San Antonio UFO Crash Case
Recently, two men, Jose Padilla and Reme Baca, claimed that in late August 1945, when they were 9 and 7 years old, respectively, they found a crashed alien ship near San Antonio, NM. The craft, they alleged, was about 35 feet in diameter and about 15 feet high. It had fallen during a thunderstorm, and created a half-mile trench in the ground. Pieces of debris lay nearby. Inside the strange ship, Baca said he observed thin bodied creatures which reminded him of praying mantises. Padilla mentioned three "little men" who rushed back and forth as if they were injured. The boys also claimed to have handled metal which when bent returned to its original shape.
Two days after the alleged sighting, the boys returned to find the occupants gone but the UFO still there. The military arrived and asked to cut a gap in a fence to retrieve a "weather balloon." Around that time, Padilla supposedly went into the craft and pulled an aluminum bracket out. Years later, when analyzed under a microscope, the piece displayed "tiny fossils" or structures suggestive of microcircuitry.
This case is not credible. Like a number of others, it appears to be a hoax, mimicking Roswell. The crash during a thunderstorm, the gouge in the ground, the "memory foil," the injured occupants, the balloon story, all point to a copycat fable. The least the hoaxers could've done is show more originality. Unlike the real crash, San Antonio is based on just two alleged witnesses. What took Padilla and Baca so long to bring their story, and "saucer piece" to the attention of the UFO community? Roswell witnesses had already come forward 20-33 years ago. The real answer is that hoaxers have been inventing stories like this for many years, and it takes time to prepare each new fable.
posted by starman at 7:49 AM
10 Comments:
The story is very likely a hoax. Many people will do whatever they can to gain publicity for themselves. Claiming to have seen a crashed UFO is one way to do it. The details indicate that the story has been copied from other narratives. If those two men had actually seen a UFO that had crashed, they would have told people about it much earlier.
Neal
There are a hundred crashed saucer stories much like this one. "My uncle was driving in Arizona, I think in 1946 or 1947, and saw a saucer crash near the Indian reservation. The military came and took it away." Something like that.
Even if the witness seems to be totally sincere, the problem with these stories is usually they are second-hand, or even if first-hand, usually only one witness. There is often a lack of necessary detail to run it down, such as a specific location or date. And even if you have such details, usually there is nothing to verify whether the event might have happened, such as a local newspaper story. So then you are back to the veracity or accuracy of recall of the usually one witness.
One such specific example was the Cape Girardeau, MO, crash. There is only one witness, Charlotte Manning, the daughter of a minister, who supposedly administered last rights to the dead aliens at the military's request. She is unsure about the specific date--could have been 1941 or 1942. She doesn't know exactly where it happened, just near Cape Girardeau. Supposedly the local newspaper photographer took a picture of the aliens and a copy was given to her father. The photo was supposedly with the family for many years, but she doesn't know where it is now.
The father was real, the photographer was real, but both are dead. Nobody can find anything mentioned in the local newspaper after searching it. The witness seems perfectly sincere, but there is only her and nowhere else to go with the story. It's a classic cold case.
Mention of the Cape Girardeau crash pops up in one of the newer MJ-12 documents, but that doesn't really verify anything since the "document's" authenticity is itself highly questionable. Somebody could have easily taken Manning's known story and incorporated into the document to give it an air of authenticity.
And even if you can establish that something actually happened independent of witness memory, often it doesn't go anywhere or turns out to be something likely mundane. A good example of this was a crash-retrieval, originally reported by Leonard Stringfield, that supposedly occurred on June 27, 1979 in the mountains of SE Oregon near the Idaho border. An Ex-Marine/policeman claimed to have aided in the retrieval. The crashed object had left deep ruts in the Earth and damaged trees. When he got there, the object was already covered with a tarp on a semi-trailer. It was circular with a low dome. Strange dull grayish-brown metal pieces, similar to fresh cast iron, kept falling off the trailer. Some surfaces were smooth, but larger pieces were very rough, extremely light, and appeared to have been subjected to great heat. Other pieces were crated up and flown out on helicopters. The civilians in the area who witnessed the recovery were supposed to have been badly treated by the military recovery team.
At least this story had a date and location. When I dug into this, I discovered there really had been a crash at the exact location given by the witness, but it seemed to be the crash of an AF jet, not a UFO. The date was also a little bit off. An F-111A jet from Mountain Home AFB, Idaho, was reported to have crashed in SE Oregon on July 31, 1979, 35 miles south of Jordon Valley, Oregon, near the Idaho border, killing both crew members, both of whom were named. The wreckage was discovered by a helicopter search and probably involved helicopters in the recovery. The brusque treatment of witnesses could have been military personnel upset at the death of friends.
The crash was reported in both the NY Times and Portland Oregonian on August 1. The Oregonian also carried an aerial photo showing the burned crash site.
So there was a basis of truth to the story, but it was highly unlikely to have been a UFO crash. The witness may have misinterpreted what happened, or maybe it was a hoax, with the witness deliberately exaggerating what happened.
Thanks to Neal and David for the input! DR, it seems there are a few cases which are neither based on next to nothing, nor on a plethora of testimony like Roswell. What do you think of Aztec, and Kingman? Could there be any merit to the Garrison UT case, which was said to coincide with Kingman?
Starman wrote:
Thanks to Neal and David for the input! DR, it seems there are a few cases which are neither based on next to nothing, nor on a plethora of testimony like Roswell. What do you think of Aztec, and Kingman? Could there be any merit to the Garrison UT case, which was said to coincide with Kingman?
Garrison UT I haven't heard of. Aztec and Kingman, like most of these, lack any sort of historical record, such as a newspaper story, that might indicate something definitely happened. Kingman was almost entirely a one witness case, and another secondary witness' story didn't pan out, as Kevin Randle has discussed.
Aztec does have a little more going for it, such as a definite date and crash location, plus a few witnesses, as investigated recently by Scott Ramsey. When I was at the Aztec UFO Conference a few years ago, Scott took a group out to the believed crash site and pointed out the mystery concrete pad there that one of his military sources told him about independently, saying it was poured to support one leg of a crane used to lift the large saucer out. Interestingly enough, the concrete can be dated, and it dated to 1948. I believe military tins have also been recovered from the dirt. The point is, there is some physical evidence to support the witness statements.
More could be done, such as dating the trees surrounding the scraped site using tree cores. If it turned out something happened in 1948 to affect tree growth, it would be suggestive physical evidence, but not proof of a flying saucer crash.
There are FBI documents mentioning crashes, though the counterargument was these were based on the same source or sources as Frank Scully, therefore unreliable.
Part of the Aztec lore and mentioned in the same FBI docs, was the crash being caused by radar on the area. It had previously been argued against Aztec that there was no such radar. But Ramsey managed to locate three, long-forgotten, secret, high-power radar stations that ringed the area, installed there to protect our atomic installations at Los Alamos and Albuquerque.
One early witness who contacted Leonard Stringfield was Capt. V.A. "Posty" Postlethwaite of G-2 Air He told Stringfield that in 1948 he had received a top secret incoming TWX from 3rd Army Headquarters, Atlanta, directed to the commanding general of White Sands Proving grounds. The message described a 100 foot saucer, 30 feet high, blown portal window, five suffocated aliens who had turned blue (4 feet tall with big heads), and paper-thin hull impenetrable by conventional tools. Private property was purchased to facilitate movement of the disc. This is the same basic Aztec story of Scully and later investigator William Steinem.
So I think there may yet be a case for the Aztec crash.
Within the next week I am expecting a final copy of the new book by Scott and Suzanne Ramsey about the Aztec crash. They have collected a huge amount of impressive information since the Conference in Aztec that David mentions. Truly incredible research. I will write the foreword and have already seen big chunks.There was indeed an Aztec crashed saucer.
Stan Friedman
Very interesting DR. How did they date the concrete pad to 1948? The 1950 FBI memo mentioned radars which interferred with the controlling mechanism of the saucer(s). Did Ramsey learn anything about how that worked? Over Long Island about 20 years ago a different method was used.
Welcome, Stan, thanks for news about the forthcoming book! So Aztec is real. I know you've supported the authenticity of the EBD. Kevin Randle and others have claimed Del Rio is fake; ergo the EBD, which mentions it (as El Indio) isn't valid. Why doesn't the EBD mention Aztec, if it is real?
Starman wrote:
Very interesting DR. How did they date the concrete pad to 1948?
As I remember Scott Ramsey explaining it, it had something to do with the rebar in the concrete, but I don't know exactly how the dating process worked.
Now for something completely different. While at Aztec with Rob Swiatek of FUFOR and his wife Susan, as my wife and I were walking to lunch, the Swiatek's pointed out that there were three WEATHER BALLOONS flying high overhead. To this day I have no idea what those balloons were doing there, but it was a bit ironic.
Let us not forget that at the beginning of the EBD it states "This document has been prepared as a preliminary briefing only.It should be regarded as introductory to a full operations briefing intended to follow".
Kevin has shown that Willingham's Del Rio stories are almost certainly fraudulent. There is no connection between that and the EBD, much as he wishes there were. Good luck at finding out anything from Sandia where the El Indio wreckage was taken.
Aztec did not get wide publicity as Roswell did (PM papers from Chicago West on July 8). It involved an intact saucer.Ike's briefing at the Pentagon on 18 November, 1952, only lasted 45 minutes. I, despite my age, was not privy to any discussions as to what was to be included (or not)in the preliminary briefing. He didn't become president until Jan. 20, 1953. Absence of evidence is not evidence for absence. Ike in "Mandate for Change" didn't even mention his Pentagon briefing, though he did mention the earlier in the day meeting with Truman.
My reasons for saying the EBD, TF, and CT are genuine are spelled out in "TOP SECRET/MAJIC" and in a 4 part article at my website www.stantonfriedman.com .
I certainly wouldn't claim that because there were many phony stories told about Roswell,(Such as by Frank Kaufman,) that there there was no Roswell crash. I have for example shown that there were many false MJ-12 documents.
Stan Friedman
In a recent email, Tom Carey had this to say about the case:
"Reme Baca tried to sell his story to me ten years ago. A picture of his UFO crash "artifact" that he sent me looked like a piece of cast iron painted over with silver or aluminum paint. Whenever I proposed a meeting with him to have a look at it, he backed away. On his last call to me he wanted to know how to make money from his story. When I objected to this he cursed me out. So I hung up..."
Stan Friedman wrote:
"Ike in "Mandate for Change" didn't even mention his Pentagon briefing, though he did mention the earlier in the day meeting with Truman."
Truman mentions the briefing he gave Eisenhower with his Cabinet, which lasted about an hour and a half. Truman said he wanted Eisenhower and his people brought up to speed on the critical foreign policy and other issues at the time, including of course the Korean War and peace talks, Iran, and atomic energy. The purpose was continuity of government during transition. Truman had made similar overtures during the election campaign, particularly to receive CIA briefings from Walter Bedell Smith, CIA chief (and allegedly Forrestal's replacement after his death on MJ-12) and said Eisenhower had been reluctant to comply, though I think he did eventually receive regular weekly briefings.
The other comments Truman made about this briefing was Eisenhower's uncharacteristic, strange grimness, never cracking a smile. I think I read a cabinet member's description once, saying Eisenhower had a sour look on his face the entire time, like he was sitting on a pin. None of this, of course, has anything to do with the MJ-12 briefing document.
Truman does mention that he had also arranged for Eisenhower to receive a Pentagon briefing afterward on Korea from Gen. Omar Bradley, head of the Joint Chiefs, but says nothing else about it. As for what else the Joint Chiefs briefing may have included, if anything, we can only speculate. Hillenkoetter, who supposedly gave the MJ-12 briefing, is not mentioned anywhere in the second volume of Truman's memoirs.
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