Welcome to Unexplained Extra, with me, Richard McLean Smith. Where for the weeks in

between episodes, we look at stories and ideas that for one reason or other didn't make

it into the previous show. In last week's episode, New Dawn Fades, we traced the origins

of what is commonly referred to as the Roswell Incident. When researching for the episode,

I was surprised to learn that considering how well-known this event is, that it wasn't

actually until Major Jesse Marcell made his claims some 30 years after the fact that

this incident gained the reputation it has today. Despite its notoriety, however, many

UFO enthusiasts considered the Roswell Incident to be one of the less compelling examples

of a possible extraterrestrial event. It may be then that the reason it continues to

enthrall is not so much the UFO element, but rather how the event fits into a wider narrative

of government cover-ups and conspiracy theory. In this sense, we find in this later repositioning

of the Roswell Incident, an example of how often our response to a UFO sighting will often

mirror the culture and general thinking of the day. Had Major Marcell made his claim of

a military cover-up back when the initial incident occurred, for example, it might well

have been summarily dismissed and the event well and truly forgotten. By the time Stanton

Friedman began his investigations in 1978, however, the American public, broadly speaking,

was still reeling from the revelations of the Watergate scandal. As such, people were perhaps

far more inclined to entertain the idea of a military and government cover-up, with

the status of the Roswell Incident becoming elevated as a result. Interestingly, when we

look back at the way in which UFO events have been interpreted historically, we find a

similar pattern emerging. And paradoxically, such sightings often end up revealing far

more about ourselves than anything about the possibility of extraterrestrial life.

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