Of course... so are a lot of lies. Some truths are so precious, so fragile, that they must be constantly attended by a bodyguard of lies. One such truth... and one such set of lies... concerns the events of the summer of 1947, taking place in the hills behind Roswell, New Mexico.
The known facts concerning this chain of events are few. In early July (some reports say 'late June') of 1947, Mac Brazel of the Foster Ranch found some odd debris out in the hills. A few days later, he contacted Sheriff George Wilcox in Roswell, who in turn got in touch with Intelligence officer Major Jesse Marcel of the Roswell Army Air Field. In response to his report, a team headed by Colonel Sheridan Cavitt arrived at the Foster Ranch the next day, to inspect the debris and to remove it to the Army Air Base for examination.
At this point in our story a security curtain descends, and our "facts" are replaced by rumors, conjecture and rather implausible "official announcements". Over the next few days, the powers-that-be issued a contradictory series of reports. On July 8th, public information officer 1st Lt Walter Haut of the Roswell Army Air Field issued a press release stating that personnel from the 509th Operations Group had recovered a crashed "flying disc" from the grounds of a ranch outside Roswell. The very next day, a contradictory announcement was made by an Army spokesman for General Roger Ramey of Fort Worth, claiming that the recovered object was merely a weather balloon. The object, whatever its true nature, was first transferred from the Foster Ranch to Roswell Army Air Field, then from Roswell to Fort Worth Army Air Field, and then onward, to some secure location designated by higher command. Curious reporters were shown a small pile of debris, largely tinsel and wooden sticks, which bore little resemblance to the "flying disc" described by the initial July 8th reports out of Roswell.
... and there the trail goes cold.
We pick up the story on January 1st of the following year, 1948...
