roswell

weather officer, Warrant Officer Irving Newton, to make an identification.
Newton positively identified the debris as the remnants of a balloon and RAWIN
target. 37 With this identification, the incident officially closed.
THE "COVER STORY"
From research, it appears that the wreckage displayed on July 8 consisted of
unclassified components of a MOGUL balloon assembly. Possibly withheld, if it
was indeed recovered, was the AN/CRT-1 Sonabuoy, which could have compro-
mised Project MOGUL. Although the Sonabuoy was not itself classified, its
association with a balloon would have exposed a specific military purpose, an
obvious violation of project classification guidelines (Atch 9). A device described
in 11
crashed disc" publications as II a giant thermos jug" was allegedly transported
from Fort Worth AAF to Wright Field. 38 This description is consistent with the
appearance of an AN/CRT-1 Sonabuoy such as was used on flight no. 4 (Atch
4). At some point General Ramey decided to forward the material to Wright Field,
home of AMC, the appropriate agency to identify one of its own research devices
or a device of unknown origin. If the debris was determined to be from an
unknown source, the AMC, T-2, Intelligence or Analysis Division, would conduct
scientific and/ or intelligence analysis in an attempt to discover its origin. But
since the balloons, reflectors, and Sonabuoy were from an AMC research project,
the debris was forwarded to the appropriate division or subdivision, in this case
the Electronics Subdivision of the Engineering Division. There, it was identified
by Colonel Duffy, under whose purview Project MOGUL operated. Colonel Duffy,
a former project officer of MOGUL with specific directions to "continue to monitor
upper air programs," was the appropriate headquarters officer to make an
identification, which he apparently did. According to Captain (now Colonel)
Trakowski, the officer who succeeded Colonel Duffy as project officer on MOGUL,
after returning from the Alamogordo II field trip, Colonel Duffy contacted him
by phone at Watson Laboratories and informed him that the "stuff you've been
launching at Alamogordo," had been sent to him for identification. He described
the debris to Captain Trakowski, and Trakowski agreed that it was part of his
project (MOGUL). 39
Another occurrence sometimes said to "prove" that General Ramey was part of
a cover story is that portions of the debris were flown to Andrews AAF, MD.
Andrews would have been a probable location to send the debris since it had
components of weather observation equipment. Andrews AAF was headquarters
of the Army Air Forces Weather Service. It is also interesting to note that the
commanding general of the Weather Service, Brig Gen Donald N. Yates, was
quoted in wire service newspaper articles on July 9, providing his opinion of the
37. Rawin is short for radar wind, a technique in which a single comer reflector is towed aloft
by a single neoprene balloon to measure wind speed by radar.
38. Kevin Randall and Donald Schmitt, UFO Crash at Roswell (New York, 1991), p. 103.
39. Intvw, Col Jeffrey Butler and 1st Lt James McAndrew with Col Albert C. Trakowski, USAF
(Ret), Jun 29, 1994, p. 4.