Although not mentioned in the spurious MJ-12 briefing-paper, there was reportedly another crash site in an area west of Socono, New Mexico, in the Plains of San Agustin, where witnesses allegedly discovered not only a damaged metallic disc resting on the flat desert ground, but also dead bodies - and possibly a survivor. The location of this site remains in dispute. If the unauthenticated memorandum from Hillenkoetter of 19 September 1947, for example, is anything to go by, the second recovery of an `unidentified planform aircraft' (in addition to thewreckage site 75 miles north-west of Roswell) occurred 10 miles north-west of Oscura Peak, 35 miles south-east of Socono. This would place it within the White Sands Proving Ground, but nowhere near the Plains of San Agustin. According to Hillenkoetter's report, the first recovery took place 30 miles east of Alamogordo Army Air Field, over 100 miles south-east of Socorro - again, nowhere near the Plains.

An early witness on the scene was Grady L. `Barney' Barnett, a civil engineer with the US Soil Conservation Service who was on a military assignment at the time, working from Magdalena. He told his friends LaVerne and Jean Maltais that in the late 1940s (the July 1947 date later established by Stanton Friedman) he had encountered a metallic, disc-shaped `aircraft' in the desert. While he was examining it, a small group of people arrived who said they were part of an archaeological research team from the University of Pennsylvania.

According to the Maltaises, Barnett recalled that the bodies apparently had fallen out of the craft, which had split open on impact. The disc seemed to be made of a metal that looked like dirty stainless steel. When Barnett approached for a closer look, he noticed dead bodies inside and outside the vehicle - the ones outside thrown out by the impact. They were like humans but they were not humans, he reported. The heads were round and larger in proportion to their bodies, hairless, and the eyes small and oddly spaced. Their clothing seemed to be one-piece and grey in colour, without zippers, belts or buttons. Military personnel approached and cordoned off the area. `We were told to leave the area and not to talk to anyone whatever about what we had seen . . . that it was our patriotic duty to remain silent,' Barnett told the Maltaises. In his affidavit, included in a briefing for the Congressional Staff prepared by Fred Whiting and the Fund for UFO Research, LaVerne Maltais stated as follows:

. . . Around 1950, Mr. Barnett told me that several years before, during a field trip in New Mexico, he discovered a crashed disc-shaped craft with the bodies of strange beings on the ground. He was absolutely convinced that the craft was from outer space.

The beings he described were similar - but not identical - to humans. They were 3 1/2 to 4 feet tall; slim and hairless, with large pear-shaped heads. They had four fingers on each hand. T'hey were dressed in tight-fitting, metallic suits. All of them were dead.

Mr. Barnett said that at the time of his discovery, he was joined by four or five people on an archeology dig. Shortly afterward, military personnel arrived and escorted them from the area. They told him to keep quiet about the incident, that it was in the national interest for them to get out of there. Mr. Barnett was a man of great personal integrity who would never tell a lie.

At least three other local people told Stanton Friedman about their recollections of a flying saucer having crashed `out in the Plains' at the time: one confirmed that it had been brought out at night by the military, through Magdalena.z And in the 1960s William D. Leed III, then a Colonel with the US Army Reserve Signal Corps, who had a strong interest in UFOs, went to visit Barnett, at the suggestion of a fellow officer. In his affidavit, included in the Fund for UFO Research's Congressional briefing, Leed stated:

. . . In early September of 1964 or 1965, I visited Mr. Barnett at his home in Roswell, N.M., and identified myself as a member of the military whose interest was purely personal and not official. I talked with him for about 15 minutes. He told me of coming upon a `flying saucer' in the desert more than 10 years before and inspecting it. He said he touched it and found it not to be hot. It had a very smooth surface. He said it was about 12 feet across and saucer-shaped. He walked around it but was unable to enter it. He said that, two-to-three days later, the area was swarming with people from the U.S. Army Air Forces who removed the `saucer'.

Mr. Barnett told me he was subsequently interviewed for many hours on at least three occasions by men from several different levels of government, was told to `shut up', and was threatened, and felt threatened by them . . .

Another, more controversial witness to the alleged Plains of San Agustin incident is Gerald Anderson, who claims to have been present at the crash site (near Horse Springs) when he was six years old, together with his father, brother, uncle and cousin. He confirms that five college students and their professor (Dr Buskirk) subsequently arrived on the scene, and insists that one of the three alien creatures survived the crash. Anderson has provided a great deal of intriguing information, published in Stanton Friedman's and Don Berliner's book Crash at Corona. Although Schmitt and Randle reject the Anderson story outright, Friedman and Berliner present some evidence for its authenticity.

The Plains of San Agustin are about 150 miles west of the Corona site. Was the disc allegedly recovered near Horse Springs another craft that had also come to grief independently, or had it collided with the disc supposedly recovered closer to Roswell? Randle and Schmitt have satisfied themselves that the archaeological research team was present at a site 35 miles north-north-west of Roswell (their preferred location for the recovery of bodies) - not the Plains of San Agustino - but Friedman and Berliner dispute this. And it has to be said that the testimony of Frank Kaufmann, who provided the location of this site, is extremely dubious, as Karl Pflock shows convincingly.

Among those assigned to guarding one of the crash sites and, later, removing the bodies to the Roswell base was Sergeant Melvin Brown, who years later told his family about the incident. `They had to form a ring around whatever it was they had to cover, and everything was put on trucks, said Beverly Bean one of Brown's daughters, when I interviewed the family:

They were told not to look and to take no notice, and were sworn to secrecy. I can remember my dad saying he couldn't understand why they wanted refrigerated trucks. And him and another guy had to sit on the back of the truck to take this stuff to a hangar. They were packed in ice. And he lifted up the tarpaulin and looked in, and he saw three (or possibly two) dead bodies.

He told us they were nothing to be scared of. They were friendly-looking and had nice faces. They looked Asian, he said, but had larger heads and no hair. They looked a yellowy colour. He was frightened a bit, because he knew he shouldn't be doing it, so he only had a quick glimpse.

According to other witnesses, the initial autopsies were carried out at Roswell Army Air Field. Glenn Dennis, a mortician with the Ballard Funeral Home, who did contract work at the base (induding ambulance work), is one of many who have signed affidavits for a Congressional inquiry, testifying to the recovery of alien wreckage and bodies. For me, his testimony is reliable and convincing.

One afternoon in July 1947 Dennis was asked by the base mortuary officer about the availability of small, hermetically sealed coffins, in case they might be needed `in future'. Less than an hour later the officer called again, asking Dennis to describe the chemical preparation for bodies that had been lying in the desert for 'a period of time and what effect such procedures would have on the bodies' chemical compounds, blood and tissues.

Dennis explained that the chemicals he used were mainly strong solutions of formaldehyde and water, and that the procedure would probably alter the bodily chemical composition. `I offered to come out to the base to assist with any problem he might have,' Dennis stated, `but he reiterated that the information was for future use.'

Just over an hour later Dennis received a request to transport a serviceman who had been injured in an unrelated incident. He drove an ambulance to the back of the base infirmary and parked alongside another ambulance. `The door was open and inside I saw some wreckage,' he reports in his affidavit. `There were several pieces . . . about three feet in length [which] resembled stainless steel with a purple hue, as if it had been exposed to high temperature. There was some strange-looking writing on the material resembling Egyptian hieroglyphics. Also two MPs [military policemen] were present.'

After checking in the serviceman, Dennis proceeded to the staff lounge, intending to look for a nurse - a second lieutenant - with whom he was romantically involved.

I saw her coming out of one of the examining rooms with a cloth over her mouth. She said, `My gosh, get out of here or you're going to be in a lot of trouble.' She went into another door where a captain stood. He asked me who I was and what I was doing here. I told him, and he instructed me to stay there. I said, `It looks like you've got a crash; would you like me to get ready?' He told me to stay right there. The two MPs came and began to escort me out of the infirmary. They said they had orders to follow me out to the funeral home.

Another captain then advised Dennis that he had seen nothing, that there had been no crash, and that if he said anything he could get into a lot of trouble. `Hey look, mister,' said Dennis, `I'm a civilian and you can't do a damn thing to me.' `Yes we can,' replied the captain, `somebody will be picking your bones out of the sand.'

The following day, Dennis tried to contact the nurse, who later called back and agreed to meet him. 'Before I talk to you' she insisted, 'you have to give me your sacred oath that you will never mention my name.' Dennis gave his word, and she told him an extraordinary story.

The nurse said she had been asked by two doctors to take notes while they performed a preliminary autopsy on three small bodies, 3 1/2 to 4 feet in height. There was a terrible smell, and it was the most gruesome sight she had ever seen. Two of the bodies were mangled and dismembered, but one was fairly intact. Their heads were disproportionately large for their bodies, and the skulls were flexible. Their eyes were deeply set, their noses concave with two small orifices, and the mouths consisted of a fine slit, with what the doctors described as heavy cartilage instead of teeth. The ears were merely small orifices with flaps. They had no hair, and the skin was very darkened - perhaps from exposure to the sun. The arms were long and slender, with four fingers on the hand which appeared to have small suction cups at each tip. The nurse said that she and the doctors became ill, and the air conditioning had to be turned off in case the smell permeated the hospital. Eventually the autopsy had to be moved to an aircraft hangar.

Glenn Dennis reports that the nurse (recently named as Naomi Maria Selff) was transferred to England, and later he learned that apparently she had been killed in a plane crash during a training mission. No evidence for such a crash has been forthcoming.

Oliver Wendell Henderson, stationed at Roswell Arxny Air Field during the time of the New Mexico crash/retrievals, is yet another witness who has provided testimony. `Pappy' Henderson, who held a Top Secret clearance, ran the `Green Hornet Airline , which involved flying C-54 and C-47 military transport aircraft, carrying VIPs, scientists and materials from Roswell to the Pacific, during the atom-bomb tests. After seeing an article about the Roswell incident in a newspaper in 1980 or 1981, Henderson told his wife to read the article. `It's a true story,' he said. `I'm the pilot who flew the wreckage of the UFO to Dayton, Ohio. I guess now that they're putting it in the papers, I can tell you about this.'