The Roswell UFO

1947 The town of Roswell, New Mexico, USA, was launched into a new form of economic sustenance – UFO tourism, and I don't mean aliens – when a rancher named William 'Mac' Brazel, near Corona in the same state, heard a loud crash.

Brazel informed Sheriff George Wilcox, who reported it to Intelligence Officer, Major Jesse Marcel of the 509^th Bomb Group at Roswell. On July 7, military personnel including Major Jesse Marcel (pictured at right) arrived at the area, retrieved the wreckage, and transported it to Roswell Army Airfield whence it was later flown to Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio.

Initial Air Force press releases (issued by Lt. Walter G Haut, Public Information Officer at RAAB under order from the Commander of the 509^th Bomb Group, Col. William Blanchard) reported the recovery of a "flying disk", "hexagonal in shape". However, this story was rapidly changed to say that the crash was in fact a weather balloon, which it probably was, although some ufologists have argued an alien craft crashed near Roswell. It is also said that an alien body was found at the crash site, and then moved by military to the infamous Area 51 in Nevada.
There is now evidence that the 'UFO' was in fact part of Project Mogul, a top secret project involving high-altitude balloons carrying low-frequency microphones and radar corner reflectors, designed to detect possible Soviet atomic bomb explosions and forewarn of an atomic attack on the United States of America.
To skeptics, the Roswell incident is a classic example of what DH Rawcliffe called retrospective falsification.

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