The most-viewed FBI file on UFOs is a one-page memo to J. Edgar Hoover about an investigation the agency never took up.
Beckie / Flickr
Whether
or not you believe in Earthly visitation by alien beings, it's
undeniable that UFOs have, at the least, become an essential part of
modern day folklore. And in a bevy of stories that have added on to that
treasure trove of fantastic tales, there's one document that, according
to Atlas Obscura, has become the most popular FBI file among UFO truthers.
The document is just called "Guy Hottel," named after an agent in an FBI field office. It's publicly available on the FBI Vault website, among a handful
of other UFO and related cases. In one page, it describes an incident
relayed second or third hand of a three separate but related UFO crashes
around 1950 in New Mexico, with three alien bodies described as having a
"human shape" but only being three feet tall, clothed in a metallic
fabric. "Each body was bandaged in a manner similar to the blackout
suits used by speed fliers and test pilots," Hottel said. The craft
itself was described as being 50 feet in diameter.
The
agency denies that it's related to Roswell, or that they even seriously
investigated it. "Finally, the Hottel memo does not prove the existence
of UFOs; it is simply a second- or third-hand claim that we never
investigated," it says.
"Some people believe the memo repeats a hoax that was circulating at
that time, but the Bureau's files have no information to verify that
theory."
FBI
As Atlas Obscura points out, it's likely connected to a sort of space age snakeoil peddler named Silas Newton, whose claims were usually to spurious mining operations along with a series of UFO crash claims. According to TopSecretWriters,
Newton finally got caught in 1970 after just under 20 years of FBI
investigations for selling land to out-of-state speculators, claiming it
had precious ore. Of course, that land just happened to be some of the
land he claimed UFOs crashed on. The memo could be related to Newton's Aztec UFO hoax, one that Newton and an accomplice duped journalist Frank Scully into believing.
Though Newton wasn't tied to the Roswell incident, it's interesting to note that Roswell itself had fallen into obscurity
from 1947 until 1978 when Stanton Friedman resurrected it. Most
investigations into the matter, after the initial crash of the
terrestrial experimental aircraft, took place at that time from second
and third hand accounts. In fact, the reason for the crash at Roswell
was declassified in the early 1970s, before Friedman's investigations into the matter.
The FBI rarely touched UFO cases at the time, with the Air Force handling most investigations under Project Bluebook. Bluebook dug up no conclusive proof of UFOs, though a few investigations proved vexxing.
It's also interesting to note that from the 1920s to the 1950s, New Mexico was ground zero for rocketry research. Robert Goddard carried out much of his early research there, with Nazi rocket engineer turned NASA pioneer Wehrner Von Braun
further developing rocketry technology for the nascent American space
program at the White Sands Missile Range. In other words, there was a
lot going on in the skies of New Mexico for quite some time, and some of
it was definitely coming back down from high in the skies.
So
there you have it. The Hottel memo was either something so spurious
that the FBI passed on investigating it (only relaying it to J. Edgar
Hoover because of the director's paranoia on all things) or obvious
evidence of a massive cover-up. But given the actors involved, it's safe
to say it's the latter. That won't kill it off for sure, of course.
Hillary Clinton allegedly wants to "get to the bottom" of UFO investigations if elected president. Of course, as with Area 51 and Goddard's work, it could all just be highly classified weapons testing.
The
biggest proof of alien life is unlikely to come from Freedom of
Information Act releases of long declassified documents. Instead, it'll
probably come from a NASA mission to Mars or Europa, or maybe, just
maybe, the Breakthrough Listen Initiative
that pumped unprecedented amounts of money into the scientific search
for technologically advanced life. But who knows. An alien craft could
just fall out of the sky. But it's not likely.
Source: Atlas Obscura
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