The Roswell Crash
Date: July 1947
Location: Roswell, New Mexico, United States
The Roswell crash is a common reference in the discussion of UFOs and perhaps the most famous UFO-related case to date. This incident put Roswell on the map, driving thousands of tourists every year to visit the crash site. However, what was it that crashed in the New Mexico desert? Was it a flying saucer as the air force had originally stated, or was it a weather balloon, a later explanation provided by the air force? The following case is not just about an extraterrestrial aircraft crashing in the desert, but it is also about a nationwide cover-up.
The Crash
On June 14, 1947, William Brazel and his eight-year-old son, Vernon, were walking from the ranch where Brazel worked at, located in Corona, just eighty-five miles northwest of Roswell.
In an article in the Roswell Daily Record on July 9, Brazel stated he and his son had encountered a large amount of debris scattered all over the ground. Brazel described the wreckage as being composed of “rubber strips, tinfoil and a rather tough paper and sticks.” 83 It was not unusual for Brazel to discover remnants of weather balloons on his ranch, and thus he did not pay too much attention to the debris, assuming that it was just another crashed weather balloon. With that being said, over the next couple of days, several individuals in Roswell reported seeing strange flying objects in the sky. Two of the initial witnesses were Dan Wilmot and his wife who, in early July, reported seeing a saucer-shaped object in the sky.
It was July 2 when Dan Wilmot and his wife were enjoying the summer night outside their house in Roswell. The time was around 21:50 when Wilmot saw a bright, oval shaped light in the sky. The UFO was described as being “like two inverted saucers faced mouth to mouth” and had a diameter of at least twenty feet.84 The object, which was at an altitude of approximately 1,500 feet, was travelling at an incredible speed, estimated to be well over 500 miles per hour. After remaining in the sky for a few seconds, it accelerated out of sight. At first, Wilmot did not share his sighting with anyone, in hopes that another witness would come forward and share their experience. However, no one did, and thus, on July 9, Wilmot contacted the Roswell Daily Record and told them about his sighting. Coincidentally enough, his report was made just a few hours before the military announced that they were in possession of a flying disk.
Going back to July 4, given that it was Independence Day, Brazel took his wife and two children out to the ranch with him. He had been hearing stories of people seeing flying saucers in the sky and that one of them had crashed somewhere in the desert. That was when he thought; could it be that the debris that he had seen the previous month could be the saucer everyone had been talking about? As he got a closer to the debris, he started noticing how this was unlike any other weather balloon he had recovered previously, and, upon further inspection, he confirmed that the material was different to that of a weather balloon.
Brazel said, “I am sure that what I found was not any weather observation balloon. But if I find anything besides a bomb, they are going to have a hard time getting me to say anything about it.” 85
The following day, Brazel contacted the local town sheriff, George Wilcox, and informed him that he had recovered the crashed flying saucer everyone was talking about. Wilcox immediately forwarded the report to Roswell Army Airfield and Major Jesse Marcel, who, together with Lieutenant Colonel Sheridan Cavitt and Master Sergeant Bill Racket, accompanied Brazel back to the ranch and his house where they collected all the debris. Back at Brazel’s house, the three men attempted to reconstruct the material and carried out several experiments to explore the material’s properties. The debris was similar to aluminum foil; it was extremely lightweight and had the same silver color. The debris was laid out all over the kitchen floor, covering at least 180 meters, and it also had strange symbols and hieroglyphs engraved on its surface.
This was the last time Brazel saw the wreckage. Marcel piled all of the wreckage onto his truck and returned back to Roswell Air Force Base. July 8 was the start of a cover-up that is still going on to this day. On that day, Colonel William Blanchard instructed Lieutenant Walter Hault to issue a press release, stating that the air force was in possession of a flying disk. The statement was the first of its kind—no other air force on Earth had ever publicly stated that it was in possession of an extraterrestrial aircraft and technology. The same day, several newspapers broke the story, using headlines such as “RAAF Captures Flying Saucer on Ranch in Roswell Region,” found in the Roswell Daily Record.
It is important to point out the fact that although there are many theories that alien bodies were recovered from the crash site, the military never declared such a thing, and Brazel did not report seeing any bodies either. Over the years, many theories have been postulated, claiming that four gray aliens were recovered. We shall examine some of these theories later on in the chapter.
At the time, the air force was not aware of the chaos such a statement would create. Shortly after the statement was issued, the debris was sent to the Fort Worth Air Force Base in Texas. At the air force base, the wreckage was placed in General Roger Ramey’s office and just a few hours later, a second statement was released by the air force. Ramey stated that the wreckage was not of a flying disk but was a weather balloon. The statement was published in newspapers, along with a photograph of Ramey posing with the wreckage. Irving Newton, the warrant officer and forecaster at the base, also confirmed that the wreckage was of a weather balloon that had been released in the sky in order to obtain meteorological information they could not get from the ground.
Witness Reports
Although that was the last statement the air force had released, as the years passed, more witnesses came forward and shared their story. Perhaps the two most important and fascinating witness accounts were that of Bill Brazel, the son of William Brazel, and of Jesse Marcel Jr., the son of Major Jesse Marcel.
Jesse recalled that on one night, his father was sent out to investigate the ranch where the debris had been located. When Major Marcel returned home, his truck was full of the debris from the wreckage site. Jesse described the material as being similar to aluminum foil, and although the material was not made of metal, it was very tough and it could not be burned or torn. Whenever the material was bent, it would return back to its original shape. He also explained how it had hieroglyphics carved into its surface. Lastly, although Jesse was just eleven years old at the time, he remembered his father saying that the material was not from Earth. He explained how his father had said that no aircraft on Earth could reach the speed the object had reached before its crash.
Bill Brazel, the son of William Brazel, described how after his father discovered the debris, he was somewhat of a different man. After first reporting this discovery of the debris, Brazel was kept away from his family for a week and was interrogated relentlessly. Upon his return, he would not explain what had happened in that week, not even to his wife. Bill does not know the full extent of the story and has explained how his father took everything to the grave with him. In an interview with Charles Berlitz and William Moore, Bill stated the following: “He said they had told him to shut up because it was important to our country and was the patriotic thing to do, and so that’s what he intended to do. He did say that they had shut him up in a room and wouldn’t let him out. He was very discouraged and upset about the way they had treated him. They even had given him a complete ‘head-to-foot army physical’ before they would let him come home.” 86
A year or so after the crash, Bill kept finding pieces of the wreckage at the ranch. Although it did not amount to much, he was able to determine that the material was unconventional. Similar to Jesse’s description, Bill stated that the material was very lightweight. Although it was very similar to tinfoil, whenever it was bent it would return to its original shape. It also could not be torn or scratched. Apart from the tinfoil-like material, Bill also recovered pieces of wood that were quite heavy, as well as a material that looked similar to wire or thread, although it was very strong and rigid. Even when using both hands, he could not snap it. The material that his father had brought home on July 4 had figures carved on its surface that looked similar to hieroglyphics.
However, the material did not stay in Bill’s possession for long. Not long after Bill had found the materials, approximately two years after the crash, three military officials went to the house and wanted to speak with him. Since his father was away at the time, he had let them in, but what he did not know was that the three men were air force personnel sent to collect the wreckage he had been talking about. Bill recalled that one of the men had told him that it was very important for him to hand over the material to help the country’s safety. Before they left, Bill was also asked to take the three men to the wreckage site to ensure that there was not any debris left.
In his statement, Bill also affirmed that the wreckage was not a balloon. He stated that he and his dad had picked up balloons on numerous occasions at the ranch, however, this material was vastly different from those weather balloons. Usually, with weather balloons there would be instruments attached to the material, but none were found with this wreckage. Bill stated that when his father went to turn the material in, he first went to the weather bureau. Even though the material was vastly different to a weather balloon’s, his father had thought that it must have been an observational instrument of some sort. When he told the bureau office of his finding, they confirmed that the material was not of a weather balloon and they instructed him to take it to the sheriff’s office instead.
The Alien Bodies
Since the crash in 1947, the Roswell story has been altered and revisited countless times by authors and conspiracy theorists. As we have seen in the witness statement reports, there was no mention of any alien bodies being retrieved from the crash site; if anybody would have found bodies, it would have been William Brazel, the rancher who had found the wreckage. It is fundamental to separate the truth from fiction, and the theory that alien bodies were found at the crash site is simply that, a conspiracy theory. Although this theory has not been proved, I think it is important to examine the details since this aspect has become a fundamental part of the Roswell crash story.
In 1991, the late Stanton Friedman, one of the most highly respected UFO researchers and nuclear physicists, interviewed Glenn Dennis, a mortician who worked at Ballard Funeral Home. The funeral home had a contract with the Roswell Army Airfield to provide mortuary services. Apart from being a funeral parlor, the company also operated an ambulance for the airfield, and it was not unusual for Dennis to drive down to the base after an incident was reported. In the interview with Friedman, Dennis stated that on one summer day in 1947, the parlor received several calls from the mortuary officer at the airfield asking what size the smallest coffin he could provide was. Apart from that, the officer also asked how a body would be prepared if it had been exposed to toxic elements and the sun for several days. Dennis went on to say that on the same day, he had to drive down to the airfield after an injury was reported. As he entered the building, Dennis allegedly saw a lot of material that resembled aluminum spread all over the floor, which was heavily guarded by air force personnel.
As Dennis walked down the hall, a nurse who was his friend frantically asked him why he was there and told him to leave the building immediately. She told him that if anyone had known he was there they would kill him. As she said that, two military officials noticed his presence and escorted him out. After two hours had passed, he received a call from, presumably the army, who told him that if he opened his mouth about what he had seen, they would shoot him dead.
His story did not finish there. The following day, his nurse friend called him and asked to meet up with him urgently. The nurse told him that that day he was at the airfield, the air force had brought in three little alien bodies from a crash site. Two of them were completely mangled, but the other one was in good condition. She described them as being child-like, very fragile, with no hair. They had deep eyes and very small indentations for ears. When it came to their arms, they did not have any fingers, but had suction cups that looked like tentacles instead. When Dennis asked her if they were found with the wreckage, the nurse told him that they were found about a mile or two away from the crash site. That was the last time Dennis had heard from his friend. After several days of not answering his calls, Dennis was told that she was transferred to a different air force base in England. A couple of months later, Dennis sent a letter to her, which was returned and stamped “deceased.”
There are a number of reasons why I believe that no alien bodies were found at the crash site and why this aspect of this case is a hoax. Many investigators tried to trace down this nurse, but to no avail. At first, Dennis refused to provide a name, but after a while, he stated that the nurse was named Naomi Self. Investigators were able to find the military records that named all the nurses who worked at the Roswell base in the summer of 1947. There were only five female nurses, none of whom were called Naomi or had been transferred to England. After this was revealed, Dennis stated that the surname he provided was a fake one, but he refused to provide the real one.
Although the theory that alien bodies were recovered at the crash site was a fabrication, this does not mean that the government is not involved in a cover-up or that the recovered material was not extraterrestrial. The witness statement reports are all proof that the wreckage Brazel discovered was not a weather balloon. As we shall see in the following section, the typical weather balloon is vastly different compared to the recovered wreckage.
Weather Balloon
or Extraterrestrial Craft?
The air force stated that the weather balloon that had crashed in Roswell in 1947 was a Project Mogul weather balloon. Project Mogul was a top secret project by the air force that consisted of high-altitude balloons, as well as a number of sophisticated components attached to them being released in the sky. The goal was to detect long-distance sound waves generated by Soviet Union missiles. The Project Mogul balloon was made of rubber, which was quickly replaced by polyethylene plastic. The components attached to the balloon include acoustical sensors and radar reflecting targets. By the year 1942, it also became a requirement for test dummies to be on board all military aircraft tests, including weather balloons, which were deemed too dangerous for humans to be on. The test dummies were dressed in regular army uniforms and were equipped with parachutes.
Although the air force stated that the recovered material was that of a weather balloon, the facts show otherwise. When Brazel discovered the material, he did not report finding any test dummies or any of the components that the balloons are usually equipped with. Moreover, the material Brazel discovered and polyethylene plastic have completely different characteristics.
The witnesses who had handled the material all described it in the same way. Although it resembled aluminum foil, it would return to its original shape when bent and it also was heat and tear resistant. If we look at polyethylene plastic, the material that a Project Mogul weather balloon is made of, just like any other material, it has a melting point. When exposed to high temperatures for a long period of time, it would naturally melt. Apart from that, once plastic is bent, it cannot return to its original shape because stress cracks would start forming. Lastly, Brazel, his son, and Marcel all stated that on the surface of the material were strange symbols that were described as being similar to Egyptian hieroglyphics.
The most important factor that proves that the material was not a weather balloon is the fact that Brazel was aware of what a typical weather balloon looked like. He stated that on at least two occasions he had found wreckages from weather balloons that had crashed on the ranch. However, as he stated in the interview that was published in the Roswell Daily Record, Brazel was confident that what he had found was not a weather balloon. We must also keep in mind that Brazel did not gain anything from this. The only thing that he got was harassment and interrogations from the air force. Why would he keep persisting that the material was extraterrestrial? It certainly would have been easier for him to just agree with the air force’s statement and let the story die down.
Interview with Stanton Friedman
The late Stanton Friedman was a nuclear physicist and was also the first researcher to investigate the Roswell crash. Before his passing, I had the privilege to interview him in 2017 via email and ask him questions regarding the Roswell crash. Here is some of our discussion:
Q: You were the first researcher to investigate the Roswell case. What do you think genuinely happened? Did an interplanetary flying object crash or was it a weather balloon?
A: I personally think that the 509th Composite Bomb Group (stationed at Roswell Army Airfield) recovered the wreckage of a crashed alien spacecraft, as well as several alien bodies.
Q: Do you think the government is in possession of any extraterrestrials or ET technology?
A: I think they have had a living alien for a while and most certainly had wreckage from alien spacecrafts. I do not know whether they have learned how to duplicate the technology they were in possession of, but the Wright Brothers could not have duplicated a 747 or a V-2 rocket.
Q: One of the most common questions skeptics ask is if extraterrestrials visit our planet then why don’t they land on the White House lawn? What would your answer be?
A: I think that is an incorrect question to ask. They are here for their own purpose, not ours. They do not need to justify their existence to us. Our rule is shoot first and ask questions later. Moreover, the president [of the United States] does not speak for planet Earth.
Q: Why do you think aliens are so interested in humans? What is the reason behind all of the abduction cases?
A: We may be the least interesting planet. Certainly, we have demonstrated many evil qualities such as killing 50 million people in World War II, as well as destroying over 1,700 cities. One of my books has twenty reasons why aliens visit; for example, Earth is the densest planet in the solar system, so it has much more heavy metals than any other planet.
Q: Why do you think the government does not disclose any information on extraterrestrial life?
A: There are a lot of answers to this question. No government wants its people to owe their allegiance to the planet instead of the sovereign. Nationalism is the only game in town.
Conclusion
The facts outlined in this chapter prove that what crashed near Roswell in the summer of 1947 was an interplanetary flying object. The material of the wreckage and the witness reports are sufficient evidence to prove that the material was extraterrestrial in origin.
The Roswell crash is undoubtedly one of the most credible and convincing cases that prove that extraterrestrials exist and have been visiting our planet. This incident can be seen as the case that sparked an interest in researchers to investigate the UFO phenomenon.
Although we do not have all the answers, and most of our questions will remain unanswered, there is enough evidence for us to understand that we are not alone in the universe, nor are we the superior species. The proof this case offers is enough for mankind to understand that the biggest threat is not other nations here on Earth, but outside visitors who have complete power and control.
83. “Harassed Rancher Who Located ‘Saucer’ Sorry He Told About It,” Roswell Daily Record, July 9, 1947.
84. “RAAF Captures Flying Saucer on Ranch in Roswell Region,” Roswell Daily Record, July 8, 1947.
85. “Harassed Rancher Who Located ‘Saucer’ Sorry He Told About It,” Roswell Daily Record, July 9, 1947.
86. Charles Berlitz and William Moore, The Roswell Incident. (New York: Fine Communication, 1997), 26.