Documents / Report

The Roswell Report: Fact vs. Fiction in the New Mexico Desert

USAF / The Black Vault · 1995 · 882 pages · text by OCR

The Roswell Report: Fact versus Fiction in the New Mexico Desert was published by Headquarters United States Air Force in 1995. The Black Vault distributes this copy. It reproduces the report by Col. Richard L. Weaver and the synopsis by 1st Lt. James McAndrew, both written after a General Accounting Office inquiry requested by Representative Steven Schiff. The Air Force search found no evidence of an extraterrestrial craft or crew. It concluded that the Roswell debris most likely came from NYU Flight No. 4, a Project MOGUL balloon train.

  • p. 15 …Gen Roger M. Ramey Col William H. Blanchard Maj Gen Clements McMullen Brig Gen Donald N…
  • p. 33 …Additionally, this history showed that the 509th Commander, Colonel Blanchard, went on leave on July 8…
  • p. 34 the supposed first ever recovery of extraterrestrial materials. (Detractors claim Blanchard did this as a ploy…
  • p. 43 …Additionally, it seems that there was overreaction by Colonel Blanchard and Major Marcel in originally reporting…
  • p. 65 …William Blanchard, the Public Information Officer, Walter G. Haut, issued a news release that the Amry…
  • p. 87 …on 8 July 1947. Colonel W. H. Blanchard, Commanding Officer went on leave. Lt Colonel Charles…
  • p. 88 …Colonel Oliver LaFarge, Air Reserve Corps, at Santa Fe, made arrangements for Colonel Blanchard to visit…
  • p. 89 …Colonel Blanchard spoke on the future of the Air Force, and the talk was very well…
  • p. 135 …Colonel Blanchard. RW: Oh yeah. Excuse me, Colonel Blanchard. SC: He was the Wing Commander of…
  • p. 138 …The first picture is actually with Jesse Marcel and that's General Blanchard and... SC: I…
  • p. 143 …Colonel William Blanchard and the other officer suggested that Marcel and CIC agent accompanied Brazel to…
  • p. 145 …O.K. "Blanchard, who was still at the base...ordered Marcel to accompany the rancher back…
  • p. 147 …Albuquerque rather than Fort Worth and although Blanchard outranked the CIC agent (meaning yourself) a phone…
  • p. 154 …time and we don't know if Blanchard knew about that or not: (we don't…
  • p. 155 …crash at the request of Marcel; maybe Blanchard, and I probably took Rickett with me. We…
  • p. 160 …The things that Ramey and Blanchard used to! Blanchard came over to the Philippines. I think…
  • p. 219 …What about then Colonel Blanchard and General Ramey? Do you think they may have had any…
  • p. 855 ## CHAPTER XIII # VISITORS and EXECUTIVE CALENDAR 3 September 1947 - Colonel Blanchard and Lt. Haut went to…
  • p. 864 …Roger M. Ramey and Col. William H. Blanchard. Brig. Gen. Roger M. Ramey was the Commanding…
  • p. 865 …As commander of Roswell Army Airfield and the 509th Bomb Group, Blanchard is alleged to have…
USAF in September, 1947, the USAF inherited equipment, personnel, records, policies, and procedures from the AAF. In this particular case, the Air Force also inherited the allegation that it had "covered up" the "Roswell Incident" and has continued to do so for the next 47 years.

Within the Air Force, the Office of the Administrative Assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force (SAF/AA) is responsible both for information management procedures (SAF/AAI) and security policy and oversight (SAF/AAZ). Because of this organization, SAF/AA was the logical entity to assist the GAO in its audit, and SAF/AAZ was officially named as the Central Point of Contact for this endeavor (Atch 4). Subsequently, the then-Administrative Assistant, Mr. Robert J. McCormick, issued a tasking memorandum dated March 1, 1994 (Atch 5), to a number of current Air Staff and Secretariat offices that might possibly have records related to such an incident if, indeed, something had actually occurred. This search for records was purposely limited to Air Force records and systems since:

(a) The Air Force had no authority to compel other agencies to review their records;

(b) The Air Force would have no way to monitor the completeness of their efforts if they did; and

(c) the overall effort was the task and responsibility of the GAO—not the Air Force.

During the in-briefing process with GAO, it was learned that this audit was indeed, generated at the specific request of Congressman Steven Schiff of New Mexico. Earlier, Congressman Schiff had written to the Department of Defense Legislative Liaison Office for information on the "Roswell Incident" and had been advised that it was part of the former UFO "Project Bluebook" that had previously been turned over to NARA by the Air Force. Congressman Schiff subsequently learned from NARA that, although they did, indeed, have the "Bluebook" materials, the "Roswell Incident" was not part of that report. Congressman Schiff, apparently perceiving that he had been "stonewalled" by the DoD, then generated the request for the aforementioned audit.

It is within this context that the following research and assistance efforts were conducted in support of the GAO. This report is intended to stand as the final official Air Force response regarding this matter.

## THE "ROSWELL INCIDENT"—WHAT WAS ORIGINALLY REPORTED IN 1947

The modern preoccupation with what ultimately came to be called Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) actually began in June, 1947. Although some pro-UFO researchers argue that sightings of UFOs go back to Biblical times, most researchers will not dispute that anything in UFO history can compare with the phenomenon that began in 1947. What was later characterized as "the UFO Wave of 1947" began with 16 alleged sightings that occurred between May 17 and July 12, 1947

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Report, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. The text was read from the page images by an OCR model; expect the odd misread word. 882 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.