The nation's only underground nuclear repository has received its first shipment of waste, more than three years after shipping was halted in response to a radiation release that contaminated part of the facility and sidetracked the federal government's multibillion-dollar cleanup program. ...
New Mexico: Land of Enchantment and Flying Saucers
In the summer of 1947, in Chaves County, in southeastern New Mexico, about twenty miles from where my mother grew up, a farmer named William Brazel found the wreckage of a flying saucer.
The Roswell UFO Incident. Maybe youâve heard of it.
Do you believe it?
You shouldnât. Itâs a hoax. It makes for a hell of a great story, though.
Hereâs what really happened.
William Brazel really did find debris on the Foster homestead, what he described as rubber strips, tinfoil, sticks, and tough paper. He actually ignored it, but wound up gathering up the stuff a few weeks later and presenting it to the local sheriff, who called personnel at the now-closed Walker Air Force Base, known then as Roswell Army Air Field [RAAF].
Unknown to the locals [though by this time the Los Alamos and Alamogordo sites had been ostensibly made public]Â the military was still conducting nuclear testing in New Mexico, and the debris that Brazel found was the remnants of a polyethylene balloon from Project MOGUL, a multifaceted series of nuclear-related experiments. In this particular compartment, the Alamogordo test, the balloonâs purpose was to serve as a meteorological radar target to measure conditions following a detonation.
When the stuff was found, military personnel contacted the MOGUL folks and basically said, âWe think someone found your stuff, you need to identify it,â so someone in plain clothes was sent tout-suite to collect the debris and make sure that it did belong to Project MOGUL and not the Soviets, or some other hostile foreign entity.
Not aliens. Not that foreign.
But by this time, the news of the debris had spread, and a hasty press conference was called. Top brass agreed that the integrity of Project MOGUL needed to remain uncompromised, so the balloon was deemed a weather balloon.
Hereâs the photo of the balloon, which looked more or less like a box kite made of Mylar.
The papers loved the story, though.
You know how people are. We all love stories, the crazier and more embellished, the better, and the more imaginative public got hold of the story and didnât let go.
Until we wound up with rubbish like this.
Oh boy.
The Roswell Incident marked the real beginning of the UFO craze. And in New Mexico, which can seem alluringly unspoiled [of course an alien spacecraft crashes in the mysterious desert, with no witnesses. It wouldnât be the same if it crashed in, say, Gurnee, Illinois] that sort of urban legend, that romance, is just ripe for blooming among people who need to escape quotidian drudgery.
Iâm not saying there isnât life on other planets. I think our universe is too boundless to contain only ourselves. But this incident is just too easily and boringly explained.
And so, the legend grew. Books and pamphlets and âwitness testimonyâ emerged, and even after the myth was debunked in 1994, the story persisted. Even people who should have known better perpetuated the notion of conspiracy. In 2007, former New Mexico governor and presidential candidate wannabe Bill Richardson said in regard to the incident: "I remember I had my constituents ask me. I was the congressman and I said, 'Well, Department of Defense, Los Alamos labs, what is this? What is the data you have?' " he said. "Oh, it's classified" was the response, he said. "That ticked me off."Â
Criminy.
I love a conspiracy theory myself. And I can tell you that at my momâs childhood home, and in northern New Mexico, Iâve seen some weird lights in the sky. Iâll talk about them another time.
If youâre ever in Roswell, by the way, stop by the Roswell UFO Museum. It is goofy as hell, and lots of fun.
But if youâre drifting around the desert, and you see a bunch of torn Mylar and broken sticks, odds are itâs probably not an alien spacecraft.
Hi there! Thanks for stopping by. Iâm excited to announce the premiere of my novel Box 1663,a queer action/adventure romance set in New Mexico during the Second World War. Follow me here as I find my feet in the world of author-blogging. Feel free to drop me a message or ask, send me an email at [email protected], or sign up for my mailing list!
