Aztec's UFO Crash
Mike Smith
in Roswell Edition Column
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It is the late 1940s. One night a strange alien craft makes an emergency landing in the desert not far from a sleepy New Mexico town. Scientists examine the large disk-shaped craft along with the charred bodies of alien occupants found inside. Soon government operatives step in, threats are made to the witnesses, and one small town is never the same.
That’s right; we could only be talking about one place: Aztec, New Mexico. You know, that other place in New Mexico where a UFO crashed?
Aztec is located north of Farmington, NM, and was recently featured as one of New Mexico Magazine’s “Five Cool Small Towns” in their May issue. The town used to be most prominent for its beautiful ancestral 12th century pueblo ruins, the Aztec Ruins National Monument, just outside of town but is beginning to gain more and more recognition for being the site of an alleged UFO crash just like Roswell.
Every year in March Friends of the Aztec Public Library hosts the Aztec UFO Symposium, and if this year’s turnout was any indication Aztec is getting better known every year. So well known in fact, that Disney even took special care to place it in their remake of Escape to Witch Mountain, wherein two children will go to a UFO Convention in Las Vegas, NV, and pass by a prominently placed booth advertising the Aztec UFO Symposium.
But, even amidst all the recent exposure and renewed interest strong skepticism still permeates Aztec’s crash. Larry Barker, as part of his Larry Barker Reports segments for KRQE news, declared Aztec a hoax in his current investigation not long ago and likewise NMSR (New Mexicans for Science and Reason) still view it as fraudulent as well.
However, serious UFO Investigators such as Dennis Balthazar and Scott Ramsey have given the case serious reconsideration over the last twenty years.
“When I first heard about Aztec years ago I also didn't think much of it because basically the hoax theory was getting much of the publicity, however as more research has been done and witnesses interviewed my thinking has changed and warrants further investigation into the incident.” said Balthazar in a recent email. “Hoaxes are too often accepted as fact, when additional 'good' research as Scott Ramsey is doing on Aztec opens the door to at least look deeper into it.”
And looked into the case investigator Scott Ramsey has. But more on that later; first let’s recount the basic history of the Aztec crash.
The full original Aztec UFO story, for those not familiar with it, first gained prominence via famous journalist Frank Scully in his 1950 book Behind the Flying Saucers. In it Scully describes how in March of 1948 an alien space craft 99.99 feet in diameter made an emergency landing in Hart Canyon atop a small mesa near Aztec. The craft and the alien bodies within it were then collected by the air force.
Scully got his information from Silas M. Newton, a con-man with a dubious past, who introduced him to one “Dr. Gee.” Dr. Gee was the one who then related the story to Scully, as Dr. Gee had been called in with several other scientists to examine the craft and try to figure out just how it achieved its propulsion. According to Dr. Gee the craft was then dismantled at the crash site, and like the Roswell saucer, taken to Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.
While it’s interesting to note similarities between Aztec and Roswell, including the close proximity in time in which they happened (Aztec’s was less than a year after Roswell’s which had occurred in July of 1947) the Aztec crash has many significant differences. First of all, the Aztec craft didn’t necessarily crash like Roswell’s, but made an emergency landing without causing any major damage to the craft. Secondly, this flying disc was much larger at 100 feet compared to the one found near Roswell. Also out-topping Roswell was the discovery of 16 alien bodies compared to Roswell’s four or five bodies although none of Aztec’s aliens managed to survive like Roswell’s.
While Roswell had a weather balloon to try and crash its credibility, the arrest of Silas M. Newton and his partner Leo A. 
GeBauer proved to be a near crippling blow for the Aztec legend. GeBauer and Newton had been swindling people for years and getting away with it until they messed with Denver millionaire Herman Flader. Flader was furious when the two sold him a device said to be able to locate oil, but was in fact just a piece of inexpensive surplus junk. It didn’t help that the two men had been trying to pass off these devices as pieces of alien technology recovered in the crash to help find oil.
Making things even worse San Francisco Chronicle reporter J.P. Cahn began investigating Newton and GeBauer’s scams focusing on the crash angle. Cahn stealthily managed to swipe a piece of the “crash debris” from Newton and have it tested to reveal its earthly properties of simple aluminum.
And so thanks to the two con men the Aztec legend seemed to crash and burn. There had been no alien craft, just a story concocted by Silas Newton, and according to many his partner Leo A. GeBauer was really the mysterious Dr. Gee all along.
Or was he?
What the recent investigations by Scott Ramsey have turned up, next week, in the Roswell Edition…
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