Gen. Ramey and Special Team Enter the Picture--Pentagon's Special Meeting
The newspapers then reported that Col. Blanchard notified Gen. Ramey of the find and that Gen. Ramey ordered the "flying disk" flown to Fort Worth. Marcel said that morning Col. Blanchard ordered him to fly his recovered material to Wright Field, first stopping at Fort Worth to see Ramey. Some AP newspaper articles reported that Marcel left at 10:00 a.m., but Marcel said they left that afternoon, which agrees with other evidence. (Perhaps the confusion is in Marcel being ordered at 10:00 a.m. but not leaving until the afternoon while the transport plane was prepared.)
A major witness to Ramey actually being at Roswell base to deal with the situation is Walter Haut, then the Roswell public information officer. In a taped interview in 2000, and then in his 2002 affidavit, Haut stated that Ramey had flown out to the base the morning of July 8 for the morning staff meeting. In addition to being briefed about the two crash sites and handling strange debris brought back from the field, Haut said Ramey already indicated that they were going to cover it up. Haut thought this decision had probably come from the Pentagon. Since many local civilians already knew something of what happened, the initial press release that afternoon acknowledged the more distant and less accessible Foster Ranch crash site, but not the closer and more important craft/body site. Attention was also diverted from Roswell to "higher headquarters," where the recovered "flying disc" was said to have been flown, which turned out to be Ramey, now back at Fort Worth headquarters. Ramey then debunked the debris from the ranch site as a common weather balloon.
Back at the Pentagon, at exactly the same time as the Roswell staff meeting, Gen. Vandenberg canceled a previously scheduled meeting and instead met with the military's Joint Research and Development Board headed by Dr. Vannevar Bush, the national head of military R&D during WWII. This "coincidence" is remarkable, because three years later Canadian documents implicated the Research and Development Board as harboring a highly-classified group headed by Bush looking into the "modus operandi" of the saucers. (See Vandenberg page for more details)
Also at this point there a few reports from witnesses of a special team or teams flying in from Washington to take charge of the recovery, perhaps part of the Army Counter-Intelligence Corp, or CIC (E.g. see the affidavit of Sgt. Robert Smith) In the Ramey memo, they are perhaps referred to as the "CIC/TEAM." Witness Frank Kaufmann has claimed to be a member of this special CIC team, which he said consisted of nine main members.
There are other possible allusions to this team or other teams in the memo in the third person, such as "THEY WILL SHIP" and perhaps "IF THEY ADD."
Kaufmann may also have implied that Gen. Ramey and Charles Lindbergh were involved with this team. As remarkable as this claim may seem, there is some corroboration for it. E.g., see the affidavit of Earl Zimmerman, formerly with AFOSI (Air Force equivalent of the CIC). Zimmerman said he saw both Ramey and Lindbergh together at the Roswell officer's club at the time of all the flying saucer rumors. Lindbergh's presence wasn't publicized. Furthermore, he was told that they were there "because of the flying saucer business." Zimmerman also noticed an unknown CIC officer at the base whom he pointed out to Col. Blanchard, who was likewise unaware that he was there.
I also received an e-mail from Jesse Marcel Jr. who wrote that he remembers his father pointed out Lindbergh to him while the family was eating dinner at the officers' club.
It is also known that Ramey's involvement with UFOs did not end with Roswell. The next large UFO "wave" after 1947 was in 1952 and climaxed in July with several well-publicized radar/visual UFO cases over Washington D.C., including jet interceptions. Major Gen. Ramey was now in charge of Air Force Operations.
In an attempt to quell public concern, on July 29 the military held its largest press conference since the end of WWII, headed by Maj. Generals John Samford (Chief of Air Intelligence) and Ramey. They were said to be handling the current investigation. Furthermore, some newspapers reported that the Air Force said they were their top two UFO experts (an Associated Press article a few days later also called Ramey the "Air Force 'saucer man'"). They denied that any interceptors had been scrambled and attributed the anomalous radar returns to artifacts of a temperature inversion layer. Both statements they knew to be untrue.
A few days later, Gen. Ramey also appeared on CBS television on their "Man of the Week" show. While admitting that some 20% of UFO sightings remained unsolved, he claimed that none had been tracked consistently on radar, there was no evidence that they were material objects, and that they were probably some type of natural phenomenon and constituted no threat. [N.Y. Times, 8/4/52, Baltimore Sun, 8/4/52, Los Angeles Times, 8/4/52]
Second Crash Site Found
According to Roswell public information officer Walter Haut in a 2002 affidavit, he learned of Marcel and Cavitt investigating a crash site when he returned to work at the base Monday morning (July 7). But later that afternoon he learned that a second crash site had been found by "civilians" some 35 to 40 miles north of Roswell. By the next afternoon, Haut said base commander Blanchard had taken him out to one of the base hangars where they had brought the surviving craft and several small, nonhuman bodies. The craft was egg-shaped and small, no more than 15 feet long (possibly an escape pod?).
(for other witnesses to bodies in hangar, see Glenn Dennis page)
Back in Washington D.C. the afternoon of July7, acting AAF Chief of Staff Gen. Hoyt Vandenberg had been personally dealing with flying disc inquiries at the Pentagon. Then suddenly he canceled a dental appointment and rushed out to the airport to see AAF Secretary Stuart Symington, apparently on some extremely urgent business. Shortly after, New Mexico Senator Carl Hatch also suddenly requested a private meeting with President Truman, granted July 9. (see Vandenberg page for details)
In 1990, Army photographer Sgt. Frederick Benthal first related that he had been flown out from Washington D.C. on special assignment to Roswell, probably the afternoon of July 7. The following morning he was driven out to a site north of Roswell when he said he photographed several nonhuman bodies in a tent. An MP named Ed Sain independently confirmed guarding the tent, with orders to use lethal force if anybody unauthorized tried to enter.
Return to Roswell
Meanwhile back at the debris field July 7, Marcel said that he and Cavitt collected only a tiny fraction of the debris field material. Cavitt returned first in a Jeep carry-all. Marcel followed a the end of the day in a Buick staff car. It would have taken Marcel about 4 hours to get back to Roswell.
Before returning to the base, Marcel stopped at his home. According to his son, Dr. Jesse Marcel Jr., his father woke his mother and himself in the middle of the night to show them the boxes of material he had brought back, which he said was from a flying saucer. They laid out the material on the kitchen floor and tried to make sense of it. Marcel Jr. said he noticed a metallic "I-beam" with purplish symbols on it and pointed this out to his parents. (Dr. Marcel's affidavit)
Another witness to these "I-beams" with hieroglyphics was Lt. Robert Shirkey, who was in flight operations at Roswell. He saw them being carried out to the B-29 which was to fly Marcel and his recovered debris to Fort Worth. (Shirkey's affidavit)
Yet another possible witness is Steven Lovekin, who has given recent testimony on behalf of the Disclosure Project, that he was shown a metallic, yardstick-like beam with symbols on it during a Pentagon briefing in 1959. He was told it was from "one of the craft that had crashed in New Mexico" (thus implying more than one crash). The "encryptions," he was told, were "instructions" of some kind, and that the military was still working on trying to figure them out.
(A similar, though second-hand account, was provided by Steve Lytle. Lytle said his his father, a mathematician who worked with Robert Oppenheimer, was given the task of deciphering the writing on the I-beams. See metal beam descriptions.)
Also this night, Mac Brazel may have been brought back to Roswell by Walt Whitmore, Sr., co-owner of radio station KGFL. Whitmore apparently heard of Brazel's story from Frank Joyce, who had spoken to Brazel when he first got to the Sheriff's office. He then drove out to Brazel's place. Whitmore reportedly wire-recorded an interview with Brazel which was to air the next day. Brazel stayed at the Whitmore house, according to Walt Whitmore Jr., who said Brazel slept in his bed and he saw him there the next morning making breakfast..
Main Recovery Operation Begins
Early the next morning, Marcel (and presumably Cavitt) reported their findings to Col. Blanchard. Blanchard later privately admitted to others that the material his men brought in from the field was the strangest stuff he had ever seen and definitely not from any balloon.
Recently, researcher Robert Hastings revealed in his book "UFOs and Nukes" an interview he had with nuclear engineer Chester Lytle (designer & builder of the first A-bomb implosion trigger). According to Lytle, in 1953 Blanchard told him that Roswell was indeed the crash of a spacecraft and four alien bodies had been recovered
A staff meeting was called on how to deal with the situation. A major recovery operation at the ranch was ordered, and a military cordon was also set up to seal off the area, particularly north of Roswell along highway 285, blocking all access roads to the west. This cordon and the newly found second crash location is likewise probably mentioned in the Ramey memo, which may say: "A 'DISK'" was the "NEXT NEW FIND WEST OF THE CORDON." "AT LOCATION" of the new find was a "WRECK" or "'POD'" "NEAR OPERATION AT THE (DEBRIS) FIELD AND THE VICTIMS OF THE WRECK".
