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The Roswell Incident
Explores every aspect of the mysterious alleged UFO crash near Roswell, New Mexico, investigating the suspected government cover-up while collecting the testimonies of civilian and military witnesses and presenting existing evidence. Reissue.
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1980
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439 people want to read
About the author
Charles Berlitz
118 books72 followersBorn in NYC, Berlitz was the grandson of Maximilien Berlitz, who founded the Berlitz Language Schools. As a child, Charles was raised in a household in which (by father's orders) every relative & servant spoke to Charles in a different language. He reached adolescence speaking eight languages fluently. In adulthood, he recalled having had the delusion that every human spoke a different language, & wondering why he didn't have his own like everyone else. His father spoke to him in German, his grandfather in Russian, his nanny in Spanish.
He began working for the family's Berlitz School of Languages, during college breaks. The publishing house, of which he was vice president, sold, among other things, tourist phrase books & pocket dictionaries, several of which he authored. He also played a key role in developing record & tape language courses. He left the company in the late 1960s, not long after he sold the company to publishing firm Crowell, Collier & Macmillan. He graduated magna cum laude from Yale Univ.
Berlitz was a writer on anomalous phenomena. He wrote a number of books on Atlantis. In his book The Mystery of Atlantis, he used evidence from geophysics, psychic studies, classical literature, tribal lore, archeology & mysteries & concluded that Atlantis was real. Berlitz also attempted to link the Bermuda Triangle to Atlantis. He claimed to have located Atlantis undersea in the area of the Bermuda Triangle. He was also an ancient astronaut proponent who believed that extraterrestrials had visited earth.
Berlitz spent 13 years on active duty in the US Army, mostly in intelligence. In 1950, he married Valerie Seary, with whom he had a daughter, Lynn. He died in 2003 at the age of 89 at University Hospital in Tamarac, FL.
He began working for the family's Berlitz School of Languages, during college breaks. The publishing house, of which he was vice president, sold, among other things, tourist phrase books & pocket dictionaries, several of which he authored. He also played a key role in developing record & tape language courses. He left the company in the late 1960s, not long after he sold the company to publishing firm Crowell, Collier & Macmillan. He graduated magna cum laude from Yale Univ.
Berlitz was a writer on anomalous phenomena. He wrote a number of books on Atlantis. In his book The Mystery of Atlantis, he used evidence from geophysics, psychic studies, classical literature, tribal lore, archeology & mysteries & concluded that Atlantis was real. Berlitz also attempted to link the Bermuda Triangle to Atlantis. He claimed to have located Atlantis undersea in the area of the Bermuda Triangle. He was also an ancient astronaut proponent who believed that extraterrestrials had visited earth.
Berlitz spent 13 years on active duty in the US Army, mostly in intelligence. In 1950, he married Valerie Seary, with whom he had a daughter, Lynn. He died in 2003 at the age of 89 at University Hospital in Tamarac, FL.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
March 6, 2021
Erstaunlich, was als Sachbuch so durchgeht. Hinsichtlich der "Quellenangaben" geht es nicht schlampiger, alles hat lediglich Behauptungscharakter und ist abschweifig zusammengeschustert. Wäre auch nur ein einziges Detail einer einzigen Behauptung nachweisbar, hätten wir es mit einer Sensation zu tun. So ist es aber doch "nur" Teil der UFO-Folklore, die Roswell & Co. als modernen Mythos aufrecht hält. Weniger trocken und besserwisserisch geschrieben und mit einer Prise Humor gewürzt wäre DER ROSWELL ZWISCHENFALL deutlich verdaulicher.
Peinlich wie Däniken, so mein Verdikt, und allenfalls lesbar unter der X-Files-Maxime:
I want to believe.
Peinlich wie Däniken, so mein Verdikt, und allenfalls lesbar unter der X-Files-Maxime:
I want to believe.
February 14, 2015
This is not the best book about the Roswell event, but it is the earliest. The best is probably that produced by Stanton Friedman who, incidentally, contributed to this earlier examination.
Interestingly, Charles F. Berlitz, the author of this book and others about the Bermuda Triangle (he virtually invented it), the discovery of Noah's ark (what! another one?) and Atlantis is also the man behind all of the Berlitz language books. Now, a biography of him would probably be quite interesting.
Interestingly, Charles F. Berlitz, the author of this book and others about the Bermuda Triangle (he virtually invented it), the discovery of Noah's ark (what! another one?) and Atlantis is also the man behind all of the Berlitz language books. Now, a biography of him would probably be quite interesting.
June 20, 2012
In this 1980 counter-Intelligence masterpiece 'The Roswell Incident', by Government Intelligence writers Charles Berlitz and William L. Moore, the U.S. Air Force actually came clean for once about what it knows, and thinks, about Unidentified Flying Objects. Much to the misunderstanding of almost everybody.
Re-reading this explosive little book of only 184 pages, after many years since it first came out and almost single-handedly changed the whole Extraterrestrial and Flying Saucer dialogue, I was struck by how much inside information the authors must have had. It reads to me, now, like a very honest little admission by American Intel of the truth - of what really happened in those days, lo, long ago when I was also born in 1947 and my father was an Army Air Corps pilot at the New Mexico Base.
For so long the discussion, when it is civil and knowledgeable (which isn't very often), centered around whether the story was true or not; and people split up almost wildly into opposing camps of pure skeptics who almost hated the idea that there are some sort of Beings out there who are not us, or the Faithful who are almost religious in their belief and want to make it as credible and scientific as they can to prove they're not crazy.
Flying Saucers have become a big joke to the rational skeptics, and the U.S. Government has become the ultimate villain covering up the truth to the open-minded UFO searchers. But I grew up in the Air Force and my father, a Lt. Colonel when he retired in 1967 after serving in 2 wars, once said when we asked him if he believed in UFOs, "All pilots see Bogies." He saw the famous/infamous "Bogie" over Capitan Mountain west of Roswell in 1947, on a night flight to Albuquerque. [It's detailed in my book 'The Herodeia Decalogue', so I won't go into it in detail here]
How can I say the authors Berlitz and Moore are Intel writers who are telling the truth, when almost no one, to my knowledge, has ever made such an outrageous observation? Although it's well-known Berlitz was an Army Intel officer from 1940 to at least 1952, and Moore himself admitted to a MUFON Conference in Las Vegas in 1989 that he has been working with AFOSI and CIA for years, the actual words they wrote in 'The Roswell Incident' have been picked over down to the minutiae by legions of researchers. So why go over it again? And again?
For one thing, it's a very personal story, as I described in my own 2008 memoir 'Abduction at Roswell' [alluded to, again, and excerpted, in 'The Herodeia Decalogue' in relation to a poetic interpolation of the more mystical significance]. Several big questions have to be asked, again: why Roswell? Why, all of a sudden, when, after 30 years, it wasn't sudden at all, that the 1947 events at Roswell Army Air Field came into the huge popular spotlight in the 1980 bestseller? It had been forgotten, even by good UFO researchers in the intervening decades, barely referred to only briefly in one or two insignificant places. No one, apparently, questioned the Air Corps press release announcing the Capture of a Flying Saucer in the headlines of newspapers and radios around the world, back then, and the dismissal of it hours later as mistaken identity as a mere weather balloon. Story over. Forgotten. Misplaced excitement and hope.
Yeah, the story has been beaten to death in the 32 years since then, and numerous books, blogs, documentaries, and films and TV series have been made about it. My question is: why did it pop up at all, almost out of nowhere? My mother loved to talk about Roswell when I was a kid, as the place where she and Dad got married in 1946 at the Army Base Chapel. It was a central locale in our cherished family lore. But that was all. It certainly had no significance as the world-famous locale of supernatural, cosmic Destination. I went back in 1975, when I was living in another little New Mexico town, Raton, and there was no hint of UFOs at all; unlike today, where it is a huge profitable industry with "Alien" shops all over town and the big UFO Museum where Mom said they used to go to movies in the 40s. It also has a great 'Research Center' in the Museum, which is just about the best library on the subject I've ever seen. Otherwise it's an ordinary little cowtown in the West.
So why did it pop into the global consciousness with the publication of this one little book? How did it even get published at all? Back in those days the Apollo Moon Landings were old news, and a few movies like 'Star Wars' and 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' were the usual science fiction entertainment, however with bigger budgets and exciting new technology, and special effects. The skeptics as usual were entertained and the believers preached to the chorus.
No, Roswell was different because it was special, certainly to me. I was happy the rest of the world was learning. I was grateful for the book, and some of the others that followed, that took it seriously. Reading over it again, even from the first page I can see that Moore and Berlitz knew what they were talking about, even if they didn't always understand what they were doing, but at least they were trying. They were sincere.
It probably helped that Berlitz came from the successful family that made language and tourist books, and he was a renowned linguist in his own right, before he wrote the blockbuster 'The Bermuda Triangle' that sold 14 million copies. He was an obvious believer in Atlantis as well, and a number of other paranormal subjects on which he wrote intelligently and thoroughly. Somewhere along the line he must have met Moore, whose background is not as clear-cut, and they did a book together 'The Philadelphia Experiment', which was also made into a movie. That 'The Roswell Incident' followed can be explained, at least partially, by a typical commercial publisher glad to capitalize on Berlitz's previous successes, regardless if the money people believed it or cared.
That's the standard explanation. And they're sticking to it. I don't believe it. I've gone through the gyrations of getting books published in New York too, and several of them which weren't published even when I had a contract and had been paid at least half of my royalties in advance. But the subject matter was the contemporary conditions of American Indians struggling in this country, and that, apparently, got too political or even religious, for them. Someone in the executive offices,somewhere - the bogies we all know so well in the corporate towers - didn't like what I was saying. Writers are dangerous, you know. And anyone who thinks the advertising-intelligence agencies aren't watching all that literary ferment going on, analyzing the very quasi-culture of everything about America to death, is living in TV commercial wonderland. They ARE the Media.
'The Roswell Incident' is a highly political book, after all. Let's admit it. While condemning the cover-up of the Air Force in 1947 and ever since, it is also revealing a lot of information no one had ever seen before, or since. How do they know all that, unless, as both authors have admitted publicly and proud of it, they were the same Gov't guys they're criticizing? It's standard Intel Procedure - come at an issue from both sides so nobody knows where you stand. Ultimate confusion. The funny thing is - they're telling the Truth! I can see it, from my half century of research and writing about it and living it as native Westerners and Military Brats. Some of the smartest guys I ever knew were generals and CIA Agents I played golf with on Air Bases around the world, with my Dad, and they were the biggest critics of the U.S. Gov't I ever knew. They hated the bureaucracy. They hated the pirates stealing billions in the Aerospace Defense contractors. They loved Arthur C. Clarke and Carl Sagan's cosmic astronomy and imaginative extraterrestrial ideas.
They see Bogies all the time. Why lie about it? They don't lie about it. 'The Roswell Incident' is proof. It's true.
[further relevant Bibliography by David Seals - 'CONFESSIONS OF THE GODS: an Encyclopedia of the New Literature', unpublished 3 volumes 520,000 words; 'INVADERS FROM MARS HILL', e-book on kindle, about Percival Lowell's 1897 masterpiece 'Mars'; 'THE CREATION MYTH', in paperback on Amazon, more from Lowell's works; 'MARTIANS: THE FLAGSTAFF OBSERVATIONS', e-book on kindle Amazon; 'THE HERODEIA DECALOGUE', also on e-book on Kindle; 'ABDUCTION AT ROSWELL', on e-book on Kindle ]
Re-reading this explosive little book of only 184 pages, after many years since it first came out and almost single-handedly changed the whole Extraterrestrial and Flying Saucer dialogue, I was struck by how much inside information the authors must have had. It reads to me, now, like a very honest little admission by American Intel of the truth - of what really happened in those days, lo, long ago when I was also born in 1947 and my father was an Army Air Corps pilot at the New Mexico Base.
For so long the discussion, when it is civil and knowledgeable (which isn't very often), centered around whether the story was true or not; and people split up almost wildly into opposing camps of pure skeptics who almost hated the idea that there are some sort of Beings out there who are not us, or the Faithful who are almost religious in their belief and want to make it as credible and scientific as they can to prove they're not crazy.
Flying Saucers have become a big joke to the rational skeptics, and the U.S. Government has become the ultimate villain covering up the truth to the open-minded UFO searchers. But I grew up in the Air Force and my father, a Lt. Colonel when he retired in 1967 after serving in 2 wars, once said when we asked him if he believed in UFOs, "All pilots see Bogies." He saw the famous/infamous "Bogie" over Capitan Mountain west of Roswell in 1947, on a night flight to Albuquerque. [It's detailed in my book 'The Herodeia Decalogue', so I won't go into it in detail here]
How can I say the authors Berlitz and Moore are Intel writers who are telling the truth, when almost no one, to my knowledge, has ever made such an outrageous observation? Although it's well-known Berlitz was an Army Intel officer from 1940 to at least 1952, and Moore himself admitted to a MUFON Conference in Las Vegas in 1989 that he has been working with AFOSI and CIA for years, the actual words they wrote in 'The Roswell Incident' have been picked over down to the minutiae by legions of researchers. So why go over it again? And again?
For one thing, it's a very personal story, as I described in my own 2008 memoir 'Abduction at Roswell' [alluded to, again, and excerpted, in 'The Herodeia Decalogue' in relation to a poetic interpolation of the more mystical significance]. Several big questions have to be asked, again: why Roswell? Why, all of a sudden, when, after 30 years, it wasn't sudden at all, that the 1947 events at Roswell Army Air Field came into the huge popular spotlight in the 1980 bestseller? It had been forgotten, even by good UFO researchers in the intervening decades, barely referred to only briefly in one or two insignificant places. No one, apparently, questioned the Air Corps press release announcing the Capture of a Flying Saucer in the headlines of newspapers and radios around the world, back then, and the dismissal of it hours later as mistaken identity as a mere weather balloon. Story over. Forgotten. Misplaced excitement and hope.
Yeah, the story has been beaten to death in the 32 years since then, and numerous books, blogs, documentaries, and films and TV series have been made about it. My question is: why did it pop up at all, almost out of nowhere? My mother loved to talk about Roswell when I was a kid, as the place where she and Dad got married in 1946 at the Army Base Chapel. It was a central locale in our cherished family lore. But that was all. It certainly had no significance as the world-famous locale of supernatural, cosmic Destination. I went back in 1975, when I was living in another little New Mexico town, Raton, and there was no hint of UFOs at all; unlike today, where it is a huge profitable industry with "Alien" shops all over town and the big UFO Museum where Mom said they used to go to movies in the 40s. It also has a great 'Research Center' in the Museum, which is just about the best library on the subject I've ever seen. Otherwise it's an ordinary little cowtown in the West.
So why did it pop into the global consciousness with the publication of this one little book? How did it even get published at all? Back in those days the Apollo Moon Landings were old news, and a few movies like 'Star Wars' and 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' were the usual science fiction entertainment, however with bigger budgets and exciting new technology, and special effects. The skeptics as usual were entertained and the believers preached to the chorus.
No, Roswell was different because it was special, certainly to me. I was happy the rest of the world was learning. I was grateful for the book, and some of the others that followed, that took it seriously. Reading over it again, even from the first page I can see that Moore and Berlitz knew what they were talking about, even if they didn't always understand what they were doing, but at least they were trying. They were sincere.
It probably helped that Berlitz came from the successful family that made language and tourist books, and he was a renowned linguist in his own right, before he wrote the blockbuster 'The Bermuda Triangle' that sold 14 million copies. He was an obvious believer in Atlantis as well, and a number of other paranormal subjects on which he wrote intelligently and thoroughly. Somewhere along the line he must have met Moore, whose background is not as clear-cut, and they did a book together 'The Philadelphia Experiment', which was also made into a movie. That 'The Roswell Incident' followed can be explained, at least partially, by a typical commercial publisher glad to capitalize on Berlitz's previous successes, regardless if the money people believed it or cared.
That's the standard explanation. And they're sticking to it. I don't believe it. I've gone through the gyrations of getting books published in New York too, and several of them which weren't published even when I had a contract and had been paid at least half of my royalties in advance. But the subject matter was the contemporary conditions of American Indians struggling in this country, and that, apparently, got too political or even religious, for them. Someone in the executive offices,somewhere - the bogies we all know so well in the corporate towers - didn't like what I was saying. Writers are dangerous, you know. And anyone who thinks the advertising-intelligence agencies aren't watching all that literary ferment going on, analyzing the very quasi-culture of everything about America to death, is living in TV commercial wonderland. They ARE the Media.
'The Roswell Incident' is a highly political book, after all. Let's admit it. While condemning the cover-up of the Air Force in 1947 and ever since, it is also revealing a lot of information no one had ever seen before, or since. How do they know all that, unless, as both authors have admitted publicly and proud of it, they were the same Gov't guys they're criticizing? It's standard Intel Procedure - come at an issue from both sides so nobody knows where you stand. Ultimate confusion. The funny thing is - they're telling the Truth! I can see it, from my half century of research and writing about it and living it as native Westerners and Military Brats. Some of the smartest guys I ever knew were generals and CIA Agents I played golf with on Air Bases around the world, with my Dad, and they were the biggest critics of the U.S. Gov't I ever knew. They hated the bureaucracy. They hated the pirates stealing billions in the Aerospace Defense contractors. They loved Arthur C. Clarke and Carl Sagan's cosmic astronomy and imaginative extraterrestrial ideas.
They see Bogies all the time. Why lie about it? They don't lie about it. 'The Roswell Incident' is proof. It's true.
[further relevant Bibliography by David Seals - 'CONFESSIONS OF THE GODS: an Encyclopedia of the New Literature', unpublished 3 volumes 520,000 words; 'INVADERS FROM MARS HILL', e-book on kindle, about Percival Lowell's 1897 masterpiece 'Mars'; 'THE CREATION MYTH', in paperback on Amazon, more from Lowell's works; 'MARTIANS: THE FLAGSTAFF OBSERVATIONS', e-book on kindle Amazon; 'THE HERODEIA DECALOGUE', also on e-book on Kindle; 'ABDUCTION AT ROSWELL', on e-book on Kindle ]
January 10, 2020
It isn't often one can find ground zero for an idea. With this 1980 book by Charles Berlitz and William Moore, one can do so with the most famous UFO event of the 20th century. It was with their work that the events outside of Roswell, New Mexico were first cultivated, first in ufology and then in popular culture.
One of the fascinating things about reading the book four decades on from its original publication is how much of the Roswell story was already there, even then. There's the rancher, Mac Brazel, who finds the wreckage, bringing it into Roswell. There are military men like Jesse Marcel and Walter Haut, who became among the earliest eyewitnesses to the events. Some of the civilian witnesses, like Marcel's son, are present with the descriptions of wreckage with weird writing upon it. Elsewhere, larger portions of the cover-up narrative are in place, including President Eisenhower's alleged 1954 visit to Edwards Air Force Base. It's sometimes vague in the details, but it's all there nonetheless.
It's the details or lack thereof really, that makes reading this all the more interesting. Berlitz and Moore present the earliest, most streamlined version of the Roswell story. Before debates about multiple crash sites, before the injection of Area 51, the Majestic 12, and secret treaties with aliens, this is where everything started. Even Eisenhower's alleged visit to Edwards, now suspected by some in the field to be his signing a treaty with the aliens, is simply his seeing the Roswell wreckage. It's also from a time before co-author Moore got involved with the disinformation campaign that's become known as the Bennewitz Affair. The book stands as much as a historical document about where ufology was at the start of the 1980s as it is about the events at Roswell.
Indeed, the historical document perspective might be the best way of viewing the book after forty years. The Roswell story has morphed, growing into something portrayed in everything from films to an episode of Star Trek. If you're curious as to know how that happened, you could do a lot worse than start your reading here.
One of the fascinating things about reading the book four decades on from its original publication is how much of the Roswell story was already there, even then. There's the rancher, Mac Brazel, who finds the wreckage, bringing it into Roswell. There are military men like Jesse Marcel and Walter Haut, who became among the earliest eyewitnesses to the events. Some of the civilian witnesses, like Marcel's son, are present with the descriptions of wreckage with weird writing upon it. Elsewhere, larger portions of the cover-up narrative are in place, including President Eisenhower's alleged 1954 visit to Edwards Air Force Base. It's sometimes vague in the details, but it's all there nonetheless.
It's the details or lack thereof really, that makes reading this all the more interesting. Berlitz and Moore present the earliest, most streamlined version of the Roswell story. Before debates about multiple crash sites, before the injection of Area 51, the Majestic 12, and secret treaties with aliens, this is where everything started. Even Eisenhower's alleged visit to Edwards, now suspected by some in the field to be his signing a treaty with the aliens, is simply his seeing the Roswell wreckage. It's also from a time before co-author Moore got involved with the disinformation campaign that's become known as the Bennewitz Affair. The book stands as much as a historical document about where ufology was at the start of the 1980s as it is about the events at Roswell.
Indeed, the historical document perspective might be the best way of viewing the book after forty years. The Roswell story has morphed, growing into something portrayed in everything from films to an episode of Star Trek. If you're curious as to know how that happened, you could do a lot worse than start your reading here.
September 14, 2011
I love me some alien action; I grew up watching the X-Files and watching my cousins getting too excited about possible alien life. To be honest, I always thought it was hokey, but it sparked my interest anyhow. This would include watching several hours of UFO investigations on television at the tender age of eight. Poor eight-year-old me: beginning my jaded life on the right foot by watching people talk about the juice being squeezed out of their eyes to only be left with two shriveled grapes.
I digress.
I was expecting some serious controversy, and tons of evidence. Instead I got a book with silly anecdotal evidence and funny looking caricatures. Now don't start bashing me because of that statement. I'm certainly aware of how little evidence there is about alien life form - don't worry - I just expected this book, with all the hype it had, to provide me with something more tangible. I also understand the context in which this book was written was meant to be scandalous in the ever so scandalous 1980s. But you know what? It wasn’t. It’s pretty dated, but it’s good enough to be used as a reference for alien enthusiasts.
I digress.
I was expecting some serious controversy, and tons of evidence. Instead I got a book with silly anecdotal evidence and funny looking caricatures. Now don't start bashing me because of that statement. I'm certainly aware of how little evidence there is about alien life form - don't worry - I just expected this book, with all the hype it had, to provide me with something more tangible. I also understand the context in which this book was written was meant to be scandalous in the ever so scandalous 1980s. But you know what? It wasn’t. It’s pretty dated, but it’s good enough to be used as a reference for alien enthusiasts.
November 1, 2012
I think we all know by now that it wasn't a weather balloon that landed near Roswell in 1947. This is a classic, must-read account for any UFO connoisseurs. If you do not like aliens or do not have a good sense of humor, you will not appreciate the earnest cheesiness with which this book is written, and you will be especially turned off by the many hand-drawn sketches and bold assertions contained within. Best line of the whole book: "this occurrence, if true, would be at least comparable to Columbus's encounter with the startled natives on his visit to the New World. Except for one thing. In this case we would be the startled natives."
The truth is out there.
The truth is out there.
May 12, 2024
THE BOOK THAT BEGAN THE MODERN STUDY OF THE ROSWELL ‘CRASH’
Charles Frambach Berlitz (1913-2003) was an author specializing is occultic/supernatural topics. William (‘Bill’) L. Moore (born 1943) is a ufologist (involved in Roswell, MJ-12, etc.) who, at a 1989 MUFON conference, claimed that he had been engaged by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations to spread ‘disinformation.’
They wrote in the Introduction to this 1980 book, “According to UFO legend, an extraterrestrial spaceship crashed in New Mexico in the early days of July 1947… What is different about this case, however, is the vitality of this one single incident and its continuing developments in scientific, government, and legal circles. At the time this book goes to press a civil action has been brought by … Citizens Against UFO Secrecy… against the CIA for the purpose of releasing information about crashed UFOs in accord with the Freedom of Information Act… Among the charges… are suppression of media information, withholding of files, muzzling of witnesses, and, in general, hiding information through the use of now unnecessary security classification…
“The Roswell incident is still going on. According to reports, the remains of the craft are still being studied… new statements from witnesses, and the families of witnesses who were previously unwilling to make statements, and ‘afterthoughts’ from some of the military personnel involved in the cover-up present in the following pages rather convincing proof that this crash of a space ship was definitely not a mass delusion but an actual event.”
About the suggestion that the ‘saucer’ was actually just a Skyhook balloon, they note, “C.B. Moore, aerologist and physicist [said]….: ‘The Skyhooks resulted from the Navy’s 1946 Project Helios, designed originally to launch human scientists to high altitudes to make scientific measurements… The project was initially classified ‘Confidential’ just so public information on them could be controlled.’ … When asked whether the Roswell device might have been a weather or other scientific balloon, Moore replied, ‘…I can definitely rule this out. There wasn’t a balloon in use back in ’47… that could have produced debris over such a large area … I have no idea of that such an object might have been, but I can’t believe a balloon would fit such a description.’” (Pg. 40-41)
They say of the book ‘Behind the Flying Saucers’ by Frank Scully, “[he] based his information on the original report of a saucer crash in New Mexico and the alleged recovery of the ship and the dead bodies of its alien crew by the U.S. military. It appears, perhaps because of his haste to finish the book while the subject was ‘hot,’ that Scully rushed into print without sufficient checking … his book, although financially successful, was highly inaccurate and was soon ‘shot down’ factually by the Air Force because of discrepancies in his research and incorrect information… Even so, Mrs. Frank Scully, widow of the writer, interviewed by Bill Moore … [in] 1979, steadfastly maintained that the basic story behind her husband’s book was correct and that he had been vilified because of it---particularly by J.P. Cahn, a ‘most unscrupulous journalist from San Francisco’ who may have been paid off to do ‘the hatchet job’ on Scully… Cahn’s condemnation of Scully’s story… leans heavily upon the fact that at least two of Scully’s informants were unscrupulous confidence men who were up to their ears in land fraud… It is interesting to note, however, that virtually all of the book’s detractors seem to have been content to rely on … Cahn’s somewhat questionable assumption that land fraud was automatically proof of saucer fraud.” (Pg. 50-52)
The reproduce an article stating, “The authors publish this (unfortunately poor quality) photocopy and the accompanying artist’s interpretation without comment about whether it may or may not pertain to certain significant aspects of the Roswell incident… an unnamed informant turned the original of this photograph over to … the FBI Field Office claiming he had purchased the photograph from another individual… and was ‘placing it in the hands of the government’ because it pictured ‘a man from mars in the United States.’ The picture, which purports to show an alien survivor of a UFO crash in the custody of two U.S. military policemen, reportedly first surfaced … in the late 1940s allegedly in the possession of a U.S. FI stationed there at the time. How he came into possession of such a picture remains unclear…” (Pg. 115)
They conclude, “The increasingly obvious presence of UFOs over the continents and oceans of earth give us cause to reflect on the use we may make of our great advances in science developed in the last century and possibly now getting out of hand. Many motives have been ascribed to the senders or occupants of UFOs, mostly concerned with attack, exploitation, reconnaissance for conquest, capture of human specimens, or planned future occupation of the earth, all of which mirror our own images of how WE would react in their place. But, possibly because of the anger we represent to ourselves and our surroundings, there may be another explanation. Perhaps what we call UFOs are part of a design---or message---whose meaning may become clear to us, one hopes, while there is still time.” (Pg. 170)
This book started much of the modern craze about Roswell, and will be of interest to some who are studying that topic (although Kevin Randle and Stanton Friedman have written much better books on the topic).
Charles Frambach Berlitz (1913-2003) was an author specializing is occultic/supernatural topics. William (‘Bill’) L. Moore (born 1943) is a ufologist (involved in Roswell, MJ-12, etc.) who, at a 1989 MUFON conference, claimed that he had been engaged by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations to spread ‘disinformation.’
They wrote in the Introduction to this 1980 book, “According to UFO legend, an extraterrestrial spaceship crashed in New Mexico in the early days of July 1947… What is different about this case, however, is the vitality of this one single incident and its continuing developments in scientific, government, and legal circles. At the time this book goes to press a civil action has been brought by … Citizens Against UFO Secrecy… against the CIA for the purpose of releasing information about crashed UFOs in accord with the Freedom of Information Act… Among the charges… are suppression of media information, withholding of files, muzzling of witnesses, and, in general, hiding information through the use of now unnecessary security classification…
“The Roswell incident is still going on. According to reports, the remains of the craft are still being studied… new statements from witnesses, and the families of witnesses who were previously unwilling to make statements, and ‘afterthoughts’ from some of the military personnel involved in the cover-up present in the following pages rather convincing proof that this crash of a space ship was definitely not a mass delusion but an actual event.”
About the suggestion that the ‘saucer’ was actually just a Skyhook balloon, they note, “C.B. Moore, aerologist and physicist [said]….: ‘The Skyhooks resulted from the Navy’s 1946 Project Helios, designed originally to launch human scientists to high altitudes to make scientific measurements… The project was initially classified ‘Confidential’ just so public information on them could be controlled.’ … When asked whether the Roswell device might have been a weather or other scientific balloon, Moore replied, ‘…I can definitely rule this out. There wasn’t a balloon in use back in ’47… that could have produced debris over such a large area … I have no idea of that such an object might have been, but I can’t believe a balloon would fit such a description.’” (Pg. 40-41)
They say of the book ‘Behind the Flying Saucers’ by Frank Scully, “[he] based his information on the original report of a saucer crash in New Mexico and the alleged recovery of the ship and the dead bodies of its alien crew by the U.S. military. It appears, perhaps because of his haste to finish the book while the subject was ‘hot,’ that Scully rushed into print without sufficient checking … his book, although financially successful, was highly inaccurate and was soon ‘shot down’ factually by the Air Force because of discrepancies in his research and incorrect information… Even so, Mrs. Frank Scully, widow of the writer, interviewed by Bill Moore … [in] 1979, steadfastly maintained that the basic story behind her husband’s book was correct and that he had been vilified because of it---particularly by J.P. Cahn, a ‘most unscrupulous journalist from San Francisco’ who may have been paid off to do ‘the hatchet job’ on Scully… Cahn’s condemnation of Scully’s story… leans heavily upon the fact that at least two of Scully’s informants were unscrupulous confidence men who were up to their ears in land fraud… It is interesting to note, however, that virtually all of the book’s detractors seem to have been content to rely on … Cahn’s somewhat questionable assumption that land fraud was automatically proof of saucer fraud.” (Pg. 50-52)
The reproduce an article stating, “The authors publish this (unfortunately poor quality) photocopy and the accompanying artist’s interpretation without comment about whether it may or may not pertain to certain significant aspects of the Roswell incident… an unnamed informant turned the original of this photograph over to … the FBI Field Office claiming he had purchased the photograph from another individual… and was ‘placing it in the hands of the government’ because it pictured ‘a man from mars in the United States.’ The picture, which purports to show an alien survivor of a UFO crash in the custody of two U.S. military policemen, reportedly first surfaced … in the late 1940s allegedly in the possession of a U.S. FI stationed there at the time. How he came into possession of such a picture remains unclear…” (Pg. 115)
They conclude, “The increasingly obvious presence of UFOs over the continents and oceans of earth give us cause to reflect on the use we may make of our great advances in science developed in the last century and possibly now getting out of hand. Many motives have been ascribed to the senders or occupants of UFOs, mostly concerned with attack, exploitation, reconnaissance for conquest, capture of human specimens, or planned future occupation of the earth, all of which mirror our own images of how WE would react in their place. But, possibly because of the anger we represent to ourselves and our surroundings, there may be another explanation. Perhaps what we call UFOs are part of a design---or message---whose meaning may become clear to us, one hopes, while there is still time.” (Pg. 170)
This book started much of the modern craze about Roswell, and will be of interest to some who are studying that topic (although Kevin Randle and Stanton Friedman have written much better books on the topic).
March 1, 2012
This is the first book I've read on the Roswell Incident and it was very informative without being boring. I couldn't put it down! These authors did some great research and conducted some very interesting interviews. If you are a fan of all things extra-terrestrial, you will like this book. Short, sweet, and gets right to the point.
June 18, 2024
[Overall Score: ••4.5-4.8••]
This review might hold some bias. Technically, this is my second UFO book that I've read (if you count "Behold A Pale Horse" as a UFO book). Which I do not. However, the term "Roswell Incident" is the perfect wording for what happened back in 1947.
Like many Americans, I had little understanding of what actually happened in Roswell. For instance, I had no idea there were 2 crash sites. Nor did I know that their were reported bodies found (meaning multiple occupants of the craft). Furthermore, I had no idea about about weather balloons, meaning that back in 47' on a national scale, only 2 types of weather balloons were being used or in common place. Additionally, a glaring fact which many overlook when examinating Area-51 from a quick glance, is why was there parchment paper in the wreckage of a weather balloon?
The number of witnesses, the correlation between witnesses in terms of testimony is quite alarming. Everyone can't be lying. In these moments, someone is telling the truth. Again, I keep getting hung up on all the weather balloon facts, because many people in the area turned them in for economic gain (a finders fee if you will). So the people who saw the wreckage sites, they would know what a crashed weather balloon looked like versus a mile long stretch of metal wreckage.
I feel any believer or non-believer needs to read this book. I'm sure there are counterclaims and some 'facts' have been proven false, since this novel was written. On a literary front, I don't see a lot of complaints with this novel. To this reviewer, the only downside is at times, the writer's get on a tangents like "moon base's" and their own postulation or their citing other books. However, as a journalistic piece, this is an amazing read and so entertaining.
I don't believe all of it. But there are too many testimonials to claim it's all a lie and nothing but a weather balloon. For instance, their suggestion that President Eisenhower witnessed the wreckage and just... kept quiet. On one hand, it helps support his "military industrial complex" speech and idea, but it also seems like prying from the general public, wanting to know what their leader is up to 24/7.
If you find it, read it! This is the kind of the stuff we as a populous need to talk about and investigate more. With all this flat earth, hollow earth, simulated earth, all theories seem to run counter to this book. Something happened in Roswell! This book and research is proof of that! How many people can you say is lying? Hundreds of people are lying? Also, I did not know there were UFO sightings (30 or so sightings), in the area surrounding the 'White Sands Proving Ground'; a week prior to the Roswell incident.
Even if this was all a military operation or 'test flight', it's still of public interest and to have a soundless engine? Now and days, such an idea sounds less peculiar than it did in the 1940's. It's such a fantastic read. It's at times imaginative, I won't lie, but it's also so factual that they play so well together! I've never been so persuaded by "opinions" or "suggestions" in thought after reading a 170 page book. It might be a yarn but God it's fun!
Pick it up! Talk about to everyone you know! Cause honestly if everyone stormed the Roswell base... we wouldn't find a thing! Except mock, back engineered UFO-stlyed aircrafts (and or spacecraft). I say this cause this book suggests everything got shipped out of Roswell almost as soon as it crashed, which seems so likely and possible. Much like how this book reads.
This review might hold some bias. Technically, this is my second UFO book that I've read (if you count "Behold A Pale Horse" as a UFO book). Which I do not. However, the term "Roswell Incident" is the perfect wording for what happened back in 1947.
Like many Americans, I had little understanding of what actually happened in Roswell. For instance, I had no idea there were 2 crash sites. Nor did I know that their were reported bodies found (meaning multiple occupants of the craft). Furthermore, I had no idea about about weather balloons, meaning that back in 47' on a national scale, only 2 types of weather balloons were being used or in common place. Additionally, a glaring fact which many overlook when examinating Area-51 from a quick glance, is why was there parchment paper in the wreckage of a weather balloon?
The number of witnesses, the correlation between witnesses in terms of testimony is quite alarming. Everyone can't be lying. In these moments, someone is telling the truth. Again, I keep getting hung up on all the weather balloon facts, because many people in the area turned them in for economic gain (a finders fee if you will). So the people who saw the wreckage sites, they would know what a crashed weather balloon looked like versus a mile long stretch of metal wreckage.
I feel any believer or non-believer needs to read this book. I'm sure there are counterclaims and some 'facts' have been proven false, since this novel was written. On a literary front, I don't see a lot of complaints with this novel. To this reviewer, the only downside is at times, the writer's get on a tangents like "moon base's" and their own postulation or their citing other books. However, as a journalistic piece, this is an amazing read and so entertaining.
I don't believe all of it. But there are too many testimonials to claim it's all a lie and nothing but a weather balloon. For instance, their suggestion that President Eisenhower witnessed the wreckage and just... kept quiet. On one hand, it helps support his "military industrial complex" speech and idea, but it also seems like prying from the general public, wanting to know what their leader is up to 24/7.
If you find it, read it! This is the kind of the stuff we as a populous need to talk about and investigate more. With all this flat earth, hollow earth, simulated earth, all theories seem to run counter to this book. Something happened in Roswell! This book and research is proof of that! How many people can you say is lying? Hundreds of people are lying? Also, I did not know there were UFO sightings (30 or so sightings), in the area surrounding the 'White Sands Proving Ground'; a week prior to the Roswell incident.
Even if this was all a military operation or 'test flight', it's still of public interest and to have a soundless engine? Now and days, such an idea sounds less peculiar than it did in the 1940's. It's such a fantastic read. It's at times imaginative, I won't lie, but it's also so factual that they play so well together! I've never been so persuaded by "opinions" or "suggestions" in thought after reading a 170 page book. It might be a yarn but God it's fun!
Pick it up! Talk about to everyone you know! Cause honestly if everyone stormed the Roswell base... we wouldn't find a thing! Except mock, back engineered UFO-stlyed aircrafts (and or spacecraft). I say this cause this book suggests everything got shipped out of Roswell almost as soon as it crashed, which seems so likely and possible. Much like how this book reads.
December 5, 2023
All of the first and second hand accounts in this story were interesting and ones I hadn't heard about before. I've always said, I don't believe the government would just swoop in to take away or hide something if there wasn't some truth to it. The fact that a lot of higher up people, who were willing to discuss things they'd seen or heard prior to being reprimanded, then instantly clammed up and refused to acknowledge it further says something. It could all be a hoax, but the general consensus of what happened and how things looked across multiple people and multiple states I feel gives more weight. I mean, I believe anyway, and I know it's "technically" confirmed now, but I think for the time the book was written, it presents everything well and mostly unbiased, but maybe that's my own personal bias showing
October 23, 2024
"Roswellin lentävän lautasen arvoitus" on erinomaisen vaikea kirja arvostella. Tietokirjana teos on melko tyypillinen ufo-kirjallisuuden edustaja: eri tarinoista on valittu hurjimmat versiot ja niistä villeimmät yksityiskohdat, jotka sitten ensin esitetään ikäänkuin ottamatta kantaa niiden oikeellisuuteen mutta sitten niiden päälle rakennetaan kuitenkin pitkälle meneviä päättelyketjuja.
Berlitzin ja Mooren teoksen kiinnostavuus ei kuitenkaan ole sen esittämissä väitteissä vaan teoksessa itsessään. Tämä kirja nimittäin teki tarinan Roswellissa maahan syöksyneestä lentävästä lautasesta osan modernia mytologiaa. Siinä mielessä kirja on kiinnostavaa luettavaa sekä väitteidensä (esim. aluksesta väitetysti löytyneet avaruusolennot eivät vastaa nykyistä käsitystämme, joka on syntynyt Hillian abduktiotarinasta) ja viranomaisia koskevien asenteidensa ja oletustensa suhteen.
Berlitzin ja Mooren teoksen kiinnostavuus ei kuitenkaan ole sen esittämissä väitteissä vaan teoksessa itsessään. Tämä kirja nimittäin teki tarinan Roswellissa maahan syöksyneestä lentävästä lautasesta osan modernia mytologiaa. Siinä mielessä kirja on kiinnostavaa luettavaa sekä väitteidensä (esim. aluksesta väitetysti löytyneet avaruusolennot eivät vastaa nykyistä käsitystämme, joka on syntynyt Hillian abduktiotarinasta) ja viranomaisia koskevien asenteidensa ja oletustensa suhteen.
September 28, 2024
Intellectually dishonest. There is no forensic evidence. Most of the anecdotal evidence is second or even third hand. Quoted 'experts' have an undeclared vested in UFOlogy (and psychic phenomena). The latter chapters deal with allegations of alien bodies found in crashed spaceships even though this has nothing to do with whatever happened at Roswell and derives from rumours started by a pair of men subsequently convicted of fraud.
An textbook example of how rhetoric can be used to fool the gullible.
An textbook example of how rhetoric can be used to fool the gullible.
May 28, 2023
c1980 - November 22, 1914 – December 18, 2003). Berlitz spent 13 years on active duty in the U.S. Army, mostly in intelligence. Also, a world-renowned linguist. This book broadly covers the debate that the original debris, which Berlitz believed was from a crashed flying saucer, had been flown to Wright Field (later Wright-Patterson Air Force Base) near Dayton, Ohio, and material from a weather balloon was “hastily substituted.”
July 2, 2023
Since 1947 Roswell keeps us fascinated. Did there really an UFO crash? What really happened? Was it a weather balloon that was found? What did witnesses say before everything was covered up by the government. Interesting read from the 80s on a subject that didn't loose any of its interest. Some fine black and white photos inside and of course all the theories you'd expect. Page turning read, recommended!
January 10, 2024
It was the first full book on the Roswell incident, it opened a new phase on Ufology, but it was still sketchy, because it was the beginning of the research. Crash at Corona and Witness to Roswell are way more complete. You can completely ignore this one unless you are a historian, then it is well worth. Still the book is a easy read and can be bought cheaply. Considering through this angle is quite a good thing.
June 1, 2018
This was an interesting read on an endlessly fascinating subject. The book often draws some very wild conclusions but does so in ways that let you draw your own conclusions. There is a lot of very interesting information in this book but I feel like you need a bit of a feel for the facts versus wild imagination. Definitely worth reading if you find the topic interesting.
February 17, 2022
Mostly rumor, he-said-she-said, speculation, hearsay, conjecture, and “we talked to a guy who lived next to someone who said they once met an Air Force pilot who worked at the base when the aliens were brought in.”
Not likely to be add much credibility to the debate.
Not likely to be add much credibility to the debate.
June 10, 2025
3.5 rounded...
I was really hesitant to read this because I'd just heard so much negative about it. But once I finally decided to try it, I easily read it in a day. A lot of this I already knew, and lines up with other accounts I've read, so I don't really get the issue people have with it.
I was really hesitant to read this because I'd just heard so much negative about it. But once I finally decided to try it, I easily read it in a day. A lot of this I already knew, and lines up with other accounts I've read, so I don't really get the issue people have with it.
October 17, 2017
Kuvitettu arvio kirjasta allekirjoittaneen blogissa: anttisorri.wordpress.com/2017/10/17/k...
July 14, 2020
DNF - niet mijn type boek. Documentaire
August 2, 2020
Read in 1980. Author examines reports of UFO's in Roswell , N.M. in 1947. Interesting.
January 3, 2021
It’s an easy and simple read on the subject, but many info seems not reliable (hearsay/rumors level) and impossible to verify.
January 10, 2021
Classic, fun, and a bit out there but I loved that about it.
Read
November 29, 2021Very good book. I highly recommend it!
Read
April 9, 2022if you think coverups thisis the book.
September 29, 2024
I like believing
November 21, 2024
Older tome, but very good information regardless. Highly recommend.
January 1, 2015
I’ve always had a fascination for UFO’s and this classic book reporting the supposed alien crash at Roswell, New Mexico in 1947 is a fun read. The authors have pieced together a large number of facts which weave into a convincing story. Add to that the body of testimony from a number of very credible witnesses and it’s almost enough to make one believe that this really happened.
February 1, 2013
A classic UFO novel tracing the craft and occupants from the July 1947 crash up through 1979. My favorite part was learning about President Eisenhower's trip to see the bodies and how he had to tell the press that he went out for a cap on his tooth.
February 7, 2019
Excellent book. While there are plenty of pictures and documents, this is the type of story that leaves me thinking,"could this really be true?". A very compelling example of an encounter of some sort that actually occurred in Roswell, NM that day. I hope one day there will be more truth to come
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