the story of the Roswell crash when she was interrupted by an incoming message: “Attention Albuquerque. Do not transmit. Repeat do not transmit this message. Stop communication immediately.” Meanwhile, Roswell researchers Kevin Randle and Donald Schmitt found in the woodwork one Arthur Exon, a retired Air Force brigadier, who told of unusual debris brought into Wright Field in 1947 which was indestructible despite its extraordinarily light weight. Yet another retired USAF officer, Brigadier-General Thomas Dubose, stated in interviews that the White House had been involved in the cover-up and that the weather balloon story was a fabrication. Soon there was a positive rush of people and sources to back up the Roswell alien-crash story. New Mexico mortician Glenn Dennis recalled being asked to provide child-sized coffins for the Roswell base, documents from secret government committee Majestic–12 confirmed the recovery of alien bodies at Roswell… and then in 1995 a film surfaced showing an autopsy on the recovered aliens.
Under scrutiny, however, most of the new information appeared riddled with holes. Sceptics proved conclusively that the Roswell autopsy film was a hoax, as were most if not all the Majestic–12 documents, while Lydia Sleppy’s story became ever more fanciful. Declassified documents from 1948 included a secret memorandum by an Air Force intelligence officer reporting no “physical evidence of the existence [of extraterrestrial craft] has been obtained”. Marcel contradicted himself on whether the debris he posed with in a 1947 photograph was the recovered debris or switched material.
In an attempt to pour oil on troubled waters, the US Air Force finally published two official reports on the Roswell incident, in 1994 and 1997. The second of these concluded: “But… witnesses are mistaken about when events they saw occurred, and they are also seriously mistaken about details of the events.” This second report was entitled
Hardly. Counter-reports, books, films… all fly steadily into magazines, bookstores, websites, TV schedules… Such promiscuity is not aided by the fact that the UFO community itself is split on whether there was an alien crash at Roswell in 1947.
So, as we said at the beginning, what
a prototype jetfighter which crashed (some researchers suggest the whole aliens-crash-at-Roswell story was actually concocted by an intelligence unit in the US military to cover up the embarrassing failure);
a crashed missile from RAAF itself, which was home to the 509th Bomb Group, the world’s only nuclear bomb squadron in 1947 (this would explain the armed guard used to move materials from Roswell);
a fu-go incendiary balloon launched by Japan in 1945 but coming to earth two years later;
or, as the Air Force contends in its 1990s reports, a high-altitude US balloon from the spying operation known as Operation Mogul against Russian nuclear facilities.
All these scenarios would require some minor (in Cold War terms) deceit, but the Air Force’s explanation (see below) best fits the facts.
So overwhelming is the quality of the mundane cause for the Roswell incident that William Moore, co- author of the book which started the hullabaloo, has stated: “I am no longer of the opinion that the extraterrestrial explanation is the best explanation for the [Roswell] event.”
The US military/government covered up evidence of a UFO crash at Roswell: ALERT LEVEL 4
Charles Berlitz and William Moore,
Kevin D. Randle and Donald R. Schmitt,
DOCUMENT:
Extracts from the Roswell Report
Fact vs. Fiction in the New Mexico Desert Published by Headquarters, United States Air Force, 1995 Executive Summary
Before discussing specific positive results that these efforts revealed, it is first appropriate to discuss those things, as indicated by information available to the Air Force, that the “Roswell Incident” was not:
An Airplane Crash
[…]
A Missile Crash
[…]
A Nuclear Accident
[…]
An Extraterrestrial Craft
The Air Force research found absolutely no indication that what happened near Roswell in 1947 involved any type of extraterrestrial spacecraft. This, of course, is the crux of this entire matter. “Pro-UFO” persons who obtain a copy of this report, at this point, most probably begin the “cover-up is still on” claims. Nevertheless, the research indicated absolutely no evidence of any kind that a spaceship crashed near Roswell or that any alien occupants were recovered therefrom, in some secret military operation or otherwise. This does not mean, however, that the early Air Force was not concerned about UFOs. However, in the early days, “UFO” meant Unidentified Flying Object, which literally translated as some object in the air that was not readily identifiable. It did not mean, as the term has evolved in today’s language, to equate to alien spaceships. Records from the period reviewed by Air Force researchers as well as those cited by the authors mentioned before, do indicate that the USAF was seriously concerned about the inability to adequately identify unknown flying objects reported in American airspace. All the records, however, indicated that the focus of concern was not on aliens, hostile or otherwise, but on the Soviet Union. Many documents from that period speak to the possibility of developmental secret Soviet aircraft overflying US airspace. This, of course, was of major concern to the fledgling USAF, whose job it was to protect these same skies.
The research revealed only one official AAF document that indicated that there was any activity of any type that pertained to UFOs and Roswell in July 1947. This was a small section of the July Historical Report for the 509th Bomb Group and Roswell AAF that stated: “The Office of Public Information was quite busy during the month answering inquiries on the ‘flying disk’, which was reported to be in possession of the 509th Bomb Group. The object turned out to be a radar tracking balloon” […] Additionally, this history showed that the 509th Commander, Colonel Blanchard, went on leave on 8 July 1947, which would be a somewhat unusual maneuver for a person involved in the supposed first ever recovery of extraterrestrial materials. (Detractors claim Blanchard did this as a ploy to elude the press and go to the scene to direct the recovery operations.) The history and the morning reports also showed that the subsequent activities at Roswell during the month were mostly mundane and not indicative of any unusual high-level activity, expenditure of manpower, resources or security.
Likewise, the researchers found no indication of heightened activity anywhere else in the military hierarchy in the July 1947 message traffic or orders (to include classified traffic). There were no indications and warnings, notice of alerts, or a higher tempo of operational activity reported that would be logically generated if an alien craft, whose intentions were unknown, entered US territory. To believe that such operational and high-level security activity could be conducted solely by relying on unsecured telecommunications or personal contact without creating any records of such activity certainly stretches the imagination of those who have served in the military who know that paperwork of some kind is necessary to accomplish even emergency, highly classified, or sensitive tasks.
An example of activity sometimes cited by pro-UFO writers to illustrate the point that something unusual was going on was the travel of Lt.-General Nathan Twining, Commander of the Air Materiel Command, to New Mexico in July 1947. Actually, records were located indicating that Twining went to the Bomb Commanders’ Course on 8 July, along with a number of other general officers, and requested orders to do so a month before, on 5 June
