San Antonio, New Mexico crash claim (August 1945)
Also: Trinity UFO crash; Padilla ranch crash
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The visual record
Illustrations, recordings and archival references — each with its own provenance. A documented source is a starting point for investigation, not a verdict on its explanation.
Trinity Site obelisk
The obelisk at Trinity Site on White Sands Missile Range, marking the July 1945 test. The San Antonio crash claim places its object some 30 km away in the same month; that site is unmarked and unverified. Location photograph · context.
Samat Jain · 2010 ↗Public domainLicence terms ↗Jesse Michels · 2:59:34
Open the source at the cited time. The episode thumbnail is video packaging, not a photograph of the reported subject.
American Alchemy / Jesse Michels ↗YouTube-hosted preview and player; not relicensedJesse Michels · 0:28:17
Open the source at the cited time. The episode thumbnail is video packaging, not a photograph of the reported subject.
American Alchemy / Jesse Michels ↗YouTube-hosted preview and player; not relicensedTwo men, Jose Padilla and Reme Baca, said that as boys in August 1945 they saw an avocado-shaped craft crash on the Padilla ranch near San Antonio, New Mexico, weeks after the Trinity test, and watched the Army remove it. Jacques Vallée co-wrote a book on the case; in the corpus the host notes the crash is "unclear" and disputed.
The event
| Date | |
|---|---|
| Place | 33.9200, -106.8700 approximate · United States |
| Official response | No official body is known to have issued a finding on this report. |
Reported by
- jose padilla witness ranch boy, later Highway Patrol officer
- reme baca witness ranch boy
Investigated by
- Jacques Vallée researcher
- paola harris researcher
Who spoke about it later
- Jesse Michels 2:59:34 UFO Skeptic Mick West Challenged To A Debate ▶ 2025
Mentioned in the corpus
Passages this record cites, with the stamp of the block each quote sits in.
UFO Skeptic Mick West Challenged To A Debate 26 January 2025
- 2:59:34 ▶ Jesse Michels
you have, you know, the Trinity test site possibly. There was a crash there. Unclear. You have DD Johnson on one side, you have
- 2:59:34 ▶ interview
- 2:59:34 ▶ Jesse Michels
Why The Pentagon Tried To Censor This UFO Book 21 May 2026
- 0:28:17 ▶ Jesse Michels
This is where they detonated Trinity, the first atomic July 16th, 1945.
- 0:28:17 ▶ Jesse Michels
On the map
San Antonio, New Mexico crash claim (August 1945), Roswell incident, Socorro (Lonnie Zamora) landing. Open the full map filtered to this record.
Sources on this record
- 2:59:34 UFO Skeptic Mick West Challenged To A Debate · Jesse Michels ▶
you have, you know, the Trinity test site possibly. There was a crash there. Unclear. You have DD Johnson on one side, you have
- 0:28:17 Why The Pentagon Tried To Censor This UFO Book · Jesse Michels ▶
This is where they detonated Trinity, the first atomic July 16th, 1945.
- Trinity UFO crash hoax