Aztec crashed saucer hoax
- Date
- Mar 1948
- Place
- Hart Canyon near Aztec, San Juan County, New Mexico (alleged crash site), United States
- Record
- Curated case
- Assessment
- Explained
- Evidence strength
What was reported
In 1949 and 1950 Variety columnist Frank Scully published, and expanded in the best-seller Behind the Flying Saucers, a story that a saucer carrying sixteen small bodies had been recovered by the military near Aztec in March 1948. His sources were Silas Newton and Leo GeBauer, who were using the story to sell supposed alien-derived oil-detection devices. San Francisco Chronicle reporter J. P. Cahn exposed them in True magazine in 1952, and both were convicted of fraud in 1953. No contemporaneous record of any crash exists. The FBI's 1950 Hottel memo, which drew attention when the Bureau put its files online in 2013, repeats a secondhand version of the tale, and the Bureau describes it as a claim it never investigated.
What officials concluded
No conclusion stated
No official explanation has been given.
Strongest ordinary reading
Fabricated by Silas Newton and Leo GeBauer as part of a fraud scheme; both convicted in 1953
Evidence profile
- No: Visual
- No: Infrared
- No: Radar
- No: Video
- No: Photo
- No: Film
- No: Audio
- No: Night vision
- No: Other sensor
- No: Civilian
- No: Military aircrew
- No: Military ground
- No: Airline crew
- No: Sensor operator
- No: Law enforcement
- No: Scientist
- No: Astronaut
- No: Intelligence official
- Yes: Other
- No: Light only
- No: Orb or sphere
- Yes: Disc
- No: Triangle
- No: Cylinder
- No: Cube
- No: Other shape
- No: Physiological
- No: Physical trace
- No: Electromagnetic
- No: Sound
- No: Silent
Outside sources
- Wikipedia: Aztec crashed saucer hoaxen.wikipedia.org
On the map
36.82° N, 107.99° W, plotted at the town or city
Show on the map