Today In History: RAAF Announces That It Had Recovered A Crashed UFO Near Roswell. New Mexico

Photo from a 1963 Twilight Zone episode ...  Not actual Roswell crash.

 On this day back in 1947 the Army Air Corp under the instruction Col. William Blanchard released a press release penned by Lt. Walter Haut that excitedly proclaimed that they were in possession of a crashed UFO that had been recovered from a ranch outside Roswell, New Mexico. 

If you a familiar with the story, you know that the following day the big-brass from Fort Worth showed up and a new press release was issued stating that the wreckage recovered was actually from a weather balloon. 

That's when decades of controversy and speculation on what exactly happened that day in the New Mexico desert began. Now 74 years later nobody can actually say for sure. Well, outside the government, but after all this time they still haven't said very much about that balloon.

Here is the story from the Roswell City Website:

In July 1947, something happened northwest of Roswell during a severe thunderstorm. Was it a flying saucer? Was it a weather balloon? What happened?

The answer is, nothing for many years, until leading UFO researcher Stanton Friedman came across the story in the early 1980s and began the search for information and witnesses. That research brought him to Roswell looking for the public information officer who had been at Roswell Army Air Field in 1947. That officer was Lt. Walter Haut. He still lived in Roswell and remembered the press release and the orders from his commanding officer.

Friedman's investigation also led to many others, both military and private, who had information to add to the Roswell Incident story. Stepping into the picture very strongly in the late 1980s were Don Schmitt, Kevin Randle and Tom Carey. since then, Schmitt and Carey have dedicated their research to Roswell.

The debris recovered by rancher WW Mack Brazel was gathered by the military from the Roswell Army Air Field under the direction of base intelligence officer Major Jesse Marcel. On July 8, 1947, public information officer Lt. Walter Haut issued a press release under orders from base commander Col. William Blanchard, which said basically that we have in our possession a flying saucer. The next day another press release was issued, this time from Gen. Roger Ramey, stating it was a weather balloon. That was the start of the best known and well-documented UFO coverup.

Once it became public, the event known as The Roswell Incident - the crash of an alleged flying saucer, the recovery of debris and bodies and the ensuing cover up by the military - was of such magnitude and so shrouded in mystery that, 70 years later, there are still more questions than answers. Books have been written and TV documentaries have been filmed. Witnesses have come forward. Skeptics have issued rebuttals to the Incident, and the debate continues.

If you watched any television in the 90s you undoubtedly saw one of the numerous documentaries featuring eye-witnesses that were on duty at the Roswell Army Air Field at the time that proclaimed that there was indeed a spaceship and three bodies of an unearthly origin. I remember those sounding very credible at the time.

After doing some research I remembered that back in 2012 my buddy Armand Vaquer had shared a story about his great-uncle who was head of the southwest army hospitals at the time:

"I've always been intrigued by this subject. But my interest was greatly increased several years ago with what my late mother told me about ten years ago.

My great-uncle was head of the U.S. Army hospitals in the Southwest United States in the late-1940s. These included ones in New Mexico and he was there at the time. He told my mother years ago (he passed away in the early 1990s) that the original story of a UFO crashing near Roswell was true and alien bodies were recovered. The weather balloon story was a cover-story and was not true.

He was not the kind of man to spread b.s. If he said a UFO crashed and bodies were recovered, one could take his statement to the bank."

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