American Broadcasting Company (ABC) was in 1947 a radio network in the U.S., who would start to be a television network also in 1948.
What follows is what was said about the Roswell incident in the ABC radio news bulletin for July 8, 1947, as an audio recording and my transcript thereof.
Headlines edition July 8, 1947.
The Army Air Force has announced that a flying disc has been found and is now in the posession of the Army.
Army officials sais the missile found sometimes last week has been inspected at Roswell, New Mexico, and sent to Wright Field, Ohio, for further inspection.
[Other news]
Today's edition presents a round-up od the latest developments on the finding of a flying disc.
[Other news]
Late this afternoon a bulletin from New Mexico suggested that the widely publicized mystery of the flying saucer may soon be solved. Army Air Force officers reported that one of the seen disc had been found and inspected some time last week.
Our correspondants in Los Angeles and Chicago, have been in contact with Army officials [?] possible latest information. Jim Wilson now from Chicago.
The Army may be getting to the bottom of all this talk of the so-called flying saucers.
As a matter of fact the 509th Atomic Bomb Group headquarters at Roswell, New Mexico, reports that it has received one of the discs, which landed on a ranch oustide Roswell. The disc landed on a ranch at Corona, New Mexico, and the rancher handed it over to the Air Force. Rancher W. W. Brazil [sic, Brazel] is the man who discovered the saucer. Colonel William Blanchard of the Roswell air base refuses to give the tale, of what the discs looks like. In Fort Worth, Texas, where the object was first sent, Brigadier General Roger Ramey says that it is being shipped by air to the AAF Research Center at Wright Field, Ohio. A few moments ago I talked to official at Wright Field, and they declared that they expect the so-called flying saucer, and they will look into that, but it hasn't arrived yet.
In the meantime General Roger Ramey described the object has being of a flimsy construction, almost like a box-kite. He said that it was so baterred that he was unable to determine whther it had a disc form, and he does not indicate its size. Ramey sayid that so far as it can be determine, no one saw the object in the air, and he described it it as being made of some sort of tin-foil. Other Army officials said that further information indicate that the object diameter of about 20 to 25 feet, and that nothing in apparent construction indicates capacity for speed, and that there was no evidence of a powerplant. The disc also appeared to flimsy to carry a man.
There is nothing in this radio bulletin to prove anything, obviously, if we consider that there would have been a "cover-up" by the Army Air Force, and if we consider that this is likely no torough "journalistic investigation" but rather a "hot" information with all sorts of risks of errors. There are some points to mention:
If the disc is described as "flimsy construction", without evidence of motorization, too fragile to carry a man, it is curiously also said that it would have measured 20 to 25 feet in size, which does not correspond to the debris of the radar target at all. Where does this size come from? The reporter said he heard "other information" by "other Army Air Force officials," but he did not specify who it was, we can only understand that it was not from Brigadier General Ramey at Fort Worth.
It was expected that the "flying disk", after being flown from Roswell to Fort Worth, would be sent to Dayton, home to the aviation technology experts at Wright Field. The newspapers had said this also, some of them indicated after the identification of the debris as a balloon and its radar target by Ramey at Fort Worth, that this flight to Wright Field had been canceled (example). Here, the reporter must be temporarily located just before the cancellation of this shipment was decided, if this decision was made. (Some witnesses stated decades later that the debris indeed arrived at Wright Field, and that they were extraterrestrials, however.)
The ABC newsletter alludes to their correspondents in Chicago and Los Angeles. The Chicago correspondent then speaks here, there is nothing in the newsletter coming from correspondent(s) in Los Angeles.
