THE GENERAL'S WIDOW:
A ROSWELL TELL-ALL
(originally published Jan 2010)
Captivating and credible testimony recently obtained from the elderly widow of a highly-placed U.S. Air Force General reveals that the Roswell crash of 1947 was in fact an extraterrestrial event. Her confession affirms that the true nature of the wreck has been shrouded in secrecy for decades - even from those at the highest levels of government.
Her husband, Brigadier General Harry Nations Cordes, who possessed Top Secret/SCI clearance, was uniquely positioned to be "in the know" on such matters. Perhaps no other military man in history can lay claim to having been stationed at Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF) in July of 1947; later with Wright-Patterson Air Force Base; to have worked at Area 51; been employed by the CIA; to have acted as Deputy Chief of Staff at Intelligence Headquarters for the Strategic Air Command (SAC), and still later to have led many intelligence functions at the Pentagon.
The Cordes story is a telling one - and leaves little doubt that what fell from the skies to the desert floor in New Mexico six decades ago was not from Earth.
THE GENERAL
Brig. Gen Harry N. Cordes
Harry Cordes graduated from Emory University in Atlanta, GA in 1941, and in 1966, received an MBA from the George Washington University in Washington, DC. Shortly after the outbreak of WWII, duty called and Harry enlisted in the Army Air Force, graduating first in his class at navigation school. There, his love of flying developed and he was accepted for flight training as a pilot. Spanning over four decades, Cordes' career involved him in many historical events. He flew more than 25 different types of planes. He flew combat and reconnaissance missions in Europe, the Pacific, and Vietnam. Gary Powers, who gained global attention during the height of the Cold War, served under Cordes. Cordes was a U-2 pilot and was the first human to fly in a space suit. Cordes saw action in the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the A-Bomb tests at Bikini Atoll. He served at the highest level of decision-making for many of the nation's most confidential matters, including "Star Wars" - the Strategic Defense Initiative.
TIME AT ROSWELL
In 1947 Cordes was stationed at Roswell Army Air Field as a Radar Operator. It was there that he met Rogene, his future wife. Rogene's father's cattle and sheep ranch was adjacent to the Roswell crash site. It is Rogene Cordes with whom this author has had extensive dialogue over several months. It is Rogene Cordes - the General's widow - who felt compelled in the winter of her life to now tell all about what she and her husband knew about the Roswell crash and its history-making implications.
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THEIR ROSWELL STORY
Both Rogene and Harry were well aware of the crash of a "flying disk" at the time of its occurrence in the summer of 1947. As Roswell residents at the time, they read the papers and they personally knew many of the involved principals. But it was not until the 1980s when the Roswell story was brought back into the public eye that they began to discuss the meaning of the event and the truth of what has crashed there. Rogene recounts that she knew her husband knew much about the incident. She too wanted to know what really had happened.
Rogene told me that she used every tool she could to get him to talk. This included what she called "beauty" and "pillow talk" to coax him to reveal more about what he knew about the crash. Harry told her that he was not physically at the base the week of the crash and that he was on travel during that time period. She hints that she
did not believe that he told her all that he knew. When she pressed him further he told her, "many of the guys there knew what had really happened. But it was a matter of duty to country to never talk." Finally, after repeated attempts, Harry told her, "I was a radar operator at RAAF as you know. The object was flying and it was unidentified. The machine was tracked by White Sands radar and those folks didn't know what the hell was happening." She pressed further. She said, "Just tell me, was it a balloon?" Harry replied, "It was no balloon. Jesse Marcel told the truth. But if I tell you the details you will never view life the same." He beseeched her to ask no more. But she did. Harry blurted out, "Rogene, if I tell you...I will have to kill you." She thought he was joking. But Harry was not laughing.
Much later, Rogene decided to approach her by-then retired husband on the Roswell matter more assumptively. She asked him directly, "Where do they keep the craft honey, at Area 51?" She knew of course that he had worked at the Nevada Test Site for some time. He told her that it was not stored there. "Maybe at one time it was at Wright Patt, in an off-limits area."
Still later, Rogene brought up the issue with her husband again, remembering that he was in the CIA at one time. She asked him, "What did you learn about the crash when you were at the CIA?" The last thing he would utter on the matter to her was, "When I went to work for the CIA, one of the first things that I did was to look for the Roswell file. I know it exists, but it was missing. Either that or they were hiding it from me."
Rogene told me that "I know that he wondered his whole life why there was a coverup - why they would not tell the people."
Though Harry Cordes was sparse in details about Roswell, he would tell her more general stories about UFOs that were encountered during his time in service. He told his family (including both of his daughters) that at one time when he was flying at 70,000 feet (the highest anyone had ever flown up to that time) he had personally witnessed what he said "could only have been an alien craft."
ROGENE'S ROSWELL SECRETS
Rogene, born and raised outside Roswell, NM, grew up on a ranch. She was employed at a Roswell bank in the summer of 1947. Rogene knew many of the people in the community whose names today are well-known in relation to the Roswell crash.
Col. William "Butch" Blanchard
Mortician Glenn Dennis
She spoke cryptically of Butch Blanchard, who was Commander of RAAF at the time of the crash. "Butch was a believer." She states that she knew he had told "all the guys involved at the base" (many of whom she and her husband entertained at their home with dinners, card games and BBQs) to say nothing of the crash event. Whenever she brought up the subject with the "military fellows", she was met with stony silence. She told me, "Anyone who wanted to stay in the military simply didn't talk about it! It was their patriotic duty to not say much and to not ask too many questions." She also knew Blanchard's wife at the time, Ethel. She believes that Ethel was emotionally distressed over her husband Butch's involvement in the retrieval – and that it may well have contributed to their eventual divorce.
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Rogene lived just a few doors down from Roswell's Chaves County Sheriff George Wilcox and his wife, Inez. Rogene even today does not like to talk about the Wilcox involvement. "George Wilcox and Inez were threatened and were afraid for their own reasons. They really did not want to ever discuss it, not even to talk about it with their friends. George changed after all of that."
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Though Rogene is unsure about the totality of the truth of embalmer and undertaker Glenn Dennis' Roswell tales, she said that she went to high school with Glenn. She knew him to be "on the straight and narrow." But one story he told she knows was true. The day after the Roswell crash, Rogene was trying to get ice for the soda and beer for the holiday weekend. She made the "usual rounds" for ice, including at Clardy's, the general store in town. She was
Sheriff George Wilcox
told that Roswell base personnel had already been in and that "they cleared out all the ice, they bought it all." She then went to the train station, where dry ice could be purchased. To her amazement, she was told that the Roswell base personnel had already been there too and "had bought it all out." Rogene felt that the town had its entire supply of ice and dry ice depleted. This had never happened before or since the crash weekend. Later, when Glenn told about the need for ice to help preserve the bodies from the crash, she "put two and two together."
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Most interestingly, Rogene confirms that there were military cordons around surrounding ranch lands to the crash site. With her own eyes she saw "military men with guns at their sides" who would not let people pass. Their paths were diverted away from the area. Later she also overheard talk at the bank "from early-rising ranchers" about long trucks covered in canvas going to the base.
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Finally, she explained that she knew Walter Haut well. Haut was the public information officer at the Roswell Army Air Field who issued the story of a "flying disk" that had fallen near Roswell. Rogene believed that the original story issued was the true story. The news story was recanted the following day. She said, "I know Walter finally confessed that it was not from Earth at the end of his life. Walter finally told the truth."
The woman from Roswell - the General's widow - had cleared her conscience. She concluded her conversations with me, "Harry died in 2004. He didn't want to say everything he could have. But I feel better telling what I know. People should know. And now they will. Roswell really happened."
