--- title: UFOs and Aliens in Roswell, New Mexico: Read the Original Report description: This was the first public news of the strange happenings of July 7, 1947 canonical: https://time.com/3916193/roswell-history/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-07-07T11:00:28.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T08:05:29.369Z article:section: History og:title: UFOs and Aliens in Roswell, New Mexico: Read the Original Report og:description: This was the first public news of the strange happenings of July 7, 1947 og:url: https://time.com/3916193/roswell-history/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0be1b655144e04e2/698853ea5f570f572fb1bea3/1101970623_400.jpg?branch=production&width=400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 400 og:image:height: 225 og:image:alt: Roswell Cover og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: UFOs and Aliens in Roswell, New Mexico: Read the Original Report twitter:description: This was the first public news of the strange happenings of July 7, 1947 twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0be1b655144e04e2/698853ea5f570f572fb1bea3/1101970623_400.jpg?branch=production&width=400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How the Roswell UFO Theory Got Started > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription.  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Jul 7, 2015 11:00 AM UTC  The June 23, 1997, cover of TIME The June 23, 1997, cover of TIME Cover Credit: MATT MAHURIN  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Jul 7, 2015 11:00 AM UTC Odds are, if you’re familiar with the city of Roswell, N.M., you’re familiar with what happened there on this day, July 7, in 1947: a rancher named W.W. Brazel told Sheriff George Wilcox that he had found [something strange](http://ti.me/1TIgb0S) on a sheep ranch northwest of the town. After finding bits of rubber, wood, foil, tape and paper in the field, the Sheriff called the local Army air field, which sent Major Jesse Marcel, an intelligence officer, to check it out. Marcel was convinced that Brazel stumbled upon nothing less than the remains of a flying saucer. He told his group commander, who told the press officer on duty, Walter Haut, who sent out a press release. The next day the Roswell _Daily Record_ bore a headline—”RAAF CAPTURES FLYING SAUCER ON RANCH IN ROSWELL REGION”—that instantly turned the town into the nation’s UFO capital. But there’s a big hitch in that oft-told tale. As TIME reported in an investigation on the 50th anniversary of the incident, the same day that the _Daily Record_ ran the sensational story, it was determined that the litter was from a destroyed weather balloon. The paper printed a follow-up retraction the next day, and Brazel stated that he was embarrassed to have gotten so worked up over nothing. That should have been that. But not everyone bought the official explanation, as TIME explained in 1997: --- > “” --- The next decades saw the publication of several more Roswell books. Public awareness of the supposed cover-up grew to a point that the Air Force did its own investigation, eventually making public details of a top-secret balloon-tracking project that had been going on during that 1947 period and which they said explained the original wreckage. Others clung to their belief that it was a flying saucer—including Walter Haut. Haut, who died in 2007 [without ever giving up ](http://www.foxnews.com/story/2007/07/03/dead-airman-affidavit-roswell-aliens-were-real.html)on the idea of the alien landing, was one of the founders of the city’s UFO Museum. **_Read the 1997 cover story about Roswell, here in the TIME Vault:_** [The Roswell Files](http://time.com/vault/issue/1997-06-23/spread/120/) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3916193/roswell-history/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3916193/roswell-history/"},"headline":"How the Roswell UFO Theory Got Started","datePublished":"2015-07-07T11:00:28.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T08:05:29.369Z","description":"This was the first public news of the strange happenings of July 7, 1947","url":"https://time.com/3916193/roswell-history/","keywords":["Bizarre","Space","aliens"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0be1b655144e04e2/698853ea5f570f572fb1bea3/1101970623_400.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0be1b655144e04e2/698853ea5f570f572fb1bea3/1101970623_400.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Roswell Cover","caption":"Roswell Cover","creditText":"Cover Credit: MATT MAHURIN","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/bizarre/","name":"Bizarre"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3916193/roswell-history/","name":"How the Roswell UFO Theory Got Started"}}]}] ```