Search - Aztec 1948: UFO Crash on DVD

The 1948 Aztec UFO crash "hoax" reconsidered

Daniel Jolley | Shelby, North Carolina USA | 08/28/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I found this to be a most interesting documentary indeed. Most of us with a serious interest in ufology have never examined the Aztec UFO crash story very closely because the foregone conclusion has long been that the story was a hoax perpetrated by two con men. In some circles, Aztec could almost be seen as a dirty word because the ridicule directed toward Frank Scully's 1950 book on the subject, Behind the Flying Saucers, worked against the interests of those seeking the truth about UFOs for quite a long time. Those who did look at the Aztec crash claim didn't find a great deal to work with over the years. The story goes that a large alien craft crashed on a mesa outside Aztec, New Mexico on March 25, 1948 (some eight months after the Roswell crash), most likely due to interference from a nearby radar facility. 14-16 alien bodies, all deceased, were supposedly collected by the military, which quickly went about the business of covering the incident up exceedingly well. That's all we really had for several decades: no physical evidence, claims from skeptics that no radar facilities existed in that area at that time, no witnesses coming forward - nothing but Scully's book and the knowledge (by 1952) that his two sources were indeed bona fide con men.

Now, in the last few years, North Carolina ufologist Scott Ramsey has come along and uncovered some intriguing information that could eventually reopen the case. Geographical and topographical studies of the supposed landing site area, plus some diligent Freedom of Information Act work, led him to discover that radar facilities did exist in that area in 1948 (overseen by the Atomic Energy Commission). In the video, he and host Paul Kimball take us on a tour of the crash area, showing us the "mystery road" (which does not appear on any maps) the military reportedly cut on their way to the remote crash site, an unexplained concrete slab reportedly used to support one of the legs of the crane used to retrieve the crashed vehicle, and the hulking ruins of the nearby radar facility at El Vado (although the corroborating prowess of these "secret radar installations" have since been questioned by filmmaker Paul Kimball himself). Ramsey also shares the accounts of several witnesses (many of whom have since passed away) that do seem to corroborate one another's stories in several important ways.

This is a particularly objective UFO documentary, as we hear from both sides of the Aztec crash story. Karl Pflock does a good job of laying out the evidence for a hoax, using the unreliability of Frank Scully's sources (Silas Newton and "Dr. Gee") as the obvious starting point. Scott Ramsey, in turn, eloquently puts forth some possible answers for many of the skeptic's questions. Stanton Friedman also weighs in on the subject (but - as always - his continued conviction that the MJ-12 documents are authentic create additional problems in my mind), along with Richard Dolan and a few other prominent ufologists.

This video does not set out to prove that the Aztec crash really happened. Scott Ramsey himself has not come to that conclusion as of yet, acknowledging that much more work needs to be done on this case. The evidence he has put together so far, though, certainly forces one to reconsider the possibility that something alien did indeed crash in New Mexico in March 1948. I would definitely recommend this documentary to anyone with a serious interest in ufology."