The Roswell Incident
Something fell from the New Mexico sky — and the story changed twice.
In July 1947 the world's only atomic-bomber base announced it had recovered a 'flying disc' — then retracted it within hours, calling the debris a weather balloon. Decades later the government changed its story again.
On 8 July 1947, the public information officer at Roswell Army Air Field issued a press release stating that the 509th Bomb Group had recovered a crashed 'flying disc' from a nearby ranch. It made headlines around the world. Within hours, a higher command intervened: the disc was now a weather balloon, the debris paraded for photographers.
For thirty years the case lay dormant — until witnesses, including the original intelligence officer Major Jesse Marcel, came forward to say the recovered material was nothing of this Earth: foil that unfolded itself after being crushed, beams inscribed with symbols, a tensile strength no balloon possessed.
In 1994 and 1997 the U.S. Air Force released two reports admitting the weather-balloon story was itself a cover — the real object, they said, was a classified spy balloon from 'Project Mogul' designed to detect Soviet nuclear tests. The bodies witnesses described? 'Crash-test dummies,' said the Air Force — dummies not dropped until the 1950s, critics noted.
- ■Original 8 July 1947 RAAF press release announcing a recovered disc
- ■Sworn testimony of Maj. Jesse Marcel, base intelligence officer
- ■1994 & 1997 USAF reports (a cover story replacing a cover story)
Officially: a spy balloon. Unofficially: the moment the modern UFO age began — and the first time a government was caught changing its alien story not once, but twice.