Talk:Roswell incident

DYK nomination?

I'm not familiar with Main Page criteria, but if anyone else would like to nominate this for Did You Know, please do: Wikipedia:Did you know/Create new nomination. Feoffer (talk) 04:24, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: withdrawn by nominator, closed by Launchballer talk 16:28, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

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• Comment or view
• Article history

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• ... that in 1947, space aliens landed in New Mexico?

• Source: I know this is pushing it, and this is clearly a false statement, but I think we can get away with it for a quirky hook in a dedicated Halloween set.

• ALT1: ... that the 1947 Roswell hoax has been said to have been part of a "Cosmic Watergate"? Source: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Enemies_Within/Z8e5YELGGFAC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA189&printsec=frontcover
• Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/2024 Ohio Issue 1
• Comment: Please hold for special WT:DYK#Halloween set

Improved to Good Article status by Feoffer (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 42 past nominations.

RoySmith (talk) 14:55, 9 October 2024 (UTC).

• It has been pointed out to me that this has been on OTD (multiple times), so I'm withdrawing this nomination. RoySmith (talk) 15:34, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Fund for UFO Research book

Ziegler's Version 5 is the Fund for UFO Research-funded Roswell in Perspective (1994). When adding it to the footnote just now, I started to add it to the table. I am thinking it probably does belong in there if the table is meant to present Ziegler's view. I had left it out originally because no other WP:RS treats it as influential on the UFO community or popular culture (whereas very many agree on his Version 1).

|-
!''Roswell in Perspective'' (1994)<ref>{{Harvnb|Saler|Ziegler|Moore|pages=25-26}}</ref>	
|
* Fragments with symbols	
* Super-strong lightweight metal sheets
* A narrow craft with "bat-like wings" north of Roswell
|	
* Landed once near Corona, New Mexico, on Brazel's ranch	
* Struck a cliff 35 miles north of Roswell
|
* 3 humanoid corpses north of Roswell	
* 1 living humanoid pilot north of Roswell

Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 06:01, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Thanks for fixing it the footnote! Feoffer (talk) 09:15, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Majestic 12 hoax section

In the "Majestic 12 hoax" section....a couple of things stand out to me:

1. It talks about how (at that 1989 MUFON conference) Bill Moore "confessed that he had intentionally fed fake evidence of extraterrestrials to UFO researchers". That's true....but (and correct me if I am wrong) he did not say that MJ-12 was one of them. In the context of that section, that could mislead people if we don't make that distinction.
2. We present only the "it's a hoax" side of things. I agree that it is a hoax (in case anyone thinks I am pushing a POV here), but there have been arguments from the other side of this. In particular, in Stanton Friedman's works. We bring up the format errors of the documents....but Stanton Friedman (based on a challenge by Phil Klass) found other such errors in government documents. I admit though: with such a short section....would such a addition give the section a BALANCE issue? I'm not sure....that's why I posted here (for other opinions). Thanks for reading.Rja13ww33 (talk) 22:07, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

Regarding your point #2, the thing to stress is that (as I understand it) some ufologists still believe that Majestic 12 existed, despite the fact that the known Majestic 12 documents are widely agreed to be fake and the identities of its members are correspondingly in question. Saying that the organization could not have existed because the documents are phony is affirming a disjunct. Carguychris (talk) 23:07, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

Right. IIRC, there has been some speculation that the documents were faked in order to force the government to admit such a organization exist[ed]. I can't think of a RS saying that though. (I saw (for example) a UFO researcher saying that on The History Channel....but The History Channel is not a RS.)Rja13ww33 (talk) 19:09, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Bullet points addressed in article.[1] Regarding "documents were faked in order to force the government to admit such a organization", it's been claimed that Bill Moore proposed something like that by 3 other ufologists, Friedman, Randle, and Brad Sparks.[2] Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 21:41, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Richard Doty

I have RfD's the redirect from Richard Doty to the film Mirage Men because the target article doesn't say anything substantive about Doty. I think this is potentially of interest to people who follow this article. Discussion here. Carguychris (talk) 23:00, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

TFA blurb

This article passed a featured article review earlier this year and can run on Wikipedia:Today's featured article in the future. To do so it will need a "blurb" which according to WP:TFAR should be a summary of the lead "between 925 and 1025 characters". I've taken a swing at a summary of the lead and put it up on the sandbox page below:

☛ Talk:Roswell incident/sandbox ^{[ starting point permanent link ]}

Since many editors have contributed to this article's development, I wanted to leave a notice here to allow other editors the opportunity to change things, fix errors, offer feedback, and so on. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 05:13, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Looks good to me! Thanks for doing this.. and everything else! Feoffer (talk) 10:23, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

"thousands" of project Mogul balloons

The entry on Project Mogul indicates it was balloon NYU Flight 4 that crashed at Roswell, it is not clear that the "thousands" is a verifiable number. NYU was experimenting with new materials, so it is likely the number is not four either. ... the credibility of the entry overall can be diminished by unsubstantiated numbers. -- by opening with "conspiracy" ...there is an implicit judgement as well. If this page is about the Roswell Conspiracy, is there another page about the Roswell incident? If this page is going to the "front page" later this year, it would be good to review the text for maximum objectivity 2601:18C:8E7F:A2E0:ECE2:42EA:E89:183F (talk) 13:20, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

...it is not clear that the "thousands" is a verifiable number. There are two citations given in the article text. If you have a WP:RELIABLE source that states otherwise, feel free to add it. Also, don't confuse the number of NYU Mogul launches in SE New Mexico with the overall number of Mogul launches. The former number is much smaller than the latter. ...by opening with "conspiracy" ...there is an implicit judgement... While Wikipedia strives for a neutral point of view, it is also Wikipedia policy not to give WP:UNDUE weight to WP:FRINGE sources. Wikipedia is not unbiased, rather it reflects the bias of WP:RELIABLE sources. If this page is about the Roswell Conspiracy, is there another page about the Roswell incident? It is almost impossible to disentangle the incident from the conspiracy theories because there are so many competing narratives about what happened, and the conspiracy theories are really what gives this incident its notability. Carguychris (talk) 16:50, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

The source says, "In 1946 and 1947, the Army Air Force had launched thousands of these high-flying balloons, puffed full with helium to pull their loads of instruments into the stratosphere. The devices strained to hear the high-altitude sound waves of Soviet atomic detonations." As mentioned above, the project started in New York. There is also the fact that each individual launch would have been multiple balloons tethered together. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 19:08, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

Walter Haut REAL testimony whitewashed and censored

Nothing about his deathbed testimony?. :D Government and wiki just clearly lying . Thanks Walter JKim (talk) 19:51, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

@JKim: I tried. Good luck. See:

Talk:Roswell incident/Archive 8#Walter Haut affidavits signed in 1993 and 2002. Video made in 2000

Talk:Roswell incident/Archive 9#37 witnesses to the Roswell shape memory foil

Talk:Roswell incident/Archive 9#Possible request for comment on 2002 Walter Haut affidavit

By the way, it wasn't his deathbed testimony. It was in 2002, 3 years before he died in 2005.

I just found yet another recent mainstream article about his 2002 affidavit and more. This may be the best mainstream article I have read:

August 3, 2024 article: The Roswell UFO story still resonates around the world 77 years later. By John Purvis (CBS4). Archived here. Article is on the KDBC-TV website: cbs4local.com

Roswell is the hometown of John Purvis. For this article he interviewed Donald R. Schmitt who first published the 2002 affidavit in his 2007 book "Witness to Roswell: Unmasking the 60-Year Cover-Up".

With Purvis Schmitt discusses the 2002 affidavit, and the memory material: "memory material, that would, right before your eyes, that it would assume its original shape and size no matter what you did to it."

Schmitt told Purvis that Haut said he had been taken to the hangar and was shown the craft and the bodies. And that it was in the affidavit witnessed by his daughter and by a notary.

John Purvis was there when Jesse Marcel went public: "I first saw Marcel share the changed story when I was a senior at Roswell High, working as a studio cameraman at the local TV station, KBIM."

Walter Haut and his wife were close friends of the mother and father of Purvis. Haut gave an autographed copy of The Roswell Incident (1980 book) soon after it was published to his parents inscribed with "Believe it". Photo of book is in the article. "Credit: KFOX14/CBS4".

Purvis interviewed Haut himself in 1997. Haut said he was convinced there was something to the Roswell incident.

--Timeshifter (talk) 23:08, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Hi JKim -- I'm taking the time to reach out because I know that that many in the UFO community believe we here at Wikipedia have a hostility to the topic. That's not true, I see it at at least as valid a belief system as being a Christian or a Muslim or a Hindu, etc. Philosophically, aliens are far more likely than a sky father, after all. While some editors here describe themselves as "Skeptics", I'm not one of them.

Cutting Haut's later statements from the article was a hard choice. It's not about our editors personal views, it's about the fact that Haut's 21st-century statement is so late in the story of Roswell, it just didn't have as much impact and coverage in the reliable sources as Marcel's or Dennis's. I don't know why that is -- we can speculate that it was was because Haut was contradicting his earlier claims to the contrary, but ultimately it might just be that "The Roswell Incident" blew up in the 80s and 90s, long before Haut's statements.

If we introduce Haut's statements into the article, we have to give the skeptical point of view some "equal time" to explain all the objections to his statements. And we can only put SO much detail into the article and have it still be readable in a single sitting.

And also, remember: Wikipedia is NOT Censored: We do cover those statements at Walter Haut.

Lastly, please remember that Wikipedia is here to relay facts, not truth. Don't get your 'truth' from Wikipedia, we are just a summary of what the reliable sources are saying. And that's as it should be -- If 'disclosure' ever happens, Wikipedia can't lead the way, or it will be a laugh fest. Feoffer (talk) 13:38, 18 January 2025 (UTC)