Roswell Nurse _>From _Skeptics' UFO Newsletter_ by Philip J. Klass. #31, Jan, 1995 404 "N" Street, SW, Washington DC 20024_ _[SIX ISSUES $15 for US/CANADA, OVERSEAS AIR MAIL IS $20/YEAR]_ ================================================================== _Mortician's Tale of Roswell Nurse, ET Bodies is Seriously Flawed_ The story told by former mortician _Glenn Dennis_, of ET bodies brought to the Roswell Army Air Field in early July 1947, is the _only_ Roswell ET-bodies tale which is endorsed by _ALL_ prominent pro-UFO Roswell crashed-saucer researchers. YET DENNIS' TALE IS RIDDLED WITH FLAWS AND INCONSISTENCIES. Karl Pflock,_ whose "Roswell In Perspective" report discredits two of Randle/Schmitt's key ET-bodies "witnesses," Ragsdale and Kaufmann, endorses Dennis' tale. The same is true of Randle/Schmitt, whose books completely discredited _Gerald F. Anderson_, a star ET-bodies "witness" of _Stanton Friedman_ and _Don Berliner_. Friedman/Berliner also endorse Dennis' tale. In July of 1947, the 22-year-old Dennis was employed by the Ballard Funeral Home, which was under contract to provide mortuary service to the Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF) as well as ambulance service from the city to the base. Although Dennis is a long-time good friend of _Walter Haut_ -- the young officer at RAAF who wrote and released the "Flying Disk Recovered" press release on July 8, 1947 which "launched" the Roswell incident -- _Haut_ told SUN that Dennis had never mentioned the ET-bodies incident until late 1988 or early 1989. Kevin Randle informed _SUN_ that he first learned about Dennis from Haut in April 1989. It is not known when Stanton Friedman learned first about Dennis. But when Friedman visited Roswell in early August 1989 for filming of an "Unsolved Mysteries" TV show on the Roswell Incident, an interview was arranged. Dennis' good friend _Robert Shirkey_ drove Friedman to Lincoln, N.M. to meet with Dennis and sat in on the tape-recorded interview. Shirkey, who was stationed at RAAF in 1947, claims to have seen the crash debris. The first public -- if limited -- disclosure of Dennis' tale came in November, 1989 when Las Vegas TV station KLAS aired a series titled "UFOs: The Best Evidence," produced by _George Knapp_. Knapp had visited Roswell in August and interviewed Shirkey. In the TV show, Knapp introduced Shirkey as follows: "Shirkey was the officer who ordered up the B-29 that transported the strange debris....Shirkey also has knowledge of _alien bodies_. The information is from a close friend who ran the town funeral parlor in the 40s. _It has never been made public until now_." Shirkey said he was asked [by Dennis] "Did you see the sketches in the paper of the humanoids or the bodies? [The June 8, 1987 Roswell _Daily Record_ carried a front-page story on UFOs with two sketches of traditional-looking ETs.] I said yes. He said, well, I can tell you that's what they looked like. The funeral parlor supplied the caskets for the Air Force to use because we had the contract. And they came in and took all the baby-size or youth-size caskets we had." (_But according to Dennis' later accounts, RAAF never came to obtain any caskets, large or small_.) _RANDLE/SCHMITT FIRST TO PUBLISH MORTICIAN'S NURSE'S TALE_ The first detailed account of the Dennis tale in which he was identified by name appeared in the first Randle/Schmitt book, "UFO Crash At Roswell," published in mid-1991. When _SUN_ interviewed Dennis in Roswell on Dec. 9, 1991, we began by reading the R/S account from their book, to verify its accuracy. Periodically Dennis would interrupt to challenge the accuracy of the R/S version. _Later, when SUN discussed these inaccuracies with Randle, he explained that by the time R/S first interviewed Dennis in late 1990, their book manuscript had been sent to the publisher and so their version was based largely on a transcript of Friedman's August 1989 interview with Dennis which they had hastily updated_. For example, R/S reported [p. 91-92] that shortly after lunch, Dennis received telephone inquiries from "doctor's at the base...asking questions about preservation techniques....The mortician was told by the military doctors that the bodies had been out on the prairie for a couple of days, maybe a week....According to the mortician, he was told there were three fatalities. Two of them had been mangled in the crash but the other was in fairly good shape. The officers at the base wanted to know if they could get ALL THREE INTO A SINGLE HERMETICALLY SEALED CASKET." (Emphasis added). Dennis offered a significantly different version to _SUN_: He said there had been no mention of any fatalities and the caller -- the base mortuary officer -- asked what was the _smallest_ sealed casket that Ballard had and how many were in stock. "Then, about 30 minutes later, they called back and wanted to know what our embalming procedures would do to remains that had been laying out in the elements. Would it change the blood content? Would it change the tissue? Would it change the stomach contents? CURIOUS QUESTIONS. IF RAAF HAD ET BODIES, EMBALMING FLUID WOULD BE INJECTED ONLY IF THE ETs WERE SOON TO BE BURIED. HOWEVER, IF AN AUTOPSY WAS PLANNED, EMBALMING FOR BURIAL WOULD BE DONE AFTERWARDS. Because Dennis found so many errors in the R/S #1 account, _SUN_ will here shift to highlights of Dennis' own version, given before a video camera and incorporated in the video "Recollections of Roswell II," produced by the Fund For UFO Research. (FUFOR). According to Dennis, shortly after the last inquiry from RAAF, he received a call to bring a slightly injured airman to the base hospital. After taking the airman to the infirmary, Dennis said there was, "one particular nurse that I was pretty well acquainted with and I wanted to see if she was there and buy her a coke....As I started back to see her her...she came out of one of the examining rooms....She said: 'What are you doing here and how did you get in here?' She said: 'My gosh, get out of here as soon as possible, you're gonna get in a lot of trouble.'" When Dennis sought an explanation, the nurse quickly returned to the room which was guarded by a captain who asked Dennis to identify himself which he did, explaining that "it looks like you had a crash here and I need to go back and get preparations ready," he said he was told: "You did not see anything. There was no crash here. You don't go into town and making (sic) any rumors...that there was a crash." Two military police (MPs) then escorted Dennis out. The next day, Dennis said, he was curious to find out what had happened and called the nurse several times, only to be told she was not in. "About 11 o'clock she called the funeral home....And she said 'I need to talk to you,'" and she suggested meeting at the Officers Club. When they met there, according to Dennis, "She looked like death warmed over. She said, 'You won't believe what happened.... Before I tell you anything...you have to give me a _sacred oath_ that you will not ever mention my name or you can get me in a lot of trouble.' I said OK, because I said I would definitely like to know what's going on." Dennis said the nurse told him that on the previous day she had gone into a room to get some supplies where she found two _unfamiliar_ doctors performing a preliminary autopsy on a strange-looking creature and the mangled remains of two others. When she tried to depart, the doctors insisted she remain to help them and take notes. Dennis said that while they sat in the Officers Club, the nurse drew him a sketch of the strange-looking creatures and told him they had no thumbs and what looked like small suction cups on the tips of their four fingers. Dennis said that before he drove the nurse back to her quarters, she gave him her ET sketch but reminded him of his sacred oath to keep the ET information and sketch secret. _Dennis Claims Nurse Quickly Transferred, Reportedly Killed In Air Crash_ Dennis said he tried to call the nurse several times during the next few days, without success. Then he says he was told that she had been transferred. Several weeks later, he says he received a letter from the nurse saying she was in England and providing him with an APO (Army Post Office) number. But when he wrote to her, he said his letter was returned unopened -- stamped "DECEASED." Dennis says he later heard that the nurse had died in a military aircraft accident. _However, Randle/Schmitt report in their second book that their search of the New York Times index, National Transportation Safety Board and Army records failed to find any such crash_. Dennis told a different story when he was interviewed on Dec. 31, 1991 by UFOlogist _Anne MacFie_, as reported in her article in the April 1992 _MUFON UFO JOURNAL_. He explained to her (as he had done to _SUN_) that the 23-year-old nurse was from St. Paul, had been raised in a convent and wanted to become a nun when she finished her service in the Army, which had funded her last two years in college. When MacFie asked if Dennis knew whether the nurse was still alive, he responded: "I don't know. I heard she died years ago [1988], but that's only hearsay." MacFie asked if Dennis had ever tried to contact the nurse "to see if she would talk now that others have?" Dennis replied: "I never did try and contact her...._She did join an order [became a nun] after she got out of the Army_. But I don't think she would [talk]. She was so disciplined that if her superior told her to walk across fire, she probably would have done it." _If Dennis' story was true, it seemed odd that a person of such high character, who had been in the Army for only three months, would knowingly violate military security by revealing highly sensitive information to a casual acquaintance she had known for less three months. So SUN asked Dennis: "Did you date her?" Dennis replied: "No, no, no. She had no interest in men whatsoever. Her whole life was planned. She was gonna be a nun_." But this Dennis claim was challenged in a video "UFO SECRET: The Roswell Crash." produced by _Mark Wolf_, in which Dennis is interviewed. In introducing Dennis, narrator Wolf said: "We should note here that Glenn's concern for Judy [nurse's pseudonym] was serious. _Marriage had been discussed_." On Mar. 14, 1993, we wrote to Wolf, pointing out that the foregoing claim was contrary to what Dennis had told _SUN_. We asked: "How certain are you of the accuracy of the above statement?" _SUN_ also asked if Wolf had a video or audio tape of Dennis making such a statement. Wolf promptly replied saying: "That is what he [Dennis] disclosed to me during one of several lengthy background discussions prior to taping. He added that her family did not approve of him, since they were Catholic and he was Protestant." _Don Schmitt_, who was with Wolf at the time of the interviews and filming, confirmed Wolf's account in discussions with _SUN_ in Roswell in late March of last year. According to Schmitt, Dennis said that when the nurse's brother visited her in Roswell and learned that she was considering marriage to Dennis, he had "lectured" her against the marriage. [The new R/S book reports (p. 67) that Dennis "had dated" the nurse.] On April 16, I wrote to Wolf to report Schmitt's statement, asking if Wolf's recollections corroborated those of Schmitt. Wolf called while we were out, but left a message on the answering machine which confirmed Schmitt's statement. But Dennis, according to a friend, says the Wolf/Schmitt statements are false. _If Dennis' basic story were true, one should expect that he would have eagerly read the first R/S book in the hope of learning more about the mysterious ET bodies from the many new "witnesses" R/S had discovered. Yet when SUN talked with Dennis -- six months after publication of R/S #1 -- he said that his wife had read the book but he had not_. _DENNIS IGNORES SOLEMN OATH AND RECONSTRUCTS "MISSING" ET SKETCH_ _After Dennis described having given his "solemn oath" to keep secret the nurse's ET sketch, SUN asked what he had done with it. One might expect that he would have stored it in a safe deposit box, or hidden it in his apartment. INSTEAD, DENNIS SAID, HE HAD PUT THE ET SKETCH IN HIS PERSONAL FILES AT THE BALLARD FUNERAL HOME_. When Dennis left Ballard around 1962 to go into business for himself, he left behind the ET sketch. Dennis told _SUN_ that he and Friedman had earlier visited Ballard to try to find the ET sketch. _According to Dennis, ALL of the old files were there, including 1946 and 1948. But ALL of the 1947 files, including his own with the ET sketch, were MISSING_. Although Dennis had not seen the (alleged) nurse's drawing for at least 30 years, he [seemingly] remembered the details well enough to make a rough sketch, which he gave to an artist friend to refine. _SUN did not ask Dennis why he had made the effort to reconstruct the ET sketch and asked his artist friend to enhance it -- violating his "solemn oath" to the nurse. But SUN did ask Dennis how the new sketch found its way into the first R/S book_. Dennis replied: "That's what I'd like to know, because I only gave it to one person." When _SUN_ asked the name of that person, Dennis refused to say. When _SUN_ inquired if Dennis had asked this person how the ET sketch got into the R/S book, Dennis replied: "Well, but he says he's not responsible for it." _SUN_ asked: "Does he swear under _solemn oath_ that he did not [give the sketch to R/S]?" _Dennis replied: "I did not ask him any solemn oath because I don't believe in solemn oaths_." Then Dennis laughed. _SUN_ found it hard to believe that Randle/Schmitt would resort to covert means to obtain the ET sketch and publish it without Dennis' permission -- risking serious legal repercussions. When we checked out this Dennis claim with Randle on Dec. 29, 1991, he said the ET sketch had been supplied by Dennis, who was credited in the caption. When Roswell researchers sought the name of the nurse to try to locate her, or some hard evidence that such a person ever existed, Dennis provided it. _NAOMI MARIA SELFF_. But in Karl Pflock's "Roswell in Perspective" report, he admits that: "To date, no official records of the existence of the nurse -- birth and school documents, military service files, and so on -- or her presence at Roswell AAF in July 1947 have been found. Similarly, no record of her family has been located. The search continues, but so far she seems to have disappeared without a trace." _An alternative explanation is that Naomi Maria Selff never existed_.