Aztec in Perspective by Monte Shriver - Part One

(Blogger’s Note: The following is reprinted by permission. Given the length of the original article, I have broken it into three parts and will publish all three over the next week. It was written by one-time resident of Aztec, Monte Shriver, and provides an interesting insight into the alleged crash. Again, reprinted by permission of Monte Shriver.)

 

IT’S ABOUT TIME 

(SOMEONE FROM AZTEC WROTE ABOUT THE HART CANYON UFO AND REPORT THEIR FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS) 

INTRODUCTION 

by

Monte Shriver

 

I was born in El Dorado, Kansas in 1934 and in 1937 we lost our ranch in the depression and moved to Aztec, New Mexico. My Grandfather Shriver bought the old experimental farm north of the Estes Arroyo and my Dad rented a farm on the Ruins Road. I entered the first grade in 1940 and had my first experience with riding a school bus. In 1941, my Uncle Jim Shriver joined the Army so my Grandfather sold the farm and we moved to town in 1941, purchasing a house on Mesa Verde Avenue. In May 1946 we sold the house in Aztec and moved to Falcon, Colorado where we lived until February 1947 when we returned to Aztec and purchased a home at 402 San Juan Ave - a home where my Mother lived until she passed away in 2006.

 

I graduated from Aztec High School in 1952 and enrolled at the New Mexico College of  Agriculture and Mechanic Arts in Las Cruces, New Mexico and graduated in 1957 with a degree in mechanical engineering. After various jobs including serving in the United States Air Force as an intelligence officer, I went to work for the Bell System in 1962 and retired in 1990. In 1989, I was transferred to Las Cruces, New Mexico by the telephone company and we have lived in southern New Mexico since that time.

I would like to thank my classmates from the Aztec High School Class of 1952 all of whom let me test my memories of the late 40’s and early 50’s with them during our recent 60^th class reunion. These included Herb Collins, John Franchini, Bruce Hare, Robert Sipe, Alice Crane Hardin and Lee Atchison and Betty Lawson Waggoner and Bud Crane from the Class of 1951. I would also like to thank Elizabeth Flores and her staff at the Special Collections Branch at the NMSU Library for providing me with access to old New Mexico State Highway Department Maps as well as other historical documents. Others I talked to included Gerald Williams,  Evaleene Andrews Dunn and Jack Dunning.

The first time I recall hearing of the UFO crash in Hart Canyon was when I

learned that the Aztec City Library was holding an annual symposium about the UFO crash. During the 2000s, I read about the symposium in the Aztec newspaper, the Talon and even wrote one or more letters to the Talon on the subject. Finally, I attended my first symposium in 2011 (the last one unfortunately) and revisited Hart Canyon for the first time in many years. 

As a result of the Symposium, I purchased  two books, Behind the Flying Saucers -- Updated Edition by Frank Scully with Bonus “Truth About Aztec UFO Crash” by Sean Casteel and published by Conspiracy Journal as well as William S. Steinman’s UFO Crash at Aztec - A Well Kept Secret. I also recently purchased Scott Ramsey’s book The Aztec Incident - Recovery at Hart Canyon. After reading these three books, I decided it was time that someone from Aztec reviewed these books and reported their findings and conclusions.  I hope that future researchers will find this information helpful in their quest to determine what really happened in Hart Canyon if, in fact, anything did happen. I know that the Ramsey’s believe that “…the Aztec Incident is a real event….” I start this work as a skeptic based on my research and interviews with my classmates who attended the Aztec Public School system in 1948. And you, dear reader, may make your own decisions based on the mistakes I have found and the questionable conclusions that have been reached. The question that must be answered is “How many errors and mistakes must be made before the entire work is invalidated?”

 

In Ramsey’s book, at page 20, he quotes a Virgil J. Riggs as saying “As a young kid growing up in Aztec, NM in the late 1940’s to the late 1950’s, I had heard many rumors and talk about the UFO crash north of Aztec.” At my recent class reunion with members of the classes of 1951 and 52, I asked them if they knew Virgil Riggs and if they remembered any talk of a UFO crashing north of Aztec. Many of them remembered Mr. Riggs, but no one, including me, could remember anyone talking about a UFO crash in the Aztec area during the 40’s and 50’s. As one of my classmates said, if we had heard about a UFO crash in Hart Canyon, we would have been all over the place looking for it. Robert Sipe told me he and his father had  cut fence posts in Hart Canyon in 1948 and never heard anything about a UFO landing there. Sometime between 1947 and 1950, I shined shoes at Ray Current’s barber shop for two years. During that time, I never heard anyone mention a UFO in Hart Canyon. The conversations always seemed to center on hunting, sports and farming. Of  course, Mr. Current would become quite animated when he would talk about how Farmington tried to steal the county courthouse from Aztec. The barbershop had hot showers and on weekends, it was quite common for farmers to come into the shop for shave, haircut and a hot shower since many of the farms did not have running water. Afterwards, they would sit around the shop and “bat the breeze” but no mention of a  UFO was ever made to my recollection.  I was a boy scout during 1947-49 and I remember camping at the cave about 5 miles up Hart Canyon and no one in the scouting group ever said anything about a UFO in the Canyon. I have know Jack Dunning for over 60 years and I never remember him mentioning it at all until I asked him about it in 2011.

Beginning at page 210, the Steinman book contains an article by Mike McClellan which indicates that Roy Sullivan was sheriff of San Juan County in 1948 and he “… had no recollection of a crash, aircraft being in the area or anything that would support Carr’s claims…”. Further, Bruce Sullivan (the sheriff’s son who would have been in Aztec High School at the time) is quoted as saying he lived in Aztec all his life and never “knew or heard anything about it”.

 

UFO CRASH AT AZTEC BY STEINMAN AND STEVENS

 

On page 24, Mr. Steinman states that “A flying saucer did indeed crash land …twelve miles of Aztec on 25 March 1948...This craft, of unknown origin, was recovered  by a team composed of military intelligence and scientific personnel…dismantled and secretly carted off to a covert hiding place…”.

At pages 27-28, he has the reported sighting of the 25 March 1948 UFO going directly to Secretary of State George C. Marshall and that Secretary Marshall was giving direct orders as to how this situation should be handled.  I would have thought the reports would have gone through the military chain of command to the Secretary of Defense.

On page 31, he states that the IPU scout team found the “crash landed disc” and gave directions to the recovery team on how to reach the disc. Further, he indicates that the IPU team members reached the crash-site virtually unnoticed by civilians living in the area. As soon as the IPU team arrived at the scene road blocks were set up two miles from the site on all roads leading to the area. Guards were then posted and only people with the appropriate pass could enter. This assertion is contradicted by the Ramsey book which states that oil field workers, Doug Noland, Bill Ferguson, people in route to California, a traveling preacher, local law enforcement and even a law enforcement officer from Cuba, New Mexico (more about him later) and others were on the site before military and/or government personnel arrived on the scene later in the morning.

Further, he states that the Dunning family was held incommunicado within their own ranch house and that the Dunning property upon which the disc was located was immediately transferred from the ownership of Harold Dunning to federal status. The Dunning’s  phone line was also monitored.

In 2011, I raised these issues with a long-time friend on mine, Jack Dunning, the son of Harold (Hy) Dunning. He told me that they were not held incommunicado on the ranch, no property of theirs was transferred to the government and that their phone line could not have been monitored because they did not have a phone.  He reaffirmed the same with me in 2012 after I visited Aztec for my 60^th class reunion June 29-30.

On page 38, Mr. Steinman says the government scientists reportedly gained entry to the disc by breaking out a porthole window with a hammer, then finding a long pole which they pushed through the porthole, barely reaching  a “pushbutton” which when pushed by the pole caused a door to open, allowing access to the disc. On page 139 (of the Conspiracy Journal’s Behind the Flying Saucers Updated Edition by Frank Scully), the scientists (Dr. Gee’s group) waited two days before deciding it was safe to approach the disc. They found a broken glass porthole and rammed a pole through this defect in the ship (No mention is made of breaking the porthole with a hammer). They prodded around with the pole used to push through the opening in the broken porthole, ultimately hitting a double knob which caused a door to fly open. Compare this to  Ramsey’s book, page 3, as related to Scott Ramsey by Doug Noland, Doug’s boss, Bill Ferguson “…was trying to poke around the craft with a fire pole or something…Soon, he hit some damn thing and a door or walkway appeared…”.  (No mention of pushing the pole through  a broken porthole.) When there are conflicting stories about the same event, only one can be right or they could all be wrong. You, dear reader, must decide.

On page 42, the saucer was disassembled, loaded on three trucks, covered with tarps with signs indicating the trucks carried explosives so that anyone seeing these trucks would be easily deceived. Contrast this with Ramsey’s book on  page 159 where his transportation expert speculated that separating the disc into thirds would result in 1/3 of the craft being 50 feet wide, 86.6 feet long and the top of the craft 17 feet above ground level and extending about 26 feet behind the trailer carrying it. Anyone seeing 3 trucks loaded like this and marked explosives must have had one hell of a scare and obviously they would have been easily deceived.  Unlike Mr. Ramsey who has extensive detail on how the disc could have been moved to Los Alamos, Mr. Steinman basically says the disc was moved to Los Alamos without giving any details of how the move actually took place.

Depending upon whose account you read, the roads in Hart Canyon were barricaded for anywhere from three days to two weeks or more. With oilfield workers and ranchers in the area, wouldn’t you think someone in Aztec would have heard about it?

On page 72, Mr. Steinman makes a statement that I am sure will come as a complete surprise to the citizens of Aztec as it did to me and I quote “MJ-12* ordered the entire town of Aztec, New Mexico placed under complete surveillance. The family of the ranch owner H.D. were under special watch. Their phone calls, all mail, and all movements were monitored at all times. All of their relatives, school mates, teachers, close friends, etc., were also watched like a hawk. This close surveillance is still going on 39 years after the event(that would be 1987), and will  continue (emphasis added) until MJ-12 sees fit to relax the net.” So watch it Aztec! Someone is watching you. Heck, they might even have been at my 60^th class reunion because I will admit there were some people there from the class of  ‘51 that I didn’t recognize”.

*Some people maintain that an MJ-12 organization never existed.

I should note that when Mr. Steinman visited Hart Canyon in 1982, he noted on page 257 that “…two huge unmarked helicopters followed me in and out of the canyon!! This didn’t bother me so much at first; but, when I got back home, the same type of unmarked helicopters circles very low over my house…over a period of several months….” REALLY??

On page 242, when Mr. Steinman arrived at the Durango airport in 1982, he states that he headed the back way to Aztec on Highway 172 which, I understand him to say, was the route the recovery team took from the airport to the crash site. The only problem with this is that in 1948, Highway 172 went from Ignacio to Arborles, CO and wasn’t rerouted south to meet NM Highway 511 until 1972. NM Highway  511 wasn’t extended north from the Navajo Dam to meet CO Highway 172  until the early 1970’s.  In fact, the 1948 New Mexico State Road Map doesn’t show any road going into Colorado on the route now covered by NM 511. That of course doesn’t preclude the possibility of dirt roads between the states but how the recovery team was able to travel over unnamed dirt roads and find Hart Canyon is a mystery to me. In fact, Jack Dunning told me that in 1948 there was no road that he knew of that would take you from Hart Canyon to Durango.  What I never understood was why not take the easy way to Hart Canyon? Just drive west from the Durango Airport to paved highway US 550 from Durango to Aztec  and drive south to the entrance to Hart Canyon.

A few other areas where Mr. Steinman is wrong:

1. On page 72, he states that “Admiral James V. Forrestal was the Navy Chief of Staff at the end of the war.” I could find nothing in the record to indicate that Mr. Forrestal was ever an admiral. Further, unlike the Army and Air Force who were headed by a Chief of Staff, the Navy is headed by the Chief of Naval Operations(CNO). The office of CNO was established in 1915. During the war, Mr. Forrestal was Under-Secretary of the Navy for several years, appointed Secretary of the Navy in May 1944 and in 1947 appointed the first Secretary of Defense. This is an example of rather shoddy research if you ask me.

2. On page 258, he reports finding an eyewitness  (V.A) whose place “…is a neatly kept little farm on the Animas River, on the outskirts of  Blanco….” The only minor problem here is that it is the San Juan River on the outskirts of Blanco, not the Animas. If you can’t get the name of the river right, what  do you get right? 

3. On page 259, he states that V.A.’s daughter told him that you could see the south side of the south walls of Heart(sic) Canyon from her father’s front yard. A friend of mine told me that to see Hart Canyon from Blanco, one had to have either a very long neck or be a world champion high jumper or both. When I drove the area on June 29-30, 2012 I found it impossible to see Hart Canyon from the Blanco Area.

The Nevada Fireball - April 18, 1962

(Blogger's Note: While researching another case, I stumbled across this article written by Scott Holloway. I had planned to adapt it, with permission of course, but in his reply, he gave permission to reprint the whole thing and I saw no advantage to adapting it. This then, is the article that Holloway wrote about his research into the Las Vegas UFO crash. It shows what can be done by someone who lives in the area. The only changes I made were a couple of grammatical and spelling changes.)

 

Written By: Scott Holloway

(http://www.paranormalnews.com/article.aspx?id=1425)

On April 18, 1962, an unidentified flying object , most commonly referred to by witnesses as a “fireball” or a “meteor”, crashed in Nevada after a near cross country flight. The event received coverage in newspapers, was documented by Project Blue Book, and the object was tracked on radar by the Air Force to a specific area in Nevada, before it vanished from the radar screen, in the same area noted by witnesses in Las Vegas, just before an apparent explosion, followed by a “column of brilliant smoke.” Witnesses in Utah and Nevada compared the explosion to a nuclear detonation. Spokesmen from Nellis Air Force Base confirmed that jets were scrambled from Phoenix, Arizona, by the Air Defense Command.

And yet, the odds are that you have never heard of this incident, and if so, but vaguely. Frank Edwards covered the incident for the August, 1962 issue of Fate magazine. He revealed no new information, but did revive the case after most of the country had presumably forgotten about it. Edwards also devoted a brief chapter from his 1964 book, Strange World, to the Nevada crash.

Beginning in 1989, researcher Kevin Randle, in various books, progressively documented the case, culminating in A History of UFO Crashes. Randle interviewed witnesses, searched Blue Book documents and newspaper articles, and provided by far the most complete picture of the events of April 18, 1962. Randle concluded that the object which crashed that night was an extraterrestrial craft.

It was Randle’s research which inspired me to begin my own inquiry into the case, as well as my proximity to the original event. I moved to Nevada in 2002, and began my investigation in May, 2008. I recalled that Edwards and Randle had not determined a precise crash site for the object, the true heart of the matter for me.

The April 19, 1962 edition of the Las Vegas Sun,, stated that the object was tracked by radar to the Mesquite area. Mesquite is approximately 75 miles from Las Vegas, where I live. I placed an ad in a Mesquite newspaper in search of witnesses, but received no substantial reply. Consulting a map, I noticed that Bunkerville, Nevada, is directly adjacent to Mesquite. Despite Bunkerville’s approximate population of 1,000, I was surprised to find a listing for a branch of the Clark County Library system there. I called the librarian, and was given the name of a prominent local historian. I called him immediately. When I explained the purpose of my research, he related to me the following account:

Several years ago, two brothers, residents of Bunkerville, were working at the Key West mining claim southwest of town, near sunset, when they suddenly noticed an extremely bright, white object pass directly overhead. The object continued in a straight path for about five miles, before it crashed into the side of a mountain. The brothers intended to find the crash site, but for some reason, never did. They were unable to determine the exact nature of the object.

This was the story related to him by the two brothers. Unfortunately, the two witnesses were deceased. I received the names of their surviving children, and contacted them as soon as possible. From them, I received slightly different versions of the incident. The daughter of one witness agreed that the brothershad never made it to the actual impact site. However, the two sons of the other witness told me that the brothers did in fact reach the site - they had come within 100 yards of an “object.” Later, their father took them to the site, which was
now obscured by overgrowth.

One of them was adamant that the object was a meteorite, and he refused to divulge the location of the site, until he was able to recover the meteorite for himself. His brother was unable to take me there due to his physical condition. He told me later that his brother was upset with him for speaking to me about the incident.

The historian in Bunkerville had been told that the object crashed near a mining claim familiar to both witnesses. After searching through several mining documents, and speaking to other residents in the area, I was able to gain a rough idea of the mine’s location. On my second trip into the area, I found the mine, but no evidence of an impact site. However, the terrain is vastly uneven, forested, covered with overgrowth and the remains of rockslides, and, on my last visit, by a thick carpet of snow. There is much ground left to cover, and my search for the crash site is ongoing.

To better understand the perception of this case, it is necessary to examine the original media coverage of the incident. The object was first sighted over New York state, and last sighted near Mesquite, Nevada. Oddly enough, though, only the Las Vegas Sun, of April 19, 1962, contains any mention of the sighting over Las Vegas, and the explosion near Mesquite. The April 19 edition of the Nevada State Journal mentions a sighting over Reno, Nevada, but not the Las Vegas sighting, and not the explosion near Mesquite. Other newspapers from April 19 include references to an explosion over Utah, nothing about sightings in Nevada. Several wire service articles quoted Robert Kadesch, an associate professor of physics at the University of Utah, who had not witnessed the object, as expressing the opinion that the object was a bolide, or an exploding meteor. The official Air Force explanation, issued on April 19, declared the object to be a meteor that came down in Utah.

There were reports from Stead Air Force Base in Reno of an object landing near a power plant in Eureka, Utah, which rendered the plant inoperable for 40 minutes. Accounts from many newspapers, but not the Las Vegas Sun, indicated explosion in Utah, and nothing further. The Utah papers quoted witnesses by name. Anyone without access to the Las Vegas Sun edition of April 19 was led to believe that a meteor, exploding or possibly crashing in Utah, was the most likely explanation, especially since Kadesch’s comment was widely circulated.

But the Las Vegas Sun article paints quite a different picture. It mentions the previous sightings, including the alleged landing in Utah, but also the sightings over Reno, Las Vegas, and the final explosion near Mesquite. This was not a wire service report, as most accounts were. It is not made clear from the reports outside Nevada if the explosion in Utah was actually the explosion
from Nevada. Bunkerville is approximately 10 miles from the Arizona state line. The explosion was seen in Reno, so the possibility that it was also seen in parts of Utah is not farfetched. The majority of the country, not aware of the Nevada sightings, but of the Utah sightings, and Kadesch’s uninformed opinion was left with only the meteor explanation. This, coupled with the official Air Force explanation of April 19th, effectively killed the story. Even the Las Vegas Sun, on April 20th, printed this explanation.

After the publication of the Fate article, the case lay dormant until 1964, when Frank Edwards resurrected it in Strange World. To further confuse the issue, Edwards now listed the crash site as “south of Reno,” on the opposite side of the state from Bunkerville! Whatever the reason for the slip-up, it only helped to bury the incident deeper, since there was no record anywhere else of a crash “south of Reno.”

Going back to Randle’s research, I decided to contact surviving witnesses in Utah. Randle had uncovered valuable information, such as the fact that the object changed speed, shorted out the engine of a vehicle, and even landed near Eureka, Utah, before taking off again. Though some witnesses were unavailableor deceased, one, Betty Robinson, related some new information to me. Betty’s late husband, Bob, had witnessed the object as it flew over his truck, stalling his engine, before continuing on its path. She was at home, bathing her children, when she heard a loud noise, and the house was filled with a bright light. Outside, she witnessed a bright light, and the noise seemed as if it would burst her eardrums. The streetlights were all out.

“It’s something that I’ll take to my grave,” she told me.

When her husband came home, he was “white as a sheet.” He told her, “You won’t believe what we saw.”

Betty also revealed that, in the wake of the passing light source, she noticed an electrical smell, like something burning. She also said that a short time after the incident, a producer from a television show came to Eureka, for a potential episode devoted to the incident, though nothing ever came of it. Betty could not recall the name of the program.

Her contention that the local media reported the object as crashing into the Pacific Ocean puzzled me, until I read the front page article from the Salt Lake Tribune of April 19, entitled “Flash Splits Area’s Sky.” In the article, this passage appears, in parentheses - (And early Thursday, Associated Press added a report of a “flash” in the skies over Ocean Beach, California, Wednesday about 8:55 p.m, PST (9:55 p.m. MST.) The California fireball “seemed to move west over the Pacific toward a spot some 30 miles off San Francisco”, the report said.)

The time of this sighting is well after the last known sighting in Nevada, at approximately 7:32 PST. To date, I have found no other corroboration of the California sighting.

The Project Blue Book file on this case contains this letter from Mrs. Pebble Cox of Boise, Idaho, addressed to J. Allen Hynek, dated May 11, 1962:

I understand you are interested in the meteorite which fell in Utah on the night of April 18. My husband, 3 sons and I left Salt Lake City, Utah Wednesday evening April 18 at about 5:30 p.m. traveling east on hiway 50. We traveledat 45 or 50 miles per hour and you can probably judge about where it fell fromfrom tracing our route. The meteorite came down right by the side of hiway (not on driver’s side) about 50 feet from road bed, about 100 miles out of Salt Lake City. It was quite low as my husband just looked out the pickup window(a son was driving)and didn’t have to look up to see it pass by. If this will be of any help to you in locating it I sure hope so.

We were on a trip to Missouri at the time after visiting our daughter and family in Salt Lake City, and have just returned to Boise, Idaho recently.

 
The significance of this account, if true, is plain: it demolishes the Kadesch theory of the object as a “bolide”, that “probably exploded 50 to 60 miles in the atmosphere”, and raises the question of why a “meteor” landing 50 feet from a main highway was never reported as found, unless the “meteor” again took flight soon after it touched down.

Also important is that the “meteor” was visible in Mr. Cox’s direct line of sight, as he “didn’t have to look up to see it pass by”, and that it is not described as a violent impact, but simply “came down”, as if in a controlled descent. It is unclear why the Cox family did not investigate the landing of the object.

My attempts to locate Pebble Cox have so far been unsuccessful. There is no indication that Hynek replied to this letter, or made any attempt to follow up on it. Perhaps this is because he, along with the Director of Project Blue Book, Robert Friend, had already visited Utah on May 8, 1962, in what amounted to a one day “field investigation”, during which they predictably found nothing. Hynek did not visit Nevada. While there are newspaper clippings in the Blue Book file, none are from Nevada. There is only a Project Record Card which, as Kevin Randle has pointed out, logged the incident in Zulu time, a difference of eight hours!

In 1962, responsibility for recovery of downed space objects rested with the 1127th USAF Field Activities Group. One example of this unit’s deployment is documented in a Blue Book file dated September 28, 1960, for an incident near Sheppard AFB in Texas. A Joint Message Form states, “On 28 Sep 60, an UFO was rptd to have fallen in the vicinity of Sheppard AFB, Tex. It is requested that the 1127th investigate this sighting.” The document is addressed to “1127 USAF FLD ACTY GP, FT. BELVOIR VA.”

Another document in the file states, “Moon Dust sighted by lcl (local) police to have landed in fld ten miles ssw Sheppard AFB, Texas at 28/1025Z. Search will begin at daybreak.” Documentation from 1967, in a group history of the 1127th for the last half of that year, confirms the function of the unit at that time. My requests for documentation for this unit’s group history in 1962 have so far been denied, but are ongoing.

 In a book authored by Berthold Schwarz, “UFO Dynamics,” there is a possible corroboration of the Nevada crash, given by an anonymous military witness. Beginning on page 532, the witness describes a craft recovered from Nevada after a “horrendous explosion”, which was “brought back” to a base in Arizona, where the witness was allowed to view it, and provide a detailed description of its interior.

I contacted Schwarz to ask about the availability of this witness, but was told that he will not discuss the matter with me, though he did indicate that there is something worth looking into. I have recently addressed a letter directly to the witness, through Schwarz. There has been no response from the witness to date. Schwarz has described the witness as a “war hero”, who served with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. In “UFO Dynamics,” he also describes a UFO related incident in Vietnam which he personally investigated. There have been various suggestions by Schwarz to this witness about contacting me, and I am grateful for his efforts. He has made every effort to assist my investigation, and provided needed encouragement along the way.

The long rumored Project Redlight, allegedly an Air Force program established to analyze and exploit recovered space vehicles, also figures into the story of the Nevada crash. In 1980, a man named Mike Hunt, in a letter to researcher David Dobbs, related that, from 1961-63, he served in the capacity of radio maintenance at the Nevada Test Site, specifically at the section known as Area 51. Hunt wrote that he witnessed a “UFO” on the ground that was “20-30 feet in diameter and sort of a pewter color”. (Schwarz’ military witness described the craft which he witnessed as “almost 20 feet across.”)

Hunt further claimed that he saw crates marked “Project Redlight”, and “Edwards AFB.” Several times when he was working on radios at Area 51, “they just died.” Later that year, in 1962, Hunt recalled reading an article in Reader’s Digest about a UFO which exploded in Nevada after a cross country flight. Shortly after the date given in the article for the crash, Hunt said, “everything came to a screeching halt at Area 51.” Hunt concluded, “I am satisfied that the UFO of the Digest article and the UFO of Project Red Light are/were one and the same.”

As reported in William Steinman’s UFO Crash At Aztec, Wendelle Stevens heard rumors in Las Vegas in 1980 of the crash of a UFO, piloted by humans, at Area 51, in which both pilots were killed. After the crash, the project to test recovered crafts was abruptly halted.

Regarding Hunt’s mention of a Reader’s Digest article about the crash, I searched every issue of that magazine for 1962 and 1963. There is no article about the incident in any of these issues. I believe Hunt was actually referring to the Fate article from August, 1962. To the best of my knowledge, this is the only magazine article from 1962 which mentions the incident.

There are other newspaper accounts which add puzzling dimensions to this case. On April 19, 1962, the Pasadena, California, Star-News, in a page one article, asked, “Anyone Else See a Meteor Hit the Moon?” The article quoted Brent Myers, 9, of San Marino: “It was a white light with blue flashes. It hit the lower left part of the moon. It had a light tail.” The article elaborated that Myers reported his sighting to the Mt. Wilson Observatory, “which had failed to note the phenomenon.” The time given for the sighting was 8:10 PST, after the last known documented sighting of the object in Nevada.

The Salt Lake Tribune, April 21, 1962, on page 34, featured the headline, “Rock ’Growing’ In Lawn a Product of Meteor?” A “porous” rock, five inchesin diameter, was discovered embedded in the lawn of the Pollock family of Midvale, Utah, on April 19. Jack Pollock “said the rock appeared to have been driven into the lawn with great force and from a southwesterly direction.”

Randy Pollock, age 10, is pictured holding the rock, which was described as “red in color, and has the appearance of having gone through extreme heat.” The article further states that,”a friend of the Pollock family will take the rock to Utah State University Saturday to let scientists there examine it...” Whatever the results of this analysis were, is unknown, but the proximity of this “rock” to the sightings in Utah of the object is intriguing.

A report from the Charleston Daily Mail, April 19, 1962, features an account by Mel Paisley, a foreman for the McLean Trucking Company. McLean witnessed the “tail” of a bright object which left a “blue-white trail 50 times as broad as that of a falling star”, that was visible for about three seconds. And yet Paisley witnessed this “tail” on April 19, between 4:30 and 4:45 a.m. The article was from the evening edition of the paper, one day after the crash.

Another fireball was reported on April 23, 1962, in the Ogden Standard - Examiner. Harry Koepke, a night watchman, described it as “whiter than the strongest light,” a description also used for the object which crashed in Nevada. While it is entirely possible that this fireball was part of the Lyrid meteor shower, known to occur from April 19-22, the articles notes that, ”although the watchman has seen numerous shooting stars, this is the first time he has ever seen anything as large or brilliant as the object he observed.”

Again on April 20, a fireball was seen near Torrington, Montana, which produced a “red flash and explosion.” The Albuquerque Journal, April 6, 1962 contains another report of a fireball coming to ground in New Mexico, and points out that “meteorites falling on federal property belong to the Smithsonian Institution.” The fireball was investigated by Dr. Lincoln LaPaz, director of the University of New Mexico Institute of Meteoritics, a man with extensive previous experience in this area, including field research into the “green fireballs” prevalent in New Mexico in 1949-50. LaPaz had gone on record as stating that the green fireballs were not meteors.

The connection of these various sightings is unclear, but indicates the presence of perhaps other unknown objects traveling through the same states as the object which crashed in Nevada. These objects were seen for a shorter duration, and in a far more limited area, making detailed analysis impossible. However, they demonstrate a pattern for the month of April, and a similarity to the object seen on April 18. Only this object is known to have been tracked by radar by the Air Force. As stated by a spokesman for Nellis AFB, “A meteor cannot be tracked on radar. And this object was.” This clearly contradicts the official Air Force explanation of April 19, as does testimony which indicates that the object changed direction, changed speed, caused power outages, and was pursued by Air Force jets.

It is highly improbable that there has ever been a “meteor” which can be accurately described in these terms. And yet, there are any number of reliably reported UFO sightings which fulfill these criteria.

That said, this incident is far from resolved. My research is ongoing. I have withheld names of witnesses for the present for this reason. Some who might have been directly involved are now deceased, including:

Oscar Abbott, the Deputy Sheriff for Bunkerville and Mesquite in 1962. Abbott served in this position because the two towns did not have their own police department. He was assigned by the Las Vegas Police Department.

Robert Stenovich, Superintendent of the Nevada Highway Patrol in 1962. I spoke to Stenovich’s widow, who cannot recall any involvement of his in the incident. Given the isolated area in which the crash occurred, it is quite plausible that the NHP had at least some peripheral participation.

Hank Greenspun, Publisher of the Las Vegas Sun, the only newspaper to present a somewhat complete picture of the incident, including the crash of the object in Nevada. I contacted Greenspun’s widow and surviving children, who claim no knowledge of the incident.

 Another witness at the Key West Mine, name unknown, likely deceased.

Bob Robinson, from Utah, who saw the object pass over his truck.

 The two brothers from Bunkerville, who may have seen the object on the ground after it crashed, and one of whom showed the exact location to his two sons, who refuse at this point to divulge it to me. The brothers were familiar with the mining claim nearby, and one even owned a claim in 1972 in the same general area. One of their sons also worked at the mine near the crash site years later.

Then there is the story of George Huntsman, 80, of Bunkerville. Hunstman told me that he witnessed a “fireball” several years ago while on his back porch in Bunkerville. He said that this fireball appeared about dusk, coming from the east, and moved away from Bunkerville. He was unsure of the exact year, but said that 1962 “sounds about right.” If this was the same object which later crashed, it was appearing here at an earlier time, moving in a different direction, and also in a straight line. Huntsman reported a loud boom after the object passed by, after which it “disappeared into some clouds”, to the west. He described the color as “bright red”, one color used to describe the object which crashed near Bunkerville.

Huntsman does not recall a later crash of a fireball near town. The fireball was sighted from approximately 1/2 mile away, and appeared from that distance to be “five to six feet in diameter.” It was also traveling below the mesa when he spotted it, making it unlikely the object was meteor.
 
There is no definite corroboration with the crashed object here, but the odds of two such anomalous objects appearing near Bunkerville in perhaps the same year seems remote. The further similarity of the two sightings is also intriguing, such as color, sound, altitude, and time of day.

A man named Cliven Bundy told me of a “blue-gold” object, with a “white tail”, pass over his father’s truck as the two were driving to St. George, Utah. The object was moving from east to northwest, similar to the direction reported by witnesses in Utah. Bundy’s family has driven cattle through the canyon where the object is said to have crashed for several generations, and lived about ten miles from the mine near the alleged crash site in 1962. He was uncertain of the exact year of his sighting, but believes it was in that approximate time frame. He also said that the object was travelling horizontally when he saw it, another characteristic of the crashed object.

These sightings are indicative of a pattern if they occurred on the same day, but of course are hard to confirm as to the exact date. There are undeniable similarities in appearance and behavior when all sightings are correlated, including corroboration through military documents and various media reports.

 The object, according to a Project Record Card in the Blue Book file, was first sighted over Cuba. Later reports indicate a sighting over Oneida, New York, then in various states, including Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Utah, and Nevada. It was seen closest by witnesses in Utah, where it flew low over Bob Robinson’s truck, temporarily shorted out his engine, and was seen to have possibly land near Highway 50, pass over Eureka, Utah, tripping the photoelectric cells in the street lights with its brightness, and possibly landed near town. One witness claims the object descended, then took off again, moving west. It was later seen over Reno, Nevada, and also over Las Vegas, Nevada, where witnesses reported it last moving horizontally northeast, in the direction of Mesquite, Nevada, before a blinding flash was seen, followed by a column of “brilliant smoke”, about 7:35 p.m., PST, according to an Air Force document in the Blue Book file.

 
To date, I have received no documentation through FOIA requests, other than Blue Book records, which confirm the reality of this incident. Though documentation of the 1127th USAF Field Activity Group is available for other years, I am unable to locate records for this unit from 1962. The U.S. Navy has not yet resolved my FOIA request made on March 3, 2009. No clear answer for this has been forthcoming. Other requests are pending.

I would welcome any new information from any source. The picture is far from complete, but I believe the pieces are there. My primary need is for witnesses to step forward. Confidentiality will be respected. I have revealed I have revealed names here with permission. Only the raw data matters, and a secret kept for forty eight years.

Email Scott Holloway

Philip Klass Explains it All... Loring AFB

I hate to keep picking on Philip Klass, but I’ve just stumbled on another of his solutions and thought we might look at it. Back in 1975, at Loring Air Force Base in Maine, Sergeant Steven Eichner, was working with Sergeant R. Jones, when Jones saw a red and orange object over the flight line. To both of them the object looked like a “stretched out football” that hovered and then seemed to disappear as the lights went out. It reappeared over the north end of the runway, moving in what they described as “jerky motions.” They began to give chase, maybe just get closer for a better look, and when they turned onto the road that led to the weapons storage area, they saw the UFO some 300 feet in front of them. It was about five feet off the ground and the air around it seemed wavy, such as heat coming off a desert highway. They saw no doors, hatches or windows on it.

 

It wasn’t long before sirens sounded and Eichner said that he saw many flashing blue lights on the Air Force security team coming at them, or rather toward the weapons storage area. They didn’t want to be close by as the Air Police tried to identify the lights and find out what was happening.

That is a quick rundown of what Eichner and his buddy saw that night. I mention it only because in the newspaper column that we’re going to talk about, Eichner was mentioned and his story recounted. This gives us all a view of what happened without getting into a discussion of whether it was something from space or something from Earth.

 

Philip Klass decided to see what he could learn about this and investigated. He told John Day of the Bangor Daily News, that “…he investigated the 1975 Loring incident. Among other things, he was given access to base Telex communications during the four or five nights when the mysterious object repeatedly hovered over Loring’s nuclear storage facility. According to Klass, the cable traffic shows that Loring officers had strong evidence that the mysterious object cited by Eicher was a helicopter. Their concern was not that the SAC base was being penetrated by spacemen, but that a radical anti-Vietnam group had rented a helicopter and was trying to steal a nuclear warhead.”

I will only note here that any messages that might have affected national security would have been highly classified, even five or six years after the event and I doubt that Klass had access to them. He certainly would have seen the regular traffic, but in this case, with someone or something attempting to penetrate the nuclear weapons storage facility, the classification of the communications would have been increased.

Day wrote, “According to Klass, the cable traffic he obtained pertaining to the Loring UFO incident indicated that authorities established that a well-financed crew operating out of a motel near Moosehead Lake, was flying on the nights the mysterious object was observed hovering over Loring’s nuclear stockpile.

“Klass has no proof that the Moosehead Lake helicopter was the object which buzzed Loring. He says it is unfortunate that the Air Force never followed up on their suspicions, or made public the results of their investigations.”

 

Let’s just think about this for a moment. Klass claims that the cable traffic suggested a “well-financed crew operating out of a motel near Moosehead Lake, was flying on the nights the mysterious object was observed” but that the Air Force didn’t follow up on it. We have this helicopter (and it does sound like a helicopter meaning the maneuvers, hovering, sound like a helicopter but there is no sound associated it which is odd) which the Air Force apparently knew was flown by a crew staying in a local motel, but they do nothing about it. These guys and girls, these anti-Vietnam radicals (who apparently didn’t know that Vietnam War was over, US forces had long been withdrawn and Saigon, renamed Ho Chi Minh City, was in the hands of the communists) were attempting to steal an atomic bomb. But the Air Force didn’t follow up on it, so Klass has no proof for it.

I’m surprised that Day could write this without phoning out to Loring to ask them a couple of questions. Oh, I doubt he would have gotten much in the way of an answer, but he could have asked where these radicals went after they failed to steal an atomic bomb. I would have thought a reporter would wonder why the Air Force didn’t care enough to find those trespassers and have them arrested. Isn’t deadly force authorized to keep intruders out of those weapons stock piles? I mean, if they can shoot you for trespassing, it would seem that they would want to arrest you, even if you were aiding the local economy by renting helicopters, staying in local motels, and I would guess buying food, and probably more than one bottle of bourbon.

 

But no, even though they knew the name of the motel, and surely could have learned where the helicopter was parked and who owned it, the Air Force didn’t follow up on it… or maybe as Klass said, never made public the results of their investigation… which also seems odd. They would have arrested the people and wanted others to know what would happen if you rented a helicopter and flew it over their weapons storage facility.

So, no, I don’t believe Klass’s anti-Vietnam radicals, which is not to say that aliens were responsible, only that there is no evidence of Klass’s theory (ah, but absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence, or does that apply here?). Anyway, I thought I’d give everyone a chance to see this wonderful explanation for the Loring UFO sightings.

 

Day finished up writing, “When you think about it, there’s more logic to Klass’s contention that UFOs are more the product of overactive imaginations on earth, than they are of little green men from another galaxy. I’ve chased UFO stories as a reporter and found the bottom line was somebody saw something but only God knows what it was.”

I wouldn’t have mentioned this last paragraph, except it does provide a bit of a clue as to Day’s attitude about this, which is basically even a crummy explanation is better than no explanation. But really, I just wanted to note that he probably meant another solar system rather than galaxy.

OOPTHs Again

In the past we have talked about Out of Place Artifacts or as I like to call them, Out of Place Things aka OOPTHs (and no, I didn’t invent either term, that honor goes to Ivan T. Sanderson, I believe). Now we have a report, from Russia, that a piece of a gear has been pulled from a lump of coal that is dated at 300 million years… before the dinosaurs were around and before much of anything was around, to have made it.

 

This story, which comes from the far reaches of Russia, near the borders of China and North Korea, features a man named Dmitry who was throwing coal into his furnace (my speculation about what he was doing because it is better than suggesting he found it in coal he had bought… a little motion and action to excite the reader) when he found the object embedded in the coal.

 

Personally, I would have been more impressed if Dmitry had lived in an area a little more accessible, and if his name hadn’t been quite so common, and if we had a way of ensuring that the coal was actually 300 million years old. Sure, we’re told that the coal came from the Chemogorodski Mines and that coal from that area is reliably dated to that extreme age, but we don’t really have a good chain of custody, which means we can’t prove that the coal came from there without some chemical analysis.

 

The other thing is that “experts” who are unidentified, except for a biologist, are saying that since this obviously manufactured object was found embedded in the coal; it must be the same age of the coal… which, of course, isn’t exactly true.

 

The picture of the object certainly shows that it was embedded in the coal, rather than being something that was just associated with the coal. So, while this is interesting, there isn’t enough information to suggest that the gear was 300 million years old.

 

To annoy my skeptical friends, I will say that if this gear was, in fact, 300 million years old, this would be some good evidence of alien visitation… though you could say it says something about the evolution of the planet. Maybe another intelligence species developed a civilization and all evidence of it except this gear has vanished.

 

My take on it…

There is a much more mundane explanation for this and I think it was just a slow news day.

The Roswell Time Line - July 8, 1947

(Blogger’s Note: We have engaged in a lot of discussion that surround the events described below. It shows the extent of research into the news coverage, which one asked about, it provides documentation about the events of July 8, and it tries for sort out the story of the press release as it has been told and retold. It doesn’t prove that what fell outside Roswell was an alien spacecraft but it does show, to some extent, who was doing what and where. I think it answers some of the questions that have been raised. As an aside, I see that the footnotes reset after a certain point. I was unable to get them to run properly in sequence, so be aware of that as you scroll through the article.)

At about 9:30 that on July 8, 1947, Colonel William Blanchard called First Lieutenant Walter Haut in his office and dictated the “Flying Saucer” press release to him.[1] He was told to deliver the press release to the four media outlets in Roswell, that is, the two radio stations and the two daily newspapers. In what would become a discrepancy in Haut’s memory of the event, Haut would suggest at one time that he drove the release into town, and later say that he used the telephone to dictate it.[2] Either way, the press release went out to the press, and then was put on the news wire either by Frank Joyce[3] or George Walsh[4] or by both of them.

Walsh remembered that Haut had telephoned the press release to him “about mid-day.”[5] He said he copied the press release exactly, as Haut read it to him over the phone. Walsh, in turn called it into the Associated Press in Albuquerque. From there the release was put on the AP wire and that story was published in a number of newspapers.[6]

Art McQuiddy, who was the editor of the Roswell Morning Dispatch said, “I can remember quite a bit about what happened that day. It was about noon and Walter brought in a press release. He’d already been to one of the radio stations, and I raised hell with him about playing favorites.”[7]

Unfortunately for McQuiddy, the Dispatch was a morning newspaper, so there wasn’t much for him to do with the story. He said, “By the time Haut got to me, it hadn’t been ten minutes[8] and the phone started ringing. I didn’t get off the phone until late afternoon… The story died, literally, as fast as it started.”[9]

 

At 2:30 p.m. (MST), Blanchard announced that he was going on leave (which, of course, makes no real sense). He would not be available to take telephone calls about the flying saucer and would be out of touch for four days.[10]

There is a document, created in 1947, that provides the exact times for some of this. According The Daily Illini, the first of the stories on the Associated Press wire appeared at 4:26 p.m. on the east coast.[11] That would mean that the stories went out from Albuquerque, sometime prior to 2:26 p.m.[12]

 

The Associated Press version, as it appeared in a number of west coast newspapers said:

The many rumors regarding the flying disc became a reality yesterday when the intelligence office of the 509^th Bomb Group of the Eighth Air Force, Roswell Army Air Field, was fortunate enough to gain possession of a disc through the cooperation of one of the local ranchers and the sheriff’s office of Chavez County.

The flying object landed on a ranch near Roswell sometime last week. Not having phone facilities, the rancher stored the disc until such time as he was able to contact the sheriff’s office, who in turn notified Major Jesse A. Marcel of the 509^th Bomb Group Intelligence Office.

Action was immediately taken and the disc was picked up at the rancher’s home. It was inspected at the Roswell Army Air Field and subsequently loaned by Major Marcel to higher headquarters.[13]  

At 4:30 p.m. (EST), there is the first “add” to the AP story, which mentioned “Lt. Warren Haught [Walter Haut],” who was described as the public information officer at the “Roswell Field.” This new information suggested that the object had been found “last week” and that the object had been sent onto “higher headquarters.”

The original United Press bulletin, which went out fifteen minutes later, at 4:41 p.m. (EST), according to newspaper sources, said:

 

Roswell, N.M. – The army air forces here today announced a flying disc had been found on a ranch near Roswell and is in army possession.

The Intelligence office reports that it gained possession of the ‘Dis:’ [sic] through the cooperation of a Roswell rancher and Sheriff George Wilson [sic] of Roswell.

The disc landed on a ranch near Roswell sometime last week. Not having phone facilities, the rancher, whose name has not yet been obtained, stored the disc until such time as he was able to contact the Roswell sheriff’s office.

The sheriff’s office notified a major of the 509^th Intelligence Office.

Action was taken immediately and the disc was picked up at the rancher’s home and taken to the Roswell Air Base. Following examination, the disc was flown by intelligence officers in a superfortress (B-29) to an undisclosed “Higher Headquarters.”

The air base has refused to give details of construction of the disc or its appearance.

Residents near the ranch on which the disc was found reported seeing a strange blue light several days ago about three o’clock in the morning.[14]

In Fort Worth, Texas (3:30 p.m. CST, 4:30 p.m. EST) Cullen Greene, an editor at the Fort Worth Star Telegram would have read the story as it came over the wire. J. Bond Johnson who worked at the newspaper in July 1947 said, “I don’t know the mechanics. We’d get those alerts. The bells would ring and it would be an attention thing. It would be an editor thing.”[15]

At 4:55 p.m. (EST) on the east coast 2:55 p.m. (MST) in New Mexico, the location of the discovery, that is New Mexico, is given. This bulletin, described as a “95” which is just below bulletin in importance, was repeated at 5:08 (EST) and a minute later, at 5:09,[16] there was another repeat of the story that said the information came from a radio reporter, but the identity of the reporter was not given.[17]

Johnson, who described himself as a reporter in July 1947[18] said, “…late in the afternoon, I returned to the office… My city editor… ran over and said, ‘Bond, have you got your camera?’ I said, ‘Yes, I had it out in my car.’ He said to get out to General Ramey’s office and… he said they’ve got something there… [and] get a picture… He said something crashed out there or whatever and they’re… we just got an alert on the AP wire.”[19]

At 5:10 p.m. (EST) or 3:10 p. m. (MST), there was a message that was addressed to the newspaper editors to let them know that the Associated Press had now gone to work on the story.[20]

 

According to the Daily Illini, “One minute later, at 5:11 [p. m. EST], the third add [additional information] to the bulletin announced, ‘The war department in Washington had nothing to say immediately about the reported find.’  That meant the AP was on the job investigating.”[21]

In was about 4:30 p.m. (CST, 5:30 EST) that Johnson arrived at the Fort Worth Army Air Field. He told Bill Moore and Jaime Shandera that it was about a twenty minute trip from the newspaper office out to the airfield.[22] He said that he routinely covered activities at the airfield, so when he reached the gate, he showed his press pass. He also had a Civil Air Patrol sticker on his car, which would have made it easier for him to enter the airfield. He had been told to go to Ramey’s office, though he normally would visit the Public Information Officer.[23]

 

Johnson said, “I posed General Ramey with this debris piled in the middle of his rather large and plush office. It seemed incongruous to have this smelly garbage piled up on the floor… spread out on the floor of this rather plush, big office… I posed General Ramey with this debris. At that time, I was briefed on the idea that it was not a flying saucer but in fact was a weather balloon that had crashed.”[24]

Johnson, according to what he said, didn’t stay long in Ramey’s office because generals were busy. He said, “As I remember, I probably wasn’t there more than twenty minutes, which was not unusual.” He took the photographs, gathered some information and left.[25]

 

He said, “It was entirely possible that I was briefed by the PIO.”[26]

This last quote could be important. The story that Johnson wrote to accompany the pictures, contained no direct quotes from Ramey, DuBose or Marcel, but did quote Irving Newton, the weather officer called in to identify the debris.[27] But the timing seems to suggest that Johnson had arrived before Newton had been called Ramey’s office so it is puzzling. Why is Newton quoted directly, but none of the others are?

At 5:53 p.m. (EST), 4:53 p.m. (CST), there was another bulletin which had a Washington dateline but was a statement by Ramey, which had to originate in Fort Worth, which said the disk had been sent to Wright Field.[28] What is critical here is the use of the past tense. The story didn’t say it would be forwarded, but that it had already been sent.

At 6:02 p.m. (EST, 5:02 p.m. CST), the AP put together the whole story and started the transmission of the “First Lead Disk.” This story, datelined Albuquerque said, “The army air forces has gained possession of a flying disk, Lt. Warren Haught [Walter Haut], public information officer at Roswell army airfield announced today.” That new lead was to be integrated into the stories that had already been transmitted.[29]

 

Dallas Morning News reporters called out to the Fort Worth Army Air Field, according to them, at 5:30 p.m. (CST, 6:30 EST) and interviewed Major E. M. Kirton, an intelligence officer at Eighth Air Force Headquarters. He told reporters that “there is nothing to it… It was a rawin high altitude sounding device.” Kirton said that the identification was final and there was no reason to send it on to Wright Field for confirmation. He confirmed that the material had been flown to Fort Worth on a B-29.[30]

Warrant Officer Irving Newton said that he was alone in the weather office and when he received a call ordering him to General Ramey’s office. Newton said that he was the only one there and couldn’t leave. General Ramey then called and told him to “get your ass over here now. Use a car and if you have to, take the first one with the keys in it.”[31]

 

When Newton arrived, around 6:00 p.m. (CST, 7:00 EST), a colonel or a lieutenant colonel stopped him and briefed him. Newton didn’t remember who it was, only that he was told that “These officers from Roswell think they found a flying saucer, but the general thinks it’s a weather balloon. He wants you to take a look at it.”[32]

Newton, in his signed statement for the Air Force said, “Several people were in the room when I went in, among them General Ramey, a couple of press people, a Major, I learned later to be Major Marcel and some other folks. Someone introduced Major Marcel as the person who found this material… While I was examining the debris, Major Marcel was picking up pieces of the target sticks and trying to convince me that some notations on the sticks were alien writings. There were figures on the sticks lavender or pink in color, appeared to be weather faded markings with no rhyme or reason. He did not convince me these were alien writings.”[33]

 

At 7:03 p.m. (EST, 6:03 CST), there was another “first lead” story from Washington, but this one hinted that there was nothing spectacular about the disc. It was now being identified as some sort of a meteorological device, or in other words, a weather balloon.[1]

Twelve minutes later, at 7:15 p.m. (EST, 6:15 CST), there was a bulletin that said General Ramey would make a statement on national radio. WBAP, a Dallas radio station, had arranged for the national hook up for Ramey[2]over the NBC radio network.

The FBI entered the picture just two minutes later, at 6:17 p.m. (CST, 7:17 EST). The FBI office in Dallas sent a message to the FBI office in Cincinnati, about the story. The message was sent to the director, J. Edgar Hoover, and to the SAC (Special Agent in Charge) and was titled, “Flying Disc, Information Concerning.” The text said:
 

Major Curtan [sic, Edwin Kirton], Headquarters Eighth Air Force, telephonically advised this office that an object purporting to be a flying disc was recovered near Roswell, New Mexico, this date [July 8, 1947]. The disc was hexagonal in shape and was suspended from a balloon by cable, which baloon [sic] was approximately twenty feet in diameter. Major Curtan further advised that the object found resembles a high altitude weather balloon with a radar reflector, but that telephonic conversation between their office and Wright Field had not borne out this belief. Disc and balloon being transported to Wright Field by special plane for examin [sic]. Information provided this office because of national interest in case and fact that National Broadcasting Company, Associated Press, and others attempting to break the story of location of the disc today. Major Curtan advised would request Wright Field to advise Cincinnati office results of examination. No further investigation being conducted.[3]

Then, at 7:29 p.m. EST (6:29 p.m. CST), came another new lead for the story. It said, “Procede [sic] Washington. Lead All Disk.” This meant, simply, that the lead on the story that had been transmitted prior to this would be changed and the new lead substituted.

This was broken with another bulletin almost immediately. It said, “Fort Worth – Roswell’s celebrated ‘flying disk’ was rudely stripped of its glamor by a Fort Worth army airfield weather officer who late today identified the object as a ‘weather balloon.’”[4]

At the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Johnson had developed the pictures quickly and on orders from Greene, he brought out a wet print. There were others waiting for him, including technicians from Dallas who had brought in a portable wire photo machine so that they could get the pictures out over the AP wire immediately.[5]

He would say that he wrote the first story about the recovery that appeared in an early edition of the newspaper. The last line of that story became important because it said, “After his first look, Ramey declared all it was was a weather balloon. The weather officer verified his view.[6]

Johnson had been given the solution, apparently before Newton arrived to provide the final, conclusive word. But that solution had been handed to the reporter for the Dallas Morning News, not by Ramey or Newton, but by Kirton, who was the intelligence officer. This would suggest that Newton was called in to provide some drama for the other reporters who did drive out to the airfield.

DuBose’s suggestion of a cover up seems to confirm the suspicions that had arisen given the timing of various press stories. The timing of statements, such as that given by Kirton to the Dallas Morning News, suggest that the weather balloon identification had been made before Newton arrived at Ramey’s office.

Even with the questions that should have been asked about how an experienced intelligence officer could mistake the remains of a flimsy weather balloon and an aluminum foil radar reflector for a flying saucer or why no one at Roswell could identify the wreckage for what it was, the cover story was accepted. According to one story, “Brigadier General Donald M. Yates, chief of the AAF weather service, said only a very few of them are used daily, at points were some specific project requires highly accurate wind information from extreme altitudes.”[7]

Newton, on the other hand, wasn’t saying the rawins were quite so rare. The Star-Telegram reported, “Newton said there are some 80 weather stations in the United States using this type of gadget, and it could have come from any of them.”[8]

That wasn’t the only point on which the stories disagreed. In earlier editions of the newspaper, it mentioned that “The disc landed on a ranch near Roswell sometime last week.”[9] Later is was reported, “Brazell [sic], whose ranch is 30 miles from the nearest telephone and has no radio, knew nothing about the flying discs when he found the remains of the weather device scattered over a square mile of his property three weeks ago.”[10]

That same day, in the Albuquerque Journal, Jason Kellahin reported, “Scattered with the materials over an area about 200 years across were pieces of grey rubber. All pieces were small.”[11]

Interestingly, that is not the only fact that Kellahin reported that disagreed with the official story line. He wrote, “On July 4, after hearing about ‘flying discs,’ he took the find to Sheriff George Wilcox at Roswell who referred the discovery to intelligence officers at the Roswell field.”[12]

This is an interesting statement because it is in conflict with almost all newspaper accounts that suggest Brazel had gone into Roswell on July 7. Marcel, in describing his activities, suggesting that they remained overnight on the Brazel ranch and went out the next morning, suggests a time line that put Brazel into Roswell on Sunday, July 6. After spending all day in the field, Marcel returned, arriving in Roswell, late on the evening or early in the morning of July 8, and then briefing Blanchard quite earlier.

By 10:00 p.m. (CST, 11:00 p.m. EST), the story was virtually over. Ramey had not appeared on NBC, but at 10:00 he was quoted on ABC’s “Headline Edition,” and the weather balloon story entered the public consciousness. The newspapers were reporting the error on the part of the officers in Roswell. The Las Vegas Review Journal reported:

The excitement ran through this cycle:

1. Lieutenant Warren Haught [Walter Haut], public relations officer at the Roswell base, released a statement in the name of Colonel William Blanchard, base commander. It said that an object described as a “flying disk” was found on the nearby Foster ranch three weeks ago by W. W. Brazel and had been sent to “higher officials” for examination.

2. Brigadier General Roger B. Ramey, commander of the 8^th air force, said at Fort Worth that he believed the object was the “remnant of a weather balloon and radar reflector,” and was “nothing to be excited about.” He allowed photographers to take a picture of it. It was announced that the object would be sent to Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio, for examination by experts.

3. Later, Warrant Officer Irving Newton, Stessonville, Wisconsin, weather officer at Fort Worth, examined the object and said definitely that it was nothing but a badly smashed target used to determine the direction and velocity of high altitude winds.

4. Lieutenant Haught reportedly told reporters that he had been “shut up by two blistering phone calls from Washington.”[13]

5. Efforts to contact Colonel Blanchard brought the information that “he is now on leave.”[14]

6. Major Jesse A. Marcel, intelligence officer of the 509^th bombardment group, reportedly told Brazel, the finder of the object, that it “has nothing to do with army or navy so far as I can tell.”

7. Brazel told reporters that he had found weather balloon equipment before but had seen nothing that resembled his latest find.

Those who saw the object said it had a flowered paper tape around it bearing the initials “D. P.”[15]

 

While this story was winding down, with the principals unavailable for comment, that is Brazel being held by the military[16], Marcel either in Fort Worth or enroute back to Roswell, and with Blanchard on leave, reporters were unable to gather any additional information. Sheriff Wilcox would say little. It was reported, “Wilcox said he did not see the object but was told by Brazell [sic] it was ‘about three feet across.’ The sheriff declined to elaborate. ‘I’m working with those fellows at the base,’ he said.”[17]

This then, gives an outline of the events of July 8 based on the available documentation including newspaper reports, interviews conducted with the principals in the story, and a timeline that was reconstructed more than a half century after the incident. I think that you all can draw your own conclusions about what it means, but the information here is the latest available.

I will note that as I went through this I did find a couple of places where the footnotes were inaccurate. In one instance, I sourced the Albuquerque Journal when it was the Albuquerque Tribune. I have tried to make sure that everything is accurate but some questions still might arise. Those will be dealt with as they appear.

---

[1] “AP Wires Burn With ‘Captured Disk’ Story,” Daily Illini, July 9, 1947, p. 5.

 

[2] Ibid.

 

[3] FBI Telex, July 8, 1947.

 

[4] “AP Wires Burn With ‘Captured Disk’ Story,” July 9, 1947, p. 5. 

 

[5] Johnson, personal interview with Randle, March 24, 1989.

 

[6] Johnson, claimed authorship of “’Disk-overy’ Near Roswell Identified as Weather Balloon by FWAAF Officer,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, July 9, 1947. He would later deny that he had written the article.

 

[7] “AAF Finds ‘Saucer’, But Wishes it Hadn’t,” The Boston Herald, July 9, 1947, pp. 1 – 2.

 

[8] “New Mexico Rancher’s ‘Flying Disk’ Proves to Be Weather Balloon-Kite,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, July 9, 1947, p. 1. This is from a later edition of the July 9, 1947, newspaper and adds details that were not reported in the earlier edition.

 

[9] This is from the United Press teletypes provided by Frank Joyce.

 

[10] “New Mexico Rancher’s ‘Flying Disk’ Proves to Be Weather Balloon-Kite,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, July 9, 1947, p. 1.

 

[11] Jason Kellahin, “NM Rancher Sorry He Said Anything About ‘Disc Find,’” Albuquerque Tribune, July 9, 1947, p. 2.

 

[12] Ibid.

[13] Haut, in a personal interview with Randle on April 20, 1989, said that he had received no calls from Washington, D.C. He said, “Well, I think that had I really gotten any calls from Washington, a first lieutenant getting calls from the big boys, I’d remember it.” On the other hand, in an interview with Randle on December 5, 1990, George Walsh said, “He [Haut] said the just got a call from the War Department and [they] told him in two words, ‘Shut up.’”

 

[14] As noted earlier, it was about 2:30 p. m. (MST) that Blanchard announced his leave. It seems to be a strange time to begin a leave, especially when it is about the same time that all the interest developed, based on the time lines published in 1947.

 

[15] “Flying Disc Tales Decline As Army, Navy Crack Down,” Las Vegas Review-Journal, July 9, 1947, pp. 1 – 2; Army, Navy Open Drive To Dry Up Saucer Talk,” Phoenix Gazette, July 9, 1947, p. 4

 

[16] Major Edwin Easley, Provost Marshal at the RAAF in July 1947, in a telephone interview with Randle, February 1990.

 

[17] “Disc Mystery Is ‘Solved’ For Three Hours Until Roswell Find Collapses,” Albuquerque Journal, July 9, 1947, pp. 1 – 2.

 

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[1] In other interviews, Haut would say that he didn’t remember if Blanchard had called him and given him the facts of the story or if he had dictated the finished release to him. He said didn’t remember if he had gone to Blanchard’s office, or received a telephone call about it. See Carey and Schmitt, Witness to Roswell, pp. 252 – 253;

Pflock, Roswell: Inconvenient Facts, p. 26; Philip Klass, Real Roswell Cover-up, pp. 31 -32; Randle and Schmitt, UFO Crash, pp. 68 -76; Walter Haut personal interview by Randle, April 1, 1990.

 

[2] In the documentation provided by Frank Joyce, there had been a query from Denver, to Santa Fe, asking for the text of the announcement. Santa Fe responded, “Army gave verbal ann[oun]c[e]ment. No text.”

 

[3] Joyce would suggest that after he received the press release, he called Haut and warned him that the wording of it was incorrect. It had to do with who was issuing the release and what it said. Joyce claimed he warned Haut that he would get into trouble based on that wording.

 

[4] Walsh worked at the other Roswell radio station, KSWS.

 

[5] George Walsh, affidavit signed September 13, 1993.

 

[6] Pflock, Roswell: Inconvenient Facts and the Will to Believe, p. 62.

 

[7] Art McQuiddy, personal interview by Randle, January 19, 1990.

 

[8] Given the sequence of events, based on time lines published in other newspapers and interviews conducted with other witnesses, the telephone calls to McQuiddy probably didn’t start for two hours. He, like others in Roswell said that he received telephone calls from all over the world, mentioning London, Rome, Paris and Hong Kong.

 

[9] McQuiddy, personal interview by Randle, January 19, 1990.

 

[10] Donald Schmitt, UFO Crash at Roswell II, The Author, 1997: p. 60

 

[11] We have no information how long the story was in Albuquerque, how it was vetted, or how long it took to type it into the news wire.

 

[12] “AP Wires Burn With ‘Captured Disk’ Story,” July 9, 1947, p. 5. Although the Daily Illini story gives all times in relation to the Associated Press, the line quoted at the beginning for the article is actually from the United Press International.

 

[13] “Disc Solution Collapses,” San Francisco Chronicle, July 9, 1947, p. 1

[14] “AP Wires Burn With ‘Captured Disk’ Story,” July 9, 1947, p. 5, which only published the first line of the story, and had attributed it to the Associated Press. Frank Joyce retained the teletype copy which he had sent to the United Press. He provided copies of these documents to various UFO researchers including Randle, Schmitt, Carey, and Pflock. See also, Pflock.  Roswell: Inconvenient Facts, pp. 244 – 248; Randle and Schmitt, Truth About, pp.46 - 50.

 

[15] J. Bond Johnson, personal interview by Randle, February 27, 1989, March 24, 1990; Johnson in interviews conducted by Bill Moore and Jaime Shandera would later change much of his story. For these alternative views, see, Shandera and Moore, “Three Hours that Shook the Press,” Focus, 1990, 3 – 7; Shandera and Moore, “Three Hours that Shook the Press,” MUFON UFO Journal 269, September 1990: 3 - 10; Schmitt and Randle, “What Happened in Ramey’s Office?” MUFON UFO Journal 276, April 1991: 3 – 9.

 

[16] “AP Wires Burn With ‘Captured Disk’ Story,” Daily Illini, July 9, 1947, p. 5.

 

[17] Years later, both George Walsh and Frank Joyce would claim credit for breaking this story. It would seem that Walsh put the story on the AP wire, which did get it out nationally first. Joyce, a stringer for the United Press had to take the story to the Western Union office for transmittal to Albuquerque. Documentation suggests that the AP story hit the wires about fifteen minutes before the UP story, which gives the nod to Walsh.

 

[18] Johnson, interview by Randle, March 24, 1989.

 

[19] Ibid. For additional information see Schmitt and Randle, “Fort Worth, July 8, 1947: The Cover up Begins,” International UFO Reporter, 15,2, March/April 1990; 21 – 23; Schmitt and Randle, “The Fort Worth Press Conference: The J. Bond Johnson Connection,” International UFO Reporter, 15,6, November/December 1990: 5 – 16.

 

[20] “AP Wires Burn With ‘Captured Disk’ Story,” Daily Illini, July 9, 1947, p. 5.

 

[21] “AP Wires Burn With ‘Captured Disk’ Story,” Daily Illini, July 9, 1947, p. 5.

 

[22] Shandera. “Three Hours that Shook the Press,” MUFON UFO Journal 269, September 1990:  3 - 10.

 

[23]  Johnson, interview by Randle, March 24, 1989.

 

[24] Johnson, interview by Randle, March 24, 1989.

 

[25] Johnson, interview by Randle, March 24, 1989.

 

[26] Ibid. The problem is that the PIO would have been in the office. In other interviews, Irving Newton suggested he was there when all the pictures were taken, which would mean that Johnson saw him as well. Johnson’s claim that only Ramey and DuBose were there does not hold up when other information is considered.

 

[27] J. Bond Johnson, “’Disk-overy’ Near Roswell Identified As Weather Balloon by FWAAF Officer,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, July 9, 1947: pp. 1 – 2

 

[28] “AP Wires Burn With ‘Captured Disk’ Story,” Daily Illini, July 9, 1947, p. 5.

 

[29] Ibid

 

[30] “Suspected ‘Disk’ Only Flying Weather Vane,” Dallas Morning News, July 9, 1947.

 

[31] Irving Newton, telephone Interviews with Randle, October 20, 1989, March 24, 1990 and January 1991. See also, Weaver and McAndrew, The Roswell Report, Statement Thirty (Irving Newton). A similar account is found in Berlitz and Moore, The Roswell Incident, pp. 31 – 37.

 

[32] Newton, personal telephone with Randle, January 1991. See also, Randle and Schmitt, Truth About UFO Crash at Roswell, pp. 42 – 43. It should be noted that Newton was not sure about the time and had suggested it was just after he had come on duty at 2:00 p.m., but the documentation available suggests that Newton was called to Ramey’s office about 6:00 p.m.

 

[33] Weaver and McAndrew, The Roswell Report, Statement Thirty (Irving Newton).