CONTENTS (Click to jump to section):
Introduction * How It Began * Allegations of a Cover-Up * The Roswell Debate continues in Popular Media * Conclusion * Works Cited

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“Nothing of Importance Happened Today”
-King George III of Great Britain, Diary Entry dated July 4, 1776

INTRODUCTION

On July 4, 1776, King George III of Great Britain wrote in his diary: “Nothing of Importance Happened Today”. Due to the length of time it took for news to reach London from America, King George could not have foreseen how ironic those words would become. The same could be said of those involved in the events surrounding the crash of an airborne object in Roswell, New Mexico on a hot July night in 1947.

HOW IT BEGAN: A Crash in Roswell, New Mexico

ON-THE-SCENE EYEWITNESSES DESCRIBE CRASH AND UNUSUAL WRECKAGE

On the night of July 4, 1947, William Woody, who lived east of Roswell, was outside with his father at their ranch, when they saw a brilliant fiery object plunge to the ground (IUFOMRC). On the morning of July 8th, Roswell Sheriff George Wilcox, who along with W. W. “Mac” Brazell, found the crashed object on the J. B. Foster sheep ranch near Corona, 85 miles northwest of Roswell. Brazell, who lived on a nearby ranch, had notified the sheriff the day before about the crash (AJ).

Wilcox called Major Jesse Marcel, Intelligence Officer at the nearby Roswell Army Air Force Base[1], informing him of his find. Marcel, joined by Sheriff Wilcox and Sheridan Cavitt, Counter-Intelligence Officer from the Roswell base, raced to investigate the crash site (Jaroff). Brazell, waited near the crash site while Wilcox, Marcel, and Cavitt investigated the crash site, and later reported that Wilcox described the crash site to him, including details of wreckage with undecipherable characters and markings on some of the debris, which had been scattered over a large area (IUFOMRC).

Glenn Dennis was working as a mortician at Ballard Funeral Home in Roswell. Dennis reported receiving phone calls from the Mortuary Officer at the Roswell Army Base, seeking to obtain several small hermetically sealed coffins, as well as information about how to preserve bodies that had been in the outdoors for several days (Jaroff).

THE MEDIA BREAKS THE ROSWELL INCIDENT

Roswell Daily Record Front Page (Albuquerque Journal) The crash remained an issue of local curiosity for several days, but not for long. On July 8, 1947, the press office for the Roswell Army Air Field, home of the 509th Bomb Group[1], released the following report about the wreckage recovered from J. B. Foster’s ranch:
The many rumors regarding the flying disc became a reality yesterday when the intelligence office of the 509th (atomic) bomb group was fortunate enough to gain possession of the disc (AJ).

Initial reports from other military sources gave credence to the possibility of UFO activity. Major Richard Shoop, the base chief technical engineer at Muroc Army Air Base, said a P-80 fighter aircraft was being readied to intercept and pursue any alien aircraft should it approach the base. Colonel Al Dutton, commanding officer of the Oregon National Guard, reported that six P-51 fighter craft were kept on standby, with weapon systems loaded and telescopic camera equipment mounted.

  NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE: Allegations of a Cover-Up

REPORTS OF OFFICIAL COVER-UP OPERATION SURFACE

Reports of a cover-up began soon after the wreckage was cleared. General Roger Ramey with the regional Army Air Force command in Fort Worth, Texas countered the initial Roswell base release, just hours after the initial Roswell media release. General Ramey informed the media that the debris from the crash had been analyzed by Army Air Force personnel, and was nothing more than a crashed weather balloon (Handy 64). The Las Vegas Review Journal newspaper ran the following AP story: "Reports of flying saucers whizzing through the sky fell off sharply today as the army and the navy began a concentrated campaign to stop the rumors" (IUFOMRC).

Back in New Mexico, a shield of silence was soon clamped down by the military. When William Woody and his father attempted to locate the crash site, military personnel kept them from entering the crash area. Glenn Dennis reported seeing large pieces of wreckage with strange engravings at the Roswell base and claimed he was threatened by military police and ordered to leave the base when he drove out to the Roswell Air Base to visit a nurse at the base hospital (IUFOMRC). Sheriff Wilcox had also fallen silent about the crash, declining further comment to the press, with the explanation, “I’m working with those fellows at the base” (AJ).

GOVERNMENT DEFENDS THEIR EXPLANATION OF ROSWELL

Air Force personnel posing with Test Dummy (IUFOMRC: International UFO Museum & Research Ctr.)

In 1994, a second Air Force report on Roswell maintained the military’s position that the crashed object was just an Air Force weather balloon used in the top-secret Air Force Project Mogul. Project Mogul was a Cold War-era program intended to monitor the atmosphere for evidence of nuclear weapons testing by the former Soviet Union. The Air Force report claimed the bodies at Roswell were just test dummies, and that reports of bodies recovered from the crash were probably based upon a combination of two separate crashes that took place near the Roswell base:

1. The crash of an Air Force KC-97 aircraft in 1956, in which twelve Air Force personnel died.
    
2. A 1959 manned balloon mishap that injured two U.S. Air Force pilots (USAF).

According to a June 1997 article in the Chicago Sun-Times, the report failed to explain their role in a project involving weather balloons. The Sun-Times article also pointed out the only known use of life-sized test dummies in Air Force experiments was in a series of high-altitude parachute drops that took place from 1954 to 1959. These experiments, which took place long after the Roswell crash, were used to help determine survivability for high-altitude pilots (Chicago Sun-Times).

CRITICS RESPOND TO COVER-UP CHARGES

Retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Richard Weaver, who had been assigned by the US Air Force to investigate the Roswell crash, discussed the reports on NBC’s “Today” show. In his interview, Weaver dismissed cover-up claims and defended the reports. “I don’t think the government is capable of putting together a decent conspiracy,” said Weaver. “We have a hard enough time keeping a secret” (Chicago Sun-Times).

Karl Pflock, a UFO investigator and a former senior Pentagon official, was an unusual defender of Air Force claims about the Roswell incident. In his book “Roswell: Inconvenient Facts and the Will to Believe”, Pflock assembled evidence from nine years of investigations, and concluded what crashed at Roswell was nothing more than a Project Mogul weather balloon (Jaroff). Pflock lamented how those pursuing evidence of a Roswell crash had wasted time, resources, and credibility that could have been spent investigation and proving other reports of alien visitation. “I think that Roswell has just become an absolutely whale-sized red herring”, said Pflock (Fleck).

COVER-UP LEAVES SIGNIFICANT NUMBER OF DISBELIEVERS

A Scene from the Roswell Festival (Roswell Chamber of Commerce).

If there indeed was a conspiracy to cover-up the existence of alien visitors to Roswell, it had failed to convince many Americans that nothing happened at Roswell. In a Time magazine survey, 34 percent of Americans believed intelligent beings from other planets have visited Earth. Of those who believed aliens had visited Earth, 65 percent believed a UFO crash-landed near Roswell, and 80 percent believed the U.S. government knows more about extraterrestrials than it chooses to let on (Handy 65).

  TODAY: The Roswell Debate continues

The debate over the Roswell incident began as a quest for documents, alien bodies, or other evidence, but now has reached into American popular culture. In recent years, these questions are being explored with growing frequency in a manner of different avenues.

PEOPLE CELEBRATE & COMMEMORATE ALIEN VISITORS

The Chamber of Commerce of Roswell, New Mexico now holds an annual Roswell festival, to cash in on the publicity from the Roswell debate. The festival was started to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Roswell crash and became an annual event (Handy 64). The upcoming 2002 festival promises a wide range of activities, including speakers who believe aliens did visit Roswell (Roswell Chamber of Commerce).

ROSWELL DEBATE CONTINUES IN MEDIA & POPULAR CULTURE

Scenes from Megadeth’s "Hangar 18" Music Video

The heavy-metal rock band Megadeth explores what could have taken place at Roswell in the video for their song “Hangar 18”. In the video, aliens stranded by the crash are taken by Air Force officials, under the command of civilians in black suits, to a secret facility for experimentation. At the end of the video, the message: “All Eyewitness reports were denied by the authorities” is flashed across the screen (Megadeth).

The popular Fox Network television program, “The X-Files”, stars a cast of FBI Agents who investigate bizarre and paranormal events, including alien life forms and shadowy government conspiracies. In the episode “E. B. E.”, a well-connected “mole” who supplied classified information to the FBI agents tells them of the existence of a secret treaty requiring the execution of any and all alien beings that land on Earth. The mole, nicknamed “Deep Throat”, confessed to an assignment where he executed an alien recovered from a crash of an alien spacecraft in New Mexico (E.B.E.).

Will Smith stars in the movie Independence Day, as a United States Air Force pilot fighting an invasion of Earth by an alien force bent on destroying the human race. In the movie, the threat was first discovered after the crash of an alien craft in Roswell. High ranking government officials, seeking total secrecy to allow them time unlock the alien technology and develop a defense against alien invasion, chose to hide the evidence from post-Roswell incident Presidents. After fifty years, the cover-up was revealed to the President, but only after the aliens returned in force to carry out their conquest of Earth (Handy 65).

CONCLUSION: Nothing of Importance Happened Today?

Former US President Bill Clinton raised the subject of Roswell in a speech during a 1995 visit to the Irish capital of Belfast:
I got a letter from 13-year-old Ryan from Belfast. Now, Ryan, if you're out in the crowd tonight, here's the answer to your question. No, as far as I know, an alien spacecraft did not crash in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947. And, Ryan, if the United States Air Force did recover alien bodies, they didn't tell me about it either and I want to know (Handy 66).

In his book, Pflock called Roswell “the Holy Grail” of those seeking to prove alien visitation on Earth (Fleck). More than five decades later, the quest for that Holy Grail continues and the Roswell incident has grown into a cultural dividing line between those who believe in the existence of extraterrestrial races and government conspiracies and those who do not.

Those who attempted to dismiss Roswell as a small event of no importance have failed to do so. Regardless of what one may believe about Roswell, there can be no doubt that for many, the quest to convincingly explain what really happened at Roswell will continue for many years to come.

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Works Cited

• AJ: Albuquerque Journal (Author Not Listed). “Atomic Energy Experiments Explain ‘Flying Saucers’ Says Scientist; More in Sky”.
   
• Chicago Sun-Times. “Roswell ‘alien’ bodies were test dummies, Air Force says”. June 24, 1997.
   
• "E. B. E.." The X-Files. Chris Carter, Executive Producer. Fox Television Network. 18 Feb. 1994.
   
• Fleck, John. “Bringing ‘Roswell Incident’ Back to Earth”. Albuquerque Journal. Tuesday, July 31, 2001.
   
• Handy, Bruce. “Roswell or bust: a town discovers manna crashing from heaven and becomes the capital of America's alien nation.” Time, June 23, 1997: p62.
   
• IUFOMRC: International UFO Museum and Research Center. “The Roswell Incident”.
   
• Jaroff, Leon. “Did Aliens Really Land?” Time Magazine, July 23, 1997.
   
• Megadeth. Hangar 18. Los Angeles, California: Capitol Records, 1992.
   
• Roswell Chamber of Commerce. “Roswell UFO Festival - 2002 - Calendar of Events”
   
• USAF: United States Air Force Web Information Service. “Roswell Report: Case Closed” June 24, 1997.
   

[1] Prior to 1948, the United States Air Force was a branch of the United States Army, and at the time of the Roswell crash, was still known as the United States Army Air Force.

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