1966 SR-71 Crash In Eastern NM

John poses a question:

Hey Marc,
Have you ever heard of this? I imagine it was kept pretty quiet at the time and since you were only 9 at the time you probably would not have heard about it even if it was in the news...

Wow! That’s real interesting! No, never heard a thing about it. With the Cold War and everything, this sort of event would have been actively buried with respect to media coverage. It’s only now, 40+ years after the fact, are we beginning to hear these things in more detail. With regards to the ‘War on Terror’ we might also have to wait 40+ years to hear the interesting stuff.

Here's a sample:

Looking down, I was startled to see a fairly large animal--perhaps an antelope--directly under me. Evidently, it was just as startled as I was because it literally took off in a cloud of dust.

My first-ever parachute landing was pretty smooth. I landed on fairly soft ground, managing to avoid rocks, cacti and antelopes. My chute was still billowing in the wind, though. I struggled to collapse it with one hand, holding the still-frozen face plate up with the other.

"Can I help you?" a voice said.

Was I hearing things? I must be hallucinating. Then I looked up and saw a guy walking toward me, wearing a cowboy hat. A helicopter was idling a short distance behind him. ....