By Rene Romo 
Journal Southern Bureau 
LAS CRUCES -- What Roswell residents thought were
hairless extraterrestrials who crashed to earth in July 1947
were just dummies used in 1950s parachuting experiments,
according to a report the Air Force plans to release soon. 
The report will try to address complaints that a 1994 Air
Force report, which explained alleged flying saucer debris as
the remains of top-secret high-altitude balloons, did not
explain away reported sightings of alien bodies. 
    The new report, drafted by Air Force historian Capt.
James McAndrew, will suggest that purported witnesses have
confused the 1947 incident with late 1950s tests. It will say
the so-called saucer crash victims were dummies dropped
from the sky, said Philip Klass of Washington, D.C.,
publisher of Skeptics UFO Newsletter. 
News of the report comes two weeks before the 50t
anniversary celebration in Roswell, which is expected to
attract thousands of visitors. 
    Klass, who spoke to McAndrew about the report, said:
"He is inclined to believe that some stories told by some
witnesses may be fundamentally honest attempts to recall
what they saw, but they mistook dummies for
extraterrestrials." 
Though the report has not been issued, it already is being
scoffed at by researchers and others, who say it is far less
than a bombshell putting the Roswell crash legend to rest.
    The report is based on Air Force records. 
"What it (the report) is going to do is undermine public
belief in our government, because it is such a silly story," said
Dean Crosbie, director of the International UFO Museum
and Research Center in Roswell. "It's sad that officials think
the masses of the public are unintelligent and can't think. It's
almost insulting that officials actually believe the American
public will fall for this kind of story." 
    Charles Moore, a retired professor of physics at New
Mexico Tech University in Socorro, said he read the draft
report recently at an aeronautics conference in San
Francisco, where he met McAndrew. 
   Moore, who worked on a top secret 1947 project
involving high-altitude balloons designed to detect Soviet
nuclear tests, said he is inclined to believe the fuzzy memory
theory and that the witness accounts are not reliable. 
   "Very clearly, there were no dummies, no manned balloon
flights (in 1947). We just carried instruments under the
long-range detection program, what is now called Project
Mogul, into the ... atmosphere," Moore said. "The Air Force
has been very concerned about being responsive, and when
our balloon activities were explained, people were very
unhappy that the anecdotal stories about bodies hadn't been
accounted for." 
    But Frank Kaufmann, 80, who was a civilian assigned to
an intelligence unit at the then-Roswell Air Field in July 1947,
says he knows what he saw, and they weren't dummies. 
    Recently, Kaufmann recounted what he did see when he
and several other intelligence officers investigated the impact
site of a glowing object: The aliens "didn't have any of these
big eyes or horns or anything else or spiny fingers. They were
very good-looking people, ash-colored faces and skin.
About 5 feet 4, 5 feet 5. Eyes a little more pronounced, a
little bit larger. Small ears, small nose. Fine features. Hairless.
    There were five. They had a very tight, almost a wet suit,
silver colored. ... One was thrown out of the craft itself." 
Kaufmann said he has no doubt that his encounter
occurred in July 1947. 
    "The military can say whatever they want. I have no
jurisdiction over them," Kaufmann said Thursday. "There's
 not a doubt in my mind. I haven't gone senile yet." 
     Air Force spokesman Maj. Guy Thompson said the report
is being "worked through channels" and that there is no firm
release date. 
     McAndrew, reached in Virginia, said he did not care to
comment on his report at this time. 
     But Klass, a UFO skeptic who believes many of those
who claim to have witnessed something otherworldly in 1947
are spinning tall tales, said he would recommend the Air
Force not release the report. 
     "It is not a strong enough theory to try to explain some of
the statements of the quote-unquote key witnesses," Klass
said. "In my opinion, this report will not convince any flying
saucer believers, and in fact, I suspect they will accuse the
Air Force of trying to cover up and divert attention from the
crashed saucer." 

More UFO and Roswell Links

In July 1994, the Office of the Secretary of
the Air Force concluded an exhaustive
search for records in response to a
General Accounting Office (GAO) inquiry
of an event popularly known as the
"Roswell Incident." The focus of the GAO
probe, initiated at the request of a member
of Congress, was to determine if the U.S.
Air Force, or any other U.S. government
agency, possessed information on the
alleged crash and recovery of an
extraterrestrial vehicle and its alien
occupants near Roswell, N.M. in July
1947.

The 1994 Air Force report concluded that
the predecessor to the U.S. Air Force, the
U.S. Army Air Forces, recovered debris
from an Army Air Forces balloon-borne
research project code named MOGUL.
Records located describing research
carried out under the MOGUL project,
most of which were never classified (and
publicly available) were collected,
provided to GAO, and published in one
volume for ease of access for the general
public.



 This report discusses the results of this exhaustive research and identifies the likely sources of the
 claims of "alien bodies" at Roswell. Contrary to allegations, many of the accounts appear to be
 descriptions of unclassified and widely publicized Air Force scientific achievements. Other
 descriptions of "bodies" appear to be actual incidents in which Air Force members were killed or
 injured in the line of duty.