Roswell UFO Festival

jmcharry writes "From the Washington Post: 'Attention, all aliens. Come on down. Because, seriously, this is your crowd. About 50,000 of your closest admirers are expected this weekend for the Roswell UFO Festival, celebrating the 60th anniversary of the nearby crash landing of a flying saucer — and, naturally, the ensuing government cover-up.'"

Comments

Re:American only belief?

[Joe The Dragon]

It may have to do with all of the covering up that is being done.

Cover up?

[iknownuttin]

The U.S. government, of course, has issued its share of reports debunking UFOs. Here in Roswell, those reports are generally seen as desperate attempts to whitewash the truth.

Wasn't there a ton of UFO sightings when the USAF was testing the F-117? As top secret that stealth aircraft was, the US Gov. eventually announced it.

And, whenever the US Gov. really wants to keep a secret - they can't - can you say Abu Ghraib or bombing in Cambodia, and wiretapping US citizens and violating the Fourth Amendment?

Sorry, I think between incompetence in Gov. and just decent people in the World (I guess I'm getting soft in my old age), any secrets won't stay secret very long.

Re:American only belief?

[Colin Smith]

I read on the Internet (so it must be true) that 50% of the Americans believe that there are aliens on the earth, 50% voted for Bush, sounds plausible to me.

I wonder why so many Americans? It's all explained in full here:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/credulous

Re:Army Lt. Walter Haut

[tb3]

Here ya go, the real story. Project Mogul was an Air Force project to detect nuclear tests by listening for them in the high atmosphere. It had the highest security classification, and when one of the balloons, along with it's plastic and tinfoil acoustic detectors, crashed near Roswell, the CIA decided that the UFO story provided a good cover.

So, technically, it wasn't a weather balloon. Oh and the egg-shaped saucer? That was a different test version of the acoustic detector. They experimented with a number of different shapes.

Re:Army Lt. Walter Haut

[Bombula]

Well, it's a shame that Roswell gets all the attention because it turns out there is a logical explanation for what happened. In thousands of other UFO sightings, no such explanation is available. The most compelling one to me is the black triangle incident with the Belgian Air Force, where the government has come right out and said that they have no terrestrial explanation for what all of their radar installations and two F16s witnessed, and that really leaves very few alternative explanations.

It's a shame the subject of UFOs is ridiculed instead of taken seriously, and of course that is due in large part to the goofball social community surrounding unexplained phenomena. This Roswell celebration is, sadly, a prime example. If instead we had five million people march on Washington and demand the truth, we might get some real disclosure.

UFOs not an "American only belief"

[Jeremy_Bee]

Not that I am defending the motives and beliefs of the "True Believers" that gather in Roswell for these kinds of things, but ... anyone familiar with the history of belief in UFO's, Flying Saucers and Alien saviours can tell you that UFO's are certainly not an "American Only" phenomenon.

If you check the data, only the belief in Alien Abductions and the whole "Grey aliens stole my baby" thing can truly be said to have originated in America or to be exclusive to American culture.

UFO *sightings* on the other hand, and the UFO phenomenon in general (regardless of whatever the cause turns out to be), are pretty much uniform over all cultures and take the same general form in each. Often a small amount of local cultural belief is overlaid on the data set, but the data itself is very homogeneous and consistent across cultures.