Jonathan Edward Caldwell
Designed unusual aircraft that were later found abandoned at a farm and are often inaccurately sited as photographic evidence that the USAF is in possession of alien spacecraft.
Jonathan Edward Caldwell was a mechanical engineer who became interested in aeronautics. He started a company called "Gray Goose Airways" in hopes of creating a new airline. In Maryland, Caldwell had a series of strange looking crafts that never fully functioned. These crafts were eventually abandoned, and Caldwell moved across the country. His landlord found the strange crafts left behind and placed them in a heap where they sat for years.
Then in 1949, after many reported UFOs from all over the country, the USAF was told about suspicious crafts spotted at an old farm. The Air Force found and photographed the heap of Caldwell's failed machines and determined that they did not explain the reported sightings. The Washington Post located Caldwell in California and asked him about the uncovered materials. Caldwell responded by saying, "Shucks, I gave that thing up in 1939." Although this wreckage is still often circulated as documentation of the government in possession of alien technology, it is actually a pile of unsuccessful inventions from a self-taught aeronautical engineer.
