Frank Kaufmann Exposed!

In an article published on the CUFOS website and the IUR newsletter for December, 2002, Kevin Randle publicly announced that he no longer has any confidence in the stories told by Frank Kaufmann.  

Frank Kaufmann's (aka Steve McKenzie⁽¹⁾) story was the lynch-pin to the book The Truth About the UFO Crash at Roswell (Randle and Schmitt, 1994), a book that is considered by many to be the definitive version of the "Roswell Crash".  But for some time now, his credibility has been under attack as parts of his story failed to check out.  Kevin Randle had been one of the researchers defending Frank, even going to so far as to admitting that while parts of Frank's story may have have been fabricated, the basic core of his testimony was, in Kevin's view, still valid.

Since Frank's death in February, 2001, researchers have gained access to his papers, and found some disturbing documents. Frank, it seems, was wont to forging documents to support the tales he was spinning for Roswell researchers.  

For instance, Frank claimed to have special intelligence training, high military rank (Master Sergeant) and military assignments in the 40's that would seem to indicate that his claims of special duties in Roswell were valid.  To reinforce his claims to the researchers, Frank produced a photocopy of one of his separation papers (the Separation Qualification Record) that appeared to back up his story.

But he would never allow the researchers more than a glance, and refused to allow them to keep a copy.  This in of itself might tend to raise suspicions, but his gift for gab apparently smoothed over any objections the researchers might have had.

After Frank's death, his widow allowed researchers access to his private papers.  It was in these papers that that the real forms were found, and the real truth finally came out- he had falsified his records to the researchers.

The conclusions drawn by Randle and the investigators were obvious-  Frank Kaufmann had, for the last 10 years, been gulling the Roswell researchers with lies, forgeries, and tall tales.

You can read the complete story by Kevin Randle and Mark Rodeghier at the CUFOS site. 

The following comments were part of the original page on this site regarding Frank Kaufmann.  They are being left in this record in part to show the evolution of the suspicion that all was not right with Frank's tale

Frank Kaufmann is a person that Kevin Randle claims is still one of his very few credible witnesses.

"I find Frank Kaufmann to be credible because, to this point no one has demonstrated that he has lied about anything. There are those who don't like his testimony because of what it does to their personal beliefs and agendas, but the fact is, he hasn't been caught lying."
(United Kingdom UFO Network Saturday 11th April 1998 IRC meeting on #UFO)

He hasn’t been caught lying?

• Kent Jeffrey caught him lying when he visited him and documented this in his rationale for not believing that Roswell was a crashed alien spaceship.
• Kevin Randle has shown that Frank Kaufmann’s story hasn’t stayed the same over time. In fact, his newer stories don’t resemble his earlier story at all.

"Kaufmann had been on the outside from most of it. His friend, a warrant officer named Robert Thomas, had come in on a special flight from Washington, D.C., and seemed to be involved in the retrieval in some fashion. Thomas let Kaufmann know a few things. He talked about the debris field and suggested that there was a search in progress for the flight crew. .... When asked if he knew anything at all about the recovery of the debris, he (Kaufmann) said, "I know that one crate was taken to a hanger and left there overnight. ...."

He didn't know what was in the crate, only that it had gotten special treatment: lots of guards around it and no one being allowed to approach it. He also said that he had been sworn to secrecy although he didn't know that much....

The only thing he (Kaufmann) was sure about was the crate that had spen most of one night in the hanger with MPs watching it."

But in Randle and Schmitt’s second book, Kaufmann was an active participant to the point that he was one of the most pivotal players!  Of course, they changed his name from Kaufmann to Steve MacKenzie. Supposedly they made the change of name because "a former CIA employee, who in November 1992, injected himself into the Roswell case…."

Karl Pflock, the person Randle and Schmitt are referring to, is retired and did at one time work for the CIA. He is also a UFO researcher and didn’t approach Kaufmann at the behest of the CIA. So why did Randle and Schmitt bring in the former employment by Pflock at the CIA? Could it be to make Kaufmann’s tale seem more believable?

In Randle and Schmitt’s first Roswell book, Kaufmann wouldn’t tell them the nature of his work. But he did admit that "I didn’t work on radar, I wasn’t a mechanic. I wasn’t a pilot."

So he didn’t work on radar. In fact, Kaufmann wasn’t trained on radar.

Yet, in Randle and Schmitt’s second book, Kaufmann claimed that he "received a call from Brigadier General Martin F. Scalon of the Air Defense Command, ordering him to report to the radar at White Sands. A mysterious UFO had been detected on its radar. "MacKenzie (Kaufmann) was to monitor the objects movements and report them directly to the general. MacKenzie could not leave the scope unattended for even the shortest of times. In fact, once his watch had been established, he set up a system of mirrors so that he could see the screen even when he needed to use the latrine⁽²⁾."

So, Kaufmann didn’t work on radar, wasn’t radar trained, but he claims he was sent to monitor the radar at the direct orders of the general!

MacKenzie/Kaufmann was supposedly told to abandon his watch on the radar and to return to Roswell. According to Randle and Schmitt only nine men "with the highest clearance and real need to know" were allowed full access to the crash site. Mackenzie (Kaufmann) was supposedly one of these men.

Yet, at this time, Kaufmann was only a civilian clerk in the personnel office at Roswell Army Air Field!

Still, Randle claims, "I find Frank Kaufmann to be credible because, to this point no one has demonstrated that he has lied about anything. There are those who don't like his testimony because of what it does to their personal beliefs and agendas, but the fact is, he hasn't been caught lying."
(United Kingdom UFO Network Saturday 11th April 1998 IRC meeting on #UFO)