Roswell incident: Difference between revisions

The '''Roswell incident''' is a conspiracy theory which alleges that the 1947 [[United States Army Air Forces]] balloon recovered near [[Roswell, New Mexico]] was actually a crashed extraterrestrial spacecraft. Operated from the nearby [[Alamogordo Army Air Field]][[File:Link-external-small-ltr-progressive.svg.png|link=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alamogordo_Army_Air_Field]] and part of the top secret [[Project Mogul]], the balloon was intended to detect [[Soviet]][[File:Link-external-small-ltr-progressive.svg.png|link=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet]] [[nuclear tests]].<ref name="Mogul" /> After metallic and rubber debris were recovered by [[Roswell Army Air Field]] personnel, the United States Army announced their possession of a "flying disc". This announcement made international headlines, but was retracted within a day. Obscuring the true purpose and source of the crashed balloon, the Army subsequently stated that it was a conventional [[weather balloon]].

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 leverages this to promote 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.<ref name="Olmsted-2009-p183">{{harvnb|Olmsted|2009|pp=183–184}}</ref> On June 4, researchers at [[Alamogordo Army Air Field]] in New Mexico launched a long train of these balloons; they lost contact within {{convert|17|mi|km}} of W.W. "Mac" Brazel's ranch near [[Corona, New Mexico]] where a balloon subsequently crashed.<ref name="Goldberg-2001-p214"/><ref name="Frazier-2017a">{{harvnb|Frazier|2017a}}: "Flight 4 was launched June 4, 1947, from [[Alamogordo Army Air Field]] and tracked flying northeast toward [[Corona, New Mexico|Corona]]. It was within {{cvt|17|mi|disp=sqbr}} of the Brazel ranch when contact was lost."</ref> Later that month, Brazel discovered tinfoil, rubber, tape, and thin wooden beams scattered across several acres of his ranch.<ref name="Fort-Worth-Star-Telegram-1947">{{cite news |title=New Mexico Rancher's 'Flying Disk' Proves to Be Weather Balloon-Kite |date=July 9, 1947 |work=[[Fort Worth Star-Telegram]] |publication-place=Fort Worth, TX |pages=1, 4 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/fort-worth-star-telegram-new-mexico-ranc/156700355/ |via=Newspapers.com |edition=Morning, 5 star}}<!--older clipping: https://www.newspapers.com/article/fort-worth-star-telegram-exploded-rumor/81409799/--></ref><ref>{{harvnb|Clancy|2007|pp=92-93}}</ref> Amid the first summer of the [[Cold War]],<ref>{{harvnb|Olmsted|2009|p=183}}</ref> press nationwide covered [[Kenneth Arnold]]'s June 24 account of what became known as [[flying saucers]], objects which allegedly performed maneuvers beyond the capabilities of any known aircraft.  Publicity of Arnold's report preceded a wave of over 800 similar sightings.<ref>{{harvnb|Kottmeyer|2017|p=172}}</ref> With no phone or radio, Brazel was initially unaware of the ongoing [[1947 flying disc craze|flying disc craze]],<ref>{{harvnb|Frank|2023|p=510}}</ref> until he visited his uncle in Corona, New Mexico on July 5. The next day he informed Sheriff George Wilcox of the debris he had found.<ref>{{harvnb|Peebles|1994|p=246}}</ref> Wilcox called [[Roswell Army Air Field]] (RAAF).<ref name="Klass-1997b-pp3536"/> RAAF was home to the [[509th Operations Group|509th Bomb group]] of the [[Eighth Air Force]], the only unit at the time capable of delivering nuclear weapons.<ref>{{harvnb|Campbell|2005|pp=61, 56, 111}}</ref> The base assigned Major [[Jesse Marcel]] and Captain Sheridan Cavitt to return with Brazel and gather the material from the ranch.<ref name="Klass-1997b-pp3536">{{harvnb|Klass|1997b|pp=35–36}}</ref> RAAF Base commander Colonel [[William H. Blanchard|William Blanchard]] notified the [[Eighth Air Force]] commanding officer [[Roger M. Ramey]] of their findings.<ref>{{harvnb|Klass|1997b|pp=18–19}}</ref>

"[[Hangar 18 (conspiracy theory)|Hangar 18]]" is a non-existent location that many later conspiracy theories allege housed extraterrestrial craft or bodies recovered from Roswell.<ref>{{harvnb|Nickell|McGaha|2012|p=33}}</ref> The idea of alien corpses from a crashed ship being stored in an Air Force morgue at the [[Wright-Patterson Air Force Base]] was mentioned in Scully's ''Behind the Flying Saucers'',<ref name="Baker-2024">{{harvnb|Baker|2024}}</ref> expanded in the 1966 book ''[[Incident at Exeter]]'', and became the basis for a 1968 science-fiction novel ''[[The Fortec Conspiracy]]''.<ref>{{harvnb|Fuller|1966|pp=87–88}}: "There have been, I learned after I started this research, frequent and continual rumors (and they are only rumors) that in a morgue at Wright-Patterson Field, Dayton, Ohio, lie the bodies of a half-dozen or so small humanoid corpses, measuring not more than four-and-a-half feet in height, evidence of one of the few times an extraterrestrial spaceship has allowed itself either to fail or otherwise fall into the clutches of the semicivilized Earth People."</ref><ref name="Smith-2000-p82">{{harvnb|Smith|2000|p=82}}</ref> ''Fortec'' was about a fictional cover-up by the [[National Air and Space Intelligence Center#Foreign Technology Division|Air Force unit charged with reverse-engineering]] other nations' technical advancements.<ref name="Smith-2000-p82"/>

In 1974, science-fiction author and conspiracy theorist [[Robert Spencer Carr]] alleged that alien bodies recovered from the Aztec crash were stored in "Hangar 18" at Wright-Patterson.<ref>{{harvnb|Peebles|1994|p=242}}</ref> Carr claimed that his sources had witnessed the alien autopsy,<ref>{{harvnb|Peebles|1994|p=244}}: "[[Leonard H. Stringfield|Stringfield]] described the evidence Carr had collected on the Aztec 'crash.' Carr said he had found five eyewitnesses to the recovery. One (now dead) was a surgical nurse at the alien's autopsy. Another was a high-ranking Air Force officer."</ref> another idea later incorporated into the Roswell narrative.<ref>{{harvnb|Disch|2000|pp=53–34}}: "Even the Roswell case [...]  has its component of science-fictional fraud. Robert Spencer Carr became famous, briefly, in the '70s when, in a radio interview, he concocted the still-current story of aliens' autopsied and kept in cold storage at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, near Dayton, Ohio. Carr."</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://aadl.org/node/198259 |title=Air Force Freezes Ufo Story |via=Ann Arbor District Library |newspaper=Ann Arbor Sun |date=November 1, 1974 |agency=Zodiac News Service}}</ref> The Air Force explained that no "Hangar 18" existed at the base, noting a similarity between Carr's story and the fictional ''Fortec Conspiracy''.<ref>{{harvnb|Jones|1974}}</ref>  The 1980 film ''[[Hangar 18 (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]],<ref name="Erdmann-p287" /> and as "nascent Roswell mythology" by folklorist Thomas Bullard.<ref>{{harvnb|Bullard|2016|p=331}}</ref> Decades later, Carr's son recalled that he had often "mortified my mother and me by spinning preposterous stories in front of strangers... [tales of] befriending a giant alligator in the Florida swamps, and sharing complex philosophical ideas with porpoises in the Gulf of Mexico."<ref>{{harvnb|Carr|1997|p=32}}</ref>