The Roswell Legacy: The Untold Story of the First Military Officer at the 1947 Crash Site

by Jesse Marcel

  Before dawn on that same morning, a similar-hut even more ominous-sequence of events occurred about 20 miles southeast, near the town of Roy, Montana, at the Oscar Flight Launch Control Center. According to Deputy Missile Combat Crew Commander Robert Salas, who was at the Oscar Flight Control Center that morning, it had been a clear, cold night. On-duty airmen often looked to the sky to observe shooting stars, but what one airman saw that morning seemed to be something else entirely. He observed what he first assumed to be a star, until it began to move erratically across the sky; shortly afterward, he saw another light do the same thing. This time, however, it was much larger and closer than the first. The airman asked his flight security controller to come and take a look. The two men stood there watching as the lights streaked directly above them, then stopped, changed directions at high speed, and returned to their positions overhead. The flight security controller ran into the building and phoned Salas at his station in the silo, reporting what they had seen, and stressing that they weren't aircraft. Salas initially figured the men, who were conscientious in their service but not above a bit of harmless kidding around, were doing just that. His response was, "Great. You just keep watching them and let me know if they get any closer." He then directed the security controller to report back if anything more significant happened.

  Even though his response was not indicative of any particular concern, Salas knew that this kind of behavior was out of character for on-duty air security personnel, who were typically very professional, especially when addressing a superior.

  A few minutes later, the security controller called again, this time obviously agitated. The man literally shouted, "Sir, there's one hovering outside the front gate!"

  Salas, somewhat unnerved at this point, retorted, "One what?"

  "A UFO! It's just sitting there. We're all just looking at it. What do you want us to do?"

  Salas asked for a description, but the security controller couldn't describe it, other than to say that it was glowing red. "What are we supposed to do?" he asked Salas.

  "Make sure the site is secure and I'll phone the command post," Salas told him. He was a bit taken aback when the security controller said, "Sir, I have to go now. One of the guys just got injured."

  Before Salas could inquire as to the nature of the man's injury, the security controller terminated the call. Salas immediately went to the quarters of his commander, Lieutenant Fred Meiwald, awakened him, and began to brief him about the phone calls and the events that were transpiring topside. In the middle of this conversation, the first alarm horn was activated, and S alas and Meiwald immediately looked at the panel of indicator lights at the commander's station. A "No Go" light and two red security lights were lit, indicating problems at one of the missile sites. Meiwald jumped up to query the system in order to determine the cause of the problem, but before he could complete that task, several other alarms went off at other sites simultaneously. Within the next few seconds, six to eight missiles had spontaneously become inoperable.

  After reporting this incident to the command post, Salas phoned the security controller, who told him that the man who had approached the UFO had not been seriously injured, but was being evacuated by helicopter to the base. Once topside, Salas spoke directly with the security guard, who repeated that the UFO had a red glow, adding that it appeared to be saucer-shaped. He also repeated that it had been hovering silently just outside the front gate. Salas sent a security patrol to check the launch facilities after the shutdown, and they reported sighting another UFO, and then immediately lost radio contact with him. When Salas and his crew were relieved by the next shift later that morning, the missiles had still not been brought online.

  Despite extensive efforts by both on-site technicians and Boeing engineers, no cause for the shutdowns was ever found. According to Boeing engineering team leader Robert Kaminski, "There were no significant failures, engineering data, or findings that would explain how 10 missiles were knocked off alert." He added that there was no technical explanation that could explain the event. The systems could be taken off-line via the introduction of a pulse of electric current directly at the computer controller, but the only way a pulse or noise could be sent in from outside the shielded system was through an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) from an unknown source. Such pulses typically occur immediately after the detonation of a nuclear device in the general area, but no such detonation had occurred. Other sources of EMPs at that time would have involved the use of huge pieces of specialized equipment, none of which was present at the site. There was also some speculation that the events could have been caused by a massive power failure, but according to William Dutton, another Boeing engineer who investigated this as a possible explanation, there were no such power anomalies in the area. A pulse of some sort caused those missile shutdowns, but the source of that pulse is still a mystery.

  Late in 1975, UFOs returned to the area around Malmstrom Air Force Base. Once again they repeatedly hovered over and interfered with ICBM facilities. Though these incidents continued throughout the course of several months and received a lot of press coverage in Montana, they were mostly ignored by the national news media. They did, however, become the subject of a now out-of-print book, Mystery Stalks The Prairie, by Keith Wolverton (who at the time was deputy sheriff of Cascade County), and journalist Roberta Donovan. A series of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits uncovered more information, and Air Force records show that during the same period, UFO activity occurred at other military bases in the northern part of the United States. Though some folks have speculated that these events were merely elaborate Air Force tests of the security of the nation's nuclear weapons forces, military eyewitnesses and Air Force records would seem to negate that theory.

  Not surprisingly, the Air Force has maintained for many years that no reported UFO incident has ever affected national security. However, considering that large numbers of Air Force personnel reported sighting UFOs at the time many of our strategic missiles became inoperable, I find it difficult to believe the Air Force's claim. I'd say it's pretty hard to ignore the national security implications of the incidents described here. In one previously classified message regarding the Echo Flight incident, SAC headquarters described it as a loss of strategic alert of all 10 missiles within 10 seconds of each other for no apparent reason, saying that the event was a "cause for grave concern."

  Another even more frightening event occurred not in Montana, but in what was then the Soviet Union on October 4, 1982. In Byelokoroviche, Ukraine, where a nuclear missile launch site is located, local residents reported a large flying saucer hovering over the nearby missile silo. According to ex-KGB Colonel Igor Chernovshev, the launch crew stationed in the launch control room reported that signal lights on both control panels started to light up, indicating the missile was being prepared for a launch. This launch sequence continued for 15 seconds, stopping just before the launch would have occurred. This could have happened only on receipt of a launch code from Moscow. An investigation team analyzed the electronic complex involved, but no technical problems were discovered, and Moscow did not dispatch the launch codes.

  I agree that these incidents are a cause for concern. But I also see them as yet more evidence that we are not alone. And even more than concern or fear, I find that to be a cause for great wonder.

  Chapter 8

  "Along for the Ride of My Life": Linda's Story

  So far this book has been focused upon my recollection of my own experiences, the fruits of research and interviews I've done throughout the years, and, ultimately, how being at "ground zero" of the Roswell controversy has affected my life. The story wouldn't be complete, however, if I didn't place significant emphasis upon the effects this tale has had upon my family. I'm not so egocentric as to believe that I'm the most qualified to tell that part of the story. For that reason, I'm going to step away from the task of writing the book for a while, and let my wife, Linda, take over.

  Linda has been a real
source of strength for me, supporting me when I was frustrated, sharing my tears and my laughter, and generally being the one person upon whom I could always count when life got difficult. If for no other reason than fairness, she deserves to have her say, and readers deserve to hear the voice of someone intimately involved in this whole story, yet perhaps a bit more objective than I. Besides, why should I have to do all the work to get this stuff out there for you to read? On that note, I think I'll go out and enjoy the mountain air for a while. So here is my lovely wife, Linda.

  — Jess

  Well…isn't it just like Jess to drop this in my lap, so he can go out and play?! And not to even give me an easy opening line, like "Once upon a time."

  To say the least, Roswell has been an adventure for me. As a small child who grew up terrified of the Northern Lights, and who became hysterical when I first saw the Russian satellite Sputnik in the 1950s, I think I've come a pretty long way.

  My part in the Roswell story began in 1979, when I went to work as a nurse at Helena Ear, Nose, and Throat Clinic, and met Dr. Jesse Marcel. One morning over coffee, Jess's office manager made some mention of UFOs, and Jess told me that some kind of UFO had crashed outside of Roswell, New Mexico, when he was a kid. I had been exposed to stories about the missile sites outside of Great Falls, Montana, and sightings of Sasquatch. My father was a veterinarian, and was occasionally called out to investigate cattle mutilations in the area, and frequently told us stories about what he saw. So, even though the cattle-mutilation phenomenon did not become a big deal in the UFO community until many years later, I had at least a vague awareness that some strange things were happening for which nobody seemed to have a good explanation.

  Even so, we hadn't actually heard anything about UFOs when I was growing up, at least not anything that made much of an impression on me. I had spent the first half of my life in rural Montana. You know, Big Sky Country, where the deer and the antelope play, and rattlesnakes hide. I think that at the time, the entire state of Montana had maybe 200,000 people. Heck, until the early 1960s, my family didn't even have a television. My first experience with anything "off-planet" was a huge country party that the people in my town threw in honor of Sputnik, which I not only failed to attend, but actually spent the entire time hiding in my closet, certain that it was the end of the world.

  Did I, as an alleged adult, believe in UFOs? Until Jess told me his story, I hadn't ever really given them much thought, one way or another. I was just a young, single mom trying to raise three kids, and found I had little time or energy for anything besides tending to the constant flow of crises that are such an integral part of parenthood especially single parenthood. Somehow, Jess's story awakened something in me; a curiosity about things rd never considered important. About the same time, a different "curiosity" was demanding more and more of my attention. A man to whom I had deferred as a boss became my friend. A man I had liked and respected as a friend became more. And, after a time, I realized that I was in love with this strong, gentle man who had such interesting tales to tell. As it turned out, he was experiencing the same kind of feelings. And even though I didn't get to start my portion of this story with a "once upon a time," I have to admit that it looks as though the "happily ever after" part rings pretty true.

  After a time, not only had I married my boss, but I also inherited his three kids to add to the mix with my own three. Beyond becoming mother to the Big Sky Brady Bunch, I now had to deal with something wholly alien (pun intended!) to anything in my previous experiences: UFOs.

  It wasn't so difficult from a religious standpoint. I'm a Christian with a strong faith in God, but even though I had been raised to believe that humankind was God's ultimate creation, I had long thought it would be somewhat arrogant to believe that God had created life only on this planet. It was more difficult from a matter of scope. I had just never given that much thought to life beyond that which we knew and were familiar with. Even the idea of strange creatures that lived at incredible depths in the ocean seemed unreal to me. Life with Jess Marcel, however, served to broaden my horizons, and as the years went by, I found myself forced to consider new and wondrous possibilities, ilia universe infinitely larger than I had ever known.

  The years moved on, and we went from being the Brady Bunch to something more akin to Cheaper by the Dozen: two more kids, then grandkids. That I was busy at home was an understatement. Even that last statement was an understatement! What with my job and all the kids, I learned a new meaning for the word f azzled, and sometimes even wished that some alien ship would drop down and take me away somewhere quiet, if only for a day or two.

  As the 50th anniversary of the Roswell crash approached in 1997, the discussion-and controversy-had again emerged, and Jess was busy doing television shows and conferences, and giving lectures on what he had seen as a young boy. After attending some of the conferences with Jess and hearing scientists, NASA employees, and individual stories told by some of the witnesses, I began to realize that this story is like a big puzzle with many pieces. It struck me that it would be awfully difficult for so many individual people from various walks of life to have manufactured this tale 60 years ago, much less sustained it all these years, without being members of a conspiracy beyond anything the fiction writers could have dreamt up. There were just too many stories-then, and in the decades since-that meshed together to complete the whole.

  * * *

  The one thing I had known for many years was that, as a child, Jess had seen and held pieces of what he and his father firmly believed to be part of a UFO. I was also fortunate enough to have been told the story by his dad, shortly before his death. Jesse Sr. came into the kitchen early one morning while I was fixing breakfast, sat down with a cup of coffee, and said, out of the blue, "You know, the crash at the Brazel Ranch that I investigated was not of this earth. It was scattered in a field over a large area. The rancher said his sheep wouldn't go near it. He had to take them around it for water. There were pieces of aluminum foil-like material, clear string or line that was like fishing line, and some I-beams. When you balled up the foil in your hand, it would open like it had a memory. We loaded it up into our vehicles and took it back to Roswell."

  I asked him, "Did you see any little people?"

  He answered, "No, just the foil and beams. It wasn't a balloon. I wouldn't have wasted my time on it if it were. It was said they found another crash site that had little people, but I never saw them. I stopped at the house on the way to the base to show Viaud and little Jess, because I knew that it was not of this earth. When word started getting out about what we found, they came out with a news report that we had found a UFO, and then they changed the story to a weather balloon."

  "Did that make you mad?"

  "Naw, I was military, and just doing my job."

  "Didn't you think it was odd when they cleaned it up and then flew it away? Would they have done that for a weather balloon?"

  "Hell, no! I was trained in this stuff, and I knew it wasn't a balloon."

  I had heard this story before, of course, but it was the first time that Jesse Sr. had actually sat down and told it to me. Although he had spoken about the incident a few times to the media in recent years, he seemed to feel it was important to make a statement to me now.

  Our next visit with Jesse Sr. was a sad one. It was June 1986, and Jesse Jr. had just returned from summer camp with the National Guard. I had spent two weeks in Disneyland with all of our kids and another Guard family, loaded into two vans. We had been home only a day when we got the call that Jesse Sr. was in the hospital and was not expected to live. Jesse Jr. had a private ENT practice, and had already missed two weeks of work attending Guard Camp, which was normally his "vacation." Nevertheless, we made a fast trip to Houma, Louisiana. As we'd been warned, Jess's dad died, and Jess took it awfully hard. I'd always known that Jess idolized his dad, but the sadness that hung over him really drove the point home. With the help of Jess's cousins, we packed Jesse Sr.'s house in Houma and l
oaded everything into a U-haul. Jess set out for the long ride back to Montana, while I flew home with his mother, Viaud.

  Viaud spent the next 10 years living with us. On occasion, she would tell our friends the story of when UFO researcher Stan Friedman had come to the house in Houma in the late 1970s, and had asked Jesse Sr. about the Roswell crash. In later years, she developed Alzheimer's, and grew ever more distant from us. In spite of the challenges of caring for her, along with keeping everything else balanced on my already full plate, I am grateful for the time we had with her. One thing that still holds firm in my mind is the fact that you cannot live with someone for years, much less decades, and not know the real truth of who they are and what they say. The story I have heard from Jess, his mom, and his dad has never wavered, and even if I had never heard anyone else support the tale they told, I would know in my heart that it is true.

  * * *

  Although for me the specter of Roswell had long been an accepted part of life with Jess, I think my real baptism into UFO culture occurred at a National Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) conference somewhere in the Midwest. I don't remember the exact location or date, but I certainly remember the people. I've always been a people watcher, and the conference was a real smorgasbord for me. There were people from all walks of life-educated and not-so-educated, scientists and researchers, and believers of every stripe, from newagers to "tinfoil hats"-so I was in watcher heaven.

  In October of 1988 we went to Washington D.C., where Jess was to be part of a documentary hosted by actor Mike Farrell called UFO CoverUp: Live! a two-hour prime-time syndicated television special that was broadcast in North America and elsewhere. Not being much of a television watcher, it was only after three days of rehearsal, while standing in a lunch line behind Mike, that I finally realized that he was Captain B.J. Hunnicutt from M.A.S.H., the one television show I watched. When I told him that it had just dawned on me who he was, he just laughed.