Black Vault compilation, pp. 91-93

service. Most, however, related their stories in their older years, well after the fact.
In other cases, the information provided is second or thirdhand, having been
passed through a friend or relative after the principal had died. What is uniquely
lacking in the entire exploration and exploitation of the "Roswell Incident" is
official positive documentary or physical evidence of any kind that supports the
claimS of those who allege that something unusual happened. Conversely, there
has never been any previous documentary evidence produced by those who
would debWlk the incident to show that something did not happen; although
logic dictates that bureaucracies do not spend time documenting nonevents.
SEARCH SfRATEGY AND METHODOLOGY
To insure senior Air Force leadership that there were no hidden or overlooked
files that might relate to the 11
Roswelllncident," and to provide the GAO with the
best and most complete information available, SAF I AAZ constructed a strategy
based on direct tasking from the Office of the Secretary, to elicit information from
those functional offices and organizations where such information might logically
be contained. This included directing searches at current offices where special or
unusual projects might be carried out, as well as historical organizations, archives,
and records centers over which the Air Force exerted some degree of control.
Researchers did not, however, go to the US Army to review historical records in
areas such as missile launches from White Sands, or to the Department of Energy
to determine if its forerunner, the Atomic Energy Commission, had any records
of nuclear-related incidents that might have occurred at or near Roswell in 1947.
To do so would have encroached on GAO's charter in this matter. What Air Force
researchers did do, however, was to search for records still under Air Force
control pertaining to these subject areas. ·
In order to determine parameters for the most productive search of records, a
review was first conducted of the major works regarding the "Roswell Incident"
available in the popular literature. These works included: The Roswell Incident
(1980) by William Moore and Charles Berlitz; ''Crashed Saucers: Evidence in
Search of Proof" (1985) by Moore; The UFO Crash at Roswell (1991) by Kevin
Randle and Donald Schmitt; The Truth About the UFO Crash at Roswell (1994), also
by Randle and Schmitt; The Roswell Report: A Historical Perspective (1991), George
M. Eberhart, editor; "The Roswell Events" (1993) compiled by Fred Whiting; Crash
at Corona (1992) by Stanton T. Friedman and Don Berliner; and numerous other
articles written by a combination of the above and other researchers. Collectively,
the above represent the "pro" UFO writers who allege that the government is
engaged in a conspiracy. There are no specific books written entirely on the theme
that nothing happened at Roswell. However, Curtis Peebles in Watch the S~!
(1994) discussed the development of the UFO story and growth of subsequent
claims as a phenomenon. There has also been serious research as well as a
number of detailed articles written by so-called "debunkers" of Roswell and other
incidents, most notably Philip J. Klass, who writes The Skeptic's UFO Newsletter,
and Robert Todd, a private researcher. The concerns and claims of all the above
authors and others were considered in conducting the USAF records search.
15