Stanton Friedman -- The 1978 Jesse Marcel Interview: How Roswell Was Rediscovered

Stanton Friedman -- The 1978 Jesse Marcel Interview: How Roswell Was Rediscovered

The Interview That Changed Everything

In 1978, Stanton Friedman was in Louisiana on a lecture tour. A colleague told him about a man named Jesse Marcel -- a retired Air Force officer who had been involved in a UFO-related event in New Mexico in 1947. Friedman tracked Marcel down to Houma, Louisiana, where Marcel was living in retirement.

The interview Friedman conducted with Jesse Marcel in 1978 is generally credited as the event that "rediscovered" the Roswell Incident. For more than thirty years, the July 1947 events had been largely forgotten outside a small UFO research community. Marcel's willingness to speak openly -- and the credibility his military career lent his account -- transformed Roswell from a historical footnote into the most investigated UFO case in history.

Jesse Marcel: The Man

Field	Detail
Full name	Jesse A. Marcel Sr.
Rank at Roswell	Major
Role at Roswell AAF	Intelligence Officer, 509th Bomb Group
Military record	Decorated WWII veteran; served as both pilot and intelligence officer; held security clearances appropriate for the 509th's nuclear mission
Later career	Retired as a Lt. Colonel; worked in electronics after retirement
Location at time of 1978 interview	Houma, Louisiana
Died	1986

What Marcel Told Friedman in 1978

Marcel told Friedman that in July 1947, acting on instructions from his commanding officer Col. William Blanchard, he had driven to Mac Brazel's ranch to investigate reports of unusual debris. What he found, he said, was unlike anything he had ever seen in his military career:

• The debris was scattered over an area approximately three-quarters of a mile long and several hundred feet wide
• The material was extremely light but could not be bent, burned, or torn
• Some pieces had strange symbols or markings along the inside edges that resembled hieroglyphs
• Thin metallic foil that could not be permanently crumpled -- when released it returned to its original flat shape
• The debris had properties unlike any known aircraft material of the era

Marcel stated explicitly: "It was not a weather balloon. It was not any kind of aircraft that I know of." He was confident in this assessment based on his experience as an intelligence officer with extensive knowledge of military aircraft and aerial devices.

Marcel also described being ordered to fly the debris to Fort Worth, Texas, where General Roger Ramey had him photographed with what Marcel later said was substituted material -- weather balloon debris -- not the actual recovered debris.

Why the Interview Was Credible

Friedman later explained why he found Marcel's account compelling:

• Marcel was not a fringe figure or anonymous witness -- he was a named, documented military officer with verifiable service records
• His role at the 509th Bomb Group gave him both the responsibility and the training to recognize and report on unusual aerial debris
• He had nothing obvious to gain by making the claim -- he had maintained silence for 31 years before Friedman found him
• His account of the substituted debris at Fort Worth was specific and checkable
• His description of the debris properties was consistent and unusual

The Cascading Interviews

The Marcel interview led to others. Word spread in the small UFO research community that someone credible had come forward about Roswell. Friedman and subsequent researchers began locating other witnesses -- former military personnel, Roswell residents, medical personnel -- who had been silent for decades. By the early 1990s, more than 200 individuals had been interviewed in connection with the Roswell Incident.

Friedman later collaborated with William Moore (who had published "The Roswell Incident" in 1980, partly based on Friedman's initial research) and then with Don Berliner on his own book "Crash at Corona" (1992). The investigation Friedman began in that Houma trailer in 1978 never stopped.