Investigative Series

Roswell

A Two-Day Story. A Thirty-Year Silence. An Eighty-Year Mystery.

3-Part Series 1947–Present UFOUAP

On July 8, 1947, the public information office at Roswell Army Air Field – home to the world's only nuclear-armed bomber unit – announced it had recovered a "flying disc." By the next morning, the story was dead. It stayed dead for thirty years. Then it became the most famous UFO case on Earth.

This series traces the full arc: what the original 1947 documents actually say, how a forgotten two-day story was rebuilt into a global phenomenon, and what two federal investigations revealed – and couldn't explain – when the government finally reopened the file.

July 1947
RAAF announces recovery of a "flying disc"; retracted within 24 hours as a weather balloon
1947–1978
Thirty years of silence – Roswell disappears from public memory
1978
Stanton Friedman interviews retired Maj. Jesse Marcel; the revival begins
1980
The Roswell Incident – first book to frame the case as a hidden event
1991
UFO Crash at Roswell introduces the "bodies" storyline
1994
Air Force attributes debris to Project Mogul – a classified balloon program
1995
GAO report reveals destroyed records and finds only two 1947 documents
1995
"Alien Autopsy" film airs worldwide; later confirmed as a hoax
1997
Air Force "Case Closed" report blames "bodies" claims on crash-test dummies
2002
Key witness Frank Kaufmann exposed as a fabricator
Present
Core questions remain open: Who authorized the announcement? What does the Ramey memo say?

"The intelligence office of the 509th Bombardment group at Roswell Army Air Field announced at noon today, that the field has come into possession of a flying saucer."

— Roswell Daily Record, July 8, 1947
24 hrs
From announcement to retraction
30 yrs
Of silence before the revival
2
Surviving 1947 documents found by the GAO
0
Records explaining who authorized the announcement

The Primary Sources

The key federal documents referenced in this series are publicly available.