On the 3rd July 1947, William 'Mac' Brazel went out to check for storm damage in his fields after a heavy thunderstorm during the night. He discovered strange, unidentifible debris scattered over a large area. He collected samples of the material which he took back to his ranch and later showed it to his neighbours. Three days later, Brazel reported his find to George Wilcox, the Chaves country sheriff. Wilcox, in turn, contacted Roswell Army airfield. Major Jesse Marcel (base intelligence officer) and Sheridan Cavitt (counter intelligence officer) came out to investigate the strange find.

On the 8th July, the intelliegnce office of Roswell Army airfield realised a statement saying that it was in possession of the remians of a crashed flying saucer. The worlds media went crazy.

Before long, the debris site was sealed off, the pieces loaded into trucks and flown to Wright Field in Ohio for examination. Major Marcel was flown to Fort Worth in Texas for an eagerly awaited press conference. Amazingly, the Army broke the news that there had been a big mistake and that the debris found was that of a high altitude weather balloon. The thing that had fooled the investigators was the tinfoil radar target that was attached to the balloon.

Meanwhile, 150 miles West of the Brazel ranch, Grady Barnett, came across a metallic, disc-shaped craft about thirty feet in diameter. There were a number of bodies inside and outside the craft. While he was examining the wreckage, a small group of people, who introduced themselves as an archaeological research team from the University of Pennsylvania, arrived.