UFO Report

Re “AF ‘Final’ UFO Report Stirs New Skepticism,” June 25:

About the Air Force report, “The Roswell Incident, Case Closed,” I don’t think for one minute that the Air Force believes that its final report on the Roswell UFO and bug-eyed aliens folk tales will put them to rest.

There’s a cottage industry based on the Roswell myth. A few hustlers, exploiting the gullibility, fears and space-fantasy appetite of a sizable segment of the population, are making money peddling lore. They are not going to allow the Air Force to eliminate their business niche with a report.

To the contrary, by closing the case, the Air Force has breathed 50 more years of life--and business--into the Roswell space aliens myth.

JOHN M. FRETER

Yucca Valley

* The Air Forces explanation of the UFO incident in Roswell, N.M., sounds a lot like the “single bullet theory”--highly implausible.

CHRIS EDWARDS

Los Angeles

* Fifty years ago this summer I was fresh out of high school and happy to be working on the King Ranch in South Texas. Humble Oil Co. was continually exploring for new sources of oil and my brother, Dewey, and I were on a seismograph crew shooting on the mainland, on South Padre Island and on Laguna Madre in between. We’d work long hours for four days during the week and have three days off for the weekend to go north into Kingsville or Corpus Christi.

The first reports of flying saucers were recent that summer, and more were reported on the radio and in the newspapers often. One Saturday our camp cook, Billy, called the Corpus Christi newspaper and reported that we had seen something strange out on the King Ranch. He reported that although we hadn’t seen a flying saucer, we had instead seen a soup bowl go by with what looked like spoons for wings. I suspect that this was one of the earliest of many thousands of UFO reports.

DON PAYNE

Anaheim

* So, after 50 years we finally have an explanation! The people who thought they saw aliens at Roswell in 1947 were actually seeing dummies dropped from balloons in 1954.

Aliens and UFOs do not exist, but time travel does!

DON WEINMAN