Within Ramey Memo
Why So Few Roswell Records Remain
The GAO search shows how little clearly linked 1947 documentation survived, making the memo more tempting but not more legible.
On this page
- What investigators searched for
- The two clear 1947 records
- What absence of records proves
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Introduction
The GAO Roswell records search matters because it put a hard archival boundary around the 1947 paper trail. In 1995, the United States General Accounting Office, now the Government Accountability Office, reported that its search found only two government records originating in 1947 that clearly referred to the Roswell incident: a July 1947 combined history of the 509th Bomb Group and Roswell Army Air Field, and a July 8 FBI teletype. At the same time, GAO found that some Roswell Army Air Field administrative records and outgoing messages had been destroyed, with no clear record of who destroyed them, when, or under what authority.[GAO]gao.govnsiadNSIAD-95-187 Government Records: Results of a Search for Records Concerning the 1947 Crash Near Roswell, New Mexico…
That finding makes the Ramey memo more tempting to some readers because it sits inside a real 1947 press photograph, at a moment when so few official records survive. But the GAO search does not make the tiny paper in General Roger Ramey’s hand more legible. It clarifies the governance problem: Roswell is not a case with a rich, continuous archive that can settle every disputed sentence. It is a case where surviving official records are sparse, some relevant record series are missing, and absence of documentation has to be handled carefully rather than turned automatically into proof of either a cover-up or a balloon explanation.[GAO]gao.govnsiadNSIAD-95-187 Government Records: Results of a Search for Records Concerning the 1947 Crash Near Roswell, New Mexico…
What Investigators Searched For
The GAO inquiry began because Representative Steven Schiff of New Mexico was dissatisfied with the answers he had received from the Department of Defense about Roswell. GAO framed the audit around two practical questions: what kind of reporting would have been required for an air accident in 1947, and what government records existed concerning the Roswell crash. It said it examined classified and unclassified records from July 1947 through the 1950s across the Department of Defense, FBI, CIA, National Security Council and other repositories.[GAO]gao.govnsiadNSIAD-95-187 Government Records: Results of a Search for Records Concerning the 1947 Crash Near Roswell, New Mexico…
The search was broader than a simple keyword hunt. GAO reviewed or visited records at the National Archives in Washington, National Archives II at College Park, the National Personnel Records Center in St Louis, the Air Force Safety Agency at Kirtland Air Force Base, the Air Force History Support Office, the National Security Agency, the Army War College’s Military History Institute, the Army Central Security Facility, the CIA, FBI and the National Atomic Museum at Kirtland. The records checked included Air Force UFO papers, Army Counterintelligence Corps files, National Security Council minutes, Headquarters Army Air Force message traffic, Air Materiel Command files, Eighth Air Force messages and correspondence, RAAF unit morning reports, service records of key RAAF personnel, Project Sign investigative reports, and the RAAF base newspaper Atomic Blast.[GAO]gao.govnsiadNSIAD-95-187 Government Records: Results of a Search for Records Concerning the 1947 Crash Near Roswell, New Mexico…
That range is important for the Ramey memo debate because it shows that GAO was not merely asking whether one labelled “Roswell file” existed. The auditors looked for the bureaucratic traces that would normally surround a major military incident: accident reports, unit histories, message traffic, command correspondence, intelligence files, records at Wright Field, and agency responses. The result was not a clean archive, but it was a meaningful test of whether surviving official files contained a clear record of a crashed exotic craft, bodies, or a special recovery system.[GAO]gao.govnsiadNSIAD-95-187 Government Records: Results of a Search for Records Concerning the 1947 Crash Near Roswell, New Mexico…
The Two Clear 1947 Records
GAO’s most concrete Roswell finding was narrow: it recovered two official records from 1947 that clearly concerned the incident. The first was the July 1947 combined history of the 509th Bomb Group and Roswell Army Air Field. GAO quoted it as saying that the public information office had been busy answering inquiries about the “flying disc” reported to be in the possession of the 509th Bomb Group, and that the object “turned out to be a radar tracking balloon”. GAO added that the RAAF commanding officer had certified the history as a complete and accurate account of RAAF activities in July 1947.[GAO]gao.govnsiadNSIAD-95-187 Government Records: Results of a Search for Records Concerning the 1947 Crash Near Roswell, New Mexico…
The second was a July 8, 1947 FBI teletype from the Dallas office to FBI headquarters and Cincinnati. GAO reported that the message was based on information from Eighth Air Force headquarters and described a recovered object near Roswell as a hexagonal disc suspended from a large balloon by cable. The message also said the object resembled a high-altitude weather balloon with a radar reflector and that the disc and balloon were being transported to Wright Field for examination.[GAO]gao.govnsiadNSIAD-95-187 Government Records: Results of a Search for Records Concerning the 1947 Crash Near Roswell, New Mexico…
Those two records do not settle every Roswell question, but they do set the official documentary floor. Both point towards balloon-related material, not bodies or a piloted craft. The Air Force later argued that the “weather balloon” description had obscured the classified Project Mogul context: a Cold War balloon programme intended to detect Soviet nuclear activity using radar reflectors and acoustic sensors. GAO recorded that the Department of Defense treated the Air Force’s July 1994 Roswell report as the extent of its records or information, and that the available official materials indicated a Project Mogul balloon train as the most likely source of the recovered wreckage.[GAO]gao.govnsiadNSIAD-95-187 Government Records: Results of a Search for Records Concerning the 1947 Crash Near Roswell, New Mexico…
For the Ramey memo, this matters in a specific way. A proposed reading of the memo that implies bodies or a non-balloon crash has to overcome the fact that the two clear 1947 records GAO found point in the opposite direction. But the reverse is also true: those two records do not magically transcribe Ramey’s photographed paper. They are context, not an optical solution.
Why the Missing Files Matter
The most politically charged part of the GAO report was not what it found, but what it could not find. GAO said some records covering Roswell Army Air Field activities had been destroyed, including administrative records from March 1945 through December 1949 and outgoing messages from October 1946 through December 1949. The document disposition form did not identify the person or organisation that destroyed the records, when they were destroyed, or the authority under which the destruction occurred.[GAO]gao.govnsiadNSIAD-95-187 Government Records: Results of a Search for Records Concerning the 1947 Crash Near Roswell, New Mexico…
This is the point that made headlines. Schiff said the missing outgoing messages might have shown how Roswell officials explained the event to their superiors, and a contemporary news report quoted him saying that documents which could have shed more light had been destroyed and that the military could not explain who destroyed them or why. The same report noted GAO’s finding that only two official 1947 records remained concerning the crash.[Deseret News]deseret.comNewsUFO' DOCUMENTS DESTROYED UNJUSTIFIABLY, LAWMAKER SAYS – Deseret News</span><span class="citation-popover-snippet">NewsUFO' DOCUMENTS DESTROYED UNJUSTIFIABLY, LAWMAKER SAYS – Deseret News
The missing outgoing messages are especially relevant because the Ramey memo appears to be a communication document in a press photograph taken during the Fort Worth phase of the story. If RAAF outgoing traffic from July 1947 had survived, it might have provided a comparison set: wording, routing, terminology, addressees, and the kind of language used when Roswell personnel reported upwards. Instead, researchers are left trying to extract meaning from a small, angled, low-resolution paper in a photograph, without the local outgoing message series that could have either corroborated or deflated disputed readings.
Still, “missing” does not automatically mean “sinister”. GAO also recorded the National Personnel Records Center archivist’s view that many Air Force organisational records from that period were destroyed without a proper citation to the governing disposition authority. GAO said its own review of other records control forms, including outgoing RAAF messages for 1950, supported that explanation. In plain terms, the recordkeeping was poor by modern expectations, but GAO did not show that the Roswell files were uniquely targeted because of alien evidence.[GAO]gao.govnsiadNSIAD-95-187 Government Records: Results of a Search for Records Concerning the 1947 Crash Near Roswell, New Mexico…
What Absence of Records Proves
The absence of records proves less than either side of the Roswell argument often wants. It does prove that the surviving 1947 government paper trail is extremely thin. It also proves that potentially relevant RAAF records were destroyed without adequate documentation of authority. For a governance reader, that is a serious archival failure: a nationally famous military controversy later had to be investigated through fragments, agency replies, unit histories, FBI material and collateral record sets rather than a complete local file.[GAO]gao.govnsiadNSIAD-95-187 Government Records: Results of a Search for Records Concerning the 1947 Crash Near Roswell, New Mexico…
It does not prove that Ramey’s memo says “victims of the wreck”, that bodies were recovered, or that the missing files contained a confession. GAO reviewed other records, including material previously withheld for security classification, and reported that those records did not mention the crash or the recovery of an airborne object near Roswell in July 1947. GAO also said executive branch agency responses produced no other government records on the Roswell crash.[GAO]gao.govnsiadNSIAD-95-187 Government Records: Results of a Search for Records Concerning the 1947 Crash Near Roswell, New Mexico…
Nor does the absence of an air accident report have one simple meaning. GAO found that Army regulations in 1947 required air accident reports to be kept permanently, and it checked Air Force Safety Agency microfilm for July 1947 accidents in New Mexico. It identified four Army Air Forces accidents that month, all involving military aircraft and all after July 8, at or near Hobbs, Albuquerque, Carrizozo and Alamogordo. GAO also noted that officials said there was no comparable requirement to prepare a report for a weather balloon crash.[GAO]gao.govnsiadNSIAD-95-187 Government Records: Results of a Search for Records Concerning the 1947 Crash Near Roswell, New Mexico…
That distinction is central. If Roswell had been a conventional military aircraft crash, the missing accident-report trail would be harder to explain. If it was balloon debris, especially from a classified balloon programme, the lack of a normal aircraft accident file is less surprising. The Air Force’s own research made the same practical point: air crash records were extensive, but balloon “crashes” were not normally treated like aircraft accidents because balloons eventually came down; reports would be expected mainly if a balloon caused injury or damage.[ESD]esd.whs.milOpen source on whs.mil.
How the GAO Search Changes the Ramey Memo Question
The GAO report changes the Ramey memo question by shifting the burden from “find the hidden file” to “weigh a degraded image against a sparse but not empty archive”. The photographed memo is attractive precisely because it is contemporary, physical and attached to the original press event. But its evidential value depends on legibility. GAO’s findings explain why readers want the memo to speak: the normal records that might have clarified Roswell’s message traffic are gone or unrecovered.
The surviving official record, however, does not give a free pass to speculative readings. The two explicit 1947 records identified by GAO describe a radar-tracking balloon or a balloon-like object with a radar reflector, and the wider agency search did not produce a surviving official record of alien bodies, exotic wreckage, or a special recovery operation. The National Archives likewise states that it has been unable to locate Project Blue Book documentation discussing the 1947 Roswell incident, while also summarising the Air Force position that records searches and interviews found no indication that Roswell was a UFO event or that alien bodies or extraterrestrial materials were recovered.[National Archives]archives.govNational Archives Project BLUE BOOKNational ArchivesProject BLUE BOOK - Unidentified Flying Objects | National Archives…
The best reading of the GAO material is therefore restrained. It strengthens the case that Roswell’s documentary base is incomplete and that record management around RAAF left unresolved questions. It does not strengthen any particular transcription of the Ramey memo. A missing file can explain why the memo has become symbolically important, but it cannot turn an ambiguous photographic fragment into a reliable text.
The Governance Lesson
The GAO Roswell search is often treated as a UFO footnote, but its most durable lesson is about public records. A disputed public event becomes far harder to assess when the records that should show routine communication, command reporting and local administration are missing. In that vacuum, one press photograph can be asked to carry more weight than any photograph should bear.
That is why the GAO findings remain directly relevant to the Ramey memo debate. They show that Roswell’s official archive is neither a complete exoneration nor a smoking gun. It is a damaged record environment with two clear 1947 documents, several negative searches, and missing local records whose destruction was poorly documented. The memo sits inside that gap: historically important because it is contemporary, but still constrained by the limits of the image itself.
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Endnotes
1.
Source: gao.gov
Title: nsiad 95 187
Link:https://www.gao.gov/assets/nsiad-95-187.pdf
Source snippet
NSIAD-95-187 Government Records: Results of a Search for Records Concerning the 1947 Crash Near Roswell, New Mexico...
2.
Source: archives.gov
Title: National Archives Project BLUE BOOK
Link:https://www.archives.gov/research/military/air-force/ufos
Source snippet
National ArchivesProject BLUE BOOK - Unidentified Flying Objects | National Archives...
3.
Source: esd.whs.mil
Link:https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/FOID/Reading%20Room/UFOsandUAPs/rosswe1.pdf
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Source: deseret.com
Title: News`UFO’ DOCUMENTS DESTROYED UNJUSTIFIABLY, LAWMAKER SAYS – Deseret News
Link:https://www.deseret.com/1995/7/30/19185015/ufo-documents-destroyed-unjustifiably-lawmaker-says/
5.
Source: gao.gov
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Link:https://www.gao.gov/products/nsiad
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Source: gao.gov
Title: emd 81 40
Link:https://www.gao.gov/assets/emd-81-40.pdf
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Source: gao.gov
Title: rced 92 193r
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Source: gao.gov
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Title: AFD 101027 030
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Source: media.defense.gov
Title: GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE S SCHIFF
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Title: Roswell incident
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Source: esd.whs.mil
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Source: esd.whs.mil
Title: Roswell Report [Case Closed]({{ ‘case-closed/’ | relative_url }})
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Title: Roswell Incident
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Additional References
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Source: youtube.com
Title: The Roswell Incident and UFO Sightings Documentary
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Exposing The Biggest Government Coverup in UFO History | Roswell UFO Crash 1947...
22.
Source: sgp.fas.org
Title: Project on Government Secrecy GAO Report on Roswell, NM UFO Crash
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Source: youtube.com
Title: USA: UFO ANTI-SECRECY GROUP DEMONSTRATION
Link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuaLed7Jnu4
Source snippet
The Roswell Incident and UFO Sightings Documentary - PART 1 | Mysteries Decoded | The CW...
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Source: youtube.com
Title: Roswell: The World’s Biggest Alien Cover-Up Finally Exposed
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USA: UFO ANTI-SECRECY GROUP DEMONSTRATION...
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