Cold case - Kingman, Arizona - 1953

Dear readers

My co-blogger, Keith Basterfield, has posted an excellent series of "cold cases" re-examining Australian UFO cases in the light of information available today.

I thought I might occasionally, conduct a few "cold case" investigations of my own. This post concerns the Kingman, Arizona, USA 'crash' case of May 1953.

Kevin D Randle:

In his excellent 2010 book "Crash: When UFOs Fall From the Sky" (published by New Page Books, Franklin Lakes, NJ. ISBN 978-1-60163-100-8,) author Kevin D Randle (click here) presents the following information on Kingman.

1971: Researchers Young and Chetham (click here) interview a source. ('Fritz Werner' later said to be Arthur Stancil.) The source tells them of a UFO, "...12 feet long and fairly intact." There was an associated creature "...dark brown, two eyes, nostrils and ears..." (p.163.) "It was also clothed in a silvery, metallic suit and wore a skullcap." (p.131.) The crash site was said to be 25 miles from Phoenix.

1976: Research Raymond Fowler (click here) interviews the same source getting "...a slightly different version of the story." (p.163.) There, the "...object was disk shaped, 30 feet in diameter, and about 20 feet from top to bottom." (p.166.)

1978: Researcher Len Stringfield (click here) cites researcher Charles Wilhelm's (click here) source 'Major Daly.' April 1953. Daly reports examining "...the remains of a crashed flying saucer...25 to 30 feet in diameter..." (p.170.)However, the location of the crash was unknown. Stringfield also reports "...on a man...who claimed that he saw the delivery of three bodies from a crash site in Arizona in 1953 "...4 feet tall...brownish skin..." (p.170.)

1994: Stringfield cites a further source - JLD - who reports on "...two crashes in Arizona. He also told him three bodies, one sverely burnt, and parts of the wrecked craft, were delivered to the base." (pp170-171.)

Schmitt's source:

Don Schmitt, (click here) came across a source Judie Woolcott (click here). Her story was that in 1965 her husband, serving in Vietnam had written her about a 1953 incident at Kingman, Arizona. This involved a crashed object and bodies. (pp172-173.) Further research seemed to discredit this source.

New book:

A chapter in a new book titled "UFOs and Aliens:Is There Anybody Out There?" edited by Michael Pye and Kirsten Dalley (published by New Page Books. 2011. Pompton Plains, NJ. ISBN 978-1-60163-173-2) throws new light on the 1953 Kingman, case.

Pages 121 to 136 are a chapter titled "The Kingman Affair" written by Nick Redfern. Nick covers the Young and Chatham material; Raymond Fowler's investigation, and those claims by source JLD, plus Judy Woolcott's account; although Redfern provides the original source's real name as "Arthur Stansel." (p.128.)

2009:

A source "Marion Shaw" (click here) emerged claiming "...to have typed a lengthy classified report on the Kingman crash and body recovery..." (p.129.)

Redfern also covers the contactee Truman Bethurum, who in 1952 near Kingman, Arizona claims to have encountered an object, and olive skinned, 5 feet tall, creatures wearing uniforms and caps.

2011:

Redfern used FOI requests to unearth material from USAF files "...showing that in the same precise time frame of the Kingman crash - specifically during the Atomic Energy Commission's Upshot-Knothole tests that Arthur Stansel played a role in the military was secretly test-flying drone aircraft in the Nevada/Arizona area, with monkeys on board." (p131.) The monkeys were "...dressed in various types of protective clothing and wore skullcaps." (p.132.) For more on the tests (click here. )

Redfern goes on to write "Albert Barker, who formerly worked in the US Army's Psychological Warfare Center, has shown me copies of additional documentation that refers to the secret recovery of one such drone aircraft that went wildly off course and crashed approximately 33 miles outside of Kingman in May of 1953. According to these documents, the recovery of the device and the bodies of the dead monkeys was the subject of stringent security because the crash was tied to the Upshot-Knothole atomic tests undertaken in Nevada." (p.132.)

As a final note, "..recall that Stansel was informed by his superiors that the Kingman craft was a secret experimental vehicle of the US military." (p.134.)

Comment:

This new information obtained by Redfern, suggests that the 1953 Kingman crash had a terrestrial origin.