by Irena Scott, Ph.D. and William E. Jones, JD
Bruce’s search through the Air Force records and archives had turned up nothing to indicate that what had occurred at Roswell, New Mexico in July of 1947 was extraterrestrial or alien in nature. He found no records of expense reports indicating that anyone in the Air Force had made an unusual trip to Roswell. Examination of Air Force materials research in the years
following the alleged retrieval of alien material exhibiting unusual properties showed no change that would indicate a leap in the state-of-the-art expected from such a retrieval. The records of this research were surprisingly quite complete. What
Bruce did discover was a vast panoply of Air Force research and testing projects that were relatively unknown to the general public which could have, under the right circumstances, led to rumors of alien technology. The problem he faced when attempting to determine if any given project could have caused such a rumor was the incompleteness of the records. This
was not because of any apparent conspiracy. Few of the records Bruce was interested in are now classified. Their incompleteness resulted from a need for private companies doing aerospace research to protect proprietary information involved in unsuccessful projects, poor governmental and company record keeping, the passage of time and the resulting
need of archivists to cull their archives to allow for the storage of more up-to-date records, and simply the loss of records during moves and long term storage. As a historian, Bruce decries this loss of a part of our technological history.
After many months of effort, Bruce has concluded that the debris field on the Foster Ranch which was found by Mac Brazel is best explained as a downed Mogul balloon. This story has been told often enough elsewhere, so there is no need to repeat it
here. Bruce believes, but cannot directly prove, that at least two of the Roswell era stories concerning bodies being found in the desert next to crashed space craft can be explained by advanced test devices which came down onto the desert floor with advanced forms of anthropomorphic test dummies aboard. During his research he found evidence of the widespread
development and use of instrumented human dummies, as well as the use of monkeys and chimpanzees in such research. He
believes, with a little luck, further research into this area might unearth archival material that could explain at least some of the flying saucer crash stories which have come out of the southwestern United States over the past forty five years, the same area where most of this research occurred.
Thus, in all of his efforts on behalf of the US Air Force to respond to the GAO inquiry, he had found nothing that was alien --
that is, until he helped convene a reunion -- an “alumni day” of Blue Book personnel in 1994 at the twenty-fifth anniversary of the project’s closure.
All three living Project Blue Book directors, Robert Friend, George Gregory, and Hector Quintanilla, attended the reunion. Gus Simpson, the project manager of Battelle Memorial Institute’s prime contractor support for the project, and now retired, was also there.
During a panel discussion a woman stood up in the audience to tell the story of the not-so-little green men that were still at Wright-Patt. Very few of the attendees were aware of this story, including Bruce.
During World War II from 1943 through 1946, part of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base served as a prisoner of war camp for between 200 and 400 German soldiers. Surprisingly, no records exist on the base about this camp or who the soldiers were.
What evidence has been found elsewhere indicates that the prisoners were Nazi enlisted men captured in North Africa and Italy and transported to the United States after the POW camps in England became full. Not a single photograph of the
prisoners has yet to be found. Only recently was the location of the camp determined with any certainty. It was located on a hilltop at Wright Field in what is now Area B. Many of the prisoners worked nearby at what was then Patterson Field now Areas A and C.
These prisoners worked in supply warehouses loading and unloading rail cars on the grounds and roads of the base and
served food in the mess halls serving the two Fields. One of the warehouses in Area C was converted into a dining hall for use by the prisoners. That warehouse is now Building 289 across the street from what is now the NAIC’s headquarters building.
The wall is now protected as the last surviving significant prisoner of war in US Air Force bases around the country. The wall was dedicated in 1992 by the then base commander Col. William B. Orellans. It is hoped that the wall will be listed in the
National Register of Historic Places.
Are these colorful figures really the source of the seemingly endless number of stories that have been shared by UFO researchers over the years about alien bodies that have been studied and stored at Wright-Patt? Bruce, of course, isn’t sure. However, it is possible he feels that they played some small part in the folklore that seems to have been created over the
years concerning the presence of alien bodies on the base. As such, these figures -- the colorful mural in Building 289 -- deserve at least honorable mention in the comprehensive history of urology which most assuredly will one day be written by one of our descendants. And less we and our ancestors forget, not all folklore is fiction.
It was late May of this year. The General Accounting Office’s (GAO) investigation into the Roswell, New Mexico flying saucer crash story was reportedly winding down to a closure. Bruce Ashcroft, the historian for the US Air Force’s National Air
Intelligence Center (NAIC), who had been given the task of going through the records of his organization to see what he could find that related to this story and had completed his efforts. Along the way he had met a lot of people who were, in one way or
another, connected to the UFO research community. Stanton Friedman, Phillip Klass, Robert Todd, Kevin Randle, Don Schmitt, and many others had offered Bruce their thoughts, opinions, prejudices, and information. We were lucky to have been
included in that esteemed assemblage. So, when Bruce called and invited us down for a personal visit to “see the little green men at Wright-Patt,” we couldn’t turn him down. The trip was to be a bit nostalgic, in that Bruce was soon to be leaving
Wright-Patt for a now job as the historian for the Air Training Command at Randolph Air Force Base near San Antonio, Texas.
On the walls of the prisoners’ mess hall German POW artists had painted a huge mural depicting gargoyle-like figures out of
Germanic folklore. One of these painted walls survives in a long narrow hallway of the mess hall now converted to office use. On this wall, about 20 feet high by 70 feet long, appear large brightly colored figures with eyelids and lips of red and skin
colored primarily green with touches of black -- the “little green men” of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
As Bruce leaves his job as the historian for the National Air Intelligence Center (NAIC) in early July, one of the Air Force’s unique UFO spokespersons will slip into ufological history. In recent years, no one in the US government has spoken so
forthrightly about the subject of UFOs nor been as accessible as has Bruce Ashcroft. Always careful to point out his personal views as separate from those of the US Air Force, Bruce never once dishonored his profession or his employer. When asked
his personal views about UFOs, Bruce replied that if some of the reported sightings are unexplainable from a prosaic point of view, he would guess that the best explanation for their source would be other dimensions. He recommended that we read
the book Hyperspace - A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and The Tenth Dimension by Michio Kaku, published in 1994 by Oxford University Press.
Part of our visit to Wright-Patt included our attendance at the last of Bruce’s informal lunch time briefings for National Air Intelligence Center employees in the center’s main conference room on the history of NAIC. The subject of this last one hour
briefing was about Project Blue Book. Included in the presentation was a twenty minute video taped interview that Bruce had arranged earlier between Dayton TV-2 news reporter Carl Day and one time head of Project Blue Book Hector Quintanilla and a rare 1950’s tongue-in-cheek “Movie Tone” newsreel narrated by Lowell Thomas about the US Air Force’s attempt to track
down flying saucers using P-51 aircraft. About 30 officers, enlisted men, and civilians attended the briefing.
After the briefing was over questions and comments were accepted from the floor. It became quickly quite clear that there is not unanimity of opinion among the employees of the US Air Force about the subject of UFOs. One officer was skeptical that all of the reports about UFOs in Air Force custody had been declassified, including a secret message that he had once seen
regarding the pursuit of a UFO by an Air Force pilot. He asked Bruce if he thought the message would be declassified by now. Bruce replied in the affirmative and then reminded everyone that uncleared people were in the room, i.e., us. Fortunately, for the sake of national security, nothing classified had been revealed.
Another officer asked Bruce if he had found any evidence supporting the often stated view that Project Blue Book was nothing more than a public relations cover for another UFO study project elsewhere. Bruce replied that he had not. Bruce
was supported in this view by a response provided by Hector Quintanilla when asked the same question by Carl Day during
the video taped interview noted above. Quintanilla added to his own negative reply by stating that he had no knowledge about other UFO projects, so he couldn’t say if there were any.
A civilian employee offered a clearly different point of view from Bruce’s, noting for the audience that even within the Air Force not all information is shared even among those who have a seeming need to know, as Bruce did during his GAO initiated
investigation. When asked later about this person’s views, Bruce replied that this individual seems to like finding conspiracies everywhere. It’s nice to know that viewpoints concerning UFOs within the Air Force are no different from those that exist within the civilian UFO research community. We all see the subject from different points of view.
We asked Bruce if he has ever tried to talk with General Arthur B. Exon, the commander of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base starting in August of 1964. General Exon has made a number of confirming statements with regard to the flying saucer crash
at Roswell, that alien material and bodies had been brought to the base, and that a “special project” had been set up to handle the material. Bruce responded that Exon’s statements were easily understood and not supportive of the story. He noted that
as commander of the base he was responsible for the maintenance of the base infrastructure and, as such, he would not have been privy to all that the various agencies housed on the base were involved in. Bruce believed General Exon’s statements had little probative value and, for this reason, he had not been contacted.
After leaving the auditorium and returning to the public area of the building, two men in civilian clothing who had been at the briefing approached Bruce and asked him if he had ever talked to a man by the name of John G. Tiffany. It turns out that this
individual apparently works at Wright-Patt. According to the book The Truth About the UFO Crash at Roswell by Kevin Randle and Don Schmitt, Tiffany’s father was dispatched from Wright Field to pick up the Roswell bodies at Fort Worth. According to Tiffany, as noted in this book, his father picked up metallic debris and a large cylinder that reminded him of a
large thermos bottle. It is uncertain whether the elder Tiffany ever saw the bodies themselves, but certainly the father saw something important. The two men asked Bruce if he was going to question Tiffany and Bruce replied in the negative. He later explained this to us by saying that Tiffany was probably tired of all of the questions about his story from civilian investigators
and he probably wouldn’t talk to Bruce.
We were surprised by the apparent reluctance on Bruce’s part to talk to people who were reasonably accessible to him. There may have been some justifiable but unspoken reason for this in the two instances noted herein. However, given the
severe criticism the Air Force received on this very issue with regard to its summary report on Roswell, known informally as the Weaver Report, we were understandably sensitive to this issue. His reluctance left us with the impression
that Bruce may have been given the green light to undertake an honest research effort, but perhaps within certain boundaries.
For the record, we asked Bruce if he had seen anything in the archives at NAIC that confirmed the existence of and the content of the missing Project Blue Book Report Number 13. Twelve Project Blue Book progress reports are on
the public record, as is the final report numbered 14. The existence of Number 13 has never been confirmed, although it has been the subject of many rumors. Some have said that the number 13 wasn’t used because the number is unlucky, and others have said that it was used for the draft of Number 14 and was destroyed once the final
report was published. We think these two explanations are highly unlikely, and so does Bruce. Bruce replied to our question with a negative response; Number 13 still remains a rumor.
Was Bruce in some way acting in a role assigned to him as part of the infamous cover-up? We can’t say. There were aspects of his work that some might interpret that way, such as seeming reluctant to interview some important witnesses. Bruce voiced his concern on more than one occasion that, because he is an Air Force Intelligence employee, people will assume that
he is part of the cover-up. He assured us that he is not. Of course, based upon our relationship with Bruce, we can’t say for sure. All we can say is that Bruce treated us and the subject of UFOs with respect and he voiced criticisms on more than one
occasion concerning how the Air Force had handled various aspects of the UFO question poorly, especially with regard to
public relations matters. Bruce stated that being more open with information about its past technological history would go a
long way toward improving the Air Force’s public image. He also was willing to express his personal opinions concerning the subject which certainly didn’t always follow the party line. If Bruce is part of the cover-up he is a refreshing part. In any event, his career is taking him away from the UFO subject as he moves into his new job. His new area of concern will be training.
After the excitement of dealing with UFOs, we think Bruce might soon get a bit bored.