According to the most common version of the story, an alien survived a crash near Roswell in the later 1940s. This alien (likely a "Grey" alien) was detained but treated well by American military forces, contacted its home planet and eventually repatriated. The story continues by claiming that this led to the establishment of some sort of relationship between the American government and the people of its home world – said to be a planet of the binary star system Zeta Reticuli.
Zeta Reticuli
USAF Sergeant Richard C. Doty contacted investigative journalist Linda Moulton Howe claiming to be able to supply her Air Force records of the exchange for her HBO documentary "The ET Factor" in the early 1980s, only to pull out without providing any evidence to substantiate his story. There was another incident in 2005 when a series of emails were sent to a UFO discussion group claiming that the project was real.
Richard Doty
Some stories go as far to claim that military personnel actually visited the planet between 1968 and 1973. It's likely that fake military communications were deliberately leaked as a hoax by the US military. The reason is to fuel conspiracy stories, leading UFO enthusiasts astray while concealing real projects of a similar nature. Why leak any information? Because some have come forward with pieces of possibly true accounts. Filling this in with vast, fake intelligence mires it all in a sea of skepticism.
