A space alien was shot dead near a US military base in 1978, claims former US Air Force Major George Filler. The retired military officer’s account of the alleged incident is detailed in the book "Strange Craft: The True Story of an Air Force Intelligence Officer’s Life with UFOs", penned by award-winning investigative reporter John L. Guerra. According to the book’s description, Guerra interviewed Filler, who is a decorated officer, over four years about the US Air Force’s UFO encounters.
Filler told Guerra that on 18 January 1978, he was about to prepare for an intelligence briefing for his superior officers when he saw a senior master sergeant who was pale, agitated, and his eyes "were wide open".
"An alien has been shot at Fort Dix and they found it on the end of our [McGuire Air Force Base] runaway", the senior master sergeant told Filler.
"Was it an alien from another country?" Filler asked.
"No, it was from outer space, a space alien", replied the master sergeant.
Filler was then told by the officer that after the space guest was shot, UFOs started "buzzing around the pattern like mad".
According to Filler, the alien was shot by a police officer who had spotted a "thin and gray-brown creature" near his car. The officer told the alien to freeze and shot it after it ignored his request. When the policeman contacted the McGuire Air Force Base, a special mop-up team arrived at the scene and took the alien's body to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.
Filler claims he filed a request to speak with witnesses and to see photographs of the incident in order to make an intelligence report, but was denied access.
The former Air Force major is a member of The Disclosure Project, a nongovernmental organisation that consists of former military experts and astronauts, which has urged US authorities to release all known information about encounters with UFOs.
In April, the Pentagon released three videos showing US pilots chasing what the Department of Defence described as "unexplained aerial phenomena".