Emily Neveu Mrs. Wirth English 9¾7th Hour 11 Oct. 2006 The Truth About Roswell Roswell, a town located in southeastern New Mexico, has become quite the center of controversy, and not the typical type either, but the extraterrestrial kind ("Roswell" World Online Reference Center). There are as many sides as there are stories. People tell of spaceships, crash-landings, aliens, and a colossal government cover-up. Although, these tales are as interesting as any science-fiction novel, there are untruthful. There was no government cover-up in Roswell, because there was no alien landing. The whole idea started with a sheep rancher who lived 85 miles away from Roswell. While making his rounds at the Foster Ranch, he came across what he later described as an alien crash site. "The wreckage was strewn over a over 200-yds swath and consisted of largely rubber strips, tinfoil, wooden sticks, scotch tape, and other tape with a floral design and what W.W. ("Mac") Brazel described as a rather tough paper" (Jaroff 68). On July 5th Brazel road into town to sell wood. Having heard of spaceship sightings on the radio just days earlier, he went to see Sheriff George Willox to tell him of what he had found. Willox in turn went to called Major Jesse Marcel, an intelligent officer. Immediately, Marcel drove into Roswell, picked up Brazel, and went to the site. The debri was then collected, and placed in Marcel’s truck. On his way back, Marcel stopped at his house to show his six year old son, Jesse Jr., what he had found. Five and a half decades later Jesse Jr. described what his father had shown him as tinfoil, plastic, seemingly metallic beams, and markings that resembled hieroglyphs (Jaroff 68-69). Could there possible be an explanation to what was actually found that day? Yes, there is, and it comes under the title of "Project Mogul." In 1947, a man by the name Charles Mogul was working on a top secret project in which trains of balloons were equipped with acoustical equipment designed to monitor nuclear tests by the Soviets. One of these balloons was launched June 4th and disappeared from radar mid-June, a mere 20 miles away from the ranch where Brazel worked! "Even more telling, More reported, the corner reflectors were put together with beams made of balsa wood and coated with ‘Elmer’s-type’ glue" (to strengthen them). Also, he noted, the New York Toy company that manufactured the reflectors had reinforced the seems with leftover tape that Moore recalled had "pinkish-purple abstract flower- like designs" markings that Major Marcel could have interpreted as hieroglyphics." (Jaroff 71) There was an initial frenzy that spread from a press release stating that the army had the UFO in there possession. However the next day another press release stated that it was not a UFO, but a high altitude weather balloon (Jaroff 71}. Soon, Roswell was just a faded news story to the average American (Levine). Unknown it would have stayed, had it not been for Stanton Friedman. In 1978 Friedman heard about Marcel and his handling in the supposed UFO wreckage. Friedman then read old news stories and interviewed people who claimed to be witnesses (Jaroff 69). These witnesses claimed to have seen either flying saucers or the UFO wreckage (Levine). In 1980 his book The Roswell Incident stirred up the notion that there were indeed aliens in Roswell (Jaroff 69). In 1989 an Episode of Unsolved Mysteries about Roswell would be the final push toward the hoax. After that many people came forward to proclaim they to had seen what the government would rather tune out. This was where, for the first time, the mentioning of alien bodies were mentioned. All the years that passed and no one before then had said anything about bodies. Many witnesses were caught telling lies and changing there stories multitude times (Levine). Many of the creditable stories to the opposition were proven as inconsistent. One story is that of Jim Ragsdale, who in the beginning said that he had seen four alien bodies near a space ship. He then later claimed that he actually saw nine alien bodies from with he removed gold helmets and the proceeded to bury them in the sand (Levine). Another was Glenn Dennis, a mortician who claimed a nurse by the name of Naomi Sellf told him she had preformed autopsies on strange looking small bodies. Shortly after she went oversees (Jaroff 69). There are no records of an army nurse named Naomi Sellf and no transfers oversees (Levine). Glenn also reported that he was asked to inquiry about child size coffins (Jaroff). If the government indeed had bodies of aliens, why in the world would they want to put them in coffins? The discrepancies between accounts of alien bodies is also evident. One witness claimed they were about 5’5”, with pronounced eyes, and good looking (Levine). Another insisted that they were small and incredibly strange looking (Jaroff). In truth, rarely do two witnesses describe the same alien! In conclusion, the supposedly first hand accounts have very few common details. There is no hard physical evidence. The only thing that rings true is that Roswell depends on tourist and tourist come to see aliens. On Roswell’s 50th Anniversary the town expected one-hundred thousand tourists. (Pyser and Rose 13). There were no aliens in Roswell, but it’s fun to pretend.