There are all sorts of UFO stories––lights in the sky, daylight discs, landed craft, alien abductions, and crashed UFOs. All these are worthy of rigorous study. However, the focus of this book is on the nuts and bolts of the matter, the evidence for crashed UFOs. I choose this because it directly addresses the essential public relations problem of ufology: without clear physical evidence in the form of crashed extraterrestrial hardware or alien bodies, there is little progress in fully exposing the Cosmic Watergate.
At the heart of this book is the notion that Unidentified Flying Objects––UFOs––have crashed to earth for a variety of reasons and that selected military and world governments have taken a keen interest in capturing, retrieving, and exploiting these “celestial gifts,” as General George C. Marshall called them in a 1942 memo. Why such advanced extraterrestrial craft would travel so far––presumably across our galaxy––only to foul up so badly as to crash on planet earth is a reasonable question. There is no definitive answer to this question, only speculation as to why UFOs sometimes crash. Yet this book provides data that there have been at least seventy-five UFO crashes, and it is data that cannot be ignored or dismissed. Certainly, the cases in this book vary in quality and detail. Some are astonishing, and serious readers can proceed from these summaries to detailed accounts in the sources cited. These cases are much more substantial than popular opinion leads us to believe. Other cases have uncertain merit, where witnesses, documents, overall quality, length, sophistication, and believability may be lost to time or simply mistaken. Some, however, give tantalizing hints––part of the larger pattern that this book unveils––where research may discover further proof that extraterrestrials and their vehicles have been crashing to earth.
So why might UFOs crash to earth? The simplest thought is that highly advanced civilizations are not perfect, and accidents occur during perilous flights––just as human spaceflight suffers accidents and crashes. Generally accepted theories in UFO literature include that large lighting strikes are a form of powerful raw energy that could overwhelm the sensitive instrumentation and navigation technology of the extraterrestrial (ET) craft. The primary case of this type is the famous Roswell crash (in fact, multiple crashes) in the middle of one of New Mexico’s ferocious desert lightning storms. Or perhaps our early development and deployment of high-power radar, particularly in New Mexico (where we developed guided missiles and atomic bombs), could have interfered with normal craft operations. Nor can we rule out man’s deliberate attempts to shoot them down using proximity-fuse antiaircraft shells that were innovated to devastating effect in World War II, and later guided surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), even conceivably with tactical nuclear warheads.[i] Beyond this, the idea of deliberate “seeding” of super-advanced technology on emerging “kindergarten” planet earth cannot be ruled out. Nor the uber-logic of cybernetic alien biological entities willing to explore the cosmos irrespective of their life, costs, or consequences.
In fact, the anti-aircraft shell scenario seems to have been at work during the event referred to as the “Los Angeles Air Raid.” At about 2:25 a.m. on February 25, 1942, air raid sirens awoke thousands throughout Los Angeles, who for nearly an hour observed the 37th Coast Artillery Brigade fire antiaircraft guns at a large unknown aerial object suspended in the beams of searchlights. This event was so spectacular that it appeared on the front page of the Los Angeles Times.[ii]
In the aftermath, we now have a leaked photocopy of a document mailed to researchers postmarked Sacramento, California, with a return address of the Police Officers Association. The contents are dated March 5, 1942, in which General George C. Marshall, then chief of staff of the armed forces, writes a Top-Secret Memorandum to President Roosevelt stating:
As indicated in my February 26 memorandum to you regarding the air raid over Los Angeles, it has been learned by Army G-2 that Rear Admiral Anderson, Director of Naval Intelligence, has informed the War Department of a naval salvage of one unidentified airplane off the coast of California [that], unlike the raid, has no bearing on conventional explanation. Further investigation has revealed that the Army Air Corps also recovered a similar object in the San Bernardino Mountains east of Los Angeles, which cannot be identified as conventional aircraft. This Headquarters has come to a determination that the mystery airplanes are in fact not earthly and according to secret intelligence sources they are in all probability of interplanetary origin. Therefore, I have issued orders to Army G2 that a special intelligence unit be created to further investigate the phenomenon and report any significant connection between recent incidents and those collected by the director of the Office of Coordinator of Information.[iii]
I have further ordered a thorough investigation of all War Department files regarding unconventional aerial phenomenon reported since 1897 and what exists in public domain on the subject. At present, GHQ has no further information, which would invalidate this conclusion.[iv] Pending any further notification, investigation into this matter shall be limited to those who have been authorized by you.
The memo states not only that multiple craft were recovered five years before the now-famous Roswell incident but cites “unconventional aerial phenomenon reported since 1897.” This date is unexpected. It was not until 1972, thirty years after the Marshall memo, that research by distinguished journalist and author Jim Marrs began to lay out the true dimensions of the crash reported in the small community of Aurora, Texas on April 17, 1897. That is the first case presented in this book.
Marshall’s memo in question is shown on the next page. From a questioned document perspective, other hallmarks of authenticity should also be mentioned––the unique Office of Chief of Staff (OCS) file numbers in the upper-left corner, including numerical reference to another document known to be authentic and released through official channels about the Los Angeles Air Raid––just two weeks before this OCS file numbering system changed to the War Department numbering system. The line spacing, typeface, carbon-paper smear and formatting are all consistent with Marshall’s correspondence of the era.
March 1942 Top Secret memorandum from General Marshall to President Roosevelt concerning the Los Angeles “air raid” and later UFO recoveries, leading to formation of a top secret UFO intelligence unit.
This is an inflection point in history and begins the process of creating one of the most secret enterprises the world has ever seen––including the Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit (IPU).
It is important to note that the IPU is not speculation. On September 25, 1980, the Army’s director of counterintelligence replied to veteran UFO researcher Richard Hall’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. In a moment of candor, the reply stated “the Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit of the Scientific and Technical Branch, Counterintelligence Directorate, DA [Department of the Army] was disestablished during the late 1950’s… . All records pertaining to this unit were surrendered to the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations… .” Later in 1984––in the odd manner that rare UFO admissions can lead to retractions and stonewalling––a new director of counterintelligence replied to another researcher that the IPU “was never a “unit” in the formal military sense … and may not even have had any formal records at all.” Then again, on April 9, 1990, in reply to yet another researcher’s FOIA request (regarding the ‘no-records’ from this ‘non-unit’), the Army Intelligence and Security Command at Fort George G. Meade, MD, revived the first story: regarding “the Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit, Scientific and Technical Branch, Counterintelligence Directorate, Department of the Army …records pertaining to the unit were surrendered to the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations in conjunction with Operation ‘Bluebook’.”[v]
We can say this: General Marshall’s call for a new intelligence unit to investigate craft of probable interplanetary origin was followed by the creation of just such a unit. The issue of whether IPU was a unit in the military sense can be further assessed from two leaked documents from 1947. First, in Top Secret Field Order # 0862 transmitted on July 4, 1947 from IPU headquarters, the Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence ordered a team (specified as an Officer-in-Charge, Noncommissioned-Officer-in-Charge, Aeronautical engineer, Scientist, Security and Medical Doctor) to depart Andrews Army Airfield (AAF) outside Washington, DC to Condron AAF near White Sands, NM.[vi] The IPU team was ordered to report directly to the War Department G-2, head of intelligence; coordinate with the head of 4th Army Counter Intelligence Corps; “make any inquiry … cleared for ‘need to know.’”; then return to Washington from Alamogordo, NM, and make a final report by July 28. Such a report appeared on July 22, 1947, marked “Top Secret Ultra” under the authority of Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Gen. Stephen J. Chamberlin. The report (full document in the Appendix), is titled “INTERPLANETARY PHENOMENON UNIT SUMMARY: INTELLIGENCE ASSESSMENT.” In 1960, according to markings on the report, it was re-affirmed as top secret by Lt. Gen. John A. Samford, Director of the National Security Agency (NSA) and Allen Dulles, Director of CIA, and was kept in the files of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Some of the security markings are blacked out, but on the cover in large letters is stamped “MAJIC.” The report cites a stellar list of officials and scientists of the day, including Secretary of Defense James Forrestal, Army Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Carl Spaatz, Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, Gen. Hoyt Vandenberg, Lt. Gen. Nathan Twining, Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, Dr. Detlev Bronk––as well as Wernher Von Braun, one of the German scientists smuggled by American intelligence into the United States after World War II under “Project Paperclip” to co-opt Nazi science and keep it from the Soviets.[vii] It is worth noting here that in 1998, UFO researcher Tim Cooper received a reply to his FOIA request for Paperclip information from the CIA. Included was a 12 Apr 1949 Paperclip-related document from Adm. Hillenkoetter, then Director of Central Intelligence, to the Director of the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency––with file distribution annotated in the lower corner: “CIA Top Secret MJ-12.” (MJ, MJ-12, MAJIC, MAJESTIC, MAJCOM, MAJSEC, MAJESTIC-12/33 and MAJIC EYES ONLY are among the references and markings in leaked UFO documents.) What we do know is that the IPU existed.
In turn, the leaked IPU intelligence assessment, later stamped MAJIC, unveils startling contents.[viii] Near midnight on July 3, 1947, radar units in Texas and White Sands “tracked two unidentified craft until they dropped off radar” on July 4. Radar officers from the Signal Corps Engineering Laboratories verified that Station “A,” which was preparing to track a V-2 rocket launch, had been “tracking these objects on-and-off since June 29”––along with at least six other radars, including ones at Alamogordo AAF and Kirtland AAF. Following radar tracks, the objects were found at two crash sites near the White Sands Proving Grounds: landing zone LZ-1 on a ranch near the town of Corona about 75 miles northwest of Roswell; and LZ-2 southeast of the town of Socorro, west of Oscura Peak and very near the Trinity test site of the first atomic bomb. While early reports speculated that debris came from a top-secret MOGUL balloon project, the report states, “When scientists from the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory arrived to inspect LZ-2, it became apparent to all concerned that what had crashed in the desert was something out of this world.” After a “special radiobiological team … and security detail” from the nearby Armed Forces Special Weapons Project instituted “stringent security measures,” investigators recovered wreckage and, reportedly, five alien bodies. A few recovery personnel suffered “nervous breakdowns,” and “ground personnel from Sandia experienced some form of contamination resulting in the deaths of 3 technicians” and another taken to the hospital. (A later document––Annex A of the 1952 first annual report, classified Top Secret Majic––states that all four technicians died from seizures and profuse bleeding, despite wearing protective suits, after contacting the occupants’ body fluids. Tissue samples were later kept at Ft. Detrick, MD.) Unauthorized civilian witnesses “were detained under the McNabb law … and warned of the consequences of talking to the press.”[ix] The report concluded:
“Our assessment of this investigation rests on two assumptions: 1) Either this discovery was an elaborate and well-orchestrated hoax (maybe by the Russians), or; 2) Our country has played host to beings from another planet.”
The risks and challenges of such a recovery would certainly call for dedicated staff and careful procedures. The risk of contamination alone, as cited above, is terrifying. Reason dictates that formal methods for such recoveries would be developed and documented. This is the backdrop for the roll of undeveloped Tri-X film that appeared in aviation writer and UFO researcher Don Berliner’s mailbox on March 4, 1994. Perhaps Berliner was selected to receive this film because the year before, at the 1993 Mutual UFO Network International Symposium in Richmond Virginia, he spoke on “A Hypothetical Plan for Crash / Retrieval” and invited feedback from anyone who might have direct knowledge.[x] The film was mailed from a small grocery and pharmacy chain in La Crosse, WI, owned by the Quillin brothers. When the film was developed it revealed a document of great relevance to UFO crashes and military retrievals. “Majestic 12 Group Special Operations Manual––EXTRATERRESTRIAL ENTITIES AND TECHNOLOGY, RECOVERY AND DISPOSAL.” (The manual’s cover is shown on the next page with the complete text in the appendix.)
Cover of the Top Secret / Majic Eyes Only manual for UFO recovery.
Placing this manual in an historical context, creation of the Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit (IPU) by President Roosevelt and Gen. Marshall was followed by further research interest at the end of World War II. This is indicated in a leaked memo from February 1944 (marked “DOUBLE TOP SECRET”––a highly unusual but known usage for topics well beyond normal security) by President Roosevelt to the “THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON NON-TERRESTRIAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY.” Addressing matters raised by Dr. Vannevar Bush, America’s chief defense scientist, and Professor Albert Einstein, the President writes:
It is my personal judgment that, when the war is won, and peace is once again restored, there will come a time when surplus funds may be available to pursue a program devoted to understanding non-terrestrial science and its technology which is still greatly undiscovered. … I appreciate the effort and time spent in producing valuable insights into the proposal to find ways of advancing our technology and national progress and in coming to grips with the reality that our planet is not the only one harboring intelligent life in the universe.[xi]
That this came to fruition is consistent with a further leaked document titled “BRIEFING DOCUMENT: OPERATION MAJESTIC 12––PREPARED FOR PRESIDENT-ELECT DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER: (EYES ONLY), 18 NOVEMBER 1952” telling about President Truman’s establishment of a top secret research and intelligence operation, prompted by the dramatic events of 1947. Subsequent Majestic-related activities are described in the “SOM1-01 MAJESTIC-12 GROUP SPECIAL OPERATIONS MANUAL.”
The SOM1-01 manual introduces personnel of “Majestic-12 units” to the history and purpose of the operation; describes “UFOBS”[xii] (UFOBS equals UFObjects) and extraterrestrial entities; then directs detailed security, recovery, and shipping procedures for recovered material as well as living and non-living organisms from downed craft. The document emphasizes: “MJ-12 takes the subject of UFOBS, Extraterrestrial Technology, and Extraterrestrial Biological Entities very seriously and considers the entire subject to be a matter of the highest national security.” It is restricted to persons cleared for “TOP SECRET / MAJIC EYES ONLY”––described in the manual as “a security level two points above that of Top Secret”:[xiii]
The reason for this has to do with the consequences that may arise not only from the impact upon the public should the existence of such matters become general knowledge, but also the danger of having such advanced technology as has been recovered by the Air Force fall into the hands of unfriendly foreign powers.
Accordingly, the manual provides strict instructions concerning the “need for absolute secrecy in all phases of operation” including a “Press Blackout”:
Great care must be taken to preserve the security of any location where Extraterrestrial Technology might be retrievable for scientific study. Extreme measures must be taken to protect and preserve any material or craft from discovery, examination, or removal by civilian agencies or individuals of the general public. … It should be remembered when selecting a cover story that official policy regarding UFOBS is that they do not exist. … The most desirable response would be that nothing unusual has occurred. … Witnesses will be discouraged from talking about what they have seen, and intimidation may be necessary to ensure their cooperation. If witnesses have already contacted the press, it will be necessary to discredit their stories. This can best be done by the assertion that they have either misinterpreted natural events, are the victims of hysteria or hallucinations, or are the perpetrators of hoaxes.
Authenticating such material is challenging, but it is like forensic investigation of questioned legal documents. Exhaustive research by Dr. Robert Wood[xiv] has demonstrated both that the manual is formatted exactly like manuals of the same period archived at the Army War College and that it displays unique characteristics of hot-lead presses used in the 1950s, unlike computer programs that might fake such a document today. The 32-page document, dated April 1954, has been shown to be consistent with the 1953 style manual that guided printing in all government agencies, including classified printing at the CIA. Even the change control pages were on the film showing ongoing updates from “MJ” sources in a fashion typical of government procedure. And text stamped onto one inside page associates the document with a unit KB-88, Building 21, Kirtland AFB, NM (building 21 did exist at the time). The document’s appendix cites other military manuals perfectly down to the last letter and comma, some of which changed just months later. The manual’s reference to a “UFOB Guide” section on pages 22-25 corresponds to a document released in 1985 under FOIA to Mr. Brian Parks from the Air Force Historical Research Center at Maxwell AFB. In reply to requests for UFO records of the 4602 Air Intelligence Service Squadron, there emerged a “UFOB Guide” dated 15 March 1955––with text identical to the guide included in the SOM1-01 Special Operations Manual. Other word usage subtleties are also compelling such as “screw driver” being two words and “Kraft tape” being called for instead of the modern “duct tape”. The list of authenticity points is very long;[xv] and anachronisms such as “use the cover story of a downed satellite” three years before a satellite went to space turn into points of authentication, since major print and TV outlets widely covered artificial satellites starting in 1952.
At least three witnesses have come forward to state that they have seen the manual. U.S. Navy Yeoman 2nd Class Dale Bailey, who served in a Crystal City, VA building that housed Navy offices outside Washington, DC, reports that in 1976 he was assigned to shred documents from the vault of Admiral Frederick H. Michaelis, who was Chief of Naval Materiel from 1975 to 1978. Bailey stated that the admiral was a friend of Admiral Bobby Inman (who, between 1974 and 1982, served as director of naval intelligence, vice-director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, director of the National Security Agency and deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency). Bailey recalled that Admiral Michaelis’ duties also included intelligence-related matters and periodic service at Raven Rock, sometimes called the “underground Pentagon,” located six miles north of the presidential retreat at Camp David and near Fort Ritchie.[xvi] Bailey states that in order to create more room in the inner vault of the admiral’s office, old files were destroyed. As he helped to shred documents, he saw a copy of the top-secret UFO briefing document for President Eisenhower, as well as a version of the top secret SOM1-01 Special Operations Manual (whose instructions on materiel handling would be consistent with the mission of Navy materiel). Recent investigation also shows that Admiral Michaelis himself had once commanded the Naval Air Special Weapons Facility at Kirtland AFB from 1951-1954. The jargon “special weapons” refers to atomic energy––a subject closely associated with UFOs, since sightings and crashes have occurred near nuclear installations. Recovered UFOs have reportedly been secured and analyzed at nuclear laboratories and UFO propulsion may derive from atomic reactors. Those with access to “special weapons” programs are already cleared and presumably trustworthy to protect other great secrets. In addition to operational duties (including command of the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise), Michaelis’ senior staff assignments included the Strategic Plans Division of the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO); Director of Development Programs, Office of the CNO; Assistant Chief of Naval Operations (Air); and Commander, Naval Air Force, Atlantic Fleet. He was certainly in a position to have dealt with aircraft encountering UFOs, handling of recovered UFO materiel, related issues of atomic power, and implications for Naval strategy.
Skeptics to the authenticity of SOM1-01, such as Richard Hall, a former congressional aide, typically say, “I’ve looked at countless numbers of official documents and it looks fake to me.” In general, what our team has observed is that people who have had security clearances or been in positions of authority and were not aware of extraterrestrial matters just can’t believe they were out of the loop. It’s ego. Furthermore, we have not found any skeptics to interview who had top secret codeword access in the 1950’s. Archives don’t have any remotely relevant top secret codeword documents declassified. Potentially more significant is the fact that we rarely get specific, logical, scientific arguments identifying anachronisms that question the authenticity of SOM1-01.
Potentially, the most compelling evidence concerning provenance of the SOM1-01 Special Operations Manual are findings from direct investigation on behalf of this book’s author. An investigator conducted direct interviews in LaCrosse, WI, with people involved with the Quillin Pharmacy, leading eventually to meeting an individual who had the SOM1-01 manual. The investigator stated, “I held the original in my hands, was able to thumb through it, the paper and ACCO binder looked old and when I asked to have an original page for forensic analysis the document owner refused to provide it.”What begs to be accomplished, of course, is testing the paper and ink. Yet with limited resources accorded to the “politically incorrect” UFO topic, as well as fear among witnesses of penalties or ridicule, this is work that remains to be done. For the sake of history, one can only hope that the original document does not vanish, as have photographs and other UFO evidence handed over to authorities or ransacked from private files. The FBI is urged to investigate this leak of classified documents.
Another important witness to the topic of UFO crashes is the late June Kaba. Born as June Crain, she provided extensive, consistent, and verifiable information about her work at Wright Field, Ohio between 1942 and 1952. Known as a respected philanthropist in her community in Washington State before her death in 1998, she came forward in June 1977––upset by press releases from the Air Force denying recovery in early July 1947 of crashed alien craft and non-human bodies near Roswell, NM. Speaking with police detective and UFO investigator James Clarkson, June provided extensive documentation of her work at the Wright Air Development Center. She gave detailed testimony about frequent sightings of UFOs over the White Sands missile test range; accounts of at least three UFO crashes; as well as her discussion with an Air Force master sergeant who had arrived in a military transport from New Mexico, delivering “two little men … non-humans … described as greenish blue … and put them in the ice box.” Later in about 1951 or 1952, an officer in her classified research unit showed her a piece of metal about “half the size of a business card” that he told her was “a piece of a space ship.” She stated that it was “light as a feather,” returned to its original form when bent and couldn’t be cut or marred with her scissors no matter how hard she tried. This is exactly like material described by first-hand witnesses to the so-called Roswell incident. Her testimony with many other details, just months before her death, included recollection of discussions among engineers in her branch about the exceptional acceleration and G-forces demonstrated by UFOs, which were far beyond any human technology or human ability to withstand.
Any thoughtful person at this point must consider whether documents, multiple witnesses and detailed descriptions of UFO crashes and retrievals are simply woven from lies and delusions. What about hoaxes? After all, some hoaxes grow inevitably from human foibles: ego, greed, and delusion. Another motive might be to “muddy the waters” by officials discrediting the UFO subject, as advised in the SOM1-01 manual. Dr. Robert Wood notes that some hoaxers create a false claim. For example, plant the claim with a researcher; await the researcher’s public statements; then announce it was a hoax to discredit the researcher. Dr. Wood mentions a few probable hoaxes. One was a report alleging that in 1946 a UFO was seen in a hangar in Yuma, AZ; another alleging that in 1979 an alien body was found in the Pocono Mountains and placed in a freezer; and another in 1989 alleging recovery of an alien vessel in Carp, Canada. Accomplished author and international UFO researcher Nick Redfern has carefully examined reported UFO crashes and does find instances of apparent deception. He writes:
Detailed study of the history of the crashed UFO subject reveals several cases that can be considered hoaxes, or suspected hoaxes, at least. Interestingly, however, hoaxing purely for the sake of creating a bogus story is very rare. Indeed, there are good indications that many of the spurious cases have been created by the murky world of officialdom to confuse the true nature of the crashed UFO mystery. For example, with regard to the infamous UFO crash at Aztec, New Mexico in 1948 that many people believe to be a hoax, a fascinating piece of documentary evidence relative to the case has surfaced, thanks to the work of the investigative author Karl Pflock: namely, extracts from the alleged personal diary of Silas Newton (one of the key sources for the Aztec story) from the 1970s. In the diary, Newton revealed that, in the early 1950s, he was contacted by military officials that wished to speak with him about his crashed UFO story. Newton was told that the military knew that his UFO-crash-at-Aztec story was bogus. Incredibly, however, they wanted him to continue spreading the story far and wide and to whoever would listen. Newton asserted in his diary that while he might not have known too much about crashed UFOs, he had no doubt that his mysterious contacts certainly did know a great deal about the subject. However, according to witnesses that Linda Moulton Howe has interviewed, there was a 1948 Aztec crash.
This raises several important questions. Was Newton (as a convicted and known con man) asked to continue telling his largely discredited tale because it acted as a convenient smokescreen for the military to hide a real crashed UFO behind? Or is there another reason why the military would want to spread fake stories about the U.S. Government being in possession of a crashed UFO? Possibly. The U.S. Intelligence community is known to have made use of the UFO controversy as a tool of psychological warfare in the 1950s. It is conceivable that such stories were purposefully spread –at the height of the Cold War––to try and convince the Soviets that the U.S. had access to a technology the like of which the Soviets could only dream about.
A further example of “official hoaxing” can be found in the Spitsbergen saga of 1952, when it was alleged that a UFO crashed on the European island of Spitsbergen. Under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act, the National Security Agency has declassified a translation of a Russian Novosti Press Agency article on UFOs titled “Flying Saucers? They’re A Myth!” Contained within the article is a small section that reads thus: “An abandoned silvery disc was found in the deep rock-coal seams in Norwegian coal mines on Spitsbergen. It was pierced and marked by micro-meteor impacts and bore all traces of having performed a long space voyage. It was sent for analysis to the Pentagon and disappeared there.” Notably, prior to its declassification, the section of the article translation that referred to Spitsbergen was carefully circled with a pen by an unknown source at the NSA with the word “Plant.” Although many researchers have (with some justification) dismissed the Spitsbergen case because of the proven fact that several of those cited in then-contemporary newspaper articles on the case were outright products of fiction, the “Plant” reference suggests that the case may have really been a hoax perpetrated by U.S. Intelligence––designed to cloud and confuse even further the foggy world of UFO crash-retrieval accounts.
Similarly, following the collapse of Nazi Germany, several of Hungary’s national treasures, including the Crown of St. Stephen, were handed over to the United States military for safekeeping. They were duly delivered (in the early 1950s) to Fort Knox in an elaborate operation codenamed Klondike. The treasure was eventually returned to Hungary in 1978. This would be just another story of political and historical intrigue were it not for the fact that, according to a memorandum in the files of the State Department, the soldiers designated to guard the treasure were told that the boxes contained “the wings and engine of a flying saucer.” As researcher and author William Moore notes: “Unsubstantiated stories about parts of a flying saucer being stored at Fort Knox continue to be part of the UFO crash/retrieval rumor mill to this very day. How many other similar rumors have a similar origin is anybody’s guess.”
Perhaps the most infamous case was the story of an alleged UFO crash in the Kalahari Desert, South Africa, in May 1989. The details were first revealed publicly in September 1989 at the annual conference of the now-defunct British UFO Magazine. According to the story, a UFO was shot down by South African forces, alien bodies were recovered, and the material evidence was transferred to the United States for study. British researcher Tony Dodd was provided with documents that purported to originate with the South African Air Force, that looked official, and that seemed to corroborate the story. However, they were riddled with errors and the case quickly collapsed as nothing more than a simple hoax. The cases cited above, however, are important in the sense that they demonstrate when it comes to crashed UFOs and hoaxes, the hand of officialdom can often be found at work. And of course, if there were nothing to hide, there would be no need for the Intelligence world to spread such tales in the first place.[xvii]
The cases presented in this book span the spectrum of quality, credibility, sources and evidence––that is the harsh reality at present. It would be ideal if they were all highly credible, with unimpeachable sources and physical evidence, but they are not. However, with more money, resources and sophistication, virtually all of these cases could be advanced and moved much closer to a firm authenticity conclusion. Many of the cases have reached this point, with multiple investigators working over the years with highly consistent evidence, despite the personal expense of time and money. Some crash incidents have collectively absorbed hundreds of thousands of dollars in research.
Some cases are authentic almost by definition; they came from essentially unimpeachable sources like the National Archives or from military records. There are several such cases in this book. But if we infer more than what is literally documented, then the case must be treated more cautiously.
Given the varying quality of each case, it is important to provide an objective methodology to rate the authenticity of the crash retrieval event for the reader. New UFO crash incidents start at a neutral position until evidence is gathered. Authenticity is a manifold function; it is not as simple as true or false, hoaxed, or real. Furthermore, each of the key vectors of authenticity has different weighting factors: for example, an eyewitness to a crash event is less probative than, say, a tissue sample of an extraterrestrial. Hence, authenticity of a crash retrieval incident involves examining the answers to many questions.
Where did the case come from? How many direct first-hand witnesses are there? What is their relative consistency, credibility and relevancy to the case? What are the results of investigations into any physical evidence, such as soil variations, wreckage, original government documents? If there are original documents, what are the results of the forensic tests of paper, ink, watermark, typewriter and handwriting? Are there official, publicly released documents that are relevant to the case, such as FBI files, Presidential or National Archives material? If there are clandestinely leaked documents that support the case, what unique and obscure content markers do they contain that are accurate for this type of document? Have independent forensic experts examined the evidence? How difficult is the incident to hoax or fake? Who might fake the incident or document, and why?
All of these factors, as well as other related sub-questions, weave their way into a score for each key category and ultimately generate an authenticity rating for the UFO crash incident.
To deal with such a wide variety of aspects, we need a structured process to rate each case fairly and effectively for authenticity. We have developed a weighting factor for each authenticity category under consideration, as shown in the table below. Within each category there is five-point scale which, when multiplied by the weighting factor, results in a maximum total score of 125 points. A discussion of criteria in each class follows.
The use of weighting multipliers helps the analysis be objective for each UFO crash incident.
| Authenticity Class | Weighting Multiplier |
| Witnesses (1st hand, professions, state of mind, number, relationships) | 3.0 |
| Sources (provenance of case, number of sources, internal consistency, source credibility) | 5.0 |
| Zingers (obscure facts or actions, rare verifiable subtlety, accurate oddness) | 4.0 |
| Content (The key data of the story and its verifiability) | 2.0 |
| Chronology (Is the timeline of the events and data consistent, believable and accurate? | 2.0 |
| No Anachronisms (specific issues or aspects of the case that are substantially at odds with case itself or with other known facts of history) | 4.0 |
| Forensics (physical trace testing, paper and ink testing of documents, forensic linguistics) | 5.0 |
Eyewitness: First-hand witness(es) that were directly involved with the crash incident, i.e., they saw it either on site, in transport, or in storage. Was the witness a trained observer? Witnesses are fallible, their memories change with time and can be influenced. Second-hand witnesses count also, i.e., those that hear the story directly from a first-hand witness. Eyewitnesses are given a weighting factor of 3.0.
Sources: How did the case or document surface? Was it officially found in the National Archives or equivalent? Is it logical or normal for the source to have been involved? Are there multiple independent sources corroborating the same event? Sources are given a weighting factor of 5.0.
Zingers: These are aspects of any of the key authenticity metrics that go far beyond the norm. In essence, a zinger is a verified rare subtlety of the case or document that is exceptionally obscure, weird, or odd––an anomaly. A document example would include typographical anomalies associated with the printing process of the era. A witness example might be a civilian describing and sketching a military insignia patch seen at a crash site that is later verified as accurate and appropriate to the period and circumstances. Zingers are given a weighting factor of 5.0.
Content: Refers to all the informational data of a case, including locations, details of the event, official and leaked documents. Are the dates, descriptions, document references, and individuals mentioned appropriate and consistent? What does the case or document say in relation to what was known then and now? Are there obscure facts that were classified then that were declassified or became public after the case was exposed? Content is given a weighting factor of 2.0.
Chronology: Is there a detailed, verifiable timeline consistent with the reported facts of the crash retrieval event? Is the placement of document content with respect to organizational history accurate? Are the people reportedly involved in the event supposed to be there? In the case of well-known people, do their documented meeting and travel schedules coincide with involvement in the event? Is the document or incident procedure consistent with other documents or military procedure of the era? Chronology is given a weighting factor of 2.0.
Forensics: This can include several types of testing, for example soil testing, materials testing, testing of original paper, verifying watermarks, and testing of inks against known authentic standards. If relevant, typography aspects such as typewriter style, typesetting, laser printing, photocopying, mimeograph––any technique that creates writing on paper––may be germane. Are there new forensic technologies that can validate the case? The use of forensic linguistics falls in this category, i.e., the examination by language experts of sentence structure, spelling, punctuation and writing style, employing sophisticated computer tools as well as hand analysis, to pinpoint style markers that uniquely define authorship. Forensic tests are typically expensive and done by independent professionals. Forensics are given a weighting factor of 5.0.
Anachronisms: These are problems with the case or document–stories that don’t remotely match, evidence that is out of place in time or space; in documents, formats that are wrong, similar handwriting or content possibly copied from other documents. These issues can be significant or minor depending on what is known about the frequency of such an anachronism. For example, addressing a military general by his first name in a document may seem like a major mistake in the modern era, but 50 years ago in the company of other generals, this anachronism could in fact be a hallmark of authenticity. The goal is to have no anachronisms. The weighting factor for anachronisms is 5.0.
Combining the weighted scores associated with these seven categories, then normalizing the result to a percentage, yields five possible levels of authenticity for each case, as follows.
High Level of Authenticity – 80-100%
This means that virtually all of the available investigative channels and ideas have been pursued, and with each test the case or document has shown to be authentic or nearly problem free. At this level, multiple witnesses are present that have seen the crash or aftermath or read a document about it in an “official” capacity and have signed or will sign an affidavit to that effect. Physical evidence is available; for example, rocks to test, scarred trees, photographs, or direct ET materials. Forensic tests of paper, ink, obscure content, handwriting, period typography and fonts, correct formatting, forensic linguistics (along with no sign of anachronisms), all indicate the highest level of authenticity. At least several researchers are in substantial agreement about the core evidence of the case, often for many years.
Medium-High Level of Authenticity – 60-80%
The medium-high level means that a considerable amount of investigation has been completed. Witnesses are present, stories appear genuine, a few anachronisms may be present but have reasonable explanations. Forensic testing, if possible, has been partially completed, and there are strong signs of case validity. If a document case, there exists persuasive content, correct typography and zingers.
Medium Level of Authenticity – 40-60%
The medium level is the starting point for most UFO crash retrieval cases or leaked documents. In essence, these cases are under-researched. They need research and answers to the many questions posed by the weighting factors to move higher or lower. This level shows both signs of positive authenticity and worrisome questions as detailed in the seven attributes of authenticity cited above.
Medium-Low Level of Authenticity – 20-40%
The medium-low level means the case or document has been studied by many individuals or organizations and there are stubborn anachronisms that cannot easily be resolved. Forensic tests are not available, or the results are damaging to the case. There are aspects of the case (or pages or paragraphs of the document) that show signs of authenticity, but on balance there are more damning points than good.
Low Level of Authenticity – 0-20%
A low level means that significant irresolvable anachronisms have been identified that cast doubt on the entire case or document. Virtually all investigative avenues have been pursued and show little or no sign of internal consistency. Witness stories don’t match and differ from direct evidence. A credible motive for faking the document or hoaxing an event may be identified, along with likely perpetrators.
The reader will notice the authenticity graphic near the title of each case.
It is important to weed out false cases, and this places a special burden on the honest UFO researcher whose search continues. Nowhere is this better demonstrated than in the pioneering work of Leonard Stringfield, arguably the world’s premier collector and disseminator of data about UFO crash-retrievals. Born on December 17, 1920, he was nicknamed “Webster” in high school, due to the astonishing fact that he memorized the entire dictionary. After graduating from college in 1939, Stringfield joined the 5th Air Force directly out of Wright Field, OH, and subsequently served in Australia, the Philippines and Japan, first as a journalist and then later in the fields of intelligence and counterintelligence. Following the Second World War, he worked for 31 years at the DuBois Chemical Company, where he retired in 1981 as their Director of Public Relations. But it was on August 27, 1945, that Stringfield was thrust into the mysterious world of the UFO, when––at Iwo Jima in the Pacific Theater––he encountered three “Foo Fighters” (as pilots were calling UFO sightings) flying perilously close to his aircraft. As Stringfield himself noted: “The orderly world I thought I knew was no more.”
Between 1953 and 1957, Stringfield developed his UFO studies and served as Director of CRIFO––the Civilian Research Interplanetary Flying Objects group. Beginning in 1954, Stringfield worked cooperatively with the Air Defense Command of the U.S. Air Force (USAF). Until 1957, he regularly screened and reported to the USAF details of UFO activity in the tri-state area of southwestern Ohio, northern Kentucky, and southeastern Indiana. As Stringfield himself recalled:
At that time, many UFO sighting reports came to my home from police departments, sheriff’s offices, state police, the media, and citizenry. I was assigned a code number––Fox Trot Kilo 3 Zero Blue––which would identify me at the telephone exchange to report, by phone, to the Air Defense Command Air Filter Center at Lockbourne AFB, in Columbus, Ohio. If my screened UFO report was confirmed by radar, or other means, Air Force interceptors were scrambled. At this point, I was told that the resultant actions were classified. The Air Force paid my phone bills.
Stringfield’s first book, Inside Saucer Post 3-0 Blue, was published in 1957. He served from 1957 until 1970 as Public Relations Advisor for the Washington, D.C.-based NICAP, the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena. He also served on the Board of Directors of MUFON, the Mutual UFO Network; as an Associate Investigator for CUFOS, the Center for UFO Studies; and as President of the Cincinnati UFO Society. In a landmark development, in 1977 he served as advisor to Prime Minister, Sir Eric Gairy of Grenada, who proposed to the United Nations a plan to establish an agency specifically designed to undertake UFO research. Also, in 1977 Doubleday Books published Stringfield’s second book, Situation Red: The UFO Siege, that chronicled his investigations from the 1950s to the 1970s and included references to the crashed UFO controversy.
Interest stirred by Stringfield’s book Situation Red spurred him to dig deeper into reports of UFO crashes, and ultimately led him to focus exclusively on this aspect of the UFO phenomenon. Between 1978 and 1994, Stringfield self-published seven well-received Status Reports on crashed UFO incidents that revealed a wealth of data from numerous named and confidential sources. Collectively there were hundreds of pages of previously unseen and vitally important data. As Stringfield noted in his final Status Report published in February 1994: “If this should be my last monograph on UFO crash / retrievals, I feel a warmth of satisfaction that my contributions have made a dent into the credibility that UFO’s have had fatal failures.” Sadly, on December 18, 1994, after a long bout with cancer, Leonard Stringfield died in his sleep one day after his 74th birthday––yet not before adding immeasurably to what history must show is a new stage in human understanding.
Some skeptics of Stringfield will say that he played an active role in the U.S. government’s disinformation efforts. This is possible, but not very logical or likely. The best strategy for minimizing the impact of crash retrieval stories would be to say nothing and let the whole issue fade from memory. Instead, Stringfield was a forceful advocate to the end, writing books, speaking at conferences, and stirring the pot of public interest.
Dr. Robert Wood, respected researcher of leaked UFO documents after 43 years as an aerospace physicist for McDonnell Douglas Corporation,[xviii] reports:
I had the good fortune to meet with Len at MUFON symposia, and I think in about 1990 or 1991 I introduced myself, and asked him the question: ‘Len, if you had to make an even-money bet and let me pick high or low, what, in your opinion is the number of crashes that we have recovered?’ My recollection is that he said ‘Ten.’ This was much larger than I had expected at the time, since I hadn’t studied the topic much. I think he was low. His own data argues for the order of 30 crashes, especially if you include those that he may not have known about such as the L.A. air raid cases, since none of those documents had leaked at that time.
Len’s insight into the phenomena, provided by his merely listening to the witnesses and assessing their integrity and circumstances, permitted him to figure out long before most of the rest of us that we had a healthy crash retrieval program underway for years, hiding the truth from everyone without a need to know. His reports, together with research now done on leaked documents––covering the Majestic 12 group, the Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit and “captured” and “downed” craft––are suggestive of an aggressive plan to get them into our laboratories. My conclusions, based on active work in this area since 1967, point to many craft and alien occupants recovered and captured. At one time in the early Cold War so much military action took place, perhaps firing on these craft, one might have described some of the actions as an interplanetary war. I feel that one of the most important reasons for continuing secrecy is the strong desire of those in charge not to reveal such enormous control that has been exerted over what the public thinks. In contrast, Leonard Stringfield’s work has proven excellent, and surprisingly, offers many leads even today for checking up on some of those reports. We can only hope that his files receive the further research they deserve.
For those who still dismiss the exceptional research of Leonard Stringfield and Dr. Robert Wood, it is instructive to summarize what we know about Project MOON DUST, an activity that updated UFO recovery intelligence from its origins in the 1940s to recent decades. As context, Air Force regulation AFR 200-2, dated 12 August 1954, clearly stated:
The Air Defense Command has a direct interest in the facts pertaining to UFOB’s (UFO reports) reported within the ZI [“Zone of the Interior” or the continental U.S.] and has, in the 4602d Air Intelligence Service Squadron (AISS) the capability to investigate these reports. The 4602d AISS is composed of specialists trained for field collection and investigation of matters of air intelligence interest which occur within the ZI. This squadron is highly mobile and deployed throughout the ZI. … The Air Technical Intelligence Center (ATIC) will analyze and evaluate: All information and evidence within the ZI after the Air Defense Command has exhausted all efforts to identify the UFOB; and all information and evidence collected in overseas areas.
It certainly makes sense that the Air Force would recover foreign satellites fallen out of orbit and other space debris. Yet would this also include unidentified spacecraft that have impacted earth. Clifford Stone, UFO researcher after retiring from the Army, has unveiled intelligence, military, and other documents, as well as airgrams (electronic cables) declassified from the State Department referencing Project MOON DUST. These airgrams make clear that there have been expeditions by government teams to retrieve not only conventional objects, but also crashed UFOs. In 1992, U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman wrote the Air Force concerning Stone’s inquiries about Project MOON DUST and a related Operation BLUE FLY. The Air Force replied to the Senator emphatically:
There is no agency, nor has there ever been, at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, which would deal with UFOs or have any information about the incident at Roswell. In addition, there is no Project Moon Dust or Operation Blue Fly. Those missions have never existed.
This reply would contradict not only references to MOON DUST in declassified State Department cables, but the revealing instructions in an Air Force memorandum titled “AFCIN Intelligence Team Personnel” dated 13 Nov 1961:
In addition to their staff duty assignments, intelligence team personnel have peacetime duty functions in support of such Air Force projects as MOON DUST, BLUE FLY and UFO, and other AFCIN directed quick reaction projects which require intelligence team operational capabilities… Headquarters USAF has established a program for investigation of reliably reported unidentified flying objects within the United States. AFR 200-2 delineates 1127th collection responsibilities [an Air Force intelligence unit at Ft. Belvoir, VA] [xix] … Operation Blue Fly has been established to facilitate expeditions delivery to FTD [Foreign Technology Division at Wright-Patterson AFB] of Moon Dust or other items of great technical intelligence interest. … Peacetime employment of AFCIN intelligence team capability is provided for in UFO investigations (AFR 200-2) and in support of Air Force Systems Command (AFSC) Foreign Technology Division (FTD) Projects Moon Dust and Blue Fly.
Confronted with evidence, the Air Force wrote to Senator Bingaman to correct the record. It said that in the Korean War, intelligence teams were deployed to recover downed enemy equipment and that these activities evolved into Project MOON DUST to recover space vehicle debris and Operation BLUE FLY to retrieve downed Soviet Bloc equipment. “These teams,” wrote the Air Force, “were eventually disbanded because of lack of activity; Project MOON DUST and Operation BLUE FLY missions were similarly discontinued.” From outright denial, to limited admission of a conventional project that faded out due, allegedly, to lack of activity. Some may not be comforted to hear that the Air Force disbanded missions to recover space debris and foreign equipment. Some may wonder how the “lack of activity” comports with approximately 1,000 pages of official documentation on MOON DUST and BLUE FLY that have now been released into the public domain by the Department of State, Air Force, Defense Intelligence Agency and CIA. One nearly illegible report from 1965 is titled: “FRAGMENT METAL, RECOVERED IN THE REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO, ORIGIN BELIEVED TO BE AN UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECT.”
One MOON DUST case from Bolivia, presented later in this book, was gleaned from a FOIA request to the U.S. Department of State. The case concerned a crashed object recovered at Taire Mountain, Bolivia, in May 1978. A formerly Secret State Department airgram asserts: “Preliminary information provided has been checked with appropriate government agencies. No direct correlation with known space objects that may have re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere near May 6 can be made; however, we continue to examine any possibilities.” The possibility that the object was a meteorite can almost certainly be discounted, primarily because the Department of State’s airgram of 15 May states: “The object was…egg-shaped, metal and about four meters in diameter.” CIA reports of May 1978 on the same topic have also surfaced; and veteran journalist Robert Pratt conducted extensive research on-site in Bolivia surfacing many unexplainable details. In 2003, sources contacted this author about the Bolivia case, prompted by the cable television Sci-Fi Channel’s reference to MOON DUST documents. These sources were surprised to see public reference to the Bolivia event about which they had secret official knowledge. They confirmed MOON DUST operations, which usually involved retrieval of downed satellites or aircraft, but sometimes involved UFOs. Sources stated that the object recovered by the U.S. in Bolivia was “not big––fifteen feet max, dirty white and oval.” No one seemed to know what the object was, as it had no markings, entry points or seams and was extremely light. It was delivered to Wright-Patterson AFB. One source stated that the Bolivia case was “the strangest that he had been involved in… .”
Information since that time indicates public disclosure of MOON DUST led to renaming the activity, though its functions must certainly continue unless we believe the military has no further interest in downed satellites or aircraft––not to mention UFOs. We believe that MOON DUST itself was only the surface of a much more deeply concealed intelligence, research and development infrastructure. No doubt the modern equivalents of the Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit, the Special Committee on Non-terrestrial Science and Technology, and the Majestic 12 Group have also taken new and different forms in recent decades. Yet the fundamental phenomenon that called these organizations into existence––as shown by the cases that follow––persists. Put simply: on rare occasions craft from nonhuman sources crash into earth, and governments jealously retrieve and exploit these finds in greatest secrecy.
Nevertheless, the secrecy has begun to erode. The natural urge for honest minds to seek the truth has begun to reveal as much about ourselves and our own history as it does about the capabilities and intentions of space visitors and their technology. This research, however, thinly supported in today’s culture, has begun to shed light on official acts performed in our name. To explore these matters is not unpatriotic; to commend them for research is not irrational; and to publish them openly is not zany and foolish. As we begin to comprehend this secret of the past and its meaning for the future––it is time for “MAJIC EYES ONLY” to enlighten our eyes also.