nivek
As Above So Below
The Roswell “wreckage” of 1947 – separating facts from fiction
by Norio Hayakawa
As far as I am aware, there were only a handful of people who had witnessed the actual Roswell “wreckage”:
Mac Brazel and his son Vernon Brazel (both witnessed it on June 14, 1947 at J.B. Foster ranch)
and then, on July 4, by:
Maj. Jesse Marcel and counter intelligence officer Sheridan Cavitt (who both witnessed it at J.B. Foster ranch)
Col. William Blanchard, Brig. Gen. Roger Ramey and weather officer Irving Newton (at J.B. Foster ranch, as well as at Gen. Roger Rameys’ office where parts of the fragments were taken to for display).
As I stated, Mac Brazel and his son Vernon Brazel were the first two who witnessed the “wreckage” on June 14, which was a debris field area, a large area of bright wreckage made up of rubber strips, tinfoil, a rather tough paper and sticks.
There was no sign of any metal in the area which might have been used for an engine and no sign of any propellers of any kind, although at least one paper fin had been glued onto some of the tinfoil.
There were no words to be found anywhere on the instrument, although there were letters on some of the parts. Considerable scotch tape and some tape with flowers printed upon it had been used in the construction:
A press conference was held on July 5, 1947 at General Ramey’s office in Roswell.
Prior to the press conference, a weather officer by the name of Irving Newton (see photo) remembered seeing pieces of what he recognized as a weather balloon laid out in Ramey’s office:
In 1990, Newton told investigators:
“I remember Major Marcel chased me all around that room…..He kept saying things like ‘Look how tough that metal is….look at the strange markings on it’….While I was examining the debris, Marcel was picking up pieces of the radar target sticks and trying to convince me that some notations on the sticks were alien writings. But I was adamant that it was a weather balloon with a RAWIN (radar) target. I think he was embarrassed as crazy and he would like to do anything to make that turn into a flying saucer” – – from Mysteries, Myths, Mayhem and Money chapter of Gary Bates’ ALIEN INTRUSION.
That was the end of the whole story. “Roswell” became a non-issue……until more than 30 years later when a partially disinformative book entitled THE ROSWELL INCIDENT was published, and gullible folks (as well as the so-called UFO “Industry” and the UFO Museum in Roswell) played a role in propagating the story all over again.
Tall tales about Roswell (aliens, pilots, bodies, a nurse, hangar in Roswell, etc., etc., ad nauseum) started to circulate around 30 years or more after this incident, including unreliable second-hand, third-hand and fourth-hand “witnesses” who jumped into the bandwagon of “fame” after a popular, partially disinformative book came out in 1980 written by a known, self-claimed disinformation agent by the name of William L. Moore, i.e., THE ROSWELL INCIDENT:
By the way, it was also in 1980 (the very same year of the publication of THE ROSWELL INCIDENT) that William L. Moore visited Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque to collaborate on another “project” with another self-claimed UFO disinformation agent, Richard C. Doty who was working as an AFOSI officer at the base.
Roswell, 1947 – – creation of a modern myth, how it all started
Nothing crashed in July of 1947, outside of Roswell.
But something did crash around June 14 of 1947, about 35 miles northwest of Roswell and it wasnt’ a flying saucer.
(Stanton Friedman – – propagator of the “alien saucer crash” myth)
Here is the TIMELINE of the events that took place:
June 14 (Saturday):
(10 days before the world had ever heard of “flying saucers” or “flying disks”), a rancher by the name of W.W. (Mac) Brazel (pictured below) and his 8-year old son, Vernon, were about 7 or 8 miles from the ranch house of the J. B. Foster ranch, which he operates, when they came upon a large area of bright wreckage made up of rubber strips, tinfoil, a rather tough paper and sticks.
There was no sign of any metal in the area which might have been used for an engine and no sign of any propellers of any kind, although at least one paper fin had been glued onto some of the tinfoil.
There were no words to be found anywhere on the instrument, although there were letters on some of the parts. Considerable scotch tape and some tape with flowers printed upon it had been used in the construction.
(J.B. Foster Ranch was located about 30 miles southeast of Corona, NM – – the ranch was located about 35 miles northwest of Roswell).
At the time Brazel was in a hurry to get his round made and he did not pay much attention to it.
June 24 (Tuesday):
The famous Kenneth Arnold incident in Washington state:
July 4 (Friday):
Brazel, his wife, Vernon and a daughter, Betty, age 14, went back to the spot and gathered up quite a bit of the debris.
July 5 (Saturday):
It was on July 5 that Brazel first heard about the flying disks, and he wondered if what he had found (3 weeks before) might be the remnants of one of these.
July 7 (Monday):
Brazel came to Roswell to sell some wool and while here he went to see sheriff George Wilcox and “whispered kinda confidential like” that he might have found a flying disk.
Wilcox got in touch with the Roswell Army Air Field and Maj. Jesse A. Marcel:
Marcel’s commander, Colonel William Blanchard (pictured below) ordered Marcel and counterintelligence officer Sheridan Cavitt out to Brazel’s ranch.
Marcel and counterintelligence officer accompanied him home, where they picked up the rest of the pieces of the “disk” and went to his home to try to reconstruct it.
On viewing the wreckage, Cavitt immediately thought it probably came from a weather balloon, but Marcel had other ideas. Marcel had a pre-conceived notion that it must have been part of the flying disk that he had heard about.
July 8 (Tuesday) :
The public information office at the base made the announcement that they had recovered a flying disk (approved by Col. Blanchard). This created newspaper headlines – – it was a sensation!:
However, at the intervention of Brigadier General Roger Ramey (pictured below) who had also inspected the wreckage, a press conference was soon held that included Marcel. The army announced that the fuss was over nothing more than a weather balloon, pieces of which were duly paraded for public display:
Prior to the press conference, a weather officer by the name of Irving Newton (pictured below) remembered seeing pieces of what he recognized as a weather balloon laid out in Ramey’s office:
In 1990s, Newton told investigators:
“I remember Major Marcel chased me all around that room…..He kept saying things like ‘Look how tough that metal is….look at the strange markings on it’….While I was examining the debris, Marcel was picking up pieces of the radar target sticks and trying to convince me that some notations on the sticks were alien writings. But I was adamant that it was a weather balloon with a RAWIN (radar) target. I think he was embarrassed as crazy and he would like to do anything to make that turn into a flying saucer” – – from Mysteries, Myths, Mayhem and Money chapter of Gary Bates’ ALIEN INTRUSION.
July 9 (Wednesday):
Ramey’s statement appears on ROSWELL DAILY RECORD newspaper:
July 9 (Wednesday):
W.W. (Mac) Brazel’s statement of regret appears on ROSWELL DAILY RECORD newspaper:
(ABOVE ARTICLE:
W.W. Brazel, 48, Lincoln county rancher living 30 miles south of Corona, today told his story of finding what the army at first described as a flying disk, but the publicity which attended his find caused him to add that if he ever found anything else short of a bomb, he sure wasn’t going to say anything about it.
Brazel was brought here late yesterday by W. E. Whitmore, of radio station KGFL, had his picture taken and gave an interview to the Record and Jason Kellahin, sent here from the Albuquerque bureau of the Associated Press to cover the story. The picture he posed for was sent out over AP telephoto wire sending machine specially set up in the Record office by R. D. Adair, AP wire chief sent here from Albuquerque for the sole purpose of getting out his picture and that of sheriff George Wilcox, to whom Brazel originally gave the information of his find.
Brazel related that on June 14 he and an 8-year old son, Vernon, were about 7 or 8 miles from the ranch house of the J. B. Foster ranch, which he operates, when they came upon a large area of bright wreckage made up on rubber strips, tinfoil, a rather tough paper and sticks.
At the time Brazel was in a hurry to get his round made and he did not pay much attention to it. But he did remark about what he had seen and on July 4 he, his wife, Vernon and a daughter, Betty, age 14, went back to the spot and gathered up quite a bit of the debris.
The next day he first heard about the flying disks, and he wondered if what he had found might be the remnants of one of these.
Monday he came to town to sell some wool and while here he went to see sheriff George Wilcox and “whispered kinda confidential like” that he might have found a flying disk.
Wilcox got in touch with the Roswell Army Air Field and Maj. Jesse A. Marcel and a man in plain clothes accompanied him home, where they picked up the rest of the pieces of the “disk” and went to his home to try to reconstruct it.
According to Brazel they simply could not reconstruct it at all. They tried to make a kite out of it, but could not do that and could not find any way to put it back together so that it could fit.
Then Major Marcel brought it to Roswell and that was the last he heard of it until the story broke that he had found a flying disk.
Brazel said that he did not see it fall from the sky and did not see it before it was torn up, so he did not know the size or shape it might have been, but he thought it might have been about as large as a table top. The balloon which held it up, if that was how it worked, must have been about 12 feet long, he felt, measuring the distance by the size of the room in which he sat. The rubber was smoky gray in color and scattered over an area about 200 yards in diameter.
When the debris was gathered up the tinfoil, paper, tape, and sticks made a bundle about three feet long and 7 or 8 inches thick, while the rubber made a bundle about 18 or 20 inches long and about 8 inches thick. In all, he estimated, the entire lot would have weighed maybe five pounds.
There was no sign of any metal in the area which might have been used for an engine and no sign of any propellers of any kind, although at least one paper fin had been glued onto some of the tinfoil.
There were no words to be found anywhere on the instrument, although there were letters on some of the parts. Considerable scotch tape and some tape with flowers printed upon it had been used in the construction.
No strings or wire were to be found but there were some eyelets in the paper to indicate that some sort of attachment may have been used.
Brazel said that he had previously found two weather observation balloons on the ranch, but that what he found this time did not in any way resemble either of these.
“I am sure that what I found was not any weather observation balloon,” he said. “But if I find anything else besides a bomb they are going to have a hard time getting me to say anything about it.”)
Marcel didn’t agree with this conclusion, probably because this was unlike any weather balloon he had ever seen.
It was not just a “weather balloon”. It was a top-secret program called Project Mogul, which was finally and officially revealed in 1994):
(Other high altitude reconnaissance balloon projects from the era included Project Skyhook, Project Grandson, Project Genetrix and Projct Moby Dick, pictured above)
END OF THE WHOLE STORY.
UNTIL:
More than 30 years after the incident, a few die-hard believers in the ‘alien saucer myth’ started questioning again the explanation that it was a “weather balloon”.
(And they were right, it was not just a “weather balloon”. It was a top-secret program called Project Mogul, which was finally and officially revealed in 1994).
by Norio Hayakawa
As far as I am aware, there were only a handful of people who had witnessed the actual Roswell “wreckage”:
Mac Brazel and his son Vernon Brazel (both witnessed it on June 14, 1947 at J.B. Foster ranch)
and then, on July 4, by:
Maj. Jesse Marcel and counter intelligence officer Sheridan Cavitt (who both witnessed it at J.B. Foster ranch)
Col. William Blanchard, Brig. Gen. Roger Ramey and weather officer Irving Newton (at J.B. Foster ranch, as well as at Gen. Roger Rameys’ office where parts of the fragments were taken to for display).
As I stated, Mac Brazel and his son Vernon Brazel were the first two who witnessed the “wreckage” on June 14, which was a debris field area, a large area of bright wreckage made up of rubber strips, tinfoil, a rather tough paper and sticks.
There was no sign of any metal in the area which might have been used for an engine and no sign of any propellers of any kind, although at least one paper fin had been glued onto some of the tinfoil.
There were no words to be found anywhere on the instrument, although there were letters on some of the parts. Considerable scotch tape and some tape with flowers printed upon it had been used in the construction:
A press conference was held on July 5, 1947 at General Ramey’s office in Roswell.
Prior to the press conference, a weather officer by the name of Irving Newton (see photo) remembered seeing pieces of what he recognized as a weather balloon laid out in Ramey’s office:
In 1990, Newton told investigators:
“I remember Major Marcel chased me all around that room…..He kept saying things like ‘Look how tough that metal is….look at the strange markings on it’….While I was examining the debris, Marcel was picking up pieces of the radar target sticks and trying to convince me that some notations on the sticks were alien writings. But I was adamant that it was a weather balloon with a RAWIN (radar) target. I think he was embarrassed as crazy and he would like to do anything to make that turn into a flying saucer” – – from Mysteries, Myths, Mayhem and Money chapter of Gary Bates’ ALIEN INTRUSION.
That was the end of the whole story. “Roswell” became a non-issue……until more than 30 years later when a partially disinformative book entitled THE ROSWELL INCIDENT was published, and gullible folks (as well as the so-called UFO “Industry” and the UFO Museum in Roswell) played a role in propagating the story all over again.
Tall tales about Roswell (aliens, pilots, bodies, a nurse, hangar in Roswell, etc., etc., ad nauseum) started to circulate around 30 years or more after this incident, including unreliable second-hand, third-hand and fourth-hand “witnesses” who jumped into the bandwagon of “fame” after a popular, partially disinformative book came out in 1980 written by a known, self-claimed disinformation agent by the name of William L. Moore, i.e., THE ROSWELL INCIDENT:
By the way, it was also in 1980 (the very same year of the publication of THE ROSWELL INCIDENT) that William L. Moore visited Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque to collaborate on another “project” with another self-claimed UFO disinformation agent, Richard C. Doty who was working as an AFOSI officer at the base.
Roswell, 1947 – – creation of a modern myth, how it all started
Nothing crashed in July of 1947, outside of Roswell.
But something did crash around June 14 of 1947, about 35 miles northwest of Roswell and it wasnt’ a flying saucer.
(Stanton Friedman – – propagator of the “alien saucer crash” myth)
Here is the TIMELINE of the events that took place:
June 14 (Saturday):
(10 days before the world had ever heard of “flying saucers” or “flying disks”), a rancher by the name of W.W. (Mac) Brazel (pictured below) and his 8-year old son, Vernon, were about 7 or 8 miles from the ranch house of the J. B. Foster ranch, which he operates, when they came upon a large area of bright wreckage made up of rubber strips, tinfoil, a rather tough paper and sticks.
There was no sign of any metal in the area which might have been used for an engine and no sign of any propellers of any kind, although at least one paper fin had been glued onto some of the tinfoil.
There were no words to be found anywhere on the instrument, although there were letters on some of the parts. Considerable scotch tape and some tape with flowers printed upon it had been used in the construction.
(J.B. Foster Ranch was located about 30 miles southeast of Corona, NM – – the ranch was located about 35 miles northwest of Roswell).
At the time Brazel was in a hurry to get his round made and he did not pay much attention to it.
June 24 (Tuesday):
The famous Kenneth Arnold incident in Washington state:
July 4 (Friday):
Brazel, his wife, Vernon and a daughter, Betty, age 14, went back to the spot and gathered up quite a bit of the debris.
July 5 (Saturday):
It was on July 5 that Brazel first heard about the flying disks, and he wondered if what he had found (3 weeks before) might be the remnants of one of these.
July 7 (Monday):
Brazel came to Roswell to sell some wool and while here he went to see sheriff George Wilcox and “whispered kinda confidential like” that he might have found a flying disk.
Wilcox got in touch with the Roswell Army Air Field and Maj. Jesse A. Marcel:
Marcel’s commander, Colonel William Blanchard (pictured below) ordered Marcel and counterintelligence officer Sheridan Cavitt out to Brazel’s ranch.
Marcel and counterintelligence officer accompanied him home, where they picked up the rest of the pieces of the “disk” and went to his home to try to reconstruct it.
On viewing the wreckage, Cavitt immediately thought it probably came from a weather balloon, but Marcel had other ideas. Marcel had a pre-conceived notion that it must have been part of the flying disk that he had heard about.
July 8 (Tuesday) :
The public information office at the base made the announcement that they had recovered a flying disk (approved by Col. Blanchard). This created newspaper headlines – – it was a sensation!:
However, at the intervention of Brigadier General Roger Ramey (pictured below) who had also inspected the wreckage, a press conference was soon held that included Marcel. The army announced that the fuss was over nothing more than a weather balloon, pieces of which were duly paraded for public display:
Prior to the press conference, a weather officer by the name of Irving Newton (pictured below) remembered seeing pieces of what he recognized as a weather balloon laid out in Ramey’s office:
In 1990s, Newton told investigators:
“I remember Major Marcel chased me all around that room…..He kept saying things like ‘Look how tough that metal is….look at the strange markings on it’….While I was examining the debris, Marcel was picking up pieces of the radar target sticks and trying to convince me that some notations on the sticks were alien writings. But I was adamant that it was a weather balloon with a RAWIN (radar) target. I think he was embarrassed as crazy and he would like to do anything to make that turn into a flying saucer” – – from Mysteries, Myths, Mayhem and Money chapter of Gary Bates’ ALIEN INTRUSION.
July 9 (Wednesday):
Ramey’s statement appears on ROSWELL DAILY RECORD newspaper:
July 9 (Wednesday):
W.W. (Mac) Brazel’s statement of regret appears on ROSWELL DAILY RECORD newspaper:
(ABOVE ARTICLE:
W.W. Brazel, 48, Lincoln county rancher living 30 miles south of Corona, today told his story of finding what the army at first described as a flying disk, but the publicity which attended his find caused him to add that if he ever found anything else short of a bomb, he sure wasn’t going to say anything about it.
Brazel was brought here late yesterday by W. E. Whitmore, of radio station KGFL, had his picture taken and gave an interview to the Record and Jason Kellahin, sent here from the Albuquerque bureau of the Associated Press to cover the story. The picture he posed for was sent out over AP telephoto wire sending machine specially set up in the Record office by R. D. Adair, AP wire chief sent here from Albuquerque for the sole purpose of getting out his picture and that of sheriff George Wilcox, to whom Brazel originally gave the information of his find.
Brazel related that on June 14 he and an 8-year old son, Vernon, were about 7 or 8 miles from the ranch house of the J. B. Foster ranch, which he operates, when they came upon a large area of bright wreckage made up on rubber strips, tinfoil, a rather tough paper and sticks.
At the time Brazel was in a hurry to get his round made and he did not pay much attention to it. But he did remark about what he had seen and on July 4 he, his wife, Vernon and a daughter, Betty, age 14, went back to the spot and gathered up quite a bit of the debris.
The next day he first heard about the flying disks, and he wondered if what he had found might be the remnants of one of these.
Monday he came to town to sell some wool and while here he went to see sheriff George Wilcox and “whispered kinda confidential like” that he might have found a flying disk.
Wilcox got in touch with the Roswell Army Air Field and Maj. Jesse A. Marcel and a man in plain clothes accompanied him home, where they picked up the rest of the pieces of the “disk” and went to his home to try to reconstruct it.
According to Brazel they simply could not reconstruct it at all. They tried to make a kite out of it, but could not do that and could not find any way to put it back together so that it could fit.
Then Major Marcel brought it to Roswell and that was the last he heard of it until the story broke that he had found a flying disk.
Brazel said that he did not see it fall from the sky and did not see it before it was torn up, so he did not know the size or shape it might have been, but he thought it might have been about as large as a table top. The balloon which held it up, if that was how it worked, must have been about 12 feet long, he felt, measuring the distance by the size of the room in which he sat. The rubber was smoky gray in color and scattered over an area about 200 yards in diameter.
When the debris was gathered up the tinfoil, paper, tape, and sticks made a bundle about three feet long and 7 or 8 inches thick, while the rubber made a bundle about 18 or 20 inches long and about 8 inches thick. In all, he estimated, the entire lot would have weighed maybe five pounds.
There was no sign of any metal in the area which might have been used for an engine and no sign of any propellers of any kind, although at least one paper fin had been glued onto some of the tinfoil.
There were no words to be found anywhere on the instrument, although there were letters on some of the parts. Considerable scotch tape and some tape with flowers printed upon it had been used in the construction.
No strings or wire were to be found but there were some eyelets in the paper to indicate that some sort of attachment may have been used.
Brazel said that he had previously found two weather observation balloons on the ranch, but that what he found this time did not in any way resemble either of these.
“I am sure that what I found was not any weather observation balloon,” he said. “But if I find anything else besides a bomb they are going to have a hard time getting me to say anything about it.”)
Marcel didn’t agree with this conclusion, probably because this was unlike any weather balloon he had ever seen.
It was not just a “weather balloon”. It was a top-secret program called Project Mogul, which was finally and officially revealed in 1994):
(Other high altitude reconnaissance balloon projects from the era included Project Skyhook, Project Grandson, Project Genetrix and Projct Moby Dick, pictured above)
END OF THE WHOLE STORY.
UNTIL:
More than 30 years after the incident, a few die-hard believers in the ‘alien saucer myth’ started questioning again the explanation that it was a “weather balloon”.
(And they were right, it was not just a “weather balloon”. It was a top-secret program called Project Mogul, which was finally and officially revealed in 1994).