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The Roswell Report: Case Closed

US Air Force · 1997 · 234 pages · text from the file's own layer

The Roswell Report: Case Closed is a 1997 US Air Force report written by Captain James McAndrew, with a foreword by Secretary of the Air Force Sheila E. Widnall. It follows up the 1994 report, which found that the 1947 debris came from the balloon project MoGUL. It concludes that the reported alien bodies were probably anthropomorphic test dummies dropped from high altitude balloons. It attributes the hospital body claims to a 1956 KC-97 crash and a 1959 manned balloon mishap.

  • p. 53 …86 The Drs covERER program had been plagued by failure with 10 unsuccessful missions in 1959…
  • p. 102 …121 A KC-97G aircraft with 11 crewmen on board, while on a refueling training mission…
  • p. 113 The three pilots, Kittinger, Kaufman and Fulgham, flew training missions together. Kaufman and Fulgham alternately flew…
  • p. 129 …Nenninger who died of injuries received in an aircraft crash during a balloon recovery mission on…
  • p. 171 …depending on the mission, a crane, weapons carriers, communications van, and occasionally tanker tmcks to refuel…
  • p. 173 …I recall an overnight balloon training mission that was conducted in .!\1ay, 1959. Capl Joe Kittinger…
  • p. 223 …Gildenberg, Bernard G. "General Philosophy and Techniques of Balloon Control", in Lewis A. Grass, ed., Proceedings…
tethered balloons are not so easily identified. During the 1960s, Balloon
Branch personnel flew experimentally shaped tethered balloons from
deep canyons of central New Mexico. To a distant observer, from a
vantage point above the canyon rim, where the tether and ground anchors
are not visible, an experimental tethered balloon might lead some persons
to speculate as to the oddly shaped balloon's origin and purpose. One
design of a low altitude tethered balloon may have inspired at least
one account of an "alien" craft. In The Truth About the UFO Crash at
Roswell, the authors published a drawing of a crashed alien spaceship
allegedly based on a drawing given to them by an anonymous witness. 96
When this drawing is compared to a photograph of an experimental
tethered balloon flown at Holloman AFB in March 1965, the similarities
are undeniable. 97 The tethered balloon and the NASA space probes are
just two examples of the uncommon technologies that were flown in New
Mexico by the Holloman Balloon Branch.
Today, the Air Force maintains a reduced but still highly
capable high altitude balloon program at Holloman AFB. The Space
and Missile Command, Test and Evaluation Unit (SMC/TE, OL-AC)
represents the sole Department of Defense high altitude research balloon
capability. The ability of a U.S. Air Force high altitude balloon to lift
a scientific payload to more than 100,000 feet, above 99 per cent of
the earth's atmosphere, for days at a time, presents a profoundly useful
scientific tool at a fraction of the cost of a space research platform.
Recent tests that utilized Holloman balloons included atmospheric
sampling and gravity measurement experiments, high altitude astronomic
studies, weapons systems evaluations, and gamma ray detection
experiments. While most tests continue to be launched from the permanent
46
Fig. 56. (Left) A drawing
from a popular UFO book, The
Truth About the UFO Crash
at Roswell, depicts an alien
spacecraft allegedly drawn by
an anonymous witness. (The
Truth About the UFO Crash
at Roswell)
Fig. 57. (Right) A tethered
"Vee" balloon shown here
at Holloman AFB, N.M. in
March 1965. This experimental
balloon, is striking! y similar
to the "alien" craft.
(U.S. Air Force photo)

Cases discussed

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Report, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 234 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.