Aztec UFO Crash: The Hoax That Launched a Legend

In March of nineteen forty-eight, according to a story that swept through flying saucer circles, a large disc-shaped craft crash-landed on Hart Canyon mesa near Aztec, New Mexico, twelve miles northeast of Aztec. The tale claimed that government agents recovered the wreckage and the bodies of multiple alien crew members. The story was popularized in a nineteen fifty book called Behind the Flying Saucers by Frank Scully, who reported it as fact.

Investigators later traced the origin to two con men, Silas Newton and Leo GeBauer, who were allegedly trying to sell phony oil-detection devices supposedly based on captured alien technology. Newton was convicted of fraud in nineteen fifty-three. Despite the debunking, Aztec embraced its extraterrestrial reputation.

A commemorative plaque was placed near Hart Canyon in two thousand seven by researchers Scott and Suzanne Ramsey, who spent decades arguing the crash was real. Whether hoax or mystery, the Aztec incident helped shape the template for nearly every UFO crash story that followed.