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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 and part of the top secret Project Mogul, the balloon was intended to detect Soviet nuclear tests.[1] 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 This announcement made international headlines, but was retracted within a day.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.

Roswell incident
Newspaper headline reads, "RAAF Captures Flying Saucer on Ranch in Roswell Region". Full text is available on linked page.
July 8, 1947, issue of the Roswell Daily Record, featured a story announcing the Roswell Army Air Field "capture" of a "flying saucer" from a ranch near Roswell
DateJune & July 1947
LocationLincoln County, New Mexico, US
Coordinates33°57′01″N 105°18′51″W / 33.95028°N 105.31417°W / 33.95028; -105.31417
External audio
audio icon ABC News radio broadcast on Roswell disc – July 8, 1947

In 1978, retired Air Force officer Jesse Marcel revealed that the Army's weather balloon claim had been a cover story, but 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, which over time expanded the incident to include governments concealing evidence of extraterrestrial beings, grey aliens, multiple crashed flying saucers, alien corpses and autopsies, and the reverse engineering 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 leverages this to promote itself as a destination for UFO-associated tourism.

1947 military balloon crash edit

 
 
Alamogordo
 
Clovis
 
Kirtland
 
Carlsbad
 
Deming
 
Fort Sumner
 
Hobbs
 
Roswell
 
Corona debris
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Roswell was one of many Army Airfields in New Mexico when debris was recovered from a ranch near Corona. Researchers at Alamogordo Air Field, less than 150 miles from Roswell, were launching classified balloons during the prior weeks.

By 1947, the United States had launched thousands of top-secret Project Mogul balloons carrying devices to listen for Soviet atomic tests.[2] On June 4, researchers at Alamogordo Army Air Field in New Mexico launched a long train of these balloons; they lost contact within 17 miles (27 km) of W.W. "Mac" Brazel's ranch near Corona, New Mexico where a balloon subsequently crashed.[3][4] Later that month, Brazel discovered tinfoil, rubber, tape, and thin wooden beams scattered across several acres of his ranch.[5][6] Amid the first summer of the Cold War,[7] 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.[8] With no phone or radio, Brazel was initially unaware of the ongoing flying disc craze,[9] 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.[10] Wilcox called Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF).[11] RAAF was home to the 509th Bomb group of the Eighth Air Force, the only unit at the time capable of delivering nuclear weapons.[12] The base assigned Major Jesse Marcel and Captain Sheridan Cavitt to return with Brazel and gather the material from the ranch.[11] RAAF Base commander Colonel William Blanchard notified the Eighth Air Force commanding officer Roger M. Ramey of their findings.[13]

On July 8, RAAF public information officer Walter Haut issued a press release stating that the military had recovered a "flying disc" near Roswell.[14] 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 in Texas. He described the material – packaged in wrapping paper when he received it – as lightweight and not too large to fit inside the trunk of a car.[15][16] 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."[17]

The press release issued by Haut read:

 
Papers nationwide published an image from Fort Worth Army Air Field of Major Jesse A. Marcel posing with debris on July 8, 1947.
 
Brig. General Roger Ramey, left, and Col. Thomas J. DuBose pose with debris.[18]

The many rumors regarding the flying disc became a reality yesterday when the intelligence office of the 509th Bomb group of the Eighth Air Force, Roswell Army Air Field, was fortunate enough to gain possession of a disc through the cooperation of one of the local ranchers and the sheriff's office of Chaves County.
The flying object landed on a ranch near Roswell sometime last week. Not having phone facilities, the rancher stored the disc until such time as he was able to contact the sheriff's office, who in turn notified Maj. Jesse A. Marcel of the 509th Bomb Group Intelligence Office.

— Associated Press (July 8, 1947)[19]

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.[20][21] Newton told reporters that similar radar targets were used at about 80 weather stations across the country.[5][22] The small number of subsequent news stories offered mundane and prosaic accounts of the crash.[20] On July 9, the Roswell Daily Record highlighted that no engine or metal parts had been found in the wreckage.[23] Brazel told the Record that the debris consisted of rubber strips, "tinfoil, paper, tape, and sticks."[23][24] Brazel said he paid little attention to it but returned later with his wife and daughter to gather up some of the debris.[23][25] 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."[23] When interviewed in Fort-Worth, Texas, Jesse Marcel described the wreckage as "parts of the weather device" composed of "tinfoil and broken wooden beams".[5][26]

Some portion of the material was flown from Texas to Wright Field in Ohio, where Colonel Marcellus Duffy identified it as balloon equipment.[27] Duffy had previous experience with Project Mogul and contacted Mogul's project officer Albert Trakowski to discuss the debris.[28] Unable to disclose details about the project, Duffy identified it as "meteorological equipment".[29]

The 1947 official account omitted any connection to Cold War military programs.[30] 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.[31][32] The Air Force later described the weather balloon story as "an attempt to deflect attention from the top secret Mogul project."[33]

Project Mogul edit

 
A Project Mogul array

A 1994 USAF report identified the crashed object from the 1947 incident as a Project Mogul device.[1] Mogul – the classified portion of an unclassified New York University atmospheric research project – was a military surveillance program employing high-altitude balloons to monitor nuclear tests.[34] The project launched Flight No. 4 from Alamogordo Army Air Field on June 4. Flight No. 4 was drifting toward Corona within 17 miles of Brazel's ranch when its tracking equipment failed.[35] The military, charged with protecting the classified project, claimed that the crash was of a weather balloon.[36][37] 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.[38] 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.[39] Sheridan W. Cavitt, who accompanied Marcel to the debris field, provided a sworn witness statement for the report.[40] Cavitt stated, "I thought at the time and think so now, that this debris was from a crashed balloon."[41]

Ufologists had considered the possibility that the Roswell debris had come from a top-secret balloon. In March 1990, John Keel proposed that the debris had been from a Japanese balloon bomb launched in World War II.[42][43] An Air Force meteorologist rejected Keel's theory, explaining that the Fu-Go balloons "could not possibly have stayed aloft for two years".[44] Project Mogul was first connected to Roswell by independent researcher Robert G. Todd in 1990.[45][46] Todd contacted ufologists and in the 1994 book Roswell in Perspective, Karl Pflock agreed that the Brazel ranch debris was from Mogul.[45][47] In response to a 1993 inquiry from US congressman Steven Schiff of New Mexico, the General Accounting Office launched an inquiry and directed the Office of the United States Secretary of the Air Force to conduct an internal investigation.[48][35] Air Force declassification officer Lieutenant James McAndrew concluded:

When the civilians and personnel from Roswell AAF [...] 'stumbled' upon the highly classified project and collected the debris, no one at Roswell had a 'need to know' about information concerning MOGUL. This fact, along with the initial mis-identification and subsequent rumors that the 'capture' of a 'flying disc' occurred, ultimately left many people with unanswered questions that have endured to this day.[49]


Refs edit

  • Goldberg, Robert Alan (2001). "Chapter 6: The Roswell Incident". Enemies Within: The Culture of Conspiracy in Modern America. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300132946.
  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 The Roswell material has been attributed to a top secret military balloon by astrophysicist Adam Frank, historian Lt Col James Michael Young, science writer Kendrick Frazier, folklorist Thomas Bullard, historian Kathryn Olmsted, Project Mogul meteorologist B.D. Gildenberg, journalist Kal Korff, skeptical UFO researcher Philip J. Klass, and intelligence officer Captain James McAndrew among others:
    • Frank 2023, p. 551: "The weather-balloon story was indeed a lie. Instead, what crashed on Brazel's ranch was Project Mogul, a secret experimental program using high-altitude balloons to monitor Russian nuclear tests.
    • Young 2020, p. 27: "[L]aunch #4 on June 4, 1947, captured the public's attention when a local rancher recovered the balloon debris. Noting unusual metallic objects attached to the debris and suspecting they belonged to the military, the rancher turned the material and objects over to officers at Roswell Army Airfield (RAAF)."
    • Frazier 2017a: "[...] what we now know the debris to have been: remnants of a long train of research balloons and equipment launched by New York University atmospheric researchers [...]"
    • Bullard 2016, p. 80: "the Air Force [...] concluded that the wreckage belonged to a Project Mogul balloon array that had disappeared in June 1947."
    • Olmsted 2009, p. 184: "When one of these balloons smashed into the sands of the New Mexico ranch, the military decided to hide the project's real purpose."
    • Gildenberg 2003, p. 62: "One such flight, launched in early June, came down on a Roswell area sheep ranch, and created one of the most enduring mysteries of the century."
    • Korff 1997, fig. 7: "Unbeknownst to Major Marcel, the debris was actually the remnants of a highly classified military spy device known as Project Mogul."
    • Klass 1997b, fig. 3: "[...] the debris was from a 600-foot long string of twenty-three weather balloons and three radar targets that had been launched from Alamogordo Army Air Field as part of a 'Top Secret' Project Mogul [...]"
    • McAndrew 1997, p. 16: "The 1994 Air Force report determined that project Mogul was responsible for the 1947 events. Mogul was an experimental attempt to acoustically detect suspected Soviet nuclear weapon explosions and ballistic missile launches."
  2. ↑ Olmsted 2009, pp. 183–184
  3. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named Goldberg-2001-p214
  4. ↑ Frazier 2017a: "Flight 4 was launched June 4, 1947, from Alamogordo Army Air Field and tracked flying northeast toward Corona. It was within 17 mi [27 km] of the Brazel ranch when contact was lost."
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 "New Mexico Rancher's 'Flying Disk' Proves to Be Weather Balloon-Kite". Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Morning, 5 star ed.). Fort Worth, TX. July 9, 1947. pp. 1, 4 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. ↑ Clancy 2007, pp. 92–93
  7. ↑ Olmsted 2009, p. 183
  8. ↑ Kottmeyer 2017, p. 172
  9. ↑ Frank 2023, p. 510
  10. ↑ Peebles 1994, p. 246
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Klass 1997b, pp. 35–36
  12. ↑ Campbell 2005, pp. 61, 56, 111
  13. ↑ Klass 1997b, pp. 18–19
  14. ↑ Clarke 2015, pp. 36–37
  15. ↑ Weaver & McAndrew 1995, p. 23: "I was a member of the crew which flew parts of what we were told was a flying saucer to Fort Worth. [...] I was involved in loading the B-29 with the material, which was wrapped in packages with wrapping paper. One of the pieces was triangle-shaped, about 2 1/2 feet across the bottom. The rest were in small packages, about the size of a shoe box, The brown paper was held with tape. The material was extremely lightweight. When I picked it up, it was just like picking up an empty package. [...] All of the packages could have fit into the trunk of a car [...] When we came back from lunch, they told us they had transferred the material to a B-25. They told us the material was a weather balloon, but I'm certain it wasn't a weather balloon,"
  16. ↑ Pflock 2001, p. 29
  17. ↑ Pflock 2001, p. 27
  18. ↑ "Exploded Rumor". Fort Worth Star Telegram. July 9, 1947. p. 1 – via Newspapers.com.
  19. ↑ "Flying Disc Found; In Army Possession". The Bakersfield Californian. Bakersfield, California. Associated Press. July 8, 1947. p. 1.
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 Goldberg 2001, pp. 192–193
  21. ↑ Saler, Ziegler & Moore 1997, p. 9
  22. ↑ "AAF Whips Up a Disc Flurry". The Journal Herald. July 9, 1947. p. 1 – via Newspapers.com.
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 23.2 23.3 McAndrew 1997, p. 8 cites: "Harassed Rancher who Located 'Saucer' Sorry He Told About it". Roswell Daily Record. July 9, 1947. The balloon which held it up, if that was how it worked, must have been 12 feet [3.5 m] long, [Brazel] felt, measuring the distance by the size of the room in which he sat. The rubber was smoky gray in color and scattered over an area about 200 yards [180 m] in diameter. When the debris was gathered up, the tinfoil, paper, tape, and sticks made a bundle about three feet [1 m] long and 7 or 8 inches [18 or 20 cm] thick, while the rubber made a bundle about 18 or 20 inches [45 or 50 cm] long and about 8 inches [20 cm] thick. In all, he estimated, the entire lot would have weighed maybe five pounds [2 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.
  24. ↑ Clancy 2007, p. 93
  25. ↑ Klass 1997b, p. 20
  26. ↑ Pflock 2001, p. 88
  27. ↑ Saler, Ziegler & Moore 1997, p. 178
  28. ↑ Korff 1997, pp. 153–154
  29. ↑ Pflock 2001, pp. 150–151
  30. ↑ Kloor 2019, p. 21
  31. ↑ Charles 1947, p. 1
  32. ↑ Korff 1997, pp. 249–251
  33. ↑ Saler, Ziegler & Moore 1997, p. 12
  34. ↑ Frazier 2017a
  35. ↑ 35.0 35.1 Frazier 2017b, pp. 12–15
  36. ↑ Olmsted 2009, p. 184: "When one of these balloons smashed into the sands of the New Mexico ranch, the military decided to hide the project's real purpose."
  37. ↑ Weaver & McAndrew 1995, p. 9: "... the material recovered near Roswell was consistent with a balloon device and most likely from one of the MOGUL balloons that had not been previously recovered."
  38. ↑ Pflock 2001, p. 33
  39. ↑ Weaver & McAndrew 1995, pp. 27–30
  40. ↑ Gildenberg 2003, pp. 62–72
  41. ↑ Weaver & McAndrew 1995, p. 160
  42. ↑ Gulyas 2016: "Numerous explanations have arisen, ranging from Japanese 'Fugo' balloons [...]"
  43. ↑ Gulyas 2014: "[...] from John Keel, who advocated a solution to the Roswell question which credited Japanese Fugo balloons as the 'mysterious craft,' to Nick Redfern, whose Body Snatchers in the Desert [...]".
  44. ↑ Huyghe 2001, p. 133: "Edward Doty, a meteorologist who established the Air Force's Balloon Branch at nearby Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico beginning in 1948, calls the Japanese Fu-Go balloons 'a very fine technical job with limited resources.' But 'no way could one of these balloons explain the Roswell episode,' says Doty,'because they could not possibly have stayed aloft for two years.'"
  45. ↑ 45.0 45.1 Saler, Ziegler & Moore 1997, p. 27
  46. ↑ Weaver & McAndrew 1995, p. 167: "The Army Air Force had seen what the Japanese had done with long range balloons; although not effective as weapons, they did initiate the long-range balloon research which led to use of balloons for the detection and collection of debris from atomic explosion."
  47. ↑ Weaver & McAndrew 1995, p. 28: "Most interestingly, as this report was being written, Pflock published his own report of this matter under the auspices of FUFOR, entitled Roswell in Perspective (1994). Pflock concluded from his research that the Brazel Ranch debris originally reported as a "flying disc" was probably debris from a MOGUL balloon"
  48. ↑ Weaver & McAndrew 1995, p. 11
  49. ↑ Weaver & McAndrew 1995, p. 316


External links edit

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