Lovette-Cunningham Incident (1956)
One of the more chilling accounts to surface in American Ufology is the Lovette–Cunningham incident, an alleged military encounter said to have ended in the violent death of a U.S. Air Force serviceman. The most consistent retellings place the event in March 1956 at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, a vast weapons-testing complex adjacent to Holloman Air Force Base.
The story has endured not merely because it describes a disappearance, but because it suggests something far darker: that some encounters with unidentified craft may have been hostile and lethal. Central to its reputation are claims of extreme post-mortem mutilation, details later writers would connect to patterns reported in animal mutilation cases beginning in the 1960s.
By the mid-1950s, southern New Mexico was among the most militarized regions in the United States. White Sands Missile Range functioned as a hub for V-2 rocket testing, early U.S. missile programs, and experimental radar systems following World War II. The region generated frequent radar anomalies and unidentified aerial sightings, many logged internally and later declassified. Air Force summaries indicate that over one hundred UFO reports were filed in New Mexico during the 1950s. White Sands’ proximity to Roswell, roughly 150 miles away, fueled speculation that covert recovery or containment activities continued in the region.
According to secondary accounts that surfaced decades after the fact, Air Force Sergeant Jonathan P. Lovette and Major William Cunningham were conducting a late-night patrol at approximately 3:00 AM, reportedly searching for debris from a recent missile test. The two men allegedly became separated among the dunes. Cunningham later claimed he heard Lovette scream and ran toward the sound, where he reportedly observed a silvery, disc-shaped object estimated at 15 to 20 feet in diameter hovering 10 to 20 feet above the ground. From the underside of the craft, a long, snake-like metallic appendage allegedly extended, wrapped around Lovette’s legs, and dragged him upward. The object then ascended vertically at high speed, carrying Lovette with it. Some retellings add that base radar detected an unidentified blip at the same moment and that Cunningham radioed a superior officer, Lt. Col. John P. Lee, for assistance.
Cunningham was allegedly hospitalized afterward for shock and, in some versions, briefly treated as a murder suspect before investigators found no evidence implicating him. No contemporaneous patrol report, radar log, medical record, or command memo confirming this incident has ever been located, despite extensive searches of declassified Air Force archives.
The most disturbing claims emerge several days later. After a reported three-day air and ground search, Lovette’s body was allegedly found roughly ten miles downrange from the supposed abduction site. Accounts describe the body as nude and completely exsanguinated, with soft tissues removed, including the tongue, eyes, genitalia, and anus. An incision is said to have extended from the lower jaw toward the throat and esophagus, and the anal region was allegedly cored in a plug-like fashion extending toward the lower intestine.
These descriptions closely mirror those later reported in animal mutilation cases, such as the 1967 Snippy the Horse incident, despite this story predating that wave by more than a decade. No autopsy report, death certificate, base incident log, or casualty record has ever been produced, and searches of military personnel databases have not confirmed the existence of a Sergeant Jonathan P. Lovette matching this account.
Report 13 was a classified document described variously as being over 600 pages in length, purportedly containing autopsy photographs, radar data, and analysis of multiple UFO cases. Declassified Grudge archives include reports numbered 1 through 12 and 14, but no Report 13, an omission often cited as evidence of deliberate suppression. No independent archival confirmation of such a document exists.
Much of the modern version of the story traces back to Bill English, described as a former Green Beret captain. English claimed that in July 1977, while stationed at RAF Chicksands in England, he was shown Report 13 as part of his duties. He later dictated his recollections onto audio cassettes and discussed the material publicly in the late 1970s and on a Colorado radio program in 1991. The story gained further circulation through figures such as John Lear and William Cooper, who presented English’s claims as corroborative rather than primary.
The story persists because it resonates culturally. It reflects fear of hostile non-human intelligence, distrust of military secrecy, and the unsettling possibility that not all encounters are benign. The absence of evidence has amplified its power rather than diminished it.
