Documents / Official release
This is a 28 July 1995 report from the US General Accounting Office to Representative Steven H. Schiff about government records on the July 1947 crash near Roswell, New Mexico. It is filed with a Clinton Library NSC routing record. GAO found only two 1947 records: a 509th Bomb Group and RAAF history and an FBI teletype. Both describe the object as a radar-tracking or weather balloon. The report also notes that some RAAF administrative records and outgoing messages were destroyed without any stated authority.
B·262046 In 1947, Army regulations required that air accident reports be maintained Results in Brief permanently. We identified four air accidents reported by the Army Air Forces in New Mexico during July 1947. All of the accidents involved military aircraft and occurred after July 8, 1947-the date the RAAF public information office first reported the crash and recovery of a "flying disc" near Roswell. The Navy reported no air accidents in New Mexico during July 1947. Air Force officials told us that according to record-keeping requirements in effect during July 1947, there was no requirement to prepare a report on the crash of a weather balloon. In our search for records concerning the Roswell crash, we learned that some government records covering RAAF activities had been destroyed and others had not. For example, RAAF administrative records (from Mar. 1945 through Dec. 1949) and RAAF outgoing messages (from Oct. 1946 through Dec. 1949) were destroyed. The document disposition form does not indicate what organization or person destroyed the records and when or under what authority the records were destroyed. Our search for government records concerning the Roswell crash yielded two records originating in 1947-a July 1947 history report by the combined 509th Bomb Group and RAAF and an FBI teletype message dated July 8, 1947. The 509th-RAAF report noted the recovery of a "flying disc" that was later determined by military officials to be a radar-tracking balloon. The FBI message stated that the military had reported that an object resembling a high-altitude weather balloon with Ii radar reflector had been recovered near Roswell. The other government records we reviewed, including those previously withheld from the public because of security classification, and the Air Force's analysis of unidentified flying objectl sightings from 1946 to 1953 (Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14), did not mention the crash or the recovery of an airborn~ object near Roswell in July 1947. Similarly, executive branch agencies' responses to our letters of inquiry produced no other government records on the Roswell crash. According to press accounts from July 1947, Army Air Forces personnel Reporting Air from RAAF were involved in the recovery of an airborne object near Accidents Roswell. Therefore, if an air accident report was prepared, it should have . 'According to Air Force regulation, an unidentified flying object is an airborne object that by .performance, aerodynamic characteristics, or unusual features, does not conform to known aircraft or missiles, or does not correspond to Air Force definitions of familiar or known objects or unidentified aircraft. Page 2 GAOINSIAD·95·187 Government Records
Official release, from the nara collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 26 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.