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

USAF / The Black Vault · 1995 · 882 pages · text by 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. 704 …Saw Bob Foster 731, also on way to NYC April 8 Mon. Arrived NYC 730 am…
  • p. 705 …I caught 550 train out of Penn Station to Red Bank, NJ April 29 Mon. Up…
  • p. 706 …1130 pm Owl to NYC May 6 Mon. Caught 625 train out of Penn Station to…
  • p. 707 Dec 2 Mon. Cakhurst. Cold wave hit about midnight - temperature down to $ 1 5^{\circ} $ - strong…
  • p. 708 …Dec 23 Mon. Oakhurst. Worked on Alamogordo and Flight 13. Had flight # 14 this pm. - 24…
  • p. 709 …Jan 13 Mon. Oakhurst. Working on sky wave curves. Made plans for Alamogordo this Thursday Jan…
  • p. 710 …Arrived AP about 1230 Feb 3 Mon Oakhurst. Peoples in Washington regarding balloon ascention in June…
  • p. 711 …Feb 24 Mon. Alamogordo. Waited for air transportation today but none available and may not be…
  • p. 712 …In Asbury Park 3 pm March 10 Mon Oakhurst. Vivian and I worked on Flight 25…
  • p. 713 …Cleaned out hanger and emptied trash out at East White Sands April 7 Mon Talked to…
  • p. 714 …April 21 Mon. Alamogordo Air Base. Bill Edmonston and I went out to Tularosa Range and…
  • p. 715 …May 19 Mon Reynolds and I left about 0946. May 19 Mon Reynolds and I left…
  • p. 716 …May 26 Mon. Worked on Tests 1 and 2 records today. No signals from Roswell - some…
  • p. 717 …Took Ireland, Mears, Winton, Olsen to Alamogordo to catch train this pm June 9 Mon. Bill…
  • p. 718 …July 7 (Mon) Alamogordo. Balloon Flight 11 A off at 0503. Big plastic with small auxiliary…
  • p. 719 …Aug 4 Mon. Up to Oakhurst. Hunt Aug 4 Mon. Up to Oakhurst. Went over developments…
you've talked with also. Colonel Weaver talked with Sheridan Cavitt two weeks ago. So a lot of the statements that have been attributed to Sheridan Cavitt, he says they're taken out of context. He refutes a lot of the information that appears in these various books.

What I'd like to do, even though this is out of a popular UFO type of magazine, is there are some statements attributed to individuals concerning the material that was found, supposedly by Mac Brazel, somewhere northwest of Roswell, New Mexico. They talk in terms of materials that look like metallic foil, and specifically that "could not be bent or broken."

As we've gone through the various research, what we believe to be Project Mogul was probably involved in this incident. The materials that were being used in Mogul included, of course, not only the polyethylene balloons, but included the neoprene balloons at some point, the various types of radar reflectors, the instrumentation that was being used. Is there any type of material from that project that you can think of that would be pliable, would be bendable, but could not be torn? Could any of the polyethylene or the foil-like radar reflectors, could that be the case?

A: Let me get a picture for you. This is a radar reflector manufactured in 1953. It's the ML-307C.

Q: Which is a little different from the B model that was used in 1947?

A: Where this looks like a pine stick, the material on the ones we had, this was all balsa and somewhat smaller in diameter, but the configuration, with one exception... This configuration of corners, these corners were the same thing. Here's a picture of this sort of target being used in 1948, and you can see we are launching multiple targets beneath this balloon.

Q: Is this the same type of target as this, or is this the B model?

A: This is the B model we flew in 1947 and 1948. Those are pictures of the B model. If you look, faintly along here you can see a sort of a discoloration, and that's where my memory of the reinforcing tape was that they talked about. The B models, as I remember, did not have these three vanes up here. You don't see particularly any suggestion in other photographs I have, I don't remember these which would make the thing rotate in flight.

But this, in the B models was more like an aluminum foil with a heavy laminated paper. So the material they talk about, I think, was derived from some version of this.

Q: They talk in terms of the material, being able to crumple it and releasing it, and it would unfold by itself and

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