Roswell

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(References and notes)
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*[http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a4_052.html Cecil Adams tackles Roswell in 1996] (including a debate with a believer)
 
*[http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a4_052.html Cecil Adams tackles Roswell in 1996] (including a debate with a believer)
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*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roswell_UFO_incident Wikipedia's writeup, with references]

Revision as of 18:07, 11 January 2008

Roswell, New Mexico is a town in the state of New Mexico, known primarily as the birthplace of Demi Moore and some thing involving UFOs.

What people say happened

Narrator: In A.D. 1947, Cold War was beginning.
Captain: What happen ?
Mechanic: Somebody set up us the balloon.
Operator: We get signal.
Captain: What!
Operator: Main screen turn on.
Captain: It's you!!
Greys: How are you gentlemen!!
Greys: All your base are belong to us.
Captain: ...
Captain: Can we just give you that one base in Nevada?

What actually happened

Well, there's quite a story there, but far less exotic than the UFOlogists have always said. Although the term "flying saucer" was used in the newspapers in the area at the time, it was retracted in favor of "weather balloon". Neither was exactly accurate, though the latter is far closer to the truth.

On 14 June 1947, Roswell rancher Mac Brazel found a tangled clump of balsa wood, tinfoil, and some oddly decorated tape. Some military men from the nearby Army air field came by and picked it up, somehow mistaking it for a flying saucer. The Pentagon, realizing that it was a radar reflector from a nuclear weapons test detection system they'd been working on called Project Mogul, called it a weather balloon and stopped talking about it. The first wave of the UFO craze started about a week and a half later in Washington state. Roswell would remain forgotten until the late 1970s, when true believers started investigating the story, jumped to a lot of conclusions, and elevated it into a huge conspiracy theory.

Roswell (the incident) has long since become a major moneymaker for Roswell (the town), and has become a byword for UFO believers (as a great coverup) and UFO skeptics (as a symbol of tenacious credulity).

References and notes

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