Aztec, NM

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Aztec, New Mexico - 25 March 1948

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On 25 March 1948 at Tango 1619, a disc-shaped flying machine came down
about twelve (12) miles northeast of the small community of Aztec, New Mexico.
The controlled landing occurred in a small desert canyon on the private
grazing land of a local farmer and rancher.
The approach of the disc was “tracked with the aid of three (3) high -
powered missile tracking radar stations belonging to the recovery network
of the White Sands Test Range and located in classified areas of southwest
New Mexico. The disc-craft was first observed in violation of the restricted
air space of this facility. The disc was flying on a level glide path and
on a heading from the southwest-to-northeast at about 3,200 feet altitude
when first detected. This track detection resulted in an Air Defense Command
Alert that included the scrambling of squadrons of jet interceptors from the
nearby Sandia and White Sands bases. Alas, per a recent memorandum issued
through Operation Majestic, the Commander-In-Chief of Air Defense Command
(CICAOC) immediately notified Secretary of State General George C. Marshall.
At Tango 1753 the disc-craft appeared to lose both speed
and altitude at nearly the exact moment that it was triangulated by returns
from all three (3) radar dish antennas in an effort to vector the interceptor
squadrons towards their target. At the time, it seemed to be an evasive
tactic on the part of the disc-craft. The current assessment is that the
microwaves from these long range radars almost certainly evidenced a damage
to the power or flight control systems of the disc-craft.
At Tango 1802 the craft dropped below radar some four (4) minutes
before the White Sands jet squadron would have reached intercept point (IP)
and engaged-to-disc-craft. Estimates later indicated the disc-craft impacted
or landed at approximately Tango 1819. The exact position of the landing
zone (LZ) was determined within minutes by calculation of the lost radar
triangulated tracks and confirmed by a visual fly-over of interceptors
from the White Sands Base. The LZ-IP was at the bottom of Hart Canyon, a
dry wash area about 12.2 miles northeast of Aztec, New Mexico and 2.3 miles
northwest of the Cave Creek bend in the Animas River. This was on private
land about 1.7 miles north of the state highway and nearly ½ mile west of
unpaved county road S-141 south.
At Tango 1826 on 25 March 1948, the crash site was
visually confirmed by the commander of the 152 tactical fighter wing and
relayed to the Air Defense Command officer at Sandia Base, Albuquerque,
New Mexico. This information was conveyed at once to the CICADC who contacted
Secretary of State Marshall. By Tango 1835, General Marshall had made
contact with the Army Air Force's Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit (IPU), a
section of the Army Counterintelligence Directorate. The IPU was maintained
and supported out of nearby Camp Mole, Colorado and was the closest group
able to secure, recover, transport and store a disabled disc-craft. This
action was entirely correct in the interval before a MAJESTIC operation
could be activated and the preparations of the IPU group while awaiting a
MAJIC OPS crew saved valuable time.
The IPU was formed after the Roswell, New Mexico crash recovery and was tater
absorbed into the enforcement division of OPERATION MAJESTEC at the time the
Department of the Air Force was established as an entity separate from
the U.S. Army.
The disc-craft was recovered and the LZ declared secured by Tango 2245 through
the actions of an IPU scout team sent to the Hart Canyon area.
Meanwhile, General Marshall had contacted Dr. Vannevar Bush - scientific head
of MAJIC OPS - and a joint IPU/MAJIC OPS team was assembled under MJ-12
command for the purpose of investigating and clearing the LZ, or crash site.
The local rancher who owned the land and [ redacted ]
were held incommunicado while the field analysis and subsequent clean-up
was conducted at Hart Canyon.
Visiting with the rancher at that time and planning to hunt for
game animals on his land, were the owner of a local radio repair shop
plus a unemployed oil hunter and inventor. These last two parties were
later to get together and tell their story to a columnist from *Variety*
magazine named Frank Scully. This author later published a book in
1950 detailing parts of the Aztec recovery story. This breach of security
was occluded by the use of cover story for the IPU/MAGIC OPS workers
that proved to be ineffective. It was decided to disguise the Aztec efforts
as an exploration for oil by a fictional drilling company, a fact that was
not in agreement with the knowledge of the unemployed oil hunter who knew
that there was no oil in the area. Later both this independent oil hunter
and the columnist Scully were discredited by facts leaked to a writer at
True Magazine by covert operatives of the MAJESTIC Enforcement Division.
This action was unfortunate but very vital in light of the sensational
nature of the Aztec discoveries. Fortunately, Scully labeled this fortune
hunting oiler as a “scientist™ in his book and during the period of the
book's sales. This adventurer was convicted of fraud for trying to peddle
a device he claimed would find oil. Mostly by luck, the security breach
healed itself and the book was quickly forgotten with only minor help from
MJ-12.
That evening on 15 March, General Marshall ordered ADC off of alert
status and requested that they send teletypes to the radar stations advising
them that there had been a false alarm. Time was an important factor here
since the disc-craft had landed intact and had the appearance of having been
landed [ ] the central of it's operators. No means of entry was
immediately visible [ ], [ ] of the IPU scout team considered it possible that
some of the crew of the disc-craft might still be alive inside it.
At Tango 0120, 16 March, the team of MJ-12 scientists assembled by
Dr. Bush arrived at Durango Air Field, Colorado about thirty-five (35)
miles northeast of Aztec. All members of the teams of IPU and MAJIC OPS
investigators were then sworn in an Ultra-Top Secret security oath. All
personal property and identification was left in lockers at Durango and the
[ ] reserved trucks headed for the Hart Canyon Site. It must be remembered
that the helicopter was still in experimental development at this stage and
trucks were the best means of entering the rugged terrain as well as the fact
that they would cause for less attention than the noisy and unfamiliar
helicopter, which was, however, used to brin in the initial IPU scout team.