Robert Willingham
Colonel Robert Burton Willingham was a United States Air Force Reserve officer and civilian pilot who claimed to have witnessed a UAP crash near Langtry, Texas in spring 1955 while escorting bombers from Carswell Air Force Base on a Cold War simulation mission. He is the central witness in one of two distinct crash retrieval cases referred to in UFO research as the "Del Rio, Texas" incidents. Willingham's account is primarily documented in the 2008 book The Other Roswell: UFO Crash on the Texas Border, written by Noah Torres and Ruben Uriarte, which draws on extensive personal interviews conducted with Willingham near the end of his life.
| Role | USAF Reserve Colonel; UFO crash witness |
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Military Service
Willingham served in World War II, the Korean War, and as an Air Force Reserve pilot. He claims to have received a Purple Heart for a mortar wound to his leg and head sustained in a Korean War foxhole. His service record could not be retrieved by the National Personnel Records Service in St. Louis, Missouri — however, a catastrophic July 12, 1973 fire at that facility destroyed most records for personnel serving between 1947 and 1963, which the video notes weakens this absence of records as disqualifying evidence. Co-author Noah Torres claims to hold over 50 documents corroborating Willingham's service. Researcher Kevin Randall, in his book Crash: When UFOs Fall from the Sky, is among those who have questioned the service record.
The 1955 Sighting
On a spring day in 1955, Willingham was flying an F-86 Saber as part of a Cold War simulation mission from Carswell Air Force Base, escorting B-47 and B-52 bombers (mission call sign: Willie Eddie; Willingham's serial: CD1195). The squadron received radio intelligence from Distant Early Warning (DEW) radar installations in Canada that fast-moving unidentified signatures were tracking south toward Texas. Willingham spotted a large, extremely bright object traveling at an estimated 2,000 mph — approximately four times the F-86's 685 mph top speed — with a surface he compared to "magnesium steel." Pilot George Smithson and other squadron members confirmed the sighting in a post-incident debrief. The object executed a sharp 90-degree turn southwest toward the Mexican border, then emitted sparks and tilted at a 45-degree angle before falling from view, suggesting structural damage from the maneuver.
The Crash Site Visit
Willingham obtained permission from Denver flight control to investigate the estimated crash site. He observed the wreckage of a disc-shaped craft from an altitude of approximately 800 feet — positioned just south of the Rio Grande on the Mexican side of the border near Langtry, Texas. The craft had skidded roughly 300 feet and broken into approximately three sections. He returned to base, then traveled privately to the site in a 1947 Ercoupe Champion with companion Jack Perkins, a Pennsylvania electronics engineer and Civil Air Patrol colleague.
At the site, Mexican soldiers had formed a perimeter but were making no retrieval effort. An officer named Lieutenant Martinez, noting Willingham's USAF fatigues, offered him limited access while excluding Perkins, stating that "the American Air Force will be here very soon to clean this all up." Willingham described the craft's main body as a flattened disc 20–25 feet in diameter, with a dome-shaped section 12–15 feet long resting 50 feet from the main body, and debris ranging from small fragments to sofa-chair-sized chunks.
Before departing, Willingham pocketed a small piece of shiny metal. Upon returning to base, he submitted oral and written reports to Reserve Commander Colonel Miller and received threats from a USAF intelligence general not to discuss what he saw "down on the border."
The Anomalous Material
The fragment Willingham retrieved was described as rigid, extremely light, and grayish-silver in color, with small honeycomb-patterned holes along one side. He was unable to cut or deform it with a torch. He sent it to a USMC Metallurgy Lab in Hagerstown, Maryland; when he later attempted to follow up, the lab denied any record of the fragment, the tests, or the receiving major.
The Bodies Contradiction
The most significant credibility issue in Willingham's account is a direct contradiction between his written testimony and later media statements. In The Other Roswell, Willingham is specifically quoted: "I never saw bodies. I was not able to get close enough, and I don't know what happened after I left." However, in a July 24, 2012 interview with Jeff Rense, Willingham described sneaking close to the dome section and seeing three to four non-human bodies — small, with large heads, broomstick-thin arms, no clothing, and "in a lot of different pieces." Author Noah Torres also reiterated the bodies claim in a 2023 presentation. Willingham's general practice of attributing inconsistencies to his Korean War head injury — also used to explain his changing the aircraft type (F-94 in 1977 affidavit; F-86 in the 2008 book) and the year of the event (1948 in the 1967 article; 1955 in the book) — makes this explanation difficult to accept for factual details as specific as whether bodies were observed.
Public Disclosure History
Willingham first went public in 1965, featured in a Pennsylvania weekly newspaper (Mechanicsburg) soliciting civilian air patrol pilots' UFO accounts. Twelve years later, researcher Todd Zechel of the National Investigation Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) tracked down Willingham and obtained a signed affidavit in 1977. The inconsistencies between this 1967 article, the 1977 affidavit, and the 2008 The Other Roswell book are extensively documented by UAP Gerb.
Independent Corroboration
Former USAF member William Drager, who served as a Spanish interpreter, was hired to assist with a Japanese documentary investigating a UFO crash involving a colonel near the Mexican border. Drager contacted a Mexican general who commanded the border region; the general privately acknowledged awareness of the incident but denied it on camera during filming. Drager provided a formal affidavit describing the exchange.
Assessment
UAP Gerb rates Willingham's account as fascinating but significantly compromised in credibility — citing the changing aircraft type, shifting year, and most critically the direct bodies contradiction. He draws a comparison to the Kingman, Arizona UFO Crash (1953), where witness Arthur Stansel's single affidavit contains no internally changing details.