UFO Sighting in Roswell, New Mexico

In 1947, a US Air Force balloon fell near Roswell, New Mexico. A man named Mac Brazel and his son found the wreckage of various metallic fabrics around their ranch outside of Roswell (Webster, 2017). Major Jesse Marcel from the US Army Air Force made a public statement to the local newspaper, Roswell Daily Record, and said that the field where the wreckage was found was home to “Possession of a Flying Saucer” (Webster, 2017). While the report that was sent to the Air Force said that the UFO was a weather balloon, an article from the Smithsonian, because this event occurred so close to the end of World War II, it was easier for the Air Force to say the crash was home to a flying saucer than to start a panic about another metal object falling onto American soil. 

As conspiracies grew in popularity in the 1970s, conspiracy theorists began to research more records of flying objects in and around Roswell. The FBI released records of hundreds of reports of UFO sightings in Roswell throughout the 20th century - beginning with the original incident in 1947 (Roswell UFO Sightings). A poll conducted by CNN and TIME magazine showed that 80% of adults believe that at least 2, if not more, of these sightings are alien encounters covered up by the US Military (Poll U.S. Hiding Knowledge of Aliens). There is no real way to prove that the things witnesses claim to have seen are extraterrestrials, but the excitement behind the many reported sightings and possibility of extraterrestrial contact in Roswell, New Mexico has conspiracy theorists interested in the area even today.