Home > Great Coverups > The Roswell UFO CoverUp

The Roswell UFO CoverUp
CoverUps.com

In the early summer of 1947, William Brazel, a foreman working on the Foster homestead, noticed debris approximately 30 miles north of Roswell, New Mexico. The U.S. military claims that it came from the crash of an experimental high-altitude surveillance balloon belonging to what was then a classified (top secret) program. But many UFO proponents charge that an alien craft was found, that the bodies of its deceased occupants were recovered, and that the military perpetrated a massive cover-up.

"Alien Crash" Theory * Roswell in the Movies
Four Faces of U.S. * Visitor Comments * The CoverUp: Why?
UFO Museum in Roswell New Mexico

THE ROSWELL INCIDENT, 1947

On the evening of July 2, 1947, a bright, disk-shaped object was seen flying over Roswell, New Mexico, heading northwest. The following day widely scattered wreckage was discovered about seventy-five miles northwest of Roswell by a local ranch manager, William Brazel, together with his son and daughter. Authorities were alerted and a quantity of wreckage was recovered by Major Jesse Marcel, a staff intelligence officer of the 509th Bomb Group Intelligence Office at the Army Air Forces base at Roswell Field, together with a Counter-Intelligence Corps officer.

When officers returned to the Roswell base, an official press statement was released, authorized by Colonel William Blanchard, confirming that disk wreckage had been recovered. Shortly after that, Marcel was ordered to load the debris on a B-29 and fly it to Wright Field (now Wright-Patterson AFB) at Dayton, Ohio, for examination.

On arrival at an intermediate stop at Carswell Army Air Forces Base, Fort Worth, Texas (headquarters of the Eighth Air Force), General Roger Ramey took over and ordered Marcel and others on the plane not to talk to reporters. A second press statement was issued which stated that the wreckage was actually the remains of a weather balloon and its attached tinfoil radar target, and this was prominently displayed at the press conference. Meanwhile, the "real" wreckage arrived at Wright Field under armed guard; Marcel returned to Roswell, and Brazel was held incommunicado for nearly a week while the crash site was stripped of every scrap of debris.

A news leak via press wire from Albuquerque describing this fantastic story was interrupted and the radio station in question was warned not to continue the broadcast: "Attention Albuquerque: Cease Transmission. Repeat. Cease Transmission. National Security Item. Do Not Transmit. Stand By..."

The unidentified wreckage, scattered over an area three-quarters of a mile long and several hundred feet wide, consisted of various types of debris, which according to Major Marcel was like nothing he had seen before or since. In his words, "There was all kinds of stuff – small beams about three eighths or a half inch square with some sort of hieroglyphics on them that nobody could decipher. These looked something like balsa wood, and were of about the same weight, except that they were not wood at all. They were very hard, although flexible, and would not burn. There was a great deal of unusual parchment-like substance which was brown in color and extremely strong, and a great number of small pieces of a metal like tinfoil, except that it wasn't tinfoil."

Marcel added that one piece of metal foil, two feet long and a foot wide, was so durable it could not be dented with a sledgehammer, despite being incredibly light. Marcel was convinced that it had nothing to do with a weather balloon or a radar target. His testimony cannot be dismissed, owing to his background in aviation: he'd served as bombardier, waist-gunner, and pilot, had logged 468 hours of combat flying in B-24 aircraft, and was awarded five air medals for shooting down enemy aircraft in World War 2. Toward the end of the war he was attached to the 509th Bomb Wing, an elite military group that required high-security clearances. Following the Roswell incident he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and assigned to a Special Weapons Program.

Marcel was certain that no bodies were found among the debris, and that whatever the object was it must have exploded above the ground. But evidence suggests that there was another crash site, in an area west of Socorro, New Mexico, known as the Plains of San Agustin, where witnesses discovered not only a damaged metallic "aircraft" resting on the ground, but also dead bodies.

PHOTOGRAPHS

Hover your mouse over the pictures below for captions.

In 1978, physicist and ufologist Stanton T. Friedman interviewed Major Jesse Marcel, who was involved with the original recovery of the Roswell crash debris in 1947. Marcel stated his belief that the military covered up the recovery of an alien spacecraft. His story was featured in UFO documentaries at the time. In February 1980, the National Enquirer ran its own interview with Marcel, which captured national and worldwide attention for the Roswell incident.

By the mid-1990s, public polls such as a 1997 CNN/Time poll, revealed that the majority of people interviewed believed that aliens had visited Earth, and landed at Roswell, but that the relevant information had been suppressed by the US government.

Days after the Roswell incident, in July 1947, the Roswell Daily Record reported that the Roswell Army Air Field had recovered a crashed flying saucer. The incident was largely forgotten until the late 1970s, when eyewitnesses began to come forward claiming the balloon was an alien craft.

Certain elements of the Roswell story — particularly eyewitness accounts that there were alien bodies taken from the site — were explained away as fallen parachute-test dummies in a government report in 1997.

The earliest headlines in The Roswell Daily Record were truly sensational. But subsequent press accounts toeing the government line soon told a much more mundane story. While the down-to-earth explanation seemed to settle things, the Roswell incident returned to the public consciousness three decades later with a vengeance.

UFO researchers have long been skeptical of changing government accounts of what happened in Roswell. In 1994, the Air Force admitted that their “weather balloon” story was indeed false, and that the wreckage came from a spy device created for a then-classified program called Project Mogul. Because Project Mogul was a covert operation, a bogus explanation of the crash was needed to prevent giving away details of government spy work.

UFO researcher David Rudiak claimed that a telegram which appears in one of the 1947 photos of balloon debris in General Roger Ramey's office contains text that confirms that aliens and a "disk" were found, including such key phrases as "the victims of the wreck" and "in/on the 'disc'" — as well as other phrases which point to a crashed vehicle recovery context.

A German news channel, N24, broadcast a documentary — "UFOs in the Third Reich" — which claims that the Roswell wreckage was actually a result of tests of an advanced flying prototype called the "Bell”, a precursor of today's stealth fighters, developed by V2 rocket experts brought to the US after WWII.

In addition to its notoriety as a UFO hot spot, Roswell has twice been named an All-American city: in 1978–79, and in 2002. It has also hosted the record-breaking skydive of Felix Baumgartner on October 14, 2012.

Roswell's city fathers erected this sign in 2013, thus embracing their cultural identity.

The International UFO Museum and Research Center is located in Roswell's downtown district. It contains an extensive library and exhibits focused on the history of UFO encounters, and was founded by Glenn Dennis. It opened in September of 1991.

The centerpiece of the UFO Museum is this large model of a UFO crew of disembarking humanoid aliens. Roughly every 20 minutes the static display comes to life with billowing clouds of dry ice, strange “alien chatter” and laser sound effects, as the UFO spins in place.

Bizarre, grainy footage of an extraterrestrial on a stretcher, supposedly recovered from the Roswell crash site and transported to a hangar in Area 51, surfaced on YouTube in 2006.

Children gather at the alien autopsy exhibit at the International UFO Museum and Research Center.

In 1996, Roswell locals first organized an event to celebrate the anniversary of the crash. Back then, activities included a UFO-themed box car derby down Main Street and hospital gurney races with “aliens” strapped to the beds. Since then, the festival has grown explosively, drawing thousands of visitors from across the world to join in the celebration each year.

Costumed participants take part in the UFO Festival Amazing Alien Parade in Roswell, in this photo from 2009.

Protestors march in front of the General Accounting Office (GAO) in Washington D.C. to raise awareness about an examination being conducted there on Roswell-related documents.

A McDonald's in Roswell.

A streetlight fixture in Roswell.

The UFO museum's parking lot has this sign in it. It does not mention where offending cars are towed to.

Hungry drivers on the Extraterrestrial Highway should keep their eyes peeled for this sign advertising the Little A'le'inn, a restaurant which features world famous Alien Burgers and Alien themed beers on the menu.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION: