The Roswell Incident [1947]

[BS3]

Of course!

https://www2.abqjournal.com/roswell/roslived6.htm

That's a very 'believer-friendly' account in the sense that Brazel a) hears about the Arnold sighting specifically and b) then starts talking about his find's strange properties, even before the implication about "little green men"

Something isn't quite right about it though. Brazel phoned him and then Haut came in the same day with the press release? How does that work then?

 

[BS3]

"It was the famous cowboy, W.W. Brazel. This Brazel was on the phone and he had heard me reading a news story about the guy Kenneth Arnold in Washington who had seen a bunch of flying saucers".

I thought Brazel didn't have a radio?

Unless Brazel was by this point being 'entertained' in Roswell where he might have had access to a radio. All seems a bit implausible though. The guy had a ranch to run, I strongly doubt he spent any more time on this than necessary.

 

[Comfortably Numb]

"Brazel came to the radio station, joined Joyce in the control booth and told a different story, that what he had found was actually a weather balloon".

At which point, we might conclude this is all...

 

[BS3]

http://www.astronomyufo.com/UFO/town.htm

The chronology seems to be clarified a bit in the link above.

"Frank Joyce states that Brazel came into town the DAY BEFORE Walter Haut issued the infamous press release. This would have been the 7th. Jesse Marcel, despite being inconsistent with his time line, confirms this, "We heard about it on July 7 when we got a call from the county sheriff’s office" (Berlitz and Moore 69). Therefore, it is almost certain that July 7th was the day that Brazel came to town"

Note he also came into town mainly to sell his truck, rather than shoot the breeze about recent UFO sightings!

 

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"Joyce challenged Brazel's story, using a phrase that was common at the time to describe the space aliens that Brazel had spoken of. "I said, 'That's a very interesting story but not exactly what we talked about on the phone. Especially the little green men.' "And he paused and he said, 'They weren't green.' And that is gospel"."

 

[BS3]

"Joyce challenged Brazel's story, using a phrase that was common at the time to describe the space aliens that Brazel had spoken of. "I said, 'That's a very interesting story but not exactly what we talked about on the phone. Especially the little green men.' "And he paused and he said, 'They weren't green.' And that is gospel"."

Well, given that the most recent incarnation of the believers' argument is that a few bits fell off the ship on Brazel's ranch before the main part, with occupants, crashed elsewhere, then Joyce's story is (as usual) incompatible on several levels with other 'witness' stories. They can't all be true!

 

[Comfortably Numb]

Note he also came into town mainly to sell his truck, rather than shoot the breeze about recent UFO sightings!

I haven't heard this before... !

 

[BS3]

I haven't heard this before... !

Yes, this recollection is attributed to his eldest son Bill apparently.

 

[EnolaGaia]

Warning though! I recall there are several different versions of who Brazel actually told about having found the debris and what factually happened next.

There are, they are of variable substance and consistency, they don't uniformly cover all alleged events during that early timeframe, and they don't agree on certain details and descriptions.

To make matters worse (as is the case with much about Roswell) these accounts rely on testimony collected decades later and / or the author's speculative questions and suggestions.

 

[EnolaGaia]

Here's one for a start - it was nothing to do with Brazel first hearing of the 'flying discs', when he went into town (Corona?), some days after his find:
"Brazel said he hadn’t heard of the “flying discs” at the time, but several days later his brother-in-law, Hollis Wilson, told him of the disc reports and suggested it might be one".

There are multiple (later) accounts that claim Brazel went to Corona on Saturday the 5th (the day following his family's collection of debris) to do some shopping. That's where he ran into Hollis Wilson. Wilson is variously described as "a relative", Brazel's "brother in law", Brazel's "uncle", and in one instance Brazel's "uncle and sometime brother in law" (whatever that might mean).

The accounts that mention a Saturday Corona trip and seeing Wilson do seem to agree that Wilson (with or without seeing any sample of the debris some allege Brazel had with him) was the one who (a) filled Brazel in on the flying saucer phenomenon that was all over the news and (b) suggested Mack's debris might be related to saucers. Some accounts go farther to claim Wilson urged Brazel to contact authorities and / or check to see if there might be some reward for the debris.

There are less detailed accounts claiming Brazel went to Corona and / or discussed his find with Wilson "several days" after he and his family had collected debris on the 4th.

 

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To make matters worse (as is the case with much about Roswell) these accounts rely on testimony collected decades later and / or the author's speculative questions and suggestions.

Accepting Joyce's recollection is.... 'enigmatic'.... what becomes of more interest here is Haut's story, regarding the press release.

Has it never been resolved why the base hierarchy were persuaded this was debris from one of those 'flying discs' and whether the authorisation to announce same came from 'above'?

Haut's interview from the article is of immense interest.

I wonder how much influence Major Jesse Marcel might have had here.

When he eventually, having stopped off at home first and shown his family what he believed was part of wreckage from an alien ship, arrived back at base, what did he report concerning his assignment...

 

[BS3]

Accepting Joyce's recollection is.... 'enigmatic'.... what becomes of more interest here is Haut's story, regarding the press release.

Has it never been resolved why the base hierarchy were persuaded this was debris from one of those 'flying discs' and whether the authorisation to announce same came from 'above'?

Haut's interview from the article is of immense interest.

I wonder how much influence Major Jesse Marcel might have had here.

When he eventually, having stopped off at home first and shown his family what he believed was part of wreckage from an alien ship, arrived back at base, what did he report concerning his assignment...

There are strong implications from a few people that Haut went a bit off-road with the press release and may not even have had Blanchard's authorisation. Indeed, the "press release" may just have consisted of Haut phoning people up. From the day's newswires: "SANTE FE: ARMY GAVE VERBAL. NO TEXT."

 

[Comfortably Numb]

Indeed, the "press release" may just have consisted of Haut phoning people up.

"At that time we had two radio stations in town and two newspapers. It was just before lunch, I got in my little automobile and drove to two newspapers and two radio stations, hand-delivered the releases to them, came home to lunch..."

The article claims:

"He still believes that his news release, not the statements released at a news conference in Fort Worth, Texas, later that evening about the craft being a weather balloon, was the accurate description of what happened".

It is, elementally, the same debris, though.

The only development being it was no longer a possible 'flying disc'.

 

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From the 'Roswell Daily Record' on 9 July, describing recovered material:

The balloon which held it up . . . must have been 12 feet long. . . . 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 bundle about 18 or 20 inches long. In all, he estimated, the entire lot would have weighed maybe five pounds. There was no sign of metal in the area which might have been used for an engine, and no sign of 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 wires were to be found but there were some eyelets in the paper to indicate that some sort of attachment may have been used.
(End)

That's our 'flying disc', aka, 'flying saucer'.

 

[BS3]

Of course, then you have the teletype sent to the FBI at Cincinnati from its Fort Worth office, saying that Maj. Curtan had telephoned them and said that the "flying disc" was "hexagonal" and "suspended from a balloon by cable".

Curtan also added that the "disc" was very similar to a "high altitude weather balloon with radar reflector", but wasn't one - ie because it was actually a Project Mogul balloon, something with a degree of national security interest.

The concern was the press would break the story and therefore divulge the location of potential secret project debris, even if the secret project itself was merely a balloon of another type. Here you have an explanation for the way things panned out - not only had Marcel and Haut gone too far, they might have inadvertently given away the existence early tests of a secret project to monitor weapons testing.

 

[Comfortably Numb]

From same, aforesaid article:

The base called Kaufmann and his colleagues back to Roswell, they met with base intelligence officer Jesse Marcel and base commander Col. William Blanchard, and a search crew was dispatched.

"It was pitch black. It was a thunderstorm, by the way. Off the highway we could see this kind of glow. The terrain was very rough and it was very wet. It was full of caliche out there. It was like driving on ice. We had to cut the wire fence and I think maybe we got 200 to 300 yards from it and it looked like it wasn't a plane or a missile or anything like that. So we radioed in for a special group, the chemical boys, to inspect the area. When they told us it was all right to go in is when we saw the debris field.

"We were there just dumbfounded. We didn't know what to think. And we didn't know how anybody else would react if we told them what we saw. They would probably wonder what we had been drinking."

The aliens "didn't have any of these big eyes or horns or anything else or spiny fingers. They were very good-looking people, ash-colored faces and skin. About 5 feet 4, 5 feet 5. Eyes a little more pronounced, a little bit larger. Small ears, small nose. Fine features. Hairless. There were five. They had a very tight, almost a wetsuit, silver colored. I just saw two of them. One was thrown out of the craft itself. And one was half in and half out. They were all dead".
(End)


Marcel was there?

Doesn't really all seem to... 'equate'... somehow.

Have to say, whatever anyone may conclude, I have personally understood the true facts about 'Roswell' and its intrinsic complexity, notably from post-1980 material, from delightfully cordial discussions on this thread, than ever before.

Enormously new appreciation of the overall context.

It's a passionate subject and I remain... not so much unsure, as... "keep finding stuff, which requires contemplation".

That wasn't a quote from Brazel or Marcel, by the way...

So.... can we disregard the Kauffman tangent?

 

[BS3]

Come to think of it, the stuff-up over revealing a secret project also explains the muddy evidence around whether Blanchard authorised the press release.

No doubt Blanchard couldn't directly ask Haut to carry the can for him rashly authorising the PIO to issue something, but it would be quite easy to fluff over the issue until no one was quite sure who wrote what.

 

[BS3]

From same, aforesaid article:

The base called Kaufmann and his colleagues back to Roswell, they met with base intelligence officer Jesse Marcel and base commander Col. William Blanchard, and a search crew was dispatched.

"It was pitch black. It was a thunderstorm, by the way. Off the highway we could see this kind of glow. The terrain was very rough and it was very wet. It was full of caliche out there. It was like driving on ice. We had to cut the wire fence and I think maybe we got 200 to 300 yards from it and it looked like it wasn't a plane or a missile or anything like that. So we radioed in for a special group, the chemical boys, to inspect the area. When they told us it was all right to go in is when we saw the debris field.

"We were there just dumbfounded. We didn't know what to think. And we didn't know how anybody else would react if we told them what we saw. They would probably wonder what we had been drinking."

The aliens "didn't have any of these big eyes or horns or anything else or spiny fingers. They were very good-looking people, ash-colored faces and skin. About 5 feet 4, 5 feet 5. Eyes a little more pronounced, a little bit larger. Small ears, small nose. Fine features. Hairless. There were five. They had a very tight, almost a wetsuit, silver colored. I just saw two of them. One was thrown out of the craft itself. And one was half in and half out. They were all dead".
(End)


Marcel was there?

Doesn't really all seem to... 'equate'... somehow.

Have to say, whatever anyone may conclude, I have personally understood the true facts about 'Roswell' and its intrinsic complexity, notably from post-1980 material, from delightfully cordial discussions on this thread, than ever before.

Enormously new appreciation of the overall context.

It's a passionate subject and I remain... not so much unsure, as... "keep finding stuff, which requires contemplation".

That wasn't a quote from Brazel or Marcel, by the way...

So.... can we disregard the Kauffman tangent?

Kaufman seems to have been generally concluded to be a fantasist. He had a minor admin job but certainly wouldn't be gallivanting about in the desert calling in the "chemical boys".

 

[Comfortably Numb]

Of course, then you have the teletype sent to the FBI at Cincinnati from its Fort Worth office, saying that Maj. Curtan had telephoned them and said that the "flying disc" was "hexagonal" and "suspended from a balloon by cable".

Eh... whit.... the hell has this sprung from...

I thought we were near to closure here.

Right enough, think I might have just posted something about finding new evidence and 'recalibrating'...

Take a time out...?



Which reminds that our friends across the Atlantic, if American Football devotees, as I am, will understand why, when we come to the, perhaps more challenging question, 'Is there a God'?

Some say he dwells amongst them...

 

[BS3]

Eh... whit.... the hell has this sprung from...

I thought we were near to closure here.

Right enough, think I might have just posted something about finding new evidence and 'recalibrating'...

Take a time out...?



Which reminds that our friends across the Atlantic, if American Football devotees, as I am, will understand why, when we come to the, perhaps more challenging question, 'Is there a God'?

Some say he dwells amongst them...

View attachment 51221

http://www.project1947.com/roswell/appii.htm

Here's the FBI memo - the redacted name of the person who 'telephonically' advised them was Maj. Curtan at Ft Worth (actually Major Edwin Kirton)

 

[Comfortably Numb]

I think it's been remarked by a few people that a magazine had in the previous few days put up a $3000 reward for evidence...

This would seem to be the source?

Not a $3000 reward - three separate offers, allegedly....

Associated Press
8 July, 1947

A "flying saucer" in the hand was worth $3,000 today, but those seen in the sky still were dime a dozen. There were no takers for rewards of $1,000 each offered in Chicago, Los Angeles and Spokane for a genuine flying saucer.
(End)

 

[Comfortably Numb]

Associated Press
8 July, 1947

From the same front page:

Dayton Herald (Ohio)
8 July, 1947

By LEW ROCK JR.
Herald Staff Writer

Orville Wright thinks the flying saucer craze is "propaganda started by the government to support the current state department campaign to get us in another war."

The co-inventor of the airplane compared the saucer stories with the false rumors published in England in 1913 about German dirigibles flying over the British Isles.

"It is more propaganda for war, to stir up the people. and excite them to believe a foreign power has designs on this nation," the 75-year-old scientist said.

Mr. Wright criticized wide publicity given the saucer stories.

He believes there is no scientific basis for the existence of the phenomenon reportedly seen by hundreds of persons across the nation.

"You can get people to say anything." he commented. "The American people have reached a pretty low level to be taken in by sheer propaganda."

During the interview in his Broadway laboratory today, Mr. Wright recalled his visit to England in 1913 and a discussion with Lord Northeliffe, powerful British newspaper publisher.

"Lord Northecliffe admitted when I twitted him about the dirigible reports...".
(End)

Was there possibly some kind of time-warp and that explains a lot?

 

[BS3]

From the same front page:

Dayton Herald (Ohio)
8 July, 1947

By LEW ROCK JR.
Herald Staff Writer

Orville Wright thinks the flying saucer craze is "propaganda started by the government to support the current state department campaign to get us in another war."

The co-inventor of the airplane compared the saucer stories with the false rumors published in England in 1913 about German dirigibles flying over the British Isles.

"It is more propaganda for war, to stir up the people. and excite them to believe a foreign power has designs on this nation," the 75-year-old scientist said.

Mr. Wright criticized wide publicity given the saucer stories.

He believes there is no scientific basis for the existence of the phenomenon reportedly seen by hundreds of persons across the nation.

"You can get people to say anything." he commented. "The American people have reached a pretty low level to be taken in by sheer propaganda."

During the interview in his Broadway laboratory today, Mr. Wright recalled his visit to England in 1913 and a discussion with Lord Northeliffe, powerful British newspaper publisher.

"Lord Northecliffe admitted when I twitted him about the dirigible reports...".
(End)

Was there possibly some kind of time-warp and that explains a lot?

Wright was a perceptive bloke. It didn't take governments very long to realise that the 'flying saucer' craze was a useful bit of misdirection to draw people's attention away from genuine secrets. As noted above, there's even an element of the latter at Roswell, though I suspect it was more in the way of damage limitation than anything else - and the 'secret' was a lot more mundane than alien technology.

 

[Comfortably Numb]

Wright was a perceptive bloke. It didn't take governments very long to realise that the 'flying saucer' craze was a useful bit of misdirection to draw people's attention away from genuine secrets.

All roads lead in reverse to that pivotal moment, only some 15 days previously, when Kenneth Arnold described those 'flying saucers' .

Trouble is, of course, Arnold never did.

It was all a misunderstanding, because he happened to say the nine t'ail-less aircraft', flying together, as if linked by a chain - "appeared to fly almost as if fastened together - if one dipped, the others did, too", in an undulating, 'roller coaster' formation, reminded him of being "like a saucer would, if you skipped it across water".

It's the crystal clear genesis of everything 'flying saucer' and two weeks later, Roswell related.

And so it was, that in the beginning....



We might need to go back a bit....

 

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Returning to the 'Albuquerque Journal', online article:

Loretta Proctor, 82

"To my way of thinking, if we're here why can't somebody else be out there?"

Loretta and Floyd Proctor raised sheep and cattle on a ranch southeast of Corona in 1947. Their nearest neighbor was W.W. "Mac" Brazel, a leaseholder on the Foster ranch, about six miles away.

"I don't remember just exactly what day it was but it was just before the Fourth of July and Mac Brazel came by our house and he had a small fragment of this material he showed us. He wanted us to go down and look at what he had found. Back then, it was just after the war and you didn't have tires and you didn't have very good vehicles or gasoline and there was no roads out there. We didn't try to go.

"We told him it was possibly a UFO. Back then, people were seeing a lot of things and reporting them. There were a lot of things up in the air. We called them flying saucers back then. We heard there was possibly rewards out for a UFO if anybody found one, so he went to Roswell and reported it. They kept him down there I guess right close to a week.

"What he brought up and showed to us was like a lightweight wood. ... It was six or seven inches long and a little bigger around than a pencil. He and my husband, they tried to cut on it and they tried to burn it and it didn't make any mark or anything. It was different from anything we had ever seen".
(End)

If we stop right there, for now, do we not have even further 'evidential disparancies'?

As in.... this being a completely different story as regards.... just about everything?

Brazel kept in custody?

"He and my husband, they tried to cut on it and they tried to burn it and it didn't make any mark or anything. It was different from anything we had ever seen".

I thought this was exclusive to Marcel?

---

I find your lack of link disturbing ...

One of the six New Mexicans directly affected by the crash of what was first called a UFO, then a weather balloon, shares memories of the event 50 years ago

https://www2.abqjournal.com/roswell/roslived1.htm

 

[BS3]

Was it a culturally common thing in 1940s New Mexico to attempt cutting and burning any immediately unfamiliar item you found? Can't say it's something I've ever done, but everyone in Roswell seems to have been doing it.

 

[EnolaGaia]

Was it a culturally common thing in 1940s New Mexico to attempt cutting and burning any immediately unfamiliar item you found? Can't say it's something I've ever done, but everyone in Roswell seems to have been doing it.

I'd say "yes" - especially if the unrecognizable material was fragmentary and appeared to be trash.

 

[Comfortably Numb]

l

Was it a culturally common thing in 1940s New Mexico to attempt cutting and burning any immediately unfamiliar item you found? Can't say it's something I've ever done, but everyone in Roswell seems to have been doing it.

Continuing with the above, purported statement, from Loretta Proctor:

"He described the other material back there. He said it was like an aluminum-type material that looked like aluminum foil and when you'd crush it it would straighten back out. It wouldn't wrinkle. He described some kind of tape..."

So... the spaceship is in trouble and they get out some sticky tape...?

Maybe we have seen enough here and it's all now untenable....?

 

[Comfortably Numb]

This was no civilian starting this mess, but the military.

There had to be something unusual going on for all of this to happen.

Evidently... and that's all we have highlighted.... 'flying disks', that never were in the first place.

At the proverbial end of the day, perhaps best summed up when Kenneth Arnold revisits the location of his sighting, circa1980:

Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World:10, U.F.O.s (September, 1980)

Program narrative: ...later he was beseiged by reporters and one of them asked him how the objects flew.

"...I says... well I tell you...they flew erratitcally like a saucer would if you skipped it across the water...

And then of course, all of a sudden, the term 'flying disk' and this type of thing, or 'crescent-shaped', or whatnot, was completely dropped and everybody started seeing 'flying saucers'...

...and they've been seeing them ever since...".
(End)

@https://youtu.be/YeMSHFxJdoI

Throughout the years, there was no more foremost debunker of the archtypal 'flying saucer', than Kenneth Arnold himself.

 

[Comfortably Numb]

I'd say "yes" - especially if the unrecognizable material was fragmentary and appeared to be trash.

I thought it appeared to be from outer space, though?

Good grief, is that the time....