- Well, finally, we will probably learn the extent to which
the government can refute eyewitness accounts and use the media to prove
that the Roswell UFO incident was just a big error in our perception...
-
-
- "Roswell: Final Declassification"
Date: Thursday , June 13
Time: 8:00 PM - 9:00 PM
-
- "In 1947, a strange object fell from the sky near
Roswell, New Mexico and controversy brewed over what it really was. In
November 2001, we convened a team of experts at the National Archives for
an exclusive first look at the top-secret government files of the UFO incident.
We unveil the remaining classified files--11 boxes with 17 notebooks of
declassified files, photos, transcripts and audiotapes of dozens of witnesses,
and 22 films and videos--in a definitive statement on the 50-year-old mystery."
-TV G
-
-
- Now how is it that the General Accounting Office never
found these records and came up empty handed...
-
- In 1994 the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO), an
investigative agency that works at the request of Congress, began a quest
to obtain government documents regarding an event that took place half
a century ago, but which still remains clouded by suspicion: the July 1947
retrieval of an object in the New Mexico desert.
-
- The first official statement on the case came from the
public affairs office at a nearby military facility, Roswell Army Air Field,
which announced that a wrecked "flying disc" had been recovered.
A day later, Army Air Force officials offered a different description of
the object that fell from the sky -- it was not a disc or other form of
unidentified flying object, but rather a giant weather balloon used for
radar tracking.
-
- This discrepancy of explanations sparked decades of fascination
with Roswell, and today the event is viewed as a major historical landmark
in the study of UFOs. Many UFO researchers believe that the military did
in fact find an alien craft and the bodies of the creatures that traveled
inside. They allege that a long-standing government cover-up has shielded
the purported close encounter from the public.
-
- Public interest in Roswell has skyrocketed in recent
years, and as a result, at least one member of Congress made an effort
to track down government records on the incident. In response to queries
from his constituents, New Mexico Representative Steven Schiff began digging
for documents in 1993. (Schiff also had a personal connection to one of
the more popular UFO researchers, Karl Pflock, whose wife worked on Schiff's
staff.) Schiff says that "most Americans don't believe they were told
the full story [about Roswell] by their government."
-
- Unsatisfied with the Defense Department's response to
his request for information (he later told Larry King that "I was
pretty clearly getting the run-around"), Schiff turned to the GAO,
the "investigative arm" of Congress, and asked them to prepare
a report on the status of government records related to the Roswell incident.
-
- Some eighteen months in the making, the GAO report, "Results
of a Search for Records Concerning the 1947 Crash Near Roswell, New Mexico,"
was issued in July 1995. In it, the GAO summarizes its investigation and
reproduces the small number of documents it unearthed.
-
- Among the records that did turn up, there was little
mention of extraterrestrials. A previously released FBI teletype message
included in the report did state that "DISC AND BALLOON BEING TRANSFERRED
TO WRIGHT FIELD BY SPECIAL PLANE FOR EXAMINAT [sic]." And a declassified
history of the 509th Bomb group, which was stationed at RAAF, mentions
briefly that the "Office of Public Information was kept quite busy
during the month answering inquiries on the 'flying disc,' which was reported
to be in the possession of the 509th Bomb Group. The object turned out
to be a radar tracking balloon."
-
- That was the story that the military gave the public
in 1947, but recent Air Force research conducted in response to the GAO
inquiry suggests that this was no ordinary balloon assembly. The object
that came down near Roswell, according to the Air Force's 1995 publication,
"The Roswell Report: Fact Versus Fiction in the New Mexico Desert,"
was most likely the remains of a top secret research program named Project
MOGUL. The aim of the project was to determine the ability of balloon-carried
acoustic sensors to detect Soviet nuclear tests.
-
- For thousands of Americans, this explanation remains
unconvincing. Speculation about what happened at Roswell will not be dampened
by the GAO report, which notes that key Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF) records
from the relevant period have been inexplicably destroyed. These include
"RAAF administrative records (from Mar. 1945 through Dec. 1949) and
RAAF outgoing messages (from Oct. 1946 through Dec. 1949)." In a press
release announcing the GAO's findings, Representative Schiff noted that
the "missing records leave unanswered questions."
-
- UFO author Stanton Friedman is one of many ufologists
who have pointed out shortcomings of the GAO's investigation. In his most
recent book, TOP SECRET/MAGIC, Friedman writes:
-
- "[T]he GAO reviewed only the FOIA [Freedom of Information
Act] files of the CIA, FBI, and NSA [National Security Agency], rather
than the entire files, as is borne out by one of the tables in the report.
Surely the documents the GAO saw wouldn't have included highly classified
materials! Based on my own past experiences, these agencies should not
be trusted to do their own searches. The GAO should have demanded that
their staff gain access to the potentially useful files of these agencies."
-
- Representative Schiff says that even in light of the
GAO's findings, he doubts the Roswell controversy will die down any time
soon. As he told Larry King: "After fifty years, even though some
people are still living from that situation, I don't see enough evidence
now to resolve it to everyone's satisfaction. I think there will continue
to be a debate. I think the GAO report will go further to fuel the debate."
-
- The GAO researchers who delved into the Roswell controversy
would probably agree. Having come up essentially empty-handed after its
"extensive search for government records," the GAO can at least
state with certainty, as it did in the report, that "the debate on
what crashed at Roswell continues."
-
- In this era of tightened security, the government debunkers
are pulling out the stops and will make one final attempt to squash the
Roswell case and put us back on its own agenda.
-
- With sincere regrets for the death of truth...
-
- P.S. Please view this program and write the History
Channel your opinion and knowledge of the GAO findings. We still have
a voice left, at least, for a little while longer.
-
- Bill Hamilton
- Executive Director
- Skywatch International, Inc.
- main website:
- http://home.earthlink.net/~skywatcher22
- (links to 5 categories)
- Fiat Lux et Veritas
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