A second UFO crash at Roswell?

 In all of UFO lore, there is likely no other event as well-known as the 1947 crash at Roswell, New Mexico.

There are few UFO researchers who are unable to recount the story almost by rote of how mysterious materials bodies with pyknic heads were found strewn across rancher Mac Brazel's land.  Now, as brought to light in a post on The Daily Grail, there are allegations that a second UFO crash occurred at Roswell only months after the first.

The article begins tantalizingly enough.  The author, Ray Grasse, states that he was at a Zen monastery in upstate New York when he met a young man.  The man, the Grail author would later find out, had an elderly uncle named Irwin Fortman.  Fortman was a military veteran and was stationed at Roswell Army Airfield in the fall of 1947.  For decades he had held to himself the story of a Roswell UFO crash, one wholly separate from the July incident familiar to most, one occurring between Christmas and New Year's of that same year.

Fortman died in 1993, not before Grasse was able to interview him.  In an ensuing interview with Grasse, Fortman tells a tale with several very familiar earmarks.  He tells of being rousted awake in the middle of the night and assembled with other airmen.  In a convoy of jeeps, trucks, and ambulances, they headed out to the countryside, all while being warned never to speak a word of any of what transpired.  In fact, the familiar, "they'll be picking your bones out of the desert" threat was said to have been made.  Fortman's team arrived at site that was covered with the wreckage of an unknown craft.  Their first task was the gathering of the alien bodies.  Here's how the bodies were described in the interview and I take this straight from The Daily Grail's page:

RG: What did you think these things were once it finally dawned on you? Did you automatically assume that they must be from somewhere else?
IF: Definitely. I don’t know what it was, they looked oriental-type, but you know, they were very small. And I knew that the Japanese weren’t that small. And I couldn’t think of any other countries, maybe Bali or something, you know, maybe they were very small there, but…
RG: But the heads were very large?
IF: Very large, sort of like…Well, they were completely out of proportion to the body. You know what I mean? I mean, to a point where it was like, if your head was about one and a half times what it is now, that’s about how big it was.
RG: And was there anything unusual about the features?
IF: (Pause) No hair on the head.
RG: How about the eyes, nose or mouth?
IF: (Long pause) I saw nostrils…but as for a nose itself? If there was, it was very, very small. And the lips — wait a second, I don’t know if it had lips, but I saw teeth, at least I think I did. Ears? Jeez, if there were, they were very, very small. I don’t remember about ears.
RG: What about the color of the skin?
IF: Ahh….yellow-like, but a very pale yellow. It looked very parchment-like, a lot of wrinkles.

As for the remains of the UFO, Fortman remembers that "There was quite a bit of metal shattered up" but he did not handle it personally.  Chatter from the officers on the site seemed to indicate concern over what would happen if one of the men cut themselves on a jagged piece of the metal.  Fortman did not recall seeing anything that resembled consoles, seats, wires, or the like but there may have been what he called "crystals."  However, Fortman was quick to point out that such things could attributed to ice as it was in December.  As with the previous incident, all materials...including the bodies...were loaded onto transport planes and flown out of the area.

One of the areas of the interview that I find to be of immediate interest is how Fortman recalls other airmen at the base referencing the first Roswell crash.  "...some of the guys would talk about it, you know, they’d sit there late at night when we got through with a late shift or something, drinking coffee, and they’d say, “Oh jeez, I wonder what’s happening about the UFO?”"  He also related that the men spoke of a civilian that was "made to look like a moron" in the wake of the first crash.  A rancher.  Undoubtedly, this is a reference to Mac Brazel.  Fortman also reports to having a lifelong belief in UFOs since the incident and even befriended a UFO researcher.  Yet never once did Fortman divulge this story due to his military oath.

It has been verified that Irwin Fortman was indeed stationed at Roswell Army Airfield during the stated time.  That is fact.  The rest of the story, however, is just that.  A story.  There is no corroborating evidence.  It is thought that perhaps by getting this story out there, more information may come forward.  Even a supporting witness would be nice.  Not that I doubt Fortman's word but we all know that memories can fade once one reaches upwards in age.  That is not an ageist statement.  I am middle-aged and already my memories are both trickling away from me and are subject to data corruption.  It has been offered that Fortman may in fact be remembering the initial Roswell crash but has transferred it in memory to December of 1947.  This would appear unlikely as it is said that he did not arrive in Roswell until after the July UFO crash.

Stanton Friedman, the best UFO researcher in the game as far as I'm concerned, is on the case.   Friedman had located what was believed to have been a corroborating witness, but sadly the gentlemen had already passed away.  And therein lies another difficulty with researching events at Roswell.  Like other vets of that time, many have sadly passed on and those still here are getting "long in the tooth" so to speak.  Hopefully, stories like Mr. Fortman's will encourage others to speak out before time is up.  It is only with more evidence and more information that the truth can be found.


Follow me on Twitter: @Jntweets