Roswell Witness, Frankie Rowe Has Passed Away

Frankie Rowe, who might well be the last of those who claimed to have handled debris from the Roswell UFO crash, has died. According to Don Schmitt, on Wednesday, July 26, she had surgery but was home on Friday, on the mend. In the afternoon, she mentioned to her daughter that she was feeling cold when she suddenly collapsed. The medics arrived in about five minutes and she was conscious when she was put in the ambulance. When she lost consciousness, they attempted three resuscitations but after the third, they realized there was little hope. She was pronounced dead at the hospital.

By Kevin Randle A Different Perspective 7-30-17

I first met Frankie Rowe about a quarter of a century ago when Don Schmitt and I had just finished a presentation in Roswell. She had been in the audience and afterward talked to us briefly. We would meet with her many times over the years as she told of her experiences back in July 1947.

Dan Dwyer, Frankie's father, on the far left.

There is no doubt that she had lived in Roswell at the time. Her father, Dan Dwyer, was a fire fighter, among other things. Frankie had told us that he had come home one day and told them about the crash and the creatures that he had seen. Dwyer died before any of us could interview him, but Frankie’s story was not stand alone. Frankie’s sister, Helen Cahill and former fire fighter J. C. Smith both said they had heard the story from Dwyer. Smith said that Dwyer had driven out to the crash site in his car rather than in equipment from the fire department.

Frankie said that she had been in Roswell and while at the fire department sometime later, a state trooper had stopped by. He said that he had a piece of the debris. Frankie described it as light weight and that it flowed like quicksilver.

Over the years she added few details telling us about a visit from a military officer ordering her to keep the tale to herself. Originally, she just said that the officer had told her that if she ever mentioned the story her mother and father would end up in Orchard Park, which had been a POW camp during the Second World War. Later it would seem the threats had been more violent and more direct.

One day she called me in a panic because she had had the telephone company out to repair her telephone. The man found what he thought to be a tap on her phone and Frankie was sure that the government was watching her now that she had told us about her experiences. We talked for about two hours. I don’t know if her phone had actually been tapped or if the repairman had misinterpreted something on the line. Whatever it was, Frankie was convinced that she was being monitored by the government.

I found her to be a kind lady who had an extraordinary experience. I don’t believe I ever heard her say anything negative about anyone, though in the Roswell case accusations were often thrown around. Once she had told us, that is Don and me, the full tale, she didn’t change the story. It had taken a while for her to trust us, but once she did, she confided in us and looked to us for help.

I last saw her a number of years ago at one of the more recent Roswell festivals. She was living in Roswell at the time and we had a nice chat. Later she would move to Breckenridge, Texas, where she died on July 28. She was 84.

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Lee Reeves and the Roswell UFO Crash

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Lee Reeves and the Roswell UFO Crash

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Dan Dwyer and members of the Roswell Fire Department

By Kevin Randle A Different Perspective 7-13-15

     I have been asked about the story of Lee Reeves who supposedly accompanied Dan Dwyer out to the crash site where the alien creatures were found. Reeves’ tale appears in Witness to Roswell where it says, “When the call came in to the fire station that there had been a crash north of town, Dan Dwyer and Lee Reeves were dispatched with the station’s “tanker” (a pickup truck with a large, cylindrical water tank in the back) to the crash site. Arriving before the military could secure the site, Dwyer and Reeves got to see what had crashed. It wasn’t an airplane at all, but an egg-shaped vessel of some sort that they did not recognize. And the bodies! ...”

From that point, Carey and Schmitt described, from Dwyer’s point of view (which is not to say they were quoting him, only using information that had been supplied by Frankie Rowe about what her father had said), that the creatures were small and that eventually Dwyer saw one that was still alive. When he got home that night, he told the family what he had seen and was asked what the creatures looked like. His “answer was succinct, ‘Child of the Earth,’” which is another name for the Jerusalem Cricket. That statement has an endnote that says, “Son (anonymity requested) of Dr. Foster’s housekeeper (anonymity requested), personal interview, 1992.”

Frankie Rowe

That endnote tells us nothing and seems to reference a tale told later in that chapter of the book. It is clear from my interviews with Frankie Rowe that it was her father, Dan Dwyer, who made reference to the Child of the Earth. The description of seeing the two dead aliens and the single survivor is also from Frankie Rowe.

Lee Reeves, according to the information that I have, died in 1971 and therefore is not an original source for this information. He had been a laborer at the Malco Refinery in 1947, but he was also a member of the Roswell Police Department and had worked as a fireman at the Orchard Park prisoner of war camp south of Roswell and for the city of Roswell Fire Department at some time, so he did have a connection there.

The trouble arises when the testimony of J. C. Smith, a firefighter in Roswell in 1947 is recalled. He was first interviewed by Karl Pflock and Smith made it clear in that interview that the Roswell Fire Department had not made a run out to the crash site, even in a piece of make-shift firefighting equipment.

Later when Tony Bragalia and I interviewed Smith separately, he made it absolutely clear that the fire department had not gone to the crash site. When I asked Smith if he had known Dan Dwyer, he said that he had and that Dwyer had gone out in his personal car. Smith told me that an Army colonel had come into the fire station and told them that they didn’t have to worry about the crash. They, the Army, would take care of it.

Dwyer, however, drove on out on his own, according to Smith, and not in one of the fire station’s vehicles and not with someone else. There was no discussion of Reeves at all until his story surfaced sometime in the last decade or so and was apparently relayed by his son, though there is nothing in the Carey and the Schmitt book to tell us that. It is my deduction given the information available.

Where does that leave us? Well, with the Dan Dwyer story, we learn from family members that he did go out there and said that he did see the bodies. We learn from J. C. Smith that Dwyer did go out there, but in his own car. We learn from the fire department records that there is nothing to suggest that any of the fire station’s equipment was dispatched on a run outside the city limits in the time frame necessary to corroborate the Reeves’ part of the story. Given the nature of the log, had some of their equipment been dispatched, there was no reason not to mention it. And we see that the Reeves’ tale is contradicted by the first-hand testimony of J. C. Smith.


It is my guess that the Reeves’ tale was told by one of the Reeves children or grandchildren, most likely Lewis Lee Reeves. When confronted with this sort of problem, the best case scenario is to rely on the first-hand testimony, which is Smith and which was told some sixty years after the event (which doesn’t make it true, only that it is of a better quality). The second-hand testimony is not properly sourced, is clearly not from a first-hand source, and is in conflict with other information and documentation. It now falls into the category of a “friend of a friend” tale and we all know how that works out… (and to prevent someone from stating the obvious here, I realize that it is technically the son of the man, but then, given the way the information is published, we really don’t know that either.)

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Roswell Firemen and the Double Standard

By Kevin D. Randle
A Different Perspective
© 3-12-09

     The double standard in UFO research is alive and well in Roswell. Tony Bragalia reports on what he and I learned from talking with one of the Roswell Firemen, and the first skeptical comment is that we can’t trust the memories of the old. The man shared with us his recollections of what happened in 1947 but he’s old (and fairly crotchety) so we can ignore this. His memories are all jumbled together, confused, confabulated, incoherent, and not based in reality.

First, let’s examine exactly what he told to Tony and what he told to me. He said that there had been no run out to the UFO crash site by the Roswell Fire Department. He didn’t say they didn’t make runs outside the city limits because we know that isn’t true. He said that there had been no run by the fire department for this specific event. Not that crash didn’t happen, but that they made no fire run.

Why not? A colonel from the base (though I suspect it might have been an officer of a lower grade simply because there weren’t that many colonels in Roswell, though the Roswell Fire Marshal was a lieutenant colonel) came out and ordered them not to go. Later the City Manager did the same thing by ordering the firemen not to discuss the events.

It also seems that the men of the Roswell Army Air Field fire department did respond to the crash. It was this fire department that went out to the site, and not the civilians.

When I spoke the to man, he was reluctant to talk, and if I approached a question from a slightly different angle he would tell me that he had already answered that question. This told me that he was still sharp at age 90 and that his mind had not faded as some might suggest.

One point that I made in an earlier post was this man had been interviewed by Karl Pflock, and his testimony had been used to discredit Frankie Rowe. When I asked if he knew Dan Dwyer, Frankie Rowe’s father, he said that he had. He said that Dan was a fireman (removing, again, this skeptical claim that it had been proven that Frankie Rowe’s father was not a fireman... why do I think that someone tried to find a fireman in that frame with the last name Rowe, never thinking that Frankie Rowe had once been Frankie Dwyer and when she married took her husband’s name?)

It was at this point the man told me, as he had Tony, that the colonel had come into the department to order them not to go, but that Frankie’s father, in his personal car (or POV for those of you with a military mind set) drove to the site. He said that Dan had told him the site was cordoned by armed guards, but that Dwyer had gotten close enough to see the craft. In other words, corroboration for Frankie Rowe.

Second, let’s talk about this double standard. We are told to be careful of information obtained from the very old. We are told of diseases of the mind that cause confusion in the elderly. We are told how they jumble their memories together and that we can ignore what they say, especially if it concerns the crash of an alien spacecraft.

On the other hand, these same skeptics have no trouble accepting the memories of the old if those memories conform to what they believe. Take Charles Moore, for example (and I don’t mean to pick on him, but the best example includes him). Moore is believed when he talks of the mythical Mogul Flight No. 4. We all know it happened because Moore told us he remembered losing track of the balloons up around Arabella and he was intrigued by the strange names of the places in New Mexico. So, contrary to the record that suggests Flight No. 4 was cancelled, and contrary to the information that the first successful flight in New Mexico was No. 5, we know there was a Flight No. 4 because Moore remembered losing track of it near Arabella.

So, why are these fifty and sixty-year-old memories of Moore accepted and those of the fireman rejected? How is it that Moore’s memory remained intact and that of the fireman has been jumbled by age and the publicity surrounding the Roswell crash? Why do we accept Moore’s claim of losing track of a flight near Arabella that we can’t establish took place but reject the information that corroborates the testimony of other witnesses?

Here’s the real point, however. Both Tony and I have interviewed a man who was in the Roswell Fire Department in July 1947. He said that they were told by a military representative told them not to go out there. He said that he was told the base fire department would handle it. He said that he learned, from Dwyer, that the craft was strange... suggesting that it was an unknown object from someplace else.

He has corroborated much of what Frankie Rowe said which means we can dispense with calling her a liar. She might be mistaken, she might be wrong, but she’s not a liar. Others are saying the same things she said so that her story is no longer stand alone (though her sister had corroborated part of it long ago). She has been vindicated.

Where do we go now? Well, I have the names of some of those who served in the base fire department and the search for them will begin. Of course, I realize that we are now more than sixty years from the event and the men who served in various capacities on the base would likely be in their late 80s and into their 90s, but we might get lucky. And we know of a couple of other places to begin searching for information. We now just have to take that step.

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See Also:

ROSWELL FIREMAN CONFESSES:
"IT WAS A FLYING SAUCER!"

MY UFO EXPERIENCE: New Witness Recounts His Father's Involvement with Roswell UFO Crash

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