On this day, June 24, 1997, the U.S. Air Force released a 232-page report titled “The Roswell Report: Case Closed,” about a mysterious incident near Roswell, New Mexico, which some believe which was a forced landing of a UFO. on earth.
The report was the second part of the government's official disclosure of what was found in rural New Mexico in the 1940s. In 1994, the government published “The Roswell Report: Fact versus Fiction in the New Mexico Desert “.
“The 'Roswell Incident' has assumed a central place in American folklore since the events of the 1940s in a remote area of New Mexico,” notes the foreword to the 1997 report, written by Air Force Secretary Sheila A. Widnall.
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“Because the Air Force was a major player in those events, we have played a key role in executing the General Accounting Office's task of uncovering all records related to that incident,” he added.
“Our goal throughout this investigation has been simple and consistent: find all the facts and bring them to light. If the documents were classified, declassify them; where they were scattered, bring them to a single source for public review,” Widnall said.
A boy and girl visit the “impact site” of a suspected extraterrestrial spacecraft during a UFO festival near Roswell, New Mexico, July 5, 1996. The Air Force released a 232-page report on the incident on the 24th. June 1997. (Getty Images)
With the publication of “The Roswell Report: Case Closed”, Widnall considered that “we have achieved our goal of a full and open explanation of the events that occurred in the Southwest many years ago.”
The details are as follows: On June 14, 1947, a rancher named WW (“Mac”) Brazel made an unusual discovery on his ranch, about 80 miles northwest of Roswell.
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Brazel described the scene as “a large area of shiny debris made up of rubber strips, aluminum foil, fairly strong paper, and sticks.“
Not knowing what to do with this find, he left it alone for about two weeks, notes Smithsonian magazine.
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On July 4, Brazel collected all the debris he could find and three days later, he took it to the Roswell sheriff.
Sheriff George Wilcox had no idea what Brazel had stumbled upon, so he in turn contacted Colonel “Butch” Blanchard, commander of the 509th Composite Group at Roswell Army Airfield (RAAF), who was located near the city.
Many people were skeptical about the Roswell incident, thinking that the government engaged in some type of cover-up regarding extraterrestrial life. (Getty Images)
Blanchard also had no idea what the strange discovery might be, so he contacted General Roger W. Ramey, his superior.
Ramey was commander of the 8th Air Force in Fort Worth, Texas, nearly 500 miles from Roswell, the Smithsonian said.
In addition to Ramey, Blanchard sought help from Maj. Jesse Marcel, an intelligence officer, the Smithsonian said. Marcel, Brazel, and Wilcox returned to Brazel's ranch to investigate further.
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“While they were trying to determine what the materials were, Marcel decided to make a public statement. On July 8, Marcel's comments appeared in the local evening newspaper, the Roswell Daily Record, along with a headline that read: 'RAAF captures saucer steering wheel on a ranch in Roswell,'” the Smithsonian said.
“The 509th Bombardment Group's intelligence office at Roswell Army Air Field announced at noon today that the field has been taken over by a flying saucer,” the article stated.
Roswell is home to the International UFO Museum and Research Center and the UFO Festival. (Getty Images)
The revelation that the RAAF had an extraterrestrial object in its possession sparked something of a frenzy.
“Apparently, from the Air Force's perspective it was better that there was an 'alien' spacecraft crashed there than telling the truth,” Roger Lanius, former curator of Space History at the National Air and Space Museum, told Smithsonian Magazine. from the Smithsonian.
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“A flying saucer was easier to admit than Project Mogul,” he said, referring to the then-classified project that operated from 1947 to 1949.
“And with that, we got to work.”
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The next day, the military made a valiant, if unsuccessful, effort to walk back the history of flying saucers, with the Roswell Daily Record publishing an article titled: “Military Discredits Roswell Frisbee as World Seethes with Enthusiasm” .
The military claimed the wreckage found at Brazel's ranch was a high-altitude weather balloon, the Smithsonian said.
Jesse Marcel, the intelligence chief who initially investigated and recovered some of the debris from the Roswell UFO site, poses with some of the remains found near Roswell. (Getty Images)
Eventually, it was revealed that the strange remains were actually part of Project Mogul, the Smithsonian noted.
“In this classified program, the US government launched high-altitude balloons into the ionosphere, hoping to monitor Russian nuclear tests,” the same source said.
One of those balloons crashed at Brazel's ranch.
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Meanwhile, Roswell has fully embraced the UFO trend.
The city of about 48,000 features an alien on its official seal, while a “Welcome to Roswell” sign erected in 2017 shows a cow abducted by a flying saucer, the Roadside America website notes.
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The city-operated “See Roswell” tourism website sells “official merchandise” featuring flying saucers and other extraterrestrial motifs.
UFO enthusiasts flock to Roswell each July for the annual “UFO Festival,” and the city is home to the International UFO Museum and Research Center, its website notes.
