Roswell UFO a Russian craft, author asserts

May 24, 2011|Associated Press

ROSWELL, N.M. — The world-famous Roswell incident was no UFO but rather a Russian spacecraft with child-size aviators developed in human experiments by the Nazi doctor and war criminal Josef Mengele, according to a theory floated by investigative journalist Annie Jacobsen.

Her book, “Area 51: An Uncensored History of America’s Top Secret Military Base,’’ is about the secretive Nevada base called Area 51. One chapter offers the new Roswell theory, citing an anonymous source who said Joseph Stalin recruited Mengele and sent the craft into US air space in 1947 to spark public hysteria.

Like past theories, Jacobsen writes that the US government was involved in a coverup of the UFO report, which has spawned space alien legend and turned this southern New Mexico town into a tourist attraction.

Bill Lyne, who self-published a book called “Space Aliens from the Pentagon’’ in 1993, agrees that the Roswell incident was faked, but he thinks the hoax was perpetrated by the US government — not the Russians.

“They’re just saying what I’ve been saying all along, that it was a hoax,’’ he told the Santa Fe New Mexican. “But that Mengele stuff is a bunch of hogwash because Mengele was recruited by the CIA (rather than the Russians), and he was actually brought to Albuquerque.’’

Jacobsen, a contributing editor the Los Angeles Times magazine, told NPR that said she knows people will be skeptical.

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