Plains of San Agustin
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 📍 Place
Contents 5
| Type | Place |
|---|---|
| On the Timeline | 1 event, 2011 |
The Plains of San Agustin are a high, flat basin in Catron and Socorro counties, west-central New Mexico, best known today as the site of the Very Large Array radio telescope. In UFO lore they are the claimed site of a second flying-saucer crash in 1947, said to have been seen by engineer Barney Barnett.[1][2]
Geography
The plains lie about 80 km (50 miles) west of Socorro and run roughly 88 km (55 miles) from northeast to southwest, between 8 and 24 km (5–15 miles) wide. They are the floor of a former Ice Age lake, Lake San Agustin, in a down-faulted basin within a volcanic field, and are ringed by mountain ranges. The isolation and shielding of the surrounding mountains led to the choice of the plains for the Very Large Array. Nearby are the Bat Cave rock shelter, an important archaeological site, and the ghost town of Old Horse Springs.[1]
The Barnett story
Barney Barnett, a soil-conservation engineer based in Socorro, is said to have told friends that he had come across a crashed disc and dead alien bodies on the plains. The story was published by Charles Berlitz and William Moore in The Roswell Incident (1980), which linked it to the Roswell debris, and was championed by Stanton Friedman, who with Don Berliner wrote Crash at Corona (1992) and argued that a craft crashed on the plains in July 1947.[2][3]
The account is secondhand and has been strongly disputed. Barnett died before any researcher could interview him, and his former boss, Fleck Danley, later could not say with confidence when Barnett had mentioned the crash. Researcher Kevin Randle has argued that the diary kept in 1947 by Barnett's wife, Ruth, does not fit the story, and that the plains have nothing to do with the Roswell incident.[2][3]
Gerald Anderson
In 1990, after watching a segment of the TV series Unsolved Mysteries, Gerald Anderson came forward saying that as a five-year-old he and his family had come across a crashed saucer and its crew on the plains. His story was promoted for a time but was challenged by other researchers, and archaeologists said to have been present in his account had no knowledge of any crash.[2]
On the UAP Timeline
- Chuck Wade's seven New Mexico crashes (26 March 2011) — A researcher presents claims from military sources about UAP crash recoveries.
References
- Plains of San Agustin — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Kevin Randle, "The Plains of San Agustin Crash", A Different Perspective (Feb 2015) · kevinrandle.blogspot.com · archived copy
- Patrick Gross, "Fleck Danley interview", UFOs at close sight · ufologie.patrickgross.org · archived copy
This page was last edited on 29 October 2026. Articles are written in our own words from the sources listed under References; disputed claims are attributed to the people who made them.
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