All language subtitles for 7a8be296072c45d59bb564bae8519a2d_track3_eng

- Tonight on
"history's greatest mysteries":

- Late this afternoon,
a bulletin from new mexico

suggested that one
of the strange discs

had been found and inspected.

Fishburne: In 1947,

something crashed
in the desert

in the american southwest.

Whatever the object was,

it has created shockwaves
still felt today.

I'm laurence fishburne.

On tonight's mystery:

What crashed
in roswell, new mexico?

Was it a flying saucer,
as headlines first announced,

or a secret military aircraft?

A new investigation
seeks answers.

- This might be that piece
of the puzzle.

Fishburne: An ex-cia officer
named ben smith

has obtained a cryptic journal.

Fishburne: It was found
among the papers

of major jesse marcel,

the first u.S. Army officer
to investigate the wreckage.

- He always said that he was
sworn to secrecy.

Fishburne: Does it contain
coded clues

of what marcel really saw?

- It was not anything
from this earth.

Fishburne: What about stories
of alleged alien bodies

in the wreckage?

- She said there were
little people,

and there was some dead
and some alive.

Fishburne: Did the u.S.
Government cover up the truth,

and does it still possess
the wreckage of a ufo?

- I do know one name of a man
who had pieces of debris.

Fishburne: The truth behind
roswell

according to those
who were there.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

[foreboding music]

♪ ♪

a former cia operative,
investigator, and author,

ben smith has been intrigued
by roswell and ufos for years.

- Investigating was at
the core of my work at cia.

I went under deep cover,
lived a double life,

to collect intel
on terrorist networks,

foreign spy activities,

even weapons
of mass destruction.

Fishburne: Smith says
this may be

his most challenging mission:

Trying to figure out the truth
about what really crashed

near roswell, new mexico,
in 1947.

♪ ♪

- so this is it, huh?
- This is it.

Ground zero.

Fishburne: Don schmitt
has written seven best-sellers

about roswell and interviewed
more people connected

to the incident
than anyone alive.

- Taking a look at the impact
site now of that crash in '47.

I was a special investigator

for the late
dr. J. Allen hynek,

who was consultant to the
air force project blue book.

I was a skeptic,

and the one case that I wanted
to investigate was roswell,

and for having talked
to over 600 witnesses

either directly
or indirectly involved,

I am 99% convinced
that what indeed crashed here

back in 1947 was a craft
of unknown origin

not manufactured
on this planet.

♪ ♪

fishburne: Ben smith
asked schmitt to show him

the site where
the crash debris was found.

- This is it, ben,

what we consider
the most significant location,

as far as in the entire
history of the ufo phenomenon.

♪ ♪

it's total isolation.

We could just as well be on
the dark side of the moon.

♪ ♪

- you know, my background
is in the cia,

and I have no agenda
except to explore this mystery,

bring some clarity
to some unanswered questions.

It's thrilling
to finally be out here

after having read
so much about it,

a lot of your work.

- This is where it all began,
back in 1947.

♪ ♪

fishburne: In the 1940s,
new mexico was home to some

of america's most sensitive
military installations,

including where the atomic
bomb was developed.

♪ ♪

by the summer of 1947,

the u.S. Was worried

that the soviets were building
their own atomic bomb,

and americans were worried
about something else:

Hundreds of reports of ufos.

- What is the flying saucer?

What's behind
the daily reports

of aerial phenomena
in the nation's press?

- These supposed sightings
were reported

in a number of newspapers
throughout the united states,

and they actually started
to grow in number

in kind of a mass hysteria.

♪ ♪

- much of the activity seemed
to be focused in new mexico,

the hotbed of military activity
at that time.

New mexico became the focus.

Not only the soviet union,

but also the ufo phenomenon,
as though someone else

was very interested
in our military potential.

[booming]

♪ ♪

fishburne: By late June 1947,

more than a week
before the roswell crash,

residents in the southern part
of the state were spooked

by nearly 70 sightings
of ufos.

- But it was just going
in a northerly motion

in a pretty rapid speed,

but nothing like a falling star
or a meteorite.

So bright, like that,

you couldn't look directly
at it very long at a time,

and you had to look
to the side of it,

just like looking into
a bright sun.

♪ ♪

fishburne: Then, on
the morning of July 6, 1947,

something even stranger
occurred.

♪ ♪

roswell sheriff called
the nearby army air field

to say that a sheep rancher

had come in with pieces
of debris

that he believed came
from a crashed flying saucer.

♪ ♪

the base's commander

was colonel
william h. Blanchard,

a highly decorated
military pilot

who, in 1945, had supervised
the mission of the enola gay,

the bomber
that destroyed hiroshima.

By 1947, the base
was still home to the 509th,

the world's only
nuclear-equipped

bomber squadron.

- Roswell was the headquarters
of the elite military

at that time.

The base was always
on full alert,

because they had
the atomic bomb.

♪ ♪

fishburne: In response
to the call from the sheriff,

colonel blanchard

dispatched the base's
intelligence officer,

major jesse marcel.

With him was sheridan cavitt,

an agent for army
counterintelligence.

♪ ♪

according to
don schmitt's research,

this is what happened next.

♪ ♪

- Monday morning, July 7th,

jesse marcel
and sheridan cavitt

arrive at the debris field
with the rancher.

♪ ♪

major jesse marcel said

the first thing
that struck him

was the massive
amount of debris.

As he would say,
"there was just so much of it."

covered an area
almost a mile long.

♪ ♪

- interviewed later about what
he saw in the debris field,

marcel claimed it was 3/4
of a mile long,

a couple of hundred feet wide.

♪ ♪

- at that point, that material
has been out there for days,

and no one else
is looking for it,

which would clearly suggest
it's not ours,

and if it's not ours,
then whose is it?

♪ ♪

- so marcel and cavitt spend
the better part of the day

out there looking
at this thing

and trying
to determine what it was.

Fishburne: Marcel picked up
different pieces of the debris

and put them in boxes
in the trunk of his car.

♪ ♪

- cavitt would stay behind
and concentrate more

on the wreckage
in a general area.

Marcel would make the drive
back to roswell.

♪ ♪

fishburne: What jesse did
next, according to his family,

was an uncharacteristic breach
of military protocol.

- He knew the material would
be classified top secret

the moment it would cross
the front gate

at the roswell army air field.

It was important enough,
strange enough,

unusual enough
that major marcel

would stop at his home
on the way back to the base.

♪ ♪

- he came back real late
one night--

about 2:00 in the morning,
as I recall--very excited,

because he found parts
of a ufo--or a flying saucer

at that time--
and he wanted me to see it.

♪ ♪

- marcel would describe
paper-thin,

metal-like material,

practically weightless
in your hands,

that you couldn't cut,
you couldn't burn.

There was silken strands of
material that marcel described

that a lighter
could be held to one end

and the light would emit
out the opposing end.

Well, they're describing
fiber optics in 1947,

yet fiber optics
didn't come into development

until around 1970,

and then the I-beam structures.

♪ ♪

- most unusual part
of the debris

that I saw
was the I-beam fragments.

♪ ♪

fishburne: Jesse marcel, jr.

Spent a lifetime thinking
about the strange materials

his father brought home
and let him handle.

- They were, uh, very light,
very strong,

and they had some writing
on the inside surface of this,

and that was the thing
that really set this apart

from anything
I had ever seen before.

♪ ♪

[suspenseful music]

♪ ♪

- I am on my way to meet
with the marcel family,

the grandchildren
of the first american official

on the scene at roswell
in 1947.

♪ ♪

fishburne: Having learned
of ben smith's investigation,

the marcel family is eager
to talk with him.

They believe
they have something

he will certainly want to see.

- The roswell incident could
potentially be

the greatest event
in the history of humankind.

You know, we have, uh,
how many--300 trillion stars

and 200 billion galaxies
and, uh--

scattered across, like,
15 billion light years.

♪ ♪

and to think that
we're all alone

in all of that space
is pretty sad.

♪ ♪

so I personally want to know,
is there anybody out there,

and have they been here?

♪ ♪

the roswell incident

has got the potential
for physical evidence

and, uh, you know,
a host of reliable witnesses

who all describe something

the world has never
seen before.

♪ ♪

there's no way for me to know
but to research,

to start at the bottom

and work my way through
the facts.

♪ ♪

the marcel family has a journal
belonging to their grandfather.

♪ ♪

this journal could change
the entire story

about what happened in roswell.

♪ ♪

[doorbell rings]

- hi.
- Hey.

- Jesse marcel.
- Jesse, pleasure to meet you.

Ben.

- Ben.
- Yeah.

- Nice to finally meet you.
Come on in.

My brother and sister
are here as well.

I first saw the journal
going through

some military documents
of my grandfather,

and it was just in
with the military documents.

Hers the diary.

- Oh, okay.
Wow.

- He put it in a cedar chest,

and it was in there
till the day he died.

There's something very
important about that journal.

♪ ♪

- this is pretty wild.
- Right?

Fishburne: Until now,

no one outside
the marcel family

has ever seen this journal.

Does it contain fresh details

about what really happened
in roswell?

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

- January 4th, 1946 to 1948.

See, that would have been
a year--almost a year after.

- About a year after August--
almost exactly a year.

Fishburne: Ben smith's
investigation

of the roswell incident
has taken him to spokane,

washington, to meet the
grandchildren of jesse marcel,

who believe they have
a crucial piece of evidence.

- Boy, this really does
run the gamut then.

- Right.
- It starts before roswell

and ends about a year
afterwards.

- Right.
- Yep.

Fishburne: After his death,

marcel's family
found a journal

hidden with his
military records

that he had never shared
with anyone.

- There's something very
important about that journal.

♪ ♪

fishburne: There are entries
dated from around

the time of roswell,

but the notations
are strange and confusing.

Could they be coded clues
to what marcel really saw?

- Why was he writing
movie quotes?

Or songs?

- How into pop culture
and movie

and books was your grandfather?

- We never talked about that
with our grandfather.

- No.

- You know, it could also
be something

like a mnemonic device,

where you memorize
something totally different

from the subject matter so that
it prompts your recall later.

Fishburne: Ben wonders
if their grandfather,

a seasoned
intelligence officer,

was trying to hide information
because he'd been warned

never to reveal the truth
about the ufo.

[dramatic music]

- since he worked
in intelligence,

you're not gonna state out,
"oh, wow, I just found a ufo."

you know, you're not gonna
write it out like that.

- Right.

- You're gonna be kind
of cryptic about it,

because you don't
want anybody else

to maybe see
what you're writing.

- Mm-hmm.

- At one point the military
came back and said,

"yeah, you've got to stop

making this stuff up
about the--the ufo crash,"

and he grabbed his medals
and threw them away.

Says he was done.

He was done,
and he--he was very upset.

[dramatic music]

fishburne: Jesse marcel
was born in 1907

in the bayou country
of southern louisiana.

His childhood fascination
with maps would lead to a job

with shell oil where he worked
with aerial photographs.

♪ ♪

this combination of skills
made him an obvious candidate

for air force intelligence
school after america

went to war in 1942.

Lieutenant marcel's job,

mapping targets for bomber
squadrons in the pacific,

earned him two air medals
and a bronze star.

♪ ♪

when world war ii ended,

marcel, with a young family
to support,

decided to stay
in the military,

receiving a plum assignment

with the army air force's
most elite unit,

the 509th bomber squadron
based in roswell.

- He always said that he
was sworn to secrecy,

so he never shared everything
that had happened out there.

- But whatever he saw
was so significant,

he was willing to take
a chance

with his entire
military career

to show his son
and his wife this stuff.

♪ ♪

fishburne: The marcels say
that after stopping at home

to show the debris
to his wife and son,

jesse arrived
at the roswell army air field

for the regular
morning officer's meeting.

♪ ♪

he presented
this strange debris

he'd collected to the base's
commanding officer,

colonel william h. Blanchard.

Blanchard ordered
his public affairs officer,

first lieutenant walter haut,

to issue an immediate
press release.

- I was introduced
by colonel blanchard

to put out a press release
which, in effect, stated

that we had in our possession
a flying saucer.

♪ ♪

- as soon as that hit
the roswell daily record,

was broadcast by
the local radio station,

it went--they didn't use
that term back then,

but it went viral across
the whole globe.

[keyboard clacking]
[beeping]

- late this afternoon,

a bulletin from new mexico

suggested that the widely
publicized mystery

of the flying saucers
may soon be solved.

Army air force officers
reported

that one of the strange discs
had been found

and inspected
sometime last week.

Fishburne: As news
that a flying saucer

had been discovered
spread around the world,

the army chain of command
took control.

Millions of americans believe
that what happened next,

the effort to conceal
the ufo crash,

is one of the greatest
cover-ups in u.S. History.

♪ ♪

- colonel blanchard ordered
major marcel

to fly to carswell army air
field in fort worth, texas,

to present the material to
brigadier general roger ramey,

head of the eighth air force,

commanding officer
over the 590th bomb group.

♪ ♪

fishburne: Marcel thought
he was flying to fort worth

with pieces
of flying saucer debris.

♪ ♪

- major marcel would arrive
at fort worth

approximately
4:00 that afternoon,

and he presented the material.

♪ ♪

ramey took marcel
to an adjoining map room.

When marcel would return
with the general,

back to his office,
the real material was gone.

♪ ♪

in its place
was a weather balloon.

♪ ♪

[flash bulb crackles]

fishburne: The army called
a hasty press conference.

It's at the moment,
according to schmitt,

that the alleged
cover-up begins.

[camera shutter clicks]

- "ladies and gentlemen,
mystery solved.

"it's just a weather
balloon device.

Nothing to worry about,"

and the press accepted it.

♪ ♪

all the personnel at the base
were ordered

never to bring it up again,

never to talk about
what had transpired,

and they got away with it.

Fishburne: 31 years later,
however,

the man at the center

of the roswell incident

from the very beginning

came forward with what he said
was the real story.

- The following morning
we went out to the site

where the crash was,

and what I saw,
I couldn't believe.

- Marcel says in interviews,

"that's not the stuff
I brought from roswell."

♪ ♪

fishburne: In a 1980 interview
for the series

"in search of...
With leonard nimoy,"

marcel claims he was forced
to go along with a cover-up.

- They took pictures,
of course.

They had a whole flock
of microphones there.

They wanted me to--they wanted
some comments from me,

but I wasn't at liberty
to do that.

So all I could do
is keep my mouth shut,

and general ramey is the one
who discussed--

told the paper--
the newspapers--I mean,

the newsmen--what it was
and to forget about it.

It was nothing more than
a weather observation balloon.

Of course,
we both knew differently.

I had never seen
anything like that before.

As of now,
I don't know what it was.

It was not anything
from this earth,

that I'm quite sure of.

- Watching this interview
with his grandchildren,

you can really feel
the emotion in the room.

Marcel claimed the military
swore him to secrecy

and hid the truth.

For his family,
it was a government cover-up,

plain and simple.

- Our grandpa wasn't really
a public person.

He didn't want the spotlight.
He didn't--

- right.

- In fact, he kind
of shied away from it

but I really think
that this gave him a way

to release a lot of weight
on his shoulders.

- Mm-hmm.
- This was, like, a cleansing,

in a way, a way just
to let off--this off his chest,

going to kind of go
where it's gonna go.

- I mean,
he's incredibly courageous.

I don't--there's--there are
very few intelligence officers

who ever come forward in public
about what they did.

So there's a very admirable
trait of bravery.

He stood up for what
he believed, and he went out...

- Right.
- And he spoke to everyone,

and that--that takes guts,

and then to deal
with the blowback.

- He felt that there was
an importance for it

to come out to be seen,

you know,
that something did occur.

- Mm-hmm.

- You know, I think he was
really upset that they made him

the fall guy,

and that he couldn't believe
that it still--at this point,

that it was still
being covered up,

and I think he did want it
to be out,

but at the same point,

he knew that there were secrets
that had to stay secret.

- I think grandpa wanted us
to learn more.

I think he was--really
wanted to tell

everything he knew about it.

That's the reason I think
there's evidence out there

that he did.

We've just got to get to it.

Fishburne: Jesse marcel's
grandchildren hope the journal

will vindicate him
by revealing the truth

about what really crashed
at roswell and the cover-up

they say he was forced
to participate in.

- Somebody comes out
and says,

"you know what?

"he served his country well

and we apologize for making him
go through this,"

and also, my father.

I want some vindication
for him too.

- I probably won't have answers
immediately,

just looking at it.
- Oh, sure, sure.

- No.
- But over time,

and as we start
to build the investigation,

perhaps some of these clues
will--will come into focus.

This could be a game changer:

The rest of the story
about what happened at roswell

from its
most important witness.

♪ ♪

fishburne:
During his investigation,

smith will work
with joe pappalardo,

a veteran journalist
who specializes in aviation.

♪ ♪

- my investigation really
starts from this man here,

jesse marcel, sr.,

the chief of intelligence
at the 509th bomber group

at roswell army air force base.

Jesse marcel, sr.

Kept a small army portfolio
of his military records,

and in it a small journal.

Jesse marcel, the man
at the center of the claim

that roswell was a cover-up,

kept this journal among
his most important papers.

Obviously, it was
very valuable to him.

The question is,

is it a key
to my investigation?

♪ ♪

some of the dates described
in the journal capture 1947.

It's a remarkable
piece of history,

and nobody really knows
about it yet.

- You're right to be excited.

If this is real--if this is

an actual journal
from that time,

it would represent a primary
source document from that era.

So that's the thing
that you want to go after,

as a researcher.

I would like to take a look
at what you've got,

to see a little bit more
about this diary.

- Let me actually bring it up
on the projector here.

♪ ♪

this is the notebook here.

Right away, I see a typical
army field issue notebook.

So here we have a date: 1946.

- This entire journal comes
from when he was at roswell.

- Correct.

Our date here--we have
August 31, 1947,

about six weeks, seven weeks
after the u.S. Army corps

put out their infamous
ufo crash at roswell,

flying disc.

There's beautiful
cursive handwriting,

and then, if we fast forward,

shift to this kind of erratic,
mixed-case, blocky lettering,

and I can't make sense of it.

- Couple of things leap to mind
immediately when you see

a change that's this drastic.

It's impossible not to notice
that it's different.

It's either a different person
writing it,

or it's the same person
in different mindset.

Is that by design
or is that just unintentional?

- The content seems the same.

- How does the journal

compare with
the timeline of the incident?

- Well, there's--there's no
mention of--of roswell at all,

no mention of any events,
no mention of any wreckage.

It's just these jokes
and quotes and musings

and ideas captured
in different handwriting,

and there's only
sporadic dates.

They read like quotes
from "reader's digest."

"life is what you make it

until someone comes along
and changes it."

"two half-brothers make one."

"well, now that I'm too old
to set a bad example,

I delight
in giving good advice."

♪ ♪

- so it meant something to him
but no one knows what.

- Yeah.
He's a soldier.

He was in charge
of intelligence at the 509th.

He knew a lot of secrets.
He took them very seriously.

- It's kind of hard to imagine
the seriousness that

people back then took secrecy
and took nuclear secrecy...

- Uh-huh.

- And nuclear weapons,
in particular.

I mean, there were hordes
of soviet spies

trying to get this information
at the time.

[rocket roaring]

fishburne: In 1947,
the united states

and the soviet union
were already cold war enemies.

The u.S. Possessed
nuclear weapons,

while the soviets did not.

Major jesse marcel
and his colleagues

in the 509th bomber squadron
wanted to keep it that way.

- They were basically the only
nuclear bombing group

in the world.

He was entrusted

with the biggest secrets
that the military has.

- One thing that the marcel
children insist on

is that their grandfather
was absolutely certain that

the debris that he was holding
in this photo right here,

the official government photo,
that was in the press release,

is not the debris
that he found in the field.

- I see my grandfather holding
up something that he knew

that wasn't what he found.

- He was adamant
that this was not

what he saw
in the debris field.

- I see a man
that is not liking

what they're having him do,

but he knows he has to do it,
because that's his job.

- That's not what he found,

and at that point in time,
I'm sure he kind of felt,

"well, maybe I'm going to be
made out to be a fall guy."

- keeping a secret
is one thing,

but telling a lie is another,

and being the face of that lie

in the newspaper could break
a man like jesse marcel.

- That could explain
the difference

in the journal as well.

Someone under that much stress,

who knows how that manifests?

It's different handwriting

'cause you're in
a different mental state.

Fishburne: What made
the writing so cryptic,

and why did it
suddenly change?

Did it have to do with
the ufo or its passengers?

- Okay, so you've got this hot

piece of evidence
in your hands.

How do you plan on verifying
that it's real?

- I think the first step

is to authenticate
the document itself.

Is this dated
to the time period,

or is this a recreation?

If we can exclude the fact

that it's a forgery,
then we're winning.

- Do the forensics first

to make sure
that it's actually of the era.

- Yeah.
Another interesting question:

Why did he have it?

Why was it so important to him
that he kept it

and left it among his things
to pass on to his children?

- And then the third tier

is trying to figure out
what the hell it says?

- Yeah, exactly.

- You've got your work cut out
for you on this one.

- All right.

♪ ♪

fishburne: To further
his investigation

of marcel's journal,

ben smith contacts
jennifer naso,

a leading handwriting expert.

She will perform a forensic
analysis on the document

to determine
if it's genuine or a forgery,

and also whether jesse marcel
wrote it himself.

♪ ♪

- I understand you worked
for the secret service.

- I did.

I completed my training
with the secret service

and worked there
for a number of years.

- I used to work for the cia,
so we have a little bit of,

like, usg connection going on.

- My name is jennifer naso.

I'm a forensic
document examiner,

and what I do is I receive
documents that are in question,

and I analyze them to determine
their authenticity.

At the secret service,

I authenticated

a lot of the threat letters
that came in.

We also did a lot of work

with documents
that were false and forged.

- I do have a very
interesting document

that I need
your help authenticating:

A document belonging
to the first guy on the scene

of the alleged
roswell incident in 1947.

- Okay.
- A man named jesse marcel, sr.

This could potentially hold
marcel's private thoughts

about the incidents that July,
about the crash,

about the materials,
about the potential cover-up.

So I need to determine that
this is not in fact a forgery.

Fishburne: If the journal
was written

by jesse marcel in 1947,

could it hold the key

to unlocking
the mystery of roswell?

♪ ♪

- I do have a very
interesting document

that I need your
help authenticating.

Fishburne: Former cia
operative ben smith

has brought jesse marcel's
mysterious journal

to a forensic document
examiner for testing.

♪ ♪

- this could potentially hold
marcel's private thoughts

about the incidents that July.

Fishburne: Marcel was
the first investigator

at the roswell crash site.

While the u.S. Army

claimed the wreckage
was from a weather balloon,

marcel's family alleges
something different:

That the journal
may hold coded clues

about what really happened.

- I would like to believe
the journal is going to give us

the truth we've been looking
for for the last 70 years.

♪ ♪

- so I see most of the document
is written

in a cursive writing.
- Mm-hmm.

- And then when
you get to the end,

it changes to a print writing.

- Yeah.

- It may be an indication

that there were two different
writers in this journal.

That I would have to do
a more thorough investigation

in order to determine.

It's important to authenticate
historical documents,

because it can turn the tables

in terms of what we know
versus what we thought we knew.

The date of the document
is important to note,

because what I'm gonna do
is static dating.

We know the introduction dates
of certain elements

of the paper or the inks.

We can see whether or not they
were available during the time

that this document
was purportedly produced.

- Some of the dates
in the journal itself range

from 1946 to 1948 and '49, um,

so they cover the period
of the roswell incident,

but one of my biggest concerns
about this document is forgery.

I want to make sure
that this document is real.

What can you tell me

about what you've seen
in forged documents?

Have you seen forgeries
of this length before?

- I have not,

but there is a famous case
where there were

several diaries
purportedly written by hitler.

♪ ♪

fishburne: On April 25, 1983,

the west german magazine
"stern"

announced that it
was in possession

of never-before-seen diaries
written by adolf hitler

that could rewrite the history
of world war ii.

"stern" had paid close
to $4 million for the diaries

and sold the rights
to other major publications

around the world.

♪ ♪

totaling 60 volumes,

the writings were
authenticated

by several
prominent historians.

♪ ♪

but just days
before publication,

the diaries
were exposed as fakes.

A forensics analysis
by the west german archives

quickly discovered
that the diaries were made

from a kind of paper and ink

that wasn't even invented
until after world war ii.

Their author was a prolific
east german forger

named konrad kujau,

who wrote out his own
confession in the style

of hitler's penmanship.

♪ ♪

- the way that they
ended up determining

that they were fraudulent

is because the paper contains
optical brighteners

that were not available...

- Oh.
- Until after hitler's death.

- Interesting.

You know,
there's always conspiracy

in every corner that I look.

How long do you think
it will take?

- Um, usually it takes
a few weeks.

- Oh, it does.
- Mm-hmm.

- Okay.

- Especially something
of this magnitude.

♪ ♪

fishburne: While jennifer naso
performs

a forensics analysis
of the journal,

smith asks a team
of archaeologists

and geophysicists to meet him
at the debris field.

♪ ♪

he hopes state-of-the-art
technology will find signs

that something more powerful
than a balloon crashed here.

♪ ♪

- even 70 years later,

if we can find evidence

that what crashed here
was not a balloon,

it could prove that
jesse marcel

was telling the truth--

that whatever crashed here
was not of this world.

Fishburne: According
to author kevin randle,

the weather balloon
explanation

put forward by the military

at that 1947 press conference

blindsided not only
jesse marcel but also

mack brazel, the rancher
who found the wreckage.

- General ramey of course
trotted it out--

"it's a weather balloon."

the problem with that
is mack brazel

knew what weather balloons
looked like.

- This is bill brazel's
memory of how his dad reacted.

♪ ♪

- he said that's what

the air force tried
to make him believe,

that it was a weather balloon.

He said, "bill," he said,
"it was not a weather balloon."

he said, "I don't know
what it was."

but he said, "it was something
altogether different,

and much bigger."

fishburne: In this 1991
interview, jud roberts,

manager of roswell's
local radio station kgfl,

says that local residents
were very familiar

with the military's
weather balloons.

- Oh, well, weather balloons
were being launched about

a block from us every night.

So weather balloons per se

were not that--not that
interesting to us.

Fishburne: If local residents
were indeed familiar

with weather balloons,

is it likely jesse marcel,
an intelligence officer,

could have mistaken a balloon
for a flying saucer?

- It was definitely not
a weather balloon,

and, uh, it was an aircraft.

So what it could have been,
I wouldn't know.

♪ ♪

- you mention roswell
in most places these days

and people bring up ufos.

- It's a question,
a story,

a myth that is known
practically worldwide.

- Yeah.

Fishburne: Smith has asked
bill doleman

to join the team of experts
at the debris field.

Doleman is the former
principal investigator

for the university
of new mexico's office

of contract archaeology.

- Of all the disputed
locations,

this is the one
that is least disputed.

- You're the only one who's
actually done a dig out there.

- That's correct.

- And you've done two of them.
- Two.

Fishburne: Doleman made two
previous expeditions

to the debris field,
in 2002 and 2006,

but he's hopeful
that using new technology

might uncover fresh evidence.

- Bringing
archaeological skills

to a potential debris site,

I'm hoping that we can turn up
some fresh, new evidence.

♪ ♪

so what hit the debris field?

There are a lot
of conflicting accounts.

A craft? Just debris?

Some people saw
a meteor-like object.

What do you recommend
we do first?

Start with the archaeology dig,
or deploy the drone technology?

- We definitely deploy
the drone technology,

because the archaeology
comes in

where they identify anomalies
that we can then go investigate

using our standard
archaeological methods.

- There isn't a u.S. Government
map with this marked,

but I actually happen
to have a journal

that belonged
to jesse marcel, sr.,

and jesse was
an intelligence officer.

He was a smart guy.

It's possible
that he could have hidden

some of what he knew
in this journal.

I would like to determine
one way or the other

if there was any evidence
of a cover-up.

If there was a debris site
or an impact site

and it was removed
and then leveled over,

we might be able
to see something like that.

♪ ♪

I am finally back
at the roswell debris field.

It's kind of hard to believe

that a place
this abandoned and quiet

could be the birthplace

of ufology
in the united states,

or in the world, actually.

♪ ♪

fishburne: The term ufology
refers to the study of ufos,

and for some,

roswell is
the most important ufo,

because it is the site

where an alien spaceship
allegedly crashed to earth.

♪ ♪

- with roswell,

you have the best elements
of all ufo cases:

Crash sites,
physical bodies recovered,

and then all the eyewitness
testimony on top of that.

- It's just this big mystery.

Did it happen? What was it?

That's still not solved.

It's hard to write it off,

and so you're left
with this big question

about something of incredible
potential significance.

♪ ♪

- this is the famous
backhoe trench 103.

- So this would be what,
uh, ufologists consider

the actual furrow in the ground

where, uh, some kind of craft
made contact with the earth.

You were here in 2002,

and you conducted
an archaeological dig here,

right--right in this furrow.

- Yeah, and the furrow runs
that way, supposedly.

There are nails--big nails
and rebar spikes in the ground

marking the grid system

that we used
for locational control in 2002.

Archeologists are the crime
scene investigators

of the past.

We treat archaeological sites

just the way
a csi treats a crime scene,

to use our methods to look
for the evidence of it.

♪ ♪

- uh, 122.8.

[beeps]

fishburne: Those methods
are about to get

a serious upgrade.

Joining the team are two
canadian geophysicists,

colin miasga and eric johnson,

who will deploy
21st century technology

to investigate abnormalities
in the terrain.

♪ ♪

- so density altitude,

6,770 feet.

♪ ♪

fishburne: This may be
the best-equipped team ever

to answer the question

that has stumped generations
of investigators:

What kind of airborne vehicle
crashed outside of roswell?

♪ ♪

- I'd like to find additional
proof of that impact zone,

what crashed here,
and how heavy it was,

and at what velocity.

Fishburne: At the roswell
crash site,

ben smith
and a team of experts

are using state
of the art equipment

to find possible evidence

that jesse marcel may
have been telling the truth

that what crash landed here
was no weather balloon.

- It makes the most sense
to start here

and then widen
the search from there.

♪ ♪

fishburne: One curious aspect

is that weeks
before that early July day,

when marcel found
what he believed

was the wreckage
of a flying saucer,

there were a huge number
of headline-making

ufo sightings in the area.

♪ ♪

at the local radio station,

jud roberts remembers

fielding dozens
of callers reporting ufos.

- And people that I knew
who were highly respectable,

who saw some of these things,

and they had no reason to--
they had no reason to kid

anybody about standing
outside of their pickup

and watching these lights
go back and forth

up in the mountain.

♪ ♪

- dad looked up in the west
and saw an object

that came down
and had lights blinking,

and it was rather
frightening to him.

Fishburne: In 1947,

paul wilmot's elderly parents

were sitting on their porch

when they were sure
they saw a flying saucer.

- He said all of a sudden
it seemed to rock a little bit

and sort of
counterbalanced itself,

wiggled a little bit,

and then it seemed
to settle down

and take off
at a rapid rate of speed.

Fishburne: Then came roswell,

the event that would become
the holy grail of ufology,

a discovery that would be
proof for many

that aliens had visited
the earth.

In truth, there
is no agreement

on what day
the crash occurred.

Ufo investigator don schmitt
believes it was July 2nd.

[thunder booming]

- on the late evening
of July 2nd, 1947,

there was a severe
lightning storm

in the central high desert
of lincoln county.

- All ranchers go out
on the porch

to see where it's raining.

- Mm-hmm.
- My husband,

he had to stand out there
and see where it was raining,

and there was so much thunder
and lightning

that, um, I begged him
to come in the house,

and finally there was
this terrible thunder clap,

and he came in and he says,
"boy, that hit something."

- people think about desert
as just pure dry,

and most of the time, it is,

but once that moisture
starts creeping in,

all it needs is something
to lift it,

and that's going to give you
incredible thunderstorms.

- Witnesses describe
not only the storm,

but between the thunder claps,

they heard what sounded
like an explosion,

and then seeing something

in the northern portion
of the sky.

- Large, red pulsating light
came directly at us,

and all I could think of
was that it was a plane

which--that was in trouble.

♪ ♪

[booming]

[rain pattering]

fishburne: While there
is no definitive proof

about what crashed in
the field

75 miles west of roswell,

no one disputes that
it was rancher mack brazel

who made the first discovery

while taking his sheep
to pasture.

♪ ♪

- ranching in new mexico
would be very focused

on the monsoon season,

and so a rancher,

they'd be watching
for those storms

and watching where
the rain shafts come down

because their cattle

or whatever they're
raising needs water.

♪ ♪

- there was a young boy
who was with mack brazel,

the son of floyd
and loretta proctor.

His name was
timothy dee proctor--

dee, as he was called.

♪ ♪

mack happened to stumble
upon this huge

debris field--strange,
unusual wreckage.

- Mack had found a huge field
filled with metallic debris,

and he was annoyed because,

a, he didn't know
who was gonna clean it up,

and b, he had to drive
the sheep around it

to get them to water.

- They would not cross it.

They were either spooked

or they sensed something else
coming from the wreckage.

♪ ♪

mack then takes dee proctor
back to his parents,

and he presents some of
the material to the proctors.

♪ ♪

- he showed us this piece that
looked like plastic

or wood of some kind,

and he said that there was some
metallic-looking stuff that,

when you crushed it,

it just straightened
right back out.

It wouldn't--you know,
wouldn't stay crushed.

Fishburne: According
to roswell author

and researcher don schmitt,

loretta proctor
was the first person

to see samples of the debris

that mack brazel brought
back from the fields.

- Well, we told him

it was probably a ufo
and he should report it.

- Mack brazel was convinced
by his neighbor

that he should
take it into roswell.

♪ ♪

- mack would take samples
of the debris

to wade's bar in corona

and present pieces there
to fellow ranchers,

his friends, his neighbors.

Fishburne: The small
farming community of corona

was only 15 miles
from the debris field.

It would be mack brazel's
first stop

before going on to roswell.

♪ ♪

- mack brazel came to corona
and talked to my dad

about the debris that he had
found out on the foster ranch.

- The material was as thin
as a wrapper

on a lucky strike package,
but you couldn't break it,

and if you twisted it
and scrunched it up together,

it would come back to its own,
yeah.

- He had no idea what it was,
and they said,

"I bet you have one of them
ufos we've been reading about."

♪ ♪

- mack brazel was convinced
by his neighbor

that he should take it in
to roswell

and show it to the sheriff.

♪ ♪

- but brazel is still
responsible for the ranch,

and it isn't until
the end of the week,

Sunday, his day off,

that he finally
makes the trek,

the 75-mile drive
into roswell,

to present it to the sheriff,
george wilcox.

Fishburne:
Lieutenant george wilcox

had been the county sheriff
for 20 years.

Most of his work involved
locking up drunks

and settling disputes

between ranchers over
livestock and grazing rights.

♪ ♪

- mack brazel brought in
two boxes of wreckage.

Sheriff george wilcox

handled and observed
the material firsthand.

♪ ♪

the sheriff immediately
suggested that mack brazel

report this
to the roswell army air field,

the 509th bomb group.

It sounds like a matter

they need to know
about most urgently.

♪ ♪

fishburne: It was that call
to the 509th

that led its commander
to dispatch

jesse marcel,
his intelligence officer,

to investigate
the strange report.

♪ ♪

- I had never seen anything
like that before,

and as of right--as of now,
I don't know what it was.

Fishburne: When marcel
returned to the air base

and showed colleagues pieces
of the debris he'd collected,

base commander william
blanchard made the decision

to go public and issue
that famous press release.

♪ ♪

- late this afternoon,

a bulletin from new mexico

suggested that
the widely-publicized mystery

of the flying saucers
may soon be solved.

Fishburne: With the story
of the flying disc

making international news,

mack brazel didn't
see any harm

in being interviewed
by the local radio station.

♪ ♪

- that morning,

reporters from kgfl
in roswell brought mack brazel

over to the radio station
to finally, you know,

tell the world the truth
about what has happened,

and the military
was waiting for him.

They nabbed brazel,

and they would then hide him
out at the base

for the next five full days.

♪ ♪

he would later complain
he felt like he was in jail,

that they asked him
the same questions over

and over and over again,

24 hours around the clock,
over a weather balloon.

♪ ♪

fishburne: According to
alleged eyewitness accounts,

in the days that followed,

the military swept through
roswell and corona,

threatening scores
of individuals

who heard brazel's story.

These local residents
were warned to keep quiet

or they could be charged
with treason,

which carried
the death penalty.

- The whole neighborhood was
scandalized that the army--

that the services
would treat people like that.

♪ ♪

fishburne: The military
reportedly used brazel

to walk back the previous
day's front page story

that a flying
saucer had crashed.

♪ ♪

- days later,

brazel was escorted
by the military,

taken to the newspapers,

taken to the two
radio stations,

but specifically kgfl,
where frank joyce,

reporter, meets mack brazel,
and to his dismay,

brazel only describes
a weather balloon.

Joyce sees the two mps
and is like,

"oh, now I see
what's happening."

- agents or agencies of people
unknown wanted him

to change off
of the original story.

♪ ♪

- and in his
total frustration,

joyce takes him off the air.

♪ ♪

- I said to him,
"the little green men,"

and that's where he said,

"yeah,
only they weren't green."

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

fishburne: At the roswell
crash site,

smith is with
a team of experts

searching for evidence
of the wreckage

found here in 1947.

- Best plan for us

would be to start
getting our multispec data

going in the area.

We can cover
a broad--broad area,

get the highest resolution,

most up-to-date
aerial imagery.

- We also have
that multispectral camera.

- Oh, cool.
So you can do both at once.

- Yeah.
- Oh, that's--

- so in one flight,

we're getting multispectral
imagery and the regular rgb.

- Until now, no one has ever
used this technology here.

Whatever we find,

we'll know more about this
place than anyone ever has.

♪ ♪

- we want to look
for unnatural features.

We want to look for
straight lines and that impact

and then that skid mark
kind of thing, so--

- mm-hmm.

- So that commonly thought spot
is just down in this area.

Fishburne: Archaeologist
bill doleman

gives the geophysicists

some never-before-seen
images of the area.

By comparing an aerial
photograph of the terrain

taken just months
before the roswell incident

to one taken
seven years later,

the team can identify
distinct changes.

♪ ♪

- look at that.
- Wow, that is--

- here's the original location
of interest.

Then, there's a big linear
feature we're interested in.

♪ ♪

fishburne: Just 800 meters
from where jesse marcel

examined the debris,

the 1954 photos shows

what could be several long
furrows carved into the earth.

♪ ♪

- there are delineations
in the soil that--

from a northwestern
to a southeastern direction,

that match witness
descriptions of something

falling from the sky,

hitting the earth, skipping,
and scattering debris.

That's what we see
in--in the aerial footage.

♪ ♪

I want to throw everything
we've got now at that new site.

I mean, what can we bring

to exploit this--these linear
features here?

- Well, we'll send the drone
over there, for sure.

Fishburne: If the team can
show something with more force

and velocity than
a weather balloon hit here,

it would be a major discovery.

[motors buzzing]

♪ ♪

- any time there's differences
in soil, um,

different vegetation
can arise,

and if there's something

that doesn't look natural
in the vegetation

that we pick up
in the multispectral,

we'll see that very well.

So the drone
is going back and forth,

taking thousands of photos...
- Oh, cool.

- Across parallel lines
across the whole site.

- Yeah.

♪ ♪

- so here we have
the aerial photography

collected by the drone...
- Yeah.

- On the entire site.
- Yeah.

- Then, we can turn on
the multispectral imagery.

So we have--the reds are little
to no vegetation.

- Uh-huh.

- Blue is gonna be kind
of dense vegetation,

and kinda everything
in between.

Fishburne: But after hours
of searching,

the team gets
disappointing news.

- At the moment,

we're not picking up

any, uh, distinct feature
near the furrow.

♪ ♪

- so the mutlispectral imaging

didn't really show us
any anomalies,

other than trenches
that we've already dug.

- Yeah, nothing that can't be
unexplained at the moment.

- Yeah.

Fishburne: The team concludes
the archival image

had a defect.

- What else can we throw
at that--that puzzle

to figure out what happened?

- Really, what we have right
now is surface information.

So we need to get boots
on the ground,

get sub-surface information.

Fishburne: Next, colin miasga
will use a magnetometer,

a tool that can detect changes

in the earth's magnetic field.

- So if something really hot
hit the earth

and heated up
the surrounding soil,

it basically hits
the reset button

on the earth's magnetic field
of that soil,

and it'll take on the earth's
magnetic field at the time

as it cools back down.

So this thing is gonna pick up
anything with iron, magnetite.

- And then what else do you
have left in your toolbox?

- Uh, we've got--we've got
the ground-penetrating radar.

- Okay.

- And the gamma ray
spectrometer

to measure
for radioactive material.

[clicking]

so anything that's been in
really high altitude or space

is gonna be exposed
to a lot more radiation,

and that radiation is gonna
stay with that material,

and then it's gonna give
a strong signature

when it hits the ground,

and it's gonna
stay there forever.

[clicking]

♪ ♪

fishburne: Colin hopes to pick
up a strong magnetic signal

in the vicinity
where rancher mack brazel

first came across the debris.

♪ ♪

- it's enough metal to
basically max out the sensor.

We did find interesting
anomaly.

As we were walking around,

I was doing
the magnetometer survey.

So now,
this is the magnetometer.

But see all these high spots?

Those are all the metal pins
in the ground.

They're really,
really high responses.

The most interesting thing
was something up here.

Definitely an interesting
magnetic anomaly

that I want to investigate.

- So could this be one of those
instances where the heat

of an impact could change

the magnetism of the soil
around it or beneath it?

- Potentially.
Yeah, absolutely.

Fishburne: Many hours
into their search,

colin finds
something exciting:

A patch of ground

with unusually
high magnetic readings.

It's an anomaly that could
provide groundbreaking

new evidence
of what crashed here.

- So given its possible depth,

does that age it out
of our 70-year time span?

- I won't be able to say
until we start digging,

and--and that's--
I'm gonna leave that

to the archaeologists

to--to start dating
as--as they dig down.

So this was one
of the high points,

hovering between 10,
15 nanoteslas per meter.

Fishburne: Colin marks
the perimeters of the anomaly

so that archaeologist
esperanza juarez

can collect soil samples

to analyze
for radiation traces.

♪ ♪

- run your line
along the major axis.

Definitely hitting
right over top of this spot.

- So the flags here outline

the general shape
of the anomaly?

- Exactly, and I don't know.

Conveniently enough,

it's the same orientation
as bill's original furrow.

If we keep the ufo
crash site in mind,

it's like, something hit here,

maybe there was slightly
more minerals

that could become
magnetized in this area,

and then as it kind of skidded,

it still was hot enough
to cause that magnetization,

but maybe there's just slightly
less particles in that spot,

so there's a slightly
weaker signature.

♪ ♪

[hammer clanging]

fishburne: After stringing
a grid

across the site
of the anomaly,

esperanza beings her work,

collecting a range of samples

and documenting
the location of each.

♪ ♪

- so the strongest signature
was over

in this square right here?

- Yes.
- Okay.

- And then plus I've
also taken a soil sample.

Fishburne: The team wants
to rule out

routine earthly causes

for the anomaly.

- No clear signs
of a campfire or,

like, a prehistoric site
or anything like that?

- No.
- Yeah.

- So we've eliminated
a volcanic, uh, anomaly.

- That's out.
There's just no volcanic--

- we've eliminated
a campfire anomaly?

- Yes. There's no fire hearth.

- So we're still looking
at that--the most

likely candidate
for this anomaly right now

is the remnant magnetization
due to heat.

- The soil will be able
to tell you the time frame.

♪ ♪

- so the idea is that
we test the soil,

and if the magnetism
of that soil matches 1947,

then we know
that something--potentially

an impact--
froze its signature to 1947.

- Yeah.

♪ ♪

fishburne: The soil
and rock samples

will be sent to a lab
where they will be analyzed

to see if they contain metals
not from this area,

and possibly
not from this world.

♪ ♪

fishburne: While he waits
for the soil analysis

to be completed,

ben goes to visit
the grandson of mack brazel,

the rancher who took his sheep
into the field

looking for water,
but found crash debris.

It was mack who alerted
the military and,

according to local legend,

was then detained
and threatened to keep quiet.

♪ ♪

joe brazel lives
a few miles outside of roswell

and has avoided journalists
and researchers for years.

- Hello.

Fishburne: With no proof about
what crashed--spaceship,

weather balloon,
or something else--

ben believes joe might
have a piece of the puzzle

that could help unravel
the mystery of roswell.

♪ ♪

- thanks for taking the time
to meet with me.

Joe rarely talks about
how the roswell incident

impacted his family,
but he's agreed to meet me.

The roswell incident recently
has popped up in my research

as one of the more credible
phenomena to investigate,

and, um, in particular,

the first people
to encounter the debris

on the field--your grandfather,

mack, um, being the, you know,
patient zero,

the first person to...
- Right.

- To encounter this debris,

uh, makes people close to him

especially important
to the investigation,

and I would love to hear
about some of the details

you inherited from your father

and from your--your
grandfather, mack.

- Well, everything I heard
was from my dad.

- Okay.

- You know, he told me
what he knew

and--and what he
experienced with it

and then, you know,
what had--mack, you know,

the few things he said after
he came back from roswell.

I think if you really want
to hear what my dad had to say,

you know, we have a clip
that you can watch, you know,

and then we can talk a little
bit more about it after that.

- Yeah, absolutely.
I'd love to hear.

♪ ♪

fishburne: Joe brazel's dad,
bill, was mack's son.

He was interviewed in 1989
by japanese television.

- I was not out at the ranch
at the time.

And I picked up
an albuquerque paper,

and here's my dad's picture
looking at me,

and I thought, "well,
I wonder what he's done now."

♪ ♪

- my dad was living
in albuquerque,

and once he found out
about it,

well, he went to the ranch,

because he knew
that his dad was gone,

and he went down there

to actually take care
of the stock,

and the army
had it blocked off.

They had a detachment out
there picking up the pieces

and everything
and, uh, wouldn't let him in.

- The air force had asked him
to stay in roswell.

♪ ♪

and I went out to the ranch
and stayed until he got back.

And I asked him
what he'd got into,

and oh, he says,
"I found a bunch of trash,"

and, uh--

and I kept asking
him questions,

and he said, "well," he said,

"I told the air force
I wouldn't tell anybody."

he said, "you're probably
better off without knowing."

♪ ♪

- after the army
did their thing

and, you know,
dad was down there helping mack

on the ranch, you know,
the rainstorms or whatever.

They'd be riding,
they'd see a little piece,

and he'd pick it up.

- So then, of course,
riding horseback,

you see lots of things,
you know,

and I picked up a few scraps,

and, uh--that the army
hadn't--hadn't picked up.

♪ ♪

and I made--I'd bring them
in my chaps pocket

and put them in a cigar box
down at the barn.

- His, uh, description of some
of the stuff is like tinfoil,

but it was, you know,
just a lot tougher.

- When you bend it over,
like a crease,

and it straightened
right back out.

- This is the way
my dad put it to me:

It's material that he'd never
saw before or ever saw again.

♪ ♪

fishburne: Bill brazel's
decision

to collect his own souvenirs

eventually brought
the military to his door,

just as it had
with his father.

The debris was confiscated,

and military police told him
to keep quiet

about what he knew
and had seen

or he would face arrest.

♪ ♪

- the debris that he had
collected was confiscated...

- Yeah.
- By the, uh--

by the military police,
or somebody from the base.

- Yeah.
He just said two guys in a car.

- Two guys in a car.
- That's all he ever told me.

- Yeah.

- He didn't say whether
they were government.

He just said that there was two
guys that showed up in a car,

and they said that
they weren't gonna take it,

but they weren't leaving
without it.

- Did they ever
identify themselves?

- No.

- Well, that's--

- you know, and the other thing
you gotta understand is--

is that mack gave his word
he wouldn't talk about it.

- Mm-hmm.

- You know, and his dad,
if he gave his word,

that kind of extended
to him as well.

- Right.

♪ ♪

I don't mean to misinterpret
your father's claims,

but I did want to ask,

was there anything ever
in your life

that would make you question
what your dad saw?

- No.
- Nothing about his character?

Nothing about his mental
stability or his emotions?

- No.
- Okay.

- I like to explain my dad
this way, and myself:

What you see is what you get.
- Mm-hmm.

- He's not gonna tell you
something to your face

that isn't true or,
you know, tell you something

and then go tell
somebody else something else.

- Right.
Yeah.

There's rumint--what's called
rumored intelligence,

as we say in the business--
that mack or bill, your dad,

hid some of the material
on their property,

and some might even claim here,
on this property.

♪ ♪

fishburne: One of the most
persistent rumors

about joe's father is that,

despite surrendering
the cigar box,

he managed to hide
a few shards of the wreckage

somewhere on this property.

♪ ♪

- just to get a little
more specific,

I think there was a claim
at one point

that, um, there was perhaps
some debris buried

under a cement slab
on the old brazel property.

- Yeah.
- And I wanted to know,

is there any truth
to that story?

- Why I don't just show you
where that slab is?

- Lead the way.

- If joe still has a piece
of what he believes his dad

took from the debris field,

it could be
a bombshell development.

- They hid it underneath
this house right here.

♪ ♪

fishburne: Investigator
ben smith is meeting

with joe brazel,

the reclusive grandson
of mack brazel,

the rancher who first stumbled
upon the mysterious

crash debris at roswell,

but never spoke publicly

about how the army
threatened him into silence.

- He said he gave his word
that he wouldn't talk about it,

and he said very little
about it after that.

Fishburne: Jesse marcel
also never disclosed

everything he'd seen

or the full story
of the cover-up.

- They hid it
underneath this house.

Fishburne: Meanwhile,
back in new york,

handwriting expert
jennifer naso is doing a test

to try and authenticate
the journal that belonged

to marcel and could contain
the secrets of roswell.

- This is the journal
I was given

as a question document
to compare the handwriting

of jesse marcel,
but it's not just handwriting.

I'm looking at a lot
of elements

to help try
to solve this puzzle.

The first thing I do
is I look at the paper.

♪ ♪

I use specialized equipment
in order to analyze

to see what might be
in the paper,

and that might help
to date the document.

I then look under
my microscope

and determine what type
of writing instrument

was used to create
this document.

♪ ♪

in order to conduct
a handwriting analysis,

I do a side-by-side comparison
between the question

and the known--
in this particular case,

jesse marcel--
and determine whether or not

there are similarities
or differences.

For example, the formation
of the lowercase p

had a very tall
introduction stroke,

which dropped down
below the baseline

and then wrapped around
to form the bowl of the p,

and that p is found
throughout the entirety

of the question document.

♪ ♪

fishburne: Jennifer naso
is trying to determine

whether the journal
is genuine or fake,

the first step before decoding
its meaning to learn

if it might change
what we know about roswell.

♪ ♪

back in new mexico...

- So tell me a little bit more
about this house here.

- This house was built in 1902,
so it's kind of in rough shape.

Fishburne: Smith has reached
what he hopes will be

the most interesting
part of his visit.

- I asked joe about the rumor
that there might still be

some debris hidden
on his property.

The story goes that
bill brazel, joe's dad,

might have kept some
of the debris as souvenirs.

Some researchers have claimed
that your father or mack

might have buried something

or hidden it under
a cement slab.

- Yeah, well,
I can show you right here.

This is--this is where
the rumor was,

that this house--they hid it
underneath this house,

and as you can see right here,
there is no foundation.

There is no cement slab
under this house.

- Yeah, looks just like dirt
under there.

- It is.
- Yep.

- In fact, when this house
was first built, uh,

of course, they put
the hardwood floors in,

but this was built on the dirt.

The only slab that was ever
put in this house,

as far as, uh--

is this rock slab right here
for the old fireplace.

- Yeah.
- And that's it,

and there's nothing
under there.

That's--that's on dirt.

It's--it's been there
since 1902,

long before the ufo.

- Yeah.
- I can put the rumor

to rest that there's
nothing underneath

the cement slab here, 'cause...

- Yeah.
- There is no cement slab.

♪ ♪

there's no truth
to their rumor whatsoever.

When they took that
cigar box he had,

they took everything he had.

I guarantee,

if there had been something
buried underneath this house,

my dad would have dug it up
a long time ago.

- How do you think the rumor
about debris hidden

under this cement slab

that is not here, uh,
sort of impacted

the way your--your dad
approached the story?

- What it did was it put a fear
into him that--that, you know,

something might happen
to one of his family members.

- Yeah.

- Because they--you know,
they focus on the monetary...

- Mm-hmm.

- And think he has
a piece of it,

and it's worth so much money.

- Right.
- You know, and then--

so he got real reluctant
about talking about it,

and therefore you don't really
get at the truth,

because you're always trying
to fight and debunk the rumors.

- You've confirmed
a lot of things for me

that I think
is pretty fascinating:

One, the integrity
and the quality of the person

that your father
and your grandfather--

- yeah.

- The people that they were,
and, uh, two, that--you know,

you've confirmed some things
in the timeline for me

that make me think
that it's reasonable for me

to continue the search,
continue to use resources.

- Well, something happened.

'cause they spent
a lot of money

trying to figure out
what happened,

and they spent a lot of money
hiding what really did happen.

- Is there any other
information that I could use

to help me in my--
in my investigation

to get--to get
to that ground-level truth?

♪ ♪

- there's some other people
you can talk to,

but I don't feel comfortable
telling you on camera.

- Okay.

Would you mind, uh, typing
their names into my phone

so at least I can--
- I'll give you--

I'll give you one name.

♪ ♪

fishburne: Joe brazel doesn't
have any crash debris,

but he does have
something else:

The name of someone ben smith
has never heard of,

someone smith hopes

can bring this investigation
closer to the truth.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

fishburne: Following up
on a promising lead

from joe brazel,

ben smith is on his way
to a senior center

in the farming community

closest to where
the debris was found.

He hopes the local residents
who gather for lunch every day

will have memories
they'd be willing to share.

- Well, I've got all
the village elders

around the table here today.

I wanted to learn a little bit
more about your perspective

on what happened, you know,
in that early July of 1947.

- My father-in-law,

he was on top
of a windmill tower, working,

and this was about
the same time

that this supposed incident
happened.

He said there was something
that came

at him out of the sky,
there was really no noise,

and he was afraid it was fixing
to cut his head off,

so he went running
down the windmill.

- Hmm.

- And he said
it was just a flash.

It was there, and he just,
like,

never got out of the way
quick enough,

and then whenever he looked up,
it was going, gone.

- That's a story that I have
not heard in connection

to these events before.

- It hasn't been out...
- Yeah.

- A whole lot.

- Yeah.
- But he swore by it.

And when this man
said something, he...

- Yeah.
- He was truthful.

- I have a lot of questions.

There's some characters here

that are involved
in this incident in 1947.

Do you remember mack brazel?

- I've seen that name.
- Oh, sure.

That's the one that tell them
about the ufo falling.

- I remember mack.
- Oh, you do?

- Mm-hmm.
- Yeah?

Can you tell me
what you remember about mack?

- He was a cowboy.

Mack had a reputation
for being honest.

He had a reputation
for working hard.

♪ ♪

he just was
a hardworking cowboy.

Fishburne: Sherrill perkins'
parents owned the drugstore

from which mack brazel
called the sheriff

to report finding
some strange crash debris

in his grazing fields.

- Mack brazel goes
to the dubois pharmacy,

and he makes the phone call
with your mother, geraldine.

Mack calls the sheriff,
and from there,

that's really the first time

that information
gets transmitted to the public.

I'm curious whether you
overheard any of these details

and what you recall from
that whole sequence of events.

- I remember
conversations about it.

I probably was not there
when that call was made.

- Okay.

- The main thing
that I remember

my parents talking about

was they certainly believed
that something happened.

- Do you recall your mother
ever talking to mack brazel

about what he saw out
in the field?

- I think that
that did not happen.

- Oh, really?

- It would have been natural
for him to have

followed up with,

"yeah, I had to go to roswell
and stay for three nights,"

or "yeah, I did this,"
or "yeah, I did that."

he didn't say anything.

It just didn't stand to reason

that they wouldn't have
talked about it.

- Right.
- So something happened

after they took him to roswell.

- My daddy was
a world war ii veteran,

and when the government says
you don't talk about something,

you didn't talk about anything,

and that was my theory

as to why it
was never talked about.

- The ethos,
the attitude at the time,

like you said, was,

"look, this is your duty
not to say anything

"and to follow orders,

"and so keep your mouth quiet

about anything that might
have happened here."

- and the general attitude

was it was not
a weather balloon.

If there was anything,
it wasn't that.

- It was not a weather balloon.
No, it was not.

- So what about
the proctor family?

- Well, dee proctor
was in my class.

Started first grade together

and graduated
from high school together.

Fishburne: Dee proctor
was the young boy

who was with mack brazel
when he found the wreckage.

Brazel would allegedly
take dee home

and show his mother
some of what they'd found.

♪ ♪

- there was some
metallic-looking stuff that,

when you crushed it,

it just straightened
right back out.

It wouldn't--you know,
wouldn't stay crushed.

Well, we told him
it was probably a ufo

and he should report it.

- Dee was seven
when all of this happened.

♪ ♪

and dee's sister told me,
for positive,

sure,
that he was with mack brazel.

Looking back on it
and knowing for sure

that dee was with mack,
he never ever talked about it.

- Hmm.

- So that makes me think
for sure something happened.

I do believe that people
purposely kept quiet

about what happened,
because I think

they were probably threatened
by the government,

or their sense
of patriotic duty

was appealed to,
and they said,

"don't say
anything about this,"

because if it's true
and they were truly aliens,

then we think everybody
is going to panic.

♪ ♪

- has anybody that you know
personally ever claimed

to have found
a piece of this debris?

- I do know one name of a man

who supposedly had
several pieces of debris.

- Uh-huh.

- And I haven't heard his name
mentioned at all today,

so I'm not
mentioning it either.

- Uh, why the hesitancy
to share with me his name?

- It's privacy.

- Yeah.
- I don't know.

I can ask them if they would be
willing to talk,

but I can bet you
that they would not.

- Yeah, well, put in
a good word for me.

- I will.
- Uh, just, uh, you know,

if you could, I would--
- I will.

We're still pretty private
about protecting the people

that--who have
been most affected.

[rain pattering]

- as I was leaving,
one of the seniors slipped me

the name of someone related
to another eyewitness.

The roswell incident
is like an intricate puzzle,

and I finally feel
like the pieces

are starting
to fall into place.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

fishburne: Investigator
ben smith heads

to the office
of handwriting expert

jennifer naso,

who has spent nearly a month

doing a forensic examination
of the journal

to find out
if it is genuine or a fake.

♪ ♪

with him
is jesse marcel's grandson,

who believes the journal
may contain

the intelligence officer's
coded secrets

about what really happened
at roswell.

- It's fascinating
and potentially helpful

to solving, you know, the--

for me, uh, the larger story
about the roswell incident.

- I just can't imagine
he wouldn't leave some kind

of evidence,
some writings of some kind,

about what was a very,
very important event.

- Right.

- This might be that piece
of the puzzle.

♪ ♪

ooh.

[knocking]

- jennifer?
- Hi.

- Hey.
Nice to see you again.

- Good to see you.
- This is jesse.

- Hi, jesse.
Jennifer naso.

Nice to meet you.

- Jennifer, nice to meet you.
- Uh, follow me.

I'll show you
what I've been doing.

- Great.

- So I looked at
the writing ink lines

of every passage
in the journal,

and I'll show you
under magnification.

You can see a little bit
better image of the ink line.

- Mm-hmm.

This is consistent with
non-ballpoint pen ink.

- Oh, okay.

- And the way I can tell
is you can see the ink line,

how the ink kind of bleeds
into the paper fibers.

- Sure.

- Whereas in ballpoint pen,
the pen ink is more viscous,

and so it kind of sits a little
bit more on top of the paper.

Here is an example
of ballpoint pen ink.

- Okay.

♪ ♪

- and the characteristics
commonly seen

with ballpoint pen ink

is you don't see
that ink bleed into the paper.

It kind of sits more on top
and has a sheen to it.

- Oh, okay.
- And on curvatures,

you see what we call
burr striations

that move from inside
to outside on a curve.

So what I'm seeing
throughout the document

that the entirety
of the document is created

with that
non-ballpoint pen ink...

- Okay.

- That is consistent
with the time period

which this document
was purportedly created.

- It is?
- Yes.

♪ ♪

the next thing I looked at
was the paper itself.

- Okay.
- And what I'm looking for

are optical brighteners.

- Okay.
- Optical brighteners are added

in the paper
manufacturing process,

and it's to make the paper
look nice and white and bright.

- Sure.
- So the way to look

for optical brighteners

is to look under uv radiation,
and what should happen,

if it contains
optical brighteners,

is that the paper
should luminesce.

It should glow under uv.

Here, I'll put the journal in,
so you can see,

and just to give you
a comparison,

I'll put a document
which I know contains

optical brighteners
under--right on top.

- Wow.

- So that technology
began in around 1950.

- Correct.
- Well, that makes sense,

'cause I think the last date

that I saw in the journal
was like 1948.

- So professional opinion
and the evidence showing

that it was created
before 1950 anyway.

- Yes.
It is consistent with documents

that were produced
during that time period.

- Great.
Okay.

- So did you find anything
like a watermark

that might also provide clues
about the time period?

- Right, so there was no logos
or insignia on either cover

or in the pages
which would indicate

the company that manufactured
this document.

However, when I looked
with transmitted light

shining through the document,

there is a watermark present
on the document.

♪ ♪

in looking at--

- oh, look at that!
- Yeah, I see it.

- You see the watermark,
and on the top,

looking through several pages

and being able
to piece it together,

the top actually says
juniata, j-u-n-I-a-t-a.

So curiosity
got the better of me.

- Okay.

- And a quick internet search
revealed that juniata

is a university
in pennsylvania.

- Interesting.

That was the area

my grandfather
went to intelligence school.

- In pennsylvania?

He went to intelligence school
in pennsylvania?

- Yeah, he was actually a
member in the very first class

of the very first
intelligence school.

- Oh, really?
- When he finished that class,

he turned around and they had
him teach that class to--

- oh, I did read that.
- And, again, it was right

in the same area
where this paper came from.

- And that was in what year?
1940--

- it had to be '41, '42,
something like that.

- Yeah, it was after the war
had already started.

- Exactly.
Yeah.

He joined right--right--well,
right after pearl harbor.

- To sum up, this document
does appear to be consistent

with the time period with which
it's purported to be written.

- That's half the battle
right there.

- So I did a handwriting
comparison with the journal...

- Mm-hmm.

- And the known specimens
I had for jesse marcel.

I will say that in flipping
through the journals,

the handwriting
did appear to be freely

and naturally executed.
- Okay.

- It does not appear
to be deliberate or hesitant...

- Okay.
- In its execution.

There is one feature
that I'll point out,

and that is
the capital letter m,

where it is written almost like
three sevens attached.

So this is in
the printed section,

this m does appear

in the cursive section
from time to time.

- Oh, it's just like it.
- Oh, wow.

♪ ♪

fishburne: It is stunning
news.

Both the cursive script

and the print were written
by the same person.

The journal is genuine.

♪ ♪

next on "roswell:
The first witness"...

- The roswell incident is real.

Fishburne:
The investigation moves

into uncharted territory...

- It negates
the skeptical arguments

about the roswell case.

Fishburne: With new leads

that have
never been explored before.

- Actually, it raises more
questions than answers then.

- Yeah.

Fishburne: Was the mysterious
journal jesse marcel

kept secret written in code

to hide its meaning
from the government?

- To a cryptographer,

this indicates
a certain kind of cipher.

Fishburne: Or was it something
more sinister

that forced jesse marcel
into silence?

- He said there are things that
this world is not ready for.

- The impact site,
the remains of the craft,

and the bodies recovered.

Fishburne: What else was jesse
marcel hiding from the world?

[indistinc speaking]

fishburne: The investigation
uncovers

shocking possibilities.

- You think the debris could
still be at the house?

- I know it could be.

Fishburne: Could it change
what we know about roswell?

I'm laurence fishburne,

thanks for watching
"history's greatest mysteries".