I witnessed a UFO crash and aliens flee the ship - and I have a piece of the craft to prove it

A man named Jose Padilla from Los Angeles has a wild story from his childhood in New Mexico that he’s stuck to for decades. When he was just nine years old, growing up in San Antonio, New Mexico, Padilla claims he witnessed something extraordinary: a UFO crash-landed in the desert, and he saw aliens escaping from it. This happened back in 1945, not far from the Trinity nuclear test site, where the world’s first nuclear bomb was detonated. Padilla initially thought the crash was another bomb test until he and his friend saw smoke rising from the ground and realized it was something else entirely.

As the boys got closer, Padilla says they saw three extraterrestrial beings emerge from the crashed "avocado-shaped" UFO. Surprisingly, the boys weren't scared. Padilla believed the aliens had crashed on his father’s ranch and might need help. For the next ten days, the military took over the crash site, cleaning up the wreckage while Padilla and his friend secretly watched from a distance, hiding behind cactuses. Despite warnings to stay away, the boys couldn’t resist sneaking closer.

One day, when the soldiers were taking a break, Padilla and his friend decided to explore the wreckage. The aliens were gone, giving Padilla a chance to take a souvenir. He removed a small "dial" from the inside of the spacecraft and took it home, hiding it in his garage. Years later, in 2015, a lab in Ohio analyzed the artifact and found it was made of aluminum mixed with silicon and copper—materials often found in engine parts. While the isotopic ratios were consistent with terrestrial sources, the possibility of an extraterrestrial origin wasn’t completely ruled out.

Padilla eventually moved to Rowland Heights, California, where he raised a family, but he never let go of that mysterious piece of his past. In 2012, investigative journalist and UFO researcher Paola Harris interviewed Padilla and his childhood friend as part of her investigation into a related UFO claim. Harris believes that the story Padilla tells might actually align with a sighting reported by the son of a World War II army pilot who flew over the area where the UFO crash supposedly happened.

If you’re curious to dive deeper into this intriguing tale, you can read more about it on Daily Mail.