GAO Report on Roswell, NM UFO Crash PDF Version General Accounting Office Government Records: Results of a Search for Records Concerning the 1947 Crash Near Roswell, New Mexico (Letter Report, 07/28/95, GAO/NSIAD-95-187). Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the 1947 weather balloon crash at Roswell Air Field, New Mexico, focusing on: (1) the requirements for reporting air accidents similar to the Roswell crash; and (2) any government records concerning the Roswell crash. GAO found that: (1) in 1947, Army regulations required that air accident reports be maintained permanently and although none of the military services filed a report on the Roswell incident, there was no requirement in 1947 to prepare a report on the weather balloon crash; (2) although some of the records concerning Roswell activities had been destroyed, there was no information available regarding when or under what authority the records were destroyed; (3) only two government records originating in 1947 have been recovered regarding the Roswell incident; (4) a 1947 Federal Bureau of Investigations record revealed that the military had reported that an object resembling a high-altitude weather balloon with a radar reflector had been recovered near Roswell; and (5) a 1947 Air Force report noted the recovery of a flying disc that was later determined by military officials to be a radar-tracking balloon. Indexing Terms: REPORTNUM: NSIAD-95-187 TITLE: Government Records: Results of a Search for Records Concerning the 1947 Crash Near Roswell, New Mexico DATE: 07/28/95 SUBJECT: Reporting requirements Classified records Records disposition Records retention Air Force bases Aircraft accidents Weather forecasting Radar equipment Information disclosure IDENTIFIER: Roswell (NM) This file contains an ASCII representation of the text of a GAO report. Delineations within the text indicating chapter titles, headings, and bullets are preserved. Major divisions and subdivisions of the text, such as Chapters, Sections, and Appendixes, are identified by double and single lines. The numbers on the right end of these lines indicate the position of each of the subsections in the document outline. These numbers do NOT correspond with the page numbers of the printed product. No attempt has been made to display graphic images, although figure captions are reproduced. Tables are included, but may not resemble those in the printed version. A printed copy of this report may be obtained from the GAO Document Distribution Facility by calling (202) 512-6000, by faxing your request to (301) 258-4066, or by writing to P.O. Box 6015, Gaithersburg, MD 20884-6015. We are unable to accept electronic orders for printed documents at this time. Report to the Honorable Steven H. Schiff, House of Representatives July 1995 GOVERNMENT RECORDS - RESULTS OF A SEARCH FOR RECORDS CONCERNING THE 1947 CRASH NEAR ROSWELL, NEW MEXICO GAO/NSIAD-95-187 Government Records Abbreviations CIA - Central Intelligence Agency DOD - Department of Defense FBI - Federal Bureau of Investigation FOIA - Freedom of Information Act RAAF - Roswell Army Air Field B-262046 July 28, 1995 The Honorable Steven H. Schiff House of Representatives Dear Mr. Schiff: On July 8, 1947, the Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF) public information office in Roswell, New Mexico, reported the crash and recovery of a "flying disc." Army Air Forces personnel from the RAAF's 509th Bomb Group were credited with the recovery. The following day, the press reported that the Commanding General of the U.S. Eighth Air Force, Fort Worth, Texas, announced that RAAF personnel had recovered a crashed radar-tracking (weather) balloon, not a "flying disc." After nearly 50 years, speculation continues on what crashed at Roswell. Some observers believe that the object was of extraterrestrial origin. In the July 1994 Report of Air Force Research Regarding the Roswell Incident, the Air Force did not dispute that something happened near Roswell, but reported that the most likely source of the wreckage was from a balloon-launched classified government project designed to determine the state of Soviet nuclear weapons research. The debate on what crashed at Roswell continues. Concerned that the Department of Defense (DOD) may not have provided you with all available information on the crash, you asked us to determine the requirements for reporting air accidents similar to the crash near Roswell and identify any government records concerning the Roswell crash. We conducted an extensive search for government records related to the crash near Roswell. We examined a wide range of classified and unclassified documents dating from July 1947 through the 1950s. These records came from numerous organizations in New Mexico and elsewhere throughout DOD as well as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the National Security Council. The full scope and methodology of our work are detailed at the ...