RAMEY OFFICE PHOTOGRAPHS: THE CONCLUDING EVIDENCE

Always a debatable and sometimes contentious subject, the following evidence has to be of meaningful significance, being based upon a first-hand insight, as subsequently revealed by Major Jesse A. Marcel to his own family

Revisiting and quoting 'The Roswell Legacy' (2008), by Jesse Marcel Jnr and Linda Marcel:

My father was ordered to appear in the photograph holding the weather balloon material for one reason: to support the Army’s contention that the officers who had made the initial determination had erred because they did not really know what they were looking at. In the first photograph, my father is shown holding a portion of a radar target...

(End)

The assertion that, "My father was ordered to appear in the photograph holding the weather balloon material" is pivotal and the entire Roswell case dependent upon it.

So, what is the actual hard-core proof being cited.

If we continue:

Another interesting point is that others in the office - including the civilian photographer - later reported that the debris photographed in the office had a strong odor of something that had been burned. As I noted in an earlier chapter, however, there was no odor whatsoever associated with the debris we inspected in our kitchen that night.

(End)

The debris brought into their kitchen by Major Jesse Marcel, did not include any of the statedly rubber material collected and consequently could account for no associated odour.

Conversely, in the Ramey office photographs, clearly visible is a large pile of what appears to be charred rubber.

This entire aspect of what was actually seen by the family, noting Marcel Jnr was only 11 (would be 12 in August) when awoken by his father around "one or two o'clock in the morning", is crucial.

They did not get to see the contents of other boxes, brought back by their father in his 1942 Buick convertible.

Nor, perhaps imperatively, did they witness any of the material recovered by Cavitt.

Consequently, should the foil and sticks, etc. in the Ramey photographs not appear to be exactly the same as recalled from July 1947, there is plenty leeway for a rational explanation.

If there was so much of it as Major Marcel would have us believe, then it's hardly likely to all look identical.

Especially, if of such sophisticated construction, it was capable of interplanetary travel, by whatever means.

Further continuing:

Dad later told us that the civilian photographer saw only a small part of the actual debris, and that he was only allowed to observe the real debris - which remained wrapped up from a distance, as opposed to being allowed to get close enough for a detailed photograph, as he had been allowed to do with the radar target material. Does this mean that there was a mix of genuine debris with debris from a weather balloon? This is indeed what happened, as the foil shown in the photograph was paper-backed, and looked like tin foil and balsa wood sticks, whereas the foil on our kitchen floor did not have a paper backing.

(End)

The second premise, illustrates precisely the point emphasised

Presumably displayed arbitrarily, it surely has to be only part of the entire ensemble, Major Marcel himself remarking in later years, that most of the debris flown in from Roswell, was still on board the airplane.

That Dr Jesse Marcel might not recognise this as being one and the same as he recalls when 11 years old, is hardly surprising and he only picks up on one aspect being unfamiliar.

What about the rest of it? Doesn't seem like the foil and sticks, etc. are incongruous with what Dr Marcel and others, notably of course Mac Brazel, had described from the outset.

Which brings us to the entire crux of the matter.

Did Major Jesse A. Marcel ever say, on record, that authentic debris had been substituted for his seminal photographs.

I remain unaware of any such occurrence.

Not once. Ever.

Even when given plenty opportunity, such as the lengthy and detailed interview given to Bob Pratt, in 1979, or various TV interviews.

There is no indication whatsoever, of any related 'debris switch' subterfuge.

Perhaps that is profoundly because there was no such scenario, at this point in time.

It was not a factor until Stanton Friedman and maybe others, realised we could not have both veritable Marcel photographs and people tripping over alien bodies in the New Mexico desert.

To recap;

This is a statement from Major Jesse Marcel, as published in the first Roswell related book, 'The Roswell Incident' (1980), by Charles Berlitz & William Moore:

"Just after we got to Carswell, Fort Worth, we were told to bring some of this stuff up to the general's office - that he wanted to take a look at it.

We did this and spread it out on the floor on some brown paper.

What we had was only a very small portion of the debris - there was a whole lot more. There was half a B-29-ful outside.

General Ramey allowed some members of the press in to take a picture of this stuff.

They took one picture of me on the floor holding up some of the less-interesting metallic debris. The press was allowed to photograph this, but were not allowed far enough into the room to touch it.

The stuff in that one photo was pieces of the actual stuff we had found.

It was not a staged photo".

(End)

Also from a brief appearance in the 1978 documentary 'UFOs Are Real':

"The newsmen saw very little of that material, very small portion of it... and none of these important things  like these members that had hieroglyphics...".

Documented on camera, this is Marcel's unequivocal confirmation that the actual debris recovered was made available.

So how then to get around this existing testimony, a major obstacle to be overcome, in pursuit of Friedman's agenda.

One solution is to ignore it entirely and instead publish a wholly unsubstantiated, opposing allegation.

From 'Crash at Corona', by Stanton T. Friedman and Don Berliner (1992):

General Ramey invited the press in to announce that the excitement was over, and that the wreckage found on the Foster ranch was nothing more than the remains of the radar reflector from a rawinsonde weather balloon.

To do this in a convincing manner, he had someone find just such a device, made certain it looked badly damaged and presented it to the press.

(End)

I have posed this question before; where exactly, at short notice, would it be possible to find a collection of debris, especially rubber which seems to have some age and perhaps 'weather beaten', resembling what was described by Mac Brazel, plus others?

In conclusion, the Marcel family evidence is a last resort to find anything substantive in support of an actual non-earthly vehicle being responsible for the enigmatic assemblage, spread out on their kitchen floor.

A mixture of genuine and bogus debris?

Is this not now just proverbially clutching at straws.

Yes, Major Jesse A. Marcel is on camera, reiterating that, as his son puts it, "the civilian photographer saw only a small part of the actual debris'.

That though, is where any similarity ends.

Implying that this publication now exhibits sufficient evidence, corroborating that their father was ordered to pose for a bogus portrayal, offers zero tangible merit.

If Major Marcel had ever once said that, would his family not simply be championing same?

There is a germane comment on page 197 of 'The Roswell Legacy':

To his dying day, my father was absolutely firm in his conviction that the material we examined was as he described it, “not of this Earth,” and that the truth about Roswell had yet to be revealed to the public.

(End)

This encapsulates the essence of our Roswell case.

From the outset, Major Marcel was convinced he had found parts from one of those new 'flying saucers', now being increasingly reported on a daily basis, since Kenneth Arnold first 'sighting' a couple of weeks previously.

Dr Jesse Marcel recalls his father told the family that he had found a 'flying saucer', or 'flying disc', or 'words to that effect' and they were looking at something 'not made on this world'.

Despite the fact it might have been a Soviet Union secret weapon which had exploded, possibly similar to the Japanese Fu-Go balloon bombs of WWII and those indecipherable symbols perhaps cyrillic characters, etc. this was his unshakable conclusion.

Major Marcel's grievances did not pertain to being photographed with remnants from a weather balloon.

They were that the Roswell debris displayed in Ramey's office, failed to showcase what he considered as more intriguing artefacts and elementally, his categorical 'flying saucer' had, whether mistakenly or intentionally, been dismissed as no more than a perfectly terrestrial, mundane creation.

When Roswell resurfaced, it was inevitable that the infamous press release, informing "...509th Bomb Group of the Eighth Air Force, Roswell Army Air Field, was fortunate enough to gain possession of a disc through the cooperation of one of the local ranchers...", immediately followed by explaining said 'disc' was a weather balloon, would retrospectively appear suspicious.

It all becomes infinity less so, when appreciating that when the release adds, "....the rancher stored the disc until such time as he was able to contact the sheriff's office...", this refers to, as reported shortly afterwards, "Brazel... bundled together the large pile ot tinfoil and broken wooden beams about one fourth of an inch thick and a half-inch wide and the torn mass of synthetic rubber that had been the flying disc and rolled it under some brush, according to Maj. Jesse A. Marcel of Houma, La, 509th Bomb Group intelligence officer at Roswell...".

If all ultimately disappointing to myself - I recall many years ago, avidly watching the original VHS video  'UFO Secret: The Roswell Crash', by Kevin Randle and Don Schmitt and consummately persuaded by the testimony of Glen Dennis - so be it and makes no difference whatsoever to the fact there are numerous more compelling cases, which really do deserve time spent on them, rather than all the negativity which regrettably pervades.

'Roswell', as such, shall indubitably continue to flourish and in the end, that is Major Jesse A. Marcel's everlasting legacy.

© James Easton
August 2023
jeaston.blog@gmail.com