For four long days before the fateful crash of a flying disc near Roswell, New Mexico, military radar installations tracked a mysterious object as it flitted about in the southern skies, periodically vanishing from radar screens, but always return-ing. Most UFO historians set July 2, 1947 as the official date of the crash, but it was not until July 4, Independence Day, that the unidentified blip disappeared from radar for good. Two full days before rancher Mac Brazel would alert the local sheriff to the metallic debris littering his field, Roswell Army Air Force officials knew the object was down, somewhere north of town. They had, from their safe radar haven, watched it crash.
William Woody watched the crash with his own eyes. He described a bright white light with red streaks in it, spinning silently and slowly downward. His father joined him in a search for the crash site, but they found highway 285 already blocked by military personnel.
By afternoon, July 5, great flatbed trucks had arrived at the site. Every visible scrap of debris, including the bodies of five extraterrestrial biological entities (EBEs), was loaded up and transported to the base at Roswell. Camouflage experts were brought in to eliminate all traces of the crash from the natural environment.
Within hours of the EBE bodies reaching the Roswell base, town mortician Glen Dennis received a series of strange tele-phone calls. Did he have a number of small, child-sized coffins in stock? Could they be hermetically sealed? How might badly burned and decomposing bodies be preserved without altering their chemical makeup? Certain some terrible disaster had occurred, Dennis offered to help in any way that he could. He was told the questions were for future reference only. There was no disaster.
Glen Dennis wound up at the Roswell base hospital that day, anyway – in that small community, he was the local ambulance driver as well as the mortician. Called to transport an injured airman for treatment, Dennis found the hospital parking lot blocked by a line of military field ambulances loaded with metallic debris. Some pieces were inscribed with what looked like Egyptian hieroglyphics.
Guessing a plane had crashed, he again offered his help, only to find himself roughly escorted off the base by two MPs. A gruff, red-haired captain warned him:
"There was no crash here. You did not see anything. You don't go into town. You don't tell anybody you saw anything. If you do... somebody'll be picking your bones out of the sand."
Meanwhile, Mac Brazel, a Corona, New Mexico rancher, was scratching his head in bewilderment before what would paradoxically become known as the "first site" (the "second site" being the location where the bodies were recovered). His pasture was thick with metallic debris, as far as the eye could see.
On Sunday, July 6, he loaded a box with samples of the strange material and headed for Roswell. Sheriff George Wilcox could not identify the metal fragments, but guessed from Brazel's description of the sheer quantity of debris scattered across his land that a military plane, or even a secret weapon, must have crashed there. He telephoned the Intel-ligence Officer for Roswell's 509th Bomb Group, Major Jesse Marcel.
Marcel and Captain Sheridan Cavitt drove together to the Brazel ranch. At first light, July 7, they visited the crash site, finding debris spread out over an area approximately three quarters of a mile long, and several hundred feet wide. Samples held over a cigarette lighter would not burn. Pieces as light as a feather could not be broken or cut with a knife. They loaded the truck with debris, and Marcel ordered Cavitt to drive back to the base.
Alone in the field, he then filled a box with the strange material, and raced home to show his family what he was convinced were pieces of a flying saucer. Three decades later, Major Marcel's son, Jesse Marcel, Jr., would undergo hypnosis to more clearly remember that night. He described seeing silver foil which, when crumpled, quickly expanded again to its original, wrinkle-free shape. He remembered I-beams etched with strange, purple writing and different geometric shapes, leaves, and circles. He helped his father load the debris back into the family car. Major Marcel returned to base.
Public Information Officer Lieutenant Walter Haut turned Marcel's report into a military press release, and, on July 8, The Roswell Daily Record broke the story:
The intelligence office of the 509th Bombardment group at Roswell Army Air Field announced at noon today that the field has come into possession of a flying saucer.
Evening papers across the country pulled the story off the wire service and announced the "invasion" to the world. Telephones at the sheriff's office, the Roswell Daily Record newsroom, and RAAF headquarters went crazy with demands for confirmation.
Major Marcel was ordered to fly to Fort Worth, and then to Wright Field in Ohio to meet with a General Ramey concerning the incident. Marcel spread chunks of debris across the general's desk, and demonstrated the material's special properties for the general and his staff.
Ramey took Marcel down a long hallway to have him mark the crash site on a large map. When they returned to the office, the mysterious debris was gone, and the twisted pieces of a weather balloon were laid out on the office floor.
Public Information Officer Major Charles Chashen took two photos of Marcel crouching next to the balloon, and the Fort Worth Star Telegram was fed the now official story that no flying disc had been recovered. In his excitement, the revised account stated, Marcel had merely misidentified one of the hundreds of Project Skyhook weather balloons launched daily from the Roswell base.
A press conference was held, at which several weather officers verified the new version of the story. The crashed disc rumors died almost overnight.
Soon after, Mac Brazel was escorted by military officers to the broadcast booth of KGFL radio, where they waited nearby as he publicly recanted his original version of the crash story. Then they escorted him out.
Frankie Rowe was 12 years old in 1947. Her father, a lieutenant in the fire department, had handled pieces of the debris and had shown them to his daughter. Soldiers came to their house, threatening their lives.
Sheriff Wilcox was warned to keep silent.
It was suggested that Robert Dennis, a fighter pilot and the brother of Glen Dennis, might suffer should the mortician speak out.
Eager to discover the truth, Dennis contacted a nurse he knew at the base. She agreed to meet him at the officer's club.
"I can't believe what I've just seen," she told him, face pale, her hands shaking. "This is the most horrible thing I've ever seen in my life."
She took out a small prescription pad and sketched one of the "foreign bodies" she had helped autopsy. She described the unbearable stench of the operating theater, the inhuman anatomy of the creatures.
Still shaking, she excused herself to return to the base before her absence was noticed. She was never seen again.
Major Jesse Marcel returned to Roswell and his military career. But many years later, from 1978 until his death in 1986, he finally broke his public silence on the incident, speaking out against the ridiculous weather balloon hoax in which he was compelled by his commanding officers to participate, and making it clear that the debris he gathered from Mac Brazel's field that fateful summer was the remains of nothing constructed on this Earth. "It came to Earth," he told reporters, "but not from Earth!"
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William Woody watched the crash with his own eyes. He described a bright white light with red streaks in it, spinning silently and slowly downward. His father joined him in a search for the crash site, but they found highway 285 already blocked by military personnel.
By afternoon, July 5, great flatbed trucks had arrived at the site. Every visible scrap of debris, including the bodies of five extraterrestrial biological entities (EBEs), was loaded up and transported to the base at Roswell. Camouflage experts were brought in to eliminate all traces of the crash from the natural environment.
Within hours of the EBE bodies reaching the Roswell base, town mortician Glen Dennis received a series of strange tele-phone calls. Did he have a number of small, child-sized coffins in stock? Could they be hermetically sealed? How might badly burned and decomposing bodies be preserved without altering their chemical makeup? Certain some terrible disaster had occurred, Dennis offered to help in any way that he could. He was told the questions were for future reference only. There was no disaster.
Glen Dennis wound up at the Roswell base hospital that day, anyway – in that small community, he was the local ambulance driver as well as the mortician. Called to transport an injured airman for treatment, Dennis found the hospital parking lot blocked by a line of military field ambulances loaded with metallic debris. Some pieces were inscribed with what looked like Egyptian hieroglyphics.
Guessing a plane had crashed, he again offered his help, only to find himself roughly escorted off the base by two MPs. A gruff, red-haired captain warned him:
"There was no crash here. You did not see anything. You don't go into town. You don't tell anybody you saw anything. If you do... somebody'll be picking your bones out of the sand."
THE STRANGE DEBRIS
Meanwhile, Mac Brazel, a Corona, New Mexico rancher, was scratching his head in bewilderment before what would paradoxically become known as the "first site" (the "second site" being the location where the bodies were recovered). His pasture was thick with metallic debris, as far as the eye could see.
On Sunday, July 6, he loaded a box with samples of the strange material and headed for Roswell. Sheriff George Wilcox could not identify the metal fragments, but guessed from Brazel's description of the sheer quantity of debris scattered across his land that a military plane, or even a secret weapon, must have crashed there. He telephoned the Intel-ligence Officer for Roswell's 509th Bomb Group, Major Jesse Marcel.
Marcel and Captain Sheridan Cavitt drove together to the Brazel ranch. At first light, July 7, they visited the crash site, finding debris spread out over an area approximately three quarters of a mile long, and several hundred feet wide. Samples held over a cigarette lighter would not burn. Pieces as light as a feather could not be broken or cut with a knife. They loaded the truck with debris, and Marcel ordered Cavitt to drive back to the base.
Alone in the field, he then filled a box with the strange material, and raced home to show his family what he was convinced were pieces of a flying saucer. Three decades later, Major Marcel's son, Jesse Marcel, Jr., would undergo hypnosis to more clearly remember that night. He described seeing silver foil which, when crumpled, quickly expanded again to its original, wrinkle-free shape. He remembered I-beams etched with strange, purple writing and different geometric shapes, leaves, and circles. He helped his father load the debris back into the family car. Major Marcel returned to base.
THE PRESS RELEASE
Public Information Officer Lieutenant Walter Haut turned Marcel's report into a military press release, and, on July 8, The Roswell Daily Record broke the story:
The intelligence office of the 509th Bombardment group at Roswell Army Air Field announced at noon today that the field has come into possession of a flying saucer.
Evening papers across the country pulled the story off the wire service and announced the "invasion" to the world. Telephones at the sheriff's office, the Roswell Daily Record newsroom, and RAAF headquarters went crazy with demands for confirmation.
Major Marcel was ordered to fly to Fort Worth, and then to Wright Field in Ohio to meet with a General Ramey concerning the incident. Marcel spread chunks of debris across the general's desk, and demonstrated the material's special properties for the general and his staff.
THE COVER-UP
Ramey took Marcel down a long hallway to have him mark the crash site on a large map. When they returned to the office, the mysterious debris was gone, and the twisted pieces of a weather balloon were laid out on the office floor.
Public Information Officer Major Charles Chashen took two photos of Marcel crouching next to the balloon, and the Fort Worth Star Telegram was fed the now official story that no flying disc had been recovered. In his excitement, the revised account stated, Marcel had merely misidentified one of the hundreds of Project Skyhook weather balloons launched daily from the Roswell base.
A press conference was held, at which several weather officers verified the new version of the story. The crashed disc rumors died almost overnight.
Soon after, Mac Brazel was escorted by military officers to the broadcast booth of KGFL radio, where they waited nearby as he publicly recanted his original version of the crash story. Then they escorted him out.
Frankie Rowe was 12 years old in 1947. Her father, a lieutenant in the fire department, had handled pieces of the debris and had shown them to his daughter. Soldiers came to their house, threatening their lives.
Sheriff Wilcox was warned to keep silent.
It was suggested that Robert Dennis, a fighter pilot and the brother of Glen Dennis, might suffer should the mortician speak out.
THE EBE BODIES
Eager to discover the truth, Dennis contacted a nurse he knew at the base. She agreed to meet him at the officer's club.
"I can't believe what I've just seen," she told him, face pale, her hands shaking. "This is the most horrible thing I've ever seen in my life."
She took out a small prescription pad and sketched one of the "foreign bodies" she had helped autopsy. She described the unbearable stench of the operating theater, the inhuman anatomy of the creatures.
Still shaking, she excused herself to return to the base before her absence was noticed. She was never seen again.
MARCEL SPEAKS OUT
Major Jesse Marcel returned to Roswell and his military career. But many years later, from 1978 until his death in 1986, he finally broke his public silence on the incident, speaking out against the ridiculous weather balloon hoax in which he was compelled by his commanding officers to participate, and making it clear that the debris he gathered from Mac Brazel's field that fateful summer was the remains of nothing constructed on this Earth. "It came to Earth," he told reporters, "but not from Earth!"
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This is an excerpt from the book The Golden Age of Flying Saucers: Classic UFO Sightings, Saucer Crashes and Extraterrestrial Contact Encounters by Frank G. Wilkinson, which can be purchased through Amazon.com, or direct from the publisher at www.NewParadigmPress.com.
To read more excerpts from The Golden Age of Flying Saucers,, click here!
