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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. 143 …Robert Gross ar.d 't!r. Jlaher of Lockheed 11~ 55 A.'.!. Gen. Sam Anderson 12…
  • p. 481 …Balloon Volume x Gas Lift Gross Load · It may be noted from this equation that a…
  • p. 482 …Balloon Volume x 24.4 Gross Load K =-w K _ 08.o475Z In turn, w-in…
  • p. 483 …free lift in pounds and G is gross lift in pounds. Although this equation was derived…
  • p. 488 …By equation {10), with a gross load of 52 kg., the unbalance caused by loss of…
  • p. 500 …or a gross buoyancy of 450 lb. • the maximum allowable infle.tion of a 30' diameter…
  • p. 569 …accelerating force equal to 5% of the gross load (52 kg) was acting to bring the…
  • p. 643 …000 feet. In one step, this becomes: Gross Lift/Balloon = (Balloon Volume) x (Difference in molecular…
  • p. 650 (Approximate) where G • gross load A chart, Figure 24, has beendrawn up, based on this equation…
  • p. 652 …G = loss of lift G =gross load (balloon weight plus equipment load) AT : mean temperature difference…
  • p. 653 …not including balloon or its integral parts. Gross load: Load on the gas at release (Balloon…
  • p. 726 …Ballast • • .. • • '" • Total Equipment l~eight. • • • • ' Gross Load • • ' • • • • {56)
  • p. 727 …Balloon volwne x gas litt/mol gross load cu. ft. -----------------NAximum Altitude • • • ft, m.s.l…
  • p. 741 …altitude deter- mined by the displacement and gross load. 7. Control systems Two systems of control…
  • p. 777 …By adjusting th~ gross load to be supported by the gas to equal the total lift…
  • p. 787 …Computations A chart showi~ the relation between altitude, gross lift, and balloon size has been found…
  • p. 883 …The gross load reported should be accurate to the nearest 200 grams. The amount of lifting…
  • p. 885 …A L L 0 0 N 7300 ,, GRoss LoAD Fl G. 17 NYU BALLOON pROJECT I…
  • p. 887 …bubble length and resultant inflated volume, using gross lift as an expression of volume. It will…
  • p. 889 …in Appendix II summarizes the relationship between gross load and floating level for balloons of several…
  • p. 925 …A can of sand is made to weigh the same amount as the required gross lift…
  • p. 933 …the balloon with the equipment load attached. Gross Lift: Lift of all of the gas in…
  • p. 938 …description.______________ Drag chute ---------------------------- Banner description --------------- ---------- Ballast assembly - description -----------~-- Ballast • • • • • • Total Equipment i'ieight • • ' • • • • • • Gross Load • • • • • • • • • • • -86-
  • p. 939 …wnitin_,g________ grams Actual balloon lift • • • • • • • • ". . .• II AActunl gross lift (Balloon lift & balloon wt.) • Number Helium…
  • p. 943 …Gross Lift vs. Bubble Length • • • • • • .107 Graph 3: Buoyancy vs. Altitude • • • • • • • • • .108 Graph 4: Gross Load…
  • p. 955 …BALLOOO DA 'fA General Mills Actual Balloon Estimated Gross Altitude ~ominal Diiameter Volwne Weight Load Limit…
PROFESSOR MOORE - 6/8/94
strings from these four corners. Obviously, trying to take
something that's almost a meter in cross section, a meter on a
side, take it sideways up through, gave a lot of drag, and it
took a lot of lift to make the balloons rise very rapidly.
10
so instead, somebody came up with this smart idea of this
other arrangement of a corner reflector that had much less drag.
These, according to Tibbetts, weren't distributed until something
like November of 1945. As far as I know, as you will see in the
various correspondence, there were no SCR-584s which were
required to track them, issued to the weather services here in
New Mexico. Obviously, after the Trinity shot, there was no bit
military operation that required wind determination in New
Mexico.
Q: so essentially you'd say there were no radar reflectors
in New Mexico until 1947 until this appeared?
A: That's my opinion.
Q: Was Major Pritchard doing any kind of balloon project?
A: No. He and Dyvad and others were at Watson
Laboratories. I understand from Trakowski that Alamagordo Army
Air Field was about to be closed down as surplus. The people at
Watson Laboratories seized on it and were able to keep it on
active status for two projects -- one, the radar project from
Watson Laboratories that was set to track the V-2 being flown
from the proving ground across the Tulerosa Valley; and Project
Mogul.
I joined the NYU group in January of '47, and while I was
finishing up at Georgia Tech I had talked to my chemical
engineering professors, I'd already been recruited by Duffy and
Spilhaus, and I asked if you wanted to make a balloon of non-
extensible material, what plastic would you use. My professor
named Grubb told me you ought to consider polyethylene. It's a
new plastic just now becoming available. You can heat seal it.
It has a lot of desirable properties.
So as soon as I got to NYU, I began talking to everybody I
could find in Manhattan-- DuPont, all the sales offices ••.
Q: We saw your listing.
A: I was concerned with where we could get the plastic and
who we could get to manufacture the balloons. I was in my 20's,
just a recent graduate. I knew nothing about manufacturing. But
we did try to get a manufacturing company that would fabricate
balloons for us.
During that period we heard of the Navy project that was
going on at General Mills where Jean Get was planning to make a
flight to 100,000 feet. General Mills at that time was making

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