The Great Roswell Cover-up! Part One.

This year is the 75th anniversary of the 1947 UFO Incident near Roswell.

When people familiar with the UFO enigma hear the word Roswell, the first thing that usually comes to their mind is, the July 1947 incident. Of course, I’m talking about the proposed extraterrestrial craft which crashed in Lincoln County, New Mexico. Over the years the city of Roswell has become synonymous and gained fame with this incident, but in actuality, Roswell should also be known for part of the cover-up too!

I’ve been investigating the Roswell Incident since the early 1990’s and one of the few investigators who actually knew people involved with the incident, knows where the debris site is, actually found an artifact during an archeology dig at the debris site, and is pretty sure where the location of the impact site is too! I also had the pleasure of rubbing elbows with some of the original players like Glenn Dennis, the local mortician and Walter Haute, the public information officer at the 509th Bomb Group based in Roswell. Matter of fact, it was Glenn along with Haute who gave me the GPS coordinates to the BLM marker right near the debris site, also known as the “skip site”.

But the story doesn’t start with Roswell, the beginning of this story started with some of the residents from Corona, New Mexico, a little town more than 100 miles outside of Roswell.

Info from: villageofcorona.com
Corona was established as a railroad town in 1903 with the building of El Paso and South Western Railroad from Carrizozo to Santa Rosa where it connected to the Rock Island Line.  This brought many homesteaders and farmers to the area and initiated the growth of Corona as a trade center, enabling farmers and ranchers to ship their products to market. 

Disclaimer: Some websites may have the beginning of the “Event” occurring on a different date, the date I present as the beginning, Wednesday July 2nd 1947, is based on my interviews and investigations.

The Event:
On the night of Wednesday July 2nd 1947, in a remote ranch house located roughly 80 miles Northwest of Roswell in Lincoln County near the city of Corona; Ranch foreman 48 year old W.W Mac Brazel and his 8-year-old son Vernon, were waiting out a large thunderstorm. During the thunderstorm they both heard what appeared to be a loud explosion, a different sound compared to the thunder.

Early next morning, Thursday July 3rd, Mac and his son Vern went out to check on the sheep, and they came upon strange metallic debris and other unknown material scattered within a 200-to-300-yard area across a pasture.

After locating the sheep, Mac and his son tried to move the sheep to a well for water, choosing a path which crossed the debris area. The sheep refused to cross the field and Mac was forced to herd them around.

Note: I learned in June of 2006 from Mac’s granddaughter Faun Fritz, that the sheep actually refused to cross the debris area up to 2 years afterwards. Even after Mac baited the area to persuade the sheep to cross which was closer to the well, they still refused to move through that particular area. More on Faun Fritz later in Part 2.

Also as an experienced animal mutilation investigator, sometimes a dead cow is found lying in a crop-like-circle depression. In some cases when the cow is removed, the other cows tend to walk around the depression not through it! In my opinion the depression was made by a high energy source because the soil samples I take for analysis show the soil in the circle is less soluble than the sample soil. The soil nutrients have been altered. Since cows are very in-tuned to nature, they can probably sense the energy source and avoid it.

This may be the reason the sheep wouldn’t walk through the debris area after the debris was cleared, because a high energy source was responsible.

Anyway, Mac tucked some of the debris under his hat and he and his son rode to a nearby ranch. There they met with their good friends the Proctors and discussed what they had come across. Now I believe at this time 9-year-old Dee Proctor rode back with Mac and Mac’s young son Vernon, to see the debris. They gathered more of it and drug larger pieces back by horseback to the Hines ranch house storing it in a nearby shed.

Saturday July 5th, Mac made a trip from the Hines house into Corona, New Mexico probably for supplies. While in Corona, Mac hears a rumor that there is a $3000 reward for anyone who finds crashed flying saucer debris. Mac instantly thinks maybe the strange debris he found could be from a flying saucer, Mac decides to speak with the local deputy.

Note: The following info I got from interviewing Geraldine Perkins, the local Corona historian. She was 99 when I interviewed her in 2007. Geraldine passed away on June 5th, 2008, one year later at the age of 100 years. She was a treasure of knowledge, didn’t suffer from dementia, and I’ll talk more about her in Part 2.

Geraldine Perkins: Mac would have contacted the local deputy who was assigned to the Corona region. After speaking with the deputy, I assumed the deputy told Mac to contact Chaves County Sheriff Wilcox in Roswell.

Geraldine told me, that back in 1947 the phone lines were set-up much differently; local lines were routed only through town for immediate communication through a switch board and only a couple of places in town existed where the long-distance phone lines were. One such place was the local drug store that was operated by Geraldine, she was a pharmacist in Corona for 47 years. Mac would always visit her store while in town, and most of her customers would use her long-distance phone line. Geraldine speculated that Mac would have used her phone to contact Sheriff Wilcox.

After Mac spoke to the Sheriff about the strange debris he found, the decision was made that Mac would take some of the debris to the Sheriff’s office. So, on a very early July 6th, Mac drove from the Hines house to the Sheriff’s office in Roswell.

Now today it takes about 2 hours to drive from that location to Roswell with modern day transportation and highway, but back in 1947, travel time would have been at least 4 hours, that’s why Mac started his travel early.

When Mac met with Sheriff Wilcox, it was immediately decided to contact the (RAAF) Roswell Army Airforce Base about the material. Now RAAF or Walker base, was the US’s first Strategic Air Command base which housed the 509th Composite Group.

The 509th Composite Group (509 CG) was a unit of the United States Army Air Forces created during World War II and tasked with the operational deployment of nuclear weapons. It conducted the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in August 1945. The crew of the Enola Gay was trained at this base.

After Sheriff Wilcox contacted RAAF, base commander Colonel William Blanchard instructed Major Jesse Marcel Sr. to go to Sheriff Wilcox’s office and retrieve some of the debris Mac brought. After examining the debris, Colonel Blanchard immediately ordered Major Jesse Marcel and a member of the Counterintelligence Corps (CIC) Capt. Sheridan Cavitt to travel back with Mac Brazel to the site where he found the debris. While Marcel, Cavitt and Brazel were heading back to the Hines house, military police arrived at Sheriff Wilcox’s office and collected the remainder of the debris Mac had brought. The debris was then immediately flown to the Eighth Air Force headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas and from there to Washington.

By the time Jesse, Sheridan and Mac reached the ranch house, it was too late and too dark to look at the material. After spending a somewhat uncomfortable night in a small ranch shack with no facilities, early next morning, July 7th, Marcel and Cavitt accompanied Mac to the crash site and collected as much of the material as their two vehicles could carry. Back at the ranch house they noted that although the material was very lite and very thin, they were unable to bend, tear or burn it. Jesse and Cavitt spent all day at the debris field taking measurements and writing map coordinates and gathering other information.

Note: Not sure what parts of the material they were unable to bend, tear or burn, but obviously it did rip, tear, and break apart upon skip impact. Maybe they were referring to larger structural pieces.

After loading Cavitt’s vehicle with debris, Cavitt left first heading back to RAAF Base. Marcel loaded what he could in his vehicle and started back to the base too! But, on the way back to the base, Marcel stopped at his home around 1:30am July 8th, and showed his wife, Viaud and son, Jesse Jr. what he had collected. Jesse Marcel Jr. remembered seeing pink/purple/lavender type symbols on some small metallic “I” beams along with other very strange looking debris. Soon after showing the debris to his family, Jesse Sr. headed for RAAF Base.

On July 8, 1947, Colonel Blanchard dictated a press release to RAAF Public Information Officer Walter Haut, stating that personnel from the field’s 509th Operations Group had recovered a “flying disc”, which had landed on a ranch near Roswell. (PIO) Walter Haut goes into Roswell to deliver the press release stopping first at KGFL radio station where he gives the release to radio host, Frank Joyce.

By 12:00 noon July 8th, 1947, the press release hits the AP wire.

While the AP wire was buzzing about Flying Saucers, Brig. General Roger Ramey ordered Jesse Marcel Sr. and some of the debris, flown immediately to the Fort Worth Army Air Field (FWAAF). On board a B-29 Superfortress, Jesse headed to Fort Worth, Texas.

Jesse Marcel Jr. told me that Marcel Sr. took some of the debris to General Ramey’s office to show him. Ramey then asked Marcel to show him where the debris was found in a map room down the hall and when they returned, the debris Marcel brought had been switched with parts of a weather balloon.

Chief of Staff Colonel Thomas Dubose was on hand to confirm the debris material were pieces of a weather balloon kite, with a six-pointed reflective device that looks like a silver star. He also stated, it must have broken apart at a very high altitude and fell to Earth where it was found by the rancher.

Pictured above, General Ramey is kneeling with Colonel Dubose with pieces of a “ray wind” weather balloon kite.

Pictured above, Major Marcel is holding a piece of the kite thinking in his head, “This isn’t the shit I brought over on a B-29 Superfortress, I could have flown this crap in a Cessna. 🙂

Brigadier General Ramey quickly buries the Flying Sauer story with a cover-up weather balloon story.

On July 9th, officers from the RAAF Base locate Mac Brazel in Roswell and take him to the base for questioning. He is then taken by military escort to the Roswell Daily Record where he gives them a revised version of his story. Officers from the base also visit other newspapers and radio offices in town, retrieve all copies of Haut’s original press release and give them revised press releases.

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.

Mac Brazel was also escorted to radio station KGFL where he also gave a revised version of the story. (The following is hear-say.) But when leaving the radio station, he turned back to the radio host Frank Joyce and silently whispered, “Oh by the way, they’re not green”.

This last comment in my opinion was made by Mac, but not at that time but later within a week or so. Part 2 will explain why.

Thus on July 9th, 1947, the city of Roswell took a major part in the “Cover-Up” story that traveled the world.

Interesting Information:

In July of 1994, The Roswell Report “Case Closed” was released from the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force. In that report it was stated the high altitude weather balloon Mac Brazel found was actually part of Project Mogul. Project Mogul was also a high-altitude balloon chain but not for weather analysis but looking for above ground atomic explosions from our neighbors. The report stated the project itself was classified but the material used to build the project was not high tech and components could be found anywhere.

Interesting that General Ramey and Major Jesse Marcel didn’t have the classification to know about project Mogul especially since they were part of the US Strategic Air Command (SAC). Oh, I also guess they were inept too! Because they were completely unable to identify simple high-altitude balloon fragments, thus thinking they were from a flying saucer. (Go figure.)

In 1946 Jesse Marcel Sr. was attached to the 509th Composite Group to work on Operation Crossroads at Bikini Atoll, a coral reef in the Marshall Islands. This is the location the US conducted 23 nuclear tests until 1958. In December 1947 just 6 months after the Corona debris incident, Marcel was promoted to the rank of Lt. Colonel. Another year later Marcel was transferred to Strategic Air Command (SAC) at Andrews AFB then quickly transferred from there with SAC Headquarters to, Offutt AFB in Nebraska.

I also learned that Colonel Blanchard was laid to rest at the Airforce Academy cemetery in Colorado Springs, the city where I live. With the help of my sister Debbie Ziegelmeyer, we found not only his head stone plaque, but also a memorial. A memorial?

Now here’s something to remember. After the Roswell cover-up the Army claimed the debris Mac had found was nothing more than a high-altitude balloon chain, or later, Project Mogul. So why would Colonel Blanchard be promoted to General Blanchard Vice Chief of Staff USAF, if he had totally embarrassed the Army with a press release about Flying Saucer debris that turned out to be, just balloon fragments?

This story didn’t end here with the beginning of the cover-up, It’s just the beginning of a whole new story.

More in Part 2.

Links:
Corona, New Mexico
http://www.villageofcorona.com/index.htm

Geraldine Perkins Obituary
https://www.harris-hanlonmortuary.com/obituary/889011

Jesse Marcell Jr.com
https://www.jessemarceljr.com/

Tags: Aliens, Chuck Zukowski, Corona New Mexico, Roswell, ufonut.com

Category: Roswell, The Z-Files