BEHIND THE FLYING SAUCERS - EXPANDED EDITION

Aztec has survived the test of time. It is the UFO crash that refuses to lie down and die. Hopefully this book will add to the weight of positive evidence that SOMETHING happened in a remote part of New Mexico these many, many years ago.

* Did a pair of conmen named Silas Newton and Leo GeBauer serve ironically to reveal the dramatic truth about a UFO crash in Aztec, New Mexico?

* Declassified FBI files tell part of the story, but why were 200 pages of secret material kept classified for national security reasons? What did the conmen really know?

* Read about the fascinating twists and turns of behind-the-scenes maneuvering in a complex web of possible disinformation designed to keep the Aztec crash covered up.

* Do the UFO occupants themselves merely "stage" crashed saucer events to exert a kind of psychological control over us?

Forced Consent

What are we to make, ultimately, about UFO crash reports? According to Redfern, we have to judge each case on its own merits.

"I think we're looking at several different things," he said, "that could lead to these crashed UFO legends, stories, events. Just because crash A might turn out to have been a prototype Stealth fighter, that doesn't mean that crash B was also a prototype aircraft. That could have been something weirder. One of the things that I suggest in some of my books is that some of the early crashes could well have been prototype devices captured from Nazi Germany and the Japanese and that we were flying ourselves. Some of these crashes were just due to us raiding the laboratories in Germany at the end of 1945. You know, bringing all these German Operation Paperclip scientists over, Nazi scientists, and working on things that really were highly controversial but were also prototypes that we didn't have a good handle on.

"Now I think that definitely accounts for some of these crash reports. But if you're talking about truly unknown ones, one of the interesting theories that's being put forward is the idea that some of these crashes, if they're genuine UFO crashes, that they actually are being staged by the aliens."

Redfern admits that theory is a little odd.

"Now that sounds strange," he said, "but the theory is that maybe, in the early years, rather than freak everybody out and land on the White House lawn.

Excerpt:

FRIEDMAN'S EXPERIENCE WITH THE FBI

"I read 'Behind The Flying Saucers' with great interest," Friedman said. "It's interesting that Scully did have, despite the fact that he's attacked so much, he did have a good reputation in Hollywood. I think he did make an effort to sort of make Dr. Gee out of a bunch of important people whose names he didn't want to use. He wasn't a science reporter, let's face it. And Silas Newton was a rich guy. A conman, sure, but there were lots of them around at the time."

Friedman talked about the FBI files on Scully, Newton and Leo GeBauer that Nick Redfern and Scott Ramsey had managed to unearth.

"It is interesting that they have such files," Friedman said. "So we know there was a strong government interest in these guys that was much more than would have been expected if they were just conmen. Who cares? So they're trying to take people for money? Well, a lot of people have been taken because they were trying to find oil, you know. 'I'm going to make a fortune for you, buddy, just invest with me.' You've heard that. So the government interest is an important part of the story."

Friedman's experience seeking to obtain his own file from the FBI has convinced him that the federal agency is less than honest in its dealings.

"I went after my files under Freedom of Information/Privacy Act with the CIA and the FBI," he said. "This was several years ago. The FBI wrote me back saying we don't have a file on you, even though I told them I'd had a security clearance. There aren't many people with my name and certainly not my name and birth date. Then I hear from the CIA and all they have is a negative name check request on me from the FBI with a file number. And they sent me that. So I wrote the FBI again and oh, yeah, we do have a file on you, but it's classified. How big was the file? What security level? That information is classified too. Sorry.

"So you know they will lie," he said. "They will cover up. It's a way of life for the government. It's a crazy world in which we live. The government gets by with as many lies as they can put into place. They're not aimed at me so much as at their enemies. Remember that the key part about security-I have to tell this to everybody-is you can't tell your friends without telling your enemy. They listen to the radio, they read newspapers, they watch television. So one of the reasons for government lies is not because they don't like Americans, but because they don't like the Russians or Chinese or whoever else is out there. Osama."