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Roswell UFO Incident Part 2: Surprise Witness

Festivities are in full swing in Roswell, New Mexico, celebrating the 60th anniversary of a mysterious crash in the desert that some believe involved a UFO.

The U.S. military has told four different versions of the Roswell story over the years but now denies that anything alien was ever recovered. Eyewitnesses say otherwise.

Blog with George Knapp about Roswell and UFOs.

Was it a saucer, as the military first said, or a weather balloon, or maybe a super-duper weather balloon? Were the bodies' crash test dummies, or Japanese prisoners, or shaved monkeys?

All of those stories have been floated by those who want Roswell to go away, but 60 years later, it's still a mystery. And now, there is new testimony, including that of a surprise witness.

In the movies and in real life, the U.S. military has trouble keeping its story straight about UFOs. Over the years specious witnesses have claimed knowledge of the Roswell incident. A hokey alien autopsy video was also discredited. The initial announcement that a flying saucer had been found in the desert was recanted the very next day with the story the debris was from a weather balloon.

Read Roswell UFO Incident Part 1: Cover-Up or Sci-Fi

General Roger Ramey posed for photos with phony wreckage, a stunt now acknowledged as a lie. But computer enhancement has now made it possible to read parts of the telegram Ramey held during the news conference. Phrases refer to a second crash site, "aviators in the disc and victims of the wreck".

Weather balloons don't have pilots, and many believe Ramey's telegram is proof of a long suspected second crash site. Since the beginning, eyewitnesses have claimed there was a second crash site -- the debris field found by rancher Mac Brazel -- and another site where a downed saucer was seen, along with the bodies of big headed aliens.

It's a wild story, so who is to believe? Major Jesse Marcel's credibility has been assaulted over the years but there is support for his claim that the metal he found at the ranch was unlike anything he'd ever seen and was not from a weather balloon or radar target.

"It wasn't from a plane or a missile or a weather balloon. It was from something else," said Jesse Marcel Sr.  He showed the material to his family. His son, Dr. Jesse Marcel Jr. remembers the weird foil and I-beams with strange markings.

"He certainly would not have brought a radar target home for me to see and said this is from a flying saucer or words to that effect. It was far too unusual or strange for that," said Dr. Jesse Marcel Jr.

A new book, Witness to Roswell, lists dozens of witnesses who've come forward in the past few years including military police who guarded the debris field and high-ranking officers who admit it was a cover up of something alien.

In 1947, Lt. Walter Haut was the base information officer. He issued the release about a recovered flying saucer, then helped with the cover story about a weather balloon. But Haut saw a lot more.

In 2002, he signed a sworn affidavit to be released after his death. He died in 2006. The statement admits that Haut handled the strange debris, that he personally saw the crashed saucer along with the bodies of aliens -- not crash test dummies as the air force tried to imply in the 1990's.

Former Lt. Bob Shirkey backs up Haut's story. He too saw the debris being loaded onto a B-29. "I looked over his shoulder and saw them carrying the beams," said Lt. Bob Shirkey, Roswell eyewitness.

Shirkey's friend Glenn Dennis, the town mortician, says he was contacted by the base and was asked to supply all the youth-sized caskets he had. The pilot who flew the transport plane saw the wreckage and the bodies but told his wife he'd been threatened to keep silent. Physicist Stan Friedman, who started the Roswell investigation in the late 1970's, says the military threatened others too.

"The military told them, if you ever talk about what you saw, we will kill you and we will kill your family," said Stan Friedman.

It's not farfetched to rancher Mac Brazel. After he found the debris field, his home was ransacked and his family threatened. He told newsman Frank Joyce he'd also seen the bodies, then clammed up.

Future U.S. Senator Joe Montoya told his family he was at Roswell field when the little bodies arrived. Could a secret like this be kept? Senator Barry Goldwater tried to get a look at the recovered debris but was told to never ask again.

His friend, the late Senator Howard Cannon of Nevada, spoke to Goldwater about it, and to us. "They've kept some pretty good secrets over the years. So I'd have to believe secrets like that could be kept," said Senator Cannon.

Blog with George Knapp about Roswell and UFOs.