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.
“Terry”2 pages
MUFON UFO dated October II, 1948, signed by a Colonel Brooke Allen, Chief, of the Air Estimates Branch at Wright Patterson. The stated subject of the memorandum is "Analysis of Flying Object Incidents in the U.S." This memorandum is important because, along with the Twining letter, it confirms what is dictated by common .. sense - that if the engineering department pos sessed a crashed saucer, the intelligence depart ment would not only be aware of it, they would also be integrally involved with its analysis and the assessment of any potential threat posed to national security. The 1947 and 1948 military documents are definitive. They can not be simply or smugly characterized as "absence of evidence." They are evidence. They state definitively that there was no crashed saucer. If instead of the above documents, re searchers had uncovered definitive and authentic documentation indicating the existence of a crashed saucer, such documentation would have undoubtedly been acknowledged by all and characterized as a "smoking gun." Victory would have been declared, and congressional in vestigations would have been all but certain. Predictably, some in the UFO field are react ing to the 1947 and 1948 military documents with an attitude reminiscent of the platitude, "don't bother me with the facts, my mind's made up." Ironically, this is the same type of mentality of which they are so quick to accuse their detractors. Narrow-mindedness, however, can exist on either side of the fence. The facts are now clear. We can't simply refuse to ac knowledge them because we don't like them. The Roswell crash didn't happen. It is time to face the music, and the band isn't playing our tune. The Men of the 509th The 509th Bomb Group was based at Roswell in 1947. In September 1996, I had the privilege of attending the reunion of the 509th Bomb Group in Tucson, Arizona, as a guest of General Bob Scott and his wife Terry. I have known the Scotts for a couple of years. By coin cidence, Bob's son is a pilot for the same airline for which I work. At the time of the 509th reunion, I had not yet seen atl the pertinent 1948 military docu ments and still held an inkling of hope that there might be something to the Roswell event. Prior to the reunion, I had sent out over 700 mailings to members of the reunion group in the hope of finding additional witnesses to the mysterious debris. The result was a disappointment only two calls, neither of which was of any real help. Both of the men who called were former 509th flight engineers. One had had a very interesting UFO sighting from the ramp at Kirtland Air Force Base. The other recalled seeing a lot of extra activity around one of the hangers at Roswell near the time of the 1947 incident. At the reunion in Tucson, fwas introduced to several of the pilots who were at Roswell in 1947 and who promptly told me, in no uncertain terms, that the crashed saucer event never oc curred, period. I did not get the impression at the time, nor have I ever since, that any of these men are engaged in some kind of incredible 50 year-long massive coverup or that they were putting on an act or facade to throw me off track. Anyone who believes that to be the case is out of touch with the reality of this issue. Like every other person with whom I have ever dis cussed this subject, these men were in total agreement that anything as important and pro found as the knowledge of other intelligent life in the universe is information that should not be censored or suppressed and to which everyone should be entitled. These men risked their lives in World War II to save the world from the kind of totalitarian governments that, among their many other crimes against humanity, unjustifi ably suppressed information from their people. The men who were at Roswell during July 1947 feel very strongly that absolutely nothing out of the ordinary happened and that the whole matter is patently ridiculous. The 509th was the only atomic bomb group in the world in 1947 and was composed of a very elite group of indi . viduals, most of whom stilI feel a definite sense of pride in their former outfit. To them, the crashed-saucer nonsense, along with all the hul labaloo and conspiracy theories sUlTOunding it, makes a mockery of and is an insult to the 509th Bomb Group and its men. One of the 509th pilots I met at the reunion, Jack Ingham, has since become a friend and has helped me considerably in contacting additional members of the group who were stationed at Roswell during the time of the incident. When I first met Jack in Tucson, he spared no punches in letting me know exactly what he thought about the crashed-flying saucer matter. Others at the reunion told me that if something like the crash of a UFO had really happened at Roswell, Jack Ingham would have known. Jack spent a total of 16 years with the 509th Bomb Group February 1946 to July 1962. He retired from the Air Force as a lieutenant colonel in January 1971. Since last September, I have spoken with a total of 15 B·29 pilots and 2 B-29 navigators, all The 1947 and 1948 military documents are definitive. They can not be sim ply or smugly characterized as "absence of evi dence." They are evidence. They state defini tively that there was no crashed saucer. June 1997 Number 350 Page 7
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.