The article below was published in the newspaper Amarillo Daily News, Amarillo, Texas, USA, pages 1,12, on July 9, 1947.
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FORT WORTH, July 8 (AP) -- An object found near Roswell, N.M. which created a storm of speculation today, that it might be one of the mysterious "flying disks" or "saucers" was a weather balloon and its kite, the Eight Air Force announced tonight.
The announcement was made by Brig. Gen. Roger M. Ramey, commander of the Eighth Air Force with headquarters at Fort Worth.
The object was flown from Roswell to Fort Worth by the air force where it was identified by Warrant Officer Irving Newton of Medford, Wis., of the base weather station.
General Ramey said that several of the balloons were released daily according to changes in the weather.
Suspended from the balloons are kites or six-sided stars, covered with a shiny material such as tinfoil. These objects are traced by radar and computations from the radar reveals air currents.
The object found in New Mexico was badly damaged.
The balloons measure 50 inches across but expanded greatly as they ascend, air force officers reported. They sometimes reach 60.000 feet. The kites and stars generally are more than five feet in diameter.
The balloon and the object it carries are technically known as ray wind [sic, "Rawin"] high altitude sounding device, popularly known as "weather radar target."
General Ramey said the object found in New Mexico definitely was a United States army device.
Plans to fly the object to Wright Field for further investigation were canceled.
A public relations officer said it was in his office, "and it'll probably stay right there."
Gen. Ramey spoke over a local radio station (WBAP) tonight after the Eighth Air Force headquarters was flooded with queries concerning the object.
In his broadcast, he said that anyone who found an object he believed to be a "flying disk" should contact the nearest army office or sheriff's office.
Later, he said that the weather device could be mistaken for almost anything when see[n] in the air.
"I don't say these devices are what people have called disks," he said. "There is no such gadget (as the disk) known to the army - at least this far down the line."
Warrant Officer Newton said there were some 80 weather stations in the United States using this type of balloon.
"We use them because they can go so much higher than the eye can see," Newton explained. A radar set
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is employed to follow the balloon and through a process of triangulation the winds aloft are charted, he added.
When rigged up, Newton stated, the object looks like a six-pointed star, is silvery in appearance, and rises in the air like a kite, mounted on a 100-gram balloon.
It had been found three weeks previously by New Mexican rancher, W. W. Brazel, on his property about 85 miles northwest of Roswell. Brazel, whose ranch is 30 miles from the nearest telephone and has no radio, knew nothing about flying discs when he found the broken remains of the weather device scattered over a square mile of his land.
He bundled the tinfoil and broken wooden beams of the kite and the torn synthetic rubber remains of the balloon together and rolled it under some brush, according to Maj. Jesse A. Marcel, Houma, La., 209th Bomb Group intelligence office at Roswell, who took the device to Fort Worth.
On a trip to town at Corona, N. M., Saturday night, Brazel heard the first reference in the "silver" flying discs, Major Marcel related.
Brazel hurtled home, dug up the remnants of the kite and balloon on Sunday and Monday headed to the sheriff's office.
This resulted in a call to Roswell Army Air Field and to Major Marcel's being assigned to the case. Marcel and Brazel journeyed back to the ranch, where Marcel took the object into the custody of the Army.
After Col. William Blanchard, 509th commanding officer, reported the incident to General Ramey, he was ordered to dispatch the object to Fort Worth Army Air Field immediately.
After the first look, word broke from Roswell that a flying disc finally had been found.
After his first look, Ramey declared all it was, was a weather balloon, The weather officer verified his view.
