URECAT - UFO Related Entities Catalog

URECAT is a formal catalog of UFO related entities sightings reports with the goal of providing quality information for accurate studies of the topic. Additional information, corrections and reviews are welcome at patrick.gross@inbox.com, please state if you wish to be credited for your contribution or not. The main page of the URECAT catalog is here.

August 19, 1949, Death Valley, California, USA, Buck Fitzgerald:

Brief summary of the event and follow-up:

A local newspaper for August 21, 1949 noted the story of a prospector, Buck Fitzgerald, who claimed to have seen the crash of a flying disc close to the Death Valley on August 20, 1949. Fitzgerald claimed that his colleague Mace Garney also saw it, and that the flying disc was approximately 24 feet in diameter and slipped past them at some 300 miles per hour, then crash landed on the ground, and two small men jumped out of it and started to run to far when they saw them.

He claimed that these occupants seemed human but was very small, like dwarves. He claimed to have chased them across a sand dune but lost them and cannot say where they went. The newspaper added that the two men said that with the temperature of 138 degrees F the weather was too hot for really running at a distance after these small men. There seems to have been no attempt to verify of rebuke these claims.

Basic information table:

Case number:	URECAT-000008
Date of event:	August 20, 1949
Earliest report of event:	August 20, 1949.
Delay of report:	Same day.
Witness reported via:	Newspaper
First alleged record by:	Bakersfield Californian newspaper.
First certain record by:	Bakersfield Californian newspaper.
First alleged record type:	Local newspaper.
First certain record type:	Local newspaper.
This file created on:	August 22, 2006
This file last updated on:	November 14, 2018
Country of event:	USA
State/Department:	California
Type of location:	Open country
Lighting conditions:	Not known
UFO observed:	Yes
UFO arrival observed:	Yes
UFO departure observed:	No
UFO/Entity Relation:	Certain
Witnesses numbers:	1 (or 2)
Witnesses ages:	Not known.
Witnesses types:	Prospectors.
Photograph(s):	No.
Witnesses drawing:	No.
Witnesses-approved drawing:	No.

Number of entities:	2
Type of entities:	Humanoid
Entities height:	Small
Entities outfit type:	Not known.
Entities outfit color:	Not known.
Entities skin color:	Not known.
Entities body:	Not known.
Entities head:	Not known.
Entities eyes:	Not known.
Entities mouth:	Not known.
Entities nose:	Not known.
Entities feet:	Not known.
Entities arms:	Not known.
Entities fingers:	Not known.
Entities fingers number:	Not known.
Entities hair:	Not known.
Entities voice:	Not known.
Entities actions:	Came out of UFO, fled.
Entities/witness interactions:	Entities run away from witnesses.
Witness(es) reactions:	Observed, pursued entities.
Witness(es) feelings:	Not known.
Witness(es) interpretation:	Not known.
Explanation category:	Extraterrestrial beings.
Explanation certainty:	None.

Narratives:

[Ref. bc1:] "THE BAKERSFIELD CALIFORNIAN" NEWSPAPER:

2 HOT MINERS SPOT, CHASE DISC PILOTS

A grizzled desert prospector reported in Mojave that a "whizzing disc" crashed near Death Balley and that two little men jumped out and disappeared in the sans dunes, the International News Service says.

The prospector, Buck Fitzgerald, who claims he has lived in the Death Valley region long enough to know a flying disc when he sees one, said that his sidekick, Mase Garney, also witnessed the event.

Related Fitzgerald:

The flying disc, which was about 24 feet in diameter, whizzed past us going about 300 miles per hour.

It crash-landed and wo little men jumped out and started running when they saw us.

"The men looked human but they were very small - like dwarfs.

"We chased them over a sand dune but lost them. I don't know where they went."

The two prospectors allowed that with a temperature of 138 degrees, it was too hot to chase the little men for any great distance.

[Ref. mi1:] "MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE" NEWSPAPER:

WELL, Y'SEE, PARNDER, IT WAS A BIT TOO HOT TO CHASE 'EM

MOJAVE. Cal. Aug. 19 (INS) -- A grizzled desert prospector reported that a "whizzing disk" crashed near Death Valley today and that two little men jumped out and disappeared in the sand dunes.

The prospector, Buck Fitzgerald, who claimed he has lived in the Death Valley region long enough to know a flying disk when he sees one, said that his sidekick, Mase Garney, also witnessed the event.

Related Fitzgerald:

"This flying disk, which was about 24 ft. in diameter, whizzed past us going about 300 mph.

"It crash-landed and two little men jumped out and started running when they saw us.

"The men looked human but they were very small - like dwarfs.

"We chased them over a sand dune but lost them. I don't know where they went."

[Ref. st1:] "THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE" NEWSPAPER:

DWARFS ON MOJAVE

Miner Details Flying Disk Spin Into Sand

MOJAVE. Cal. Aug. 19 (INS) -- Buck Fitzgerald, a veteran prospector, reported Friday that he saw a flying disk in the Mojave desert about 15 miles south of Death Valley.

Fitzgerald said that he and a friend, Mase Garney, saw the flying saucer "spin into the desert after coming out of nowhere."

The 73-year-old prospector related:

"This flying disk, which was about 24 ft. in diameter, whizzed past us going about 300 mph.

"It crash-landed and two little men jumped out and started running when they saw us.

"The men looked human but they were very small - like dwarfs.

"We chased them over a sand dune but lost them. I don't know where they went."

[Ref. se1:] "THE SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER" NEWSPAPER:

'Little Men' in Flying Disc

MOJAVE. Cal. Aug. 19 (INS) -- A grizzled desert prospector reported that a "whizzing disk" crashed near Death Valley today and that two little men jumped out and disappeared in the sand dunes.

The prospector, Buck Fitzgerald, who claimed he has lived in the Death Valley region long enough to know a flying disk when he sees one, said that his sidekick, Mase Garney, also witnessed the event.

Related Fitzgerald:

"This flying disk, which was about 24 ft. in diameter, whizzed past us going about 300 mph.

"It crash-landed and two little men jumped out and started running when they saw us.

"The men looked human but they were very small - like dwarfs.

"We chased them over a sand dune but lost them. I don't know where they went."

[Ref. wm1:] "THE WILMINGTON MORNING NEWS" NEWSPAPER:

Insists He Saw Disk

MOJAVE. Cal. Aug. 19 (INS) -- A grizzled desert prospector reported that a "whizzing disk" crashed near Death Valley today and that two little men jumped out and disappeared in the sand dunes.

The prospector, Buck Fitzgerald, who claimed he has lived in the Death Valley region long enough to know a flying disk when he sees one, said that his sidekick, Mase Garney, also witnessed the event.

Related Fitzgerald:

"This flying disk, which was about 24 ft. in diameter, whizzed past us going about 300 mph.

"It crash-landed and two little men jumped out and started running when they saw us.

"The men looked human but they were very small - like dwarfs.

"We chased them over a sand dune but lost them. I don't know where they went."

[Ref. bc2:] "THE BAKERSFIELD CALIFORNIAN" NEWSPAPER:

Pardner, Two 'Little Men' Fled 'Saucer', Miners Vow

MOJAVE, Cal., Aug 20. -- INS. A grizzled desert prospector reported that a "whizzing disc" crashed near Death Valley today and that two little men jumped out and disappeared in the sand dunes.

The prospector, Buck Fitzgerald, who claims he has lived in the Death Valley region long enough to know a flying disc when he sees one, said that his sidekick, Mace Garney, also witnessed the event.

Related Fitzgerald:

"This flying disc, which was about 24 feet in diameter, whizzed past us going about 300 miles per hour.

"It crashed-landed and two little men jumped out and started running when they saw us.

The men looked human but they were very small - like dwarfs.

The two prospectors allowed that with a temperature of 138 degrees, it was too hot to chase the little men for any great distance.

[Photo - unrelated to above story:]

THIS WEIRD PLANE MAY BE FLYING SAUCER
Found in an abandoned Anne Arundel county tobacco barn, this skeleton, the Air Force officials say, may be forerunners of mysterious "flying discs."
Mrs Jock J. Harbaugh sits in cockpit.

[Ref. tt1:] "TAMPA BAY TIMES" NEWSPAPER:

WHIZZING DISK

A grizzled desert prospector reported that a "whizzing disk" ... flying saucer, that is... crashed near Death Valley Cal., and two little men jumped out and disappeared in the sand dunes. Related Buck Fitzgerald, eyewitness, "This flying disk, which was about 24 feet in diameter, whizzed past us going about 300 mph. It crash-landed and two little men jumped out and started running when they saw us. The men looked human but they were very small, like dwarfs..."

[Ref. df1:] "DETROIT FREE PRESS" NEWSPAPER:

ARMY TIRED OF REPORTS

Flying Discs' Little Men Never There to Probers

Ya' seen any little 30-inch men around?

From the phone calls and scattered reports, it would sound as if the Wellsian invasion of Men from Mars is at hand.

At least three reports of these little guys landing in flying saucers have now been made. In one case, a bunch of them wearing gray uniforms and armed to the teeth spilled out of a flying disc.

Where are they?

When Army Intelligence officers investigate the possibility of an interplanetary invasion, the little men are not there.

***

TIRED AFTER a two-year chase of 240 rumors (by actual count) of flying disc, Army Intelligence officers at Wright-Patterson Field, Dayton, O., are refusing to "run down every silly story that comes along."

However, Army Intelligence still classifies as secret a portion of its investigation.

"It's nothing fearsome," an officer explained hastily.

Previous to the report of six 30-inch men "burned and charred in a flying turtle disc" in the Sierra Madre Mountains in New Mexico, Army Intelligence sifted a similar reported landing in Wisconsin.

A farmer sid he watched a disc land.

"Out of the saucer came a bunch of little men," he reported. "They were dressed in gray uniforms with red shoulder bars and wore red caps."

INVESTIGATON revealed that the Wisconsin farmer had been discharged from the Army for mental reasons, Army Intelligence said.

The probe was dropped right there.

A popular magazine now published a report by two Death Valley prospectors of a 24-foot disc landing in the desert at a speed of 300 miles an hour.

The prospectors, Buck Fitzgerald and Maze Garney, asserted they chased two 24-inch gents over a sand dune before losing them.

Army Intelligence refused to swallow that one. Magazines such as this, it said, seldom have any evidence to support their fantasies.

[Ref. cl1:] CORAL LORENZEN:

The American ufologist reports on the first UFO occupants case she could note in the USA, as having taken place on August 19, 1949 in the Death Valley in California. An account, if one must believe in it, indicates that two gold diggers saw a flying object in the shape of a disc landing in emergency, from which two small "men" spouted out. The golddiggers are said to have chased them but lost them in the sand dunes, and when they went back at the place where they thought the object had landed, it was gone.

Coral Lorenzen specifies that insofar as she knows the account was never entirely controlled, and was however never presented as a joke, while having often been mentioned in the UFO tradition.

[Ref. cl2:] CORAL AND JIM LORENZEN:

In their first book about flying saucers occupants, the Lorenzens mention the affair in the same terms than in Coral Lorenzen's contribution to Charles Bowen's book, noting that the case was in Frank Scully's famous 1950 book "Behind the Flying Saucers"; which was generally rejected by most researchers in the early years, but viewed more open mindedly after subsequent incidents that seemed to indicate that Scully was either telling the truth or was a prophet when he mentioned small humanoids.

[Ref. jv1:] JACQUES VALLEE:

In his listing of "UFO landings", Jacques Vallée indicates that on August 19, 1949, in the Death Valley, California, two prospectors are said to have observed a disk-shaped object "land" [sic]. Two dwarfs emerged but were lost in the sand dunes when pursued and the object disappeared. Vallée indicates Charles Bowen as source.

[Ref. pho1:] "THE PHOENIX FOUNDATION:

Alleged UFO Crashes

The following list of UFO crashes was compiled by the Phoenix Foundation from numerous sources within the Gemstone Intelligence Network (GIN), an international intelligence organization founded and operated by the Phoenix Foundation. For further information on Phoenix Foundation membership or to receive the organization's newsletter, please contact:

The Phoenix Foundation, 1995
Research Division,
P.O. Box 92008,
Nashville,
Tennessee 37209.

[... other cases...]

August 19, 1949 - Death Valley, California,

Two prospectors named Mace Garney and Buck Fitzgerald claimed to have watched an object crash in the desert. It was a 24-foot disc. The story appeared on page 13 of the local Bakersfield newspaper the next day.

[... other cases...]

[Ref. go1:] GODELIEVE VAN OVERMEIRE:

1947, mid July

USA, Death Valley, California

HOAX - SAUCER CRASH: Two mineral researchers (Buck Fitzgerald and Mase Garney) claimed to have seen how a discoidal object was cracking on the ground. Out came dwarves, dressed in overcoats, who disappeared between the dunes while they wanted to capture them. The saucer was made of calcium, it radiated and was radioactive, and inside there were 6 small green cables and nothing else. (Source: "Headhunt: Seeking the Degenerates among the Primitives (Varicose Brains - Part 3)" Martin S. Kottmeyer MAGONIA nº77 Marzo 2002; - International News Service of 20.8.1949; Catálogo MAGONIA nº70 (wrong date) - Fundación Anomalía - Catálogo de los primeros casos de humanoides clasificados por países (FIRSTHUMCAT) Luis R. González Manso - España)

[Ref. in1:] FOUND ON THE INTERNET:

An unidentified Internet source indicated that on August 19, 1949, in Death Valley, California, two prospectors named Mace Garney and Buck Fitzgerald claimed to have watched an object crash in the desert; which was a 24 feet disc, and that the story appeared on page 13 of the local Bakersfield newspaper the next day.

[Ref. in2:] FOUND ON THE INTERNET:

Other websites indicate that on August 19, 1949, in Death Valley, California, two prospectors saw the apparent crash-landing of a disc. Two small beings emerged and were chased by the prospectors until the aliens were lost among sand dunes. But when the two men returned their site, the disc-shaped object had gone. The source is often indicated to be "The Unexplained", Orbis Publishing, Great Britain.

[Ref. kr1:] KEVIN RANDLE:

The author says that on August 19, 1949, in the Death Valley, California, two prospectors, Buck Fitzgerald and Mace Garney, reported that they had seen a disk crash into the desert. They thought that it was flying a bit more than 300 miles an hour, was was about 24 feet in diameter, and that it hit a sand dune.

Two small creatures that looked human hopped out and ran off into the desert, chased by the prospectors, It was too hot for them, and the creatures were too fast, so they returned to where the disk had crashed, but it was gone.

Kevin Randle says the story was reported in the Bakersfield newspaper on August 21 and later reported in The Book of Knowledge as a legitimate UFG sighting. Some have suggested that this story provided the inspiration for the Silas Newton tales about the Aztec crash.

Kevin Randle note that in his original article in Daily Variety, Frank Scully wrote, "Weeks ago these sages informed me they had checked on two of the discs which had landed here from another planet and even told where the platters had landed. The Mojave Desert got one..."

Kevin Randle says that nothing more was learned about this, and Scully eventually moved everything out of California and into Arizona and New Mexico. But many of the facts in his new tales matched those from this report.

Points to consider:

Lack of data and investigation are blatant here.

List of issues:

Id:	Topic:	Severity:	Date noted:	Raised by:	Noted by:	Description:	Proposal:	Status:
None.

Evaluation:

There seems to have been no attempt to verify of rebuke these claims, so they stand with no more and no less value than a newspaper story.

Sources references:

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

[bc1] * Article in the newspaper The Bakersfield Californian, Bakersfield, California, USA, page 13, August 20, 1949.
[mi1] * Article in the newspaper The Minneapolis Star Tribune, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, page 1, August 20, 1949.
[st1] * Article in the newspaper The Salt Lake Tribune, Salt Lake City, Utaj, USA, page 20, August 20, 1949.
[se1] * Article in the newspaper The San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco, California, USA, page 2, August 20, 1949.
[wm1] * Article in the newspaper The Wilmington Morning News, Wilmington, Delaware, USA, page 4, August 20, 1949.
[bc2] * Article in the newspaper The Bakersfield Californian, Bakersfield, California, USA, page 13, August 21, 1949.
[tt1] * Article in the newspaper The Tampa Bay Times, St. Petersburg, Floride, USA, page 1, 21 août 1949.
[df1] * Article in the newspaper Detroit Free Press, Detroit, Michigan, USA, page 14, November 18, 1949.
[fs1] ? "Behind the Flying Saucers", book by Frank Scully, Henry Holt and Co., New York, 1950.
[cl1] * "UFO occupants in reports from the United States", chapter by Coral Lorenzen in the book "The Humanoids", by Charles Bowen, Neville Spearman, 1967.
[cl2] * "Flying Saucer Occupants", book by Coral and Jim Lorenzen, Signet books, page 116, 1967.
[cl1] * "Occupants d'OVNIS dans les Témoignages des Etats-Unis", chapter by Coral Lorenzen in "En quête des Humanoïdes", by Charles Bowen, French translation of "The Humanoids", J'ai Lu publisher, pp 173-174, 1974.
[jv1] * "Un Siècle d'Atterrissages", aka "Magonia database", case 70, compiled by Jacques Vallée in the ufology magazine Lumières Dans la Nuit, N.43, April 1970.
[ph1] * Electronic text from The Phoenix Foundation, USA, 1995.
[go1] * "Chronologie OVNI", web pages compiled by Godelieve van Overmeire, Belgium, circa 1999, were at users.skynet.be/sky84985/chron4.html
[pb1] ? "The Unexplained: The UFO Casebook", book edited by Peter Brookesmith, Orbis publishers, U-K., 1982.
[in2] * Various websites from 2000 to 2006.
[kr1] * "Crash: When UFOs Fall From the Sky: A History of Famous Incidents, Conspiracies, and Cover-Ups", book by Kevin D. Randle, Red Wheel - Weiser publishers, USA, pp 134-135, 2010.

Document history:

Authoring

Main Author:	Patrick Gross
Contributors:	None
Reviewers:	None
Editor:	Patrick Gross

Changes history

Version:	Created/Changed By:	Date:	Change Description:
0.1	Patrick Gross	August 22, 2006	Creation, [bc1], [cl1], [cl2], [jv1], [in1].
0.2	Patrick Gross	August 22, 2006	First published.
1.1	Patrick Gross	June 14, 2008	Conversion from HTML4 to XHTML Strict.
1.2	Patrick Gross	October 19, 2018	Additions [mi1], [st1], [se1], [df1], [go1]. Change of case day from 20 to 19.
1.3	Patrick Gross	November 14, 2018	Additions [bc1], [bc2], [ph1], [kr1].

This page was last updated on November 14, 2018.