The Roswell UFO incident took place in the
U.S. in June or early July 1947, when an airborne
object crashed on a ranch near Roswell, New
Mexico. Explanations of what took place are
based on both official and unofficial communications.
Although the crash is attributed to a secret
U.S. military Air Force surveillance balloon
by the U.S. government, the most famous explanation
of what occurred is that the object was a
spacecraft containing extraterrestrial life.
Since the late 1970s, the Roswell incident
has been the subject of much controversy,
and conspiracy theories have arisen about
the event.
The United States Armed Forces maintains that
what was recovered near Roswell was debris
from the crash of an experimental high-altitude
surveillance balloon belonging to what was
then a classified program named Mogul. In
contrast, many UFO proponents maintain that
an alien craft was found, its occupants were
captured, and that the military engaged in
a massive cover-up. The Roswell incident has
turned into a widely known pop culture phenomenon,
making the name "Roswell" synonymous with
UFOs. Roswell has become the most publicized
of all alleged UFO incidents.
On July 8, 1947, the Roswell Army Air Field
public information officer Walter Haut, issued
a press release stating that personnel from
the field's 509th Operations Group had recovered
a "flying disk", which had crashed on a ranch
near Roswell. Later that day, the press reported
that Commanding General of the Eighth Air
Force Roger Ramey had stated that a weather
balloon was recovered by the RAAF personnel.
A press conference was held, featuring debris
said to be from the crashed object, which
seemed to confirm its description as a weather
balloon.
Subsequently the incident faded from the attention
of UFO researchers for over 30 years. In 1978,
physicist and ufologist Stanton T. Friedman
interviewed Major Jesse Marcel who was involved
with the original recovery of the debris in
1947. Marcel expressed his belief that the
military covered up the recovery of an alien
spacecraft. His story spread through UFO circles,
being featured in some UFO documentaries at
the time. In February 1980, the National Enquirer
ran its own interview with Marcel, garnering
national and worldwide attention for the Roswell
incident. Additional witnesses added significant
new details, including claims of a large-scale
military operation dedicated to recovering
alien craft and aliens themselves, at as many
as 11 crash sites, and alleged witness intimidation.
In 1989, former mortician Glenn Dennis put
forth a detailed personal account, wherein
he claimed alien autopsies were carried out
at the Roswell base.
In response to these reports, and after United
States congressional inquiries, the General
Accounting Office launched an inquiry and
directed the Office of the United States Secretary
of the Air Force to conduct an internal investigation.
The result was summarized in two reports.
The first, released in 1995, concluded that
the reported recovered material in 1947 was
likely debris from Project Mogul. The second
report, released in 1997, concluded reports
of recovered alien bodies were likely a combination
of innocently transformed memories of military
accidents involving injured or killed personnel,
innocently transformed memories of the recovery
of anthropomorphic dummies in military programs
like Operation High Dive conducted in the
1950s, and hoaxes perpetrated by various witnesses
and UFO proponents. The psychological effects
of time compression and confusion about when
events occurred explained the discrepancy
with the years in question. These reports
were dismissed by UFO proponents as being
either disinformation or simply implausible.
But at the same time, several high-profile
UFO researchers discounted the possibility
that the incident had anything to do with
aliens.
Contemporary accounts
On June 14, 1947, William Brazel, a foreman
working on the Foster homestead, noticed strange
clusters of debris approximately 30 miles
north of Roswell, New Mexico. This date—or
"about three weeks" before July 8—appeared
in later stories featuring Brazel, but the
initial press release from the Roswell Army
Air Field said the find was "sometime last
week," suggesting Brazel found the debris
in early July. Brazel told the Roswell Daily
Record that he and his son saw a "large area
of bright wreckage made up of rubber strips,
tinfoil, a rather tough paper and sticks."
He paid little attention to it but returned
on July 4 with his son, wife and daughter
to gather up the material. Some accounts have
described Brazel as having gathered some of
the material earlier, rolling it together
and stashing it under some brush. The next
day, Brazel heard reports about "flying discs"
and wondered if that was what he had picked
up. On July 7, Brazel saw Sheriff Wilcox and
"whispered kinda confidential like" that he
may have found a flying disc. Another account
quotes Wilcox as saying Brazel reported the
object on July 6.
Wilcox called RAAF Major Jesse Marcel and
a "man in plainclothes" accompanied Brazel
back to the ranch where more pieces were picked
up. "[We] spent a couple of hours Monday afternoon
[July 7] looking for any more parts of the
weather device", said Marcel. "We found a
few more patches of tinfoil and rubber."
As described in the July 9, 1947 edition of
the Roswell Daily Record,
The balloon which held it up, if that was
how it worked, must have been 12 feet long,
[Brazel] felt, measuring the distance by the
size of the room in which he sat. The rubber
was smoky gray in color and scattered over
an area about 200 yards in diameter. When
the debris was gathered up, the tinfoil, paper,
tape, and sticks made a bundle about three
feet long and 7 or 8 inches thick, while the
rubber made a bundle about 18 or 20 inches
long and about 8 inches thick. In all, he
estimated, the entire lot would have weighed
maybe five pounds. There was no sign of any
metal in the area which might have been used
for an engine, and no sign of any propellers
of any kind, although at least one paper fin
had been glued onto some of the tinfoil. There
were no words to be found anywhere on the
instrument, although there were letters on
some of the parts. Considerable Scotch tape
and some tape with flowers printed upon it
had been used in the construction. No strings
or wires were to be found but there were some
eyelets in the paper to indicate that some
sort of attachment may have been used.
A telex sent to an Federal Bureau of Investigation
office from the Fort Worth, Texas office quoted
a Major from the Eighth Air Force on July
8, 1947 as saying that "The disc is hexagonal
in shape and was suspended from a ballon [sic]
by cable, which ballon [sic] was approximately
twenty feet in diameter. Major Curtan further
advices that the object found resembles a
high altitude weather balloon with a radar
reflector, but that telephonic conversation
between their office and Wright field had
not [UNINTELLIGIBLE] borne out this belief."
Early on Tuesday, July 8, the RAAF issued
a press release, which was immediately picked
up by numerous news outlets:
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 Maj. 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.
Colonel William H. Blanchard, commanding officer
of the 509th, contacted General Roger M. Ramey
of the Eighth Air Force in Fort Worth, Texas,
and Ramey ordered the object be flown to Fort
Worth Army Air Field. At the base, Warrant
Officer Irving Newton confirmed Ramey’s
preliminary opinion, identifying the object
as being a weather balloon and its "kite,"
a nickname for a radar reflector used to track
the balloons from the ground. Another news
release was issued, this time from the Fort
Worth base, describing the object as being
a "weather balloon".
Witnesses
Witness accounts, emergence of alien narratives
In 1978, nuclear physicist and author Stanton
T. Friedman interviewed Jesse Marcel, the
only person known to have accompanied the
Roswell debris from where it was recovered
to Fort Worth where reporters saw material
which was claimed to be part of the recovered
object. The accounts given by Friedman and
others in the following years elevated Roswell
from a forgotten incident to perhaps the most
famous UFO case of all time. By the early
1990s, UFO researchers such as Friedman, William
Moore, Karl T. Pflock, and the team of Kevin
D. Randle and Donald R. Schmitt interviewed
several hundred people who had—or claimed
to have had—a connection with the events
at Roswell in 1947. Additionally, hundreds
of documents were obtained via Freedom of
Information Act requests, and some were supposedly
leaked by insiders, such as the so-called
Majestic 12 papers. Their conclusions were
at least one alien craft had crashed in the
Roswell vicinity, aliens—some possibly still
alive—were recovered, and a massive cover-up
of any knowledge of the incident was put in
place.
Over the years, books, articles, television
specials, and a made-for-TV movie brought
the 1947 incident significant notoriety. By
the mid-1990s, public polls such as a 1997
CNN/Time poll, revealed that the majority
of people interviewed believed that aliens
had indeed visited Earth, and that aliens
had landed at Roswell, but that all the relevant
information was being kept secret by the US
government.
Various narratives evolved, starting with
Friedman's 1978 interviews with Marcel, through
publication of the first book on Roswell in
1980, to new accounts and new books appearing
into the early 1990s. Many new witnesses had
by then emerged, as had new accounts that
detailed recoveries of alien corpses and alien
autopsies. Skeptics such as Phillip Klass
and Richard Todd published objections to the
plausibility of these accounts, but it was
not until 1994 and the publication of the
first United States Air Force report on the
incident, that a strong counter-argument to
the presence of aliens was widely publicized.
Various authors enumerated different alien
scenarios which often contradicted each other,
based on what the documentary evidence suggested
and on which witness accounts were accepted
or dismissed. This was especially true for
the various claimed sites for the crash and
recovery sites of alien craft.
The outline from UFO Crash at Roswell by Randle
and Schmitt is common to many of these accounts:
A UFO crashed northwest of Roswell, New Mexico,
in the summer of 1947. The military acted
quickly and efficiently to recover the debris
after its existence was reported by a ranch
hand. The debris, unlike anything these highly
trained men had ever seen, was flown without
delay to at least three government installations.
A cover story was concocted to explain away
the debris and the flurry of activity. It
was explained that a weather balloon, one
with a new radiosonde target device, had been
found and temporarily confused the personnel
of the 509th Bomb Group. Government officials
took reporters' notes from their desks and
warned a radio reporter not to play a recorded
interview with the ranch hand. The men who
took part in the recovery were told never
to talk about the incident. And with a whimper,
not a bang, the Roswell event faded quickly
from public view and press scrutiny.
The Roswell Incident
The first book on the Roswell UFO incident
was The Roswell Incident by Charles Berlitz
and William Moore. The authors claimed to
have interviewed over ninety witnesses. Though
he was uncredited, Friedman carried out some
research for the book. The Roswell Incident
featured accounts of debris described by Marcel
as "nothing made on this earth." Additional
accounts by Bill Brazel, son of Mac Brazel,
neighbor Floyd Proctor and Walt Whitman Jr.,
son of newsman W. E. Whitman who had interviewed
Mac Brazel, suggested the material Marcel
recovered had super-strength not associated
with a weather balloon. The book introduced
the contention that debris which was recovered
by Marcel at the Foster ranch, visible in
photographs showing Marcel posing with the
debris, was substituted for debris from a
weather device as part of a cover-up. The
book also claimed that the debris recovered
from the ranch was not permitted a close inspection
by the press. The efforts by the military
were described as being intended to discredit
and "counteract the growing hysteria towards
flying saucers". Two accounts of witness intimidation
were included in the book, including the incarceration
of Mac Brazel.
The book included a report of Roswell residents
Dan Wilmot and his wife seeing "two inverted
saucers faced mouth to mouth" passing overhead
on July 2, as were other reports of mysterious
objects seen flying overhead. The Roswell
Incident introduced an alien account by Socorro,
New Mexico resident Barney Barnett, who had
died years earlier. Friends of Barnett said
he described the crash of a flying saucer
and the recovery of alien corpses in the vicinity
of Socorro, about 150 miles west of the Foster
ranch. He and a group of archaeologists stumbled
upon an alien craft, and its occupants on
the morning of July 3, only to be led away
by military personnel. Further accounts suggested
that the aliens and the craft were transported
to Edwards Air Force Base in California. The
book suggested that either there were two
crafts that crashed, or that debris from the
vehicle Barnett described had subsequently
landed on the Foster ranch after an explosion.
Marcel said he "heard about it on July 7"
when the sheriff Brazel had called him, but
said, "[On] Sunday, July 6, Brazel decided
he had better go into town and report this
to someone," and that Brazel in turn called
Marcel, suggesting—though not stating that
Marcel was contacted on July 6. In 1947, Marcel
was quoted as saying that he visited the ranch
on Monday, July 7. Marcel described returning
to Roswell the evening of July 7 to find that
news of the incident had been leaked. Calls
were made to Marcel's house, and he had a
visit from a reporter, but he would not confirm
the reports to the press. "The next morning,
that written press release went out, and after
that things really hit the fan." The book
suggested that the military orchestrated Brazel's
testimony in order to make it appear that
a mundane object had crash landed on the ranch.
"Brazel [...] [went] to great pains to tell
the newspaper people exactly what the Air
Force had instructed him to say regarding
how he had come to discover the wreckage and
what it looked like [...]".
UFO Crash at Roswell
In 1991, with the benefit of publicity from
new witness interviews, Kevin Randle and Donald
Schmitt published UFO Crash at Roswell. In
this account, the timelines of the incident
were slightly altered. The date when Brazel
reported the debris and Marcel went to the
ranch was said to be Sunday, July 6, not the
next day, as some of the original accounts
suggested, and The Roswell Incident left unclear.
Marcel and an unidentified counter-intelligence
agent were said to have spent the night at
the ranch. The two gathered material on Monday,
then Marcel supposedly dropped by his house
on the way to the Roswell base in the early
hours of Tuesday, July 8.
Some new details emerged, including accounts
of a "gouge [...] that extended four or five
hundred feet" at the ranch and descriptions
of an elaborate cordon and recovery operation.
Several witnesses in The Roswell Incident
described being turned back from the Foster
ranch by armed military police, but extensive
descriptions were not given. The Barnett accounts
were mentioned, though the dates and locations
were changed from the accounts found in The
Roswell Incident. In the new account, Brazel
was described as leading the Army to a second
crash site on the ranch, at which point the
Army personnel were supposedly "horrified
to find civilians [including Barnett] there
already."
Glenn Dennis had emerged as an important witness
in 1989, after calling the hotline when an
episode of Unsolved Mysteries featured the
Roswell incident. His descriptions of Roswell
alien autopsies were the first account that
said there were alien corpses at the Roswell
Army Air Base. No mention, except in passing,
was made of the claim found in The Roswell
Incident that the Roswell aliens and the craft
were shipped to Edwards Air Force Base. The
1991 book purported to establish a chain of
events with alien corpses being seen at a
crash site, the bodies then being shipped
to the Roswell base as witnessed by Dennis,
and then flown to Fort Worth, and finally
to Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio, the last
known location of the bodies.
The book introduced an account from General
Arthur E. Exon, an officer stationed at the
alleged final resting place of the recovered
material. He stated there was a shadowy group,
which he called the "Unholy Thirteen", who
controlled and had access to whatever was
recovered. He later stated:
In the '55 time period [when Exon was at the
Pentagon], there was also the story that whatever
happened, whatever was found at Roswell was
still closely held and probably would be held
until these fellows I mentioned had died so
they wouldn't be embarrassed or they wouldn't
have to explain why they covered it up. [...] [U]ntil
the original thirteen died off and I don't
think anyone is going to release anything
[until] the last one's gone.
Crash at Corona
In 1992, a third book, Crash at Corona, was
published. Written by Friedman and Don Berliner,
it suggested a high-level cover-up of a UFO
recovery, based on documents which were anonymously
dropped off at a UFO researcher's house in
1984. The documents were purported to be 1952
briefing papers for incoming president Dwight
Eisenhower, describing a high-level government
agency whose purpose was to investigate aliens
recovered at Roswell and to keep such information
hidden from public view. Friedman had done
much of the research for The Roswell Incident
with William Moore, and Crash at Corona built
on this research.
The title of the book was Corona, New Mexico
rather than Roswell, New Mexico, because Corona
is geographically closer to the Foster ranch
crash site. The timeline of events that the
book gives is the same as the previous account,
with Marcel and Sheridan Cavitt, a counter-intelligence
agent who was likely the "man in plainclothes"
described by Brazel in 1947, visiting the
ranch on July 6. The 1992 book says, however,
that Brazel was "taken into custody for about
a week" and escorted into the offices of the
Roswell Daily Record on July 10, where he
gave an account that he had been told to give
by the government.
A sign of the disagreements between various
researchers is evident, as Friedman and Berliner
moved the Barnett account back to near Socorro
and introduced a new eyewitness account of
the site. This new account is from Gerald
Anderson who provided vivid descriptions of
both a downed alien craft and four aliens,
of which at least one was alive. The authors
note much of the evidence had been dismissed
by the authors of UFO Crash at Roswell and
that this had been done "without a solid basis".
The 1992 authors also mention "a personality
conflict between Anderson and Randle" meaning
that Friedman was the author who investigated
his claim. The book, however, does largely
embrace the same sequence of events as the
account in UFO Crash at Roswell, where aliens
are seen at the Roswell Army Air Field, based
on the Dennis account, and then shipped off
to Fort Worth, and subsequently to Wright
Field. The book suggests that as many as eight
alien corpses were recovered from two crash
sites: three dead and perhaps one alive from
the Foster ranch, and three dead and one living
from the Socorro site.
The Truth about the UFO Crash at Roswell
In 1994, Randle and Schmitt published The
Truth about the UFO Crash at Roswell. While
it restated a majority of the case as laid
out in their earlier book, new and expanded
accounts of aliens were included, and a new
location for the recovery of aliens was detailed.
Additionally, an almost completely new scenario
for the sequence of events was laid out. For
the first time, the airborne object was said
to have crashed on the evening of July 4 instead
of July 2, which was the date used in all
the previous books. Another important difference
was the assertion that the alien recovery
was well under way before Brazel traveled
to Roswell with his news about the debris
on the Foster ranch. Apparently several objects
had been tracked by radar for a few days in
the vicinity before one crashed. In all previous
accounts, the military was made aware of the
alleged alien crash only when Brazel came
forward. Additionally, Brazel was said to
have given his news conference on July 9,
and the 1994 book claims that his press conference
and the initial news release announcing the
discovery of a "flying disk" were all part
of an elaborate ruse to shift attention away
from the "true" crash site.
The book featured a new witness account describing
an alien craft and aliens from Jim Ragsdale,
at a new location north of Roswell, instead
of closer to Corona on the Foster ranch. Corroboration
was given by accounts from a group of archaeologists.
Five alien corpses were supposedly seen. The
book states that although the Foster ranch
was also a source of debris, no bodies were
recovered from it. The book also features
expanded accounts from Dennis and Kaufmann,
and a new account from Ruben Anaya which describes
New Mexico Lieutenant Governor Joseph Montoya's
claim that he saw alien corpses at the Roswell
base.
More disagreement between Roswell researchers
forms part of the book. A full chapter is
devoted to dismissing the Barnett and Anderson
accounts from Socorro, a central part of Crash
at Corona and The Roswell Incident. "[...] Barnett's
story [and] the Plains [of San Augustin, near
Soccoro] scenario, must be discarded", say
the authors. An appendix is devoted to describing
Majestic 12 as a hoax. The two Randle and
Schmitt books remain highly influential in
the UFO community; their interviews and conclusions
widely reproduced on websites. Randle and
Schmitt claimed to have "conducted more than
two thousand interviews with more than five
hundred people" during their Roswell investigations.
UFO community schism
By 1994 when The Truth About the UFO Crash
at Roswell was published, a schism had emerged
within the UFO community about the events
in the Roswell UFO incident. The Center for
UFO Studies and the Mutual UFO Network, two
leading UFO societies, disagreed in their
views of the various scenarios presented by
Randle–Schmitt and Friedman–Berliner;
several conferences were held to try to resolve
the differences. One of the center issues
under discussion was where Barnett was when
he saw the alien craft he was said to have
encountered. A 1992 UFO conference attempted
to achieve a consensus among the various scenarios
portrayed in Crash at Corona and UFO Crash
at Roswell, however, the publication of The
Truth About the UFO Crash at Roswell had "resolved"
the Barnett problem by simply ignoring Barnett
and citing a new location for the alien craft
recovery, including a new group of archaeologists
not connected to the ones the Barnett story
cited.
Alien autopsy footage
In 1995, film footage purporting to show an
alien autopsy and claimed to have been taken
by a US military official shortly after the
Roswell incident was released by Ray Santilli,
a London-based video entrepreneur. The footage
caused an international sensation when it
aired on television networks around the world.
In 2006, Santilli admitted that the film was
mostly a reconstruction, but continued to
claim it was based on genuine footage now
lost, and some original frames that had survived.
A fictionalized version of the creation of
the footage and its release was retold in
the comedy film Alien Autopsy.
Air Force and skeptics respond
Air Force reports
During the mid-1990s, the United States Air
Force issued two reports which accounted for
the debris that was found and reported on
in 1947, and which also accounted for the
later reports of alien recoveries. The USAF
reports identified the debris as coming from
a top-secret government experiment called
Project Mogul, which tested the feasibility
of detecting Soviet nuclear tests and ballistic
missiles with equipment that was carried aloft
using high-altitude balloons. Accounts of
aliens were explained as resulting from misidentified
military experiments that used anthropomorphic
dummies, accidents involving injured or killed
military personnel, and hoaxes perpetrated
by various witnesses and UFO proponents. The
Air Force report formed a basis for a skeptical
response to the claims many authors were making
about the recovery of aliens, though skeptical
researchers such as Philip J. Klass and Robert
Todd had already been publishing articles
for several years that raised significant
doubts about the accounts of aliens in the
incident.
Books published into the 1990s suggested there
was much more to the Roswell incident than
the mere recovery of a weather balloon, however,
skeptics, and even some social anthropologists
saw the increasingly elaborate accounts as
evidence of a myth being constructed. After
the release of the Air Force reports, several
books, such as Kal Korff's The Roswell UFO
Crash: What They Don't Want You To Know, built
on the evidence presented in the reports to
conclude "there is no credible evidence that
the remains of an extraterrestrial spacecraft
was involved."
Problems with witness accounts
Hundreds of people were interviewed by the
various researchers, but critics point out
that only a few of these people claimed to
have seen debris or aliens. Most witnesses
were repeating the claims of others, and their
testimony would be considered hearsay in an
American court of law and therefore inadmissible
as evidence. Of the 90 people claimed to have
been interviewed for The Roswell Incident,
the testimony of only 25 appears in the book,
and only seven of these people saw the debris.
Of these, five handled the debris. Pflock,
in Roswell: Inconvenient Facts and the Will
to Believe, makes a similar point about Randle
and Schmitt's UFO Crash at Roswell. Approximately
271 people are listed in the book who were
"contacted and interviewed" for the book,
and this number does not include those who
chose to remain anonymous, meaning more than
300 witnesses were interviewed, a figure Pflock
said the authors frequently cited. Of these
300-plus individuals, only 41 can be "considered
genuine first- or second-hand witnesses to
the events in and around Roswell or at the
Fort Worth Army Air Field," and only 23 can
be "reasonably thought to have seen physical
evidence, debris recovered from the Foster
Ranch." Of these, only seven have asserted
anything suggestive of otherworldly origins
for the debris.
As for the accounts from those who claimed
to have seen aliens, critics identified problems
ranging from the reliability of second-hand
accounts, to credibility problems with witnesses
making demonstrably false claims, or multiple,
contradictory accounts, to dubious death-bed
confessions or accounts from elderly and easily
confused witnesses. Pflock noted that only
four people with supposed firsthand knowledge
of alien bodies were interviewed and identified
by Roswell authors: Frank Kaufmann; Jim Ragsdale;
Lt. Col. Albert Lovejoy Duran; Gerald Anderson.
Duran is mentioned in a brief footnote in
The Truth About the UFO Crash at Roswell and
never again, while the other three all have
serious credibility problems. A problem with
all the accounts, charge critics, is they
all came about a minimum of 31 years after
the events in question, and in many cases
were recounted more than 40 years after the
fact. Not only are memories this old of dubious
reliability, they were also subject to contamination
from other accounts the interviewees may have
been exposed to. The shifting claims of Jesse
Marcel, whose suspicion that what he recovered
in 1947 was "not of this world" sparked interest
in the incident in the first place, cast serious
doubt on the reliability of what he claimed
to be true.
In The Roswell Incident, Marcel stated, "Actually,
this material may have looked like tinfoil
and balsa wood, but the resemblance ended
there [...] They took one picture of me on
the floor holding up some of the less-interesting
metallic debris [...] The stuff in that one
photo was pieces of the actual stuff we found.
It was not a staged photo." Timothy Printy
points out that the material Marcel positively
identified as being part of what he recovered
is material that skeptics and UFO advocates
agree is debris from a balloon device. After
that fact was pointed out to him, Marcel changed
his story to say that that material was not
what he recovered. Skeptics like Robert Todd
argued that Marcel had a history of embellishment
and exaggeration, such as claiming to have
been a pilot and having received five Air
Medals for shooting down enemy planes, claims
that were all found to be false, and skeptics
feel that his evolving Roswell story was simply
another instance of this tendency to fabricate.
Contradictory conclusions, questionable research,
Roswell as a myth
Critics also point out that the large variety
of claimed crash flights suggests that events
that spanned years have been incorporated
into one single event, and that authors have
uncritically embraced anything that suggests
aliens, even when the accounts contradict
each other. Pflock said, "[T]he case for Roswell
is a classic example of the triumph of quantity
over quality. The advocates of the crashed-saucer
tale [...] simply shovel everything that seems
to support their view into the box marked
'Evidence' and say, 'See? Look at all this
stuff. We must be right.' Never mind the contradictions.
Never mind the lack of independent supporting
fact. Never mind the blatant absurdities."
Korff suggests there are clear incentives
for some people to promote the idea of aliens
at Roswell, and that many researchers were
not doing competent work: "[The] UFO field
is comprised of people who are willing to
take advantage of the gullibility of others,
especially the paying public. Let's not pull
any punches here: The Roswell UFO myth has
been very good business for UFO groups, publishers,
for Hollywood, the town of Roswell, the media,
and UFOlogy [...] [The] number of researchers
who employ science and its disciplined methodology
is appallingly small."
Gildenberg and others said there were as many
as 11 reported alien recovery sites and these
recoveries bore only a marginal resemblance
to the event as initially reported in 1947,
or as recounted later by the initial witnesses.
Some of these new accounts could have been
confused accounts of the several known recoveries
of injured and dead servicemen from four military
plane crashes that occurred in the area from
1948 to 1950. Other accounts could have been
based on memories of recoveries of test dummies,
as suggested by the Air Force in their reports.
Charles Ziegler argued that the Roswell story
has all the hallmarks of a traditional folk
narrative. He identified six distinct narratives,
and a process of transmission via storytellers
with a core story that was created from various
witness accounts, and was then shaped and
molded by those who carry on the UFO community's
tradition. Other "witnesses" were then sought
out to expand the core narrative, with those
who give accounts not in line with the core
beliefs being repudiated or simply omitted
by the "gatekeepers." Others then retold the
narrative in its new form. This whole process
would repeat over time.
Finally, critics have expressed profound frustration
at the very notion that crashed saucers have
been, as often claimed, repeatedly recovered—in
the United States, U.S.S.R., Germany, and
Iran, reportedly.
Roswellian Syndrome
Prominent skeptics Joe Nickell and co-author
James McGaha identified the myth-making process,
which they called the "Roswellian Syndrome".
The authors used the Roswell event as an example,
but pointed out that the same syndrome is
readily observable in other reported UFO incidents.
The authors identified five distinct stages
of development of the Roswell myth:
Incident: The initial incident and reporting
on July 8, 1947
Debunking: Soon after the initial reports,
the mysterious object was identified as a
weather balloon, later confirmed to be a balloon
array from Project Mogul which had gone missing
in flight.
Submergence: The news story ended with the
identification of the weather balloon. However,
the event lingered on in the ‘fading and
recreative memories of some of those involved’.
Rumor and speculation simmered just below
the surface in Roswell and became part of
the culture at large. In time, UFOlogists
arrived, asked leading questions, and helped
to spin a tale of crashed flying saucers and
a government conspiracy to cover up the true
nature of the event.
Mythologizing: After the story submerged,
and, over time, reemerged, it developed into
an ever-expanding and elaborate myth. The
mythologizing process included exaggeration,
faulty memory, folklore and deliberate hoaxing.
The deliberate hoaxing was usually self-serving
for personal gain or promotion and in turn
fed the folklore.
Reemergence and Media Bandwagon Effect: Publication
of books such as The Roswell Incident by Berlitz
and Moore in 1980, television shows and other
media coverage perpetuated the UFO crash story
and cover-up conspiracy beliefs. Conspiracy
beliefs typically mirror public sentiments
towards the US government and oscillate along
with those attitudes.
The authors predicted that the Roswellian
Syndrome would "play out again and again",
not only in the Roswell story, but also in
other UFO and conspiracy-theory stories.
Developments since 1990s
Pro-UFO advocates dismiss Roswell incident
One of the immediate outcomes of the Air Force
reports on the Roswell UFO incident was the
decision by some prominent UFO researchers
to view the Roswell incident as not involving
an alien craft. While the initial Air Force
report was a chief reason for this, another
reason was the release of secret documents
from 1948 that showed that top Air Force officials
did not know what the UFO objects being reported
in the media were, and their suspicion that
the UFOs might be Soviet spy vehicles.
In January 1997, Karl T. Pflock, one of the
more prominent pro-UFO researchers, said “Based
on my research and that of others, I'm as
certain as it's possible to be without absolute
proof that no flying saucer or saucers crashed
in the general vicinity of Roswell or on the
Plains of San Agustin in 1947. The debris
found by Mac Brazel...was the remains of something
very earthly, all but certainly something
from the Top Secret Project Mogul....The formerly
highly classified record of correspondence
and discussions among top Air Force officials
who were responsible for cracking the flying
saucer mystery from the mid-1940s through
the early 1950s makes it crystal clear that
they didn't have any crashed saucer wreckage
or bodies of saucer crews, but they were desperate
to have such evidence [...]"
Kent Jeffrey, who organized petitions to ask
President Bill Clinton to issue an Executive
order to declassify any government information
on the Roswell incident, similarly concluded
that no aliens were likely to have been involved.
William L. Moore, one of the earliest proponents
of the Roswell incident as a UFO event, said
this in 1997: "After deep and careful consideration
of recent developments concerning Roswell...I
am no longer of the opinion that the extraterrestrial
explanation is the best explanation for this
event." Moore was co-author of the first book
on Roswell, The Roswell Incident.
In a podcast interview with Canadian filmmaker
Paul Kimball released on August 25, 2013,
Kevin Randle stated that while he still personally
believed that an extraterrestrial spacecraft
crashed in New Mexico, the evidence does not
support that conclusion beyond a reasonable
doubt. "We really can't get to the extraterrestrial,"
stated Randle. "We can eliminate practically
everything else that you care to mention,
but that still doesn't get us to the extraterrestrial."
Shoddy research revealed; witnesses suspected
of hoaxes
Around the same time in the late 1990s, a
serious rift developed between two prominent
Roswell authors. Kevin D. Randle and Donald
R. Schmitt had co-authored several books on
the subject, and were generally acknowledged,
along with Stanton Friedman, to be the leading
researchers of the Roswell incident. The Air
Force reports on the incident suggested that
basic research that was claimed to have been
carried out was not in fact carried out, a
fact verified in a 1995 Omni magazine article.
Additionally, Schmitt claimed he had a bachelor's
degree, a master's degree and was in the midst
of pursuing a doctorate in criminology. He
also claimed to be a medical illustrator.
When checked, it was revealed he was in fact
a letter carrier in Hartford, Wisconsin, and
had no known academic credentials. At the
same time, Randle publicly distanced himself
from Schmitt and his research. Referring to
Schmitt’s investigation of witness Dennis’s
accounts of a missing nurse at the Roswell
base, he said: "The search for the nurses
proves that he [Schmitt] will lie about anything.
He will lie to anyone ... He has revealed
himself as a pathological liar [...] I will
have nothing more to do with him."
Additionally, several prominent witnesses
were shown to be perpetrating hoaxes, or suspected
of doing so. Frank Kaufmann was a major source
of alien reports in the 1994 Randle and Schmitt
book The Truth About the UFO Crash at Roswell.
He was the witness whose testimony it was
charged was “ignored” by the Air Force
when compiling their reports. However, after
his 2001 death, he was shown to have been
forging documents and inflating his role at
Roswell. Randle and Mark Rodeigher repudiated
Kaufmann’s credibility in two 2002 articles.
Glenn Dennis, who testified that Roswell alien
autopsies were carried out at the Roswell
base, and that he and others were the subjects
of threats, was deemed one of the “least
credible” Roswell witnesses by Randle in
1998. In Randle and Schmitt’s 1991 book
UFO Crash at Roswell, Dennis’s story was
featured prominently. Randle said Dennis was
not credible “for changing the name of the
nurse once we had proved she didn't exist.”
Dennis’s accounts were also doubted by researcher
Pflock.
Photo analysis; documentaries; new claims
UFO researcher David Rudiak, and others before
him, claimed that a telegram which appears
in one of the 1947 photos of balloon debris
in Ramey's office contains text that confirms
that aliens and a "disk" were found. Rudiak
and some other examiners claim that when enlarged,
the text on the paper General Ramey is apparently
holding in his hand includes key phrases "the
victims of the wreck" and "in/on the 'disc'"
plus other phrases seemingly in the context
of a crashed vehicle recovery. However, pro-UFO
interpretations of this document are disputed
by other photoanalyses, such as one facilitated
by researcher James Houran, Ph.D., which suggest
that the letters and words are indistinct.
Other objections question the plausibility
of a general allowing himself to be photographed
holding such a document, raise issues with
the format of the memo, and ponder the logic
of Ramey having in his possession a document
he, as Rudiak argued, has supposedly sent,
which says "...the wreck you forwarded..."
and yet is supposedly addressed to the Headquarters
of the Army Air Force in Washington, not the
Roswell Army Air Field.
In 2002, the Sci-Fi Channel sponsored an excavation
at the Brazel site, in the hopes of uncovering
debris that the military failed to collect.
Although these results have so far been negative,
the University of New Mexico archaeological
team did verify recent soil disruption at
the exact location that some witnesses said
they saw a long, linear impact groove. Gov.
Bill Richardson of New Mexico, who headed
the United States Department of Energy under
President Clinton, apparently found the results
provocative. In 2004, he wrote in a foreword
to The Roswell Dig Diaries, that "the mystery
surrounding this crash has never been adequately
explained—not by independent investigators,
and not by the U.S. government."
On October 26, 2007, Richardson was asked
about releasing government files on Roswell.
Richardson responded that when he was a Congressman,
he attempted to get information on behalf
of his New Mexico constituents, but was told
by both the Department of Defense and Los
Alamos Labs that the information was classified.
"That ticked me off," he said "The government
doesn't tell the truth as much as it should
on a lot of issues." He promised to work on
opening the files if he were elected as President.
In October 2002, before airing its Roswell
documentary, the Sci-Fi Channel hosted a Washington
UFO news conference. John Podesta, President
Clinton's chief of staff, appeared as a member
of the public relations firm hired by Sci-Fi
to help get the government to open up documents
on the subject. Podesta stated, "It is time
for the government to declassify records that
are more than 25 years old and to provide
scientists with data that will assist in determining
the true nature of the phenomena."
In February 2005, the ABC TV network aired
a UFO special hosted by news anchor Peter
Jennings. Jennings lambasted the Roswell case
as a "myth ... without a shred of evidence."
ABC endorsed the Air Force's explanation that
the incident resulted solely from the crash
of a Project Mogul balloon.
Top Secret/Majic
Stanton T. Friedman continues to defend his
view that the Majestic 12 documents, which
describe a secret government agency hiding
information on recovered aliens, are authentic.
In an afterword dated April 2005 to a new
edition of his book Top Secret/Majic, he responds
to more recent questions on their validity
and concludes "I am still convinced Roswell
really happened, [and] that the Eisenhower
Briefing Document [i.e., Majestic 12] ... [and
others] are the most important classified
documents ever leaked to the public."
Witness to Roswell
In June 2007, Donald Schmitt and his investigation
partner Tom Carey published their first book
together, Witness to Roswell. In this book,
they claim a "continuously growing roster
of more than 600 people directly or indirectly
associated with the events at Roswell who
support the first account - that initial claim
of the flying saucer recovery." New accounts
of aliens or alien recoveries were described,
including the account of Walter Haut, who
wrote the initial press release in 1947.
A new date was suggested for the crash of
a mysterious object—the evening of Thursday,
July 3, 1947. Also, unlike previous accounts,
Brazel took the debris to Corona, where he
showed fragments to local residents in the
local bar, hardware store, and elsewhere,
and to Capitan to the south, where portions
of the object ended up at a 4th of July rodeo.
Numerous people are described as visiting
the debris field and taking souvenirs before
Brazel finally went to Roswell to report the
find on July 6. Once the military was alerted
to the debris, extensive efforts were undertaken
to retrieve those souvenirs: "Ranch houses
were and [sic] ransacked. The wooden floors
of livestock sheds were pried loose plank
by plank and underground cold storage fruit
cellars were emptied of all their contents."
The subsequent events are related as per the
sequence in previous books, except for a second
recovery site of an alien body at the Foster
ranch. This recovery near the debris field
is the same site mentioned in 1991's UFO Crash
at Roswell. The authors suggest that Brazel
discovered the second site some days after
finding the debris field, and this prompted
him to travel to Roswell and report his find
to the authorities.
Neither Barnett nor the archaeologists are
reported to be present at this body site.
While noting the earlier "major problems"
with Barnett's account, which caused Schmitt
and previous partner Randle to omit Barnett's
claim in 1994's The Truth about the UFO Crash
at Roswell, the new book further notes another
site mentioned in the 1994 publication. This
site closer to Roswell "turned out to be bogus,
as it was based upon the testimony of a single,
alleged eyewitness [Frank Kaufmann] who himself
was later discovered to have been a purveyor
of false information." Jim Ragsdale, whose
alien account opened that book and who was
claimed to have been present along with some
archaeologists, is not mentioned in the new
book.
The 2007 book includes claims that Major Marcel
saw alien bodies, a claim not present in previous
books. Two witnesses are cited who say Marcel
briefly mentioned seeing bodies, one a relative
and another a Tech Sergeant who worked with
Marcel's intelligence team.
Much additional new testimony is presented
to support notions that alien bodies were
found at the Foster ranch and at another main
crash site along with a craft, then processed
at the base in a hangar and at the hospital,
and the bodies finally flown out in containers,
all under very tight security. The book suggests
Brazel found "two or three alien bodies" about
two miles east of the debris field, and describes
the rest of a stricken alien craft along with
the remainder of the crew remaining airborne
for some 30 more miles before crashing at
another site about 40 miles north/northwest
of Roswell. The authors claim to have located
this final crash site in 2005 where "an additional
two or three dead aliens and one live one
were discovered by civilian archaeologists,"
but offer no more information about the new
site.
Walter Haut, the Roswell Army Air Field public
affairs officer, had drafted the initial press
release which went out over the news wires
on the afternoon of July 8, 1947, announcing
a "flying disc". This was supposedly the only
direct involvement Haut had in public statements
and signed affidavits. The book presents a
new affidavit that Haut signed in 2002 in
which he claims much greater personal knowledge
and involvement, including seeing alien corpses
and craft, and involvement in a cover-up.
Haut died in 2005.
Another new firsthand account from MP Elias
Benjamin describes how he guarded aliens on
gurneys taken to the Roswell base hospital
from the same hangar. Similarly, family members
of Miriam Bush, secretary to the chief medical
officer at Roswell base, told of having been
led into an examination room where alien corpses
were laid out on gurneys. In both accounts,
one of the aliens was said to be still alive.
The book also recounted earlier testimony
of the Anaya family about picking up New Mexico
Lt. Governor Joseph Montoya at the base, and
a badly shaken Montoya relating that he saw
four alien bodies at the base hangar, one
of them alive. Benjamin's and Bush's accounts,
as do a few lesser ones, again place aliens
at the Roswell base hospital, as had the Glenn
Dennis story from almost 20 years before.
The book notes that Dennis had been found
to have told lies, and therefore is a supplier
of unreliable testimony, but had nevertheless
told others of incidents at the Roswell base
long before it became associated with aliens
in the late 1970s.
Walter Haut controversy
The 2007 publishing of the Walter Haut affidavit
in Witness to Roswell, wherein Haut described
a cover-up and seeing alien corpses, ignited
a controversy in UFO circles. While many embraced
Haut's accounts as confirmation of the presence
of aliens from a person who was known to have
been on the base in 1947, others raised questions
about his credibility.
UFO researcher Dennis G. Balthaser, who along
with fellow researcher Wendy Connors interviewed
Haut on-camera in 2000, doubted that the same
man he interviewed could have written the
affidavit he signed. "[The 2000 video] shows
a man that couldn't remember where he took
basic training, names, dates, etc., while
the 2002 affidavit is very detailed and precise
with information Haut couldn't accurately
remember 2 years after he was video taped."
Witness to Roswell co-author Donald R. Schmitt,
he notes, admitted that the affidavit was
not written by Haut, but prepared for him
to sign, based on statements Haut had made
privately to Schmitt and co-author Tom Carey
over a period of years. And further, notes
Balthaser, neither he nor Carey were there
when Haut signed the affidavit and the witness'
name has not been revealed, casting doubt
on the circumstances of the signing.
Balthaser had further questions about what
he saw as problems with the 2002 account.
If the cover-up was decided at a meeting at
Roswell, he asked, "why was it necessary for
Major Marcel to fly debris from Roswell to
General Ramey’s office in Ft Worth, since
they had all handled the debris in the meeting
and apparently set up the cover-up operation?"
He also wondered which Haut statements were
true: a 1993 affidavit he signed, the 2000
video interview, or the 2002 affidavit.
Bill Birnes, writing for UFO Magazine, summarizes
that whatever disagreements there are about
the 2000 video and the 2002 affidavit, "I
think Walter Haut's 2002 affidavit really
says it all and agrees, on its material facts,
with Walter's 2000 interview with Dennis Balthaser
and Wendy Connors. Dennis said he agrees with
me, too, on this point."
A comparison of the affidavit and interview
shows that in both accounts Haut said he saw
a craft and at least one body in a base hangar
and also attended a Roswell staff meeting
where General Ramey was present and where
Ramey put a cover-up into place.
Birnes also says that Carey said that while
Haut may not have written the affidavit, "his
statements were typed, shown to him for his
review and agreement, and then affirmed by
him in the presence of a witness... The fact
that a notary was present and sealed the document
should end any doubt as to the reality of
its existence."
Julie Shuster, Haut's daughter and Director
of the International UFO Museum in Roswell,
said that Schmitt had written the affidavit
based on years of conversations he and Carey
had had with him. Writing in the September
2007 MUFON newsletter, she said she and Haut
reviewed the document, that "he did not want
to make any changes," and in the presence
of two witnesses, a notary public from the
museum and a visitor, both unidentified, he
signed the affidavit.
UFO FBI document release, 2011
In April 2011, the FBI posted a 1950 document
from agent Guy Hottel which discussed a report
by an investigator for the Air Forces of "three
so-called flying saucers" and their occupants
having been recovered in New Mexico. The document
says:
Office Memorandum • United States Government
TO: DIRECTOR, FBI [and then across from it,
right justified] DATE: March 22, 1950
FROM: GUY HOTTEL, SAC, WASHINGTON
SUBJECT: FLYING SAUCERS
INFORMATION CONCERNING
[Handwritten:]
Flying Discs or Flying Saucers
The following information was furnished to
SA [redacted] by [two lines redacted].
An investigator for the Air Forces stated
that three so-called flying saucers had been
recovered in New Mexico. They were described
as being circular in shape with raised centers,
approximately 50 feet in diameter. Each one
was occupied by three bodies of human shape
but only three feet tall, dressed in metallic
cloth of a very fine texture. Each body was
bandaged in a manner similar to the blackout
suits used by speed flyers and test pilots.
According to Mr. [redacted] informant, the
saucers were found in New Mexico due to the
fact that the Government has a very high-powered
radar set-up in that area and it is believed
that the radar interferes with the controlling
mechanism of the saucers.
No further evaluation was attempted by SA
[redacted] concerning the above.
RHK:VIM
Though no dates are mentioned regarding the
events, the memo has a typed date of March
22, 1950, and two differently-sized date stamps:
one March 29, 1950 and one March 28, 1950,
the latter of which has a handwritten number
above it: 62-838-94-209, the last part with
"-209" being somewhat widely spaced from the
former.
No location more specific than "New Mexico"
is seen.
Some sources connected the memo to the Roswell
UFO incident of 1947. Other sources said the
memo had been in the public domain for years,
and was revealed as a hoax as far back as
1952 in an article in True magazine. They
said the hoax was perpetrated by several men
who were peddling a device purported to be
able to locate gold, oil, gas or anything
their victims sought, based on supposed alien
technology. The two men, Silas Newton and
Leo A. Gebauer, were convicted of fraud in
1953.
In 2013, the FBI issued a press release regarding
the memo. In addressing the memo's context,
the Bureau wrote, "Finally, the Hottel memo
does not prove the existence of UFOs; it is
simply a second- or third-hand claim that
we never investigated. Some people believe
the memo repeats a hoax that was circulating
at that time, but the Bureau’s files have
no information to verify that theory."
Area 51
American journalist Annie Jacobsen's Area
51: An Uncensored History of America's Top
Secret Military Base, based on interviews
with scientists and engineers who worked in
Area 51, dismisses the alien story. It suggested
that Josef Mengele, a German Schutzstaffel
officer and a physician in Auschwitz, was
recruited by the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin
to produce "grotesque, child-size aviators"
to be remotely piloted and landed in America
in order to cause hysteria similar to Orson
Welles' War of the Worlds. The aircraft, however,
crashed and the incident was hushed up by
the Americans. Jacobsen wrote that the bodies
found at the crash site were children around
12 years old with large heads and abnormally-shaped,
over-sized eyes. They were neither aliens
nor consenting airmen, but human guinea pigs.
The book was criticized for extensive errors
by scientists from the Federation of American
Scientists.
See also
List of reported UFO sightings
Notes
References
Berlitz, Charles; Moore, William. The Roswell
Incident. Grosset & Dunlap. ISBN 9780448211992. 
Carey, Thomas; Schmitt, Donald. Witness to
Roswell: Unmasking the 60-Year Cover-Up. New
Page Books. ISBN 9781564149435. 
Friedman, Stanton; Berliner, Don. Crash at
Corona: The U.S. Military Retrieval and Cover-Up
of 
a UFO. Paragon House. ISBN 9781557784490. 
Korff, Kal. The Roswell UFO Crash: What They
Don't Want You to Know. Prometheus Books.
ISBN 9781573921275. 
Pflock, Karl. Roswell: Inconvenient Facts
and the Will 
to Believe. Prometheus Books. ISBN 9781573928946. 
Printy, Timothy. Roswell 4F: Fabrications,
Fumbled Facts, and Fables. Timothy Printy.
Retrieved February 5, 2013. 
Randle, Kevin. Roswell UFO Crash Update: Exposing
the Military Cover-Up of the Century. Global
Communications. ISBN 9780938294412. 
Randle, Kevin; Schmitt, Donald. UFO Crash
at Roswell. Avon Books. ISBN 9780380761968. 
Randle, Kevin; Schmitt, Donald. The truth
about the UFO Crash at Roswell. M Evans. ISBN 9780871317612. 
Saler, Benson; Ziegler, Charles; Moore, Charles.
UFO Crash at Roswell: The Genesis of a Modern
Myth. Smithsonian Institution Press. ISBN 9781560987512. 
Friedman, Stanton. Top Secret/MAJIC : Operation
Majestic-12 and 
the United States Government's UFO Cover-Up.
Marlowe & Co. ISBN 9781569243428. 
Weaver, Richard; McAndrew, James. The Roswell
Report: Fact Versus Fiction in the New Mexico
Desert. United States Air Force. ISBN 9781428994928. 
External links
Original Guy Hottel Statement
The Amazing Roswell UFO Festival
Walker Air Force Base at Roswell online museum
Carey, Tom, and Schmitt, Don. UFOlogy Resource
Center: The Roswell Report, via SciFi.com.
Archived from the original on April 13, 2004.
