Roswell Incident
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The Roswell Incident started in 1947 with the recovery of debris near
Roswell, New Mexico Roswell () is a city in and the county seat of Chaves County, New Mexico, Chaves County, New Mexico, United States. The population was 48,422 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of municipalities in New Mexico, fi ...
. It later became the basis for conspiracy theories alleging that the United States military recovered a crashed extraterrestrial spacecraft. The debris was a
military balloon Balloons and kites were the first inventions used in aerial warfare and their primary role was reconnaissance. Balloons provided a reliable and stable means of elevating an observer high over the battlefield to obtain a birds-eye view of troop ...
operated from the nearby
Alamogordo Army Air Field Alamogordo () is a city in and the county seat of Otero County, New Mexico, United States. A city in the Tularosa Basin of the Chihuahuan Desert, it is bordered on the east by the Sacramento Mountains and to the west by Holloman Air Force Ba ...
and part of the top secret Project Mogul, the balloon program was intended to detect
Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
nuclear tests Nuclear weapons tests are experiments carried out to determine the performance of nuclear weapons and the effects of Nuclear explosion, their explosion. Nuclear testing is a sensitive political issue. Governments have often performed tests to si ...
. After metallic and rubber debris was recovered by
Roswell Army Air Field Roswell may refer to: * Roswell incident * Roswell, New Mexico, known for the purported 1947 UFO incident (see other uses below) Places in the United States * Roswell, Colorado, a former settlement now part of Colorado Springs * Roswell, Georgia ...
personnel, the United States Army announced their possession of a "
flying disc A frisbee (pronounced ), also called a flying disc or simply a disc, is a gliding toy or sporting item generally made of injection-molded plastic and roughly in diameter with a pronounced lip. It is used recreationally and competitively for ...
". This announcement made international headlines, but was retracted within a day. To obscure the purpose and source of the debris, the army reported that it was a conventional
weather balloon A weather balloon, also known as a sounding balloon, is a balloon (specifically a type of high-altitude balloon) that carries instruments to the stratosphere to send back information on atmospheric pressure, temperature, humidity and wind spe ...
. In 1978, retired Air Force officer Jesse Marcel revealed that the army's weather balloon claim had been a cover story, and speculated that the debris was of extraterrestrial origin. Popularized by the 1980 book '' The Roswell Incident'', this speculation became the basis for long-lasting and increasingly complex and contradictory
UFO conspiracy theories Some conspiracy theories argue that various governments and politicians globally, in particular the United States government, are suppressing evidence that unidentified flying objects (UFO) are controlled by an extraterrestrial or "non-human" i ...
, which over time expanded the incident to include governments concealing evidence of extraterrestrial beings,
grey alien Grey aliens, also referred to as Zeta Reticulans, Roswell Greys, or simply, Greys, are purported extraterrestrial beings. They are frequently featured in claims of close encounter and alien abduction. Greys are typically described as having ...
s, multiple crashed
flying saucer A flying saucer, or flying disc, is a purported type of disc-shaped unidentified flying object (UFO). The term was coined in 1947 by the United States (US) news media for the objects pilot Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting, Kenneth Arnold claimed fl ...
s, alien corpses and autopsies, and the
reverse engineering Reverse engineering (also known as backwards engineering or back engineering) is a process or method through which one attempts to understand through deductive reasoning how a previously made device, process, system, or piece of software accompl ...
of extraterrestrial technology, none of which have any factual basis. In the 1990s, the United States Air Force published multiple reports which established that the incident was related to Project Mogul, and not debris from a UFO. Despite this and a general lack of evidence, many UFO proponents claim that the Roswell debris was in fact derived from an alien craft, and accuse the US government of a cover-up. The conspiracy narrative has become a trope in science fiction literature, film, and television. The town of Roswell promotes itself as a destination for UFO-associated tourism.


1947 military balloon crash

By 1947, the United States had launched thousands of top-secret Project Mogul balloons carrying devices to listen for Soviet atomic tests. On June 4, researchers at
Alamogordo Army Air Field Alamogordo () is a city in and the county seat of Otero County, New Mexico, United States. A city in the Tularosa Basin of the Chihuahuan Desert, it is bordered on the east by the Sacramento Mountains and to the west by Holloman Air Force Ba ...
in New Mexico launched a long train of these balloons; they lost contact with the balloons and balloon-borne equipment within of W.W. "Mac" Brazel's ranch near
Corona, New Mexico Corona is a village in Lincoln County, New Mexico, United States, located along U.S. Route 54. The population was 129 at the 2020 census. History Corona is the closest populated community to a purported UFO crash in 1947, approximately to the ...
, where a balloon subsequently crashed. Later that month, Brazel discovered tinfoil, rubber, tape, and thin wooden beams scattered across several acres of his ranch. With no phone or radio, Brazel was initially unaware of the ongoing flying disc craze. Amid the first summer of the
Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
, press nationwide covered
Kenneth Arnold Kenneth Albert Arnold (March 29, 1915 – January 16, 1984) was an American aviator, businessman, and politician. Arnold is known best for reporting what is generally considered the first widely publicized modern sighting of an unidentified fl ...
's account of what became known as
flying saucers A flying saucer, or flying disc, is a purported type of disc-shaped unidentified flying object (UFO). The term was coined in 1947 by the United States (US) news media for the objects pilot Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting, Kenneth Arnold claimed fl ...
, objects that allegedly performed maneuvers beyond the capabilities of any known aircraft. Coverage of Arnold's report preceded a wave of over 800 similar sightings. When Brazel visited Corona, on July 5, his uncle Hollis Wilson suggested his debris could be from a "flying disk". Hundreds of reports had been made during the
Fourth of July Independence Day, known colloquially as the Fourth of July, is a federal holiday in the United States which commemorates the ratification of the Declaration of Independence by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, establishing th ...
weekend, newspapers speculated on a possible Soviet origin, and about $3,000 () was offered for physical proof. The next day Brazel drove to Roswell, New Mexico, and informed Sheriff George Wilcox of the debris he had found. Wilcox called
Roswell Army Air Field Roswell may refer to: * Roswell incident * Roswell, New Mexico, known for the purported 1947 UFO incident (see other uses below) Places in the United States * Roswell, Colorado, a former settlement now part of Colorado Springs * Roswell, Georgia ...
(RAAF). RAAF was home to the 509th Bomb group of the
Eighth Air Force The Eighth Air Force (Air Forces Strategic) is a numbered air force (NAF) of the United States Air Force's Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC). It is headquartered at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana. The command serves as Air Forces S ...
, the only unit at the time capable of delivering nuclear weapons. The base assigned Major Jesse Marcel and Captain Sheridan Cavitt to return with Brazel and gather the material from the ranch. RAAF Base commander Colonel William Blanchard notified the
Eighth Air Force The Eighth Air Force (Air Forces Strategic) is a numbered air force (NAF) of the United States Air Force's Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC). It is headquartered at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana. The command serves as Air Forces S ...
commanding officer Roger M. Ramey of their findings. On July 8, RAAF
public information officer A spokesperson, spokesman, or spokeswoman is someone engaged or elected to speak on behalf of others. Duties and function In the present media-sensitive world, many organizations are increasingly likely to employ professionals who have receiv ...
Walter Haut 1st Lt. Walter Haut (June 3, 1922 – December 15, 2005) was the public information officer (PIO) at the 509th Bomb Group based in Roswell, New Mexico, during 1947. Haut issued the initial "flying disc" press release during the Roswell incident. ...
issued a
press release A press release (also known as a media release) is an official statement delivered to members of the news media for the purpose of providing new information, creating an official statement, or making an announcement directed for public releas ...
stating that the military had recovered a "flying disc" near Roswell. Robert Porter, an RAAF flight engineer, was part of the crew who loaded what he was "told was a flying saucer" onto the flight bound for
Fort Worth Army Air Field Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth (abbreviated NAS JRB Fort Worth) includes Carswell Field, a military airbase located west of the central business district of Fort Worth, in Tarrant County, Texas, United States. This military ...
in Texas. He described the materialpackaged in wrapping paper when he received itas lightweight and not too large to fit inside the trunk of a car. After station director George Walsh broke the news over Roswell radio station KSWS and relayed it to the ''Associated Press'', his phone lines were overwhelmed. He later recalled, "All afternoon, I tried to call Sheriff Wilcox for more information, but could never get through to him ..Media people called me from all over the world." The press release issued by Haut read: Media interest in the case dissipated soon after a press conference where General Roger Ramey, his chief of staff Colonel Thomas DuBose, and weather officer Irving Newton identified the material as pieces of a weather balloon. Newton told reporters that similar radar targets were used at about 80 weather stations across the country. The small number of subsequent news stories offered mundane and prosaic accounts of the crash. On July 9, the ''
Roswell Daily Record The ''Roswell Daily Record'' is a local newspaper located in Roswell, New Mexico Roswell () is a city in and the county seat of Chaves County, New Mexico, Chaves County, New Mexico, United States. The population was 48,422 at the 2020 Unite ...
'' highlighted that no engine or metal parts had been found in the wreckage. Brazel told the ''Record'' that the debris consisted of rubber strips, "tinfoil, paper, tape, and sticks." cites: : "The balloon which held it up, if that was how it worked, must have been long, razelfelt, 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 in diameter. When the debris was gathered up, the tinfoil, paper, tape, and sticks made a bundle about three feet mlong and thick, while the rubber made a bundle about long and about thick. In all, he estimated, the entire lot would have weighed maybe five pounds kg 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." Brazel said he paid little attention to it but returned later with his wife and daughter to gather up some of the debris. Despite later claims that he was forced to repeat a cover story, Brazel told newspaper reporters, "I am sure that what I found was not any weather observation balloon." When interviewed in Fort Worth, Texas, Jesse Marcel described the wreckage as "parts of the weather device" composed of "tinfoil and broken wooden beams". A portion of the material was flown from Texas to
Wright Field Wilbur Wright Field was a military installation and an airfield used as a World War I pilot, mechanic, and armorer training facility and, under different designations, conducted United States Army Air Corps and Air Forces flight testing. Loc ...
in Ohio, where Colonel Marcellus Duffy identified it as balloon equipment. Duffy had previous experience with Project Mogul and contacted Mogul's project officer Albert Trakowski to discuss the debris. Unable to disclose details about the project, Duffy identified it as "meteorological equipment". The 1947 official account omitted any connection to Cold War military programs. On July 10, military personnel at Alamogordo gave a demonstration to the press. Four officers provided a false account of mundane weather balloon usage throughout the previous year. They demonstrated balloon configurations used by the Mogul team as ways to gather meteorological data, offering a plausible explanation for any unusual aspects of the Roswell debris. The Air Force later described the weather balloon story as "an attempt to deflect attention from the top secret Mogul project."


UFO conspiracy theories (1947–1978)

The 1947 debris retrieval remained relatively obscure for three decades. Reporting ceased soon after the government provided a mundane explanation, and broader reporting on flying saucers declined rapidly after the
Twin Falls saucer hoax The Twin Falls saucer hoax was a hoaxed flying disc discovered in Twin Falls, Idaho, United States, on July 11, 1947. Amid a nationwide wave of alleged "flying disc" sightings, residents of Twin Falls reported recovering a "disc". FBI and Arm ...
. Just days after stories of the Roswell "flying disc", a widely reported crashed disc from Twin Falls, Idaho, was found to be a hoax created by four teenagers using parts from a
jukebox A jukebox is a partially automated music-playing device, usually a coin-operated machine, that plays a user-selected song from a self-contained media library. Traditional jukeboxes contain records, compact discs, or digital files, and allow user ...
. Nevertheless, belief in UFO cover-ups by the US government became widespread in this period. Hoaxes, legends, and stories of crashed spaceships and alien bodies in New Mexico emerged that later formed elements of the Roswell myth. In 1947, many Americans attributed
flying saucers A flying saucer, or flying disc, is a purported type of disc-shaped unidentified flying object (UFO). The term was coined in 1947 by the United States (US) news media for the objects pilot Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting, Kenneth Arnold claimed fl ...
to unknown military aircraft. In the decades between the initial debris recovery and the emergence of Roswell theories, flying saucers became synonymous with
alien spacecraft The extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH; ''synonymous with'' interplanetary aircraft ) proposes that some unidentified flying objects (UFOs) are best explained as being physical spacecraft occupied by intelligent extraterrestrial organisms ( non- ...
. After the
assassination of John F. Kennedy John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was assassinated while riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. Kennedy was in the vehicle with his wife Jacqueline Kennedy Onas ...
and the
Watergate scandal The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal in the United States involving the Presidency of Richard Nixon, administration of President Richard Nixon. The scandal began in 1972 and ultimately led to Resignation of Richard Nixon, Nix ...
, trust in the US government declined and acceptance of conspiracy theories became widespread. UFO believers accused the government of a "Cosmic Watergate". The 1947 incident was reinterpreted to fit the public's increasingly conspiracy-minded outlook.


Aztec crashed saucer hoax

The
Aztec, New Mexico crashed saucer hoax The Aztec crashed saucer hoax (sometimes known as the "other Roswell") was a flying saucer crash alleged to have happened in 1948 in Aztec, New Mexico. The story was first published in 1949 by journalist Frank Scully in his ''Variety'' magazine ...
in 1948 introduced stories of recovered alien bodies that later became associated with Roswell. It achieved broad exposure when the con artists behind it convinced ''Variety'' columnist Frank Scully to cover their fictitious crash. The hoax narrative included small grey humanoid bodies, metal stronger than any found on Earth, indecipherable writing, and a government coverup to prevent public panicthese elements appeared in later versions of the Roswell myth. In retellings, the mundane debris reported at the actual crash site was replaced with the Aztec hoax's fantastical alloys. By the time Roswell returned to media attention,
grey alien Grey aliens, also referred to as Zeta Reticulans, Roswell Greys, or simply, Greys, are purported extraterrestrial beings. They are frequently featured in claims of close encounter and alien abduction. Greys are typically described as having ...
s had become a part of American culture through the Barney and Betty Hill incident. In a 1997 Roswell report, Air Force investigator James McAndrew wrote that "even with the exposure of this obvious fraud, the Aztec story is still revered by UFO theorists. Elements of this story occasionally reemerge and are thought to be the catalyst for other crashed flying saucer stories, including the Roswell Incident."


Hangar 18

" Hangar 18" is a non-existent location that many later conspiracy theories allege housed extraterrestrial craft or bodies recovered from Roswell. The idea of alien corpses from a crashed ship being stored in an Air Force morgue at the
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (WPAFB) is a United States Air Force base and census-designated place just east of Dayton, Ohio, in Greene County, Ohio, Greene and Montgomery County, Ohio, Montgomery counties. It includes both Wright and Patte ...
was mentioned in Scully's ''Behind the Flying Saucers'', expanded in the 1966 book '' Incident at Exeter'', and became the basis for a 1968 science-fiction novel '' The Fortec Conspiracy''. ''Fortec'' was about a fictional cover-up by the Air Force unit charged with reverse-engineering other nations' technical advancements. In 1974, science-fiction author and conspiracy theorist
Robert Spencer Carr Robert Spencer Carr (March 26, 1909 – April 28, 1994) was an American writer of science fiction and fantasy. He sold his first story to ''Weird Tales'' at age 15. At age 17 his novel, ''The Rampant Age'', became a success resulting in a ...
alleged that alien bodies recovered from the Aztec crash were stored in "Hangar 18" at Wright-Patterson. Carr claimed that his sources had witnessed the alien autopsy, another idea later incorporated into the Roswell narrative. The Air Force explained that no "Hangar 18" existed at the base, noting a similarity between Carr's story and the fictional ''Fortec Conspiracy''. The 1980 film '' Hangar 18'', which dramatized Carr's claims, was described as "a modern-day dramatization" of Roswell by the film's director
James L. Conway James L. Conway (born October 27, 1950, in New York City, U.S.) is an American film and television director, producer, and writer, studio executive, and novelist. Movies Conway directed include ''The Boogens'' and '' Hangar 18''. Television s ...
, and as "nascent Roswell mythology" by folklorist Thomas Bullard. Decades later, Carr's son recalled that he had often "mortified my mother and me by spinning preposterous stories in front of strangers... ales ofbefriending a giant alligator in the Florida swamps, and sharing complex philosophical ideas with porpoises in the Gulf of Mexico."


Roswell conspiracy theories (1978–1994)

Interest in Roswell was rekindled after
ufologist Ufology, sometimes written UFOlogy ( or ), is the investigation of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) by people who believe that they may be of extraordinary claims, extraordinary origins (most frequently of extraterrestrial hypothesis, extrate ...
Stanton Friedman Stanton Terry Friedman (July 29, 1934 – May 13, 2019) was an American–Canadian nuclear physicist and professional ufologist who was based in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. Early life Born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Friedman was rai ...
interviewed Jesse Marcel in 1978. Marcel had accompanied the Roswell debris from the ranch to the Fort Worth press conference. In the 1978 interview, Marcel stated that the "weather balloon" explanation from the press conference was a cover story, and that he now believed the debris was extraterrestrial. On December 19, 1979, Marcel was interviewed by Bob Pratt of the ''
National Enquirer The ''National Enquirer'' is an American tabloid newspaper. Founded in 1926, the newspaper has undergone a number of changes over the years. The ''National Enquirer'' openly acknowledges that it pays Source (journalism), sources for tips (chec ...
'', and the tabloid brought large-scale attention to the Marcel story the following February. Marcel described a foil that could be crumpled but would uncrumple when released. On September 20, 1980, the TV series '' In Search of...'', hosted by Star Trek actor
Leonard Nimoy Leonard Simon Nimoy ( ; March 26, 1931 – February 27, 2015) was an American actor and director, famous for playing Spock in the ''Star Trek'' franchise for almost 50 years. This includes Development of Spock, originating Spock in Star Trek: T ...
, aired an interview where Marcel described his participation in the 1947 press conference: Ufologists interviewed Major Marcel's son, Jesse A. Marcel Jr. M.D., who said that when he was 10 years old, his father had shown him flying saucer debris recovered from the Roswell crash site, including, "a small beam with purple-hued hieroglyphics on it". However, the symbols described as alien hieroglyphics matched the symbols on the adhesive tape that Project Mogul sourced from a New York toy manufacturer. To publish his research, Friedman collaborated with childhood friend and author William "Bill" Moore, who reached out to established paranormal author
Charles Berlitz Charles Frambach Berlitz (November 22, 1914 – December 18, 2003) was an American polyglot, language teacher and writer, known for his language-learning courses and his books on paranormal phenomena. Life Berlitz was born in New York City. He w ...
. Berlitz had previously written about the
Bermuda Triangle The Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil's Triangle, is a loosely defined region in the North Atlantic Ocean, roughly bounded by Florida, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico. Since the mid-20th century, it has been the focus of an urban legend sug ...
and had collaborated with Moore to write about the
Philadelphia Experiment The Philadelphia Experiment was an alleged event claimed to have been witnessed by an ex- merchant mariner named Carl M. Allen at the United States Navy's Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, some time aroun ...
. Crediting Friedman only as an investigator, Moore and Berlitz co-wrote the 1980 book '' The Roswell Incident''. It popularized Marcel's account and added the claimed discovery of alien bodies, found approximately 150 miles west of the original debris site on the
Plains of San Agustin The Plains of San Agustin (sometimes listed as the Plains of San Augustin) is a region in the southwestern U.S. state of New Mexico in the ''San Agustin Basin,'' south of U.S. Highway 60. The area spans Catron and Socorro Counties, about west ...
. Marcel never mentioned the presence of bodies. Friedman, Berlitz, and Moore also connected Marcel's account to an earlier statement by Lydia Sleppy, a former
teletype A teleprinter (teletypewriter, teletype or TTY) is an electromechanical device that can be used to send and receive typed messages through various communications channels, in both point-to-point and point-to-multipoint configurations. Init ...
operator at the
KOAT KOAT-TV (channel 7) is a television station in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States, affiliated with ABC. Owned by Hearst Television, the station maintains studios on Carlisle Boulevard in Northeast Albuquerque, and its transmitter is located ...
radio station in
Albuquerque, New Mexico Albuquerque ( ; ), also known as ABQ, Burque, the Duke City, and in the past 'the Q', is the List of municipalities in New Mexico, most populous city in the U.S. state of New Mexico, and the county seat of Bernalillo County, New Mexico, Bernal ...
. Sleppy claimed that she was typing a story about crashed saucer wreckage as dictated by reporter Johnny McBoyle until interrupted by an incoming message, ordering her to end communications. Between 1978 and the early 1990s, UFO researchers such as Friedman, Moore, and the team of
Kevin D. Randle Kevin Douglas Randle (born June 4, 1949) is an American ufologist, science fiction and historical fiction writer and a military veteran. Within the UFO community, he is often regarded as one of the preeminent experts on the reported crash of a UF ...
and Donald R. Schmitt interviewed many people who claimed to have had a connection with the events at Roswell in 1947, generating competing and conflicting accounts.


''The Roswell Incident''

The first Roswell conspiracy book, released in October 1980, was ''The Roswell Incident'' by
Charles Berlitz Charles Frambach Berlitz (November 22, 1914 – December 18, 2003) was an American polyglot, language teacher and writer, known for his language-learning courses and his books on paranormal phenomena. Life Berlitz was born in New York City. He w ...
and Bill Moore. Anthropologist Charles Ziegler described the 1980 book as "version 1" of the Roswell myth. Berlitz and Moore's narrative was the dominant version of the Roswell conspiracy during the 1980s. The book argues that an extraterrestrial craft was flying over the New Mexico desert to observe
nuclear weapon A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission or atomic bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear weapon), producing a nuclear exp ...
s activity when a
lightning Lightning is a natural phenomenon consisting of electrostatic discharges occurring through the atmosphere between two electrically charged regions. One or both regions are within the atmosphere, with the second region sometimes occurring on ...
strike killed the alien crew. It alleges that, after recovering the crashed alien technology, the US government engaged in a cover-up to prevent mass panic. ''The Roswell Incident'' quoted Marcel's later description of the debris as "nothing made on this earth". The book claims that in some photographs, the debris recovered by Marcel had been substituted with the debris from a weather device despite no visible differences in the photographed material. The book's claims of unusual debris were contradicted by the mundane details provided by Captain Sheridan Cavitt, who had gathered the material with Marcel. ''The Roswell Incident'' introduced alien bodiesvia the second-hand legends of deceased civil engineer Grady "Barney" Barnettpurportedly found by archaeologists on the
Plains of San Agustin The Plains of San Agustin (sometimes listed as the Plains of San Augustin) is a region in the southwestern U.S. state of New Mexico in the ''San Agustin Basin,'' south of U.S. Highway 60. The area spans Catron and Socorro Counties, about west ...
. The authors claimed to have interviewed over 90 witnesses, though the testimony of only 25 appears in the book. Only seven of them claimed to have seen the debris. Of these, five claimed to have handled it. Some elements of the witness accountssmall alien bodies, indestructible metals, hieroglyphic writingmatched other crashed saucer legends more than the 1947 reports from Roswell. Berlitz and Moore claimed Scully's long-discredited crashed saucer hoax to be an account of the Roswell incident that mistakenly "placed the area of the crash near Aztec". Mac Brazel died in 1963 before interest in the Roswell debris was revived. Berlitz and Moore interviewed his surviving adult children, William Brazel Jr. and Bessie Brazel Schreiber. Brazel Jr. described how the military arrested his father and "swore him to secrecy". However, during the time that Mac Brazel was alleged to have been in military custody, multiple people reported seeing him in Roswell, and he provided an interview to local radio station KGFL. Schreiber, who had gathered debris material with her father when she was 14, offered ufologists a description that matched the materials used by Project Mogul, "There was what appeared to be pieces of heavily waxed paper and a sort of aluminum-like foil. ..Some of the metal-foil pieces had a sort of tape stuck to them, and when they were held up to the light they showed what looked like pastel flowers ... According to the book, "some of the most important testimony" was given by Marcel, the former intelligence officer who had gathered the debris in 1947 and claimed to have been part of a cover-up. The broader UFO media treated Marcel as a
whistleblower Whistleblowing (also whistle-blowing or whistle blowing) is the activity of a person, often an employee, revealing information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe, unethical or ...
. Independent researchers found embellishment in Jesse Marcel's accounts, including false statements about his military career and educational background.


Majestic 12 hoax

Majestic 12 was the purported organization behind faked government documents delivered anonymously to multiple ufologists in the 1980s. All individuals who received the fake documents were connected to Bill Moore. After the publication of ''The Roswell Incident'',
Richard C. Doty Mirage Men is a 2013 documentary film directed by John Lundberg, written by Mark Pilkington (writer), Mark Pilkington and co-directed by Roland Denning and Kypros Kyprianou. ''Mirage Men'' suggests there was a conspiracy by the U.S. military to ...
and other individuals presenting themselves as Air Force Intelligence Officers approached Moore. They used the unfulfilled promise of hard evidence of extraterrestrial retrievals to recruit Moore, who kept notes on other ufologists and intentionally spread misinformation within the UFO community. The earliest known reference to "MJ Twelve" comes from a 1981 document used in disinformation targeting Paul Bennewitz. In 1982, Bob Pratt worked with Doty and Moore on ''The Aquarius Project'', an unpublished science fiction manuscript about the purported organization. Moore had initially planned to do a nonfiction book but lacked evidence. During a phone call about the manuscript, Moore explained to Pratt that his goal was to "get as much of the story out with as little fiction as possible." That same year, Moore, Friedman, and Jaime Shandera began work on a
KPIX-TV KPIX-TV (channel 5), branded on-air as CBS Bay Area, is a television station licensed to San Francisco, California, United States, serving as the CBS network outlet for the San Francisco Bay Area. It is owned and operated by the network's CBS ...
UFO documentary, and Moore shared the original "MJ Twelve" memo mentioning Bennewitz. KPIX-TV contacted the Air Force, who noted many style and formatting errors; Moore admitted that he had typed and stamped the document as a facsimile. On December 11, 1984, Shandera received the first anonymous package containing photographs of Majestic-12 documents just after a phone call from Moore. The anonymously delivered documents detailed the creation of a likely fictitious Majestic 12 group formed to handle Roswell debris. At a 1989
Mutual UFO Network The Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) is a US-based non-profit organization composed of civilian volunteers who study reported UFO sightings. It is one of the oldest and largest organizations of its kind, claiming more than 4,000 members worldwide ...
conference, Moore confessed that he had intentionally fed fake evidence of extraterrestrials to UFO researchers, including Bennewitz. Doty later said that he gave fabricated information to UFO researchers while working at
Kirtland Air Force Base Kirtland Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base. It is located in the southeast quadrant of the Albuquerque, New Mexico, urban area, adjacent to the Albuquerque International Sunport. The base was named for the early Army aviator C ...
in the 1980s. Roswell conspiracy proponents turned on Moore, but not the broader conspiracy theory. The Majestic-12 materials have been heavily scrutinized and discredited. The various purported memos existed only as copies of photographs of documents.
Carl Sagan Carl Edward Sagan (; ; November 9, 1934December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer, planetary scientist and science communicator. His best known scientific contribution is his research on the possibility of extraterrestrial life, including e ...
criticized the complete lack of
provenance Provenance () is the chronology of the ownership, custody or location of a historical object. The term was originally mostly used in relation to works of art, but is now used in similar senses in a wide range of fields, including archaeology, p ...
of documents "miraculously dropped on a doorstep like something out of a fairy story, perhaps '
The Elves and the Shoemaker "The Elves and The Shoemaker" (German: ''Die Wichtelmänner'') is a set of fairy tales collected by the Brothers Grimm (KHM 39) about a poor shoemaker who receives much-needed help from three young helpful elves. The original story is the first o ...
'." Researchers noted the idiosyncratic date format not found in government documents from the time they were purported to originate, but widely used in Moore's personal notes. Some signatures appear to be photocopied from other documents. For example, a signature from President Harry Truman is identical to one from an October 1, 1947 letter to Vannevar Bush. In this variant of the Roswell legend, the bodies were ejected from the craft shortly before it exploded over the ranch. The propulsion unit is destroyed and the government concludes the ship was a "short range reconnaissance craft". The following week, the bodies are recovered some miles away, decomposing from exposure and scavengers.


Role of Glenn Dennis

The initial claims of recovered alien bodies came from the secondhand accounts of "Barney" Barnett and "Pappy" Henderson after their deaths. On August 5, 1989, Friedman interviewed former mortician Glenn Dennis. Dennis provided an account of extraterrestrial corpses endorsed by prominent Roswell ufologists Don Berliner, Friedman, Randle, and Schmitt. Dennis claimed to have received "four or five calls" from the Air Base with questions about body preservation and inquiries about small or hermetically sealed caskets; he further claimed that a local nurse told him she had witnessed an "alien autopsy". Glenn Dennis has been called the "star witness" of the Roswell incident. On September 20, 1989, an episode of ''
Unsolved Mysteries ''Unsolved Mysteries'' is an American mystery documentary television series, created by John Cosgrove and Terry Dunn Meurer. Documenting cold cases and paranormal phenomena, it began as a series of seven specials, presented by Raymond Burr, Kar ...
'' included the second-hand stories of alien bodies captured by the army and transported to Texas. The episode was watched by 28 million people. In 1994, Dennis's account was portrayed by ''Unsolved Mysteries'' and dramatized in the made-for-TV movie ''Roswell''. Dennis appeared in multiple books and documentaries. In 1991, Dennis co-founded a UFO museum in Roswell along with Max Littell and former RAAF public affairs officer Walter Haut. Dennis provided false names for the nurse who allegedly witnessed the autopsy. Presented with evidence that a Naomi Self or Naomi Maria Selff had never worked as a military nurse in 1947, Dennis admitted to fabricating her name. He claimed the nurse's actual name was Naomi Sipes. When no records were found for a Naomi Sipes, Dennis admitted to fabricating that name as well. UFO researcher Karl Pflock observed that Dennis's story "sounds like a B-grade thriller conceived by
Oliver Stone William Oliver Stone (born ) is an American filmmaker. Stone is an acclaimed director, tackling subjects ranging from the Vietnam War and American politics to musical film, musical Biographical film, biopics and Crime film, crime dramas. He has ...
."
Scientific skeptic Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...
author Brian Dunning said that Dennis cannot be regarded as a reliable witness, considering that he had seemingly waited over 40 years before he started recounting a series of unconnected events. Such events, Dunning argues, were then arbitrarily joined to form what has become the most popular narrative of the alleged alien crash. Prominent UFO researchers, including Pflock and Randle, have become convinced that no bodies were recovered from the Roswell crash.


Competing accounts and schism

A proliferation of competing Roswell accounts led to a schism among ufologists in the early 1990s. The two leading UFO societies disagreed on the scenarios presented by Randle–Schmitt and Friedman–Berliner. One issue was the location of Barnett's account. A 1992 UFO conference attempted to achieve a consensus among the various scenarios portrayed in ''Crash at Corona'' and ''UFO Crash at Roswell''. The 1994 publication of ''The Truth About the UFO Crash at Roswell'' addressed the Barnett problem by simply ignoring the Barnett story. It proposed a new location for the alien craft recovery and a different group of archaeologists.


''UFO Crash at Roswell''

In 1991, Kevin Randle and Donald Schmitt published ''UFO Crash at Roswell''. It sold 160,000 copies and served as the basis for the 1994 television film '' Roswell''. Randle and Schmitt added testimony from 100 new witnesses. Though hundreds of people were interviewed by various researchers, only a few claimed to have seen debris or aliens. According to Pflock, of the 300-plus individuals reportedly interviewed for ''UFO Crash at Roswell'' (1991), only 23 could be "reasonably thought to have seen physical evidence, debris". Of these, only seven asserted anything suggestive of otherworldly origins for the debris. The book claimed that General Arthur Exon had been aware of debris and bodies, but Exon disputed his depiction. Glenn Dennis's claims of an alien autopsy and Grady Barnett's "alien body" accounts appeared in the book. However, the dates and locations of Barnett's account in ''The Roswell Incident'' were changed without explanation. Brazel was described as leading the army to a second crash site on the ranch, where they were supposedly "horrified to find civilians ncluding Barnettthere already." Also in 1991, retired
US Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its ori ...
(USAF) Brigadier General Thomas DuBose, who had posed with debris for press photographs in 1947, acknowledged the "weather balloon explanation for the material was a cover story to divert the attention of the press."


''Crash at Corona''

In 1992, Stanton Friedman released ''Crash at Corona'', co-authored with Don Berliner. The book introduced new "witnesses" and added to the narrative by doubling the number of flying saucers to two, and the number of aliens to eighttwo of which were said to have survived and been taken into custody by the government. Friedman interviewed Lydia Sleppy, the teletype operator who years earlier had said that she was ordered not to transmit a crashed saucer story. Friedman attributed Sleppy's account to FBI usage of an alleged nationwide surveillance system that he believed was put in place following "an earlier crash". However, no evidence was found that the FBI had ever monitored any transmissions from her radio station. Friedman's description of her typing as "interrupted" by an FBI message and Moore's claim that "the machine suddenly stopped itself" were found to be impossible for the teletype model that Sleppy operated in 1947.


''The Truth About the UFO Crash at Roswell''

In 1994, Randle and Schmitt authored another book, ''The Truth About the UFO Crash at Roswell'' which claimed a cargo plane delivered alien bodies to
Dwight D. Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was the 34th president of the United States, serving from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, he was Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionar ...
. The book abandoned the Barnett crash site on the Plains of San Agustin as lacking evidence and contradicting its "framework of the Roswell event". Randle and Schmitt proposed a new crash site 35 miles north of Roswell, based on statements from Jim Ragsdale and Frank Kaufman. The book hid Kaufman's identity behind the pseudonym "Steve MacKenzie", but Kaufman appeared in the 1995 British television documentary ''The Roswell Incident'' using his real name. Kaufman claimed he monitored a UFO's path on radar and recovered debris from a crashed spaceship similar in shape to an F-117 stealth fighter. Kaufmann's statements did not match the personnel at the base, his service record, the radar technology available, or the known topography of the proposed crashed site. Jim Ragsdale claimed that while driving home along Highway 285 with his girlfriend Trudy Truelove, they watched a craft that was "narrow with a bat-like wing" crash. A later interview with Ragsdale clarified that his alleged crash site was nowhere near either the purported Barnett or Kaufman sites. In further interviews, Ragsdale's story grew to include bizarre details such as Ragsdale and Truelove removing eleven golden helmets from the alien craft to bury in the desert.


Air Force response

The Air Force provided official responses to Roswell conspiracy theories during the mid-1990s under pressure from New Mexico congressman
Steven Schiff Steven Harvey Schiff (March 18, 1947 – March 25, 1998) was an American politician. He served as a member of the United States House of Representatives, representing the first district of New Mexico from 1989 until his death in 1998. Schiff was ...
and the
General Accounting Office The United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) is an independent, nonpartisan government agency within the legislative branch that provides auditing, evaluative, and investigative services for the United States Congress. It is the sup ...
(GAO). The initial 1994 USAF report admitted that the weather balloon explanation was a cover story for Project Mogul, a military surveillance program. Published the following year, ''The Roswell Report: Fact vs. Fiction in the New Mexico Desert'' supported this with extensive documentation that narrowed the cause of the debris to a specific Mogul balloon train launched on June 4, 1947, and lost near the Roswell debris field. Within the UFO community, the Air Force reports were not accepted, and ufologists noted that the GAO probe found no Roswell documents at the CIA and no information about the alleged Majestic 12 group. Contemporary polls found that the majority of Americans doubted the Air Force explanation. News media and skeptical researchers embraced the findings. Project Mogul offered a cohesive explanation for the contemporary accounts of the debrisfailing only to explain later conflicting additions.
Carl Sagan Carl Edward Sagan (; ; November 9, 1934December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer, planetary scientist and science communicator. His best known scientific contribution is his research on the possibility of extraterrestrial life, including e ...
and
Phil Klass William Tenn was the pseudonym of Philip Klass (May 9, 1920 – February 7, 2010), a British-born American science fiction author, notable for many stories with satirical elements. Biography Born to a Jewish family in London, Phillip Klass mo ...
noted that aspects of the debris reported as anomalousincluding the abstract symbols and lightweight foilmatched the materials used by Project Mogul. Mogul also matched the materials of the hypothetical "disc" as described in a 1947 FBI
telex Telex is a telecommunication Telecommunication, often used in its plural form or abbreviated as telecom, is the transmission of information over a distance using electronic means, typically through cables, radio waves, or other communica ...
from
Fort Worth, Texas Fort Worth is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the county seat of Tarrant County, Texas, Tarrant County, covering nearly into Denton County, Texas, Denton, Johnson County, Texas, Johnson, Parker County, Texas, Parker, and Wise County, Te ...
. The telex said that according to the Eighth Air Force, "The disc is hexagonal in shape and was suspended from a balloon by cable, which balloon was approximately in diameter." In 1997, the Air Force published a second report, ''The Roswell Report: Case Closed''. It detailed how eyewitness accounts of military personnel loading aliens into "body bags" matched the Air Force's procedures for retrieving parachute test dummies in insulation bags, designed to shield temperature-sensitive equipment in the desert.


Later theories and hoaxes (1994–present)


''Alien Autopsy''

Pseudo-documentaries, most notably ''Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction'', have taken a major role in shaping popular opinion of Roswell. In 1995, British entrepreneur Ray Santilli claimed to have footage of an alien autopsy filmed after the 1947 Roswell crash, purchased from an elderly Army Air Force cameraman. ''Alien Autopsy'' centers around Santilli's hoaxed footage, which it presents as a probable artifact of the government's investigation into Roswell. The purported cameraman Barnett had died in 1967 without ever serving in the military, and visual effects expert
Stan Winston Stanley Winston (April 7, 1946 – June 15, 2008) was an American television and film special make-up effects artist, best known for his work in the ''Terminator'' series, the first three '' Jurassic Park'' films, '' Aliens'', '' The Thing'', ...
told newspapers that ''Alien Autopsy'' had misrepresented his conclusion that Santilli's footage was an obvious fake. In a 2006 documentary, Santilli admitted that the footage was fabricated, filmed on a set built in a
London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
living room. Over twenty million viewers watched the purported autopsy. Fox aired the program immediately before and implicitly connected to the fictional ''X-Files'', which later parodied the film. ''Alien Autopsy'' established a template for future pseudo-documentaries built on questioning a presumed government cover-up. Though thoroughly debunked, core UFO believers, many of whom still accepted earlier hoaxes like the Aztec crash, weighed the autopsy footage as additional evidence strengthening the connection between Roswell and extraterrestrials.


''The Day After Roswell''

In 1997, retired army intelligence officer Philip J. Corso released ''The Day After Roswell''. Corso's book combined many existing and conflicting conspiracy theories with his own claims. Corso alleged that he was shown a purportedly nonhuman body suspended in liquid inside a glass coffin. ''The Day After Roswell'' contains many factual errors and inconsistencies. For example, Corso says the 1947 debris was "shipped to
Fort Bliss Fort Bliss is a United States Army post in New Mexico and Texas, with its headquarters in El Paso, Texas. Established in 1848, the fort was renamed in 1854 to honor William Wallace Smith Bliss, Bvt.Lieut.Colonel William W.S. Bliss (1815–1853 ...
, Texas, headquarters of the 8th Army Air Force". Other Roswell books place the 8th Army Air Force headquarters 500 miles away at its actual location, Fort Worth Army Air Field. Corso further claimed that he helped oversee a project to
reverse engineer Reverse engineering (also known as backwards engineering or back engineering) is a process or method through which one attempts to understand through deductive reasoning how a previously made device, process, system, or piece of software accompl ...
recovered crash debris. Other ufologists expressed doubts about Corso's book. Schmitt openly questioned if Corso was "part of the disinformation" Schmitt believed was working to discredit ufology. Corso's story was criticized for its similarities to science fiction like ''The X-Files''. Lacking evidence, the book relied on weight provided by Corso's past work on the Foreign Technology Division, and a foreword from US Senator and World War II veteran
Strom Thurmond James Strom Thurmond Sr. (December 5, 1902 – June 26, 2003) was an American politician who represented South Carolina in the United States Senate from 1954 to 2003. Before his 49 years as a senator, he served as the 103rd governor of South ...
. Corso had misled Thurmond to believe he was providing a foreword for a different book. Upon discovering the book's actual contents, Thurmond demanded the publisher remove his name and writing from future printings stating, "I did not, and would not, pen the foreword to a book about, or containing, a suggestion that the success of the United States in the Cold War is attributable to the technology found on a crashed UFO."


Related debunked or fringe theories

Roswell has remained the subject of divergent popular works, including those by ufologist Walter Bosley, paranormal author
Nick Redfern Nicholas Redfern (born 1964) is a British author of books on unidentified flying objects, cryptozoology, conspiracy theories and similar subjects. Several of his books have been best-sellers. Redfern is an active advocate of official governm ...
, and American journalist
Annie Jacobsen Annie Jacobsen (born June 28, 1967) is an American investigative journalist, author, and a 2016 Pulitzer Prize finalist. She writes for and produces television programs, including ''Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan'' for Amazon Studios, and ''Clarice'' f ...
. In 2011, Jacobsen's '' Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base'' featured a claim that Nazi doctor
Josef Mengele Josef Mengele (; 16 March 19117 February 1979) was a Nazi German (SS) officer and physician during World War II at the Russian front and then at Auschwitz during the Holocaust, often dubbed the "Angel of Death" (). He performed Nazi hum ...
was recruited by Soviet leader
Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...
to produce "grotesque, child-size aviators" to cause hysteria. The book was criticized for extensive errors by scientists from the
Federation of American Scientists The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) is an American nonprofit global policy think tank with the stated intent of using science and scientific analysis to attempt to make the world more secure. FAS was founded in 1945 by a group of scient ...
. Historian
Richard Rhodes Richard Lee Rhodes (born July 4, 1937) is an American historian, journalist, and author of both fiction and nonfiction, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning '' The Making of the Atomic Bomb'' (1986), and most recently, ''Energy: A Human History ...
, writing in ''
The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...
'', also criticized the book's sensationalistic reporting of "old news" and its "error-ridden" reporting. He wrote: "All of er main source'sclaims appear in one or another of the various publicly available Roswell/UFO/Area 51 books and documents churned out by believers, charlatans and scholars over the past 60 years. In attributing the stories she reports to an unnamed engineer and Manhattan Project veteran while seemingly failing to conduct even minimal research into the man's sources, Jacobsen shows herself at a minimum extraordinarily gullible or journalistically incompetent." In 2017, UK newspaper ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'' reported on
Kodachrome Kodachrome is the brand name for a color reversal film introduced by Eastman Kodak in 1935. It was one of the first successful color materials and was used for both cinematography and still photography. For many years, Kodachrome was widely used ...
slides which some had claimed showed a dead space alien. First presented at a UFO conference in Mexico, organized by
Jaime Maussan José Jaime Maussan Flota (born 31 May 1953) is a Mexican journalist, television personality, and ufologist. He has promoted claims of supposed alien remains that have turned out to be hoaxes. Career Since 1970 he has been a reporter at vari ...
and attended by almost 7,000 people, days afterwards it was revealed that the slides were in fact of a mummified Native American child discovered in 1896 and which had been on display at the Chapin Mesa Archeological Museum in Mesa Verde, Colorado, for many decades. In 2020, an Air Force historian revealed a recently declassified report of a circa-1951 incident in which two Roswell personnel donned poorly fitting radioactive suits, complete with oxygen masks, while retrieving a weather balloon after an atomic test. On one occasion, they encountered a lone woman in the desert, who fainted when she saw them. One of the personnel suggests they could have appeared to someone unaccustomed to then-modern gear, to be alien.


Explanations

Secrecy around the 1947 debris recovery was due to Cold War military programs rather than aliens. Contrary to evidence, UFO believers maintain that a spacecraft crashed near Roswell, and "Roswell" remains synonymous with UFOs. B. D. Gildenberg has called Roswell "the world's most famous, most exhaustively investigated, and most thoroughly debunked UFO claim". Some accounts are likely distorted memories of recoveries of servicemen in plane crashes, or parachute test dummies, as suggested by the Air Force in their 1997 report. Pflock argues that proponents of the crashed-saucer explanation tend to overlook contradictions and absurdities, compiling supporting elements without adequate scrutiny. Kal Korff attributes the poor research standards to financial incentives, "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 ... henumber of researchers who employ science and its disciplined methodology is appallingly small."


Project Mogul

A 1994 USAF report identified the crashed object from the 1947 incident as a Project Mogul device. Mogulthe classified portion of an unclassified
New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...
atmospheric research projectwas a military surveillance program employing
high-altitude balloon High-altitude balloons or stratostats are usually uncrewed balloons typically filled with helium or hydrogen and released into the stratosphere, generally attaining between above sea level. In 2013, a balloon named BS 13-08 reached a record alti ...
s to monitor
nuclear test Nuclear weapons tests are experiments carried out to determine the performance of nuclear weapons and the effects of their explosion. Nuclear testing is a sensitive political issue. Governments have often performed tests to signal strength. Bec ...
s. The project launched Flight No. 4 from
Alamogordo Army Air Field Alamogordo () is a city in and the county seat of Otero County, New Mexico, United States. A city in the Tularosa Basin of the Chihuahuan Desert, it is bordered on the east by the Sacramento Mountains and to the west by Holloman Air Force Ba ...
on June 4. Flight No. 4 was drifting toward Corona within 17 miles of Brazel's ranch when its tracking equipment failed. Major Jesse Marcel and USAF Brigadier General Thomas DuBose publicly described the claims of a weather balloon as a cover story in 1978 and 1991, respectively. In the USAF report, Richard Weaver states that the weather balloon story may have been intended to "deflect interest from" Mogul, or it may have been the perception of the weather officer because Mogul balloons were constructed from the same materials. Sheridan W. Cavitt, who accompanied Marcel to the debris field, provided a sworn witness statement for the report. Cavitt stated, "I thought at the time and think so now, that this debris was from a crashed balloon." Ufologists had considered the possibility that the Roswell debris had come from a top-secret balloon. In March 1990,
John Keel John Alva Keel, born Alva John Kiehle (March 25, 1930 – July 3, 2009), was an American journalist and influential ufologist who is known best as author of '' The Mothman Prophecies''. Early life Keel was born in Hornell, New York, the son ...
proposed that the debris had been from a Japanese balloon bomb launched in World War II. An Air Force meteorologist rejected Keel's theory, explaining that the Fu-Go balloons "could not possibly have stayed aloft for two years". Project Mogul was first connected to Roswell by independent researcher Robert G. Todd in 1990. Todd contacted ufologists and in the 1994 book ''Roswell in Perspective'', Pflock agreed that the Brazel ranch debris was from Mogul. In response to a 1993 inquiry from US congressman
Steven Schiff Steven Harvey Schiff (March 18, 1947 – March 25, 1998) was an American politician. He served as a member of the United States House of Representatives, representing the first district of New Mexico from 1989 until his death in 1998. Schiff was ...
of New Mexico, the
General Accounting Office The United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) is an independent, nonpartisan government agency within the legislative branch that provides auditing, evaluative, and investigative services for the United States Congress. It is the sup ...
launched an inquiry and directed the Office of the
United States Secretary of the Air Force The secretary of the Air Force, sometimes referred to as the secretary of the Department of the Air Force, (SecAF, or SAF/OS) is the head of the United States Department of the Air Force, Department of the Air Force and the service secretary for ...
to conduct an internal investigation. Air Force declassification officer Lieutenant James McAndrew concluded:


Anthropomorphic dummies

The 1947 Roswell accounts did not mention alien bodies. None of the primary eyewitnesses mentioned bodies. Roswell authors interviewed only four people with supposed firsthand knowledge of alien bodies. The claims of alien bodiesmade decades later by elderly witnesses, sometimes as death-bed confessionscontradict each other in basic details such as the location of the crash, the number of extraterrestrials, and the description of the bodies. The 1997 Air Force report concluded that the alleged "bodies" reported by later eyewitnesses came from memories of accidents involving military casualties and memories of the recovery of anthropomorphic dummies. Military programs, such as the 1950s Operation High Dive, released test dummies from high-altitude balloons above the New Mexico desert. The Air Force concluded that the number of accounts of body retrievals suggested an explanation other than dishonesty, and that the retrieval process for their dummies resembled the body retrieval stories in many aspects. The dummies were transported using
stretcher A stretcher, gurney, litter, or pram is an medical device, apparatus used for moving patients who require medical care. A basic type (cot or litter) must be carried by two or more people. A wheeled stretcher (known as a gurney, trolley, bed or ...
s, casket-shaped crates, and sometimes insulation bags that resembled
body bag A body bag, also known as a cadaver pouch or human remains pouch (HRP), is a non-porous bag designed to contain a human body, used for the storage and transportation of shrouded corpses. History In the United States, the apparent first docu ...
s. Descriptions of "weapons carriers" and a "jeeplike truck that had a bunch of radios" matched the
Dodge M37 The Dodge M37 was a -ton 4x4 truck developed for service in the United States military as a successor to the widely used Dodge-built WC Series introduced during World War II. Put into service in 1951, it served in a variety of configurations ...
used for 1950s test retrievals. Eyewitnesses described the purported bodies as bald, "dummies", resembling "plastic dolls", and wearing flight suits. These attributes were consistent with Air Force dummies used in the 1950s.


Roswell as modern myth and folklore

The mythology of Roswell involving increasingly elaborate accounts of alien crash landings and government cover-ups has been analyzed and documented by
social anthropologists Social anthropology is the study of patterns of behaviour in human societies and cultures. It is the dominant constituent of anthropology throughout the United Kingdom and much of Europe, where it is distinguished from cultural anthropology. In t ...
and skeptics.
Anthropologist An anthropologist is a scientist engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropologists study aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms, values ...
s Susan Harding and Kathleen Stewart highlight the Roswell Story was a prime example of how a discourse moved from the fringes to the mainstream, aligning with the 1980s ''
zeitgeist In 18th- and 19th-century German philosophy, a ''Zeitgeist'' (; ; capitalized in German) is an invisible agent, force, or daemon dominating the characteristics of a given epoch in world history. The term is usually associated with Georg W. F ...
of'' public fascination with "conspiracy, cover-up and repression". Skeptics
Joe Nickell Joe Herman Nickell (December 1, 1944 – March 4, 2025) was an American skeptic and investigator of the paranormal. Nickell was a senior research fellow for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and wrote regularly for their journal, '' Skeptic ...
and James McGaha proposed that Roswell's time spent away from public attention allowed the development of a mythology drawing from later UFO folklore, and that the early debunking of the incident created space for ufologists to intentionally distort accounts towards sensationalism. Charles Ziegler argues that the Roswell story exhibits characteristics typical of traditional folk narratives. He identifies six distinct narratives and a process of transmission through storytellers, wherein a core story was formed from various witness accounts and then shaped and altered by those involved in the UFO community. Additional "witnesses" were sought to expand upon the core narrative, while accounts that did not align with the prevailing beliefs were discredited or excluded by the "gatekeepers".


Cultural impact


Tourism and commercialization

Roswell's tourism industry is based on ufology museums and businesses, as well as alien-themed iconography and alien
kitsch ''Kitsch'' ( ; loanword from German) is a term applied to art and design that is perceived as Naivety, naïve imitation, overly eccentric, gratuitous or of banal Taste (sociology), taste. The modern avant-garde traditionally opposed kitsch ...
. Many typical city features in Roswell are UFO-themed, including fast food restaurants, grocery stores, and street lights. A broad range of establishments offer UFO items. A yearly UFO festival has been held since 1995. Several alleged crash sites are open to visitors for a fee. There are alien festivals, conventions, and museums, including the International UFO Museum and Research Center. Around 90,000 tourists visit Roswell each year.


Popular fiction

The incident spread internationally through films depicting the key points of Roswell conspiracy theories. In the 1980 independently distributed film '' Hangar 18'', an alien ship crashes in the desert of the US Southwest. Debris and bodies are recovered, but their existence is covered up by the government. Director
James L. Conway James L. Conway (born October 27, 1950, in New York City, U.S.) is an American film and television director, producer, and writer, studio executive, and novelist. Movies Conway directed include ''The Boogens'' and '' Hangar 18''. Television s ...
summarized the film as "a modern-day dramatization of the Roswell incident". Conway later revisited the concept in 1995 when he filmed the '' Star Trek: Deep Space Nine'' episode "
Little Green Men Little green men is the stereotypical portrayal of extraterrestrials as little humanoids with green skin and sometimes antennae on their heads. The term "little green men" came into popular usage in reference to aliens during the reports of ...
"; In that episode, characters travel to 1947, triggering the Roswell incident, with their ship being stored in Hangar 18. In the 1996 film ''
Independence Day An independence day is an annual event memorialization, commemorating the anniversary of a nation's independence or Sovereign state, statehood, usually after ceasing to be a group or part of another nation or state, or after the end of a milit ...
'', an alien invasion prompts the revelation of a Roswell crash and cover-up, including experiments on alien corpses. The 2008 film ''
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull ''Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull'' is a 2008 American action adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg from a screenplay by David Koepp, based on a story by George Lucas and Jeff Nathanson. It is the fourth installm ...
'' sees the protagonist on a quest for an alien body from the Roswell Incident. In the 1990s, Roswell became the most well-known of the early flying saucer accounts, due in part to frequent portrayals of a Roswell conspiracy on television. The hit series ''
The X-Files ''The X-Files'' is an American science fiction on television, science fiction drama (film and television), drama television series created by Chris Carter (screenwriter), Chris Carter. The original series aired from September 10, 1993, to Ma ...
'' featured the Roswell incident as a recurring element. The show's second episode "Deep Throat", introduced a Roswell alien crash into the show's mythology. The comical 1996 episode "
Jose Chung's From Outer Space "Jose Chung's ''From Outer Space''" is the 20th episode of the third season of the science fiction television series ''The X-Files''. The episode first aired in the United States on April 12, 1996, on Fox. It was written by Darin Morgan an ...
" satirized the recently broadcast Santelli '' Alien Autopsy'' hoax film. After the success of ''The X-Files'', Roswell alien conspiracies were featured in other sci-fi drama series, including ''
Dark Skies ''Dark Skies'' is an American UFO conspiracy theory–based science fiction television series. It debuted on NBC on September 21, 1996, and ended on May 31, 1997, and was later rerun by the Sci-Fi Channel; 18 episodes and a two-hour pilot epis ...
'' (1996–97) and '' Taken'' (2002). Starting in 1998, Pocket Books published a series of young adult novels titled ''
Roswell High ''Roswell High'' is a Young adult fiction, young adult book series written by Melinda Metz and published by Pocket Books. The ten-book series chronicles the adventures of three teen aliens and their human friends, who attend the fictional Ulysses ...
''; from 1999 to 2002, the books were adapted into the WB/UPN TV series '' Roswell'', with a second adaption released in 2019 under the title ''
Roswell, New Mexico Roswell () is a city in and the county seat of Chaves County, New Mexico, Chaves County, New Mexico, United States. The population was 48,422 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of municipalities in New Mexico, fi ...
''. Journalist Toby Smith has described Roswell as the "embarkation point" for mass media and pop culture treatment of UFOs, crashed saucers, and aliens on Earth. In a 2001 episode of the animated comedy ''
Futurama ''Futurama'' is an American animated science fiction sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company and later revived by Comedy Central, and then Hulu. The series follows Philip J. Fry, who is cryogenically preserved for 1 ...
'', titled "
Roswell That Ends Well "Roswell That Ends Well" is the nineteenth episode in the third season of the American animated television series '' Futurama'', and the 51st episode of the series overall. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on Decembe ...
", protagonists from the 31st century travel back in time and cause the Roswell incident. The animated series ''
American Dad ''American Dad!'' is an American animated sitcom created by Seth MacFarlane, Mike Barker and Matt Weitzman for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series premiered on February 6, 2005, following Super Bowl XXXIX, with the rest of the first seas ...
'' features an alien named
Roger Roger is a masculine given name, and a surname. The given name is derived from the Old French personal names ' and '. These names are of Germanic languages">Germanic origin, derived from the elements ', ''χrōþi'' ("fame", "renown", "honour") ...
who crashed at Roswell. The 2006 comedy '' Alien Autopsy'' revolves around the 1990s creation of the Santilli hoax film. The 2011
Simon Pegg Simon John Pegg (; born 14 February 1970) is an English actor, comedian and screenwriter. He came to prominence in the UK as the co-creator of the Channel 4 sitcom ''Spaced'' (1999–2001), directed by Edgar Wright. He and Wright co-wrote the ...
comedy ''
Paul Paul may refer to: People * Paul (given name), a given name, including a list of people * Paul (surname), a list of people * Paul the Apostle, an apostle who wrote many of the books of the New Testament * Ray Hildebrand, half of the singing duo ...
'' tells the story of Roswell tourists who rescue a grey alien.


Statements by US presidents

Widespread speculation of a cover-up led to United States presidents being questioned about the Roswell incident. In a 2014 interview,
Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, ...
said, "When the Roswell thing came up, I knew we'd get gazillions of letters. So I had all the Roswell papers reviewed, everything". Clinton's administration found no evidence of alien contact or a crashed ship. When asked during a 2015 interview with '' GQ'' magazine about whether he had looked at top-secret classified information,
Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...
replied, "I gotta tell you, it's a little disappointing. People always ask me about Roswell and the aliens and UFOs, and it turns out the stuff going on that's top secret isn't nearly as exciting as you expect. In this day and age, it's not as top secret as you'd think." In December 2020, Obama joked with
Stephen Colbert Stephen Tyrone Colbert ( ; born May 13, 1964) is an American comedian, writer, producer, political commentator, actor, and television host. He is best known for hosting the satirical Comedy Central program ''The Colbert Report'' from 2005 to ...
, "It used to be that UFOs and Roswell was the biggest conspiracy. And now that seems so tame, the idea that the government might have an alien spaceship." In June 2020,
Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...
, when asked if he would consider releasing more information about the Roswell incident, said, "I won't talk to you about what I know about it, but it's very interesting."


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2788598
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External links

* {{Authority control 1947 flying disc craze 1947 in military history 1947 in New Mexico Alleged extraterrestrial encounters Articles containing video clips Aviation accidents and incidents in the United States in 1947 Hoaxes in the United States July 1947 in the United States Military UFO aviation incidents Military UFO conspiracy theories in the United States Roswell, New Mexico UFO crashes UFO hoaxes UFO sightings in the United States