Sifting the debris of Roswell
Roswell is the ufological equivalent of a black hole. It is so strong that no ufologist can escape its powerful embrace and its ability to distort our sense of space, time and reality.
Ben Smith, a former CIA operative and science fiction writer, in a new six-part TV series Roswell: The First Witness, is the latest explorer to plunge into this ufological maelstrom. What I wanted to know was whether he had uncovered any new evidence.
“Well, we have a journal written by Major Jesse Marcel (of the 509th Bomb Group Intelligence Office) among his military documents and other prized possessions that he passed to his children. It clearly has an unusual sub-text or even encryption.”
As far as I’m aware, the journal quotes from Reader’s Digest and song titles, so I ask Ben what deeper meanings it might have.
“As an intelligence officer, Jesse could have been trying to hide information in plain, jokes, little idioms that are funny and kind of clever; but right at the period of Roswell you see a marked shift in handwriting style and content – the quotes are a little more serious. I would categorise it as a little bit more erratic. It shows some kind of stress and deliberate care in crafting the letters. Then a bit later on it turns back to the original handwriting style and stream of consciousness. So that three or four month period of strange handwriting is a huge flag for me that something interesting is going on here.”
