Jesse Marcel

Jesse Antoine Marcel Sr. (May 27, 1907 – June 23, 1986) was a major in the United States Air Force (later a lieutenant colonel in the Reserves) who helped administer Operation Crossroads, the 1946 atom bomb tests at the Bikini Atoll.

Marcel was the first military officer tasked with investigating the 1947 Roswell incident, where supposed "flying disc" debris was later identified as pieces of a weather balloon. The incident was largely forgotten until 1978, when Marcel, then a retired lieutenant colonel, told ufologist Stanton Friedman that he believed the Roswell debris was extraterrestrial.