Page Content (OCR)
81 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 wires 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 observa- tion balloons on the ranch, but that what he found this time did not in any way resemble any of these [emphasis added]. "I am sure what I found was not any weather observation balloon," he said. "But if I find anything else beside a bomb they are going to have a hard time getting me to say anything about it." Firsthand witnesses agree that Brazel seemed "not himself" at the newspaper and when being escorted around town by military people. But even if he had been, his words should have raised a lot of eyebrows around Roswell, though they were given no exposure elsewhere. Mac makes clear that he was familiar with weather balloons and that what he found was not a weather balloon! He saw the wreckage on the ranch, while General Ramey and company did not. Who was better qualified to describe and identify it? Brazel also said there were no words on it, even though weather bal- loons are well marked with the owner's name and address so CIVILIANS FIND THE WRECKAGE