Roswell, New Mexico
33°23′N, 104°31′W — Chaves County, southeastern New Mexico — high plains town on US 285; site of the 1947 incident
What's documented
Roswell is a small city in southeastern New Mexico, population ~48,000. During the first week of July 1947, ranch foreman William "Mac" Brazel recovered unusual debris from the J.B. Foster ranch northwest of town. Roswell Army Air Field, then home to the 509th Composite Bomb Group — the only nuclear-armed bomber unit in the world — issued a press release on 8 July 1947 announcing recovery of a "flying disc." The release was retracted the same day. The U.S. Air Force's 1994 and 1997 reports attributed the debris to Project Mogul, a classified balloon program.
Notable & intriguing
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On 8 July 1947, the public-information officer at Roswell Army Air Field, Lt. Walter Haut, issued a press release stating that the 509th Bomb Group had come into possession of a 'flying disc.' The release was retracted within hours and replaced with a weather-balloon explanation.
Roswell Daily Record, 8 July 1947, p. 1
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The 509th Composite Bomb Group at Roswell was, in July 1947, the only military unit in the world authorized to handle and deliver nuclear weapons.
U.S. Air Force official history of the 509th Operations Group
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The U.S. Air Force's 1994 report 'The Roswell Report: Fact vs. Fiction in the New Mexico Desert' attributed the debris to Project Mogul Flight 4, a classified high-altitude balloon array intended to detect Soviet nuclear tests. Brazel's original ranch description did not match a Mogul-train signature according to investigator Charles Moore, a project insider.
USAF Roswell Report (1994); Moore, Berliner & Brazel, UFO Crash at Roswell (1997)
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Mortician Glenn Dennis, who worked at Ballard Funeral Home in Roswell in 1947, gave on-the-record testimony in 1989 that Roswell AAF called him on 9 July 1947 asking about small-sized hermetically sealed caskets.
Sworn statement to the Fund for UFO Research, 7 August 1991
Public-record imagery
