Sixty six years ago yesterday the public learned that a top secret balloon designed to detect sonic waves produced by Soviet nuclear tests had crashed into the New Mexico desert outside a little town called Roswell. However, the local paper -- the Roswell Daily Record --  reported something somewhat different in response to several eye-witness reports. The U.S. Army Air Corps had recovered an alien flying saucer and the remains of multiple extraterrestrials who had presumably been piloting the craft. The 8 July 1947 newspaper article, describing events that had occurred on the 7th, form the foundation of one of the defining cornerstones of the global conspiracy and UFO movment: the Roswell UFO incident. The U.S. Air Force has repeatedly asserted in the years since that there has been no cover-up, and that no extraterrestrial material, craft, or creatures were recovered in July 1947. And honestly, they may be right. But for the purposes of building your game of history, conspiracy, or extra-terrestrial action, it doesn't matter: something happened in Roswell, New Mexico. Pick a truth and run with it: any game of Cold War intrigue could refer to the incident, regardless of whether the "real" Roswell crash site contained a saucer or a balloon.

So Many Roswells

Even in the conspiracy field there are a lot of versions of the Roswell incident to choose from, with the Alien Spacecraft angle being by far the most common. Joseph P. Farrell has asserted in a couple of his books that there was a saucer crash in 1947, but the pilots were entirely human: at least as human as any Nazi. Farrell (and a few others) believe that the Nazi Wunderwaffe was enormously (and secretly) successful in the latter years of World War II. Honestly, this is tough to beat if you're looking for a pulpy post-War Nazi bash, particularly because you can easily tie the Nazi saucer crash to the mysterious (and similarly popular with conspiracy theorists) Operation: Highjump, a military sweep led by Admiral Richard Byrd targeting the secret Nazi redoubt in Antarctica which began six months earlier. Your call on whether this also related to the ancient Vimana UFOs flown by the forces of Aghartha in the Hollow Earth. (Hint: Yes. Always yes.)

Technology to Mysticism

But that's not even the only way to go all ancient mystery on Roswell. You can even ignore the Anasazi Indian Tribes' mythically cosmic origins and skip right to kabbalistic numerology. In the Hebrew Gematria, "Roswell" equals 1165, which gives us "glowing orb" (the craft itself?) "lightning from heaven" (the import of the event or perhaps one of the factors that caused the crash), "skinwalker" (a description of one of the unrecovered occupants?), "the false savior" (the Air Force? The Government? The Pleiadian Space Brothers?) and -- mysteriously-- "the eleventh path."

1947, meanwhile, gives us the cosmically suggestive "who art in heaven," the humorous but decidedly extraterrestrial "beautiful and anatomically perfect Nordic Pleiadians," the sinister "the servants of corruption," and (of course) "there are multiple universes" if you want your Roswell event to suggest ultra- (rather than extra-) terrestrial invasion. Maybe most interesting? 1947 also gives us "The Book Of Revelation Chapter Six" (emphasis mine):

6 I watched as the Lamb opened the first of the seven seals. Then I heard one of the four living creatures say in a voice like thunder, “Come!” 2 I looked, and there before me was a white horse! Its rider held a bow, and he was given a crown, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest.

3 When the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make people kill each other. To him was given a large sword.

5 When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come!” I looked, and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. 6 Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, “Two pounds of wheat for a day’s wages, and six pounds of barley for a day’s wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!”

7 When the Lamb opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, “Come!”8 I looked, and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.

9 When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. 10 They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” 11 Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the full number of their fellow servants, their brothers and sisters, were killed just as they had been.

12 I watched as he opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red, 13 and the stars in the sky fell to earth, as figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind. 14 The heavens receded like a scroll being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place.

15 Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and everyone else, both slave and free, hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. 16 They called to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! 17 For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can withstand it?”

Spooky, huh?

You've got a fistfull of Roswells to choose from. So which one is your favorite?