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Civilians Find the Wreckage T ALL BEGAN on the morning of Thursday, July 3, 1947, when two innocent people stumbled upon the remains of a crashed "flying disc" on a section of sheep ranch dotted with rocks, scrub bushes, and tough buffalo grass. William "Mac" Brazel, foreman of Foster Ranch, and his 7-year-old neighbor Dee Proc- tor were out checking for damage after the previous night's violent thunderstorm. Sometime during the previous evening, they had heard a "different" crash among the many claps of thunder. No damage to fences or windmills could be found, but something quite unexpected arrested their attention: a field full of bits and pieces of shiny material unlike anything the veteran rancher had ever seen. According to newspaper reports at the time, Mac gathered some of it up and hid it under a bush or in a shed. He kept a few pieces, one of which he took with him when he drove Dee the few miles back to the home of his parents, Floyd and Loretta Proctor, his nearest neighbors. The boy had been with Mac because he loved riding horses above all else, and this was what Mac did much of the time. In July 1990, Loretta Proctor was interviewed during a spe- 71