24 June 2016

History for the day: 1997: USAF reports on Roswell UF

 History.com has this for 24 June:

On 24 June 1997, Air Force officials released a two-hundred-page report dismissing long-standing claims of an alien spacecraft crash in Roswell, New Mexico almost exactly fifty years earlier.
Public interest in Unidentified Flying Objects, or UFOs, began to flourish in the 1940s, when developments in space travel and the dawn of the atomic age caused many Americans to turn their attention to the skies. The town of Roswell, located near the Pecos River in southeastern New Mexico, became a magnet for UFO believers due to the strange events of early July 1947, when ranch foreman W.W. Brazel found a strange, shiny material scattered over some of his land. He turned the material over to the sheriff, who passed it on to authorities at the nearby Air Force base. On July 8, Air Force officials announced they had recovered the wreckage of a “flying disk.” A local newspaper put the story on its front page, launching Roswell into the spotlight of the public’s UFO fascination.
The Air Force soon took back their story, however, saying the debris had been merely a downed weather balloon. Aside from die-hard UFO believers, or “ufologists,” public interest in the so-called “Roswell Incident” faded until the late 1970s, when claims surfaced that the military had invented the weather balloon story as a cover-up. Believers in this theory argued that officials had in fact retrieved several alien bodies from the crashed spacecraft, which were now stored in the mysterious Area 51 installation in Nevada. Seeking to dispel these suspicions, the Air Force issued a 1,000-page report in 1994 stating that the crashed object was actually a high-altitude weather balloon launched from a nearby missile test-site as part of a classified experiment aimed at monitoring the atmosphere in order to detect Soviet nuclear tests.
On July 24, 1997, barely a week before the extravagant 50th anniversary celebration of the incident, the Air Force released yet another report on the controversial subject. Titled “The Roswell Report, Case Closed,” the document stated definitively that there was no Pentagon evidence that any kind of life form was found in the Roswell area in connection with the reported UFO sightings, and that the “bodies” recovered were not aliens but dummies used in parachute tests conducted in the region. Any hopes that this would put an end to the cover-up debate were in vain, as furious ufologists rushed to point out the report’s inconsistencies. With conspiracy theories still alive and well on the Internet, Roswell continues to thrive as a tourist destination for UFO enthusiasts far and wide, hosting the annual UFO Encounter Festival each July and welcoming visitors year-round to its International UFO Museum and Research Center.
Rico says we may, alas, never know...

-----Original Message-----
From: "HISTORY | This Day In History" <tdih@emails.history.com>
Sent: Friday, 24 June, 2016 06:03
To: "mseymour@proofmark.com" <mseymour@proofmark.com>
Subject: 1997: U.S. Air Force reports on Roswell

Jun
24
THIS DAY IN HISTORY
1997
U.S. Air Force reports on Roswell
On this day in 1997, U.S. Air Force officials release a 231-page report dismissing long-standing claims of an alien spacecraft crash in Roswell, New Mexico, almost exactly 50 years earlier. Public interest in Unidentified Flying Objects, or UFOs, began to flourish in the 1940s, when developments in... read more »
American Revolution
1803
New Hampshire Patriot Matthew Thornton dies »
Automotive
1966
Senate passes landmark auto safety bill »
Civil War
1862
Lincoln consults Winfield Scott »
Cold War
1948
Soviets blockade West Berlin »
Crime
1993
Mail bomb injures Yale professor »
Disaster
1975
Eastern Flight 66 crashes at J.F.K. »
General Interest
1675
King Philip's War begins »
1812
Napoleon's Grande Armee invades Russia »
1901
Picasso exhibited in Paris »
1973
Eamon de Valera resigns »
Hollywood
2005
Tom Cruise raises eyebrows »
Literary
1935
Pete Hamill is born »
Music
1997
Disney pulls album on release day »
Old West
1864
Colorado Governor orders Indians to Sand Creek »
Presidential
1885
Woodrow Wilson marries Ellen Axson in Savannah, Georgia »
1953
Jacqueline Bouvier and Senator John F. Kennedy announce engagement »
Sports
1995
Mandela cheers on South African rugby team »
Vietnam War
1970
Senate repeals Tonkin Gulf Resolution »
1973
Martin becomes the U.S. ambassador in Saigon »
World War I
1915
First operational flight of new German fighter plane »
World War II
1945
Russians enjoy a victory parade »
HISTORY.com
SHOWS VIDEOS SCHEDULE TOPICS GAMES
Subscribe  |  Update Profile  |  Contact Us

This is a promotional email from HISTORY and A+E Networks.
You received this message because mseymour@proofmark.com is subscribed to This Day In History email updates. If you DO NOT wish to receive these emails please UNSUBSCRIBE.

Having trouble viewing this message? View the web version.

To ensure delivery to your inbox (not junk folders) and view images, please add us to your address book or safe/white list.
© 2016 A&E Television Networks, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Email Marketing, 235 E 45th Street, New York, NY 10017

Corporate Information  |  TV Parental Guidelines  |  Careers  | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Copyright Policy | Ad Sales | Ad Choices

No comments:

Post a Comment

No more Anonymous comments, sorry.