Michael Wessel
| Michael Wessel |
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Michael Wessel was a University of Washington research chemist whom independent investigator Daniel McEvoy identified as one of four people directly involved in the DNA and tissue analysis of biological samples taken from the non-human intelligent being Freddie, as documented in the Jonathan Reed forest incident. The other team members were Roger Haggett, Harold Chacon, and Jonathan Reed himself. McEvoy reportedly met and interviewed Wessel in April 2000, discussing the planned analysis and an anticipated timeline for results. A commentary video reviewing the Reed case stated that he had been a research chemist at the University of Washington and was preparing to release the DNA analysis of the creature at the time of his death. A University of Washington obituary cited in commentary on the Reed case described Wessel as "a research chemist in the U.S. Department of Environmental Health since 1988."
Death
On 28 August 2000 — exactly two months to the day after the death of his colleague Roger Haggett — Wessel allegedly died in what was described as a "bizarre hiking accident" in the Cascade Mountain range, the same region where the original 1996 Jonathan Reed forest incident had occurred. A University of Washington obituary stated he "apparently fell to his death on the way down after scaling the summit" of Mount Cristo Peak in the Mount Baker–Snoqualmie National Forest. Jonathan Reed reportedly noted that Wessel had made it a practice to climb only with a partner for safety reasons. A commentary video reviewing the case observed that both researchers dying "under mysterious circumstances in the same week" was "weird" even by the standards of the case.
Daniel McEvoy, who continued investigating the Jonathan Reed case after both deaths, stated that the timing — exactly two calendar months between the deaths of two researchers working on the same classified analysis, in a region (the Cascade Mountains) connected to the original incident — was not consistent with coincidence. Reed, in LINK: An Extraterrestrial Odyssey (co-authored with Robert Raith), framed Wessel's death as part of a broader pattern of government suppression of the tissue analysis findings. No independent verification of the death has been established in the public record.
See also
- Roger Haggett
- Harold Chacon
- Jonathan Reed forest incident
- Shooting of Jonathan Reed
- Obelisk (Jonathan Reed)