The Real Roswell Skinny

NEW YORK —  The U.S. Air Force team charged with making full disclosure of a rumored crash-landing at Roswell, N.M., in 1947 by a space ship, from which extraterrestrials were allegedly rescued and examined, has withdrawn its recent report and replaced it with what is described as “the real skinny.”

The new report is sensational--yet saddening. Air Force investigators now depict a fun-loving and friendly group of semi-mature bipods of six different sexes, probably from Planet 346 in the Orion constellation and probably on spring break from college in a saucer borrowed from one of their fathers, whose high spirits and innocent intentions led them suddenly, horribly wrong.

“Subject aliens,” the report discloses, “were aiming to ‘crash’ a July 4th backyard cookout in Columbus, Ohio, in 1947, when their spacecraft overshot Ohio and crash-landed in New Mexico. Dozens of small metal canisters retrieved in and near the wreckage, together with autopsy findings, indicate the aliens had been consuming large quantities of a volatile liquid--’space brewskis,’ in scientific parlance, thus explaining the navigational error.”

Alive and well but marooned in the middle of nowhere, the befuddled visitors, nonetheless, determined to enter the spirit of the July 4th celebration as an interplanetary goodwill gesture. One went to find hot dogs and a chef’s apron, strayed into the town of Roswell, was apprehended and turned over to U.S. Air Force MP’s. “Those who stayed behind began siphoning fuel from the spacecraft’s tanks as part of an effort to improvise American-style July 4th fireworks,” the report continues. “Alas, the aliens were tragically unaware of Earthly physics. The lethal chemical reaction between extraterrestrial ‘beer breath’ and liquid rocket fuel did the rest, and the ensuing explosion lit up the night sky for miles around.”

The “weather balloon” and “crash-test dummies” ruses were concocted, the Air Force now confesses, “to avoid risking embarrassment and possible retaliation by the populace of Planet 346 if it were publicly divulged that a bunch of their joy-riding kids had gotten bombed out of their minds, wrecked dad’s saucer and accidentally blew themselves to kingdom come on some distant planet.”

“Now the truth is out,” the report concludes. “And if anybody from Planet 346 is listening, we hope they understand. P.S., maybe the next visiting saucer could bring a few extra cans of that ‘space brewski’? That stuff seems to pack an otherworldy punch.”