6-25-1997

On this day in history, June 24, 1997, the U.S. Air Force released
a 232-page report titled "The Roswell Report: Case Closed,"
about a mysterious incident near Roswell, New Mexico, that
some believe was a UFO crash-landing on Earth.

The report was the second part of the government’s official
disclosure about what was found in rural New Mexico in the
1940s. Back in 1994, the government published, "The Roswell
Report: Fact vs. Fiction in the New Mexico Desert."

"The ‘Roswell Incident’ has assumed a central place in American
folklore since the events of the 1940s in a remote area of New
Mexico," noted the foreword of the 1997 report, written by
Secretary of the Air Force Sheila A. Widnall (below).         
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
Sheila Marie Evans Widnall

On June 24, 1997, U.S. Air Force officials release 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 near the Pecos
River in southeastern New Mexico, became a magnet for UFO
believers due to the strange events of early July 1947, when Air 
Force officials announced they had recovered the wreckage of 
a “flying disk.” A local newspaper put the story on its front
page, launching Roswell into the spotlight. 

Major Jesse Marcel from the Roswell Army Air Field with
debris found 75 miles north west of Roswell, NM, in June
1947. The debris has been identified as that of a radar
target.

CAMILLE
BOHANNON

On June 24, 1997, U.S. Air Force officials release a 231-page report dismissing
long-standing claims of an alien spacecraft crash in Roswell, New Mexico,
almost exactly 50 years earlier.

CAMILLE
BOHANNON

On this  day in 1947, a United States Army Air Forces balloon crashed at a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico. Following wide initial interest in the crashed "flying disc", the US military stated that it was merely a conventional weather balloon. Interest subsequently waned until the late 1970s, when Ufologists began
promoting a variety of increasingly elaborate conspiracy theories, claiming
that one or more alien spacecraft had crash-landed and that the extraterrestrial occupants had been recovered by the military, which then engaged in a cover-
up.

In the 1990s, the US military published two reports disclosing the true nature
of the crashed object: a nuclear test surveillance balloon from Project Mogul.

Roswell Army Air Field Intelligence Officer Jesse Marcel, sr. holding
foil debris from Roswell, New Mexico UFO crash site.