One of the most mysterious stories of a crashed UFO with alien bodies preceded the well known Roswell event by some six years. This case was first brought to investigators by Leo Stringfield in his book "UFO Crash / Retrievals: The Inner Sanctum."
He opened a tantalizing account of a military controlled UFO crash retrieval which is still being researched today. The details of the case were sent to him in a letter from one Charlette Mann, who related her minister-grandfather's deathbed confession of being summoned to pray over alien crash victims outside of Cape Girardeau, Missouri in the spring of 1941.
Reverend William Huffman had been an evangelist for many years, but had taken the resident minister reigns of the Red Star Baptist Church in early 1941. Church records corroborate his employment there during the period in question.
After receiving this call to duty, he was immediately driven the 10-15 mile journey to some woods outside of town. Upon arriving at the scene of the crash, he saw policemen, fire department personnel, FBI agents, and photographers already mulling through the wreckage.
He was soon asked to pray over three dead bodies. As he began to take in the activity around the area, his curiosity was first struck by the sight of the craft itself.
Expecting a small plane of some type, he was shocked to see that the craft was disc-shaped, and upon looking inside he saw hieroglyphic-like symbols, indecipherable to him.
He then was shown the three victims, not human as expected, but small alien bodies with large eyes, hardly a mouth or ears, and hairless.
Immediately after performing his duties, he was sworn to secrecy by military personnel who had taken charge of the crash area. He witnessed these warnings being given to others at the scene also.
As he arrived back at his home at 1530 Main Street, he was still in a state of mild shock, and could not keep his story from his wife Floy, and his sons. This late night family discussion would spawn the story that Charlette Mann would hear from her grandmother in 1984, as she lay dying of cancer at Charlette's home while undergoing radiation therapy.
Charlette was told the story over the span of several days, and although Charlette had heard bits and pieces of this story before, she now demanded the full details.
As her grandmother tolerated her last few days on this Earth, Charlette knew it was now or never to find out everything she could before this intriguing story was lost with the death of her grandmother.
She also learned that one of the members of her grandfather's congregation, thought to be Garland D. Fronabarger, had given him a photograph taken on the night of the crash. This picture was of one of the dead aliens being help up by two men.
Charlette Mann gave, in her own words, an account of what she knew for a television documentary. Some of that account is given here:
"I saw the picture originally from my dad who had gotten it from my grandfather who was a Baptist minister in Cape Girardeau Missouri in the Spring of ‘41. I saw that [picture] and asked my grandmother at a later time she was at my home fatally ill with cancer so we had a frank discussion.
"She said that grandfather was called out in the spring of 1941 in the evening around 9:00-9:30, that someone had been called out to a plane crash outside of town and would he be willing to go to minister to people there which he did."
"Upon arrival it was a very different situation. It was not a conventional aircraft, as we know it. He described it as a saucer that was metallic in color, no seams, did not look like anything he had seen. It had been broken open in one portion, and so he could walk up and see that.
"In looking in he saw a small metal chair, gauges and dials and things he had never seen. However, what impressed him most was around the inside there were inscriptions and writings, which he said he did not recognize, but were similar to Egyptian hieroglyphics."
"There were 3 entities, or non-human people, lying on the ground. Two were just outside the saucer, and a third one was further out. His understanding was that perhaps that third one was not dead on impact. There had been mention of a ball of fire, yet there was fire around the crash site, but none of the entities had been burned and so father did pray over them, giving them last rites.
"There were many people there, fire people, photographers, and so they lifted up one, and two men on either side stood him up and they stretched his arms out, they had him up under the armpits and out here.
As I recall from the picture I saw, he was about 4 feet tall, appeared to have no bone structure, soft looking. He had a suit on, or we assume it was a suit, it could have been his skin, and what looked like crinkled, soft aluminum foil. I recall it had very long hands, very long fingers, and I think there were three but I cannot swear to that."
“My grandfather upon arrival, said there were already several people there on the scene, two that he assumed were local photographers, fire people, and so not long after they arrived, military just showed up, surrounded the area, took them off in groups separately, and spoke to each of them.
"Grandfather didn't know what was said to the others, but he was told ‘this didn't happen, you didn't see this, this is national security, it is never to be talked about again.’
"My grandfather was an honorable man, being a preacher, that’s all that needed to be said to him. And so he came home and told the story to my dad, who was there, and my grandmother and my uncle. Now my mother was expecting at the time, so she was off in the bedroom."
"My sister was born May 3, 1941, so we are assuming this was the middle to the last of April. And he never spoke of it again. But about two weeks later, one of the men who had a personal camera that he had put in his shirt pocket, approached grandfather and said I think someone needs a copy of this.
"I have one and I would like you to keep one. So that's how it came about that grandfather had the picture to begin with. But he never spoke of it again. The other people seem to be very intimidated and very frightened and paranoid."
Other living supporting witnesses include Charlette Mann’s sister who confirmed her story in a notarized sworn affidavit, and the living brother of the Cape Girardeau County sheriff in 1941, Clarance R. Schade. He does remember hearing the account of the crash, yet does not have many details. He does recall hearing of a "spaceship with little people."
There are also Fire Department records of the date of the crash. This information does confirm the military swearing department members to secrecy, and also the removal of all evidence from the scene by military personnel.
Guy Huffman, Charlette's father also told the story of the crash, and had in his possession the photograph of the dead alien. He showed the picture to a photographer friend of his, Walter Wayne Fisk.
He has been contacted by Stanton Friedman, but would not release any pertinent information.
Charlette had no luck in getting Fish to return calls or answer letters. It has been rumored that Fisk was an advisor to the President, and if this was the case, would account for his silence on the facts of the Missouri crash.
This case ends like many others, but appears by all indications to be authentic. All who have come in contact with Charlette Mann found her to be a trustworthy person who is not given to sensationalism, and has sought no gain from her account.
There is still research being done on the Missouri crash, and hopefully more information will be forthcoming to validate this remarkable case.
(B J Booth)
Source: "UFO Crash Retrievals: The Inner Sanctum," by Leo Stringfield.
ADDENDUM: 02-18-04 - Local UFO probe Researcher seeks answers to report of crash in 1941
By Peggy O'Farrel, Southeast Missourian
A Virginia man is investigating the possibility that a UFO crashed near Cape Girardeau in 1941. "That would be six years before Roswell," said James Westwood of Centreville, Va., referring to the 1947 incident in which the government allegedly recovered and then covered up a UFO crash in New Mexico.
"That would put Cape Girardeau County on the UFO map," he said.
Southeast Missouri already is known for UFO activity. Dr. Harley Rutledge, a former chairman of the physics department at Southeast Missouri State University who is now retired, has investigated reports of strange sights seen flying through the skies near Piedmont and other UFO reports.
"Project Identification: The First Scientific Field Study of UFO Phenomena," outlines Rutledge's research.
Westwood said Rutledge told him he has not heard of the 1941 incident. Westwood, a retired Navy man and engineer, is looking for people who may remember an incident from 1941 when some type of aircraft reportedly crashed approximately 3 to 15 miles outside Cape Girardeau.
Westwood bases his investigation on an account by Charlotte Mann, a Texas woman whose grandfather, the Rev. William Huffman, was the pastor of Red Star Baptist Church from 1941 to 1944.
Leonard H. Stringifield, a renowned UFO investigator, recounted Mann's story in the July 1991 issue of his "Status Report," a monthly publication on UFO activities and investigations.
Mann told Stringfield her grandfather got a call one spring night from police asking him to accompany them to the site of an airplane crash outside town in case the victims needed a clergyman.
"A car was sent to get him, but grandmother said it wasn't a police car," Mann said in Stingfield's recounting of the story.
"When Huffman got to the crash scene, Mann said, he noticed one piece of the wreckage that appeared to have a rounded shape with no edges or seams," and a "very shiny, metallic finish."
"Police officers, plainclothes men, and military officers were already at the scene sifting through the wreckage, Mann said. Laid to one side of the scene were "three bodies, not human," she recounted.
"It was hard for him to tell if they had on suits or if it was their skin, but they were covered head to foot in what looked like wrinkled aluminum foil," Mann said.
"He could see no hair on their bodies and they had no ears. They were small framed like a child, about 4 feet tall, but had larger heads and longer arms."
Their faces had large, oval-shaped eyes, no noses, just holes and no lips, just small slits for mouths," Mann said.
Huffman was told by one of the military officers at the scene not to tell anyone what he had witnessed for security reasons, Mann told Stringfield. Huffman told his wife, Floy, and their two sons what he had seen when he returned home from the crash site, but never spoke of it again, said Mann.
Huffman died in 1959. His wife, who died in 1984, told Mann the story. A few weeks after the crash, Huffman was apparently given a photo of two men holding one of the corpses found at the scene. Mann's father loaned the photo to a friend but never saw it again.
Now Westwood, who read Mann's account in Stringfield's publication, is looking for others who may remember hearing about the crash. "What you need here is another source, at least one other person who says, I sort of remember this," Westwood said.
"Even if it's a second-hand account, you've at least got another source."
"Mann's account says the crash happened in the spring. Westwood speculates it may actually have happened in the fall because of the mention of a field fire caused by the crash. In the spring, he reasons, vegetation would have been too wet to burn easily. "But in the fall, it's very dry," he said.
He also speculates the military officers on the scene may have been called in from an Army Air Corps base in Sikeston at the time. If the crash happened, the military and police wouldn't have known what they were looking at, Westwood said, because Roswell and the other early UFO sightings hadn't happened.
And the incident may have been covered up for military security reasons since the U.S. was gearing up for World War II, he said.
"It wouldn't be implausible" for the incident to have been reported as an airplane crash," Westwood said.
Westwood began researching Mann's story at the beginning of the year. He has been in Cape Girardeau for the last week reviewing local records and looking for potential sources. He hasn't had much luck. So far no one he has talked to has admitted to knowing anything.
"There isn't anything that I would consider even close," Westwood said.
He found a report of a student pilot's airplane crash near Morley in Scott County in May 1941, and a local pilot told him about another crash near Oak Ridge that happened in spring 1941.
The other problem is the Huffmans left the area not long after the alleged crash. The Cape Girardeau city directory lists the Huffmans from 1942 to 1944, but they aren't listed in the 1945 directory.
Records from the Southeast Missourian say Huffman became the pastor of the church in September 1941.
And Stringfield, who investigated hundreds of reports of UFO crashes and retrievals, died in 1994. His family has refused to release his files to other researchers.
Westwood says he has never seen a UFO or been in contact with extraterrestrials.
"There's no doubt in my mind that UFOs are real flying objects from outer space," he said. He points to similarities in thousands of sightings and reports from people who have reported having contact with extraterrestrials as evidence that something is out there."
But what he calls the "cultism" surrounding the study of UFOs and false reports by attention-seeking hysterics detracts from evidence given by witnesses or people who claim contact, Westwood says, "aren't any crazier than anybody else."
Tracing UFO reports is "an interesting kind of detective story," Westwood said.
"It's a Sherlock Holmes kind of thing in which you have to sort through a lot of BS looking for those nuggets.
"In the end, some of the things fit, and some things don't."
The Roswell crash and recovery isn't the only UFO crash in the annals of the study of UFOs, Westwood said. "It's just the best known," he said.
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