Alien Enigma: Why the Roswell UFO Incident Continues to Spark Interest and Stir Controversy

A 'Flying Saucer' Crashes at Roswell

Roswell's name shines bright when it comes to UFO conspiracy theories. In June 1947, several reports surfaced in the media about a flying saucer crash at Roswell, New Mexico, BBC reported. These spottings led to the foundation of many conspiracy theories regarding UFOs in the coming decades. How the government handled the spottings and the later revelation by officials about the site, caused people to speculate that authorities don't want people to know about extraterrestrials visiting the planet. The town has embraced the mystery and elusiveness that has come with these alleged spottings. The town hosts conventions every year to mark the event that catapulted it into a cultural phenomenon.

UFO Sightings

Pilot, Kenneth Arnold, on June 24, 1947, was flying over the Cascade Mountains of Washington State in pursuit of a crashed military aircraft. He spotted nine crescent-shaped objects flying in tandem at a height of around 1.8 miles (10,000ft) with an estimated speed of approximately 1180.6 miles/hr. This caught Arnold's eye because traveling at 1180.6 miles/hr was impossible during those days. The media named the objects ‘flying saucer’ and it quickly became a topic of intrigue amongst the populace. On July 7,  a local rancher named ‘Mac’ Brazel in Roswell contacted authorities regarding strange debris on his ranch. Intelligence officer Jesse Marcel went to the ranch to collect and analyze the debris. The military base’s public information officer, Walter Haut shared with the media that they had collected the debris of a flying disc from the site. 

Government Tries to Cover-up Roswell Incident

The sightings led to a surge in people reporting strange spottings of alleged extraterrestrial aircraft around them, BBC reported. People were slowly warming to the fact that they could have extraterrestrial visitors when the government issued a change in their statement. In 24 hours, authorities came forward and changed their statement. They claimed that the 'flying saucer' in Roswell was in reality a crashed weather balloon. Photos of personnel with the remains of a weather balloon were published to back up the claims. These claims were more or less accepted by the public, and even though the news of other sightings continued to dominate the media, Roswell slowly disappeared from many people's consciousness.

Roswell's UFO Makes a Comeback

In 1978, Nuclear physicist-turned-ufologist, Stanton T Friedman, was tipped that a retired military man wanted to share some revelations about a mission he had been a part of, BBC reported. The retired personnel was Jesse Marcel, who told Friedman, that the weather balloon story was a hoax planted by authorities to hide what they found on the site. He claimed that everyone in the operation was sure that they had an extraterrestrial ship in their possession. After Friedman made Marcel's claim public, multiple conspiracy theorists reached out to other officials involved in the Roswell operation to hear their side of the story. Many corroborated that an extraterrestrial spaceship did crash on the site. These revelations made Roswell the centerpiece of UFO conspiracies in the USA.

Government Orders a Probe on Roswell Sightings

In the 1990s the U.S. government ordered a probe into the Roswell incident and was presented with two reports, the first in 1994 and the second in 1997, BBC reported. The report claimed that it was indeed a high-altitude weather balloon, which contained equipment meant for searching the atmosphere for evidence of Soviet nuclear tests. It was being used for the highly classified, Project Mogul. The investigators believe that any lies, if given by authorities were to keep the Project Mogul hidden from the public. The details of the report were made available in the media. This time though the public did not accept the explanation with open arms. To this date, people continue to discuss and analyze the Roswell spottings, with the various festivities in the town keeping the story alive.