[Following the surprise announcement in mid-May by Roswell Initiative founder Kent Jeffrey that he now believes the 1947 Roswell incident did not involve an alien craft (see CNI News vol. 3, no. 5 of May 16, 1997), Jeffrey's International Roswell Initiative co-founders Joachim Koch and Hans-Juergen Kyborg solicited statements from a large number of UFO researchers and attached them to a memorandum reaffirming the original goals and intent of the initiative process. Their memorandum and a sample of the other statements follow.]
May 1997
B E R L I N M E M O R A N D U M
The International Roswell Intiative is based upon an idea of Joachim Koch and Hans-Juergen Kyborg, who intended to support the research of Mr. Kent Jeffrey [regarding] the so-called Roswell Incident of 1947 after meeting with him in Berlin in 1993.
Our idea was to write a text which should be distributed worldwide and signed by as many people as possible, to make it the most powerful grassroots effort in modern UFO history. We wrote a letter to Mr. Jeffrey and explained our project. Thus, he wrote the "Roswell Declaration" and brought the International Roswell Initiative to life. At that time it seemed to be within reach that an Executive Order could be induced by Congressman Steven Schiff, and the Declaration [would] be a most powerful tool to support this.
By [now] the Roswell Declaration [has] signatures of 20,000-plus people from all over the world. Despite all momentary developments, all 20,000-plus signed Roswell Declarations will be delivered to the White House in early July as Kent Jeffrey promised in a fax dated May 8, 1997.
The Initiative received signed Declarations from people of all ages and professions including two Apollo astronauts. And it seemed that the Roswell Declaration could generate within those who had signed it some kind of trust and hope.
Because of his personal conclusions, Kent Jeffrey marches no longer with us on our way towards the truth about the Roswell Incident, which still remains unsolved. As far as we and other researchers know, no new documents have surfaced. And, according to the testimony of Jesse Marcel, Jr., his hypnosis session in Washington in [January] 1997 brought no new information to what he has remembered and said before about what he saw when in July 1947 his father brought the unusual debris into the kitchen of his home.
So we, the German Coordinators of the Roswell Initiative, feel obliged to all those who have signed the Declaration to show them all that the trust and hope they have invested in the Initiative was and is fully justified.
We, Hans-Juergen Kyborg and Joachim Koch, are born in a city which has suffered a lot in the years after WW II. Especially we Berliners have experienced what it means to have friends whom you can trust and who give you hope for a better future -- and what it means to resist in a united effort.
Bound to these ideals, we, as the German Coordinators and as Berliners, declare publicly that we stay steadfast to the primary goal of the Roswell Initiative: to find out the truth about what happened in New Mexico in 1947, and to continue in our effort to end the policy of secrecy and cover-up [regarding] a fact that has become crystal clear to everyone who has done serious and open-minded research in what is called the UFO phenomenon: that we are not alone in the universe.
We shall withstand all attempts to diminish the power of the International Roswell Initiative. Independent, serious and self-critical researchers have provided piece after piece of an enigmatic puzzle and will continue to do so. And more and more, one certain picture crops out: Roswell WAS SOMETHING ELSE than the crash of a (or some) balloon(s) consisting of mundane material like balsa wood and flower-painted tape.
Shouldn't we all declare that we are Berliners -- again?
If you think that what is written above corresponds to your point of view and you would like support this "Berlin Memorandum," please feel free to do so -- no matter where you are, where you come from and what your education is -- by sending us a few sentences with your current view of Roswell and, if you think so, why it is important to have such efforts as the Roswell Initiative. We would appreciate adding your supporting comments to the many others you can read below. We shall publish the updated "Berlin Memorandum" from now on once a week until July 8, 1997.
Upon our request worldwide, known and respected researchers have sent us spontanuously and immediately in an act of solidarity their views of the current state of Roswell and their opinion about an effort such as the International Roswell Initiative. This is the place to say thank you with all our hearts.
[Following is a sample of statements from researchers. To add your statement, or to receive the latest update of the complete Berlin Memorandum and supporting statements, send email to Joachim Koch: koch@wad.berlin.fido.de]
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From: Walter-Joerg Langbein, Germany
50 years have passed by since the Roswell Incident. No one, no single group, has the right to have information about "UFOs" for its own. There is the central question: are we alone in the universe? Every human being here on this planet has the right to get every information which could help to answer this.... Therefore the Roswell Initiative was and is still of greatest importance.
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From: Stanton Friedman, Canada
As the nuclear physicist who began the civilian investigation of the l947 Roswell Incident in 1978, was the first to locate and talk to many witnesses and as author or co-author of numerous relevant papers and two books, "Crash at Corona" and TOP SECRET/MAJIC, I am absolutely convinced that the evidence is overwhelming that the US government recovered the wreckage of two crashed flying saucers (one in the Plains of San Augustin, the other near Corona) and several alien bodies in New Mexico in July 1947.
The Mogul explanation doesn't fit the data. The government should offer total amnesty to military or other witnesses connected with the two recoveries (New Mexico, July 1947), since according to the USAF a long since declassified MOGUL balloon was all that was involved. If they cannot offer amnesty, one has to ask why not?
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From: Kevin Randle, USA
There is no doubt in my mind that what fell outside of Roswell, New Mexico was a craft built on another planet. There is no doubt that the military, and the American government initiated a cover-up to hide these facts. And there is no doubt that the copver-up persists today. The Roswell Initiative is important because it is the first coordinated effort to crack through that cover and learn the truth.
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From: Andreas von Retyi, Switzerland
Blinkered mentality in science is absurd. It is easy, considering the massive official secrecy, to explain away the unusual. But, as long as negativists have no evidence and real explanations for the so-far unsolved facts, we have to do insistent research on "Roswell."
Public pressure, such as comes from the Roswell Initiative, is of greatest importance to minimize the imbalance of power and to show the rulers of this world that their hidden activities are not performed in complete darkness.
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From: Bob Shell, USA
Certainly I support the Roswell initiative. I signed one of the petitions a long time ago, and want an end to all government secrecy. As long as governments hold knowledge captive, there can be no true freedom for mankind.
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From: Ed Komarek, USA
I am a co-founder of Operation Right To Know (ORTK). Operation Right To Know has and continues to support the International Roswell Initiative. We too are puzzled by Kent Jeffrey's sudden change of heart.
We of ORTK feel very strongly that the evidence collected to date on Roswell strongly supports the premise that a flying saucer of extraterrestral origin did crash near Roswell in 1947 and was covered up by the United States Government.
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From: Michael Lindemann, USA
The mystery regarding a possible recovery of a crashed UFO near Roswell, New Mexico in 1947 remains, 50 years later, unresolved.... There can be no reasonable doubt that the U.S. government has engaged in long-running deception regarding possible evidence of UFO activity, such that recent efforts by the U.S. Air Force to finally resolve the Roswell mystery cannot be considered reliable.
The innumerable UFO encounters recorded around the world have profound implications for all humankind. The truth behind these events is not and cannot be the property of any single government, less still of any secret faction within a government. Therefore, the Roswell Initiative and other similar public actions must go forward until the truth is told.
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From: Jesse Marcel, Jr., USA
I am convinced that Roswell represents an extraordinary event where beings from another star system met an unhappy end. Any single person's story concerning the Roswell event would not stand alone on its own merit, but when you collectively add all of these anecdotal accounts together, you must come to the same conclusion that I have -- and that is the event at Roswell is the crash of an alien interplanatary vehicle. When you rule out all other explanations, the one explanation that is left is the accurate one even if it is most outlandish.
Keep up your good work on the "International Roswell Initiative." The world deserves a better answer than the one our government would have you believe.
Original file name: CNI - Berlin Memorandum
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