The astonishing story of the “Trinity UFO crash” -- an alien craft crashing in August 1945 near the site of the first atomic test, witnessed by two boys, carted off by the Army and hidden ever since-- has been presented to a wide audience in two editions of the book Trinity: The Best-Kept Secret, by Jacques Vallee and Paola L. Harris (in June 2021 and August 2022), and through promotional efforts spun off the book. In late 2022 and early 2023, the story reached a substantially expanded audience through amplifying treatments by Fox News Network host Tucker Carlson, writers Josh Boswell and Christopher Sharp of the UK Daily Mail, the hosts of various UFO-themed podcasts and platforms– and even a respectful spin-off feature story in the New York Times, written by Remy Tumin. (See Crash Story File: Selected Comments About and Media Coverage of the Vallee-Harris Book and the Trinity UFO Crash Story.)
As I have written elsewhere, I believe that anomalous devices under apparent intelligent control, operating in the air and sometimes seen on the ground, have been reported by many credible observers since at least late World War II. I believe that some of these UFOs are likely of non-prosaic, unknown origin—unknown to me, anyway. I entertain the possibility that some component of the U.S. government may have recovered an anomalous device, or portions thereof, on one or more occasions over the past 70 years. Few things could delight me more than to see such a claim proved true, and the details laid out for public and scientific examination, before I pass from this mortal sphere.
But this story is not that story.
No, the Trinity UFO-crash story is a tale dreamed up by a serial pretender, Remigio (Reme) Baca, AKA "Ray Baca," now deceased– who faked a history as a political "kingmaker" and senior aide to a governor, and fabricated a story about viewing an ultra-secret government file about his fake UFO crash. Baca enlisted a man who faked a history as a police officer and wounded veteran, Joseph Lopez (Jose) Padilla. These two fakers hijacked the names and personas of a real policeman (Eddie Apodaca) and a real governor (Dixy Lee Ray) as characters in their shoddy work of fiction.
The story of the supposed 1945 UFO crash and recovery is not a story that was told to adults by children, as it is sometimes presented. It is a tale first told by two men who were each in their mid-60s at the time. They hoped to profit from it.
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