A local man who has spent more than 30 years studying the 1947 Roswell UFO-related event, government installations shrouded in secrecy and the pyramids of Giza is out of retirement to share some of his research and his thoughts.

 

Dennis Balthaser of Roswell speaks with an attendee at his Friday morning presentation on government secrets and historic mysteries at the International UFO Museum and Research Center. He was one of the speakers in the museum's speaker series offered during the citywide 2022 UFO Festival. Lisa Dunlap Photo

“I talk about Roswell because, 75 years later, it refuses to go away; Area 51 because, for the most part, according to our government, it doesn't exist; and underground bases because our government is simply lying to us about them,” said Dennis Balthaser during a Friday morning talk at the International UFO Museum and Research Center.

Balthaser added that, in 2001, he was asked to join the advisory board of the Great Pyramids of Giza Research Association, which has 5,000 members.

A former civil engineer, Balthaser ran the Roswell UFO Tours for about seven years, a popular draw that ran five days a week, two times a day. He showed visitors some of the city locations connected to the famous incident while also sharing what he had learned from research and interviews. He retired in fall 2020 when the coronavirus pandemic made in-person tours impossible and gave his research files to the UFO Museum.

Now, at 80, he is giving lectures, including at the UFOlogist Invasion, the speaker series sponsored by the UFO Museum that occurred during the citywide 2022 UFO Festival that ended Sunday.

He also still visits the UFO Museum about twice a week.

He started off discussing the 1947 crash of an object on July 2 at a ranch north of Roswell, described in a July 7 U.S. Army press release as a “flying disc.” The next day, Army officials changed their description of the object, saying it was a weather balloon and arranging a photo of the balloon material.

During his research, Balthaser talked with some of the witnesses involved in the incident.

“What if — and this is my theory — what if we recovered a crashed flying saucer and retrieved some bodies on the Foster Ranch northwest of Roswell in July 1947, and some 75 years later we still don't know what we have, how it operates or where it came from? Would the government go public with that information? I don't think so,” he said.

While the U.S. Air Force has given at least two official statements about what the 1947 crash was about, Balthaser dismisses those explanations.

He notes that the government is equally secretive about Area 51 near Groom Lake, Nevada, although Balthaser and many others have been visiting outside the area for years. Balthaser said the facility known as Area 51 was built by the CIA in 1955 for the development of the U-2 spy plane. He said that some reports indicate that the facility has 22 underground levels.

Balthaser became interested in underground government facilities because he wanted to know how taxpayer money was being used.

“Apparently black project money is one of the largest expenditures our government has, and it appears at least to me that very little accountability is required from such projects,” he said.

He said large U.S. government underground facilities include a site in the mountains in Nevada; the North American Aerospace Defense Command or NORAD site near Colorado Springs, Colorado; a facility near Washington, D.C.; and one near an Air Force base in Nebraska used by the Federal Emergency Management Administration. There are also several secured sites for senior government leaders in case of emergencies and sites to store and secure military equipment.

“It is almost a necessity today to do research underground because of the large number of satellites circling the earth with the ability to take photos and read a newspaper from 200 miles up,” he said. “It is the only way to keep secrets from the public or spying eyes of our adversaries.”

Balthaser's research on pyramids focuses only on the Sphinx and Great Pyramids at Giza, which some have said must have involved alien advanced technology.

He said they were thought to have been built as burial sites for pharaohs but no mummies or bodies have ever been found. Speculation exists that the pyramids could have been machines to generate, transmit or transform energy. Balthaser described them as originally covered with polished limestone that would have reflected the sun and been visible from the moon.

He also said no one yet has a good understanding of how structures of such size and precision could have been built with the tools and technologies available in 2,600 B.C. That's when the pyramids are thought to have been built, although Balthaser and others think it could have been even earlier that that. Attempts to recreate the structures have “failed miserably” even when using cranes or other modern equipment.

Balthaser concluded by saying that the expense, time and frustration involved in his research is significant, but that he has undertaken it to search for answers for his grandchildren and future generations.

“If I have done my presentation satisfactorily, you now have more questions and perhaps you will do your own research,” Balthaser said. “In my lifetime, I do not know if we will have answers to the questions we are asking, but I do think the questions are of such importance that we must continue to ask them.”

Lisa Dunlap can be reached at 575-622-7710, ext. 351, or at [email protected].