Initially, the debris was proclaimed to be wreckage from an extra-terrestrial ship, but very quickly it was officially announced instead to be the remains of a new type of weather balloon. The remains were cleaned up and taken away, perhaps studied, perhaps classified, perhaps destroyed. The debris and the stories constructed around it have become iconic in American culture, making possible the modern memory of aliens. Contemporary cultural icons are constructed from absence, loss, and speculation. It has developed an independent life consisting of accumulated stories, testimonials, and experiences.
Aliens fascinate because they are strange.
A variety of media have depicted space travel and alien visitations since H. G. Wells published The War of the Worlds in 1898. Yet media such as television, film, and narrative are handled at a safe distance. The Roswell incident, on the other hand, can be interacted with because Roswell is a physical site. Roswell fits this paradigm. It is located on the frontier, the mythic West of the American imagination.