Roswell Incident Research--Fort Worth debris photos by James Bond Johnson

Neil Morris writes:

"James Bond Johnson was a young reporter/photographer for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram newspaper when, one afternoon in July 1947, he was sent to the office of General Roger Ramey at the local air base to photograph what was said to be a recovered 'Flying Disk'.

"He was shown into the office of General Ramey, where he found Major Jesse Marcel and General Ramey's chief of staff, Colonel Thomas DuBose, together with a number of brown paper wrapped packages spread around the room. Some of the packages had been opened and their contents laid out on sheets of packaging paper on the carpet in the centre of the room. General Ramey, it was explained, was due back at any time and Dubose left to find him. Johnson set up his camera equipment and prepared for the shoot, in the process, unpacking and placing out more of the debris. He still remembers to this day the prominant smell 'like that of a burned building' that filled the room and seemed connected to the 'junk' he had been sent to photograph.

"Ramey and Dubose returned, with General Ramey in his full 'Dress' uniform, which even now strikes Johnson as odd. The pictures were taken-- Johnson now thinks 6 were taken, as it was practice in those days, because of the nature of the cameras which used slide in film holders, 2 sheets of film to a holder, 1 on each side, to take 2 exposures of each pose, one on each side of the holder. Only 4 original negatives from this shoot survive today, held in the Special Collections Section of the University of Texas Libraries, but in those 4 negatives we have examples from each of the 3 poses Johnson shot that afternoon. Two images of Jesse Marcel, 1 of General Ramey and 1 of General Ramey and Colonel DuBose.

"These four 50+ year old photographs comprise our source data set for what follows. Most researchers have looked at these photos and dismissed them as nothing more than General Ramey's cover story "weather balloon" debris and, on first observation, I too thought that, until I obtained from James Bond Johnson a partial scan, all be it, at low resolution, of one of these photographs, and started to have a close look at some of the debris. It was at that point that my ideas of tinfoil and balsa wood sticks began to be seriously challenged. Then I found, what I believe to be symbols.

Major Jesse A. Marcel holds the debris in General Ramey's office at 8th Air Force HQ Fort Worth Texas on the afternoon of July 8, 1947.

"I think a serious point has to be taken into consideration when trying to visualize exactly what is going on in these pictures. They were taken indoors in what can be assumed to be a relatively dark room--note the curtains in the picture are nearly full drawn, though the camera had excellent resolving power using 5x4 inch negative film. JBJ was using a single point flash bulb and photographing highly reflective surfaces, the foil and metal. One effect well known to photographers is that a single source of illumination from the same direction as the camera totally kills all sense of depth in a picture hence you use side-fill lights to cast the shadows the brain uses to make its 3d judgments. That's what is lacking in these shots, a sense of depth and 3d, and what makes them hard to interpret.

"I am now working with high resolution scans and early results are confirming what was observed in the low resolution scan supplied by JBJ, and many other features are also being seen. A number of interestead researchers, myself included, have formed a loose association to be known as the RPIT, Roswell Photo Interpretation Team, to compile a comprehensive report on the anomilies present in the photographs.

"From the results displayed below and the further work done to date my own opinion is now that this was most definatly NOT balloon debris. Superficially, and at first glance the debris does look very much like what one would EXPECT to see from a wrecked radar target and I now suspect that is why General Ramey went for that "cover" story, but on very close inspection, sometimes only under high magnification and enhancement, the debris in the photos is just NOT consistent with that description for there are also several pieces of "exotic" hardware located in the images which again would not be consistent with the explanation given by the USAAF at the time and by the USAF in the 1994 report.

"A photograph was taken sometime after James Bond Johnson had left General Ramey's office of the base Met Officer Irving Newton holding the debris, and was issued, I suspect, to support the "weather balloon" cover story. It was published in newpapers primarily in Texas on or about the 10th of July 1947.

Neil Morris, 23rd September 1998.
Email [email protected]

"As mentioned the 4 original negatives are held by the University of Texas, Special Collections Division, The University of Texas at Alington Libraries, Box 19497, Arlington, Texas. 76019-0497, USA. If contacted the library will gladly supply copies of the photographs in several formats from 7x5 thru 20x16 inches. Should you inquire about ordering the photographs their current charges will be sent along with an official order request document. I have found them extremely helpful in all respects."