The Bunny's Retort

By
James Carlson

I'd like to respond to recent comments published by Robert Hastings under the
title James Carlson: The New Energizer Bunny? It's probably easiest just to do this in a
point-counterpoint style, because once again he's said so much that can be so easily
refuted, that rather than confuse people with stylistic mannerisms, and a long list of
counter-arguments proving that his imagination far outweighs his understanding of the
real world, I can address each issue in the order he brings it up. For the most part,
everything that he's discussed is believable only in the absence of sufficient information;
he's very good at misleading people in that way — he paints a picture that has a lot of
nice colors in it, but you don't see that he's constantly going out of the lines, or using the
wrong colors like a child would, using a green crayon for the little dog's fur, orange
crayon for the eyes, most of which people don't notice, because he doesn't show it to
anybody until the lights have been metaphorically turned off. Using a point-counterpoint
style, I can effectively turn the lights back on, and show people exactly how he's
perpetrating this con game, and how he's been able to convince a few ignorant people
that he's got some valid points to make. But he doesn't have any valid points, not really
— he's just got a style of doing things that takes his audience's attention away from the
center of the act, and forces them to look into the shadows at edge of the stage, as if
that's going to highlight in some way the world we all live in or direct a spotlight at the
events we’re trying to examine. Life doesn't work that way, and his point of view is one
of misdirection; nobody can see the real world by looking in the shadows while ignoring
everything else. What I'm going to do is direct a spotlight at the center act on the stage:
Robert Hastings himself and the story he’s narrating; as a result of this, the audience
will be able to see very clearly that Robert Hastings is hiding things in his pockets and
behind his back, things that have no business being on stage, because he put them
together in his basement with glue and twine — cheap special effects that need to be
pointed out before he walks away and all the senseless annotations he’s drawing
attention to can come into focus.
Each section of the whole is preceded in bold type, followed by the charges and
commentary recently published by Robert Hastings. I intend to respond to each; you
can blame the structure and at least some of the length on Robert Hastings. He thinks
that if he throws a lot of nothing into the argument, some of it will stick, ignoring, for the
moment, the fact that every issue he highlights has already been shattered. In any
case, I don’t mind reviewing his poor judgment, his dishonesty, his incomplete claims,
and his inability to foster a cohesive case study of these events; it isn’t terribly hard, and
nobody can call it unfair to Hastings, since the issues have already been defined by
Hastings. In addition, this method of critique enables readers already familiar with the
issues, to skip over that section and read instead only those portions that he or she is
less familiar with. Suffice to say that no arguments Robert Hastings and Robert Salas
have ever raised have gone unanswered. In fact, every claim that Robert Hastings has
ever made in reference to this particular issue has already been proven false, and he
has nothing else. That's why every detailed rebuttal he has ever produced starts and
ends with "everybody's lying but me."
Once I’ve completed showing exactly why he has no case, after presenting as
well a few indisputable facts I’ve neglected raising in the past that bear directly on his
credibility, the value of his word, and the worth of his honesty, Robert Hastings’ insistent
reliance on the shadows in the corner of the stage will no longer be supportable –
certainly not by me. At that point, his claims can be effectively dismissed, as can he;
that is, in any case, what I intend to do. He’s failed to raise any valid or new arguments;
he’s neglected to throw any light on the issues explored; and he’s failed completely to
explain his own moral lapses and the impotence inherent to his claims. Men of that
nature deserve to be dismissed, and so I shall do so, unless he comes up with
something new, that can be associated with more meaning than he currently
possesses. However, he’s already loaded his guns with everything he’s got and fired it
all in a poor attempt to make a last stand, so once I’ve answered all of his accusations
and petty charges, I intend to dismiss him entirely; he’s not very interesting, and he
really doesn’t have anything interesting to say. Frankly, he bores the Hell out of me.
In any case, I think I’ll destroy his case first, while pointing out the character of
his duplicity, in terms nobody – not even he – can fail to understand.

I'm confident that anybody who looks at the evidence available — evidence that
both Robert Hastings and Robert Salas still refuse to acknowledge — and takes the
time to do so in full awareness of the product that these men have put together and are
now selling, will be convinced of the deceit they've evinced that I've tried to document.
There are, however, a lot of folks who are still on the fence, and these men and women
shouldn't be neglected. For those on the fence, therefore, Hastings' and Salas' obvious
lies need to be pointed out, and the numerous well-documented and repeatedly
confirmed facts defining this case discussed far more openly than both men have
shown themselves willing to do. And their reliance on a strategy of attack and alienate
to prevent that discussion needs to be affirmed and conceded in recognition of their
intolerance for dispute. Simply ignoring such matters, as they evidently want the world
to do, will eventually result in the complete disavowal of American UFOlogy as a clear
and well-defined system of human discourse with a clear and well-defined goal: the
determination of truth whenever and wherever possible.

Robert Hastings writes: When James Carlson says he has “proof” he means, “I
really, really believe this is true, therefore, it must be.” I note here that he claimed
he had “proof” that Bob Salas was never involved in a UFO-related missile
shutdown at Malmstrom AFB in 1967, and wrote that for years in countless posts.

I wrote that Robert Salas is lying because he has lied on numerous occasions,
lies that I've catalogued extensively and can indeed prove the existence of. As for
showing that Salas was "never involved in a UFO-related missile shutdown at
Malmstrom AFB in 1967", I've said so because the evidence insists upon it, which
Robert Hastings might have been aware of if he had bothered to examine any of it.
There are no documents anywhere that have ever discussed or even suggested such
an event occurring at November Flight or Oscar Flight, both of which Robert Salas has
claimed at one time or another. The only event of such magnitude that has ever been
documented by the USAF occurred at Echo Flight on March 16, 1967, and the
documentation of that event was extremely thorough and voluminous, and was still
being referred to in official documentation for years afterward. There is no mention of
anything similar in extent occurring anywhere else. They made it up – it is an invention.
Every single missileer that I've ever spoken to who was at Malmstrom AFB in
1967 is certain that no such event ever occurred at Oscar Flight or November Flight.
They also insist — as does every single document that has ever been created under the
aegis of the USAF, including every FOIA document ever released or requested — that
the only comparable incident to occur at Malmstrom AFB throughout the entire decade
under examination was at Echo Flight, and Echo Flight alone. There have been
numerous single missile failures, even two and three missile failures, particularly during
the period we're discussing, but no full flight failures. The only missile failures that even
came close to being a full flight failure occurred at Alpha Flight in December 1966.
Three missiles failed at that time, and had to be brought back online. More importantly,
neither Robert Salas nor Frederick Meiwald was on duty at that time, suggesting very
strongly that Robert Salas and Robert Hastings invented the Oscar Flight missile
failures; every witness who has ever come forward, including the witnesses that
Hastings has introduced to the world, have been unable to show that such an event
ever occurred. Robert Hastings is very good at telling people what they should believe,
but his abilities to explain why they should believe are nonexistent. He is completely
unable to show that this incident ever occurred. If the general public would simply
examine the evidence he has produced, instead of simply taking his word for it, they
would instantly reach the same conclusion. Neither Robert Salas nor Robert Hastings
has made a simple error regarding the wrong flight — they are simply lying to you, and
are unable to prove otherwise. Please keep reading: I will show you exactly what
they've said and done, and why they think it's necessary to attack me and my family on
the moral grounds they have resorted to without any provision of evidence.

Robert Hastings, just as much as Robert Salas, has also relied upon lies to
present a story that can't be established with facts. His lying, however, is far more
pathological, as a result of which, it is also easier to find examples of. This pathological
character is suggested by the fact that he often resorts to lying when he has no need to
do so. He doesn't even think twice about telling lies anymore, and that's one of the
reasons it's so very easy to find examples of his duplicity, and his immoral character. I'd
venture that anybody could do it, but it would mean having to surround themselves with
his poor excuses and all too criminal understanding of human motivation for an
extended period, and most people refuse to do so when it concerns a subject so
irrelevant to modern life as his thoughts regarding an incident that took place in 1967.
There's just no eventual payoff for most people. I'm willing to do it, because both Salas
and Hastings have targeted my family with their assertions of dishonesty and the
apparent enjoyment of ignoble pursuits. I know firsthand the balance of their
characters, the worthlessness of their thoughts, and the sad extent of their credibility,
and I’m perfectly willing to admit, as well, that I enjoy watching such people destroy
themselves on public forums. I hope, in fact, that Robert Hastings will eventually carry
out his numerous threats to take me to court so I can watch him take himself apart in
front of a jury. I fear that won’t happen, however, because he doesn't threaten people to
persuade them to perform in a manner he finds more appropriate; he threatens people
as a public gesture, to convince his audience that he has the legal means to carry out
his threats, and the ability and evidence to win such a case. But if the audience he is
performing for will simply remember that he is, in fact, a pathological liar, a far more
accurate picture of his goals and reactions to adversity can be predicted, including that
of nearly every option he is willing to carry out. Taking his nonexistent case to court will
never happen, because he's very much aware of its nonexistence. And that means he's
not threatening a lawsuit to persuade me to cease my claims or suffer the wrath of legal
recourse, but for the benefit of you, his audience; once you're aware of that, you can
judge his reactions for yourself. You’ll find it infallible, I assure you.
Proving that Robert Hastings is indeed a liar is easy. He does it all the time to
sound convincing to his audience, and in a strategic manner to convince his audience
that the claims of his critics are groundless. For instance, Hastings has written on
numerous occasions that my father told him that I have mental problems my family is
deeply concerned about, and that my claims regarding both the research I’ve conducted
and the extent of his dishonesty should be discounted for that reason. That's a lie — an
easily provable lie that he has published in a sad attempt to ruin my reputation, and
convince his audience that my assertions are those of a man who should be on
medication in a mental hospital.
In addition, he has also suggested that I use illegal drugs, another unsupportable
accusation that he resorted to in his reprehensible attempts to discredit my arguments.
This, too, is a lie. Ask yourself: are these the arguments presented and the issues
raised in response to critical review by an honest man capable of defending his
position? And then examine his work, and ask yourself another question: has he even
tried to introduce evidence to refute the documents and the interviews that I’ve already
produced, proving his lies? For God’s sake, he isn’t even willing to answer a few
questions on the subject.
My father has already addressed the first issue above, so I won't linger on it; as
for his introduction of possible drug use into an argument that he's failed completely to
defend on its own merits, I can only point it out in the hope that those learning of it will
conclude that these tactics are not among those considered by honest men — they are
the tactics of charlatans. I have no intention of attempting to prove that I am not a drug
user who should be imprisoned; I’m simply asking his audience whether or not a man
who makes such suggestions in the place of any effective counter-argument should be
trusted to actually possess such an argument. His failure to present it suggests that he
should not. The actions of Robert Hastings are not those of an honest man, as he
insists — they are the actions of a self-serving liar trying to create for his own benefit a
climate of animosity between the United States government and its citizens on the basis
of his fictional UFO claims. And a man willing to lie about the acts of other men simply
to create fear should be treated with the same repugnance he so willingly and
dishonestly discusses as characteristic of others.

Hastings has often said that "Figel completely contradicts Eric Carlson’s claim
that no UFOs were involved" at Echo Flight on Malmstrom AFB on March 16, 1967.
Examples of this claim of his can be found throughout his published works. And yet, at
that pathetic dog and pony show he and Salas arranged for September 27 last, Robert
Salas stood up and said that both Figel and my father, Captain Eric Carlson, had
confirmed his arrogant myth of a UFO at Echo Flight. It's apparent that either Hastings
or Salas was lying upon making their assertions; either my father confirms the presence
of UFOs, or he does not. Both men cannot be telling the truth. However, both men
have also contradicted their own claims on many occasions, indicating that their lies are
appropriate to their audience, so the audience needs to be taken into consideration as
well as those facts expressed and provable amidst the author’s intent. Hastings’ intent
at the time he made his initial claims was to convince his audience that Colonel Figel’s
claims regarding Echo Flight were opposed to the claims my father has made for many
years that no UFOs were ever reported in reference to that event. As a result, "Figel
completely contradicts Eric Carlson’s claim that no UFOs were involved." Unfortunately
for Robert Hastings’ credibility, that conclusion is one he can assert only as long as
nobody attempts to confirm what Figel’s claims actually are.
 Robert Salas, however, was answering a question presented by the press
regarding the extent of the confirmation of his own claims. Obviously, to such an
audience, the higher the number of confirmations made, the more accurate the claims
will seem. As a result, Robert Salas has lied regarding the amount of confirmation,
insisting that both my father and Figel have provided such. Again, the claims upon
which his credibility is determined can only be truthfully asserted on the condition that
nobody attempts to confirm whether or not they have actually been established. And,
clearly, they have not.
The only means to determine the truth, in this case, would be to ask both Colonel
Figel and my father, which had actually been done two days prior to the press
conference referred to above. In response, both my father and Colonel Figel were very
clear that they have never believed UFOs were involved at Echo Flight, and have never
told anybody that UFOs were involved at Echo Flight. It’s pretty clear that both Robert
Hastings and Robert Salas are lying to their audience, when the subjects of those lies
are asked to respond for themselves instead of allowing others to do so for them. This
isn't difficult for people to figure out, but they require sufficient information to do so, and
neither Hastings nor Salas are inclined to present that information. They refuse to tell
their audience that both Carlson and Figel have made these claims — they tell you that
Figel reported UFOs and Carlson has lied about it ever since. And yet, to another
audience, they are willing to claim that both Carlson and Figel have confirmed UFOs,
and that they have proof of this. In my opinion, the general audience should examine
that proof, or should at least ask to do so; I have examined it, and it is insufficient to
reach the conclusions both men have applied. Salas says my father confirmed UFOs in
a personal letter to him — he made that same claim again on September 27 at his press
conference. But he has never produced that letter; he has only produced a nice
conversational letter my father wrote that dismisses his claims and suggests he
examines the documents available, none of which discuss UFOs at Echo Flight. So
where is this evidence he has claimed to possess for fifteen years? It doesn't exist.
And yet, he continues to insist it does exist. Bear in mind that if you speak to both
Carlson and Figel, the only two men present at Echo Flight on March 16, 1967, they will
tell you exactly the same story. And yet Hastings says: "Figel completely contradicts
Eric Carlson’s claim that no UFOs were involved." And Salas says: "Colonel Figel and
Captain Carlson both confirmed the presence of UFOs at Echo Flight on March 16,
1967." It’s evident that nothing embarrasses either of the two Bobs, and yet Hastings
refers to me as the Energizer Bunny.
Ask yourself: are these the words and acts of honest men? This isn't a rare
incident of lies expressed; both men react this way all the time, particularly when they're
criticized for the absence of evidence regarding their claims. They can't even keep their
lies straight anymore, and that's why it's so easy to find examples when you go looking
for them.

For years, Hastings and Salas have been crowing about Colonel Walt Figel's
confirmation of the UFOs at Echo Flight — for years! Colonel Figel, however, notably
never said anything himself — Salas and Hastings did it for him, publishing supposedly
unedited transcripts of conversations that Figel himself insists have been distorted to
suggest elements to the story that he would never himself suggest. They've reached
conclusions on the basis of lies and distorted features of the interviews they've
conducted, and they've done so consciously. They insist that these charges are lies
that I cannot prove, but they are lying to you when they say that as well. The proof is
extremely easy to come by, and anybody can do it. It took me only five minutes to
prove that they were lying — all I had to do was ask Colonel Figel himself. The proof
was immediate, and it came right from the same sources they've been attempting to use
to convince you, their audience, that they are telling the truth. They thought they could
get away with this, because Figel never wanted to get involved in this matter at all, and
he made that very clear to both of them. He considers it a meaningless waste of his
time, and he refused to go public with any claims whatsoever for that reason until I
contacted him, and showed him what Hastings and Salas have been doing to his
reputation. I discovered very quickly that he was not unconcerned about that aspect of
the lies Salas and Hastings have been telling you. He was pissed off, and he has good
reason to be. He issued a very clear statement immediately — one he wrote himself,
that leaves no doubt at all what lengths Salas and Hastings have gone to in order to
support their claims. He didn't need to be coaxed to do so. His disgust with what
they've done was apparent in every word he wrote, and in every sentence he uttered on
the phone. We had a very nice, lengthy conversation, and he told me exactly what
happened, and I told him exactly what Hastings and Salas have concluded, using both
him and my father as the primary sources of those conclusions. Colonel Figel has since
then issued additional statements that cannot be reconciled with what Hastings and
Salas have been insisting upon since 1995. He has even issued a statement that
comes right out and says that those claiming the myth of UFOs at Malmstrom AFB in
March 1967 are lying to you. So how does Robert Hastings respond to this? Are his
responses consistent with those of the honest man he claims to be? Well, let's look at
those responses for just a moment, and then you, his primary audience, can judge for
yourself if he's been an honest man or not.

After I first interviewed Walt Figel last March, and he made it very clear to me
what lengths that Hastings and Salas have gone to make it appear as if a UFO was
involved at Echo Flight, Hastings called him on the telephone the very next business
day, which was Monday, 8 March, 2010. Doubtful for whatever reasons that I had
actually spoken to Figel, he felt it was necessary to confirm whether or not I had indeed
done so. Even before confirming this fact, however, Robert Hastings’ communications
with the owners of Reality Uncovered revealed his ultimate intentions and how, exactly,
he was going to respond to the Echo Flight deputy commander’s revelations: “I am not
the only one who has noticed James' selective and misleading editing (or paraphrasing)
at other blogs of what Figel has said. Fortunately, I have Figel on audiotape. Does
James claim to have taped him, with his permission, as I did, or is he only telling you
what Figel supposedly told him?”
Apparently, Hastings had decided that it was necessary to convince Reality
Uncovered that my claims could not be trusted, suggesting that it would not be fruitful
for them to look in the direction I was pointing. His first strategic act, therefore, to the
publication of Figel’s denial of UFO interference, was an attempt to attach doubt to my
claims of having discussed this matter with him. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with
this; he had not yet confirmed that what I had published actually originated with Colonel
Figel. In any case, this was not an effective response in the first place, primarily
because Colonel Figel drafted his own statement in his own writing. My claims were
relevant only to the establishment of the source, the identity of Colonel Figel himself,
which by then had been confidently verified many times over. Hastings’ attempts to
foment doubt in my assertions by suggesting that Figel’s comments weren’t of any value
unless they were recorded is a fairly pathetic bulwark in light of the fact that Figel wrote
the statement himself, but that’s usually the first recourse of people who want others to
believe that they alone are capable of reviewing evidence and producing witnesses.
What’s more surprising, however, is that not even once did Robert Hastings attempt to
answer any of the many questions posed by Figel’s statements; his only purpose was to
create doubt regarding my claims. His intent here was plain; he wanted to cast doubt
on my role in revealing Figel’s revelations in order to convince others not to examine
them, a meaningless gesture, and nothing more. “In your own post on the subject, you
say that you can "confirm" that James Carlson recently called Col. Walt Figel. How do
you know that? Have you verified this with Figel yourself or are you just taking James'
word for it?” The response may have been petty, but it was not necessarily unethical.
That character of his response to misfortune was not, however, consistent. Neither
were his attempts to discover the truth.
Upon calling Colonel Figel on the first business day following publication of his
assertions, this particular aspect of Hastings’ strategic actions proved to me and to
everybody at Reality Uncovered the true value of his claims. After all, upon talking
directly to Figel, Hastings knew exactly what Figel was claiming and he knew for a fact
that Colonel Figel was the actual source of the offending comments. And yet he
continued the same line of attack, attempting to convince those who were willing to
credit my research that it was entirely groundless, even though he knew the opposite
was true. An examination of his strategies before and after his discussion of this matter
with Colonel Figel is somewhat enlightening, in that it reveals the ethical restraints, or
lack thereof, that Robert Hastings intended to put into play in order to ensure that his
version of the Echo Flight Incident would be accepted as the most reasonable
explanation for what actually occurred. What actually occurred, however, was not
considered a tremendously important aspect of his claims; his version of the Echo Flight
incident, on the other hand, was. Nobody, not even Colonel Walt Figel, was going to
prevent Robert Hastings from doing everything he could, ethical or not, to see that his
claims were considered foremost. This was no longer a search to determine the truth; it
had become, at least for Robert Hastings, a means to forcibly encapsulate that truth into
his singular vision, whether doing so could be supported by the known facts or not; and
that meant the conversation was no longer about the Echo Flight Incident – the
conversation was now all about Robert Hastings.
Upon speaking directly to Colonel Figel the following Monday, Robert Hastings
was well-aware that I had indeed spoken with him and that my interpretation of his
claims was accurate. He knew this, because that’s exactly what Colonel Figel told him.
His claims since last March, nearly a year ago, that everything I’ve reported regarding
Figel’s assessment of this event is incorrect, and that I have been lying continuously
since then, has been a strategic attempt to destroy whatever credibility I may have –
nothing more. The fact that he knew this line of attack could not be supported, and was,
in fact, untrue had no bearing on the matter. Robert Hastings does not differentiate
between what’s true and what is false; there is only what supports his claims, and what
does not. Essentially, once he had confirmed everything I discussed with Colonel Figel,
he still attempted to raise doubts regarding the issue of my credibility even though my
credibility was no longer in question – I was simply reporting what Colonel Figel told me.
Both Hastings and Salas, however, still wanted to use the testimony of Walt Figel to
assert their misleading allegations, so it became necessary to cast doubt on my claims
while persuading others to reject examination of them altogether. Any attempts to
attack the credibility of Colonel Walt Figel would work against their goals, because he
was still the only witness they had who could, with some authority, discuss the events of
March 16, 1967.
In order to accomplish this two-fold goal, Robert Hastings resorted to more
obvious lies, telling Reality Uncovered that Figel had informed both him and Salas that
my claims — those I had already attributed to Colonel Figel himself — were untrue, and
that both men had recorded a new interview with Figel, the transcripts of which he
intended to publish. He also insisted that this interview would prove beyond any doubt
that all of the claims I had made regarding his and Salas' lies were false, once again
attempting to persuade them that supporting my assertions would eventually damage
their own reputations, another meaningless attempt that refuses to account for the
claims that Colonel Figel himself had made, and reveals a preference for preventing
those claims from being publically assessed: “So, you only have his word for what Figel
supposedly told him”, even though he had already spoken with Figel, and knew without
any doubt whatsoever that what Figel “supposedly” told me was completely true.
Taking into account the explanation above that one’s audience and intent can also
reveal the lies one resorts to, it’s become apparent that in this case Robert Hastings
was trying to convince his audience – the founders and owners of Reality Uncovered –
that the trust they had expressed in my words and my conclusions was unfounded, and
that their pursuits would be better applied to other arguments, and more trustworthy
issues such as those he and Salas have discussed.
Specifically, on Wednesday, March 10, 2010, Robert Hastings wrote:

I re-interviewed Walt Figel on Monday evening. Salas re-interviewed him

on Tuesday evening. We have both conversations on audiotape and we are
currently transcribing them. We asked Figel to address James Carlson's
interpretation of his statements and position on various things. James will not like
what Walt had to say.
Figel has given Salas and me permission to publicize his statements as
we see fit. I will post a comprehensive rebuttal to James' flawed claims in the
next few days, providing verbatim excerpts from the conversations. I may even
make key portions of the original audio tape available online.

For the record, neither Robert Hastings nor Robert Salas ever published that
comprehensive rebuttal, only general assertions insisting that I was lying about
everything Colonel Figel told me. In addition, Figel never did address my supposedly
"flawed" claims, as Hastings had promised. Instead Figel released another statement,
worded very strongly, that relates without any doubt or necessary discussion his first
person asserted belief that both Hastings and Salas are well-confirmed liars who have
attempted to distort his claims, and suggest the presence of a UFO where no such
presence could be established.
 I'm certain that if you're familiar with Hastings' claims, you already know the
overall punch-line this portion of the narrative is leading to. That recent interview that
Robert Hastings was so proud of was never published, because Figel's claims did not
have the character that Hastings had invested them with. And yet for the next six
months he continued to insist nonetheless that everything I wrote regarding Figel's
claims was untrue, and that I was lying about all of it, even though I was only providing,
for the most part, the well-documented, written responses of Colonel Figel himself. The
intent was the same as it has always been – retain any credibility that the deputy
commander of Echo Flight may or may not have, and destroy the credibility of the
conduit for his most recent claims: James Carlson. By this time, there was no longer
any need to convince Reality Uncovered that I was misleading them; they had already
confirmed that I was telling the truth about everything I’ve discussed, so Hastings
abandoned the effort to convince them otherwise. As a result of this, it became
necessary to readjust his lies to his new audience: the American public. There was no
further need to attack my claims on the basis of specific strategies, such as his prior
insistence that there was no proof that I had actually and honestly engaged the interest
of Colonel Figel, or that my interpretation of his statements were groundless and would
eventually embarrass those who had been misled by my intemperate lies and
exaggerations. His new audience, after all, hadn’t yet been convinced that Colonel
Figel’s assertions were factual, as his previous audience, Reality Uncovered, had been.
Robert Hastings’ new claims were consequently far less specific. He simply insisted
that I was lying – that I had never contacted Colonel Figel, and the responses I had
attributed to him were complete and utter lies, from beginning to end. Without the need
for specific lies intended to convince those who already knew that my communications
with Figel had actually taken place, he simply abandoned the argument altogether, and
merely insisted my claims in general were those of a very general liar. Nothing else
was necessary when communicating to the American public at large.
Even worse, he did all of this — six months worth of well-established and very
easily proven libel — in full knowledge that these assertions were incorrect, a claim that
is also easily proven, because Colonel Figel sent him the very same statement that he
sent me last March. Hastings was personally aware at every step that his accusations
not only were groundless, but were impossible under the circumstances. Colonel Figel
was the genuine author of the refutations made to Reality Uncovered, as were the
interpretations expressed therein. In other words, both Robert Hastings and Robert
Salas have been aware since last March, nearly a full year ago, that their claims
regarding Colonel Figel’s interpretations of the events of March 16, 1967 have no
evidential value, and yet they continue to rely on them in full knowledge of their
worthless character, their only purpose being the destruction of my credibility and the
credibility of my father, allowing them to retain the alleged version of events they had
always attributed to Colonel Walt Figel. The fact that Colonel Figel has insisted very
plainly and very clearly that the claims they had previously attributed to him were an
unwarranted distortion of his true intent was ignored, a factor hinting at the actual
psychosis or disconnect with human reality that Robert Hastings consistently works
under, and is an equally informative assertion of the pathological quality inherent to both
his lies and his incessant, silly little attempts to destroy the credibility of men possessed
of far more integrity than he or Robert Salas.
Are these the actions of an honest man? Robert Hastings was lying for six
months to absolutely no purpose and is still lying today. Is there any way a less
confused individual could have expected to get away with acts that are this dishonest
and yet, at the same time, so irrevocably meaningless? Only the most deranged of men
would have found it necessary to lie about these instances as Robert Hastings has so
clearly and provably done. There was little or no cause for any of it, and even if the
recipients of these lies had actually believed what he had to say, any gains he may
have collected as a result would have been temporary at the very best. This type of
behavior is particularly common to individuals afflicted with either Compulsive Liar
Disorder or Pathological Liar Disorder. A little research, however, show us that while a
pathological liar will lie to manipulate people, a compulsive liar lies more out of habit and
never with the intention of gaining personal benefits out of that act. In contrast,
pathological liars are generally more cunning and self centered individuals who tend to
lie in order to benefit from the act. Clearly, Robert Hastings’ character is best met by
the latter description. In both cases, however, lying without apparent necessity is
typical, and that’s what we’re looking at here. Robert Hastings’ first response to
adversity and illumination by those opposing his claims is to lie about everything; this is
not my opinion – it is a proven fact established by his own emails and his own voice.
My opinion is that Robert Hastings is deranged, and likely requires many years of
counseling before he can be trusted to tell the truth about anything, let alone the
irresponsible and paranoid claims about UFOs that he’s trying to lay the groundwork for.
Hastings has never provided a single element of proof — transcripts, recordings,
or even a suggestive whisper — that reveals a recent and eye-opening interview with
Colonel Figel, a man he often invested with near Saint-hood for his “honesty” regarding
the UFOs at Echo Flight. If you don't believe me, read his past works on the subject;
they can be found all over the internet, because he doesn’t possess the sense of shame
that most Americans would immediately fall prey to had they been as self-serving and
as dishonest as he has been. You'd be surprised how much deceit becomes plain upon
examining all of it at once. Almost immediately after Colonel Walt Figel released a
statement insisting that both Hastings and Salas have knowingly lied about this event
for years, that both men have knowingly distorted his claims for their own benefit, and
that both men have never voiced a single fact involving actual UFOs as a result of his
experiences, Robert Hastings turned his false face to the audience he's been trying to
manipulate for so many years and stated uncategorically that Figel had not made those
claims, insisting instead that everything Figel said, and everything that I have published
in response to what Figel has said are lies that originated not with Colonel Figel, but
with me, James Carlson. Robert Hastings has made these claims for one reason, and
one reason only: he still wants to use Walt Figel’s alleged testimony regarding UFOs at
Echo Flight, so he can’t necessarily destroy the man’s credibility. What he can do,
however, is destroy the credibility of the man who telephoned Walt Figel and asked him,
“did you really say all this crap? Because, I’ve got to tell you, this isn’t the same story I
was told.” Most people would say that goal is a long shot, but his intent is to at least try.
The truth, however, is very easy to determine by anybody with the true desire to
illuminate it. All you have to do is examine the statements Walt Figel has written and
compare them with the statements that the two Bobs have attributed to him and the
conclusions they have publically asserted as a result. And at that point, you should ask
yourself: are these the acts of honest men? Would such men, if they were indeed
honest and had the ability to answer with facts the assertions of their critics not only
avoid discussing those facts like they were the plague, but instead insist for months that
their critics are lying, while promising to reveal those lies with a new and supposedly
revealing interview that they are completely unable to provide? The fact that I'm forced
to defend myself against such utter stupidity should be an alarming red-flag to anybody
who still thinks that Robert Hastings and Robert Salas are telling the truth. The lies are
obvious, and they are too plentiful to be erased by Hastings’ insipid attempts to destroy
what has already been so effectively explored and catalogued. The absence of
evidence to support his claims cannot be blamed on others, as Hastings has repeatedly
attempted. His inability to conduct a proper investigation, combined with his tendency
to present information that hasn’t been verified and witnesses who haven’t been
appropriately vetted has left him with few options; he cannot defend his position, and he
cannot call back the poor judgment that allowed him to report incidents contrary to the
assertions of his own original sources. The only blame for this condition rests at his
own feet and the feet of Robert Salas, and yet his attempts to correct the damage done
to his credibility by unjustifiably attacking everybody else is the natural response of a
man who is already very much aware of the scarcity of evidence related to his claims.
They are the responses of a man who has been caught in so many lies that any
discussion of actual facts would naturally stress the point, revealing thereby the
shambles of an argument based entirely on false pretenses, poor judgment, and silly
little innuendoes of no worth whatsoever. Instead of trying to repair his poor reputation
by acknowledging the arguments gathered against him, and attempting to make a case
on those grounds, Robert Hastings, true to form, has set out to do whatever damage is
possible to those who have presented such arguments. Not only do these acts not
represent the defensive attributes of an honest man, they don’t even represent the acts
of a rational man. Every dishonest communication that Robert Hastings has, in his
swollen mediocrity, either published or used as a means to manipulate the primary
recipients of his poor conclusions, his numerous lies, and his egregious attempts to
govern the testimony related to the incident in question cannot be blamed on everybody
else in the manner he is now attempting. Honesty, after all, is useful. If you are honest,
you don’t have to continuously backtrack in order to assess your own claims – there is
only one story that you have to remember: the true one. And yet, the primary factor
that has become inescapable for anyone attempting a rational analysis of the Echo
Flight Incident is the fact that both Robert Hastings and Robert Salas have continuously
changed every aspect of their own claims over and over and over again. Backtracking
is not only necessary; it has come to represent their very way of life.
The plain fact is, Robert Hastings and Robert Salas lie all the time, and it is
extremely easy to prove it. I'd be happy to share with anybody all of my research and
all of my communications at any time. I don't withhold anything I uncover, particularly if
it reflects upon my own character. I served my nation for many years, and I'm very
proud of it; that service could be easily tarnished by lies and dishonesty, so I abjure
both. If you suspect me of lying about these instances as Hastings clearly wants the
general public to believe, than compare my private emails with his. I'm not afraid to
reveal my thoughts to anybody, because not only do I not give a damn what other
people think of me having such thoughts, I'm not a dishonest man, and every
communication that I have ever had with anybody will prove that. Dishonesty only
enters into an issue when the author of that dishonesty has something to hide, and
because I don’t care what people think of me and the opinions that I hold, I don’t lie
about them. Robert Hastings and Robert Salas cannot make that claim, as their own
written works clearly affirm. They are consistently attempting to reconcile their public
visage with their private ruminations, and any examination of both will prove this, just as
my analysis above has proven the constant character of the lies Robert Hastings is
willing to rely on in order to manipulate whatever audience he happens to be addressing
at the moment. Their management of this issue does nothing to convince people of the
honesty of their claims, because they prefer to ignore every argument made that is
contrary to those claims, having resolved a long, long time ago that the best counter-
argument is a groundless attack directed against the critic, not the criticism. That is the
sum total of their defense of the folk tale they've tried to establish as fact.
But this story gets so much better. In the absence of anything at all to support
the lies they've told, they had to come up with something. After all, for six months they
had repeatedly claimed that I was lying about everything, while promising that they
would soon present the updated musings of Colonel Walt Figel that would prove not
only that I had lied about everything, but that Figel's own words were untrue. After six
months, it was no surprise that people were eagerly awaiting this testimony that didn't
exist, and it was starting to become a rather shameful cause célèbre for Robert
Hastings to deal with, particularly since the press conference he and Salas had
organized in Washington, DC was soon to come to fruition. Rather than just drop the
subject as a momentary moral lapse, and continue with their press conference as
normal people would do, their solution shows exactly how desperate for validation both
men had become. On 26 September, one day prior to their silly little press conference,
they published the recordings and transcripts of an interview supposedly obtained in
1996 — an interview that had never been made public, never proved as originating with
Figel, never discussed by anybody else at any given time in the intervening fifteen
years, and was so obviously edited and pulled out of context to such a ridiculous extent
that it can't possibly be confirmed as anything at all, let alone the type of convincing and
well-established proof of my duplicity and Colonel Figel's full confirmation of my deceit
that Hastings had been promising for six fucking months.
This entire story that Hastings and Salas are literally selling to America is an
irresponsible and poorly executed fiction, and the very best proof of that can be easily
measured in their own writings and their own acts. Ask yourself what the value of the
evidence they've presented is, and compare that to the efforts they have made to
counter what I've presented. Have they accounted for the nearly 85 pages of FOIA
documents that have been released in relation to the Echo Flight Incident? Have they
presented any real evidence that wasn't consciously and obviously manufactured by
them? Have they made any real examination of the investigation of the incident? Have
they been able to produce a single witness who actually saw a UFO anywhere in 1967?
Have they attempted to account for the extreme disparity between the security
classifications of all aspects of the Echo Flight Incident in comparison to what that
classification would have been, had this event they've described actually taken place?
Have they explained in any detail whatsoever why the testimony of the few witnesses
they've produced is so demonstrably contrary not only to the events that have been
repeatedly documented, but to the well-known and oft documented military procedures
that were actually in effect? And what about the literally dozens of military personnel
who have insisted that the incident and the associated events they've described is
completely absurd? Have they presented any detailed evidence at all, or otherwise
explained the absence of detail that typifies their claims? Most analysts who are tasked
to describe an actual, historical event are very much aware of the details, and those
details can usually be described sufficient to enable belief. In the case of Echo Flight,
Salas and Hastings are completely unable to provide a detailed account, because
details raise questions, and those questions need to be answered. I have provided a
very thorough and detailed account of this matter, and those details are not only
supported by documented evidence, they take into account the civilian reports, the
active regulations, and the military protocols in use at Malmstrom AFB in 1967 – none of
which is true of the accounts presented by Salas and Hastings. Even if I was unable to
prove the conscious lying that originated with them, the evidence required to support the
claims I've made would still be so overwhelming, that any conclusions reached on their
basis would still insist that these two men are lying to their audience — lying to you.
Their refusal to present a detailed and well-confirmed version of events will
eventually prove both the inadequacy typical of their moral characters and the character
of their allegations; for that reason, while Hastings and Salas may not be aware of it,
they have already proven that their assertions are groundless. This conclusion, in fact,
has already been appropriated in many circles and virtual communities throughout the
internet, and I'm not talking about only skeptical audiences, here. For example, I
received a private email from Mark W. Allin, one of the owners of "Above Top Secret"
thanking me for having illuminated so clearly the facts of this case: "... until I started
reading your counterpoints to Robert Hastings' stories I was quite impressed with his
UFOs/Nukes schtick. After reading what Walt Figel REALLY thinks, from his own
keyboard not Hastings', I am very glad I did not get involved with Hastings." That's only
one of many, many emails and forum responses that I've received from people who at
one time considered Robert Hastings and Robert Salas to be honest men. And very
often, this same conclusion was reached in response to the vile acts these two men
have committed in their attempts to reduce the credibility of those who direct attention to
their dishonesty. After all, honest men do not often find it necessary or even
appropriate to consistently attack their critics while ignoring for the most part those
elements discussed by their critics. The fact is, if you ignore the direction and the tone
of Robert Salas’ and Robert Hastings’ response to criticism, you will be ignoring the
quality and the disposition of their claims.
The two Bobs have already alienated many people as a direct result of their ill-
advised refusal to explain the numerous holes that have been poked into their little
myth-making attempts, and by their failure to acknowledge or otherwise explain what is
already obvious to most other investigators: they have lied about Figel, they've lied
about my father, and they've lied about me. And their attempts to erase all of this from
their attention by relying on insults and vile insinuations in the place of logic, confirmed
information, and consistent witness accounts marks them as unworthy of trust. It's very
plain that both men are creatures of habit. Unfortunately, they have a lot of bad habits,
none of which are very admirable when examined from outside of the moral character
they've adopted to mask their true personalities.

As for me, I've lied about nothing, the truth of which has been repeatedly affirmed
by Colonel Walt Figel, my father, and the many, many missileers I've discussed this
matter with. The moral turpitude that Robert Hastings in particular has attempted to
invest my research with, suggests very strongly that they don't deserve trust, they don't
understand honor, and they prefer to use tactics of ridicule and attack when their own
abilities to investigate the truth and to determine the facts are suborned to their desire to
create a fiction and establish it as a fact.

Robert Hastings writes: Then, when Salas’ former missile commander, now-retired
Col. Fredrick Meiwald, came forward and confirmed his and Salas’ involvement in
such a shutdown, at Oscar Flight, Carlson quickly switched gears and said he
“wondered” if that were really true. (Meiwald provided Salas with the correct flight
designation, since Salas thought that he and Meiwald had been at another one,
Echo, or perhaps November, and further provided Salas with other details he had
forgotten about the decades-old incident.)
 I think Robert Hastings should actually talk to Frederick Meiwald before making
nonexistent points such as those above. Frederick Meiwald was very clear with me
exactly how far he was willing to go to confirm this business of Oscar Flight missiles
being disabled by a UFO. He doesn't remember anything like that ever happening.
Meiwald refused to confirm any of Hastings' and Salas' UFO claims, with the only
exception being the letter he wrote Salas in 1996, a letter in which he very carefully
added the qualifier “I have slightly different memories – which could easily be incorrect
as they say, ‘The memory is the second thing to go.’” In fact, his exact words to me
voiced a similar sentiment: “Trying to remember events of over 40 years ago is not my
forte'.” One can’t help but note how remarkable it is that Hastings and Salas have been
completely unable to produce a single primary witness, meaning someone who was
actually present in the capsule during the alleged missile failures they continue to blame
on UFOs, who will actually tell the same story twice. In comparison with the repeated
assurances I have received from the witnesses I’ve presented, and their willingness to
repeat those assurances to anybody who asks them, I hardly think that anything Robert
Hastings has to say is worthy of belief. Is it normal, for someone to change their story
when they’ve been asked to discuss it more than once, or is it more likely that they’re
telling the truth when they say, “no the first guy got it wrong – he’s lying”? Why is it that
neither Walt Figel nor Frederick Meiwald are willing to repeat the stories that Hastings
and Salas have attributed to them? It’s not some paranoid fear of punishment, I assure
you. If that were a real fear and not misdirection, Salas would be the first guy on the
chopping block, not Meiwald or Figel. Anybody looking at this objectively can only
reach one possible conclusion: Robert Hastings and Robert Salas are lying – exactly
as I’ve insisted and most of those in a position to witness the events have insisted for
years.
As for the letter Meiwald wrote to Salas that Robert Hastings puts so much
emphasis on in his review of the subject on Frank Warren's UFOCHRONICLES, we
should examine its contents in order to determine exactly what type of confirmation it
actually represents, if it is indeed a confirmation, as Hastings claims. By throwing a little
light on the subject, we can tell instantly how much value should be assigned to
Meiwald’s claims. Our first reading instantly reveals of couple of very pertinent details
that neither Salas nor Hastings has bothered to address. For instance, it says nothing at
all about missiles failing anywhere — Echo Flight, Oscar Flight, November Flight; pick
one, it's irrelevant which: missile failures are not discussed. There's a very good
reason for this, one that Meiwald actually alludes to in the same letter: "This probably
does not assist your efforts in any way, but I applaud your continued interest in a
fascinating area of interest." Does this sound like the sentiments of a man who has just
confirmed for his one-time junior officer the existence of the UFO that supposedly
caused nearly a full flight of missiles to be taken offline? It does not. In fact, the entire
tone of this letter has more in common with an old friend stating that "the only UFO story
I can tell you is this little bit here, and it's all second and third person related, so it's not
much good. And I'm sorry I can't help you out, but keep digging — you might find
something someday." The fact that many years later Robert Salas and Robert Hastings
have presented this letter to the public as a confirmation of their claims proves
immediately how little value their claims actually have.

Robert Hastings’ analysis of that letter is so full of faults and fallacies that I only
need to apply the same lessons taught to him by Colonel Figel to prove exactly how silly
his claims actually are. After Meiwald sent Salas that letter stating definitively that they
were actually at Oscar Flight, the very same letter referred to here, Salas neglected to
take any of its assertions into account until he eventually decided to move his little folk
story from November Flight to Oscar Flight over three years later. This response pretty
definitively supports my own supposition that Salas and Hastings agreed with Meiwald’s
belief that he couldn’t help them out regarding this matter: "This probably does not
assist your efforts in any way.” Over the course of those three years, Salas would only
say that Meiwald had confirmed everything he was claiming, exactly as Robert Hastings
is doing today. They don't feel the necessity to discuss in any way the details that
normally throw light on descriptions of historical events, and since Meiwald's letter is a
very strong indication that neither he nor Robert Salas was ever assigned duty at Echo
Flight or November Flight, those details were ignored, and the letter’s contents
remained unexplored. After all, it would necessarily detract a bit from Salas’ credibility if
he was claiming that Meiwald and he were at November Flight while he was in
possession of evidence proving they were at Oscar Flight. This, of course, is exactly
what happened. In addition, throughout this entire period, he was also insisting that
Meiwald had confirmed everything else he claimed as well. But if you talk to Meiwald,
you'll find that his recollections are very different. Hastings' and Salas' reliance on a
man who professes to have very few memories of the event is about what I've learned
to expect from them, particularly Hastings, who has repeatedly introduced evidence and
statements that contradict the statements and evidence produced by other witnesses he
has interviewed. None of this, apparently, gives him cause to doubt what he's being
told by these people — he just writes it up, asks them if they're being truthful, and
before waiting on a response, publishes it as fact. His methods are no longer under
suspicion of carelessness — the abundant proof regarding the tactics that both Hastings
and Salas have adopted to keep their lies and the fictional exploits of their very few
witnesses in the public eye prove without any doubt whatsoever the worthlessness of
their claims. They are not making mistakes; they are lying to you, and they have done
so in full knowledge of the facts. And anybody, I suspect, can prove this for themselves
by simply talking to those men they have named as the primary confirmative witnesses
of their otherwise ill-reasoned stories.
The fact is that Frederick Meiwald didn't envision that letter as being a
confirmation of anything that Salas has claimed, and for a good three years, neither did
Robert Salas. This was the three years during which Salas was telling the entire world
that he and Meiwald were at November Flight. These claims, of course, were all made
while Salas was in possession of this letter that very clearly asserts they were at Oscar
Flight, not November. Yet he continued making those November Flight claims until it
became apparent that he couldn't maintain that fiction in light of the numerous lies he
had already told that had proven to be so ill-advised. For instance, in one way or
another he had been saying for five years that my father, Captain Eric Carlson, had
called Meiwald on the phone the day of his little UFO attack in order to inform him that
Echo Flight went down earlier that day as a result of UFO interference. My father insists
he never made such a call, and there would, in any case, have been no reason to call
someone in another squadron in the first place. That was SAC's job, not his. Figel
agrees that that they would never have called November Flight in order to tell them
about anything having to do with Echo Flight. More importantly, Meiwald says he
doesn't remember what happened, so why would he tell Salas that Echo Flight called,
enabling Salas to confirm a date that couldn't otherwise be confirmed? It is in the
numerous details of Salas' story that prove the sound reasoning he has since adopted
that any discussion of the details will reveal his and Robert Hastings' lies. What is even
more remarkable is the well-established fact that anybody can confirm the very many
lies these two men have repeatedly told the world simply by talking to those individuals
they name as the source of those lies.
If Robert Hastings and Robert Salas want to continue using Meiwald as a
confirmation of this event, they're more than welcome to do so, but before insulting and
damning those people who have spoken to Frederick Meiwald, and have reached valid
conclusions as a result of those communications, Robert Hastings might want to talk to
him first. He refuses to confirm Salas' story of these events. However, if Robert
Hastings wants to rely on the letter that Frederick Meiwald wrote to Robert Salas as a
confirmation for the lies he's told, than he should get used to people telling him he's a
foolish old man. Not only does Meiwald express regret that nothing in his recollections
can be used to verify the incident that Salas clearly had asked him to confirm, he
mentions NOTHING at all about any missile failures having taken place in relation to the
one UFO event he is willing to discuss. But there are more problems with that
supposition than are immediately notable, and Hastings, typical to his personality, has
ignored them completely as well.
If missile failures had indeed taken place as he and Salas are attempting to use
this letter to confirm, Meiwald and Salas would have been calling all of the shots as far
as the teams being sent out to investigate, just as Figel and my father were calling all of
the shots at Echo Flight. And it is very clear in Meiwald's letter that the Command Post
was calling the shots as far as the one security team Meiwald seems willing to talk
about. This is a firm indication that there were NO missile failures involved in this
incident. Meiwald even mentions the fact that he wasn't getting any reports directly from
the strike team — everything went through the Command Post first. This is very
different from the event that my father and Figel have described during the confirmed
missile failures at Echo Flight — very different, because at Echo Flight, the capsule
crew was directing both security and maintenance, as their checklists and their duties
required. In Meiwald's letter, he mentions only the Command Post checklist, which is a
confirmation that the capsule crew was not involved. And if the capsule crew was not
involved in the direction of any of the personnel sent out, then there were no missile
failures. That is an absolute rule of military procedure that can't be dismissed simply
because Robert Hastings has a wild imagination. Meiwald is very clearly describing a
mild security alert of the same type that happened all the time, such as when eagles
would light on the fencing, thereby setting off the intruder alerts, or when one of the kids
who lived in the region set the alarms off on purpose so they could hitch a ride back with
the two security guys required to drive to the LF, check it out., and reset the security
systems in use. It was a very common sort of breach, and was for that reason removed
from the attentions of the capsule crew, unlike actual missile failures that the capsule
crew was necessarily in charge of. In all of Figel's and my father's statements regarding
Echo Flight, one feature common to both is that they were in complete communications
with security and maintenance at all times, and were directing both as required.
Meiwald's story is very different, in that neither he nor Salas were directing the efforts
undertaken and were not once in direct and open communications with the outgoing
teams. In the place of this, however, Meiwald's story asserts that the outgoing teams
were in communication with the Command Post alone. Topside security informed the
capsule crew what was happening, and topside security was directing the two security
personnel outgoing. In addition, had there been missile failures associated with this
event he’s described, the security personnel would have been augmented with
maintenance personnel necessary to determine the status of the missiles, exactly as the
situation at Echo Flight developed. Security cannot manage that tasking without them,
and they were, in fact, required to accompany security by system and command
regulations in effect. There is nothing about this incident he’s described for us that can
be associated with anything Salas and Hastings have been trying to claim. He has no
date for the incident either, so it certainly can’t be associated by any type of timetable.
He doesn't recall "personnel injury of any type"; and he doesn't recall "any follow-up
activities by any Wing personnel". He does recall, however, "being at the Oscar LCF",
and is firm about that aspect of the story he's telling.
 It seems a little odd to me that Robert Hastings and Robert Salas have used this
letter to confirm the events that Meiwald clearly states he does not recall, while ignoring
for three years the one aspect of the tale that Meiwald clearly does remember! I am
certain that any analysis conducted as sloppily as this one has been would never be
used to assert their claims if they had anything else to suggest the type of confirmation
that Salas has been claiming for fifteen years. The fact that nobody felt it necessary to
call him on this garbage is not a valid reason to believe that his claims are true. The
only reason this letter was ever released in the first place is due to the complete
absence of anything else from Meiwald that can be used as a confirmation. This is
generally what happens when someone like Salas or Hastings makes open ended
claims that “Meiwald confirms everything,” while failing to be more specific. It is this
kind of dishonest analysis that allows Robert Salas to claim for fifteen years that Colonel
Walt Figel and Captain Eric Carlson have confirmed the presence of UFOs at Echo
Flight, when both men have insisted very clearly that they did nothing of the sort. But
I’m being much too understanding of Salas’ difficulties when I refer to his actions with
such a general adjective as “dishonest” – far too understanding and far too generous.
The truth is very plain: he has been lying about having established confirmations for
the alleged Oscar Flight and Echo Flight UFO incidents for the past fifteen years. He
has no confirmation, and Robert Hastings is very well aware of that. The dishonesty
inherent to Salas’ and Hastings’ UFO claims is so plain and so easily determined that a
child could do it. The fact that Robert Hastings is even attempting to defend this load of
codswallop says far more about him than it does about this case. If this is the quality of
analysis he has applied to all of the cases in his little science fiction novel, it’s no
surprise that his theories have been dismissed so widely by actual journalists. The
intellectual dishonesty alone that he has manifested in his defense of Robert Salas is
reason enough to dismiss his conclusions with prejudice. The fact that they have been
forced to introduce this letter as evidence for a confirmation of a missile failures incident
that Frederick Meiwald has very clearly never established as an actual, historical event
should see them drummed with pipes right out of every UFOlogical organization on the
planet; the fact that this hasn’t occurred doesn’t necessarily fill one with confidence in
the abilities and attention span of such groups, not when they laud such tales of daring-
do, without bothering to measure the value of their claims first.
I have a recommendation for Robert Hastings; if he honestly believes that
Meiwald has confirmed Salas' version of these events, then he should call Meiwald and
get him to make a statement that actually says so — because that's something that
Meiwald has never done. Of course, Hastings probably remembers that in 2008 I
recommended that he do this with Colonel Figel as well, because as things stood at that
time, he had nothing that could be confidently asserted as a confirmation of UFO
interference from Figel either. At that time, Robert Hastings resolved to do just that, and
telephoned Colonel Figel in order to get a firm statement regarding the claims he's been
making for years, and once again, failed completely to do so, preferring to discuss
instead the inability of James Carlson to determine truth. Furthermore, as a result of his
well-studied inability to conduct a decent interview or to get a simple verification of the
outrageous and inaccurate story he has been trying to sell for so long, while failing so
inexorably to do on so many occasions, I was forced to call him myself, at which point
Colonel Figel made it very clear almost immediately what kind of lying, deceitful person
Hastings truly is. Why haven’t the two Bobs been able to get a simple statement from
Meiwald that clearly says “I was there when the 8-10 missiles that Salas says were
taken offline due to a UFO, and I confirm that this is indeed what happened; a man was
injured and had to be evacuated by helicopter, and it took a full day to bring all the
missiles back online”? He has been making these claims for fifteen years, and every
time someone attempts to get a confirmative statement from one of the primary
witnesses he’s discussed, they’ve been unable to do so. Every time someone attempts
to confirm these events with documentation, they either find nothing, or they find
something so strongly suggestive of deceit that the two Bobs are forced to change
some major aspect of their story … once again. How hard is it to get a clearly
confirmative statement from one of these witnesses that they have been discussing for
the past fifteen years? They are all still alive, so why won’t they provide something a
little more specific than Salas’ judgment that “they’ve confirmed everything”? Is it so
hard for them to get that one little statement? Apparently, yes – it is so hard, because
they’ve failed to do so.
 It's unfortunate for Robert Hastings that his grasping nature forces him to rely on
anything at all in the place of nothing, even though nothing would actually help his
cause more. In any case, Meiwald is certainly not a confirmation of this fictitious event.
He doesn't remember anything even resembling this event that the two Bobs have
created, and that's why he apologized to Salas in the letter itself for not being able to
help him out. Of course that didn't stop the Bobs from lying about his place in the
history of this event, so I'm sure that by now he regrets ever hearing of their silly little
cause, just as I and many others do. After all, nobody invites dishonesty, reckless
behavior, and inadequate excuses for poor behavior into their lives, and that's pretty
much all Hastings and Salas represent at this point.

Robert Hastings writes: In other words, Carlson libels Salas countless times—
saying that Bob completely made up the story of his involvement in a UFO-related
missile shutdown just to sell books — but when the other person present for the
Oscar incident, Col. Meiwald, finally goes on the record and says that Salas’
summary of the event is “100%” truthful, Carlson calls Meiwald a liar too. As I
have often said, it is hard to tell whether Carlson is delusional or merely
dishonest.

It's a shame that Hastings has refused to even learn what my assertions are
before so recklessly insisting upon what is so easy for me to disprove. I haven't called
Meiwald a liar. All I had to do was track him down and talk to him — something Robert
Hastings has apparently refused to do. And the fact that I'm the only person here who
is willing to discuss this matter in any detail at all is just more proof that he doesn't have
a case. I'm perfectly willing to tell the world exactly where the two Bobs have lied,
where they've been stupid, and where they've reached invalid conclusions based on
bad information. Robert Hastings, on the other hand, simply tells everyone I'm lying and
that I'm dishonest. Why doesn't he ever tell me exactly what lies I've told, so I can
prove how wrong he is? After all, everything I've stated, and everything I've written is
on the record, and in public; it can be checked for validity anytime by anybody — unlike
Hastings' claims, that tend to change like Salas' every time someone raises a doubt
regarding some aspect of their crazy little folk tale. Hastings' accusations are general
attacks on my character that he's refused to back up, withdraw or specify, making it
impossible to defend against, but also taking away from his own credibility. He's
refused outright to debate this subject on at least three occasions that I know of, just as
he's refused to specify what claims I've made aren't truthful. In fact, his natural
defenses of every counter argument related to this issue are little more than the
defensive maneuvers of a crook — he insists, in the same paranoid tone people like him
are known for, that his enemies are all out to get him. "Everything Carlson says is a
lie." These are the acts of a coward unconfident that his own position can withstand the
slings and arrows of accusative misfortune. The truth is, if he specifies his charges, he
knows very well that I can tear it apart instantly, so he refuses to do so. He relies on
attacks that are general, and for that reason are easily seen through by anybody with an
actual brain to use that hasn't been warped by years of self-abuse. Because of that
reliance, Robert Hastings has become his own worst enemy.

Robert Hastings writes: This pattern of abhorrent behavior is years-old. In the mid-
1990s, when Salas first spoke out and began to write about the UFO incidents at
Malmstrom, Carlson said Salas was lying. Then, when former Minuteman missile
targeting officer Bob Jamison came forward and revealed that he had been
involved in the retargeting of the Oscar missiles after the incident—and that his
team was explicitly told that UFOs had caused their shutdown—Carlson said that
Salas and Jamison were both lying.

Is it so hard for Robert Hastings to get his facts right? Or is this just another
example of Hastings’ many lies, this one intended to attack his critics and somehow
absolve his own standard sins of mediocrity and impulse? In the mid-1990s I didn’t
make any claims at all in relation to this incident. It wasn’t until years later, well after the
millennium had started, that I said anything at all regarding what was claimed by others
and what was invented. And the fact that Robert Hastings can’t even get simple facts
like the dates in his diatribes right doesn’t say a whole lot about his ability to report the
facts accurately, now does it? What it does prove is that Robert Hastings is capable of
inventing testimony for his own benefit, something he’s pretty good at by now, having
had so much practice. To support this conclusion, let’s examine Jamison’s testimony,
because Hastings has not been very forthcoming about that testimony either.

Using good ol' Bob Jamison doesn't give the Bobs much of a confirmation for
their manufactured UFO event either. Jamison, after all, didn't come forward and
confirm missiles failing at Oscar Flight, as Robert Hastings continues to suggest. It's
been well-established that Jamison originally told Robert Hastings he could not
remember the date of the occurrence he was establishing claims for, only that it was
sometime between 1966 and 1967— a two year period. Hastings has himself asserted
that same time-line on numerous occasions in numerous forum discussions in a sad
attempt to sell his ridiculous little musings. In addition, Jamison never said anything
about Oscar Flight until Robert Hastings convinced him – another solution they had to
develop together since neither could do so alone. He said only that he couldn't
remember the location, but it was one of the flights served by Lewistown, which applies
to five or six different flights, Echo Flight and November Flight included. So once again,
Robert Hastings' own claims are working against him. We know this is true, because
Hastings actually bragged about it all over the internet, obviously wanting credit for
coming up with the solution that could save Salas from the mediocrity his own circle of
lies had already established for him and the numerous facts he couldn’t straighten out
on his own. There certainly isn’t anything believable in what Jamison has to say. After
all, he was just answering an advertisement for UFO stories already spelled out by
Robert Hastings before he ever contacted him. These two guys got together in order to
combine their talents and create a solution for Salas’ many credibility problems, and
now they want credit for originality? Sorry, but that’s not going to happen even after the
world stops laughing. It took Hastings and Jamison a good twelve years before they
were able to eventually reach a storyline for Oscar Flight on March 24-25, 1967; and
during most of that time, Robert Hastings was shuffling off from here to there in a
downright frenzy of lost opportunities, because Jamison represented nothing more to
him than another name to add to the list of people he was adding to his book who
couldn’t get their facts straight, couldn’t come up with a believable story, and couldn’t
get the attention of anybody who ever worked at one time or another at Malmstrom AFB
with actual missiles instead of emptying wastepaper baskets for the FAA tower crew.
Here’s a question for Robert Hastings (although I doubt he will ever answer it
honestly, since he’s refused to answer so many of other questions put to him): how
many times did Bob Jamison even mention the words “Oscar Flight” between 1992 and
2004?
There’s a very good reason that information developed in the method Hastings
and Jamison have so transparently exploited for their own gain isn’t allowed in court
cases to establish points of fact; it’s called “undue influence of a prejudicial nature” and
it will be ruled against every time it’s attempted. You are not allowed to create
testimony of fact on the basis of combining witness solutions after the fact, because
doing so tends to result in testimony fixed for a specific purpose, and that’s exactly what
Hastings and Jamison are trying to do: create testimony intended to solve Robert
Salas’ timetable problems. And if you go by what Jamison claimed before the undue
influence represented by Hastings’ input and interpretations have been combined with
Jamison’s willingness to express that eureka! moment that modern psychology tells us
is far more likely to be a result of persuasive co-creation that a genuine, new memory,
you end up with far less useful information, and far more opportunities for Robert
Hastings to paint Jamison’s testimony in whatever colors he wants. This garbage
doesn’t qualify as “evidence”; it’s very clearly a group effort intended to rescue Robert
Salas from the numerous problems his March 16, 1967 lies had already wrapped his
UFO hoax in well before Jamison’s testimony was re-discovered by Hastings in the new
light of a new location. Jamison did nothing but introduce to the world a poorly wrought
reason for Salas to stop ignoring Meiwald, and plant his case at Oscar Flight as
Meiwald had insisted three years earlier. And the fact that Robert Hastings now wants
to reestablish this nonsense at Oscar Flight on the basis of the nothing that Jamison
actually came forward to discuss in 1992 is just one more reason for us to place this
whole story in the crapper where it belongs.
There’s just no other word other than lies for the unregulated yet systematic
invention that Salas and Hastings have perpetrated on the American public. They are
not making mistakes, and they are not misinterpreting the evidence, and they are not
reevaluating the testimony offered up by Bob Jamison in 1992. They are lying to you on
a scale unprecedented in either American jurisprudence or any other social-slash-
professional division you might want to recognize – lying, and nothing else. It is
invention on a scale this country has not seen since the Book of Mormon was first
conceived. And when one of the two Bobs starts referring to himself as a prophet, you’ll
be able to go home and say to your kids, “yep, that Carlson is an astute man.”
It also doesn't help that the description Jamison has presented is very different
from what we already know happened in March 1967 as a result of both newspaper
articles and the UFO investigation conducted in accordance with USAF regulations on
March 24-25. Robert Hastings might want to read up on the subject someday, because
once again, he is apparently relying on (or creating) bad information. Jamison's story
could almost be considered irrelevant, since there are numerous aspects to it that
simply don't match the already confirmed testimony regarding the events of March 24-
25, 1967. The fact that the details enabling Hastings and Jamison to narrow down the
time frame of Jamison’s account so severely only appeared after subsequent interviews
strongly suggests that Robert Hastings — never one to examine details the first time he
encounters them — convinced Jamison of the date and location, not the other way
around as testimony is normally required to function. When witness testimony is
adjusted by the witness in order to fit into a hypothesis suggested by the interviewer,
that testimony is suspect — always. That’s why doing so in a forensic context is more
than enough reason to dismiss charges. It's a credibility issue that Hastings tends to
ignore. And when the elements of a case are adjusted so dramatically, as Jamison's
testimony has been, that testimony is more often than not a response to a third party
suggestion. In other words, the big eureka! moment during which Jamison could
effectively turn “one of the flights closest to Lewistown sometime between 1966 and
1967” into “Oscar Flight on March 24, 1967” was not the result of a vision quest from
God, but was the result of a suggestion from Robert Hastings, exactly as Hastings
reported in his now famous NICAP article that gave Salas the opportunity to exit
completely from the dozens of lies he had told that put him in such a bad place by the
time the year 2000 had rolled around. For God’s sake, Hastings was so proud of
himself that he was bouncing all over the internet telling the whole world what a great
new thing he had finally discovered hidden in the previously “throw away” testimony
presented by Bob Jamison nearly ten years earlier. And we’re supposed to dance,
because he took a little bit of nothing and put a bright new shining date and location on
it and hung it around the neck of Robert Salas like an Olympic gold medal? No, thanks,
Robert. Common sense should tell you that if you take a pile of steaming crap and
paint it gold, it’s still just crap – all you’ve done is add a little color to it before the rest of
the world decides to flush it away with the potato peels and the onion skins.

Robert Hastings is obviously coaching witnesses in order to create testimony that

fits his agenda, at the cost of his witness' credibility. How else does testimony affirmed
for a two-year stretch turn into testimony affirmed for a specific date? How does
testimony offered in relation to five or so different locations turn into testimony at Oscar
Flight? This is a ludicrous situation, and he wants to turn it into the surprise witness
segment of Perry Mason, for God’s sake. But use your common sense, and look at the
bad habits he’s got and the methods he’s used in the past to make a point that doesn’t
exist. You’ll figure it out eventually, because he hasn’t actually done anything new in
decades. He just paints it gold, loads it with cheap whistlers and noise pops and tosses
it up for everyone to look at, and go oooohhhh!! and aaaahhhh!! and hear the fireworks
crack and blow so loud they forget to look down where he’s busy loading up another
whistler. But as soon as you start looking for something solid to look at, some testimony
that doesn’t keep changing, or something that can actually be documented, you realize
pretty quickly that there is just nothing there, and that Robert Hastings has once again
created something intangible that just whispers away in the wind, because there’s
nothing in it that’s real. Robert Hastings is introducing witness testimony that matches
Robert Hastings' agenda. And none of it has the real weight and the body and the
measured assessment of motion that real events have. Real events don’t disappear
when one man walks out of the room – but everything Robert Hastings is trying to
substantiate not only disappears from the absence of real life and measureable data, it
literally floats away from the world and out of our ken as a result of its weightless nature
and the fact that it has no grounding in real life. It’s not due to antigravity devices
developed around the lifespan of another sun; it’s due to the fact that he’s pulling things
out of the thin air and calling them real – and they are not. If the events that his
witnesses appear to affirm were actually real, the thunderous confirmation of it would
have been noticed by every American who has ever served in the military since 1950.
But instead of this, he’s pulling out people like Bob Jamison, a man he basically ignored
(with good reason) for almost ten years before deciding he could do something with that
testimony to help Robert Salas out of the mess he was in.
Most of the witnesses that Robert Hastings has uncovered over the past 35
years responded to advertisements that he seeded USAF bases with; he basically told
them exactly what he was looking for before anybody actually testified to anything. Is
there any type of evidence anywhere on this planet that is more tainted? His evidence
is the equivalent of police arranging a lineup of individuals for a witness to identify, and
then telling the witness beforehand that "by the way, we've arrested number 3 in the
lineup, and we're pretty sure he's guilty, but we want you to pick out the guy you saw
commit the crime – you know, number 3 in the line-up." Any judge in the country would
immediately dismiss an identification of this sort; and we can safely do the same with
Jamison's testimony, because none of it can be verified, and most of it is so contrary to
what dozens of other confirmed witnesses remember that it easily qualifies as a
ridiculous and somehow sad-hearted aberration.
More importantly, the fact that Bob Jamison himself has nothing to report except
second-hand rumors of UFOs and some military procedures that are both questionable
and unverified pretty well sets his testimony exactly where it belongs: with all of the
other rumors that Robert Hastings has collected over the years. Clearly, Jamison’s
testimony is so tainted by the interference of Robert Hastings that it can not only be
dismissed – it should be dismissed, on moral grounds.

Does anybody else see a pattern developing here? None of Hastings' witnesses
saw anything or heard anything that didn’t actually originate with someone else; and
these individuals – these someone elses that can’t be named or otherwise described –
not only haven’t come forward, their very existence can’t even be confirmed. And that
means, both by definition and by the use of the common sense that both Robert
Hastings and Robert Salas seem to have abandoned at some point over the years, that
their witnesses are unable to accurately testify to anything. You combine this
conclusion with substantiated proof that the events Robert Salas has described did not
occur on March 24-25, 1967, and the odds that Bob Jamison is presenting an accurate
picture of events for March 24-25, 1967 drops to nothing. Zero. The accounts that both
men have offered now depend on each other for verification. If you disprove one, the
other falls as well. And I don’t intend to offend anyone here, but REAL LIFE DOES
NOT WORK THAT WAY. Confirmative evidence does not hinge on the facts that it
allegedly confirms. That’s one of the ways that we use to determine whether a story is
being manufactured or not. And in this case, Robert Hastings has failed the test of real
life He didn’t go looking for an event that would confirm Bob Jamison’s silly little story;
he gave Robert Salas the means to recreate his own, even though none of it can be
confirmed on its own merits. The nonsense of it is pervasive. This isn’t simply an
offense against the value of evidentiary fact in modern day America, it’s an offense
against common sense itself, and the odd little curiosity that there may be a few dozen
people out there who actually believe any of it would probably be affirmed as a
validated, biblical sign of the End Times if we didn’t already know how much wishful
thinking can oftentimes account for human belief.

But we can do so much better than that. After all, Jamison's story is so very
easily shown to be absurd. We're supposed to believe that the command he worked for
had insisted that no personnel at Malmstrom AFB respond to a nuclear missile failure
incident until all reports of UFOs had ceased, even though the location of the duty they
were tasked with was over a hundred miles from any reports of UFOs anywhere on the
alleged date, and not one person in the entire country is willing to confirm this command
decision. I've made this argument before; the only UFOs reported on March 24-25,
1967 were within a fifteen mile radius of the Malmstrom AFB administrative areas, well
over a hundred miles from Oscar Flight, or indeed any of the eastern flights served from
Lewistown. More importantly (and this is really, REALLY important), there has never
been a commander anywhere in the United States who would be willing to withhold
maintenance personnel required to determine the actual status of a nuclear missile that
had been unexplainably taken offline simply because UFOs were being reported a
hundred miles away. If anything, they would have provided Jamison with a much faster
and far more dependable means of getting there. It's an embarrassingly stupid
conclusion for Robert Hastings to reach, and amazingly laughable that he would
consider Jamison to be a credible witness on the basis of it. We’re talking about a
nuclear missile in a silo that’s been mysteriously removed from the control of those
USAF personnel 60-feet underground in the capsule who now have no idea what the
status of the missile is, whether or not it can be fired remotely from another location, or
even if it is still capable of establishing a target. The urgent need to determine that
missile’s current status overrides every other concern. Does anybody really think the
USAF would put that urgent need on hold for a few hours as a result of UFO reports
more than a hundred miles away that not only hadn’t been confirmed, but hadn’t even
been investigated? People don’t need to take my word for it – they can go to any of the
missileer community websites on the internet and ask the missileers themselves.
Those guys are more than willing to tell you how stupid, nonsensical, and absent of fact
the story that Robert Hastings and Robert Salas are trying to sell actually is. And the
fact the Hastings and Salas are completely unable to offer a detailed account that
includes the motivation for the acts asserted in the environment that’s been defined
supports that interpretation alone.

Another amusing factor to their case is the groupthink character considered in

relation to the criticisms raised above. When I pointed out how silly this testimony was
as a result of the distance between the duty Jamison affirms and the sightings of UFOs
reported, Jamison immediately changed his story, insisting that the UFO reports that
prevented the command from sending out maintenance teams in response to missile
failures were located around the Lewistown area, not the Malmstrom AFB administrative
center. Of course, there are problems with that story as well: no UFOs were reported
by anybody in the Lewistown area. And that absence of UFO reports suggests that
Jamison is lying in order to make his story seem more believable (as if that would help).
Considering his past record of accomplishments, it’s a little hard not to suspect that
Robert Hastings had something to do with this little change in Jamison’s story. After all,
issue management is supposed to be his forté.
 Equally intriguing in relation to these alleged UFO reports over Lewistown, is the
fact that scores of people were outside all over the state looking for UFOs as a result of
radio news updates. This fact was mentioned to Lt. Col. Chase by the sheriff of Belt,
Montana during his investigation of a UFO reported to have descended into a ravine on
the evening of March 24, 1967. Oddly enough, it was this incident that apparently
convinced Robert Hastings that the incident originally reported to him by Bob Jamison
occurred on March 24-25, at Oscar Flight, 120 or so miles away. As a result, the same
techniques of continuous readjustment to the witness statements they are both the
author and the recipient of have now been applied by Bob Jamison as well. I for one
am not surprised by this behavior. It is typical of the personalities I have been forced
into contact with simply to tell a true story without the embellishment others have relied
upon. In any case, there were dozens of men and women outside that evening,
consciously and intently searching the skies for UFO activity, but not one report of a
UFO was made in relation to the Lewistown area. It appears that even when Hastings'
witnesses adjust their stories to the criticism they receive, a fairly accurate means of
determining falsity, in my opinion, they are still unable to affirm anything at all credible.
Jamison's testimony provides us with nothing at all useful, excepting as an indicator of
the extent of either Robert Hastings' duplicity, or Robert Hastings' stupidity — nothing
more. But you have to expect that sort of thing when you advertise for UFO accounts
on the internet. There are a lot of cranks out there who are more than willing to make
overtures to the source of such ads simply to see how much they can get away with,
making Hastings either the author or the recipient of a hoax. Personally, I think he's the
author, that conclusion having been reached as a result of everything else this case
provides, although I do recognize the possibility that Hastings may be both deceitful and
remarkably stupid.

Jamison's story is absurd, and anybody who has served in the military (clowns
like Lehmberg with an ax to grind discounted, of course) and reads these stories that
the two Bobs created will almost immediately realize that it amounts to little more than
noise. There's no need for anybody to take my word for it, because it's easy enough to
prove. Simply go to any of the missileer community websites and start asking those
individuals any of the many questions that Hastings and Salas refuse to answer. For
the most part they will laugh, although many of the site moderators will likely respond
with a little more disgust, as they've encountered Hastings on many occasions already.
If you encounter some anger, therefore, don't worry about it — just ask them politely
what the reason is; they may prefer to answer your questions in private. Moderators at
the missileer websites have often been forced to kick Robert Hastings off of their forums
and bandwidth; reasons include spamming his book, refusal to answer questions and
making up stories that he's failed to substantiate with facts. Many forum discussions on
UFO related websites tend to accept his manipulations with few questions, so an
examination of his claims on such sites may give the impression that his assertions
carry more weight than the actual subjects of his lies are willing to affirm. This is natural
for any community that has already acknowledged the existence of UFOs. True
believers, in fact, have little reason to even examine his claims, which is why they don’t
— after all, he's validating their already strong beliefs. An actual picture of his true
reputation, however, can be obtained by discussing his claims with the subjects of his
scrutiny: the missileers themselves. These men can discuss the side of the coin that
Salas and Hastings tend to neglect, which is the side of the coin that isn’t paying their
bills. Their very general descriptions fall apart entirely when a detailed examination is
conducted by those possessed of the experiential knowledge necessary to do so
properly in a context that Robert Hastings, at least, can only allude to. And those men
and women are not inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt typical of those surfing
through UFO-oriented websites. Actual missileers demand actual and convincing
evidence, something the two Bobs have always been unable to deliver. When the
community they claim to represent dumps their assertions as fictional nonsense, their
credibility, or lack thereof, comes into very sharp focus, something Hastings and Salas
are completely unable to provide for their own claims. It also doesn't help that Hastings’
and Salas’ supporting witnesses tend to update their claims whenever Robert Salas
changes his little UFO story; actual missileers look at defining characteristics like that
and assume that those pressing the case are doing so on tenets of faith alone – and
they don’t have a whole lot of belief in UFOs, let alone faith.
Robert Hastings writes: Then, when former Minuteman missile maintenance team
member Hank Barlow came forward and said that he had been involved in
restarting the missiles at Echo Flight (where Carlson’s father was when the
ICBMs all failed) and that he had been told that UFOs caused the malfunctions,
James Carlson said that Barlow was lying too, in addition to Salas and Jamison.

Yes, I am certain that he's lying, and I did indeed say so, one of the reasons for
which centers around his claim that VRSA (Voice Reporting Signal Assemble) wasn't
working at any of the LFs at Echo Flight, an element that is not only easy to counter, but
also contradicts other witnesses Hastings has introduced, and every FOIA document
ever released. Nothing supports his testimony as VRSA was demonstrably working and
reporting just fine. That status, in fact, has been exceedingly well-documented since
1967, whereas none of Barlow's claims have ever been verified by anybody, including
everyone who was actually at Echo Flight on March 16, 1967 and can prove it. The
only phenomenon that we're observing here is Robert Hastings' inability to vet his own
witnesses. And the fact that Hastings continues to rely on testimony that can be
immediately dismissed, says more about his desperation to float his claims than
anything else. As for his apparent willingness to invest Barlow's story with any
credibility at all, it is stage-worthy hilarious.
Barlow even asserts that UFOs were seen by everybody all the time, and were
always taking down missiles — Malmstrom AFB was a regular alien holiday locale,
according to Barlow, but nobody who has ever served at Malmstrom AFB would
consider it more than a joke that Robert Hastings either fell for, or has decided to assist
the propagation of. As a result, his repetitive claims on the basis of garbage like this
say nothing about the actual conditions at Malmstrom AFB in 1967. If one man comes
forward and says the electromagnetic character on the base caused firelight to "bend"
whenever the temperature dropped below freezing, so that lit candlewicks burned up
the wick, while the flame burned horizontal, but a thousand men came forward and said,
"this guy's obviously high — nothing like that ever happened, and candles burn
normally," would you believe the one guy making the outrageous claims simply because
it justifies your childlike fear of burning candles? Of course, not, but that's essentially
what Robert Hastings is insisting upon. We're supposed to believe the outrageous
claims of a few people he found who are willing to tell the stories he wants them to tell,
all dressed up and pretty with claims and characteristics that can be instantly dismissed
by anybody who actually has some knowledge of the events, even when the literally
hundreds of everybody else who was at Malmstrom AFB at the time are perfectly willing
to tell you how stupid the very thought of it is. And his only response is equally
ludicrous: everybody else is lying because the USAF is covering up the fact that UFOs
shut down dozens of missiles in March 1967. And yet, the USAF nonetheless
completely declassified everything about those missile shutdowns decades ago. This is
not only a very clearly open and shut case, it's an open and shut case that was opened
and shut a long, long, long time ago. More importantly, we can actually prove this is the
case, because most of the "facts" that Robert Hastings and Robert Salas have
discussed regarding this little piece of crap story they've unloaded on the American
public are demonstrably untrue. The fact that their witnesses keep changing the stories
they tell, are completely unable to show any documented evidence to support their
claims, and tell a disorganized story that everybody else asserts is complete nonsense
should clue the rest of the world in a bit.
Hank Barlow's story is absurd — it’s an absolute mess of an accounting with
numerous details that are provably false, contradict other witnesses Hastings has also
introduced, can't possibly be verified or objectively confirmed, and are intrinsically
useless as anything more than a nice bedtime story for children — oh, wait, let me take
that back; the lack of any organized plot structure or character development guarantees
that it doesn't even make a decent story for kids. And Hastings expects the world to
accept these baseless, incoherent claims as evidence of UFO interference on a USAF
base? Frankly, I'd prefer someone to come forward and explain why all of these
witnesses that we're supposed to put so much faith in only started telling their senseless
little tugs on God's earlobe after Robert Hastings posted a few dozen advertisements on
the friggin' internet asking specifically for the stories they are now telling him, allowing
him thereby to chronicle their claims in that colorful codswallop of a science fiction novel
that he gets so red in the face and irate over when those capable of insightful
observations on a socially relevant level refer to it as a science fiction novel. Do that
one thing for me, Robert, and I'll willingly tell the world that you're capable of at least
one useful function: you can satisfy the mild curiosity raised by your adherence to
those doctrines of faith that are only eclipsed by your own imagination.
The fact that Robert Hastings elbowed himself into the Echo Flight mythos could
have been forgotten entirely had he not provided a raison d'être for Robert Salas,
allowing him as a result to get out of his own bad place. The fact of the matter is that
Robert Salas was completely unable to continue making the assertions he's made
without moving everything he'd been claiming for years completely out of March 16,
1967, and into just about anyplace or any when else. After all, his prior claims had a
few very notable problems, including (and this is already on the record):

(1) as a result of the alleged telephone calls from the commander of Echo
Flight on March 16, 1967, Salas was able to claim that the event he
remembers so well happened on March 16, 1967; the commander of Echo
Flight has always denied making such a call, the truth of which has been
verified by the deputy-commander of Echo Flight as well;

(2) as a result of the alleged telephone calls from an unidentified LCC on

March 16, 1967, Salas was able to claim that the event he remembers so
well happened on March 16, 1967; no commander or deputy commander
of any LCC has ever come forward to confirm this claim, and it was never
even asserted until the commander of Echo Flight went on the record to
deny the assertions made in (1) above;

(3) as a result of the alleged telephone calls from SAC on March 16, 1967,
Salas was able to claim that the event he remembers so well happened on
March 16, 1967; not a single officer from SAC has ever come forward to
confirm this claim, and it was never even asserted until actual missileers
pointed out that both (1) and (2) above would have never occurred in any
circumstances whatsoever, as it was SAC’s job to do so, not another LCC
commander’s;
 (4) as a result of the alleged confirmation authored by Colonel Frederick
Meiwald, Salas was able to claim that a telephone call from the
commander of Echo Flight, or the commander of an unidentified LCC, or
an officer at SAC had confirmed directly to Meiwald that the date of the
event he remembers so well was on March 16, 1967; his commander,
Frederick Meiwald, denies confirming this telephone call, however,
insisting that he doesn’t remember the incident discussed by Salas;

(5) as a result of the alleged confirmation authored by Colonel Frederick

Meiwald, Salas was able to claim for three years that the event he
remembers so well on March 16, 1967, occurred at November Flight,
another blatant lie, since he was also in possession since 1996 of a letter
from Meiwald asserting that they were at Oscar Flight; Meiwald has never
claimed an incident at November Flight, and yet he was the confirming
resource Salas has repeatedly relied on to assert these claims;

(6) as a result of Robert Hastings' claims, Salas was able to explain the time-
scale problems above by dumping all of the confirmations he had used
since 1996, claiming instead that the event he remembers so well
happened on March 24-25, 1967, a date, oddly enough, that Meiwald
again (allegedly) confirmed for Salas, albeit years later, during which time,
he also insisted that he couldn’t remember the event Salas has discussed.

Doesn't anybody find it a little odd that Salas and Hastings have changed their
claims and their stories on numerous occasions, and yet have always used the same
three witnesses to confirm their claims? Evidently Meiwald, Figel, and Carlson have, as
a result of the telephone calls above, confirmed both November Flight, and Oscar Flight
at one time or another. Equally surprising, Meiwald, Figel, and Carlson, as a result of
the telephone calls above, appear to have confirmed both March 16, 1967 and March
24, 1967 as the date of the event Salas has addressed. How exactly does Salas
establish an event during which Meiwald, Figel, and Carlson, at one time or another,
have confirmed both calling Meiwald at November Flight to establish date and location,
and not finding it necessary to call anybody at November Flight or Oscar Flight? If an
infant looked at this story from beginning to end and threw up on his Mom’s shoulder,
people wouldn’t respond by saying “oh, poor baby, he’s got gas,” or “he must be coming
down with something.” They would say, “damn, that’s a smart kid,” because it’s so
freaking obvious, and represents such a probable response from anybody else.

Tell me, is this what qualifies as credible testimony these days? Of course not —
this is what qualifies as troubleshooting, and nothing more. It's just an adjustment to
criticisms and fallacies spelled out by others. Robert Hastings' contributions allowed
Robert Salas to escape from the hole he dug for himself over the years — nothing
more. Once Salas decided that he could move everything in his story to Oscar Flight on
March 24-25, 1967, he was effectively isolating himself from all documented evidence,
hanging out like a sheet in the breeze with the new found freedom to say whatever he
wants, to make claims as ridiculous as he chooses, and to bring in whatever cast of
fictional characters he feels is necessary to define the moment through, because
Meiwald doesn't remember it, and nobody who actually saw something has ever come
forward to champion his lies. The problem is a typical one for Hastings and Salas:
there is nothing about this matter that is credible. It's just a collection of one wasted
breath after another.
When Hastings came out of la-la land to say that Barlow's and Jamison's stories
reflect very real events on March 24-25, 1967, when they very clearly do nothing of the
sort, Salas got his breather. It doesn't make the story true, however, and it sure as Hell
doesn't invest any of the Bobs' claims with any added credibility, and I'm not the only
one to make that observation. Every missileer community I have ever gone to for
information has responded in the same way, and all of them insist as well that Hastings
and Salas are liars seeking to make claims that cannot be supported. All of them have
observed as well that the "witnesses" Robert Hastings has lined up are jokes who have
either successfully conned both of them, or have decided to publicize these lies for their
own selfish motives. And the fact that they had to go to Robert Hastings in order to do
so is not considered very surprising by anybody; Hell, that’s a service he provides at no
added cost. People can just chalk it up to the standard level of bullshit that comes
along with the territory; it’s just UFOs, so who really cares?
I’ll tell you who cares: the decent people who have had their reputations, honor,
and entire military careers dragged through the sullied mire of Hastings’ and Salas’ mad
dog publicity mill of grays on the brain, alien invasion scenarios, nonsense, ridicule,
sensationalism, and lies.
And in some cases their families aren’t too thrilled about it either.

Robert Hastings writes: Then, when the former Officer-in-Charge of Malmstrom’s

Communication Center in 1967, retired Lt. Col. Dwynne Arneson, came forward
and said that he had once read a classified message about a UFO hovering over a
missile silo moments before an entire flight of 10 simultaneously failed, Carlson
said that Arneson was also lying—in addition to Salas, Jamison and Barlow.

I really love this guy; Arneson just screams credibility. Let me tell you a story
about him, and every word of it is true and easily verified: I didn't need to call Arneson a
liar, because Arneson made himself irrelevant when he told Robert Hastings in
reference to that classified message about a UFO hovering over a missile silo moments
before an entire flight of 10 simultaneously failed: "I cannot quote the date, where it
came from, where it was going to, but I do recall reading it and seeing it." Never mind
that there's no confirmation for anything he’s told Hastings, the testimony itself is
useless — he doesn't even have an indication of what classification or precedence
could be associated with that pathetic little message. It's just noise; once again (do you
see the pattern yet?), Robert Hastings has taken generalized, unconfirmed, single
witness accounts that only barely meet the definition of testimony, let alone evidence,
and turned it into a specific, poorly examined incident of a single place and time. It's
uncanny how he assigns credibility to any of this, when none of it can be depended on.
This pathetic, non-event that he's using can't even be assigned a location, since
Arneson also insists "I was in charge of the Communication Center, the Twentieth Air
Division at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Montana," even though the 20th AD has never,
in the entire history of this nation, had offices at Malmstrom AFB. This testimony is
clearly insignificant and worthless. It can't even be confirmed at the message level,
since neither Hastings, nor Arneson can "quote the date, where it came from, where it
was going to". This is useful? Hell, no — it's crap, just like all of Hastings witnesses. In
the absence of date, originator, and addressee, which is what Arneson is describing,
such a message could easily have been sent INFO only, in which case it could refer to
literally any USAF command in the entire world. If this is the average value of Hastings'
testimonial evidence throughout his book, I think it's safe to say that he's wasted his life
collecting it all.
And yet, Robert Hastings nonetheless expects people to believe that this
message nobody has ever confirmed from an unknown command going to an unknown
addressee on an unknown date observed in an office that has never existed is a
reference to Echo Flight on March 16, 1967. Please note that in addition to all of the
garbage above that Arneson has "sworn" to, he also asserts that this imaginary
message "said that the crew going on duty and the crew coming off duty all saw the
UFO just hovering in mid-air." This indicates that the oncoming crew saw it when they
were going in, apparently floating over Echo 1, and the off-going crew, an hour later saw
it as well, still floating over Echo 1, and not one person in the entire USAF did anything
at all in response to what would be a daylight UFO sighting over the Echo 1 nuclear
missile facility just hovering there for over an hour. And since the turnover between
crews at Echo Flight on March 16, 1967 didn't take place until about three hours after
the missiles went down, Robert Hastings is apparently insisting that the alleged UFO
shut down the missiles and then hung around for about four hours, during which time
nobody responded in any way, shape, or form except by conducting an otherwise
normal watch turnover. This idiocy is typical of Robert Hastings’ claims. There's
nothing there to analyze or examine, so he creates it. It's ludicrous, and he should be
laughed right off of the internet and off of the airwaves as a bad joke.
I don't need to call Arneson a liar — all I need to do is tell everyone what he said,
and the natural response is always going to be the same: Hastings is a complete fool if
he actually believes this crap. Is it so difficult for him to remember that neither my
father, nor Colonel Figel, nor Don Crawford, the oncoming deputy commander, nor
anybody else with an actual name saw anything at all? And either Hastings or Salas
has supposedly interviewed all three men! The only question worth asking is common
to a lot of other "witnesses" Hastings has presented: why does he believe a story this
ridiculous and irrelevant has anything at all to do with Echo Flight? He's proven again,
quite handily, that he doesn't give a damn for details, and lacks completely any ability to
analyze an incident properly, or even conduct an informative interview. He just jumps
when people say "UFO" and expects the world to jump in time with him. Well, count me
out — I'm not into fairy tales and nonsense and Peter Pan saying we can all fly if we just
have good thoughts and sprinkle a little Tinkerbelle dust over our heads. The bottom
line is much simpler and a whole lot easier to remember: none of us can fly, and if we
jump off of a tall building to prove the point, that truth is very easily determined in the
broken body we'll leave in the street below.

Robert Hastings writes: Then, when it became known that Boeing engineer Robert
Kaminski had once written to researcher Jim Klotz, saying that no prosaic cause
for the Echo Flight incident could be found, once he had conducted his
investigation of it, and that other Boeing employees had told him about reports of
UFOs being present at the time of the shutdown, Carlson said that Kaminski was
lying as well—in addition to Salas, Jamison, Barlow and Arneson.

Let's take a closer look at Kaminski's work with the same searing eye for detail
that Hastings has never once applied, and figure out why I can say with such great
confidence that Kaminski was lying, had little memory of the actual events in 1967, or,
more probably, was suffering from some psychosis that prevented him from discussing
those events honestly. I find it interesting, for instance, that both Robert Hastings and
Robert Kaminski insist that the cover-up of UFO involvement at Echo Flight started
when Don Peterson, one of Kaminski's military liaisons, told him some months after his
own role in the Echo Flight investigation had already ended that the USAF was going to
blame the capsule crew for the missile failures. Now I'm going to explain why that
commentary proves either lying or psychosis: the Echo Flight investigation team that
Robert Kaminski was allegedly a member of evaluated the capsule crew the first week
of their investigation, and they documented repeatedly afterwards that they had proven
sufficiently for Department of Defense purposes that the capsule crew was NOT to
blame. So explain, please, how exactly do you start a cover-up of anything, by making
claims that have already been discounted by your own participation, documented by
your own team, and recognized as acceptable fact by everybody months before any
decision to initiate a cover-up would have been made? The whole series of
suppositions that Hastings uses to reach this conclusion is nothing but vivid absurdity,
and is well-deserving of the disgust in his methods that I’ve responded with. And
Robert Hastings is well aware of the facts he’s refused to take into account, because
the contemporary documentation discussing this aspect of the investigation’s
conclusions was declassified decades ago, and has been available to anyone willing to
conduct the research. More importantly, I have pointed this out to Hastings on many
occasions, and he has decided to ignore the information completely. One can hardly
blame him; after all, he isn't trying to uncover the truth, he’s trying to support his claims
that a UFO was involved, when it clearly was not. If his research was intended to
determine what actually happened on March 16, 1967, it would be a bit difficult to fault
him for it, since it would show only that Robert Hastings is mistaken, and is not the
manipulative and dishonest personality his mind actually represents. You can't be
angry with people who lack the intelligence to reach their goals; you can only feel sorry
for them and try to present the information you possess that disproves their claims in as
simple a manner as possible, hoping that someday, preferably sooner than later, they'll
find that eureka! moment within, and gain some understanding of the event thereby.
But that isn’t really the definition of what we’re looking at here, and this single chapter of
Kaminski and the Case of the Missing UFO gets so much more intriguing the deeper
into it we look.
Almost every detail of Robert Kaminski's statements in the letter Hastings refers
to above is demonstrably wrong. First, Kaminski claims that "There were no significant
failures, engineering data or findings that would explain how ten missiles were knocked
off alert." Even the command history states that a similar event had occurred at Alpha
Flight in December 1966, and this failure convinced the investigative team that the
incident was a Wing I unique event. This is why no tests were ever conducted at
OOAMA: "OOAMA decided to send a task group to Malmstrom for study of the incident
at Echo Flight because the problem pertained peculiarly to Wing I. It was also decided
to make the studies and tests there because OOAMA was not equipped with Wing I
equipment." All of this was apparently forgotten by Kaminski — convenient for Hastings
really, although not necessary. Hastings, after all, is quite prepared to lie about this
matter, as we've discussed in some detail above. No significant failures? It's obvious
that the "significant failure" at Alpha Flight played an important role during the initial
troubleshooting of the event — troubleshooting conducted by Kaminski's own team! So
is he lying, delusional, or senile? Hell, I don't care — pick one. They all suggest the
same thing: Kaminski didn’t know what he was talking about when he wrote that letter.
Kaminski's belief that "engineering data or findings that would explain how ten
missiles were knocked off alert" was never affirmed is also incorrect, and we've been
over this numerous times. All of the ICBM histories and command histories that discuss
this incident are very clear that the cause was an electronic noise pulse; in fact, there
are numerous contemporary assertions that make this claim, including one that actually
states the investigative team "proved" that a noise pulse was responsible.
Conclusions? Either Kaminski is lying, or he can't remember what the team he was a
part of actually concluded. Do you need more evidence? That’s fine, because we've
got it. We’re not making any guesses here, and we’re not trying to prove a
presupposed conclusion like Robert Hastings and Robert Salas have been doing.
We’re examining all of the evidence, and not picking out one or two little details to
support our otherwise spurious claims.
Kaminski insists that "The use of backup power systems and other technical
system circuit operational redundancy strongly suggests that this kind of event is
virtually impossible once the system was up and running and on line with other LCF's
and LF's interconnectivity." Virtually impossible? Really? This is also demonstrably
wrong, and this guy is supposed to be an engineer. His statements sure as Hell don’t
satisfy us that he was a very good one, if that was his actual profession of choice. The
backup power systems were failing continuously across all of the Wings, and had been
since 1965. The problem was considered to be so severe that it took years and the
numerous in-depth testing of various components to finally determine what the cause
was and how best to correct it. They eventually discovered that "other technical system
circuit operational redundancy" was insufficient to correct the numerous failures that had
already occurred system-wide. All of this was very well documented, as was the
eventual cause that associated the failures with the contractor's overzealous
employment of microcircuitry advancements before such new technology was
completely understood. Kaminski's assertions are fundamentally wrong in every way;
and again, this has been very well documented for decades. All anybody has to do to
prove Kaminski's failure to report or remember accurately the events of 1967 is conduct
a little standard research that is apparently beyond the skills of Hastings and Salas. It's
been proven, documented, understood and believed for decades that "once the system
was up and running and on line with other LCF's and LF's interconnectivity" every
Minuteman missile armed Wing in the USAF nonetheless continued to experience far
too many failures. This is especially well-documented in the ICBM histories declassified
in 2004, well documented, defined, and in-depth histories that the Bobs have chosen to
ignore.
In any case, I doubt very seriously that Kaminski was ever qualified to utter an
opinion not tainted in some way by his own beliefs regarding UFOs. Before his death,
he insisted that UFOs were tools of Satan intended to convince mankind to reject God:
"The old trickster, Lucifer, has left no stone unturned in this attempt to delude mankind
into accepting that which is not supported by God's Word." He associates the entire
UFO phenomenon with the "many paths to God" teachings typical of new age
personalities or movements, asserting "the importance of protecting your mind from
deceptive awareness and higher level consciousness experiences." He also believed
himself to be a vessel of God at a fateful time in history with a specific mission: "At key
moments in history, God provides extraordinary spiritual insight meant to alert mankind
to destructive forces engulfing His creation. We are now at that threshold in time where
we can either respond to the warning of God's wisdom or be drawn away by the allure
of lying wonders spoken of in Paul's letter to the Thessalonians." Guess what his
spiritual insight revealed in relation to UFOs? Apparently, his extraordinary insight
inspired within him the conviction that while UFOs might exhibit seemingly wondrous
abilities, they are nonetheless lies meant to increase mankind's distance from the truth
of God, and that eventually all such lies would be revealed to mankind, "even he whose
coming is according to the work of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,
and with all deceit of unrighteousness for those who are perishing, because they
received not the love of the truth that they might be saved." That’s why Kaminski
referred to UFOs as “Lying Wonders”. By the time Kaminski wrote that letter that
Robert Hastings puts so much emphasis on, he was a confirmed lunatic who couldn’t
possibly be considered impartial enough – or even mentally balanced enough – to give
a factual, knowledgeable and lucid account of the events central to the Echo Flight
investigation thirty years earlier.
As for the mention in Kaminski’s letter regarding Don Peterson's apparent claims
that "the incident was reported as being a UFO event," it's simply untrue. Active USAF
regulations required every UFO report to be investigated by the command's UFO officer
— and this officer, Lt. Col. Lewis Chase, confirmed repeatedly that he did not
investigate any UFO events in association with Echo Flight. It did not happen. There
were no UFO reports, because nobody ever saw a UFO and reported it. If it had been
reported as a UFO event, it would have been investigated by representatives of the
Foreign Technology Division, and they were never even notified that the incident
occurred. Neither the commander nor the deputy commander at Echo Flight were ever
questioned by any investigative programs regarding anything involving a UFO, and both
men have repeatedly said so. Kaminski's claims are simply incorrect and easily proven
so; he was either lying, he had a deep-seated psychosis that needed treatment, or he
was trying to sell his own UFO book, Lying Wonders, by attaching himself to this event,
much like Robert Hastings and Robert Salas have also done.
Kaminski also claims that no final engineering report was ever submitted; this is
also incorrect and easily shown to be. The actual report is even used as a source of
information throughout the command history and on message traffic; it's titled, "Report
of Engineering Investigation of Echo Flight Incident, Malmstrom AFB, Mont. — 16 Mar
67," and was submitted by Kaminski's team. In fact, there's very little in Kaminski that
can be verified, and much of it is easily proven to be incorrect. Had Hastings cared
enough about the truth, he could have discovered all of this for himself. Unfortunately,
not only is Hastings unconcerned about facts in contrast to fictions, having an easily
determined agenda to publicize, he is also incapable of conducting in-depth research of
any type, preferring his practice of accepting testimony as fact without attempting to
confirm it first. Why bother? After all, Kaminski was making claims that enable
Hastings to sell his book all the more — and besides, Hastings really isn't too concerned
with "confirmation"; his trick in trade is to sell UFOs and frighten people enough so
they’ll believe that there’s a valid connection between UFOs and nuclear missile
facilities. As long as someone is pointing and exclaiming "UFO!" anything else is
insignificant, just broken and confusing details that shouldn't be brooded over, much like
the "insignificant failures" referred to by Kaminski himself.
The bottom line with Robert Hastings has been proven time and again:
credibility doesn’t even need to be looked at. Let others deal with whether or not the
stories he’s collected are true if they want to – with him, it’s all about the numbers,
baby.

Robert Hastings writes: Most recently, when former Sylvania Corporation

Minuteman missile program supervisor Raymond Fowler confirmed that he had
inside information about UFOs shutting down missiles at Malmstrom in 1967 —
something he first wrote about in 1974, in one of his books, and later elaborated
on in a second 1981 book—Carlson said that Fowler was lying, of course—in
addition to Salas, Jamison, Barlow, Arneson and Kaminski.

I guess Robert Hastings hasn't had the opportunity to read Fowler's original
notes of the case; those that Fowler sent to me state pretty clearly that all he had were
a couple of rumors based on what a couple of men who worked with him told him, and
he was completely unable to confirm anything in those accounts. Salas even tried to
track them down later, but the one guy he found admitted that he had no idea what
Salas was talking about, but there certainly weren't any UFOs at Malmstrom AFB in
1967. More to the point, I’ve never accused Raymond Fowler of lying, as Hastings
insists – why would I? His entire testimony is completely absent of any actual UFOs. In
fact, I wrote as part of an article some weeks ago that I consider Raymond Fowler to be
an honest man, and that I believe sincerely that he has not lied about anything; he even
wrote me to say that he appreciated the things I had said about him, making Hastings’
assertion that “Carlson said that Fowler was lying, of course” a lie itself. That’s a little
ironic isn’t it? It’s also pretty stark evidence that Robert Hastings can’t even be trusted
to tell the truth about his own assertions – his whole life is little more than warped
dishonesty, consisting of lies, lies, and lies. In fact, throughout Robert Hastings’
commentary about my supposed lapses, he has told more provable lies regarding what
I have supposedly said and done than any actual packaging of evidence that he’s
capable of presenting. This last ridiculous commentary of his only proves what kind of
pathological liar inhabits his soul, and shows so vividly why he cannot be trusted to
review this or any other case honestly, whether UFOs are involved or not. For God’s
sake, is it that difficult to find out what my claims are before insisting that I’ve lied about
them? Robert Hastings is a pathetic and very deeply disturbed old man who probably
needs psychological counseling. I would put him in touch with my father, who now does
just that, but I suspect Hastings would be unable to apply even the thin veneer of
honesty that most professional psychologists demand of their clients.
As for Fowler, God, where do we start? Hastings’ continuing insistence that
Fowler’s employment as the Sylvania Corporation Minuteman missile program
supervisor at Malmstrom AFB gave him some kind of insight regarding this issue is a
meaningless bit of drivel that has no bearing on this case. When Hastings says Fowler
was privy to “inside information,” he’s just selling another lie, spreading more
disinformation regarding an incident he has refused to discuss with any honesty for
years. Fowler had no “inside information”; he was a Sylvania employee who got
pranked by his own co-workers. The only thing Sylvania was tasked with at Malmstrom
AFB was the 564th Squadron development that took place over 200 miles west of Echo
Flight, a fact that Hastings would know, if he had done any real research at all, instead
of relying on the same silly crap his book is so full of. Sylvania worked on the
deployment of Minuteman II missiles; and the 564th was the only squadron at
Malmstrom AFB equipped to handle Minuteman II’s. As a result of his employment,
therefore, Fowler’s security clearance was insufficient to examine the incident reports
about Echo Flight or anything at all having to do with the investigation of Echo Flight.
He knew next to nothing about the subject. He didn’t even know the date, and insisted
for years that the Echo Flight incident occurred on March 24-25, 1967 instead of March
16, 1967, and the only reason he’s ever given for this assumption is the fact that there
were actually UFO reports that were made on March 24-25 – there were none on March
16, which is the actual date of the Echo Flight Incident. That’s why he assumed the
date was a week later. All Fowler did was assign an incorrect date to the event due to
his own apparently incorruptible belief that a UFO was involved, which is no better than
a guess. Hell, you can’t even call it an educated guess, because he didn’t possess any
actual information. If Robert Hastings was capable of conducting a balanced
investigation of this case, instead of applying his old and often relied upon rules of
ignore and invent, he could have figured this all out for himself years ago; it’s not like
anybody was trying to hide the information.

As the result of a fairly in-depth examination of the notes that Raymond Fowler
took so much time to write regarding his suspicions about Echo Flight, it's been pretty
well substantiated that Raymond Fowler is the probable author of all the UFO rumors
involving Echo Flight that were so popular in 1967 in the first place. This is a guy who
was very probably pranked by three of the men he worked with, when they told him all
the stuff that he mentions in his notes, men that knew he was involved with UFOs and
NICAP, and likely thought they’d have some fun at his expense. Not having sufficient
clearance to know anything at all on the subject of Echo Flight, the only information he
could have received, even had these three co-workers of his been telling the truth, was
a collection of rumors. Considering Fowler’s apparent fanaticism on the subject of
UFOs, however, a prank is far more likely. In any case, the fact that Fowler thought the
Echo Flight Incident had occurred on March 24-25 instead of the actual date of March
16, tells us that the “single” source referred to by the Foreign Technology Division in its
memorandum to Lt. Col. Chase, the Malmstrom AFB UFO officer, regarding the
“rumors” they had heard involving equipment failures on March 24-25, 1967 was almost
certainly Raymond Fowler himself. Nobody else on the entire planet was aware of the
Echo Flight Incident, believed that UFOs were involved, and believed that the incident
had occurred on March 24 – nobody except Raymond Fowler. In addition, the detailed
notes he took at the time match up almost exactly with the details discussed by FTD in
their memorandum. The odds, therefore, that somebody else was responsible for the
UFO rumors mentioned in the command history is insurmountable, because nobody
else was calling his contacts, revealing classified information to uncleared individuals,
and pretty much doing everything he could get someone interested in Echo Flight as a
UFO incident instead of the electrical malfunction it actually was. Add that to FTD’s
insistence regarding a “single” source, and the conclusion that he was the guy on the
phone is pretty damn definitive, in my opinion. Unfortunately for Fowler’s claims, the
credibility of Robert Hastings and Robert Salas, and their future capability to attract
belief in their lies and disinformation, you can’t start a UFO investigation without a
witness, something Raymond Fowler was never able to provide. That’s why his claims
were considered to be “rumors” by the entire USAF. In the absence of a witness, you
can’t have a UFO report. They even attempted to verify the “rumors” that Fowler kept
bringing up in relation to Echo Flight, by going to the only group of personnel who were
actually outside during the incident – a strike team that was out performing an
inspection of all the November Flight LFs – and asked them if they saw anything at all
that was odd or otherwise airborne. They reported that they noticed nothing strange or
out of place, and as a result of the queries made, it was reported in the command
history: “Rumors of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO) around the area of Echo Flight
during the time of fault were disproven. A Mobile Strike Team, which had checked all
November Flight’s LFs on the morning of 16 March 67, were questioned and stated that
no unusual activity or sightings were observed.” The facts are very easily determined,
as long as you remember a couple of very small details: Robert Hastings and Robert
Salas are lying to you about this event.
One can't help but wonder whether or not Robert Hastings understands what a
"rumor" is; he seems to believe that "rumor" is a synonym for "fact". This is incorrect,
Robert. "Rumors" are those things that happen when you keep calling up the USAF to
notify them in the absence of any evidence whatsoever that UFOs were involved at
Echo Flight. It becomes "rumor" as soon as the USAF confirms that not only were no
UFOs reported on March 16, 1967 — making any such investigation a little difficult to
complete — but none of the personnel confirmed as being outside during this period
saw anything strange at all when they were asked about it. Robert Hastings might
understand the events that actually took place a little better if he would simply read the
documentation and witness assertions available to him as a result of numerous FOIA
requests, especially as the available resources establish pretty strongly that his theories
don't even deserve to be discussed. Where I come from, garbage is sorted for recycling
and is then thrown out. I guess one could recycle the Echo Flight garbage as an
equally unreported incident at November Flight or Oscar Flight, as the two Bobs are
very evidently trying to do, but since their claims encompass both Echo Flight and
November/Oscar Flight, it’s evident that no recycling is taking place, only invention.
The most interesting point regarding Raymond Fowler’s notes – and a detail that
Robert Salas and Robert Hastings both tend to ignore with the intensity they so rarely
apply to anything else – are the little details that Fowler doesn’t discuss. For instance,
among all of the rumors that he was so busily chronicling for future benefit, there’s
absolutely nothing that even suggests an additional full flight failure, whether at
November Flight or Oscar Flight. As my father and Colonel Figel have both stated,
everybody was aware of the incident at Echo Flight. According to my father, the “event
at Echo became what could be referred to as the talk of the town. Everyone knew
about it and many crew members kidded me about it.” The fact that Fowler picked up
on it isn’t surprising at all, but he obviously didn’t know any details, including the date.
However, he also didn’t note anything at all about a similar event at another flight – such
as the one the two Bobs have tried to establish at November Flight or Oscar Flight; not
even a rumor. Pretty much everybody else who was at Malmstrom AFB at that time
agrees that neither of those two postulated incidents ever took place. So once again,
Hastings and Salas are making claims regarding an incident that simply did not happen.

So, let’s sum up a bit, here. Robert Hastings’ only response to the very orderly
and systematic rendition of events that has been detailed above, the only argument he’s
willing to raise, is to say that “Carlson is lying about everything.” And, once again,
Hastings’ lies are easily proven, and obvious to anyone examining his behavior. He
doesn’t have to lie, but he does anyway; it’s the first counter-argument he relies on, and
he always returns to it like a dog to its own sick.
 When the Hell is he going to answer the dozens of questions I’ve put to him in
the past? He’s even promised to do so, but almost a year has gone by and he’s done
nothing except publically lambast me and my family without once providing anything
even approaching valid evidence to support his own claims. I think he’s a sickening
human being and I’ve got numerous reasons for believing that, and all of them are an
effect of his own character-based flaws as a man – and all of them can be supported by
exact and well-measured reasons. What the Hell does Robert Hastings have to say
other than “Carlson’s a liar”?
All of the assertions I’ve spelled out in some detail pretty well prove that Robert
Hastings has no legitimate witnesses, and not a single story that can be confirmed by
anybody as being more than an odd affectation initiated by him to sell more books. The
only witnesses that have come forward to dictate a believable story that has been
consistent for years — my father and Walt Figel — have said repeatedly that Hastings
and Salas are both liars and a con artists trying to perpetrate a hoax. In the absence of
credible testimony, the fictional excesses that the Bobs are currently standing in up to
their knees, proves only one thing: my father and Walt Figel are correct in their
assumption of the two Bobs’ immoral characters. I suspect the Bobs will continue to
express their opinions and perpetrate this UFO hoax, but if they can't come up with any
valid evidence (which they've failed to do thus far), I doubt anybody will remember their
claims. All of the evidence they've got has been shattered; everything else is just glitter
on a macaroni sculpture that they’re attempting to portray as Leonardo da Vinci’s “Last
Supper”. And that’s just not going to do it, whether you’re standing in downtown
Albuquerque or Rome, Italy. People should expect more than noise – and Hastings
and Salas haven’t even declared an appropriate whisper.

Robert Hastings writes: Does anyone see a pattern here? According to James
Carlson, his daddy, Eric, has always told the truth about the incidents at
Malmstrom (no UFOs were involved) but everyone else who disputes that claim is
a liar.
 If there is indeed a pattern here, it's the one that has developed naturally from
Robert Hastings' use of irreconcilable witnesses, witnesses whose claims are
incomplete, unstudied, and lacking in the details necessary for the simplest structure of
belief, and from his own stupidity and inability to analyze a simple commentary. These
witnesses lack any of the necessary qualities required for trust, as do Robert Hastings
and Robert Salas. These men are obviously lying, and the fact that Robert Hastings
seems to trust that the general public is willing to set aside all normal restraints required
to suspend belief for even an instant does not qualify as "proof" of his belief that he is
smarter than the general public, better able to determine quality from garbage than the
general public, and more advanced in the use of critical thinking tools and mental
acrobatics than the general public, none of which is true, a fact easily determined by the
simple analysis of the stories he's presented. Robert Hastings is a liar; he is trying to
con the public into believing stories that are obviously untrue, and have nothing at all to
recommend them. He and Robert Salas are attempting to create a UFO hoax that will
enable them to adopt the heroic personas of concerned Americans in the complete
absence of such reputation and ability, and they are attempting to do so by ruining the
reputations and well-substantiated honor and trustworthiness of better men than they.
And if he were able to take an unbiased and objective mental photograph of the
opinions of Americans across the country, he would realize this instantly as the only
viable explanation for his current reputation as a very poor liar as opposed to a very
good liar.

Robert Hastings writes: At this point, one might easily conclude that James
Carlson is indeed in deep, near-delusional denial. The problem is this: As his post
above confirms, Carlson continues to lie about his father’s deputy commander’s
statements about the Echo Flight incident, claiming that Col. Walt Figel agrees
with the elder Carlson. In reality, Figel has actually confirmed on audio tape that a
UFO was indeed present when the Echo missiles went down. Read my
“Echo/Oscar Witch Hunt” article if you don’t believe me; there are audio links to
Figel’s admissions. Figel’s more recent weasel-worded statements on the subject
change nothing. Once I release the entire audio record of his earlier comments to
me—the actual tapes, not just transcripts—he will have a lot of explaining to do.

All that Robert Hastings has ever done in relation to the hundreds of pages of
criticism heaped upon his story thus far is to continue telling people "just wait until I
release all of the real evidence I've got; then you'll see how everybody else except me
is lying to you; just wait, people of America and the world: I'm telling the truth, and just
as soon as I've collated all of the data I'm currently in possession of, I'll release it, and
then you'll all see the world for what it is — frightening with UFOs all over the place,
going crazy over both our nuclear weapons and our peaceful use of nuclear power
alike."
It's getting a bit old at this point, isn't it? It's been nearly a full YEAR since Robert
Hastings promised to reveal the new interviews with Walt Figel that would prove how
much of a liar James Carlson is; it's been nearly a full YEAR since Hastings first claimed
to be willing to answer any and all questions regarding this case that I've put to him in
numerous internet forums, all of which he has ignored completely in favor of making a
bid for honesty and reputation that he is incapable of establishing; it's been well over a
YEAR since he first started reacting to intimately detailed criticism and documented
proof of his and Salas’ numerous lies with the general accusation of "liar" without once
detailing exactly what those lies purportedly are; and it's been well over a YEAR since
Robert Hastings first intimated a willingness to discuss and debate this issue in a
detailed fashion, aligning his "evidence" against the criticisms and numerous facts
weighed against him, all the while refusing every request from outside publishers,
journalists, and well-known UFO proponents to do so. His infinitely poor attempts to
justify his self-serving acts and to support his own claims amounts to nothing more than
ignoring the massive holes in the case he's presented, all the while pointing a single
finger dramatically at his audience while stating in a low, curt tone, "wait ... just wait."
I for one am getting sick of it — sick of his nonsensical acts and his consistent
refusal to present a valid argument to support his petty claims and extremely well-
substantiated lies. All Robert Hastings has ever represented to this field of study is
another extended excuse to attack those who actually understand the depths of his own
psychosis and dishonesty.

For chrissake, Robert — grow up! If you can prove your case, do so, but this
unappreciated revelation of garbage and waste is far more indicative of your inability to
raise anything at all suggestive of "proof", your habitual reliance on already disproven
assertions from the testimonies of useless old men who have nothing even remotely
interesting to say, and your ill-reasoned reliance on general attacks to counter specific
arguments raised against your claims. Your attempts to float a complex theory on the
backs of simple-minded lies and easily disproven assertions is laughable and shows the
entire world that you are nothing but another worthless UFO profiteer with nothing even
slightly appropriate to the issues that you can lay claim to; you are unable to explain the
numerous, well-documented problems inherent to your case and the claims of your
witnesses, and you in fact refuse to do so most of the time, preferring to watch the
structure of your ideas teeter and fall with each and every fact introduced beneath them.

This threat of Robert Hastings’ that “Once I release the entire audio record of his
earlier comments to me — the actual tapes, not just transcripts — he will have a lot of
explaining to do” is no different from every other defense of his claims that he’s ever
mounted. He keeps saying the same thing: just wait until I’ve mustered my resources.
For God’s sake, it’s like he has no pride at all! He always makes this kind of claim, and
he never produces anything. I’ve called him on it in the past, so it certainly isn’t the first
time he’s made public claims while being unable to actually produce something worth
examining. I presented him with a list of 49 questions regarding the Echo Flight Incident
that requires an intimate knowledge of the already documented details to answer, and
for months he kept saying the same thing: I’ll answer them all, don’t worry – but he’s
produced nothing but noise. I gave up believing that he’d eventually come through with
an answer on Saturday, March 6, 2010, when he sent us an email stating “Three
developments – two of them directly related to the ongoing exchange between James
Carlson and myself – will delay, by up to two weeks, my posting my responses to
James' questions. When I do respond, the information I will provide should leave no
doubt as to who is accurately reporting on the events occurring at Echo Flight, on
March 16, 1967, and who is not." And he hasn’t produced a damn thing since then
except the various remunerations to the few individuals left in this world willing to credit
his opinion that “everything Carlson says is a lie!” He did the same thing when I first
published Colonel Figel's claims, lying without any reason to do so when he insisted that
his and Salas' March 2010 phone call with Figel would prove how wrong my assertions
were and that Figel's actual claims were completely contrary to what was reported. He
promised to supply ample proof then as well, but produced nothing for six months
except libel, finally providing, on the day before his screwed up, pathetic monstrosity of
a press conference, the questionable interview with Figel from 1996. This pathological
lying about the evidence he can produce, the validated statements of witnesses he has
on hand, and the overwhelming proof that's available to him but hasn't yet been
presented is typical of him. It's a shameful display of nothing more than his own hubris,
and the complete absence of a believable story.
If Robert Hastings can't defend his own claims, and it's becoming increasingly
obvious to the entire world that he cannot, than I recommend he pick up his toys and go
home; at this point the only way that he can eke out even a symbolic victory on this field
is to abandon it. Robert Hastings has not presented a case worthy of consideration. His
numerous lies regarding the incidents at Malmstrom AFB in March 1967 — many of
which have been entirely unnecessary even to score an imaginary point — suggest not
only that his claims regarding this single issue cannot be defended, but suggest as well
that not a single case he’s discussed in his book of folk-tales can be relied upon for
credibility's sake. He is, after all, a proven liar, so why should the world trust any of his
claims and stories? Whatever credibility or trustworthiness Robert Hastings may once
have had, his worthless arguments and irreconcilable reliance on numerous lies in the
place of measurable evidence has quite effectively expended it. I personally wouldn't
trust him to give the world an accurate version of his most recent meal, let alone a
believable one.

Robert Hastings writes: As for Tim Herbert’s, ahem, “authoritative” summary of the
missile shutdown incidents, Carlson is dreaming if he thinks that Hebert—who
was not present when the events occurred—can explain them away. I will provide
Hebert with former missile maintenance tech Hank Barlow’s email address—if he
will write to me and ask for it—so that he can learn the facts from someone who
was actually involved in the Echo shutdown aftermath. Again, Barlow says he
was explicitly told that UFOs had caused the malfunctions. (Just as former
targeting team officer Bob Jamison was told that the Oscar missiles had met the
same fate. I will forward Jamison’s email address to Hebert as well.)
As Hebert told me in an email last year, he first became aware of the events
at Malmstrom while writing a post-graduate psychology paper on “delusional
thinking.” (Rather ironic that he should now be supporting James Carlson’s
rants, eh?) Hebert’s remarks made quite clear his own anti-UFO biases. Is it any
wonder he and James Carlson are such pals?

I'm not going to touch this — I'm pretty sure Tim Hebert can take Robert Hastings
apart as efficiently and effectively as I can, and I'm sure he'll enjoy it as much I do. In
fact, I’ll enjoy watching Hastings’ growing insignificance at the hands of another person
just as much as I enjoy being a party to it. After all, a new point of view is always
valuable, regardless of the subject's spiritual and moral ugliness.

I will say one thing: in Robert Hastings’ discussions with Tim Hebert via email
that he alludes to above, Hebert noticed, as did Colonel Walt Figel during his own
interview, that instead of discussing the case and the evidence it presents, Hastings
spent a lot of time talking about me, and what a horribly vile person he thinks I am. This
obsession he has for attacking his critics instead of their arguments has been noted by
many individuals, and it’s equally plain that he does so because it represents the only
thing he can produce. As I've said repeatedly in the past, there would be no argument if
he had a valid case to make. His case, however, is in shambles, and he has essentially
lost. He should learn to live with that, using the same coping skills that adults use.

Robert Hastings writes: Meanwhile, the truth about the UFO-Nukes Connection
continues to spread like a wildfire on the Internet. If one searches the subject,
using the title of the press release announcing my September 27, 2010 press
conference in Washington D.C. (“U.S. Nuclear Weapons Have Been Compromised
by Unidentified Aerial Objects”) one will find up to 4 million results, depending on
which search engine is used. (Googling will yield 1.65 million results.) In addition,
thousands of articles have been written about the dramatic revelations divulged
at the event—by Salas and three other persons who were at Malmstrom in 1966-
67, as well as other former USAF officers who had similar experiences at other
bases in between 1964 and 1980.

Because some people believe what Hastings has to say is not evidence that
what he’s saying is true. One has nothing to do with the other. The same holds true
regarding what people choose to talk about. It’s the equivalent of people discussing
John Wayne Gacy’s claims to being innocent. It doesn’t mean they believe he was
innocent; it was just means he was a topic of conversation. As for Hastings, facts are
facts, and he doesn’t have any to add to this conversation.
Anybody who examines in detail Robert Hastings’ and Robert Salas’ assertions
will immediately recognize the absence of actual evidence that they have presented;
most will conclude, as I have, and as many others have, that their "research" is
worthless, their books are a ridiculous stack of lies and insults, and Robert Hastings in
particular has very effectively wasted the last 34 years or so of his life.
He should get used to being irrelevant.

Robert Hastings writes: So, rest assured, the facts will all come out, sooner or
later, and James Carlson will become nothing more than a historical footnote
once UFO Disclosure has occurred, and a not-very flattering one at that.

Yeah ... "once UFO Disclosure has occurred". That’s a good qualifying
statement; we'll all be waiting for that single moment with bated breath, I'm sure, just as
we’re currently awaiting all of the other incidentals that Robert Hastings has promised,
yet come up short of actually providing. As a result of his own weak arguments, he has
made the fate of his insignificance unavoidable, and we can all continue with some
dignity the process of forgetting that he or his theories ever existed. It’s well past the
time to dismiss in full the claims he’s wasted so much of his life pursuing.

Thank you, Robert. You were amusing for a short time; you are dismissed.