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

shrouded in secrecy, some of its operations obviously could not. The deployment of giant trains of balloons—over thirty research balloons and experimental sensors strung together and stretching more than 600 feet—could be neither disguised nor hidden from the public. Moreover, operational necessity required that these balloons be launched during daylight hours. It was therefore not surprising that these balloons were often mistaken for UFOs. In fact, MOGUL recovery crews often listened to broadcasts of UFO reports to assist them in their tracking operations. Additionally, the balloons were unsteerable, leading to such amusing events as the one reported by the New York Times in which a secret MOGUL balloon "floated blithely over the rooftops of Flatbush . . . causing general public excitement . . . before it came to rest on top of a [Brooklyn] tavern." In another episode, MOGUL balloon recovery technicians directed a B-17 bomber, which was tracking one of the tests, to buzz and scare off a curious oil rig crew that was about to "capture" a balloon train that had fallen near Roswell. The ruse worked. However, too much activity was going on for the project to remain completely hidden. A MOGUL project officer later noted, "It was like having an elephant in your backyard . . . and hoping no one would notice." These occurrences were typical, leading the recovery crews to describe themselves as Balloonatics, due to the predicaments in which the wandering balloons sometimes placed them, but the information the balloons were attempting to obtain was vital.

To attempt to limit unauthorized disclosure, the Air Force employed a security mechanism known as compartmentation. Compartmentation controlled access to classified information by dispersing portions of the research among several facilities and institutions. Each participating entity received only enough information necessary to accomplish its assigned tasks. In the case of MOGUL, only a small circle of Air Force officers received the intimate details that linked together these unrelated research projects. The use of compartmentation along with strict enforcement of the need to know enabled MOGUL to remain a secret—despite its obvious security difficulties—and to remain unevaluated for many years as the cause of the Roswell Incident.

The issue of compartmentation was significant because some UFO researchers assert that the persons who recovered the MOGUL equipment, members of the 509th Bombardment Group stationed at Roswell Army Airfield, should have been able to recognize the debris collected at the crash site as that of a research balloon. Although members of the 509th possessed high-level clearances, they were not privy to the existence of MOGUL; their job was to deliver nuclear weapons, not to detect them. The unusual combination of experimental equipment did not encourage easy identification that undoubtedly left some members of the 509th with unanswered questions. Some UFO enthusiasts have manipulated these unanswered questions to support their flying-saucer recovery scenario, while eagerly supplying unfounded explanations of extraterrestrial visitation and cosmic conspiracy. Additionally, many claims of a flying saucer crash at Roswell rest on the description of debris collected at the Foster ranch site. UFO researchers, including those