Christopher Mellon’s
email chain that mentioned the Kingman UFO crash retrieval set many wheels in
motion. I have been of the opinion for a long time that the crash is based on a
single witness. David Rudiak and I have been researching the case which has
taken us down several rabbit holes. One of them was an interview with Michael
Schratt. He was talking about Harry Drew, who, apparently was the Kingman
resident expert on the crash.
Michael Schratt |
Learning this, I
thought Schratt would be a good guest for the radio show/podcast version of A
Different Perspective. I sent him a note, mentioning my interest in Kingman
and we agreed on a show on September 18. Before we started the recording, I
mentioned we would be talking about Kingman but he said he wanted to talk about
Len Stringfield’s crash/retrieval research.
Well, we did both.
My main interest at
that time was a long report that had been written by Ray Fowler about Kingman.
I had been surprised that the file included a long interview with the original
witness, Arthur Stansel. While those who wrote about the Kingman crash, and I
include myself in that group, quoted for the first part of the Stansel
interview, we ignored the second part. This was called, “A Man Who Made
Contact.”
Here Stansel said that
he had been part of a group of five who studied many things paranormal. He
talked about astral projection and how he had contacted alien beings around our
section of the galaxy. I did a post about that which you can find here:
http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2024/08/the-kingman-ufo-crash-connumdrum.html
To me, this was
somewhat problematic. Yes, Stansel had an impressive CV, but this side trip
into weirdness seemed to negate some of that. I bring this up because, after
Mellon’s email chain, there were several television reports about it including
one conducted by a TV station in Phoenix. The reporter there had the Fowler
file. I recognized the drawing that accompanied that file. I wanted to know if
the reporter had seen the second part of the interview. I have never received a
reply, which is not surprising. Local television news has no concept of follow
up investigation. Once the initial story is reported, they have no interest in
doing any more research.
I mention all this
because Schratt had a copy of the Fowler file, which he received from Harry
Drew who was the curator of the museum in Kingman where the file is housed. I
pressed Schratt on this point because I thought it important. Had Harry Drew
edited the file before putting it into the museum’s collection. Schratt didn’t
think he, Drew, would do that, but it was clear to me that he, Schratt, didn’t
have both parts of the interview.
Kingman, Arizona. Photo by Kevin Randle |
We talked about Kingman
for the first two segments of the show and then turned to the work that Len
Stringfield had done. We agreed about that. We both understood that many of the
cases cited in Len Stringfield’s Status Reports were single witness. We
knew that he gathered the stories, published them, hoping that someone else
would take an interest and follow up. Stringfield wasn’t endorsing all the
reports, he was providing the information he had been given. You can listen to
or watch the discussion here:
But, as I say, the
important part of the interview, at least to me, was the discussion of Kingman.
On this, I’m the glass is half empty guy. To me, at the moment, the Kingman
tale is reduced to a single witness and that is Arthur Stansel. David, and
Michael Schratt seem to be the glass if half full guys.
We are still following
the leads. David has uncovered a great deal of information, much of it from
newspaper articles, that suggest several strange incidents around Kingman in
the early 1950s. I’m not sure where all this is going but it is certainly creating
a very complex tale that might completely implode at the end of the trail… or
it might not.