The Frank Scully "Crashed Saucer at Aztec" Hoax (1950)
Robert Sheaffer - The Debunker's Domain
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In 1950, Frank Scully's book Behind the Flying Saucers was published. It was the first to claim that a saucer had been recovered by the U. S. government. You can read it as an E-book here.
From my book, UFO Sightings:
"The crashed-saucer stories first began to circulate in 1950, when a mysterious figure delivered a lecture to an undergraduate science class at the University of Denver. He regaled his audience with tales of a crashed saucer that reportedly had been examined in minute detail by U.S. officials. Theatrical writer Frank Scully very quickly put together a book on the incident titled Behind the Flying Saucers, creating a nationwide sensation. In the Scully book, we read that government scientists have learned that saucers utilize "magnetic" propulsion and derive their energy from following "magnetic lines of force" (an absurdity, say physicists), and that all of the saucer's dimensions were evenlyly divisible by nine (but apparently only when measured by the English system of inches, feet, and yards). The bodies of the craft's occupant, looking very much like earthly midgets, were said to have been dressed in 1890-style clothing. Scully identified the anonymous lecturer as Silas M. Newton, a supposed oil millionaire, and Newton's mysterious "scientific" source, "Dr. Gee," who was later identified as Leo A. Gebauer. Both Newton and GeBauer were indicted two years later for a scheme in which they allegedly tried to swindle an unsuspecting investor into buying a worthless device for "detecting oil."' Journalist J. P. Cahn, whose investigations exposed the swindles of Newton and Gebauer, explained to me much later that the purpose of the UFO fable was to expand their "sucker list." When credulous letters sent to Scully and forwarded to Newton and GeBauer suggested that the sender had money, the latter would contact the sender to regale him with stories of saucer crashes - and of fantastic new devices for discovering oil."
I got this clipping (right) from J.P. Cahn, I don't know its origin. Scully was a devout Catholic. Paul Kimball gives us a very interesting and insightful look at Scully's career and reputation.
Browse official government records containing "the FBI’s investigations into Newton’s fraudulent activities between 1951 and 1970." According to the FBI, "Silas Newton (1887-1972) was a wealthy oil producer and con-man who claimed that he had a gadget that could detect minerals and oil." Newton's first arrest was as far back as 1931.
A very unusual story about Silas Newton's brief marriage in 1939. A red-hot lover apparently he was not!
Cahn Talk Part 1 46 minutes
Cahn Talk Part 2 45 minutes
