Roswell Petition

From TinWiki.org

American ufologist Kent Jeffrey submitted a Roswell petition to the White House in July 1997, the 50th anniversary of the Roswell event.

1 Introduction
2 Text of declaration
3 Response from U.S. Government
4 Comments made by skeptics
5 External links
6 Relevant discussion threads

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Introduction

This petition (called The International Roswell Declaration) was one of the largest petitions in the history of ufology. It was signed by more than 20,000 people.

When Jeffrey started the petition, he believed that the Roswell incident in 1947 may have involved an extraterrestrial craft. However, prior to submitting the petition, Jeffrey's views had changed. He wrote in MUFON UFO Journal (in June 1997) that he had become "absolutely certain that the debris recovered from Roswell was not that from an extraterrestrial craft.".

When Jeffrey submitted the petition in July 1997, he enclosed a covering letter which, according to Kevin Randle, suggested that there was nothing to the Roswell crash other than the recovery of a Mogul balloon, but that an executive order ending UFO secrecy was a good idea.

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Text of declaration

The declaration itself was a single sheet that asked for a signature, which was to be sent to CUFOS or MUFON.

The Declaration contained a summary of the Roswell incident and stated "there is a logical and straightforward way to ensure that the truth about Roswell will emerge : an Executive Order declassifying any information regarding the existence of UFOs or extraterrestrial intelligence".

The Declaration then stated the following:

If, as if officially claimed, no information on Roswell, UFOs,

or extraterrestrial intelligence is being withheld, an Executive

Order declassifying it would be a mere formality, as there would

be nothing to disclose. The Order would, however, have the

positive effect of setting the record straight once and for all.

Years of controversy and suspicion would be ended, both in the

eyes of the United States' own citizens and in the eyes of the

world.

If, on the other hand, the Roswell witnesses are telling the

truth and information on extraterrestrial intelligence does

exist, it is not something to which a privileged few in the

United States Government should have exclusive rights. It is

knowledge of profound importance to which all people throughout

the world should have an inalienable right. Its release would

unquestionably be universally acknowledged as an historic act of

honesty and goodwill.

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Response from U.S. Government

In a letter dated 9 December 1997, Lt Col Patricia Fornes of the US Air Force Office of Legislative Liaison responded to Kent Jeffrey on behalf of President Clinton.

That letter included the following:

Executive Order 12958, Classified National Security Information,

signed by President Clinton on April 17,1995, directs that all

government records of historical value and twenty-five years old

or older be reviewed and declassified, unless meeting one of nine

narrowly-defined exemptions. These records must be reviewed, or

exempted from declassification by April 2000.

The Air Force has identified approximately seventy-five million

pages of material for review under Executive Order 12958. As of

December 1, we have reviewed approximately 26.5 million pages of

material. The Air Force expects to fulfill all the requirements

of the Executive Order prior to the April 2000 deadline. Therefore,

since the declassification process for government records is already

underway, an executive order for specific categories is

unnecessary.

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Comments made by skeptics

Phil Klass in commented in relation to the Roswell Declaration that "If any President were to issue such an Executive Order, when no one came forward with credible evidence that any UFOs are ET craft, paranoid UFOlogists would claim that the President covertly issued a 'Top Secret' Executive Order warning military personnel not to come forward and speak out".

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