Roswell

Town in Fulton County, northwest Georgia; population (1990) 47,900. It is located 29 km/18 mi north of Atlanta, on the Chattahoochee River. It is an affluent residential suburb. The town was founded in 1838.

Roswell

Town and administrative headquarters of Chaves County, southeast New Mexico; population (1990) 44,700. It is situated on the Rio Hondo, 265 km/160 mi southeast of Albuquerque. The town is a market centre for producers of cotton, alfalfa, and livestock. It also processes oil and meat and has some manufactures. The New Mexico Military Institute (1891) and a branch (1958) of Eastern New Mexico University are in the city.

An 1860s cattle drive stop and ranch centre, it grew rapidly after extensive underground water was discovered in 1891. From the 1940s to the 1960s Walker Air Force Base was central to the economy. The outlying prairie was the site of early rocket experiments by Robert H Goddard until his death in 1945.

On 2 July 1947, an alleged UFO crashed near the Air Force Base. US Air Force officials claimed they had recovered a weather balloon, not an alien flying saucer complete with passengers, but the ‘Roswell incident’ continues to appeal to conspiracy theorists and believers in extraterrestrial life, especially as video evidence is said to exist of the alien autopsies.