The Roswell Report: Fact vs. Fiction in the New Mexico Desert

Date: 3 Jun 94

I Athelstan F Spilhaus, hereby state that Jeffrey Butler, was identified as a Colonel, USAF and Jim McAndrew, was identified as a Lieutenant, USAF on this date at my home and do hereby voluntarily and of my own free will. make the following statement. This is done without having been subjected to any coercion, unlawful influence or unlawful inducement.

I was the Director of the NYU Balloon Project and also involved with many other sensitive activities. Until these discussions, I had no indication of what the "Roswell incident" was. I was involved in numerous unusual activities such as reconstruction of captured German rockets, development of drone planes and the like--such as long range balloons. The Army Air Force had seen what the Japanese had done with long range balloons; although not effective as weapons, they did initiate the long-range balloon research which led to use of balloons for the detection and collection of debris from atomic explosion. Although I was involved in sensitive classified programs, I completed secrecy agreements for various projects, and I understand that this activity (Mogul, etc. is now declassified) and I did enforce "need to know". In part, I left NYU because the administration wanted to know too much about the various projects I was involved in (the Bikini test). At one time I was sent by the US government to assist the South Africa meterological efforts and I worked numerous other special missions. Even though the war was over the Cold War had just started and certain things were sensitive. I recall that it was Col Duffy who brought me from the Reserves to active duty. It was during this period that I did become involved in a "UFO case". Some bush pilot had found some pock marks in dry snow in Alaska in 1950. So we flew up and saw peculiar round holes in the snow. We landed and took dog sleds to the site and found craters with a hole in the center. We cored one out of the snow and found a center of frozen conical ice. I began to think of something I had seen in the desert where glass had been formed similarly after a lightening strike (the "fumoroles"). I took one back to the university in dry ice and wrote a classified report. We even simulated a small lightning strike over dry snow (just from the snow blowing over the surface) and came up with conical ice formations. This was the Stony River Incident and it wasn't a UFO. On the December 1947 balloon project reports the "service flights" probably refer to the then Top Security project AFOAT 1 (related to MOGUL) which was to produce a report to the President when the Russians exploded an atomic device and were ready to produce a droppable atomic bomb. We coordinated all the listening posts to determine what stage the Russians were at. Concerning the Watson Laboratory gear, I don't remember the specifics of what that gear was. I recommend you check with Charlie Moore for those details. Many of the projects I just new about in general—these were sensitive times--it was sometimes better not to know too much--I knew about the collection of debris with special planes daily from Eilson AFB to the North Pole and back, PTARMIGAN flights, that lasted through the 50's. Concerning the Japanese balloons, I don't recall any specifics. Nor do I recall whether we had REWARD tags on all the balloons. I went many times to Alomogordo AAF and White Sands--not necessarily for balloon flights. I worked on naval activity such as the thermal affects on SONAR. Concerning actual balloon construction, Winzen of St Paul Minnesota, in association with General Mills, did most of the balloons. General Mills also did some balloon projects. Winzen made the first polyethelene (non-stretchable balloons). Flight #5, I really did not get into the details of the individual flights or experiments. The polyethelene material was very durable--it was designed not to burst--you could push a sharp thing through it but it would be difficult to tear

Littelstan Spillen