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(continued) by Joe Turner Remembering Caras had bought some of the diffraction material, Marshall called up the company and was able to get a copy of Caras' invoice, showing that Towers Productions had paid some $20 for an 18" by 18" piece of diffraction material plus $10 for the Fed Ex shipping costs. This proved conclusively that Caras had important evidence in his possession and had suppressed it.
Photograph showing the diffraction film and its invisibility effect upon a ship.
Showing the computer animation was a diversion and it was insulting for Caras to think that Marshall didn't know it. The plan was obvious - kill any mention of Rinehart as a witness; present his account of the physics as an idea that Marshall had come up with; don't show or mention anything about his experiments because, if people saw them, they would look like more than just a "theory." Then, having established it as just a "theory," they would introduce Goerman and Reilly to discredit the only witness left, Allende. Then they would dismiss the whole thing as a hoax. Finally, edit Goerman's complaint to reflect badly on Marshall. Now Marshall was turning the tables on them, and he wasn't done yet.
"Caras told me that Jonathon Towers had told him to change the script," Marshall recalls, "but I didn't have it on tape. I needed the evidence." So Marshall got a voice mail number and called Caras up at a time when he felt he wouldn't be home. "Hi Mark. It's Marshall Barnes. Gee, you weren't kidding when you said Jonathon Towers had you change the script. What was the point of having me on in the first place? Call me..." The call was a ruse to get Caras to respond to the comment about Towers. Having Caras call the voice mail would be a legal way of obtaining Caras' response on tape. Caras called and didn't respond to the comment but just said that he had been away. He asked Marshall to call him back.
Marshall did call Caras back, providing a "beep" in the background which signified that he was taping the conversation.
Marshall repeated the accusation about Towers.
"Yeah I ,I infer that you weren't happy with it or something."
"What can I say. It didn't tell the truth."
"You know, you know," Caras stumbled, "I think we did the best we could, given the information that existed."
Marshall was stunned. Caras was giving him a completely different story. It was clear that he didn't care anymore about the truth than the Navy did. Marshall almost felt like asking if Towers was controlled by the intelligence community, but he didn't bother. He didn't care anymore. He knew the truth was finally going to get out - because he was going to do it himself. Marshall would make sure that the credibility of "The Unexplained" was exposed in the process.
Their conversation began to get heated as Caras started trying to deny the validity of Marshall's evidence - the same evidence that he had raved and formatted questions about before. The phone went dead. But Marshall had all he needed.
Next, Marshall decided to go back after Reilly. He wanted to confront Reilly directly about his previous comments, cross-examination style. Reintroducing himself as 'Mr. Barnes' and checking up on some points from the previous reporter's questions, Marshall launched into Reilly by getting him to confirm his clearance status and it's limitations. He asked Reilly about Yehudi, the Navy's (1943) formerly secret project to make an anti-submarine plane invisible with special lights. Reilly acknowledged that he was familiar with it. When asked if Reilly knew about it before it was declassified, Reilly said "No, because I had no occasion to." Then Marshall asked him about his denials of knowing anything about Area 51.
"Oh yeah, but I think that's getting far fetched frankly."
"My point is that, if it did take place, you wouldn't be allowed to know about it anyway, right?"
"If such a thing happened and if it were still classified..."
"That still means you wouldn't be allowed to know about it."
"Yeah."
"My point is this: you were on a TV show acting as if you were an expert on something. But if it had existed, and were still classified, you wouldn't be able to know about it anyway."
"Yeah." Reilly was feeling the pressure.
"That kind of negates your authority on the subject because you wouldn't be in a position to know..."
Reilly began to get angry but it was too late. Marshall was putting the squeeze on. "You and I can hypothesize until the.."
"Well I'm done hypothesizing. Isn't correct that if something is Top Secret, let's say that you have knowledge of it, you wouldn't be able to divulge that information anyway. Isn't that correct?"
"I would, I would not be able to divulge any kind of classified information, it doesn't have to be Top Secret."
"Right. So let's say that something like that happened and you did know about it, you wouldn't able, in fact ,nor would anyone else in the Navy, be in a position to reveal that information anyway, isn't that correct?"
"And little green men from outer space...", Reilly began snapping back before Marshall shut him down.
"I'm not talking about little green men from outer space, I'm talking about the policy for Top Secret information and how it is handled."
"Yeah."
"So it's true that if something is Top Secret that the military, whether it's the Navy or anyone else, cannot discuss or divulge that information. They would have to say it didn't exist or 'no, it didn't happen'."
"No, you don't say that, you simply say 'no I cannot discuss that'."
Marshall wasn't buying that.
"But I would point out to you, sir, that the Air Force's position on Area 51 is that it doesn't exist, even though everyone knows it exists. Their official position is that it doesn't exist. It's not that they can't talk about it. So if something like this did happen, the Navy wouldn't be admitting it anyway."
"No," Reilly relented, "they wouldn't be talking about it. Yeah"
"Right. So that means that your testimony or anyone else's from the Navy is inconsequential."
"Why of course!... But you're piling one thing on top of another and another."
Marshall had what he wanted and so went for the 'cool down', disengaging from the argument and, in the process, reassuring Reilly that he believed that Reilly hadn't heard of Area 51.
"I'm not a nuclear test buff so..." Reilly repeated as if it was a rehearsed response.
"Have you heard of Groom Lake before or Dreamland?"
"No. Those things have no particular interest to me."
Later, when Marshall was checking the recording he realized that he hadn't mention that Area 51 was connected to the Nevada nuclear test range at all. So if he hadn't mentioned it, and if Reilly wasn't lying, then why would he think he had to be a "nuclear test buff" to have knowledge of the secret base in the Nevada desert?
Marshall is now putting the finishing touches on what has become a feature length documentary with the title, "The Philadelphia Experiment: What The Unexplained Didn't Want 'X'-plained." The truth that Mark Caras and Towers Productions didn't want you to know is revealed in its entirety. Mack Shelton is exposed as a researcher "wannabe" and Vallee, Bernhard Haisch, and other disinformers get their due. Although this has given Marshall the opportunity to prove that he is one of the best investigators on the real X-File scene, he could have saved himself a lot of trouble if he had done an investigative search for Towers Productions on the internet, before agreeing to appear on their show. At www.realscreen.com under "Towers leanings: from law to depression," it says,(in the last sentence of the second paragraph) "The Unexplained seeks to debunk claims of the supernatural and paranormal."
Regardless, it's ironic that, at the same site on www.realscreen.com (in the 15th paragraph of the article "Investigating Bill Kurtis") the host of "The Unexplained" says, "I spent a lot of time in local television... It's eroded to the point where I don't think anybody observes any ethical standards anymore."
And so it's not surprising that if you go to http://store.aetv.com enter 'disappearances' as a search, then click on that title on the next page, you will be
confronted with a page selling the home video of "The Unexplained" episode in question. However, a quick review of it's description will reveal an account far more fantastic than any yarn spun by Carlos Allende or Mark Caras. In the second paragraph it begins "Another, even more incredible case involves a top-secret Navy experiment allegedly witnessed by a self-styled paranormal philosopher, who is interviewed here. The man claims to have watched from another ship as a Navy vessel and crew disappeared..." Obvious false advertising not withstanding, it appears that when it comes to the truth, if it is "out there," in this case A&E, Towers Productions and "The Unexplained" are the furthest from it that you could ever get!
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