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

The Roswell LegacyBy Jesse Marcel Jr.

Reviewed By Frank Warren
© 7-18-07

     As Jesse points out in his recently released book, The Roswell Legacy, “there have been many books written about ‘the Roswell Incident,’ along with a seemingly endless stream of documentaries, movies and editorial pieces” etc. We’ve certainly been reminded of this fact with all the hoopla surrounding the 60th anniversary of the event, and the festival just held at Roswell.

That being the case . . . what more could be offered? What could be said, that hasn’t been rehashed over and over again? Having just finished the book last night, I can say with great enthusiasm, that not only has Jesse revealed “fresh data,” he presents it in a most “palatable fashion.”

Jesse’s “laid back style” which is evident on camera, certainly comes through on the page. Now this isn’t to say that he “dulls the reader,” quite the opposite in fact, he makes you comfortable, as if we’re having a personal chat.

I found Jesse’s tome to be many things rolled into one; much more then a story about “Flying Saucers, aliens and a government cover-up”; it was a “tribute’ to his father to which his (Jesse Jr.) love and respect was most evident! It was also a tribute to an “American patriot” (Jesse Sr.) and quite frankly I was often moved by his “shared feelings.”

The book was also an exposé of the “Marcel family,” often times very personal; one might think that Jesse needn’t “go there,” but as he points out the “Roswell Incident” had a rippling effect for all those called “Marcel.” I thought this took a lot of guts; moreover, it certainly was a vital component in telling his story.

For the “Ufologist” and or “Roswell researcher,” he doesn’t disappoint there either. He recaps the Roswell events, and his involvement; however, he also provides much evidence in support of the truth of the matter, that he became cognizant of so long ago. With this ammunition provided, he effortlessly quashes the “debunker conjecture” and gives the reader a clear conspectus of what took place over 60 years ago in New Mexico.

Along with covering some familiar ground, he also divulges some “new” and very “gripping information”; some readers may in fact find these admissions unsettling. I was not previous aware of these facts, and I must confess I was captivated by those pages! These revelations will undoubtedly re-ignite “Roswell Research!”

Something I felt unique, and ending up very essential to the book, was a chapter penned by Jesse’s wife “Linda.” In it she gives her perspective, having worked for, then marrying a man, raising a family etc., of someone who is smack dab in the middle of the UFO controversy.

Her views give the reader, an alternative account of their life together, as well as the effect that Ufology has had on her and the Marcel family. Her writing style is like that of Jesse’s and one can imagine sitting in her kitchen having a cup of coffee.

At the end of the book, Jesse shares his views on “life in the universe,” as well as the motivations for the government withholding and covering up information pertaining to the “UFO phenomenon” and it’s source. By this time, the reader has discovered that “Jesse Marcel Jr.” isn’t some “country boy” living up in Montana, wearing a tinfoil hat! He’s a compassionate, intelligent, articulate, patriotic individual!

Finally, most of the a fore mentioned attributes that Jesse holds were mutual between he and his father; in fact I’m sure Jesse Jr. would credit his parents, in particular his father for instilling these values into him. The other admirable trait, is they were/are both “men of their word”; to that end, Jesse made a promise to his father shortly before he died over 20 years ago—this book, this chronicle of events, is a fulfillment and culmination of that promise! Bravo Jesse!

See Also:

On The Road To Roswell 2007: A Discussion With Col. Jesse Marcel Jr.
- Part II -

Jesse Marcel Jr. Recounts Handling Roswell Flying Saucer Wreckage

SHARE YOUR UFO EXPERIENCE

Roswell - It Really Did Happen

Col. Jesse Marcel Jr., On & Off the Record

By Tom Horn
© Copyright 2006
RNU News
5-22-06

     RNU.com – (Raiders News Update) – A new book by Col. Jesse Marcel Jr. - The Roswell Legacy - claims that the famous Roswell UFO event actually occurred, including the recovery of an extraterrestrial craft. Col. Marcel's famous father, Maj. Jesse Marcel Sr. was the lead military investigator into the crash of 1947 and is finally vindicated according to this book.

Without a doubt the 1947 Roswell, N.M. event is the paramount story of western extraterrestrial folklore. Some think whatever really happened there will never be known. The U.S. government says it was a simple case of misidentification. But as most people know, this wasn't the military's first position.

The contrast of statements by highly trained personnel set in motion the greatest cover-up in American history, says Col. Jesse Marcel, who is admittedly the only civilian alive to have handled the UFO 'debris' from the Roswell crash site. I set down recently with Col. Marcel and he shared information with me, on and off the recorder. I heard things I had never heard before from ufology's legendary friend. Marcel is almost 70 years old now, a soft spoken, gentle man who comes across as ultimately believable.

When I asked Jess, as he prefers to be called, if his father - the Intelligence Officer at Roswell Army Air Field at the time of the Roswell event - could have been mistaken about what was recovered during the field investigation, he answered without hesitation, "No way," he said, and then proceeded to tell me why.

When later I pressed about Mogul Balloons and Operation Paperclip as alternative theories, he shared at length the number of times he had joined honest investigators in a side by side comparison with his drawings and material examples and how each time not a single correspondent to what his father had brought home from the ranch that night could be found.

Getting to the big questions, I offered, "But of course whatever happened at Roswell, surely it could be explained as top-secret terrestrial technology, right?" As cool as silky water, he looked at me and replied, "Tom, what I saw was not of this earth. Though it was material, I held it in my hands, and the pieces were as light as a feather."

I gave Jess greetings from Stanton Friedman, who together with Bill Moore had brought the Roswell cover-up to international light many years ago, and then I said, "So you, like Stan Friedman, believe the Roswell debris were most likely a physical technology?" Jess smiled and told me how Friedman was such close family friend. I'm not sure he ever did get around to answering my question about technology. But Col. Marcel, like his father before him, is a career military man (he had just returned from Iraq where as an ear, nose and throat specialist he was busy patching up soldiers). Over the years he's participated in field investigations of crashed known craft, and is very familiar with many hardware components. To this day he has never seen anything resembling the Roswell artifacts.

Marcel then proceeded to tell me an intriguing story about an incident that had happened some years ago, when he was scheduled to be in Washington, DC. To this day he doesn't know how the participants knew where he would be at that particular time. When he arrived at his motel, there was a message waiting for him on the phone in his room. It was from a man we'll call Mr. "X". He wanted to meet with Marcel the following day, at 1:PM in a certain room at the Capital building. Marcel felt uneasy, but agreed to go to the meeting. On arrival, he was ushered into the office of Mr. "X", who got right down to business. "X" wanted to talk to Marcel about Roswell, and he asked if Jess would be more comfortable "in a secure room." When Marcel explained that he wouldn't be saying anything he hadn't said before, "X" pressed the idea of the secure room, explaining, "Well, maybe I want to tell you something you don't already know."

Leaving the office, they proceeded to the secure room where no listening devices existed, in an area Jess described as "the dungeons of the Capital building." They sat at a table where Marcel noticed a book about Alien Abductions, UFO technology and Roswell. "X" tapped on the book with his finger and said outright, "This is not fiction." The mysterious government insider continued talking for a while and then asked Marcel if he knew where the material recovered from the Roswell ranch was being kept. Jess found the question curious and said, "No. Don't you?" "X"'s answer was as curious as the question, so Marcel responded with a inquiry of his own: "If extraterrestrial activity is real, and you guys know it, when is the government planning Official Disclosure of what really happened at Roswell?"

"If it was up to me," "X" said, "we'd be doing it now."

Following a story like that, I just had to ask Col. Marcel if he personally knew of other members of the government and military who also are anticipating a future moment when the representatives of the world's religions and leaders of nations will stand in the well of the United Nations and say, "We have an announcement to make. We are in contact with extraterrestrial intelligence."

Marcel grew silent for a moment, then looked at me and whispered, "Yes."

Suddenly the phone rang, and Col. Marcel had to leave the building.

Editors note: The full transcript and audio file of Col. Jesse Marcel Jr. and Tom Horn's interview will be available at RaidersNewsNetwork.com later this week.

More . . .

See Also: Threats to Roswell Witnesses---WHY?