CLICK & DOUBLE CLICK: WHAT REALLY HAPPENED AT ROSWELL? INTERNET OFFERS MANY THEORIES (COLUMN 44)

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It took them 50 years, but the Air Force finally "fessed up."

Roswell wasn't a UFO crash site. There were no alien bodies. It was parachute dummies.

Parachute dummies? Get real. The Air Force announcement has only left more questions. "Case closed," the Air Force insisted in its 231-page report. Forget it.

This week, Teresa Connell joins Click and Double Click as our guest surfer. Teresa is the graphic design editor at the Southeast Missourian, and a member of the SEMissourian.com web staff. She's pinch-hitting for Peggy Scott, who's on maternity leave.

Teresa: Why did it take 50 years to offer such a simple explanation? It kind of makes you wonder.

Joni: The Roswell incident and UFOs in general are hot topics on the Internet this week. Forget Independence Day, unless you're talking about the alien movie.

Teresa: This week is the 50th anniversary of the Roswell incident. We'll try to find out more from the International UFO Museum and Research Center at Roswell.

www.iufomrc.com

It's a non-profit organization in Roswell, N.M., dedicated to providing information on the Roswell incident of 1947 and related information concerning UFO and extraterrestrial phenomena.

Joni: You can read the news reports from the Albuquerque Journal July 6, 8 and 9, 1947. It's enlightening. How could people confuse sightings in 1947 with parachute dummies thrown from the sky in the 1950s?

Teresa: The actual stories printed in 1947 talk about flying discs. A rancher's discovery of a strange object was first identified by an Army public information officer as a flying disc. But three hours later, the official report was changed to an Army weather balloon and its kite. Even then, they didn't know what was going on.

Joni: The government hasn't change much in 50 years. From here, you can also jump off to the Albuquerque Journal's Roswell page, or go there directly.

www.abqjournal.com/roswell/

Teresa: You can read witness stories from six New Mexicans directly affected by the crash. You can also vote on what you think the debris was at the crash site.

Joni: There's also an article about the town, which is expected to get about 50,000 visitors this week during the crash anniversary. They'll have everything from silly costume contests to serious lectures. There's also a media feeding frenzy. The incident made the covers of several major magazines, including the cover and a 10-page spread in Time. The town said the publicity from that spread alone is worth about $2 million. Wow.

Teresa: One tourism spokesman said they were expecting a lot of visitors from out-of-town, way out of town. For more official-sounding explanations, you can read the GAO report on the Roswell incident at

www.roswell.org

It's pretty cool. The following is the complete text of the report to Congressman Steve Schiff about the Roswell incident. It dates back to July 1995.

Joni: This report claims the Roswell "aliens" were actually a radar tracking device, a classified government project designed to determine the state of Soviet nuclear weapons research.

Teresa: It's interesting that they admit some of the documents were destroyed about Roswell and they can't explain what happened. In other words, they acknowledged the records were trashed, but they don't have a clue why.

Joni: This report makes no mention of parachute dummies.

Teresa: It's very detailed. They actually show where they searched for records, such as FBI, Department of Defense, CIA, etc. Congressman Schiff also has an interesting press release about the report.

Joni: The Roswell.org site also discusses some of the controversial "alien" photos and movies.

Joni: Popular Science magazine also takes a look at the Roswell controversy this week. You can take a UFO poll at the site.

www.popsci.com/roswell

Teresa: You can post your own opinion in the Roswell forum. One says, "I was abducted. Yeah, right." A bunch say they have proof about what really happened at Roswell.

Joni: You can play a game on "What happened at Roswell 50 years ago." You must answer correct questions to raise your security status to bring you closer to the vault that holds classified data. It's pretty clever. Green type slowly scrolls along the screen like a Mission Impossible episode.

Teresa: Mission accepted. We made it to level three but the questions are hard! Who was the Roswell town sheriff? There are icons on the right-hand side to get clues, if you call 20 names a clue. We recognize some of the names from visiting other Roswell sites.

Joni: I guess we're just not Roswell buffs, Teresa. For the strong of stomach, you might want to check out the Roswell Resource Center. This is the place that delves into the alleged alien autopsies.

dspace.dial.pipex.com/aaes/scispi/roswell/

Teresa: There are several photos of the "aliens." Many people say the photos of corpses look too-human. According to the site, many biologists would accept that alien life from reasonably similar environments might develop into a humanoid form.

Joni: It goes on to say that because of all the alien abductions, we might have mixed-up genes. Please. Is it time for the X-Files? I want to see what the cousins are up to.

Teresa: What's your favorite UFO site? E-mail us at clicksemissourian.com

See you in Cyberspace.

~Joni Adams is managing editor and Teresa Connell is graphic designer editor at the Southeast Missourian.