Air Force officer's crash-retrieval remark (1952)
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 7
| Type | Event (anonymous second-hand claim) |
|---|---|
| Claim | An Air Force officer told a meeting of aerospace professionals he had been at the scene of a crashed-craft retrieval |
| Recorded by | Leonard H. Stringfield |
| Published in | "Retrievals of the Third Kind", MUFON Symposium, Dayton, Ohio, 28 July 1978 (Status Report I) |
| Informant | Not named |
| Status | Unverified; no documents or named witnesses |
| Date | 1952 |
| Topics | Crashes & retrievals (topic), Beings & bodies (topic), Secrecy & cover-up (topic) |
| People | Leonard Stringfield |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 44 |
| Year | 1952 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 1952 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 5 |
The Air Force officer's crash-retrieval remark is an account in the papers of the ufologist Leonard Stringfield. It says that an Air Force officer told a meeting of aerospace professionals that he had personally been at the scene of a crashed-craft retrieval. The informant who passed the story to Stringfield was not named. Neither the officer, the meeting nor the crash site is identified. It is one of many anonymous reports in Stringfield's crash-retrieval studies, which began with a paper he gave at the 1978 MUFON symposium in Dayton, Ohio. Like most of them it is second-hand, and no documents or named witnesses have confirmed it.[1][3]
The account
According to Stringfield's informant, the officer spoke at a gathering of people in the aerospace field. He said he had been present when a crashed craft was recovered. The account does not say where or when the crash took place, what was found, or who the officer was. It is cited at page 181 of the published version of Stringfield's "Retrievals of the Third Kind". Like most of the material Stringfield collected, it reports someone recalling what someone else said.[3][5]
"Retrievals of the Third Kind"
Stringfield presented "Retrievals of the Third Kind: A Case Study of Alleged UFOs and Occupants in Military Custody" at the Ninth Annual MUFON Symposium in Dayton on 28 July 1978. It was later issued as UFO Crash Retrievals – Status Report I, edited by Charles Bowen. A three-part version appeared in the British Flying Saucer Review from its July–August 1979 issue. Stringfield wrote that he had worked "through patience, perseverance and careful courteous diplomacy". He said "sufficient data have been amassed to lend support to some of the old retrieval claims". In the 1950s, he said, researchers including himself "did little more than scoff" at crash stories, because of the Aztec "grand hoax" in Frank Scully's 1950 book Behind the Flying Saucers.[1][3][5]
Most of the paper consists of numbered "abstracts", summaries of anecdotes from unnamed sources. Many came to him after his 1977 book Situation Red. They often describe military witnesses blindfolded and driven to a crash site, or bodies packed in crates of dry ice. One abstract, which he said came "first-hand", was told by the son of a man who heard it from his cousin, an Air Force major. Stringfield conceded that testimony "without names to back up the informant's testimony can be construed as hearsay". He said he "must make my stand on the merits of my credibility", established over 29 years of research. One abstract contained the earliest published account by "Major J.M.", later identified as Jesse Marcel, of the 1947 Roswell debris. Marcel described metal fragments "of the thickness of tinfoil" that "could not be bent or broken".[2][3]
Stringfield
Stringfield (1920–1994) said he saw three "brilliantly white" unidentified lights from a cargo plane flying from Ie Shima to Tokyo in 1945, while serving with the 5th Air Force. In the 1950s he ran Civilian Research, Interplanetary Flying Objects (CRIFO) and its newsletter Orbit. He also reported sightings to the Air Defense Command, his house serving as reporting post "3-0 Blue". He later worked with NICAP, the Condon Committee, MUFON and the Center for UFO Studies. Professionally he ran public relations and marketing for DuBois Chemicals in Cincinnati. He continued publishing crash-retrieval Status Reports until his death from lung cancer on 18 December 1994. In 2012 his papers, some 60 volumes, were donated to MUFON.[1][2][4]
Assessment
Stringfield acknowledged that he could not verify most of what he was told. He published it in the hope that more witnesses would come forward. The writer Charles Lear notes that his 1978 report helped make crash-retrieval investigations respectable among ufologists, just as Budd Hopkins's Missing Time helped remove the stigma from abduction stories. In Lear's view the two men, whatever their good faith, were "instrumental in raising the tent for the circus that UFOlogy was to become in the 1980s". No documents or named witnesses have since confirmed the officer's remark.[3]
People and topics
- U.S. Air Force — The U.S. military service that ran the official UFO projects from 1947 to 1969.
- Leonard Stringfield — Former Air Force intelligence officer and NICAP researcher who collected anonymous crash-retrieval accounts from 1978 to 1994.
- Crash retrieval — The alleged recovery of crashed non-human craft by governments.
- MUFON — The largest civilian UFO organization in the United States.
On the Timeline
- Wright-Patterson guard and the tarp-covered craft (1952) (1952) — A former guard is said to have seen a tarp-covered craft taken into a secure area at Wright-Patterson.
- Project Twinkle kept classified (1952) (19 February 1952) — The Air Force's science advisers recommend keeping Project Twinkle, a UAP study at atomic sites, classified.
See every 1952 event on the UAP Timeline →
References
- Leonard H. Stringfield — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Stringfield's 1978 report — Patrick Gross · ufology.patrickgross.org · archived copy
- Leonard Stringfield's status report at the 1978 MUFON symposium — Podcast UFO · podcastufo.com · archived copy
- Retrobituaries: Leonard Stringfield — Mental Floss · mentalfloss.com · archived copy
- UFO Crash Retrievals: Status Report I — Goodreads · goodreads.com · archived copy
Facts in this article are drawn in part from the Wikipedia article “Leonard H. Stringfield”, 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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