1947

Tuesday 7/1

Sherman Campbell discovers weather balloon debris near Circleville, OH.

Wednesday 7/2

Night

9:50pm. Mr. & Mrs. Dan Wilmot report oval-shaped UFO moving NW, toward the crash site. William Woody and his father also observe a bright, arching light with a red contrail as they are driving NW of Roswell. Mac Brazel and others hear loud explosion.

Thursday 7/3

Mid Morning

Mac Brazel, accompanied by 7-year-old D. Proctor, discovers a large amount of light-weight, metallic debris on a remote pasture (the debris field).

Late Morning

Brazel visits his neighbors, the Proctors, and shows them some of the material.

Aborted V-2 rocket launch at White Sands Proving Grounds, NM.

Evening

Brazel removes a large, circular piece of debris from the debris field and stores it in a shed.

Friday 7/4

Holiday.

1:00-2:00pm. Flying disks observed at Portland, OR. 9:12pm. United Air Lines flight crew watches 9 disks over Emmett, ID.

Saturday 7/5

Brazel goes to Corona, NM, and tells some acquaintances about the find. On the way back he stops again at the Proctors.

Sunday 7/6

Morning

Brazel drives to Roswell to visit Sheriff Wilcox.

Army Air Force captain sees flying disk near sees flying disk near.

Early Afternoon

Brazel and Wilcox call Roswell base and report the find.

1:45pm B-25 crew observes silvery disk over Clay Center, KS.

Col. Blanchard, Maj. Marcel, and CIC Captain Cavitt arrive at Wilcox's office to interview Brazel.

Mid Afternoon

Blanchard returns to the base with a portion of Brazel's debris and alerts General Ramey in Fort Worth about the find.

General Ramey alerts the Pentagon about the find. The Pentagon orders debris sent to Fort Worth.

Late Afternoon

Marcel and Cavitt accompany Brazel back to his ranch to go to the debris field. The two deputies return to Sheriff Wilcox, having found an area of blackened ground.

Evening

1st flight out. Debris flown to Fort Worth.

Night

Marcel and Cavitt stay at Brazel's ranch and examine the large piece stored in the shed.

Col. Alan D. Clark flies debris in a B-26 from Ft. Worth to Washington, DC for Gen. McMullen.

Monday 7/7

Early Morning

Brazel takes Marcel and Cavitt to debris field.

Daytime

General Twining makes an unannounced visit to Kirtland Air Field, near Albuquerque.

11:45am. Koshkonong, WI, flying disk sighting. 2:30pm. East Troy, WI. case. 9:00pm. William Rhodes takes photograph of flying disk over Phoenix, AZ.

Late Evening

Marcel and Cavitt leave for the Roswell base after loading their vehicles with debris.

Debris from Washington is sent to Wright Field, near Dayton, OH.

Tuesday 7/8

Very Early Morning

Marcel stops at his home (2:00am) and shows some of the debris to his wife and son before proceeding on to the base.

Early Morning

Blanchard orders Maj. Easley to post guards on the access roads to the debris field. 7:30am Staff meeting held by Roswell base officers to discuss debris.

Mid Morning

9:00am Cavitt and his assistant M/Sgt Rickett obtain a staff car and drive to Brazel's ranch to pick him up and return to the debris field. Troops arrive at debris field to begin recovery. 11:00am Blanchard dictates a press release on the recovery of a flying disk to PIO Walter Haut.

9:30-11:50am. Series of disk sightings by pilots and officers at Muroc Air Base CA.

Mid Day

Haut goes into town to deliver his press release to the radio stations and newspapers. His first stop is at station KGFL, where he gives the release to Frank Joyce. Noon. The information is put on the AP wire. 1st flight in arrives from Washington DC, carrying a special team of photographers and W/O Robert Thomas. William Woody and his father, still curious about their sighting, drive toward Corona. They are turned away by MPs posted on outlying roads.

Mid Afternoon

Brazel is flown back to the debris field from the base; other planes from Roswell are similarly reconnoitering the area. The impact site is discovered from the air; ground troops are directed toward it. Barney Barnett and a group of students and archeologists or rock-hunters are already at the impact site and see debris and bodies; they are escorted off by the Army. Col. Blanchard "goes on leave" from the base, but he actually leaves to visit the debris field. Material has been brought from the debris field and loaded onto a C-54; this 2nd flight out is flown by Capt. Pappy Henderson to Wright Field. 3rd flight out, a B-29, carries Marcel to Fort Worth Army Air Field. A few wrapped packages of debris are also on the plane.

J. Bond Johnson, of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, is told to go to Fort Worth Army Air Field to cover a flying disk story.

Late Afternoon

Clean-up continues at the crash sites. Brazel is flown back to the base, then leaves and is located by Walt Whitmore, Sr., of radio station KGFL, who interviews him about the find. Blanchard visits the debris field and impact site with his staff. A 2nd flight from Washington, DC, arrives at the base; Rickett gives the crew a sealed box filled with debris; the plane returns shortly to Washington (4th flight out). The Roswell Daily Record carries 'RAAF Captures Flying Saucer' story.

Marcel arrives in Fort Worth and confers with Gen. Ramey; at some point remnants of a balloon are substituted for the real debris. A press conference is held in Ramey's office; Johnson photographs Marcel and Ramey with the balloon remnants; W/O Irving Newton identifies the material as a balloon with a radar target device attached. Ramey issues a statement claiming that the Roswell officers were fooled and that the material was from a weather balloon.

Early Evening

Sgt. Melvin Brown looks under a tarp on the back of a truck at the impact site and sees several alien-looking bodies. Glenn Dennis, a local mortician, is intrigued by several inquiries from the base about tissue preservation and the smallest caskets he has available. Truck carrying the bodies arrives at the base. A preliminary autopsy is attempted at the base hospital by pathologist Dr. Jesse Johnson, Jr. Dennis tries to visit the base hospital but is turned away forcibly; a nurse friend warns him to leave before he gets in trouble. 8:30pm Barnett returns home to Socorro.

6:17pm Memo from FBI Dallas office to SAC regarding weather balloon cover story. Ramey gives an interview on Fort Worth radio station WBAP about the weather balloon cover story.

Night

Capt. John Martin, Sgt. Brown, and other MPs guard a crate containing the bodies that has been placed inside an empty hangar.

Wednesday 7/9

Early Morning

Troops continue clean-up at the crash sites. At the base, three C-54's begin to be loaded with crates filled with debris (8:00am). Senator Dennis Chavez calls Walt Whitmore Sr. to warn him against broadcasting an interview with Brazel; a representative of the FCC threatens to pull his broadcast license.

Mid Morning

Officers from the base locate Brazel (who had stayed with Whitmore) and return him to the base for questioning.

Late Morning

Brazel is taken by the military to the office of the Roswell Daily Record, where he gives a revised, sanitized version of the story. A special secret service envoy representing President Truman arrives from Washington (3rd flight in.)

Noon

The crate with bodies is moved from the hangar to Bomb Pit Number One. Floyd Proctor, Lyman Strickland, and others observe Brazel in town escorted by soldiers.

Early Afternoon

Officers from the base visit newspaper and radio offices in town and recover all copies of Haut's original press release. Brazel is taken to radio station KGFL, where he gives a revised version of his story.

General Schulgen requests FBI cooperation in solving the flying disk problem. The War Department tells the FBI that the disks do not belong to the Army or Navy.

Late Afternoon

Three fully loaded C-54's (5th-7th Flights out) carry debris to Los Alamos, NM, via Kirtland Field. 4:00pm. The crate from Bomb Pit Number One is transferred to a B-29 and flown (8th Flight out) to Fort Worth. The Roswell Daily Record carries a sanitized version of Barzel's story.

5:00pm. Ball of light deposits odd metal on ground near Midland, MI.

Early Evening

6:00pm. Officers and a mortician in Fort Worth meet the incoming B-29 from Roswell; the flight crew returns to Roswell with Marcel.

Late Evening

8:00pm. Marcel arrives back in Roswell (4th Flight in).

11:30pm. Constable in Grand Falls, Newfoundland, observes 4 flying disks.

Thursday 7/10

Clean-up continues at the crash sites. Brazel continues to be interrogated and held at a guest house on the base. Remaining debris confiscated from Sheriff Wilcox by military personnel.

A flight from Wright Field arrives in Fort Worth and returns to Wright Field with more debris and a large, metallic container on board. FBI memo, Fitch to Ladd. Aborted V-2 launch at White Sands. General Twining stops at White Sands before returning to Wright Field. President Truman derides flying disk stories. 4:00pm. TWA representative sees flying disk at Harmon Field, Newfoundland.

Friday 7/11

MPs and others involved in the retreival are debriefed and told to forget that it happened.

Saturday 7/12

Bill Brazel Jr. returns to his father's ranch; no evidence of a military presence remains.

6:30pm. Flying disk follows a C-47 at Elmendorf Field, Alaska.

July

7/15

July 15 - Mac Brazel returns to his ranch from the Roswell base after his interrogation.

7/20

Silver-white disk moving at great speed reported near Cumberland, MD.

7/26

National Security Act passes, which coordinates the Army, Navy, and Air Force into a single national military establishment under the Secretary of Defense. The Army Air Force becomes the U.S. Air Force.

7/30

The first Air Force 'estimate' of the nature of the flying disks is drafted by Gen. Schulgen's staff.

August

Mac Brazel and Tommy Tyree spot a piece of debris in a sinkhole near the debris field.

8/19

FBI memo, Fitch to Ladd.

September

Prof. Lincoln LaPaz, secretly charged with reconstructing the object's trajectory, arrives from Washington and rediscovers the area of blackened ground with Rickett.

9/5

Gen. Schulgen tells the FBI that the disks do not belong to the Air Force.

9/23

Gen. Twining calls for an official investigation of the flying disks.

9/24

Alleged memo from Truman to Forrestal, establishing Operation Majestic Twelve. Vannevar Bush meets with Truman.

9/25

FBI memo, Ladd to Hoover, advising that FBI discontinue flying disk investigations.

9/26

Sidney Souers named head of new National Security Council, which holds its first meeting.

October

10/1

Truman letter to Vannevar Bush, the signature of which matches the MJ-12 memo of 9/24.

10/28

Schulgen issues a draft collection memorandum that outlines the essential elements of information required to analyze flying disk reports.

1948

September

LaPaz tells Rickett that he is still convinced the Roswell debris was an unoccupied probe from another world.

1949

Summer

The gouge is still visible at the debris field. Mac Brazel, having found various scraps of debris for the past two years, mentions in Corona that he still has the material. The next day a Capt. Armstrong and three others from the base confiscate the pieces.

1978

Pappy Henderson confides to a close friend that he had flown wreckage from a crashed saucer to Wright Field; he still has a fragment of the debris. Marcel, located by researcher Stan Friedman, says he is sure the debris was nothing from earth.

1980

In Search Of interviews Marcel, who says he is sure the Roswell debris was nothing from earth. Charles Berlitz and William L. Moore publish their report on the case, The Roswell Incident.

1982

Pappy Henderson tells his wife Sappho about his role in the recovery.

1988

Oct.- An Air Force pickup truck is seen on the Foster Ranch; the driver asks ranch hand Jim Parker if the Roswell crash site is nearby.

1989

Sept. 15-19 The Center for UFO Studies conducts an expedition to the debris field.

1991

July

Kevin Randle and Donald Schmitt's account of the case, UFO Crash at Roswell, is published by Avon Books.