- 10 things we mistake for UFOs<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/li>\n
- A guide to Zeta Reticuli<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>
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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>Roswell, New Mexico has fully embraced its credentials as the most famous city in UFO folklore. Credit: Denis Tangney Jr \/ Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n The Roswell story begins<\/strong><\/h2>\n
The Roswell incident begins on 24 June 1947 when pilot Kenneth Arnold was flying over the Cascade Mountains of Washington State in the US, helping to search for a crashed military aircraft.<\/p>\n
He saw 9 crescent-shaped objects flying in formation at a height of around 3km (10,000ft) and an estimated speed of approximately 1,900km\/h: seemingly impossible at the time.<\/p>\n
Arnold described the jerky movement of the objects as being, \u201clike a saucer would if you skipped it over water.\u201d<\/p>\n
The media got hold of the story, coined the phrase <\/span>\u2018flying saucer\u2019 and a modern mystery was born.<\/p>\n
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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>The term \u2018flying saucer\u2019 has now entered our common vocabulary. Credit: KTSDesign \/ Science Photo Library<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n This wasn\u2019t the first sighting of what we now call a UFO (unidentified flying object), but it was the first to capture the public imagination, making news headlines<\/span> around the world.<\/p>\n
More reports were received, suggesting these sightings were commonplace but had previously gone unreported.<\/p>\n
As this \u2018summer of the saucers\u2019 progressed, media coverage intensified to a point of near-hysteria, until matters came to a head and it seemed the mystery might be resolved.<\/p>\n
Debris discovered at Roswell<\/strong><\/h2>\n
On 7 July a local rancher named \u2018Mac\u2019 Brazel contacted the sheriff in Roswell to say he\u2019d discovered <\/span>strange debris spread over the ranch.<\/p>\n
He\u2019d found it days earlier but hadn\u2019t thought much of it until the stories about flying saucers emerged. <\/span><\/p>\n
Thinking there might <\/span>be a connection and guessing something might have crashed during a recent storm, he alerted the authorities.<\/p>\n
He\u2019d brought some samples of the debris, and when the sheriff contacted the nearby Army airbase, intelligence officer Jesse Marcel went to the <\/span>crash site with Brazel and recovered more debris.<\/p>\n
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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>Courtesy, Fort Worth Star-Telegram Photograph Collection, Special Collections, The University of Texas at Arlington Library, Arlington, Texas<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n The military base\u2019s public information officer, Walter Haut, worked with a local journalist to release a newswire report about the event:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 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\u2019s office of Chaves County.<\/em><\/p>\n
\u201cThe 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\u2019s office, who in turn notified Major Jesse A Marcel of the 509th Bomb Group Intelligence Office.<\/em><\/p>\n
\u201cAction was immediately taken and the disc was picked up at the rancher\u2019s home. It was inspected at the Roswell Army Air Field and subsequently loaned by Major Marcel to higher headquarters.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n
The news sent shockwaves around the world, but it\u2019s the iconic front page headline of the local Roswell Daily Record<\/i> that\u2019s best-known: \u2018RAAF Captures Flying Saucer on Ranch in Roswell Region\u2019.<\/p>\n
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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>The front page of the Roswell Daily Record from 9 July 1947. Credit: Roswell Daily Record<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n US military u-turn<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Within 24 hours there was a stunning development.<\/span><\/p>\n
In a complete reversal of their position regarding the Roswell debris discovery, the US military said a mistake had been made, and that the \u2018flying saucer\u2019 was a crashed weather balloon.<\/span><\/p>\n
The <\/span>Roswell Daily Record<\/i> printed a follow-up story that read \u2018Gen. Ramey Empties Roswell Saucer\u2019 \u2013 General Roger Ramey being the Commander of the Eighth Air <\/span>Force, to whose Fort Worth headquarters the debris had been flown.<\/p>\n
A series of photos were published showing Ramey, Marcel, and other military personnel holding some of the debris. Sure enough, it looked pretty uninspiring and was entirely consistent with the <\/span>\u2018tinfoil\u2019 mentioned by the military in their explanation.<\/p>\n
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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>At Fort Worth Army Air Field on 8 July 1947, Brigadier General Roger M Ramey (left) and Colonel Thomas J Dubose, identify metallic fragments found at Roswell as pieces of a weather balloon. Credit: Bettmann \/ Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n Nowadays, with the 24\/7 news cycle, internet, social media and an activist community of UFO researchers, such a claim \u2013 followed by such an about-turn \u2013 would no doubt cause controversy and conspiracy theories on a massive scale.<\/p>\n
This is especially true given that the 509th Bomb Group was the only atomic bomb-capable squadron anywhere in the world at the time.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to imagine these elite personnel \u2013 many of whom were familiar with weather balloons \u2013 being fooled in this way.<\/p>\n
But post-war America was very different from today, and in that calmer, more trusting-of-authority era, the weather balloon explanation was almost universally believed.<\/p>\n
While interest in flying saucers and UFOs went from strength to strength, Roswell disappeared from the narrative.<\/p>\n
The Roswell UFO plot thickens<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>Nuclear physicist Stanton T. Friedman giving a talk about UFOs in 2007. Photo By Krissy Krummenacker \/ MediaNews Group \/ Reading Eagle via Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n The story of the Roswell UFO crash was rediscovered in 1978 by nuclear physicist-turned-ufologist Stanton T Friedman, who was tipped off that a retired military man had an interesting story to tell: none other than Jesse Marcel.<\/p>\n
Marcel told Friedman the weather balloon explanation had been a cover story and that the photos had been staged, with weather balloon debris being substituted for the real wreckage.<\/p>\n
He claimed that everyone involved in the retrieval was clear the object had indeed been an extraterrestrial spaceship.<\/p>\n
Over the next few years, researchers dug deeper into the mystery, tracking down many of the key players, locating additional witnesses and trying to piece together what happened.<\/p>\n
A number of retired military personnel who\u2019d been based at Roswell corroborated some elements of the crashed spacecraft narrative and added their own details.<\/p>\n
Sceptics argued that they were simply telling the researchers what they wanted to hear, writing themselves into the story either as a prank, or because they were seeking attention.<\/p>\n
Either way, books were written, documentaries, drama series and a movie were made, and the idea of a UFO crash became so embedded in pop culture that even if people had no particular interest or belief in UFOs, there was a good chance they had heard of Roswell.<\/p>\n
Roswell incident in the 1990s<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>Area 51 is a secretive US military facility that is the subject of many alien conspiracy theories. Credit: Brian P Irwin \/ Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n By now fact and fiction were getting blurred, and the narrative was incorporating other UFO conspiracies.<\/p>\n
It was claimed, for example, that the wreckage had been taken to Area 51 (a remote facility in the Nevada desert where the US developed and test-flew aircraft like the U-2, the SR-71 Blackbird, and stealth fighters and bombers), where attempts were made to reverse-engineer the alien craft.<\/p>\n
Such storylines would subsequently turn up as plots in movies like Independence Day<\/i> and TV shows like The X-Files<\/i>.<\/p>\n
In 1995 a video emerged purporting to show an \u2018alien autopsy\u2019 which, it was implied, was connected to Roswell.<\/p>\n
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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>The famous \u2018alien autopsy\u2019 film released in 1995 was later confirmed as being a hoax.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n The film was a fake, of course, but it generated international news, with the hoax footage subsequently forming the basis of a comedy film starring TV presenters Ant and Dec.<\/p>\n
During the 1990s the US government succumbed to media and public pressure, launching their own retrospective investigation and publishing two reports, the first in 1994 and the second in 1997.<\/p>\n
The conclusion was that the culprit was indeed a high-altitude weather balloon, but that it had been carrying equipment designed to search the atmosphere for evidence of Soviet nuclear tests as part of something called Project Mogul.<\/p>\n
Sceptics say the highly-classified nature of this monitoring project explains any apparent oddities in the handling of the incident.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s even possible that the flying disc story was a local initiative designed to throw the media off the true story, with higher command subsequently overruling the plan and saying it was a weather balloon.<\/p>\n
The second government report, the release of which coincided with the 50th anniversary of the incident, was arguably guilty of over-egging the pudding.<\/p>\n
None of the original reports had mentioned alien bodies, and even Jesse Marcel denied this aspect of the story, which only emerged later.<\/p>\n
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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>The city of Roswell eventually learned to embrace its UFO legacy. Credit: mixmotive \/ Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n But the United States Air Force felt they had to address the issue and their convoluted theory suggested that people had conflated the 1947 crash with tests in the 1950s, in which anthropomorphic crash test dummies had been dropped to test the efficacy of military parachutes.<\/p>\n
Even for neutral recipients, this was a stretch, and was met with predictable derision.<\/p>\n
By this time, however, the story of Roswell had become the UFO community\u2019s flagship case.<\/p>\n
The city of Roswell had embraced its heritage, a UFO museum had been opened and annual events were held to mark the occasion.<\/p>\n
Roswell now has such name recognition that several US presidents have alluded to the UFO incident in speeches and interviews, usually making light-hearted quips, but sometimes \u2013 seemingly \u2013 playing it sufficiently straight to make people wonder.<\/p>\n
Roswell in the present day<\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n
Fast forward to now. The topic of UFOs has been steadily transitioning from fringe to mainstream over the last few years \u2013 at least in the US.<\/p>\n
This process started in December 2017 with two related scoops from The New York Times<\/i>: firstly, the revelation that the US Navy had videos of UFOs taken from some of its fast jets, and secondly, the existence of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP).<\/p>\n
- A guide to Zeta Reticuli<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>
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