AZTEC - By Michael McClellan. (continued)

Dr. Gee was not yet through with his astounding revelations. Not only was an alien space ship recovered but, rather, three! There was even a fourth, but that one got away before the scientists could even photograph it. The second space ship which landed in nearly the same condition as the first craft, had its door open. The sixteen little bodies inside were not charred or burned. Medical opinion was that these bodies, when found, had not been dead for much more than two or three hours.

It had landed near a proving ground in Arizona. It was smaller than the first, being only seventy-two feet in diameter. (The first was ninety-nine and 99/100 feet in diameter.) The third ship landed in Paradise Valley above Phoenix, Arizona. There were only two crew members inside. One humanoid was halfway out the door and the other was seated within. Again, both were dead. This ship was thirty-six feet in diameter.

Enter Silas Mason Newton.

Newton was a close associate of Dr. Gee's (an oil millionaire, according to Robert Carr) who wanted to see the ships. Alas, by this time government secrecy had intervened and Newton was out of luck. Dr. Gee had, however, secured a tubeless radio, some small discs, gears, and other assorted devices which had been taken from the space ships.

The story now takes on elements of "Reversed Engineering Possibilities," which clearly predate the Col. Philip Corso's "Reversed Engineering" claims which captured the imaginations of many Roswellian UFOlogists more than three decades later.

The ratios of the gears were an enigma to earth engineers, defying more than 150 tests to break down their metal. There was no play in the gears and they did not appear to be lubricated. Dr. Gee constructed an antenna for the radio and was able to receive a sort of high "C" hourly, at fifteen minutes past the hour.

"The Philadelphia Inquirer" newspaper carried an article on page four of its July 28th, 1952, issue describing more details on the Scully story which it received from "True Magazine.". On March 8th, 1950, according to the Inquirer, Newton spoke to an elementary science class at the University of Denver. Half the class believed the story by Newton of Dr. Gee's discoveries. The story was out!

At one of Newton's con game appearances on campus, his talk was suddenly cut short by Dr. Gee who excitedly pointed to his wrist watch and bellowed, "Great Scott, we've got to get to the airport!" Newton hurriedly gathered his papers and dashed out the door as students and faculty looked on. Some would-be investors in the auditorium asked, "What was that fellows name", and another person replied,” I think it was Scott something".

With the advent of the internet, this and many other UFO crash stories have grown into something of a sub-cultural cottage industry. I discovered the” Aztec, NM, saucer crash" produced one hundred and twenty-eight pages of postings to examine, while Roswell had six hundred and forty-four. Carbondale, PA, had a scant ten pages, as did Spitzbergen, Norway, while, Kingman, Arizona, was represented by twenty-eight pages to scroll upon. Curiously, Kecksburg, PA, displayed just three pages even though it had received national exposure on TV's very popular "Unsolved Mysteries" program. The date of my very cursory internet survey was May 13, 2005.

Interestingly, when Scully's book was published, all of the principals in chapter twelve seemed to mysteriously drop out of sight. J. P. Cahn of the "San Francisco Chronicle" on an assignment for "True Magazine" decided to put Newton's lecture to the test. He found that Scully and Newton were acquainted and were, in fact, friends. Scully admitted that all of his information was second-hand, but he did seem to sincerely believe Newton.

A meeting was set up and the three - Scully, Newton, and Cahn, met at Scully's home. After what may have been small talk, Newton produced a handkerchief and dumped from it some metal objects. Two of the objects were gears. Two were what appeared to be small metal discs. The gears were not similar, although the discs matched. They were unmarked with the exception of surface scratches.

Before the meeting was over, Newton briefly showed Cahn a photograph of an object which had a resemblance of an umbrella lying on its side. He hinted that people would pay a good deal of money to see something like that. Newton refused to part with the objects he had shown Cahn and further refused to reveal Dr. Gee's true identity.

Cahn investigated Newton's background and, as far as he could determine, the whole Newton Oil Company was two small offices connected by a waiting room. Newton had boasted of rediscovering the Rangley oil fields in Colorado. When Cahn researched this misinformation with Richard D. White, Exploration Superintendent for a subsidiary of Standard Oil Company of California, he was told that Newton brought a lot of people out in big cars. With regard to rediscovering Rangley, it was so much baloney.

More background checks found Newton with a record for larceny in New York. The complaint had been discharged. However, in another case, Newton was discovered to have been involved with shady stock practices. Now more determined to get to the bottom of the entire story, Cahn arranged a meeting with Newton and told him that $10,000.00 had been authorized to be put in escrow with another $25,000.00 to be paid upon publication of Newton's story as soon as reasonable proof was produced. Cahn had, beforehand, counterfeited a disc similar to those Newton had shown to him and was able to make a switch. Newton didn't know the difference when, after appearing to examine them, Cahn handed them back to Newton.

The discs were reported to have been subjected to 10,000 degrees heat in Dr. Gee's laboratory without melting. The metal disc kidnapped by Cahn was taken to Stanford University for an analysis. It was plain aluminum, 99.5 percent pure, and the type used in making nothing more than pots and pans. It incidentally, melted at the Stanford University lab at 657 degrees Fahrenheit.

Scully finally admitted to Cahn that the mysterious Dr. Gee was none other than Dr. Leo A. Gebauer, with whom he had been in telephone contact a number of times. Not yet completely satisfied, Cahn took a trip to Arizona where he confronted Mr. Gebauer. Cahn discovered that instead of holding the alleged degrees mentioned by Scully, he held only an electrical engineering degree from Louis Institute of Technology in Chicago, Ill.

In addition, Cahn found that from 1943 to 1945 when Dr. Gee was supposed to have been heading 1,700 scientists on secret government work (according to Scully in his book) he was actually employed at AiResearch Co. in Phoenix and Los Angeles. His job was to keep the lab machinery going as a kind of maintenance man.

The discrepancies between Scully's story and Carr's are numerous and obvious. While Scully says that the Aztec bodies were charred and burnt, Professor Carr implies that they were fairly fresh. Scully clearly says in his book that there were thirty-four little bodies; while Carr recognizes that there was another crashed ship besides the one in Aztec. He says there were only burned remains in the other crash and no entire life forms. Were there thirty-four bodies? Or, were there twelve?

Coral Lorenzen, co-founder of Aerial Phenomenon Research Organization (APRO) spoke with Sheriff Dan Sullivan of Aztec, New Mexico, recently. According to Mrs. Lorenzen, "I personally talked to ...Sullivan...and he told me that since the story broke, he's had deputies out combing the area for any information which would prove or disprove Carr's claims. His own father was sheriff at the time and had no recollection of a crash, aircraft being in the area, or anything else that would support Carr's claims". Nothing has been found.

This writer interviewed several highly reliable "old-timers" from Aztec. Deputy Sheriff Bruce Sullivan, Dan Sullivan's brother, also works out of Aztec. Bruce Sullivan would have been seventeen or eighteen years old and attending the Aztec High School during this alleged incident. He has lived in Aztec all his life and "Never knew or heard anything about it".

The deputy said that his department has received many phone calls about the alleged incident but he personally knows nothing about it. His father was sheriff at the time and never mentioned it. If it had happened, he knows his father would have mentioned it. This may lead to a little confusion as to which sheriffs went out to the craft and examined it with drawn guns.

Lyle McWilliams has been around Aztec for a good number of years. He has been in business, according to his own testimony, "Ever since I've been old enough" and was about thirty-two years old in 1948. He recalls nothing of the incident except for the original claim and has always treated it as a joke. He feels that the story may have been revived for "ulterior motives." Bruce Sullivan and Lyle McWilliams are neither believers nor disbelievers in UFOs.

Marguerite Knowlton has lived near Hart Canyon (the alleged scene of the crash) since 1946 and is sixty years old. Nothing to her knowledge transpired in the canyon. Mrs. Knowlton suggested that I talk with George Brown who owned the Aztec Newspaper in 1948. From my conversation with him, he impressed me as someone who must have been a colorful individual. He recalled a tongue-in-cheek article he had written for the newspaper years ago describing his abduction by little green men from space.

Brown had been in Aztec for seventy years. He ran the paper for forty-four years. "Nobody could have gotten in there and out (Hart Canyon) without attracting a lot of attention. It's rough country and there's only one highway in there". Brown stated emphatically that the road had never been traveled by anyone. He became intoxicated enough with the story to speak with what he estimates to be over one hundred people including cowboys, lawmen, and ranchers. None of them recall the UFO landing or subsequent military movement.

If anyone had motive to make good use of the Aztec story, Mr. Brown would head the list. Instead, no sensational accounts of the landing appeared in the paper. Had the story been true, no newsman worth his salt would have passed up such an opportunity.

Yet, Mr. Scott Ramsey claims to have found dozens (some say, hundreds) of eyewitnesses to the Aztec incident, more than thirty years after the above individuals and investigators failed to locate just one.

The Robert Spencer Carr story parallels that of a very old, thinly worn, tattered shoe. It has been kicked around for years. Every so often, someone takes this old shoe out of a dark corner in the closet. He dyes it a new color, waxes and buffs it to a high gloss. New heels and soles are added. Bright new shoestrings once again tie it together. The old shoe becomes a new version to fit the present modern-day style. More usage is gotten from it. It is used until it is worn out. After it has served its purpose, it returns to the closet until someone again decides the time has come for a new version.

While our present-day "throw-away" society probably wouldn't go through the bother and expense of refurbishing an old pair of shoes, back when Mike wrote this it was a common, but declining, practice to do so. Nevertheless, the analogy is "absolutely correct" in regard to the sporadic refurbishing of the Aztec story over the years by Robert Spencer Carr (1973-1974,) William Steinman and Wendelle Stevens (1986,) Linda Mouton Howe and Art Bell (1998,) Scott Ramsey and perhaps, more recently by Stanton Friedman. There are numerous additional offerings of the story on the ever Wild and Wacky Web.

Those who have seen or talked with Carr must be impressed with his fatherly-like patience. He appears to be a kindly man with a purity of purpose. He would have us believe his motives are no more than to make contact with the superior intelligences frequenting our Earthly air space.

He abhors the "lurid sensationalism - the vulgar sensationalism" that the media has afforded him. Yet, he is lecturing frequently at Florida universities and has appeared, according to his own statistics, on one hundred and forty-four radio shows, thirty-three television appearances, and fifty newspaper interviews; in addition to a well-attended symposium he recently held in Florida. His new book on UFOs is near completion and is forthcoming. He employs an agent to book his lectures.

Carr's brainchild is a plan to lure the UFOs to a safe landing place in New Mexico close to Los Alamos. He plans to accomplish this by using decoy flying saucers, signal images, and other devices to coax the extraterrestrials to an Earthly visit. He wants presidential initiative aimed at setting up an official meeting with the aliens on a mountain top to find out what they want.

Modern-day UFO coaxers like Dr. Steven Greer's group also attempt to lure UFOs with light signals and telepathy - while famed abductee Betty Hill had a property ringed with lights to attract UFOs to a landing. Of course, the sci-fi motion picture "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (1977) featured contact with aliens on a mountain top in the state of Wyoming.

He (Carr) envisions Kissinger sitting at a card table with intergalactic envoys lashing out agreement details. Carr, who is without a doctorate and yet advertises himself as "Dr. Carr" at his symposium, remind me of a space age, one man medicine show peddling his miracle cure-all bottle of elixir with the aid of various electronic communication devices.

Although he claims to be a NICAP investigator, the director tells me that while he may have been in years past, he is now only a member. A ten dollar bill will purchase annual membership for anyone. At the time I spoke with the director, he told me that a letter was being prepared to Carr warning him to stop the use of NICAP's name in connection with his "Little Men" story. The director reminds me that Carr's membership is also revocable and excommunication the next step if deemed necessary.

In the final analysis, I may be found to have been too harsh on Carr. Perhaps he subscribes to "the end justifies the means" philosophy which unfortunately requires building a solid house on a foundation of silt and sand. There is a heavy moral here. UFOs are unknown phenomena, they do exist. Files of investigative organizations are bursting with evidence of UFOs. Reliable witnesses, photographs, physical evidence, burn marks, and landing impressions bear mute testimony to their existence.

Whether they be Klass-type plasmas or, Menzolian temperature inversions, whether they are from an unknown dimension or, hallucinations of Jungian minds conjuring round, flattened, illuminated objects projected by the mind's eye into space. Or, whether they are real, tangible, solid objects controlled by intelligent minds that have developed a mode of galactic travel so technologically-advanced, the embryonic earthly mind of science cannot even begin to conceive of their workings. THE UFO PHENOMENON EXISTS! It is real and apparently does not prefer to go away!

Without qualification, no real "rally 'round the flag" kind of scientific study has ever been mustered. APRO has existed for nearly a quarter of a century; and for that same period, the founders have painstakingly devoted their lives to resolve this enigma. Other organizations have devoted endless hours of research - still no answer.

Why no answer? No money! The civilian organizations have attempted to function by means of membership dues and subscriptions. Their entire income is a mere pittance compared to recent funding by the U.S. government to study the antics of Frisbees or research butterflies.

At the time of this article's writing, many UFO groups were attempting to chide and instigate a re-evaluation of the UFO situation by the federal government. The U.S. Air Force's Project Blue Book (1951-1969) program was believed to be riddled with errors and the Condon Committee's efforts (1966-1968) were suspected of negative bias from its onset.

Every government subsidized program for the research of UFOs has been one with a negative mind to start. The researchers began the study already knowing the answer: "Insufficient Evidence". Insufficient evidence to continue the study! But, the evidence continues to rear its head and cry out, "I am here!"

Young organizations such as UFORIC attempt new studies with new ideas. Good ideas, the result? The necessary scientific minds and the funds with which to complete the work and the project are not there. The point is the federal government must be the one to initiate the study. But, the committee, if one is ever to exist, must be free and unshackled from political pressures whether Democrat or Republican, Army or Navy.

Of course, there will be those who will remind us of the poverty and starvation which needs to be first resolved; and their ancestors in Spain where finances were made available to Christopher Columbus, and the prudish decried the foolish waste of funds to send sailors and ships to their doom at the edge of the flat Earth.

Everyone knew no more continents existed. But the queen possessed two very valuable and perhaps rare conditions of mind, wisdom, and foresight. Would that our leaders learn from this four hundred year old history lesson.

Mike and I had several discussions concerning funding matters and it was agreed government funding would probably never be realized without some sort of strings being attached in one way or another. Of course, the raising of privately-donated research funds using an aggressive internet campaign was completely unimaginable in 1974.

Interestingly, the FUFOR (Fund for UFO Research) group which had depended on private contributions for its survival recently made an urgent appeal for contributions to avoid bankruptcy. A portion of the group's notice appeared in Jim Moseley's "Saucer Smear" newsletter recently (Vol.52 No.4, May1, 2005.) It read " The dearth of serious interest in UFOs on the part of the public, the press, and the scientific community deepen; as does the financial bind in which the Fund finds itself.”

The long-term, near-total absence of the subject in the major news media cannot help give the impression that either UFOs are no longer being seen or that the mystery of their nature has been solved. Neither conclusion is even close to correct. The stack of genuinely baffling, unexplained cases continues to grow.

The sources of major funding have faded away, and so individuals will have to carry a larger part of the load. Barring an unexpected influx of funds, we will soon be on the brink of bankruptcy.”(Of course, it might also be a fact that the number of baby-boomer "Nuts and Bolts" enthusiasts are dwindling, while the new age "Abduction Buffs" believe they already know what UFOs are, who's flying them, and why they're visiting our planet... So, what's to fund?)

Robert Spencer Carr's story, from the first press release to the mass communication interviews, smells of hoax. Mr. Carr may be absolutely sincere in his gospel of the twelve little bodies. Be that as it may, Professor Carr managed to focus national attention on himself and his space elixir, proving a very valuable point.

He has proven that many years of diligent efforts by sincere and dedicated UFO researchers continue to go unnoticed by both the news media and the scientific community in general. On the other hand, a sensational, unfounded, unproven, and undocumented, fabricated new version of an old fairy tale hoax demands attention.

The public, with the unwitting aide of the media, is bilked and exploited. The elusive dignity and serious interest which the subject requires and deserves loses ground to the carnival atmosphere of the latest side-show story. Still, the phenomenon remains and continues to require dignified attention. Perhaps proper attention may be purchased with constant unending pressure on key, high-position, elected representatives beginning with our President.

World Wars, Korea, Viet-Nam, and Middle East Crises will appear and fade. The UFOs patiently remain, quietly going about their unknown business almost as if they are waiting for mankind to say with a united voice, "Who are you? Why are you here?" Because we are man, our very nature insatiably, but respectfully, demands an answer! "We will know why!"

In the 1800's, William Stanley Jevons wrote, "True science will not deny the existence of things because they cannot be weighed and measured. It will, rather, lead us to believe that the wonders and subtleties of possible existence surpass all that our mortal powers allow us to clearly perceive. We must ignore no existence whatever. We may variously interpret or explain its meaning and origin; but, if a phenomena does exist, it demands some kind of explanation.”

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Mr. Jevons' (A leading English economist and logician of the 19th century) quote was Mike's choice of a philosophy to embrace regarding hi objectives investigations of the UFO phenomena. Mike did so for a number of years as both an APRO and UFORIC field investigator. He left both UFO groups about a year and a half after writing this paper.

Jim Moseley's Saucer Smear Vol.45, No.5 June 5th,1998 informs us that, "In 1984 your "Smear" editor, together with two friends, interviewed Carr at his luxurious retirement house in Clearwater, Florida. By that time Carr had quieted down about Aztec, but was claiming spaceships were frequently landing on the water right in front of his oceanfront home, and that the occupants came inside his home to chat with him. Few people know about this story, as he only told it privately. He asked us not to print it until after his death, and we kept our promise...

“A nurse who accompanied us at our 1984 Carr interview felt that he was hallucinating because of a specific physical disability. However, the more likely answer came from Carr's son, who contacted us by mail shortly after his father's death in about 1996. In essence, the son said that his father had a lifetime habit of making up stories in order to get attention and to be more interesting. This indeed seems to have been the case.”

Regarding Mike McClellan; he had also assisted me (unofficially) with several investigations of UFO incidents and one crop circle report in 1992. I believe this article was published in 1975 under the title, "The UFO Crash of 1948 was a Hoax". Mike McClellan has certainly left us a valuable and persuasive contribution towards a better understanding of how (inUFOlogical circles)) a bad seed planted in 1950 can bear bitter fruit fifty-eight years after the root of that plant should have died up and simply blown away.. But, then again, those New Mexican desert plants are a very hearty species, indeed.

Mr. McClellan’s article was also published in the UK’s Magonia journal and posted at “Aliens ate my Buick” in the US. Mike and I were both UFO proponent researchers, not skeptics or ideologues.

Sources:

Michael McClellan – The Flying Saucer Crash of 1948 was a hoax- Official UFO magazine Oct. 1975
I am unaware of all the many sources Mike McClellan used to write his article but, certainly Frank Scully’s 1950 book “Behind the Flying Saucers” was one of them.