Coast to Coast - Belt Montana (Part Two)

 

Robert Salas and Jim Klotz were the first to tell the story of Echo Flight, first in an online article at cufon.org and later in their book, Faded Giant. Robert Hastings, in his UFOs and Nukes, provided additional information. The story they told started early on the morning of March 16, 1967, when two missile maintenance teams who had been working on two of the flight’s widely scattered launch facilities had said they had seen strange lights in the sky near where they were located. A mobile security team confirmed this, saying they had seen the lights as well. All of this was told to Colonel Don Crawford by Captain Eric Carlson and 1^st Lieutenant Walt Figel as Crawford came on duty, at least and according to what Salas had been told during his 1996 taped interview with Figel. Hastings had been told virtually the same things during his interviews with Figel.

Malmstrom Air Force Base (for those who can't read)

About 8:30 a.m., that same morning, as both Carlson and Figel were performing routine checks, the flight’s missiles began to drop off line. Within seconds, though Figel would later suggest it was minutes, all ten missiles were inoperable. In the event of war, they could not have launched. This was a major national security issue and a point that would become important later as the government files are searched.

Hastings wrote, “Immediately after the malfunctions at Echo, the launch officers ordered two separate Security Alert Teams to drive to each of the launch facilities where the UFOs had been sighted. Nevertheless, the maintenance and security personnel at each site reported seeing UFOs hovering near the missile silos.”

He added, “…some months after my book came out, in July 2008, I interviewed Figel on tape. He said one of the two SAT teams reported seeing the UFO over one of the silos. In 1996, he told Salas that both teams had seen it. A faded memory, it seems…”

But the story wasn’t quite so mundane, as Hastings learned during his interviews with Figel. When Hastings talked to Figel, a retired Air Force Colonel on October 20, 2008, he was told that one of the guards had suggested the UFO had shut down the missiles. Figel thought the guard was joking. He told Hastings, “I was thinking he was yanking my chain more than anything else.”

Hastings asked, “He seemed to be serious to you?”

And Figel responded, “He seemed to be serious but I wasn’t taking him seriously.”

Hastings wanted to know what the man had seen and Figel said that it was just a large, round object that was directly over the launch facility.”

To clarify the situation Hastings and Figel discussed the security procedures. Figel said, “[When] the missiles dropped off alert, I started calling the maintenance people out there on the radio… [I asked] ‘What’s going on?’ … And the guy says, ‘We got a Channel 9 No-Go. It must be a UFO hovering over the site.”

Figel, of course, didn’t believe him. He said that one of the Strike Teams, they had dispatched two, but one of them thought they had seen something over the site. They told Figel that a large object was hovering there.

All of this, of course, suggests that UFOs were somehow involved with the sudden shut down of the missile systems. Although the government files reject the idea, there is a great deal of eyewitness testimony for this.

The maintenance teams were dispatched and once they had located the problem, they were able to bring the missiles back on line, but the process was not simple and required hours for each missile. There was an extensive investigation that involved not only the Air Force but also the contractors who had designed and built the missiles.

According to the 341^st Strategic Missile Wing Unit History, recovered through Freedom of Information:

On 16 March 1967 at 0845, all sites in Echo (E) Flight, Malmstrom AFB, shutdown with No-Go indication of Channels 9 and 12 on Voice Reporting Signal Assemble (VRSA). All LF’s in E Flight lost strategic alert nearly simultaneously. No other Wing I configuration lost strategic alert at that time.

Guidance & Control channel 50 dump data was collected from E-7 facility and E-3 Facility and all 10 sites were then returned to strategic alert without any LF equipment replacement. All 10 sites were reported to have been subject to a normal controlled shutdown…

The only possible means that could be identified by the team involved a situation in which a couple self test command occurred along with a partial reset within the coupler. This could feasible cause a VRSA 9 and 12 indication. This was also quite remote for all 10 couplers would have to have been partially reset in the same manner…

In the researching of other possibilities, weather was ruled out as a contributing factor in the incident.

A check with Communications maintenance verified that there was no unusual activity with EWO-1 or EWO-2 at the time of the incident.

All of which, in the short term, did not explain why the missiles all went off line at virtually the same time. In other words, at that point they didn’t know why the missiles went off line. In a very technical aspect of the Unit History, it explains that a “30 micro sec Pulse… was placed on the Self Test Command (STC) line… Seven out of 10 separate applications of a single pulse would cause the system to shut down with a Channel 9 & 12 No-Go.”

Or according to the government files, a randomly introduced electronic pulse which might be considered an EMP, which shouldn’t have affected the missile systems, had shut them down. The point of insertion was apparently the Launch Control Facility, but all those areas should have been shielded from just such an occurrence.

The information about the Echo Flight was, quite naturally, communicated to the Condon Committee, and Dr. Roy Craig responded. Although not exactly government files, Craig was working on a government contract for the Air Force when he made his notes on his meeting with Lieutenant Colonel Chase at Malmstrom. Craig’s notes on the meeting said:

After Colonel Chase and I exchanged pleasantries in his office, I asked him about the Echo incident. The Colonel caught his breath, and expressed surprise that I knew of it. ‘I can’t talk about that’… If I needed to know the cause of this incident, I could arrange through official channels, to see their report after the completion of the investigation… Although local newspapers carried stories of UFO sightings which would coincide in time with Echo, Colonel Chase had assured me that the incident had not involved a UFO… I accepted the information as factual and turned review of Major Schraff’s report (on the Echo incident) over to Bob Low [Dr. Robert Low, also a member of the Condon Committee], who had received security clearance to read secret information related to the UFO study… Low, in turn, had to interface with his Air Force Liaison in Washington, Col. Hippler [Lieutenant Colonel Robert Hippler]…. [Low wrote to Craig] ‘Roy, I called Hippler and he said he would try to get this, but he suspects it’s going to be classified too high for us to look at. Says he thinks interference by pulses from nuclear explosions is probably involved.

So, it seems that a cause had been found, or rather it seemed to have been found, but the ultimate source of the pulse was not identified. Hippler, speculating about the source of the pulse came up with an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) from a nonexistent atomic blast. That the pulse shut down all the missiles made it a national security issue, which changed the level of the classification.

Oddly, in the 341^st SMW Unit History, it noted, “Rumors of Unidentified Objects (UFO) around the area of Echo Flight during the time of the fault were disproven. A Mobile Strike Team, which had checked all November Flight’s LFs [Launch Facilities] on the morning of 16 March 67, were questioned and stated that no unusual activity or sightings were observed.”

But that doesn’t seem to be quite accurate. Hastings interviewed James Ortyl who had been assigned as an Air Policeman at Malmstrom. Ortyl said:

I was an Airman 2^nd Class [A2C] at the time. We were working the day-shift at Kilo Flight in March of 1967… It was mid-morning and three or four Air Policemen were gathered in the launch control facility dispatch office. Airman Robert Pounders and I were facing the windows looking out to the yard and parking lot. The others were facing us. As we were conversing, I witnessed a shimmering, reddish-orange object clear the main gate and in a sweeping motion pass quickly and silently pass by the windows. It seemed to be within 30 years of the building. Stunned, I looked at Pounders and asked, “Did you see that?!” He acknowledged that he had.

To be fair, Ortyl didn’t know the exact date, but said that in was near his birthday of March 17^th. But then there is Craig’s interview with Chase which also moves in the direction of UFO sightings on the proper date. Craig’s notes indicate that he had the names of some of those involved with the UFO sightings at the time of Echo’s shut down, but he never contacted any of them.

Craig also had the name of Dan Renualdi who, in March 1967, was a member of the Site Activation Task Force (SATAF). He said that he had been within a few feet of an object. There was also a sergeant with the Air Force Technical Evaluation Team who said he had seen a flying saucer. There is no record of Craig talking to either of these men, nor are there any reports in the Project Blue Book files to suggest that the sightings had been reported there. That was a violation of the regulations in force at the time, although it could be argued there were contradictory regulations.

All this demonstrates is that there was another reported UFO around the time that Echo Flight had gone down, contrary to what the Unit History said. It does not prove that the UFOs had anything to do with the anomalous pulse.

There is another aspect to this. Quite naturally, the Air Force wanted to know what had happened. The man who conducted the investigation for Boeing, the Defense Contractor for the missile systems was Robert Kaminski. In a letter dated February 1, 1997 to Jim Klotz, he wrote:

At the time of the incident, I was an engineer in the MIP/CNP (Material Improvement Project/Controlled Numbered Problem) group…. The group was contacted by the Air Force so that Boeing could respond to specific Air Force Minuteman Missiles problems that occurred in the field…

I was handed the E-Flight CNP assignment when it arrived by the group supervisor. As the internal Boeing project engineer I arranged meetings necessary with management and technical personnel required to determine a course of action to be taken, in exploring why 10 missiles had suddenly fallen from alert status – green – to red, with no explanation for it. This was an unusual request and we had no prior similar incident or experience to this kind of anomaly….

Since this was a field site peculiar incident, a determination was made to send out an investigative team to survey the LCF and the LFs to determine what failures or related incidents could be found to explain the cause…. After a week in the field the team returned and pooled their data. At the outset the team quickly noticed a lack of anything that would come close to explain why the event occurred. There were no significant failures, engineering data or findings that would come close to explain how ten missiles were knocked off alert. This indeed turned out to be a rare event and not encountered before. The use of backup power systems and other technical system circuit operational redundancy strongly suggests that this kind of event is virtually impossible once the system was up and running and on line with other LCF’s and LF’s interconnectivity….

The team met with me to report their findings and it was decided that the final report would have nothing significant in it to explain what happened at E-Flight. In other words there was no technical explanation that could explain the event… Meanwhile I was contacted by our representative… (Don Peterson) and told by him that the incident was reported as being a UFO event – That a UFO was seen by some Airmen over the LCF at the time E-Flight when down.

Subsequently, we were notified a few days later, that a stop work order was on the way from OOAMA to stop any further effort on this project. We stopped. We were also told that we were not to submit the final engineering report. This was most unusual since all of our work required review by the customer and the submittal of a final Engineering report to OOAMA…

However, as I recall nothing explained this anomaly at E-Flight.

Hastings, in a review of the material in 2013, wrote, “Actually, the large round object sighted by the missile guard, and reported to launch officer Lt. Walter Figel, had been hovering over one of the Echo missile silos, not the launch control facility itself. Nevertheless, Boeing engineer Kaminski’s revealing testimony essentially confirms Figel’s account of a UFO presence during the incident.”

This all happened while the University of Colorado study, known as the Condon Committee was going on, and an investigator from Colorado arrived at Malmstrom AFB to learn what had happened. Dr. Roy Craig, was dispatched to meet with Chase. Once Craig was in Chase’s office, rather than ask about the sightings around Belt, Craig asked about Echo Flight.

Craig wrote, “The Colonel caught his breath, and expressed surprise that I knew of it. He said, “I can’t talk about that.”

Craig turned the investigation over to Robert Low, who had been granted a security clearance so that he could read the classified information in the Project Blue Book files. That wasn’t good enough and they eventually made the request to Lt. Col. Robert Hippler who was involved with the Colorado study, and had, at one point, told Low and Condon what the Air Force expected in the study. You can read more about that here:

Hippler wrote back that it was his opinion that the Echo Flight trouble was classified too high for them to see it. He didn’t explain what that classification might be, but here was a case in which UFOs were involved, even if that involvement was tangential to the problem with Echo Flight.

In fact, they were told that there was no UFO involvement, but the trouble with Echo Flight was a matter of national security. Here’s the point, it was believed impossible for all ten missiles in a single flight to be disabled by an outside force. There was redundancy built into the system. Ignoring the fact that UFOs might have come into play, what was important here was that an outside force had disabled the missiles. If the enemy learned that such a thing was possible, then that enemy could begin to search for a way to do it. UFOs could lead to that discovery, even if those UFOs weren’t alien in origin… and there it is. The reason that we have not gotten further is National Security. That is why, today, we still don’t have any real answers from the government. And if you’re arguing that this is old news, then I remind you that Area 51 was exposed during UFO investigations. They conceal the information because they believe they’re protecting National Security. I’ve laid all this out and provide addition information about the missile intrusions in the book The Government UFO Files.

Coast to Coast - Belt, Montana UFO Sighting (Part One)

 

Here is the whole story of the Belt, Montana, sightings for March 24, 1967, as they appear in the Project Blue Book files. A truck driver, Ken Williams, saw what he said was a domed object land in a canyon near the road. He was curious enough that he stopped, got out of his truck and began to walk toward the object. The UFO then lifted off, flew further up the canyon and touched down again, now hidden from the highway by a ridge.

Belt, Montana, part of the Great Falls urban area.

Williams, in a handwritten document filed with the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomenon, told what he had seen that night. In response to their request, on April 7, 1967, Williams wrote:

Gentlemen:

Object was first observed approximately 5 miles southeast of Belt, Montana. I was traveling North on Highway 87 enroute to Great Falls, Montana. Object was approximately 1 mile to my left and appeared to be about 5 or 6 hundred yards [1500 – 1800 feet] altitude. I would estimate its speed to vary from 40 to 50 miles per hour. I am judging this speed by the speed I was traveling as object seemed to be running evenly with me. Its appearance was that of a large doomed [sic] shaped light or that of a giant headlight. Upon climbing up the Belt Hill in my truck, I looked to my left and about ½ mile up a gully. I witnessed the object at about 200 yards [600 feet] in the air in a still position. I stopped my truck and the object dropped slowly to what appeared to me to be within a very few feet from the ground. [Underlining in original]. It was at this time that I felt something or someone was watching me. As a very bright effecting light emerged from the object it momentarily blinded me. This extremely bright light seemed to flare three times. Each time holding its brightness. By the third time the light was so bright [underlining in original] that it was nearly impossible to look directly at it. It was at this time that I drove my truck onto the top of the hill which was about another ½ mile. I stopped a car and asked the people [Don Knotts of Great Falls] if they would stop at a station at the foot of the hill and call the Highway Patrol. I went back down the hill and viewed the object for several more minutes. It was while watching it the second time that it rose and disappeared like a bolt of lightning. I went back to the top of the hill where my truck was parked and just as the Highway Patrolmen [sic] Bud Nader, arrived the object appeared once again. About 2 miles away and traveling in a Northeast direction, whereas it stopped once again and appeared to drop to the ground [Underlining in the original.]. There are several deep gullys [sic] in the area where it appeared to drop out of sight. This was my last sighting of the object.

The government file on this case contains what was known as a Project Record Card, which was a 4 x 6 card that outlined the details of the case. While the case is labeled as “unidentified,” it also noted that there was “(1 witness),” which they believed to be so important that it was underlined. But that isn’t true and other documents in the government files prove it.

According to a letter written by Lieutenant Colonel Lewis D. Chase, and addressed to Edward Condon at the University of Colorado, there was, at least, one other witness. According to Chase, “Mr. Nader [sent by the Highway Patrol] reported that upon reaching the scene he observed an unusual light emanating from the area that the truck driver, Mr. Williams, claimed the object had landed a second time.”

The Newspaper Accounts

The Great Falls Leader carried a series of articles about the UFO sightings in the area at the time. Interestingly, some of what was printed in the newspaper was not found in the government files. Those who conducted the military investigation should have been aware of the other sightings, but there is no mention of them. It seems that, to the Air Force anyway, those sightings never happened.

Ron Rice, a staff writer on the newspaper said that there had been UFO sightings all over the state that day. He wrote, “Before midnight it was the Belt area; after 3 this morning, Malmstrom Air Force Base where one was picked up on the bottom of a Federal Aviation Agency radar scope which tracked it for a time before it disappeared in the direction of the Belt Mountains.”

There were visual sightings as well. Airman Second Class (A2C) Richard Moore, a communicator-plotter said that he had seen something about five or ten miles from the base at 3:30 a.m. Airman Third Class (A3C) said that he had seen an object that he said was a bright light with orange lights on the bottom. This, according to Moore, was close to the ground and it was what the FAA radar had detected.

Moore also said that a sabotage alert team had located another object about 4:40 a.m. directly over Malmstrom. Moore said that he saw it as well, but it was more a point of light moving across the sky than anything else. He said it wasn’t a satellite because it was zigzagging.

Another airman, Warren Mahoney, said that Moore had told him about the UFO at 3:10 a.m. and that at 3:42 he had received a call from the FAA that there was an object on their radar northwest of the base. Three minutes later it had turned, flying toward the southeast. At 4:26 a.m. it disappeared from the FAA radar.

Rice also mentioned that there had been a search of the canyon where Williams and Nager saw the UFO and they found some evidence, though it isn’t clear exactly what they had found. Sheriff’s deputies Keith Wolverton, Jim Cinker and Harold Martin, searched the ground for about two and a half hours and discovered some freshly broken twigs on bushes and branches of the trees. They thought it might have been cattle, but there were no cattle in the area. Martin was reported as saying, “Some of the trees are 25 feet high, and had limbs broken from them, and some bushes below them were broken. All were fresh breaks.”

According to the Great Falls Tribune, Trudy Fender provided a rough drawing of an object she had seen with a steady white light on one end, a blinking white light on the other and a red light in the center. She had been waiting for her ride on March 26. The sighting isn’t important because of the object, but the fact that she saw something. That refuted a theory that there had been no UFO sightings in Montana other than Williams sighting two days earlier.

The Government File

With all that was going on that night, with the news media alerted and with local law enforcement involved, there wasn’t much that the Air Force could do other than respond. The government files, in a teletype message that was unclassified revealed, “Between hours of 2100 and 0400 MST numerous reports were received by Malmstrom AFB agencies of UFO sightings in the Great Falls, Montana area.”

The message noted that “Reports of a UFO landing near Belt, Montana were received from several sources including deputies of Cascade County Sheriff’s Office. Investigation is being conducted by Lt. Col. Lewis Chase… The alleged landing site is under surveillance. However, daylight is required for further search.”

The investigation was apparently completed several days later and on April 8, 1967, Chase wrote a report that he sent on to Edward Condon at the University of Colorado who was leading the Air Force sponsored investigation into UFOs. After setting the scene, Lewis wrote:

Numerous reports were being received by the dispatcher at Base Operations, plus questions from the public. At 2205 [10:05 p.m.], Lt. Col. Lewis D. Chase, Base UFO Investigating Officer, was notified by the Command Post of a reported landing. Sequence of events following notification were as follows:

2215 – Check was made with Base Operations as to aircraft movement in the area. An outbound transient aircraft departed Great Falls enroute to Glasgow, Montana. Departure time was 2109 [9:09 p.m.]. All other aircraft were accounted for.

2230 – Discussion with the Sheriff of Cascade County revealed that he had dispatched additional deputies to the area. Requested that he notify me of any significant findings. While talking to the sheriff, he contacted one of his mobile units. The man reporting said that they were at the scene and that there was no activity at the time. Requested the sheriff to forward any subsequent developments.

2330 – I called the Sheriff of Cascade County for a status report. He put one of his deputies on the line (Ziener?) who had been at the scene and had interviewed the truck driver and highway patrolman. While on the phone, Sheriff Martin from Belt, Montana, called in from the scene. He discussed the possibility of manpower assistance from Malmstrom and/or helicopter support. Informed him that daylight would be the first possible helicopter support and that I would discuss the other manpower request with Colonel Klibbe.

2345 – Discussion with Colonel Klibbe. He suggested that I go out and evaluate the situation and make my recommendations from there.

0030 – Departed the base in radio equipped station wagon accompanied by Major John Grasser of the Helicopter Section, for an evaluation of the terrain for any possible helicopter survey at daylight, a driver, and the alert photographer.

0100 – Arrived at the scene. Was met by Sheriff Martin, who repeated the previous reports. He had been on the scene continuously. A study of the terrain revealed the hopelessness of any ground survey at night. A tentative plan was agreed upon – the sheriff’s office to conduct a ground search of the reported landing area on the morning of 25 March 1967, while concurrently a helicopter survey of the area would be performed by Malmstrom. (It had been reported by Major Grasser that a helicopter training flight was scheduled for 0730 Saturday morning. This procedure was later approved by 15^th AF, provided no landing was made). Sightseers were in the area due to radio publicity and Martin reported some had gone on the ridges before he could stop them.

0215 – Reported to Colonel Klibbe the tentative plan agreed upon with Sheriff Martin. He approved.

0230 to 0340 – Numerous sightings reported.

0350 – Discussed the make-up of a message with Captain Bradshaw, Wing Command Post, IAW [In Accordance With] AFR [Air Force Regulation] 80-17, to notify concerned agencies, including CSAF, of numerous sightings, plus the reported landing under investigation. Was concerned with resulting publicity and the need to notify other agencies prior to press releases. Message will merely state reported landing, that it is under investigation, that daylight hours are required to complete investigation, and that a subsequent report will be submitted. Preliminary message dispatched.

0800 – Sheriff’s ground search and Malmstrom aerial survey completed with negative results. Follow-up messages dispatched to interested agencies (AFR 80-17) stating negative results of the investigation.

The last part of the report confirmed that Chase had conducted it and provided contact information for him. He later, in a teletype message reported, again, that there had been negative results.

None of the newspaper articles appeared in the official government file, which, in and of itself, is odd. Often the case files included many, if not all, the newspaper articles about the specific sighting. It could be, in this case, that those newspaper reports contradict some of the information contained in the official file. Although Chase wrote that there had been negative results to his investigation, the sheriff’s deputies did report they had found some evidence at the scene. The problem is that the evidence wasn’t sufficiently unusual and there were alternative explanations for it. Cattle certainly could have been responsible for some of it, though it is unlikely that cows were doing damage twenty-five feet above the ground.

All mention of the radar reports is missing from the government files, as are the reports from Air Force personnel. Even if Chase was uninterested in most of the civilian sightings, it would seem that he would want to talk to the airman who saw something, if for no other reason than to explain them. This is a hole in the investigation.

The radar sightings, with the corroborative visual reports would seem to be a very important part of the case. This would make it a stronger case, but Chase didn’t follow up on it. The government files that are available suggest he did not explore the radar sightings, he did not request information from the FAA, and he didn’t interview any of the radar operators. The newspaper files suggest that the information had been reported the next day. Chase should have known about it.

There might have been something else operating here, and that was the mission of Malmstrom AFB. It was a minuteman missile base, and just days before, an entire flight of missiles had suddenly fallen into a “No-Go” situation which meant that they had been deactivated. This was an issue that was a matter of national security and that might explain the reason the Belt, Montana sighting was so poorly investigated.

Barbara Dugger and History's Greatest Mysteries

 

I was a little disturbed by the Barbara Dugger (as opposed to Duggar) interview on History’s Greatest Mysteries, which is to say I wondered about some of the information contained in it. Don Schmitt and I interviewed Barbara on March 4, 1991, at her home. She was kind enough to sit down for us and tell us what she remembered about her discussion of the UFO crash with her grandmother, Inez Wilcox, who, for those of you who don’t know, was the wife of Sheriff George Wilcox.

Barbara Dugger

Prior to talking to Barbara, Don and I had interviewed her mother, Elizabeth Tulk and her aunt, Phyllis McGuire. Both of these women were the daughters of the sheriff. Phyllis had been in the jail house during some of the activities when Mack Brazel arrived with a few samples of the metallic debris.

Barbara told us that she and her grandmother, who she called Big Mama, had been watching a program about space when Inez said, according to Barbara, “I have something I have never told anyone and I don’t want you to discuss it with anyone… in the ‘40s, there was a spacecraft, a flying saucer is what they called it, [that] crashed outside of Roswell.”

Barbara continued, telling us what her grandmother had told her. “Your grandfather, George, was sheriff – very hesitant to talk but there was something [that] he said don’t tell anyone.”

Barbara, again quoting her grandmother said, “When the incident happened, the military police came to the jailhouse and told George, and I never told anything about this incident, [that if we] talked about it in any way, not only would we be killed but they would get the rest of the family.”

Barbara asked her grandmother if she had witnessed that threat. “Did you hear them say that Big Mama and she said, ‘Yes, I did.’”

According to Barbara, and I must say that this is in conflict with what some of the other witnesses, including deputies, “Someone came and told my grandfather about this incident that happened outside of Roswell. My grandfather went out there and when he got out there, there was a big burned area when he first approached… they saw debris… I don’t know if he was alone. She [Inez] didn’t go with him. It was in the evening.”

Barbara asked, “Did he see any little space beings? She [Inez] said, ‘Yes. There were four of them… they were like gray… their heads were large and the little suit they had on was like silk or something like that kind of material. They were gray.’”

Barbara was told, “He [George] came back into town and they had discussed the incident. They [the military] had thought it was fine to put it over the news and apparently something happened and it was not okay.”

There were phone calls from all over the world. According to what Barbara was told, “When they found out they came into the jailhouse and said you don’t say anything or you will die and Inez will die…”

Barbara again said, “He went out there to the site. I thought the site was just like thirty miles outside of Roswell… Granddaddy wouldn’t talk about it. It was a shock to him like you wouldn’t believe.”

She provided more of the description of what the sheriff had seen, based on what Inez told her. “There were little people lying out on the ground. [The] military came in and… tell you not to talk about it.”

Oddly, Barbara said that Inez never talked about it again. It was just that one time, though she wrote an article about in the late 1940s. That article does corroborate what Barbara said, but there is a problem with it, which I’ll get to in a moment.

Barbara asked, “Were those little men alive or dead and she said ‘I think one of them was alive,’ and I said, ‘Did Granddaddy help it.?’ And she said, ‘I don’t know,’ and that was that. She didn’t tell me anything else.”

Barbara said that Inez never said another word about it… except, there is that article that Inez wrote about “Four Years in the County Jail.”

This was an article about her experiences working for the county as the matron in the jail. Seems in the 1940s that the sheriff’s wife sort of inherited the job of matron when her husband was elected sheriff. I don’t know if it was a requirement or a bonus that came with the election of George.

In that article, seen here, is the mention of the flying saucer crash, as it was typed by Inez:

 

Inez Wilcox's article about the Roswell crash.

And here is the problem. That paragraph was not in the original story. It was added later. When the Berlitz and Moore book about the crash came out, it was announced in the Roswell Daily Record on June 11, 1980, with another article published on June 13, 1980. Inez’s article is undated and the insert about the crash is undated, but since it was written later as an addition to the original article, it is possible that it was inspired by the release of The Roswell Incident, the articles in the Daily Record and the eventual broadcast on In Search Of, which covered the Roswell story. Inez died on May 25, 1988.

And the additional problem is that the information is third-hand. George was first hand, Inez was second, and Barbara third. She’d seen nothing herself. She was relying on Inez, who had seen very little herself, and none of it had to do with the alien beings. George was no longer available for interview when we arrived on the scene in 1989.

Again, here is the problem. Ben Smith, or one of the producers interviewed Barbara, but they made no attempt to get that paragraph that Inez had written into the show. They made no mention of it. At least the paragraph moved the story to the second hand. But, to trot that out would be to diminish the importance of the Not Jesse Marcel’s Journal. Focus had to remain on the Journal to the exclusion of any other good documentation, with the exception of the Ramey Memo… which, they mentioned in the second episode and then seemed to forget.

Anyway, here is additional analysis of Barbara’s tale. I have no doubt that she believes it to be true. The trouble is that, at this late date, we can’t prove it… and the real shame is that Inez didn’t date anything. That would have helped.

Covid-19 and UFO Disclosure

 

Here’s an unexpected side effect of the Covid-19 Stimulus bill that President Trump signed on Sunday. It started a 180-day countdown in which both the Pentagon and various spy agencies were required to disclose what they know about UFOs. This provision was hidden, or obscured, in the massive bill that was over 5000 pages long. Our representatives and senators had a couple of hours to read the bill, so you know that they all knew exactly what they were voting for.

Senator Marco Rubio, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said, “[It] directs the [director of national intelligence], in consultation with the Secretary of Defense and the heads of other such agencies… to submit a report within 180 days of the date of the enactment of the act, to the congressional intelligence and armed services committees on unidentified aerial phenomena [UFOs, in other words].”

We have gone through this time and again. There have been presidential directives and there have been congressional investigations and they have not led us to disclosure. We have seen the Air Force manipulate the situation when they bought the University of Colorado study, telling them in advance what they wanted to be found. We have seen the CIA put together a mock hearing in 1953, chaired by Dr. Robertson, in which they suggested that the idea of UFOs be debunked (which, BTW, isn’t necessarily a bad thing) but the real point was to bury the interest in UFOs, rather than explain or identify the problem.

We have even seen the Air Force lie to a United States Senator, telling him that there was no such thing as Project Moon Dust (which had a UFO component) only to change that lie when documentation for Moon Dust was presented. Now, rather than denying it existed, they said it had never been deployed… another lie contradicted by that same documentation.

The other problem here is national security. Using that as an excuse to hid the truth is an old dodge. And, just how far can they go, using that excuse? Can they deny the Intelligence Committee the information because of national security or can they just sort of leave some of the information out of the presentation? After all, they must now scramble to find the data and include it in the report.

Finally, if the specter of national security raises its ugly head, can that be used as an excuse not to say anything to those of us who have an interest in the topic?  That means just one more classified document that will be heavily redacted if any portions of it are released under FOIA.

The public answer, I’ll bet, will be that we looked into it, and there were some issues that can be seen as national security (methods of gathering the data for one) that prohibits the release of sections of this report to the general public… after all, we know that our senators and representatives are better equipped to understand this than we peons toiling out here in the real world.

The Bob Pratt, Jesse Marcel Interview

 

It has come up, in one of the comments on this blog, that someone wondered when the Pratt interview took place. I thought this was the best way to respond. The best answer I can find is December 8, 1979 and the information was published in the National Enquirer on February 26, 1980. The transcript of that interview is rather confusing. Karl Pflock, in his book, Roswell: Inconvenient Facts and the Will to

Believe, cleaned it up but there are areas for interpretation. In one place, the insertion of a comma changes the meaning. In the Pratt interview, there is no comma, so Pflock has put his best interpretation on it.

For those who wish to see the transcript of the Pratt interview, I have published it on this blog. You can see and read it here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2013/09/jesse-marcel-sr-bob-pratt-and-interview.html

For additional information, you can take a look at Roswell in the 21^st Century, or you can type Jesse Marcel or Bob Pratt into the search engine. The topic of the interview and some of the discrepancies between what is in that interview and the facts as they have been developed can be seen by looking at some of those earlier articles.

To get a good chronology of the Marcel appearances in the world of the UFO, the best source is Curt Collins. You can read his posting here:

https://thesaucersthattimeforgot.blogspot.com/2020/12/roswell-majors-testimony.html

There is more about Marcel that is important. Much of what was written by the debunkers is not as precise as it could be, and I fear some of them have no real knowledge of the way the military operates. On the other hand, some of what Marcel claimed in various interviews can only be described as inaccurate… some the result of confabulation and some just old fashioned “war stories.” In other words, there was some embellishment. It really all comes down to what you want to believe.

History's Greatest Mysteries - A Quick Analysis

 

One of the starkest notes I have received about the History Channel’s History’s Greatest Mysteries, was the one that suggested the program had convinced the viewer that there was nothing alien about the Roswell UFO case. Rather than suggesting that there was a real mystery there, this correspondent believed that it had removed all the mystery from the case. I have to admit, I had some similar thoughts.

This means, that if I didn’t have a great deal of additional information, I could see where the program did nothing to advance the case. As but a single example, they bring up Project Mogul but neglect to point out that the culprit, Flight No. 4 had been cancelled. Only a cluster of balloons had been launched later in the day to lift a microphone high into the atmosphere to test its ability to detect the sounds of a large explosion. The cluster was not made up of the long array, didn’t contain the necessary rawin radar targets, and probably never actually left the confines of the White Sands Proving Ground. Such information was necessary to make an accurate assessment of the probability that Mogul was responsible for the debris found by Mack Brazel.

Mogul balloons in flight.

And, since they returned to Mogul in the last installment, and failed to mention that Flight No. 4 was not launched, as the documentation from the project director noted, I’ll mention it once again. The problem with saying that it was Flight No. 4, is that Flight No. 4 had been cancelled. You can read the various arguments, notes and documentation about it here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2008/10/more-bad-news-for-mogul.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2007/07/project-mogul-and-roswell.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2007/02/national-geographics-and-ufos.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2007/02/national-geographics-and-ufos.html

For those who wish even more about the Mogul answer, just type Project Mogul into the search engine on the blog and it will provide a longer list of postings about Mogul. There is also a long appendix in Roswell in the 21^st Century that lays all this out in one convenient place. Just click on the cover on the left side of the blog to take you right to the book.

Another, minor problem was that Jesse Marcel talked, on camera, in a segment filmed decades ago about a press conference in General Ramey’s office on July 8, 1947. He mentioned a bunch of microphones and reporters, but the truth is, there was but a single reporter and no evidence that he, the reporter, recorded anything. I will point out that I don’t consider this a lie, just someone attempting to remember a specific event thirty or forty years after the fact. I find myself in a similar dilemma as I put together, on the Vietnam Ground Zero blog, my experiences as a helicopter pilot and aircraft commander in Vietnam. I try to be accurate, but I’m just a little bit worried that some of the memories have been confabulated, meaning, after all these years, some of those memories are jumbled together. It’s not a lie, just a bit of confusion

Frank Kaufmann

I was astonished, and disappointed, that they trotted out Frank Kaufmann to make some sort comments about the alien nature of the discovery. Those who visit here regularly know that Frank Kaufmann had invented his involvement in the Roswell case. He had told us, all who would listen, that he had been a master sergeant trained in intelligence. When his true military career was discovered, we learned he had been a staff sergeant trained in administration. The documents he had presented to prove his intelligence background had been forged. He lied about who he was and what he had been doing. You can read more about Kaufmann here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2007/09/more-on-frank-kaufmann.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2007/09/how-did-frank-kaufmann-slip-through.html

Once again, for those who wish more information, and to understand the evolution of the Kaufmann testimony, just type Frank Kaufmann into the search engine. There are even examples of the documents that he forged. Kaufmann had been thoroughly discredited and I’m astonished that they would use any footage of him spinning his wild tales.

And there was Glenn Dennis, whose tale unraveled when the nurse couldn’t be found. He spun a great story, but it was no truer than those told by Frank Kaufmann. The postings about Glenn Dennis can be found here (and they include links to other articles as well):

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2020/05/x-zone-broadcast-network-tom-carey-and.html

But the real point of the programs was to introduce what have been called Jesse Marcel’s Journal. This was a document found by the grandchildren among the papers left by Jesse Marcel. It covered the period that included the date of the crash of the object near Roswell, New Mexico.

As I have mentioned, last February I was in Fort Worth to film a segment on the Ramey Memo. Although I was there to talk about the Ramey Memo, I spent several hours in front of the camera talking about all aspects of the Roswell UFO crash case.

During the interview, the subject of Marcel’s Journal came up. I knew a little about it, of course, and there were some people that I could ask about it if I wanted to know more information. I reported everything I knew, until we reached February. Then, I was given additional information on the condition I would say nothing until the segment about the Journal aired.

I was told that the majority of the Journal contained nothing other than the mundane musings of someone who was keeping a journal. It ran from 1946 until 1948 or 49, so that it covered the critical days in 1947. It was filled with quotes from movies and books, and things like that but made no reference to the UFO crash. In fact, it seemed to skip over the critical days in July but there is nothing really significant in that. I mean, the Journal is not a daily record, but the periodic writings of the author.

There were areas that seemed to be in code. These, apparently, are the sections written in block lettering as opposed to cursive used in the majority of the Journal. We learned, during the program, that they had submitted the Journal to forensic analysis to test the paper and ink. Of course, both the paper and ink were from the proper time, meaning that the Journal was written at the times noted in it. Since we had a known provenance for the Journal, this seemed to be a wasted effort. No one really thought it was some kind of fake, given the way it was found.

The real revelation was when the Journal was given to a handwriting expert. She pointed out that whoever wrote the entries in cursive was the same person who wrote the sections written in block letters. The “code” then, maybe hidden in those musings because of the strange mixture in upper- and lower-case letters in those few pages of block printing. But then, it was noted, based on an analysis of the handwriting of Jesse Marcel and the writing in this Journal, that Marcel was not the author.

That seemed to suck some of the importance out of the Journal. While it was found in Marcel’s military records, we don’t know who wrote it or why. The thing that stuck me about it was that it appears to be quotes from various sources. This is something that aspiring writers do. Find a sentence or a paragraph or a saying that has some sort of appeal and copy it.

Later, using samples of handwriting by various officers, they attempted to match the handwriting of one of those officers to that in Journal. They keep suggesting that Patrick Saunders, the base adjutant in 1947, was the number two man on the base behind Colonel Blanchard. That simply is not accurate. Both Payne Jennings and Robert Barrowclough were the numbers two and three in Roswell at the time. There were eighteen lieutenant colonels assigned to the base in 1947, and each of them outranked Saunders. This doesn’t diminish his position, only clarifies it.

In letters sent to me, and supplied to the production company, Saunders’ daughter provided an insight into his role in Roswell in 1947. Saunders, according to what he said, had altered records, funded parts of the recovery operation by disguising the missions as navigational problems and cross-country training. That there was wreckage or bodies on the aircraft were unimportant in the accounting for the money spent. The training mission paid for the cost of moving people, equipment and wreckage around.

Ironically, the producers missed an obvious clue to the importance of what Saunders wrote, even as they used the samples of his handwriting to compare with the writing in the Journal. On the flyleaf to The Truth about UFO Crash at Roswell, Saunders wrote, “Here’s the truth and I still haven’t told anybody about anything!” He then signed it.

That page, labeled as “Damage Control,” contained a paragraph about what had happened in Roswell. It said:

Files were altered. So were personal records, along with assignments and various codings and code words. Changing serial numbers ensured that those searching later would not be able to locate those who were involved in the recovery. Individuals were brought into Roswell from Alamogordo, Albuquerque, and Los Alamos. The MPs were a special unit constructed of military police elements from Kirtland, Alamogordo, and Roswell. If the men didn’t know one another, or were separated after the event, they would be unable to compare notes, and that would make the secret easier to keep.

After the impact site was cleaned, the soldiers debriefed, and the bodies and the craft removed, silence fell. It would not be broken for almost forty-five years.

While they were looking for a code hidden in the journal, and gathering samples of the handwriting of some of the officers, they had Saunders verifying the information on that page and by extension, what was written in the book.

Patrick Saunders' note on the flyleaf of
The Truth about the UFO Crash at Roswell.

The other thing that struck me was the selection of the officers whose handwriting was used for comparisons. I think they selected those they did because they had samples of that handwriting. They didn’t, for example, find samples for James Breece, who worked directly for Marcel. I have wondered that if Marcel “inherited” the Journal as he was cleaning out his desk, or his office, when he was transferred. The Journal might have been left by one of those working in the Intelligence Office with Marcel.

I also have to wonder what the point was to bring in some of the other reported crashes. They provide nearly no other information about any of them, leaving the viewer with more unnecessary questions. The alleged crash, on the Plains of San Agustin comes down to a single witness that no UFO researcher ever interviewed. The tale is traced to Barney Barnett, but there is no corroboration for it. Every other person who talks about it, is second hand, with their information coming from Barnett.

There are several other things that could be mentioned here. For example, I have to wonder, as have others, when they recreated the Marcel photograph, why is the man wearing a Marine corporal’s uniform?

You also have to wonder who performed the fact check for the episode. There were lots of little mistakes that could easily have been corrected, had anyone asked a question or two. One of the things I would have pointed out is that anything Kaufmann said about the case was made up byKaufmann.

On the whole, I believe the show didn’t follow through on several key points. What was learned by Gene Cooper and this analysis of the Ramey Memo? All we had was the preliminary work done in Fort Worth. What was learned once he had an opportunity to analyze the Memo at length.

Who decided to bring in some of the “witnesses,” that were interviewed? Frank Kaufmann and Glenn Dennis were not involved regardless of what they claimed later in life. Each has been caught telling lies, and in Kaufmann’s case, forging documents.

In the next few days, I hope to get a transcript of Barbara Dugger’s interview up on this blog. This is the March 1991 interview that Don Schmitt and I conducted. Her story was not nearly as robust as it is now… and, of course, we have the written document created by Inez Wilcox about the Sheriff’s involvement.

And, finally, why didn’t they mention that Flight No. 4, according to the documentation had been cancelled? Without that flight, there was no Mogul array to scatter debris on the Brazel ranch… not to mention that Marcel, among many others, would have recognized the debris left by Mogul as neoprene balloons and radar targets and not something built on another planet.

The point is the show could have been so much better. Instead, we learned that Jesse Marcel didn’t write the Journal, Patrick Saunders’ important note was used for comparison purposes rather as a signed validation of much of the information of a cover up, and we don’t have a final word on the Ramey Memo... and this is just my preliminary thoughts.

Coast to Coast - More Occupant Reports

 

I’ve talked with colleagues about the lack of good, robust reports for the last decade or so. Rob Swiatek of MUFON mentioned this same thing just the other day was we were discussing sightings that involved alien beings. He said that other than abduction cases, there rarely were descriptions of the entities.

This wasn’t always true. In the United States, an occupant sighting was reported to the Air Force but had been routed through the CIA in 1952. It included the description of the alien creatures seen in connection with some sort of alien craft. According to Dr. J. Allen Hynek, the information came from a former mayor of

Dr. J. Allen Hynek

Gleimershausen, close to West Berlin and was filtered through intelligence officers, though it wasn’t specified whose officers they were. Hynek reported the story came originally from a Greek newspaper on July 9, 1952. The date of the sighting, according to other research and documentation, was June 17, 1950. Hynek accepted the report at face value and indicated it was in the Project Blue Book files, but I was unable to confirm this as I began my research.

 

There are a number of others who have also attempted to find the reference in the Blue Book files but have failed to locate it. This suggestion that it was in Blue Book has been repeated a number of times. The problem for all of us is that it is not found under the proper date or the proper location. It is found in March 1952, and is listed as “Additional Reported Sightings (Not Cases),” and is listed as Hasselbach, Saxsoni. It is case 1087 in the Blue Book index. This explains why it had been so difficult to locate but ultimately, I found it in the Blue Book files.

 

The witness, Oskar Linke (He is frequently identified in various publications as Oscar as opposed to Oskar) and his eleven-year-old daughter Gabriella, provided sworn testimony in front of a West German notary, Dr. Oskar Krause, which seemed to have inspired the intelligence officers and a number of newspaper reporters to investigate further. According to some accounts, Linke was said to have described the object as “resembling a huge flying [sic] pan.” Better translations of the original German suggested he said it was an “oval warming pan,” which doesn’t have a handle. It was about fifteen meters (50 feet) in diameter and landed in a forest clearing in what was then East Germany.

 

He told the notary, during his sworn statement, “While I was returning to my home with Gabriella, the tire on my motorcycle blew out near the town of Hasselbach…. Gabriella pointed out something that lay at a distance about a hundred and forty meters away… since it was twilight, I thought she was pointing at a young deer.”

 

He said that he had left his motorcycle near a tree and walked into the forest. As he approached the object, which he now realized was not a deer but two “men who were not more than forty meters away… They seemed to be dressed in shiny, heavy metallic clothing... like people wear in polar regions.” They were stooped over and were looking at something laying on the ground.” He later said that one of the men had a lamp on the “front part of his body which lit up at regular intervals.” This sort of description would be reported in other cases such as the Brooksville, Florida, case more than a decade and a half later.

 

Linke continued to walk toward the men and until he was about thirty feet from them. He watched the two men as they seemed to communicate with one another with hand and arm gestures. He couldn’t hear them speaking or making any sound. He would later say he wasn’t sure if the figures were human or humanoid. In response to a question asked by Dr. Leon Davidson who interviewed him about the sighting, he said, “It is difficult to say whether the two forms who stood in front of the object and then flew off were men. I would say they could also have been other creatures since their (manner of) locomotion was a glide, similar to that of bears.”

 

He noticed the UFO looked like a warming pan with two rows of holes along the side, about twelve to fifteen inches in circumference. The space between the holes was about eighteen inches. There was a black, conning tower like that of a submarine on top that was ten feet high.

 

Linke said that at that point, as he had reached the ridge and was lying on the ground watching, his daughter called to him because he had been gone for about twenty-five minutes. The two men jumped at the sound of the girl’s voice. They disappeared inside the conning tower. The side of the object that had holes had opened and began to glitter. It was a green that turned red and at the same time there was a hum. Some have interpreted these lights as flames on the side which might have given rise to Gabriella’s description of a “ring of fire.” As the brightness and the hum increased dramatically, the tower began to slide down into the center of the object and the whole craft began to rise, spinning like a top.

 

There was a cylinder at the bottom, according to what Linke said. As it hovered a few feet off the ground, surrounded by that ring of flames, the cylinder on the bottom disappeared into the craft and then reappeared on the top. As the rate of climb increased, Linke and daughter heard a whistling sound, like that of falling bombs. It then turned toward a neighboring town, continuing to climb and as it disappeared.

 

Others who lived in the area said that they had seen the object in flight but thought it was a comet or meteor. Georg Derbst, a shepherd said that he was about a mile and a half from Linke’s position when he thought he saw a comet bounce off the earth.”

 

A sawmill watchman, whose name has been lost, told Linke that he had seen what he thought was a low flying comet. It flashed away from the hill where Linke and Gabriella had seen the object.

 

Like the Zamora case in 1964, Linke said that he went over to where the craft had been and there found “a circular opening in the ground and it was quite evident that it was freshly dug. It was exactly the shape of the conical tower.” He found physical evidence of the passing of the UFO but there wasn’t any real investigation of the landing site.

 

Lonnie Zamora

And like Zamora, his original thought was that he had seen some new Soviet craft rather than something that had been made on another planet. He said, “I confess that I was seized with fright because the Soviets do not want anyone to know about their work.” In fact, he was so frightened by this prospect that he said nothing about any of it until he had defected to the west with his family years later. He suggested that the final motivation for his defection was his fear of the Soviet reaction if they learned what he had seen in the forest.

 

The problem here, of course, is that the Hynek claimed that this had been part of Project Blue Book. Neither he nor any member of the Blue Book team would have had the opportunity to interview the witness or his daughter given that at the time of the sighting they lived behind the Iron Curtain in East Germany. Hynek’s information clearly came from the CIA document, but it is unclear why he thought it part of the main Blue Book file. The CIA document, according to him was originally classified as secret, which meant that storage of it required a safe. Most of the Blue Book material was unclassified and didn’t require a safe.

 

Hynek offered no real analysis of the report. He wrote, “One of the more interesting but isolated Air Force ‘Unidentifieds’ came to Blue Book in the form of a (then) secret CIA Document.” It suggests that the CIA thought the case interesting, but it could be that the CIA agent who found the newspaper article about the landing forwarded it because it dealt with UFOs and the possible observation of alien beings. There is nothing to suggest the CIA connection was anything more than forwarding the report and the classification might have been nothing more than a protection for the transmission system rather than an evaluation of the sighting suggesting an importance to the case that it did not deserve. At any rate, Hynek thought enough of it to publish the information and others have looked into sporadically. It is not one of the major cases in the UFO literature, though it seems to be more reliable than so many others.

A sighting from a witness from Cookson, Oklahoma on August 25, 2017 is also fairly robust. The witness reported, “…at approximately 8:30 PM we were … a few miles south of Napeezi, New Mexico... Out of nowhere I saw a light flash in front of me... I instinctively looked to my left and I saw 2 creatures setting about 2 foot apart, and very bright craft which was at my eye level while setting in the [RV]… The craft did not appear to have a windshield. The panel in behind the creatures gave off a very bright light, as did the floor and ceiling. …The guy on my left had [a] gopher looking hand … The craft seemed to swing and rotate from the shoulder on the other side to a lane away was at my side and maybe 20 foot away. Once they rotated enough that their faces were 180% to us, he saw us and disappeared…

Both individuals had a skin tone … white. They had large heads in an upside-down teardrop shape, very large black eyes, a small mouth and 2 small holes for a nose. There were holes for the ears but only a nub for ears. ... The one on the right had a very smooth face. The one on the left appeared to be older with facial lines. The one on my left wrinkled his right side of his mouth when he saw me, but they were talking when we interrupted them. I made eye contact with the one on my left and looked directly into his large black eye. His eye was the finest surface I had ever seen. The eye had no abrasions or scratches, no dust or mucus.  I noticed that under the surface of this perfectly clear outer surface of the eye was a grid of many individual eyes… like a fly’s eyes ... Their bodies where skinny and were illuminated with a greenish glowing uniform. The arms and the torso were slender and about the diameter of a very small child of 6 or 7 years of age. The hands reminded me of the shape of gophers. But these creatures are large in height and reach... Their torso was long and skinny and appeared to be weak...

In a case that is the exception to the rule. It was also listed in the NUFORC data base. Rob Swiatek provided this data. According to the report:

 

My wife and I do not want to be public with our names and who we are. It seems since you already have my phone number. I would like to ask you to be discreet with the information you have already compiled. I do not have good health and had a new heart valve put in last March. My wife and I are just a middle grandmother and grandfather. I’m a 100% disabled veteran since 2004. We are both 65 years of age. Please respect that?

On Aug. 25th, 2017, at approximately 8:30 PM my wife and I were looking forward to getting to a location where we could get settled in for the night. We were riding in our 37-foot Diesel Pusher at a speed of about 60 miles per hour, slightly downhill, travelling southeast on highway 550, and a few miles south of Napeezi, New Mexico. We had been talking about how the roads had changed 2 lanes to 4 lanes since the last time I had driven.

Out of nowhere I saw a light flash in front of me, it had come from my left. I instinctively looked to my left and I saw 2 creatures setting about 2 foot apart, very bright craft which was at my eye level while setting in the Motorhome. I instantly seemed to take a mind picture of what I was seeing. At that time, we were maybe 80 feet and gaining on their position. My first thought was is this real, the closer we got the more positive I was that what I was seeing was real when I made eye contact.

Some points I saw were: The craft did not appear to have a windshield. The panel in behind the creatures gave off a very bright light, as did the floor and ceiling. It was as bright as an operating room under full lighting. There was a small stem that came up from the floor in front of the creatures. It stood about 40 inches out of the floor. It seemed to support a small control panel that was thinner than a carton of cigarettes. The guy on my left had his gopher looking hand resting on it.

The moment I saw them, the individuals were looking down the road as if looking for something to arrive. There was a truck coming up the hill toward us and about a 1/8th of a mile away. The craft seemed to swing and rotate from the shoulder on the other side to a lane away was at my side and maybe 20 foot away. Once they rotated enough that their faces were 180% to us, he saw us and disappeared.

As we drove on down the hill, I looked in my mirrors and side camera and didn’t see anything related to them after that. A description of the creatures we witnessed: Both individuals had a skin tone about the same as mine, I’m a white male. They had large heads in an upside-down teardrop shape, very large black eyes, a small mouth and 2 small holes for a nose. There were holes for the ears but only a nub for ears. Very much like the drawing you would see in Roswell, accept not green, but green uniforms. The one on the right had a very smooth face. The one on the left appeared to be older with facial lines. The one on my left wrinkled his right side of his mouth when he saw me, but they were talking when we interrupted them.

 I made eye contact with the one on my left and looked directly into his large black eye. His eye was the finest surface I had ever seen. The eye had no abrasions or scratches, no dust or mucus.  I noticed that under the surface of this perfectly clear outer surface of the eye was a grid of many individual eyes, Like a fly’s eyes but much smoother super fine glass surface. Their bodies where skinny and were illuminated with a greenish glowing uniform. Also, there was roll type cuffs that also glowed, but was a beige. They reminded me of stick people. The arms and the torso were slender and about the diameter of a very small child of 6 or 7 years of age. The hands reminded me of the shape of gophers. But these creatures are large in height and reach, that hand appeared to me to be a lethal weapon. Their torso was long and skinny and appeared to be weak if depended on. But I believe the suit they wear is their body strength.

The back wall is very hard to explain because I believe however they traveled was behind that wall. The wall was very brightly illuminated. It appeared to be divided into about 18-inch cubes but wasn’t, it was a flat surface. The light seemed to be boiling along the edges of each panel in the colors of light greenish, blue, violet. But the power heaved with its changes it seemed. The back panel was incredibly beautiful and something I’ll never forget it. We could not see the outer body of the craft because we were looking into very bright light.

As for hearing anything I felt I heard them communicating when we approached. I wear hearing aids and they were stretching like a fax machine. I looked at Google maps at the location of the incident and found something interesting. Please look at the land above the cliff. It’s as if dozer work had been done. I have no idea what the bright object by the road might be. This could be something natural, but they turned and went somewhere. I added a drawing someone did that is similar to the creatures we saw. But the ones we saw did not have the body mass these do and the ones we saw were wearing uniforms that seemed have the ability to move and protect them. Although they were greenish, they had glow of energy about them. I hope you have taken time to consider what I shared with you. I would like to know what is going on there. I hope to go back and spend a month or 2 searching for them.

The point here is that although we do see a few, robust occupant cases, we simply don’t have them in the numbers or in the quality of the descriptions that we’ve had in the past. Just compare that short, six-to-eight-week period in the fall of 1973 with what we have today.

I have no explanation for this. It’s just an observation that does seem to be spread throughout the UFO phenomenon. The cases are not as good and the photographs are not as good and there seem to be fewer sightings that have good reported detail. This might be a misperception, or it might reflect a trend for the time being. Either way, we still have unexplained sightings and because of that we can continue to follow the evidence.