News show episode · Reality Check · 27 October 2026
Reality Check: retired lawyer Robert Martinez on his 'most unusual client'
Ross Coulthart interviews Robert S. Martinez, a retired employment lawyer (Albuquerque, now Tucson) and author of 'My Most Unusual Client: The Shocking Truth of the Alien Agenda'. His late client, given the pseudonym 'Dwayne Becker', told him in 1996 that he had coordinated craft retrievals from White Sands for almost 50 years and that Holloman pilots died fighting the craft. Martinez's own firsthand account covers an Espionage Act fax with 'death' underlined, Rep. Steve Schiff's FOIA requests to the Air Force, the client's death the day after the Schiff meeting, the client file taken by two men in black suits, and two car incidents he now believes targeted him.
Overview
- Named, firsthand (Martinez): the Espionage Act fax, the bench ruling, Schiff's FOIA requests and death, the client's death and open window, the file taken, the girlfriend's car and the T-bone crash, the Diehl call, the Schiff file he would open in a SCIF; he would swear to it under oath.
- Anonymous, via Martinez (the client, pseudonym, deceased): White Sands deep-space radar tracking for retrievals from 1947; Roswell photos; the engage order from Korea and its 1990s reissue; Holloman pilot deaths logged as training; three jets spoofed back to base; the empty ejection seat; Eisenhower and Forrestal at White Sands.
- Speculation: visitors influencing officials; a 'pandemic' depopulation plan from a source Martinez cannot place.
- Coulthart ties the story to the White Sands focus of his recent reporting.
Leads to follow
- Rep. Steve Schiff's 1996-97 FOIA requests to the Air Force made for Martinez (Martinez holds the file).
- Alan Diehl's 1996 Time piece and the Holloman losses of the mid-1990s logged as training accidents.
- FAA or press reports of large cylinders near airliners over New Mexico in the 1990s, which Martinez says he confirmed.
Notes
- The client's account is a lone, unnamed, secondhand source, so it is filed as claims on Martinez's record, not as a case.
- Martinez says the client's own story was mostly what he had been told or seen while coordinating from White Sands, not hands-on recovery.
Timeline
On the recordWitness testimonyAlleged / one person's word
People across the timeline · click a name or a dot
Click a person to follow their thread.
Early 1950s
Engage order over KoreaLater withdrawn as 'a losing battle'
1990s
Order reissued over New Mexico300-ft cylinders within 30 ft of airliners
1996
Espionage Act fax'Death' underlined by the DC firm
1996
Client found deadAbout three weeks after the Schiff meeting
1996-97
Client file takenTwo men in black suits
The claims, checked
Witness testimony (12)
In 1996 a long-serving White Sands employee, pushed out after two years of demotions, hired him for an age-discrimination and unemployment case; the man had broken down crying at his desk over a pilot who died, after which the company decided he had to go.firsthandThe White Sands lure and the shoot-down questionReality Check: retired lawyer Robert Martinez on his 'most unusual client'
Opposing counsel, a Washington DC firm acting for what seemed a small New Mexico company, attached the Espionage Act to their entry of appearance and underlined the word 'death' in its penalties paragraph. He took it as a threat.firsthandReality Check: retired lawyer Robert Martinez on his 'most unusual client'
At the unemployment appeal the two DC lawyers harassed him and the administrative judge, and the judge ruled for his client from the bench, which he says never happens.firsthandReality Check: retired lawyer Robert Martinez on his 'most unusual client'
A colleague introduced him at a fundraiser to Rep. Steve Schiff (R-NM), who was hitting 'a stone wall' with the Air Force on Roswell and wanted his client's help. Schiff then volunteered to file his FOIA requests to the Air Force through his own office.firsthandRoswell: the Army's 'flying disc'GAO report on the Roswell records search (GAO/NSIAD-95-187)Reality Check: retired lawyer Robert Martinez on his 'most unusual client'
His client stopped returning calls the day after the Schiff meeting and was found dead about three weeks later; the family found a window left open when they broke in. There was no police investigation he knows of, and the body was cremated.firsthandReality Check: retired lawyer Robert Martinez on his 'most unusual client'
Two men in black suits came to his office while he was in court, waited until the receptionist left the room, and walked out carrying the client file with all his notes. They were never seen again.firsthandReality Check: retired lawyer Robert Martinez on his 'most unusual client'
His girlfriend's parked car rolled out of her garage over her, dragging her to the curb; a search of reported cases found no such defect for that make and model. He later believes he was the target, since he usually left first.An unset brake or undetected fault is proposed, not demonstrated.firsthandReality Check: retired lawyer Robert Martinez on his 'most unusual client'
He was later T-boned at a green light by a drunk driver who fled; the police officer at the scene told him 'if I didn't know better, I would swear that guy was aiming for you', since there were no skid marks and the driver had to swerve to reach him.firsthandReality Check: retired lawyer Robert Martinez on his 'most unusual client'
Schiff developed what seemed a treatable cancer soon after filing the FOIA requests and was dead within about a year, most of it in radiation treatment. Martinez does not believe it was natural but says he has nothing more to go on.Schiff died 25 March 1998.firsthandGAO report on the Roswell records search (GAO/NSIAD-95-187)Reality Check: retired lawyer Robert Martinez on his 'most unusual client'
He called Alan Diehl, the USAF safety whistleblower in Time (1996: at least 30 accidents, 184 dead), and asked whether UFOs could explain the crashes; after a long silence Diehl said 'no, I never considered that.'firsthandReality Check: retired lawyer Robert Martinez on his 'most unusual client'
He kept a separate Schiff file with his FOIA requests, which the men who took the client file missed, and would open it only in a SCIF.firsthandReality Check: retired lawyer Robert Martinez on his 'most unusual client'
He says he would swear under oath to all of it, holding back only his client's identity and the company's name under attorney-client privilege.firsthandReality Check: retired lawyer Robert Martinez on his 'most unusual client'
Alleged / one person's word (9)
Hired off a New Mexico ranch in 1947, after Roswell, he worked almost 50 years at White Sands, rising from space monitor to a tracking station, and coordinated the retrieval of craft using deep-space radar.anonymous'Dwayne Becker' (pseudonym; deceased White Sands employee) → Robert Martinez (Reality Check, 27 Oct 2026) → told itRoswell: the Army's 'flying disc'The White Sands lure and the shoot-down questionReality Check: retired lawyer Robert Martinez on his 'most unusual client'
He saw photographs of the Roswell wreck and alien bodies taken by a White Sands photographer he knew. The craft hit something near Roswell and came down a few miles away.anonymous'Dwayne Becker' (pseudonym; deceased White Sands employee) → Robert Martinez (Reality Check, 27 Oct 2026) → told itRoswell: the Army's 'flying disc'Reality Check: retired lawyer Robert Martinez on his 'most unusual client'
Confrontations with craft began over Korea in the early 1950s; the engage order was stopped as 'a losing battle', then reissued in the 1990s after 300-ft cylinders came within 30 feet of airliners over New Mexico.anonymous'Dwayne Becker' (pseudonym; deceased White Sands employee) → Robert Martinez (Reality Check, 27 Oct 2026) → told itReality Check: retired lawyer Robert Martinez on his 'most unusual client'
The interceptors flew from Holloman, and pilots died in crashes logged as 'routine training missions'; they were advanced fighters with veteran pilots. He knew one dead pilot's family.anonymous'Dwayne Becker' (pseudonym; deceased White Sands employee) → Robert Martinez (Reality Check, 27 Oct 2026) → told itThe Holloman landing, as told to George H. W. BushReality Check: retired lawyer Robert Martinez on his 'most unusual client'
Three jets sent to corner a craft over White Sands all heard an order to return to base; on landing, the ground said no one had given it.anonymous'Dwayne Becker' (pseudonym; deceased White Sands employee) → Robert Martinez (Reality Check, 27 Oct 2026) → told itReality Check: retired lawyer Robert Martinez on his 'most unusual client'
In one crash the ejection seat came down by parachute about a mile from the wreck with the harness still fastened and no pilot; they suspected an abduction.anonymous'Dwayne Becker' (pseudonym; deceased White Sands employee) → Robert Martinez (Reality Check, 27 Oct 2026) → told itReality Check: retired lawyer Robert Martinez on his 'most unusual client'
'Good' aliens abduct people, perform medical procedures and return them; 'bad' ones never return them.anonymous'Dwayne Becker' (pseudonym; deceased White Sands employee) → Robert Martinez (Reality Check, 27 Oct 2026) → told itReality Check: retired lawyer Robert Martinez on his 'most unusual client'
As a young employee he saw President Eisenhower at White Sands in the mid-1950s, and saw James Forrestal there.Forrestal died in 1949, so that sighting would be late 1940s; Martinez does not date it.anonymous'Dwayne Becker' (pseudonym; deceased White Sands employee) → Robert Martinez (Reality Check, 27 Oct 2026) → told itReality Check: retired lawyer Robert Martinez on his 'most unusual client'
Visitors are influencing or controlling some government officials, which is why disclosure never gets past the first step.The client's theory, which Martinez says he shares.speculation'Dwayne Becker' (pseudonym; deceased White Sands employee) → Robert Martinez (Reality Check, 27 Oct 2026) → told itReality Check: retired lawyer Robert Martinez on his 'most unusual client'