The
imagination of UFO's gained shape and recognition when an Idaho pilot named Kenneth Arnold saw supersonic objects on
June 25, 1947, that flew like geese
and moved just like a saucer would do on water. This report started the era of
Flying Saucers and UFO's. In the summers of July 1947, the US Military got an opportunity to closely observe a
mysterious spacecraft near the top secret air base of Roswell, New Mexico. The
incident is intensely reported both officially and unofficially. The most
famous narrative of the incident is that the Roswell debris was of a spacecraft
containing extraterrestrial (ET) life. Since late 1970, the Roswell incident
has been surrounded by massive controversies. The rumours regarding flying discs
came to a reality when the intelligence officers of Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF) gained possession of a disc through
the assistance of a local rancher and the Sheriff's office of Chaves County.
William Ware Mack Brazel was
a 48 year rancher (foreman) who earned his living on J. B Foster sheep ranch located 30
miles South East of Corona in Lincon County, New Mexico. Brazel used to live
on the ranch in a farm house while his wife Margaret (Maggie, 45 year old) and
children (daughter Bessie Brazel Schreiber nicknamed Betty, 14 years old and
son Vernon, 8 years old) lived in Tularosa. They often visited him during
holidays. On Saturday, 14 June, 1947,
Brazel and his son Vernon, were on their round, about 7 to 8 miles away from
the J. B. Foster ranch house when they noticed clusters of dazzling unidentifiable
debris scattered over a large area. The debris was possibly made of rubber
strips, tinfoil, hard paper and metallic sticks. However, he was in an urgency
to complete his round and did not take note of it. The debris which was
scattered over an area of about 200 yards in diameter was interfering with day
to day ranch operations as the sheep did not cross the debris to go to their
usual water place. So, Brazel and his family went back to the spot to clear the
debris on Friday, July 4, 1947. They
collected some of the remains in sacks which looked to have been scattered in
such a vast area possibly due to an aerial explosion.
There
were several UFO sightings reported in the summer of 1947 in United States. On
Saturday, when Brazel came to know about flying discs, he was bewildered and
wondered if the weird waste with bizarre characteristics might be the remnants
of one of those disks. He came to the Chaves County on Monday, July 7, 1947, to sell wool where he met Sherrif George Wilcox. He not only reported
the incident but also handed over a small amount of debris in a box. The
Sherrif contacted the Roswell Army Air Field. Colonel Willam Blanchard, the commanding officer at RAAF was so
intrigued by the sample that he immediately ordered two intelligence officers Major Jesse A. Marcel (head intelligence officer of 509th Bombing
Group) and Captain Sheridan Cavitt
(officer in charge of the
Counterintelligence Corps) to investigate. They drove out to the ranch with
Brazel to examine the debris where they tried to reconstruct the remains in
which they unsuccessful. The debris consisted of tinfoil, paper, tape, metallic
sticks (about 3 feet in length and 7-8 inches thick) and rubber like material which
was smoke grey in colour and made a bundle of about 1.5 feet long and 8 inches
thick. The whole wreckage was very strong and exceptionally light (about 5
pounds only). No proof of common metal (which could have been used in the
engine or propeller) was found in the area. No strings or wire were found. Only
a paper-fin was found glued in the tinfoil. There was nothing written in the
instruments except some outlandish unreadable markings which resembled ancient
Indian petroglyphs or rock figures in some of the parts. The investigators
spend the night with Brazel, collected the debris and left for the base early
in the morning.
On
the basis of the report submitted by the investigators, Colonel Blanchard got
the area cordoned off and soldiers then searched the field and brought the
remaining debris in armoured trucks to Army headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas.
On Tuesday, July 8, 1947, Colonel
Blanchard issued a press release around noon to Walter Haut (Public
Information Officer, 509 Bombing Group), following which a shocking
announcement was made by the public information office at Roswell Army Air
Field. They stated that that they had recovered remains of a flying disk from a
ranch near Roswell which had crashed during a storm. However, almost
immediately, around afternoon, Colonel Blanchard's announcement was retracted
by Brigadier General Roger Ramey,
who was his superior in chain of commands. The Brigadier held a press
conference in Fort Worth in which he stated that the mysterious debris
recovered by Major Marcel was not of a flying disc, but of a weather balloon
attached with a metallic radar reflector which crashed in a storm. Reporters
were shown some of the wreckage said to be collected from the crash site which
consisted of foil, rubber and wood. Further press coverage was restricted and
soon public interest faded and the incident was forgotten for about 31 years.
In
an interview in 1978, Major Jesse A. Marcel, who was the first officer to
investigate the debris said to Stanton
Friedman (a reputed nuclear-physicist
and UFO researcher) that the debris he recovered was "not from
Earth". The material was quite different from the materials found on earth
because it cannot be engraved, dented or whittled by knife. The foil rubber
material could neither be torn like ordinary aluminium foil nor be burnt. The
piece of metal was just like tinfoil used in a pack of cigarette paper but it
was so strong that it neither bent nor got a dent. The metal foil could be
wrapped in a ball, and then when you unfold it, there was no sign of any wrinkle
(folding marks). He claimed that the top officials were involved in covering up
the incident. His claims were published in National
Enquirer which led to publication of the book named The Roswell Incident in 1980.
The
authors claimed that they had interviewed over 75 witnesses. The book
documented extracts from government's secret documents of the alleged cover-up.
It also contained a document in which Majestic
12 (which later became known as Men
In Black) was officially authorized by President Truman to cover up UFO
incidents. According to the claims of the book, the mysterious debris in
Roswell consisted of fragments of exotic, flexible material which could not tear
burn or break. It had unfamiliar markings on the wreckage, perhaps writing or
hieroglyphics. The book also claimed that some alien bodies were also recovered
from the crash.
Glenn Dennis was
a young mortician who worked at Ballard
Funeral Home which incorporated ambulance and mortuary services for the
nearby RAAF. One afternoon he received some calls from the RAAF mortuary
officer who wanted to confirm if he had some small coffins and if they could be
hermetically sealed. The RAAF mortuary officer also inquired about how to
preserve bodies which had been exposed for a few days. Dennis drove to the base
hospital in the evening where he saw large pieces of wreckage with strange
engravings on one of the pieces sticking out of the back of a military
ambulance. The hospital was unusually busy. He wanted to inquire about this
with a friend nurse but she advised him to leave immediately. Before he could
react, a military officer accompanied by a black NCO threatened him and forced
to leave. Mystified by the unusual activity and hiked security, Denis left the
base hospital. Next day or so, he met the nurse in officers club where she told
him that she was involved in preliminary autopsy of three strange little
creatures recovered from the wreckage. She drew sketches of them after he
promised to keep the episode secret. Within few days she was transferred from
the RAAF base to England. She sent a note to Dennis giving him her address in
England but when he wrote a letter to her, it was returned marked "Deceased". Other nurses on the
base told him that she died in a plane crash.
Testimony of Dying CIA
Official 2013
In
2013, a dying CIA Official confessed about UFO’s and The Extraterrestrial
reality AIRL UFO 1947 Roswell Crash Vehicle. The video testimony was shown at
the Citizen Hearing on Disclosure at the National
Press Club in Washington, DC on Friday,
May 3, 2013. The former CIA official was interviewed by UFO author and
historian Richard Dolan.
The
anonymous official claimed that he had served the U.S. Army, CIA as well as the
U.S. Air Force’s Project Blue Book (one
of the USAF’s official studies of UFOs). He alleged that after an invasion
threat from President Dwight Eisenhower, he and his superior at the CIA were
allowed inside the secretive Area 51 in Nevada to gather intelligence and
report back to the president. He described seeing several alien spacecraft,
including the craft that crashed in Roswell, New Mexico. He and his superior
were then taken to the S-4 facility southwest of Area 51 where they observed
live extraterrestrials.
EBE-1
was apparently captured alive from one of the saucer crashes of 1947 and was confined
in an underground area at Los Alamos Laboratory, New Mexico. EBE-1 died of
unknown causes on June 18, 1952.
Roswell UFO incident: 64
years and a single FBI document
The
FBI posted a document in April 2011
in the FBI vault which is believed
to be the only official FBI document related to the Roswell UFO Incident. It is
a memo written by Mr. Guy Hottel, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's
Washington Field Office to the FBI
Director J. Edgar Hoover on March
22, 1950 concerning flying saucers. It is the most popular file in the FBI
vault, which relays an unconfirmed report which was never pursued by the FBI.
Like all memos at that time, it was addressed to the Director and recorded and
indexed in FBI records.
The
document can directly be viewed at: