Roswell and the Sci-Fi Channel
By Kevin Randle
FATE :: February 2003

Just about the time we begin to believe that we have found everything of value in the Roswell case, something new comes along and we have to reassess the information one more time. In recent weeks, there have been several new sources of information revealed, and each has provided us with clues about the truth surrounding what has become the most controversial of UFO cases. And there is something for everyone in all that new information, from corroboration suggesting that the crash was a real event and probably extraterrestrial, to proof that one of the important witnesses to the UFO crash was making up his story to center himself in the spotlight.

Probably the best source of new data is the Sci-Fi Channel's documentary, The Roswell Crash: Startling New Evidence, which began airing in late November 2002. The two-hour program covered some controversial old ground with new interviews and then broke away from that story in an attempt to bring some science to the UFO phenomenon. The documentary summarized what was best about the new information being developed and gave a balanced look into the Roswell case without tripping into the sensational. It was centered on the debris field which had been identified for me in 1989 by Bill Brazel, son of Mack Brazel, the man who found the debris in 1947. Later, in what would become an important bit of corroboration, Bud Payne would take me, along with several others, out to where he had seen the strange metallic debris in 1947. Payne said that he had been chased from the area by the military police. Payne's identification of the debris field corroborated the location provided by Bill Brazel.

Bill Brazel sat down with Don Schmitt and me in early 1989 to give us his impressions of what he had seen and what his father had told him. He made it clear that his father had promised the government not to talk about it and, according to Bill, he was the kind of man who lived up to his word. Bill only heard a couple of things, one of which was that the debris looked as if it had fallen out of the sky, and there was so much of it that the older Brazel wondered who was going to clean up the mess. That had been his motivation for going into Roswell and for telling the sheriff what he had found.

Later, after his father returned to the ranch, Bill learned a little about what had happened. Bill said that in the months that followed, when riding that part of the ranch, he would find small bits of strange metallic debris. He showed some of it to his father, who said it looked like part of the contraption he had found.

In 1989, Bill Brazel described that material for Schmitt and me. If Brazel's description of the material is accurate, then terrestrial explanations fall away. He told Schmitt and me, "There were three items involved. Something on the order of balsa wood, and something on the order of heavy gauge monofilament fishing line and a little piece of...it wasn't really aluminum foil and it really wasn't lead foil but it was on that order." While the descriptions sound vaguely familiar, Brazel quickly moved them out of that area telling us that the "balsa wood" was so strong that he could not cut it with his knife. The fishing line was more like fiber optics. Brazel mentioned that he could shine a light in one end and it came out the other.

It was the foil that had the most otherworldly properties. According to Brazel, he could roll it into a ball and let go of it. It would return to its original shape. He suggested that when he folded it into a tiny square, it would unfold itself and there would be no sign of a wrinkle or a crease.

Brazel showed that debris to others, including neighbor Sallye Tadolini. In an affidavit she completed for the Fund for UFO Research, she said, "It felt like no fabric I have touched before or since...when I crumpled it in my hands, the feel was like that you notice when you crumple a leather glove. When it was released, it sprang back into its original shape, quickly flattening out with no wrinkles."

Brazel told us that sometime later, he was visited by four Air Force officers and enlisted men. He said that they weren't there to confiscate the debris, but they made it clear they weren't going to leave without it. He surrendered it to them, but not before telling them it was like nothing he had ever seen ...

Read the rest of this article in the February 2003 issue of FATE

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