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.
during his investigation smith will work with joe pappalardo
a veteran journalist who specializes in aviation
my investigation really starts from this man here jesse marcel senior the chief of
intelligence at the 509th bomber group at roswell army air force base jesse marcel the senior kept
a small army portfolio of his military records and in it a small journal jesse marcel the man at the
center 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 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 31st 1947. about six weeks seven weeks
after the u.s army corps put out their infamous ufo crash at roswell flying disc
there's a beautiful cursive handwriting and then if we fast forward shift just kind of erratic
mixed case blocky lettering and i can't make sense of it a 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 a same person a different mindset is that by design
or is that just unintentional the content seems the same how does the journal compare
with the timeline of the incident well 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 am 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 ch intelligence at the 509th he he knew a lot of secrets
he took them very seriously it's kind of hard to imagine the seriousness that people back then
shook 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 u.s 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 photos and 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 jury 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 because 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 okay 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 recreation
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 yeah we're cut out for you
you