The Day After Roswell
Encyclopedia
Roswell UFO incident
The Roswell UFO Incident was the recovery of an object that crashed in the general vicinity of Roswell, New Mexico, in June or July 1947, allegedly an extra-terrestrial spacecraft and its alien occupants. Since the late 1970s the incident has been the subject of intense controversy and of...
. It was written by the late United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
Colonel Philip J. Corso
Philip J. Corso
Philip J. Corso was an American Army officer.He served in the United States Army from February 23, 1942, to March 1, 1963, and earned the rank of Lieutenant Colonel....
, with help from William J. Birnes
William J. Birnes
William J. "Bill" Birnes is an American writer, editor, book publisher and literary rights agent. He is best known as an active publisher of UFO literature and is a New York Times bestselling author. He holds a law degree and received a B.A. from New York University in 1966. Along with detective Dr...
, and was published as a tell-all memoir by Pocket Books
Pocket Books
Pocket Books is a division of Simon & Schuster that primarily publishes paperback books.- History :Pocket produced the first mass-market, pocket-sized paperback books in America in early 1939 and revolutionized the publishing industry...
in 1997, a year before Corso's death. The book claims that an extraterrestrial spacecraft crashed near Roswell, New Mexico
Roswell, New Mexico
Roswell is a city in and the county seat of Chaves County in the southeastern quarter of the state of New Mexico, United States. The population was 48,366 at the 2010 census. It is a center for irrigation farming, dairying, ranching, manufacturing, distribution, and petroleum production. It is also...
in 1947 and was recovered by the United States government, who then sought a cover up all evidence of extraterrestrials.
The majority of the book is an account of Colonel Corso's claims that he was assigned to a secret government program that provided some material recovered from crashed spacecraft to private industry (without saying where the items came from) to reverse engineer them for corporate use. The book contends that several aspects of modern technology such as fiber optics and computer chips were developed by using information taken from the craft.
Colonel Corso also claims the world was at "war" with extraterrestrials and that the Strategic Defense Initiative
Strategic Defense Initiative
The Strategic Defense Initiative was proposed by U.S. President Ronald Reagan on March 23, 1983 to use ground and space-based systems to protect the United States from attack by strategic nuclear ballistic missiles. The initiative focused on strategic defense rather than the prior strategic...
project was part of that campaign that was successfully concluded in Earth's favour.
The book concludes with reproduction of information about Project Horizon
Project Horizon
Project Horizon was a study to determine the feasibility of constructing a scientific / military base on the Moon. On June 8, 1959, a group at the Army Ballistic Missile Agency produced for the U.S. Department of the Army a report entitled Project Horizon, A U.S. Army Study for the Establishment...
a 1950's US Army plan for bases on the Moon.
Retraction of foreword
When it was released, the book contained a foreword written by Strom ThurmondStrom Thurmond
James Strom Thurmond was an American politician who served as a United States Senator. He also ran for the Presidency of the United States in 1948 as the segregationist States Rights Democratic Party candidate, receiving 2.4% of the popular vote and 39 electoral votes...
, for whom Corso had once served as an aide. Thurmond wrote, "He has many interesting stories to share with individuals interested in military history, espionage and the workings of our Government." The foreword did not mention anything about UFOs, since Thurmond had assumed the book was a straightforward memoir . When he learned about the book's contents, Thurmond asked for his foreword to be retracted, saying, "I know of no such 'cover-up,' and do not believe one existed."
Reception
The book appeared on the New York Times Best Sellers List for several weeks, but received many unfavorable reviews. Publishers Weekly advised, "[Corso's book] is only for the few special libraries that have made documenting the unconventional a collecting priority." In 2001, The GuardianThe Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
included the book in its list of "Top Ten literary hoaxes".