And I see the logic in your argument re. point 2. If the experiments were catastrophic failures, and on top of that morally questionable, then there would be an inclination to call the ‘Cleaners’ and “pretend as if nothing ever happened”.

Although I would contend that, in Science, even a negative result is still worthy to be recorded, if anything to prevent someone to make the same mistake again. But the methodology of Science has never paired well with the customs of Politics

Good points you raise.

Re Point No.1: One thing that a lot of people forget is that President Clinton made a public statement back in 1995 (after the Mogul report surfaced - and which largely avoided the “bodies” issue) to the effect that “if alien bodies were found at Roswell, the Air Force didn’t tell me.”

That may be connected with something that prompted the USAF.

Some researchers have commented that maybe the USAF preferred to come up with an explanation for the bodies, rather than have to suggest elderly military vets were liars. In other words, it may have been an act of diplomacy to provide an explanation, but to not make the witnesses look like liars or fantasists.

Re Point No. 2: If the story told to me is true, one of the key factors of all the interviewees is that they were all adamant on one thing: the experiments were largely failures in terms of providing anything of true value. One source cited in the book described the experiments as “dipshit.”

This is the thing a lot of people don’t realize about the book: the witnesses did not champion the experiments and say it helped advance knowledge (although I concede that would have been the goal). Rather, the balloons and devices used didn’t prove to be that workable.

So, in that sense, it would perhaps be logical to resign everything to the rubbish-bin - precisely because it was all deemed an embarrassing failure.

There are, however, two things that keep worrying me:

1)Why the USAF decided to include the mannequin angle to their official Roswell explanation. It was completely counter-productive if what they wanted was to quell the rumors surrounding the Roswell legend. As you point out, it would have been easier to just keep quiet. Or better yet: let an independent investigator (a-la Bill Moore) to disclose the issue.

2)If you’re correct that Roswell was more about secret altitude tests with Japanese POWs, then we have to remember there’s a reason you conduct a test in the first place: to gather data. Data to be used in a way that yields a certain benefit to you. And in the world of science & technology, the data must always be validated in some way; you don’t take it at face value. So, even if they destroyed all material evidence, there should still be some record to inform the persons intended to use the data on how was the data acquired originally. If you also destroy that evidence, the data becomes useless.

These articles of yours make my retinas catch fire. Keep at it!