Editing Noted Expert Finds Account Convincing (section)

== The Story Begins ==

The second part of the Springfield newspaper, dated December 9th, 1990 is as follows:

Titled: Fact or Fantasy? Springfieldian seeks validation of UFO encounter 43 years ago.
  
Written by: Mike O'Brien

ALSO NOTE: the actual newspaper article shows a scene of the UFO crash drawn by Gerald Anderson and also a sketch of a creature he believes was a visitor from another galaxy.


To a 5-year-old kid from Indianapolis, the mountains and mesas and vast scrubland surrounding Albuquerque seemed an alien world.

"I was in awe" recalls Gerald Anderson of his arrival in New Mexico with his family in July 1947. "I was in the wild frontier. There were real, live Indians out there."

Then says Anderson, on his second day in the Southwest he bumped into real,live creatures from a truly alien world.

There were four -- two dead, on dying, one apparently uninjured. The creatures were about 4 feet tall, with heads disproportionately large for their bodies by human measure and almond-shaped, coal black eyes. They huddled in the shadow of 50-ft-diameter silver disk - a "flying saucer" that had crashed into a low hillside on the rim of what locals call the Plains of San Augustin.

Anderson, a former police chief at Rockaway Beach and Taney County deputy sheriff who now works as a security officer in Springfield, is adamant about events on the hot midsummer day so long ago.

"I saw them. I even touched one of the creatures. I put my hand on their ship. And I wasn't alone - my dad, my uncle, my brother and my cousin all saw the same things. And so did a lot of other people. But they aren't talking.

Anderson is talking, publicly, after 43 years of silence.

Among those listening most intently are some of the foremost researchers into unidentified flying object (UFO phenomena. These experts say Gerald Anderson appears to be an important link in a frustratingly fragmented chain of evidence concerning the most famous - or infamous - chapter in UFO annals: the so called "Roswell Incident."

No one denies that "something" happened in July 1947 in central New Mexico, cradle of U.S. nuclear and rocket technology. However, military authorities insist reports of strange craft in the sky and bizarre wreckage on the ground were traced at the time to an errant weather balloon and other manmade or natural circumstance.

Nonetheless, over the years, persistent whispered rumors grew into published articles and books, even movies, which fanned speculation that what actually occurred was a visit by creatures from another planet - an intergalactic expedition that turned to tragedy on the high desert and then into a massive cover-up in the highest circles of the U.S. government.

Anderson says he was unaware of ongoing fascination and controversy over the strange episode from his childhood until one evening this past January when he was flipping through channels on his television set and stumbled across the popular program "Unsolved Mysteries."

"I wasn't looking for any unsolved mysteries - I have enough mysteries in my life that are unsolved, and I don't need any more," Anderson jokes. He is a burly, barrel-chested man standing 6-4 and carrying a muscular 250-plus pounds, with reddish hair and a ruddy complexion creased from easy laughter.

"But, bingo! On comes this story, and everything was wrong," Anderson recalls of the TV show. On sudden impulse, he dialed an 800 phone number that flashed onto the screen. "I guess I figured that if people were still interested in this thing, they might as well get it straight" is the only explanation he can muster for speaking up after years of keeping mostly mum on the matter.

"These people don't know what they're talking about," Anderson told the operator on the other end of the long-distance line. "The shape of the craft is totally wrong. 'And how do you know that, sir?" she asked. ' I saw it, I was there,' I told her. "Whoa!" she said. "Thee are some people who will want to talk to you...'"

Anderson's phone soon was ringing with calls from UFO researchers around the country. One in particular, Stanton Friedman, a nuclear physicist and popular lecturer who had advised the "Unsolved Mysteries" producers, was struck by correlations between Anderson's recollections and obscure details Friedman uncovered while sleuthing for a book to be published next year.

Friedman, who lives in Canada, contacted John Carpenter, a Springfield professional therapist who in his spare time serves as a director of investigations for the local chapter of Mutual UFO Network, a nationwide organization of UFO researchers. At Friedman's request, Carpenter conducted extensive in person interviews of Anderson, including sessions under hypnosis.

The results excited Friedman. "Powerful stuff!" he exclaimed upon hearing interview tapes. Friedman arranged airline tickets for Anderson and Carpenter to join him in New Mexico to pinpoint the crash site.

Anderson says the flight was his first return to New Mexico in more than a quarter-century. After pointing the pilot of a chartered helicopter to a spot in the desert 75 air miles southwest of Albuquerque, Anderson gazed at a hillside, strewn with boulders the size of Volkswagens and dotted with a few gnarled pinion trees, that he says he saw in the summer of 1947.....