What Really Happened At Roswell, N.M.?

you will need to write/type a five page (full pages – to the bottom line of the fifth page), MLA-style research paper on your chosen topic. You should adhere to all the rules of writing research papers.

In addition to five – full – pages of research, you will need an additional cover page and works cited page. This will make a total of at least seven pages. You may write as many additional pages of script as you wish; but, remember, you only have five minutes to do your presentation. You will submit your paper in ONLINE CAMPUS.

3. You will write your paper using nine (9) sources. a. Three (3) scholarly website found through the CS portal b. Three (3) media sources, i.e., newspapers; magazines; radio/tv shows c. Three (3) scholarly books

Sources from cs portal

Roswell N.M

The sci-fi genre gets a muchneeded shot in the arm from this poignant allegory about the burdens and mysteries of the teen years. Although "Roswell," the entertaining brainchild of Jason Katims ("My So-Called Life"), bears the trademark qualities of a typical teen show, including a radio-ready soundtrack and a poster-worthy cast, series is anything but ordinary, a cosmic blend of high school angst and otherworldly intrigue.

Tyro Shiri Appleby stars as Liz Parker, a native of the infamous Roswell, N.M., who indulges the alien-seeking tourists that come to her father's Crashdown Cafe. There she sarcastically serves up sandwiches like the "Sigourney Weaver" and the "Will Smith" with her best friend Maria (Majandra Delfino).

After a violent argument and random shooting at the cafe, Liz is seriously wounded; it doesn't look like she'll make it. But before anyone can call an ambulance' class-Max Evans (Jason Behr) mysteriously heals her with a touch of his hands. Startled and a bit confused, Liz brushes off the incident as a fainting spell, but the events arouse the suspicion of Sheriff Valenti (William Sadler). Liz, aware that something very strange happened, confronts Max and learns that he isn't the ordinary shy guy that she's known since childhood. It turns out it wasn't a weather balloon that crashed in the New Mexico desert back in 1947, and that Max, his sister Isabel (Katherine Heigl) and his best friend Michael (Brendan Fehr) are Tabasco-drinking aliens. Trouble is, Max and company are just as clueless as to what really happened that

fateful night in '47, and as they try and search for answers, they risk exposing themselves as well as the truth.

Although casting the dark haired Behr and the blond Heigl as brother and sister is pushing the laws of genetics a bit, the two actors present a believable united front. As Max, Behr is appropriately soulful and pensive, but at times borders on the morose. Show could benefit from the inclusion of Katims' hints of humor, including an amusing cameo by exec producer Jonathan Frakes.

Appleby is a welcome fresh face as the small-town girl excited and frightened by this all this weirdness. Sadler, one of the few major adult characters in the show, is appropriately menacing, but with a hint of sympathy.

Director David Nutter ("The X-Files" "Disturbing Behavior") packs a lot of information into the first two episodes, but Katims forgoes any complex alien mythology in favor of a taut story. At this point in the series, all of the key characters are on the same blank page, and the fun and challenge of the show will be the journey in which viewers learn some answers.

Steve Mark and Victor DuBois are judicious in their editing without sacrificing plot continuity. Technical credits are slick.3

Roswell De classified

Knowing that old military records often contain startling revelations, we were eager to see what surprises awaited us in the latest disclosure from the Roswell files. For decades, UFO researchers had clamored for the National Archives to come clean about a “flying disc” that supposedly crashed during the Fourth of July weekend in 1947. The Army started the story when it used the term in a press release about a crash that had occurred north of Roswell, N.M. At the time, the sleepy town had the distinction of being home to the only atomic bomber unit (at Roswell Army Airfield) in the world. By the end of that holiday weekend, the Army had retracted its original story, claiming it had been a mistake. The debris that ranch manager Mac Brazel had found on the J.B. Foster Ranch was simply the remains of a weather balloon. The press reported the revised version of events, and the story promptly died. Government paperwork, however, is immortal. Once a Roswell file was created it became a collection bin for all sorts of UFO-related material. Eventually, the collection moved to a climate-controlled archive in College Park, Md., about a half-hour drive east of Washington, D.C. And there the files would have remained undisturbed were it not for a law that forces the government to periodically review a document's security classification. During the 1990s, the time limits on keeping Cold War-era records began to expire. Journalists had come to appreciate that these automatically declassified files often contained spectacular information. Declassified records showed how the Atomic Energy Commission intentionally released radiation from its reactors in Hanford, Wash., on unsuspecting civilians in that area. Other disclosures described how doctors working for the federal government were permitted to conduct ghoulish medical experiments on women, children and prisoners. Buoyed by these earlier disclosures, UFO researchers had good reason to hope the 11 boxes of newly opened Roswell files might contain a similar smoking gun. Paper Chase POPULAR MECHANICS was interested too. In 100 years of covering military affairs, our editors had come to realize that everything the government touches creates a paper trail. If something extraordinary had happened at the Roswell Army Airfield in July 1947, evidence would turn up in the paperwork compiled by sergeants and officers. And it was that possibility that lured us to Maryland. If aliens had landed, the soldiers who chased them would have left a paper trail, too. As we had hoped, we found the original government records. But first we had to do some digging. Most of the boxes were filled with newspaper and magazine clippings about flying saucers, old books, and government UFO reports that were made public decades ago. There were Betamax videotapes

about UFOs. We even found the remains of the infamous balloon reflector, which UFO buffs claim the government planted at the crash site in place of the pieces of the flying disc. These pieces, they say, were taken to an undisclosed military base. Then, amid the clutter, in Box 1, we found what we were after. It was a seemingly unimportant document titled “Morning Reports, July 1947.” This was essentially a log of the day-to-day activity at the base. In much the same way that a police blotter would provide evidence of a bank robbery, the Morning Reports would provide unambiguous evidence of unusual military activity. As we worked through the Morning Reports line by line, we came to a simple realization: Absolutely nothing extraordinary had happened at Roswell that Fourth of July weekend. There was no indication of an emerqency, no mention of a deployment of rescue and firefighting crews, as was the case with other crashes. That was one mystery solved. For years, UFO researchers had claimed that enlisted men and officers involved in the disc recovery operation were transferred to other bases to ensure their silence. Sure enough, the transfers took place. The paperwork explained why. Several months earlier, in a sweeping postwar military reorganization. Army fliers were systematically transferred to the newly created U.S. Air Force. The men had not been transferred. They had merely changed uniforms. Another mystery solved. We left the National Archives and Records Administration complex in College Park more confused than enlightened. Surely there was more to the story. As the old saying goes: “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” So with this thought in mind we decided to call Frank Kaufmann, the man at the center of the Roswell episode. Forged Records Kaufmann was less than the picture of health when we interviewed him for our July 1997 cover story about the 50th anniversary of Roswell. A respected member of the Roswell business community. Kaufmann's name had been tied to the story from the very beginning. We were saddened to learn he had died in February 2001. Kaufmann's credibility arose from his willingness to show journalists and book authors a copy of his Separation Qualification Record, which supported his claim that he was an intelligence officer stationed at Roswell in July 1947. After Kaufmann's death, his widow gave UFO researchers access to her husband's papers. One of those researchers was Mark Rodeghier, scientific director of the J. Alien Hynek Center for UFO Studies. Last fall, Rodeghier published his findings in the center's journal: “To put it quite plainly, Frank

Kaufmann created an altered version of an official document to present a false version of his military career consistent with his claims about his involvement with the events at Roswell. His supposed work in intelligence was used to explain how he came to be so knowledgeable about what crashed at Roswell and the subsequent military cover-up.” Dying Confession Stanton Friedman, a physicist and author of several books on Roswell, tells POPULAR MECHANICS he was not surprised that Kaufmann had altered his service record. “He got out of the service in 1945. He was a civilian employee doing the same job, as a clerk.” Friedman says his suspicions were raised during a 1999 meeting with Kaufmann and several other researchers. He says he asked Kaufmann pointed questions about his working relationship with Maj. Jesse Marcel, who was an intelligence officer at the Roswell base in '47, and Col. William Blanchard, the base commanding officer at that time. “Kaufmann knew he was dying,” Friedman says, explaining why he trusted the answers he received. “I asked Kaufmann, ‘Did you take Marcel to the [crash] site?’ He said ‘no.’ I asked him, ‘Did you take Blanchard to the site?’ He said ‘no.’” Despite the disappointing document disclosure by the National Archives and the discovery that Kaufmann had altered his military records, Friedman says it is premature to close the books on Roswell. He believes convincing evidence of an alien landing exists but that it has yet to be disclosed. And he says he knows exactly where to find it — in vaults at the National Reconnaissance Office and the Central Intelligence Agency. “If aliens had landed, the soldiers who chased them would have left a paper trail.” “Kaufmann created an altered version of an official document to present a false version of his military career.” For Science News And Story Updates Check the PM.Zone Web site at popularmechanics.com/science PHOTO (COLOR): Miles of government records, including those pertaining to the events at Roswell, are kept in this temperature-controlled vault. PHOTO (COLOR): PHOTO (COLOR): Most of the boxes contain popular UFO literature. We were after official government paperwork. PHOTO (COLOR): Every time the federal government created an official report debunking Roswell, the file thickened, causing the mystique about the alleged alien encounter to grow.

PHOTO (COLOR): PM's search of the official daily activity reports at the Roswell base in July 1947 failed to turn up a smoking gun. PHOTO (COLOR): The “skin and beams” of the weather balloon reflector match the supposed UFO parts found near the Roswell crash site. ~~~~~~~~ By Jim Wilson

Roswell makes contact commercial

Christian fundamentalists in Roswell, N.M., balk at celebrating the 50th anniversary of an alleged flying saucer crash near their town. They say aliens don't exist because the Bible doesn't mention them. Calmly, Stan Crosby points out the bright side. "OK," he tells them. "But if they do exist, think of it as a missionary possibility." Crosby is on a mission of his own. The former oil and gas developer is spearheading an effort to turn the 50th anniversary of something that almost certainly never happened--the crash of a flying saucer in Roswell in 1947--into the biggest, most lucrative live event of the summer. In the process, he has countered all manner of objections, not just from the religious community but also from city leaders concerned about compromising Roswell's good name, UFO researchers who insist that the event never happened, and those who "remember" the crash and are offended by its crass exploitation. "I resent it," says Glenn Dennis, 72, a retired mortician who claims he saw pieces of flying saucer wreckage in 1947. "It makes the whole UFO phenomenon look real cheap." But Crosby and a klatch of other local alien boosters have helped persuade citizens of this conservative city of 48,000 to close their eyes, hold their noses, and embrace humanoids with bulging eyes as the stuff of economic necessity. Roswell, which took a huge hit when Walker Air Force Base closed in 1967, has staged an economic comeback in recent years--thanks in no small part to America's burgeoning fascination with extraterrestrials.

A little background for non-UFO buffs may be in order. On July 5, 1947, a ranch hand named Mac Brazel stumbled across the remains of an airborne object that had crashed in a field 75 miles northwest of Roswell. Unable to identify the material, which was light and thin and the color of dull metal, he went to the local sheriff, who turned the matter over to the military. The material was retrieved, and on July 8, the U.S. Air Force issued a press release, saying it had possession of a flying saucer. The following day, after creating an international sensation, the material from the field was identified as a weather balloon, and for decades the case remained closed. Truth is out there. Then, in the late '70s, UFO researchers conducted new interviews with witnesses, combed declassified government documents from the era, and decided the government had covered up a genuine saucer crash. In 1989, the popular TV show Unsolved Mysteries devoted a half-hour segment to the Roswell story, and suddenly new witnesses began to bloom from the New Mexico desert like flowers after a rain. By the early 1990s, the story had evolved: One crash site became four, five or six dead aliens had been seen, government officials had made death threats, and a gruesome alien autopsy had been conducted. The cultish, hit TV show The X-Files and recent blockbuster movie Independence Day generated still more interest in the crash. As a result, tourists have been arriving in droves to experience Roswell firsthand. Visitors with aliens on their minds now account for one fifth of the hotel business and pump an estimated $5 million into the economy a year, say Chamber of Commerce officials. The UFO Museum & Research Center has also been a surprising success. Organized as a nonprofit business in 1991 by developer Max Littel, the museum has operated in the black since its inception. Last year, 69,000 people passed through its doors, twice as many as in 1995, necessitating a move this year from a 3,000-square-foot office to a 12,000-square-foot renovated movie theater. Since 1993, Crosby has organized the UFO Encounter Festival, which drew 12,000 visitors last year. But this year's event will surpass all that came

before. Organizers estimate that 150,000 people will descend on the city between July 1 and July 6, spending money on hotels, restaurants, souvenirs, and dozens of events. As of February, Roswell's nearly 1,000 hotel rooms were completely booked. The city now promotes lodging within a 90-mile radius and has cleared several acres for campers and RVs. Really alternative rock. The chief draw will be an all-night rock concert--a kind of Woodstock for the Weird--featuring the likes of Bush, Sheryl Crow, and the Foo Fighters (the performers could be signed as soon as this week or next, says Lee Heiman, an executive at New York-based Track Marketing, which is part of Roswell-97, a limited partnership putting on the show). Tickets will cost $50 a person. For the less musically inclined, the festival will include lectures by paranormal experts like alien abductee and author Whitley Strieber and veteran crash sleuth Stanton Friedman. Visitors who plunk down an additional $70 can attend a banquet to be held in an original hangar like the one in which the alien corpses were reputedly stored in '47. Hourly bus tours will take people to one of the four alleged crash sites. Other events include costume contests, a Flying Saucer Pancake Eating Contest, and a Crash and Burn Extravaganza (a derby on Main Street that will showcase homemade vehicles modeled after alien spaceships). Millions more may be able to watch the concert on network television. The Fox network is currently holding talks with CAA, the powerful Hollywood talent agency representing Roswell-97, to broadcast a week of alien mania from the event; if Fox commits, says Heiman of Track Marketing, major sponsors will follow. Crosby says the festival is courting Anheuser-Busch and Frito-Lay as potential sponsors. But a spokeswoman for Frito-Lay denies any involvement with Roswell. "We're doing Batman and Robin this summer," she says. Dozens of smaller entities, from the New Mexico State Lottery to Interstellar Beverages of Springfield, Mass., are eager to get involved. "There will be a huge, huge turnout," predicts Terry Barker, marketing director for Interstellar, which plans to introduce a new beverage, Rocket Cola, at the festival and also hopes to sponsor the Crash and Burn Extravaganza.

The Roswell community will receive 10 percent of the gross from the rock concert. If the show grosses $7 million, the current projection, that means $700,000 in a single day, not to mention the millions of dollars in free publicity for the city. But how durable is Roswell's extraterrestrial-driven economy? One troubling sign: a forthcoming book, The Roswell UFO Crash, by Kal Korff, which debunks the entire incident. By discrediting most of the witnesses and examining recently declassified Air Force documents, Korff makes a good case that the flying saucer was not a weather balloon after all but a highly classified balloon intended to track Soviet nuclear testing. There was a coverup, in other words, but flying saucers never crashed. The new theory doesn't daunt Crosby. But just in case, he has a post-alien promotional slogan ready: "Roswell! You know us as a UFO town, but there's so much more!" PHOTO (COLOR): Nice planet. Roswell's UFO Museum & Research Center PHOTO (COLOR): She comes in peace. Deon Crosby, director of the UFO museum, with Exhibit A PHOTO (COLOR): Tourist encounters. Roswell resident Hub Corn leads tours of the alleged flying saucer crash sites. ~~~~~~~~ By John Marks