UFO enthusiasts hail FBI's official release of Roswell memos

As a treat to history buffs, the FBI has launched a blog called The Vault, displaying old memos and documents that might interest the public. The documents garnering the most attention, however, are about Unidentified Flying Objects. And not just any UFO — the FBI has released the long top-secret Roswell Memo and the letter from Agent Guy Hottel that claims that aliens were aboard a UFO that crash-landed there.

The 1947 incident in Roswell, New Mexico has been the calling card for UFO enthusiasts since the late 70s, so the memo's official publication caused quite the stir.

However, there's not much cause to think that the government has suddenly changed its position on UFOs by releasing these documents. The documents have been leaked several times before, they're just in the news cycle now because the FBI reminded the public of them.

More than that, there's nothing close to admittance of UFOs in the documents: Agent Hottel's letter is merely a retelling of an informant's story about alien autopsies — Hottel isn't even based in New Mexico, lowering the value of the tale even further — and recommends no follow-up investigation. Similarly, the Roswell memo reinforces that the object was a weather balloon, not a "flying disc," and also recommends no follow-up.

Those who have always claimed conspiracy or government cover-up in relation to Roswell will continue doing so, and outlets such as the International Business Times will publish wide-eyed reports on the memos that have been in front of us all along, but are now collected in one place and acknowledged by the FBI.

In the meantime, the Hottel memo and the Roswell memo are embedded below, courtesy of the FBI, and The Vault's other memos about "unexplained phenomenon" can be found online for some fun reading.

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Image via Flickr Commons.