Taken from Karl T. Pflock,
Roswell: Inconvenient Facts and The Will to Believe (2001)

Bob Pratt’s extended version of his published interview with Major Jesse A. Marcel, from a tape recording of the interview and transcribed by Karl T. Pflock, containing the author’s annotations.

Pratt:
Tell me something about your background.

Marcel: [I] entered the U.S. Army Air Force in April 1942, was an aide to General Hap Arnold. [Marcel's official military personnel file includes no record of this, and the dates of his assignments completely preclude it.] Entered as second lieutenant. He [Arnold?] decided I should go to intelligence school, [for which there were] lengthy and strenuous exams. [I went to] Air Intelligence School. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, under CO [commanding officer] Colonel Egmont Koenig. Was in school [first] combat intelligence and [then] kept on in photo intelligence, since I had done a lot of cartographic work and interpreting aerial photographs. I used both combat [intelligence] and photo intel in my work. He [Koenig] elected to retain me there as an instructor — one year, three months. [I] applied for overseas duty, combat. Was sent to South Pacific. New Guinea, assigned as squadron intelligence officer. 1 had flying experience before going in service — started flying in 1928 — so being in [the] air was not foreign to me. Did lot of flying, combat flying, [in] B-24s [four-engine heavy bombers]. From squadron, [I] was elevated to group intelligence officer until sent [me] back to the States just before A Bomb was dropped on Japan. [They] sent me back to take radar navigation course at Langley Field (Virginia – was there when bomb was dropped and war ended. [I] was [then] reassigned to Eighth Air Force

Pratt:
Headquarters was at Colorado Springs

Marcel:
[I] reported for duty there but following day transferred to Roswell [Army Air Field]. New Mexico — which became Walker Air Force Base, immediately after end of war [Roswell AAF became Roswell AFB and then Walker AFB in fall 1947] — [the] 509th Bomb Wing [Group]. I was intelligence officer for bomb wing.

Pratt:
What was your rank?

Marcel: Major.
[I] stayed there until October 1947. The 509th was the only A Bomb group in world. The first project I was sent on was an atom test on Bikini in 1946, came hack to Roswell until latter part of 1947. when [I was] sent to Washington. [According to his personnel file. Marcel remained at Roswell AAF until August 16, 1948.] [I was] in service for eight and a half years [and] had been in the Louisiana National Guard and the Texas Guard also. It became very difficult for me to get out of service, but I felt I had a duty to my family. [According to his file, Marcel was granted a family hardship release from active duty on September 19, 1950] I was assigned to [the] Special Weapons Program, collecting air samples throughout the world and [getting them] analyzed. In fact, when we finally detected there had been a [Soviet] nuclear explosion, we — I had to write [a] report on it. In fact. I wrote the very report President Truman read on the air declaring that Russia had exploded an atomic device. This was after I left [the] 509th. I got out [of the air force] in 1950, latter part of 1950. [Note: Truman did not make a broadcast announcement about the Soviet bomb test. The White House issued a written statement.]

Pratt:
What was your rank then?

Marcel:
After this flying saucer thing came about in 1947,I was given a promotion to lieutenant colonel, in December 1947. [According to Marcel's file, this was a reserve promotion, which he applied for on October 29, 1947. It had nothing to do with the “flying saucer thing,” and Marcel's active-duty rank remained major.]

Pratt:
When did you learn you had been promoted?

Marcel:
After I got out of the service. They kept me so busy I never even looked at my personal files. I was released from active duty as a lieutenant colonel. [Actually, according to his file, Marcel was informed of his promotion by a letter dated November 20, 1947, and he signed the oath accepting the promotion on December 1, 1947.]

Pratt:
Was the flying you did before the war part of your work?

Marcel:
Private pilot. [Marcel's file. including his 1942 application for appointment as an army air corps officer, lacks any mention of this and includes his “Reserve Officer Career Brief” dated November 20, 1947 which lists his flying experience as “NONE.”]

Pratt:
What work did you do before the war?

Marcel:
I was a cartographer, mapmaker. Worked for U.S. Engineers and Shell Oil Company. I was working for Shell Oil Company as a photographer when the war began. All my map making for the Engineers and Shell Oil Company was derived from aerial photographs. [I had] no degree then — got one later, six different schools. I speak French and English, understand several others but don't speak them. After war, [I] worked in electronics. repairing radios and TVs, since I had been a ham [radio] operator all these years. [I'm] retired now [with my] wife. [My] son [is] a doctor in Helena, Montana. He's also a seismologist.

Pratt:
When did you find the debris in New Mexico?

Marcel:
I don't remember the exact date. It was in July 1947. How it all started — I was in my office. I went to the officers club for lunch and was sitting having lunch when I got a call from the sheriff [George Wilcox] from Roswell, and he wanted to talk to me. He said, “There's a man here, a rancher who came to town to sell his wool — he'd just sheared his sheep— and he told me something that's weird. And you ought to know about this.” And I said, “Well, I'm all ears.” He said. “This man's name is Brazelle [Brazel]. He said he found something on his ranch that crashed, either the day before or a few days before, and he doesn't know what it is.” He [the sheriff] said, “This might be well worth your while to investigate this since I know you're the intelligence officer of the base.” So I said, “Well, fine.” So I said, “Where can I meet him?” He said. “Well he's going to leave hereabout three-thirty or four o'clock. but he's in my office now, if you want to come and talk to him now. He'll be here waiting for you.” And he was, and he told me about it. Well, he got me interested, so I went back — I said [to Brazel], “You wait here.” I said, “I have to go hack to the base.” So I talked to my CO [base and 509th Bomb Group commander Col. William H. Blanchard] about that. [I asked] what was his advice. He said, “My advice is you better get in that car.” He said, “How much of that stuff is there, there?” I said, “Well, the way the man talks, quite a bit.” He said, “Well, you have three CIC agents working for you”

Pratt:
“CIC”?

Marcel:
That's Counter Intelligence [Corps] agents. See, my main job there was to clear the personnel through the Atomic Energy Commission to be stationed at that base—military personnel. I had five officers and about twenty enlisted typists working for me, with an office going like mine [sic] all the time. With [plus] those three CIC agents. They would do the investigating — Whenever we had to investigate somebody, I gave that job to them, and they'd turn in their reports in to my office and we'd write the reports. Well, to come back to this. So I talked to Colonel Blanchard and he said “take whatever you need with you, but go” So I got one of my agents named Cabot [Capt. Sheridan W. Calvin], who, incidentally, we've never been able to find, since I don't know his first name. I didn't keep any paperwork on CIC agents. They didn't “belong” to me. So — but I had three of them. So I took him [Cavitt]. He drove a jeep carryall. I drove my staff car, and we took off cross country behind this pickup truck this rancher [Brazel] had. He didn't follow any roads going out. This was an eighty square mile ranch, he told me. It was big. So we got to his place at dusk. It was too late to do anything, so we spent the night there in that little — his — shack, and the following morning we got up and took off. He took us to that place, and we started picking up fragments, which was foreign to me. I'd never seen anything like that. I didn't know what we were picking up. I still don't know. As of this day, I still don't know what it was. And I brought as much of it back to the base as I could and — Well, some ingenious young GI thought he'd try to put a few pieces together and see, if he could match something. I don't think he ever matched two pieces. It was so fragmented. It was strewn over a wide area, I guess maybe three-quarters of a mile long and a few hundred feet wide. So we loaded up and we came hack to the base. In the meantime, we had an eager-beaver public relations officer [Walter Haut] — he found out about it — he calls AP [Associated Press] about it. Then that's when it really hit the fan — I don't mind using that expression. I probably got telephone calls from everywhere. News reporters were trying to come in to talk to me. but I had nothing for them. I couldn't tell them anything. I didn't have anything to talk about. They wanted to see the stuff, which I couldn't show them. So my CO [Blanchard], early the next morning, sent me to Carswell [Air Force Base, which in July 1947 was still Fort Worth Army Air Field] to stop over and talk to [Brigadier] General [Roger M.] Ramey [commander of the Eighth Air Force]. I [took] all the stuff in a B-29 [four-engine heavy bomber]. My CO told me to go ahead and fly it to Wright-Patterson air field [the adjacent Wright AAF and Patterson AAF in July 1947] in Ohio, but when I got to Carswell [Fort Worth AAF], General Ramey wasn't there, but they had a lot of news reporters and a slew of microphones that wanted to talk to me, but I couldn't say anything. I couldn't say anything until I talked to the general. I had to go under his orders. And he [General Ramey] said [Marcel chuckles — Pratt], “Well, just don't say anything.” So I said. “General, Colonel Blanchard told me to get this stuff to Wright-Patterson. And he said. “You leave it right here. We'll take care of it from here.” And that was the end of it — that was the end of my pad in it. I still don't know what I picked up.

Pratt:
Did they keep the B-29?

Marcel:
No, no. It [the material] was transferred to a transport. The general told me, “You go back to Roswell. You're more needed there.” He said, “You've got a big job there, what you're doing is important. This, there'll be nothing.”

Pratt:
What was the rancher's name?

Marcel:
Brazelle [Brazel], don't know his first name.

Pratt:
Where is the ranch in relation to Roswell?

Marcel:
North of the test sites and, I would say sixty miles northwest of Roswell.

Pratt:
What was the sheriff's name?

Marcel:
I don't recall it right now [it was George Wilcox]. He was sheriff of the county Roswell was in [Chaves].

Pratt:
What kind of a ranch was it?

Marcel:
Cattle and sheep.

Pratt:
The next morning he took you out to this place?

Marcel:
Yes. In fact, he saddled two horses. I never rode a horse in my life, and I said. “You two ride the horses.” Cabot [Cavitt] was an odd — He was from west Texas. He was at home on a horse. So they took off. We went up there, and we loaded all this stuff in the carryall, and we got through kind of late. But I wasn't satisfied. I went hack. I told Cabot [Cavitt], “You drive this vehicle hack to the base, and I'll go back out there and pick up as much as I can put in the car.”

Pratt:
What was the terrain like?

Marcel:
Very flat. It's all very arid. You had tumbleweeds. It was adequate for a sheep ranch, for razing. I didn't pay too much attention to that because my interest went another way.

Pratt:
When you got out there. What did you actually see — bits of metal or what?

Marcel:
I saw — Well, we found some metal, small bits of metal, but mostly we found some material that's hard to describe. I'd never seen anything like that, and I still don't know what it was. We picked it up anyway. One thing, one thing.

Pratt:
It was something manufactured?

Marcel:
Oh, it definitely was. But one thing I do remember. I recall that very distinctly. I wanted to see some of this stuff burn, but all I had — I had a cigarette lighter, since I'm a heavy smoker anyway. I lit the cigarette lighter to some of this stuff, and it didn't burn.

Pratt:
Were there any markings?

Marcel:
Yes, there were. Something undecipherable. I've never seen anything like that myself. Oh, I call them hieroglyphics myself. I don't know whether they were ever deciphered or not.

Pratt:
There were some markings. though?

Marcel:
Oh, yes — little members, small members, solid members that you could not bend or break, but it didn't look like metal. It looked more like wood.

Pratt:
How big?

Marcel:
They varied in size. They were, as I can recall, perhaps three-eighths of an inch by one-quarter of an inch thick, and just about all sizes. None of them were very long.

Pratt:
How large was the biggest?

Marcel:
I would say about three feet.

Pratt:
How heavy?

Marcel:
Weightless. You couldn't even tell you had it in your hands — just like you handle balsa wood.

Pratt:
The piece three or four feet long — was it wide or what?

Marcel:
Oh, no. It was a solid member, rectangular members, just like you get a square stick [here Marcel drew a sketch — Pratt]. Varied lengths, and along the length of some of those they had little markings, two-color markings as I recall — like Chinese writing to me. Nothing you could make any sense out of.

Pratt:
Was everything in this shape. long and slender?

Marcel:
All the solid members were that way. There was other stuff there that looked very much like parchment. that, again. didn't burn. Obviously — I surmise. I'm not — I was acquainted with just about every method of weather observation devices used by the military, and I couldn't recognize any of that as being weather observation devices.

Pratt:
You've been flying since 1928, twenty years when this happened. Was this part of any aircraft that you recognize?

Marcel:
No, it could not have been part of an aircraft.

Pratt:
Nor part of a weather balloon or experimental balloon?

Marcel:
I couldn't see that it could be, no. For one thing, if it had been a balloon, like the parts that we picked up. it would not have been porous. It was porous.

Pratt:
Any jagged or broken ends or the like?

Marcel:
No. As far as I can recall, they were clean. See. I had so little time to spend on this — I had other duties to perform. I brought the stuff over here, my CO saw it, my staff saw it. and then the following day my CO told me to take it to Wright-Patterson.

Pratt:
Why there?

Marcel:
For analysis. They wanted to see what it was.

Pratt:
What was the agency at Wright-Pat?

Marcel:
Air Force analysis laboratories. I think.

Pratt:
How many pieces were there?

Marcel:
It might have been hundreds. I don't recall. It's been so long since I handled all this stuff. I'd just about dismissed the whole thing from my mind.

Pratt:
When you went out there that morning, you could see this stuff scattered for quite a ways in the distance?

Marcel:
Lord, yes, about as far as You could see — three-quarters [of a] mile long and two hundred to three hundred feet wide. I [ll] tell you what I surmised. One thing I did notice — nothing actually hit the ground, bounced on the ground. It was something that must have exploded above ground and fell. And I learned later that, farther west, towards Carrizozo, they found something like that, too. That I don't know anything about. It was I the same period of time, sixty to eighty miles west of there.

Pratt:
Ranchers found something similar out there?

Marcel:
I think it was discovered by some surveyor out there. [Marcel is probably referring to the Barney Barnett story, about which previous interviewers told him.]

Pratt:
Did you pick up all the parts?

Marcel:
I did not cover the entire area. [We] picked up as much as we could carry and some was left there.

Pratt:
Was it grouped or hunched together, or was it scattered?

Marcel:
Scattered all over — just like you'd explode something above the ground and lit would I just fall to the ground. One thing I was impressed with was that it was obvious you could just about determine which direction it came from and which direction it was heading. It was traveling from northeast to southwest. It was in that pattern. You could tell where it started and where it ended by how it thinned out. Although I did not cover the entire area this stuff was in, I could tell that it was thicker where we first started looking, and it was thinning-out as we went southwest.

Pratt:
What was the length of the shortest pieces?

Marcel:
Four or five inches. It was [as if it were from] something of some greater area that had been together.

Pratt:
Were there clean breaks or obvious breaks?

Marcel:
I don't recall that. Nothing seemed torn. It's pretty difficult to assimilate in your own mind just what it was because I wasn't with it that long. It's like you handle a hot potato — you want to get rid of it.

Pratt:
Had the rancher been in that area recently before finding this?

Marcel:
I faintly remember he told me he had heard an explosion at night and the following day he went out there in that direction and he saw that stuff.

Pratt:
Of course, we didn't have artificial satellites in 1947

Marcel:
No.

Pratt:
We had missiles, though, didn't we?

Marcel:
Oh, yes.

Pratt:
This obviously was no rocket?

Marcel:
Oh no, unh, unh, I've seen rockets. I've seen rockets sent up at the White Sands testing grounds. It definitely was not part of an aircraft, nor a missile or rocket.

Pratt:
Strange. Isn’t it?

Marcel:
Yes, it is. It's bewildering. The one thing that I kept wondering — why no publicity was given about that by the Air Force. They probably got something they wanted to sit on. That's my opinion. There had been a lot of reports about flying saucers in that area. In fact, I'm not sure — I wouldn't swear to this. but one nigh] about eleven-thirty – I lived in town — the provost marshal called me and said, “better cone out here in a hurry.” He wouldn't elaborate on the telephone what it was. So I got in my car and put my foot on the accelerator and [got] going as fast as I could go, and it was a straight road. Something caught my attention. It was a formation of lights moving from north to south. But it was so – I mean,we had nothing that traveled that fast anyway. I knew that. We had no aircraft that traveled at that speed, because it was visible only maybe three or four seconds from overhead to the horizon. They were bright lights flying a perfect vet. formation. And I hesitated to open my mouth about that because I knew nobody would believe me, but two or three days later some GI said, “I saw something in the skies the other night.” And he described exactly what I'd seen.

Pratt:
Was this before the debris incident?

Marcel:
Just slightly before. Anyway, I figure there's some credence to this UFO business. I believe in it. Even my son, Jesse [Dr. Jesse A. Marcel], one afternoon — he has two little boys and a girl, and the boys were with him — he was going into town and — They live on a little crooked road up the side of a mountain, and one of the boys said, “Dad, look at that!” My son stopped the car and looked up there and he saw a shiny circular object that all of a sudden took off like nobody's business.

Pratt:
Tell me about Cabot's [Cavitt's] jeep carryall.

Marcel:
It's slightly larger than a pickup truck, with a covered body. And we loaded the back end of that up with material and then I went back and loaded my car up.

Pratt:
And there was a lot left?

Marcel:
Oh, lord, yes. Yes, we picked up a very minor portion of it.

Pratt:
You put all this on the B-29 and were going to take all the material to Wright

Marcel:
All we had.

Pratt:
And you never heard back anything more from General Ramey or—

Marcel:
Nothing at all.

Pratt:
— or Wright Field?

Marcel:
Nothing at all.

Pratt:
Do you know if Blanchard did?

Marcel:
That I wouldn't know. I rather doubt that he did, because if he had heard something about it, he would have told me. And he never mentioned anything:

Pratt:
How long did you stay at Roswell after that?

Marcel:
[Until] latter part of 1947. [Actually. August 1948.)

Pratt:
Where did you go then?

Marcel:
Transferred to Washington, D.C. I was given an office with a title about that long [held hands apart — Pratt]. I was in the Selective Service building next to the State House [Department?] on E Street.

Pratt:
What do you think this thing was?

Marcel:
Well, as far as I know, or can surmise. it — I was pretty well acquainted with most of the things that were in the air at the time, not only from my own military aircraft but also in a lot of foreign countries. and I still believe it was nothing that came from earth. It came to earth, but not from earth. The biggest mistake I ever made — of course I couldn't — was not to keep a piece of it. But in all fairness to my work and the service. 1 couldn't.

Pratt:
You had three thousand hours as a pilot—

Marcel:
Right, [and] eight thousand hours [total] flying time.

Pratt:
What medals were you awarded?

Marcel:
I have five air medals because I shot down five enemy aircraft in combat. [Marcel's file shows he was awarded two air medals, both for accumulated flight time in combat. The file includes nothing about any shootdowns of enemy aircraft.]

Pratt:
From a 8-24?

Marcel:
Yes, from the waist gun of a B-24 in the South Pacific. And I was given a bronze star for the work I did re-teaching personnel that came to fly combat, they were greenhorns that came out of the States. I had charge of that. I was given a bronze star for that. I've got commendations — even got one from the U.S. Navy – [from the] Air Force intelligence office, for the A Bomb tests in South Pacific, Kwajalein.

Pratt:
You were all hand-picked officers.

Marcel:
Right. [I've been] around the world five times, been in sixty-eight countries. [I have] a degree in nuclear physics, bachelor's, at — completed work at George Washington University in Washington D. C.]. [I] attended LSU [Louisiana State University], Houston. University of Wisconsin. New York University, Ohio State, [unintelligible — Pratt], and GW. [Marcel's military file indicates he had a year or year and a half of non-credit studies at LSU before the war. There is no record, in his file or at GWU, of him even attending GWU, let alone being awarded a degree.]

Pratt:
Were you ever told not to talk about this?

Marcel:
You don't have to be told, you just know. I couldn't jeopardize my part of the service and be criticized for what I said.

Pratt:
The base public relations man [Walter Haut] called the Associated Press, and so on. Was the idea that a flying saucer had crashed?

Marcel:
I don't know. I didn't talk to him or read what he said. I've heard contradicting reports on this. I had heard this PR man had called the press without consulting the CO, and later I heard the CO had authorized him to do that. But I haven't verified that.

Pratt:
How many combat missions did you go on?

Marcel:
I had a total of 468 hours of combat time, was intelligence officer for bomb wing, flew as a pilot, waist gunner and bombardier at different times. I got shot down one time, my third mission, out of Port Moresby.

Pratt:
Did everyone survive?

Marcel:
All but one crashed into a mountain. I bailed out just before we made landfall, I guess a quarter of a mile inland. Our engines gave out [on our] B-24. I bailed out at eight thousand feet, and I fell six thousand feet before I got my 'chute open. I was lucky to get it open — malfunction. Good thing I had a chest pack. My backpack wouldn't work, and I went to work on my chest pack. I wasn't taking any chances, and it paid off.