Tall tales such as those told by Malmgren are not innocent fun.
Malmgren hijacked the personas of real people to serve as characters in his self-glorifying fantasies — McNamara, Bundy, Shriver, and LeMay, among others. He put words into the mouths of these men that they never said and imputed to them actions that they never took. Richard Bissell, a leader of the early CIA, suffered the worst misuse at Malmgren’s hands, as Malmgren attributed to him corroboration of various unsubstantiated UFO-alien stories, including a tale of an alien survivor of the 1947 Roswell incident.
Some of the Malmgren claims are now receiving wide exposure in certain quarters. A final interview, issued as a 3-hour, 49-minute video by YouTube channel owner Jesse Michels on April 22, drew over 650,000 views in less than a month. Ross Coulthart of the NewsNation network has repeatedly and enthusiastically promoted Malmgren’s claimed credentials and adventure tales without any evident attempt at serious fact checking. Others are similarly engaged.
In a recent controversy over Malmgren’s Wikipedia profile, Michels suggested that it was “shameless” for editors to challenge Malmgren’s claims because Malmgren “can’t defend himself.” The premise is absurd, antithetical to fundamental requirements of historical research and investigative journalism. Malmgren’s claims, if true, would have the most profound public policy implications, including his claims that the U.S. government gained possession of nonhuman craft in 1933, 1947, 1962, and perhaps other times, with the corollary that the government has lied about this for decades. That would be important, if true. When the allegations are that serious, the credibility of the person making them is the first test — and it deserves serious scrutiny before such claims are publicly embraced and widely disseminated.