In early July, 1947 William W. Brazel, a foreman of the Foster Ranch in Lincoln County, near Corona, New Mexico was one of many witnesses to have seen the remnants of the Roswell UFO crash.
A collosal thunderstorm had rocked through the area on the evening of July 2nd or July 4th (there is disagreement on these dates) and lots of lightening was noted. Brazel said that the storm had a different sound than usual and likened it to that of an explosion.
The next morning, Brazel and a neighbour boy, William D. "Dee" Proctor who often accompanied him, went about their day as usual - checking the sheep and riding the fences.
As they rode south of the ranch, they noticed a mass of unusual debris stretching for around a quarter of a mile. Brazel dismounted and began examining the shiny, unfamiliar objects. He collected some and packed them on his horse. Brazel then had to herd the sheep to water, but none of them would go anywhere near the debris and so had to be taken the long way round.
On their arrival back at ranch headquarters, Brazel put his findings in a shed. After his shift, Brazel collected a piece of the debris and took Dee back home. He then showed the metal to Dee's parents, William and Loretta Proctor and tried to convince them to accompany him to the site.
Floyd Proctor said of the metal object. "It wasn't paper because he couldn't cut it with his knife, and the metal was different from anything he had ever seen. He said the designs looked like the kind of stuff you would find on firecracker wrappers...some sort of figures all done up in pastels, but not writing like we would do it."
Loretta Proctor said, "The piece he brought looked like a kind of tan, light-brown plastic...it was very lightweight, like balsa wood. It wasn't a large piece, maybe about four inches long and maybe just larger than a pencil. We cut on it with a knife and would hold a match on it, and it wouldn't burn. We knew it wasn't wood. It was smooth like plastic, it didn't have real sharp corners, kind of like a dowel stick. Kind of dark tan. It didn't have any grain...just smooth. We should have gone [to look at the debris field], but gas and tires were expensive then. We had our own chores, and it would have been twenty miles."
The following evening, Brazel took his findings to Corona where his uncle, Hollis Wilson lived. On his arrival, Brazel was met by his uncle and his uncle's friend who told him of reported UFO sightings the night before. His uncle then advised Brazel to go to the authorities and report the debris site.
The very next day (July 6), Brazel drove to the Chaves County Sheriff's department and reported the incident to Sheriff Georgh Wilcox. After examining the metal, Wilcox called the Roswell Army Air Field and spoke to, Major Jesse A. Marcel. Marcel then informed them he would drive into Roswell and speak to Brazel personally.
On Marcel's arrival at the Sheriff's department, he was was met by Brazel who showed him the debris. Marcel and Brazel then went back to his base and spoke to the base commander, Colonal William H. Blanchard, who told Marcel to go and check out the site.
Marcel was accompanied by Army Intelligence Corps officer, Sheridan Cavitt who both followed Brazel back to the ranch. By the time they reached the ranch headquarters, night was upon them and they decided to wait until daylight before proceeding to the site.
The following morning, all three went to investigate the site. Brazel then went about his duties as Marcel and Cavitt examined the debris. In the meantime Frank Joyce of KGFL had informed his boss, Walt Whitmore Sr about Brazel's report. Whitmore wasted no time in heading out to the ranch where he spoke to Brazel. He then drove Brazel back to his home in Roswell and recorded an interview with him. This interview was never aired.
In the morning Brazel was picked up by the military and taken back to base where he was kept under guard for several days.
On July 8, Brazel gave an interview to the Roswell Daily Record, with military in attendance. His story differed very much from his previous account. This time he stated that the debris was found on June 14 while he was with his son, but they were too busy and ignored it. Then on July 4 he had gone back to the site with his wife and two children, where they had collected some gray rubber strips, tinfoil, heavy paper and sticks. He then said he had discovered weather balloons twice on the ranch, during his time as foreman, but this debris did not resemble anything like he had found before. Brazel said, "I am sure what I found was not any weather observation balloon. But if I find anything else beside a bomb they are going to have a hard time getting me to say anything about it."
Brazel was then escorted out of the Roswell Daily Record by the military who took him back to KGFL. Bystanders said that when Brazel came out of the Daily Record, he seemed subdued and held his head down.
Back at KGFL, Brazel was allowed to enter alone while the military waited outside. Inside, he spoke to Frank Joyce and related the same story he had given at the news office. Some way through, Joyce butted in and asked Brazel why he had changed his story. Joyce said later, that his observation of Brazel was of a nervous disposition and stated that Brazel had answered, "It'll go hard on me."
Brazel was eventually released by the military and from then until his death in 1963, he would not talk about the site and what he had really found, instead he kept to the weather balloon story. He told his children that he was under an oath to keep quiet for the rest of his life.
WHAT DID OTHERS SAY ABOUT THE INCIDENT:
Major Jesse Marcel stated. "When we arrived at the crash site, it was amazing to see the vast amount of area it covered...it scattered over an area of about three quarters of a mile long, I would say, and fairly wide, several hundred feet wide. It was definitely not a weather or tracking device, nor was it any sort of plane or missile. I don't know what it was, but it certainly wasn't anything built by us and it most certainly wasn't any weather balloon. Small beams about three eighths or a half inch square with some sort of hieroglyphics on them that nobody could decipher. These looked something like balsa wood, and were about the same weight, except that they were not wood at all. They were very hard, although flexible, and would not burn at all."
"There was a great deal of an unusual parchment-like substance which was brown in color and extremely strong, and a great number of small pieces of a metal like tinfoil, except that it wasn't tinfoil. I was interested in electronics and kept looking for something that resembled instruments or electronic equipment, but I didn't find anything. Cavitt, I think, found a black, metallic-looking box several inches square. As there was no apparent way to open this, and since it didn't appear to be an instrument package of any sort, we threw it in with the rest of the stuff. It had little numbers with symbols that we had to call hieroglyphics because I could not understand them. They were pink and purple. They looked like they were painted on. I even took my cigarette lighter and tried to burn the material we found, which resembled parchment and balsa, but it would not burn - wouldn't even smoke....the pieces of metal that we brought back were so thin, just like the tinfoil in a pack of cigarettes...you could not tear or cut it either. We even tried making a dent in it with a sixteen-pound sledgehammer, and there was still no dent in it."
Dr. Jesse Marcel Jr. (Marcel's son): "The material was foil-like stuff, very thin, metallic-like but not metal, and very tough. There was also some structural-like material too - beams and so on. Also a quantity of black plastic material which looked organic in nature. Imprinted along the edge of some of the beam remnants were hieroglyphic-type characters."
Apparently, after Marcel had taken a truck load of the debris from the site back to base, Colonal Blanchard gave him orders to load it onto a B-29 and fly to Wright Field, Ohio and to stop off at Carswell AAFB, Fort Worth, Texas on the way.
After Marcel landed at Carswell, the Commander of the 8th Air Force, Brigadier General, Roger Ramey took possession of the aircraft. Marcel was then taken to Ramey's office where the debris had been placed on brown paper. Marcel was then ordered to hold a piece of the debris and was photographed. He was then taken to another room for a while and then asked to return. This time a weather balloon had replaced the debris and weather officer, Irving Newton was standing by its side, who stated that the material was in fact a weather balloon and a Rawin radar target (radar tracking device reflector made of metal foil and balsa sticks). Marcel was photographed with the weather balloon and was then told to go back to Roswel and keep quiet about the debris. However, some years later, when Marcel was interviewed in 1978, he stated that the debris found was nothing like he had ever seen and that it was definitely not a weather balloon.
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By J Reynolds, copyright 2010 @World Mysteries And True Ghost Tales.