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 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.
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.