Editing Aztec, New Mexico UFO crash

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{{Short description|Alleged Flying Saucer Crash}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=December 2017}}
The '''Aztec, New Mexico crashed saucer hoax''' (sometimes known as the "other [[Roswell incident|Roswell]]") was a [[flying saucer]] crash alleged to have happened in 1948 in [[Aztec, New Mexico]]. The story was first published in 1949 by author [[Frank Scully]] in his ''[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]]'' magazine columns, and later in his 1950 book ''Behind the Flying Saucers''. In the mid-1950s, the story was exposed as a hoax fabricated by two [[confidence trick|con men]], Silas M. Newton and Leo A. Gebauer, as part of a fraudulent scheme to sell supposed alien technology. Beginning in the 1970s, some [[Ufology|ufologists]] resurrected the story in books claiming the purported crash was real.<ref name="Skepdic">{{cite web|last1=Carroll|first1=Robert Todd|title=Aztec (New Mexico) UFO Hoax|url=http://skepdic.com/aztec.html|website=The Skeptic's Dictionary|access-date=April 8, 2016}}</ref><ref name="Greer2009">{{cite book|author=John Michael Greer|title=The UFO Phenomenon: Fact, Fantasy and Disinformation|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EYU1GrJjUZMC&pg=PA119|year=2009|publisher=Llewellyn Worldwide|isbn=978-0-7387-1319-9|pages=119–}}</ref><ref name="Radford2014">{{cite book|author=Benjamin Radford|title=Mysterious New Mexico: Miracles, Magic, and Monsters in the Land of Enchantment|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=40a4AwAAQBAJ&pg=PT68|date=August 15, 2014|publisher=University of New Mexico Press|isbn=978-0-8263-5452-5|pages=68–}}</ref> In 2013, an [[FBI]] memo claimed by some ufologists to substantiate the crash story was dismissed by the bureau as "a second- or third-hand claim that we never investigated".<ref name="fbipressrelease"/>

==Story==
{{Wikisource|Scully's Scrapbook of October 8, 1949}}
According to Scully, in March 1948, an unidentified aerial craft containing sixteen humanoid bodies was recovered by the military in New Mexico after making a controlled landing in Hart Canyon 12 miles northeast of the city of Aztec. The craft was said to be {{convert|99|ft|m|0}} in diameter, the largest UFO to date. Scully named as his sources two men identified as Newton and Gebauer, who reportedly told him the incident had been covered up and "the military had taken the craft for secret research".<ref name="Radford2014" /><ref name="Farmington1">{{cite news |last=Irvin |first=Leigh |title=Aztec UFO landing subject of new book |url=http://www.daily-times.com/ci_20271257/azrec-ufo-landing-subject-new-book |newspaper=[[Farmington Daily Times]] |location=New Mexico |date=March 28, 2012 |access-date=April 1, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150923212404/http://www.daily-times.com/ci_20271257/azrec-ufo-landing-subject-new-book |archive-date=September 23, 2015 |url-status=dead |df=mdy-all }}</ref><ref name="Largest">{{cite news |last=Saunders |first=Rhys |url=http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=FDTB&p_theme=fdtb&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&s_dispstring=headline%28phenomena%29%20AND%20date%283/26/2006%20to%203/26/2006%29&p_field_date-0=YMD_date&p_params_date-0=date:B,E&p_text_date-0=3/26/2006%20to%203/26/2006%29&p_field_advanced-0=title&p_text_advanced-0=%28%22phenomena%22%29&xcal_numdocs=20&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&xcal_useweights=no |title=Sharing stories of unexplained phenomena |newspaper=Farmington Daily Times |location=New Mexico |id=Article ID: fdn29283847 |date=March 26, 2006 |page=1A }} Article available via [http://www.daily-times.com/archivesearch Farmington Daily Times Online Archive] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150923212330/http://www.daily-times.com/archivesearch |date=September 23, 2015 }}, (fee based).</ref>

Scully wrote that the crashed UFO along with other flying saucers captured by the government came from [[Venus (planet)|Venus]] and worked on "magnetic principles". According to Scully, the inhabitants stocked concentrated food wafers and "heavy water" for drinking purposes, and every dimension of the craft was "divisible by nine". Science writer [[Martin Gardner]] criticized Scully's story as full of "wild imaginings" and "scientific howlers".<ref name="Gardner2012">{{cite book|author=Martin Gardner|title=Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=X0HCAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT71|date=May 4, 2012|publisher=Courier Corporation|isbn=978-0-486-13162-7|pages=71–}}</ref>

==Hoax==
{{external media
|audio1=Lecture by Silas Newton on March 8, 1950 at the University of Denver: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASCUGdnsQxw Part 1] and  [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNcpr3f8Eew Part 2]
}}

During the late 1940s and early 1950s, Silas Newton and Leo A. Gebauer traveled through Aztec, attempting to sell devices known in the oil business as [[dowsing|doodlebugs]].<ref name="Vault"/> They claimed that these devices could find  oil, gas and gold, and that they could do so because they were based on "alien technology" recovered from the supposed crash of a flying saucer. When J. P. Cahn of the ''[[San Francisco Chronicle]]'' asked the con men for a piece of metal from the supposed alien devices, they provided him with a sample that turned out to be ordinary [[aluminium|aluminum]].<ref name="Vault"/> In 1949, author Frank Scully published a series of columns in ''Variety'' magazine retelling the crash story told to him by Newton and Gebauer. He later expanded these columns to create ''Behind the Flying Saucers'' in 1950, a best selling book that influenced public perceptions about UFOs. <!-- On March 31, 1950,   Air Force investigators interviewed George Koehler. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVzZy9dKY1Q{{fact}}--> Two years later, in 1952, the hoax was exposed in ''[[True (magazine)|True]]'' magazine,<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Cahn |first=J. P. Cahn |date=September 1952 |title=The Flying Saucers and the Mysterious Little Men |url=http://www.physics.smu.edu/~pseudo/UFOs/Scully/Cahn1.pdf |magazine=True |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230622091542/http://www.physics.smu.edu/~pseudo/UFOs/Scully/Cahn1.pdf |archive-date=June 22, 2023 |access-date=June 22, 2023}}</ref> with a follow-up article in 1956 presenting other victims of Newton and Gebauer.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Cahn |first=J. P. Cahn |date=August 1956 |title=Flying Saucer Swindlers |url=http://www.physics.smu.edu/pseudo/UFOs/Scully/Cahn2.pdf |magazine=True |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230622101940/http://www.physics.smu.edu/pseudo/UFOs/Scully/Cahn2.pdf |archive-date=June 22, 2023 |access-date=June 22, 2023}}</ref> One of the victims was the millionaire Herman Flader, who pressed charges. The two were convicted of fraud in 1953.<ref name="Skepdic" /><ref name="Radford2014"/>
[[File:Silas Newton.png|alt=Three men demonstrate the Aztec hoax claims using an inverted bowl to represent Earth and a copy of Frank Scully's book to represent a magnetism-powered flying saucer.|thumb|Author Frank Scully (right) and confidence man Silas Newton (center)<ref>{{cite news |last=Severson |first=Thor |title=Little Men Due Soon: Flying Saucer Landing Forecast |date=October 14, 1952 |newspaper=The Denver Post |location=Denver, Colorado |others=Photograph by David Mathias}}</ref>]]

==Influence on ufology==
Through the mid-1950s to the early 1970s, most ufologists considered the subject thoroughly discredited and therefore avoided it. In 1966, the book ''Incident at Exeter'' mentioned rumors of dead alien bodies stored at [[Wright-Patterson Air Force Base]]. Those rumors inspired the 1968 novel ''[[The Fortec Conspiracy]]''. In 1974, ufologist  [[Robert Spencer Carr]] publicly claimed alien bodies recovered near Aztec were stored at "Hangar 18" at Wright-Patterson, prompting official denials from the Air Force.<ref>Smith, Toby - Little Gray Men p. 84</ref>

However, in the late 1970s, author [[Leonard H. Stringfield|Leonard Stringfield]] purported that not only was the incident real, but that the craft involved was one of many captured and stored by the U.S. military.<ref name="Greer">{{cite book|last=Greer|first=John Michael|title=The UFO Phenomenon: Fact, Fantasy and Disinformation|edition=1st|publisher=[[Llewellyn Worldwide]]|location=Woodbury, MN|year=2009|isbn=978-0-738-71319-9|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/ufophenomenonfac0000gree}}</ref> In later years, many accounts, allegedly first-hand, of the [[Roswell crash]] contained the Aztec crash story,<ref name="Greer"/> with some claiming the craft was made of a material impervious to all heat, and others alleging the craft was damaged by the crash. The supposed humanoid bodies were said to measure between {{convert|36|in|cm}} and {{convert|42|in|cm}} in height, and weigh around {{convert|40|lb|kg}}. Ufologists claim that shortly after the craft was downed, the military cleared the area of evidence, including the bodies, and subsequently took it to Hangar 18 at Wright-Patterson.<ref name="Greer2009"/><ref name="Radford2014"/>

==FBI memo==
In April 2011, the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] launched The Vault, a website containing documents and media from the agency's FOIA ([[Freedom of Information Act (United States)|Freedom of Information Act]]) Library. Some UFO enthusiasts found what has come to be known as the "Hottel memo" on The Vault, and touted it as new proof of an official cover-up by the US government. However, the memo had never been classified, and had been known to the ufology community for years, having been alleged as early as 1998 to be evidence of a landing by extraterrestrials.<ref name="Vault">{{cite news |title=FBI Hottel Memo Reveals UFO Hoax |first=Jesse |last=Emspak |url=http://www.ibtimes.com/fbi-hottel-memo-reveals-ufo-hoax-279533 |newspaper=International Business Times |publisher=Etienne Uzac |location=New York |date=April 11, 2011 |access-date=April 1, 2013}}</ref>

[[File:FBI Hottel Memo.jpg|400px|thumb|right|'Hottel Memo']]

The memo contained the report of a man named Guy Hottel, who was the FBI agent in charge of the Washington field office at the time.<ref name="Vault2"/> It was addressed to [[J. Edgar Hoover]] and indexed in the FBI records, but this was standard practice at the time.<ref name="Vault2">{{cite press release |title=UFOs and the Guy Hottel Memo |date=March 25, 2013 |publisher=[[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] |url=https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2013/march/ufos-and-the-guy-hottel-memo |access-date=April 1, 2013}}</ref> It was later discovered that Hottel's report was a retelling of a story that had been taken from a January 6, 1950, article published in ''[[the Wyandotte Echo]]'', a [[Kansas City, Kansas]], legal newspaper. The ''Wyandotte Echo'' article itself related the account of a local car salesman and radio station advertising manager.<ref name="Vault"/> Ultimately the details within the FBI memo can be traced directly back to the initial hoax story.<ref name="Vault"/> 

After the memo was posted on The Vault, it received over a million views within 2 years.<ref name="Vault2"/> In 2013, the FBI issued a [[press release]] concerning the memo. Addressing the memo's context and possible connection to a hoax, the Bureau concluded, "Finally, the Hottel memo does not prove the existence of UFOs; it is simply a second- or third-hand claim that we never investigated. Some people believe the memo repeats a hoax that was circulating at that time, but the Bureau’s files have no information to verify that theory."<ref name="fbipressrelease">{{cite press release |title=UFOs and the Guy Hottel Memo |date=March 25, 2013 |publisher=Federal Bureau of Investigation |url=https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2013/march/ufos-and-the-guy-hottel-memo |access-date=March 30, 2013}}</ref>

==Fundraiser==
The incident gave birth to the Aztec UFO Symposium, which was run by the Aztec, New Mexico, library as a fundraiser from 1997 until 2011.<ref name="Largest"/><ref>{{cite news |last=Mayeux |first=Debra |url=http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=FDTB&p_theme=fdtb&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&s_dispstring=headline%28symposium%29%20AND%20date%283/25/2005%20to%203/25/2005%29&p_field_date-0=YMD_date&p_params_date-0=date:B,E&p_text_date-0=3/25/2005%20to%203/25/2005%29&p_field_advanced-0=title&p_text_advanced-0=%28%22symposium%22%29&xcal_numdocs=20&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&xcal_useweights=no |title=OFF HOURS: UFO symposium enters 8th year as Aztec residents search for truth |newspaper=Farmington Daily Times |location=New Mexico |id=Article ID: fdn16000832 |date=March 25, 2005 |page=OH-13 }} Article available via [http://www.daily-times.com/archivesearch Farmington Daily Times Online Archive] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150923212330/http://www.daily-times.com/archivesearch |date=September 23, 2015 }}, (fee based).</ref>

==See also==
* [[Twin Falls Saucer Hoax]]
* ''[[The Bamboo Saucer]]'', a 1968 film about a crashed saucer with dead bodies being recovered by Soviet and American forces from Red China
* ''[[Hangar 18 (film)|Hangar 18]]'', a 1980 film about a crashed craft with dead bodies
* [[List of reported UFO sightings]]

==References==
{{reflist|30em}}

==Further reading==
* {{cite book|last1=Radford|first1=Ben|author-link=Ben Radford|title=Mysterious New Mexico|date=2014|publisher=University of New Mexico Press|location=Albuquerque, NM|isbn=978-0-8263-5450-1|pages=79–98|chapter=Chapter 4 The Great Aztec UFO Crash}}
* {{cite book |last=Scully |first=Frank |title=Behind the Flying Saucers |url=https://archive.org/details/behindflyingsauc00scul |url-access=registration |year=1950 |publisher=[[Henry Holt and Company]] |location=New York |oclc=1467735}}
* {{cite book |last=Reece |first=Gregory L. |title=UFO Religion: Inside Flying Saucer Cults and Culture |publisher=[[I. B. Tauris]] |location=London; New York |year=2007 |isbn=978-1-845-11451-0}}

{{UFOs}}

[[Category:1948 in New Mexico]]
[[Category:History of San Juan County, New Mexico]]
[[Category:Hoaxes in the United States]]
[[Category:UFO crashes]]
[[Category:UFO hoaxes]]
[[Category:UFO sightings in the United States]]