Ray Stanford and his NASA-Goddard UFO-Metal Cover-Up Claim (1964)

I would like to explore now, in a two-thread post, public claims by Ray Stanford that he has possessed (in one case, perhaps still does possess) what he has characterized as metallic fragments that were previously part of artificial vehicles made by extraterrestrials.

As I write this in February, 2019, there is much interest in the ufological community in examination of physical samples linked to UFO events. In July, 2018, the To the Stars Academy of Arts & Science (TTSA) announced "Project ADAM," dedicated to the collection and analysis of physical specimens that may have been part of or dropped by UFOs, seeking to find what they call "exotic materials."

In a press release issued July 26, 2018, TTSA said

Given the potential significance of such findings, To The Stars Academy has made it a Tier-1 priority to use its resources to subject these materials to detailed and rigorous scientific evaluation whenever feasible. As soon as TTS Academy is notified that materials are available, a thorough effort will be made to document their origin and credibility, followed by the establishment of chain-of-custody procedures and ownership protocols. In addition to reviewing the materials for their potential significance as evidence of exotic origin, the analysis will evaluate materials for such characteristics as exceptional strength, lightweight build and any unusual advanced properties that potentially could contribute to the development of exciting new technologies in the future.​

As a first step, TTS Academy has established a contract with EarthTech International, Inc., (www.earthtech.org) a well-respected research think tank in Austin, Texas, to evaluate the properties of the available materials. Under the leadership of Dr. Harold E. Puthoff, a former Senior Advisor and Subcontractor to the Pentagon’s AATIP program (Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program) and current VP of Technology for TTS Academy, EarthTech is well-positioned to head up this materials research plan.​

Ray Stanford has spent decades styling himself as a pioneer in obtaining "hard data" on UFOs. In three previous threads, I have discussed just a few of the many color motion pictures that Stanford claims to have taken of UFOs, and a few of the claims that have been made based on those movies. I have discussed at length the proposed large device (the "Hilaron Accelerator") that Stanford promoted for many years, and solicited funds to allow an organization to construct -- a device that he said would confer super-powers on suitable humans (making "a hyper-person, a super-person"), including even the ability to teleport through space and time. I have written of the instructions Stanford gave to associates in "Project Starlight International" on how exactly to act on the promised ("if you persist") future day on which an alien spacecraft would land and open the hatch.

Now, in a two-thread discussion, I will write on Stanford's two claims to possession of materials that were previous portions of extraterrestrial spacecraft. If there are more examples of Stanford-associated UFO fragments, beyond the two that I am aware of, I would be pleased to have them brought to my attention. My email address is my first name, followed by an underscore, followed by my last name, at protonmail.com.

The first case I will call "the NASA-Goddard UFO-metal cover-up claim."

This claim grows out of, but is also somewhat distinct from, the famous close-up sighting of an egg-shaped UFO, in close proximity to two short human-like figures, by policeman Lonnie Zamora in Socorro, New Mexico, on April 24, 1964. Stanford, then age 25, arrived in Socorro four days after the event to investigate on his own behalf and on behalf of the civilian UFO research group NICAP (now long defunct, but influential in the 1950s and 1960s).

The acting director of NICAP at that time was Richard H. Hall. Hall had a legendary career in ufology, extending from the mid-1950's to his death in 2009, on which occasion veteran UFO writer Jerome Clark called Hall "a giant in ufology's earth." Hall was the author of The UFO Evidence Volume 1 (1964) and Volume 2 (1999), among other works. He was regarded with respect even by elements of the national news media -- see the uploaded obituary from the Washington Post.

Stanford's assignment to the Socorro case drew an objection from at least one other NICAP official, based on Stanford's then-recent prominence in 1950's contactee "space brothers" circles (including Stanford's close association with such figures as George Hunt Williamson and George Adamski). Stanford downplayed that involvement as youthful folly, and persuaded Hall to allow him to proceed in NICAP's name. The record suggests that this was a decision that Hall later had cause to regret.

Twelve years after the Zamora event, in 1976, a book authored by Stanford was published privately (under the label of "Blueapple Books," which label published no other books before or after), dealing with the Socorro event, but also Stanford's version of related events that occurred later and independently of Zamora and other Socorro witnesses. Although the object Zamora saw was egg-shaped, not a saucer, the book was titled Socorro 'Saucer' in a Pentagon Pantry, because its primary focus was Stanford's claim that NASA-Goddard scientists, at the behest of the "intelligence community," suppressed test results that revealed extraterrestrial origin for metallic fragments on a rock scraped by the UFO's landing gear.

Stanford arrived at Socorro on April 28, 1964, and found Prof. J. Allen Hynek already there, sent by Project Blue Book. I will skip a narrative of the UFO event itself, which can be found in the book and many other places, and is not relevant to this post. When Hynek and Stanford visited the site, there were still four wedge-shaped depressions in the ground, presumably corresponding to the four legs of the "landing gear" that Zamora had reported seeing, before the object blasted (yes, blasted) off. From one of these depressions, Stanford said he surreptitiously recovered a broken-off rock containing, along the broken edge, "small fragments and rolled-up shavings of brilliant metal," the largest of these "perhaps 1/8 inch long."

By Stanford's account, he later lost "as much as 75%" of those metal scrapings, including the largest piece, through clumsy handling. After this accident, there were only "tiny pin-points of shiny metal of unknown type, clinging to the stone's surface in a very limited area. . .," he wrote. After discussion with Hall and others, Stanford lent the rock with the remaining tiny metal samples to staff at the Goddard Space Flight Center, a NASA facility in Greenbelt, Maryland, where metallurgist Dr. Henry Frankel had agreed to analyze the remaining material, on an unofficial basis but using sophisticated government equipment. Stanford wrote that he was promised that only half of the tiny remaining "pin-points" would be sacrificed for the analysis -- but when he got the rock back, alas, all of the material was gone.

(Walter Webb, an astronomer and NICAP consultant who accompanied Hall and Stanford to NASA-Goddard, wrote in 1964 that when Frankel allowed the group to view the rock under an electron microscope, Webb was discouraged by the small amount of the material that remained: "I did not have much hope that anything convincing would be revealed by the tests," Webb wrote.)

Stanford's book went on to relate that he reached Frankel by phone on August 5, 1964. Stanford devoted about a full page to lengthy direct quotations attributed to Frankel (although Stanford acknowledged in 1977 that he had not audio-recorded the conversation, and has apparently never produced the detailed notes he claims to have taken on the conversation). Among the statements attributed to Frankel were these:

The particles are comprised of a material that could not occur naturally. Specifically, it consists predominantly of two metallic elements, zinc and iron, with minute traces of other elements. . . Our charts of all alloys known to be manufactured on Earth, the U.S.S.R. included, do not show any alloy of the specific combination or ratio of the two main elements involved here. . . I am virtually certain that the alloy involved here is not manufactured anywhere on Earth. Yes, I would make a statement to that effect, if you need it. [all italics are Stanford's]​

Stanford asked, "Have you called Dick Hall and told him this?" Frankel answered, according to Stanford, "Yes, he was very interested." (For Hall's version, see below and the uploaded documents.).

Stanford wrote that Frankel said that further testing was required, which would take about a week. However, Stanford was subsequently unable to get through to Frankel on the phone. Finally he received a call from another Goddard-NASA staffer, identified by Stanford as Thomas P. Sciacca Jr. of the Spacecraft Systems Branch, who told Stanford that Frankel was no longer involved, and that the sample on further testing had proven to be merely unremarkable silica (a hard, colorless compound which occurs as the mineral quartz, and as a principal constituent of sandstone and other rocks). In many subsequent pages, Stanford denounced the purported suppression of the initial and valid test results, which he attributed to intervention by "the intelligence community," with much criticism of the role of NICAP in general and Richard Hall in particular in the whole sordid business.

Richard Hall responded with a rather devastating review of the book, which consumed nearly four pages in the November 1976 issue of the MUFON UFO Journal; I have uploaded the Journal pages here. Anyone interested in this subject should read the entire document. I will paste in here just three excerpts:

I consider Stanford's account of NICAP's part in the Socorro investigation -- and particularly his unfounded claims of a secret, positive analysis report on the alleged "metal scrapings on the rock"-- to be both a highly distorted and a highly subjective version of what transpired. . . .​

If I am called to testify before a Congressional committee investigating an alleged cover-up of the Socorro case (Stanford's apparent goal), I will testify to what I am quite confident is the truth: Neither Dr. Frankel nor anyone else at NASA ever suggested to me that they were leaning toward an extraterrestrial interpretation. In fact, when Dr. Frankel talked to me about tentative findings of a zinc-iron alloy, he said to me that the results suggested a zinc pail! No quantitative analysis had been conducted at this point, so that Stanford's claims of significant findings at this time make no sense at all -- except in terms of what he wanted to believe. . . .​

His entire case rests on two apparently undocumented and unverifiable alleged phone calls that only he can witness. In addition, no one else involved in the Socorro investigation remembers the startling (and presumably unforgettable) positive NASA analysis report that only Stanford remembers....​

It is apparent to me that, far from "verbatim" quotes, Stanford has paraphrased remarks out of context, and taken serious liberties in doing so. His psychic and "contactee" background and his conspiratorial turn of mind give me little confidence that he, alone, has succeeded in uncovering truth where others have failed. Instead, I see in his writings example after example of "reading into" events that which he is already prone to believe. He shows every evidence of what I prefer to call "systematic self-delusion" rather than malicious intent.​

I have seen private correspondence between two parties (neither of them being Stanford or Hall), in which another writer on UFO matters (who was no fan of Stanford) said he had looked into the matter, and had established to his own satisfaction that Frankel did speak by phone with Stanford and share preliminary results (the nature of which the letter did not describe), but that those results were later "corrected" by the lab. By this account, Frankel was embarrassed and did not want to personally present Stanford with a retraction, so he dumped the matter into Sciacca's lap. However, that writer did not find evidence or believe that the final NASA-Goddard test results were fabricated, which was the heart of the Stanford thesis. As far as I know, the author of the letter never published anything about this version, and the letter is not in the public domain.

A review of Stanford's book appeared in a newsletter called ORION, September 23, 1976, written by Kit Haaland. Haaland wrote that he spoke to Dr. Frankel, who "told me that he hardly remembered the sample, but if it had contained anything as unusual as an unknown alloy, he surely would have remembered it." Frankel died in 2007.

The direct dispute between Stanford and Hall was reiterated several times, including a round in 2003 on the UFO Updates list, at which time Hall again posted a summary of his account. Since that is the last-dated version I have seen, and since it too is worth reading in full, I have pulled it out of the jumble and posted it here as an upload. Here are two paragraphs of particular note from Hall's 2003 letter:

Unfortunately, there are numerous other gross distortions in the [Stanford] book, and some outright false statements. Although he does a good job of reporting the basic facts of the case (with one or two red herring exceptions), his version of what went on at NICAP and what happened at NASA-Goddard is purely imaginary, apparently a result of the systematic self-delusion (i.e., self-deception, fooling oneself into believing something is true when it isn't) that he has fallen victim to for most of his life. (See his strong pattern of believing he was in touch with space beings, channeling accurate information from real beings, communicating with Brothers, etc., all initially believed and then--according to him--later disowned.)​

Stanford claimed to have surreptitiously taped Walt Webb and me during the car ride to NASA-Goddard [in 1964]. When I challenged him in a letter dated July 21, 1976, to produce a copy of the tape or even a transcript, he admitted that he was bluffing and had not done what he claimed. In the same letter, I asked him for copies of the notes or phone memos made of the alleged phone conversations with the two NASA scientists upon which he claims to have based his "verbatim quotes." I am still waiting. I even sent him a reminder on Dec. 13, 1976, which he also ignored.​

It should be noted that even Hall agreed that in the book Stanford "does a good job of reporting the basic facts of the [Zamora] case (with one or two red herring exceptions) . . ."

On some of the other Stanford episodes on which I have started threads, the public record supports a more or less definitive conclusion -- for example, Stanford did promote and seek to raise money to build a super-power-inducing time machine called the Hilaron Accelerator, and he did not in fact build such a device (Stanford himself in 1999 wrote that the Accelerator concept was "possibly an unconscious contrivance of my mind.") But on Stanford's claim that there was a NASA-Goddard UFO-metal fragment cover-up, one must make a judgment regarding which account, if either, to accept. The sample presented to the NASA-Goddard scientists consisted of "tiny pin-points," according to Stanford. We cannot absolutely know whether the NASA-Goddard scientists buried findings that indicated non-terrestrial origin, on orders from "the intelligence community." The Stanford and Hall accounts regarding what Frankel told them are flatly at odds and impossible to reconcile, and the two accounts are irreconcilable on other points as well. The reader must form a judgment of which account seems more plausible, in view of the reputations, credibility, career work products, and overall track records, of Hall and Stanford respectively. For me, this is a no-brainer.

Some readers who are not persuaded of the NASA-Goddard-conspiracy theory, may also be left wondering whether a different outcome would have been obtained, if the NASA-Goddard scientists had been able to test the one-eighth inch sample that Stanford said was originally on the broken edge of the rock, before unfortunate mishandling knocked it off into somebody's lawn, never to be recovered.

Anyone who wants to delve further into the Ray Stanford's NASA-Goddard UFO-metal cover-up claim will find a lengthy account, based on multiple sources, in Jerome Clark's UFO Encyclopedia. Some may even care to review the complete back-and-forth exchanges in the MUFON Journal in 1976 and UFO Updates in 2003. Also, you may still be able to get a copy of Stanford's book -- on podcast interviews over the past few years, Stanford said he still had copies from the original 1976 printing, available for $55 shipped, and I think he even offered to autograph on request (but I do not know whether those offers are still in effect).

I will now turn to Stanford's second claim to personally possess a physical sample of artificial material that Stanford publicly characterized as being of unmistakably extraterrestrial origin -- a sample that Stanford called the "Space Material." On that intriguing claim, a separate thread will follow.

 

its not defunct, just dormant, they are pretty much part of MUFON nowdays

 

"[Re: NICAP] its not defunct, just dormant, they are pretty much part of MUFON nowdays" -- humanoidlord

According to Jerome Clark's invaluable The UFO Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (2018), p. 794, "In 1980 the last issue of the [NICAP] Investigator came out. NICAP was disbanded, and eventually the files were turned over to the Chicago-based J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Research."

 

but they have a website, and from what i can gather there it works only as an archive and part of MUFON today

 

Thank you for directing my attention to the NICAP.org website. I see that it lists a "NICAP Action Team as of November 30, 2016." Thirty-two individuals are listed, one of whom is the highly regarded Jerome Clark, author of the UFO Encyclopedia that I quoted just above ("In 1980 . . . NICAP was disbanded . . ."). So, I am unclear on what the relationship is between the NICAP of the 1950s-1980, and this current website. But I guess I see no need to more fully explore that issue at this time, since it has no bearing on NICAP's role in the Stanford-Socorro-NASA-Goddard affair that is the subject of this thread.

 

Ray Stanford Close-Up No. 6 -- Audio clips of Stanford lecturing on, and channeling, Aramda, a member of the extraterrestrial Watchers. Includes Stanford's eyewitness remembering of the landing of a giant spacecraft -- 38,000 years ago.

 

On March 8, 2019, Ray Stanford gave a long interview on a podcast called UFO Classified, during which he discussed a few of his UFO-evidence claims that were critiqued in my series of "Ray Stanford Close-Up" posts. During this new interview, Stanford cited his recent associations with Goddard-NASA staff (arising from his discovery of dinosaur tracks on the Goddard grounds in 2012) as evidence of his scientific "credibility" with respect to UFO-evidence claims. My comments on that claim and others are found in this post:

Ray Stanford Close-Up No. 9:
Stanford Swipes at His Critics; Plus Alien Fingers,
"A Major Government Operation," and
the Stanford-Goddard-NASA Connection