Maj. Jesse Marcel interviewed by Lee Speigel on the Roswell debris (audio, about 1980)

0:00 welcome to all patreon subscribers you have been granted top secret majestic clearance to the following content it is for your eyes and ears only thank you for your cooperation how you first find out about the crash at the ranch oh uh how i did i was in my office and just about lunch time i went to the office club too and i ordered lunch and just i sat down to eat the sheriff of work out of that county called me and uh he told me what he had a rancher there in his office that he would ask me to talk to me i said well i'll be there i'll be there in a few minutes so i didn't mean i didn't even finish eating he told me he found something on his ranch that would be would bear investigating so i got in my staff car and drove out to the sheriff's office and there i met this mr brazil who had come into town to sell to do two things sell his wool on his sheep and also buy a new pickup truck uh-huh and i talked to him quite a while and uh he told

1:03 me what he had so i said well fine i said well you you wait for us here and uh i'll go and get somebody to go along with me and we'll follow you uh main main time i told my manning officer that uh what had happened but he said well go ahead and find out after all that was my duty and uh so we followed about cross country about thirty five forty miles i guess no road just cross country we just followed his truck so we got to his shack where he lived we got there very late in the evening too late to do anything so we sat down at a a meal with a open a can of corn and uh oh beans and rice okay and uh we ate and we discussed it quite a bit he told me quite a bit he said he knew exactly what it was he said well we'll get up there tomorrow morning go out there what did he tell you he had seen now this was even before you went out the next morning what what did he tell you he thought he saw he said he told me he had

2:03 heard uh what he thought was an explosion although they had uh they had thunder lightning and said he didn't pay too much attention to it okay but then when he found when he went out the next morning he saw this all his debris scattered all over and that afternoon he came to town and uh he told the sheriff about it so that's how we got to it hmm and you were at the time you were the intelligence officer on the base is that right that's right i had charge of intelligence and security with the entire base that was the first atomic bomb group by the way ah yes and uh so it went on from that and so then the next morning you woke up and where did you go well we went out to the scene of uh where the crash was and we started picking up the debris see i brought i brought one of my common intelligence uh intelligence man with me and uh we brought a my staff car plus uh a jeep carry-on which is equivalent to pick up truck but we got everything we could in that and then took off i said that the the cic agent going back to

3:03 the base you see and i stayed with mr brazil quite a bit and that's what i read i filled up i filled up my car with stuff and uh it was going to accelerate maybe eight o'clock in the evening before i got back home my wife didn't even know where i was ah yes and uh by the time i got back home what happened to you there's been a bunch of news news reporters out here wanting a picture of you i said for what and uh then the the or the public relations officer was with him you see he said well he said from what happened he said your husband will be very popular by the morning uh-oh brother he had let it out to the press and uh so that's how it all started hmm can you describe uh the materials that you found on the site uh it's almost indescribable it's not the kind of material that i've seen in my life no i haven't seen it since it's not uh nothing that i could recognize as anything there are various types of

4:05 materials which i couldn't identify any of it uh little members that looked like made it made of wood and uh there was not wood it's flexible but not uh wood i wouldn't even burn even and uh what amazed me the most of all is uh the weightlessness of uh of all this material it weighed nothing i found one piece of metal supposedly metal anyway which is about maybe a foot wide about two and a half feet maybe two two two and a half feet long and uh of course i brought it back to the base and uh i had uh my boys i had a flock of interested men working for me and uh we brought the whole thing into the the briefing room set up a whole lot of tables there and one one boy pretty ingenious guy he says let me see if i can put some of those parts together to see what the thing might have looked like well i said

5:06 well go ahead of course then i had other juice and do it i'll have work at it and uh he came back he said maybe he said i can't fit anything together you can't you can't get any idea what the thing looked like so i i consulted my ceo so then my ceo said uh what you better do is try the thing to uh right paterson airfield in detroit so we ordered the whole thing a b-29 and uh which was not a whole lot of material i mean that we have to all just what a pickup truck will hold and what i could carry my car wasn't the will of a lot of it yeah in fact we we didn't pick up oh we only put that one small fraction of what was out there it was scattered it was such an area it's about oh i said take one of a mile long and several hundred feet wide well we were busy all day long picking up the stuff small fragments and uh we got back to the base with it and uh that's how it is that the next morning my

6:06 ceo told me to write fly the thing to uh right paterson i said well don't you think it would be a good idea to stop at uh carswell at fort worth and consult the general general ramie he said yeah you better do that so when i got to fort worth general ramie was not there he was he had gone down to southern texas and i had to wait a couple of hours for him when he finally showed up i went to his office and talked it over with him he said well leave it up to me he said don't don't open your mouth to the press which i wasn't about to anyway and now so he said well put some stuff on the floor let them take a picture of it but i was careful not to put anything with detail on it so they took pictures it doesn't pick the one picture that appeared in the paper the next day you see but then general ramie and um and the colonel general ramie came out first he said uh he told the news news reporters within there's

7:08 nothing but a crashed weather balloon so they had to they had to take that and they all cleared well i do know this that uh later on general ramie wanted to cover his statement up because he didn't know himself what it was so then i uh i went on back to roswell to resume my duties but what they did at causewell they uh i think they made a mock display of it which they used a uh a battered weather balloon they let the press take pictures of that so you see the whole thing was a cover-up to begin with so it was a deliberate cover-up just to get the press off their back definitely that's what i that's what i assume i presume that but uh i can't see another reason that's the last i heard of it i want to back and resume my duties as intelligence officer because i was a busy boy out there i

8:11 had a big office to run i had oh lord i had 20 typists i had five officers and three color intelligence agents working for me because i had security for the whole thing you see i was running the whole thing yeah and uh so then oh that's all i heard of course i started getting telephone calls from all over the world which i i refused i couldn't i couldn't give them any information you see so i had to just call it off and that was the end of it so you're pretty convinced that what you saw was not the remains of a weather balloon oh definitely i could switch on the biggest bible there is but uh i know it was not a weather balloon it wasn't a missile it wasn't any part of an aircraft that's the kind of aircraft we know oh that's how it all started well 32 years went by i never heard any more about it then staten friedman uh who's a nuclear physicist which incidentally he and i have a lot of

9:13 problems because we both started nuclear physics from the same instructor oh really oh yeah the stan's an old friend of mine is that right yeah sure i've known stan for many years now is that right sure yeah yeah well anyway to make a long story short uh uh uh stanford even spent a whole whole day over here when they they brought this film oh it's uh it's filming out they came out here and filmed me over here they had me before that their camera was about six hours that was for the uh the film they called ufos are real right and uh then uh i never heard anything about it anymore so excuse me uh let's see yes uh there was all those small members that uh it was some kind of hieroglyphics which i could not uh be cyphered and nobody else could all that array into for the to analysis laboratory i picked

10:15 up as much as bad as i could and i said i did but what it was i don't know it was not wood it looked like fossil wood however but it wasn't it wasn't wood it was flexible but you couldn't break it and you couldn't burn it and it had this uh writing on it that's right so what that was i don't i don't know i still don't know you see there's so many things i don't know about the whole thing all i was i was the instrument that picked up the fragments on the ground did you i was going to ask you did you find any uh any like instrument panels at all no no i didn't but i want to reiterate on this piece of metal that i found was which was about a thickness of a pack of cigarettes but the amazing part about it you could put it on the ground and tap it with 16 pounds leg hammer you couldn't even make a dent in it see that's the one thing that astounded me i knew it was nothing from here so that was i had to let it go of that because i set

11:18 that in and whatever happened i don't know you know when you say you were convinced that it was not from here what exactly do you mean i i was convinced it was not from anywhere on earth i'm still convinced of that now now there obviously there are certain people that were fragments of a meteor well that it couldn't be because the media would be uh all solids uh no i'm convinced that there is something besides i mean something up there now what it is i don't know i i assume you did not ever see the actual disc that also came down no can you tell me what you what you first heard about that uh i think there's a man in in roswell he's a very reliable man he's a writer not a writer i mean uh scientist uh-huh and uh that one after one evening late

12:18 evening he was standing on this post by the way his name is uh wilmot okay unfortunately the man is no longer living yes but i talked to his son his son related the whole thing that his daddy told him now this mr wilmot uh that evening was standing on his porch he saw his object to the northwest from roswell and it was lighting lighted and it wavered and i think mr wilmot told me his son told me that he saw his daddy told me he saw it explode well that's seriously because it was not the man who saw it it was his son who told me that and uh so incidentally the this uh filming i think that filmed us also to film him and his son mr paul wilmot and we went to his house and uh that's all i

13:20 know about it i don't know whether that included the film that uh that they put out on in search of or not i don't know no i don't think they did well they probably didn't show it unless they may have uh they could have included it maybe in know about it yeah when did you first start getting curious was it when you were there on the site yeah one thing that i wanted to explore i wanted to find out it was an object that hit the ground and obviously it was not because no scar on the ground at all anywhere it's something that obviously exploded in the air and the fragments scattered all over the place okay is that any better yeah go ahead well uh this is what happened i i found the ground i looked all over the place to see any to see if i could see the scar on the ground if something had fallen out of the sky and hit the ground but that was not inevitable at all it was obviously something that exploded while in flight and scattered all the fragments on the ground and it as it

14:21 traveled okay and uh from the direction of uh that everything was pointing it was uh it was from the northeast to the southwest now i didn't i didn't cover the entire area because it's quite an area to cover we were busy picking up fragments so that's how it all happened from when we got the the carryall loaded up i sent the cic agent back to the base with it and i stayed there and picked up and filled my car with it and later on took off it was about eight o'clock at night when i got home with it i understand i understand you even tried to burn some of the pieces oh yes i tried to burn any any any in all parts of it even something that looked like uh oh something like uh some materials flexible materials it is poor but it did not burn hmm now i guess at the time then later on after this all happened you then later heard

15:23 that a disc had come down well yeah that's hearsay i don't know i don't know anything about that did you ever try and verify that uh through official channels afterwards no i didn't was that because you just felt at the time that it was better not to ask questions that's right and for one thing it was best not to ask questions for about anything and at that time i couldn't afford to answer any questions because uh the whole thing as far as i knew was classified after all i'm an intelligence officer and one intelligence officer doesn't open his mouth unless he has something you say that is not classified that uh something can misconstrue it somebody can misconstrue what he's meaning you see so i consider with my commanding officer cuddle blanchard and uh it's best just keep it under and i kept it under it you kept it pretty much to yourself for under 32 years was that a 32 years of frustration no i really didn't worry about it i read all i could about uh ufos and flying

16:25 saucers or whatever you have i was interested in all of it but i didn't i never would say anything about it well it's 10 free but it's the one who brought it up to the surface yeah now you yourself just mentioned ufos and flying saucers uh what do you think the object was that exploded and disintegrated i just don't know i wouldn't know what it looked like yeah there wasn't enough of it there to even use you the wildest imagination to to imagine what it was but are you convinced that it was an aircraft of some sort it was something it was something from that uh that traveled through the air it was not certainly not a ground vehicle and uh but it was it was there was it something that uh could have been a weapon that we had at the time no for one one basic reason is that uh any weapons we had had no kind not that kind

17:27 of material in it any of the weapons we had it was not a weapon it was not a missile by any means it was not an aircraft hmm what kind of guard was placed under this one once you got it to roswell and you were on your way to caswell air force base the provo marshal uh i alerted the provo marshal to the george at night until we get back to go to the office next morning and uh that day is when colonel blanchett told me to go ahead and get it one aircraft and fry it fried over there and that's it once i came back to the base that's all i heard that's all i've heard about it nobody ever gave you any follow-up reports or information no no you see intelligence doesn't work that way when you're an intelligence officer you pass information up but no information is ever passed back down to you interesting you're you're all just you're just a car got a big wheel was was

18:27 there a a point at which you you realized that there was something very important here yeah but i still wouldn't talk about it as any time before hmm at what point did you realize that there was extreme secrecy surrounding this well within within two or three weeks i knew there was something being covered up and it was it was secret i was very glad that i i kept my mouth shut about what i do oh yes and i can tell him like a man in the office he said you did a swell job with it isn't it interesting uh do you recall the original press release that came out uh from lieutenant hart uh i saw a copy of it in fact a copy was printed in my own one-time paper over here and uh but i didn't i didn't uh my own relatives over here which i have very few didn't keep a copy of it they read about it yeah and uh

19:30 i i'd uh let's see i think the only i don't recall which paper that i saw that picture appeared on the front page almost every paper throughout the world and that made me feel funny i i don't doubt that so i i don't i don't i don't want to be that popular what was the uh the general feeling among you and your and let's say your colleagues at the time did you ever privately talk about it no really we never discussed it we made it a point never to because anytime you discuss something before other people or even among a small group uh it will get out and that's why your intelligence blood is goes to bawling i see and so you felt that this was important enough to really keep it to yourself that's right did you ever tell your wife at the time yes my wife knew well small parts of it but very little yeah i never discussed my business

20:31 with my wife interesting so my duties so you really still aren't totally sure what it was no uh you've had 32 years to conjecture right um would you care to conjecture at this time i don't think that i could uh i have well there's something maybe i could say that i wouldn't dare see and uh i couldn't make that public it's just a well it is a conjecture all right but uh i still wouldn't express it okay um in other words the reason why it was covered up all the while that's that would be a conjecture that i wouldn't want to be called about it hmm okay i'll tell you what rather than make a conjecture about why it was covered up can you conjecture what this thing was that caused such a stir and such uh secrecy at the time no i can't say that okay i'm also curious about why after 32 years uh

21:34 did you decide to talk about this well i'll tell you how how i decided when stan friedman contacted me uh-huh and uh will you hold on sure a little feedback to the radio over here oh okay okay let's see where were we i asked you why you finally decided to talk well stan friedman called me that i think how it all happened stan friedman came to lsu giving lectures on nuclear physics and also flying saucers but there's a young fellow in uh in baton rouge who had read the paper he knew about me when all this happened years ago and he told ten he said the guy you ought to talk to is jesse barcelon homer he says uh he's the one who's publicized on this uh on finding a flying saucer so that that opened friedman's eyes and uh the following day that's freedom in the

22:35 audience and he called me and i discussed the thing with him whatever whatever i could say and that's why friedman got very interested so friedman and uh bill moore and burrett got together and that's how they got the information they they printed about this book about they called me several times on the telephone i gave them whatever information i could i mean the information that i knew with no conjecture of course i mean the actual facts because that's something i would not say anything that's not true but when i when i say something i i mean it and uh just like i'm the things i told you tonight yeah uh there's no conjecture about that and uh that's the way i am i'm built that way that's why i was a good intelligence officer oh yes but you but i guess for so many years you weren't even really comfortable about talking about these facts right i wasn't but uh i said and

23:40 uh there's nothing wrong with that i was given the go ahead because uh i don't know anything that is really class that's still classified you see as far as i know there's nothing about this whole thing that's classified except that i know it is covered up i feel that way that's all one conjecture might make i feel there's a reason to have covered the whole thing up for so many years hmm going back to the original uh weather balloon story right um why why do you think they did that well that's why i couldn't say i don't know why i i i kind of get the feeling that that maybe uh as like stan had said to me earlier today that that maybe when the material was brought in and after the initial analysis it it proved to be such so significant that perhaps the people needed more time before they wanted to make a

24:41 statement it's possible um i'm very 33 years to make the statement they haven't made it so far isn't that interesting and now command has gone down through several hands that's right um do you think that whatever happened is significant enough to warrant any kind of a congressional investigation oh i wouldn't think so it should just be left alone no i think i think it should be left alone because i think the people who have charge of that uh have a reason to be to to have been that way i think they have a reason see people don't do things without reason normally hmm does that do you mean that uh then if more information is not released then you would consider that as an appropriate act uh i don't think so no because uh while

25:41 commands have changed some of those are still there that might be the controlling factor the whole thing you see i see so you i wouldn't want anybody's store to be stepped on um is there anything about the uh the experience of finding the debris anything at all that that really stands out about all of it in your mind well i think the one thing that stands foremost is the fact that uh with all the debris scattered with such a wide area nothing actually hit the ground no no solid material hit the ground no uh one no one object hit the ground it is integrated in the air before before the particles came down oh i forgot to ask you uh how wide an area was it oh it was about 200 feet wide i guess probably three quarters of a mile long and uh the one thing that i was guessing

26:43 about this weather balloon there's no weather balloon that the air force or or or uh or even the civilian uh servers had that would cover that that great of the area and particularly using the kind of material that nobody could identify i couldn't identify it and i know all the materials that was used in uh without observation uh those days now if you got something else now that i don't know you said i hadn't kept up with anything like that since i got out of the service also you probably knew uh the basic materials that went into regular aircraft right definitely it is not like that at all hmm how many people do you figure were involved with the uh with the picking up of the pieces and sending it on to carswell and then the change from carswell to wright patterson well i don't think they'll roll maybe maybe five or six

27:44 they're very close to my command i see all the information was not disseminated over the base a lot of people on the base never knew anything about it really that's right so it's no wonder that the public was kept in the dark as well that's right i spoke with i didn't i didn't know all the personnel on the plane yeah he told me that that he was astounded at how it had no weight that's why i was astounded at myself because i was picking it up hmm he never saw the hieroglyphics because the pieces by the time they got to the plane apparently were wrapped yeah and so he never really saw this writing material that's why i wanted to get more on that from you well no i think that was all uh enclosed when we brought it to carswell yes um was there a lot of the writing sir what my pardon the the hieroglyphics itself was there a lot of it

28:44 well every member had had some of it it was very small member had had the hieroglyphics on it every piece every piece that i've examined now i didn't examine every one very closely but every one that i saw had those hieroglyphics on that nobody could decipher no and the standing part about it they were pinkish or or kind of a lavender pink very light colors you mean the the metal itself no no the the hieroglyphics the writing oh it's on the metal i see it was metal which i don't know yet it was material it looked very much like balsa wood but uh as light or lighter as balsa wood and as thin as cigarette foil yes no no no i don't remember they were about uh three-eighths by one-half

29:48 square rectangular bearing in length from about six inches about four feet long some of the pieces of metal uh some of the pieces of members that we found that had that the hieroglyphics on oh i see another one oh i i just realized that i was i was not understanding that that there are there is pieces of metal and then there's another thing that you refer to as a member yeah oh i didn't understand the difference that was i mean you couldn't even feel you had it in your hands it was so light but yet you couldn't dent on it you couldn't make a dent on it so here's something else that was outstanding in my mind and i still wonder just what was it i've never seen i've never seen metal like that before or i haven't seen since and nobody ever told you nobody told me anything about it maybe it's possible that they never found out i i'm i'm almost convinced of that because

30:49 you'd think you could have determined if it could be determined what that was but it never was revealed or at least never to you and to the people you were involved with that's right that's what i want that's what i meant before when i asked you if that's frustrating because you you must i'm sure you realize that someone somewhere knows more of the information right and does it does it frustrate you that you may never find out not necessarily really i'm really not worrying about because it's something that i'm trying to forget about really that's right it's an experience of oh it's kind of experience i hope i never go through again is that because of all the uh the notoriety that you received yeah which i i didn't realize that whatever yeah i see very interesting it's an interesting story i understand that your son was involved in fact i'll be talking to him tomorrow

31:49 you know he was he saw some of the he saw some of the material in fact what i did when i got home from out in the field i stopped at the house and i told my wife and my son that i found stuff on a branch i said i have some stuff in the car so i brought a few pieces of that not very much and showed it to him and my son was 11 years old then of course everything made a very indelible impression on his mind and uh we discussed it i said i said well son i said i can't tell you what it is he says well i've never seen anything like it before myself so of course being 11 years old he didn't have much opportunity to see very much but still in all my wife uh said she had never seen anything alive before so anyway we we looked at it i put it back in the car and then i went on to the base with it so that's how it was as much as my son and

32:49 my wife know about it but my wife knew my son knew about the trip i told him i gave i told him in detail what what had happened and uh so of course he didn't brag about it he didn't tell anybody about that because i told him not to yeah and the same way with my wife when you think that now in the last 32 years and you reflect on this um are there any statements is there a statement that you'd like to make about how you feel about the whole thing now about even the fact that that you that you felt that it was covered up for a while well the only thing i can say i'm uh i'm not uh i'm not proud of it but i'm glad i'm the one who had something to do with it to begin with why because uh i wouldn't know as much as i do now and uh about this whole thing of course i don't know nobody i don't know very much but

33:50 i still wouldn't even know that i'm gratified to know that i'm i'm the one who who started the whole thing i mean as far as picking up the stuff ah yes are you glad that stan friedman got in touch with you are you glad that stan friedman finally caught up with you yes i did because i got to know stan friedman very very well in fact that's how i found out that he and i had studied nuclear physics with the same instructor yeah only i was way years ahead of him what do you think about the world of uh or the study of ufos in in the 80s now i think it's very interesting uh there's not too much planet as of now once in a while i read an article about it and i study it and of course you have to you have to sift through that that kind of information and you make your own mind as to whether it is right or whether it's true or not so i i keep up with it what's printed that's

34:50 about all i do did you were you were you interested in it back in 1947 yes i certainly was in fact there's only one thing that i can i can see uh in my well pride i have noticed things in the air of course ufos that were what never was brought to my mind but i saw objects in the air that i didn't know what it was well you have to you have to realize this basically anytime there's something in the air that you don't know what it is it's a ufo it's not a identified flying object right that's what those words stand for yeah well i've seen some some some some objects in there that i didn't know what it was but i didn't pay attention to them now one night one little incident that i've never revealed to anyone which is not worth anything well it may be one night since i had charge security on the air base the pro marshal which was who was working

35:51 under me he called me at my house he told me to hurry up go to the base immediately so i got in my car and i floorboarded it four miles away to the base and while going out there as fast as my car could run i saw some light in the sky but it would define formation it is perfect v formation and uh it was visible for about maybe two two or three seconds from overhead to beyond the horizon so another question what that was it's just maybe a shooting star something like that but i've never seen meteorite meteorites in formation and um in fact when i got to the base i told major easily who was the pro marshal that i'd seen that he says yeah some of the boys over here saw that too and um at the rate it was traveling oh it was probably thousands and thousands of

36:51 miles per hour i knew we had no aircraft capable of making that speed so we let the whole thing go but they were they were lights now what it was i still don't know how many lights were there there was a formation of five in a v-shape in a v-shape and i saw it just just so so momentarily i just i could see i could see the numbers that's all what was the time frame in perspective to the roswell incident oh that was about uh perhaps a month or so before before roswell yeah isn't that interesting yeah had you heard of other ufo sightings in that area of new mexico no i didn't keep up with that yeah those are not my duties no i had my hands full out there i ran a big office yeah a lot of people a lot of responsibility one last question mr marcel

37:52 um some of the other people that that were involved uh either out there in the field or at carswell or at roswell do you think that they should not feel um that they uh shouldn't talk about this should it be eased up a little bit at this time because we are in the new decade now yeah how do you feel about it yourself now are you are you going to keep talking about it or are you just going to try and forget it or all i can talk about is what i've already revealed yeah that's all i know but you don't mind uh talking about that not at all not not anymore hmm did you have to ask someone's permission uh in order to talk about it no i used common sense on that i used to have a basic training yeah country yes i would do nothing to damage it well i believe that i believe that

38:53 politicians might do that but not me yeah and in fact at the time uh i'll bet you didn't even think that it was uh even like a russian aircraft or someone else not at all it was just too puzzling that's right i'd really like to thank you for taking the time to talk to me about this you know there's one man that i wish was still living who is that brazil oh yeah but he's uh he's dead now hmm i'm the only one i'm still the only living member of the staff with the first atomic bomb group in in new massaco yeah i'm the only one still living wow really that's amazing um i you know i'm i wasn't supposed to take more than about 15 or 20 minutes of your time i just got carried away with myself it's all right and i really enjoyed this well i've enjoyed talking with you and that's what i told you is just about all i can talk about because that's all i know yeah

39:54 well i'm really glad that you um that you're not afraid to talk about it that's the point no i'm not afraid to talk about it because i know i know i sincerely know that uh i'm not revealing any any secrets or any military secrets but uh if i know what the material was and what the object was and talk about it then i might be reviewing secrets but just telling what the material appeared to me that's what the material the description i told you is what it appeared to be it's something i've never seen before and i haven't seen since and that is a conjecture that uh it was something from outer space hmm interesting it's an interesting story and do you know that uh yeah well nothing wrong with that if they get by with it yeah very interesting stuff um i when are you going back to new orleans for another test in january you say right january yeah yeah okay well he's well named

40:59 well okay he's like uh he looks from his ambition he's picked out of a right too oh really we've we've always thought the same way in fact he wanted to become when he went to college he wanted to become a physicist he wanted to follow his dad with them oh yeah and uh but uh later on after he got in college he started taking pre-med and then he decided to be a doctor but he's a good one today and then he got hooked and then he got hooked into it yeah that's right see he's an ear nose and throat specialist he he went to school many many years yeah and right now he's uh he's a flight surgeon with the montana air national guard hmm he was here he was here last month oh just visiting the folks huh no he uh he was sent by the air national guard to folk rock alabama oh i see yeah and i think he's coming back down here in february to study for his

42:00 flight training interesting and he's an md yeah interesting well i'm looking forward to talking to him as well well nothing wrong with getting father and son would you like me to send your regards yeah i can't overdo anything do you prefer do you prefer to be called uh uh jesse or lieutenant colonel or oh no just jesse yeah okay well i do appreciate you see i resigned my commission oh you did oh yeah i'm john q civilian now okay i think the reason why i got out of the military service i fought hard to get out because i was i was in a position that was hard to to get rid of you were in intelligence all the way to the end i guess yeah that's right yeah so how did you fight it well i finally after exploring every possible means my mother was still living she was almost 102 years old wow and very

43:03 seldom i could see her so i i applied for a hardship discharge i see how i was able and when i when i revealed that to my commanding general general nelson see at that time i was with the special weapons development program and uh oh he had to see me leave but he said well if that's your desire so i'm not going to prevent you because you'd do me a favor if you stay with me in my command you see i had quite a lot of joy there you know when you know when uh i don't know what you recall when president truman announced in public that uh the russians that have stolen atomic device um i recall you know reading about it yes i'm the guy who wrote that report you did huh that was my part that was part of my duty hmm no kidding we worked in cooperation with naval research laboratory in washington see i was stationed in washington then yeah and uh through air samples that's how we found out what year was it then that you actually uh resigned to commission 1950 1950

44:09 1950 1955 i think 55 yeah yeah 65 65 okay so you've been john q civilian for almost 15 years yeah that's right ah interesting did you go into business for yourself at the time uh yes i did i wanted the cars business oh i see and uh i stayed in that until well until i retired but before i retired i bought some property i developed it i opened up subdivisions yeah i built the very first house on it and uh i've got the rest of most of the lessons sold now oh that's great i still own property which i won't sell because i don't need to yeah how old are you now jesse 53 i mean 73 oh boy you almost forgot yeah it's been so long ago i was born in 1907 wow that's great yeah to give you something about uh aeronautics i earned my wings in 1928. 1928. right son of a gun oh i

45:13 thought i'd fly an old eagle rock bar plane the only instrument you have is your your seat you flew by the seat of your parents hey do you do you ever read uh omni magazine very interesting jesse i definitely want to uh stan friedman was telling me this morning that he was he had wished that he had written the article and he's he's waiting as i am for the skeptics to respond to it to see if they try and uh come back at us in any way but i think you might find it interesting well one thing i'm waiting for is uh bill moore told me he's going to send me a couple of those books oh you haven't even seen the book yet no i haven't seen the book oh i i have a copy of it like right in front of me yes i do oh they've got the very first picture that was printed yeah that was the one that was printed in the home of courier right here oh yeah yeah and i think there's at least uh one other picture of you in here uh as well as the pictures of most of the other people of the principles

46:15 that were involved like reamy and blanchard and lieutenant hart you're all in here yeah well i'm i'm eager to get a copy he's going to send me two cards i told him i'd like to have a copy so i'll send you two of them and you're also going to send one to my son oh good so it'll soon be it'll be forthcoming anyway yeah well that's great i'm i've decided i'm going to spend uh two full weeks on my reports on nbc devoted to the roswell case and i think it's really important and um and i really thank you for the time and giving me me some of the information.

47:17 Thank you.