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AFFIDAVIT OF ROBERT SMITH

(1)  My name is Robert E. Smith

(2)  My address is:  XXXXXXXXXX

(3)  I am retired.

(4)  In July 1947, I was stationed at the Roswell Army Air Field as a member of the 1st  Air Transport Unit.  I worked in the cargo outfit with C-54s.  My involvement in the Roswell incident was to help load crates of debris on to the aircraft.  We all became aware of the event when we went to the hangar on the east side of the ramp.  Our people had to re-measure the aircraft on the inside to accommodate the crates they were making for this material.  All I saw was a little piece of material.  The piece of debris I saw was two-to-three inches square.  It was jagged.  When you crumpled it up, it then laid back out; and when it did, it kind of crackled, making a sound like cellophane, and it crackled when it was let out.  There were no creases.  One of our people put it in his pocket.

(5)  The largest piece was roughly 20 feet long; four-to-five feet high, four-to-five feet wide.  The rest were two-to-three feet long, two feet square or smaller.  The sergeant who had the piece of material said that was the material in the crates.  There were words stenciled on the crates, but I don't remember what they were; however, the word "section" appeared on most of the crates.  The entire loading took at least six, perhaps eight hours.  Lunch was brought to us, which was unusual.  The crates were brought to us on flatbed dollies, which also was unusual.

(6)  A lot of people began coming in all of a sudden because of the official investigation.  Somebody said it was a plane crash; but we heard from a man in Roswell that it was not a plane crash but it was something else, a strange object.  Officially, we were told it was a crashed plane, but crashed planes usually were taken to the salvage yard, not flown out.  I don't think it was an experimental plane, because not too many people in that area were experimenting with planes they didn't have the money to.

(7)  We were taken to the hangar to load crates.  There was a lot of farm dirt on the hangar floor.  We loaded it on flatbeds and dollies; each crate had to be checked as to width and height.  We had to know which crates went on to which plane.  We loaded crates on to three or four C-54s.  It took the better part of the day to load the planes.  One crate took up the entire plane; it wasn't that heavy, but it was a large volume.

(8)  This would have involved [Oliver W.] "Pappy" Henderson's crew.  I remember seeing Tech Sgt. Harbell Ellzey and Sgt. T/Sgt. Edward Bretherton and S/Sgt. William Fortner; Elszey was on "Pappy's" crew.

(9)  We weren't supposed to know the destination, but we wee told they were headed north.  Wright Field at that time was closed down for modernization; therefore, I would deduce that the next safest place was Los Alamos, the most secret base available and still under the Manhattan Project.  There were armed guards present during the loading of the planes, which was unusual.  There was no way to get to the ramp except through the armed guards.  There were MPs on the  outer skirts, and our personnel were between them and the planes.

(10)  There were a lot of people in plainclothes all over the place; they were "inspectors," but they were strangers on the base.  When challenged, they replied that they were here on project so-and-so and flashed a card, which was different than a military ID card.

(11)  There was another indication that something serious was going on:  several nights before this, when we were coming back to Roswell, a convoy of trucks covered with canvas passed us.   The truck convoy had red lights and sirens.  When they got to the gate, they headed over to this hangar on the east end, which was rather unusual.

(12)  I have a distant cousin who was in the Secret Service named Raymond deVinney.  In the early 1970s, at a family reunion, he told me that he was at Roswell at this time, more or less as a representative of President Truman.  He saw me and recognized me, but he didn't speak.  He said the material most likely was taken to Los Alamos.  He said there were several people with him at the time, but he didn't mention any names.  He passed away in 1975.

(13)  A lot of the people involved in the event believe that they should go to their deathbeds without telling anything about it.  We were told:  "This is a hot shipment; keep quiet about it."  This wasn't unusual for us--there were a lot of times were told that.

(14)  I'm convinced that what we loaded was a UFO that got into mechanical problems.  Even with the most intelligent people, things go wrong.

(15) I have not been paid or given anything of value to make this statement, which is the truth to the best of my recollection.

Signed:  Robert Earl Smith

10/10/91

Signature witnessed by:

Pagon M. Short

Notary Public State of Texas

[Source:   Kevin Randle, Roswell Crash Update, 1995

  Karl Pflock, Roswell in Perspective, 1994]