UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN

by Charles Lear

In the early years of the flying saucer mystery, the U.S. Air Force was the only organization doing any sort of significant investigation. Then, in 1952, a number of private groups were organized and the first citizen investigators went into the field and endeavored to solve the mystery for themselves. The first of these to rise to global attention was the International Flying Saucer Bureau, founded by Albert K. Bender. They put out a quarterly publication called Space Review, and were taken seriously by their fellow enthusiasts. They didn’t last long, however, as Bender put an end to his creation in 1953 after telling his followers he had solved the mystery. He later informed them he’d been visited by three men wearing black suits and homburg hats, who’d threatened him into keeping silent about his discovery. The mythos of the Men in Black entered flying saucer lore and the Bender Mystery became a subject that is still being debated today.

Albert K. Bender was born on July 16, 1921 in Duryea, Pennsylvania. What the “K” stood for seems to be part of the mystery. He served stateside as a dental technician in the U.S. Army Air Forces from June 8, 1942 to Oct. 7, 1943. He was stationed at Langley Field, Virginia. After his service, he moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut with his mother and stepfather. His mother died shortly thereafter.

Bender lived in the attic, which had a bedroom and a den. He was employed as the chief timekeeper at the Acme Shear Company. It may have been a conscious nod to his profession or just an ironic coincidence, but Bender had twenty clocks in his living space that all would ring, chime and clang every fifteen minutes.

The clocks were just one of the many manifestations of Bender’s eccentric nature that increasingly expressed itself as he entered his late twenties. He was a fan of horror movies, ghost stories and the occult. He adorned his attic space with Halloween decorations, fake skulls, shrunken heads, rubber spiders and snakes, and his own macabre paintings. When friends came over, he put on recordings of spooky noises and enjoyed showing off what he called his “Chamber of Horrors.” His offbeat interests and living space were interesting enough that an article was written about him and published in the May 25, 1952 Sunday Herald, a local Bridgeport newspaper.

Flying saucers were added to Bender’s list of interests and they eventually became his chief interest. Bender and some friends formed the IFSB in April 1952 and its membership quickly grew beyond the borders of Connecticut. The first Space Review, put out in Oct. 1952, included a list of representatives in 14 states and one in Ontario, Canada. Bender had a letter announcing the formation of the group published in the Dec. 1952 issue of the Ray Palmer publication, Other Worlds. The letter captured the attention of Flatwoods Monster investigator, Gray Barker, who contacted Bender and expressed his desire to become a member. Bender convinced him to become the state representative for West Virginia.

Barker would later become the chief investigator for the organization and he became good friends with many in the group. By this time, the group had lived up to its name and was truly international. There were chapters in South America, Europe, and the IFSB was in contact with newly formed organizations in Australia and New Zealand. They inspired people all around the world to form their own groups and citizen investigators were here to stay. The IFSB, however, was not. Barker wrote about the events leading to its demise in his 1956 book, “They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers.”

According to Barker in his book, he received a letter from Bender dated Sept. 16, 1953. It contained the mysterious instruction not to accept any more memberships until he’d seen the Oct. issue of Space Review. He then received a letter on tape from New Jersey based member, Domonic Lucchesi. This was common among members as, according to Barker, a saucer investigator without a tape recorder “is considered almost a non-entity.”

Lucchesi described being present when fellow member August C. Roberts called Bender to cancel their planned visit because of car troubles. In the course of the conversation it came out that Bender was unsure whether there would be another issue of Space Review after October. Bender then said he’d discovered the secret of the flying disks and told Roberts about the visit by the three men. He said they confiscated his copies of back issues of the magazine and, as an American citizen, he was sworn to secrecy about his discovery.

In the Oct. 1953 Space Review, Bender announced, “The mystery of flying saucers is no longer a mystery.” He apologized for not being able to elaborate saying, “because of the nature of the information we have been advised in the negative.”

Barker got in touch with Roberts and suggested Roberts and Lucchesi go to Connecticut and speak to Bender in person. Barker emphasized it was important they remember everything that was said. They were sure Bender wouldn’t allow a tape recorder or a note pad and Barker suggested Roberts should slip away to the bathroom periodically where he could make notes unseen. He could tell Bender he’d taken a laxative or had bowel issues. Roberts complained he wasn’t a good actor and Barker suggested he should actually take a laxative.

Roberts and Lucchesi interviewed Bender and, while they didn’t get the answer to the mystery, they did get some interesting replies to some of their questions. He told them the government had known what the saucers were for two years and if they didn’t tell the public in the next five months, it would be four years before they did so.

After the Oct. 1953 issue, only three more issues of Space Review were published. These were for the members that didn’t want refunds. Flying saucers were not even mentioned and the articles focused solely on space. The IFSB was closed.

Barker was putting out his own magazine, The Saucerian, and he reached out to his readers to help him solve the Bender Mystery. Some of them speculated but no one came up with a convincing explanation.

The Aerial Phenomena Research Organization had formed in the fall of 1951 just prior to IFSB. APRO’s director, Coral Lorenzen, offered the suggestion in the Nov. 15, 1953 APRO Bulletin that a pulp magazine publisher (Ray Palmer?) had been funding IFSB and had backed out. Lorenzen reasoned that with no funds to run the organization, Bender had made up the story in order to be done with it. Barker assures the reader in his book that this was not the case.

David Houchin, curator of the Gray Barker collection at the Clarksburg-Harrison Public Library in West Virginia, came up with a theory during a Gray Barker tribute on the radio show “Exploring the Bizarre.” Houchin presents a scenario based on two letters to Bender that are housed in the collection. According to him, a man in Clarksburg suffered an epileptic seizure and was taken to the hospital. Someone had taken his wallet but he had Barker’s IFSB business card on him. An official visited Barker and interviewed him in an attempt to identify the man. Barker claims in his book that the official showed him FBI credentials while Houchin feels he was probably a local police detective. Barker got paranoid, called Bender and got no answer because Bender was on vacation. He then wrote to Bender that he’d been investigated by the FBI and others should expect the same. Barker also called Washington, DC based member Rev. S. L. Daw, and gave him the same information. Daw had been seeing flying saucers everywhere, was taking pictures and some of them were taken at a restricted site. The day after Barker called him, three actual FBI agents visited him and he wrote a letter to Bender to tell him about it.

Bender came back from his vacation to find Barker’s and Daw’s letter waiting for him. Houchin suggests this panicked Bender and he adopted Daw’s three-man scenario as an excuse to shut down the organization.

Barker played up the paranoia in his book and the MiB mythos took root. Bender wrote his own book, “Flying Saucers and the Three Men”, which was published by Barker through his Saucerian Books in 1962. In Bender’s book, the three men become three ethereal creatures with glowing eyes from the planet Kazik, pronounced with a long “a” and a silent “z.” Could Kazik have been what the mysterious “K” stood for in Bender’s name? Bender’s book was met with dubiousness by most in the flying saucer community.

There are now three major speculations making the rounds in UFOlogical and paranormal discussions on radio, the web and in literature. One is that Bender came up with a story to get out of the flying saucer business, one is that he was visited by MiB of either governmental or extraterrestrial origin and the third is that his interest in the occult caused him to call up some entities he couldn’t get rid of. Where one comes down on the Bender Mystery is a good indication of one’s place in the world of the paranormal.

Some of the most sensational UFO accounts are those that revolve around these strange craft coming down to earth. The Dreamy Draw Recreation Area, in the U.S. state of Arizona, is a rugged desert park next to Piestewa Peak, formerly called Squaw Peak Mountain. The area is known for its quaint beauty, hiking and horseback riding trails, and opportunities for all manner of outdoor activities. Looking out over these vistas tales of UFOs and aliens might be the furthest thing from one’s mind, but if the local lore is to be believed this was the site of a very unusual case in which a UFO came crashing down to earth, complete with alien bodies and which according to some is still there somewhere.

The story begins in 1947, in fact not all that long after the more famous alleged UFO crash at Roswell. While the story has changed into slightly different variations over the years, the main lore has it that in October of that year, two men by the names of Silas Newton and “Dr. Gee” witnessed a strange object come thundering down to earth to crash near the mountain, and the curious pair went to investigate. They supposedly arrived to find strange wreckage and the area strewn with several bodies of four-and-a-half-foot tall humanoid creatures with oversized heads, all of them dead. The men purportedly then collected these bodies and stowed them in a meat freezer until they could figure out what to do with them and who to tell. Apparently, they wouldn’t have the chance to tell anyone, as the men were soon after visited by mysterious men in black suits, who whisked the bodies away and told the witnesses in no uncertain terms that they were not to say a word to anyone about what they had seen and found.

Dreamy Draw Recreational Area

After this, the story goes that the government moved into the area with U.S. Army personnel, and not only that, but the Army Corps of Engineers had then went about building the Dreamy Draw dam right over the remains of the fallen spacecraft. It is said that the place didn’t need a dam at all, and the only reason it was built at all was to cover up the evidence of the crash, at least according to the tale. The case is most well-known from the 1950 book Behind the Flying Saucers, by Frank Scully, but there have been numerous people since then who have stepped forward with further information on the otherworldly events. One letter sent into Legends Magazine is from an anonymous sender who has a lot to say about the site, and the letter reads:

I have more to add on the crash at dreamy draw. I’ve been hiking there for years and have noticed the bizarre features at the water retention site – built by the U.S. Army corps, – the dam area – which is off limits to all, has an “excessive” amount of posted signs – threatening 5yrs/$10,000 fine every 50 ft, there is also electronic monitoring of the “vault” – which is more like a concrete “bunker”- from WWII, this pillbox is located at the low point inside the “fake” retention area. Firstly, I’ve never seen any water there, for its location is not where watershed from squaw-peak mtn could be trapped. Why is it there? Behind a huge iron door inside the bunker, [I believe] grants entry to inside the vault to monitor / keep secure what is entombed within the dam structure itself. There is a spillway on the outside of dam – you can’t get near it – but its fake, made to look functional. Most of all, I know how un-thorough the government has been with crash site clean-up, maybe they couldn’t get everything – just west of secure area, there’s a hill with a rocky out-cropping and underneath in the shady areas, mold is growing – abnormally diverse and thick, shouldn’t even be there, I’ve counted 5 types/colors, its bizarre – nowhere on that mountain/trails, have I seen moss/fungus so pronounced.

Closer looking around the outcrop, I noticed the rocks in places, looked more like metal than rocks, silverish – some kind of liquid had made contact and dripped down inside the crevices, I pulled some of the rocks from the fissures and found it more abundant as it had clotted up in places. It looked organic, but nothing you could identify it with, this stuff now dried up was obviously a liquid at one time, must have been like soup, thicker than water – in the way it pooled down in the cracks of rock. The dried-goo was opaque/pearl green and I noticed it had reacted different to various rock types, the soft sandstone shale it bonded with/ dried on top, the harder quartz looked like a corrosive had made contact and pitted/dissolved areas like acid, this didn’t make much sense

I selected some of the more “choice” examples and decided to hike back to the truck with them – cradled in my right forearm. I placed them on a floor matte in the truck-bed & drove home. Driving down the freeway I started rubbed my arm-not thinking about it like a tickle/itch, after doing this for some time I said to myself – “what is it” like a insect bite or something, realizing those rocks had rested there for approx 10 min hiking back, it was like cleaning your battery posts and making contact with the acid on your elbow or something- there was a welt there and so I washed it in the kitchen sink, but then decided to shower, it vanished quickly. A few days later, “the rocks”- disappeared from the side of my house, I later found my girlfriend had put them out in the yard as landscaping decor – adding they looked cool there, and liked the “weird colors”. I only go hiking on the weekends, but haven’t been in a few weeks – its been hot! I been to the out cropping 4 times and every time I return, I’ve noticed something more to add to the story.

What is going on here and is this person for real? There have also been reports of people in the area of the dam reporting strange phenomena such as sudden spells of dizziness or inexplicable panic attacks, as well as those who claim to hear an inexplicable humming in the area. One witness calling himself Trevor Freeman has said of his own experience with this to Weird Arizona:

So I went to check this place out after school. It’s Monday afternoon, hardly anybody is around. I’m pedaling around on my bike and I find the dam. It’s fenced off pretty well and there are LOTS of No Trespassing signs everywhere. Pretty high security for an earthen dam with no water behind it! I take some pictures, look around, and I see the outfall of the dam buried in the bushes. I ride around to the other side and hike down into the low area. There’s a large concrete box with a fence on 3 sides. As I am getting down towards the bottom, I hear this steady, low-pitched humming noise. I can’t figure out what it is! Is there really a UFO buried beneath this thing? As I glance around to see if anyone’s watching, a plane crosses the sky. The place is not TOO far from the airport, but it’s still close enough to hear jets taking off. That’s probably what I heard. The lesson is that you’ll never realize how much weird stuff is out there until you start looking!

It is all very intriguing, and the idea that a UFO crashed here and was covered up by a dam really stirs the imagination, but there are definitely cracks in the tale. One is that the supposed UFO crash doesn’t seem to have ever been covered by any actual news agency at the time. Everything we know about it comes from unverifiable accounts, secondhand reports, and rumors, as well as brief mentions in Scully’s book Beyond Flying Saucers, as well as Timothy Good’s 1987 book Above Top Secret, and little else. Also a rather glaring hole in the story is that it seems that the dam was actually not built until 1973, which seems to put to rest the allegations that it was made to cover up a 1947 UFO crash. UFO researcher and journalist Alejandro Rojas has dug into the case by visiting the area and poking around, and he has come away frustrated, saying:

What I sought to do is figure out what happened at Dreamy Draw… all I could find is there were rumors, there was a witness who claimed to have seen something happen either in Cave Creek or Paradise Valley or Dreamy Draw. Unfortunately, before I could speak to this witness directly he passed away.

Yet the conspiracy theories and reports remain, and there are even those who insist that the dam was not built in 1973, but rather much earlier, with the date of construction itself said to have been altered in order to aid the cover-up. The same goes for newspaper reports, with it being suggested that the same mysterious men in black who visited the original witnesses also went about silencing any news stories that might appear. It has also been pointed out that the whole Dreamy Draw Dam area is very locked up and plastered with no trespassing signs beyond what one would expect for a dam. Is there anything to this story, or is it merely a piece of UFO urban legend? We may never know for sure, and although this is most likely a tall tale, it has still managed to enter the lore of UFO crashes.

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