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New Book Reports Soviets Behind Roswell UFO Scare

jalefkowit writes "A new book by Los Angeles Times Magazine investigative reporter Annie Jacobsen, titled Area 51, reports that that the famous 1947 UFO sightings in Roswell, New Mexico, were actually an attempt by the Soviet Union to demonstrate that they could panic the American population if they wished. According to the book, the UFOs were actually aircraft derived from flying-wing technology, piloted by 'child-size aviators' surgically altered by captured Nazi doctors to appear more frightening. Skeptics note that this account is based on testimony provided to Jacobsen by a single unnamed source, who she describes as one of only five engineers given full access to the crash debris at the top-secret facility in Nevada known as Area 51."

10 of 135 comments (clear)

  1. Bullshit, but a kernel of truth there by elrous0 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Silly claims about surgically-altered child-sized navigators aside, there is a connection between the Soviets and Roswell. Project Mogul, a top secret program to spy on the Soviets, was being testing near Roswell in 1947. One of their spy balloons was what crashed in that famous incident (and why there was a subsequent cover-story and cover-up by the local military).

    In fact, if you look at the mass of "UFO" incidents, you'll notice a pretty consistent pattern. They almost always took place near secret U.S. air bases during the height of the Cold War. Doesn't take a genius to figure out that the strange lights, mysterious craft, and "men in black" that people were seeing had a lot less to do with little green men than with Cold War secrecy, paranoia, and spycraft.

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    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    1. Re:Bullshit, but a kernel of truth there by elrous0 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Eyewitness testimony of the Roswell wreckage is consistent with a high-altitude balloon. Witnesses described strange lightweight metal foil and strange strong but lightweight metal (keep in mind that this was before the general public would have encountered much aluminum material in consumer goods). And we know that the top secret Project Mogul was real and was testing nearby in the same time period. We also know that the military imposed a pretty heavy-handed lockdown of the materials not long after the crash and that witnesses were even threatened by MP's not to talk about the materials they had seen.

      Now, in that case, what do you think is the simplest, sanest explanation--that a Project Mogul balloon crashed or that the Soviet Union surgically altered humans to look like children and flew them in a strange craft to the middle of the desert, then crashed them, all to instill mild fear in a bunch of local rednecks? Or perhaps you believe that alien creatures capable of crossing the almost unimaginably vast emptiness of interstellar space decided to expend the vast amounts of energy needed to cross hundreds of light years--all just to go the the middle of nowhere out in the desert and buzz some military base (and maybe probe a few rednecks while they were here)?

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      SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    2. Re:Bullshit, but a kernel of truth there by ColdWetDog · · Score: 3, Funny

      It was to be announced at the Party Congress on Monday. As you know, the Premier loves surprises.

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  2. The real headline is by robot256 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    An obscure journalist attempts to demonstrate that she can capture the attention of the media by publishing yet another a crackpot conspiracy theory.

    1. Re:The real headline is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Obscure? Hardly. Don't you remember her? She's the one who can't tell the difference between Syrian musicians and terrorists: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_Jacobsen

  3. The truth will never be known by bl8n8r · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No matter how many people speak out the "truth", there have been so many wildly different stories and claims that everything automatically gets tagged as bullshit in everyone's mind.

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  4. Seriously? by Hitch · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm more willing to believe it was an actual UFO.
    And I don't believe in Alien UFOs.

    This is the most convoluted conspiracy theory I've heard since the "9/11 was perpetrated by the US" and "Obama's Birth Certificate" nutjobs

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  5. Hear her out by just_another_sean · · Score: 4, Informative

    She was on the daily show last week; she seemed pretty sane, even if her story doesn't... Judge for yourself.

    --
    Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
  6. I heard an interview with her by geekoid · · Score: 4, Interesting

    CLearly she stopped applying all thought when she talked about child altered surgically and/or genetically.

    In fact, in order to use emotions to make her claims more believable, she changes from a proper journals 3rd person writting to a 1 person writing.

    IT's crap. Complete hearsay. She also made the classic blunder of people who start to buy in to this kind of lunacy: Made up security clearances.

    At one point she said:
    My source remains anonymous because he is afraid of what will happen. He is the last remaining engineer on a 5 man tame.
    As if that wouldn't give him away to the very people she claims he is afraid of.

    "Gosh Bob, we would shut this person up, be he is anonymous. We do know he was on the uber top secret project with pal;id levels security, and we know he's the only surviving member. But Who can it be?"

    When pressed she started making up crazier and wider reaching 'theories'. I mean she was told by some guy who claim to have been on some project, and then uses the Ad ignorantiam ad the 'argument from authority' logical fallacies.

    IT';s kind of sad. Watching a good journalist get sucked in like that.

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  7. Re:They did panic the American population. by LighterShadeOfBlack · · Score: 3, Funny

    Ah yes, the good old Cuban Missile Crisis of 1947. I remember it well.

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