Hangar 18 (Wright-Patterson conspiracy claim, 1974)

Origins of the name

'Hangar 18' is not a documented facility. The idea grew out of a rumour that Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, held recovered alien material. The earliest traceable seed is John G. Fuller's 1966 book Incident at Exeter, which repeated a rumour of small humanoid corpses in a morgue at Wright-Patterson Field. Richard Garvin and Edmond Addeo's novel The Fortec Conspiracy (dated 1968; Signet edition 1969) drew on that rumour for a fictional Air Force program at the base, in which a stolen alien carries a contagious virus.

The name itself came later. Robert Spencer Carr (1909–1994) was a science-fiction writer who had published in Weird Tales as a teenager and whose career ran from 1925 to 1948. He later styled himself 'Dr.' or 'Professor' Carr in UFO circles, though his son later said he held no advanced degree.

The 1974 claims

In January 1974 newspapers, including the Tampa Tribune, reported Carr's statement that the Air Force was hiding 'two flying saucers of unknown origin' in Hangar 18 at Wright-Patterson. By October 1974 he had broadened the story. He said that alien bodies from the 1948 Aztec, New Mexico hoax, which claimed twelve bodies had been recovered and autopsied, were kept at the same site. He also said that Senator Barry Goldwater had been refused access to a restricted area. Goldwater confirmed he had asked for a tour but said he knew nothing about 'twelve little men.'

Carr's later additions were more elaborate. By 1979 he was describing a surgical nurse who had supposedly witnessed an alien autopsy. Accounts differ on the exact sequence of these statements, and most of the detail survives only in press reports and secondary summaries.

Air Force response and the 'Building 18' question

The Wright-Patterson public affairs office denied the claim and said there was no 'Hangar 18' on the base. Officials pointed out that the story closely resembled The Fortec Conspiracy. Reports from the period say reporters were shown around the base to confirm the point, though the details of that visit come from secondary sources.

The base does have numbered buildings with 18 in their designation, and this is the source of some of the confusion. Wikipedia reports that a building known as 18A, whose manager had been in post since 1942, housed freezing cells used to test aircraft parts in cold conditions, and that it was filmed for the television series In Search of... in 1980. The manager said the cells had never held alien bodies. Other accounts describe a 'Building 18' tour in 1974. The sources do not agree on which building is meant, and none of the accounts is backed by documents from the base.

Cultural afterlife and assessment

The story gained a second life through the 1980 film Hangar 18, which dramatised Carr's claims and was in development around Roswell during 1979. Critics such as Thomas E. Bullard treated the film as an early part of what he called 'nascent Roswell mythology.' The Hangar 18 story is now usually cited as an example of how a single unsourced claim can be elaborated, relocated and merged with older rumours until it sounds like documented history.

As an incident, Hangar 18 has no physical evidence, no witness whose account was taken under oath, and no primary record. The Air Force has consistently denied that the facility exists. Its credibility rating is therefore 'debunked': the claim is a rumour that was recorded in the press and spread through fiction, not a sighting or event. Its value to the library lies in showing how the Roswell and Wright-Patterson legends were built up, and how a claim made by one person in 1974 became part of the wider story of government concealment.