Roswell Incident

Date: July 8, 1947 • Location: Lincoln County, United States

Following reports of the capture of a "flying disc" by U.S. Army Air Forces personnel near Roswell, New Mexico, the military stated that the crashed object was a conventional weather balloon.

Debris found by a rancher in 1947 near Roswell, New Mexico, has become the basis for UFO conspiracy theories alleging that the United States military recovered a crashed extraterrestrial spacecraft. After metallic and rubber debris was recovered by Roswell Army Air Field personnel, the United States Army Air Forces announced possession of a "flying disc". This announcement made international headlines, but was retracted within a day. In reality, the debris was from a complex uncrewed military balloon train, consisting of linked balloons and assorted equipment, operated from the nearby Alamogordo Army Air Field as part of the top-secret Project Mogul, a program intended to detect Soviet nuclear tests. To obscure the purpose and source of the debris, the army reported that it was merely a conventional weather balloon.