The 1948 Aztec NM Crash Retrieval and Author Frank Scully
The mid-20th century author and columnist Frank Scully claimed (and was adamant) that he interviewed 8 scientists and synthesized them into a single composite scientist (“Dr. Gee”) for his later famous (infamous?) Sept. 1950 book, “Behind the Flying Saucers”. This book was an early account of the Aztec NM C/R (Crash Retrieval — more here, or see this other book). After he died, Scully’s papers and other materials were donated by his wife to the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming.
Dr. Robert Sarbacher (Einstein student, inventor and physicist, Harvard, Joint Research and Development Board of the DoD) said in a 9/15/1950 interview about Scully’s book: “The facts reported in the book are substantially correct.” Here’s another 1983 interview with Dr. Sarbacher by physicist Stanton Friedman. You can hear more about Dr. Sarbacher in this video with Ricard Dolan.
A few years later in the 1950’s, this book and Scully’s reputation were aggressively and relentlessly suppressed via legal attacks on two of the men Scully interviewed, so it’s all forgotten now. The suppression effort was so strong that in later years crash retrieval researchers like Leonard Stringfield revisited the case and dug deeper. The suppression effort was so strong that it eventually backfired.
Importantly, the other anonymous scientists (“chief witnesses”) Scully interviewed for his book were never discredited and never “repudiated one sentence”, according to a April 12, 1954 letter discovered by researcher Leonard Stringfield:
Incredibly, the concrete pad used to hold the recovery crane is still there, after all these years. The event was overclassified and the OSS team that did the sloppy April 1948 site cleanup job didn’t remove the pad. Incredibly there is more physical evidence of the Aztec C/R than Roswell, but the Aztec C/R is barely known. It was well covered up. (Anyone can go and scientifically examine the pad right now to discover the approximate decade it was poured, or use ground penetrating radar on the site or examine the ground under the pad to discover any leftover evidence.)
According to author and researcher Nick Redfern, there are still hundreds of pages of information about this event that are still classified in the name of National Security by the FBI:
Before Scully wrote his 1950 book, he wrote two articles in “Variety”, one in Oct. 1949, which is transcribed here, and another in Nov. 1949. The scan of the Nov. 1949 article is fuzzy and hard to read, and I couldn’t find it transcribed anywhere, so here it is (below).
For some historical background, there were numerous newspaper articles printed around this time that talked about the Aztec C/R (although not by name), and several of them stated that an acclimation program was already in progress:
Here are 3 of these articles which came out between Dec. 1949-March 1950. Scully started interviewing scientists and publishing their accounts around Oct. 1949.
Here are a few more articles, starting from Dec. 1949:
Here’s another March 1950 article on the crash retrieval rumors floating around at that time. There was also at least one radio show about a crash retrieval in Dec. 1949. By 1954 the topic of crash retrievals was the talk of the town (also see this article). These rumors even appeared in 1950 comic strips. The Borderland Sciences Research Association (BSRA) in California also published an account in Jan. 1950.
By the early 50’s knowledge of the general crash retrieval situation had leaked, and everybody knew something was up. Keep in mind that the Roswell, NM area crash retrieval operations were unknown by the public back then, because they both were also heavily suppressed.
These articles and Scully’s book have many basic similarities: crashed or landed flying discs in the desert, dead occupants who are small, damage leading to suffocation, extremely strong but super lightweight and thin metals not made on this earth, a large-scale scientific effort headed up by the US Army or USAF to study the retrieved materials, electromagnetic (“magnetic”) propulsion, discs so large they had to be disassembled before transport, an acclimation program to prevent panic, etc.
This “Variety” article is obviously very fictionalized and massaged for 1949 minds, who at that time were obsessed with anti-communist Cold War hysteria and the horrors of atomic warfare. Scully was taking rumors of rumors and massaging them into publishable articles. Note while reading this that the fact that crash retrievals have occurred is no longer classified, although the details and the retrieved materials still are.
Scully’s Scrapbook
By Frank Scully
Nov. 23, 1949Venus, Ark. Nov. 20
People often ask how muggs like us can be so learned in the sciences. The secret has never been revealed until now. Where others fell off on reaching Einstein, Freud, Osier, Steinmetz, Huxley, Curie and Don Ameche, I continued my studies, culminating in a postgraduate course through files of The American Weekly.
That I now and then carry my researches beyond this earth was fairly well illustrated by a piece on flying saucers which sent a lot of heads, my own included, whirling around for weeks. I reported on a flying saucer that was found intact in the Mojave desert, manned by king-sized Lilliputians, who unfortunately were charred black due to gases which had got into their cabin through a fault which had developed in the outer structure. Though it was only the thickness of a pencil the hole was big enough to burn up the entire crew.
The saucer had containers filled with a heavy water and food in capsules, and the members of the crew were dressed in clothes which seemed ahead of our materials.
The Wall From Venus
The scientists who made these discoveries and have been working on them ever since are convinced that the inhabitants came from Venus. They informed me, moreover, that they rescued a radio which seemingly works on magnetic waves and has no tubes, no aerials, no plug-ins. They get programs 15 minutes every 24 hours and the music sounds Chinese. There are no magnetic stations in China, they said.
I have been waiting for weeks for a look at that radio but, after all, there are 1,700 scientists ahead of me, and none seems disposed to give me his place in the queue.
Not to leave me wholly empty-handed, meanwhile, three of the top technicians brought me some gears and a batch of metal slugs to study. These, it was explained, were of materials unknown on this earth. The slugs were found in piles of 16, placed scientifically around the cabin and must have had something to do with the plane’s capacity to travel on magnetic waves.
The gears, they further explained, were not only of a mineral never found on this earth, but had a gearing ratio unknown to our engineers. The precision work is so fine and the materials so indestructible that 150 tests couldn’t bring a dent. The gear ratio leaves nothing for “play”. Hence no lubrication.
No Oil, No Interest
At this point Standard Oil, Shell, and cartelists in the oil industry decided to take a walk. But I stayed on to learn more.
It seems that since the first ill-starred platter pancaked to earth, several more have been reported. Two were observed close at hand. One of these was a midget model, about 36 feet in diameter. That’s about one-third as large as the first of the flying discs dismantled. The small one had a crew of two instead of 16. Both were found lying limp, half in and half out of the saucer, and apparently had succumbed to a sort of bends from too sudden an atmospheric change.
But the other saucer these scientists spotted had live talent. Please remember you are listening to a recording of the opinions of scientists who conducted 35,000 tests on land, sea and air during the war and ultimately got the magnetic answer by which they knocked out 17 Jap submarines in one day and 300 Nazi planes in one night. If they’re kidding, at least they’re experts.
These men have instruments to detect anything alien coming within thousands of miles of this earth. They came on this smaller saucer not far from Phoenix, Arizona.
45 Minutes From Broadway, Venus
If you ask why all these things happen on the desert and not on 42nd street and Broadway, they have that answer, too. In western America there are several magnetic fault zones. Even planes flying between Denver and Los Angeles act like ships off Cape Hatteras when they hit these zones. So the scientists are of the opinion that saucers from Venus planning to make the round trip of 13,000,000 miles in 42 minutes on the boomerang principle of motion sometimes get caught in a magnetic fault zone on this earth and can’t get out of it.
Our scientists, on picking up magnetic proof that there was a flying saucer grounded near Phoenix, hurried out to the area. There they saw several midgets walking around outside their disk. In their haste to make contact, our men scurried across the barren stretches. The midgets, who must have fear-neuroses similar to our own, saw them coming and took it on the lam.
“This is silly”, said one scientist to another. “Let’s go back and get our cameras and equipment so we can at least photograph this thing.”
Big men and no longer young, running backward and forward had left them pretty well popped. By the time they were ready to take photographic proof of this new contribution to interplanetary air service, the Saucerians and their flying disk had disappeared in the blue.
There’s a Catch In This
One of the tests made on the first flying saucer to be rescued intact baffled the researchers. Later tests convinced them that the flying saucers must operate wholly on magnetic power. The mystery was in the operation of its landing gear. They were wheels like the glass balls once common to piano stools and held by carved imitations of animals’ claws. The only difference was that the ball was “free” and when spun revolved for at least 20 minutes. When, however, the plane was moved along the ground on these ungreased ball-bearings, no power on earth could tip the saucer over.
Engineers believe this is positive proof that the plane is powered magnetically. They claim our engineers are already working on automobiles, similarly powered, which it will be impossible to turn over, once they are rolling.
These cars, they say, will be on the market in at least five years, which means that Monday morning papers are going to be duller than ever without photographs of Sunday drivers and their wrecks lying at the bottom of ravines. It will also remove the pleasure of goons who tip over cars when at odds with their owners over political, economic or social reforms.
Before we can attempt to return the call of these Saucerians from Venus we will have to develop metals as light and as strong as theirs. One scientist said we have some stuff right now which is four times as strong as steel. Even painted on cardboard it is impervious to fire.
More Folklore by Another Frazer
Felix J. Frazer, author of “Tomorrow’s Money”, writes me giving names and phone numbers of engineers connected with various missile projects, including “Project Aphrodite.” These not only accept the saucer stories but say they have worked on jobs which have successfully landed on Venus from this good earth.
“One war-head,” write Frazer, “contained a luminous gas which lit was calculated could be seen from here when it became released on Venus. Various telescopes were trained on the planet to detect and photograph the arrival of the exploding gadget.
“It seems the projectile actually did get there. Either the Venusian clouds backed off, or a hole was blown through them by the missile, and a mountain 132,000 feet high was discovered. The winds were estimated at 400 m.p.h. The Army killed the story and impounded all films.”
No wonder the Venusians got here first. Imagine having a tail wind of 400 miles an hour!
Smart alecs whose doubt exceeds mine are openly saying that this story of the Saucerians is nothing but a rewrite of “Gulliver’s Travels.” These scoffers should not be allowed to forget that Jonathan Swift’s people measured six inches high, whereas these Saucerians are from three and a half feet tall and are therefore as believable as Mickey Rooney.
