What happened
In June 1947 ranch foreman Mac Brazel found a field near Corona strewn with foil, rubber, tape and light sticks. After hearing about the new 'flying disc' craze, he reported it to the Chaves County sheriff, who called Roswell Army Air Field, home of the nuclear-armed 509th Bomb Group. Intelligence officer Maj. Jesse Marcel and Capt. Sheridan Cavitt collected the material. On 8 July the base public information officer, Walter Haut, announced that the Army had recovered a flying disc, and the story went around the world. Within hours Gen. Roger Ramey in Fort Worth displayed the debris and his weather officer identified it as a balloon and radar target. The case lay quiet until 1978, when Marcel told ufologist Stanton Friedman the balloon story had been a cover. Books and witnesses then added alien bodies and a second crash site. In 1994 and 1997 the US Air Force published reports tying the debris to the secret Project Mogul and the 'bodies' to later test dummies.
The original account
Comparison of all information developed or obtained indicated that the material recovered near Roswell was consistent with a balloon device and most likely from one of the Mogul balloons that had not been previously recovered. Air Force research efforts did not disclose any records of the recovery of any "alien" bodies or extraterrestrial materials.
Report of Air Force Research Regarding the 'Roswell Incident', Executive Summary, US Department of the Air Force, July 1994 (US government document, public domain)
The official explanation
In 1947 the Army Air Forces said the debris was a weather balloon with a radar reflector. The 1994 Air Force report, prompted by Congressman Steven Schiff and a General Accounting Office audit, concluded the material most likely came from NYU's unlogged Mogul 'Flight 4', launched from Alamogordo on 4 June 1947 to listen for Soviet nuclear tests; the weather-balloon story had deflected attention from it. The 1997 report, The Roswell Report: Case Closed, attributed alien-body stories to anthropomorphic dummies dropped in 1950s balloon tests, plus a 1956 KC-97 crash and a 1959 balloon mishap, merged in memory.
The anomalous case
The official story has changed more than once: a 'flying disc' on 8 July 1947, a weather balloon the next day, a classified Mogul array in 1994, and test dummies in 1997, even though the dummy drops began years after 1947. Brazel told reporters at the time he was sure what he found was not a weather observation balloon, and flight engineer Robert Porter swore in a 1991 affidavit that he was told he was loading parts of a flying saucer. Jesse Marcel, the intelligence officer who handled the debris, said in 1978 and later on television that the balloon explanation was a cover. The 1995 GAO report found that Roswell Army Air Field administrative records for 1945 to 1949 and outgoing messages for October 1946 to December 1949 had been destroyed, with no record of who authorised it. Critics say that gap, and the base's nuclear role, mean the full story may not be on paper.
The strongest argument that this was something genuinely unknown or classified, with each claim attributed to the person who made it.
Documents
- Report of Air Force Research Regarding the 'Roswell Incident' (Weaver report, July 1994) official, ufologie.patrickgross.org
- The Roswell Report: Fact vs. Fiction in the New Mexico Desert (USAF, 1995) official, secretsdeclassified.af.mil
- The Roswell Report: Case Closed (Capt. James McAndrew, USAF, 1997) official, gutenberg.org
- GAO/NSIAD-95-187: Results of a Search for Records Concerning the 1947 Crash Near Roswell official, govinfo.gov
Sources
- Roswell incident Wikipedia
- Project Mogul Wikipedia
- Report of Air Force Research Regarding the 'Roswell Incident' (1994), transcription Patrick Gross, UFOs at close sight
- The Roswell Report: Case Closed (James McAndrew, USAF, 1997) Project Gutenberg
- Government Records: Results of a Search for Records Concerning the 1947 Crash Near Roswell, New Mexico (GAO/NSIAD-95-187) US General Accounting Office via govinfo.gov
Witness reports elsewhere
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