Conspiracy theorists and some serious scientists insist that extraterrestrials were aboard the crashed flying disc whose secrets were secured, reverse-engineered and exploited by US federal authorities. In contrast, official explanations of the 1947 event, like the July 1994 "Report of Air Force Research Regarding the Roswell Incident" written by USAF Col. Richard Weaver and the 1997 "Roswell Report: Case Closed" authored by USAF Capt. James McAndrew, traced the mystery to the TOP SECRET Priority 1A Project Mogul.

The 1947 UFO crash stemmed from secret US operations involving military balloons, radar reflectors, acoustic sensors, crash test dummies and Cold War counter-espionage. [United States General Accounting Office. Report to the Honorable Steven H. Schiff, House of Representatives. Results of a Search for Records Concerning the 1947 Crash Near Roswell, New Mexico. July 1995. GAO/NSIAD-95-187]

The Roswell Incident, among others, prompted an off-and-on and decades-long official investigation, starting with the USAF Headquarters Special Project HT-304, codenamed Project Sign, that sought to analyze the proliferating number of flying-disc sightings, followed by Project Grudge and Project BLUE BOOK whose "unknowns" counted cases from the Philippines.

[www.bluebookarchive.org]

The U.S. Naval Historical Center in Washington DC has an Unidentified Flying Objects Research Guide, which listed indexes of original U.S. government documents and selected published sources on the issue and related phenomena.

Given the ubiquity of information, the story of the 1947 aviation accident ought to be settled by now. One particularly intriguing hypothesis is that the Roswell legend of a crashed vehicle from outer space was spun by federal psychological warfare professionals in order to cover up the real story of a postwar experimental aviation research that used nuclear materials, balloon array, special aircraft and handicapped Asians taken from the Japanese Imperial Army Unit 731 laboratories. [Nick Redfern. Body Snatchers in the Desert: The Horrible Truth at the Heart of the Roswell Story. NY: Paraview Pocket Books, 2005]

The issues surrounding the incident of July 8, 1947, notably freedom of information, government accountability, covert operations and credible research, can also be appreciated by reviewing the memoirs of retired public security professionals like Daryl F. Gates and his "Chief: My Life in the LAPD," published in 1992 in New York by Bantam Books.

Gates, the father of SWAT and of D.A.R.E., shared hard lessons acquired from decades of police work. Samples:

"Having a plan is the first lesson they drum into you at the Police Academy. Any time you step out of your patrol car or walk through a door, you and your partner better know what you are going to do. Otherwise, they warn, you can’t believe how quickly a situation can turn on you. Tactics – always think tactics. Those who don’t, get killed." (pp. 44-45)

"I studied the Mafia and other aspects of organized crime like a college student cramming for a final exam...I took home every book I could find on the subject and every article, and I devoured them. I went through thousands and thousands of police files. I ate, drank and slept organized crime." (pp. 71-72)

"Undercover work is difficult and tricky. LAPD policy has always been that working undercover does not give an officer license to break the law. A traffic violation, you might get away with. But you cannot assist, aid or abet in any kind of major crime. Yet if you infiltrate and form a close relationship with a lawbreaker, how in the world can you operate effectively unless you participate when they pull off something major?" (p. 81)

"Banished from everyday police circles, we kept our training operations secret for years. Deep in the San Fernando Valley, on farmland owned by the city, the five-man SWAT teams rotated in and out, working on their maneuvers. Regularly, we sent squads to train at Camp Pendleton, trading expertise with the Marines. We also took advantage of the generosity of Universal Studios in Burbank. The movie studio’s back lot was practically a ready-made training center." (p. 115)

On the need to shield detective work during the hunt for the Hillside Strangler. "Once a week I held lengthy press conferences and managed to say absolutely nothing. I found it was a kind of art: to give the media something they could write about without giving them anything at all." (p. 168)

"The emptying of the guns, known as rapid-fire syndrome, was not uncommon, and in fact was the method we taught for close-encounter situations. Rapid-fire is almost an instinctive reaction, especially in a stress situation. Often, I’ve asked an officer: ‘How many times did you shoot?’ And he would reply, ‘Twice.’ When I’d check his gun, it would be empty. The brain, under stress, keeps no accurate diary of what has transpired." (p. 197)

"Doing surveillance on terrorist or subversive groups was extremely dangerous and required utmost secrecy...To gain access to subversive groups took months of laying meticulous groundwork. Because the groups were composed of tiny cells, each member knowing the others, a direct approach could not be made...In stalking their targets, undercover officers would first infiltrate feeder groups and move cautiously toward the inner circle." (p. 223)

"As chief of police, I know plenty. Police officers are the world’s greatest gossips, and they hear everything. Sometimes it filters up to me. As a result, I know far more than I care to about people’s personal lives." (p. 230)