1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:09,600
This program is about unsolved mysteries. Whenever possible, the actual family members

2
00:00:09,600 --> 00:00:13,680
and police officials have participated in recreating the events. What you are about

3
00:00:13,680 --> 00:00:15,520
to see is not a news broadcast.

4
00:00:15,520 --> 00:00:26,720
Vietnam. A wounded helicopter pilot was taken to a hospital with a fractured skull, shattered

5
00:00:26,720 --> 00:00:32,800
legs and possible brain damage. Twenty years later, Jim Meade is trying to find a heroic

6
00:00:32,800 --> 00:00:39,800
nurse who saved his life. In 1947, a strange craft crashed in a remote New Mexico field.

7
00:00:40,360 --> 00:00:46,440
A metal debris at startling property was covered with unusual markings, witnesses claim it was a UFO.

8
00:00:47,640 --> 00:00:52,680
The military here at Rosalarmier base in New Mexico immediately announced that the object was a UFO.

9
00:00:53,400 --> 00:00:57,000
Within hours changed their story and said it was only a downed weather balloon.

10
00:00:57,720 --> 00:01:03,720
Did the military conceal the most astounding discovery of the century? Join me tonight

11
00:01:03,720 --> 00:01:07,320
The season premiere of Unsolved Mysteries.

12
00:01:34,600 --> 00:02:01,800
Last season 34 cases, profiled in Unsolved Mysteries were solved thanks to information from our viewers.

13
00:02:02,680 --> 00:02:07,080
One recent case was out of Charles Mule, a 10-year veteran of the Slidell Louisiana

14
00:02:07,080 --> 00:02:10,920
Police Department, who disappeared over three years ago while free on bail.

15
00:02:13,640 --> 00:02:19,880
On March 1st, 1985, Mule was arrested by fellow officers in a local motel room where he allegedly

16
00:02:19,880 --> 00:02:26,440
molested a 12-year-old girl. At the time of his arrest, he was a sergeant in charge of sexual

17
00:02:26,440 --> 00:02:31,960
offenses for the Slidell Police Department. His alleged victim was a young girl he was assigned

18
00:02:31,960 --> 00:02:37,480
to counsel. If you're on a please, considering the serious gravity of the incident,

19
00:02:37,480 --> 00:02:44,440
On September 27th, 1985, Charles Mule was indicted on over 25 counts relating to the molestation

20
00:02:44,440 --> 00:02:53,800
and rape of six young girls. He was released on $150,000 bail. Eight months later, on the morning

21
00:02:53,800 --> 00:03:01,640
that his trial was to begin, Mule was reported missing. Five days later, a fisherman believed

22
00:03:01,640 --> 00:03:08,760
he saw Mule emerging from a swamp near Slidell. This was closely followed by a second sighting.

23
00:03:09,320 --> 00:03:14,360
This witness was shot at by a man dressed in hospital clothing, a favorite outfit of Mule's.

24
00:03:16,520 --> 00:03:21,880
We were convinced more than ever that Charles was alive, that he was in his area and he had

25
00:03:21,880 --> 00:03:28,040
not moved far from this area. For more than three years, Charles Mule's whereabouts have remained

26
00:03:28,040 --> 00:03:39,560
a mystery. Charles Mule has been captured. Within minutes of our July broadcast, the FBI

27
00:03:39,560 --> 00:03:45,400
received several calls from viewers who reported that Mule was living in Ocala, Florida, 30 miles

28
00:03:45,400 --> 00:03:52,440
south of Gainesville, under the assumed name Joseph John Trancina. Mule had seen our broadcast

29
00:03:52,440 --> 00:03:58,040
and left the Ocala area for approximately three weeks. When he returned on August 3rd,

30
00:03:58,040 --> 00:04:15,240
he was arrested by FBI agents and Marion County, Florida Sheriff's Deputies.

31
00:04:16,360 --> 00:04:22,280
The War in Vietnam

32
00:04:23,960 --> 00:04:30,040
For the first time, helicopters played a pivotal role, the crucial lifeline between base camps and

33
00:04:30,040 --> 00:04:37,080
the soldiers in the field. The skill and bravery of a helicopter pilot meant the difference between

34
00:04:37,080 --> 00:04:43,240
life and death, freedom and captivity. A pilot's chance of being killed was nine times greater

35
00:04:43,240 --> 00:04:48,920
than any other soldier's. One out of every eight helicopter pilots in Vietnam lost his life.

36
00:04:50,600 --> 00:04:57,240
These pilots truly were heroes. But there was another group of heroes in the Vietnam War,

37
00:04:57,240 --> 00:05:04,920
a group who remained largely unsung. Those heroes were the skilled and patient military nurses

38
00:05:05,720 --> 00:05:09,880
who dealt with the wreckage of young bodies brought back from the front and struggled to return

39
00:05:09,880 --> 00:05:15,000
those battered soldiers to a normal life. This section of the National Cemetery at Arlington

40
00:05:15,000 --> 00:05:20,120
Virginia is dedicated to nurses slain in battle as one of the few memorials we have in the United

41
00:05:20,120 --> 00:05:25,560
States honoring them. Tonight we tell the story of an Army helicopter pilot whose life was salvaged

42
00:05:25,560 --> 00:05:31,240
by a nurse, Lieutenant Betty Stevens. For 15 years he's been searching for her, but mysteriously

43
00:05:31,240 --> 00:05:36,360
there is no record of where she went. What he wants to say are the simple but eloquent words,

44
00:05:36,360 --> 00:05:40,440
thank you. Perhaps someone watching tonight can help him.

45
00:05:43,080 --> 00:05:50,680
In 1965, 18-year-old Jim Mead Jr. gave up a promising college career and volunteered to serve in Vietnam.

46
00:05:52,360 --> 00:05:56,840
We tried to talk him out of it. The professors at the University of Oregon tried to talk him out of it,

47
00:05:56,840 --> 00:06:01,560
finished college and then go. The war will still be there after he finished college,

48
00:06:01,560 --> 00:06:09,640
but he would determine when. Jim won his wings as an Army helicopter pilot in the winter of 1967.

49
00:06:11,720 --> 00:06:19,560
It didn't surprise me to see him want to give time to his country and being in helicopters and

50
00:06:20,200 --> 00:06:25,400
being in the rescue mission and what have you. These were all part of Jim.

51
00:06:25,800 --> 00:06:35,160
Jim served in Vietnam for only three months, transporting troops to and from combat missions.

52
00:06:35,960 --> 00:06:43,240
Twice Jim was shot down, twice he went back. On May the 8th 1967, he was shot down for the third time.

53
00:06:44,200 --> 00:06:55,240
This time Jim Mead would not be able to go back.

54
00:06:55,400 --> 00:06:59,240
We're going in.

55
00:07:04,120 --> 00:07:10,120
On May the 9th 1967, Jim's parents received a vaguely worded telegram saying their son had

56
00:07:10,120 --> 00:07:17,320
been placed on the seriously ill list because of a fractured skull. He was transferred to Madigan

57
00:07:17,320 --> 00:07:23,880
General Hospital in Tacoma, Washington. We don't have a room for him yet. We'll let you know as

58
00:07:23,960 --> 00:07:29,240
soon as possible. Thank you. Jim's mother and father along with two of his brothers waited in

59
00:07:29,240 --> 00:07:36,360
the hospital lobby. Jim had not yet been assigned a room. His family had no idea what to expect.

60
00:07:38,680 --> 00:07:46,280
It was quite difficult for me to just sit and relax and wait till they came and said to tell us

61
00:07:46,280 --> 00:07:53,160
that Jim had been put in a room. So myself and two sons, I got up, I said I'm going to walk down

62
00:07:53,160 --> 00:07:59,800
the hallway for a while. I just can't sit here and wait. And there's miles and miles of hallway

63
00:07:59,800 --> 00:08:07,480
in Madigan General Hospital. And as I was walking down the hallway, here in the hallway was a gurney.

64
00:08:10,600 --> 00:08:16,680
There was a soldier on the gurney and he had bandages all over him with bandages in the head,

65
00:08:17,480 --> 00:08:20,440
legs in the cash, tubes, bottles.

66
00:08:23,400 --> 00:08:27,320
So I said to the other boys, the two sons, I said, oh, that soldier is tore all down.

67
00:08:36,040 --> 00:08:41,960
And after a while then, the nurse came to us and said, okay, we have your son in a room. Come go with me.

68
00:08:47,320 --> 00:08:47,800
Oh.

69
00:08:50,920 --> 00:08:53,080
We went into that room and here was that gurney.

70
00:08:57,560 --> 00:09:02,920
That guy that was tore all the hell was my son. Beyond recognition.

71
00:09:05,880 --> 00:09:10,840
And there was nothing we could do. That was a terrible thing that there was nothing that we could do.

72
00:09:11,560 --> 00:09:20,760
Jim, it's mom. It was just unbelievable. He didn't look like himself, you know, and of course he had

73
00:09:20,760 --> 00:09:30,200
all these tubes in him and all of these things. I worked in an emergency room and I've seen a lot

74
00:09:30,200 --> 00:09:37,240
of things, but I don't think I have seen anything as horrible as my son was.

75
00:09:41,560 --> 00:09:47,800
Jim was in a coma. The helicopter rotor bladed fractured his skull. He made only animal-like

76
00:09:47,800 --> 00:09:53,800
sounds and flailed his arms involuntarily. Both of his legs had been shattered and were riddled with

77
00:09:53,800 --> 00:09:58,680
gangrene. The doctors feared that Jim would never come out of his coma.

78
00:10:02,840 --> 00:10:07,640
As a last resort, they assigned him to a ward with amputines who had served in Vietnam.

79
00:10:08,600 --> 00:10:12,280
The doctors asked the man to talk to Jim and act as if he could hear them.

80
00:10:13,880 --> 00:10:19,240
On the slim chance that the constant exposure to other people might trigger a response.

81
00:10:19,240 --> 00:10:23,880
Jim, what do you want to play now? I beat everyone at Jim, poker, now you want to play Blackjack?

82
00:10:25,240 --> 00:10:30,440
The experiment worked. After 10 weeks in the ward, Jim came out of his coma.

83
00:10:30,440 --> 00:10:36,680
He had no memory of his first 19 years. Jim had even forgotten how to talk and how to move his

84
00:10:36,680 --> 00:10:43,160
arms and legs. I didn't know that I'd been a helicopter pod. I didn't know I'd been to Vietnam.

85
00:10:43,880 --> 00:10:50,200
I didn't know that I'd been injured so seriously. I didn't know anything. It was like a whole new world.

86
00:10:52,040 --> 00:10:56,200
Happily, Jim Meade continued to heal. Neither of his legs was amputated.

87
00:10:57,080 --> 00:11:00,280
Today, he's 42 years old and has made a miraculous recovery.

88
00:11:01,240 --> 00:11:04,920
Jim feels it is due in large part to the dogged determination of his nurse,

89
00:11:05,000 --> 00:11:12,920
Lieutenant Betty Stevens, who literally brought him back to life and who for one crucial year was the most important person in his life.

90
00:11:13,720 --> 00:11:19,240
Nice and flat. There you go. All right, now start with this hand and this leg. Ready?

91
00:11:21,320 --> 00:11:27,800
There you go. Good, grip that mat. Feel the mat. Keep your legs straight. Keep your legs straight. There you go.

92
00:11:27,800 --> 00:11:32,280
To learn how to walk. Come on. Good. Keep going. I first had learned how to crawl.

93
00:11:32,920 --> 00:11:39,080
Keep going. Lieutenant Stevens, we'll get down on the mat with me. There you go. And you're right next to me.

94
00:11:39,800 --> 00:11:47,160
There you go. Because I didn't have any coordination between my arms, legs, and the commands from my brain.

95
00:11:48,680 --> 00:11:55,080
And so at the beginning, she would work on me and teach me how to crawl. Okay, now we're going to go the other way.

96
00:11:55,080 --> 00:11:59,400
And she would show me how to do it. Good. Good.

97
00:12:00,280 --> 00:12:02,280
I remember one time in particular,

98
00:12:04,360 --> 00:12:07,560
there were some basic trainees who had sprained ankles or whatever,

99
00:12:08,440 --> 00:12:14,200
and were in the hospital and were in physical therapy. Okay, get your legs a little bit further apart. There you go.

100
00:12:15,000 --> 00:12:22,120
And one time, after a series of times, of falling on my face, she started laughing at me.

101
00:12:22,680 --> 00:12:28,520
And I remember her getting so angry.

102
00:12:29,320 --> 00:12:31,400
What gives you the right to laugh at him?

103
00:12:32,920 --> 00:12:34,920
That is a person who has been at war.

104
00:12:36,040 --> 00:12:38,600
He's trying to learn things that are very easy for you.

105
00:12:39,640 --> 00:12:45,480
Now I want you both out of here right now. Come on, get out. And just the way she yelled at them and kicked them out.

106
00:12:47,000 --> 00:12:49,000
But she was so mad.

107
00:12:49,800 --> 00:12:51,800
She meant a lot to me.

108
00:12:52,360 --> 00:12:54,360
Just made me want to do

109
00:12:55,560 --> 00:12:57,560
what she wanted me to learn to do.

110
00:13:00,520 --> 00:13:04,680
I was in so much pain that the people couldn't take me out of bed.

111
00:13:06,120 --> 00:13:11,720
She wouldn't even come down and ask me how I was doing. And I was in so much pain that I was really crying.

112
00:13:11,720 --> 00:13:13,720
I know you're hurting,

113
00:13:15,000 --> 00:13:17,000
but you can't give up.

114
00:13:17,400 --> 00:13:20,760
And she responded that she knew that I was hurting.

115
00:13:22,920 --> 00:13:27,480
The more you exercise, the stronger you're gonna get. And the less it's gonna hurt.

116
00:13:29,960 --> 00:13:32,040
The most important thing that I remember,

117
00:13:33,080 --> 00:13:35,080
she held my hand.

118
00:13:35,080 --> 00:13:39,160
And we're just showing her concern and her caring that made me want to get better.

119
00:13:40,840 --> 00:13:42,840
To want to learn to walk.

120
00:13:43,080 --> 00:13:45,080
To want to learn to feed myself.

121
00:13:45,720 --> 00:13:49,400
To want to learn things like how to shave, how to comb my hair.

122
00:13:50,280 --> 00:13:53,480
Now straighten it out. Come on, work hard. Come on.

123
00:13:54,360 --> 00:13:56,520
Pick it up. There you go.

124
00:13:59,080 --> 00:14:02,360
I don't know if I would have learned to do these things without her.

125
00:14:04,840 --> 00:14:09,480
I might have eventually learned just out of the sheer survival factor.

126
00:14:11,080 --> 00:14:14,360
But she made it important for me to withstand

127
00:14:15,160 --> 00:14:17,160
the pain and frustration.

128
00:14:17,320 --> 00:14:19,320
Straighten it out. Up.

129
00:14:19,320 --> 00:14:21,080
Put your hands around it like that.

130
00:14:21,080 --> 00:14:22,200
Put your hand around that.

131
00:14:22,200 --> 00:14:25,880
Good. Push. Work. Good. Good. Good.

132
00:14:27,160 --> 00:14:29,160
Good job.

133
00:14:32,440 --> 00:14:34,440
Hi, Jim.

134
00:14:37,160 --> 00:14:38,680
Because of her patient load,

135
00:14:38,680 --> 00:14:42,600
Lieutenant Stevens could give Jim physical therapy for only one hour each day.

136
00:14:43,160 --> 00:14:48,040
She felt he would benefit from going home for 30 days to work with his parents around the clock.

137
00:14:49,480 --> 00:14:54,440
We couldn't have gone as far as we did with Jim without her supervision.

138
00:14:55,160 --> 00:14:59,000
There are certain things in physical therapy that you can do more harm than good.

139
00:14:59,560 --> 00:15:04,680
And so therefore her as the professional was showing us how to do it the right way.

140
00:15:06,280 --> 00:15:08,120
We're going to play ball today.

141
00:15:08,120 --> 00:15:13,800
But 12 grueling hours each day, Jim's parents try to improve his motor skills and teach him how to talk.

142
00:15:14,520 --> 00:15:16,680
All under the guidance of Lieutenant Stevens.

143
00:15:19,560 --> 00:15:24,280
Even when I wasn't in the hospital, when I was home with my parents on con bus and leave,

144
00:15:24,920 --> 00:15:31,800
I always wanted to get better and learn things so I could go back to the hospital and show her

145
00:15:33,000 --> 00:15:36,120
how much I'd improved. It was always important to me.

146
00:15:38,280 --> 00:15:43,400
Nearly one year after Jim had first arrived at the hospital,

147
00:15:43,960 --> 00:15:46,520
Lieutenant Stevens told him she was leaving the army.

148
00:15:48,520 --> 00:15:54,600
She never saw Jim walk independently or had any idea that she had set him on the path to recovery.

149
00:15:56,600 --> 00:15:59,000
Over the years I've thought about her many, many times.

150
00:16:00,280 --> 00:16:06,040
I'm not so naive to pretend that I'm the only soldier that she affected this way.

151
00:16:06,040 --> 00:16:11,160
As a matter of fact, she probably affected all of us this way, all of us that she worked with.

152
00:16:12,520 --> 00:16:21,960
But she was really important to me and she always will be.

153
00:16:25,080 --> 00:16:28,600
Building on the foundation Lieutenant Stevens and his parents gave him,

154
00:16:28,600 --> 00:16:32,920
Jim made relearn how to walk and talk and made a nearly complete recovery.

155
00:16:33,560 --> 00:16:36,680
Today he is a clinical psychologist working in San Diego.

156
00:16:37,320 --> 00:16:42,360
He would like Lieutenant Stevens to share in his triumph. He would like to say thank you

157
00:16:42,360 --> 00:16:44,280
to the woman he will never forget.

158
00:16:44,280 --> 00:16:47,240
Keep going, come on, don't give up, don't.

159
00:16:48,040 --> 00:16:50,040
If I saw her now, I don't know what I'd do.

160
00:16:51,240 --> 00:16:55,560
Cry maybe? Maybe just laugh a lot? I don't know.

161
00:16:58,040 --> 00:17:00,040
I've thought about seeing her so many times.

162
00:17:00,520 --> 00:17:04,040
It's like she never left. I never left, whatever.

163
00:17:06,040 --> 00:17:10,760
I don't know what I'd do. I just know this, it's always been important for me

164
00:17:12,760 --> 00:17:14,760
that she knows that I'm okay.

165
00:17:16,760 --> 00:17:21,160
The morning after our broadcast Jim Mee's 15 year search came to an end

166
00:17:21,160 --> 00:17:23,880
when he received a phone call from one of our viewers.

167
00:17:24,280 --> 00:17:28,600
I was watching TV and I saw Jim at the beginning of the program

168
00:17:30,600 --> 00:17:37,240
and I said to my family, I treated that fella when I was in the service

169
00:17:37,240 --> 00:17:42,440
and the next remark was that they were looking for Lieutenant Stevens

170
00:17:42,440 --> 00:17:44,920
and I thought well that was my maiden name

171
00:17:44,920 --> 00:17:50,440
and at that point I realized that this was going to be more than just a program to watch.

172
00:17:54,680 --> 00:18:01,240
On September 25th, nearly 21 years after they said goodbye, Jim and Karen reunited.

173
00:18:12,920 --> 00:18:18,360
When Karen came to the door, I went and if somebody else saw her

174
00:18:18,600 --> 00:18:21,720
they might say that Karen's changed 200%

175
00:18:23,720 --> 00:18:25,720
and my heart to Karen hasn't changed a bit.

176
00:18:29,720 --> 00:18:32,680
And I'm glad to tell her thank you.

177
00:18:35,160 --> 00:18:37,960
The reunion today has been everything I expected it to be.

178
00:18:37,960 --> 00:18:41,560
It will stand out as one of the most exciting days of my life.

179
00:18:42,760 --> 00:18:46,760
It's thrilling to see someone that has come back so far

180
00:18:47,720 --> 00:18:50,440
and made a success of their life

181
00:18:51,800 --> 00:18:58,120
but a lot of people had a lot to do with Jim Meade's recovery.

182
00:18:58,120 --> 00:18:59,560
I was just a small part.

183
00:19:02,360 --> 00:19:06,360
It would be very difficult for me to put into words what this day has meant to me.

184
00:19:07,160 --> 00:19:11,880
It just makes the future that much brighter because I do know that now

185
00:19:13,640 --> 00:19:14,760
the dreams do come true.

186
00:19:17,560 --> 00:19:21,240
In a moment we'd examine the extraordinary and controversial story

187
00:19:21,240 --> 00:19:24,600
of a strange craft that crashed in New Mexico in 1947.

188
00:19:34,280 --> 00:19:39,720
This Air Force Base here in Roswell, New Mexico is the center of a controversy back in 1947

189
00:19:39,720 --> 00:19:42,440
that over 40 years later still remains unsolved.

190
00:19:43,400 --> 00:19:46,600
Remnants of a mysterious craft were found on a remote ranch

191
00:19:46,600 --> 00:19:48,840
and allegedly stored here in Hangar 84.

192
00:19:49,640 --> 00:19:52,120
To this day there are many who believe it was a UFO.

193
00:19:52,920 --> 00:19:55,080
When we first heard of the incident at Roswell,

194
00:19:55,080 --> 00:19:58,520
we assumed it was just another UFO sighting that could be easily explained.

195
00:19:59,080 --> 00:20:02,840
A distant aircraft, an air missile, or perhaps it was just a hoax.

196
00:20:03,800 --> 00:20:06,840
However, eyewitness accounts and disturbing evidence suggests

197
00:20:06,840 --> 00:20:09,000
that something strange happened here at Roswell,

198
00:20:09,720 --> 00:20:11,800
something that cannot be easily dismissed.

199
00:20:13,000 --> 00:20:19,800
July 2nd, 1947.

200
00:20:20,840 --> 00:20:25,400
A violent electrical storm sweeps over the desolate plain of south central New Mexico.

201
00:20:29,480 --> 00:20:32,600
At this time of year these storms are almost nightly occurrences.

202
00:20:36,440 --> 00:20:40,920
At his remote ranch house, Mack Brasill patiently waits out the fury of the storm.

203
00:20:42,760 --> 00:20:48,840
Mack was a, he was just an old time cowboy I guess you'd say.

204
00:20:49,480 --> 00:20:53,000
And he was pretty, pretty serious.

205
00:20:53,560 --> 00:20:56,840
If he told you something you could pretty well depend on it.

206
00:21:07,480 --> 00:21:12,040
Apparently Mack Brasill heard a thunder clap that night that somehow sounded different.

207
00:21:12,440 --> 00:21:26,360
The story is that Mack Brasill supposedly heard a loud crash at some point during the storm

208
00:21:26,360 --> 00:21:28,120
and didn't know if it was related to the storm or not.

209
00:21:28,680 --> 00:21:34,360
According to his son, Mack was on the range the next day looking to see which fields may have

210
00:21:34,360 --> 00:21:38,040
gotten precipitation the night before so they could move the livestock to those fields because

211
00:21:38,040 --> 00:21:43,160
the grass would be better there. And in his process of looking to see where the rain had come

212
00:21:43,160 --> 00:21:53,960
down, he found the debris fields spread out near his ranch house.

213
00:21:57,400 --> 00:22:01,080
It was obvious that something had crashed in one of his pastures the night before.

214
00:22:02,840 --> 00:22:05,880
Whatever it was was broken up beyond identification.

215
00:22:08,760 --> 00:22:15,400
The debris field was approximately three quarters of a mile long, maybe as much as 200 or 300 feet

216
00:22:15,400 --> 00:22:20,840
in width. Scattered along there were bits and pieces of material we refused to call it metal

217
00:22:20,840 --> 00:22:25,400
because from the descriptions we have it was more of a plastic-like material, very strong,

218
00:22:25,400 --> 00:22:31,400
very lightweight. The pieces of it were described as being three or four feet long but as light as

219
00:22:31,400 --> 00:22:37,800
a feather, thin as newsprint. There were metal beams that were slightly flexible but very strong.

220
00:22:38,440 --> 00:22:40,440
And it was spread out all over the field.

221
00:22:43,720 --> 00:22:53,960
Some of the metal pieces appeared to have strange qualities and unusual tensile properties.

222
00:23:08,280 --> 00:23:25,320
Later that day, Mack drove over to his closest neighbors, Floyd and Oretta Proctor, who lived 10

223
00:23:25,320 --> 00:23:32,120
miles away. Good afternoon, Floyd. Oretta. Hi, Mack. What brings you all the way out here?

224
00:23:32,680 --> 00:23:39,960
For Mack, he was excited. You know, he was wanting somebody to go down and check it out.

225
00:23:41,080 --> 00:23:47,400
And we should have. We didn't. Take a look at that.

226
00:23:50,840 --> 00:23:53,240
Light a match to it, you. See what I'm talking about.

227
00:23:54,840 --> 00:24:01,800
And he brought a little sliver of wood-looking stuff and him and my husband tried to

228
00:24:03,080 --> 00:24:08,200
cut it and burn it but it wouldn't whet it and it wouldn't burn.

229
00:24:10,840 --> 00:24:16,920
Well, Mitt, that's pretty damn odd. Now I would say it looked like plastic back then, why,

230
00:24:16,920 --> 00:24:23,240
you know, we didn't have plastic and I guess it was more like some kind of a lightweight wood.

231
00:24:23,320 --> 00:24:32,680
The Proctors urged Brazill to go to the authorities. The following Monday, Brazill reported his

232
00:24:32,680 --> 00:24:36,760
discovery to the sheriff who informed nearby Roswell Army Air Base.

233
00:24:42,440 --> 00:24:47,320
That afternoon, Mack Brazill led two Army intelligence officers to the crash site.

234
00:24:48,200 --> 00:24:54,360
One of the officers was Major Jesse Marcell Sr., an experienced combat pilot whose primary duty

235
00:24:54,360 --> 00:25:00,360
in peacetime was to investigate air accidents. I wanted to stay there, Mr. Brazill. Lieutenant.

236
00:25:01,800 --> 00:25:07,720
Even with his experience, Marcell was unable to identify what kind of craft it was.

237
00:25:07,720 --> 00:25:13,800
Marcell died in 1982, but before his death, he gave the following interview for a documentary

238
00:25:13,800 --> 00:25:21,160
film about UFOs. They were just fragments strewn all over the area, an area about three-quarters

239
00:25:21,160 --> 00:25:26,680
of a mile long and several hundred feet wide. So we proceeded to pick up the parts.

240
00:25:26,680 --> 00:25:32,040
He says, I tried to bend the stuff. He says, it will not bend. I even tried to burn that,

241
00:25:32,040 --> 00:25:36,360
it would not burn. He says, that stuff weighs nothing. It's not in there thick and then tin

242
00:25:36,360 --> 00:25:42,200
fall in the back of cigarettes. He says, we even tried making a dent in it with a 16-pound slag.

243
00:25:42,280 --> 00:25:48,280
Still no dent in it. One thing I was certain of, being familiar with all

244
00:25:48,280 --> 00:25:52,920
the arid activities, that it was not a weather balloon, nor an aircraft, nor a missile.

245
00:25:53,560 --> 00:25:56,600
It was something else which we didn't know what it was.

246
00:26:01,240 --> 00:26:06,680
Late on the night of July 7th, Major Marcell drove back to Roswell, his car loaded down

247
00:26:06,680 --> 00:26:09,480
with the unusual remains found on the ranch.

248
00:26:10,200 --> 00:26:17,400
Before going on to the base, he stopped by his home. He wanted to show his family what he had found.

249
00:26:17,400 --> 00:26:23,480
When he came back to the house, he had had a bunch of wreckage with him at the time and

250
00:26:23,480 --> 00:26:28,360
he brought the wreckage into the house. Actually, I awakened my mother and myself out so we could

251
00:26:28,360 --> 00:26:35,480
view this because it's so unusual. It's about two o'clock in the morning as I recall, right?

252
00:26:36,440 --> 00:26:38,920
It's about two o'clock in the morning as I recall, right?

253
00:26:39,960 --> 00:26:43,960
Spread it out so we could get some basic idea of what it looked like, what it was.

254
00:26:46,280 --> 00:26:50,680
Jesse Marcell Jr. was 11 years old at the time and remembers the incident vividly.

255
00:26:52,520 --> 00:26:56,520
He is one of the few people still alive known to have handled pieces of the debris.

256
00:26:57,320 --> 00:26:58,920
No, son, I don't know what this stuff is.

257
00:26:59,880 --> 00:27:03,640
We're all, we're amazed by this debris that was there.

258
00:27:04,520 --> 00:27:07,160
Probably because we didn't know what it was, you know, just the unknown.

259
00:27:08,520 --> 00:27:11,640
Look at this writing. What do you think that is?

260
00:27:11,640 --> 00:27:17,000
The most remarkable fragment was a short piece of i-beam which was covered with strange symbols

261
00:27:17,000 --> 00:27:20,520
and embossed markings. Looks like some kind of hieroglyphics.

262
00:27:20,520 --> 00:27:26,360
This writing could be described as like hieroglyphics, Egyptian type hieroglyphics, but not really.

263
00:27:27,320 --> 00:27:33,560
The symbols that were in the i-beams were more of a geometric type configuration in various designs.

264
00:27:33,560 --> 00:27:39,000
It had a violet-purple type color and was actually an embossed part of the metal itself.

265
00:27:41,800 --> 00:27:48,520
Years after this incident happened, we would talk privately among ourselves about what the

266
00:27:48,520 --> 00:27:54,200
possibilities of this, what this thing was. And I feel that we, well, I know that we came

267
00:27:54,280 --> 00:27:57,080
to the conclusion that was not of earthly origin.

268
00:28:00,360 --> 00:28:04,280
If I had not actually held pieces of it in my hand, I would not think that it would be possible.

269
00:28:04,920 --> 00:28:07,880
But because I happened to see this, that's the only reason I believe it.

270
00:28:11,000 --> 00:28:14,520
Major Marcel took the wreckage to the Roswell base where he was stationed.

271
00:28:17,160 --> 00:28:20,920
Roswell was home to the 509th Bomb Squadron, the Air Force's

272
00:28:21,000 --> 00:28:27,480
sole atomic bomb group at the time. It was a closed base and personnel stationed there

273
00:28:27,480 --> 00:28:35,000
required a high security clearance. The following morning it is believed that some of the pieces

274
00:28:35,000 --> 00:28:40,440
were flown to Wright Field near Dayton, Ohio with a short stop at Carswell Air Base at Fort Worth,

275
00:28:40,440 --> 00:28:48,280
Texas. That same morning Colonel William Blanchard, the commanding officer, made a crucial decision.

276
00:28:49,240 --> 00:28:53,320
He went public with a story of the discovery made by Mac Brazzel.

277
00:28:59,000 --> 00:29:03,080
PIO's office, Lieutenant Hot speaking. Hot, this is Colonel Blanchard.

278
00:29:03,080 --> 00:29:05,320
Colonel Blanchard, yes sir. What can I do for you sir?

279
00:29:06,680 --> 00:29:11,880
Second Lieutenant Walter Hot, who was a public information officer for the 509th at the time.

280
00:29:12,440 --> 00:29:15,320
Flying disc. You heard me, Lieutenant.

281
00:29:15,480 --> 00:29:19,720
Colonel Blanchard ordered him to issue a press release telling the country how the

282
00:29:19,720 --> 00:29:25,480
army had found a flying saucer. I never questioned it. Yes sir.

283
00:29:25,480 --> 00:29:32,040
In 1947 when a Colonel told the first lieutenant to do something, the first lieutenant did that.

284
00:29:32,840 --> 00:29:37,880
I'm sure that had I asked Colonel Blanchard to see it, he would have said no and that would have

285
00:29:37,880 --> 00:29:44,440
been the end of the subject. There's a little bit of difference. He didn't have any democracy

286
00:29:44,440 --> 00:29:47,640
back in 1947 in the military establishment.

287
00:29:51,400 --> 00:29:56,600
The press release read in part. The many rumors regarding the flying disc became a

288
00:29:56,600 --> 00:30:02,600
reality yesterday when the intelligence office of the 509th bomb squadron was fortunate enough

289
00:30:02,600 --> 00:30:06,680
to gain possession of a disc through the cooperation of a local rapture.

290
00:30:07,080 --> 00:30:17,880
I took the releases into town and that was one of the things that Colonel Blanchard told me to do.

291
00:30:17,880 --> 00:30:23,960
Take it into town because if there's any validity to this, he didn't want the news media to feel

292
00:30:23,960 --> 00:30:30,280
that we had jumped over their heads and were not cooperating with them. That same day it was reported

293
00:30:30,280 --> 00:30:34,760
that an engineer for the soil conservation service made another remarkable discovery.

294
00:30:37,400 --> 00:30:43,800
Barney Barnett of Socorro, New Mexico died in 1969, but he may have been the person who discovered

295
00:30:43,800 --> 00:30:48,280
what was perhaps the first positive proof that there was other life in our universe.

296
00:30:53,960 --> 00:30:58,600
Barney was just a real straightforward, just what you would call a real straight guy.

297
00:30:59,400 --> 00:31:04,280
He wouldn't tell you one story out of color or nothing. That's why I was really surprised

298
00:31:04,280 --> 00:31:07,720
when he related this information to me about the crash saucer.

299
00:31:11,240 --> 00:31:14,120
He told me that he'd come onto this spaceship, it was during the daytime.

300
00:31:15,160 --> 00:31:19,880
It was an oval shape similar to what had been identified, you know, in different sightings and

301
00:31:19,880 --> 00:31:23,880
so on. And it had crashed and it had broken open.

302
00:31:24,520 --> 00:31:37,160
There was beings laying about four beings laying on the ground, not in the spaceship, laying on the

303
00:31:37,160 --> 00:31:45,640
ground. He did describe that the heads were larger than the bodies by proportion. And they had some

304
00:31:45,640 --> 00:31:50,200
type of clothing on that looked a little bit different, not exactly like our spacesuits or

305
00:31:50,200 --> 00:31:58,040
that sort of thing. But the four were laying on the ground and they were scattered not too far from the

306
00:31:58,040 --> 00:32:05,720
object. Barney told Verne that he reached the crash site about the same time as a group of

307
00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:09,240
archaeology students who had seen the wreckage from their nearby dig.

308
00:32:20,920 --> 00:32:26,040
The military had also apparently discovered the second crash site after an aerial search,

309
00:32:26,040 --> 00:32:28,280
but they arrived too late to secure the area.

310
00:32:29,880 --> 00:32:32,920
Sergeant, get those people out of there and in front of this jeep now.

311
00:32:33,800 --> 00:32:38,680
Barney Barnett and the students had a clear and detailed look at the craft and its occupants.

312
00:32:41,080 --> 00:32:45,240
When the army showed up, they immediately escorted these people from the scene.

313
00:32:45,800 --> 00:32:50,120
And then at that time they gave them a warning not to relate any information to anybody.

314
00:32:51,320 --> 00:32:57,000
From that time on, Barney never mentioned it to anybody until the time that he told me about the thing.

315
00:32:57,800 --> 00:33:04,120
Ladies and gentlemen, it is my duty to inform you.

316
00:33:04,680 --> 00:33:08,680
All efforts to track down the members of the archaeology dig have been unsuccessful.

317
00:33:11,960 --> 00:33:14,520
While the Barnett story has only been told second hand,

318
00:33:15,080 --> 00:33:20,040
many believe there is just too much supporting circumstantial evidence to completely dismiss it.

319
00:33:20,440 --> 00:33:27,400
When he first told me I was sort of flabbergasted, I didn't know what to say,

320
00:33:27,400 --> 00:33:29,400
but I believed it because of his integrity.

321
00:33:33,080 --> 00:33:41,080
I'd stake my life on his reliability. He would never concoct any story. That's why I believed it's a bit true.

322
00:33:41,080 --> 00:33:57,240
On July 8, 1947, newspapers across America published accounts that a UFO had supposedly crashed in New Mexico.

323
00:33:59,880 --> 00:34:02,520
That same day, according to some investigators,

324
00:34:03,080 --> 00:34:07,960
a cargo plane carrying the debris from the crash site arrived at Mare Base in Fort Worth, Texas.

325
00:34:08,440 --> 00:34:13,320
At almost the same moment, the Army received the news of a second crash site,

326
00:34:13,320 --> 00:34:16,440
where alien bodies may have been found.

327
00:34:19,560 --> 00:34:24,440
Brigadier General Roger Ramey was the ranking commander of the Eighth Army Air Force at Fort Worth.

328
00:34:25,880 --> 00:34:30,360
Within hours, Ramey's office issued a new press release, stating that the material

329
00:34:30,360 --> 00:34:36,760
recovered in New Mexico was not a UFO, but in reality, the wreckage of a U.S. Army weather balloon.

330
00:34:38,600 --> 00:34:43,240
A dad said, obviously, it was a cover-up story. It was not a weather balloon.

331
00:34:43,240 --> 00:34:48,600
He was a little disturbed about that, but he had his own intelligence,

332
00:34:49,720 --> 00:34:54,680
security classification to protect. He could not really go public with,

333
00:34:54,680 --> 00:35:00,200
hey, this is not the real thing. I mean, this is not a weather balloon. So he had to keep that to himself.

334
00:35:01,160 --> 00:35:11,080
But the UFO incident was still very much alive from Mac Brazel. At the time rumors surfaced that

335
00:35:11,080 --> 00:35:16,760
Brazel was held at the Roswell Base until after the new cover story had been circulated and generally

336
00:35:16,760 --> 00:35:28,520
accepted. In Roswell, Floyd Proctor and a friend saw Brazel, but he appeared to be unwilling or unable

337
00:35:28,600 --> 00:35:38,920
to acknowledge his friend. Floyd and a neighbor was in Roswell and saw Mac surrounded by

338
00:35:40,200 --> 00:35:48,440
some of the Air Force people and they walked right by him and Mac wouldn't speak to them.

339
00:35:49,800 --> 00:35:57,320
They, you know, kind of thought it was kind of funny. I guess really wondered what he got into.

340
00:35:58,760 --> 00:36:06,680
And Mac, he wouldn't talk about it after he came back home. But he did say that if he ever found

341
00:36:06,680 --> 00:36:15,400
something else, he wouldn't report it. By the time Brazel returned to his ranch,

342
00:36:15,400 --> 00:36:20,360
all traces of the Roswell incident had apparently been removed from the area and taken to Wright

343
00:36:20,360 --> 00:36:27,080
Field and Dayton, Ohio. Everything went to Wright Field. That's where the Air Technical

344
00:36:27,080 --> 00:36:31,080
Intelligence Center was. That was where they could make the studies. Subsequent to that,

345
00:36:31,080 --> 00:36:36,200
we think that the material has been sent elsewhere. We think one of the bodies has gone to Langley,

346
00:36:36,200 --> 00:36:41,160
CIA headquarters. We think another has gone to MacDill, which is an Air Force base in Florida,

347
00:36:41,160 --> 00:36:46,360
where they have an aerospace medicine facility. We don't know where other stuff is gone. We

348
00:36:46,360 --> 00:36:54,680
think some of it is still left at Wright Field. I think the reasons for the initial cover up

349
00:36:54,680 --> 00:36:59,560
are pretty straightforward when you stop to think about it. Remember, this is two years after the

350
00:36:59,560 --> 00:37:04,760
worst war the planet had ever seen. You didn't think in terms of nice guys here to say hello kind

351
00:37:04,760 --> 00:37:11,720
of thing. They didn't know how to deal with them. What could you tell the public? It would have been

352
00:37:11,720 --> 00:37:15,800
totally irresponsible to say, by the way, we thought you'd like to know that there are alien

353
00:37:15,800 --> 00:37:20,920
visitors to planet Earth, that we can't do a darn thing to prevent them from flying over the country.

354
00:37:20,920 --> 00:37:23,800
We don't know what they want or where they're from, but we thought you'd like to know.

355
00:37:24,440 --> 00:37:27,960
For this group of people at that time to do that would have been totally irresponsible.

356
00:37:30,520 --> 00:37:35,640
In spite of the circumstantial evidence, there was no real proof to dispute the army's contention

357
00:37:35,640 --> 00:37:43,320
that the wreckage was in fact a weather balloon. Then, more than 30 years later, UFO researchers

358
00:37:43,320 --> 00:37:48,280
obtained a document which many contend proves the Roswell incident actually occurred.

359
00:37:48,280 --> 00:37:58,920
In 1984, this top secret document known as the MJ-12 memo was mailed anonymously to a UFO researcher.

360
00:38:00,600 --> 00:38:07,320
Operation Majestic 12, or MJ-12 as it's called, was a group of 12 people apparently established by

361
00:38:07,320 --> 00:38:13,400
the president to deal with the wreckage from Roswell and the whole problem that that created.

362
00:38:14,360 --> 00:38:18,760
Well, how did these things work? Where did they come from? How can we get more information?

363
00:38:19,640 --> 00:38:24,600
How can we analyze the wreckage in the bodies and so forth? And how do we interact with the rest

364
00:38:24,600 --> 00:38:34,360
of society having that knowledge? A contents of the report stung researchers. In part, it read,

365
00:38:35,080 --> 00:38:43,160
On 07 July 1947, a secret operation was begun to assure the recovery of the wreckage.

366
00:38:44,760 --> 00:38:49,960
Aerial reconnaissance discovered that four small human-like beings had apparently ejected from

367
00:38:49,960 --> 00:38:58,520
the craft about two miles east of the wreckage site. All four were dead. Civilian and military

368
00:38:58,520 --> 00:39:03,400
witnesses in the area were debriefed, and news reporters were given the effective cover story

369
00:39:03,400 --> 00:39:11,400
that the object had been a misguided weather believe. The government has consistently refused

370
00:39:11,400 --> 00:39:15,640
a comment on the MJ-12 memo, and there is still no proof of its origin.

371
00:39:19,800 --> 00:39:25,320
But if we are to believe the MJ-12 document and the other accounts, then we must ask ourselves a

372
00:39:25,320 --> 00:39:33,720
fantastic question. Did our government in 1947 really discover evidence that there is life in

373
00:39:33,720 --> 00:39:43,880
the universe outside our own atmosphere? Apart from Barney Barnett, there is only one man who

374
00:39:43,880 --> 00:39:51,880
was ever admitted to having seen these aliens. My husband, Oliver Henderson, otherwise known as

375
00:39:51,880 --> 00:39:57,800
Pappy in the Air Force, he was interested with many of this country's top secrets,

376
00:39:57,800 --> 00:40:02,600
and they were safe with him. He never told anything that he wasn't supposed to,

377
00:40:03,880 --> 00:40:09,640
and therefore it was 34 years after this incident happened that I heard about it.

378
00:40:11,960 --> 00:40:16,680
Captain Pappy Henderson was the man who piloted the plane that took the first pieces of wreckage

379
00:40:16,680 --> 00:40:24,920
out of Roswell. In 1981, two years before he died, he told his wife that in spite of military

380
00:40:24,920 --> 00:40:34,040
denials, the Roswell incident really happened. My husband told me the bodies were small,

381
00:40:34,840 --> 00:40:43,080
smaller than human bodies. The heads were larger, and the eyes were rather sunken and

382
00:40:43,080 --> 00:40:49,400
a little slanted. Clothing was of material unlike anything he'd seen before.

383
00:40:51,160 --> 00:40:55,800
They were strange. They were not of this earth.

384
00:41:03,400 --> 00:41:11,720
When my husband, who was a man of truth, who was trusted with 29 different

385
00:41:11,720 --> 00:41:18,600
Army aircraft planes, first pilot, aircraft commander, tells me this story, I believed him.

386
00:41:20,600 --> 00:41:25,800
If this happened, it's the most significant event of the 20th century and probably the millennium.

387
00:41:25,800 --> 00:41:31,160
It would be akin to Columbus discovering the new world and Queen Isabella deciding not to tell

388
00:41:31,160 --> 00:41:33,320
the rest of the world about the discovery of the new world.

389
00:41:33,720 --> 00:41:41,480
More than 40 years had passed since that hot summer night when a violent thunderstorm

390
00:41:41,480 --> 00:41:48,600
swept over the Brazzel Ranch. The military declared that the remnants found in that

391
00:41:48,600 --> 00:41:56,360
remote field came from a downed weather border. But the people who actually saw and held the

392
00:41:56,440 --> 00:42:04,600
wreckage disagreed. Perhaps it was an experimental aircraft that the military wanted to keep top

393
00:42:04,600 --> 00:42:12,600
secret at all costs. But perhaps, just perhaps, it was something else.

394
00:42:27,320 --> 00:42:32,120
Next week on Unsolved Mysteries, we will feature a special appearance by the director of the FBI,

395
00:42:32,120 --> 00:42:36,440
William Sessions, who will ask for your help in tracking down several of the most dangerous

396
00:42:36,440 --> 00:42:41,640
fugitives in the United States. We will visit Ambridge, Pennsylvania, where several parishioners

397
00:42:41,640 --> 00:42:46,680
of the Holy Trinity Church claim they witnessed a miracle above the altar during a religious service.

398
00:42:48,040 --> 00:42:52,760
And we will profile a clever con man who has targeted nudist camps across the country for his

399
00:42:52,760 --> 00:43:09,000
devious scams. For every mystery, there is someone, somewhere, who knows the truth. Perhaps it's you.

400
00:43:52,760 --> 00:43:53,660
you