THE ROSWELL INCIDENT

June 16, 1996
Source: The Herald-Sun Duram, N.C.
The Roswell Incident

Almost 50 Years After the Government Dismissed a UFO Sighting, Residents Are Still Checking the Sky for Flying Saucers

by Mark Schultz

ROSWELL, N. M. - The tires of the rented Nissan spit dirt and gravel as we pull off the Old Dexter Highway.

In the glare of the headlights, we read the sign, nailed to two posts: "PUBLIC NOTICE: This property is NOT for sale; therefore, please DO NOT approach us with any offers. We are not interested in negotiating."

A brown dog barks outside the trailer. The front door swings open, and young woman with long black hair approaches the car. It's after 10 p. m., and the dark New Mexico night air is cool. I figure she's going to chase us off.

Instead, Becky Escamilla leans over the driver's-seat window.

"We'll come out and sky watch with you," she says cheerfully. "Once you've seen one UFO, it's like an addiction and you want to see more and more."

We got directions to Midway - midway between Roswell and Dexter - from the desk clerk at the Roswell Inn.

I was embarrassed to ask where to look for UFOs, but the clerk, whose name tag introduced her as Bernadette, shrugged it off.

"Don't you know? That's what Roswell is," she said matter of factly and got out her map.

The biggest city in southeastern New Mexico (pop. 50,000), Roswell is home to farmers, ranchers and small-business people and a pit stop on the road to Carlsbad, home of the caverns. Heading into town from the south, right before the Roswell Inn billboard, sits an even bigger sign, like the kind outside a drive-in movie, advertising cremations - only $695.

To "X-Files" fans and UFO aficionados, however, Roswell will forever be the place the Army recovered an unidentified flying object a half-century ago.

"RAAF Captures Flying Saucer on Ranch in Roswell Region," the July 8, 1947, Roswell Daily Record trumpeted.

"The intelligence office of the 509th Bombardment group at Roswell Army Air Field announced at noon today that the field has come into possession of a flying saucer."

The headline stretched over half the front page, but the story was short on details. The next day the Army recanted, saying a bundle of tin foil, broken wood beams and rubber were remnants of a weather balloon.

But the story would not die. It has been the subject of a movie starring "Twin Peaks" actor Kyle McLachlan, a congressional investigation and now the centerpiece of the International UFO Museum and Research Center, located at 400-402 N. Main St. in downtown Roswell.

Becky Escamilla was taking a break from a swap meet when she spotted the object March 5, 1994.

"I went to lie down under that tree," she said, pointing. "Before my head even hit the ground I saw an object. At first glance you'd think it was an airplane."

From near the trailer the brown dog started barking. "Furball, hush Quit it!" Escamilla shouted, and the dog slunk away.

She remembers calling her brother, Jose, who brought his video camera and captured on tape several white blurs flashing across the bright blue afternoon sky.

"They look just like a star, except they take off real fast," Escamilla said.

On the night we stop by, she calls out to her other brother, Manuel, to get the VCR and ushers us into a small water-stained-ceilinged "viewing room."

Manuel protests mildly - "We're closed," he reminds her, but obeys.

She talks rapidly and with enthusiasm, but like a religious convert, not a huckster. Even before we got out of the car she said she would not charge us for the after-hours visit the sign says it costs $6.50 to enter. I have not told her I work for a newspaper.

She pops in the tape. Small and fuzzy, the objects streak across the television screen so quickly she has to rewind and play the tape back three times before I see them. Even in slow motion they are hard to define. They do not look like planes. Or birds. Or wobbly tin plates suspended on strings.

The Escamillas have taped more than 700 hours of these UFOs, which come in 14 shapes. They have been interviewed in area newspapers, on "Hard Copy" and "Encounters" and on the Spanish language Telemundo. KBIM, a local television station came out to do a story and photographed the same images with its own camera.

"These are my shots," Manuel says when we return the next morning and watch more footage. "I don't claim to be an expert or anything. It's just something that's occurring around me."

As we talk, a big man named Tom pulls up. I tell him I'm writing this for the newspaper back home, and a few minutes later he says he doesn't want his last name used.

He's a believer.

Tom has known Manuel Escamilla since he was 4 years old. He's 35 now, a retired Air Force veteran and a minister about to complete a nursing degree. In fact, he's come to invite Escamilla to the ceremony.

There's plenty of evidence in the Bible to support the existence of UFOs, Tom says. The Three Wise Men followed a night-time star. "Think about it," he says. "Do the stars really move?"

And then there's Ezekiel, he continued, who the Bible says ascended to Heaven in a chariot of fire. "Ezekiel saw a wheel in the middle of a wheel," Tom said.

People in town think the Escamillas' UFO tapes are a hoax, he conceded.

But not Tom, who considers Ronald Reagan the greatest president in his lifetime. "I believe Uncle Sam knows more than they're telling us," he said.

A couple of hours later we head back into town to see the International UFO Museum and Research Center, which opens daily at 1 p. m. A half dozen people mill about the displays in the air-conditioned, carpeted interior.

The museum folks - senior citizen volunteers who greet you at the door and ask you to sign the guest book - don't put much stock in the Midway operation.

"I do believe he's in the money business," said Eric Henske. "We don't charge anybody to come in here."

But a nifty gift shop hawks everything from reprints of the historic 1947 Roswell Daily Record front page to dolls in the now-familiar extraterrestrial shape - pencil-thin limbs, big head and huge, dark eyes.

The museum has had more than 88,000 visitors since opening in October 1992. A pin map on the wall shows they come from all 50 states and from 61 foreign countries. UFOs are big business.

But I get ahead of myself.

The man I need to speak to is Max Littell. He's on his way out the door to meet two Brazilian journalists at the police station. I tag along, introducing myself as I reach for the back door.

Littell, the secretary-treasurer, has agreed to show the Brazilians a piece of metal allegedly pocketed by one of the soldiers sent to clean up the debris of the 1947 crash.

"We got it three weeks ago," he said. "None of us have touched it."

The Roswell police station is only a few blocks away. An officer unlocks a door and brings out a small picture frame. Under the glass a small triangular piece of metal sits, a hole in the middle.

The Brazilian photographer starts snapping away. The reporter shakes his head. He can't understand why this discovery hasn't made the national news.

Back at the museum, I invite myself in on another interview, this one between a Japanese reporter and Walter Haut, the president of the museum and the public information officer who released the Army's 1947 "flying saucer" announcement to the press.

"Ho ho, ho and away we go," Haut says as he settles back into his seat. "Interview 4,326 or something like it."

Of all the aspects of the Roswell incident that skeptics have been able to explain, one remain a mystery. Why the Army would ever say it had captured a UFO in the first place?

The original report only said that, on authority of Maj. J. A. Marcel, intelligence officer, the Army acknowledged recovering a crashed disk on a Roswell area ranch. No details were given and the report said the object had been taken to "higher headquarters."

In the interview, Haut said he was told what to say in the release by Col. William Blanchard. At one point, he concedes he can't even remember whether he was told what to write or was simply handed a release to distribute.

"I did what I was told," he said. "The boss told me to put out this press release. I did it."

Haut never saw the crash site or what was recovered. But he talked with Marcell and his son, Jesse, who reportedly handled the strange material that retained its original shape no matter how one tried to bend, crumple or cut it.

"Their stories never changed appreciably," Haut said. "I firmly believe [the Army] was covering up the securing of a flying object."

The Japanese journalist only wants to know one thing. Does Haut believe the object was not of this world?

Haut paused, seeming to give the question thought though he must have been asked it hundreds of times.

"I honestly think it was extraterrestrial," he said finally. "One man's opinion."

And yes, he continued, he also believes bodies were recovered, like the model of the alien in the movie - one of which, incidentally, now sits in a museum alcove available for pictures.

"I've heard three bodies, four bodies. five bodies. I wasn't out there counting heads," Haut said. "I do believe there were bodies -secondhand information again. I think there were people who were privy to the knowledge at the time that were told to keep their mouth shut."

For more information, write the International UFO Museum and Research Center at 400-402 N. Main St., Po Box 2221, Roswell, NM 88202 or call (505) 625-9495. To contact the Midway UFO Museum, write: The Midway Sightings, UFO Newsletter, 64 Yakima Road, Dexter, NM 88230.

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