If this reasoning seems too tortured, let me phrase it this way. Twining would have given the assignment to respond to Schulgen to a subordinate who was unaware of the Roswell crash. He answered the questions, suggested the creation of a program to study them (probably at Twining’s direction) and gave the finished product to Twining for review. Nothing was gained by up-grading the classification by adding material about the crash, so Twining let it go, knowing full well that one important bit of information had been left out (or more to the point, obscured), but by doing so he neither wrecked the chances for further study nor risked the potential compromise of top secret material. It wouldn’t be the first time in military history that something like that had been done for security reasons. These officers who had served during the Second World War would be well aware of this.
Air Intelligence Report No. 100-203-79
This report was officially entitled "Analysis of Flying Object Incidents in the U.S.," dated 10 December 1948, and was originally classified as Top Secret. Apparently it was a joint effort between the Directorate of Intelligence of the Air Force and the Office of Naval Intelligence.
This was a report created to brief high-ranking officers on the unidentified flying object situation. It seems that the officers creating such a document would have access to all the classified information needed to accurately assess the situation. They would be in a position tell their superiors everything they knew, or could discover, about UFOs, regardless of how highly classified that information might be. And, according to the thinking of many, if Roswell represented the crash of an alien spacecraft, it would be mentioned in this report. Because there was no mention of a crash in this report, many skeptics have suggested that this alone proves there was no flying saucer crash outside Roswell.
The purpose of the study, according to the document itself was "TO EXAMINE patterns of tactics of 'Flying Saucers' (hereinafter referred to as flying objects) and to develop conclusions as to the possibility of existence."
Under facts and discussions, the report said, "THE POSSIBILITY that reported observations of flying objects over the U.S. were influenced by previous sightings of unidentified phenomena in Europe [probably a reference to the Ghost Rockets of 1946]… and that the observers reporting such incidents may have been interested in obtaining personal publicity…. However, these possibilities seem to be improbable when certain selected reports such as the one from U.S. Weather Bureau at Richmond are examined. During the observations of weather balloons at the Richmond Bureau, one well trained observer has sighted strange metallic disks on three occasions and another observer has sighted a similar object on one occasion…. On all four occasions the weather balloon and the unidentified objects were in view through a theodolite…."
The report included an interesting paragraph about the origins of the objects. It said, "THE ORIGIN of the devices is not ascertainable. There are two reasonable possibilities: (1) The objects are domestic devices, and if so, their identification or origin can be established by a survey of the launchings of airborne devices… (2) Objects are foreign, and if so, it would seem most logical to consider that they are from a Soviet source…"
The conclusions drawn by the authors, at the bottom of page two, and marked top secret, were, "SINCE the Air Force is responsible for control of the air in the defense of the U.S., it is imperative that all other agencies cooperate in confirming or denying the possibility that these objects are of domestic origin. Otherwise, if it is firmly indicated that there is no domestic explanation, the objects are a threat and warrant more active efforts of identification and interception."
And finally, the report said, "IT MUST be accepted that some type of flying objects have been observed, although their identification and origin are not discernible. In the interest of national defense it would be unwise to overlook the possibility that some of these objects are of foreign origin."
This document, because of who prepared it and where it was directed would be a complete summary of the UFO situation. Such a summary would have to include mention of the Roswell case and since it doesn’t, this suggests that there was nothing unusual about Roswell. It was, according to many skeptics, a Project Mogul balloon array so there was no reason to bring it up. Mogul had been responsible for no airborne sightings, and the wreckage recovered was identified immediately. In other words, Mogul didn’t fit into the context of the report and therefore there was no reference to anything near Roswell.
There is one fact that is important when reviewing this document. There are events left out of the Air Intelligence Report, because, according to the officers, they did not have access to all areas of military secrecy. The authors admitted, subtly, that they did not have all the privileged information they needed. The report, by itself, does not prove that Roswell UFO crash didn't happen, or that these officers were lying to their superiors if it did. They didn't know about Roswell, didn't have access to that highly restricted information and therefore, couldn't include it because they simply didn't know about it. The key here is their admission they didn’t have access to everything.
The McCoy Notes
The Scientific Advisory Board conference, chaired by rocket scientist Theodore von Karmen, was held on March 17 and 18, 1948 at the Pentagon in the Washington, D.C. area. In attendance, along with a number of high-ranking Air Force officers was Colonel Howard McCoy. He was there to talk about recently captured equipment including a Soviet made IL-7 aircraft, and to give the latest information on Project Sign, which was the first of the UFO investigations created by the Air Force.
The relevant paragraph from the document is, “We have a new project — Project Sign — which may surprise you as a development from the so-called mass hysteria of the past Summer when we had all the unidentified flying objects [so much for Captain Ed Ruppelt’s claim he invented the term] or discs. This can’t be laughed off. We have over 300 reports which haven’t been publicized in the papers from very competent personnel, in many instances — men as capable as Dr. K. D. Wood, and practically all Air Force and Airline people with broad experience. We are running down every report. I can’t even tell you how much we would give to have one of those crash in an area so that we could recover whatever they are [emphasis added].”
Remember, this was a briefing to the highest ranking of the Air Force hierarchy by a man who was the Chief of T-2, the Air Materiel Command’s intelligence division. McCoy should have known if there was anything to the Roswell case and he would have said something about it in this environment. It is difficult to believe that McCoy would be less than candid with these people or that he would have been cut out of the loop. If he felt the need to safeguard the Roswell information, the best course would be not to mention it. Here he is saying that no such crash took place.
Not long after that, in a letter dated October 7, 1948, McCoy told the CIA, that, “To date, no concrete evidence [emphasis added] as to the exact identity of any of the reported objects has been received. Similarly, the origin of the so-called ‘flying discs’ remains obscure.”
This is not quite as devastating as the earlier note simply because he didn’t say they didn’t have one, only that no evidence of the identity or of the origin had been found. Crash debris by itself certainly wouldn’t have provided that sort of information unless there were star charts included that had been deciphered. Yes, that’s splitting a fine hair, but sometimes, in government work, the words are chosen very carefully to give one impression which is false, even though the statements are true.