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

by Jesse Marcel

  The true story of my father's part in the Roswell Incident, unembellished by wishful thinking and unsuppressed by political imperative, needed to be told by the one person most qualified to do so: myself. I have been asked why I have waited so long to personally publish the story of what I saw and what my father luiew. I must acknowledge that this is certainly an appropriate question, and one I myself would ask of anyone in my position. The answer is quite simple. Before he passed away in 1986, my father made me promise to see the true story told. Like my father, I too had kept silent on the matter for many years, for I was, like my father, a career military man. Neither my father nor I felt at liberty to challenge the government's official version of what happened that night so many years ago, as doing so would pose a very real danger to our careers, if not our very lives. I was also consumed with the responsibilities of my medical practice (I am an ear, nose, and throat specialist), and with raising a large family. Nevertheless, since my father's death, I have attempted to tell the story via numerous interviews, only to see my words edited, twisted, and even fabricated from whole cloth. I guess I finally grew tired of seeing the truth filtered through someone else's agenda to the point that it bore little resemblance to the actual events, and decided it was time to set the record straight.

  My busy life, and my own tendency to procrastinate, prevented me from sitting down and telling my father's story even after the mandate for discretion was no longer an issue. Though I had participated in countless media interviews about Roswell, the book idea was always more or less on the back burner. It was in the perilous deserts of Iraq, where I served as a flight surgeon for 13 months, from 2004 to 2005, that I was hit with a realization of urgency. Being continually in harm's way has a tendency to alter your perspective. I knew time was running out for me to keep my promise to my father; given my own age, delaying the effort any further could well put the story at risk of going untold. While still in Iraq, fueled by a sense of my own mortality, I finally began typing out my father's story. When I returned stateside, I continued my effort in earnest.

  In keeping with the promise I made, I am determined to refute the allegations aimed at my father by those whose interests were apparently to perpetuate the lie, even at the cost of an honest man's reputation. To that end, included within the manuscript are previously unpublished photographs and photocopies of documentsunearthed in 2004 and 2005-which unequivocally establish my father's credentials, level of expertise, and participation as described in the events so long disputed and shrouded in mystery.

  Mine is a story of actually seeing and handling artifacts from the site, of my fascination with things that neither I nor anyone else on Earth had ever beheld. I will try to communicate the depth of my father's frustration, not with those who smeared his good name, but with the complete abandonment of truth in the telling of a story so profound that it could drastically change the way we humans deal with each other. At its core, this is the story of a military officer's integrity, and a legacy of truth that must not be withheld. It is also my attempt to repay a debt to a man who taught me the value of honor, the absolute necessity of truthfulness, and the concept of respect. That such an attempt inevitably falls short of the mark is a testament to the integrity of the man himself.

  To the casually curious, this book will be a source of relatively untainted information upon which they may make their own determinations about Roswell, and, possibly, about the reality of extraterrestrial life. To a government long accustomed to feeding the public information (or misinformation) however it sees fit, with little regard for the public's right to be told the truth, this book will no doubt be yet another thorn in its side. But I feel that readers deserve to know the facts, and I also believe my father deserves the respect long denied him by the government's desire to silence what he saw and knew.

  Beyond my wish to see my father remembered as a man of integrity and intelligence, I feel that the public has a right to la-low die answer to one of the biggest questions facing us: Are we alone in the universe? The answer, firmly I believe, is no.

  Another question Americans must ask is whether or not their government can be relied upon to tell them the truth, despite the potential for embarrassment that telling such truth might cause. Once again, the answer is no. Given the tenuous nature of this country's relationship with our neighbors-ally and adversary alike-it is imperative that citizens base their support upon facts, rather than convenient sound bytes or obfuscation. To do less is to shirk one's responsibility and invite disaster.

  I don't pretend to have all the answers to the mystery of Roswell, nor do I pretend to be deeply knowledgeable about the technical and scientific issues surrounding the Roswell Incident or interplanetary travel. Nevertheless, I have some facts and evidence on my side, as well as a boundless curiosity about the mysteries of the universe.

  My first concern is to keep my promise to my father by telling his story as it relates to the Roswell Incident. In the process, I will also tell my own story of growing up in the shadow of what is arguably the most famous event in the UFO world, and I will even share stories of how Roswell affected my own children. I will offer my views of the investigation, and a few comments about my own interactions with the media, particularly with the skeptics and naysayers, throughout the years. I have found that all too often, despite their purported rationality and scientific approach, many of the skeptics have their own agenda, and are as willing to manipulate the truth to their own interests as those whom they accuse of poor science.

  What truly separates The Roswell Legacy from previous accounts is the absence of a specific agenda, beyond my desire to fulfill the promise made to my father: to see to it after his death that the true story is told.

  So this is my father's story, and mine. It may well raise more questions than it answers, but my hope is that at the very least it will move the Roswell debate from the fringe elements to a more reasoned forum. And I hope more than anything else that in some part, my efforts will result in history remembering my father as the intelligent, honorable man that he was, rather than the obscene caricature that has so often been painted of him. He deserves no less.

  June 2007

  Chapter 1

  The Path to Roswell

  To know the truth about the incident in Roswell, New Mexico, in the summer of 1947, and the decades of speculation that followed, it helps to know the truth about the participants in this grand play. Much has been written about the individuals involved-some of it quite accurate, and some not so accurate. It is my hope that, after reading my account of the events as I remember them, some of those inaccuracies might be corrected.

  My focus in this book is to present you with a clearer picture of the man who was-and remains-at the center of the Roswell controversy: my father, Jesse Marcel, Sr. Although I must acknowledge my own bias, I realize that my duty to my father is to present him as the man he was, as accurately as possible, lest I fall into the same trap as those who have painted an unflattering portrait of him that reflects their own biases and agendas. I feel I am the only living person truly qualified to wield the brush.

  Even so, this will not be the complete story of my father's life. But it will give you some background and perspective missing in most accounts.

  From Royalty to Rural Americana

  In 1789, my great-grandfather and his brother, born of the royal Dauphine family, left their home in France to escape the carnage of the French Revolution. My great-grandfather moved to Louisiana, and took the name Marcell (which my father ended up shortening to its current spelling), while my great-granddad's brother apparently settled in French Canada. To my knowledge, the two brothers never saw each other again.

  My father was born on May 27, 1907, in a place called Bayou Blue, in the Terrebonne Parish town of Houma, Louisiana. He was the youngest of seven siblings born to Theodule and Adelaide Marcel. Though they were in many respects an average farm family, theirs was, I am certain, an interesting household, with his mother-who as a small g
irl had once helped make horse collars for the Confederate Army-speaking only French, and his father raising crops. As with all farming families of that day, Jesse and his brothers and sisters worked with his parents on the farm, but unlike many other parents, his folks knew that a good education was paramount. They insisted on the children attending school, even during harvest time, when every extra hand was needed.

  At an early age, my father became interested in a new device called radio. He read voraciously to learn all he could about this wondrous technology, and saved every penny he could until he finally had enough to buy the parts to build a radio of his own. His mother-who was of necessity a very frugal woman-would have been dead-set against wasting money on something as frivolous as this, so he had to hide the parts in a haystack. When his brother Dennis found his stash and turned him in to his mother, Dad was punished, but ended up building the radio anyway. I don't know if it worked, but I suspect it did, thus pardoning him for "wasting money."

  After graduating from high school, my father knew that he wanted to continue his education, but was keenly aware of the fact that his parents were not wealthy enough to pay his way. He initially went to work for AM and JC DuPont General Store as a window dresser and stock boy, and doing other tasks as needed. While working there, he also attended classes at a graphics and design school at LSU in Baton Rouge. After working at the store for several years, he went to work for the Louisiana Highway Department, and enlisted in the Louisiana National Guard.

  My father met my mother, Viand (pronounced vee-oh) Aleen Abrams, in Winn Parish, Louisiana. She had a familial connection to the colorful world of Louisiana politics in the 1930s, as her uncle was Oscar Kelly ("O.K.") Allen, a member of the famous Huey P Long political machine, and was governor of the state from 1932 until his death in office in 1936. Her mother was a full-blooded Cherokee, and the blend with my dad's French heritage made for a lively-not tumultuous-relationship. On a trip to California in June of 1935, they decided to get married before returning home in El Paso, Texas.

  Not long after they were married, my parents moved to Houston, where Dad had been hired as a draftsman, drawing maps for Shell Oil Company. It was in Houston, on August 30, 1936, that I was born.

  One of Dad's favorite pastimes was operating his ham radio station. In my mind, I can still hear him repeating his call sign, "William Five Charlie Yoke Item," (W5CYI) several times, and then listening across the bands to see if anyone would respond. He would spend hours at a time chewing the fat over every conceivable topic with other radio amateurs in every state in the union and all over the world. I like to believe that these signals from his transmitter are well into the interstellar medium by now. He was a member of the American Radio Relay League, an organization devoted to ham radio, and would exchange QSL cards with other amateur radio operators to document his contacts. (For those not familiar with ham radio, the threeletter Q-codes were created in 1909 by the British government as a list of abbreviations for the use of British ships and coastal stations. QSL means either "Do you confirm receipt of my transmission?" or "I confirm receipt of your transmission.")

  Early ham radio station [not WSCYI).

  When I was only about 4 years old, half of the two-car garage at our house on Amherst Street in Houston was set up as my father's radio shack, and the rest was devoted to his small sills-screening company, where he made and sold simple signs. His home-built transmitter used mercury vapor rectifiers, the 866 vacuum tube, the venerable gas-filled tubes that would glow with a bluish color that fluctuated in brightness as he would talk. This was quite impressive to a little kid. Dad held a first-class radio operator's license, which would allow him to operate a full 1-kilowatt transmitter.

  Among the hundreds of people with whom he communicated, my father made friends with some Japanese operators living in San Francisco around 1939 to 1940. He had a chance to visit them, and was astounded when he saw their equipment-huge assemblies capable of transmitting 50 kilowatts, far greater than the capacity of your typical amateur operator's rig. Their apartment, beyond being filled with a mass of radio equipment, afforded them a panoramic view of San Francisco Bay and ship movements. After the war, my father learned that his fellow "hobbyists" were actually Japanese spies. I guess that explained how they could afford such impressive equipment!

  On December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor was bombed, and shortly afterward, my father voluntarily enlisted in the Army Air Force, and soon left for Washington to take his enlistment physical.

  In the summer of 1942, we moved to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where my father attended the Army Air Force Intelligence School. After graduating from the Intelligence School, my father was invited inasmuch as anyone is invited to do anything in the military-to join the school's faculty. Many years passed before I realized what an honor it was to be so invited, an honor bestowed upon only the brightest and most talented students. That realization later became especially poignant to me, given the questions some have raised regarding my father's level of expertise and ability.

  Orders for photo intelligence school.

  The cover sheet for intelligence school.

  Intelligence school staff.

  After completing his Intelligence School assignment, Dad was designated as an S-2 Intelligence Officer (his unit's principal staff officer, responsible for all military intelligence matters, including security operations, counterintelligence, training, and managing security clearance issues for personnel in his unit). His specific duties involved assessing and reporting enemy activity in the Philippines. Before he left, my parents sold the house in Houston, and my mother and I moved back to Louisiana and stayed with my grandmother at her house in Baton Rouge.

  When the Japanese captured the Philippines, my father was evacuated, first to Australia, then finally back to the United States, where he was granted a short leave. One day early in 1944, I walked in the front door of our house and saw a military jacket lying on the couch. My mother was still outside unloading groceries from the car, and I ran back outside shouting, "He's here! He's here!" She dropped the bag she was holding and ran back into the house ahead of me, moving faster than I had ever seen her move before. We both plowed into the kitchen and saw him sitting there at the table, calm as you please, drinking a glass of mills and grinning from ear to ear.

  The leave was brief, however, and all too soon he was assigned to the 509th Composite Bomb Group in Nevada as their S-2 intelligence officer. His pride was obvious as he told us that he was to be part of a special, hand-picked group, but he wouldn't tell us anything about what he would be doing, saying that his orders-and the work he would be doing-were classified Top Secret. Once he was settled in his new duty station, he wrote curious-sounding letters to my mother, obviously avoiding any discussion of his work in Nevada. In later years, he unformed us that while he was in Nevada with the 509th, he helped to work out the details of dropping the atomic bomb on Japan.

  Orders for overseas duty.

  As the day when the bombs were to be dropped approached, the 509th was reassigned to the island of Tinian, where he participated in briefing and supplying intelligence to the flight crews before the missions to Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

  The Bombs That Ended the Second World War

  The bomb on the left side of the following picture is "Little Boy," the uranium bomb that contained about 50 kilograms of U235 divided in separate portions. This bomb was not tested before deployment, because there was a virtual certainty that the design would work. This was the bomb carried by the Enola Gay that destroyed Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. The bomb on the right was "Fat Man," a plutonium bomb containing only about 10 or 12 kilograms of plutonium. The nuclear component in this bomb was only about the size of a grapefruit. Because it was not known for sure whether the implosion design would work, a test was necessary. A working device of this design was detonated in the New Mexico desert on the morning of July 16, 1945. This was the bomb carried by Bock's Car, which destroyed Nagasaki on August 9, 1945.

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sp; The bombs that ended WWII.

  The Mob Gay.

  After the Japanese Instrument of Surrender was signed on September 2, 1945, on the battleship Missouri, my father returned home to Louisiana. Upon his return stateside just after Victory Over Japan day, my dad enrolled in radar school at Langley, Virginia, where he studied advanced radar technology, becoming an expert on the state-of-the-art radar devices of that time. While there, he studied all varieties of Rawin radar targets, including the ML-307 reflector used on the Mogul device later alleged to be the source of the material found at the Roswell site.

  Diploma from radar school.

  Given his extensive training and familiarity with the technology of the day, the later assertion made by some that my father confused UFO debris with a radar target is ludicrous. Had he not known what a radar target (such as the Rawin reflector used on the Mogul array) looked like, he would never have been allowed to graduate from the school.

  Early in 1946, we moved to Roswell, New Mexico. Dad was stationed at Roswell Army Air Field, and we lived in base housing for a while before buying a house at 1300 West Seventh Street. On one of his tours in the summer of that year, Dad participated in "Operation Crossroads," the Able and Baker tests of the atomic bombs to be detonated at Bikini Atoll. In the Able test, a 21-kiloton bomb was detonated at an altitude of 520 feet over a fleet of target ships. In the Baker test, a similar device was detonated 90 feet under water. Of the two tests, the Able test-an air burst over the test fleet-caused comparatively little damage, while the Baker (sub-surface detonation) test sank many of the ships in the test fleet.