by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear
For many years, stories of recovered crashed saucers and alien bodies were usually dismissed by investigators due to the stigma created by the effective debunking of the Aztec incident by J. P. Cahn in two articles he wrote for True magazine, the first in 1952 and the second in 1956. The stigma remained until the 1970s when influential researchers started becoming open to such cases, and an early story to come out during this period was that of a 1953 crash in Kingman, Arizona, that made the news in 1973. It was looked into by National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena investigator Raymond E. Fowler, who published an article covering it titled “What About Crashed UFOs?” in the April 1976 issue of Official UFO. Leonard Stringfield included the Kingman portion of it in his 1977 book, Situation Red!
The beginning of the renewed interest in crash recovery stories can be traced back to January 15, 1974, when Robert Spencer Carr claimed during a debate at the University of South Florida that the government was keeping two saucers inside Hangar 18 at Wright-Patterson AFB. This was reported on in the January 16, 1974, edition of The Tampa Tribune. According to the article headlined “Does USAF Have UFOs?” by Frank Bentayou, Carr was a “mass communications instructor” at the university.
It was around this time that Fowler began looking into an article that was published in the Framingham, Massachusetts edition of the Middlesex News on April 23, 1973. Kevin Randle described this in a report he submitted to NICAP on February 19, 2007. According to Randle, the article is based on an interview of a man named Fritz Werner by two teenage UFO researchers, Jeff Young and Paul Chetham. Fowler contacted Werner and also interviewed him. He wrote a report for NICAP, which Randle has said he has a copy of, and presented Werner’s story, along with a signed affidavit, dated June 7, 1973, in the April 1976 issue of Official UFO:
I, Fritz Werner, do solemnly swear that during a special assignment with the U. S. Air Force on May 21, 1953, I assisted in the investigation of a crashed unknown object in the vicinity of Kingman, Arizona.
The object was constructed of an unfamiliar metal which resembled aluminum. It had impacted 20 inches into the sand without any sign of structural damage. It was oval and about 30 feet in diameter. An entranceway hatch had been vertically lowered and opened. It was about 3½ feet high and 1½ feet wide. I was able to talk briefly with someone on the team who did look inside only briefly. He saw two swivel seats, an oval cabin, and a lot of instruments and displays. A tent pitched near the object sheltered the dead remains of the only occupant of the craft. It was about 4 feet tall, dark brown complexion and had 2 eyes, 2 nostrils, 2 ears, and a small round mouth. It was clothed in a silvery, metallic suit and wore a skull cap of the same type of material. It wore no face covering or helmet.
I certify that the above statement is true by affixing
my signature to this document this 7th day of June, 1973.
Signature: Fritz A. Werner
Date Signed: June 7, 1973
Witness: Raymond E. Fowler
Date Signed: June 7, 1973
According to Fowler, in the process of trying to verify Werner’s story, he contacted Wright-Patterson AFB, former Blue Book personnel, the Atomic Energy Commission, Stanford Research Institute, “and a number of persons employed within the military-industrial complex.” While he didn’t find any corroborating witnesses, the tests, dates, people, and places in Werner’s personal account which follows “checked out very well.”
Werner’s story as he told it to Fowler is the same as that in the affidavit with more details added. He explained that he had been working for the AEC under Dr. Ed Doll as a project engineer for Operation Upshot-Knothole. This involved a series of three atomic explosions at the atomic proving ground in Nevada, and Werner’s job was to measure the effects of the blasts on different buildings built for the tests, which were the “tests” Fowler was referring to.
According to Werner, he got a phone call from Doll who told him he was going on a special job the next day. He reported for his assignment and was driven to Indian Springs AFB where he and about 15 other “specialists” got on a plane, were told not to “fraternize,” and were flown to Phoenix, Arizona. There, they got on a bus with blacked out windows. Others were already onboard and they were driven or four hours to what Werner thought might have been the area of Kingman. On the way, an Air Force colonel told the group that they were to conduct an investigation on a crashed “super-secret Air Force vehicle” based on their own individual specialties only. Werner’s job was to determine the forward and vertical velocities of the vehicle when it crashed.
Werner was escorted to the crash site, and it was there that he happened to glance inside a tent with an armed guard in front of it. This is where he said he saw the body and he speculates that the creature’s dark brown skin may have been due to exposure to our atmosphere. This was the explanation for the “chocolate-brown” skin color of the Aztec creatures.
When everyone was done and back on the bus, the colonel had them raise their right hands and take an oath that they wouldn’t tell anyone what they had seen. They were told to write out a report in longhand and were given a number to call when they were finished. When Werner finished his, he called the number and an airman came and picked it up.
Kevin Randle took an interest in the case and wrote numerous blogs about it, which were mostly dismissive. In his August 14, 2024, post titled “The Kingman UFO Crash Conundrum,” Randle tells the reader he “was unimpressed with it (the case) for several reasons.” His reasons included the fact that Stansel was the only witness, there was no documentation supporting his story, “and a suggestion that Stansel, after he had been drinking, told wild stories.”
What throws a new light onto Stansel’s tale is part of the interview with Young and Chetham “that seems to have been left out of this whole tale.” Randle, presents a transcript of a section of the interview with Young and Chetham that starts with Stansel being asked, “Did you say that you had contacted beings from other planets?” Stansel answered, “Yes, but now we’re getting into things where you’ll just have to take my word for it because I can’t produce it or prove it.”
Stansel said he met with a group once a week and that after a year they were able to make psychic contact. He said he “learned astral projection” and was able to project himself onto a ship. He then goes on much like many contactees have done throughout the years.