Roswell

The claim

"A flying saucer crashed and the military hid the bodies."

Where the idea comes from

Roswell Army Air Field announced it had recovered a "flying disc", then corrected it to a weather balloon the next day. The story faded until a 1978 interview and 1980 book revived it.

What the evidence shows

1. The debris described at the time (foil, rubber, tape, sticks) matches balloon trains of Project Mogul, a classified program flying microphones high in the atmosphere to detect Soviet nuclear tests.
2. The US Air Force's 1994 report concluded the debris was from Mogul Flight 4; its 1997 report said "alien body" accounts likely blended later events, such as anthropomorphic crash-test dummies dropped in the 1950s.
3. The secrecy was real, because Mogul was classified, which explains the cover story without aliens.
4. Testimony about bodies emerged more than 30 years later and conflicts on dates, places and details.

What is still open

Believers distrust the Air Force reports, and some witnesses never changed their stories. No physical material has ever been produced.

Our verdict

Explained A secret balloon program explains both the debris and the cover-up.

Sources

• Roswell incident (Wikipedia)
• Project Mogul (Wikipedia)

Checked 31 October 2026. Spotted a newer source? Tell us.