Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Roswell incident/archive1

Roswell incident (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

• Featured article candidates/Roswell incident/archive1

Nominator(s): Feoffer (talk) 04:14, 2 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about a conspiracy theory which alleges that the 1947 crash of a United States Army Air Forces balloon near Roswell, New Mexico was actually caused by an extraterrestrial spacecraft. With extensive polished sourcing, the article details the actual events of 1947, the later rise of UFO conspiracy theories, the emergence of the Roswell conspiracy theories, their evolution and eventual debunking. Feoffer (talk) 04:14, 2 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

• File:Marcel-roswell-debris_0.jpg: where is that tagging coming from? It's not consistent with what's at the source site. Ditto File:Ramey-dubose-debris.jpg
  • The images were published without copyright notice in July 1947 and never renewed, entering public domain. While previously-unpublished images in the UTA collection would fall under the blanket Creative Commons release, UTA can't actually assert copyright on a faithful 2d replica of a public domain image. Feoffer (talk) 06:43, 2 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • Is it known that these particular images were published in 1947? I'm not seeing that at the source site either. If that can be shown, I'd suggest ditching the CC licensing on the basis of the images being PD. If it can't, though, the CC license UTA uses is BY-NC, not BY-SA which is what the images are currently tagged. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:37, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      • fixed Ramey-dubose by adding first publication and ditch CC licensing. Feoffer (talk) 05:02, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

      UTA's stated license is probably not relevant. I don't see any reason they'd have the rights to the photo, so the license would be for the scanning and uploading. If the photos are in the public domain then the UTA license is not needed, but if the photos are not then the UTA license is not valid. J. Bond Johnson took both photos for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram on 8 July 1947. The Telegram and other papers ran the photos on the 9th and 10th. The Telegram didn't have a copyright notice. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 02:27, 4 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• File:Aztec-hoax-pic.png: the uploader is not the copyright holder here
  • Fixed, uploader field now reflects derivation from image published in 1950. Feoffer (talk) 06:50, 2 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• File:Screenshot_of_Alien_Prop_from_Roswell,_The_UFO_Cover_Up_(1994).jpeg needs a stronger FUR. Ditto File:Alien_Autopsy_Fact_or_Fiction_1995_screenshot_cropped.png, File:Jose_Chung_alien_autopsy_screenshot.png
  • Have improved the first. Open to more advice. Feoffer (talk) 16:10, 4 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Also improved the other two. Feoffer (talk) 05:07, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• File:Rosewell_Reports,_Volume_1.ogv: source link appears to go to an unrelated video, please check

• fixed Feoffer (talk) 04:49, 2 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• also renamed the file. Rosewell->Roswell Feoffer (talk) 05:18, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• File:Roswell_Sign_01_(cropped).jpg: what's the copyright status of the sign? Nikkimaria (talk) 04:32, 2 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Do you have advice on how I could find this out? The sign was created by the city as part of their 70th anniversary tourism campaign, is on public land, and there is no indication the city asserts copyright: NYTimes credits only their own photographer. Feoffer (talk) 05:12, 2 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Is it known when the sign was erected? See commons:Commons:Public_art_and_copyrights_in_the_US. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:37, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Dug into this for you. The signs were created by EG Structural of Phoenix for the city of Roswell. It was formally unveiled in May 2017. Feoffer (talk) 05:28, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Updated description at Commons to reflect sign origin. Feoffer (talk) 12:59, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  @Nikkimaria and Feoffer: I swapped this image out for File:Roswell NM Main Street.jpg. The "alien" eyes applied to the streetlights are just a pair of common geometric shapes and not themselves copyrightable. I tried emailing the city and EGS last week, but didn't hear back from either one. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 22:53, 8 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Staking out a spot. Comments to come soon. ~ HAL333 17:53, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks in advance for feedback -- great username and sig. Feoffer (talk) 13:58, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• I'm not a huge fan of the wording of "1947 crash of a United States Army Air Forces balloon near Roswell, New Mexico was actually caused by an extraterrestrial spacecraft". It implies that a UFO caused a balloon to crash.
• "metallic and rubber debris was" --> "were"
• "Trust in the US government declined and acceptance of conspiracy theories became widespread" - can you explain why this is the case? Maybe mention the Assassination of John F. Kennedy and Watergate — I think a mention of the latter is especially appropriate since you then use "Cosmic Watergate".
• "On September 20, 1980, the TV series In Search of..." — Can you mention that this episode was hosted by Leonard Nimoy?
• Stanton Friedman is linked more than once
• "decomposing from exposure and predators" — I think "scavengers" is more apt than "predators".
• I would wikilink Oliver Stone
• "Thomas DuBose... acknowledged the weather balloon cover story" — This sentence is confusing. He acknowledges that the balloon story, or that it was a cover? Or that it was a cover for Mogul? Or a saucer? Please clarify.
• "a New Mexico congressman" - Could you name him/her?
• "Santilli would admit years later" --> "Santilli admitted years later" per WP:WOULDCHUCK, and can you give the actual year of the admission?
• This issue pops up elsewhere:
  • "The Air Force would later describe the" --> "The Air Force later described the
  • "New Mexico emerged that would later form elements"
  • "alien bodies that would later become associated with Roswell"
  • "Independent researchers would find patterns"
  • "Doty would later say"
• Terminator 2 should be italicized, not put in quotations
• I would wikilink Kodachrome
• I would remove the months from "In September 2017," and from "In February 2020,". They're not necessary to the reader's understanding, are not given for most older dates and strike me as recentist.
• "weather balloon" is linked in the Project Mogul subsection, but not in its first mention much earlier...
• "Thomas DuBose" also has duplicate links but is still not linked in his first mention
• "Ufologists had previously considered" — "previously" is redundant since you use the past perfect

Very nice work. Kudos to you for tackling a subject like this. ~ HAL333 14:44, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Great points all! I think we've got 'em all. Feoffer (talk) 02:41, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Happy to support. ~ HAL333 05:35, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Unfortunately, just need to flag that I've coincidentally identified a copyvio concern related to a major contributor to this article. I have not assessed to what extent their contributions persist in the present version, but careful spotchecks will be warranted here. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:05, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  @Nikkimaria Thanks for looking into it! Glancing through diffs and running "Who Wrote That" (assuming I have the right editor) I see copyedits, references, formatting, and deletions. More scrutiny never hurts though, Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 02:40, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  I also looked through the edits of the user with the copyvio (assuming I have the right one), but it's mostly deletions and ref polishing. Feoffer (talk) 10:33, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]