 An event, popularly known as the Roswell Incident, has recently been the subject of intense interest by both the media and a curious general public. In recent years, numerous speculative books, magazine articles, television programs, a made-for-TV movie, two UFO museums, fraudulent documents, and even an alien autopsy film have emerged to exploit the media fascination with the Roswell Incident. The story has even gained international attention. Despite the vested interest and questionable credibility of all sources involved in generating the media hype, the U.S. Air Force is routinely accused of concealing a deep, dark secret from the American people. In early 1994, New Mexico Congressman Stephen Schiff requested the General Accounting Office initiate a records review. The purpose of this review was to determine if the U.S. Air Force, or any other U.S. government agency, possessed information on an alleged crash near Roswell, New Mexico in July 1947 of an extra-terrestrial vehicle and its alien crew. In response to the GAO probe, the Secretary of the Air Force directed a comprehensive search for records. The objective of this search was to tell the Congress and the American people what the Air Force knew about the 1947 Roswell claims. If the information was still classified, it was to be declassified. If active or former Air Force officials had signed non-disclosure agreements, they were to be released from these agreements. The resulting 800-page report was completed in July 1994. The report concluded that the predecessor to the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Army Air Forces, did recover material near Roswell in July 1947. What was recovered was not the remains of an extra-terrestrial spacecraft and its alien crew, but debris from a then-classified Army Air Force's research project codenamed Mogul. Begun in 1946, Project Mogul was a top-secret attempt to acoustically detect suspected Soviet nuclear explosions and ballistic missile launches. The project was accorded the highest priority because it addressed the most important post-war national defense concern, development of an early warning system to prevent a devastating surprise attack. Mogul used an odd assortment of naval acoustical sensors, radar-reflecting targets, nylon fibers and other equipment carried aloft by a train of weather balloons extending over 600 feet. Claims that the U.S. Army Air Forces recovered a flying disk near Roswell in 1947 were based primarily on a misidentification of the radar targets, a standard element of weather equipment adapted for use on the long Mogul balloon train. In June 1947, the oddly constructed radar targets were found by a local rancher who later reported the equipment as a flying disk. Following some initial confusion at Roswell Army Air Field, the flying disk debris, aluminum foil, rubber, paper and sticks, was identified by Army Air Force officials as remnants of radar targets and weather balloons. With the positive identification by the Army Air Forces of the debris recovered by the rancher, events that occurred in 1947 were officially resolved and largely forgotten. Initially, the Roswell incident consisted only of accounts of the recovery of a flying disk. In 1947, there were no claims of alien bodies associated with the Roswell incident. The recovery of alien bodies became part of the Roswell story during the late 1970s with other claims being made in the 1980s and 1990s. These later-day revisions to the Roswell story were often based on anecdotal accounts from second and third-hand witnesses collected by UFO enthusiast 40 or more years after the actual event. The same anecdotal accounts that refer to bodies also describe large-scale field operations conducted by U.S. military personnel using an assortment of military vehicles and aircraft to recover crashed debris supposedly from an extraterrestrial spaceship. Military personnel were allegedly led by an angry red-headed captain threatening those who witnessed the operation with imprisonment or death if they revealed what they observed. The popular Roswell story contends that the bodies, once recovered, were allegedly transported under tight security to the base hospital at Roswell Army Airfield for autopsy. At the hospital, the angry red-headed captain was again allegedly observed threatening civilians. Following the purported autopsies, the alien bodies were supposedly transported to right Field, Ohio, now right Patterson Air Force Base, for further processing and storage. This summarizes the Roswell incident scenario as presented by UFO enthusiast. On the surface, this explanation may appear plausible to some, however things are not always as they appear. The reports of bodies were only briefly discussed in the 1994 Air Force Report because the search for records from 1947, the year of the alleged incident, did not yield any data to support a 1947 claim of alien bodies. However, following the release of the 1994 report, additional research uncovered information which explains some of the claims of alien bodies associated with the Roswell incident. From the additional research, a second report was written which critically examined the anecdotal claims and descriptions of flying saucers, aliens, and reports of unusual Air Force activities in the New Mexico Desert. This in-depth examination revealed that many of these claims were reasonably accurate descriptions of Air Force activities. Some of the claims that refer to bodies are most likely misperceptions by uninformed persons of unclassified and widely publicized Air Force scientific achievements of the 1950s. However, other descriptions of bodies appear to be exploitation of Air Force members killed or injured in the line of duty. The following are the five main conclusions contained in the second report. Research reveals that actual U.S. military operations widely separated by time, geographical location, and purpose have been misinterpreted or deliberately misrepresented. These misrepresentations collectively created what is known as the Roswell incident. UFO proponents failed to establish accurate dates of reported eyewitness accounts in some instances by more than a decade. In addition, they erroneously linked all these accounts to the actual 1947 recovery of Project Mogul equipment. Eventually these misrepresentations transformed a series of verifiable Air Force activities into what some have described as the extraterrestrial event of the millennium. Reports of aliens in the New Mexico Desert were actually anthropomorphic test dummies that were carried aloft by Air Force high altitude research balloons. All examination of alleged alien sightings consistently matched the physical characteristics of these dummies as well as where and how they were used. Anthropomorphic dummies, also known as crash test dummies, are today easily identifiable and are even stars of their own successful auto safety advertising campaign. However, during the 1950s, public awareness was still decades away for these important scientific tools. From 1953 to 1959, anthropomorphic dummies were used by the U.S. Air Force Aeromedical Laboratory in Projects High Dive and Excelsior. The project's main objective was to study methods for returning a pilot or astronaut safely to Earth by parachute if forced to eject at extremely high altitudes. For these tests, dummies were transported up to 98,000 feet by high altitude balloons. The dummies were released for a freefall period during which body movements and escape equipment performance were recorded by a variety of instruments. Many of the dummies landed outside the confines of military reservations and were regularly observed by local civilians. Following a series of dummy tests, a human subject, Air Force test pilot Captain Joseph W. Kittinger Jr., now a retired colonel, made three bailouts from high altitude balloons. These and other aeromedical projects that used both dummies and human test subjects were unclassified and widely publicized in the press and other media. In 1956, 20th Century Fox released On the Threshold of Space, a feature-length motion picture based on these projects and filmed on location at Holloman Air Force Base. Air Force personnel, aircraft, high altitude balloons, and other equipment, including the actual anthropomorphic dummies, were used in the making of this film. The eyewitness reports of military units that always seemed to arrive shortly after the alleged crash of a flying saucer were actually accurate descriptions of Air Force personnel engaged in high altitude balloon and anthropomorphic dummy recovery operations. Since 1947, Air Force atmospheric research organizations at Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico, have launched and recovered approximately 2,500 high altitude balloons, many in the same areas of New Mexico where the Roswell incident allegedly occurred. Additionally, the equipment, vehicles, and procedures used by the Holloman Air Force Base balloon branch, the unit that conducted most of the launches, are the same as that described by the reputed witnesses who claimed they saw the recovery of the flying saucer and alien crew. These huge Air Force high altitude balloons, launched by the Holloman balloon branch, carried aloft a wide range of sophisticated and from most perspectives, odd-looking devices. Much of this equipment was experimental and represented for that era the latest in space age technologies. Payloads ranged from simple radio transmitters to sophisticated satellite components and NASA space probes. In fact, qualification trials for the NASA Voyager Mars and Viking space probes were flown by Air Force high altitude balloons during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Ironically, these balloons were launched from the former Roswell Army airfield site of the originally alleged 1947 incident and recovered on the White Sands missile range over 100 miles to the west. Recovering the balloon payloads was essential for accomplishing the scientific objectives of the high altitude balloon program. The primary high altitude balloon recovery areas were and still are located at predetermined sites throughout Arizona, West Texas, and New Mexico, including the area surrounding Roswell. To retrieve the equipment many miles from Holloman Air Force Base, recovery personnel operated a variety of aircraft and vehicles, the exact vehicles described by the witnesses as having been present at the crashed flying saucer sites. To expedite these operations, the recovery crews tracked the balloons optically, electronically and from aircraft which directed ground vehicles to the impact areas. In several of the Roswell accounts, unsubstantiated allegations asserted that military personnel who retrieved equipment from rural areas of New Mexico intimidated and threatened civilians on the scene. On the contrary, balloon branch personnel enjoyed good relations with the local community and often solicited their assistance following a balloon or payload landing. In the course of their activities, recovery personnel rented or borrowed tractors, bulldozers, snowmobiles, and even packed mules from local residents. The payloads, parachutes, balloons, and circling chase aircraft often draw crowds of curious onlookers from the local community. In fact, so many civilians are often present at balloon or payload landing sites, the scenes were once described by balloon branch personnel as being like the circus coming to town. Here's what it looked like this afternoon, floating from east to west over town. It was way up there all right, some 25 miles over our heads the Air Force later told me. The giant helium-filled balloon eventually collapsed, falling to earth like a thousand pounds of cellophane, landing on the Gila Indian Reservation southwest of Phoenix. A short while later, we spotted this, a large parachute perhaps 100 feet across, dangling beneath it was some sort of a silver box that made a rather hard landing. This is what had been attached to that balloon we would later find out. There were no markings on it, no way at all of telling what it was. Then the Air Force pulled up, excuse me, we don't mean to be too nosy but about a million people in Phoenix are dying to know, what is it? What is it? Yeah. This is a scientific payload that was launched from Mahalaman Air Force Base in New Mexico. How far are we? About 400 miles? Okay, it went up to approximately 125,000 feet in the air, carried aloft by an 11 million cubic foot balloon. So there you have it, an Air Force experiment to gather information on gases in the upper atmosphere. Thank goodness it was one of ours. Len Clements, New Center 10. In addition to high-altitude balloons, the Hollamann Balloon Branch also launched low-altitude tethered balloons. These tethered balloons may have inspired at least one account of an alien craft associated with the Roswell incident. In a popular book, the authors present a drawing of a crashed spaceship, allegedly given to them by an anonymous witness. When this drawing is compared to a photograph of an experimental tethered balloon flown at Hollamann Air Force Base in March 1965, the similarities are undeniable. The redheaded captain was probably Captain Joseph W. Kittinger, Jr. Captain Kittinger served as the project officer or pilot in all three of the Air Force's manned high-altitude balloon projects, Man High, Excelsior, and Stargazer. Captain Kittinger was present at many balloon and dummy launch and recovery sites throughout the Southwest United States during the 1950s and early 1960s. However, other than the allegations made by UFO proponents, there is no evidence of any kind that Kittinger confronted or threatened civilians. Colonel Kittinger's achievements as an Air Force test pilot are legendary. He has the standing world record parachute jump from nearly 20 miles. Later he went on to serve three combat tours in Southeast Asia and is credited with an aerial victory while engaged in combat over North Vietnam. After over 480 combat missions, Colonel Kittinger was shot down over North Vietnam and spent ten months as a prisoner of war in the infamous Hanoi Hilton before being repatriated in March 1973. Colonel Kittinger made history again after retiring from the Air Force. In 1984 he accomplished the first solo crossing of the Atlantic by balloon. The final and most disturbing conclusion of the second Roswell report is the apparent exploitation of Air Force members killed or injured in the line of duty to perpetuate the alleged sightings of alien bodies. Claims of bodies at the Roswell Army Airfield Hospital were likely a combination of several aircraft accidents and an unusual manned balloon mishap. One aircraft accident occurred on June 26, 1956. The 11 Air Force members died when their fully loaded KC-97 Tanker aircraft experienced a propeller failure four and a half minutes after takeoff. The crash site was approximately nine miles south of the former Roswell Army Airfield renamed Walker Air Force Base in 1948. The badly burned bodies of the 11 crewmen were identified and processed at the Walker Air Force Base Hospital. The alleged claims of bodies at the base hospital can be traced to a single witness whose descriptions closely matched the condition and the circumstances under which these victims were identified. Furthermore, claims of bodies attributed to specific Air Force personnel are unsubstantiated. Some of these individuals were not even present at Roswell Army Airfield in July 1947. The balloon mishap occurred during a low-level training mission for backup pilots in the Project Excelsior High Altitude Manned Balloon Program. This unusual accident occurred approximately 10 miles northwest of Walker Air Force Base on May 21, 1959. One of the three crewmen, Captain Dan D. Folgum, now a retired colonel, was injured during landing. Following the mishap, Captain Folgum and the other balloon crew members were transported to the Walker Air Force Base Hospital via a chase helicopter that followed the training mission for emergency purposes. Upon arrival at the highly secure Strategic Air Command Base, the balloon crew was met by armed Air Force security personnel who remained with the crew until their identities were confirmed. As the Excelsior Project Officer and instructor pilot for this mission, the red-headed Captain Kittinger accompanied the balloon crew to the hospital. At the Walker Air Force Base Hospital, Kittinger and Folgum were apparently observed by individuals who later related this unusual incident. Elements of this actual event now appear to be part of the Roswell story. Captain Folgum was treated for an injury that caused his head to swell beyond its normal size. The injury, described as a traumatic hematoma, was not serious. On a specially arranged flight several days after the accident, Folgum returned to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, where he made a complete recovery. Folgum went on to distinguish himself as a test parachutist and physiologist for the space program. He later flew F-4s in Southeast Asia, adding to his combat record as a fighter pilot during the Korean War. When critically examined, the Roswell incident is exposed as a conglomeration of many events, including aircraft accidents that occurred over several decades. This identification of anthropomorphic dummies and experimental balloon-launched devices, combined with Air Force balloon operations portrayed as mysterious flying saucer and alien recovery teams, transformed verifiable events into what is now known as the Roswell incident. The U.S. Air Force and its predecessors have been the unsurpassed innovators in aerospace technology. Legendary Air Force leaders throughout this century have used technological advances to establish the U.S. Air Force as a premier military service. The facts presented in the reports examining the so-called Roswell incident did not reveal it to be a dark secret or government cover-up, as persons unacquainted with Air Force technologies proclaim. Instead, these studies identified a collection of events that exemplify the technological leadership, dedication to duty, and continuing noble sacrifices of the men and women of the United States Air Force.