A UFO crashed near Roswell New Mexico in 1947.
The report in the papers on July 8, 1947 would bring news to the world that
aliens were real (Stacy 36). However, the U.S. government quickly quashed the
story before it was widely spread. A cover story was released by the 8th Air
Force; the wreckage was actually that of a downed weather balloon (Wyly). The
press bought it, and the story has laid cold for 30 years. In the late 70's,
several witnesses, who where tied to the incident, shared their accounts, and
claimed the wreckage was of the unordinary. In the 80's, a string of books,
articles, and TV shows raised the specter of a military cover-up (Stacy 40).
Recently, the government released a new story. I will summarize the events,
then discuss some important evidence connected with them.
On July 2, 1947, during a severe thunderstorm,
a saucer flew near to the ground at a great velocity. It exploded. Its pieces
scattered over an area near Corona, New Mexico. The next day William
"Mac" Brazel, foreman of the Foster Ranch, and his seven-year-old
neighbor, Dee, found the remains of the wrecked UFO scattered over a large
area. When Brazel drove Dee back home, he showed some of the material to her
parents. They all agreed the material was unlike anything they had ever seen.
On July 6 Brazel drove into town with a few pieces of the wreck. He showed the
material to the Chaves County Sheriff George Wilcox. The sheriff called the
Roswell Army Air Field(AAF) and talked to Major Jesse Marcel, the intelligence
officer. After inspecting Brazel's material, Marcel reported to his commanding
officer Colonel William "Butch" Blanchard, who ordered Marcel to get
someone from the Counter Intelligence Corps and proceed with Marcel to the
ranch and collect as much wreckage as they could load into their vehicles.
Marcel, Sheridan Cavitt, and Brazel arrived at the ranch that night. The next
day was spent collecting debris into Cavitt's vehicle and Marcel's car. The
material they collected was only a small part of the entire wreckage.
In town, news had spread and a local radio
station began transmitting the UFO information on the teletype machine. The
transmission was interrupted by a message apparently from the FBI, asking for
the relay to cease. Military police picked up the material that Brazel had left
at the sheriffs office. The pieces were sent to Eighth Air Force headquarters
in Fort Worth, Texas, then to Washington. Marcel and Cavitt didn't return to
the base until early the next morning. That morning, Colonel Blanchard ordered
for a press release to Frank Joyce at radio station KGFL. The report told that
the Army had found the remains of a crashed flying saucer. General Clemence
McMullen, in Washington, called Colonel Thomas DuBose under Eighth Air Force
Commander General Roger Ramey, in Fort Worth. He ordered for a cover-up of the
crashed saucer story and for some of the crash material to be immediately sent
to Washington. Later that day, Marcel flew to Fort Worth with the crash debris
he had collected. Ramey called a press conference, and declared that what was
found near Corona, NM was actually the wreckage of a weather balloon. At the
conference he and Marcel kneeled in front of what they claimed to be the
weather balloon wreckage taken from the crash site.
A large group of soldiers and MPs were sent to
the crash site to limit access to the area. A few miles from the debris field,
the main body of the saucer was found. A day or so later, four extraterrestrial
bodies were found some distance from the crash site. They were partially
decayed and had been gnawed on by an animal. Three of the bodies were greatly
mangled. The body in the best condition was the size of a small child with
slender long arms, a large head, greyish skin with greyish silk-like material
coveralls. These aliens were kept under a tarp within a tent on the site.
Several high ranking military officials were at the site. The bodies were
eventually placed in dry ice and transported to the Roswell base, then to Fort
Worth (Schmidt).
The material from the crash site was described
by many observers. Three general materials that were reported. There were small
beams that looked like tan or light brown plastic. They were very light-weight,
like balsa wood, but without grain. They reportedly couldn't be cut or burned.
On some of the balsa wood-like material were markings similar to hieroglyphics.
One of the materials looked like tinfoil except it wouldn't tear. It could be
wrinkled but retained its original shape. It was reportable as thin as the
tinfoil in a pack of cigarettes. It was so thin that it weighed nothing. There
was also another tinfoil-like material that was stiff and couldn't be dented
with a 16 pound sledge hammer. However, it also was very light weight. There
was a thread-like material that looked like silk but was not made up of strands
but more like a wire, all in one piece. It was strong like deep-sea fishing
line (Schmidt).
The government had officially reported that the
wreck was that of a weather balloon (Wyly). If that were the case, there
wouldn't have been any need for secrecy. According to testimony, military
officials admonished subordinates and civilians not to talk about what they
saw. That includes the Roswell police and fire departments, local ranchers, a
group of archeologists, and two campers (Rayl 10). If what crashed were a
weather balloon, surely Major Marcel would have recognized it as such before
the AAF released the first report of a saucer. The wreckage described by many
was nothing similar to a weather balloon and too spread out over a large area.
Most of the witnesses who handled the material would have recognized that it
was not that of a weather balloon. Furthermore, there is no reason the
government would transport a wrecked weather balloon from New Mexico to Fort
Worth, Texas (Schmidt).
There was speculation that the wreckage could
have been that of a secret rocket or airplane. Possibly a German V-2 missile
gone astray from U.S. Air Force testing. However, in 1947 the only military
testings in New Mexico were rocket testing in White Sands 75 miles away. These
rockets were fitted with self-destructing mechanisms for any errant paths
(Thompson 233). If any of these were the case, the military wouldn't have had
to wait, several days, until a rancher reported the debris, before recovering
it. If it were a secret, the government would have said "This is secret,
and no more questions will be answered, period." Furthermore, any military
secret in 1947 would no longer be a secret today (Schmidt).
Impelled by his New Mexico citizens and his own
curiosity, Representative Steven Schiff began his own research of the mystery
four years ago (Rayl 11). He forced the Air Force to drop the cover story it
had maintained since 1947. Two years ago the Air Force revealed that the crash
in Roswell had been that of "Operation Mogul," an experimental
high-altitude balloon designed to monitor the first tests of Soviet Atomic
bombs. That still leaves many unanswered questions. Schiff and many others have
tried to get several branches of the government to reveal further information
about the Roswell incident (Stacy 40). But, until the government does so there
may be no clear answer. The U.S. government claims either the information
doesn't exist, was destroyed in 1947, or would be a threat to national
security. However, the truth can only be contained for so long (Sagan and
Thorton 115).
Works Cited
Rayl, A.J.S.
"Time Out: A Call For Accountability By the U.S. Government" Omni
Oct.
1994: 10-11.
Sagan, Carl,
Thornton Page. UFO's - A Scientific Debate. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1972.
Schmidt,
Christopher. Roswell Testimony. Boston: Northeastern University, 1994. Online.
Internet UFO Group - Government. Internet. 10
Nov. 1996.
Stacy, Dennis.
"Cosmic Conspiracy: Six Decades of Government UFO Cover-Ups."
Omni April 1994: 35+.
Thompson, Richard
L. Alien Identities: Ancient Insights into Modern UFO Phenomena.
Alachua: Govardhan Hill, 1995.
Wyly. Flying
Disc, Information Concerning Ed. George M. Eberhart, 1991. Online.
Internet UFO Group - Government. Internet. 10
Nov. 1996.
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