by Jesse Marcel
Dad asked my mom and me to look for any electronic components, such as vacuum tubes, resistors, condensers, or wire. After we searched through all the materials, we all agreed there was nothing that appeared to be part of any electronic equipment, but I feel he already knew that and wanted us to confirm it.
My attention then focused on the foil, mainly because there was more of it than anything else. The foil was similar to the aluminum kitchen wrap of today, but appeared to be stronger, and it felt lighter than a feather in my hand. Although it looked like kitchen foil at first glance, it was more substantial, and seemed to be less malleable. When I picked it up, I noticed it did not have a paper backing for rigidity, as would the foil of a radar target (which others later said it was). The largest piece I saw was perhaps 6 or 8 inches across, and the edges were irregular, with sharp tears covering the entire perimeter of the pieces. Even though I was curious, I did not try to bend or tear it. After all, this was some kind of precious material, and, as my father had told us, we were probably some of the first humans to see it.
Later, when my father was examining the material back at the base, he mentioned that when he bent or folded a piece of the foil, it would return to its original shape when released. Apparently there were larger pieces of the foil that I did not see, and these larger pieces were nearly indestructible. My dad described how one of the men from his office took a sledge hammer and hit one of the large pieces, but could not make a dent in it or deform it in any way. The sledge hammer simply bounced off the piece. If this man is still alive, I wonder where he is today; as far as I know, he was never interviewed, and never came forward during the many investigations of the Roswell Incident.
The foil had a more or less dull appearance, similar to a burnished aluminum surface, not shiny or highly reflective, although one side may have been more polished than the other. The surface of the foil itself was somewhat smooth. The pieces didn't have any distinct design or shape; they were amorphous. I remember looking at some of the foil material for quite a while. In particular, I remember how light it was-if you dropped it, it would float like a feather.
My dad said, "Let's take some of the pieces and try to fit them together like a jigsaw puzzle." So the three of us got down on our hands and knees and tried to fit the pieces together, but could find no two pieces that would interlock. We couldn't make any kind of outline that would make sense, and as there were simply too many pieces of the puzzle to fit any of them together, we finally gave up.
As I mentioned before, my father had told us to look for anything that could be associated with electronics, such as vacuum tubes, condensers, resistors, or wire. What he really wanted us to do was to look for pieces of a radio. I plowed through the debris, but could not find anything related to a radio-not even anything that resembled staples, rivets, fasteners, and so on.
In fact, there were no electronic components whatsoever in the debris I saw, or in any of the other material recovered from the site. My dad was pretty well apprised of what was in the debris, and there was no mention of electronic components by anyone, or in any of the released photos of the debris.
Fifty years later, the official Air Force publication, The Roswell Report: Case Closed, explained that the debris was not from a weather balloon, as first reported, but from what was called a mogul balloon. The Mogul balloon was highly classified, not for its off-the-shelf components, but for its purpose: It was designed to pick up sonic vibrations in the atmosphere from any distant nuclear explosion, especially those that might occur in the Soviet Union. Skeptics point out that because Mogul balloons were indeed highly classified, naturally there would have been a cover-up by the government.
Had it been a weather balloon or a Mogul balloon, however, there would have been electronic components. Weather balloon debris would have contained a radio transmitter, as well as special sensors to detect and record weather data. A Mogul balloon would have had a radio transmitter and microphones to detect pressure waves in the atmosphere from a possible Soviet nuclear test. But these things were nowhere to be found in any of the debris. There were certainly no such components in the material I saw, and my dad said there had been none in any of the rest of the material collected from the field.
In the years since then, I have been asked many questions about this debris, such as whether there were any strings, twine, or wire in the material I saw. There were not. Yet these types of material would absolutely have been present in a Mogul balloon or even a weather balloon, as they were used to help hold the balloon together.
Years later, I had a conversation with Air Force officials, and I asked them point-blank if the brownish-black plastic I described could have been the housing for a radiosonde, a radio transmitter hoisted aloft by an array of balloons in order to take a variety of measurements. A modern radiosonde will measure barometric pressure, altitude, geographic coordinates, temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, and direction. They replied that those were either made of aluminum or cardboard-never plastic. In the end, they admitted they did not know what I saw
I also saw what looked like a metallic beam sticking out of the box. There were several of these beams in the box, with the longest being about 18 inches and the shortest about 12 inches. I picked the larger beam out of the box and took a long look at it, holding it over my head to get a better perspective of it in the ceiling light. The material looked similar to a kite stick, except it was made of metal. It somewhat resembled an I-beam used in building construction. It was only 3/8 of an inch wide, and was a dull gray metallic color. The beam's central portion was about 1/16 of an inch, with the shoulders of the Ibeam forming a ridge along its length.
I figured this was something that added structural rigidity to whatever it came from. The material itself seemed to be identical to the foil, just in a structural form. It was also incredibly light for its size. I didn't try to bend the metal; rather, I handled it carefully. Knowing how a young boy's mind sometimes worked, my father reminded me to be careful with the material. `After all," he said, "this is government property now, and I don't want to have to explain how my 11year-old son destroyed it." His scolding was good-natured, as was his way, but I got the message nonetheless.
I don't remember if the ends of the I-beam were clean-cut or fractured like a break. I tend to think now that they were cleanly cut, but cannot be certain of my memory here.
I did notice something unusual about the inside surface of the Ibeam. I caught a glint of color on the inner surface-kind of a purplish violet hue with a metallic tinge. This surface was somewhat shiny and reflective when light was shown directly on it. As I looked at the piece, with the light reflecting on the inner surface, I could see what looked like writing. At first I thought of Egyptian hieroglyphics, but there were no animal outlines or figures. They weren't mathematical figures either; they were more like geometric symbols-squares, circles, triangles, pyramids, and the like. Approximately 1/4 of an inch tall, they were imprinted on the inner surface of the beam, and only on one side. They were not engraved into the I-beam, but seemed more like part of its surface.
There were about 30 symbols, one right after another. These figures were solid; they were not line drawings. I don't recall what all of the symbols looked like or whether or not they repeated themselves. I do distinctly remember a few of them, however. One reminded me of a seal balancing a ball on its nose. The symbol was like a truncated pyramid with a solid ball over the apex, sort of like the pyramid with an eye over it on a dollar bill. I recall this symbol as being located more toward one end of the beam. The symbol located just to the right of this was an oblate spheroid. The spheroid sometimes would appear with two smaller spheroids below the larger spheroid, and sometimes above. As I recall, the next symbol had the same configuration, but it was reversed 90 degrees. To the right of these symbols was a simple oval, with the largest area of the oval being through the center section. Most of the individual symbols were about the same height and width. The symbols themselves were very
close togetheralmost touching, but not quite.
I called my findings to the attention of my folks, showing my mother first because my dad was standing off to one side. They passed the I-beam back and forth between the two of them. At this point, I was getting a little excited, wondering what the symbols might represent. They seemed strange indeed. My dad was quite interested in the beam, and felt that the symbols might represent an alphabet of some sort. For me this was the centerpiece of the whole experience. Later I tried to reproduce the symbols I had seen, but could only draw a rough representation of what they looked like. The only one I clearly remember for sure is the truncated pyramid with a solid ball over the top of it, and I suppose that was because I could tie it in to a familiar object-a seal balancing a ball on its nose.
Picture of an I-beam replica created by Miller Johnson, who can be contacted at akjacc-ocomcast.net.
Years later, shortly before my dad died, we discussed the shapes and colors of the symbols. I asked, without hinting to him, "What color were they?" He responded, "Oh, they were a purplish color with what looked like some kind of weird language in the form of strange shapes." His memories of the symbols were very much in sync with mine.
There was one other type of debris, though, that I didn't see in the material my dad brought home, but he said it was in some of the other debris. Many years later, he told my wife, Linda, that there were fine strands resembling fishing line in some of the material. These could very possibly have been a type of fiber optics.
I recall that Bill Brazel, Mac Brazel's son, also described seeing what he called fishing line in some of the debris. He went so far as to say that when a light was shown on one end, it was transmitted to the other end similar to a fiber-optic cable. However, as rve said, I never encountered anything like that in the debris that my father brought home.
Some UFO enthusiasts see significance in the fact that there were pretty dramatic advancements in fiber technology in the years immediately after the crash. Indeed, in the late 1940s and early 1950s, fiber-optic technology took a great leap forward. But I tend to think that's just a coincidence. There's really nothing mysterious about the development of fiber optics; it can be traced right back to the people who developed it. We humans are pretty smart, after all, and don't need help from our extraterrestrial friends to make scientific advancements.
Another question I have been asked throughout the years is whether or not there was any kind of smell associated with any of the wreckage. I don't remember any kind of smell whatsoever. Had it been Bakelite, it would have had a very distinctive smell because of the bonding agent that holds it together. And apparently the balloons that were used in Project Mogul emitted a very strong odor of neoprene as well. But there was no odor whatsoever from the materials my father brought home.
After we had looked at the debris for about 15 or 20 minutes, we placed the material back in the cardboard box it came in, and I accompanied my dad outside as he put the box into the back seat of our car. Standing next to the car, I noticed that the trunk was open. It was dark, and I couldn't make out a whole lot of details, but I could see that there were several more boxes of debris in the trunk.
We all went back into the house, and my mother swept the floor, because some small pieces of the materials were still on it. Therefore, a few tiny fragments were just swept out our back door. We had recently laid a concrete slab at the door for a washing machine; had this incident happened before we laid the slab, some of the material might have been preserved under the concrete, and perhaps could have later been retrieved by investigators. But by the time Roswell captured the attention of the world again, those minute fragments were long gone.
My mother and I retired to our respective bedrooms, and my dad took off for the base at that time, or early that morning, with his precious cargo. He had a very long day ahead of him. As I've noted, Dad had shown my mother and me only a small portion of the debris that was collected on the Foster Ranch, and there was much more investigation to be done.
After the debris was taken to the base, apparently Colonel Blanchard had a look at it and ordered the material to be flown to Fort Worth so General Ramey, the 8th Air Force commander, could inspect it. It was flown in a B-29 under armed guard. The plane had to fly at low altitudes because the guards were in the unpressurized cargo compartment with the debris. My dad was also on that flight, and it was he who displayed the debris to Ramey in his office. Ramey had him point out on a map the exact location where the debris was collected, then ordered it to be flown to Wright-Patterson Army Air Field in Dayton, Ohio.
When my dad returned to Roswell, he cautioned my mother and me never to tell others what we had seen that night. In talking with him later, he confirmed that this material was from an unearthly craft, and I was certainly convinced of this myself. My father had gone to radar and intelligence school, so he was pretty well versed in the types of radar targets of the day. This debris was not from anything he had ever seen. But there was more to it than that. It seems that he had seen other things that convinced him that this was not of human manufacture. I didn't know what made him so strong in his beliefs, but because I had seen some pretty unusual features in the debris myself, and I trusted my father's expertise, it didn't take much to convince me that he was right.
Later, when we talked about the crash site, he described a large area heavily scattered with metallic debris from a single impact point that scarred the earth. The material spread out from this point into a triangular-shaped area 200 to 300 feet wide at the end of the field, and 3/4 of a mile long. As far as the volume of the debris, just to give you an idea, they had to use a C-54 Skymaster-a large cargo aircraft-to transport it all. I later found out that the pilot of the aircraft was a Captain Henderson, who apparently saw far more than just the debris from the impact site. Based on some interviews with his family, he may in fact have seen the remains of a crew.
Although I had been told not to talk with my friends about this matter, that did not keep me from going over in my maid the significance of what I had seen. I know that my dad had been very excited about the debris, and l clearly recall him using the words flyingsaucer in reference to the materials. Even though he was the epitome of discretion after that, I never forgot that night in our kitchen.
And how could I not be excited? I have never really been a fan of science fiction, but this was not fiction. For me this was science reality and it was a more exciting reality than any of the science I had learned in school. It was an event that definitely changed me. From that evening on, my life took on a different meaning. I could never look at the night sky the same way again, because, for all I knew, someone else might be looking back.
Chapter 3
Government Cover-Up? You Decide
In the 200-plus years of the history of our government and military, there is no other incident for which-even after 60 years have passed-the government has continued to devote time and money to keep the truth of the event from the public. Had the materials found near Roswell in 1947 actually been a weather balloon, as the government initially claimed, subsequent attempts to contest the official story would have merely been ignored as the ramblings of a few unbalanced conspiracy theorists. And even if the materials had been part of a project that was classified at the time-such as the then-TopSecret Mogul balloon-the constant evolution of technology (not to mention the end of the Cold War) would have rendered such a classification moot. Even the technology involved in the most closely held secret of the 20th century, the development in Los Alamos of the atomic bomb, is now readily available in reference books found in every public library, as well as on hundreds of Websites. To claim an ongoing need to conceal the facts surrounding a 60-year-old defensive system is, at best, quaint. To continue to expend efforts to maintain secrecy around it is not only ludicrous, but it also calls into question the motivation of those so obsessed with the efforts.
I am well aware that the "official" reports, including the 1997 Air Force opus, The Roswell R
eport: Case Closed, claim that the cat is out of the bag, so to speak, and there is no cover-up anymore. Needless to say, I disagree, and in this chapter I'll give a more detailed explanation of why that is.
Initially, the government claimed that it had recovered a flying disk on a ranch outside of Roswell, but within 24 hours, the story began to change. The new story was that a weather balloon had fallen to earth, rather than a flying disc, and that the public's excitement about the incident was therefore unjustified. According to the revised statements, it was just a case of mistaken identification resulting from the fact that the officers on the recovery team did not know what the components of a weather balloon looked like. I find it amusing that the same government who had paid for my father to attend advanced radar school, where he was required to gain intimate familiarity with radar targets of all types, claimed that he could not recognize a radar target from a weather or Mogul balloon. Were it not for the fact that my father's reputation suffered as a result of these absurdly false statements, perhaps I could enjoy the irony.
When my father examined the debris from the crash site, he knew that it had not come from a weather balloon or radar target, and he reported as much to his commanding officer, Colonel Blanchard, who agreed with his assessment. After Colonel Blanchard had performed his own examination and submitted his report, he had the base information officer issue a public statement, the infamous "flying disc" news report. In the decades that have passed since the event, some have even stated that my father immediately rushed to the press with the story. Obviously, those who would make such allegations knew neither my father nor the dictates of military protocol. In truth, any intelligence officer who made public any potentially controversial information would have faced immediate disciplinary action, especially in the tense environment so pervasive in those early days of the cold war. My father was well aware of this, and the fact that he faced not disciplinary action, but continuously high praise in his subsequent performance evaluations, should put such allegations to rest, once and for all.