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

## CBM

model. I think that Flight #4 was the flight that was launched out of Alamogordo on June 4, 1947. This is based on Dr. Crary's actual diary of the launch and other events. This is also one of those events where we went to multiple radar targets because we were not having good success with single targets. This flight was with multiple balloons and targets and may have had a sonobouy (black box?). The Watson Lab gear was the microphone equipment specifically for MOGUL. The idea was proposed in a 1945 letter from Dr Ewing (Woods Hole and Columbia) to Gen Spaatz that we might be able to detect nuclear blasts via pressure waves and low frequency microphones. This was developed from a study of the 1883 Krakatoa explosion where the pressure waves circled the earth seven times. Dr Crary was sent to Ascension island (the antipodol) to attempt to detect the Crossroads shot for Operation Crossroads on Kilohuea or Bikini. He didn't get anything. In December, 1946, Dr Crary was sent to Alomogordo to run the field stations for MOGUL. There were several ground microphone sites for detecting blasts (bombs) detonated off the New Jersey coast. He also initiated activities off Bermuda and Panama. Dr Crary and Dr Peoples were the advance people and scientific monitors for our project. Dr Peoples told us to use the cover story of meteorology and to enforce the need-to-know--in fact I had been reluctant to discuss any of this until only a few years ago. Your letter (SAF/AA) is the first official document I've seen that says this is declassified. Concerning the Japanese balloons, we did not use any of them for MOGUL. We didn't pattern our work after the Japanese balloons. We were very secretive of our work, but the cover story was not a detailed developed cover story. Our new hires were not even aware of the purpose. They thought they were just handling meteorological equipment. Any of the flights that had "tags" would have stated, "Research Balloon Flight, Request Return to NYU". The "service flights" for Dr Peoples were specific ones carrying the microphone gear. The radar test flights were not recorded. There was a lot of pressure to develop the constant level balloons. The tracking was to be done by the Watson Labs radar for the V-2 launches, etc. Starting in early June, 1947 the 307(B) targets came from NYU. We also launched TNT on some of the balloons to simulate airbursts for detection. All of these balloons were accounted for. These and the radar test flights had no tags--we did not want these to be associated with our project and the explosive ones would all be destroyed with pressure switches. To my knowledge, the NYU group were the only ones using balloons in New Mexico during this time but others were involved in other activities so debris from rockets, aircraft dropsondes, etc. may have been found throughout this area. Initially we did not coordinate any of our balloon launches with the Civil Aeronautics Administration. We had no contact with any of the Roswell personnel--although Crary or Peoples may have. There were two July 8th press releases: in the earlier release, Col J D Ryan stated that radar reflectors were being used to track balloons for wind information. July 8th is the same day the NYU group returned to NYU, so we had no contact with the Roswell personnel when the announcement was made concerning having found the "discs". When we heard the news back in New York, we joked that they probably found one of our balloons. From that time up until about 1980, no one, officially or otherwise made any contact with me concerning the possible association between MOGUL and the "Roswell incident" (it was in about 1980 that William Moore contacted me and asked questions about balloons making "gouges" in the earth). The July 10th Alomorgodo News article shows a demonstration of some of our multiple balloons and target trains. We had no one there so it was surprising to see this. It almost appears that there was some type of "umbrella cover story" to protect our work with MOGUL.