Fort Monmouth desert-disc film
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 8
| Date | 1953 |
|---|---|
| Topics | Beings & bodies (topic), Military encounters (topic), Government programs (topic) |
| People | Leonard Stringfield |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 47 |
| Year | 1953 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 1953 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 6 |
In Leonard Stringfield's crash-retrieval research, a former U.S. Air Force radar specialist identified as "TE" said that in the spring of 1953, at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, he and a small group of radar specialists were shown a short film of a crashed silver disc in a desert and the bodies of its occupants. No such film has ever surfaced.[1][2]
The film
TE, then 20 and holding a Secret clearance, said the select group was summoned to the base theatre without any briefing. The 16-millimetre film, with no titles, showed a silver disc with a domed top embedded in desert sand, with an open hatch about two and a half feet wide at the bottom, and 10 to 15 military personnel in fatigues without identifying patches standing around it; judging by their height, he estimated the craft at 15 to 20 feet across. The film then showed the interior, with a panel of simple levers in muted pastel colours.[1]
The bodies
The last scene, apparently in a tent, showed three small dead bodies on two tables, with large heads, small noses and mouths, closed eyes, no visible ears or hair and ashen skin, each in a tight-fitting pastel suit. TE said the film lasted about five minutes and was scratched and poorly coloured, as if shot by an inexperienced cameraman.[1]
Afterwards
When the lights came on, the officer in charge told the viewers to "think about the movie" and not to relate its contents to anyone. Two weeks later, TE said, an intelligence officer told him to forget the film because it was a hoax, and shortly afterwards he heard from security officers that a UFO and its occupants had been recovered in New Mexico in 1952. Years later, according to the account, he met another serviceman who said he had been shown the same film at a different base, suggesting the film was used to gauge technical personnel's reactions.[1]
Publication
The story was first published in Stringfield's 1978 MUFON paper "Retrievals of the Third Kind" and is one of several claims that the military made films of crash recoveries. Fort Monmouth was the Army's main electronics and radar research centre. Both witnesses are unnamed, and the account cannot be verified.[2][3]
In the testimony
The testimony cites: Retrievals of the Third Kind presented at MUFON 1978, Leon Stringfield, p10.
People and topics
- Leonard Stringfield — Former Air Force intelligence officer and NICAP researcher who collected anonymous crash-retrieval accounts from 1978 to 1994.
- MUFON — The largest civilian UFO organization in the United States.
- Crash retrieval — The alleged recovery of crashed non-human craft by governments.
On the Timeline
- Warrant officer and the crates of bodies (1953) (1953) — A former Army warrant officer claims he saw crates of small humanoid bodies at Wright-Patterson.
- Fort Polk crash claim (1953) (1953) — An Army source says he saw an egg-shaped craft crash-land at Fort Polk, Louisiana.
See every 1953 event on the UAP Timeline →
References
- "Case A-09", NOUFORS (from Leonard Stringfield's status reports) · noufors.com · archived copy
- Leonard H. Stringfield — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Patrick Gross, "Stringfield's 1978 report", UFOs at close sight · 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
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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