The event took place during the first week of July 1947 and involved the recovery of wreckage by the military from a remote ranch northwest of Roswell, New Mexico. There is now considerable testimony from former members of the military known to have been involved, including two brigadier generals, that the recovered material was not of terrestrial origin. Admittedly, such a claim taxes the limits of credibility for discerning and rational individuals. It also tends to evoke a response of immediate dismissal. The preponderance of evidence, however, indicates the event occurred. 

A rancher named Mac Brazel discovered strange metal strewn across a wide area of range land he tended. Because of the material's unusual characteristics, Brazel took pieces of the debris to the authorities in Roswell, New Mexico. Intrigued by the debris, Colonel Blanchard, commanding officer at Roswell Army Air Field, ordered two intelligence officers to investigate. 

Roswell Army Air Field was the home of the 509th Bomb Group, which was an elite outfit--the only atomic group in the world. The two men Col. Blanchard sent to the crash site were Major Jesse  Marcel and Captain Sheridan Cavitt. Upon their report, Colonel Blanchard quietly ordered that the ranch area be cordoned off. Soldiers removed the debris, sending it to Army headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas. 
 
 

Maj. Jesse Marcel, Sr.

No Image At The Moment  CIC Sheridan Cavitt

On the morning of July 8, 1947, Colonel Blanchard  had Lt. Walter Haut issue a press release stating that the wreckage of a "crashed disk" (UFO) had been recovered. The press release was transmitted over the wire services in time to make headlines in over thirty U.S. afternoon newspapers that same day. 
 
 

Lt. Walter Haut was the Public Information Officer at Roswell AAF. Within hours something had happened and the press release was retracted, and further press coverage restricted. 
 

The late General Thomas DuBose was a colonel and General Ramey's chief of staff at Eighth Air Force Headquarters in Forth Worth, Texas, in 1947. Before his death in 1992, General DuBose testified that he himself had taken the telephone call from General Clements McMullen at Andrews Army Air Field in Washington, D.C., ordering the coverup. The instructions were for General Ramey to concoct a "cover story" to "get the press off our backs." 

At a press conference in Fort Worth, the Army explained that the intelligence officer and others at Roswell had misidentified the debris, which was, in fact, the remains of a downed balloon with a metallic radar reflector attached, and not a flying saucer. Public interest faded, and the Roswell event became a part of UFO folklore, with most ufologists accepting the official government version of the story. 

It was not until the late 1970s, with Jesse Marcel's decision to comment publicly on the strange material and other aspects of the Roswell event, that the UFO crash story was revived. Since that time, new evidence indicates the weather balloon explanation was part of an elaborate government coverup, and in fact, the original report of a recovered flying disk was probably true. Investigations into the UFO crash story continue with the goal of pressuring the United States government to end the coverup and to reveal to the American public what actually crashed on the New Mexican desert that night in July 1947. 

Next, see  More Witnesses  A more comprehensive list can be found at  Roswell Witness List.