GAO Report to the Honorable Steven H. Schiff — Government Records: Results of a Search for Records Concerning the 1947 Crash Near Roswell, New Mexico (NSIAD-95-187)

Brief

Commissioned by Rep. Steven Schiff and completed July 28, 1995, this report documents an exhaustive 15-month search of classified and unclassified federal records across DOD, FBI, CIA, NSC, and the Department of Energy. The search yielded only two records originating in 1947: a 509th Bomb Group/RAAF history noting recovery of a 'flying disc' attributed to a radar-tracking balloon, and an FBI teletype describing a hexagonal-shaped disc suspended from a large balloon. Critically, RAAF administrative records from March 1945 through December 1949 and outgoing messages from October 1946 through December 1949 were destroyed, with disposition forms failing to identify who authorized the destruction. No records of the crash or any debris examination were found at Air Materiel Command (Wright Field), and all queried executive agencies — CIA, NSC, DOE, OSTP — reported zero responsive records.

Metadata

Agency

U.S. General Accounting Office

Release

1995-07-28

Type

PDF • .pdf

Length

26 pages

Classification

UNCLASSIFIED

Programs

Project MOGUL, Project Blue Book, Project Sign

Tags

Roswell 1947, missing records, flying disc, hexagonal disc, weather balloon, Project MOGUL, RAAF 509th Bomb Group, FBI teletype, unauthorized record destruction

Key points

• RAAF outgoing messages from October 1946 through December 1949 were destroyed; the disposition form did not identify the authority under which the destruction was authorized.p.2
• RAAF administrative records from March 1945 through December 1949 were also destroyed under similarly undocumented circumstances.p.2
• Only two records originating in 1947 were located: the 509th Bomb Group/RAAF combined history for July 1947 and an FBI teletype dated July 8, 1947.p.2
• The 509th Bomb Group/RAAF July 1947 history reported that the public information office fielded heavy inquiries about the 'flying disc' and that the object turned out to be a radar tracking balloon.p.4
• The FBI Dallas teletype of July 8, 1947 described recovery near Roswell of a hexagonal-shaped disc suspended from a large balloon by cable, being transported to Wright Field for examination.p.4
• Records of the 1395th Military Police Company (Aviation) — the unit most likely to have handled on-site security — could not be located at the National Personnel Records Center or any predecessor depository.p.3
• Air Materiel Command (Wright Field) records from 1947 to 1950 contained no mention of the Roswell crash or any examination of recovered debris.p.5
• The CIA initially could not confirm it had ever conducted a Roswell-specific records search; a targeted database search ordered in response to the GAO inquiry produced no responsive documents.p.6
• DOD pointed exclusively to the July 1994 Air Force report, which attributed the wreckage to Project MOGUL — a classified balloon program monitoring Soviet nuclear weapons research.p.5
• The Chief Archivist of the National Personnel Records Center stated from personal experience that many Air Force records of this period were destroyed without citing a governing disposition authority.p.4

Most interesting

• Records of the 1395th Military Police Company (Aviation) — the unit that would most plausibly have controlled the crash site — are unaccounted for; no retirement or transfer record was found at any federal repository.
• The GAO visited 15 distinct federal record repositories over a 15-month review period from March 1994 to June 1995, including CIA headquarters, NSA Fort Meade, the Army War College, and the National Atomic Museum.
• Four air accidents were formally reported in New Mexico during July 1947 — all involving military fighter or cargo aircraft, and all occurring after July 8, the date of the original 'flying disc' press release. None corresponds to the Roswell event.
• Army regulations in 1947 required air accident reports to be maintained permanently, but the Air Force stated there was no equivalent requirement to report a weather balloon crash, which is its stated reason no formal accident report exists for Roswell.
• The FBI teletype of July 8, 1947 — authenticated by an FBI spokesperson during the GAO review — describes the recovered object as hexagonal-shaped, a detail absent from the standard weather balloon narrative.
• The CIA's Executive Director, when initially queried, acknowledged it was 'unclear whether the CIA had ever conducted a search for records specifically relating to Roswell' — prompting the first known CIA database search on the subject, which occurred in May 1995.