In 1947, debris found on a ranch near Corona, northwest of Roswell, New Mexico, set off a controversy that became one of the most famous UFO stories in the United States. The material was actually from a top-secret Project Mogul balloon train launched to help detect possible Soviet nuclear tests, but the military briefly announced it had recovered a “flying disc” before reversing itself and calling it a weather balloon. Decades later, Jesse Marcel publicly challenged that explanation, helping fuel a wider conspiracy narrative. U.S. Air Force reports in the 1990s tied the debris to Project Mogul, yet Roswell remained a lasting center of UFO culture and tourism.