Documents / Report
The Roswell Report: Case Closed is a 1997 Headquarters United States Air Force report by Captain James McAndrew that follows up the 1994 Air Force report on the Roswell Incident. It concludes that the 1947 debris came from Project MOGUL balloons. It also says the reported alien bodies were probably anthropomorphic dummies dropped from high altitude balloons. Claims of bodies at the Roswell hospital most likely combined a 1956 KC-97 crash and a 1959 manned balloon mishap.
“Anderson”16 pages
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## High Altitude Balloons and America's First Satellite
Fig. 50. (Left). A Holloman Balloon Branch launch crew prepares a nosecone of the DISCOVERER satellite for a high altitude balloon flight at Holloman AFB, N.M. in April 1960. (U.S. Air Force photo)
An illustration of the important contributions of the Holloman AFB Balloon Branch, and the necessity for a rapid recovery of a high altitude balloon payload, were evaluations of components of the first U.S. satellitebased reconnaissance system, code named CORONA.
Fig. 51. (Right). A U.S. Navy helicopter aboard the USS Haiti Victory is shown here with the capsule from the DISCOVERER XIII satellite. It was recovered from the Pacific Ocean 330 miles northwest of Hawaii on August 11, 1960. (U.S. Air Force photo)
The Soviet Union had already beaten the U.S. into space with the launch and orbit of SPUTNIK I on October 4, 1957. The next achievement in the quest for space superiority were the physical recovery of a payload that had been in orbit. $ ^{85} $ The DISCOVERER satellite, the sensor used in the CORONA program, was to be propelled into orbit and then eject a capsule containing an American flag to enable the U.S. to claim this honor. $ ^{86} $
The DISCOVERER program had been plagued by failure with 10 unsuccessful missions in 1959 and 1960. With the eyes of the nation watching, and the Soviets testing a similar system, more failures could not be tolerated. To test the faulty components of the DISCOVERER, U.S. Air Force high altitude balloons at Holloman AFB were determined to be the most expedient method of conducting the evaluations.
In April 1960, DISCOVERER XI, on the launch pad at Vandenberg AFB, Calif., was put into a hold pending results of the balloon tests. $ ^{87} $ The first test at Holloman AFB on April 5th was unsatisfactory due to a parachute failure. $ ^{88} $ On April 8th, with pressure mounting, the Balloon Branch launched another balloon with the DISCOVERER capsule. This test, in which the capsule was dropped over White Sands Missile Range and recovered immediately, was a total success. $ ^{89} $ The results were relayed by telephone from the Balloon Control Center at Holloman AFB to the launch pad at Vandenberg AFB where the countdown resumed. $ ^{90} $ Despite the successful balloon drop, DISCOVERER XI and DISCOVERER XII were failures. $ ^{91} $ Therefore, balloon testing continued throughout the summer of 1960. Report, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 232 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.