Message posted by T.D. Barnes on March 06, 2012 at 12:42:55 PST:

Pete brings up some good points. While on this subject, most of you have see accusations that the government has and refuses to release information as part of a cover up. I'm not saying this doesn't happen - and agree that any information that might help our enemies should not be released. However, I can attest that most often our government doesn't have the information. When Project Oxcart closed shop, every photos, film, and piece of paper was gathered up and sent to Norton AFB. Sometime since then, it was all destroyed. Pete happened to be in a warehouse at NASA a while back where they were preparing to destroy everything. He recovered for me some of the maps and X-15 preflight documents prepared by me in 1964 while I was on the NASA High Range. Otherwise, this would have been lost forever. Back to Oxcart, when it was declassified, CIA contacted me to learn what happened during Oxcart and Black Shield. They had very little records. They constructed what happened using the Roadrunner website and by me digging up information from the participants. I provided CIA and Lockheed both with video and even some photos (off site and Lockheed) that they did not have. We are just sick that we lost all the photos and film taken at the Ranch. There is not as much cover up as a lot of people want to believe. Failure to preserve this history may be worse than a cover up.

In Reply to: Re: Message for TD Barnes re: 50's Groom Lake footage posted by Peter Merlin on March 06, 2012 at 11:59:46 PST:

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