Sheridan Cavitt’s 1994 sworn statement and Weaver interview (verbatim extract)
Verbatim primary extract — Lt Col Sheridan W. Cavitt’s signed sworn statement (Attachment 17) and the transcript of Col. Richard L. Weaver’s tape-recorded interview with him (Attachment 18), both dated 24 May 1994, as published in the public-domain 1995 USAF report (usaf-roswell-report-fact-vs-fiction-1995). Cavitt is the last living member of the three-man party credited with recovering the Foster Ranch debris (with Maj. Jesse Marcel and MSgt Lewis “Bill” Rickett). Excerpted and de-garbled from the report’s OCR (minor scan artifacts silently corrected; wording preserved). Captured 2026-06-01. Analysis is in cavitt-roswell-cic-officer; see also roswell-incident-1947, 2026-05-31-could-roswell-debris-be-project-mogul.
The signed sworn statement (Atch 17, 24 May 1994) — key passages
Cavitt states he was a CIC Special Agent “initially assigned to Roswell AAF following my graduation from CIC school at Ft Holabird MD, in late June or early July, 1947,” and:
“Shortly [after] arriving at Roswell… I had occasion to accompany one of my subordinates, MSGT Bill Rickett, CIC, and Major Jesse Marcel… to a ranchland area outside of Roswell to help recover some material… we subsequently located some debris which appeared to me to resemble bamboo type square sticks one quarter to one half inch square, that were very light, as well as some sort of metallic reflecting material that was also very light. I also vaguely recall some sort of black box (like a weather instrument). The area of this debris was very small, about 20 feet square, and the material was spread on the ground, but there was no gouge or crater or other obvious sign of impact. I remember recognizing this material as being consistent with a weather balloon. We gathered up some of this material, which would easily fit into one vehicle; there certainly wasn’t a lot of this material, or enough to make up crates of it for multiple airplane flights.”
On the famous “we were never there” line attributed to him in Randle & Schmitt’s UFO Crash at Roswell (1991, p. 63):
“In the same referenced book… I was reputed to have told Rickett (on Page 63) that we were never there and this incident never happened. The book seems to imply this was in some sort of conspiratorial tone; however it is more likely I told him not to mention it to our headquarters because we had wasted our time recovering a balloon.”
On secrecy, conspiracy, and the sensational claims:
“There was no secretive effort or heightened security regarding this incident… I never even thought about it again until well after I retired from the military when I began to be contacted by UFO researchers. Many of the things I have mentioned to these people have either been taken out of context, misrepresented, or just plain made up. I did know both Jesse Marcel and Bill Rickett very well… I considered them to be good men, however both did tend to exaggerate things on occasion. With regards to claims that we tested this material by hitting it with sledgehammers without damaging it, I do not recall any of us doing so. I also did not test this material for radioactivity with a Geiger counter…”
“I am not part of any conspiracy to withhold information from anyone… I have never been sworn to any form of secrecy by anyone concerning this matter… There is no classified information that I am withholding. I have never been threatened by the US Government… My bottom line is that this whole incident was no big deal and it certainly did not involve anything extraterrestrial.”
The taped interview (Atch 18, 24 May 1994) — key exchanges
(RW = Col. Weaver; SC = Cavitt; MC = Mary Cavitt, his wife)
On dates / arrival:
SC: “I told you my dates are slipping my mind.” … “It’s hard to remember July 47. I hadn’t been there very long.”
Role:
SC: “I was the only commissioned officer. I had two enlisted agents ‘working for me’… The senior was a Master Sergeant by the name of Rickett and the young agent, Jack Williams.”
The recovery:
SC: “I couldn’t swear to the dates, but in that time, which must have been July, we heard that someone had found some debris… it looked suspicious; it was unidentified. So, I went out and I do not recall whether Marcel went with Rickett and me; I had Rickett with me… There were no… check points or anything like that (going through guards and that sort of garbage)… It was a small amount of, as I recall, bamboo sticks, reflective sort of material that would, well at first glance, you would probably think it was aluminum foil, something of that type. And we gathered up some of it… It wasn’t scattered… extensively. Like, it didn’t go along the ground and splatter off some here and some there.”
RW: “What did you think it was when you recovered it?” SC: “I thought a weather balloon.”
SC: “When I saw it it was [too] flimsy to be anything to carry people or anything of that sort. It never crossed my mind that it could be anything but a radio sonde.”
Size / scatter:
RW: “Could you… was it as long as your house here, or just a small little [clump]?” SC: “Maybe as long as this room is wide.” RW: “So, twenty feet maybe?” SC: “Some here, some here, some here. No concentration of it. No marks in the ground, dug up, anything hidden… just out on the territory…”
Quantity:
RW: “…could you fill up an airplane with it?” SC: “Oh, good God! You couldn’t fill up [unintelligible] with it.”
On the Ramey/Fort Worth photos:
RW: “Does that look like the material that you picked up out in the desert?… That doesn’t look like they substituted anything from what you found?” SC: “No, No.”
On secrecy oaths / Washington:
SC: “I don’t remember anybody from Washington coming there… I was not sworn into any secrecy ever about any of this stuff.”
SC: “as far as I knew, I never heard anyone say, ‘Don’t talk about this and it’s hot stuff.‘”