Nevada State Journal (Reno), July 9, Morning,
Front page, headline story
Army Has 'Flying Saucer'; But What Is It?
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'Old Balloon' General Says
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Officials Clamp on Secrecy Lid After Finding Strange Object
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FORT WORTH, Tex., July 8. (UP) -- Brig. Gen. Roger B. Ramey, commanding general of the 8th army air force said tonight that the purported "flying disc" found on a New Mexico ranch had been identified as "remnants of a tin-foil covered box-kite and a rubber balloon."
Speaking over a Fort Worth radio station to "deflate" the wild stories that discovery of the device had touched off, Ramey said the object was "a high-altitude weather observation device--a very normal gadget in weather bureau operations."
He added that although the box kite originally carried instruments, none was found with the wreckage.
Asked to comment on the "flying discs," Ramey said he knew nothing about them and "I have never seen one."
Nevada State Journal
The Wyoming Eagle, Cheyenne, July 9, p.1
(Headline story)
Lodi (CA) News-Sentinel, July 9,p.1 (added 2012)
ONLY MEAGER DETAILS OF FLYING DISC GIVEN
Kite-Like Device Found in N.M.;
Studied by Army
By WILLIAM F. McMENAMIN
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WASHINGTON, July 8, (UP) -- The mystery of the "flying saucers" took a new twist tonight with the disclosure the army air forces has recovered a strange object in New Mexico, and is forwarding it to Wright Field, Dayton, O., for examination.
Announcement of the find came first from the Roswell, N.M., army air base, near where a "saucer" was found three weeks ago.
AAF headquarters later revealed that a "security lid" has been clamped on all but the sketchiest details of the discovery.
Flimsy
AAF spokesmen would say only that the "saucer" was a flimsily-constructed, kite-like object measuring about 25 feet in diameter and covered with a material resembling tinfoil
AAF headquarters also was checking a report that a second "object" had been found and turned over to the Army Air Forces Training Command Headquarters at Barksdale Field, La.
An AAF spokesman said both objects had a wooden frame.
A telephonic/telephone report from Brig. Gen. Roger B. Ramey, commander of the eighth air force at Fort Worth, Tex., said the purposed/purported "saucer" was badly battered when discovered by a rancher at Corona, 75 miles northwest of Roswell, N.M.
Ramey scoffed at the possibility that the object could have been piloted or that it could have obtained the supersonic speeds credited to the "flying saucers" allegedly spotted in recent weeks.
He reported that the object was too lightly constructed to have carried anyone and that there was no evidence that it had had a power plant of any sort.
It bore no identification marks, and Ramey emphasized that no one had seen it in flight.
AAF sources ruled out the possibility that it might have been an army weather-kite. Helium balloons have been used for weather recording for the past seven or eight years.
They said it had been sent to Fort Worth by superfortress for trans-shipment to the AAF experimental center at Dayton.
AAF commanders in New Mexico refused to permit the object to be photographed on the grounds that it was "high level stuff," although Ramey indicated he was not attaching too great importance to the find pending investigation.
The Roswell announcement came from Col. William H. Blanchard, commanding officer of the Roswell army air base, who specifically described the discovery as "a flying disc."
He said the disc had been forwarded to higher headquarters, presumably the commanding general of the 8th air force at Fort Worth, Tex.
Blanchard would reveal no further details.
Sheriff George Wilcox of Roswell said the disc was found about three weeks ago by W. W. Brizell [sic], on the Foster ranch at Corona, 75 miles northwest of Roswell.
Wilcox said that Brizell does not have a telephone and so did not report finding the disc until the day before yesterday. Brizell told the sheriff he didn't know just what the disc was, but that at first it appeared to be a weather meter.
The sheriff's office notified the army, which sent intelligence officers to pick up the object. Then today the army announced possession of a disc.
The sheriff quoted Brizell as saying the object "seemed more or less like tinfoil." The rancher described the disc as about as large as a safe in the sheriff's office.
The safe is about three and one-half by four feet.
Comments
This first Nevada State Journal UP story is intermediate between the earliest UP stories of July 8 and the later, finalized versions of July 9. It squeezes in a report of Ramey speaking on the radio, but not the official identification by his weather officer that immediately preceded it.
Apparently a last-minute bulletin with a Fort Worth dateline inserted by the N.S.J. just before going to press that night, Ramey is now speaking on the radio to "deflate" the Roswell story. This came after the official weather balloon identification transmitted by the AP 6:30 CST (Fort Worth time) . Ramey says the device is an ordinary weather bureau balloon and it's tin-foil covered box-kite. They don't have him calling it a radar reflector here.
According to Ramey, no instrumentation was found.
Ramey claims he knows nothing about the saucers. Ramey's teletype to Gen. Vandenberg says otherwise.
Both the Nevada State Journal and the Wyoming Eagle carried the following UP Washington dateline story. (The N.S.J. carried this immediately after the preceding update.) The stories in the two papers are identical, except the Eagle story carried some earlier UP items at the end edited out by the N.S.J.
Washington, July 8 dateline.
Recovery of "a strange object" still remains in UP story and also shipping it to Wright Field. UP never did announce Ramey's cancellation of the flight as AP did.
UP seems to have stuck to Sheriff Wilcox's "three weeks ago" instead of using the press release's "sometime last week"
Another mention of the imposed "security lid"
Note the mysterious 25-foot diameter description! Attributed originally to Ramey following a return call to the Pentagon after he said he would take a look. (Washington Post story)
In Lodi News-Sentinel only. The Louisianna object was a hoax, but FBI director J. Edgar Hoover would grouse a few days later how the Army "grabbed it" and wouldn't let the FBI have the "disk" for examination.
Ramey's earlier quotes in earlier UP stories (e.g., see S.F. News) about it looking like the remnants of a weather balloon and radar reflector are missing, and replaced by Ramey's reported telephone conversation to the Pentagon with less explicit descriptions.
These Ramey Pentagon remarks weren't present in the earlier UP versions. AP also reported these, and so did ABC news radio.
The early skeptical remark from AAF weather people about it being a "weather-kite" remains. In contrast, an AP story in the Oklahoma City Oklahoman claimed the AAF weather people quickly IDed the debris after consultation with Roswell officers. As is often the case with Roswell, the official story was all over the map with many contradictory statements.
According to the N.Y. PM story, it was Ramey who wouldn't let it be photographed because of the "security lid." Maybe this should read "AAF commanders in New Mexico and Texas..."
Blanchard remains as the originator of the press release. AP stories made his PIO Walter Haut the culprit.
The following is at the end of the UP story in the Wyoming Eagle. It is straight from the early UP bulletins.
Later that evening, Brazel would contradict the Sheriff's version, saying he came in to report a possible crashed flying saucer and that what he found definitely wasn't a weather device. Brazel's arrival "the day before yesterday" (Sunday) contradicts what Wilcox told AP (Brazel arrived Monday).
Note the contradiction in size here compared to the "25-feet in diameter" description given above by "AAF spokesmen."
