Reception
The New York Times reviewed the film as a tense drama, maintaining "an engrossing course." Criticizing the conspiracy aspect, it's noted that "What prevents this professionally fashioned hokum from being a high flier is the annoying question of how a cover-up that involved hundreds or thousands of people could have been maintained for 30 years or even 30 seconds in this expose-prone society." [1]
Variety labeled it "a gripping fictional account." The review concludes, "Wherever the truths of the Roswell incident may lie, director Kagan paces his story convincingly and, in the suspicions it raises about American military mendacity, unflinchingly: superior made-for-TV fare, in other words. The extraterrestrial bodies, by the way, are terrific." ( [2]
The Los Angeles Times considered the film "no mere sci-fi hardware yarn," adding "Roswell is not so much a space odyssey but the story of a man's lost soul, that of an Air Force intelligence officer doggedly searching for the truth." [3]
Roswell is a city in and the seat of Chaves County, New Mexico, United States. The population was 48,422 at the 2020 census, making it the fifth-most populous city in New Mexico. It is home of the New Mexico Military Institute (NMMI), founded in 1891. The city is also the location of an Eastern New Mexico University campus. Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge is located a few miles northeast of the city on the Pecos River. Bottomless Lakes State Park is located 12 miles (19 km) east of Roswell on US 380. Chaves County forms the entirety of the Roswell micropolitan area.
UFO conspiracy theories are a subset of conspiracy theories which argue that various governments and politicians globally, in particular the United States government, are suppressing evidence that unidentified flying objects are controlled by a non-human intelligence or built using alien technology. Such conspiracy theories usually argue that Earth governments are in communication or cooperation with extraterrestrial visitors despite public disclaimers, and further that some of these theories claim that the governments are explicitly allowing alien abduction.
Majestic 12, also known as Majic-12, and MJ-12 for short, is a purported organization that appeared in fake documents first circulated by ufologists in 1984, and that some UFO conspiracy theories still claim to have existed. The organization is claimed to be the code name of an alleged secret committee of scientists, military leaders, and government officials, formed in 1947 by an executive order by U.S. President Harry S. Truman to facilitate recovery and investigation of alien spacecraft. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) declared the documents to be "completely bogus", and many ufologists consider them to be an elaborate hoax. Majestic 12 remains popular among some UFO conspiracy theorists and the concept has appeared in popular culture including television, film, video games, and literature.
The Roswell incident is a conspiracy theory which alleges that the 1947 United States Army Air Forces balloon recovered near Roswell, New Mexico was actually a crashed extraterrestrial spacecraft. Operated from the nearby Alamogordo Army Air Field and part of the top secret Project Mogul, the balloon was intended to detect Soviet nuclear tests. After metallic and rubber debris were recovered by Roswell Army Air Field personnel, the United States Army announced their possession of a "flying disc". This announcement made international headlines, but was retracted within a day. Obscuring the true purpose and source of the crashed balloon, the Army subsequently stated that it was a conventional weather balloon.
Taken, also known as Steven Spielberg Presents Taken, is an American science fiction television miniseries that first aired on the Sci-Fi Channel from December 2 to 13, 2002. Filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, it was written by Leslie Bohem, and directed by Breck Eisner, Félix Enríquez Alcalá, John Fawcett, Tobe Hooper, Jeremy Paul Kagan, Michael Katleman, Sergio Mimica-Gezzan, Bryan Spicer, Jeff Woolnough, and Thomas J. Wright. The executive producers were Leslie Bohem and Steven Spielberg.
Roswell is an American science fiction television series that presents a timeline where the Roswell UFO exists, and aliens are hiding in plain sight as a trio of high school-aged teenagers. Developed, produced, and co-written by Jason Katims, the series debuted on October 6, 1999 on the WB, and later shifted to UPN for the third season. The final episode aired on May 14, 2002. Sixty-one episodes in total were broadcast over the shows three seasons. In the United Kingdom, the show aired as both Roswell High and Roswell.
Stanton Terry Friedman was an American–Canadian nuclear physicist and professional ufologist who was based in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada.
Hangar 18 is a 1980 American science fiction action film directed by James L. Conway and written by Ken Pettus, from a story by Thomas C. Chapman and Conway. It stars Darren McGavin, Robert Vaughn, Gary Collins, James Hampton and Pamela Bellwood.
Nicholas Redfern is a British best-selling author, journalist, cryptozoologist and ufologist.
UFO Magazine was an American magazine that was devoted to the subject of unidentified flying objects (UFOs), the extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH), as well as paranormal and Fortean subjects in general.
Glenn Dennis was a founder of the International UFO Museum and Research Center in Roswell, New Mexico.
"Jose Chung's From Outer Space" is the 20th episode of the third season of the science fiction television series The X-Files. The episode first aired in the United States on April 12, 1996, on Fox. It was written by Darin Morgan and directed by Rob Bowman. "Jose Chung's From Outer Space" earned a Nielsen household rating of 10.5, being watched by 16.08 million people in its initial broadcast, and also received praise from critics.
The Aurora, Texas, UFO incident reportedly occurred on April 17, 1897, when, according to locals, a UFO crashed on a farm near Aurora, Texas. The incident is claimed to have resulted in a fatality of the pilot. The pilot was "not of this world" and was said to be an alien. The pilot was buried at the Aurora cemetery. A stone was placed as a marker for the grave, but has since been removed.
Kevin Douglas Randle is an American ufologist, science fiction and historical fiction writer and a military veteran. Within the UFO community, he is often regarded as one of the preeminent experts on the reported crash of a UFO near Roswell, New Mexico in July 1947.
A flying saucer, or flying disc, is a purported disc-shaped UFO. The term was coined in 1947 by the news media for the objects pilot Kenneth Arnold claimed flew alongside his airplane above Washington State. Newspapers reported Arnold's story with speed estimates implausible for airplanes of the period. The story spurred a wave of hundreds of sightings across the United States, including the Roswell incident and Flight 105 UFO sighting. The concept quickly spread to other countries. Early reports speculated about secret military technology, but flying saucers became synonymous with aliens by 1950. The term has gradually been supplanted by the more general military terms unidentified flying object (UFO) and unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP).
The Aztec, New Mexico, UFO hoax was a flying saucer crash alleged to have happened in 1948 in Aztec, New Mexico. The story was first published in 1949 by author Frank Scully in his Variety magazine columns, and later in his 1950 book Behind the Flying Saucers. In the mid-1950s, the story was exposed as a hoax fabricated by two con men, Silas M. Newton and Leo A. Gebauer, as part of a fraudulent scheme to sell supposed alien technology. Beginning in the 1970s, some ufologists resurrected the story in books claiming the purported crash was real. In 2013, an FBI memo claimed by some ufologists to substantiate the crash story was dismissed by the bureau as "a second- or third-hand claim that we never investigated".
Jesse Antoine Marcel Sr. was a lieutenant colonel in the United States Air Force who helped administer Operation Crossroads, the 1946 atom bomb tests at the Bikini Atoll.
John Olsen Lear was an American aviator and UFO conspiracy theorist. A son of Learjet magnate Bill Lear, Lear set multiple records, later flying cargo planes for the CIA during the Vietnam era. In the 1980s, he began speaking of alien collusion with secret governmental forces, and in the second half of the decade, Lear was "probably the most influential source" of UFO research.
The Roswell Incident is a 1980 book by Charles Berlitz and William Moore. The book helped to popularize stories of unusual debris recovered in 1947 by personnel of the Roswell Army Air Field.
