Editing Roswell incident (section)

===''The Roswell Incident''===
{{main|The Roswell Incident (1980 book)}}
{{Location map many |New Mexico
 |width=250
 |alt = Map of New Mexico showing relevant locations
 |caption=In 1947, officers from Roswell Army Air Field investigated a debris field near Corona. By the 1980s, popular accounts conflated the debris investigation with two separate myths of humanoid bodies over 300 miles away from Roswell.<ref>{{harvnb|Pflock|2001|p=82}}</ref>
 |label1='''Corona debris'''<br />(1947)|position1=bottom|coordinates1={{coord|34|35|N|105|35|W}}|mark1=Fire.svg||mark1size=10
 |label2='''Barnett Legend''' (1980)|position2=bottom|coordinates2={{coord|33|52|31|N|108|7|15|W}}|mark2=Male Traditions.png|mark2size=30
 |label3='''Aztec Hoax''' (1949)|position3=bottom|coordinates3={{coord|36|49|20|N|107|59|34|W}}|mark3=Male Traditions.png|mark3size=30
 |label4='''Roswell Army Air Field''' <br />(1947)|position4=bottom|coordinates4={{coord|33|18|6|N|104|31|50|W}}|mark4=Map marker, star.svg|mark4size=15
}}

The first Roswell conspiracy book, released in October 1980, was ''The Roswell Incident'' by [[Charles Berlitz]] and [[Bill Moore (ufologist)|William Moore]].<ref name="ABC-News-2005-p2">{{harvnb|ABC News|2005|p=2}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|May|2016|p=68}}</ref> The authors had previously written popular books on fringe topics like the [[Philadelphia Experiment]] and the [[Bermuda Triangle]].<ref>{{harvnb|Frank|2023|p=531}}</ref> Anthropologist Charles Ziegler described the 1980 book as "version 1" of the Roswell myth.<ref name="Olmsted-2009-p184">{{harvnb|Olmsted|2009|p=184}}</ref> Berlitz and Moore's narrative was the dominant version of the Roswell conspiracy during the 1980s.<ref name="Goldberg-2001-p197">{{harvnb|Goldberg|2001|p=197}}</ref>

The book argues that an extraterrestrial craft was flying over the New Mexico desert to observe [[nuclear weapon]]s activity when a [[lightning]] strike killed the alien crew.<ref>{{harvnb|Frank|2023|p=534}}</ref> It alleges that, after recovering the crashed alien technology, the US government engaged in a cover-up to prevent mass panic.<ref name="Olmsted-2009-184quote" /> ''The Roswell Incident'' quoted Marcel's later description of the debris as "nothing made on this earth".<ref>{{harvnb|Berlitz|Moore|1980|p=28}}: "Nor did they mention a great quantity of highly unusual wreckage,  much of it metallic in nature, apparently originating from the same object and described by Major Marcel as "nothing made on this earth".</ref><ref name="Saler-1997-p14">{{harvnb|Saler|Ziegler|Moore|1997|pp=14–17}}</ref> The book claims that in some photographs, the debris recovered by Marcel had been substituted for the debris from a weather device despite no visible differences in the photographed material.<ref>{{harvnb|Peebles|1994|pp=248, 249}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{harvnb|Saler|Ziegler|Moore|1997|p=45}}</ref> ''The Roswell Incident'' introduced alien bodies{{snd}}via the second-hand legends of deceased civil engineer Grady "Barney" Barnett{{snd}}purportedly found by archaeologists on the [[Plains of San Agustin]].<ref name="Goldberg-2001-p196">{{harvnb|Goldberg|2001|p=196}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Pflock|2001|p=119}}</ref>

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.<ref>{{harvnb|Korff|1997|p=39}}</ref> Some elements of the witness accounts{{snd}}small alien bodies, indestructible metals, hieroglyphic writing{{snd}}matched 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".<ref name="Saler-1997-p14"/><ref>{{harvnb|Berlitz|Moore|1980|p=47}}: "In his apparent haste to get into print, Scully placed the area of the crash near Aztec, in the upper western corner of the state, hundreds of miles from Roswell, and this mistake is still evident in UFO and other books published throughout the world."</ref> In an interview with Mac Brazel's son, William Brazel Jr. described how the military arrested his father and "swore him to secrecy".<ref>{{harvnb|Berlitz|Moore|1980|p=75}}</ref><ref name="Goldberg-2001-p196"/> However, during the time that 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 [[KCRX (AM)|KGFL]].<ref>{{harvnb|Pflock|2001|p=170}}</ref> The most significant witness was Jesse Marcel.<ref>{{harvnb|Ricketts|2011|p=249}}</ref> Independent researchers found patterns of embellishment in Jesse Marcel's accounts, including false statements about his military career and educational background.<ref>{{harvnb|Korff|1997|pp=62–68}}</ref>