Roswell Crash Timeline

Wilmot, who is one of the most respected and reliable citizens in town, kept the story to himself hoping that someone else would come out and tell about having seen one, but finally today decided that he would go ahead and tell about it. The announcement that the RAAF was in possession of one came only a few minutes after he decided to release the details of what he had seen.

(2) My address is: XXXXXXXXXX

(3) I am employed as: __________________________________. ( ) I am retired (4) In 1947, I was 12 years old [corrected to 14 years old] and living with my family on our farm, located 3 miles south of Roswell, New Mexico, and east of what was then Roswell Army Air Field. I still live on that farm.

(5) One hot night during the summer of 1947, probably in early July, my father and I were outside on the farm. It was well after sundown and quite dark. Suddenly, the sky lit up. When we looked up to see where the light was coming from, we saw a large, very bright object in the southwestern sky, moving rapidly northward.

(6) The object had the bright white intensity of a blow torch, and had a long, flame-like tail, with colors like a blow-torch flame fading down into a pale red. Most of the tail was this pale red color. The tail was very long, equal to about 10 diameters of a full moon.

(7) We watched the object travel all the way across the sky until it disappeared below the northern horizon. It was moving fast, but not as fast as a meteor, and we had it in view for what seemed like 20 to 30 seconds. Its brightness and colors did not change during the whole time, and it definitely went out of sight below the horizon, rather than winking out like a meteor does. My father thought it was a big meteorite and was convinced it had fallen to earth about 40 miles north of Roswell, probably just southwest of the intersection of U.S. Highway 285 and the Corona road (State Highway 247).

[This part omitted, as we get into other days of the timeline...I'll include these parts of his testimony, but one can visit the link if they wish to read all of it at this time. I am omitting it now to avoid confusing the timeline of events]

(13) I have not been paid or given or promised anything of value to make this statement, which is the truth to the best of my recollection.

Signed: William M. Woody 9-28-93

Signature witnessed by: Tracy L. Callaway 9.28.93

Just as interesting as what he found was what Randle didn't find. The archive included all of Holden's income tax records for all the years from the 1930s through the 1970s - except for one year, 1947! Income tax records can reveal much about a person's lifestyle, contacts and associates, and activities during the course of a year. The archivist thought it was odd that only one year was missing but could offer no explanation other than "the family still controls what goes into and what comes out of the collection." During one conversation with the archivist, I noticed that his voice was lower than usual and asked him if he felt uncomfortable talking about Curry Holden for some reason. He answered: "Yes, Mrs. Holden is sitting twenty feet away." We had in hand enough circumstantial information to suggest that Holden could have been where Schultz said he was on that fateful day, but nothing definite.

(R&S2, Paperback edition, affidavit 11/22/93): "In early July 1947, I was in the fire house waiting for my father to take me home. A State Trooper arrived and displayed a piece of metallic debris that he said he'd picked up on the crash site. It was a dull gray and about the thickness of aluminum foil. When wadded into a ball, it would unfold itself. The fire fighters were unable to cut or burn it."

(Pflock) [As she waited, a state police officer came in and said he wanted to show the firemen something.] "He took his hand out of his pocket and he dropped what he had in his fist on the table. He said it was something he picked up out at the crash site. It looked like quicksilver when it was on the table, but you could wad it up. [It was] a little larger than . . . [his] hand. It had jagged edges" [and it was a dull grayish-silver color.] "You couldn't feel it in your hand. It was so thin that it felt like holding a hair . . . It wasn't anything you'd ever seen before. It flowed like quicksilver when you laid it on the table. [The firemen and the trooper] tried to tear it, cut it and burn it. It wadded up into nothing. The state cop said he'd gotten away with just this one small piece, and he said he didn't know how long he'd be able to keep it, if the military found out."

AFFIDAVIT of William M. Woody

(1) My name is William M. Woody (2) My address is: XXXXXXXXXX

(3) I am employed as: __________________________________. ( ) I am retired (4) In 1947, I was 12 years old [corrected to 14 years old] and living with my family on our farm, located 3 miles south of Roswell, New Mexico, and east of what was then Roswell Army Air Field. I still live on that farm.

(5) One hot night during the summer of 1947, probably in early July, my father and I were outside on the farm. It was well after sundown and quite dark. Suddenly, the sky lit up. When we looked up to see where the light was coming from, we saw a large, very bright object in the southwestern sky, moving rapidly northward.

(6) The object had the bright white intensity of a blow torch, and had a long, flame-like tail, with colors like a blow-torch flame fading down into a pale red. Most of the tail was this pale red color. The tail was very long, equal to about 10 diameters of a full moon.

(7) We watched the object travel all the way across the sky until it disappeared below the northern horizon. It was moving fast, but not as fast as a meteor, and we had it in view for what seemed like 20 to 30 seconds. Its brightness and colors did not change during the whole time, and it definitely went out of sight below the horizon, rather than winking out like a meteor does. My father thought it was a big meteorite and was convinced it had fallen to earth about 40 miles north of Roswell, probably just southwest of the intersection of U.S. Highway 285 and the Corona road (State Highway 247). [NOTE: Compare this to the map showing the crash sites, looking at Site 2]

(8) My father knew the territory, all its roads, and many of the people very well, so two or three days later (definitely not the next day), he decided to look for the object. He took me with him in our old flatbed truck. We headed north through Roswell on U.S. 285. About 19 miles north of town, where the highway crosses the Macho Draw, we saw at least one uniformed soldier stationed beside the road. As we drove along, we saw more sentries and Army vehicles. They were stationed at all places -- ranch roads, crossroads, etc.--where there was access to leave the highway and drive east or west, and they were armed, some with rifles, others with sidearms. I do not remember seeing any military activity on the ranchland beyond the highway right of way.

(9) We stopped at one sentry post, and my father asked a soldier what was going on. The soldier, who's attitude was very nice, just said his orders were not to let anyone leave 285 and go into the countryside.

(10) As we drove north, we saw that the Corona road (State 247), which runs west from Highway 285, was blocked by soldiers. We went on as far as Ramon, about nine miles north of the 247 intersection. There were sentries there, too. At Ramon we turned around and head south and home.

(11) I remember my father saying he thought the Army was looking for something it had tracked on its way down. He may have gotten this from the soldier he spoke with during our drive up 285, but I am not sure.

(12) I also recall that two neighbors, both now dead, stopped by and told my father they had seen the same object we had seen. One said others in his family had seen it too. There were many rumors about flying saucers that summer, and I recall the weather balloon story, explaining away the report of a flying saucer crash near Corona. This seemed reasonable to us at the time.

(13) I have not been paid or given or promised anything of value to make this statement, which is the truth to the best of my recollection.

Signed: William M. Woody 9-28-93

Signature witnessed by: Tracy L. Callaway 9.28.93

(1) My name is Glenn Dennis

(2) My address is: XXXXXXXXXX

(3) I am ( ) employed as: __________________________________ ( ) retured,

(4) In July 1947, I was a mortician, working for the Ballard Funeral Home in Roswell, which had a contract to provide mortuary services for the Roswell Army Air Field. One afternoon, [EDIT: from the research, it appears this was on July 5th. Though I’ve seen later dates claimed, this is what is corroborated by other testimony, as well as the events themselves] around 1:15 or 1:30, I received a call from the base mortuary officer who asked what was the smallest size hermetically sealed casket that we had in stock. He said, "We need to know this in case something comes up in the future." He asked how long it would take to get one, and I assured him I could get one for him the following day. He said he would call back if they needed one.

(5) About 45 minutes to an hour later, he called back and asked me to describe the preparation for bodies that had been lying out on the desert for a period of time. Before I could answer, he said he specifically wanted to know what effect the preparation procedures would have on the body's chemical compounds, blood and tissues. I explained that our chemicals were mainly strong solutions of formaldehyde and water, and that the procedure would probably alter the body's chemical composition. I offered to come out to the base to assist with any problem he might have, but he reiterated that the information was for future use. I suggested that if he had such a situation that I would try to freeze the body in dry ice for storage and transportation.

(6) Approximately an hour or an hour and 15 minutes later, I got a call to transport a serviceman who had a laceration on his head and perhaps a fractured nose. I gave him first aid and drove him out to the base. I got there around 5:00 PM.

(7) Although I was a civilian, I usually had free access on the base because they knew me. I drove the ambulance around to the back of the base infirmary and parked it next to another ambulance. The door was open and inside I saw some wreckage. There were several pieces which looked like the bottom of a canoe, about three feet in length. It resembled stainless steel with a purple hue, as if it had been exposed to high temperature. There was some strange-looking writing on the material resembling Egyptian hieroglyphics. Also there were two MPs present.

(8) I checked the airman in and went to the staff lounge to have a Coke. I intended to look for a nurse, a 2nd Lieutenant, who had been commissioned about three months earlier right out of college. She was 23 years of age at the time (I was 22). I saw her coming out of one of the examining rooms with a cloth over her mouth. She said, "My gosh, get out of here or you're going to be in a lot of trouble." She went into another door where a Captain stood. He asked me who I was and what I was doing here. I told him, and he instructed me to stay there. I said, "It looks like you've got a crash; would you like me to get ready?" He told me to stay right there. Then two MPs came up and began to escort me out of the infirmary. They said they had orders to follow me out to the funeral home.

(9) We got about 10 or 15 feet when I heard a voice say, "We're not through with that SOB. Bring him back." There was another Captain, a redhead with the meanest-looking eyes I had ever seen, who said, "You did not see anything, there was no crash here, and if you say anything you could get into a lot of trouble." I said, "Hey look mister, I'm a civilian and you can't do a damn thing to me." He said, "Yes we can; somebody will be picking your bones out of the sand." There was a black Sergeant with a pad in his hand who said, "He would make good dog food for our dogs." The Captain said, "Get the SOB out." The MPs followed me back to the funeral home.

(10) The next day [Sunday, July 6th], I tried to call the nurse to see what was going on. About 11:00 AM, she called the funeral home and said, "I need to talk to you." We agreed to meet at the officers club. She was very upset. She said, "Before I talk to you, you have to give me a sacred oath that you will never mention my name, because I could get into a lot of trouble." I agreed. [Later said to be identified as Naomi Self, but this seems impossible to verify]

(11) She said she had gone to get supplies in a room where two doctors were performing a preliminary autopsy. The doctors said they needed her to take notes during the procedure. She said she had never smelled anything so horrible in her life, and the sight was the most gruesome she had ever seen. She said, "This was something no one has ever seen." As she spoke, I was concerned that she might go into shock.

(12) She drew me a diagram of the bodies, including an arm with a hand that had only four fingers; the doctors noted that on the end of the fingers were little pads resembling suction cups. She said the head was disproportionately large for the body; the eyes were deeply set; the skulls were flexible; the nose was concave with only two orifices; the mouth was a fine slit, and the doctors said there was heavy cartilage instead of teeth. The ears were only small orifices with flaps. They had no hair, and the skin was black--perhaps due to exposure in the sun. She gave me the drawings.

(13) There were three bodies; two were very mangled and dismembered, as if destroyed by predators; one was fairly intact. They were three-and-a-half to four feet tall. She told me the doctors said: "This isn't anything we've ever see before; there's nothing in the medical textbooks like this." She said she and the doctors became ill. They had to turn off the air conditioning and were afraid the smell would go through the hospital. They had to move the operation to an airplane hangar.

(14) I drove her back to the officers' barracks. The next day [Monday, July 7th] I called the hospital to see how she was, and they said she wasn't available. I tried to get her for several days, and finally got one of the nurses who said the Lieutenant had been transferred out with some other personnel. About 10 days to two weeks later, I got a letter from her with an APO number. She indicated we could discuss the incident by letter in the future. I wrote back to her and about two weeks later the letter came back marked "Return to Sender--DECEASED." Later, one of the nurses at the base said the rumor was that she and five other nurses had been on a training mission and had been killed in a plane crash.

(15) Sheriff George Wilcox and my father were very close friends. The Sheriff went to my folks' house the morning after the events at the base and said to my father, "I don't know what kind of trouble Glenn's in, but you tell your son that he doesn't know anything and hasn't seen anything at the base." He added, "They want you and your wife's name, and they want your and your children's addresses." My father immediately drove to the funeral home and asked me what kind of trouble I was in. He related the conversation with Sheriff Wilcox, and so I told him about the events of the previous day. He is the only person to whom I have told this story until recently.

(16) I had filed away the sketches the nurse gave me that day. Recently, at the request of a researcher, I tried to locate my personal files at the funeral home, but they had all been destroyed.

(17) I have not been paid or given anything of value to make this statement, which is the truth to the best of my recollection.

Signed: Glenn Dennis Date: 8-7-91

Signature witnessed by: Walter G. Haut [NOTE : Yes, the press officer for the RAAF]

(11) She said she had gone to get supplies in a room where two doctors were performing a preliminary autopsy. The doctors said they needed her to take notes during the procedure. She said she had never smelled anything so horrible in her life, and the sight was the most gruesome she had ever seen. She said, "This was something no one has ever seen." As she spoke, I was concerned that she might go into shock.

(12) She drew me a diagram of the bodies, including an arm with a hand that had only four fingers; the doctors noted that on the end of the fingers were little pads resembling suction cups. She said the head was disproportionately large for the body; the eyes were deeply set; the skulls were flexible; the nose was concave with only two orifices; the mouth was a fine slit, and the doctors said there was heavy cartilage instead of teeth. The ears were only small orifices with flaps. They had no hair, and the skin was black--perhaps due to exposure in the sun. She gave me the drawings.

(13) There were three bodies; two were very mangled and dismembered, as if destroyed by predators; one was fairly intact. They were three-and-a-half to four feet tall. She told me the doctors said: "This isn't anything we've ever see before; there's nothing in the medical textbooks like this." She said she and the doctors became ill. They had to turn off the air conditioning and were afraid the smell would go through the hospital. They had to move the operation to an airplane hangar.

(9) We stopped at one sentry post, and my father asked a soldier what was going on. The soldier, who's attitude was very nice, just said his orders were not to let anyone leave 285 and go into the countryside.

(10) As we drove north, we saw that the Corona road (State 247), which runs west from Highway 285, was blocked by soldiers. We went on as far as Ramon, about nine miles north of the 247 intersection. There were sentries there, too. At Ramon we turned around and head south and home.

(11) I remember my father saying he thought the Army was looking for something it had tracked on its way down. He may have gotten this from the soldier he spoke with during our drive up 285, but I am not sure.

Dubose's story of this shipment is briefly alluded to in the Air Force report in their Attachment 32. But instead they attribute it to "crashed disc proponents" instead of one of their own generals.

(6) After the plane from Roswell arrived with the material, I asked the Base Commander, Col. Al Clark, to take possession of the material and to personally transport it in a B-26 to Maj. Gen. McMullen in Washington, D.C. I notified Maj. Gen. McMullen, and he told me he would send the material by personal courier on his plane to Benjamin Chidlaw, Commanding General of the Air Material Command at Wright Field [later Wright Patterson AFB]. The entire operation was conducted under the strictest secrecy.

Dubose said he met the flight from Roswell early that night. The debris was in a sealed, opaque bag attached to the courier's wrist. The bag of debris was transferred to another plane and to the Fort Worth AAF commanding officer, Col. Alvin Clark, who acted as the new courier. This flight then headed to Washington.

Dubose added that McMullen later told him that the debris was then forwarded to Wright Field, Ohio, on McMullen's personal plane. Wright Field was the home of the AAF's aeronautical labs, which would have been a suitable place to have the debris analyzed. Dubose said he was also told the matter went straight to the White House.

They came out on the side of a hill. In front of them was a shallow, narrow valley with a rounded, rocky area at one end. The other end opened gradually until it was nothing more than a pasture sloping down into another, bigger valley. "The gouge started up there and moved down in that direction," said Brazel. He described the gouge as running from the northwest to the southeast. It looked as if the thing had hit and bounced, scattering debris in the field. The gouge wasn't very deep but was about ten feet wide in places. The whole thing was about five hundred feet long. – Bill Brazel Jr., interviews with Randle and Schmidt.

George "Jud" Roberts, minority owner of the station, later said, "They hid him out at Whit's [Walt Whitmore Sr.'s] house. Kept him there overnight." The KGFL staff made a wire recording of their Q&A with the rancher, but because KGFL had already signed off for the day they planned to break the full story the next morning.

(2) My address is: XXXXXXXXXX

(3) I am employed as: _________________________________ (X)I am retired: 9/30/77 from State of California, Dept. Parks & Recreation

(4) In 1947, worked at KOAT Radio in Albuquerque, New Mexico. My duties included operating the station's teletype machine, which received news and allowed us to send stories to the ABC and Mutual networks, with which KOAT was affiliated.

(5) In early July 1947, I received a call from John McBoyle, general manager and part-owner of KSWS Radio in Roswell, New Mexico, which was associated with KOAT. I do not remember the exact date, but it definitely was a weekday (I never worked weekends) and almost certainly after the Fourth of July. The call came in before noon. (from all sources, this is July 7, 1947)

(6) McBoyle said he had something hot for the network. I asked Karl Lambertz, our program director and acting manager (KOAT owner and manager Merle Tucker was out of town), to be present in my office while I took the story from McBoyle and put it on the teletype. Using the teletype, I alerted ABC News headquarters in Hollywood to expect an important story, and Mr. Lambertz stood behind me while I typed.

(7) To the best of my recollection, McBoyle said, "There's been one of these flying saucer things crash down here north of Roswell." He said he had been in a coffee shop on his morning break when a local rancher, "Mac" Brazel, came in and said he had discovered the object some time ago while he was out riding on the range, and that he had towed it in and stored it underneath a shelter on his property. Brazel offered to take McBoyle to the ranch to see the object. McBoyle described it as "a big crumpled dishpan."

(8) As I typed McBoyle's story, a bell rang on the teletype, indicating an interruption. The machine then printed a message something to this effect: "THIS IS THE FBI. YOU WILL IMMEDIATELY CEASE ALL COMMUNICATION." Whatever the precise words were, I definitely remember the message was from the FBI and that it directed me to stop transmitting. I told McBoyle the teletype had been cut off and took the rest of his story in shorthand, but we never put it on the wire because we had been scooped by the papers.

(9) I never again discussed the matter with McBoyle, but the next day, he told Mr. Lambertz the military had isolated the area where the saucer was found and was keeping the press out. He told Lambertz he saw planes come in from Wright Field, Ohio, to take the thing away. He also said they claimed they were going to take it to one place, but the planes went to another. Either they were supposed to have gone to Texas but went to Wright Field or vice versa.

(10) I have not been paid or given anything of value to make this statement, and it is the truth to the best of my recollection.

Signed: Lydia A. Sleppy Date: 9-14-93

Signature witnessed by: Ada A Somers

(9) We stopped at one sentry post, and my father asked a soldier what was going on. The soldier, who's attitude was very nice, just said his orders were not to let anyone leave 285 and go into the countryside.

(10) As we drove north, we saw that the Corona road (State 247), which runs west from Highway 285, was blocked by soldiers. We went on as far as Ramon, about nine miles north of the 247 intersection. There were sentries there, too. At Ramon we turned around and head south and home.

(11) I remember my father saying he thought the Army was looking for something it had tracked on its way down. He may have gotten this from the soldier he spoke with during our drive up 285, but I am not sure.

(12) I also recall that two neighbors, both now dead, stopped by and told my father they had seen the same object we had seen. One said others in his family had seen it too. There were many rumors about flying saucers that summer, and I recall the weather balloon story, explaining away the report of a flying saucer crash near Corona. This seemed reasonable to us at the time.

(9) About three or four months after the event, when we were a bit more "relaxed" than usual, I tried again. Blanchard reluctantly admitted he had authorized the press release. Then, as best I remember, he said, "I will tell you this and nothing more. The stuff I saw, I've never seen anyplace else in my life." That was all he would say, and he never told me anything else about the matter.

"The MP's, four or five in the first group, were close to the gouge. There were 25 or 30 others scattered around the perimeter. The Provost Marshall didn't want anyone just wandering up on it." – Master Sergeant Lewis Rickett, Randle and Schmidt interview.

(2) My address is: XXXXXXXXXX

(3) I am employed as: __________________________________,( ) retired

(4) In July 1947, I was editor of the Roswell Morning Dispatch, one of the two newspapers here at the time. In 1948, I left the paper to become public relations director of the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association and later joined U.S. Stell as director of media relations. About eleven years ago I returned to Roswell after retiring as senior vice president for corporate relations at International Harvester.

(5) Just before noon one day early in July 1947, Walter Haut, the public relations officer at Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF), brought a press release to me in the Dispatch office. The release said a crashed flying saucer had been found, taken to RAAF, and sent on to another base.

(6) Haut had been to the two local radio stations, KGFL and KSWS, before coming to the Dispatch, so I gave him a bad time about that. Haut said the base policy was to rotate who got releases first to make sure everyone got a fair shake. We were a morning paper, so our edition for that day had long since hit the street, but I was disappointed at not being able to break the story on the Associated Press wire. George Walsh, the program manager at KSWS, had already moved the story on AP.

(7) Not long after Haut left, a call came from RAAF. The caller said the release was incorrect, that what had been though to be the wreckage of a flying saucer was actually the remains of a radiosonde balloon. However, the AP wire story had gotten the world's attention. I spent the rest of the afternoon taking long distance calls from overseas news editors. I remember calls from Rome, London, Paris, and Hong Kong.

(8) Colonel William H. ("Butch") Blanchard, commander of RAAF and its 509th Bomb Group, was a good friend of mine. We often got together for a drink and off the record discussions of base-town relations and the like. After the flying saucer incident, I tried several times to get Blanchard to tell me the real story, but he repeatedly refused to talk about it.

(9) About three or four months after the event, when we were a bit more "relaxed" than usual, I tried again. Blanchard reluctantly admitted he had authorized the press release. Then, as best I remember, he said, "I will tell you this and nothing more. The stuff I saw, I've never seen anyplace else in my life." That was all he would say, and he never told me anything else about the matter.

(10) I have not been paid or given anything of value to make this statement, and it is the truth to the best of my recollection.

Signed: Arthur R. McQuiddy Oct. 19, 1993

Signature witnessed by: Charlotte Y. Gipson, 10-19-93