Major Jesse Marcel, Operation Crossroads, and Roswell

Operation Crossroads consisted of two Atomic bomb tests carried out at the Bikini atoll in the Marshall Islands in the summer of 1946.  The center of air operations, however, were at Kwajalein air base, about 200 miles east of Bikini.

Many of the same players in the famous Roswell Incident of 1947 participated in these tests, since Roswell was the location of the one and only atomic bomber group in the world at that time.  Gen. Roger Ramey, a pivotal character in the Roswell Incident, was in charge of the various plane crews at Operation Crossroads. 

Another key person in the Roswell Incident, Major Jesse Marcel, the intelligence chief at Roswell, was also at Crossroads.  According to his commendations, including one from Ramey, Marcel seems to have been in charge of security and intelligence at Kwajalein.  Marcel also seems to have been in charge of the briefing room.  Before the war, Marcel had been a professional mapmaker and was also an excellent graphic artist.  Marcel  applied both skills in the Kwajalein briefing room as the first photo below illustrates.  Marcel closely resembles the man seated on stage at the left of the photo, but the photo isn't clear enough for definite identification. 

The photo  at the right shows a weather balloon launch at Kwajalein during Operation Crossroads.  Why is this relevant to Roswell?  Because Roswell debunkers claim that Marcel somehow misidentified common weather balloon debris and exaggerated into exotic flying saucer material.  They even go so far as to claim that Marcel had never before seen a weather balloon in his entire life.  How they determined this without resorting to seances with the dead is unknown.

However, hundreds of weather balloon launches were carried out at Kwajalein in the course of  Crossroads, since knowing the status of the winds is vital in atomic testing.  This would be the single-most important piece of information in deciding to proceed with an atomic test and also critical information to the pilots and crews involved at all times.  Thus it would be a key component of the briefings.

It is also important to note that Kwajalein base is on an island of the Kwajalein atoll only about a square mile in size.  These islands are also completely flat, rising only a few feet above sea level.  I know--I've been there.  It would have been very hard for Marcel not to have seen a single one of these many balloon launches, and absolutely unbelievable that he would be totally ignorant of them, or what a weather balloon looked like.