Documents / Report
The Roswell Report: Case Closed was published by Headquarters United States Air Force and written by Capt. James McAndrew. It follows up the July 1994 report, which traced the 1947 debris to Project MOGUL balloon trains. The report says the reported alien bodies were probably anthropomorphic test dummies dropped from high altitude balloons. It also says the accounts of bodies at the Roswell Army Air Field hospital probably merged two separate events: a 1956 KC-97 crash and a 1959 manned balloon mishap.
“Nevers”28 pages
SECTION ONE Flying Saucer Crashes and Alien Bodies The most puzzling and intriguing element of the complex series of events now known as the Roswell Incident, are the alleged sightings of alien bodies. The bodies turned what, for many years, was just another flying saucer story, into what many UFO proponents claim is the best case for extraterrestrial visitation of Earth. The importance of bodies and the assumptions made as to their origin is illustrated in a passage from a popular Roswell book: Crashed saucers are one thing, and could well turn out to be futuristic American or even foreign aircraft or missiles. But alien bodies are another matter entirely, and hardly subject to misinterpretation.3 The 1994 Air Force report determined that project MOGUL was responsible for the 1947 events. MOGUL was an experimental attempt to acoustically detect suspected Soviet nuclear weapon explosions and ballistic missile launches.4 MOGUL utilized acoustical sensors, radar reflecting targets and other devices attached to a train of weather balloons over 600 feet long. Claims that the U.S. Army Air Forces recovered a “flying disc” in 1947, were based primarily on the lack of identification of the radar targets, an element of weather equipment used on the long MOGULballoon train. The oddly constructed radar targets were found by a New Mexico rancher during the height of the first U.S. flying saucer wave in 1947.5 The rancher brought the remnants of the balloons and radar targets to the local sheriff after he allegedly learned of the broadcasted reports of flying discs. However, following some initial confusion at Roswell Army Air Field, the “flying disc” was soon identified by Army Air Forces officials as a standard radar target.” From 1947 until the late 1970s the Roswell Incident was essentially a non-story. The reports that existed contain only descriptions of mundane materials that originated from the Project MOGUL balloon train- “tinfoil, paper, tape, rubber, and sticks.“’ The first claim of “bodies” appeared in the late 197Os, with additional claims made during the 1980s and 1990s. These claims were usually based on anecdotal accounts of second-and third-hand witnesses collected by UFO proponents as much as 40 years after the alleged incident. The same 5
Report, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 246 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.