The article below was published in the newspaper Longview News-Journal, Longview, Texas, USA, page 1, on July 9, 1947.
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By ASSOCIATED PRESS
FORT WORTH, July 9. (UP) -- An examination by the army revealed last night that a mysterious object found on a lonely New Mexico ranch was a harmless high-altitude weather balloon - not a grounded flying disc.
Excitement was high in disc-conscious Texas until Brig. Gen. R. M. Ramey, commander of the 8th air forces with headquarters here, cleared up the mystery.
The bundle of tinfoil, broken wood beams and rubber remnants of a balloon was 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 the crushed remains of a ray wind target used to determine the direction and the velocity of winds at high altitude.
Warrant Officer I. Newton, forecaster at the army air forces weather station here, said "we use them because they go much higher than the eye can see."
The weather balloon was found several days ago in a desolate section of New Mexico by a rancher, W. W. Brazel. He said he didn't think much about it until he went into Corona, N. M., last Saturday and heard the flying discs 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.
Brazill [sic, Brazel] hurried back to Roswell, where he reported his find to the sheriff's office.
Texas today was becoming disk-gusted with the reports of the flying disks.
But one good thing about the disks is that they're well behaved - they're seen but not heard.
But like clouds - they stay in the air.
They were seen again last night. Five were reported spotted over Wichita Falls. Three were seen by J. B. Bently, a carpenter. He said they were speeding "as fast as an airplane." Two boys said they saw two others.
One that J. M. Mings said he saw over Big Sandy in the southern part of Upahur county was endowed with helicopter qualities.
It stopped dead still, Mings said, while its running mate caught up with it.
Then, said Mings in a telephoen report with the Dallas Morning News, the pair darted off together.
Night baseball games were interrupted at Henderson and Kilgers when fans rushed to the top of the stand to look for "disks."
But the mystery was soon cleared up.
The lights in the sky turned out to be the reflections of the two powerful revolving searchlights in Tele[...]
Carl Estes, publisher of the Longview News, said the lights used to publicize the opening of a new store in Tyler, struck the low-hanging clouds, givin the illusion of "disks".
[Photo caption:] Major Jesse A. Marcel, of Houma, La., intelligence officer of the 509th Bomb Group at roswell, New MExico, inspects what was identified by a Fort Worth, Texas, Army Air Base weather forecaster as a ray wind [sic, Rawin] target used to determine the direction and velocity of winds at high altitudes. (AP Wirephoto).
