Cases and themes
The 1947 debris recovery in New Mexico, the claims that followed, and the official reports on it. 27 events, newest first.
Select any year above to see what happened that year.
Media13 May 2019
Stanton Friedman, a nuclear physicist who lectured on UFOs for five decades and whom a colleague called the original civilian investigator of the Roswell crash, died at 84 at Toronto Pearson airport while returning home to Fredericton. He said he never saw a UFO himself.
Photo: SMG2019, CC BY-SA 4.0
Media15 Jan 2019
The CW premiered Roswell, New Mexico, its second adaptation of Melinda Metz's Roswell High novels about aliens living in the town, after the WB's Roswell series of 1999.
Media2015
In 2015 Mexican TV personality Jaime Maussan championed the 'Roswell Slides', photos claimed to show an alien body. The figure was identified as the mummified body of a two-year-old boy, and the slides are now counted among the hoaxes he promoted.
Government2 Apr 2014
On ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live, former President Bill Clinton said that in his second term he had Area 51 records checked and the Roswell papers reviewed, and found no aliens. He added he would not be surprised if Earth were visited some day.
Photo: Lauren Gerson, Public domain
GovernmentApr 2011
The FBI launched The Vault, an online reading room for released records, including its UFO file and a 1950 memo by agent Guy Hottel relaying a secondhand saucer-crash story. Some outlets called it Roswell proof; the FBI later said it never investigated the claim and saw no Roswell link.
Photo: Guy Hottel, Public domain
WhistleblowersJul 2008
Apollo 14 moonwalker Edgar Mitchell told the UK station Kerrang! Radio that Earth had been visited and that the Roswell crash was real, citing briefings from unnamed sources. NASA replied that it does not track UFOs, is not covering anything up and does not share his view.
Photo: NASA, Public domain
Whistleblowers2007
Jesse Marcel Jr., son of Roswell intelligence officer Jesse Marcel Sr., published The Roswell Legacy, describing how as a 10-year-old he was shown debris his father brought home in 1947. The military has said the debris came from a balloon; his account rests on childhood memory.
Photo: Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Public domain
Government2004
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson wrote the foreword to The Roswell Dig Diaries, a book on a Sci Fi Channel-funded 2002 dig at the alleged crash site, saying the mystery had never been adequately explained. In 2007, as a presidential candidate, he said he would consider releasing Roswell files.
Photo: U. S. Department of Energy, Public domain
Media22 Nov 2002
The Sci Fi Channel aired a two-hour special hosted by Bryant Gumbel on the dig it sponsored at the reputed 1947 crash site. University of New Mexico archaeologists led by William Doleman worked there for 10 days in September 2002; Doleman said they found items he could not yet identify.
Photo: Peabody Awards, CC BY 2.0
Whistleblowers2002
Walter Haut, who issued the 1947 Roswell 'flying disc' press release, signed an affidavit to be opened after his death claiming he saw alien-like bodies at the base. It was first published in a 2007 book. The claim is uncorroborated, and a 1993 Haut affidavit mentioned no bodies.
Photo: US Govt (Roswell Army Air Field staff), Public domain
Media6 Oct 1999
The WB premiered Roswell, a teen drama based on Melinda Metz's Roswell High novels in which a small-town high schooler learns that a classmate is an alien tied to the alleged 1947 crash in Roswell, New Mexico.
Photo: 20th Television, Public domain
WhistleblowersJul 1997
Retired Army Lt. Col. Philip Corso claimed in a Pocket Books memoir that Roswell debris seeded technologies such as lasers and fiber optics. Sen. Strom Thurmond, who wrote the foreword, said he had been told it was a memoir and knew of no cover-up; the claims are unverified.
Photo: US Army, Public domain
MediaJul 1997
Roswell, New Mexico, staged a celebration for the 50th anniversary of the 1947 debris recovery, with tens of thousands of visitors expected. It came days after the Air Force released 'The Roswell Report: Case Closed', which attributed alien-body stories to test dummies.
Photo: J Dykstra, Public domain
Government24 Jun 1997
Days before Roswell's 50th anniversary, the Air Force released a 231-page report by Capt. James McAndrew. It said accounts of alien bodies likely stemmed from anthropomorphic test dummies dropped from high-altitude balloons in the 1950s, plus a 1956 crash and a 1959 balloon mishap.
Photo: James McAndrew, Public domain
Media23 Jun 1997
TIME's June 23, 1997 issue put Roswell on its cover, with a story by Leon Jaroff arguing that mundane debris found in 1947 grew, through retelling, into a far larger legend of a recovered flying saucer.
Government30 Nov 1995
At a Christmas tree lighting in Belfast, President Bill Clinton answered a 13-year-old's letter by saying that, as far as he knew, no alien craft crashed at Roswell in 1947, and that if the Air Force had found alien bodies it had not told him.
Photo: William Murphy from Dublin, Ireland, CC BY-SA 2.0
Government28 Jul 1995
Answering Rep. Steven Schiff, the General Accounting Office reported finding only two 1947 records on the Roswell crash, an FBI teletype describing a balloon with a radar reflector and a base history. It found Roswell base outgoing messages from 1946-49 destroyed, with no record of who approved it.
Photo: Congressional Pictorial Directory, Public domain
Government8 Sep 1994
Air Force Secretary Sheila Widnall released a records search, prompted by a GAO inquiry requested by Rep. Steven Schiff, concluding the 1947 Roswell debris most likely came from Project Mogul, a then-secret balloon program to detect Soviet nuclear tests. It found no evidence of a crashed spacecraft.
Photo: United States Air Force, Public domain
MediaJul 1994
Showtime aired Roswell, a TV film directed by Jeremy Kagan with Kyle MacLachlan as an Air Force intelligence officer revisiting the 1947 events and Martin Sheen in support. It dramatized claims that a flying saucer was recovered and the story covered up.
Photo: Roswell Daily Record, Public domain
Media1992
Nuclear physicist turned UFO lecturer Stanton Friedman and Don Berliner published Crash at Corona (Paragon House), arguing the U.S. military recovered a crashed UFO in New Mexico in 1947 and hid it. Air Force reports in the 1990s instead tied the Roswell accounts to balloon projects.
Photo: AllenS, Public domain
Media1992
The International UFO Museum and Research Center opened in Roswell, founded by Walter Haut, the 1947 base public information officer, with Glenn Dennis and Max Littell. It became a fixture of the town's UFO tourism and its annual UFO festival.
Photo: AllenS, Public domain
Government1987
Papers describing 'Majestic 12', a supposed 1947 committee handling a Roswell crash, were published by UFO researchers in 1987. The FBI closed an inquiry after learning the document was 'completely bogus', and the National Archives found no record of it beyond an unrelated 1954 memo.
Photo: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Public domain
Media1980
Charles Berlitz and William L. Moore's book The Roswell Incident revived the 1947 debris story as a crashed-saucer cover-up. The Air Force's 1997 report called Roswell essentially a non-story until the late 1970s and cited the book among sources for later claims.
Photo: Unknown author, Public domain
Sightings23 Jan 1974
A loud bang and bright lights over the Berwyn Mountains in north Wales led to a fruitless search and later claims of a covered-up crash. Seismologists recorded a magnitude 3.5 earthquake near Bala that night, and MoD files released in 2010 attribute the event to the quake plus a bright meteor.
Photo: Eirian Evans, CC BY-SA 2.0
Government22 Mar 1950
A one-page memo from FBI Washington field office head Guy Hottel to J. Edgar Hoover relayed a third party's story that three saucers with small bodies had been recovered in New Mexico. The FBI says it never investigated the claim and that the memo is unrelated to Roswell.
Photo: Guy Hottel, Public domain
