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The earliest documented version I can locate is Stringfield's 1955 account.
I can't confirm whether Gardner himself published anything about this alleged incident earlier. If he did, it couldn't have pre-dated Stringfield's account by more than circa 1 year (see below).
Many accounts state the same thing Berlitz claimed:
This and the consistent inclusion of closely similar passages in other accounts indicate:
- Everything leads back to Gardner;
- Gardner's own source - if mentioned at all - remains mysterious (A witness?; a San Diego newspaper?); and
- Gardner didn't have a story to tell until circa 1954 (15 years after the alleged event).
I can't confirm whether Gardner himself published anything about this alleged incident earlier. If he did, it couldn't have pre-dated Stringfield's account by more than circa 1 year (see below).
Many accounts state the same thing Berlitz claimed:
"The incident was successfully hushed up and did not come to light for fifteen years, when investigator Robert Coe Gardner learned of it from someone who was there."
This and the consistent inclusion of closely similar passages in other accounts indicate:
- Everything leads back to Gardner;
- Gardner's own source - if mentioned at all - remains mysterious (A witness?; a San Diego newspaper?); and
- Gardner didn't have a story to tell until circa 1954 (15 years after the alleged event).