Four University of New Mexico students are revisiting one of New Mexico’s most enduring mysteries, the notorious 1947 Roswell UFO Incident.
Not to determine whether aliens landed near Roswell, but to examine what the incident reveals about the law, government transparency and public trust.
UNM constitutional law/pre-law students Nicole Osborne, Caden Salazar, Tatiana James and Miguel Serna recently participated in an online panel discussing the Roswell incident through a legal lens, setting aside the long-running debate over whether the debris found approximately 75 miles northwest of Roswell was extraterrestrial.
That debate began in 1947, when something crashed onto William Ware “Mac” Brazel’s ranch near Corona.
Brazel reported the incident, and personnel from Roswell Army Air Field traveled to the ranch to retrieve the debris.
Soon afterward, the U.S. Army Air Force announced that it had “come into the possession of a flying saucer.”
Less than a day later, the military retracted the statement, saying the recovered object was a weather balloon.
The abrupt reversal fueled decades of speculation about a government cover-up.
“While there is this alien background to everything and a conspiracy background to everything, we’re also able to look at this incident from a legal lens and view the relationship between the people and their government and understand why it’s so applicable to our day-to-day life,” Osborne said.
The four UNM constitutional law/pre-law students are looking at it from a legal angle.
The panel stemmed from an assignment from their professor, Lawrence R. Jones, intended to help students apply constitutional knowledge to real-world scenarios.
“It’s not just about whether there were aliens or not, but there are a whole lot of other issues here on Earth that matter and should matter,” Jones said.
The panel was sponsored by the New Mexico State Library, the New Mexico Museum of Space History and the University of New Mexico Political Science Department.
Moderators asked the students several questions about the crash. They were asked background and summary questions and whether the government or military has the right to enforce a citizen’s silence on what they consider classified material.
Students discussed government secrecy, free speech, property rights, military authority and constitutional protections.
The panelists had been preparing since May and researching the Roswell crash before that.
“I actually invite the whole community to learn about the whole Roswell incident, because it just opens up opportunities for them to learn about their constitutional rights,” Serna said. “I think that one of the most important things that you have is your rights.”
Katherine Miles, bureau chief of the public services bureau at the New Mexico State Library, served as a mediator for the program.
“The Roswell incident has become a pop culture staple, fueling endless speculation about aliens and their intentions,” she said. “But in all the noise, we often lose sight of the human story at its core. These students, with their deep curiosity and insight, have brought that humanity back into focus. Their work reminds us to look at the everyday world around us with a wider, more thoughtful lens.”
You can watch the panel on the New Mexico State Library’s website. https://libguides.nmstatelibrary.org/UFOs
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