Moore supervised the launching of balloons with equipment for monitoring Soviet nuclear tests. Each balloon had reflective materials that allowed radar tracking for easy retrieval. According to Air Force records, one of the Mogul balloon arrays was launched on June 4 and was lost by radar tracking near the Brazel debris site a few weeks later. What seemed to clinch the case was the fact that some of the balloon package material was balsa wood held together with glue and packing tape, some of which was emblazoned with abstract designs and lettering that could have been mistaken for hieroglyphics.
But in June 1997, the Air Force came up with a different explanation for the Roswell debris. An internal study discovered that shortly after 1947 a military project was underway, involving the dropping of mannequins from high-altitude balloons to help understand the injuries sustained by pilots and crew who fell from their aircraft. According to the Air Force, it was these three- and four-foot hairless mannequins that were seen by Roswell witnesses and interpreted as aliens.
Needless to say, this explanation hasn’t sat well with investigators and researchers. Some point out that the mannequins were not deployed until long after the Roswell debris discovery. This is countered by the detail that eyewitness accounts of alien bodies did not emerge until decades after the fact, allowing the possibility of confusion in witnesses’ memories about the year of their observations. The alien bodies story became even more confounding with the publication of a new theory in 2005 that the small bodies with large heads were actually human victims of progenia or other malformations who had been subjects in Air Force experiments.
The problem with coming up with a viable and coherent explanation for all the Roswell evidence and claims is that first the Air Force denied there was any event at all. Then it suggested that the crash was Mogul balloons and later added the mannequin explanation. This sounds suspiciously like arm-waving exercises — trying to make the data fit the theory, and not the other way around. Pro-UFO researchers are probably justified in looking askance at these explanations, which seemed to change as newer information was discovered by researchers.
In fact, since part of the Roswell legend is the switching of newspaper stories to comply with military demands, the accusation of a cover-up may be valid. Even if the truth behind the Roswell crash stories is something militarily terrestrial, there is enough evidence to suggest a cover-up of some kind is involved. But was an alien spaceship behind it all, or a top secret military accident?
Researchers note that the air base near Roswell was the only one with nuclear capability in 1947. Furthermore, the area was home to former Nazi rocket scientists spirited out of Europe following the end of the Second World War as part of Operation Paperclip, an attempt to obtain secrets of rocketry and nuclear science. Certainly some experiments would have resulted in at least a few “accidents” which would have been highly classified.
One argument in defense of an apparent cover-up is that with all the secret projects underway in the area in the late 1940s, and with compartmentalization of knowledge in a typical military approach, it is indeed possible that some high-ranking (and most low-ranking) military personnel would not have had knowledge of certain experiments taking place literally right under their noses.
The most vexing issue is that of time. We are well past the sixtieth anniversary of the Roswell case. Most firsthand witnesses are dead. All relevant official documents may have crumbled out of existence long ago, or been accidentally (or purposefully) destroyed.
In 2007, the publication of the contents of an affidavit signed by Walter Haut, the 509th’s press officer responsible for the initial report that a UFO had been found, created a considerable stir within ufology. It was supposedly written in 2002 and sealed until his death. Throughout his lifetime, Haut maintained that he had never seen any wreckage, and even stated this explicitly on the Larry King show on CNN in 2003.
However, in the affidavit, Haut stated that he not only had seen it but handled wreckage from the crash site. He wrote that it was “unlike any material I had or have ever seen in my life.” Further, he was later taken to a hangar where he was shown an object “12 to 15 feet in length, not quite as wide, about 6 feet high, and more of an egg shape.” And, most astonishingly, “from a distance, I was able to see a couple of bodies under a canvas tarpaulin.” Later in his post-mortem confession, he stated: “I am convinced that what I personally observed was some type of craft and its crew from outer space.”
Skeptics have charged that there is no evidence Haut actually drafted the affidavit himself, as he was already becoming frail and feeble at the time it was written. Indeed, on that same CNN program in 2003 he did appear confused and did not even stay through the entire planned interview. Yet, one ufologist insisted that when Haut was interviewed in 2001, he was clear of thought and knew precisely what he was talking about.
UFOS AND ALIENS ON TV
A TV series based entirely on the UFO mythology surrounding this incident is Roswell, which ran from 1999– 2001. The premise was that some aliens did survive the crash of a craft at Roswell in 1947 and hatched in 1989 as young aliens with the physical appearance of humans. They are unaware of their heritage and powers but learn them over time as they are hunted by the FBI and other factions who want to capture them. Essentially a teenage romance series, the TV show was based on a series of popular young adult literature novels.
As for the change of heart about seeing the wreckage, while Haut was alive, there was no way that he would have admitted seeing it as he would still have been liable for prosecution. In order to protect himself, he could be on record to admit his falsehood only after his death.
Despite the excitement within ufological circles about this testimony, even a signed affidavit by a key witness to the Roswell incident does not offer proof that the crash really occurred. Furthermore, the Roswell crash is only one of several alleged cases where an alien spacecraft has been said to have impacted Earth. Other crashed-saucer cases have been cited and discussed elsewhere in the world, including Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, in 1965; Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1953; and Moriches Bay, New York, in 1989.
If any alien debris was recovered by military personnel near Roswell, it has long since been hidden or disposed of. The public debates among believers and non-believers (or other believers with opposing theories) have contributed to a cover-up of the true nature of the original event. In short, we may never get to the bottom of what occurred in the New Mexico desert in 1947.
The Roswell case goes far beyond the debate as to whether or not an alien spacecraft crashed into the desert. Roswell has taken on a life of its own, with an annual celebration and series of UFO conventions in the area. There are tours of the crash site, souvenir stands, museums, and yearly re-enactments of the incident. The town has had parades, costume contests, and even a commissioned musical theatre show to commemorate the event.
It’s almost as if the Roswell story did not have to be true anymore.
3 THE BEGINNING OF THE FLYING SAUCER ERA
Following the sighting of metallic disc-like objects by Kenneth Arnold, many more people reported seeing unusual objects in the sky.
On July 10, 1947, at about 5:30 p.m., two Pan American Airways mechanics and a third witness were driving up a mountain road about 10 kilometres south of Harmon Field, an American Air Force Base near Stephenville, Newfoundland.
J.E. Woodruff, J.N. Mehrman, and A.R. Leidy reported seeing a silver, disc-shaped object flying high overhead at an estimated altitude of about 3,000 metres. The object was flying in a horizontal arc over the base and towards the north-northeast. Its size was comparable to a C-54 transport aircraft. As it flew past, it left behind a bluish-black trail about 24 kilometres long. One of the witnesses (not specified in the report but thought to be Woodruff) had a camera with him and managed to take two Kodachrome pictures of the trail.
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