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AZTEC, NEW MEXICO (25 MARCH 1948)
On 25 March, 1948 at approximately 16:19 (4:19PM) hours, Mountain Standard Time (local time, or LT), 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 fliying on a level (glies) path 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.
Also(...)a recent memorandum issued through Operation Majestic the commander in Chief of air defense command ( CICADC ) inmediately notified Secretary of State General George C. Marshall.
At 17:53 hours LT (5:53 PM. MST) 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 affort 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 18:02 hours LT, 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 18:19 hours LT. The exact position of the landing zone (LZ) was determined within minutes by calculation of the last radar triangulated tracks and confirmed and 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 Creck bend on the Animas River. This was in private land about 1.7 miles north of the state highway and nearly 1/2 mile west of unpaved county road S 141 south.
At 18:26 hours LT ( 6:26 PM. MST ) 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 on Sandia Base, Albuquerque, New Mexico. This information was conveyod at once to the CICADC who contacted Secretary of State Marshall. By 18:35 hours LT, General Marshall had made contact with the Army Air Forces Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit (IPU) a section of the Army Counterintelligence Directorate. The IPU was maintained and supported out of nearby Camp(...) , Colorado and was the closest group able to secure, recover, transport, and store a disable 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 waiting a MAJICOPS crew seved valuable time.
The IPU was formed after the Roswell, New Mexico crash recovery and was later absorbed into the enforcement division of OPERATION MAJESTIC at the time that 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 22:45 hours LT through the actions of on IPU scout team sent to the Hart Canyon area.
Meanwhile. General Marshall had contacted Dr. Vannevar Bush - scientific head of MAJICOPS - and a joint IPU/MAJICOPS team was assembled under MJ-12 comand for the purpose of investigations and clearing the LZ, or crash site.
The local rancher who owned the land and(...) where held incommunicade 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 on his land, were the owner of a local radio repair shop plus an 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 occasioned by the use of a cover story for the IPU/MAJICOPS 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 oilman 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 march General Marshall ordered ADC off of alert states and requested that they send teletypes to the radar stations advising them that there hed pean a false alarm. Time was an important factor here since the disc-craft had landed intact and had the appearance of having been landed order the central of its operators. No means of entry was immediately(...) of the IPU scout team considered it possible that(...) of the crew of the disc-craft might still be alive inside it.
