Documents / FOIA release

roswell

Office of the Secretary of Defense · 993 pages · text from the file's own layer

The Roswell Report: Fact versus Fiction in the New Mexico Desert was published in 1995 by Headquarters United States Air Force. It was written in response to Representative Steven H. Schiff's request and a General Accounting Office audit, and it contains Col. Richard L. Weaver's report and 1st Lt. James McAndrew's synopsis, along with attachments, appendices and photographs. The report says researchers found no evidence of an extraterrestrial craft or crew. It concludes that the 1947 debris came from a Project MOGUL balloon train.

  • p. 15 …Ramey Col William H. Blanchard Maj Gen Clements McMullen Brig Gen Donald N. Yates Albert P…
  • p. 29 …Similarly, two authors, William L. Moore and Charles Berlitz, also engaged in research which led them…
  • p. 31 …The Roswell Incident (1980) by William Moore and Charles Berlitz; "Crashed Saucers: Evidence in Search of…
  • p. 206 …incident"( it was in about 1980 that William Moore contacted me and asked questions about balloons…
  • p. 217 …the books that have been written by William Moore, and Randall Schmidt, and others, a lot…
  • p. 254 PROFESSOR MOORE - 6/8/94 38 diameter General Mills balloons. We had a very successful set…
  • p. 262 …One thing I should mention is that after I had visited from William Moore around •so…
  • p. 760 …Ben17 Itammenzind Ralph Morrell James Smith William lneer Duties Qualifications Computations & Equip- Undergraduate Elec. ment Construction…
ST ATE:MENT OF WITNESS
Date: 29 Jun 94 Place: VA
I, i\lbert C. Trakowski, hereby state that Jeffrey Butler, was identified as a Colonel, USAF and
Jim McAndrew, was identified as a Lieutenant, USAF on this date at my home and do hereby,
voluntarily and of my own free will, make the foHowing statement. This is done without having
been subjected to any coercion, unlawful influence or unlawful inducement.
I was provided a background on the Air Force efforts related to the GAO audit and it's association
with the "Roswell Incident" and project Mogul. I personally know all the persons that Col Butler
identified to me as having been contacted in this effort (Spilhaus, Moore, Istvan, Fletcher, Ms
DuflY). I have also been contacted by several researchers and writers and discussed project Mogul
and provided some documents to some of them. Robert Todd, rm not sw-e whether he was a
believer or not. Charles Ziegler was working on the history of nuclear weapons detection
capability. He had some letters/papers that I did not have such as the letters the Gen Spaatz
directed the establishment of project Mogul. Carl Pflock apparently wanted to establish the
"incident" of Roswell as a UFO incident. Charlie Moore was primarily responsible for
development of the constant level balloons for lifting the instrument packages. Concerning a cover
story for the project Mogul, there was no planned cover story. I do not recall any documentation
nor any efforts to develop a cover story even though the security for Mogul was of great concern.
Charlie Moore and Athel Spilhaus used meteorological research as a cover but this was a spur of
the moment effort--it was an obvious answer to a query-there was no documentation for using
meteorology. We never considered a ..planneq cover story; we were concerned with security.
I was the project officer succeeding Col Duffy in approximately November 1946. My primary
purpose was nuclear weapons and guided missiles detection programs. Previously, I was
appointed as the laboratory chief in the Signal Corps as an Air Force officer in charge of the
Spherics program and later for the development of weather radar. Since my background was in
physics, I took over project Mogul. It was the only Top Secret project at Watson Labs and I was
the Top Secret Control Officer, so I knew the impacts with security associated with the project.
We moved from Watson Labs to Cambridge Me which combined became the Air Force
Cambridge Research Center, and I became the Director of the Air Force Geophysics Lab (and
remained so until1949). Through 1949, I was the director of both :MX968 and Mogul. As the
Mogul director, I went to Alamorgordo Army Air Field in early July 1947, to observe the New
York University balloon group. The "Roswell Incident" occurred after we had returned to Red
Bank (Watson lab) NJ. I became aware of this only after Col Duffy called me from Wright Field
from his home. This was just an informational call, he just wanted to let me know that someone
had come to him with some debris from Ne~ Mexico and he said, "this SW"C looked like some of
the stuff that you launched from Alamorgordo." Duffy was very familiar with the various

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FOIA release, from the osd collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 993 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.