Even though the material was pretty interesting, I have to admit that I still didn't really understand what all the excitement was about. It surely did not seem to be anything worth getting up in the middle of the night to see. But my dad was really excited about it, and he wasn't the type to get that excited about just anything. So I took a closer look at the debris.
Dad asked my mom and me to look for any electronic components, such as vacuum tubes, resistors, condensers, or wire. After we searched through all the materials, we all agreed there was nothing that appeared to be part of any electronic equipment, but I feel he already knew that and wanted us to confirm it.
My attention then focused on the foil, mainly because there was more of it than anything else. The foil was similar to the aluminum kitchen wrap of today, but appeared to be stronger, and it felt lighter than a feather in my hand. Although it looked like kitchen foil at first glance, it was more substantial, and seemed to be less malleable. When I picked it up, I noticed it did not have a paper backing for rigidity, as would the foil of a radar target (which others later said it was). The largest piece I saw was perhaps 6 or 8 inches across, and the edges were irregular, with sharp tears covering the entire perimeter of the pieces. Even though I was curious, I did not try to bend or tear it. After all, this was some kind of precious material, and, as my father had told us, we were probably some of the first humans to see it.
Later, when my father was examining the material back at the base, he mentioned that when he bent or folded a piece of the foil, it would return to its original shape when released. Apparently there were larger pieces of the foil that I did not see, and these larger pieces were nearly indestructible. My dad described how one of the men from his office took a sledge hammer and hit one of the large pieces, but could not make a dent in it or deform it in any way. The sledge hammer simply bounced off the piece. If this man is still alive, I wonder where he is today; as far as I know, he was never interviewed, and never came forward during the many investigations of the Roswell Incident.
The foil had a more or less dull appearance, similar to a burnished aluminum surface, not shiny or highly reflective, although one side may have been more polished than the other. The surface of the foil itself was somewhat smooth. The pieces didn't have any distinct design or shape; they were amorphous. I remember looking at some of the foil material for quite a while. In particular, I remember how light it was-if you dropped it, it would float like a feather.
My dad said, "Let's take some of the pieces and try to fit them together like a jigsaw puzzle." So the three of us got down on our hands and knees and tried to fit the pieces together, but could find no two pieces that would interlock. We couldn't make any kind of outline that would make sense, and as there were simply too many pieces of the puzzle to fit any of them together, we finally gave up.
As I mentioned before, my father had told us to look for anything that could be associated with electronics, such as vacuum tubes, condensers, resistors, or wire. What he really wanted us to do was to look for pieces of a radio. I plowed through the debris, but could not find anything related to a radio-not even anything that resembled staples, rivets, fasteners, and so on.
In fact, there were no electronic components whatsoever in the debris I saw, or in any of the other material recovered from the site. My dad was pretty well apprised of what was in the debris, and there was no mention of electronic components by anyone, or in any of the released photos of the debris.
Fifty years later, the official Air Force publication, The Roswell Report: Case Closed, explained that the debris was not from a weather balloon, as first reported, but from what was called a mogul balloon. The Mogul balloon was highly classified, not for its off-the-shelf components, but for its purpose: It was designed to pick up sonic vibrations in the atmosphere from any distant nuclear explosion, especially those that might occur in the Soviet Union. Skeptics point out that because Mogul balloons were indeed highly classified, naturally there would have been a cover-up by the government.
Had it been a weather balloon or a Mogul balloon, however, there would have been electronic components. Weather balloon debris would have contained a radio transmitter, as well as special sensors to detect and record weather data. A Mogul balloon would have had a radio transmitter and microphones to detect pressure waves in the atmosphere from a possible Soviet nuclear test. But these things were nowhere to be found in any of the debris. There were certainly no such components in the material I saw, and my dad said there had been none in any of the rest of the material collected from the field.
In the years since then, I have been asked many questions about this debris, such as whether there were any strings, twine, or wire in the material I saw. There were not. Yet these types of material would absolutely have been present in a Mogul balloon or even a weather balloon, as they were used to help hold the balloon together.
Years later, I had a conversation with Air Force officials, and I asked them point-blank if the brownish-black plastic I described could have been the housing for a radiosonde, a radio transmitter hoisted aloft by an array of balloons in order to take a variety of measurements. A modern radiosonde will measure barometric pressure, altitude, geographic coordinates, temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, and direction. They replied that those were either made of aluminum or cardboard-never plastic. In the end, they admitted they did not know what I saw
I also saw what looked like a metallic beam sticking out of the box. There were several of these beams in the box, with the longest being about 18 inches and the shortest about 12 inches. I picked the larger beam out of the box and took a long look at it, holding it over my head to get a better perspective of it in the ceiling light. The material looked similar to a kite stick, except it was made of metal. It somewhat resembled an I-beam used in building construction. It was only 3/8 of an inch wide, and was a dull gray metallic color. The beam's central portion was about 1/16 of an inch, with the shoulders of the Ibeam forming a ridge along its length.
I figured this was something that added structural rigidity to whatever it came from. The material itself seemed to be identical to the foil, just in a structural form. It was also incredibly light for its size. I didn't try to bend the metal; rather, I handled it carefully. Knowing how a young boy's mind sometimes worked, my father reminded me to be careful with the material. `After all," he said, "this is government property now, and I don't want to have to explain how my 11year-old son destroyed it." His scolding was good-natured, as was his way, but I got the message nonetheless.
I don't remember if the ends of the I-beam were clean-cut or fractured like a break. I tend to think now that they were cleanly cut, but cannot be certain of my memory here.
I did notice something unusual about the inside surface of the Ibeam. I caught a glint of color on the inner surface-kind of a purplish violet hue with a metallic tinge. This surface was somewhat shiny and reflective when light was shown directly on it. As I looked at the piece, with the light reflecting on the inner surface, I could see what looked like writing. At first I thought of Egyptian hieroglyphics, but there were no animal outlines or figures. They weren't mathematical figures either; they were more like geometric symbols-squares, circles, triangles, pyramids, and the like. Approximately 1/4 of an inch tall, they were imprinted on the inner surface of the beam, and only on one side. They were not engraved into the I-beam, but seemed more like part of its surface.