In the summer of 1947, something in the sky crash-landed near Roswell, New Mexico. Several locals claimed that there were horrific thunderstorms that summer, and when they were out in the location of the crash, they found metal debris strewn across a wide area approximately three-quarters of a mile long. One of the men, Mack Brazel, took some of metal pieces back to his house and he and the neighbors examined the material. Brazel and his neighbors, the Proctors speculated that the metal could be from a crashed spacecraft. That summer over New Mexico there had been quite a few reports of possible spacecraft and other things seen in the skies that were classified simply as unidentified flying objects (UFOs). Brazel took his findings into the town of Roswell in order to report the incident to the Chaves County Sheriff Department (Pflock 25-26). The sheriff at the time was one George Wilcox. Wilcox was impressed enough by the metal material and Brazel’s explanation that he made a report to officials at the Roswell Army Air Field. Wilcox and others speculated that the United States government might be doing tests in the region. Eventually the report reached a Major Jesse Marcel who was in charge of the 509th Bomb Group at Roswell Army Air Field (Pflock 249). Records indicate that military radar was being used that summer over the Roswell region in New Mexico and that there had been a report of a UFO crashing down somewhere in the vicinity of Brazel and Proctor. Soon, news of the crash-landing and debris remnants of the UFO became well known around the area. Then other residents came forward, stating that they too had seen a large aircraft in the sky that night and that it went down north-west of the town. Roswell Army Air Field personnel sealed off the site of the crash until the debris could be cleared. A variety of military officers were interested enough or concerned enough to visit the crash site personally. Major Marcel concluded that whatever had crash-landed on the ground there appeared to have exploded in the air before striking the earth. Details of the debris vary, in one report there was metal scraps and beams that indicate some kind of structured engineered object (Pflock 23-24). The military issued a number of plausible explanations for the craft that had apparently gone down that night including a rocket or a weather balloon launched out of the White Sands Testing Grounds.
Cover-up
One of the reasons Roswell has endured and in fact embraced the notion that a flying saucer crash-landed there in 1947 is because of the overbearing response of the military in the location. The more forceful the officials were, the more suspicious the locals became. Soon there were multiple witnesses claiming to have seen unusual metal pieces of a flying saucer complete with beams and foreign writing. Then came the bodies. There were rumors that the Roswell Army Air Field morgue had contacted a local mortuary in Roswell trying to buy some very small, hermetically sealed coffins (Pflock 184-185). The helpful local morticians later claimed that he drove to the base and there he discovered that they wanted these little coffins in order to preserve tiny bodies. Stories of military intimidation and strong arms tactics abounded in Roswell New Mexico, despite apparent threats and warnings from officials. Nurses who worked on base whispered to interested friends and neighbors in and around Roswell that indeed, tiny bodies had been found when the military went to take charge of the debris. The bodies along with pieces of what was assumed a flying saucer had been transported by military ambulances and all of it was being stored under armed guard at the base. There was so much talk sweeping around the region that the Roswell Army Air Field officials felt compelled to issue a press release. They stated that on the wreckage of some kind of airborne disk mechanism had been found. As soon as that press release went out, the base was flooded with calls. The response to the find of a flying disk was so extreme that officials at the base withdrew the report, claiming it had been incorrect and went back to the original story that a weather balloon had crashed on the site (Benjamin 84). The new press release fueled claims that the military was engaged in a cover-up. According to author Marina Benjamin, there were so many “backpedalings and smoke screens associated with the Roswell incident” that Congress had no choice but to get involved. Rumors ranged from a flying saucer complete with dead spacemen to a “top-secret reconnaissance balloon designed to spy on Soviet nuclear testing and ballistic missile launches (Benjamin 84). These stories created so much fervor and there was so much talk about the bodies, ambulances, and morgue that the Army issued another statement. One official got the idea to try to calm everyone’s fears about space aliens by explaining that the crashed weather balloon had been transporting research dummies (Benjamin 84). This sounded so ludicrous and so much like an obvious cover-up that it inspired new, more intricate stories about space aliens. According to reports, one of the original witnesses to the crash and one of the most outspoken residents of the Roswell area, Mac Brazel, was opening hounded by the military and at one point three armed military officers ushered Brazel to the Roswell Daily Record. Once inside the office of the newspaper, Brazel recanted his story about the metal debris and the crash. Brazel stated that he commonly found bits of weather balloons out on the range near his ranch. The local newspaper along with the Las Vegas Review Journal, released the story including commentary indicating that the Army, Navy, and Army Air Forces Headquarters in Washington were energetically working to quash rumors that a flying saucer had crash-landed near Roswell. The problem with going to so much trouble to quash the rumors of a space ship crash is the fact that “conspiracy is so seductive” (Benjamin 85).
Culture
Naysayers and skeptics about what did or did not occur at Roswell point to post-World War II popular that was obsessed with rocket ships, space, and flying technology. Human have had been fascinated with the idea of flight since ancient times, but it was not until the modern era that humans flying in planes became relatively commonplace. People were thrilled by the idea that humans could ultimately travel in space (Carey, et al., 35). Cartoons and movies along with the technological progress made in aircraft during World War II promised air travel, speculated about life on other planets, and created a generation of skyward gazing visionaries (Carey, et al., 239). Another thing the aftermath inspired was a generation of conspiracy theorists and a distrust of military authority. Spies were everywhere and in 1947. In the United States, paranoia was at an all-time high, a high that would ultimately lead Americans to suspect everyone around them of possible wrongdoing and un-American sympathies (Carey, et al., 35). The idea that the crash near Roswell was a ship carrying personnel from another planet simultaneously repels and appeals to people. The UFO community is divided on the idea of whether beings from other planets who visit the Earth are friendly, dangerous, or merely inquisitive. The fact that officials became so embroiled in the Roswell crash site made it famous. The theory that it was a military cover-up is still very much alive. It is the reason that the “coalition of individuals and groups that compose the community of UFO believers, many of whom remained focused as they have since the 1940s on gaining access to classified government information about UFOs and their alien occupants” (Knight 109). These folks’ suspicions were reinforced in 1997 when a media frenzy surrounded the Roswell once again probed the official cover-up and renewed eyewitness accounts of the Roswell incident (Knight 109).
Conclusion
Cynics maintain that people who believe a spacecraft crashed near Roswell New Mexico in 1947 are superstitious fools who are simply seeking the comfort of a modern myth. People who believe in UFOs or at least the possibility of UFOs offer as proof of something more unearthly occurring there to the overwhelming military response (Frazier, et al, 271). To many, the fact that the military attempted to whitewash the event is more than enough evidence that there is something to the story of a flying saucer crash. By all accounts, and there are many, the Roswell incident is the most controversial occurrence involving possible contact from another planet in American history. It may simply be evidence that people in the military are as susceptible to hysteria and mythology as anyone else. It may be something more, it is doubtful that the public will ever know the whole truth. An accurate factual account of the crash, debris, and subsequent events is probably unlikely at this time. So much was done by the military to ensure the secrecy of a supposed non-event that suspicions continue to be aroused by this episode in United States history. By amassing so much information from so many sources, the concrete reality of this event has permanently vanished.
Works Cited
Benjamin, Marina. Rocket Dreams: How the Space Age Shaped Our Vision of a World Beyond. New York: Free Press, 2003. Print.Carey, Thomas J, Donald R. Schmitt, Edgar D. Mitchell, and George Noory. Witness to Roswell: Unmasking the Government's Biggest Cover-Up. Franklin Lakes, N.J: New Page Books, 2009. Print.Frazier, Kendrick, Barry Karr, and Joe Nickell. The UFO Invasion: The Roswell Incident, Alien Abductions, and Government Coverups. Amherst, N.Y: Prometheus Books, 1997. Print.Knight, Peter. Conspiracy Nation: The Politics of Paranoia in Postwar America. New York: New York University Press, 2002. Print.Pflock, Karl T. Roswell: Inconvenient Facts and the Will to Believe. Amherst, N.Y: Prometheus Books, 2001. Print.
