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June 20, 1997 - Art Bell
01:16:33
Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell - Jim Dilettoso - Phoenix Lights Images Analysis
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a
art bell
18:31
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jim dilettoso
46:55
r
roger leir
07:37
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Speaker Time Text
art bell
Scholars, Minnesota is east of the Rockies, and you're listening to AM 1500 KST.
unidentified
AM 1500 KST.
art bell
From the high desert in the great American Southwest, I bid you all good evening or good morning as the case may be across this great land of ours and actually beyond the shores from the Fahitian and Hawaiian island chains.
I'm going to get out there one of these days.
All the way east to the Caribbean and the U.S. Virgin Islands, there too, south into South America, north to the bull, and worldwide on the internet busiest coast coast a.m.
I'm R. Felt.
And there are going to be many things that will happen on this Friday night, Saturday morning.
If any of you have been watching CNN over the last couple of days, you have seen Jim Dilatelso.
Jim runs a lab that has been looking carefully into the Arizona sightings, the Phoenix sightings.
And I'll let that stand plural for the moment until we nail it down.
You've seen Jim explaining and showing computer projections and graphics of exactly what he thinks they really were.
Actually, we're not sure.
We're going to ask him about that because Jim De La Toso is going to be my guest for the first couple of hours this night, and we are going to probe what has become a national mania.
We're going to continue to probe it, I guess I ought to say.
The Phoenix sightings.
And Jim has a unique background to comment on a number of aspects of this.
His bio begins by saying, what do the Moody Blues, NASA, the Armed Forces, and Paramount Pictures have in common?
James Jay or Jim Do Atoso?
Now that is an interesting career, isn't it?
So we're going to be talking to Jim in a moment.
And then we are going to, one last time, bring on shortly Mr. Paul Niskanen.
And he is going to tell us about the cruises and the status of the cruises and whether you can still get in, as it were.
And you can, sort of.
We'll tell you about that.
And following that, I am going to go to a conference in Los Angeles for a few hours tomorrow, in Naritash, or a Talkers Radio conference.
That's the National Association of Talk Shows.
Down in Los Angeles, so I'm going to bail out of here at 1 o'clock, and we are going to repeat two hours with Dr. Stephen Greer in for a very sear feature.
Dr. Greer of C SETI beginning at 1 o'clock Pacific Time.
I will then dash off and try to get a couple of hours' sleep before getting on an airplane.
So this is the plan.
unidentified
And Cassette, that's 1-800-224-2455.
art bell
Well, all right, I would like to welcome KMBDAM in Tillamook, Oregon.
Hope I've got that right.
Tillamook, I believe, Oregon.
They are, if you're in Tillamook or its environs, 1590 on the dial.
Welcome, my friends, to what is going to be a very unusual program, and you'll just have to give it a little time, and you will see where we're going, maybe.
Pretty strange places, I would say.
Now, the Moody Blues, NASA, the Armed Forces, and Paramount Pictures, that is not a likely combination to be in one person's background, is it?
Jim DeLatoso is Chairman, President, and Chief Technical Officer of Village Labs Inc.
down in Tempe, Arizona.
And let's just ask him, Jim, why do you have all of the, welcome to the program, by the way.
jim dilettoso
Oh, thank you.
Thanks for having me on.
art bell
Why, Jim, do you have all of these things, diverse things, the Moody Blues, NASA, the Armed Forces, and Paramount Pictures?
That's pretty unlikely.
jim dilettoso
Well, it just turned out that way.
I'm not saying that I sought out any of those to become collaborators of mine, but it did end up that way.
I guess the common thread might be the advanced technology required in the concert business.
The sound and lighting production is one thing to have this massive show for people to see.
It's quite another and additional thing to be able to pack it all up, move it 300 miles a day, set it up, and do it every day.
art bell
True.
jim dilettoso
Which we did for many years under my direction of a company that I ran in the 70s through the mid-80s.
art bell
So then, I guess then that kind of technological background fits into NASA in the imaging area.
And the armed forces in, well, the armed...
Flight simulators.
Oh, they actually kept you in your career field.
Oh, yes.
Usually they take people skilled in one thing and make them do the opposite.
jim dilettoso
Yes.
art bell
And then Paramount Pictures, now that suddenly makes sense.
jim dilettoso
Yes.
And the thread with Paramount being still in image processing.
Single processing and image processing for a very long time.
art bell
Anybody who in the last two days has turned on CNN knows you well by now.
I mean, they have been running this story every hour.
jim dilettoso
Oh, really?
I haven't seen it, actually.
I've been here working in the last.
Really?
So I've seen a couple of the news programs, but I haven't seen any of the stories running on CNN.
art bell
Oh, my goodness.
Well, there you are by your computer showing the graphics of what appeared over Phoenix back on March 13th.
Now, I would like to start by straightening out one big question.
Okay.
Were there one or two sightings on March 13th?
And I don't mean just people at different locations, but different actual appearances of something?
jim dilettoso
Yes, there were a number of incidents and sightings that happened, and what we've done is group them now into events.
The sightings first came about in Paulden at 8.16 as reported to Peter Davenport.
art bell
Yes.
jim dilettoso
He actually would have been the first official person to know about this.
By coincidence, that night, Stephen Greer was here at our lab editing the videotapes that he was going to use a month later in Washington.
art bell
Who will be on the program later this morning, Bobby?
jim dilettoso
So at 8.16, it started.
Paulden is near Prescott in the northwestern part of the state, near Sedona.
And the reports happened about every one to two minutes as this pair of light, bright lights, orbs, the size of reports range from the size of hot air balloons to aircraft lights, worked its way south until it went straight through Phoenix through the center of town, still in a V formation of lights.
art bell
Now this is, again, the 8.16 incident, correct?
jim dilettoso
Starting at 8.16 p.m. on March 13th, Thursday, March 13th.
art bell
And then going through, that particular sighting lasted how long?
jim dilettoso
That lasted until 8.25 p.m., where it started to be seen in the center of Phoenix by people that lived up in higher altitudes, about 1,500 feet above the floor of the valley.
Now, these people were saying that the object was so close that they could throw a ball and hit it, and they saw actual structure to it, still in a V or boomerang shape.
Some people said that it took two to three minutes to go overhead, moving like a freight train.
art bell
Like a freight train?
jim dilettoso
Right, like standing at a subway station, looking at a train go by, although they said it was moving at about 30 miles an hour only in their estimation, close enough to hit with a ball, and they felt like they were looking at a train going by.
It was so immense and took so long to go overhead.
art bell
And so they saw absolute substance to it.
roger leir
Do they describe the substance?
jim dilettoso
They certainly do.
They describe it as a structure that they could see through, like looking through 10 feet of water.
Some people say it blocked out the stars, but they could still see them.
Some people saw it from another part of the valley as it blocked out the cat's eye moon, but they could still see it.
It went from a whitish-orange color, the moon, to a pale yellow.
So it was like looking through water.
Meanwhile, in other parts of the valley, people were reporting giant orbs, usually pairs, directly overhead or being seen at some great distance.
Now, we began to consider the fact that the lights might separate from a structured object and come back, or they might have been separate and came and inevitably joined together.
Because by the time 10 o'clock arrived, it had been seen all over the state, including Tucson, and came to rest over a mountain range in the south end of Phoenix called the Australia Mountains.
This is where the discussion began to happen, a lot of contention that it was probably or could be flares suspended on the mountain range.
But after we tested, which I'll get to later, this array of lights is over a mile long and there was no way, no structure, no residue that they could have been attached to.
roger leir
All right, well, let us discuss what was officially said.
art bell
Now, the press reports I saw, and I was watching very carefully, as was Peter Davenport, early on, the military, quote, I guess the Air Force at that time said they were flares.
In the very beginning, there were reports saying flares.
Yes.
jim dilettoso
Well, let me clarify that.
Today, I got a telephone call.
Michael Tanner here at our lab got the call.
Actually, I've been speaking to the person, the public affairs officer of the National Guard.
art bell
Yes.
jim dilettoso
She was tired of the press and others accusing her and the National Guard of saying that they had ever said that they were flares.
art bell
All right, I got a call, too.
I've got to tell you.
I'm going to level with you.
Several people have called, including somebody you know, Richard Motzer, I believe it is, State Field Investigator from WUFON.
I do.
Okay.
He, too, called me and suggested that this lady, a captain, I believe, had been quoted as saying that indeed they had dispensed flares.
Yes.
And I said, you know, Richard, I can bring you on the air, but it's not going to do any good to bring you on the air and confront Jim in any way if you can only point to a news story, an AP news story, he thought it was, that quoted her as saying they were flares.
Now, I remember the early reports of flares in the press.
So anyway, continue, please.
jim dilettoso
Well, what the actual press story says is that the names are by name, says that she denied that they had launched flares, but she said that one of their helicopter pilots had said he had seen flares.
That was as official as it ever was.
art bell
In other words, she never said that there were flares.
It was a quote from an Apache helicopter Pilot who said that he thought he had seen flares.
jim dilettoso
Correct.
And that became a snowball that the National Guard had launched flares.
And when this first came up, I spent a lot of time and attention optically studying flares, airplanes, Harold Bopp, city lights, these lights, et cetera, et cetera, in excruciating detail.
art bell
All right, let me stop you for one second and then you can enlarge on that.
I just want to tell you, my conversation with Richard earlier was that, Richard, if you can give me somebody from the National Guard who says, I shot, I dropped flares, whatever, I was the pilot, I dropped the flares at such and such a time, then we've got something to talk about.
But if we are only going to talk about a press report quoting somebody as saying something, we have nothing.
Essentially, we have nothing.
And he agreed.
I said, so get me that person.
If you can find me that person, we'll go on the air and we'll put it on the air.
jim dilettoso
We've asked for that.
I've communicated with the Air Force Base and the local authorities.
I mean, I have an open dialogue with these people.
They don't view me as an ambassador or the enemy.
I have an easy dialogue with these people because in my day-to-day work, I have reason to talk to a variety of military contractors and people of that ilk.
So the dialogue was very open and communicative starting on the first day.
And I couldn't find anyone in the military who agreed that they would ever send up flares at night, particularly over that area.
In fact, they denied that they had used that area for 20 years.
And it just started confounding me.
Why is the UFO research organization saying it's flares and saying it's the military are saying that?
And the military is saying that they didn't say that.
art bell
No, in fact, now, of course, in the latter reports, the military absolutely denies that there were any flares.
The Air Force says, uh-uh, we had nothing up that night.
We certainly had no flares out.
It was not us.
jim dilettoso
And it could be partially my persistence in having a gentleman's dialogue with a number of these official places to say, would you do it?
What kind of flares were they?
And in fact, I had the president of a well-known, well-respected covert operations manufacturing company that makes flares for these agencies, had him in the lab, looked at all the videos, and he gave me a written report that says only one of the videos is flares.
And that is the video that was shot by Richard Monzer and supplied to a local television station showing flares.
Now, this man had been out of town.
He didn't know anything about the case at all.
And we showed him these isolated pieces of video with the different lights in them and also some other control objects that we put in just so that there was more things in the batch to look at than just the videos in the area of interest.
And he has said, none of these are flares.
They aren't the right color.
They don't come on and go off the right way.
I can't figure how they would hang that motionless.
They don't stay on that long.
And I just got tired of the whole flares thing.
There were much more important issues than dealing with this petty infighting in the UFO research clubs, as I've come to think of them sometimes, when a real investigation is trying to be conducted.
And we don't do this for money or for any other reason than to find out.
I'm empirical about it.
I'm not emotional.
I just need to have the data.
They're not flares.
art bell
All right, they're not flares.
With all of the investigation you have done, now the V formation.
unidentified
Yes.
art bell
When did that appear?
Was that the 10 o'clock stuff or the 8 o'clock stuff?
jim dilettoso
That was the 8 o'clock stuff.
art bell
The V formation was the 8 o'clock stuff.
unidentified
Huh.
jim dilettoso
And by the time it had come...
What was seen by truck driver Bill Greiner over Luke Air Force Base was a pair of orbs.
unidentified
Right.
art bell
The Talk Back Live, which tried to do a whole segment on it earlier on CNN and then got interrupted by some sort of breaking news about tobacco, said the entire, they're saying the whole thing lasted 106 minutes.
jim dilettoso
Yes.
art bell
And they're classifying it as one incident.
unidentified
Yes.
art bell
Is that fair or is that inaccurate?
jim dilettoso
Well, I think it's a fair way to do it when you're trying to tell a story to the general public who is rarely exposed to any kind of UFO story in national media such as USA Today.
Multiple sightings, multiple witnesses.
Was it one object that could separate and then come back together?
Or was it multiple objects?
And right now, we view it as four separate incidents.
art bell
All right, Jim.
Hold tight.
We'll be right back to you.
Bottom of the hour.
This is CBC.
unidentified
CBC.
CBC.
Art Bell is taking calls on the wildcard line at 702-727-1295.
That's 702-727-1295.
First-time callers can reach Art Bell at 702-727-1222.
702-727-1222.
Now, here again, Art Bell.
art bell
Once again, here I am.
My guest is Jim De La Toso.
And if you've been watching CNN, you've seen Jim.
Even though he hasn't seen himself, it's been every hour now for days.
The thrust coverage of the object seen, object, objects seen above Phoenix has been absolutely amazing, astronomical.
And since Jim has a background in a lot of these areas, I'm going to ask him if he has any idea how something that occurred back on March 13th could suddenly be breaking in all media all at once, months later.
I mean, there are coincidences, and then there are agendas, I guess I'll put it that way.
And this may turn into more than it is right now as well.
But in the interest of flushing out the truth about what's going on here, maybe we ought to allow it to do that.
One thing I've heard is that the networks took their lead on this story from the USA today.
And somebody sent me a facts earlier, which I'm going to paraphrase because I don't immediately find it in front of me.
roger leir
But I thought it made a pretty good point.
art bell
Would it be true that NBC and ABC and CNN decide their news agenda by going down and paying 50 cents for a newspaper?
That's a pretty damn good question.
3.8.
Absolutely fresh flowers.
Now, back to Jim De La Toso.
unidentified
Jim.
jim dilettoso
Hi, Archie.
art bell
Hi.
Jim, maybe one of the things about all of this that has puzzled me no end is that something that occurred, no matter how we will argue about it, and we will, on March 13th, got some Phoenix coverage and I think a very minor amount of national coverage and then went away, just faded away in about a day or two and nobody heard a thing about it.
And March, April, May, June, and now June 19th comes and all of a sudden, all of a sudden, all at once, the networks, the major networks, USA Today, NSNBC, everybody's on it.
How can that be?
Can you explain that?
jim dilettoso
Well, we were surprised by it ourselves because all we were doing was giving another interview to a newspaper.
Richard Price, that wrote the story, came by here today on his way to Roswell to go visit HubCorn, and we talked about it for a little while, and he was actually very surprised by it all himself.
We talked a little bit about how rapidly the deployment of the national media happened, and he was surprised about that himself.
He said he had a very difficult time originally selling the concept of the story to the editor.
Richard's a seasoned newspaper writer, has been in the newspaper business his whole life, and is, this is the first time he's actually written a UFO story.
He didn't know very much about the subject at all, but was a quick study.
When that story came out, my phone started ringing at 5 o'clock in the morning, local and national news.
art bell
For reference, I understand that the story had been decided on at about 10 o'clock the previous evening.
Yes.
So USA Today decided at 10 at night.
Their newspaper hits the stands about, well, I don't know when, in the morning hours, sometime or another.
And I think it's sent by computer across the nation and printed at certain locations.
But what got me was that then CNN during the day and then the networks at night, it seemed as though they had pieces that were too slick, too well prepared to have been done on the basis of something that appeared in the USA Today.
I don't buy it.
jim dilettoso
Well, some of the stories that did go to the networks were locally produced or local crews did come to our facility.
For the last year, the news media here in town before the Phoenix flights incident had been covering UFO stories.
In fact, for almost a year, I did a weekly UFO update on the local Fox affiliate.
So we might say that we have a more than average local news media who is well versed in the topic, and in particular, this Phoenix Light sighting, they had file footage, good background copy already.
Nonetheless, I think the local news media here were very surprised when it reached the national level that it did.
I've been involved in other UFO cases that became temporarily nationally prominent.
art bell
I think you were the principal investigator in the Billy Meyer case, weren't you?
jim dilettoso
I was the coordinating scientist in the Billy Meyer case and carefully found laboratories that would empirically test the data and then, much to my surprise, watch the UFO organizations viciously attack the case.
And we withdrew.
I mean, the laboratories that we had gone to test the evidence, not one ever said that there was any indication of a hoax.
And we went into it wide-eyed and bushy-tailed.
This is in the late 70s.
Carefully tested all the evidence with no expectations.
And then we watched two things happen.
The Pleiadians became a household word in ufology representing the humanoid good guys.
And at the same time, the UFO community polarized itself behind it, being against it, claiming that all these tests had been done to disprove it.
Well, as the years have gone on, we have discovered that all they've been able to do is level personal attacks.
Bruce McAbee inevitably said to Bob Kiviat, a producer of, well, you know, Bob was with Encounters and produced the autopsy.
Told Bob, according to Bob Kiviat, that he had never actually really tested the Billy Meyer pictures.
The Cal Corf books, and as you know, all the things on the net by Cal Corf about the case being a hoax and everyone connected with it as a fraud and a liar and incompetent.
Now that this has happened, yet another case like the Meyer case, we're sitting back saying, okay, are we being set up for a fall again that the national media is going to have it and then the attacks are going to roll in?
art bell
Well, what was your conclusion with regard to the Billy Meyer case, and what is it today?
jim dilettoso
Well, my conclusion back then was that the pictures that Billy Meyer took in the 70s are absolutely without fail a large object over 20 feet in diameter.
I believe that as the years went on and the organization of East German patriots grew up around Billy, that they began to create their own evidence to tell the story, the legend of Billy Meyer, who has really become a recluse in his own home.
But the materials, the real materials in the Billy Meyer case have never reached the public or the UFO community.
By 1979, we withdrew.
No more evidence out to the UFO.
art bell
To sum up, if I understand what you just said, you said the original materials, the original evidence, you feel was real and valid, and that only as the cult around Billy Meyer built up did the evidence become convoluted and a lot of it false.
jim dilettoso
That's correct.
art bell
And you stand by that view today?
jim dilettoso
I stand by that view.
Because the technology that we used to test the evidence back then, which was the finest available at the time and can still stand in the labs that we went to and the software that we used, is still out of reach of the UFO community.
And the software that we used then and even far better software now, I can go back and test the pictures again now and get the same results, that this is a large metallic object.
And this software, I mean, we use it in special effects.
We've designed render farms for major Hollywood motion pictures to do photorealistic rendering.
We've worked on flight simulators and image processing to be able to tell whether an object is a quarter, a tennis ball, or the moon.
And if it works over in that area, it also works in testing UFO pictures.
And the Billy Meyer case, for whatever truth there is in it today, back then helped develop, it was a structured controversy.
It helped develop critical thinking so that people were well acquainted with all of the issues, whether they are physical evidence or metaphysical components to the story.
I think it was a very valuable case and should still be looked at today.
Now, will the Phoenix flights fall prey to the same course of action?
I don't think so.
The testing that we have done is extremely sophisticated.
We have far better equipment.
For a number of years, 10 years now, we've been designing and building supercomputers and parallel computers.
We have very excellent staff, and we've been able to triangulate the various videos that we have in a 3D database and know exactly where these lights were, plus or minus three feet.
We know its shape.
Now we have witnesses.
I've gone out to the area, and I've spent dozens of hours now driving around the Australia Mountains, looking for roadways, evidence of military or other people going in or out of there, residue of flares.
There's none.
Most importantly, I've talked to the residents of this very rural area in the south part of Phoenix who looked up in the sky directly above their heads and saw the objects above their heads.
Not attached to a helicopter, an airplane, certainly not attached to the mountain itself, and being lit as flares.
And that's part of the most compelling part is the eyewitnesses who were up close and personal to this incident.
art bell
Whatever it was.
jim dilettoso
Whatever it was.
art bell
By the way, if you had to say right now, what do you say it was?
unidentified
Well, I know.
art bell
That's hard.
jim dilettoso
The temptation is to say that it is a mothership.
The temptation is to say that it is unearthly.
And you know how much I enjoy talking about the possibility and probability of unearthly visitations.
But in this case, we're looking at giant balls of light that are closer to things as described by Jim Hertak in the Keys of Enoch, closer to things described in the Fatima and Lourdes and Majigoria incidents.
art bell
How many witnesses, Jim, call it a solid object or saw substance to it beyond lightness?
jim dilettoso
About one quarter of the 200 or so reports that we have.
art bell
That's a bunch.
jim dilettoso
That's a bunch.
So if 200 people of a population of 2 million have reported, what ratio of the population, if we use Nielsen numbers, that 4,000 people represents the entire viewing population of America for television, if 200 people have reported to us, what percentage of the population actually saw it?
So we believe that 10,000 people saw that.
art bell
All right, well, the Phoenix area is about 2 million or plus or minus around 2 million people.
It's a big city.
jim dilettoso
Seventh largest in America.
art bell
Yeah, big city, you bet.
Now, how big, based on your examination, how big was this object?
jim dilettoso
1,500 to 2,000 yards wide when it came to rest over the Australia Mountains.
When we take the descriptions of Tim Lee, I use his name because he's been public the last few days, but noted F-15 pilot, North Phoenix area, that stood under it as it flew over, described it similar to Tim Lee, that it was awesome in size.
He puts it at a square mile.
art bell
A square mile.
We're talking something akin to what was in ID4, hanging over a major American metropolitan area with a couple of million people.
jim dilettoso
That's right.
roger leir
For a total of 106 minutes.
unidentified
Yes.
art bell
Well, I guess that begs many questions.
Why it was not a gigantic story back on March 13th when it occurred.
And why it suddenly became a gigantic story months later.
jim dilettoso
Yes.
art bell
There are a lot of people here who smell agenda.
jim dilettoso
Yes.
art bell
And I'm sort of one of them.
I'm not certainly denying that it occurred.
I mean, up on my website, thank you very much for sending photographs.
We've got three separate pictures.
jim dilettoso
Yes.
art bell
Picture one, two, and three.
Would you like to describe to the audience, can you describe what those one, two, and three photos on my website are?
unidentified
Yes.
jim dilettoso
Well, these are still frames out of videotapes that we got.
unidentified
Right.
jim dilettoso
Frame number one is taken from a I'm not sure the order.
Let me say the number of lights.
The picture that has nine lights in it was taken from Apache Junction by Chuck Reardon in the far east part of the valley.
Shows nine lights in what can be viewed as either a very large circular or boomerang object.
The other one has seven lights in it, six in a cluster and one far off to the left.
That was taken in the far north part of Phoenix, looking south by a noted local businessman that I'm not sure yet if we use his name on the radio, but he's been on television, so I'll say it's Mike Christian.
unidentified
Okay.
jim dilettoso
The other one was taken by a noted local professional woman who desires to remain anonymous at this time because of the field that she's in.
And she videotaped with a high-eight camera, two lights, five lights, six lights in a row.
Like the other videos, the lights came on and then they went off.
So we have these three as three exacting positions to be able to triangulate.
And triangulation is done in satellite imagery and everybody uses it to get an exact location.
Well, what we did was with these three images that are up on the web now and the video that's in front of and behind these still frames, they got a topographical map from U.S. Geological Survey, 3D topographical map, loaded into a garden variety usable program called AutoCAD.
art bell
Right.
jim dilettoso
Moved it to 3D Studio Max, matched the position that each of the videographers shopped their video, went to exactly that position and dropped in the dots.
Went to the next position, the next position, did that with all the videos, then rose up above the 3D model, looked down to see what we have.
Viola.
We have a V-shaped formation of lights.
art bell
Wow.
That sounds like some solid scientific work to me.
In other words, it all came together.
You were able then to get a 3D view, and you go above it, and there it is.
jim dilettoso
Correct.
art bell
Okay, I think I've got the picture.
No pun intended.
Jim, hold on.
We're going to break here at the top of the hour, and we'll come back and do some interesting stuff.
I'm Art Bell, and from the high desert, this is CBC at Talk Station, AM 1500 KSTP.
unidentified
Hey, kids, what do you want for your bell,
toll-free, west of the Rockies at 1-800-618-8255, 1-800-618-8255.
East of the Rockies at 1-800-825-5033.
1-800-825-5033.
This is the CBC Radio Natalio, everybody.
roger leir
If you've been watching CNN At all, you've seen Jim Dela Toso.
He's my guest.
He's been on just about every hour as this massive coverage of whatever it was above Phoenix continues almost as a mania in the media.
I mean, they're almost covering it the way I cover these things.
unidentified
It is...
art bell
It certainly is a strange thing that has occurred.
roger leir
On the one hand, we may have an ID4-like incident.
art bell
I mean, here we have what is being dubbed a mothership, something massive and gigantic hovering over a U.S. city with an area population of about 2 million people.
Phoenix.
A story picked up on months after it occurred, simultaneously, synchronistically, by the American media.
roger leir
In a moment, we will continue.
art bell
The first hour was a careful explanation of the work that Jim has done scientifically to document what he believes is indeed a mothership.
roger leir
And he runs a lab.
Let me see.
He is chairman, president, and chief technical officer of Village Labs Inc.
art bell
in Tempe, Arizona, where all this work has gone on that you've seen on CNN.
roger leir
And we'll get back to him in a moment.
That's 1-800-2325-665.
art bell
You've got nothing to lose but the pain.
roger leir
Tell them Art Bell sent you.
All right, a man who examined the Billy Meyer case back in the early days of the Billy Meyer case and has been examining UFO evidence and footage ever since is Jim Delatoso.
And as I've been saying, you cannot turn on CNN, or at least for the last couple of days you can't, without seeing Jim.
And he would be the one sitting there with a computer screen and the graphic showing what occurred over the skies of Phoenix March 13th in what appears to be a 106-minute period.
art bell
Either one incident, two separate incidents, many incidences.
roger leir
All of these things are contentious, and contentious is what this hour is likely to be.
Welcome back, Jim.
jim dilettoso
Okay, thank you.
roger leir
Jim, I should tell you that I've got somebody who disagrees with you on the line.
jim dilettoso
Okay, that's to be expected.
roger leir
And so the best way sometimes to get to the truth, and I would like to do it without too much heat, if I can manage that, because that's the best way to get to the truth, is Richard Matzer.
art bell
Richard is the state field investigator for MUFON, as we mentioned last hour in Arizona.
roger leir
And Richard, are you there?
I am, yes, Archer.
art bell
Okay, I take it you've been listening and making some notes.
jim dilettoso
I have.
roger leir
All right.
Do you have any important relevant questions for Jim?
jim dilettoso
Well, I would like to have the courtesy, first of all, to give a little bit of my credentials, if I could.
roger leir
You may?
jim dilettoso
Yes.
I attended the Ohio College of Applied Sciences, which is now part of the University of Cincinnati.
And I have a bachelor's degree in electronic design.
I do have a good background also in electronic design for SPL Studio Lynx, which I did some work for Sony.
And they were so impressed that they published my work and the results of the performance of the product in Radio World magazine.
I'm sure, I think you know that publication.
roger leir
I do.
jim dilettoso
And my product's been featured in such publications as Radio Electronics and the Scottsdale Airport Review.
Interesting enough, in my also being able to do digital as well as analog imaging, my mentor happens to be your guest tonight, Jim DelaTosa.
roger leir
You two could be described at one time as close and friends.
art bell
Is that true on both sides?
jim dilettoso
Well, I would say yes.
Mr. DelaTosa had taken some unnecessary heat from our Texas headquarters on the Billy Meyer case.
roger leir
Meaning, move on.
jim dilettoso
Yes, which I am a member.
art bell
Yes.
jim dilettoso
And when I became a part here, I strived to rectify those injustices as I saw those.
And what I did, I said that Mr. Del Tosa was my mentor, and that was by reviewing the books he did and the videotapes and then duplicating his results with other low-cost software.
And I was able to do that, and that really put me feeling that Jim knew what he was doing, and he was right on the money.
I have a company.
It's not important here, but it ends in labs, too.
So on my vendor license, it's DX Tele Labs.
And it's just, Tele is the British word for television.
And I've designed long reception antenna equipment for both the UHF TV band, and then that led me into the STL work, the Studio Link pre-amplifiers.
roger leir
All right.
It sounds like you're mainly in electronics.
jim dilettoso
That's right.
And well, now I'm into imaging because my business now is computers.
art bell
All right.
roger leir
All right.
art bell
Fine.
roger leir
And now you are the state field investigator for MUFON in Arizona.
How long have you held that position?
jim dilettoso
I have held it probably two and a half years.
I don't have the exact date.
I joined MUFON approximately, I would think, it would have been June of 92.
roger leir
All right.
art bell
All right.
roger leir
So there's some background on you.
art bell
You've heard Jim talk about the work he's done on the Phoenix images for the last hour.
roger leir
Yes.
Do you have any specific questions or disagreements with Jim on what he has said?
jim dilettoso
Yes, I have very many.
One of the things he just mentioned here was he made a statement.
I'm going to paraphrase it here.
People in South Phoenix looked up and saw the lights over the Australias.
You cannot see the Australias if you're in South Phoenix.
You can take Central Avenue, which splits Phoenix from the east and west, and it drives straight into South Mountain.
Even over in Ahlotuke, where Tom King took his video from the porch of the gentleman's home that they were at, you cannot see the Australias either.
And so that footage that you see on CNN, and I talked to another outlet and they said that it looks like it's the Mr. Christian's footage, the big art, that they are at an altitude of 8,900 feet and way behind the Australia mountains.
And here's the key point, and he hit it right on the head.
The witnesses are the key thing.
95% of the witnesses never saw the footage that you see on TV because if you're at ground level, you can't.
You're blocked by South Mountain and you're blocked by the Australias.
However, in Awatuke, you have a sight through the draw which allows you to see some of the lights.
There's approximately seven videos that I have, and they're all of the same 10 o'clock event, and they all look different because all but one are at high altitudes, but you have to realize that the scallops of the mountains clip off some of the lights.
And so that was one of the key things in breaking the case.
art bell
All right, I need to be clear here.
Jim, what's being shown on the networks and on CNN?
jim dilettoso
Yes.
art bell
That footage, is that the 8 o'clock footage or the 10 o'clock footage?
jim dilettoso
That's the 10 o'clock footage.
And when I describe this for a national audience that doesn't know anything about Phoenix, for courtesy to them, I say North Phoenix, South Phoenix, East, West.
But I specifically was talking about going out and driving around in the Australia Mountains, going out to Rainbow Valley Road, going out to Ray Road to people that know where the area is.
And I went out and drove around exactly in the areas where the topology map showed me that this object was.
So I'm not just sitting looking at a computer screen.
I drove around out there and I went to the home of people, a couple, sat in their backyard with them at the very edge of the mountains, and they pointed straight up in the air, not on the mountain, but straight up and showed me where it was above their house.
Let me ask you something, Jim.
Did you violate federal law that night?
roger leir
What does that mean?
jim dilettoso
At Rainbow Valley, which is BNL land, what he's speaking of, that has been cordoned off.
art bell
That's BLM, right?
jim dilettoso
Yep, yep.
BL Land Management.
And that's been cordoned off.
And also, I was out in that area where these people also photographed these lights.
And they said they always appear exactly at the same place.
And the reason for that is that their shots that they see, their viewpoint, is straight through where all these are going.
So they have an in-look at what's happening.
Now, their future son-in-law, who is in Buckeye, says every time this happens, you can see the floor of the desert light up.
And he says, usually there is helicopter traffic around.
don't agree with that.
Well, I think that's a person talking because I've gone to I can give you a whole bunch of persons.
But no, these are not in reports that we've been able to see.
Only you have these, Richard.
Jim, you know you siphoned off 63 reports, and we've got nothing from you.
roger leir
Richard, earlier in the day when I spoke to you, Richard, we spoke for some time, and you are contending that the 10 o'clock footage is flares.
Yes, all.
Bear with me.
jim dilettoso
I will.
roger leir
Flares, right?
jim dilettoso
Yes, that might be.
roger leir
That's correct.
Okay.
I said, well, okay, where did the flares come from?
Your response was the Arizona National Guard, correct?
jim dilettoso
The Air National Guard put out an AP press release.
They did not.
Jim, give me the courtesy to, because I have the paper right in front of you.
No, you have a newspaper, Richard.
I have not misleaded the paper.
You were misleading the people that were listening on the radio.
You were paraphrasing.
roger leir
Okay, gentlemen, hold it.
There were many early reports from the military that, yes, they were flares.
Many early reports.
I read them.
And they were in the newspaper.
They were in the media.
jim dilettoso
They were in the media, but the military never released those press releases.
If you contact the military and say, give me a copy of that press release, they do not exist.
roger leir
Okay.
art bell
Perhaps then in the newspaper, an AP report or something like that.
roger leir
Who knows?
But there were reports of flares.
art bell
And I asked you earlier in the day, Richard, that if we are going to debunk this and say it is flares at 10 o'clock, the footage that national audience is seeing, then bring me somebody, a pilot who says I shot the flares, and we're in business.
And you gave me the name of somebody or another, Captain Eileen somebody.
roger leir
Yes.
But we can't talk to her.
jim dilettoso
What we're going to try to do, Art, is to go further on that and through Freedom Information, try to get that for you.
Let me kind of give you a quick rundown how we used a very unsophisticated method to help us come to this decision.
We had seven videos all shot at 10 o'clock from various angles and various altitude, and you had to be high in altitude, like the Dr. L's home up on the backside of the Camelback.
That's approximately 40th Street in Lincoln.
art bell
Mr. All right, now listen.
roger leir
Jim is right about one thing.
art bell
The national audience is not going to understand streets.
jim dilettoso
Okay.
Anyway, let's go to a simple test.
We picked three of the clips that were either shot on tripod or the cameras rested on a steady surface.
We then marked the artificial horizon, which would be a row of Phoenix lights.
And then we marked where each one of these lights extinguished.
And then we ran the tape backwards, and they all rise and move to the right, meaning that actually when they were deployed, they were deployed with an easterly or southeasterly motion, either by helicopter, C-130, or a launch rack.
And they all moved together.
They all moved together Exactly now, and they timed out at three minutes, approximately three minutes each, which is the exact parameter for the Mark 45 flare, which puts out 840 watt seconds reflected into a 16-foot parachute reflector.
The descent rate is five to seven feet per second at ignition, then it stabilizes, and then the burn time for that flare is three minutes plus or minus.
Of course, there's always a parameter there.
A perfect match for the 10 p.m. event.
Then I took all the rest of the videos that were not stable as far as being held, and it took a longer time, and everything was the same.
Now, I have the gentleman who shot the V-formation at 56th Street and Carefree Highway do the same analyst on his footage because he's been filming this for months.
This is not a single event.
It happened once.
These flares have been going on for months.
We have three months of footage just from this one person.
He did the same test.
He says they drop exactly the same way.
There's no difference.
I disagree with this because in our motion studies, there is no movement of the flares.
The optical characteristics of them to the manufacturers of flares and to the computer are not flares.
I check the monitoring equipment.
This is a Richard.
You need to go back to the set of circumstances.
I still have all the tapes.
All I have to do is give them the CBS or ABC and perform the same test.
Let's see what their engineers have.
A great thing to do.
That's what I'm going to do.
ABC has made that offer to do that.
Yes.
art bell
All right.
Richard, let me ask you this.
While we're discussing whether or not the 10 p.m. footage is flares or an object, a UFO of some other sort, you do believe that earlier in the evening, 8 o'clock, shortly after 8 o'clock, there was a UFO that you cannot explain.
jim dilettoso
Is that correct, Richard?
Absolutely.
And it may be more than just one art.
There's a timeline problem on how it could travel when these people are reporting that it's extremely slow, how it can cover and actually end up with a minus sign on our time sheet.
You know, we average a bunch of witnesses.
You just can't use one.
Absolutely.
I would agree with that.
And that needs to be investigated.
And Councilwoman Barwood thanked me for making this thing, pointing out the flare thing, because if this investigation really gets going, they're going to look at the math evidence first, and they're going to say, well, hell, those are flares.
No, what they will do is they will try to find exactly the people who would shoot up flares, locate those people, and have them identify themselves.
Why were they doing it?
Let's have them do that.
No one is coming forward because you haven't done it.
roger leir
Yeah, I've got the same question.
Does it seem reasonable to both of you that with the amount of national coverage, and it has been incredible, that if there was somebody out there who shot flares on that night, that they would have by now come forward?
jim dilettoso
That is correct.
And in fact, when Captain Benz called here today, she was very unhappy about the fact that it was continually going on that they had shot up flares or that they had put out a press release saying that they had put up flares.
About three weeks ago, they reiterated on a local newscast that the Army National Guard did say it was flares.
I have that tape.
roger leir
Okay, Richard, have you talked to Captain Art?
jim dilettoso
No, I am going to do that or have somebody do it.
I have to delegate some responsibility.
art bell
Okay, I've got to tell you honestly, Richard, that I have watched news coverage of events, and about half or even better than half the time, it's totally inaccurate.
jim dilettoso
I agree.
I agree, Art.
roger leir
So that's what needs to be done.
art bell
You're arguing that these things were flares based on, check me if I'm wrong, Richard, a news report.
jim dilettoso
No, didn't you just listen to what I said about how we processed all the videotapes?
art bell
Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes.
roger leir
But I mean, when we get right down to it, we're saying, okay, if they were flares, somebody by now should have come forward.
unidentified
You agree with that?
jim dilettoso
Well, that's true, but let me throw one other thing in here.
The person in Rainbow Valley that we were talking to says that she thought either this had to do maybe with drug enforcement exercises or a border, you know, containing our borders.
And this was a training exercise.
But the BLM land was open for everybody, and then it is denied access.
And she says, that's exactly where this is happening.
And I'll be in contact with her tomorrow again because I'd like to have her come forward.
I think she will.
roger leir
All right.
art bell
Even if the DEA did it, though, by now, the DEA should have come forward to settle this.
I mean, this has been a saturation nationwide.
And I think it is reasonable, a reasonable expectation that some official, if there really was an official explanation, would have come forward by now.
jim dilettoso
Jim gets that written statement from that captain saying that they're tired of it.
I'd like to have that in your hands.
They ask him to get that for you.
roger leir
All right.
We'll come back in a moment and talk with you both.
art bell
I'm Art Bell, and from the high desert near Area 51, this is CBC.
unidentified
CBC.
art bell
444-1050.
roger leir
All right.
First, back to Jim Delatoso.
Jim, I have a question for you.
Are you there, Jim?
jim dilettoso
Yes, I'm here.
roger leir
Okay.
Jim, at 8.22 p.m., this basically comes from Richard Tetrahedral Hoagland.
Mars was at 19.5, and Richard would like to know where this object was that appears to be a UFO in your opinion and in the opinion of Richard.
Where was the object roughly at 822?
Could you tell me?
jim dilettoso
Well, it was over central Phoenix at that point and was in the position where the witnesses were saying that it was moving overhead.
roger leir
All right, so enough.
jim dilettoso
Close enough that they could throw a ball and hit it.
art bell
Okay, and I guess that answers Richard's question.
roger leir
Now, let me bring Richard Hoagland's question.
Let me bring back Richard Mosser now, Statefield Investigator from Move On.
Richard and Jim, I have a question for both of you.
jim dilettoso
Wait a minute.
I need to my reply back to Mr. Hoagland's.
art bell
I see.
roger leir
All right.
You take issue with that then.
jim dilettoso
We have a cell phone record from the gentleman who got a call from his buddy, who is the only one that filmed the actual deformation flight at 56th Street and Carefree Highway.
The time stamp on that call is 8.28.
So that's a neat trick that it is not over Phoenix at 8.22.
Since it was all at the north part of the town, how it can be in Phoenix earlier than it was at Carefree.
That's an interesting thing.
We have a, because it's a cell phone, we have a time stamp on that.
roger leir
Yeah, well, you two disagree with that.
All right.
Let me ask you both the following question, and I think it's a good one.
art bell
The contention, whether it's earlier or later, during this whole period of the sightings, 106 minutes in total, the contentious issue seems to be what can be seen from where?
roger leir
Am I correct?
I think that's correct.
jim dilettoso
That's why we got a demographical map.
roger leir
Right.
Let me try this out on you.
art bell
You know where the various locations were to both of you where these various videos were shot, correct?
jim dilettoso
That's right.
roger leir
What would stop you from going back in the daytime and taking shots with similar cameras, if not the same cameras, and then taking those back into the lab.
And since you're able to determine what the horizon is, you say, at night, compare the two and you will have your answer.
jim dilettoso
Yes, we in fact did that.
I did that.
Don't have to print.
roger leir
One at a time here.
jim dilettoso
Go ahead.
art bell
Richard?
jim dilettoso
Yes, I did that.
We were only denied doing that with Dr. L. And so we knew the location and we took a look at where we think the home was.
And we did that.
In fact, another thing was that we did that at, I don't want to use Steve's last name over in Alatuke, but we did that, and that's where we knew you couldn't see the Australias or the South Mountain from his balcony.
roger leir
All right, so you say you've already done that.
I've already done that with the first camera, and you can't see it, you claim.
jim dilettoso
On that one location.
Now, on the others, of course, you can.
Mr. Christian's patio looks directly southwest, and that's how he shot it.
And I shot also 35 millimeter as well as camcorder footage again, so we can make that reference.
That had to be done.
roger leir
All right.
Jim, have you done the same thing?
jim dilettoso
Yes.
We did that with a digital still camera and went to actually more locations than just of the videotape.
We went to a number of the eyewitness locations, shot the exact position that their descriptions were, and then with their assistance, recreated exact drawings and superimposed them on what it was that they said that they saw so that we could then compare it.
roger leir
Right.
jim dilettoso
Like doing a police artist work.
Inevitably, the topographical map from U.S. Geological Survey in 3D was the key to be able to get exacting lines of sight, match up the videos, and match up the daytime shots.
And the whole idea about it being flares always ran into the background here of if someone shot up flares, where did they shoot them from to get them up there?
Why did they shoot them up?
What was their motivation and their purpose?
And when coordinating all of this, we're saying, well, gee, what a coincidence with this major thing going on for the previous hour and a half.
Wouldn't everyone from the sheriffs and police departments to the air traffic controllers be on radio, and anyone like the DEA would know this is not the time to shoot up flares?
Okay, let me respond to that.
There was flares done Monday night, Tuesday night, Wednesday night.
By whom?
We don't know, but even your witnesses took pictures of it.
We have Steve's video and the triangle formation.
I have no agreement that those are flares.
He shot video, but we have had this going on, and the big difference between all the other nights was that the altitude was extremely high for these.
I don't want to miss one point here.
I want to get to the real agenda why Jim needs the 10 o'clock footage to be UFOs.
And that is because there is a possible movie deal with Dr. L. And they have to make that footage that they have.
There is no movie deal.
unidentified
Let me talk to you.
roger leir
Wait a minute, Richard.
art bell
Now, that is fair.
roger leir
Is there or is there not a movie deal?
You're saying there is not.
jim dilettoso
I have from actually other people that he's involved with saying that.
I have an audio tape interview with Dr. L, and the thing is that that footage is the thing that closely matches the actual flying deformation.
By the way, Jim, all you have to do is ask us for that footage.
You don't have to make a model.
We have the real thing.
All you've got to do is ask us for a copy.
If you have any professional recording equipment in your facility, because when we made the appointment for me to transfer that, we had to dig up an old U-Matic three-quarter-inch.
You had no professional equipment in-house to take an SVHS transfer.
No, we had digital video DVC equipment that would not lock up to your equipment, Richard.
Be accurate about this.
We have absolute top-of-the-line latest digital video recording equipment that would not lock to Richard's deck.
But, you know, we produced all the video for Strange Universe off of my deck.
It's strange, isn't it?
But anyway, it was just a matter of...
Gentlemen, we...
No, it's getting into honesty and what the real agenda is.
It's been my turn to talk, so I had to stop this.
roger leir
All right, Good.
jim dilettoso
I have never done this for money, ever.
I have never taken money for any television program or anything, any research I have ever done.
When someone comes to me and proposes that a movie can be made, and I listen and I sit there and listen because that's part of what we do, is we are very involved in major Hollywood projects, and everyone knows that.
There's a parade to my office every day.
I sit and listen.
That does not mean that I am participating or have any designs or any reason to make a movie.
If I wanted to make a movie, I would have gotten involved with something, anything, with the Billy Meyer case or any other case.
This is not even remotely close to why I would be involved with this.
And anyone that's close to this and knows me knows this for a fact.
That's why I do it.
roger leir
Richard's allegation is that you are making the 10 o'clock footage, the UFO footage, so that you can make a movie deal.
jim dilettoso
And what would the movie be about?
What do you think?
Now, also, the Dr. Edwards put her time stamp on her video and told me that she couldn't have possibly filmed anything past 8.30 that night, but she forgot that she dates the time at 10 o'clock p.m., not once, but twice, and her husband says it's March the 13th, 1997.
Don't con me, Jim.
Con you about what?
About everything you've been conning everybody else about.
This is really an insult.
Let's drop all this and let's get the investigation going on the real thing.
Because it's going to happen.
unidentified
Because it's going to happen.
jim dilettoso
This is really unbelievable that this position is being taken on the...
There is the truth of what you're saying.
The truth of evidence.
Yes.
Okay, Richard, supposedly flares, and I've been insulted to this degree about my motivation.
What about the science that was done on testing the flares?
Anyone want your word to say that?
Once you have your flare, anyone that has gotten a video taped off of these network programs can scan it into their computer and compare all the lights.
They can run optical waveform modulation functions.
It's exaggerated, Jim.
You know that.
There's only 230 lines of resolution compared to 4,000 35 millimeter film.
We have 35 millimeter film, by the way, of this, and the person has now forbid me to show it to anybody.
Jim has seen it.
It's a structured object, not plasma gas.
And all we need to do now is get another 35 print when they do another flare thing, and we have 100% match.
Okay.
roger leir
Lap it off if you want.
jim dilettoso
I'm being very serious about what I'm doing, and I can't believe that a discussion about an event that this important has deteriorated into this.
It hasn't deteriorated at all.
Okay.
You with your other people have presented a one-line or one-biased view of this, and we're trying to present.
We're not saying that everything is, we're calling the 10 o'clock event what it is, but we know you need that footage to go with the other event.
roger leir
Richard, you, yeah, let's center on the 10 o'clock event.
All right, Richard, you're saying it's flares.
jim dilettoso
Yes, I am.
roger leir
But you have not offered proof, in my opinion.
jim dilettoso
You will be getting stuff in the mail as I talked to you this afternoon about.
roger leir
But what we need is somebody from the National Guard, if that's what you're claiming, who says, I fired flares.
It really is a fair.
jim dilettoso
Oh, I have no question about it.
roger leir
It's a fair assumption right now to say that if somebody did fire flares with this kind of coverage, they'd have come forward long ago.
jim dilettoso
Well, they've been doing it for three months.
roger leir
Right now, you're basing that allegation, Richard, on newspaper reviews.
jim dilettoso
No, no, no, no, no.
We have video over a period of three months of the same event happening on and off at actually the same time for each light.
And this is over a three-month period, not from just one person.
I have it from three people.
So now we will go forward and do what you want, Art, and we'll either end up with Jim supplying a paper from the National Guard that is notarized to you that knows they did not do anything, or I'll end up getting a paper to you that says, yes, we did.
Then we said no comment.
Then we said, yes, we did again.
art bell
Well, the major media, ABC, NBC, CNN, all of them have been going to the various military organizations, probably to the point where they're getting annoyed and asking about this.
And they have been replying, or at least it's been reported that no, we had no operations on that night.
No, we had no flares up.
roger leir
Now, that's what's being reported, Richard.
jim dilettoso
Yes, and that's right.
But you've got to remember, Art, we didn't go ahead and do that since we wanted to concentrate on the real event.
And only this has just come up here with the U.S. Today article.
We're going to do what you ask, or we hope we're going to come up with some results.
But that doesn't worry me because now we know there's going to be an investigation by some third party, and they're going to turn up the same conclusion that we came up with.
So I'm not worried about that.
Yes, if they turn up the same conclusions, it's not using real science.
And I think we won't see reality.
I'm the only person on the earth that uses real science.
No, there are a number of people that can conduct identically the same tests and come up with the same results.
Anyway.
art bell
Listen, there's bad blood between you two.
jim dilettoso
There is at this point, but I want to point out this one thing.
I do not challenge Jim on previous work, and I want to make sure you know that.
This is on this event and this event only.
roger leir
Would you agree with that that you are only disagreeing on this event, Jim, or has there been previous disagreement?
art bell
In other words, was there bad blood before this?
jim dilettoso
I don't really have bad blood with anybody.
I require precision when they claim that testing has been done, as we do in our work here at the lab every day in projects unrelated to UFOs.
And the attempt here is to paint a picture that I would throw away the integrity in what I've done in my regular work and in other UFO cases to make a movie and to fraudulently say that we've tested something and attempt to get it on national media to build up a frenzy so that a movie could be made.
And that's a very unusual feeling that I have that that's what I'm being accused of.
I've been caught.
art bell
Oh, you've been caught, he said, Richard said.
jim dilettoso
Well, I haven't been caught.
roger leir
Caught in what way, Richard?
jim dilettoso
Well, let's go back to the little press release.
I still have the reporting off of my messaging machine that Jim had called and says, I stand corrected on this matter of the flares and that this woman has lied to us at the Air National Guard.
I didn't say that.
Absolutely.
I have it on tape.
Let's play it for us now.
roger leir
Richard, Richard, Richard, hold it, everybody.
jim dilettoso
Hold it, hold it.
roger leir
Richard, Jim just gave permission for you to play it.
jim dilettoso
Well, I have to get it.
roger leir
Well, go get it.
I can't.
jim dilettoso
Jim, listen.
art bell
Go get it.
jim dilettoso
Everything is art.
Let's do a redo.
Now, that's not fair, Art.
I have playwright to say it to us.
roger leir
Yes, it is there.
unidentified
Richard, hold it, hold it, hold it, hold it, hold it, hold it, everybody.
jim dilettoso
Richard, Richard, are you there?
Let me do this, Art.
I will include that with the package I'm sending you, okay?
roger leir
Is that fair enough?
jim dilettoso
Look, we've got a break coming up.
roger leir
We've got literally eight minutes at the top of the air.
jim dilettoso
I think the audiences need to hear the tape.
If I said that, I'm willing to be caught nationally.
All right, let me try to get.
I've got to put an AC adapter on the camera.
Let me try to get the proper tape and find the spot.
roger leir
You've got, look, a good eight or nine minutes.
jim dilettoso
All right, I will try my best, buddy.
roger leir
All right.
And so let's be straight right now before the top of the hour about what you both think was or wasn't said in that message.
art bell
Richard, you think he said what now?
jim dilettoso
He says, I stand corrected on the...
I stand corrected.
And he says, Captain blank me blank, that's not a foul word or anything.
It's just the person's prayer, lied to us.
Absolutely not.
I've got to go with that.
I never did.
And he tried my best.
roger leir
All right, hold on, hold on.
art bell
Jim, what do you say you said on the table?
jim dilettoso
Well, I left a couple of messages for Richard in the duration of time when he had said that there was a press release.
And I had talked to Captain Benz and knew exactly what she said and hadn't said.
And when Richard sent me this newspaper story that quoted a hearsay of a helicopter pilot, I...
Yes.
And I reported it directly to her, one person.
I know.
And when you read the report, you see that she is not admitting that they officially ever said it.
So I called up and, in my amusement, said something like, good work.
And I certainly would not say anything derogatory about Captain Ben's altitude.
Give me enough time here, Art, so I can go and try to find that.
roger leir
Oh, you'll have the time.
jim dilettoso
All right.
I've got to figure out how I'm going to patch this.
Okay, I'll figure it out here.
roger leir
It doesn't matter.
I mean, you can, if it's an answering machine, right?
art bell
Is what it is.
jim dilettoso
Oh, no, no.
What I did, oh, excuse me, Art.
What I did was I turned my 8mm camcorder on and photographed the answer machine as I pushed the play the message.
I have it archived on 8mm camcorder film.
It was easy enough.
It was on the answer machine.
I could just push the button.
So I'm sorry, you didn't understand what I'm up against on this end.
I have to, first of all, get the camcorder out.
I've got to put an audio patch out.
roger leir
Yeah, well, forget an audio.
I mean, you can, yeah, that's true.
You've got to find a way to get some audio.
jim dilettoso
Right, yeah.
roger leir
Loud audio.
jim dilettoso
I can just put the phone up to it.
But I'm sorry, you didn't understand that.
No, it's a digital answering machine.
It has a maximum of 25 messages, and you have to clear it off.
art bell
And so you did this to save it.
roger leir
Well, yeah, we'll give you a good luck 8, 9, 10.
I'm going to do my best, okay?
Fine.
That will help settle it because, Jim, you're saying that when you talked to the captain, she was sick of hearing from people, basically, about this whole thing.
jim dilettoso
Well, this was today when she called the lab.
This discussion with Richard is about a call maybe a month ago.
I think that's fairly close.
Let me try to remember.
I was in Atlanta the week before.
Yeah, that would be pretty accurate.
I would say three to four weeks ago would be correct.
art bell
All right.
jim dilettoso
And I said she denies.
In fact, I called Tom Taylor, the state director, and told him specifically that she had just denied it, that she had ever said it, or that they would ever send up flares.
unidentified
All right.
jim dilettoso
Try to find out.
roger leir
All right, Richard.
Go.
Okay.
The tail of the tape coming up, maybe, after the top of the hour.
art bell
I'm Art Bell, and this is CBZ.
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