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.
“Headquarters”29 pages
A third method of holding the equipment at a nominal constant altitude is to fly a cluster of standard meteorological balloons equipped with ballast dropping devices and a device for releasing lifting balloons should the cluster depart from the altitude limits desired. This method is inherently unstable, as there are no proportioPAl restoring forces which will act on the flabb,y, freely extensible meteorological balloons. The success of this procedure depends on very careful balancing of the load against the variable lift of the balloons. This cluster method is of use and interest only as a stop-gap method of lifting the Army equipment to altitude now, and has been the method used while awaiting delivery of the non-extensible plastic balloons. III d) e. A flight was made on 3 April 1947 using this method. A cluster of 12 balloons meteorological carrying a radiosonde, a 15 lb. d~ load and a series of ballast dropping devices was released from the foo~ball field at Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pa. The train was to be towed to 30,000 ft. by' 2 lifting balloons which would then be cut loose. The weight of the equipment was adjusted to equal the lift of the balloons and presumably the train should have floated after the towing balloons were cut off. Actually, due to lack of experience in the difficulty of handling long balloon trains, auxiliary rigging lines were needed to take up launching stresses. These lines fouled the main flying line and the ballast which was to be dropped on parachutes. As a result, the balloon train went to 50,000 ft. where the tow balloons worked themselves free. The remaining train thereupon descended as fast as it bad climbed (1,000 ft. per minute), landing in the ocean near Sandy Hook, - 26 -
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.