Cedar Breaks radar site crash claim
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 8
| Reported | 16 September 2006, Earthfiles (Linda Moulton Howe) |
|---|---|
| Claimed event | A disc crash at a radar site at Cedar Breaks, southern Utah, in 1966 |
| Witness | An unnamed former radar technician |
| Claimed link | Radar facility "built and operated in 1966 under the direction of Area 51" |
| Distance | About 250 miles from Area 51, per Howe |
| Status | Single anonymous source; full account paywalled; no corroboration |
| Date | 1966 |
| Topics | Crashes & retrievals (topic), Military encounters (topic), Bases & Area 51 (topic) |
| People | Linda Moulton Howe |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 69 |
| Year | 1966 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 1966 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 5 |
In September 2006 the journalist Linda Moulton Howe reported on her Earthfiles website an account from a former radar technician. He said he saw a disc crash at a radar site at Cedar Breaks in southern Utah in 1966.[3] According to Howe's report, the radar facility had been "built and operated in 1966 under the direction of Area 51", the secret Nevada test site about 250 miles away.[3] The full account is behind a subscription paywall and the technician's name has not been made public.[2][3] No documents or other witnesses support the crash claim, and it is best treated as an unverified single-source account.[3]
The report
Howe's report, dated 16 September 2006 from Albuquerque, explains how the account came to her. In the preceding months she had asked viewers and listeners of Earthfiles, the radio program Dreamland and Coast to Coast AM whether anyone had firsthand military or intelligence knowledge of "extraterrestrial biological entities, crashed discs and other related phenomena".[3] The publicly visible part of the report is illustrated with a map showing the distance, about 250 miles as the crow flies, between Area 51 northwest of Las Vegas, Cedar City in Utah and the Cedar Breaks radar facility.[3] The rest of the testimony, including what the technician says he saw and how the crash was handled, is available only to subscribers.[3]
The setting
Cedar Breaks National Monument, near Cedar City, is a natural amphitheater about 3 miles across and over 2,000 feet deep. Its rim stands above 10,000 feet, with the peak of Brian Head rising just outside the boundary. Snow often closes parts of the area from October to May.[5] A long-range radar site does stand nearby. The Cedar City FAA Radar Site on Blowhard Mountain, visible from Cedar Breaks overlooks, was built in 1961 and became operational in 1962.[4] It tracked military and civilian aircraft within about 200 miles and passed its data to the FAA's Salt Lake City center and to the Air Force's SAGE air-defense direction centers. From 1964 it also fed the Los Angeles center at Palmdale.[4] Howe's report does not say whether her "Cedar Breaks radar facility" is this FAA site or a separate installation, and the FAA site's published history makes no mention of Area 51.[3][4]
Radar sites in Utah and Nevada did support classified flight testing at Area 51, where the U-2, A-12 and other secret aircraft were developed. The Air Force has acknowledged that test flights there caused UFO reports. Howe's map caption places Area 51 "at Nellis AFB northwest of Las Vegas".[3]
The reporter
Howe is an investigative journalist and documentary maker best known for her work on cattle mutilations, which she attributes to extraterrestrials, and for her speculation that the U.S. government works with aliens.[1] She has long collected anonymous insider testimony, and she has herself been deceived by such sources. In 1983 the Air Force agent Richard Doty showed her fabricated documents. He later said, "We gave Linda some good information, and some bad information. She chose the bad information."[1] The skeptic Joe Nickell has called her a "credulous journalist".[1]
Assessment
The claim rests on one anonymous witness whose account is not publicly available.[3] No military or FAA records, press reports or other witnesses describe a crash at Cedar Breaks in 1966. The only documented radar site in the area is an FAA facility built several years before the date Howe gives for the Area 51-run facility.[4] It is best treated as an unverified single-source account.[3]
People and topics
- Area 51 — The secret Nevada test site where spy planes and stealth aircraft were developed.
- Linda Moulton Howe — Journalist and filmmaker who runs the Earthfiles website and has reported many crash-retrieval claims.
- Earthfiles — Linda Moulton Howe's website.
- U.S. Air Force — The U.S. military service that ran the official UFO projects from 1947 to 1969.
- Unidentified flying object — An object in the sky that can't be identified; the older term for UAP.
On the Timeline
- Request for Vallée's best cases (1966) (23 July 1966) — Vallée receives a request from engineers to send their best cases to unnamed Wright Field scientists.
- Jack Pickett and the MacDill discs (1966-1967) — A retired pilot and a journalist say they saw Air Force-marked disc craft at MacDill AFB.
See every 1966 event on the UAP Timeline →
Further reading
- Area 51 — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
References
- Linda Moulton Howe — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Earthfiles — Linda Moulton Howe's news site · earthfiles.com · archived copy
- earthfiles.com · earthfiles.com · archived copy
- Cedar City FAA Radar Site · fortwiki.com
- Cedar Breaks National Monument · en.wikipedia.org
Facts in this article are drawn in part from the Wikipedia articles “Linda Moulton Howe”, “Cedar Breaks National Monument”, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.
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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