RAAF Captures Flying Saucer
On Ranch in Roswell Region

No Details of Flying Disk Are Revealed

Roswell Hardware Man and Wife Report Disk Seen

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.

According to information released by the department, over authority of Maj. J. A. Marcel, intelligence officer, the disk was recovered on a ranch in the Roswell vicinity, after an unidentified rancher had notified Sheriff Geo. Wilcox here, that he had found the instrument on his premises.

Major Marcel and a detail from his department went to the ranch and recovered the disk, it was stated.

After the intelligence officer here had inspected the instrument it was flown to higher headquarters.

The intelligence office stated that no details of the saucer's construction or its appearance had been revealed.

Mr. and Mrs. Dan Wilmot apparently were the only persons in Roswell who saw what they thought was a flying disk.

They were sitting on their porch at 105 South Penn. last Wednesday night at about ten o'clock when a large glowing object zoomed out of the sky from the southeast, going in a northwesterly direction at a high rate of speed.

Wilmot called Mrs. Wilmot's attention to it and both ran down into the yard to watch. It was in sight less then a minute, perhaps 40 or 50 seconds, Wilmot estimated.

Wilmot said that it appeared to him to be about 1,500 feet high and going fast. He estimated between 400 and 500 miles per hour.

In appearance it looked oval in shape like two inverted saucers, faced mouth to mouth, or like two old type washbowls placed together in the same fashion. The entire body glowed as though light were showing through from inside, though not like it would be if a light were underneath.

From where he stood Wilmot said that the object looked to be about 5 feet in size, and making allowance for the distance it was from town he figured that it must have been 15 to 20 feet in diameter, though this was just a guess.

Wilmot said that he heard no sound but that Mrs. Wilmot said she heard a swishing sound for a very short time.

The object came into view from the southeast and disappeared over the treetops in the general vicinity of six mile hill.

Wilmot, who is one of the most respected and reliable citizens in town, kept the story to himself hoping that someone else would come out and tell about having seen one, but finally today decided that he would go ahead and tell about it. The announcement that the RAAF was in possession of one came only a few minutes after he decided to release the details of what he had seen.

ROSWELL STATEMENT

"The many rumors regarding the flying disk became a reality yesterday when the intelligence office of the 509th Bomb Group of the Eight Air Force, Roswell Army Air Field, was fortunate enough to gain possession of a disc through the co-operation of one of the local ranchers and the Sheriff's Office of Chaves county.

"The flying object landed on a ranch near Roswell sometime last week. Not having phone facilities, the rancher stored the disc until such time as he was able to contact the Sheriff's office, who in turn notified Major Jesse A. Marcel, of the 509th Bomb Group Intelligence office.

"Action was immediately taken and the disc was picked up at the rancher's home. It was inspected at the Roswell Army Air Field and subsequently loaned by Major Marcel to higher headquarters."

ONLY MEAGER DETAILS OF FLYING DISC GIVEN

Kite-Like Device Found in N.M.; Studied by Army

By WILLIAM F. McMENAMIN

Washington, July 8 --(UP) -- The mystery of the "flying saucers" took a new twist tonight with the disclosure that the army air forces has recovered a strange object in New Mexico and is forwarding it to Wright Field, Dayton, O., for examination.

Announcement of the find came first from the Roswell, N. Mex. army air base, near where a "saucer" was found three weeks ago.

AAF headquarters later revealed that a "security lid" has been clamped on all but the sketchiest details of the discovery.

AAF spokesman would say only that the "saucer" was a flimsily-constructed, kite-like object measuring about 25 feet in diameter and covered with a material resembling tin foil.

A telephonic report from Brig. Gen. Roger B. Ramey, commander of the Eighth Air Force at Ft. Worth, Texas, said the purported "saucer" was badly battered when discovered by a rancher at Corona, 75 miles northwest of Roswell, N.M.

Ramey scoffed at the possibility that the object could have attained the supersonic speeds credited to the "flying saucers" allegedly spotted in recent weeks.

He reported that the object was too lightly constructed to have carried anyone and that there was no evidence that it had had a power plant of any sort.

It bore no identification marks and Ramey emphasized that no one had seen it in flight.

AAF sources ruled out the possibility that it might have been an army weather-kite. Helium balloons have been used for weather recording for the past seven or eight years.

They said it had been sent to Ft. Worth by Superfortress for transhipment to the AAF experimental center at Dayton.

AAF commanders in New Mexico refused to permit the object to be photographed on the grounds that it was "high level stuff," although Ramey indicated he was not attaching too great importance to the find pending an investigation.

The Roswell announcement came from Col. William H. Blanchard, commanding officer of the Roswell army air base, who specifically described the discovery as "a flying disc."

He said the disc had been forwarded to higher headquarters, presumably the commanding general of the 8th air force at Ft. Worth, Tex.

Blanchard would reveal no further details.

Sheriff George Wilcox of Roswell said the disc was found about three weeks ago by W.W. Brizell (sic), on the Foster ranch at Corona, 75 miles northwest of Roswell.

Wilcox said that Brizell does not have a telephone and so did not report finding the disc until the day before yesterday. Brizell told the sheriff he didn't know just what the disc was, but that at first it appeared to be a weather meter.

The sheriff's office notified the army, which sent intelligence officers to pick up the object. Then today the army announced possession of a disc.

The sheriff quoted Brizell as saying the object "seemed more or less like tinfoil." The rancher described the disc as about as large as a safe in the sheriff's office.

The safe is about three and one-half by four feet.

"FLYING SAUCERS" OVER S. AFRICA, CANADA
AND AUSTRALIA?

Conflicting Reports on Mystery Objects

"CONCRETE EVIDENCE" IN THREE INSTANCES

LONDON, JULY 9

The "Flying Saucer" mystery deepens.

Reuter reports today indicate that the mysterious objects have been seen not only in the U.S.A. -- where reports have come from 41 states -- but in Canada, Australia and South Africa.

Statements regarding the size of the discs vary from "as big as gramaphone records" to "a diameter of 200 feet with a centre hole."

Meanwhile, the World Inventors Congress has offered a thousand dollars reward for the delivery of a "flying saucer" to their exhibition at Los Angeles this week.

Concrete evidence too has not been wanting, so far three reports of "discs" or parts of discs being reported. While one discovery reports a "flimsy construction" with material "some sort of tin foil," another speaks of diecast metal an eighth of an inch thick melting only at a heat of 6,300 degrees, and third speaks of "rock-like metal" which rained down from a huge flying disc.

In the meantime at Sydney Professor of Physiology, H. P. Cotton of the Sydney University conducted an experiment with his class of 450 students and demonstrated that, when one looks at a clear sky concentrating on a fixed point while standing perfectly still rapidly-moving bright, oval-shaped objects are seen. This he explained was due to the red corpuscles of the blood having (sic) in front of the retina.

The first concrete evidence was announced last night when United States Army Air Force authorities at Roswell, New Mexico, revealed that a flying disc had been found on the airfield.

General Roger Ramey, Commander of the Eighth Air Force with headquarters at Fort Worth Texas, received the object from Roswell Army Air Base. It is being shipped by air to the Army Air Force Research Centre at Wright Field, Ohio.

In a telephone conversation with Army Air Force Headquarters in Washington he described the object as a "flimsy construction almost like a box."

So far as investigation could determine no one had seen the object in the air, the General added. Asked what the material seemed to be, Air Force officials in Washington described it as "apparently some sort of tin foil."

It would have had a diameter of about 20 to 25 feet if reconstructed, the officials added. Nothing in its apparent construction indicated any capacity for speed and there was no evidence of a power plant. The discs construction seemed too flimsy to have enabled it to carry a man.

METEOROLOGICAL DEVICE

Army Air Force Headquarters said later that the officer who had seen the object held a strong opinion that it might be a meteorological device. "There is some indication that the object might have been attached to a balloon which squares with the description of meteorological equipment we have in use," it was stated.

Meanwhile a man in Oelwein, Iowa, claimed that a flying saucer had crashed into his front yard last night. He said that he found a piece of metal in his yard six and a half inches in diameter and about an eighth of an inch thick. Planes were overhead at the time of the object's descent, he said. The man, Lloyd Bennett, stated that he had a piece of the material analysed by a metallurgist who said that the disc appeared to be of some diecast metal which only melted at a heat of 6,300 degrees.

ROCKLIKE METAL

A Chicago report says that a piece of rocklike metal, alleged to have dropped from one of the "Flying Saucers" arrived yesterday for analysis by metallurgists of Chicago University.

The sender, Mr. Harold Dahl, of Tacoma, Washington State, said that on June 25 over Puget Sound, near the Canadian border, he and two companions on board a small boat saw what appeared to be huge silver doughnuts coming down between the clouds.

He anchored his boat and went ashore and watched the objects through binoculars. He saw five objects floating around a sixth. They were about 200 feet in diameter with a centre hole surrounded by what appeared to be a row of portholes.

The ships, as Mr. Dahl described them, came level at about fifteen hundred feet and then rose rapidly to a height of nearly a mile.

At this point, according to Mr Dahl, the centre ship began trailing a substance that rained down upon the water and along the shore. Pieces of the "metal rain" smashed a part of the wheel house of his boat and broke a searchlight lens on deck.

"V" FORMATION

The South African report says that two Johannesburg residents have reported that they saw "flying saucers" over the city early yesterday.

They said that the objects were about as big as gramaphone records and were revolving at a great speed in a "V" formation. The objects disappeared in a cloud of smoke, they added.

Six people claimed to have seen "flying saucers" in the skies over Sydney in the last 24 hours.

One man said he saw a bright, oval-shaped object in the sky at night at a height of about ten thousand feet. His description was identical with those of the objects reported to have been seen in the skies over Canada and parts of the U.S.A. -- (Reuter)

Gen. Ramey Empties Roswell Saucer

Ramey Says Excitement is Not Justified

General Ramey Says Disk is Weather Balloon

Fort Worth, Texas, July 9 (AP)--An examination by the army revealed last night that mysterious objects found on a lonely New Mexico ranch was a harmless high-altitude weather balloon -- not a grounded flying disk. Excitement was high until Brig. Gen. Roger M. Ramey, commander of the Eighth air forces with headquarters here cleared up the mystery.

The bundle of tinfoil, broken wood beams and rubber remnants of a balloon were sent here yesterday by army air transport in the wake of reports that it was a flying disk.

But the general said the objects were the crushed remains of a ray wind (sic) target used to determine the direction and velocity of winds at high altitudes.

Warrant Officer Irving Newton, forecaster at the army air forces weather station here said, "we use them because they go much higher than the eye can see."

The weather balloon was found several days ago near the center of New Mexico by Rancher W. W. Brazel. He said he didn't think much about it until he went into Corona, N. M., last Saturday and heard the flying disk reports.

He returned to his ranch, 85 miles northwest of Roswell, and recovered the wreckage of the balloon, which he had placed under some brush.

Then Brazel hurried back to Roswell, where he reported his find to the sheriff's office.

The sheriff called the Roswell air field and Maj. Jesse A. Marcel, 509th bomb group intelligence officer was assigned to the case.

Col. William H. Blanchard, commanding officer of the bomb group, reported the find to General Ramey and the object was flown immediately to the army air field here.

Ramey went on the air here last night to announce the New Mexico discovery was not a flying disk.

Newton said that when rigged up, the instrument "looks like a six-pointed star, is silvery in appearance and rises in the air like a kite."

In Roswell, the discovery set off a flurry of excitement.

Sheriff George Wilcox's telephone lines were jammed. Three calls came from England, one of them from The London Daily Mail, he said.

A public relations officer here said the balloon was in his office "and it'll probably stay right there."

Newton, who made the examination, said some 80 weather stations in the U.S. were using that type of balloon and that it could have come from any of them.

He said he had sent up identical balloons during the invasion of Okinawa to determine ballistics information for heavy guns.

Harassed Rancher who Located
'Saucer' Sorry He Told About It

W.W. Brazel, 48, Lincoln county rancher living 30 miles south east 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 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 the AP telephoto wire sending machine specially set up in the Record office by R. D. Adair, AP wire chief sent here for the sole purpose of getting out the 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 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 (sic) 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 attenion 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 would 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 propellors 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 balloons on the ranch, but that what he found this time did not in any way resemble either of these.

"I am sure 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."

FLYING DISC TALES DECLINE
AS ARMY, NAVY CRACK DOWN

By United Press

(UP) -- Reports of flying saucers whizzing through the sky fell off sharply today as the army and navy began a concentrated campaign to stop the rumors.

One by one, persons who thought they had their hands on the $3,000 offered for a genuine flying saucer found their hands full of nothing.

Headquarters of the 8th army at Fort Worth, Texas. announced that the wreckage of a tin-foil covered object found on a New Mexico ranch was nothing more than the remanants of a weather balloon. AAF headquarters in Washington reportedly delivered a "blistering" rebuke to officers at the Roswell, New Mexico, base for suggesting that it was a "flying disc."

A 16 inch aluminum disc equiped with two radio condensers, a fluorescent light switch and copper tubing found by F.G. Harston near the Shreveport, Louisiana, business district was declared by police to be "obviously the work of a prankster." Police believed the prankster hurled it over a sign board and watched it land at Harston's feet. It was turned over to officials at Barksdale army air field.

U.S. naval intelligence officers at Pearl Harbor investigated claims by 100 navy men that they saw a mysterious object "silvery colored, like aluminum, with no wings or tail," sail over Honolulu at a rapid clip late yesterday. The description fit a weather balloon but 5 of the men, familiar with weather observation devices, swore that it was not a balloon.

"It moved extremely fast for a short period, seemed to slow down, then disappeared high in the air," said Yeoman 1/C Douglas Kacherle of New Bedford, Massachusetts. His story was corroborated by Seaman 1/C Donald Ferguson, Indianapolis; Yeoman 3/C Morris Kzamme, La. Crosse, Wisconsin, Seaman 1/C Albert Delancey, Salem, West Virginia, and Yeoman 2/C Ted Pardue, McClain, Texas.

Admiral William H. Blandy, commander-in-chief of the Atlantic fleet, said like everyone else he was curious about the reported flying saucers "but I do not believe they exist."

Lloyd Bennett, Oelwein, Iowa, salesman, was stubborn about the shiny 6 1/2-inch steel disc he found yesterday. Authorities said it was not a "flying saucer" but Bennett said he would claim the reward offered for the mysterious discs.

There were other discards. Not all the principles were satisfied with the announcement that the wreckage found on the New Mexico ranch was that of a weather balloon.

The excitement ran thru this cycle:

1. Lieut. Warren Haught, public relations officer at the Roswell Base released a statement in the name of Col. William Blanchard, base commander. It said that an object described as a "flying disk" was found on the nearby Foster ranch three weeks ago by W.W. Brazel and had been sent to "higher officials" for examination.

2. Brig. Gen. Roger B. Ramey, commander of the 8th Air Force said at Fort Worth that he believed the object was the "remnant of a weather balloon and a radar reflector," and was "nothing to be excited about." He allowed photographers to take a picture of it. It was announced that the object would be sent to Wright Field, Dayton, OH.

3. Later, Warrant Officer Irving Newton, Stetsonville, Wisconsin, weather officer at Fort Worth, examined the object and said definitely that it was nothing but a badly smashed target used to determine the direction and velocity of high altitude winds.

4. Lt. Haught reportedly told reporters that he had been "shut up by two blistering phone calls from Washington."

5. Efforts to contact Col. Blanchard brought the information that "he is now on leave."

6. Maj. Jesse A. Marcel, intelligence officer of the 509th bombardment group, reportedly told Brazel, the finder of the object, that "it has nothing to do with army or navy so far as I can tell."

7. Brazel told reporters that he has found weather balloon equipment before, but had seen nothing that had resembled his latest find.

8. Those men who saw the object said it had a flowered paper tape around it bearing the initials "D.P."