Don Schmitt is one of the main investigators of the alleged UFO crash in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947. He and his colleagues have tracked down hundreds of witnesses who claim to have information about what happened .
While preparing the issue of Open Minds magazine dedicated to the Roswell crash in 2011, openminds.tv asked Don to write an article on the best evidence of the survival of a real pilot of the alleged spacecraft.
Ever since the Roswell crash of a flying saucer with “little men” inside, one specific rumor has persisted: that one of these “little men” managed to survive the ordeal.
For most of the years following the Roswell crash of 1947 and the ensuing weather balloon explanation, stories of mysterious bodies associated with the crash persisted, but the very idea that Earth actually hosted a living extraterrestrial visitor was unbelievable. But the question remained: Did an alien survive that fatal night?
Eyewitness accounts of the surviving alien
Roswell firefighter Dan Dwyer (left) and his team in the mid-1950s. Credit: Don Schmitt
Dan Dwyer
In 1947, twelve-year-old Frankie Dwyer Rowe saw her father being threatened and warned by military authorities for what he had seen at the Roswell crash site. Her father, now deceased, was a crew chief for the Roswell fire department at the time of the incident.
When the fire station received the call that an airship had crashed north of town, Dan Dwyer and Lee Reeves were dispatched with the station’s “tanker” (a pickup truck with a large fuel tank cylindrical water tank at the rear) at the crash site.
NASA stupor: Scientist staggeringly admits life has already been discovered on Mars
Why do people see reptilians?
The Chavez County Sheriff and a few of his deputies also followed in the rear in a quick chase. Arriving just before the military secured the scene, Dwyer and Reeves witnessed something totally unexpected. It wasn’t an airplane at all, but some sort of egg-shaped vessel that they didn’t recognize.
And the bodies! Dwyer could see three small humanoid beings lying under this vessel. As he focused on the craft and the bodies lying on the ground, Dwyer noticed movement out of the corner of his eye. There, walking in front of him, seemingly out of nowhere, was something straight out of a science fiction novel.
According to the firefighter, he was the size of a ten-year-old child, grayish skin, no hair, a large head and large eyes. Within moments, the roar of approaching vehicles is heard, with the military finally taking charge of the whole affair. Both firefighters were escorted away from the immediate area and warned of the consequences should they speak about the incident.
To further demonstrate the gravity of what they witnessed, Dwyer and his family were visited by military police that same evening at their home. Dwyer and his wife were physically threatened and told authorities would kill their children if they said a word about what they witnessed earlier in the day.
George Wilcox
The Roswell incident left an impact on everyone involved, especially then Roswell Sheriff George Wilcox. Just before his passing, Inez, Wilcox’s widow, told a story to her granddaughter Barbara, who has passed it on ever since:
“The event shocked [George]. He never wanted to be sheriff again after that. My grandmother told him: ‘Don’t tell anyone. When the incident happened, the military police came to the jail and told George and me that if we ever talked about the incident, not only would we be killed, but our whole family would be killed. ! ”. Barbara adds: “They called my grandfather, and someone came to tell him about the accident. »
He went to the site; there was a large burnt area, and he saw debris. There were four space beings. Their heads were big. They wore suits like silk. One of the ‘little men’ was alive. Inez Wilcox repeated to Barbara that she and George took the threats very seriously and withheld the information from the family.
Sergeant Homer Rowlette in 1947. He confided on his deathbed that he was part of the cleanup team
Sergeant Homer G. Rowlette
Sergeant Homer G. Rowlette Jr. was a member of the RAAF’s 603rd Air Engineer Squadron in 1947. He was a career soldier and retired as a non-commissioned officer after twenty-six years of dedicated service to his country .
Before he died in March 1988, he finally passed on to his son, Larry, the following startling information about his involvement in the “flying saucer crash”. Rowlette was part of a cleanup team sent to the crash site north of Roswell.
Larry learned that his father had seen it all. He manipulated the “memory material”, which Homer said was “a thin sheet that held its shape”. As if that weren’t enough, he described the actual ship, which was “somewhat circular.” He also took his son completely by surprise when he announced, “I saw three little people. They had big heads and at least one was alive! »
Richard Loveridge
In 1947, Richard Loveridge worked as a mechanical engineer for the Boeing Aircraft Company and was part of their crash investigation team. When news came in of a plane crash outside of Roswell, Loveridge drove to the scene, believing it to be one of their planes. It was not until the last year of his life, in 1993, that he finally confessed to his family the true nature of the alleged “plane crash”.
The Boeing investigator admitted he had “seen it all”. He saw the wreckage, which was not from a conventional aircraft, along with three small deceased “entities” and one that was still alive. Loveridge described them as “childish in size” and “grayish” in color. He declined to give more details to his family: “Don’t ask me more about it. They can hurt you. »
Ervin Boyd
Ervin Boyd worked as a B-29 mechanic at Roswell Army Airfield (RAAF) in 1947; specifically, he worked in hangar P3, later to be known as building 84. hangar were open on both sides of the building.
As soon as he walked through the hangar doors, he saw a number of men and vehicles heading towards the building. Startled by the situation, he quickly notices that some of the men are carrying what he thinks is the body of a child. “Why didn’t they take him to the hospital?” he wondered. When they passed him, he was shocked to see it was something else.
“He was the height of a child, six feet, maybe a little more, and a head larger than that of a normal body. The eyes were walnut-shaped and also larger than normal. From my point of view, he didn’t seem to have much of a nose. The arms were a little longer too, and the skin was ashy, gray, and a bit scaly. I believe he was still alive. »
Suddenly a number of officers grabbed Boyd and rushed him away from the area and began to physically abuse him. One said sternly, “Mr. Boyd, you didn’t see anything. But the civilian insisted. Eventually he was warned that if he said another word, not only would he lose his job, but the lives of his wife and children would be at stake. It wasn’t until he suffered a stroke cerebral, twenty-four years later, that he finally broke the silence with his family.
Joseph Montoya
That same afternoon, Monday, July 7, 1947, newly elected 32-year-old New Mexico Lieutenant Governor Joseph Montoya was in Roswell. It is unclear exactly how the politician ended up at the RAAF base on the same day as some of the bodies, including that of the possible crash survivor.
One possible scenario is that he was there on Independence Day weekend for the unveiling of a new aircraft, and after the ceremony he was escorted to the B-29 hangar at the when the first military vehicles arrived with their cargo “out of the world”.
Montoya confided to his close associates that he saw “four little men”. He describes their small size and the astonishing fact that “one of them was alive!” Montoya described the beings as “small, reaching right up to my chest.” [They were skinny with big eyes in the shape of drops of tears. [The mouth was really small, like a knife cut on a piece of wood, and they had big heads.”
Then he described the scene inside the hangar. Each of the little men, including the living one, lay on a table brought from the mess and set up for that purpose. “I knew that one was alive because I could hear him moaning.” Montoya said he was moving, with his knee bent and rocking back and forth.
After a frantic exit from the hangar, Montoya was picked up and led off base by associates. Montoya always said, “It’s too dangerous to talk about it. Even years later, he continued to warn that “the government will catch you.”
Private First Class Eli Benjamin in 1947. He escorted the bodies from the P-3 hangar to the RAAF base hospital
“Eli” Benjamin
In July 1947, Eli Benjamin was a Private First Class with the 390th Air Service Squadron at Army Air Field Roswell. Possessing a top secret clearance, Private First Class Benjamin was authorized to provide security for the top secret operations of the 509th Bomb Group – the world’s first atomic bomb squadron.
In addition to his primary duty, which was guarding B-29 bombers, one of his secondary duties was that of recovery specialist, which involved the sinister activities associated with the aftermath of aircraft crashes.
On the morning of Monday, July 7, 1947, Benjamin returned to his barracks after a night’s watch on the flight line followed by breakfast in the mess. “Something’s going on,” he thought to himself, as he stood to attention and saluted the playing of the national anthem and the morning flag-raising ritual at base headquarters, at the southern end of the esplanade.
He knew that the base commander, Colonel William Blanchard, normally held his weekly staff meetings on Tuesday mornings, but that day Benjamin thought there were too many staff cars and other vehicles parked in the headquarters parking lot for a regular staff meeting. When Cne Benjamin finally returned to his barracks, “my squadron was ordered to be on alert for a special mission,” he said.
Such was life in the 509th and Strategic Air Command, and sleep after long service should be a secondary consideration. The word finally found Benjamin: “Benjamin! Take your weapon and report to hangar P-3 for guard duty. »
Arriving at hangar B-29 to report to the officer in charge, Benjamin came across a commotion at the building’s main entrance. A number of military police were trying to restrain the officer from whom Benjamin was supposed to receive his service instructions.
The Lieutenant Colonel has obviously reacted emotionally to the current situation, which appears to be the transfer of a number of stretchers to the base hospital. Another officer quickly singled out Benjamin and ordered him to complete his mission.
During the process, something under one of the sheets covering each stretcher seems to move. Then, as each of the stretchers was loaded into the back of a waiting ambulance truck, a sheet came loose, revealing the greyish face and swollen, hairless head that was clearly not human.
Military police were ordered to deliver the cargo to the Base Hospital Emergency Room (Building 317) and remain there until relieved. Once they arrived at the medical center, half a dozen hospital staff and men in suits took control of a specific cart.
All eyes were on the covered newcomer as he pulled the sheet off an oversized-headed being, which had large slanting eyes, two holes for a nose, and a slit for a mouth.
For a number of moments, everyone around the patient stands there, speechless. He is alive. As the last cart is brought in, Benjamin and the other military police are immediately fired, returned to their squads, and held incommunicado. They were told the incident never happened.
Sixty-three years after the event, the fog of time prevents Eli Benjamin from remembering the names or faces of the other men assigned to “escort duty” that day. It is quite possible that they came from other squadrons on the base, or even other bases, and that they were brought in from outside (called augmentation troops) to avoid the notes being compared by the following.
For his part, Benjamin confirms her husband’s account of his involvement in the Roswell events of July 1947. She adds that he confided the story to her, promising that she would never tell it to anyone else. Eli’s memories of that night – seeing the swollen face and slanted eyes of the “species” – still haunt and haunt him to this day.
Wright Field, 1947, where the Roswell survivor was allegedly taken for study. Credit: US Army/Don Schmitt
What happened to the surviving alien?
To date, there is no eyewitness account of what became of the survivor and how he was transported from Roswell. There is, however, reliable information that the being spent some time at Wright Patterson Air Force Base and was still there until nine months later in 1948.
While on his deathbed in 1997, Lt. Col. Marion Magruder, a highly decorated World War II flying ace, swore to his five sons that when he was in the High School of Warfare, he was posted to Wright Patterson Air Force Base in April 1948 and was able to briefly see the “living alien” at this time.
He and the other members of his company were informed that the being had been recovered during the Roswell crash just the previous year. His description was similar to that of all the other eyewitnesses. He stressed that there was no doubt that he “came from another planet”.
As one RAAF personnel once remarked, “They certainly weren’t from Texas.” And along the same lines, they weren’t from Japan or Germany or anywhere else on Earth. This is a point on which all the witnesses are unanimous.
