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From: Bob Young <YoungBob2@aol.com>
Date: Wed, 29 Dec 1999 22:00:05 -0500 (EST)
Fwd Date: Thu, 30 Dec 1999 04:04:03 -0500
Subject: Frank Edwards and The Roswell 'Crash'


 >From: Bruce Maccabee <brumac@compuserve.com>>
 >Date: Fri, 24 Dec 1999 00:59:07 -0500
 >Fwd Date: Fri, 24 Dec 1999 08:18:47 -0500
 >Subject: Re: Friedman On History Channel's 'Roswell'

<snip>

 >There is, after all, one indisputable fact in this whole story:
 >Col. Blanchard, the Roswell (Army) Air Force commander,
 >did order the release of the story which said a crashed
 >flying saucer had been found on a ranch near Roswell and
 >had been retrieved by Major Jesse Marcel.

Bruce, All:

There are so many parts of this tale which, once introduced,
have taken on a life of their own. I assume that you did not
have access to the original source, so I offer the following.

The press release issued by 2nd Lt. Warren Haut did _not_, I
repeat, _not_, say that a flying saucer "crashed" anywhere. It
said, "Landed", that it was "stored" and later that, "the disc
was picked up", by Marcel.

In 1995 Christopher D. Allan posed this question to me: When was
the word "crash" first used in regard to this incident?  He
pointed out that to his knowledge it was not used in 1947 in the
newspapers, the Haut press release, the F.B.I. teletype message,
or anywhere else.

The eagle-eyed Mr. Allan had piqued my curiosity 1947 news
accounts do not, indeed, use "crash".  For example, a July 8
article in the ROSWELL DAILY RECORD mentions a July 2 "sighting"
by Mr. and Mrs. Dan Wilmot, but not a crash. The first A.P.
bulletin from Roswell (2:25 P.M., July 8) used "landed". (See:
Kevin D. Randle & Donald R. Schmitt, THE TRUTH ABOUT ROSWELL, P.
47.)

Government documents from July 1947 do not say crash. The July 8
F.B.I. memo, for instance, used "recovered".  THE COMBINED
HISTORY 509th BOMB GROUP AND ROSWELL ARMY AIR FIELD, 1 JULY 1947
THROUGH 31 JULY 1947 used "reported to be in possession".

So, when was the word "crash" first used with Roswell?

Frank Scully is often given the blame. But on Oct. 12, 1949, in
a VARIETY column he gave his first account from con men Silas
Newton and Leo GeBaur of a disc which, "landed", in New Mexico
with 16 charred bodies.  A Nov. 23 column told more.

Then, in 'Behind The Flying Saucers' (Henry Holt & Co., Sept.
1950) Scully reprinted "20 Questions" for the Air Force from a
previous column, which included, "the flying saucer that landed
on a ranch in New Mexico."  He also wrote of a 3 1/2 foot high
dead body taken from a saucer that had landed in New Mexico (p.
173).

TIME and NEWSWEEK published, in 1950, rumors of dead aliens and
crashed saucers in New Mexico, apparently stimulated by the
Scully book. But, Roswell was not mentioned by name (Kevin D.
Randle, "The Search for the Truth about the Roswell Crash" in
MUFON UFO JOURNAL, Oct. 1995, p. 9, and Stanton Friedman,
"Roswell Revisited" in MUFON 1995 INTERNATIONAL UFO SYMPOSIUM
PROCEEDINGS.)

Early 1950s investigators knew of many crash tales that had been
stimulated by Scully's book, which of couse had said only that a
disc had "landed" (James W. Moseley, 'UFO Crash Secrets At
Wright/Patterson Air Force Base', Abelard, 1991, p. 49).

Then, in the spring of 1955, FLYING SAUCER REVIEW, Vol. 1, No.
1, p. 3, briefly recounted the experience of entertainer Hughie
Green, who said that while driving across the U.S., in _June_
1947 , he had heard a radio announcement that a saucer, "Had
crashed in New Mexico." (Jerome Clark, The Emergence Of A
Phenomenon, The UFO Encyclopedia, VOL. 2.)  The pre-Roswell date
could have been due to faulty memory, but no mention of Roswell
by name suggests that the Green story may not probably did not
intruduce the crash element to the story.

In 1966 Brinsley LePour Trench repeated the Green story in his
overseas best-seller 'The Flying Saucer Story'. He said it had,
"crashed in New Mexico and that the Army had moved in to
investigate."  Roswell still wasn't mentioned.

It has often been said by skeptics and pro-crash proponents
that for three decades, until the late 1980s, the tale of the
Roswell saucer lay forgotten and dormant in old newspaper
archives.  This overlooks what I think was the original and a
continuing source for some key elements of the current story.

On April 28, 1956, ex-broadcaster, author and saucer lecturer
Frank Edwards, in Q & A after a lecture to a New York City
saucer group, said that at Roswell, "A farmer reported that he
saw something strike a mountainside and crash". (Public
Meeting Of April 28, 1956, New York: Civilian
Saucer Intelligence; Ibid., Clark.)

More details were added by Edward's at a Lecture on UFOs at
an Indianapolis, Indiana, convention on October 27, 1955 or 56
(Randle & Schmitt, 'UFO Crash At Roswell', p. 27; "1955"
in footnote for above on p. 290.)  "According to what I was
told," Edward's said, "They threw troops in a circle all around
that place, and would let nobody in for five days."

Whether these remarks were Edward's' spin on the Wilmots'
sighting, were stimulated by the Green tale, or was just
something that he had made up to enliven the story is unclear.
Christopher Allan has speculated that Edward's might have
learned about the incident from a press clipping sent to him by
a radio listener. He never claimed to have investigated it.

Then in 1966, Edward's wrote his best-seller 'Flying Saucers -
Serious Business' (the first UFO book to sell a million copies).
He wrote on page 76, "Then there are such difficult cases as the
rancher near Roswell, New Mexico, who phoned the Sheriff that a
blazing disc-shaped object had passed over his house at low
altitude and had crashed and burned on a hillside within view of
the house...We were not told, however... why the military
cordoned off the area while they inspected the wreckage..."

The Edward's best-seller was listed in the bibliographies of
both 'UFO Crash At Roswell' and the seminal 1980 'The Roswell
Incident' (Berlitz & Moore), which many believe broke a 30-year
silence on the matter.  Yet, oddly neither of these two books,
which were devoted entirely to the affair, contained one word
about the Roswell claims in Edward's' book, despite their
sensational nature.

Frank Edward's seems to have been the first to use the word
"crash" with Roswell; was first to offer witness descriptions of
the crash (although his witnesses seem to have been the Wilmots,
who said something only flew over); was first to describe a
cordon of troops, and evidently first to describe a five day
quarantine of the site.

It seems clear that Edwards' popular 1950s and 1960s saucer
lectures to audiences, some of whom paid to fill large halls,
may have been a continuing source for the oral transmission of
the "crash" story of Roswell.  The role of his 1966 million-
seller in perpetuating this tale is also probably unrecognized.

I would appreciate receiving clips or citations from readers of
this list who know of any 1940s or pre-1980 use of the term
"crash" in reference to Roswell.

Bob Young
PO Box 371
Federal Square Station
Harrisburg PA  17108-0371