Summary
When the claims offered by UFO theorists to prove that an extraterrestrial spaceship and crew crashed and were recovered by the U.S. Air Force are compared to documented Air Force activities, it is reasonable to conclude, with a high degree of certainty, that the two “crashes” were actually descriptions of a launch or recovery of a high altitude balloon and anthropomorphic dummies. This conclusion was based on the remarkable similarities and independent corroboration between the witnesses who described both of the “crash sites.” Statements such as “they was using dummies in those damned things” and a characterization of the crashed vehicle as, “I thought it was a blimp” are two of the many similarities. The extensive detailed descriptions provided by the witnesses, too numerous to be coincidental, were of the equipment, vehicles, procedures, and personnel of the Air Force research organizations who conducted the scientific experiments High Dive and Excelsior.
Though it is clear anthropomorphic dummies were responsible for these accounts, the specific locations of the events described was difficult, if not impossible, to determine since the witnesses were not specific. A witness to the “crash site” north of Roswell, Mr. James Ragsdale, was not certain of the actual location as evidenced by a change in his sworn testimony that moved the site many miles from its original location.[165]
However, since Ragsdale reportedly lived or worked in the Roswell, Artesia, and Carlsbad, N.M. areas during the period when the dummies were used, it is likely he described one or more of the nine documented dummy recoveries in areas near there.
Reports of the other crash site, allegedly 175 miles northwest of Roswell on the San Agustin Plains, is likely based on descriptions of more than one launch and recovery of anthropomorphic dummies. Since one witness, Gerald Anderson, described procedures consistent with the launch and recovery of high altitude balloons, it is likely that he witnessed both of these activities, with at least one that included an anthropomorphic dummy payload.
The two secondhand witnesses to this “crash,” Vern Maltais and Alice Knight, could have related descriptions from any of the dummy launch or landing sites. However, Maltais and Knight repeatedly described the impact location of the flying saucer as on the San Agustin Plains. One possible explanation is that the witnesses, in the 30 or more years since they were told the story by the original eyewitness, Mr. Barney Barnett, a soil conservation engineer who reportedly traveled extensively throughout New Mexico, may have confused San Agustin Plains with San Agustin Pass or San Agustin Peak, an area in the San Agustin Mountains of New Mexico. These areas are just outside the boundary of the White Sands Missile Range and the adjacent Jornada Test Range. Numerous anthropomorphic dummy balloon flights terminated and were recovered in this area. Furthermore, if the civilians witnessed dummy landings on either the White Sands Missile Range or the Jornada Test Range, both test areas and restricted U.S. Government reservations, then this explains why they may have been told to leave the landing site. In the popular Roswell scenarios, witnesses were allegedly instructed by military personnel to leave the area because they witnessed something of a highly classified nature. This would be unlikely since the witnesses described projects that utilized anthropomorphic dummies which were unclassified. It is likely, however, that if the witnesses ventured onto one of these ranges they were instructed to leave, not because of classified activities, but for their own safety.
These conclusions are supported by official files, technical reports, extensive photographic documentation, and the recollections of numerous former and retired Air Force members and civilian employees who conducted Projects High Dive and Excelsior. The descriptions examined here, provided by UFO theorists themselves, were so remarkably—and redundantly—similar to these Air Force projects that the only reasonable conclusion can be that the witnesses described these activities. These many similarities are summarized in Table 1.1.
The next section will examine the accounts of “aliens” at the hospital at Roswell Army Air Field. As previously stated, due to the lack of general or detailed similarities with testimony of the two rural “crash sites,” the hospital account was determined not to be associated with these reports.
Fig. 82.