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The 'Crash / Retrieval Syndrome' (Non-Roswell UFO Crash Stories)

BS3

BS3

Abominable Showman
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I'm starting this thread as a place to dump comments about the many UFO crash stories that aren't Roswell (or Aztec) dotted around the US, particularly the southwestern US deserts.

The phrase "crash/retrieval syndrome" was coined by Leonard Stringfield and seems quite appropriate, given that these stories often feature groups of associated elements that recur in different cases. Examples might be:

- An atomic connection, eg testing
- The military recovery team who arrive quite early on, as if they have foreknowledge of the crash
- The topography of the crash site, with the craft embedded in a dry watercourse or hillside, sometimes with occupants scattered around it, sometimes with a remaining live occupant
- Usually some confirmatory, specific detail about the craft, eg shape or markings
- Roadblocks / threatened residents
- A convoy of recovery vehicles, and a 'craft' sheeted over on a flatbed
- The witness pressed into guard duty, either of the craft or dead occupants
- Wright-Patterson involvement

...and so on.

Stringfield didn't offer so much comment on the truth of the stories when he collected dozens of them in the 1970s. Why should UFOs crash so much? Most of the tales are widely judged to be total rubbish from the perspective of 'reality'. It's difficult to work out if people are simply copying Roswell, copying other widely circulated early accounts, or if something else is going on. My own favourite theory (which I should add isn't my theory) is that the different stories draw on some fundamental human symbolism - the psychological explanation - probably relating to anxieties around the atomic bomb and technology generally. ETH proponents might prefer to suggest that all the stories point to some real incident lying behind them, whereas Vallee (in his book about the Trinity crash) suggests that at least one crash was real but was itself 'symbolic'.

Typically our own UK example (Berwyn) happens up a damp Welsh mountain.

More interesting examples to come.
 
Here's a classic probable-hoax example quoted from Stringfield by Kevin Randle:

In the Fall of 1977 new word of a 1948 crash came to me from a well-informed military source. His information, however, was scanty. He had heard from other "inside" military sources that a metallic disc had crashed somewhere in a desert region. His only details indicated that the craft had suffered severe damage on impact and was retrieved by military units.


By coincidence, months later in 1977, I was to learn more about a crashed disc occurring in 1948. This came from researcher Todd Zechel, whom I had known since 1975 when he became Research Director of Ground Saucer Watch. Formerly with the National Security Agency, Zechel stated that an Air Force technician told him that his uncle, then a Provost Marshal at Carswell Air Force Base near Ft. Worth, Texas, had taken part in the recovery of the crashed UFO which was described as a metallic disc, 90 feet in diameter.


The crash occurred about 30 miles inside the Mexican border across from Laredo, Texas, and was recovered by U.S. troops after it was tracked on radar screens. The job assigned the Provost Marshal, now a retired colonel, was to cordon off the crash site.


The retired colonel [Provost Marshal], now living in Florida, was tracked down by Zechel. Among other facts revealed by the colonel was that one dead alien was found aboard the craft which was described as about 4 feet, 6 inches tall, completely hairless with hands that had no thumbs.


Zechel learned from his source that the troops involved in the retrieval were warned that if they said a word about the incident they would be the "sorriest people around".​
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Here we've got the desert location, the military knowledge of the craft (they are stated to have tracked it on radar, and another witness is supposed to have seen it in flight), the specificity regarding size, canonical small hairless occupants, plus the threatening of those involved.
 
Another of these Roswell-oid stories unearthed by Stringfield purported to date to 1952, and was associated with Edwards AFB, California.

He spoke to someone described as a "reliable person" working for General Electric. This person told Stringfield that their brother had been working as a radar operator at Edwards in 1952 and had monitored a UFO descending and crashing in a nearby desert area. The duty officer had warned them "you didn't see anything!" - here we have a couple of familiar motifs.

The brother then heard that a craft had indeed crashed and been recovered: it was described as over 50 ft in diameter, with a central row of windows, and was blackened by fire (not such an imaginative description this time). It contained dead occupants "approximately 4 1/2 feet tall".

Stringfield was told the brother wouldn't speak to him (no surprises there) but did interview two separate witnesses who claimed to have seen in 1952 a convoy of recovery vehicles destined for Wright-Patterson, including a heavily guarded "lo-boy" with something under a tarpaulin. One witness was the quartermaster at Godman Field, where the convoy supposedly stopped overnight, and who alleged that the cargo was rumoured to be a crashed saucer.
 
Now the one of these stories that has always hovered on the edge of (relative) credibility is the supposed 1953 crash at Kingman, largely because of this:


Stansel Statement.jpg


Unfortunately the case largely stands and falls on Stansel's credibility. When Raymond Fowler pressed him on some inconsistencies in the story as he'd told it to Fowler and how he'd earlier told it to a couple of teenage ufologists, Stansel got flustered before finally saying he'd had a few drinks and had 'exaggerated' to give the youngsters a good story. In the process his credibility largely evaporated, despite his good character witnesses (the whole tale is given by Randle here).

The full version of the Kingman story has many elements shared with other crash/retrieval tales - notably Roswell and the Aztec hoax. There are different ways of looking at this depending on your preferences. Leonard Stringfield speculated that the Aztec hoax came about as a deliberate plant by the authorities to discredit any other rumours that leaked out about a real crash. This seems a bit far-fetched, but there are a couple of intriguing hints that the military was in fact quite happy for 'crashed saucer' stories to be spread - maybe there was an element of Doty-style disinformation going on even then?
 
The cemetery association has over the years not allowed any kind of testing to look for the buried alien.

I assume this is a smart move on their thinking as tourists are always coming to Aurora looking for this cemetery and while these tourists are in town they are spending tourist money.

This cemetery has been promoted on past UFO TV shows on the History Cable Station.
 
That 1897 alien would have been an incredibly rare and valuable corpse. If the Smithsonian Institution didn't want it (unlikely), Barnum and Bailey would have paid a fortune for it. But they buried it, and won't let anyone dig it up.
 
Actually when I said that Berwyn (the 'Welsh Roswell' - well explained by Andy Roberts a few years back) the UK's only example I wasn't strictly correct. There is also Penkridge / Cannock Chase - now billed as the 'Midlands Roswell' (say that in a Black Country accent for the best effect).

I can see there are already 2 threads on the latter (1, 2) so won't add any further to it here other than to say it's a bit unusual as, again, it has the Americans doing the retrieval part (Berwyn's retrieval story was 'Anglicised' a bit, with Porton Down replacing Wright-Patterson etc).
 
Just a comment....I recall in 'Revelations' by Dr Vallee he recounted that there were something like 17 alleged crashes. He seemed to think they were all in doubt yet a year or so ago he supported a book (co wrote?) about a crash in the 1940s in the southwest US.
:thought:
 
The 'Trinity' crash. This is a bit of an unusual one as the story only emerged in 2006 (IIRC) in a local newspaper piece and seems quite obviously inspired by the modern version of the Roswell 'legend'.

Why Vallee has taken an interest in this one in particular is beyond me, other than I suppose the fairly direct connection with nuclear testing. His suggestion is that the craft, entities and crash all in fact formed a symbolic message aimed at humanity's scientists.
See:
Trinity Crash (New Mexico; Padilla Ranch; August 1945)
https://forums.forteana.org/index.p...h-new-mexico-padilla-ranch-august-1945.70001/
 
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BS3 said:
Actually when I said that Berwyn (the 'Welsh Roswell' - well explained by Andy Roberts a few years back) the UK's only example I wasn't strictly correct. There is also Penkridge / Cannock Chase - now billed as the 'Midlands Roswell' (say that in a Black Country accent for the best effect).

I can see there are already 2 threads on the latter (1, 2) so won't add any further to it here other than to say it's a bit unusual as, again, it has the Americans doing the retrieval part (Berwyn's retrieval story was 'Anglicised' a bit, with Porton Down replacing Wright-Patterson etc).
Click to expand...
The excellent analysis by Andy Roberts:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/UFO-Down-Berwyn-Mountain-Crash/dp/1905723601

Well worth a read and it is an absorbing case, I would love to have been in Berwyn that night
 
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The Dame Rebecca West 1996 encounter might qualify here. This took place on her Hertfordshire, UK estate and she watched a strange man and an unidentified object that came down from the sky and seemed to fold in on itself. Details in this excellent book:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/UFO-LANDINGS-UK-Philip-Mantle/dp/B08B7PNYTX

From her observations, the strange intruder seemed connected with the arial craft, as if he were expecting it or searching for it, and it wasn't seen taking off again. She took her sighting to the Ministry of Defence but it was never explained and her description of the object is fascinating.
 
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Paul_Exeter said:
The Dame Rebecca West 1996 encounter might qualify here. This took place on her Hertfordshire, UK estate and she watched a strange man and an unidentified object that came down from the sky and seemed to fold in on itself. Details in this excellent book:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/UFO-LANDINGS-UK-Philip-Mantle/dp/B08B7PNYTX

From her observations, the strange intruder seemed connected with the arial craft, as if he were expecting it or searching for it, and it wasn't seen taking off again. She took her sighting to the Ministry of Defence but it was never explained and her description of the object is fascinating.
Click to expand...

I'd never heard of this one before and the description is certainly quite strange - all I can think of is that the man had been flying or recovering some sort of small balloon or kite or something of that kind.
 
BS3 said:
I'd never heard of this one before and the description is certainly quite strange - all I can think of is that the man had been flying or recovering some sort of small balloon or kite or something of that kind.
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He was trespassing on her property, which is why she was watching him intently. The MoD suggested a helicopter, so you can appreciate it was a large object, but the witness said there was no sound, rotor blades etc…
 
Curt Collins has a useful chronology of retrieval claims on his website, showing how the Aztec hoax/story was the source of many of them.
 
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