The Unforgiving And the Redeemed

You see a man standing and you say “who is that man?" You try so hard but you just don’t understand what you will do when you get home... But something is happening here and you don’t know what it is… do you Mr. Jones?
Bob Dylan.

Don Schmitt, one of the original researchers of Roswell nine years ago, lied. He was ashamed of being a postal worker. He lied about his credentials. Once Schmitt admitted the lie about his job description, some in the UFO community were relentless in their criticism. The academic faction --especially those who do not want the answer to Roswell to be ETs-- rained down the negatives on Don Schmitt’s character mercilessly.Call him The Unforgiven. In the minds of this faction, Don Schmitt was a marked man.So he was supposed to go quietly into the night. Kevin Randal, Schmitt’s last research partner, is still not speaking to him. Believe me, I have no problem with that.But, according to Thomas J. Cary, Don Schmitt decided to redeem himself.
Schmitt decided was something more important than his shattered ego. He had a mission, an inspiration that may have come from the very God…that does forgive. Schmitt wanted to get statements from everyone involved in what truly happened at Roswell before they died, and they were dying at an alarming rate. It was getting late and this needed to be done. Sometimes a person who learns from his mistake can become a champion. Don Schmitt understood the other surviving witnesses needed to record all their statements for posterity…before they were gone forever. So Carey and Schmitt teamed up and began the nine- year journey that became the book Witness To Roswell. The best book they could write about the only case they were investigating.

A Skeptic Changes His Mind On Roswell: 38 MUFON Conference:DVD Brad Sparks’ New Revelations On Origens Of MJ12" good DVD, by the way.Note: Brad Sparks shows some startling evidence on the possible forging of the MJ12 documents. But Sparks misses the obvious explanation about why the Air Force and the government would do this. If Roswell was true, the USAF and US government had to distract UFO researchers. At least till they sanitized any Roswell document trail. (UFOMM will be doing a future post on this.)



I was down at a conference in New Jersey and while I was hanging around I spoke to some of my fellow attendees, some of whom I’ll call The Self Righteous faction…The Unforgiving.
I want to say, these guys can get pretty petty. First, they wouldn’t call Thomas Carey a liar. Carey was the main person taping the interviews. So according to them, Don Schmitt was leading Carey around by the nose.

Debating with one of these self-described defenders of the truth, he said, and I kid you not, “Carey comes down here with a nice new suit and thinks and tries to look like a proper investigator”.

I sort of looked at him strangely, and then asked him, “…so, you think Carey is lying about these interviews?” He replied, “No, Donald Schmitt is manipulating him”.

But here’s the kicker: I asked, “…well, if you are really dedicated to finding the truth and feel Don is lying and manipulating, why not go back to some of these witnesses? Don and Tom have hundreds of tapes of what the Roswell witnesses said. Why don’t you talk to some of these witnesses? Surely, if Donald Schmitt had fabricated this, he needed to be taught a lesson. But most of all, the integrity of the research must reflect what the witnesses have said”.

If that is what we care about here.

His answer was a flat, “No, Don Schmitt is a liar and nothing in that book would be worth reading”.I asked him about the witnesses to the bodies and the disc. His answer concerning the witness’s statement was bizarre, to say the least: “The witnesses were set up by the military to sow disinformation.”

Yeah, right. 35 years later --on a chance happening?
These reactions were from someone I respect. But before I make him the scapegoat, here is more of a reflection on how we all can act when it becomes more important in defending our turfs than in trying to find the truth.
I asked Thomas Carey about why he teamed up with Donald Schmitt. His answer: “I have tried to get Kevin to speak to Donald it hasn’t worked. Donald was really sorry for what happened and what he had done. In the nine years that I have worked with Donald Schmitt he has never acted improperly and was always a professional.”So my question was simple, “But why Donald; why not do this with someone else?”

Carey’s answer made the reason very clear to me. Donald really never had to lie in the first place because the people that mattered were the people who knew him better them himself. It was precisely because of who he was really was inside that made him such an asset to any investigation, “the witnesses at Roswell trusted him”.
Many of the people who interviewed these witnesses were academic types such as Stanton Friedman and others. Donald, as mistaken as he was about the truth of who he was, was one of them, a regular guy, fun to be around, and they sensed it.
That may be why the witnesses opened up to him. There are friends, and then, there are friends.I met a woman at the UFO & Earth Mysteries Congress who had been introduced to the “Proctor family.” This family owned property near Mac Brazel’s ranch where he found the strange post-crash material. Mac had brought some of the debris to them. One of the smears by these No-ETS-At-Any-Cost thinkers is to constantly paint Roswell witnesses as publicity seekers. She told me she found the Proctor family were very private people, not seeking the lime light at all”.So, I ask you to look beyond the human failing of a researcher and the one-dimensional thinking that permeates our society and the UFO community.

Donald will be redeemed if this book is proven to be true.

Of course it’s always a deeply personal choice about who you end up believing.

But I read the book, A Witness to Roswell and I’m so glad I did. Donald Schmitt, even with his failings, has helped give us the true smoking gun to Roswell: the last living witnesses to what really happened at Roswell.


Shift to DAN SHEEHAN: Sheehan reports on personally viewing these flies and how he saw a downed saucer…
for those who reminded me, here’s more complete info, Dan Sheehan Part 2. "Project Bluebook Classified Files."

DVD 2007 X-Conference "Carter Clinton UFO Connection Panel Discussion".



Joseph Capp
UFO Media Matters
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