Documents / FOIA release

rosswe1

Office of the Secretary of Defense · 31 pages · text from the file's own layer

This July 1994 Department of the Air Force package, from SAF/AAZ to the Secretary of the Air Force, covers a report written to support a General Accounting Office audit requested by Congressman Steven Schiff. The Air Force searched its offices, archives and records centers and interviewed witnesses, including Sheridan Cavitt. It found no evidence of an extraterrestrial event, alien bodies or a cover-up. It concludes that the debris recovered near Roswell in 1947 most likely came from a Project MOGUL balloon.

  • p. 1 …Nevertheless, the attached report is a good faith effort and the first time any agency of…
  • p. 3 …until the 1978-1980 time frame. Prior to that, the incident was dismissed because the AAF…
  • p. 5 …times, most research- ers will not dispute that anything in UFO history can compare with the…
  • p. 6 …the "Roswell Incident" was not considered one of these 1947 events until the 1978-1980 time…
  • p. 7 …weather balloons on the ranch, but_that what he found this time did not in any…
  • p. 8 …the persons interviewed were, in fact, stationed at, or lived near Roswell during the time in…
  • p. 9 …Collectively, the above represent the "pro" UFO writers who allege that the government is engaged in…
  • p. 12 …at Roswell Army Air Field during the period of time in question. It is anticipated that…
  • p. 13 …Since much of this testing done at nearby White Sands was secret at the time, it…
  • p. 14 …the 509th Bomb Group was the only military unit in the world at the time that…
  • p. 15 …If such a system had been in effect at the time, it would 21
  • p. 16 …Marcel, MD (son of the late Major Jesse Marcel; .11 years old at the time of…
  • p. 17 …Brazel; 14 years old at the time of the incident). Affidavit dated September 22, 1993. " ... The…
  • p. 18 …He thought at the time, and continued to do so today, that what he found was…
  • p. 20 …of the project, but they did not know of the project nickname at the time. They…
  • p. 21 …Additionally, a copy of a professional journal maintained at the time by A.P. Crary, provided…
  • p. 23 …first generation) prints of the photographs taken at the time by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram…
  • p. 24 …Although that project was Top Secret at the time, there was also no specific indication found…
  • p. 25 …good faith but in the "fog of time," misinterpreted past events. The review of Air Force…
  • p. 27 …the Roswell Incident, this event has become the most celebrated UFO encounter of all time and…
  • p. 29 …such amusing events as the one reported by the New York Times in which a secret…
  • p. 30 …such amusing events as the one reported by the New York Times in which a secret…
some tape with flowers printed upon it had been used in the
construction. No string or wire were to be found but there were
some eyelets in the paper to indicate that some sort of attachment
may have b~ used. Brazel said that he had previously found two
weather balloons on the ranch, but_that what he found this time did
not in any way resemble either of these.
EVOLUTION OF THE EVENT FROM 1947 TO THE PRESENT
General Ramey's press· conference and rancher Brazel's statement effectively
ended this as a UFO-related matter until 1978, although some UFO researchers
argue that there were several obtuse references to it in 1950's-era literature.
Roswell, for example, is not referred to in the official USAF investigation of UFOs
reported in Project Bluebook or its predecessors, Project Sign and Project Grudge,
which ran from 1948-1969 (which Congressman Schiff subsequently learned when
he made his original inquiry).
In 1978, an article appeared in a tabloid newspaper, the National Enquirer, which
reported the former intelligence officer, Marcel, claimed that he had recovered
UFO debris near Roswell in 1947. Also in 1978, a UFO researcher, Stanton
Friedman, met with Marcel and began investigating the claims that the material
Marcel handled was from a crashed UFO. Similarly, two authors, William L.
Moore and Charles Berlitz, also engaged in research which led them to publish
a book, The Roswell Incident, in 1980. In this book they reported they interviewed
a number of persons who claimed to have been present at Roswell in 1947 and
professed to be either firsthand or secondhand witnesses to strange events that
supposedly occurred. Since 1978-1980, other UFO researchers, most notably
Donald Schmitt and Kevin Randle, claim to have located and interviewed even
more persons with supposed knowledge of unusual happenings at Roswell. These
included both civilian and former military persons.
Additionally, the Robert Stack-hosted television show ''Unsolved Mysteries"
devoted a large portion of one show to a "re-creation" of the supposed Roswell
events. Numerous other television shows have done likewise, particularly during
the last several years, and a made-for-TV movie on the subject is due to be
released this summer. The overall thrust of these articles, books, and shows is that
the "Roswell Incident" was actually the crash of a craft from another world, the
US Government recovered it, and has been "covering up" this fact from the
American public since 1947, using a combination of disinformation, ridicule, and
threats of bodily harm, to do so. Generally, the USAF bears the brunt of these
accusations.
From the rather benign description of the "event" and the recovery of some
material as described in the original newspaper accounts, the "Roswell Incident"
has since grown to mythical (if not mystical) proportions in the eyes and minds
of some researchers, portions of the media and at least part of the American
public. There are also now several major variations of the "Roswell story." For
13

Cases discussed

About this file

FOIA release, from the osd collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 31 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.