July 2022 marked the 75th anniversary of the Roswell New Mexico Incident, a pivotal event in UFO lore. Believers maintain that in July 1947, an extraterrestrial spacecraft crashed in the New Mexico desert near Roswell. They claim the US government recovered debris, and potentially alien bodies, initiating a decades-long cover-up.
What truly transpired at the Roswell New Mexico incident site? Why does this decades-old mystery continue to captivate and ignite controversy?
The Genesis of the Roswell UFO Story
The Roswell UFO story’s origins can be traced back to June 24, 1947, when pilot Kenneth Arnold was flying over Washington State’s Cascade Mountains. Arnold, engaged in a search for a missing military aircraft, spotted nine crescent-shaped objects flying in formation. He estimated their altitude at around 10,000 feet (3km) and their speed at an astonishing 1,200 miles per hour (1,900km/h) – a speed seemingly unattainable at the time.
Arnold likened the erratic movement of these objects to “like a saucer would if you skipped it over water.” The press seized upon this description, coining the term “flying saucer,” and thus, a modern enigma was born.
Since the Roswell UFO incident, the term
While not the first reported sighting of what we now term a UFO (unidentified flying object), this event uniquely captured the public’s imagination, making headlines globally. Numerous subsequent reports emerged, suggesting that such sightings were more frequent than previously acknowledged.
As the “summer of the saucers” unfolded, media attention escalated, reaching near-hysteria levels until an incident in Roswell, New Mexico, seemed poised to resolve the burgeoning mystery.
Discovery of Debris near Roswell
On July 7th, 1947, W.W. Brazel, a local rancher known as ‘Mac’ Brazel, contacted the sheriff of Roswell. Brazel reported discovering unusual debris scattered across his ranch. He had stumbled upon the wreckage days prior but hadn’t given it much thought until the escalating “flying saucer” stories filled the news.
Suspecting a connection and speculating that something might have crashed during a recent storm, Brazel alerted the authorities. He brought samples of the peculiar debris with him. The sheriff, in turn, contacted the nearby Roswell Army Air Field. Intelligence officer Major Jesse Marcel was dispatched to the ranch with Brazel. Together, they recovered more of the enigmatic wreckage from the Roswell crash site.
At Fort Worth Army Air Field, Major Jesse A. Marcel holds foil debris from Roswell, New Mexico during the so-called UFO incident. Courtesy, Fort Worth Star-Telegram Photograph Collection, Special Collections, The University of Texas at Arlington Library, Arlington, Texas
Walter Haut, the base’s public information officer, collaborated with a local journalist to issue a press release about the Roswell incident:
“The many rumors regarding the flying disc became a reality yesterday when the intelligence office of the 509th Bomb Group of the Eighth Air Force, Roswell Army Air Field, was fortunate enough to gain possession of a disc through the cooperation of one of the local ranchers and the sheriff’s office of Chaves County.
“The flying object landed on a ranch near Roswell sometime last week. Not having phone facilities, the rancher stored the disc until such time as he was able to contact the sheriff’s office, who in turn notified Major Jesse A Marcel of the 509th Bomb Group Intelligence Office.
“Action was immediately taken and the disc was picked up at the rancher’s home. It was inspected at the Roswell Army Air Field and subsequently loaned by Major Marcel to higher headquarters.”
This news reverberated globally, but it was the Roswell Daily Record’s iconic front-page headline that became indelibly linked to the event: ‘RAAF Captures Flying Saucer on Ranch in Roswell Region’.
The front page of the Roswell Daily Record from 9 July 1947 mentions a
The Military’s Sudden Reversal on Roswell
Within a mere 24 hours, a dramatic shift occurred. The US military completely retracted its initial statement regarding the Roswell debris. They declared that a mistake had been made and that the purported “flying saucer” was, in fact, a crashed weather balloon.
The Roswell Daily Record followed up with a story headlined ‘Gen. Ramey Empties Roswell Saucer’. General Roger Ramey, Commander of the Eighth Air Force, at Fort Worth headquarters, where the Roswell debris had been transported, was central to this revised narrative.
Photos were released depicting Ramey, Marcel, and other military personnel displaying pieces of the alleged wreckage. Indeed, the debris appeared mundane, consistent with the military’s “tinfoil” weather balloon explanation.
At Fort Worth Army Air Field on 8 July 1947, Brigadier General Roger M Ramey (left) and Colonel Thomas J Dubose, identify metallic fragments found at Roswell as pieces of a weather balloon. Credit: Bettmann / Getty Images
In today’s 24/7 news cycle, fueled by the internet, social media, and an active community of UFO researchers, such a swift reversal would undoubtedly ignite massive controversy and conspiracy theories. This is particularly true considering the 509th Bomb Group’s unique status as the world’s only atomic bomb-capable squadron at the time. It strains credulity to imagine these highly trained individuals, familiar with weather balloons, being genuinely mistaken.
However, post-war America differed significantly from today’s climate. In that more trusting era, the weather balloon explanation for the Roswell New Mexico incident was largely accepted without question. While fascination with flying saucers and UFOs persisted, Roswell faded from the immediate public discourse.
The Roswell UFO Plot Thickens Decades Later
Nuclear physicist Stanton T. Friedman giving a talk about UFOs in 2007. Photo By Krissy Krummenacker / MediaNews Group / Reading Eagle via Getty Images
The Roswell UFO crash story resurfaced in 1978, thanks to nuclear physicist-turned-ufologist Stanton T. Friedman. Friedman received a tip about a retired military officer with a compelling story – none other than Jesse Marcel.
Marcel confided to Friedman that the weather balloon explanation was a fabrication, a cover story. He claimed the photos were staged, with weather balloon debris substituted for the actual Roswell wreckage. Marcel asserted that everyone involved in the initial recovery knew unequivocally that the object was an extraterrestrial spacecraft.
Over subsequent years, researchers delved deeper into the Roswell mystery, tracking down key figures, locating additional witnesses, and attempting to reconstruct the events. Several retired military personnel stationed at Roswell corroborated elements of the crashed spacecraft narrative, adding their own details to the Roswell New Mexico incident timeline.
Skeptics countered that these individuals were merely telling researchers what they wanted to hear, embellishing the story for attention or as a prank. Regardless, books were published, documentaries and fictional series were produced, and a movie was made. The Roswell incident and the notion of a UFO crash became deeply ingrained in popular culture. Even those with limited interest in UFOs were likely familiar with Roswell.
Roswell Incident and UFO Conspiracies in the 1990s
Area 51 is a secretive US military facility that is the subject of many alien conspiracy theories. Credit: Brian P Irwin / Getty Images
By the 1990s, the line between fact and fiction blurred further. The Roswell narrative became intertwined with other UFO conspiracy theories. Claims emerged that the Roswell wreckage had been transported to Area 51, the clandestine Nevada facility where the US developed advanced aircraft like the U-2 and SR-71 Blackbird. It was alleged that attempts were made at Area 51 to reverse-engineer the supposed alien craft recovered from the Roswell New Mexico incident.
These storylines permeated popular culture, inspiring plots in movies like Independence Day and television series such as The X-Files.
In 1995, a video surfaced purportedly depicting an “alien autopsy,” implicitly linked to Roswell.
The famous
The “alien autopsy” film was later debunked as a hoax, yet it generated international media frenzy. The fabricated footage even inspired a comedy film.
Amidst mounting media and public pressure in the 1990s, the US government initiated its own retrospective investigation into the Roswell incident, releasing two reports in 1994 and 1997.
The official conclusion remained that the object was a high-altitude weather balloon, but one carrying equipment for Project Mogul, a classified program designed to detect Soviet nuclear tests in the atmosphere. Skeptics suggest the highly sensitive nature of Project Mogul explains any perceived inconsistencies in the government’s handling of the Roswell New Mexico incident. It’s even speculated that the initial “flying disc” announcement might have been a local attempt to divert media attention from Project Mogul, subsequently overruled by higher command who opted for the weather balloon explanation.
The second government report, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the incident, arguably overreached. Original Roswell reports made no mention of alien bodies, and even Jesse Marcel initially denied this aspect, which emerged later in the Roswell narrative.
The city of Roswell eventually learned to embrace its UFO legacy. Credit: mixmotive / Getty Images
The United States Air Force, however, felt compelled to address the alien body claims. Their convoluted theory proposed that people had conflated the 1947 Roswell crash with 1950s tests involving anthropomorphic crash test dummies dropped to assess parachute effectiveness. Even to impartial observers, this explanation seemed far-fetched and was widely ridiculed.
By this point, however, the Roswell story had become the cornerstone case for the UFO community. The city of Roswell embraced its unique identity, establishing a UFO museum and hosting annual Roswell UFO festivals. Roswell’s name recognition became so pervasive that multiple US presidents have referenced the Roswell UFO incident in speeches and interviews, often with lighthearted remarks, but sometimes with a degree of ambiguity that fueled further speculation.
Roswell’s Enduring Significance in the Present Day
Roswell New Mexico has fully embraced its credentials as the most famous city in UFO folklore. Credit: Denis Tangney Jr / Getty Images
In recent years, the topic of UFOs, or UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena), has increasingly moved from the fringes to the mainstream, particularly in the United States. This shift began in December 2017 with The New York Times‘s groundbreaking reports: first, revealing US Navy videos of UFOs captured by fighter jets, and second, disclosing the existence of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP).
The precise role of AATIP remains debated, but the Pentagon confirmed its involvement in studying UFO data. This revelation was significant because the US government had previously maintained that official interest in UFOs ceased in 1969 with the termination of Project Blue Book, an earlier Air Force program.
The New York Times story resonated with Congress, leading to classified briefings and public statements from prominent politicians across the political spectrum. In the summer of 2021, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released an inconclusive preliminary assessment, stating that most of the studied sightings remained unexplained.
More recently, several UFO-related provisions have been incorporated into the Defense Bill, mandating collaboration between the Department of Defense, the military, and the intelligence community to address the UFO mystery.
U.S. Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence Scott Bray and Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security Ronald Moultrie testifying on UFOs before a House Intelligence Committee subcommittee in 2022, reflecting renewed government interest in unexplained aerial phenomena.
Congress seeks to determine if these unidentified objects are advanced drones operated by adversaries like Russia or China, or something altogether different. Seemingly, no possibilities have been dismissed, fueling considerable excitement within the UFO community.
This renewed governmental and public interest amplifies the significance of the Roswell incident’s 75th anniversary. It’s not merely an occasion for Roswell to host its annual festivities. Instead, Roswell is once again at the forefront, representing a kind of “ground zero” for the enduring UFO phenomenon.
As the Roswell New Mexico incident transitions from living memory into historical record, the mystery may never be definitively solved. However, the Roswell story continues to resonate, tapping into our fundamental fascination with one of humanity’s most profound questions: are we alone in the universe?
