Accounts of intimidation
Several people claimed, or knew people who claimed, that they were threatened by military or government personnel into keeping silent about what they saw or knew. In some cases, these threats including death threats.
Mortician Glenn Dennis said he received a death threat at the base hospital from a redheaded captain, who warned him if he talked "somebody will be picking your bones out of the sand." The following day, Sheriff Wilcox talked to his father, a personal friend, and said "..... tell your son that he doesn't know anything and hasn't seen anything at the base. They want you and your wife's name, and they want your and your children's addresses." His father told him about the conversation with the Sheriff, so Dennis related the events of the previous day to him. Dennis also claimed that the nurse who confided in him about alien corpses subsequently was shipped off base and attempts to contact her via mail resulted in letters returned with "deceased" marked on the envelopes.
Frankie Rowe, claims her father was a firefighter who on a fire run outside of town encountered a wrecked craft and alien bodies. Later, after seeing a state trooper with a piece of dull gray metallic foil from the downed craft that "would unfold itself", she and her family were threatened into silence by military personnel who visited her house. She said they told them: "They could take us out in the desert, and no one would ever find us again." In her affidavit she wrote, "I was told that if I ever talked about it, I could be taken out in the desert never to return, or that my mother and father would be taken to 'Orchard Park', a former POW camp." Rowes older sister Helen Cahill said her parents told her a similar story.
Barbara Dugger, granddaughter of Sheriff George Wilcox, said her grandmother Inez Wilcox, told her the Sheriff had gone to the ranch and seen four alien bodies. "My grandmother said .....Don't tell anybody. When the incident happened, the military police came to the jail house and told George and I that if we ever told anything about the incident, not only would we be killed, but our entire family would be killed." Others said that Inez Wilcox told them similar stories.
The Anaya family told the story of picking up Lt. Governor Joseph Montoya at the base, and a shaken Montoya relating the story of a crashed craft and seeing alien bodies in a hangar. Montoya then warned them, and in future visits, not to talk about it because somebody in the government might come after them. They said they also received a warning from Sheriff George Wilcox and N.M. Senator Dennis Chavez.
George "Jud" Roberts was manager of radio station KGFL in Roswell. He signed an affidavit where he claimed to have been threatened if he ran an interview his station had done with Brazel. "I got a call from someone in Washington, D.C. It may have been someone in the office of [New Mexico Senators] Clinton, Anderson or Chavez. This person said, "We understand that you have some information, and we want to assure you that if you release it, it's very possible that your station's licence will be in jeopardy, so we suggest that you not to do it." The person indicated that we may lose our licence in as quickly as three days. I made the decision not to release the story.
Walt Whitmore Jr., son of the KGFL station owner, also recalled how his father had hidden Brazel at their home and done a recorded interview. Whitmore Sr. was unable to get the story through on the Manual wire and instead began broadcasting a preliminary release locally over KGFL. At this point, a long distance phone call came to the station from a man named Slowie, saying he was with the FCC in Washington. Slowie informed Whitmore that the story involved national security and that if he valued his station licence he should cease transmitting it and forget about it. Immediately afterwards, another call from Washington came from Senator Dennis Chavez, who suggested he had better do what Slowie advised.
Frank Joyce, new announcer and disc jockey at KGFL, said he spoke to Brazel by telephone when he first came to town and Brazel described finding nonhuman bodies. Later Joyce received the base press release announcing the recovery of a "flying disc" and put it on the United Press teletype. When the first UP bulletins came in on the station teletype, Joyce said the phones went crazy. He received an irate call from a Colonel Johnson at the Pentagon, demanding to know who had told him to issue the press release. Joyce said he was a civilian and couldn't be ordered around like that, to which the colonel responded. "I'll show you what I can do to you." Joyce said he decided to collect and hide the press release copy and the various teletypes so he could later prove to his boss Whitmore that he hadn't made anything up. Later, somebody came through the station, found some of the hidden material, and removed it. However, some of the original teletypes were not found, and Joyce still has them. Jud Dixon, of United Press in santa Fe, New Mexico, said the same thing happened in his office. However, Karl Pflock (researcher) said Dixon told him he had no memory at all about the Roswell incident, much less any confiscation.
Mac Brazel was seen escorted by military personnel and spent some time in military custody. where he said he was intimidated into not talking about what he saw,according to several witnesses. Foe example, base provost marshal Lt. Col. Edwin Easley admitted to researcher Kevin Randle that they held Brazel at the base for several days. Frank Joyce said the story Brazel told him after the news conference Brazel appeared at was different than the original story he had told Joyce when Brazel first reported to Sheriff Wilcox. "I remember him changing the story ..... I told him, what your saying is not what you were saying the other night. [He admitted] that he had been told to come in or else ..... He told me what they were going to do to us ..... He was really scared .....[Brazel said] "You're not going to tell them anything are you?" Joyce promised he wouldn't. Brazel said he had to tell the new story or "it would go hard on him." Brazel's son Bill and various neighbors said Brazel also complained bitterly about his treatment by the military afterwards.
Don't miss our final part of the Roswell UFO Incident, in tomorrow's Journal - Accounts of cover-ups, the Brigadier and the Apollo 14 astronaut.
