Editing Hangar 18 (section)

== Accounts ==
[[Frank Scully]]'s book ''Behind the Flying Saucers'' (1950) described claims that wreckage and dead aliens from the alleged [[Aztec, New Mexico UFO crash]] had been taken to Wright-Patterson, where they were being analysed by scientists and engineers.

In 1966, the book ''[[Incident at Exeter]]'' by journalist [[John G. Fuller]] mentioned 'frequent and continual rumors' of 'a half-dozen or so small humanoid corpses, measuring not more than four-and-a-half feet in height' in an Air Force morgue at Wright-Patterson Field.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Fuller |first1=John G. |title=Incident at Exeter |year=1966 |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |pages=87–88 |url=https://archive.org/details/incidentatexeter0000john}}: "There have been, I learned after I started this research, frequent and continual rumors (and they are only rumors) that in a morgue at Wright-Patterson Field, Dayton, Ohio, lie the bodies of a half-dozen or so small humanoid corpses, measuring not more than four-and-a-half feet in height, evidence of one of the few times an extraterrestrial spaceship has allowed itself either to fail or otherwise fall into the clutches of the semicivilized Earth People."</ref>

=== Robert Spencer Carr ===
On October 11, 1974, science-fiction author and UFO conspiracy theorist [[Robert Spencer Carr]] conducted a live radio interview where he publicly claimed that alien bodies recovered from the Aztec, NM crash were being kept at "Hangar 18" at Wright-Patterson.<ref name="CarrRadio">{{cite book |last1=Disch |first1=Thomas M. |title=The Dreams Our Stuff is Made Of: How Science Fiction Conquered the World |date=Jul 5, 2000 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=9780684859781 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0meRTMfDOt4C&pg=PA53}}, "Even the Roswell case [...]  has its component of science-fictional fraud. Robert Spencer Carr became famous, briefly, in the '70s when, in a radio interview, he concocted the still-current story of aliens' autopsied and kept in cold storage at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, near Dayton, Ohio."</ref><ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KYKKiU9cvZEC | title=Shockingly Close to the Truth!: Confessions of a Grave-Robbing Ufologist | isbn=978-1-61592-541-4 | last1=Moseley | first1=James W. | date=2 November 2010 | publisher=Prometheus Books }}</ref>  The claim garnered substantial press attention, and led to official denials.<ref>{{cite news|date=October 12, 1974|title=UFO-oria's Back Again|newspaper=The Cincinnati Enquirer|location=Cincinnati, OH|page=29|url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/101291218}}</ref>  The Air Force replied that no "Hangar 18" existed at the base (perhaps somewhat disingenuously, given the existence of Building 18), and noted Carr's claims bore a close similarity to the fictional ''Fortec Conspiracy''.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/411746017|title=Dayton Daily News |date=Oct 12, 1974|page=1|website=Newspapers.com}}</ref>

During the interview, Carr also relayed a tale of Senator [[Barry Goldwater]] requesting and being denied access to a restricted area.  Reached for comment, Goldwater admitted to having requested a tour and been denied, but Goldwater said he'd never heard any rumors of alien bodies.<ref>"Goldwater, contacted at his home in Phoenix, told The Enquirer he had indeed made such a request, 'But that was at least 12 or 15 years ago.  Good God.  That's so long ago I can't remember.  The answer was negative, but I was an officer so I followed orders.  What's this business about 12 little men? That's a new one on me.'" [https://www-newspapers-com/image/101291218 source]{{Dead link|date=September 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>

By September 1979, Carr claimed to have interviewed five eyewitnesses to the recovery, including a surgical nurse who witnessed an alien's autopsy.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://aadl.org/node/198259|title=Air Force Freezes Ufo Story &#124; Ann Arbor District Library|website=aadl.org}}</ref><ref name="Peebles">{{Cite book |last=Peebles |first=Curtis |title=Watch the Skies!: A Chronicle of the Flying Saucer Myth |date=March 21, 1995 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zjI4X7ZOvOIC |publisher=Berkley Books |isbn=9780425151174}}  "Stringfield described the evidence Carr had collected on the Aztec "crash."  Carr said he had found five eyewitnesses to the recovery. One (now dead) was a surgical nurse at the alien's autopsy. Another was a high-ranking Air Force officer. Two others were aeronautical engineers who described the UFO's structure and systems. The final witness was an Air Force enlisted man who had been a guard." citing Stringfield (Sept 1979) ''Retrievals of the Third Kind, part 2''</ref>

The 1980 film ''[[Hangar 18 (film)|Hangar 18]]'', which dramatized Carr's claims, was described as "a modern-day dramatization" of the [[Roswell incident]] by the film's director [[James L. Conway]],<ref>{{cite book |last1=Erdmann |first1=Terry J. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kDe3VS07YSMC&pg=PA287 |title=Deep Space Nine Companion |last2=Block |first2=Paula M. |date=2000 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=978-0671501068 |location=New York}}</ref> and as "nascent Roswell mythology" by folklorist Thomas Bullard.<ref>{{cite book |last=Bullard |first=Thomas E. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8h-jEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA331 |title=The Myth and Mystery of UFOs |date=2016 |publisher=University Press of Kansas |isbn=978-0-7006-2338-9 |location=Lawrence}}</ref> Decades later, Carr's son recalled that he had often "mortified my mother and me by spinning preposterous stories in front of strangers... [tales of] befriending a giant alligator in the Florida swamps, and sharing complex philosophical ideas with porpoises in the Gulf of Mexico."<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Carr |first=Timothy |date=July 1997 |title=Son of Originator of 'Alien Autopsy' Story Casts Doubt on Father's Credibility |url=https://cdn.centerforinquiry.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/1997/07/22165005/p31.pdf |magazine=Skeptical Inquirer |volume=21 |issue=4}}</ref>

=== Leonard H. Stringfield ===
Claims that alien bodies were being hidden by the military were also popularized by longtime UFO researcher [[Leonard H. Stringfield]]. Stringfield claimed analysis of bodies and UFO crash debris was being conducted at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, however no connection to Roswell was specified.<ref>{{cite book |last=Pflock |first=Karl |author-link=Karl T. Pflock |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9781573928946 |title=Roswell: Inconvenient Facts and the Will to Believe |page=35 |date=2001 |publisher=Prometheus Books |isbn=978-1573928946 |location=Amherst, New York}}</ref><ref name="Zeigler, 13-14"/> In July 1978, Stringfield spoke about alleged crash retrievals at the international MUFON symposium held in Dayton, Ohio.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/405725514|title=Dayton Daily News |date=Jul 27, 1978|page =16|website=Newspapers.com}}</ref> Also in attendance were Donald Keyhoe, J. Allen Hynek, and Ted Bloecher.<ref name="Peebles" />  Stringfield wrote a seven part series on his research titled Status Report I-VI as a follow-up to this talk.<ref>{{cite web| url =http://www.nicap.org/bios/stringfield.htm| archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20130912052144/http://www.nicap.org/bios/stringfield.htm| url-status =dead| archive-date =2013-09-12| title =Who's Who in Ufology – Leonard Stringfield | website = NICAP.org – archived NICAP page}}</ref>