supported calls for a public inquiry (Mullin, 1995:2–3). Evidence of sustained government interest is frequently cited in support of the claim that ‘there must be something in these reports’. Yet observations have frequently been explained in terms of natural phenomena or a human origin. Witnesses have been shown to be unreliable. The photographs and other evidence could have been of other sources than spacecraft, for example natural phenomena or hoaxes. So far there is no evidence that governments have any knowledge about UFOs other than rumour.

Evidence for CE2s is also problematic and controversial. There are on record at least twenty-eight reports of UFO crashes between 1942 and 1978 (Bord and Bord, 1992: 69). They are usually reported to have taken place in deserts and remote jungles, such as the Sahara Desert, the Bolivian jungle and uninhabited parts of New Mexico and Arizona. Reports of military cover-ups frequently accompany these alleged ‘crashes’. One often cited example came from Roswell, New Mexico. On 2 July 1947 there was a report from an isolated ranch, some thirty miles from the nearest town, concerning a crashed UFO. Later reports suggested that four alien bodies had been recovered near the wrecks. Witnesses and various reports claimed that alien bodies were taken to Area 51, an unacknowledged test site in Nevada. An early press release said that a flying disc had been recovered, but this was later denied in an official statement which said that it was two weather balloons. But military interest and a veil of secrecy encouraged the belief that it was an alien spacecraft. It was also argued that the military were concerned to maintain a high security cordon because the object was an experimental launching of a German V-2 rocket that had gone astray.

The case for public disclosure of the Roswell incident was eventually taken up by the New Mexico Congressman, Steven Schiff. In response the Air Force produced a report in 1994, which acknowledged that the wreckage did not come from a weather balloon, and that this had been an earlier cover-up story. In fact, said the report, it was a top secret Pentagon balloon designed to detect sound waves produced by Soviet nuclear explosions. In a report in the New Scientist Richard Weaver, Director of Security at the Air Force, said: ‘This research indicated absolutely no evidence of any kind that a spaceship crashed near Roswell or that any alien occupants were recovered therefrom’ (cited by Pearce, 1994: 4). The same article also quoted Walter Haut of the UFO museum near Roswell, who saw the Air Force Report as a ‘straight continuation of the cover up’ and maintained that the alien technology is so advanced that government officials do not want to admit that it exists. Still unsatisfied with the Air Force’s report, Congressman Steven Schiff requested a search of government files relating to the incident by the General Accounting Office (GAO). Schiff believed that the Air Force may have concealed information. In August 1995, the GAO reported that while they saw nothing to contradict the Air Force’s earlier examination, they did discover that some government reports from that time have been destroyed (Kiernan, 1995: 10).

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In 1996 Channel 4 TV broadcast a film of a post-mortem performed upon four alleged alien bodies recovered from the Roswell wreckage. In the same programme witnesses claimed to have identified four aliens at the scene of the crash. The film of the post-mortem was allegedly shot by a US cameraman. This film appeared in London in 1995, but to date no meeting has been held between Channel 4 TV and the elusive cameraman. Moreover, no sample of film is available for laboratory testing which could determine the year of exposure and processing. In July 1997, on the 50th anniversary of the incident, the Pentagon published the results of a four-year multi-million dollar investigation into the Roswell incident, Roswell Case Closed, which says that the wreckage was of a high altitude balloon with four life-sized dummies which simulated parachute drops. This was part of the US Army’s ‘Operation Mogul’, devised to detect Soviet nuclear tests in the upper atmosphere.

None of the accounts so far offered to explain the Roswell incident have produced enough evidence to rule out rival explanations. While the Pentagon insists that it has quashed all rumours, a poll conducted in 1997 indicated that 65 per cent of Americans believe that a UFO crashed outside the town of Roswell. The Army press officer who originally issued the release on 8 July 1942, later told ABC news that: ‘any dummy knows what a dummy looks like and those weren’t dummies’ (The Times, 25 June 1997: 15). So controversy and speculation continue. Nevertheless, if an alien spacecraft had crashed and this had been  followed by a government ‘cover-up’, then it is likely that someone would have leaked the story by now. But then – would anyone believe them? Leaks do not convince sceptics, who can simply dismiss them as disinformation programmes. At the heart of the Roswell case is a gut feeling of scepticism exhibited by American people towards the pronouncements of their government and  the  scientists who serve it.

One piece of evidence of alien visitors which might be relevant is the discovery of a skull in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in 1991, of which Sh. B. Begaliev, Head Physician at the Panfilovski Regional Hospital said, ‘belonged to a creature with a highly developed intellect, but of non-human origin’ (Lebedev, 1991: 70). This opinion was based on ‘the large volume of the cerebral hemispheres, and the fact that there were no normal eye-sockets or nasal holes’, and a low volume of calcium in the bone structure (ibid.: 70). Like many others of this kind, reports of further and more comprehensive investigations do not appear in UFO literature.

Reports of CE3s and CE4s are numerous throughout the world and an annual compilation has been provided by Timothy Good (1991, 1992, 1993a). But much of the evidence is frustrating, despite the fact that many reports have more than one witness. Witnesses are frequently held to have been momentarily paralysed by the EBEs, or their recording equipment damaged, such that hard evidence is unavailable. There also appear to be significant cultural variations in these reports, suggesting the influence of terrestrial concerns. For example, during the 1950s and 1960s interactions were reported to be friendly, but during the past

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