Meet Walt Singlevich, a Roswell alien…

Here’s a nice story about Walt Singlevich, that I found in “The U.S. Air Force’s Long Range Detection Program and Project MOGUL” by James Michael Young in Air Power History (2020 winter).

Walt Singlevich

Young writes: “During the Second World War, Singlevich worked for DuPont but was assigned to the Manhattan Project at Oak Ridge“; and then in 1952 became head of Technical Directorate 4 (TD-4), Radiometrics, at AFOAT-1, which was the part of the US Air Force that was trying to detect [Soviet] nuclear explosions from afar.

By 1952, AFOAT-1 had given up trying to listen for the sound of nuclear explosions (which is basically what Project Mogul had tried [but failed] to do), and so instead were sending planes and balloons up to ‘scoop up’ high-altitude air. This was then taken back to the lab and tested for radioactive residue. But to make sure this worked, AFOAT-1 had to conduct its own (small-scale) nuclear tests and then sample the cloud downwind. Young continues:

During one nuclear test, as the prevailing winds pushed the nuclear cloud southeast towards Texas, the contaminated balloon landed close to a ranch in the Roswell area. Singlevich flew out to recover the debris, and his pilot landed the helicopter in a small, adjacent valley out of sight of the ranch. Both donned their protective gear that included a suit, hood, and respirator. As luck would have it, the two neared the debris just as a woman from the ranch arrived on the scene. According to Walt, she took one look at the two, gasped, and then fainted. They both ensured she was OK, then gathered the debris and ran for the helicopter. Singlevich surmised that with his height, approximately five feet two inches, and outfitted in his strange protective gear, he must have appeared to her as an alien being.

Over the decades, Singlevich received numerous accolades for his work at AFOAT-1: he received the Air Force Exceptional Service Award (twice), along with the Presidential Award for Meritorious Executive and the Presidential rank of Distinguished Executive. But perhaps he felt his greatest achievement was being mistaken for a Roswell alien. For how on earth (literally) can you top that?

In his later years, Walt found the encounter with the woman from the ranch humorous and would joke that he was one of the Roswell aliens. Given his remarkable expertise in nuclear materials, and his vast knowledge and innovations that advanced the LRD program and the AEDS, perhaps he was.