And there is no proof that this ever happened. All we know is that the widow seemed to corroborate that and the operative word here is “seemed.”
Carol Rainey, in her article about Hopkins had reported that there had been a long list of possible witnesses to the case. In rebuttal, Hopkins wrote, “The first time I visited Santa Rosa, Beanie and I made a long drive to another town some distance away. She thought that a certain young trooper just may have been the officer in the second car that day, and through Tom [another trooper] we learned his address. I suggested that we not call the man in advance, that we just show up to take anyone there by surprise and thereby get a thoroughly unrehearsed account. [An ambush with recorders and cameras?] So we drove and drove, endlessly it seemed [which, given this is New Mexico, isn’t all that much of a surprise], and when we arrived, the ex-trooper's divorced wife was home and told us that her husband had moved out years ago and she had lost contact with him, though she recalled that he was possibly working for a security company in the far east somewhere. That was that, and I only mention this abortive trip because my ex put it this way: "Neither she [Beanie] or Budd had tracked down or spoken to anyof the long list of witnesses." [Emphasis is Hopkins’] I wish we had had even a shortlist of witnesses from this thirty-year-old incident, but we didn't, so apparently the helpful Ms. Rainey invented such a list for us, but then scorns us for not trying to find them.”
But Webb suggests that there had been a long list of possible witnesses and other informants that he had supplied to both Hopkins and Beanie. According to him, neither acted on the list, meaning that no one attempted to find any of those people. And yes, I have seen the list. These included some relatives of Beanie who might have heard her talk about the crash in earlier years, people at the hospital who might have been involved in some fashion, and others who could have had some knowledge… not that they necessarily did, but the questions that should have been asked never were. There were names connected with each of Webb’s suggestions.
Yes, I know from my own experience that sometimes the importance of a witness gets jumbled in the telling. I had once been told of an Air Force officer who had flown President Kennedy in Air Force One to see the Roswell alien bodies. When I finally located the officer I learned that he had been an alternate pilot on Air Force One, had flown with President Kennedy on board and that he, the pilot, had seen a UFO with an alien pilot visible. So the lead, which was supposed to confirm the alien bodies in storage story turned into something else. But it was a lead that had to be followed.
Hopkins wrote, “She [Rainey] quotes from an early letter from Walt Webb in which he berates Beanie for reporting some details about her initial experience which vary, one from one another.”
But that’s not quite accurate. Webb said that he berated no one but had questioned Hopkins about some of the conflicting details that had emerged as he learned more about the case. Not embellishments, or additions to the story that could be memories that she had just accessed. Webb also pointed out that he was unaware of the changes when he traveled to New Mexico with Hopkins, and that when he wrote to Beanie, he hadn’t yet seen the transcript of the first interview. Webb’s letter to Hopkins was talking about changes in the story from the time that the MUFON representatives questioned Beanie and when Hopkins and Webb arrived on the scene. It wasn’t about embellishment. It was about contradictory information.
In fact, the one that caught my eye was that in the first interview, conducted by MUFON members in Albuquerque, Beanie said there were two bodies, one outside the craft and one partially out. She told Hopkins and Webb that there had been three bodies, all outside. Not the sort of detail that you would expect to change so significantly.
Here is something else to ponder. We now have information about the Santa Rosa UFO crash from three sources. You might say that two of those sources, Rainey and Hopkins have an interest in the way the story is perceived. I would say that Webb is a disinterested third party except that Hopkins called Webb’s investigatory skills, his experience working with potential abductees, and his motives in the case into question as a way to distract attention from the real weaknesses of the case.
The only person we haven’t heard from at this point is Beanie. I know what the various researchers will say. I know what the details are and have heard those details from three separate directions.
But I also know that there is simply nothing to support this tale. It is, in the end, single witness, and it doesn’t matter if you believe Rainey’s, Hopkins’ or Webb’s version. They all agree that it is single witness… No, the widow and her son didn’t see anything themselves. At best they heard about something strange and the son does seem to mention “alien bodies,” but he didn’t see them. Worse still, the son’s memory might have nothing to do with the Santa Rosa crash.
Now I believe we all have enough information to make an intelligent determination about the case and the controversy that has erupted around it. Is this a good sighting, based on the story of an admittedly likeable woman? Does the lack of corroborative detail, other than some vaguely remembered events that might or might not be relevant suggest there is something of value here? Or have we found ourselves in another of Ufology’s turf wars where the cult of personality is more important than finding our way to the truth?
The answers to those questions are, at least to me, obvious. There was no Santa Rosa UFO crash and unless, or until, some kind of corroborative detail is found, this is just another footnote to what is becoming a long and overblown list of UFO crashes. And that is all is should be.
Detroit UFO Crash — 1975
Once in a while, when I’m cruising the Internet, I come across a story that relates to me in some fashion. Many times I’m surprised at the misinformation that is put out there. The latest, or rather the latest I found, was the story of a UFO crash that I reported happened in the Spring of 1975. Some of those wondered where I got the date as published in my History of UFO Crashes.
The entry tells us that the event happened near the Ohio-Michigan border and I listed is as “Insufficient Data,” meaning that I didn’t have anything more than the information published. There are those that question this.
I wrote, “Bette Shilling reported to Len Stringfield that a friend, an Air Force officer, had told her that he’d seen a coded message telling of a flying saucer crash. According to that information, two of the aliens were dead and a third was still alive. The message was directed from a communications station in Detroit and sent to the commanding officer of a base somewhere in Ohio.”
That seems fairly straight forward. The information came, indirectly from Bette Shilling, and it went to Len Stringfield. The footnote told me that it was from his 1991 Crash/Retrieval publication, but that wasn’t helpful, and, as it turned out, not completely accurate. But more on that aspect later.
I found, from Stig Agermose, the following:
Here is another thought-provoking account that ought to be checked for sure. The alleged crash took place in 1974 and was announced two times by a tv station in Detroit, once in prime time news: a UFO with four aliens aboard had been intercepted by the United States Air Force and had crashed in the area. My check with Kevin Randle's "A History Of UFO Crashes" established that the incident might be confirmed by an entry in Len Stringfield's "Crash/Retrievals", but I haven't been able to compare with the latter. More on that presently.