THE UFO CHRONICLES

Showing posts with label Aztec UFO Symposium 07. Show all posts

Friday, May 25, 2007

Noted Ufologist 'Scott Ramsey' Lands in Mancos

UFO sighting of '48 has Mancos residents talking

By Pamela Sichel
Cortez Journal
5-25-07

North Carolina author Scott Ramsey has spent the last 20 years researching what some call an urban myth - an alleged 1948 crash of a UFO in Aztec, N.M. The trail has led to Mancos.

The story goes that on March 25, 1948, at around 5 a.m., a group of workers from the El Paso Oil company were called out to Hart Canyon Road, northeast of Aztec, N.M., to respond to a brush fire near some storage tanks.

Ramsey said that after discovering the brush fire was not a threat, the workers noticed “A very large, ‘lenticular’ dish on the ground.”

Ramsey is still discovering the number of witnesses who saw the object that day, but said his research shows that ranchers, emergency workers, oil field workers and spectators, including two police officers, saw the object.

There were probably between 16 and 18 people. That area is extremely desolate, even today.

Ramsey added that the area has been a hotbed of UFO sightings for many years. “I get calls all the time. People see stuff around Highways 550 and 160 on a regular basis.” He added that some believe the Pre-Puebloans that lived in the region saw the objects as well. “They’ve been sighted far enough back that several petroglyphs show saucer or disk-shaped objects. I have no theories as to why these things happen in the Four Corners area,” he said.

Ramsey said he is not a student of UFOs, but is planning a book on the 1948 Aztec crash. It all started on a business trip to Durango in October 1987. “I heard about the crash and it piqued my curiosity. The more I looked into it, the more the story developed,” he said. Since then, Ramsey has interviewed dozens of witnesses and worked to declassify government documents.

Ramsey has kept a low profile during much of his project. “It’s easier to get authorities to declassify information when they think you are just doing personal research. It gets more difficult when they think you are going to air the information on The History Channel.” Ramsey has, indeed, appeared on The History Channel in a program called “UFO Files. ” That episode was titled “Hangar 18.” It originally aired Nov. 4, 2006, but Ramsey said it will probably be rerun in the future.

Much secrecy has surrounded the incident — Ramsey said that witnesses have been consistent in saying that government agents swore them to secrecy for 50 years.

“In 1948, if you were sworn to secrecy by the U.S. governement, you didn’t question it,” he said.

Fifty years later, witnesses willing to speak about their experience have told Ramsey that after the disk was found, military personnel quickly cleared the area, but were not clear which branch of the military they came from. Ramsey suspects it was a group attached to the 5th Army Division of Colorado.

“It was a two-week recovery operation. It was one of the largest craft the military had allegedly recovered. They kept the area well clear of civilians during the recovery. They had armed sentries posted at all the major peaks of the mesa’s surrounding areas.”

Traces of the recovery project remain to this day.

“The military had to cut a road into the mesa. In 2000, I interviewed a retired Air Force officer who gave me a few hints to look for. He said after they cut the road, the soil was loose and a concrete footer had to be poured to support a crane.”

Ramsey said a Farmington, N.M. resident, Randy Barnes, discovered the concrete slab while conducting his own research.

“We were puzzled why the slab, heavily reinforced with steel rebar, would be out in the middle of nowhere,” Ramsey said.

The Air Force officer Ramsey interviewed had not been at the crash site, but had been working behind the scenes.

“His family is adamant that his name not be released,” Ramsey said.

The information trail led to Mancos, where Ramsey learned that Walt Sayre, a former Mancos resident now living in Montana, had a story about Pastor Autrey Brown of the Mancos Baptist Church in 1948. Sayre said that Brown told a few close friends, including Sayre’s father, about the disturbing experience of stumbling into the crash site.

“The preacher told friends that he had just come back from the Aztec area and had noticed a lot of activity on Hart Canyon Road. He said he had gone to see if he could be of assistance and came across the activity around the downed disk. Brown said the military had whisked spectators away, but not before he administered last rites to ‘lit tle bodies’ scattered around the crash site.”

Sayre reported to Ramsey that Brown was “very, very upset by the experience, and was crying when he recounted the story.”

Ramsey said that the witnesses all reported the experience had changed their lives.

“I think their belief systems were challenged,” he said. “The interesting thing that is also consistent is that it was a lenticular craft, 100 feet in diameter with no damage, as if it was a controlled landing.”

All saw at least two bodies through a mirrored portal window and described humanoids 3 to 4 feet tall with almond-shaped heads. Ramsey said the witnesses reported that all appeared to be burned.

“Two of the military witnesses said there were 14 to 16 bodies placed in body bags,” Ramsey said.

In the weeks prior to the alleged crash, according to declassified Air Force documents, residents of Cuba, N.M., reported seeing large structured disk-shaped crafts. Ramsey also learned from declassified military documents that the Air Force sent Dr. Lincoln LaPaz to Cuba with two high-ranking Air Force officers.

“The group spent three days in Cuba explaining to the townspeople that what they were seeing were meteorites,” Ramsey said. “In another declassified report, LaPaz reported seeing the large structured craft. LaPaz wrote, in the report, that ‘the government was going to have a hard time explaining the craft.’ ”

Ramsey has relied heavily on declassified documents to research the crash. “Interviewing witnesses is always exciting, but I really rely on military records. The Aztec incident was an extremely busy topic with the Air Force, the FBI, the CIA and the U.S. Army,” he said. He added that his research shows that in 1952, the FBI set up a sting to intercept the sale of black and white photos of the crash in the Edelweiss Bar at the Merlin Hotel in downtown Denver. Ramsey has not seen photos, but believes they exist.

“Civilians did take pictures but claimed they were confiscated by the military,” he said.

Ramsey is wrapping up his research, but welcomes new information.

“I would like to flush out some more people that Autrey Brown confided in. I believe they are still around,” he said.

Ramsey can be reached at (704) 507-0900 or by e-mail at scottr@aztec1948.com.

“Whatever we talk about is kept in the strictest of confidence,” he said.

----------------->HOME<-----------------

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Epitome of The Aztec UFO Symposium 07

By Katee McClure
3-31-07

I have been involved with the Aztec UFO Symposium on and off since the year 2000. When I moved to Aztec, in September of 1998 I immediately fell in love with the "small town" atmosphere, so you can imagine my amazement when I heard there was going to be a UFO conference in town just 6 months after I moved here. Wow, I thought, I really did move to the right place!

I have been personally interested in the notion that "we are not alone in the universe" since I was a young teen. Back then, in the 60s, information about the subject was not as easily obtainable as it is today, especially with the advent of the Internet.

From the very first symposium I attended here in Aztec I was impressed with the caliber of the speakers who attended. Generally speaking, most of the speakers have been serious researchers with plenty of facts to back up their research.

So, as the event planner for this years 10th anniversary, we followed suit in our pursuit of presenters. When I say "we" I mean Scott Ramsey & Randy Barnes. These two gentlemen did all the legwork involved in procuring and researching our

On a personal note - we had limitations this year in that all the speakers we contacted had to be within driving distance of Aztec, New Mexico. The reason being that our initial funding was cut short by 5,000 dollars this year, that 5,000 had been used, in the past, as preliminary seed money. So, our thinking this year was it would be cheaper for us to pay gas mileage to our speakers than it would be to pay for their airfare. As it turned out it was a blessing in disguise! Who would have known that so many qualified researchers lived in such close proximity to Aztec! The only exception was Farah Yurdozu who was flown out here by UFO Magazine.

All of our presenters, Dennis Balthaser, Roy Forbes, Mike Fortson, David Hatcher Childress, Christopher O'Brien, Wendelle Stevens, Travis Walton and Farah Yurdozu generously donated their time to help with this library fundraiser. Boy did I take advantage of that! I shuffled them around so much at our Meet N' Greet dinner that I'm sure they became dizzy! The dinner was held at the Library with about ten different grouping of people. Each speaker visited with all ten of the groupings in order for our attendees to have the chance to chat with them on a personal level before the lectures began the following morning. That alone would have exhausted most, but the speakers were all troopers and remained good-natured throughout the evening. The audience response to this intimate setting was extremely favorable. Not too many conferences are able provide this level of personal attention.

I really can't say enough wonderful things about our speakers. I shuffled them around at the dinner Friday night, raffled them off for lunch on Saturday, got them up early on Sunday for breakfast and had them all stick around for the final panel discussion on Sunday afternoon which marked the end of the Symposium. (The panel discussion allowed members of the audience to ask questions of the speakers.)

Each and every speaker was professional AND amiable. What are the odds of that with any randomly chosen eight individuals!

This symposium was a great success due to the speakers, the twenty volunteers who pulled it all together and the fantastic group of attendees who numbered about 180.

Next year will mark the the 60th anniversary of the Aztec UFO crash, and plans are already in the works to line up next years speakers thanks to our "Slave Master" Scott Ramsey.

Monday, March 26, 2007

Symposium Brings Extraterrestrial Life to Aztec

By Cory Frolik
The Daily Times
3-25-07

[Norio, who is one of our regular contributors writes: "I thoroughly enjoyed the symposium.

It was super!

The only thing bad was that I was misquoted by a Daily Times guy who asked me a few questions.

He seemed to have twisted a little (probably unintentionally) of what I said, making me a total skeptic on everything. Also, I think he omitted one verb in a sentence that I quoted, which was very important."]

AZTEC — Norio Hayakawa says he has always approached the question of whether unidentified flying objects (UFOs) exist with a certain amount of skepticism.

He said he has spent the better part of four decades making sure not to believe just any old claim.

Hayakawa was one of a couple hundred of people to visit the Aztec Boys and Girls Club on Saturday during Aztec's 2007 UFO Symposium. All types of believers with incredible stories showed up for the 10th year of the annual event.

Hayakawa said many of the so-called UFO sightings are nothing more than rumors perpetuated by the government to discredit people's claims of seeing advanced military technology. Hayakawa alleges that the federal government is behind these rumors to conceal the fact that they have military devices way beyond what the public believes exist. Talk of alien ships are a nice way to make sure that no one seriously investigates the sightings.

But there is one sighting he feels cannot be refuted.

Hayakawa said the March 1950 sighting of UFOs in Farmington has too many witnesses who told too consistent stories to consider it anything but truth.

"I'm still skeptical, except about the Farmington sighting. ... I have doubt in my mind that people saw these objects high in the sky," he said.

Hayakawa, a writer from Los Angeles, Calif., who works at a funeral home, has helped write articles and lead Japanese documentaries about paranormal activities and other unexplained phenomenon.

He estimates he has visited and researched countless sites all across the country.

Some merely believe in UFOs. Others claim to have first-hand experience. And some were just there to find out what's going on in the curious world of the paranormal.

Jodi Shand, 68, of Aztec, attended the first two symposiums but said, for one reason or another, she took a break for a while. She decided to return again this year to find out more about what is going on in the community of the believers.

Shand's fascination with UFOs dates back as long as she can remember. But the turning point in her life came a few years ago on what began as a normal day.

Shand recalls, with chilling detail, how one day she got home from work early in the afternoon and turned on the television to the news. It was a national news program but when it flipped to the local program, the local anchor in Colorado looked upset, she said.

"He said, Okay, we have some footage from Phoenix, I don't know what to make of this ... you have to make up your own mind,'" she said.

The footage was of a huge spaceship hovering over residential neighborhoods in the broad daylight, she said. Hundreds of people stared skywards as a huge metallic ship passed by.

Shand never saw that footage again. She believes the government pulled it and saw to it that no one saw the clips. Naturally, her belief in UFOs has not altered since.

"I know they're real because I saw it. It wasn't a fake thing. And all of these regular people, looking at this thing on a Sunday afternoon. It was fascinating and I thought wow, it's not a secret anymore,'" she said. "There's just been so many people who've seen or experienced things that I just don't think they're all nuts."

On Saturday, Shand wanted to learn more about what else is out there and being overlooked. She said she does not think about UFOs and other bizarre goings-on too often, but once in a while, she likes to learn a little bit more about what other people have seen and experienced.

At the event, she purchased a book by David Hatcher Childress, one of the speakers at the symposium. She was eager to learn more about the lost cities Childress claims can be found all around the world.

Childress, who grew up in Durango, Colo., spoke at length about a variety of topics including ancient electricity, ancient power sources and lost cities. He estimates there are more than 200 sunken cities in the Mediterranean Sea alone.

His central theory is that very advanced civilizations existed long before our own, but, as predicted by the Mayans, they fell victim to natural cycles of pole shifts that cause destruction and rebirth.

Using a slide-show, he presented his case for the proposition that these civilizations could not have achieved what they did using only the primitive resources that mainstream archaeologists believe they could access.

According to Childress, what they accomplished required much greater technology.

Blanche Zola, 71, of Gay Mills, Wis., has read one of his books and is looking forward to learning more about what she believes is her true heritage.

Childress traces the supposed roots of these former civilizations. Upon hearing Childress' presentation, Zola became interested in learning more.

Through studies of ancient, yet undocumented societies, Zola hopes to piece together more about her own past and where she comes from. She owns 1,000 books already. But after this weekend's symposium, the count is sure to increase.

The UFO Symposium continues today from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Everyone, including skeptics, are invited.

UFO Symposium Explores Mysteries of Unexplained

By Ted Holteen
The Durango Herald
3-25-07

"These people are serious researchers - we’re not a dog-and-pony show"-Katee McClure

AZTEC, N.M. - Only the truly uninitiated would come here to the 10th annual UFO Symposium expecting to see little green men or to even meet someone who believes in such things.

"These people are serious researchers - we're not a dog-and-pony show," said Katee McClure, the event planner for the symposium.

The UFO Symposium has become part of Aztec's identity since its inception in 1999 and is the largest fundraiser for the Aztec Public Library. McClure said this year will bring between 200 and 300 people throughout the weekend and raise more than $6,000 for the library.

Aztec's place in paranormal lore was secured in March 1948 when witnesses reported hearing and seeing a crash about 10 miles northeast of town in Hart Canyon. The story, as first published in 1950 by Frank Scully, maintains that the craft was a circular disk made of a foreign metal 100 feet in diameter, and inside were found the charred remains of 16 human-like bodies. A full recounting of the story is available at www.aztecufo.com.

Dennis Balthaser, who has attended and been a speaker at all 10 symposia, believes there is little doubt that something happened, but reminds truth seekers that a UFO is in fact an unidentified object until it's identified.

"I'm one of the few researchers who won't say 'this is what happened,' but I will look at the possibility that it could have happened," Balthaser said. "At first I wasn't too sure about Aztec, but the more research that's being done, the more I believe something actually did happen here."

Balthaser believes the military recovered whatever crashed and took it to Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio where the bodies were kept in cold storage and the craft analyzed. He compares the Aztec incident to the more famous Roswell incident, which happened 10 months earlier in 1947.

"My theory on both Roswell and Aztec is that whatever crashed, we don't know what it was, we don't know where it was found, and we don't know how it operates. Witnesses said it wasn't ours (the United States) and it wasn't Russian. At that time in history, there's really no one else it could've been," Balthaser said.

McClure has been fascinated with the Aztec crash site since she moved to the area in 1998 from Hollywood. After attending the first UFO Symposium in 1999, McClure purchased 10 acres of land in Hart Canyon near the Bureau of Land Management parcel on which the crash was alleged to have occurred. She now lives just more than a mile from the crash site.

"You used to able to see the broken and bent trees," McClure said. "And people found garbage buried 18 inches underground that was military rations. How can anyone say nothing happened here?"

The Hart Canyon crash, while a dominant topic at the symposium, is not the sole subject. Speakers covered a range of topics including abductions, ancient civilizations and their technologies, crashes, sightings and government cover-ups. While many debate if the origins of UFO mysteries are terrestrial or otherwise, most agree that official information is in short supply.

"I think cover-up has become a way of life in the U.S.," Balthaser said. "They cover up and lie about so many things, it will be hard for them to ever tell the truth. I think our only hope is to have deathbed confessions."

The UFO Symposium concludes today with a noon screening of Roy Forbes' film "Fallen Angels," which documents an incident in Kingman, Ariz., as well as the Aztec crash. The film will be followed by a panel discussion with many of the weekend's speakers.

Also speaking today is Christopher O'Brien, who gained national prominence for chronicling a series of unexplained sightings in Colorado's San Luis Valley in the 1990s.

Friday, March 23, 2007

This Weekend Marks The 10th Anniversary of The Aztec UFO Symposium

By Frank Warren
3-23-07

AZTEC, NEW MEXICO—The 10th Annual UFO Symposium commemorating the “flying saucer crash” of 1948 at Hart Canyon has begun today with a “book signing and wine tasting at Hard Backs, 200 S. Main, Aztec NM 87410.

UFO Researchers and authors, David Childress and Christopher O'Brien (and others) will be there to autograph their respective works.

This evening, there will be a “meet-n-greet” dinner gathering with all of this year’s speakers.

I’m happy to report that veteran Ufologist and Roswell resident, Dennis Balthaser (as well as good friend and colleague) will be returning for this year’s event; that pretty gal by his side is his wife, and partner Debby.

Dennis has MC’d the Symposium on numerous occasions; however this year he has passed the baton to Katee McClure; his oration will address, “The Roswell Incident: Then and Now.”

One of the best-known cases of abduction has been attributed to Mr. Travis Walton; as a former logger, Travis and his crew were working in the mountains of Northeastern Arizonain 1975 when they observed a strange, unusually bright light in the sky; Travis went to take a closer look; suddenly, as he walked toward the light, Walton was blasted by a bolt of mysterious energy, his co-workers fled in fear. Walton was missing for 5 days. Mr. Walton will recount his experience this weekend.

Well known author and speaker, David Hatcher Childress makes his debut at this year’s event; he will address, “UFOs, Atlantis and Ancient Technology.”

Author, writer and speaker, Christopher O'Brien will give his speech on “The San Luis Valley” and it’s continuing anomalous occurrences.

Another newcomer to this year’s event is Farah Yurdozo; Farah is Turkey's first female UFO researcher and writer, and her oration will be on the “Ancient and Modern abduction and Close Encounter Cases in Turkey.”

Old friend to the “Aztec UFO Symposium,” long time researcher “Wendell Stevens” returns this weekend; he will be speaking on “An Insiders Story of Crash Retrievals.”

Producer/Director “Roy Forbes” who has “covered” the Aztec Symposium in past years changes hats and will take the podium this year; he will highlight, some of the lesser-known UFO crashes that have allegedly occurred in the southwest region of the United States.

Completing this year’s line-up is good friend, “Mike Fortson.” I have dubbed Mike as the “reluctant Ufologist”; after witnessing the enormous “V-Shaped” craft (a “life changing event by his own admission) that has erroneously become known as the “Phoenix Lights,” Mike has been on a quest ever since to discover just what he and countless others saw just over 10 years ago in the skies above Arizona.

Due to recent events with former Governor “Fife Symington” (his declaration of seeing the craft himself), Mike has restructured his speech to include this latest news, and what it means to the case.

For a more in-depth view of all the events at this year’s Symposium follow the links below:

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Aztec Prepares for Invasion: UFO Symposium Set for Next Weekend

By Lindsay Whitehurst
The Daily Times
3-18-07

AZTEC — UFOs are not typical dinner table conversation for most couples. Scott and Suzanne Ramsey are not most couples.

"He's working on a book, so it is (something we talk about) more," Suzanne Ramsey said. "It's an ongoing pursuit."

Her husband, Scott Ramsey, has spent 20 years researching the alleged UFO crash site in Aztec. He's attended the UFO Symposium in Aztec almost every year, and spoken there a few times.

Next weekend's symposium, held March 23-25, will be the 10th for the annual event. Held at the Aztec Boys and Girls Club, the symposium will start with a dinner on Friday and follow with lectures on Saturday and Sunday. Tickets are $25; military, EMT and police get in free. For more information, call (505) 334-7657 or visit aztecufo.com

It was Scott Ramsey who convinced Dennis Balthaser, a speaker this year and every other since the symposium began, that something did happen in Aztec.

"I had some reservations about Aztec for many years, but ... it really looks like something did happen in 1948," he said.

A UFO research concentrating on Roswell, Area 51, underground bases and the great pyramids of Giza (though he doesn't necessarily think aliens built the pyramids, they may have provided the technology), Balthaser will speak on "Roswell: Then and Now."

There are some similarities between the two incidents: Both the Roswell and Aztec crashes were reported to have bodies, both were in New Mexico, but the overarching theme, Balthaser, is the biggest similarity.

"It's all part of the UFO program the government has, in not revealing any information they have and lying about it," he said.

For the Ramseys, the aliens were what brought them together, so to speak. Originally from Farmington, Suzanne got interested in the symposium when, about seven years ago, she interviewed several speakers for her radio show.

She was impressed by "the caliber of speakers they were having — highly educated, articulate, knowledgeable people that had done some really good research," she said. " I was really taken by that."

She got involved on the organizational end of things, and eventually met Scott. She had helped put him up to be raffled off as a date for a fund raiser, only to see her own name drawn.

But when she looked at the winning ticket, her name was misspelled. Family and friends had purchased 60 tickets in addition to the five she paid for to ensure she'd end up as his date.

Though the Ramsey's won't be attending this year (they've since moved to North Carolina), their scientific approach to the extraterrestrial subject is what the symposium is all about organizers say.

"Mainstream researchers deal with fact," Katee McClure, who is organizing the symposium, said.

A fund-raising event for the Aztec Library, the symposium is based on an alleged UFO crash in Aztec's Hart Canyon in 1948. In the crash, one of four in the New Mexico area, 16 charred "humanoid" bodies were said to have been found inside a saucer.

"I think (the Aztec crash) has been shrouded in mystery since the beginning," Scott said.

Several agencies, including the FBI, Air Force and CIA, kept files on the case, he said, referring to hundreds of pages of government documents he said he's obtained.

"If the event was written off as a hoax, why were all those government agencies keeping open files on it?" he said.

Eight speakers will appear at the symposium this year, from Farah Yurdozu, a Turkish journalist and medium who covers abductions and close encounters, to Wendelle Stevens, a retired U.S. Air Force officer worked on a documentary about military personnel who say they helped clean up UFO crash sites.

There will also be tours of the crash site and other activities

The overall theme is thoughtful consideration.

"I don't think everything that people see is a UFO," Suzanne Ramsey said. "I think sometimes people get caught up in the fact that it's everything or nothing; it's very polarized. (I think) life is more middle of the road than that."

Pages