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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: A guy named Sam Kay formed a company and it was called Kaysam. In fact I have, and you're welcome to them...

(Pause)

A: Kaysam balloons because of the way they were made, and this jell that had to be inflated had this ring, cardboard ring put in them. That's the neck of a Kaysam balloon, and here are more modern Kaysam balloons, the sort that are still being flown.

Q: These are just used for the typical meteorological type balloons.

A: Carry radio (inaudible), that's correct.

Dewey & Olney have gone out of the business and Kaysam bought them out. Here's a Kaysam balloon that is made by a dip mold. This is somewhat indicative, I think, of the way one of those balloons of the type we're using. As you can see on exposure just to ordinary light, they discolor. But these are balloons that were made probably in the '70s. As they change with plasticizer and anti-oxidants for ozone, they certainly change in appearance. The balloons we...

I have pictures here, pictures in the hangar. There, as you can see, these are the ivory colored balloons of the sort we were flying. This is the balloon you just found the eyelets on in the hangar. These are pictures from the 1947 era where we're getting ready to fly the 15 foot H.A. Smith balloon.

Q: The reinforcing tape on these balloons, these polyethylene balloons, we were told is a type of acetate. It had none of this symbology, is that correct?

A: None at all.

Q: So the symbology on the tape was only related to the radar reflectors.

A: That's correct. Here is a later model polyethylene balloon, and it's a little thinner than the ones we were flying, but there's a polyethylene balloon.

Q: It looks like polyethylene sheeting that I would use to cover up...

Q: I've also heard the early balloons described as carrot bag quality. Material they would use in a carrot bag. Dry cleaner bags.

Q: Dry cleaner bags. We think of them as being very fragile, but materials from this time frame have been described as durable -- something you couldn't tear with your hands.

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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.