Documents / FOIA release

roswell

Office of the Secretary of Defense · 993 pages · text from the file's own layer

The Roswell Report: Fact versus Fiction in the New Mexico Desert was published in 1995 by Headquarters United States Air Force. It was written in response to Representative Steven H. Schiff's request and a General Accounting Office audit, and it contains Col. Richard L. Weaver's report and 1st Lt. James McAndrew's synopsis, along with attachments, appendices and photographs. The report says researchers found no evidence of an extraterrestrial craft or crew. It concludes that the 1947 debris came from a Project MOGUL balloon train.

  • p. 7 …AI Mack, Historian, 49th Fighter Wing, Holloman AFB, NM; Lois Walker, Historian, Air Force Materiel Command…
  • p. 14 …Report, Cambridge Field Station, Air Materiel Command, "Review of Air Materiel Command Geophysical Activities by Brigadier…
  • p. 30 …known as the Air Technical Intelligence Center (ATIC) and the Air Materiel Command (AMC), and would…
  • p. 37 …of Lt Gen Nathan Twining, Commander of the Air Materiel Command, to New Mexico in July…
  • p. 195 …TSELT-2/WHD/mCh Hq., Air Materiel Command, Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio. 8 July 1946. TO…
  • p. 276 …of the Electronic Subdivision of the Air Materiel Command, and under whose purview the Watson Laboratories…
  • p. 319 …of the US Army Air Forces (USAAF), the Air Materiel Command (AMC), early in 1946. The…
  • p. 328 …Rprt, Cambridge Field Sta, AMC, "Review of Air Materiel Command Geoppysical Activities by Brigadier General D…
  • p. 407 …ay 1948 The Watson laboratories of Air Materiel Command arranged for ~ne ( 1) of its sonic…
  • p. 408 …The Air Materiel Command provided three (3) aircraft, a C-54, a B-29, and a…
  • p. 455 …241 with Watson Laboratories of the Air Materiel Command. Under this contract the University was commissioned…
  • p. 609 …W28-099-ac-241 with Watson Laboratories, Air Materiel Command. Under this contract. the University us…
  • p. 736 …the Watson Labora~ tories of the Air Materiel Command. in the meteorological aspects of this, using…
  • p. 847 23 Report Cambridge Field Station, Air Materiel Command "Review of Air Materiel Command Geophyscial Activities by…
  • p. 974 …Twining, Commanding General, Air Materiel Command, 1947. General Twining was Chief of Staff, United States Air…
the supposed first ever recovery of extraterrestrial materials. (Detractors claim
Blanchard did this as a ploy to elude the press and go to the scene to direct the
recovery operations.) The history and the morning reports also showed that the
subsequent activities at Roswell during the month were mostly mundane and not
indicative of any unusual high-level activity, expenditure of manpower, resources
or security.
Likewise, the researchers found no indication of heightened activity anywhere
else in the military hierarchy in the July, 1947, message traffic or orders (to
include classified traffic). There were rlo indications and warnings, notice of alerts,
or a higher tempo of operational activity reported that would be logically
generated if an alien craft, whose intentions were unknown, entered US territory.
To believe that such operational and high-level security activity could be
conducted solely by relying on unsecured telecommunications or personal contact
without creating any records of such activity certainly stretches the imagination
of those who have served in the military who know that paperwork of some kind
is necessary to accomplish even emergency, highly classified, or sensitive tasks.
An example of activity sometimes cited by pro-UFO writers to illustrate the point
that something unusual was going on was the travel of Lt Gen Nathan Twining,
Commander of the Air Materiel Command, to New Mexico in July, 1947.
Actually, records were located indicating that Twining went to the Bomb
Commanders' Course on July 8, along with a number of other general officers,
and requested orders to do so a month before, on June 5, 1947 (Atch 14).
Similarly, it has also been alleged that General Hoyt Vandenberg, Deputy Chief
of Staff at the time, had been involved directing activity regarding events at
Roswell. Activity reports (Atch 15), located in General Vandenberg's personal
papers stored in the Library of Congress, did indicate that on July 7, he was busy
with a "flying disc" incident; however this particular incident involved Ellington
Field, Texas and the Spokane (Washington) Depot. After much discussion and
information gathering on this incident, it was learned to be a hoax. There is no
similar mention of his personal interest or involvement in Roswell events except
in the newspapers.
The above are but two small examples that indicate that if some event happened
that was one of the "watershed happenings" in human history, the US military
certainly reacted in an unconcerned and cavalier manner. In an actual case, the
military would have had to order thousands of soldiers and airman, not only at
Roswell but throughout the US, to act nonchalantly, pretend to conduct and
report business as usual, and generate absolutely no paperwork of a suspicious
nature, while simultaneously anticipating that twenty years or more into the
future people would have available a comprehensive Freedom of Information Act
that would give them great leeway to review and explore government documents.
The records indicate that none of this happened (or if it did, it was controlled by
a security system so efficient and tight that no one, US or otherwise, has been
able to duplicate it since. If such a system had been in effect at the time, it would
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FOIA release, from the osd collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 993 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.