The Aztec UFO Crash of 1948: A Comprehensive Overview
Origins of the Story and Key Figures
In March 1948, an unidentified flying saucer allegedly crashed or landed in Hart Canyon, about 12 miles northeast of Aztec, New Mexico. Journalist Frank Scully, a Variety magazine columnist, first publicized this story in 1949 and later in his 1950 book Behind the Flying Saucers. Scully claimed that a 99-foot diameter metallic disk was recovered by the U.S. military, and that 16 small humanoid bodies were found at the site. According to Scully’s account (supplied by his sources), the military quickly removed the craft and bodies in secrecy, initiating one of the earliest UFO crash retrieval tales.
The key figures behind the story were Scully’s informants: Silas M. Newton and Leo A. Gebauer (the latter dubbed “Dr. Gee” in Scully’s writings). Newton was an eccentric oil prospector, and Gebauer an electronics technician; together they spun a sensational tale of downed flying saucers and alien technology. Scully portrayed Newton as a successful oilman and Gebauer as a brilliant “magnetic engineer” who had worked on top-secret projects. They told Scully that the craft recovered at Aztec was largely intact (unlike the earlier Roswell wreckage) and even asserted it came from the planet Venus, operating on advanced “magnetic principles”. They described exotic details such as the aliens stocking “concentrated food wafers” and “heavy water” aboard, and noted that every dimension of the craft was “divisible by nine” – claims later criticized as absurd pseudo-science.
Frank Scully, for his part, was intrigued enough by these claims to write Behind the Flying Saucers, which became a popular early UFO book. It introduced the Aztec crash story to the public and fed the growing flying saucer craze of the 1950s. Silas Newton and Leo Gebauer became central characters in UFO lore due to this story – Newton in particular enjoyed the spotlight, even giving a lecture at the University of Denver in 1950 (under a pseudonym) about crashed saucers.
J.P. Cahn, a skeptical journalist with the San Francisco Chronicle, also became a key figure in the saga. Cahn doubted Scully’s story and investigated Newton and Gebauer’s claims. He obtained a sample of the supposed “alien” metal from their crash-retrieved technology and had it analyzed – it turned out to be nothing more than ordinary aluminum. Cahn’s dogged investigation culminated in a 1952 article in True magazine titled “The Flying Saucers and the Mysterious Little Men,” which exposed Scully’s sources as con men and cast serious doubt on the Aztec crash tale.
Author Frank Scully (right) and Silas Newton (center) demonstrating Newton’s purported flying saucer concepts using an inverted bowl (to represent Earth) and Scully’s book Behind the Flying Saucers (1950) as a stand-in for a “magnetism-powered” saucer. This 1950 photo was later reprinted after Newton’s fraud conviction, underscoring the story’s collapse as a hoax.
The Alleged Crash and Cover-Up Narrative
According to the original story Scully published, the Aztec incident occurred on March 25, 1948 – “eight months after Roswell” as it is often noted. The scenario usually described is that oil workers or ranchers in the remote desert of Hart Canyon came across a large, disc-shaped craft that had made a controlled landing (or crash) on a mesa after possibly being damaged or shot at. The saucer was said to be approximately 100 feet in diameter, dwarfing the craft reported at Roswell. Witnesses (according to Scully’s sources) reported finding multiple small humanoid bodies, about 3 to 4 feet tall, inside the craft – allegedly slumped over control panels, dead from the impact.
As the story goes, the U.S. military was alerted and swiftly descended upon the site. A large recovery operation then took place in secrecy. It is claimed that up to 200 military personnel arrived, cordoned off the area, and worked for two weeks to disassemble and remove the saucer and the bodies. The craft was reportedly whisked away to a secure facility – often said to be Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (specifically the infamous Hangar 18) – for study. Local civilians who had seen any part of the incident were allegedly threatened into silence. Indeed, decades later some claimed, “we were threatened with our lives if we ever spoke out about this”. This aggressive cover-up narrative mirrors many elements of the Roswell story and later crash-retrieval tales: recovered alien technology, secret transport to military labs, and silenced witnesses.
Scully’s informants Newton and “Dr. Gee” (Gebauer) further embellished that the recovered craft was technologically astonishing. They asserted the saucer used magnetic propulsion and could travel along Earth’s magnetic lines – a notion they tried to explain with pseudo-scientific jargon about “magnetic lines of force” extending from the sun. They even claimed the aliens’ home planet Venus had similar technology. Such details gave the story a veneer of technical authenticity, but scientists of the day (and since) have derided these as “scientific howlers” and fantasy. Science writer Martin Gardner, for example, famously critiqued Scully’s book for its wild imaginings that betrayed a lack of basic physics understanding.
Notably, no contemporaneous local records or credible first-hand reports of the Aztec crash exist from 1948. Unlike Roswell – which at least had a brief newspaper announcement in 1947 before the Army’s retraction – the Aztec incident was essentially unknown until Scully’s articles the following year. Scully’s tale even asserted that “no one in the area noticed the crash or the military activity” at the time, which strains belief given the scope of the alleged operation. This absence of early evidence is a key point of contention. Longtime Aztec residents later attested that nothing unusual was talked about in 1948: for instance, Monte Shriver, who grew up in Aztec, recalled camping with Boy Scouts near Hart Canyon in 1949 and hearing “nobody ever breathed a word about a UFO” back then.
Exposure as a Hoax
By the early 1950s, investigation revealed that the Aztec crash story was not a cosmic secret but rather a clever hoax. Journalist J.P. Cahn’s exposé in True magazine (September 1952) showed that Silas Newton and Leo Gebauer had fabricated the saucer tale as part of a get-rich-quick scheme. Newton and Gebauer were selling devices known as “doodlebugs” – supposedly revolutionary detectors for oil, gas, and mineral deposits – and they claimed these devices were built using alien technology gleaned from the Aztec UFO. In reality, the gadgets were simply repackaged electronic equipment (wartime surplus “tuners” worth only a few dollars) being peddled at exorbitant prices to gullible investors. The sensational UFO story was the bait to entice investment in their fraudulent enterprise.
Cahn’s investigation famously debunked the one piece of “physical evidence” Newton ever proffered: a small bit of metal he claimed was from the crashed saucer’s propulsion system. Lab tests proved it was plain aluminum, not a mysterious alien alloy. Additionally, Cahn tracked down several victims of Newton and Gebauer’s swindle. One prominent victim, Herman Glader (a Denver oilman), had been bilked out of thousands of dollars – he pressed charges, and in 1953 Newton and Gebauer were convicted of fraud in connection with the scam. (They had charged investors up to $18,500 for the fake “alien technology” devices.)
The collapse of Scully’s story was widely publicized. The hoax unraveling was even front-page news in Denver when Newton was indicted – The Denver Post ran a headline “Saucer Scientist in $50,000 Fraud” alongside a photo of Scully and Newton, making clear the Aztec tale’s ignominious end. As skeptic Robert Sheaffer notes, Cahn’s “devastating articles” in 1952 (and a follow-up in 1956) “proved that Scully’s sources, Silas Newton and Leo Gebauer, were con men” and effectively demolished the Aztec crash yarn. So thorough was this debunking that for the next two decades even most UFO believers shunned the Aztec case – it became a cautionary tale of fraud within ufology.
Government Involvement and Cover-Up Allegations
Although the Aztec incident is considered a hoax in the historical record, it has nonetheless been woven into UFO conspiracy lore involving secret government cover-ups. Scully’s original story asserted that the U.S. military covertly recovered the craft and bodies, transporting them to a secure laboratory for study. This aspect – a government cover-up of retrieved alien hardware – resonated with broader suspicions of the era. In the late 1940s, New Mexico was home to sensitive military projects (atomic research at Los Alamos, rocket tests, etc.), and sightings of unexplained aerial objects around those installations were taken very seriously. The Aztec tale tapped into real worries about national security and secrecy: Scully even wrote that the presence of UFOs was treated as “higher in secrecy than the H-bomb” by the U.S. in those early Cold War years.
Over the years, believers in the Aztec crash have alleged that recovered saucers and alien bodies were whisked away to facilities like Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio. Indeed, rumors of alien corpses stored at Wright-Patt (specifically in a Hangar 18) were already circulating by the 1960s. In 1974, a ufologist named Robert Spencer Carr even claimed publicly that alien bodies from Aztec were kept at Hangar 18 – prompting the Air Force to issue formal denials of any such bodies in their custody. These claims helped cement the idea of a military cover-up among UFO enthusiasts.
One of the most notable pieces of “evidence” often cited for a cover-up is the FBI’s 1950 “Guy Hottel memo.” In 2011, this declassified memo surfaced in the FBI’s online FOIA Vault, and some ufologists touted it as proof that the government knew about crashed saucers. The one-page memo (dated March 22, 1950) was from FBI agent Guy Hottel to Director J. Edgar Hoover, and it relayed a third-hand report that three flying saucers had been recovered in New Mexico, each with small humanoid bodies inside. This description – saucers about 50 feet across with 3-foot-tall occupants in metallic cloth – sounded like a corroboration of the Aztec story (though it also differed, mentioning three saucers). However, upon investigation it became clear that agent Hottel was just passing along a rumor that had reached the Bureau. In fact, this memo’s chain of transmission can be traced back to Silas Newton himself: Newton told a story to an acquaintance, whose retelling passed through several hands (including a Kansas news editor) before eventually reaching an Air Force investigator and then the FBI. In short, the Hottel memo was not an independent confirmation at all, just a repetition of the Aztec hoax at one or two removes.
The FBI eventually issued a statement to quell the frenzy over the Hottel memo. In a 2013 press release, the Bureau clarified that “The Hottel memo does not prove the existence of UFOs; it is simply a second- or third-hand claim that we never investigated.” The memo, they noted, likely “repeats a hoax that was circulating at that time,” and was never deemed credible by FBI agents. In other words, even the FBI recognized the Aztec crash story as almost certainly a fabrication, not a suppressed truth. Similarly, the U.S. Air Force’s own investigations (e.g. Project Blue Book) never found any official evidence of an Aztec incident, and the case does not appear in legitimate military UFO files.
Majestic-12 connection: The Aztec crash also made tangential appearances in the lore of “Majestic-12,” a purported secret government group tasked with handling alien recoveries. In the 1980s, controversial documents surfaced claiming to be briefings for President Eisenhower about UFO crashes. The most famous MJ-12 document, the so-called “Eisenhower Briefing Paper,” listed two crash retrievals (Roswell in 1947 and another in 1950 on the Texas-Mexico border) – notably it did not mention Aztec. Yet, UFO researcher Linda Moulton Howe reported that in 1983 an Air Force officer showed her a different “briefing” document that did include an Aztec 1948 crash in a catalog of UFO incidents. This inconsistency raised suspicions that the Aztec reference was part of a disinformation ploy. Indeed, the MJ-12 papers are widely considered a hoax (an Air Force investigation in 1988 concluded they were bogus). Even if fake, however, these documents further popularized the idea that multiple UFO crashes (possibly including Aztec) were covered up by a high-level government committee. In summary, while no credible government records support the Aztec crash, the story has been grafted onto wider conspiracy narratives alongside Roswell, Area 51, and secret MJ-12 groups.
Public and Media Reception Over Time
Initial reception (1949–1950): When first revealed, the Aztec UFO crash story garnered significant public interest. Frank Scully’s columns and Behind the Flying Saucers came at the peak of the early flying saucer craze. His book was a commercial success, becoming one of the first UFO bestsellers and influencing public perceptions about possible alien visitors. The notion that the government might be hiding crashed saucers played into the era’s fascination with the unknown. Mainstream media in 1950 treated Scully’s claims with curiosity but also some skepticism – after all, Scully was a Hollywood columnist dabbling in sensationalism, and his story lacked corroborating evidence. Still, the sheer intrigue of recovered alien bodies made it a topic of wide discussion among the public and in pop culture at the time.
After the debunking (1952–1970s): Once the hoax was exposed by J.P. Cahn and others in the early 1950s, the Aztec incident quickly lost credibility. The national media largely dropped the story, now framing it as a fraud perpetrated on Scully. UFO organizations and serious researchers also avoided the Aztec case for decades, considering it thoroughly discredited. As researcher Jerome Clark wrote, “through the mid-1950s to early 1970s, most ufologists considered the subject thoroughly discredited and therefore avoided it”. In fact, the very idea of “crashed saucers” fell out of favor in UFO lore for a time – until the Roswell story was resurrected in the late 1970s, it was rare to see much focus on alleged crash recoveries. Roswell itself had been a one-day news story in 1947 and then forgotten; Aztec, having been debunked, was even more deeply buried. It was mostly remembered as a cautionary hoax in skeptic circles (e.g., it earned an entry in the Skeptic’s Dictionary of UFO hoaxes).
Revival among UFO enthusiasts: Starting in the late 1970s, and especially by the 1980s, the Aztec crash tale experienced a resurgence in the fringe UFO literature. A few determined believers and authors felt there was “something to it” after all. In 1986, William Steinman and Wendelle Stevens self-published a book UFO Crash at Aztec: A Well Kept Secret, which tried to rehabilitate the story with new purported witnesses and documents. This book attempted to legitimize Scully’s claims, but it “got very little respect” even among UFO researchers. (Notably, nuclear physicist and ufologist Stanton Friedman – a leading figure in validating Roswell – initially rejected Steinman’s work as too speculative, though he remained open-minded on Aztec in later years.) The MJ-12 affair in the late 1980s also brought Aztec back into conversation, as mentioned, despite the dubious nature of those documents.
By the 1990s, Aztec’s UFO crash had entered a realm of local lore and occasional media re-examination. In 1998, the small town of Aztec, NM began hosting an annual Aztec UFO Symposium as a fundraiser for the local library. This event, inspired in part by the tourism success of Roswell’s UFO Festival, drew speakers both pro and con on the Aztec case. For over a decade the symposium kept the story alive in the public eye (while also benefiting Aztec’s economy). However, interest was modest compared to Roswell. The symposium ran until 2011, when it was discontinued due to waning attendance and perhaps the sense that little new evidence had emerged.
Mainstream media coverage of the Aztec incident remained sparse overall. Outside of UFO-themed outlets, most references to Aztec’s UFO crash in the late 20th century were either historical footnotes or local color pieces. For example, regional newspapers like the Farmington Daily Times (serving northwestern New Mexico) would occasionally run stories when new books were published or when the symposium was underway. These articles often presented both sides: the believers touting new “evidence” vs. hometown skeptics pointing out the lack of proof. By and large, public opinion never elevated Aztec to Roswell’s iconic status. Roswell, revived by major books and movies, became synonymous with UFO crashes, whereas Aztec remained relatively obscure except among UFO enthusiasts. In recent years, however, the Aztec story has seen a minor renaissance through podcasts, YouTube videos, and the efforts of researchers like the Ramseys (who argue it was “the first ever widely publicized report of a recovered flying saucer” and deserves attention).
Believers’ Perspective vs. Skeptical Analysis
UFO Believers’ View: Proponents of the Aztec crash’s authenticity argue that Scully’s story was essentially true – that an extraterrestrial craft really did come down near Aztec and was covered up. Modern believers acknowledge Newton and Gebauer’s con-man antics but claim that does not entirely invalidate the event. Researcher Scott Ramsey and his wife Suzanne Ramsey are leading advocates of this case. Over nearly 30 years, they have amassed 55,000+ documents and interviewed dozens of witnesses while researching their book The Aztec Incident: Recovery at Hart Canyon. The Ramseys assert that there are multiple independent witnesses (mostly second-hand or those who heard things from family) whose accounts corroborate specific details of a crash retrieval. For instance, they report that several elderly witnesses consistently described seeing a brushed-silver disc with six portholes and small child-like bodies, and even noted a hole in the craft’s window/portal, as if it had been struck or shot. Such repeated details, in the Ramseys’ view, strongly suggest these people were describing a real event. The Ramseys also maintain that the military threatened and swore witnesses to secrecy, which is why the story didn’t leak widely in 1948. They believe the cover-up was motivated by national security concerns – happening just as the Cold War began, when UFO incursions over New Mexico weapons labs were being taken very seriously.
Believers further contend that new evidence has been uncovered that vindicates Scully. They often cite the Guy Hottel FBI memo as one piece of supporting documentation (though, as noted, the FBI disagrees with that interpretation). Some also point to supposed government “leaked” documents (like those touted by Linda Moulton Howe) or to the accounts of retired military personnel who later claimed knowledge of saucer recoveries. In the Ramseys’ case, they emphasize their use of archival research and insist they only included facts they could verify or corroborate. They present themselves as historians setting the record straight, arguing that previous debunkers had “framed” or unfairly maligned figures like Silas Newton. In their narrative, Newton wasn’t an unscrupulous grifter but rather a convenient scapegoat used to discredit the Aztec incident. Believers also find it suspicious that Aztec was quickly labeled a hoax, viewing that as possibly an orchestrated debunking to deflect attention from a real UFO recovery. Some prominent UFO researchers have given cautious support to re-examining Aztec – for example, Stanton Friedman wrote a foreword to the Ramseys’ book, indicating he found their gathered evidence intriguing (a notable shift since Friedman had earlier been skeptical of Aztec).
Mainstream Skeptics’ View: To most historians, scientists, and ufology skeptics, the Aztec crash remains what it has long been – a legendary hoax lacking any credible evidence. Skeptics point out that every specific, checkable claim made by Scully’s original sources turned out false: there were no military records or newspaper reports of a saucer retrieval, the alleged “revolutionary” metal was banal, the supposed expert “Dr. Gee” had no verifiable identity outside the hoax, and the men telling the tale (Newton and Gebauer) had clear financial motives and a history of dishonesty. The absence of contemporaneous evidence is heavily emphasized by skeptics. If an enormous 100-foot craft and hundreds of troops really converged on a New Mexico mesa in 1948, it seems implausible that not a single journalist, local law enforcement officer, or rancher got wind of it. The fact that Aztec locals like Monte Shriver heard nothing of any UFO crash at the time – not even a rumor – is a strong indicator to skeptics that nothing actually happened.
Skeptics also scrutinize the later “witnesses” brought forward by pro-Aztec researchers. These accounts only surfaced decades after the fact, often as second-hand stories (e.g. someone recalling what their uncle allegedly saw). Human memory is fallible, especially over 40-50 year spans, and it’s easy for folklore to develop. Shriver, who authored a critical review of the case (It’s About Time, 2013), noted that if all witnesses were truly sworn to silence by the military in 1948, it’s contradictory that any would freely speak in later years – yet believers selectively accept those who do speak as truth-tellers. Furthermore, Shriver and others point out that much of the “evidence” compiled in pro-Aztec books is either unrelated or unverifiable – for instance, references to UFO sightings in New Mexico or documentation of 1948 military movements that, in the end, do not directly tie to Aztec at all. Despite massive research efforts, no physical artifact from an Aztec crash has ever been found or presented. As Shriver quipped, “Where’s the beef? I mean, really, where’s the disc?”.
Analysts like Robert Sheaffer and Brian Dunning have also dismantled some of the revivalist claims. For example, the Ramseys emphasized witness consistency on details like “six portholes” on the craft, but skeptics counter that such details could easily come from earlier publications (i.e. witnesses may have read Scully’s or Steinman’s books over the years and internalized those details). The Ramseys’ attempt to exonerate Silas Newton is likewise met with raised eyebrows: Newton had a long track record of fraud (even beyond the Aztec caper, he faced legal trouble into the 1970s for other oil investment schemes). Portraying him as an “honest oilman” wronged by a scheming journalist runs against the documented history.
In short, the consensus of skeptics is that the Aztec UFO crash is a product of 1950s scammery that has since been retrofitted by UFO aficionados into a mythology. Every new cycle of interest (1980s, 2010s, etc.) has brought claims of “smoking gun evidence,” yet none have held up under objective scrutiny. As the Skeptic’s Dictionary concludes succinctly, “No one in the area noticed the crash or the military activity… With no witnesses, Newton and Gebauer could play wildly with the truth.” What believers interpret as a successful cover-up, skeptics interpret as proof that the event only ever existed in storytellers’ imaginations.
Physical Evidence, Documents, and Eyewitness Accounts
One of the most glaring issues with the Aztec incident is the lack of tangible evidence. Despite the story featuring a very large craft and many bodies, not a single piece of physical debris or a single photograph from the alleged crash has ever been produced. In the Roswell case (by comparison) the U.S. Army at least collected debris – mundane weather balloon debris, as it turned out – and took photographs, which were published in newspapers. Aztec has nothing comparable. The site in Hart Canyon has been visited by enthusiasts and researchers, including archaeological-style searches for any metallic fragments or disturbed soil, but these efforts have turned up nothing convincing. (Some mention a commemorative plaque at the site, reportedly erected by local supporters, but even finding this marker is difficult, as one 2023 magazine writer recounted when failing to locate the exact spot in the rugged terrain.)
The only physical evidence ever directly linked to Aztec was the small bit of metal that Newton handed to J.P. Cahn in 1950, which as noted was identified as common aluminum. Beyond that, believers have tried to rely on documents and testimony. The Guy Hottel FBI memo is a single-page document often reproduced in UFO literature – it’s an official document but, as discussed, contains only hearsay and was never followed up by authorities. Various other declassified files have been cited, but typically they end up being peripheral: e.g., FBI files on Silas Newton (since he was prosecuted for fraud), Air Force reports of UFO sightings around the same timeframe, or later Government internal debunking memos referencing the Aztec story as a known hoax. None of these lend support to the event’s reality; if anything, they reinforce that law enforcement viewed it as a con job. The Majestic-12 papers and other alleged secret files remain controversial and unverified – mainstream historians consider them fake, and even if real, the inconsistency about Aztec (being absent in one and present in another) raises red flags.
When it comes to eyewitness accounts, the Aztec case is extremely thin. Scully’s original narrative did not have any first-hand eyewitness from Aztec; Scully himself never visited the site nor spoke to anyone who was actually there. He relied wholly on Newton and Gebauer’s story. Newton and Gebauer in turn claimed they heard the story from an anonymous network of military contacts (a classic unfalsifiable claim). In later years, the Ramseys and other UFO researchers managed to find a handful of people who recalled hearing about a saucer crash or claimed minor involvement. For example, some second-hand witnesses said a relative in the oil industry was present at the recovery, or a rancher recalled seeing unusual military trucks on local roads around that date. While intriguing, these anecdotes surfaced many decades after 1948 and are hard to verify. The Ramseys emphasize that some witnesses were young in 1948 and only in old age felt comfortable speaking out, which could be true – but it could equally be the result of memories morphing over time or being influenced by UFO media. Skeptics frequently note that no contemporary witness ever came forward in the immediate aftermath, which is atypical if dozens of civilians and hundreds of military were involved.
One specific name often mentioned is George Koehler, a radio station salesman from Denver who was friends with Newton. Koehler allegedly was told of the Aztec crash very shortly after it happened and even visited the area with Newton (this part of the story is murky). It was Koehler who then spread the tale to others, setting off the chain that ended with the Wyandotte Echo news item and the Hottel memo. But Koehler himself did not claim to see the crash; he was simply an early node in the hearsay chain, and he later cooperated with Cahn’s debunking investigation. Thus, even the “guy who told the guy who told the FBI” doesn’t bolster the case beyond repeating the story.
In summary, hard evidence for Aztec is virtually nonexistent. We have a vivid story and lots of “he-said, she-said” testimony spread over decades, but nothing one could take into a lab or a courtroom to prove a saucer landed in New Mexico in 1948. This is why, to most objective researchers, Aztec remains in the category of legend rather than fact. The believers continue to hunt for that elusive smoking gun – a hidden government file, a piece of metal buried in the mesa, an aged witness with photos stashed in an attic – but until such evidence emerges, the case for Aztec rests on a foundation of conjecture.
Connections to Roswell and Other UFO Events
The Aztec incident is often referred to as the “other Roswell,” inviting comparisons to the famous 1947 Roswell UFO crash legend. Both involve claims of a crashed alien spacecraft in New Mexico, recovered bodies, and secretive government actions. There are key differences, however, in how the two stories unfolded and have been regarded:
Roswell (July 1947) had immediate contemporary press coverage (the Army’s 1947 press release about recovering a “flying disc,” followed by the retraction) and multiple military witnesses who later came forward to describe unusual debris. It also benefited from being resurrected in the late 1970s by high-profile researchers and became a household name. By contrast, Aztec (March 1948) had no 1948 press coverage or official acknowledgment; its fame came second-hand through Scully’s 1950 account. When Roswell was revived in the 1980s, it largely overshadowed Aztec, which had already been tainted by the hoax revelation in the 50s.
Supporters of Aztec sometimes argue it actually has more documentation than Roswell – for example, Scott Ramsey opined that Aztec was “much more documented” in terms of hard proof. This is a minority view; most researchers find Roswell’s evidentiary trail (while still controversial) far stronger, including military telegrams, mortician’s testimonies, etc. Aztec’s “documentation” is mostly in the form of the FBI memo and anecdotal interviews, whereas Roswell has generated multiple government reports (debunking it as a balloon project) and a large body of witness testimony.
There is also a theory in UFO circles that multiple UFO crashes occurred in the late 1940s and early 50s, of which Roswell and Aztec were just two. Other rumored crash sites include one on the Plains of San Agustin (New Mexico, 1947) and another near Kingman, Arizona (1953), among others. The alleged MJ-12 briefing even cited a crash on the Texas-Mexico border in December 1950. In this broader narrative, Roswell was simply the first, Aztec the second, and so on – a string of retrievals that kept a secret government recovery program busy. However, just like Aztec, these other crash stories (San Agustin, Kingman, etc.) rely on scant evidence and are widely disputed. It’s worth noting that the original MJ-12 documents’ omission of Aztec suggests that even hoaxers in the 1980s found Aztec less credible or useful for their purposes.
Hangar 18 at Wright-Patterson AFB serves as a common link in UFO crash lore. Both Roswell and Aztec stories often conclude with debris and bodies being shipped to Wright-Patt for analysis in a top-secret hangar. This hangar has become legendary, inspiring films and endless speculation, though the USAF denies any such alien cache exists. The Aztec story specifically contributed to Hangar 18’s mystique when claims in the 1970s insisted Aztec’s saucer ended up there alongside other crash remnants.
In essence, Aztec and Roswell are intertwined in ufology: they reinforce each other’s narrative of a government cover-up, yet Roswell has been embraced by many as plausible while Aztec has mostly been cast as a fraud. Even Stanton Friedman, who tirelessly argued Roswell was a genuine extraterrestrial event, was long skeptical of Aztec (he later showed more openness to it after the Ramseys’ research, but he remained cautious). Debates continue in the UFO community about whether Aztec was a real occurrence hushed up like Roswell, or a tall tale that hit the UFO scene early and was rightfully debunked.
Recent Interest, Books, and Investigations
The 21st century has seen continued, if niche, interest in the Aztec UFO crash. A number of books, documentaries, and local projects have revisited the case:
Books: The most significant recent book is The Aztec Incident: Recovery at Hart Canyon (2012) by Scott Ramsey, Suzanne Ramsey, and Frank Thayer. This work is the culmination of decades of research by the authors and attempts to present a comprehensive affirmative case that the crash really happened. It includes newly gathered witness testimonies, analysis of historical documents, and rebuts to the hoax accusations. Earlier books include UFO Crash at Aztec (1986) by Steinman & Stevens, which first revived the case in detail, and of course Frank Scully’s original Behind the Flying Saucers (1950) which is now often reprinted as a ufology classic. On the skeptical side, Monte Shriver’s It’s About Time (2013) serves as a counterpoint – Shriver examines the claims of those three books (Scully 1950, Steinman 1986, Ramsey 2012) and methodically questions their evidence, concluding that none provide verification beyond hearsay.
Documentaries and Media: Aztec’s story has been featured occasionally on TV and film. In the 1990s, it was discussed in UFO documentaries and on shows like Unsolved Mysteries. A more recent independent documentary Aztec 1948 UFO Crash (2016, dir. Paul Kimball) takes an objective look, interviewing both proponents (like Scott Ramsey) and skeptics (like the late Karl Pflock). The consensus in such programs is often ambivalent: acknowledging Aztec as an enduring legend but noting the lack of proof. The History Channel’s Ancient Aliens series and other paranormal shows have also mentioned Aztec in the context of crash retrieval conspiracy theories (frequently coupling it with Roswell). Meanwhile, local media in New Mexico (newspapers, regional magazines) occasionally publish retrospectives, especially around anniversaries. For example, DGO Magazine in 2023 ran a feature exploring whether Aztec was a cover-up, a hoax, or something else, interviewing the Ramseys and detailing their passion for the subject.
Aztec UFO Symposium: From 1997 to 2011, Aztec’s public library hosted the annual symposium that drew authors and investigators to present findings on the case. It became a local tradition and even a minor tourist draw, complete with vendors and tours of the supposed crash site. Notably, the symposium was not purely one-sided – skeptics like Shriver were also invited to speak in later years, ensuring that attendees heard both the believers’ evidence and the counterarguments. The end of the symposium in 2011 (the year before the Ramseys’ book release) was attributed to declining interest, but it also coincided with the library having raised sufficient funds for its needs. Today, Aztec still quietly acknowledges its UFO connection: there are reportedly plans in Aztec for small markers or inclusion in UFO tourist guides, following the model of Roswell’s thriving UFO museum and festival. However, Aztec has never fully embraced the UFO branding to the extent Roswell did – perhaps due to the lingering “hoax” label.
New Investigations: The Ramseys, Thayer, and a few colleagues continue to chase down leads. As of the 2010s, they mentioned vetting new potential witnesses who have come forward with stories of involvement in the crash or military operation. Any breakthrough discovery could reignite mainstream interest. Conversely, skeptics like Shriver have essentially declared the case closed as mythology. The dynamic between these two camps keeps the debate alive. It reflects the larger UFO discourse: true believers doggedly pursuing validation, while skeptics demand extraordinary evidence for extraordinary claims.
In conclusion, the Aztec UFO crash of 1948 remains a fascinating chapter in UFO history. Its journey from a best-selling story, to a notorious hoax exposé, to a resurrected legend illustrates how UFO lore evolves over time. The tale encompasses colorful characters (oil swindlers, journalists, enthusiasts), allegations of conspiracy at the dawn of the Cold War, and the enduring allure of perhaps discovering that we are not alone. Yet, despite the passion of its proponents, the Aztec incident has not escaped the long shadow of doubt. Over seventy-five years later, it straddles the line between fact and folklore – a topic where, fittingly, skeptics see only an earthly scam, while believers still gaze up and wonder if an alien craft really once came down in the New Mexico desert.
Sources:
Wikipedia – “Aztec crashed saucer hoax”
The Skeptic’s Dictionary – “Aztec (New Mexico) UFO Hoax” by Robert T. Carroll
Skeptical Inquirer (Nov/Dec 2012) – Robert Sheaffer, “The Aztec Saucer Crash Story Rises from the Dead?” (review of The Aztec Incident)
Farmington Daily Times (Mar 28, 2012) – Leigh Irvin, “Aztec UFO landing subject of new book”
Farmington Daily Times (May 6, 2013) – James Fenton, “Aztec native Shriver debunks UFO crash at Hart Canyon”
FBI – “UFOs and the Guy Hottel Memo” (FBI News Story, March 25, 2013)
Sacred-Texts Archive – “The MJ-12 Affair: Facts, Questions, Comments” (on contradictions regarding Aztec in MJ-12 documents)
DGO Magazine (June 1, 2023) – Amanda Push, “Uncovering the Aztec UFO Incident”
Wikimedia Commons – Photo of Frank Scully and Silas Newton (1950, Denver Post)
Wikipedia – “UFO conspiracy theories” (mentioning Aztec as “the other Roswell”)
