Aztec (New Mexico) UFO Hoax - The Skeptic's Dictionary

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<body><br /> <div class="container"> <div class="header"> <div class="logo"> <img src="_images/logo_01.png" alt="The Skeptic's Dictionary" width="270" height="60" border="0" />           <br /> by <a href="http://skepdic.com/refuge/bio.html">Robert Todd Carroll</a> * est. 1994 </div> <div class="slogan"> <img src="_images/slogan_01.gif" alt="A Collection of Strange Beliefs, Amusing Deceptions, and Dangerous Delusions" width="362" height="30" /> </div> </div> <div class="menu"> <ul> <li></li><li><a href="http://skepdic.com/">Home</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/news/">Newsletter</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/feedback.html">Feedback</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/faq.html">FAQ & Interviews</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/tour.html">Site Map</a></li> </ul> </div> <div class="middle"> <div class="left"> <h2>Topical Indexes</h2> <ul class="nav_1"> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/tialtmed.html">Alternatives to Medicine</a></li> <li><a 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href="http://skepdic.com/contents.html#W">w</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/contents.html#X">x</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/contents.html#Y">y</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/contents.html#Z">z</a></li> </ul> <webContent><h1>Aztec (New Mexico) UFO Hoax</h1> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3">The Aztec UFO Hoax was the work of <i>Variety</i> columnist Frank Scully who was hoaxed by two con men, Silas M. Newton and Leo A. Gebauer. Scully liked the hoax so much he wrote a book based on it: <i>Behind the Flying Saucers</i>. Scully claimed that a UFO had landed in Hart Canyon 12 miles northeast of Aztec in March of 1948 and sixteen humanoid bodies were discovered at the crash site inside a metal disk that was 99.99 (not 100) feet  in diameter. A conspiring military secretly removed the craft and the bodies for their sinister research. No one in the area noticed the crash or the military activity, however. With no witnesses, Newton and Gebauer could play wildly with the truth.</font></p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3">Newton and Gebauer were involved in oil exploration finance schemes. Their hoax was perpetrated to get investors. They claimed they had built a machine that would find oil and natural gas deposits using alien technology. J.P. Cahn of the <i>San Francisco Chronicle</i> had some of the "alien" metal tested and determined it was aluminum. Cahn's account of the phony alien ship appeared in <i>True</i> magazine in 1952. Several people who had been swindled by Newton and Gebauer came forward. One of their victims, Herman Glader, a millionaire from Denver, pressed charges and the pair was convicted of fraud and related charges in 1953. (They had charged $18,500 for a "tuner" which could be bought at surplus stores for $3.50 at the time.)</font></p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3">The Aztec story was revived in 1986 by William Steinman and Wendelle Stevens in their privately-published book called <i>UFO Crash at Aztec.</i> It was revived again in 1998 when Linda Mouton Howe, a UFO and Art Bell mainstay, claimed she had government documents that proved the Aztec crash. What she had was a rumor eight times removed from the source, Silas Newton, that eventually ended up in a memo written to J. Edgar Hoover. Newton told George Koehler about 3-foot tall aliens and their saucer; Koehler told Morley Davies who told Jack Murphy and I. J. van Horn who told Rudy Fick who told the editor of the <i>Wyandotte Echo</i> in Kansas City where it was read by an Air Force agent in the Office of Special Investigations who passed on the story to Guy Hottel of the FBI who sent a memo to his boss (Thomas).</font></p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3">The citizens of Aztec have seen how <a href="roswell.html">Roswell</a> has turned UFO mania into a profitable tourist attraction and have followed suit. Like the citizens of Roswell, they now sponsor an annual UFO Festival. The festival was started as a way to raise money for the town's library. There must be a better way.</font></p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3"><b>See also</b> <a HREF="aliens.html">alien abduction</a>, <a HREF="area51.html">area 51</a>, <a href="http://skepdic.com/carlos.html">Carlos hoax</a>, <a href="http://skepdic.com/fairies.html">Cottingly fairy hoax</a>, <a href="http://skepdic.com/fordhoax.html">Arthur Ford hoax</a>, <a href="toft.html">Mary Toft</a> hoax, <a href="http://skepdic.com/piltdown.html">Piltdown hoax</a>, <a href="pufedorfhoax.html">Pufedorf hoax</a>, <a href="roswell.html">Roswell</a>, <a href="http://skepdic.com/steveterbot.html">Steve Terbot, hoax</a>, the <a href="http://skepdic.com/sokal.html">Sokal hoax</a> and <a HREF="ufos_ets.html">UFOs</a>.</font></p> <hr align="left" width="25%"> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3"><b>further reading</b></font></p> <p style="text-align: left"><b><font face="Arial" size="3">books and articles</font></b></p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=1573921645/roberttoddcarrolA/">Klass, Philip J. <i> The Real Roswell Crashed Saucer Coverup</i> (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1997)</a>.</font></p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=1560983434/roberttoddcarrolA/">Peebles, Curtis. <i>Watch the Skies!: A Chronicle of the Flying Saucer Myth</i> (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994).</a></font></p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3">Pflock, Karl T. "What's Really Behind the Flying Saucers? A New Twist on Aztec," <i>The Anomalist</i>: <a href="http://www.anomalist.com/print/cont8.html">#8 Spring 2000.</a></font></p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=1560987510/roberttoddcarrolA/">Saler, Benson. Charles A. Ziegler, Charles B. Moore. <i>Ufo Crash at Roswell: The Genesis of a Modern Myth</i> (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1997).</a> </font> <p style="text-align: left"><a href="http://www.csicop.org/si/show/ufology_2009_a_six-decade_perspective">Schaeffer, Robert. 2009. "UFOlogy 2009: A Six-Decade Perspective." <em>Skeptical Inquirer.</em> Jan/Feb.</a> <p style="text-align: left"><b><font face="Arial" size="3"> websites</font></b></p> <p style="text-align: left"><a href="http://debunker.com/Scully.html">The Frank Scully "Crashed Saucer" Hoax (1950) </a></p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3"><a href="http://www.nmsr.org/aztec.htm">"The Aztec UFO Symposium: How This Saucer Story Started As a Con Game," David E. Thomas, <i>Skeptical Inquirer</i>, Vol. 22, No. 5, September/October 1998, pp. 12-13.</a></font> <p></webContent>Last updated 27-Oct-2015 </p> </div> </div> <div class="right"> <div class="right_it"> <div class="search"> <form method="get" action="http://www.google.com/custom" target="_top"> <input type="hidden" name="domains" value="skepdic.com" /> <input type="text" name="q" maxlength="255" value="" size="20" /> <input type="submit" name="sa" value="Search" /> <br /> <div class="search_2"> <input type="radio" name="sitesearch" value="" /> Web     <input type="radio" name="sitesearch" value="skepdic.com" checked="checked" /> Skepdic.com <br /> <img src="_images/logo_google.gif" alt="Google" width="48" height="19" /> </div> <input type="hidden" name="client" value="pub-3542920166946725" /> <input type="hidden" name="forid" value="1" /> <input type="hidden" name="ie" value="ISO-8859-1" /> <input type="hidden" name="oe" value="ISO-8859-1" /> <input type="hidden" name="cof" value="GALT:#008000;GL:1;DIV:#336699;VLC:663399;AH:center;BGC:FFFFFF;LBGC:336699;ALC:0000FF;LC:0000FF;T:000000;GFNT:0000FF;GIMP:0000FF;FORID:1;" /> <input type="hidden" name="hl" value="en" /> </form> </div> <div class="center"> <p align="right"><a href="http://skepdic.com/authorpage.html"><strong>Books by R. 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Aztec (New Mexico) UFO Hoax - The Skeptic's Dictionary - Skepdic.com