On June 24, 1997, U.S. Air Force officials released a 231-page
report dismissing long-standing claims of an alien spacecraft
crash in Roswell, New Mexico, almost exactly 50 years earlier.
Public interest in Unidentified Flying Objects, or UFOs, began
to flourish in the 1940s, when developments in space travel
and the dawn of the atomic age caused many Americans to
turn their attention to the skies.
The town of Roswell, located in southeastern New Mexico,
became a magnet for UFO believers due to the strange events
of early July 1947, when ranch foreman W.W. Brazel found a
strange, shiny material scattered over some of his land.
He turned the material over to the sheriff, who passed it on to
authorities at the nearby Air Force base.
On July 8, Air Force officials announced they had recovered
the wreckage of a “flying disk’’ (below).
A local newspaper put the story on its front page, launching
Roswell into the spotlight of the public’s UFO fascination.
With conspiracy theories still alive and well on the Internet,
Roswell continues to thrive as a tourist destination for UFO
enthusiasts far and wide, hosting the annual UFO Encounter
Festival each July and welcoming visitors year-round to its
International UFO Museum and Research Center.
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