Roswell incident

Roswell incident

Type	Case
Also known as	Roswell crash, Roswell UFO incident, Roswell case
On the Timeline	13 events, 1961–2012

The Roswell incident refers to the recovery of debris from a ranch near Corona, New Mexico, in the summer of 1947, which Roswell Army Air Field briefly announced as a captured "flying disc" before the U.S. Army Air Forces identified it as a weather balloon. Largely forgotten for three decades, the story was revived in 1978 and grew into the best-known claim of a crashed alien spacecraft and a government cover-up. In the 1990s the U.S. Air Force concluded that the debris came from Project Mogul, a classified program that flew long trains of balloons to listen for Soviet nuclear tests.^[1][2]

Background

The summer of 1947 saw a wave of flying saucer reports across the United States, set off by pilot Kenneth Arnold's sighting near Mount Rainier on 24 June. Hundreds of reports were made over the Fourth of July weekend, and newspapers offered rewards of about $3,000 for physical proof of a saucer.^[1]

At the time, Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF) was home to the 509th Bomb Group, the only unit in the world equipped to drop atomic bombs. Nearby, scientists working from Alamogordo Army Air Field were flying Project Mogul, a top-secret experiment using strings of weather balloons, radar reflectors and microphones to detect the sound waves of distant nuclear explosions. On 4 June 1947, contact with Mogul Flight No. 4 was lost within about 27 kilometres of the J.B. Foster ranch managed by William "Mac" Brazel.^[1]

Discovery and announcement

Later in June, Brazel found an area of debris on the ranch: strips of rubber, tinfoil-like material, tough paper, tape and thin wooden beams. On 5 July, during a visit to Corona, his uncle suggested it might be a "flying disk". On 6 July Brazel took some of the material to Roswell and reported it to Sheriff George Wilcox, who called the air base. Intelligence officer Maj. Jesse Marcel and counterintelligence officer Capt. Sheridan Cavitt went to collect it, and base commander Col. William Blanchard informed Brig. Gen. Roger Ramey, commander of the Eighth Air Force in Fort Worth, Texas.^[1]

On 8 July 1947, RAAF public information officer Walter Haut issued a press release saying the base had come into possession of a "flying disc". Local radio station KSWS broke the story, the Associated Press carried it worldwide, and the Roswell Daily Record ran the headline "RAAF Captures Flying Saucer on Ranch in Roswell Region".^[1][3]

The weather balloon explanation

Within hours the story changed. Marcel flew debris to Fort Worth Army Air Field, where reporters photographed it in Ramey's office. Ramey, his chief of staff Col. Thomas DuBose and weather officer Irving Newton identified it as the remains of a weather balloon and its radar target, and Newton said similar targets were used at about 80 weather stations. On 9 July the Roswell Daily Record reported that Brazel described the debris as rubber strips, "tinfoil, paper, tape, and sticks", and that no engine or metal parts had been found. Part of the material was flown to Wright Field in Ohio, where Col. Marcellus Duffy, who had worked on Mogul, recognised it as balloon equipment but could only call it "meteorological equipment". On 10 July officers at Alamogordo showed reporters balloon arrangements, including Mogul designs.^[1]

For about 30 years the incident was rarely mentioned. Over that period other stories, including the 1948–1950 Aztec crashed-saucer hoax promoted by con man Silas Newton and Variety columnist Frank Scully, introduced ideas of alien bodies and super-strong metals, and the legend of a "Hangar 18" at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base took shape.^[1]

Revival, 1978–1980

In 1978 nuclear physicist and UFO researcher Stanton Friedman interviewed Jesse Marcel, then retired. Marcel said the balloon explanation had been a cover story and that he believed the material was not of this world. The National Enquirer interviewed him in December 1979, and on 20 September 1980 he appeared on the TV series In Search of.... In October 1980 Charles Berlitz and William Moore published The Roswell Incident, which popularised Marcel's account and added second-hand stories, attributed to engineer Grady "Barney" Barnett, of a crashed craft with bodies on the Plains of San Agustin. Researchers later noted that although the authors said they had interviewed more than 90 people, only 25 accounts appear in the book, and only seven witnesses said they had seen debris.^[1]

Expanding claims, 1980s–1990s

The story grew through the 1980s. In 1989 Friedman interviewed former Roswell mortician Glenn Dennis, who said a nurse had told him about an alien autopsy at the base; Dennis's account was later widely doubted, and the nurse could not be identified. A September 1989 segment of the TV show Unsolved Mysteries reached about 28 million viewers. The same year, William Moore admitted at a MUFON conference that he had helped pass false information to UFO researchers, casting doubt on the Majestic 12 papers he had promoted.^[1]

In 1991 Kevin Randle and Donald Schmitt published UFO Crash at Roswell, which sold about 160,000 copies, and DuBose said that the weather balloon display had been a cover story. Former press officer Walter Haut and Glenn Dennis co-founded a UFO museum in Roswell the same year. Friedman and Don Berliner's Crash at Corona (1992) described two crashed saucers and eight aliens, while Randle and Schmitt's 1994 book proposed yet another crash site north of Roswell. The competing versions led to divisions among researchers.^[1]

Government investigations

In 1993 Rep. Steven Schiff of New Mexico, frustrated by Defense Department answers, asked the General Accounting Office (GAO) to search for records. The GAO's July 1995 report found that some Roswell Army Air Field administrative records from the period, including outgoing messages, had been destroyed without proper authority.^[1][4]

Prompted by the inquiry, the Air Force published The Roswell Report: Fact vs. Fiction in the New Mexico Desert (1995), which matched the debris to the Mogul balloon train launched on 4 June 1947. A second report, The Roswell Report: Case Closed (June 1997), argued that later stories of alien bodies were confused memories of 1950s experiments in which anthropomorphic test dummies were dropped from high-altitude balloons, together with aircraft accidents.^[1][2] Critics noted that the dummy drops began years after 1947, and many Roswell researchers rejected both reports.

In March 2024, the Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) published the first volume of its historical review, which found no empirical evidence that the U.S. government had ever recovered extraterrestrial technology.^[5]

Hoaxes and later claims

In 1995 the Fox network aired Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction, showing black-and-white footage promoted by Ray Santilli as a 1947 autopsy of a Roswell alien. In 2006 Santilli admitted the film had been staged in a London flat, though he claimed it recreated real footage he had seen. In 1997 retired Army officer Philip Corso claimed in The Day After Roswell that he had distributed crash technology to industry; Senator Strom Thurmond asked for his name to be removed from the book's foreword.^[1]

In May 2015 promoters revealed Kodachrome slides said to show an alien body at an event in Mexico City organised by Jaime Maussan. Within weeks researchers read a museum placard in the photo, showing the body was a mummified Native American child displayed at Mesa Verde.^[1] In 2020 an Air Force historian described a declassified report of an incident around 1951 in which a woman reportedly mistook two Roswell personnel in radiation suits, recovering a balloon, for aliens.^[1]

Assessment

Skeptical researchers point out that the earliest descriptions of the debris, from Brazel and others in July 1947, match a balloon train, and that accounts of bodies and craft emerged only decades later, often second-hand. Researcher Karl Pflock, who at first suspected an alien explanation, counted only 23 of more than 300 claimed witnesses who could reasonably have seen physical evidence, and only seven of them suggested an unearthly origin.^[1] Supporters argue that the military's quick change of story, the reported destruction of records, and testimony from people such as Marcel, DuBose and Haut point to a cover-up. Historians generally treat the alien interpretation as a modern myth shaped by books, television and Cold War secrecy.

Legacy

Roswell has embraced its fame. The International UFO Museum and Research Center opened in the early 1990s, an annual UFO festival has been held since 1995, and about 90,000 tourists visit each year. The incident has featured in films and television including Independence Day (1996), The X-Files, Dark Skies and Taken.^[1]

On the UAP Timeline

• Philip Corso's Roswell claims (1961) — Army Col. Philip Corso claims he handled autopsy reports and recovered alien artifacts.
• Arthur Exon's Roswell statements (July 1989) — Gen. Arthur Exon says he was told Roswell was an alien craft recovery.
• Los Alamos nurse claim (16 March 1991) — A retired nurse says bodies were flown into Los Alamos after the war.
• Oliver Henderson and the Roswell flight (9 July 1991) — Oliver Henderson's widow swears he told her he flew Roswell crash debris and bodies.
• Frederick Benthal's Roswell photographs claim (1 September 1994) — Army photographer Frederick Benthal says he photographed the Roswell crash and bodies.
• GAO Roswell records report (28 July 1995) — Rep. Steven Schiff says Roswell base records were destroyed, per a GAO audit.
• The Day After Roswell (June 1997) — Philip Corso claims he helped seed recovered UAP technology into U.S. industry.
• Homer Rowlette deathbed account (March 1999) — A man says his father told him on his deathbed about the Roswell crash.
• Ramey memo (2004) — A 1947 photo of Gen. Ramey holding a message is enlarged, and its text is debated.
• Raechel's Eyes (2005) — A woman claims her daughter communicated with a hybrid being about secret projects.
• Project Serpo (1 November 2005) — A message board host receives an alleged 3,000-page report on a famous case.
• Chester Lytle's Kirtland sighting (1 January 2008) — A Manhattan Project contractor says he saw a domed disc through a telescope during a nuclear test.
• Chase Brandon's Roswell box (8 July 2012) — Retired CIA officer Chase Brandon says he saw a box labelled 'Roswell' at the agency.

References