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. 5 …Additionally, historians Alfred Beck, William Heimdahl, Roger Miller, Eduard Mark, and Jacob Neufeld shared with us…
  • p. 10 …Security markings have been deleted from previously classified documents. The reader is advised that blacked-out…
  • p. 35 …covered the years 1945-1949, that were marked on the index as "destroyed." The researchers noted…
  • p. 39 …I do not recall any other types of material or markings, nor do I remember seeing…
  • p. 41 figures on the sticks, lavender or pink in color, appeared to be weather faded markings, with…
  • p. 51 …UFO buffs contend the incident marked the beginning of a government conspiracy to sup- press evidence…
  • p. 99 …Although we cannot be absolutely sure that the histories marked "no holding" in the above list…
  • p. 167 …No marks in the ground, dug up, anything hidden, or anything like that, just out on…
  • p. 201 …Some bush pilot had found some pock marks in dty snow in Alaska in 1950. So…
  • p. 219 …When this purplish-pink marking on the debris came up, I immediately remembered this sort of…
  • p. 220 …men, and they were joking about these markings on the tape. I have a letter that…
  • p. 224 …No, because he said it was balsa sticks and smoky rubber and had those curious markings…
  • p. 230 …White Sands to record Hermes." I've marked the key things here with red, and then…
  • p. 309 …in color, appeared to be weather faded markings, with no rhyme or reason. He did not…
  • p. 329 …the wreckage, also remembers the purple/pink marks. Newton stated that when he was called to…
  • p. 558 …On this flight re- cord, marked oscillations are observed at three points. Despite the presence of…
  • p. 563 …KENT, TEXAS Figure 25 On Flight 71 marked oscillations are seen at the fleeting level and…
  • p. 566 …From the height-t~e curve of this flight (Figure 29) the very marked effect of…
  • p. 567 …Pre- sumably the marked easterly flow then observed above 60.000 feet carried this second flight…
  • p. 667 …Figure 46 shows the train; figure 47 shows the time-altitude curve, Which exhibits a marked…
  • p. 910 …minute, the distance between successive re- ference marks will be 30 to 40 centimeters de- -56-
  • p. 915 …is measurable by the distance be- tween the reference marks. If there is a sudden -61-
  • p. 920 …are reached. (c) Check pressure of the marking pens. Too much pressure of the pens on…
  • p. 923 …This may be done by measuring the horizontal distance be- tween the temperature and pressure marks…
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
21

Cases discussed

About this file

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.