Farmington Daylight UFO Armada Three Day Period in 1950

[ExomatrixTV]

• Farmington Daylight UFO Armada Three Day Period in 1950 David Marler

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=nBCaP7w6mxQ

Long before the current wave of headlines about UFO incidents, American newspapers considered the mystery to be a serious subject. One of the most spectacular cases of all time occurred over a three-day period in 1950. Thousands of witnesses saw hundreds of unknown objects in the sky.



David has had a lifelong interest in the UFO subject and has actively investigated and researched it for 30 years. He joined The Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) in 1990 as a Field Investigator Trainee. Since then, he has served as Field Investigator, State Section Director, as well as Illinois State Director. David is an internationally-recognized independent UFO researcher.​​

During his tenure with MUFON, he had conducted numerous investigations into alleged UFO sightings and related experiences. He has discussed the subject of UFOs on many radio and television news programs over the years. He has also lectured on the subject to various school and adult audiences including at the university level.

David has assisted the History, Learning, Discovery, Science, and Smithsonian Channel on UFO documentaries over the years in addition to independent productions.

David has one of the largest personal libraries of UFO books, journals, magazines, newspapers, and case files from around the world that covers the last 75+ years. With this he has been examining the detailed history of UFO sighting reports and related patterns.

Recent evidence of his historical research is his newly-published book, Triangular UFOs: An Estimate of the Situation. Here, he has provided a comprehensive analysis of triangular UFOs. He has collected, collated, and analyzed hundreds of reports. In the process, he has created a detailed profile of these objects and written a rich narrative of their history. He tackles the arguments made by skeptics that dismiss these triangular UFO reports outright. He also addresses the claims of so-called insiders who claim these objects are a creation of the U.S. military.

David strives to have an open mind regarding the UFO phenomenon. However, he also acknowledges the need for a skeptical approach when examining each individual UFO report. Despite the large percentage of misidentifications and hoaxes in the UFO data, David recognizes what appears to be a core phenomenon beneath it all.

His pragmatic approach focuses on the information and data associated with cases. He ignores the pitfalls of belief as well as the ubiquitous conspiracy theories polluting the subject matter.

David received his Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville (SIUE). He received his Certification in Hypnotherapy from Mottin and Johnson Institute of Hypnosis in St. Louis, Missouri.

David is a Registered Polysomnographic Technician (RPSGT) and assisted in diagnosing and treating patients that suffered from various sleep disorders for several years at a major St. Louis-based medical facility. He also worked for a global medical equipment company for 13 years.

David currently works in the healthcare field for a large New Mexico-based hospital network and resides in the Albuquerque, NM area with his wife and two daughters.

At the 2016 Ozark Mountain UFO Conference, David was awarded the Lucius O. Farish Award for Excellence in UFO-Related Research and Education. A genuine honor only awarded to three other recipients in the field.

FARMINGTON — Farmington has reached the 70th anniversary of one of the more sensational events in its history this week, but it's a safe bet to say few residents will pay much attention to that milestone – or even be aware of it.
From March 16 to March 18 in 1950, the city experienced a mass UFO sighting, with some reports indicating "hundreds" of residents saw strange objects in the sky in broad daylight over the three-day period.

Their accounts were reported in breathless fashion not just in this publication — "HUGE 'SAUCER' ARMADA JOLTS FARMINGTON" screamed the banner headline on page 1 of The Daily Times on March 18, 1950 – but in many others as well. Those include The Santa Fe New Mexican ("Farmington 'Invaded' by Saucer Squadron") and the Las Vegas (New Mexico) Daily Optic ("'Space Ships' Cause Sensation").
An account of the incident by The Associated Press was picked up by newspapers across the country.

It's a fantastic story, one that might have seemed destined to leave an indelible impression on UFO history and the sizable community of amateur sleuths and researchers who have made it their duty to investigate and publicize such incidents.
And, yet, the Farmington UFO incident of 1950 largely has been lost to history, especially when it is compared to its in-state counterpart, the famed, alleged crash of an alien spacecraft on a ranch northwest of Roswell in June 1947.



David Marler, an independent UFO researcher and author who works in the health care field, has spent years studying the Farmington UFO incident, delivering his findings in the form of a website that serves as the most exhaustive and in-depth report on the event. He labels it "one of the most dramatic and well-documented cases in the history of UFO phenomenon" and said his research has uncovered dozens of similar sightings in the American Southwest, Mexico and Central America during that same time period.
"There was a lot more other than Farmington going on (during March 1950)," he said.
Marler isn't alone in feeling compelled to gain a better understanding of the incident. Many people who take a keen interest in the history of San Juan County share that fascination, and some of them have direct ties to the mass sighting that has become part of their family lore.

Patty Tharp of the San Juan County Historical Society is the niece of one of the witnesses to the incident, Clayton Boddy, who served as the business manager of The Daily Times in 1950. She recalls her late uncle regularly talking about the sighting when she was growing up and said the tale of the UFO armada is well known among the county's older residents.

She remembers her uncle as a man not given to exaggeration, and said he wasn't the kind to call attention to himself by manufacturing outlandish stories. He definitely believed he witnessed something out of the ordinary that day, Tharp said.

"He described the object and said several other people saw it, as well," she said.

• A well-documented event

Marler said there are several elements that separate the Farmington UFO incident from so many others, mostly the fact that so many people claim to have witnessed it. The sightings took place between 11 a.m. and noon each day in the skies over San Juan County, not at night in some remote location where they were witnessed by only a single person or a handful of people.

Farmington was a much smaller community in those days — it had a population of between 3,600 and 5,000 people then, according to Marler — but the incident was by no means restricted to just a few sets of eyeballs. Marler also notes the sightings were thoroughly documented and reported in various newspapers at the time, and references to it exist in a great many government documents, as well.

The Daily Times' account chronicles how pedestrians along Main Street could be seen looking skyward and pointing, and the paper reportedly was "deluged" with calls from readers reporting the objects, although the story explains that high winds and a dust storm prevented clear vision.

The account explains how the objects appeared to play tag, traveling at "almost unbelievable speeds." The paper quoted Boddy, a former Army captain, who said he was on Broadway Avenue when he became aware of the phenomenon.

"All of a sudden, I noticed a few moving objects high in the sky," he is reported as having said. "Moments later, there appeared to hundreds of them."
Boddy declined to estimate the size or speed of the objects, but he said they appeared to flying at an altitude of approximately 15,000 feet.

Several other witnesses were quoted in the story, as well, including merchants, housewives, mechanics, insurance agents and Harold F. Thatcher, head of the Farmington unit of the Soil Conservation Service. Thatcher was quoted as emphatically denying a theory that the objects people had seen were bits of cotton floating in the air.

Many of those witnesses reported seeing a single red object that appeared to be leading the others. In his investigation of the incident, Marler would go on to dub that object "Red Leader" — a reference he believed "Star Wars" fans would appreciate.
Also quoted in The Daily Times story was Marlo Webb, then a 26-year-old manager in the parts department at the Perry Smoak Chevrolet Garage on Main Street in downtown Farmington. Webb told the paper he estimated the objects were small, about the size of a dinner plate, and noted the objects moved in an unusual way — "sideways, on edge and at every conceivable angle," he said. "This is what made it easy to determine that they were saucer-shaped."

Webb's testimony lends the event considerable credibility. He went on to become the town's mayor in the 1970s and now, at the age of 96, serves as chairman of the boards at Farmington's Webb Chevrolet, where he still works nearly every afternoon.

Webb seems willing enough to discuss his memory of the incident these days with anyone who asks. But, as a World War II Naval aviator used to seeing unusual things, he seems to regard the event as little more than a curiosity.

"I know how easy it is to be deceived by something in the sky," he said.
In fact, when he was contacted by The Daily Times last week, Webb said he had no idea the 70th anniversary of the incident was approaching and insisted he couldn't remember the last time he had thought about it.

"I can tell you everything I know about it in five seconds because I don't know much," he said.

Webb said he was working at his stepfather's Chevy dealership across the street from the Totah Theater on March 17, 1950, when someone told him they had seen some saucer-shaped objects in the sky. Webb went out to have a look, and when he turned his eyes to the north, he said he could make out 12 to 20 objects. He said they were loosely arranged, certainly not flying in formation, but moving steadily from east to west.

"They were darting around almost like leaves in the sky being blown around," he said.
Webb watched the objects for approximately 10 to 15 minutes, then went back inside to work.

"I couldn't leave my department uncovered," he said.

He said the duration of the event seemed to last much longer than that, however, because he recalled seeing people on Main Street looking into the sky for a long time afterward. He recalled many of those witnesses seemed a lot more taken by the event than he was, discussing what they had seen for years afterward.

"They almost made a career out of repeating what they saw," he said.
Webb wasn't one of those people.

"I never thought about it," he said, when asked what kind of significance he attached to the event. "There are a lot of things happening in the sky we're not aware of. I just won't waste my energy. I can't do anything about it anyway. … I don't have the background to research it and decide what it is."

Webb said he spoke to a military investigator after the incident and told him the same story. He understands some people want to draw other conclusions from what they've heard about the event, but he said he never felt the urge to do that.
"I've never said what I thought it was or made a judgment on it," he said.



A matter of family history

The Daily Times story about the event quoted approximately a dozen witnesses by name, but numerous other accounts have lived on through accounts passed down among family members.

Zang Wood, former president of the San Juan County Historical Society, was a Farmington High School student in the fall of 1950 and said he never saw a thing.
"A lot of kids said they did," he said. "I don't know if it was mass hysteria or what."
But Wood's mother, who was a San Juan County employee, was driving to work with another woman to Aztec from Farmington that day. When they got to Flora Vista, they said an object appeared above them and passed directly over their car.
"I'm not going to call my mom a liar," he said, recalling her as "a pretty level-headed lady. She didn't see things."

Wood said he doesn't buy the flying saucer stories because he didn't see them himself. But he refuses his dismiss his mother's account.
"If she saw something, she saw something," he said.

Another well-known authority on local history, Marilu Waybourn, author of "Homesteads to Boomtown — A Pictorial History of Farmington, New Mexico, and Surrounding Area," said she was in college in Missouri in the spring of 1950 when the incident took place. But she got an earful about it from her friends when she returned to Farmington at the end of the semester.

Waybourn wound up writing about the mass sighting on its 40th anniversary in the March 1990 edition of CrossCurrents, an independent publication that described itself as "A Journal of Life in the Four Corners."

In her story, Waybourn recounts that she heard the story at least a dozen times after she returned from college, and a group of her friends took her to a location that was purported to be a landing site of one of the objects. She described it as "a large circle, about 60 feet in diameter, with the sagebrush flattened out and singed weeds around the edge."

Waybourn also quoted a Farmington resident named Pauline McCauley who said she was a little girl at the time of the sighting. McCauley said she was herding sheep south of town that day in the spring of 1950 when she heard a sound above her, looked up and spied a circular object that looked like an upside-down bowl. McCauley told Waybourn the object had windows, and she could see three people inside wearing striped caps and navy blue uniforms with brass buttons.

Waybourn heard various other stories over the years, many of them from people who didn't want their names used for fear of being ridiculed. She said the incident sparked a great deal of curiosity at the time and remains a topic of discussion for older folks today.

"They took it for what it was," she said. "That it was something they wanted to know more about."

Rio Rancho resident Ron Boddy, the son of witness Clayton Boddy, said his father talked about the incident occasionally over the years, but he never made a big deal of it.

"The last time I really talked to my dad about that was probably 40 years ago," he said, adding that his father, a veteran of World War II and the Korean War, was not easily impressed. "It was unusual to him, but not earth shattering or life changing."
Ron Boddy said his father was still a major in the Army Reserve at the time of the incident, and he recalled his father getting a phone call later from a military official asking him to refrain from doing any more interviews on the subject.
"I remember him saying he was asked not to bring it up or talk about it," Ron Boddy said.

But the younger Boddy regrets not pressing his father for details about the incident now.

"I wish now, looking back, I wish I had talked to my dad about it more," he said, explaining that he never got the sense his father thought the objects he saw were extraterrestrial in nature.

"To him, it was an unidentified flying object, not a spacecraft," Ron Boddy said.
Tharp, Clayton Boddy's niece, also has taken a keen interest in the event. She said the wire services picked up the stories on the incident from the New Mexico papers, and she has collected clippings that mention her uncle from newspapers all over the country. She agreed with her cousin Ron Boddy that her uncle didn't consider the appearance of the strange objects to be an alien visitation.

"He seemed to think it wasn't something from another planet — that it was a military deal," she said.

What to make of all this?

The quality and quantity of the information surrounding the Farmington UFO event has always impressed Marler. He said the accounts of the witnesses who were quoted in The Daily Times were remarkably consistent, and when those people talked about their memories of that day years later, their stories did not change.

"I'm really struck by the sincerity and honesty of the people I interviewed," he said. "They're not saying they saw flying saucers, but they saw something."
That separates them from the principals in other UFO stories he has investigated, many of whom are not nearly as credible.

"It really smacks of realism," he said, adding that the children of the witnesses he has spoken to unfailingly recall their parents as grounded, level-headed people who weren't looking for attention.

He also notes that an account of a UFO sighting occurred that day in Tucumcari, an event reported in the March 18, 1950 edition of the Tucumcari Daily News, and an Air Force captain and two technical sergeants at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque reported seeing three strange objects in the sky that afternoon.

Marler also has collected newspaper accounts of UFO sightings from that time period not just across New Mexico, but all over Texas and well into Mexico.

His website explains that, after an official investigation, a government official responded to the public curiosity over the event by claiming the objects that people had seen were the remnants of a ruptured, high-altitude U.S. Navy Skyhook balloon. Marler, who has presented several lectures on his findings, flatly dismisses that theory, explaining that it might have been plausible for one day of UFO sightings, but not three. He also points to research that shows there were no documented Skyhook balloon launches around that time frame.

Given the technological limitations or that era, no photos or film footage of the Farmington incident are known to exist. Marler points out that if such an event were to happen now, there likely would be an abundance of such material. But he takes the mass UFO sighting here much more seriously than he does many other events he has investigated and said he is not sure why it hasn't gotten the attention he thinks it deserves.

He said the Farmington incident is well known in UFO researcher stories, but he acknowledged it is not nearly as well known as the Roswell incident or even the alleged crash of a UFO outside Aztec in 1947 — an event commemorated through an annual mountain bike race and etched in local pop culture.

Through his research, Marler said he has tried to eliminate various possible explanations for what happened in Farmington in the spring of 1950.

"When you eliminate those prosaic explanations, it's like checking off a list," he said. "What you're left with is an unknown. But unknown does not equal extraterrestrial."
The question of why the Farmington incident never captured the public's imagination the way Roswell did is a riddle to Marler and some others interviewed for this story. He gives some credence to the idea that Farmington is a very conventional town and perhaps has collectively downplayed the incident for fear of being labeled the same way Roswell has been.

But Tharp doesn't see it that way.

"I would disagree with that," she said. "Roswell is just as conservative as Farmington. There were so few people in 1950 who lived here. … Maybe it just kind of went by the wayside."

Wood agrees that Farmington is a conservative place that likely would bristle at being associated with little green men. But mostly, he thinks folks here have just decided to leave the incident behind.

"It's just like so many other things," he said. "Just like coronavirus — they'll talk about it for a year, then move on. … We have other things to worry about."

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[ExomatrixTV]

• The Flying Saucer Invasion of 1950 – Farmington, New Mexico and Beyond

"Fully half of this town's population still is certain today that it saw space ships or some strange aircraft -- hundreds of them zooming through the skies yesterday. Estimates of the number ranged from & quotes several to more that 500. The objects appeared to play tag high in the air. At times they streaked away at almost unbelievable speeds."

For three consecutive days, hundreds of astonished citizens of this town witnessed the most spectacular daytime mass UFO sightings ever recorded. And it all took place during broad daylight, usually from around noon, lasting for about two hours. The front-page headline of Farmington Daily Times of March 18, 1950 stated HUGE SAUCER ARMADA JOLTS FARMINGTON.

The incident seemed to have been hushed up quickly. A few years ago, I was fortunate enough to visit Farmington and was able to interview an elderly gentleman who was one of hundreds of witnesses to this spectacular event. He confirmed to me practically all the aspects of that incident as was reported in Farming Daily Times news article. I visited the Farmington Senior Center to find some witnesses whose number is rapidly diminishing. According to some townsfolk, government agents came to town quickly, discouraging people to talk about the incident for national security reasons. They may even have bought up all the editions of the newspapers of March 18, 1950:



"For the third consecutive day flying saucers have been reported over Farmington....Fully half of this town's population still is certain today that it saw space ships or some strange aircraft -- hundreds of them zooming through the skies yesterday....The objects appeared to play tag high in the air. At times they streaked away at almost unbelievable speeds."

--Farmington Daily Times, Saturday, March 18, 1950.


Originally produced in Aztec, New Mexico, in 2001, The Farmington Armada is a collection of short plays, monologues and letters surrounding the theme of an apparent UFO sighting in Farmington, New Mexico during a few days in March of 1950. Charles Pike, a veteran Chicago actor and playwright (Steppenwolf, Second City, Prop Thtr., PUS), asked several playwrights around the country to write theatre pieces based on the original newspaper article. The resulting works form this show.

The piece was first produced as part of the Aztec Public Library's Oral History Project. In 2003, the Saturday Players produced a version of it as part of the New York International Fringe Festival. Now PUS, a theatre company with a history of producing new plays and the writings of Samuel Beckett, are giving The Farmington Armada its West Coast Premiere, in an entirely new version of the original Aztec production.

Playwrights include Charles Pike (The Return of the Hip Messiah, Now Dig This: The Terry Southern Show), Jeff Resta (Grace and Patience, The Diva Classification System), Jeff Hudson (Vortex Theater), Neil Giuntoli (Hizzoner) and Scott Baker (PUS co-founder).

The Farmington Armada ran August 4-6, 10-13 and 17-20 at 8 pm at Shotwell Studios, 3252-A 19th Street, San Francisco, California. Tickets are $20, $15 for students and seniors. For reservations, call (415) 289-2000.

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[ExomatrixTV]

• UFOs, New Mexico, and the Farmington Armada:

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=gSaq3Ori6js

[ExomatrixTV]

Note the differing shapes, like jellyfish in various stages of propulsion. Does this show aerial invertebrates, crossing the sky in a flock?

This is one still picture of one section of the sky. You can see at least nine objects. Imagine such activity all over the sky for days, a huge population.
UFOs appearing suddenly in great numbers is one way that UFOs resemble marine invertebrates.

These population explosions are seen in coverage of UFO fleets, armadas, swarms, and flotillas. With worldwide access to powerful cameras, footage of “saucer” flocks high in the sky grows in quantity and quality.

We’ll see much more. With proper preparation, great discoveries could lie ahead.



Here is the text of a newspaper article from the time:

• HUGE ‘SAUCER’ ARMADA JOLTS FARMINGTON

Saucer Armada Jolts Farmington 3-18-1950 (Res)
By Farmington Daily Times
March 18, 1950

Crafts Seen By Hundreds
Speed Estimated at 1000 MPH, Altitude 20,000 feet

For the third consecutive day flying saucers have been reported over Farmington. And on each of the three days their arrival here was reported between 11 and noon.
Three persons called the Daily Times office to report seeing strange objects in the air just before noon.

Persons along Main Street once again could be seen looking skyward and pointing.
High winds and a dust storm prevented clear vision.

Fully half of this town’s population still is certain today that it saw space ships or some strange aircraft – hundreds of them zooming through the skies yesterday.
Estimates of the number ranged from “several to more that 500.” Whatever they were, they caused a major sensation in this community, which lies only 110 air miles northwest of the huge Los Alamos Atomic installation.

The objects appeared to play tag high in the air. At times they streaked away at almost unbelievable speeds. One witness did a triangulation sighting on one of the objects and estimated its speed at about 1,000 miles an hour, and estimated its size as approximately twice that of a B-29.

Farmington citizens stood in the streets yesterday watching the first reported mass “flying saucer” flight ever sighted. Traffic was slowed to avoid hitting sky gazers. The office of the Farmington Daily Times was deluged with calls from persons who saw the objects.

• A Red Leader

Scores described the objects as silvery discs. A number agreed they saw one that was red in color — bigger and faster, and apparently the leader.

Clayton J. Boddy, 32, business manager of Farmington Times and a former Army Engineers captain in Italy, was one of those who saw the startling objects.
Boddy was on roadway when all of a sudden he noticed a few moving objects high in the sky.

“Moments later there appeared what seemed to be about 500 of them,” Boddy continued. He could not estimate their size or speed, but said they appeared to be about 15,000 feet high.

Boddy’s account was confirmed by Joseph C. and Francis C. Kelloff, retail grocers from Antonito, Colo., who were in Farmington to inspect the site of a proposed new store, and by Bob Foutz and John Burrell of Farmington. The Kelloffs said the objects appeared to be flying in formation.

One of the most impressive accounts came from Harold F. Thatcher, head of the Farmington unit of the Soil Conservation service. Thatcher made a triangulation on one of a number of flying craft, He said if it had been a B-29 it would have been 2,000 feet high and traveling more than 1000 miles per hour.

• Knows Engineering

“I’m not a professional engineer,” Thatcher said, “but I have engineers working under me and I know how to work out rough triangulation on an object.”

Thatcher emphatically denied an earlier report that the objects could have been small pieces of cotton fuzz floating in the atmosphere.

“It was not cotton,” he said, “I saw several pieces of cotton fuzz floating around in the air at the time, but I was not sighting on any cotton.”

The “cotton” report was started by State Patrolman Andy Andrews, who quoted several Farmington Residents as asserting it was cotton they saw. The residents denied Andrew’s report.

The first reports of flying saucers were noted a few minutes before 11 a.m. yesterday. For a full hour thereafter people deluged the Times with reports of the objects.
A second large scale sighting occurred at 3 p.m. At that time, Mrs. Wilson Jones, 27, and Mr. Roy Hicks, 33, housewives reported seeing objects to the north of Farmington, flying in perfect formation. Others reported the same sight.

Johnny Eaton, 29, a real estate and insurance salesman, and Edward Brooks, 24, an employee of the Perry Smoak garage, were the first to report the red-colored sky object.

• Not Airplanes

Brooks, a B-29 tail gunner during the war, said he was positive the objects sighted were not airplanes. “The very maneuvering of the things couldn’t be that of modern aircraft,” he said.

John Bloomfield, another employee of Smoak’s garage, said the objects he saw traveled at a speed that appeared to him to be about 10 times faster than that of jet planes. In addition, he said the objects frequently made right-angle turns.
“They appeared to be coming at each other head-on,” he related. “At the last second, one would veer at right angles upward, the other at right angles downward. One saucer would pass another and immediately the one to the rear would zoom into the lead.”

Marlow Webb, another garage employee, said the objects to the naked eye appeared to be about eight inches in diameter as seen from the ground. He described them as about the size of a dinner plate.”

“They flew sideways, on edge and at every conceivable angle,” he said. “This is what made it easy to determine that they were saucer-shaped.”
None of the scores of reports told of any vapor trail or engine noise. Nor did anyone report any windows or other markings on the craft.


In general Farmington accepted the phenomenon calmly, although it was reported some women employees of a laundry became somewhat panicky.

• Opinions Divided

Opinions were somewhat divided among those who saw the objects as to whether they were from another planet or were some new craft of our own nation’s devising. Some expressed the opinion the entire incident was a fulfillment of a Bible prophecy.
From sifting all the reports, the Farmington Times compiled this “timetable” of sightings:

1. 10:15 am, five to nine “saucers” zoomed over the town’s business area for 10 minutes before moving out of sight to the northeast.
2. 10:00 am, report of “hundred” seen west of town.
3. 10:30 am, red “saucers” seen over town.
4. 10:00 am, three objects staged “dogfight” over town.
5. 11:00 am, closest view of large number of “saucers.”
6. 11:30 am, all disappeared.
7. 3:00 pm, fleet of “hundreds” seen flying in formation to the southwest from the northeast.

Here are some other articles about the Armada that Crossed Farmington:

• Scientists Tracked Flying Saucer Over New Mexico Farmington Daily Times The 2-22-1950:

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[ExomatrixTV]

• David Marler receiving 2016 Lucius O. Farish Award:

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ANZ1Qipk_jw