Saturday, November 02, 2013

The Coyame UFO Crash

Noe Torres and Ruben Uriarte have become two of the most prolific writers of UFO lore and they had produced a new book, The Coyame Incident. This tells the tale of a UFO crash in northern Mexico in 1974, at first recovered by the Mexican Army
but later captured by American military forces. The crash was the result of a collision between a small, general aviation airplane that had taken off from El Paso, Texas, enroute to Mexico City, and a UFO that was tracked by radar into American airspace and then into Mexico.

The story was first reported by Len Stringfield in his UFO Crash/Retrievals: Search for Proof in a Hall of Mirrors, Status Report VII published in February 1994. His source was Elaine Douglass, a UFO researcher active with Operation Right to Know, who received her copy of the report from JS, who is never identified, and who was apparently a member of something called the “Deneb Team.” This document was entitled, Research Findings on the Chihuahua Disk Crash and was dated March 23, 1992.

Stringfield wasn’t too happy with the data and wrote, “Despite the risk of publishing a bunch of baloney, the full text of the report is reproduced herewith, hoping the incident can be verified or exposed as mis-or-disinformation.” The whole of that report as published by Stringfield follows:

 
 
 
 
 
 
Torres and Uriarte took up the challenge and began an investigation into this tale with the hope of adding to the information available. The result of that investigation is their book.

It is an interesting book that is a fast read. It is loaded with names and dates, but most of it is a description of their travels into Mexico and their attempts to find verification of the crash. From the photographs it is clear that both of them were in Mexico and on the field where a small aircraft did crash in 1974. They found bits of wreckage and evidence of a hot fire. That debris, along with soil samples, was analyzed by an independent laboratory and while not all elements could be identified, that does not lead to the conclusion that there was something alien in it.

They interviewed a man who was retired California police officer who told of seeing a small, strange creature when he visited his grandmother in the Coyame area in 1974 when he was 13. The creature he described was similar to that seen much later in Varginha, Brazil.

But the creature can’t be tied to the UFO crash simply because the officer said that when he told his grandmother about it, she said she had seen the same thing. Her sightings preceded the UFO crash and she had said nothing to the family about it earlier because she didn’t think they would believe her.

Ruben Uriarte and Noe Torres
And here is the problem with the book. It contains other, similar tales that might or might not be related to the UFO crash, if one did take place. The witnesses, interviewed so long after the event remember seeing something that might have fallen in 1974. They might have seen the plane crash. There might have been soldiers in the area.

The major problem is told in an email sent to me. Noe said, “The evidence is definitely thin, as we always say in our presentations. It's an amazing story but one that cries out for more data. We're approaching this continuing research effort with the assistance of our fellow investigators in Mexico.”

And that sums up everything about the book. The evidence is thin but it demands more data. This is the same thing that Stringfield said in 1994 when he first reported the case to a wider audience.

What we have here is an interesting account of an investigation into a reported UFO crash that has little in the way of evidence. That fact is underscored by the lack of information about the small plane crash. That one did crash in the area is not in dispute, but other than that, almost nothing is known about it including the name of the pilot.

Torres and Uriarte are to be commended for their attempt to learn more about this incident. They have added a little data to the report but the real importance of their book is the descriptions of their research. Here we see how they have approached the case, how they investigated it, and what they have found. If for no other reason, this is why the book should be in every UFO researcher’s library. There is something to be learned about research methods here.

15 comments:

  1. I never liked this case. Just like many other nonRoswell affairs--a single anonymous source and a fishy or copycat story.

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  2. My interest in this matter does not lie with the retrieval of a crashed ufo, but in the "capture" of it by the US air force. The story is that the ufo crashed in Mexico, not the US, and that it was retrieved by the Mexican military. So how, pray tell, did the US air force capture it? Did they presume to enter Mexican territory and just make off with the wreckage with impunity? Did they hold the Mexican military off with greater firepower while they stole the remains? Just what exactly happened? If they had tried that in my country I would hope we would have blasted their fat asses off the planet.

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    1. the ufo was an American remote controlled craft. The US wanted it back at all costs which means killing Mexicans if necessary and hiding the evidence as best they could

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  3. Lol, Archie, relax, it's just fiction. The Mexicans who initially handled the thing allegedly died, and US forces then stepped in...As far as I know, it's just another tale without real witnesses or corroboration.

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  4. Archie -

    Had you read the report, you would have noted that the Mexican convoy, after retrieving the craft stopped. According to that report, all the soldiers had died and US forces, fearing some sort of contamination went in to secure the site. There is a report that some sort of high level diplomatic effort was involved... The book makes some of this clear, which is not to say that it is all based in fact.

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  5. open www.theyfly.com and get updated on ufos. Before you scream hoax, as this did not come from nasa, seti, astronomers nor the Govt., note that the Swiss contactee Meier published information on our Solar System sometimes years ahead of nasa's dicoveries. These either given him by et or from his personal observation from aboard et craft.

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  6. I've read and see reports on this before. If memory serves either Jesse Ventura or that UFO TV show with the guy from the magazine did a report on it. Even a field visit.
    In their version the US destroyed the convoy with an air strike that incinerated the entire thing.
    I would have thought that an Army operation would have used a CH47 for the heavy lifting not a Navy bird.
    Then the idea of taking something that just killed alot of people through a major city sounds just wrong to me.
    And with some experience with explosives the idea that they could just blow everything to powder is laughable.
    I personaly thought the story was a hoax when I first heard of it and I still do.

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  7. You know, Thomas, for all his credibility issues, I think some of Meier's info is good. The take on Roswell was an example. But I hadn't heard of the solar system info.

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  8. starman, actually Meier is even less impressive when it comes to the outer solar system.

    http://podcast.sjrdesign.net/shownotes_090.php

    In any case his aliens missed both Herschel crater on Mimas and Odysseus crater on Tethys.

    Plus 'Nordic' aliens have always made me uneasy.

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  9. I hope it's a better written and illustrated book than their 'Aliens in the Forest: The Cisco Grove UFO Encounter' [authors Noe Torres & Ruben Uriarte with illustration by Neil Riebe] --about the Donald Shrum close encounter....which was so poorly done: loaded with spelling errors, whole paragraphs repeated, no editing and child-like cartoonish illustrations which looked nothing like what Donald Shrum had described.

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  10. Response to "Brownie" regarding our book "Aliens in the Forest: The Cisco Grove UFO Encounter." Our book has received high praise from many reviewers. You say it is loaded with spelling and editing errors. Would you care to give some specific examples with page numbers? All books contain typographical or editing errors. None of our reviewers has mentioned an unusually high number in our book. You say our illustrations are "child-like cartoonish illustrations which looked nothing like what Donald Shrum had described." How would you know? Mr. Shrum reviewed all the illustrations, agreed that they closely represented what he saw and approved them. Might I recommend before you criticize others that you actually do some research?

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  11. Response to "Starman" regarding the Coyame case being a "fishy or copycat story." I'm sorry, but you haven't gone out in the field and interviewed hundreds of people in Northern Mexico and West Texas. You haven't heard one of the state's most recognized educators state that she saw that explosion directly across the river from Coyame. You have not looked at documents provided by Mexico's leading UFO researchers regarding this case. Our book is not based on "a single anonymous source" that is "fish or copycat." You obviously have not read our book nor are informed to any degree about this case.

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  12. Response to "Roswell Books" - Oh my! What an immature, extremely defensive response.

    If you are able to read and write English properly you know full well where your spelling and repetitive paragraph errors are.

    As for Mr. Shrum approving of the cartoons -- they don't, in the least bit, resemble his descriptions in your book.

    How sad that ufology has become so dumbed-down.

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  13. It is very convenient that nothing is known about a small plane enroute from El Paso to Mexico City.

    1) The airplane would have been on an Instrument or Defense Visual Flight Plan which would include the pilot's name. If the flight existed, it would have triggered an airport search within thirty minutes of the expected arrival time, or in the case of an instrument flight plan within minutes of loss of contact. All with US records.

    2) If the airplane were a non jet airplane, the Mexican air regulations at the time would have required the airplane to stop in Chihuahua to clear customs.

    3} Chihuahua, at the time, had a navigation facility known as a radio range, which had one of its four legs pointed toward Marfa, the other northern leg toward El Paso. Just as today, Mexico accepts instrument flight into its territory only on airways. In other words it would need to follow one of the four legs, routes, off the radio range. An airplane coming from El Paso would have been eighty miles, or more, off course.

    4)The idea that an unterminated flight plane would exist without follow up investigation and could be suppressed is preposterous, since it would exist in so many places both in Mexico and the US.

    If the authors ignore, or misrepresent, the verifiable facts, what are we to think of the non-verifiable parts of the narrative.
    This would be an unbelievable tale if the verifiable facts concerning the airplane crash were accurate, but since the authors have made implausible that the airplane crash occurred, it is just a melodramatic story.

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  14. just found your site...looking for answers to the same questions Wybenga raises here.
    I feel like I've found a group interested in serious investigation.
    if it smells like bunk, lets call it bunk and move on.

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