For me, the beginning of the end for the Roswell UFO case came last spring, when I first saw one of a number of previously classified military documents dealing with unidentified flying objects. The 289-page document was released under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in March 1996 in response to a FOIA request by researcher William LaParl. It contained the minutes of the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board Conference at the Pentagon on March 17 and 18, 1948. Buried in the document was is a very interesting statement by a Colonel Howard McCoy which referred to a number of unpublished UFO eports. The last sentence of McCoy's statement, however, is devastating to the Roswell case.
We have a new project -- project Sign -- which may surprise you as a development from the so-called mass hysteria of the past Summer when we had all the unidentified flying objects or discs. This can't be laughed off. We have over 300 reports which haven't been publicized in the papers from very competent personnel, in many instances -- men as capable as Dr. K. D. Wood, and practically all Air Force, Airline people with broad experience. We are running down every report. I can't even tell you how much we would give to have one of those crash in an area so that we could recover whatever they are.
My first reaction to this statement was one of disbelief. Thoughts came to mind like "This can't be correct, there must be some mistake, this guy didn't know," etc. We are probably all somewhat prone to such initial reactions of denial when confronted with facts that conflict with our preconceived notions of reality or our established beliefs. Most of the time, however, common sense, logic, and rationality prevail. On the other hand, there is sometimes an invariable refusal to give up a particular contention or belief, no matter how strong the evidence to the contrary. The result of such refusal is often illogical speculation and far-fetched scenarios, concocted in an effort to rationalize away the facts. It is a pitfall into which even credible researchers sometimes tumble.
The statement at the Scientific Advisory Board Conference lamenting the fact that the Air Force did not have a crashed UFO was made by Colonel Howard McCoy, the Chief of Intelligence for Air Material Command at Wright-Patterson AFB. Wright Patterson is where the Air Force's technical and intelligence experts are concentrated, even today. It is where recovered wreckage from a foreign craft of any kind with the potential for invading our skies would be taken for technical analysis -- be it a MIG 29 or a Klingon battle cruiser. If there had been a crashed flying saucer recovered outside of Roswell, New Mexico, in July 1947, this is where it would have been taken. As Chief of Intelligence, Colonel Howard McCoy would have known about it.
In addition to the minutes of the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board meeting, there are other military documents indicating just as unequivocally that the Air Force was not in possession of any physical evidence with regard to UFOs. Among these documents is a series of communiques dealing with "flying object incidents in the United States" between Colonel McCoy at Wright Patterson and Major General C. P. Cabell, the Director of Intelligence for the Air Force at the Pentagon. In one of these communiques, a letter dated November 8, 1948, McCoy made three separate references to the fact that there was no physical or tangible evidence from a flying saucer crash. Cabell used the information from McCoy's letter for preparation of a memorandum dated November 30, 1948, for Secretary of Defense James Forrestal.
The lack of physical evidence is also mentioned in a September 23, 1947, letter from Lieutenant General Nathan Twining, Commander of the Air Materiel Command at Wright Field, to Brigadier General George Schulgen, a top intelligence official at the Pentagon. The Twining letter was written less than three months after the Roswell incident. The letter is also significant because it makes reference to the cooperation between the Engineering Division and the Intelligence Division at the Wright Patterson complex. This cooperation is mentioned specifically in regard to assessing the nature of the mys erious "flying objects" about which there had been so many credible reports.
The cooperation between the intelligence and engineering branches at Wright Patterson is further corroborated by a "top secret" memorandum for the Chief, Air Intelligence Division, dated October 11, 1948, signed by a Colonel Brooke Allen, Chief, of the Air Estimates Branch at Wright Patterson. The stated subject of the memorandum is "Analysis of Flying Object Incidents in the U.S." This memorandum is important because, along with the Twining letter, it confirms what is dictated by common sense -- that if the engineering department possessed a crashed saucer, the intelligence department would not only be aware of it, they would also be integrally involved with its analysis and the assessment of any potential threat posed to national security.
The 1947 and 1948 military documents are definitive. They can not be simply or smugly characterized as "absence of evidence." They are evidence. They state definitively that there was no crashed saucer.
If instead of the above documents, researchers had uncovered definitive and authentic documentation indicating the existence of a crashed saucer, such documentation would have undoubtedly been acknowledged by all and characterized as a "smoking gun." Victory would have been declared, and congressional investigations would have been all but certain.
Predictably, some in the UFO field are reacting to the 1947 and 1948 military documents with an attitude reminiscent of the platitude, "don't bother me with the facts, my mind's made up." Ironically, this is the same type of mentality of which they are so quick to accuse their detractors. Narrow-mindedness, however, can exist on either side of the fence. The facts are now clear. We can't simply refuse to acknowledge them because we don't like them. The Roswell crash didn't happen. It is time to face the music, and the band isn't playing our tune.