Colonel Steve Wilson

There have been so many people coming forward with claims of inside knowledge about UFOs that it is becoming difficult to separate the truth from the fiction. When we find someone whose claims do not match the documented background, we are told that the person’s records have been changed or erased to invalidate their claims. I always find this silly because there is no way the government, no matter how they tried, could get all the records altered and the files lost on the scale claimed.

For example, there are some out there in Cyberspace who have been suggesting that my claims of a recent tour in Iraq and claim of being a member of the U.S. Army now (meaning the National Guard) are some of the same sort of embellishment. They have no proof that I have made up these facts, but they don’t like some of the conclusions I have drawn about their favorite cases or witnesses. They speculate without foundation.

While I refuse to place, on the Internet, documents that would prove my point, I have no real trouble putting up pictures (as seen on the left). Sure, I know that pictures can be easily faked in today’s world, and I’m sure that some of these critics will delight in pointing out how these pictures have been faked, but the truth is, I spent about 11 months in the Iraqi Theater, I have a couple of a thousand pictures I took and there are several hundred soldiers who saw me there. Dozens saw me on a daily basis.

In fact, for those interested, I suggest looking at the February 2005 issue of Soldier of Fortune magazine for some confirmation of my tour in Iraq.

The point here is that the critics can say what they want and rather than say I don’t care what they say and ignore the criticism, I offer some evidence to the contrary. There are others whose stories simply don’t check out. Just recently I came across the story of Colonel Steve Wilson who had an interesting story about his insider status. He seemed to know who made up the Majestic-12 committee in the 1990s, he was the commander of Project Pounce, which had the mission of recovering UFO crash debris, and he had a long, impressive military career. Wilson died of cancer in 1997. Some have suggested his death was mysterious and have hinted that we know that cancer is one of the ways "THEY" get rid of those who are causing them trouble.

According to Dr. Richard Boylan as reprinted on a couple of different web sites, "Steve Wilson was born in the 1930s and spent five years in a state orphanage. In order to escape the savage beatings there, he ran away. He always dreamed of being a pilot. Befriend by a prostitute with the proverbial ‘heart of gold’, this tall 13-year-old was accepted into the Air Force, when his newfound mother stated he was 16 and signed for him to enlist."

First, to nitpick, it would have been the Army Air Forces in 1946 when Wilson joined. I have heard of cases of boys 15 or 16 joining the Army by using the birth certificate of a brother or a cousin, but I know of no cases of a 13-year-old being able to join the Army. In 1946, with the war ended, there was no longer the tremendous need for soldiers and someone who didn’t have the proper documentation wouldn’t have been allowed to join. He would have needed, not only a parental signature, he would have needed the proper documents. This idea is just not quite believable.

Boylan then wrote, "Starting out as a private, he worked hard to advance. He took U.S. Armed Forces Institute courses, earned his high school diploma and then the equivalent of a two-year college degree. Simultaneously he studied at Aircraft Mechanic School and became a certified mechanic.

"Finally getting his chance, Wilson went to flight school, emerged as a fighter pilot and eventually found his way to Korea. He saw a fellow pilot shot down. Searching for him, Wilson heard a telepathic cry for help. He spotted a clearing with enough room to land and set his plane down. He taxied to where the other pilot’s lane was ‘wedged under some trees.’ Wilson jumped out, pulled the injured pilot from the wreckage and dragged him back to the aircraft."

According to Wilson (as filtered through Boylan), "I threw the radio gear out to make room for him. With me sitting on his lap, I taxied out and to the end of the clearing. Swinging around, I was there was very little room for a take-off . . . I held the brakes, gunned the engine to the breaking point, let go of the brakes and rocketed across the clearing. The minute I felt myself off the ground, I began to raise the wheels. The enemy broke cover ahead of me and began firing. I passed overhead, and heard the crunch and ripping of metal as I left me wheels in the trees. My plane became hard to manage with the undercarriage ripped away . . . I finally made it back to base . . . I felt a jolt as my plane skidded down the side of the runway and came to a halt . . . "

I’m not sure where to begin with this story. There is a Medal of Honor winner, Major Bernard Fisher, who rescued a downed fellow flyer in a similar fashion, but he landed on a shot up air strip next to a Special Forces camp and was flying an A-1E Skyraider. Wilson suggested he landed in an open field in a Sabre jet and I just don’t believe there would have been room in the cockpit for two and I don’t know what radio equipment he could have jettisoned to make room. I also believe that if he had caught his wheels in the trees on take off he would have crashed the aircraft. This story just doesn’t make any sense the way it is told, and, of course, there is no record of it anywhere.

Boylan notes that he was given the Distinguished Service Award for gallantry . . . but there is no such award and if we believe Boylan just botched the name of the award, then it means he received the Distinguished Service Cross (which, had he done what he said, wouldn’t have been much of a stretch). But there is no record of the award on the web sites that track that sort of thing. On the site I checked, they make it clear they are fairly certain they have all the awards of the Distinguished Service Cross, but it is possible they might have missed one, especially those late in the war. The real point is that there is no Distinguished Service Award for gallantry and no one who won the Distinguished Service Cross doing what Wilson claimed in Korea . . . Just a note for those who will complain, there apparently was no Air Force Cross during the Korean War and no indication that anyone has ever been awarded one for Korea.

Boyan, and other web sites provided "Data from Col Wilson’s DoD 214 discharge papers."

Which in the 1960s, 70s and 80s were easy to forge with a typewriter, a bottle of white out, and a copy machine. I have seen no copies of his DD 214, so I don’t know what it does and doesn’t say. In fact, there are many who claim to have seen it and who have said they were obligated to keep it to themselves while Wilson was alive. Now that he is dead, it’s time to put the document out so that it can be properly examined.

These documents give his date of birth as April 5, 1933 and even have an Air Force serial number. According to Boylan and others, Wilson served for 40 years and 19 days. They claim that he had seven re-enlistments.

This isn’t quite right. Very few people remain on active duty for forty years. Some generals, such as MacArthur have served longer, and many officers were recalled for World War II, but rarely anyone below brigadier general have served that long.

The regulation as it reads today for colonels says, "Each officer in the grade of colonel shall be retired on the fifth university of the date of his or her appointment in that grade or on the 30th day after completion of 30 years of service, whichever is later."

This seems to close the door for forty years of service. The regulation says thirty years of service, not necessarily as an officer, so that time as an enlisted man would count against him, in this case. He would have had to be promoted to colonel in his 35th year of service, but he would have been mandatorily retired prior to that because, for lieutenant colonel, the regulation kicks in at 28 years of service. So, Wilson couldn’t, under normal circumstances, have remained in the military for forty years and nineteen days.

Under the heading of medals, we see a number of awards to him. According to Boylan and others, it says he received two distinguished flying medals. I confess that I don’t know what these are . . . Boylan, at one point in his listing mentions two Distinguished Flying Crosses and a Distinguished Service Medal. I suppose that those writing the lists could have confused the two decorations.

The list says he had 13 Good Conduct Medals. Here is a major error which suggests that whoever created the original story (in this case Wilson himself) didn’t know that the Good Conduct Medal is NOT awarded to officers. Yes, I know that some officers have them. I have one myself, but I received for service in the enlisted grades and not as an officer. For Wilson to have thirteen, he would have had to have 39 years of service . . . which seems to corroborate his story of forty years. Someone knew that the Good Conduct Medal is given for three years of service, so that simply calculated the number. They didn’t know that as an officer, Wilson was ineligible.

The list also gives him one National Defense Service Medal (which, BTW, is the correct name of the award) but he should have had two, one for Korea and one for Vietnam. These are given to anyone serving during a specific period (like 1 Jan 61 to 14 Aug 74 for Vietnam).

They also claim he was a POW from 12/07/50 to 01/08/51, or just a little more than a month. He escaped, killing two guards and was on the run for 23 days before he managed to get back to friendly lines.

Great story except, I found a couple of comprehensive listings of POWs from the Korean War and Wilson’s name does not appear. Once again, there is a chance that he was somehow overlooked, but given everything I know about this, I doubt it.

Now I know that records are sometimes incomplete. I have spent years trying to get my records up to date and have failed. There are things missing from them so that a discrepancy between what someone says and the record isn’t, necessarily, a make or break deal. With Wilson, however, it’s not only that records don’t exist, but that some of the things he claimed were contradicted by the records, regulations and rules. He just couldn’t have joined the Air Force (okay, Army Air Forces) at 13 and he couldn’t have served for more than 40 years. He took stories from science fiction movies and from the exploits of others and used them as his own. If you are among those who believe that MJ-12 is a hoax, then his claim of working with them is another indication of his fraud.

So, once again, we had an "insider" blowing the whistle on the great UFO cover up, but we have nothing in the way of records, documents or corroboration for this tale. I believe that we must reject it, as we do so many others in a similar circumstance . . . at least until someone can provide some proof these stories are true.