San Bernardino (CA) Evening-Telegram, July 8, evening, headline story
MYSTERIOUS FLYING SAUCER FOUND, NOW IN ARMY HANDS
Disk Discovered By Rancher at Roswell, N.M.
Intelligence Branch Forwards Object to 'Higher Headquarters'
San Mateo (CA) Times, July 8, evening, headline story
ARMY SAYS HAS DISC
Missile Found By Rancher in New Mexico
Turned Over to Atomic Group and Flown to Headquarters
Santa Barbara (CA) News-Press, July 8, evening, headline story
Army Reports Flying Disk Found
on New Mexico Ranch
Saucer Found on New Mexico Ranch
Turned Over to Army
Bakersfield Californian, July 8, evening, headline story
FLYING DISC FOUND; IN ARMY POSSESSION
Missile Located at Roswell
Sacramento Bee, July 8, evening, page 1
Army Reveals It Has Flying Disc Found On Ranch In New Mexico
Marysville/Yuba City, CA, Appeal-Democrat, July 8, page 1
Army Says Flying Disc Discovered
ROSWELL, N. M., July 8 (AP)--The Army Air Force here today announced a flying disk [also spelled "disc"] had been found on a ranch near Roswell and is in Army possession.
Lieut. Warren Haught [sic], public-information officer of the Roswell Army Air Field, announced the find had been made "some time last week" and had been turned over to the air field through cooperation of the sheriff's office.
"It was inspected at the Roswell Army Air Field and subsequently loaned" by Maj. Jesse A. Marcel [also spelled "Marcell"] of the 509th Bomb Group Intelligence office at Roswell "to higher headquarters."
The Army gave no other details.
Haught's statement:
"The many rumors regarding the flying disk [disc] became a reality yesterday when the intelligence office of the 509th (Atomic) Bomb Group of the 8th Air Force Roswell Army Air Field, was fortunate enough to gain possession of a disk [disc] through the cooperation of one of the local ranchers and the sheriff's office of Chaves County.
"The flying object landed on a ranch near Roswell some time last week. Not having phone facilities, the rancher stored the disk until such time as he was able to contact the sheriff's office, who in turn notified Maj. Jesse A. Marcel of the 509th Bomb Group Intelligence office.
"Action was immediately taken and the disk [disc] was picked up at the rancher's home. It was inspected at the Roswell Army Air Field and subsequently loaned by Major Marcel to higher headquarters."
The rancher's name and location of his place were withheld.
George Walsh of radio station KSWS, which provided first news of the announcement, said only Major Marcel [Marcell], Col. W. H. Blanchard, commanding officer at Roswell Air Field, and the rancher had seen the object here.
The sheriff, Walsh reported, upon receiving word from the rancher went immediately to the intelligence officer at Roswell field.
Comments
This was the earliest AP story and ran in a number of West Coast evening newspapers. (Compare to the slightly more updated AP stories that also ran that evening in the Seattle Times and Los Angeles Herald-Express, that have some comments attributed to Gen. Ramey plus some UP news items added to this basic AP story.) Except for some minor differences in spelling, the stories in these various newspapers were identical. This was the big news story of the day for many papers, which gave it a last-minute banner headline before rushing the story to press. Note almost equal use of the word "disc" and "disk" in these stories.
AP's standard misspelling of Walter Haut's name. It's useful as a tracer in stories with unspecified sources.
This is the complete initial base press release according to the AP.
Maybe this is what Walsh was told by someone at the base, but it wasn't accurate. The next day, AP also carried stories that contradicted this, such as multiple people at the base having seen it.
This was just part of the press release and not privileged information. Unlike other news people in Roswell, Walsh claims the press release was phoned in to him from the base instead of being given a written release, and he subsequently phoned it in to the AP office in Albuquerque. This may possibly explain differences between the AP and UP versions of the press release.
