Kingman_1950_Newspapers

June 1950, Kingman, Arizona, News Stories about

Vanishing Ambulance with Strange Burned Men

A large forest fire of unknown origin broke out June 18, 1950 or before, in the Hualapai Mountains SE of Kingman, Arizona. It got out of control on June 21, and hundreds of Kingman residents rushed to the mountains to fight it. This included the commander of the National Guard contingent in Kingman, Cpt. John Warren. According to the news stories, Warren was headed back to Kingman around 9:30 p.m., in part to activate his National Guard unit to help fight the fire. On his way out of the mountains, he reported finding 3 badly burned men near the fire, variously described as "youths" or "young men", suggesting they were maybe smaller than normal adults. Loading them in his vehicle, he headed to the Kingman hospital. Either at the hospital or outside of town (depending on story), there was a parked ambulance. According to Warren, one of the burned men strangely commented, "There's our ambulance now." In the front of the ambulance were 2 more unknown men, identifying themselves as the driver and an "intern."

The worst burned man had died by this time. The ambulance crew loaded the body and the two other burned men into the ambulance. Then the ambulance and unknown men drove off and vanished, never going to the KIngman hospital or any other hospital. With a reported dead body, the Kingman Sheriff, Frank Porter, , began an intensive search, setting up road blocks and putting out an All Points Bulletin in three states: Arizona, California, and Nevada. All nearby hospitals were contacted. But the men and ambulance never turned up. The one ambulance in town was operated by the mortuary and was fully accounted for.

Historian Harry Drew, who had been investigating alleged UFO crashes near Kingman, brought this odd story to light and stated that it was widely carried. Indeed it was, as this web page will document. Below are newspaper stories from the Kingman newspaper (Mohave County Miner), but also many other newspapers, including the major wire services AP, UP, and INS. Some newspaper treated this as their headline story.

Historian Drew thinks the fire was caused by a UFO crash into the mountain and the burned men were the crew, but there is nothing in these stories to corroborate this. In one follow-up article in the Kingman newspaper a month later, it was said that despite a "very complete investigation" by the Bureau of Interior the cause was not determined, though there were suspicions it was "man-caused." They denied there had ever been any controlled burn permits issued for the region. Poor cattle-grazing management was blamed in a Kingman newspaper editorial for contributing to hazardous conditions. Thus speculation, but never a confirmed cause, and nothing about any sort of crash being involved.

There was, however, considerable reported UFO activity at the time. On June 20, two UFOs were sighted in nearby Flagstaff, reported in the Flagstaff paper below. Exactly one month earlier was another UFO sighting near Flagstaff by astronomer Seymour Hess at the Lowell observatory. In addition, there was extensive UFO activity throughout the nation. One of these was a mass sighting on June 24 of a UFO doing acrobatics and leaving a giant spiral trail, seen over Nevada, southern California, southwestern Utah, and northwestern Arizona, which would have included Kingman (but not noted in the Kingman paper). Another Arizona mass sighting occurred over Phoenix on June 29.

A potential problem with the vanishing ambulance story is the articles here point to it being a single witness report from National Guard Cpt. Warren. Reporting the story to the press, Sheriff Porter kept saying he was quoting from Warren, not providing independent confirmation, though apparently taking it very seriously. The independently reporting Flagstaff Arizona Daily Sun said Kingman residents who knew Cpt. Warren vouched for his reliability and truthfulness. The Sheriff added, "The thing may be true. We are going to do everything possible to get to the bottom of the matter." From this quote, Sheriff Porter may have been harboring doubts. There is certainly the possibility that Cpt. Warren hoaxed the whole thing, though why he would do this after fighting a forest fire, preparing to gather his National Guard troop to fight it the next day, and likely destroying his reputation is difficult to understand.

(A photo of Cpt. Warren and Sheriff Porter from June 24 was carried by the Arizona Republic (Phoenix) on June 25, discussing pulling out Warren's National Guard troop because the fire was now under control. The accompanying story has Sheriff Porter saying he was still investigating and following up on "rumors" but had nothing definite. The last mention of the story I've found was the Kingman paper on June 29 reiterating that "no trace" of the men and ambulance had been found.)

Drew also links this to another crash and fire on the mountain he says happened on May 24, 1953. He says the Kingman paper similarly reported that two strange men were found near this fire, were taken into custody on suspicion of arson, and placed in a very secure underground Sheriff holding facility beneath the Kingman courthouse. Drew says the story reported that when Sheriff Porter went to interrogate the men, they had vanished. I don't have this story and have not been able to find it in other newspapers, unlike the 1950 incident which garnered a lot of press interest.

To see full size versions of these stories, open them in another page.

Kingman, Mohave County Miner, June 22, 1950, p. 1 (Google News) + U.C. Berkeley Library microfilm collection, with follow-up stories June 29, July 20

The following accounts were found by digitally searching Newspapers.com

AP (Associated Press) accounts