Roswell Witnesses Recall UFO Crash 50 Years Later

ROSWELL, N.M. (Reuter) - Frank Kaufmann has never been abducted by extraterrestrials or buzzed by a UFO, but he insists he saw dead aliens put into body bags after their spacecraft crashed near this New Mexico town 50 years ago.

Kaufmann, now 81, is one of the few living witnesses to the ``Roswell Incident'' in 1947, when they say a UFO crashed and the bodies of its extraterrestrial occupants were picked up and taken away by the military.

The Air Force denies these claims, saying in a new report issued Tuesday: ``This comprehensive examination of the so-called Roswell Incident found no evidence whatsoever of flying saucers, space aliens or sinister government cover-ups.'' The report said ``aliens'' supposedly sighted by eyewitnesses were test dummies carried aloft by Air Force balloons and dropped in parachutes for scientific research.

But Kaufmann, like other witnesses, is sticking to his story. ``To me, it's something that's true and it happened,'' he said. ``Seeing those bodies and the craft made me realize we're not alone in this vast universe.''

Everyone agrees something fell from the sky onto ranchland near Roswell during the summer of 1947. The official explanation is that it was a high-altitude balloon, but a growing number of UFO enthusiasts and anti-government conspiracy theorists are convinced there was a cover-up.

Despite the lack of hard evidence, Roswell has become an article of faith for those who believe in extraterrestrial life and up to 100,000 people were expected here next week for the golden anniversary of the alleged alien landing.

Kaufmann was a civilian employee at the Roswell Army Air Field in July 1947 when he was dispatched to see what had crashed into a dry river bed northwest of town. He said he got a close look at two dead aliens, one in the wreckage and another slumped against a rock wall in the river bed.

``They were very good-looking people, ash-colored faces and skin ... about five feet five tall, eyes a little more pronounced, small ears, small nose, fine features and hairless,'' he said, adding that he saw military personnel place five corpses into body bags and remove them in jeeps.

He believes the U.S. military used the spacecraft and its alien crew to develop new technologies and says the B-2 Stealth bomber is a dead ringer for the spacecraft he saw.

Glenn Dennis, a 22-year-old mortician at the time of the incident, said he saw strange activity at the Army air field in early July 1947 and a nurse at the base screamed to him: ``Get out of here as fast as you can. Get out.''

He said he was escorted from the base by military police and warned to keep quiet, but the nurse found him the next day and told him she had conducted autopsies on small creatures weighing no more than 30 pounds with large heads and eyes and four fingers on each hand with suction cups on the end.

The nurse then mysteriously disappeared and the sketches she allegedly made of the creatures were lost, Dennis said.

On July 7, 1947, the Roswell Army Air Field issued a press release saying it was in posession of a ``flying disk'' that had fallen, but the same evening an Air Force general in Fort Worth, Texas, said the craft was in fact a weather balloon.

Walter Haut, the army press officer who put out the first news release, says he still believes it was accurate.

The Roswell witnesses at first kept quiet about what they had seen and their story went untold until UFO researchers began to unearth evidence in the 1980s. Kaufmann and Dennis broke their silence in the early 1990s and interest has since soared, reaching its peak with the upcoming anniversary.

``I hope the truth comes out because the public needs to know,'' Dennis said.

Roswell, a town of about 50,000 people, had for decades tried to keep a lid on the incident because civic leaders feared they would become the laughingstock of America, but the town is now milking the controversy for all it's worth.

Mayor Thomas Jennings, an oil and gas businessman, wore an alien head and baggy grey alien suit at one national conference and says he is one of the UFO faithful. ``Uh huh, I believe there could be life out there,'' he said.

The old Plains movie theater on Main Street has become home to the No. 1 UFO destination in town, the ``International UFO Museum and Research Center.'' A model flying saucer is embedded in the building and starry-eyed teen-agers have their pictures taken beside a gruesome model of a dead alien.

Last year, visitors to the museum spent some $300,000 on souvenirs ranging from extraterrestrial ear rings to blankets with the initial Roswell Daily Record headline: ``RAAF Captures Flying Saucer on Ranch in Roswell Region.''

The museum's director, Deon Crosby, says the Roswell Incident helped launch multi-million dollar blockbusters like the ``Independence Day'' movie and the ``X Files'' television series and it is high time the town cashed in on its fame.

John Price owns the UFO Enigma Museum, which was the first UFO-oriented tourist attraction in Roswell when it opened in 1988. He complains he is exhausted by the circus surrounding the incident and says he hopes to make as much money as he can during July before getting out of the UFO museum business and returning to research on what really happened.

``At this rate, I don't think it's ever going to be proven that this happened ... It has just turned into an issue of money and laughs,'' he told Reuters.

Kaufmann says people have nothing to fear from the truth about Roswell -- or from the aliens he saw. ``You could see on their faces these people meant no harm. I think they just came here to observe.''