dwyer). The point is, there is no reason to consider Rowe a Roswell witness. There is no contemporaneous reporting or testimony from witnesses corroborating the story or linking her or her father to the Roswell events, and her claims do not line up well with those of witnesses to the debris or surrounding events.

 

[Rory]

Firemen and state troopers are first responders so why wouldn't they be involved initially?

Well, first responders attend to emergencies. But here we have a rancher telling a sheriff that he found some foil and sticks three weeks before, and then the sheriff tells the military and Marcel goes to look at it.

I don't really see any room or requirement for firemen or state troopers to attend.

 

[Bradley Johansson]

Well, first responders attend to emergencies. But here we have a rancher telling a sheriff that he found some foil and sticks three weeks before, and then the sheriff tells the military and Marcel goes to look at it.

I don't really see any room or requirement for firemen or state troopers to attend.

For context, the implication here is that Dwyer attended a "second crash site." This idea was added to the Ufological literature in the 1980s when it became clear that the statements of witnesses to the debris on the Foster Ranch could not support an alien spaceship crashing there. The scenario posited is that the flying saucer skimmed the Foster Ranch, got back up into the air, and then crashed somewhere else (the location of which changed many times in the literature). A good deal of it was based on the claims of a man named Frank Kaufmann, who was later exposed as a fraud. There is no good explanation for why the alien spacecraft shed foil, rubber, parchment, sticks, and tape before crashing.

 

[deirdre]

Why didn't the USAF Roswell Report mention Frankie Rowe's testimony about the metal foil that she handled? Was it because it didn't agree with their narrative that the debris was unremarkable?

because she dreamed it? since it didnt match anyone else's description or the photographs we have.

 

[Rory]

Why didn't the USAF Roswell Report mention Frankie Rowe's testimony about the metal foil that she handled?

Maybe they weren't aware of her. Or maybe they'd decided they already had enough low quality so-called 'witnesses' by then.

According to Kevin Randle the weird material she handled was a week after the wreckage was reported:

Rowe also saw a bit of metallic debris that a State Trooper claimed to have picked up in the field. Rowe said that she thought it was about a week later. She'd had some dental work done and had gone over to the fire house to wait so that her father could drive her home. The State Policeman was there and he walked up to a table and said to the firemen, "You guys aren't going to believe what I've got." He pulled out his hand and had a piece of metal.

Rowe said, "I think I got to pick it up and crumple it one time. I can only remember doing it one time... It just didn't feel like anything... it was kind of a pewter color... Everybody got out their knives or whatever and tried to cut and they tried to burn it."​

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/search?q=frankie+rowe

If it was "liquid, like water" then why on Earth were they trying to cut it and burn it?

Randle also states he could find no record of her having been to the dentist around that time. But if she had - she says it was for "oral surgery" - and the story is true then I suppose the most likely explanation for her seeing a liquid that men were trying to cut is that she was high (she was 12 at the time).

As for Dwyer, according to Rowe:

"I remember him saying that some of them helped pick up some pieces of the wreckage. He said he saw two bodies in bags and one that was walking around. This third one would go back and forth between different parts of the wreckage and was walking around dazed. He didn't say if anyone tried to talk to this person."

So according to her her father was there with others. Some say they went out there in a pick-up truck with a water tank on the back - but there is no record of this and no reason for them to have gone. Then there's another old fireman who says an army colonel (Randle doubts it was actually a colonel) came into the fire station and told them not to go, but Dwyer went in his own car and though the site was cordoned by armed guards he got close enough to see the craft anyway.

Randle concludes that this is "corroboration for Frankie Rowe" - but I don't see how that can be the case, since there's a vast difference between: a) seeing from a distance a craft that the army is attending to and guarding; and b) being there as part of a crew picking up pieces of wreckage and seeing an alien walking around.

Just sounds, at best, like another instance of a dad entertaining his kids (dads do that).

 

[TheCholla]

There is no good explanation for why the alien spacecraft shed foil, rubber, parchment, sticks, and tape before crashing.

Just for fun, don't take this seriously:
What if the saucer hit the Mogul ballon in the air, and both crashed ? That would reconcile the two sides of the story as far as the description of mundane AND exotic debris.

 

[JMartJr]

A good way to stop speculations would have been for the USAF to provide a picture of a Mogul balloon from up close, showing the sticks and "flower tape".

Stopping speculation about a flying saucer report is not part of the USAF mission, though. The initial confusion about and misidentification of the wreckage WAS associated with their mission, and served to protect secrecy around a classified espionage project then under development. It is true that from the USAF point of view there is unlikely to be anything to be gained by continued secrecy about this incident. On the other hand, there's not an obvious benefit to clearing it up.

 

[TheCholla]

Try flying a saucer with a 600 ft balloon on your windshield

 

[Rory]

For context, the implication here is that Dwyer attended a "second crash site."

Gotcha. So I guess that makes #7.

According to Randle, Rowe says her dad said "they had gone about thirty miles outside of Roswell and then a few miles back to the west", and someone else says it was to the north. So that's maybe about ten miles south of #4 - which is the site Jim Ragsdale identified in a signed affidavit to Donald Schmitt.

Unfortunately for the owners and operators of The International UFO Museum and Research Center (who included Walter Haut and Max Littell) the owner of that land wouldn't sell it to them and starting making several thousand dollars a year from visitors. But then in a lucky turn of events Ragsdale remembered - in another sworn affidavit (with its own dubious story) - that it was actually some other place (#5) and that he'd found bodies there and tried to remove one of the helmets. He also said there were burn marks on trees from the crash.

His ex-wife, on the other hand, says that #5 was somewhere they used to go camping and that the burn marks came from some drunk guys' fire in 1969/70.

Roswell sounds crazier than Tiger King!

http://www.williampbarrett.com/CrossRos/index.htm

 

[Rory]

A thought: having spent some time in that part of New Mexico, as well as similar parts of the American west, I'm reminded that it's actually incredibly easy to find someone who has a tale of seeing or engaging with aliens and/or a UFO. Especially in a small town, and especially in the desert or mountains.

I would wager that you could rock up to such a place and within a few hours you could find people who would tell you stories like these. The only difference is that they don't have the 'local legend' of the initial press report and military involvement to go with it.

(Also, here's a nice newspaper article featuring more of Brazel's initial comments than I've seen elsewhere. You really get the sense he feels a bit silly (but also amused) for getting swept up in the whole thing.)

 

[Rory]

What about the foil material that Frankie Rowe, daughter of fireman Dan Dwyer, claims she witnessed? She said that she crushed it in her hand and it felt like there was nothing there. When she opened her hand it dropped on the table and spread out like a liquid.

Going back to this quote from Rowe:

"When I would wad it up it was like i had nothing in my hand; I couldn't feel it touching my skin. You'd drop it on the table and it was just like water the way it would spread out."

I've been thinking that if we perhaps take the comparison with water a little less literally it won't seem so silly - especially as there are other descriptions that match this less "Terminator 2000" idea of the material:

Bill [Brazel] returned to the ranch in November of 1947. He managed to collect quite a bit of small scraps and described them as:

"Something on the order of tinfoil except that this stuff wouldn't tear and was actually a bit darker in color than tinfoil - more like leadfoil, except very thin and extremely lightweight. The odd thing about this foil was that you could wrinkle it and lay it back down and it immediately resumed its original shape. It was quite pliable, yet you couldn't crease or bend it like ordinary metal." (Berlitz & Moore, 1980)

Bill kept his little shoebox full of pieces and even showed the neighbors on one occasion. Then nine-year old Sally Strickland Tadolini recalls:

"What Bill showed us was a piece of what I still think was fabric. It was something like aluminum foil, something like satin, something like well-tanned leather in its toughness, yet was not precisely like any of those materials. I did a lot of sewing so the feel made a great impression on me. It felt like no fabric I have touched before or since. It was very silky or satiny, with the same texture on both sides. Yet when I crumpled it in my hands the feel was like that you notice when you crumble a leather glove in your hand. When it was released, it sprang back into its original shape, quickly flattening out with no wrinkles." (Affidavit from 1993)

http://www.astronomyufo.com/UFO/back.htm

If we ignore the potentially poor word choice of "like water" there seems to be a good level of consistency here. Though there are further problems thrown up in that: i) Strickland says she handled the material "about a week after all the excitement" (ie, mid-July) while Brazel is reported as finding it in November; ii) Brazel says that he initially went back to the ranch to see his father because he saw his picture in the paper but there was no photo in the paper; iii) in the interview quoted above Brazel also says "it never occurred to me to try to burn it so I don't know if it would burn or not" whereas in a later interview he says "it wouldn't burn and I couldn't cut it with my knife"; and iv) despite all the people that saw and handled this stuff, apparently nobody kept any of it.

More than those problems though, given that Rowe's interview came many years after Brazel's account was published and she was clearly a big time UFO fan who would no doubt have read quite a lot on the Roswell incident, it's not unlikely that she absorbed his account and was reproducing it, whether unconsciously or otherwise.

Dodgy memories and possible contaminations everywhere one looks in this rabbit hole.

 

[Rory]

I was expecting to find something in the USAF report on why people would have been puzzled by pieces of foil as mundane as the one we see in the picture above.

Brazel initially thought it was a kite:

"At first I thought it was a kite, but we couldn't put it together like any kite I ever saw," he said. "It wasn't a kite."

https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/l...-his-debris-discovery-near-roswell/434250001/

Then when he took some of the debris to town/Wade's Bar and shared it with the guys there and/or his brother-in-law Hollis Wilson he learned about the UFO craze - and very possibly a $3000 reward for finding one - and perhaps was persuaded into thinking that's what he had (and maybe had a few beers in him too).

Who's never been persuaded - or persuaded themselves - into something daft that makes sense at the time but when looked back on later just seems pure folly?

Here's Professor Moore holding an ML-307 radar reflector:

And here's a comparison of what Professor Moore drew when remembering what was on the tape (already posted by Mendel) with Jesse Marcel Jr's "hieroglyphics":

Source: http://www.astronomyufo.com/UFO/Mogul.htm

I guess the moral of the story is: first instincts are often right; don't let the boys in the bar persuade you into silly things (especially if it's to do with aliens); and if you think $40,000 (by today's value) has just fallen out of the sky and landed in your lap it may just be too good to be true.

(PS Not so much an answer to you Dimebag - I'm sure you know all this already - just using your excerpt as a springboard.)

 

[jackfrostvc]

I'm not saying anyone in this story has lied. But I do want to remind people that people do lie, and do make up nonsense in regards to UFO sightings. UFOology is littered with them. And it's not uncommon that when a big UFO story comes out, there will be people that make up stories related to it, to try and get their moment of fame

 

[NorCal Dave]

What about the foil material that Frankie Rowe, daughter of fireman Dan Dwyer, claims she witnessed?

This is no different from the original post with Beverly. It is NOT proof of anything, it could be a starting point to look into the claim, as silly as it sounds.

Note that the entire segment only lasts from ~6:20-~6:52 and consists of a narrator simply saying that the fire department was involved and got some meta-material as if it was common knowledge. No citation, no interviews or statements from the fire chief or police at the time, no records showing their involvement. Nothing, it is simple stated as fact. Tagged on is 20-30 year old (I don't know when this "documentary" was made or when her part was recorded) recollection from this lady.

Furthermore, and this is not meant disrespectfully, but bringing her up here boarders on running a Gish Gallop (see Mendel's post #36). Plenty of people have pointed out the flaws in the originally posted video, so you move onto an other, I would say equally flawed, testimonial.

Kind of like saying "Well what about this? Oh. Well what about this? Oh. Well what about this?" If each "this" is little more than hearsay or an old story with little or no corroborating evidence, it's starting to look like a Gish Gallop.

 

[Mendel]

From the AF report:

 

[NoParty]

I don't know exactly what you mean by "cumulative weight of circumstantial evidence" but it sounds inherently sketchy. Like maybe a whole bunch of bad evidence should somehow add up to good?

Article:

The Gish gallop is a rhetorical technique in which a debater attempts to overwhelm an opponent by excessive number of arguments, without regard for the accuracy or strength of those arguments.

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop

Let's assume we have 100 UFO sightings, and we know 1 of these sightings is genuine, while the 99 others are not. Does the "circumstantial evidence" for those 99 non-sightings contribute to the evidence for the 1 sighting?

None of the no-UFO events has made the actual UFO event any more or less likely.

...a lot of bad evidence of nonsense doesn't magically become good evidence based on volume.

As I looked at these, my mind went to two old (1988?) Saturday Night Live "commercials" parodying
some prominent bank (Chase?) ads of the day...First CitiWide Change Bank: a bank that exists
solely to make change. When asked to explain how they make money, the answer is simple:
"Volume." (like the discussion here: The notion that tons of nothings somehow = something)
[Phil Hartman!]

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KodqIPMbyUg
The same night, this was the first of the 2 spots...still funny, but without the "Volume" punchline.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXDxNCzUspM

 

[Rory]

The fascinating thing is that when all the information is put together the Roswell explanation is actually really straightforward and mundane. Amazing to think of how the fate of that town was completely changed because a balloon one day fell on a rancher's land.

 

[NorCal Dave]

Amazing to think of how the fate of that town was completely changed because a balloon one day fell on a rancher's land.

And many have have cashed in on that one wayward Mogul balloon!

 

[Murray]

This is not consistent with the behavior of a metal foil with a rubber backing as described above.

Is material that is easily crushed by human hands consistent with what one would expect a craft capable of flying across the universe to be made of?

 

[johne1618]

Is material that is easily crushed by human hands consistent with what one would expect a craft capable of flying across the universe to be made of?

That material was allegedly found at the supposed crash site of the craft itself just north of Roswell whereas the rest of the debris handled by witnesses was from the Brazell ranch near Corona, northwest of Roswell, where the craft bounced off the ground.

Perhaps it was a piece of alien clothing?

 

[Mendel]

Is material that is easily crushed by human hands consistent with what one would expect a craft capable of flying across the universe to be made of?

I'd expect a heat shield, a propulsion/braking system, and an impact fire.
Or a magic mana crystal.

 

[JMartJr]

Perhaps it was a piece of alien clothing?

Perhaps. Or perhaps foil, fabric, etc. of the types used in the Mogul (and other) balloons? The difference, of course, is that we know that Mogul (and other) balloons existed, and that they were flying around in that area, and that they sometimes crashed.

 

[TheCholla]

If some of you have read "Witness to Roswell", by Casey and Schmitt, what do you think of the sheer amount of witnesses ? We have already discussed that quantity is not quality, but they have so many testimonies that align quite well, most often by USAF personal. How could a simple balloon cause so much stories ? I get people lie or fantasize, but this is a lot.

 

[Mendel]

I get people lie or fantasize, but this is a lot.

We had a thread on witnesses a few months ago, discussing some ways in which witness recollections become skewed, and what police ought to do to prevent that.
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/the-scientific-weight-of-eyewitness-testimony.11929/

If you have witnesses who know other witnesses' reports, and possibly talked amongst themselves, they're bound to be similar for that reason alone.

Note that this does not require any intent to deceive or to embellish ("lie or fantasize"), it happens mostly subconsciously and automatically.

This is why having objective evidence such as photographs or materials is important.

 

[Murray]

Perhaps it was a piece of alien clothing?

I thought it was supposed to be part of the ship itself? Now we're saying it was alien clothing instead?

Did anyone who saw it speculate that it might be clothing? Did it have arm holes or leg holes, or a shape that would indicate it was used to clothe a human like shaped creature?

 

[Bradley Johansson]

If some of you have read "Witness to Roswell", by Casey and Schmitt, what do you think of the sheer amount of witnesses ? We have already discussed that quantity is not quality, but they have so many testimonies that align quite well, most often by USAF personal. How could a simple balloon cause so much stories ? I get people lie or fantasize, but this is a lot.

Most of the witnesses have mundane stories, and some of the more scandaous claims simply don't make sense. Witnesses may have believed or still believe that something unearthly crashed in Roswell (a lot of people seem to), but very few people claiming to be witnesses actually recall specified details which support that belief. The more alien-compatible the claims are, the less the claimant has any verifiable connection to the events.

Here is an example of individuals who were put to me recently as people whose claims support there being a huge military coverup incompatible with Project Mogul debris being found on the ranch. When I looked into what they actually said, it didn't support anything of the kind - just that there was likely a few army people at the Foster Ranch debris site for a couple of days after Marcel and Cavitt collected most of the debris, and at some point they stopped letting people wander around and check it out. That's how it tends to go when you look into these things.

1st Lt. Chester P. Barton

Claims to have seen the debris site (likely after Marcel and Sheridan Cavitt collected most of it), said it was a football-field size and little debris was there. Said the materials were "exotic" but provided no detail. Believes it was a crashed B-29 carrying atomic bombs.

Lewis Rickett, Counter Intelligence Corps member under Marcel

Described something different from others, "very thin, very light sheet material" which "looked like metal" but "could not bend". Said the debris area field covered a tiny area, "not bigger than [an] apartment".

S/Sgt. Earl V. Fulford

Said he was at the site at Foster Ranch and was ordered to direct people to leave if they showed up wanting to look at debris based on the local rumours or reporting. Saw a foil type material, no bodies, was told to keep quiet in some way.

William M. Woody

Recalled as a 14-year-old in summer 1947 seeing something pass overhead and military on road near Roswell. No clear connection to Foster Ranch debris. Direction doesn't line up with something crashing on Foster Ranch.

C. Bertram Schultz

Recalled in summer 1947 seeing military along a road and blocking off some other road or roads, perhaps in a training exercises. No clear connection to Roswell incident.

Bud Payne

Went to the debris site at Foster Ranch because he wanted to try to grab a piece, two soldiers sitting in a truck at the site turned him around. No threats.

Jud Roberts

Also said he tried to go to the site but the military turned him around once he arrived.

Robin Adair

An AP wire technician, he went to the site with AP reporter Jason Kellahin and said there were 3 or 4 army officers looking around. The atmosphere was casual, they were not asked to leave, and no one seemed bothered by the press being there.

---

PS: Schmitt was exposed in the mid-1990s as having fabricated his educational credentials, employment, various biographical details, and some of the evidence in the books he co-authored at the time with Kevin Randle. Randle stopped working with him at that point, but Schmitt has re-emerged with a new co-author and continues to put out sensationalist Roswell books. I would not trust him to accurately characterize or reliably vet witness accounts (covered in Pflock, 2001).

 

[johne1618]

I thought it was supposed to be part of the ship itself? Now we're saying it was alien clothing instead?

Did anyone who saw it speculate that it might be clothing? Did it have arm holes or leg holes, or a shape that would indicate it was used to clothe a human like shaped creature?

I haven't heard any previous speculation that it was clothing. I just guessed myself. I believe according to Frankie Rowe that it was just larger than hand size with jagged edges. She didn't mention any holes. By the way in post #103 I meant the Foster ranch - William "Mac" Brazel was the ranch manager.

 

[Mendel]

I haven't heard any previous speculation that it was clothing. I just guessed myself.

So basically, a crate with alien clothes destimed for goodwill fell off the back of a UFO and disintegrated when it hit the ground, which is why all we found is fabric with seams, wooden sticks, and lots of sellotape and aluminum foil?

I'd read a short story based on that premise.
Also, in that story, aliens abducting humans and stripping them naked isn't to probe the humans, they just want to copy their fashion!

The problem with this is that a thin light material that rips easily is rarely worn by people who have actual work to do, like crafts(wo)men or military or explorers. Thin & light makes me think "parachute" or "balloon", especially when the material is supposed to have flown to its location.

And there's obviously nothing "alien" in that explanation.

The speculation that it's alien clothing is a little confirmation biased. Normally, it'd go
- there's fabric (fact)
- so maybe it's clothes (hypothesis)
- but it's not clothes shape or any known clothes fabric (observation)
- so it's not clothes after all. (conclusion)

The biased speculation doesn't let you contradict step 2, so step 4 must be different:
- there's fabric (fact)
- so it's clothes (conclusion)
- but it's not clothes shaped or like any known clothes fabric (fact)
- so it's alien clothes, which means we don't need to explain shape or fabric (conclusion)

With that thinking, step 3 becomes "evidence" for a new ad-hoc hypothesis that's no longer falsifiable: the chance that some extraterrestrials step forth and say, "that's not our stuff", is rather slim. And the step 2 hypothesis has also become an unfalsifiable conclusion.

This is a pre-scientific mode of thinking, and humanity (though not necessarily individual humans) has learned not to rely on it.

 

[Mendel]

the chance that some extraterrestrials step forth and say, "that's not our stuff", is rather slim

And the fact that the Air Force did say, "this is our stuff", becomes evidence for a coverup:
- there's fabric (fact)
- so it's clothes (conclusion)
- but it's not clothes shaped or like any known clothes fabric (fact)
- so it's alien clothes, which means we don't need to explain shape or fabric (conclusion)
- Airforce says it is their stuff (fact)
- must be a coverup/conspiracy (conclusion)

Note again that this mode of thinking again doesn't allow for falsification.
And now it has led someone to think ill of other fellow humans, with no real evidence at all!
All that simply because this style of argument doesn't allow for taking a step back, giving in to doubt, and saying "maybe that idea was wrong".

 

[NorCal Dave]

All that simply because this style of argument doesn't allow for taking a step back, giving in to doubt, and saying "maybe that idea was wrong".

Agreed. But I think many UFOlogist take it a step further. In their minds, starting from the conclusion that a UFO is alien until proving otherwise, is considered being "open-minded". And being open-minded is better than being close-minded.

They draw the erroneous conclusion, that people who don't start with the alien answer, are closed to the possibility of an alien answer. Therefore the constant demand by sceptics, for proof, puts an onerous burden on the open-minded person. A burden they feel they can never get around, because to them no amount of evidence will ever be enough. They then retreat back to their mindset that every anomalous light or story is much more than it is, if one is open-minded.

 

[Gary McH-P]

I'm surprised this thread has gone on so long. Any circumstantial 'evidence' has been absolutely battered just in this thread alone. I repeat, it's over 70 years ago. Nobody had a video and camera in their pocket. You are relying on circumstantial evidence from some country folk that had a simple concept of materials that were available at the time to compare against. As the years go on, those memories have flourished into stories, passed on to generations. The stories have grown into 'alien adventures', fuelled by the never ending book releases and TV series, encouraged by those believers who hope their is substance behind the incident. It's nothing more than a fairytale.

 

[Ann K]

Is material that is easily crushed by human hands consistent with what one would expect a craft capable of flying across the universe to be made of?

Agreed, but of course we have launched satellites in recent years with huge "sails" of thin material that were only unfurled after they reached the relative safety of space. The materials they found were probably available for specialized use long before the general public had any acquaintance with them, so it's not surprising that it was strange stuff to the finders. Aluminized Mylar comes to mind as a material "like water" that returns pretty much to its shape when released.

It's also in New Mexico. I lived for three years at White Sands Missile Range, and by the time I got a severe sunburn in November, in December, and January (I was a slow learner at the time!) I had to accept the fact that the desert sun bears very little resemblance to the sun in Ohio! Materials degrade very rapidly in that intense light, so it's likely that none of the finders saw it as it originally was.

 

[Patricio]

Remember what Thomas Paine said in The Age of Reason:

Article:

"Is it more probable that nature should go out of her course or that a man should tell a lie? We have never seen, in our time, nature go out of her course. But we have good reason to believe that millions of lies have been told in the same time. It is therefore at least millions to one that the reporter of a miracle tells a lie. "

Source: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/153829-is-it-more-probable-that-nature-should-go-out-of

There are also other possibilities beside lying.

I agree with your point, in principle, but I wouldn't assert that a visitor from another star system equals a miracle, necessarily. Amazing, yes, miracle, no.

 

[FatPhil]

I agree with your point, in principle, but I wouldn't assert that a visitor from another star system equals a miracle, necessarily. Amazing, yes, miracle, no.

You're reading too much into the word "miracle"; anything that brings about a sense of wonder, or amazement, can be described as a miracle, there's no need to infer anything divine from its use.

 

[NoParty]

I don't think we need to quibble about what the best definition for "miracle" might be...
but since we don't have a single documented case of "a visitor from another star system"
in all of human history, I think we can all agree that it would be astounding beyond measure...
(especially compared to the fact that most humans lie multiple times each day)

 

[Patricio]

You're reading too much into the word "miracle"; anything that brings about a sense of wonder, or amazement, can be described as a miracle, there's no need to infer anything divine from its use.

By "miracle' I would assume it means 'unexplainable' as in 'impossible' or 'as if by magic' such as if someone made the blind to see using psychic or mental powers. A visitor from another star system would presume our lack of knowledge of physics, though, knowledge once acquired, explainable, and thus, not a miracle. Amazing, wondrous, but not a miracle as used by the Catholic Church ( I guess I'm using their definition ).