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145 mylar, no wooden sticks, no labels identifying it as the property of the U.S. Weather Bureau or some military weather service. It was just superlight, superstrong pieces of thin skin, of slender I beams, of parchmentlike substance, and of black plastic. To make this explanation worth considering seriously, one would have to accept that Mac Brazel was unable to recognize ordinary weather-balloon materials. Yet he stated that he knew what such balloons looked like, had recovered more than one, and was certain this was not such a device. He was not a stupid man, nor was Maj. Jesse Marcel or others who saw the wreckage at the crash site, or soon afterward when the first loads were brought to Roswell Army Air Field. If Major Marcel had been so naive that he failed to identify pieces of a simple, common weather balloon's reflector that was hardly worth a hurried trip to a remote sheep ranch on a Sunday afternoon, would he have been promoted shortly thereafter and given a much more important and sensitive job? There is always the possibility that what crashed on the Foster ranch and even at the Plains of San Agustin was connected to the test flight of a secret American airplane or missile. This would account for its not being recognized by Mac Brazel, and for the way the entire episode was hushed up. At any one time, secret vehicles are being tested in the wide open spaces of the West where the chances of their being seen accidentally are at a minimum. This was true in 1947 and it is certainly true today. But what was being tested in 1947 is not secret today. Either it met its requirements and was placed in production, or it failed in one or more ways and was sent to the scrap heap. Regardless, it would have been declassified and long since would have become common knowledge. By now, even if it had been totally successful, it would have been rendered obsolete by subsequent developments. Any remaining examples would probably be in museums. In 1947, the USAAF was very quietly testing the Bell XS-1 rocketplane (which would gain fame as ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATIONS FOR THE WRECKAGE AMERICAN SECRET WEAPON