Wednesday, August 14, 2024

The Kingman UFO Crash Connumdrum

 

Two years before Jesse Marcel, Sr. told Stan Friedman and Len Stringfield about the UFO crash in the Roswell region, Ray Fowler published the article, What about Crashed UFOs? in Official UFO magazine. Although he touched on a couple of stories, the thrust of the article was told by “Fritz Weaver,” a pseudonym for a man later identified as Arthur Stansel.

Stansel told of a crash of a large, disc-shaped object near Kingman, Arizona. He was part of a large team of specialists brought in to examine the wreck and the body of one alien creature. Although his specific task was to determine speed and trajectory of the object, he did have the opportunity to glimpse the alien pilot and the interior of the craft. This was on May 21, 1953, according to his calendar and for more than twenty years, he kept the secret.

In February 1973, Stansel told two teenagers who were interested in UFOs about his adventure in Arizona. It wasn’t long before Ray Fowler, a respected UFO researcher, learned about this sighting and went to interview Stansel, who not only added a few new details, but produced his calendar from 1953 and signed a statement attesting to the validity of his tale. Of course, that statement was not witnessed by a notary, only by Fowler, and had no legal status as an affidavit.

I had investigated the Kingman crash long ago and was unimpressed with it for several reasons. Originally, there was only Arthur Stansel as the witness, no real documentation for the crash, and a suggestion that Stansel, after he had been drinking, told wild stories. There was a point when a second witness was discovered, but her credibility was not very good and her daughter said that her mother was a liar. You can read about some of that here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2010/05/kingman-ufo-crash.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2021/03/kingman-rises-from-dead.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2011/05/kingman-ufo-crash-really.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2010/06/kingman-ufo-crash-revisited.html

This latest flap began when Christopher Mellon, who had been a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence released a redacted email exchange he had with a person Mellon called a senior U.S. government member. We were not provided with a name. That meant, of course, that we could not verify that this source existed or if he had any inside knowledge about the Kingman UFO crash. That email, with the critical information redacted and with little in the way of useful information is seen here:

 

The Mellon email that tells us nothing of value but
does mention the recovered UAP from Kingman.

Over the course of the years, we have been treated to many accounts of the case, that began with Fowler’s article filled with direct quotes from Stansel. I do have a copy of the complete report that Fowler filed with NICAP about his rather comprehensive investigation. That includes a transcript of Jeff Young’s initial interview with Stansel that ignited Fowler’s interview and report.

I’m not going to recapitulate that story because it has been told several times. I used it in Crash: When UFOs Fall From the Sky, though my assessment of the case was critical of the data. But this latest flap (which, BTW, I think will impact on David Grusch’s UFO testimony, but that’s something for another time), inspired me to revisit Kingman. I found information from Fowler, in which he verified Stansel’s rather impressive credentials and resume. There were some problems, which centered around his claim that he had been a consultant for Project Blue Book. He originally suggested a rather long-term association, but later told Fowler that it was short-lived. Stansel suggested it lasted only a few days and was based on his examination of the crashed off-world craft.

There is one important interview that seems to have been left out of this whole tale. In a section of Fowler’s report entitled A Man Who Made Contact, we learn some disturbing things about Arthur Stansel. Fowler wrote, “On the next following pages I will explain the fascinating tales of Mr. Arthur Stansel’s flying saucer contacts.”

That part of the interview, conducted by Jeff Young and witnessed by Paul Chetham, began with the question, “Did you say that you had contacted beings from other planets?”

His astonishing answer was, “Yes, but now we’re getting into things where you’ll just have to take my word for it because I can’t produce it or prove it.”

After a short discussion about a group who met regularly met to explore the contacts with other worlds, and who Stansel said, “We were involved in the usage of seances, we weren’t out to contact relatives, but we were out to contact other things,” the questioning continued:

Q: Do you think that it’s possible for a person to convey himself to any place on or of Earth by just using his brain power?

A: Yes. I’m convinced that’s true. I know that can happen because I’ve done it…

Q: Did you gradually or all of a sudden receive contact with these extraterrestrials?

A: We did this on many, many occasions after about a year meeting once a week. We would contact beings, but we never really knew what we were going to contact that particular Sunday night. On many, many occasions we contacted beings from planets other than Earth.

Q: Were these the same beings or were these different beings each meeting.

A: Sometimes they were the same, but generally they were different.

Q: Could you see them or visualize them?

A: Onetime we had an experiment, which took place for about three weeks, in which we learned astral projection, in which you project yourself to the point where the contact is…

 

Q: That’s using your mind to convey yourself?

A: Right, using your mind.

Q: You actually conveyed yourself to some beings?

A: Yes, I did. As a matter I was the only one who was able to go to that particular space craft which was many light years away.

Q: You were on the craft?

A: I was actually on it.

The questioning then turned to what he could see and how he interacted with the beings on that craft, saying that it was some sort of prison ship. The beings had been on it for a thousand years and had no control over it.

Q: Did you [Stansel] have a physical feeling of being on the ship?

A: Yes, very much so. It’s just like I was sitting here.

Q: Would you describe the inside of the ship?

A: Well, the furniture was different than ours in the fact that it had no legs. It was as if it were suspended in the air, but I remember checking for wires holding them up…

 

Q: What were the colors in the room?

A: It was basically red and it seemed to be generated by everything in the room. I saw no light bulbs, but the room was dimly illuminated….

Q: Were they short beings?

A: They were various heights. They were short and tall, but I don’t remember seeing any fat beings.

Q: Were they uniformed or did they wear different types of clothes?

A: They were uniformed in a way, but they were in different colors.

Q: Do you think that could have signified a rank?

A: That could be and another interesting thing is that the dress of the people was no different between a man and a woman and there were males and females.

Q: Were the males in short hair and the females in long hair?

A: No, you couldn’t tell by that. You could just tell by a woman’s bodily characteristics and facial features.

They discuss some emblems that were attached where we would have put shirt pockets. Stansel said that one was in the shape of a leaf and was red against a sort of blue glistening jerkin. There was another which was just a round shape, probably three inches in diameter and it too was glistening.

With that line of questioning finished, the discussion went in another direction. Young wondered if the prisoners had met people from other planets:

A: Yes, they had talked with many, but I was the first one actually projected. They got pretty excited over my arrival, for they felt I was the savoir who could get them back to their home planet or make communication with home base.

Q: Could you have projected yourself back to their home world”

A: I tried but I couldn’t. I think they were beyond range.

They moved the discussion to the nature of the ship, meaning that it was some sort of prison. Stansel mentioned these alien beings were complaining about their incarceration. He then said:

They were complaining about being prisoners because they had so much to offer their own civilization, but they had no way to get back to their civilization except through some intermediary and they thought I could be that intermediary. They had been conducting experiments, but they had been about a thousand years on the ship, so that there had been many generations of these people…

Other things that came out of this interview. He was told that there were thousands of worlds “of intelligent occupation.” That line of questioning ended at that point.

There was more of this sort of thing but then Stansel mentioned that of all these alien worlds, there were none that were interested in Earth. Earth is too overcrowded. Stansel said that they had contact many ships but the beings weren’t interested in Earth.

Then, falling into what would become the David Jacobs theory or hybrid humans, Stansel said, “In fact, there’s more than one extraterrestrial planet that have implanted people here, but generally people don’t know it… they just become part of our civilization.”

There was more of this sort of thing that reads like poor science fiction. At one-point Stansel talked of switches and buttons on the ship but I think of our touch screens that eliminate buttons and switches.

There were other disturbing things in the interview. Stansel, at one point seemed to suggest that he had been a consultant to Project Blue Book for a long time, but there is no record of it. He claimed to have seen a UFO during one of the Atomic Tests, but later claimed he had only heard about it from others.

Stansel did say that when he was interviewed by Young and Chetham, he had been drinking. He’d had four martinis but when Fowler asked the boys about that, they said Stansel had not been drinking. So, was Stansel drinking too much and offered it as an excuse for the discrepancies between the interviews conducted by Young and Fowler. Was the alleged drinking an excuse for telling conflicting tales? Was the drinking the motivation in creating a tale of extraterrestrial contact?

Here’s where we are on this. Stansel is the only man who was involved with the crash in Kingman that had forty or more expert consultants to speak about this. He suggested those on the bus were not allowed to talk during the four-hour trip from Phoenix to the Kingman area, but when they arrived, they were called by name as they were assigned specific jobs. Everything was carefully orchestrated but Stansel managed to see the dead alien pilot and caught a glimpse into the ship. Again, poor security.

There are many reasons that I simply don’t buy this tale and the later interview with astral projection, visits to alien spaceships in flight and all that other nonsense argues that Stansel was adept at spinning tales even he had only had a beer or two and not several martinis.

What this means today, is that the leaked email from Christopher Mellon is irrelevant. There may well have been an email exchange but it is, essentially worthless. Mellon and his unidentified correspondent may well have exchanged the emails about Kingman but that doesn’t prove there is any substance to the report.

There is another element to this and that’s David Grush’s claim of twelve craft in government hands. He may well have talked with Mellon, or someone else who believes the Kingman tale, but without evidence, it is just, dare I say it, a conspiracy theory. And that also suggests that some of Grush’s claims are false, if this is one of the stories. Doesn’t mean that Grusch invented any of the tales, but he has heard them from people he believes are telling him the truth.

Finally, Len Stringfield added some commentary to the Kingman case in his 1978 MUFON Symposium paper on crash/retrievals, and later in his status reports. He suggests the possibility of additional witnesses, but he failed to supply names of any of those witnesses. I am following up on this and will report on it later.

For those interested, I have reached out to a couple of other people who might be able to shed some light on this, including some in the Kingman area. To this point I have not heard back, but will update my analysis as it is warranted by additional information.

15 comments:

  1. Thanks for your re-examination of this case. The available information strongly suggests at the very least that the Kingman case in not valid, at worst, another historical hoax like Aztec, Aurora, Del Rio, Maury Island, and San Agustin. Hope you are doing well Kevin.

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  2. William G. Pullin: Aztec is not necessarily a hoax. There is evidence both pro and con on this case, but enough pro to keep it “on the fence” — at least for me. That said, I agree with the rest of your comment. Thank you for writing.


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    1. "We have 55,000, over 55,000 documents to document this". Ms. Suzanne Ramsey made that statement concerning the Aztec case during the March 26th, 2019 edition of "Podcast UFO." No sign of the claimed documents has surfaced as of yet. More unsubstantiated talk. In addition, the original sources of the Aztec story are Silas Newton and Leo Gebauer, two convicted felons. Call me strange, but I will not accept information from such abhorrent sources. Of course, if you gentlemen have any physical, falsifiable, tangible proof or evidence, please share it, I am always willing to consider such information.

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  3. I'm with John [Steiger) on Aztec......

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  4. Boy, am I on the other side of the fence on Aztec. You both should review what Monte Shriver said about the case, he being a resident of Aztec in 1948.

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  5. Kevin: I have reviewed Monte Shriver's extensive contributions about Aztec and I find them impressive. However, I have also read the two Aztec crash books by Scott Ramsey & Co. and found them persuasive as well. I will admit that virtually every Aztec witness Scott & Co. have come up with, Mr. Shriver has refuted. Thus I find myself firmly on the fence re: Aztec.

    Much as I respect your opinion (and Mr. Pullin's), I am rather amazed to find Mr. Reynolds in agreement with me on Aztec, since I was unaware until now that I agreed with him about anything UFO-related. But I happily accept it as proof that wonders never cease ... particularly in the fascinating world of UFOs (!)

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  6. A few underwhelming points:

    1. I have seen speculation that the atomic tests at the Nevada Test Site brought down a UFO observing the tests. There was in fact an unusually large test at the NTS on May 19, 1953 (so-called "Dirty Harry"), two days before Stansel said his busload of specialists from Indian Springs, NV (outside NTS closer to Las Vegas) were taken to the crash site outside of Kingman May 21. This alone proves nothing other than it being consistent with the theory and might help explain why Stansel and others from the NTS were taken out there in the first place. (Stansel's specialty I think was blast effects from the bombs, and the series in 1953 was indeed testing the blast effects on homes, test mannequins, etc., those famous movies of homes blowing apart we've all seen.)

    2. Stansel still had his calendar pinpointing the dates when he was notified of a secret mission [late May 20] and when he left [late afternoon May 21]. I think that should count for something as supporting evidence.

    Kevin previously provided excerpts from his calendar for May 20 and 21: https://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2011/05/kingman-ufo-crash-really.html

    May 20: "Spent most of the day on Frenchman’s Flat... Drank brew in eve. ...Got funny call from Dr. Doll at 10:00 [PM]. I’m to go on a special job tomorrow.” [Note: Something had already happened when Stansel got the call to go out on a special assignment. This is the day after the A-bomb test the morning of May 19.]

    May 21: “Up at 7:00. Worked most of the day on Frenchman... < b>Got picked up at Indian Springs AFB at 4:30 p.m. for a job I can’t talk about.”

    Thus he didn't leave for the job he couldn't talk about until later on May 21. Indian Springs (about 40 miles NW of Las Vegas) being about 140 miles and ~4 hours drive time from Kingman in 1953. This means if they drove directly to the purported crash site, they wouldn't have arrived until around nightfall.

    3. There was some reported UFO activity in the area. The Prescott Evening News May 22 reported 3 witnesses sighting 8 "flying saucers" or "space ships" 20 miles north of town the morning of May 21. This was their headline story. ("Don't Look Now, But... FLYING SAUCERS RETURN TO PRESCOTT: OBJECTS NOTED IN FORMATION FOR FULL HOUR") In addition, 2 witnesses the evening of May 20 saw a "shining object" drifting to the NE. Multiple witnesses the afternoon of May 21 saw a "light in the sky" drifting north. The newspaper noted that conceivably the latter two sightings could have been weather balloons. Prescott is about 100 miles ESE of Kingman.
    (https://news.google.com/newspapersid=71koAAAAIBAJ&sjid=6U8DAAAAIBAJ&pg=5716,6003769

    4. We do know of at least one other potential witness, Navy pilot Bill UHouse, who said he worked at Area 51 on back-engineering the Kingman craft in the mid 1960s, and more remarkably worked with an alien survivor of the crash called J-Rod. That would be worthy of a discussion at some point.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHQ_JckWzBg


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  7. David -

    I'm not convinced that the calendar notation was written in 1953... and I'm surprised that he would note on it that he was given a job he can't talk about. That makes no sense to me.

    While your analysis of the drive from Indian Springs is probably accurate, according to Stansel, he and some of his pals were flown to Phoenix and then took the bus ride to Kingman. I had wondered why they just didn't go from Indian Springs... but their trip, according to Stansel, was actually 8 hours.

    I'm not a fan of UHouse and his tale... I need to learn more about that since this Kingman thing has reared its ugly head again.

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  8. Regarding Stansel's calendar, is there any evidence that it wasn't written in real time, or that items were inserted later? E.g., is the ink different? Is the handwriting a little different? Are the entries completely inconsistent with the various days or items around it? Does the calendar itself date to a different time period? Seems a bit much to me to concoct maybe an entire calendar to support a story he only began to tell 20 years later to 2 kids.

    The entries you provided for May 20 & 21, that I didn't quote in full, also have mundane entries, such as what he was up to at the test site and his wife being ill.

    The fact that he wrote he was assigned a job he couldn't talk about doesn't bother me because, of course, he doesn't say what it was about and this was a personal calendar meant for his eyes only. Just about everything out at the test site was hush-hush. All we can tell from what he wrote was some unusual assignment came up May 20 & 21, which could have been anything.

    Thank you for clarifying his story was flying from Indian Springs to Phoenix, then being bussed to the crash site near Kingman. That is actually slightly further to drive and would take much longer overall (flight + drive), but might make sense from a security standpoint of helping to hide their place of origin. We have heard similar stories of complicated routing in other crash recovery cases to cover their tracks. E.g., the A-12 spy plane crash in 1962 near Wendover, Utah, which flew out of Area 51 and was under the control of the CIA. Instead of all recovery operations operating out of nearby Hill AFB, recovery planes, crews, and security were also flown in from other bases to obscure the origin of the plane and where the recovered debris was eventually headed, namely back to the then very secret Area 51.

    I grew up in Las Vegas and am very familiar with the roads to Indian Springs and Kingman. Even if something crashed near Kingman, it isn't particularly surprising if report of a crash didn't make it into the newspapers. For one, the area, even today, is sparsely populated. Between Hoover Dam and Kingman is a whole lot of nothing. In 1953, Kingman had about 3500 people total. The number of newspapers within a hundred miles you could probably count on one hand.

    I too would feel more comfortable if something had been reported in a newspaper, but as we well know, only a small fraction of people who have sightings bother to report to anybody, and newspapers often will not print even if somebody does report. When I was at the Eureka Springs UFO conference about 20 years ago, reporter Bob Pratt [who had been the UFO reporter for the National Inquirer] said that when he had been a regular editor of a newspaper before his NI gig, he NEVER published a UFO article. It just wasn't allowed.

    Thus it was rather surprising that the Prescott newspaper DID report UFO sightings in the area from May 19-21. Kingman historian and former museum curator Harry Drew, in 2020 claimed his research indicates three of the Prescott reported craft crashed near Kingman, one intact, allegedly brought down by high-powered radar in the area. They were all eventually transported back to Nevada. Drew to my knowledge hasn't presented his evidence. There is also still a possible chronology discrepancy between Stansel's calendar saying he was told the night of May 20 about a special assignment, when the main Prescott sighting didn't happen until the following morning. Of course, it could be the case that something came down before May 21 and the 8 Prescott saucers were "search and rescue" (though the newspaper description doesn't make it sound like an organized search--Drew compared it to aerial "dogfights").

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  9. Mr. Pullin, sir, have you read either of Scott Ramsey’s two books on Aztec? He has some good information in there, and he is also writing a third book, which he hopes will come out in December this year. All I ask is that you consider his material with an open mind … along with Kevin’s and Mr. Shriver’s. Then come to whatever conclusions make sense to you.

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    1. I have taken a long look at the Ramsey's books and what they contain, along with the work of William Steinman. My position on Aztec has not changed.

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  10. Is there a word for being shocked, but at the same time not surprised? Because that's how I feel after reading this. I always thought the Kingman case was interesting and one that needed a lot more investigation, but I had never heard of Arthur Stansel's contactee claims in any of the modern re-tellings of the story. This appears to be another example of a UFO case in which the public is only provided half the information. I wonder how many more are like this.

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  11. For those looking for more recent research and an alternate account of the Kingman crash, here is a quick overview of historian/museum curator Harry Drew's research:

    George Knapp and KLAS TV Las Vegas report (written and video):
    https://www.mysterywire.com/ufo/kingman-ufo-incident-in-1953-linked-to-series-of-explosions-in-nevada/

    ~90 minute podcast interview with Drew:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=kmJucFy2Xjo

    To summarize, based on Stansel's statement, interviews with the last survivor of the recovery team (so Drew says) and local old timer's plus uncovered documentation, Drew claims there were actually 3 saucer recoveries in a week's period, all brought down inadvertently by high powered radar being tested in Kingman at the time:

    May 18, 1953, early afternoon: Saucer carrying crew of 4 lands undamaged about 8 miles SE of town at base of Hualapai Mountains. Craft and crew unharmed. Crew 4-1/2 - 5 ft tall. Looked very human except for wide-set eyes and very pointed chin. One spoke English. (This, says Drew, according to recovery team survivor.) Drew speculates they're hybrids. Recovery team arrived from Nellis AFB, Las Vegas, within 2 hours. (Local Kingman AAF base had closed down after the War)

    May 21: Sighting of 8 saucers for an hour near Prescott, AZ, by 3 men, reported in Prescott paper May 22. Drew says these were identical to the intact one that came down May 18.

    Night of May 21/22: Team of 40 scientists bussed in from Phoenix and allowed to briefly examine craft, told it was a highly secret Air Force craft. This was the bus Stansel was on, part of the group with Stansel being flown in from Indian Springs, NV, near the Nevada (atomic) Test Site. Based on landmark given him by last survivor of recovery team, Drew says he later found the exact site, including the Air Force field kitchen with rations garbage (cans) that he dated to 1953. Drew says last survivor told him craft was transported to Groom Lake (Area 51) using a tank transport carrier brought in from base in California, using back roads mostly, barged across Lake Mead (behind Hoover Dam) from Arizona to Nevada.

    May 22: Another saucer crashes 30+ miles north of Kingman, at Red Dry Lake, 2 survivors, 2 dead. Came from north, bounced off a butte, broke apart and crashed at base of mountains, edge of dry lake, near small reservoir. Drew says he's located site, including climbing up on butte. Says there are still scars from crash.

    May 24: 3rd crash, into Hualapai Peak, 10 miles SE of town. Starts forest fire, which town rushes up to fight. 2 "men" in odd suits found wandering around nearby and arrested on suspicion of arson (since there was no lightning that could have started fire). Placed in County Jail, which was underground beneath the Courthouse, made of concrete, no windows, guarded, and double locked. When they went back in to interrogate, the 2 men had vanished. Drew says this was reported on the front page of the local paper--Mohave County Miner. (This claim, at least, should be easy to double-check.) Allegedly 2 burned bodies and remains of craft also recovered.

    All in all, Drew claims 6 aliens were recovered live, 4 dead, and 2 escaped. There was one intact craft recovered and two heavily damaged ones. All allegedly removed to Groom Lake. Asked why all these saucers were in the area, Drew thinks they were flying along a North/South corridor towards an underground base south of Kingman, which he says he knows the location of. He says he spent 10 years of research uncovering this information.

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  12. (part 2 of 2)

    It's possible I have misstated or misinterpreted some of his assertions in this first cursory review of Drew's work. I take no position on this, having just been introduced to it. (If anything, it's a bit much, with 3 crash/recoveries, 6 recovered live aliens, plus an underground base.) I would want to see the details first, particularly his documentation. The remains of the field kitchen is interesting as it is physical evidence documenting something happened there in that time frame, but, of course, by itself does not prove a saucer was recovered.

    According to Drew, Stansel's story is only a very small piece of what actually happened. At least it isn't just Stansel anymore saying a crash recovery happened at Kingman. We'll see if Drew has the receipts to back up his claims.

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  13. I am a little surprised that Stansel's credentials check out (at least according to Ray Fowler). As I noted in the one of the previous times this story has come up on this blog, from a engineering standpoint (which is what I do for a living): there are some serious issues with his story. But (if nothing else) it made for a great episode of the series 'In Search of...'

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