Document · 1997
The Roswell Report: Case Closed (U.S. Air Force, 1997), summary
The U.S. Air Force's second Roswell report, The Roswell Report: Case Closed, released in June 1997 at a Pentagon news conference. Following the 1994 report, which identified the 1947 debris as a Project MOGUL balloon train, it addresses the later claims of alien bodies. It attributes them to anthropomorphic test dummies dropped from high-altitude balloons in the 1950s, and to a 1956 aircraft accident and a 1959 balloon mishap. It is the official counter-assessment to the crash-retrieval story. Our copy is a capture of the report's summary page on af.mil.
Sources: U.S. Air Force, The Roswell Report: Case Closed (1997)
Facts and claims
- documented The Air Force recalls that its July 1994 report, prepared in response to a General Accounting Office inquiry requested by a member of Congress, concluded that the Army Air Forces had recovered debris from a balloon-borne research project code-named MOGUL, most of whose records were never classified. Source: doc-af-roswell-case-closed-1997.pdf
- documented The 1997 report concludes that Air Force activities spanning many years had been consolidated into accounts of two or three days in July 1947. It says the "aliens" seen in the New Mexico desert were anthropomorphic test dummies carried aloft by high-altitude research balloons, and that the military units said to arrive after a crash were dummy-recovery teams. Source: doc-af-roswell-case-closed-1997.pdf
- documented It attributes claims of "alien bodies" at the Roswell Army Air Field hospital most likely to a combination of a 1956 KC-97 aircraft accident in which 11 Air Force members died and a 1959 manned balloon mishap in which two Air Force pilots were injured. Source: doc-af-roswell-case-closed-1997.pdf
Connected files
Claims
- The U.S. has recovered the bodies of non-human beings from crashed craft (evidence against claim) — The Air Force attributes the Roswell “alien bodies” to test dummies and accidents
- A craft of non-human origin crashed near Roswell, New Mexico, in July 1947, and the military recovered it (evidence against claim) — The Air Force attributes the debris to a MOGUL balloon and the “alien” accounts to test dummies and accidents
Incidents
- Roswell crash (documents)
Organizations
- Department of War (Department of Defense) (published by)
Videos
- Col. Philip J. Corso: The Day After Roswell lecture “at the Ranch” (22 February 1998) (discussed in)
- Citizen Hearing 2013: Roswell, Part 1 (discussed in)
- Citizen Hearing 2013: Roswell, Part 2 (discussed in)
- Citizen Hearing 2013: Truth, Lies & the Cover-up, Part 1 (discussed in)
Mentioned in this file
- Crash retrieval & reverse engineering (Concept)
More documents
- NASA Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Independent Study Team report (2023)
- Luke AFB FOIA reply on the Phoenix Lights (1 May 1997)
- GAO report on the Roswell crash records (B-262046, July 28, 1995)
- Fiscal Year 2025 Consolidated Annual Report on UAP (Department of War / AARO, July 2026)
- AARO case resolution: "Go Fast" (2025)
- Fiscal Year 2024 Consolidated Annual Report on UAP (DoD / AARO, November 2024)
Links
- af.mil — The Roswell Report: Case Closed (Air Force News Special Report)
- C-SPAN — Air Force report on Roswell events (news conference, 1997)