Randy Anderson
Randy Anderson is a United States Green Beret and 18B Special Forces Weapons Sergeant who claims to have been taken to a classified underground facility at Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane Division in Indiana in March 2014, where he saw two metallic objects described to him as "off-world technology" recovered from a crashed non-human craft.
Background
Anderson grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania before relocating to Las Vegas, Nevada at around age ten. He was hired as a firefighter in Las Vegas at nineteen, was valedictorian of his firefighter academy class, and subsequently enlisted in the Army at age 25 to pursue a career in Special Forces. He completed the Special Forces Qualification Course (Q Course) — including a six-month language phase in which he learned Indonesian and Malay — and served as an 18 Bravo weapons sergeant, responsible for proficiency across hundreds of domestic and foreign weapon systems. He also has documented experience working at the Nevada Test and Training Range in an opposition-force training role.
The Crane incident (March 2014)
Anderson was attending an advanced weapons training course at Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane Division — a highly secure naval facility in rural Indiana known for handling exotic adversary weaponry and coordinating with Wright-Patterson Air Force Base on advanced programs — when he and one other Green Beret were separated from the class at the end of a training day and escorted by civilian-contracted cadre to a separate building. They descended in an elevator to what Anderson describes as a noticeably deeper level than expected, entering a facility that was significantly more modern and streamlined than the above-ground complex, with strict directional pedestrian protocols along wall-marked lines. After a review of captured Russian and Chinese unconventional weapon systems, the pair were escorted through a second, higher-security checkpoint resembling a SCIF — with all electronics surrendered — into a corridor marked with a placard reading "off-world technology."
First object: the levitating sphere
The first object Anderson saw was a metallic, basketball-sized sphere that appeared to be levitating above a display podium with a visible gap beneath it. He describes the metallic surface as appearing unnatural — unlike any metal he could compare it to — and notes an unusual atmospheric "energy" in the room that felt ominous. The instructors, who treated the situation as routine, stated to Anderson that the sphere had been recovered from a crashed craft and functioned as a control mechanism for that craft — one that interacted with consciousness.
Second object: the gauntlet with hieroglyphic display
The second object was a larger metallic piece, possibly arm-worn, resembling a gauntlet or shield fragment, resting on a table rather than levitating, with the same "unnatural" metallic quality. Above a crystal-like rectangular surface on the object, Anderson observed shifting hieroglyph-like symbols that he describes as dynamic — changing between at least two forms rather than being static — and rendering with a clarity surpassing any holographic display he had previously seen. The instructors mentioned that the retrieval of this item had resulted in injury or death to a person involved, apparently through an energy discharge from the object.
Anderson later noted that symbols similar to those he observed had been described by attorney and theologian Daniel Sheehan based on photographs he viewed in a SCIF in 1974–76, where Sheehan saw hieroglyphic markings on the rim of a UFO visible in Blue Book files.
Steven Greer independently corroborated Anderson's testimony, describing an interview with "a Green Beret member who had been in an alleged underground base in Crane, Indiana, where they had, it was called the Off World Technology Office," and that the subject "saw a technology that looked like a tablet and then as he approached it, it started putting up in the air these hieroglyphic symbol like objects." Greer further stated that some of the symbols projected by the device closely matched markings on the Buga sphere, an object recovered in Colombia.
Aftermath
The two soldiers were directed to return upstairs, told not to discuss what they had seen with other members of their class, and returned to the regular training program. No additional NDA was signed beyond their standard military enrollment paperwork. Anderson never had contact with the other Green Beret involved again. His visit to Crane is documented in his DD 214 military service record.
In a 2025 conversation between Jesse Michels and Ross Coulthart, Michels described showing photographs of symbols from the Buga sphere to both Anderson and Mario Woods (of the 1977 Ellsworth Air Force Base encounter), reporting that "both of them freaked out because it was like that. These were the symbols that they had both seen."
Area 51 sightings
During his work at the Nevada Test and Training Range, Anderson and colleagues observed a green orb flying overhead. When one of his companions asked a supervising cadre officer whether he had seen it, the officer replied that if the soldier had seen it, "we've got a lot of paperwork to do," and suggested the soldier reconsider whether he had seen anything — which the soldier accepted without further comment.