New Realities recorded on September 9, 2008
Summary
In this episode of New Realities, host Alan Steinfeld interviews Jesse Marcel Jr., son of the man who discovered the Roswell wreckage in 1947. We have all seen Major Jesse Marcel’s picture of him squatting down and holding pieces of a weather balloon. Stanton Friedman broke the story. The interview discusses Marcel Jr.’s book ‘The Roswell Legacy’, his childhood memories of seeing the debris, the government’s shifting explanations, and his thoughts on extraterrestrial life and secrecy.
Transcript
Alan Steinfeld
Welcome to New Realities. My name is Alan Steinfeld, and each week on this program, I bring to the fore people who are really at the cutting edge, who are evolving our consciousness, who are discovering new things about the nature of reality and who we are as human beings. And tonight is another in the series of my investigations into the UFO, alien craft mysteries that seem to be around the planet for the last 60 or so years. And tonight I have a very exciting guest. I’m very excited about tonight’s guest who I never thought I’d actually talk to. He is Jesse Marcel Jr. He is the son of Jesse Marcel, who found the wreckage at Roswell in 1947. And he has just written a book called The Roswell Legacy. Jess, are you there?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
I am here.
Alan Steinfeld
Let’s, I mean, everyone has heard of Roswell, but we’ll just go back to that day in 1947. But just before we get there, you were 11 then and now you’ve just written the book now almost 60 years later. What took you so long to come out about what happened?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
I always wanted to write a book about this. But procrastination being what it is, always busy with everything else. As time went on, I thought, I better get off the stick here and write this thing because I’m no spring chicken anymore, so who knows what time is going to do. So I thought it’s time. I want to get it down in print before I still could, so to speak.
Alan Steinfeld
Has this Roswell event in 1947 haunted you or stayed with you from the time you were 11 to the time you’re like 72 now?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Yes. It’s always been in the back of my mind. It hasn’t haunted me, but I always recognized the reality of the situation and didn’t bother my life anyway. Didn’t change my method of living or religious feelings or anything like that. But it’s always been there, yes.
Alan Steinfeld
But there’s been probably 200 books out about Roswell. It’s sort of a Roswell industry. And so I appreciate you coming out. So your father was the person who found the wreckage?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Actually, it was found by the rancher, by the foreman of the ranch, Mac Brazel. And he’s the one who contacted the sheriff, who then contacted the base commander, Colonel Blanchard, at Roswell Army Airfield, who sent my dad out there. So in reality, it was found by the rancher, but my dad and a CIC agent, Sheridan Cavitt, are the ones who went out there to do the initial investigation on this.
Alan Steinfeld
So your father went out there and the rancher collected. How much wreckage did the rancher actually collect at the time?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
I’m not sure, but hearing my dad talk about it, the wreckage covered a considerable area. I’m not sure the exact dimensions, but he described it as several hundred yards by a thousand yards or measurements along that line. So there’s a considerable amount of debris scattered about.
Alan Steinfeld
What was the rancher’s name?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Mac Brazel.
Alan Steinfeld
And what happened to Mac?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
I know that he was brought into town too and debriefed on this. And after that, he never wanted to talk about it again. So they debriefed him to the point where he said, I’m not going to ever talk about this again, and that’s the way it stood.
Alan Steinfeld
So it was a big sensation, but then the whole Roswell thing was sort of lost for like 20 years, just sort of disappeared. And was it Stanton Friedman who brought it back into public awareness? How did it come back into awareness?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
What happened is that my dad flew a portion of the wreckage to the airbase at Fort Worth, where General Ramey was located. He is the 8th Air Force Commander. He looked at that, and there are famous pictures of some balloon wreckage scattered on General Ramey’s floor. But at any rate, that was not what I saw. But my dad at that point was told never to talk about this again, as a matter of fact, make sure members of his family never disclose what they know about this either. So when he came back from Fort Worth, he sat my mother and myself down and said we’re never to discuss this issue again. And that’s the way it stayed for many, many years. As a matter of fact, even within the family, we did not discuss it with each other. And even after I left the house, went to school and all that and in the military, we never really discussed this.
Alan Steinfeld
I mean, you talk about those pictures of your father holding the balloon wreckage, and you’re absolutely right. In the book, you say, I mean, the picture and the expression on his face is, are you serious? This is not what I showed, this is not what I found, right?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
I couldn’t help but laugh when I saw those pictures. That’s such a poor representation of what the debris looked like. I mean, what that debris on General Ramey’s floor was, was the real wreckage of a weather balloon with its radar targets. As a matter of fact, in one shot, you can see a balloon envelope in the background. But this was not the debris that my dad brought into the house that night before all this happened.
Alan Steinfeld
Right. And there’s this incredible smirk on his face, looking up and he’s like, you gotta be kidding.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Exactly. That’s what I thought even before reading your book. It’s like, I thought that same thing. It is kind of funny, but that was where the cover-up started. As a matter of fact, my dad, being a good soldier, went along with the cover-up.
Alan Steinfeld
Well, so before we get into the cover-up and everything, what exactly did your father bring into the house just so everyone hears it, what did you see and feel?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
When he came in from the field, from the ranch, our house happened to be on the way to the airbase. And even though it was late at night, maybe early, early in the hours in the morning, my dad realized the significance of this discovery. So he wanted myself and my mother to see this because, in his words, we’ll never see this again, which is true. So what he did, he brought this debris into the house, into the kitchen, as a matter of fact, and spread representative portions of the debris on the floor. Then he went and got myself and my mother up to come look at this and just look at it.
Alan Steinfeld
So what was it that you, what did he spread out? What did it look like?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Okay, there was a lot of foil-like material there. Almost like an aluminum wrap type thing, but there was a lot of that, and it was not paper-backed or anything like that, like the foil on these balloon targets. But it was just like foil, and very light, very tough material. That was a big part of this. There’s also some small I-beams scattered about there. I call them I-beams because they looked like little I-beams. Had a kind of a tough consistency, although I did not try to bend it or tear it like other people tried. But from my aspect, the most unusual part of this was the beams with the writing or the symbols on it.
Alan Steinfeld
What kind of symbols? Because I don’t think you put that in your book, the symbols, did you?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Oh yeah, they’re in there. It’s in the book. Yes. What it resembled to me was Egyptian hieroglyphics. And they had a kind of peculiar color, a purple, violet hue to it, which was semi-reflective. But at first it looked like Egyptian hieroglyphics, but closer inspection revealed it not to be so, but more like geometric symbols and different forms of geometric symbols.
Alan Steinfeld
But there were no solid pieces of the craft itself?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Well, there was the beam, they were solid enough.
Alan Steinfeld
How big were those?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
They were about 12 to 18 inches long, and there were several of them. I didn’t look at all of them, as a matter of fact, but just looked at the representative sampling of it. And there’s also some black plastic debris that looked almost like a broken phonograph record of the time, looking like Bakelite, I guess. And there were copious amounts of all this wreckage. And going back into the story, my dad first wanted us to look for any electronic debris, like vacuum tubes, resistors, and things like that, but he already knew there was not, but he wanted us to satisfy our curiosity. But there were no electronic components to this.
Alan Steinfeld
So how much time did you actually spend with the debris that night?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Probably about 15 or 20 minutes, but it was unique enough that the memory of it has stuck with me all these years.
Alan Steinfeld
Wow. So how big would you say the ship could have been based on the debris that your father…
Jesse Marcel Jr.
I have no idea, but as a matter of fact, I think the way the story is unfolding or has unfolded is that there might have been two areas where debris came down. There was the debris field that my dad was associated with, but the craft itself might have come down some distance away. But my dad never had any knowledge of that, but other people saw that.
Alan Steinfeld
Besides that, people have now said that there were bodies, there was one live alien. Do you know anything about that?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Not at the time, but only what I’ve read in the papers about this thing, but apparently there were some crew members located at the site number two, where the main body of the craft was. Again, my dad was not associated with that, and I don’t think he ever saw anything as exotic as the bodies because I think he would eventually have told me, but who knows. But if there were bodies there, that’s where they were located.
Alan Steinfeld
You don’t know anything about the possible live alien, this nurse that just kind of came forward?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
No, I have no knowledge about that. The only thing I know about no personal knowledge, all I know about that is what I’ve read in other investigators’ stories.
Alan Steinfeld
So your father, he showed you this and he was really excited. Did he say anything like, hey, this is the remains of a UFO flying saucer, did he say that to you?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Well, he was very excited. And I think he did use words like this is parts of a flying saucer. At the time I wasn’t quite sure what a flying saucer was, but I surely found out about it shortly thereafter. But yes, he was very excited and I think he used words certainly describing what he thought was a flying saucer, parts of a flying saucer.
Alan Steinfeld
So at the time, so you grew up in Roswell then, basically, right? And at the time there was lots of media that came out. There were the front page of the Roswell paper that said UFO.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
I guess that was the day, next day or so. But being a kid, 11 years old, I was not interested in the papers or the news hype at that time. I was more interested in doing bicycling and playing with my friends, my school friends at that time.
Alan Steinfeld
So was this, I mean, it must have stuck around, I mean, you went to high school in Roswell, right?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
No, actually, what happened, that was 1947. Not too long after that, my dad was stationed in Washington D.C. So we moved to Washington after all this came about. And then my dad finally got out of the military in about 1950 or so. But that’s when he was stationed in Washington.
Alan Steinfeld
And he never, after he came back and said you’re never to mention it again, he never mentioned the whole thing again?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Not any, just kind of a wink-wink type thing. We never really went into any discussion about that. That didn’t happen until Stanton Friedman got wind of the story in 1978.
Alan Steinfeld
And what happened when Stanton Friedman got wind of the story?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Well, apparently, my dad was kind of loosening up a little bit about this, because he must have said something to one of his ham buddies in Baton Rouge about a flying saucer crash in Roswell in 1947. And Stanton Friedman was giving a lecture in Baton Rouge and this ham radio guy was in the audience and he told Stan about my dad, saying that you ought to talk to Jesse Marcel about this in Houma, because he knows a lot about flying saucers or he has some personal knowledge of a flying saucer. So Stan then went down to Houma and then looked up my dad and that’s where the story came out.
Alan Steinfeld
So that was really Stanton Friedman talking to your father that broke the whole Roswell thing wide open, huh?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
That’s right. Had it not been for that, it would have stayed under cover.
Alan Steinfeld
And now there’s like a Roswell celebration, thousands of people every year return.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Oh, it’s a huge industry there.
Alan Steinfeld
Have you been to one of those Roswell celebrations?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Yeah, I have, and they’re kind of fun. You see all kind of strange looking exotic people there with all costumes and aliens, and they made a circus out of it.
Alan Steinfeld
Right. But just before we get into all the whole alien thing, I mean, why didn’t any of these other people who’ve now come forth, like Walter Haut, who just signed an affidavit, he didn’t come forth until Stanton Friedman broke the whole thing open either, right?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
That’s right.
Alan Steinfeld
Why were they, were they all waiting for this to happen, or?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
I think they were good soldiers, they were obeying orders not to talk about this. But once the story broke, they thought, well, no harm in talking about it now. So that’s when they started coming forth with this.
Alan Steinfeld
But have you been bothered by the government about talking about this now?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
No, no.
Alan Steinfeld
No problem with you.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
No problem at all.
Alan Steinfeld
But what do you think is happening in the government, because obviously there’s still cover-ups going on. There was that thing that happened in Texas recently, that huge craft, and they denied it. The government, the Air Force said no, and then they said, well, there were planes. I mean, what do you think is going on with the government?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
I don’t know. I wish I knew, because I think most people would accept the truth of this thing without any panic. I don’t think it’d be like the War of the Worlds radio broadcast back in 1935 or 36. I don’t think there’d be panic now about this because we’re sending our own UFOs to other planets as a matter of fact. So I don’t know what their problem is with releasing this to the public. I think it’d be a great thing to do to let people know that we’re not alone, that there are other civilizations out there, and more than that, they’re here.
Alan Steinfeld
So you definitely believe there’s life out there. There’s no doubt, because I guess you…
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Not a doubt in my mind. No doubt.
Alan Steinfeld
And have you had any sightings yourself?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
No, I have not had any personal sightings. It’s a strange thing, but I’ve seen some strange light in the sky, but a light in the sky doesn’t mean anything. No, I’ve never really had seen anything that I could say was a definite UFO or some sort of strange looking craft.
Alan Steinfeld
The other thing, did your mother ever, what did your mother think of the whole thing?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Well, she was a housewife of the 40s. She used to stay quiet. But after I left the house, maybe my mom and my dad talked about it amongst themselves, but I was no longer around to be part of the conversation. But she never really talked much about it either, because again, we were both told never to talk about it.
Alan Steinfeld
Yeah. So then, so something, do you think though there’s a slow release process that’s happening from the government to slowly bring people into awareness of this?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Well, I think there might be like a dripping, a slow drip of information. And once it reaches a critical mass, that’s when the story will come out.
Alan Steinfeld
Right. Did you ever work for the government or the Army? Were you in the Army yourself?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Yeah, I spent many, many years in the Army as a matter of fact, I just retired from the Army in 2005 after being in Iraq for 13 months.
Alan Steinfeld
In Iraq, aha. Has there been any strange sightings by people in Iraq or any?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Nothing I know of. I spent most of my time flying in Blackhawk helicopters. Again talking about a light in the sky, I remember one night we were flying back from Kirkuk down to Balad. It was about one o’clock in the morning, and I saw a light in the sky, and I knew that there was no civilian aircraft because it was certainly a no-fly zone, but it was a well-lit aircraft or a bright light traveling from south to north, and no one knew what it was.
Alan Steinfeld
Huh. Because I’ve seen lights too. It sounds like it could have been a craft actually.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Yeah, who knows what it was, but there was no other military, as a matter of fact, I was the only military craft out there, and there were no civilian crafts, so who knows what it was, and it was too low to be a satellite visualization. But again, a light in the sky doesn’t mean anything.
Alan Steinfeld
But I was going to ask you, are you interested in the whole UFO ET phenomena? Have you been following the whole alien abduction thing?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Well, I do have a mild interest in this thing because I know what’s out there. I like to read Stanton Friedman’s books about this because I think they’re pretty factual, and I like to read some of the noted authorities on this.
Alan Steinfeld
I mean, have you read John Mack and Budd Hopkins?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
I know of them, yes I have. But I don’t make it a, it’s not a hobby with me, it doesn’t occupy my time, so to speak. So it’s a secondary interest to me.
Alan Steinfeld
But you did fly helicopters, any association between that as a young boy and wanting to fly helicopters?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Well, when I got in the military, I was a flight surgeon. So at that time, they taught flight surgeons how to fly helicopters, so I got my stick time there. I didn’t fly them as such, but I was just like a crew member of a Blackhawk.
Alan Steinfeld
Well, so okay, if there’s stuff out there and there is, and Roswell is really the epicenter of this modern phenomena, how do you think, if it came out that this really is happening, what would happen to our civilization as we know it? What do you think it would go on?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
If the whole story was devolved to the people?
Alan Steinfeld
Yeah, if the government came forth and said, you know what, there was a ship at Roswell that crashed and there was…
Jesse Marcel Jr.
NASA has already conducted some studies on what would happen, not if, but when the story is released, and the truth of the matter is people won’t really be panic-stricken. They won’t be too involved or too bothered by it. The only ones I think that might be bothered by it would be the real right-wing religious groups. They might be very troubled by this.
Alan Steinfeld
But then again, the Roman Catholic Church just came out with a statement saying the Vatican recognizes that there could be other beings out there.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
I’m a Roman Catholic myself, and knowing what I know about this has actually strengthened my faith.
Alan Steinfeld
In what way? Can you talk about that?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Because I realized that God is great, so to speak, he’s big enough to build more than just us. We have brothers out there too, other civilizations.
Alan Steinfeld
But what about Jesus? Where does he fit into other civilizations, other planets?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
I don’t know, that’s a good mystery. I don’t know whether there are other Jesus Christs in other civilizations. I suspect there was.
Alan Steinfeld
Do you think we have anything to fear? I don’t think we have anything. I mean, I don’t think we have anything to fear from these aliens. What do you think?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
I think if we had something that they wanted, we wouldn’t have it now and we probably wouldn’t be here ourselves. So no, I don’t think we have anything to fear from them. Although I’m sure there’s different civilizations, the different types, maybe there are some bad actors out there, but hopefully they won’t bother us. But I think the ones that are here, like in Roswell and whatever, I think that was more like on a scientific investigation, they’re kind of investigating primitive civilizations.
Alan Steinfeld
You don’t think they’ve been here for hundreds of thousands of years? You think it was a kind of recent phenomenon?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Oh no, I think they’ve been here for thousands of years, for millennia.
Alan Steinfeld
Someone told me, I heard somewhere that they thought that the Roswell crash was something that was shot down by Army bases in Roswell with a new type of technology they had in 47?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
I have no knowledge of that, but I doubt that very severely. I just don’t think that’s what happened to it.
Alan Steinfeld
Why would a ship crash, you know?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Well, this might have been just a probe, so to speak. It could have been manned with clones which were expendable. Maybe they talked about a mothership, maybe this was just a probe dispatched by a mothership, came down to just to get the lay of the land, so to speak, and it met with grief in the countryside there.
Alan Steinfeld
You know, it was interesting the Army just came out of it like I think it was only like 10 years ago saying hey, it was a weather balloon, you know, they keep coming out and lying about this thing.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Well, the first thing was oh, it was a weather balloon because obviously there’s some tin foil and some kite sticks and things like that. But then they finally changed their story and said no, well, okay, we’ll fess up, it wasn’t a weather balloon, it was a Mogul balloon, which was a top-secret device at that time.
Alan Steinfeld
What was that? A Mogul balloon?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
A Mogul balloon was something that was designed to lift microphones up into the stratosphere to listen for sonic vibrations from any potential nuclear blast from the Soviet Union. And so it would have been a top-secret experiment there. However, the materials were still off-the-shelf things, the materials were not classified, but the mission was classified.
Alan Steinfeld
So okay, so your father found this balloon, and where was it taken? He stopped by your house on the way back from the rancher, and then where did he take the material to?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Well initially, after we examined it in our home there, we helped him package it up and put it in boxes back in the car. We had a 1942 Buick at the time. And I went to bed. So I don’t know if he went to the airbase that night or early the next morning, but I didn’t see him till after he came back from Fort Worth. But what he did, he brought the material into the base out to Colonel Blanchard, could also look at it. Colonel Blanchard realized the uniqueness of this and he’s the one who felt that General Ramey, the 8th Air Force Commander should look at this too, and that’s when it was flown to Fort Worth Army Airfield in a B-29 under armed guard of my dad.
Alan Steinfeld
But when did the story come out? Someone must have released the story before the cover-up started, like hey we found…
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Yeah, that’s right. Walter Haut was a public information officer there at the base. And what Colonel Blanchard did, he directed that Walter Haut write a story about the Air Force now has a flying saucer or a disc in its possession. And that was released to the papers before it was determined this should be kept top-secret.
Alan Steinfeld
Oh, so that’s where the Walter Haut affidavit comes in now.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
That’s right. And then after they determined it was top-secret, they put out another press release saying that well, sorry, there was no flying saucer there, just a big mix-up, idiot people confusing things. But first Walter did release this to the papers and then after they determined what they really had on their hands, they thought well we better keep this covered up and that’s when the cover-up story was then released to the press that this is just a weather balloon.
Alan Steinfeld
So did you read the Walter Haut affidavit before, when it came out?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
No, I’ve read parts of it. I haven’t really studied it.
Alan Steinfeld
So Walter Haut though, he must have maybe felt guilty or why would he come out years later with this affidavit that hey, you know, it was a saucer?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Well, he was dying at the time so I guess he decided that he better get this thing down on paper while he still could do it. That’s my feeling.
Alan Steinfeld
I mean it’s, you know, Roswell has become like a myth, a legend almost, you know?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
It is. It’s been thoroughly studied, that’s for sure.
Alan Steinfeld
And like people like David Jacobs, you know his work, he said no, it never happened, you know. I wonder why would he say that?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
I don’t know. I have no idea. Everybody has their own agenda, but I know what was out there because I saw it.
Alan Steinfeld
You saw it. So your father took it somewhere, then this stuff must be someplace right now, right?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Oh, I’m sure it is. I’m sure they didn’t take it to a dumpster and get rid of it. I’d heard that maybe it was taken to Wright Field, right near Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. And who knows where it is?
Alan Steinfeld
Well, there must be a whole branch of government that’s in charge of this UFO cover-up that has video footage and probably other parts of other crafts, I mean it’s huge the cover-up, isn’t it?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Well, I was interviewed by some member of the government who really confided to me that this was not fiction. Roswell was not fiction, and I told him I knew it wasn’t. And he asked me what did I know about it, and I went ahead and told him my story. And then he asked me where did I think the material was myself, and I said, well I don’t know, you guys have it. And he said no, we don’t have it, we don’t know where it is. They’re looking for people who might have knowledge of this thing.
Alan Steinfeld
Wait, what branch of the government was this guy from who talked to you?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
He identified himself as being with the CIA or NSC, something of that nature, I’m not sure which. But he asked me some questions like had I ever been threatened not to talk about this, which I hadn’t. And he just simply wanted to know what I knew about this and he did say that this was not fiction and I agreed with him it’s not fiction.
Alan Steinfeld
What year was that?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
That was about 1990 or 91.
Alan Steinfeld
90 or 91. That was years before this book even came out. I wonder why they would, that sounds something sounds a little strange there asking you where the wreckage is?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Yeah, I thought, I don’t know why he’d ask. How would I know where it is? I figured they had it. But did you get this guy’s name?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
I did, but I’m not really free to divulge it.
Alan Steinfeld
No, you don’t have to divulge it. But I mean he’s a real person who works for the government.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Oh yeah, as a matter of fact he gave me his telephone number at the Capitol building to get back in touch with him in case I ever got any threatening phone calls or anything like that, which I never did get any.
Alan Steinfeld
Well these are the guys that would give you the threatening phone calls. I mean the people from his office. So have you ever, has he called you since then?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
No, that was my one and only contact with him.
Alan Steinfeld
That is, that is odd. There’s something weird going on there. I wonder where that guy is now.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
I’m sure he’s retired by now, but I don’t know.
Alan Steinfeld
I mean someone like that, I’m sure is just probably kind of like seeing what you know about it and just kind of playing dumb it sounds like, you know.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Yeah, we were. He asked me Did I want to be interviewed in a secure room. And I said, well, I’m not going to say anything I haven’t said to other people already. And he said, I might tell you something, so we’ll go to a secure room. So that’s where we went.
Alan Steinfeld
And he didn’t tell you anything except other than he said this was not fiction.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Other than that he said this was not fiction.
Alan Steinfeld
And you didn’t ask him, well, if it’s not fiction, how do you know? You didn’t ask him that.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
I asked him, when were you guys going to let people know about this? And he said, if it was up to him, it would have been yesterday, but that was not, he wasn’t in the decision-making process.
Alan Steinfeld
Did he say who was?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
No. I think they’re trying to find out who has control of it. And gathering people like me who had a personal knowledge of this, to compare notes.
Alan Steinfeld
But I mean, this guy probably knew who did have control of releasing this information, right?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Well, yeah, he said there’s a black government, and these were his words, that’s not elected, has unlimited funds, answers to no one but itself, and he said those are the ones who handle this.
Alan Steinfeld
And did he name any names who’s the head of that black government?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
No, no. Nothing like that.
Alan Steinfeld
I mean, who do you think is in charge of this secret government?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
You tell me and we’ll both know. But I believe there is a secret government involved with this thing. It’s not under any political control or, I think for national security it kind of stays to itself.
Alan Steinfeld
And isn’t that incredible that we could live in a country where everyone’s so unconscious about this type of thing?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
That’s right. But I’m sure it’s a real thing.
Alan Steinfeld
But it brings into suspect the whole reason we were in Iraq and everything. I mean, how do you reconcile those two things? You know, you fought for your country yet you’re aware that there’s forces that run this country that you know.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Well, I saw what was going on in Iraq and I support the mission. I saw what was going, the murder.
Alan Steinfeld
What is the mission there? I mean, not to get too political, but what is the mission in Iraq?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Well, you know, some of the missions that I flew on were down to the mass graves south of Baghdad. And when you see that, you realize they are no longer being filled by this Saddam Hussein. So we stopped that from happening. It’s like the Holocaust in Germany in the 30s. So we stopped that. So that’s why I felt that with my conscience it’s no longer going on.
Alan Steinfeld
It was mass graves that Saddam Hussein just killed thousands of people.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
You’d have baby clothes and things like that on the outside.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
As a matter of fact, one horrible story was that in one of those graves there was a mother holding her infant, both shot in the head. The infant still had a pacifier in its mouth. So that kind of bull is no longer happening right now, and we stopped it.
Alan Steinfeld
Well, that’s good. But that is good, and you know, but the once war continues for too long.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Oh no, war is horrible.
Alan Steinfeld
It is. The US has been accused of killing innocent people as well.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Yeah, I know. I’ve not seen that, but I’ve seen what these suicide bombers do. If you want to get an education as to how evil people are, when you see one of those detonate themselves in a crowd, well, then you know how bad it really is.
Alan Steinfeld
Did you see that? You saw a suicide bomber?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Yeah.
Alan Steinfeld
And that you saw him blow up himself in a crowd?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Well, you know, well, it was just outside our gate there at Balad. A suicide bomber blew himself up out there and we, of course, had mass casualties out there, taking care of them and, I happened to be there. And so anyway, it’s a terrible thing.
Alan Steinfeld
Well, I do agree with you saying if people are committing awful atrocities like that. But the fact that we have this shadow government that we’re involved in a war which is really, I think, more about oil. And these other, I mean, of course, it’s about, yeah, helping.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
I’m not sure the shadow government has much to do with Iraq. But again, I’m not in the need to know on this thing. So.
Alan Steinfeld
You’re not in what you said? Need to know?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
In the need to know about that, or have any personal knowledge of it.
Alan Steinfeld
But it just seems like they would have control over everything. I mean, it’s just frightening to think that, you know, something else is going on.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
I’ll tell you what, if we knew all the ins and outs of the government, we might be kind of scared. But any rate, the government has survived and the United States has survived for several hundred years. Now I think we’re going to keep on.
Alan Steinfeld
No, I agree with you, and I think it’s a great country. It’s just like when you talk about this shadow government who’s not, who’s never elected, who doesn’t have to answer to everyone, it’s like, I think they must be running the show, right?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Well, you know, who knows what their sphere of influence is. It may be just a very small government that has to do with flying saucers. Maybe that’s their only mission. You know, I, yeah, who knows, who knows.
Alan Steinfeld
Do you think they’re, I mean the whole Area 51 thing, taking these, you think they might be reverse engineering some of this stuff they found?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
You know, it’s kind of fun to think about that. But I think maybe these craft are so complicated that we may not have the technology to reverse engineer much of it. Maybe just very superficially. It almost’d be like giving a digital wristwatch to Galileo and telling him to reproduce it. I don’t think he could do that. He probably know what it eventually was.
Alan Steinfeld
Right, right. Now I do know what you’re saying. I always thought the reverse engineering thing was a little suspect anyway.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Maybe there is, maybe very superficially, but again, that’s just my thoughts.
Alan Steinfeld
You didn’t see anything like energy weapons in Iraq or anything like that that may be a result of alien.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
No, no. Just machine guns and sidearms. That was my, the only weapons I saw.
Alan Steinfeld
Well, because on 60 Minutes a few months ago they did do a demonstration of these energy weapons.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Yeah, well, I didn’t see anything like that myself. Like I say, we didn’t carry ’em on our Black Hawks.
Alan Steinfeld
Right.
Alan Steinfeld
So you only have that one incident where someone from the government came and talked to you?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Yeah, that’s right. Well, I’ve had the Air Force, you know, when they were compiling their Roswell case closed monograph, they did interview me. And they asked me what I saw, and I went through the story again and I described what all I thought it was. And their conclusion was they don’t know what I saw. So my interview was not included in their monograph.
Alan Steinfeld
What was the Air Force was doing what?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Well, what they were doing, I was in my office practice there in Helena, and my secretary got a call from Lieutenant McAndrew in the Air Force. And he says, when I got on the horn with him, he says, well, Colonel, we need your help. I said, what can I do for you? And he says, I understand that you saw things at Roswell. Describe what you saw. So I did. I went through the shopping list of what I saw. As a matter of fact, I thought maybe this black plastic material might have been from the part of a weather balloon. And I said, do you think it was? And he said, no, because they didn’t carry anything like that. And his final conclusion was, we don’t know what you saw.
Alan Steinfeld
Huh. So this went into which report for the Air Force?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Oh, years ago they wrote this monograph ‘Roswell: Case Closed’.
Alan Steinfeld
What year was that?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Oh, it must be in the early 90s.
Alan Steinfeld
So they wrote, they keep going back to Roswell the Air Force, just to.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Yeah. Methinks they do protest too much.
Alan Steinfeld
Yeah, exactly. I mean, they keep answering. They keep trying to kill the story. Still trying to kill the story, but.
Alan Steinfeld
Isn’t that strange? You know, they denied it in the 40s and then I guess again in the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s.
Alan Steinfeld
So in the early 90s they wrote another report that said we don’t know what happened there. What was their conclusion actually about Roswell?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
That it was a Mogul balloon. That’s their conclusion it was a Mogul balloon. But I know it wasn’t. But anyway, that’s their take on this thing. And they put out this expensive monograph which is trying to convince people that Roswell was just a misidentification of known object and this that and the other.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
But again, I saw what it was and it wasn’t a Mogul balloon. I didn’t see debris from a Mogul balloon.
Alan Steinfeld
Do you know what a Mogul balloon would look like though?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
I’ve seen pictures of them, yeah.
Alan Steinfeld
But how do you know it wasn’t a Mogul balloon?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Because, well, as a matter of fact when I was going down to Roswell one time they, I got a phone call saying that I was supposed to stop off in Socorro, New Mexico where.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Bill Moore, he was the project manager of Mogul. And so I stopped in with my family in Socorro, and Professor Moore brought a Mogul balloon target over to my motel room so I could look at it. And I recognized what it was, just a Mogul balloon, a raw and radar target. I said, this still is not what I saw. And he said, well, I think it was. But we agreed to disagree on this thing.
Alan Steinfeld
Just describe what a Mogul balloon would be.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Oh gosh. It’s like a kite-like thing with a radar reflector, corner reflector. It’s aluminum with a paper backing on it to give structural rigidity with kite sticks, you know, it’s a kite-like affair. With corner reflector for a radar.
Alan Steinfeld
And the material that you felt, that was nothing like they have in a Mogul balloon.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
No, that was not that.
Alan Steinfeld
Huh. And when did your father die? What year was that?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
In 1986.
Alan Steinfeld
And he never came out and publicly and said anything?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Well, I’ve seen him on televised interviews. As a matter of fact, before he died he was one of the television stations in New Orleans flew him out to Roswell to the debris field where it was.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
And I saw video tapes of him walking along out there just kind of looking at the ground and kicking the dirt, so to speak. One of my last conversations with him was I asked him, you got back from Roswell. I said, was any of the wreckage still out there? And his words were, oh no, no, they vacuumed. And those were his words, they vacuumed the place up. Made sure there was nothing left.
Alan Steinfeld
Wow.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
So we’re not talking about a radar target out there.
Alan Steinfeld
What do you think about Colonel Corso’s book, the day after Roswell?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Well, he’s primarily involved with reverse engineering. I guess that’s the main thesis of his book. And again, I’m not sure. I haven’t really read the book, but my understanding is it’s based on back engineering some of this stuff.
Alan Steinfeld
I mean, he was quite a high general though, right?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
I think he was Lieutenant Colonel.
Alan Steinfeld
That’s pretty high, right? And then Senator Strom Thurmond wrote the foreword to the first edition.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Is that right? Yeah.
Alan Steinfeld
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But he didn’t know what he was writing and he was just kind of supporting Corso as a colonel, you know.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Sure, I can understand that.
Alan Steinfeld
So I mean there’s all this stuff. I mean actually in Corso’s book, there’s pictures of your father I think.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Oh, it could be out on my right. Well, you know, I haven’t bought his book, but I never got around to reading it.
Alan Steinfeld
Yeah, yeah. There’s a lot of, there’s a lot of books where there are pictures of your father. I mean in this Charles Berlitz book, the Roswell Incident. I think there’s some pictures in there. And then of course, the UFO crash at Roswell, you know that book, right?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Yeah. I know there’s been a lot of plethora of books written on it. But I thought I wanted to get one out that I wrote from the inside kind of thing. So, you know, what the book does for me, it gives more of a background of my dad. It tells people that he knew what he was doing because his background training in radar school and intelligence school and all that. He was not a guy to make up stories, and that he really was factual and well-trained.
Alan Steinfeld
So when he was told to lie your father or say hey this is.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
We never had that. My thought is he’s ordered by superior officers. you know he went along with it because he was a good soldier, but he must have had some regrets or some, you know, he must have suspected something was off, right?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Oh I’m sure he did, you know. But he was kind of. we never really talked about that, and I’m not sure just how deeply he was hurt by this. Maybe he was hurt deeper than I thought, but he tried not to let it interfere with his life.
Alan Steinfeld
What was he, where was he in World War II, your father?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
He was in the South Pacific. And after he came back from that, he was then with the 509th Bomb Group. And those are the guys who dropped the bomb on Japan.
Alan Steinfeld
Right, right. They were in Roswell at the time, right?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Yeah, that’s right. It is the 509th Bomb Group, a composite group there. And he was an intelligence officer for the 509th. And those are all hand-picked guys for their intelligence and so forth and training.
Alan Steinfeld
Did you ever talk to Edgar Mitchell? He grew up in Roswell about this?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Yeah. Yeah, I sure did. I saw him not too long ago.
Alan Steinfeld
Did you know him when you were growing up?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
No, no. That past didn’t cross.
Alan Steinfeld
Oh, because he’s about your age, I would say, right?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Yeah. Yeah, we might have gone to the same school together, who knows. As far as I know. But I don’t recall.
Alan Steinfeld
But he’s just come out about the government cover-up of UFOs, right?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Well, yeah. He was with NASA, so he kind of had to be a little close-lipped about this thing too. But I guess he figures it’s time to talk about it. Let people know what’s going on out there.
Alan Steinfeld
Yeah, so he just came out. he was on Larry King, he was all over the place over the summer. he just came. So I wonder if he was asked by part of the government to come out and start to slowly reveal this stuff. I mean.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Well, it’s an interesting thought, maybe so. Or maybe it’s just like you, it’s in the collective consciousness. Maybe it’s just time it came out.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Yeah, you know, because, like I say, I’m no spring chicken, I’m 72 years old, and I don’t know how much longer I have. But I want to get my part of the story out while I still could.
Alan Steinfeld
So what do you hope people get from your book? What would you like them to come away with knowing?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
The truth of the Roswell event. That the fact that my dad was deeply involved with it, that he knew what he was talking about. Like I gave in the book, there’s parts of his resume, that he was a member of the 509th hand-picked to be an intelligence officer. He went to radar school. He went to intelligence school. As a matter of fact, he taught at the Air Force Intelligence School. And so he was not given to a wild imagination. And that the Roswell event really happened. That it’s parts of a flying saucer coming from some other place, not a human manufacture. And that’s what I wanted to put in the book. Plus a little bit of science of space travel, you know, how it’s possible to manipulate space to travel faster than the so-called speed of light and things like that. And that’s basically what the book is all about.
Alan Steinfeld
Right, so it’s a vindication of your father in a way.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Vindication, that’s a good word. I was searching for it and you got it.
Alan Steinfeld
Yeah, it’s about his integrity. He seemed like he was a very decent person.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Well, he was. He was.
Alan Steinfeld
Yeah, you can feel that in you, you know, you’re also standing up for the truth in your own way, you know.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Well, you know, I think that’s since I was part of the story from the ground zero, so to speak, and I just again want to get the story out while I still could.
Alan Steinfeld
Yeah, yeah, I know I really appreciate you coming forward and doing it. And you know, you’re probably one of the few people who’ve actually touched material from an alien craft, you know?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Well, I’m sure other people have touched it because it’s somewhere. They didn’t take it to a dump somewhere. It’s probably somewhere. But did you feel anything weird going back to that time, did you feel anything strange, electric or anything?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
No, no. Nothing at all, you know.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
I’ve been asked that, did it have a strange odor to it, which it didn’t. Just, you know, if you didn’t know any better, you’d say well, it’s just a bunch of junk there. But when you looked at it you realize hey no, what is this, you know? There’s apparently the metal if you fold it it would unfold. I didn’t see that part, but my dad described that part.
Alan Steinfeld
He described it to you when? After?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Oh, you know, later, years later.
Alan Steinfeld
Oh, years later he described it.
Alan Steinfeld
So I mean basically your father was pretty affected by this whole event. I mean it seems, right?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Well, you know, I do know that in 1950 he got out of the Air Force. He certainly said I’ve had enough of this, I’m getting out. So he got out right when the Korean War was getting off the ground.
Alan Steinfeld
What did he do when he got out?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Well he went back to Louisiana to be with his mother and he went to Leesville, Louisiana where he became a radio and television repairman.
Alan Steinfeld
Oh he did? But he wanted to go back home. And you were already grown up doing your own thing at that moment at that point?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Well, I was in high school then, so I was still at home. And I graduated high school in ’54 and then I went to college and medical school. Then I got in the military, spent 30 years in the military.
Alan Steinfeld
Even though your father, so he never talked to you about being, why he was got sick and fed up with the military, huh?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
No, no. Again, he kept that close to his chest.
Alan Steinfeld
He did. He did. And your mother, she was just a good housewife, huh?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Yeah.
Alan Steinfeld
And you don’t have any brothers or sisters, huh?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
No, I’m an only child.
Alan Steinfeld
You’re only child. Do you have children of your own?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
I do, I have eight altogether, so.
Alan Steinfeld
Eight of your own? And what do they think of this whole story?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Well, they, I guess they accept what it is now. But when they initially found out about it, they were kind of frightened over the implication of this.
Alan Steinfeld
The implications being that.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Well they’re all grown up now, so they accept it. They’re not afraid of it.
Alan Steinfeld
But it really does open up the whole world to a whole new reality, is what I call it, you know.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
It is. It’s a new reality, we’re not alone. The universe has a lot of people out there, so to speak.
Alan Steinfeld
Well, I think it’s very exciting.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
We have a lot of cousins out there.
Alan Steinfeld
Well, I think once this is publicly acknowledged, we will then perhaps welcome them, they won’t have to be hiding. I mean somehow, if this is publicly acknowledged, it’s going to change everything about our culture, about science, about health, medicine. I mean, just think of the technology they must have.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Be a paradigm shift in our way of thinking.
Alan Steinfeld
Absolutely. This is one of the reasons I’m doing this program, is to bring forth this knowledge and to talk to people like you that say without a doubt, this is real, they’re out there, it’s true, it’s just very exciting for me to talk to you.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
People ask me well why don’t our cousins, so to speak, officially contact us, you know, like landing in front of the White House lawn or so to speak or Buckingham Palace.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
And I think what it is, we’re basically an uncivilized, you know, this is my thought, maybe not totally true, but we’re kind of uncivilized, and we’re too warlike. And I think that maybe they have more to fear from us than we do from them.
Alan Steinfeld
Right, that Stanton Friedman’s great line, who wants to be around humans whose main occupation is tribal warfare.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Tribal warfare, exactly. We’re just too involved with it. And that’s history of human civilization is war. And it’s disgusting.
Alan Steinfeld
It is the history of human civilization. And you know, I think something’s got to change, something, I mean it’s just we’ve had enough of war.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Well maybe if they were to make contact, that would make us settle our own differences. Like President Reagan alluded to in a United Nations address one time.
Alan Steinfeld
Oh right, that was a great possible foreshadowing of the future. So you have anything else planned coming up, answering for yourself?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
No, not at all. I just retired and I’m just kind of collecting my thoughts and just trying to enjoy life.
Alan Steinfeld
Are you looking at other UFO Roswell information, are you going on tour?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
No, not really. I’m interested in astronomy and cosmology because I realize that there’s others, there’s habitable planets out there. So that’s my hobby is astronomy.
Alan Steinfeld
I mean where do you think they’re from then? I mean probably more than one group, but where do you think some of them from?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Well, I guess we’re looking. There’s a SETI program that’s listening for signals, and our telescopes are now just now getting refining enough where we can spot some Earth-like planets and do some studies of their atmosphere to see if there’s organic life there.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
But we’re just getting to the point where we haven’t got there yet. But the next decade we’ll have telescopes finding to spot earth-like planets.
Alan Steinfeld
I always thought it was ridiculous to have a SETI program when it’s obvious that the government knows about this and why are we looking for life?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
That stands to argument but that’s ok. I support the SETI program.
Alan Steinfeld
I support it too, but it just seems insane, oh we’re looking for. it’s right here under your nose, it’s probably not coming in the form of signals that we want it to come, but well, hey I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Okay well if people read some of the book they can get an autographed one from jessemarceljr.com, that’s your website. Or they can get it from Amazon and other places too but that’s where it’s located.
Alan Steinfeld
And the book is called ‘The Roswell Legacy’, and it’s published by New Page Books.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Career Press.
Alan Steinfeld
Career Press. And it’s Jesse Marcel Jr. and Linda?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Yeah, Jesse Marcel Jr. and Linda.
Alan Steinfeld
And Linda’s your wife.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Yes.
Alan Steinfeld
She has a nice little piece in there. What was her final word on the whole thing?
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Well just stay tuned, is all I’ve got to say.
Alan Steinfeld
Thank you so much, Jesse, for telling your story and writing the book and really being there confirming what people suspected all along that this is real and you know, the government knows something they’re not telling us obviously.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Exactly. I don’t think we need to know everything that the government knows, but.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
I think there are certain things that should be divulged, and this is one of them.
Alan Steinfeld
I personally think we do need to know everything the government knows. Why not? They’re working for us. It’s our government, you know.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
Well as far as intelligence and security, methods of security, weaponry, I think we don’t need to know about that.
Alan Steinfeld
Maybe, but it didn’t stop people last time, all that secrecy, right? Well thanks again. Let’s talk soon.
Alan Steinfeld
Okay, I’ve been talking to Jesse Marcel Jr., who’s the author of ‘The Roswell Legacy’, the son of Jesse Marcel Sr. who actually found the wreckage in Roswell, brought it back, and the legend began. So.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
That’s where it started.
Alan Steinfeld
That’s where it started, and it hasn’t ended yet, huh.
Jesse Marcel Jr.
No it hasn’t.
Alan Steinfeld
Okay, this is Alan Steinfeld for New Realities. This program will be archived at newrealities.com and also on bbsradio.com under New Realities. You can listen to this. And if you have any questions email me at newrealities@earthlink.net. And I’m gonna end with this song called ‘The Night Before The Future’ by Duke Williams who had his own contact with…