But the Roswell case is nothing if not consistent with its inconsistencies. I tried to talk to Felix Martucci, as did a number of other people. Although I reached an answering machine several times, I never spoke to him. Len Stringfield did, and Martucci hung up, saying, “No. No. No.” The next time I called, the answering machine was gone.
So Kent Jeffrey, in his search for military witnesses, had little luck at the reunions. He talked to pilots who said that nothing happened because they knew nothing about it. They believed that if something had, they would have learned about it because of contact with their friends and fellow pilots. But the truth is that highly classified events, such as these would have been, would not be discussed casually amongst the pilots and now, more than fifty years after the fact, we have found people who will talk about it.
Are the statements by Jesse Marcel, Patrick Saunders, Pappy Henderson and the others strong enough to overcome the negative statements of the men who freely admit they weren’t involved and therefore have little to contribute? That is the question that each person must answer for him or herself, but we must all remember that there are those who do talk, on a first-hand level, of their involvement in the case and they are people who are who they say they are. They were in Roswell at the right time, they have been corroborated by their fellows who were involved, and many of them were found by researchers rather than coming forward for their minutes in the spotlight. Their stories are persuasive.
Chapter Four: The “Higher-Ups”
We all know, to a fairly large degree, what happened in Roswell after Mack Brazel showed up with the strange metallic debris. But what went on at the higher headquarters and what were the reactions of the men at those headquarters? Does it provide us with any sort of clue?
In 1947 Colonel (later Brigadier General) Thomas J. DuBose was the Chief of Staff of the Eighth Air Force stationed at the Fort Worth Army Air Field (later Carswell Air Force Base). According to a statement signed in front of a state of Florida notary public, Colonel DuBose received a telephone call from Major General Clements McMullen, the Deputy Commander of the Strategic Air Command who asked about the events that had occurred outside of Roswell. DuBose, in turn, called Blanchard in Roswell and ordered him to send the material, in a sealed container, to him at Fort Worth. It was never made clear if this was some of the stuff that was brought to Roswell by Brazel, or if it was some of the debris recovered by Marcel. The timing, based on what DuBose said during his video-taped interview made in August 1991, would indicate that it was some of the Brazel debris.
A plane was dispatched from Roswell. DuBose asked the base commander at Fort Worth, Colonel Al Clark, to take the material from Fort Worth to Washington, D.C. and delivery it to McMullen. DuBose then called McMullen, who told DuBose that he, McMullen, would send the material on to Benjamin Chidlaw at Wright Field. DuBose identified Childlaw as the commanding general of the Air Materiel Command, but in reality, in July 1947, Nathan F. Twining was the commander.
DuBose also identified the material photographed in Ramey’s office as part of a weather balloon. DuBose said that the weather balloon explanation was a cover story designed to divert attention of the press. Please note here that we have testimony from a highranking officer who was in the office at the time, telling us that the debris displayed there was a weather balloon. He would make it clear that this debris was not the strange stuff that had been found in New Mexico.
In interviews conducted in the early 1990s, and video taped for inclusion in the Fund for UFO Research’s video library, DuBose elaborated. He added that McMullen ordered Ramey to cover up the whole thing. They, meaning those at a higher command level, wanted to "put out the fire" as quickly as they could.
Speaking of the orders he received from McMullen, DuBose said, "He (McMullen) called me and said that I was…there was talk of some elements that had been found on the ground outside Roswell, New Mexico…that the debris or elements were to be placed in a suitable container and Blanchard was to see that they were delivered…they were placed in a suitable container and Al Clark, the base commander at Carswell [Fort Worth Army Air Field] would pick them up and hand deliver them to McMullen in Washington. Nobody, and I must stress this, no one was to discuss with their wives, me with Ramey, with anyone. The matter as far as we're concerned was closed as of that moment."
DuBose then called Blanchard in Roswell and said, "…and told him that there is this material his S-2 [Marcel] found in the desert and I said this is to be put in a suitable container by this major and you are to see that it is sealed, put in your little command aircraft, and flown by a proper courier [meaning an officer or NCO who is cleared to carry classified material], flown to Carswell and delivered to Al Clark who will then deliver it to McMullen."
Because it was hot that day, DuBose waited in his office until he was told that the aircraft from Roswell was in the traffic pattern. Once he had the word, he drove out onto the ramp and waited for the airplane to land. He couldn't remember whether it was a B-25 or a B-26, but did say he knew it wasn't a B-29. McMullen would not have approved of using one of the bombers.
As the plane rolled to a stop, Colonel Alan Clark walked over and received the bag from the Roswell crew. DuBose said, "Clark took the package and got into the B-26 [or B-25, the Fort Worth plane standing by] through the belly of it…he handed it to somebody…it was one of those things you tied to your wrist and he handed it to somebody and climbed in there. And that's the last I saw of it. In a couple…three hours it was delivered to McMullen and that's the last I heard of it."
DuBose wasn't sure of what happened to the debris after it got to Washington because McMullen had told him not to talk about it and certainly wouldn’t entertain questions about it. But he did say, "…McMullen said to me, or someone…what we're going to do with this is send it out to Wright Field and have it analyzed. That's a capability they didn't have at Andrews [the base in Washington where Clark and the flight landed.]"
According to DuBose, there were no guards on the flight from Roswell and none on the Fort Worth aircraft. He also said that he never had the opportunity to see the debris. "I only saw the container and the container was a plastic bag that I would say weighted fifteen to twenty pounds. It was sealed…lead seal around the top…The only way to get into it was to cut it."
That, according to DuBose, was the only package. He made it clear that the debris in the bag was different from the debris that would later be displayed in Ramey's office. There would be other flights, but by that time, everything would be highly classified. In fact, DuBose said that"…McMullen told me you are not to discuss this and this is a point at which this is more than top secret, beyond that… This is the highest priority and you will say nothing. That was the end of it."
Brigadier General Arthur Exon
General Exon surfaced in 1990 as a witness to some of the events surrounding the crash of the craft near Roswell in 1947. Exon, a lieutenant colonel in 1947, was an Army Air Forces officer assigned to Wright Field. He was there when the crash debris and the bodies arrived at that base. Though he now claims no first-hand knowledge of those events and says that he was, in fact, speculating about them when researchers interviewed him beginning in May 1990, the situation as described by Exon then was considerably different than what he claims today. In other words, he back pedaled slightly on this. Researcher David Rudiak, however, reports that Exon, in interviews conducted before his death, made it clear that he, Exon, had talked to participants in the analysis of the debris and the bodies, and his discussions weren’t quite as speculative as debunkers would have us believe.