Col. Philip J. Corso, (Ret.), with William J. Birnes. The Day After Roswell. 1997.

Science fiction?

My best friend's grandparents were in New Mexico and 1947 and they are convinced that the rumored UFO crash and cover-up near Roswell actually took place. Of course, they drink too much. But who was I, a stranger in New Mexico, to argue that such a thing could never have taken place? And how would I argue that point anyway? It didn't happen because I don't believe it? It didn't happen because if it did then certainly I would have heard of it?

If I concerned myself with such questions like whether this nonfiction book, published by Simon and Schuster, written by a retired army general, with an introduction by a US senator, were factual, I'd be in a conundrum. Because if an alien spacecraft did crash in New Mexico in 1947, such an event might stand as one of the most important in human history, an event kept secret from the human race for reasons of national security. If the scientific community were allowed open access to the remnants of this crash, our understanding of the universe could be substantially magnified. On the other hand, if this book is all bullshit, then why was it written and published? And, again, if it is true, then why didn't Simon and Schuster do a better job copy editing and marketing it? Luckily, I am able not to worry about such trivial considerations as veracity and can appraise this book for its literary value, on a par with Pale Fire as a work of experimental fiction.

In this book, retired Army Colonel Philip J. Corso talks about how, in the 1960s, he was in charge of an above-Top-Secret program to use artifacts from a flying saucer crash to seed weapons research. He claims there have been many visits by extraterrestrials, and that the cold war was a cover for an arms race whose main purpose was to defend the earth against flying saucers.

Presumably this is no longer top secret, so why aren't we hearing more about the threat posed by EBEs (Extraterrestrial Biological Entities) eg LGMs (little Green Men) in the post-Cold-War urgency to find a new foe? A war on drugs or terrorism is nothing compared to the war on alien cattle mutilators.

The sensationalistic and blurbless cover and introduction by Strom Thurmond do absolutely nothing for the book's credibility. Yet the author does not seem insane. Why on earth would anybody write a hoax like this, explaining in painful detail how the government's flying saucer program got swamped in bureaucratic mismanagement and interagency rivalry? Is this book nonsense?

My sense it that the publisher published it because they believed they could sell it, but had little respect for the book's audience. I guess that's me.

"There are no more Pork Chop Hills, Phil" (251)