Roswell 1947 - Documents on the witnesses

AFFIDAVIT

(1) My name is Robert A. Slusher

(2) I was assigned to Roswell Army Air Field from 1946 to 1952.

(3) On July 9, 1947, I boarded a B-29 which taxied to the bomb area on the base to get a crate, which we loaded into the forward bomb bay. Four armed MPs guarded the crate, which was approximately four feet high, five feet wide, and 12 feet long. We departed Roswell at approximately 4:00 PM for Fort Worth.

(4) The flight to Fort Worth was at low altitude, approximately 4.000 or 5.000 ft. We usually flew at 25.000 ft. We had to fly lower because of the MP traveling in the bomb bay.

(5) En arrival at Fort Worth we were met by six people, including three MPs. They took possession of the crate. The crate was loaded on to a flatbed weapons carrier and hauled off. Their MPs accompanied the crate.

(6) One officer present was a major, the other a 1st lieutenant. The sixth person was an undertaker who had been a classmate of a crewman on our flight, Lt. Felix Martucci. Major Marcel arrived at the plane in a jeep and boarded. We stayed approximately thirty minutes at Fort Worth before returning to Roswell.

(7) The return flight went at more than 20.000 ft and the cabin was pressurized. After returning to Roswell, we realized that what was in the crate was classified. There were rumors that they had carried debris from a crash. Whether there were any bodies, I don't know. The crate had been specially made; it had no markings.

(8) We carried Major Jesse Marcel back on this flight. The pilot was captain Frederick Ewing; the co-pilot was Lieutenant Edgar Izard. Seargent David Tyner* was the flight mechanic, the navigator was James Eubanks; also present were T/Sgt Arthur Osepchook and Corporal Tadheus Love. The MPs also returned with us. [handwritten addition by R. Slusher:] *Lieutenant Elmer Landry took part in the flight as assistant to the flight mechanic. [end of handwritten addition]

(9) This flight was unusual in that we returned immediately after unloading the crate. The flight had not been scheduled; normally we were informed the day before a flight. The return flight took about three hours 1/4. It was still daylight when we arrived at Roswell. Lieutenant Martucci told has that we made "an historical flight."

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After my "Status Report V, UFO Crash/Retrievals: Is the Coverup Lid Lifting?" was published in the January 1989 issue of the MUFON UFO Journal, revitalizing interest in my research, I became privileged to learn of a new, firsthand source who appeared to have important information relating to the Roswell incident. Just Cause had earlier received a letter from this source, and after discussing its potential value with the editor, Barry Greenwood agreed to send me a copy and gave me the green light to follow up. On January 26, 1989, I was able to make contact with the source in a remote western state. To gain his trust, I promptly explained the confidential arrangement with Greenwood and provided my own credentials. In short time, "Tim" agreed to cooperate. Tim proved to have been a proud member of the only atomic bomb wing extant at the time, the 509th Bomb Group, stationed at Roswell Army Air Force Base in 1947. And as one of his fellow crew members reminded him on July 9th of that year, they were "making history" on their flight aboard a B-29, which they believed transported the deceased alien cadavers from the Roswell airbase in New Mexico to Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas. In consideration of the sensitivity of Tim's position, I agreed to the terms he requested concerning the release of his information, which includes concealing certain details mostly pertaining to his professional career, including rank, assigned duty aboard the flight, and the identity of key personnel involved in his special mission.

As one of the few dramatis personae of the Roswell story, Tim's eyewitness information was of course of extreme interest to me personally and to those who support my endeavors. In the long run, however, it may prove to be of even more importance as a vital piece of evidence in any future congressional hearing or in the chronicles of a historian. For the sake of accuracy, then, Tim and I reviewed to the verge of boredom, piece by piece, every aspect of his role, his observations and speculations to the best of his memory, even grading key issues such as his recall of attendant personnel and duties aboard the flight into three categories: Positive, Probable and Uncertain.

Tim's Account

We begin witth Tim's original story, excerpted from his letter to Just Cause, as follows:

"On this day our crew had not been on the flying roster. We had accomplished our period of ground school in the morning, then went to the skeet range after lunch. The Aircraft Commander had broken 48 targets, and I was next with 47 out of 50.

"The sergeant in charge of the range asked us if we had heard about the "Flying Disk" that had crashed out in the desert. Twice more before leaving the skeet range we heard reports of a space ship with bodies inside that had been found on a ranch in the area. When the truck dropped us off at the squadron area most of the other crews had been released for the day. The operations officer told our captain to keep the crew together because he thought he had a flight for us. We expected this was a last minute test hop on a plane needed for the next day's mission. I loved test hops, for on many of them the pilot would let me be the co-pilot and sometimes I would get to make a landing.

No Routine Flight

"We were sent out to preflight our own airplane; we knew then it was no test flight. The preflight of a B-29 was a lengthy operation, requiring a visual pressure check of each engine's fuel system, plus many other details. An hour later we were told to taxi the plane to the "Pit," a place where the atomic bomb was normally loaded. We were positioned so the front bomb-bay was directly over the pit, which was covered with a large tarp. But no atomic bomb was in the pit that afternoon.

"When the canvas was removed by the loading crew, all we could see was a very large wooden box. We stood off to the side and were not allowed more than a glimpse of the loading process. The box was sitting on a platform of the type we often used to carry cargo on. Once the load was secured in the bomb-bay four military policemen went inside and took positions at each corner of the box. I think two of them were majors, and one a lieutenant. The fourth man was an NCO.

"Three other officers of company and field grade were positioned in the forward and aft crew compartments. The officer crew members went to base operations for flight clearance and briefing. When they returned only the bombardier was allowed to go in the bomb-bay and check the security of the load. The engineer and I had no problem at all, and no ballast was required in the tail, so I guess now that it was less than 5000 pounds.

"Once airborne we were told the destination was the AAFB at Ft. Worth, Texas. By now we were aware that this was no routine cargo mission. The rank and number of the M. P.'s were clues that we had something important on board. One of our officers speculated that it was the household goods of some high-ranking ground-pounder being transferred to Ft. Worth. This was a reasonable guess.

"I do not remember connecting it with the "Flying Disk Crash" story until we were on the way back. We left most of the security people in Ft. Worth. I think only one, maybe two, came back with us. I do remember the strong lecture of this being a routine flight that we must not talk about. One of the crew, a very outspoken individual, said on the way home that we were now a part of history. He went on to say it was the disk and remains of the flight crew, because he had seen a man he recognized in the reception group. This man was a mortician by military specialty. "For weeks rumors were plentiful, and we were hard pressed to maintain the silence we had been ordered to keep."

If Tim's flight indeed transported the bodies, and not additional debris from the wreckage, then his testimony fits well into the scenario that says his was the third mission from Roswell. To prove it, of course, we would need access to official records, if they still exist, which is doubtful, for obvious reasons. Despite the paucity of firsthand testimony from surviving personnel, I feel reasonably sure of "Pappy" Henderson's flight of July 8, 1947, which transported the main "wreckage" in a B-29 (or possibly a C-54) to Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio. According to the testimony of Major Jesse Marcel, he had been bumped from this flight.

Jesse Marcel

Also according to Marcel, he flew to Carswell in a B-29 on July 8th. Notably, he referred to the cargo not as a crate, but as a "half B-29-ful" of fragments he had collected from the crash site on the Brazel ranch. Once at the airbase, his job was done. General Roger Ramey, in charge of the operations, released the story to the media that the downed saucer was actually a weather balloon, and ordered Marcel to return to Roswell, which he did the following day, July 9th.

Of significance, Tim remembers Marcel's involvement. To refresh his memory, he was sent a copy of the 509th Bomb Group's 1947 yearbook. He said he recalls his (Marcel's) presence on the scene, but is not sure where. "It's possible," said Tim, "that he was one of the officers to greet my plane at Carswell, but my guess is that he was on my return flight to Roswell." Based on known information, Marcel was unaware of the retrieved bodies and would not have a need-to-know qualification to greet the plane. A sealed crate, however, would surely have aroused suspicion.

Crucial, then, in coordinating the sequence of events, is the date of Tim's flight. Understandably blurred by the passage of time, and without any official 509th records to substantiate such a secret mission, he was at first uncertain of the date. "One clue, for sure," he said. "The weather that day was sunny and hot during a season known for its thunderstorms."

In a letter received in February, Tim entertained the notion that his flight might have been July 8 or 9, based on an illegible entry in a pocket diary that he had salvaged from his Roswell days. As it became increasingly important to fix a date, considering the impact of his revelations and the surfacing of new material (unknown to Tim), I called October 2, asking him to take another look at his diary. A tall request, indeed, in light that I knew he was in the midst of moving to a new residence, and I was told that it was already stored somewhere in a box. Then on October 5, Tim called. "I found the diary," he announced. "It was the ninth. I found the dates of my flights, clearly circled on the calendar, inside the back cover, which backs up my log entries for July 4th, 9th, 26th, 28th and 29th."

Log Entries

Following are Tim's flight entries in his log for July, 1947:

July 4,1947 DEH (CAA station designation for Roswell), Ship 6291. B-29. Formation flight cross country. Vicksburg, Little Rock, Tulsa, Amarillo and return. Holiday celebration. Flight time 9hrs., 55mins.

July 9, 1947 DEH, Ship 7301. B-29. Cross country. Ft. Worth and return. Flight time 1 hr., 55 mins. The next 17 days, Tim said, he and crew were in special training school featuring courses in Russian language, Judo, hand-to-hand combat, etc. July 26, 1947 DEH, Ship 430? (last number illegible) B-29. Cross country Round Robin to Atlanta and return via Houston. 10 hrs., 20 mins. July 28, 1947 DEH, Ship 6291. B-29. Cross country radar bombing. Omaha, Kansas City, Houston and return. Flight time 11 hrs., 20 mins. July 29, 1947 DEH, Ship 6291. B-29. Formation over Utah, live bombing. Flight time 5 hrs., 45 mins. The key date: July 9, 1947. For one thing, it backs up the scenario that Marcel returned to Roswell on Tim's flight. Other dramatic events on the 8th and 9th of July were linked to Marcel's flight to Carswell. New evidence reveals that during this period, a special detachment of troops from Roswell found three alien bodies (maybe four) about two-and-a-half miles from the crash site on the Brazel ranch. While this expeditionary discovery was probably unknown to Marcel, a figure so important to our reconstructed scenario, the magnitude of its shock surely would have triggered a state of alarm at the highest levels of government in Washington. And we can assume that hasty and momentous decisions were made, at least one of which, the urge toward secrecy, haunts us still.

In the short run, however, the exotic cadavers had to be protected, preserved, photographed and crated for shipment out of Roswell. By the afternoon of July 9, the bodies were ready for their shipment to Carswell. In my mind, Tim made that historic flight. "Everything about the fight was unusual," said Tim. "So tight was security, we knew that the crate contained more than the general's furniture." It was made of wood, he said, and was unpainted and unmarked as though hastily constructed. Fitting snugly into the bomb-bay, it was approximately 5 feet high, four wide and fifteen long. According to my calculations, these dimensions would suitably accommodate three 4-foot tall bodies (or parts of bodies) placed in a lengthwise row. But beyond the mystery of the crate and the extraordinary security measures at Roswell and Carswell, the strongest factor in support of Tim's belief that his plane carried the bodies is found in the words of a fellow crew member, the officer who recognized a former school chum, a mortician, among the contingent of greeters at Carswell.

The names of the pilot, co-pilot and those of his crew members that he can recall are known to me, but Tim prefers, understandably at this time, that they not be published. Perhaps in the near future more can be revealed about them and their roles. Tim's disclosures, based on the raw facts as he observed them, basically illustrate a military reaction to a UFO event. His information may seem circumstantial to the skeptic, but thought of in the context of the whole, as it links to the testimony of many other reliable witnesses, the case could stand up in any court of law.

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