Roswell Morning Dispatch
Flying Disk Transforms Sheriff's
Office To International Newsroom
Reports of the finding of an alleged "Flying Saucer" approximately 90 miles northwest of here transformed the Chaves county sheriff's office into a full-fledged room of excitement yesterday afternoon as various news agencies from all over the world inquired as to the mysterious object.
George Wilcox, sheriff, was chained through his desk telephone to newspapers, radio networks, and top officials on an international scope as the long distance wires buzzed with continuous requests for his office.
The furor started Monday when W. W. Brazel, a rancher living on the old Foster place, 25 miles southeast of Corona, New Mexico, came in the office and reported finding an object which fitted the descriptions of the flying discs. Deputy Sheriff B. A. Clark, who handled the report, immediately notified Sheriff Wilcox, who in turn turned his information over to Army authorities at RAAF.
According to Mr. Brazel, the object had the shape of a box kite. It was broken in two. The size of the alleged disc was, contrary to previous descriptions, rectangular, and measured approximately three feet by four feet.
Major Jesse A. Marcel of the 509th Bomb Group Intelligence and an Army crew immediately went to the ranch and picked up the object. No member of the local sheriff's office saw the article at any time. Army sources did not divulge any description either of the outside or internal appearance of the disc.
Following the news release of the report, Sheriff Wilcox was the object of a storm of inquiries from papers in San Francisco, Boston, Los Angeles, New York, New Orleans, Baltimore, St. Louis, Denver, Albuquerque, Milwaukee, Santa Fe, Chicago, Washington, and Mexico City. The longest call came from London, England where the London Daily Mail and other newspapers desired information.
The major radio networks, including N.B.C., C.B.S., Trans Radio, plus the Associated and United Press and International News Service also contacted Wilcox. Others in the cavalcade were Paramount News and International News Photo.
The stream of calls continued to such an extent that the placing of outgoing messages was almost impossible. If by chance the phone ceased ringing for time enough to pick it up, the operator would immediately ask whether or not it was the sheriff's office, and then state that there was another long distance call coming through.
The London operator, with the very pronounced "H's" and the "rather" presented a translation problem to the sheriff, and the strong contrast between the Western drawl and the English twang was both interesting and amusing.
In response to various queries, Sheriff Wilcox could only state the location of the spot where the object was found and the name of the person finding it. Any descriptions other than its reported size were not available.
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(Picture Caption)
SHERIFF WILCOX TELLS THE LIMEYS
Sheriff George Wilcox is shown above seated at his official post while relating the story of the rumored "Flying Disc" discovery to the London Daily Mail. The phone in the picture was the transmitting instrument for talks with the continental U.S., England, and Mexico.
Other Morning Dispatch item on Wilcox:
The London, England Daily Mail called Sheriff George Wilcox, yesterday regarding the flying disc. Woodrow Rodden, Roswell photographer, has an excellent picture which he took of Sheriff Wilcox while talking to England.
Roswell Daily Record
Sheriff Wilcox Takes Leading Role in Excitement Over Report 'Saucer' Found
That worried look on the face of Sheriff Wilcox, in the picture above, comes from having been cast, more suddenly than he liked, into the role of leading man in the world comedy which developed over the purported finding of a flying saucer at the Foster ranch, in the Corona community, northwest of Roswell.
Wilcox is shown here talking to a high English official, who told him "we are just as much interested in your disks as you are," and attempted to secure more information from the officer than had been revealed through Associated Press services a couple of hours earlier.
Included in the dozens of calls which came to him from all over the United States and Mexico, were three from England. One was the interview by the official, while the other two were from London newspapers, excitement over the flying saucers having spread to that country as well as all over the United States.
Reports of the Roswell saucer was first made to Wilcox by W. W. Brazel, who lives on the Foster ranch where remnants of the so-called saucer was found.
