5 THE MILITARY
5.1 Jesse Marcel
[Major Jesse Marcel was one of the the first two military people
to visit the Corona crash site. The other was Sheridan Cavitt,
who to this day has refused to even acknowledge that he was there
on the ranch with Marcel. Jesse Marcel died in 1982. He was
interviewed in 1979.]
When we arrived at the crash site, it was amazing to see the vast
amount of area it covered. It was nothing that hit the ground or
exploded [on] the ground. It's something that must have exploded
above ground, traveling perhaps at a high rate of speed, we don't
know. But it scattered over an area of about three quarters of a
mile long, I would say, and fairly wide, several hundred feet
wide. So we proceeded to pick up all the fragments we could find
and load up our Jeep Carry-All. It was quite obvious to me,
familiar with air activities, that it was not a weather balloon,
nor was it an airplane or a missile. What it was, we didn't know.
We just picked up the fragments. It was something I had never
seen before, and I was pretty familiar with all air activities.
We loaded up the Carry-All but I wasn't satisfied. I told Cavitt,
"You drive this vehicle back to the base and I'll go back
out there and pick up as much as I can put in the car,",
which I did. But we picked up only a very small portion of the
material that was there.
One thing that impressed me about the debris that we were
referring to is the fact that a lot of it looked like parchment.
A lot of it had a lot of little members [I-beams] with symbols
that we had to call them hieroglyphics because I could not
interpret them, they could not be read, they were just symbols,
something that meant something and they were not all the same.
The members that this was painted on -- by the way, those symbols
were pink and purple, lavender was actually what it was. And so
these little members could not be broken, could not be burned. I
even tried to burn that. It would not burn. The same with the
parchment we had.
But something that is more astounding is that the piece of metal
that we brought back was so thin, just like the tinfoil in a pack
of cigarette paper. I didn't pay too much attention to that at
first, until one of the GIs came to me and said, "You know
the metal that was in there? I tried to bend that stuff and it
won't bend. I even tried it with a sledge hammer. You can't make
a dent on it."
I didn't go back to look at it myself again, because we were busy
in the office and I had quite a bit of work to do. I am quite
sure that this young fellow would not have lied to me about that,
because he was a very truthful, very honest guy, so I accepted
his word for that. So, beyond that, I didn't actually see him hit
the matter with a sledge hammer, but he said, "It's definite
that it cannot be bent and it's so light that it doesn't weigh
anything." And that was true of all the material that was
brought up. It was so light that it weighed practically nothing.
This particular piece of metal was, I would say, about two feet
long and perhaps a foot wide. See, that stuff weighs nothing,
it's so thin, it isn't any thicker than the tinfoil in a pack of
cigarettes. So I tried to bend the stuff, it wouldn't bend. We
even tried making a dent in it with a 16-pound sledge hammer, and
there was still no dent in it. I didn't have the time to go out
there and find out more about it, because I had so much other
work to do that I just let it go. It's still a mystery to me as
to what the whole thing was. Like I said before, I knew quite a
bit about the material used in the air, but it was nothing I had
seen before. And as of now, I still don't know what it was. So
that's how it stands.
[Here is what Jesse Marcel said on the American television
program "Unsolved Mysteries".]
There were just fragments strewn all over the area, an area about
three quarters of a mile long and several hundred feet wide. So
we proceeded to pick up the parts.
I tried to bend the stuff, it would not bend. I even tried to
burn it, it would not burn. That stuff weighs nothing. It's not
any thicker than tin foil in a pack of cigarettes. We even tried
making a dent in it with a 16-pound sledge hammer, still no dent
in it.
One thing I was certain of, being familiar with all our
activities, that it was not a weather balloon, nor an aircraft,
nor a missile. It was something else, which we didn't know what
it was.
5.2 Jesse Marcel Jr
[Jesse Marcel Jr is Major Jesse Marcel's son. When Major Marcel
returned from the Foster Ranch with a carload of wreckage from
the crashed flying saucer, he stopped off at home to show his
wife and his eleven-year old son what he had found. Jesse Jr is
now a medical doctor, an Army reserve helicopter pilot who served
in Vietnam, and a qualified aircraft accident investigator.]
The crash and remnants of the device that I happened to see have
left an imprint on my memory that can never be forgotten. The
craft was not conventional in any sense of the word, in that the
remains were most likely what was then known as a flying saucer
that had apparently been stressed beyond its designed
capabilities.
I'm basing this on the fact that many of the remnants, including
I-beam pieces that were present, had strange hieroglyphic
typewriting symbols across the inner surfaces, pink and purple,
except that I don't think there were any animal figures present
as there are in true Egyptian hieroglyphics.
The remainder of the debris was just described as nondescript
metallic debris, or just shredded fragments, but there was a fair
amount of the intact I-beam members present. I only saw a small
portion of the debris that was actually present at the crash
site.
[Here is what Jesse Marcel Jr said on the American television
program "Unsolved Mysteries".]
When [Dad] came back to the house he had a bunch of wreckage with
him at the time, and he brought the wreckage into the house.
Actually wakened my mother and myself out so we could view this,
because it was so unusual. This was about two o'clock in the
morning as I recall, and he spread it out so we could get some
basic idea what it looked like, what it was....
We were all amazed by this debris that was there, primarily
because we didn't know what it was, you know, it was just the
unknown....
This writing [on a short piece of I-beam] could be described as
like hieroglyphics, Egyptian-type hieroglyphics, but not really.
The symbols that were on the I-beams were more of a
geometric-type configuration in various designs. It had a
violet-purple type color and was actually an embossed part of the
metal itself.
Years after this incident happened, we would talk privately among
ourselves about what the possibilities of this, what this thing
was. And I feel that we, well I know that we came to the
conclusion it was not of earthly origin.
If I had not actually held pieces of it in my hand, I would not
think that it would be possible. But because I happened to see
this, that's the only reason I believe it....
My dad said obviously it [the weather balloon story] was a
cover-up story, it was not a weather balloon. He was a little
disturbed about that, but he had his own security classification
to protect. He could not really go public with, hey this is not
the real thing, I mean this is not a weather balloon. So he had
to keep that to himself.
5.3 Walter Haut
[Second Lieutenant Walter Haut was a public information officer
at Roswell AAF in 1947. Colonel Blanchard ordered Haut to issue a
press release telling the country that the Army had found a
flying saucer. Here is the text of Haut's press release.]
The many rumors regarding the flying disc became a reality
yesterday when the Intelligence office of the 509th Bomb Group of
the Eighth Air Force, Roswell Army Air Field, was fortunate
enough to gain possession of a disc through the cooperation of
one of the local ranchers and the sheriff's office of Chaves
County.
The flying object landed on a ranch near Roswell sometime last
week. Not having phone facilities, the rancher stored the disc
until such time as he was able to contact the sheriff's office,
who in turn notified Maj. Jesse A. Marcel of the 509th Bomb Group
Intelligence Office.
Action was immediately taken and the disc was picked up at the
rancher's home. It was inspected at Roswell Army Air Field and
subsequently loaned by Major Marcel to higher headquarters.
[Here is what Haut said on the American television program
"Unsolved Mysteries".]
I took the release into town. And that was one of the things that
Colonel Blanchard told me to do, take it into town, because if
there was any validity to this, he didn't want the news media to
feel that we had jumped over their heads and were not cooperating
with them.
[Here is what Haut said in an interview for an article in
"Air and Space/Smithsonian" magazine, Sep-Oct 1992,
when asked what he thought really happened back in 1947.]
I feel there was a crash of an extra-terrestrial vehicle near
Corona.
5.4 Bill Rickett
[Bill Rickett was a Counter Intelligence Corps officer based in
Roswell. He had an opportunity to examine some of the wreckage
recovered from the Foster Ranch. He escorted Dr Lincoln LaPaz, a
meteor expert from the New Mexico Institute of Meteoritics, on a
tour of the crash site and the surrounding area.]
[The material] was very strong and very light. You could bend it
but couldn't crease it. As far as I know, no one ever figured out
what it was made of....
It was LaPaz's job to try to find out what the speed and
trajectory of the thing was. LaPaz was a world-renowned expert on
trajectories of objects in the sky, especially meteors, and I was
told to give him all the help I could.
At one point LaPaz interviewed the farmer [Mac Brazel]. I
remember something coming up during their conversation about this
fellow thinking that some of his animals had acted strangely
after this thing happened. Dr LaPaz seemed very interested in
this for some reason.
LaPaz wanted to fly over the area, and this was arranged. He
found one other spot where he felt this thing had touched down
and then taken off again. The sand at this spot had been turned
into a glass-like substance. We collected a boxful of samples of
this material. As I recall, there were some metal samples here,
too, of that same sort of thin foil stuff. LaPaz sent this box
off somewhere for study; I don't know or recall where, but I
never saw it again. This place was some miles from the other one.
LaPaz was very good at talking to people, especially some of the
local ranch hands who didn't speak a lot of English. LaPaz spoke
Spanish. I remember he found a couple of people who had seen two
-- I don't know what to call them, UFOs I suppose -- anyway, had
seen two of these things fly over very slowly at a very low
altitude on a date, in the evening, that he determined had been a
day or two after the other one had blown up. These people said
something about animals being affected, too....
Before he went back to Albuquerque, he told me that he was
certain that this thing had gotten into trouble, that it had
touched down for repairs, taken off again, and then exploded. He
also felt certain there were more than one of these devices, and
that the others had been looking for it. At least that's what he
said. He was positive the thing had malfunctioned.
The Air Force's explanation that it was a balloon was totally
untrue. It was not a balloon. I never did know for sure what its
purpose was, but it wasn't ours. I remember speculating with
LaPaz that it might have been some higher civilization checking
on us. LaPaz wasn't against the idea, but he was going to leave
speculations out of his report.
5.5 F.B.
[F.B. was an Army Air Forces photographer stationed at Anacostia
Naval Air Station in Washington DC when he and fellow
photographer A.K. were flown aboard a B-25 bomber to Roswell Army
Air Field sometime during the second week of July 1947. F.B. was
interviewed by Stanton Friedman.]
One morning they came in and they said, "Pack up your bags
and we'll have the cameras there, ready for you." We didn't
know where we was going.
[After a few hours' flight, they arrived at Roswell.] We got in a
staff car with some of the gear they had brought along with us in
trucks, and we headed out, about an hour and a half, we was
heading north.
We got out there [one of the crash sites in the Corona area] and
there was a helluva lot of people out there, in a closed tent.
You couldn't hardly see anything inside the tent. They said,
"Set your camera up to take a picture fifteen feet
away." A.K. got in a truck and headed out to where they was
picking up pieces. All kinds of brass running around. And they
was telling us what to do. Shoot this, shoot that. There was an
officer in charge. He met us out there and he'd go into the tent
and he'd come back and tell us, "OK." He'd stand there
right besides us and [say], "OK, take this picture."
There was four bodies I could see when the flash went off, but
you was almost blind because it was a beautiful day, sunny. You'd
go in this tent, which was awful dark. That's all I was taking,
bodies. These bodies was under a canvas, and they'd open it up
and you'd take a picture, flip out your flashbulb, put another
one in [take another picture] and give him the film holder (each
holder held two sheets of four-by-five inch cut film) and then
you went to the next spot.
I guess there was ten to twelve officers, and when I got ready to
go in, they'd all come out. The tent was about twenty by thirty
foot. The bodies looked like they was lying on a tarp. One guy
did all the instructions. He'd take a flashlight and he'd come
down there. "See this flashlight?" Yes sir.
"You're in focus with it?" Yes sir. "Take a
picture of this." He'd take the flashlight away. We just
moved around in a circle, taking pictures. Seemed to me [the
bodies] were all just about identical. Dark complected. I
remember they was thin, and it looked like they had too big of a
head. I took thirty shots. I think I had about fifteen [film]
holders. It smelled funny in there.
A.K. came back in a truck that was loaded down with debris. A lot
of pieces sticking out that wasn't there when they took off. We
got debriefed on the way back to the airport [Roswell Army Air
Field]. About four the next morning, they woke us, they took us
to the mess hall, we ate, we got back on the B-25 and headed
back. When we got back to Anacostia we got debriefed some more,
by a lieutenant commander. [It was made clear to both F.B and
A.K. that whatever they thought they saw in New Mexico, they
hadn't seen.]
5.6 Robert Porter
[M/Sgt Robert Porter was a B-29 flight engineer with the 830th
Bomb Squadron. He happens to be Loretta Proctor's brother. He was
interviewed by Stanton Friedman.]
We flew these pieces. [Some officers in the crew] told us it was
parts of a flying saucer. The packages were in wrapping paper,
one triangle-shaped about two and a half feet across the bottom,
the rest in smaller, shoebox-sized packages. [They were in] brown
paper with tape. It was just like I picked up an empty package,
very light. The loaded triangle-shaped package and three
shoebox-sized packages would have fit into the trunk of a car.
On board were Lieutenant Colonel Payne Jennings [deputy commander
of Roswell] and Major Marcel. Captain Anderson said it was from a
flying saucer. We got to Fort Worth, they transferred [the
packages] to a B-25 and took them to Wright [Field]. When we
landed at [Fort Worth], Colonel Jennings told us to take care of
maintenance, and after a guard was posted, we could eat lunch. We
came back, they told us they had transferred the material to a
B-25. They told us it was a weather balloon. It WASN'T a weather
balloon.
5.7 Robert Shirkey
[First Lieutenant Robert Shirkey was assistant operations officer
of the 509th Bomb Group. He was interviewed by Stanton Friedman.]
A call came in to have a B-29 ready to go as soon as possible.
Where to? Forth Worth, on Colonel Blanchard's directive. [I was]
in the Operations Office when Colonel Blanchard arrived and asked
if the airplane was ready. When told it was, Blanchard waved to
somebody, and approximately five people came in the front door,
down the hallway, and onto the ramp to climb into the airplane,
carrying parts of the crashed flying saucer. I got a very short
glimpse, asked Blanchard to turn sideways so [I] could see too.
Saw them carrying pieces of metal. They had one piece that was
eighteen by twenty-four inches, brushed stainless steel in color.
5.8 Robert Slusher
[S/Sgt Robert Slusher was assigned to the 393rd Bomb Squadron. On
or about July 9, 1947, he was on board a B-29 that carried a
single crate from Roswell AAF to Fort Worth AAF. Also on board
were were four armed MPs. He said the crate was twelve feet long,
five feet wide, and four feet high. Upon arrival at Fort Worth,
the crate was loaded onto a flatbed weapons carrier and hauled
off, accompanied by the MPs, who later rejoined the crew for the
return flight. Robert Slusher was interviewed in 1991.]
[There was an implication that the contents of the crate was
sensitive to air pressure, which suggests that the crate
contained something other than pieces of metal. The plane flew at
the unusually low altitude of four to five thousand feet. Usually
on such a trip a B-29 flies at twenty-five thousand feet, as its
cabin is pressurized and the B-29 flies better at high alititude.
However, the bomb bay where the crate was stowed cannot be
pressurized.]
The return flight was above twenty thousand feet, and the cabin
was pressurized. The round trip took approximately three hours,
fifteen minutes. The flight was unusual in that we flew there,
dropped the cargo, and returned immediately. It was a hurried
flight; normally we knew the day before there would be a flight.
There was a rumor that the crate had debris from the crash.
Whether there were any bodies, I don't know. The crate had been
specially made; it had no markings.
5.9 Robert Smith
[Robert Smith was a member of the First Air Transport Unit, which
operated Douglas C-54 Skymaster four-engined cargo planes out of
the Roswell AAF. He was interviewed in 1991.]
A lot of people began coming in all of a sudden because of the
official investigation. Somebody said it was a plane crash, but
we heard from a man in Roswell that it was not a plane crash, it
was something else, a strange object. There was another
indication that something serious was going on. One night, when
we were coming back to Roswell, a convoy of trucks covered with
canvas passed us. When they got to the [airfield] gate, they
headed over to this hangar on the east end, which was rather
unusual. The truck convoy had red lights and sirens.
My involvement in the incident was to help load crates of debris
into the aircraft. We all became aware of the event when we went
to the hangar on the east side of the ramp. There were a lot of
people in plain clothes all over the place. They were inspectors,
but they were strangers on the base. When challenged, they
replied they were here on Project So-and-So, and flashed a card,
which was different from a military ID card.
We were taken to the hangar to load crates. There was a lot of
farm dirt on the hangar floor. We loaded [the crates] on flatbeds
and dollies. Each crate had to be checked as to width and height.
We had to know which crates went on which plane. We loaded crates
on three [or] four C-54s. We weren't supposed to know their
destination, but we were told they were headed north.
All I saw was a little piece of material. You could crumple it
up, let it come out. You couldn't crease it. One of our people
put it in his pocket. The piece of debris I saw was two to three
inches square. It was jagged. When you crumpled it up, it then
laid back out. And when it did, it kind of crackled, making a
sound like celophane. It crackled when it was let out. There were
no creases.
There were armed guards around during loading of our planes,
which was unusual at Roswell. There was no way to get to the ramp
except through armed guards. There were MPs on the outskirts, and
our personnel were between them and the planes.
The largest [crate] was roughly twenty feet long, four to five
feet high, and four to five feet wide. It took up an entire
plane. It wasn't that heavy, but it was a large volume. The rest
of the crates were two or three feet long and two feet square or
smaller. The sergeant who had the piece of material said [it was
like] the material in the crates. The entire loading took at
least six, perhaps eight hours. Lunch was brought to us, which
was unusual. The crates were brought to us on flatbed dollies,
which was also unusual.
Officially, we were told it was a crashed plane, but crashed
planes usually were taken to the salvage yard, not flown out. I
don't think it was an experimental plane, because not too many
people in that area were experimenting with planes. I'm convinced
that what we loaded was a UFO that got into mechanical problems.
Even with the most intelligent people, things go wrong.
[The C-54 into which I helped load the single twenty-foot crate]
would have been Pappy Henderson's. I remember seeing T/Sgt
Harbell Elzey, T/Sgt. Edward Bretherton, and S/Sgt. William
Fortner.
5.10 Melvin Brown's Daughter
[Sergeant Melvin Brown was a cook at Roswell AAF in 1947. One
day, he was called out to help guard material retrieved from the
Foster Ranch. His daughter Beverly was interviewed by Stanton
Friedman in 1989.]
When we were young, he used to tell us stories about things that
had happened to him when he was young. We got to know those
stories by heart and would all say together, "Here we go
again."
Sometimes, but not too often, he used to say that he saw a man
from outer space. That used to make us all giggle like mad. He
said he had to stand guard duty outside a hangar where a crashed
flying saucer was stored, and that his commanding officer said,
"Come on, Brownie, let's have a look inside." But they
didn't see anything because it had all been packed up and [was]
ready to be flown out to Texas.
He also said that one day all available men were grabbed and that
they had to stand guard where a crashed disc had come down.
Everything was being loaded onto trucks, and he couldn't
understand why some of the trucks had ice or something in them.
He did not understand what they wanted to keep cold. Him and
another guy had to ride in the back of one of the trucks, and
although they were told that they could get into a lot of trouble
if they took in too much of what was happening, they had a quick
look under the covering and saw two dead bodies, alien bodies.
We really had to giggle at that bit. He said they were smaller
than a normal man, about four feet, and had much larger heads
than us, with slanted eyes, and that the bodies looked yellowish,
a bit Asian-looking. We did not believe him when we were kids,
but as I got older, I did kind of believe it. Once I asked him if
he was scared by them, and he said, "Hell no, they looked
nice, almost as though they would be friendly if they were
alive."
5.11 Pappy Henderson
[Captain Oliver Wendell "Pappy" Henderson was stationed
at Roswell AAF in 1947. He had flown thirty missions in B-24
Liberator bombers in Europe. He had participated in the postwar
A-bomb tests in the Pacific and earned major commendations for
his flying. Unfortunately, he died before any UFO investigator
could interview him, but near the end of his life he old some of
the people closest to him about what he had seen in July 1947.]
5.12 Pappy Henderson's Wife
[Sappho Henderson was Pappy Henderson's wife. She was interviewed
by Stanton Friedman.]
We met during World War II when he flew with the 446th Bomb
Squadron. He flew B-24s [on] thirty missions over Germany. After
the war, he returned home and was then sent to Roswell. While
stationed there, he ran the "Green Hornet Airline",
which involved flying C-54s and C-47s carrying VIPs, scientists,
and materials from Roswell to the Pacific during the atom bomb
tests. He had to have a Top Secret clearance for this
responsibility.
In 1980 or 1981, he picked up a newspaper at a grocery store
where we were living in San Diego. One article described the
crash of a UFO outside Roswell, with the bodies of aliens
discovered beside the craft. He pointed out the article to me and
said, "I want you to read this article, because it's a true
story. I'm the pilot who flew the wreckage of the UFO to Dayton,
Ohio [where Wright Field is]. I guess now that they're putting it
in the paper, I can tell you about this. I wanted to tell you for
years." Pappy never discussed his work because of his
security clearance.
He described the beings as small with large heads for their size.
He said the material that their suits were made of was different
than anything he had ever seen. He said they looked strange. I
believe he mentioned that the bodies had been packed in dry ice
to preserve them.
[Here is what Sappho Henderson said on the American television
program "Unsolved Mysteries".]
My husband Oliver Henderson, otherwise known as "Pappy"
in the Air Force, he was entrusted with many of this country's
top secrets. And they were safe with him. He never told anything
that he wasn't supposed to. And therefore it was 34 years after
this incident happened that I heard about it....
My husband told me the bodies were smaller than human bodies. The
heads were larger and the eyes were rather sunken and a little
slanted. Clothing was of material unlike anything he had seen
before. They were strange, they were not of this earth.
When my husband, who was a man of truth, who was trusted with 29
different Army aircraft planes, first pilot aircraft commander,
tells me this story, I believed him.
5.13 Pappy Henderson's Daughter
[Mary Kathryn Groode is Pappy Henderson's daughter.]
When I was growing up, he and I would often spend evenings
looking at the stars. On one occasion, I asked him what he was
looking for. He said, "I'm looking for flying saucers.
They're real, you know."
In 1981, during a visit to my parents' home, my father showed me
a newspaper article which described the crash of a UFO and the
recovery of alien bodies outside Roswell, New Mexico. He told me
that he saw the crashed craft and the alien bodies described in
the article, and that he had flown the wreckage to Ohio. He
described the alien beings as small and pale, with slanted eyes
and large heads. He said they were humanoid-looking, but
different from us. I think he said there were three bodies.
He said the matter had been Top Secret and that he was not
supposed to discuss it with anyone, but that he felt it was
alright to tell me because it was in the newspaper.
5.14 Pappy Henderson's Relatives
[Stanton Friedman spoke with Pappy Henderson's son and cousin,
both of whom told of having heard Pappy quietly tell his story
after the newspaper article appeared.]
5.15 Pappy Henderson's Friend #1
[John Kromschroeder is a dentist and a retired military officer.
In 1977, Henderson told Kromschroeder that in 1947 he had
transported wreckage and alien bodies. About a year later,
Henderson showed Kromschroeder a piece of metal he had taken from
the collection of wreckage. Kromschroeder and Henderson shared an
interest in metallurgy. Kromschroeder was interviewed in 1990.]
I gave it a good, thorough looking-at and decided it was an alloy
we are not familiar with. Gray, lustrous metal resembling
aluminum, lighter in weight and much stiffer. [We couldn't] bend
it. Edges sharp and jagged.
5.16 Pappy Henderson's Friend #2
[In 1982, Pappy Henderson met with several members of his old
bomber crew during a reunion. One of these men was later
interviewed.]
It was in his hotel room that he told us the story of the UFO and
about his part. All we were told by Pappy is that he flew the
plane to Wright Field. He definitely mentioned the bodies, but I
don't recall any details except that they were small and
different. I was skeptical at first, but soon saw that Pappy was
quite serious.
6 PROSAIC EXPLANATIONS
6.1 Weather Balloon
6.2 Secret Rocket or Airplane