Later that day, the base released a second statement. It said that the first story was a mistake. The crashed object was in fact a weather balloon. But was it? Were the authorities covering something up? Soon there were stories of a second crash site about 100 miles west of Roswell. An engineer named Grady Barnett said he was working in the desert when he saw a large metal disk on the ground. Scattered around the crumpled disk were five small, gray bodies. They appeared to be dead. As Grady stood staring, a military vehicle drove up.

An officer jumped out. He told Grady to leave at once and, more importantly, never speak about what he had seen. As he was hustled away, Grady glanced over his shoulder. One of the creatures seemed to open an eye and look back at him. Grady Barnett said later that the bodies were “like humans, but they were not humans.” They were small, with spindly arms and legs. Their heads were large, with sunken eyes and no teeth. In the fifty years since the actual event, various witnesses have came forward with bizarre stories about the aliens. Some claim the alien bodies were taken to the Roswell Air Force Base.

One story told how doctors at the Roswell Hospital had been ordered on duty at short notice. The shocked doctors were told to cut open and examine the bodies of the dead aliens in a procedure called an autopsy. When the bodies were cut open, a terrible smell filled the room. Several doctors became sick to carry on. The story took another twist in the 1990s, when videotape was released. The film was supposed to date from 1947 and show the alien autopsy. But many people believe that the film is a fake and the autopsy never happened.

The Roswell legend has continued to grow. New details have been added, including a rumor that aliens bodies were frozen in ice and kept at a top-secret air force base called Area 51. It seems certain that something did crash at Roswell in 1947. Does the air force know more than it is telling? We may never know.