By Vicky Verma

Before Roswell, a UFO crash and alien cover-up incident had already happened. A reverend was called to what he believed to be a plane crash in 1941 to read the last rites of the passengers. The story took a quick turn after the reverend found that the crashed vehicle was not anything like he had seen before and the bodies of the deceased were unlike humans.

A report of a purported 1941 UFO crash at Cape Girardeau was published in 1991 by the late Leonard Stringfield, a pioneering UFO investigator and former civilian adviser to UFO activities at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, in the 1950s. The article by Stringfield was published in the July 1991 issue of his “Status Report,” a monthly journal on UFO studies and activities.

The article was based on the information received from Charlette Mann, a former resident of Cape Girardeau who told Stringfield the tale of what her grandfather had experienced 40 years earlier, in the 1980s. The topic of the UFO crash in Cape Girardeau has been the subject of extensive inquiry.

A local sheriff visited the reverend William Huffman in April 1941, while he was the pastor of the Red Star Baptist Church in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, which is located along the Mississippi River.

The reverend was invited by the sheriff to conduct a memorial ceremony for those who had perished in a plane crash that supposedly occurred on the same day close to the city.

Reverend William Huffman

A car arrived for Reverend Huffman to take him to the location of the incident, which was about 18 miles outside of Cape Girardeau, closer to the Chaffee region near the current Redstar Baptist Church location. The place was full of police officers, FBI agents, firefighters, military men, and doctors, and there was debris from some kind of aircraft.

When they arrived, they discovered the aircraft was actually a silver round disc flying saucer that crashed and was all in flames. Police and firefighters responded to the location and extinguished the fire in a nearby farmer’s field.

Reverend Huffman had never seen anything like this. He tried looking inside the destroyed object through a huge hole that was at the outer surface of the object. He saw there a small metal chair, some instruments and consoles with dials, and also many other things that he had never seen before, which it would be very difficult for him to describe.

Reverend Huffman found himself praying over three extraterrestrial beings after their flying saucer struck the ground in a rural Cape Girardeau field. Cape Girardeau UFO researcher Michael Huntington said: “About that time, the army air corps arrived from Sikeston Field and cordoned off the area and swore everybody to secrecy and confiscated any pictures. There were pictures allegedly taken that night of men holding one of the alien bodies and somewhere out there are those pictures.”

Credit: Gillian Sheridan

Credit: Gillian Sheridan

According to the reverend, the creatures had tiny mouths with indistinguishable noses and no ears at all. They were wearing tight suits that looked like chewed aluminum foil. When Huffman finished his prayers, several military men approached him and told him to keep his mouth shut about that incident.

Among those who eventually learned the secret were his wife Floy, his granddaughter Charlette, and the brother of Cape Girardeau County Sheriff Clarence Schade, who partially confirmed the story in a notarized, sworn affidavit.

In 1984, Mrs. Huffman, dying of cancer, told her granddaughter Charlette Mann about everything. She also said that her husband somehow managed to secretly take a photo of one of the dead aliens from an unknown man. Charlette said “…I had heard rumors, and bits and pieces over conversations, but it was a picture, an old picture, because it had … it was like the old Kodaks, with little lines and scallops around it. There were two men holding up a non-human, is the best way I can describe it. (a) little entity, a little person who appeared to be about 4 feet tall. They had him underneath the armpits with arms outstretched on either side of him.”

1999 Drawings by Charlette Mann Based on Her Memory of the 1941 Photograph. Drawings © 1999 by Charlette Mann. (credit: Genealogical Research)

Gillian Sheridan from KLTV Television station wrote: “We got validation by going to the archives in Washington D.C. And to see a top-secret declassified document that stated that there was in fact a crash retrieval in 1941 in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, for me, I have not forgotten holding that paper in my hand and realizing that my families story was real, was solid, and for me was just an answer to a long time question.”

According to UFO journalist B.J. Booth, “This case ends like many others but appears by all indications to be authentic. All who have come in contact with Charlette Mann have found her to be a trustworthy person who is not given to sensationalism, and she has sought no gain from her account.” (Source)

Another UFO researcher Ryan Wood said one can “reasonably conclude there was a crash event… The implications of this case, if fully proven, are part of the larger picture. Namely, extraterrestrial visitors are real; and certain factions of the government have been hiding this fact since at least 1941.”

Wood has done intensive research on this incident, hence concluded: “After working on this case for about two years and talking with Charlette Mann on numerous occasions either briefly on the phone, over dinner, or in front of a television camera her story, demeanor, and integrity provided no hints of deception or confabulation… Adding more weight to the validity of the story is the highly believable and likely authentic leaked military and Presidential documents [provided by Tim Cooper) that support a crash retrieval in 1941…”

“Ryan has searched several potential crash-site areas for small pieces of wreckage, without success. But he reports that famous “remote viewing” expert Joe McMoneagle says there are recoverable pieces of wreckage at the site. Further, according to Ryan, well-known “psychic detective Annette Martin has “confirmed much of Huffman’s story.” (Source: Skeptics UFO Newsletter By Philip J. Klass)

The FBI responded to Television station KFVS12’s request by stating: “We were unable to identify records responsive to your request.” The United States Air Force had a similar response and said they “researched their files and found no documentation concerning this event.” Air Force officials also said “a review of the histories for the Air Corps Training Detachment at Sikeston, Missouri was undertaken. Regrettably, no mention was found in the official unit histories regarding such an incident.”(Source)

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