Thinking & Reasoning Skills
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Oxford Cambridge and RSA Thursday 12 January 2017 – Morning LEVEL 2 AWARD THINKING AND REASONING SKILLS B902/01/RB Unit 2 Thinking and Reasoning Skills Case Study RESOURCE BOOKLET (CLEAN COPY) *6757869473* Duration: 1 hour INSTRUCTIONS TO CANDIDATES • This is a clean copy of the Resource Booklet which you should already have seen. • You should refer to it when answering the examination questions which are printed in a separate booklet. • You may not take your previous copy of the Resource Booklet into the examination. • You may not take notes into the examination. INFORMATION FOR CANDIDATES • CONTENTS OF THE RESOURCE BOOKLET Background information Document 1 Extracts from the Roswell Daily Record on 8th July, 1947 Document 2 Headline text published on 9th July, 1947 in the Roswell Daily Record Document 3 Adapted Daily Mail article from 2007 Document 4 Accounts from four witnesses Document 5a An adapted 2014 report from The Independent newspaper and a selection of reader comments Document 5b Reader comments Document 6 Extracts from a 1997 New York Times article Document 7a Information from a Roswell tour company Document 7b Comments made on a travel website about a Roswell tour • This document consists of 12 pages. Any blank pages are indicated. INSTRUCTION TO EXAMS OFFICER / INVIGILATOR • Do not send this Resource Booklet for marking; it should be retained in the centre or recycled. Please contact OCR Copyright should you wish to re-use this document. © OCR 2017 [D/502/0968] OCR is an exempt Charity DC (ST/FC) 140881/1 Turn over 2 Background information Aliens and UFOs have long been a common theme in science-fiction, but the idea that there might actually be intelligent life on other planets is an increasingly plausible concept as we discover more about the complexities of the universe. Mathematical probability alone suggests that there should be a significant number of planets capable of producing and sustaining intelligent life, but whether or not such lifeforms have ever attempted to visit or make contact with Earth is a different question entirely. UFO sightings are at the heart of a number of conspiracy theories. Many of these sightings feature accounts of aircraft that are beyond known technology, leading people to think either that it is alien technology, or that the military have access to secret, advanced technology. Most UFO sightings have been debunked, whether due to valid alternative explanations or to a lack of credibility, but there are some that remain ‘unresolved’. Organisations exist that investigate the many claims of UFO sightings, such as MUFON (Mutual UFO Network) and BUFORA (British UFO Research Association), and individuals who study such phenomena are known as ufologists. One case, ‘Roswell’, has been of interest to ufologists and conspiracy theorists for over half a century. In 1947, an unusual aircraft crashed at a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico, and was alleged to have been an extra-terrestrial spaceship. An article was published in a Roswell newspaper shortly afterwards with the headline RAAF Captures Flying Saucer On Ranch in Roswell Region. This was followed by a contradictory press release the next day claiming that it had been a weather balloon, not a flying saucer. A number of conspiracy theories have been proposed, claiming variations on the same theme. These suggest that at least one alien spacecraft had crash-landed and that the military covered this up and hid the aliens away in a secret army hangar known as Area 51. This theory, for some, remains plausible in spite of the US government recently declassifying its files on a top secret operation (Project Mogul) from 1947 that involved the crash landing of a high altitude balloon designed for highly classified espionage. © OCR 2017 B902/01/RB (clean copy) Jan17 3 DOCUMENT 1 Extracts from the Roswell Daily Record on 8th July, 1947 The intelligence office of the 509th Bombardment group at Roswell Army Air Field announced at noon today, that it has come into possession of a flying saucer. According to information released by the department, the disc was recovered on a ranch in the Roswell vicinity, after an unidentified rancher had notified Sheriff George Wilcox that he had found it on his premises. Major Marcel and a detail from his department went to the ranch and recovered the disc, it was stated. After the intelligence officer here had inspected the instrument it was flown to headquarters. The intelligence office stated that no details of the saucer’s construction or its appearance had been revealed. Mr and Mrs Dan Wilmot apparently were the only persons in Roswell who saw what they thought was a flying disc. They were sitting on their porch last Wednesday night at about ten o’clock when a large glowing object zoomed out of the sky from the southeast, going in a northwesterly direction at a high rate of speed. Wilmot called Mrs Wilmot’s attention to it and both ran down into the yard to watch. It was in sight less than a minute, perhaps 40 or 50 seconds, Wilmot estimated. Wilmot said that it appeared to him to be about 1,500 feet high and going fast. He estimated between 400 and 500 miles per hour. In appearance it looked oval in shape like two inverted saucers, faced mouth to mouth, or like two old type washbowls placed together in the same fashion. The entire body glowed as though light were showing through from inside, though not like it would be if a light were underneath. From where he stood Wilmot said that the object looked to be about 5 feet in size, and making allowance for the distance it was from town he figured that it must have been 15 to 20 feet in diameter, though this was just a guess. Wilmot said that he heard no sound but that Mrs Wilmot said she heard a swishing sound for a very short time. The object came into view from the southeast and disappeared over the treetops in the general vicinity of Six Mile Hill. Wilmot, who is one of the most respected and reliable citizens in town, kept the story to himself hoping that someone else would say they had seen a flying saucer, but finally today decided that he would come forward. The announcement that the RAAF was in possession of a flying saucer came only a few minutes after he decided to release the details of what he had seen. © OCR 2017 B902/01/RB (clean copy) Jan17 Turn over 4 DOCUMENT 2 Headline text published on 9th July, 1947 in the Roswell Daily Record General Ramey Says Disc is Weather Balloon Fort Worth, Texas, July 9 – An examination by the army revealed last night that a mysterious object found on a lonely New Mexico ranch was a harmless high-altitude weather balloon – not a grounded flying disc. Excitement was high until Brigadier General Roger M. Ramey, commander of the Eighth Air Force with headquarters here, cleared up the mystery. The bundle of tinfoil, broken wood beams and rubber remnants of a balloon were sent here yesterday by army air transport in the wake of reports that it was a flying disc. But the General said the objects were the crushed remains of a ray wind target used to determine the direction and velocity of winds at high altitudes. Warrant Officer Irving Newton, forecaster at the army air force’s weather station here said, ‘we use them because they go much higher than the eye can see.’ The weather balloon was found several days ago near the centre of New Mexico by Rancher W. W. Brazel. He said he didn’t think much about it until he went into Corona, New Mexico, last Saturday and heard the flying disc reports. He returned to his ranch, 85 miles northwest of Roswell, and recovered the wreckage of the balloon, which he had placed under some shrubs. Then Brazel hurried back to Roswell, where he reported his find to the sheriff’s office. The sheriff called the Roswell air field and Major Jesse A. Marcel, 509th Bomb Group intelligence officer, was assigned to the case. Colonel William H. Blanchard, commanding officer of the bomb group, reported the find to General Ramey and the object was flown immediately to the army air field here. Ramey went on the radio here last night to announce the New Mexico discovery was not a flying disc. Newton said that when rigged up, the instrument “looks like a six-pointed star, is silvery in appearance and rises in the air like a kite”. Newton said that some 80 weather stations in the U.S. were using that type of balloon and that it could have come from any of them. He said he had sent up identical balloons during the invasion of Okinawa to determine ballistics information for heavy guns. © OCR 2017 B902/01/RB (clean copy) Jan17 5 DOCUMENT 3 Item removed due to third party copyright restrictions. © OCR 2017 B902/01/RB (clean copy) Jan17 Turn over 6 DOCUMENT 4 Accounts from four witnesses A. Grady L Barnett, a civil engineer with the US Soil Conservation Service who was on a military assignment at the time, interviewed in 1950: “I noticed that they were standing around looking at some dead bodies that had fallen to the ground. I think there were others in the machine, which was a kind of metallic...disc. It was not all that big. It seemed to be made of metal that looked like dirty stainless steel. The machine had been split open by an explosion or impact. I tried to get close to see what the bodies were like.