Fort Monmouth desert-disc film
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 9
| Claimed showing | Spring 1953, base theatre, Fort Monmouth, New Jersey |
|---|---|
| Witness | "TE", then a 20-year-old Air Force radar specialist with a Secret clearance |
| Film | About five minutes of 16 mm film: a silver domed disc in desert sand, its interior, and three small dead bodies on tables |
| Second witness | A retired Air Force colonel (via Joan Jeffers) who said he saw a similar film in Maine, about 1956 |
| Published | Stringfield, "Retrievals of the Third Kind" (1978, Abstract 5); Status Report II (1980, Case A-9) |
| Status | No film has surfaced; witnesses unnamed |
| 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 Air Force radar specialist identified as "TE" described a film he was shown in the spring of 1953 at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. He and a small group of radar specialists, he said, watched a short film of a crashed silver disc in a desert and the bodies of its occupants.[1][2] A retired colonel later described seeing a similar film at a base in Maine.[1] No such film has ever surfaced, and both witnesses remain unnamed.[1]
The film
TE was 20 at the time and held a Secret clearance. He said a small, select group of radar specialists was summoned to the base theatre and shown the film without any briefing.[1] His description of the 16 mm film, which had no titles or credits:[1]
- The disc. A silver, disc-shaped craft with a domed top was embedded in desert sand, with an open hatch at the bottom about 2½ feet wide and perhaps 3 feet high.
- The personnel. Ten to fifteen military personnel in fatigues, without identifying patches, stood around the apparently disabled craft. "They were just looking at the object." Judging by their height, he put the craft at 15 to 20 feet across.
- The interior. A panel with a few simple levers was shown, in muted pastel colours with sudden white glare, a sign of poor photography.
The bodies
The last scene, apparently inside a tent, showed two tables with dead bodies, two on one and one on the other.[1] TE's description:[1]
- Their bodies. They were small by human standards, with large heads that all looked alike.
- Their faces. They had small noses and mouths, closed eyes, no visible ears or hair, and ashen skin.
- Their clothing. Each wore a tight-fitting suit in a pastel colour; yellow was mentioned.
The film lasted about five minutes. "It certainly was not a Walt Disney production," TE said. It was "full of scratches, and had poor coloring and texture", 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 added, "Don't relate its contents to anyone." TE said he did not even tell his wife.[1] The aftermath, as he described it:[1]
- Two weeks later. A base intelligence officer told him, "Forget the movie you saw; it was a hoax."
- Soon after. He heard from top security officers on the base that a UFO had crashed in New Mexico in 1952 and been recovered with its occupants.
- Years later. An old army acquaintance, also a radar specialist, told him he had seen the same film at another base "under similar hush-hush conditions".
TE said he was not interested in UFOs but had always wondered how the film related to his radar work.[1]
The colonel's account
After Stringfield's 1978 talk circulated, the researcher Joan Jeffers of Bradford, Pennsylvania, discussed it with a friend, a retired Air Force colonel and pilot who would not be named. In a letter of 6 February 1979 she relayed his account:[1]
- The showing. At an Air Force radar facility in Maine, probably in 1956, a weekly "Commander's Call" showed a film "filmed by the USAF", with no other credits.
- The disc. It showed a circular, silvery disc on the ground with a well-lit, light-coloured interior with smooth walls.
- The bodies. At least three short, identical, apparently dead beings lay on tables. They had no external ears or hair and "ashen or gray" skin, wore pale green and yellow clothing, and had four fingers and no thumb.
- The reaction. "We probably laughed about it and left," he said. Later he told her only that a UFO "we were tracking had crashed".
Stringfield judged the two descriptions to agree "with only the slightest variances". Of two other officers named by Jeffers, one, reached by Stanton Friedman, did not recall the film. The other, still working at Wright-Patterson, told Stringfield in May 1979, "If I saw it, I can't remember it."[1]
Publication
TE's story first appeared as Abstract 5 in Stringfield's paper "Retrievals of the Third Kind", given at the MUFON symposium in Dayton, Ohio, in July 1978 and later issued as Status Report I.[1][3][6] He expanded it as Case A-9 in Status Report II (1980), with the colonel's account.[1][2] Stringfield said the film was apparently shown to limited personnel at several bases on a "need to know" basis. He rejected the idea that it used "make-believe cadavers". He also linked it to the CIA-sponsored Robertson Panel of January 1953, which he said led to the suppression of military UFO reports.[1] The writer Charles Lear notes that Stringfield's paper consisted largely of anonymous "abstracts" that, by his own admission, "can be construed as hearsay".[4] Stringfield, who had his own UFO sighting during his Air Force service in 1945, spent his later years collecting such accounts.[5]
Assessment
The story is one of several claims that the military filmed crash recoveries.[1][2] Fort Monmouth was the Army's main electronics and radar research centre. Both witnesses are unnamed, the officers Jeffers named did not confirm the story, and no film has ever surfaced.[1] The account cannot be verified.[1]
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
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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