Having done extensive research back in the ‘90s on the Roswell crash, I was excited to finally have the opportunity to read this book. After all, if there were a single human focal point for the event, it would have to be Major Jesse Marcel, Sr.
I expected this book would finally provide the platform on which Major Marcel could share what happened that fateful day and in those that followed. As we all know, he was told to keep quite about anything relating to the crash and he did so for most of his life.
Through this book finally coming out, I expected he would have his day and share his observations, as only he could, on the timeline of the event through information and memoirs that he had held and saved, giving it to his son for publication after his death. I was hoping to hear how he felt when things were suddenly turned around at the press conference when the debris was switched and he was forced to have his picture taken with remnants of a weather balloon.
Thus, I am somewhat disappointed to find the book is really a memoir by Jesse, Jr. regarding his experiences and recollections. Though he does share his feelings on the effects of this event throughout his life and how he felt it affected his father, it lacks the insight I had hoped we would get from Jesse, Sr., held inside him ever since the he visited the crash site back in early July of 1947.
It does offer some good background about Jesse, Sr. prior to his station at Roswell Army Air Field. And Jesse, Jr. spends almost too much time defending his father against the many naysayers out there that really don’t deserve that much attention.
The book is worth the read since valuable information can still be found within it. Perhaps it is just me, and my disappointment that I am not getting some form of insight from a long-held diary by Jesse, Sr., rather than hindsight from Jesse, Jr.