Thursday, April 20, 2017

John Keel was Right - Another New Roswell Witness

Well, it’s happened again, just as John Keel said it would. As I have mentioned before, Keel had written in 1991 that by the end of the century (meaning going into the 21st century) there would be dozens of people, if not hundreds, claiming to have been in Roswell at the time of the UFO crash. Another one has appeared on the scene by the name of Charles H. Forgus, a soldier who served during the Second World War and who was a deputy sheriff in 1947. No, he wasn’t a deputy in Roswell but one in Big Spring, Texas, which is Howard County.

Here’s how this plays out. According to him, he, with the Sheriff in Big Spring, had traveled to Roswell to pick up a prisoner. While they were on their way, they heard, over the police radio, about the flying saucer crash. They drove out to the site, saw hundreds of soldiers, though Forgus didn’t know which branch of the service they were in (the US Army on their fatigues should have been a big clue), and saw a huge disk crashed into the side of a mountain.

He was asked if there were lights on the craft and he said, “No, they went out when it banged into the wall in the creek. It was like a mountain on the side of the creek.” (Though I’m not sure how he would have known that the lights went out when it hit because he wasn’t there.)

He also said, “We couldn’t see that well because of the trees. It was in a riverbank. It slammed into a river bank. I saw them lifting one up with the crane.”

I recognized the place he was talking about. I had been there, I had walked the land and I knew that there was no creek or river there but from the picture that had been printed in The Truth about the UFO Crash at Roswell, it looked as if there was. You can see for yourself that his description matches the picture except for the water.

He added, “The saucer hit the bank on this side of the creek and I was standing on the other side of the bank, at the top of the hill. I was looking down at the site…” (This is the point of view of the picture.)

Kaufmann's alleged crash site. Photo copyright by Kevin Randle.

This is what Frank Kaufmann had said as well. Same description of the craft having hit the side of the canyon wall near what looked like a creek or river. Of course, we all know that Kaufmann’s testimony has been discredited. And if Forgus is describing the scene as if he was standing on a cliff some distance away, then his tale is bogus as well.

Forgus added some detail that is interesting, but also somewhat contradictory. I know this because I have been to that place. From where he was allegedly standing, he said he could see the bodies, though he didn’t have a good description of them. He talked about the big eyes. He said, “They eyes looked like the ones we see on television and the pictures of them.”

But he was so far away, according to him, it is difficult to believe that he would have seen the eyes. The real clue is about having seen alien creatures on television. He just picked the most popular version of the aliens to describe.

Here’s another nugget. According to several of the witnesses, and this includes CIC agent, Bill Rickett, William Woody and former part owner of KGFL radio Jud Roberts, the roads out to the area had been blocked and the crash site was cordoned off. Forgus and his sheriff wouldn’t have been able to get anywhere near the site before they would have been stopped by the military. Forgus made it clear that the military was already there with hundreds of soldiers, a big crane and trucks to remove the craft (Can you say “Alien Autopsy?”). If that is true, then the cordons were up and a sheriff from Texas wouldn’t have been allowed to penetrate it. He and Forgus would have been stopped before they got close enough to see anything at all simply because they weren’t military, they weren’t the local law enforcement and they had no legal authority in New Mexico.

The other part of the story that fails is that they heard about this on the police radio, which seems unlikely, but even if that had been true, they wouldn’t have heard instructions on how to find the place. You can’t see it from the main roads, and the gravel and dirt roads into the area are quite rough and quite confusing. If you don’t know where you are going, you’d get lost. Without someone leading them in, or precise directions which wouldn’t have been broadcast, they would never have found their way to the crash site.


This story was uncovered by Philip Mantle and was told to Deanna Bever in 1999, a Los Angeles private investigator. The tale appears in the book, UFOs Today: 70 Years of Lies, Disinformation and Government Cover-Up by Irena McCammon Scott, Ph.D. and published by Flying Disk Press. It was edited by Philip Mantle.

14 comments:

  1. Kevin:

    Out of curiosity I looked at the Amazon website concerning the book you cited. In the plug for the book, there appears the following, in bold type:

    "The manuscript also features the testimony of a former US Deputy Sheriff who was a witness to the UFO crash at Roswell. This gentleman's unique testimony will be published here for the first time."

    From what you have said above, what is your verdict on this plug? Is it just a bit 'over the top' or is it a plain falsehood?

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  2. CDA -

    I believe it was more hyperbole than anything nefarious. I have communicated with Philip and it seems that he thought the story interesting but he had not attempted to vet it... and in my experience, the publishers rely on the writers to get the information right. The writer probably accepted the story as true because Forgus had been a deputy, had served in the military during WW II, and seemed to have no reason to lie. As I say, when I read the story I recognized the site immediately and realized that the man had plugged himself into the Kaufmann story. It's not the first time that I have run into this... see the post about Trowbridge (or whatever his name was).

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  3. In the book there is more info on Charles Forgus. We were unsure what to do with the info so we thought the best option was to make it available to the public at large to see if his claims could be substantiated or not. I had to get permission from the copyright holders in order to do this. The Forgus info is only a very small part of Dr Irena Wood's excellent book of which I am very pleased to be the publisher.

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  4. Kevin,

    I agree with your assessment about Mr. Forgus. Since you have started your investigation into the Roswell crash, about how many false or questionable witnesses have you come across? Do you have any general ideas what their motives might be? This is just a curious question and not to get into a discussion about.

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  5. Well, no one ever said every WWII veteran, or hero, was an honest one. Seems Forgus just wants one more stab at a claim to fame, to leave a bigger legacy for his grandchildren, or is simply overcome by age-onset dimensia.

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  6. Does interjecting yourself into the Roswell case do anything for anyone anymore?

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  7. Drake -

    Are you suggesting that when I, or anyone else for that matter, see testimony that is flawed that we should just ignore it? Are you suggesting that we just ignore the truth? And wasn't it really Forgus who interjected himself into the case with a story that wasn't very clever, that was clearly based on the invented Kaufmann tale, and that used a photograph of Kaufmann's site that I took. Would you rather we just let this tale go unchallenged? And if so, then haven't we abandoned a search for evidence and the truth?

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    1. Nope. You're doing the Lord's work as far as some of us who want to find out what, if anything, happened that summer day. What I'm asking is simply what is gained by the people who come out of the woodwork and insist or claim they were there? Especially when this was so long ago and it doesn't hold the cultural significance it has had from time to time. Is it boredom? When they pop up you're absolutely right to knock it down as quick as you can and everyone here thanks you for it. But, why? Why do they keep popping up? What does he stand to gain exactly?

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  8. I may be mistaken, but I doubt there are many surviving "witnesses" given that many have passed away by now just given their age. You would have had to be an 18 or 19 year old EM to be under 90 years at this point which means many would have to be in their 90's by now.

    Given age related dimensia, it would be hard to take anyone seriously at this point unless they documented the details of their experience in their youth.

    Forgus would have been better to claim he was part of the supposed clean up crew for example, than to literally cop Kaufmann's story almost verbatim.

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    1. Thank you very much for clearing that up for me. I suppose boredom is as good as any reason.

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  9. Kevin:

    "Does interjecting yourself into the Roswell case do anything for anyone anymore?"

    From Drake's later comment, it is clear that he worded his first one wrongly in using the word "yourself". Perhaps "oneself" would have been better.

    As to why these people keep interjecting themselves into the case decades afterwards, only a psychiatrist can really answer this, but I venture the following: boredom? possibly. Any vague peripheral involvement (such as that of Melvin Brown, who was at the base in the correct time period) can generate a feeling of "I was there, I know something about it". It then morphs into "I know a lot about it". And if you happen to read or hear about it years later, as Brown did, it not only revives your memories but creates a 'feeling' of full involvement, or of wanting to be featured much more prominently than you in fact were. Also, distant memories can play strange tricks in old age.

    Were not a large number of Americans grossly exaggerating their involvement in the Vietnam War? (I apologise in reviving a topic you brought up once before).

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  10. Kevin,

    I agree with nearly all that finding a live witness will be nearly impossible now considering the total years since the Roswell crash. However have you ever posted a paid ad in the local newspapers for possible diaries, letters or pictures from relatives? Also, while rare, people leave such documents in a will or trust and left with an attorney. Have you thought about these possibilities even if they are remote?

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  11. Drake -

    Obviously misunderstood your comment. We do have an obligation to investigate all claims to determine their veracity.

    I think I should point out a couple of things here. First, the draw of the spotlight is a powerful thing and some make up their tales simply to draw the spotlight to them.

    Some do it just for the attention it brings from family and friends and injects them into a position of importance or an event that is important.

    Some do it for the respect they gain, which is one of the reasons that so many claim Vietnam service when they never served in country or in the military. Some of those do it to explain their failures... I was screwed up by all the horror I saw in the war.

    There are all sorts of reasons and as we get farther from the event, we must be careful about all this because those who were there in 1947, even if only 19 or 20, would be about 90 years old today... and if they had been that young, probably saw nothing of importance. About five years ago I talked to one man who was then 89... today, if still alive, would be 94... and I talked to Curry Holden when he was 96... the meeting was brief and preliminary because I planned to talk with him again but he died some three months later.

    Craig -

    Very few of the soldiers stationed in Roswell are still there (if still alive). An ad in the Roswell newspaper wasn't necessary because all of us... Don Schmitt, Tom Carey, Stan Friedman and me did so many TV, radio and newspaper interviews, not to mention the museum, if someone in Roswell had anything like that, we'd have found it by now. I mean it seemed like every time we were there we suggested that people get in touch with us and there are those who have been found through the museum... Unsolved Mysteries did a segment on Roswell and invited people to call in.

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  12. Does nobody else think it odd that he referred to a lot of trees blocking his view? There aren't many in that area. Strange that a guy from West Texas would make such a blunder.

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