Roswell Incident: Department of Defense Interviews - Gerald Anderson / Glenn Dennis
A first-hand account from Gerald Anderson similarly offered descriptions that seemingly matched dummies: thought they were plastic dolls, he said. More on Roswell:
He also described a blimp, further suggesting a misidentified military recovery operation. A description of a jeep-like truck that had a bunch of radios in it sounds very much like a modified Dodge M-37 utility truck not used until 1953, further suggesting a confusion about dates.
In 1997, the Air Force, in response to Congressional inquiries, issued the second of two reports which they asserted accounted for the reports of aliens recovered at Roswell in 1947. The report, entitled The Roswell Report: Case Closed had a section which specifically dealt with the Dennis claims. While identifying a possible match to the nurse Dennis had said was a witness (see above), the report additionally linked descriptions of bodies and high security to several known and documented incidents, albeit ones which occurred years after 1947. As evidence that the event Dennis described contained elements from much later real events, the report cited the presence of a black sergeant paired with a white officer, a pairing it described as unlikely as the Army Air Force was racially segregated in 1947, and Dennis' use of the term airman, a term not employed until 1952.
A June 26, 1956 aircraft accident supplied many of the elements of Dennis' account, said the report. On that day, 11 crew members were killed when a propeller blade punctured the plane's fuel tank, creating an inferno. The charred and mangled remains of the crew were taken to Walker Air Force Base (the former Roswell base) and identification specialist George Schwader arrived from Wright-Patterson AFB. He said in an interview that he was frequently mistaken for a pathologist because of his working garb.
The corpses had to be moved to a refrigerated part of the base, owing to the overpowering odor of the bodies. Three of the victims were autopsied by Dr. Alfred Blauw, a local physician, and the autopsies were performed at the Ballard Funeral Home, where Dennis was employed.
A second incident accounts for the description of the canoe-like object Dennis said he saw in the back of a vehicle, and some of the high-handed treatment he received from officers at the base, including from a tall red-headed captain. A May 1959 accident of a low-altitude balloon, part of the Excelsior program, saw the three injured crewmen flown to Walker AFB. The mere fact of the accident caused consternation for the crewmen as the project was controversial and there was a very real prospect that word of the accident might lead to the program's cancellation. The controversy surrounded the wisdom of parachuting attempts from balloons some 100,000 feet in the atmosphere. Accordingly, much secrecy surrounded the project, as can be corroborated by a 1961 book written by a participant, Captain Joseph Kittinger, The Long Lonely Leap. Kittinger, redheaded and six foot one, likely was the red-headed captain Dennis referred to who Dennis claimed said You did not see anything. There was no crash here. You don't go into town making any rumors that you saw anything or that there was any crash. The report asserts that Dennis was in fact witnessing the arrival of the three injured crewman and was subsequently warned to be quiet, but so as to preserve the Excelsior program. Kittinger would go on to make those high-altitude leaps, one at 102,800 feet in 1960 still stands as the all-time record.
The three-man Excelsior crew had been escorted by ambulances, and descriptions by Dennis closely match what would have been present that day. He reported what he thought was wreckage in the back of one ambulance which was kinda like the bottom of a canoe... like stainless steel... with a kind-of bluish-purplish tinge to it. This description, the report notes, accurately describes two steel panels painted Air Force blue on a converted ambulance for this mission. Other descriptions such as wreckage all over the floor looking like broken glass corresponds to the clear plastic polyethylene balloon recovered from the mission.
The heightened state of security Dennis described sounds very much like the extra security which occurred upon the arrival of the Excelsior team. The very presence of the balloon crew, who had arrived unannounced, likely led many base personnel to believe they may have posed a security threat or were a team from Strategic Air Command testing the nuclear-armed facility's alertness. Either way, the base's personnel would have been far more vigilant that day, and this may account for the heavy-handedness reported by Dennis.
Calling All Cars: The Flaming Tick of Death / The Crimson Riddle / The Cockeyed Killer
The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) is the police department of the city of Los Angeles, California.
The LAPD has been copiously fictionalized in numerous movies, novels and television shows throughout its history. The department has also been associated with a number of controversies, mainly concerned with racial animosity, police brutality and police corruption.
The radio show Calling All Cars hired LAPD radio dispacher Jesse Rosenquist to be the voice of the dispatcher. Rosenquist was already famous because home radios could tune into early police radio frequencies. As the first police radio dispatcher presented to the public ear, his was the voice that actors went to when called upon for a radio dispatcher role.
The iconic television series Dragnet, with LAPD Detective Joe Friday as the primary character, was the first major media representation of the department. Real LAPD operations inspired Jack Webb to create the series and close cooperation with department officers let him make it as realistic as possible, including authentic police equipment and sound recording on-site at the police station.
Due to Dragnet's popularity, LAPD Chief Parker became, after J. Edgar Hoover, the most well known and respected law enforcement official in the nation. In the 1960s, when the LAPD under Chief Thomas Reddin expanded its community relations division and began efforts to reach out to the African-American community, Dragnet followed suit with more emphasis on internal affairs and community policing than solving crimes, the show's previous mainstay.
Several prominent representations of the LAPD and its officers in television and film include Adam-12, Blue Streak, Blue Thunder, Boomtown, The Closer, Colors, Crash, Columbo, Dark Blue, Die Hard, End of Watch, Heat, Hollywood Homicide, Hunter, Internal Affairs, Jackie Brown, L.A. Confidential, Lakeview Terrace, Law & Order: Los Angeles, Life, Numb3rs, The Shield, Southland, Speed, Street Kings, SWAT, Training Day and the Lethal Weapon, Rush Hour and Terminator film series. The LAPD is also featured in the video games Midnight Club II, Midnight Club: Los Angeles, L.A. Noire and Call of Juarez: The Cartel.
The LAPD has also been the subject of numerous novels. Elizabeth Linington used the department as her backdrop in three different series written under three different names, perhaps the most popular being those novel featuring Det. Lt. Luis Mendoza, who was introduced in the Edgar-nominated Case Pending. Joseph Wambaugh, the son of a Pittsburgh policeman, spent fourteen years in the department, using his background to write novels with authentic fictional depictions of life in the LAPD. Wambaugh also created the Emmy-winning TV anthology series Police Story. Wambaugh was also a major influence on James Ellroy, who wrote several novels about the Department set during the 1940s and 1950s, the most famous of which are probably The Black Dahlia, fictionalizing the LAPD's most famous cold case, and L.A. Confidential, which was made into a film of the same name. Both the novel and the film chronicled mass-murder and corruption inside and outside the force during the Parker era. Critic Roger Ebert indicates that the film's characters (from the 1950s) represent the choices ahead for the LAPD: assisting Hollywood limelight, aggressive policing with relaxed ethics, and a straight arrow approach.