THE ROSWELL UFO CRASH:
MY THEORIES AND PERSPECTIVE

    By Dennis Hook


I don't have all the answers when it comes to the Roswell Incident of July 1947. I wish I did.
Researching it can be frustrating, and even the Freedom of Information Act enacted by Congress does not give the average citizen the keys to the castle. An Executive Order,
numbered 12356, gives the military the right to withold information when releasing such information would endanger the security of the United States.

".....we can neither confirm nor deny the existence or non-existence....." is the typical line
issued by the Armed Forces or Defense Department correspondences when a FOIA
(Freedom of Information Act) request is answered. Another problem with researching
and asking the government for information is that the Armed Forces compartmentalize
information, as well as change names, (or nomenclatures) that are more in the official language of the military. For instance, if you were to request information on military
equipment, such as something simple as a truck engine, it might be classified in a manner
such that if you do not know exactly what type, or model, or specific military acronym,
they can't find it. If you don't request the exact nomenclature, they won't know what you are talking about, even if they do.
 

The Roswell Story:

Was it a weather balloon, or a spacecraft from another world...?

by Dennis Hook

On a late night in March 1981, the San Francisco Bay Area had UFOs reported all over.  They were witnessed by freeway commuters, private pilots at San Jose International Airport, and by myself - right above my house.  I was observing what was called a "conjunction" (see glossary) of the planets Jupiter and Saturn.  The planets appeared to be very close to one another, as they were 18 degrees apart from each other in the sky.

As I was kneeling on my floor to adjust the telescope, I saw a large black triangular shape that was illuminated with dim blue lights all around it.  It crossed the sky without making a sound.  Being familiar with all kinds of modern day aircraft as a design engineer, this was not anything I knew of.  I still do not know what it was.  It was probably the most electrifying, but scariest moment of my life.  To give you an idea of how big it was, when I first saw it I thought a jumbo jet had lost its power and was about to crash into my house.  If you extend your arms to the sky and make a triangle with your hands, this will give you an idea of the size of this object in the sky.

I was not abducted, and I did not see "little green (or gray) men."  I cannot tell for sure what it was - but something tells me it wasn't from the Earth.  I will never forget it as long as I live.

After my sighting, I became aware of the Roswell UFO Crash that allegedly took place in New Mexico in 1947.  It has been the subject of much controversy, and it has been called a hoax by critics.  There are many things about the Roswell Incident that still defy an explanation to my satisfaction, despite skeptics questioning certain aspects of the case and in some instances disproving parts of it.

There have been many UFO hoaxes and put-ons over the years.  For some it has made them some money, some have been ridiculed, and some are just so silly that serious researchers of our country's military history have had more work sifting through fact and fiction.

When I look up at the night sky, I cannot imagine that we can be the only ones inhabiting our universe.  I cannot prove if UFOs are real or not; I wish the UFO I saw would come back so I could get it on video camera!  UFOs have been the sort of thing that some people believe in, and others just do not believe at all.  I believe the best thing for anyone to do is keep an open mind, and make a decision for themselves.  Reading about astronomy, mathematics, and science is another way to expand your knowledge, and knowledge is power!

The Roswell UFO Crash - A fifty-year mystery

In July 1947, something occurred out in the desert plains of southeastern New Mexico that has been the source of mystery and debate for more than 50 years.

At that time, a rancher named Mac Brazel was herding sheep on Foster Ranch when he came upon a field that was scattered with strange material that looked like foil, and different odd shapes.  The sheep Mac was herding refused to cross the field, as if something was scaring them from going further.

Mac Brazel took some of the pieces to show his neighbors who told him he should take the pieces to the Sherriff's office.  He was told that maybe he would be rewarded if the material was part of a flying saucer.  (There was a three-thousand dollar reward offered at the time for proof of a "flying saucer.")

Mac drove into Roswell and showed the sheriff, George Wilcox, what he had found on the ranch. The sheriff called the army base, which was then known as Roswell Army Air Field, and the army sent Major Jesse Marcel and another officer to meet them at the sherriff's office.  After meeting with Mac, the three men took an all day drive out to the ranch.  They spent the night at the ranch and went out to the crash site the next day.

According to Major Marcel, the crash site was about three quarters of a mile
long, and about five hundred feet wide. "There was so much of it" Major Marcel said, "The thing that got me was, it was over such a vast area.  We had to do a lot of picking."  Major Marcel said the material was light like balsa wood, but would not burn and could not be bent or broken.

Major Marcel returned to Roswell that night and showed the pieces to his wife and son, Jesse Marcel, Jr.  His son (Dr. Jesse Marcel, Jr., today) still recalls that the material had strange writing on it, like symbols or heiroglyphs.

The base commander at Roswell Army Air Field, Col. William H. Blanchard, gave the public relations officer, Lt. Walter Haut, a press release stating that the Army had recovered a "flying disk."  Within hours the world was in a state of excitement.  Newspapers all over the world were calling Lt. Haut and others in Roswell trying to get the story.

When Major Marcel returned to the base, he was told to fly the material to Fort Worth Army Air Base in Texas.  He was met by Brigadier General Roger Ramey, and a Colonel (later General) named Thomas DuBose.  Major Marcel was shown material from a weather balloon and was told to pose for newspapermen with the material.  General Ramey told the world that the flying disk was nothing but a weather balloon, not a "flying disk" as everyone had hoped.

In 1979 Major Marcel appeared on a television show and spoke to several
researchers saying that the weather balloon was a "cover story."  He said that although he and General Ramey "knew differently" he was told to meet the newsmen and to keep quiet.  "It was nothing from this Earth," Major Marcel said, "that I am quite sure of.  Being an intelligence officer, I was familiar with just about all materials used in aircraft or air travel.  This was nothing like that - it could not have been.  The darndest thing about it was, you couldn't bend it, you couldn't dent it, not even with a sledgehammer.  So I knew that this was nothing I had ever seen before, and to this day I don't know what it was."

After Major Marcel spoke out about the events in 1947, others followed telling a similar story.  Dozens of books have been written and television  shows have been broadcast about the mystery.  For years the military said it had no records about it.

A New Mexico congressman, Rep. Steven Schiff, asked the GAO (General Accounting Office) of the United States Government to investigate the matter.  They had similar problems finding information, because the Army destroyed many old records from the 1940s.

Recently the Air Force came out with a report saying that the "flying disk" was actually a special balloon to listen for atomic bombs in Russia, and that stories of "aliens" were actually "crash test dummies" that the Air Force used for high altitude parachute testing.  The controversy continues to this day.

The author of this site has been researching this story since 1981.  I have spoken to witnesses and researched all I could find out about it.  To this day I have still not made up my mind.  I have kept an open mind to just about any possibility.

In my website is a partial list of available books about this 50 year old mystery.  My choice was to write something with a little humor and put real scientific facts in it too.  There are many sources for information about the Roswell UFO crash, but it is up to you to make up your own mind. Also, it is essential in just about any pursuit of information to keep a sense of humor.  Don't believe everything you read, but keep an open mind.

Since 1947 there have been thousands of UFO sightings all over the world. Were the aliens who crashed at Roswell "extraterrestrial tourists"? Perhaps it was a scout probe, looking for places to explore.  If they were aliens, I don't think they were trying to invade us; perhaps they were tourists who got a "flat tire" while exploring the Earth.  Maybe someday we will find out what really happened...