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

USAF / The Black Vault · 1995 · 882 pages · text by GLM-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. 26 …Since 1978-1980, other UFO researchers, most notably Donald Schmitt and Kevin Randle, claim to have…
  • p. 28 …Randle and Donald Schmitt; The Truth About the UFO Crash at Roswell (1994), also by Randle…
  • p. 131 …I have reviewed the pictures in the 1991 Book by Randle and Schmitt on the UFO…
  • p. 139 …It had been alleged in a number of books, including the one by Randle and Schmitt…
  • p. 141 …I went through and pulled out wherever, in this book UFO Crash at Roswell by Randle…
  • p. 142 …From the very start, when these clowns started hounding me, Randle and Schmitt, I told they…
  • p. 147 …He makes a number of claims that, at least Randle and Schmitt; and when I say…
  • p. 149 …risk injury to civilians on the ground. Randle asked if he remembered any talk at all…
  • p. 161 …Well, of course, Randle and Schmitt do claim that those people are out there and that…
  • p. 162 …Well, I got a perfect example of this with Randle and Schmitt. Randle is the outgoing…
  • p. 173 …On review of the photos in the Randle/Schmitt book, the material looks like one of…

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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 above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 882 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.