On July 6, 1947, Brazel showed pieces of the wreckage to Chaves County Sheriff George Wilcox. Wilcox called Roswell Army Air Field (AAF) and talked to Major Jesse Marcel, the intelligence officer. Marcel drove to the sheriff’s office and inspected the wreckage. Marcel reported to his commanding officer, Colonel William Butch Blanchard. Blanchard ordered Marcel to get someone from the Counter Intelligence Corps, and to proceed to the ranch with Brazel, and to collect as much of the wreckage as they could load into their two vehicles. Soon after this, military police arrived at the sheriff’s office, collected the wreckage Brazel had left there, and delivered the wreckage to Blanchard’s office. The wreckage was then flown to Eighth Air Force headquarters in Fort Worth, and from thereto Washington. Meanwhile, Marcel and Sheridan Cavitt of the Counter Intelligence Corps drove to the ranch with Mac Brazel. They arrived late in the evening. They spent the night in sleeping bags in a small outbuilding on the ranch, and in the morning proceeded to the crash site.
