Fred Reed & the Aztec UFO Case: A Red Flag

by Paul Kimball

Scott Ramsey and Frank Warren, who have over the past few years attempted to
rehabilitate the Aztec hoax into a bona fide UFO case, are fond of claiming that there
are myriad witnesses that point to the authenticity of the story. One of these "witnesses"
- Fred Reed - is of particular interest, because we have a record of both what he told
Scott Ramsey, and what Reed said one week prior to his interview with Scott. The
differences are telling, and should sound a note of caution about the Aztec "witnesses"
in general, and Scott and Frank's credulous approach to them.

Here, according to Scott, is what Reed told him in 1999 (you can find the original text at
www.frankwarren.blogspot.com, at "'Flying Saucer' Recovery at Hart Canyon (Part
Three) - The Witnesses"):

"Witness No. 3

While working for the O.S.S. (Office of Strategic Services), Fred Reed and his group
were sent to Aztec, New Mexico to 'clean up the crash site,' early in April of 1948. [Reed
didn't work for the O.S.S. - he worked for another clandestine organization of the
military. This is an 'uncorrected error' that was missed in final editing by Scott - Frank
Warren added this note]. Shortly after they arrived, it was apparent to them that
something very large had been removed from the site. Their specialty was to make an
area appear as if nothing had transpired there.

Fred revisited the crash site in 1999; I was able to interview him one week later.

In 1948 they were ordered to collect any foreign items they found and then bury them
eighteen inches deep; to 'soft landscape' any areas where heavy equipment tracks
were visible and to do an extensive survey on the entire mesa. He noted a newly cut
road and an out-of-place, large concrete pad in the freshly altered and siltey soil, during
the cleanup. Reed recalled thinking that they must have poured it to support a heavy
structure, like a crane, used to move a large object.

At the time of the cleanup, his group was informed that it was simply a crash site. The
entire cleanup was done in the usual quiet manner that they were accustomed to in the
O.S.S. [O.S.S. is incorrect - Frank Warren added this note]. Years later, one of Reed's
former Senior Officers would explain to him that it was not an aircraft crash, but that of a
large metallic 'flying disc.'

In my interview with Reed, he commented on how the crash site today looked as they
had left it when they had finished. He recalled that the tops of the trees were broken
and was fascinated with how they had weathered time."

Both Frank and Scott proudly trumpeted Reed as one of the best witnesses to the Aztec
case, to the point where Scott included him as one of five he referenced in a 2005
article (see: http://www.theufochronicles.com/2005/12/aztec-incident-revisited-part-
one.html), as well as in my film Aztec 1948.
But what really makes Reed such a valuable example of the Aztec "witnesses" is that
we have an account from him that predates his interview with Scott by a week. Better
yet, he put it into writing, to the editor of a local Aztec area newspaper. Here is the
entire text of that letter:

"Dear Sir,

Today, my wife and I took advantage of the big celebration and went out to the site of
the UFO crash of late 1948 in Hart Canyon. The workers who dedicated their time to
this presentation of an important part of New Mexico history are to be commended. The
road signs to guide the visitors were strategically placed, and the plaque marking the
spot was in the right place. The aliens had built stone cairns marking the path from the
oil field road to the crash site. These cairns are still in place today. The trees around the
crash site open to the south, which is a typical distress signal for extraterrestrials.

The area looked essentially as it had in 1948 when the OSS sent our group there. We
were to make a detailed survey of the area and report back to them, which we did. We
were then reassigned elsewhere. We were never told what the OSS was looking for.

But a traveling survey crew like that eats in cafes, sleeps in motels, has no close family,
and knows intimately only the men they work with. So, of course, we spect many long
nights trying to figure out just what did happen in Hart Canyon.

We had heard rumors that a UFO had crashed there. But it did not look like a crash site.
And we had heard that army personnel had rushed in there and cleaned up the site. But
it did not look like a clean-up site either. One thing did stand out. There appeared to be
some heavy traffic - not on any graded road - leading through the large rock slides to
the canyon northwest of the site.

So what it boiled down to was this: No UFO crash. Instead, the UFO landed there for
some specific intent to place (bury?) some instrument or thing there. They they got into
their saucer and flew away. All of the other stories were put out by the government to
cover up what they knew about the event or to cover up what they did not know about it.
I guess the answer might be found in the old files of the OSS. But not in my time.

Yours truly,

Fred Reed."

Now, let us compare the original testimony to that which came out after the interview
with Scott.

Are there significant discrepancies?

Yes.

1. Reed, in his letter, specifically states that nothing crashed on the mesa. Instead, the
"rumour" that he heard was that a flying saucer had landed, planted a device, and then
flown away - NO recovery! After his interview with Scott, this had changed to "a crashed
flying saucer" that had been recovered by the military.

2. Reed, in his letter, refers to several stone cairns which the aliens had left in place to
mark the road from the oil road to the "crash site" (note the contradictory statement
even within this letter - "crash site" vs. "landing site"). After his interview with Scott, we
now have the "out of place, large concrete pad" that had been poured to aid in the
recovery.

3. Reed, in his letter, states that the "clean-up" operation occurred in late 1948. After his
interview with Scott, this date has been "corrected" back to April, 1948.

4. Reed, in his letter, talks about how the trees around the crash site open to the south,
which is a "typical distress signal for the aliens." This ridiculous statement, which shows
more than anything else that Reed is blowing smoke, is nowhere to be found after his
interview with Scott.

5. Reed, in his letter, states that his group was sent to the site to make a "detailed
survey of the area" and "report back" to the O.S.S. After the interview with Scott, this
has morphed into a "cleanup" operation, despite the fact that in his letter, Reed stated
that "We had heard that army personnel had rushed in there and cleaned up the site."

Five MAJOR discrepancies, plus one MAJOR mistake that is made in both accounts by
Reed - the identification by Reed himself, not Scott, of his unit as O.S.S., which was
impossible, given that the O.S.S. ceased to exist on 1 October, 1945, by virtue of
Executive Order 9621 (see www.cia.gov/cia/publications/oss/art10.htm). It was later
effectively replaced by the Central Intelligence Group, and then, in 1947, with the
passing of the National Security Act, the Central Intelligence Agency.

What does this tell us about the Aztec case?

First, it tells us that Reed's testimony is absolutely worthless. The historical inaccuracies
(the O.S.S.??!!), and the inconsistent statements, within a week of each other, indicate
he was a guy spinning a story that simply was not true.

Why?

To gain himself a small piece of the growing Aztec limelight. Call it the "Anderson -
Kaufmann Syndrome." As I keep trying to tell people in ufology, not every "witness" is
telling the truth.

More important, however, is the fact that it calls into question both Scott's methodology
and his objectivity. It is clear from the "compare and contrast" exercise above that Reed
changed his account when interviewed by Scott, possibly the result of leading questions
(we won't know unless and until Scott releases the detailed transcripts), but no doubt
because Reed wanted to tell Scott what he figured Scott wanted to hear.
As for Scott's objectivity, and his competence to draw conclusions from his considerable
research, one must wonder. The O.S.S. statement alone should have raised a major
red flag as to Reed's credibility back in 1999, and yet this clearly false statement was
repeated by Scott right up until the present day. The same mistaken assumptions can
be seen in his analysis of the radar bases he discovered, and in his acceptance of
Frank Scully's claim that Dr. Gee was really "eight scientists" instead of Leo Gebauer
(there are earlier posts here that deal with each of these issues).

We continue to hear from Scott and Frank that there really was a crash recovery of an
alien spacecraft at Aztec in 1948. But if they bought Fred Reed's bogus tale, should we
place any faith in their overall approach to the Aztec case, and the evidence that so
convincingly shows that there was no spaceship, no crash, and no story, other than the
one cooked up by Silas Newton and Leo Gebauer?

Paul Kimball