Kingman UFO Crash of 1953

1953 Kingman UFO Sketch

In May of 1953, according to local lore and several UFO experts, there were at least two and possibly three in Kingman, AZ that could rival or surpass Roswell in significance. And, information in the form of an email between Christopher Mellon and an anonymous source that surfaced in April of 2024 seems to corroborate the government's knowledge and involvement in the Kingman incidents.

Much of what is known about the most significant of the crashes is based on official statements by Arthur Stansel, a scientist who worked at the nuclear test site in Nevada on Operation Upshot Knothole, and also later on Project Bluebook, a U.S. Air Force program that investigated UFO sightings from 1952 to 1969. He told his story to well-known UFO investigator Raymond Fowler in 1973, twenty years after the incident. Fowler recorded his interactions with Stansel in his book “Casebook of a UFO Investigator,” published in 1981. Since Stansel was revealing information he had sworn to keep secret, Fowler gave him the alias Fritz Werner to protect his identity. Stansel’s signed (as Fritz Werner) affidavit read as follows:

I, Fritz Werner, do solemnly swear that during a special assignment with the U.S. Air Force, on May 21, 1953, I assisted in the investigation of a crashed unknown object in the vicinity of Kingman, Arizona.
The object was constructed of an unfamiliar metal which resembled brushed aluminum. It had impacted twenty inches into the sand without any sign of structural damage. It was oval and about 30 feet in diameter. An entranceway hatch had been vertically lowered and opened. It was about 3-1/2 feet high and 1-1/2 feet wide. I was able to talk briefly with someone on the team who did look inside only briefly. He saw two swivel seats, an oval cabin, and a lot of instruments and displays.
A tent pitched near the object sheltered the dead remains of the only occupant of the craft. It was about 4 feet tall, dark brown complexion and had 2 eyes, 2 nostrils, 2 ears, and a small round mouth. It was clothed in a silvery, metallic suit and wore a skull cap of the same type material. It wore no face covering or helmet.
I certify that the above statement is true by affixing my signature to this document this day of June 7, 1973.
Signature: Fritz Werner
Date Signed: June 7, 1973
Witnessed By: Raymond E. Fowler
Date Signed: June 7,1973

Fowler looked extensively into Stansel’s credentials while investigating and found them to be impressive. Between June 1949 and January 1960, Stansel held several engineering and management positions at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio. In 1953 he was working in what was known as the Air Material Command Installations Division, within the Office of Special Studies headed by Dr. Eric Wang. His specialties included the engineering design of Air Force engine test cells, development techniques for determining blast effects on buildings and structures, and the designing of aircraft landing gear. Stansel worked his way up to become chief of alighting devices at the aircraft laboratory Wright Air Development Center, which led him to management positions at Wright-Patterson and later at a variety of civilian companies involved with defense contracts. At the time of his reported experience, he was on special assignment to the Atomic Energy Commission at the atomic proving ground in Nevada. 

In a later, longer statement to Fowler, Stansel described his experience in more detail. He said that he reported for a special duty late in the afternoon May 20, 1953, and was driven to Indian Springs Air Force Base where he joined about fifteen other specialists. They were told to leave all their valuables, including watches, in the custody of the military police, then put on a military plane and flown to Phoenix. They weren’t allowed to talk to each other and were put on a bus with blacked out windows so they couldn’t see where they were going. 

“We rode for an estimated four hours. I think we were in the area of Kingman, Arizona, which is northwest of Phoenix and not too far from the Atomic Proving Ground in Nevada. During the bus trip, we were told by an Air Force full-Colonel that a super-secret Air Force Vehicle had crashed and that since we were all specialists in certain fields, we were to investigate the crash in terms of our own specialty and nothing more.
“Finally, the bus stopped and we disembarked one at a time as our names were called, and escorted by military police to the area that we were to inspect. Two spotlights were centered on the crashed object, which was ringed with guards. The lights were so bright that it was impossible to see the surrounding area. The object was oval and looked like two deep saucers, one inverted upon the other. It was about thirty feet in diameter with convex surfaces, top and bottom. These surfaces were about twenty feet in diameter. Part of the object had sunk into the ground. It was constructed of a dull silver metal like brushed aluminum. The metal was darker where the saucer ‘lips’ formed a rim, around which were what looked like slots. A curved open hatch door was located on the leading end and was vertically lowered. There was a light coming from inside, but it could have been installed by the Air Force.”

Stansel’s job was to determine how fast the craft was going at the time of impact by the angle and depth it had been driven into the sand. He noted that it had no landing gear, and that it had no marks or dents on the surface, not even scratches. None of his questions were answered unless they were directly related to his special area. Nearby he saw a tent pitched with an armed military guard outside.

“I managed to glance inside at one point and saw the dead body of a four foot human-like creature in a silver metallic-looking suit. The skin on its face was dark brown. This may have been caused by exposure to our atmosphere. It had a metallic skullcap device on its head.

“As soon as each person finished his task, he was interviewed over a tape recorder and escorted back to the bus. On the way, I managed to talk briefly with someone else who told me that he had glanced inside the object and saw two swivel-like seats as well as instruments and displays. An airman, noticing us talking together, separated us and warned us not to talk with each other.”

After they all returned to the bus, the Air Force Colonel in charge had them raise their right hands and take an oath not to reveal what they had seen. Stansel was told to write his report in longhand and not reproduce it in any way. He went on to note that he had never met or talked with any of the investigating party, though he thought he recognized two of the officers. He later saw and recognized the Colonel in charge in a movie about Project Blue Book.

The exact location of what Stansel said he witnessed is uncertain. Local investigator Roman Malach is quoted in Fowler’s book as being of the opinion that Stansel wasn’t in Kingman at all, but in Paradise Valley just north of Phoenix  instead. He said the type of packed sand that Stansel described is found there, not around Kingman. But the late Harry Drew, also a local UFO historian and author of “7 Days in May: The Kingman UFO Story,” claimed to have located the site about eight miles southeast of downtown Kingman, in a remote area off County Highway 259 just below the Hualapai mountains. He said that he found proof of a military encampment, including food canisters that dated back to 1953. In the 2012 DVD “Hidden In Plain Sight,” Drew called it a forced landing rather than a crash. This was the ship that Stansel described as undamaged, and while some investigators think it was taken to Wright-Patterson AFB, Drew was convinced that it went to Area 51 at Groom Lake. 

A second ship also went to Groom Lake according to Drew, from a separate crash on May 22, just days after the first. This one happened at Red Lake, north of Kingman near the Cerbat mountains.  Drew said the Red Lake ship had its underside caved in when it clipped a butte before it came down, and that the scars are still visible in the rock. According to Drew, it landed on a ranch owned by Leonard Neil, who, along with eleven other people, watched it come down not far from a livestock reservoir known as Foo Tank, east of Stockton Hill Road. 

Drew spoke of a third crash as well, on May 24, 1953, also in the Hualapai mountains to the south of Kingman. This ship, he said, was obliterated when it came down, skidding across the base of the mountains and causing a fire that burned for days. The fire was well documented in the Daily Miner according to Drew, which is true; however, the dates on those clippings are June 1950, not May 1953, when the other crashes supposedly took place. The Miner was published weekly at that time, and the May 28 issue contains no mention of a fire of any kind, casting some doubt on this part of Drew’s claims.

Many have speculated that the crashes were caused by nuclear testing. Drew, however, was of the opinion that the culprit was a trio of immensely powerful radar sites set up in and around Kingman at the time.  These "high output high energy short bolts of microwave radiation," as Drew described them, reportedly caused local complaints of birds falling dead from the sky, and the flight path the downed UFOs were on would have taken them right through the triangle of towers.

Drew and others have also said that there were extraterrestrials that survived these crashes and were taken to Area 51 along with the craft. They are described as being about four feet tall, wearing silvery suits and having a dark complexion, similar to Stansel’s description of the deceased being he saw. Rumors have circulated for decades of an alien known as J Rod, who helped the government reverse engineer the otherworldly technology of downed spacecraft at Area 51. By Drew’s count, six J Rods survived in total. Bill Uhouse, a former Navy pilot and Kingman UFO crash researcher who was stationed at Area 51 in the mid-60s, claimed to have met one of these beings. In an interview from 2000 he said that the J Rod spoke perfect English and "sounded just like you." Dan Burisch is another who claimed to have worked with J Rods. Burisch said he was employed as a microbiologist to care for the aliens and spent two years on the project. Interviews with both Uhouse and Burisch about their interactions with the J Rods can be found on YouTube at the following links:

📺Uhouse Testimony
📺Burisch Testimony

There have been plenty of researchers over the years investigating these crashes. At the research library in the Mohave Museum of History and Arts there is a section dedicated to the subject, with old newspaper clippings, sketches, copies of Roman Malach’s inquiries to both the government and Fowler about the crashes, and their replies, which include a “sanitized” copy of Fowler’s original report. All of this is available for anyone who is interested to read, watch, and decide for themselves as to the authenticity of these events. But some government emails, dated around 2020 which were made public in April of 2024, add fuel to the fire. In a redacted text exchange (shown below) between former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Christopher Mellon and an undisclosed person who Mellon called a “senior U.S. government member,” the conversation centers around the Kingman UFO incident. The undisclosed person said "The (redacted) would be slack-jawed if they found out what we now know." 

Did alien craft crash near Kingman in 1953? All of this evidence certainly seems to point that way. Sadly, none of it is indisputably conclusive. Stansel’s statements have never been corroborated. The government is not officially admitting anything. It is left to the individual to decide for themselves, and the information is there for anyone who looks. UFO hunters hoping to visit the alleged crash sites, however, may be disappointed. They are remote and quite difficult to access. Extreme caution is advised for anyone wanting to try.  

As Mulder would say…