Mac Brazel & The Debris. An Opinion.

[BIAD]

How would a balloon of any sort leave a "gouge" in that soil? I was stationed out at Ft Bliss/WSMR many moons ago and
had to dig many a-fighting position all over that area of West Texas/Southern New Mexico. The ground is hard as heck.
Does not easily give way.  

A dirt poor rancher in the area would not have had the means or inclination to fill anything in. Shoot, it might even collect
some water in the future. If the Army did it, they would have had to bring in equipment. My knowledge of the events do
not extend to accurately  say one way or the other. 

If the gouge existed, why would they even bother filling it in right away?

I agree with you, I've been to Roswell in the summer months and even dug at the soil in the desert!
(A Limey in some place hot?!)


Again, the confusion created by the many players that came into the Roswell incident has unearthed quotes and comments
that can not only place a reader into the realms of dubious interest, any attentive researcher could also be disheartened as
they wade through the only evidence at hand. Namely, newspaper reports.

You'll have noticed in the Telex message above, words are abbreviated for speed purposes and names of those involved
are just outright misspelled. But one of the main problems in the newspaper industry is competitiveness and with that, the
need to out-do the latest report on a subject.

For example: (from the Telex webpage)
"JD/FRR
     LETS HAVE TEXT ARMY ANNOUNCEMENT FASTEST.  JUST PUT ON AS TEST AN LET ROLL IN QUOTES.
DX NJ317P7/8"

Here's a couple more examples from the Press. Sheriff Wilcox becomes 'Wilson' and the public information officer for
Roswell Army Base, Walter Haut morphs into 'Warren Haught'!



With this verve, comes a requirement of 'other facts'... a different view on a well-covered story. The 'Disk' announcement
was one thing, but the later repudiation by the Army would threaten an end to this titillating tale. The trend at the time was
flying saucers and news-outlets all over the US were posting them in the run-up to the Roswell crash.

Now we have an officially-sanctioned story that within hours, could deflate like a busted weather balloon! What would you
add to the account to entice the reader to stay with your paper? If a Reporter or someone wanting to be part of the media
-promoted excitement does inject an extra tidbit to a tale that isn't entirely correct, it's prudent to also append a comment
that makes sure the fabrication cannot be tested.
One makes a gouge... and then fills it in. No gouge.
....................................................................

But then again, maybe the gouge existed. If such sensitive material from a highly-controversial political project was on
private property, wouldn't it be responsible for an official body to collect the debris and repair any damage caused?
It would allay any annoyances from the owner and those directly involved and indicate the matter was over and all was
well. Expediency is the word they use these days!

The again, the same suggestions would be made if something out of the ordinary careened into a desert -whether it
was V2 rocket or croissant-shaped vehicle. By the way, if someone was physically or mentally effected by such an
experience, wouldn't it be shrewd to 'flatten' any bumps in the favoured narrative by working on that 'someone'?
This may explain the 'containment' of Mr Brazel.

Mac Brazel had said that he had twice before found weather balloons on the ranch. However, this was the only time
he drove to Roswell and alerted the Sheriff of his find. Why was that...? Wilcox couldn't give him any fiscal reward and
there's never been any indication that Roswell's Police Officer had knowledge of where the owners of this supposed
balloon were situated.
In fact, all the top-brass of Wilcox's local Army Base were kept out of the loop in regards of a classified balloon-born
experiment!
....................................................................

So the mid-June date may have originated with the Sheriff's statement at the time? 

It seems thay way, but at the time it may have been unimportant to those who had no chips in the game. However to imply
the media were in on an ongoing story -something that required a reader to purchase their newspaper on the next day for
possible updates, the idea that the story was almost a month old doesn't work well in the narrative!

The McBoyle portion I was unaware of. According to Sleepy's statement, McBoyle heard Brazel say he had towed in a craft(?)
from his range, "sometime ago". And who knows how long that means. A few hours? A day? A week?

That's true, the latter 'un-sculpted' accounts relate that Brazel was with a neighbour's son (Billy Dee Proctor) riding horseback
to perform his mundane duties when he came across the damaged terrain and scraps of a foil-like substance.
There's no mention of dragging a chunk of material to a nearby out-building and nothing in these lesser-used accounts to indicate
Marcell, Cavitt and Brazel went to a shed to acquire any debris.

And Brazel was kept at the base. No doubt. He had a ranch to run. A herd to tend to. There is no way he would just up and leave
his livelihood unattended to stay at the 'guest quarters' for no good reason. 

I want to reword my opinion on him being detained and the Mogul balloon stuff. It would not have mattered if it had been an hour
or a month, he would get questioned for some time. He would also be "debriefed". Evidence of that is the retraction on the radio.
Still, I do not believe it was even a Mogul balloon. 

I agree with you.

On July 8, Brazel was escorted by the military to the offices of the Roswell Daily Record, where he gave a press interview.
The story he told them was a bit different from what he had told before. In this new version, Mac was with his son and not
the Proctor kid when they discovered the debris on June 14, but that he was in such a hurry that he ignored it.

See...? In the this rendering, a whole family have been disconnected from any direct attachment to the narrative.
The Proctors are now mere second-hand players who only saw what Brazel showed them, not what what was on the desert floor.
One could say that the rancher -or someone leaning heavily on this rancher, was 'keeping it in the family'.

Then by retaining Brazel over a month after originally finding the scraps of the harmless apparatus and during the same time
that General Blanchard, General Ramey, Major Marcel, the counter-intelligence guy Cavitt and Public Information Officer Haut
had no idea of the significance of the secret project, the media furore around the small town in Chavez County would abate due
to starving the story of oxygen.

After shaming himself and his family at the newspaper, Brazel's military escorts then led him out to a car and drove him to
the KGFL Radio Station. People who saw him leave the newspaper office said he kept his head down and pretended not to
see any of his friends.

And rightly so, he had issued a statement that said the US Army had captur... oh wait. That wasn't Brazel, that was the
people who were now dragging him to conduits of broadcast to say it was all a hoax and his word meant nothing now.


At KGFL, he was allowed to go in alone while his escorts waited outside. He went in and began telling Frank Joyce the same
story he had told at the Record. Joyce interrupted him and asked why he was telling a different story than he had told earlier.
Joyce explained later in an interview that Brazel became agitated and said, "It'll go hard on me."
At the end of the interview, the rancher went back out to where his military escort was waiting, and they took him back to the
base.

When he was finally released by the military, Brazel refused to say anything other than that he had found a weather balloon.
He privately complained of his treatment by the military, who he said wouldn't even let him call his wife in Tularosa.

He later told his children that he had taken an oath not to talk about the incident and considering it was supposedly just a
downed weather-balloon of an importance unknown to anyone outside of the classified project, one would wonder why such
treatment from the military was used.

Within a year, he moved off the ranch and back into Tularosa. There he opened a refrigerated meat locker rental establishment
where people could rent lockers to keep their frozen meat in those days of few home freezers.
He died in 1963.
....................................................................

But if this was just a traditional strategy-based operation of one party dowsing the truth -or lies, of another, then why did
Major Jesse Marcel change sides and describe what he saw that was similar to Brazel's description?