Kevin Randle

Kevin Randle

Type	Person
Also known as	Randle
On the Timeline	8 events, 1947–2018

Kevin Douglas Randle (born 4 June 1949) is an American ufologist, author of science fiction and historical fiction, and military veteran.^[1] Within the UFO community he is often regarded as one of the leading experts on the Roswell incident. With Donald Schmitt he co-wrote UFO Crash at Roswell (1991), which sold 160,000 copies and became the basis of the 1994 television film Roswell.^[1][3] He has written more than 80 books, most of them fiction, and writes the long-running blog A Different Perspective.^[1][4] Over the years he has grown more cautious. He came to believe that no bodies were recovered at Roswell, and later said he was no longer sure what happened there and that the case for extraterrestrial involvement was "no longer robust".^[1][3]

Military service

• Vietnam. Randle served in the U.S. Army in the Vietnam War, flying UH-1 "Huey" helicopters with the 116th Assault Helicopter Company at Cu Chi and later the 187th Assault Helicopter Company at Tay Ninh.^[1] In 2026 he wrote on his blog of having been "a young Huey pilot at Cu Chi" in 1968.^[4]
• Air Force. Between Vietnam and Iraq he served in the Air Force, on active duty and in the reserves, as a public affairs officer, a general's aide and an intelligence officer. He finished his reserve service as a captain and director of intelligence for an airlift group.^[1]
• Iraq. After the 11 September 2001 attacks he joined the Iowa National Guard as an intelligence officer. His unit, the 234th Signal Battalion, deployed to Baghdad International Airport from June 2003 to May 2004. He received the Combat Action Badge for several firefights, and retired as a lieutenant colonel in 2009.^[1]

Education and writing

• Degrees. He took a bachelor's degree in journalism at the University of Iowa, a master's degree in psychology, a doctorate from California Coast University, and a second master's degree in military studies from the American Military University.^[1]
• Books. His output includes action-adventure, mystery and science-fiction novels as well as non-fiction. The Wikipedia account variously gives more than 80 and more than 100 books.^[1]
• Articles. He has written more than two hundred magazine articles, including on Iowa's Cold Water Cave and on the Vietnam War. One, in Soldier of Fortune, described an Easter Sunday 2004 firefight on the western perimeter of Baghdad Airport.^[1]

Early UFO work

• First article. Randle began studying UFOs in high school. His first UFO article appeared in Saga's Annual UFO Report in 1972, and through the 1970s he wrote about abductions, photographic cases and physical-evidence cases.^[1]
• Cattle mutilations. In 1975 Jim Lorenzen of APRO asked him to investigate the wave of cattle mutilations in the Midwest and West.^[1]
• The Blue Book files. As an Air Force ROTC student he learned from an internal notice that the Project Blue Book files could be seen at Maxwell Air Force Base. He went there with a fellow researcher, armed with a letter from his detachment commander. The archivists hesitated until they had spoken to a "Mr. Smith" in Washington, after which they became fully co-operative.^[5] See Transfer of the Blue Book files (1975).

Roswell research

Between 1978 and the early 1990s, Randle and Schmitt, like Stanton Friedman and Bill Moore, interviewed many people who claimed a connection with the 1947 events, producing competing and conflicting accounts.^[3]

• UFO Crash at Roswell (1991). The book added testimony from 100 new witnesses. Randle and Schmitt, along with others, endorsed the account of the mortician Glenn Dennis, who described calls from the base about small caskets and a nurse who saw an "alien autopsy".^[3] Karl Pflock later calculated that of more than 300 people reportedly interviewed for the book, only 23 could reasonably have seen debris, and only seven said anything suggesting an otherworldly origin.^[3]
• General Exon. The book quoted Brigadier General Arthur Exon on debris and bodies at Wright Field. Exon later agreed he had been quoted accurately, but said the books gave the impression he knew more directly than he did.^[6]
• The Truth About the UFO Crash at Roswell (1994). Their second book dropped the Barnett crash site on the Plains of San Agustin as lacking evidence. It proposed a new site 35 miles north of Roswell, based on statements from Jim Ragsdale and Frank Kaufman, the latter under the pseudonym "Steve MacKenzie". It also claimed a cargo plane delivered alien bodies to Dwight Eisenhower.^[3]
• The schism. Competing accounts split ufologists in the early 1990s. The two leading UFO societies backed rival scenarios: Randle and Schmitt's versus Friedman and Don Berliner's.^[3]
• Witnesses discredited. Kaufman's statements were later found not to match the base's personnel, his service record, the available radar or the terrain. Ragsdale's story grew to include eleven golden helmets buried in the desert.^[3]
• No bodies. Randle and Pflock, among other prominent researchers, became convinced that no bodies were recovered at Roswell.^[3]

Later Roswell work

• The Ramey memo. Randle has called the paper General Roger Ramey holds in a July 1947 Fort Worth photograph "the best case of provenance that I have ever seen". He notes that the picture was taken with a single reporter in the room, not at a press conference.^[7] See Ramey memo.
• Deathbed accounts. In 2011 he recorded the account of a daughter of Sergeant Homer Rowlette, who said her father had described a rounded craft and three "little people".^[8]
• Chester Lytle. Randle and Schmitt introduced the researcher Robert Hastings to the engineer Chester Lytle in 1990. Randle found Lytle credible, but called his second-hand claim about Roswell bodies "an anecdote" that needed corroboration rather than proof.^[9]

Other cases

• Del Rio. Randle traced the story of a 1950 crash near Del Rio, Texas, from a 1968 Skylook item through W. Todd Zechel and Bill Moore to the Majestic 12 papers. He noted that the date shifted from 1948 to 6 December 1950 after Zechel became involved.^[10] See Del Rio crash claim.
• Kingman. Long "unimpressed" by the alleged 1953 Kingman crash, he judged a 2024 email released by Christopher Mellon "essentially worthless", because neither its source nor any inside knowledge could be verified.^[11]
• Wilbert Smith. On the Sarbacher letter, he suggested that its author's ignorance of UFO history meant he had not been influenced by the Roswell stories, which were not widely known in 1983.^[12] See Sarbacher letter (1983).

Changing views

Interviewed by Robert Sheaffer for Skeptical Inquirer, Randle said he believed a UFO crashed at Roswell, and that a 1967 crash at Shag Harbour might also be genuine.^[1]

• Abductions. He said most abductees are "describing sleep paralysis", and that "many of these supposed abductees are very impressionable and are easily led by a hypnotist".^[1]
• No progress. He said the field "had not progressed in over twenty years", and another decade on "it still has not progressed".^[1]
• A high bar. "I set a very high bar for the level of evidence required. There are very few authentic UFO cases. However, some skeptical explanations don't fit the facts. Still, I'm getting more skeptical in my old age."^[1] Sheaffer judged that Randle "gives more weight to 'eyewitness testimony' than skeptics typically do".^[1]
• Roswell revisited. In a later interview with Sheaffer, Randle said "he was no longer sure what actually happened" at Roswell, and that "the case for ET involvement is no longer robust".^[1]
• Still defending the work. On his blog in 2026 he described his work with Schmitt and Tom Carey as an effort "to uncover the Roswell crash/retrieval story". He rejected a reviewer's claim that he was part of a military effort to debunk UFO reports.^[4]

Notes on the earlier version

• Birthplace. The earlier version said he was born in Cheyenne, Wyoming. That is not covered in the sources read here.
• Books. The earlier version said he had written more than 80 books. The Wikipedia account gives both "more than 80" and "more than 100".^[1]
• "Sleep paralysis". The earlier version said many abduction reports were "probably" sleep paralysis. His quoted words were that most abductees are "describing sleep paralysis".^[1]
• Parting ways. The earlier version said Randle and Schmitt later went separate ways. That parting is not covered in the sources read here.
• NICAP profile. The NICAP "Who's who" profile cited by the earlier version returned a "not found" error.^[2]

On the UAP Timeline

• Hillenkoetter MJ-12 memo of 19 September 1947 (19 September 1947) — A disputed memo attributed to CIA Director Hillenkoetter calls for a presidential directive and scientific study of the discs.
• Kingman UFO crash (21 May 1953) — An engineer using the pseudonym Fritz Werner swears he investigated a crashed craft near Kingman, Arizona.
• Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit (16 May 1984) — An Army FOIA reply says an informal 'Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit' once studied UAP.
• Arthur Exon's Roswell statements (July 1989) — Gen. Arthur Exon says he was told Roswell was an alien craft recovery.
• Jud Roberts and the Mac Brazel interview (30 December 1991) — A Roswell radio manager says he interviewed rancher Mac Brazel and was warned off broadcasting it.
• Homer Rowlette deathbed account (March 1999) — A man says his father told him on his deathbed about the Roswell crash.
• Chester Lytle's Kirtland sighting (1 January 2008) — A Manhattan Project contractor says he saw a domed disc through a telescope during a nuclear test.
• Eric Davis on the Del Rio crash (28 October 2018) — Eric Davis says the 1950s Del Rio, Texas crash was a real retrieval.

References

Facts in this article are drawn in part from the Wikipedia articles “Kevin D. Randle”, “Roswell incident”, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.