The Incident at Roswell

By M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fictions Stories
​Over seventy-eight years ago a New Mexico rancher give a report to the local sheriff which was quite unique. It was something about finding metallic debris on a ranch about 80 miles from Roswell, New Mexico.

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Mack Brazel, a sheep rancher who came across unusual debris in 1947

W. W. "Mack" Brazel (1899-1963) never imagined what would come of that report. He was the foreman of the J.B. Foster sheep ranch located about 30 miles from the small town of Corona, New Mexico. The Brazel family lived in Tularosa, and Mack stayed in a shack without running water, electricity and a phone. The nearest neighbor was almost a dozen miles away. 

At the beginning of July, 1947 he came across metallic debris spread over the scraggly grazing grounds in an area of about 200 yards. Besides being out of place, he saw that the sheep wouldn't cross the field where the strange material lay. 

On July 5, he packed a box with a sample, and told the Chavez County sheriff about his find. Brazel's main concern was to have the area cleaned. Sheriff Wilcox notified the personnel at Roswell Army Air Field

Without a telephone or radio he was unaware of a slew of UFO reports from across the country. A little over a week before, Kenneth Arnold, an amateur pilot described seeing unusual flying objects over Mount Rainier, Washington that was reported in different newspapers. When he visited the town of Corona, he heard of the so-called "flying saucers."

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But, Wednesday, a Boise, Idaho pilot Kenneth Arnold reported he saw '9 bright, saucer-like objects' streaking through the air about 10,000 feet high between Mt. Rainier and Mt. Adams.
The Seattle Star, ​June 25, 1947

Roswell Daily Record reporting on RAAF disclosure on July 8, 1947

On July 8, 1947 Colonel William Blanchard, the C.O. at Roswell ordered Lt. Haut, the PIO at the base to issue a press release that claimed a "flying disk" had been found at the Foster Ranch.

No sooner had the press release been sent out then Brig. General Roger M. Ramey, his superior held a press conference in Fort Worth contesting the UFO version. Instead he described it "as the remnants of a ray wind target used to determine the direction and velocity of winds at high altitudes." 

​Major Jesse Marcel and Captain Sheridan Cavitt went to view the debris. It was taken to Ft. Worth Army Air Field in Texas.

​But there was more going on in the background than the conflict of what the debris was. The incident might have faded from the public's attention, but those at the center of the discovery had their lives changed forever. Mack Brazel was placed in military custody at the base between July 7 to 8. Some have wondered if any of the statements after this date were given by a coerced and frightened man. He was the only Roswell witness who was detained by the military. He was described as a man of few words, but his handshake was his bond.​

By July 9, newspapers were reporting the W. W. Brazel was sorry he had said anything about it. He couldn't understand what all the fuss was about. He said, "If I find anything else short of a bomb it's going to be hard to get me to talk." 

Prior to this Mack Brazel had found weather balloons twice on the ranch grounds, and he stated, "I am sure what I found was not any weather observation balloon."

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Were there alien bodies at the Roswell crash site?

WWII was over, but the fear of invasion was still present, which is perhaps why the public was quick to accept that further reports of flying saucers and bright objects from across the country, were just rockets or jets being tested by the military.

The stories eventually faded from the headlines, but the Roswell Incident would be considered the jumping off point for ufology. Myriad stories and movies about men from outer space and alien science fiction were fueled by these stories of flying discs.

Five years after the Roswell Incident, UFOs were seen over Washington D.C. Reports came from airline pilots that described flashes of light streaking across the sky.  Air Force jets were scrambled but they found nothing.

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Depiction of a UFO crash

The incident was forgotten until thirty-one years later when Major Jesse Marcel spoke out, and said the debris recovered at the ranch was "not from this Earth." By then Mack Brazel had died in 1963, and his wife Maggie in 1975. Mack's son, Bill was later interviewed by different ufologists included Stanton Friedman, and he said his dad told him very little about what happened at Roswell. The only person he thought his father had confided in was his daughter-in-law Shirley, who died in 1996. Mack's son believed his father took much of what he knew to the grave. There was no doubt he was bitter about being jailed for a week for what he thought was a good deed. His relatives believed Mack's reticence in sharing his experience is that he was sworn to secrecy for patriotic reasons. Others think that the military threatened his family. 

Mack's youngest child, Vernon was 7 years old when the Roswell incident occurred. In 1958, he was reported to be serving on the fleet oiler USS Hassayampa as a gunners' mate third class in the Western Pacific. It's believed he saw the debris, and possibly alien bodies at the crash site. The incident was said to have affected him profoundly. He left the state as soon as he could, never to return, and it's been reported he even changed his name. He died in 1967 while living in Montana, allegedly by his own hand.

Another son Paul who worked for the J. B. Foster ranch where his father once did, died in 1997, but denied knowledge of any events.

Mack's neighbors described that prior to his visit to Corona to report his discovery, he had been excited and talkative about what he found. When he returned he wouldn't talk to anyone about it, and would just change the subject. Another neighbor described where he saw Mack surrounded by about 7 military escorts as he walked down the street in Corona. Even years after the incident Mack's response to any inquiries was terse and short.

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Major Marcel shown with debris from Roswell, New Mexico, which was flown to Fort Worth Army Air Field on July 8, 1947.

In the book The Roswell Incident (1990) it describes where Mack said the debris came from an airborne explosion not a crash. The sparse vegetation was singed and the pieces were littered over a large area. The metal was different than anything he knew of which he could not cut, scratch or whittle with his knife. Other witnesses said there was strange symbols on the metal. Mack said they looked like wiggles that were in pastel colors. There has been conjecture if the military's quick response to Mack's find was that this was not the first time they had come across a similar scenario.

Frank Joyce was an announcer for KGFL in Roswell, he was the one that placed the story of Blanchard's description of a "captured disk" on the UP wire. Instead of being a story read only by Roswell residents, it made it around the world.

In 1948, he left to Albuquerque never to return. He continued to work in television and radio. During a later interview, Joyce like Brazel, was reticent about saying too much. The subject that seemed the most verboten was information about seeing bodies.

​Later Mack Brazel would tell close family and friends that letting the military authorities know about the debris field was the worst mistake he had ever made in his life.

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"1947 UFO Crash Site Tours" in Roswell, N.M., c. 1997. (Source - Eric Draper/AP)

Fast forward to 1978, when the National Enquirer picked up the story about what happened that summer day in New Mexico. Only the year before the film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind had been released, and witnesses who stayed quiet back in 1947 stepped forward to tell of a spacecraft and alien bodies, which only meant one thing: the government had covered it up.

The CIA and military's excuse for the coverup were concerns that it was new technology used by the USSR, and not something from outer space.

In 1994, the Air Force issued a 1,000 page report explaining that what was recovered at Roswell was a high-altitude balloon, part of Project MOGUL which was used by the military to intercept Soviet radio transmissions. Eventually they would fall to earth after deflating.

In 1997, Hub Corn now owned the ranch where the famous Roswell crash took place. He charged tourists $15 to take a look at the landscape, and let the viewer fill in the details from their imagination as to what once lay among the red desert rocks. An all night "rave" dance party was scheduled for the anniversary of the Roswell Incident at the Corn ranch.

By then rumors circulated that Brazel was coerced by the government to keep its secrets, not only of the downed craft, but that there had been a recovery of three to five alien bodies which were taken to the Area 51 military base in Nevada.

Many of those who participated, or were witnesses to what occurred in the New Mexico desert in 1947 are now gone, and Roswell's place on the ufology map would not be forgotten again, nor the mystery that persists until today.

Since 1996, a 3-day festival takes place on the anniversary of the discovery on the Foster Ranch, which draws thousands of participants. 

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