The Roswell incident
The military first announced the recovery of a flying disc, then attributed the debris to a balloon. Later records connected it to Project Mogul, while the conflicting announcements made Roswell the defining case of the field.
Debris, a sheriff and a flying-disc headline
In early July 1947, rancher William Mac Brazel reported foil, rubber, tape and thin wooden beams scattered across a ranch near Corona, New Mexico. Chaves County sheriff George Wilcox contacted Roswell Army Air Field, and intelligence officer Major Jesse Marcel helped collect the material. On 8 July, the 509th Bomb Group announced that it had recovered a flying disc. Within hours, Brigadier General Roger Ramey presented balloon and radar-reflector debris to reporters and the Army withdrew the original claim.
Project Mogul and the making of a legend
The U.S. Air Force's 1994 report linked the debris to Project Mogul, a classified balloon programme designed to detect Soviet nuclear tests. Mogul Flight 4 launched from Alamogordo on 4 June and was lost near the ranch. The secrecy surrounding the programme, followed by the military's abrupt reversal, allowed later stories of a recovered craft and bodies to transform a brief debris recovery into the defining UFO case of the twentieth century.