The Roswell Incident Part I

The Roswell incident is a conspiracy theory that alleges that the 1947 United States Army Air Forces balloon debris 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. After Roswell Army Air Field personnel recovered metallic and rubber debris, the United States Army announced their possession of a "flying disc". This announcement made international headlines but was retracted within a day. To obscure the purpose and source of the debris, the army reported that it was a conventional weather balloon.

In 1978, retired Air Force officer Jesse Marcel revealed that the army's weather balloon claim had been a cover story, and 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 promotes itself as a destination for UFO-associated tourism.

1947 military balloon crash

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. On June 4, researchers at Alamogordo Army Air Field in New Mexico launched a long train of these balloons; they lost contact with the balloons and balloon-borne equipment within 17 miles (27 km) of W.W. "Mac" Brazel's ranch near Corona, New Mexico where a balloon subsequently crashed. Later that month, Brazel discovered tinfoil, rubber, tape, and thin wooden beams scattered across several acres of his ranch.

With no phone or radio, Brazel was initially unaware of the ongoing flying disc craze. Amid the first summer of the Cold War, press nationwide covered Kenneth Arnold's account of what became known as flying saucers, objects that allegedly performed maneuvers beyond the capabilities of any known aircraft. Coverage of Arnold's report preceded a wave of over 800 similar sightings. When Brazel visited Corona, New Mexico, on July 5, his uncle Hollis Wilson suggested his debris could be from a "flying disk". Hundreds of reports had been made during the Fourth of July weekend, newspapers speculated on a possible Soviet origin, and about $3,000 was offered for physical proof.

The next day Brazel drove to Roswell, New Mexico, and informed Sheriff George Wilcox of the debris he had found. Wilcox called Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF). RAAF was home to the 509th Bomb group of the Eighth Air Force, the only unit at the time capable of delivering nuclear weapons. The base assigned Major Jesse Marcel and Captain Sheridan Cavitt to return with Brazel and gather the material from the ranch. RAAF Base commander Colonel William Blanchard notified the Eighth Air Force commanding officer Roger M. Ramey of their findings.

On July 8, RAAF public information officer Walter Haut issued a press release stating that the military had recovered a "flying disc" near Roswell. 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. 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."

The press release issued by Haut read:

Marcel holding torn foil above packing paper

Papers nationwide published an image from Fort Worth Army Air Field of Major Jesse A. Marcel posing with debris on July 8, 1947.

Ramey and Dubose with torn foil and sticks on packing paper

Brig. General Roger Ramey, left, and Col. Thomas J. DuBose pose with debris.

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)

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

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

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

UFO conspiracy theories (1947–1978)

The 1947 debris retrieval remained relatively obscure for three decades. Reporting ceased soon after the government provided a mundane explanation, and broader reporting on flying saucers declined rapidly after the Twin Falls saucer hoax. Just days after stories of the Roswell "flying disc", a widely reported crashed disc from Twin Falls, Idaho, was found to be a hoax created by four teenagers using parts from a jukebox.

Nevertheless, belief in UFO cover-ups by the US government became widespread in this period. Hoaxes, legends, and stories of crashed spaceships and alien bodies in New Mexico emerged that later formed elements of the Roswell myth. In 1947, many Americans attributed flying saucers to unknown military aircraft. In the decades between the initial debris recovery and the emergence of Roswell theories, flying saucers became synonymous with alien spacecraft. After the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the Watergate scandal, trust in the US government declined and acceptance of conspiracy theories became widespread. UFO believers accused the government of a "Cosmic Watergate". The 1947 incident was reinterpreted to fit the public's increasingly conspiratorial outlook.

Aztec crashed saucer hoax

The Aztec, New Mexico crashed saucer hoax in 1948 introduced stories of recovered alien bodies that later became associated with Roswell. It achieved broad exposure when the con artists behind it convinced Variety columnist Frank Scully to cover their fictitious crash. The hoax narrative included small grey humanoid bodies, metal stronger than any found on Earth, indecipherable writing, and a government coverup to prevent public panic – these elements appeared in later versions of the Roswell myth. In retellings, the mundane debris reported at the actual crash site was replaced with the Aztec hoax's fantastical alloys. By the time Roswell returned to media attention, grey aliens had become a part of American culture through the Barney and Betty Hill incident. In a 1997 Roswell report, Air Force investigator James McAndrew wrote that "even with the exposure of this obvious fraud, the Aztec story is still revered by UFO theorists. Elements of this story occasionally reemerge and are thought to be the catalyst for other crashed flying saucer stories, including the Roswell Incident."

Hangar 18

"Hangar 18" is a non-existent location that many later conspiracy theories allege housed extraterrestrial craft or bodies recovered from Roswell. 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, expanded in the 1966 book Incident at Exeter, and became the basis for a 1968 science-fiction novel The Fortec Conspiracy. Fortec was about a fictional cover-up by the Air Force unit charged with reverse-engineering other nations' technical advancements.

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. Carr claimed that his sources had witnessed the alien autopsy, another idea later incorporated into the Roswell narrative. The Air Force explained that no "Hangar 18" existed at the base, noting a similarity between Carr's story and the fictional Fortec Conspiracy. The 1980 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 and as “nascent Roswell mythology by folklorist Thomas Bullard. 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."

Roswell conspiracy theories (1978–1994)

Interest in Roswell was rekindled after ufologist Stanton Friedman interviewed Jesse Marcel in 1978. Marcel had accompanied the Roswell debris from the ranch to the Fort Worth press conference. In the 1978 interview, Marcel stated that the "weather balloon" explanation from the press conference was a cover story, and that he now believed the debris was extraterrestrial. On December 19, 1979, Marcel was interviewed by Bob Pratt of the National Enquirer, and the tabloid brought large-scale attention to the Marcel story the following February. Marcel described a foil that could be crumpled but would uncrumple when released. On September 20, 1980, the TV series In Search of..., hosted by Star Trek actor Leonard Nimoy, aired an interview where Marcel described his participation in the 1947 press conference:

They wanted some comments from me, but I wasn't at liberty to do that. So, all I could do is keep my mouth shut. And General Ramey is the one who discussed – told the newspapers, I mean the newsman, what it was, and to forget about it. It is nothing more than a weather observation balloon. Of course, we both knew differently.

Ufologists interviewed Major Marcel's son, Jesse A. Marcel Jr. M.D., who said that when he was 10 years old, his father had shown him flying saucer debris recovered from the Roswell crash site, including, "a small beam with purple-hued hieroglyphics on it". However, the symbols described as alien hieroglyphics matched the symbols on the adhesive tape that Project Mogul sourced from a New York toy manufacturer.

To publish his research, Friedman collaborated with childhood friend and author William "Bill" Moore, who reached out to established paranormal author Charles Berlitz. Berlitz had previously written about the Bermuda Triangle and had collaborated with Moore to write about the Philadelphia Experiment. Crediting Friedman only as an investigator, Moore and Berlitz co-wrote the 1980 book The Roswell Incident. It popularized Marcel's account and added the claimed discovery of alien bodies, found approximately 150 miles west of the original debris site on the Plains of San Agustin. Marcel never mentioned the presence of bodies.

Friedman, Berlitz, and Moore also connected Marcel's account to an earlier statement by Lydia Sleppy, a former teletype operator at the KOAT radio station in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Sleppy claimed that she was typing a story about crashed saucer wreckage as dictated by reporter Johnny McBoyle until interrupted by an incoming message, ordering her to end communications. Between 1978 and the early 1990s, UFO researchers such as Friedman, Moore, and the team of Kevin D. Randle and Donald R. Schmitt interviewed many people who claimed to have had a connection with the events at Roswell in 1947, generating competing and conflicting accounts.

The Roswell Incident

 (1947)

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.

The first Roswell conspiracy book, released in October 1980, was The Roswell Incident by Charles Berlitz and Bill Moore. Anthropologist Charles Ziegler described the 1980 book as "version 1" of the Roswell myth. Berlitz and Moore's narrative was the dominant version of the Roswell conspiracy during the 1980s.

The book argues that an extraterrestrial craft was flying over the New Mexico desert to observe nuclear weapons activity when a lightning strike killed the alien crew. It alleges that, after recovering the crashed alien technology, the US government engaged in a cover-up to prevent mass panic. The Roswell Incident quoted Marcel's later description of the debris as "nothing made on this earth". 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. 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. The Roswell Incident introduced alien bodies – via the second-hand legends of deceased civil engineer Grady "Barney" Barnett – purportedly found by archaeologists on the Plains of San Agustin.

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. Some elements of the witness accounts – small alien bodies, indestructible metals, hieroglyphic writing – 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".

Mac Brazel died in 1963 before interest in the Roswell debris was revived. Berlitz and Moore interviewed his surviving adult children, William Brazel Jr. and Bessie Brazel Schreiber. Brazel Jr. described how the military arrested his father and "swore him to secrecy". However, during the time that Mac 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 KGFL. Schreiber, who had gathered debris material with her father when she was 14, offered ufologists a description that matched the materials used by Project Mogul, "There were what appeared to be pieces of heavily waxed paper and a sort of aluminum-like foil. [...] Some of the metal-foil pieces had a sort of tape stuck to them, and when they were held up to the light they showed what looked like pastel flowers [...]".

According to the book, "some of the most important testimony" was given by Marcel, the former intelligence officer who had gathered the debris in 1947 and claimed to have been part of a cover-up. The broader UFO media treated Marcel as a whistleblower. Independent researchers found embellishment in Jesse Marcel's accounts, including false statements about his military career and educational background.

Majestic 12 hoax

Majestic 12 was the purported organization behind faked government documents delivered anonymously to multiple ufologists in the 1980s. All individuals who received the fake documents were connected to Bill Moore. After the publication of The Roswell Incident, Richard C. Doty and other individuals presenting themselves as Air Force Intelligence Officers approached Moore. They used the unfulfilled promise of hard evidence of extraterrestrial retrievals to recruit Moore, who kept notes on other ufologists and intentionally spread misinformation within the UFO community. The earliest known reference to "MJ Twelve" comes from a 1981 document used in disinformation targeting Paul Bennewitz. In 1982, Bob Pratt worked with Doty and Moore on The Aquarius Project, an unpublished science fiction manuscript about the purported organization. Moore had initially planned to do a nonfiction book but lacked evidence. During a phone call about the manuscript, Moore explained to Pratt that his goal was to "get as much of the story out with as little fiction as possible." That same year, Moore, Friedman, and Jaime Shandera began work on a KPIX-TV UFO documentary, and Moore shared the original "MJ Twelve" memo mentioning Bennewitz. KPIX-TV contacted the Air Force, who noted many style and formatting errors; Moore admitted that he had typed and stamped the document as a facsimile. On December 11, 1984, Shandera received the first anonymous package containing photographs of Majestic-12 documents just after a phone call from Moore. The anonymously-delivered documents detailed the creation of a likely fictitious Majestic 12 group formed to handle Roswell debris.

 

At a 1989 Mutual UFO Network conference, Moore confessed that he had intentionally fed fake evidence of extraterrestrials to UFO researchers, including Bennewitz. Doty later said that he gave fabricated information to UFO researchers while working at Kirtland Air Force Base in the 1980s. Roswell conspiracy proponents turned on Moore, but not the broader conspiracy theory.

The Majestic-12 materials have been heavily scrutinized and discredited. The various purported memos existed only as copies of photographs of documents. Carl Sagan criticized the complete lack of provenance of documents "miraculously dropped on a doorstep like something out of a fairy story, perhaps 'The Elves and the Shoemaker'." Researchers noted the idiosyncratic date format not found in government documents from the time they were purported to originate, but widely used in Moore's personal notes. Some signatures appear to be photocopied from other documents. For example, a signature from President Harry Truman is identical to one from an October 1, 1947 letter to Vannevar Bush.

In this variant of the Roswell legend, the bodies were ejected from the craft shortly before it exploded over the ranch. The propulsion unit is destroyed and the government concludes the ship was a "short range reconnaissance craft". The following week, the bodies are recovered some miles away, decomposing from exposure and scavengers.

Role of Glenn Dennis

The initial claims of recovered alien bodies came from the secondhand accounts of "Barney" Barnett and "Pappy" Henderson after their deaths. On August 5, 1989, Friedman interviewed former mortician Glenn Dennis. Dennis provided an account of extraterrestrial corpses endorsed by prominent Roswell ufologists Don Berliner, Friedman, Randle, and Schmitt. Dennis claimed to have received "four or five calls" from the Air Base with questions about body preservation and inquiries about small or hermetically sealed caskets; he further claimed that a local nurse told him she had witnessed an "alien autopsy". Glenn Dennis has been called the "star witness" of the Roswell incident.

On September 20, 1989, an episode of Unsolved Mysteries included the second-hand stories of alien bodies captured by the army and transported to Texas. The episode was watched by 28 million people. In 1994, Dennis's account was portrayed by Unsolved Mysteries and dramatized in the made-for-TV movie Roswell. Dennis appeared in multiple books and documentaries. In 1991, Dennis co-founded a UFO museum in Roswell along with Max Littell and former RAAF public affairs officer Walter Haut.

Dennis provided false names for the nurse who allegedly witnessed the autopsy. Presented with evidence that a Naomi Self or Naomi Maria Selff had never worked as a military nurse in 1947, Dennis admitted to fabricating her name. He claimed the nurse's actual name was Naomi Sipes. When no records were found for a Naomi Sipes, Dennis admitted to fabricating that name as well. UFO researcher Karl Pflock observed that Dennis's story "sounds like a B-grade thriller conceived by Oliver Stone." Scientific skeptic author Brian Dunning said that Dennis cannot be regarded as a reliable witness, considering that he had seemingly waited over 40 years before he started recounting a series of unconnected events. Such events, Dunning argues, were then arbitrarily joined to form what has become the most popular narrative of the alleged alien crash. Prominent UFO researchers, including Pflock and Randle, have become convinced that no bodies were recovered from the Roswell crash.

Competing accounts and schism

A proliferation of competing Roswell accounts led to a schism among ufologists in the early 1990s. The two leading UFO societies disagreed on the scenarios presented by Randle–Schmitt and Friedman–Berliner. One issue was the location of Barnett's account. A 1992 UFO conference attempted to achieve a consensus among the various scenarios portrayed in Crash at Corona and UFO Crash at Roswell. The 1994 publication of The Truth about the UFO Crash at Roswell addressed the Barnett problem by simply ignoring the Barnett story. It proposed a new location for the alien craft recovery and a different group of archaeologists.