Discovery of Downed F-89 Scorpion and Unknown Object is Probably a Hoax!

Today is March 18, 2007 and it's time to reconsider the Kinross Incident in light of the lack of credible evidence supplied by Adam Jimenez and the Great Lakes Dive Company.

By now, most of you realize that the Great Lakes Dive Company, through its spokesperson Mr. Jimenez, announced the discovery of a downed in 1953, F-89 Scorpion aircraft and an unknown object laying on the bottom of Lake Superior. Their news release, supposedly reported by the Associated Press, but denied by that news agency, claimed the discovery in 2005!

Many investigators and writers have had contact with Mr. Jimenez attempting to get definitive proof of the find. Mr. Jimenez has been close lipped to the point of exasperation. He refuses to release the names of the members of the Great Lakes Dive Company. He will not identify the names of the boats used in their salvages. He will not release photographs of the boats or that of any of the personnel involved.

As proof he has released photos of what are reported to be images taken with side-scan sonar. Several experts have come forward calling these images fakes.

I received many emails from readers concerning the remarkable discovery.

David Pawlowski writes, "No proof exists of this company, I've looked and found no public records for it beyond Mr. Jimenez registering from his website from his California PO box and that is a long way from Michigan, my home state. No pictures of the boat are provided, or the crew, or anything for that matter beyond the so called side scan sonar images which can be easily hoaxed given an aquarium, a kiddie pool, some sand, and some scale models just like the F-89D offered in 1/72 scale by Hasegawa/Monogram. All that would be needed then is a website, a cell phone to talk to an excited producer at Coast to Coast AM, and jpegs of the so-called wreckage field taken from a fishing scanner converted to side scan which is also described on the WWW. So called ROV pictures have never been released of any F-89 cockpit or aircraft, only claims never proven."

David adds, "What surprises me is why the United States Air Force or American Aviation Historical Societies or clubs weren't tripping over each other for the opportunity of confirming the discovery of the almost pristine condition Scorpion lost in 1953.I would have thought that one of these organizations would want to raise the F-89 for historical preservation. The mystery surrounding the plane itself would guarantee increased revenue for the successful organization as thousands of enthusiasts would travel to witness this piece of history."

He asks the following logical question, "Next, why have not the U.S. Air Force not requested the bodies of the crew of the F-89 Scorpion - First Lt. Felix Eugene Moncla (USAF) and Pilot and First Lt. Robert L. Wilson (USAF), Radar Information Officer. With reports that the canopy of the jet fighter was still intact after more than 50 years the possibility exists that the remains of the crewmen are still onboard. Surely, the families would be like the bodies returned and finally interred as per military custom."

Another message was received from Robert (last name withheld at writer's request) who offers the following comments, "If this turns out to be an elaborate hoax, then MANY people got absolutely swindled by this. In essence they accepted the visual of two blurry photos and what somebody posted on the Internet after 8/9/06." He continues, "Again if it is an hoax, one could suspect some ploy to get a load of investors to contribute loads of cash to go out and check it out, like lost treasure tales of days gone by. Then when they get out there, 'gee' we can't find it, the evil government must have slipped in and grabbed it between September of 06 and whenever the boat left port say in the summer of 2007."

Robert concludes, "I predict that should this prove to be a hoax, very _few_ of the many people who blathered this all over the Internet will ever step up to the plate and stamp it Hoax and say they got swindled and passed on bogus information. Likewise very few if any of the UFO talk radio people will every step up and label it a hoax and extol how they got misled and lied to like everybody else. Instead they will either say nothing and move on to the next big story/tale riding on the UFOlogical circuit or advance the theory about how it was a secret government cover-up, blah blah blah."

Brendon Baillod, of the Great Lakes Shipwreck Research writes, "I've been following the Kinross happenings for the past month and I'm afraid it seems to be a moderately elaborate hoax. I've been hunting and researching shipwrecks on the (Great) Lakes for many years and I have an online/published track record and affiliations to prove it. What strikes me as odd is that Great Lakes Dive Company and Adam Jimenez are completely unknown to me. The Great Lakes wreck hunting community is small and close knit, particularly at the top levels. As such, it really struck me as odd that I never heard of Jimenez et al. I founded the Great Lakes Shipwreck Research Foundation, which holds the annual Ghost Ships Festival. The event attracts over 1000 Great Lakes wreck hunters, tech divers and historians annually. I also am a director at large for the Association for Great Lakes Maritime History (www.aglmh.org), an umbrella organization for Great Lakes museums and historical societies. In the course of all my dealings, I have never heard of Jimenez or his group."

"The other thing that bothers me is their claim to have rigged a fish finder transducer to work with their Sharc2 imaging software to produce the images. I do wreck hunting with Harry Zych who is a long established commercial salvor out of Chicago. He uses a dual frequency digital Klein side scan sonar and a Seasmart ROV, both with price tags well over $100,000 and has located many airplanes on the Lakes. He is the Great Lakes locator of choice for most large insurance companies and government agencies. We have searched deep water on Lake Superior for wrecks and have never gotten a deep water image as good as those put forth by Jimenez even with a high frequency fish fitted with a deepwater depressor wing and 1000 ft of cable. I have also searched using homemade sides cans and even VERY good homemade units produced by professional engineers. None can produce a hi-res image unless they use a remote towfish and even then, deep images are generally big, dark blobs. Using a hull-mounted transducer will NOT produce the kind of images Jimenez is showing, particularly not in 500 ft of water. I also find his claim unbelievable that seasonal constraints pushed them off the Cerisoles and Inkerman and out to the Kinross location. Frankly, the minesweepers have a much smaller search grid than the Kinross jet and the minesweepers are by all accounts, closer to land. I would expect the opposite.... that they would abandon the Kinross search due to weather and instead pursue the minesweepers, which present a shorter search closer to shore."

Brendon concludes, "When I do a people finder search on Jimenez, I find that he resided at the now defunct Wurtsmith AFB in northeast Michigan in the past. Of itself, that isn't incriminating, but I find the account of their search and imaging technology completely unsupportable, given the images provided. I expect that he acquired the unpublished military side scan images of a jet and a dislocated object and then constructed the story. He got a lot more attention from the hoax than he planned and has decided to go underground. I'll be very surprised if we ever hear from him or the Great Lakes Dive Company again. If I'm wrong, I'll eat my words, but Jimenez' story has too many problems that are apparent to those experienced with deep search technology."

I received the following answer to my email from Adam Jimenez October 7, 2006:

Thank you for the email. We have temporarily discontinued the website and message board due to security issues related to the project. Our email does work, and we are keeping in touch with a small group of people regarding the project.

Thanks again,

Adam Jimenez

Mr. Jimenez told me that their website was temporarily shut down due to threats they had received. I have knowledge of who made the threats, which really weren't threats at all. They were from a well-known individual who was in the position to assist financially in the production of a documentary for the Discovery Channel. I personally believe Mr. Jimenez was embarrassed by the fact that he could not provide answers to questions posed by the caller! The only threat Mr. Jimenez perceived was the knowledge that if he honestly answered the questions his deliberate hoax would be exposed.

MUFON (Mutual UFO Network) did its own investigation into the Great Lakes Dive Company and discovered that Mr. Jimenez had provided a cell phone number to various film makers and researchers, but switched to a new cell phone number soon after the threats were made. When MUFON tried to trace either phone number through Intelius.com, both phone numbers proved to be untraceable.

I will admit I was hoping the story was true and tried to give Mr. Jimenez and the Great Lakes Dive Company every opportunity to prove their discovery. But if answers and indisputable proof are not forthcoming, then Mr. Jimenez has fabricated an elaborate hoax that injured UFO investigators, journalists, but more importantly the memory and families of the deceased pilot Felix Moncla and radar observer Robert Wilson.

Further Links to the Kinross Incident:

The Kinross Controversy: Hoax, Fraud, Men-in-Black or Genuine ...

New Evidence: the Kinross UFO Incident

The Mystery Object near the Kinross F-89 Scorpion