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Crashes & Abductions

& Pilots Encounters

May, 1947 - Spitzbergen, Norway - A report by journalist Dorothy Kilgallen stated that British scientists and airmen were excavating the wreckage of a mysterious flying ship. The Swedish military acknowledged its extraterrestrial origin and reported 17 bodies were found. The story appeared as a tiny blip for only one day in the U.S. news media before it was silenced by the military.

1946-??-??; Spitzbergen, Norway

A piece of evidence of Alien visitors surfaced in 1946 when General James H. Doolittle was sent to Spitzbergen Norway to examine what was described as but not named a Flying Saucer. Of particular concern was the level of technology of the craft and the fact that the bodies recovered were obviously not of terrestrial origin. It was also disturbing that the vehicle seemed to be a short range reconnaissance craft. This finding was due primarily to the fact that no food, water or other provisions of any kind could be found. This indicated that there were more Aliens and more Flying Saucers with an unknown mission and with a technology that was far beyond our reach. The concern escalated when a second crash occurred on 06/12/50 on the Mexican side of the Texas/Mexican border. The craft struck the earth at such a high speed that very little could be found. What was found was taken to a nearby Atomic Energy Commission facility for examination. It was determined that the pieces recovered belonged to a similar craft as that recovered at Roswell. It was decided that the alien technology must be kept out of foreign hands at all costs.

1950-04-??; Argentina

April 1950 - Argentina, Mr. E.C. Bossa found a strange disc and four small dead pilots in a remote region of Argentina. He returned with a friend the next day and found only a pile of warm ashes. A cigar-shaped object was seen briefly as it flew overhead at a high altitude.

ROSWELL TESTIMONY

1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Document Description

1.2 Sequence of Events

2 THE CIVILIANS

2.1 Loretta Proctor

2.2 Marian Strickland

2.3 Bessie Brazel Schreiber

2.4 William Brazel Jr

2.5 Glenn Dennis

3 THE COPS

3.1 Barbara Dugger

4 THE PRESS

4.1 Frank Joyce

4.2 Lydia Sleppy

4.3 Walt Whitmore Jr

5 THE MILITARY

5.1 Jesse Marcel

5.2 Jesse Marcel Jr

5.3 Walter Haut

5.4 Bill Rickett

5.5 F.B.

5.6 Robert Porter

5.7 Robert Shirkey

5.8 Robert Slusher

5.9 Robert Smith

5.10 Melvin Brown's Daughter

5.11 Pappy Henderson

5.12 Pappy Henderson's Wife

5.13 Pappy Henderson's Daughter

5.14 Pappy Henderson's Relatives

5.15 Pappy Henderson's Friend #1

5.16 Pappy Henderson's Friend #2

6 PROSAIC EXPLANATIONS

6.1 Weather Balloon

6.2 Secret Rocket or Airplane

1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Document Description

A flying saucer crashed near Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947. This document contains testimony from people who were closely associated with this incident.

Most of the testimony in this document is from the 1992 book "Crash at Corona" by Stanton Friedman and Don Berliner, published in the United States by Paragon House. That book contains lots of other interesting material, including material regarding another crash site in New Mexico. That book is the source of all testimony in this document except where noted.

1.2 Sequence of Events

On July 2, 1947, during the evening, a flying saucer crashed on the Foster Ranch near Corona, New Mexico. The crash occurred during a severe thunderstorm. (The military base nearest the crash site is in Roswell, New Mexico; hence, Roswell is more closely associated with this event than Corona, even though Corona is closer to the crash site.)

On July 3, 1947, William "Mac" Brazel (rhymes with "frazzle") and his 7-year-old neighbor Dee Proctor found the remains of the crashed flying saucer. Brazel was foreman of the Foster Ranch. The pieces were spread out over a large area, perhaps more than half a mile long. When Brazel drove Dee back home, he showed a piece of the wreckage to Dee's parents, Floyd and Loretta Proctor. They all agreed the piece was unlike anything they had ever seen.

On July 6, 1947, Brazel showed pieces of the wreckage to Chaves County Sheriff George Wilcox. Wilcox called Roswell Army Air Field (AAF) and talked to Major Jesse Marcel, the intelligence officer. Marcel drove to the sheriff's office and inspected the wreckage. Marcel reported to his commanding officer, Colonel William "Butch" Blanchard. Blanchard ordered Marcel to get someone from the Counter Intelligence Corps, and to proceed to the ranch with Brazel, and to collect as much of the wreckage as they could load into their two vehicles.

Soon after this, military police arrived at the sheriff's office, collected the wreckage Brazel had left there, and delivered the wreckage to Blanchard's office. The wreckage was then flown to Eighth Air Force headquarters in Fort Worth, and from there to Washington.

Meanwhile, Marcel and Sheridan Cavitt of the Counter Intelligence Corps drove to the ranch with Mac Brazel. They arrived late in the evening. They spent the night in sleeping bags in a small out-building on the ranch, and in the morning proceeded to the crash site.

On July 7, 1947, Marcel and Cavitt collected wreckage from the crash site. After filling Cavitt's vehicle with wreckage, Marcel told Cavitt to go on ahead, that Marcel would collect more wreckage, and they would meet later back at Roswell AAF. Marcel filled his vehicle with wreckage. On the way back to the air field, Marcel stopped at home to show his wife and son the strange material he had found.

On July 7, 1947, around 4:00 pm, Lydia Sleppy at Roswell radio station KSWS began transmitting a story on the teletype machine regarding a crashed flying saucer out on the Foster Ranch. Transmission was interrupted, seemingly by the FBI.

On July 8, 1947, in the morning, Marcel and Cavitt arrived back at Roswell AAF with two carloads of wreckage. Marcel accompanied this wreckage, or most it, on a flight to Fort Worth AAF.

On July 8, 1947, around noon, Colonel Blanchard at Roswell AAF ordered Second Lieutenant Walter Haut to issue a press release telling the country that the Army had found the remains of a crashed a flying saucer. Haut was the public information officer for the 509th Bomb Group at Roswell AAF. Haut delivered the press release to Frank Joyce at radio station KGFL. Joyce waited long enough for Haut to return to the base, then called Haut there to confirm the story. Joyce then sent the story on the Western Union wire to the United Press bureau.

On July 8, 1947, in the afternoon, General Clemence McMullen in Washington spoke by telephone with Colonel (later Brigadier General) Thomas DuBose in Fort Worth, chief of staff to Eighth Air Force Commander General Roger Ramey. McMullen ordered DuBose to tell Ramey to quash the flying saucer story by creating a cover story, and to send some of the crash material immediately to Washington.

On July 8, 1947, in the afternoon, General Roger Ramey held a press conference at Eighth Air Force headquarters in Fort Worth in which he announced that what had crashed at Corona was a weather balloon, not a flying saucer. To make this story convincing, he showed the press the remains of a damaged weather balloon that he claimed was the actual wreckage from the crash site. (Apparently, the obliging press did not ask why the Army hurriedly transported weather balloon wreckage to Fort Worth, Texas, site of the press conference, from the crash site in a remote area of New Mexico.)

The only newspapers that carried the initial flying saucer version of the story were evening papers from the Midwest to the West, including the Chicago Daily News, the Los Angeles Herald Express, the San Francisco Examiner, and the Roswell Daily Record. The New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Chicago Tribune were morning papers and so carried only the cover-up story the next morning.

At some point, a large group of soldiers were sent to the debris field on the Foster Ranch, including a lot of MPs whose job was to limit access to the field. A wide search was launched well beyond the limits of the debris field. Within a day or two, a few miles from the debris field, the main body of the flying saucer was found, and a mile or two from that several bodies of small humanoids were found.

The military took Mac Brazel into custody for about a week, during which time he was seen on the streets of Roswell with a military escort. His behavior aroused the curiosity of friends when he passed them without any sign of recognition. Following this period of detention, Brazel repudiated his initial story.

2 THE CIVILIANS

2.1 Loretta Proctor

[NB: In the sections of this document that contain testimony, all text not enclosed in brackets, like those that enclose this sentence, is verbatim testimony.]

[Loretta Proctor, Mac Brazel's nearest neighbor, was one of the first to see pieces of the wreckage Brazel had found. She was interviewed in July 1990.]

[Mac] had this piece of material that he had picked up. He wanted to show it to us and wanted us to go down and see the rest of the debris or whatever, [but] we didn't on account of the transportation and everything wasn't too good. He didn't get anybody to come out who was interested in it. The piece he brought looked like a kind of tan, lightbrown plastic. It was very lightweight, like balsa wood. It wasn't a large piece, maybe about four inches long, maybe just a little larger than a pencil.

We cut on it with a knife and would hold a match on it, and it wouldn't burn. We knew it wasn't wood. It was smooth like plastic, it didn't have a real sharp corners, kind of like a dowel stick. Kind of dark tan. It didn't have any grain, just smooth. I hadn't seen anything like it.

[The following statement by Loretta Proctor suggests the possibility that Mac Brazel had been bribed to keep quiet.]

I think that within that year, he had moved off the ranch and moved to Alamagordo or to Tularosa and he put in a locker there. That was before people had home freezers, and it was a large refrigerated building. You would buy beef and cut it up and put it in those lockers and you had a key to it and you could get your beef out when you wanted it. I think it would have been pretty expensive, and we kind of wondered how he could put it in with rancher's wages.

[Here is what Loretta Proctor said on the American television program "Unsolved Mysteries".]

Floyd [Loretta's husband] and a neighbor was in Roswell and saw Mac surrounded by some of the Air Force people. And they walked right by them and Mac wouldn't speak to them. They thought it was kind of funny, I guess, really wondered what he'd got into. And Mac, he wouldn't talk about it after he come back home. But he did say if he ever found something else he wouldn't report it.

2.2 Marian Strickland

[Marian Strickland was a neighbor of Mac Brazel. She was interviewed in 1990.]

[Mac] made it plain he was not supposed to tell that there was any excitement about the material he found on the ranch. He was a man who had integrity. He definitely felt insulted and mis-used, and disrespected. He was worse than annoyed. He was definitely under some stress, and felt that he had been kicked around.

He was threatened that if he opened his mouth, he might get thrown in the back side of the jail. He gave that impression, definitely.

2.3 Bessie Brazel Schreiber

[Bessie Brazel Schreiber is Mac Brazel's daughter. Here is her description of wreckage from the crash.]

[The material resembled] a sort of aluminum-like foil. Some of [these] pieces had a sort of tape stuck to them. Even though the stuff looked like tape, it could not be peeled off or removed at all. Some of these pieces had something like numbers and lettering on them, but there were no words we were able to make out. The figures were written out like you would write numbers in columns, but they didn't look like the numbers we use at all.

[There was also] a piece of something made out of the same metal-like foil that looked like a pipe sleeve. About four inches across and equally long, with a flange on one end. [Also] what appeared to be pieces of heavily waxed paper.

2.4 William Brazel Jr

[William Brazel Jr is Mac Brazel's son. Here is his description of wreckage from the crash.]

[One of the pieces looked like] something on the order of tinfoil, except that [it] wouldn't tear.... You could wrinkle it and lay it back down and it immediately resumed its original shape... quite pliable, but you couldn't crease or bend it like ordinary metal. Almost like a plastic, but definitely metallic. Dad once said that the Army had once told him it was not anything made by us.

[There was also] some threadlike material. It looked like silk, but was not silk, a very strong material [without] strands or fibers like silk would have. This was more like a wire, all one piece or substance.

[There were also] some wooden-like particles like balsa wood in weight, but a bit darker in color and much harder.... It was pliable but wouldn't break. Weighed nothing, but you couldn't scratch it with your fingernail. All I had was a few small bits. [There was no writing or markings on the pieces I had] but Dad did say one time that there were what he called "figures" on some of the pieces he found. He often referred to the petroglyphs the ancient Indians drew on the rocks around here as "figures", too, and I think that's what he meant to compare them with.

[Here are other remarks by William Brazel Jr.]

My dad found this thing and he told me a little bit about it, not much, because the Air Force asked him to take an oath that he wouldn't tell anybody in detail about it. He went to his grave and he never told anybody.

He was an oldtime Western cowboy, and they didn't do a lot of talking. My brother and I had just went through World War II (him in the Army and me in the Navy) and needless to say, my dad was proud. Like he told me, "When you guys went in the service, you took an oath, and I took an oath not to tell." The only thing he said was, "Well, there's a big bunch of stuff, and there's some tinfoil, some wood, and on some of that wood there was Japanese or Chinese figures."

[At the time of the crash, William Brazel Jr had been living and working in Albuquerque, but returned when his father was taken into custody and thus there was no one to run the ranch.]

I rode out there [the field where the wreckage was found] on the average of once a week, and I was riding through that area, I was looking. That's why I found those little pieces.

Not over a dozen pieces. I'd say maybe eight different pieces. But there was only three [different] items involved: something on the order of balsa wood, something on the order of heavy-gauge monofilament fishing line, and a little piece of -- it wasn't tinfoil, it wasn't lead foil -- a piece about the size of my finger. Some of it was like balsa wood: real light and kind of neutral color, more of a tan. To the best of my memory, there wasn't any grain in it. Couldn't break it, it'd flex a little. I couldn't whittle it with my pocket knife.

The "string", I couldn't break it. The only reason I noticed the tinfoil (I'm gonna call it tinfoil), I picked this stuff up and put it in my chaps pocket. Might be two or three days or a week before I took it out and put it in a cigar box. I happened to notice when I put that piece of foil in that box, and the damn thing just started unfolding and just flattened out. Then I got to playing with it. I'd fold it, crease it, lay it down and it'd unfold. It's kinda wierd. I couldn't tear it. The color was in between tinfoil and lead foil, about the [thickness] of lead foil.

I was in Corona, in the bar, the pool hall. Sort of the meeting place, domino parlor.... That's where everybody got together. Everybody was asking, they'd seen the papers (this was about a month after the crash) and I said, "Oh, I picked up a few little bits and pieces and fragments." So, what are they? "I dunno."

Then lo and behold, here comes the military out to the ranch, a day or two later. I'm almost positive that the officer in charge, his name was Armstrong, a real nice guy. He had a [black] sergeant with him that was real nice. I think there was two other enlisted men. They said, "We understand your father found this weather balloon." I said, "Well yeah." "And we understand you found some bits and pieces." I said, "Yeah, I've got a cigar box that's got a few of them in there, down at the saddle shed."

And this (I think he was a captain), and he said, "Well, we would like to take it with us." I said, "Well..." And he smiled and he said, "Your father turned the rest of it over to us, and you know he's under an oath not to tell. Well," he said, "we came after those bits and pieces." And I kind of smiled and said, "OK, you can have the stuff, I have no use for it at all."

He said, "Well, have you examined it?" And I said, "Well, enough to know that I don't know what the hell it is." And he said, "We would rather you didn't talk very much about it."

2.5 Glenn Dennis

[Glenn Dennis was a mortician in Roswell in 1947. His employer provided mortuary services for Roswell Army Air Field. Dennis drove a combination hearse and ambulance for both civilian and military assignments. On July 9 or 10, 1947, Dennis got several phone calls from the Roswell AAF mortuary officer, who was more of an administrator than a mortuary technician. The officer wanted to know about hermetically sealed caskets ("What was the smallest one they could get?"), and about chemical solutions. Dennis was interviewed in August 1989 by Stanton Friedman.]

This is what was so interesting. See, this is why I feel like there was really something involved in this, because they didn't want to do anything that was going to make an imbalance. They kept saying, "OK, what's this going to do to the blood system, what's this going to do to the tissue?" Then when they informed me that these bodies [had] laid out in the middle of July, in the middle of the prairie, I mean that body's going to be as dark as your [blue] blazer there, and it's going to be in bad shape. I was the one who suggested dry ice. I'd done that a time or two.

I talked to them four or five times in the afternoon. They would keep calling back and asking me different questions involving the body. What they were really after was how to move those bodies. They didn't give me any indication they even had the bodies, or where they were. But they kept talking about these bodies, and I said, "What do the bodies look like?" And they said, "I don't know, but I'll tell you one thing: This happened some time ago." The only thing that was mentioned was that they were exposed to the elements for several days.

I understand these bodies weren't in the same location as where they found some of the others. They said the bodies weren't in the vehicle itself; the bodies were separated by two or three miles from it. They talked about three different bodies: two of them mangled, one that was in pretty good shape.

[That evening, Dennis took a GI accident victim to the base infirmary, which was in the same building as the hospital and the mortuary. He walked the injured GI inside, then drove around to the back to see a pretty young Army Air Forces nurse he had recently gotten to know.]

There were two MPs standing right there, and I got out and started to go in. I wouldn't have gotten as far as I did if I hadn't parked in the emergency area. They probably thought I was coming after somebody. The doors were open to the military ambulances and that's where some wreckage was, and there was an MP on each side. I saw all the wreckage.

I don't know what it was, but I knew there was something going on, and that's when I first got an inclination that something was happening. What was so curious about it, was that in two of those ambulances was a deal that looked like [the bottom] half of a canoe. It didn't look like aluminum. You know what stainless steel looks like when you put heat on it? How it'll turn kinda purplish, with kind of a blue hue to it? [Dennis later said that he saw a row of unrecognizable symbols several inches high on the metal devices.] I just glanced in and kept going.

When I got inside, I noticed there was quite a bit of activity. When I went back into the lounge, there were "big birds" [high-ranking officers he didn't recognize, though he was familiar with all the local medical people] everywhere. They were really shook up. So I went down the hall where I usually go, and I got down the hall just a little way and an MP met me right there. He wanted to know who the hell I was and where I was from, and what business did I have there? I explained who I was. Evidently he was under the impression that they called me to come out.

Anyway, I got past that and I went on in and then this is where I met the nurse. She was involved in this thing, she was on duty. She told me, "How in the hell did you get in here?" I said, "I just walked in." She said, "My God, you are going to get killed." And I said, "They didn't stop me." I was going to the Coke machine to get us a Coke, and this big red-headed colonel said, "What's that son of a bitch doing here?"

He hollered at the MPs and that's when it hit the fan. These two MPs grabbed me by the arms and carried me clear outside. They carried me to the ambulance. I didn't walk, they carried me. And they told me to get my ass out of there. [They followed him back to the funeral home.]

About two or three hours later, they [called] and told me, "You open your mouth and you'll be so far back in the jug they'll have to shoot pinto beans [into you] with a bean shooter." I just laughed and said, "Go to hell."

[Dennis spoke with the nurse again the following day.]

She said there were three little bodies. Two of them were just mangled beyond everything, but there was one of them that was really in pretty good condition.

And she said, "Let me show you the difference between our anatomy and theirs. Really, what they looked like was ancient Chinese: small, fragile, no hair." She said their noses didn't protrude, the eyes were set pretty deep, and the ears were just little indentations. She said the anatomy of the arms was different, the upper arm was longer than the lower. They didn't have thumbs, they had four different, she called them "tentacles", I think. Didn't have any fingernails. She then described how they had little things like suction cups on their fingertips.

I asked her were these men or women? [Were their] sex organs the same as ours? She said, "No, some were missing." The first thing that decomposes on a body would be the brain, next the sex organs, especially in women. But she thought there had probably been something, some animals. Some of these bodies were badly mutilated.

She said they got the bodies out of those containers [the ones he had seen in the backs of the ambulances, on the way into the hospital]. See, they weren't at the crash site, they were about a mile or two from the crash site. She said they looked like they had their own little cabins. She said the lower portion, the abdomen and legs, was crushed, but the upper portion wasn't that bad. She told me the head was larger and it was kind of like, the eyes were different.

[A few weeks later, Dennis heard from his father.]

"What the hell'd you get into? What kind of trouble are you in?" I said, "I'm not in any trouble." And he said, "The hell you're not. The sheriff [an old friend of the elder Dennis] said that the base personnel have been in and they want to know all about your background."

3 THE COPS

3.1 Barbara Dugger

[Barbara Dugger is the granddaughter of George and Inez Wilcox. George was the sheriff who Mac Brazel contacted after discovering the crashed flying saucer. Barbara Dugger was interviewed in 1991 by Kevin Randle.]

[My grandmother said] "Don't tell anybody. When the incident happened, the military police came to the jailhouse and told George and I that if we ever told anything about the incident, not only would we be killed, but our entire family would be killed."

They called my grandfather and someone came and told him about this incident. He went out there to the site. There was a big burned area and he saw debris. It was in the evening. There were four space beings. Their heads were large. They wore suits like silk. One of the little men was alive. If she [Inez] said it happened, it happened.

[Regarding the death threat, Barbara said Inez said:] "They meant it, Barbara. They were not kidding."

She said the event shocked him. He never wanted to be sheriff again after that. Grandmother ran for sheriff and was defeated. My grandmother was a very loyal citizen of the United States, and she thought it was in the best interest of the country not to talk about it.

4 THE PRESS

4.1 Frank Joyce

[Frank Joyce worked at the radio station KGFL. He got a phone call from a man, presumably Mac Brazel, who reported wreckage on his ranch.]

He asked me what to do about it. I recommended he go to Roswell Army Air Base [sic].

The next thing I heard was that the PIO, [Lieutenant] Walter Haut, came into the station some time after I got this call. He handed me a news release printed on onionskin stationary and left immediately. I called him back at the base and said, "I suggest that you not release this type of story that says you have a flying saucer or flying disk." He said, "No, it's Ok. I have the OK from the C.O. [Colonel Blanchard]."

I sent the release on the Western Union wire to the United Press bureau. After I returned to the station, there was a flash on the wire with the story: "The U.S. Army Air Corps [sic] says it has a flying disk." They typed a paragraph or two, and then other people got on the wire and asked for more information. Then the phone calls started coming on, and I referred them to [the airfield].

Then the wire stopped and just hummed. Then a phone call came in, and the caller identified himself as an officer at the Pentagon, and this man said some very bad things about what would happen to me. He was really pretty nasty. Finally, I got through to him: I said, "You're talking about a release from the U.S. Army Air Corps." Bang, the phone went dead, he was just gone.

Then [station owner Walt] Whitmore called me and said, "Frank, what's going on down there?" He was quite upset. He asked, "Where did you get this story?" In the meantime, I got this [USAAF news] release and hid it, to have proof so no one could accuse me of making it up. Whitmore came in to the station and I gave him the release. He took it with him.

The next significant thing occurred in the evening. I got a call from [Mac] Brazel. He said we haven't got this story right. I invited him over to the station. He arrived not long after sunset. He was alone, but I had the feeling that we were being watched. He said something about a weather balloon. I said, "Look, this is completely different than what you told me on the phone the other day about the little green men," and that's when he said, "No, they weren't green." I had the feeling he was under tremendous pressure. He said, "Our lives will never be the same again."

4.2 Lydia Sleppy

[Lydia Sleppy was a teletype operator at Roswell radio station KSWS. The event she describes below took place around 4:00 pm on July 7, 1947. She was interviewed in October 1990 by Stanton Friedman.]

We were Mutual Broadcasting and ABC, and if we had anything newsworthy, we would put it on the [teletype] machine, and I was the one who did the typing. It was in my office. Mr Tucker [Merle Tucker was the station owner] was in Washington DC trying to get an application approved for a station in El Paso, when this call came from John McBoyle [another KSWS staffer]. He told me he had something hot for the network. I said, "Give me a minute and I'll get the assistant manager," because if it was anything like that, I wanted one of them there while I was taking it down.

I went back and asked Mr [Karl] Lambertz (he came up from the big Dallas station) if he would come up and watch. John was dictating and [Karl] was standing right at my shoulder. I got into it enough to know that it was a pretty big story, when the bell came on [signaling an interruption]. Typing came across: "This is the FBI, you will cease transmitting."

I had my shorthand pad, and I turned around and told [Karl] that I had been cut off, but that I could take it in shorthand and then we could call it in to the network. I took it in shorthand, as John went on to give the story. He had seen them take the thing away. He'd been out there [presumably at the Foster ranch] when they took it away. And at that time, if I remember correctly, John said they were gonna load it up and take it to Texas. But when the planes came in, they were from Wright Field.

4.3 Walt Whitmore Jr

[Walt Whitmore Jr was the son of the owner of Roswell radio station KGFL. Here is his description of wreckage from the crash.]

[It was] very much like lead foil in appearance but could not be torn or cut at all. Extremely light in weight. Some small beams that appeared to be either wood or woodlike had a sort of writing on it which looked like numbers which had either been added or multiplied [in columns].

5 THE MILITARY

5.1 Jesse Marcel

[Major Jesse Marcel was one of the the first two military people to visit the Corona crash site. The other was Sheridan Cavitt, who to this day has refused to even acknowledge that he was there on the ranch with Marcel. Jesse Marcel died in 1982. He was interviewed in 1979.]

When we arrived at the crash site, it was amazing to see the vast amount of area it covered. It was nothing that hit the ground or exploded [on] the ground. It's something that must have exploded above ground, traveling perhaps at a high rate of speed, we don't know. But it scattered over an area of about three quarters of a mile long, I would say, and fairly wide, several hundred feet wide. So we proceeded to pick up all the fragments we could find and load up our Jeep Carry-All. It was quite obvious to me, familiar with air activities, that it was not a weather balloon, nor was it an airplane or a missile. What it was, we didn't know. We just picked up the fragments. It was something I had never seen before, and I was pretty familiar with all air activities. We loaded up the Carry-All but I wasn't satisfied. I told Cavitt, "You drive this vehicle back to the base and I'll go back out there and pick up as much as I can put in the car,", which I did. But we picked up only a very small portion of the material that was there.

One thing that impressed me about the debris that we were referring to is the fact that a lot of it looked like parchment. A lot of it had a lot of little members [I-beams] with symbols that we had to call them hieroglyphics because I could not interpret them, they could not be read, they were just symbols, something that meant something and they were not all the same. The members that this was painted on -- by the way, those symbols were pink and purple, lavender was actually what it was. And so these little members could not be broken, could not be burned. I even tried to burn that. It would not burn. The same with the parchment we had.

But something that is more astounding is that the piece of metal that we brought back was so thin, just like the tinfoil in a pack of cigarette paper. I didn't pay too much attention to that at first, until one of the GIs came to me and said, "You know the metal that was in there? I tried to bend that stuff and it won't bend. I even tried it with a sledge hammer. You can't make a dent on it."

I didn't go back to look at it myself again, because we were busy in the office and I had quite a bit of work to do. I am quite sure that this young fellow would not have lied to me about that, because he was a very truthful, very honest guy, so I accepted his word for that. So, beyond that, I didn't actually see him hit the matter with a sledge hammer, but he said, "It's definite that it cannot be bent and it's so light that it doesn't weigh anything." And that was true of all the material that was brought up. It was so light that it weighed practically nothing.

This particular piece of metal was, I would say, about two feet long and perhaps a foot wide. See, that stuff weighs nothing, it's so thin, it isn't any thicker than the tinfoil in a pack of cigarettes. So I tried to bend the stuff, it wouldn't bend. We even tried making a dent in it with a 16-pound sledge hammer, and there was still no dent in it. I didn't have the time to go out there and find out more about it, because I had so much other work to do that I just let it go. It's still a mystery to me as to what the whole thing was. Like I said before, I knew quite a bit about the material used in the air, but it was nothing I had seen before. And as of now, I still don't know what it was. So that's how it stands.

[Here is what Jesse Marcel said on the American television program "Unsolved Mysteries".]

There were just fragments strewn all over the area, an area about three quarters of a mile long and several hundred feet wide. So we proceeded to pick up the parts.

I tried to bend the stuff, it would not bend. I even tried to burn it, it would not burn. That stuff weighs nothing. It's not any thicker than tin foil in a pack of cigarettes. We even tried making a dent in it with a 16-pound sledge hammer, still no dent in it.

One thing I was certain of, being familiar with all our activities, that it was not a weather balloon, nor an aircraft, nor a missile. It was something else, which we didn't know what it was.

5.2 Jesse Marcel Jr

[Jesse Marcel Jr is Major Jesse Marcel's son. When Major Marcel returned from the Foster Ranch with a carload of wreckage from the crashed flying saucer, he stopped off at home to show his wife and his eleven-year old son what he had found. Jesse Jr is now a medical doctor, an Army reserve helicopter pilot who served in Vietnam, and a qualified aircraft accident investigator.]

The crash and remnants of the device that I happened to see have left an imprint on my memory that can never be forgotten. The craft was not conventional in any sense of the word, in that the remains were most likely what was then known as a flying saucer that had apparently been stressed beyond its designed capabilities.

I'm basing this on the fact that many of the remnants, including I-beam pieces that were present, had strange hieroglyphic typewriting symbols across the inner surfaces, pink and purple, except that I don't think there were any animal figures present as there are in true Egyptian hieroglyphics.

The remainder of the debris was just described as nondescript metallic debris, or just shredded fragments, but there was a fair amount of the intact I-beam members present. I only saw a small portion of the debris that was actually present at the crash site.

[Here is what Jesse Marcel Jr said on the American television program "Unsolved Mysteries".]

When [Dad] came back to the house he had a bunch of wreckage with him at the time, and he brought the wreckage into the house. Actually wakened my mother and myself out so we could view this, because it was so unusual. This was about two o'clock in the morning as I recall, and he spread it out so we could get some basic idea what it looked like, what it was....

We were all amazed by this debris that was there, primarily because we didn't know what it was, you know, it was just the unknown....

This writing [on a short piece of I-beam] could be described as like hieroglyphics, Egyptian-type hieroglyphics, but not really. The symbols that were on the I-beams were more of a geometric-type configuration in various designs. It had a violet-purple type color and was actually an embossed part of the metal itself.

Years after this incident happened, we would talk privately among ourselves about what the possibilities of this, what this thing was. And I feel that we, well I know that we came to the conclusion it was not of earthly origin.

If I had not actually held pieces of it in my hand, I would not think that it would be possible. But because I happened to see this, that's the only reason I believe it....

My dad said obviously it [the weather balloon story] was a cover-up story, it was not a weather balloon. He was a little disturbed about that, but he had his own security classification to protect. He could not really go public with, hey this is not the real thing, I mean this is not a weather balloon. So he had to keep that to himself.

5.3 Walter Haut

[Second Lieutenant Walter Haut was a public information officer at Roswell AAF in 1947. Colonel Blanchard ordered Haut to issue a press release telling the country that the Army had found a flying saucer. Here is the text of Haut's press release.]

The many rumors regarding the flying disc became a reality yesterday when the Intelligence office of the 509th Bomb Group of the Eighth Air Force, Roswell Army Air Field, was fortunate enough to gain possession of a disc through the cooperation of one of the local ranchers and the sheriff's office of Chaves County.

The flying object landed on a ranch near Roswell sometime last week. Not having phone facilities, the rancher stored the disc until such time as he was able to contact the sheriff's office, who in turn notified Maj. Jesse A. Marcel of the 509th Bomb Group Intelligence Office.

Action was immediately taken and the disc was picked up at the rancher's home. It was inspected at Roswell Army Air Field and subsequently loaned by Major Marcel to higher headquarters.

[Here is what Haut said on the American television program "Unsolved Mysteries".]

I took the release into town. And that was one of the things that Colonel Blanchard told me to do, take it into town, because if there was any validity to this, he didn't want the news media to feel that we had jumped over their heads and were not cooperating with them.

[Here is what Haut said in an interview for an article in "Air and Space/Smithsonian" magazine, Sep-Oct 1992, when asked what he thought really happened back in 1947.]

I feel there was a crash of an extra-terrestrial vehicle near Corona.

5.4 Bill Rickett

[Bill Rickett was a Counter Intelligence Corps officer based in Roswell. He had an opportunity to examine some of the wreckage recovered from the Foster Ranch. He escorted Dr Lincoln LaPaz, a meteor expert from the New Mexico Institute of Meteoritics, on a tour of the crash site and the surrounding area.]

[The material] was very strong and very light. You could bend it but couldn't crease it. As far as I know, no one ever figured out what it was made of....

It was LaPaz's job to try to find out what the speed and trajectory of the thing was. LaPaz was a world-renowned expert on trajectories of objects in the sky, especially meteors, and I was told to give him all the help I could.

At one point LaPaz interviewed the farmer [Mac Brazel]. I remember something coming up during their conversation about this fellow thinking that some of his animals had acted strangely after this thing happened. Dr LaPaz seemed very interested in this for some reason.

LaPaz wanted to fly over the area, and this was arranged. He found one other spot where he felt this thing had touched down and then taken off again. The sand at this spot had been turned into a glass-like substance. We collected a boxful of samples of this material. As I recall, there were some metal samples here, too, of that same sort of thin foil stuff. LaPaz sent this box off somewhere for study; I don't know or recall where, but I never saw it again. This place was some miles from the other one.

LaPaz was very good at talking to people, especially some of the local ranch hands who didn't speak a lot of English. LaPaz spoke Spanish. I remember he found a couple of people who had seen two -- I don't know what to call them, UFOs I suppose -- anyway, had seen two of these things fly over very slowly at a very low altitude on a date, in the evening, that he determined had been a day or two after the other one had blown up. These people said something about animals being affected, too....

Before he went back to Albuquerque, he told me that he was certain that this thing had gotten into trouble, that it had touched down for repairs, taken off again, and then exploded. He also felt certain there were more than one of these devices, and that the others had been looking for it. At least that's what he said. He was positive the thing had malfunctioned.

The Air Force's explanation that it was a balloon was totally untrue. It was not a balloon. I never did know for sure what its purpose was, but it wasn't ours. I remember speculating with LaPaz that it might have been some higher civilization checking on us. LaPaz wasn't against the idea, but he was going to leave speculations out of his report.

5.5 F.B.

[F.B. was an Army Air Forces photographer stationed at Anacostia Naval Air Station in Washington DC when he and fellow photographer A.K. were flown aboard a B-25 bomber to Roswell Army Air Field sometime during the second week of July 1947. F.B. was interviewed by Stanton Friedman.]

One morning they came in and they said, "Pack up your bags and we'll have the cameras there, ready for you." We didn't know where we was going.

[After a few hours' flight, they arrived at Roswell.] We got in a staff car with some of the gear they had brought along with us in trucks, and we headed out, about an hour and a half, we was heading north.

We got out there [one of the crash sites in the Corona area] and there was a helluva lot of people out there, in a closed tent. You couldn't hardly see anything inside the tent. They said, "Set your camera up to take a picture fifteen feet away." A.K. got in a truck and headed out to where they was picking up pieces. All kinds of brass running around. And they was telling us what to do. Shoot this, shoot that. There was an officer in charge. He met us out there and he'd go into the tent and he'd come back and tell us, "OK." He'd stand there right besides us and [say], "OK, take this picture."

There was four bodies I could see when the flash went off, but you was almost blind because it was a beautiful day, sunny. You'd go in this tent, which was awful dark. That's all I was taking, bodies. These bodies was under a canvas, and they'd open it up and you'd take a picture, flip out your flashbulb, put another one in [take another picture] and give him the film holder (each holder held two sheets of four-by-five inch cut film) and then you went to the next spot.

I guess there was ten to twelve officers, and when I got ready to go in, they'd all come out. The tent was about twenty by thirty foot. The bodies looked like they was lying on a tarp. One guy did all the instructions. He'd take a flashlight and he'd come down there. "See this flashlight?" Yes sir. "You're in focus with it?" Yes sir. "Take a picture of this." He'd take the flashlight away. We just moved around in a circle, taking pictures. Seemed to me [the bodies] were all just about identical. Dark complected. I remember they was thin, and it looked like they had too big of a head. I took thirty shots. I think I had about fifteen [film] holders. It smelled funny in there.

A.K. came back in a truck that was loaded down with debris. A lot of pieces sticking out that wasn't there when they took off. We got debriefed on the way back to the airport [Roswell Army Air Field]. About four the next morning, they woke us, they took us to the mess hall, we ate, we got back on the B-25 and headed back. When we got back to Anacostia we got debriefed some more, by a lieutenant commander. [It was made clear to both F.B and A.K. that whatever they thought they saw in New Mexico, they hadn't seen.]

5.6 Robert Porter

[M/Sgt Robert Porter was a B-29 flight engineer with the 830th Bomb Squadron. He happens to be Loretta Proctor's brother. He was interviewed by Stanton Friedman.]

We flew these pieces. [Some officers in the crew] told us it was parts of a flying saucer. The packages were in wrapping paper, one triangle-shaped about two and a half feet across the bottom, the rest in smaller, shoebox-sized packages. [They were in] brown paper with tape. It was just like I picked up an empty package, very light. The loaded triangle-shaped package and three shoebox-sized packages would have fit into the trunk of a car.

On board were Lieutenant Colonel Payne Jennings [deputy commander of Roswell] and Major Marcel. Captain Anderson said it was from a flying saucer. We got to Fort Worth, they transferred [the packages] to a B-25 and took them to Wright [Field]. When we landed at [Fort Worth], Colonel Jennings told us to take care of maintenance, and after a guard was posted, we could eat lunch. We came back, they told us they had transferred the material to a B-25. They told us it was a weather balloon. It WASN'T a weather balloon.

5.7 Robert Shirkey

[First Lieutenant Robert Shirkey was assistant operations officer of the 509th Bomb Group. He was interviewed by Stanton Friedman.]

A call came in to have a B-29 ready to go as soon as possible. Where to? Forth Worth, on Colonel Blanchard's directive. [I was] in the Operations Office when Colonel Blanchard arrived and asked if the airplane was ready. When told it was, Blanchard waved to somebody, and approximately five people came in the front door, down the hallway, and onto the ramp to climb into the airplane, carrying parts of the crashed flying saucer. I got a very short glimpse, asked Blanchard to turn sideways so [I] could see too. Saw them carrying pieces of metal. They had one piece that was eighteen by twenty-four inches, brushed stainless steel in color.

5.8 Robert Slusher

[S/Sgt Robert Slusher was assigned to the 393rd Bomb Squadron. On or about July 9, 1947, he was on board a B-29 that carried a single crate from Roswell AAF to Fort Worth AAF. Also on board were were four armed MPs. He said the crate was twelve feet long, five feet wide, and four feet high. Upon arrival at Fort Worth, the crate was loaded onto a flatbed weapons carrier and hauled off, accompanied by the MPs, who later rejoined the crew for the return flight. Robert Slusher was interviewed in 1991.]

[There was an implication that the contents of the crate was sensitive to air pressure, which suggests that the crate contained something other than pieces of metal. The plane flew at the unusually low altitude of four to five thousand feet. Usually on such a trip a B-29 flies at twenty-five thousand feet, as its cabin is pressurized and the B-29 flies better at high alititude. However, the bomb bay where the crate was stowed cannot be pressurized.]

The return flight was above twenty thousand feet, and the cabin was pressurized. The round trip took approximately three hours, fifteen minutes. The flight was unusual in that we flew there, dropped the cargo, and returned immediately. It was a hurried flight; normally we knew the day before there would be a flight.

There was a rumor that the crate had debris from the crash. Whether there were any bodies, I don't know. The crate had been specially made; it had no markings.

5.9 Robert Smith

[Robert Smith was a member of the First Air Transport Unit, which operated Douglas C-54 Skymaster four-engined cargo planes out of the Roswell AAF. He was interviewed in 1991.]

A lot of people began coming in all of a sudden because of the official investigation. Somebody said it was a plane crash, but we heard from a man in Roswell that it was not a plane crash, it was something else, a strange object. There was another indication that something serious was going on. One night, when we were coming back to Roswell, a convoy of trucks covered with canvas passed us. When they got to the [airfield] gate, they headed over to this hangar on the east end, which was rather unusual. The truck convoy had red lights and sirens.

My involvement in the incident was to help load crates of debris into the aircraft. We all became aware of the event when we went to the hangar on the east side of the ramp. There were a lot of people in plain clothes all over the place. They were inspectors, but they were strangers on the base. When challenged, they replied they were here on Project So-and-So, and flashed a card, which was different from a military ID card.

We were taken to the hangar to load crates. There was a lot of farm dirt on the hangar floor. We loaded [the crates] on flatbeds and dollies. Each crate had to be checked as to width and height. We had to know which crates went on which plane. We loaded crates on three [or] four C-54s. We weren't supposed to know their destination, but we were told they were headed north.

All I saw was a little piece of material. You could crumple it up, let it come out. You couldn't crease it. One of our people put it in his pocket. The piece of debris I saw was two to three inches square. It was jagged. When you crumpled it up, it then laid back out. And when it did, it kind of crackled, making a sound like celophane. It crackled when it was let out. There were no creases.

There were armed guards around during loading of our planes, which was unusual at Roswell. There was no way to get to the ramp except through armed guards. There were MPs on the outskirts, and our personnel were between them and the planes.

The largest [crate] was roughly twenty feet long, four to five feet high, and four to five feet wide. It took up an entire plane. It wasn't that heavy, but it was a large volume. The rest of the crates were two or three feet long and two feet square or smaller. The sergeant who had the piece of material said [it was like] the material in the crates. The entire loading took at least six, perhaps eight hours. Lunch was brought to us, which was unusual. The crates were brought to us on flatbed dollies, which was also unusual.

Officially, we were told it was a crashed plane, but crashed planes usually were taken to the salvage yard, not flown out. I don't think it was an experimental plane, because not too many people in that area were experimenting with planes. I'm convinced that what we loaded was a UFO that got into mechanical problems. Even with the most intelligent people, things go wrong.

[The C-54 into which I helped load the single twenty-foot crate] would have been Pappy Henderson's. I remember seeing T/Sgt Harbell Elzey, T/Sgt. Edward Bretherton, and S/Sgt. William Fortner.

5.10 Melvin Brown's Daughter

[Sergeant Melvin Brown was a cook at Roswell AAF in 1947. One day, he was called out to help guard material retrieved from the Foster Ranch. His daughter Beverly was interviewed by Stanton Friedman in 1989.]

When we were young, he used to tell us stories about things that had happened to him when he was young. We got to know those stories by heart and would all say together, "Here we go again."

Sometimes, but not too often, he used to say that he saw a man from outer space. That used to make us all giggle like mad. He said he had to stand guard duty outside a hangar where a crashed flying saucer was stored, and that his commanding officer said, "Come on, Brownie, let's have a look inside." But they didn't see anything because it had all been packed up and [was] ready to be flown out to Texas.

He also said that one day all available men were grabbed and that they had to stand guard where a crashed disc had come down. Everything was being loaded onto trucks, and he couldn't understand why some of the trucks had ice or something in them. He did not understand what they wanted to keep cold. Him and another guy had to ride in the back of one of the trucks, and although they were told that they could get into a lot of trouble if they took in too much of what was happening, they had a quick look under the covering and saw two dead bodies, alien bodies.

We really had to giggle at that bit. He said they were smaller than a normal man, about four feet, and had much larger heads than us, with slanted eyes, and that the bodies looked yellowish, a bit Asian-looking. We did not believe him when we were kids, but as I got older, I did kind of believe it. Once I asked him if he was scared by them, and he said, "Hell no, they looked nice, almost as though they would be friendly if they were alive."

5.11 Pappy Henderson

[Captain Oliver Wendell "Pappy" Henderson was stationed at Roswell AAF in 1947. He had flown thirty missions in B-24 Liberator bombers in Europe. He had participated in the postwar A-bomb tests in the Pacific and earned major commendations for his flying. Unfortunately, he died before any UFO investigator could interview him, but near the end of his life he old some of the people closest to him about what he had seen in July 1947.]

5.12 Pappy Henderson's Wife

[Sappho Henderson was Pappy Henderson's wife. She was interviewed by Stanton Friedman.]

We met during World War II when he flew with the 446th Bomb Squadron. He flew B-24s [on] thirty missions over Germany. After the war, he returned home and was then sent to Roswell. While stationed there, he ran the "Green Hornet Airline", which involved flying C-54s and C-47s carrying VIPs, scientists, and materials from Roswell to the Pacific during the atom bomb tests. He had to have a Top Secret clearance for this responsibility.

In 1980 or 1981, he picked up a newspaper at a grocery store where we were living in San Diego. One article described the crash of a UFO outside Roswell, with the bodies of aliens discovered beside the craft. He pointed out the article to me and said, "I want you to read this article, because it's a true story. I'm the pilot who flew the wreckage of the UFO to Dayton, Ohio [where Wright Field is]. I guess now that they're putting it in the paper, I can tell you about this. I wanted to tell you for years." Pappy never discussed his work because of his security clearance.

He described the beings as small with large heads for their size. He said the material that their suits were made of was different than anything he had ever seen. He said they looked strange. I believe he mentioned that the bodies had been packed in dry ice to preserve them.

[Here is what Sappho Henderson said on the American television program "Unsolved Mysteries".]

My husband Oliver Henderson, otherwise known as "Pappy" in the Air Force, he was entrusted with many of this country's top secrets. And they were safe with him. He never told anything that he wasn't supposed to. And therefore it was 34 years after this incident happened that I heard about it....

My husband told me the bodies were smaller than human bodies. The heads were larger and the eyes were rather sunken and a little slanted. Clothing was of material unlike anything he had seen before. They were strange, they were not of this earth.

When my husband, who was a man of truth, who was trusted with 29 different Army aircraft planes, first pilot aircraft commander, tells me this story, I believed him.

5.13 Pappy Henderson's Daughter

[Mary Kathryn Groode is Pappy Henderson's daughter.]

When I was growing up, he and I would often spend evenings looking at the stars. On one occasion, I asked him what he was looking for. He said, "I'm looking for flying saucers. They're real, you know."

In 1981, during a visit to my parents' home, my father showed me a newspaper article which described the crash of a UFO and the recovery of alien bodies outside Roswell, New Mexico. He told me that he saw the crashed craft and the alien bodies described in the article, and that he had flown the wreckage to Ohio. He described the alien beings as small and pale, with slanted eyes and large heads. He said they were humanoid-looking, but different from us. I think he said there were three bodies.

He said the matter had been Top Secret and that he was not supposed to discuss it with anyone, but that he felt it was alright to tell me because it was in the newspaper.

5.14 Pappy Henderson's Relatives

[Stanton Friedman spoke with Pappy Henderson's son and cousin, both of whom told of having heard Pappy quietly tell his story after the newspaper article appeared.]

5.15 Pappy Henderson's Friend #1

[John Kromschroeder is a dentist and a retired military officer. In 1977, Henderson told Kromschroeder that in 1947 he had transported wreckage and alien bodies. About a year later, Henderson showed Kromschroeder a piece of metal he had taken from the collection of wreckage. Kromschroeder and Henderson shared an interest in metallurgy. Kromschroeder was interviewed in 1990.]

I gave it a good, thorough looking-at and decided it was an alloy we are not familiar with. Gray, lustrous metal resembling aluminum, lighter in weight and much stiffer. [We couldn't] bend it. Edges sharp and jagged.

5.16 Pappy Henderson's Friend #2

[In 1982, Pappy Henderson met with several members of his old bomber crew during a reunion. One of these men was later interviewed.]

It was in his hotel room that he told us the story of the UFO and about his part. All we were told by Pappy is that he flew the plane to Wright Field. He definitely mentioned the bodies, but I don't recall any details except that they were small and different. I was skeptical at first, but soon saw that Pappy was quite serious.

6 PROSAIC EXPLANATIONS

6.1 Weather Balloon

If what crashed was a weather balloon, there would have been no need for secrecy. According to the testimony, military officers admonished subordinates and civilians not to talk about what they saw.

If what crashed was a weather balloon, Major Marcel would have recognized the material Mac Brazel showed him as weather balloon material, and would not have journeyed far out on a remote sheep ranch with an officer from the Counter Intelligence Corps to examine the crash site.

The wreckage described by Marcel and others was too voluminous, and spread out over too large an area, to have been the wreckage of a crashed weather balloon.

There is no reason the Army would transport the wreckage of a weather balloon from the remote desert outside Corona first to Roswell AAF, then on to Fort Worth AAF.

Most of the witnesses who saw or handled the wreckage would have recognized the remains of a crashed weather balloon.

6.2 Secret Rocket or Airplane

* If what crashed was any kind of secret military apparatus, one would expect at least some of the pieces to have recognizable letters or numbers on them. Many of the witnesses say that some of the wreckage bore a very strange kind of writing, but not one witness has said that any of the wreckage bore any recognizable symbols.

* If what crashed was any kind of secret military apparatus, the Army would have said simply, "This is secret, and no more questions will be answered, period." The Army would not have concocted the flying saucer and weather balloon stories. In 1947, Americans were less skeptical about the motives of their government, and the people of New Mexico, including journalists and other civilians, were dependent for their livelihood on secret military projects.

* If what crashed was any kind of secret military apparatus, the Army would not have waited for a rancher to inform them of the crash before sending military personnel to examine the wreckage, five days after the crash.

* Rockets and airplanes that were secret in 1947 are not secret now. If what crashed was a secret rocket or airplane, it would have been revealed as such years ago. (Incredibly, the Army is sticking to its weather balloon story, even though nobody believes it anymore.)

* By July 1947, rockets launched from White Sands were fitted with self-destruct mechanisms so that an errant rocket could be destroyed before leaving the test range. The Corona crash site is about 75 miles from the nearest border of the test range.

* They did not fly secret airplanes in New Mexico in 1947. There was plenty of room for that in California, where all the secret airplane projects were carried on.

* There is no reason the Army would transport the wreckage of a crashed rocket or airplane to Fort Worth AAF, then to Wright AAF in Ohio. The wreckage of a secret rocket would stay in New Mexico, and the wreckage of a secret airplane would be sent back to California, if anywhere.

* Most of the witnesses who saw or handled the wreckage would have recognized the remains of a crashed rocket or airplane.

EBE - The Emenegger/Sandler Saga

The Emenegger/Sandler Saga: The story begins in 1973, when Robert Emenegger and Alan Sandler, two well-connected Los Angeles businessmen, were invited to Norton Air Force Base in California to discuss a possible documentary film on advanced research projects. Two military officials, one the base's head of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, the other, the audio-visual director Paul Shartle, discussed a number of projects. One of them involved UFOs. This one sounded the most interesting and plans were launched to go ahead with a film on the subject.

Emenegger and Sandler were told of a film taken at Holloman AFB, New Mexico, in May 1971. In October 1988, in a national television broadcast, Shartle would declare that he had seen the 16mm film showing "three disc-shaped craft. One of the craft landed and two of them went away." A door opened on the landed vehicle and three beings emerged. Shartle said, "They were human-size. They had an odd, gray complexion and a pronounced nose. They wore tight fitting jump suits, [and] thin headdresses that appeared to be communication devices, and in their hands they held a 'translator.' A Holloman base commander and other Air Force officers went out to meet them" (Howe, 1989).

Emenegger was led to believe he would be given the film for use in his documentary. He was even taken to Norton and shown the landing site and the building in which the spaceship had been stored and others (Buildings 383 and 1382) in which meetings between Air Force personnel and the aliens had been conducted over the next several days. According to his sources, the landing had taken place at 6 a.m. The extraterrestrials were "doctors, professional types." Their eyes had vertical slits like a cat's and their mouths were thin and slitlike, with no chins." All that Emenegger was told of what occurred in the meetings was a single stray "fact": that the military people said they were monitoring signals from an alien group with which they were unfamiliar, and did their ET guests know anything about them? The ETs said no.

Emenegger's military sources said he would be given 3200 feet of film taken of the landing. At the last minute, however, permission was withdrawn, although Emenegger and Sandler were encouraged to describe the Holloman episode as something hypothetical, something that could happen or might happen in the future. Emenegger went to Wright-Patterson AFB, where Project Blue Book had been located until its closing in 1969, to ask Col. George Weinbrenner one of his military contacts, what had happened. According to Emenegger's account, the exchange took place in Weinbrenner's office. The colonel stood up, walked to a chalkboard and complained in a loud voice, "That damn MIG 25! Here we're so public with everything we have. But the Soviets have all kinds of things we don't know about. We need to know more about the MIG 25!" Moving to a bookshelf and continuing his monologue about the Russian jet fighter, he handed Emenegger a copy of J. Allen Hynek's The UFO Experience (1972), with the author's signature and dedication to Weinbrenner. "It was like a scene from a Kafka play," Emenegger would recall, inferring from the colonel's odd behavior that he was confirming the reality of the film while making sure that no one overhearing the conversation realized that was what he was doing.

The documentary film UFO's Past, Present & Future (Sandler Institutional Films, Inc.) was released in 1974 along with a paperback book of the same title. The Holloman incident is recounted in three pages (127-29) of the book's "Future" section. Elsewhere, in a section of photos and illustrations, is an artist's conception of what one of the Holloman entities looked like, though it, along with other alien figures, is described only as being "based on eyewitness descriptions" (Emenegger, 1974). Emenegger's association with the military and intelligence he had met while doing the film would continue for years.

EBE - The Emenegger/Sandler Saga

SUMMARY: The individual described in his report the fact that both crew members of the airliner had been witnessing an “intense” display of the Northern Lights as they were descending for landing at a major metropolitan airport in the northern mid-western United States. The person adds that he had witnessed the Northern Lights on many occasions during his 10+ years of flying, so he was not paying a great deal of attention to the display. However, he comments that the display on the night of March 11 was of such intensity that it appeared to “stretch above and over the aircraft,” and that the dramatic colors of the display—green, red, and blue—were reflected off the metallic surface of the aircraft.

The crew member then describes how both he and the other member of the cockpit crew were witness to a short-lived “pulse of green light,” which appeared to be “concentrated in a green ‘ball’,” and which approached their aircraft from the north, apparently at a very rapid velocity.

Immediately following the event, all members of the cockpit crew began to experience an sensation on their faces, as if they had been “burnt by the sun.” They reported this sensation to each other, at which point the crew immediately requested clearance to divert to a different altitude.

After the aircraft passed through a thin layer of overcast, the sensation of burning that the crew members had experienced seemed to them to disappear immediately. However, on the next day, the author of the report noticed that the skin on his face was “red and sore.” The individual reports that he has made arrangements to see a physician about the skin condition. Also, he requested assistance in investigating the case.

The alleged incident occurred approximately 1-2 hours prior to a number of seemingly credible, and rather dramatic, UFO sighting reports were received from the states of Illinois and Ohio.

The following letter was received from a California air traffic controller whose name has been witheld by request.

Dear Sirs:

I've been an air traffic controller at the Los Angeles Air Route

Traffic Control Center for six years now, with my area

of jurisdiction covering northeast of LAX, out over the Mohave desert

(including the Edwards test ranges), and up around the LAS area

(including "Dreamland"). We work closely with the military, and when I

am at a sector, there is NOTHING that goes in my sky (military or

civilian) without my knowledge. Even the most classified military

projects have proper protocol for reservation of airspace, and numerous

flight restrictions (they're not about to let their multi-billion dollar

projects be sighted or be harmed by some Dentist's Cessna 172 chugging

along for a weekend trip to Vegas, after all). Projects are of course

need-to-know, but they'll just call them something else to keep with

procedures and restrictions (the Stealth fighter went around as an "A6"

fighter when it was classified).

The point is, we know ---*I* know, when I'm at the sector--- all

military activity, and all civilian aircraft certainly above 18,000 feet

(federal regulations prohibit flight above Flight level 180 without

authorization from the controller), and most activity below 18,000.

In my (only) six years at the Center, I have personally been part of

three bizarre encounters, non-military and non-civilian. I'm just one of

15,000 controllers, too, so there *have* to be many more that go

unreported. I know we used to have a specific number to report "UFO"

sightings (was it to your organization?), but in the late 80's the

directive was replaced by an official "advisory" to tell pilots, if

requested, that they should contact a University or research

institution, and no further paperwork was required (unless it was a near

mid-air).

In a fourth incident I was present for (in the area but not at the

actual sector), the controller told the supe about the encounter, and

after both determined there was nothing on radar, they just kind of

shook their heads and rubbed their chins, and that was that. This I

believe is what typically happens. Nobody knows what to do, really.

There is no government "coverup," no mirror-sunglassed agents

"debriefing" us in the back room, no military specialists to take

reports. But "UFO" encounters happen...I've directly been involved in

those three incidents---DIRECT involvement, I was there plugged into the

sector, my own eyes were watching the radar, it actually happened! I've

been puzzled on all three, but there was no place to report it, no

official literature on what to do about it, until I saw your

organization.

So, thanks for your efforts---I've got your number now and will

certainly contact you at my next "incidents" so you can get the hard

data (voice tapes are erased after 15 days, and radar data after 5 I

believe).

The three incidents I was involved in, by the way:

(1) Northeast of LAX, a UAL 747 on climbout, about 24,000

feet (Flight level 240), suddenly said "Do you show something went right

under us?" I was the D-controller (there was two of us plugged into the

sector), and the R-side (the radio controller) said she didn't show

anything. We didn't, there was absolutely nothing on the radar. The

pilot said it "went right under us, opposite direction, about 3 times

the normal closure rate", which normally is 900 knots (head-on jets at

450 knots each), so 3 times is about 2700 knots, minus the 450 of the

747 means it was approximately 2,200 knots. We pulled up the primary

radar (raw radar returns) and there was absolutely nothing. The pilot

said it was "kind of like a rocket, but with something on the top," and

it was "about the size of an F-16" and some other details, but I got on

the landline to the lower controller to warn him for subsequent

aircraft. The only nearby restricted (military) area had no activity at

those altitudes, and there were no military aircraft in the area. We

told the supe, and he just said "huh." We just shook our heads, and

mostly forgot about it, though the pilot did make a report on it and it

appeared in Aviation Week and Space Technology (this was in 1992?).

(2) I was working a UPS jet in descent to ONT (Ontario), as the only

controller at the sector. There was ZERO traffic within 30 miles of him,

but he said a "large aircraft of some type, no, I'm not sure what it is"

just went over and in front of him, crossing right to left. It was about

9pm local, after sundown. I showed NOTHING on radar, and anything large

would show up on primary radar (we see even tiny Piper Cubs). The

military restricted airspace R-2508 was completely cold and the airspace

turned over to us. I asked the pilot further, if he could see the type,

and he said "no, it was just very large, and it had some strange

lights." He was very shaken, and asked for a number to call in--I gave

him the Area's number and told my supe he'd be calling in. After they

landed (15 mins later) he called in and talked to my supe. I just told

him what I saw, there was NOTHING on radar, and NO military activity,

and again we just shook our heads. The Area Manager (facility boss) was

called in and he shook his head, and said they "used to have a UFO

reporting number, but we don't any more." That was that. This was in

1995.

(3) I was the only controller in the area during the S-L-O-W midnight

shift, two little cargo aircraft within a 200 mile range was all, this

was around 3am. The only thing to do is stare at all the primary targets

on the radar (ground clutter). The Military airspace (R2508) was cold

and was turned over to us. Nothing going on, not even up at

dreamland---all the military controllers were home in bed. I'm sitting

there and I notice a primary target moving across the desert (about 30

east of MHV (mohave), 20 or so north of Edwards and near our sensitive

Boron radar site, close enough that the radar picks up everything, even

cars on the highway). The target was zipping along about 4 miles between

updates, which is about 20nm per minute, or about Mach 2. Then within a

1-mile radius it reversed course and headed the other way (at 450 knots,

jets need about 10 miles or more to reverse course, and at supersonic

speeds even more. SR-71's need half the State to turn around!). I lost

it as it got away from the Boron site, and wasn't sure what to make of

it.

One hour later the Kern County Sheriff's called in (I answered, I was

the only controller in the Area) and said they had several calls about

an extremely bright light moving around the area north of Tehachapi, and

did we have any aircraft in that area. I was staring right at the scope,

right at Tehachapi, and there was nothing, not even a primary target (no

ground clutter even). I asked them if it was a flare and he said no,

it's been there for a half hour, moving around, no sound, and they had a

deputy right there looking at it too. I said we had nothing there, but

I'd call him back if I saw anything. I saw nothing, and about 30 minutes

later the Sheriff's called back and said it was gone, the light "turned

off" and was gone. There was nothing on the radar the whole time.

RAF Binbrook (Sept. 8, 1970)

At six minutes past ten on the night of 8 September 1970, a single Lighning Jet Fighter took off from RAF Binbrook, the North Linclonshire base near Grimsby.

Ground crew on the flight line were accustomed to Lighnings being scrambled in a hurry ant time of day or night. Binbrrok, after all, was a front-line fighter station and its aircraft shared QRA - Quick Reaction Alert - duty with other East Coast airfields to provide cover should any unidentifiable aircraft appear on the radar screens.

The pilot was Captain William Schaffner of the United States Air Force, who was on his second tour as an exchange pilot with the RAF.

Schaffner was a vastly experienced jet fighter pilot with combat experience behind him in Vietnam. He had been at Binbrook for some time and his wife was living on the base with him.

The aircraft, XS894, a Lightning F6 of 5 squadron, whose call-sign that night was Foxtrot 94, turned out over the North Sea - and disappeared into what is fast becoming one of the great aviation puzzles of recent times.

Early the following morning, XS894 ditched in the sea off Flamborough Head.

The ditching was witnessed by the crew of a Shackleton reconnaissance aircraft. Flares were spotted by the Grimsby trawler 'Ross Kestrel'. But no trace was found of Captain Schaffner was ever found.

More than a month later the wreckage of the aircraft was found on the sea-bed by Royal Navy divers. Despite earlier reports to the contrary, the cockpit was empty and the canopy closed.

Captain Schaffner had vanished.

The chain of events which led to the jet crash starts at Saxa Vord, one of the chain of radar stations whose task it was to spot unidentified aircraft approaching the North sea, or the sensitive 'Iceland Gap'.

This was 1970 when the Cold war was at its height and Russian aircraft made regular sorties into the North Atlantic and along the British Coast to test the reaction of NATO fighters.

ON this particular night, a radar operator at Saxa Vord picked up the blip of an unidentified aircraft over the North sea halfway between the Shetlands and Alesund in Norway.

The contact was monitered for several minutes at a steady speed of 630 mph, at 37,000ft holding altitude and on a south-westerly heading.

The Saxa Vord noted the conact was turning through 30 degrees to head due south. It increased speed to 900mph and climbed to 44,000ft.

Radar contollers at Saxa Vord flashed a scramble message to the QRA Flight at the nearest NATO airfield, RAF Leuchars on the east coast of Scotland, not far from Dundee.

There, two Lightning interceptors, ready for just an alert, scrambled and within minutes were airborne and heading out over the North sea.

After checking the position of their tanker, a Victor K1A, the two fighters were guided north by Saxa Vord.

But it was then that the radar plotters on the Shetland Islands saw something on their screens which they found impossible to believe.

The contact they had been tracking, at speeds and altitudes consistant with modern Russian warplanes, turned through 180 degrees on a due north heading, and within seconds disappeared off their screens. Later they calculated that to do this its speed must have been in the region of 17,400mph.

During the next hour, the mystery contact reappeared several times, approaching from the north. Each time the Lightnings were sent north to intercept, it turned and diappeared again.

By now two F4 Phantoms of the US Air Force had been scrambled from the American base at Keflavik in Iceland. They had much more sophisticated radar than the British Lightnings and were able to pick up the contact themselves.

But when they too, tried to get close enough to identify what was by now beginning to cause some alarm to NATO commanders, they found they were just as impotent as the Lightnings.

The alert had reached such a level that the contact was being monitored at the Ballistic Missile Earling Warning System at Fylingdales.

The information they were collecting was relayed to the North American Air Defence Command at Cheyenne Mountain and the US Detection and Tracking Centre at Colorado Springs.

RAF staff at Fylingdales heard ominously that the Stategic Air Command HQ at Omaha, Nebraska, was ordering its B-52 bombers into the air.

It was an order that could only have come from the highest level. What had started as a routine sighting of what was believed to be a Russian aircraft had nw reached the White House and, presumably, President Richard Nixon.

At around 21.45 a request made from a high level within North American Air Defence, through Strike Command's UK headquarters at High Wycombe, for RAF Binbrook to send Capt' Schaffner to join the Lightnings looking for the mystery contact.

NATO forces were being brought up to full alert by a mystery object picked up by radar over the North Sea. At first it appeared to be yet another Russian aircraft out to test the reflexes of Allied air forces. But the object began behaving in a way which baffled radar controllers.

At 22.06 Captain Schaffner blasted off from Binbrook's main runway into the night sky.

By now the mystery contact which involved the five Lightnings, two Phantoms, three tankers and a Shackleton being scrambled over the North sea was being tracked by the radar controllers at Staxton Wold.

The contact was flying parallel to the East Coast 90 miles east of Whitby at 530mph at 6,100ft - an ideal course for an interception by a Binbrook Lightning.

Whats follows next is drawn from what I have been told is the official transcript of the conversation between Schaffner and the radar station at Staxton Wold:

Schaffner: I have visual contact, repeat visual contact. Over.

Staxton: Can you identify aircraft type?

Schaffner: Negative, nothing recognisable, no clear outlines. There is ... bluish light. Hell that's bright ... very bright.

Staxton: Are your instruments functioning, 94? Check compass. Over.

Schaffner: Affirmative, GCI (ground control). I'm alongside it now, maybe 600ft off my ... Jeeze, that's bright, it hurts my eyes to look at it for more than a few seconds.

Staxton: How close are you now?

Schaffner: About 400ft, he's still in my three o' clock. Hey wait ... there's something else. It's like a large soccer ball. It's like it's made of glass.

Staxton: Is it part of the object or independant? Over.

Schaffner: It ... no, it's separate from the main body ... the conical shape ... it's at the back end, the sharp end of the shape. It's like bobbing up and down and going from side to side slowly. It maybe the power source. There's no sign of ballistics.

Staxtion: Is there any sign of occupation? Over.

Schaffner: Negative, nothing.

Staxton: Can you assess the rate?

Schaffner: Contact in gentle descent. Am going with it...50...no about 70ft ... it's levelled out again.

Staxton: Is the ball object still with it? Over.

Schaffner: Affirmative. It's not actually connected ... maybe a magnetic attraction to the conical shape. There's a haze of light. Ye'ow ... it's within heat haze. Wait a second, it's turning... coming straight for me... am taking evasive action...a few...I can hardl...

Staxton: 94? Come in 94. Foxtrot 94, are you receiving? Over. Come in 94. Over.

Radar controllers at Staxton Wold had guided the Lightning from Binbrook to the mystery contact which had been eluding its NATO trackers for almost four hours.

Just as the controller lost contact with Captain Schaffner, a radar operator who had been tracking the Lightning and the mystery object it had intercepted, watched in disbelief.

The two blips on the screen, representing the fighter and its quarry, slowly merged into one, decelerating rapidly from over 500mph until they became stationary 6,000ft above the North Sea 140 miles out of Alnwick.

Two and a half minutes after the single blip came to a halt it started to move again, accelerating to 600mph and climbing to 9,000ft, heading south back towards Staxton.

Shortly afterwards the single blip separated into two, one maintaining its southerly heading, somewhat erratically, at between 600 and 630mph and descending slowly, the other turning through 180 degrees to head north-westerly and vanishing at a speed later calculkated to be around 20,400mph.While all this was going on a Shackleton MR3, which had been on patrol off the Firth of Forth, was ordered to hold station around Flamborough Head.

The Staxton Wold re-established contact with Captain Schaffner.

Schaffner: GCI ... are you receiving? Over.

Staxton: Affirmative 94. What is your condition? Over.Schaffner: Not too good. I can't think what has happened... I feel kinda dizzy... I can see shooting stars.

Staxton: Can you see your instruments? Over.

Schaffner: Affirmative, but er...the compass is useless ...

Staxton: Foxtrot 94, turn 043 degrees. Over.

Schaffner: Er ... all directional instruments are out, repeat useless. Over.

Staxton: Roger 94, execute turn right, estimate quarter turn. Over.

Schaffner: Turning now.

Staxton: Come further 94. That's good. Is your altimeter functioning? Over.

Schaffner: Affirmative GCI.

Staxton: Descend to 3,500ft. Over.

Schaffner: Roger GCI.

Staxton: What's your fuel state 94? Over.

Schaffner: About 30 per cent GCI.

Staxton: That's what we calculated. Can you tell us what happened 94? Over.

Schaffner: I don't know. It came in close ... I shut my eyes ... I figure I must've blacked out for a few seconds.

Staxton: OK 94. Standby.

At this stage the Shackleton arrived over Flamborough Head and began circling before XS894 was vectored into the area by the Staxton controllers.

Schaffner: Can you bring me in GCI? Over.

Staxton: Er... Hold Station, 94. Over.

Several minutes then elapsed as Schaffner was left to circle the Flamborough area along with the Shackleton.

In the meantime, Strike Command at High Wycombe had instructed Staxton Wold to request Captain Schaffner to ditch his Lightning off Flamborough.

Although Captain Schaffner had plenty of fuel to reach either nearby Leconfield or his home base of Binbrook, it appears the reason for the descision to ditch was a fear that the Lightning had somehow become "contaminated" during its mystery interception over the North Sea.

It may well be the fear that the aircraft had suffered radiation contamination, although some weeks later, when the wreckage was examined at Binbrook, there was no trace of contamination of anything other than salt water.

Staxton: Foxtrot 94. Can you ditch aircraft? Over.

Schaffner: She's handling fine. I can bring her in. Over.

Staxton: Negative 94. I repeat, can you ditch aircraft? Over.

Schaffner: Yeah ... I guess.

Staxton: Standby 94. Over. Oscar 77. Over.

Shackleton: 77. Over.

Staxton: 94 is ditching. Can you maintain wide circuit. Over.

Shackleton: Affirmative GCI. Over.

Staxton: Thanks 77. Stanby 94, execute ditching proceedure at your discretion. Over.

Schaffner: Descending now, GCI. Over.

Between six and seven minutes then elapsed.

Shackleton: He's down, GCI. Hell of a splash ... he's down in one piece though. Over.

Staxton: Can you see the pilot yet? Over.

Shackleton: Negative. We're going round again, pulling a tight one.

Two minutes later.

Shackleton: The canopy's up ... she's floating OK ... can't see the pilot. We need a chopper out here, GCI. No, no sign of the pilot. Where the hell...

Staxton: You sure he's not in the water, 77. Check your SARBE receptions. Over.

NOTE: SARBE was the Search and Rescue Beacon Equipment carried by all RAF aircrew.

Shackleton: No SARBE yet. No flares either. Hang on. We're going round again.

Another two minutes elapsed.

Shackleton: GCI. Over.

Staxton: Receiving you 77. Over.

Shackleton: This is odd, GCI. She's sinking fast but ... the canopy's closed up again. Over.

Staxton: Can you confirm pilot clear of aircraft? Over.

Shackleton: He's not in it, we can confirm that. He must be in the water somewhere.

Staxton: Any distress signals or flares yet? Over.

Shackleton: Negative GCI. Going round again. Over.

Ninety seconds later the crew of the Shackleton were back in contact with Staxton Wold.

Shackleton: She's sunk GCI. There's a slight wake where she was. Still no sign of the pilot. I say again GCI, we need a chopper here fast. Over.

Staxton: A Whirlwind's on its way from Leconfield. Are you positive you saw no sign of the pilot?. Over.

Shackleton: Nothing GCI. The first pass we assumed he was unstrapping. He must have got out as we went round for a second pass ... but why shut the canopy? Over.

Staxton: That's what we were thinking. Maintain patrol 77, he must be there somewhere. Over.

Shackleton: Roger GCI. Over.

Shortly afterwards the search and rescue Whirlwind from nearby Leconfield arrived on the scene and began a systematic search of the ditching area. The aircraft was shortly joined by the lifeboats from Bridlington, Flamborough and Filey as the weather began to deteriorate.

The search continued well into the next day but there were no transmissions from the beacons carried by the pilot and on board the aircraft and the official reports say no distress flares were seen.

However, the following day flares had been seen about ten miles offshore and the Grimsby trawler Ross Kestrel, which was passing the Falmborough area, had gone to investigate but, even though more flares were seen, she found nothing.

Three weeks later it was reported that the fusalage of the aircraft had been located on the seabed and the ejection seat was still intact, "giving rise to the belief that the body of the pilot is still in the wreckage".

On 7 October, divers from HMS Keddleston had inspected the wreckage and said Captain Schaffner's body was still in the cockpit.

But what was the start of the biggest mystery of all. When the aircraft was brought to the surface and returned to Binbrook there was no trace of Captain Schaffner. Just an empty cockpit.

When the wreckage of XS894 was finally lifted from the seabed some five miles off Flamborough Head it was taken in secrecy straight to RAF Binbrook.

Many of the cockpit instruments were missing. These included the E2B compass, voltmeter, stand-by direction indicator, stand-by invertor indicator and the complete auxilary warning panel from the starboard side of the cockpit below the voltmeter.

This was a serious breach of regulations and although the Mod's Crash Investigation Team was promised the instruments would be returned shortly they never were.

The ejector seat also seemed to be "wrong" and there was a suspision later among the investigators that it was not the one fitted to the aircraft when XS894 took off from Binbrook on its final flight.

They were even given and assurance by the commanding officer of 5 Squadron that the seat had not been tampered with. But some of the investigators were not convinced.

At the end of the day the investigation team was told curtly that as nothing useful had been discovered, their job was over.The following day they were all called into the main office at Farnborough and told in no uncertain terms they were not to discuss any aspect of the ditching of XS894, even with their own families. The reason was simple - national security.

off Long Island, NY

November 17, 1995

NUFORC Home Page

TEXT OF RADIO COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN FAA AND TWO COMMERCIAL AIRCRAFT IN THE VICINTY OF LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK, ON NOVEMBER 17, 1995, at 2220 hrs. (EST).

LUFT: Uh, Boston, Lufthansa 405/Heavy.

FAA: Lufthansa 405, go ahead.

LUFT: Uh, we just passed traffic on the left wing, uh, about 2,000 to 3,000 feet above us. What traffic was it?

FAA Is this Lufthansa 405?

LUFT: Affirmative, Lufthansa 405. We had opposite traffic on the left wing. Can you confirm this?

FAA: Lufthansa 405, negative. I show no traffic in your area within, uh, 20 or 30 miles.

LUFT: It should be now on our tail, about 10 miles... We passed it just one minute ago, and it was looking strange.

BRIT: Speed Bird 226 confirms that. It was just above us on our left-hand side about 3 minutes ago.

FAA What altitude does it appear to be at, Lufthansa 405?

LUFT: It was only 2 or 3 thousand feet above us. We are now passing (Flight) Level 260. That's confirmed, or not? Lufthansa.

FAA: Lufthansa 405, roger.

BRIT: Speed Bird 226, we confirm that. We had something go past us about two, well...about one to two thousand feet above on the left hand side. Uh, looked like a green trail on it, and a very bright light on the front of it. We assumed it was an opposite traffic.

FAA: Speed Bird 226, roger that.

LUFT: ((Garbled))..Lufthansa 405/Heavy. we are right now about 26 miles east of "Hotel Tango Oscar ((Hampton??))." And the Speed Bird is now ahead, or behind us ((or where))?

FAA: Lufthansa 405, the Speed Bird is in your 12:00 o'clock, and about 30 miles, 40 miles.

LUFT: That was not our traffic. Lufthansa 405 Heavy.

FAA: Lufthansa 405, roger. And the heading of the traffic, was it the same direction, or opposite direction?

LUFT: Exactly opposite. Lufthansa 405/Heavy.

FAA: Roger. Did it pass off your right side?

LUFT: Uh, left side.

FAA: Roger.

BRIT: Yea, Speed Bird 226 confirms that. We saw the same thing. It certainly looked like an aircraft initially, but it may not have been one.

LUFT: ((We can't tell then??)) It was looking very strange, with a long, uh, light, in the tail.

BRIT: Yea, a big bright white light on the front, and a greenish tail coming out the back.

LUFT: Can you confirm this, Lufthansa 405/Heavy.

FAA: OK, Lufthansa 405, Speed Bird 226. Thanks, we'll look into it.

??? ((Garbled transmissions))

FAA: Speed Bird 226, did it go over...did it go overhead. The traffic go overhead you, or was it below you?

BRIT: It was overhead and off to the left, much the same as ((garbled)). It actually looked about...opposite traffic, 2000 feet above. That's what it initially looked like. But then it did have a very strong trail to it...a vapor trail, which looked more like smoke. And the light on the front was very, very bright, and as it went past us, it seemed to ((just?)) disappear and ((went)) 5 miles behind us.

FAA: Speed Bird, 226, roger. Were you level at 29 at that time?

BRIT: Yea, affirmative.

FAA: Roger. Lufthansa 405, how far off to your side did that pass, the traffic pass?

LUFT: It was pretty close, and like Speed Bird said, it looked like ((four??)) or three thousand feet above on the left wing, just one mile and, uh, on opposite track... It doesn't have, ...it didn't have any uh, lights...((normal)) lights, beacon lights, or red or green lights. Only a white light in the front, and with a long green light. It looked like a U-F-O.

FAA: Lufthansa 405, roger that. Like I said, we had nothing flying in the area. You are just north of a military operating area, but the traffic shouldn't have varied out that far out,...out of the area.

LUFT: Must have been a military. Lufthansa 405/Heavy.

FAA: Roger. Giant Killer, ((garbled)) 59.

GK: Giant Killer.

FAA: Hey, you got anything flying out in the area?

GK: Negative, ((105 is??)) turned over. 0300.

FAA: Well, I just received a couple of UFO reports.

GK: Oh, is that right?

FAA? Yea, I had a couple of guys that reported lights, just moved all over their heads. I have no traffic whatsoever in the area. They said it passed within a mile of them, like at 2-3 thousand feet above them, opposite direction. ((Garbled)) green trail out the back.

GK: It could have been a meteor, or something.

FAA: ((Garbled--Yea, it could have been that.....it passed within a mile of them.))

GK: Who reported that?

FAA: Well, I got Speed Bird and Lufthansa.

GK: No, we don't have any aircraft out there.

FAA: OK.

On November 5th, 1975, one of the more persistently controversial UFO events in history took place in northeastern Arizona. A work team consisting of seven individuals reported encountering a reflective, luminous object the shape of a flattened disc hovering close to their truck on a remote dirt road in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest. According to the crew, one of their members, Travis Walton, exited the truck and approached the object on foot, at which time he was allegedly struck by a brilliant bluish light or flash and hurled to the ground some distance away. In fear, the other crew members fled the scene, returning after a short period of time to find no trace of the UFO, or of Walton.

The driver of the truck was Mike Rogers, the crew foreman and a personal friend of Walton's. While fleeing the scene, Rogers reported looking back and seeing a luminous object lift out of the forest and speed rapidly toward the horizon. He, along with the other five witnesses, would eventually be subjected to polygraph (lie detection) examinations regarding the event, the successful outcomes of which catapulted the case into the national spotlight.

Walton turned up five days later, confused and distraught but with fleeting memories of alien and exotic human entities. He was also subsequently subjected to a number of controversial polygraph examinations (Image caption: Travis Walton).

As the first seriously investigated UFO event to involve the disappearance of an individual in conjunction with a UFO sighting, the Walton incident put the honesty of UFO claimants, as well as the validity of lie detection evidence, squarely in the spotlight. A total of thirteen polygraph examinations have been conducted in association with the case, tests which have been the subject of considerable discussion and acrimonious debate.

The Circumstances

An assessment of the Walton case begins with the chronology of the initial encounter on November 5th. The seven witnesses described the UFO as a "large, glowing object hovering in the air below the treetops about 100 feet away" (Mike Rogers) which was "smooth and giving off a yellowish-orange light" (Dwayne Smith). Other descriptions by the various witnesses included "unbelievably smooth", "flattened disc" with "edges clearly defined". Rogers and Walton estimated an overall diameter of about twenty feet.

As Walton approached on foot across the clearing, the "UFO began to wobble or rock slightly", and then emitted a "bluish light [that] came from the machine", "a blue ray shot out of the bottom of that thing and hit him all over", "that ray was the brightest thing I've ever seen". This light sent Walton "backward through the air ten feet", "hurled through the air in a backwards motion, falling on the ground, on his back", "flying -- like he'd touched a live wire". "The horror was unreal."

Here are two narrative descriptions of the encounter from two of the crewmen, Mike Rogers and Allen Dalis, as told by polygraph examiner Cy Gilson in his summary of test results in 1993. First, Dalis' testimony:

"During the pretest interview, Mr. Dalis related the following events that occurred on that day. Mr. Dalis said they had finished work for the day and were heading home. It was almost dark. He saw a glow coming from among the trees ahead of them. As they came to a clearing, he saw the object he called a UFO. Mr. Rogers was slowing the truck down to stop as Travis Walton exited the truck and began to advance towards the UFO in a brisk walk... Mr. Dalis described the UFO as being a yellowish white in color. He said the light emitting from it was not bright but a glow that gave off light all around itself. Mr. Dalis saw Walton reach the UFO, stop and look up at it. He said it looked as if Walton was standing there, slightly bent over, with his hands in his pockets. Mr. Dalis said the UFO began to wobble or rock slightly and he began to become afraid. He put his head down towards his knees. As he did so, a bright light flashed that lit up the area, even the inside of the truck. He immediately looked towards the UFO. He saw a silhouette of Walton. Mr. Walton had his arms up in the air... Mr. Dalis turned towards Mr. Rogers who was in the driver's seat and yelled for him to 'get the hell out of here'..."

And as related by Mike Rogers:

"...Mr. Rogers was on the opposite side of the truck from the UFO. He had to bend over slightly to view it in its entirety through the truck windows. He described the UFO to be glowing a yellowish tan color. He could not say if the light emanated from within the UFO or was a lighting system outside, that lit up the UFO. He did say he could see the shadows of the trees on the ground, around the UFO. He said it was round and about 20 feet in diameter. He said the UFO was about 75 to 100 feet from the truck... As Mr. Rogers started to move the truck a brilliant flash of light lit up the entire area, even inside the truck. It was described as a prolonged strobe flash. He did not see a beam of light emit from the UFO and hit Walton. As the flash occurred, Mr. Rogers turned around in his seat to look at the UFO again and saw Mr. Walton being hurled through the air in a backwards motion, falling on the ground, on his back. At this time, Mr. Dalis and someone else yelled to get the hell out of here..."

According to the story, upon returning to the scene, the crewmen searched briefly through the woods, calling Walton's name. They then proceeded down to the main road and, after some debate, decided to call the police and ask for assistance. They were first met by a Deputy Ellison and subsequently by Sheriff Marlin Gillespie, who would later describe the crewmen as apparently sincerely distressed. The officers and crewmen went back up the hill and searched again with flashlights, eventually calling off the search and making plans for a more thorough manhunt beginning early the next morning.

The next several days were marked by unsuccessful searches for the missing Walton, including some use of helicopters and dogs. Temperatures dropped below zero the first two nights of the search, dimming hope that he was alive. Meanwhile, law enforcement officials were looking for alternate explanations of the event, including the possibility that Walton had been murdered.

In their initial reports, the six crewmen had indicated a willingness to undergo any kind of lie detection test to establish their truthfulness. After the second day of searching, law enforcement officials brought in Cy Gilson, a polygraph examiner from the Department of Public Safety (associated with the state police,) to test all six. Five of the witnesses passed this polygraph examination, while for the sixth, Allen Dalis, the test was ruled inconclusive (unable to assign a reading).

While the successful tests fueled media interest in the case, the inconclusive result for Dalis put some heat on him personally. While some of the crew members, such as Rogers and Walton, had been friends long before the forest service brush-clearing contract, others were only acquaintances, and in the case of Allen Dalis, he and Walton were said to have had some personal animosities.

However, some questions were answered -- and others raised -- when Walton suddenly returned, apparently confused and distressed, phoning his sister from an Exxon station near the small town of Heber just after midnight the night of November 10th.

In his book "Fire in the Sky", Walton would later describe his perceptions as he allegedly first regained consciousness: "I regained consciousness lying on my stomach, my head on my right forearm. Cold air brought me instantly awake. I looked up in time to see a light turn off on the bottom of a curved, gleaming hull... Then I saw the mirrored outline of a silvery disc hovering four feet above the paved surface of the road. It must have been about forty feet in diameter because it extended several feet off the left side of the road... For an instant it floated silently above the road, a dozen yards away. I could see the night sky, the surrounding trees, and the highway center line reflected in the curving mirror of its hull. I noticed a faint warmth radiating onto my face. Then, abruptly, it shot vertically into the sky, creating a strong breeze that stirred the nearby pine boughs and rustled the dry oak leaves that lay in the dry grass beside the road. It gave off no light, and it was almost instantly lost from sight. The most striking thing about its departure was its quietness..."

Besieged by media, Walton's brother Duane reportedly tried to discreetly provide Travis with medical and scientific attention. The Walton brothers would eventually permit the case to be handled by the UFO investigative organization APRO, led by Jim Lorenzon. This resulted in an exclusive relationship with the National Enquirer, which was seeking the "scoop" on the Walton abduction and helping to bankroll APRO's investigation. The Enquirer, advised by Dr. James Harder of the University of California at Berkeley, arranged for psychological examinations and a polygraph test for Travis. The Enquirer would eventually run a large feature, and APRO touted the case as one of the most important events in UFO history.

Betty and Barney Hill

Subject: Betty and Barney Hill

Location: Route 3, to Portsmouth, New Hampshire

Date: September 19-20, 1961

Type: Abduction

In September, 1961, the Hills were returning from a holiday in Canada, driving along a New Hampshire road. On Route 3, at approximately 11 pm, they saw what they described a "bright star" in the sky. They stopped the car and got out to have a closer look with binoculars. The light then reversed its direction and the couple got back into their car and drove on. The light then turned back and approached their car, so they stopped again to look at it.

Barney tried to dismiss it as a plane, but his wife was adamant the object was flat. The craft was "pancake shaped" with a line of windows along the edge, through which they saw figures running about. Barney walked over the road to get an even better look when two fins came out of either side of the craft which had red lights on the tips. He then got shocked and very agitated and ran back into the car and the two of them went back on their journey home. When they drove off, they noticed a beeping sound from behind them, but could not discern where it came from. Betty asked her husband, "Now do you believe in flying saucers?" He replied, "No."

When the Hills got back, they realized that they were about two hours late and didn't know why. After a few days, Betty had a series of disturbing dreams relating to a possible UFO abduction, so she and Barney agreed to go under hypnotic regression to try and find out just what happened during those two lost hours. In the months that followed, Betty had disturbing dreams, but Barney (who lost some sleep) had no nightmares.

It was 1964 before relief would come to the Hills. At some expense, the couple visited a Boston psychiatrist who was known for using hypnosis to fight memory blocks. Betty and Barney were repeatedly hypnotized separately, and both stories matched up with each other for the times when they were together during the UFO incident.

The story the Hills told under hypnosis is fairly common by today's standards. Each remembered being taken on board the craft, being medically examined, and having a conversation (possibly telepathically) with the aliens. They were also shown a star map, which Betty reproduced under hypnosis. Years later, an amateur astronomer took the drawing of the star map and searched through the near stars to see if she could get a match for the star configuration drawn by Betty. After another five years of searching, she found one, and therefore calculated that the aliens must have come from the Zeta Reticuli system.

Aside from being one of the first noted cases of alien abduction, the Hill's case is important because it paved the way for the use of hypnosis to recover blocked memories.

Avery Estates, Louisiana

10 October 1973

Fifteen people, including two policemen reported a big, silvery UFO over a housing project in St. Tammany parish, New Orleans, Louisiana.

Pascagoula, Mississippi

11 October 1973

A day later, and about ninety miles to the east, Calvin Parker and Charles Hickson were fishing from a pier at Shaupeter Shipyard on the Pascagoula River at Pascagoula, Mississippi. At about 7:00 p.m., they suddenly realized that something was behind them - a machine making a buzzing noise. It was an oval-shaped object with a blue light on it. As they watched, a hatchway opened and three strange entities floated out.

Hickson later said:

They didn't have clothes. But they had feet shape... it was more or less a round like thing on a leg, if you'd call it a leg.... Calvin done went hysterical on me.

The entities were described as ghostlike and pale with wrinkled skin, and conical projections where nose and ears would normally be.

Using crab-like pincers, two of the entities floated Hickson into the UFO. Parker had fainted, and was carried in by a third entity. Inside the craft, Hickson could not move, although he remained conscious. A sort of medical examination followed, involving a device that resembled a big "eye". After between twenty and forty minutes, he found himself back on the pier with Parker and the UFO was gone. They went to the sheriff's office and reported the event.

A police investigation failed to crack Parker and Hickson's story. They passed a lie detector test. They were interviewed in the days after the event by Ufologists Dr. James Harder of APRO and Dr. Allen Hynek, both of whom vouched for their sincerity. Hickson later revealed that he had turned down a huge sum of money for a book and movie based on the experience. The case received national TV exposure, and Hickson appeared on the Dick Cavett Show and both were on the Mike Douglas Show.

Subsequent investigation by Joe Esterhas of Rolling Stone uncovered some additional information. The UFO landing site was in full view of two twenty-four hour toll booths, and neither operator saw anything. Also, the site was in range of security cameras from nearby Ingalls Shipyard, and the cameras showed nothing that night.

Phil Klass reportedly found that the polygraph operator who gave Hickson his lie detector test was not certified and had not completed his training.

Mobile, Alabama

17 October 1973

Five days after the Pascagoula abduction, a man reported to police that he was driving on Interstate 10 between Mobile, Alabama and Pensacola, Florida, just about sixty or seventy miles east of Pascagoula, when his pickup truck was attacked by an object from the sky and sucked inside a UFO where he was examined by six small entities. funny how these things moved steadily eastward.

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I used to live in Pascagoula. The Pascagoula River, on the banks of which Parker and Hickson had their experience, is also called the Singing River. Why? Because they say at dusk, down on the riverbanks, you can hear singing coming from the river. It's supposed to be the spirits of the Pascagoula Indians, who drowned themselves in the river around three hundred or so years ago. They worshipped a river goddess who became quite upset when a Catholic priest came though and converted the tribe to christianity in the 16th century. She was so upset, in fact, that she made the whole tribe march into the river and drown themselves, singing all the while. At least, that's what the journals of the 17th century explorers of the region say that the Indians in the area told them...

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Anyhow, just a few weeks after Parker and Hickson's experience, fishermen and coast guardsmen reportedly played "hide and seek" with some sort of underwater metallic object with an amber light on it at the mouth of the Pascagoula River. They tried to poke the object with a boat hook, but it would turn off its light, move away to a safe distance, and then turn on the light again. It disappeared after about forty minutes.