The Roswell Report: Fact vs. Fiction in the New Mexico Desert

Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.

I am writing to request a clarification of the U.S. Government's current position concerning events which occurred in and around Roswell, New Mexico, in July 1947.

According to newspaper accounts and eyewitness reports, a local rancher, William W. Brazel, discovered pieces of debris from an object which crashed on the property he managed outside Corona, on or about July 2, 1947. He brought some of this material to the attention of Chaves County Sheriff George Wilcox, who called the Roswell Army Air Field. The base Intelligence Officer, Jesse A. Marcel, and a Counter Intelligence Corps Officer, Sheridan Cavitt, went to the ranch to inspect the material.

They discovered a great deal of lightweight debris which couldn't be cut, burned, or even dented with a sledgehammer. On orders from the base commander, Col. William Blanchard, the Public Information Officer, Walter G. Haut, issued a news release that the Amry Air Force had recovered flying disc." Some of the debris was flown to Fort Worth.

"Flying disc." Some of the debris was flown to Fort Worth.

as where the Commander of the Eighth Air Force, Gen. Roger Ramey, identified the material for the press as the remains of a weather balloon and its radar target.

However, subsequent investigation has raised considerable doubt about the weather balloon explanation. For example:

According to his son and neighbors, Brazel was held incommunicado by officials at the Roswell base for nearly a week, questioned extensively and ordered not to say anything about his experience; however, in a newspaper interview, he said that the material he recovered "did not in any way resemble a weather balloon," many of which he had recovered on his property.

Sheriff Wilcox, to whom Brazel initially reported finding the debris, also was ordered by the military not to say anything, but members of his family say that not only did he see debris at the crash site he also saw four "space" beings," one of whom was alive. Moreover, his granddaughter, Barbara Dugger, was told by her grandmother, Inez Wilcox, that the entire family was threatened with death by the military if they discussed the incident.

The former manager of KGFL Radio in Roswell, Jud Roberts, says the station was threatened with loss of its license by government officials in Washington, DC, if it broadcast the story about the "flying saucer." In addition,

rding to Lydia Sleppy, a secretary at KOAT Radio in

Jquerque, a wire transmission of the news story on the event was interrupted by a message something like: "CEASE TRANSMISSION. NATIONAL SECURITY ITEM."

According to Brig. Gen. Thomas J. DuBose (USAF, ret.), who was Gen. Ramey's Chief of Staff, Maj Gen. Clements McMullen, the Deputy and Acting Commander, Strategic Air Command, at Andrews Army Air Field, ordered that some of the debris recovered on the ranch be brought directly to him in Washington. Gen. DuBose says officials at the Headquarters of the Eighth Air Force were directed to tell the press that the material was from a weather balloon radar target, and that the weather balloon explanation was a "cover story" to divert the attention of the press.

The pilot who transported some of the wreckage, Oliver W. Henderson, said he saw the bodies of alien beings at the Roswell base, according to his widow, Sappho Henderson, his daughter, Mary Kathryn Groode, and his friend, John Kromschroeder.

A mortician who worked for the funeral home in Roswell, Glenn Dennis, says an Army nurse friend told him about participating in the autopsies of three alien bodies at the base.

Therefore, I am formally requesting that you seek to determine whether the highly unusual material recovered near Corona was from a "flying disc," a weather balloon, or something else.

Please advise me, at your earliest opportunity, of the United States Government's current position on the nature of the material recovered outside Roswell, New Mexico, in July 1947, and its current explanation for all official actions taken with respect to this event.

## Sincerely,