#4: Roswell
The summer of 1947 gave America one of its most enduring UFO stories, and it began with debris found by rancher W.W. “Mac” Brazel near Roswell, New Mexico. At first, the U.S. Air Force issued a statement saying they had recovered a “flying disc.” Very quickly, that explanation changed to a weather balloon, and for many people, that shift was the beginning of the mystery rather than the end of it. Roswell became the classic UFO case because it seemed to have everything: a remote desert location, military involvement, changing explanations, and a country already fascinated by “flying saucers.” Later, the government explained that the debris was connected to Project Mogul, a secret Cold War program using high-altitude balloons to detect Soviet nuclear tests.
