National Institute for Discovery Science: Fort Dix/McGuire AFB Investigation: Discussion

Fort Dix/McGuire AFB Investigation

Discussion

No Corroboration

The central thesis arising from this preliminary investigation is that no corroboration was obtained for the reality of the alleged incident at McGuire AFB on January 18, 1978. Until and unless independent corroboration can be obtained, NIDS policy does not permit conducting a full investigation into this incident.

An important note in the Stringfield report was that Morse claimed the day after his interrogation at WPAFB, he was debriefed by "Lt Col. FM" and then released for normal duty. NIDS interviewed this individual who confirmed that indeed he had been at McGuire AFB at the time of the incident and that he was a Lt. Col at the time. However, "FM" professed no knowledge whatever of the incident.
At another point in his description of the recovery, Morse states: "At least a dozen men armed with M-16s were assigned to guard at the ropes and no one was allowed to enter except the base commander, the security police squadron commander..." Again NIDS located both these individuals. Neither the base commander or the security police commander admitted any memory of the incident.
Morse also identifies a "Colonel B" as the "bad guy" during his interrogation at WPAFB. The interrogation allegedly took place two days after the shooting incident. NIDS located and interviewed the same "Colonel B" who had been serving at McGuire AFB as a reserve JAG officer in 1978. As a part of this report, NIDS publishes the full transcript of the interview with "Colonel B" that indicates he had never heard of the shooting incident and secondly he claimed never to have set foot in WPAFB.

Is NIDS Being Deceived?

One initial expected outcome of this report may be a number of voices claiming NIDS is naïve and "of course senior military people are going to deny all knowledge." However, four senior military officers who were stationed at McGuire AFB at the time of the incident were interviewed by NIDS investigator Roger Pinson who has extensive training in interviewing and interrogation techniques as well as the detection of deception. All individuals were interviewed cold and possible hesitations, confabulations, or other idiosyncrasies were carefully anticipated and expected. The four military officers responded without hesitation and further, insisted that they should have known about the incident if it had occurred. The fifth interview, with the retired JAG colonel, was conducted and the transcript is provided as a part of this report. Again, no corroboration was obtained. The retired JAG colonel insisted that he had never ever set foot in WPAFB.

NIDS then contacted one of the other investigators of this case regarding the discrepancies in the DD Form 1569 and were told that Morse maybe had made the form "as if it were real" for illustration purposes. This assertion however is contradicted by Stringfield's original description of the arrival of the DD Form 1569 in his 1985 MUFON Symposium article:

"The next event came as a surprise by certified mail postmarked December 23, 1983. On the flap of the envelope it said 'Merry Christmas. I hope you like it.' Inside, was a Xeroxed copy of the Incident/Complaint Report (Form 1569) that Morse had hinted, by phone, he might be able to procure as important back-up. The Report was brief, but essentially contained the same story told by Morse. Prepared by Desk Sgt. WC and signed by 1st Lt. WS, it was channeled to Col. Landon, Commanding Officer of McGuire AFB; Brig. Gen. Brown, Hdq., 21st Air Force (at McGuire AFB); and the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI). It contained the names of the security policemen involved, including Morse, and the name of the MP assigned to Ft. Dix whom Morse later identified as the person having shot the alien intruder..."

Later in his 1985 report, Stringfield continues his description of the DD Form 1569:

"The document is avowedly not proof. For it to be established as bona fide would, in turn, require additional irretrievable reports, memoranda, tapes, ad infinitum. In this regard, however, Morse said on several occasions that he had attempted to obtain a later Form 1569 Report mentioned by the desk sergeant, but was unsuccessful. Nevertheless, the Incident/Complaint Report, as it stands, is a strong link of evidence not easily dismissed, even if denied officially or by any of its named personnel who might be coerced to so do."

Therefore, the suggestion that Morse had created the document to show what an incident report would look like does not hold water.

Hoaxed Cases with "Official" Documentation

It is worth noting the historical context of the McGuire AFB case. The case first came to light in 1980, when Leonard Stringfield received a letter from Jeffrey Morse purportedly describing the incident. This was during the same period as the famous Bennewitz case. Bennewitz was a physicist who, in the late 1970s, began publicizing UFO activity around the Manzano nuclear weapons storage facility near Kirtland AFB in New Mexico. It was later documented that agents of the United States government had fed Bennewitz several fraudulent documents and false oral briefings designed to encourage Bennewitz to publicly declare that extraterrestrials were deeply involved in northern New Mexico. The purpose of this exercise was to discredit Bennewitz and thus distract interested parties from a series of classified programs that were ongoing near Kirtland AFB. The Kirtland AFB programs had nothing whatever to do with extraterrestrials, but agents of the United States government used the UFO topic to discredit Bennewitz, which in turn deflected attention away from the Manzano weapons storage facility near Kirtland AFB. Apparently this deception was successful.

Apart from the incident at McGuire AFB, there are two other reports involving purported UFO incidents on official Air Force stationary that are known hoaxes. The first is Bob Pratt’s investigation of an alleged UFO landing at Ellsworth AFB in 1977. The investigation of the case is very well documented on Bob Pratt's web site: http://www.bobpratt.org/ellsworth.html. The Ellsworth incident allegedly happened in 1977 near Rapid City South Dakota and initially involved the anonymous mailing of an incident report form detailing a security violation involving a UFO and a non-human entity at a missile silo under the jurisdiction of Ellsworth AFB. Pratt's investigation as detailed on his web site and in correspondence with NIDS showed convincingly that the incident was a hoax and that the incident report form was a forgery.

The second hoax is the famous "Hilltop memo" which was closely investigated and shown to be a fraudulent document. The Hilltop memo, dated November 1982, was written on "official" Department of the Air Force notepaper and allegedly described the landing of a UFO at a remote location near Kirtland AFB in New Mexico. The authenticity of the memo was examined by an extremely talented insider and shown to be a forgery on multiple counts. The individual who allegedly signed the letter was even contacted. The signature was not his. For a description of the discrepancies on the Hilltop memo, see: http://ufoconspiracy.com/reports/hilltop.htm

NIDS is open to receiving further corroborative evidence that supports the reality of the 1978 McGuire AFB incident, but based on the principle of parsimony, the current hypothesis from this preliminary investigation is that the case is a hoax. The case is still pending.


Latest Research
Home	Fort Dix/McGuire AFB Investigation Discussion No Corroboration The central thesis arising from this preliminary investigation is that no corroboration was obtained for the reality of the alleged incident at McGuire AFB on January 18, 1978. Until and unless independent corroboration can be obtained, NIDS policy does not permit conducting a full investigation into this incident. An important note in the Stringfield report was that Morse claimed the day after his interrogation at WPAFB, he was debriefed by "Lt Col. FM" and then released for normal duty. NIDS interviewed this individual who confirmed that indeed he had been at McGuire AFB at the time of the incident and that he was a Lt. Col at the time. However, "FM" professed no knowledge whatever of the incident. At another point in his description of the recovery, Morse states: "At least a dozen men armed with M-16s were assigned to guard at the ropes and no one was allowed to enter except the base commander, the security police squadron commander..." Again NIDS located both these individuals. Neither the base commander or the security police commander admitted any memory of the incident. Morse also identifies a "Colonel B" as the "bad guy" during his interrogation at WPAFB. The interrogation allegedly took place two days after the shooting incident. NIDS located and interviewed the same "Colonel B" who had been serving at McGuire AFB as a reserve JAG officer in 1978. As a part of this report, NIDS publishes the full transcript of the interview with "Colonel B" that indicates he had never heard of the shooting incident and secondly he claimed never to have set foot in WPAFB. Is NIDS Being Deceived? One initial expected outcome of this report may be a number of voices claiming NIDS is naïve and "of course senior military people are going to deny all knowledge." However, four senior military officers who were stationed at McGuire AFB at the time of the incident were interviewed by NIDS investigator Roger Pinson who has extensive training in interviewing and interrogation techniques as well as the detection of deception. All individuals were interviewed cold and possible hesitations, confabulations, or other idiosyncrasies were carefully anticipated and expected. The four military officers responded without hesitation and further, insisted that they should have known about the incident if it had occurred. The fifth interview, with the retired JAG colonel, was conducted and the transcript is provided as a part of this report. Again, no corroboration was obtained. The retired JAG colonel insisted that he had never ever set foot in WPAFB. NIDS then contacted one of the other investigators of this case regarding the discrepancies in the DD Form 1569 and were told that Morse maybe had made the form "as if it were real" for illustration purposes. This assertion however is contradicted by Stringfield's original description of the arrival of the DD Form 1569 in his 1985 MUFON Symposium article: "The next event came as a surprise by certified mail postmarked December 23, 1983. On the flap of the envelope it said 'Merry Christmas. I hope you like it.' Inside, was a Xeroxed copy of the Incident/Complaint Report (Form 1569) that Morse had hinted, by phone, he might be able to procure as important back-up. The Report was brief, but essentially contained the same story told by Morse. Prepared by Desk Sgt. WC and signed by 1st Lt. WS, it was channeled to Col. Landon, Commanding Officer of McGuire AFB; Brig. Gen. Brown, Hdq., 21st Air Force (at McGuire AFB); and the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI). It contained the names of the security policemen involved, including Morse, and the name of the MP assigned to Ft. Dix whom Morse later identified as the person having shot the alien intruder..." Later in his 1985 report, Stringfield continues his description of the DD Form 1569: "The document is avowedly not proof. For it to be established as bona fide would, in turn, require additional irretrievable reports, memoranda, tapes, ad infinitum. In this regard, however, Morse said on several occasions that he had attempted to obtain a later Form 1569 Report mentioned by the desk sergeant, but was unsuccessful. Nevertheless, the Incident/Complaint Report, as it stands, is a strong link of evidence not easily dismissed, even if denied officially or by any of its named personnel who might be coerced to so do." Therefore, the suggestion that Morse had created the document to show what an incident report would look like does not hold water. Hoaxed Cases with "Official" Documentation It is worth noting the historical context of the McGuire AFB case. The case first came to light in 1980, when Leonard Stringfield received a letter from Jeffrey Morse purportedly describing the incident. This was during the same period as the famous Bennewitz case. Bennewitz was a physicist who, in the late 1970s, began publicizing UFO activity around the Manzano nuclear weapons storage facility near Kirtland AFB in New Mexico. It was later documented that agents of the United States government had fed Bennewitz several fraudulent documents and false oral briefings designed to encourage Bennewitz to publicly declare that extraterrestrials were deeply involved in northern New Mexico. The purpose of this exercise was to discredit Bennewitz and thus distract interested parties from a series of classified programs that were ongoing near Kirtland AFB. The Kirtland AFB programs had nothing whatever to do with extraterrestrials, but agents of the United States government used the UFO topic to discredit Bennewitz, which in turn deflected attention away from the Manzano weapons storage facility near Kirtland AFB. Apparently this deception was successful. Apart from the incident at McGuire AFB, there are two other reports involving purported UFO incidents on official Air Force stationary that are known hoaxes. The first is Bob Pratt’s investigation of an alleged UFO landing at Ellsworth AFB in 1977. The investigation of the case is very well documented on Bob Pratt's web site: http://www.bobpratt.org/ellsworth.html. The Ellsworth incident allegedly happened in 1977 near Rapid City South Dakota and initially involved the anonymous mailing of an incident report form detailing a security violation involving a UFO and a non-human entity at a missile silo under the jurisdiction of Ellsworth AFB. Pratt's investigation as detailed on his web site and in correspondence with NIDS showed convincingly that the incident was a hoax and that the incident report form was a forgery. The second hoax is the famous "Hilltop memo" which was closely investigated and shown to be a fraudulent document. The Hilltop memo, dated November 1982, was written on "official" Department of the Air Force notepaper and allegedly described the landing of a UFO at a remote location near Kirtland AFB in New Mexico. The authenticity of the memo was examined by an extremely talented insider and shown to be a forgery on multiple counts. The individual who allegedly signed the letter was even contacted. The signature was not his. For a description of the discrepancies on the Hilltop memo, see: http://ufoconspiracy.com/reports/hilltop.htm NIDS is open to receiving further corroborative evidence that supports the reality of the 1978 McGuire AFB incident, but based on the principle of parsimony, the current hypothesis from this preliminary investigation is that the case is a hoax. The case is still pending.	What's New
Home