Roswell Revisited

For those of you who continued reading after seeing the title of this blog, I commend you!

The mere mention of Roswell, New Mexico is sure to elicit a strong response in most Americans. For a great many people, that response is skepticism and scorn; the stalwart shields of the unbeliever.  Yet even among the increasing number of Americans who believe that we are not alone in the universe, Roswell has become so overdone our minds that we too fail to realize the real significance of that watershed event.

What makes Roswell so important?  It did not have the distinction of being the first UFO report.  In fact, as UFO sightings go, it didn't seem to have much going for it.   The government quickly stepped in; effectively squelching the story with its own account of a misidentification of a weather balloon. The whole incident held the nation's attention for a mere two days before it seemingly sunk into oblivion.

However, the fact that it refused to remain in oblivion is more significant that we may realize.  Thirty years after the incident, Jesse Marcel, a veteran of World War II and retired army intelligence officer dared to speak out.  He announced that what had been recovered in the desert was not a weather balloon but an alien spacecraft.  His claims ignited a firestorm of controversy about the incident that continues to this day.

Sixty-five years later, the event at Roswell, New Mexico is seared into the American consciousness.  Ask any college student about what happened at Nagasaki in 1945 or at Antietam in 1862 and you will most likely get a blank stare; despite the fact that these events are duly recorded in our history books.  However, ask them about what happened in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947 and you are sure to get a quick response, even though those events are not found in any textbook.

Whether what happened in Roswell was the cover-up of a top secret military aircraft or, as most believe, the crash of a "flying disk" from outer space; it is vital that we remember that Roswell marks the birthplace of American ufology. Because of that distinction, it is important that we periodically revisit Roswell, shake off the commercialism and sensationalism that surrounds it, and look again at the event that forever changed the way that Americans look at the stars.