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ROSWELL TIMELINE

Boise, ID businessman Kenneth Arnold spots nine silvery, crescent-shaped objects [“like saucers skipping over a pond”] travelling at speeds of 1200 mph. near Mt. Rainier, Washington while searching for a downed military aircraft, thus ushering in the modern age of UFOs. For the next two weeks, flying saucers make the front pages of newspapers all across the country.

July 1st, 1947:

Sherman Campbell discovers weather balloon and radar target debris on his farm near Circleville, OH.

July 2nd or 3rd or 4th, 1947

10:00 PM - Roswell resident and local hardware store owner Dan Wilmot sees a brightly-lit circular object pass overhead, heading north of town, around 10 PM [July 2nd].

10:30 PM - Some ranchers north of Roswell report seeing a fiery object arcing toward the ground to the north. Its trail remains visible for several minutes [date not certain].

Late Evening - Mack Brazel, ranch foreman at the J.B. Foster sheep ranch 35 miles S/SE of Corona [75miles NW of Roswell], hears a strange explosion late one evening during a severe thunder and lightning storm [date not certain].

Late Evening - Roswell residents William Woody and Bob Wolf report seeing a fiery object

descending to earth north of town late one evening. Woody believes that it must have come to earth in an area southwest of where the Corona road crosses Hwy. #285 [date not certain].

Late Evening - Several Nuns, while scanning the night sky atop St. Mary’s Hospital in Roswell, report seeing a flaming object falling to earth to the north. They record the event in their nightly log. [date uncertain].

July 3rd or 4th or 5th

Early morning - While checking his sheep the following morning with Dee Proctor [age 7], a neighbour’s son, Brazel discovers a large amount of strange wreckage covering most of Hines pasture. The sheep refuse to cross the pasture to get to the watering station about a mile away.

Late Morning - Brazel keeps a small piece of the wreckage and returns the Proctor boy to his parents, Floyd and Loretta, who live about 10 miles away. Brazel shows the Proctors the strange piece of wreckage and tries to get them to return with him to look at the wreckage, but the Proctors decline. They advise him, however, that maybe the wreckage is that of a flying saucer; they understand that a reward has been posted by a newspaper somewhere for parts of one.

Saturday, July 5th

Morning - Brazel hauls and stores some of the larger pieces of wreckage in a cattle shed.

Afternoon - Brazel visits his neighbors, the Lyman Stricklands, and shows them a piece of the wreckage to get their opinion as to what it might be.

Evening - Brazel visits Wade’s Bar in Corona, where he passes around a piece of the wreckage. A relative of his advises him to take it to the airbase in Roswell.

Sunday, July 6th :

Early Morning - Brazel spots birds of prey circling off in the distance. He also notices a faint, foul odor in the air. He saddles up and rides over to a low bluff 2.5 miles east of the Hines Draw debris field. The smell is quite strong now, as he dismounts and ascends the bluff. Once on top, he finds additional pieces of wreckage but also finds “something else.” He sees three small humanoid bodies, which he would later describe as “little people,” amongst the debris. They are all dead.

Mid-Morning - Brazel gets into his pickup with two cardboard boxes full of wreckage and starts out for Roswell, about 85 miles away to the southeast.

Noon - Brazel arrives at the Chaves County Sheriff’s Office in downtown Roswell and tells Sheriff George Wilcox about his find. An announcer for Roswell radio station KGFL, Frank Joyce, calls the Sheriff to see if there are any news items that he can air on his show. Wilcox suggests that Joyce talk to Brazel, who is standing right there. Brazel tells Joyce what he found and wants to know who is responsible for cleaning up the debris out on his ranch. Joyce tells Brazel that the Air Force is responsible for anything that flies in the air and suggests that he call the air base in Roswell. A distraught Brazel then tells Joyce

about finding the bodies of “little people.” Joyce doesn’t buy Brazel’s story and suggests that the bodies are probably those of monkeys or chimpanzees from some Air Force experimental rocket or something. Enraged at this suggestion, Brazel yells at Joyce, “They’re not monkeys, God dammit! They’re not human!”

Brazel than slams down the phone. Sheriff Wilcox calls Roswell Army Air Field and is connected with the 509th Bomb Group’s Intelligence Officer, Jesse A. Marcel, who is at the Officer’s Club eating lunch. Marcel promises to come to the Sheriff’s Office as soon as he finishes eating.

1:00 PM - 2:00 PM - Marcel arrives at the Sheriff’s office in downtown Roswell, interviews Brazel and examines the two boxes of wreckage, which he finds sufficiently exotic to ask Brazel if he can “borrow” one of the boxes to take back to the base to show his commanding officer, Col. William H. “Butch” Blanchard.

2:00 PM - 3:00 PM - Blanchard orders Marcel to follow the rancher [Brazel] out to the site where the wreckage was found and to take whatever Marcel felt he needed with him. Marcel locates and takes CIC Capt. Sheridan Cavitt with him. Cavitt secures and drives a Jeep Carry-all, while Marcel follows Brazel’s pickup truck in his own ’42 Buick convertible. Blanchard alerts his next-higher-command of the find.

Later Afternoon - On orders passed on from SAC Command, Blanchard is ordered to send the box of wreckage that Marcel has brought to Washington, D.C. by special courier via bomber/transport [via Ft.Worth Army Air Field] at once. The other box of wreckage is still at the Sheriff’s Office.

Late Afternoon - Sheriff Wilcox dispatches two deputies to the north of town to see what they can see. Early Evening - Brazel, Marcel and Cavitt arrive at the Hines House, a small bunkhouse located on the J.B. Foster Ranch approximately 3 miles from the debris field wreckage site. It is too late in the day to get any work done before dark, so, after a meal consisting of a cold can of Campbell’s Pork ‘n Beans, the three spend the evening at Hines House. Marcel and Cavitt inspect some of the larger pieces of wreckage that Brazel had temporarily stored in a cattle shed located about 100 ft. from the Hines House.

The two deputies report back to Sheriff Wilcox, having found two areas of blackened ground to the north and west of town. Growing darkness prevented further investigation.

Monday, July 7th:

Early Morning - Marcel, in the Jeep Carry-all, and Cavitt and Brazel, on horseback, arrive at the Hines Pasture debris site. Marcel would later describe seeing a field about 3/4th’s of a mile long by 200-300 ft. wide, covered with small pieces of extremely thin aluminum-like foil. He would also later opine as to its provenance as being “not from this earth.” They start to load up the Carry-all with as much debris as it will hold.

Morning - a group of archaeologists travelling cross-country on the back roads, looking for signs of paleo-Indians, discover the crash-site 40 miles north of Roswell. A few local ranchers then arrive at the

site. One or more of the ranchers or archaeologists notifies the Sheriff’s Office and Fire Department in Roswell of the crash. Sheriff Wilcox notifies the RAAF, then drives out to the crash site. He either follows or leads the fire engine to the site, arriving at the same time. The attention of the Sheriff and the others is focused on several dead “space beings” and one that is still alive and standing and another still alive but seriously injured.

After only a few minutes, RAAF security forces under the command of Maj. Edwin Easley arrive to secure the area. The seriously injured “space being” expires in the arms of the wife of one of the ranchers. The civilians are moved away from the crash scene. The ranchers and the archaeologists are threatened not to talk about what they had seen. The latter are also taken back to the base, detained and debriefed. The Sheriff’s Office and Fire Department personnel are appealed to under the veil of “patriotism” but, in the

end, are threatened with their lives and those of their family members if they talk about what they witnessed.

Late Morning - Cavitt is told to return to Roswell with the Jeep Carry-all, while Marcel, after lunch, returns to the debris field with his ’42 Buick. He will spend the remainder of the day there. Walt Whitmore, owner of radio station KGFL in Roswell, and Jud Roberts, part-owner of the station, arrive at the ranch and drive Brazel back to Roswell for the purpose of interviewing him. A wire-recorded interview of Brazel’s story is made for the purpose of airing it on the radio station as a “scoop.” Brazel is hidden-out overnight at Whitmore’s house.

Afternoon - Cavitt returns to Roswell with a Jeep Carry-all full of wreckage and reports to Blanchard. He also starts to write a report for the CIC Command. Marcel is still at the Foster Ranch debris field gathering additional debris. He does not visit the “Dee

Proctor Site” but has been told about it by Brazel before he left. At the crash site north of Roswell, the recovery process begins, with additional security measures in the

form of MPs stationed along the roads north of Roswell to block access to the crash site west of Hwy #285, as well as additional MPs added to those ringing the crashed spacecraft.

Late Afternoon - The surviving alien is taken to the base hospital at the RAAF, where it unsteadily walks in under its own power.

Evening - The deceased alien bodies are removed from the crash site in a field ambulance and taken to Hangar P-3 [Bldg. 84 today]. S/Sgt. Melvin Brown, a cook with “K” Squadron of the 509th, peeks under the tarp while guarding the ambulance and sees the dead aliens [he will talk of this experience only on his deathbed many years later]. They are packed overnight in dry ice in a side room inside the hangar, prior to shipment out of Roswell. Guards, including Sgt. Brown, are stationed inside and outside of the hangar.

Late Evening - Marcel starts out for Roswell, having filled the back seat and trunk of his car with what he believes is wreckage from a flying saucer.

Tuesday, July 8th

2:00 A.M. - Arriving back in Roswell, Marcel decides to drive to his house at 1300 W. 7th Avenue to show his wife and son the extraordinary wreckage [“pieces of a flying saucer,” according to his son] that he has found. Marcel wakes up his wife and son and places a number of pieces on the kitchen floor in an attempt to piece them together into a larger shape. He fails at this, but his son, Jesse, Jr., notices what appears to be unrecognizable symbols or writing along the inner surface of one of the small rods which was shaped like an “I-beam” in cross-section. After an hour or two, Marcel reloads his ’42 Buick and drives to the base.

7:00 A.M. - An emergency staff meeting is held in Col. Blanchard’s office to discuss the situation.Walter Haut is there. So are Marcel and Cavitt, along with Blanchard’s regular staff. Gen. Roger M. Ramey, commanding officer of the 8th Air Force and Blanchard’s boss, along with his Chief of Staff, Col. Thomas J. DuBose, have flown in from Ft. Worth to attend the meeting. Pieces of the wreckage are passed around for all to examine. It is decided that a press release announcing the recovery of a flying saucer will be put out to the local press and radio stations, in an attempt to assuage local rumors of crashed flying

saucers and dead aliens which are running rampant in Roswell. Marcel mentions another site [the “Dee Proctor Site”] which he had not visited but where Brazel had told him “something else” could be found. It is decided to dispatch a recovery team to the site immediately and to extend the cordon along Hwy #285 up past the Corona road. Another team is to be dispatched to the Foster Ranch debris field site to start the cleanup. To better control the information flow, it is also decided that Brazel should be located and

detained.

Morning - Johnny McBoyle, a reporter for KSWS, runs into Brazel in a local Roswell coffee shop where they both stopped for a bite, and is told about the crash. McBoyle gets directions from Brazel to the debris field and attempts to get there. The still-living, but failing, alien is transferred to Hangar P-3, where it expires just prior to being flown to

Wright Field in Dayton, OH along with others from the crash site. The pilot of this flight is Capt. Oliver W. “Pappy” Henderson of the 1st Air Transport Unit at Roswell [the “Green Hornets”]. The C-54 flight will stop first at Andrews AFB in Washington, D.C., where the bodies are to be viewed by selected highranking military and civilian personnel.

Mid Morning - Brazel is located at Walt Whitmore’s house and is taken into custody by a security detail from the RAAF. He will be quartered at the RAAF base guesthouse just inside the main gate for the next week or so.

Later Morning - The bulk of the wreckage brought in by Marcel and Cavitt is boxed in wooden crates, loaded and flown out on C54’s to various destinations. Wreckage from the crash site north of Roswell begins to arrive at Hangar P-3. What is left of the ship itself

is driven on a side street through Roswell, on a flatbed under a tarp, to Hangar P-3.

Additional security is brought in from White Sands, Alamagordo and Ft. Bliss to help secure the base and control events and personnel, both military and civilian.

11:00 AM / Noon -The RAAF’s PIO, 1st Lt. Walter Haut, acting under the authority of his

commanding officer, Col. Blanchard, writes-up and distributes a brief press release to the effect that the RAAF had captured a downed flying saucer in the “Roswell region”. The release does not mention the rancher who had found the wreckage, and it does not say anything about alien bodies. It does mention Maj. Marcel and the fact that the wreckage is being taken out of Roswell and “loaned” to a higher authority. Haut hand-carries copies of the press release to the two radio stations in town, KGFL and KSWS, and the

two daily newspapers, the Roswell Daily Record [an evening paper] and the Roswell Morning Dispatch [a morning paper].

Noon - Johnny McBoyle is apprehended in his attempt to get to the debris field by military security and taken back to the base in Roswell to be debriefed and threatened. While at the base, he observes the results of the recovery operations in progress. He decides to try to make a call to his parent station in Albuquerque to try to get the story on the AP wire as a “scoop.” Lydia Sleppy receives the call and tries to type the story for transmission on the AP wire when her typing is cut short by a message that appears and states, “CEASE

TRANSMISSION … NATIONAL SECURITY MATTER … REPEAT … CEASE TRANSMISSION …NATIONAL SECURITY MATTER.” Johnny McBoyle is discovered making the phone call and is pulled aside by the MPs and threatened with his very life. He then tells Sleppy to “forget it … it was nothing.” McBoyle never talks about the incident again. Frank Joyce, a “stringer” and announcer for radio station KGFL in Roswell, puts the Haut press release on the United Press [UP] wire, making it a national and international news event.

Early Afternoon - Maj. Marcel boards a B-29 [“Dave’s Dream”] to fly to Ft. Worth. In the bomb bay are several boxes of wreckage, loaded in there by several “FBI types,” but not the bulk of it that he and Cavitt had recovered from the Foster Ranch. Marcel also keeps a small sampling of the wreckage in a box with him on his lap on the trip to personally deliver to Gen. Ramey. The pilot of this flight is the Deputy Base Commander, Col. Payne Jennings. M/Sgt. Robert Porter is the crew chief. The flight has been ordered up by Col. Blanchard personally, and its departure is witnessed by Blanchard and 1st Lt. Robert Shirkey, the Flight Operations Officer on duty in the Flight “Ops” Building at the time.

News of the recovery spreads around the country and the world as the story hits the wire services. Phone lines at the base, the Sheriff’s Office, the media and even at the Marcel house are jammed with callers. Gen. Clements McMullen, Deputy Commander of SAC in Washington, orders Col. DuBose in Ft. Worth to concoct a story to put out the burgeoning firestorm over the story and to kill press interest in it as well. Gen. Ramey, who has returned to Ft. Worth and is preparing for a news conference to be held later

concerning the Roswell events, is already putting out the story that it was a weather balloon that was found and not a flying saucer. “Dave’s Dream” has not yet arrived in Ft. Worth. CIC Capt. Sheridan Cavitt takes his immediate subordinate, M/Sgt. Lewis “Bill” Rickett, to the crash sitenorth of Roswell to solicit Rickett’s reactions and opinions before he finishes writing his report.

Afternoon - Glenn Dennis, a young embalmer at the Ballard Funeral Home in Roswell, receives a series of telephone calls from the RAAF base mortuary officer inquiring about the best way to preserve tissue that has been laying out in the desert exposed to the elements for a while. Dennis is also asked whether he has any “children’s caskets” in stock. Dennis replies that he has one in stock but can obtain as many as needed

from his supplier in Amarillo, TX by the close of the following day. Dennis finally asks if there has been an air accident, as he can get his things and be right out to the base if need be. The officer on the phone says that, no, there has been no accident, that his inquiries were information-seeking calls only, in case anything happened in the future.

Col. Blanchard “goes on leave” from the base, but this is a “blind” to become unavailable to the press, as he actually goes to the crash site north of Roswell to set up a command-post to direct the recovery operations. New Mexico Senator Dennis Chavez calls the owner of radio station KGFL, Walt Whitmore, Sr., and warns him not to air the Brazel wire-recorded interview if he wants to remain in the radio business. Someone from the Federal Communications System also calls Whitmore with the same message. Frank

Joyce also receives a threatening call from the Pentagon, just to make sure. Joyce protests that he is a civilian, and that the caller can do nothing to him. “I’ll show you what I can do!” replies the caller, and hangs up.

Later Afternoon - The first truckloads of wreckage arrive at the RAAF from the Corona debris field site and are taken to Hangar P-3 for storage prior to shipment. Three alien bodies recovered from the “Dee Proctor Site” [3 miles east of the Foster Ranch debris field]

arrive in a military ambulance at the RAAF base hospital, along with a moderate amount of wreckage that had been placed in the ambulance. Decomposition is taking place rapidly, and the smell is horrific. They are quickly taken into the hospital, where an autopsy is to be attempted once the proper medical team arrives.

Friends of Mack Brazel see him in Roswell, walking on the street in the company of an armed military security detail. Mack Brazel, accompanied by a security detail from the RAAF and perhaps Walt Whitmore, Sr., visits the Roswell Daily Record to tell them that he found a weather balloon and not a flying saucer on his ranch, as previously reported. His photo is taken and is put out on the AP wire by Jason Kellahin and Robin Adair. It

is the first wire-photo ever sent out from Roswell. “Dave’s Dream” lands in Ft. Worth.

Marcel takes the box of wreckage with him to see Gen Ramey. Ramey is not there, so Marcel places the box on Ramey’s desk. He is told that Ramey is on the phone in another

room. Ramey finally comes into his office and asks Marcel to follow him into another room that has a large wall map. Ramey asks Marcel to point out exactly where the wreckage was found. After a brief discussion, Ramey and Marcel exit the map room and re-enter Ramey’s office. Marcel notices that the box of wreckage that he brought from Roswell is gone, and spread-out on the floor are the remains of a rubber weather balloon and a torn-up radar target. J. Bond Johnson, a reporter/photographer from the Ft. Worth Star Telegram, arrives and takes photographs of Marcel, Ramey, DuBose and Warrant Officer Irving Newton,

the base weather officer on-duty, posing with the balloon and radar target. Ramey declares that the flight to Wright Field has been cancelled and orders Marcel to return to his duties in Roswell.

Late Afternoon - Cleanup continues at the crash sites. Mack Brazel, still accompanied by a security detail from RAAF, visits announcer Frank Joyce at radio station KGFL. Joyce asks Brazel why he is there. Brazel tells Joyce that he didn’t have his story quite right

the first time when he talked to Joyce from the Sheriff’s Office on Sunday. Brazel tells Joyce the new weather balloon version of the story. A surprised Joyce asks Brazel what is going on. Brazel replies, “I have to say this. It will go hard on me if I don’t.” Joyce asks Brazel, “What about the ‘Little Green Men’ you told me about?” Brazel responds, “They weren’t green” and walks out of the station. A preliminary autopsy of the bodies from the “Dee Proctor Site” is attempted at the base hospital. Glenn Dennis is dispatched to transport an airman injured in a motorcycle accident in Roswell to the RAAF

base hospital for treatment.

As he nears the hospital, Dennis notices that there is increased activity and security around the hospital. He passes one or more field ambulances parked close by the hospital entrance. One of them has its rear doors open, and he can see inside. He notices several large pieces of metallic wreckage “like burnt steel,” one of which is shaped like the end of a canoe. He also notices that it has strange symbols or writing on its surface that he does not understand.

Once inside the hospital, he drops off the injured airman and goes to get a Coke. He notices a “beehive” of activity and a lot of personnel that he does not recognize. He asks someone if there has been a plane crash. He is told to remain where he is standing and not to move. He is then told to leave the building. On his way out, he bumps into a nurse that

he knows. She is crying and holding a towel over her face. “Glenn, get out of here or you will get into trouble. You shouldn’t be here,” she exhorts him. Just then, a nasty redheaded Army Captain confronts Dennis and orders him to escorted out and to forget what he has seen. “Nothing has happened here. Got it?! Now get this S.O.B. outta here.” Not liking this kind of treatment, Dennis protests that he is a civilian and cannot be ordered around by the military. “They’ll be pickin’ you bones out of the sand, Sonny, if you

don’t watch out.” “I think he’d make better dog food, Sir,” chimes in a black NCO who is with the Captain. Dennis is bodily escorted to his ambulance and told to get in and drive directly back to the funeral home. He does so and is followed all the way by two MP’s, just to make sure.

The Roswell Daily Record appears with “RAAF Captures Flying Saucer On Ranch In Roswell Region” front-page headlines. Some newspapers in the West carry the flying saucer story, but most papers, as all papers in the East, will not carry the story until the following day, along with the Ramey press conferencestory.

Early Evening - The preliminary autopsy at the hospital is aborted after the smell of the decomposing bodies becomes too overwhelming for the autopsy team.

Gen. Ramey gives an interview on Ft. Worth radio station WBAP and reiterates the weather balloon cover story as the explanation for Roswell events.

6:17 P.M. - FBI memo from Dallas, TX to Director and SAC, Cincinnati, acknowledging that the Roswell wreckage, contrary to Gen. Ramey’s flight cancellation declaration, did indeed go to Wright Field in Dayton, OH and that the Ramey’s weather balloon explanation has not been “borne out.” Evening - The bodies at the base hospital are not sent to Hangar P-3 for storage but to a tent placed at the far south end of the base because of the smell. Native American enlistees from Colorado are brought in to

stand guard at the tent overnight.

Wednesday, July 9th

Early Morning - The Roswell Morning Dispatch appears, featuring the weather balloon cover story. Most papers in the country will carry both versions of the story simultaneously but with the Ramey weather balloon version more prominently featured.

Cleanup at the crash sites continues. Extra help is brought in from Ft. Bliss in El Paso, TX to help “vacuum” the sites.

Construction of wooden crates of various sizes commences at Hangar P-3. All will carry pieces of wreckage from the two crash sites, but one large crate, 4 ft.x 6ft.x 12 ft., will hold a very special cargo.

Mid Morning - Wreckage in Hangar P-3 is loaded into the wooden crates and taken out to the flight line, where they are loaded into C-54’s for the flights out. At least one of the flights goes to Los Alamos, NM via Kirtland Field in Albuquerque. At least one other flight goes to a base in Florida, but most head for Wright Field in Ohio. Sgt. Robert E. Smith of the 1st Air Transport Unit, who has been loading the crates into the planes, is shown a piece of the “memory metal” by another NCO who then puts it back into his

pocket.

Late Morning - An aircraft carrying a special secret service envoy representing President Truman arrives at the RAAF from Washington. Aviation pioneer Charles A. Lindbergh is also on the flight. The dead bodies are transferred from the tent at the south end of the base to Hangar P-3, where they are loaded into the large wooden crate. They are sealed in lead-lined body bags due to the smell.

Noon - The crate with the bodies is moved from the hangar to Bomb Pit #1.

Early Afternoon - The C-54 flights with crated wreckage continue outbound.

Officers from the base visit the newspapers and radio stations in town to retrieve all copies of Haut’s original press release.

Glenn Dennis meets the nurse he ran into at the base hospital the previous day at the officers club to find out what is going on. She is still sick from the day before but agrees to meet him. She tells him about the attempted autopsy on one of the alien bodies and her role in it. She draws Dennis a picture of what they looked like on a prescription pad. She says that they had to abort the autopsy because everyone got sick from the awful smell. She tells Dennis that he must never tell anyone what she has told him and never,

never divulge her name to anyone. With that, she gets up and leaves. Dennis never sees her again. According to Dennis, she is transferred to England a few days later and allegedly killed in an airplane accident later that year.

Afternoon - The final C-54 wreckage flight takes off. Left behind in the hangar and not flown out is what is left intact of the craft itself, or an escape pod.

Several off-duty flight-crew members from 393rd Bomb Squadron, including Robert Slusher, Lloyd Thompson, Thaddeus Love and Joseph Osepchook are confiscated from the base skeet range and told to get into their gear and report to Bomb Pit #1 for a special flight.

Late Afternoon - The special flight crew arrives at Bomb Pit #1 to see a canvas tarp covering the loading area where the bombs are normally stored prior to loading onto the aircraft. A B-29, identified by the nose art as the “Straight Flush,” then taxis up the runway and over to Bomb Pit #1. The crew can see that the pilot is Capt. Frederick E. Ewing of the 393rd Bomb Squadron. Ewing, who dropped an atomicbomb at the Bikini Atoll test the previous year [“Operation Crossroads”] piloting “Dave’s Dream,” will meet a tragic death a few years later in a B-47 accident. The waiting flight crew on the ground is ordered to

turn away from the aircraft while the crate is on-loaded. The crate loaded into the bomb bay is accompanied by a half-dozen armed MP’s. Once secured, the crew alights the craft, and it takes off to make the one-hour flight to Ft. Worth. Instead of the normal 25,000 ft. pressurized cruising altitude for such flights, this special flight flies all the way at only 8,000 ft. because of MP’s guarding “Gen. Ramey’s furniture” in the bomb bay. The rumor on the flight is that the cargo has something to do with the crash of a flying saucer,

rumors of which have been rampant around the base. This is confirmed as true to Robert Slusher by Capt. William Anderson, who is also on the flight.

The Roswell Daily Record comes out featuring the weather balloon cover story in bold front-page headlines, “General Ramey Empties Roswell Saucer.” Also featured in a front-page article, “Harassed Rancher Who Located ‘Saucer’ Sorry He Told About It,” is Mack Brazel’s revised weather balloon story that he gave to the newspaper the day before while in the “security” of the military. At the end of the article, however, Brazel disavows the cover story. On the editorial page of the same edition, however, is an

opinion piece that states that something has indeed happened, but that the Army is keeping secret on the matter.

Early Evening - The “Straight Flush” arrives at Ft. Worth Army Air Field, Headquarters of Gen. Roger Ramey and the “Mighty” Eighth Air Force of WW II fame. Upon taxiing up the runway to a stop, one of the crew members on the flight, Lt. Felix Martucci [the bombardier], recognizes an old high school friend amongst the greeting party of officers on the tarmac. What Martucci also knows - besides what is in the crate in the bomb bay - is that his friend is a mortician. The crew is not permitted to disembark the aircraft.

After the crate is off-loaded, Maj. Marcel can be seen walking from the Flight Operations Building toward the “Straight Flush.” Marcel gets on for the return flight to Roswell. The B-29 simply turns around and takes off. When the wheels of the aircraft leave the runway, Lt. Martucci can be heard to exclaim, “Boys, we just made the history books!”

Evening - The “Straight Flush” with Marcel arrives back at the RAAF. The “Roswell Incident” story is now dead as a press story, the press having swallowed the weather balloon story. Marcel goes home. The bodies are kept overnight in a secure building at Ft. Worth AAF and examined.

Thursday, July 10th:

Morning - A flight from Wright Field arrives at Ft. Worth AAF and returns to Wright Field carrying a large metallic container. Cleanup continues at the crash sites. Marcel, feeling that he has been a “Fall Guy,” confronts Cavitt and demands to see Cavitt’s report to higher authorities concerning the Roswell events of the past few days, but is refused.

Brazel continues to be detained and interrogated by the military at the Roswell base.

Realizing their oversight in all of the goings-on of the past few days, a security detail from the RAAF confiscates the second box of debris from the Sheriff’s Office. Wilcox and his family are again exhorted and threatened not to talk about what they know.

Sheriff Wilcox and a deputy visit Glenn Dennis’ father to warn him that his son will be in a lot of trouble if he doesn’t forget about what he saw at the base.

Walt Whitmore, Sr., owner of Roswell radio station KGFL, is now cooperating fully with the military in order to save his radio license. He is told to grab his announcer, Frank Joyce, and drive him and an unidentified, “sinister-looking man in a strange uniform” out of town for something. They drive up north of Roswell to a small town named Lon [no longer on the map] and stop outside of a small shack. Joyce is told to go inside and wait. After a few minutes, Brazel appears and appeals to Joyce, “You’re not gonna say anything about what we talked about on the phone or at the radio station, are you?” Thinking about his

situation, Joyce responds in the negative. “Well, good, then. Nice knowing you.” Joyce responds in kind, and just before he leaves, Brazel remarks to Joyce, “You know, our lives will never be the same again.” [as an aside, Joyce says that he received one call a year from Brazel for many years thereafter, just checking up on him].

Friday July 11th:

The cleanup at the crash sites is completed. MPs and others involved in the retrieval cleanup are debriefed and told to forget it and never talk about it. RAF [British] officer Hughie Green who had been driving in his car from California to Philadelphia, PA,

had been hearing updates on his car radio about the crash as he traveled cross-country. By the time of his arrival in Philadelphia there are no more updates, and the story is dead. He can obtain no further information about it.

Saturday July 12th and Sunday July 13th:

Bill Brazel, Jr. travels from his home in Albuquerque to his father’s Corona ranch to see what is going on. He finds that his father is not there. There is no sign of the military either.

Tuesday, July 15th:

Mack Brazel is given a full physical examination, thus concluding his interrogation and detention at the base, whereupon he is finally returned to his ranch. He remains bitter for the rest of his life at his treatment at the hands of the U.S. military, just for doing what he perceived to be his patriotic duty. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover responds in writing to a suggestion that the FBI stay out of alleged crashed flying disc investigations by saying that he would, in fact, become involved except for the fact that the Army in the Roswell case, “…grabbed it and wouldn’t let us have it even for a cursory examination.”

August, 1947:

Mack Brazel and a young ranch hand, Tommy Tyree, spot a piece of debris in a sinkhole after a rain near the debris field. They just leave it there and move on.

September, 1947:

Meteorite expert Dr. Lincoln LaPaz, secretly charged with reconstructing the object’s speed and trajectory when it crashed, arrives at the RAAF. CIC M/Sgt. Lewis “Bill” Rickett is assigned to drive Dr. LaPaz wherever he wants to go. They traverse the entire state of NM and parts of AZ and TX during the month, interviewing ranchers and examining physical traces left by the object. LaPaz believes that the object had been in trouble and had touched down for repairs several times, leaving black spots which had turned to

glass, before exploding over Brazel’s ranch. They also find a section of pine trees that had been taken out by the object as it descended. LaPaz writes a report of his findings and sends it through channels.

October, 1947:

What’s left of the intact saucer or escape pod is flown out from RAAF on a specially modified B-29 to Wright Field.

1948:

Dr. LaPaz tells UNM archaeology graduate student Boyd Wetlauffer about the previous year’s Roswell events while both are out in the field doing excavations.

LaPaz tells Rickett that he is still convinced that the Roswell wreckage was an unmanned probe from another planet.

1949:

A gouge from the crash is still visible at the Foster Ranch debris field site. Gen. Arthur Exon and several other officers are able to view the Foster Ranch debris field site and the crash site [15-20 miles from the debris field site] simultaneously from the air as they fly from Albuquerque to San Antonio, TX. The vehicle tracks at each site, and the gouge at the debris field site, are still visible. Bill Brazel, having found various scraps of debris for the past two years and kept them in a cigar box, mentions that fact in Corona. The next day, a Capt. Armstrong and three others from the base arrive at his ranch and confiscate the cigar box with the pieces of the debris.

1950:

A Socorro, NM soil conservation engineer named Grady L. “Barney” Barnett starts telling close family and friends about finding a crashed flying saucer with dead alien bodies out on the Plains of San Agustin, west of Socorro, a few years before. Corroboration for Barnett’s story is lacking beyond those to whom he confided.

1961:

Former Roswell Sheriff George Wilcox passes away. He never ran for Sheriff again after the Roswell events. His wife will later publish a small piece about the 1947 events in a local magazine. He is buried in Roswell.

1963:

Mack Brazel passes away at the age of 64, having kept much to himself after his ordeal with the military. He is buried in Tularosa. Gen Roger Ramey, former Commander of the Eighth Air Force, passes away. He is buried in the family plot in Denton, TX.

1965:

Lt. Gen. [four stars] William Blanchard, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Air Force and former base commander at Roswell, dies at his desk in the Pentagon from a heart attack at age 50. He is buried at the Air Force Academy.

1967:

Barney Barnett passes away and is buried in Dalhart, TX.

1972:

In his travels, UFO researcher and lecturer Stanton Friedman interviews Lydia Sleppy, who attempted to place the Roswell crash story from Johnny McBoyle on the AP wire but was subsequently prevented from

doing so.

1978:

Ohio businessman and UFO researcher Leonard Stringfield interviews Jesse Marcel, Sr. He subsequently self-publishes a limited-circulation monograph of UFO crash information that he has accumulated over the years, entitled “Retrievals of the Third Kind.”

After a lecture in Baton Rouge, LA, Stan Friedman is given the name of Jesse Marcel, of Houma, LA, as someone who once held the wreckage of a flying saucer in his hands. Friedman calls him later. Friedman hooks up with a Minnesota school-teacher, William Moore, and they begin research on the story, which will yield a book two years later.

“Pappy” Henderson confides to a close friend, John Kromschroeder, that he had flown wreckage from a crashed UFO to Wright Field back in the 1940’s.

1979:

William Moore and Stanton Friedman continue to interview witnesses for their book about the incident. Friedman interviews Marcel in his UFO video documentary “UFO’s are Real.”

1980:

The In Search Of TV show with Leonard Nimoy interviews Jesses Marcel at the Foster Ranch debris field site. Marcel reiterates that he is sure that the wreckage was nothing from this earth. Language expert Charles Berlitz and William Moore publish The Roswell Incident, which is based upon the interviews of approximately 60 people. It only has a limited sale.

1982:

“Pappy” Henderson tells his wife, Sapho, about his role in the Roswell events upon seeing a story about it in a supermarket tabloid. HBO interviews Bill Brazel, Jr. at the Foster Ranch debris field for their UFO special “UFO’s: What’s Happening?”

1986:

Jesse Marcel, Sr. passes away. He is buried in Houma, LA.

1987:

News of the MJ-12 documents is made public to the UFO community. Many believe them to be a Bill Moore hoax.

1988:

An Air Force pickup truck is seen on the Foster Ranch. The driver asks ranch hand Jim Parker if the Roswell crash site is nearby. Author Kevin Randle and UFO investigator for the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies Don Schmitt team up to reopen the investigation of the case. They expect to make quick work of the case by proving that

it had been a weather balloon after all.

1989:

The Center for UFO Studies conducts a preliminary archaeological expedition to the Foster Ranch debris field. The Robert Stack-hosted TV show, Unsolved Mysteries, kicks off its new season with the opening segment devoted to the 1947 Roswell UFO crash. The show receives wide attention, and many new witnesses come forth to aid the on-going investigation. One of these, Gerald Anderson, claims to have been at the San Agustin crash site in 1947 as a five year-old boy. After three years of intense investigation of his claims, he is shown to be a hoaxer.

1990:

Randle and Schmitt continue to interview witnesses regarding Roswell. They no longer believe that a weather balloon was the cause of the event.

1991:

A number of Roswell witnesses are brought to Washington, D.C. by the Fund for UFO Research, to have their testimonies videotaped and memorialized for posterity.

A Philadelphia businessman and UFO investigator, Tom Carey, joins the Randle/Schmitt team to try to locate the archaeologists who found the crashed UFO in 1947.

Former CIC M/Sgt. Lewis “Bill” Rickett passes away in Florida.

Randle and Schmitt publish their first book about Roswell, UFO Crash at Roswell, which is based upon interviews of over 150 people. Several anti-Roswell UFO investigators discover Project Mogul, a failed secret project that was an attempt by the military in 1947 and 1948 to try to detect the then-impending Russian detonation of an atomic device by means of high-altitude balloon-borne acoustic sensors.

1992:

The first commercial video about the Roswell incident, UFO Secret: the Roswell Crash, is released by Viacom. Another video, Recollections of Roswell, is produced for the UFO community and carries the videotapedinterviews of the witnesses brought to Washington, D.C. by FUFOR the previous year. [see previous note].

Stanton Friedman and aviation writer Don Berliner publish Crash at Carona.

1993:

The GAO [Government Accounting Office], under the urging of NM Congressman Stephen Schiff, announces that it plans to try to investigate the paper trail of the 1947 Roswell events.

1994:

Randle and Schmitt’s second Roswell book, The Truth About the UFO Crash at Roswell, which is based upon interviews of over 300 people, is published. CBS’s primetime TV show, Forty-Eight Hours, does a pro-piece about the Roswell case. The Showtime movie Roswell premieres. It is nominated for a Golden Globe Award. The Air Force releases a preliminary report on its own, put together as a result of the GAO directive. It

concludes that the 1947 “Roswell Incident” was the result of the crash of a Project Mogul balloon array. The national press, such as the New York Times, uncritically accepts the Air Force’s explanation in a frontpage story.

1995:

The GAO report is released. It could not find a paper trail associated with the Roswell events, as all messages and documents from the Roswell base for the period in question had been destroyed without apparent reason or authority. The Air Force releases its second report on the Roswell case, Fact v. Fiction in the New Mexico Desert,

which again reiterates the Project Mogul theme.

1997:

The 50th Anniversary Year of the “Roswell Incident.” A spate of new Roswell books, TV specials, newspaper and magazine cover stories, culminating with a Time cover story in a July issue, all go to make “Roswell” a household name this year. The Air Force releases its third and final report on Roswell. Entitled The Roswell Report: Case Closed, it

claims that the reports of alien bodies recovered as a result of the claimed 1947 UFO crash near Roswell were the result of high-altitude parachute testing conducted by the Air Force during the 1950’s using mannequins instead of real people. A mental process called “time-compression” is claimed by the Air Force to have caused people to remember the dates wrong. On July 4th, MSNBC provides all-day coverage of the events taking place in Roswell. The History Channel does an anti-Roswell documentary promoting the Project Mogul theme.

1998:

Public interest in the Roswell case subsides, and investigators move on to other endeavors. Tom Carey and Don Schmitt team up to reinvestigate the Roswell case once again. New witnesses, new information from old witnesses, and a new crash scenario will result from their investigations over the next four years. They are currently the only proactive Roswell investigators left in the field.

1999:

December - Former Roswell CIC Capt. Sheridan Cavitt passes away, taking what he really knows about the incident with him to his grave. Attending medical personnel who were interviewed later tell of Cavitt’s refusal to take pain medication during the final days, as if he were afraid that he might say something he did not want to divulge. During visits from his family, he just stared out the window and would say nothing to them.

2000:

Work on the “Ramey Memo” starts to bear fruit. The application of computer photographic software to one of the photos of Gen. Ramey, taken in 1947 by J. Bond Johnson, in which the General can be seen clutching a telex in his hand, has enabled several teams of investigators to “read” parts of the telex.

2001:

Carey and Schmitt continue to investigate new leads. Key Roswell witness Frank Kaufmann passes away. He reveals new information to Carey and Schmitt just

prior to his passing. Startling information is also gleaned from Kaufmann’s personal papers. Anti-Roswell investigator Karl T. Pflock publishes Roswell: Inconvenient Facts and the Will to Believe, which reiterates the Project Mogul theme once again.

2002: