96 segments
A former CIA operative, investigator and author Ben Smith has been intrigued by Roswell
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Investigating was at the core of my work at CIA.
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I went under deep cover, lived a double life, to collect intel on terrorist networks,
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by activities, even weapons of mass destruction.
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Smith says this may be his most challenging mission, trying to figure out the truth about
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what really crashed near Roswell, New Mexico in 1947.
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During his investigation, Smith will work with Joe Papalardo, a veteran journalist who
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specializes in aviation.
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My investigation really starts from this man here, Jesse Marcel Sr., the Chief of Intelligence
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at the 509th bomber group at Roswell Army Air Force Base.
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Jesse Marcel Sr. kept a small army portfolio of his military records and in it a small
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Jesse Marcel, the man at the center of the claim that Roswell was a cover-up, kept this
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journal among his most important papers.
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Obviously, it was very valuable to him.
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The question is, is it a key to my investigation?
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Some of the dates described in the journal capture 1947.
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It's a remarkable piece of history and nobody really knows about it yet.
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You're right to be excited.
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If this is real if this is an actual journal from that time, it would represent a primary
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source document from that era.
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So that's the thing that you want to go after as a researcher.
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I would like to take a look at what you got to see a little bit more about this diary.
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Let me actually bring it up on the projector here.
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This is the notebook here, right away I see a typical army field issue notebook.
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So here we have a date 1946.
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This entire journal comes from when he was at Roswell.
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Our date here, we have August 31, 1947.
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About six weeks, seven weeks after the US Army Corps put out their infamous UFO crash at
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Roswell, flying disc.
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There's a beautiful cursive handwriting.
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And then if we fast forward, shift just kind of erratic, mixed case, blocky lettering.
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And I can't make sense of it.
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A couple of things leap to mind immediately when you see a change that's this drastic.
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It's impossible not to notice that it's different.
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It's either a different person writing it or it's a same person in a different mindset.
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Is that by design or is that just unintentional?
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The content seems the same.
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How does the journal compare with the timeline of the incident?
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Well there's no mention of Roswell at all.
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No mention of any events, no mention of any records.
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It's just these jokes and quotes and musings and ideas captured in different handwriting.
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And there's only sporadic dates.
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They read like quotes from readers' digest.
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Life is what you make it until someone comes along and changes it.
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Two half brothers make one.
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Well now that I am too old to set a bad example, I delight in giving good advice.
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So it meant something to him but no one knows what.
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He was in charge of intelligence at the 509th.
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He knew a lot of secrets.
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He took them very seriously.
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It's kind of hard to imagine the seriousness that people back then took secrecy and took
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nuclear secrecy and nuclear weapons in particular.
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I mean there were hordes of Soviet spies trying to get this information at the time.
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In 1947 the United States and the Soviet Union were already cold war enemies.
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The US possessed nuclear weapons while the Soviets did not.
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Major Jesse Marcel and his colleagues in the 509th bomber squadron wanted to keep it that
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They were basically the only nuclear bombing group in the world.
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He was entrusted with the biggest secrets that the military has.
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One thing that the Marcel children insist on is that their grandfather was absolutely certain
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that the debris that he was holding in this photo right here, the official government
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photos and the press release is not the debris that he found in the field.
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I see my grandfather holding up something that he knew that wasn't what he found.
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He was adamant that this was not what he saw in the tree field.
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I see a man that is not liking what they're having him do.
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But he knows he has to do it because that's his job.
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That's not what he found.
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And at that point in time, I'm sure he kind of felt, well maybe I'm going to be made
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out to be a fall guy.
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Keeping a secret is one thing, but telling a lie is another and being the face of that
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lie in the newspaper could break a man like Jesse Marcel.
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That could explain the difference in the journal as well.
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Someone under that much stress who knows how that manifests.
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It's a different handwriting because they're in a different mental state.
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What made the writing so cryptic and why did it suddenly change?
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Did it have to do with the UFO or its passengers?
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OK, so you've got this hot piece of evidence in your hands.
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How do you plan on verifying that it's real?
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I think the first step is to authenticate the document itself.
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Is this dated to the time period or is this a recreation?
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If we can exclude the fact that it's a forgery, then we're winning.
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Do the forensics first to make sure that it's actually of the era?
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Interesting question.
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Why was it so important to him that he kept it and left it among his things to pass on
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And then the third tier is trying to figure what the hell it says.
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Yeah, it makes sense.
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Yeah, we're cut out for you in this room.
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