Philip Mantle and I released the testimony of a new Roswell witness, the late Deputy Sheriff Charles Forgus, in the new book, UFOs TODAY, 70 Years of Lies, Misinformation and Government Cover-Up, in June 2017. Deputy Forgus thought that he had witnessed the UFO crash at Roswell in 1947. He had been the Deputy Sheriff in Big Springs, Texas, after serving in the military during WWII.

 

He was en-route to Roswell with the Sheriff to pick up a prisoner. When they approached the Roswell area, they heard about the crash on the police radio and were able to find the roads to this area. When they arrived, they observed the recovery of a 100-foot diameter round craft and four strange-looking dead bodies before being told to leave the area by the military. This testimony was given to a US private investigator by the name of Deanna Short in 1999. Unfortunately she has also passed away. There is a video interview of Deputy Forgus where he details these events which runs for approximately 16 minutes.

Philip Mantle and Dr Irena Scott investigated this testimony as did the Mutual UFO Network, and our full information at that time was revealed in the book, UFOs TODAY, 70 Years of Lies, Misinformation and Government Cover-Up. Philip Mantle then published it in a number of UFO publications and it was also featured in the online editions of several of the UK’s national newspapers.
 
At that time, MUFON and we had researched Deputy Sheriff Forgus’s claims and speculated that he might have been witness to an event in 1953 and not 1947. It was said that Forgus travelled with Sheriff Jess Slaughter, although many times in the video Deputy Forgus simply said the word Sheriff, rather than Slaughter, which might gave one the impression that he may not have remembered for sure who he went with.
 
Thus, we had speculated that he might have been witness to an event in 1953.  One thing that is certain is that the Sheriff he thought he was likely with at the time, Jess Slaughter, was not the Sheriff in 1947. He was a Sheriff in the 1930’s and the 1950’s but not the 1940’s. In addition we found articles in the local paper, the Big Springs Weekly Herald, about Sheriff Slaughter and deputy Forgus in 1953. However, Dr Scott called the Sheriff’s department and they did not have records of who had been deputies that far back.
 
One of the reasons we released this testimony was in the hope that either a family member or a friend might come forward with some further information. We assumed this was along shot but we gave it a try.

To our surprise, on July 17th a nephew of the late Deputy Sheriff Forgus contacted Philip Mantle. He did not want his name used in public but we have it on file.
 
He said: “Hello, I just discovered the video you posted of the interview with CH Forgus. He was my uncle. Interestingly, he never spoke to us about this incident when I was young and I only recently found out about the story from an east coast MUFON investigator. I can tell you, he is not a person who would have fabricated this story. He was very straight laced and no nonsense type of person...that's why he was in law enforcement. I have the full transcript of the interview if you would like to read and post it…One thing I will mention; my uncles' sighting was not at Roswell. He was a deputy in 1953. I have a very good MUFON report I will forward to you on the event.”  Mantle replied that he already had the transcript–as it was him who had released it.

On July 19th, he talked with Mantle again and said that Forgus had a son, Glen Lee Forgus, and a daughter, Toma Forgus, but he has not kept in touch with them. The nephew had found a phone listing a few months ago and called Glen Lee and left a message, but never got a response. He said the only other person that might know the story is his nephew, Charles Buzzbee in Big Spring, Texas. He also believed that Forgus could have mentioned it to his brother but added that “if you knew the Forgus family and west Texans in particular, uncle CH would have been roundly made fun of for sharing his experience. That’s what assures me all the more that he is telling the truth.  He was ex-military and ex-law enforcement and was not the type of a person to make up a story like this. I knew him well and can tell you his personality was not one that liked or sought the spotlight.  He was also not an imaginative person to create such a story.”
 
The nephew added that Deputy Forgus “was very straight laced like all of the Forgus men and women for that matter. It was certainly a very different time when they grew up and my father’s family grew up very poor. So, they were extremely pragmatic and not ones for hyperbole. They believed only what they could see and hold.”
I hope this is of some help.”
 
On September 6 and 23, Dr Irena Scott talked to Deputy Forgus’ son, Glen Lee Forgus, and this conversation helped to answer several questions, such as the time frame of Forgus’ sighting, and whether he had talked about it previously.

Glen provided the new information that Charles had talked about seeing the crash previously. Glen said that he had mentioned this observation maybe 4-5 times over the years, but not in a long drawn out discussion. He spoke about it to Glen when Glen was young. It was Glen’s opinion that Charles thought it was the Roswell crash. He didn’t talk about seeing bodies. At first, he did not necessarily think it was a UFO, Glen said that at that time he may have had no idea what it was. Charles might have not thought about UFOs when he first saw the crash, because he hadn’t been exposed to much or even any information about UFOs. Later when he heard in the media about UFOs and Roswell, he thought this might have been what it was.
 
Glen said that the family moved to California around 1951, so his observation might have happened before that. The family moved because of illness in the family, but moved back and forth several times. There were not any good doctors in Big Springs at that time.
 
Glen also said that he thought that when Charles made the trip to Roswell that he didn’t go with Sheriff Slaughter but with a different person, who might have been another deputy. He could not recall the name of the person that Charles had travelled with or who was sheriff at that time.

Thus, the crash might have happened in 1947, which was the time that Deputy Forgus recalled that it was.
 
Glen said that Charles was very straight arrow and not impressed by false knowledge. He was a no-nonsense type of person, having been in law enforcement. He had been a police officer and in the military. Glen looked up to his father as a John Wayne kind of hero. During the war, Charles was in the army but on loan to the Navy and was a deep-sea diver. Charles and his crew would dive down and weld patches on the sunken ships so they could refloat them and get them out of the harbour. When MacArthur made his reappearance to the Philippians, there had been a lot of fighting and there were a lot of ships sunk in the harbour. One of the ships settled on a reef, and the wave action would rock it. The ship slipped off the reef, squashed him in the mud, and it took three days to get him out.
 
One main thing Glen emphasized was that his father was very honest and ethical. He was definitely not the kind of person who would make up a lie. Glen gave the same impression–he was very knowledgeable about current news and events and very civic minded. He had an electric car and powered it using a wind turbine power generator.
 
Thus the possibility exists that Deputy Charles Forgus did see the crash in the time frame that he reported. Charles had said that neither he nor the person he was with talked about it much, and this was likely because no one had heard of UFOs or Roswell at that time, which might help to further date the event. In addition, he did not recognize the uniforms of the attendant soldiers as Air Force, which did not did not become a separate military service until September 1947.

When we released the original information regarding the late Deputy Charles Forgus we were criticised far and wide despite the fact that we also pointed out the number of discrepancies in the testimony on tape. One well-known Roswell researcher simply labelled the testimony from Deputy Forgus as a lie. Now, we have information from a nephew and the son of this witness the latter of whom supports his late fathers story. Do doubt we will still be criticized but I think it is fair to say that we have now been vindicated in releasing this information and to continue to look for more.

UFOs TODAY – 70 Years of Lies, Misinformation and Government Cover-Ups by Irena Scott PhD is out now on Amazon.