The
other day, as I was looking over some of my old files and interviews I found an
interview that I had done nothing with at the time. At the risk of offending
all those who get annoyed if I mention Roswell and accuse me of being obsessed
with it, I thought this might be of interest. I remember nothing about this
interview. It took place in late 1995 with Colonel Claude N. Burcky, who, in
1947 was a major assigned to the 390th Air Service Squadron.
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| Claude N. Burcky |
I
confirmed that I was talking to the right man and that he had been in Roswell
in 1947 (though the Yearbook confirmed that as well). He told me, “I was base
operations officer… and I knew of it [the alleged crash] and we knew that
security requirements relative to it…” (I must note here that in July 1947, there
were two base operations officers. First was Lieutenant Colonel James Hopkins
and then Lieutenant Colonel Joe Briley.)
But
Burcky told me he hadn’t seen anything first hand. He said, “Since I didn’t see
anything and the only thing that I was told was that such and such hangar was
off limits to everyone and that the parts, pieces and so forth that were picked
up and put on this trailer… and put into that hangar and no one could get in
there until the stuff was moved.”
He
also said that he had heard the stories of alien bodies but that he had not
seen them himself. So, he was providing some interesting second-hand testimony
about what went on during that time but given the state of Roswell research
today, it really adds little to our knowledge and might be seen as complicating
it even more. I asked about the debris, but he hadn’t seen any of it either,
and only knew what he had heard.
I
said, “So you really didn’t see anything like that yourself? So all you’re
really aware of is some event took place.”
He
said, “Yeah, and I assigned a guy to drive the trailer, the vehicle that went
out… you see it happened on the bombing range.”
And
this is where the tale became interesting because the bombing range was south
of the base and that suggested something had happened much farther south of
Roswell. I had heard nothing of a crash site south of Roswell and even today
there seems to be nothing to support that idea and I’ve talked to a number of
people about this. Everything was more or less north of town and more or less
north of the base. This didn’t fit with what I knew.
But
there was something that I did know. There was a reported crash south of
Roswell in 1949 and wondered if that might a source of confusion. I learned that on February 11, 1949, Paul L.
Ryan, in the AFOSI 17th District at Kirtland AFB in Albuquerque prepared
a report about an “Aerial Phenomena,” that had been observed on January 30. He
wrote, “…Mr. Charles Naffziger, Administrative Supervisor, advised that a
peculiar light or aerial phenomena had been observed at 1755 hours [or about
six in the evening], 30 January 1949, in the vicinity of Walker AFB [originally
Roswell Army Air Field], Roswell, New Mexico, and that Sgt. Edward P. McCrary,
a tower control operator of Walker AFB be contacted.”
The
next day, January 31, several of those at Roswell were interviewed about the
sighting. The official report said:
…a
blue-green light resembling a flare was observed travelling on a horizontal
line. This light came out of the North headed South at an estimated altitude of
2,000 feet, moving slowly, and disappeared in the vicinity of SE Walker Air
Force Base. To some observers, this phenomenon disappeared in its entirety
while other statements mention a disappearance as a disintegration into a
shower of smaller lighted fragments such as a shower of sparks. The only sound
accompanying this object was heard by Sgt. McCrary, who described it as a high
pitched whining noise similar to a blowtorch. All of these observers sighting
this light from a position west of it while facing east.
One
of those men was Sergeant Raymond D. Platt, who I interviewed more than forty
years later. He provided a little more detail, saying the he, “didn’t believe
it was a flying saucer. He believed it to be a meteor.” In 1949 he was “interrogated
by base personnel, the CIC and the FBI.”
He
said it was flying very slow, was very bright and it exploded into six or seven
pieces. It was travelling at a very shallow angle, going from north to south
and was bright white and blue. It burned out after it exploded, which is why he
lost sight of it.
There
were other reports of this object from other areas around Roswell. In
Alamogordo, Major James C. Petersen, said that he had sighted a single bright
green object looking to the east. He said it was a bright green fireball of
flame travelling in a southerly direction, without evidence of smoke or trail
of any kind. He lost sight of it when it, according to him, seemed “to fizzle
out.”
Also
in Alamogordo, Wilfred T. Martin, who worked as a technician for the Boeing
Aircraft Company, said that about six in the evening, he saw a single green
fireball to the east and travelling to the south. He saw no signs of an
exhaust; he watched for about ten seconds and said that it did not explode.
Martin
was with Sergeant Maurice C. Anthon at the time and who was also interviewed
about the sighting in 1949. He said, “I observed an object that appeared to be
travelling diagonally across in front of me… Its distance seemed very close and
appeared to be travelling very slowly… Gentle downward glide, bright burning
(Green and yellowish light) a fizzling out and then a bright burning, and then
appeared to die out. This could have been the effects of its passing beyond my
view.”
PFC
Ira W. Vail, assigned to the weather detachment at Holloman AFB in Alamogordo
told investigators in 1949 that he had “seen a green ball of flame with a trail
of some kind in an Easterly direction.” Vail described the object as traveling
in a Southerly direction and added that the object was visible for
approximately six seconds. Vail described the object as “bright green and
disappeared without exploding.”
There
were other, similar reports coming from other parts of New Mexico and west
Texas. The track of the object, or the green fireball, could be plotted based
on the observations of the witnesses, and the investigators took many of them
to the places where they had seen the fireball to get accurate measurements
suggesting height and direction. Using the information gathered from more than
100 witnesses, Dr. Lincoln La Paz set out in an attempt to find where the
object came to earth, if it was an ordinary meteor. He said that he’d have very
good luck in the past finding the remains of meteors (in this case a meteorite.
According
to the report, “Special Agent [Lewis] Rickett [a member of the Counter
Intelligence Corps stationed in Roswell and who said he was involved in the UFO
crash there in 1947] continued the search throughout Southeast New Mexico and
West Texas from 1400 hours, 2 February 1949, to 2400 hours 8 February 1949, in
the company of Dr. Lincoln La Paz of the University of New Mexico.”
A
verbal report of that activity was made to the Scientific Advisory Board
Conference of February 16, 1949. La Paz said:
In
the case of the January 30th fall, due to the fact that there had
been a large number of military personnel alerted, we were able to obtain
observations within a minute after the fall occurred and pursued the
investigation over a distance of 1,000 miles – in Texas mud primarily – in some
ten days’ time interviewing literally hundreds of people, we saw not one
substantial account of noise produced by the meteorite fall…
These
lines are drawn [on a map of observers’ sightings, giving direction of the
object from the observer and the direction of travel] from the points of
observation. The center… of the points of appearance is somewhere Southwest of
Amarillo or South-southwest of Amarillo. The disappearance point is in the
vicinity of Lubbock, Texas.
La
Paz explained that his plots suggested that the meteorite, if that was what it
was, should have struck the ground near Lamesa, Texas, which is to the south of
Lubbock. Working with a team, including military men such as Rickett, Platt and
Neef, they searched the area for several days without results. La Paz was
puzzled because in similar cases of large, bright meteorites, he had had great
success in recovering fragments.
What
struck me here was that Burcky talked of something to the south of the base and
this was in the general direction of the bombing range. Platt said that he had
been interrogated by people from the base, the CIC and the FBI which suggests
that they thought there might be some sort of national security implication but
not necessarily indicative of alien visitation. This also sort of describes La
Paz, a civilian who was in Roswell interviewing the witnesses. It might be that
Burcky confused his statements about what happened in 1947 with what happened
in 1949.
Just
to end a bit of confusion, it is clear to me and practically anyone else who
looks at the 1949 sighting is that it was one of the green fireballs. There was
a classified study of them being made in 1949 so there was a national security
implication. When the sightings ended, even though there was a bit of controversy
about what the green fireballs really were, it was determined that they posed
no threat. The documentation and reports were eventually declassified so that
we all can see what was being done back in the late 1940s.
I
believe that I did nothing with this report because it suggested another site
south of Roswell and there was nothing else to back it up. There was no
testimony from any ranchers, no soldiers said they had gone out there, and
everything else pointed to the events north of town. The report is just one of
those anomalies that spring up when dealing with memories that are decades old,
though I suspect that those who enjoy creating long lists of UFO crashes will
use this tale to validate those claims regardless of the solution. The January
1949 event was a green fireball and not an alien ship.
