The article below was published in the newspaper The Gallup Independent, Gallup, New Mexico, USA, page 1, on July 9, 1947.
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FORT WORTH, Tex., July 9. UP -- An examination by the army revealed last night that mysterious object found on a lonely New Mexico ranch was a harmless high-altitude weather balloon - not a grounded flying disc.
Excitement was high until Brig. Gen. Ramey, commander of the Eighth Air Force with headquarters here cleared up the mystery.
The bundle of tinfoil, broken wood beams and rubber remnants of a balloon were sent here yesterday by army air transport in the wake of reports that it was a flying disc.
But the general said the objects were crushed remains of a ray wind [sic, Rawin] target used to determine the direction and velocity of winds at high altitudes.
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WARRANT officer Irving Newton, forecaster at the army air forces weather station here, said: "We use them because they go much higher than the eye cans see."
The weather balloon was found several days ago near the center of New Mexico by rancher W. W. Brazel. He sais he didn't think much about it until he went into Corona N. M. last Saturday and heard the flying disc reports.
He returned to his ranch, 85 miles northwest of Roswell, and recovered the wreckage of the balloon, which he had placed under some brush.
Then Brazel hurried back to Roswell, where he reported his find to the sheriff's office.
The sheriff called the Roswell air field and Maj. Jesse A. Marcel, 509th bomb group intelligence officer, was assigned to the case.
Col. William H. Blanchard, commanding officer of the bomb group, reported the find to General Ramey and the object was flown immediately to the army air field here.
Ramey went on to air here last night to announce the New Mexico discovery was not a flying disc.
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NEWTON SAID that when rigged up, the instrument "looks like a six-pointed star, is silvery in appearance and rises in the air like a kite."
In Roswell, the discovery set off a flurry of excitement.
Sheriff George Wilcox's telephone lines were jammed. Three calls came from England, one of them from the London Daily Mail, he said.
Brazel, the New Mexico rancher who was originally thought to have found the nation's first "flying disc" is sorry he said anything about it.
The 48-year-old New Mexican said he was amazed at the fuss made over his discovery.
