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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. 193 …overhead and followed the balloons out to sea. I have no idea about the results that…
  • p. 200 …the regular 334 that we had at sea level. From that they could deduce the temperature…
  • p. 243 …actually located on the jurisdictional lines between Sea Girt and Springlake, New Jersey. It was an…
  • p. 244 …The Sea Girt Inn? A: Exactly. That's where John had his office, and I was…
  • p. 320 …alone is about 24,000 miles at sea level, and about 4500 miles at 45,000…
  • p. 325 …twenty-five (25) feet at their largest sea-level diameter. The sonic unit was a combination…
  • p. 378 …per hour when one-fifth inflated at sea level). One other type of balloon which has…
  • p. 402 …Let us, then, compare the rate of leakage at any given altitude with leakage at sea…
  • p. 404 …The leakage at any altitude may be expressed as a function of leakage at sea level…
  • p. 405 Comparing rate of leakage at 40,000 feet with leakage at sea level: $$ \frac {L _ {4…
  • p. 407 …If a 20-foot diameter balloon $ \frac{1}{1 0} $ full were tested at sea level…
  • p. 408 …At sea level this is equivalent to 5.32 gm/hr. for a 20-foot diameter…
  • p. 414 …Using the rules of subsonic aerodynamics, Picard suggests that air at sea level escaping at 1333…
  • p. 415 …air at sea level (lb./ft. $ ^{3} $ ) 14.7 = pressure of air at sea level (psi…
  • p. 432 …to about 20 millibars and increased to sea-level pressure at different temperatures. The most comprehensive…
  • p. 563 …The height above mean sea level as determined from pressure measurements used in this work with…
  • p. 644 …point at which the radiosonde reaches the sea surface. ## 2. Earlier attempts There have been numerous…
  • p. 645 …The balloons floated between the surface and 30,000 ft above sea level; those which reached…
  • p. 704 …Met Gifford who has 90' sea rescue boat this project is planning to use. Stayed at…
  • p. 719 …Worzel working on gravity at sea. Saw Geo Woollard and the Ryders. Woollard after Guggenheim fellowship…
  • p. 779 …the launching site is markedly different from sea level, a shift in this curve is needed…
  • p. 817 …balloon at all times with respect to sea level. On this curve also it is customary…
  • p. 825 …The height above mean sea level as determined from pressure measurements used in this work with…
A: ...much of which we can copy and make it easier for you. These are balloon fragments, things that held balloons [up] after they'd been exposed to the sun.

Q: Is this the neoprene type or the...

A: That's the neoprene type. I have the polyethylene type...

Q: Is this from the '47 era?

A: That's a balloon probably from the '50s. That's a K San balloon. The kind of balloons we used then were the (inaudible) derricks balloons, and that's the way they look after they've been out in the sun. That's about three weeks' exposure to sunlight here in New Mexico.

Q: So the polyethylene really is degraded by sunlight.

A: That's neoprene. All that's neoprene.

Q: This almost looks like ashes of paper.

A: That's right. And there's a big point in some of the recovery that the material was black...

Here is the list of the people who were assigned under Colonel Duffy in the Air Force liaison office. Istvan's name you'll find in there. He ended up being in the Titan program and, I think, retired as a lieutenant colonel maybe back in the '70s.

Schneider was the administrative director of our project. He and I worked together. He was in Maine, and was not really technically involved. I have letters from him if you're interested in seeing them. He says he has no memory of this.

A person who was heavily involved in developing this whole radar thing was Colonel Joe Fletcher. I wrote him a letter asking for his help and he essentially says he doesn't remember much.

Q: He's also been hounded by some of these UFO...

A: And by Todd and by me.

Q: So it appears as though you, yourself, have done some extensive research into this particular incident.

A: Until two years ago, I was quite convinced one of our polyethylene balloons we didn't recover caused it. Then I got this newspaper, Todd sent me this, and I immediately saw there's no way that could be a polyethylene balloon.

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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.