1) The first time that Weinbrenner’s name is found in relation to the saucer subject is in testimony from filmaker Bob Emenegger. Emenegger states that in 1973 he and his associate Allan Sandler were invited to Norton Air Force Base in California to discuss a possible film documentary on “advanced research projects.” Two military officials (one the A/V Director of the Base and the other a senior AFOSI officer) mentioned that one of these “projects” involved UFOs. Film was even offered for inclusion in the documentary of a landed UFO and occupants at a base in the desert! Predictably, the film was never forthcoming, with excuses given that it was not the right time, given the political strife in the US at the time.

Sometime later, Emenegger had occasion to visit one of his military contacts, Colonel George Weinbrenner, at Weinbrenner’s office at Wright-Patterson. Emenegger naturally took the opportunity to ask Weinbrenner about the odd affair at Norton. What of UFOs and their reality? What about this film of a landed UFO with occupants? Emenegger explains, “Weinbrenner would not acknowledge anything I was saying, but with a wink he seemed to know what I was talking about.” Emenegger says that when he brought up the sensitive subject, “the Colonel stood up and complained in a loud voice, ‘That damn MIG 25! Here we’re so public with everything we have. But the Soviets have all kinds of things that we don’t know about. We need to know about the MIG 25!'" Then Weinbrenner immediately went to a bookshelf, and, continuing his strange monologue about "the MiGs”, handed to Emenegger a copy of Dr. J. Allen Hynek’s 1972 book The UFO Experience. Emenegger noted that Hynek himself had signed the book, and that he had inscribed a dedication to Wienbrenner. Emenegger explains that “it was like a scene from a Kafka play.” He feels that the Colonel’s unusual behavior was an awkward attempt at confirming the reality of ET while making sure that the conversation was not overheard – or that anyone might realize what he was really implying. One is reminded of how “the Soviets” are often used as an excuse and “code word” for aliens, as when RAAF Commander Butch Blanchard said to a friend about the Roswell crash, “Those Russians have some amazing things.”

2) The second time that Colonel Weinbrenner appears in the UFO literature is in relation to Roswell. Former Roswell investigator and proponent Kent Jeffrey authored the pro-“Roswell Declaration” and collected 20,000 signatures urging disclosure, but became disenchanted by Roswell some years later. Jeffrey, even after becoming a skeptic, for some reason still decided to seek out former high-level officers associated with Wright-Patterson AFB Air Materiel Command (AMC) to get their “take” on Roswell. In 1997 Jeffrey located three former high-ranking officers formerly associated with Wright-Patterson AMC who served there from the 1960s onward. Jeffrey elicited from these three officers a signed statement that was highly dismissive of the Roswell crash scenario as an ET event. The names of these officers were Colonels Walter Klinikowski, Walter Vitunac…and George Weinbrenner. Although these three were associated with AMC years after the Roswell crash in ‘47, they all insisted that if it were ET, they still “would have known about it.”

Apparently Jeffrey never considered that these three were deceiving him. But I have. And in fact, I know that at least George Weinbrenner was being “disingenuous” with Jeffrey about Roswell: Jeffrey indicates in his paper on this, “After my conversations with Klinikowski and Vitunac, Harry Cordes, a former 509th pilot and a retired Brigadier General, suggested that I call a former acquaintance of his, George Weinbrenner, who was also at the FTD.” Jeffrey does not make clear how he came to contact Cordes. And Jeffrey apparently did not ask General Cordes himself what his “take” on Roswell was. Had he done so, Jeffrey may today be a “Roswell believer.” This is because I have communicated at length with General Cordes’ widow, Rogene, who tells a far different story about what people at Wright knew about Roswell. In fact Rogene and her husband lived in Roswell at the time of the crash and knew Sheriff Wilcox and other principal players in the Roswell saga. They also lived in Columbus when at Wright themselves.

In my January 06, 2010 article archived on this site, The General’s Widow: A Roswell Tell-All, the story is told more completely. Rogene's husband, General Henry Nations Cordes, was one of the great military leaders in modern history. Cordes, for instance, trained pilot Gary Powers to fly the U-2 on his Russian mission. Cordes was himself stationed at RAAF in 1947, later at Wright-Patterson and at Area 51, and still later employed by the CIA. He ultimately rose through the ranks to become Deputy Chief of Intelligence for the Strategic Air Command. Rogene explained in some detail that her husband not only believed that some UFOs are interplanetary and that he had seen them while flying in the skies with his own eyes – he also knew that the Roswell crash was of an alien vehicle.

When I asked Rogene why her husband would have referred Jeffrey to a supposed skeptic like George Weinbrenner, Rogene commented that the men were bound by “oath and honor” to never directly confirm such a thing. Though her husband eventually did validate Roswell as ET to her privately, she said that it was a difficult thing for these men to handle or to communicate about in any way. The men might hint and allude to it, or they might “intimate without actually saying it” – and she wouldn’t put it past them to scheme to confuse the issue to people who inquire too much about it. But she also thought it even possible that her husband wanted Jeffrey to talk to Weinbrenner because Weinbrenner might tell him the truth.

3) The third time Weinbrenner discussed UFOs, he confessed his knowledge of alien bodies being stored by the government in Utah. And Dugway Proving Grounds is no doubt the location where the ultimate answer to the saucer mystery would be found:

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