Roswell--Why did the Army even make a press release about a recovered disc?

a reply to: Arbitrageur
Who but a complete idiot would say that he found a debris field of small fragments of "indestructible" material?

I can't seem to find any quotes where Marcel Sr. Said this maybe at least I can't recall.

a reply to: MrParanoid


the roswell 'disc', or alien technology, or just plain Nazi 'Bell' secret technology had to be put into the public 'collective mind'

the Martians already attacked Earth back in the 1938 'War-of-the-worlds' drama on radio,,, so flying discs were already in the public mind... be they from Mars or from the Soviets (but not a surviving Nazi Power) so the 'Disc' craze was created & manipulated


only the governments knew for sure about Nazi flying saucers and a fortress in Antarctica... so all future public sightings of 'discs' had to have an already known reason or source that could never be pinned-down with evidence...

the NATO powers versus the communists, or the remnants of the 3rd Reich could only exist in a very nebulous reality of UFOs or Nordic-Aliens... but the USA was forced to rely on Superman & Captain America mythic heros

a reply to: Battlestation
Here you go. Marcel Sr. says in this clip that crash debris, including small fragments, were scattered over a vast area.

originally posted by: Battlestation
a reply to: Arbitrageur
Who but a complete idiot would say that he found a debris field of small fragments of "indestructible" material?

I can't seem to find any quotes where Marcel Sr. Said this maybe at least I can't recall.

You didn't look very hard, here you go:

roswellproof.homestead.com...

MAJOR JESSE MARCEL
(H&M, FUFOR, 1979 television interview) "[There were] many bits of metallic foil, that looked like, but was not, aluminum, for no matter how often one crumpled it, it regained its original shape again. Besides that, they were indestructible, even with a sledgehammer."

You can also hear his son further describe the pieces of this metal his father called "indestructible" as small pieces that appeared to have been "shredded" which to me is another word for destroyed. The son made no effort to test whether the pieces of the material were "destructible" or not (that he can recall), the "indestructible" was his father's idiotic claim.

Roswell Incident: Department of Defense Interviews - Jesse Marcel / Vern Maltais

Interviewer: These (metallic) pieces, what shape were they?
at 5 minutes Marcel Jr replies "Shredded, torn"

a reply to: Ectoplasm8

Going back to my original question, though, let's say what you posted is correct (I'm not here to debate what exactly crashed, just the press release). Why did the press release say "flying disc" without mention of the balloon? I mean, balloons have been around a very long time. Weather balloons are far from Top Secret. Why wouldn't the Army therefore include that a balloon was part of this craft at that time (and maybe leave out the "flying disc" part entirely)? If they originally wrote that it was a "flying disc attached to a balloon" no one would've cared in 1947 and perhaps the past 70 years of UFOlogy would've been rather moot.

By simply writing "flying disc," the reader has to conclude it was a self powered device, no matter if it's 1947 or 2017. It could just be bad writing/editing, but again, this seemingly made it through some sort of chain-of-command to be released. So why leave the most basic element of the report--the balloon--out?

a reply to: MrParanoid
The first newspaper report said "The intelligence office stated that no details of the saucer’s construction or its appearance had been revealed.", and when they did reveal more they mentioned the balloon. Of course we wouldn't learn of further details about the balloon until 1994.
benjaminkanarekblog.com...

If they originally wrote that it was a "flying disc attached to a balloon" no one would've cared in 1947 and perhaps the past 70 years of UFOlogy would've been rather moot.

They didn't mention balloon in the first article perhaps because they hadn't confirmed what it was and didn't want to say more about it, but they did mention the balloon later perhaps after confirming that's what it was, and it was moot for about 30 years.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

thanks also I prefer the initial witnesses I'm leaveing the son out of the equation. Still he is giving his recollection of the material. There is accounts of him saying the photos that were taken was not what he found. That's some pretty impressive tin foil

originally posted by: MrParanoid
a reply to: Ectoplasm8

Going back to my original question, though, let's say what you posted is correct (I'm not here to debate what exactly crashed, just the press release). Why did the press release say "flying disc" without mention of the balloon? I mean, balloons have been around a very long time. Weather balloons are far from Top Secret. Why wouldn't the Army therefore include that a balloon was part of this craft at that time (and maybe leave out the "flying disc" part entirely)? If they originally wrote that it was a "flying disc attached to a balloon" no one would've cared in 1947 and perhaps the past 70 years of UFOlogy would've been rather moot.

If you read the very first interview with Mac Brazel with the Roswell Daily Chronicle on July 9, 1947, he mentions the following:

when they came upon a large area of wreckage made up of rubber strips, tinfoil, a rather tough paper, and sticks.

Further in the interview:

but he thought it might have been about as large as a table top. The balloon which held it up, if that's how it worked, must have been 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.

Source
Source

So you have the very first witness only a month later describing rubber strips that were smoky gray. When tested, the same balloon material degraded to smoky gray in color when left in the sun. Exactly what Brazel described.

The debris would have been left in the sun on the ranch for a month before being discovered. You also notice in the interview that Brazel didn't see much significance with this "wreckage" until after hearing about a reward offered by new papers. Brazels motivation was money, not the highly unusual nature of the debris.

By simply writing "flying disc," the reader has to conclude it was a self powered device, no matter if it's 1947 or 2017. It could just be bad writing/editing, but again, this seemingly made it through some sort of chain-of-command to be released. So why leave the most basic element of the report--the balloon--out?

In the interview, Brazel mentions the lack of propulsion:

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 tinfoil.

A paper fin glued on tinfoil doesn't sound very... alien.

originally posted by: Battlestation
a reply to: Arbitrageur

thanks also I prefer the initial witnesses I'm leaveing the son out of the equation. Still he is giving his recollection of the material. There is accounts of him saying the photos that were taken was not what he found. That's some pretty impressive tin foil

The son IS an initial witness, having seen the debris shortly after his father collected it when his father was on his way to the base to deliver it, so the son saw that particular debris before general Ramey or any allegedly nefarious people on the base had a chance to make any substitutions, so if you're worried about substitutions I would think you would consider the son's account to be particularly important, instead of ignoring it. Anyway it really doesn't matter too much which witnesses you count or don't count, they all provide descriptions that are remarkably consistent with mogul balloon trains after you discount the obviously flawed embellishments such as claiming the metal that was torn to shreds was "indestructible".

Jesse Marcel Sr contradicted himself, alternately claiming on different occasions that the material he was photographed with in General Ramey's office both was and was not the actual debris collected, so how can you trust a witness that tells two completely opposite stories? You can't, and as Moore pointed out the Rawin targets were nowhere near Ramey's base and there was no time to fly one in as a substitute for the actual debris before the photos were taken, which lends credence to the version of the story that the debris photographed is the actual debris, matching one of the various versions of the story Marcel told.