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Later that evening, as a result of unrelated events, he made a trip to the base hospital. Outside the back entrance he observed two military ambulances with open rear doors, from which large pieces of wreckage protruded, including one with a row of unusual symbols on its surface. Once inside, he encountered a young nurse whom he knew. At that same instant, he was noticed by military police, who physically threatened him and forcibly escorted him from the building. He met with the nurse the next day, and she explained what had been going on at the hospital. She was a very religious person and was upset to the point of being in a state of shock. She described how she had been called in to assist two doctors who were doing autopsies on several small nonhuman bodies. She described the terrible smell, how one body was in good shape and the others mangled, and the differences between their anatomy and human anatomy. She also drew a diagram on a napkin showing an outline of their features. That meeting was to be their last -- she was transferred to England a few days later.

The main part of the craft apparently came down some distance from the "debris field" at the Brazel ranch. Researchers were only recently able to confirm this second site because few people knew about it. According to witness testimony, this is also the site where the bodies were found. Most of the witnesses to this site have not, in fear of government reprisal, allowed their names to be used. A prestigious law firm has recently been retained to provide legal counsel to any such witnesses who might consider going public with their testimony. Attorneys from the firm have already met with several Roswell witnesses. In addition to Glenn Dennis, other witnesses were physically threatened or intimidated. According to members of Sheriff Wilcox's family, he was told by the military, in the presence of his wife, that he and his entire family would be killed if he ever spoke about what he had seen. The rancher who originally discovered the wreckage, Mac Brazel, was sequestered by the military for almost a week and sworn to secrecy. He never spoke about the incident again, even to his family. In the months following the incident, his son, Bill Brazel, found and collected a few "scraps" of material, which he kept in a cigar box. The material was eventually confiscated by the military.

The Roswell case does not stand alone as the only solid evidence of a coverup of UFO information by the U.S. government. In 1980, after having filed numerous Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, a group known as Citizens Against UFO Secrecy (CAUS) learned of 156 UFO-related documents held by the National Security Agency (NSA) and of internal references to a large number of UFO-related documents held by other agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). While this was an interesting revelation, researchers believe that it would not be possible through FOIA requests to find even references to the most important UFO documents (such as those relating to Roswell). This information would, presumably, be buried much deeper.

The members of CAUS proceeded with a FOIA request for the 156 NSA UFO documents, but were denied access to all of them. They subsequently filed an appeal in federal court and lost. Interestingly, the National Security Agency did not even allow the judge in the hearing, Gerhardt Gessell of the First Federal Court, District of Columbia, to view the 156 UFO documents. Instead, the NSA submitted a special 21-page "top secret plus" affidavit to the judge, giving its arguments for withholding the documents. An unusual action from a government that officially denies having any knowledge about the existence of UFOs!

It is important to realize that the vast majority of people employed by the U.S. government, even those with top secret clearances, would not have access to classified UFO information such as the 156 NSA UFO documents. In all probability, most of these government employees, like the rest of us, would like to know the truth about UFOs and extraterrestrial intelligence. Furthermore, it is doubtful whether any members of Congress have access to such information and, given the size of the government bureaucracy and high degree of compartmentalization that exists within it, it is conceivable that even the President has not been fully briefed on the subject.

For obvious reasons, it is necessary that the military services and the intelligence agencies impose a certain amount of secrecy. In recent decades, however, many observers say that the use of government secrecy has become excessive. Secrecy is tantamount to power and, like power, lends itself to abuse. Behind the shield of secrecy, it is possible for an agency or service to avoid scrutiny and essentially operate outside the law. Accountability to the taxpayers, and to the Congress, can be conveniently avoided. Perhaps this is a major reason the U.S. annual "black budget" (government spending on secret programs) has climbed to a staggering $25 billion a year. The 1995 budget for the National Security Agency alone is projected at $3.5 billion according to the publication Defense Week.

Secrecy, like power, is not readily relinquished. Traditionally, those in power tend to vehemently resist change of any type, including change that would be in the public interest. Anything that might upset the status quo is perceived as a potential threat to entrenched position or power. For example, the November 11, 1994, New York Times reported that an Executive Order signed by President Clinton declassifying nearly 44 million pages of secret documents, some dating back to 1917, was delayed nearly a year because of resistance from military and intelligence officials. The New York Times article also reported that although 22 years ago President Nixon promised "immediate and systematic declassification" of Vietnam War documents, nearly five million pages of those documents are still being withheld at the demand of military and intelligence officials. In view of this kind of obsession with secrecy on the part of the government, obtaining the release of information that has been as closely guarded as NSA and CIA UFO documents or the files on Roswell is not going to be an easy task.

Fortunately, a number of politicians, including President Clinton, are aware of the problem of excessive secrecy and have pledged to do something about it. There are also some politicians known to have an interest in the subject of UFOs, but few have had the courage to speak out. One notable exception is former Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater.

Senator Goldwater was the Republican party's presidential candidate in 1964 (against Lyndon Johnson), chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence for eight years, chairman of the Senate Armed Service's Committee for four years, and a major general in the Air Force Reserves. Many consider Senator Goldwater one of the most distinguished, respected, and honest U.S. statesmen of this century. He retired from public service in 1987 after having served 30 years in the U.S. Senate.

If, as the Roswell evidence indicates, information confirming the existence of other intelligent life in the universe is being withheld from the people of the world by a few privileged individuals in the U.S. government, such withholding is a crime against all humanity and a gross misuse of the power entrusted to those individuals. It is, in effect, a form of censorship on a nonmilitary and a non-national security issue. The question must be asked: What gives these individuals the right to keep this information to themselves, thereby depriving the rest of the world of knowledge of almost inconceivable magnitude and consequence? Do these individuals consider themselves, by virtue of some divine providence or other abstract rationale, so above the rest of us that only they are entitled to or are capable of handling this information?