HORN: Col. Marcel,
it is so good to speak with you again.
Thank you for taking time to talk to us
about Roswell and your new book. You will
be speaking and on some panels at Roswell
this year. One question or correction. I
note in the past we had the title of your
book as "Roswell: It Really
Happened", but I see it advertised
elsewhere now as "The Roswell
Legacy". Has the book title been
changed?
MARCEL:
The book has evolved with time. As I was
writing it, I realized that Legacy was
more appropriate than what really
happened. The title of the book is
"The Roswell Legacy."
HORN: This is the
60th anniversary. Does it feel that long
ago to you?
MARCEL: It is hard
to believe that 60 years have passed on
the calendar. It seems like yesterday to
me to use a cliché'.
HORN: As the only
man alive who the government admits
handled material from the debris field in
1947, material your dad let you and your
mother see as he stopped off at home on
his way back to the base, how did that
night effect you. It changed the course of
UFOlogy and put Roswell and your family on
the map.
MARCEL: It was then
that I realized that our civilization was
not alone certainly in the galaxy and that
we were in fact being visited by others
more advanced because they could get here
from where ever they come from. I took it
to mean that we were being studied from a
scientifically curious race just as we
would be curious about other life forms on
our planet.
HORN: Col. Blanchard
authorized a press release saying the
military had recovered a flying disc. I
assume he had some facts about what was
recovered before he allowed the press
release.
MARCEL: Certainly he
had been briefed by my dad as to the true
nature of the debris and that it
represented an artifact from elsewhere
which went along with all of the unusual
sightings seen in the skies at that time.
HORN: Your father
was ordered to load the debris onto a B-29
which was then flown to Wright Field and
that is where General Roger Ramey took
over. Correct.
MARCEL: He took a
small representative portion of the debris
for General Ramey's inspection and I am
convinced that he realized that this was
too big of a story to be unleashed on the
public at that time.
HORN: What happened
then?
MARCEL: My dad was
told to participate in the cover story.
And when he came home he sat my mother and
myself down and said in no uncertain terms
that we were never to discuss what we had
seen. I later recalled him stating that he
was part of the cover up.
HORN: Let me ask
something more personal. What was your
dad's qualifications to evaluate a crash
site?
MARCEL: He was the
intelligence officer for the 509th and had
training in aircraft accident
investigation and in addition he had gone
to radar school so he was familiar with
the types of radar targets used on weather
balloons etc. He was a natural to have
been sent out on the initial investigation
of the debris.
HORN: The material
your dad brought home. Tell us what you
saw.
MARCEL: He had
pre-positioned the debris on the kitchen
floor so my mother and I could realize the
unusual nature of the debris. What we saw
was something certainly different from
mundane material. I have described the
debris itself many times so I don't know
if you want that repeated here.
[EDITOR'S NOTE:
Jesse Marcel Jr.’s first published
recollections of the debris was that they
were composed of: "...foil-like
stuff, very thin, metallic-like but not
metal, and very tough. There was also some
structural-like material too - beams and
so on. Also a quantity of black plastic
material which looked organic in
nature...Imprinted along the edge of some
of the beam remnants there were
hieroglyphic-type characters. I recently
questioned my father about this, and he
recalled seeing these characters also and
even described them as being a pink or
purplish-pink color. Egyptian
hieroglyphics would be a close visual
description of the characters seen, except
I don't think there were any animal
figures present as there are in true
Egyptian hieroglyphics," (Berlitz,
Charles and William Moore. The Roswell
Incident. New York: Berkley, 1988, pgs
78-80]
HORN: You are a
military man too. Have you ever saw
anything that matches those materials?
MARCEL: As a flight
surgeon, I was trained myself in aircraft
accident investigations and have never
seen anything that would match the debris.
HORN: What about the
theory that this was a Mogul balloon?
MARCEL: A balloon is
a balloon and the Mogul balloon had a
classified mission, but it used off the
shelf materials that was not unique.
HORN: Did you ever
see the movie "Roswell"? Were
you and the other events portrayed
accurately in it?
MARCEL: For the most
part it reflected what happened, there was
of course some poetic license in depicting
the event.
HORN: Last year in
McMinnville you told me an interesting
story about a trip to Washington where you
wound up in the dungeons of the Capital
building talking to somebody I believe was
later identified as Dick D'Amato, an aide
to Sen. Robert Byrd, who wanted to know
where the Roswell UFO debris were. Tell us
that story.
MARCEL: It was there
that I was told that the event was not
fiction. I don't know if you want me to go
into the story again as I have related it
many times. I am sorry that Mr. D'Amato's
name came out because hopefully this would
not cause any difficulties for him.
[EDITOR'S NOTE: To
this day Jesse Marcel doesn't know how the
participants in DC knew where he would be
at that particular time. When he arrived
at his motel, there was a message waiting
for him on the phone in his room. It was
from Dick D'Amato. He wanted to meet with
Marcel the following day at 1:PM in a
certain room at the Capital building.
Marcel felt uneasy, but agreed to go to
the meeting. On arrival, he was ushered
into D'Amato's office, who got right down
to business. He wanted to talk to Marcel
about Roswell, and he asked if Jess would
be more comfortable "in a secure
room." When Marcel explained that he
wouldn't be saying anything he hadn't said
before, D'Amato pressed the idea of the
alternate meeting area, explaining,
"Well, maybe I want to tell you
something you don't already know."
Leaving
the office, they proceeded to the secure
room where no listening devices existed,
in an area Jess described as "the
dungeons of the Capital building."
They sat at a table where Marcel noticed a
book about Alien Abductions, UFO
technology and Roswell. D'Amato tapped on
the book with his finger and said
outright, "This is not fiction."
He continued talking for a while and then
asked Marcel if he knew where the material
recovered from the Roswell ranch was being
kept. Jesse found the question curious and
said, "No. Don't you?" D'Amato's
answer was as enigmatic as the question,
so Marcel responded with a inquiry of his
own: "If extraterrestrial activity is
real, and you guys know it, when is the
government planning Official Disclosure of
what really happened at Roswell?"
D'Amato said, "If it was up to me,
we'd be doing it now" (as told to Tom
Horn by Jesse Marcel Jr. in a 2006
interview. At that time, Jesse did not use
Mr. D'Amato's name)].
HORN: I know that
you are a spiritual man. How do you
reconcile the idea of intelligent life
somewhere else in the universe with your
personal faith?
MARCEL: It
strengthened my faith in God because His
Creation is greater than anyone realized
by populating the Universe with many
different civilizations.
HORN: A lot of
people are saying we are getting close to
an official disclosure event from either
the US Government or maybe the United
Nations concerning some evidence of
extraterrestrial intelligence. Other
people point to the discovery of extra
solar planets like Gliese 581 that was
found recently that might be able to
sustain life. What can you tell us, or
what do you suspect, with regard to
official disclosure?
MARCEL: It just
confirms what I already new. It is only a
question of time before a radio signal
will be picked up by the SETI team and
that will probably be the catalyst for our
government to make the big announcement.
HORN: Any surprises
in this new book?
MARCEL: It confirms
the qualifications of my dad and proves he
was who he was and that he knew what he
was talking about.
HORN Where can
people get a copy of your new book?
MARCEL: We plan on
releasing it at Roswell for the 60th
anniversary of the event.
HORN: Thanks Jess
for talking to us again. I'll be in
Roswell this year and hope to see you
again.
PART
TWO -- On The Road To Roswell 2007: A
Discussion With Col. Jesse Marcel Jr.