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On the evening of 2 July 1947 an alien craft crashed during a severe thunderstorm on the Foster Ranch near Corona, New Mexico. The nearest military base to the crash site is in Roswell, New Mexico, so Roswell is more closely associated with this event than Corona. |
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| June/July | In the summer of 1947, William Woody and his father observed a bright, arching light with a red trail travelling south to north across the sky and disappeared below the northern horizon. |
| 2 July 1947 | On
Wednesday 2 July at around 9:50pm, Mr and Mrs Dan Wilmot reported
seeing an oval-shaped UFO from their house at South Penn, Roswell,
moving north west towards the crash site. Dan Wilmot estimated it
as being at around 1500 feet and 15 to 20 feet in diameter. Mac Brazel and others heard a loud explosion. |
| 3/4 July 1947 | Mac Brazel, accompanied by 7-year-old neighbour Dee Proctor, discovered a large amount of lightweight, metallic debris on a remote pasture (the debris field). Brazel was foreman of the Foster Ranch. The pieces were spread out over a large area. When Brazel and Dee drove back home, he showed a piece of the wreckage to Dee's parents, Floyd and Loretta Proctor. It was agreed the debris was unlike anything seen before. Brazel removed a large, circular piece of debris from the debris field and stored it in a shed. |
| 5 July 1947 | While in Corona, Mac Brazel heard about the $3000 reward money for a "flying disc". |
| 6 July 1947 | Mac
Brazel showed pieces of the wreckage to Chaves County Sheriff, George
Wilcox. Wilcox called Roswell Army Air Field (AAF) and talked to Major
Jesse Marcel, the intelligence officer. Marcel drove to the sheriff's
office and inspected the wreckage. William Blanchard, Marcel's commanding
officer, ordered Marcel to get someone from the Counter Intelligence
Corps and to proceed to the ranch with Brazel to collect as much of
the wreckage as they could. Soon after this, military police arrived at the sheriff's office, collected the wreckage Brazel had left there and delivered the wreckage to Blanchard's office. The wreckage was then flown to Eighth Air Force headquarters in Fort Worth and from there to Washington. Marcel and Cavitt accompanied Brazel back to his car to go to the debris field. The two deputies returned to Sheriff Wilcox, having found an area of blackened ground. Marcel and Cavitt stayed at Brazel's ranch and examined the large piece of debris stored in the shed. |
| 7 July 1947 | Marcel
and Cavitt collected wreckage from the crash site. After filling Cavitt's
vehicle with wreckage, Marcel told Cavitt to go on ahead and he would
collect more wreckage, they would meet later back at Roswell AAF.
Marcel filled his vehicle with wreckage. On the way back to the airfield, Marcel stopped off at home at around 1-2 am to show his wife and son the strange material he had found. Both his wife Viaud and son Jesse Jr examined the debris Jesse Sr had brought home. Jesse Jr remembered there were pink/purple/lavender symbols along the centre sections of some of the small metallic "I" beams in amongst the debris. Around 4:00 pm, Lydia Sleppy at Roswell radio station KSWS began transmitting a story on the teletype machine regarding a crashed flying saucer out on the Foster Ranch. Transmission was interrupted, seemingly by the FBI. |
| 8 July 1947 | Blanchard
dictated a press release on the recovery of a flying disk to PIO Walter
Haut. Haut went into town to deliver his press release to the radio
stations and newspapers. His first was at station KGFL, where he gave
the release to Frank Joyce. The information was put on the AP wire. The first flight in arrived from Washington DC, carrying a special team of photographers and W/O Robert Thomas. William Woody and his father, still curious about their sighting, set out on highway 285 to the North of Roswell to travel to Ramon. The Military had all side roads and tracks from 285 blocked off. A few miles South of Ramon is the turn off to highway 247 which would take you by the general area of the Foster Ranch, this exit was also blocked. They were turned away by MPs posted on outlying roads. News of the recovery spread as the story hit the wire services. Phone lines at the base, at the sheriff's office and at newspaper and radio news offices were tied up. The only newspapers that carried the initial flying saucer version of the story were evening papers from the Midwest to the West, including the Chicago Daily News, the Los Angeles Herald Express, the San Francisco Examiner and the Roswell Daily Record. The New York Times, the Washington Post and the Chicago Tribune were morning papers and only carried the cover-up story the next morning. Sheriff Wilcox sent two more deputies to the debris field but they were turned back by MPs. Cavitt and Rickett returned to the Roswell base with Brazel. Brazel was flown back to the debris field from the base, other planes from Roswell were similarly reconnoitring the area. The UFO impact site was discovered from the air and ground troops are directed toward it. Barney Barnett and a group of students and archaeologists or rockhunters were already at the impact site and said they had seen debris and bodies; they were escorted off by the Army. Colonel Blanchard went "on leave" from the base, but he actually left to visit the debris field. Material had been brought from the debris field and loaded onto a C-54. Captain Pappy Henderson flew out to Wright Field. A B-29 carried Marcel to Fort Worth Army Air Field. A few wrapped packages *of debris* were also on the plane. The clean up continued at the crash sites. Brazel was flown back to the base, then left and was located by Walt Whitmore of radio station KGFL, who interviewed him about the find. Blanchard visited the debris field and impact site with his staff. A second flight from Washington, DC, arrived at the base. Rickett gave the crew a sealed box filled with debris, the plane returned to Washington. The Roswell Daily Record carried "RAAF Captures Flying Saucer" story. Sergeant Melvin Brown looked under a tarp on the back of a truck at the impact site and saw several alien-looking bodies. Glenn Dennis, a local mortician, had several inquiries from the base about tissue preservation and the smallest caskets he had available. A truck carrying the bodies arrived at the base. Pathologist Dr Jesse Johnson attempted a preliminary autopsy at the base hospital. Dennis tried to visit the base hospital but was turned away forcibly, a nurse friend warned him to leave before he got in trouble. Captain John Martin, Sergeant Brown and other MPs guarded a crate containing the bodies that had been placed inside an empty hangar. |
| 9 July 1947 | Troops
continued clean up at the crash sites. At the base, three C-54s began to be loaded with crates filled with debris. Senator Dennis Chavez called Walt Whitmore SR to warn him against broadcasting an interview with Brazel. A representative of the FCC threatened to pull his broadcast license. Officers from the base located Brazel (who had stayed with Whitmore) and returned him to the base for questioning. Brazel was taken by the military to the office of the Roswell Daily Record, where he gave a revised version of the story. A special secret service envoy representing President Truman arrived from Washington. The crate with bodies was moved from the hangar to Bomb Pit Number One. Officers from the base visited newspaper and radio offices in the town and recovered all copies of Haut's original press release. Brazel was taken to radio station KGFL, where he gave a revised version of his story. Three fully loaded C-54s carried debris to Los Alamos, New Mexico, via Kirtland Field. The crate from Bomb Pit Number One was transferred to a B-29 and flown to Fort Worth. The Roswell Daily Record carried a revised version of Barzel's story. Marcel arrived back in Roswell. |
| 10 July 1947 | Clean-up
continued at the crash sites. Brazel continued to be interrogated and held at a guesthouse on the base. The remaining debris was confiscated from Sheriff Wilcox by military personnel. |
| 11 July 1947 | MPs and others involved in the retrieval of the debris were debriefed and told to forget that it happened. This included Brazel who, following his period of detention, repudiated his initial story. |
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For over 50 years the cover up has held and still continues today. Many UFO researchers have spent their lives investigating this incident and still wait to find out what really happened on July 1947 on the Foster Ranch. |