Documents / Official release
This file, released by the William J. Clinton Presidential Library under FOIA request 2006-0476-F, holds White House correspondence records for case 243544. In a July 8, 1997 letter to President Clinton, Kent Jeffrey of the International Roswell Initiative submitted more than 20,000 signed copies of the Roswell Declaration, which asks for an Executive Order declassifying UFO information. On December 9, 1997 the Air Force replied that such an order was unnecessary because declassification under E.O. 12958 was already underway.
“Spencer”1 page
MUFON UFO JOURNAL ROSWELL - ANATOMY OF A MYTH by Kent Jeffrey Almost one hundred years ago, a very concerned eight-year-old girl from New York City, Virginia O'Hanlon, wrote the Question and Answer Department of her family's evening newspaper, The New York Sun. requesting to know the truth about Santa Claus. Virginia had been a firm believer, but her young friends had started to sow the seeds of doubt. On September 21, 1897, Virginia's answer finally came. Francis Pharcellus Church, a for mer Civil War correspondent and an aging writer for the Sun, replied to Virginia's letter in one of the most eloquent and enduring editorial responses in the history of journalism. Church transcended the cold hard facts of reality and avoided shaking Virginia's childlike faith by subtly alluding to Santa Claus as a metaphor for that which is good and noble in life - "Yes, Virginia, there is a S~nta Claus. He exists as cer tainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give your life its highest beauty and joy.... " Recently, the International Roswell Initiative (IRI) received an inquiry from a young girl, Lauren M., living in a small town in New Jersey, that is in many ways reminiscent of Virginia O'Hanlon 's 1897 letter to the New York Sun. While the IRI is primarily a grass roots ef fort to declassify whatever information the gov ernment might have on UFOs or extraterrestrial intelligence, it has received numerous inquiries over the last three years about the actual RosweJl event, many from children. January 6, 1997 Dear International Roswell Initiative: I am a 6th grade student who is studying all kinds ofinteresting information about UFOs... I believe that there are really aliens who have landed and crashed (such as Roswell), but the government tried to cover it up... If you have any in formation that can help me prove that there are UFOs and aliens, please send me that information. Thank you for your time. Sincerely, LallrenM. Mrs. Nielsen's 6th grade Having been extensively involved over the last few years with both the investigation of the Roswell case and the effort to get the matter de classified, I would love to be able to answer Lauren M.'s letter in the affirmative. Unfortunately, in clear conscience, I cannot either directly or metaphorically. Unlike a fanci ful story from Western folklore created to appeal to the imaginations of children, the 1947 Roswell case involves real people and an actual event. Additionally, with all the publicity the Roswell event and its alleged coverup have re ceived, along with the accompanying implica tions of conspiracy and deceit on the part of the U.S. government, Roswell represents a contro versy that extends far beyond the relatively nar row confines of the so-called UFO community. As such, Roswell demands an objective, straightforward, and, if possible, definitive an swer. During the last year, compelling new evi dence has come to the fore that now makes such a definitive answer possible. Unfortunately, it is not the answer that those of us familiar with the Roswell case have wanted to hear. Declassified 1948 military documents, new testimony from retired military men from both Roswell and the Foreign Technology Division at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, and a thorough reex amination of how the crashed-disk story got started in the first place, make it unequivocally clear that the material recovered northwest of Roswell, New Mexico, in July 1947 was not of extraten-estrial origin. In other words, NO UFO CRASHED AT ROSWELL WITH OR WITHOUT ALIENS. IT DID NOT HAPPEN. PERIOD. For those willing to look objectively and rationally at all the evidence, this contention should become resoundingly clear, not just be yond a reasonable doubt, but beyond all doubt. Disinforrnation Agent or Defector? As soon as word got out that I, coordinator of the IRI and author of the Roswell Declaration, had reversed my opinion on Roswell, accusa tions such as "he is an agent for the govern ment" or "they finally got to him" immediately appeared on Internetpostings and elsewhere. While it is generally not prudent to risk giving such silliness even an inkling of respectability by publicly acknowledging it, I will address the The Roswell Incident has long been the focus of intense scrutiny by the UFO commu nity. With the approach of its 50th anniver sary, the case may be due an in-depth re assessment. In an article sure to generate significant controversy, Kent Jeffrey explains his own change of heart. June 1997 Number 350 Page 3
Official release, from the nara collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 47 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.