The witness accounts of the Roswell UFO incident would transform Roswell from a forgotten incident to perhaps the most famous UFO case of all time.
In 1978, author Stanton T. Friedman interviewed Jesse Marcel, who voiced his suspicion that debris he recovered on a ranch near Roswell in 1947 was "not of this world." Marcel and others gave descriptions of debris which seemed to be describing a similar set of objects. More spectacularly, numerous accounts of aliens and alien craft emerged as UFO researchers sought out and interviewed more people in connection with the 1947 incident.
Witness accounts of the debris described in 1947
Mac Brazel's interview
Mac Brazel, who discovered the debris which sparked the Roswell UFO incident, died in 1963, well before researchers started to interview witnesses to the incident. However, he was interviewed in 1947 and his accounts of debris appeared in the Roswell Daily Record on July 9, 1947. In the interview he said he found "bright wreckage made up of rubber strips, tinfoil, a rather tough paper and sticks".
Jesse Marcel's testimony
Jesse Marcel was approached by researchers in 1978 and he recounted details suggesting the debris Brazel had led him to was exotic. He believed the true nature of the debris was being suppressed by the military. His accounts were featured in the 1979 documentary UFOs are Real, and in a February 1980 National Enquirer article, which are largely responsible for making the Roswell incident famous by sparking renewed interest.
There was all kinds of stuff—small beams about three eighths or a half inch square with some sort of hieroglyphics on them that nobody could decipher. These looked something like balsa wood, and were about the same weight, except that they were not wood at all. They were very hard, although flexible, and would not burn....One thing that impressed me about the debris was the fact that a lot of it looked like parchment. It had little numbers with symbols that we had to call hieroglyphics because I could not understand them. They could not be read, they were just like symbols, something that meant something, and they were not all the same, but the same general pattern, I would say. They were pink and purple. They looked like they were painted on. These little numbers could not be broken, could not be burned. I even took my cigarette lighter and tried to burn the material we found that resembled parchment and balsa, but it would not burn—wouldn't even smoke. But something that is even more astonishing is that the pieces of metal that we brought back were so thin, just like tinfoil in a pack of cigarettes. I didn't pay too much attention to that at first, until one of the boys came to me and said: "You know that metal that was in there? I tried to bend the stuff and it won't bend. I even tried it with a sledgehammer. You can't make a dent on it," Marcel said.
The Brazel and Marcel family testimony
Bessie Brazel, Mac's daughter, had helped recover the debris. "There was what appeared to be pieces of heavily waxed paper and a sort of aluminum-like foil. Some of these pieces had something like numbers and lettering on them, but there were no words that we were able to make out. Some of the metal-foil like pieces had a sort of tape stuck to them, and when these were held to the light they showed what looked like pastel flowers or designs. Even though the stuff looked like tape it could not be peeled off or removed at all. It was very light in weight but there sure was a lot of it."
She also signed an affidavit that had additional descriptions: "The debris looked like pieces of a large balloon which had burst. The pieces were small, the largest I remember measuring was about the same as the diameter of a basketball. Most of it was a kind of double-sided material, foil-like on one side and rubber-like on the other. Both sides were grayish silver in color, the foil more silvery than the rubber. Sticks, like kite sticks, were attached to some of the pieces with a whitish tape. The foil-rubber material could not be torn like ordinary aluminum foil can be torn."
Son Bill Brazel Jr. confirmed some of what Bessie said: "There was some tinfoil and some wood and on some of the wood it had Japanese or Chinese figures." "There was some wooden-like particles I picked up. These were like balsa wood in weight, but a bit darker in color and much harder. This stuff ... weighed nothing, yet you couldn't scratch it with your fingernail like ordinary balsa, and you couldn't break it either."
Marcel’s son Jesse Jr. also saw the debris. Marcel went home and showed the debris to his family. Marcel Jr.: "[It was] foil-like stuff, very thin, metallic-like but not metal, and very tough. There was also some structural-like material too — beams and so on. Also a quantity of black plastic material which looked organic in nature ... Imprinted along the edge of some of the beam remnants there were hieroglyphic-type characters. I recently questioned my father about this, and he recalled seeing these characters also and even described them as being a pink or purplish-pink color. Egyptian hieroglyphics would be a close visual description of the characters seen, except I don't think there were any animal figures present as there are in true Egyptian hieroglyphics..."
He would say elsewhere in a signed affidavit: "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. This 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."
Sheridan Cavitt and Lewis Rickett’s testimony
Sheridan Cavitt of the Roswell Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) was identified by Marcel as assisting him in investigating the crash and recovering debris, likely the "man in plainclothes" mentioned by rancher Brazel in a contemporary article as accompanying Marcel and himself. (CIC agents usually wore civilian clothes.)
He was interviewed in 1994 when the Air Force investigated the allegations of a cover-up. In the interview, he said he had no memory of ever meeting Brazel or going out with Marcel, but said he went to the crash site with his CIC assistant Sgt. Lewis Rickett.
Cavitt said the crash site was tiny, about the size of his living room or "20 feet square." "It was a small amount of, as I recall, bamboo sticks, reflective sort of material that would, at first glance, you would probably think it was aluminum foil, something of that type 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."
Rickett said Cavitt took him to a debris area the following day. He described an extensive cleanup of a large area involving many men, heavily guarded by MPs. He was allowed to handle a remaining piece of debris. "There was a slightly curved piece of metal, real light." "You could bend it but couldn't crease it." "It was about six inches by twelve or fourteen inches. Very light. I crouched down and tried to snap it. My boss [Cavitt] laughs and said, 'Smart guy. He's trying to do what we couldn't do.' I asked, 'what in the hell is this stuff made out of?' It didn't feel like plastic and I never saw a piece of metal this thin that you couldn't break. This was the strangest material we had ever seen ... there was talk about it not being from Earth."
Roswell and Fort Worth base witnesses
Sgt. Robert Porter: B-29 flight engineer. Porter helped load and was on the B-29 flight from Roswell to Fort Worth, where Marcel was supposed to show some recovered material to Gen. Roger Ramey before proceeding on to Wright Field, Ohio. "I was involved in loading the B-29 with the material, which was wrapped in packages with wrapping paper. One of the pieces was triangle shaped, about 2½ feet across the bottom. The rest were in small packages about the size of a shoebox. The brown paper was held with tape ... The material was extremely lightweight. When I picked it up, it was just like picking up an empty package. We loaded the triangle shaped package and three shoe box-sized packages into the plane. All of the packages could have fit into the trunk of a car."
1st Lt. Robert Shirkey: The base assistant operations officer. Shirkey also witnessed debris being loaded onto the B-29. "...Standing only three feet from the passing procession, we saw boxes full of aluminum-looking metal pieces being carried to the B-29. Major Marcel came along carrying an open box full of what seemed to be scrap metal. It obviously was not aluminum: it did not shine nor reflect like the aluminum on American military airplanes. And sticking up in one corner of the box being carried by Major Marcel was a small 'I-beam' with hieroglyphic-like markings on the inner flange, in some kind of weird color, not black, not purple, but a close approximation of the two. …A man in civilian dress… was carrying a piece of metal under his left arm... This piece was about the size of a poster drawing board—very smooth, almost glass-like, with torn edges."
Sgt. Robert Smith: Roswell 1st Air Transport Unit. “My involvement in the Roswell incident was to help load crates of debris on to the aircraft… We were taken to the hangar to load crates. There was a lot of farm dirt on the hangar floor… We loaded crates on to three or four C-54s… One crate took up the entire plane; it wasn't that heavy, but it was a large volume.… All I saw was a little piece of material. The piece of debris I saw was two-to-three inches square. It was jagged. When you crumpled it up, it then laid back out; and when it did, it kind of crackled, making a sound like cellophane, and it crackled when it was let out. There were no creases…. The largest piece was roughly 20 feet long; four-to-five feet high, four-to-five feet wide. The rest were two-to-three feet long, two feet square or smaller. The sergeant who had the piece of material said that was the material in the crates….
Two witnesses were brought into Ramey's office and told the debris they saw came from Roswell.
J. Bond Johnson: Fort Worth Star-Telegram reporter/photographer, took six photographs of the debris in Ramey’s office, posed with Ramey, Dubose, and Marcel. He said: "It wasn’t an impressive sight, just some aluminum-like foil, balsa wood sticks, and some burnt rubber that was stinking up the office." Johnson said Ramey told him, "We've found out... it's a weather balloon."
Warrant Officer Irving Newton,weather forecaster at Fort Worth. He was identified in contemporary accounts as being brought in to make an official weather balloon identification for Gen. Ramey. In original testimony, Newton indicated that when he got to Ramey's office, "he was briefed by a colonel... that an object had been found by a major in Roswell and that the general had decided that it was really a weather balloon and wanted him to identify as such." Newton said, "There's no doubt that what I was given were parts of a balloon. I was later told that the major from Roswell had identified the stuff as a flying saucer but that the general had been suspicious of this identification from the beginning..." In a later affidavit for the Air Force, he said, "I was convinced at the time that this was a balloon with a [kite] and remain convinced ... There were figures on the sticks lavender or pink in color, appeared to be weather faded markings with no rhyme or reason." Newton's photo was also taken with the balloon debris by an unknown photographer. (Pflock names Charles B. Cashon of the US Air Force as the photographer.)
Material with exotic properties
There were numerous others who claimed to have seen the debris, and many of them described various types of material having exotic physical qualities. One was a tinfoil-like material which when crumpled up would regain its original shape.
Brazel Jr.: "The odd thing about this foil was that you could wrinkle it and lay it back down and it immediately resumed its original shape. It was quite pliable, yet you couldn't crease or bend it like ordinary metal. It was almost more like a plastic of some sort except that it was definitely metallic in nature."
Marcel Sr.: "[There were] many bits of metallic foil, that looked like, but was not, aluminum, for no matter how often one crumpled it, it regained its original shape again. Besides that, they were indestructible, even with a sledgehammer."
Sgt. Robert Smith, Roswell 1st Air Transport Unit: "When you crumpled it up, it then laid back out; and when it did, it kind of crackled, making a sound like cellophane, and it crackled when it was let out. There were no creases."
Others had similar accounts.
Another unusual aspect to some of the material was its strength.
Marcel Sr.: "This particular piece of metal was, I would say, about two feet long and perhaps a foot wide. See, that stuff weighs nothing, it's so thin, it isn't any thicker than the tinfoil in a pack of cigarettes. So I tried to bend the stuff, it wouldn't bend. We even tried making a dent in it with a 16-pound sledge hammer, and there was still no dent in it."
Sgt. Lewis Rickett: "There was a slightly curved piece of metal, real light. It was about six inches by twelve or fourteen inches. Very light. I crouched down and tried to snap it... It didn't feel like plastic and I never saw a piece of metal this thin that you couldn't break."
Some also described pencil-like sticks with unusual qualities:
Marcel Sr.: "[There were] small beams about three-eighths or a half inch square with some sort of hieroglyphics on them that nobody could decipher. These looked something like balsa wood, and were of about the same weight, except that they were not wood at all. They were very hard, although flexible, and would not burn." More detailed quote above.
Brazel Jr.: Similar quote as Marcel's, also given above. Also, "I couldn't break it and I couldn't whittle it with my pocketknife."
Loretta Proctor: "The piece he [Mac Brazel] brought looked like a kind of tan, light brown plastic. It was very lightweight, like balsa wood. It wasn't a large piece, maybe about four inches long, maybe just a little larger than a pencil. We cut on it with a knife and would hold a match on it, and it wouldn't burn. We knew it wasn't wood. It was smooth like plastic."
Jesse Marcel Jr.: "...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. This 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." Another quote above.
Lt. Robert Shirkey: "Standing only three feet from the passing procession, we saw boxes full of aluminum-looking metal pieces being carried to the B-29. ...sticking up in one corner of the box carried by Major Marcel was a small 'I-beam' with hieroglyphic-like markings on the inner flange, in some kind of weird color, not black, not purple, but a close approximation of the two." "I could see the hieroglyphs clearly, the signs were in relief and stood out."
Debris field descriptions
Reports of the size of the debris field and of the ranch's ground conditions differ. There is a large range of descriptions of the size of the debris field, from Cavitt claiming the field was about the size of the 20-foot (6.1 m) room he was sitting in to one account Brazel gave in 1947 of "about 200 yards diameter," to Marcel Sr.'s description: "The wreckage was scattered over an area of about three quarters of a mile long and several hundred feet wide," or "It was maybe a mile long and several hundred feet wide of debris." to yet another description from 1947 attributed to Marcel saying "he found the broken remains of the weather device scattered over a square mile of land."
Bill Brazel Jr. gave an independent description very similar to Marcel's, based on what he said his father later told him, of the debris field being "about a quarter mile long or so, and several hundred feet wide."
An indirect description of debris field size came from combined statements of Bill Brazel and neighboring rancher Bud Payne. The distance between the northernmost portion of the debris field pointed out by Brazel (where he said there was a gouge) and the southernmost portion pointed out by Payne (where he said he was turned away by soldiers) was about three quarters of a mile.
Brazel's daughter, Bessie Brazel Schreiber said, "There was a lot of debris scattered sparsely over an area that seems to me now to have been about the size of a football field. There may have been additional material spread out more widely by the wind, which was blowing quite strongly." Like Tyree, she mentioned her father mentioning a lot of debris being near a water tank and his concern that the sheep wouldn't water there.
Descriptions of the condition of the field ranged from no disturbance at all to descriptions of deep gouges in the terrain. Marcel Sr. said, "It was nothing that hit the ground or exploded [on] the ground. It's something that must have exploded above ground." Bessie Brazel said she didn't "remember seeing gouges in the ground or any other signs that anything may have hit the ground hard."
However, Brazel Jr. said he saw a shallow groove, about 10 feet (3.0 m) wide, 500 feet (150 m) long, and only a foot to 18 inches (460 mm) deep, extending down to the hard shale layer underneath. "This thing made quite a track down through there. It took a year or two for it to grass back over and heal up." [23]
Other witnesses to describe a gouge or gouges on the ground were Walt Whitmore Jr. (175 to 200 yards of uprooted pastureland in a fan shape), Roswell counterintelligence officer Lewis Rickett, photographer Robin Adair of the Associated Press, who said he tried to overfly the recovery operation but was waved off by soldiers brandishing weapons, and Gen. Arthur Exon, who said he overflew the area some months later. Exon said that in addition to various gouges, he saw auto tracks leading into the "pivotal areas."
Witness accounts of aliens, intimidation and cover-ups
First-hand accounts of aliens
Starting in the early 1990s, several individuals gave first-hand accounts of seeing aliens.
Frank Kaufmann claimed to have various duties at the Roswell base, and his accounts started to appear in UFO Crash at Roswell, published in 1991. When interviewed by Karl Pflock in 1993, he claimed to have been a part of a nine-member team, the only ones permitted to "go out to the site," i.e. the location of a crashed alien craft and its crew. The site was north of Roswell, though he elsewhere claimed the site was on the Foster ranch. Kaufmann said his team came to the site and discovered a crashed craft split open, with an alien thrown against the arroyo wall, another hanging from the craft, and two more inside the craft. All were clad in "very, very close fitting one-piece" uniforms, "like wet suits," which were "silvery" and each had a "clear thing" where the belt buckle would normally be. The aliens were described as having smaller noses, eyes and ears (compared to humans), no hair, being trimly built, standing about five foot three, with "normal" hands. Their skin color was "paler, grayish." (Pflock, 2000, p. 73-4)
Gerald Anderson claimed that as a child of six, he saw aliens at the Plains of Agustin, where Barney Barnett was said to have also seen aliens. (see below) His accounts were featured initially in Crash at Corona, published in 1992. He, with his family, said he saw "a silver object... jammed into a hillside." He described seeing aliens: "[T]here were three of these crewmembers laid out on the ground... one sitting upright... They looked like they had bandages on 'em." He described the arrival of some archaeologists, then the Army. (Friedman and Berliner, p. 90-6)
Sgt. Frederick Benthal, a photographic specialist, claimed that he and Cpl. Al Kirkpatrick were flown in from Washington D.C., to photograph alien wreckage and bodies. They were first driven north of town to one site, where Benthal said he witnessed covered trucks carrying wreckage of some sort. Then Kirkpatrick was sent to another site where they were picking up pieces, while Benthal was taken to a nearby tent. There he photographed several little bodies lying on a tarp. "They were all just about identical, with dark complexions, thin and with large heads. There was a strange smell inside the tent that smelled something like formaldehyde." Kirkpatrick later returned from the other site in a truck loaded down with wreckage. All their equipment and film was confiscated. They were returned to the base and then flown back to Washington, debriefed and told they hadn't seen anything.
Sgt. Thomas Gonzales, in an interview with Don Ecker, editor of UFO magazine, said he helped guard a crash site and saw aliens and a craft. Ecker wrote that Gonzales said he saw "little men." They were human-looking but had eyes and heads slightly larger than human. The craft was an "airfoil" design
Jim Ragsdale claimed to have witnessed first-hand aliens and their craft. His accounts first appeared in 1994's The Truth About the UFO Crash at Roswell. He claimed, while out camping about 30 miles (48 km) north of Roswell with a lady friend, to have seen an object fly overhead and crash. He described seeing a craft partially embedded in the ground. Near the craft were "bodies or something laying there. They weren't very long... four or five feet at the most." He and his girlfriend threw some of the wreckage into their jeep and left as the army arrived. (Randle and Scmitt, 1994, p. 7-8)
Walter Haut, Roswell public information officer, who put out the base flying disc press release, mostly denied any other direct knowledge of the incident. However, in his first affidavit he did state, “I am convinced that the material recovered was some type of craft from outer space.” Then a few years before his death (in Dec. 2005) he elaborated on that statement. The 2002 affidavit, to be released after his death he stated he had direct knowledge about a spacecraft and aliens. "Col. Blanchard took me personally to Building 84, a B-29 hangar located on the east side of the tarmac. ...I observed that it was under heavy guard both outside and inside. Once inside I was permitted from a safe distance to first observe the object just recovered north of town. It was approx. 12 to 15 feet (4.6 m) in length, not quite as wide, about 6 feet (1.8 m) high, and more of an egg shape. ...Also from a distance, I was able to see a couple of bodies under a canvas tarpaulin. Only the heads extended beyond the covering, and I was not able to make out any features. The heads did appear larger than normal and the contour of the canvas over the bodies suggested the size of a 10-year old child. ...[Later Blanchard] would extend his arm about 4 feet (1.2 m) above the floor to indicate the height. I was informed of a temporary morgue set up to accommodate the recovered bodies. ...I am convinced that what I personally observed was some type of craft and its crew from outer space."
PFC Elias Benjamin was an MP with 390th Air Service Squadron. On the evening of Monday July 7 or morning of Tuesday, July 8, he was placed in charge of escorting three or four bodies covered with sheets on gurneys from Hangar 84 to the Roswell base hospital. One appeared to be moving. During transfer, the sheet slipped off of one "revealing the grayish face and swollen, hairless head of a species that I realized was not human." Later at the base hospital, with the sheet removed, he could make out "a very small person with an egg-shaped head that was oversized for its body. ...The only facial features that stick out in my mind now are that it had slanted eyes, two holes where its nose should have been, and a small slit where its mouth should have been. I think it was alive." He noticed a "terrible smell" at the hospital. He had also seen metallic crash debris in the hangar which wasn't from a plane crash because it wasn't burned. Later, "I was debriefed and made to sign a nondisclosure statement. ...I was told that if I ever spoke about it, something bad would happen, not only to me, but also to my family."
Other accounts of aliens and alien spacecraft recoveries
Numerous other people say they heard reports of recovered aliens and/or an alien craft from others. In some cases, several people heard similar alien stories from the same person. Numerous others claimed to have seen, handled or been told about crash material with strange physical properties.
Barney Barnett story. Accounts of an alien recovery at Roswell first publicly emerged in "The Roswell Incident", by Charles Berlitz and William Moore, published in 1980. An incident recounted by soil engineer Barney Barnett to various people was mentioned, where Barnett said that he and a team of archaeologists stumbled across a flying saucer crash with four aliens on the Plains of San Augustin, near Socorro, New Mexico in July 1947. The military arrived almost simultaneously and led them away.
Dr. Charles Bertrand Schultz, a vertebrate paleontologist from the University of Nebraska. Schultz told a similar crash story, but closer to Roswell. Schultz said he had been in Roswell at the time, and while driving out north of town along Highway 285, had seen a military cordon blocking access west of the highway. Later he met with archeologist Dr. William Curry Holden of Texas Tech, who told him he and his archeological team had been at a crash site north of Roswell and west of the highway and had come across a strange craft with alien bodies. They contacted the military, which took them away when they arrived.
Retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Arthur E. Exon, a former commanding officer at Wright-Patterson AFB, has been identified as the highest-ranking military figure to suggest that an alien spacecraft and bodies could have been recovered at Roswell in 1947. He cautioned that though his information was second-hand, it came from men directly involved whom he knew personally and trusted. Exon said he was told about anomalous debris analysis at Wright-Patterson. "A couple of guys thought it might be Russian, but the overall consensus was that the pieces were from space. ...Roswell was the recovery of a craft from space." He said he was also told about bodies being recovered from a nearby related crash site. He flew over the area a few months later and saw at least two impact regions. He said the whole matter was covered up at the highest levels of government.
Chester Lytle, an engineer who designed and manufactured the implosion detonator for the first A-bomb and subsequently held top-secret clearances with the Atomic Energy Commission and other government agencies, related in 1998 that former Roswell base commander Gen. William Blanchard, a personal friend, told him in 1953 that Roswell was the crash of an alien spacecraft and four humanoid bodies had been recovered. From another high Air Force source, Lytle said he learned some of the bodies had gone originally to Muroc Army Air Field, but all eventually wound up at Wright-Patterson AFB in a highly secure facility. Lytle related he also learned some details about the autopsies carried out on the bodies.
Retired Air Force Lt. Colonel Raymond Madson was the Project Officer for the Air Force's "crash test dummy" program from 1956 to 1960 at Holloman Air Force Base. The program was used by the Air Force to debunk stories of Roswell alien bodies in their 1997 "Case Closed" report, citing Madson as a key witness. However, Madson, in a recent interview, says the crash dummy explanation was nonsense, part of a coverup, and his personal views on the Roswell case were completely misrepresented by the Air Force. Madson instead believes that an extraterrestrial crash actually happened and that the alien bodies were stored for a period of time at Wright-Patterson AFB. This was based on his service in the early 1950s at Wright-Patterson and speaking to "others who would have been positioned to know" that there was a "very secure facility" at the base where the recovered bodies were stored. His wife was also employed at the base in the early 1950s in the medical laboratory. Madson said she was told by coworkers about child-sized beings "from another world" who had crashed to Earth sometime prior to her employment and brought to the base to be studied.
June Crain was employed at Wright-Patterson from 1942 to 1952 with a top-secret clearance. In a 1997 interview with Jim Clarkson, shortly before her death, she spoke of learning from coworkers about the 1947 Roswell alien spacecraft crash and two later New Mexico alien spacecraft crashes from 1948 and 1951 or 1952 and recovery of bodies taken to Wright-Patterson. The bodies were taken to the Aeromedical Lab for study. She also said she personally handled an extremely strong thin metal material with memory properties similar to that described by a number of Roswell witnesses and described to her as being from one of the recent crashes.
CIC agent Lewis Rickett said he accompanied Sheridan Cavitt to the ranch, witnessed high security and a large military debris recovery, handled strange metal debris, and saw a gouge in the ground. In September 1947, Rickett said he and Cavitt assisted astronomer Dr. Lincoln La Paz try to determine the speed and trajectory of the device that crashed on the Brazel ranch. “According to Rickett, La Paz formed the opinion that [the object] was a probe from another planet.” Rickett said they found a touchdown point five miles (8 km) from the debris field where the sand had crystallized, possibly from the heat. Shortly before he died, it is also claimed he confirmed that the object’s shape was long, thin with a 'bat-like' wing."
Colonel Edwin Easley, Roswell base Provost Marshal in charge of the Military Police. When asked what happened, he said he had sworn a security oath and couldn’t talk about it. However, when asked if the extraterrestrials theories was the right path to follow, Easley replied, “Let’s put it this way. That’s not the wrong path.” Easley also admitted they held rancher Mack Brazel at the base under armed guard for several days. It is also claimed that Easley’s doctor, Harold Granik, and a granddaughter, reported that Easley spoke about the “creatures” at Roswell on his deathbed.
Lydia Sleppy was a Teletype operator working at an Albuquerque radio station in 1947. She said they received a telephone call from John McBoyle of KSWS Radio in Roswell. In her affidavit she recalled McBoyle saying, "There's been one of those flying saucer things crash down here north of Roswell." He'd met Brazel in a coffee shop. Brazel said he'd discovered the object and "had towed it underneath a shelter on his property. Brazel offered to take McBoyle to the ranch to see the object. McBoyle described it as a 'big crumpled dishpan.'" She added the FBI then interrupted the teletype as she tried to send it and ordered that they cease transmission. She said her boss, Karl Lambertz, spoke to McBoyle the next day. "He told Mr. Lambertz the military had isolated the area where the saucer was found and was keeping the press out. He saw planes come in from Wright Field, Ohio, to take the thing away." The station owner, Merle Tucker, confirmed hearing the story at the time. In an interview shortly before his death, McBoyle confirmed seeing an object that looked like “a crushed dishpan,” about 25–30 feet long, impacted in a slope.
Bill Brazel Jr. reported that his father towed a large object off the field and stored it in a livestock shed. Marcel in one early interview likewise recounted Brazel showing them the largest piece he had found, about 10 feet (3.0 m) in diameter, which he had dragged from the field.
Frank Joyce, Roswell radio KGFL news announcer, said he spoke to Brazel when he first reported the incident to Sheriff Wilcox. In earlier interviews, Joyce wouldn't discuss the details of what Brazel told him, saying only that he didn't believe the story, but suggested he report the incident to the base. After Brazel gave his press interview, he called Joyce again and said, "We haven't got the story right." Brazel went to the radio station and told Joyce a balloon story. Joyce responded, "Look, this is completely different than what you told me on the phone the other day about the little green men. Joyce said Brazel responded to the effect, "No they weren't green. Our lives will never be the same again." [43] However, he initially was quoted by Roswell researcher William Moore as saying that he had this conversation with his dying boss Walt Whitmore Sr. Joyce later objected that he had been misquoted; the conversation was with Brazel. Moore was provided corrections by Joyce and changed the attribution to Brazel.[44] In more recent interviews, as first reported by Tom Carey and Don Schmitt in 1998, Joyce has explained this cryptic conversation by saying Brazel first mentioned small, nonhuman beings when he first spoke to him. Initially Brazel was highly stressed over the large quantities of debris that needed to be cleaned up. "Who's gonna clean all that shit up?" Then Joyce said Brazel really began "losing it," talking about the "horrible stench" from the dead "little people" he had found at another location. Joyce suggested maybe he had found monkeys from a military experiment. "They're not monkeys, and they're not human!" Joyce then went on to explain that his "little green men comment [referred] back to our original phone conversation."
According to Brazel’s neighbor Loretta Proctor, her 7-year old son Timothy or "Dee" was with Brazel when he first discovered the debris field. But he was also with Brazel when he discovered something else at another site 2-1/2 miles to the east that left him deeply traumatized for the rest of his life. He never told her exactly what he saw there but did take her to the location in 1994 saying, "Here is where Mack found something else." Dee Proctor would also duck all attempts at interview and died in 2006. However, other rancher children are believed to have visited the site, including Sydney "Jack" Wright, who said that two sons of rancher Thomas Edington and one of rancher Truman Pierce’s daughters got to "the other location." Wright in 1998 would state, "There were bodies, small bodies with big heads and eyes. And Mack was there too. We couldn’t get away from there fast enough."
Private First Class Ed Sain was an MP in the 390th Air Service Squadron. On the evening of July 7, he and Cpl. Raymond Van Why were told to report to the ambulance pool outside the base hospital and boarded a military ambulance. It was driven north of town and then west into the desert. When they got there at night somewhere in the desert, there were a few tents and a number of floodlights. They were told to guard the entrance to the site from a tent set up for that purpose and to “Shoot anyone that tries to get in.” They were returned to the base at daybreak. His son Steven said his father was still reluctant to talk about it, being under a security oath and fearing for his life. According to Steven Sain, his father told both him and his brother that his job was to "guard the bodies at the crash site," which he said "were kept in one of the other tents until being transported to the base." He also thought his father had seen the craft, because he said "it was the strangest thing he had ever seen in his life." Raymond Van Why’s wife, Leola, said her husband first talked about it in 1954 when he got out of the service. He told her that he had been a guard at a crash site "out in the desert" where a spaceship had crashed. "My husband told me that it was a UFO that had crashed, that it was a round disc. ..he was out there and saw it!"
Sgt. LeRoy Wallace was another MP in the 390th Air Service Squadron. According to his widow, he was called away one evening to go to a crash site outside of Corona "to help load the bodies." When he returned home the next morning, the first thing she noticed was the horrible stench on his clothes, which she burned. The horrible smell lingered on his body for another two weeks despite repeated bathing.
Beverly Bean, daughter of Sgt. Melvin Brown, said her father also helped guard the crash site where alien bodies were recovered. She claimed her father told her he saw two or three alien bodies packed in ice as they drove back to the base in a truck. "He said they were smaller than a normal man--about four feet--and had much larger heads than us, with slanted eyes, and that the bodies looked yellowish, a bit Asian-looking." That night, he stood guard outside a hangar where either debris or bodies awaited shipment to Texas.
Sgt. Homer G. Rowlette, Jr. was with the 603rd Air Engineering Squadron at Roswell. According to his son Larry and daughter Carlene Green, he told them about the "crash of a flying saucer" on his deathbed in March 1988. Larry Rowlette said his father was part of the cleanup detail sent to the impact site north of Roswell. There were also two other sites near Corona, N.M. He had handled the "memory material" which he described as "thin foil that kept its shape." He saw the actual ship that was "somewhat circular." Finally, he said he had seen "three little people. They had large heads and at least one was alive." Carlene Green said her father, still lucid, told her, "I was at Roswell when they recovered the spaceship in 1947. I was involved. I saw it. It’s all true."
Private First Class Rolland Menagh was another MP in the 390th Air Service Squadron. He later became a security specialist for the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. According to sons Michael and Rolland Jr., their father first spoke about his involvement in the 1960s. Rolland Jr. recalled, "He was an MP who guarded the UFO crash site north of Roswell. He saw the ship, which he described as being round or egg-shaped and seamless." Rolland Jr. didn’t remember his father talking about bodies, but Michael recalled he mentioned three bodies. He added, "He said the spaceship was loaded onto an 18-wheeler with a tarp covering it and then driven right through the center of town down to the air base. My father said he accompanied it in a Jeep all the way from the crash site to the hangar where it was deposited."
A number of other witnesses have been found to a flatbed, 18-wheeler truck with an oval or egg-shaped tarped object being driven through the center of Roswell toward the base on the afternoon of July 8, accompanied by an escort of armed MPs in Jeeps, some with machine guns. One, Richard Talbert, said he saw what was under the tarp when it momentarily lifted up. It was "silver, oval-shaped... approximately 4 to 5 feet (1.5 m) wide by about 12 feet (3.7 m) long and 5 to 7 feet (2.1 m) high. It had a dome on it, but it was damaged because it was cut off at one end." Other eyewitnesses were Paul McFerrin, Bob Rich and Jobie MacPherson. At the base, Sgt. Earl Fulford said he saw the truck and covered object, about the size and shape of a Volkswagen Beetle, being driven to Hangar 84 around 4:00 p.m. by a close friend of his.
Frankie Rowe, was the daughter of Roswell fireman Dan Dwyer. Her father told the family of being on a run outside of Roswell to what they thought was a plane crash. "He said it was a crash of something that was not from the earth. ...the crash left a lot of pieces of small material around, and two small bodies and one person walking around. He said it was from another planet...they were very small, and the one that was walking around was about the size of a ten-year-old child, and it didn't have any hair...it had very small ears and rather large dark eyes. They had on a one-piece suit that covered the whole body." [53] Afterwards she claimed the military threatened to kill the whole family if they talked. (See accounts of threats below)
In recent interviews with Tony Bragalia and Kevin Randle, the last surviving Roswell fireman (with only the surname of "Smith" given) stated that the fire department knew of the crash and were warned by an intimidating colonel from the base not to go out to the site, that "everything was being handled by the military." It was the base fire department that was heavily involved, giving rise to confusion. Nevertheless, several town firemen did go out to the site on their own volition, including Dan Dwyer, but not in an official capacity. The fireman added that the colonel told them that an "unknown object from someplace else" had crashed in the desert outside Roswell. The fireman referred to the object as a "UFO" or an "unidentified--a flying saucer," clarifying they were told that it was a craft not from Earth, the military didn't know where it was from and were greatly concerned. They were never to talk about it again. The sheriff's department and the city manager were also involved in covering it up.
Barbara Dugger, granddaughter of Sheriff George Wilcox, said her grandmother, Inez Wilcox once told her what happened: “there was a spacecraft--a flying saucer--that crashed outside Roswell.” After Brazel reported the incident to the Sheriff, he had gone out to the site in the evening. "There was a big burned area, and he saw debris. He also saw four 'space beings.' One of the little men was moving. Their heads were large. They wore suits like silk." The military threatened the entire family with death if he ever talked about it.
Miriam Bush was the secretary of the hospital administrator Lt. Col. Harold Warne. According to siblings Jean and George, she came home after work in a highly stressed state. She claimed that Warne took her to an examination room and she saw several small childlike bodies. One was moving. Their skin was greyish to brown in tone and they were covered in something like white linens. Their heads and eyes were large. The next day she came home and said nobody was to ever talk about it. The family thought she had received heavy-handed threats.
Mortician Glenn Dennis said the Roswell base called him asking for small caskets for three corpses that had been recovered. Soon after, after transporting an injured airman to the base hospital, Dennis said he saw strange metallic objects in an ambulance, ran into a worried nurse friend inside the hospital who warned him to leave, and was then threatened by an officer, who had him thrown out. The next day, he went to the base to meet the nurse. She described an alien autopsy and drew pictures for Dennis of alien corpses she had seen. "She said the head was disproportionately large for the body… There were three bodies; two were very mangled and dismembered, as if destroyed by predators; one was fairly intact. They were three-and-a-half to four feet tall." They had four long fingers. They had to move the operation to an aircraft hangar because of the horrible stench.
S/Sgt. Milton Sprouse, a B-29 crew chief, said a medic friend who worked in the hospital emergency room, told him of seeing "humanoid" bodies and that autopsies had been hurriedly carried out on two of them by two doctors and two nurses. The bodies were taken out to a heavily guarded hangar. The next day, the medic was transferred and they never found out his fate. The doctors and nurses were also immediately transferred, and their fate was also unknown. A few years later, Glenn Dennis told him about a call from the base for child-size caskets. Five members of his crew were part of the massive clean-up of the Foster Ranch and told him of debris that was "out of this world," including metal foil with memory properties.
Ruben, Pete, and Mary Anaya, related Ruben receiving a call from the base from New Mexico Lt. Governor Joseph Montoya, a personal friend, to pick him up outside a base hangar. (Ruben worked at the base.) Bringing him to their home, Montoya was pale and frightened. He related how a platter-shaped object had crashed. In a hangar, he saw pieces of crash debris and two (or four) non-human “little men,” one barely alive, being worked on by doctors. They were short, white, bald and skinny with big eyes and four long fingers. They wore a tight-fitting suit. Montoya warned them not to talk about it or somebody in the government would get them. In another interview, Ruben Anaya said he spoke to a nurse outside the hangar who told him of the bodies "not of this world." He got a distant glimpse of two small bodies in the hangar covered with a sheet, one moving. Pete Anaya also said he spoke to a nurse outside the hangar, who he knew. She warned him not to go in the hangar. He never saw her again.
Pvt. Francis Cassidy was an MP in the 1395th Military Police Company at Roswell. According to his wife Sarah Mounce, her husband told her during his final days in 1976 to guarding Hangar P-3 and seeing the bodies inside. Cpl. Robert J. Lida was another MP in the 1395th. His wife Wanda Lida said her husband also told her in the final months of his life in 1995 about guarding the bodies inside the same hangar. He observed wreckage inside the hangar and a number of “small bodies” being prepared for shipment elsewhere.
Captain Oliver "Pappy" Henderson, a pilot at Roswell in 1947, told various family members and friends that he flew alien wreckage and had seen alien corpses. His wife, Sappho, said in an affidavit: "He pointed out [a 1980/81 newspaper article on Roswell] to me and said, 'I want you to read this article, because it's a true story. I'm the pilot who flew the wreckage of the UFO to Dayton, Ohio. I guess now that they're putting it in the paper, I can tell you about this. I wanted to tell you for years.' Pappy Henderson never discussed his work because of his security clearance. He described the beings as small with large heads for their size. He said the material from their suits were made of was different than anything he had ever seen. He said they looked strange. I believe he mentioned that the bodies had been packed in dry ice to preserve them." His daughter Mary Groode in an affidavit similarly wrote, "He told me that he saw the crashed craft and the alien bodies described in the article, and that he had flown the wreckage to Ohio. He described the alien beings as small and pale, with slanted eyes and large heads. He said they were humanoid-looking, but different from us. I think he said there were three bodies." Vere McCarthy said Henderson told his old WWII flight crew about seeing the alien bodies at a reunion in 1982. Henderson said "...something to the effect that they were badly deteriorated from exposure and gnawed at by predators."
Lt. Robert Shirkey, assistant operations officer, (see above) said there were other flights, another to Fort Worth, and a B-29 flight directly to Wright Field piloted by Henderson. He also said that he later learned that: “a Sergeant and some airmen went to the crash site and swept up everything, including bodies. The bodies were laid out in Hangar 84. Henderson's flight contained all that material. All of those involved--the Sergeant of the Guards, all of the crewmen, and myself--were shipped out to different bases within two weeks.”
Blanche Wahnee, daughter of Capt. Meyers Wahnee, said her father told the family that the Roswell Incident was true in the last year of his life. A pilot during WWII, in 1947 he was a top-tier security officer. He was flown from Fort Simmons in Colorado to Roswell to oversee the transport of a “Top Secret item” from Roswell to Fort Worth on a special B-29 flight. The item was a single, large, wooden crate that Wahnee was to accompany as a security guard in the bomb bay, which he said contained the alien bodies recovered near Roswell. He also said there were three sites.[64] Three crew members on a special B-29 flight from Roswell to Fort Worth on July 9, Sgt. Robert Slusher, PFC Lloyd Thompson, and S/Sgt. Arthur Osepchook, also spoke of the unusual crate flight with security detail in the bomb bay, that was met in Fort Worth by a mortician.
According to four sons of Lt. Col. Marion M. Magruder, their father told them on his deathbed of being shown crash wreckage and a live alien at Wright Field, Ohio, in mid or late July 1947. He had been attending Air War College at Maxwell Field, Montgomery, Alabama, composed solely of the best high-ranking officers in the various services, including generals. They were flown up to Wright Field to get their opinion on a matter of utmost urgency and importance. There the surprised officers were told about the recovery to Wright Field of an extraterrestrial spaceship that had crashed just two weeks previously near Roswell. Wreckage was brought out for them to examine. Then they were taken to another room and shown a surviving alien. According to the description from Mike Magruder, his father said the “creature” was under 5 feet (1.5 m) tall, “human-like” but with longer arms, larger eyes, and an oversized, hairless head. It had a slit for a mouth and two holes but no appendages for a nose and ears. There was no question that it “came from another planet.”
Steven Lovekin, who served in the White House Army Signal Corp between 1959 and 1961 (handling encrypted and classified White House communications), said he and others received UFO briefings at the Pentagon. According to Lovekin, they were shown a metal beam covered with hieroglyphs and a piece of foil-like debris. They were told it had come from a "New Mexico crash in 1947 of an extraterrestrial craft." Further, "...they did discuss the fact that there were bodies, extraterrestrial bodies... there were either 3 or 5... One was alive, partially alive, at the time that this happened." Lovekin added he heard Pres. Eisenhower talking and worrying about how control was slipping out of government hands and being assumed by corporations tasked with studying the situation.
Accounts of intimidation
Several people claimed, or knew people who claimed, that they were threatened by military or government personnel into keeping silent about what they saw or knew. In some cases, these threats including death threats.
Mortician Glenn Dennis said he received a death threat at the base hospital from a redheaded captain, who warned him if he talked “somebody will be picking your bones out of the sand.” The following day, Sheriff Wilcox talked to his father, a personal friend, and said, “…tell your son that he doesn’t know anything and hasn’t seen anything at the base. They want you and your wife’s name, and they want your and your children’s addresses.” His father told him about the conversation with the Sheriff, so Dennis related the events of the previous day to him. Dennis also claimed that the nurse who confided in him about alien corpses subsequently was shipped off base and attempts to contact her via mail resulted in letters returned with "deceased" marked on the envelopes.[68]
Frankie Rowe, claims her father was a firefighter who on a fire run outside of town encountered a wrecked craft and alien bodies. Later, after seeing a state trooper with a piece of dull gray metallic foil from the downed craft that “would unfold itself”, she and her family were threatened into silence by military personnel who visited her house. She said they told them: "They could take us out in the desert, and no one would ever find us again." In her affidavit she wrote, “I was told that if I ever talked about it, I could be taken out into the desert never to return, or that my mother and father would be taken to ‘Orchard Park’, a former POW camp.” Rowe's older sister Helen Cahill said her parents told her a similar story.
Barbara Dugger, granddaughter of Sheriff George Wilcox, said her grandmother, Inez Wilcox, told her the Sheriff had gone to the ranch and seen four alien bodies. "My grandmother said 'Don't tell anybody. When the incident happened, the military police came to the jail house and told George and I that if we ever told anything about the incident, not only would we be killed, but our entire family would be killed.'" Others said that Inez Wilcox told them similar stories.
The Anaya family (see above) told the story of picking up Lt. Governor Joseph Montoya at the base, and a shaken Montoya relating the story of a crashed craft and seeing alien bodies in a hangar. Montoya then warned them, and in future visits, not to talk about it because somebody in the government might come after them. They said they also received a warning from Sheriff George Wilcox and N.M. Senator Dennis Chavez.
George "Jud" Roberts was manager of radio station KGFL in Roswell. He signed an affidavit where he claimed to have been threatened if he ran an interview his station had done with Brazel. "I got a call from someone in Washington, D.C. It may have been someone in the office of [New Mexico Senators] Clinton Anderson or Dennis Chavez. This person said, 'We understand that you have some information, and we want to assure you that if you release it, it's very possible that your station's license will be in jeopardy, so we suggest that you not to do it.' The person indicated that we might lose our license in as quickly as three days. I made the decision not to release the story."
Walt Whitmore Jr., son of the KGFL station owner, also recalled how his father had hidden Brazel at their home and done a recorded interview. Whitmore Sr. was unable to get the story through on the Mutual wire and instead began broadcasting a preliminary release locally over KGFL. At this point, a long distance phone call came to the station from a man named Slowie, saying he was with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in Washington. Slowie informed Whitmore that the story involved national security and that if he valued his station license he should cease transmitting it and forget about it. Immediately afterwards, another call from Washington came from Senator Dennis Chavez, who suggested he had better do what Slowie advised.
Frank Joyce, news announcer and disc jockey at KGFL, said he spoke to Brazel by telephone when he first came to town and Brazel described finding nonhuman bodies. (see above) Later, Joyce received the base press release announcing the recovery of a “flying disk” and put it on the United Press teletype. When the first UP bulletins came in on the station teletype, Joyce said the phones went crazy. He received an irate call from a Colonel Johnson at the Pentagon, demanding to know who had told him to issue the press release. Joyce said he was a civilian and couldn’t be ordered around like that, to which the colonel responded, “I’ll show you what I can do to you.” Joyce said he decided to collect and hide the press release copy and the various teletypes so he could later prove to his boss Whitmore that he hadn’t made anything up. Later, somebody came through the station, found some of the hidden material, and removed it. However, some of the original teletypes were not found, and Joyce still has them. Jud Dixon, of United Press in Santa Fe, New Mexico, said the same thing happened in his office. However, Karl Pflock said Dixon told him he had no memory at all about the Roswell incident, much less any confiscation.
Mac Brazel was seen escorted by military personnel and spent some time in military custody, where he said he was intimidated into not talking about what he saw, according to several witnesses. For example, base provost marshal Lt. Col. Edwin Easley admitted to researcher Kevin Randle that they held Brazel at the base for several days. Frank Joyce said the story Brazel told him after the news conference Brazel appeared at was different than the original story he had told Joyce when Brazel first reported to Sheriff Wilcox. “I remember him changing the story. …I told him, what you’re saying is not what you were saying the other night. [He admitted] that he had been told to come in or else. …He told me what they were going to do to us. …He was really scared. …[Brazel said] ‘You’re not going to tell them anything, are you?’” Joyce promised he wouldn’t. Brazel said he had to tell the new story or “it would go hard on him.” Brazel's son Bill and various neighbors said Brazel also complained bitterly about his treatment by the military afterwards.
Accounts of cover-ups
Lydia Sleppy (see above) was one of the first witnesses to claim the government tried to conceal what happened. She was a Teletype operator working at an Albuquerque radio station in 1947. She said that when she tried to transmit a phoned-in reporter's story of the crashed flying saucer and seeing an object like a smashed dishpan at the Brazel ranch, the FBI cut it off and ordered that they cease transmission.
Lt. Walter Haut, Roswell public information officer, in his 2002 affidavit claimed an elaborate coverup was carried out: "On Tuesday morning, July 8, I would attend the regularly scheduled staff meeting at 7:30 a.m. Besides Blanchard, Marcel, CIC Capt. Sheridan Cavitt [names other senior officers], and from Carswell AAF in Fort Worth, Texas, Blanchard's boss, Brig. Gen. Roger Ramey and his chief of staff, Col. Thomas J. Dubose were also in attendance. The main topic of discussion was reported by Marcel and Cavitt regarding an extensive debris field in Lincoln County... A preliminary briefing was provided by Blanchard about the second site approx. 40 miles (64 km) north of town. ...One of the main concerns discussed at the meeting was whether we should go public or not with the discovery. Gen. Ramey proposed a plan, which I believe originated with his bosses at the Pentagon. Attention needed to be diverted from the more important site north of town by acknowledging the other location. Too many civilians were already involved and the press already was informed. I was not completely informed how this would be accomplished. At approximately 9:30 a.m. Col. Blanchard phoned my office and dictated the press release of having in our possession a flying disc, coming from a ranch northwest of Roswell, and Marcel flying the material to higher headquarters..." In addition, Haut stated that he "was aware two separate teams would return to each site months later for periodic searches for any remaining evidence."
Major Jesse Marcel, Roswell intelligence officer, was ordered to Fort Worth to show Gen. Roger Ramey recovered crash materials. In one interview, he said a photo was taken of him with the real debris, but then everything was removed and other material substituted for subsequent press photos. He then claimed that the original debris was in the photos, but covered by paper to shield it from the press.
"The stuff in that one photo was pieces of the actual stuff we had found. It was not a staged photo. Later, they cleared out our wreckage and substituted some of their own. They then allowed more photos. Those photos were taken while the actual wreckage was on its way to Wright Field."
"[referring to photo of Ramey with weather balloon] "That's a fake. ...What you see there is nothing but a piece of brown paper that I put over [the real debris] so that the news media couldn't get a picture of what I had. [I covered the real stuff, including in the photo of me you are showing. Ramey told me] 'Just don't say anything. Don't show anything.' ...[Ramey] claimed that it was fragments of a weather balloon. ...I knew it wasn't a weather balloon, and Ramey knew it wasn't a weather balloon. They had the picture made strictly for the press..."
"To get them [the press] off my back, I told them we were recovering a downed weather balloon. I was told later that a military team from my base was sent to rake the entire area."
Brigadier General Thomas Dubose, chief of staff to Gen. Ramey (and both of whom appear in press photos with weather balloon in Ramey's office), said in an affidavit: "The material shown in the photographs taken in Maj. Gen. Ramey's office was a weather balloon. The weather balloon explanation for the material was a cover story to divert the attention of the press." In several interviews, like Marcel, he indicated they substituted material they had brought in from elsewhere for the real debris, which he said even he was never allowed to see because of all the secrecy. He said Deputy Chief of the Strategic Air Command, General Clements McMullen ordered him by phone to start a coverup. Several days before the press photos were taken, Dubose said McMullen also ordered a shipment of debris from Roswell to Washington by "colonel courier," and subsequently was flown on to Wright Field for analysis. McMullen ordered absolute secrecy, said Dubose, and said it was so secret it was "beyond top secret." Dubose was not to discuss this with anybody.
"[Gen.] McMullen said, Look, why don't you come up with something, anything you can use to get the press off our back? So we came up with this weather balloon story. Somebody got one and we ran it up a couple of hundred feet and dropped it to make it look like it crashed, and that's what we used."
"Actually, it was a cover story, the balloon part of it... Somebody cooked up the idea as a cover story ...we'll use this weather balloon. ...We were told this is the story that is to be given to the press, and that is it, and anything else, forget it. …McMullen told me, ‘You are not to discuss this… this is more than top secret… it’s beyond that. It’s within my priority as deputy to George Kenney, and he in turn responsible to the President, this is the highest priority you can exhibit. And you will say nothing.’
Brigadier General Arthur Exon, former commanding officer at Wright-Patterson AFB, stated, "I know that at the time the sightings happened, it was to General Ramey ... and he, along with the people at Roswell, decided to change the story while they got their act together and got the information into the Pentagon and into the president." Also, he said, "all these guys at the top of government" (such as Air Force Chief of Staff Carl Spaatz and Secretary of the Air Force Stuart Symington) ...They were the ones who knew the most about Roswell, New Mexico. They were involved in what to do about the residue from that."
Moon-walker and Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell has made various public statements about the reality of Roswell: "Make no mistake, Roswell happened. I've seen secret files which show the government knew about it — but decided not to tell the public. I wasn't convinced about the existence of aliens until I started talking to the military old-timers who were there at the time of Roswell. The more government documentation on aliens I was told about, the more convinced I became." [88] Mitchell has also spoken about bodies: "A few insiders know the truth . . . and are studying the bodies that have been discovered." Mitchell added that a cabal of insiders stopped briefing Presidents after Kennedy.
