What Do We Know About the Roswell Incident? - Softcover

Buch 5 von 20: What Do We Know About?

Hubbard, Ben; Who HQ, Who HQ

 
9780593519264: What Do We Know About the Roswell Incident?
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0593519264 ISBN 13: 9780593519264
Verlag: Penguin Young Readers Group, 2023

Inhaltsangabe

The What Do We Know About? series explores the mysterious, the unknown, and the unexplained. Will we ever learn the truth about what actually landed at Roswell?

From the #1 New York Times Best-Selling Who Was? series comes Where Is?, a series that tells the stories of world-famous landmarks and natural wonders and features a fold-out map!

In 1947, an unusual object crashed in the New Mexico desert and was recovered by the Roswell Army Airfield officers. People everywhere began to speculate what the object could be. Could it possibly be a flying saucer? Would that be proof of aliens and life beyond Earth? Even decades later, some people still believe that the Roswell Incident is the most famous UFO sighting ever. Still, those who worked at the airfield insist it was just a weather balloon that had fallen from the sky. Was the Roswell Incident evidence of alien life, a government cover-up, or just a myth? Here are the facts about what we do know about Roswell.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Ben Hubbard is an accomplished non-fiction author for children and adults with over 130 titles to his name. He has written about many subjects, including Space, the Samurai and Sharks, to Poison, Pets and the Plantagenets. His books have been translated into over a dozen languages and can be found in libraries around the world.

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What Do We Know About the Roswell Incident?


One hot July night in 1947, a strange thunderstorm struck the small town of Roswell, New Mexico. A local rancher saw lightning strike the same place repeatedly. Other residents reported a glowing object speeding across the sky. Some people heard thunderclaps, followed by an explosion. Was it possible that the explosion came from the nearby Roswell Army Air Field? Was this a storm, or something more frightening?
 
There was nothing reported about the night’s events until a few days later. Then, the Roswell Daily Record newspaper printed an astonishing front page headline: “RAAF Captures Flying Saucer on Ranch in Roswell Region.” The twenty-five thousand residents of Roswell were shocked. The RAAF meant the Roswell Army Air Field. But what did they mean by Flying Saucer? Had the army found a spaceship? Were extraterrestrials—­alien beings—­now on Earth? And why had they chosen to land in Roswell? There were few details. The article said the flying saucer had crashed on a local ranch and was in army hands. Now, the residents of Roswell—­and the world—­wanted to know more.
 
Suddenly, everyone wanted to report on the story. The sheriff’s office, military personnel at the RAAF, and the local newspapers and radio stations were swamped with calls from across America and beyond. National and international reporters were sent to Roswell to investigate. Overnight, the small town of Roswell seemed to become the center of the world’s attention. But within twenty-­four hours, everything changed.
 
The very next morning, the Roswell Morning Dispatch newspaper published a new front-­page story: “Army Debunks Roswell Flying Disk as World Simmers with Excitement.” This article said that the flying saucer had turned out to be the remains of a weather balloon. The balloon must have crashed to earth during the recent thunderstorm.
 
The weather balloon story made many people suspicious. It seemed like the army had accidently told the world about a crashed spaceship and now wanted to “cover it up.” What then, had really happened during that stormy July night in Roswell? For over seventy years people have been trying to get to the bottom of this mystery. We know it today simply as “the Roswell Incident.”
 
 
Chapter 1: Seeing UFOs

  
Roswell is no stranger to thunderstorms. The New Mexico city is a hot, dry place surrounded by dairy farms and dusty prairies. In summer, the daytime temperature often soars above 100°F. The heat can bring thunderstorms, tornadoes, and torrential rainfall. But aside from occasional extreme weather, Roswell in 1947 was a slow, sleepy place. Its main claim to fame was as the “Dairy Capital of the Southwest.” But it was also home to one of the most secretive army airfields in the United States.
 
The RAAF was the headquarters of the 509th Bombardment Group—­the world’s only atomic strike force. It was the 509th Bomb Group that dropped two atomic bombs on Japan in 1945. This action marked the end of World War II. Two years later, the 509th Bomb Group was still stationed at the RAAF. Around three miles from the town, the airfield was well known to the residents of Roswell. They also knew the RAAF was a secretive place. No one could be sure what really went on there.
 
Nuclear weapons were not the only thing of interest to New Mexico’s army bases in the 1940s. Unidentified flying objects (UFOs) were another. Today, we think of UFOs as spaceships from  other planets. But in the 1940s, a UFO simply meant an unrecognized object in the sky. At that time, there were many reports from civilians who saw things they could not identify.
 
One of the most famous early reports of a UFO sighting came from airplane pilot Kenneth Arnold. On June 24, 1947, Arnold was flying his small, one-­engine plane near Mount Rainier in Washington State. Suddenly, several blue lights flashed in front of him. Then, nine triangular-­shaped craft pulled up alongside his plane. The craft weaved from side to side and skimmed through the air “like a saucer if you skip it across the water.” Arnold calculated that it took these nine craft one minute and forty-­two seconds to fly the fifty miles between Mount Rainier and Mount Adams. This would mean their speed was about 1,700 miles per hour—­three times faster than any aircraft of that time! Arnold said the objects did not seem to have pilots, and that the whole experience gave him “an eerie feeling.”
 
Not everybody believed Arnold’s account. Professional pilot E. J. Smith was skeptical. He said that he had never encountered a UFO, and what Arnold probably saw was “the reflection of his own instrument panel.” But a few days later, Smith had an experience which changed his mind. E. J. Smith and his copilot Ralph Stevens were on a routine passenger flight between Idaho and Washington State when five disk-­like objects appeared beside them. The pilots reported that the disks flew in formation and then split off and disappeared. Four more flying disks then appeared and did the same thing. Could these have been the same nine craft that Kenneth Arnold had seen?
 
After Smith’s and Arnold’s accounts, other people began saying they had also seen UFOs. Some said the UFOs looked like “long cigars,” while others were “saucer” or “disk” shaped. Afterward, the term “flying saucer” was often mentioned in newspaper articles about unidentified flying objects. Before long, saying “UFO” and “flying saucer” became common ways of describing what could be spaceships from other planets. Soon, lots of people in the United States began talking about UFOs. Many believed that extraterrestrials might be visiting Earth. The incident that took place in Roswell just a few weeks after the Arnold sighting greatly increased this belief.
 

Chapter 2: Crashed Wreckage


On July 2, 1947, the residents of Roswell, New Mexico, had no idea their town was about to become the UFO capital of America. Most residents were simply trying to stay cool on a particularly hot night. But nothing would prepare them for what came next. At around ten o’clock at night, Mary and Dan Wilmot were relaxing on their front porch. Suddenly, the couple saw a glowing object speeding across the sky. The object looked “like two inverted saucers” and was around twenty feet wide. Dan estimated it was traveling between four hundred and five hundred miles per hour.
 
A few miles southwest of Roswell, James Woody and his son, William, had also seen something strange in the sky above their farm. The object was large, bright, and had a long red light trail behind it. It moved fast and soon passed beyond their view. Woody assumed it was a meteorite crashing to earth.
 
On another farm outside Roswell, rancher William “Mac” Brazel watched with interest as a thunderstorm moved across the horizon. But it was a strange storm. Lightning kept striking the same place over and over again. There were thunderclaps and then one loud explosion. Was this a storm, or a bomb, or a plane crash, he wondered? The next morning, he set out to investigate. A couple of miles from the ranch, Brazel found strange objects strewn across  the land. There was silver metallic foil, lightweight wooden beams, and various pieces of plastic, rubber strips, and paper. The objects covered an area three quarters of a mile long by a few hundred...

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Verlag
Penguin Young Readers Group
Erscheinungsdatum
2023
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0593519264
ISBN 13 
9780593519264
Einband
Taschenbuch
Zeichner
Thomson Andrew
Anzahl der Seiten
112
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
gpsr@libri.de
gpsr@libri.de

Europaallee 1
Bad Hersfeld
36244
Deutschland

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