When strange debris was found after a crash in Roswell, New Mexico in July 1947 Major Jesse A Marcel was the chief counterintelligence officer in the area.
Major Marcel was in charge of security at the Roswell Army Air Force Base at the time and may have been one of the first to attend the crash site.
Reports of an alien UFO sighting spread around the world and hysteria increased as theories that aliens had visited Earth sprung up everywhere.