Something strange fell out of the sky and crashed on a ranch near Roswell in July 1947. The ranch foreman was the first to see the scattered debris. Upon examining the material, he alerted the Roswell sheriff about his find, who then contacted the military at nearby Roswell Army Air Field, home of the 509th Bomb Group. What happened next has been clouded by a fog of mystery.

Intelligence officer Maj. Jesse Marcel was sent to the debris field with a clear assignment: Collect the material and bring it back to base. The officer described the shiny wreckage as a super-resistant tinfoil and metallic-looking I-beams.

“The most unusual part of that was the symbols or writing on the inner surface,” Marcel Jr. previously told reporters. “I thought, at first, it was like Egyptian hieroglyphics, but when I looked closer, it seemed more like geometric symbols of some kind, it was very strange,” he added.

News of the incident spread quickly, and on July 8, 1947, the Roswell Army Air Field issued a press release indicating that the military had recovered a crashed flying saucer. However, just as quickly as that story emerged, it was retracted when a second press release claimed that the debris was, in fact, from a weather balloon… or was it?

As the story grew over the years, some unanswered questions have remained and the government is unable, or unwilling to answer. Recent polls show that over 80 percent of Americans think the government is hiding information about the existence of alien life forms, and nearly two-thirds of the poll respondents believed that a UFO crashed outside Roswell in 1947.

After the 4th of July celebration, a three-day Roswell UFO Festival marks the 66th anniversary of a flying saucer legend that made the New Mexico town forever synonymous with alien conspiracies. Experts from around the world will gather to try to answer some of these unanswered questions that continue to surround the 1947 Roswell UFO crash incident:

1. If the crash site debris wasn’t really a weather balloon, as the military claims, what exactly crashed there in 1947? Was it an extraterrestrial craft?

2. The military issued a press release about a captured flying saucer, then suddenly changed the story from flying saucer to weather balloon. Why?

3. If the military switched materials that Maj. Marcel brought back from the debris field, where did the real stuff end up?

4. The military hired a local Roswell mortician to make child-sized caskets following the UFO debris retrieval. Why?

5. Why did Jesse Marcel Sr. wait more than 30 years to finally reveal his part in the Roswell UFO incident?

There are more than enough stories, claims, accusations and allegations to keep the legend alive. But you have to wonder, if in fact an alien ship crashed in Roswell, why would the U.S. government want to cover up such a monumental event?

Please share your thoughts in the comment section below!