The Roswell Report: Case Closed (1997, USAF) — verbatim conclusions

Key verbatim excerpts from The Roswell Report: Case Closed by Capt. James McAndrew, Headquarters United States Air Force, 1997 — the USAF's final report on Roswell, addressing the alleged alien bodies. Full text: Project Gutenberg #63659 (gutenberg.org/ebooks/63659); PDF on The Black Vault. Captured 2026-05-31 (the report's explicit conclusions, synthesis, and closing — figure-caption blocks elided; the 231-page full report adds the HIGH DIVE / EXCELSIOR dummy-drop documentation). Companion to the 1994 USAF report (Project MOGUL = the debris) and wikipedia-project-mogul. Source-of-record for ../../sources/roswell-incident-1947.

This is the official prosaic explanation in the government's own words: the debris = a Project MOGUL balloon train; the "aliens" = anthropomorphic test dummies; the "bodies at the base" = conflated 1956/1959 aircraft-and-balloon accidents; the "two-or-three-days-in-1947" timeline = decades of separate events compressed by witnesses interviewed 40+ years later.

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The conclusions (verbatim)

the accounts appear to be descriptions of unclassified and widely
publicized Air Force scientific achievements. Other descriptions of
bodies appear to be descriptions of actual incidents in which Air Force
members were killed or injured in the line of duty.

The conclusions of the additional research are:

• Air Force activities which occurred over a period of many years
have been consolidated and are now represented to have occurred in
two or three days in July 1947.

• “Aliens” observed in the New Mexico desert were probably
anthropomorphic test dummies that were carried aloft by U.S. Air
Force high altitude balloons for scientific research.

• The “unusual” military activities in the New Mexico desert were
high altitude research balloon launch and recovery operations. The
reports of military units that always seemed to arrive shortly
after the crash of a flying saucer to retrieve the saucer and
“crew,” were actually accurate descriptions of Air Force personnel
engaged in anthropomorphic dummy recovery operations.

• Claims of bodies at the Roswell Army Air Field hospital were most
likely a combination of two separate incidents:

1) a 1956 KC-97 aircraft accident in which 11 Air Force members
lost their lives; and,

2) a 1959 manned balloon mishap in which two Air Force pilots were
injured.

Synthesis — why the "crash sites" are dummy recoveries (verbatim)

extraterrestrial spaceship and crew crashed and were recovered by the
U.S. Air Force are compared to documented Air Force activities, it is
reasonable to conclude, with a high degree of certainty, that the two
“crashes” were actually descriptions of a launch or recovery of a high
altitude balloon and anthropomorphic dummies. This conclusion was based
on the remarkable similarities and independent corroboration between
the witnesses who described both of the “crash sites.” Statements
such as “they was using dummies in those damned things” and a
characterization of the crashed vehicle as, “I thought it was a blimp”
are two of the many similarities. The extensive detailed descriptions
provided by the witnesses, too numerous to be coincidental, were of
the equipment, vehicles, procedures, and personnel of the Air Force
research organizations who conducted the scientific experiments HIGH
DIVE and EXCELSIOR.

Though it is clear anthropomorphic dummies were responsible for these
accounts, the specific locations of the events described was difficult,
if not impossible, to determine since the witnesses were not specific.
A witness to the “crash site” north of Roswell, Mr. James Ragsdale,
was not certain of the actual location as evidenced by a change in
his sworn testimony that moved the site many miles from its original
location.[165]

However, since Ragsdale reportedly lived or worked in the Roswell,
Artesia, and Carlsbad, N.M. areas during the period when the dummies
were used, it is likely he described one or more of the nine documented
dummy recoveries in areas near there.

Reports of the other crash site, allegedly 175 miles northwest of
Roswell on the San Agustin Plains, is likely based on descriptions of
more than one launch and recovery of anthropomorphic dummies. Since
one witness, Gerald Anderson, described procedures consistent with the
launch and recovery of high altitude balloons, it is likely that he
witnessed both of these activities, with at least one that included an
anthropomorphic dummy payload.

The two secondhand witnesses to this “crash,” Vern Maltais and Alice
Knight, could have related descriptions from any of the dummy launch
or landing sites. However, Maltais and Knight repeatedly described the
impact location of the flying saucer as on the San Agustin Plains.
One possible explanation is that the witnesses, in the 30 or more
years since they were told the story by the original eyewitness, Mr.
Barney Barnett, a soil conservation engineer who reportedly traveled
extensively throughout New Mexico, may have confused San Agustin
Plains with San Agustin Pass or San Agustin Peak, an area in the San
Agustin Mountains of New Mexico. These areas are just outside the
boundary of the White Sands Missile Range and the adjacent Jornada
Test Range. Numerous anthropomorphic dummy balloon flights terminated
and were recovered in this area. Furthermore, if the civilians
witnessed dummy landings on either the White Sands Missile Range or the
Jornada Test Range, both test areas and restricted U.S. Government
reservations, then this explains why they may have been told to leave
the landing site. In the popular Roswell scenarios, witnesses were
allegedly instructed by military personnel to leave the area because
they witnessed something of a highly classified nature. This would
be unlikely since the witnesses described projects that utilized
anthropomorphic dummies which were unclassified. It is likely, however,
that if the witnesses ventured onto one of these ranges they were
instructed to leave, not because of classified activities, but for
their own safety.

These conclusions are supported by official files, technical reports,
extensive photographic documentation, and the recollections of numerous
former and retired Air Force members and civilian employees who
conducted Projects HIGH DIVE and EXCELSIOR. The descriptions examined
here, provided by UFO theorists themselves, were so remarkably—and
redundantly—similar to these Air Force projects that the only
reasonable conclusion can be that the witnesses described these

Conclusion (verbatim)

When critically examined, the claims that the U.S. Army Air Forces
recovered a flying saucer and alien crew in 1947, were found to be
a compilation of many verifiable events. For the most part, the
descriptions collected by UFO theorists were of actual operations and
tests carried out by the U.S. Air Force in the 1950s. Despite the
usual unsavory accusations by UFO proponents of cover-up, conspiracy,
intimidation, etc., documented research revealed that many of the
activities were actually historic scientific achievements of which the
Air Force is very proud. However, other descriptions are believed to be
distorted references to Air Force members who were killed or injured in
the line of duty. The incomplete and inaccurate intermingling of these
actual events were grounded in just enough fact to weave a sensational
story, but cannot withstand close scrutiny when compared to official
records.

To analyze reports of alien bodies that at first appeared to be so
offbeat as to not be remotely based in fact, it was necessary to
evaluate a wide range of books, interviews, videos, etc., that a
less objective review might have rejected out of hand. Only through
an inclusive evaluation of these sources were Air Force researchers
able to understand the interconnectivity of the widely separated
events believed responsible for this “incident.” And, in opposition
to critics who believe Air Force research involving this subject is
anything but objective, this research relied almost exclusively on
the descriptions =provided by the UFO proponents themselves=. When
collected and examined, the actual statements of the witnesses—not
the extraterrestrial interpretations of UFO proponents—indicated that
something was very wrong. When these descriptions were compared to
documented Air Force activities, they were much too similar to be a
coincidence. Soon, it became apparent that the witnesses or the UFO
proponents who liberally interpreted their statements were either 1)
confused, or 2) attempting to perpetrate a hoax, believing that no
serious efforts would ever be taken to verify their stories.

In preparing this report, attempts were made not to only explain
what conclusions were reached, but how they were reached. This
undertaking was to try to de-mystify the research process by outlining
the simple and logical research techniques that identified the
underlying actual events. In regard to statements of witnesses that
were clearly descriptions of Air Force activities, such as those
that described anthropomorphic dummies, these could be generously
viewed as situational misunderstandings or even honest mistakes.
Other descriptions, particularly those believed to be thinly veiled
references to deceased or injured Air Force members, are difficult
to view as naive misunderstandings. Any attempt to misrepresent or
capitalize on tragic incidents in which Air Force members died or were
injured in service to their country significantly alters what would
otherwise be viewed as simple misinterpretations or honest mistakes.