What is the Roswell incident? It is the mysterious crashing of some unkown object, reportedly a UFO, in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947. There's much more than that, however, or else we wouldn't still be talking about it. After pieces of the object were recovered and looked over the government actually claimed it was a UFO, but quickly changed it's story to saying it was a weather balloon.

Phil Klass, "What crashed at Roswell was a...chain of weather balloons..." He's talking about the project Mogul, a top secret project which involved such a chain of weather balloons, which was unclassified later. Roswell is located in Chavez county in southeastern New Mexico. The town was established in the 1860's. Towards the beginning of WWII, it's first air force base was set up, but closed in the 1960's and is now used for commercial flight and aircraft testing.

Now take yourself to June, 1947 when Roswell is just an agricultural city and not very large. All across the country people reported sights of "flying saucers". On July 5, 1947 a local citizen of Roswell who worked out in the fields, Ravell, discovers metallic debris scattered all about. He makes the drive into town and reports this to the sheriff, who notifies officials at the air force base. A few days later after some investigstion, on July 7, troops are deployed to guard the area and the debris is taken away. The next day, the report goes out that it is the remains of a flying saucer, and the newspapers print out all the headlines giving the amazing story, but then the government officials change their story and claim it was a weather balloon that had gone down. On July 9, the headlines read the correction, everybody believed it, and it seemed as if that was the end of the story. But the residents of Roswell didn't believe it, and years later they begin to tell their stories.

Nuclear physicist Stanton Friedman recorded a rare interview with intelligence officer Jesse Marcel who knew a lot more than most people about what really happened. Jesse Marcel, "we didn't know what it was at first...we saw little symbols...heiroglyphics..." In the interview he talks about the pieces he had contact with and studied. He tried to bend it and found that impossible. He even tried using a forty pound sledge hammer, and it didn't bend at all.

Bill McDonald, forensic sketch artist, was called in to listen to witnesses and draw an accurate representation of what it might have looked like. He says it was a stingray shaped, winged vehicle which was covered by beehive patterned cells which powered anti-gravity devices or some sort of electromagnetic propulsion systems. He says it was most likely twenty-eight feet long and twenty-five feet wide.

There is evidence that within hours of the report to the government, sacks of some of the debris were taken to Washington, D.C. to Pres. Truman. Other pieces were taken to various bases, including high-tech science labs for analysis.

Most of the voices recently raised about Roswell have not come from "new age radicals" or eccentrics, but from the scientific community. Aerospace engineer Ron Ray reports that it may be from some sort of top secret weapon being developed for WWII, like the Mogul project.

If it was a U.S. plane or aicraft that went down, however, we would have searched the area and easily found it, because it crashed in a large open field, fifty miles around, and easily visible by plane. A witness of the Roswell incident, known as "D" knows that ranchers and locals who may have seen the wreckage were told by military officials to not say anything or they would be executed.

So, what about the occupants?

"[they are]moving slowly, they're red, green, and white flashing lights..."

"there's six or more...there's three of them almost in a straight line..."

Earliest reports of such sightings date back hundreds and even thousands of years ago. Motion pictures and TV shows often depicted alien invasions in the 50's and 60's, and even today. The idea of extra-terrestrial life has been used for entertainment. It has also been used to explain such phenomena as abductions, crop circles, and cattle mutilations.

John Pike, space policy manager, "only a small percent of the thousands of sightings each year are unexplanable at first look."

Jack Rodden, "The story is that our government clamps the lid on something using tactics which are...constitutionally questionable...and getting away with it."

Stanton Friedman, "Many people think it's so easy to find answers thanks to [the] Freedom of Information [Act], but it's not so easy." Former commanding sergeant Robert Dean says that lying to the public has become government policy.

Since the earliest days of this country, the government has been there to serve the U.S. public. Until the last few decades when the government has begun witholding information and our leaders have been more and more corrupt. Examples of such dishonesty include the secret raids on Vietnam, and the missile launchings at Nicaragua, both took place without the knowledge of the public. With such a track record as this, dating back to the beginning of this century, it's not hard to believe the government would hold back information on extra-terrestrial life. Is it possible that both the weather balloon story and the UFO story were smoke screens for a secret weapon which was to be used against Russia?

Why keep it a secret? Think of Orson Welles' "War of the Worlds" and it's effect on us. Imagine if the public learned of alien life visiting us. We were already tested once by a frozen meteorite which possibly contained evidence of life on Mars. What happened? Society was cracked down the middle. There were people who said it was impossible that there's no way, and then the people who said yes, I knew it all along. Bill McDonald thinks that since the UFO at Roswell so closely resembles modern stealth and spy aircraft, that the military has been using it as a model for new aerospace design.