#7-Story continues: 1-22-13 b

We moved to a new neighborhood in north east Phoenix when I was around seven. The school was  known as Elementary #2 and is now under a freeway with concrete pavement. At the time though, the little development known as Womack Homes was where many executives for major military- industrial complex companies lived.

This was in the first years of the 1960s and the country was moving through the early parts of the electronic age. Dad was still at Sperry Rand Corporation and some of our neighbors included a regional VP for Chevron Oil, the developer PW Womack, a VP engineer with a large construction company known as Kitchell Contracting and down the road a half mile were people who worked for the fledgling space program, one especially remembered , Mr. William P[xxxxx-redacted] of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory with his young daughter LeeAnne [ a girl in my classes] who played a part in this saga indirectly. Others included a Dr. Welch of the computer industry and many others in technical fields or government.

At the time, it it seemed they were just a bunch of people living in a new area known regionally as Paradise Valley. Later, when I was first married to a woman from Central Phoenix, whose father also had early space industry experience, I learned that the many individuals living around my family were actually working in New Mexico at a place called White Sands Proving Grounds.

I skipped first grade and entered school at grade two due to the rheumatic fever recovery. This year was important for me because I had written a poem at the end of the year that won a national first place right after John Glenn made his historic flight. He delivered my prize personally in the classroom. He delivered a hard bound book published by NASA chronicling his historic flight for children. In the book was his autograph to me and my poem mounted within the book.

As I look back on that event, I remember I was not wanting that book! I wanted the second and third place prize which was a toy rocket. It was a silly little rocket on a plastic platform about an inch in diameter and launched with a pen spring. Something like you would expect in a “cracker jack” box.

Glenn laughed when I was whiny about the book with his signature and he gave me one of the plastic rockets as well. Looking back once again, I wondered why, at the reason  John Glenn, one of the pioneer astronauts was in my area. Once again, I learned later in life, that something unique had occurred in our area of Paradise Valley in 1952 ish … the equivalent of a Roswell, N.M. crash of a  disc. It apparently occurred about five miles from our Womack development.

Just over the nearby mountains known as Squaw Peak lived a well known US Senator, Barry Goldwater who also ran for President at one time. He then headed the US Department of Defense committee, as I understand. Over the hill from him, the Papago Buttes National Guard station with an underground facility, supposedly where many ‘little alien bodies” were kept temporarily until they could be transported elsewhere.  This is just a rumor but the base was conveniently situated for him. There is an interesting history of Papago Buttes one can read about. Apparently in WWII,  German soldiers were held captive there. They escaped thinking they could float down the Salt River seen on stolen maps only to learn to their dismay it was a dry river. Sort of a German version of the Great Escape.

The crash site was supposedly scraped clean by the Army Corp of Engineers and later a dam called Dreamy Draw was constructed over the site where a dam was not needed… except of course to obscure the site presumably. Today the event is considered an urban legend. As far as I’m concerned … it isn’t.

I transferred to Cholla School where it was built near LeeAnne’s home a half mile from mine. I would occasionally walk with LeeAnne and the other kids to school only a mile away. I was always in what was called the “special advanced ” class and had the same 20 or so kids with me all the way to high school. In the fourth grade though, I got to meet the famous Nazi Rocketry Scientist Werner Von Braun, a friend of Mr. William P.

I remember one day, unannounced, we had a special visitor for our science class , the topic being the planets and space. In Miss Springer’s class, we joined with another class to be introduced as a group of advanced students to meet Dr. Von Braun , a General and a Colonel whose names I don’t remember.  Mr. Pickering was there as he was the local contact for the event. I’m still not actually sure why they showed us what they did but here is what I recollect.

The General introduced Dr.Von Braun as one of our space experts. He, in heavy German accented English,  [with the general clarifying] told us of something that had happened in the North Carolina [?] area in a forested swamp, regarding a landing of a UFO and a subsequent battle between aliens and US Army forces. According to them the battle resulted in the deaths of US men and aliens who were using some kind of laser weapons. They had black and white series of night photos in glossy form and a reel to reel tape deck with recordings of the battle.

It was quite a scary presentation. After the presentation, we were asked how it made us feel. We were each given a copy of a LIFE magazine with UFO’s as the subject matter to take home. We were given opportunity to ask Dr. Von Braun questions.

I asked him specifically, “Have you ever seen a flying saucer?”

He answered, “[laughing] Only when my wife throws one at me from across the room when she’s mad at me!” then he added more seriously, words to the effect that that now that we are in space we will be meeting many things … he was stopped from going further by the Airforce Colonel and the Colonel added that the Army and Airforce were able to protect our country and not to worry. They left soon after and I was more impressed with the magazine than anything… I really didn’t understand at the time who the German guy was. I DO remember the alien event . It scared me. On reflection I know it didn’t scare me because of the content. It reminded me of something earlier in my life.

more in next post… [Von Braun Photo in the public domain via NASA]