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May 31, 1947, Socorro, New Mexico, USA, a military photographer:

Brief summary of the event and follow-up:

Saying that his sources are "Phillip L Rife, It Didn't Start With Roswell & Anton Anfalov, quoting Grady L Barnett", Albert Rosales told in his "humanoid encounters" catalogue in the 2000's, that at an unknown time of May 11, 1947, +A former military photographer claimed that a UFO, 30-40 ft in diameter and about 15 ft in height crashed near the area. One occupant of the craft was killed in the crash, while three others emerged alive. When they were found, the survivors reportedly made crying-like sounds and clutched box-like devices to their chests. One of them appeared to be injured. The occupants were of small height and had copper based blood. This object eventually ended up at the famed Hangar 18 in Wright Patterson AFB Ohio."

Basic information table:

Narratives:

[Ref. ar1:] ALBERT ROSALES:

Points to consider:

This is actually a non-event: there was no such report of such a crash in Socorro. The mistake is that the alleged witness, said by Albert Rosales and/or his sources to be "a military photographer", (actually the "Grady L. Barnett" cited in the sources) is the alleged witness of an alleged crash elsewhere. The connection with Socorro is only that this alleged witness was allegedly a resident of Socorro, and not at all that the crash occurred in Socorro.

This is just typical of some ufologist writing catalogues: because of errors, they end up with not one "Roswell" but many "Roswells". Some are justified in the sens that different alleged witnesses claimed different stories at different places, but also, a single witness claim can appear as different "crashes" to errors such as in Rosales' catalogue entry.

The real source for this claim was a second-hand account by a dead soils engineer, Grady L. Barnett, who purportedly told his story in 1950 to Mr. and Mrs. L. W. Maltais, who in 1979 gave Friedman, Moore, and Berlitz an improbably verbatim rendition of what he had allegedly said.

While he apparently first said it was in Socorro, it later was said the saucer crashed in the plains of San Augustin.

The original story is told in "Crash at Corona", by Stan Friedman and Don Berliner, Marlowe publishers, USA, 1992, at pages 13 and 14:

Later that year, on October 24, 1978, Friedman gave a lecture at Bemidji (Minnesota) State University and was approached cautiously by a couple who had left the hall at the end of his talk and then decided to return. They asked, after most of the crowd had departed, if he had ever heard of a saucer that crashed in New Mexico... with alien bodies. "I've heard rumors about such stories." he responded. "Tell me more." It was one of several stock replies prepared for hints of odd events that frequently came to light in the open atmosphere of a well-attended UFO lecture.

Vern and Jean Maltais told him briefly that a very good friend of theirs, "Barney" Barnett, had related a story of seeing a crashed saucer with alien bodies down in New Mexico in the late forties. They too were unable to pin down a specific year, let alone a month or day. But they stressed that Barnett, an engineer working for the government, was a well-respected individual. They had no reason to think he was telling them anything other than the truth, despite the bizarre content of the story. Crashed saucers are one thing, and could well turn out to be futuristic American or even foreign aircraft or missiles. But alien bodies are another matter entirely, and hardly subject to misinterpretation. Bodies are either people or they are not.

The Maltais had kept in touch with Barnett for several years, though he was dead now. They thought Friedman might be interested in the story, and they were right. Pieces, as yet completely unconnected, were starting to pile up. He took their names and the next day, when he ran into William Moore, a local high school teacher whose interest in UFOs he had known about for years, he suggested that Moore start looking into the Maltais/Barnett story. Friedman and Moore had met a decade earlier, when Friedman was working on nuclear rockets for Westinghouse and involved with a UFO investigation group composed mainly of scientists. He and Moore renewed their acquaintance at a pizza parlor in Minnesota.

The Maltais told of Barnett's story to William Moore later. Moore told about it in the 1980 book "The Roswell Incident." In the book, Barnett is "quoted" saying that the crash he witnessed was near Magdalena; which is on the Plains of San Agustine, 130 km west of Socorro.

Now, Rosales named the witness "Grady L. Barnett" instead of "Barney Barnett". It so happens that "Barney’s" full name was Grady L. Barnett, "Barney" to his friends. Barnett had lived in Socorro, New Mexico, and worked as a soil conservation engineer for the federal government. He died in 1969, aged 76. This was two years before the "Roswell" affair was resurrected and witnesses searches started, this is why there is no possibility of direct quote of Barnett.

Then: Rosales tells us that the witness was "a military photographer". This is false. Rosales and / or his sources probably confused Grady L. "Barney" Barnett with "Jack Barnett", the alleged cameraman of the infamous "alien autopsy" faked film.

And finally: the date o "May 31, 1947" is pure invention, and the claim the the "object eventually ended up at the famed Hangar 18 in Wright Patterson AFB Ohio" is unrelated to Barnett.

List of issues:

Evaluation:

Non-event.

Sources references:

* = Source I checked.
? = Source I am told about but could not check yet. Help appreciated.

• [ri1] ? "It Didn't Start With Roswell", book by Phillip L. Rife, iUniverse publishers, USA, 2001.
• [aa1] ? Communicate by ufologist Anton Anfalov, Ukraine, to Albert Rosales.
• [ar1] * "1947 Humanoid Reports", catalog by Albert Rosales, circa 2005, at http://www.ufoinfo.com/humanoid/humanoid1947.shtml

Document history:

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This page was last updated on November 10, 2018.