riplin@Azonic.co.nz wrote:

Benjamin Prater wrote:

I do believe that Roswell happened because my grandmother lived there when
it happened and she have told me about all the radio broadcasts that was
going on. What was in the news papers and all the people that come shortly
after the crash.

There certainly was PLENTY of coverage of "flying disks" in 1947- they
were all the rage at the time because it was only two weeks before the
"Incident" that Kenneth Arnold's now famous sighting was reported.

As an example- On July 8, 1947 (the day the Roswell story broke) the
there was more coverage nationally and internationally of a "Flying
Disk" reported to have been recovered by a priest in his back yard
than there was about Roswell.  The priest's flying disk turned out to
be a circular saw blade.

There is no argument that 'Roswell happened', that newspapers published
stories about what was called a flying sauser, and that "all the people
came". The only disagreement is about where the so called 'flying
saucer' came from.

As noted above, the papers at the time published literally *dozens* of
stories about flying disks in late June through August of 1947.
Roswell was one of them.

The three reports that are alleged to be so inconsistent and thus lied
reported that the object was:

1) a balloon
2) a 'flying saucer' suspended under a balloon
3) a weather balloon

Not quite-  The Official Explanation put out by in 1947 by General
Ramey's office was that the recovered "Flying Disk" was a RAWIN- an
aluminum foil, kite-like Radar Reflector that was indeed carried aloft
by weather balloons.  That is the story that all the papers carried.

Keep in mind that not once has any explanation ever attributed the
Roswell Crash to just a balloon, despite what countless websites say.

At the time the USAF was trying to fly balloons ove the USSR to monitor
for atomic testing. These were large balloons with equipment containers
hanging below. 

Again- not quite.  The Army Air Force was *testing* systems that could
carry a device called a sono-buoy (Looks more like a fat sausage) and
a battery over the Soviet Union.  The reason for the testing was they
needed a balloon system that could float over a long distance in level
flight- something that had not been done before.  Until these tests,
balloons simply continued to rise until they burst from overheating
and low atmospheric pressure.

It was one of the very early tests that crashed on Foster's ranch.
This particular test flight carried three RAWINs, and one or more of
them was what was recovered.

The containers were circular disk shapes.  

Actually, as I mentioned above, the RAWINs were more like a box kite
than anything else, and the sono-buoys were elongated tubes.  

You may be thinking of another program- the early space flight testing
in the early '60s.  In those tests, they were indeed using balloons to
carry aloft mockups of disk-shaped space capsules.  They would then
drop these capsules from great heights to test parachute landings.
These tests were carried out in New Mexico- roughly the same area as
Roswell.

As this was a
secret project there was a cover story that they were weather balloons.

Actually, the tests were conducted by New York University atmospheric
scientists and some grad students.  These tests were not secret-
although the NYU people were told to keep a low profile- but the
ultimate aim was *very* top secret- known as Project Mogul.

By the way- Project Mogul never flew one mission over the Soviet
Union.  The NYU tests never produced a reliable enough system.  NYU
test continued until 1952, when they were discontinued because
Lockheed had started work on something that would prove to be far
superior- the U2.

When the Roswell Incident happened, and the Army Air Force realized
what had caused all the fuss, they were indeed anxious to "cover-up"
what the real purpose of the NYU flights were.

The paper made a lot of money by publishing the 'flying saucer' bit but
forgetting to add the 'under a balloon' and the town has made its
living from UFOlogy cult followers ever since.

The Roswell Incident, as reported in 1947, was totally forgotten in a
matter of days.  It did not become the UFO story until 30 years later,
in 1979.  Thats when Jesse Marcel told his story to Stan Friedman, and
then to Bob Pratt of the National Enquirer.  It was Pratt's article in
the Enquirer that started the whole legend.


EW