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 LIFO JOURNAL Since last September, I have spoken with a total of 15 B~29 pilots and 2 B~29 navigators, all of whom were stationed at Roswell Army Air Field in July 1947. Most of them heard nothing about the supposed crashed~saucer incident until years later, af~ ter all the pub~ licity started. June Number 350 PageS of whom were stationed at Roswell Army Air Field in July 1947. Most of them heard nothing about the supposed crashed-saucer incident until years later, after all the publicity started. The few men who did recall hearing something about the incident at the time of its occurrence said that the inside word was that the debris was from a downed balloon of some kind and that there was no more than "one wheelbarrow full." Not one single man had any direct knowledge of a crashed saucer or of any kind of unusual mate rial. Even more significantly, in all of their col lective years with the 509th Bomb Group, not one of these men had ever encountered any other individual who had such knowledge. As Jack Ingham and others pointed out, the 509th was a very close-knit group and there was no wayan event as spectacular as the recovery of a crashed-alien spaceship from another world could have happened at their base without their having known about it. Despite the fact that they, individually, may not have been directly involved with the recovery operation, and de spite the pervasiveness of the "need to know" philosophy in the military, these men maintained that there was absolutely no way that something of such magnitude and so earthshaking would not have been communicated among the mem bers of the group - especially within the inner circle of the upper echelon of B-29 pilots and navigators - all of whom had top-secret secu rity clearances. Furthermore, unlike the atomic weapons secrets with which they were all en trusted, the existence of a crashed alien space ship would have been much more of a social and scientific issue than a national security issue. Additionally, word was already out - the story had been published in afternoon newspapers all over the Western United States. Most of the men of the 509th Bomb Group were primarily WWIT veterans in their mid- to late twenties. (Colonel Blanchard, the comman der of the group, was, himself, only 31.) Military regulations notwithstanding, human na ture and common sense have to be factored into the equation. Such an occurrence - the most significant and dramatic event in recorded his tory - would surely have been discussed by these men, at least among themselves. Memory, Communication, and Perception A few words about the potential pitfalls of human memory, communication, and perception might shed light on how the "myth" surrounding the Roswell event evolved. The following obser vations are strictly from the standpoint of com mon sense and real-world experience, not from some abstract or esoteric psychological theory. Faulty memory is obviously one of the biggest detriments to accurately reconstructing past events, especially if a great deal of time has elapsed. While memory generally serves us . well, it is unlike the playback of a digital tape it is far from precise or absolute. With the pas sage of time, images from different events can be inadvertently blended together. Also, mental images of things only imagined can be inadver tently blended or confused with memories of things actually observed or events actually expe rienced. If memory were perfect, everyone of us would have consistently accomplished perfect scores in our comprehensive exams throughout high school and college. We would remember with perfect accuracy every name, face, scene, place, and event that we had ever heard, seen, or experienced. Obviously, human memory doesn't work this way. Interestingly, however, in the case of witness testimony, there often seems to be an unrealistic assumption that it does. Like faulty memory, inaccurate communica tion can also be a detriment to accurately recon structing past events. Miscommunication is defi nitely a factor with secondhand testimony. Perhaps, that is part of the reason secondhand testimony is not admissible in a court of law. There is a game sometimes played by children that amply illustrates the problem of miscommu nication, and consequently also secondhand tes timony. A group stands in a circle and a mes sage is whispered from one person to the next. After being passed around a few times, the origi nal message is usually completely unrecogniz able. It doesn't take much imagination to realize how much the problem would be exacerbated iJ there was a gap of several years each time the message was passed on. Interestingly, in the Roswell case, much of the secondhand testi mony, upon which so much importance is placed, comes from information passed on many years back. Errors in perception are probably more fre quent than most people realize. Perception is of ten intluenced by expectation. We have proba bly all noticed this phenomenon on a micro scale when trying to proofread something. Similar to a form of computer enhancement, the brain tends to automatically compensate for missing letters or words which are supposed to be there. In other words, it tends to automati cally "fill in the blanks." The problem of expectation influencing per ception is exacerbated when recalling past events. Memory seems to somehow have the 1997
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.