Like so many earthlings, John Darr came to Roswell, N.M., looking for answers. Yet he left the city’s annual U.F.O. festival this month with even more questions. “Tell us one way or the other: Is there or is there not aliens?”
This was supposed to be the summer of revelation. President Trump had promised to unveil all of the government’s secrets about unidentified flying objects and their extraterrestrial passengers. Adding to the hype was Steven Spielberg’s newly-released lore-steeped blockbuster with its own convincing footage of the fabled alien crash at Roswell.
But when the Department of Defense began publishing tranches of material on U.F.O.s, or in Pentagon parlance, U.A.P.s, unidentified anomalous phenomena, the promise of a real-life “Disclosure Day” frittered into Disappointment Du Jour.
Roswell’s U.F.O. festival over the Fourth of July weekend was supposed to be sweet vindication for thousands of ufologists. Instead, they bemoaned the cover up that they feared would never end.
“It’s nothing new,” said Donald R. Schmitt, an author and the lead investigator at Roswell’s International U.F.O. Museum and Research Center. “It’s the same game that they have played all these years. Once again, we’re getting the carrot dangled in front of us.”
Even if Roswell was short on answers, a trip to the nation’s U.F.O. capital at least provided some temporary relief. For here, there was no stigma; there was hardly any doubt. Downtown streetlights are painted to look like aliens and little green men stand sentry outside carwashes and banks, all a homage to the purported U.F.O. crash in 1947 known as the Roswell Incident. The interstellar festival is now the city’s biggest holiday.
“We heard this was the Mardi Gras of U.F.O.s,” said John Wilson, who traveled from Florida with his wife to see for himself.
There were costume contests — pet and human — a laser-light show, a rowdy parade and a long line of alien-themed shops and food stalls.
Still, amid the mix of holiday weekend patriotism and interplanetary fervor, there was an undercurrent of frustration.
The three batches of files, which contain murky photos, grainy videos and heavily redacted documents, may appear impressive at first, U.F.O. experts said, but much of the material has been previously published, has an earthly explanation or does not address the most burning questions about alien life. One report documented a flying potato.
“For 70 years, people have been thinking it’s been about to happen, and it really never has,” said Paul Semones, who leads the Roswell U.F.O. Tour. “If they never produce anything, then we’re just going to have to feel like they’ve blown a whole lot of smoke and tried to convince us that there was no fire underneath.”
The sentiment cut across partisan divides. For those opposed to Mr. Trump, this was just another in a long line of letdowns. The administration’s release of documents related to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. hadn’t lived up to the hype either.
Mr. Trump’s critics have also posited that the U.F.O. files are a distraction from the Iran war, gas prices or possibly another set of more politically explosive files — those related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“They’re just saying, ‘Look over here at this shiny thing’ while something else is going on,” said Joey Fox, 50, who stopped at the festival during a cross-country move from Texas to Oregon.
Mr. Trump’s supporters blamed the “deep state.”
“I think maybe he doesn’t even know, because some things are so secret,” said Tom Mills, a 79-year-old amateur ufologist who said he voted for Mr. Trump three times. “He can only release what he knows about.”
Mr. Mills now believes there’s only one way he’ll get the truth: “I hope I get abducted,” the retired pilot said.
Anna Kelly, a White House spokeswoman, said more U.F.O. files would be released “in the coming weeks” and that Mr. Trump is “the most transparent president in history.”
“While past administrations have sought to discredit or dissuade the American people, the president is focused on providing maximum disclosure to the public,” Ms. Kelly said in a statement.
Tom Jennings, a former mayor of Roswell, said he knew better than to get his hopes up. Past presidents — including Jimmy Carter, who in 1976 pledged to make public “every piece of information” the government had on U.F.O.s — have teased declassification but have not followed through.
Still, mystery has been big business for Roswell, especially since Mr. Jennings helped launch the U.F.O. festival in the mid-1990s. The extraterrestrial extravaganza draws tourists from across the country to a swath of eastern New Mexico desert that would otherwise go largely unvisited.
Steve Anderson and Marilyn Dicks have come three years in a row. They are hard to miss, given they arrive behind the wheel of a 1991 Geo Metro modified to look like a lime green flying saucer.
Mr. Anderson, a mechanic, said he saw a U.F.O. when he was eight and dreamed of riding in one for decades. Tired of waiting on an abduction, he built his own. The contraption has spotty air conditioning and no windshield wipers, but has held up on the long rides to and from their home in Indiana.
Mr. Anderson and Ms. Dicks believe aliens crash landed in Roswell in 1947, and the government has concealed their bodies ever since.
“They said, ‘Well, the people can’t handle it, they’ll go into panic mode,’ blah, blah, blah,” Mr. Anderson said, hitting on a central theme of Mr. Spielberg’s “Disclosure Day.” “But we’re mature enough to deal with it.”
A few attendees, however, apparently did not want the truth to come out. A trio of unidentifiable visitors, sporting bulbous alien heads and long green fingers, strolled down Roswell’s Main Street, pausing for selfies and dancing to techno music.
They came in peace, they said with vigorous nods. But asked about the government releasing all it knew about aliens, the tallest member of the group flashed the Vulcan salute and said in a nasal squeak: “Better not.”
The post Non-Disclosure: In Roswell, New U.F.O. Docs Are a Declassified Bummer appeared first on New York Times.
