Tonight, on
"History's Greatest Mysteries".
Our conclusion to
"Roswell: The First Witness".
Previously,
a former CIA operative,
Ben Smith,
investigates
what really crashed
near Roswell, New Mexico,
in 1947.
I'm not sure I buy
that whole balloon theory.
- Really?
- Yeah.
The focus:
A mysterious journal
found among the possessions
of Jesse Marcel,
the first official
to arrive at the scene.
It was not anything
from this earth.
That, I'm quite sure of.
A top cryptologist
believes
it may contain coded
messages...
To a cryptographer,
this indicates
a certain kind of cipher.
Perhaps details
on what Marcel really saw.
He saw the spaceship.
I'm Laurence Fishburne
and tonight,
the hunt for the mysterious
journal's author continues.
Was it a fellow officer in Jesse
Marcel's tight knit group
who knew exactly what he knew?
Ben smith is hot on the trail.
Was one of these men the
author of the journal?
Was it written
by a U.S. Army officer
with inside information
on Roswell?
There are some words
and letter combinations
I do see in agreement.
This man is at the nexus
of all the secrets.
And what did Jesse Marcel
tell his own family
years before
he ever went public?
He told us that they had
told him to change the story.
Did an
extraterrestrial spacecraft
crash near Roswell?
The conclusion to
our investigation begins now.
*HISTORY'S GREATEST MYSTERIES*
Season 01 Episode 07
Episode Title: "Roswell:
The First Witness – The Writer".
Aired on:
December 26, 2020.
Former CIA investigator
Ben Smith has traveled
to Louisiana's gulf coast
to visit Houma,
the hometown of Jesse Marcel
where he spent the last
At ease among his own people
in this quiet
bayou community,
smith believes Marcel
may have divulged details
about the UFO crash
to family and friends.
There are
Mr. and Mrs. Marcel.
They must have liked you.
They have smiles
on their faces.
I was in their book.
She says, "you could sell
refrigerators to Eskimos,"
because I was so persuasive in
making him talk about things.
And she could see that
I was getting things.
And that's him and I together.
I have my Nichols state
university t-shirt on, and...
Oh, my gosh.
Such a long time ago.
Linda Corley
met Marcel in 1981
when she taped an interview
with him
for her undergraduate
psychology course
at Nichols State University.
Marcel was retired and living
with his wife, Vito.
in 2007, she turned
her interview with Jesse
into a book entitled
"For the sake of my country."
I had a little
cassette-tape recorder,
and I asked him
if it was all right.
He said, "sure."
okay.
Please don't break.
Please don't break.
I kept asking all through
the interview,
"can't you tell me something
that's not in the book?"
Linda is referring
to the first book
to allege a government
cover-up at Roswell,
called
"the Roswell incident."
it was written
by Charles Berlitz
and William Moore in 1980.
It relied heavily on the
testimony of Jesse Marcel.
I asked him
that a million times.
"can't you tell me something
that's not in the book?"
- Yeah.
- And in the end, he did.
What Marcel told Linda
was that his son, Jesse Jr.
Had described the debris
he'd handled inaccurately.
Jesse Jr.,
who was 11 at the time,
claimed he'd picked up
small support struts,
which he called I-beams.
The most unusual part
of the debris that I saw
was the I-beam fragments,
or what I recall
as being I-beam,
because they were very light
and very strong,
and they had some writing
along the inside surface
of this,
and that was the thing
that really set this apart
from anything
I'd ever seen before.
he was talking about
the symbols
that he saw on the debris,
and Mrs. Marcel said,
"I think I have
Jesse Jr.'s drawing of that,"
and he said, "well, Jesse got
all that wrong anyway."
- Huh.
- I had a composition book,
and I'm like, "well, here.
Why don't you
draw me something?"
the clip I want you to hear
is of what he says
as he's drawing.
he didn't seem to have doubt
as to his memory of that.
Right.
That's what he draw.
That's the original.
Huh.
I said,
"now, will you sign it?"
and he said, "yeah."
I can't believe I had the
wherewithal to even say that,
- and then he signed it,
and he drew the beam, Yeah.
which you can see
is not an I-beam.
- It's not an I-beam.
- Yeah.
He told me
that they were pink and purple,
and so I wrote that,
that's my handwriting.
Yeah.
So these are some of my
beginning sketches
from what he told me.
Yeah. That's something
I could never figure out.
Are we talking about wood,
or are we talking about metal?
He called it wood.
He was specific about that,
but he said it wouldn't burn.
How did he know
it didn't burn?
He tried to burn it
with a cigarette lighter.
He said, "it felt like wood.
It looked like wood,
"but it wouldn't burn,
so it can't be wood.
"it has to be something
I've never seen before
on this earth,"
that kind of thing.
Uh-huh. Yeah. Hmm.
I asked him, "why didn't you
save some of it?"
mm-hmm.
"why didn't you do that?"
I would've saved a piece of it.
Right.
His choice of words
always stuck in my mind.
"I sat on this premium
for 32 years.
I don't want any publicity.
All I want is peace."
he said that more than once.
"I just want peace."
why don't you have peace?
He could've sat on it
for another 32 years?
Why did he talk?
Had to have been bothering him.
Had to have been something
he wanted to get off his chest.
Yeah. That's true.
I have three tapes
that last about four hours,
and during that time,
we had bonded
- so close together.
- Hmm. Yeah.
He says,
"you're welcome here anytime."
Linda says that
when she went home,
she couldn't stop looking at
the symbols Jesse had drawn.
I had studied writing
and codes and scripts
for other things,
and I came home that night,
and I looked up some
different ancient writings,
and it was exactly
what he drew...
Mm-hmm.
Exactly what he drew.
Linda says that
what Jesse drew resembled
a kind of shorthand
called Tironian notes
that were first used
in ancient Rome around 4 BC.
She says
the symbols Jesse drew
signify travel and flight.
I went back the next day.
I was invited in cordially,
again.
Mm-hmm.
And I showed him
some of the writing.
I mean, look. This one here,
these slashes here...
Mm-hmm.
This is almost exactly
what he drew, and there's...
and what is tironian?
There's a decipher for that.
I went into detail about
where this writing
could've come from.
Yeah.
I think I saw that, yeah.
And they got pretty intense
about the writing.
I left on good terms.
"come back anytime you want."
yeah.
And then the calls.
He said, "do not use
what I gave you.
Everything is a lie."
and the next call was, "don't
go to the media with it."
he was so irate on the phone.
Okay. Yeah.
I can still see myself.
"I didn't do any...
I'm not gonna do that.
This is for school," you know?
Uh-huh.
"I'm not going
to the media with this!"
so I never heard
from him again.
I was crushed.
What do you think
caused that change?
Well,
I think the second visit,
what happened
and transpired there
is why he called
and said don't use it.
Uh-huh.
And the only thing that
transpired in that second visit
were photos
of the ancient writings.
The ancient writings,
yeah. Huh.
what if he was told
that writing means something
to the government
or whatever,
- and you shouldn't tell.
- Uh-huh.
- You know, you shouldn't
have drawn it. - Right.
You shouldn't have
written it, you know?
What if... it was something
that was alien,
and he's too afraid
to let it out?
So, you know, those are
what-ifs because I don't know
what else to think
about those phone calls.
What else can I think?
Did he ever mention that
he was close to anyone on base,
anyone who was
especially important to him?
He talked about Cavitt
quite a bit.
He thought extremely
highly of Colonel Blanchard.
Colonel Blanchard had refused
to transfer him
three months later
and said he was more important
and needed there,
but somebody else
wanted him out.
Huh.
And he didn't care
for General Ramey.
He said General Ramey knew it
wasn't a weather balloon.
So do you believe
Jesse's story?
Yeah.
I believe Jesse believes.
I was always a believer
that Jesse believed.
- Mm-hmm.
- Nothing stood out as phony.
Nothing stood out as fake.
did you ever feel like
he had a secret
that he
wasn't sharing with you?
Well, he says that "I'm not
telling you everything."
yeah.
"there's still things
I can't tell you,"
and I'm like, "why?"
and he says,
"For the sake of my country."
- for the sake of his country.
- And that's why I named
the book
"For the sake of my country."
yeah.
Yeah.
Ben smith has
just heard a taped interview
with Jesse Marcel...
In which Marcel
says it was his duty
to stay quiet about Roswell.
Now smith has come
to new York city
to better understand why
Marcel felt extreme pressure
to keep his secret long
after he left the m*llitary.
hi, Ben.
Hi, Leslie.
Come in.
Thank you.
Leslie Kean,
author of
the bestselling book
"UFOs: Generals, pilots
and government officials
go on the record,"
says it's risky for
members of the m*llitary
to speak openly about UFOs.
For people in the m*llitary,
there is this taboo,
this stigma
around the topic of UFOs.
They're afraid to talk about
it, that it might somehow
affect their positions
and their careers.
There's the respect
they have of their colleagues.
They might...
Somebody might think
there's something wrong
with them.
Those attitudes are still
there, unfortunately.
it sounds like
you're convinced
there's a taboo about UFOs.
That stigma is a big factor
for sort of the individual
out there who has a sighting.
Mm-hmm.
And it's also a big factor
as to why there isn't
more research being done
by the scientific community
because there's no money
to fund projects
that involve something
that's taboo, basically.
Yeah.
But I think it's gotten
a lot better.
I think the December 17th
"new York times" story... 2017...
Really shifted things.
In December 2017,
Leslie Kean broke the story
that the pentagon was running
a secret program
to investigate UFOs,
although officially,
the m*llitary
claimed all UFO research
had stopped in the 1960s.
The pentagon had a secret
program that started in 2007,
but sources have told me
that there were programs
before that.
Kean uncovered
not only a top-secret program
but actual proof
that m*llitary pilots
reported sightings of UFOs
more than once.
The online version
of the story,
which is the one
that most people read,
included two official
department of defense
videos taken of objects...
Unidentified objects...
And they were cleared
for public release.
This is a drone,
bro.
There's a whole fleet of
them. Look on the SA.
Those videos were
spectacular,
and they drew a lot
of attention to the article,
and as far as I'm aware,
this is the first time
the actual government videos
have been released of UFOs.
Nickel six 110, roger.
Oh! Got it! Woo-hoo!
But kean says that
before the videos
were leaked,
the pilots felt
intense pressure
not to reveal
what they had witnessed.
These are patriots.
These are people
who are responsible
for the lives
of American citizens,
highly trained,
highly credible.
When they see something,
they're not supposed
to talk about it.
There's nowhere for them
to report it.
It just... for me,
it borders on just
a kind of irrationality
and disrespect.
They struggle with this,
and they feel that
their own government
doesn't take them seriously.
That's the problem.
Look at that thing, dude.
Ben smith sees similarities
between these events
and what
Jesse Marcel's family
says happened to him in 1947.
Jesse Marcel Sr.
Told his grandchildren
that, fort worth, when it was
the second press release
with General Ramey, Jesse
was paraded into the room
because he was the first
individual on the scene,
and he was in the flying
saucer report the day before,
and they put out this debris,
and Jesse told
his grandchildren
that that was not the debris
that he recovered.
But he had to pretend it was
during the press conference?
He was told to shut his mouth
and to just play along.
That was his claim.
Back in the day,
that was so common
that these high-level
m*llitary people would,
you know, know a lot
but feel they couldn't say it,
and then they'd just go to
their graves, and that's it.
Yeah.
I have a lot of respect
for the Marcel's
and the Roswell witnesses,
absolutely.
When you see them talking
or you hear them,
they are as convincing
as anything,
and I have no doubt
that they believe 100%
in what they're saying.
They're not lying or anything.
They had an experience.
They found something.
They believe that it is
what they say it is,
and they are
extremely convincing.
You absolutely have
to take it seriously,
and I just wish
there was more information
to prove them right.
That proof could
lie hidden in the journal
that Jesse Marcel kept among
his most prized possessions.
So far, smith's investigation
has proven
that the journal
is authentic,
dates from the time
of the Roswell incident,
and that Marcel
is not its author.
smith wants to find out
who wrote the journal,
why and what it means.
without intuition to find
the information,
you're useless in journalism
or intelligence, right?
So you gotta follow your gut
'cause that's where
you find the best gold.
If it was easy to find,
someone would've
found it by now.
Right.
To plot his next steps,
smith meets
with Joe Pappalardo,
a veteran aviation journalist
with a deep understanding
of American m*llitary history
and the Roswell story.
So Craig, the cryptographer,
has some interesting insights
that I did not pick up on,
and right away, actually,
he picked up on some things
that could actually
indicate code.
Craig.
Oh, hi.
You must be Ben.
That's right.
Good to meet you.
You, too.
When smith took
the journal to Craig Bauer,
one of the nation's
top code breakers,
Bauer thought it could be
written in a home-brew code,
a pattern of letters or words
invented by the writer.
To create something
just between friends,
it's not that hard to make it
really hard to break.
This potential home-brew code
started just after Roswell.
In August 1947, we get this
weird kind of writing,
so whatever it is,
it's correlated
to that strange date.
Now, we still don't have
the author,
so we can't quite tell
what it is.
I don't know.
Zodiac was like that,
and they broke that code,
didn't they?
As long as it says something,
you should be able
to be break it.
If someone in the 509th
wrote the journal,
and we can identify who,
it might lead us
to other documents
that allow us
to interpret its meaning,
sort of like a broken locket
where you have one half
and I have the other.
We put them together,
and it's a treasure map.
So who, in your estimation,
would be someone
that we'd be interested
in hearing from at the time
who would give him
this journal?
Well, as I understand, the
Roswell army air force base
had almost 8,000 personnel
in 1947.
It's a huge base.
But I think
it would be helpful
to focus my search
on the 509th group
and then his
counterintelligence group.
That would be the kind
of person
that would have information
that would be
worth safeguarding,
and they give it
to the point man
for the whole
Roswell incident.
As the
intelligence officer
in Roswell,
Marcel was trusted
with the m*llitary's
most protected secrets,
and according
to his grandson,
he stayed silent
about what he saw in 1947
to protect his family.
when my grandfather started
talking about his experience
with the Roswell UFO,
he was careful about
what he told us.
He didn't want
to tell us something
that we could tell somebody
that might lead us
into a position where
we could've felt threatened.
Part of Marcel's job
was to share
valuable intelligence
with an inner circle
of officers
at the 509th bomber group.
Smith thinks whoever wrote
the journal might have been
sharing something valuable
with Marcel.
I'm hoping I can get more
handwriting samples
of other people
in the 509th group
to see if this might
have been passed to him
by somebody else
within the bomber group.
I would suggest if they're in
the 509th
and if they were officers,
they may have actually served
in world w*r ii.
They hand wrote a lot of
after-action reports.
If they were officers, there
may be handwriting samples
that are in old world w*r ii
bombing records and archives,
where they flew in from,
the bombing assessments.
There's a lot of information.
You might actually hit
a little trove there.
You might not,
but, hey, at least
it's a rock to kick over.
Yeah.
That's an interesting point.
I hadn't considered that.
Cracking this part
of your mystery
is only one good search away.
If you find out who through
a handwriting analysis,
then you could find out
a little bit
more of the motive why.
I'm on my way to meet
Jennifer Naso,
the handwriting expert.
I have with me a number
of handwriting samples
belonging to the people
closest to Jesse Marcel
during the time
of the Roswell incident.
Ben smith has been
researching Jesse Marcel's
fellow officers in the 509th.
He's gotten writing samples
for six individuals,
an inner circle that
must have known details
about what
really crashed at Roswell.
if it didn't belong to Jesse
and he kept it
in his
most prized possessions,
it had to have belonged
to somebody important to him.
Now the question is,
does anybody's
writing match the journal?
hey. Come on in.
I'm back with more work
for you.
Tell me what you have.
I took the journal
to a code breaking expert.
First of all, he took a look
at the journal,
and to his eyes, a few things
immediately popped up
that suggested there might be
some kind of code.
Now, he ran the numbers
and was not able to find
any coherent message.
That does not correspond
to a letter.
So his next best guess
was that maybe there was
some kind of encryption system
that only the author knew of.
So that gets back to the
question, well, who wrote it?
Who is the author?
Who is the author?
So I have brought a number
of handwriting samples...
Oh.
From key individuals
at the Roswell army
air force base.
Let me start
with colonel Blanchard,
who was Jesse Marcel's
direct commanding officer
and the head
of the 509th bomber group.
In 1947, colonel
William "butch" Blanchard
was commander of the 509th
bomber group
based at Roswell.
A highly decorated
world w*r ii hero
who had helped plan the Enola
Gay's bombing of Hiroshima,
Blanchard was in charge
of America's
only nuclear att*ck force.
It was a job in which
he would certainly know
about any
top-secret operation
involving his air base.
The officer
he might have been closest to
was Jesse Marcel.
The Blanchards
and the Marcel's
were regular bridge partners.
we have Walter Haut,
the press corps officer
who organized
the press releases
and wrote the infamous
flying-saucer press release.
As the base
public information officer,
lieutenant Walter Haut
was ordered by Blanchard
to draft that famous
press release
that a flying disc
had been recovered.
In his later years,
Haut came forward to say
he believed Marcel had been
telling the truth
and went so far as to say
that he himself had glimpsed
bodies of aliens.
we have Bob Shirkey.
Lieutenant Robert shirkey
was assistant
group operations officer
for the 509th.
If the debris
was extraterrestrial,
shirkey would've
been in charge
of arranging its transport
to the army's top-secret
research facility,
wright-Patterson.
After retiring from
the m*llitary, shirkey later
claimed that Jesse Marcel
was telling the truth.
And over here
we have Edwin Easley.
Edwin Easley
was the provost marshal
at the 509th bomber group.
Major Edwin Easley
was in charge
of base security.
He would've been responsible
for safeguarding the debris
and controlling
which personnel
had access to it.
In this capacity,
it's not unreasonable
to assume he knew
what the crates contained.
he would've been responsible
for organizing
the cleanup effort
to pull in,
to collect the debris.
We also have Patrick Saunders.
Patrick Saunders
was the office administrator
for colonel Blanchard,
so he would've been involved
in all the record keeping
and issuing the orders.
Patrick Saunders
was colonel Blanchard's
top deputy.
He had flown
in world w*r ii
and had just as many medals
as his boss.
As colonel Blanchard's
number two,
he would've been in the room
when Jesse Marcel returned
from the debris field
and debriefed the colonel.
If there's anybody at
the 509th bomber group
who knows everything, it's
this guy, Patrick Saunders.
So if this handwriting
matched,
it would mean everything
to the journal
because here is a man who had
access to all kinds of secrets
who may have wanted to confide
something in Jesse Marcel.
Okay, so we'll compare
these writings to the journal.
So what I notice
right off the bat
with the Blanchard signature,
that's all the writing
that we have, correct?
Right.
Just having the one signature
to compare to a extended body
of text writing poses a big
limitation to the examination.
From what I see in the Patrick
Saunders writing...
Mm-hmm.
While there's a bit more
than just one signature,
it's really just
the one sentence,
and so the limitation
is still
the lack of quantity
of known writing.
Right. Right.
It's a bit of a blurry copy,
and so it's hard to tell
the pen movements,
and some of the fine
and subtle features
of the formations
of the letters
might be lost in the image
quality of that copy.
Looking at
the Walter Haut handwriting
and the bob shirkey writing,
this is a more extended
sample of writing,
so there's going to be
a lot more information,
almost characteristics
that I'm going to be able
to compare to the journal.
Even if you can provide any,
even just the slightest
new piece of information
on one or the other,
it could help me eliminate
one person from the group
closest to Jesse Marcel.
And if I have to,
I may have to
expand the search
and move out from there
to identify who could've
given him this journal.
Smith will leave
the journal,
which was so precious
to Jesse Marcel,
in Naso's hands, hoping
she can uncover its author.
As the search
for the journal's author
escalates,
Ben Smith returns
to Jesse Marcel's hometown
of Houma, Louisiana.
Marcel's granddaughter,
Denice,
has convinced the extended
Marcel family to divulge
some of the strange things
Jesse told them.
So how is everyone related
to Jesse Marcel?
He was my
brother-in-law's uncle.
Okay.
But I always called him
uncle Jesse.
You know, we're all cousins.
Yeah.
my grandmother and Jesse
were brother and sister.
Oh, wow.
Mm-hmm.
Okay, so do you remember
speaking to him a lot?
Yes.
Yeah.
We were very close. We lived
next door to him for 10 years.
I went over there a lot.
Smith wants
to know what they know
from the lips
of Marcel himself.
Their memories seem clear.
Wallace, how old were you
when Jesse
shared his story with you?
I was a teenager.
You were a teenager?
Uh-huh. I want to say
that it was in 1957.
In 1957,
just 10 years after Roswell.
Yeah.
Okay.
I was 12, 13 years old
or something like that.
Yeah. Okay.
He told me, "don't believe
everything
the government tells you,"
and he started telling me
the story
about the crash in Roswell
and that they forced him
to lie about it.
This means
that two decades
before he told the world
an extraterrestrial
spacecraft had crashed,
Marcel told the same story
with the same details
to the people he trusted.
What details
did he describe?
Did he mention
a UFO crash? Did he...
he did tell me
a UFO crashed.
Okay.
He was telling me
about what it looked like.
I put two and two
together and figured,
I think he's telling me
that we've got people
from outer space coming here.
Okay, and what was
your reaction then?
What did you think?
Looking up
at the sky at night.
did you believe him?
Of course I believed him.
Yeah.
'cause I don't think
uncle Jesse
would've lied to anybody.
Right.
He wasn't that type of man.
Wallace remembers
talking to Jesse.
I don't remember
talking to him.
Okay.
But Jesse told my dad
stories about
the Roswell incident.
And those stories
went further
than anything Jesse Marcel
ever said in public.
The thing that interested me
the most was
that Jesse
drew a picture of an alien.
Jesse drew a picture
of an alien?
Yeah. He hand-drew a picture
of an alien.
Huh.
Yeah.
My dad lost that picture,
but later on in life, he wrote,
"what the picture looks like
that Jesse drew for me."
it looked like the picture
that Jesse drew.
Yeah.
That's the first time
I'm hearing any stories
about Jesse himself drawing
or referencing an alien.
I don't remember
my dad ever saying
that Jesse saw an alien.
Okay.
Maybe somebody
told him about this.
I... so, Wallace, do you think
that extraterrestrials
crashed in 1947?
Yeah.
Okay.
Did Jesse ever tell you, June,
about his experience
at Roswell?
Yes.
He did?
He did. I think probably '74
to '76, somewhere in there.
Okay.
He started talking
to me about it.
Mm-hmm.
Basically what
they're telling you, too.
He found wreckage.
He said
it was not of this world.
Mm-hmm.
He described the metal,
saying that you could
crumble it up in your hand,
but it would automatically go
right back like it had memory.
Mm-hmm. Okay.
He used the word memory?
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
And my daughter,
who was 10 at the time,
approached him and asked him,
"uncle Jesse,
were there any bodies?"
and he looked at her,
and she says his eyes kind of
glazed over, and he said,
"there are things that
this world is not ready for."
that's what he told
your daughter?
"there are things this world
is not ready for."
right.
Yeah.
In front of family members,
Jesse displayed emotions
he kept hidden
from the outside world.
He seemed angry at times
about the government.
He told us that they had
told him to change the story
and that it was
not UFO wreckage.
It was a weather balloon.
I think it bothered him a lot,
you know, that he was told
to shut up about it.
It was a very notable event
in American history,
and he couldn't talk about it.
Right.
You know, and it was him
that found it,
you know, and then had to lie.
Right.
You know,
so that tore him up.
Right.
It really did.
I think he needed
to express himself about it,
so back in '78, '79, he got
sort of emboldened about it
and decided
he was going to talk.
Yeah, but you heard
all of these stories
before
there was any big media...
Absolutely.
Sensation about the story.
Absolutely.
He was being open
with family about it.
My family members
were aware of that.
It really upset him a lot
that people thought
that he was making it up,
you know?
Yeah.
He had to kind of deal
with some ridicule,
and that kind of...
well, I know it wasn't
from our family
that he got that from.
Right.
Outsiders would ridicule him
and call him crazy Jesse
because...
oh, really?
Because of when they
started hearing about Roswell.
That must be hard for
an intelligence officer,
a decorated veteran
to be ridiculed
by his neighbors
and his community.
Yeah.
That's...
I think that would've been
hard for him.
Well, all the reports
have been lost.
All of the original files
have been lost,
so at this point in time,
it really is Jesse's word
against the government's
word, right?
One part of my investigation,
and it's just a part,
is to see can we find any proof
anywhere that this happened?
Yeah.
June, did Jesse ever hint
that he might have something
more, more information,
more details or maybe
something hidden in his house?
what he told me is,
he came home to Roswell.
He had some wreckage
in his car.
Mm-hmm.
He pulled it out
and brought it inside
and showed his family.
but what other things he
might've done, I don't know.
He did not ever tell me that
he had anything, you know?
Okay.
A piece of the wreckage
or anything like that, no.
After meeting
with the Marcel family
in Jesse's hometown of Houma,
former CIA investigator
Ben Smith
and Jesse's
granddaughter, Denice,
get the opportunity to meet
someone outside the family
who claims Jesse shared
with him
extraordinary details
of the Roswell incident,
secrets that might lie hidden
in the coded writing
of the mysterious journal.
He started off by saying,
"look, you know,
this thing
that happened to me was real."
Calvin Parker says
he was introduced
to Jesse Marcel
by a mutual acquaintance.
Your granddaddy said
that they staged a site away
from the actual site
to keep the
general public away.
They took weather balloons
out to the field
and tried to distribute
little pieces around
so people could find them.
That I have never heard.
Parker claims
that Jesse Marcel told him
about an elaborate
m*llitary operation
to retrieve alien bodies
and orchestrate a cover-up
to make it look like a
weather balloon had crashed.
The first time
he mentioned it,
he said they was
actually bodies out.
He said that he saw some?
Exactly.
A special unit got the bodies,
and he wasn't part of that.
Oh.
But they took them back
to the base at Roswell.
And he described
all of this to you?
He described every bit
of it to me.
It's so interesting
that these are details
that I've not heard before...
yeah.
I've not heard these either.
That he didn't tell
Linda corley,
that he didn't tell
his family members.
He didn't tell us, yep.
That's pretty...
well, he felt like he could
talk because I told him
that as long as he was alive,
I would never say
nothing about it, and I didn't.
To my surprise, he told me...
He said, "I've got something
that I want to show you."
he said, "I have evidence.
I have proof of this."
he has proof?
Jesse said he had proof?
I said, "oh, I'd love
to see it,"
so he told me
there's a screwdriver
in the kitchen drawer,
go get it,
go down to a hot-water heater
and take the top off
and bring it up here to me.
Calvin Parker
says that Marcel told him
he'd kept pieces of debris
from the Roswell crash
and hidden them inside
a water heater in his home.
I was fixing to unscrew it.
I was going to look at these.
So you actually touched it
and put the screwdriver to it?
Oh, I was ready to when
somebody showed up at the door.
Huh.
Oh, my gosh.
I don't know who this was
knocking at the door,
but he didn't want to talk
about it in front of him.
Right.
So I didn't feel
real welcome there,
and I got up and left.
I was planning on coming back
the next day,
but I had to go to work.
I went offshore for 160 days,
and I got back,
and I couldn't wait
to get back over and see
and get that debris.
I went to the house, and I
found out he had passed away.
It broke my heart.
Did your father ever talk
to you about the water heater,
about hiding debris
here in Houma?
No. This is literally
the first time
I've ever heard this story.
If anything, I always was told
that my grandfather
didn't keep anything.
Did he ever say why he had
never brought it out earlier?
That would've helped
prove his story
that he wasn't making it up
and is like,
"hey, people.
I really do have proof,"
so I'm wondering...
I'm curious as to why
he decided to show it
to you at that point.
Well, he was real loyal
to his country.
Right.
He was m*llitary.
You follow orders when
the m*llitary gives you orders.
And I think there was
a reluctance there
against his conscience
about coming out against
an order that he had had.
Right.
He told me that
when he took this material,
it was a real trip
for him to keep it hid,
but he knew that he'd never
get to see it again
when they got to Roswell.
Yeah.
So he,
for lack of a better word,
had to steal it...
yeah.
From the cleanup effort.
He stole the material, yeah.
The man was on his deathbed.
Right.
You could tell
physically that he was having
to take something.
Yeah.
But mentally, he seemed
to be intact,
he seemed to be all there.
Yeah.
He didn't wanna die
with this on his conscience.
from a security standpoint,
it makes sense that Jesse Sr.
Would anticipate continued
scrutiny on his family.
Yes.
And that he might
want to introduce
somebody without...
Who believes,
who we can identify with
but without
that public presence.
Right.
Someone like Calvin.
Right.
there could be some debris
left around,
probably right there
in that house somewhere,
if it's still there.
So you think the debris
could still be at the house?
I know it could be.
Huh.
The house is just down
the road from here, and...
yeah.
There's no doubt in my mind.
And I've been
to the debris field.
I've been out there searching,
and it's hard
to find anything,
but here actually is a fresh
lead in the investigation
that I haven't encountered yet.
It could mean everything.
Yeah, everything.
This is probably
the best chance
we have of finding anything
left of that crash site.
Right.
Thank you for taking the
time. This has been wonderful.
Thank you.
It's been my pleasure.
Thank you very much.
Denice, thank you.
Thank you.
order of business
number one is get that home
and see what we can find.
Yes.
The trickiest part
about the debris field
is that even if we find
a piece of metal,
we have no idea
how it got there.
Right.
So many people
have been there over time,
before and after.
It could've arrived there
in any number of ways,
but if we something hidden on
the inside of a water heater,
we know your grandfather
put it there.
Right.
If they could find
a piece of debris
taken from the crash site,
it would be
an astounding development
in the saga of Roswell.
smith and denice Marcel
will try to get inside
Jesse Marcel's old house,
which is only
a short drive away.
coming into this cold.
The person doesn't know us.
We don't know them.
Right.
We just have to be
prepared for the gamut.
I got you.
Tea and cookies versus
shotgun kind of thing.
Okay.
So I have no idea.
let's not say
that we're UFO researchers.
Oh, yeah. No.
We're researching
local family history.
Okay.
You used to live
in the house.
Okay.
The Marcel family,
in particular,
and we can get into
the UFO stuff later...
Okay.
Once we feel comfortable
that it's not gonna
put them off.
That sounds
like a really good idea.
this is the part
that makes me nervous
but also gets me excited.
Yes. I know what you mean.
hello.
Hi. How are you?
Hello.
All right.
Hi!
Hey. I'm Ben.
Matt.
Matt. Nice to meet you.
Hi. I'm denice.
Denice used to live here.
Well, her grandfather
used to live here.
My grandfather
used to live here.
Would you mind
if she walked me
through a little bit
of the property
to show me where things were?
The owner is
reluctant to let them enter,
and so for now,
it's impossible
to verify Parker's claim.
I am in southern new Mexico
on my way
to the home
of a guy named chuck wade.
Now, chuck wade claims to have
a piece of debris
recovered from a potential
UFO crash site.
Ben smith
couldn't get access
to Jesse Marcel's
former house
to verify
whether it contained.
Roswell crash debris.
Now smith is following up
another lead
and meeting
with a man named chuck wade,
who is convinced
he has UFO debris
from a spacecraft
that crashed in 1947.
hey. How you doing?
Good. How are you, chuck?
Come on in.
Did your dad have
a relationship
with mac before that July?
Oh, yeah.
If you're the guy
that owns the bar,
everybody knows you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dad owned that bar
for many, many years,
and I just loved to be there
and listen to the stories.
I was seven years old
the year
that the Roswell incident
happened there next to corona.
Chuck wade's
father, Jesse wade,
owned the bar in Corona
where Rancher Mac Brazel
first came to show
his neighbors
the strange debris he'd found
while herding sheep.
Although it is known
as the Roswell incident,
the small farming
community of corona
was the closest to where
mac found the debris.
Mac brazel found something
that he doesn't know,
and recognize at all
on the foster ranch,
so he came to corona
and asked my father to go out
and see what in the world
it was,
'cause he... mac just
flat didn't know.
But my dad was busy, and it
was just himself in the bar,
so dad chose
not to close the bar.
Dad regretted that,
I'm going to say, immensely.
He'd always say,
"I wished I'd went with mac
to see what was out there."
right.
Chuck wade also wanted
to see what was out there.
After running his own
construction company,
wade has devoted
most of the last 20 years
to researching UFOs.
so tell me a little bit about
some of the sites and debris
that you recovered.
I think it could inform
my investigation of Roswell.
Have y'all studied the crash
on the plains of San Agustin?
No.
Wade has come to
a startling conclusion:
Roswell was only one
of a series of UFO crashes
that took place in southern
new Mexico during that time.
According to wade, there were
seven UFO crashes in total.
Five of them occurred during
the first week of July 1947.
The first one here
was August 1945.
This one right here,
the night of the 1st
to the 2nd of July, 1947.
These three,
four, five and six
was about 11:00 on July
the 4th, 1947,
and this one up here
was in March 1948.
Chuck wade has a theory
about what caused
the spaceships to crash.
What happened, folks, is,
whenever they put in
Los Alamos National Laboratory,
they installed three major,
high-powered radars
to guard the skies
over Los Alamos.
Wade, who
supervised construction
of dozens of
air-traffic-control towers
across the u.S., believes
powerful radar signals
emitted from the Los alamos
nuclear site
caused short circuits
in the spaceships.
It electrified that craft,
and it came down in flames.
Of what he claims
are seven UFO crashes,
wade became obsessed
with one in particular,
which he believes crashed
on the plains of San Agustin
48 hours
before the Roswell crash.
New Mexico
is basically square.
Corona is basically
really close
to the center of the state.
What we call the Roswell
incident happened about
The plains of San Agustin
is over here,
about 200 miles.
chuck started going to
UFO conferences.
One of the speakers
had discovered
some pieces of debris,
and he wanted to go
and look for more debris.
Mm.
Chuck said, well,
he would
help him with that,
and he'd get some guys
to come and help dig.
So they did.
That was in 2004.
And they found some stuff.
I'd love to see it,
if I can.
Well, I think it's right
around the corner here.
The wades have
several fragments.
can you tell me
what I'm looking at here?
These here is the foils.
Mm-hmm.
And then these
here have got...
Whatever they hit is squished,
but all these are holes.
Actually, can I remove
the glass for a closer look?
Sure, be glad to.
And did you take this
to the government at all?
Not going to have any reason
to do that.
Well, I'm just curious,
you know?
No. I'm sure.
If you find a UFO,
I don't know
what the government would say,
to be honest.
I believe they said
they didn't exist.
That's true.
The official position is,
you know, they don't exist,
but things
are starting to change.
It's a good question, but no.
I avoid the government
as best as I possibly could.
There is a huge, monstrous,
gigantic cover-up
on the Roswell incident.
No one in corona was allowed...
They were ordered
not to talk about that crash.
Yeah. There's a lot of
mistrust in the community
among UFO researchers
of the federal government.
I think a lot of it stems
from the reaction
or overreaction in 1947.
They found something
on the foster ranch.
They didn't know what it was
or where it came from.
I think Jesse Marcel
is telling the truth 100%.
I see no reason for him to do
other than tell the truth.
The Roswell incident
was from outer space,
and there's not a chance
it was a damn balloon
that we made.
Now, this one is
pretty fascinating.
can I take a piece with me
to get it analyzed myself?
What do you think?
I don't know.
It's okay with me.
Do you mind if I take
this one here?
Oh, sure. Sure.
Yeah?
We'd be glad to...
Any of them that you want,
we'll be glad
to take a piece off.
I want to know
where it came from.
Why is it here? Why don't they
tell us about it?
that is pretty hard
to cut, actually.
Yeah.
It's, uh...
Smith plans to get
this piece of metal tested
to see what elements
it's composed of
and if there is anything
about it
that can suggest
where it came from.
I'm just outside Denver,
Colorado,
on my way
to meet David Soucie,
our crash-site expert.
David Soucie is
a former accident inspector
for the federal
aviation administration.
Soucie has investigated
hundreds of crash sites,
so when Ben Smith took him
to the debris field
where Jesse Marcel first saw
what he believed
to be pieces
of wrecked spacecraft,
soucie started
by measuring wind currents.
Soucie's gut reaction:
Whatever crashed here
wasn't lightweight.
This contradicts
the u.S. m*llitary's story
that what crashed at Roswell
was a weather balloon
or part of the top-secret,
lighter-than-air
project mogul.
I'm not sure I buy that
whole balloon-drag theory.
Really?
David collected all kinds
of data from the debris field:
Wind, geographic features,
weather.
I'm hoping
that he can eliminate
one aircraft or another.
Smith wants David soucie
to compare
his initial finding
with the deep earth analysis
done by
Canadian geophysicists
Colin Miazga and Eric Johnson
when they visited the debris
field late last year.
Soucie has been communicating
with them online.
I understand you do
ground-penetrative
radar, as well.
Yeah. Yeah.
Okay.
The geophysicists
used ground-penetrating radar
and gamma-ray technology
to identify strange anomalies
in the earth...
Look at that.
Wow. That is interesting.
A kind of scarring
that couldn't have come
from a deflated balloon
crash.
So this is the radar.
It doesn't make sense.
I can't understand
what that would be.
Hey, Ben.
Hey, David.
How are you doing?
Good. How are you?
Yeah. Well, come on in.
Oh, man.
I have been dying to see what
you've done with that data.
Well, there's a lot
to look at, probably more
than you want to see.
The first thing
I want to start with:
This is an overview of the
entire site, the entire area.
Oh, wow.
That is the reported
trajectory.
That's where they
found the debris.
Yeah.
And then from there,
it spread, they said,
as much as a mile
in this direction off of that.
Mm-hmm.
A bunch of other interesting
stuff that we can get through,
and now this is
what's really interesting.
This area really intrigues me
right down at the bottom here
because the gamma readings
are not consistent with
the ground-penetrating radar.
I've never seen that before.
Huh.
It doesn't make sense me.
You might have to walk me
through the actual readings.
All right.
Because I'm having
a hard time visualizing it.
Yeah. Let's do that.
These red areas indicate that
the ground-penetrating radar
says it's extremely dense,
which is where the rocks are.
Yeah.
And that sort of thing.
Here's an example
of a dense area,
and in this dense area,
you would expect to see low
gamma rays because it has...
It's not coming through.
It's blocking the gamma.
So let's look
at that spot here.
Gamma rays are indicated
by yellow or green,
and if there's less gamma,
it's blue, and sure enough,
here's this light blue
where the rocks were.
Yeah.
And then here's
the same thing here.
It almost matches perfectly
with the GPR.
Yes. You could look at
any of these spots,
any of these blues here.
Yep.
And it aligns
with these reds here.
Got it.
this spot...
now that we're just a little
above the green line...
We were looking here before,
below the green line.
Right.
But now above there,
that's red.
Let's take a closer look
at it.
See all the red? All the red.
It's dense.
It's hard and solid,
which would block gamma.
Uh-huh.
So now I'm going to flip
this. I'm going to think,
well, we're going to find
a blue spot there.
But instead,
look what we find:
The opposite of what
I would expect.
Right.
And not only
what I would expect, but what
we witnessed right here.
That was consistent
with tight compaction
and blocking the gammas.
Yeah.
But now it's yellow.
The highest.
Not only is it high,
it is the highest right there.
it's something that...
It doesn't make sense to me.
Have you ever seen that
in a wreck that you...
no. No. I have not.
I've not seen this before.
There's something there.
There's something unique about
this spot above the green line.
As an accident investigator
and what I've been doing
my entire life,
there's something
under the ground there.
There's something
making these changes,
these readings different.
So what could make
that kind of contrast,
the high density
with high radiation?
The only thing I can think of
is that
in ground-penetrating radar,
a rubber or polyethylene
and rubber...
Uh-huh.
Can create that illusion
of high density.
But it would also allow gamma
to come up through it
because it's not going
to block the gamma rays.
After analyzing the data,
David soucie can no longer
rule out the possibility
that it was a mogul balloon
that went down at Roswell.
So, I mean, a mogul balloon
was made of something
like neoprene.
Exactly, so to me,
that explains it.
To me, that is what
I would be looking for.
That's the assumption
I would make
and go out
and try to find that.
Soucie admits
that his analysis is just
an educated guess,
and even that is based
on a 1995 government report
which provided
no physical evidence
but asserted that a mogul
balloon crashed at Roswell,
a report millions
of Americans
still don't believe.
hey, hey, UFOs,
people have the right to know!
If this group of 100
demonstrators is correct,
the u.S. Government
is covering up
the most important secret
of all time:
Alien beings who have made
contact with earthlings.
They said, "well, what
about the bodies?"
how could so many people
have come forward and say,
"well, when I was a kid, I saw
this, and I saw these bodies,
"and I saw this stuff,
and some air force guys
came out and picked up stuff
in the desert."
how do we explain that?
At that infamous
where the air force
doubled down on its claim
that what crashed at Roswell
was a mogul balloon,
it also issued
a remarkable second report
that some believe undermined
its entire explanation.
we're confident
once the report is out
and digested by the public,
that this will be the final
word on the Roswell incident.
This second report
offered
what the air force hoped
was a logical explanation
to appease those Americans
who found
alleged eyewitness stories
about aliens at Roswell both
believable and compelling.
Bodies observed
in the new Mexico desert
were probably test dummies
that were carried aloft
by u.S. Air force
high-altitude balloons
for scientific research.
Additional research
uncovered information
which explained some of
the claims of alien bodies
associated with
the Roswell incident.
The second report,
called "case solved,"
was accompanied
by a short film
produced by the air force.
the project's
main objective
was to study methods
for returning a pilot
or astronaut safely to earth
by parachute
if forced to eject
at extremely high altitudes.
For these tests, dummies were
transported up to 98,000 feet
by high-altitude balloons.
The air force contended
that anyone who thought
they'd seen
the m*llitary
recovering alien bodies
were actually witnessing
exercises
that involved dropping
anthropomorphic dummies
from high-altitude balloons.
many of the dummies landed
outside the confines
of m*llitary reservation
and were regularly observed
by local civilians.
Critical examination
of alleged alien sightings
consistently match
the physical characteristics
of these dummies,
as well as where
and how they were used.
I think it's logical to
assume that the people there
saw air force ambulances
come out.
They saw gurneys come out.
They saw body bags come out
because the dummies were put
into body bags
to protect them, and when you
put all that stuff
together and spin it,
you'll find that
it fits perfectly
with many of the occurrences
in Roswell during that era.
At the press conference,
the problem with the
air force's explanation
was obvious to reporters.
Its dummy-drop exercises
didn't take place in 1947.
They only started
in the early 1950s.
They're talking about 1947,
but you're talking
about dummies used in the
'50s, almost a decade later.
Well, I'm afraid
that's the problem
that we have
with time compression.
I don't know what they saw
in '47,
but I'm quite sure
it probably was project mogul.
UFO author and
researcher don Schmidt
believes the air force
was disrespectful,
writing off
alleged eyewitnesses
as having aging
and faulty memories.
"oh, it's time compression."
new malady, not even
in the medical books,
created by the pentagon.
"the older you get, you start
to not only compress the years
but also the decades."
but the problem with that:
All the personnel
who were here in '47,
who were involved
were no longer here in '52,
so how could they be mistaking
wooden crash dummies in '52
if they weren't even here?
Colonel, let me just go back
one more time.
You say that this is
case closed,
and people
should now believe it,
but with the major hole,
though:
You're saying that they're
wrong about the date.
What explanation
can you give them
other than just saying,
"well, we just think they're
just mistaken by six years?"
I have no other explanation.
I'm sorry. I just...
I have no other explanation.
I'm looking at the facts
as we have studied them,
and I have no other explanation
of that
but what I've already given.
But how...
Yes, sir?
Would that
make it case closed?
Because we've reviewed
all the relevant information,
and we have finished this, and
we're not going to revisit it.
How do you know
that you're not being used?
How do you know
that you know the full story?
you're confident that
you're not part of any cover-up
wittingly or unwittingly.
I'm totally confident,
but I think colonel weaver...
You might have seen him
on TV earlier... said it best.
We can't even
keep single secrets.
How could we have a conspiracy
or a cover-up?
Well, it happened in 1953.
How could anybody mess
that up from 1947?
People's memories
fade over time.
We think that this answers
lots of questions,
and it answers them
logically and with integrity.
I'm excited to hear
about your findings.
So there are two styles
of uppercase WS
that I noticed in the journal.
Ben smith is with
forensic handwriting expert
Jennifer Naso, who has been
analyzing writing samples
from some of the officers
in the 509th bomber group.
She is checking to see
if they could've written
the puzzling journal that
belonged to their colleague,
Jesse Marcel.
Colonel William Blanchard,
commander
of the Roswell air base,
would certainly
have known
about any top secret
operation in his sector.
When we look at
the Blanchard,
there are some
dissimilarities,
but it's really not
a whole lot to go on.
So your professional judgment
would be,
there's not enough data yet to
confirm one way or the other.
Right. There would be
no conclusion
as to whether or not
he authored the journal
based on just the one
signature that we have.
Right.
So in the Walter Haut
handwriting,
I noticed that's
what we would call
a combination style
of writing.
Lieutenant Walter Haut
was the public information
officer for the 509th,
who was ordered
by colonel Blanchard
to draft that famous
press release
that a flying disc
had been recovered.
Where it's not all cursive,
it's all not hand-printing,
so some letters have connecting
strokes while others do not.
Right away, that's a difference
between what I see
in the all-cursive
writing of the journal,
so here is the word "and"
in the journal.
See the formation of the a...
yeah.
How it starts up
around 2:00
and then comes counterclockwise
and forms this other loop.
When we look at the "and" in
the Walter Haut handwriting...
oh, totally different.
So already, I get the sense
that this journal
was not written by Walter Haut.
The characteristics
that I'm noting thus far
are no similar to what
I'm seeing in the journal.
Yeah.
The next sample would be
Robert shirkey.
Yeah.
Lieutenant Robert shirkey
was assistant operations
officer for the 509th.
He also said Jesse Marcel
was telling the truth
and claimed he'd seen
debris flown out of Roswell
and believed it was
extraterrestrial.
So here we have
the word "July"...
Mm-hmm.
In the journal,
and just note the formation
of the uppercase J.
Uh-huh.
Here in the word "July,"
look at the formation
of the J compared
to the known writing...
Mm-hmm.
And the questioned.
So already, again, I see a
deliberate contrast in strokes
that they start to pop as
different handwriting styles.
And what we're looking for
is a pattern of writing,
and when Easley
creates this drag stroke...
"being," yeah.
"being," it's a long,
exaggerated drag stroke.
Major Edwin Easley
was in charge
of base security.
He would've been responsible
for safeguarding the debris
and controlling which
personnel had access to it.
and you see that again.
You see that repeated
throughout the known writing,
whereas in the journal,
you just have the I-dot
above the letter,
so you do have
some dissimilarities
in this writing sample,
as well.
sh**t. Well, that leaves us
Patrick Saunders.
Patrick Saunders
was colonel Blanchard's
number two,
his top deputy.
He would've been in the room
when Jesse Marcel
returned from
the debris field
to brief the commander.
There are some words
and letter combinations
I do see in agreement,
so one of the words in common
between the question
and the known
is the word "anything."
and if you look at the
writing in the journal...
Right.
There is a pen lift
after the y,
in between the y and the t,
and you see that again here.
Right.
The y terminates and then...
That's pretty distinctive.
The same thing here,
and in the known writing...
wow!
We do see that
combination, as well,
where that pen lifts
between the y and the t.
Yeah.
I would describe that
as more of
a general characteristic.
Okay.
But right now,
it is a similarity.
Huh.
also, when you look
at the letter formations,
the termination of the y
in all three "anythings"
in the journal
terminates downward.
There is no upward-move
formation.
It terminates downward.
If you look at the height
ratios between the t and the h,
here you see the h
is much taller than the t,
and you see that
throughout the questions.
The h and the t,
and you also see that the h
in the known's
is also taller than the t.
Okay.
So do you see enough
then to exclude this
as a candidate,
or is it still a viable option?
I don't see enough right now
to exclude this person
as a candidate.
Of all the samples,
with the pat Saunders one,
there's potential.
This man is at the nexus
of all the secrets.
Because Patrick Saunders
would've touched
every document,
overhead every phone call,
would've seen everything
colonel Blanchard's seen,
and if he is the author
of the journal,
then I really think
we're onto something.
He was the base
commander's number two,
his right-hand man,
but who is Patrick Saunders?
What was his role
in the Roswell incident?
What did he believe?
And if he wrote the journal.
Jesse Marcel
kept close for decades,
what secrets did
the two men share?
Investigator Ben Smith
has tracked down two of
Saunders' five children.
So you were three years old
in 1947,
and you were living
in Roswell at the time?
Yes. We were living
in Roswell on base.
On base?
Yes.
We lived there
until about 1950.
and can you tell me a
little bit about your father?
Well, my dad
was a very proud officer.
He was a very personable man,
and while he could be serious,
he could also be lots of fun
to be with.
Can you tell me
a little bit about his role
at Roswell
army air force base?
He was in charge
of assigning the troops
to the cleanup effort
at the crash site.
He was involved
in the first meeting
they had after the crash
with colonel Blanchard.
And what was your reaction
when you first found out
about your dad's role
at the Roswell army
air force base at this time?
You know, I wasn't
even born when it happened.
Years later, I hear my
sisters asking him questions
and things like that,
but I just thought everybody's
dad was cool like that.
do you know if he ever saw
or handled the debris
or any intelligence
reports
about descriptions
of the debris?
He said he knew it wasn't
a weather balloon.
So your father said
it was definitely
not a weather balloon?
Absolutely. That's one of
the things I remember him
telling me more than once
and that he knew
about weather balloons
because he dealt with them
with spying over Russia.
He did tell me that
the debris helped to develop
the stealth jet fighter
and that there was
a similarity
between the jet fighter
and the thing
that crashed at Roswell.
That is fascinating.
Patrick Saunders' daughter
says her father gave her
a well-known book
about the Roswell incident
and wrote comments
in the margins.
He wrote down page numbers,
and then he
highlighted sentences
that he thought
were very important.
On page 142, he highlighted,
"Patrick Saunders was a major
"and assigned
as the base adjutant.
"his job would've required
him accomplish paperwork
"surrounding the assigning
of the troops
to clean up the debris."
did he ever share any names
about
who might have cleaned it up?
No. He just mentioned that
he changed the serial numbers,
and he changed files
or destroyed files about it.
Really?
Mm-hmm.
So your father, in some ways,
was involved then
with the cover-up...
Yes.
And changing the serial
numbers of the soldiers...
of the men who cleaned
up the debris.
Wow. And he also
destroyed files.
- Mm-hmm.
- Huh.
Or changed them.
a key figure to the whole
question: Jesse Marcel Sr.
Did confirm there was
a cover-up,
that he was not holding
the actual debris
in the original press photo.
Yes. He was concerned
about major Marcel
and the things
that he was saying.
He didn't say
he shouldn't have said them.
He just showed...
Voiced concern about talking
about these things.
you know,
Jesse Marcel
seemed
a little bit distraught
by the fact that he had to
retain this secret
and lie to the public
for the good of his country,
what he believed
was important
to national security.
Did you ever get a sense that
your father was disturbed
by the official
government line
about what was
recovered there?
I think it was hard for him
to keep the secrets
that he knew.
Even if other people
were talking about them
and writing books about it,
I think
he struggled with that.
He took his role as
officer in the air force
and ensuring national
security...
He took that very seriously.
so, yeah,
he did what he had to do
and was instructed to do
and made no apologies.
you know, we were warned
not to talk about Roswell
outside the family,
and we generally
didn't talk about it.
This is the first time
I've really talked to people
about what he said.
Some of the threats
that others have described
were pretty intimidating,
right,
threats to your career,
threats to your safety,
threats to your legacy
and perhaps even...
your entire family, your
entire family was at risk.
So do you think he was
protecting you
from the secrets that he knew?
Absolutely.
he said that the world
wasn't ready to know the truth
about what happened at Roswell,
and I asked him what he meant
by that, and he said,
"well, it would cause
social upheaval and problems."
why?
They weren't sure
whether the beings
were friendly or not.
By the term "beings,"
she said she
understood her dad
was referring
to extraterrestrials,
the aliens who had
sent the spaceship
that crashed
at Roswell to earth.
Knowing your dad,
what do you think happened
at Roswell in 1947?
Knowing my dad, if it was
nothing or a weather balloon,
he would've just said what it
was, and let's move on.
Do you feel like
he had answers
to who these
possible beings were,
where they came from
and what they wanted?
I think he was full
of questions about them.
I don't think he had come up
with all the answers
about what
they found at Roswell.
I think a guy by the name
of Patrick Saunders
could've written
this journal.
Wow.
That actually got me
pretty excited.
That is interesting
because
it's a whole new person
to take a very close look at.
That opens up a whole other
sort of avenue, doesn't it?
It really does.
The real possibility
that one of Jesse Marcel's
fellow officers in the 509th,
Patrick Saunders,
wrote the journal that was
in Marcel's possession
is an incredible twist
in Ben Smith's investigation
of what happened at Roswell.
Now smith wants to go
over the results
of his investigation
with Joe Pappalardo,
the veteran
aviation journalist
he has been consulting
with from the start.
No explanation is going
to be complete
without a physical component,
probably.
Please tell me
you found a spaceship.
Oh, dude,
I wish I could tell you
that I came back
with the smoking g*n
to prove that it's definitely
a mogul balloon
or it's definitely
an extraterrestrial spacecraft.
I haven't found anything
definitive either way,
and that is frustrating.
Well, if it was easy,
it would be cracked by now,
so I'm eager to hear what
you actually have uncovered.
Chuck wade claimed that
he had a piece
of alien spacecraft.
The lab unfortunately
could not find anything
extraterrestrial
about the metal.
For me,
it doesn't really impact
the Roswell question
either way.
It was collected on
the plains of San Agustin
some distance away,
except that it's a knock
against the established
evidence of ufologists.
So in terms of the probable
crash site,
I knew you were gonna bring
some pretty cool technology
to investigate that.
Did you find anything
that would lead you
to think that something
happened there?
We found a pretty strange
magnetic signature
close to
what would've been described
as the impact identified
by witness accounts.
We took some soil samples,
but we couldn't actually find
when or why
this anomaly was created.
We haven't found any evidence
that definitively proves
something extraterrestrial
crashed here.
Did you find anything
that would indicate
that something else crashed?
To the south of the
established debris field,
the FAA
crash-site investigator
found a strange contrast
in data,
that we don't know
what it means.
It's not metal because
our magnetometer
didn't pick up any metal.
There might be something
that could be some kind
of plastic or neoprene layer.
That would buttress
that argument
that a balloon crashed there,
and here is an actual
physical remain from it.
That would be about
as close to a smoking g*n
as something who doesn't
believe in UFOs,
like myself, would cling
to desperately, probably.
Yeah. Well, a lot of the
facts are fuzzy still,
and I'm still trying to piece
the puzzle together,
but I feel confident
that the government lied
to the American people
about what it collected
at that debris field.
There were others like Jesse
in that unit at the 509th group
who had some of the same ideas.
I've spent a lot of time now
with the Marcel family,
and I think at the very least,
what they wanted
was vindication.
Jesse Marcel's
three grandchildren
have been eagerly
awaiting the results
of Ben Smith's investigation
and want to know
what he has found out
about the strange journal.
Thank you, guys,
for making
yourselves
available to chat with me.
I wanted to circle back
with you
and share some interesting
turns in the case
and some unexpected surprises.
There's one thing
that's still missing
from this investigation,
and that's evidence.
I mean, there's a piece
out there somewhere.
Well, we didn't
find anything yet.
Sure.
Jesse, you were there
with me in Pennsylvania
when we went
to the code breaker.
Without the key,
the other half of the puzzle,
we can't cr*ck
that home-brew code,
so what's left is to keep
looking for that other half,
but that makes
an interesting challenge
because we didn't know
who wrote it.
I refocused my efforts back
on the inner circle
at the 509th group
to see if I could identify
who might have
written the journal.
I collected a few more
handwriting samples.
There was one individual
who actually,
with the short sample
that we had,
matched to some degree
that we couldn't rule it out.
Ooh, interesting.
This would've been the base
adjutant at the 509th group...
Okay.
The second-in-command,
a guy named Patrick Saunders.
He was really close
with colonel Blanchard,
so close, in fact,
that colonel Blanchard was
his best man at his wedding.
Oh, wow.
For me as an
intelligence officer,
if I'm looking for somebody
with access to information,
this guy
is as close as it gets.
Wow.
That's very exciting.
Did your grandfather ever
mention that name to you?
I don't recall that name
coming from him.
Obviously, they had
a relationship for grandpa
to have ended up
with that journal.
I was able to track down
his children.
A lot of the things
Patrick Saunders
told his children matched
what Jesse Sr.
Told you three, that it was
something not of this world.
And there was a cover-up.
No kidding.
And he even mentioned that
he was directly responsible
for organizing the cover-up
by changing the names
and the personnel records
of people
involved in the cleanup effort
at the debris field.
Oh, my gosh.
Another echo in Patrick
Saunders' story with his family
is he said almost the exact
same things verbatim:
"the world isn't ready
for this kind of information."
oh, yeah.
And, denice, you were
with me in Houma.
Your cousin mentioned
the same thing.
Yep, exact same words.
His eyes kind of glazed over,
and he said,
"there are things that
this world is not ready for."
I wonder if they discussed
it to come up with almost,
like, the same terminology.
This is just so completely
amazing.
I think you're closer
to the truth
now than we've ever been
or anybody's ever been.
Sounds like it.
Another interesting comment
Patrick Saunders made
was actually about Jesse Sr.
He thought that Jesse
had gone too far,
that he had said
something he shouldn't.
He had told
the public too much.
When grandpa came out
in 1978
and told the story
about what had happened,
I wonder if that worried him
a little bit
because I know
it would worry me
if I was trying
to keep something covered up,
and this man just came out
and said,
"no. What everybody saw
wasn't something from here."
yeah. The duty to keep quiet
is a pretty powerful
commitment.
I think he was courageous
for coming out and telling it
because he was going
against the protocol.
He felt that
everybody deserved
to know what the truth was
and that the cover-up
needed to end.
Mm-hmm.
you know, we started
this journey together
trying to figure out
the journal
and to prove with evidence
that your grandfather
was telling the truth.
Now, we didn't quite get
to either of those ends.
How do you feel about
this investigation,
and what does it tell you
about your grandfather?
If anything, you've added
more credibility
to those stories,
and I think we're
getting closer than ever
to resolving this.
I'll just echo that.
I think that everything
that you've come across
has actually more or less
confirmed for me
that grandpa and our dad
were telling us the truth
and that they did want
everybody to know
what really did happen.
I looked at the journal
recently, and I found a quote
that really captures
sort of the investigation,
and the quote was,
"keep your eye on the doughnut
and not the hole."
if we just focus
on the lack of evidence,
the hole in the center,
we miss all the evidence
that we have found.
I think that this journal
has more secrets to give,
more evidence to point me to
than what I've found so far,
and I'm reluctant
to simply put it away.
To some, Jesse Marcel
is a courageous truth Sayer.
To others, a man
who let his imagination
get the best of him.
Either way, he believed
he'd witnessed
an extraordinary event,
and he was not alone.
I'm Laurence fishburne,
thank you for watching
"history's greatest mysteries".
01x07 - Roswell: The First Witness Part 3 - The Writer
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Investigating a range of mysteries surrounding the Titanic, D.B. Cooper, Roswell and John Wilkes Booth.
Investigating a range of mysteries surrounding the Titanic, D.B. Cooper, Roswell and John Wilkes Booth.