July 4 1947

Mac Brazel a local rancher finds foreign material in a field on J.B Foster ranch where hes working. Brazel takes pieces of it back to the ranch and over the weekend of July 4th shows it to some of his friends and family. Neighbors Floyd & Loretta Proctor look at the materials and advise Brazel he should report it in to the Sheriff since it was unlike anything they had seen before, and might be military property.

July 7th 1947

W.W Brazel travels to town and visits the local Sherifs Dept, where he reports he has found a crashed object out in a farm field. Sheriff George Wilcox calls Roswell Army Air Field, and speaks with Jesse Marcel, who is the intelligence officer of the 509th Bomb Group. It was then that Marcel and either commanding officer William Blanchard or a Counter Intelligence Captain named Sheridan Cavitt traveled to the office to speak with Brazel and the Sheriff.

That evening Brazel was accompanied back to the ranch by the Colonel and Counter Intel Officer where they spent the night. The next morning they traveled back to the crash site to collect debris.

July 8th 1947

On the morning of July 8th an army group was sent to the ranch to collect the rest of the debris. All the material was loaded onto trucks and moved to the Air Force Base. Later that day the Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF) published a press release claiming it had recovered a "Flying Disc", this article was written by Walter Haut, the RAAF Public Relations officer. Brazel traveled into town to the local radio station KFGL, where he arranged an interview about his discovery. Details from this point become sketchy, and several accounts of the events after vary in great detail.

However it is agreed that a few hours later Brazel returned to the station, where he spoke to the radio operator once again, and explained it was all a mistake, and that it was only a weather balloon. This was followed by a press release only hours later stating the same thing, that the wreckage found was nothing more than an ordinary weather balloon. Initially the Associated Press blamed Walter Haut for making a mistake.

That same day according to Marcel, he was flown to Fort Worth with the wreckage to meet General Roger Ramey of the 8th Air Force. A press conference was called where Marcel displayed a balsa wood frame, weather balloon material, and a radar target. (The famous Roswell Newspaper Front Page). Marcel claims the material he displayed was not the wreckage from the Foster ranch.