Intelligence Agents Investigate UFOs in Roswell (7 JUL 1947)

by Erin E. Thompson, USAICoE Staff Historian

INTELLIGENCE AGENTS INVESTIGATE UFOS IN ROSWELL
On 7 July 1947, Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) agents Lt. Col. Sheridan W. Cavitt, M. Sgt. Lewis S. Rickett, and Army Air Force intelligence agent Maj. Jesse A. Marcel investigated reports of an Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) that crash landed in Roswell, New Mexico.

The “Roswell Incident” occurred during the 1947 Flying Disc Craze, in which sixteen or more alleged sightings of UFOs were reported in the U.S. between May and July, many in the American Southwest. On 7 July 1947, a rancher named William “Mac” Brazel reported he had recovered “one of them flying saucers” on his ranch near Roswell. The investigation was turned over to Roswell Army Airfield, which assigned the case to Major Marcel.

During World War II, Jesse Marcel had attended the U.S. Army Air Force Intelligence School at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where he trained as a combat photo interpreter. He graduated in late 1942 and became an instructor until deploying with the 5th Bomber Command to the Southwest Pacific. After the war, Marcel was assigned to the 509th Composite Group, 313th Bombardment Wing, stationed at Roswell Army Airfield (Walker Air Force Base since 1948) and deployed during Operation CROSSROADS, the U.S. nuclear weapons tests in the Bikini Atoll in 1946. The unit was redesignated the 509th Bombardment Group, Very Heavy, in July 1946 and attached to the Strategic Air Command at Roswell.

For the investigation, Major Marcel was joined by Colonel Cavitt, commander of the 700th Air CIC Detachment’s Roswell office, and Sergeant Rickett from Cavitt’s office. The three men traveled to Brazel’s ranch and collected numerous pieces of what Cavitt later described as bamboo sticks and a “reflective sort of material” like aluminum foil. The next day, 8 July 1947, the incident appeared in local newspapers with headlines proclaiming the Air Force had recovered the remains of a “flying disc.” The excitement was short-lived. That same day, Brig. Gen. (later Lt. Gen.) Roger Ramey, commander of the Eighth Air Force at Fort Worth Army Airfield, held a press conference announcing the discovered materials belonged to a weather balloon. The incident was quickly forgotten.
 
The story resurfaced in 1978, when then-Lt. Col. Marcel claimed in an interview with ufologists (researchers of UFOs) that the materials were “extraterrestrial.” More witnesses came forward following publication of Marcel’s claims, and UFO enthusiasts grasped onto the story with a fervor, despite most “witnesses” providing only second- or thirdhand accounts. Even today, Marcel’s account remains the basis for conspiracists of a major military cover-up of extraterrestrial life at Roswell. Interestingly, shortly after the 1947 incident, Marcel’s personnel file noted his tendency to exaggerate. Contrary to Marcel’s remembrances, Colonel Cavitt later recalled, “I don’t think I even made a report to [700th CIC Headquarters], which I normally would if there was anything at all unusual.”

In 1994, an official U.S. Air Force investigation revealed the shredded remains of a UFO discovered in Roswell in July 1947 belonged to a prototype balloon for then-classified Project MOGUL. The project sought to “develop a technique capable of recording the sound of a nuclear detonation within the Soviet Union,” by placing “acoustic sensors (i.e. quasi-microphones) on balloons that operated at a steady state within the stratosphere.” In the summer of 1947, tests of these balloons were occurring at Alamogordo Army Airfield (Holloman Air Force Base since 1948), New Mexico, during which several balloons were lost. Project engineer Professor Charles B. Moore confirmed in 1994 that witness descriptions and photographs of the recovered Roswell UFO were consistent with the materials used in some of these balloons. MOGUL researchers reportedly used radio broadcasts of UFO sightings during the 1947 Flying Disc Craze to locate their lost balloons.

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