The Roswell incident happened during a massive wave of UFO sightings across America in the summer of 1947.

Just weeks before the Roswell crash, a pilot named Kenneth Arnold saw strange objects flying over Washington State. He said they moved like 'saucers skipping on water.' This sparked a huge national craze. Newspapers started calling them 'flying saucers.' Because of this, when the rancher found weird foil and wood on his land, people immediately jumped to the conclusion that aliens had landed.