Art McQuiddy(Art MCQUIDDY, Arthur R. MCQUIDDY, Arthur MCQUIDDY). |
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At the time of the incident, Arthur McQuiddy was the Managing Editor of one of the two Roswell local newspaper, The Roswell Morning Dispatch.
(1) My name is Arthur R. McQuiddy
(2) My address is: [Blackened out]
(3) I am employed as: - , (X) retired
(4) In July 1947, I was editor of the Roswell Morning Dispatch, one of the two newspapers here at the time. In 1948, I left the paper to become public relations director of the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association and later joined U.S. Steel as director of media relations. About eleven years ago I returned to Roswell after retiring as senior vice president for corporate relations at International Harvester.
(5) Just before noon one day early in July 1947, Walter Haut, the public relations officer at Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF), brought a press release to me in the Dispatch office. The release said a crashed flying saucer had been found, taken to RAAF, and sent on to another base.
(6) Haut had been to the two local radio stations, KGFL and KSWS, before coming to the Dispatch, so I gave him a bad time about that. Haut said the base policy was to rotate who got releases first to make sure everyone got a ir shake. We were a morning paper, so our edition for that day had long since hit the street, but I was disappointed at not being able to break the story on the Associated Press wire. George Walsh, the program manager at KSWS, had already moved the story on AP.
(7) Not long after Haut left, a call came from RAAF. The caller said the release was incorrect, that what had been thought to be the wreckage of a flying saucer was actually the remains of a radiosonde balloon. However, the AP wire story had gotten the world's attention. I spent the rest of the afternoon taking long distance calls from overseas news editors. I remember calls from Rome, London, Paris, and Hong Kong.
(8) Colonel William H. ("Butch") Blanchard, commander of RAAF and its 509th Bomb Group, was a good friend of mine. We often got together for a drink and off the record discussions of base-town relations and the like. After the flying saucer incident, I tried several times to get Blanchard to tell me the real story, but he repeatedly refused to talk about it.
(9) About three or four months after the event, when we were a bit more "relaxed" than usual, I tried again. Blanchard reluctantly admitted he had authorized the press release. Then, as best I remember, he said, "I will tell you this and nothing more. The stuff I saw, I've never seen anyplace else in my life." That was all he would say, and he never told me anything else about the matter.
(10) I have not been paid or given anything of value to make this statement, and it is the truth to the best of my recollection.
Signed: Arthur R. McQuiddy
Oct. 19, 1993
Signature witnessed by:
Charlotte Y. Gipson, 10-19-93
Art McQuiddy made the following recorded statement on camera in 1995 for the TV documentary "Secret History: The Roswell Incident":
"There was a tremendous amount of excitement because as, I, here I am, a little country editor in a small city in New Mexico, talking to Paris and Rome and London and Tokyo and... I can't remember all of them... spent the whole afternoon on the phone. And I know that my counterparts at the... at the Roswell, other Roswell paper, and probably at the radio stations, did the same. But there was a lot of excitement."
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In the Roswell incident chronology on the NICAP Website, it is noted that Art McQuiddy said that a military officer had retrieved the copies of the press release written by Walter Haut.
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