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

USAF / The Black Vault · 1995 · 882 pages · text by GLM-OCR

The Roswell Report: Fact versus Fiction in the New Mexico Desert was published by Headquarters United States Air Force in 1995. The Black Vault distributes this copy. It reproduces the report by Col. Richard L. Weaver and the synopsis by 1st Lt. James McAndrew, both written after a General Accounting Office inquiry requested by Representative Steven Schiff. The Air Force search found no evidence of an extraterrestrial craft or crew. It concluded that the Roswell debris most likely came from NYU Flight No. 4, a Project MOGUL balloon train.

  • p. 39 …An advance ground team, led by Albert P. Cray, preceded the NYU group to Alamogordo Army…
  • p. 96 …OSI also developed an advanced Narcotics Investigations Course designed to teach the latest technics in combatting…
  • p. 174 …Dr Crary and Dr Peoples were the advance people and scientific monitors for our project. Dr…
  • p. 247 …Spilly was a consultant, and even in his advancing age he was still an enormous source…
  • p. 273 …the advance party of the balloon group arrived by B-17. $ ^{21} $ On May 29, the…
  • p. 617 …in advance of balloon release and a second notice will be filed at the time of…
  • p. 618 …Upon attaining the desired altitude, the auxiliary lifting balloons will be released from the main balloon…
  • p. 694 …in advance of balloon release and a second notice will be filed at the time of…
  • p. 695 (1) The type balloon to be used in this phase of the project will be a…

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apparatus and materials for the project, so if he said that it was debris from the project, I'm sure that's what it was. He was not concerned with a breach of security for the project.

Concerning the name Maj Pritchard, he may have worked for me but I don't recall him. I have no knowledge of any counterintelligence. or intelligence persons on the project or associated with my directorate at Watson or Cambridge Labs. When we took over the project, we were aware of the sensitivity of the project--we were aware that we were working in the open--it was a weakness of security because the activity could be observed. I never observed any of the balloon "trains" but I did see some of the early reflectors. Some of the reflectors were procured from sources out of normal channels. Some of the contractors lined up were not quite in concert with typical Signal Corps practices and procedures. Jack Peterson was very energetic and could make procurement actions take place. Ed Itsvan, who I believe actually arranged for production for some of the reflectors, actually went to a toy manufacturer in New York city to get some. It was kind of a standing joke. I remember that some of the prototype and preproduction targets had this pink or purplish tape holding the material to the balsa beam. This tape had flowers and other designs on it. The reflectors were probably made starting in late 1944 but I do not recall how long the production run was. I do not recall any other specific attributes but they were geometrically and structurally simple.

I am not part of any conspiracy to withhold information from either the US government or American public. There is no classified information that I am withholding related to this inquiry and I have never been threatened by US Government persons concerning refraining from talking about this situation.

SIGNED:

Albert C. Thakovich

WITNESS(s):

Subscribed and sworn to before me, a person authorized to administer oaths this

---

28th day of June 1994 at VA

Butter

JEFFREY C BUTLER, COL, USAF

JAMES MCANDREW, 1LT, USAF

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Report, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 882 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.