This case has had probably the most attention of any other case in the history of UFOLOGY. However, the case remained buried for nearly 30 years before, slowly the code of silence was broken which allowed researchers to start uncovering the truth.
Obviously I can only give a fraction of the account, on this Web Site but I hope it will contain enough info for both the experienced and the beginner. People interested in this case should read some of the many great books, particularly the ones by Kevin Randle.
The data will be presented in time line form:
Tuesday, July 1st 1947 A strange object is detected on the radar scopes at Roswell, White Sands and Alamogordo. Its tremendous speed and erratic motion indicated that it is neither a plane or a meteorite.
Wednesday, July 2, 1947 An oval object is spotted by Mr. and Mrs. Dan Wilmot as it passes over their house in Roswell.
Thursday, July 3, 1947 Radar operator Steve MacKenzie is sent to White Sands to track the object 24 hours a day.
Friday, July 4, 1947 Warrant Officer Robert Thomas and a team of men arrive from Washington to co-ordinate to operation of tracking and possible retrieval.
Mac Brazel as well as others report hearing a tremendous explosion.
William Woody and his father observe a flaming object fall to earth north of Roswell.
Jim Ragsdale and Trudy Truelove observe a bright light crash near to their campsite.
The object which has been tracked on radar for 3 days suddenly disappears. The retrieval team assemble and start heading for the calculated crash site.
Saturday, July 5, 1947 A sheepherder finds the remains of a crashed saucer but does not report this until many years later.
A group of Archaeologists also find the crashed object. The phone Sheriff George Wilcox thinking it is some from of crashed aircraft. Wilcox then inform the local fire department who arrive at the scene shortly afterward.
The special retrieval team locates the crashed craft, takes the names of all the civilians on site and the escorts them away. The site is cleaned and secured within 6 hours and 5 bodies are removed.
Mac Brazil finds strange debris in his field. The debris consists of strange foil like substance, balsa wood like beams and a strange sort of ‘string’. None of Brazels sheep will go anywhere near the debris.
Lydia Sleppy a reporter for KSWS tries to send the first ‘unconfirmed’ reports of the crash over the teletype. The message is intercepted by the FBI who order her to cease transmission.
Melvin Brown who was one of the guards in the truck transporting the bodies claims that they were small with large heads and that their skin was an orange/yellow color.
Glenn Dennis is called by the Roswell mortuary officer and is asked several questions relating to preserving bodies, making small caskets, and how to treat bodies that had been exposed to the sun. Dennis is later summoned to the base to treat an injured pilot, while he is there is sees several ambulances and some wreckage. Dennis is then threatened by two officers who warn him not to report anything he has witnessed.
Mac Brazel returns to the debris site and picks up some the stuff and takes it to his neighbors, Floyd and Loretta Proctor. They suggest that he informs the Sheriff.
Sunday, July 6, 1947 Brazel drives 75 miles into Roswell and shows some of the debris to Sheriff Wilcox who in turn informs the Military. Wilcox then also send two of his deputies to the ranch.
William Woody and his father try to get close to the site where they saw the strange object crash. However they are stopped by a heavy military presence who refuse them entry.
Colonel William Blanchard commanding officer of the 509th Bomb Group sends Jesse A. Marcel out to the Sheriffs office to investigate the reported debris. Marcel meets with Brazel and after seeing the debris decides to go out to the debris field. He is accompanied by Captain Sheridan Cavitt and Mac Brazel. Blanchard then orders that all debris at the Sheriffs office be sealed and flown to Fort Worth Army Air field where it is given to Colonel Thomas DuBose.
Marcel and Cavitt arrive too late at night to see the debris field so they spend the night with Brazel and his family. They also get a chance to observe some of the debris that Brazel had brought back with them. Neither of them had seen anything like it. It would not burn or scratch, yet when held in the hand it felt weightless. Several pieces of the foil like substance when crumpled in a ball would return to its original shape when released.
Monday, July 7, 1947 Some of the debris and bodies from the main crash site are sent to Andrews AAF.
Brazel, Marcel and Cavitt arrive at the debris field. It is three-quarters of a mile long and three hundred feet wide. They spend the day loading as much of the debris as possible into Marcel’s car and then drive back to Roswell.
General Nathan Twining, Air Material Command commander suddenly changes his current engagements and flies out to Alamogordo.
Rumors start spreading around the Roswell base that a flying saucer has been retrieved.
Tuesday, July 8, 1947 Marcel decides to show his family some of the debris that he has recovered before the debris becomes classified. He tells his son that it is parts of a flying saucer.
Marcel and Cavitt meet with Colonel Blanchard to report what they have seen. As a result Blanchard orders that guards be placed around the debris field and to stop anyone trying to obtain access.
Brazel who spent the previous night at Walt Whitmore’s (KGFL radio) house, is interviewed by him and wire-recorded. Whitmore is then informed from Washington not to air the interview with Brazel.
Brigadier General Roger Ramey orders Blanchard to send Marcel to Fort Worth.
Mac Brazel is interviewed by military personnel. This interview is to last several days.
Lieutenant Walter Haut finishes the Press Release that Colonel Blanchard had authorized. He gives copies to both radio and newspapers. The story is released, and claims that “The Army Air Forces here today announced that a flying disc had been found”. Within a couple of hours the base is flooded with calls from around the world.
Marcel arrives at Fort Worth and meets with General Ramey. Marcel shows Ramey the debris, who then takes Marcel into the Map room so that he can show him the location of the debris site. When Marcel returns the debris that he had brought in was gone, it had been replaced by bits of an old weather balloon.
Ramey then orders that the real wreckage be sent to Wright Field, Dayton.
The military clean the debris site back on Brazels ranch and transport all the debris to Wright Field.
A press conference is held in which Warrant Officer Irving Newton identifies the debris as that of a balloon. Marcel is ordered not to say anything and Ramey confirms that the men at Roswell had simply made a mistake. Marcel is then ordered to be photographed with the balloon debris.
Interest in the story dies down due to the fact the debris has been identified as that of a weather balloon.
Wednesday, July 9, 1947 Brazel’s field is completely cleaned of debris. The remaining debris is sent to Los Alamos via Kirtland AFB.
Brazel is seen by fiends as he is escorted from the Air Force base into town. They report that he looked very shocked and stressed. Brazel remarks to a friend, Frank Joyce, that he has had to change his story to protect his family.
Haut’s press release is confiscated by military personnel.
Many ground personnel at Wright Field claim to of seen strange debris being unloaded from unmarked planes. Others report seeing bodies at the Andrews AFB.
Marcel meets up with Sheridan Cavitt, who now claims that he never went with Marcel to the debris field on Brazel’s ranch.
Thursday, July 10, 1947 Sheriff Wilcox calls on Glenn Dennis’s father and informs him that his son is in trouble with the military and advises him to talk to Glenn to make sure he remains silent.
Further balloon explanations are reported in the local papers.
Friday, July 11, 1947 Glenn Dennis tries to contact a nurse who had told him that she had helped in one of the autopsies of the bodies. However, when he phones the base he is informed that no-one knows where she is.
All military personnel involved in the retrieval and cleanup operation are debriefed and told to forgot that it ever happened.
Military Police start visiting the civilians who were on the site of the main crash, they are warned not to say anything or they and there families would go missing.
Saturday, July 12, 1947 Mac Brazel’s son Bill turns up at the ranch to help out while Mac Brazel is still being held under military guard.
Tuesday, July 15, 1947 Mac Brazel is finally released. All he says is that the military kept asking the same questions over and over again. Brazel revealed that he had to take an oath never to saw what he saw.
November 1947 Arthur Exon, a pilot stationed at Wright Field claims that he flew over the crash site and he could still make out the impact site.
December 1947 Dr W. Curry Holden and Dr C. Bertrand Schultz attend a meeting in Albuquerque. They discuss the events in Roswell and Holden tells Schultz that he had seen a ‘heel-shaped’ craft and the bodies of the alien flight crew.
The Roswell incident remained buried for another 30 years until Jesse Marcel, allowed himself to be interviewed by several researchers including Leonard Stringfield and Stanton Friedman.
Charles Berlitz and William L. Moore release the book ‘The Roswell Incident’ in 1980 after interviewing more than 70 witnesses. Since the release of this book many other researcher have investigated the case and many other books have been written.
There have been many hoaxes associated with this case such as the Majestic-12 documents and the now already infamous ‘Alien Autopsy Video’. None of these hoaxes helps the serious study of the Roswell case.
The US Government after 40 plus years admitted that the ‘weather balloon’ story had indeed been a cover story. However it was not a cover story for a crashed alien spacecraft but that of Project Mogul a secret project the Air Force were undertaking and that the bodies were those of rhesus monkey’s. This theory also has proved to be wrong and for a full explanation of this and other possible causes I strongly recommend the book ‘The Truth about the UFO Crash at Roswell’ by Kevin Randle.