Uncle John’s Giant 10th Anniversary Bathroom Reader (43 page)

Brazel gathered a few pieces of the stuff and showed it to his neighbors, Floyd and Loretta Proctor. The Proctors didn’t know what it was, either. And neither did George Wilcox, the county sheriff. So Brazel contacted officials at the nearby Roswell Army Air Force base to see if they could help.

The next day, an Army Intelligence Officer named Jesse Marcel went out to Brazel’s ranch to have a look. He was as baffled as everyone else. “I saw…small bits of metal,” he recalled to reporters years later, “but mostly we found some material that’s hard to describe.” Some of it “looked very much like parchment” and some of it consisted of square sticks as much as four feet long. Much was metallic.

The stuff was also surprisingly light—Brazel later estimated that all the scraps together didn’t weigh more than five pounds. Marcel and his assistant had no trouble loading all the debris into their cars and driving it back to the Roswell base. The next day, Marcel took it to another base, in Fort Worth, Texas, where it was examined further.

SUSPICIOUS FACTS

Was the Wreckage from Outer Space?

• Brazel and the Proctors examined some of the debris before surrendering it to the military. Although it seemed flimsy at first, it was extremely resilient. “We tried to burn it, but it wouldn’t ignite,” Loretta recalls. “We tried to cut it and scrape at it, but a knife wouldn’t touch it….It looked like wood or plastic, but back then we didn’t have plastic. Back then, we figured it doesn’t look like a weather balloon. I don’t think it was something from this Earth.”

The Military’s About-Face

• The morning after the military took possession of the wreckage, the media relations officer at Roswell hand-delivered a news release to the two radio stations and newspapers in town. The release stated that the object found in Brazel’s field was a “flying disc,” which in the 1940s was synonymous with “flying saucer.” It was the first time in history that the U.S. military had ever made such a claim.

• A few hours later, though, the military changed its story: It issued a new press release claiming that the wreckage was that of a weather balloon carrying a radar target, not a “flying disc.” But it was too late—the newspaper deadline had already passed. They ran the first news release on the front page, under the headline

AIR FORCE CAPTURES FLYING SAUCER
ON RANCH IN ROSWELL REGION

Other newspapers picked up the story and ran it as well; within 24 hours, news of the military’s “capture” spread around the globe.

• Interest in the story was so great that the next day, Brig. Gen. Roger Ramey, commander of the U.S. Eighth Air Force, had to hold a press conference in Fort Worth in which he again stated that the recovered object was only a weather balloon and a radar target that was suspended from it. He even displayed the wreckage for reporters and allowed them to photograph it.

Mr. Brazel’s Unusual Behavior

• Mac Brazel refused to talk about the incident for the rest of his life, even with members of his immediate family, except to say that “whatever the wreckage was, it wasn’t any type of balloon.” Why the silence? His son Bill explains: “The Air Force asked him to take an oath that he wouldn’t tell anybody in detail about it. My dad was such a guy that he went to his grave and he
never
told anyone.”

• Kevin Randle and Donald Schmitt, authors of
UFO Crash at Roswell
, claim that shortly after Brazel made his famous discovery, “His neighbors noticed a change in his lifestyle….He suddenly seemed to have more money….When he returned, he drove a new pickup truck…he also had the money to buy a new house in Tularosa, New Mexico, and a meat locker in Las Cruces.” Randle and Schmitt believe the military may have paid Brazel for his silence.

TRUST ME

Today, if the government announced it had captured a UFO—even if it was mistaken—and tried to change its story a few hours later by claiming it was really a weather balloon, nobody would buy it. But people were more trusting in the years just following World War II. Amazingly, the story died away. As Dava Sobel writes:

      
The Army’s announcement of the “weather balloon” explanation ended the flying saucer excitement. All mention of the craft dropped from the newspapers, from military records, from the national consciousness, and even from the talk of the town in Roswell.

Even the
Roswell Daily Record
—which broke the story in the first place—was satisfied with the military’s explanation. A few days later, it ran a headline that was even bigger than the first one:

GENERAL RAMEY EMPTIES ROSWELL SAUCER

And that was the end of it,…or was it? See
page 401
for more.

There are plenty of bombs in TV history, but these three shows are legends.

M
ELBA.

A CBS sitcom starring singer Melba Moore as Melba Patterson, a single mother who ran “the Manhattan Visitors’ Center.” Premiered as a mid-season replacement on January 28, 1986—the day the
Challenger
space shuttle exploded. Drew the worst ratings of the 1985-86 season and was cancelled immediately. In August, CBS aired the other episodes it had commissioned. The night of its return was CBS’s lowest-rated prime-time evening in the network’s history.

TURN ON!

A half-hour of skits and jokes that was supposed to be “the second coming of ‘Laugh-In’.” It premiered on February 5, 1969, and turned out to be “just a bunch of stupid sex jokes.” (The longest skit had two actors making faces at each other for several minutes while the word SEX flashed on screen.) Affiliates and sponsors hated it so much that it was cancelled the next day. In fact, the Denver ABC affiliate cancelled it
halfway through
the premiere, with the message: “The remainder of this show won’t be seen.” How bad was “Turn On!”? We can only speculate. The producers’ settlement with the networks and sponsors stipulates that the “tapes would be locked up and never shown again.”

YOU’RE IN THE PICTURE.

A game show hosted by Jackie Gleason. Four celebrity panelists sat in back of a 7′x10′ picture frame and stuck their heads through porthole cutouts—making them part of a picture they couldn’t see. With clues from Gleason, they tried to guess what the picture was. It debuted January 21, 1961. “Viewers who tuned into the show’s third broadcast,” writes Maxene Fabe in
Game Shows,
“saw only a bare stage containing an armchair in which Gleason sat. ‘1 apologize for insulting your intelligence,’ he told his astonished viewers. ‘From now on I promise to stick to comedy.’” The program was replaced the following week with “The Jackie Gleason Show.”

More bizarre lawsuits from contemporary news reports.

T
HE PLAINTIFF:
William H. Folwell, Episcopal bishop of Central Florida

THE DEFENDANT:
U.S. government

THE LAWSUIT:
The bishop hurt his knee while playing tennis at the Naval Training Center. He claimed the injury “prevented him from genuflecting,” and sued for $200,000. The Feds counter-sued, saying the holy man had been sneaking onto the tennis courts and had no right to be there in the first place. They said he owed them $5,200 for use of the courts over the last five years.

THE VERDICT:
Case dismissed. Neither side got any cash.

THE PLAINTIFF:
Continental Airlines

THE DEFENDANT:
Deborah Loeding, former wife of Continental pilot William Loeding

THE LAWSUIT:
In 1994 William Loeding took a random drug test administered by the airline. Marijuana was detected, and Loeding was fired—although he swore he’d never gone near the stuff. He filed grievance after grievance with his union—and finally, during his third hearing, his ex-wife admitted she was responsible. To vent her anger at her ex-husband, she’d put pot in a loaf of rye bread she baked for him. Continental sued her for endangering passengers and causing her ex-hubby “significant distress in his personal and professional life.”

THE VERDICT:
Pending.

THE PLAINTIFF:
Paul and Nancy Marshall, baseball fans

THE DEFENDANTS:
San Diego Padres baseball team

THE LAWSUIT:
In 1993, in a cost-cutting move, the Padres began trading high-salaried star players to other teams. When former batting champ Gary Sheffield was traded, the Marshalls filed suit charging the Padres with deceiving season ticket holders. (The
team had sent out a letter saying players like Sheffield and Fred McGriff, an all-star first-baseman, “create the core of an excellent team for years to come.”) The Marshalls asked for punitive damages and a promise that the Padres wouldn’t trade McGriff.

THE VERDICT:
Settled out of court. The Padres agreed to a more liberal ticket refund policy, and the Marshalls’ suit was dropped. McGriff was traded to the Atlanta Braves five days later.

THE PLAINTIFF:
James Houston

THE DEFENDANT:
Northern Arizona University

THE LAWSUIT:
According to news reports, Houston “is suing his alma mater because he believes that getting a doctorate was too easy.” He is asking for $1 million.

THE VERDICT:
Pending.

THE PLAINTIFF:
Ethyln Boese, of Portland, Oregon

THE DEFENDANT:
Restlawn Funeral Home

THE LAWSUIT:
On July 25, 1996, a closed-casket funeral was held for Boese’s husband, James. When it was over, Ethyln asked for a last look at the man she’d been married to for 50 years. When the casket was opened, she saw a stranger—in her husband’s suit. At first, the funeral director wouldn’t believe it was the wrong body. Finally he did, and found the right one. The family quickly got a different suit for the corpse, held a new funeral, and filed a lawsuit for $500,000 for “emotional distress.”

THE VERDICT:
Unknown

THE PLAINTIFF:
Katie Rose Sawyer, age 11

THE DEFENDANT:
Cody Finch, age 10

THE LAWSUIT:
Fifth-graders Sawyer and Finch were “married” on the school playground in the fall of 1996. Then a few months later, they were “divorced” (another fifth-grader wrote up “Divores” papers). Katie said Cody kept bothering her, so she sued him under the New Mexico Family Violence Protection Act. “My mom told me, ‘Don’t get married again until you’re an adult,’” Katie told reporters.

THE VERDICT:
Unknown.

We’ve all seen them—those cheesy TV ads for products no one needs, but millions of people buy. You’ve probably forgotten all about them. Well, heh-heh, we’re here to remind you about…

G
LH#9:
Hair-in-a-can from the infamous Ron Popeil (GLH stands for “great looking hair.”) A spray can of some sort of powdered pigment that sticks to your head. Just hold a few inches from your bald spot and spray! Comes in nine colors and according to the free brochure, you can use it on your dog!

THE CLAPPER:
“Clap on, clap off!” From Joseph Industries, makers of the Chia Pet. “Clap twice and a lamp goes on, clap twice and it goes off. Only $19.95!”

INSIDE THE EGGSHELL SCRAMBLER:
A piece of plastic with a curved needle attached. Impale the egg on the needle and it activates a motor. The needle spins inside the shell and
scrambles the egg!
“Outperforms a fork or whisk in every way! Scrambles the yolk and white of an egg right inside the shell in less than five seconds! You’ll use it a lot and every time you do, you’ll save washing a bowl and fork!”

THE GINSU KNIFE:
From Dial Media. Ads showed a karate expert shattering bricks and kicking a watermelon, then fuming because he couldn’t cut as well as the “amazing Ginsu knife!” Sounds vaguely Asian, but it’s not—it was originally brought to the company by a salesperson who thought it was great because it never needed sharpening. But it was still just a knife…until the creative vice president of Dial came up with a Japanese-sounding name, a karatetheme ad, and the tag line: “But wait, there’s more!”

THE VEG-O-MATIC:
“This is Veg-O-Matic, the world-famous food appliance. Slice a whole potato into uniform slices with one motion….Simply turn the ring and change from thin to thick slices. Isn’t that amazing? Like magic, you can change from slicing to dicing. No one likes dicing onions. The Veg-O-Matic makes mounds of them fast. The only tears you’ll shed will be tears of joy. You can make hundreds of French fries in one minute. Isn’t that sensational? Here’s your chance to own one for only $9.99!” From Ronco.