I've been doing a lot of reading online and it seems like at the time it happened, people were of a different mindset than today in that if the government tells them something happened a certain way, they 100% believed it. So after doing a little reading, the impression I get is that when the "UFO crash" happened in 47, nobody really cared. The government issued their explanation that it was nothing and it wasn't a big deal.
Not until decades later when UFO researchers came along asking leading questions about crashed spaceships and alien bodies. And then this story became part of culture. Can someone enlighten me a bit better? Google searches only take me to sites hosted by UFO lunatics!
In 1947, the Rosewell incident was kind of lost in the shuffle. There was an enormous number of "flying disc" sightings throughout the USA in 1947. This fad peaked in June and July. California and Washington state were the two locations were flying disc sightings were the most common. There were 13 states that had more front page newspaper stories about local UFO sightings than New Mexico did. It wasn't until some thirty years later, that the Rosewell incident achieved its canonical status. In 1947, it was just one of many flying disc stories, in a short lived UFO fad.
http://www.ufosnw.com/history_of_ufo/1947st1.gif
