On this day in 1947, Major Jesse Marcel and Captain Sheridan Cavitt visited the isolated ranch of Mac Brazel, to view debris from an aircraft that had crashed their in mid-June. The debris was collected and brought to Roswell Army Air Field in New Mexico, for further analysis. The following day, the Army issued a statement that they had recovered a “flying disc”. This report was quickly amended, claiming the object was a misidentified weather balloon.
