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HDPE (High-Density Polyethelyne) discovery

I just watched a documentery about Roswell and apparently a man found a smooth object at another crash site to the east of Roswell, he held onto it for over 40 years. When he finally came forward and released it to the public it was shown to be HDPE (High-Density Polyethelyne). The piece of HDPE was molded into a deformed shape, the melting point of HDPE is about 1200 degrees celsius, or 2500 degrees farenheit. The desert that this object was found in only reaches as high as 120 degrees farenheit, and wouldve needed extreme heat or an explosion to mold into the shape it had formed. The object was discovered in 1947, 4 years before it was said to be invented by research chemist Paul Hogan and Robert Banks of phillips petroleum. My theory is that there was an actual crash at Roswell and another to the east, these crashes are related and happened at the same time. The government got wind of these crashes and devised a plot to cover up both of them, I believe that most of our products we use today are actually alien technology that was discovered at these crash sites. I believe that the government found these findings and hid them from the public for a short period of time and then released them after a few years as an attempt to cover up their findings. They didnt want the public to piece together the same theory that I've come up with and it is more then likely that this theory was contemplated before, so they held onto their findings for some time then released them to research facilities to produce them and release them as their own inventions. When in actuality these were already invented by higher intelligence from another planet, it was a sad attempt to cover up the Roswell crashes and it seems that most of our technology that we that use today was made from the alien ships that crashed over 50 years ago. The government has collected this technology and used it as their own to advance todays technology, Im sure somebody has come up with this theory before and has challenged the governments side of the story on Roswell. Apparently the objects found at the crash sites were the remains of the military expirement Mogul that had fallen to the ground, scraped and left scraps of metal behind. Then it had risen again and hit the ground to the east and left more debris at the other crash site to the east of the famous Roswell crash. But the eyewitnesses who were at the scene of the crashes that day described their finding of debris as a almost weightless sheet metal with a dull look to it, as they crumpled the sheet metal into a ball and tried to put it in their bag the piece of metal had unfolded just as quick as it as crushed. The material was described by two eyewitnesses that have never met and were tested and both chose the same light weight material they say was found at both crashes. The last few sentences seem a little off topic, but one of these men who handled this metal was the one who discovered the piece of high-density polyethelyne. After a series of tests on the object its contents were revieled as HDPE, and dirt that had been fused with it during some form of extreme heat. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.118.147.136 (talk) 07:06, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

This sounds like a show broadcast a few years ago with Earl Fulford who was interviewed shortly before his death. From what I can gather, a blob of material was tested, but there is no way to establish the provenance of the substance or if it in fact had any connection with the events of 1947. As to your ideas about retro-engineering, this has been a common theme amongst Roswell researchers who claim advanced technology was discovered and slowly released to the market. It's an idea that is easily disproved when specific technologies are shown to have a earthly history (such as transistors). But one wonders why, if alien vehicles indeed crashed and were recovered, why THIS technology has not allowed us to progress beyond the fuel-propelled rockets we use to get into space. Why don't we see any such space vehicles now? Canada Jack (talk) 17:30, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Project Serpo Needs To Be Deleted

Project Serpo, a hoax, has nothing to do with the Roswell Incident. As such, the section needs to be deleted.BoyintheMachine (talk) 18:43, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

It seems to be based at least in part on Roswell, so the brief mention seems ok to me. carl bunderson (talk) (contributions) 18:27, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Project Serpo is fringe and has no relevence to the topic other than it being a debunked conspiracy theory that incorporates elements of the Roswell Crash. This article should not be set up to document every single thing that remotely references the Roswell Crash. I will delete the section unless any convincing argument can be made to keep it.BoyintheMachine (talk) 07:22, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

"Numerous" or "several" UFO proponents dismiss incident

Rodney420 has suggested that since the copy in the lede says "numerous" UFO proponents dismiss the Roswell incident as having anything to do with aliens, but there are a mere three proponents dismissing it in links (he argues two, the third is not a ufologist), the text should read "several."

I probably wrote the original copy and the truth is "numerous" proponents dismiss the incident, but I illustrated the fact with links to three of the more prominent ones: the co-author of the first book on the incident; the author of one of the major books dismissing the incident who is otherwise a UFO proponent; the most public person demanding from the government further investigation and release of documents.

The trouble with inserting "several" is that it suggests these and only these proponents dismiss the incident. Which is simply not true. If Rodney420 has an issue with this, let's hear the argument. Canada Jack (talk) 17:10, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


After reading your explanation of "numerous" vs. "several", I agree that your wording is appropriate. I assumed that the cited/linked Ufologists were the only ones being referenced by the text. If there are others, ok, live and learn. By the way, clicking those blue links in the Reference list does not lead one immediately to the articles. In order to find the articles being cited, one has to search the database for keywords at the website that comes up when clicking the link, namely the CSI website. That can be a time-consuming, hit-or-miss process. There must be another/better way to provide a link directly to the cited articles. However, I don't know how, personally. Rodney420 (talk) 18:53, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, those links need to be addressed. Too often, they become outdated. And I think I have a source which says "numerous" ufo proponents blah blah blah which would better cover the argument that, well, we only see 3/2 there. Canada Jack (talk) 19:56, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

New information needs to be included ASAP

http://vault.fbi.gov/hottel_guy/Guy%20Hottel%20Part%201%20of%201/view —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.127.185.52 (talk) 17:45, 10 April 2011 (UTC) read it too, but according to http://www.die-zeit-ist-reif.wg.am/ufo-abst__rze.html (not reliable) and other web pages (on German) (with a time stamp of Thu 04 Dec 2008 12:31:00 PM CET) is this source already published in the book "UFOs: Die Beweise" (UFOs :the proves) by Michael Hesemann (https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Michael_Hesemann) from 1989 on page 73. so it is not new, though interesting, because published on a reliable site —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.35.204.187 (talk) 18:18, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Declassified document from FBI

The first document doesn't sound connected to the Roswell incident as it doesn't match the descriptions we've heard elsewhere. If you are trying to incorporate it into this article, you'd need to link it to a published person who claims it is connected. But IMHO it's a bit too specific a document (as opposed to the Majestic documents) to be a stand-alone. As for the second document, perhaps you've not carefully read the article - this document is quoted in the section "contemporary accounts". Canada Jack (talk) 22:24, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
I included the first link because it had happened recently and I figured the fringies would be all over it and this article, so to save everyone time I added the link. The second editor added the second, probably assuming I was a fringee looking to have UFO claims propped up in the article. I added it for convenience sake and will let the regular editors of this article figure out what to do with it(if anything) as they see fit. Heiro 22:42, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

This sounds more like it is connected to that hoax from 1950 which was featured in Time magazine, etc. It doesn't sound like Roswell. So we'd need someone to make the explicit link to Roswell, a published source. And I'm not sure it adds anything at this point, though if the document causes a lot of excitement in the ufo community and they say this is some sort of smoking gun (like with Haut's 2007 description of aliens), that's when we'd put it in, IMHO. Canada Jack (talk) 23:23, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Could you tell me which hoax you were talking about? The Trent Photos? Thanks. Qrfqr (talk) 08:42, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Can't recall of the top of my head the name of the hoax, but I recall it was big in 1950 and was placed in New Mexico.

As for the above, I see someone has tried to insert the text of the FBI note. AGAIN, this is not explicitly about the Roswell incident. Therefore, to include this we MUST have some source saying that this FBI note is somehow connected to the Roswell incident. That's what the "CITE" note in the revert means. The title of this article isn't "UFO claims from New Mexico circa 1947," it's the "Roswell UFO incident." Canada Jack (talk)

Could someone else catch the next insertion of this without citations? I find myself too often lately pulled into 2 to 3RR with the insertion of fringe materials(in other article than this) against IPs and SPAs. I'm at 2RR now and just dont care to go to 3, thanks. Heiro 18:29, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I've done some more digging on this and far from a "smoking gun" revelation, this is a recycled hoax. From International Business Times [3]:

By Jesse Emspak | April 11, 2011 10:21 AM EDT

News organizations across the world were taken in -- once again -- by a hoax that was perpetrated more than 50 years ago.

The infamous "Hottel memo" was posted on several sites, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation's "vault." It was touted as "newly revealed" this week. The memo supposedly confirms that alien ships landed in the U.S. in the late 1940s and the information was covered up.

But in fact the infamous memo has been making the rounds for several years. (It was never classified). The "vault" is simply a newer system put in place by the FBI over the past week to make accessing documents easier.

The memo describes what was told to an FBI agent, Guy Hottel, who was the special agent in charge of the Washington field office. It describes an "air force investigator" who described finding a crashed craft in New Mexico, and also said that alien bodies were found in it. Hottel only reports what the unnamed informant says, not what his own conclusions are. The informant says that the craft was disabled by "high powered radar" in the area.

Not only is the information not first-hand and far removed from New Mexico, it is connected to a 60-year-old hoax that resulted in a conviction for fraud.

The memo was the end of a long chain of tale-telling. The Hottel memo repeats a story from the Wyandotte Echo, a legal newspaper in Kansas City, Kansas in January of 1950, which was repeated to Guy Hottel by an Air Force investigator who read the story (and pasted into a memo himself. Such practices were common in the days before scanning documents was possible and memos had to be typed out). That news story draws from the account of a Rudy Fick, a local used car dealer.

Fick got the story from a two men, I. J. Van Horn and Jack Murphy, who said they got the story from a man named "Coulter" - actually a radio station advertising manager named George Koehler. Koehler got the story from Silas Newton.

The hoax begins with Newton and his accomplice, Leo A. Gebauer. Newton and Gebauer were peddling "doodlebugs" - devices that could supposedly find oil, gas, gold, or anything else that the target of the con was interested in finding.

In an interview in 2003 for a documentary called The Other Side of Truth, written and directed by Paul Kimball, the late Karl Pflock, a UFO researcher, described the original hoax that led to the Hottel memo. Pflock notes that the difference between Newton and Gebauer's con and many others that preceded it was they said their doodlebugs were better because they were based on alien technology.

The two men told Frank Scully, a columnist for Variety, about the UFO crash. There were no other witnesses (local newspaper accounts don't show anything for the relevant dates). Scully claimed in his book that Newton and Gebauer told him the military had taken the craft for secret research.

Meanwhile, the story of the alien technology piqued the interest of J.P. Cahn of the San Francisco Chronicle. Cahn managed to convince Newton and Gebauer to give him a sample of the "alien" metal, which turned out to be aluminum.

Cahn's account of the alien ship hoax - and the two swindlers -- appeared in True magazine in 1952. The result was that several people who had been conned by Newton and Gebauer came forward. One of their victims was Herman Glader, a Denver millionaire who had the wherewithal to press charges. Newton and Gebauer were convicted of fraud the next year.

The Aztec hoax appeared again in 1986, when William Steinman and Wendelle Stevens published a book called UFO Crash at Aztec. In 1998 Linda Mouton Howe, a documentary filmmaker, claimed to have government documents proving that an alien ship had landed in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947. That proof was the Hottel memo.

Several news outlets have repotted the memo as "proof" that the government knew about crashes of alien spacecraft in Roswell. But not only does the memo say no such thing, it isn't even connected to the town of Roswell.

There are several other clues that something is wrong. The FBI has several documents that point to their knowledge of Newton and Gebauer both, as fraud schemes involving mining were common in the southwest at that time. In addition, an alien craft disabled by "high-powered radar" is implausible given that ordinary airplanes can fly without incident through radar, and "high power" radar is not enough to damage even conventional electronics. (Radars were even less powerful in the 1940s). In addition, the description in the Hottel memo does not match any of those given at the time for purported Roswell UFOs.

Canada Jack (talk) 19:32, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Whilst the report doesn't mention Roswell, it doesn't mention Aztec, either. And several news outlets have today linked it explicitly with Roswell. We should therefore include it, and give the arguments for both sides. And while we're at it, the article on the Aztec incident Aztec, New Mexico UFO incident needs more information added. ðarkuncoll 23:18, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Like I said, if sources start to make the explicit link, then that's when we can consider inclusion. However, since this is something which has been known about since 1952 at least (it's not a new revelation by any means - I thought this sounded familiar when I heard of it) any mention should couch those claims along the lines as "source x calls it a 'new revelation,' while source y says it is a recycled, non-classified document revealed as long ago as 1952..." etc. IMHO, this is one of those silly claims which, once someone says "wait a minute folks" it quickly dies down. But it seems there is an obvious interest in it so I'd say we will likely need to include it. Canada Jack (talk) 23:40, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

I went ahead and added the report, now that the mainstream media has picked up the story. (When I looked earlier, I saw only a few blogs and UFO sites had posted it, some with only a headline to suggest a Roswell connection. Now, more media has made the explicit connection). I put down a few sources quickly, others are invited to massage the text if it needs it, and format it correctly. Canada Jack (talk) 00:37, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

"Cultural influence" section too long

The "Cultural influence" section is getting quite lengthy. What say we at least restrict the section to the more notable cultural influences, by which I mean authors, bands, and video games notable enough to have their own wiki articles? Opinions? Plazak (talk) 02:46, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

No one objected, so I'll start to trim the wording and weed out non-notables. Plazak (talk) 13:23, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

I have no objection, Plazak. Canada Jack (talk) 14:49, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

I've culled the section, removing entries for those things which have little connection to Roswell (such as a single episode or song) and leaving those based heavily on Roswell. carl bunderson (talk) (contributions) 18:27, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Also in this section, in Literature, does the book "The Day After Roswell" really belong here? It does not purport to be fiction and was not marketed as such. Its veracity is still being investigated and seems unsettled, as noted by web sites such as http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/exopolitica/esp_exopolitics_ZZO.htm. Might be more appropriate to address this book's assertions --the author was military intelligence officer and claims to have been responsible for seeding alien technology into US engineering firms for reverse engineering--in another section of the article.Markdf10825 (talk) 20:05, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

POV rewrite of lede

I've reverted the POV rewrite of the lede which asserts, for example, the following: "The Roswell UFO Incident refers to the crash of an alleged alien spacecraft on the night of July 3, 1947 in a remote area about 40 miles north of Roswell, New Mexico, the retrieval by the United States Army of the craft, debris and allegedly, its alien occupants (one of whom was still alive), and the ensuing coverup by the U.S. government."

Without going into every POV assertion in the lede, suffice to say the date "July 3" is hotly debated even amongst those who believe an alien craft crashed, and by those who think the object was a Mogul balloon and crashed around June 14. Further, the location "40 miles north of Roswell" is also disputed amongst UFO writers as is the claim of "one" living occupant (others say "all dead" or more than one survived, etc). And still further, it is the OPINION of some that there was a government cover-up, it is not a FACT. Which was why the lede was carefully written to avoid suggestion that what was written was the "truth" as to what really happened.

If this does not satisfy the anonymous editor, please enter into a discussion as to why you feel this needs to be changed and how we can do so in light of the NPOV and sourced approach which is employed here at wikipedia. Canada Jack (talk) 19:20, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Neutrality tag

Someone saw fit to put a neutrality tag on this page, but couldn't be bothered to start a discussion on how this page is not neutral. If nothing is posted, the tag will be removed. Canada Jack (talk) 17:03, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Sufficient time has passed with no discussion on the need for the neutrality tag, therefore I am removing it. Canada Jack (talk) 17:19, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

RAAF Base Search and Recovery Team

Speaking from experience as an AF retiree and participant of Base Search and Recovery Teams at serveral AF assignments during my career, I find the following intriguing: 1. That a large contingent of RAAF base personnel to include mortuary affairs personnel were mustered for recovery of a mere weather balloon. 2. Cordoning of the area with the intent to use lethal force to prevent unauthorized entrance to the debris field, again for a mere weather balloon. 3. Immediate reassignemnt to all parts of the globe of personnel involved with collection of the debris. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JRPickard (talk • contribs) 19:36, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

WP:NOTAFORUM. You might want to read this. Heiro 20:00, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
In terms of this page as can be seen in the text, the actual recovery involved two or three personnel from the Roswell base, as was reported in 1947, and as was reported by "whistleblower" Marcell in 1978 and later. There was no "large contingent" nor use of "mortuary personnel," nor "use of lethal force" nor "reassignments" reported by the "whistleblower." The poster here is referring to later embellishments by UFO authors who innocently and not-so-innocently conflated real recovery operations and accidents attached to other military programs in the vicinity with the rather mundane recovery of balloon debris. Canada Jack (talk) 20:13, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Sunrise Connection

The Sunrise Connection section was added twice on July 16 by an unregistered user using the same IP address after the content was removed by two different users under the same reason of 'undued weight'. The content was added again one day later, on July 17, using a different IP address which may or may not be by the same unregistered user and this section stays as of now. I hope we have some dialogue regarding this issue and it will start. I do agree, however, with Mark Arsten and Canada Jack that this section is given too much weight. It should be summarized and condensed. Any volunteer?Ginger Maine Coon (talk) 15:45, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

It deserves perhaps a line or two, something like "in 2012 Australian researchers published a book which claimed that the metallic foil described by some witnesses from the debris site was likely a nickel-titanium alloy called nitinol. If so, the book claimed, the USAF was not known to have had the capability then to manufacture such material. Either they did, and this has not been revealed, or the source of the material was alien, claimed the authors."
It seems to me that the book publishers or other connected parties were trying to insert this onto the page as the blurb inserted was not found on the attendant website (though I may have missed it), and the text reveals specific knowledge of the contents of the book, which is newly released, so this wasn't someone simply cutting and pasting to this page. Whatever the source of this, there is no new evidence here, just a bunch of speculative leaps based on the descriptions from some of the witnesses - not all described the foil in this manner. As opposed to, say, the Carey book which had a new "confession" from Haut. Canada Jack (talk) 16:15, 24 July 2012 (UTC)


I agree with both the above. I seems to me that the material was inserted as part of a marketing campaign. My own view, for what its worth, is that the material should be left out until the sources become clearer and any new new evidence is presented. Regards to all, David. David J Johnson (talk) 16:27, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
I agree with David, it should be removed as it is obviously a promotion ploy.Ginger Maine Coon (talk) 17:54, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
The "obvious promotion ploy" has surfaced again today, 29 July 2012. I think it may be an idea to ask a administrator to protect the page from commercial marketing. Views please. Regards to all, David. David J Johnson (talk) 19:57, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
Agree with all the above. Shameful attempts at promotion. --Tenebrae (talk) 20:18, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
This has surfaced again today, 30 July 2012; again with a unregistered address. I have again deleted this obvious marketing ploy. I am suggesting a protection for this page to stop this advertising. Regards to all, David. David J Johnson (talk) 08:52, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
Agree and thanks David for keeping an eye on it. This page need to be protected. Canada Jack already stated in the reason for edits that if the user wants to add the Sunrise section, please discuss on the Talk page. But the unregistered user ignored the dialogue request and continued to add it (WP:CIV). Also there was another vandalism this past days (changed Roswell UFO incidents to Roswell Boeing incident with missing passengers, etc.). Ginger Maine Coon (talk) 15:05, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
I note that the offending article was again re-inserted by another unregistered address and deleted by Tenebrae. This organisations website - www.sunrisepage.com - under "About us" states "Sunrise will endevour to regularly re-add this information for the benefit of the public" In other words they will engage in a "edit war", without explanation or discussion on the talk page. Could I therefore ask interested parties to support my application for page protection.

As all interested parties have commented, this does appear to be a advertising/marketing ploy for both the book and religious organisation named Sunrise and therefore has no place on Wikipedia. Their website states that the name stands for "Search for a UNified Religion in Information for Social Equality"

With thanks for your help. Best regards, David. David J Johnson (talk) 23:49, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Marketing ploy or not, they are not playing by the wikipedia rules, they are willfully ignoring those rules. Therefore they should be blocked or the page should be restricted to registered editors. Canada Jack (talk) 13:52, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
Agree totally. Not playing by the Wiki rules means they have no place here. Not willing to discuss it on Talk page is an indication that they lack WP:NPOV. Ginger Maine Coon (talk) 19:09, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
Concur. This user should be blocked. That statement on their website is outrageous. And just because some fringe organization self-publishes a book, there's no requirement to include its contents. See WP:FRINGE#Unwarranted promotion of fringe theories. --Tenebrae (talk) 19:49, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

In case this message changes from their website, here is what the current text says under the "website updates" section of their "About Us" page:

Updated wikipedia page on the Roswell case under "Further Developments" to explain the latest research work. However, please note that this information is being regularly [sic] by other people (dates when our information has been removed include 28, 29, 31 July 2012). SUNRISE will endeavour to regularly re-add this information for the benefit of the public. If certain individuals do not wish to see the work on wikipedia, use the SUNRISE email address to notify us why the information is not relevant and not in the public interest.

So, in their view, the onus is on the editors at wikipedia to contact THEM via e-mail to establish why the information is not relevant. Otherwise, they will continue to add the information "for the benefit of the public," and, one assumes, for the benefit of their organization.

As I said earlier, the "research" noted here rates perhaps a sentence or two. Their entire premise rests on several witness statements which they interpret to mean foil of a specific type not yet produced at the time was found which either was created by a government program yet to be revealed after 65 years, or has its source from the cosmos. Problem is, those witness statements which they no doubt use were stories which, over time, were embellished. Let alone the fact that there was no meaningful testing or analysis done at the time of this material. It's beyond inane to pretend to be able to do a meaningful analysis NOW of a type of foil decades after the fact based on ever-evolving descriptions. Further, when one examines what was initially described, one wonders whether any aliens involved were in fact mouse-sized creatures floating about in a rubber, tin-foil and balsa-wood construction - oops, I mean, a rubber-like super material, with super-foil and super-sticks, somehow capable of presumably travelling through space at amazing speeds. Canada Jack (talk) 20:38, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Seems that once they realized they couldn't play by the tactic as stated above, they changed their approach. So, these guys decided to contact me personally, on my user page. (And I imagine some others here as well). Here is what they said:
If you are worried about someone marketing a book, then remove Annie Jacobsen's Area 51 book and the others from the Roswell UFO incident page. If not, then make the necessary edits to SUNRISE Information Services contribution to the Roswell case to make it seem less like what you think it is but leave the scientific facts in place. Until you do the verification on the facts (which people can see you have not done so, therefore don't delete the whole text), let others read about the latest scientific results and let them decide to visit the SUNRISE web site to gather more information. Obviously you would not want to see 80,000 words of just one book to appear on the Roswell UFO Incident page, so leave the contribution from SUNRISE as is and people will decide if they want to purchase the book. Plain and simple.
I'm not aware that Jacobsen or Carey or any of the others inserted their books onto this page. So the issue of self-promotion does not apply to them. It clearly and explicitly applies to you, as the text on your website underlines. In regards to Jacobsen, her book made the news, there was a fair bit of press about it. Carey? Within the UFO community, the book caused quite a stir, particularly with the Haut claims. In other words, in terms of wikipedia, these books were notable. How notable is your book? The claim that the foil found was not of this world has been in circulation since 1978. SO there is nothing notable in claiming as you do that the foil was extraterrestrial. You've simply added a scientific sheen to a very old claim. As such, if we were to add a note on this book, we'd have several sentences - at most - stating that the descriptions from 1947 seem to be describing a particular foil alloy that either was a secret Army Air Force alloy, or of alien origin.
You may claim there is something "scientific" about assigning a particular alloy to a foil which was only superficially described and never properly examined or tested to determine what it was, but I doubt most others would. However, this is beside the point. To be included on the page, the book you refer to should be NOTABLE. If it only exists on the SUNRISE page, and it is not being spoken about in the media or in UFO circles at the very least, if you are not already established proponents in the field, then it is hard to argue for inclusion on this page. IOW, the onus is not on us to establish whether the claim holds water - I mean, this is the Roswell page, fer chrissakes! - it is on you to establish that this is notable. If it is, I have suggested some text which would suffice. Canada Jack (talk) 15:15, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
Hear, hear. I and others received the same sort of badgering comments on our talk pages as did Canada Jack — who has spent a admirable amount of time and effort to encapsulate how Wikipedia policies apply here, and so I would ask the publishers of this book to step back, realize the inappropriateness of their actions, and respect that this is an encyclopedia, for which standards of inclusion are high. Would the Encyclopedia Britannica include such a huge, promotional chunk of text from them? No. --Tenebrae (talk) 15:37, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
Completely agree with comments from Canada Jack and Tenebrae. I too do not need badgering comments on my talk page, which are not even had the courtesy of being signed. The SUNRISE folk have been given plenty of opportunities to explain themselves on Talk Pages and have not done so. I really think it is time to stop the offensive messages. Regards, David. David J Johnson (talk) 16:03, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
I've protected the page, as you likely know, and informed the latest IP that they need to discuss it on the talk page instead of injecting it into the article. I've also said that if they continue, I will add the domain to our spam blacklist, which would be incidentally detrimental via Google's consideration. If they do it a couple more times, feel free to ping me. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 16:28, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
Dennis, I will report any more offensive/negative comments. Once again thank you for all your help. Regards, David. David J Johnson (talk) 19:34, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

As of today, 1 August 2012, the SUNRISE webpage has indicated that it will continue to try to change the Rosewell UFO page with their "spam" and, no doubt, offensive unsigned comments on individuals Talk Pages - as soon as page is unprotected on 31 August 2012. I fear thet if this happens, further measures will be required. David. David J Johnson (talk) 21:22, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

And, again, I got a long message on my talk page (I'm sure I'm not the only one) where the author obviously has not read the response given above as he (or she) rails on about "censorship" and why Jacobson's book was mentioned.
Interesting to see the focus on supposed "spamming" by SUNRISE by reading some aspect of its web site that it wants to add an important contribution to the Roswell case on Wikipedia. Maybe the individual who is taking offense to the contribution should define "advertising" in the SUNRISE context and how does this differ from Annie Jacobsen's book Area 51 mentioned on the Roswell UFO incident page? In fact, you have a number of books mentioned (funny that?). What's so special about those authors that SUNRISE can't mention to Wiki readers of further details of the contributed research information in a book?
What's so special about those authors? Each and every one of them have been identified by others as being important contributors to the literature of the Roswell incident and/or had a lot of media attention attached to their works. Moore. Friedman. Carey. Randle. Schmitt. And the skeptics, like Pflock and Korff. And, let's take a look at the Jacobsen book. Not only was this widely discussed in UFO circles, it got a review in the New York Times, often called the most important newspaper in the United States. So, THAT'S what's so special about these authors, they are all NOTABLE as defined by wikipedia.
As mentioned before, if your book had some incredible new allegation that garnered some attention and linked to Roswell - like say the autopsy film, or the FBI Hottel memo - then that would be "notable." What is new in your book? An allegation that the foil was perhaps alien in origin? If you would care to look at The Roswell Incident (1980) section, you will find this: "Additional accounts suggested that the material Marcel recovered had super-strength and other attributes not associated with anything known of terrestrial origin, and certainly not anything associated with a "weather balloon" which was the official description of the object." What "material" is being discussed? The foil. So, there is nothing novel in what SUNRISE is talking about, save for the claim that the foil is a particular foil which would not have been available (unreleased military secrets notwithstanding) at the time of the incident.
Simply put, as I see it, the material you want inserted doesn't warrant inclusion a) because its authors are not established authors in the field, b) its findings are not being widely discussed in the field, as far as I know, c) its findings have not garnered significant media attention, as far as I know and d) its basic claim - that foil was of extraterrestrial origin - is at least 30 years old and is already mentioned in the article, and is therefore nothing novel.
I could forsee the claim garnering some attention under b) or c) (indeed, I made this precise point in regards to the FBI memo - until the media picked that up it did not warrant inclusion -it was inserted once that happened, even though the item was a long-ago debunked memo in terms of any Roswell connection), and if and when that happens, then it warrants a short paragraph or several sentences as outlined above. Canada Jack (talk) 15:05, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 7 August 2012

"However, pro-UFO interpretations of this document are disputed by independent photoanalyses" should be changed to read "Some photoanalyses dispute this interpretation." The current wording is biased whereas the new wording is unbiased. The current wording implies to untruths. First, it implies that no independent analyses supports the UFO theory. This is simply incorrect. Second, it implies that all independent analyses disputes the UFO interpretation, which is patently false. 2001:558:6027:6E:715C:E8D6:26DB:C51E (talk) 00:13, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

I changed it to "other" photoanalyses which simply asserts that others take issue with the "alien" interpretation. Canada Jack (talk) 16:48, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
marking this answered. RudolfRed (talk) 06:47, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Errors in Introduction

On July 8, 1947, the Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF) public information officer Walter Haut in Roswell, New Mexico, issued a press release[3] stating that personnel from the field's 509th Bomb Group had recovered a crashed "flying disk" from a ranch near Roswell,...:

  • Reference Nr. 3 is not a press release, it is the famous article of the Roswell Daily Record that day.
  • Walter Haut is nowhere mentioned in that article or elsewhere on that newspaper front page.
  • The article does not use the term "press release". It gives another name as origin of its claims: Jesse Marcel.

In addition:

  • The USAF Reports of 1995 und 1997 do not quote or even mention that first "press release"; the second report does not even mention Haut.
  • The only official army record of the Roswell incident at the time, July 1947, says nothing about such a press release. It says: "which was reported to be..." - referring obviously to media reports.
  • Claim of a "press release" by the Army containing the phrase "flying disc" or "flying saucer" was brought up by Walter Haut himself, decades later.
  • In UFO books usually the "press release" of Walter Haut is identified not with that article of the Roswell Daily Record, July 8, 1947, but with another article of the San Francisco Chronicle, July 9, 1947 (example).
  • It is highly questionable whether that release ever existed, what it said and who wrote it. See this for a start.

The next day, the press reported ... A subsequent press conference was called, featuring debris said to be from the crashed object, which seemed to confirm the weather balloon description.

  • Thew press conference took place in the late afternoon of July 8, 1947 (source), not July 9, 1947. The press reports about the weather balloon followed that conference.
  • The debris shown and photographed at that press conference was indeed from the Mogul balloon train and its radar reflector, it did not "seem" to be from it. The proof has been laid out thoroughly here, only if someone doubts the USAF reports.

Please correct these two sentences in the introduction accordingly. Kopilot (talk) 20:36, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Didn't see this till now. 1) Haut as source of press release: True, the source doesn't have this, the better source is to the Chronicle. But Haut as the issuer of the press release is not an issue of serious dispute. A source of confusion here is that the press release was dictated over the phone to four media outlets in Roswell by Haut, and then George Walsh of KSWS broke the story. The Roswell base, IOW, did not send an item over the wire. Those media outlets did. These precise details were not known until the 90s, but Haut is not the sole source for this. As for this being "highly questionable," in terms of whether the release ever existed, this is not supported by your link, and there is more corroboration, in particular from the mentioned media outlets, for the source of this.
The press conference took place in the late afternoon of July 8, 1947 The article doesn't say it wasn't, though one book erroneously states "July 9" and the intro is worded in a way as to imply it was held the day after the "corrected" press release. That needs to be rephrased. There has been a lot of editing on the page, and a lot of confusing text put in recently, there are other issues to address.
The debris shown and photographed at that press conference was indeed from the Mogul balloon train and its radar reflector, it did not "seem" to be from it. You are wrong about that, at least in terms of what has subsequently been claimed. That's because Marcel initially claimed that at least some of the material was the "alien" material he identified. It was not until it was later pointed out that this was balloon debris that that claim changed. So, while there is no doubt that this was terrestrial material, it hadn't always been claimed to be and now the UFO crowd routinely state it was switched before it was photographed. Further, perhaps you've not read the reports - while the material was likely Mogul material, that contention can't be proved. So the "proof" you cite is not proof at all. Indeed, some in the UFO crowd, while acknowledging the Mogul program, suggest that balloon-style material was inserted which happened to be on the base and erroneously linked to this program as part of a "cover-up." Canada Jack (talk) 21:45, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Recent changes

I see that Michael Jester has added a lot of citation tags and edits, etc. While some of these clarifications seem over-stated to me, I will soon add a lot of the requested citations, and clean up some of the text which, in my view, confuses some of the issues. Canada Jack (talk) 14:11, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

I'd rather overshoot than undershoot. If you feel that a tag if misplaced or not needed, you can remove it. I went through this kind of quickly, so I may have made mistakes.
—Michael Jester (talk · contribs) 22:37, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, some seem redundant - following text explains "who" or whatever - but overall it's a good exercise to get more specific on some of these points. Canada Jack (talk) 14:15, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Sandbox

Hello, all. I feel the article now has a lot of problems, with the main concern being criterion 3b. I don't think we need to go fully in-depth on every book that's ever been released, and a lot of information can be trimmed down. I recently re-wrote the article in my sandbox, and I would appreciate some feedback on my sandbox one. If there is no argument against it, I will be moving my sandbox to the actual article.
—Michael Jester (talk · contribs) 21:34, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

  • Hi Michael, Thanks for your efforts on the Roswell UFO incident article. I have had a very quick look at your sandbox revision and agree with your editing down of the page - although I think some of the UFO fans will object to the deletion of the references contained in some of the "books"!! I have made one significant alteration to your text concerning the supposed Majestic documents. If true, and I doubt it, the "committee" was set-up by Harry Truman in 1947 and not Eisenhower - who was alledged to have been briefed before he became President. Otherwise, there were just a few typos. When I get more time, I will have another look at your proposed revisions and look forward to other editors comments. With thanks and regards, David J Johnson (talk) 23:55, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
    • I appreciate it, David! If we can get a discussion of multiple users, I believe this important article can become GA rather quickly.
      —Michael Jester (talk · contribs) 00:11, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
    • An example of some of the sections that (I believe) should be edited:
      • Roswellian Syndrome: This section only has a few sentences, and only 1 reference. It also doesn't add any value to an article of this size.
      • Area 51 (2011): This section has only a few sentences. The book doesn't add any valuable information. Plus, it's been highly criticized for having factual errors.
        —Michael Jester (talk · contribs) 00:22, 18 February 2013 (UTC)


Revert to old version of article

Let's try this again. Michael, you didn't bother to inform me that you had such a substantial re-write in mind. The changes you have made are more than minor - you have saw fit to not only rewrite the article but replace it with ZERO serious input from some of the long-time editors involved. If you want to suggest taking away a lot of the books on the subject, fine. Here is the place to discuss it.

But even in this much shortened version, you have many basic facts wrong. For example, in the lede you had it that the object crashed in "July 1947," which is contradicted in the body of the article as you wrote it!

We can sit down and re-do this, but imposing such a radical rewrite with almost no input from others can't fly. Canada Jack (talk) 17:55, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Many issues with the rewritten article - for example, it supposes there were 2 crash sites. That is according to a particular author. Other authors have other crash sites, and as written in the original article, there have been at least 11 different crash sites identified by various authors. I'm not sure what background you have on the incident, Michael, but it is a true labyrinth of claims and counter-claims. As you've written it here it appears that there is a single story, with the Air Force denying it is true. Your rewrite completely ignores the numerous versions of the incident out there, therefore, as written, misrepresents the complexity of the incident. While that may good in terms of simplifying the page, what we are left with hardly represents what has been claimed about what happened. Why, for as another example, is Haut now a central player? He wasn't for much of the telling of this, though he became more of one with the recent Carey book which had his posthumous "confession." How you've chosen what is in and what is not looks to be very POV, even in regards to the alien-friendly claims out there. Canada Jack (talk) 18:28, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
I actually posted that I would be changing the article drastically if there was no input. For the witnesses, I used the most important first-hand witnesses from the main article. There's over 600 witnesses - we can't have them all on the article. That's why we have WP:SUMMARY. I felt Haut was a key witness because he was so in-depth in describing the incident. My version was nowhere near POV - I added only high quality, reliable sources and did not put anything in my own words.
How about having date ranges for certain events instead of listing huge summaries in different sections. We have witness accounts---sometimes the same people---in different sections. This is wayyy too confusing for anyone. Example: Brazel found the material from <insert earliest date here> to <insert latest date here>.
The current page size is 46kb. That's wayyyy too big. And you reverted back to the parts where it included useless information. Like I stated above, there are multiple sections that need to go away. Also, this version is so out of whack. It may be chronologically correct, but it's nowhere near coherent to read. You have a section called witnesses, and then later down you have other sections with the same witnesses. Another section is Top Secret/Majic (2005 edition). This does not need to be here. It's like two sentences, and talks about the MJ-12. There's several sections about MJ-12; why not combine them all and make a section called Majestic 12? Like in my version.
Those are just a small amount of problems with the article. I'd rather have one that's smaller, less encyclopedic, but more easier for people, than what there is now.
—Michael Jester (talk · contribs) 19:21, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
Michael, I have to agree with Canada Jack's comments. Whilst the original article could be improved, I feel you should have waited for more comments on your revision before posting it as complete new article. I am in favour of reverting to the original article and then making agreed changes to it, via this Talk Page. Regards, David J Johnson (talk) 19:29, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Sure, there are issues, sure, the article can be drastically cut down. I was in the midst of clarifying and adding citations in good faith while all the time, it seems, you had an entirely new article you wanted to insert. And you did this in what can many editors here would view as in a bad-faith manner, not bothering to notify the one editor who has had substantial input into the article, and should have substantial input into what a pared-down article should include.

I actually posted that I would be changing the article drastically if there was no input. This is a controversial subject. This is on top of the page: "This is a controversial historical topic that may be disputed. Please read the talk page and discuss substantial changes there before making them." Where did you discuss these substantial changes? No where. You a) notified the page that you had a rewrite in your sandbox, had precisely one comment, b) said you were going to institute the changes. That is not acting in good faith, nor engaging in meaningful discussion. ESPECIALLY after you had engaged in discussion with me earlier.

The reason for the chronological structure is the simple fact that over the years, the "story" changed drastically. Haut seeing aliens? That wasn't told until 2007 or so. What high quality" sources did you rely on? I see About - which has several serious errors in their coverage of it - and it seems a large part of the rewrite is based on that!

I suggest, instead of doing a rewrite in your sandbox, list the sections as you see it, then once we get a pared-down structure we can go from there. I actually agree with a lot of what you say, but your solution raises more issues about properly covering the subject than it solves via brevity. Canada Jack (talk) 20:02, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Alright. I feel like we're getting mad at each other - I don't want that. What do you think would be the best way to collaborate on this article would be?
—Michael Jester (talk · contribs) 00:57, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
Make a list of sections which should stay in the article, a line or two on what that section should include. And we'll do a back and forth. Canada Jack (talk) 14:16, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
Alright. I'll post some.
—Michael Jester (talk · contribs) 20:15, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Contemporary accounts

  • What there is now is pretty good. However, combining dates would make it sound better. For example, "On June 14, 1947, William Brazel, [...], noticed strange clusters of debris [...]. This date—or "about three weeks" before July 8—appeared in later stories featuring Brazel, but the initial press release from the Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF) said the find was "sometime last week," suggesting Brazel found the debris in early July." can be changed to "Between June 14, 1947 and early July, William Brazel, [...] noticed clusters of debris [...]". Then, we describe the debris according to Brazel's account in the Roswell Daily Record. Marcel's and the plainclothes-man's visit should be included as well.
    —Michael Jester (talk · contribs) 20:15, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Witnesses

Reports


It's not so much the issue of which witnesses to describe, it's which accounts to describe - meaning, was there are crash in Soccorro? at the ranch? closer to Roswell? Corona? A major reason to have the various books listed is they had completely different accounts. For example, there were no reports of bodies at the Roswell base until after 1990 - before that, corpses were at Soccorro, shipped to Edwards. And then, after 1990, we have bodies in Socorro AND Roswell, according to Friedman, then Randle debunking Friedman, moving the main crash site by Roswell, etc.

The problem with your approach, at least so far, is that it fails to address the complexity of claims and counter-claims. And it's not a simple matter of people saying there were aliens and others who said there were none. Rival UFO factions have diametrically opposed scenarios about what "really" happened.

What I see odd is that you have seemed to want to make this look much like the one on About.com. Putting aside the decidedly POV approach there, it embraces claims which are in hot dispute by other UFOologists, with no hint of a basis for why the accounts described are most credible. Here, we aren't concerned with who is most credible - we are here to best represent the main theories on the case. I count about half a dozen. You seem to think there are perhaps two. I think it is time to re-think your approach. Canada Jack (talk) 20:34, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Thorough copy edit

Yesterday and today I went through the whole article cleaning up the prose, which was previously quite hard to understand. Hopefully someone will check my changes to make sure I have not done violence to the information. I then removed the copy edit tag. Anyone who adds to the article please do try to keep the text really clear and easy to read and understand. Thanks, Invertzoo (talk) 19:09, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

"Enlargement of Gen. Ramey's held message in the original photo"

I think it's great that there is a photo of some message being held, but this is completely illegible. I've seen a far more legible copy of it somewhere, where someone was even analyzing it. It would be fantastic if we could include the clearest copy of it, at the highest resolution possible. Anything less than that, I think, would prove almost useless. Also, the paragraph talking about it needs to be scrutinized for accuracy. If folks could help with these, that would be great. Thanks! Misty MH (talk) 09:59, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Due to high-visibility link, I've added temporary move protection. Any moves needed can be discussed here. — xaosflux Talk 05:21, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I think it's great that you added protection for this; though I don't know what "move protection" means. :) Misty MH (talk) 10:03, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 8 July 2013

The reported UFO that landed in Roswell New Mexico occurred on July 8, 1947, not July 7, 1947 as listed on the Wikipedia page. I know this is correct because July 8, 1947 is my husbands birthday and he has records showing that is the day the UFO landed, and no he is not an Alien.

Noirwoman46 (talk) 01:16, 9 July 2013 (UTC)Please edit the Roswell New Mexico UFO landing page to the correct date July 8, 1947 on my behalf, thank you.

 Not done - The date of the newspaper article is July 8, 1947; the event occurred the day before. - MrX 03:31, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

You know he's an alien! Just kidding. :) But even if he were, he likely would not have told anyone at all. And certain reports of aliens do indicate that some did appear to be a lot like humans.... Misty MH (talk) 22:57, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
I agree with MrX in regards to the date of the article. And as to when one or more ships crashed, that is arguable, maybe from July 8th back to some days before that. There may have been multiple crashes, as some reports have said; and they could have been on separate dates. So, it is at least conceivable that a crash occurred on July 8th, 1947, or, for that matter, after that but before all the military folks cleared out. Misty MH (talk) 22:57, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
What exactly do your husband's records say? And what kinds of records are they? In what way was he involved in the entire UFO event? or was he? If those records have not been photographed or copied, for publication, it could be a great contribution to this incredibly complex mystery. PLEASE DONATE! And Thank you! Immensely! :) Misty MH (talk) 22:57, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

"Pro-UFO Advocates Dismiss Roswell Incident" edit request

The second sentence in this section seems mis-worded to me: "While the initial Air Force report was a chief reason for this, another reason was the release of secret documents from 1948 that showed that top Air Force officials did not know what the UFO objects being reported in the media were, and their suspicion that the UFOs might actually be Soviet spy vehicles." What I mean by this is that Air Force officials not knowing what the UFO was would seemingly add to the strength of an argument for it being of alien origin.

Can you sign this post, please? (Include 4 tildes.) Thanks. Misty MH (talk) 10:01, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
We can't make that conclusion ourselves; we must follow the sources. Also, if you continue reading that section you will find that there was another plausible explanation: "...their suspicion that the UFOs might be Soviet spy vehicles." - MrX 03:42, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
This section appears to have been created by (anonymous) User 173.206.3.38, according to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Roswell_UFO_incident&diff=563333234&oldid=563332723 Misty MH (talk) 23:05, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Phillip J. Corso

18.124.0.99 (talk) 21:43, 15 June 2014 (UTC)Joe MIT I am surprised that this article has no mention of Phillip J. Corso. He published "The Day After Roswell" (1997). It contains information about EBEs and the reverse engineerinng of artifacts recovered at the Roswell crash. Wikipedia has an article about Phillip J. Corso. The URL address is 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_corso

I think it would be appropriate to include some information about Phillip Corso's involvment with the Roswell incident along with a link to the above Wikipedia article.

I see no reason to include Corso's "involvement" with Roswell. His book was widely discounted at time of publication. Wikipedia is only interested in reliable and confirmed sources and not conspiracy theories. Regards, David J Johnson (talk) 22:09, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Object crashed June; Object crashed June or July

The lede says this: The Roswell UFO Incident was the alleged recovery of extra-terrestrial debris, including alien corpses, from an object which crashed near Roswell, New Mexico, in June or July 1947.

Someone or some people keeps changing "June or July" to "July." While one can argue that the way the line is constructed the date refers to the recovery of the object, the "June or July" refers to when the object crashed. Depending on the author, that date was early July or mid-June. So to insert "July" is POV as there is no agreement. Canada Jack (talk) 22:03, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

A response to the page comment which stated; "not 'june or july 1947'. in the first line of an article, that's really inaccurate and unprofessional." Just wanted to reiterate why this imprecision is in the lede. It's because the UFO community assert an object crashed on or about July 2, 1947, while skeptics who assert what landed was part of Mogul most commonly state the object landed about June 14, 1947. Therefore to be more definitive about the landing of the object would be taking a view that one version is correct while the other is not. In terms of what is claimed in term of the object, the dates "June or July" is accurate. Canada Jack (talk) 19:26, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Debunkers only gave the date of an alleged mogul balloon crashing in June when it was proven that the mogul balloon they originally claimed was responsible for the crash never launched due to bad weather. I am deleting the phrase "June or July" because we do not have the luxury of inventing facts. Whatever crashed did so in early July, 1947.BoyintheMachine (talk) 23:15, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, this is not correct. The actual date is unknown and various accounts give it as late June 1947. Therefore because of the uncertain date; June or July is correct. This has been the subject of much discussion and reflects consensus. Any deletion will be reverted. Regards, David J Johnson (talk) 23:21, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Mac Brazel was the man who discovered the wreckage on the ranch in the first week of July, 1947. He in fact heard a loud crash or boom the night before and then discovered the wreckage the following day. I'm am removing the "June or July" as once again, you do not have the luxury of inventing facts.BoyintheMachine (talk) 02:54, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

This date is in dispute. The initial press conferences in fact reported that Brazel said he found the debris "about three weeks" earlier, i.e., mid-June. Which is why we say "June or July." Canada Jack (talk) 14:44, 7 July 2014 (UTC)
Here is the report from the initial newspaper story: "Brazel related that on June 14 he and 8-year old son Vernon were about 7 or 8 miles from the ranch house of the J.B. Foster ranch, which he operates, when they came upon a large area of bright wreckage made up of rubber strips, tinfoil, a rather tough paper and sticks." Canada Jack (talk) 14:51, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

Neutral presentation of all significant points of view in the lede

I reverted this bold edit (which was identical to a previous bold edit), because the wording draws a conclusion for readers. It favors one point of view over others and it's not an accurate summary of the rest of the article. The grammar was also awkward.- MrX 02:39, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

There is no serious dispute about what crashed in Roswell. It was a balloon. We need to be honest about this. jps (talk) 15:18, 23 August 2014 (UTC)
No one has said there is any dispute about what crashed at Roswell. It is your attitude that offends. I for one have always fought against the UFO theory - just look at my contributions above and in the article history. But, and it's a big "but", there are folk - service personnel at the time included, that dispute what happened. That needs to be stated in the interests of a neutral point of view and the article, prior to your changes, reflected this. Finally, if you have any knowledge of how Wikipedia works: do not shout (ie: caps) in your contributions and do not post "comments" in a incorrect position on my Talk page - here is the correct place to post comments. Thank you, David J Johnson (talk) 22:06, 23 August 2014 (UTC)
Just because people dispute doesn't mean we give them equally validity in the article. WP:GEVAL. We can mention them, but we can't claim it is a one-for-one correspondence with what really happened. jps (talk) 03:36, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
Completely agree, but please stop lecturing regarding WP guidelines. David J Johnson (talk) 10:17, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
How exactly does the last consensus/stable version[4] of the article give conspiracy theories equal validity? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 11:33, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
Err: "Although the crash is attributed to a secret U.S. military Air Force surveillance balloon by the U.S. government,[1] the most famous explanation of what occurred is that the object was a spacecraft containing extraterrestrial life." So: we have something said by the US government (implying them alone), although-ed with what Wikipedia calls, in her own voice, an "explanation". Alexbrn talk|contribs|COI 11:38, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
I don't agree that wording gives equal validity to fringe theories or that the word "explanation" is somehow a bad thing. Further the changed wording is clunky and introduces WP:WEASEL problems. If there are ways to improve the introduction, then fine, but I don't see the changes as improvements. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 12:01, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
Let's work together to come up with the best wording that maintains a neutral stance. Alexbrn and jps are advised to use the talk page to gain consensus for their edits. Until consensus is reached, the article should remain at the status quo version. A Quest For Knowledge was correct in restoring the (approximate) original version.- MrX 12:16, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

"Explanation" clearly implies some level of factual clarification, not appropriate for a fringe/conspiracy theory. Although also gives undue weight to such ideas. Edits that bring an article into compliance with policy are appropriate in keeping with the wide ranging consensus supporting those policies. Extensive discussion at FTN also supports making some revisions to this article. WP:DUE is part of a core policy which trumps local consensus. WP:FRINGE is a widely supported guideline. Minority and fringe views need to be clearly identified as such and not given parity with mainstream viewpoints. - - MrBill3 (talk) 12:31, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

I agree that there may be better wording, and "explanation" is problematic, but the rest of your statement repeats a false premise. First, conspiracy theories are only part of the the narrative. There are witness accounts, documents, government investigations, mythology, and so on that weave throughout this story. There are vastly adequate sources to refute the idea that the other "explanations" represent a minority viewpoint. Finally, editorial decisions for this article should occur here. Everyone want a neutral presentation; we just need to agree on how that looks. Seeking consensus at WP:FTN would be a perfect example of a seeking a local consensus.- MrX 12:45, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
I'd love to see these vastly adequate sources that support the contention that these "other explanations" represent any kind of serious viewpoint among the academic community. Popularity among a large number of fringe/conspiracy adherents does not equate to a serious scholarly debate. The materials contributing to the narrative are doing just that contributing to a narrative. The narrative presented is that a number of fringe/conspiracy theories have developed which are fringe interpretations of the material. Neutral presentation should make that completely clear. FTN is more broad than the talk page of a single article and brings a wider community input making it less local than here. - - MrBill3 (talk) 13:37, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
Noticeboards are for getting widened consensus from editors who are familiar with particular policies/guidance - in this case WP:PSCI and WP:FRINGE - whose guidance it seems had not been properly followed here. How would you broadly characterize the advice that noticeboard gave? Alexbrn talk|contribs|COI 13:07, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
Theoretically, but in practice, what we really see in the case of FTN are helpful people with a solid grasp of or policies, and a few very vocal people, some of whom modify policies, guidelines, and essays to suit their own interpretation of NPOV and then argue rather illogically that everything that doesn't comport to their world view is fringe. So let's discuss this here. The FTN folks should already be aware of this discussion and are welcome to participate.- MrX 13:15, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
If you have a problem with the widely accepted processes used on WP this is not the forum for that discussion. Casting aspersions without evidence at an unnamed group of editors is not likely to advance your case. - - MrBill3 (talk) 13:42, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Great, let's discuss content.- MrX 14:20, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Previous Wording

The Roswell UFO incident took place in the U.S. in June or early July 1947, when an airborne object crashed on a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico. Explanations of what took place are based on both official and unofficial communications. Although the crash is attributed to a secret U.S. military Air Force surveillance balloon by the U.S. government,[1] the most famous explanation of what occurred is that the object was a spacecraft containing extraterrestrial life. Since the late 1970s, the Roswell incident has been the subject of much controversy, and conspiracy theories have arisen about the event.

The United States Armed Forces maintains that what was recovered near Roswell was debris from the crash of an experimental high-altitude surveillance balloon belonging to what was then a classified (top secret) program named Mogul. In contrast, many UFO proponents maintain that an alien craft was found, its occupants were captured, and that the military engaged in a massive cover-up. The Roswell incident has turned into a widely known pop culture phenomenon, making the name "Roswell" synonymous with UFOs. Roswell has become the most publicized of all alleged UFO incidents.


Contradictory conclusions, questionable research, Roswell as a myth

Critics[who?] also point out that the large variety of claimed crash flights suggests that events that spanned years have been incorporated into one single event,[11] and that authors[who?] have uncritically embraced anything that suggests aliens, even when the accounts contradict each other. Pflock said, "[T]he case for Roswell is a classic example of the triumph of quantity over quality.


Current wording

The Roswell UFO incident took place in the U.S. in June or early July 1947, when an airborne object crashed on a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico. The U.S. Government has disclosed that the incident involved a secret U.S. military Air Force surveillance balloon,[1] although some media at the time reported that the object was actually a flying saucer containing extraterrestrial life. Since the late 1970s, the Roswell incident has been the subject of much interest in popular media, and conspiracy theories have arisen surrounding the event.

Around the time of the incident, the United States Armed Forces recovered debris near Roswell from the crash of an experimental high-altitude surveillance balloon belonging to what was then a classified (top secret) program named Mogul. Many UFO proponents maintain instead that an alien craft was found, its occupants were captured, and that the military engaged in a cover-up. The Roswell incident has turned into a widely known pop culture phenomenon, making the name "Roswell" synonymous with UFOs. Roswell has become the most publicized of all alleged UFO incidents.


Evidence

Although there is no evidence that a UFO crashed at Roswell, believers firmly hold to the belief that one did, and that the truth has been concealed as a result of a government conspiracy.[61]

Proposal 1

The Roswell UFO incident took place in the U.S. in June or early July 1947, when an airborne object crashed on a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico. The U.S. Government has stated that the incident involved a secret U.S. military Air Force surveillance balloon.[1] Some media at the time reported that the object was actually a flying saucer, and others since then have advanced theories that the object was a spacecraft containing extraterrestrial life. Since the late 1970s, the Roswell incident has been the subject of much interest in popular media, and conspiracy theories have arisen surrounding the event.

Shortly after the incident, the United States Armed Forces recovered debris near Roswell from the crash of an experimental high-altitude surveillance balloon belonging to what was then a classified (top secret) program named Mogul. Many UFO proponents maintain that an alien craft was found, that its occupants were captured, and that the military engaged in a massive cover-up. The Roswell incident has turned into a widely known pop culture phenomenon, making the name "Roswell" synonymous with UFOs. Roswell has become the most publicized of all alleged UFO incidents.


Roswell as a myth

There has been no physical evidence of any UFO crash at Roswell.[citation needed] Critics say that the large variety of claimed crash flights suggests that events that spanned years have been incorporated into one single event, and that authors have uncritically embraced anything that suggests aliens, even when the accounts contradict each other. Pflock said, "[T]he case for Roswell is a classic example of the triumph of quantity over quality.

- MrX 14:20, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Couple of questions:
  • Why is there a "citation needed" for "There has been no physical evidence of any UFO crash at Roswell", when this is properly cited right now?
  • Why do we start with a teasing mention of "an airborne object"? For clarity and neutrality the article should start something like: "The 'Roswell UFO incident' describes the events surrounding the crash of a military surveillance balloon at a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico in the summer of 1947." Alexbrn talk|contribs|COI 14:31, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
  • I wasn't sure if it was already cited.
  • That it was an airborne object is an accepted fact and neutral. Stating the object was a balloon puts us in the role of deciding what's factual and what's not. WP:OR doesn't permit that. As I've asked before, has this dispute been settled? Is there a consensus that the object was indeed a balloon? As far as I can tell, no, but if someone can point to sources that document such a consensus, that would be extremely helpful.- MrX 14:58, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
(1) It's cited fine. (2) We don't need a "consensus" that the object was a balloon other than is evidenced by strong sourcing (that isn't contradicted by other serious sourcing). For a source simply stating the facts, something from the New York Times is sufficient:

The wreckage, quickly whisked away by the Air Force, was part of an airborne system for atomic-age spying that was invented by a leading geophysicist and developed by Columbia University, New York University and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, according to an Air Force report on the once-secret project as well as principals in the espionage effort.

The program was called Project Mogul, and its goal, set by a postwar America wary of losing its atomic monopoly, was to search high in the atmosphere for weak reverberations from nuclear-test blasts half a world away.

The debris, found near Roswell, N.M., was a smashed part of the program's balloons, sensors and, of most consequence to the growth of spaceship theories, radar reflectors made of thin metal foil.

At the time, the Air Force said the wreckage was that of a weather balloon, a white lie. But over the decades, the incident grew to mythic dimensions among flying-saucer cultists, who spun slim evidence into weighty charges while touting conspiracy theories in scores of books, articles and television shows.

(my bolds) Alexbrn talk|contribs|COI 15:44, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
We do need consensus of reliable sources if we are going to state something as fact in Wikipedia's voice. Let's have a look at other sources and see if they concur with the NYT.- MrX 16:00, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
  • To be honest, I don't like any of these. I'd prefer something simpler and more direct. How about something roughly like this:

The Roswell UFO incident was a supposed crash of an alien spacecraft near Roswell, New Mexico in 1947. A US military experimental high-altitude surveillance balloon had crashed on a local ranch. The debris was handed over to the military authorities at nearby Roswell Army Air Field which issued a press release announcing the that they had recovered the remains of a “flying disc.” The next day, the Roswell AAF held a press conference explaining that debris was actually from a weather balloon. The incident was largely forgotten until 1980 when the National Inquirer published an article about alleged alien crash which garnered national and worldwide attention. The Roswell incident has since turned into a widely known pop culture phenomenon, making the name "Roswell" synonymous with UFOs.

It could use some fine-tuning, but this can replace the entire lede, not just the first paragraph. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 16:01, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

It's accurate and covers the subject from a very high level, but I think it's way too short for a lede.- MrX 16:13, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
OK, here's a slightly longer version:

The Roswell UFO incident was a supposed crash of an alien spacecraft near Roswell, New Mexico in 1947. A US military experimental high-altitude surveillance balloon had crashed on a local ranch. A rancher named William “Mac” Brazel reported to the local sheriff that he might have recovered the remains of “one of them flying saucers.” The sheriff then contacted military authorities at nearby Roswell Army Air Field which issued a press release announcing that they had recovered the remains of a “flying disc.” Newspapers of the day picked up on the story and reported that the RAAF had captured a "flying saucer". The next day, the Roswell AAF held a press conference explaining that debris was actually from a weather balloon. The incident was largely forgotten until 1980 when the National Inquirer published an article about the alleged alien crash which garnered national and worldwide attention. The Roswell incident has turned into a widely known pop culture phenomenon, making the name "Roswell" synonymous with UFOs.

A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 16:28, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
I very happy with AQFK revisions and thanks for your efforts. Regards, David J Johnson (talk) 16:44, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

arbitrary break

I reverted some of the complete mess some new editors have made to this page.

Like this: A US military experimental high-altitude surveillance balloon had crashed on a local ranch. Says who? The Air Force in fact concluded that the debris was likely connected to Project Mogul, but could not make a definitive conclusion as the debris was disposed of a half century earlier.

This discussion, by editors acting in good faith, has some serious problems. Like this lapse in logic: *Why is there a "citation needed" for "There has been no physical evidence of any UFO crash at Roswell", when this is properly cited right now? But the same can be said of the Mogul balloon claim. Where is the physical evidence? Besides, arguing from lack of evidence is a fallacy.

And, when you quote a secondary source, even the New York Times, they can get things wrong. Here is the quote from the NYT: "The wreckage, quickly whisked away by the Air Force, was part of an airborne system for atomic-age spying that was invented by a leading geophysicist and developed by Columbia University, New York University and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, according to an Air Force report on the once-secret project as well as principals in the espionage effort."

Uh, no. This is what the Air Force in fact concluded: “The Air Force research did not locate or develop any information that the ‘Roswell Incident’ was a UFO event. All available official materials, although they do not directly address Roswell per se, indicate that the most likely source of the wreckage recovered from the Brazel Ranch was from one of the Project Mogul balloon trains.” (my bold)

OF COURSE the material was from some balloon train, whether it was Mogul or one of the other myriad balloon experiments/weather balloons in the region. But to claim, as fact, that the material came from the Mogul program cannot be done as the material is long gone. So, the best we can do is supply the conclusion from the report, that the Air Force concluded the material LIKELY came from an experimental balloon project. Which is what was here before people obviously not too well-versed on the subject came here, perhaps prompted by a New York Times article sprinkled with some basic errors. Canada Jack (talk) 03:54, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

The NYT is just reporting as fact things about which there is no serious doubt. What WP should be doing, as it happens ... Alexbrn talk|contribs|COI 04:56, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
But there is doubt - maybe originating from the lunatic fringe - so much so that consistent majorities believe that aliens in fact landed at Roswell! However, we need to source the contention this has been "proven" to be debunked. But what the NYT says is, simply put, dead wrong. The NYT is claiming as fact that the Air Force concluded this was the Mogul balloon experiment. However, the Air Force concluded it was LIKELY that was the case, but since there is no debris to examine, 48 years after the fact, no definitive conclusion could be made. The NYT, in other words, is misquoting the Air Force.
There are two basic "facts" which can therefore be made and stated as such on this page. 1. That the Air Force concluded that the material found was likely from a balloon experiment. 2. That UFO proponents claim aliens crashed and that fact was covered up. There is no basis to conclude one way or another that the case has been "proven" as there was do debris to examine. The Army Air Force likely tossed the debris in the garbage, but that can't proved, just as the contention that alien debris is being hidden can't be disproved. Since we can't prove a negative, in the end, all we can show is what the evidence suggests, with the onus on those who claim some fantastic conclusion to pony up the evidence for that. Can we prove the debris was from the Mogul program? No. It most certainly likely was, but the "proof" is not there. But the same applies on the other side. There is no physical evidence for their contention, but we also can't disprove it. That's not our onus to do so, however. Canada Jack (talk) 14:26, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
Quite - we just follow reliable sources like the NYT which decided the matter was beyond doubt. We don't use our own OR (such as you expound) or fringey counter-claims in dubious publications to present things differently. The NYT is a high-quality, independent secondary RS for this; are there any equivalently decent WP:RS's that see things differently? Alexbrn talk|contribs|COI 14:40, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
There are other reliable news sources that report it accurately. When this is the case, since we can verify the story in comparison with the primary source, we are not obliged to use the inaccurate version. Location (talk) 14:52, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
Agree with Alexbrn and Location. The notion that a conspiracy theory saying that the US government is covering up the truth must have equal credibility with a US Government denial of that conspiracy theory (because 'neither can be proven wrong') would require dramatic changes at articles such as Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories. - LuckyLouie (talk) 14:58, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
@LuckyLouie: I actually agree with Canada Jack on this particular point (i.e. that the Air Force has not been quoted accurately). I don't believe the wording noted above (i.e. that the debris was likely from Mogul) undermines the credibility of the US government or raises the credibility of the CTs. Location (talk) 15:08, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
@Location: you said "There are other reliable news sources that report it accurately". What are they? Alexbrn talk|contribs|COI 15:15, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
Ah, I thought you were wrangling with WP:GEVAL when you were actually wrangling with WP:ASSERT the whole time. Never mind. - LuckyLouie (talk) 00:30, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
The primary source says "likely" (see page 9) and there are secondary sources that accurately reiterated that they said "likely" (e.g AP report) There really isn't any doubt to what they actually said. Location (talk) 15:33, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
Under the headline of "UFO CLAIM WAS BOGUS" there is not really any doubt where the AP stands on interpreting "likely". On pretty much the same grounds as "It is likely the sun will rise tomorrow". -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 13:14, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
Right, but let's not misquote what the USAF said — and that is what Canada Jack's point was — by omitting "likely". Location (talk) 14:01, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
By the way, I found the same AP report in another newspaper with the headline "AIR FORCE SAYS 1947 'UFO' LIKELY WAS SPY BALLOON".[5] Location (talk) 14:07, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
You seem fixated on one word and pushing on presenting that one word in the loosest and most open way possible (uncertainly close to 50%), when in fact all mainstream academics interpret it in the strictest possible matter (uncertainty close to zero). It is completely inappropriate to not follow the mainstream academics' interpretation and instead give credence to the wingnuts' interpretations. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 12:21, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
What I am pushing for is that if you mention the USAF then you quote their findings accurately. Mainstream news sources have been able to do it, so we should be able to, too. Most of us interpret the USAF's statement as supporting the view that a UFO crash is bogus, yet it appears that you believe others are incapable of interpreting it the same way. It is completely inappropriate to omit a quotation in order to steer readers to a conclusion that you think they are unable to make on their own. Location (talk) 13:09, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
We are not misquoting them. We are presenting the mainstream interpretation AS WE ARE SUPPOSED TO. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 00:56, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
"Quite - we just follow reliable sources like the NYT which decided the matter was beyond doubt. We don't use our own OR (such as you expound) or fringey counter-claims in dubious publications to present things differently. The NYT is a high-quality, independent secondary RS for this; are there any equivalently decent WP:RS's that see things differently?" I've quoted the pertinent part of the Air Force report on this issue. They did NOT conclude, as the NYT suggests, that it was "proven" to be the balloon experiment. They said it was LIKELY to be so. Since when do we use a "reliable" source when it is clearly wrong?
"The notion that a conspiracy theory saying that the US government is covering up the truth must have equal credibility with a US Government denial of that conspiracy theory (because 'neither can be proven wrong') would require dramatic changes at articles such as Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories." ??? What we had here and what is on that page are one and the same. Do we quote in the lede some "reliable" source saying that it has been "proven" that Obama was born in Hawaii? No! We simply state the facts - that fringe groups believe he wasn't, and that official sources have proffered the evidence that establishes he indeed was born there. That is what is here - the Air Force states that the debris was likely from a balloon experiment; that ufo researchers believe it was an alien craft.
The ultimate point here, in terms of adhering to NPOV, is not to characterize something as a "fact" when empirically that can't be done. Instead, we present the positions of the various sides, as is done in the Obama article, and as was done here, until some in good faith sought to change this.
As Location knows, I am also on the JFK assassination page a lot, and even there we cite the conclusions of the investigations, and the contention from others that there was a conspiracy. The notion that Oswald didn't do it or had help goes against a mountain of evidence which clearly and definitely establishes his culpability. Yet we don't portray that as "proven." Sure, the Roswell incident is far from mainstream in terms of what is being claimed, but we can't go and quote from "reliable sources" which mischaracterize what investigators concluded, no more than if the New York Times stated as fact that the Warren Commission concluded there were two assassins that we could insert that in the lede knowing they are incorrect. Canada Jack (talk) 15:26, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
From a quick reading of John F. Kennedy assassination, the coverage of conspiracy theories there looks very WP:UNDUE unless they actually have some credibility that I'm not aware of.
It may also be relevant that a claim of a UFO crash is somewhat more WP:EXCEPTIONAL than many of the claims about the Kennedy assassination. Sunrise (talk) 03:01, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
"The ultimate point here, in terms of adhering to NPOV, is not to characterize something as a "fact" when empirically that can't be done. " uh, no. We treat it as the mainstream academics treat it. They overwhelmingly treat it as a "fact". -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 12:23, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
Who are the mainstream academics that have investigated this case? (You can just list the footnote numbers or put links below). Thanks.- MrX 12:36, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
Huh? Wah? It's an extraordinary claim to assert there is any level of doubt in the academics and the onus is on those attempting to assert otherwise to provide extraordinary evidence to back their claim. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 12:36, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
Got ahead of yourself? You said "We treat it as the mainstream academics treat it." All I would like to know is who are the mainstream academics and how do they treat it. It seems like that simple question is being evaded.- MrX 13:25, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

One academic would be Kathy Olsmted , a historian who has studied conspiracy theories. She writes quite simply that one of the project Mogul balloons smashed into the sands in New Mexico. In a book published by OUP ... about as RS as you could want. Alexbrn talk|contribs|COI 14:42, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Another mainstream historian who has studied conspiracy theories is Robert Alan Goldberg whose Enemies Within, The Culture of Conspiracy in Modern America investigates and summarily dismisses the Roswell claims. - LuckyLouie (talk) 15:05, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
Thank you Alexbrn and LuckyLouie. That's what I was looking for.- MrX 01:05, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
Keep in mind that historians can not have the necessary expertise, in discerning whether the debris was balloon or an UFO. They can just reveal their opinion with the adjective "likely". Citing such a source to back a "manufactured fact" in the article, is a good example of the reliability issue; remember that WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. Not academics from social sciences but from natural sciences would do the job. Logos (talk) 08:53, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
No - when it comes to reporting history then historians are exactly who we'd use. This is a largely a sociological phenomenon in any case: it seems to be only the UFO nuts who think there are any weighty "science" questions here. Alexbrn talk|contribs|COI 09:00, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
That's the point; they can only report and can't act as a material scientist, chemist, physicist, etc. They can't report a non-existent fact. UFO nuts or not, somebody has to expose the balloon fraud, and its nutty proponents. Logos (talk) 09:34, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
"somebody has to expose the balloon fraud" ← sorry, I don't understand. What text/sources are you proposing to support what text for the article? Alexbrn talk|contribs|COI 09:43, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
You've made lots of changes to the article, based solely on your historian Kathy Olmsted's fantasy book. You need reliable sources to back up that wording. Kathy's or any other historian's pieces do not qualify for that. Logos (talk) 10:09, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
Her and Goldberg, yes - at last some decent sources for this article! These are both very good sources in WP's terms (independent, secondary, scholarly, well-published) - maybe ask at WP:RS/N if you want to confirm that. Have you got any other sources in mind which are good? Alexbrn talk|contribs|COI 10:12, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

The onus of proving the reliability of those sources is on you, not me. No sources means no "1st bullet point of WP:ASSERT"wise wording. Logos (talk) 12:05, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

We now have some reliable sources. I was inviting more of them: our task is to digest what they say; if nothing good can supplement Olmert/Goldberg that those sources shall feature largely here for neutrality's sake. Alexbrn talk|contribs|COI 12:20, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
Even cursory searches show that mainstream academics treat the Roswell UFO crash claim as a pop culture myth (e.g. a course taught by a university physics department considers it an example of pseudoscientific thinking). Someone with better access to university databases will no doubt find many more examples. - LuckyLouie (talk) 18:49, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
I suspect even a thorough search can result in something useful; even channeled information is not fruitful. I don't know whom to attribute the essay there -which resembles a term paper-: lecturers of Physics 3333 in Dedman College of Southern Methodist University or one of the students of those lecturers? I just see a text without a signature, focusing on the discrepancies between several books and/or versions of those books written by some people about Roswell crash, and reporting those -just as your fancy historians- to their teacher (or to his students by supposing that he will sharpen their senses about pseudoscience). I don't see a physicist there, from 1947 who had visited the ranch (or site) where people claimed that an UFO had crashed, and had investigated the site and the debris independently, and had concluded that the thing crashed in Roswell had been a balloon in fact. Even in that case, there would be many people objecting the use of "1st bullet point of WP:ASSERT"wise language while adding the account of the physicist from 1947. Using a language conforming to the 2nd bullet point of WP:ASSERT, will not deteriorate the quality of wikipedia in this specific case, but using the 1st bullet point without any solid basis will definitely do so. Check britannica's or other prominent encyclopedias' versions and you will see the similar language: "The supposed site of an extraterrestrial-spacecraft crash in 1947, Roswell now draws thousands of visitors to its annual UFO Encounter Festival, held in July". Wikipedia should not become another version of skepdic or worse. An outsider (that is, who had no chance to examine the debris or crash site) natural scientist should present his/her assessment like this. Such a presentation does not justify 1st bullet point of WP:ASSERT. Logos (talk) 22:49, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
Olmert and Goldberg are scholars who are able to assess the mainstream scholarly consensus on the subject. On WP we are dependent on contemporary physicists but upon the widely accepted academic interpretation. The analysis of the research and the interpretations of that research and the conclusions drawn are not up to WP editor (OR) but on WP we use the quality secondary analytical sources and the major institutions and journalists who report on the widely held consensus of the analysis, research, interpretations and secondary analysis. Evidence that major academic institutions use the subject as a case study in pseudoscience may not provide sources for the article but certainly inform our discussion on the talk page. Scholarly secondary analysis by scholars published by major academic publishers is the encyclopedic gold standard for WP. - - MrBill3 (talk) 02:04, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
You should study wp policies & guidelines a bit more; in addition to misrepresenting the sources, now you are misinterpreting or misrepresenting the policies/guidelines.
"The analysis of the research and the interpretations of that research and the conclusions drawn are not up to WP editor (OR) but on WP we use the quality secondary analytical sources and the major institutions and journalists who report on the widely held consensus of the analysis, research, interpretations and secondary analysis.": I have no spare time to educate you, but you yourself should be able to see the contradicting remarks in your statement; just read related policies/guidelines and some past arbitrary decisions will also help. Such a heavy misinterpretation of policies/guidelines is the sign of either a novice editor or a conscious misrepresentation towards a goal.
"Evidence that major academic institutions use the subject as a case study in pseudoscience..": clearly your expertise does not match the requirements of this particular case. Logos (talk) 10:07, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
Here is a direct quote from the core content policy No original research, "Secondary or tertiary sources are needed to establish the topic's notability and to avoid novel interpretations of primary sources. All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than to an original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors." now here is what I said and you called a misinterpretation or misrepresentation of policy/guidelines, "The analysis of the research and the interpretations of that research and the conclusions drawn are not up to WP editor (OR) but on WP we use the quality secondary analytical sources and the major institutions and journalists who report on the widely held consensus of the analysis, research, interpretations and secondary analysis." Can you explain the error in what I said? Regardless the core content policy speaks for itself.
The arbcom ruling you pointed to here simply points out that sources are required for assertions by experts. The ruling states in another section experts were accorded no special role or status on Wikipedia. making your claim for expertise required or established to edit a clear misinterpretation of the arbcom ruling. As a note it was another editor LuckyLouie who pointed out (with a ref) that a major academic institution considered the subject a case study in pseudoscience. Thus the requirement for a source was fulfilled. Such sources though possibly not appropriate for content can contribute to the discussion on talk pages. Regardless arbcom rulings do not regulate content. Your commentary is becoming increasingly tendentious and an example of IDHT, policy based consensus is clear. Core policy takes precedence. - - MrBill3 (talk) 11:14, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
The error is: the part you're referring to is an instruction within the context of editing articles, not article talkpages; editors talk in talkpages about sources, analyze the claims (or wording or prose style) of those sources, etc. Have I edited the article with my OR statements? No. Besides, the onus/responsibility of judging the quality (reliability etc.) of the sources is on the editors. What you've been misrepresenting as WP:OR is actually the natural (and required) process of sourcing. May be you should ask arbitration committee to close/ban the Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard, for people scrutinize the sources there.
I see no use in responding to your twisted comment about arbcom ruling.
Luckylouie doesn't seem to identify the page they found as "major academic institution blah blah blah..". In fact, they look aware of its low quality by stating "Even cursory searches show that..". Logos (talk) 13:37, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
I welcome analysis of sources on talk pages and acknowledge your editing has been on talk not in the article. I strongly support the scholarly analysis by "fancy historians" and along with a clear majority of editors find reliable sources that question that it was an experimental balloon lacking. So far I have not seen much rational argument against Olmsted's analysis. While Thomas' presentation is good it is clearly not at the level of RS as Olmsted (OUP has a solid reputation, Olmsted seems to clearly have done extensive research, she is a full professor and department chair at UC Davis etc.). I think pointing to the way other encyclopedias treat the subject is valid but WP can do better. Might I suggest moving toward concrete proposals and the avoidance of personal attacks. Best. - - MrBill3 (talk) 14:01, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

More encyclopedic better sourced version reverted

I support this version which was recently reverted as written in a more encyclopedic tone, stating the mainstream academic consensus in WP's voice, not including undue FRINGE material and FRINGE sources with implications of validity. It is sourced from much higher quality sources which have overwhelming due weight and reflect the extremely widely held scientific consensus. I suggest restoring this version unless policy based argument is presented. Simply making a mass revert and citing BRD is not appropriate. Extensive discussion has already occurred and the changes represented by version 623198786 reflect policy and the widespread consensus in policy and guidelines. - - MrBill3 (talk) 02:12, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

The bold edits went way to far in my opinion. These kinds of changes need to be made on smaller steps, with discussion to test consensus at each step of the way. Some of the "fringe" material and sources that were removed are important to understanding the cultural context of this myth/story/fraud or whatever you want to call it. Again, this is not a science article; it's a history article.- MrX 02:46, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Support this version, which was well on its way to making much needed improvements to the article based on recently unearthed high quality academic sources that shine the light of mainstream historians perspective on the claims of UFOlogists. I can understand A Quest For Knowledge's need for more discussion on the lead and the use of the word "likely", but I can't agree with reverting back to a version where primary sourced UFOlogy books and fringe websites are cited as if they are reliable sources. - LuckyLouie (talk) 02:49, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
  • support the version based on the academic sources as the much better platform to continue editing from. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 03:21, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
  • support (as editor doing most/all of the reverted edits). I think WP:DRNC would apply. I'm not seeing any policy-based reasons being presented why the - frankly, embarrassingly bad - version of this article should be re-instated. That would be because there are no such reasons. Alexbrn talk|contribs|COI 04:20, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
Some of your edits are improvements, and some are embarrassingly bad. The issues that I see are use of WP:WEASEL words, expressions of doubt, non-neutral phrasing, passive voice, removal of important information from the lede, and removal of relevant content and sources from the body, and grammar issues. The previous version is a better platform to build from, especially for the lede.- MrX 12:06, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
ETA: I support removing any unsourced content, adding good sources, and removing sources and content sourced to fringe websites. No book sources should be removed without discussion, unless they are self-published. The lede should be mostly left alone for now.- MrX 12:13, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for your input MrX. If you could point to specific edits you don't support (preferably with alternative proposals) that would be most helpful. I think your input would lead to constructive discussion and hopefully to some consensus support for an improved version. As you understand this is essentially a historical/sociological article your input has seemed well aimed. Some elaboration of fringe theories may be appropriate to provide explanation/example etc. While I respect Alexbrn as an editor there is always room for improvement in copy, style and consideration of other viewpoints. I think the article is being improved greatly but I can see a place for key content that is of importance re the theories and ideas that have been put forward. - - MrBill3 (talk) 12:41, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
I would also ask A Quest For Knowledge to provide criticisms of specific edits with concrete proposals for alternatives or clarity in what is objected to. It seems to me when we get specific and propose and discuss concrete content progress is made, otherwise the conversation often deteriorates. Of course the same type input is welcome and useful from the other involved editors. - - MrBill3 (talk) 12:51, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
I will actually make some edits later, but for now the entire lede is poorly written. We were much closer to a balanced representation of the article with the original version. If the consensus of our best secondary sources confirm that the crashed object was a Mogul balloon and payload, then we can assert that, but the historical (pop) culture aspect needs to be presented without disparaging it. We must remain neutral in how we present content, for the same reason we wouldn't write that imperialist Christopher Columbus engaged a campaign of genocide.- MrX 12:53, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm sure I make a ton of mistakes, but my basic aim here is to give the article some kind of backbone from good sources while trimming fringe sources and OR based on primaries. When we get to a level of discussion based on good secondary sources, we can probably think we've clicked the article quality up a notch or two. Alexbrn talk|contribs|COI 13:04, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

I just want to add that neutral doesn't mean we can't give the mainstream historians view primary weight in the article, or somehow must "balance" it by treating claims written in UFO books as equally credible. - LuckyLouie (talk) 13:22, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

I certainly didn't suggest such. The only think that makes this subject notable is the mythology that has emerged as a result of popular media attention to an otherwise ordinary event. There is ample criticism and refutation of the fringe theories/frauds/myths in the original version of the article. @Alexbrn: I don't doubt your sincerity, just your methods with respect to some wording, sources, and content that should be retained.- MrX 13:33, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
Any particular source that's gone you think should be retained? Alexbrn talk|contribs|COI 13:35, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
I haven't got there yet, but I did tag a passage in the article that seems to be synthesis. Is there another page number that I should be looking at?- MrX 14:06, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
@MrX: The text you want is right there: "the military decided to hide the project's real purpose". Alexbrn talk|contribs|COI 14:23, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
My mistake.- MrX 14:46, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
I sit somewhere between Alexbrn and MrX and quite close to LuckyLouie. While fringe theories shouldn't be given an appearance of validity they do make up most of what "The Roswell Incident" is notable for. I look forward to seeing constructive collaboration between Alexbrn and MrX and hope discussion here can avoid edit warring. I think a balance can be achieved in presenting the pop/fringe ideas without creating an impression of serious scholarly acceptance while still providing some of their substance and not framing it in a overly heavy handed tone. The subject is kind of fun, a matter of pop interest and curiosity, few take it seriously. we can present that in an encyclopedic manner with some work. - - MrBill3 (talk) 14:17, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
In this case the Goldberg source is great because it delves in depth into all the fringey claims and their aftermath (including a lot about the misinformation/hoaxing within the UFO community which led to paranoia and bitterness, and a great deal about TV and film responses). I wouldn't be surprised if we hardly needed to move outside the mainstream sources. Alexbrn talk|contribs|COI 14:28, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
No article should put so much weight on so few sources. There are different POVs that should be documented as well.- MrX 14:46, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Okay MrX your last two edits [6][7] have made a bit of a mess:

  • The lede is too long and detailed, containing distinct content (e.g. the National Enquirer stuff) instead of summarizing the body as it should
  • The lede in now not neutral, obfuscating the plain facts as stated by our best sources and bigging up the UFO nuts' view
  • You've added details of two low-quality books uncritically sourced entirely to themselves; one is already covered in the article (under deathbed confessions below). You've also added them to the 1978-1994 section when they're later than that.

If this is your idea of how the article should be, I'm afraid we are going to disagree, and I think you'll find you are in violation of our core policies. Alexbrn talk|contribs|COI 15:30, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Obviously we disagree on how the lead should properly summarize the article. I disagree with the arbitrary arrangement of the content into 1947, 1978 – 1994, 1994 – 1997, and oops, 1998-2014 is missing for some reason. This is why I said that your changes went to far. I'm not opposed to trimming excessive detail from the lede, but the final version should be closer to the original than the version you wrote. I suggest that anyone who can't approach this subject from a neutral stance, or who have to resort to ad hominems like "UFO nuts", should consider if they are the best person to make sweeping changes to article over the protests of a least a couple of experienced editors.- MrX 16:00, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
I note you made no response to the substantive problems I raised (except perhaps "oops"). No rational person/source holds there were aliens or alien craft at Roswell: that is the neutral view, and what this article shall reflect as required by our PAGs. Alexbrn talk|contribs|COI 16:09, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
I think I did. I addressed your first point: You think my lede is too long, I think yours is too short and not especially helpful to readers who want to learn about the subject. On your second point, I think the facts are clear (and there are many), and I think that your version is heavily weighted toward Project Mogul, and neglects the significant cultural impact that has arisen. On your third point, the so called low-quality books are important to understanding how this subject continues to have a cultural impact. You seem to be so determined to disprove that a UFO with aliens crashed (which nobody here seems to believe), that you completely overlook the fact that this is not an article about aliens; it is an article about a mythology that has arisen, largely due to popular media. That is the subject of the article in my view, and that seems to be where our core disagreement lies.- MrX 16:26, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
"low-quality books are important to understanding how this subject continues to have a cultural impact" ← then that "importance" will make it easy to find secondary sources explaining how this is so, right?. I'm not seeing it for your additions, but instead large passages built on iffy primaries. And wording like "Additional witnesses added significant new details" given in Wikipedia's own voice. Oy. Alexbrn talk|contribs|COI 16:33, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
Witness to Roswell and Top Secret/Majic are cited by secondary sources. By the way, I'm not suggesting that the article wouldn't benefit from trimming and copy editing, as your example shows. So it seems we agree on at least two things. - MrX 16:48, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
Those books are cited by secondaries? That may be so - but you have included this fringe content uncritically sourced to itself: a big no-no. If no RS mentions it, we must not mention fringe content either. Alexbrn talk|contribs|COI 16:55, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
There are secondary sources, but feel free to revert me if you're so inclined. I'm being pulled in too many directions at the moment, and this subject is just not that interesting to me to invest in the detailed research to improve the content, so I'm going to unwatch this page and wish you all luck in sorting it out.- MrX 17:40, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

October 2014

I find this Wiki entry somewhat disappointing in that many people turn to Wiki for factual information, yet this entry omits relevant information that doesn't agree with the "weather balloon" story - namely, the original text of the report that predates ALL other material, which the author feels is not important enough to include. This contradicts that all entries are to have a "neutral" viewpoint, as pledged in the Wiki guidelines, and only serves to potentially discredit Wiki as an information source. The foregoing is not stated without good reason and valid justification. If not just for the sake of complying with the NPOV guidelines, whenever it involves the retraction of a major news story, it is important that ALL of the relevant information be included so that readers can decide for themselves

My reasoning for this is that the general public will readily accept at face value (and without question), any news retraction, no matter how brazen it may be, which may be fine when it's a minor detail of a story that has little significance, but a retraction of a story of such epic proportions can prove unsustainable when held up to scrutiny. By forensically analyzing the original statements, and applying the rules of language, semantics, and just a touch of logic, a retraction can be proven unsound, and therefore unlikely to be true, but this will be meaningless to anybody who cannot accept that the government and media lies to us, and the shattering of their reality that comes with such a revelation

In order to pull off a legitimate retraction successfully, a degree of vagueness must be retained in the original report. With every bit of information that is disseminated, the window of retraction gets smaller and smaller. If too much detail is divulged, retraction is no longer possible. Once the vagueness is gone, the potential for retraction goes with it. The information in this Wiki entry is based entirely on the retraction. Only those familiar with the incident know that there is useful information being left out, that can aid the reader in making his or her own assessment, rather than having Wiki do that for them.

RAAF Captures Flying Saucer On Ranch in Roswell Region Roswell Daily Record, Tuesday, July 8, 1947. This was the headline on July 8th 1947. By itself, it's still retractable: example-

RAAF Mistaken, Object Was Weather Balloon

http://www.roswellfiles.com/Articles/PressReports.htm

The above linked article was omitted. Wihout it, readers are not able to make use of this pertinent information, and without it, the entry is in violation of the "neutral " clause, as per Wiki guidelines. In my opinion, the original report does not leave much room for retraction (i.e. a weather balloon cannot travel at speeds of 4-500 mph and there is no question that intel officer Marcel specifically called it a "disk", something he could not do if he were looking at scraps of torn material. In another statement, he mentions he would not reveal any details of the "saucer's construction", which again reinforces the fact that he was looking at a saucer-like object, not scraps of torn material. One must also consider the level of paranoia and secrecy that was displayed. The harassment and intimidation reported by witnesses to stay "quiet" and not talk about the weather balloon that they've already told us all about is a neon sign that says WE HAVEN'T TOLD YOU THE TRUTH. So much can be learned by studying the behaviors of governmental entities when suspected of being actively involved with a cover up. Can anybody think of a scenario where a non-guilty party is compelled to threaten eyewitnesses? In this day and age, it has become common knowledge that news agencies lie, which is why basing your decision to omit the information on the fact that the story was retracted, gives this entry the "zealot" factor. Whether you agree with this assessment or not, it is important that Wiki follow its own guidelines. I've always stuck up for Wiki as a credible source of info. YrdstikofSanity (talk) 13:53, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

The short answer is that the website you wish the article to link to, "http://www.roswellfiles.com", doesn't conform to our reliable sources policy. The long answer is that Wikipedia has a great number of editorial policies, and many can appear counterintuitive or "wrong" to the newcomer. One example is WP:NPOV (which is often misinterpreted as giving fringe views equal credibility with mainstream views and "letting the reader decide") that directs us to emphasize viewpoints that are published in reliable scholarly sources and minimize those that aren't. The "encyclopedia that anyone can edit" is actually quite selective regarding what content it includes. Content policy in a nutshell might be a good starting point for you to further explore some of the encyclopedia's basic policies. - LuckyLouie (talk) 17:15, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Comment

This is technically not about improving the article - but - when nonsense/tripe like this gets an article this long with this many TP posts, while a real, important subject like Johann Christoph Frederich Bach is still at the 'stub' stage with nary a TP comment for it, well, Wikipedia is severely lopsided. It was a weather balloon - trim this article to a paragraph and forget all the cruft. HammerFilmFan (talk) 16:23, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

I don't know who Johann Christoph Frederich Bach is, but I'm guessing an ancestor or descendant of Johann Sebastian? I will research it, and if it is anywhere near as important as a downed alien craft, and the implications of an alleged cover-up which resulted in the acquiring of technology (much of which is hoarded and suppressed to our detriment) that has changed the natural course of mankind, then I promise to try help improve upon the Bach article.

The problem with the "tripe" reference, is that all of the originally stated facts and eyewitness testimony opposes the "weather balloon" story. The only thing supporting it is the fact that they came up with this other story the next day and posing for publicity shots with torn material and kite pieces. Eyewitnesses were specific in describing the properties displayed by actual pieces recovered. The mere act of disseminating data that is so different from the original story, certainly does not make it so, and it is irrational to think that it does. But if you are unable to see that, and you are teetering on whether to believe it or not, we need only observe the behaviors/actions of the military/FBI/CIA. I don't care how top secret this weather balloon was - if they are to be believed, there were a few sticks and some torn material. You don't need to seal off the area and harass, threaten, and intimidate the eyewitnesses over torn pieces of a weather balloon. If you are still of the opinion that this is "tripe", there is an archive of FOIA released documentation that quells any notion that this subject matter is not "real". Perhaps "unreal" is a better term. YrdstikofSanity (talk) 07:35, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Error in lede

Hi folks - good to see the sane ones have largely redone this article - I was a lone wolf for a long time fighting the UFO crowd - you should have seen the page when I started to change it in 2006 or so. The "alien cover-up" was a given and the main points of dispute were over how many aliens were actually recovered... well, maybe not, but just about.

Anyway, comment on this from the lede: "After an initial spike of interest in the crash, the military, wishing to conceal the true purpose of the balloon which was to detect Soviet nuclear testing, reported that the crash was merely a conventional weather balloon." From my knowledge of the incident, I don't believe this to be true. While Ramey etc may have concluded that the debris was from some balloon experiment, it was not until the 1990s that the source of the actual debris was determined. The debris, after all, was allowed to be photographed by the press. The closest to "concealing the true purpose" would have been the suspicion from some at the base that the debris was from some military project, but owing to the compartmentalization of so much then, these folk would not have been aware of what the project was. Would be more accurate to say "the military, likely suspecting the debris to be from some unknown government project, nevertheless described it to have been conventional weather balloon debris." I made no alteration as I see this is from a RS, but unless the author has new information on this, none in 1947 not involved in the project would have known its purpose. Canada Jack (talk) 19:06, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Our Olmsted source has "When one of these balloons smashed into the sands of the New Mexico ranch, the military decided to hide the project's real purpose". We're relaying the sense of this accurately I think. Are there any good sources which contradict this? Alexbrn talk|contribs|COI 19:23, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
Yeah, Olmstead is wrong on this point. In terms of the article, the cite is correct as that is what she says and she is a reliable source, but in fact the connection between Mogul and the Roswell incident was not known until the 1990s. [8] The connection was made after the project was de-classified in the 1970s and after two UFO researchers voiced their conclusions by 1990 - a conclusion publicized by the 1994 Air Force Report and soon after corroborated by one of the project leaders. In 1947, none of the personnel at the several bases the material went to would have had specific knowledge of the project, though they likely would have suspected it was military in nature.
I'll see if I can find a source which specifically says that - if the one above does not suffice - that the military in 1947 did not know the real purpose of the balloon train debris. Until then, Olmstead as RS stands, I suppose. Canada Jack (talk) 20:25, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
Goldberg says "Ordered to remain silent, Marcel had stood by as General Ramey floated the cover story for the press". Alexbrn talk|contribs|COI 20:47, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
It would be accurate to say that the military, suspecting this to be from a classified project, told the press it was a mere weather balloon. It would not be accurate to state that the military, knowing this was material from a project designed to test the feasibility of detecting Soviet nuclear tests with balloons, concocted the cover story. Marcel, who was on record as saying the material was like nothing he had seen and perhaps from some alien source until it was pointed out circa 1980 that what he posed with was clearly balloon debris, had nothing to be silent about as he knew nothing. Canada Jack (talk) 20:58, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

I have consulted several sources on this issue. Karl Pflock's "Roswell: Inconvenient Facts and the Will to Believe" discusses the Mogul balloon train at length and, according to him, the only person who knew - or suspected strongly - that this was Mogul debris and was given an opportunity to identify it was Col. Marcellus Duffy, stationed at Wright Field, who talked to Albert Trakowski, who was running the project, several days after the incident. Duffy told Trakowski that he was awoken to look at some debris which had stirred up considerable press interest as possibly being from a flying saucer. From page 151: "Trakowski said Duffy told him he strongly suspected the material was something that had flown in connection with Mogul, but of course, he could not reveal this. So he said he offered the literally if narrowly true opinion that 'no doubt it is from a meteorological device,' further and probably inadvertently reinforcing the cover story for Mogul."

The "cover story for Mogul" refers to the account on page 150 of the probable consternation at Alamogordo AAB over the reports of "flying saucers" and the discovery of the debris possibly compromising the Mogul program, so they put on a demonstration of balloon train arrays whose purpose "was study and training of officers and enlisted men in observing and tracking of objects slower than airplanes by eye and radar device."

"Whether by design or not is uncertain, but the demonstration and [Watson Labs - the Mogul team - project manager Major W. D.] Pritchard's explanation dovetailed well with General Ramey's weather balloon announcement of the day before, and the secret of Project Mogul was safe."

So, per Pflock, the Mogul team suspected the debris was from their project, but did not reveal this, even to others in the military, instead putting out a cover story on "tracking of objects." The Ramey "weather balloon" explanation was not part of the cover story from those in the know. So the lede is factually incorrect - those who didn't know its true purpose said "weather balloon"; those who did said "for tracking of objects." Unless Olmstead has a new source which says otherwise, the line is not accurate.

What may be the source of her confusion is the much-touted by UFOlogists quote of General Ramey's assistant Col. Thomas DuBose who said the "weather balloon" story was indeed a cover story to "get the press off [Ramey's] back in a hurry." He said it may have been Ramey himself who came up with cover story. Trouble is, the man who actually positively identified the debris as being from a weather balloon, with a Rawin reflector was Warrent Officer Irving Newton who confirmed Ramey's suspicion it was from a weather balloon. And Newton would not have known about Mogul, and never indicated he was aware it was part of a secret project.

But, as to the specific point as to whether the material was seen by Ramey etc as being from Mogul and therefore the weather balloon cover story was concocted, we have this from the interviews James McAndrew did with Mogul project leader Charles Moore for the Air Force Report in 1994: Q - Would anyone at Roswell Army Air Field have known about your activities, what your purpose was? A - Not at all... Q - What about then Colonel Blanchard and General Ramey? Do you think they may have had any knowledge of what your ultimate purpose was? A - I think not...

To reiterate, there is no evidence I am aware of that Ramey etc knew the purpose of the project when they came up with the weather balloon explanation. There IS evidence that the folk at Alamogordo came up with their "tracking objects" demonstration to hide the true purpose of Mogul after the Roswell news reports were published. Canada Jack (talk) 02:57, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Air Force reports on the Roswell UFO incident

Recommend merging Air Force reports on the Roswell UFO incident, less a good chunk of the WP:PROFRINGE stuff into Roswell UFO incident as it appears to be an unnecessary POV WP:CONTENTFORK that seriously over-weights discussion of fringe theories by placing them on a more or less equal footing with what really happened and official government reports. See also WP:DUE. Ad Orientem (talk) 18:41, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

This looks like a pretty strong consensus to me. Any objections to closing this and executing the proposed merge?-Ad Orientem (talk) 12:18, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Would have done it earlier but wasn't sure how to do Talk page merge. - LuckyLouie (talk) 14:24, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
Yeah I will have to ask for some advice on that one too. I just got home after almost 24 hrs of travel, so I am not doing much of anything tonight. This can be filed under "when I get around to it."-Ad Orientem (talk) 23:45, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
Actually on reflection, the talk page will not be an issue since it will be preserved on the redirect page. -Ad Orientem (talk) 17:41, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

OK I have been looking at this mess and am having a hard time finding much worth merging. Apparently others have the same problem since no one has taken any action. I am therefor going to interpret the mandate above broadly and boldly redirect Air Force reports on the Roswell UFO incident to this article. IMHO the coverage in Roswell UFO incident is succinct, covers all the salient points and without all of the questionable sources and excessive emphasis on FRINGE theories. If anyone disagrees feel free to grab any material from the article (see the edit history) and merge what you think is worth preserving. -Ad Orientem (talk) 04:41, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the merge. The Air Force reports section at the main article is a very good summary of the (IMO, excessively detailed) content contained in the merged article. - LuckyLouie (talk) 17:20, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Confusing reference

It is confusing that there is a reference in the subsection "UFO Crash at Roswell (1991)" to "Barnett accounts", but no description of the "Barnett accounts" appears in the article. Ttenraba (talk) 13:53, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Fixed [9]. - LuckyLouie (talk) 14:40, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
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