On March 25, 1948, radar at Muroc Air Force Base in California and
at two installations in Colorado tracked an object over the state
of New Mexico as it came down and apparently crashed. By using
triangulation, the military was able to narrow the site where
it came to earth to an area 12 miles east of Aztec, New Mexico.
The military alerted local authorities, who secured the area.
General George C. Marshall, Secretary of State, ordered a
search party sent in from Camp Hale in Colorado. The helicopter
team located the crash site on a rocky plateau. The object was a
saucer about thirty feet in diameter, and it was undamaged
except for a small hole in one of its portholes.
Scientists, including Dr. Carl Heiland of the Colorado School of
Mines, Dr. Horace van Valkenberg of The University of Colorado,
and Dr. Detlev Bronk, met at Durango, Colorado and were flown to
the crash site.
Through the hole, the assembled group of scientists, led by a
mysterious Dr. Gee, could see sixteen small but perfectly formed
humanoids. All were dead, their skin brown as if having been
burned. Since the only damage to the craft was the hole, it was
theorized that a meteorite had hit the craft, making the hole,
and "burning" the occupants by rapid decompression.
After trying to open hatches, and failing to cut or burn through
the hull, the military stuck a long pole through the hole in the
porthole and, while probing around with it, accidentally hit a
control that opened a door.
The scientists entered the ship and brought out the sixteen
bodies and laid them on the ground near the ship. Dr. Gee
studied the bodies and found that every one had perfect teeth,
that they were between thirty-five and forty, and that they
probably came from Venus. They were all between thirty-six and
forty-two inches tall, and they ate small wafers and drank water
that was twice as heavy as Earth water. They wore clothing that
was almost indestructible.
Measurements of the craft showed that it was 99.99 feet in
diameter, 18 feet across, and 72 inches high. Several booklets
filled with pictograms were found in the ship. Dr. Gee
determined that the craft flew by jumping from one magnetic line
of force to the next, there being 1,257 of these lines per
square centimeter.
The ship and occupants were taken to Muroc Air Force Base, where
President Eisenhower flew in to see them. After that, they were
taken to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio.
Dr. Gee was privileged to examine another craft that landed in
an Arizona desert near a proving ground, also 72 feet across and
containing 16 dead aliens. The occupants had died when they
opened the door and were exposed to Earth's atmosphere.
Finally, he had examined another craft that had landed in
Paradise Valley, near Phoenix, Arizona. This craft was only 36
feet across and contained only two aliens. One had died sitting
at the controls and the other was halfway out the hatch.
Apparently they, too, had died when exposed to the air of this
planet.
Dr. Gee told his friend Silas M. Newton about the crashes and
gave him some small metallic discs taken from one of the ships.
Newton, a millionaire oilman who had rediscovered the Rangely oil
field by using microwaves, promptly scheduled a lecture on the
crashes on March 8, 1950 at the University of Denver. Newton
also talked to Variety columnist Frank Scully, who wrote
about the crashes in his book Behind the Flying Saucers,
published in September of 1950.
Good story, huh? It's a crock, though. Read on...
In 1952, a reporter named J.P. Cahn, on assignment for
True magazine, investigated the story. He tracked down
Newton and found that there was no evidence of his claim to
having discovered oil fields using microwaves. Cahn was able to
obtain one of the small metal discs that Newton claimed had come
from one of the crashed UFOs and which he claimed would resist
heat of 10,000 degrees. On analysis it turned out to be ordinary
aluminum that would melt at 650 degrees. Cahn also located the
mysterious "Dr. Gee", who turned out to be Leo Gebauer, an
electrician who lived in Arizona. Newton and Gebauer were a
couple of con men who had conned Frank Scully.
In October, 1974, Robert S. Carr, the southern director of NICAP
(National Investigation Committee on Aerial Phenomenon)and also a
former teacher at the University of South Florida, resurrected
the Aztec crash story. In 1978, Flying Saucer Review
published a paper by Leonard H. Stringfield that claimed Carr
had eyewitness testimony to substantiate the Aztec crash. One
was from a surgical nurse, now deceased (sound familiar?), who
was said to have assisted in the autopsy of a dead alien. Carr
would not give names, so none of his claims could be verified.
In 1986, William S. Steinman and Wendelle C Stevens reopened the
case yet again with a book called UFO Crash at Aztec. The
book was mostly speculation, but one of its sources was Dr.
Robert Sarbacher, onetime consultant to the Research and
Development Board, who said Scully's version of the Aztec crash
was "substantially correct." However, Sarbacher admitted that
his information was secondhand.
In the early 1980s, William Moore investigated Silas M. Newton
and Leo Gebauer and found that Newton was in trouble with the
law as early as 1928, was charged in 1959 with selling worthless
securities, was under indictment in 1970 for grand theft, and
when he died in 1972, he had been charged with salting mines and
oil wells to deceive investors. Gebauer had been investigated
for violation of the White Slave Traffic Act, had been a Nazi
sympathizer, and had at least a dozen aliases. He certainly
wasn't a doctor.
Interviews with former (circa 1948) Aztec deputy sheriffs,
newspaper editors, and townspeople, have found no evidence that
a crash occurred there. This story should be sub-titled "The
Hoax that Wouldn't Die"...