THE TRUTH ABOUT ROSEWELL FILES

Did a flying saucer really crash land in America in 1947, only to be hushed up by the government?

- David Crookes

There is a spaceship that looks like a flying saucer in Roswell. Thousands of motorists drive past it every day, and hundreds of people pop inside. It’s on North Main Street in this southeastern New Mexico city, its metal skin gleaming as it basks in the glow of the Sun. Its neon lighting burns into the retinae of those who view it throughout the evening, and it’s rather hard not to admire it. After all, quite aside from its striking looks, who doesn’t fancy a burger every now and then? This spacecraft is one of the city’s McDonald’s restaurants, and the reason why the building is shaped that way? It’s not that far from the site of a mysterious incident which took place in 1947 – the day when a rancher discovered debris scattered around his sheep pasture, prompting speculation a UFO had crashed there.

William Brazel had woken for a normal day’s work on the J. B. Foster ranch in Lincoln County, New Mexico, 120 kilometres (75 miles) north of Roswell. It was sometime in June, or maybe the first few days of July in 1947, and he was shocked to find “a large area of bright wreckage made up of rubber strips, tinfoil, a rather tough paper and sticks,” to quote his words at the time.

Brazel hadn’t heard of flying saucers. At least not yet. Sightings, however, were coming in thick and fast around that time. On 24 June pilot Kenneth Arnold claimed to see nine unidentified objects “flying like a saucer would” near Mount Rainier, Washington. Arnold estimated that the objects were flying at around 1,930 kilometres (1,200 miles) per hour, but at the time there were no known craft that could reach those speeds. The Air Force also said it had no new experimental planes or guided missiles which would fit such a description.