Silas Newton and Leo Gebauer — The Aztec UFO Principals

Silas Newton and Leo Gebauer — The Aztec UFO Principals

Silas M. Newton

Silas M. Newton was a Denver-based oilman and confidence man who served as the primary source for Frank Scully's Aztec crash account. Newton presented himself publicly as:

• A wealthy and successful geophysicist
• An oil industry executive with extensive legitimate holdings
• A personal acquaintance of senior government and military officials
• Someone with firsthand knowledge of classified UFO recovery operations

In reality, FBI files compiled on Newton during and after the Aztec affair revealed a long history of fraudulent oil leasing schemes and investor fraud dating to the 1930s. A 1970 FBI report noted that Newton was under indictment in Los Angeles for fraud and was returning to the Silver City, New Mexico area to organize what appeared to be a new mining swindle.

Newton's role in the Aztec scheme was primarily as public presenter and relationship cultivator. He was the face of the operation who cultivated Scully, delivered the Denver University lecture, and circulated in social and professional circles establishing his bona fides as a connected insider.

Leo A. Gebauer ("Dr. Gee")

Leo A. Gebauer was Newton's technical partner, identified in Scully's book only as "Dr. Gee." Gebauer presented himself as:

• A specialist in electronics and magnetics
• A former classified government scientist with direct involvement in UFO recovery operations
• The technical authority behind the doodlebug devices Newton was selling

Gebauer's claimed expertise in "geomagnetics" was central to the credibility of the fraudulent prospecting device scheme. By asserting that his instruments were derived from reverse-engineered alien technology recovered at Aztec and similar sites, he provided a compelling narrative explanation for why the devices supposedly worked in ways no conventional instrument could replicate.

The Doodlebug Scheme

The doodlebug was the name commonly applied in the oil industry to dowsing-style prospecting instruments that claimed to locate underground oil, gas, and mineral deposits through poorly understood or pseudo-scientific mechanisms. Newton and Gebauer marketed a version of these devices claiming they operated on principles derived from the recovered alien technology.

Their pitch to potential investors was elaborate and sophisticated:

• Claims of multiple UFO recovery events — Aztec being the largest and most significant
• Description of recovered technology including electromagnetic instruments
• Assertion that the government was suppressing the technology to protect oil industry interests
• Demonstrations of the devices "working" in controlled and manipulated settings

The scheme targeted wealthy individuals with interests in oil exploration. Among their victims was millionaire Herman Flader, whose eventual complaints to authorities triggered the criminal investigation that led to Newton and Gebauer's arrest.

Conviction and Aftermath

In December 1953, Silas Newton and Leo A. Gebauer were convicted of fraud and conspiracy in Denver. The conviction was treated by the UFO research community of the 1950s and 1960s as definitive closure on the Aztec case.

However, Newton's subsequent behavior — including returning to fraud operations in 1970 — raises the question of whether the Aztec crash story was purely invented or whether it was an embellishment of something real that Newton had genuinely heard about through his oil industry connections, which brought him into proximity with New Mexico government and military circles in the late 1940s.

The Government Disinformation Argument

A minority view, advanced primarily by Scott Ramsey, proposes that Newton and Gebauer were not simply independent fraudsters who happened to tell a story that touched on a real classified event — but that their exposure and prosecution was actively facilitated or amplified by government intelligence services who recognized the value of having the Aztec story permanently associated with convicted con men. Under this theory, the government did not plant the story with Newton and Gebauer but recognized the opportunity their genuine fraud presented to discredit a narrative that was dangerously close to the truth.