Jesse Marcel Sr. (1907 – 1986) was a lieutenant colonel in the United States Air Force who helped administer Operation Crossroads, the 1946 atom bomb tests at the Bikini atoll. He was a key figure in the 1947 Roswell alleged UFO incident, which did not surface again until the late 1970s, when Marcel, now a retired lieutenant colonel, in an interview with ufologist Stanton Friedman, said he believed the debris he retrieved was extraterrestrial.