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By Thomas J. Carey & Donald R. Schmitt
More than 50 years after the event, it is still unclear whether Maj. Jesse Marcel knew that the mangled remains of a weather balloon and radar kite were part of the secured cargo he escorted aboard a B29 bomber to a meeting with Gen. Roger M. Ramey at Fort Worth. Texas.
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Maj. Jesse Marcel, an intelligence officer stationed at Roswell Army Air Field, believed he had found on Mack Brazel's ranch the wreckage of a flying saucer from another planet.
PHOTO FROM THE 1947 ROSWELL AAF YEARBOOK, COURTESY OF WALTER HAUT.
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One thing, however, is certain: Until the day he died in May 1986, Marcel swore that what he personally recovered in the desert north of Roswell, N.M., was not what was displayed for Fort Worth Star-Telegram news photographer James B. Johnson in Gen. Ramey's office on July 8, 1947. And, as if to add insult to injury, after Marcel was instructed to pose with the substituted weather device, Ramey also ordered the major not to say a word to any of the press waiting outside the room.
As the chief intelligence officer of the 509th Atomic Bomb Squadron at Roswell AAF, Marcel likely found it strange that he was all but completely eliminated from the press conferences that followed his photo-op. Marcel was kept in seclusion for the next 24 hours; he finally was allowed to return to Roswell on the evening of Wednesday, July 9, 1947. The B29 that carried Marcel to and from Fort Worth was nicknamed "Straight Flush" and bore the tail number 44-7301. It was piloted by Capt. Frederick Ewing.
Maj. Marcel returned to his home in Roswell just days after he had displayed some of the true wreckage to his wife, Vi (short for Viaud), and son, Jesse Jr. Upon his return, Marcel informed both of them that he was no longer able to talk about it with them. But that didn't stop him from trying to get some answers back at the Roswell base.
The next morning, Marcel arrived at his office and confronted the officer who had accompanied him to Mack Brazel's ranch to first investigate the crash: the head of counter intelligence (CIC), Capt. Sheridan Cavitt.
"I want to see the report of what all happened here while I was in Fort Worth," Marcel demanded.
"What report?" Cavitt answered. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"I outrank you," the major reminded him.
"I take my orders from Washington," Cavitt said. "If you don't like it, you can take it up with them." On that note, the CIC officer put an abrupt end to the debate.
The preceding discussion was more than out of character for both men; the Marcels and the Cavitts were good friends. Furthermore, the captain's wife, Mary Cavitt, told a most interesting story. According to her, within a few nights of Jesse's return from his special flight to Fort Worth, the two couples got together for their weekly game of bridge. But this night was different. The wives remained in the front room while the two husbands toiled over the stove in the kitchen. No matter how high they turned up the heat, neither man could get the contents of a pot to increase in temperature.
That's because the focus of their efforts was no watched pot of water — it was a piece of the true crash debris. Mrs. Cavitt claimed this astonishing scenario ended when her husband reminded Maj. Marcel that the material was classified "top secret" and that they had best get rid of it. The two men then stepped out onto the patio with the nigh-indestructible material. Moments later, when they returned, it was gone.
Maj. Marcel, whom the Army would have us believe was so incompetent that he couldn't identify the wreckage of a very common weather device with which he worked on a regular basis, went on to personally prepare the briefing for President Harry S Truman concerning the first detonation of a Soviet atomic bomb in August 1949. Yet, even during the last years of Marcel's life, as he gradually struggled more and more with emphysema, he bravely tried to tell the world the truth about what really happened at Roswell.
"It was nothing we had ever seen before," Marcel said. "It was not an aircraft of any kind; that I am sure of. We didn't know what it was. It was nothing made on this earth."
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