However, on the evening of July 2, something was seen by members of the public in the skies over Roswell and reported locally. This object was brightly lit and crossed the skies in a northwesterly direction. On July 8 the Roswell Army Air Base issued a release which was published, among other places, in the San Francisco Chronicle. The release was Issued by public relations officer Lieutenant Walter Haut, on order from the base commander.

The many rumors regarding the flying disc became a reality yesterday when the intelligence office of the 9th Bomb Group of the Eighth Air Force, Roswell Army Air Field, was fortunate enough to gain possession of a 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 sometime last week. Not having phone facilities, the rancher stored the disc until such time as he was able to contact the sheriff's office, who in turn notified Major Jesse A. Marcel of the 509th Bomber Group Intelligence Office.

Action was immediately taken and the 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.

Later a report was issued to the effect that this disk was a crashed weather balloon.

Maybe it was although it is odd that a crashed balloon would have retained enough of its tension to appear to anybody, even briefly, to be anything other than a flaccid plastic bag and some tinfoil.

Under the headline DISC: SOLUTION COLLAPSES the Chronicle reported that General Roger M. Ramey had stated that the wreckage was "a high-altitude weather observation device" that "consisted of a box kite and a balloon." Later in the same story General Ramey is reported to have said that it was a "starshaped tinfoil target designed to reflect radar." Since General Ramey claimed to have the debris in his office, it is strange that he could not seem to settle on an identification for it. Weather balloons, box kites and radar stars were all familiar to air-base personnel in the late forties, and Air Force officers on active duty would have been unlikely to mistake them. Even less likely to be confused on this matter would have been a working base commander such as Colonel William Blanchard, whose order led to the base press officer issuing the original press release claiming that the debris was a crashed disk. The debris was picked up by air intelligence officers Jesse Marcel and "Cav" Cavett —two more men who would have been unlikely to misidentify items like weather balloons and radar targets.

It seems possible that the debris may have been what the officers who originally saw it thought it was — and what they naturally told the press. They were obviously ignorant of General Ramey's cover-up plans.

Much has been made of the fact that the original discoverer of the device, rancher W. W.