Robert Vinson

[Drew Phipps]

This is an old thread, I know, but I just ran across Robert Vinson's story and watched the videos. He cetainly struck me as a credible speaker. However, the devil is in the details, as is said. He does have some errors in the details.

He says he went to Washington DC on Wednesday, 11/19/63. (That date is actually a Tuesday.)

He says he boarded a C-54 (with CIA markings?) at Arlington AFB 11/22/63 and took off between 8:30 AM and 9:00 AM heading west for Denver. At 12:29 the pilot announced that JFK had been shot. (Oops, JFK was shot after 12:30. Bad news travels fast.)

The plane then made a "180" degree turn left and headed south. He is gently corrected by his attorney to "90" degrees left. (funny that an Air Force guy wouldn't know that, but a turn to 180 degrees is directly south. After 3.5 - 4 hours at the cruising speed of a C-54 (190 mph) the plane would have been approaching St. Louis, and a 45 degree turn left at most would have been required to head to Dallas from there. It would have taken the plane 2 more hours flying directly west to reach a spot mostly "north" from Dallas, too late to be contemporaneous with the shooting.)

The plane flew to Dallas and landed in the Trinity River bed (near Oak Cliff), on a road under construction. He could see water and trees to the north. (I have been unable to definitively identify this road, but from the description it sounds like it could be Sargent Road. It is the only place south of the river, close to Oak Cliff, with a straight enough stretch of riverbed, without intervening bridges, for a (southbound) C-54 to land. I don't know when the road was finished, but the riverbed park "Sargent Park" opened in 1971 with an address on "Sargent Road".)

Oswald (or a lookalike) and a husky Cuban left a yellow construction-type Jeep (driven by a third party) and boarded the plane which took off without refueling. (It's 600 miles from St Louis to Dallas, at 190 mph, 3.2 hours or now about 3:45 PM. The "real" Oswald was arrested by then.)

They landed at a mysterious destination (which turned out to be Roswell AFB) at "dusk" and Oswald, the Cuban, and the flight crew of 2 deplaned and disappeared. The base was on lockdown. Vinson was left on his own. (It's 450 miles from Dallas to Roswell, which at 190 mph is a flight time of 2.4 hours, bringing us to at least 6:15 PM (and probably much later after allowing for taxiing twice, turning around, takeoff, and 2 landings. Sunset in Roswell NM on Nov 22 is right at 5:00 PM. It's not dusk, its night-time by then. To make the trip in 4.5 hours you'd have to average 240 mph which is about 90% the maximum speed of the aircraft. That would certainly be a memorable experience but Vinson doesn't mention any rough flight details.)

So Vinson's story, as interesting as it is, fails on some critical details. Some of those failings might be related to age or passage of time. He was also allegedly stationed at Area 51 for a period of time. (He might have flying saucer tales to tell as well?) He appears sincere, but I would be careful accepting his tale without more.