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The Search for Begins Evidence He handled pieces of one of those things." The remark seemed to come out of nowhere, made in such a matter-of-fact manner that it briefly stumped the gregarious nuclear physicist Stanton Friedman. He had been researching and lecturing about UFOs to hundreds of colleges and professional, educational, and scientific groups for eleven years and thought he was prepared for almost anything, includ- ing reports of crashed alien craft. "I didn't know what to make of the statement, so I said, "Who's he?'" It was February 20, 1978. Friedman was in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to present a talk he called "Flying Saucers Are Real" at Louisiana State University that evening. He was doing a series of radio and television interviews as part of the advance promotion for the talk and had paused for coffee with the director of one of the TV stations when this remark was made during an otherwise casual conversation. The station director explained that Marcel had b.een a major in the Army Air Forces "and handled the wreckage of one of those things," meaning a crashed flying saucer. Marcel was no stranger who had called the station on an impulse and blurted Ti PERSON you really ought to talk to is Jesse Marcel. one