William Blanchard
William Blanchard (1916–1966) was the United States Army Air Forces colonel who served as commanding officer of Roswell Army Air Field during the Roswell incident and who allegedly authorized the initial July 8, 1947 press release announcing the recovery of a "flying disc" before the Roswell cover-up operation retracted the statement. Blanchard was reportedly the officer entrusted with oversight of the 509th Bomb Group, the first atomic-bomb strike force in the world, making his initial authorization of the Roswell craft recovery announcement particularly significant in the context of concealment of exotic technology protocols.
According to Tom Carey and Donald Schmitt's investigation, the press release announcement occurred two and a half days after Washington, D.C. was allegedly alerted to the crash that would initiate their orchestration of Blanchard's statement. The announcement was subsequently retracted on the same day by Blanchard's supervising officer, Roger Ramey, commander of the Eighth Air Force, who presented an alternate story claiming the Army had recovered weather balloon debris rather than exotic material.
Military background
Blanchard served as a career officer in the Army Air Forces during World War II and continued his service when the organization became the United States Air Force in 1947. His assignment to command Roswell Army Air Field positioned him to oversee the world's first and only nuclear-capable bomber group, the 509th Bomb Group, which had conducted the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. This background made his base a strategic target for alleged non-human intelligent beings monitoring nuclear weapons development, according to researchers who connect the Roswell incident to broader patterns of UAP activity around atomic facilities.
Role in Roswell incident
Blanchard's role in the Roswell incident centers on his authorization of the initial press release stating that the Army Air Field had recovered the remains of a crashed "flying disc" from a ranch northwest of Roswell. The statement was issued through the base's public information officer, Walter Haut, at 11 a.m. Mountain Time on July 8, 1947, and represented the only official acknowledgment by military authorities that exotic material had been recovered before the Roswell craft retrieval operation was placed under classification.
Researchers investigating the incident have noted that Blanchard's willingness to authorize such an announcement suggests he may have been unaware of the classification protocols that would soon be imposed by higher-level authorities in Washington. The rapid retraction of his statement within hours by General Ramey indicates that the initial press release may have been issued before full operational security measures were implemented by classified programs allegedly responsible for concealment of non-human intelligent beings.
Later career and death
Following the Roswell incident, Blanchard continued his military career and eventually achieved the rank of four-star general before his death in 1966. He reportedly never provided a recorded interview about the events of July 1947, and died before UFO researchers began systematically investigating the Roswell case in the 1970s.