The Battalion
uesday 'July 8, 1997
koswell: The truth
is out there
Americans speculate on New Mexico 'UFO crash, 'government involvement
Robby Ray
Columnist,
Senior speech
communications
major
) oswell. This word brings to mind
f thoughts of aliens, conspiracies
Vand cover ups. But people want to
S'fnowwhat the truth is and what really
cei appened out there.
S N The United States Air Force has re-
ently issued a report which it hopes will
Cl ethelast word on the subject. These
. opes are probably in vain, however, be-
luse a growing number of people
s *“j [fuse to believe anything the govern-
e ' lent says. These people not only under-
,, line not only the faith and patriotism of
^ leir fellow countrymen, but also their
ra search for the facts about the
.. joswell incident.
The facts, such as they are, are these:
™ In June 14, 1947, a ranch hand named
JW. (Mac) Brazel discovered some
irange debris while doing his rounds on
vej i keJ.B. Foster sheep ranch near Roswell,
^ iewMexico.
|’ t jjjj The debris consisted of rubber strips,
L ^ iifoil, Scotch tape, other tape with a flo-
1 aldesign and what Brazel described as a
ather tough paper. On July 7, he turned
n( jj lie debris over to the Air Force after
learing rumors of a reward offered for
M myproof of extraterrestrial travelers,
pries, The responding Air Force officer got
Imeis acited and reported to his command-
3, iigofficer that he had discovered the
erel neckage of a “flying disk.” The com-
i was nander released a press report saying
bull tie same, then retracted it the next day
afterfurther investigation concluded
that the wreckage was of a then-secret
balloon project.
Since that time, there have been nu
merous investigations, rumors and re
ports supporting and refuting these
hcts.kcording to various sources,
the Air Force recovered alien bodies,
alien prisoners, working alien space
craft, wreckage of an alien spacecraft
or the remains of a secret government
aircraft. Those individuals holding
these beliefs are as devout as any reli
gious faithful, sometimes believing on
less evidence.
In the last few years, the U. S. gov
ernment has released several reports
stating that the events of July 1947
happened exactly as outlined above.
Many Americans, however, refuse to
believe this.
In a recent Time/Yankelovich poll, 34
percent of Americans believe aliens have
visited the earth. Of those, 65 percent
believe a UFO crashed at Roswell, and
80 percent think the government knows
more than it is admitting.
It may not be too surprising, though,
in this post-Watergate era, that citizens
don’t believe the government.
With recent revelations of the
Tuskegee experiments, radiation test
ing during WW II and the Gulf War syn
drome, some people wonder if the gov
ernment ever tells the truth. But
absolute secrecy is incredibly difficult
to maintain.
The SR-71 Blackbird and F-117
Stealth Fighter were both developed
and tested in secrecy, but these projects
lasted less than 15 years before they
were declassified.
If there were aliens at Roswell, it
would be a much juicier story than just
another new plane, and it has now been
50 years. It seems implausible that no
one has leaked anything, or some retired
officer seeking to clear his conscience
on his deathbed has not broken the
whole story.
Questions arise on why, with all the
evidence to the contrary, people still
choose to believe the alien story?
According to Benson Saler and
Charles A. Ziegler, anthropology profes
sors at Brandeis University, belief in the
UFO incident has to do with creating a
purpose or meaning in life.
The Roswell story is “an effort to put
enchantment back into nature,” Saler
said. It serves as an anti-government
narrative, and by using a nearly omnipo
tent government conspiracy as an ene
my, it eliminates counter-arguments.
Any contrary evidence can be said to
have been produced by the government,
while the very lack of supporting evi
dence can be portrayed as proof that the
event happened because the govern
ment would, of course, destroy it all.
The bottom line is UFO advocates
have created a new religion whose fol
lowers only need to believe that they
can’t trust their government.
The problem is that if Americans can
not trust the government about things
that happened a half-century ago, they
cannot trust it about things which are
happening now.
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Continued from page 1
Mayor Thomas E. Jennings of Roswell, New Mex
ico, said government officials have a responsibility
to the public to release records on this incident.
"I ran a platform of open government and I
g°] believe that all government records should be
open and available to the community, with the
exception of maybe something to do with law
enforcement,” Jennings said.
Speculation over what truly happened at
Roswell has confused and intrigued multitudes of
people these days. Although he is a citizen of
Roswell, even Jennings doesn’t have a clear hold on
the events that took place.
“I’m not sure, I wish I knew,” he said. “I guess that’s
why everybody is here and everybody wants to know.”
But even with the recent report released by the
Air Force which intends to close all questions about
the incident, Jennings said more than just a weath
er balloon must have crash landed to the ground.
“Something must have happened, because
there’s so many reports of it,” he said. “It may have
been a weather balloon, it may have been a classi
fied U.S. Air Force vehicle or something, or it may
have been a UFO. It’s hard to tell.”
Jennings also said there are many reasons
which could easily explain the occurrence.
“In New Mexico, there’s a number of govern
ment research installations: White Sands Missile
Range... Sandia National Labs where they develop
atomic weapons, and then at White Sands, missile
systems,” he said. “It certainly could have been
possible that this was something related to those.”
What can be said is that the American gov
ernment waited an eon to finally attempt to seal
all government-conspiracy cover up ties. A time
lapse of 50 years is certainly enough time for the
government to conjure up a story to deliver to
the public. The problem arises when people be
gin to question whether what the government
has disclosed is actually the truth or simply a
bunch of thrown-together facts and fictions to
quiet public scrutiny.
“For them [government officials] to come out at
this time ... I don’t know what their thought process
was,” Jennings said. “It’s hard to speculate what the
government’s doing because I think their para
chuting dummy theory is really... it supposedly
happened after the event in the ’50s.”
Whether there actually was a UFO landing or
a crashed weather balloon, the people of
Roswell and the rest of the country need to
know what happened. Jennings said the whole
situation surrounding Roswell has to come to
some sort of conclusion where everyone can fi
nally understand the incident.
“I hope we have some resolution — that’s our
whole intent,” he said. “If we can get the govern
ment to release information, hopefully we’ll under
stand better what really happened.”
Furthermore, Jennings said whether it was a UFO
or not, he and the citizens of Roswell need to know.
“Prove it or disprove it,” he said, “and help us
bo that.”
One thing that can be proven is that America
ir
7
has certainly become more interested in aliens be
cause of the speculated occurrences in Roswell.
Over the past 50 years, the film and television
mediums have depicted alien life forms ranging
from the cute Marvin the Martian to the evil de
stroyers in Independence Day. Jennings said one
factor contributing to this surge in these depic
tions is the ever-growing array of new information
al systems coming into view.
“As we live in the information age, I think
we’re learning more and more about what has
gone on in the past,” Jennings said. “Now that
this is really the first space-age generation, I
think there’s more and more interest in the po
tential for E.T.’s and UFOs.”
As far as alien creations in movies, Jennings said
none of the past or present creations can be trusted.
“I think those are figments of the imagination,”
he said. “I don’t think anybody really knows what
the forms are.”
Portrayals of aliens in film have reached the far
spectrum of the imagination, but no one person
can say he or she truly knows what lies beyond the
clouds and stars above. Jennings said he carries his
own thoughts on what could be out there.
“I think that if there really is an E.T. out there, it
would be inquisitive,” he said. “They’re explorers of
the universe as I think mankind as we know it also
wants to explore the universe.”
But in a philosophical frame of mind, Jennings
said people simply have an inquisitive nature.
“I don’t think we’re out there to dominate,” he said.
“We’re out there to explore and satisfy our curiosity.”
Although the occurrence at Roswell serves as a
beacon of interest and historical value, it also acts
as a means to help the community’s welfare.
In this small desert community of about 50,000
people, the citizens have found a way to sustain a
fluid economy. From alien dolls to T-shirts to
bumper stickers, Jennings said Roswell has pros
pered from the incident’s history.
“This is certainly not an O.J. Simpson event, but
people are capitalizing on it and it’s a business,” he
said. “Some people may consider it a lemon or
something and we’ve turned that lemon into
lemonade; we’ve made something very memorable
through marketing and merchandising.”
For all of the scrutiny the town has endured
these past 50 years, every citizen deserves a piece
of the incident’s popularity.
“We’ve received worldwide publicity and
recognition,” Jennings said. “I think it’s a very
positive impact on our community, because be
fore, when somebody said ‘Roswell,’ nobody
knew where it was. Today, the whole world knows
where we are and I think the whole world is
watching to see what happens.”
But as the world continues to question the his
toric events that took place in Roswell, people de
serve the right to know what the government is
obviously concealing. Even if there was no true
UFO landing, history can be made by the govern
ment disclosing the facts behind the incident. So
keep the eyes to the sky and maybe one day there
will be an explanation for Roswell. Maybe one day
there will be an answer to the question of whether
we’re alone and how to deal with the situation if
we find out that we’re not.
AP Photo: The Roswell Daily Record headlined the 'UFO incident,' which occurred in Roswell, New Mexico in ju|y 1947.
Americans fall under spell of
alien reports, blurred reality
John Lemons
I #■!
Columnist,
Electrical engineering
JL.7jJ
graduate student
I he ancient Greeks had
Olympus. It was the center
of their mythology — a
place where the gods roamed
and occasionally deigned to in
teract with man. Modem Ameri
cans have Roswell, New Mexico.
It is the center of the new
mythology — a place where
aliens occasionally crash, only to
be swiftly covered up and hidden
away by the Air Force.
It has been 50 years since
“something” happened in Roswell.
Throughout the majority of those
50 years, Roswell has lived in rela
tive anonymity. But the last decade
has seen Roswell become increas
ingly entrenched in the American
mind as stories of UFOs, aliens
and conspiracies become main
stream. With this progression,
Americans are losing their ability
to distinguish reality from fantasy.
UFOs and their impinging
conspiracy theories represent
the mythology of the ’90s. While
their ancestors feared vampires,
werewolves and sea monsters,
Americans fear pale-skinned,
bug-eyed aliens who abduct vic
tims for gruesome medical ex
aminations. Now that man has
explored every nook and cranny
of this world, maps no longer are
marked with warnings which
claim “monsters abide here.” For
the time being, the monsters
have relocated to places like
outer space and Area 51.
America’s entertainment re
flects this obsession with aliens.
The No.l movie in the country
this week is Men In Black, a film
about secret government agents
who monitor and hide extrater
restrial activity. The X-Files has
captivated audiences for the past
four years with its intriguing
search for the truth about aliens
and the government, that always
seems to be just beyond Agents
Mulder and Scully’s grasp.
The problem with this alien ob
session is that it is beginning to af
fect American behavior. Fantasy is
dictating people’s lives and actions.
This weekend, thousands of peo
ple visited Roswell to commemo
rate the 50th anniversary of the
“UFO crash,” CNN had hourly re
ports from the festival and speak
ers spoke on how the government
is hoarding recovered alien tech
nology and back-engineering it for
use in military weapons.
In 1994, as the publicity sur
rounding the Roswell incident
grew, New Mexico Rep. Steven
Schiff pressured the General Ac
counting Office into doing a search
for any government documents re
lating to the incident — the GAO
found none. The Air Force then
launched its own six-month inves
tigation which claimed the crash
involved a balloon carrying devices
which listened for Soviet nuclear
tests. This explanation, however,
did not satisfy the true believers,
nor did it explain the stories of
alien bodies, so the Air Force
launched a final investigation.
Two weeks ago, the Air Force
released its report, “The Roswell
Report: Case Closed.” This report
offers a logical explanation for
the lore surrounding UFOs and
their relation to Roswell. The Air
Force said the stories of recov
ered alien bodies, which did not
surface until the 1980s, originat
ed from the testing of parachute
systems on dummies in Roswell
during the 1950s. During a press
conference on the Air Force re
port, Col John Haynes said the
reports of bodies also could
come from the recovery of 11 Air
Force personnel in a 1957 crash
of a KC-97 aircraft and a 1959
crash of a manned balloon, both
of which happened at Roswell.
Despite these plausible expla
nations and a dearth of physical
evidence, rumors persist. A recent
CNN/Time poll reported that 80
percent of Americans believe the
government is hiding knowledge
on the existence of extraterrestrial
life forms. The real mystery sur
rounding UFOs is how the public
has bought into the hoopla.
Perhaps the public believes if it
wishes hard enough, this fantasy
will come true. Unfortunately, pur
suing fantasy as if it were a reality
only causes waste. It was a terrible 'i
waste for the Air Force to spend
three years searching for Chew-
bacca in the desert. The suicides 1
committed by the members of the
Heaven’s Gate cult in order to join ,
their alien gods was a tragic waste.
It is even worse to dishonor the«
lives of service men who died
protecting their country by claim- ,
ing their bodies were the recov
ered remains of aliens.
Perhaps someday Americans »
will get to live out the Star Trek ex
istence they desire. For now, a cer- •
tain percentage of them will con- '
tinue to imagine that there are
alien bogeymen and government
conspiracies around every corner.
Beam me up to reality, Scotty.
I f
i \ *
i A
% ■
Graphic:
Brad Graeber