There is no doubt in my mind that Mr. Brazel was well aware of the sounds generated by thunderstorms, particularly because the ranch house had been hit by lightning in the past. But this sound was different from anything produced by a thunderstorm or a lightning strike. This sounded more like what I imagined to be a large bomb exploding.
Mac Brazel said that the following morning, he saddled his horse and rode out to look for what could have possibly caused the loud explosion, and to check the area for any damage. To his surprise, he came across an area that was littered with, among other things, a huge amount of foil-like debris. Something had apparently impacted the ground at a high rate of speed and fanned its components into a wedgeshaped field of wreckage. A large herd of sheep was stranded on one side of the debris field; the sheep refused to cross it, even though their water supply was on the other side. Mr. Brazel ended up having to lead them around the area so they could get to the water. Some reports say he gathered up some of the debris and brought it to a neighboring ranch, where a woman named Loretta Proctor lived. She reportedly suggested to him that there might be some kind of a reward for turning the material in, so a short time later-I am not sure exactly when, as there are varying stories-he went into the nearby town of Corona.
It was there that he heard stories of strange flying machines invading the skies. Although Mr. Brazel had previously seen debris from weather balloon crashes on the Foster Ranch property, this material looked different. Very different. And after listening to the tales of the flying saucers, he became convinced that maybe the stuff he had discovered was part of one of these strange machines.
Brazel thought the local sheriff's office would be the appropriate place to reveal what he'd discovered. He figured he'd let Sheriff Wilcox examine it and decide what to do. But the sheriff could not make any definitive judgment on what it was, so he contacted the command at the Roswell Army Air Field. Colonel William Blanchard, the base commander, had my dad go over to the sheriff's office to see what Brazel had brought in. My father was the base intelligence officer, and, as such, part of his job was to be on an investigative team for aircraft accidents, or any problem that arose with security. The base was part of the SAC (Strategic Air Command), and was responsible for the nuclear weapons housed there.
My father looked the debris over and determined that it was indeed bizarre-certainly out of the ordinary-and merited further examination. When Colonel Blanchard got my dad's report on the unusual nature of the material, he had Dad and Captain Sheridan "Cav" Cavitt, a counterintelligence agent (in the CIC), accompany Mr. Brazel back to the ranch so they could see for themselves what was there. They went in separate vehicles, my dad going in the family car, a 1942 blue Buick Special convertible, and Cavitt going in a military carryall. The ranch was about 75 miles away, on roads that had seldom seen cars. They arrived early in the evening, and decided to spend the night at the ranch and inspect the debris field the next day. The following morning, the three of them went to the see what was out there.
Once at the debris field, instead of being able to get answers for Colonel Blanchard, they only unearthed more questions. The debris field was very large, and, as I mentioned earlier, wedge-shaped, or perhaps I should say fan-shaped. There was a scar at the apex of the fan, which spread out for several hundred yards to a considerable width at the end of the field.
My dad was not entirely satisfied with the debris that had already been collected, so he directed Captain Cavitt to go on to the base while he went back out and collected more of the material. (In retrospect, I wonder if he had Capt. Cavitt go on ahead so he could then bring the debris to our house without calling attention to his side trip.) He placed the debris in a box in the back seat of our 1942 Buick, and more in the trunk. Even with all of the material he gathered, he said that this was only a small portion of what was found.
My father knew that what he had found was something absolutely incredible, and even though speaking of it might not have been condoned by his base commander, he knew that it was important to share what he had seen with my mother and me. And that's how the debris ended up in the kitchen of our little house at 1300 West Seventh Street.
I remember that kitchen so well, with its white cupboards and white-and-gold linoleum. If you came into the kitchen through the back door, as we often did, the sunk was to the left, the stove and refrigerator to the right. A swinging door led into the dining room. My memory of that night is as clear as my memory of the details of our house. As it was summertime, the back door was open to let in fresh air. The temperature outside was in the upper 60s, and the air was slightly humid because of yet another recent thunderstorm.
As the base intelligence officer, my father kept rather odd hours, and it was not unusual for him to be gone for days. He had left for work the previous morning and hadn't been home for dinner the previous night or this one. I don't remember what time it was when my father awakened me, but I had been sleeping soundly for some time, weary after a day of bicycling with my friends. More than likely it was a little after midnight. My dad came into my room to tell me to come out and see what he'd found. He said that he had been out to a ranch and had picked up debris from something that had crashed there. As I recall, he was still in uniform because he was going back to the base that night. (In fact, I seldom if ever saw him in civilian clothes unless we were on vacation.) Of course, it wasn't normal for my father to wake me up late at night just to show me something, so I immediately put my robe on and followed him into the kitchen area.
I only later found out that the details about how he and Captain Sheridan Cavitt had been sent out to the Foster Ranch to examine the wreckage of an unknown craft of some sort. All I knew this night was that he was pretty excited about something, that he thought it was an extraordinary event, and he wanted my mother and me to be part of it. My mother was already up as I walked down the dimly lit hallway that led to the living room and then to the kitchen. Upon reaching the kitchen, the first thing I noticed was a cardboard box that had been mostly emptied, with the contents positioned carefully on the floor. The box was a standard 2-by-2 in size, so it could hold only a moderate amount of debris, but there was still enough material to cover a significant portion of our kitchen floor.
My dad spoke very excitedly to us about the material, telling us that these were parts from a "flying saucer," or words to that effect. At that time, I was not entirely sure what was meant by a "flying saucer," but I knew from his demeanor that this was something very special.
I looked wide-eyed at the debris that was spread out on the floor, along with what little had been left in the box, and quickly determined that there were three different kinds of material present: foil, broken pieces of plastic, and what appeared to be metal beams, or I-beams.
The brownish-black plastic looked similar to pieces of Bakelite (a plastic used in countertops in the 1940s), or perhaps a broken phonograph record. Actually, the material was lighter than Bakelite, and whereas Bakelite is a fibrous material, this had more of a homogeneous structure to it. The pieces I saw were about 1/16 of an inch thick, with fractured edges, yet I don't recall seeing any fractures in the material itself. The surface was smooth, with no wrinkles, grooves, or indentations. The largest piece was about 6 or 8 inches square, with most pieces being 3 or 4 inches. There was not nearly as much of this as there was of the foil. The I-beams, at first glance, appeared to be made from the same material as the foil, but they were more substantial.