how many people can keep a conspiracy secret?

[leftofthedial]

I've heard it stated (with regard to many conspiracy theories--JFK, RFK, etc.) that the government (or whoever) couldn't have done it because it would have involved many, many people and they could never keep that many people silent.

I grew up (believe it or not) in Roswell, New Mexico. Whether you believe the famous UFO crash there was space aliens or weather balloons, several hundred people in town were involved. By the time the story hit the Roswell Daily Record, the whole town knew what was going on. Dozens of friends and acquaintances of mine were directly involved in some way with the episode. My father was stationed at the airbase and I knew many of the Air Force personnel who were involved as well.

I never heard of the UFO crash until I was in junior high school, when a classmate said something about it. Through the end of my high school years, nearly thirty years after the crash, this town of 40,000 people (nearly all of whom knew about the crash) never spoke of it except in very guarded and quiet tones. It was not until ten years after that--40 years after the crash and coverup--when the first of the sensationalist Roswell UFO books came out and one of the Air Force guys was persuaded to go public, that silence was broken.

Some people were threatened. Others believed it was a matter of national security and that it was their patriotic duty to remain silent. Others simply believed the whole episode was so far fetched that they found it embarassing to talk about it and so kept quiet.

Of course now, it has become a major industry in the town, with much attendant hoopla, an annual festival, and two UFO museums.

Whatever the truth and whatever the reasons, that's 40,000 people keeping a secret for 40 years.

[wtmusic]

1. According to Mark Twain

two, if one of them is dead.

[Keithpotkin]

2. speaking of conspiracy...

im reading "behold a pale horse"...and i cant sleep. :tinfoilhat:

[Howardx]

4. i had that same problem

when i read that

[LARED]

11. Who's the author?

I looked the title up on Amazon and there are two similar books with the same title but different authors.

Thanks

[On the Road]

3. If All 40,000 Are Motivated

and there's no Woodward, Bernstein, or Erin Brockovich asking people questions, things can stay below the surface for an amazingly long time.

What's always puzzled me about the Roswell thing is WHY the Air Force would go public with an announcement that a UFO had been shot down and then retracted it, using a story that didn't hold water. I've wondered whether the Air Force WANTED the Soviets to think the US had gotten its hands on alien technology. Stranger mind games have been played.

[Maple]

5. Secrets from WWII

are still coming out...with more to follow apparently...and it's over half a century later in a media-driven western world.

So, surprisingly....quite a few.

[MiddleRiverRefugee]

6. My favorite Roswell story is Lefty's...

From the Chicago Tribune:

So why is Haggard now dedicated to starting his own annual UFO music fest? Partly, there's a historical country music coincidence involved. One of Haggard's own musical heroes, the late country star Lefty Frizzell, was living in Roswell in 1947. At the time of the July crash, the 19-year-old Frizzell was making a local name for himself on radio and stage. But an incident with an underage girl soon wreaked havoc for the young singer.

In August, Frizzell was sentenced on a statutory rape charge and began a six-month sentence in the Chaves County Jail in Roswell. In September, while sitting in his cell, Frizzell penned his classic "I Love You a Thousand Ways." An expression of enduring love, the song was a mea culpa to his wife, Alice. In 1950, Frizzell recorded and released the song.

http://metromix.chicagotribune.com/search/mmx-0306290369jun29.story

[leftofthedial]

10. Lefty was my great uncle's best friend

He was a great guy, always nice to us children, but a major league hellraiser.

[K-Centrist]

7. Actually, I can't see how this fits

. . . under either "conspiracy" or "secret." Admittedly, the military stumbled all over themselves in the first hours and days (why, we'll probably never know) and then were grateful when the embarassing story died down -- never realizing that they'd inadvertently planted a seed in the popular imagination that would sprout and then bear fruit for years to come.

I lived in New Mexico in the early 60s and the weather balloon/spacecraft gaffe was well known. People even joked about how Roswellians coulda made a buck off it if they'd been quicker on the draw. Conspiracy of silence? -- hardly. Secret? No secrets here. Just an urban legend (not that Roswell was especially urban) that waxed and waned with silly seasons as they came and went.

. . . and then got really big when the tipping point between rationalism and fantasy was reached in American culture, maybe the mid 70s, and people demonstrated beyond a doubt that they'd believe ANYTHING.

[DulceDecorum]

8. I respect the Capo

enough to keep his secrets.
And I SWEAR that I do NOT know what happened to Jimmy Hoffa.

[Turbulence]

9. patriotic indoctrination does funny things to people

all in the name of country. keeping quiet is not a problem really especially if admitting it risks really messing with ones national identity. Think really ponder the ramifications of a countries leaders attacking their own. Many people can hardly deal with the reality of age and dying let alone the ramifications of ones own killing ones own. Killing Arabs is the easy part.

[izzie]

12. Well look at the Czar and his family.

There are lots of things in history that takes years to come out