by Noe Torres
Hamilton called his son Wall and another man that lived on the ranch, Gid Heslip, for assistance. The three men grabbed some axes and ran for the corral. As they ran closer to the airship they could hear the “beings” talking in a strange language which they could not understand.
Photo Courtesy of T. Voekler & Wikipedia
The strange craft then shone a bright spotlight on the group and got closer. It was then that the three men noticed a poor calf with a cable around its neck being hauled up into the airship. For the moment, the poor calf seemed to be caught in the fence, so the trio of men bravely tried to cut her loose. But it was no use. They could not cut the cable and watched helplessly as the airship drifted away from them taking the poor calf with them.
The next day Lank Thomas, who lived several miles from the Hamilton farm, found the calf’s butchered remains on his property. There were no tracks around it, so it was if it had been lowered or dropped to the ground from the air.
Soon the newspapers picked up on the story and created quite a stir. There was even an affidavit issued attesting to Hamilton’s honesty, which said:
“As there are now, always have been, and always will be skeptics and unbelievers, whenever the truth of anything bordering on the improbable is presented, and knowing that some ignorant or superstitious people will doubt the truthfulness of the above account, now, therefore, we, the undersigned, do hereby make the following affidavit. That we have known Alex Hamilton from fifteen to thirty years and that for truth and veracity have never heard his word questioned and that we do verily believe his statement to be true and correct.”
The Yates Center Farmer’s Advocate said, “Mr. Hamilton looked as if he had not entirely recovered from the shock and everyone who knew him was convinced he was sincere in every word.”
However, in the 1940s, the truth about the story came out. You see, Hamilton was part of something called a Liar’s Club. A Liar’s Club was a group of men who went about telling tall tales and seeing who could outdo one another. Well, Hamilton out did them all. So much so that the Liar’s Club broke up after his story went public. Actually, it is possible that fellow members of the Liar’s Club were the ones to sign the affidavit attesting to Hamilton’s truthfulness.
The truth came out in 1943 in an old Kansas newspaper, the Enterprise. In it, the editor of the Yates Center Farmer’s Advocate, F. Hudson, came clean and admitted knowing that Hamilton’s airship story was a fake all the way back when he published it! And how did Hudson know this? He was with his friend Hamilton when he made up the story.
But what inspired Hamilton to make up such a strange story? The previous year, 1896, had been the year of the great airship wave, with newspapers reporting on the mystery craft often. Also, back in the Old West there was something called cattle rustling. To rustle cattle a thief would come along, steal someone’s cattle, change the cattle’s brand (the marks that showed who it belonged to) to something else, and then sell it. Most likely Hamilton thought it would be funny to have one of the famous airships “rustle” his cattle.
There also exists a similar story that pre-dates this one. It supposedly occurred in 1896 and took place on a farm in Howell County, Missouri. The story was told by an old woman, Pearl Chenoweth, to the Missouri Historical Society before she died in 1984. At the time of her UFO sighting in 1896, Pearl was a young girl who along with her brother Ben saw a bright circle of lights “swirling” around in the air. The two siblings ran to get their parents and together they all watched the saucer like object hover over the family barn with a blinding light.
The family ran to their living room in fear where they prayed for safety. Later, Pearl’s father got up to go look outside and the craft was gone. The next day the family went out to investigate the spot where the UFO had been hovering. They were shocked to find burnt grass and three dead steers.
They described the dead steers as, “completely drained of blood. The only marks on them were some dried blood on their throats from two puncture holes in the jugular vein; these looked as though they had been made by a two-tined fork…”
Pearl Chenoweth continued to relate how the newspaper from St. Louis related several similar stories all happening on the same night across Missouri. In each case a bright circle of light hovered over the cattle, and no matter how many cattle there were to take the next morning only three were found on each ranch dead, all drained of blood just like the cows found by Pearl and her family. Some speculated whatever was killing the cattle were blood-sucking extraterrestrials. In other words, alien vampires.
However, researchers today have never been able to find the newspapers that Mrs. Chenoweth described. This leads some to say that she got her dates wrong, and therefore that specific newspaper issue is harder to find. Others actually think Mrs. Chenoweth’s story was inspired by the made up one by Alex Hamilton. After all, it was 1897 when Hamilton’s story was published in newspapers across the country, including ones in Missouri. Perhaps Mrs. Chenoweth got her date wrong and actually meant 1897. On the other hand, even if she did read Hamilton’s story in the newspaper, why would she then make up a story that she herself had seen a UFO? It is a confusing matter for certain.
And as for Hamilton, even though his story was proven to be a hoax, isn’t it an even odder coincidence that later in the 20th century, many cattle reportedly were mutilated, possibly by extraterrestrials, all across the world?
Afterword: The Cactus That Ate the World
It was a sunny day in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and Pat Garrett was having a big argument. Some of you may remember the name Pat Garrett. He was the Sheriff who in 1891 shot and killed the Old West’s most notorious outlaw, 21-year-old Billy the Kid.
The year was now 1908, almost thirty years after Garrett killed the Kid, and Garrett was having a squabble with another 21-year-old, Jesse Wayne Brazel. Garrett was angry because Brazel had driven goats onto Garrett’s land, and the goats were eating his grass.
This may not sound like a fantastic story now, but would you find it more interesting to know that this argument had been planned out by a group of conspirators who wanted Pat Garrett dead? One of the conspirators was even a well-known lawyer, who some said was the most powerful man in Southern New Mexico, Albert Bacon Fall.
You see, several months earlier Fall and his fellow conspirators had gotten together to discuss a way to get rid of Garrett, the once famous lawman. To do so they called in an Old West assassin by the name of “Killer” Jim Miller. Miller agreed to kill Garrett for $5,000, just as long as it never got blamed on him.
This is where Jesse Wayne Brazel and his goats came in. The goats running loose on Garrett’s land was merely an excuse to get Garrett out in the open on a lonely road nearby his land. There in the distance, while Brazel and Garrett argued about the goats, Miller, the hired assassin, waited with his rifle at a safe distance.
At the right moment, Miller fired, killing the famous lawman. Jesse Brazel then went into town to see the sheriff. There, he claimed that he had shot Garrett in self-defense when Garrett became violent. Brazel even had a witness, Carl Adamson, who lied on Brazel’s behalf, claiming that Brazel shot Garrett in self-defense.
Rancher W.W. “Mack” Brazel in 1947 (Courtesy of HSSNM and the Roswell Daily Record)
The Old West conspiracy worked. Brazel went free and so did “Killer” Miller, the real assassin. At least that’s how the legend goes. As with any good story, there are several different versions.
But, you may ask, what does this story have to do with UFOs? Well, we’ll get to that, too. In the year 1947, the term flying saucer was finally adopted to describe UFOs. No longer were mysterious things in the air called “airships” or “flying dragons.” This happened after a man named Kenneth Arnold saw several flying saucers from out his window while he was flying an airplane. His sighting became a media sensation. Now just about everyone knew what UFOs and flying saucers were.
People all over the country began to see them. Newspapers even began offering rewards for pro
of of one. Eventually one man did find proof. His name was William “Mack” Brazel, a cousin of Jesse Wayne Brazel. Like his cousin, Mack would become involved in one of the greatest conspiracies of all time, the Roswell Incident, which is widely recognized as the world’s most famous UFO case.
Mack Brazel was a cowboy who watched over a sheep ranch near a little town called Corona, about 75 miles northwest of Roswell, New Mexico. Mack was born in 1899, just as the Old West was coming to an end. By 1947, when this story happened he was about 48 years old. On a stormy July night in 1947 Mack heard an explosion in the sky that wasn’t thunder. The next day, his ranch was covered in strange metallic wreckage. What made it so strange was that when you crumpled the thin metal up in your hand, it would unfold perfectly smooth without even a wrinkle!
But that’s not all that Mack found. At another site he discovered the bodies of strange beings. They were short, grey-skinned, and had large heads and eyes. It was as if an alien craft had exploded over his ranch dumping out the wreckage and the bodies.
Not knowing what to do, Mack took samples of the wreckage to Roswell, the nearest big city. It was a decision Mack would regret. Soon the military found out about Mack and his wreckage. Instead of treating him like a hero, the military took Mack into custody and held him prisoner for over a week!
Most people today believe that an alien craft exploded over Mack’s ranch, and then the rest of the craft crashed at a location closer to Roswell. Each year, thousands of visitors from all over the world go to Roswell to commemorate the UFO crash. However, the military claimed that what crashed there in 1947 was just a weather balloon. In order to cover up the UFO crash, the military persuaded Mack Brazel to change his original story and tell people that what he found on his ranch was really just a balloon.
Before the military talked to him, Mack claimed what he found was pieces of a flying saucer and alien bodies. After the military took him into custody and held him for a week under intense interrogation, he apparently agreed to tell the military’s version of the story.
This was known as the great cover-up. For a time, it worked and people really did think it was a weather balloon after all, but later, in the 1970s, people began to doubt that story when many eyewitnesses started coming forward and giving testimony about what they saw in Roswell in 1947.
As for Mack, the military eventually let him go, but he was never the same after. The town of Roswell, on the other hand, now considers the UFO crash, whether it’s real or not, to be the best thing that ever happened to it. Every year in July people gather in Roswell to celebrate a UFO Festival, and the town is now known as the UFO Capital of the World.
Because it is now associated with all things alien, Roswell occasionally has some very strange things happen there even today. For instance, a few years ago a strange rock was found outside of Roswell. What made it so strange was that it had a crop-circle engraved on it that matches a crop-circle found all the way in England! Also adding to the rock’s mystery is the fact that when put under a magnet it would spin round and round.
More recently, KRQE news reported on an even stranger find in Roswell -- the alien cactus. David Salman, a scientist who studies plants, was collecting seeds outside of Roswell in the spring of 2010 when he noticed a faint glow coming from an old meteor crater. Inching closer to the crater, the botanist discovered that the eerie glow was coming from a group of nearly 1,000 small cacti (that’s plural for cactus)!
What’s more, the botanist went on to speculate that the strange cacti might have come on the meteor and possibly are carnivorous, just like a Venus Fly Trap. Another theory put forth by the botanist was maybe the cacti came to earth as seeds or spores on the meteor that scattered upon impact.
On a return visit to the crater, Salman said the cacti had spread out and multiplied, moving away from the crater. How soon might they come to your town? Probably never.
You see, even though Salman claims to have found these cacti in 2010, he didn’t release the story until April Fool’s Day, 2011. “The cactus that ate the world,” Albuquerque newsman Dick Knipfing said jokingly. Well put, Mr. Knipfing, well put.
Like many of the incredible tales we’ve heard about UFO encounters in the Old West, we remain uncertain whether they are true or were merely the equivalent of somebody’s strange April Fool’s joke.
About the Artists
We would like to acknowledge the gifted artists who made outstanding contributions to this book. The artist whose illustrations appear at the start of each chapter, Neil Riebe, is an author and illustrator living in Madison, Wisconsin. He has written articles and short stories for G-Fan Magazine, Prehistoric Times, Goldenvisions, Sounds of the Night, Japanese Giants of Filmland and several short story anthologies. His illustrations appear in Towns of Lincoln County by Arcadia Publishing, several role playing games, and Roswell, USA: Towns That Celebrate UFOs, Lake Monsters, Bigfoot and Other Weirdness. He can be contacted at [email protected] or just search “Neil Riebe” on Facebook.com.
Shane Olive is a retired firefighter living in Roswell, New Mexico. He has worked in illustrating for over 30 years. His past works include book covers, VHS box art, and illustrations for various magazines, including TV Guide.
Jared Olive, who also contributed several illustrations for this book, is the son of Shane Olive and is a firefighter in Roswell. He has designed t-shirts and logos for products sold in Roswell gift shops, but this is his first major illustrative work.
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Ultimate Guide to the Roswell UFO Crash
Now Available at RoswellBooks.com
Best-selling author Peter Robbins says about our book, “The Ultimate Guide is deeply informative, well illustrated and consistently interesting. This is American history most Americans are completely unaware of and a public service to anyone who wants to walk the walk and experience the Roswell story via the actual locations where it occurred. Bravo Noe Torres and E.J. Wilson!”
Veteran Roswell researcher Kevin Randle says: “If you are planning to visit Roswell, this book tells you all you need to know about the UFO crash, the city and its character. It condenses the confusion of the case into an easily read book that will help anyone make the most of a visit to city and help understand what actually happened. A very nice addition to the Roswell literature.”
For the first time ever, each of Roswell's UFO landmarks is carefully explored through witness interviews, photographs, and maps. The amazing story of the Roswell UFO crash is finally revealed by a close examination of where everything happened. Follow the trail of the world's most fascinating UFO case by walking in the very places where the eerie events of 1947 unfolded.