Sector:USA/Roswell_Incident_Balloon_Dummies

## Metadata

**Incident ID:** INC-1947-ROS

**Date:** July 1947 (Event); July 1994 (Report completion)

**Location:** Roswell region, Chaves County, New Mexico, United States

**Reporting Agency:** Office of the Secretary of the Air Force (records search conducted in response to GAO inquiry)

**Status:** UNRESOLVED

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## Executive Summary

A federally commissioned records search was conducted and completed in July 1994 in response to a General Accounting Office (GAO) inquiry. The scope of the inquiry was the alleged crash and recovery of an unidentified aerial vehicle and associated occupants near Roswell, New Mexico, in July 1947. The records search was conducted by the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force. The records that were located, reviewed, and catalogued were determined to document high-altitude balloon operations using anthropomorphic dummies for scientific research and associated recovery operations. The conclusion was recorded that civilian reports of "alien" figures observed in the desert were consistent with anthropomorphic test dummies carried aloft by U.S. Air Force high-altitude balloons. Reports of military units arriving shortly after the event were recorded as Air Force personnel engaged in dummy recovery operations.

The following case record is a compiled and redacted administrative archive-style narrative constructed from located documents, witness statements that were recorded in contemporaneous field reports, technical project documentation pertaining to high-altitude balloon experiments, press releases issued by Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF), and follow-on administrative correspondence. Observations are presented in passive voice and in a bureaucratic register. Two items are recorded as unexplained within the located archive and are identified in the section "Unexplained Items." All other items are presented as coherent, causally-linked administrative events and observations.

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## Background and Operational Context

In the calendar year 1947, a series of high-altitude balloon tests was being conducted under classified and unclassified research programs. The operation documentation located in the archive was comprised of technical memos, payload manifests, and recovery procedures. The balloon payloads were described as having been scheduled for ascent during early July 1947. Weather bulletins and launch logs were contemporaneously appended to payload manifests.



The payload manifests that were located were dated and stamped. Each manifest included ascent time windows, predicted drift vectors, parachute cutaway times, and recovery party contact points. Anthropometric test dummies were described in the manifests as being included in several payloads for the purpose of recording altitude effects and instrumentation performance. The dummies were recorded by weight, height, fabric specification, and instrumentation attachment points in the handling logs.

Project-level documentation was identified and cross-referenc