Roswell: Fact Or Fiction? Essay, Research Paper

In analyzing the hypothetical scenario(s) proposed by many UFO researchers concerning the alleged crash of an Alien spaceship in the New Mexico desert July 2nd, 1947, I beg to question, whether our bureaucracy of a government could ever clamp shut an event of such magnitude. This is the most scrutinized of all UFO cases. This story, even if partly true is the most significant event in human history, next to our own creation of course. The story is clouded in extensive myth and misinformation. Seeing as there are many version of this event, I will depict the most likely of these scenarios to have occurred according to eyewitness testimony.

Now, before I describe the sequence of events that unusual evening, I will first provide you a little background information concerning the state of New Mexico during this time frame. In 1947, New Mexico was unique to the rest of the world. For instance, the 509th Composite Bomb wing (The crew which dropped the Atomic bomb Fat Man and Little Boy on the Japanese during WWII) was stationed at the Roswell Army Air Force Base. Secondly, Los Alamos nuclear facility, home to the Manhattan project was a short distance to the north of the crash site. Lastly, you had the atomic, radar, missile-testing facility of White Sands and Alamogordo/Holloman Air Force Base only a short distance to the south (Randles 68). I believe, with such facilities congregated in one general area that from the Alien visitor?s viewpoint gathering information (Spying) on the most technologically advanced area on the planet would seem logical in 1947, seeing as the humans just finished killing off millions of their own (WWII plus Holocaust), maybe space was the next likely target for humanity to invade.

Also, I found some circumstantial evidence pertaining to the Base radar at the army?s 509th airfield outside the town of Roswell. Basically the army?s base radar had been tracking strange blips on the night of July 1, 1947 (Corso 8). This object maneuvered at such high speeds and changed direction so sharply that the radar operators said it was, ? No earthly craft?. Interesting to note that through that night and the following day Army Intelligence was on high alert (Corso 8).

That night a Mr. and Mrs. Dan Wilmot apparently sighted what they theorized to be a flying disk. They were sitting on their porch at 105 South Penn. It was nearing the end of June; it was night and about ten minutes before ten o?clock when a large glowing object zoomed out of the sky from the southeast, going in a northwesterly direction at a high rate of speed. Mr. Wilmot later had this to say, ?In appearance it looked oval in shape like two inverted saucers, faced mouth to mouth, or like two old type washbowls placed together in the same fashion . . . The entire body glowed as though light were showing through from inside, though not like it would be if a light were merely underneath? (Schmidt).

The New Mexico desert at night is a giant ocean of blackness. The summers are the rainy season, thunderstorms appear out of nowhere and you feel as thought the ground will crack and swallow you whole. Local storms would bounce off the arroyos like pinballs in an arcade; the thunder would illuminate the sky while the thunder shook the ground (Corso7). The night of July 2, 1947 was like this fifty years ago.

To begin with a flying craft and crew seemed to have some kind on malfunction with their ship. They touched down in the desert to try and repair the problem (Testimony will later corroborate this). Seeming unsuccessful at their attempt they decided to lift off and head in a North Westerly (speculation) direction. There are two probable scenarios that unfolded. Taking into consideration the thunderstorm it becomes possible that lighting plunged into the craft in mid flight, damaging electrical and propulsion systems. The exterior would have been penetrated, perhaps creating a suction effect in the interior and then ripping the crew out of the craft, which they (the crew) then of course spiraled to their demise. Also conceivable is the early malfunction that caused them to land and leave radiation burns in the ground became critical at some point in flight. With the crew unable to handle the situation an explosion occurred which created an opening in the hull of the ship, with the crew dead at this point the ship seemingly glided aimlessly into the Earth below. The trajectory of the craft terminated at impact with one of the many canyons in Corona, New Mexico.

William Brazel, that night had heard an explosion somewhere in the distance. As the foreman of the J.B. Foster Ranch, he was naturally curious whether something had crashed on his extensive property. The next morning low and behold he came upon a debris field, he gathered up some of the material and the next day went into the town of Roswell. He contacted the local sheriff, George Wilcox who in turn called Major Jesse Marcel at RAAF base.

Jesse was the base intelligence officer, meaning he had high level clearance. The sheriff told him that a rancher had brought some strange material in and that they?d better look at this stuff. So he, Counter Intelligence officer Cavitt and the rancher drove 80 miles to the ranch and seeing as the sun was setting they decided to stay the night. The next morning, the rancher showed them the wreckage that he had found. The debris field was three-quarters of a mile long, and a quarter-mile wide (Lindemann 35). They took as much of the odd looking material back with them in a Buick and an army carryall back to RAAF. Marcel stopped home that night, he woke his 11-year-old son up and his wife. They noticed the small objects strange composition and characteristics.

Back at the base, Colonel William Blanchard (Base commander) instructs Marcel to fly the wreckage to Wright Field (Air Material Command-this is where all recovered foreign technology is sent) but not before stopping at the Eighth Air Force in Fort Worth, Texas to show the brass what they had found. Base commander next told Walter Haut, the public information officer at the base to put out a press release saying that RAFF has recovered a flying disk. With in hours reporters from Paris, New York and London were calling New Mexico.

Retired Air Force General Thomas Jefferson Dubose, then a colonel at Forth Worth, received a phone call from Three Star General McMullen. McMullen, head of Strategic Air Command at Andrews Air Force Base in Washington, DC ordered Dubose to tell Ramey that under no uncertain terms to cover this up, and to fly some wreckage to DC that day (Lindemann 36).

At some point, a large group of soldiers were sent to the debris field on the Foster Ranch, as well as a lot of Military Police whose job it was to limit access to the field. A wide search was launched well beyond the limits of the debris field. Within a day or two, a few miles from the debris field, the main body of the flying saucer was found stuck in the ground, and a mile or two from that several bodies of small humanoids were found.

Brigadier General Roger M. Ramey, commanding officer of the Eighth Army Air Force Head-quarters at Carswell Air Force Base near Fort Worth was now in command of the cover up. These men work quickly. Ramey ordered Maj. Marcel to go before the press and retract the flying saucer story. To his regret he did it. Next, Ramey and base weather officer, Warrant Officer Irving Newton, said the debris was actually from a weather balloon with a radar reflector. A few photographs were taken of Marcel holding a box kite with an aluminum disc about the size of a large pie pan dangling from the bottom of the kite. The infamous weather balloon tale was now on its way around the world. The rancher, on July 9, 1947 told nearly the same lies (Randles 70).

Meanwhile, in the days and weeks after the crash and retrieval, the Army Intelligence personnel fanned out through Roswell and neighboring communities to suppress whatever information they could. Ever one and their mother was subjected to threats of violence, physical intimidation, and the always popular .9mm in the back of the head. With the community silenced, and law enforcement agencies forced to comply with the army?s edict that the incident outside of Roswell was a matter of national security and was not to be discussed. ?It never happened?, the army decreed and it became just that.

As for the debris, it was in the control of the military. They analyzed, compartmentalized and then put it under lock and key. With history rewritten the events that transpired the first week in July simply no longer existed.

Presently, the Air Force states that the Roswell Incident was nothing more than a weather balloon designed to detect nuclear tests in Russia. This prosaic explanation holds no water. If what crashed was a weather balloon, there would have been no need for secrecy. According to testimony, military officers admonished subordinates and civilians not to talk about what they saw. If what crashed was a weather balloon, Major Marcel would have recognized the material Mac Brazel showed him as weather balloon material, and would not have journeyed far out on a remote sheep ranch with an officer from the Counter Intelligence Corps to examine the crash site. The wreckage described by Marcel and others was too voluminous, and spread out over too large an area, to have been the wreckage of a crashed weather balloon. There is no reason the Army would transport the wreckage of a weather balloon from the remote desert outside Corona first to Roswell AAF, then on to Fort Worth AAF. All earthly possible explains when fully examined fall to pieces because of the eyewitness testimony of more than 500 hundred people.

Major Jesse Marcel was one of the first two military people to visit the Corona crash site. The other was Sheridan Cavitt, who to this day has refused to even acknowledge that he was there on the ranch with Marcel. In an interviewed with the television program “Unsolved Mysteries”, Marcel spoke about the wreckage found, ?I tried to bend the stuff, it would not bend. I even tried to burn it, it would not burn. That stuff weighs nothing. It’s not any thicker than tin foil in a pack of cigarettes. We even tried making a dent in it with a 16-pound sledge hammer, still no dent in it. One thing I was certain of, being familiar with all our activities, that it was not a weather balloon, nor an aircraft, nor a missile. It was something else, which we didn’t know what it was?(Schmidt).

Dr. Lincoln LaPaz, a meteor expert from the New Mexico Institute of Meteoritic(s), was escorted by Bill Rickett, a Counter Intelligence Corps officer based in Roswell who under sworn affidavit said that the material ?was very strong and very light. You could bend it but couldn’t crease it?(Schmidt). LaPaz’s job was to try and calculate out what the speed and trajectory of the object was. Rickett said ?LaPaz wanted to fly over the area, and this was arranged. He found one other spot where he felt this thing had touched down and then taken off again. The sand at this spot had been turned into a glass-like substance? (Schmidt). Rickett also noted that LaPaz said, ??. He was certain that this thing had gotten into trouble, that it had touched down for repairs, taken off again, and then exploded. He also felt certain there were more than one of these devices, and that the others had been looking for it?(Schmidt).

In summation, secrets can be and are being kept. Security is the first rule of thumb you see. ? You can?t tell your friends without telling you enemies? now can you (Lindemann 26). The ?Need to know? concept is the most important. The key is compartmentalization. If you control the detection systems, the communications systems, and the interference systems, keeping secrets are easy (Lindemann 27).

The proclamation, (slap in the face) of an announcement that little green man have arrived would have profound effects on of very soul of our society. It would touch on mankind?s most sacred beliefs. Religious, social, and economic over tones would be in utter chaos.

From a more theoretical point, this issuance of the alien visitors presence might possibly in a span of one life time unite mankind like never before. National border would vanish, one world, one people. The idea from a governments view is freighting. There isn?t any government of this planet that wants its citizens to owe their primary allegiance to the planet. Nationalism is the only game in town.

The sheer amount of verbal testimony in this case is enough to instill curiosity among scientist and skeptics alike. It is hard not to acknowledge the possible ramification this event if true would lead to. From our government?s standpoint, it was a marvelous gift from the sky, which in-adversely secured America?s position as a world leader.

Speculation aside we have a pretty good idea of what happen. Retired Air Force General Thomas Jefferson Dubose told ufologist flat out that the balloon story was a cover up. A short recap, we have the government lying, the media not blinking an eye, and finally the unaware, everyday Joe not question his government. The story has been kept because the American people just don?t care.

A last note; if this did happen as speculation suggests, who are the men behind the scene. FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has broad sweeping power. Able to suspend the constitution in case of a national emergency, and also with an estimated black budget of 60 billion, is a likely candidate for the ?secret government?.

Works Cited

Corso, Philip, and William J. Birnes. The Day After Roswell. New York: Simon and Schuster Inc., 1997.

Lindemann, Michael. UFOs and the Alien Presence: Six View Points. 1st ed. Santa Barbara: The 2020 Group, 1991.

Randles, Jenny, and Peter Hough. The Complete Book of UFOs. New York: Sterling, 1996.

Schmidt, Christopher. Roswell Testimony. Internet News Group: alt.alien.visitors, 1993.

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