All language subtitles for Historys Greatest Mysteries S01E03 1080p AMZN WEB-DL DDP5 1 H 264-SLAG_track3_[eng]

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a former CIA operative,
matuBen Smith, mas,"r.

investigates
what really crashed

near Roswell, New Mexico,
in 1947.

- I'm not sure I buy
that whole balloon theory.

- Really?
- Yeah.

Fishburne: The focus:
a mysterious journal

found among the possessions
of Jesse Marcel,

the first official
to arrive at the scene.

- It was not anything
from this Earth.

That, I'm quite sure of.

Fishburne: A top cryptologist
believes

it may contain coded
messages...

- To a cryptographer,

this indicates
a certain kind of cipher.

Fishburne: Perhaps details
on what Marcel really saw.

- He saw the spaceship.

- I'm laurence Fishburne
and tonight,

the hunt for the mysterious
journal's author continues.

Was it a fellow officer in Jesse
Marcels tight knit group

who knew exactly what he knew?

Ben Smith is hot on the trail.

Was one of these men the
author of the journal?

Was it written
by a U.S. Army officer

with inside information
on Roswell?

- There are some words
and letter combinations

I do see in agreement.

- This man is at the nexus
of all the secrets.

Fishburne:
And what did Jesse Marcel

tell his own family

years before
he ever went public?

- He told us that they had
told him to change the story.

Fishburne: Did an
extraterrestrial spacecraft

crash near Roswell?

The conclusion to
our investigation begins now.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

Former CIA investigator
Ben Smith has traveled

to Louisiana's Gulf Coast
to visit Houma,

the hometown of Jesse Marcel

where he spent the last
36 years of his life.

♪ ♪

At ease among his own people

in this quiet
bayou community,

Smith believes Marcel
may have divulged details

about the UFO crash
to family and friends.

♪ ♪

- There are
Mr. and Mrs. Marcel.

- They must have liked you.

They have smiles
on their faces.

- I was in their book.

She says, "You could sell
refrigerators to Eskimos,"

because I was so persuasive in
making him talk about things.

And she could see that
I was getting things.

And that's him and I together.

I have my Nicholls State
University T-shirt on, and--

Oh, my gosh.
Such a long time ago.

♪ ♪

Fishburne: Linda Corley
met Marcel in 1981

when she taped an interview
with him

for her undergraduate
psychology course

at Nicholls State University.

Marcel was retired and living
with his wife, Vio.

♪ ♪

In 2007, she turned
her interview with Jesse

into a book entitled
"For The Sake Of My Country."

♪ ♪

- I had a little
cassette-tape recorder,

and I asked him
if it was all right.

He said, "Sure."

Okay. [clears throat]

Please don't break.
Please don't break.

- I kept asking all through
the interview,

"Can't you tell me something
that's not in the book?"

- [laughs]

♪ ♪

Fishburne: Linda is referring
to the first book

to allege a government
cover-up at Roswell,

called
"The Roswell Incident."

It was written
by Charles Berlitz

and William Moore in 1980.

It relied heavily on the
testimony of Jesse Marcel.

- I asked him
that a million times.

"Can't you tell me something
that's not in the book?"

- Yeah.
- And in the end, he did.

♪ ♪

Fishburne:
What Marcel told Linda

was that his son, Jesse Jr.

had described the debris
he'd handled inaccurately.

Jesse Jr.,
who was 11 at the time,

claimed he'd picked up
small support struts,

which he called I-beams.

- The most unusual part
of the debris that I saw

was the I-beam fragments,

or what I recall
as being I-beam,

because they were very light
and very strong,

and they had some writing

along the inside surface
of this,

and that was the thing
that really set this apart

from anything
I'd ever seen before.

♪ ♪

- He was talking about
the symbols

that he saw on the debris,

and Mrs. Marcel said,

"I think I have
Jesse Jr.'s drawing of that,"

and he said, "Well, Jesse got
all that wrong anyway."

- Huh.
- I had a composition book,

and I'm like, "Well, here.
Why don't you

draw me something?"

The clip I want you to hear

is of what he says
as he's drawing.

[tape hissing]

- He didn't seem to have doubt

as to his memory of that.
- Right.

- That's what he draw.
That's the original.

- Huh.
- I said,

"Now, will you sign it?"
And he said, "Yeah."

I can't believe I had the
wherewithal to even say that,

and then he signed it,
and he drew the beam,

which you can see
is not an I-beam.

- Yeah. It's not an I-beam.
- Yeah.

He told me
that they were pink and purple,

and so I wrote that,
that's my handwriting.

- Yeah.

- So these are some of my
beginning sketches

from what he told me.

- Yeah. That's something
I could never figure out.

Are we talking about wood,
or are we talking about metal?

- He called it wood.

He was specific about that,
but he said it wouldn't burn.

- How did he know
it didn't burn?

- He tried to burn it
with a cigarette lighter.

He said, "It felt like wood.
It looked like wood,

"but it wouldn't burn,
so it can't be wood.

"It has to be something
I've never seen before

on this Earth,"
that kind of thing.

- Uh-huh. Yeah. Hmm.

♪ ♪

- I asked him, "Why didn't you
save some of it?"

- Mm-hmm.
- "Why didn't you do that?"

I would've saved a piece of it.
- Right.

- His choice of words
always stuck in my mind.

"I sat on this premium
for 32 years.

I don't want any publicity.
All I want is peace."

He said that more than once.

"I just want peace."
Why don't you have peace?

He could've sat on it
for another 32 years?

Why did he talk?
Had to have been bothering him.

Had to have been something
he wanted to get off his chest.

- Yeah. That's true.

- I have three tapes
that last about four hours,

and during that time,

we had bonded
so close together.

- Hmm. Yeah.

- He says,
"You're welcome here anytime."

Fishburne: Linda says that
when she went home,

she couldn't stop looking at
the symbols Jesse had drawn.

- I had studied writing
and codes and scripts

for other things,
and I came home that night,

and I looked up some
different ancient writings,

and it was exactly
what he drew--

- Mm-hmm.
- Exactly what he drew.

Fishburne: Linda says that
what Jesse drew resembled

a kind of shorthand
called Tironian notes

that were first used
in Ancient Rome around 4 BC.

She says
the symbols Jesse drew

signify travel and flight.

♪ ♪

- I went back the next day.

I was invited in cordially,
again.

- Mm-hmm.
- And I showed him

some of the writing.

♪ ♪

I mean, look. This one here,
these slashes here--

- Mm-hmm.
- This is almost exactly

what he drew, and there's--
- And what is Tironian?

- There's a decipher for that.

I went into detail about

where this writing
could've come from.

- Yeah.
I think I saw that, yeah.

- And they got pretty intense
about the writing.

I left on good terms.
"Come back anytime you want."

- Yeah.
- And then the calls.

He said, "Do not use
what I gave you.

Everything is a lie."

And the next call was, "Don't
go to the media with it."

He was so irate on the phone.
- Okay. Yeah.

- I can still see myself.

"I didn't do any--
I'm not gonna do that.

This is for school," you know?

- Uh-huh.

- "I'm not going
to the media with this!"

So I never heard
from him again.

I was crushed.

- What do you think
caused that change?

- Well,
I think the second visit,

what happened
and transpired there

is why he called
and said don't use it.

- Uh-huh.

- And the only thing that
transpired in that second visit

were photos
of the ancient writings.

- The ancient writings,
yeah. Huh.

♪ ♪

- What if he was told
that writing means something

to the government or whatever,
and you shouldn't tell.

- Uh-huh.
- You know, you shouldn't

have drawn it.
- Right.

- You shouldn't have
written it, you know?

What if it was something
that was alien,

and he's too afraid
to let it out?

So, you know, those are
what-ifs because I don't know

what else to think
about those phone calls.

What else can I think?

- Did he ever mention that
he was close to anyone on base,

anyone who was
especially important to him?

- He talked about Cavitt
quite a bit.

He thought extremely
highly of Colonel Blanchard.

Colonel Blanchard had refused
to transfer him

three months later

and said he was more important
and needed there,

but somebody else
wanted him out.

- Huh.
- And he didn't care

for General Ramey.

He said General Ramey knew it
wasn't a weather balloon.

- So do you believe
Jesse's story?

- Yeah.
I believe Jesse believes.

I was always a believer
that Jesse believed.

- Mm-hmm.
- Nothing stood out as phony.

Nothing stood out as fake.

♪ ♪

- Did you ever feel like
he had a secret

that he
wasn't sharing with you?

- Well, he says that "I'm not
telling you everything."

- Yeah.
- "There's still things

I can't tell you,"
and I'm like, "Why?"

And he says,
"For the sake of my country."

- For the sake of his country.
- And that's why I named

the book
"For The Sake Of My Country."

Yeah.
- Yeah.

♪ ♪

Fishburne: Coming up...

- What the [bleep]
is that thing?

- Whoa, what is that, man?

Fishburne: what the Pentagon
didn't want America

to know about UFOs
but she revealed.

- The Pentagon had a secret
program that started in 2007.

Fishburne: And Ben Smith gets
some news he never expected.

- I don't see enough right now
to exclude this person

as a candidate.

There's potential.

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

Fishburne: Ben Smith has
just heard a taped interview

with Jesse Marcel...

Fishburne: In which Marcel
says it was his duty

to stay quiet about Roswell.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

Fishburne: Now Smith has come
to New York City

to better understand why
Marcel felt extreme pressure

to keep his secret long
after he left the military.

♪ ♪

- Hi, Ben.
- Hi, Leslie.

- Come in.
- Thank you.

Fishburne: Leslie Kean,

author of
the bestselling book

"UFOs: Generals, Pilots
and Government Officials

Go on the Record,"

says it's risky for
members of the military

to speak openly about UFOs.

- For people in the military,
there is this taboo,

this stigma
around the topic of UFOs.

They're afraid to talk about
it, that it might somehow

affect their positions
and their careers.

There's the respect
they have of their colleagues.

They might--
somebody might think

there's something wrong
with them.

Those attitudes are still
there, unfortunately.

♪ ♪

- It sounds like
you're convinced

there's a taboo about UFOs.

- That stigma is a big factor
for sort of the individual

out there who has a sighting.

- Mm-hmm.
- And it's also a big factor

as to why there isn't
more research being done

by the scientific community

because there's no money
to fund projects

that involve something
that's taboo, basically.

- Yeah.

- But I think it's gotten
a lot better.

I think the December 17th
"New York Times" story--2017--

really shifted things.

Fishburne: In December 2017,
Leslie Kean broke the story

that the Pentagon was running
a secret program

to investigate UFOs,
although officially,

the military
claimed all UFO research

had stopped in the 1960s.

- The Pentagon had a secret
program that started in 2007,

but sources have told me

that there were programs
before that.

Fishburne: Kean uncovered
not only a top-secret program

but actual proof
that military pilots

reported sightings of UFOs
more than once.

- The online version
of the story,

which is the one
that most people read,

included two official
Department of Defense

videos taken of objects--
unidentified objects--

and they were cleared
for public release.

- This is a [bleep] drone,
bro.

- There's a whole fleet of
them. Look on the SA.

- Those videos were
spectacular,

and they drew a lot
of attention to the article,

and as far as I'm aware,
this is the first time

the actual government videos
have been released of UFOs.

- Nickel six 110, roger.
- Oh! Got it! Woo-hoo!

Fishburne: But Kean says that

before the videos
were leaked,

the pilots felt
intense pressure

not to reveal
what they had witnessed.

- These are patriots.

These are people
who are responsible

for the lives
of American citizens,

highly trained,
highly credible.

When they see something,

they're not supposed
to talk about it.

There's nowhere for them
to report it.

It just--for me,
it borders on just

a kind of irrationality
and disrespect.

They struggle with this,

and they feel that
their own government

doesn't take them seriously.

That's the problem.

- Look at that thing, dude.

Fishburne:
Ben Smith sees similarities

between these events

and what
Jesse Marcel's family

says happened to him in 1947.

- Jesse Marcel Sr.
told his grandchildren

that, Fort Worth, when it was
the second press release

with General Ramey, Jesse
was paraded into the room

because he was the first
individual on the scene,

and he was in the flying
saucer report the day before,

and they put out this debris,

and Jesse told
his grandchildren

that that was not the debris
that he recovered.

- But he had to pretend it was
during the press conference?

- He was told to shut his mouth

and to just play along.

That was his claim.

- Back in the day,
that was so common

that these high-level
military people would,

you know, know a lot
but feel they couldn't say it,

and then they'd just go to
their graves, and that's it.

- Yeah.

- I have a lot of respect
for the Marcels

and the Roswell witnesses,
absolutely.

When you see them talking
or you hear them,

they are as convincing
as anything,

and I have no doubt
that they believe 100%

in what they're saying.

They're not lying or anything.

They had an experience.
They found something.

They believe that it is
what they say it is,

and they are
extremely convincing.

You absolutely have
to take it seriously,

and I just wish

there was more information
to prove them right.

♪ ♪

Fishburne: That proof could
lie hidden in the journal

that Jesse Marcel kept among
his most prized possessions.

So far, Smith's investigation
has proven

that the journal
is authentic,

dates from the time
of the Roswell incident,

and that Marcel
is not its author.

♪ ♪

Smith wants to find out
who wrote the journal,

why and what it means.

♪ ♪

- Without intuition to find
the information,

you're useless in journalism
or intelligence, right?

So you gotta follow your gut
'cause that's where

you find the best gold.

If it was easy to find,

someone would've
found it by now.

- Right.

Fishburne:
To plot his next steps,

Smith meets
with Joe Pappalardo,

a veteran aviation journalist
with a deep understanding

of American military history
and the Roswell story.

- So Craig, the cryptographer,
has some interesting insights

that I did not pick up on,

and right away, actually,
he picked up on some things

that could actually
indicate code.

Craig.
- Oh, hi.

You must be Ben.
- That's right.

- Good to meet you.
- You, too.

Fishburne: When Smith took
the journal to Craig Bauer,

one of the nation's
top code breakers,

Bauer thought it could be
written in a home-brew code,

a pattern of letters or words
invented by the writer.

- To create something
just between friends,

it's not that hard to make it
really hard to break.

- This potential home-brew code
started just after Roswell.

In August 1947, we get this
weird kind of writing,

so whatever it is,

it's correlated
to that strange date.

Now, we still don't have
the author,

so we can't quite tell
what it is.

- I don't know.
Zodiac was like that,

and they broke that code,
didn't they?

As long as it says something,

you should be able
to be break it.

- If someone in the 509th
wrote the journal,

and we can identify who,

it might lead us
to other documents

that allow us
to interpret its meaning,

sort of like a broken locket
where you have one half

and I have the other.

We put them together,
and it's a treasure map.

- So who, in your estimation,
would be someone

that we'd be interested
in hearing from at the time

who would give him
this journal?

- Well, as I understand, the
Roswell Army Air Force Base

had almost 8,000 personnel
in 1947.

It's a huge base.

But I think
it would be helpful

to focus my search
on the 509th group

and then his
counterintelligence group.

- That would be the kind
of person

that would have information

that would be
worth safeguarding,

and they give it
to the point man

for the whole
Roswell incident.

♪ ♪

Fishburne: As the
intelligence officer

in Roswell,
Marcel was trusted

with the military's
most protected secrets,

and according
to his grandson,

he stayed silent
about what he saw in 1947

to protect his family.

♪ ♪

- When my grandfather started
talking about his experience

with the Roswell UFO,

he was careful about
what he told us.

He didn't want
to tell us something

that we could tell somebody
that might lead us

into a position where
we could've felt threatened.

♪ ♪

Fishburne:
Part of Marcel's job

was to share
valuable intelligence

with an inner circle
of officers

at the 509th bomber group.

Smith thinks whoever wrote
the journal might have been

sharing something valuable
with Marcel.

♪ ♪

- I'm hoping I can get more
handwriting samples

of other people
in the 509th group

to see if this might
have been passed to him

by somebody else
within the bomber group.

- I would suggest if they're in
the 509th

and if they were officers,

they may have actually served
in World War II.

They handwrote a lot of
after-action reports.

If they were officers, there
may be handwriting samples

that are in old World War II
bombing records and archives,

where they flew in from,
the bombing assessments.

There's a lot of information.

You might actually hit
a little trove there.

You might not,

but, hey, at least
it's a rock to kick over.

- Yeah.
That's an interesting point.

I hadn't considered that.

- Cracking this part
of your mystery

is only one good search away.

If you find out who through
a handwriting analysis,

then you could find out

a little bit
more of the motive why.

♪ ♪

Fishburne: Coming up,
Smith uncovers

the circle of officers
in the 509th

who could've
shared Marcel's secret,

but will one of them

match the handwriting
in the journal?

♪ ♪

matic music]

♪ ♪

- I'm on my way to meet
Jennifer Naso,

the handwriting expert.

I have with me a number
of handwriting samples

belonging to the people
closest to Jesse Marcel

during the time
of the Roswell incident.

♪ ♪

Fishburne: Ben Smith has been
researching Jesse Marcel's

fellow officers in the 509th.

He's gotten writing samples
for six individuals,

an inner circle that
must have known details

about what
really crashed at Roswell.

♪ ♪

- If it didn't belong to Jesse
and he kept it

in his
most prized possessions,

it had to have belonged
to somebody important to him.

♪ ♪

Fishburne:
Now the question is,

does anybody's
writing match the journal?

♪ ♪

- Hey. Come on in.

- I'm back with more work
for you.

- Tell me what you have.

- I took the journal
to a code breaking expert.

First of all, he took a look
at the journal,

and to his eyes, a few things
immediately popped up

that suggested there might be
some kind of code.

Now, he ran the numbers

and was not able to find
any coherent message.

- That does not correspond
to a letter.

- So his next best guess
was that maybe there was

some kind of encryption system
that only the author knew of.

So that gets back to the
question, well, who wrote it?

- Who is the author?
- Who is the author?

So I have brought a number
of handwriting samples...

- Oh.
- From key individuals

at the Roswell Army
Air Force Base.

Let me start
with Colonel Blanchard,

who was Jesse Marcel's
direct commanding officer

and the head
of the 509th bomber group.

Fishburne: In 1947, Colonel
William "Butch" Blanchard

was commander of the 509th
bomber group

based at Roswell.

A highly decorated
World War II hero

who had helped plan the Enola
Gay's bombing of Hiroshima,

Blanchard was in charge

of America's
only nuclear attack force.

It was a job in which
he would certainly know

about any
top-secret operation

involving his air base.

The officer
he might have been closest to

was Jesse Marcel.

The Blanchards
and the Marcels

were regular bridge partners.

♪ ♪

- We have Walter Haut,
the press corps officer

who organized
the press releases

and wrote the infamous
flying-saucer press release.

Fishburne: As the base
public information officer,

Lieutenant Walter Haut
was ordered by Blanchard

to draft that famous
press release

that a flying disc
had been recovered.

In his later years,
Haut came forward to say

he believed Marcel had been
telling the truth

and went so far as to say

that he himself had glimpsed
bodies of aliens.

♪ ♪

- We have Bob Shirkey.

Fishburne:
Lieutenant Robert Shirkey

was assistant
group operations officer

for the 509th.

If the debris
was extraterrestrial,

Shirkey would've
been in charge

of arranging its transport

to the Army's top-secret
research facility,

Wright-Patterson.

After retiring from
the military, Shirkey later

claimed that Jesse Marcel
was telling the truth.

- And over here
we have Edwin Easley.

Edwin Easley
was the provost marshal

at the 509th bomber group.

Fishburne: Major Edwin Easley

was in charge
of base security.

He would've been responsible
for safeguarding the debris

and controlling
which personnel

had access to it.

In this capacity,
it's not unreasonable

to assume he knew
what the crates contained.

♪ ♪

- He would've been responsible
for organizing

the cleanup effort
to pull in,

to collect the debris.

We also have Patrick Saunders.

Patrick Saunders
was the office administrator

for Colonel Blanchard,

so he would've been involved
in all the record keeping

and issuing the orders.

♪ ♪

Fishburne: Patrick Saunders

was Colonel Blanchard's
top deputy.

He had flown
37 combat missions

in World War II

and had just as many medals
as his boss.

As Colonel Blanchard's
number two,

he would've been in the room

when Jesse Marcel returned
from the debris field

and debriefed the colonel.

- If there's anybody at
the 509th bomber group

who knows everything, it's
this guy, Patrick Saunders.

So if this handwriting
matched,

it would mean everything
to the journal

because here is a man who had
access to all kinds of secrets

who may have wanted to confide
something in Jesse Marcel.

- Okay, so we'll compare
these writings to the journal.

So what I notice
right off the bat

with the Blanchard signature,

that's all the writing
that we have, correct?

- Right.

- Just having the one signature
to compare to a extended body

of text writing poses a big
limitation to the examination.

From what I see in the Patrick
Saunders writing...

- Mm-hmm.
- While there's a bit more

than just one signature,

it's really just
the one sentence,

and so the limitation
is still

the lack of quantity
of known writing.

- Right. Right.
- It's a bit of a blurry copy,

and so it's hard to tell
the pen movements,

and some of the fine
and subtle features

of the formations
of the letters

might be lost in the image
quality of that copy.

Looking at
the Walter Haut handwriting

and the Bob Shirkey writing,

this is a more extended
sample of writing,

so there's going to be
a lot more information,

almost characteristics

that I'm going to be able
to compare to the journal.

- Even if you can provide any,
even just the slightest

new piece of information
on one or the other,

it could help me eliminate
one person from the group

closest to Jesse Marcel.
And if I have to,

I may have to
expand the search

and move out from there

to identify who could've
given him this journal.

Fishburne: Smith will leave
the journal,

which was so precious
to Jesse Marcel,

in Naso's hands, hoping
she can uncover its author.

♪ ♪

Coming up, the investigation
returns to Marcel's hometown.

What did he tell his family
and no one else?

- He said, "There are things

that this world
is not ready for."

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

Fishburne: As the search

for the journal's author
escalates,

Ben Smith returns
to Jesse Marcel's hometown

of Houma, Louisiana.

Marcel's granddaughter,
Denice,

has convinced the extended
Marcel family to divulge

some of the strange things
Jesse told them.

- So how is everyone related
to Jesse Marcel?

- He was my
brother-in-law's uncle.

- Okay.
- But I always called him

Uncle Jesse.
- You know, we're all cousins.

- Yeah.
[laughter]

- My grandmother and Jesse
were brother and sister.

- Oh, wow.
- Mm-hmm.

- Okay, so do you remember
speaking to him a lot?

- Yes.
- Yeah.

- We were very close. We lived
next door to him for 10 years.

I went over there a lot.

Fishburne: Smith wants
to know what they know

from the lips
of Marcel himself.

Their memories seem clear.

- Wallace, how old were you

when Jesse
shared his story with you?

- I was a teenager.
- You were a teenager?

- Uh-huh. I want to say
that it was in 1957.

- In 1957,
just 10 years after Roswell.

- Yeah.
- Okay.

- I was 12, 13 years old
or something like that.

- Yeah. Okay.

- He told me, "Don't believe
everything

the government tells you,"
and he started telling me

the story
about the crash in Roswell

and that they forced him
to lie about it.

Fishburne: This means
that two decades

before he told the world

an extraterrestrial
spacecraft had crashed,

Marcel told the same story
with the same details

to the people he trusted.

- What details
did he describe?

Did he mention
a UFO crash? Did he--

- He did tell me
a UFO crashed.

- Okay.
- He was telling me

about what it looked like.

I put two and two
together and figured,

I think he's telling me

that we've got people
from outer space coming here.

- Okay, and what was
your reaction then?

What did you think?

- Looking up
at the sky at night.

[laughter]

- Did you believe him?

- Of course I believed him.
- Yeah.

- 'Cause I don't think
Uncle Jesse

would've lied to anybody.
- Right.

- He wasn't that type of man.

- Wallace remembers
talking to Jesse.

I don't remember
talking to him.

- Okay.
- But Jesse told my dad

stories about
the Roswell incident.

Fishburne: And those stories
went further

than anything Jesse Marcel
ever said in public.

- The thing that interested me
the most was

that Jesse
drew a picture of an alien.

- Jesse drew a picture
of an alien?

- Yeah. He hand-drew a picture
of an alien.

- Huh.
- Yeah.

- My dad lost that picture,
but later on in life, he wrote,

"What the picture looks like
that Jesse drew for me."

♪ ♪

- It looked like the picture
that Jesse drew.

- Yeah.

- That's the first time
I'm hearing any stories

about Jesse himself drawing
or referencing an alien.

- I don't remember
my dad ever saying

that Jesse saw an alien.
- Okay.

- Maybe somebody
told him about this.

- I--so, Wallace, do you think

that extraterrestrials
crashed in 1947?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

Did Jesse ever tell you, June,

about his experience
at Roswell?

- Yes.
- He did?

- He did. I think probably '74
to '76, somewhere in there.

- Okay.

- He started talking
to me about it.

- Mm-hmm.
- Basically what

they're telling you, too.

He found wreckage.

He said
it was not of this world.

- Mm-hmm.
- He described the metal,

saying that you could
crumble it up in your hand,

but it would automatically go
right back like it had memory.

- Mm-hmm. Okay.
He used the word memory?

- Mm-hmm.
- Okay.

- And my daughter,
who was 10 at the time,

approached him and asked him,

"Uncle Jesse,
were there any bodies?"

And he looked at her,

and she says his eyes kind of
glazed over, and he said,

"There are things that
this world is not ready for."

- That's what he told
your daughter?

"There are things this world
is not ready for."

- Right.
- Yeah.

Fishburne:
In front of family members,

Jesse displayed emotions

he kept hidden
from the outside world.

- He seemed angry at times
about the government.

He told us that they had
told him to change the story

and that it was
not UFO wreckage.

It was a weather balloon.

I think it bothered him a lot,

you know, that he was told
to shut up about it.

It was a very notable event
in American history,

and he couldn't talk about it.

- Right.
- You know, and it was him

that found it,
you know, and then had to lie.

- Right.
- You know,

so that tore him up.

- Right.
- It really did.

I think he needed
to express himself about it,

so back in '78, '79, he got
sort of emboldened about it

and decided
he was going to talk.

- Yeah, but you heard
all of these stories

before
there was any big media...

- Absolutely.
- Sensation about the story.

- Absolutely.
He was being open

with family about it.

- My family members
were aware of that.

It really upset him a lot
that people thought

that he was making it up,
you know?

- Yeah.
- He had to kind of deal

with some ridicule,
and that kind of--

- Well, I know it wasn't
from our family

that he got that from.
- Right.

- Outsiders would ridicule him
and call him Crazy Jesse

because --
- Oh, really?

- Because of when they
started hearing about Roswell.

- That must be hard for
an intelligence officer,

a decorated veteran
to be ridiculed

by his neighbors
and his community.

- Yeah.
- That's--

- I think that would've been
hard for him.

- Well, all the reports
have been lost.

All of the original files
have been lost,

so at this point in time,
it really is Jesse's word

against the government's
word, right?

One part of my investigation,
and it's just a part,

is to see can we find any proof
anywhere that this happened?

- Yeah.
- June, did Jesse ever hint

that he might have something
more, more information,

more details or maybe
something hidden in his house?

♪ ♪

- What he told me is,
he came home to Roswell.

He had some wreckage
in his car.

- Mm-hmm.
- He pulled it out

and brought it inside
and showed his family.

♪ ♪

But what other things he
might've done, I don't know.

He did not ever tell me that
he had anything, you know?

- Okay.

- A piece of the wreckage
or anything like that, no.

♪ ♪

Fishburne: Coming up, did
Jesse Marcel keep evidence

of what crashed all along...
- Jesse said he had proof?

- I said, "Oh, I'd love
to see it."

Fishburne: Hidden in his
house in Houma?

♪ ♪

[dramatic mus]

♪ ♪

Fishburne: After meeting
with the Marcel family

in Jesse's hometown of Houma,

former CIA investigator
Ben Smith

and Jesse's
granddaughter, Denice,

get the opportunity to meet
someone outside the family

who claims Jesse shared
with him

extraordinary details
of the Roswell incident,

secrets that might lie hidden
in the coded writing

of the mysterious journal.

- He started off by saying,
"Look, you know,

this thing
that happened to me was real."

Fishburne:
Calvin Parker says

he was introduced
to Jesse Marcel

by a mutual acquaintance.

- Your granddaddy said
that they staged a site away

from the actual site

to keep the
general public away.

They took weather balloons
out to the field

and tried to distribute
little pieces around

so people could find them.

- That I have never heard.

Fishburne: Parker claims
that Jesse Marcel told him

about an elaborate
military operation

to retrieve alien bodies
and orchestrate a cover-up

to make it look like a
weather balloon had crashed.

- The first time
he mentioned it,

he said they was
actually bodies out.

- He said that he saw some?
- Exactly.

A special unit got the bodies,
and he wasn't part of that.

- Oh.
- But they took them back

to the base at Roswell.

- And he described
all of this to you?

- He described every bit
of it to me.

- It's so interesting
that these are details

that I've not heard before--
- Yeah.

I've not heard these either.

- That he didn't tell
Linda Corley,

that he didn't tell
his family members.

- He didn't tell us, yep.
- That's pretty--

- Well, he felt like he could
talk because I told him

that as long as he was alive,

I would never say
nothing about it, and I didn't.

To my surprise, he told me--

He said, "I've got something
that I want to show you."

He said, "I have evidence.

I have proof of this."
- He has proof?

Jesse said he had proof?

- I said, "Oh, I'd love
to see it,"

so he told me
there's a screwdriver

in the kitchen drawer,
go get it,

go down to a hot-water heater
and take the top off

and bring it up here to me.

Fishburne: Calvin Parker
says that Marcel told him

he'd kept pieces of debris
from the Roswell crash

and hidden them inside
a water heater in his home.

- I was fixing to unscrew it.
I was going to look at these.

- So you actually touched it
and put the screwdriver to it?

- Oh, I was ready to when
somebody showed up at the door.

- Huh.
- Oh, my gosh.

- I don't know who this was
knocking at the door,

but he didn't want to talk
about it in front of him.

- Right.
- So I didn't feel

real welcome there,
and I got up and left.

I was planning on coming back
the next day,

but I had to go to work.

I went offshore for 160 days,
and I got back,

and I couldn't wait
to get back over and see

and get that debris.

I went to the house, and I
found out he had passed away.

It broke my heart.

- Did your father ever talk
to you about the water heater,

about hiding debris
here in Houma?

- No. This is literally
the first time

I've ever heard this story.
If anything, I always was told

that my grandfather
didn't keep anything.

Did he ever say why he had
never brought it out earlier?

That would've helped
prove his story

that he wasn't making it up
and is like,

"Hey, people.
I really do have proof,"

so I'm wondering--
I'm curious as to why

he decided to show it
to you at that point.

- Well, he was real loyal
to his country.

- Right.
- He was military.

You follow orders when
the military gives you orders.

And I think there was

a reluctance there
against his conscience

about coming out against
an order that he had had.

- Right.
- He told me that

when he took this material,

it was a real trip
for him to keep it hid,

but he knew that he'd never
get to see it again

when they got to Roswell.

- Yeah.
- So he,

for lack of a better word,
had to steal it--

- Yeah.

- From the cleanup effort.
- He stole the material, yeah.

The man was on his deathbed.

- Right.
- You could tell

physically that he was having
to take something.

- Yeah.
- But mentally, he seemed

to be intact,
he seemed to be all there.

- Yeah.
- He didn't wanna die

with this on his conscience.

♪ ♪

- From a security standpoint,
it makes sense that Jesse Sr.

would anticipate continued
scrutiny on his family.

- Yes.
- And that he might

want to introduce
somebody without--

who believes,
who we can identify with

but without
that public presence.

- Right.
- Someone like Calvin.

- Right.

♪ ♪

- There could be some debris
left around,

probably right there
in that house somewhere,

if it's still there.

- So you think the debris
could still be at the house?

- I know it could be.
- Huh.

The house is just down
the road from here, and--

- Yeah.
There's no doubt in my mind.

- And I've been
to the debris field.

I've been out there searching,

and it's hard
to find anything,

but here actually is a fresh
lead in the investigation

that I haven't encountered yet.

- It could mean everything.
- Yeah, everything.

- This is probably
the best chance

we have of finding anything
left of that crash site.

- Right.

- Thank you for taking the
time. This has been wonderful.

- Thank you.
It's been my pleasure.

- Thank you very much.
- Denice, thank you.

- Thank you.

♪ ♪

- Order of business
number one is get that home

and see what we can find.
- Yes.

- The trickiest part
about the debris field

is that even if we find
a piece of metal,

we have no idea
how it got there.

- Right.
- So many people

have been there over time,

before and after.

It could've arrived there
in any number of ways,

But if we something hidden on
the inside of a water heater,

we know your grandfather
put it there.

- Right.

Fishburne: If they could find
a piece of debris

taken from the crash site,

it would be
an astounding development

in the saga of Roswell.

♪ ♪

Smith and Denice Marcel

will try to get inside
Jesse Marcel's old house,

which is only
a short drive away.

♪ ♪

- Coming into this cold.

The person doesn't know us.

We don't know them.
- Right.

- We just have to be
prepared for the gamut.

- I got you.

- Tea and cookies versus
shotgun kind of thing.

- Okay.
- So I have no idea.

♪ ♪

Let's not say
that we're UFO researchers.

- Oh, yeah. No.
- We're researching

local family history.
- Okay.

- You used to live
in the house.

- Okay.
- The Marcel family,

in particular,

and we can get into
the UFO stuff later...

- Okay.
- Once we feel comfortable

that it's not gonna
put them off.

- That sounds
like a really good idea.

♪ ♪

- This is the part
that makes me nervous

but also gets me excited.

- Yes. I know what you mean.

♪ ♪

- Hello.
- Hi. How are you?

- Hello.
- All right.

- Hi!
- Hey. I'm Ben.

- Matt.

- Matt. Nice to meet you.
- Hi. I'm Denice.

- Denice used to live here.

Well, her grandfather
used to live here.

- My grandfather
used to live here.

- Would you mind
if she walked me

through a little bit
of the property

to show me where things were?

♪ ♪

Fishburne: The owner is
reluctant to let them enter,

and so for now,
it's impossible

to verify Parker's claim.

♪ ♪

Coming up...

- Whatever they
hit is squished,

but all these are holes.

Fishburne: This man claims
he has debris

from a UFO that crashed

at nearly the same time
as Roswell

but 200 miles away.

♪ ♪

[dramatic mus]

♪ ♪

- I am in Southern New Mexico
on my way

to the home
of a guy named Chuck Wade.

Now, Chuck Wade claims to have
a piece of debris

recovered from a potential
UFO crash site.

Fishburne: Ben Smith
couldn't get access

to Jesse Marcel's
former house

to verify
whether it contained

Roswell crash debris.

Now Smith is following up
another lead

and meeting
with a man named Chuck Wade,

who is convinced
he has UFO debris

from a spacecraft
that crashed in 1947.

♪ ♪

- Hey. How you doing?
- Good. How are you, Chuck?

- Come on in.

- Did your dad have

a relationship
with Mac before that July?

- Oh, yeah.
- If you're the guy

that owns the bar,
everybody knows you.

- Yeah.
- Yeah.

Dad owned that bar
for many, many years,

and I just loved to be there
and listen to the stories.

I was seven years old
the year

that the Roswell incident
happened there next to Corona.

Fishburne: Chuck Wade's
father, Jesse Wade,

owned the bar in Corona
where rancher Mac Brazel

first came to show
his neighbors

the strange debris he'd found
while herding sheep.

Although it is known
as the Roswell incident,

the small farming
community of Corona

was the closest to where
Mac found the debris.

- Mac Brazel found something
that he doesn't know,

and recognize at all
on the Foster Ranch,

so he came to Corona
and asked my father to go out

and see what in the world
it was,

'cause he--Mac just
flat didn't know.

But my dad was busy, and it
was just himself in the bar,

so Dad chose
not to close the bar.

Dad regretted that,
I'm going to say, immensely.

He'd always say,

"I wished I'd went with Mac
to see what was out there."

- Right.

Fishburne:
Chuck Wade also wanted

to see what was out there.

After running his own
construction company,

Wade has devoted
most of the last 20 years

to researching UFOs.

♪ ♪

- So tell me a little bit about
some of the sites and debris

that you recovered.

I think it could inform
my investigation of Roswell.

- Have y'all studied the crash
on the Plains of San Agustin?

- No.

Fishburne: Wade has come to
a startling conclusion:

Roswell was only one
of a series of UFO crashes

that took place in Southern
New Mexico during that time.

According to Wade, there were
seven UFO crashes in total.

Five of them occurred during
the first week of July 1947.

- The first one here
was August 1945.

This one right here,
the night of the 1st

to the 2nd of July, 1947.

These three,
four, five and six

was about 11:00 on July
the 4th, 1947,

and this one up here
was in March 1948.

Fishburne:
Chuck Wade has a theory

about what caused
the spaceships to crash.

- What happened, folks, is,

whenever they put in
Los Alamos National Laboratory,

they installed three major,
high-powered radars

to guard the skies
over Los Alamos.

Fishburne: Wade, who
supervised construction

of dozens of
air-traffic-control towers

across the U.S., believes
powerful radar signals

emitted from the Los Alamos
nuclear site

caused short circuits
in the spaceships.

- It electrified that craft,
and it came down in flames.

♪ ♪

Fishburne: Of what he claims
are seven UFO crashes,

Wade became obsessed
with one in particular,

which he believes crashed
on the Plains of San Agustin

48 hours
before the Roswell crash.

- New Mexico
is basically square.

Corona is basically

really close
to the center of the state.

What we call the Roswell
incident happened about

30 miles southeast of Corona.

The Plains of San Agustin
is over here,

about 200 miles.

♪ ♪

- Chuck started going to
UFO conferences.

One of the speakers
had discovered

some pieces of debris,

and he wanted to go
and look for more debris.

- Mm.
- Chuck said, well,

he would
help him with that,

and he'd get some guys
to come and help dig.

So they did.

That was in 2004.

And they found some stuff.

- I'd love to see it,
if I can.

- Well, I think it's right
around the corner here.

Fishburne: The Wades have
several fragments.

♪ ♪

- Can you tell me
what I'm looking at here?

- These here is the foils.
- Mm-hmm.

- And then these
here have got --

Whatever they hit is squished,
but all these are holes.

- Actually, can I remove
the glass for a closer look?

- Sure, be glad to.

- And did you take this
to the government at all?

- Not going to have any reason
to do that.

- Well, I'm just curious,
you know?

- No. I'm sure.
- If you find a UFO,

I don't know
what the government would say,

to be honest.

- I believe they said
they didn't exist.

- That's true.

The official position is,
you know, they don't exist,

but things
are starting to change.

- It's a good question, but no.

I avoid the government
as best as I possibly could.

There is a huge, monstrous,
gigantic cover-up

on the Roswell incident.

No one in Corona was allowed--

they were ordered
not to talk about that crash.

- Yeah. There's a lot of
mistrust in the community

among UFO researchers
of the federal government.

I think a lot of it stems

from the reaction
or overreaction in 1947.

- They found something
on the Foster Ranch.

They didn't know what it was
or where it came from.

I think Jesse Marcel
is telling the truth 100%.

I see no reason for him to do
other than tell the truth.

The Roswell incident
was from outer space,

and there's not a chance

it was a damn balloon
that we made.

- Now, this one is
pretty fascinating.

♪ ♪

Can I take a piece with me
to get it analyzed myself?

- What do you think?

I don't know.
It's okay with me.

- Do you mind if I take
this one here?

- Oh, sure. Sure.

- Yeah?
- We'd be glad to--

Any of them that you want,

we'll be glad
to take a piece off.

I want to know
where it came from.

Why is it here? Why don't they
tell us about it?

[saw whirring]

- That is pretty hard
to cut, actually.

- Yeah.
- It's, uh--

Fishburne: Smith plans to get
this piece of metal tested

to see what elements
it's composed of

and if there is anything
about it

that can suggest
where it came from.

♪ ♪

Coming up...

- How are you doing?
- Good. How are you?

Fishburne: Has this seasoned
crash investigator

found the clue
that everyone missed?

- There's something
under the ground there.

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

- I'm just outside Denver,
Colorado,

on my way
to meet David Soucie,

our crash-site expert.

Fishburne: David Soucie is
a former accident inspector

for the Federal
Aviation Administration.

Soucie has investigated
hundreds of crash sites,

so when Ben Smith took him
to the debris field

where Jesse Marcel first saw
what he believed

to be pieces
of wrecked spacecraft,

Soucie started
by measuring wind currents.

Soucie's gut reaction:

whatever crashed here
wasn't lightweight.

This contradicts
the U.S. military's story

that what crashed at Roswell
was a weather balloon

or part of the top-secret,

lighter-than-air
Project Mogul.

- I'm not sure I buy that
whole balloon-drag theory.

- Really?

David collected all kinds
of data from the debris field:

wind, geographic features,
weather.

I'm hoping
that he can eliminate

one aircraft or another.

Fishburne:
Smith wants David Soucie

to compare
his initial finding

with the Deep Earth analysis

done by
Canadian geophysicists

Colin Miazga and Eric Johnson

when they visited the debris
field late last year.

Soucie has been communicating
with them online.

- I understand you do

ground-penetrative
radar, as well.

- Yeah. Yeah.
- Okay.

Fishburne: The geophysicists
used ground-penetrating radar

and gamma-ray technology

to identify strange anomalies
in the Earth...

- Look at that.
- Wow. That is interesting.

Fishburne: A kind of scarring
that couldn't have come

from a deflated balloon
crash.

- So this is the radar.
- It doesn't make sense.

I can't understand
what that would be.

♪ ♪

- Hey, Ben.
- Hey, David.

- How are you doing?
- Good. How are you?

- Yeah. Well, come on in.
- Oh, man.

I have been dying to see what
you've done with that data.

- Well, there's a lot
to look at, probably more

than you want to see.

The first thing
I want to start with:

This is an overview of the
entire site, the entire area.

- Oh, wow.

- That is the reported
trajectory.

That's where they
found the debris.

- Yeah.
- And then from there,

it spread, they said,

as much as a mile
in this direction off of that.

- Mm-hmm.

- A bunch of other interesting
stuff that we can get through,

and now this is
what's really interesting.

This area really intrigues me
right down at the bottom here

because the gamma readings

are not consistent with
the ground-penetrating radar.

♪ ♪

I've never seen that before.

- Huh.
- It doesn't make sense me.

- You might have to walk me
through the actual readings.

- All right.
- Because I'm having

a hard time visualizing it.
- Yeah. Let's do that.

These red areas indicate that
the ground-penetrating radar

says it's extremely dense,
which is where the rocks are.

- Yeah.
- And that sort of thing.

Here's an example
of a dense area,

and in this dense area,

you would expect to see low
gamma rays because it has --

It's not coming through.
It's blocking the gamma.

So let's look
at that spot here.

Gamma rays are indicated
by yellow or green,

and if there's less gamma,
it's blue, and sure enough,

here's this light blue
where the rocks were.

- Yeah.
- And then here's

the same thing here.

- It almost matches perfectly
with the GPR.

- Yes. You could look at

any of these spots,
any of these blues here.

- Yep.
- And it aligns

with these reds here.
- Got it.

♪ ♪

- This spot...

♪ ♪

now that we're just a little
above the green line--

We were looking here before,
below the green line.

- Right.

- But now above there,
that's red.

Let's take a closer look
at it.

See all the red? All the red.
It's dense.

It's hard and solid,
which would block gamma.

- Uh-huh.

- So now I'm going to flip
this. I'm going to think,

well, we're going to find
a blue spot there.

But instead,
look what we find:

the opposite of what
I would expect.

- Right.
- And not only

what I would expect, but what
we witnessed right here.

That was consistent
with tight compaction

and blocking the gammas.

- Yeah.
- But now it's yellow.

- The highest.
- Not only is it high,

it is the highest right there.

♪ ♪

- It's something that--
It doesn't make sense to me.

- Have you ever seen that
in a wreck that you--

- No. No. I have not.

I've not seen this before.
There's something there.

There's something unique about
this spot above the green line.

As an accident investigator

and what I've been doing
my entire life,

there's something
under the ground there.

There's something
making these changes,

these readings different.

- So what could make
that kind of contrast,

the high density
with high radiation?

- The only thing I can think of

is that
in ground-penetrating radar,

a rubber or polyethylene
and rubber...

- Uh-huh.
- Can create that illusion

of high density.

But it would also allow gamma
to come up through it

because it's not going
to block the gamma rays.

Fishburne:
After analyzing the data,

David Soucie can no longer
rule out the possibility

that it was a Mogul balloon
that went down at Roswell.

- So, I mean, a Mogul balloon

was made of something
like neoprene.

- Exactly, so to me,
that explains it.

To me, that is what
I would be looking for.

That's the assumption
I would make

and go out
and try to find that.

Fishburne: Soucie admits
that his analysis is just

an educated guess,

and even that is based
on a 1995 government report

which provided
no physical evidence

but asserted that a Mogul
balloon crashed at Roswell,

a report millions
of Americans

still don't believe.

- [chanting] Hey, hey, UFOs,
people have the right to know!

- If this group of 100
demonstrators is correct,

the U.S. government
is covering up

the most important secret
of all time:

alien beings who have made
contact with Earthlings.

- They said, "Well, what
about the bodies?"

How could so many people
have come forward and say,

"Well, when I was a kid, I saw
this, and I saw these bodies,

"and I saw this stuff,
and some Air Force guys

came out and picked up stuff
in the desert."

How do we explain that?

Fishburne: At that infamous
1997 press conference,

where the Air Force
doubled down on its claim

that what crashed at Roswell
was a Mogul balloon,

it also issued
a remarkable second report

that some believe undermined
its entire explanation.

♪ ♪

- We're confident
once the report is out

and digested by the public,

that this will be the final
word on the Roswell incident.

Fishburne: This second report

offered
what the Air Force hoped

was a logical explanation
to appease those Americans

who found
alleged eyewitness stories

about aliens at Roswell both
believable and compelling.

- Bodies observed
in the New Mexico desert

were probably test dummies
that were carried aloft

by U.S. Air Force
high-altitude balloons

for scientific research.

- Additional research
uncovered information

which explained some of
the claims of alien bodies

associated with
the Roswell incident.

Fishburne: The second report,
called "Case Solved,"

was accompanied
by a short film

produced by the Air Force.

♪ ♪

- The project's
main objective

was to study methods

for returning a pilot
or astronaut safely to Earth

by parachute
if forced to eject

at extremely high altitudes.

For these tests, dummies were
transported up to 98,000 feet

by high-altitude balloons.

Fishburne:
The Air Force contended

that anyone who thought
they'd seen

the military
recovering alien bodies

were actually witnessing
exercises

that involved dropping
anthropomorphic dummies

from high-altitude balloons.

♪ ♪

- Many of the dummies landed
outside the confines

of military reservation

and were regularly observed
by local civilians.

Critical examination
of alleged alien sightings

consistently match
the physical characteristics

of these dummies,

as well as where
and how they were used.

♪ ♪

- I think it's logical to
assume that the people there

saw Air Force ambulances
come out.

They saw gurneys come out.

They saw body bags come out

because the dummies were put
into body bags

to protect them, and when you
put all that stuff

together and spin it,

you'll find that
it fits perfectly

with many of the occurrences
in Roswell during that era.

♪ ♪

Fishburne:
At the press conference,

the problem with the
Air Force's explanation

was obvious to reporters.

Its dummy-drop exercises
didn't take place in 1947.

They only started
in the early 1950s.

- They're talking about 1947,
but you're talking

about dummies used in the
'50s, almost a decade later.

- Well, I'm afraid
that's the problem

that we have
with time compression.

I don't know what they saw
in '47,

but I'm quite sure
it probably was Project Mogul.

Fishburne: UFO author and
researcher Don Schmitt

believes the Air Force
was disrespectful,

writing off
alleged eyewitnesses

as having aging
and faulty memories.

- "Oh, it's time compression."

New malady, not even
in the medical books,

created by the Pentagon.

"The older you get, you start
to not only compress the years

but also the decades."
But the problem with that:

All the personnel
who were here in '47,

who were involved
were no longer here in '52,

so how could they be mistaking
wooden crash dummies in '52

if they weren't even here?

- Colonel, let me just go back
one more time.

You say that this is
case closed,

and people
should now believe it,

but with the major hole,
though:

You're saying that they're
wrong about the date.

What explanation
can you give them

other than just saying,

"Well, we just think they're
just mistaken by six years?"

- I have no other explanation.

I'm sorry. I just--
I have no other explanation.

I'm looking at the facts
as we have studied them,

and I have no other explanation

of that
but what I've already given.

- But how--
- Yes, sir?

- Would that
make it case closed?

- Because we've reviewed
all the relevant information,

and we have finished this, and
we're not going to revisit it.

- How do you know
that you're not being used?

How do you know
that you know the full story?

[laughter]

You're confident that
you're not part of any cover-up

wittingly or unwittingly.

- I'm totally confident,
but I think Colonel Weaver--

you might have seen him
on TV earlier--said it best.

We can't even
keep single secrets.

How could we have a conspiracy
or a cover-up?

- Well, it happened in 1953.

How could anybody mess
that up from 1947?

People's memories
fade over time.

- We think that this answers
lots of questions,

and it answers them
logically and with integrity.

♪ ♪

Fishburne: Coming up, closing
in on who wrote the journal.

Could it be this man,
a highly decorated war hero?

- There are some words
and letter combinations

I do see in agreement.
There is potential.

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

- I'm excited to hear
about your findings.

- So there are two styles
of uppercase Ws

that I noticed in the journal.

Fishburne: Ben Smith is with
forensic handwriting expert

Jennifer Naso, who has been
analyzing writing samples

from some of the officers
in the 509th bomber group.

She is checking to see
if they could've written

the puzzling journal that
belonged to their colleague,

Jesse Marcel.

Colonel William Blanchard,

commander
of the Roswell Air Base,

would certainly
have known

about any top secret
operation in his sector.

- When we look at
the Blanchard,

there are some
dissimilarities,

but it's really not
a whole lot to go on.

- So your professional judgment
would be,

there's not enough data yet to
confirm one way or the other.

- Right. There would be
no conclusion

as to whether or not
he authored the journal

based on just the one
signature that we have.

- Right.

- So in the Walter Haut
handwriting,

I noticed that's
what we would call

a combination style
of writing.

Fishburne:
Lieutenant Walter Haut

was the public information
officer for the 509th,

who was ordered
by Colonel Blanchard

to draft that famous
press release

that a flying disc
had been recovered.

- Where it's not all cursive,
it's all not hand-printing,

so some letters have connecting
strokes while others do not.

Right away, that's a difference
between what I see

in the all-cursive
writing of the journal,

so here is the word "and"
in the journal.

See the formation of the A--
- Yeah.

- How it starts up
around 2:00

and then comes counterclockwise
and forms this other loop.

When we look at the "and" in
the Walter Haut handwriting--

- Oh, totally different.
So already, I get the sense

that this journal
was not written by Walter Haut.

- The characteristics
that I'm noting thus far

are not similar to what
I'm seeing in the journal.

- Yeah.

- The next sample would be

Robert Shirkey.
- Yeah.

Fishburne:
Lieutenant Robert Shirkey

was assistant operations
officer for the 509th.

He also said Jesse Marcel
was telling the truth

and claimed he'd seen
debris flown out of Roswell

and believed it was
extraterrestrial.

- So here we have
the word "July"...

- Mm-hmm.
- In the journal,

and just note the formation
of the uppercase J.

- Uh-huh.

- Here in the word "July,"
look at the formation

of the J compared
to the known writing...

- Mm-hmm.
- And the questioned.

- So already, again, I see a
deliberate contrast in strokes

that they start to pop as
different handwriting styles.

- And what we're looking for
is a pattern of writing,

and when Easley
creates this drag stroke--

- "Being," yeah.
- "Being," it's a long,

exaggerated drag stroke.

Fishburne:
Major Edwin Easley

was in charge
of base security.

He would've been responsible
for safeguarding the debris

and controlling which
personnel had access to it.

♪ ♪

- And you see that again.
You see that repeated

throughout the known writing,
whereas in the journal,

you just have the I-dot
above the letter,

so you do have
some dissimilarities

in this writing sample,
as well.

- Shoot. Well, that leaves us
Patrick Saunders.

Fishburne: Patrick Saunders
was Colonel Blanchard's

number two,
his top deputy.

He would've been in the room
when Jesse Marcel

returned from
the debris field

to brief the commander.

- There are some words
and letter combinations

I do see in agreement,

so one of the words in common
between the question

and the known
is the word "anything."

And if you look at the
writing in the journal...

- Right.
- There is a pen lift

after the Y,
in between the Y and the T,

and you see that again here.

- Right.
- The Y terminates and then--

- That's pretty distinctive.
- The same thing here,

and in the known writing--
- Wow!

- We do see that
combination, as well,

where that pen lifts
between the Y and the T.

- Yeah.
- I would describe that

as more of
a general characteristic.

- Okay.
- But right now,

it is a similarity.
- Huh.

♪ ♪

- Also, when you look
at the letter formations,

the termination of the Y
in all three "anythings"

in the journal
terminates downward.

There is no upward-move
formation.

It terminates downward.

If you look at the height
ratios between the T and the H,

here you see the H
is much taller than the T,

and you see that
throughout the questions.

The H and the T,

and you also see that the H
in the known's

is also taller than the T.
- Okay.

- So do you see enough
then to exclude this

as a candidate,
or is it still a viable option?

- I don't see enough right now
to exclude this person

as a candidate.

Of all the samples,

with the Pat Saunders one,
there's potential.

- This man is at the nexus
of all the secrets.

Because Patrick Saunders
would've touched

every document,
overhead every phone call,

would've seen everything
Colonel Blanchard's seen,

and if he is the author
of the journal,

then I really think
we're onto something.

♪ ♪

Fishburne: Coming up,

did Patrick Saunders
organize a cover-up?

- He just mentioned that
he changed the serial numbers,

and he destroyed
files about it.

- Really?

Fishburne: What did he tell
his family about Roswell?

- Do you think he was
protecting you

from the secrets that he knew?
- Absolutely.

♪ ♪

tic music]

♪ ♪

Fishburne: He was the base
commander's number two,

his right-hand man,

but who is Patrick Saunders?

What was his role
in the Roswell incident?

What did he believe?
And if he wrote the journal

Jesse Marcel
kept close for decades,

what secrets did
the two men share?

Investigator Ben Smith

has tracked down two of
Saunders' five children.

- So you were three years old
in 1947,

and you were living
in Roswell at the time?

- Yes. We were living
in Roswell on base.

- On base?
- Yes.

We lived there
until about 1950.

♪ ♪

- And can you tell me a
little bit about your father?

- Well, my dad
was a very proud officer.

He was a very personable man,
and while he could be serious,

he could also be lots of fun
to be with.

- Can you tell me
a little bit about his role

at Roswell
Army Air Force Base?

- He was in charge
of assigning the troops

to the cleanup effort
at the crash site.

- He was involved
in the first meeting

they had after the crash
with Colonel Blanchard.

- And what was your reaction
when you first found out

about your dad's role

at the Roswell Army
Air Force Base at this time?

- You know, I wasn't
even born when it happened.

Years later, I hear my
sisters asking him questions

and things like that,

but I just thought everybody's
dad was cool like that.

[both laugh]

♪ ♪

- Do you know if he ever saw
or handled the debris

or any intelligence
reports

about descriptions
of the debris?

- He said he knew it wasn't
a weather balloon.

- So your father said

it was definitely
not a weather balloon?

- Absolutely. That's one of
the things I remember him

telling me more than once

and that he knew
about weather balloons

because he dealt with them
with spying over Russia.

He did tell me that
the debris helped to develop

the stealth jet fighter

and that there was
a similarity

between the jet fighter

and the thing
that crashed at Roswell.

- That is fascinating.

♪ ♪

Fishburne:
Patrick Saunders' daughter

says her father gave her
a well-known book

about the Roswell incident

and wrote comments
in the margins.

- He wrote down page numbers,

and then he
highlighted sentences

that he thought
were very important.

On page 142, he highlighted,
"Patrick Saunders was a major

"and assigned
as the base adjutant.

"His job would've required
him accomplish paperwork

"surrounding the assigning
of the troops

to clean up the debris."

- Did he ever share any names

about
who might have cleaned it up?

- No. He just mentioned that
he changed the serial numbers,

and he changed files
or destroyed files about it.

- Really?
- Mm-hmm.

- So your father, in some ways,
was involved then

with the cover-up--
- Yes.

- And changing the serial
numbers of the soldiers--

- Of the men who cleaned
up the debris.

- Wow. And he also
destroyed files.

- Mm-hmm.
- Huh.

- Or changed them.

♪ ♪

- A key figure to the whole
question: Jesse Marcel Sr.

did confirm there was
a cover-up,

that he was not holding
the actual debris

in the original press photo.

- Yes. He was concerned
about Major Marcel

and the things
that he was saying.

He didn't say
he shouldn't have said them.

He just showed--

voiced concern about talking
about these things.

♪ ♪

- You know,
Jesse Marcel

seemed
a little bit distraught

by the fact that he had to
retain this secret

and lie to the public
for the good of his country,

what he believed
was important

to national security.

Did you ever get a sense that
your father was disturbed

by the official
government line

about what was
recovered there?

- I think it was hard for him

to keep the secrets
that he knew.

Even if other people
were talking about them

and writing books about it,

I think
he struggled with that.

- He took his role as
officer in the Air Force

and ensuring national
security--

he took that very seriously.

♪ ♪

So, yeah,
he did what he had to do

and was instructed to do
and made no apologies.

♪ ♪

- You know, we were warned
not to talk about Roswell

outside the family,

and we generally
didn't talk about it.

This is the first time

I've really talked to people
about what he said.

- Some of the threats
that others have described

were pretty intimidating,

right,
threats to your career,

threats to your safety,

threats to your legacy
and perhaps even--

- Your entire family, your
entire family was at risk.

- So do you think he was
protecting you

from the secrets that he knew?

- Absolutely.

♪ ♪

- He said that the world
wasn't ready to know the truth

about what happened at Roswell,

and I asked him what he meant
by that, and he said,

"Well, it would cause
social upheaval and problems."

- Why?
- They weren't sure

whether the beings
were friendly or not.

Fishburne:
By the term "beings,"

she said she
understood her dad

was referring
to extraterrestrials,

the aliens who had
sent the spaceship

that crashed
at Roswell to Earth.

- Knowing your dad,

what do you think happened
at Roswell in 1947?

- Knowing my dad, if it was
nothing or a weather balloon,

he would've just said what it
was, and let's move on.

- Do you feel like
he had answers

to who these
possible beings were,

where they came from
and what they wanted?

- I think he was full
of questions about them.

♪ ♪

I don't think he had come up
with all the answers

about what
they found at Roswell.

♪ ♪

Fishburne: Coming up, how
close has Ben Smith come

to unlocking the secrets

of what really happened
at Roswell?

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

- I think a guy by the name
of Patrick Saunders

could've written
this journal.

- Wow.
- That actually got me

pretty excited.
- That is interesting

because
it's a whole new person

to take a very close look at.

That opens up a whole other
sort of avenue, doesn't it?

- It really does.

Fishburne:
The real possibility

that one of Jesse Marcel's

fellow officers in the 509th,
Patrick Saunders,

wrote the journal that was
in Marcel's possession

is an incredible twist
in Ben Smith's investigation

of what happened at Roswell.

Now Smith wants to go
over the results

of his investigation
with Joe Pappalardo,

the veteran
aviation journalist

he has been consulting
with from the start.

- No explanation is going
to be complete

without a physical component,
probably.

Please tell me
you found a spaceship.

- Oh, dude,
I wish I could tell you

that I came back
with the smoking gun

to prove that it's definitely
a Mogul balloon

or it's definitely
an extraterrestrial spacecraft.

I haven't found anything
definitive either way,

and that is frustrating.

- Well, if it was easy,
it would be cracked by now,

so I'm eager to hear what
you actually have uncovered.

- Chuck Wade claimed that
he had a piece

of alien spacecraft.

The lab unfortunately
could not find anything

extraterrestrial
about the metal.

For me,
it doesn't really impact

the Roswell question
either way.

It was collected on
the Plains of San Agustin

some distance away,
except that it's a knock

against the established
evidence of ufologists.

- So in terms of the probable
crash site,

I knew you were gonna bring
some pretty cool technology

to investigate that.

Did you find anything
that would lead you

to think that something
happened there?

- We found a pretty strange
magnetic signature

close to
what would've been described

as the impact identified
by witness accounts.

We took some soil samples,
but we couldn't actually find

when or why
this anomaly was created.

We haven't found any evidence
that definitively proves

something extraterrestrial
crashed here.

- Did you find anything
that would indicate

that something else crashed?

- To the south of the
established debris field,

the FAA
crash-site investigator

found a strange contrast
in data,

that we don't know
what it means.

It's not metal because
our magnetometer

didn't pick up any metal.

There might be something

that could be some kind
of plastic or neoprene layer.

- That would buttress
that argument

that a balloon crashed there,

and here is an actual
physical remain from it.

That would be about
as close to a smoking gun

as something who doesn't
believe in UFOs,

like myself, would cling
to desperately, probably.

- Yeah. Well, a lot of the
facts are fuzzy still,

and I'm still trying to piece
the puzzle together,

but I feel confident
that the government lied

to the American people

about what it collected
at that debris field.

There were others like Jesse
in that unit at the 509th group

who had some of the same ideas.

I've spent a lot of time now
with the Marcel family,

and I think at the very least,

what they wanted
was vindication.

♪ ♪

Fishburne: Jesse Marcel's
three grandchildren

have been eagerly
awaiting the results

of Ben Smith's investigation

and want to know
what he has found out

about the strange journal.

- Thank you, guys,
for making

yourselves
available to chat with me.

I wanted to circle back
with you

and share some interesting
turns in the case

and some unexpected surprises.

There's one thing
that's still missing

from this investigation,
and that's evidence.

- I mean, there's a piece
out there somewhere.

- Well, we didn't
find anything yet.

- Sure.
- Jesse, you were there

with me in Pennsylvania

when we went
to the codebreaker.

Without the key,
the other half of the puzzle,

we can't crack
that home-brew code,

so what's left is to keep
looking for that other half,

but that makes
an interesting challenge

because we didn't know
who wrote it.

I refocused my efforts back
on the inner circle

at the 509th group
to see if I could identify

who might have
written the journal.

I collected a few more
handwriting samples.

There was one individual
who actually,

with the short sample
that we had,

matched to some degree
that we couldn't rule it out.

- Ooh, interesting.

- This would've been the base
adjutant at the 509th group--

- Okay.
- The second-in-command,

a guy named Patrick Saunders.

He was really close
with Colonel Blanchard,

so close, in fact,

that Colonel Blanchard was
his best man at his wedding.

- Oh, wow.

- For me as an
intelligence officer,

if I'm looking for somebody
with access to information,

this guy
is as close as it gets.

- Wow.
- That's very exciting.

- Did your grandfather ever
mention that name to you?

- I don't recall that name
coming from him.

- Obviously, they had
a relationship for Grandpa

to have ended up
with that journal.

- I was able to track down
his children.

A lot of the things
Patrick Saunders

told his children matched
what Jesse Sr.

told you three, that it was
something not of this world.

And there was a cover-up.
- No kidding.

- And he even mentioned that
he was directly responsible

for organizing the cover-up
by changing the names

and the personnel records
of people

involved in the cleanup effort
at the debris field.

- Oh, my gosh.

- Another echo in Patrick
Saunders' story with his family

is he said almost the exact
same things verbatim:

"The world isn't ready
for this kind of information."

- Oh, yeah.

- And, Denice, you were
with me in Houma.

Your cousin mentioned
the same thing.

- Yep, exact same words.
- His eyes kind of glazed over,

and he said,

"There are things that
this world is not ready for."

- I wonder if they discussed
it to come up with almost,

like, the same terminology.

This is just so completely
amazing. [laughs]

- I think you're closer
to the truth

now than we've ever been
or anybody's ever been.

- Sounds like it.

- Another interesting comment
Patrick Saunders made

was actually about Jesse Sr.

He thought that Jesse
had gone too far,

that he had said
something he shouldn't.

He had told
the public too much.

- When Grandpa came out
in 1978

and told the story
about what had happened,

I wonder if that worried him
a little bit

because I know
it would worry me

if I was trying
to keep something covered up,

and this man just came out
and said,

"No. What everybody saw
wasn't something from here."

- Yeah. The duty to keep quiet

is a pretty powerful
commitment.

- I think he was courageous
for coming out and telling it

because he was going
against the protocol.

He felt that
everybody deserved

to know what the truth was

and that the cover-up
needed to end.

- Mm-hmm.

♪ ♪

You know, we started
this journey together

trying to figure out
the journal

and to prove with evidence

that your grandfather
was telling the truth.

Now, we didn't quite get
to either of those ends.

How do you feel about
this investigation,

and what does it tell you
about your grandfather?

- If anything, you've added

more credibility
to those stories,

and I think we're
getting closer than ever

to resolving this.

- I'll just echo that.

I think that everything
that you've come across

has actually more or less
confirmed for me

that Grandpa and our dad
were telling us the truth

and that they did want
everybody to know

what really did happen.

- I looked at the journal
recently, and I found a quote

that really captures
sort of the investigation,

and the quote was,

"Keep your eye on the doughnut
and not the hole."

If we just focus
on the lack of evidence,

the hole in the center,

we miss all the evidence
that we have found.

I think that this journal
has more secrets to give,

more evidence to point me to
than what I've found so far,

and I'm reluctant
to simply put it away.

♪ ♪

Fishburne:
To some, Jesse Marcel

is a courageous truth sayer.

To others, a man
who let his imagination

get the best of him.

Either way, he believed

he'd witnessed
an extraordinary event,

and he was not alone.

I'm Laurence Fishburne,

thank you for watching
"History's Greatest Mysteries".