Report of Air Force Research Regarding the "Roswell Incident"

“The Air Force efforts did not identify any indication that the ‘Roswell Incident’ was any type of extraterrestrial event or that the Air Force has engaged in a 47 year conspiracy or ‘cover-up’ of information relating to it.”

RICHARD L. WEAVER, Col, USAF, Director, Security and Special Program Oversight, over his own signature, 27 Jul 1994. The same memo anticipates the objection: "it is assumed that pro-UFO groups will strongly object to the attached report."

“Records were located and thoroughly explored concerning a then-Top Secret balloon project, designed to attempt to monitor Soviet nuclear tests, known as Project MOGUL. ... Comparison of all information developed or obtained indicated that the material recovered near Roswell was consistent with a balloon device and most likely from one of the MOGUL balloons that had not been previously recovered. Air Force research efforts did not disclose any records of the recovery of any ‘alien’ bodies or extraterrestrial materials.”

The finding in the report's own summary. The ellipsis stands where the summary describes the interviews conducted.

“Congressman Schiff subsequently learned from NARA that, although they did, indeed, have the ‘Bluebook’ materials, the ‘Roswell Incident’ was not part of that report.”

HOW THE 1994 INQUIRY BEGAN: a congressman was told Roswell was in Project Blue Book, and the archives told him it was not.

“The July 9 edition of the paper noted that Brigadier General Roger Ramey, Commander of the Eighth Air Force at Forth Worth, Texas, stated that upon examination the debris recovered by Marcel was determined to be a weather balloon. The wreckage was described as a ‘. . . bundle of tinfoil, broken wood beams, and rubber remnants of a balloon. . . .’”

The report quoting the Roswell Daily Record of 9 July 1947. "Forth Worth" is the document's own typo and is left as printed. The same page carries the 8 July story naming Major Jesse A. Marcel of the 509th, and rancher W.W. Brazel's account.

“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.”

THE AIR FORCE STATING THAT ITS OWN UFO PROJECT NEVER HELD THIS CASE. The same page records that the case was not treated as a UFO event until 1978-1980, and names the 1980 Berlitz and Moore book as the origin of the modern account.

“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 debunk the incident to show that something did not happen; although logic dictates that bureaucracies do not spend time documenting nonevents.”

THE DOCUMENT STATING THE EVIDENTIARY PROBLEM IN BOTH DIRECTIONS, against itself as well as against its critics. It is the fairest sentence in the report and it belongs to any honest use of it.

“For example, one of the interviewees thought vital to obtain an official signed, sworn statement from was Sheridan Cavitt, Lt Col, USAF (Retired), who is the last living member of the three persons universally acknowledged to have recovered material from the Foster Ranch.”

Note the site name. The report calls it the FOSTER RANCH; the 1947 newspapers and most later accounts call it the Brazel ranch. Brazel managed it; Foster owned it. The report uses both names on different pages.

“It followed that if the Air Force had recovered some type of extraterrestrial spacecraft and/or bodies and was exploiting this for scientific and technology purposes, then such a program would be operated as a Special Access Program (SAP). SAF/AAZ, the Central Office for all Air Force SAPs, has knowledge of, and security oversight over, all SAPs. SAF/AAZ categorically stated that no such SAP or SAPs exist that pertain to extraterrestrial spacecraft/aliens.”

A NAMED OFFICE DENYING, IN ITS OWN AREA OF AUTHORITY, THE EXACT KIND OF PROGRAM LATER ALLEGED. Weaver was the director of that office and signed the report. This bears directly on the Wilson-Davis memo cluster, which describes a special-access programme of precisely this description - but the two are eight years apart and the memo is not mentioned here. That is a conflict of claims, not a refutation, and must be drawn as one.

“This included, for example, a small amount of missing ‘decimal files’ from the 509th Bomb Group at Roswell that covered the years 1945-1949, that were marked on the index as ‘destroyed.’”

THE REPORT RECORDING A GAP IN ITS OWN EVIDENCE. It goes on to say the researchers found no pattern to the anomalies. The gap is real either way and is the kind of fact this project records rather than smooths over.

“The research revealed only one official AAF document that indicated that there was any activity of any type that pertained to UFOs and Roswell in July, 1947. This was a small section of the July Historical Report for the 509th Bomb Group and Roswell Army Air Field that stated: ‘The Office of Public Information was quite busy during the month answering inquiries on the 'flying disc,' which was reported to be in possession of the 509th Bomb Group. The object turned out to be a radar tracking balloon.’”

THE ONLY CONTEMPORANEOUS AIR FORCE RECORD THE INQUIRY FOUND. One paragraph in a monthly unit history is the entire 1947 documentary footprint of the most famous UFO case in the world - which is itself the finding.

“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). ... 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.”

TWO SPECIFIC CLAIMS ANSWERED WITH DATED PAPER. Twining's July 1947 New Mexico trip and Vandenberg's July 1947 "flying disc" day are both routinely offered as evidence of a Roswell response; the report gives each an ordinary explanation and cites the file it read. The ellipsis stands where the report turns from Twining to Vandenberg.

“He stated unequivocally, however, that the material he recovered consisted of a reflective sort of material like aluminum foil, and some thin, bamboo-like sticks. He thought at the time, and continued to do so today, that what he found was a weather balloon and has told other private researchers that. ... Lt Col Cavitt also stated that he had never taken any oath or signed any agreement not to talk about this incident and had never been threatened by anyone in the government because of it.”

CAVITT, interviewed at his home on 24 May 1994 under a written waiver from the Secretary of the Air Force releasing him from any security oath. The same page carries IRVING NEWTON, the Fort Worth weather officer, in his own sworn statement: "I walked into the General's office where this supposed flying saucer was lying all over the floor. As soon as I saw it, I giggled and asked if that was the flying saucer . . . . I told them that this was a balloon and a RAWIN target," and his account that "Major Marcel was picking up pieces of the target sticks and trying to convince me that some notations on the sticks were alien writings."

“Subsequently, a 1946 HQ AMC memorandum surfaced, describing the constant altitude balloon project and specified that the scientific data be classified Top Secret Priority 1A. Its name was Project MOGUL (Atch 19). Project MOGUL was a then-sensitive, classified project, whose purpose was to determine the state of Soviet nuclear weapons research. ... These persons included the NYU constant altitude balloon Director of Research, Dr. Athelstan F. Spilhaus; the Project Engineer, Professor Charles B. Moore; and the military Project Officer, Colonel Albert C. Trakowski.”

PROJECT MOGUL NAMED AND ITS PEOPLE IDENTIFIED. The same page credits the original concept: "Long range, balloon-borne, low frequency acoustic detection was posed to General Spaatz in 1945 by Dr. Maurice Ewing of Columbia University." The ellipsis stands where the report describes the Cold War rationale.

“Doctor Spilhaus, Professor Moore, and certain others of the group were aware of the actual purpose of the project, but they did not know of the project nickname at the time.”

READ THIS ONE CAREFULLY. It says the senior scientists KNEW THE PURPOSE and did not know the CODE NAME. That is not the same as being kept in the dark, and the map currently says something closer to the latter. The same page records the unlogged "service flights" and the gaps in the flight series at Flights 2-4 and Flight 9 - which is what makes Flight 4 available as an explanation at all.

“The material and a ‘black box,’ described by Cavitt, was, in Moore's scientific opinion, most probably from Flight 4, a ‘service flight’ that included a cylindrical metal sonobuoy and portions of a weather instrument housed in a box, which was unlike typical weather radiosondes which were made of cardboard. Additionally, a copy of a professional journal maintained at the time by A.P. Crary, provided to the Air Force by his widow, showed that Flight 4 was launched on June 4, 1947, but was not recovered by the NYU group. It is very probable that this Top Secret project balloon train (Flight 4), made up of unclassified components, came to rest some miles northwest of Roswell, NM, became shredded in the surface winds, and was ultimately found by the rancher, Brazel, ten days later.”

THE SPECIFIC CLAIM, IN THE SPECIFIC WORDS THE AIR FORCE USED. Note the modality throughout - "in Moore's scientific opinion", "most probably", "It is very probable". This is the strongest form the Mogul explanation takes anywhere in the report, and it is not stated as established fact. Any use of it must carry that.

“The Air Force research did not locate or develop any information that the ‘Roswell Incident’ was a UFO event. All available official materials, although they do not directly address Roswell per se, indicate that the most likely source of the wreckage recovered from the Brazel Ranch was from one of the Project MOGUL balloon trains.”

THE CONCLUSION, AND ITS OWN CAVEAT IN THE SAME SENTENCE: "although they do not directly address Roswell per se". The Air Force is saying its documents are about Mogul, not about Roswell, and that the connection is an inference. The same page states there were no "alien" passengers because "the recovered wreckage was from a Project MOGUL balloon" - which reasons from the conclusion rather than to it.

“Army Air Forces officials assembled an expert group of military and civilian scientists to carry out the project. The group included Dr. W. Maurice Ewing of Columbia University, a preeminent geophysicist and oceanographer; Dr. Athelstan F. Spilhaus, the Director of Research at NYU ...; Dr. James Peoples, the Air Force's civilian project scientist ...; Albert P. Crary, also a civilian Air Force scientist ...; and Charles B. Moore, Project Engineer at NYU ... Col. Marcellus Duffy, a respected Air Force pilot and scientific administrator, led the project. Capt. Albert C. Trakowski, a young Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate, followed Duffy in the leadership role.”

THE MOGUL ROSTER, from the front matter of the 1995 volume. Ellipses stand where each man's later career is described. NOTE THE RANK: Trakowski is a CAPTAIN here and a COLONEL in the 1994 report - the report gives his later rank, the introduction his rank at the time.

“In the final analysis, it appears these individuals have pursued the convenient red herring provided by Roswell Army Airfield, while the real explanation lay just over the Sacramento Mountains at the MOGUL launch site in Alamogordo.”

Signed JAMES McANDREW, 1ST LT, USAFR, Declassification and Review Officer, SAF/AAZD - the same officer who three years later wrote The Roswell Report: Case Closed. This page is the link between the two volumes this project now holds.