Before I say anything else, let me put all my cards on the table. The book has just come out. I have not had a chance to read the book (though I will be looking at it as soon as I find a copy - most of the material should be extremely interesting). Everything I have to say about this one part of the book is based solely upon the numerous news stories that have poured out during this past weekend. Further, I have no doubt that Annie Jacobsen is a solid reporter, superb investigator, and extremely reliable and insightful writer, irregardless of what either Homeland Security or the U.S. Marshals might think (follow this link to Snopes.com for a pretty concise analysis of her Terror in the Skies story).
In a nutshell, Jacobsen argues that what really happened at Roswell was a psychological warfare attempt by Stalin and the Soviet Union to create mass panic in the U.S. by "invading" the country with deformed children disguised as outer space aliens who were piloted out of South America into New Mexico on a captured Nazi made Horten Ho 229. The children were made to look unearthly by Josef Mengele who did it in exchange for laboratory space from the Soviets. Stalin was inspired to try this stunt by the panic in 1938 caused by the Orson Welles broadcast of War of the Worlds. For all I know, Orson Welles was Joseph Stalin.
Surprisingly enough, this completely harebrained theory has flown through the media without anyone catching the "minor" problems in Jacobsen's thinking.
A. Nobody really knows if the Soviets ever got their hands on a Horten Flying Wing jet because we were too busy grabbing them for ourselves. I know a little bit about this because my late father-in-law was a member of the mechanical team whose job it was to dismantle the darn thing for shipment back to the States.
B. Since it is a safe bet that the Russians knew that we had one of these suckers, you can also be sure that they wanted one for their own research. If they had one, they would be too busy trying to test and develop the flying wing for their own use. They would not be wasting the device in pursuit of a half-baked practical joke on Truman. Stalin can be accused of many things, but stupidity wasn't one of them.
C. It is extremely unlikely that the Soviets would stage such a stunt in New Mexico. We had a ton of top secret work going on down there. The Russians had agents working very hard at basing themselves in the area. Why would they want to create a wild security scare that would threaten every other operation they had going in the area. Again, Stalin was not stupid.
D. Josef Mengele was not available in 1947. He was busy laying low as a farm-hand in Germany while avoiding arrest by Allied authorities. He didn't make it to South America until 1949.
Otherwise, Jacobsen's theory is swell.
Basically, her thinking sounds like an elaborate reworking of Nick Redfern's book Body Snatchers in the Desert, minus the plausibility. Redfern's book is a must read. I don't really buy his theory either, but he works harder at it. Privately, I suspect that Redfern was being led into a weird dog-and-pony show by several people working together (his inside sources seem to tell the exact same story, which is normally a tip off to most investigative reporters that there is something funny going on). Likewise, the timeline of events is not at all smooth. But at least it sounds almost half possible.
So maybe Jacobsen would like to rework the last part of her book. Then again, maybe not. She still seems to be convinced that the members of a Syrian rock band on their way to Vegas were really terrorists plotting a hard trip to paradise and still sounds miffed that every federal investigator who dealt with the case said otherwise.
And you can skip what I said about Orson Welles. He was much too tall to pose as Stalin.
Update: Sometimes you need to quit when you are looking as if you are ahead. Annie Jacobsen has given an interview to Popular Mechanics which pretty much tells you all you need to know about how good her source must be.
1. Her anonymous single source (which from a journalist perspective is a really bad way to precede) claims he was out there to reverse engineer the Soviet Horten flying wing. Really? We already had them. Why in the heck would we need to reverse engineer the thing?
2. He learned part of the story from personal conversations with the surviving "child." Really? Since the little nipper would not have a thing to do with reverse engineering and since these type of secret projects work on a need to know basis, why was he having these lovely chat fests? It just doesn't add up.
3. The project started in 1951 which is why it is called Area 51? WTF!!?? The origins of Area 51 predates World War One. It started into extensive use by the US Navy as a secret gunnery range during World War One. The number 51 was used on the map as they were sectioning off the area for use.
What does this tell us. Well, it strongly suggests that Annie Jacobsen isn't exactly into research and fact checking and all of that hard stuff. It also strongly suggests that her single source is either deranged or pulling her leg. No matter what, this story is a crock.
