Documents / FOIA release
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.
“Gross”26 pages
AuGusT 1948 ATHELSTAI'.' F. SPILHAUS, C. S. SCHNEIDER, .-\ND C. B. MOORE 137 part of the trajectory of the constant-level balloon. The interesting fact about the White Sands observa- tion is that at all but one of the other reported altitudes between the ground and 20,000 ft, the wind directions were from either the NE or SE quadrants. The trajectory of the balloon curved slightly anti- cyclonically over the eastern slopes of the Sacramento Mountains. This characteristic is suggestive of the well-known deforming effect of a mountain range on an air current directed toward the axis of the range. In this case, however, the validity of invoking the aforementioned effect to explain the anticyclonic cur- ~-vature, when the wind at levels below the mountain summits appears to have been blowing approximately parallel to the range, depends on assuming that the air currents parallel to the range themselves constitute a barrier deforming a higher current blowing in a differ- ent direction across the mountains. The sharp cyclonic bend that occurred after the balloon had come over relatively flat country occurred at the time that the balloon began its final descent and is due to the fact that the course of the balloon turned toward the north as a result of descent to levels where the wind had maintained a southerly direction throughout the day. It is of interest to compare this flight with Flight 17 (fig. 10). It may be observed on fig. 10 that no deform- N Scale.·0 25 ing effect of the mountain barrier is apparent. This, however, is to be expected, as the altitude of the bal- loon above the mountain top is three times that of Flight 11, where this anticyclonic deformation of the trajectory was observed. The balloon was ultimately recovered from Croft, Kansas, a distance of 530 miles from the release point; on the basis of the observed wind speeds a 12-hour flight duration is estimated. 9. Conclusion \Vithin the coming year it is hoped that a number of meteorological investigations may be attempted, utilizing constant-level balloons. Release of three or more from a single point to float at the same level, release at a number of points to obtain a synoptic presentation of the trajectories in a chosen level, and the dropping of radiosondes from balloons are some of the operations to be attempted. Efforts will be made to simplify the arrangement so that a constant-level flight may be made in a routine fashion and at no greater cost than the ordinary radiosonde flight. REFEREI'.'CE Clarke, E. T., and S ..\. Korff, 19-H: The radiosonde: the strato- s~here laboratory. J. Franklin lnst., 232, 217-355. 1~5 DISTANCE (Mil•8 From Alcam~ AAF) FIG. 10. Height-distance curve and planned trajectory of balloon Flight 17. Released at Alamogordo, New 1\lcxico, 9 September 1947, at 1647 MST. First 125 minutes only are shown. (Numerals on curves indicate minutes after release.)
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.