Aliens
June 14, 1947, 70 miles from Roswell, farmer William "Mac" Brazel noticed some strange debris on the Foster ranch. It was about three weeks later, on July 4, that he returned with his wife and daughter to collect some of the wreckage. A couple days later, after hearing rumors of "flying discs," Brazel told Sheriff George Wilcox about the debris he had found, after which Wilcox then contacted the Roswell Army.
A press release from the Roswell Army Air Field on July 8, 1947 that stated that the military had salvaged a crashed "flying disc." It was later that same day the Commanding General of the 8th Air Force reported that the object they had picked up was really a weather balloon. The images that accompany the second press release confirmed the government's account and the case remained dormant for the next thirty years.
In 1978, ufologist Stanton T. Friedman interviewed Major Jesse Marcel, who had been involved in the 1947 Roswell recovery. The major may have been the person responsible for the first press release at that time, and believed that the military was covering up the retrieval of an alien spacecraft, not a weather balloon of a military project.
The National Enquirer interviewed Maj. Marcel in February 1980. The interview resulted in further details in the following years, such as claims that there was a military force dedicated to the recovery of aliens and their spacecrafts. This was followed by a personal report by former mortician Glenn Davis who spoke of alien autopsies performed in Roswell. Books were written about the event, starting with The Roswell Incident where the authors claimed to have interview over ninety witnesses as well changes in the timeline of when Brazel found the debris and suggesting a cover-up on the remains of crash by the military. Other books were written in the early 90s, adding new witness accounts, but changing the timeline slightly.
The General Accounting Office launched an inquiry after such reports and...
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