Walter Haut, the public information officer of the Roswell Army Air Field, issued a press release saying that the military had recovered the remains of a ‘flying disc.’

On 14 June, J.B. Foster ranch foreman William Brazel found a ‘large area of bright wreckage made up of rubber strips, tinfoil, a rather tough paper and sticks’. Thinking little of it, he didn’t collect the debris until 4 July and only informed the local Sheriff on 7 July after hearing reports of ‘flying discs’.

Sheriff Wilcox immediately contacted Major Jesse Marcel at the Roswell Army Air Field. An officer from the base ...