How Did It All Begin? How did the story unfold? Who recovered the debris? Who gave the orders? Where were the fragments delivered? What exactly was found? Who were the key individuals involved?
The shed on the Foster Ranch was demolished several years ago.
Some details might not entirely align with what actually happened. There are also contradictions in some witness statements. This is perfectly normal for interviews conducted decades after the events. When trying to recall something from 40 or more years ago, memory distortions are common, and much may have been forgotten. Memory can even fail to the point of mixing up individuals one interacted with in the past. Therefore, not every statement necessarily reflects the truth. However, it is crucial that the sequence of events is portrayed as accurately as possible, with only minor details potentially being influenced by faulty recollections.
Roswell Army Air Field – Headquarters (in the 1940s)
This is the account from the very beginning, leading up to the arrival at the Fort Worth Army Air Field (FWAAF).
By late June 1947, U.S. media began reporting on sightings of unidentified flying objects. These reports were sparked by pilot Kenneth Arnold, who claimed to have seen a formation of 9 flying objects during a private scouting flight near Mount Rainier in Washington state. He described their swift motion as resembling “saucers skipping over water,” leading to the coining of the term “flying saucer.”
Historical Newspaper:
Green Bay Press-Gazette, 1947, June 26
This described sighting likely had nothing to do with the debris found in Roswell. Nevertheless, it was one of these media reports that caught attention and prompted rancher William Mac Brazel to take action. Brazel had already discovered scattered debris on the Foster Ranch, about 75 miles northwest of Roswell, on June 14, 1947. At the time, he was with his 8-year-old son, Vernon. However, he didn’t pay much attention to the debris. Later on, on July 4th, he, his wife, and their two children decided to collect a few pieces of the debris. When he heard about these sightings in early July while in Corona, he decided to report his findings. He was planning to go to town anyway to sell wool.
RANCHER MAC BRAZEL
He was not the owner of the ranch himself but was responsible for managing it.
SHERIFF GEORGE WILCOX
Historical Newspaper:
Roswell Daily Record, 1947, July 9
Mac Brazel informed Sheriff George Wilcox in Roswell about the debris on the ranch on July 7. Sheriff Wilcox immediately contacted the Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF) by phone.
Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF) 1940s
Main Gate at Walker Air Force Base, formerly Roswell Army Air Field, 1954 (US Air Force Photo)
Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF), after being renamed Walker Air Force Base. (Briefly known as Roswell Air Force Base from late 1947 to 1948.)
Postcard of Walker Air Force Base, 1965
(formerly Roswell Army Air Field)
MAJOR JESSE MARCEL
Major Jesse Marcel was at the officers’ club having lunch when he was suddenly called to the phone. He was informed that a sheriff from Roswell wanted to report something. Marcel went to the phone and listened to what Sheriff Wilcox had to say.
Original excerpt from a postcard of the Officer’s Club
Roswell Army Air Field
“There’s a man, a rancher, who’s come into town to sell his wool. He had just sheared his sheep and told me something unusual. You should hear about it,” Wilcox said.
Marcel replied, “Well, I’m listening.”
“The man’s name is Brazel. He says he found something on his ranch that either crashed yesterday or a few days ago, and he doesn’t know what it is.”
Marcel responded, “Alright. Where can I meet him?”
“He’ll be leaving here around 3:30 or 4 p.m., but he’s in my office now if you’d like to come and speak with him,” Wilcox said. “He’ll wait here for you.”
Marcel immediately headed to Sheriff Wilcox’s office to meet Brazel and hear his account. Once his curiosity was piqued, he asked Brazel to wait, saying he needed to return to the base. There, Marcel went directly to speak with the commander of the 509th Bomb Group, Colonel William Blanchard.
COLONEL WILLIAM BLANCHARD
Colonel Blanchard then instructed Marcel to take someone from his team and investigate the matter.
Jesse Marcel then fetched one of his CIC agents (Counter Intelligence Corps), Captain Sheridan Cavitt, explained what the situation was, and said, “Let’s head out and see what’s out there.“
For a closer investigation, the RAAF likely dispatched three individuals to recover the debris. (Some accounts mention only two individuals, but cross-referencing all reports, including the official Roswell Report and witness testimonies, suggests that three individuals were involved. This conclusion is primarily based on Sheridan Cavitt’s testimony. In his testimony, he was absolutely certain that Sgt. Lewis Bill Rickett was also present. Marcel himself was the one who arranged for the Jeep.)
The team consisted of Major Jesse Marcel, Captain Sheridan Cavitt, and Sgt. Lewis Bill Rickett.
They then followed Mac Brazel’s pickup truck to the ranch in a Jeep that Jesse Marcel had arranged. Contrary to popular claims, it was not a Carryall Jeep but a standard Jeep from the Roswell Army Air Field. Captain Sheridan Cavitt clearly remembered this detail. Mac Brazel then pointed out of his car window toward the debris. He had other matters to attend to himself.
Original photos of Jeeps at Roswell Army Airfield. The top image shows a version with a roof, while the bottom image displays both variants and a third one. (In the 1940s) The colors may have been slightly distorted due to our photo enhancement and colorization process.
There is a clear contradiction between Jesse Marcel’s and Sheridan Cavitt’s accounts. Jesse Marcel claimed, for some reason, that they arrived at the ranch after dark and spent the night in a small shack there.
Sheridan Cavitt explicitly and credibly refuted this claim:
“Totally made up, or fabricated, or whatever. I didn’t have any experiences like that of spending the night out on the ranch.“
This discrepancy also raises issues with the timeline of events.
First, they departed from the sheriff’s office around 4 PM, and under normal driving conditions, the journey to the ranch would take no more than 1.5 hours. In July, during the summer, it would still have been daylight upon their arrival. In fact, there would have been enough time to return to the base well before nightfall.
Moreover, the next morning, just a few hours later, the press release was issued, followed by the afternoon press conference in Fort Worth, Texas.
Google-Maps (Roswell-New Mexico)
(unidentified flying object “UFO” crashed in green area)
The following statements were made by Sheridan Cavitt in an interview included in the official Roswell Report:
We went out to this site. There were no, as I understand, check points or anything like that (going through guards and that sort of garbage) we went out there and we found it. It was small amount as I recall, bamboo sticks, reflective sort of
material that would, well at first glance, you would probably think it was aluminum foil, something of that type. –
Some here, some here, some here. No concentration of it. No marks in the ground, dug up, anything hidden, or anything like that, just out on the territory around the bottom of New Mexico –
And we gathered up some of it. I don’t know whether we even tried to get all of it. It wasn’t scattered; well, what I call, you know, extensively. Like, it didn’t go along the ground and splatter off some here and some there. –
I thought it was a weather balloon. – It looked to me, somebody lost a weather balloon.
I also vaguely recall some sort of black box (like a weather instrument).
The rancher Mac Brazel himself stated the following in an interview with the Roswell Daily Record Chronicle on July 9, 1947:
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 made a bundle about 18 or 20 inches long and about 8 inches thick. In all, he estimated, the entire lot would have weighed maybe five pounds.
There was no sign of any metal in the area which might have been used for an engine and no sign of any 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 wire were to be found but there were some eyelets in the paper to indicate that some sort of attachment may have been used. –
Brazel said that he had previously found two weather balloons on the ranch, but that what he found this time did not in any way resemble either of these. –
I am sure what I found was not any weather observation balloon
Regarding Sgt. Lewis Bill Rickett and any potential statements, we cannot provide any definitive information. Making assumptions would be entirely unprofessional. We have concluded that numerous alleged interviews or statements attributed to him are either fabricated or heavily distorted. None of the statements from these supposedly conducted interviews make sense, align with the timeline of events, or are corroborated by anyone from that time. This includes claims about guarded roads and similar details for which there are no credible witnesses or documentation. Our AI analysis could not reach a logical conclusion regarding the interpretation of his alleged statements. Furthermore, he was not available for a renewed investigation of the incidents. Rickett passed away in October 1993.
Statement regarding the debris by Jesse Marcel Jr. (Son of Major Jesse Marcel):
One night, I was awakened by my father in the middle of the night. He was very excited about some debris he had picked up in the desert. The material filled up his 1942 Buick. He brought some of the material into the house, and we spread it out on the kitchen floor.
There were three categories of debris: a thick, foil-like metallic gray substance; a brittle, brownish-black plastic-like material, like Bakelite; and there were fragments of what appeared to be I-beams.
On the inner surface of the I-beam, there appeared to be a type of writing. The writing was a purple-violet hue, and it had an embossed appearance. The figures were composed of curved, geometric shapes. It had no resemblance to Russian, Japanese or any other foreign language. It resembled hieroglyphics, but it had no animal-like characters.
Statement regarding the debris by Jesse Marcel:
Apart from Jesse Marcel’s various contradictory statements regarding timelines, the quantity of debris, and the number of trips to the Foster Ranch within a limited timeframe, the primary focus is on what was actually found and how he described it. This is where we will concentrate our efforts, comparing his accounts with those of other involved individuals. Who accompanied him, which vehicle was used, and the exact timing are secondary considerations in this context:
I saw – well we found some metal, little bits of metal, but basically we found some materials that were hard to describe. I’d never seen anything like it, and I still don’t know what it was. We picked it up, anyway. One thing, one thing… –
One thing I remember, I remember this very distinctly. I wanted to burn a piece of this thing, but all I could – what I had was a lighter, since I’m a big smoker anyway. I lit the lighter under a piece of this stuff, and it didn’t burn. –
There were inscriptions. Something indecipherable. I personally had never seen anything like it. Um, I call them hieroglyphics. I don’t know if they were ever deciphered or not. –
Small rods, thin rods, strong rods that you couldn’t bend or break, but it didn’t look like metal. It looked more like wood. –
They were of varying sizes. They were, as I can recall, perhaps three-eighths of an inch to a quarter of an inch wide and of about all sorts of lengths. None of them were very long. –
The largest ones: I would say about three feet –
Weight: You couldn’t even tell you had anything in your hands – just like you were holding balsa wood. –
It was a solid rod, rectangular rods, just like you would have a lath. Various lengths, and along some of them there were little inscriptions, two-color inscriptions if I remember correctly – like Chinese writing. Nothing that you could make out what it would say. –
Was it all in this shape, long and thin? All the solid rods were like that. There was the other material there that looked very much like parchment that also didn’t burn. Obviously, I – I’m not speculating – I was familiar with really all the methods of weather observation devices that were used by the military, and I couldn’t identify any of this stuff as weather observation devices. –
I didn’t cover the whole ground. We took as much as we could carry and some of it was left there. –
Completely scattered everywhere – just like if you were to blow something up over the ground and it would just fall to the ground. –
How long were the shortest pieces? Four or five inches. It was like something from a larger surface that had been together.
So we loaded up and came back to the base. In the meantime we had an overzealous public relations officer, he’d heard about it, he calls the AP (Associated Press) about it.
Jesse Marcel later revised this:
I had heard that this PR man had called the press without consulting the CO, and later I heard that the CO had authorized him to do so. But I haven’t verified that.
Some other witness statements, which we also mention in other articles, suggest that Jesse Marcel did not hand over all the pieces and likely kept some for himself. He showed these to various people who later recalled seeing them. Additionally, not everything was collected, as Cavitt mentioned.
Jesse Marcel himself appeared to be so convinced that they had discovered something extraordinary that he informed Colonel Blanchard in this manner. As a result, Blanchard instructed Walter Haut, the Public Information Officer of the RAAF, to issue a press release.
1st LT. WALTER HAUT
According to Walter Haut’s statement, the process unfolded as follows:
At approximately 9:30 AM on July 8, I received a call from Col. William Blanchard, the base commander, who said he had in his possession a flying saucer or parts thereof.
Blanchard told me to write a news release about the operation and to deliver it to both newspapers and the two radio stations in Roswell. He felt that he wanted the local media to have the first opportunity to have the story. I went first to KGFL, then to KSWS, then to the Daily Record and finally to the Morning Dispatch.
Walter Haut issued this press release:
The many rumors regarding the flying disc became a reality yesterday when the intelligence office of the 509th Bomb group of the Eighth Air Force, Roswell Army Air Field, was fortunate enough to gain possession of a disc through the cooperation of one of the local ranchers and the sheriff’s office of Chaves County.
The flying object landed on a ranch near Roswell sometime last week. Not having phone facilities, the rancher stored the disc until such time as he was able to contact the sheriff’s office, who in turn notified Maj. Jesse A. Marcel of the 509th Bomb Group Intelligence Office.
MAJOR GENERAL CLEMENTS McMULLEN
After learning about the matter in Washington, General Clements McMullen was immediately contacted to handle the situation. After all, they wanted to quickly determine what it actually was.
McMullen was now the Deputy Commander of the Strategic Air Command (SAC), with headquarters at Andrews Field, Maryland.
He immediately took charge of the situation and called Colonel Blanchard at the Roswell Army Air Field, instructing him to retrieve the material, secure it, and send it to General Roger Ramey (Fort Worth Army Air Field) so he could examine it and determine what it was. Of course, McMullen also called Fort Worth and informed DuBose about the expected transport from the Roswell Army Air Field.
At the time of the Roswell incident, Thomas Jefferson DuBose was the chief of staff to General Roger M. Ramey, commander of the Eighth Army Air Corps, headquartered in Fort Worth.
Colonel Blanchard then ordered Jesse Marcel to fly to Fort Worth Army Air Field and hand over all the material to General Roger Ramey for inspection. The transport was carried out in a B-29 aircraft. After this stop, he was supposed to transport the parts to Wright Patterson Field.
Robert R. Porter, a B-29 flight engineer stationed at Roswell, was present during the loading of the debris. He also flew aboard the aircraft. He recalled what Capt. William E. Anderson, who also flew on the mission, had said: “It was from a flying saucer.“
The B-29 then made its way to the Fort Worth Army Air Field.
>>> THIS IS HOW IT CONTINUED <<<
Impressions of the Roswell Army Air Field in the 1940s
Some of the yearbooks from that time can still occasionally be purchased online on various platforms for an average price of $600 per book. These contain very interesting historical photos and additional insights.