Too Hasty on the Roswell Slides?

Well, a couple of weeks ago I wrote an article for Mysterious Universe on why I thought the so-called "Roswell Slides" showed nothing stranger than a mummy. I'm still not ruling it out, but there is now another, new development in this saga that is ongoing and which is worth noting.

Information has now surfaced demonstrating a pre-Roswell connection between the Rays and none other than Silas Newton. We have Rich Reynolds to thank for this.

And in case you're wondering who Newton was, well, he was a notorious character who was one of the chief players in the equally notorious "UFO crash" at Aztec, New Mexico in 1948.

Newton also had an impressive history of swindles and cons - to the extent that there is an eye-opening FBI file on the man, which can be found at the FBI's website, The Vault.

Newton was always very cagey about where (and from who) he got the story of Aztec's "little men" from the stars. And - of course - that Newton is now linked to the saga of the Roswell Slides only increases the controversy - rather than lessens it. If I was to play Devil's advocate, I could speculate that the Rays were Newton's sources.

And there is something else, too, worth noting in the saga of Silas Newton.

Although the Aztec affair has attracted the attention of numerous UFO researchers over the years, it’s a fascinating piece of documentary evidence relative to the Aztec case that surfaced in the late 1990s I wish to bring to your attention - extracts from a journal written by Silas Newton around 1970/71.

It came thanks to the late,  investigative author and former CIA employee, Karl Pflock, and it is a journal that may ultimately shed more important light on the psychological warfare angle of the crashed UFO mystery.

Pflock (whose photo appears at the top of this page, taken by me in Aztec, in 2003) stated:

“In 1998, under curious circumstances, I was made privy to a fascinating document about one of the most controversial cases of the Golden Age of Flying Saucers, the so-called Aztec crash of 1948. I had little more than passing interest in the case until 1998, when a source, who insists on complete anonymity, showed me a handwritten testament, set down by the key player in this amazing, often amusing, truth-is-stranger-than-fiction episode. The contents of this ‘journal’ seem to lift the veil of mystery and uncertainty from important aspects of the case, while at the same time drawing it more closely around others.”

The story as told to Pflock was that the military was keeping a secret and close watch on Silas Newton when his tales of the Aztec UFO crash were at their height. More remarkably, military personnel were dispatched to visit Newton and told him something amazing: they knew his 1948 Aztec story was complete bullshit, but, incredibly, they wanted him to keep telling it!

According to Newton, when writing in his journal about his clandestine Air Force visitors:

“They grilled me, tried to poke holes in my story. Had no trouble doing it and laughed in my face about the scientific mistakes I made. They never said so, but I could tell they were trying to find out if I really knew anything about flying saucers that had landed. Did not take those fellows long to decide I did not. But I sure knew they did.”

In view of the revelations that the USAF encouraged Newton to continue championing the Aztec incident (or non-incident!), Karl Pflock wondered:

“Did the U.S. Government or someone associated with it use Newton to discredit the idea of crashed flying saucers so a real captured saucer or saucers could be more easily kept under wraps? Was this actually nothing to do with real saucers but instead some sort of psychological warfare operation?”

The questions are many. And, with a Ray-Silas Newton connection now made, the questions are likely to keep growing.

And, finally...

Pure, controversial speculation, but...

Silas Newton was heavily involved in underground mining projects, and Bernerd Ray was a geologist - geologists being a group of people whose work often takes them underground.

This begs the question: why would the Rays be brought in to see the bodies? Maybe because of Bernerd's work.

Maybe, then, the creatures weren't extraterrestrial. Maybe they were from...below.

 

Something akin to Mac Tonnies' Cryptoterrestrials theory...

The Ever-Controversial Aztec UFO

Any mention of the reported UFO crash at Hart Canyon, Aztec, New Mexico in March 1948 is guaranteed to provoke controversy, primarily because the affair (or non-affair, depending on your own, personal perspective!) generally polarizes people into two camps: those who believe the event actually occurred, and those who conclude everything can pretty much be explained via hoaxing, folklore and the actions of a certain Silas Newton.

You can find out more about Newton and his antics by checking out his FBI file at the Bureau's Vault site right here.

And, here's what the FBI has to say about Newton and their once-secret file on the man:

"Silas Newton (1887-1972) was a wealthy oil producer and con-man who claimed that he had a gadget that could detect minerals and oil. He was cited as an authority in Frank Scully’s book Behind the Flying Saucers, a work that claimed to report on several UFO crashes in the area of New Mexico. In 1950, Newton said that a flying saucer crashed on land he leased in the Mojave Desert; however, he revised his claim in 1952, saying he never saw a flying saucer but had only repeated comments he heard from others. These files detail the FBI’s investigations into Newton’s fraudulent activities between 1951 and 1970."

One of the most controversial and bizarre aspects of the Aztec affair erupted in the late 1990s when UFO researcher and Aztec skeptic Karl Pflock (pictured above in his CIA hat, taken by me in 2002) claimed to have been shown certain entries from a journal that Newton had allegedly written (possibly around 1970-71) and which asserted something very weird.

Namely, that elements of a secret group in the U.S. Government had visited Newton, and told him they knew the Aztec story was nothing more than a money-making scam, but, incredibly, they wanted him to keep telling the tale to anyone who would listen.

Of course, this has led to theories that, perhaps, the government wanted to actively encourage the spreading of spurious UFO crash stories to protect (and confuse) the truth concerning real recovered saucers.

Whatever the truth of the affair, it's an aspect of Aztec that came to a halt with Karl's tragic passing in 2006. But, it might not have been that way had Karl lived.

I first met Karl in 2002 (although we had emailed, faxed, chatted on the phone and exchanged letters on matters of an Aztec nature as far back as 1998), and after discussing Aztec over the course of a couple of months, we decided to write a book together on the case, to be titled Silas the Magnificent, and that would tell the wild and controversial life of Newton, with the Aztec case taking center stage.

We got as far as doing a fair amount of research, a bit of writing, and even submitting a synopsis for the book to various publishers. Of course, when Karl got sick this all came to a halt.

But, Karl and I discussed the "Newton diary" angle extensively, and he told me the circumstances and story behind how he came to be exposed to it and its contents, the attempts he made to verify those contents, his thoughts on the matter, and a few other things besides.

And, now, the Aztec story, the Newton journal, Karl's involvement in this admittedly odd, cloak-and-dagger-type situation, and the whole cosmic controversy are in the news again - as you will see from this new post from Kevin Randle at his A Different Perspective blog.

Whether a real event, a hoax, a rumor circulated by the government to confuse the truth behind real crashed UFOs or something else, of one thing we can be sure: like a flesh-eating zombie, it's incredibly hard to lay Aztec to rest! It just keeps on coming back...

PS: The photo above was taken by me at Hart Canyon eight or nine years ago and demonstrates how, just as is the case at Roswell, the people of Aztec have embraced and highlighted their crashed UFO legend.