Sacramento Bee article

The Roswell incident took place on Monday, July 7, 1947, when an airborne
object crashed on a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico. Explanations of what
actually occurred are based on both official and unofficial reports.The most
popular theory of what took place is that the object, or UFO, was a spacecraft
containing extraterrestrial life. Since the late 1970s, the Roswell incident has
been the subject of much controversy, and conspiracy theories have arisen
about the event.

The U.S. government maintains that what was recovered near Roswell was
debris from the crash of an experimental high-altitude surveillance balloon
belonging to what was then a classified top secret program named Mogul 
(see below).

MaJ. Jesse Mar­cel displays the Roswell balloon debris