roswell

incident. Additionally, in 1949, General Yates received a full briefing bf the
projects, including constant-level balloons, that made up Project MOGUL.40 While
crashed disc proponents claim that General Ramey ordered a "colonel courier"
to transport portions of the debris in a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist ~or the
inspection of his superior, Maj Gen Clement McMullen, Deputy Commander of
Strategic Air Command, it is more likely that any forwarding of such debr[s was
another attempt to identify the research agency to which it belonged. If it did go
to General McMullen, it would not have been difficult for him to have obtained
the opinion of the Weather Service, since SAC and the Weather Service were
located in the same building (no. 1535) at Andrews AAF.
"HIEROGLYPHICS"
One of the most puzzling aspects of the reports that a "UFO" crashed near
Corona in 1947 were the later descriptions of "hieroglyphic-like" characters by
seemingly reliable, firsthand witnesses. Research has revealed that the debris
found on the ranch and displayed in General Ramey's office probably did have
strange characters. These, however, were not hieroglyphics, but figures printed
on the pinkish-purple tape used to construct the radar targets used by the NYU
group.
The witnesses have recalled small pink/purple "flowers" that appeared I to be
some sort of writing that couldn't be deciphered. These figures were printed on
tape that sealed the seams of the of the radar target. The radar targets, som¢times
called comer reflectors, had been manufactured during or shortly after World
War II, and due to shortages, the manufacturer, a toy company, used whatever
resources were available. This toy company used plastic tape with pink/ purple
flowers and geometric designs in the construction of its toys and, in a time of
shortage, used it on the government contract for the comer reflectors. A depiction
of these figures, as described by C.B. Moore, is shown in Attachment 10. '
Allegations have also been made that the debris displayed to the press on 1uly 8
and subsequently photographed was not the original wreckage; i.e., a switch had
occurred sometime after the debris left Roswell AAF. However, statements made
by Moore and Trakowski attested that the comer reflectors they launched during
that period had the same flowers and figures that were later reported by Marcel,
Cavitt, and Brazel as being on the debris found on the Foster ranch in Corona. In
fact, Trakowski distinctly remembered the figures on the tape because, when the
targets first were produced, much fanfare was made over the use of a toy
manufacturer for production. He related that a fellow USAAF officer, John E.
Peterson, monitored the procurement of the targets and "thought it was the
biggest joke in the world that they had to go to a toy manufacturer" to make the
radar targets and an "even a bigger joke when ... the reflecting material on the
balsa frames was some kind of a pinkish purple tape with hearts and flowers
40. Rprt, Cambridge Field Sta, AMC, "Review of Air Materiel Command Geoppysical
Activities by Brigadier General D.N. Yates, and Staff, of the Air Weather Service," Feb H), 1949.