The debate over what crashed at Roswell has monopolized UFO researchers for a generation.13 Something certainly fell from the air and crashed outside Roswell, New Mexico, during the summer of 1947. The date is disputed, but the leading candidates have generally been June 14, July 2, and July 4. Some have even placed the date in May. On Saturday, July 5, sheepherder Mac Brazel, foreman of the Foster ranch seventy-five miles from Roswell, found crash debris. Accounts have varied as to how widely this debris was scattered. Brazel discovered metal, plastic-like beams, lightweight material, foil, and either string or “stringlike material.” Some of the material seemed unusually lightweight and strong. Brazel spoke with his nearest neighbors, the Proctors, but they were too busy to visit his field. It appears that at some later point Brazel showed them some fragments, which he had tried—and failed—to cut or burn.
On Sunday, July 6, Brazel brought some of the material to Roswell to show Sheriff George Wilcox. Wilcox sent two deputies out to the ranch and notified the Roswell Army Air Force base. At RAAF, Col. William Blanchard, the commanding officer of the 509th Bomb Group, ordered air intelligence officer Captain (later Major) Jesse Marcel to investigate. The 509th was one of the nation’s elite units, and the only military group in the world with atomic capability. Marcel, accompanied by Army CIC Capt. Sheridan Cavitt and Cavitt’s subordinate, Master Sgt. Lewis S. Rickett, visited Wilcox’s office and spoke with Brazel. They then accompanied Brazel back to the Foster ranch, where they arrived late that night. This issue is somewhat confusing because for many years Cavitt denied having been to the debris field. But not only was he there, so was Rickett, who gave details to researchers such as Friedman and Mark Rodighier. Meanwhile, it took an interview with Air Force Colonel Richard Weaver in 1994 to elicit a confirmation from Cavitt that he, too, had been at the debris field.
After these men left Wilcox’s office, the sheriff’s two deputies returned to Roswell without finding the debris field, although they claimed to see a burned area in one of the pastures, where the sand had been turned to glass. Military police arrived at Wilcox’s office and collected the wreckage Brazel had left there.
On Monday, July 7, Lt. Gen. Nathan Twining, commander of Air Material Command (AMC), flew unexpectedly to Alamogordo Army Air Field, New Mexico, then made a side trip to Kirtland AFB in Albuquerque. He remained in the area until July 11, although reporters initially had been told that Twining was “probably” in Washington, D.C. Meanwhile, Gen. Carl Spaatz, commander of the army air forces, was vacationing in the state of Washington. One wonders how much of a vacation it could have been. According to the
Regarding the Twining visit, it should be noted that a declassified document from June 5, 1947, stated that Twining, Gen. Benjamin Chidlaw, and a few other high-level brass were scheduled to attend a three-day temporary duty status at Sandia Base in Albuquerque for a Bomb Commanders Course. This took place between July 8 and July 11. Visitor logs and secretary calendars indicate that this group did take the course. But Twining was also scheduled for a trip to Boeing at this time, which he had to cancel. In a July 17 letter to a Boeing executive, Twining referred to a “very important and sudden matter that developed here.” Since Twining had not received confirmation of his clearance to attend the conference at Sandia until July 3, it is possible that this is what he was referring to. It is also likely, however, that the Roswell crash received his immediate attention.
Let us now follow Jesse Marcel’s experience, as he related thirty years later. On Monday morning (the day Twining flew to New Mexico), Brazel took Marcel and Cavitt out to the debris field. According to Marcel, the field was three-quarters of a mile long, and two to three hundred feet wide. A gouge in the field extended for four or five hundred feet, “as if something had touched down and skipped along.” The debris was as thin as newsprint, but incredibly strong. Marcel said that one soldier later told him that the metal was unbendable and could not be dented, even with a sledgehammer. Marcel also found foil that, when crumpled, would unfold itself without any sign of a wrinkle, and I-beams with odd symbols on them and a pink/lavender coloration. The beams flexed slightly but would not break.
