ABC_News_July8

Taylor Grant: Headline Edition, July 8th, 1947. The Army Air Forces has announced that a flying disk has been found and is now in the possession of the Army. Army officers say the missile, found sometime last week, has been inspected at Roswell, New Mexico, and sent to Wright Field, Ohio, for further inspection. (commercial break)

[The American Broadcasting Company and affiliated stations presents Headline Edition with Taylor Grant... Today's edition presents a roundup of the latest developments in the finding of a flying disk......To stay in step with history in the making, stay tuned to Headline Edition. And now here's Taylor Grant.]

Late this afternoon a bulletin from New Mexico suggested that the widely publicized mystery of the flying saucers may soon be solved. Army Air Force officers reported that one of the strange disks had been found and inspected sometime last week. Our correspondents in Los Angeles and Chicago have been in contact with army officials endeavoring to obtain all possible late information. Joe Wilson reports to us now from Chicago.

Joe Wilson: The Army may be getting to the bottom of all this talk about the so-called flying saucer. As a matter of fact, the five hundred and ninth atomic bomb group headquarters at Roswell, New Mexico, reports that it has received one of the disks, which landed on a ranch outside Roswell. The disk landed at a ranch at Corona, New Mexico, and the rancher turned it over to the Air Force. Rancher W. W. Brizelle [sic] was the man who discovered the saucer. Colonel William Blanchard of the Roswell air base refuses to give details of what the flying disk looks like.

In Fort Worth, Texas, where the object was first sent, Brigadier General Roger Ramey says that it is being shipped by air to the AAF research center at Wright Field, Ohio.

A few moments ago, I talked to officials at Wright Field, and they declared that they expect the so-called flying saucer to be delivered there, but that it hasn't arrived as yet.

In the meantime, General Ramey described the object as being of flimsy construction, almost like a box kite. He says that it was so battered that he was unable to determine whether it had a disk form, and he does not indicate its size. Ramey says that so far as can be determined, no one saw the object in the air, and he describes it as being made of some sort of tinfoil. Other army officials say that further information indicates that the object had a diameter of about twenty to twenty-five feet, and nothing in the apparent construction indicated any capacity for speed, and there was no evidence of a power plant. The disk also appeared too flimsy to carry a man. Now back to Taylor Grant in New York.

Comments

This program must have been pre-recorded several hours earlier in the evening for later broadcast. 10:00 p.m. EDT in New York was 4-1/2 hours after the story first broke, yet statements in the story are similar to those in some of the western papers that carried the story up through about its first 1-1/2 hours. Missing, e.g., is the official announcement 3 hours later that the object had been definitively identified as a weather balloon by a Fort Worth weather officer. Also missing is Ramey going on the radio 3-1/2 to 4 hours later to announce the same thing. Overall, the coverage is very similar to that found in earlier Associated Press accounts.

The AP at 6:53 p.m. EDT had General Ramey quoted as saying the "disk" had been shipped to Wright Field. This is pretty much where this ABC account ends the story.

The next two sections are basically a summary of the initial Roswell base press release.

Again, here is Ramey's cited statement from a 6:53 EDT AP bulletin. The AP bulletin was datelined Washington and is probably a statement given newsmen by the Pentagon.

** This is the only original material in this broadcast. Wright Field confirmed that they expected shipment from Fort Worth. The time when they were contacted by the reporter is not specified, but probably was very soon after the Wright Field shipment was first announced. The Dallas FBI telegram also says the "disc" was being shipped to Wright Field.

This is identical to other accounts of Ramey's supposed comments to the Pentagon by phone. ABC News probably did not speak to Ramey, but is reporting the standard Pentagon press release of what he said.

The weird 20-25 foot diameter size shows up again, attributed here to "other army officials." The Washington Post claimed Ramey said it after supposedly going to take a look at the debris. The rest of the description was also attributed to Ramey in some stories.