Roswell, New Mexico

I am sure everyone has heard of Roswell. It was near here on July 4, 1947 that a rancher reported finding a crashed UFO. He took some pieces to the nearby Air Force base which sent out a team to investigate. The next day the base commander issued a press release to the effect that they had “captured” a “Flying Saucer”! A call was made by the local Sheriff to the local mortician asking for five child sized coffins to be immediately sent to the Base. A local nurse reported that one of the “Creatures” from the UFO was alive and that they were trying to treat it. The next day higher up Government and Army officials descended on the Base and things took on a sinister air.

The Base Commander was showing one of his superiors some pieces of the wreckage in his office when the superior asked to be shown something in another part of the base. When they got back to the office the original wreckage was missing and in it’s place were pieces of a weather balloon. The Base Commander was told that he had made a "mistake" and had misidentified a crashed weather balloon. He was to issue another press release admitting this error and testify to the fact that the wreckage was actually a balloon. This he did two days after the original press release.

The “bodies” were explained away by another “misidentification”, this time base doctors had misidentified crash test dummies used in high altitude fall experiments. The doctors had mistakenly believed for two days that these wooden dummies were actual flesh and blood beings and that one of them was actually alive. How silly of them!

The army moved into the crash site and removed all of the debris and much of the soil, all of which was taken away in trucks. Security was extremely high and all non-military personnel were threatened and warned to keep the whole thing quiet. In the 70’s some of the people involved began dying and death bed statements to friends and family sparked a renewed interest in the “Roswell Incident”. Several books and a movie have been the result of this new interest.

Roswell is now the home of the International UFO Museum and Research Center. When I visited today they were occupying an old movie theatre building but a new facility is being built that will take up almost a whole city block. Roswell is on my list of places to come back to. Understandably, because of the efficiency of the army in removing everything from the site in 1947, there is little physical evidence to be displayed. Copies of documents and written records of interviews of the Base Commander before he was told to shut up are on display. The movie “Roswell” with Martin Sheen is being shown continuously. The crash site itself is on private property and as it is a working ranch is closed to the public.

To me, this has an interesting tie to the Kennedy Assassination. In both cases, professional people were told by “the Government” that they had made dumb errors in their personal fields of expertise and were forced to expound the “revised” stories.

In the Kennedy case highly trained doctors were told they had misidentified bullet entrance and exit wounds. They were told they had made a mistake and the small hole in the front of the skull was actually the exit wound and the missing piece of skull in the back was actually the entrance wound. Forget everything they had learned in Medical School and through years of experience. Experienced policemen were told to change their reports that stated they heard gunshots from the Grassy Knoll. They were told they had been "mistaken".

At Roswell, doctors and medical professionals were told they could not tell the difference between wooden dummies and bodies. Career Air Force people were told they did not know the difference between metal airframes and balloons. What an insult to dedicated professionals. As in the Kennedy case the “revised reality” replaced actual observations and experiences.

Could this happen today? Well, remember the “Weapons of Mass Destruction”? Weapons experts, investigators, army officers, photo analysts and spies said there were none. Well, they were over-ruled and the USA went to war over them. So yes, it can still happen as long as people believe what they are told to believe and "Obey Without Question".

The July 6, 1947 Headline and one of the Test Dummies of the era. See how easy it would be for a doctor to think this was a flesh and blood being? Good thing a politician set him straight!

The Museum and one of it’s neighbours: