FBI releases Roswell files -- and the revelations are startling, Featured Editorial April 9 2011

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The Roswell, New Mexico incident has captured our imaginations for the past seven decades, and has spawned numerous investigations and conspiracy theories. Explanations for what happened that day range from weather balloons to a huge government cover up, yet they all fall short in making sense of what many consider to be the most startling UFO event in human history.

One thing is for certain: Roswell, once just another sleepy locale in the desert, has become a world renown name, and the purported alien crash that took place there remains one of the greatest unexplained events of our time.

Or has it?

The FBI has recently released previously classified documents that provide insight into its investigation of the Roswell incident, and startlingly, what's recorded within them mirror the various testimonies provided by witnesses of what took place.

Here are some original testimonies of that fateful day in Roswell:

Jesse Marcell:

There was all kinds of stuff—small beams about three eighths or a half inch square with some sort of hieroglyphics on them that nobody could decipher. These looked something like balsa wood, and were about the same weight, except that they were not wood at all. They were very hard, although flexible, and would not burn....One thing that impressed me about the debris was the fact that a lot of it looked like parchment. It had little numbers with symbols that we had to call hieroglyphics because I could not understand them. They could not be read, they were just like symbols, something that meant something, and they were not all the same, but the same general pattern, I would say. They were pink and purple. They looked like they were painted on. These little numbers could not be broken, could not be burned. I even took my cigarette lighter and tried to burn the material we found that resembled parchment and balsa, but it would not burn—wouldn't even smoke. But something that is even more astonishing is that the pieces of metal that we brought back were so thin, just like tinfoil in a pack of cigarettes. I didn't pay too much attention to that at first, until one of the boys came to me and said: "You know that metal that was in there? I tried to bend the stuff and it won't bend. I even tried it with a sledgehammer. You can't make a dent on it," Marcel said.

The Brazel and Marcel family:

Bessie Brazel, Mac's daughter, had helped recover the debris. "There was what appeared to be pieces of heavily waxed paper and a sort of aluminum-like foil. Some of these pieces had something like numbers and lettering on them, but there were no words that we were able to make out. Some of the metal-foil like pieces had a sort of tape stuck to them, and when these were held to the light they showed what looked like pastel flowers or designs. Even though the stuff looked like tape it could not be peeled off or removed at all. It was very light in weight but there sure was a lot of it."

She also signed an affidavit that had additional descriptions: "The debris looked like pieces of a large balloon which had burst. The pieces were small, the largest I remember measuring was about the same as the diameter of a basketball. Most of it was a kind of double-sided material, foil-like on one side and rubber-like on the other. Both sides were grayish silver in color, the foil more silvery than the rubber. Sticks, like kite sticks, were attached to some of the pieces with a whitish tape. The foil-rubber material could not be torn like ordinary aluminum foil can be torn."

Son Bill Brazel Jr. confirmed some of what Bessie said: "There was some tinfoil and some wood and on some of the wood it had Japanese or Chinese figures.”"There was some wooden-like particles I picked up. These were like balsa wood in weight, but a bit darker in color and much harder. This stuff ... weighed nothing, yet you couldn't scratch it with your fingernail like ordinary balsa, and you couldn't break it either."

Marcel’s son Jesse Jr. also saw the debris. Marcel went home and showed the debris to his family. Marcel Jr.: "[It was] foil-like stuff, very thin, metallic-like but not metal, and very tough. There was also some structural-like material too — beams and so on. Also a quantity of black plastic material which looked organic in nature ... Imprinted along the edge of some of the beam remnants there were hieroglyphic-type characters. I recently questioned my father about this, and he recalled seeing these characters also and even described them as being a pink or purplish-pink color. Egyptian hieroglyphics would be a close visual description of the characters seen, except I don't think there were any animal figures present as there are in true Egyptian hieroglyphics...”

He would say elsewhere in a signed affidavit: "There were three categories of debris; a thick, foil like metallic gray substance; a brittle, brownish-black plastic-like material, like Bakelite; and there were fragments of what appeared to be I-beams ... On the inner surface of the I-beam, there appeared to be a type of writing. This writing was a purple-violet hue, and it had an embossed appearance. The figures were composed of curved, geometric shapes. It had no resemblance to Russian, Japanese or any other foreign language. It resembled hieroglyphics, but it had no animal-like characters."

Sheridan Cavitt and Lewis:

Sheridan Cavitt of the Roswell Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) was identified by Marcel as assisting him in investigating the crash and recovering debris, likely the "man in plainclothes" mentioned by rancher Brazel in a contemporary article as accompanying Marcel and himself. (CIC agents usually wore civilian clothes.)

He was interviewed in 1994 when the Air Force investigated the allegations of a cover-up. In the interview, he said he had no memory of ever meeting Brazel or going out with Marcel, but said he went to the crash site with his CIC assistant Sgt. Lewis Rickett.

Cavitt said the crash site was tiny, about the size of his living room or "20 feet square." "It was a small amount of, as I recall, bamboo sticks, reflective sort of material that would, at first glance, you would probably think it was aluminum foil, something of that type and we gathered up some of it. I don't know whether we even tried to get all of it. It wasn’t scattered; well, what I call, you know, extensively."

Rickett said Cavitt took him to a debris area the following day. He described an extensive cleanup of a large area involving many men, heavily guarded by MPs. He was allowed to handle a remaining piece of debris. "There was a slightly curved piece of metal, real light." "You could bend it but couldn't crease it." "It was about six inches by twelve or fourteen inches. Very light. I crouched down and tried to snap it. My boss [Cavitt] laughs and said, 'Smart guy. He's trying to do what we couldn't do.' I asked, 'what in the hell is this stuff made out of?' It didn't feel like plastic and I never saw a piece of metal this thin that you couldn't break. This was the strangest material we had ever seen ... there was talk about it not being from Earth."

Roswell and Fort Worth base witnesses:

• Sgt. Robert Porter: B-29 flight engineer. Porter helped load and was on the B-29 flight from Roswell to Fort Worth, where Marcel was supposed to show some recovered material to Gen. Roger Ramey before proceeding on to Wright Field, Ohio. "I was involved in loading the B-29 with the material, which was wrapped in packages with wrapping paper. One of the pieces was triangle shaped, about 2½ feet across the bottom. The rest were in small packages about the size of a shoebox. The brown paper was held with tape ... The material was extremely lightweight. When I picked it up, it was just like picking up an empty package. We loaded the triangle shaped package and three shoe box-sized packages into the plane. All of the packages could have fit into the trunk of a car.”
• 1st Lt. Robert Shirkey: The base assistant operations officer. Shirkey also witnessed debris being loaded onto the B-29. "...Standing only three feet from the passing procession, we saw boxes full of aluminum-looking metal pieces being carried to the B-29. Major Marcel came along carrying an open box full of what seemed to be scrap metal. It obviously was not aluminum: it did not shine nor reflect like the aluminum on American military airplanes. And sticking up in one corner of the box being carried by Major Marcel was a small 'I-beam' with hieroglyphic-like markings on the inner flange, in some kind of weird color, not black, not purple, but a close approximation of the two. …A man in civilian dress… was carrying a piece of metal under his left arm... This piece was about the size of a poster drawing board—very smooth, almost glass-like, with torn edges."
• Sgt. Robert Smith: Roswell 1st Air Transport Unit. “My involvement in the Roswell incident was to help load crates of debris on to the aircraft… We were taken to the hangar to load crates. There was a lot of farm dirt on the hangar floor… We loaded crates on to three or four C-54s… One crate took up the entire plane; it wasn't that heavy, but it was a large volume.… All I saw was a little piece of material. The piece of debris I saw was two-to-three inches square. It was jagged. When you crumpled it up, it then laid back out; and when it did, it kind of crackled, making a sound like cellophane, and it crackled when it was let out. There were no creases…. The largest piece was roughly 20 feet long; four-to-five feet high, four-to-five feet wide. The rest were two-to-three feet long, two feet square or smaller. The sergeant who had the piece of material said that was the material in the crates….
• Two witnesses were brought into Ramey's office and told the debris they saw came from Roswell.
• J. Bond Johnson: Fort Worth Star-Telegram reporter/photographer, took six photographs of the debris in Ramey’s office, posed with Ramey, Dubose, and Marcel. He said: "It wasn’t an impressive sight, just some aluminum-like foil, balsa wood sticks, and some burnt rubber that was stinking up the office." Johnson said Ramey told him, "We've found out... it's a weather balloon."
• Warrant Officer Irving Newton,weather forecaster at Fort Worth. He was identified in contemporary accounts as being brought in to make an official weather balloon identification for Gen. Ramey. In original testimony, Newton indicated that when he got to Ramey's office, "he was briefed by a colonel... that an object had been found by a major in Roswell and that the general had decided that it was really a weather balloon and wanted him to identify as such." Newton said, "There's no doubt that what I was given were parts of a balloon. I was later told that the major from Roswell had identified the stuff as a flying saucer but that the general had been suspicious of this identification from the beginning..."In a later affidavit for the Air Force, he said, "I was convinced at the time that this was a balloon with a [kite] and remain convinced ... There were figures on the sticks lavender or pink in color, appeared to be weather faded markings with no rhyme or reason."Newton's photo was also taken with the balloon debris by an unknown photographer.(Pflock names Charles B Cashon of the US Air Force as the photographer.)

Testimonies that the crash material possessed exotic properties:

There were numerous others who claimed to have seen the debris, and many of them described various types of material having exotic physical qualities. One was a tinfoil-like material which when crumpled up would regain its original shape.

• Brazel Jr.: "The odd thing about this foil was that you could wrinkle it and lay it back down and it immediately resumed its original shape. It was quite pliable, yet you couldn't crease or bend it like ordinary metal. It was almost more like a plastic of some sort except that it was definitely metallic in nature."
• Marcel Sr.: "[There were] many bits of metallic foil, that looked like, but was not, aluminum, for no matter how often one crumpled it, it regained its original shape again. Besides that, they were indestructible, even with a sledgehammer."
• Sgt. Robert Smith, Roswell 1st Air Transport Unit: "When you crumpled it up, it then laid back out; and when it did, it kind of crackled, making a sound like cellophane, and it crackled when it was let out. There were no creases."

Others had similar accounts.

Another unusual aspect to some of the material was its strength.

• Marcel Sr.: "This particular piece of metal was, I would say, about two feet long and perhaps a foot wide. See, that stuff weighs nothing, it's so thin, it isn't any thicker than the tinfoil in a pack of cigarettes. So I tried to bend the stuff, it wouldn't bend. We even tried making a dent in it with a 16-pound sledge hammer, and there was still no dent in it."
• Sgt. Lewis Rickett: "There was a slightly curved piece of metal, real light. It was about six inches by twelve or fourteen inches. Very light. I crouched down and tried to snap it... It didn't feel like plastic and I never saw a piece of metal this thin that you couldn't break."

Some also described pencil-like sticks with unusual qualities:

• Marcel Sr.: "[There were] small beams about three-eighths or a half inch square with some sort of hieroglyphics on them that nobody could decipher. These looked something like balsa wood, and were of about the same weight, except that they were not wood at all. They were very hard, although flexible, and would not burn." More detailed quote above.
• Brazel Jr.: Similar quote as Marcel's, also given above. Also, "I couldn't break it and I couldn't whittle it with my pocketknife."
• Loretta Proctor: "The piece he [Mac Brazel] brought looked like a kind of tan, light brown plastic. It was very lightweight, like balsa wood. It wasn't a large piece, maybe about four inches long, maybe just a little larger than a pencil. We cut on it with a knife and would hold a match on it, and it wouldn't burn. We knew it wasn't wood. It was smooth like plastic."
• Jesse Marcel Jr.: "...there were fragments of what appeared to be I-beams. On the inner surface of the I-beam, there appeared to be a type of writing. This writing was a purple-violet hue, and it had an embossed appearance. The figures were composed of curved geometric shapes. It had no resemblance to Russian, Japanese or any other foreign language. It resembled hieroglyphics, but it had no animal-like characters." Another quote above.

Lt. Robert Shirkey: "Standing only three feet from the passing procession, we saw boxes full of aluminum-looking metal pieces being carried to the B-29. ...sticking up in one corner of the box carried by Major Marcel was a small 'I-beam' with hieroglyphic-like markings on the inner flange, in some kind of weird color, not black, not purple, but a close approximation of the two." "I could see the hieroglyphs clearly, the signs were in relief and stood out."

Even with all these witness statements, denial became the sword and shield of the US establishment regarding this issue. Some would argue that the greatest coverup the world has ever seen had been born with the now infamous headline: “It was a weather balloon”.

Over the decades, people have tried to breathe new life into the investigation of the Roswell incident through media, films and books. Eye witnesses of the event have also taken part in interviews, recalling that day with crystal clarity despite the passage of sixty some odd years.

Little progress has been made, until today.

In 2011, Roswell has been thrown back into the limelight with two documents that have been released under the Freedom of Information Act and published in the FBI file vault.

The first document mentions the purported Roswell craft as being a disc attached to a hexagonal weather balloon with some sort of radar instrumentation. Also mentioned in the first document is that they took the debris of the crashed craft away for examination.

We have to wonder, though -- if they knew what the downed craft was, why would it require such a thorough examination?

Moving on, the second document is a memorandum regarding the incident written to the FOA Director of the FBI from one Guy Hottel, who was a Special Agent in charge of the FBI's Washington Field Office -- not exactly your average Joe-witness found on the curbside.

Hottel writes that a investigator from the air force stated to him that 3 flying saucers had been recovered, with each containing 3 bodies of human shape, but only 3 feet (1 meter) tall.

Remember that this isn't a man watching from his farm saying this, it's a trusted FBI Official putting it in writing -- to a Director, no less -- and that alone should cause pause for thought.

An incredible find, to say the least.

Furthermore, through additional research we were unable to find any hexagonal shaped weather balloons, nor anything vaguely resembling the witness accounts of the craft and debris, even when examining today's technology. If anyone knows more about the construction of weather balloons, especially those of the period of the Roswell incident, we'd be grateful if you'd get in touch. We would add any such supplemental information to our investigation.

We will continue with numerous editorials on additional finds we come across while examining the FBI's latest batch of declassified materials. Stay observant.

-- Mr. Harley & Lynsey

Please note: This is an original article/editorial written by the two of us. We're more than happy to have you repost our article where you will, but please at least link back to us so that others can know we wrote it. Thank you very much, to all readers!