From The London Times, July 9, 1947
One of the most notorious, verisimilitudinous, and longest-lasting stories of alien lore is that in 1947 (not long after the Mt. Rainier sightings reported here earlier), an alien craft crashed in the desert near Roswell, NM. Civilians at the scene witnessed dead and injured alien bodies. When the military arrived, shortly thereafter, they took charge of the craft and aliens and initiated a massive cover-up. This is the beginning of the modern UFOlogy.
The story has continued, gathering steam for years, fueled by various pieces of flimsy or uncorroborated evidence.
In recent times, a US congressman, Steve Schiff, began demanding the release of official documents related to the event. Several years ago, film footage which alleges to show a military dissection of two alien stiffs in 1947, was shown on televison and offered for sale.
The film has created enormously divided opinion, but is worth considering.
A Scene from "Alien Autopsy"
Did an UFO Crash near Roswell, New Mexico in July of 1947? The military initially announced that they had indeed recovered a flying disk on a remote ranch in the central region of the state.
"Were you lying then, or are you lying now?"
What was reported as fact that first day, in local papers, and in the clipping, above, from the London Times, soon became "weather balloons," and no alien cadavers.
Major Jesse Marcel displays the wreckage of the crashed "weather balloon"
Serious reconsideration of Roswell first began in January 1978, when ufologists William L. Moore and Stanton R. Friedman compared notes from two separate interviews Friedman had conducted. The interviews were with a woman and a man who had been in New Mexico in July 1947 and who knew of the crash of a mysterious craft. The man, a retired Air Force officer, Maj. Jesse A. Marcel, claimed to have been involved in the retrieval of a great quantity of a strange material believed to be wreckage of an extraterrestrial vehicle. The woman, Lydia Sleppy, had worked at Albuquerque radio station KOAT and remembered how the military had squelched coverage of a crashed saucer and the bodies of "little men," even to the extent of stopping the transmission of a teletyped new report.
Moore and Friedman linked these accounts with Roswell, which occurred a week and a half after the June 24, 1947, Kenneth Arnold sighting around Mount Rainier brought the term "flying saucers" into the popular vocabulary.
For a few hours, a widely-published story reported that personnel from Roswell Field had a "flying disk" in their possession. At Brig. Gen. Roger M. Ramey, told the press that the "disk" was really just a weather balloon and produced balloon remains to "prove" it. Pictures were taken of the balloon, everyone laughed, and the press reported the balloon story. Roswell became a footnote in the public history of the UFO phenomenon.
UFOlogists Donald R. Schmitt and Kevin D. Randle, report these facts, which they call the "undeniable truths."
"1. On Tuesday July 8, 1947, the Roswell Army Air Field base commander Col. William Blanchard, announced the recovery of a flying disk. It is important to note that this wasn't the intelligence officer, or the public affairs officer, this was the commander of the Army base. A commander who was entrusted with the first atomic bomb strike force, releasing to the press, and the people information about an event he believed to be true and of great import.
2. At approximately 4:30 PM CST., Brig. General Roger Ramey, the commander of the 8th Air Force at Forth Worth, Texas, presented the reporters a counter story; a Rowen target device.
3. Mac Brazel, the rancher who first discovered the debris, was detained by the military for seven to eight days while cleanup operations continued. He was denied access to a phone, given an Army physical, and subjected to rigorous questioning and intimidation while being kept under house arrest at Roswell Army Air Field.
4. Extreme security measures were exercised at the crash site. Armed guards encircled the primary location, a second cordon was placed around the perimeter, riflemen were stationed on the surrounding hills, and MPs posted on outlying roads.
5. Special flights arrived from Washington, D.C., with additional units arriving from White Sands in Alamogordo and Kirtland in Albuquerque.
6. Senator Dennis Chavez of New Mexico, then chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, phoned Walt Whitmore Sr., the owner of KGFL Radio in Roswell, to advise him to do as instructed by the FCC in an earlier call and not broadcast an interview with rancher Mac Brazel.
7. On July 9, 1947, military official toured news media offices in Roswell, Albuquerque, and Santa Fe to retrieve copies of the original press release sent out by Roswell Army Air Field that revealed the Army had retrieved a "flying disk." A wire recording of an interview with Mac Brazel was also confiscated.
8. An FBI telex at 6:17 PM on July 8, 1947 out of the Dallas, Texas office first disputed General Ramey's announcement to the press that the special flight transporting wreckage to Wright Field had been canceled, as well as the new explanation of a balloon and hexagonal radar target.
9. Multiple first-hand military and civilian witnesses who actually witnessed the crash have come forward to tell their stories.
10. Multiple first-hand military and civilian witnesses have suggested the location of the craft and separate debris field. Their stories coincide with each others.
11. Multiple first-hand military and civilian witnesses have given the same story regarding the actual size and the "non"-saucer shape of the craft. It appeared more like a crescent shape.
12. Over two dozen witnesses, both military and civilian sources, agree to the unconventional characteristics of the debris. The debris could not be cut or even slightly damaged by any conventional means.
13. Multiple first-hand military and civilian witnesses have given testimony regarding the five non-human bodies at the Roswell impact site.
14. Finally, the most shocking revelation to date: the U.S. military resorted to physical threats against civilian witnesses. Children were terrorized and parents were threatened that their children would be killed if they mentioned anything about the crash and retrieval. One additional military witness, now a civilian, has received death threats within the past three years regarding his involvement at Roswell. "
Wherever you stand on the veracity of the Roswell story, you have to admit the government seemed to go to a lot of trouble to clear up the mystery of a crashed weather balloon.
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