UI professor demystifies Roswell case
Professor specializes in Russian intelligence, examines UFO sightings
September 1, 2021
Rick Spence, retired Univeristy of Idaho professor, is speaking about the Roswell case and other Unidentified Aerial Phenomena at a Latah County Library event next week.
Community members should gather at 5:30 p.m. Sept. 9 in the Lecompte Auditorium at Latah County Library’s 1912 Center in Moscow, Idaho, adult services manager Bailey Gillreath-Brown said.
Spence is a retired University of Idaho history professor, specializing in Russian intelligence and military history. Spence said he taught at UI from 1986 until 2020. He received his doctorate from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1981.
He said he did not take an interest in UFOs until recently when he was investigating whether the author of some UFO literature was a spy or was involved with spies.
The Roswell case is the 1947 phenomenon of a man who discovered the remains of an object on his property near Roswell, New Mexico, Spence said. The man brought some of the remains to the local sheriff. The U.S. Air Force later came and took samples for study.
An initial release was published by the U.S Air Force stating a disk was recovered, but was unclear as to what the disk actually was. There was nationwide hysteria over UFOs at the time and people spotted them everywhere, Spence said.
The remains were examined by a higher Air Force command, who concluded it was that of a weather balloon. He said the story was largely forgotten until the 1970s when other versions started to pop up, saying bodies were recovered from the crash.
There are other interesting theories as to what happened near Roswell in 1947. Spence said at the event he is examining the original sources, press releases and people involved, and then reviewing the different possibilities of what the recovered object may have been.
“I’m not a debunker,” Spence said.
Regarding the government’s June 25, 2021 Unidentified Aerial Phenomena report, there are still observed occurrences that are unexplainable when taking things like weather balloons and meteors into account, Spence said.
Spence has also focused on occultism, espionage and secret societies. He also spoke on 20th-century German Nazism at a previous library event and the program was well-received, Gillreath-Brown said.
“The subject of my talk is simply about what did and didn’t, based on the evidence you can actually find, happen at Roswell in 1947,” Spence said.
Rocky • Sep 13, 2021 at 6:11 pm
I began looking into the 1947 incident decades ago, I began I as a person that was interested and I loved the idea. I believe when I first saw a late 80s or early 90s tv “documentary” on it I was fascinated and perplexed. I recall laying in bed at night talking to my wife in the dark and just asking her “do you think it could be true?. So I began to order books on it and watch anything or in those days listen to anything I could about the story. Eventually I had a pretty decent grasp of the time line and I realized one thing, Ufologists had and we’re continuing to exaggerate, they would then quote each other as though the previous research had been done correctly or that very dubious details were true. We see this even today but now it’s out of control, the past four years have seen an explosion of this kind of behaviour. When one takes a really hard look at the original statements and the timeline it becomes extremely clear the first person to see the material thought it was a large kite or a balloon. Mack even stated how they tried to re assemble it in the ranch workshop. His niece or daughter said that “perhaps it’s one of those flying saucers” we heard about, they might have a reward. I mean if this is not a clear statement of how the story began to grow then nothing is. Ufology needs this case, they thrive on it. I have been dedicated to this mystery for many many years now, I am also no debunker, but Roswell is a big nothing.