Spacecraft that are thought to have been operated by extraterrestrials and to have crashed into Earth. There have been many reports of crashed flying saucers worldwide, particularly in the last half of the 20th century but few of these alleged extrater restrial craft have left any solid evidence behind them. Some have subsequently been identified as meteors, weather balloons, lightning strikes, and other manmade or natural phenomena.
Probably the most notorious and controversial crashed flying saucer incident is that said to have occurred near Roswell, New Mexico, in July 1947. Details vary, depending on the source, but most commonly it is said that from one to three spaceships crashed in the New Mexico desert. Some reports also assert that one or more living or dead extraterrestrial beings were found in the remains of the disaster. Some sources allege that the U.S. government acquired the alien(s) or their bodies and secretly kept them at an air force base in Ohio or New Mexico.