In July of 1947, Lorenzo Kimball didn't see any four-fingered aliens.
He didn't see crash debris from a flying disc. He didn't read about "the Roswell incident" in the local paper. And no one said anything to him about what has become the biggest myth - or coverup, depending on your perspective - in America's long fascination with UFOs.In those respects, the 75-year-old East Millcreek resident is like millions of other human beings.
But not many Earthlings can say they were working as a medical supply officer at the base hospital of Roswell Army Air Field when the remains of three alien beings were allegedly brought to the base for inspection.
Kimball can say that. And he can tell you he seriously doubts there is any truth to the 50-year-old story of saucer fragments and dead extraterrestrials.
"There was never any contact, directly, of anybody in the hospital I know of to get any caskets or view the remains of any aliens," said Kimball, who was born in Manti and raised in Salt Lake City. "There was absolutely no discussion that week about this incident. I can't conceive of anything like that occurring in Roswell that summer."
Kimball said it would have been his responsibility to provide caskets for the bodies had any been recovered. He is certain, for myriad reasons, that no autopsy took place in the base hospital as purportedly shown on the "Alien Autopsy" film aired by Fox television.
And if anything had happened, Kimball is sure he would have heard about it, either from an official briefing, conversation at the officer's club or through the grapevine.
"Given the climate and the number of personnel in Roswell and how close-knit we were, I think it would have been all over the base. Everybody would have gotten excited and asked questions," said Kimball, who retired from the military as a lieutenant colonel and later taught political science at the University of Utah.
"What bothers me is the distortions I see in some of the books that have been written, capitalizing on some things they assume happened."
Glenn Dennis was in Roswell that summer, too, working for a local mortuary that contracted with the air base. He agrees with Kimball that many of the "facts" now associated with the alleged crash are just plain wrong.
So many people have made up stories," Dennis, 73, said in a telephone interview from Roswell's International UFO Museum, which he oeprates. "I still don't believe 65 percent of it."
But Dennis says he knows what he saw at the base hospital - two military ambulances full of wreckage with strange hieroglyphics-like inscriptions, and a nurse who told him about the otherworldly bodies being examined inside.
And he knows what he heard when he took a phone call at the mortuary. A man claiming to be an officer from the base asked how many 3 1/2-foot-long, hermetically sealed caskets he had in stock, then wanted to know about embalming fluid.
Dennis agrees with Kimball that no autopsies were performed at the base hospital. It was only an initial exam, he said. One body was flown to Los Alamos National Laboratories and two were taken to Wright-Patterson Air Field in Ohio. Dennis said he knows this because the pilot, Oliver Henderson, was a friend of his.
There's more to the story, and Dennis doesn't know it all. Part of his museum's mission is to keep searching for the truth. He planned to contact Kimball and hear his story for himself.
"I wouldn't say this guy is wrong," Dennis said of Kimball.
Links to several Roswell sources can be found on Kimball's Web site at (www.inconnect.com/(tilde)lorenzok/index.html).