The Aztec UFO Incident: The Case, Evidence, and Elaborate Cover-up of One of the Most Perplexing Crashes in History

by Scott Ramsey, Suzanne Ramsey, Frank Thayer

"The Aztec UFO Incident"--the first ever widely publicized report of a recovered flying saucer--was derided as a hoax for decades. But now the Ramseys and Frank Thayer reveal the exact spot where the craft landed and show how the 100-foot diameter saucer was moved to a secret laboratory. Witnesses to the incident who were interviewed by the authors affirm that they were sworn to secrecy by the military. The authors also reveal the names of scientists who worked on the craft after its recovery.
Also included are previously unseen documents from the CIA, FBI, U.S. Air Force, and U.S. Army that constituted a cover-up whose sole purpose was to surround the Aztec story with a smokescreen of lies, misinformation, and destructive allegations.
Roswell is no longer the only proven flying saucer recovery we know about. "The Aztec UFO Incident" is a must-read for historians and UFO students alike.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Audiobook, Conspiracy Theories

320 pages, Paperback

Published December 21, 2015

Reviews

[Laura Gilbert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting story but I found the execution dull. Reading this book put me to sleep consistently after 20 pages. It's not that the content was bad. The presentation was slow, wordy, and repetitive. Reading this was like getting stuck on the phone with an elderly relative. you love them but you just want the call to end or get to the point.

[M. Roberts · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had heard of the Aztec Incident but didn't know any of the details and was hoping that this book would give a solid background on the facts, theories, and mystery surrounding it. What I got instead was a drawn-out laundry list of how the author responded to various claims and criticisms of previous books that have been written about it (some by him, many by others).

A surprising amount of this book is dedicated to telling the story of and rehashing the legal wangling of an early writer who exposed the incident. This man was effectively discredited (rightly or not) by a lengthy trial in which he was found guilty of fraud in selling a machine that he claimed
could find underground oil deposits. Once he was discredited with the machine, the argument goes, he was also discredited when he spoke about the UFO incident.

This would all be fine as a short, general background narrative that contributed to the overall story, but eventually it seemed that the book was more about his fraud trial than anything relating to the UFO incident. To me, the narrative of the book, stilted at best, was completely derailed by the minutia of this trial and in the end, seemed to be unable to find its way back to the topic, going from the trial to an extended narration of his extensive work retracing the possible routes that it could have been carried out by large trucks by. After all of this, I was not at all clear on why any of that mattered if they had indeed removed the aircraft by truck (which by all accounts, they would had to have done since there were no nearby waterways or railroads). It seems that the point may have been that it couldn't have been taken to the closest military base, but again, he fails to articulate why it matters to the story and why I just spent several hours reading about how they could have removed road signs, cut trees, and driven down dry creek beds to get it out.

Throughout the narrative, the author offers what appears to be eyewitness testimony about the crash and subsequent cleanup and it is obvious that he has spent a large part of his life studying and cataloging those events. However, he fails to come across as objective and lands firmly on the side of the "aliens are the only explanation" argument. It does seem obvious that some large, disc shaped craft did indeed crash in the desert and was then removed by the military, but to go from that to "it had to be an alien craft" is a pretty large logical leap when there are other less fantastic but more believable explanations. Although he states several times that the area of the crash was fairly near US government secret aircraft test facilities, he never really addresses the possibility that this was an experimental aircraft belonging either to the US or some other country. He doesn't offer any counter-arguments or opinions, only that it had to be alien in origin and the fact that there was a cover-up of the crash and recovery somehow proves this. He even goes so far as to speculate on what the aliens were thinking as they lost control of the craft and plunged towards the earth.

Hurting his credibility even more in my mind are some contradictions that he makes in various parts of the book. Early on, he stated that the aircraft was made of a very thin metallic substance and was light enough for one side to be picked up by a couple of men. Later he constructs a scenario that has the crew assigned to remove it from the mesa where it had crashed having to pour a concrete slab to support the weight of a crane to lift it's disassembled sections. Ignoring the fact that a 6 foot square slab wouldn't even be wide enough to support the tires of even a small crane, he offers the presence of said slab sixty years later as proof that a crane was used in its removal. He went to great lengths to show that the crews worked around the clock and slept on site in sleeping bags under trailers or the open sky early on, then later claims that nearby hotels being full during that two week period proves that many out of town workers were brought in for the cleanup.

Overall, this book is not worth the time it takes to read it. If the long detours of the mostly-unrelated trial and the route scouting could have been omitted, it would be much easier to finish, but then I don't know that he would have had enough content for a full length book.

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

I want to believe but books like this make me so sad for the state of research in this field. This book claims to have a solid super tight evidence case for this "UFO crash". The book is littered with bad logic and tons and tons of 2nd hand/ friend of a friend stories of tons of people who claimed to have seen this.
It is actually more of a book report trying to verify the claims made of past UFO books and double check their research.

Did something weird happen - probably. Could it have been a downed top secret air craft (IE stealth bomber prototype) -possibly. People are unreliable as witnesses proven time and time again. Despite all the circumstantial evidence presented i saw no, clear cut this is for sure aliens and a crashed UFO. Also think about this logically an advanced civilization travels light years with super technology gets shot down by anti air guns? This is the same UFO's that are able to fade in and out of sight and travel way faster in impossible ways (tic-tac like) and a simple ballistic shell can damage them or they crash into a Mountain?

Most of the claims come from mysterious witnesses like "Dr.G". Also of note there are multiple cases of a person claimed to have sent in fake evidence "con a conman" to prove the testing/government/reporters are all in on this big cover up. Look at our government response to the current situations, i just cannot believe the same government that screws up all things in all levels all the time has the capacity to pull off moving a 100+ft craft from another world.

[Macka · Rating 1 out of 5]

Damn these guys really got sucked in. Not by the story itself, but by losing the story to the sceptics.

The author spends an unnecessary amount of time focused on debunking the debunkers, namely J. P. Cahn. It was noted early on that the author would present the facts rather than speculation and let me draw my own conclusion. Then instead of presenting me the crash story and evidence the author rambles on about doodlebugs, frauds, FBI lawsuits, metal that is actually ordinary household items etc.
Although these may be facts pertaining to the story, why start a story with the reasons why the story is false? who is going to waste their time finishing that? In defending the story the story gets forgotten.
Hook me with an amazing story, tell me what the sceptics say, tell me why they may be wrong, let me pick a side. Simple.

The author himself apologises for the way the story is laid out, noting that readers may find themselves going back to previous chapters in the book. Not me though, once I find this is becoming a constant occurrence I put a book down and move on. It is the job of an author to construct or present a story in a readable format, otherwise sell it to me in a binder as an assemble your own adventure.

I'm actually really disappointed in this one, I was hoping for another 'Witness to Roswell' that would change my thinking. Perhaps it would've in the end, but I couldn't get past the half way point. Hopefully the next reader may get something more out of it.

[Dylan Lester · Rating 3 out of 5]

As above readers have experienced, i found the book a bit long in the tooth too. Especially with the irrelevant court trial. Im highly interested in the subject of UFOs (real or not) so happy to have my mind entertained with specifics of craft and aliens. But this book is missing of any of that and prefers to focus on 2nd and 3rd hand accounts of witnesses, and focuses on back story of those people instead.

[Dylan Lester · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found it rather dull and was mostly 2nd and 3rd hand accounts with no real evidence or anything for my mind to run off to fantasy land with. It was one giant nothing burger. I appreciate the effort involved in the research. But the book focused on unimportant details. And dedicated a whole chapter to it. I couldn't wait to finish the chapter in hope of getting to something interesting.

[Rose Boyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, I officially know more than I ever wanted to know about the the UFO landing at Aztec New Mexico. If you're interested in 30 years of fact finding research then you might have interest in this book.

[Rick Weiler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Persuasive, well-researched presentation on the 1948 flying saucer recovery in New Mexico. The book would have benefitted from more thorough editing but still makes for an interesting and compelling read.

[David Elkin]

I actually met Thayer. Some interesting stuff but not as convinced as the authors or Richard Dolan. You can see his post of April 6, 2020 for Dolan's views. Friedman was convinced it happened. Up to the reader

[Ted · Rating 2 out of 5]

This audiobook started off great but quickly went to a
dull drone. I wanted to know about this subject but wasn’t drawn into the subject. Hopefully the book was better but the audiobook didn’t keep my mind on the story.

[Dan Zarfati · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this was one more hoax, well turns out it is likely to be a reality. There are a lot of good interesting stuff. Especially the claim that Silas Newton was a con man. Guess what, he wasn't, and when there is a smear campaing I get very suspicious.

[Me]

Some good original research

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting read; some reviewers found it long and tedious…I’ve never read a book on this topic, so was just curious to learn about the theories, research, etc.

[Jason Joy · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars

[Shane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well researched, very dull at times

[Eddie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was new to me. But familiar also.

[Debbie Mcclelland · Rating 5 out of 5]

Take it slowly, and it can be digested!

Sometimes (chapter 6) it can be tough going, but does establish the facts that Cahn is a nasty man and the government really wanted to squash the Aztec incident. Truth,as always, manages to squeak through, even if it takes decades. Chapter 14 contains, for me any way, the Eureka! moment I was waiting for since Corso's "The Day After Roswell"! The whole book was worth this validation of his book

If the book becomes too much for an impatient person such as I was, just read the last chapter, Conclusions. You will miss some very interesting facts, however?

[Jim Mawby · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Quality Saucer Investigation

I would recommend this book to anybody who has more than a passing interest in the UFO phenomenon. The authors have made painstaking research over many years to verify the truth of this over extraordinary incident. They leave the reader with little or no doubt about the veracity of the reports that came out of Hart Canyon in the late 1940's.
Thanks and congratulations to the Authors for an amazing piece of investigative work.

[Rhys Wade · Rating 4 out of 5]

A hoax debunked

Before reading this, I'd seen a few references to the Aztec incident,but tended to jumble it together with the other UFO events that took place in New Mexico during the '40's and '50's. the Ramseys and their cowriters do an excellent job of tracing down sources and analyzing a very cold trail. They also clear the name of Silas Newton, a man who was persecuted to the end of his life for his involvement in the leak of information about the incident.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very well-researched investigation of a 2nd Roswell-type incident in Aztec, NM in 1948. Whatever you may believe, this is a very entertaining book with some delightfully eccentric characters. It references the US Air Force’s Project Blue Book which was a 2 decade investigation into unexplained phenomena.

[Stanley G Dau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Impressed

I'm impressed with the depth and breadth of research that the authors have done. Whether or not the craft is alien is debatable, the authors convinced me that something out of the ordinary was recovered at Aztec, NM by military.