Roswell Top Secret (1998) - full transcript

- I have no doubt that the
Roswell case is a crash

of an alien spacecraft.

- I'm convinced that
something has been here before

and that something may be here now.

- There is a cover up.

After many years of
investigation, I am certain

that there is a cover
up as far as Roswell.

(dramatic instrumental music)

- 50 years ago, something happened

near the town of Roswell, New Mexico.

That event, known as the Roswell incident,



has become synonymous
with flying saucer crash,

alien visitation, government
cover up, or many say,

a jump to conclusion and
gross distortion of the facts.

Hello, I'm Patrick Macnee.

Mention the name Roswell and chances are,

no matter where you are,

someone will have heard of it,

and most likely will have an
opinion about the subject.

In this program, we'll take
a look at what is known

about Roswell and what is still unknown,

and we'll try to answer the question:

What happened here

and what does the
government know about it?

So why is everyone talking about Roswell?



Well, above all else,
Roswell has become something

of a cultural phenomenon.

A stampede of media attention
fueled by fanatic fascination

by a growing number of both
skeptics and believers,

all coinciding with a 50th anniversary

of the original incident.

The result: Roswell mania.

(lively instrumental music)

Since the late '70s, there
have been dozens of books,

both promoting the theory of
UFO crash and refuting it.

There have been countless
magazine articles,

TV shows, movies, and a burgeoning
presence on the internet.

It seems that everywhere you look,

there's someone saying
something about Roswell.

- I believe that a flying saucer

from another planet crashed.

I believe that a man and
his son found debris,

and I believe that the government,

the United States government
acquired the wreckage

and put it and its inhabitants in storage.

That's what I think happened.

- In the city of the same name,

the craze has grown into a
cottage industry of its own.

There are two UFO museums
within city limits

and a third just outside.

UFO and alien themed
souvenirs are everywhere

and promotional campaigns and slogans

sell every conceivable
product and service.

No one in this city

of almost 50,000 people
can remember anything

like the extravaganza commemorating
the 50 year anniversary.

Rock concerts, lectures,
and other special events

are unprecedented here.

Roswell has become an
internationally known entity

unto itself, all because a single incident

occurred half a century ago.

The question is why after 50 years

are we still talking about Roswell?

What is it about this story
that so intrigues people

and gives rise to such controversy?

In 1947, something crashed

in remote southeastern New Mexico.

After the pieces of the
wreckage were recovered,

the army issued a press release

saying it had captured a flying saucer,

then almost immediately
recanted the earlier statement

and said it was nothing more
than a downed weather balloon.

Not until people who were there started

to tell their stories some 30 years later

did UFO researchers begin
to piece together a story

that has captured the imagination

of people all over the world.

- I've actually read a
lot of books about Roswell

and looked at all the evidence,

and I think that there was some
sort of government cover up.

And I'm pretty sure that
something crashed there

and it wasn't just a weather balloon.

- [Patrick] What we're
talking about is a story

of visitation by beings
from another planet

here on a mission of exploration perhaps,

only to end up casualties.

It is a story of our government

deliberately concealing
details of the incident,

or the whole thing is a
case of misrepresentation

and outright fabrication?

- Something not made on
this earth crashed in 1947.

- So we were quite amused

that they misidentified our
balloon for a flying saucer.

- I would say that I believe
that there was an alien craft

that crashed north of Roswell.

- I'm convinced beyond any doubt

that what happened at Roswell was

that a Project Mogul
train of weather balloons,

about 23 weather balloons,

carrying several aluminum
foil radar targets

so it could be tracked
crashed on the ranch

of man known as Mac Brazel.

- And General DuBose, who
was the Chief of Staff

of 8th Air Force in July
of 1947, told us flat out

that the balloon explanation
was a cover story.

(tense instrumental music)

(lively instrumental music)

- With all the interest
in the incident in 1947,

it's easy to forget that
Roswell is a real place,

a real city with real people.

Located in southeastern New Mexico

in the heart of Chaves County,

Roswell sits in a semiarid region,

3,600 feet above sea level.

The town was first established
in the 1860s by traders

who sold cattle to Navajo
and Apache Indians.

Cowboys were the dominant workforce

in the region for decades.

At the beginning of World War II,

Roswell Army Air Field
opened and became home

to the 509th Bombardment Group,

at one time, the only atomic
bomber wing in the world.

Renamed Walker Air Force
Base after the war,

the air field became a central part

of the Strategic Air Command System.

Though the base closed in the '60s,

the runways are still used
for commercial flights,

general aviation, as well
as a considerable amount

of aircraft testing.

Ranching and agriculture
have always played a big part

in this area, and the
same is still true today.

Many other industries call
Roswell home now, of course,

and the city has come
through the past 50 years

with its eye on a future full of promise.

Mostly, Roswell is just

like any other small city in America.

Well, almost.

(eerie instrumental music)

The story of the Roswell incident

has been painstakingly researched,

pieced together from public
records and eyewitness accounts.

The basic sequence of
events which transpired here

half a century ago is well documented

and generally accepted as fact.

Speculation aside, we
have a pretty good idea

of what happened, and in what order.

Let's go back a moment
to early summer 1947.

Beginning in the month of June,

there was an unprecedented
wave of UFO sightings

around the country.

All over, people were reporting

seeing strange unidentifiable
aerial phenomena.

The army seemed to be at a loss
to explain the observation.

(lively instrumental music)

- [Narrator] Army fighter
planes are on patrol

for flying saucers.

The control tower's in
touch and on the watch.

So are a whole lot of people these days.

They're seeing flying saucers everywhere.

- July the 4th in southeastern New Mexico

was marked by some

of the most violent
thunderstorms on record.

A ranch foreman named William Mac Brazel

heard what he described as
an odd sort of explosion.

The searchers have since
established the sequence

of events that followed.

On Saturday July the 5th
while out riding horseback

on the ranch, Brazel
discovers a large quantity

of lightweight metallic debris.

The material was scattered
over an area 3/4 of a mile long

and several hundred feet wide.

The following morning, Brazel
makes the 75 mile drive

into Roswell and reports his find

to Chaves County Sheriff,
George A. Wilcox,

who in turn, upon witnessing
the debris himself,

decides to notify the military authorities

at Roswell Army Air Field.

In the meantime, Wilcox
speaks to Frank Joyce,

an announcer for local radio
station KGFL in Roswell

looking for anything newsworthy.

The following day, Brazel
escorts intelligence officer

Major Jesse Marcel and Sheridan Cavitt

of the Counterintelligence
Corps to the debris field.

The two then gather
and load up some debris

and return to Roswell.

The next day, Tuesday the 8th,

troops are deployed from
the base to begin recovery

at the debris field.

By now, soldiers are already stationed

at a second location some distance away,

believed to have been
an actual crash site.

Colonel William H. Blanchard

instructs leftenant Walter
Haut to issue a press release

disclosing that the Army
has recovered the remains

of a flying disc.

That afternoon, the
story hits the news wires

and the phone lines in Roswell are jammed.

Evening papers all over
the west pick up the story.

Also that afternoon, Major
Marcel is sent with some debris

to Fort Worth, Texas to meet

with Brigadier General Roger Ramey.

Ramey announces that the identification

of the recovered debris as a flying saucer

has been a mistake, and that
it is actually nothing more

than the remains of a
downed weather balloon

with attached radar reflector.

The following morning,
the Roswell Daily Record

runs the revised version of the story.

For a few brief hours, the lid was off

on one of the most fantastic
stories of human existence,

then suddenly the lid was slammed shut.

Two months later, Chuck Yeager
would break the sound barrier

and America would find itself
taking the first small steps

towards its own program
to travel into space.

Everyone moved on and the
wild flying saucer story

was forgotten by all except
those who were there.

30 years would pass before
troubling memories prompted some

of those participants to start talking.

By now, almost everyone who
has examined this case agrees

that something did crash near Roswell.

The question is: what?

Was it, as the military
claimed at the time,

nothing more unusual than
a downed weather balloon?

Or could it actually have
been some kind of craft

from another planet?

(machine beeping)

- [Reporter] Headline
Editions, July 8th, 1947.

The Army Air Force has
announced that a flying disc

has been found and is now in
the possession of the army.

Army officers say the missile,
found sometime last week,

has been inspected at Roswell, New Mexico,

and sent to Wright Field,
Ohio for further inspection.

Colonel William Blanchard of
the Roswell Air Base refuses

to give details of what the
flying disc looked like.

In Fort Worth, Texas where
the object was first sent,

Brigadier General Roger Ramey
says that it is being shipped

by air to the AAF Research
Center at Wright Field, Ohio.

- I have no doubt that the
Roswell case is a crash

of an alien spacecraft.

- [Patrick] No stranger to Roswell,

investigator Kevin Randle
first came to follow up

on the reports that had
intrigued others before him.

- Now what we thought would
happen is we would come down

to Roswell, we'd spend three
or four days down here,

talk to the witnesses and
discover the plausible explanation

for it, blow out of town.

Didn't happen that way.

In fact, the first couple of
days, it didn't go very well,

but then we talked to Bill Brazel,

the son of the man who
found the debris field

up near Corona, New Mexico.

And once we talked to him, we
realized there was much more

to the story, that more had to be done.

There were more people
we needed to talk to.

- [Patrick] One of the
pioneers of UFO research,

Stanton Friedman, is generally credited

with breaking the Roswell case

after a TV station manager
first told him of Jesse Marcel.

- Out of the blue, no previous connection

to anything we'd talked about,

he says, you know, the guy you ought

to talk to is Jesse Marcel.

Who's he?

Oh, well, he handed pieces
of one of these saucers

when he was in the military.

That got my attention, as you can imagine.

I said, well, is he alive?

Do you know him?

Oh yeah, he lives over in Houma.

I hadn't the faintest idea
where Houma, Louisiana was then.

I've been there since, of course.

We're old ham radio buddies.

- [Patrick] Shortly before Marcel's death,

Friedman was able to record an interview

in which the former intelligence officer

recollected that incident.

- One thing I was certain of,

being familiar with all air activities,

that it was not a weather
balloon nor aircraft,

nor a missile.

It was something else of which
we didn't know what it was.

There were just fragments
strewn all over the area,

an area about 3/4 of a mile long

and several hundred feet wide.

So we proceeded to pick up the parts.

A lot of it had a lot of
little numbers with symbols

that, to me, I call them hieroglyphics

because I could not interpret them.

They could not be read.

They were just like symbols of something

that meant something.

These little numbers could not be broken,

could not be burned.

I even tried to burn that.

It would not burn.

See, that stuff weighs nothing.

It's not any thicker than tin
foil in a pack of cigarettes.

He says I tried to bend the stuff.

Says it will not bend.

He says we did all we could to bend it.

It would not bend.

He says, we even tried making a dent in it

with a 16 pound sledgehammer.

He says, still no dent in it.

- [Patrick] Don Schmitt,
coauthor of UFO Crash at Roswell,

along with Kevin Randle,
is likewise convinced

that the crashed object
was a craft from space.

- We have over 500 witnesses testifying

through sworn affidavit
or video deposition

that what was recovered
out here at this site

and at the debris field
site just 40 miles from here

was not manufactured on this earth.

- [Patrick] Waler Haut was
stationed in Roswell in 1947.

As the Public Information
Officer of the 509th,

it was he who issued the press release.

- I got the information
from Colonel Blanchard.

There had been a number of
newspaper and radio reports

on flying saucers, and it really
didn't upset me that much.

If the boss man said that
we had a flying saucer

in our possession, we had one.

That was it.

I was just told to put
out a press release.

- [Patrick] Later that
day, Haut remembers,

the official story changed.

- They said it was a weather
balloon and that's it.

- [Patrick] Many people have

challenged the weather balloon story,

while at least as many
have rejected the notion

of a crashed UFO.

The Air Force recently
commissioned its own investigation

into the enduring mystery
and allegations of cover up.

- Retired Colonel Richard Weaver

is convinced something crashed in Roswell,

just not a flying saucer.

- We found in our study,
our research on Roswell,

that ultimately the explanation
that's the most plausible

was that the debris that
was found was from a project

which in 1947 was classified top secret

called Project Mogul,

which was a high altitude,

constant level balloon research
project which was designed

to detect Soviet military
nuclear explosions

which we weren't able to
detect by any other manner

during that time.

- Despite the conclusion
of the Air Force's report,

the story of something
vastly different persists

to this day.

While no photographs of any
crashed disc are obtainable,

there have been a number of eyewitnesses

who have spoken to investigators.

Some of these individuals have been able

to provide detailed descriptions

of what they remember seeing.

Sworn affidavits, hand drawn sketches,

and various documents have been obtained

from a number of sources.

- We probably conducted between
2,500 and 3,000 interviews

with 500 different people,

and what we're talking
about is not only people

who saw some part of the
story or who were in Roswell

and knew part of the story,

but who were family members,

secondhand witnesses, if you will.

My father told me this story,
my uncle told me this story.

- [Patrick] One of those who
was there was Glenn Dennis,

employed by the Ballard Funeral Home.

- I got a call in the
afternoon from a gentlemen

that called and said that
he was a mortuary officer

and he was wanting to know if we...

how many and if we had some baby caskets,

3'6" or four foot long that
were hermetically sealed,

airtight, waterproof, and all this,

and I informed that we
always kept a four foot.

He wanted to know how many
and I said one in the display,

one in the storeroom.

And he said, how long
would it take to get more?

And I said, hey, what's
going on out there?

What's your problem?

And he said, well, we want to
know how well-prepared you are

in case we should have an
epidemic or something out here

with the base children and all that.

- [Patrick] Bill McDonald
is a forensic sketch artist

who uses techniques employed
by many police departments

to create pictorial profiles of suspects.

- They brought me into the
case for the specific purpose

of reproducing the
spacecraft and the bodies

using forensic methodology standards

that you would expect from either FBI

or homicide detectives.

I worked with the witnesses directly.

I do not re-do their work.

The ship at Roswell, as I
said before, was not a disc.

It was a stingray shaped winged vehicle.

It was 25 feet wide in
wingspan by 28 feet in length

and was covered from wingtip to wingtip

and from the bow to the stern

with a hexagonal beehive
pattern of power cells

that glowed when powered

and provided either
anti-gravitational lift

or electromagnetic fields
that separated the ship

from the ground.

- [Patrick] One of the most
important witnesses in Roswell

in 1947 was Major Marcel's
11-year-old son, Jesse Marcel Jr.

Marcel is a physician with
a practice in Montana.

- My dad came into the house very excited.

He wanted my mother and myself

to look at what he
gathered up in the field

off of a ranch northwest of Roswell.

At that point, I was not quite sure

what a flying saucer was,
but I was sure eager to see

why he was so excited.

I've lived with this for 50 years

and again, I'm not sure what it was,

but I do know what it wasn't.

It does not fit the description

of what the Air Force
tells me, a mobile balloon,

what this debris looks like.

(tense instrumental music)

- [Patrick] Marcel Jr.
recalls the night his father

brought home the strange pieces of debris.

- The material that I saw on
our kitchen floor that night

did not fit the description
of a weather balloon

nor any kind of target device
that would have been used

for radar reflection.

I was a little familiar with radio myself

because I was with my dad
as a ham radio operator

and into this, and again,

it just did not fit the
description of what I now know

to be a radar target nor a
weather balloon, of course.

- [Patrick] Nevertheless,
there have been skeptics

who have called into question
Major Marcel's ability

to identify the materials back in 1947.

- Why he did not know

that this was ordinary
meteorological material

is simply explained by the fact

that he didn't know what it was,

that he had no prior experience,

no knowledge of what it was,

and so he simply could not identify it.

- He used to bring some
weather balloons home

for me to play with in
these big envelopes.

So what this was, there's
no balloon component

to the wreckage that we saw.

I guess other people say that
well, it was a radar target.

Well, he went to radar school
to study radar reflectors

and things like that, and if was that,

he would have not even
bothered to show it to us.

- The balloons that we used
on the early June flight

were made of neoprene.

They were large size
meteorological balloons

of the sort that are
used to carry radiosondes

to measure temperature,
pressure, and humidity

in the upper air.

The radar targets were some
special pre-production models

that were left in stock at
Fort Monmouth after the war,

and they consisted of aluminum foil

laminated onto a fairly tough
parchment-like white paper

and they were deployed
on sticks of balsa wood.

- Other parts of the debris
were more unusual though.

There was some beams and I
recall them as being metal.

Other people recall them as being wood,

but my recollection is
these were metal beams.

I don't think they were wood
because I was very familiar

with balsa wood because
I built balsa wood models

all that time.

- There were markings on the radar targets

and the manufacturer had to use some tape,

something like scotch tape to
attach the reflective panels

to the balsa sticks,

and appears that the
manufacturer used some tape

that happened to be on had

that had some pinkish
purple flower-like designs,

tulip petal shape figures
on the back of the tape.

- [Patrick] Yet Marcel
insists that the markings

on the material were
something other than pieces

of decorative tape on the balsa wood.

He has since commissioned
a replica of the debris

that he witnessed.

- The strange thing in the whole debris,

the whole types of debris
that I saw was the I-beam

or the beam.

It was a metal rod, 12 to 18 inches long

with the purple-violet hue figures

written along the inner surface.

When I picked this beam
up off the kitchen floor,

I looked at it and really
didn't see anything too unusual

until I held it up like
this to get the light

from the overhead light
that was over my shoulder

reflecting along the inner surface,

and that's when I saw the symbols.

They were very faint and
unless you held this up against

or with light,

they would have been easily missed.

- [Patrick] That was the last
time the Marcels would speak

of the debris for years.

- After we had loaded the
debris back on the car,

I went to bed.

My mother went to her room

and I did not see my dad
for maybe the next day.

I'm not sure exactly how long he was gone,

but when he came back
in, he was very serious

about never describing this again.

Treat this as a nonevent, didn't happen.

- [Patrick] Nearly 40 years
would pass before father and son

would discuss their memories of Roswell.

- Shortly before he died, I'd call,

the subject came up

and I said, what do you recall
those I-beams looking like?

And he re-described again
what the figures were.

I said, what color were they?

And oh, they were purple,
kind of a shiny violet hue.

So that coincides with my memory too.

I said, is there any possibility of any

of this still being out there?

Maybe under some rocks or something?

He says no.

His exact words were "They went out there

"and they vacuumed the place up."

- [Patrick] As one of the few
remaining witnesses willing

to come forward and discuss the event,

Marcel believes he knows some
of the truth about Roswell.

He's also aware of the implications.

- They're something I'll never forget

because it opened my eyes as
to what's actually out there.

Our solar system is just a grain of sand

tucked away in an out of the way place

in a very ordinary galaxy.

- Oh my god.

- [Patrick] In 1994, Showtime
released an original movie

based on Randle and Schmitt's
book, UFO Crash in Roswell.

In this scene, Major Marcel,
played by Kyle MacLachlan,

is shown the field of
debris by Mac Brazel,

played by Dwight Yoakam.

- [Man] You know those
Japanese balloon bombs?

- Yeah, made of rice paper,
about 30 feet in diameter.

They don't come apart when they land

unless the bomb goes off.

Then you see char marks everywhere.

- Right.

(gentle instrumental music)

Was this gouge here before?

- Nope.

- [Patrick] Even with what UFO researchers

consider an overwhelming
abundance of evidence,

the weather balloon story persists.

- There's certainly no
evidence that balsa wood

and aluminum foil are the sorts of things

that spacecraft would be made of,

so I think it's highly probable

that our balloon caused that incident.

- It's a preposterous explanation

that makes absolutely no sense.

The documentation does not
corroborate what they say

and yet too often the news
media and the skeptics say,

oh yes, Project Mogul, case closed.

- The question of what
crashed outside of Roswell

is almost equally as
intriguing to researchers

as the mystery of what happened

to the remnants of the wreckage.

After the original carload
of debris was taken

to Roswell Army Air Field by Jesse Marcel,

orders were sent to secure
the remaining material

at the Foster Ranch.

The balance of the debris
was heavily guarded

at Roswell Air Field while
some, accompanied by Marcel,

was flown to Fort Worth to be
inspected by General Ramey.

It is well-documented
that wreckage was sent

to Wright Field, which at the
time was the Army's center

for top secret technological research.

This is where captured German
and Soviet military hardware

was dismantled and studied.

Many believe that this was
where the initial work was begun

to attempt to reverse engineer
the recovered alien craft.

There is also evidence that

within hours of the initial reports,

a satchel of the material
was flown to Washington

for a briefing with President Truman.

Why was the material handled
under such high security?

And why would a routine recovery

require the immediate attention

of so many high ranking officials,

including the President
of the United States?

A new generation has grown up
since the Roswell incident.

Some of the people you would most expect

to be excited about Roswell are the people

who call Roswell home.

Curiously, many of the town's residents

say they've never even
heard of the 1947 incident

or that it's of no concern to them.

- What?

And I tell my husband, what is this?

And he's from Texas,

and he says, well I've already
heard about this years back.

And I just never had heard
about it till, like I tell you,

two years ago.

- I just ignore it in my life.

- I can't even get on
the phone when they say

let me have your address and
I say Roswell, New Mexico

and they just tell me, oh,
that's where the UFO landed.

I just kind of, oh, I guess.

- I've heard of it but
I don't believe in it.

I think it's like a bunch
of stuff made up and stuff.

- Well, Roswell's my hometown.

I've lived here all my
life, like I tell you,

and this is great, but
I'm just not into it.

- So who are the ones
asking the questions?

Surprisingly, many of the
strongest voices speaking out

about Roswell are not new age eccentrics,

but are from the scientific community.

Stanton Friedman is a nuclear
physicist who has worked

on advanced aerospace technologies

and nuclear power plant systems

for companies such as General
Electric, Westinghouse,

General Motors, and TRW.

Bruce Maccabee has been
a Naval Optical Physicist

for over 20 years

and has been personally
researching the subject

of extraterrestrial intelligence
for the past 25 years.

Lee Shargel is a material scientist

who has been a consultant for both NASA

and the Department of Defense.

(gentle instrumental music)

These scientists are convinced
that what crashed at Roswell

was from another world.

To fully investigate a persistent mystery

as intriguing as Roswell,
researchers endeavor

to consider all possible explanations.

In the case of Roswell,
there is still the question

of whether the crashed object

could have been something
other than a UFO.

- My inclination is to believe
that it was a Air Force

or a Central Intelligence
Agency balloon project

and that there was an initial attempt

to cover up this intelligence program.

- [Patrick] John Pike is
Director of Space Policy

at the Federation of American Scientists.

- I'm extremely skeptical
that it had anything

to do with extraterrestrial intelligence

because for one of their vehicles to crash

implies a fallibility on
the part of their technology

that's simply inconsistent
with the reliability

that one needs to build star ships.

- [Patrick] Or could it have
been a classified US project?

Aerospace engineer Ron Ray spoke with us

at Edwards Air Force Base.

- Yeah, the possibility
exists back in the '40s

that because all this new
technology out of Germany,

we had scientists from Germany,

that either we were testing
new advanced concepts

to us at the time, these rocket engines

which were brand new to us,

or this was some kind of
smoke screen if you will

to hide or to put the Russians off guard,

make them think we were further
along than we really were.

And there's been a
history of misinformation

on both sides trying to
keep each other off guard

and that very likely is
one of the possibilities.

If it wasn't Roswell,

we're probably doing it some other place.

- [Patrick] But researcher
Don Schmitt doesn't agree

with either explanation.

- The debris field, as you'll
see in some of the shots,

is open pasture.

It's visible for miles from the air.

In fact, Kevin Randle and
I have flown over the site

on two separate occasions.

You can literally see for almost 50 miles.

I can assure you that
if there was anything

that had gone off course,
anything that had been lost,

that was of top secret nature,

they would have found it before anybody.

- Let's just suppose Los Alamos

or White Sands launched

some ultra-experimental
plane, rocket, whatever--

- They'd be out looking for it.

- Maybe they are.

Maybe they can't find it.

That happens.
- Sherman, look around you.

What do you see?

I mean, what do you see geographically?

This place may be remote
by car but not by plane.

You'd have to be blind not
to spot this from the air.

Nobody's found anything
because nobody's out looking,

and that means this ain't ours.

- All the explanations
that have been offered

for the Roswell crash, whether
it's a balloon of any kind,

a V-2 rocket, airplane
accident, experimental aircraft.

All of those explanations
failed when you started talking

to the witnesses and getting
the eyewitness testimony,

the descriptions of what they had seen.

- With all that we know
about the circumstances

of the Roswell case, it is
puzzling as to why more people

who were here 50 years
ago don't come forward now

and tell their stories.

Could it be that those who
have been keeping their secrets

for all these years are
still afraid to talk?

- There was an element of
fear in this whole thing

from the beginning.

- [Patrick] Many that
were involved at Roswell,

including Frank Joyce,
knew the possible dangers

right from the start.

- And he said our lives
will never be the same.

That's his exact words.

- [Patrick] In a small, desolate town

during a much simpler time
when business deals were sealed

with a handshake, a rancher's
word meant everything.

The possibility of ridicule
resulting from claims

of little green men in
flying saucers was real,

so it's certainly understandable
that many residents

might not have spoken of the
events of early July 1947.

But why wouldn't those who
carried a burning story with them

not come forward today?

- Everything that has to do
with UFOs or super technology

or extraterrestrials has
been placed into an aspect

of everybody that
believes in that is crazy,

that they're all nuts,

that they belong in mental institutions,

and so the legitimate
military and aerospace

basically say, well, you
belong in a rubber room,

or the men in the white coats
are gonna come and get you.

So there's always been, like
I said, a laughter curtain,

a ridicule that anybody that
purports to believe in this

or to have seen it or to filmed it

or photographed it or researched it

is purposely put up to ridicule.

- [Patrick] One witness that
has asked to remain anonymous

explains why he hasn't
come forward until now.

- [D] I have children that
could possibly be hurt by this.

They're also residents.

I also have several legal
matters that are pending

that some judge might not
look favorably upon me

if I stand up and tell them
that I did definitely know

that something crashed out there,

but that could be twisted and warped

in a court of law, sir.

- [Patrick] D knew those involved

and the ramifications of them
having told their stories.

- [D] I know of people who
said they were threatened,

and I know several of the
ranchers in that area were told

to stay away from that area,

and if they had picked up any of the metal

or any of the wreckage as
souvenirs, to return it

or they'd be prosecuted.

- [Patrick] If a flying saucer
was recovered at Roswell

as many believe, then what's
happened to it and its crew?

Metallurgist and author Lee
Shargel spent years working

with advanced flight
systems and technologies,

including NASA's Hubble Telescope

and the Navy's super
R back missile system.

Now Shargel is revealing what he believes

to be a piece of Roswell crash debris.

- It's a piece of a vehicle

that didn't originate on this planet.

- [Patrick] Shargel says that
the material was given to him

by a woman whose father
was a pilot stationed

at Roswell Army Air Field
at the time of the crash.

After authenticating her background,

Shargel subjected the
object to both metallurgic

and chemical analysis.

- We found out that it is made

of homogeneous 100% pure aluminum.

You can't get 100%
homogeneous pure aluminum.

The only way we believe
that that could be made is

in a environment under extreme
pressure and no gravity

in the vacuum of space.

- [Patrick] Shargel is adamant

that the technology did not exist in 1947.

Using computer-aided designs,

he created a three dimensional
model that leads him

to suspect that the object was part

of the spacecraft's engine.

- I think it is a type
of containment valve

or flow valve used in a
superconducting magnetic drive.

It's coated with a thin layer of glass-

and it has what I believe

to be extremely curious
dielectric properties,

and it probably was a valve that operated

with a series of valves to
allow the flow of a material

like liquid nitrogen or
some very cold liquid

that was used to surround
the magnetic core.

- If that explains what
happened to the wreckage,

what about the ship's occupants?

Over the past few years,
various film clips

and photographs have
surfaced that were purported

to be actual images of
recovered alien life forms.

Investigators have scrutinized
all footage and photos

that have come to light, and so far,

no pictures have been
verified as being genuine.

(spooky instrumental music)

The incident at Roswell can be explained

by one of three possibilities.

It was either a downed weather balloon,

a crashed alien spaceship,

or some top secret military
project gone wrong.

And every investigator who
has researched the case

says it was definitely not a
top secret military project,

so we're left with two choices:
balloon or alien craft.

What do you think?

If it was a balloon,

why do eyewitnesses describe the wreckage

as something not manufactured on earth?

And why did the military
treat the material

as something far more
important than balloon debris?

The idea that an extraterrestrial craft

may have crashed here in
Roswell challenges some

of our most fundamental beliefs.

Are we alone in the universe?

Or have we indeed been visited
by beings from other worlds?

- [Man] Can you make any sense
of what it could possibly be?

- [Man] No, we're in as much
dark about it as you are.

- [Patrick] In 1965, radar
detected something in the skies

over Edwards Air Force Base in California.

Recently, some of the
recordings of the conversations

during the incident
have been declassified.

- [Patrick] These excerpts
from the audio documentary

Edwards Air Force Base Encounter,

compiled by producer Sam Sherman,

are proof to many that UFOs do exist.

- [Patrick] Some believe
that the earliest reports

of UFO sightings date back hundreds

if not thousands of years.

(tense instrumental music)

Certainly in this century,

the notion of distant space travel

and contact with exotic
beings from other worlds

has been a captivating
and entertaining subject

in popular culture.

The pervasive paranoia
of the '50s was reflected

in frightening depictions of
invasions from outer space.

- [Narrator] Flying saucers
have invaded our planet.

Washington, London, Paris,
Moscow are key targets.

The whole world is under attack.

- [Patrick] Motion pictures and TV shows

portrayed flying saucers and their pilots

as sinister enemies to mankind.

While images such as these
appear laughable now,

at the time, they represented
disturbing possibilities

of disaster resulting from alien contact.

With some notable exceptions,

contemporary attitudes thankfully
tend to be more hopeful.

Recently, part of Nevada Highway 375

was renamed the Extraterrestrial Highway,

welcoming any and all alien visitors.

- Most people when they look
to the skies see friend or foe.

Not me.

I see intergalactic tourists.

- [Patrick] Many point to a
variety of mysterious phenomena

as evidence of the presence
of extraterrestrials.

Crop circles in the UK are often claimed

to have been caused by alien beings.

Likewise, they have been blamed

for many unexplained
instances of animal mutilation

across the United States.

And while there has been
little physical evidence

to prove the claims,

thousands of individuals
have reported being abducted

by extraterrestrial craft.

UFO debunker Phillip Klass
feels that none of these claims

offer substantial proof of
extraterrestrial visitation.

- In 30 years, more than nearly 31 years

of investigating mysterious UFO cases,

I have yet to find one, not a single one,

that cannot be explained in
down to earth or prosaic terms.

- [Patrick] Scientist
John Pike tends to agree.

- I think it's clear
that tens of thousands

of people every year see
objects flying in the sky

that they can't explain.

I think that it's equally
clear that, upon investigation,

most of those sightings

have relatively prosaic
explanations, but a small percentage

of them remain very difficult to explain.

When you do the math, it's
fairly clear that life,

civilized life, should be
very abundant in the galaxy.

Space flight isn't that
difficult, so the question is

why aren't those advance
civilizations already here

because we certainly don't
seem to see them here.

- Could it be that in
this amazing universe,

100 billion galaxies,

each with hundreds of billions of stars,

this is the only star that
has an inhabited planet?

It seems like the height
of human arrogance,

but that's not proof.

The only way you really
find out is by looking.

- [Patrick] For over 30 years,
scientists involved with SETI

have been scanning the heavens

for signals from other worlds.

- Everything we've learned
in our modern studies

of astronomy, of biology,
of evolution of life

have showed that the steps
which led to our being here,

including our high
technology-using civilization,

are completely normal steps
in evolution of a star

and its planets, and therefore,

the steps which led to our
existence should have occurred

in many, many places, and
therefore, there should be many

technology-using civilizations in space.

- [Patrick] Regrettably, the
US Congress canceled funding

for SETI, but the search still goes on.

Lee Shargel believes a
different NASA project

may be the means of contact.

- We sent Voyager out in space

and Carl Sagan and other
scientists, Nobel laureates,

fought vehemently to put that
gold plate, that record album

on the side of that probe

with the images and
sounds of what the essence

of human culture is.

Why did they do that?

Because they hope that someday,

some extraterrestrial race
would find that probe,

retrieve that record from the side of it,

see the diagram, learn how to play it,

and understand who and what we are

and see the map of its trajectory

and follow it back to this world.

And they thought, well maybe
it'll be 10,000, 30,000,

maybe a million years from now,

but someday, they would discover that.

Why did they do that?

Because they believed in the possibility

that extraterrestrial
life might be out there.

Now think about that in reverse.

What if they did it to us?

Would we say, oh it's ludicrous,
it could never happen?

How could be make a statement like that

when we ourselves did the very same thing?

Suppose they're sending
probes out into space

and one of them may have
inadvertently come here,

and maybe one of those probes
had within it the life forms

of that other world.

- [Patrick] Those who study
the phenomenon of UFOs

are convinced that the
government knows a lot more

about alien life than they
even come close to admitting.

For years, both civilian
and military pilots

have reported observing mysterious
objects while in flight.

Astronauts Gordon Cooper and Frank Borman

have publicly announced their encounters.

And yet no official announcement.

- And it's interesting because
the denial has actually gone

from the original Condon
Report in the 1950s

that said UFOs aren't dangerous,

but people who see them are.

So it's gone from everybody
that sees them is crazy

to okay, we'll investigate the phenomenon

to now there's nothing to it,

to now it being well, we
can't confirm or deny.

So in other words, the
military is now saying

we can't say that there isn't something

but we can't say there
is something either.

So you'll notice that even
the level of deniability

has actually swung in an arc

that's more towards favoring the truth.

- I am here to discuss the
so-called flying saucer.

The Air Force interest in
this problem has been due

to our feeling of an
obligation to identify

and analyze to the best of our ability

anything in the air that may
have the possibility of threat

or menace to the United States.

In pursuit of this obligation, since 1947,

we have received and analyzed

between 1,000 and 2,000
reports that have come to us

from all kinds of sources.

Of this great mass of reports,
we have been able adequately

to explain the great bulk of them.

However, there have been a
certain percentage of this volume

of reports that have been
made by credible observers

of relatively incredible things.

It is this group of observations

that we now are attempting to resolve.

- [Patrick] Responding to
ever-increasing awareness

of the situation,

the Air Force launched what
they called Project Blue Book,

implemented, they said, to
investigate the UFO phenomenon.

- Project Blue Book was the third name

for the Air Force's publicly
known UFO investigation.

By previous names, it
goes back to January 1948

and continued until December
1969, almost 22 years.

It was headquartered at
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base

in Dayton, Ohio.

It accepted UFO reports
from government people,

from the general public.

It collected over 12,000 reports

and it was charged obviously

with explaining every
single report it got.

The techniques it used were
sometimes so unscientific

as to make you wonder what was going on,

but when it closed down and
the files were first sent

to the Air Force archives

and later to the National
Archives here in Washington,

there was still almost 600
reports admittedly unexplained.

There were two or three times
that many reports claimed

to have been explained but weren't,

but these were the ones the Air Force said

they felt they had enough information

but couldn't come up with an answer.

It was as if unexplained
was an explanation.

You explained some as
balloons, some as airplanes,

and some as unexplained,

and that was the end of it.

This was definitely
not a scientific study.

It was a public relations effort.

- Only a fool would say
that there is no possibility

of life elsewhere but on Earth.

Yes, there must be life out there,

but I must say that we on
Earth have not seen it yet.

- None of the arguments
made by a very small group

of debunkers, noisy
negativists, as I call them,

people like my college
classmate Carl Sagan,

against the first two conclusions

stand up under careful scrutiny.

The arguments sound great
until you look at the evidence

and they collapse with their own weight.

The evidence is overwhelming

that planet Earth is being visited

by intelligently controlled
extraterrestrial spacecraft.

In other words, some UFOs,
underlining the some 20 times,

are alien spacecraft.

Most are not, I don't care about those.

- Hello, I'm Patrick Macnee.

We're talking about Roswell
and the incident of 1947.

The crash outside this
town ignited the passions

of those who insist that what
landed here was a spacecraft

from another planet.

If the remnants recovered
were from an alien craft,

they say, then the reason
we haven't been told

about it is simple.

The government is keeping the details

of the incident a secret.

- I really think the story here

is not something crashing here so much.

The story is that our government,

which is supposed to have an open society,

clamps the lid on something using tactics

that are very questionable,

that are constitutionally
questionable in my opinion,

and getting away with it.

- [Patrick] Within hours of
the original press release,

samples of the debris
were sent to Fort Worth.

There, General Ramey posed
for pictures with Jesse Marcel

and pieces of a weather balloon

that Ramey claimed came from Roswell.

- What was brought through the hangar,

through the building and
loaded on the airplane

was not the same material.

It was not a weather balloon.

- They tried to kill
every last word of it.

They didn't want anyone to
know anything about this,

not even a thought.

- [Patrick] While at
Roswell Army Air Field,

Glenn Dennis witnessed what
he believed to be the wreckage

of an airplane crash.

He was immediately
detained for questioning,

then threatened by military officers.

- When I turned around,

there was another captain standing there

and he came up and he
tapped me on the shoulder

and he said don't go and
start a bunch of rumors.

Nothing's happened out here,

this crash or anything else.

And he said you'll get in some
trouble or something similar.

I don't remember the exact words,

but anyway, I didn't like his attitude,

and I said, I'm a civilian.

You can't do anything to
me, you can go to hell.

That's when he really
punched me a little bit

and he said somebody'll
be picking your bones out

of the sand if you.

That was the only time
when I was ever threatened.

- There is a cover up.

After many years of
investigation, I am certain

that there is a cover
up as far as Roswell,

not by the US Air Force,
not by the US government,

but by those people who falsely claim

that the government is covering up.

They are the ones that are
withholding key information

from the public.

- [Patrick] Aviation historian
Phillip Klass believes

that a declassified letter to the Pentagon

by Wright-Patterson Lieutenant
General Nathan Twining

might be evidence disproving
the Roswell cover up theory.

- Here is a letter written

by Lieutenant General Nathan Twining

on September 24th, 1947,

in which he says the phenomenon
reported is something real

and not visionary or fictitious.

But what you never see
or never hear quoted

was a later paragraph in that same letter

in which General Twining says

"Due consideration must
be given to the following.

"The lack of physical
evidence in the shape

"of crash recovered exhibits

"which would undeniably
prove the existence

"of these objects."

This letter alone, that comment
alone, disproves Roswell.

And because of that,
writers of books on Roswell,

producers of TV shows

intentionally omit any reference to that.

- [Patrick] Not all
researchers believe this letter

disproves the cover up.

- There's no doubt there was a cover up.

General DuBose, who was the
Chief of Staff of 8th Air Force

in July of 1947, told us flat out

that the balloon explanation
was a cover story.

- [Patrick] In 1990,
DuBose was interviewed

at the age of 89.

Under hypnosis he recalled
the events of July 1947.

- General DuBose also said
that he was not supposed

to discuss this event with General Ramey,

the commander of 8th Air Force.

- Why not, if it's just a weather balloon?

Even if it's a balloon assigned

to the top secret Project Mogul,

there is certainly nothing
in the balloon arrays,

nothing in the equipment that requires

that high level of security.

Why create this massive
cover up to do that?

- To fully understand how
a story as extraordinary

as that of a crashed flying
saucer could be kept secret,

we need to return once
again to early summer 1947.

Four long years of fighting
had ended victoriously

for the Allies.

With the surrender of Germany and Japan,

the nightmare of World
War II was finally over.

- To every subordinate that
has been in this command

of almost five million Allies,

I owe a debt of gratitude
that can never be repaid.

- [Patrick] The troops returned home

and America was getting back on its feet

and coming to terms with its new position

as a global superpower.

In the late '40s, New
Mexico was a proving ground

for the most awesome weapons
the world had ever seen.

With the onset of the Cold War,

fear of communist aggression
became a national obsession.

It affected every facet
of life in America.

- Answer that question if
we have to stay every week.

Are you a member of the communist party

or have you ever been a
member of the communist party?

- I have told you that I will--

- [Patrick] Far from New
Mexico, 1947 saw the beginnings

of McCarthyism and the witch hunts

of the House Un-American
Activities Committees.

- Stand away from the stand.
- Fight for

the Bill of Rights--
- I said take this man

away from the stand.

- [Patrick] During World War II,

Americans had become well accustomed

to the concepts of national security.

Every citizen was drilled on
the importance of vigilance

and silence, and this situation continued

as the Cold War heated up.

Nowhere was this more
true than in New Mexico.

Across the state, top
secret military projects

and operations demanded cooperation

from private citizens as
well as military personnel.

If people were told not
to talk about something,

they knew to keep their mouths shut.

Classified defense projects in Alamogordo

at the White Sands Missile
Range and at Los Alamos

made New Mexico a hotbed of secrecy.

The entire region was in
a constant state of alert.

In Roswell, the 509th Bomb Group was

at the time the only
military unit in the world

with nuclear capabilities,
having been responsible

for dropping the first and
only A-bomb used in war.

As an officer stationed in Roswell,

Walter Haut knew how
important secrecy was.

- You've got a different
frame of mind back in 1947.

If we were told to do
something, we did it.

We didn't ask why.

Basically, you didn't have a need to know.

Somebody knew why you were doing it

and it passed down the chain of command,

and when it hit you, you were
the grunt that did the work

and that was it.

- [Patrick] In postwar America,

the attitude toward the government
and figures of authority

was still one of trust.

This was still an era of
innocence and acceptance

compared to the decades that would follow.

Former Roswell radio
personality Frank Joyce

articulates the difference.

- Something else you gotta remember.

That was a different era than now.

You didn't have the complex
society that we have now.

You did not have TVs, cameramen
as we have scheduled here,

a news reporter like
yourself with a backing

of all sorts of people
and all the best equipment

in the world to report
everything that happened.

So when a statement came
out on the news wire

that simply said it's a weather balloon,

people were inclined to believe it.

- In 1947, the Vietnam
War hadn't yet happened,

nor had the '60s and the era of rebellion.

Watergate wasn't even a hotel yet

and the Iran-Contra
affair was 40 years away.

People still tended to
believe in their leaders

and what they said.

If an official statement came
out saying a flying saucer

was really a weather balloon,

it was much more likely that
people would accept the change

in story without further thought.

Those who are convinced
there's more to Roswell

than just a weather balloon
are determined to get answers,

but getting through to the
fortress of information

is not an easy task.

While UFO researchers claim
the federal government

keeps the truth about
Roswell locked tightly away,

it is the goal of these researchers

to extract official information.

Using procedures mandated by
the Freedom of Information Act,

investigators have been chipping away

at what they see as a
fortress guarding the secrets

of hundreds of UFO encounters.

Stanton Friedman, the
researcher who first spoke

to Jesse Marcel in 1978,
says getting answers

from the government is not so simple.

- Many people think that it's easy

with Freedom of
Information, this magic key

that unlocks all the doors.

All you gotta ask and you
get anything you want.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.

You have the right to ask.

They don't have to reveal

because there's a page full of exclusions,

and the major exclusion
is national security.

Anyway, we applied under
Freedom of Information

and we said we want
these 18 UFO documents.

All we have list basically of dates.

No, gentlemen, we can't release anything.

National security here.

We're going around in circles,
so we try a legal ploy.

We ask that they submit
the documents to the judge

so he can determine

whether they are properly
invoking national security.

They provide him none of the documents,

but a 21-page top secret affidavit

justifying the withholding
of the documents

which he gets to see in chambers.

He was so impressed with that
that he ruled in their favor.

He said that the public
interest in disclosure,

which he recognized, was far outweighed

by the potential danger to the
security of the United States

should this information be released.

National security and flying saucers.

We filed one of these wonderful, magical

Freedom of Information Act
requests for the affidavit

and we got it.

We expected a little censorship.

It's not too surprising that
there's some blacked out stuff,

but then it gets so darn heavy
that it's truly laughable.

You're telling me there's no cover up?

75% blacked out.

There is no question
whatsoever that agencies

of the United States government

are withholding UFO information.

Now if you ask do I know what
it is they're withholding?

Well, when I see it, I'll know,

but certainly they're
withholding the story

about the Roswell crash.

- [Patrick] Former Command
Sergeant Major Robert Dean

was assigned to Supreme
Headquarters Allied Powers in Europe

where he was exposed to
highly classified operations

and information on a daily basis.

Since leaving the military,

he has formed Stargate International,

whose goal is to educate
the public on the reality

of extraterrestrial presence.

- It's easy to lie to the American people.

Lying in government has almost
become institutionalized

in American government.

I'll give you a small example.

About a year and a half ago,

NASA at Houston was circulating
and in-house document

to the personnel at Houston

on how to avoid the
Freedom of Information Act.

They were telling their
personnel literally how

to lie to the public and to the media.

So secrets can be kept.

A lid has been kept on this
one for well over 50 years

and it's quite easy to
lie to the American public

because they don't do their homework

and they don't pay attention.

- [Patrick] Other organizations,

such as the Mutual UFO Network

and Citizens Against UFO Secrecy,

were formed with similar goals,

but Washington DC based
Operation Right to Know

is taking a different approach.

Elaine Douglass believes that
highly visible demonstrations

might broaden public awareness.

- Operation Right to Know started in 1992.

Since that time, we've
had 14 demonstrations

and the reason we do these
demonstrations is simply

to get people out there
in public on the street,

saying the truth.

- We're striving to have
what we call open hearings.

We want them on C-SPAN.

We want the doors to be open,

and we have asked Congress
individually, in many cases,

to grant us congressional immunity

for violating our security oaths

so those of us in the old boy
network can tell the Congress,

can tell the congressional
representatives,

can tell the people what we've seen

and what we've learned.

- [Patrick] Even though
public awareness is greater

than it was even a decade ago,

the support of elected
officials is slow in coming.

- But I do believe we're making progress

thanks to the work of people
like Congressman Schiff

from New Mexico.

Questions are being asked.

We've got a number of senators
who have privately stated

that they're with us in this issue.

So we are making some headway.

I'm a little impatient because
I'm getting older by the day

and I'm not gonna be around forever,

and I'd like to see it happen now.

- While assertions of government cover up

are handily dismissed by
skeptics as nothing more

than the rantings of
paranoid sensationalists,

it's important to
consider the track record

of the past few decades.

Since the earliest days of this nation,

the American system of
government has been designed

to serve and be responsible
to the American citizen.

Yet for the last 30 or 40 years,

there has been a steady erosion of trust

in the country's leaders.

The reason: a repeated
surfacing of incidents

of dishonesty by government officials.

Beginning in the late '40s and '50s,

the federal government
sponsored a massive program

to test and develop atomic weapons.

Cold War fear created an
urgent need to perfect weapons

of mass destruction as part
of the strategy of deterrence.

It was not until 1994 however,

that it was learned that
many radiation test subjects

were not even aware of their exposure

to harmful levels of radiation.

The revelations resulted in public outrage

and congressional hearings.

- But I must say that
slipping radium substances

in however small doses to
unsuspecting, uninformed,

and unconsenting citizens
smacks of an evil

that cannot be dismissed.

- It is no accident that
prisoners, soldiers,

and the elderly were used for
testing effects of radiation.

These members of society
were not fully enfranchised

and lacked control over their lives.

- [Patrick] In the 1960s and early '70s,

the war in Vietnam spilled
over into Laos and Cambodia.

Bombing campaigns were
carried out by the military

while the public and press
were kept in the dark.

In the '80s, arms were sold

to support the Contra
anti-communists in Nicaragua

in violation of US law and
without public knowledge.

- God bless America.

- I happen to believe
that this nation needs

to be able to conduct
deniable covert operations.

I believe that this president,
like all presidents,

needs to have an ability
to dissociate himself

from those activities,

and that the US role should
remain hidden or deniable

and not be revealed.

- And more recently, it was learned

that beginning in the '40s,
black soldiers were used

as human guinea pigs to study
the effects of syphilis.

Most shocking is the revelation

that the test subjects were never told

and were not treated even when treatments

for the disease existed.

It's no wonder many doubt the honesty

of government officials.

How paranoid is the
belief that the government

would withhold knowledge
of extraterrestrials?

Well, after numerous
private and official probes,

what does the government say Roswell was?

And does anyone believe the answer?

- The recent study by the Air Force

which culminated in their
official report in July of 1994,

the background of that report

included a very large
investigation into the possibility

of other objects having crashed or fallen

at that particular time
on the ranch at Roswell.

It was examined from every
conceivable point of view

and the answer is positively no.

There was no other possible
source of that debris.

- [Patrick] Retired Air
Force Colonel Richard Weaver

was assigned to head up the
government's 1994 investigation

into the Roswell incident.

- The impetus for the
Pentagon starting its inquiry

into what happened was to be responsive

to a General Accounting Office request

that was generated by
Congressman Steven Schiff

of New Mexico.

Congressman Schiff had requested the GAO

to conduct an audit of
what was veiledly named

balloon crashes and airplane crashes

but it was obviously what
they were looking for

was something to do with Roswell.

The Air Force responds
to all GAO requests.

They answer them all.

They provide all the information

and this was just another GAO
request that we responded to.

- About September of 1993, maybe October,

I talked with some officials

at the General Accounting Office

who I was seeing on some other matters

and I told them about
this and I asked them

if they would undertake an inquiry for me.

And what I asked them for was not

to recreate the Roswell
incident from scratch

by trying to interview everybody.

After almost 50 years, I don't even think

that's probably possible to do anymore.

I asked them to help me find
the government documents

that would have existed in 1947

and if they don't exist
anymore, what happened to them?

I do have to add that there
has been at least one change

since I began all this,

and that is that the
Department of the Air Force,

through the Secretary of the Air Force,

issued an instruction to all agencies

to fully cooperate with the
General Accounting Office,

and I was glad to see
that change of position

on the part of the Air Force

because they quite clearly
were not fully cooperating

with me when I first contacted them.

- [Patrick] And what answers

did the Air Force investigation yield?

According to Weaver and his team

of researchers and analysts,
there was nothing other

than a weather balloon
that could have crashed

at the Foster ranch.

- We considered a number
of options going into it

and those are things that we explored.

For example, could this
have been an airplane crash,

whether a regular airplane crash

or an experimental airplane
crash of some type?

The answer was no.

Could this have been a nuclear accident

since, at that time, the 509th Bomb Group

at Roswell was the only
people in the world

that had nuclear weapons,
and the answer again was no.

Could this have been a missile
crash from White Sands,

an errant missile that had
somehow gone off course?

And the answer again, we found, was no.

And we considered could this

have been an extraterrestrial
event of some proportions?

And again, the answer we found was no.

- [Patrick] While many
believe that the government

is still covering up the
true story behind Roswell,

Colonel Weaver believes
that his investigation

was completely unbiased.

- We went into the whole
study with a real open mind.

And I say we, there were
scores of people involved.

This just wasn't myself
or Captain McAndrew

whose name was also
usually linked with this,

but scores of people who were
involved in the research.

We went into it with an open mind

and with no presuppositions
of what we would find.

- [Patrick] Former NYU
weather balloon engineer

Charles Moore was the
technician responsible

for releasing the balloon found by Brazel.

- The balloon that we think was recovered

on the Foster ranch was
launched about three o'clock

in the morning on June 4th, 1947.

We launched our next flight
about the same time of the day

on June 5th.

That was the one that was
recovered east of Roswell.

And when the balloons came back to ground

after some of them burst,
they dragged across the ground

and they shed pieces as they went,

but there was not a crash
as far as we can determine.

It was just a gentle landing

that the wind then dragged
the remaining balloons

that were inflated across the ground.

Since this has come back to light,

I have gone to the National
Climatic Data Center

in Asheville, North Carolina

and have been able to get
the wind data for that day,

for the whole month of June 1947.

It's possible, I have
calculated a trajectory

that would have exactly landed the balloon

on the Foster Ranch.

- [Patrick] Colonel Albert
Trakowski was the project officer

in charge of the New Jersey
based Mogul balloon project.

He concurs with the finding
of the Air Force Report.

He suggests, however,
that were was no need

for the recovered debris
to have been escorted

by armed guard.

- Although the purpose of
Project Mogul was top secret,

all of the equipment that was used,

individually and collectively,
was unclassified.

Only the purpose of the
use of that equipment

was security classified,

and the equipment was
certainly expendable.

There was no reason to use it again.

There was no such thing
known as a Mogul balloon

because at first, we used
ordinary meteorological balloons.

There wasn't anything about the balloon

that would merit special
security of the balloon itself

once it was launched.

- [Patrick] Congressman Schiff,
along with many researchers,

believes that this very point is a hole

in the weather balloon theory.

- There seems to be no
doubt that these materials,

when picked up, don't
seem to have been treated

like they were parts of a weather balloon.

These materials were
flown out of New Mexico

under armed guard by military police.

Now, weather balloons
are not normally shipped

under armed guard.

- What appalled me is
they issue a report saying

that we have gone back to our records,

we've looked at our records,

and we've discovered in
1947, we lied to you,

we said it was a weather
balloon, but we've now discovered

that it was a weather balloon.

- [Patrick] There has
been much speculation

regarding the possibility of the crash

having been another US
government top secret project.

- I would guess,

and I have to say I'm purely
speculating right now,

I would have to guess that if
it was not a weather balloon

in 1947, that perhaps there was some kind

of classified military experiment

from the White Sands Test Range

or some other military
facility in southern New Mexico

that in fact crashed and was found.

And in 1947, the government was unable

to say what it actually was,

and therefore said it
was a weather balloon.

- [Patrick] Don Berliner disagrees.

- There were certainly top
secret airplanes flying around,

but mainly flying around California.

There were certainly
rocket tests going on.

There was even one converted
captured German V-2 rocket

that went astray and landed in Mexico.

They didn't keep it secret.

They went public with it right away.

Nobody was hurt.

And so if this had been such a thing,

there would have been no
real reason to keep it secret

even at the time,

so the Air Force would
probably be bragging

about its super airplanes or
rockets, not concealing them.

(tense instrumental music)

- One other theory about
Roswell has surfaced

in recent years.

Is it possible that both
the flying saucer story

and the balloon explanation
could have been a smokescreen

to distract the Soviets

from our secret Cold
War military programs?

We're investigating the
1947 Roswell incident.

Was it a secret military
experiment using weather balloons,

or was it a crashed UFO?

And if it was an alien spacecraft,

why would our government
keep this information secret

for 50 years?

Is the truth something we should fear?

There's long been speculation

about the government's motivations

for withholding information

that ETs have indeed visited our planet.

Ufologist Sean Morton has
done extensive research work

on the topic of government
cover ups at Area 51

and Groom Lake, Nevada.

He believes that there is
evidence that dates back years.

- In 1962, the Brookings
Institute published a white paper

for NASA, and in that white paper,

they said that within 30
years that NASA would come

in contact with either
extraterrestrial archeology

a la the face on Mars or the
pyramids of the Cydonia site,

or many of the artifacts
that we found on the moon,

or we would come in contact

with extraterrestrials themselves.

- Who knows what it would be like.

I don't think we're prepared, any of us,

if it were to happen,

but I think it would
be a transforming event

in human history.

- [Patrick] Scientist John
Pikes' views seem to concur

with those stated in the
Brookings Institute report.

- There are a lot of reasons
the government might want

to cover up the fact
that it was in contact

with an extraterrestrial civilization.

It could destabilize our
society and political system,

call into question religious
or economic beliefs,

and it could get a lot
of other governments

on this planet very nervous

about what sort of
advantage we were getting

from our contact with the aliens.

- [Patrick] The report also warns

of the conquistador syndrome

where many cultures have disintegrated

after coming into contact with others

of greater knowledge or power.

Some say that our
government of the people,

by the people, and for the people,

has no right to keep this
information out of public reach.

Others however feel that a cover
up may be for our own good.

- Suppose they did find
something within this

that the knowledge of
that would be so frightful

that that in itself could
disrupt our society.

- [Patrick] The Orson Welles
War of the Worlds radio show

had that very effect.

- I was extremely surprised to learn

that a story which has
become familiar to children

through the medium of comic strips

and many succeeding novels
and adventure stories

should have had such an
immediate and profound effect

upon radio listeners.

- [Patrick] What Roswell secret

from 1947 could still
be a threat to us today?

- Suppose there was something
contained within that craft,

some alien technology that could be used

either for or against us,

but it's effect could change
the course of history.

Withholding it would prevent
that change from occurring

at that time.

Maybe some technology

that might alter our dependence on oil.

Just imagine if tomorrow we
didn't have a dependence on oil.

We didn't need it anymore.

We discovered some energy
source, some engine, some power

that relinquished our dependence on oil.

What would that do to the
economic system of the world?

It would collapse overnight.

- [Patrick] Or could a
recovered technology be used

for strategic gain?

If the government reverse
engineer the technology

from a star ship in the same manner

that the military might back engineer

a rival country's spy plane, for instance,

that government could
stand to gain immeasurably.

- A number of technologies
were either partially inspired

or wholly inspired from what
was recovered at Roswell.

It's amazing that when
you look at the profiles

from both the sides and from the dead on

how close to stealth technology
and spy plane designs

that the Roswell ship resembles.

We firmly believe that she
is the design Rosetta Stone

and the Holy Grail for
aerospace design technology.

- The issue to me is
government accountability

for what the government did.

The government should make
public all of its records

on this or any other subject,

unless only there's a
current real security need

for them not to do so.

And then the public can
make up its own mind.

- The problem is that we the
people don't want to know.

Sure, there's been a government cover up

and people to say to me

how could this be kept
secret for 50 years?

Well, the answer is not without
the wholehearted cooperation

of the American people.

- So what would happen if
aliens landed on Earth tomorrow?

Would we welcome them as
fellow intelligent beings

or would our own sense
of superiority shatter

and give way to fear and mistrust?

- The first test was the
announcement of a tiny microbe

in a little meteorite that landed

in Allan Hills in Antarctica.

That was a test of our society.

How would we react to the announcement

of life on another planet?

And what do you think occurred?

Society was divided right down the middle.

Those one the one side said
impossible, it couldn't be life.

Earth is the center of
intelligence in the universe.

And those on the other
side of the fences said,

ah, we knew it all along.

- I'm convinced that
something has been here before

and that something may be here now.

- [Reporter] We interrupt this program

to give you a bulletin just received

from one of our Naval units at sea.

A large object traveling at
supersonic speed is headed

over the North Atlantic
toward the East Coast

of the United States.

(tense instrumental music)

- The only thing I can think of is

that it would just cause such
pandemonium in the country.

A real scare.

Out of nowhere all of a
sudden, there's alien life.

- We'd probably be freaked out.

- I think people would panic instead

of acting sensible about it.

- [Man] Just a minute.

Ladies and gentlemen, I
think something is happening.

(suspenseful music)

- Well, here we are some 50
years since the unfolding

of either the greatest
story of our existence

or the biggest case of
misinterpretation in modern history.

What have we learned?

Are there any answers
to be found in this town

or in the halls of Washington?

Is this really the
story of the millennium?

On the 50th anniversary

of the most widely speculated
UFO incident in history,

what did those involved do
to usher in this milestone?

A full week of live events
at the crash site, of course,

from rock bands to laser light show

and even a 35 ton red
rock monument erected

to beckon the curious alien passerby.

Some believe that all the hoopla

overshadows what actually happened.

John Brauer, the producer of the events,

feels that they're very necessary

to spread the Roswell word.

- It just creates more focus on the fact

that something did happen in Roswell

that has not been truthfully
communicated to the public,

whether it's the American
public or the public at large.

And I think that truth
has yet to be revealed

and as we celebrate Roswell more

and create more attention to it,

possibly we will create the mechanism

for that truth to be told.

- Don't be totally snowed and turn off

by all the hype that goes on.

That's a result of the fact

that there really is a UFO
industry out there now.

- [Patrick] There are many

that still carry the 50-year-old memory

of Roswell with them.

Their hope is that as the years pass

and new generations rediscover
this most unusual occurrence,

maybe a few of the scores
of compelling questions

might finally be answered
once and for all.

With witnesses aging

and memories growing fainter by the day,

researchers can only hope

that they'll turn up
something new very soon.

(gentle instrumental music)

- There's absolutely no doubt in my mind

that what crashed outside of Roswell

was an extraterrestrial craft.

That opinion is gonna remain firm

through the 50th anniversary
and far beyond that.

- Four major conclusions after 36 years

of study and investigation.

One, the evidence is
overwhelming that planet Earth

is being visited

by intelligently controlled
extraterrestrial spacecraft.

Second, the subject of flying
saucers represents a kind

of cosmic Watergate.

That means some few people
within the governments

of the United States, Canada,

and Britain, Russia, et cetera,

have known since July 1947

when two crashed flying saucers

and several alien bodies were
recovered here in New Mexico.

Third, none of the arguments
made by a very small group

of debunkers, noisy
negativists, as I call them,

stand up under careful scrutiny.

- [Patrick] The government,
the believers, the skeptics.

Could there possibly be
more to the Roswell story?

The Air Force has recently
revisited the topic

by issuing what they call their final word

on the Roswell incident.

In the report, the Air Force attempts

to explain eyewitness
accounts of alien bodies

at the crash site as
mixed memories from tests

in the area years later.

The report's conclusion
is that dummies used

in impact testing from
high altitude balloons

were misidentified by
observers as extraterrestrial.

Is this truly the final word?

Just before the release
of that final report,

the skies over the
southwest lit up once again,

On March the 13th, 1997,
strange objects were observed

by multiple witnesses

in the night skies over Phoenix, Arizona.

- I believe it a serious
offense for anyone,

human, space alien, or otherwise,

to engage in mysterious
activity in our nighttime skies.

- Responding to public concerns,

the governor of Arizona
addressed the issue

and with tongue planted firmly in cheek,

announced the arrest of the
supposed alien perpetrator.

The object defied
conventional identification

and the Air Force has declined

to make any official
statement on their origin.

I hope we've been able to shed some light

on the enduring mystery of Roswell.

One has to wonder will we
ever know the full truth

about this case, or do we
already have the answers

in front of us?

What do you think?

- I think it would be arrogant
and borderline foolish

to believe that there
is no other lifeforms

that exist out there.

- I not only believe,

I believe that there are many
different species of ships,

there are many different
species of extraterrestrials,

and not all of them are up to good.

- I think that it's sort
of the romantic side of me

that likes to believe that
there's something else out there,

something better or wiser
or brighter or whatever.

- The universe is so big
and there's so many worlds

that must be on one of them or more

something that's alive.

That could be.

It's fun to think about, exciting.

What do you think?

- Have we been visited by other lifeforms

from beyond our tiny
corner of the universe?

And if we have, can we
handle the knowledge

of their existence?

I'm Patrick Macnee.

Thanks for joining us.

(eerie instrumental music)