Originally posted by spetznaz
The weather balloon story was from the Roswell, New Mexico, crash ....the funny thing about THAT incident is that on July 8, 1947, the Roswell Army AirField said it was an alien aircraft crash, however the next day the Army Airforce (then the USAF was not yet formed ....it was the army-airforce) changed the story to it being a weather balloon.
Here are the two stories for you Dark Urizen (sorry Tron and Digi for going off tangent LOL).
p.s: I personally do not believe in aliens and UFOs. However it is 'interesting' just how far the stories were switched.
Also I know for fact that some of the 'alien UFO sightings' spotted in the late 70s and early 80s were in fact what is known as 'Skunkwork' or 'Phantomworks' projects that later came to be known as the F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighter and the B-2Spirit stealth bomber. Obviously any person who saw the secret flights inadvertently thought he/she was seeing UFOs, and in fact many of the drawings of 'UFO's in the 80s look very much like drawings of the F-117 and B2.
As for the 1947 Roswell thing ....who knows? All that is factual for now is that the story was changed abruptly and significantly.
However .....I do not believe in aliens (apart from the ones that come in from Mexico ...you know, the illegal type).
Caveat: I also do not believe in the Loch Ness monster .....BUT I KNOW I WILL NOT GO SWIMMING IN THAT LAKE!
Here are the stories:
Exhibit A:
Exact story given by the Roswell Army Airfield, July 8 1947:
Roswell Daily Record for July 8, 1947
The intelligence office of the 509th Bombardment group at Roswell Army Air Field announced at noon today, that the field has come into possession of a flying saucer.
According to information released by the department, over authority of Maj. J. A. Marcel, intelligence officer, the disk was recovered on a ranch in the Roswell vicinity, after an unidentified rancher had notified Sheriff Geo. Wilcox, here, that he had found the instrument on his premises.
Major Marcel and a detail from his department went to the ranch and recovered the disk, it was stated.
After the intelligence officer here had inspected the instrument it was flown to higher headquarters.
The intelligence office stated that no details of the saucer's construction or its appearance had been revealed.
Mr. and Mrs. Dan Wilmot apparently were the only persons in Roswell who saw what they thought was a flying disk.
They were sitting on their porch at 105 South Penn. last Wednesday night at about ten o'clock when a large glowing object zoomed out of the sky from the southeast, going in a northwesterly direction at a high rate of speed.
Wilmot called Mrs. Wilmot's attention to it and both ran down into the yard to watch. It was in sight less then a minute, perhaps 40 or 50 seconds, Wilmot estimated.
Wilmot said that it appeared to him to be about 1,500 feet high and going fast. He estimated between 400 and 500 miles per hour.
In appearance it looked oval in shape like two inverted saucers, faced mouth to mouth, or like two old type washbowls placed, together in the same fashion. The entire body glowed as though light were showing through from inside, though not like it would inside, though not like it would be if a light were merely underneath.
From where he stood Wilmot said that the object looked to be about 5 feet in size, and making allowance for the distance it was from town he figured that it must have been 15 to 20 feet in diameter, though this was just a guess.
Wilmot said that he heard no sound but that Mrs. Wilmot said she heard a swishing sound for a very short time.
The object came into view from the southeast and disappeared over the treetops in the general vicinity of six mile hill.
Wilmot, who is one of the most respected and reliable citizens in town, kept the story to himself hoping that someone else would come out and tell about having seen one, but finally today decided that he would go ahead and tell about it. The announcement that the RAAF was in possession of one came only a few minutes after he decided to release the details of what he had seen.
Exhibit B:
Exact report given the NEXT day.
Roswell Daily Record for July 9, 1947 - AP
An examination by the army revealed last night that mysterious objects found on a lonely New Mexico ranch was a harmless high-altitude weather balloon - not a grounded flying disk.Excitement was high until Brig. Gen. Roger M. Ramey, commander of the Eighth air forces with headquarters here cleared up the mystery.
The bundle of tinfoil, broken wood beams and rubber remnants of a balloon were sent here yesterday by army air transport in the wake of reports that it was a flying disk.
But the general said the objects were the crushed remains of a ray wind target used to determine the direction and velocity of winds at high altitudes.
Warrant Officer Irving Newton, forecaster at the army air forces weather station here said, "we use them because they go much higher than the eye can see."
The weather balloon was found several days ago near the center of New Mexico by Rancher W. W. Brazel. He said he didn't think much about it until he went into Corona, N. M., last Saturday and heard the flying disk reports.
He returned to his ranch, 85 miles northwest of Roswell, and recovered the wreckage of the balloon, which he had placed under some brush.
Then Brazel hurried back to Roswell, where he reported his find to the sheriff's office.
The sheriff called the Roswell air field and Maj. Jesse A. Marcel, 509th bomb group intelligence officer was assigned to the case.
Col. William H. Blanchard, commanding officer of the bomb group, reported the find to General Ramey and the object was flown immediately to the army air field here.
Ramey went on the air here last night to announce the New Mexico discovery was not a flying disk.
Newton said that when rigged up, the instrument "looks like a six-pointed star, is sivery in appearance and rises in the air like a kite."
In Roswell, the discovery set off a flurry of excitement.
Sheriff George Wicox's telephone lines were jammed. Three calls came from England, one of them from The London Daily Mail, he said.
A public relations officer here said the balloon was in his office "and it'll probably stay right there."
Newton, who made the examination, said some 80 weather stations in the U. S. were using that type of balloon and that it could have come from any of them.
He said he had sent up identical balloons during the invasion of Okinawa to determine ballistics information for heavy guns.
Oh yeah, i said Rockwell, but meant Roswell
Very interesting to read how they screw up getting the stories straight. Don't know or care if they really were aliens or not, but it's just too funny seeing the government of the strongest country in the world fumbling because of two farmers that happened to be sitting on their porch
