CRASH AT CORONA - Stanton Friedman-pages

Page 112 of 242

Page 112 of 242
CRASH AT CORONA - Stanton Friedman-pages

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89 Despite heroic efforts to find additional witnesses, little more was learned about the San Agustin crash for a decade. Then, in response to the immensely popular January 1990 Unsolved Mysteries telecast about the Corona crash, a man named Gerald Anderson called the producer to announce he had more information that might be of interest. The message was passed along to both Kevin Randle and Stanton Friedman, who had worked on the show and who were busily trying to chase down other leads to the crash stories. A personality conflict between Anderson and Randle cut that relationship short, but the new witness hit it off much better with Fried- man, who taped a long telephone interview and began a long and complicated series of maneuvers aimed at getting a copy of a personal journal allegedly kept by Anderson's late Uncle Ted. In late 1990, Anderson and the authors traveled to the Plains of San Agustin to see if Jerry could relive his experiences of forty- three years earlier. Brought to the area by helicopter, Jerry jumped out as soon as it touched down and raced to what he thought was the very place he had seen the wrecked craft and its crew of small humanoids. His undisguised excitement created an atmo- sphere of authenticity, as he later led the others to significant locations, pointing, gesturing, and exclaiming as he went. Ev- erything suggested that he had finally returned to the place where something traumatic had happened to a six-year-old who now, standing six-four and carrying a muscular 250-plus pounds, resembled an offensive guard. The Plains of San Agustin is a vast level area in western New Mexico that was once a great lake providing water for prehis- toric tribes, and more recently their ancient artifacts for arche- ologists. On the southeast side is Bat Cave, famous as the site of the discovery of kernels of corn said to be at least forty-five hundred years old and the remnants of the earliest known agriculture in North America. The Plains are about seven thousand feet above sea level and are surrounded by peaks of the Tularosa, Black, and Datil Mountains reaching up to ninety-five hundred feet. The air is dry and thin. CIVILIANS FIND THE WRECKAGE