Mac Brazel & The Debris. An Opinion.

[BIAD]

I've looked and looked again at this old favourite and since the day I first picked up the Berlitz and Moore paperback
in 1981, the incident has always intrigued me. But it's not the event or even the alleged cover-up by the US Army that
bothered me, it's the world-wide media's word-smithing of Bill Brazel's behavior when he first discovers the debris that
I find fascinating.

The many books and articles have created a scenario where officialdom of that time acted professionally and without
hesitation. There's no sleepy New Mexico town, summer-hot slowness and vague gossip of uninformed residents,
it's constantly pushed as a case of something happened, realised and acted upon by those who know how to keep
secrets.

Everyday-reality is forgotten for the urge of sensationalising a topic that is still currently not understood or even taken
seriously by the mainstream press. A guy is said to have found something in a desert, a working-class guy who knew
about lost weather-balloons and the possibility of a reward.

Instead of gathering the stuff up that was supposedly frightening his sheep -scaring them enough that they wouldn't
approach the waterhole and had to be steered around the debris field, it was originally accepted that the rancher
left the material out there for a whole month before reporting his find to the Roswell Sheriff, George Wilcox.

So from the 4th June 1947, maybe the fourteenth, possibly three weeks before the material was reported or even
a week before the newspaper articles in The Roswell Daily Record were displayed, it's taken for granted that Brazel
threatened his only income by allowing his sheep to go un-watered in temperatures that reached 87 degrees and
more at that time of the year.

The date moves to suit the narrative.
One narrative is the finding was on Friday 13th June, but Friday the 13th sounds cooky, so the incident is dropped
onto Saturday 14th. But whatever the exact date, Brazel doesn't find the supposedly unknown material important
enough to leave his maintenance of tending his stock, checking and repairing fencing and collecting water, and do
what the many books and articles relate.

So we wait, we wait until The Daily Record announces on Tuesday 8th July 1947, that an 'unknown' rancher found
some strange debris on his property and over the weekend, told the Roswell Sheriff and soon after, the Army had
had removed the stuff. It's said it was removed it on the 7th July to be exact and with the assistance of two army
intelligence officers.
One of the officers was Major Jesse Marcel Sr.

Now we have a quandary. Supposedly sensitive information derived from the idea that the Soviet Union had tested
an high-altitude atomic device -information vital enough that the fact-finding mission 'Project Mogul' was classified
top secret, now lay across the desert floor and nobody was looking for it.

There's no reports of searches from Roswell Army Airfield that surfaced in the years between 1947 and now, no
whistle-blower -which are many in the UFO circuit, who-knew-a-guy-who-knew-a-military guy who's orders were to
travel the dusty highways of that area for a downed Rawin-Sonde weather-balloon.
Not even Marcel or his commanding officer -Colonel William Blanchard say they knew of the operation or recovery.

But like most of today's media, the smaller points get left and only the banal all-embracing narrative is displayed.

Now it's nonchalantly stated that a patriot -Mac Brazel, found the strange foil and plastic-like stick-beams in the desert.
He dutifully reported his findings to the town's Sheriff and the nearby Army Base was contacted to clean up the remains
of a discovered weather balloon.


The convenient suspect.

It's in the lore that William 'Mac' Brazel was a foreman on the J.B. Foster ranch, a task that we -today, would indicate
some form of supervision or authoritative role. But in reality and due the fact that he had leased the ramshackled ranch
and land, he worked alone tending the sheep on the property and temporarily lived in the lonely abode that had no
running water, electricity or telephone.

Brazel was originally from Lincoln, New Mexico but had moved, lived and reared his family in the little town of Tularosa,
near Alamogordo, around a hundred miles from the site of the incident. Occasionally, he would drive out and visit his
wife -Maggie and his son and daughter -Vernon and Betty -respectively, in Tularosa and only on a couple of occasions,
Vernon returned with his father and stayed on the ranch.

The town of Roswell is firmly welded into the UFO story and yet, the nearest community to the Foster property is
Corona, thirty miles away. Why Roswell was branded with the incident is never debated, but one may assume it was
due to the population differences and the fact that later-events occurred there.
More of a probability is that the town of Roswell has a newspaper.

There's also an irony that Bill Brazel's Uncle was Jesse Wayne Brazel, the man alleged to have shot Pat Garret, the
famed lawman in 1908. However, it seems history hadn't quite finished with Brazel lineage yet!

Mac Brazel is reported to have stated that after a thunderstorm sometime in June of 1947 -and electrical storms
are common in that region in Summer, he rode out to check on the sheep the next morning and found the scattered
debris near where the flock were grazing. He is also reported to have said the sheep were fearful of the material
and wouldn't go near it. Some accounts suggest Bill's son was with him.
(Jump weeks ahead here!)

The accepted narrative continues that after taking a couple of the strange scraps and some wool in order to sell in
Roswell, a trip where Brazel's family suddenly-appeared in the account and rode with him in his dilapidated vehicle
the seventy-five miles to where he showed Sheriff Wilcox the material.

The Army is contacted, the discarded crap is picked up and RAAF public information officer Walter Haut issues a
press release stating that personnel from the field's 509th Operations Group had recovered a "flying disc", which
had crashed on a ranch near Roswell.

Tuesday 8th July 1947.
"The many rumors regarding the flying disc became a reality yesterday when the intelligence office
of the 509th 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 Maj. Jesse A.
Marcel of the 509th Bomb 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."

After being flown out to Fort Worth Army Field, a Warrant Officer declares the 'disc that landed' is nothing more than
a balloon with an attached damaged scientific payload.
That's the official story and look, a squirrel!
...............................................

What's rarely said, are the facts. The Foster Ranch was eight miles away from it's nearest neighbour -the Proctors.
Floyd and Loretta Proctor were visited by Bill Brazel and told of the find. They supposedly advised him to tell the
authorities.
Sounds normal, but if the material was just a weather-balloon, would he really travel to the Proctors just to tell them
he couldn't burn the stuff or dent the foil-like substance with a hammer? Could there be another reason?

Another of those elusive facts is that Brazel actually discovered the debris on Saturday morning (5th July) and viewing
it, was accompanied by William D."Dee" Proctor, aged seven. Floyd and Lorretta's son.
That same day, Mac Brazel went to Corona to do some shopping in the afternoon, but there's no information that
the boy rode with him.

So it would make sense that the rancher -after finding the strewn material, took the young Dee Proctor back to his parents
on late-Saturday morning and mentioned the discovery. Then in the afternoon, he went to obtain his supplies in the nearest
town, Corona.

Not for the first time, Brazel dropped into the only bar in the small village -Wade's Bar and pool hall, and chatted to other
ranchers there. Listening to gossip regarding recent stories of UFOs in the Pacific Northwest, Arizona and nearby Williams,
Mac decides to visit the one place guaranteed to be open on a Sunday in Roswell.
The Sheriff's office.

But why...? Why suddenly feel the concern for cosmic security and with scraps of the stuff, drive all that way to tell Wilcox
what of he'd found -material that would finally be exposed as just a weather-balloon, and waste a perfectly-good Sunday?
I'm sure Maggie and the kids would be pissed!
Unless the debris was something he couldn't identify, something different from the other scientific balloons that came down
in that area over the years.

Another part of the narrative is that Brazel went to Roswell in order to sell wool. I've mentioned this before, but Mac didn't
sell his wool in town, the buyers who he contracted with came out to the ranch for the wool. However the mainstream media
like like to drag out the quote that Mac's son -Bill, has always said that if his father went to Roswell, it was possibly to purchase
a new or second-hand truck.

Trucks cost money and that was something Mac Brazel didn't have. Also, new Jeeps come from dealerships and there was no
dealership in Roswell or anywhere else until that year of 47. Would the small New Mexico town warrant such a new selling-point
that quick? Could a sheep rancher who leased land be able to afford a new off-road vehicle?

There's more, but the reality of whichever day that William Brazel came across the debris on his land has been altered and with
deliberate assistance from many authors and Reporters. Dates are changed back and forth and events moulded to fit.
But whatever the thin-face father of two found out there, did he believe he could trick everyone he knew that the material wasn't
a damaged weather-balloon?

Here's an example of what the media get up to. Note the date, 9th July... the Wednesday immediately after Brazel's supposed
visit to the Sheriff on Monday. Ignoring the title, the article speaks of Jesse Marcel's actions in his home and gives a description
of the material he was alleged to strewn across his kitchen floor.
Where did the Roswell Daily Chronicle get such time-sensitive information so quickly...? The full incident hadn't ended yet!

The word-smithing is obvious and construed to make the reader see that the finding was nothing more than a sun-dried, torn
and battered weather-balloon, a device with foil attached for climate-readings. Nothing to see here, folks.

But the final comment at the bottom of the article is poignant and Mac was correct to say it, the hassle was just too much
considering the shouting voices to the contrary. But it wasn't a weather balloon.

"Interview with Mac Brazel
Roswell Daily Chronicle, July 9, 1947..
W.W. Brazel, 48, Lincoln county rancher living 30 miles south east of Corona, today told his story of finding what the army
at first described as a flying disk, but the publicity which attended his find caused him to add that if he ever found anything
short of a bomb he sure wasn't going to say anything about it.

Brazel was brought here late yesterday by W.E. Whitmore, of radio station KGFL, had his picture taken and gave an interview
to the Record and Jason Kellahin, sent here from the Albuquerque bureau of the Associated Press to cover the story.
The picture he posed for was sent out over the AP telephoto wire sending machine specially set up in the Record office by R.
D. Adair, AP wire chief sent here for the sole purpose of getting out the picture and that of sheriff George Wilcox, to whom
Brazel originally gave the information of his find.

Brazel related that on June 14 he and 8-year-old son, Vernon were about 7 or 8 miles from the ranch house of the J.B. Foster
ranch, which he operates, when they came upon a large area of bright wreckage made up on rubber strips, tinfoil, a rather
tough paper and sticks.

At the time Brazel was in a hurry to get his round made and he did not pay much attention to it. But he did remark about what
he had seen and on July 4 he, his wife, Vernon, and a daughter Betty, age 14, went back to the spot and gathered up quite a
bit of the debris.

The next day he first heard about the flying disks, and he wondered if what he had found might be the remnants of one of these.
Monday he came to town to sell some wool and while here he went to see sheriff George Wilcox and "whispered kinda confidential
like" that he might have found a flying disk.

Wilcox got in touch with the Roswell Army Air Field and Maj. Jesse A. Marcel and a man in plain clothes accompanied him home,
where they picked up the rest of the pieces of the "disk" and went to his home to try to reconstruct it. According to Brazel they simply
could not reconstruct it at all. They tried to make a kite out of it, but could not do that and could not find any way to put it back together
so that it would fit.

Then Major Marcel brought it to Roswell and that was the last he heard of it until the story broke that he had found a flying disk.
Brazel said that he did not see it fall from the sky and did not see it before it was torn up, so he did not know the size or shape it
might have been, but he thought it might have been about as large as a table top.

The balloon which held it up, if that was how it worked, must have been about 12 feet long, he felt, measuring the distance by the size
of the room in which he sat. The rubber was smoky gray in color and scattered over an area about 200 yards in diameter.

When the debris was gathered up the tinfoil, paper, tape, and sticks made a bundle about three feet long and 7 or 8 inches thick, while
the rubber made a bundle about 18 or 20 inches long and about 8 inches thick. In all, he estimated, the entire lot would have weighed
maybe five pounds.

There was no sign of any metal in the area which might have been used for an engine and no sign of any propellers of any kind,
although at least one paper fin had been glued onto some of the tinfoil. There were no words to be found anywhere on the instrument,
although there were letters on some of the parts. Considerable scotch tape and some tape with flowers printed upon it had been used
in the construction.

No strings or wire were to be found but there were some eyelets in the paper to indicate that some sort of attachment may have been used.
Brazel said that he had previously found two weather balloons on the ranch, but that what he found this time did not in any way resemble
either of these.

"I am sure what I found was not any weather observation balloon," he said. "But if I find anything else besides a bomb they are going to
have a hard time getting me to say anything about it."..."

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