Credibility of Major Jesse Marcel and Jesse Marcel Jr.

By Dennis Balthaser
© 10-1-08

     It appears that there are still those that refuse to give credibility to Major Jesse Marcel and his son Jesse Marcel Jr., who after all these years, are still two of the most credible “first-hand” witnesses of the 1947 Roswell Incident. I never had the opportunity to meet Major Marcel, but have had many conversations about him with Stanton Friedman, who was the first to interview him in 1978. I do personally know Jesse Jr., and have had conversations with him, and have read his book “The Roswell Legacy” (the revised edition shown below, published in 2008), which it appears as usual, that the debunkers, critics and skeptics that are the loudest, have not read.

In defense of the Marcels, I’d like to share some of the comments made by Jesse Jr. in his book not only about his Dad, but also about his own life since 1947. The book is obviously written by someone that had a deep respect for his father, and presents the information in the only way he knows---honestly from the heart, as his father desired, to get the truth out to the public eventually.

Both of these gentlemen deserve our highest respect for the many years they both gave to serving our country in the military, (Major Marcel as probably the top intelligence officer in the military in the 1940’s, and his son Jesse as a helicopter pilot, flight surgeon and a civilian physician.) Talk about credibility and integrity as compared to many of the other witnesses that have surfaced over the years in relation to the Roswell Incident. Those with backgrounds such as theirs are rare when researching the Roswell Incident. It took Jesse Jr. 60 years to set the record straight about his Dad and himself, and those that still question these two gentlemen are ignoring the truth about their first-hand knowledge of the event.

Major Marcel voluntarily enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Force in December 1941.

Up until his death in 1986, Major Marcel repeatedly stated that the material we examined was as he described it, “not of this earth,” and that the truth about Roswell had yet to be revealed to the public. In order to reveal that truth, Jesse Jr’s. father made him promise to see the true story told. Jesse Jr. fulfilled that promise with his book in 2007, and anyone seriously interested in the Roswell Incident would benefit from reading it, before criticizing or demeaning them.

As an eleven year old boy Jesse Jr. was “privileged” to be one of the individuals who actually saw and handled debris from the crash site, that his Dad and Captain Sheridan Cavitt had recovered from the site. This occurred at his home in Roswell, prior to his Dad returning to the base from the Foster ranch debris field, when the Marcel’s lives would be forever changed.

One of the things Jesse Jr. observed which again silences the critics and debunkers, is the fact that the foil material did not have a paper backing for rigidity like the foil of a radar target. Also of importance was the fact that none of the debris spread out on the Marcel’s kitchen floor that Jesse Jr. observed that night, or any material that Major Marcel saw at the debris site where the material was recovered, contained any electronic components which a weather balloon or Mogul balloon would have had such as radio transmitters, microphones, and sensors for detecting and recording weather data, or pressure waves in the atmosphere from a possible Russian nuclear test. It’s important also to note that the Russians didn’t do any nuclear testing until 1949, Mogul balloon launch No. 4 (which skeptics like to use as what crashed near Roswell), was cancelled due to weather related problems, and finally, the pictures taken in General Ramey’s office on July 8, 1947 also did not contain any electronic equipment.

In 1942 Marcel attended the Army Air Force Intelligence School as a 1st Lieutenant. After graduation he was invited to join the school’s faculty, an honor bestowed upon only the brightest and most talented students.

Two years later Marcel would be assigned to the 509th Composite Bomb Group in Nevada as their S-2 Intelligence Officer. He was now part of a special, hand-picked group, where the work was classified as Top-Secret. While in Nevada he helped work out the details of dropping the atomic bombs on Japan. The 509th was then assigned to the island of Tinian, where Marcel participated in briefing the flight crews before the missions to Nagasaki and Hiroshima.


Upon returning to the states, Major Marcel enrolled in a radar training school at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, graduating in September 1945, and became an expert on the state-of-the-art radar devices, including varieties of the rawin radar targets, including the ML-307 reflector used on the Mogul balloons. As Jesse Jr. states in his book, “for those that say his father confused UFO debris with a radar target is ludicrous.” So the same government that paid for his advanced radar school in 1945 would accuse him of not knowing the difference between a UFO and a weather balloon 2 short years later, while assigned to the 509th in Roswell, New Mexico. Copies of the radar and intelligence school diplomas Major Marcel attended are in Jesse Jr’s. book. I have several other commendation and recommendation documents for Major Marcel in my file for his intelligence work, before and “after” the Roswell Incident.



Setting aside my thoughts about the Marcel’s credibility, lets not forget that the debris Major Marcel took to General Ramey’s office was changed to a weather balloon for the photos taken by James Bond Johnson. I interviewed Johnson as did Kevin Randle and David Rudiak, prior to my interview with him. In all three interviews James Bond Johnson’s remarks were less than factual about his involvement. He did take the photographs, but was not involved in any other way, in fact telling me in our first conversation, that he knew very little about the Roswell Incident. The interview can be read here.


The really sad part for me is the fact that when General Ramey ordered Major Marcel to pose for the pictures with the obvious weather balloon on the floor of the Generals office, General Ramey ordered Marcel to keep silent, and to not make any comments in the presence of the civilian photographer. That appears to be when the cover-up became a reality, and Major Marcel realized he was in the middle of it, and had become the scapegoat. For those that have seen the photographs taken in General Ramey’s office, it’s apparent to me that there are unopened packages along the wall, and more importantly the brown paper on the floor under the debris staged for the photographs is from a new roll of paper and shows no indication of ever being wrapped around any debris or anything else brought to Fort Worth by Major Marcel.

I firmly believe that as a researcher part of my responsibility is to provide information that is truthful and factual for my future generations as well as yours.

I believe Major Marcel and his son Jesse Jr. have done that.

More . . .

Dennis Balthaser:

truthseeker@dfn.com

www.truthseekeratroswell.com

See Also:

Jesse Marcel Jr. Recounts Handling Roswell Flying Saucer Wreckage

Roswell Information Continues After 60 Years

REPORT YOUR UFO EXPERIENCE

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