h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've always thought the Roswell story makes more sense if substitute the word "alien" for the word "uranium".

By 1947 the US was experimenting with captured German V2 rockets. I submit that the US army put an atomic warhead on a V2 rocket and fired it at one of the many test ranges in New Mexico (maybe Whitesands missile range). The rocket went off course and landed on a ranch near Roswell.

The army would never confess to spraying U-235 all over the desert, near a populated area. They concocted the UFO cover story and then immediately thought better of it, realizing that they had no UFO to produce as evidence.

The army moved in and collected all the debris and spirited it off to the Dayton AFB in Ohio. They paid the rancher to keep mum (he bought a brand new pickup truck that year, a really nice one!) as well as a few of the other townsfolk.

Another detail of the story makes sense in the uranium context. Much has been made about army's purchase of the local funeral home's entire stock of juvenile sized coffins. This has been offered as proof of the recovery of alien bodies.

Keep in mind that coffins are not just dropped into the ground, they are placed in lead-lined concrete "lockers". I would assume that the coffins and lockers are sold as a set and would make nifty storage containers for uranium in an emergency situation. The juvenile size could be lifted by several soldiers, while an adult size would require a crane.

Several people (mostly nurses) have seemed to disappear after the event. I'd assume that in that primitive stage of the nuclear age, contamination procedures were rather crude. I would posit that quite a few people were poisoned as a result of this test gone wrong.

I'd have no trouble believing that the US government would allow the UFO story to propagate rather than reveal such an unfortunate event.