All language subtitles for b2997c1a868841c89f45c476481ee8f4

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.

In 1947, something crashed
in the desert in the American

South-west.

Whatever the object was,
it has created shock waves

still felt today.

I'm Laurence Fishburne.

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.

An ex-CIA officer named Ben Smith
has obtained a cryptic journal.

It was found among the papers
of Major Jesse Marcel,

the first US Army officer to
investigate the wreckage.

He always said that he
was sworn to secrecy.

Does it contain coded clues
to what Marcel really saw?

It was not anything from this Earth.

What about stories of alleged alien
bodies in the wreckage?

She said there were little people,
and there was some dead

and some alive.

Did the US 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.

The truth behind Roswell according
to those who were there.

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.

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.

Don Schmitt has written seven
bestsellers 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 sceptic, 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.

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.

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 US
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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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
fibre optics in 1947,

yet fibre 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.

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.

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.

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.

Hi. Jesse Marcel.

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

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.

Here's the diary.

Oh, OK. 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?

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.

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.

It starts before Roswell and ends
about a year afterwards.

- Right.
- Yep.

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.

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?
- Uh-hmm.

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.

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.

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, you're gonna be kind
of cryptic about it,

because you don't want anybody else
to maybe see what you're writing.

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.

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.

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 instructed
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.

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.

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 US 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.

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.

The Army called a hasty
press conference.

It's at the moment,
according to Schmitt,

that the alleged cover-up begins.

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.

31 years later, however,
the man at the centre 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 apologise 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.

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.

During his investigation,
Smith will work with Joe Pappalardo,

a veteran journalist
who specialises 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 centre
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 US 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 time line 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.

And nuclear weapons, in particular.

I mean, there were hordes of Soviet
spies trying to get this information

at the time.

In 1947, the United States
and the Soviet Union were already

Cold War enemies.

The US 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.

What made the writing so cryptic,
and why did it suddenly change?

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

OK, 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 re-creation?

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?

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

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 analyse 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.

- OK.
- 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.

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.

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.

Marcel was the first investigator
at the Roswell crash site.

While the US 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-hm.

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, 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.

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.

Totalling 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
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. OK.

Especially something
of this magnitude.

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.

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.'

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.

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.

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.

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 US 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 levelled 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.

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.

Archaeologists 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 pick-up 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

and there was so much
thunder and lightning that,

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.

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.

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 neighbour 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 neighbours.

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 neighbour 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 had 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.

According to alleged
eyewitness accounts,

in the days that followed,
the military swept through Roswell

and Corona, threatening scores
of individuals who'd 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 neighbourhood
was scandalized that the Army--that

the services would treat
people like that.

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.

Next on Roswell: The First Witness.

This might be that
piece of the puzzle.

What did Jesse Marcel
never tell the public?

Does the journal that once belonged
to him contain coded clues?

It is written like
three sevens attached.

If it was a weather balloon that
crashed, why was this man's father

forced to hand over
the debris he'd kept?

Two guys that showed up in a car,
and they said they weren't gonna

take it, but they weren't
leaving without it.