Nexus - 0203 - New Times Magazine-pages

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UFO's ROSWELL AFTER 43 YEARS, NEW WITNESSES REVEAL THEIR EXPERIENCES OF THE UFO CRASH NEAR ROSWELL. The Anderson family arrived in Albuquerque from Indiana on July 4, 1947. they took up temporary residence at the home of one of Gerald’s uncles, Guy Anderson. Gerald’s father, Glen, was about to take a job as a master machinist involved in nuclear weapons design at the super-secret Sandia base on the outskirts of town. The next day, another uncle, Ted, struck up a conversation with Gerald’s older brother Glen Jr., who was on leave from the Marine Corps. Glen Jr. was a rockhound, and his uncle piqued the young Marine’s enthusiasm with talks of gorgeous stones just waiting to be collected in the desert. “ Ted told my brother, ‘ I know where there’s plenty of moss agate.’ So we all piled into a 1940 Plymouth - Uncle Ted, my cousin Victor (Ted’s 8 year old son), my brother, Glen, my dad and myself. We went out into this area where the moss agate was supposed to be, followed two ruts into the desert, bounced along out there for a while, and ended up on top of a ridgeline. We parked the car and started to walk down an arroyo (gully) and dry creek bed and out onto the plains. But we came around a corner and right there in front of us stuck into the side of this hill, was a silver disc. We all went up there to it. There were three creatures, three bodies, lying on the ground underneath this thing in the shade. Two weren’t moving and the third one obviously was having trouble breathing, like when you have broken ribs. There was a fourth one next to it, sitting there on the ground. There wasn’t a thing wrong with it, and it apparently had been giving first aid to the others. There were four — two dead, one dying, one apparently unin- jured. The creatures were about 4 feet tall, with heads dispropor- tionately large for their bodies by human measure and almond- shaped, coal black eyes. They huddled in the shadow of 50-ft- diameter silver disk - a “flying saucer” that had crashed into a low hillside on the rim of what locals call the Plains of San Augustin. Anderson, a former police chief at Rockaway Beach and Taney County deputy sheriff who now works as a security officer in Springfield, is adamant about events on the hot midsummer day so long ago. “I saw them. I even touched one of the creatures. I put my hand on their ship. And I wasn’t alone - my dad, my uncle, my brother and my cousin all saw the same things. And so did a lot of other people. But they aren’t talking. Anderson is talking, publicly, after 43 years of silence. Among those listening most intently are some of the foremost researchers into UFO phenomena. Anderson says he was unaware of ongoing fascination and con- troversy over the strange episode from his childhood until one evening this past January(1990) when he was flipping through channels on his TV set and stumbled across the popular program “Unsolved Mysteries.” On sudden impulse, he dialed a phone number that flashed onto the screen. “I guess I figured that if people were still interested in this thing, they might as well get it straight” is the only explana- tion he can muster for speaking up after years of keeping mostly mum on the matter. Anderson’s phone soon was ringing with calls from UFO researchers around the country. One in particular, Stanton Friedman, a nuclear physicist and popular lecturer who had advised the “Unsolved Mysteries” pro- ducers, was struck by correlations between Anderson’s recollec- tions and obscure details Friedman uncovered while sleuthing for a book to be published next year. Friedman contacted John Carpenter, a Springfield professional therapist who in his spare time serves as a director of investigations for the local chapter of MUFON, a nationwide organization of UFO researchers. Carpenter put great stock in Anderson’s recountings under hyp- nosis. “It’s what he didn’t say that was significant.” Carpenter says, explaining that despite clever prodding, Anderson never committed a hoaxer’s mistake of “recalling” something that shouldn’t be a part of his own memory. "| even touched one of the creatures. | put my hand on their ship - my dad, my uncle, my brother and my cousin all saw the same things. And so did a lot of other people. But they aren’t talking.” Anderson animatedly acts out the fourth creature’s reaction when the family members approached. “It recoiled in fear, like it thought we were going to attack it,” Anderson recounts, covering his face with crossed arms. The adults tried to repeatedly to com- municate with the frightened creature, Anderson says, but there was no audible response to greetings spoken in English and Spanish. A few minutes after the Anderson clan happened upon the bizarre scene, six other people arrived - five college students and their teacher. They’d been working on an archaeological dig around cliff dwellings a few miles away and had decided to hike NEXUS - 24 YEAR BOOK - MAY/JUNE 1991