The testimony of the late Jesse Marcel, Sr., is probably the most important, as well as the most controversial, of the whole Roswell story. In essence, it forms the foundation around which the rest of the case is built. However, because the debris he recovered was not extraterrestrial, it could not have been what he said it was. That does not mean, however, that he did not believe it was extraterrestrial. In my opinion, it is very possible, if not highly probable, that he sincerely believed until the day he died that the material was something, as he once put it, "not of this earth." A less-than-perfect memory of events so long ago, in combination with the suspicion on his part of a coverup above his level of security or outside his need to know, makes such a scenario entirely plausible.
Unfortunately, because of minor, almost trivial, inconsistencies in some of the things Jesse Marcel, Sr., said, or is believed to have said, some have made caustic personal attacks against a man no longer around to defend himself -- and who was, in all probability, telling the truth as he recalled it. I have now spoken with a number of men from the 509th Bomb Group who knew Major Marcel. All had nothing but the highest regard and respect for him.
Some of these attacks have been extended to Jesse Marcel, Jr., which I find astounding. As I have already mentioned, he is as sincere and honest as anyone I have ever known. Like his father before him, he served his country during time of war. Few people know it, but he was seriously injured during the Vietnam War when his helicopter was shot down, killing everyone else on board. Like all of us, Jesse might not have 100 percent perfect recall of every past event, but I would never question his word.
In a way, because the debris recovered outside of Roswell in 1947 was not extraterrestrial, none of the other witness testimony really matters. If the story of a highly unusual and totally unprecedented event is killed at the source, subsequent corroborating testimony goes out the window. For example, in the summer of 1993, a man from Seattle, Washington, made the unprecedented claim that he had found a hypodermic syringe inside a sealed can of Pepsi Cola. The story was picked up by the media, and within days there were copycat claims against the Pepsi Cola Corporation all over the country. Unfortunately for those who jumped on the bandwagon, the original claim turned out to be false. Where did that leave the subsequent claimants? Out on a limb that had been cut off, and, in this particular case, facing up to $250,000 in fines and five years in jail.
The testimony of some of the other Roswell witnesses has been all but validated in the public eye because of repeated media coverage. For this reason I will address a couple of cases.
Former mortician Glenn Dennis and the elusive nurse, Naomi Self, who supposedly witnessed alien autopsies at the base hospital is one of the best-known elements of the 1947 Roswell event. Although I know and like Glenn Dennis on a personal level, I have to say that his story has lost all credibility . Glenn, incidentally, has been fully aware of the fact that researchers have been spending time and resources in an effort to locate a "Naomi Self."
There was already significant circumstantial evidence to indicate that no such nurse ever existed, when a diligent young researcher from Arizona, Vic Golubic, all but confirmed the fact. He located the records of the Cadet Nurse Corps, where all nurses for the military were trained during the mid-1940s. When Golubic checked with Dennis about the correct spelling of "Self" and informed him about the Cadet Nurse Corps records, Dennis changed his story, telling Golubic that Self was not really the correct last name after all. Dennis, without giving a good reason for not doing so, also refused to tell Golubic the "real" last name. Sorry, Glenn, end of story.
Both my father and I got to know Frank Kaufman very well and consider him a friend. However, as with Dennis, I have to say that in view of what we now know, there is no way that Kaufman's fantastic tale of a crashed spaceship with alien bodies could have any basis in reality. According to Kaufman's story, he was one of nine military men at the top-secret recovery operation 35 miles north of town. Other than Kaufman, the only other living member of the "original nine" was a General Robert Thomas.
The last time my father and I were in Roswell, Kaufman showed us some of his pictures, including one with him standing next to a brigadier general. My father asked Kaufman if that was Thomas, to which Kaufman replied in the affirmative. Unfortunately, my father, who spent 30 years in the Air Force, was unable to recognize the general. I later checked at the Air Force records center and learned that not only was there no living General Robert Thomas, but there never was a General Robert Thomas. On being confronted with this, Kaufman informed me that Thomas was really just a "code name."
The final witness testimony that I will address is that concerning Oliver W. (Pappy) Henderson. Millions have seen the "Unsolved Mystery" broadcast about Roswell with the scene of Pappy Henderson in his flight suit, leaning over and inspecting one of several alien bodies laid out on a hangar floor just prior to their being flown to Wright Patterson. Henderson, who died in 1986, on seeing a tabloid headline and story about Roswell, apparently told his wife that the story was true and that he had flown the wreckage and bodies to Wright Patterson. My best guess is that the testimony of Henderson' family years later was a case of memories of things read, or possibly seen in tabloid pictures, being blended or confused with memories of what Henderson may have actually said.
During my extensive conversations with pilots from the 509th, I spoke with several who knew Henderson and remembered his having discussed the incident. Apparently Henderson, a C-54 transport pilot at the time, did fly some of the debris out of Roswell, possibly to Wright Patterson. Jesse Mitchell, one of the 509th pilots at the time and a retired lieutenant colonel, told me that Henderson told him that he never saw the debris and he had no idea what it was. Mitchell was a good friend of Henderson's and almost decided to go into the roofing business with him in Roswell after Henderson left the service. Another former member of the 509th, Sam McIlhaney, also a retired lieutenant colonel who knew Henderson well, told me that they used to talk about the incident occasionally while sitting around in the hangar. According to McIlhaney, Henderson considered the whole matter a big joke and used to kid about it.