Arthur Exon, also referred to by Ross Coulthart as Arthur Ernest Exon, was an officer associated with the 1947 Roswell crash and debris retrieval - an episode also known as the Roswell incident (1947) - and is discussed in research on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP). According to Coulthart, Exon was allegedly heavily involved in the retrieval of the Roswell craft in 1947.1 He was involved with the Air Materiel Command at Ohio Wright Field in July 1947,2 and was officially assigned to the Air Materiel Command in 1948.3 In 1964 he was assigned as commander of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.4 Coulthart states that the Roswell wreckage was allegedly taken to Wright-Patterson, where Exon was a former commanding general.5
Exon was a family friend of Whitley Strieber.6 Strieber came to know Exon through his father’s brother rather than through his own father,7 and has described Exon as a friend of that uncle who later became a general and commanding officer at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.8
Strieber has said that Exon told him debris and bodies were brought in following the Roswell crash.9 Strieber has said that after he published Communion in 1987, Exon told him that everybody from Harry S. Truman on down knew within twenty-four hours of the material being found that it was not of this world,10 and Strieber has elsewhere given the same statement as a direct quote from Exon.11 In a 1989 letter to Strom Thurmond, Strieber wrote that Exon had told him personally that there was a “completely unequivocal cover-up” of a retrieved craft at New Mexico Roswell that “went from Truman on down”.12 Strieber has said that as late as 1988 Exon told him he was still consulting with groups at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base on the question of nonhuman bodies,13 and that he was still going regularly to the base to brief staff there on matters from classified off-the-record briefings he remembered.14 Strieber has also said that Exon spoke privately about the existence of nonhuman bodies held by the United States Department of Defense (DoD).15
The record contains differing accounts of what Exon personally saw or handled. In one, Exon is quoted as saying that he had held one of the recovered bodies in his arms and that it resembled a large insect.16 Strieber has separately said that in 1988 he met Exon, who told him he had seen and held one of the bodies and likewise perceived it as insectlike.17 Elsewhere, however, Strieber has said that Exon told him he had held one of the bodies only while it was inside a body bag and did not see it,18 and that Nathan Twining and others did see the bodies, though Exon himself did not.19
Exon did not explain the motivations of the beings involved or why they were coming to Earth; Strieber did not press him, since both Exon and his uncle were constrained by their security clearances.20 Neither Exon nor Strieber’s uncle said whether the beings were malevolent or benevolent,21 and neither made any value judgement about Strieber’s having written Communion, remaining totally neutral about it.22 Strieber has said that Exon told him a scientist within the group believed that if the public became aware of the phenomenon it would allow the beings to come in on what Strieber calls a tide of belief,23 and that from what Exon said, he gained the impression - which he allows may be wrong - that someone on the Majestic 12 committee felt the same way.24 Strieber has said he has a feeling that Exon and his uncle may have been told to communicate what they did.25
Strieber has said that Exon supposedly later developed Alzheimer’s disease, but that he suspects Exon may not have, and that the United States Air Force (USAF) acted against him for talking too much.26 Strieber has also said he considers it a mistake that he introduced Exon to Stanton Friedman.27