Introduction

In July 1994, the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force concluded an exhaustive search for records in response to a General Accounting Office (GAO) inquiry of an event popularly known as the "Roswell Incident". The focus of the GAO probe, initiated at the request of New Mexico Congressman Steven Schiff, was to determine if the U.S. Air Force, or any other U.S. government agency, possessed information on the alleged crash and recovery of an extraterrestrail vehicle and its alien occupants near Roswell, N.M. in July 1947.

Reports of flying saucers and alien bodies allegedly sighted in the Roswell area in 1947, have been the subject of intense domestic and international media attention. This attention has resulted in countless newspaper and magazine articles, books, a television series, a full-length motion picture, and even a film purported to be a U.S. government "alien autopsy".

The July 1994 Air Force report concluded that the predecessor to the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Army Air Forces, did indeed recover material near Roswell in July 1947. This 1,000-page report methodically explains that what was recovered by the Army Air Forces was not the remnants of an extraterrestrial spacecraft and its alien crew, but debris from an Army Air Forces balloon-borne research project code named Mogul. Records located describing research carried out under the Mogul project, most of which were never classified (and publicly available) were collected, provided to GAO, and published in one volume for ease of access for the general public s1Mogul record which ultimately lead to the identification of the origin of the 1947 claims of "flying saucer" debris, described balloon research that was never classified. Other Mogul records, describing military applications of balloon-borne acoustical sensors, were declassified, along with millions of pages of other unrelated executive branch documents by Executive Order 11652, issued on March 6, 1972 by President Richard M. Nixon.

Although Mogul components clearly accounted for the claims of "flying saucer" debris recovered in 1947, lingering questions remained concerning anecdotal accounts that included descriptions of "alien" bodies. The issue of "bodies" was not discussed extensively in the 1994 report because there were not any bodies connected with events that occurred in 1947. The extensive Secretary of the Air Force-directed search of Army Air Forces and U.S. Air Force records from 1947 did not yield information that even suggested the 1947 "Roswell" events were anything other than the retrieval of the Mogul equipment.

Subsequent to the 1994 report, Air Force researchers discovered information that provided a rational explanation for the alleged observations of alien bodies associated with the "Roswell Incident". Pursuant to the discovery, research efforts compared documented Air Force activities to the incredible claims of "flying saucers", "aliens" and seemingly unusual Air Force involvement. This in-depth examination revealed that these accounts, in most instances, were of actual Air Force activities but were seriously flawed in several major areas, most notably: the Air Force operations that inspired reports of "bodies" (in addition to being earthly in origin) did not occur in 1947. It appears that UFO proponents have failed to establish the accurate dates for these "alien" observations (in some instances by more than a decade) and then erroneously linked them to the actual Project Mogul debris recovery.

This report discusses the results of this further research and identifies the likely sources of the claims of "alien" bodies. Contrary to allegations that the Air Force has engaged in a cover-up and possesses dark secrets involving the Roswell claims, some of the accounts appear to be descriptions of unclassified and widely publicized Air Force scientific achievements. Other descriptions of bodies appear to be descriptions of actual incidents in which Air Force members were killed or injured in the line of duty.

The conclusions of the additional research are:

• Air Force activities which occured over a period of many years have been consolidated and are now represented to have occurred in two of three days in July 1947.
• "Aliens" observed in the New Mexico desert were probably anthropomorphic test dummies that were carried aloft by U.S. Air Force high altitude balloons for scientific research.
• The "unusual" military activities in the New Mexico desert were high altitude research balloon launch and recovery operations. The reports of military units that always seemed to arrive shortly after the crash of a flying saucer to retrieve the saucer and "crew", were actually accurate descriptions of Air Force personnel engaged in anthropomorphic dummy recovery operations.
• Claims of bodies at the Roswell Army Air Field hospital were most likely a combination of two separate incidents:
  1. a 1956 KC-97 aircraft accident in which 11 Air Force members losst their lives; and,
  2. a 1959 manned balloon mishap in which two Air Force pilots were injured.

This report is based on thoroughly documented research supported by official records, technical reports, film footage, photographs and interviews with individuals who were involved in these events.