Page 25 - 201007 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - July 2010

July 2010_june_july_2009.qxd 31/07/2010 10:53 AM Page 25 Roswell Incident Launches UFO Controversy 25 July 8, 1947: Roswell Incident Launches UFO Controversy By Lewis Wallace 1947: Days after something shiny crashed in the New Mexico desert, the Roswell Army Air Field issues a press release that says the military has recovered the remains of a “flying disc.” Although quickly discounted as erroneous, the announcement lays the groundwork for one of the most enduring UFO stories of all time. The military’s initial press release was straightforward in its handling of the discovery of wreckage by rancher W.W. “Mac” Brazel. “The 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’s office of Chaves County,” the press release read. “The 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’s office, who in turn notified Maj. Jesse A. Marcel of the 509th Bomb Group Intelligence Office. the Air Force knew about the Roswell claims.” an alien spacecraft that crashed on a ranch near Action was immediately taken and the disc was The second government publication, Roswell, New Mexico, in July 1947. Their picked up at the rancher’s home. It was 1997’s The Roswell Report: Case Closed (.pdf), purpose: to investigate the circumstances inspected at the Roswell Army Air Field and came just days shy of the Roswell incident’s surrounding the Roswell incident and to subsequently loaned by Major Marcel to higher 50th anniversary. The report said eyewitness maintain vigilance against further alien headquarters.” accounts tied to the 1947 recovery actually incursions. The Roswell Daily Record headlined the occurred years later, becoming tangled up in Among the names who appear as story “RAAF Captures Flying Saucer on Ranch time and further strengthening the Roswell original members of MJ-12: Rear Adm. Roscoe in Roswell Region,” providing a historical incident’s hold on the public’s imagination. Hillenkoetter, first director of the CIA; Dr. artifact that, in retrospect, seems ready-made for “Air Force activities which occurred Vannevar Bush, who headed the wartime Office fueling an episode of The X-Files. over a period of many years have been of Scientific Research and Development; and But press accounts the following day consolidated and are now represented to have James Forrestal, secretary of defense. told a much more mundane story: The military occurred in two or three days in July 1947,” the Confirming the existence of MJ-12 is had determined the recovered debris to be the report said. “‘Aliens’ observed in the New central to the argument by UFO conspiracy wreckage of a weather balloon and related Mexico desert were actually anthropomorphic theorists that the U.S. government has equipment. No flying saucer — a term that had test dummies that were carried aloft by U.S. Air deliberately hidden UFO information from the just been coined by newspapers to describe the Force high-altitude balloons for scientific public ever since Roswell. The government, first widely publicized UFO sighting — had research.” whether irritated by the crazies who won't leave been found. Despite the military’s assertion that the it alone or genuinely interested in keeping the While the down-to-earth explanation Roswell incident was a side effect of Cold War presence of aliens under wraps, has consistently seemed to settle the issue, the so-called Roswell secrecy and sci-fi fantasies, the story retains a denied MJ-12's existence and dismissed UFO incident flashed back into the public vital spot in UFO lore. The town of Roswell has reports as mistaken identity or hoaxes (.pdf). consciousness three decades later. New turned into a tourist destination, hosting the The military continues to maintain that interviews with individuals proffering International UFO Museum and Research the wreckage retrieved at the Roswell ranch information about the crash, and the 1980 Center and an annual Roswell UFO Festival. came from a top-secret research balloon. publication of Charles Berlitz’s book The That explanation has never flown with Roswell Incident, breathed new life into the UFO watchers, who have produced a mountain story, turning Roswell into a rallying cry for Sept. 24, 1947: MJ-12 — of evidence purporting to prove that not only ufologists and true believers. does MJ-12 exist, but there's a really big cover- Rumors of recovered extraterrestrial We Are Not Alone ... Or up going on. (Forrestal's untimely death in bodies and a government coverup gained such a Are We? 1949, officially ruled a suicide, has helped fuel foothold in popular culture that the U.S. the fire.) government took the unusual step of producing Sixty years on, and the argument still two reports in the 1990s that set out to put the rages. matter to rest. 1947: If the secret committee known as the If nothing else, the furor has helped fuel In assembling the massive reports, the Majestic 12 ever really existed, this is the day some entertaining "Alien Autopsy" headlines in Air Force gathered and declassified many that the group was allegedly created by a such august periodicals as the National documents relating to the Roswell incident. memorandum from President Harry Truman. Enquirer. [] Weighing in at nearly 1,000 pages, The Roswell Report: Fact vs. Fiction in the New Mexico If real, this shadowy coven of scientists, The ‘X’ Zone Radio Show Desert, published in 1994, set out to “tell the military brass and government officials came with Rob McConnell Congress, and the American people, everything together in response to the Army's recovery of www.xzoneradiotv.com