Friday, June 05, 2009

Manipulating the Crashed UFO Scene

Aztec UFO Illustration
By Nick Redfern
For The UFO Iconoclast(s)
6-2-09

Nick Redfern Have UFOs crashed to earth?

Was Roswell "real"?

Have alien bodies been retrieved and autopsied?

Many people certainly believe so. Even I ("The Scourge Of Roswell") used to believe so.

And there's something else, too; something surprising: key elements of the official world want you to believe that UFOs have crashed. They're pleased you believe. They rub their hands together in secret glee as they congratulate themselves on a job well-done.

Yes: it's truly ironic that those same key elements may well be up to their collective necks in crashed UFO tales - but there's a possibility that none of them may have any basis in literal UFO reality whatsoever.

Instead, there is good evidence that the collective UFO research community may have been the unwitting victim of a huge con-trick; one designed to (a) hide classified military ops under a crashed UFO banner; and (b) control and manipulate a group of people (namely us) that the official world perceives as being (at times, at least) troublesome and a potential threat to national security.

So, with that said, where do we begin? Where else: the early years of the UFO, the 1940s.

Psychological Saucers

It’s worth noting (mainly because few have bothered to note it, or to understand and appreciate the significance of the matter) that one of the “Recommendations” of a lengthy Technical Report prepared by the Air Force’s flying saucer study, Project Grudge, way back in August 1949, states: “That Psychological Warfare Division and other governmental agencies interested in psychological warfare be informed of the results of this study.”

The Department of Defense’s official definition of psychological warfare is: “The planned use of propaganda and other psychological actions having the primary purpose of influencing the opinions, emotions, attitudes, and behavior of hostile foreign groups in such a way as to support the achievement of national objectives.”

As the above Grudge revelations show, way back when in the formative years of Ufology, certain players were looking to understand how the subject could be used psychologically.

Saucers and the CIA

A 1952 document from then-CIA director Walter B. Smith to the Director of the Psychological Strategy Board, titled “Flying Saucers,” states:

“I am today transmitting to the National Security Council a proposal in which it is concluded that the problems connected with unidentified flying objects appear to have implications for psychological warfare as well as for intelligence and operations. I suggest that we discuss at an early board meeting the possible offensive or defensive utilization of these phenomena for psychological warfare purposes.”

According to Gerald Haines, historian for the National Security Agency and the CIA, in the early 1950s, “The CIA…searched the Soviet press for UFO reports, but found none, causing the group to conclude that the absence of reports had to have been the result of deliberate Soviet Government policy. The group also envisioned the USSR’s possible use of UFOs as a psychological warfare tool. [My italics.] In addition, they worried that, if the US air warning system should be deliberately overloaded by UFO sightings, the Soviets might gain a surprise advantage in any nuclear attack. Because of the tense Cold War situation and increased Soviet capabilities, the CIA Study Group saw serious national security concerns in the flying saucer situation. The group believed that the Soviets could use UFO reports to touch off mass hysteria and panic in the United States. The group also believed that the Soviets might use UFO sightings to overload the US air warning system so that it could not distinguish real targets from phantom UFOs.”

Significantly, the CIA Study Group “did find that continued emphasis on UFO reporting might threaten ‘the orderly functioning’ of the government by clogging the channels of communication with irrelevant reports and by inducing ‘hysterical mass behavior’ harmful to constituted authority. The panel also worried that potential enemies contemplating an attack on the United States might exploit the UFO phenomena and use them to disrupt US air defenses.”

This, in essence, is the CIA’s official stance with respect to the UFO puzzle. The CIA was most concerned about the way in which the Soviets might exploit the UFO subject as a tool of psychological warfare and spread bogus UFO accounts to clog intelligence channels.

In other words, it was not UFOs per se that particularly interested or alarmed the CIA, but the way in which the subject itself could be manipulated for other, more novel purposes.

As we shall now see, it was during these formative years that the American intelligence community began to realize how it, too might make use of the crashed UFO mystery to further muddy the waters concerning the incidents in New Mexico in 1947.

And so it was that, in the late 1940s and early 1950s, several crashed UFO tales surfaced – all of which bore the hallmarks of official involvement, both in their creation and dissemination.

The Aztec Affair

Next to the so-called Roswell Incident of July 1947, certainly the most talked-about “UFO crash” of all is that which is alleged to have occurred in the vicinity of Aztec, New Mexico, in 1948.

Behind The Flying Saucers
Frank ScullyAccording to information related to the author Frank Scully in the late 1940s, and subsequently published in his best-selling 1950 book, Behind the Flying Saucers, the wreckage of four alien spacecraft, and no fewer than 34 alien bodies, had been recovered by American authorities as a result of a number of separate incidents in 1947 and 1948, and were being studied under cover of the utmost secrecy at defense establishments in the United States.

Silas M. NewtonScully was willing to admit that the bulk of his information had come from two primary sources: Silas Mason Newton, who was described in a 1941 FBI report as a ‘wholly unethical businessman,’ and one ‘Dr. Gee’, the name given to protect eight scientists, all of whom had supposedly divulged various details of the crashes to Newton and Scully. According to Scully’s sources one such UFO was found in Hart Canyon, near the town of Aztec, in March 1948.

After the Aztec saucer had crashed, said Scully, it was found essentially intact by elements of the military that gained access to the object via a fractured porthole. Inside they found the bodies of no fewer than sixteen small, human-like creatures, all slightly charred and undoubtedly dead. The UFO was then dismantled and the bodies of the crew were transferred to Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio for study.

At the time of its release, Scully’s book caused a major sensation. In both 1952 and 1953, however, J. P. Cahn, a reporter who had previously worked for the San Francisco Chronicle, authored two detailed exposes, which cast serious doubt on the claims of Newton and ‘Dr. Gee’ – identified not as ‘eight scientists’ but as one Leo Gebauer, who had a background as equally dubious as that of Newton.

Yet, as the years have shown, the Aztec crashed UFO incident refuses to roll over and die – indeed it has now spawned a whole industry.

Karl Pflock Even today, the Aztec story continues to perplex and intrigue: a fascinating piece of documentary evidence relative to the Aztec case surfaced in the late 1990s, thanks to the late investigative author Karl Pflock – and it is one that may ultimately shed more light on the psychological warfare angle of the crashed UFO mystery.

“In 1998, under curious circumstances,” stated Pflock, “I was made privy to a fascinating document about one of the most controversial cases of the Golden Age of Flying Saucers, the so-called Aztec crash of 1948. I had little more than passing interest in the case until 1998, when a source, who insists on complete anonymity, showed me a handwritten testament, set down by the key player in this amazing, often amusing, truth-is-stranger-than-fiction episode.

“[I]t seems that what I was shown was…something penned by sly old Silas Newton, but what can we say about the veracity of its content? After the Denver Post revealed he was Scientist X, Newton received two visitors at his Newton Oil Company office in Denver. These men claimed to be with a highly secret U.S. Government entity, which they refused to name. Were they Air Force OSI agents, who Newton hyped into something more mysterious? Newton writes, ‘They grilled me, tried to poke holes in my story. Had no trouble doing it and laughed in my face about the scientific mistakes I made. They never said so, but I could tell they were trying to find out if I really knew anything about flying saucers that had landed. Did not take those fellows long to decide I did not. But I sure knew they did.’”

Pflock expands further and the tale becomes decidedly intriguing:

“Newton’s visitors told him they knew he was pulling a scam and then gave him what may have been the surprise of his life. ‘Those fellows said they wanted me to keep it up, keep telling the flying saucer story and that they and the people they worked for would look out for me and for Leo. I could just go on doing what I always did and not worry about it.’”

Pflock asks:

“Did the U.S. Government or someone associated with it use Newton to discredit the idea of crashed flying saucers so a real captured saucer or saucers could be more easily kept under wraps? Was this actually nothing to do with real saucers but instead some sort of psychological warfare operation?” [My italics.]

Klondike and the Crown

And then there is Operation Klondike. 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 code-named Klondike. The treasure was eventually returned to Hungary in 1978.

This would be just another story of political intrigue were it not for one strange fact: according to a memorandum in the State Department, the soldiers designated to guard the treasure were told that the boxes contained “the wings and engine of a flying saucer.”

This type of misinformation may well have been common. “Is it effective?” asked researcher William Moore. “Certainly in the Klondike situation it was, because 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.”

The Spitzbergen Saucer That Wasn't

For many years, tales have circulated to the effect that in the early 1950’s a UFO crashed on the island of Spitzbergen, Norway, and, under circumstances similar to those that allegedly occurred at both Aztec and Roswell, was recovered along with its deceased alien crew.

On March 22, 1968, the State Department forwarded to a host of official bodies within the American intelligence community (including the CIA, the National Security Agency and Army Intelligence) a translation of a March 12, 1968 news article titled “Flying Saucers? They’re A Myth!” that had been written by Viillen Lyustiberg, science editor of the Novosti Press Agency in Russia and that included a small mention of the Spitzbergen allegations.

The relevant section of the article stated: “An abandoned silvery disc was found in the deep rock coal seams in Norwegian coal mines on Spitzbergen. It was pierced and marked by micrometeor impacts and bore all traces of having performed a long space voyage. It was sent for analysis to the Pentagon and disappeared there.”

The CIA, Army, State Department and NSA have all declassified their files pertaining to their apparent interest in Soviet news articles on UFOs in general and the Spitzbergen event in particular.

However, the NSA’s copy of the document differs significantly from those of its allied agencies. On the NSA’s copy, someone had circled the specific section of the article that referred to the Spitzbergen crash with the word “PLANT.”

This, again, would seem to suggest that this was a faked crashed UFO story, purposefully planted by persons currently unknown but known to the all-powerful National Security Agency.

Monkeys in the Desert?

And, finally, there is Kingman.

For years, interesting stories and accounts have circulated concerning the crash of a UFO at Kingman, Arizona in 1953 - and at the height of Operation Upshot-Knothole: a series of eleven nuclear test shots conducted over the border at the Nevada Test Site.

Perhaps a UFO really did crash at Kingman; however, I have uncovered files showing that in the same precise time-frame (and specifically as part of the Upshot-Knothole tests), the military was secretly test-flying drone aircraft in the area with monkeys on-board.

Might such a drone have crashed? Either by accident or design, was a crashed UFO story created to hide the security aspects of the affair?

While the image of an unmanned drone aircraft packed with a “crew” of monkeys flying across – and ultimately crashing in – the deserts of the southwest might sound laughable and bizarre in the extreme, official papers establishing that such tests were indeed undertaken have surfaced.

A document titled Early Cloud Penetration, dated January 27, 1956, and prepared by the Air Research and Development Command at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, states in part:

“In the event of nuclear warfare the AF is confronted with two special problems. First is the hazard to flight crews who may be forced to fly through an atomic cloud. Second is the hazard to ground crews who maintain the aircraft after it has flown through the cloud…In the 1953 Upshot-Knothole tests, monkeys were used so that experiments could be conducted on larger animals nearer the size of man. QF-80 drone aircraft were used, their speed more nearly approximating that of current operational aircraft.”

And that's just the 1940s and 1950s.

In the near future, I will do a follow-up post to this one that offers similar revelations pertaining to later, alleged UFO crashes.

You may disagree with me, and that is of course your right to do so. However, it seems to me that - for years - the crashed UFO community has been well and truly played, manipulated, and even controlled.

The trick to overcoming this is to throw out your belief systems and start fresh, with no preconceived ideas about crashed UFOs, and no emotion-driven need to believe in wrecked saucers, dead aliens, underground cryogenic chambers filled with ET body-parts, and all the rest.

Do that, be totally unbiased, and you may find some surprising facts about the origins of certain crashed UFO events.

Whether this will please you, dismay you, or cause you to throw out all your files and walk away from the subject remains to be seen, of course...

Sources:
Project Grudge Technical Report No. 102-AC 49/15-100, Lt. H.W. Smith and Mr. G.W. Towles, Air Materiel Command, 1949.

JCS Pub 1, Joint Chiefs of Staff.

CIA’s Role in the Study of UFOs 1947-90, Gerald K. Haines, Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 1, No. 1, Central Intelligence Agency.

The Day After Aztec, Karl Pflock, self-published.

Behind the Flying Saucers, Frank Scully, Henry Holt Publishers, 1950.

UFO Crash at Aztec, William Steinman & Wendelle Stevens, UFO Photo Archives, 1987.

Far Out, No. 1, 1992.

Flying Saucers? They’re a Myth! Viillen Lyustiberg.

Air Research and Development Command, Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, Early Cloud Penetration, 27 January 1956 .

5 comments :

  1. Greetings Nick,

    Pertaining to Aztec,

    you wrote:

    "Scully was willing to admit that the bulk of his information had come from two primary sources: Silas Mason Newton, who was described in a 1941 FBI report as a ‘wholly unethical businessman,’ . . ."

    Although, Newton is always described as a "lowly conman" and just saying his name out loud conjures an image of a "traveling grifter" who would just as soon pick your pocket, or sell you a knockoff Rolex pulled from underneath his overcoat on the street corner--conversely, this certainly contrasts his de facto background; for example, you quoted his FBI file . . . in that same file it was written:

    Silas M. Newton highly regarded . . . has a very substantial income, good character and habits.

    Additionally, the attributes assigned to Newton by Scully, weren't pulled out of thin air, they were demonstrable. He wrote:

    Newton was president of the Newton Oil Company, amateur golf champion of Colorado in 1942, graduate of Baylor University and Yale, who had done postgraduate work at the University of Berlin, the re-discoverer of the Rangely oil field, patron of the arts, and man of the world generally.

    Additionally: he was also the president of other formidable oil/gas companies and wed no other then Nan O'Reilly, one of the first female sports reporters (New York Evening Journal) in history.

    Although their wedding wasn't publicized initially, it would later be fodder for the newspapers, as well as Time Magazine.

    You wrote:

    J. P. Cahn, a reporter who had previously worked for the San Francisco Chronicle, authored two detailed exposes, which cast serious doubt on the claims of Newton and ‘Dr. Gee’ – identified not as ‘eight scientists’ but as one Leo Gebauer, who had a background as equally dubious as that of Newton.

    To the best of my knowledge, although Scully both mentions "Dr Gee" as well as "scientists"--plural in BTFS, he didn't state that Dr Gee was a composite of eight scientists "until after" Cahn's piece was published. In other words it was a "rebuttal to Cahn's" allegations; that Dr, Gee was not in fact "Leo GeBauer," and this fact has been supported by the Scully children and his wife Alice.

    Moreover, the description that Scully ascribed to (one of the) Dr. Gee(s)i.e.:

    a man of science whose contemporaries rated him the top magnetic research specialist of the United States. He had more degrees than a thermometer and had received them from such diverse institutions as Armour Institute, Creighton University, and the University of Berlin. He is the scientist I have called Dr. Gee.

    He has been assigned to direct a division of top scientists during the war. Their task was to knock submarines out of the seven seas and directed-missiles out of the skies by other than the slow and disheartening methods then in use


    This description "fits to a Tee," a man that was in just such a position as stated by Scully--certainly not "Leo GeBauer!"

    As to Cahn: the other part of the rejoinder by Scully goes to "the character of Cahn," which is always overshadowed by that of Newton & GeBauer; however, Cahn's motives and character were certainly dubious in Scully's mind, and researcher, Scott Ramsey will elaborate on that in his upcoming book. (Interesting to note that Cahn had a book in the works that never saw the light of day).

    [CONTINUED ON NEXT COMMENT]

    ReplyDelete
  2. [CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS COMMENT]

    You wrote:

    " . . . a fascinating piece of documentary evidence relative to the Aztec case surfaced in the late 1990s, thanks to the late investigative author Karl Pflock. . . . “In 1998, under curious circumstances,” stated Pflock, “I was made privy to a fascinating document about one of the most controversial cases of the Golden Age of Flying Saucers, the so-called Aztec crash of 1948. I had little more than passing interest in the case until 1998, when a source, who insists on complete anonymity, showed me a handwritten testament, set down by the key player in this amazing, often amusing, truth-is-stranger-than-fiction episode.

    '[I]t seems that what I was shown was…something penned by sly old Silas Newton, but what can we say about the veracity of its content? . . .'"


    Karl disavowed the so-called "Newton diary" back in 2002, and stated that he was most likely hoaxed; to the best of my knowledge he never "pushed" the issue again.

    In summary, any added supposition via the diary, to the Aztec case is moot, given the fact that its very source, and initial proponent (Pflock) condemned its authenticity.

    Cheers,
    Frank

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Frank

    Pflock most certainly did push the diary angle.

    You may not know this but me and Karl were working on a book on Newton's life (of which a substantial amount - but certainly not all - would focus on Aztec and UFOs).

    The book was going to be called "Silas the Magnificent: A True Tale of Greed, Credulity, and (Maybe) Government Chicanery and Cover-Up in 1950s America."

    When I wrote:

    "However, I can tell you that Karl openly told me that he had been able to compare the writing in the diary with Newton's writing and it was the same, and we were going to have a whole piece in the book on this."

    You replied:

    "Again I find this disturbing, since he didn't have anything in hand to compare anything with!"

    He actually did. Re my notes, Karl told me that on January 13, 1999 (the date of the last meet with his source), he took along with him to the meeting a copy of Newton's will, and had been able to confirm the will was real and in Newton's handwriting.

    Then, at the meeting, he placed the will on the table and compared it to the writing in the "diary" which the source had brought again to the meeting.

    Karl wrote that "the comparison left no doubt in my mind that he wrote the journal, too."

    I think the last discussion me and Karl had about the "diary" issue was probably mid-to-late 2004, and we were planning a chapter on this whole angle of the two mystery guys who allegedly wanted Newton to keep spreading the story.

    Karl broke off from wanting to work with me when Body Snatchers was published.

    Yes, I agree that Newton had a substantial background, made a lot of money in business, and I have no argument re that. But he was still a conman and unethical businessman!

    I'm not sure the image of Newton is of some low-level grifter at all. Indeed, even a bit of cursory research will show he moved in impressive circuits, was a master-golfer, had lots of ties with influential people etc. But, again, this still doesn't take away the fact that he was a conman - which is what I said.

    Re Dr. Gee - yes it could have indeed been someone in the scientific world. It's a big shame, however, that we can't get past Newton and Gebauer to find out who this was.

    Doesn't mean he definitvely couldn't have been real, but when Newton and Gebauer are involved, I think we need to tread very carefully.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Good Day Nick,

    Thanks for taking time to respond!

    I was aware of the book, but not its title--wow!

    Pertaining to the diary, and responding to my rejoinder in our personal correspondence, you wrote:

    Pflock most certainly did push the diary angle. . . . He actually did. Re my notes, Karl told me that on January 13, 1999 (the date of the last meet with his source), he took along with him to the meeting a copy of Newton's will, and had been able to confirm the will was real and in Newton's handwriting.

    Then, at the meeting, he placed the will on the table and compared it to the writing in the "diary" which the source had brought again to the meeting.

    Karl wrote that "the comparison left no doubt in my mind that he wrote the journal, too."


    This only raises more red flags, as if this in fact were true, (as stated in our personal correspondence) he would not have admitted to being hoaxed later (2002), nor would he have stated to you "it isn't evidence of anything" in his scathing open letter to you in 2005.

    For our readers benefit, in our personal correspondence I wrote:

    Following his talk on Aztec, during the Aztec Symposium in 2002, at Rubios in the bar, he (Karl) was "called on the carpet" for giving credence to a document he couldn't produce, and consequently couldn't verify, nor its "anonymous" source.

    In the bar, (he was sober) he claimed the "anonymous" source alleged he was "Newton's nephew"; after being on the receiving end of some sharp criticism, he "back-pedaled" and "admitted he had probably been hoaxed."

    A couple of weeks later he said, "he wasn't going to use the material again." (Some have questioned whether he made the whole thing up).

    Moreover, in 2005 in writing his open (and scathing) letter to you (which I felt/feel was highly unprofessional) he wrote:

    " . . . in BS IN THE DESERT and your interview you refer to the handwritten notes (not a diary or journal) made by Newton that I was shown in 1998, in which he claimed to have been contacted by two mysterious agents of the U.S. government who encouraged him to continue telling his tall tales about crashed saucers. You advance this as evidence in support of your notion that crashed-saucer stories were created and have been and still are being used to keep the lid on the truth about Roswell. But it isn’t evidence of anything. We don’t have the notes. Even if we did, they are the unsubstantiated writings of a totally unscrupulous con artist who most likely was making his agents up out of whole cloth, probably in anticipation of writing a book. At best, this is an interesting addition to the Aztec story and a potential lead to something more..."

    I find it amusing that he's putting the onus on Newton, opposed to reiterating what he said in private. Moreover, he has now changed the description from "diary" to "handwritten notes" (big difference). In any event, he does admit, "it isn't evidence of anything." [End copy of personal correspondence]

    Additionally, I located the attorney who handled Newton's estate (what little there was of it), and Scott (Ramsey) interviewed him, and there was "no mention of a will!" Had there been a will, given Newton's background it certainly wouldn't have been handwritten (IMHO).

    For the record, the admission of being hoaxed as told by him (Karl) at Rubio's in Aztec was told directly to "Scott Ramsey";--face-to-face! He later reconfirmed the notion in subsequent telephone calls with Scott.

    [CONTINUED IN NEXT COMMENT]

    ReplyDelete
  5. [CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS COMMENT

    You wrote:

    Yes, I agree that Newton had a substantial background, made a lot of money in business, and I have no argument re that. But he was still a conman and unethical businessman!

    I'm not sure the image of Newton is of some low-level grifter at all. Indeed, even a bit of cursory research will show he moved in impressive circuits, was a master-golfer, had lots of ties with influential people etc. But, again, this still doesn't take away the fact that he was a conman - which is what I said.


    You and I are aware of this, but most aren't, and I include Ufologists who are knowledgeable about the subject matter. Newton's profile, nor his background fits the depiction of a "conman." I will cede the fact that there exists minutiae to support the notion; however, most (erroneously) assume the Aztec story lives and dies with Newton & GeBauer, and that is the furthest thing from the truth!

    You wrote:

    Re Dr. Gee - yes it could have indeed been someone in the scientific world. It's a big shame, however, that we can't get past Newton and Gebauer to find out who this was.

    Some of us can! ;>)

    You wrote:

    Doesn't mean he definitvely couldn't have been real, but when Newton and Gebauer are involved, I think we need to tread very carefully.

    I have often stated that you could remove Newton & GeBauer from the equation all together, and the evidence that remains is overwhelming that a UFO crashed outside of Aztec (at the very least).

    Furthermore, I find great irony in the fact that although Newton is condemned as a conman, and Scully is labeled as naive, Cahn's offerings are accepted without question--even though Scully rebuked his "true" motives!

    Point of fact: if it were not for "Jape" Cahn, there would have never been a trial brought against Newton & GeBauer. What Scully addressed re Cahn, which was conveniently (and continues to be) overlooked will be analyzed in Scott & Suzanne Ramsey's upcoming book.

    After I located Cahn's last residence (he was/is deceased), I found the executor of his estate (and best friend), subsequently Scott flew out and interviewed him. His upcoming revelations about Cahn are quite revealing, to put it mildly!

    Cheers,
    Frank

    ReplyDelete

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