Robert L. Park

In the following viewpoint, Robert L. Park argues that an extraterrestrial spacecraft did not crash near Roswell, New Mexico, in the summer of 1947. Recent research has shown that the wreckage that was recovered on a southwestern ranch was from a secret military project (Project Mogul) in which a large military balloon was launched to detect Soviet atomic bomb tests. The government, however, initially claimed that the wreckage was a weather balloon in an attempt to protect the secrecy of Project Mogul. But rather than dispel the Roswell UFO myth, Park writes, the discovery that the government did engage in some kind of deception has convinced conspiracy theorists that Project Mogul itself is just another cover-up. Park is a physicist at the University of Maryland in College Park and...